History of Friedrich II of Prussia......................................................................................................................1

Thomas Carlyle ........................................................................................................................................1

Book I. BIRTH AND PARENTAGE. 1712............................................................................................6

Chapter I. PROEM: FRIEDRICH'S HISTORY FROM THE DISTANCE WE ARE AT. ....................6

Chapter II. FRIEDRICH'S BIRTH. ......................................................................................................15

Chapter III. FATHER AND MOTHER: THE HANOVERIAN CONNECTION. ..............................16

Chapter IV. FATHER'S MOTHER. .....................................................................................................21

Chapter V. KING FRIEDRICH I. .........................................................................................................25

BOOK II. OF BRANDENBURG AND THE HOHENZOLLERNS. 9281417. ................................29

Chapter I. BRANNIBOR: HENRY THE FOWLER. ...........................................................................30

Chapter II. PREUSSEN: SAINT ADALBERT. ...................................................................................33

Chapter III. MARKGRAVES OF BRANDENBURG. ........................................................................36

Chapter IV. ALBERT THE BEAR. ......................................................................................................38

Chapter V. CONRAD OF HOHENZOLLERN; AND KAISER BARBAROSSA. .............................41

Chapter VI. THE TEUTSCH RITTERS OR TEUTONIC ORDER. ....................................................45

Chapter VII. MARGRAVIATE OF CULMBACH: BAIREUTH, ANSPACH. ..................................51

Chapter VIII. ASCANIER MARKGRAVES IN BRANDENBURG. .................................................55

Chapter IX. BURGGRAF FRIEDRICH IV. .........................................................................................58

Chapter X. BRANDENBURG LAPSES TO THE KAISER. ...............................................................62

Chapter XI. BAYARIAN KURFURSTS IN BRANDENBURG. ........................................................64

KURFURSTS. ......................................................................................................................................67

Chapter XIII. LUXEMBURG KURFURSTS IN BRANDENBURG. .................................................69

Chapter XIV. BURGGRAF FRIEDRICH VI. ......................................................................................71

BOOK III. THE HOHENZOLLERNS IN BRANDENBURG. 14121718 ........................................77

CHAPTER I. KURFURST FRIEDRICH I. ..........................................................................................77

Chapter II. MATINEES DU ROI DE PRUSSE. ..................................................................................79

Chapter III. KURFURST FRIEDRICH II. ...........................................................................................82

Chapter IV. KURFURST ALBERT ACHILLES, AND HIS SUCCESSOR. ......................................85

Chapter V. OF THE BAIREUTHANSPACH BRANCH. .................................................................89

Chapter VI. HOCHMEISTER ALBERT, THIRD NOTABLE SON OF FRIEDRICH. ......................96

Chapter VII. ALBERT ALCIBIADES. ..............................................................................................100

Chapter VIII. HISTORICAL MEANING OF THE REFORMATION. .............................................103

Chapter IX. KURFURST JOACHIM I. ..............................................................................................105

Chapter X. KURFURST JOACHIM II. ..............................................................................................107

Chapter XI. SEVENTH KURFURST, JOHANN GEORGE. ............................................................113

Chapter XII. OF ALBERT FRIEDRICH, THE SECOND DUKE OF PREUSSEN. .........................114

Chapter XIII. NINTH KURFURST, JOHANN SIGISMUND. .........................................................117

Chapter XIV. SYMPTOMS OF A GREAT WAR COMING. ...........................................................120

Chapter XV. TENTH KURFURST, GEORGE WILHELM. .............................................................126

Chapter XVI. THIRTYYEARS WAR. ............................................................................................127

Chapter XVII. DUCHY OF JAGERNDORF. ....................................................................................131

SERIES. ..............................................................................................................................................132

Chapter XIX. KING FRIEDRICH I. AGAIN. ...................................................................................140

Chapter XX. DEATH OF KING FRIEDRICH I. ...............................................................................143

BOOK IV. FRIEDRICH'S APPRENTICESHIP, FIRST STAGE. 17131728. ................................148

CHAPTER I. CHILDHOOD: DOUBLE EDUCATIONAL ELEMENT. ..........................................149

Chapter II. THE GERMAN ELEMENT. ...........................................................................................152

Chapter III. FRIEDRICH WILHELM IS KING. ...............................................................................155

Chapter IV. HIS MAJESTY'S WAYS. ..............................................................................................161

Chapter V. FRIEDRICH WILHELM'S ONE WAR. .........................................................................164

Chapter VI. THE LITTLE DRUMMER. ............................................................................................171

Chapter VII. TRANSIT OF CZAR PETER. ......................................................................................173

Chapter VIII. THE CROWNPRINCE IS PUT TO HIS SCHOOLING. ..........................................177

Chapter IX. WUSTERHAUSEN. .......................................................................................................184

Chapter X. THE HEIDELBERG PROTESTANTS. ..........................................................................187

Chapter XI. ON THE CROWNPRINCE'S PROGRESS IN HIS SCHOOLING. ............................193

Chapter XII. CROWNPRINCE FALLS INTO DISFAVOR WITH PAPA. ...................................197

Chapter XIII. RESULTS OF THE CROWNPRINCE'S SCHOOLING. .........................................198

17231726. .........................................................................................................................................200

Chapter I. DOUBLEMARRIAGE IS DECIDED ON. .....................................................................200

Chapter II. A KAISER HUNTING SHADOWS. ...............................................................................208

Chapter III. THE SEVEN CRISES OR EUROPEAN TRAVAILTHROES. ..................................213

Chapter IV. DOUBLEMARRIAGE TREATY CANNOT BE SIGNED. ........................................219

Chapter V. CROWNPRINCE GOES INTO THE POTSDAM GUARDS. .....................................220

ESPLANADE. ....................................................................................................................................227

Chapter VII. TOBACCOPARLIAMENT. .......................................................................................232

Chapter VIII. SECKENDORF'S RETORT TO HER MAJESTY. .....................................................241

BOOK VI. GOING ADRIFT UNDER THE STORMWINDS. 17271730. ...................................243

Chapter I. FIFTH CRISIS IN THE KAISER'S SPECTREHUNT. ..................................................243

Chapter II. DEATH OF GEORGE I. ..................................................................................................245

Chapter III. VISIT TO DRESDEN. ....................................................................................................250

Chapter IV. DOUBLEMARRIAGE PROJECT IS NOT DEAD. ....................................................258

Chapter V. CONGRESS OF SOISSONS, SIXTH CRISIS IN THE SPECTREHUNT. .................263

PRUSSIAN MAJESTIES. ..................................................................................................................270

IN TROUBLE. ....................................................................................................................................283

Chapter VIII. CROWNPRINCE GETTING BEYOND HIS DEPTH IN TROUBLE. ....................286

Chapter IX. DOUBLEMARRIAGE SHALL BE OR SHALL NOT BE. ........................................288

FebruaryNovember, 1730. ................................................................................................................295

Chapter I. ENGLAND SENDS THE EXCELLENCY HOTHAM TO BERLIN. .............................295

Chapter III. CAMP OF RADEWITZ. .................................................................................................313

Chapter IV. EXCELLENCY HOTHAM QUITS BERLIN IN HASTE. ............................................320

Chapter V. JOURNEY TO THE REICH. ...........................................................................................326

JOURNEY HOMEWARDS ...............................................................................................................333

Chapter VII. CATASTROPHE, AND MAJESTY, ARRIVE IN BERLIN. ......................................345

Chapter VIII. SEQUEL TO CROWNPRINCE AND FRIENDS. ....................................................350

Chapter IX. COURTMARTIAL ON CROWNPRINCE AND CONSORTS. ...............................352

1730February, 1732. .........................................................................................................................357

Chapter I. CHAPLAIN MULLER WAITS ON THE CROWNPRINCE. .......................................357

Chapter II. CROWNPRINCE TO REPENT AND NOT PERISH. ..................................................359

Chapter III. WILHELMINA IS TO WED THE PRINCE OF BAIREUTH. ......................................362

Chapter IV. CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN PREUSSEN AND ELSEWHERE. .......................................365

Chapter V. INTERVIEW OF MAJESTY AND CROWNPRINCE AT CUSTRIN. .......................370

Chapter VI. WILHELMINA'S WEDDING. .......................................................................................384

17321736. .........................................................................................................................................389

Chapter I. PRINCESS ELIZABETH CHRISTINA OF BRUNSWICKBEVERN. .........................389

Chapter II. SMALL INCIDENTS AT RUPPIN. ................................................................................401

Chapter III. THE SALZBURGERS. ...................................................................................................404

Chapter IV. PRUSSIAN MAJESTY VISITS THE KAISER. ............................................................412

Chapter V. GHOST OF THE DOUBLEMARRIAGE RISES; TO NO PURPOSE. .......................422

Chapter VI. KING AUGUST MEDITATING GREAT THINGS FOR POLAND. ..........................425

Chapter VII. CROWNPRINCE'S MARRIAGE. ..............................................................................427

Chapter VIII. KING AUGUST DIES; AND POLAND TAKES FIRE. ............................................431

Chapter IX. KAISER'S SHADOWHUNT HAS CAUGHT FIRE. ..................................................436

Chapter X. CROWNPRINCE GOES TO THE RHINE CAMPAIGN, ...........................................440

Chapter XI. IN PAPA'S SICKROOM; PRUSSIAN INSPECTIONS: END OF WAR. ..................457

BOOK X. AT REINSBERG. 17361740. .........................................................................................465

Chapter I. MANSION OF REINSBERG. ...........................................................................................465

Chapter II. OF VOLTAIRE AND THE LITERARY CORRESPONDENCES. ................................472

Chapter III. CROWNPRINCE MAKES A MORNING CALL. ......................................................487

Chapter IV. NEWS OF THE DAY. ....................................................................................................492

Chapter V. VISIT AT LOO. ...............................................................................................................497

Chapter VI. LAST YEAR OF REINSBERG; JOURNEY TO PREUSSEN. .....................................503

PERSONS AND THINGS. .................................................................................................................510

Chapter VIII. DEATH OF FRIEDRICH WILHELM. .......................................................................516

BOOK XI. FRIEDRICH TAKES THE REINS IN HAND. JuneDecember, 1740. .........................522

Chapter I. PHENOMENA OF FRIEDRICH'S ACCESSION. ...........................................................523

Chapter II. THE HOMAGINGS. ........................................................................................................537

CLEVE COUNTRIES. .......................................................................................................................543

Chapter IV. VOLTAIRE'S FIRST INTERVIEW WITH FRIEDRICH. ............................................555

Chapter V. AFFAIR OF HERSTAL. ..................................................................................................563

THERE. ...............................................................................................................................................570

Chapter VII. WITHDRAWS TO REINSBERG, HOPING A PEACEABLE WINTER. ..................573

Chapter VIII. THE KAISER'S DEATH. ............................................................................................577

Chapter IX. RESOLUTION FORMED AT REINSBERG IN CONSEQUENCE. ............................580

BEGINS. December, 1740May, 1741. .............................................................................................589

Chapter I. OF SCHLESIEN, OR SILESIA. .......................................................................................589

Chapter II. FRIEDRICH MARCHES ON GLOGAU. .......................................................................592

Chapter III. PROBLEM OF GLOGAU. .............................................................................................601

Chapter IV. BRESLAU UNDER SOFT PRESSURE. .......................................................................607

Chapter V. FRIEDRICH PUSHES FORWARD TOWARDS BRIEG AND NEISSE. .....................610

Chapter VI. NEISSE IS BOMBARDED. ...........................................................................................614

SHIRT, AND BELLEISLE IS SEEN WITH PAPERS. ....................................................................618

Chapter VIII. PHENOMENA IN PETERSBURG. ............................................................................624

Chapter IX. FRIEDRICH RETURNS TO SILESIA. .........................................................................629

Chapter X. BATTLE OF MOLLWITZ. .............................................................................................644

OF PRAGMATIC SANCTION. .........................................................................................................656

Chapter XII. SORROWS OF HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY. ............................................................671

GENERAL INTO NOTICE. ...............................................................................................................682

ABLAZE ALL ROUND, GETS ENDED. May, 1741July, 1742. ...................................................684

Chapter I. BRITANNIC MAJESTY AS PALADIN OF THE PRAGMATIC. ..................................684

Chapter II. CAMP OF STREHLEN. ..................................................................................................689

BUT ANOTHER HITS IT. .................................................................................................................704

Chapter IV. FRIEDRICH TAKES THE FIELD AGAIN, INTENT ON HAVING NEISSE. ...........706

Chapter V. KLEINSCHNELLENDORF: FRIEDRICH GETS NEISSE, IN A FASHION. ...........713

Chapter VI. NEW MAYOR OF LANDSHUT MAKES AN INSTALLATION SPEECH. ..............722

FAILURE: FORTUNES OF THE BELLEISLE ARMAMENT. .......................................................725

Chapter VIII. FRIEDRICH STARTS FOR MORAVIA, ON A NEW SCHEME HE HAS. .............732

Chapter IX. WILHELMINA GOES TO SEE THE GAYETIES AT FRANKFURT. .......................735

MORAVIAN FORAY. .......................................................................................................................742

Chapter XI. NUSSLER IN NEISSE, WITH THE OLD DESSAUER AND WALRAVE. ...............750

Chapter XII. PRINCE KARL DOES COME ON. .............................................................................752

Chapter XIII. BATTLE OF CHOTUSITZ. ........................................................................................754

Chapter XIV. PEACE OF BRESLAU. ...............................................................................................760

1742July, 1744. .................................................................................................................................763

Chapter I. FRIEDRICH RESUMES HIS PEACEABLE PURSUITS. ..............................................763

Chapter II. AUSTRIAN AFFAIRS ARE ON THE MOUNTING HAND. ........................................769

Chapter III. CARNIVAL PHENOMENA IN WARTIME. .............................................................785

Chapter IV. AUSTRIAN AFFAIRS MOUNT TO A DANGEROUS HEIGHT. ...............................791

BECOMES SUPREME JOVE OF GERMANY, IN A MANNER. ...................................................797

Chapter VI. VOLTAIRE VISITS FRIEDRICH FOR THE FOURTH TIME. ...................................811

READY. ..............................................................................................................................................820

Chapter VIII. PERFECT PEACE AT BERLIN, WAR ALL ROUND. .............................................824

EUROPEAN ONE. 15th Aug. 174425th Dec. 1745. .......................................................................837

Chapter I. PRELIMINARY: HOW THE MOMENT ARRIVED. ....................................................837

Chapter II. FRIEDRICH MARCHES UPON PRAG, CAPTURES PRAG. ....................................842

HIM. ....................................................................................................................................................847

CONQUESTS AGAINST PRICE KARL. .........................................................................................853

Chapter VI. VALORI GOES ON AN ELECTIONEERING MISSION TO DRESDEN. ................872

Chapter VII. FRIEDRICH IN SILESIA; UNUSUALLY BUSY. ....................................................878

NATURE. ...........................................................................................................................................883

MOUNTAINS. ....................................................................................................................................890

Chapter X. BATTLE OF HOHENFRIEDBERG. .............................................................................897

Chapter XI. CAMP OF CHLUM: FRIEDRICH CANNOT ACHIEVE PEACE. .............................900

Chapter XII. BATTLE OF SOHR. ....................................................................................................909

Chapter XIII. SAXONY AND AUSTRIA MAKE A SURPRISING LAST ATTEMPT. ................915

Chapter XIV. BATTLE OF KESSELSDORF. ..................................................................................922

Chapter XV. PEACE OF DRESDEN: FRIEDRICH DOES MARCH HOME. ................................927

BOOK XVI. THE TEN YEARS OF PEACE. 17461756. ..............................................................932

Chapter I. SANSSOUCI. .................................................................................................................932

THE TIDE OF EVENTS. ...................................................................................................................938

Chapter III. EUROPEAN WAR FALLS DONE: TREATY OF AIXLACHAPELLE. ...............950

POESIES. ............................................................................................................................................956

Chapter V. STRANGERS OF NOTE COME TO BERLIN, IN 1750. .............................................958

Chapter VI. BERLIN CARROUSEL, AND VOLTAIRE VISIBLE THERE. ..................................969

Chapter VII. M. DE VOLTAIRE HAS A PAINFUL JEWLAWSUIT. ..........................................978

Chapter VIII. OSTFRIESLAND AND THE SHIPPING INTERESTS. .........................................991

Chapter IX. SECOND ACT 0F TEE VOLTAIRE VISIT. ................................................................996

Chapter X. DEMON NEWSWRITER, OF 1752. ............................................................................1010

Chapter XI. THIRD ACT AND CATASTROPHE OF THE VOLTAIRE VISIT. .........................1017

Chapter XII. OF THE AFTERPIECE, WHICH PROVED STILL MORE TRAGICAL. ..............1026

Chapter XIII. ROMISHKING QUESTION; ENGLISHPRIVATEER QUESTION. .................1034

Chapter XIV. THERE IS LIKE TO BE ANOTHER WAR AHEAD. ............................................1039

MOMENT. ........................................................................................................................................1045

BOOK XVII. THE SEVENYEARS WAR: FIRST CAMPAIGN. 17561757. ............................1050

Chapter I. WHAT FRIEDRICH HAD READ IN THE MENZEL DOCUMENTS. ........................1050

Chapter II. ENGLISH DIPLOMACIES ABROAD, IN PROSPECT OF A FRENCH WAR. ........1057

Chapter III. FRENCHENGLISH WAR BREAKS OUT. ..............................................................1063

Chapter IV. FRIEDRICH PUTS A QUESTION AT VIENNA, TWICE OVER. ............................1067

Chapter V. FRIEDRICH BLOCKADES THE SAXONS IN PIRNA COUNTRY. .........................1075

Chapter VI. BATTLE OF LOBOSITZ. ............................................................................................1082

Chapter VII. THE SAXONS GET OUT OF PIRNA ON DISMAL TERMS. .................................1087

Chapter VIII. WINTER IN DRESDEN. ...........................................................................................1095

BOOK XVIII. SEVENYEARS WAR RISES TO A HEIGHT. 17571759. .................................1099

Chapter I. THE CAMPAIGN OPENS. .............................................................................................1099

Chapter II. BATTLE OF PRAG. ......................................................................................................1107

Chapter III. PRAG CANNOT BE GOT AT ONCE. ........................................................................1119

Chapter IV. BATTLE OF KOLIN. ...................................................................................................1131

Chapter V. FRIEDRICH AT LEITMERITZ, HIS WORLD OF ENEMIES COMING ON. ..........1140

Chapter VI. DEATH OF WINTERFELD. .......................................................................................1155

Chapter VII. FRIEDRICH IN THURINGEN, HIS WORLD OF ENEMIES ALL COME. ............1158

Chapter VIII. BATTLE OF ROSSBACH. .......................................................................................1180

Chapter IX. FRIEDRICH MARCHES FOR SILESIA. ...................................................................1195

Chapter X. BATTLE OF LEUTHEN. ..............................................................................................1202

Chapter XI. WINTER IN BRESLAU: THIRD CAMPAIGN OPENS. ...........................................1213

Chapter XII. SIEGE OF OLMUTZ. .................................................................................................1222

Chapter XIII. BATTLE OF ZORNDORF. .......................................................................................1233

Chapter XIV. BATTLE OF HOCHKIRCH. .....................................................................................1244

WAR. 17591760. ............................................................................................................................1262

Chapter I. PRELIMINARIES TO A FOURTH CAMPAIGN. .........................................................1262

Chapter II. GENERAL DOHNA; DICTATOR WEDELL: BATTLE OF ZULLICHAU. .............1278

WITH SUCCESS. .............................................................................................................................1283

Chapter IV. BATTLE OF KUNERSDORF. .....................................................................................1291

CANNOT FIND LODGING IN SILESIA. ......................................................................................1323

COMES THE CATASTROPHE OF MAXEN. ...............................................................................1338

Chapter VIII. MISCELLANEA IN WINTERQUARTERS, 17591760. .....................................1346

Chapter IX. PRELIMINARIES TO A FIFTH CAMPAIGN. ...........................................................1367

GRADUALLY ENDS. 25th April, 176015th February, 1763. ......................................................1373

Chapter I. FIFTH CAMPAIGN OPENS. .........................................................................................1373

Chapter II. FRIEDRICH BESIEGES DRESDEN. ...........................................................................1382

Chapter III. BATTLE OF LIEGNITZ. .............................................................................................1391

Chapter IV. DAUN IN WRESTLE WITH FRIEDRICH IN THE SILESIAN HILLS. ...................1404

Chapter V. BATTLE OF TORGAU. ................................................................................................1413

Chapter VI. WINTERQUARTERS 17601761. ...........................................................................1429

Chapter VII. SIXTH CAMPAIGN OPENS: CAMP OF BUNZELWITZ. ......................................1446

SEPTEMBER, 1761). .......................................................................................................................1460

Chapter IX. TRAITOR WARKOTSCH. ..........................................................................................1464

Chapter X. FRIEDRICH IN BRESLAU; HAS NEWS FROM PETERSBURG. ............................1469

Chapter XI. SEVENTH CAMPAIGN OPENS. ...............................................................................1491

Chapter XII. SIEGE OF SCHWEIDNITZ: SEVENTH CAMPAIGN ENDS. ................................1497

Chapter XIII. PEACE OF HUBERTSBURG. ..................................................................................1506

BOOK XXI. AFTERNOON AND EVENING OF FRIEDRICH'S LIFE. 17631786. ...................1512

Chapter I. PREFATORY. .................................................................................................................1513

Chapter II. REPAIRING OF A RUINED PRUSSIA. ......................................................................1516

Chapter III. TROUBLES IN POLAND. ...........................................................................................1533

Chapter IV. PARTITION OF POLAND. .........................................................................................1554

Chapter V. A CHAPTER OF MISCELLANIES. .............................................................................1580

Chapter VI. THE BAVARIAN WAR. .............................................................................................1615

Chapter VII. MILLER ARNOLD'S LAWSUIT. ..............................................................................1630

Chapter VIII. THE FURSTENBUND: FRIEDRICH'S LAST YEARS. ..........................................1643

Chapter IX. FRIEDRICH'S LAST ILLNESS AND DEATH. .........................................................1664

APPENDIX. ......................................................................................................................................1672

BOOK VIII. CROWNPRINCE RETRIEVED: LIFE AT CUSTRIN. November, 1730February, 1732.

Chapter II. PEEP AT VOLTAIRE AND HIS DIVINE EMILIE (BY CANDLELIGHT) IN THE TIDE OF

Chapter III. FRIEDRICH IN PERSON ATTEMPTS THE RUSSIAN PROBLEM; NOT WITH SUCCESS.

About fourscore years ago, there used to be seen sauntering on the terraces of Sans Souci, for a short time in

the afternoon, or you might have met him elsewhere at an earlier hour, riding or driving in a rapid business

manner on the open roads or through the scraggy woods and avenues of that intricate amphibious Potsdam

region, a highly interesting lean little old man, of alert though slightly stooping figure; whose name among

strangers was King FRIEDRICH THE SECOND, or Frederick the Great of Prussia, and at home among the

common people, who much loved and esteemed him, was VATER FRITZ,Father Fred,a name of

familiarity which had not bred contempt in that instance. He is a King every inch of him, though without the

trappings of a King. Presents himself in a Spartan simplicity of vesture: no crown but an old military

cockedhat,generally old, or trampled and kneaded into absolute SOFTNESS, if new;no sceptre but one

like Agamemnon's, a walking stick cut from the woods, which serves also as a ridingstick (with which he

hits the horse "between the ears," say authors); and for royal robes, a mere soldier's blue coat with red

facings, coat likely to be old, and sure to have a good deal of Spanish snuff on the breast of it; rest of the

apparel dim, unobtrusive in color or out, ending in high overknee military boots, which may be brushed

(and, I hope, kept soft with an underhand suspicion of oil), but are not permitted to be blackened or

The man is not of godlike physiognomy, any more than of imposing stature or costume: closeshut mouth

with thin lips, prominent jaws and nose, receding brow, by no means of Olympian height; head, however, is

of long form, and has superlative gray eyes in it. Not what is called a beautiful man; nor yet, by all

appearance, what is called a happy. On the contrary, the face bears evidence of many sorrows, as they are

termed, of much hard labor done in this world; and seems to anticipate nothing but more still coming. Quiet

stoicism, capable enough of what joy there were, but not expecting any worth mention; great unconscious and

some conscious pride, well tempered with a cheery mockery of humor,are written on that old face; which

carries its chin well forward, in spite of the slight stoop about the neck; snuffy nose rather flung into the air,

under its old cockedhat,like an old snuffy lion on the watch; and such a pair of eyes as no man or lion or

lynx of that Century bore elsewhere, according to all the testimony we have. "Those eyes," says Mirabeau,

"which, at the bidding of his great soul, fascinated you with seduction or with terror (French)(portaient, au

gre de son ame heroique, la seduction ou la terreur)(end French)." [Mirabeau, (French) Histoire Secrete de la

Cour de Berlin, (end French) Lettre 28?? (24 September, 1786) p.128 (in edition of Paris, 1821)]. Most

excellent potent brilliant eyes, swiftdarting as the stars, steadfast as the sun; gray, we said, of the azuregray

color; large enough, not of glaring size; the habitual expression of them vigilance and penetrating sense,

rapidity resting on depth. Which is an excellent oombination; and gives us the notion of a lambent outer

radiance springing from some great inner sea of light and fire in the man. The voice, if he speak to you, is of

similar physiognomy: clear, melodious and sonorous; all tones are in it, from that of ingenuous inquiry,

graceful sociality, light flowing banter (rather prickly for most part), up to definite word of command, up to

desolating word of rebuke and reprobation; a voice "the clearest and most agreeable in conversation I ever

heard," says witty Dr. Moore. [Moore, View of Society and Manners in France, Switzerland and Germany

(London, 1779), ii. 246.] "He speaks a great deal," continues the doctor; "yet those who hear him, regret that

he does not speak a good deal more. His observations are always lively, very often just; and few men possess

Just about threescore and ten years ago, [A.D. 1856,17th August, 1786] his speakings and his workings

came to finis in this World of Time; and he vanished from all eyes into other worlds, leaving much inquiry

about him in the minds of men;which, as my readers and I may feel too well, is yet by no means satisfied.

As to his speech, indeed, though it had the worth just ascribed to it and more, and though masses of it were

deliberately put on paper by himself, in prose and verse, and continue to be printed and kept legible, what he

spoke has pretty much vanished into the inane; and except as record or document of what he did, hardly now

concerns mankind. But the things he did were extremely remarkable; and cannot be forgotten by mankind.

Indeed, they bear such fruit to the present hour as all the Newspapers are obliged to be taking note of,

sometimes to an unpleasant degree. Editors vaguely account this man the "Creator of the Prussian

Monarchy;" which has since grown so large in the world, and troublesome to the Editorial mind in this and

other countries. He was indeed the first who, in a highly public manner, notified its creation; announced to all

men that it was, in very deed, created; standing on its feet there, and would go a great way, on the impulse it

had got from him and others. As it has accordingly done; and may still keep doing to lengths little dreamt of

by the British Editor in our time; whose prophesyings upon Prussia, and insights into Prussia, in its past, or

present or future, are truly as yet inconsiderable, in proportion to the noise he makes with them! The more is

It is of this Figure, whom we see by the mind's eye in those Potsdam regions, visible for the last time seventy

years ago, that we are now to treat, in the way of solacing ingenuous human curiosity. We are to try for some

Historical Conception of this Man and King; some answer to the questions, "What was he, then? Whence,

how? And what did he achieve and suffer in the world?" such answer as may prove admissible to

ingenuous mankind, especially such as may correspond to the Fact (which stands there, abstruse indeed, but

An Enterprise which turns out to be, the longer one looks at it, the more of a formidable, not to say

unmanageable nature! Concerning which, on one or two points, it were good, if conveniently possible, to

come to some preliminary understanding with the reader. Here, flying on loose leaves, are certain incidental

utterances, of various date: these, as the topic is difficult, I will merely label and insert, instead of a formal

Discourse, which were too apt to slide into something of a Lamentation, or otherwise take an unpleasant turn.

This was a man of infinite mark to his contemporaries; who had witnessed surprising feats from him in the

world; very questionable notions and ways, which he had contrived to maintain against the world and its

criticisms. As an original man has always to do; much more an original ruler of men. The world, in fact, had

tried hard to put him down, as it does, unconsciously or, consciously, with all such; and after the most

conscious exertions, and at one time a deadlift spasm of all its energies for Seven Years, had not been able.

Principalities and powers, Imperial, Royal, Czarish, Papal, enemies innumerable as the seasand, had risen

against him, only one helper left among the world's Potentates (and that one only while there should be help

rendered in return); and he led them all such a dance as had astonished mankind and them.

No wonder they thought him worthy of notice. Every original man of any magnitude is;nay, in the

longrun, who or what else is? But how much more if your original man was a king over men; whose

movements were polar, and carried from day to day those of the world along with them. The Samson

Agonistes,were his life passed like that of Samuel Johnson in dirty garrets, and the produce of it only some

bits of written paper,the Agonistes, and how he will comport himself in the Philistine mill; this is always a

spectacle of truly epic and tragic nature. The rather, if your Samson, royal or other, is not yet blinded or

subdued to the wheel; much more if he vanquish his enemies, not by suicidal methods, but march out at last

flourishing his miraculous fighting implement, and leaving their mill and them in quite ruinous

For he left the world all bankrupt, we may say; fallen into bottomless abysses of destruction; he still in a

paying condition, and with footing capable to carry his affairs and him. When he died, in 1786, the enormous

Phenomenon since called FRENCH REVOLUTION was already growling audibly in the depths of the world;

meteoricelectric coruscations heralding it, all round the horizon. Strange enough to note, one of Friedrich's

last visitors was Gabriel Honore Riquetti, Comte de Mirabeau. These two saw one another; twice, for half an

hour each time. The last of the old Gods and the first of the modern Titans;before Pelion leapt on Ossa;

and the foul Earth taking fire at last, its vile mephitic elements went up in volcanic thunder. This also is one

of the peculiarities of Friedrich, that he is hitherto the last of the Kings; that he ushers in the French

Revolution, and closes an Epoch of WorldHistory. Finishing off forever the trade of King, think many; who

The French Revolution may be said to have, for about half a century, quite submerged Friedrich, abolished

him from the memories of men; and now on coming to light again, he is found defaced under strange

mudincrustations, and the eyes of mankind look at him from a singularly changed, what we must call

oblique and perverse point of vision. This is one of the difficulties in dealing with his History;especially if

you happen to believe both in the French Revolution and in him; that is to say, both that Real Kingship is

eternally indispensable, and also that the destruction of Sham Kingship (a frightful process) is occasionally

so. On the breakingout of that formidable Explosion, and Suicide of his Century, Friedrich sank into

comparative obscurity; eclipsed amid the ruins of that universal earthquake, the very dust of which darkened

all the air, and made of day a disastrous midnight. Black midnight, broken only by the blaze of

conflagrations;wherein, to our terrified imaginations, were seen, not men, French and other, but ghastly

portents, stalking wrathful, and shapes of avenging gods. It must be owned the figure of Napoleon was

titanic; especially to the generation that looked on him, and that waited shuddering to be devoured by him. In

general, in that French Revolution, all was on a huge scale; if not greater than anything in human experience,

at least more grandiose. All was recorded in bulletins, too, addressed to the shillinggallery; and there were

fellows on the stage with such a breadth of sabre, extent of whiskerage, strength of windpipe, and command

of men and gunpowder, as had never been seen before. How they bellowed, stalked and flourished about;

counterfeiting Jove's thunder to an amazing degree! Terrific Drawcansir figures, of enormous whiskerage,

unlimited command of gunpowder; not without sufficient ferocity, and even a certain heroism,

stageheroism, in them; compared with whom, to the shillinggallery, and frightened excited theatre at large,

it seemed as if there hsd been no generals. or sovereigns before; as if Friedrich, Gustavus, Cromwell, William

All this, however, in half a century is considerably altered. The Drawcansir equipments getting gradually torn

off, the natural size is seen better; translated from the bulletin style into that of fact and history, miracles,

even to the shilling gallery, are not so miraculous. It begins to be apparent that there lived great men before

the era of bulletins and Agamemnon. Austerlitz and Wagram shot away more gunpowder,gunpowder

probably in the proportion of ten to one, or a hundred to one; but neither of them was tenthpart such a

beating to your enemy as that of Rossbach, brought about by strategic art, human ingenuity and intrepidity,

and the loss of 165 men. Leuthen, too, the battle of Leuthen (though so few English readers ever heard of it)

may very well hold up its head beside any victory gained by Napoleon or another. For the odds were not far

from three to one; the soldiers were of not far from equal quality; and only the General was consummately

superior, and the defeat a destruction. Napoleon did indeed, by immense expenditure of men, and gunpowder,

overrun Europe for a time: but Napoleon never, by husbanding and wisely expending his men and

gunpowder, defended a little Prussia against all Europe, year after year for seven years long, till Europe had

enough, and gave up the enterprise as one it could not manage. So soon as the Drawcansir equipments are

well torn off, and the shillinggallery got to silence, it will be found that there were great kings before

Napoleon,and likewise an Art of War, grounded on veracity and human courage and insight, not upon

Drawcansir rodomontade, grandiose DickTurpinism, revolutionary madness, and unlimited expenditure of

men and gunpowder. "You may paint with a very big brush, and yet not be a great painter," says a satirical

friend of mine! This is becoming more and more apparent, as the dustwhirlwind, and huge uproar of the last

One of the grand difficulties in a History of Friedrich is, all along, this same, That he lived in a Century

which has no History and can have little or none. A Century so opulent in accumulated falsities,sad

opulence descending on it by inheritance, always at compound interest, and always largely increased by fresh

acquirement on such immensity of standing capital;opulent in that bad way as never Century before was!

Which had no longer the consciousness of being false, so false had it grown; and was so steeped in falsity,

and impregnated with it to the very bone, thatin fact the measure of the thing was full, and a French

Revolution had to end it. To maintain much veracity in suoh an element, especially for a king, was no doubt

doubly remarkable. But now, how extricate the man from his Century? How show the man, who is a Reality

worthy of being seen, and yet keep his Century, as a Hypocrisy worthy of being hidden and forgotten, in the

To resuscitate the Eighteenth Century, or call into men's view, beyond what is necessary, the poor and sordid

personages and transactions of an epoch so related to us, can be no purpose of mine on this occasion. The

Eighteenth Century, it is well known, does not figure to me as a lovely one; needing to be kept in mind, or

spoken of unnecessarily. To me the Eighteenth Century has nothing grand in it, except that grand universal

Suicide, named French Revolution, by which it terminated its otherwise most worthless existence with at

least one worthy act;setting fire to its old home and self; and going up in flames and volcanic explosions,

in a truly memorable and important manner. A very fit termination, as I thankfully feel, for such a Century.

Century spendthrift, fraudulentbankrupt; gone at length utterly insolvent, without real MONEY of

performance in its pocket, and the shops declining to take hypocrisies and speciosities any farther:what

could the poor Century do, but at length admit, "Well, it is so. I am a swindlercentury, and have long

been, having learned the trick of it from my father and grandfather; knowing hardly any trade but that in

false bills, which I thought foolishly might last forever, and still bring at least beef and pudding to the favored

of mankind. And behold it ends; and I am a detected swindler, and have nothing even to eat. What remains

but that I blow my brains out, and do at length one true action?" Which the poor Century did; many thanks to

For there was need once more of a Divine Revelation to the torpid frivolous children of men, if they were not

to sink altogether into the ape condition. And in that whirlwind of the Universe, lights obliterated, and the

torn wrecks of Earth and Hell hurled aloft into the Empyrean; black whirlwind, which made even apes

serious, and drove most of them mad,there was, to men, a voice audible; voice from the heart of things

once more, as if to say: "Lying is not permitted in this Universe. The wages of lying, you behold, are death.

Lying means damnation in this Universe; and Beelzebub, never so elaborately decked in crowns and mitres,

is NOT God!" This was a revelation truly to be named of the Eternal, in our poor Eighteenth Century; and has

Whereby, in short, that Century is quite confiscate, fallen bankrupt, given up to the

auctioneers;Jewbrokers sorting out of it at this moment, in a confused distressing manner, what is still

valuable or salable. And, in fact, it lies massed up in our minds as a disastrous wrecked inanity, not useful to

dwell upon; a kind of dusky chaotic background, on which the figures that had some veracity in thema

small company, and ever growing smaller as our demands rise in strictnessare delineated for us."And

yet it is the Century of our own Grandfathers?" cries the reader. Yes, reader! truly. It is the ground out of

which we ourselves have sprung; whereon now we have our immediate footing, and first of all strike down

our roots for nourishment;and, alas, in large sections of the practical world, it (what we specially mean by

IT) still continues flourishing all round us! To forget it quite is not yet possible, nor would be profitable.

What to do with it, and its forgotten fooleries and "Histories," worthy only of forgetting?Well; so much of

it as by nature ADHERES; what of it cannot be disengaged from our Hero and his operations: approximately

With such wagonloads of Books and Printed Records as exist on the subject of Friedrich, it has always

seemed possible, even for a stranger, to acquire some real understanding of him; though practically, here

and now, I have to own, it proves difficult beyond conception. Alas, the Books are not cosmic, they are

chaotic; and turn out unexpectedly void of instruction to us. Small use in a talent of writing, if there be not

first of all the talent of discerning, of loyally recognizing; of discriminating what is to be written! Books born

mostly of Chaoswhich want all things, even an INDEXare a painful object. In sorrow and disgust, you

wander over those multitudinous Books: you dwell in endless regions of the superficial, of the nugatory: to

your bewildered sense it is as if no insight into the real heart of Friedrich and his affairs were anywhere to be

had. Truth is, the Prussian Dryasdust, otherwise an honest fellow, and not afraid of labor, excels all other

Dryasdusts yet known; I have often sorrowfully felt as if there were not in Nature, for darkness, dreariness,

immethodic platitude, anything comparable to him. He writes big Books wanting in almost every quality; and

does not even give an INDEX to them. He has made of Friedrich's History a widespread, inorganic,

trackless matter; dismal to your mind, and barren as a continent of Brandenburg sand!Enough, he could do

no other: I have striven to forgive him. Let the reader now forgive me; and think sometimes what probably

Curious enough, Friedrich lived in the Writing Era,morning of that strange Era which has grown to such a

noon for us;and his favorite society, all his reign, was with the literary or writing sort. Nor have they failed

to write about him, they among the others, about him and about him; and it is notable how little real light, on

any point of his existence or environment, they have managed to communicate. Dim indeed, for most part a

mere epigrammatic sputter of darkness visible, is the "picture" they have fashioned to themselves of Friedrich

and his Country and his Century. Men not "of genius," apparently? Alas, no; men fatally destitute of true

eyesight, and of loyal heart first of all. So far as I have noticed, there was not, with the single exception of

Mirabeau for one hour, any man to be called of genius, or with an adequate power of human discernment,

that ever personally looked on Friedrich. Had many such men looked successively on his History and him, we

had not found it now in such a condition. Still altogether chaotic as a History; fatally destitute even of the

Indexes and mechanical appliances: Friedrich's self, and his Country, and his Century, still undeciphered;

In Prussia there has long been a certain stubborn though planless diligence in digging for the outward details

of Friedrich's Life History; though as to organizing them, assorting them, or even putting labels on them;

much more as to the least interpretation or human delineation of the man and his affairs,you need not

inquire in Prussia. In France, in England, it is still worse. There an immense ignorance prevails even as to the

outward facts and phenomena of Friedrich's life; and instead of the Prussian nointerpretation, you find, in

these vacant circumstances, a great promptitude to interpret. Whereby judgments and prepossessions exist

among us on that subject, especially on Friedrich's character, which are very ignorant indeed.

To Englishmen, the sources of knowledge or conviction about Friedrich, I have observed, are mainly these

two. FIRST, for his Public Character: it was an allimportant fact, not to IT, but to this country in regard to it,

That George II., seeing good to plunge headforemost into German Politics, and to take Maria Theresa's side

in the AustrianSuccession War of 17401748, needed to begin by assuring his Parliament and Newspapers,

profoundly dark on the matter, that Friedrich was a robber and villain for taking the other side. Which

assurance, resting on what basis we shall see by and by, George's Parliament and Newspapers cheerfully

accepted; nothing doubting. And they have reechoed and reverberated it, they and the rest of us, ever since,

to all lengths, down to the present day; as a fact quite agreed upon, and the preliminary item in Friedrich's

Afterwards when George and Friedrich came to be allies, and the grand fightings of the SevenYears War

took place, George's Parliament and Newspapers settled a second point, in regard to Friedrich: "One of the

greatest soldiers ever born." This second item the British Writer fully admits ever since: but he still adds to it

the quality of robber, in a loose way;and images to himself a royal Dick Turpin, of the kind known in

ReviewArticles, and disquisitions on Progress of the Species, and labels it FREDERICK; very anxious to

collect new babblement of lying Anecdotes, false Criticisms, hungry French Memoirs, which will confirm

him in that impossible idea. Had such proved, on survey, to be the character of Friedrich, there is one British

Writer whose curiosity concerning him would pretty soon have died away; nor could any amount of unwise

desire to satisfy that feeling in fellowcreatures less seriously disposed have sustained him alive, in those

baleful Historic Acherons and Stygian Fens, where he has had to dig and to fish so long, far away from the

upper light! Let me request all readers to blow that sorry chaff entirely out of their minds; and to believe

SECOND English source relates to the Private Character. Friedrich's Biography or Private Character, the

English, like the French, have gathered chiefly from a scandalous libel by Voltaire, which used to be called

Vie Privee du Roi de Prusse (Private Life of the King of Prussia) [First printed, from a stolen copy, at

Geneva, 1784; first proved to be Voltaire's (which some of his admirers had striven to doubt), Paris, 1788;

stands avowed ever since, in all the Editions of his Works (ii. 9113 of the Edition by Bandouin Freres, 97

vols., Paris, 18251834), under the title Memoires pour servir a Vie de M. de Voltaire, with patches of

repetition in the thing called (italic) Commentaire Historique, which follows ibid. at great length.] libel

undoubtedly written by Voltaire, in a kind of fury; but not intended to be published by him; nay burnt and

annihilated, as he afterwards imagined; No line of which, that cannot be otherwise proved, has a right to be

believed; and large portions of which can be proved to be wild exaggerations and perversions, or even

downright lies,written in a mood analogous to the Frenzy of John Dennis. This serves for the Biography or

Private Character of Friedrich; imputing all crimes to him, natural and unnatural;offering indeed, if

combined with facts otherwise known, or even if well considered by itself, a thoroughly flimsy, incredible

and impossible image. Like that of some flaming Devil's Head, done in phosphorus on the walls of the

blackhole, by an Artist whom you had locked up there (not quite without reason) overnight.

Poor Voltaire wrote that Vie Privee in a state little inferior to the Frenzy of John Dennis,how brought

about we shall see by and by. And this is the Document which English readers are surest to have read, and

tried to credit as far as possible. Our counsel is, Out of window with it, he that would know Friedrich of

Prussia! Keep it awhile, he that would know Francois Arouet de Voltaire, and a certain numerous unfortunate

class of mortals, whom Voltaire is sometimes capable of sinking to be spokesman for, in this world!Alas,

go where you will, especially in these irreverent ages, the noteworthy Dead is sure to be found lying under

infinite dung, no end of calumnies and stupidities accumulated upon him. For the class we speak of, class of

"flunkies doing saturnalia below stairs," is numerous, is innumerable; and can well remunerate a "vocal

Friedrich is by no means one of the perfect demigods; and there are various things to be said against him with

good ground. To the last, a questionable hero; with much in him which one could have wished not there, and

much wanting which one could have wished. But there is one feature which strikes you at an early period of

the inquiry, That in his way he is a Reality; that he always means what he speaks; grounds his actions, too, on

what he recognizes for the truth; and, in short, has nothing whatever of the Hypocrite or Phantasm. Which

some readers will admit to be an extremely rare phenomenon. We perceive that this man was far indeed from

trying to deal swindlerlike with the facts around him; that he honestly recognized said facts wherever they

disclosed themselves, and was very anxious also to ascertain their existence where still hidden or dubious.

For he knew well, to a quite uncommon degree, and with a merit all the higher as it was an unconscious one,

how entirely inexorable is the nature of facts, whether recognized or not, ascertained or not; how vain all

cunning of diplomacy, management and sophistry, to save any mortal who does not stand on the truth of

things, from sinking, in the longrun. Sinking to the very mudgods, with all his diplomacies, possessions,

achievements; and becoming an unnamable object, hidden deep in the Cesspools of the Universe. This I hope

to make manifest; this which I long ago discerned for myself, with pleasure, in the physiognomy of Friedrich

and his life. Which indeed was the first real sanction, and has all along been my inducement and

encouragement, to study his life and him. How this man, officially a King withal, comported himself in the

Eighteenth Century, and managed not to be a Liar and Charlatan as his Century was, deserves to be seen a

He that was honest with his existence has always meaning for us, be he king or peasant. He that merely

shammed and grimaced with it, however much, and with whatever noise and trumpetblowing, he may have

cooked and eaten in this world, cannot long have any. Some men do COOK enormously (let us call it

COOKING, what a man does in obedience to his HUNGER merely, to his desires and passions

merely),roasting whole continents and populations, in the flames of war or other discord;witness the

Napoleon above spoken of. For the appetite of man in that respect is unlimited; in truth, infinite; and the

smallest of us could eat the entire Solar System, had we the chance given, and then cry, like Alexander of

Macedon, because we had no more Solar Systems to cook and eat. It is not the extent of the man's cookery

that can much attach me to him; but only the man himself, and what of strength he had to wrestle with the

French Revolution having spent itself, or sunk in France and elsewhere to what we see, a certain curiosity

reawakens as to what of great or manful we can discover on the other side of that still troubled atmosphere of

the Present and immediate Past. Curiosity quickened, or which should be quickened, by the great and all

absorbing question, How is that same exploded Past ever to settle down again? Not lost forever, it would

appear: the New Era has not annihilated the old eras: New Era could by no means manage that; never

meant that, had it known its own mind (which it did not): its meaning was and is, to get its own well out of

them; to readapt, in a purified shape, the old eras, and appropriate whatever was true and NOT combustible in

them: that was the poor New Era's meaning, in the frightful explosion it made of itself and its possessions, to

And the question of questions now is: What part of that exploded Past, the ruins and dust of which still

darken all the air, will continually gravitate back to us; be reshaped, transformed, readapted, that so, in new

figures, under new conditions, it may enrich and nourish us again? What part of it, not being incombustible,

has actually gone to flame and gas in the huge worldconflagration, and is now GASEOUS, mounting aloft;

and will know no beneficence of gravitation, but mount, and roam upon the waste winds forever,Nature so

ordering it, in spite of any industry of Art? This is the universal question of afflicted mankind at present; and

On one point we can answer: Only what of the Past was TRUE will come back to us. That is the one

ASBESTOS which survives all fire, and comes out purified; that is still ours, blessed be Heaven, and only

that. By the law of Nature nothing more than that; and also, by the same law, nothing less than that. Let Art,

struggle how it may, for or against,as foolish Art is seen extensively doing in our time,there is where the

limits of it will be. In which point of view, may not Friedrich, if he was a true man and King, justly excite

some curiosity again; nay some quite peculiar curiosity, as the lost Crowned Reality there was antecedent to

that general outbreak and abolition? To many it appears certain there are to be no Kings of any sort, no

Government more; less and less need of them henceforth, New Era having come. Which is a very wonderful

notion; important if true; perhaps still more important, just at present, if untrue! My hopes of presenting, in

this Last of the Kings, an exemplar to my contemporaries, I confess, are not high.

On the whole, it is evident the difficulties to a History of Friedrich are great and many: and the sad certainty

is at last forced upon me that no good Book can, at this time, especially in this country, be written on the

subject. Wherefore let the reader put up with an indifferent or bad one; he little knows how much worse it

could easily have been!Alas, the Ideal of history, as my friend Sauerteig knows, is very high; and it is not

one serious man, but many successions of such, and whole serious generations of such, that can ever again

build up History towards its old dignity. We must renounce ideals. We must sadly take up with the

mournfulest barren realities;dismal continents of Brandenburg sand, as in this instance; mere tumbled

Has the reader heard of Sauerteig's last batch of Springwurzeln, a rather curious valedictory Piece? "All

History is an imprisoned Epic, nay an imprisoned Psalm and Prophecy," says Sauerteig there. I wish, from

my soul, he had DISimprisoned it in this instance! But he only says, in magniloquent language, how grand it

would be if disimprisoned; and hurls out, accidentally striking on this subject, the following rough

"Schiller, it appears, at one time thought of writing an Epic Poem upon Friedrich the Great, 'upon some

action of Friedrich's,' Schiller says. Happily Schiller did not do it. By oversetting fact, disregarding reality,

and tumbling time and space topsyturvy, Schiller with his fine gifts might no doubt have written a

temporary 'epic poem,' of the kind read an admired by many simple persons. But that would have helped

little, and could not have lasted long. It is not the untrue imaginary Picture of a man and his life that I want

from my Schiller, but the actual natural Likeness, true as the face itself, nay TRUER, in a sense. Which the

Artist, if there is one, might help to give, and the Botcher (Pfuscher) never can! Alas, and the Artist does not

"Men surely will at length discover again, emerging from these dismal bewilderments in which the modern

Ages reel and stagger this long while, that to them also, as to the most ancient men, all Pictures that cannot be

credited arePictures of an idle nature; to be mostly swept out of doors. Such veritably, were it never so

forgotten, is the law! Mistakes enough, lies enough will insinuate themselves into our most earnest

portrayings of the True: but that we should, deliberately and of forethought, rake together what we know to

be not true, and introduce that in the hope of doing good with it? I tell you, such practice was unknown in the

ancient earnest times; and ought again to become unknown except to the more foolish classes!" That is

Sauerteig's strange notion, not now of yesterday, as readers know:and he goes then into "Homer's Iliad,"

the "Hebrew Bible," "(terrible Hebrew VERACITY of every line of it;" discovers an alarming "kinship of

Fiction to lying;" and asks, If anybody can compute "the damage we poor moderns have got from our

practices of fiction in Literature itself, not to speak of awfully higher provinces? Men will either see into all

this by and by," continues he; "or plunge head foremost, in neglect of all this, whither they little dream as

"But I think all real Poets, to this hour, are Psalmists and Iliadists after their sort; and have in them a divine

impatience of lies, a divine incapacity of living among lies. Likewise, which is a corollary, that the highest

Shakspeare producible is properly the fittest Historian producible; and that it is frightful to see the

Gelehrte Dummkopf [what we here may translate, DRYASDUST] doing the function of History, and the

Shakspeare and the Goethe neglecting it. 'Interpreting events;' interpreting the universally visible, entirely

INdubitable Revelation of the Author of this Universe: how can Dryasdust interpret such things, the dark

chaotic dullard, who knows the meaning of nothing cosmic or noble, nor ever will know? Poor wretch, one

sees what kind of meaning HE educes from Man's History, this long while past, and has got all the world to

believe of it along with him. Unhappy Dryasdust, thriceunhappy world that takes Dryasdust's reading of the

ways of God! But what else was possible? They that could have taught better were engaged in fiddling; for

which there are good wages going. And our damage therefrom, our DAMAGE,yes, if thou be still human

and not cormorant,perhaps it will transcend all Californias, English National Debts, and show itself

"Believing that mankind are not doomed wholly to doglike annihilation, I believe that much of this will

mend. I believe that the world will not always waste its inspired men in mere fiddling to it. That the man of

rhythmic nature will feel more and more his vocation towards the Interpretation of Fact; since only in the

vital centre of that, could we once get thither, lies all real melody; and that he will become, he, once again the

Historian of Events,bewildered Dryasdust having at last the happiness to be his servant, and to have some

guidance from him. Which will be blessed indeed. For the present, Dryasdust strikes me like a hapless Nigger

gone masterless: Nigger totally unfit for self guidance; yet without master good or bad; and whose feats in

"History, with faithful Genius at the top and faithful Industry at the bottom, will then be capable of being

written. History will then actually BE written,the inspired gift of God employing itself to illuminate the

dark ways of God. A thing thrice pressingly needful to be done!Whereby the modern Nations may again

become a little less godless, and again have their 'epics' (of a different from the Schiller sort), and again have

So that, it would seem, there WILL gradually among mankind, if Friedrich last some centuries, be a real Epic

made of his History? That is to say (presumably), it will become a perfected Melodious Truth, and duly

significant and duly beautiful bit of Belief, to mankind; the essence of it fairly evolved from all the chaff, the

portrait of it actually given, and its real harmonies with the laws of this Universe brought out, in bright and

dark, according to the God's Fact as it was; which poor Dryasdust and the Newspapers never could get sight

Well, if so,and even if not quite so,it is a comfort to reflect that every true worker (who has blown away

chaff were his contribution no bigger than my own, may have brought the good result NEARER by a

handbreadth or two. And so we will end these preludings, and proceed upon our Problem, courteous reader.

Friedrich of BrandenburgHohenzollern, who came by course of natural succession to be Friedrich II. of

Prussia, and is known in these ages as Frederick the Great, was born in the palace of Berlin, about noon, on

the 24th of January, 1712. A small infant, but of great promise or possibility; and thrice and four times

welcome to all sovereign and other persons in the Prussian Court, and Prussian realms, in those cold winter

days. His Father, they say, was like to have stifled him with his caresses, so overjoyed was the man; or at

least to have scorched him in the blaze of the fire; when happily some much suitabler female nurse snatched

this little creature from the rough paternal paws,and saved it for the benefit of Prussia and mankind. If

Heaven will but please to grant it length of life! For there have already been two little Princekins, who are

both dead; this Friedrich is the fourth child; and only one little girl, wise Wilhelmina, of almost too sharp

wits, and not too vivacious aspect, is otherwise yet here of royal progeny. It is feared the Hohenzollern

lineage, which has flourished here with such beneficent effect for three centuries now, and been in truth the

very making of the Prussian Nation, may be about to fail, or pass into some side branch. Which change, or

Five years ago, on the death of the first little Prince, there had surmises risen, obscure rumors and hints, that

the Princess Royal, mother of the lost baby, never would have healthy children, or even never have a child

more: upon which, as there was but one other resource,a widowed Grandfather, namely, and except the

Prince Royal no son to him,said Grandfather, still only about fifty, did take the necessary steps: but they

have been entirely unsuccessful; no new son or child, only new affliction, new disaster has resulted from that

third marriage of his. And though the Princess Royal has had another little Prince, that too has died within the

year;killed, some say on the other hand, by the noise of the cannon firing for joy over it! [Forster,

Friedrich Wilhelm I., Konig von Preussen (Potsdam, 1834), i. 126 (who quotes Morgenstern, a contemporary

reporter). But see also Preuss, Friedrich der Grosse mit seinen Verwandten und Freunden (Berlin, 1838), pp.

379380] Yes; and the first baby Prince, these same parties farther say, was crushed to death by the weighty

dress you put upon it at christening time, especially by the little crown it wore, which had left a visible black

mark upon the poor soft infant's brow! In short, it is a questionable case; undoubtedly a questionable outlook

for Prussian mankind; and the appearance of this little Prince, a third trumpcard in the Hohenzollern game,

is an unusually interesting event. The joy over him, not in Berlin Palace only, but in Berlin City, and over the

Prussian Nation, was very great and universal;still testified in manifold dull, unreadable old pamphlets,

records official and volunteer,which were then all ablaze like the bonfires, and are now fallen dark enough,

The poor old Grandfather, Friedrich I. (the first King of Prussia),for, as we intimate, he was still alive, and

not very old, though now infirm enough, and laden beyond his strength with sad reminiscences,

disappointments and chagrins,had taken much to Wilhelmina, as she tells us; [ Memoires de Frederique

Sophie Wilhelmine de Prusse, Margrave de Bareith, Soeur d FredericleGrand (London, 1812), i. 5.] and

would amuse himself whole days with the pranks and prattle of the little child. Good old man: he, we need

not doubt, brightened up into unusual vitality at sight of this invaluable little Brother of hers; through whom

he can look once more into the waste dim future with a flicker of new hope. Poor old man: he got his own

back halfbroken by a careless nurse letting him fall; and has slightly stooped ever since, some fifty and odd

years now: much against his will; for he would fain have been beautiful; and has struggled all his days, very

hard if not very wisely, to make his existence beautiful,to make it magnificent at least, and regardless of

expense;and it threatens to come to little. Courage, poor Grandfather: here is a new second edition of a

Friedrich, the first having gone off with so little effect: this one's back is still unbroken, his life's seedfield not

yet filled with tares and thorns: who knows but Heaven will be kinder to this one? Heaven was much kinder

to this one. Him Heaven had kneaded of more potent stuff: a mighty fellow this one, and a strange; related

not only to the Upholsteries and Heralds' Colleges, but to the Sphereharmonies and the divine and demonic

powers; of a swift fardarting nature this one, like an Apollo clad in sunbeams and in lightnings (after his

sort); and with a back which all the world could not succeed in breaking!Yes, if, by most rare chance, this

were indeed a new man of genius, born into the purblind rotting Century, in the acknowledged rank of a king

there,man of genius, that is to say, man of originality and veracity; capable of seeing with his eyes, and

incapable of not believing what he sees;then truly!But as yet none knows; the poor old Grandfather

Meanwhile they christened the little fellow, with immense magnificence and pomp of apparatus; Kaiser Karl,

and the very Swiss Republic being there (by proxy), among the gossips; and spared no cannonvolleyings,

kettledrummings, metal crown, heavy clothofsilver, for the poor soft creature's sake; all of which,

however, he survived. The name given him was Karl Friedrich (Charles Frederick); Karl perhaps, and

perhaps also not, in delicate compliment to the chief gossip, the abovementioned. Kaiser, Karl or Charles

VI.? At any rate, the KARL, gradually or from the first, dropped altogether out of practice, and went as

nothing: he himself, or those about him, never used it; nor, except in some dim English pamphlet here and

there, have I met with any trace of it. Friedrich (RICHinPEACE, a name of old prevalence in the

Hohenzollern kindred), which he himself wrote FREDERIC in his French way, and at last even FEDERIC

(with a very singular sense of euphony), is throughout, and was, his sole designation. Sunday 31st January,

1712, age then precisely one week: then, and in this manner, was he ushered on the scene, and labelled

among his fellowcreatures. We must now look round a little; and see, if possible by any method or exertion,

Friedrich Wilhelm, CrownPrince of Prussia, son of Friedrich I. and Father of this little infant who will one

day be Friedrich II., did himself make some noise in the world as second King of Prussia; notable not as

Friedrich's father alone; and will much concern us during the rest of his life. He is, at this date, in his

twentyfourth year: a thickset, sturdy, florid, brisk young fellow; with a jovial laugh in him, yet of solid

grave ways, occasionally somewhat volcanic; much given to soldiering, and outofdoor exercises, having

little else to do at present. He has been manager, or, as it were, ViceKing, on an occasional absence of his

Father; he knows practically what the state of business is; and greatly disapproves of it, as is thought. But

being bound to silence on that head, he keeps silence, and meddles with nothing political. He addicts himself

chiefly to mustering, drilling and practical military duties, while here at Berlin; runs out, often enough, wife

and perhaps a comrade or two along with him, to hunt, and take his ease, at Wusterhausen (some fifteen or

twenty miles [English miles,as always unless the contrary be stated. The German MEILE is about five

miles English; German STUNDE about three.] southeast of Berlin), where he has a residence amid the woody

But soldiering is his grand concern. Six years ago, summer 1706, [Forster, i. 116] at a very early age, he went

to the wars,grand SpanishSuccession War, which was then becoming very fierce in the Netherlands;

Prussian troops always active on the Marlborough Eugene side. He had just been betrothed, was not yet

wedded; thought good to turn the interim to advantage in that way. Then again, spring 1709, after his

marriage and after his Father's marriage, "the Court being full of intrigues," and nothing but silence

recommendable there, a certain renowned friend of his, Leopold, Prince of AnhaltDessau, of whom we shall

yet hear a great deal,who, still only about thirty, had already covered himself with laurels in those wars

(Blenheim, Bridge of Casano, Lines of Turin, and other glories), but had now got into intricacies with the

weaker sort, and was out of command,agreed with Friedrich Wilhelm that it would be well to go and serve

there as volunteers, since not otherwises. Varnhagen von Ense, Furst Leopold von AnhaltDessau (in

Biographische Denkmale, 2d edition, Berlin, 1845), p. 185. Thaten und Leben des weltberuhmten Furstens

Leopoldi von AnhaltDessau (Leipzig, 1742), p. 73. Forster, i. 129.] A CrownPrince of Prussia, ought he

not to learn soldiering, of all things; by every opportunity? Which Friedrich Wilhelm did, with industry;

serving zealous apprenticeship under Marlborough and Eugene, in this manner; plucking knowledge, as the

bubble reputation, and all else in that field has to be plucked, from the cannon's mouth. Friedrioh Wilhelm

kept by Marlborough, now as formerly; friend Leopold being commonly in Eugene's quarter, who well knew

the worth of him, ever since Blenheim and earlier. Friedrich Wilhelm saw hot service, that campaign of 1709;

siege of Tournay, and far more;stood, among other things, the fiery Battle of Malplaquet, one of the

terriblest and deadliest feats of war ever done. No want of intrepidity and rugged soldiervirtue in the

Prussian troops or their Crown Prince; least of all on that terrible day, 11th September, 1709; of which he

keeps the anniversary ever since, and will do all his life, the doomsday of Malplaquet always a memorable

day to him. [Forster, i. 138.] He is more and more intimate with Leopold, and loves good soldiering beyond

all things. Here at Berlin he has already got a regiment of his own, tallish fine men; and strives to make it in

For the rest, much here is out of joint, and far from satisfactory to him. Seven years ago [1st February, 1705.]

he lost his own brave Mother and her love; of which we must speak farther by and by. In her stead he has got

a fantastic, melancholic, illnatured Stepmother, with whom there was never any good to be done; who in

fact is now fairly mad, and kept to her own apartments. He has to see here, and say little, a chagrined

heartworn Father flickering painfully amid a scene much filled with expensive futile persons, and their

extremely pitiful cabals and mutual rages; scene chiefly of pompous inanity, and the art of solemnly and with

great labor doing nothing. Such waste of labor and of means: what can one do but be silent? The other year,

Preussen (PRUSSIA Proper, province lying far eastward, out of sight) was sinking under pestilence and black

ruin and despair: the CrownPrince, contrary to wont, broke silence, and begged some dole or subvention for

these poor people; but there was nothing to be had, Nothing in the treasury, your Royal Highness:Preussen

will shift for itself; sublime dramaturgy, which we call his Majesty's Government, costs so much! And

Preussen, mown away by death, lies much of it vacant ever since; which has completed the CrownPrince's

disgust; and, I believe, did produce some change of ministry, or other ineffectual expedient, on the old

Father's part. Upon which the CrownPrince locks up his thoughts again. He has confused whirlpools, of

Court intrigues, ceremonials, and troublesome fantasticalities, to steer amongst; which he much dislikes, no

man more; having an eye and heart set on the practical only, and being in mind as in body something of the

genus ROBUSTUM, of the genus FEROX withal. He has been wedded six years; lost two children, as we

His wife, Sophie Dorothee of Hanover, is his cousin as well. She is brother'sdaughter of his Mother, Sophie

Charlotte: let the reader learn to discriminate these two names. Sophie Charlotte, late Queen of Prussia, was

also of Hanover: she probably had sometimes, in her quiet motherly thought, anticipated this connection for

him, while she yet lived. It is certain Friedrich Wilhelm was carried to Hanover in early childhood: his

Mother,that Sophie Charlotte, a famed Queen and lady in her day, Daughter of Electress Sophie, and Sister

of the George who became George I. of England by and by,took him thither; some time about the

beginning of 1693, his age then five; and left him there on trial; alleging, and expecting, he might have a

better breeding there. And this, in a Court where Electress Sophie was chief lady, and Elector Ernst, fit to be

called Gentleman Ernst, ["Her Highness (the Electress Sophie) has the character of the merry debonnaire

Princess of Germany; a lady of extraordinary virtues and accomplishments; mistress of the Italian, French,

High and Low Dutch, and English languages, which she speaks to perfection. Her husband (Elector Ernst)

has the title of the Gentleman of Germany; a graceful and," W. Carr, Remarks of the Governments of the

severall Parts of Germanie, Denmark, Sweedland (Amsterdam, 1688), p. 147. See also Ker of Kersland (still

more emphatic on this point, soepius )] the politest of men, was chief lord,and where Leibnitz, to say

nothing of lighter notabilities, was flourishing,seemed a reasonable expectation. Nevertheless, it came to

nothing, this articulate purpose of the visit; though perhaps the deeper silent purposes of it might not be quite

Gentleman Ernst had lately been made "Elector" ( Kurfurst, instead of Herzog ),his Hanover no longer a

mere Sovereign Duchy, but an Electorate henceforth, new "NINTH Electorate," by Ernst's lifelong exertion

and good luck ;which has spread a fine radiance, for the time, over court and people in those parts; and

made Ernst a happier man than ever, in his old age. Gentleman Ernst and Electress Sophie, we need not

doubt, were glad to see their burly Prussian grandson, a robust, rather mischievous boy of five years

old;and anything that brought her Daughter oftener about her (an only Daughter too, and one so gifted)

was sure to be welcome to the cheery old Electress, and her Leibnitz and her circle. For Sophie Charlotte was

Uncle George again, " Kurprinz Georg Ludwig" (Electoral Prince and HeirApparent), who became George

I. of England; he, always a taciturn, saturnine, somewhat grimvisaged man, not without thoughts of his own

but mostly inarticulate thoughts, was, just at this time, in a deep domestic intricacy. Uncle George the

Kurprinz was painfully detecting, in these very months, that his august Spouse and cousin, a brilliant not

uninjured lady, had become an indignant injuring one; that she had gone, and was going, far astray in her

walk of life! Thus all is not radiance at Hanover either, Ninth Elector though we are; but, in the soft sunlight,

there quivers a streak of the blackness of very Erebus withal. Kurprinz George, I think, though he too is said

to have been good to the boy, could not take much interest in this burly Nephew of his just now!

Sure enough, it was in this year 1693, that the famed Konigsmark tragedy came ripening fast towards a crisis

in Hanover; and next year the catastrophe arrived. A most tragic business; of which the little Boy, now here,

will know more one day. Perhaps it was on this very visit, on one visit it credibly was, that Sophie Charlotte

witnessed a sad scene in the Schloss of Hanover high words rising, where low cooings had been more

appropriate; harsh words, mutually recriminative, rising ever higher; ending, it is thought, in THINGS, or

menaces and motions towards things (actual box on the ear, some call it),never to be forgotten or forgiven!

And on Sunday 1st of July, 1694, Colonel Count Philip Konigsmark, Colonel in the Hanover Dragoons, was

seen for the last time in this world. From that date, he has vanished suddenly underground, in an inscrutable

manner: never more shall the light of the sun, or any human eye behold that handsome blackguard man. Not

for a hundred and fifty years shall human creatures know, or guess with the smallest certainty, what has

And shortly after Konigsmark's disappearance, there is this sad phenomenon visible: A once very radiant

Princess (witty, haughty minded, beautiful, not wise or fortunate) now gone all ablaze into angry tragic

conflagration; getting locked into the old Castle of Ahlden, in the moory solitudes of Luneburg Heath: to stay

there till she die,thirty years as it proved,and go into ashes and angry darkness as she may. Old

peasants, late in the next century, will remember that they used to see her sometimes driving on the

Heath,beautiful lady, long black hair, and the glitter of diamonds in it; sometimes the reins in her own

hand, but always with a party of cavalry round her, and their swords drawn. [ Die Herzogin von Ahlden

(Leipzig, l852), p. 22. Divorce was, 28th December, 1694; death, 13th November, 1726,age then 60.]

"Duchess of Ahlden," that was her title in the eclipsed state. Born Princess of Zelle; by marriage, Princess of

Hanover ( Kurprinzessin ); would have been Queen of England, too, had matters gone otherwise than they

did. Her name, like that of a little Daughter she had, is Sophie Dorothee: she is Cousin and Divorced Wife

of Kurprinz George; divorced, and as it were abolished alive, in this manner. She is little Friedrich Wilhelm's

Auntinlaw; and her little Daughter comes to be his Wife in process of time. Of him, or of those belonging

to him, she took small notice, I suppose, in her then mood, the crisis coming on so fast. In her happier

innocent days she had two children, a King that is to be, and a Queen; George II. of England, Sophie

This was the Konigsmark tragedy at Hanover; fast ripening towards its catastrophe while little Friedrich

Wilhelm was there. It has been, ever since, a rumor and dubious frightful mystery to mankind: but within

these few years, by curious accidents (thefts, discoveries of written documents, in various countries, and

diligent study of them), it has at length become a certainty and clear fact, to those who are curious about it.

Fact surely of a rather horrible sort;yet better, I must say, than was suspected: not quite so bad in the state

of fact as in that of rumor. Crime enough is in it, sin and folly on both sides; there is killing too, but NOT

assassination (as it turns out); on the whole there is nothing of atrocity, or nothing that was not accidental,

unavoidable;and there is a certain greatness of DECORUM on the part of those Hanover Princes and

official gentlemen, a depth of silence, of polite stoicism, which deserves more praise than it will get in our

times. Enough now of the Konigsmark tragedy; [A considerable dreary mass of books, pamphlets,

lucubrations, false all and of no worth or of less, have accumulated on this dark subject, during the last

hundred and fifty years; nor has the process yet stopped,as it now well might. For there have now two

things occurred in regard to it FIRST: In the year l847, a Swedish Professor, named Palmblad, groping about

for other objects in the College Library of Lund (which is in the country of the Konigsmark connections),

came upon a Box of Old Letters,Letters undated, signed only with initials, and very enigmatic till well

searched into,which have turned out to he the very Autographs of the Princess and her Konigsmark;

throwing of course a henceforth indisputable light on their relation. SECOND THING: A cautious exact old

gentleman, of diplomatic habits (understood to be "Count Von SchulenburgKlosterrode of Dresden"), has,

since that event, unweariedly gone into the whole matter; and has brayed it everywhere, and pounded it small;

sifting, with sublime patience, not only those Swedish Autographs, but the whole mass of lying books,

pamphlets, hints and notices, old and recent; and bringing out (truly in an intricate and thricewearisome, but

for the first time in an authentic way) what real evidence there is. In which evidence the facts, or essential

fact, lie at last indisputable enough. His Book, thick Pamphlet rather, is that same Herzogin von Ahlden

(Leipzig, 1852) cited above. The dreary wheelbarrowful of others I had rather not mention again; but leave

Count von Schulenburg to mention and describe them, which he does abundantly, so many as had

accumulated up to that date of 1852, to the affliction more or less of sane mankind.] contemporaneous with

Friedrich Wilhelm's stay at Hanover, but not otherwise much related to him or his doings there.

He got no improvement in breeding, as we intimated; none at all; fought, on the contrary, with his young

Cousin (afterwards our George II.), a boy twice his age, though of weaker bone; and gave him a bloody nose.

To the scandal and consternation of the French Protestant gentlewomen and courtdames in their stiff silks:

"Ahee, your Electoral Highness!" This had been a rough unruly boy from the first discovery of him. At a very

early stage, he, one morning while the nurses were dressing him, took to investigating one of his shoe

buckles; would, in spite of remonstrances, slobber it about in his mouth; and at length swallowed it

down,beyond mistake; and the whole world cannot get it up! Whereupon, wild wail of nurses; and his

"Mother came screaming," poor mother: It is the same small shoebuckle which is still shown, with a

ticket and date to it, "31 December, 1692," in the Berlin Kunstkammer ; for it turned out harmless, after all

the screaming; and a few grains of rhubarb restored it safely to the light of day; henceforth a

thricememorable shoebuckle. [Forster, i. 74. Erman, Memoires de Sophie Charlotte (Berlin, 1801), p. 130.]

Another time, it is recorded, though with less precision of detail, his Governess the Dame Montbail having

ordered him to do something which was intolerable to the princely mind, the princely mind resisted in a very

strange way: the princely body, namely, flung itself suddenly out of a thirdstory window, nothing but the

hands left within; and hanging on there by the sill, and fixedly resolute to obey gravitation rather than

Montbail, soon brought the poor lady to terms. Upon which, indeed, he had been taken from her, and from

the women altogether, as evidently now needing rougher government. Always an unruly fellow, and

dangerous to trust among crockery. At Hanover he could do no good in the way of breeding: sage Leibnitz

himself, with his big black periwig and large patient nose, could have put no metaphysics into such a boy.

Sublime Theodicee (Leibnitzian "justification of the ways of God") was not an article this individual had the

least need of, nor at any time the least value for. "Justify? What doomed dog questions it, then? Are you for

Bedlam, then?"and in maturer years his rattan might have been dangerous! For this was a singular

individual of his day; human soul still in robust health, and not given to spin its bowels into cobwebs. He is

known only to have quarrelled much with Cousin George, during the year or so he spent in those parts.

But there was another Cousin at Hanover, just one other, little Sophie Dorothee (called after her mother), a

few months older than himself; by all accounts, a really pretty little child, whom he liked a great deal better.

She, I imagine, was his main resource, while on this Hanover visit; with her were laid the foundations of an

intimacy which ripened well afterwards. Some say it was already settled by the parents that there was to be a

marriage in due time. Settled it could hardly be; for Wilhelmina tells us, [ Memoires de la Margrave de

Bareith, i. l.] her Father had a "choice of three" allowed him, on coming to wed; and it is otherwise

discernible there had been eclipses and uncertainties, in the interim, on his part. Settled, no; but hoped and

vaguely prefigured, we may well suppose. And at all events, it has actually come to pass; "Father being

ardently in love with the Hanover Princess," says our Margravine, "and much preferring her to the other two,"

or to any and all others. Wedded, with great pomp, 28th November, 1706; [Forster, i. 117.]and Sophie

Dorothee, the same that was his pretty little Cousin at Hanover twenty years ago, she is mother of the little

Boy now born and christened, whom men are to call Frederick the Great in coming generations.

Sophie Dorothee is described to us by courtier contemporaries as "one of the most beautiful princesses of her

day:" Wilhelmina, on the other hand, testifies that she was never strictly to be called beautiful, but had a

pleasant attractive physiognomy; which may be considered better than strict beauty. Uncommon grace of

figure and look, testifies Wilhelmina; much dignity and soft dexterity, on social occasions; perfect in all the

arts of deportment; and left an impression on you at once kindly and royal. Portraits of her, as Queen at a later

age, are frequent in the Prussian Galleries; she is painted sitting, where I best remember her. A serious,

comely, rather plump, maternallooking Lady; something thoughtful in those gray still eyes of hers, in the

turn of her face and carriage of her head, as she sits there, considerately gazing out upon a world which

would never conform to her will. Decidedly a handsome, wholesome and affectionate aspect of face.

Hanoverian in type, that is to say, blond, florid, slightly PROFUSE;yet the better kind of Hanoverian, little

or nothing of the worse or at least the worst kind. The eyes, as I say, are gray, and quiet, almost sad;

expressive of reticence and reflection, of slow constancy rather than of SPEED in any kind. One expects,

could the picture speak, the querulous sound of maternal and other solicitude; of a temper tending towards the

obstinate, the quietly unchangeable;loyal patience not wanting, yet in still larger measure royal impatience

well concealed, and long and carefully cherished. This is what I read in Sophie Dorothee's

Portraits,probably remembering what I had otherwise read, and come to know of her. She too will not a

little concern us in the first part of this History. I find, for one thing, she had given much of her physiognomy

to the Friedrich now born. In his Portraits as PrinceRoyal, he strongly resembles her; it is his mother's face

informed with youth and new fire, and translated into the masculine gender: in his later Portraits, one less and

Friedrich Wilhelm, now in the sixth year of wedlock, is still very fond of his Sophie Dorothee, "Fiechen"

(Feekin diminutive of Sophie ), as he calls her; she also having, and continuing to have, the due wife's regard

for her solid, honest, if somewhat explosive bear. He troubles her a little now and then, it is said, with whiffs

of jealousy; but they are whiffs only, the product of accidental moodinesses in him, or of transient aspects,

misinterpreted, in the courtlife of a young and pretty woman. As the general rule, he is beautifully

goodhumored, kind even, for a bear; and, on the whole, they have begun their partnership under good

omens. And indeed we may say, in spite of sad tempests that arose, they continued it under such. She brought

him gradually no fewer than fourteen children, of whom ten survived him and came to maturity: and it is to

be admitted their conjugal relation, though a royal, was always a human one; the main elements of it strictly

observed on both sides; all quarrels in it capable of being healed again, and the feeling on both sides true,

however troublous. A rare fact among royal wedlocks, and perhaps a unique one in that epoch.

The young couple, as is natural in their present position, have many eyes upon them, and not quite a paved

path in this confused court of Friedrich I. But they are true to one another; they seem indeed to have held well

aloof from all public business or private cabal; and go along silently expecting, and perhaps silently resolving

this and that in the future tense; but with moderate immunity from paternal or other criticisms, for the present.

The CrownPrince drills or hunts, with his Grumkows, Anhalt Dessaus: these are harmless

employments;and a man may have within his own head what thoughts he pleases, without offence so long

as he keeps them there. Friedrich the old Grandfather lived only thirteen months after the birth of his

grandson: Friedrich Wilhelm was then King; thoughts then, to any length, could become actions on the part

Friedrich Wilhelm's Mother, as we hinted, did not live to see this marriage which she had forecast in her

maternal heart. She died, rather suddenly, in 1705, [1st February (Erman, p. 241; Forster, i. 114): born, 20th

October, 1666; wedded, 28th September 1684; died, 1st February, 1705.] at Hanover, whither she had gone

on a visit; shortly after parting with this her one boy and child, Friedrich Wilhelm, who is then about

seventeen; whom she had with effort forced herself to send abroad, that he might see the world a little, for the

first time. Her sorrow on this occasion has in it something beautiful, in so bright and gay a woman: shows us

the mother strong in her, to a touching degree. The rough cub, in whom she noticed rugged perverse

elements, "tendencies to avarice," and a want of princely graces, and the more brilliant qualities in mind and

manner, had given her many thoughts and some uneasy ones. But he was evidently all she had to love in the

world; a rugged creature inexpressibly precious to her. For days after his departure, she had kept solitary;

busied with little; indulging in her own sad reflections without stint. Among the papers she had been

scribbling, there was found one slip with a HEART sketched on it, and round the heart "PARTI" (Gone): My

heart is gone!poor lady, and after what a jewel! But Nature is very kind to all children and to all mothers

Sophie Charlotte's deep sorrow and dejection on this parting was the secret herald of fate to herself. It had

meant ill health withal, and the gloom of broken nerves. All autumn and into winter she had felt herself

indefinitely unwell; she determined, however, on seeing Hanover and her good old Mother at the usual time.

The gloomy sorrow over Friedrich Wilhelm had been the premonition of a sudden illness which seized her on

the road to Hanover, some five months afterwards, and which ended fatally in that city. Her death was not in

the light style Friedrich her grandson ascribes to it; [ Memoires de Brandebourg (Preuss's Edition of

OEuvres, Berlin, 1847 et seqq.), i. 112.] she died without epigram, and though in perfect simple courage, with

Here, at first hand, is the specific account of that event; which, as it is brief and indisputable, we may as well

fish from the imbroglios, and render legible, to counteract such notions, and illuminate for moments an old

scene of things. The writing, apparently a quite private piece, is by "M. de la Bergerie, Pastor of the French

Church at Hanover," respectable EdictofNantes gentleman, who had been called in on the

occasion;gives an authentic momentary picture, though a feeble and vacant one, of a locality at that time

"The night between the last of January and the first of February, 1705, between one and two o'clock in the

"Entering the room, I threw myself at the foot of her bed, testifying to her in words my profound grief to see

her in this state. After which I took occasion to say, 'She might know now that Kings and Queens are mortal

equally with all other men; and that they are obliged to appear before the throne of the majesty of God, to

give an account of their deeds done, no less than the meanest of their subjects.' To which her Majesty replied,

(I know it well ( Je le sais bien ).'I went on to say to her, 'Madam, your Majesty must also recognize in this

hour the vanity and nothingness of the things here below, for which, it may be, you have had too much

interest; and the importance of the things of Heaven, which perhaps you have neglected and contemned.'

Thereupon the Queen answered, 'True ( Cela est vrai )!' 'Nevertheless, Madam,' said I, 'does not your Majesty

place really your trust in God? Do you not very earnestly ( bien serieusement ) crave pardon of Him for all

the sins you have committed? Do not you fly ( n'atelle pas recours ) to the blood and merits of Jesus

Christ, without which it is impossible for us to stand before God?' The Queen answered, ' Oui (Yes).'While

this was going on, her Brother, Duke Ernst August, came into the Queen's room," perhaps with his eye

upon me and my motions? "As they wished to speak together, I withdrew by order."

This Duke Ernst August, age now 31, is the youngest Brother of the family; there never was any Sister but

this dying one, who is four years older. Ernst August has some tincture of soldiership at this time

(Marlborough Wars, and the like), as all his kindred had; but ultimately he got the Bishopric of Osnabruck,

that singular spiritual heirloom, or HALFheirloom of the family; and there lived or vegetated without noise.

Poor soul, he is the same Bishop of Osnabruck, to whose house, twentytwo years hence, George I., struck

by apoplexy, was breathlessly galloping in the summer midnight, one wish now left in him, to be with his

brother;and arrived dead, or in the article of death. That was another scene Ernst August had to witness in

his life. I suspect him at present of a thought that M. de la Bergerie, with his pious commonplaces, is likely to

do no good. Other trait of Ernst August's life; or of the Schloss of Hanover that night,or where the

sorrowing old Mother sat, invincible though weeping, in some neighboring room, I cannot give. M. de la

"Some time after, I again presented myself before the Queen's bed, to see if I could have occasion to speak to

her on the matter of her salvation. But Monseigneur the Duke Ernst August then said to me, That it was not

necessary; that the Queen was at peace with her God ( etait bien avec son Dieu )."Which will mean also

"Next day the Prince told me, That observing I was come near the Queen's bed, he had asked her if she

wished I should still speak to her; but she had replied, that it was not necessary in any way ( nullement ), that

she already knew all that could be said to her on such an occasion; that she had said it to herself, that she was

"In the end a faint coming upon the Queen, which was what terminated her life, I threw myself on my knees

at the other side of her bed, the curtains of which were open; and I called to God with a loud voice, 'That He

would rank his angels round this great Princess, to guard her from the insults of Satan; that He would have

pity on her soul; that He would wash her with the blood of Jesus Christ her heavenly Spouse; that, having

forgiven her all her sins, He would receive her to his glory.' And in that moment she expired." [Eerman, p.

242.]Age thirtysix and some months. Only Daughter of Electress Sophie; and Father's Mother of

She was, in her time, a highly distinguished woman; and has left, one may say, something of her likeness still

traceable in the Prussian Nation, and its form of culture, to this day. Charlottenburg (Charlotte'stown, so

called by the sorrowing Widower), where she lived, shone with a muchadmired French light under her

presidency,French essentially, Versaillese, Sceptico Calvinistic, reflex and direct,illuminating the dark

North; and indeed has never been so bright since. The light was not what we can call inspired; lunar rather,

not of the genial or solar kind: but, in good truth, it was the best then going; and Sophie Charlotte, who was

her Mother's daughter in this as in other respects, had made it her own. They were deep in literature, these

two Royal Ladies; especially deep in French theological polemics, with a strong leaning to the rationalist

They had stopped in Rotterdam once, on a certain journey homewards from Flanders and the Baths of

AixlaChapelle, to see that admirable sage, the doubter Bayle. Their sublime messenger roused the poor

man, in his garret there, in the Bompies,after dark: but he had a headache that night; was in bed, and could

not come. He followed them next day; leaving his paper imbroglios, his historical, philosophical,

antitheological marinestores; and suspended his neverending scribble, on their behalf;but would not

accept a pension, and give it up. [Erman, pp. l1l, 112. Date is 1700 (late in the autumn probably).]

They were shrewd, noticing, intelligent and lively women; persuaded that there was some nobleness for man

beyond what the tailor imparts to him; and even very eager to discover it, had they known how. In these very

days, while our little Friedrich at Berlin lies in his cradle, sleeping most of his time, sage Leibnitz, a rather

weak but hugely ingenious old gentleman, with bright eyes and long nose, with vast black peruke and bandy

legs, is seen daily in the Linden Avenue at Hanover (famed Linden Alley, leading from Town Palace to

Country one, a couple of miles long, rather disappointing when one sees it), daily driving or walking towards

Herrenhausen, where the Court, where the old Electress is, who will have a touch of dialogue with him to

diversify her day. Not very edifying dialogue, we may fear; yet once more, the best that can be had in present

circumstances. Here is some lunar reflex of Versailles, which is a polite court; direct rays there are from the

oldest written Gospels and the newest; from the great unwritten Gospel of the Universe itself; and from one's

own real effort, more or less devout, to read all these aright. Let us not condemn that poor French element of

Eclecticism, Scepticism, Tolerance, Theodicea, and Bayle of the Bompies versus the College of Saumur. Let

us admit that it was profitable, at least that it was inevitable; let us pity it, and be thankful for it, and rejoice

that we are well out of it. Scepticism, which is there beginning at the very top of the world tree, and has to

descend through all the boughs with terrible results to mankind, is as yet pleasant, tinting the leaves with fine

Sophie Charlotte partook of her Mother's tendencies; and carried them with her to Berlin, there to be

expanded in many ways into ampler fulfilment. She too had the sage Leibnitz often with her, at Berlin; no

end to her questionings of him; eagerly desirous to draw water from that deep well,a wet rope, with

cobwebs sticking to it, too often all she got; endless rope, and the bucket never coming to view. Which,

however, she took patiently, as a thing according to Nature. She had her learned Beausobres and other

Reverend EdictofNantes gentlemen, famed Berlin divines; whom, if any Papist notability, Jesuit

ambassador or the like, happened to be there, she would set disputing with him, in the Soiree at

Charlottenburg. She could right well preside over such a battle of the CloudTitans, and conduct the

lightnings softly, without explosions. There is a pretty and very characteristic Letter of hers, still pleasant to

read, though turning on theologies now fallen dim enough; addressed to Father Vota, the famous Jesuit,

King'sconfessor, and diplomatist, from Warsaw, who had been doing his best in one such rencontre before

her Majesty (date March, 1703),seemingly on a series of evenings, in the intervals of his diplomatic

business; the Beausobre champions being introduced to him successively, one each evening, by Queen

Sophie Charlotte. To all appearance the fencing had been keen; the lightnings in need of some dexterous

conductor. Vota, on his way homeward, had written to apologize for the sputterings of fire struck out of him

in certain pinches of the combat; says, It was the rough handling the Primitive Fathers got from these

Beausobre gentlemen, who indeed to me, Vota in person, under your Majesty's fine presidency, were

politeness itself, though they treated the Fathers so ill. Her Majesty, with beautiful art, in this Letter, smooths

the raven plumage of Vota;and, at the same time, throws into him, as with invisible needlepoints, an

excellent dose of acupuncturation, on the subject of the Primitive Fathers and the Ecumenic Councils, on her

"How can St. Jerome, for example, be a key to Scripture?" she insinuates; citing from Jerome this remarkable

avowal of his method of composing books; "especially of his method in that Book, Commentary on the

Galatians, where he accuses both Peter and Paul of simulation and even of hypocrisy. The great St.

Augustine has been charging him with this sad fact," says her Majesty, who gives chapter and verse; ["Epist.

28*, edit. Paris." And Jerome's answer, "Ibid. Epist. 76*."] "and Jerome answers: 'I followed the

Commentaries of Origen, of'"five or six different persons, who turned out mostly to be heretics before

Jerome had quite done with them in coming years!"'And to confess the honest truth to you,' continues

Jerome, 'I read all that; and after having crammed my head with a great many things, I sent for my

amanuensis, and dictated to him now my own thoughts, now those of others, without much recollecting the

order, nor sometimes the words, nor even the sense.' In another place (in the Book itself farther on

[ "Commentary on the Galatians, chap. iii."]), he says: 'I do not myself write; I have an amanuensis, and I

dictate to him what comes into my mouth. If I wish to reflect a little, to say the thing better or a better thing,

he knits his brows, and the whole look of him tells me sufficiently that he cannot endure to wait.'"Here is a

sacred old gentleman, whom it is not safe to depend on for interpreting the Scriptures, thinks her Majesty; but

Then again, coming to Councils, she quotes St. Gregory Nazianzen upon him; who is truly dreadful in regard

to Ecumenic Councils of the Church,and indeed may awaken thoughts of Deliberative Assemblies

generally, in the modern constitutional mind. "He says, [ "Greg. Nazian. de Vita sua." ] No Council ever was

successful; so many mean human passions getting into conflagration there; with noise, with violence and

uproar, 'more like those of a tavern or still worse place,'these are his words. He, for his own share, had

resolved to avoid all such 'rendezvousing of the Geese and Cranes, flocking together to throttle and tatter one

another in that sad manner.' Nor had St. Theodoret much opinion of the Council of Nice, except as a kind of

miracle. 'Nothing good to be expected from Councils,' says he, 'except when God is pleased to interpose, and

With more of the like sort; all delicate, as invisible needle points, in her Majesty's hand. [Letter undated

(datable "Lutzelburg, March, 1708,") is to be found entire, with all its adjuncts, in Erman, pp. 246255. It

was subsequently translated by Toland, aud published here, as an excellent Polemical Piece,entirely

forgotten in our time ( A Letter against Popery by Sophia Charlotte, the late Queen of Prussia: Being,

London, 1712). But the finest Duel of all was probably that between Beausobre and Toland himself (reported

by Beausobre, in something of a crowing manner, in Erman, pp. 203241, "October, 1701"), of which Toland

makes no mention anywhere.] What is Father Vota to say?The modern reader looks through these chinks

into a strange old scene, the stuff of it fallen obsolete, the spirit of it not, nor worthy to fall.

These were Sophie Charlotte's reunions; very charming in their time. At which how joyful for Irish Toland to

be present, as was several times his luck. Toland, a mere broken heretic in his own country, who went thither

once as Secretary to some Embassy (Embassy of Macclesfield's, 1701, announcing that the English Crown

had fallen Hanoverwards), and was no doubt glad, poor headlong soul, to find himself a gentleman and

Christian again, for the time being,admires Hanover and Berlin very much; and looks upon Sophie

Charlotte in particular as the pink of women. Something between an earthly Queen and a divine Egeria;

"Serena" he calls her; and, in his highflown fashion, is very laudatory. "The most beautiful Princess of her

time," says he, meaning one of the most beautiful: her features are extremely regular, and full of vivacity;

copious dark hair, blue eyes, complexion excellently fair;"not very tall, and somewhat too plump," he

admits elsewhere. And then her mind,for gifts, for graces, culture, where will you find such a mind? "Her

reading is infinite, and she is conversant in all manner of subjects;" "knows the abstrusest problems of

Philosophy;" says admiring Toland: much knowledge everywhere exact, and handled as by an artist and

queen; for "her wit is inimitable," "her justness of thought, her delicacy of expression," her felicity of

utterance and management, are great. Foreign courtiers call her "the Republican Queen." She detects you a

sophistry at one glance; pierces down direct upon the weak point of an opinion: never in my whole life did I,

Toland, come upon a swifter or sharper intellect. And then she is so good withal, so bright and cheerful; and

"has the art of uniting what to the rest of the world are antagonisms, mirth and learning,"say even, mirth

and good sense. Is deep in music, too; plays daily on her harpsichord, and fantasies, and even composes, in an

eminent manner. [ An Account of the Courts of Prussia and Hanover, sent to a Minister of State in Holland,

by Mr. Toland (London, 1705), p. 322. Toland's other Book, which has reference to her, is of didactic nature

("immortality of the soul," "origin of idolatry," but with much fine panegyric direct and oblique: Letters to

Serena ("Serena" being Queen ), a thin 8vo, London, 1704.] Toland's admiration, deducting the highflown

Beyond doubt a bright airy lady, shining in mild radiance in those Northern parts; very graceful, very witty

and ingenious; skilled to speak, skilled to hold her tongue,which latter art also was frequently in

requisition with her. She did not much venerate her Husband, nor the Court population, male or female,

whom he chose to have about him: his and their ways were by no means hers, if she had cared to publish her

thoughts. Friedrich I., it is admitted on all hands, was "an expensive Herr;" much given to magnificent

ceremonies, etiquettes and solemnities; making no great way anywhither, and that always with noise

enough, and with a dust vortex of courtier intrigues and cabals encircling him, from which it is better to

stand quite to windward. Moreover, he was slightly crooked; most sensitive, thin of skin and liable to sudden

flaws of temper, though at heart very kind and good. Sophie Charlotte is she who wrote once, "Leibnitz

talked to me of the infinitely little ( de l'infiniment petit): mon Dieu, as if I did not know enough of that!"

Besides, it is whispered she was once near marrying to Louis XIV.'s Dauphin; her Mother Sophie, and her

Cousin the Dowager Duchess of Orleans, cunning women both, had brought her to Paris in her girlhood, with

that secret object; and had very nearly managed it. Queen of France that might have been; and now it is but

Brandenburg, and the dice have fallen somewhat wrong for us! She had Friedrich Wilhelm, the rough boy;

and perhaps nothing more of very precious property. Her first child, likewise a boy, had soon died, and there

came no third: tedious ceremonials, and the infinitely little, were mainly her lot in this world.

All which, however, she had the art to take up not in the tragic way, but in the mildly comic,often not to

take up at all, but leave lying there;and thus to manage in a handsome and softly victorious manner. With

delicate female tact, with fine female stoicism too; keeping all things within limits. She was much respected

by her Husband, much loved indeed; and greatly mourned for by the poor man: the village Lutzelburg

(Littletown), close by Berlin, where she had built a mansion for herself, he fondly named Charlottenburg

(Charlotte'stown), after her death, which name both House and Village still bear. Leibnitz found her of an

almost troublesome sharpness of intellect; "wants to know the why even of the why," says Leibnitz. That is

the way of female intellects when they are good; nothing equals their acuteness, and their rapidity is almost

excessive. Samuel Johnson, too, had a younglady friend once "with the acutest intellect I have ever known."

On the whole, we may pronounce her clearly a superior woman, this Sophie Charlotte; notable not for her

Grandson alone, though now pretty much forgotten by the world,as indeed all things and persons have, one

day or other, to be! A LIFE of her, in feeble watery style, and distracted arrangement, by one Erman,

[Monsieur Erman, Historiographe de Brandebourg, Memoires pour servir a l'Histoire de Sophie Charlotte,

Reine de Preusse, las dans les Seances, (1 vol. 8vo, Berlin, 1801.)] a Berlin Frenchman, is in existence, and

will repay a cursory perusal; curious traits of her, in still looser form, are also to be found in Pollnitz: [Carl

Ludwig Freiherr von Pollnitz, Memoiren zur Lebens und RegierungeGeschichte der vier letzten Regenten

des Preussischen Staats (was published in French also), 2 vols. 12mo, Berlin, 1791.] but for our purposes

The Prussian royalty is now in its twelfth year when this little Friedrich, who is to carry it to such a height,

comes into the world. Old Friedrich the Grandfather achieved this dignity, after long and intricate

negotiations, in the first year of the Century; 16th November, 1700, his ambassador returned triumphant from

Vienna; the Kaiser had at last consented: We are to wear a crown royal on the top of our periwig; the old

Electorate of Brandenburg is to become the Kingdom of Prussia; and the Family of Hohenzollern, slowly

Friedrich, the old Gentleman who now looks upon his little Grandson (destined to be Third King of Prussia)

with such interest,is not a very memorable man; but he has had his adventures too, his losses and his gains:

and surely among the latter, the gain of a crown royal into his House gives him, if only as a chronological

milestone, some place in History. He was son of him they call the Great Elector, Friedrich Wilhelm by name;

of whom the Prussians speak much, in an eagerly celebrating manner, and whose strenuous toilsome work in

this world, celebrated or not, is still deeply legible in the actual life and affairs of Germany. A man of whom

we must yet find some opportunity to say a word. From him and a beautiful and excellent Princess Luise,

Princess of Orange,Dutch William, OUR Dutch William's aunt,this, crooked royal Friedrich came.

He was not born crooked; straight enough once, and a fine little boy of six months old or so; there being an

elder Prince now in his third year, also full of hope. But in a rough journey to Konigsberg and back (winter of

1657, as is guessed), one of the many rough jolting journeys this faithful Electress made with her Husband, a

careless or unlucky nurse, who had charge of pretty little Fritzchen, was not sufficiently attentive to her duties

on the worst of roads. The everjolting carriage gave some bigger jolt, the child fell backwards in her arms;

[Johann Wegfuhrer, Leben der Kurfurstin Luise, gebornen Prinzessin von NassauOranien, Gemahlin

Friedrich Wilhelm des Grossen (Leipzig, 1838), p. 107.] did not quite break his back, but injured it for

life:and with his back, one may perceive, injured his soul and history to an almost corresponding degree.

For the weak crooked boy, with keen and fine perceptions, and an inadequate case to put them in, grew up

with too thin a skin: that may be considered as the summary of his misfortunes; and, on the whole, there is

He had other loads laid upon him, poor youth: his kind pious Mother died, his elder Brother died, he at the

age of seventeen saw himself HeirApparent;and had got a Stepmother with new heirs, if he should

disappear. Sorrows enough in that one fact, with the venomous whisperings, commentaries and suspicions,

which a Court population, female and male, in little Berlin Town, can contrive to tack to it. Does not the new

Sovereign Lady, in her heart, wish YOU were dead, my Prince? Hope it perhaps? Health, at any rate, weak;

Such suspicions are now understood to have had no basis except in the waste brains of courtier men and

women; but their existence there can become tragical enough. Add to which, the Great Elector, like all the

Hohenzollerns, was a choleric man; capable of blazing into volcanic explosions, when affronted by idle

masses of cobwebs in the midst of his serious businesses! It is certain, the young Prince Friedrich had at one

time got into quite high, shrill and mutually minatory terms with his Stepmother; so that once, after some

such shrill dialogue between them, ending with "You shall repent this, Sir!"he found it good to fly off in

the night, with only his Tutor or Secretary and a valet, to HessenCassel to an Aunt; who stoutly protected

him in this emergency; and whose Daughter, after the difficult readjustment of matters, became his Wife, but

did not live long. And it is farther certain the same Prince, during this his first wedded time, dining one day

with his Stepmother, was taken suddenly ill. Felt ill, after his cup of coffee; retired into another room in

violent spasms, evidently in an alarming state, and secretly in a most alarmed one: his Tutor or Secretary, one

Dankelmann, attended him thither; and as the Doctor took some time to arrive, and the symptoms were

instant and urgent, Secretary Dankelmann produced "from a pocketbook some drug of his own, or of the

HessenCassel Aunt," emetic I suppose, and gave it to the poor Prince;who said often, and felt ever after,

with or without notion of poison, That Dankelmann had saved his life. In consequence of which adventure he

again quitted Court without leave; and begged to be permitted to remain safe in the country, if Papa would be

Fancy the Great Elector's humor on such an occurrence; and what a furtherance to him in his heavy continual

labors, and strenuous swimming for life, these beautiful humors and transactions must have been! A

crookbacked boy, dear to the Great Elector, pukes, one afternoon; and there arises such an opening of the

Nether Floodgates of this Universe; in and round your poor workshop, nothing but sudden darkness, smell of

sulphur; hissing of forked serpents here, and the universal alleleu of female hysterics there;to help a man

forward with his work! O reader, we will pity the crowned head, as well as the hatted and even hatless one.

Human creatures will not GO quite accurately together, any more than clocks will; and when their dissonance

once rises fairly high, and they cannot readily kill one another, any Great Elector who is third party will have

Electress Dorothee, the Stepmother, was herself somewhat of a hard lady; not easy to live with, though so far

above poisoning as to have "despised even the suspicion of it." She was much given to practical economics,

dairyfarming, marketgardening, and industrial and commercial operations such as offered; and was

thought to be a very strict reckoner of money. She founded the Dorotheenstadt, now oftener called the

Neustadt, chief quarter of Berlin; and planted, just about the time of this unlucky dinner, "A.D. 1680 or so,"

[Nicolai, Beschreibung der koniglichen Residenzstadte Berlin und Potsdam (Berlin, 1786), i. 172.] the first of

the celebrated Lindens, which (or the successors of which, in a stunted amdition) are still growing there.

UnterdenLinden: it is now the gayest quarter of Berlin, full of really fine edifices: it was then a sandy

outskirt of Electress Dorothee's dairyfarm; good for nothing but building upon, thought Electress Dorothee.

She did much dairyandvegetable trade on the great scale;was thought even to have, underhand, a

commercial interest in the principal Beerhouse of the city? [Horn, Leben Friedrich Wilhelme des Grossen

Kurfursten von Brandenburg (Berlin, 1814).] People did not love her: to the Great Elector, who guided with a

steady bridlehand, she complied not amiss; though in him too there rose sad recollections and comparisons

now and then: but with a Stepson of unsteady nerves it became evident to him there could never be soft

neighborhood. Prince Friedrich and his Father came gradually to some understanding, tacit or express, on that

sad matter; Prince Friedrich was allowed to live, on his separate allowance, mainly remote from Court.

Which he did, for perhaps six or eight years, till the Great Elector's death; henceforth in a peaceful manner, or

His young HessenCassel Wife died suddenly in 1683; and again there was mad rumor of poisoning; which

Electress Dorothee disregarded as below her, and of no consequence to her, and attended to industrial

operations that would pay. That poor young Wife, when dying, exacted a promise from Prince Friedrich that

he would not wed again, but be content with the Daughter she had left him: which promise, if ever seriously

given, could not be kept, as we have seen. Prince Friedrich brought his Sophie Charlotte home about fifteen

months after. With the Stepmother and with the Court there was armed neutrality under tolerable forms, and

In a secret way, however, there continued to be difficulties. And such difficulties had already been, that the

poor young man, not yet come to his Heritages, and having, with probably some turn for expense, a covetous

unamiable Stepmother, had fallen into the usual difficulties; and taken the methods too usual. Namely, had

given ear to the Austrian Court, which offered him assistance, somewhat as an aged Jew will to a young

Christian gentleman in quarrel with papa,upon condition of his signing a certain bond: bond which much

surprised Prince Friedrich when he came to understand it! Of which we shall hear more, and even much

Neither after his accession (year 1688; his Cousin Dutch William, of the glorious and immortal memory, just

lifting anchor towards these shores) was the new Elector's life an easy one. We may say, it was replete with

troubles rather; and unhappily not so much with great troubles, which could call forth antagonistic greatness

of mind or of result, as with neverending shoals of small troubles, the antagonism to which is apt to become

itself of smallish character. Do not search into his history; you will remember almost nothing of it (I hope)

after never so many readings! Garrulous Pollnitz and others have written enough about him; but it all runs off

from you again, as a thing that has no affinity with the human skin. He had a court "rempli d'intrigues, full of

neverending cabals," [Forster, i. 74 (quoting Memoires du Comte de Dohna); what?

One question only are we a little interested in: How he came by the Kingship? How did the like of him

contrive to achieve Kingship? We may answer: It was not he that achieved it; it was those that went before

him, who had gradually got it,as is very usual in such cases. All that he did was to knock at the gate (the

Kaiser's gate and the world's), and ask, "IS it achieved, then?" Is Brandenburg grown ripe for having a

crown? Will it be needful for you to grant Brandenburg a crown? Which question, after knocking as loud as

Elector Friedrich's turn for ostentationor as we may interpret it, the high spirit of a Hohenzollern working

through weak nerves and a crooked backhad early set him athinking of the Kingship; and no doubt, the

exaltation of rival Saxony, which had attained that envied dignity (in a very unenviable manner, in the person

of Elector August made King of Poland) in 1697, operated as a new spur on his activities. Then also Duke

Ernst of Hanover, his fatherinlaw, was struggling to become Elector Ernst; Hanover to be the Ninth

Electorate, which it actually attained in 1698; not to speak of England, and quite endless prospects there for

Ernst and Hanover. These my lucky neighbors are all rising; all this the Kaiser has granted to my lucky

Elector Friedrich had 30,000 excellent troops; Kaiser Leopold, the "little man in red stockings," had no end of

Wars. Wars in Turkey, wars in Italy; all Dutch William's wars and more, on our side of Europe;and here is

a SpanishSuccession War, coming dubiously on, which may prove greater than all the rest together. Elector

Friedrich sometimes in his own high person (a courageous and high though thinskinned man), otherwise by

wars; and was never wanting in the time of need, in the post of difficulty with those famed Prussian Troops of

his. A loyal gallant Elector this, it must be owned; capable withal of doing signal damage if we irritated him

too far! Why not give him this promotion; since it costs us absolutely nothing real, not even the price of a

yard of ribbon with metal cross at the end of it? Kaiser Leopold himself, it is said, had no particular

objection; but certain of his ministers had; and the little man in red stockingsmuch occupied in hunting, for

one thinglet them have their way, at the risk of angering Elector Friedrich. Even Dutch William, anxious

The negotiation had lasted some seven years, without result. There is no doubt but the Succession War, and

Marlborough, would have brought it to a happy issue: in the mean while, it is said to have succeeded at last,

somewhat on the sudden, by a kind of accident. This is the curious mythical account; incorrect in some

unessential particulars, but in the main and singular part of it wellfounded. Elector Friedrich, according to

Pollnitz and others, after failing in many methods, had sent 100,000 thalers (say 15,000 pounds) to give, by

way ofbribe we must call it,to the chief opposing Hofrath at Vienna. The money was offered,

accordingly; and was refused by the opposing Hofrath: upon which the Brandenburg Ambassador wrote that

it was all labor lost; and even hurried off homewards in despair, leaving a Secretary in his place. The

Brandenburg Court, nothing despairing, orders in the mean while, Try another with it,some other Hofrath,

whose name they wrote in cipher, which the blundering Secretary took to mean no Hofrath, but the Kaiser's

Confessor and Chief Jesuit, Pater Wolf. To him accordingly he hastened with the cash, to him with the

respectful Electoral request; who received both, it is said, especially the 15,000 pounds, with a Gloria in

excelsis; and went forthwith and persuaded the Kaiser. [Pollnitz, Memoiren, i. 310.] Now here is the

inexactitude, say Modern Doctors of History; an error no less than threefold. 1. Elector Friedrich was indeed

advised, in cipher, by his agent at Vienna, to write in person to"Who is that cipher, then?" asks Elector

Friedrich, rather puzzled. At Vienna that cipher was meant for the Kaiser; but at Berlin they take it for Pater

Wolf; and write accordingly, and are answered with readiness and animation. 2. Pater Wolf was not official

Confessor, but was a Jesuit in extreme favor with the Kaiser, and by birth a nobleman, sensible to human

decorations. 3. He accepted no bribe, nor was any sent; his bribe was the pleasure of obliging a high

gentleman who condescended to ask, and possibly the hope of moothing roads for St. Ignatius and the Black

Militia, in time coming. And THUS at last, and not otherwise than thus, say exact Doctors, did Pater Wolf do

the thing. [G. A. H. Stenzel, Geschichte des Preussischen Staats (Hamburg, 1841), iii. 104 (Berliner

Monatschrift, year 1799); Or might not the actual death of poor King Carlos II. at Madrid, 1st November,

1700, for whose heritages all the world stood watching with swords half drawn, considerably assist Pater

Wolf? Done sure enough the thing was; and before November ended, Friedrich's messenger returned with

"Yes" for answer, and a Treaty signed on the 16th of that month. [Pollnitz (i. 318) gives the Treaty (date

corrected by his Editor, ii.589).] To the huge joy of Elector Friedrich and his Court, almost the very nation

thinking itself glad. Which joyful Potentate decided to set out straightway and have the coronation done;

though it was midwinter; and Konigsberg (for Prussia is to be our title, "King in Prussia," and Konigsberg is

Capital City there) lies 450 miles off, through tangled shaggy forests, boggy wildernesses, and in many parts

only corduroy roads. We order "30,000 posthorses," besides all our own large stud, to be got ready at the

various stations: our boy Friedrich Wilhelm, rugged boy of twelve, rough and brisk, yet much "given to

blush" withal (which is a feature of him), shall go with us; much more, Sophie Charlotte our august

ElectressQueen that is to be: and we set out, on the 17th of December, 1700, last year of the Century; "in

1800 carriages:" such a cavalcade as never crossed those wintry wildernesses before. Friedrich Wilhelm went

in the third division of carriages (for 1800 of them could not go quite together); our noble Sophie Charlotte in

the second; a Margraf of BrandenburgSchwedt, chief Margraf, our eldest HalfBrother, Dorothee's eldest

Son, sitting on the coachbox, in correct insignia, as similitude of Driver. So strict are we in etiquette;

etiquette indeed being now upon its apotheosis, and after such efforts. Six or seven years of efforts on Elector

Friedrich's part; and six or seven hundred years, unconsciously, on that of his ancestors.

The magnificence of Friedrich's processionings into Konigsberg, and through it or in it, to be crowned, and of

his coronation ceremonials there: what pen can describe it, what pen need! Folio volumes with copperplates

have been written on it; and are not yet all pasted in bandboxes, or slit into spills. [British Museum, short of

very many necessary Books on this subject, offers the due Coronation Folio, with its prints, upholstery

catalogues, and official harangues upon nothing, to ingenuous human curiosity.] "The diamond buttons of his

Majesty's coat [snuffcolored or purple, I cannot recollect] cost 1,500 pounds apiece;" by this one feature

judge what an expensive Herr. Streets were hung with cloth, carpeted with cloth, no end of draperies and

cloth; your oppressed imagination feels as if there was cloth enough, of scarlet and other bright colors, to

thatch the Arctic Zone. With illuminations, cannonsalvos, fountains running wine. Friedrich had made two

Bishops for the nonce. Two of his natural ChurchSuperintendents made into QuasiBishops, on the

Anglican model,which was always a favorite with him, and a pious wish of his;but they remained mere

cut branches, these two, and did not, after their haranguing and anointing functions, take root in the country.

He himself put the crown on his head: "King here in my own right, after all!"and looked his royalest, we

may fancy; the kind eyes of him almost partly fierce for moments, and "the cheerfulness of pride" well

In all which sublimities, the one thing that remains for human memory is not in these Folios at all, but is

considered to be a fact not the less: Electress Charlotte's, now Queen Charlotte's, very strange conduct on the

occasion. For she cared not much about crowns, or upholstery magnificences of any kind; but had meditated

from of old on the infinitely little; and under these genuflections, risings, sittings, shiftings, grimacings on all

parts, and the endless droning eloquence of Bishops invoking Heaven, her ennui, not illhumored or

offensively ostensible, was heartfelt and transcendent. At one turn of the proceedings, Bishop This and

Chancellor That droning their empty grandiloquences at discretion, Sophie Charlotte was distinctly seen to

smuggle out her snuffbox, being addicted to that rakish practice, and fairly solace herself with a delicate

little pinch of snuff. Rasped tobacco, tabac rape, called by mortals rape or rappee: there is no doubt about it;

and the new King himself noticed her, and hurled back a look of due fulminancy, which could not help the

matter, and was only lost in air. A memorable little action, and almost symbolic in the first Prussian

Coronation. "Yes, we are Kings, and are got SO near the stars, not nearer; and you invoke the gods, in that

tremendously longwinded manner; and IHeavens, I have my snuff box by me, at least!" Thou wearied

patient Heroine; cognizant of the infinitely little!This symbolic pinch of snuff is fragrant all along in

Prussian History. A fragrancy of humble verity in the middle of all royal or other ostentations; inexorable,

quiet protest against cant, done with such simplicity: Sophie Charlotte's symbolic pinch of snuff. She was

Thus Brandenburg Electorate has become Kingdom of Prussia; and the Hohenzollerns have put a crown upon

their head. Of Brandenburg, what it was, and what Prussia was; and of the Hohenzollerns and what they

were, and how they rose thither, a few details, to such as are dark about these matters, cannot well be

The Brandenburg Countries, till they become related to the Hohenzollern Family which now rules there, have

no History that has proved memorable to mankind. There has indeed been a good deal written under that title;

but there is by no means much known, and of that again there is alarmingly little that is worth knowing or

Pytheas, the Marseilles Travelling Commissioner, looking out for new channels of trade, somewhat above

2,000 years ago, saw the country actually lying there; sailed past it, occasionally landing; and made report to

such Marseillese "(Chamber of Commerce" as there then was:report now lost, all to a few indistinct and

insignificant fractions. [ Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, t. xix. 46, xxxvii. 439, This was "about the

year 327 before Christ," while Alexander of Macedon was busy conquering India. Beyond question, Pytheas,

the first WRITING or civilized creature that ever saw Germany, gazed with his Greek eyes, and occasionally

landed, striving to speak and inquire, upon those old Baltic Coasts, north border of the now Prussian

Kingdom; and reported of it to mankind we know not what. Which brings home to us the fact that it existed,

but almost nothing more: A Country of lakes and woods, of marshy jungles, sandy wildernesses; inhabited by

bears, otters, bisons, wolves, wild swine, and certain shaggy Germans of the Suevic type, as good as

inarticulate to Pytheas. After which all direct notice of it ceases for above three hundred years. We can hope

only that the jungles were getting cleared a little, and the wild creatures hunted down; that the Germans were

increasing in number, and becoming a thought less shaggy. These latter, tall Suevi Semnones, men of blond

stern aspect (oculi truces coerulei) and great strength of bone, were known to possess a formidable talent for

fighting: [Tacitus, De Moribus Germanorum, c. 45.] Drusus Germanicus, it has been guessed, did not like to

appear personally among them: some "gigantic woman prophesying to him across the Elbe" that it might be

dangerous, Drusus contented himself with erecting some triumphal pillar on his own safe side of the Elbe, to

In the Fourth Century of our era, when the German populations, on impulse of certain "Huns expelled from

the Chinese frontier," or for other reasons valid to themselves, began flowing universally southward, to take

possession of the rich Roman world, and so continued flowing for two centuries more; the old German

frontiers generally, and especially those Northern Baltic countries, were left comparatively vacant; so that

new immigrating populations from the East, all of Sclavic origin, easily obtained footing and supremacy

there. In the Northern parts, these immigrating Sclaves were of the kind called Vandals, or Wends: they

spread themselves as far west as Hamburg and the Ocean, south also far over the Elbe in some quarters; while

other kinds of Sclaves were equally busy elsewhere. With what difficulty in settling the new boundaries, and

what inexhaustible funds of quarrel thereon, is still visible to every one, though no Historian was there to say

the least word of it. "All of Sclavic origin;" but who knows of how many kinds: Wends here in the North,

through the Lausitz (Lusatia) and as far as Thuringen; not to speak of Polacks, Bohemian Czechs, Huns,

Bulgars, and the other dim nomenclatures, on the Eastern frontier. Five hundred years of violent unrecorded

fighting, abstruse quarrel with their new neighbors in settling the marches. Many names of towns in Germany

ending in ITZ (Meuselwitz, Mollwitz), or bearing the express epithet Windisch (Wendish), still give

indication of those old sad circumstances; as does the word SLAVE, in all our Western languages, meaning

captured SCLAVONIAN. What longdrawn echo of bitter rage and hate lies in that small etymology!

These things were; but they have no History: why should they have any? Enough that in those Baltic regions,

there are for the time (Year 600, and till long after Charlemagne is out) Sclaves in place of Suevi or of

Holstein Saxons and Angli; that it is now shaggy Wends who have the task of taming the jungles, and

keeping down the otters and wolves. Wends latterly in a waning condition, much beaten upon by

Charlemagne and others; but never yet beaten out. And so it has to last, century after century; Wends, wolves,

wild swine, all alike dumb to us. Dumb, or sounding only one huge unutterable message (seemingly of tragic

import), like the voice of their old Forests, of their old Baltic Seas: perhaps more edifying to us SO. Here

"A.D. 928, Henry the Fowler, marching across the frozen bogs, took BRANNIBOR, a chief fortress of the

Wends;" [Kohler, ReichsHistorie (Frankfurth und Leipzig, 1737), p. 63. Michaelis, Churund Furstlichen

Hauser in Deutschland (Lemgo, 1759, 1760, 1785), i. 255.] first mention in human speech of the place

now called Brandenburg: Bor or "Burg of the Brenns" (if there ever was any TRIBE of

Brenns,BRENNUS, there as elsewhere, being name for KING or Leader); "Burg of the Woods," say

others,who as little know. Probably, at that time, a town of clay huts, with dithand palisaded sodwall

round it; certainly "a chief fortress of the Wends,"who must have been a good deal surprised at sight of

This is the grand old Henry, called, "the Fowler" (Heinrich der Vogler), because he was in his Vogelheerde

(Falconry or Hawkestablishment, seeing his Hawks fly) in the upland Hartz Country, when messengers

came to tell him that the German Nation, through its Princes and Authorities assembled at Fritzlar, had made

him King; and that he would have dreadful work henceforth. Which he undertook; and also did,this of

Brannibor only one small item of it,warring right manfully all his days against Chaos in that country, no

rest for him thenceforth till he died. The beginning of German Kings; the first, or essentially the first

sovereign of united Germany, Charlemagne's posterity to the last bastard having died out, and only

"A very high King," says one whose Notebooks I have got, "an authentically noble human figure, visible

still in clear outline in the gray dawn of Modern History. The Father of whatever good has since been in

Germany. He subdued his DUKES, Schwaben, Baiern (Swabia, Bavaria) and others, who were getting too

HEREDITARY, and inclined to disobedience. He managed to get back Lorraine; made TRUCE with the

Hungarians, who were excessively invasive at that time. Truce with the Hungarians; and then, having

gathered strength, made dreadful beating of them; two beatings, one to each half, for the invasive Savagery

had split itself, for better chance of plunder; first beating was at Sondershausen, second was at Merseburg,

Year 933;which settled them considerably. Another beating from Henry's son, and they never came back.

Beat Wends, before this,'Brannibor through frozen bogs' five years ago. Beat, Sclavic Meisseners

(Misnians); Bohehemian Czechs, and took Prag; Wends again, with huge slaughter; then Danes, and made

'King Worm tributary' (King Gorm the Hard, our KNUT'S or Canute's great grandfather, Year 931);last

of all, those invasive Hungarians as above. Had sent the Hungarians, when they demanded tribute or

BLACKMAIL of him as heretofore, Truce being now out,a mangy hound: There is your blackmail,

"He had 'the image of St. Michael painted on his standard;' contrary to wont. He makes, or REmakes,

Markgrafs (Wardens of the Marches), to be under his Dukes,and not too HEREDITARY. Who his

Markgraves were? Dim History counts them to the number of six; [Kohler, ReichHistorie, p. 66. This is by

no means Kohler's chief Book; but this too is good, and does, in a solid effective way, what it attempts. He

seems to me by far the best Historical Genius the Germans have yet, produced, though I do not find much

mention of him in their Literary Histories and Catalogues. A man of ample learning, and also of strong

cheerful human sense and human honesty; whom it is thricepleasant, to meet with in those ghastly solitudes,

populous chiefly with doleful creatures.] which take in their order: "1. SLESWIG, looking over into the

Scandinavian countries, and the Norse Seakings. This Markgraviate did not last long under that title. I

guess, it, became StadeandDitmarsch afterwards. "2. SOLTWEDEL,which grows to be Markgraviate

of BRANDENBURG by and by. Soltwedel, now called Salzwedel, an old Town still extant, sixty miles to

west and north of Brandenburg, short way south of the Elbe, was as yet headquarters of this second Markgraf;

and any Warden we have at Brandenburg is only a deputy of him or some other. "3. MEISSEN (which we

call Misnia), a country at that time still full of Wends. "4. LAUSITZ, also a very Wendish country (called in

English maps LUSATIA,which is its name in MonkLatin, not now a spoken language). Did not long

continue a Markgraviate; fell to Meissen (Saxony), fell to Brandenburg, Bohemia, Austria, and had many tos

and fros. Is now (since the ThirtyYearsWar time) mostly Saxon again. "5. AUSTRIA (OEsterreich,

EasternKingdom, EASTERNREY as we might say); to look after the Hungarians, and their valuable claims

to blackmail. "6. ANTWERP ('AttheWharf,' 'Ont'Wharf,' so to speak), against the French; which

"These were Henry's six Markgraviates (as my best authority enumerates them); and in this way he had

militia captains ranked all round his borders, against the intrusive Sclavic element. @@@@ "He fortified

Towns; all Towns are to be walled and warded,to be BURGS in fact; and the inhabitants BURGhers, or

men capable of defending Burgs. Everywhere the ninth man is to serve as soldier in his Town; other eight in

the country are to feed and support him: Heergeruthe (Wartackle, what is called HERIOT in our old Books)

descends to the eldest son of a fighting man who had served, as with us. 'All robbers are made soldiers'

(unless they prefer hanging); and WEAPONSHOWS and drill are kept up. This is a man who will make

some impression upon Anarchy, and its Wends and Huns. His standard was St. Michael, as we have

seen,WHOSE sword is derived from a very high quarter! A pious man;founded Quedlinburg Abbey,

and much else in that kind, having a pious Wife withal, Mechtildis, who took the main hand in that of

Quedlinburg; whose LIFE is in Leibnitz, [Leibnitz, Scriptores Rerum Brunswicensium, (Hanover, 1707), i.

196.] not the legiblest of Books.On the whole, a right gallant King and 'Fowler.' Died, A.D. 936 (at

Memmleben, a Monastery on the Unstrut, not far from Schulpforte), age sixty; had reigned only seventeen

years, and done so much. Lies buried in Quedlinburg Abbey:any Tomb? I know no LIFE of him but

GUNDLING'S, which is an extremely inextricable Piece, and requires mainly to be forgotten.Hail, brave

Henry: across the Nine dim Centuries, we salute thee, still visible as a valiant Son of Cosmos and Son of

Heaven, beneficently sent us; as a man who did in grim earnest 'serve God' in his day, and whose works

So far my rough Notebooks; which require again to be shut for the present, not to abuse the reader's

This of Markgrafs (GRAFS of the Marches, MARKED Places, or Boundaries) was a natural invention in that

state of circumstances. It did not quite originate with Henry; but was much perfected by him, he first

recognizing how essential it was. On all frontiers he had his GRAF (Count, REEVE, G'REEVE, whom some

think to be only GRAU, Gray, or SENIOR, the hardiest, wisest steelGRAY man he could discover)

stationed on the MARCK, strenuously doing watch and ward there: the post of difficulty, of peril, and

naturally of honor too, nothing of a sinecure by any means. Which post, like every other, always had a

tendency to become hereditary, if the kindred did not fail in fit men. And hence have come the innumerable

Markgraves, Marquises, and such like, of modern times: titles now become chimerical, and more or less

mendacious, as most of our titles are,like so many BURGS changed into "Boroughs," and even into

"Rotten Boroughs," with Defensive BURGhers of the known sort: very mournful to discover. Once Norroy

was not all pasteboard! At the heart of that huge whirlwind of his, with its dusty heraldries, and phantasmal

nomenclatures now become mendacious, there lay, at first, always an earnest human fact. Henry the Fowler

was so happy as to have the fact without any mixture of mendacity: we are in the sad reverse case; reverse

case not yet altogether COMPLETE, but daily becoming so,one of the saddest and strangest ever heard of,

Markgraviates there continued to be ever after,Six in Henry's time:but as to the number, place,

arrangement of them, all this varied according to circumstances outward and inward, chiefly according to the

regress or the reintrusion of the circumambient hostile populations; and underwent many changes. The

seawall you build, and what main floodgates you establish in it, will depend on the state of the outer sea.

Markgraf of SLESWIG grows into Markgraf of DITMARSCH and STADE; retiring over the Elbe, if Norse

Piracy get very triumphant. ANTWERP falls obsolete; so does MEISSEN by and by. LAUSITZ and

SALZWEDEL, in the third century hence, shrink both into BRANDENBURG; which was long only a

subaltern station, managed by deputy from one or other of these. A Markgraf that prospered in repelling of

his Wends and Huns had evidently room to spread himself, and could become veiy great, and produce change

in boundaries: observe what OESTERREICH (Austria) grew to, and what BRANDENBURG; MEISSEN too,

In old Books are Lists of the primitive Markgraves of Brandenburg, from Henry's time downward; two sets,

"Markgraves of the Witekind race," and of another: [Hubner, Genealogische Tabellen (Leipzig, 17251728),

i. 172, 173. A Book of rare excellence in its kind.] but they are altogether uncertain, a shadowy intermittent

set of Markgraves, both the Witekind set and the NonWitekind; and truly, for a couple of centuries, seem

none of them to have been other than subaltern Deputies, belonging mostly to LAUSITZ or SALZWEDEL;

of whom therefore we can say nothing here, but must leave the first two hundred years in their natural gray

But thus, at any rate, was Brandenburg (BOT or Burg of the BRENNS, whatever these are) first discovered to

Christendom, and added to the firm land of articulate History: a feat worth putting on record. Done by Henry

the Fowler, in the Year of Grace 928,while (among other things noticeable in this world) our Knut's great

grandfather, GORMO DURUS, "Henry's Tributary," was still King of Denmark; when Harald BLUETOOTH

(Blaatand) was still a young fellow, with his teeth of the natural color; and Swen with the Forked Beard

(TVAESKAEG, Doublebeard, "TWASHAG") was not born; and the Monks of Ely had not yet (by about a

hundred years) begun that singing, [Without note or comment, in the old, BOOK OF ELY date before the

Conquest) is preserved this stave;giving picture, if we consider it, of the Fen Country all a lake (as it was

for half the year, till drained, six centuries after), with Ely Monastery rising like an island in the distance; and

the music of its nones or vespers sounding soft and far over the solitude, eight hundred years ago and more.

Merie sungen the Muneches binnen Ely Tha Cnut ching rew therby: Roweth enites near the lant, And here we

Merry (genially) sang the Monks in Ely As Knut King rowed (rew) thereby: Row, fellows (knights), near the

land, And hear we these Monks's song. See Bentham's History of Ely (Cambridge, 1771), p, 94.] nor the tide

that refusal to retire, on behalf of this Knut, in our English part of his dominions.

That Henry appointed due Wardenship in Brannibor was in the common course. Sure enough, some Markgraf

must take charge of Brannibor, he of the Lausitz eastward, for example, or he of Salzwedel

westward:that Brannibor, in time, will itself be found the fit place, and have its own Markgraf of

Brandenburg; this, and what in the next nine centuries Brandenburg will grow to, Henry is far from

surmising. Brandenburg is fairly captured across the frozen bogs, and has got a warden and ninthman

garrison settled in it: Brandenburg, like other things, will grow to what it can.

Henry's son and successor, if not himself, is reckoned to have founded the Cathedral and Bishopric of

Brandenburg,his Clergy and he always longing much for the conversion of these Wends and Huns; which

indeed was, as the like still is, the one thing needful to rugged heathens of that kind.

Five hundred miles, and more, to the east of Brandenburg, lies a Country then as now called PREUSSEN

(Prussia Proper), inhabited by Heathens, where also endeavors at conversion aregoing on, though without

It is a moory flat country, full of lakes and woods, like Brandenburg; spreading out into grassy expanses, and

bosky wildernesses humming with bees; plenty of bog in it, but plenty also of alluvial mud; sand too, but by

no means so high a ratio of it as in Brandenburg; tracts of Preussen are luxuriantly grassy, frugiferous, apt for

the plough; and the soil generally is reckoned fertile, though lying so far northward. Part of the great plain or

flat which stretches, sloping insensibly, continuously, in vast expanse, from the Silesian Mountains to the

amberregions of the Baltic; Preussen is the seaward, more alluvial part of this,extending west and east, on

both sides of the Weichsel (VISTULA), from the regions of the Oder river to the main stream of the Memel.

BORDERINGONRUSSIA its name signifies: BORRUSSIA, B'russia, Prussia; or some say it was

only on a certain inconsiderable river in those parts, river REUSSEN, that it "bordered" and not on the great

Country, or any part of it, which now in our days is conspicuously its next neighbor. Who knows?

In Henry the Fowler's time, and long afterwards, Preussen was a vehemently Heathen country; the natives a

Miscellany of rough Serbic Wends, Letts, Swedish Goths, or Dryasdust knows not what; very probably a

sprinkling of Swedish Goths, from old time, chiefly along the coasts. Dryasdust khows only that these

PREUSSEN were a strongboned, iracund herdsmanandfisher people; highly averse to be interfered with,

in their religion especially. Famous otherwise, through all the centuries, for the AMBER they had been used

Amber, science declares, is a kind of petrified resin, distilled by pines that were dead before the days of

Adam; which is now thrown up, in stormy weather, on that remote coast, and is there fished out by the

amphibious people,who can likewise get it by running mineshafts into the sandhills on their coast;by

whom it is sold into the uttermost parts of the Earth, Arabia and beyond, from a very early period of time. No

doubt Pytheas had his eye upon this valuable product, when he ventured into survey of those

regions,which are still the great mother of amber in our world. By their amberfishery, with the aid of

dairyproduce and plenty of beef and leather, these Heathen Preussen, of uncertain miscellaneous breed,

contrived to support existence in a substantial manner; they figure to us as an inarticulate, heavy footed,

rather iracund people. Their knowledge of Christianity was trifling, their aversion to knowing anything of it

As Poland, and the neighbors to the south, were already Christian, and even the Bohemian Czechs were

mostly Converted, pious wishes as to Preussen, we may fancy, were a constant feeling: but no effort hitherto,

if efforts were made, had come to anything. Let some daring missionary go to preach in that country, his

reception is of the worst, or perhaps he is met ou the frontier with menaces, and forbidden to preach at all;

except sorrow and lost labor, nothing has yet proved attainable. It was very dangerous to go;and with what

likelihood of speeding? Efforts, we may suppose, are rare; but the pious wish being continual and universal,

efforts can never altogether cease. From Henry the Fowler's capture of Brannibor, count seventy years, we

find Henry's greatgrandson reigning as Elective Kaiser,Otto III., last of the direct "Saxon Kaisers," Otto

Wonder of the World;and alongside of Otto's great transactions, which were onoe called MIRABILIA

MUNDI and are now fallen so extinct, there is the following small transaction, a new attempt to preach in

About the year 997 or 996, Adalbert, Bishop of Prag, a very zealous, most devout man, but evidently of hot

temper, and liable to get into quarrels, had determined, after many painful experiences of the perverse

ungovernable nature of corrupt mankind, to give up his nominally Christian flock altogether; to shake the

dust off his feet against Prag, and devote himself to converting those Prussian Heathen, who, across the

frontiers, were living in such savagery, and express bondage to the Devil, worshipping mere stocks and

stones. In this enterprise he was encouraged by the Christian potentates who lay contiguous; especially by the

Adalbert went, accordingly, with staff and scrip, two monks attending him, into that dangerous country: not

in fear, he; a devout hightempered man, verging now on fifty, his hair getting gray, and face marred with

innumerable troubles and provocations of past time. He preached zealously, almost fiercely,though chiefly

with his eyes and gestures, I should think, having no command of the language. At Dantzig, among the

SwedishGoth kind of Heathen, he had some success, or affluence of attendance; not elsewhere that we hear

of. In the Pillau region, for example, where he next landed, an amphibious Heathen lout hit him heavily

across the shoulders with the flat of his oar; sent the poor Preacher to the ground, face foremost, and suddenly

ended his salutary discourse for that time. However, he pressed forward, regardless of results, preaching the

Evangel to all creatures who were willing or unwilling;and pressed at last into the Sacred Circuit, the

ROMOVA, or Place of Oaktrees, and of Wooden or Stone Idols (Bangputtis, Patkullos, and I know not

what diabolic dumb Blocks), which it was death to enter. The Heathen Priests, as we may conceive it, rushed

out; beckoned him, with loud unintelligible bullyings and fierce gestures, to begone; hustled, shook him,

shoved him, as he did not go; then took to confused striking, struck finally a deathstroke on the head of poor

Adalbert: so that "he stretched out both his arms ('Jesus, receive me thou!') and fell with his face to the

ground, and lay dead there,in the form of a crucifix," say his Biographers: only the attendant monks

Attendant monks, or Adalbert, had known nothing of their being on forbidden ground. Their accounts of the

phenomenon accordingly leave it only half explained: How he was surprised by armed Heathen

Devil'sservants in his sleep; was violently set upon, and his "beautiful bowels ( pulchra viscera ) were run

through with seven spears:" but this of the ROMOVA, or Sacred Bangputtis Church of Oaktrees, perhaps

chief ROMOVA of the Country, rashly intruded into, with consequent strokes, and fall in the form of a

crucifix, appears now to be the intelligible account. [Baillet, Vies des Saints (Paris, 1739), iii. 722. Bollandus,

Acta Sanetorum, Aprilis tom. iii (DIE 23; in Edition venetiis, 1738), pp. 174205. Voigt, Geschichte

Preussens (Konigsberg, 18271839), i. 266270.] We will take it for the real manner of Adalbert's exit;no

doubt of the essential transaction, or that it was a very flaming one on both sides. The date given is 23d April,

He was a Czech by birth, son of a Heathen Bohemian man of rank: his name (Adalbert, A'lbert,

BRIGHTinNobleness) he got "at Magdeburg, whither he had gone to study" and seek baptism; where, as

generally elsewhere, his fervent devout ways were admirable to his fellowcreatures. A "man of genius," we

may well say: one of Heaven's bright souls, born into the muddy darkness of this world;laid hold of by a

transcendent Message, in the due transcendent degree. He entered Prag, as Bishop, not in a carriage and six,

but "walking barefoot;" his contempt for earthly shadows being always extreme. Accordingly, his quarrels

with the SOECULUM were constant and endless; his wanderings up and down, and vehement arguings, in

this world, to little visible effect, lasted all his days. We can perceive he was shorttempered, thin of skin: a

violently sensitive man. For example, once in the Bohemian solitudes, on a summer afternoon, in one of his

thousandfold pilgrimings and wayfarings, he had lain down to rest, his one or two monks and he, in some

still glade, "with a stone for his pillow" (as was always his custom even in Prag), and had fallen sound asleep.

A Bohemian shepherd chanced to pass that way, warbling something on his pipe, as he wended towards

looking after his flock. Seeing the sleepers on their stone pillows, the thoughtless Czech mischievously blew

louder,started Adalbert broad awake upon him; who, in the fury of the first moment, shrieked: "Deafness

on thee! Man cruel to the human sense of hearing!" or words to that effect. Which curse, like the most of

Adalbert's, was punctually fulfilled: the amazed Czech stood deaf as a post, and went about so all his days

after; nay, for long centuries (perhaps down to the present time, in remote parts), no Czech blows into his

pipe in the woodlands, without certain precautions, and preliminary fuglings of a devotional nature.

[Bollandus, ubi supra.]From which miracle, as indeed from many other indications, I infer an irritable

nervoussystem in poor Adalbert; and find this death in the Romova was probably a furious mixture of Earth

At all events, he lies there, beautiful though bloody, "in the form of a crucifix;" zealous Adalbert, the hot

spirit of him now at last cold;and has clapt his mark upon the Heathen country, protesting to the last. This

was in the year 997, think the best @@@@@ Antiquaries. It happened at a place called FISCHHAUSEN,

near Pillau, say they; on that, narrow strip of country which lies between the Baltic aad the Frische Haf

(immense Lake, WASH, as we should say, or leakage of shallow water, one of two such, which the Baltic has

spilt out of it in that quarter),near the Fort and Haven of Pillau; where there has been much stir since;

where Napoleon, for one thing, had some tough fighting, prior to the Treaty of Tilsit, fifty years ago. The

placeor if not this place, then Gnesen in Poland, the final burialplace of Adalbert, which is better

knownhas ever since had a kind of sacredness; better or worse expressed by mankind: in the form of

canonization, endless pilgrimages, rumored miracles, and such like. For shortly afterwards, the neighboring

Potentate, Boleslaus Duke of Poland, heartstruck at the event, drew sword on these Heathens, and having (if

I remember) gained some victory, bargained to have the Body of Adalbert delivered to him at its weight in

gold. Body, all cut in pieces, and nailed to poles, had long ignominiously withered in the wind; perhaps it was

now only buried overnight for the nonce? Being dug up, or being cut down, and put into the balance, it

weighedless than was expected. It was as light as gossamer, said pious rumor, Had such an excellent odor

too;and came for a mere nothing of gold! This was Adalbert's first miracle after death; in life he had done

many hundreds of them, and has done millions since,chiefly upon paralytic nervoussystems, and the

element of pious rumor;which any Devil'sAdvocate then extant may explain if he can! Kaiser Otto,

Wonder of the World, who had known St. Adalbert in life, and much honored him, "made a pilgrimage to his

tomb at Gnesen in the year 1000;"and knelt there, we may believe, with thoughts wondrous enough, great

There is no hope of converting Preussen, then? It will never leave off its dire worship of Satan, then? Say not,

Never; that is a weak word. St. Adalbert has stamped his life upon it, in the form of a crucifix, in lasting

Meanwhile our first enigmatic set of Markgraves, or Deputy Markgraves, at Brandenburg, are likewise

faring ill. Whoever these valiant steelgray gentlemen might be (which Dryasdust does not the least know,

and only makes you more uncertain the more he pretends to tell), one thing is very evident, they had no

peaceable possession of the place, nor for above a hundred years, a constant one on any terms. The Wends

were highly disinclined to conversion and obedience: once and again, and still again, they burst up; got

temporary hold of Brandenburg, hoping to keep it; and did frightful heterodoxies there. So that to our

distressed imagination those poor "Markgraves of Witekind descent," our first set in Brandenburg, become

altogether shadowy, intermittent, enigmatic, painfully actual as they once were. Take one instance, omitting

others; which happily proves to be the finish of that first shadowy line, and introduces us to a new set very

In the year 1023, near a century after Henry the Fowler's feat, the Wends bursting up in neverimagined fury,

get hold of Brandenburg again,for the third and, one would fain hope, the last time. The reason was, words

spoken by the then Markgraf of Brandenburg, Dietrich or Theodoric, last of the Witekind Markgraves; who

hearing that a Cousin of his (Markgraf or Deputy Markgraf like himself) was about wedding his daughter to

"Mistevoi King of the Wends," said too earnestly: "Don't! Will you give your daughter to a dog?" Word

"dog" was used, says my authority. [See Michaelis Chur und Furstlichen Hauser, i. 257259: Pauli,

Allgemeine Preussische Staats Geschichte (Halle, 17601769), i. l182 (the "standard work" on Prussian

History; in eight watery quartos, intolerable to human nature): Kloss, Vuterlandische Gemalde (Berlin, 1833),

i. 59108 (a Bookseller's compilation, with some curious Excerpts):under which lie modern Sagittarius,

ancient Adam of Bremen, Ditmarus Merseburgensis, Witichindus Corbeiensis, Arnoldus Lubecensis, to all

lengths and breadths.] Which threw King Mistevoi into a paroxysm, and raised the Wends. Their butchery of

the German population in poor Brandenburg, especially of the Priests; their burning of the Cathedral, and of

Church and State generally, may be conceived. The HARLUNGSBERG,in our time MARIENBERG,

pleasant Hill near Brandenburg, with its gardens, vines, and whitened cottages:on the top of this

Harlungsherg the Wends "set up their god Triglaph;" a threeheaded Monster of which I have seen prints,

beyond measure ugly. Something like three whale'scubs combined by boiling, or a triple porpoise dead

drunk (for the dull eyes are inexpressible, as well as the amorphous shape): ugliest and stupidest of all false

gods. This these victorious Wends set up on the Harlungsberg, Year 1023; and worshipped after their sort,

benighted mortals,with joy, for a time. The Cathedral was in ashes, Priests all slain or fled, shadowy

Markgraves the like; Church and State lay in ashes; and Triglaph, like a Triple Porpoise under the influence

of laudanum, stood (I know not whether on his head or on his tail) aloft on the Harlungsberg, as the Supreme

Whereupon the DITMARSCHSTADE Markgrafs (as some designate them) had to interfere, these shadowy

Deputies of the Witekind breed having vanished in that manner. The Ditmarschers recovered the place; and

with some fighting, did in the main at least keep Triglaph and the Wends out of it in time coming. The Wends

were fiercely troublesome, and fought much; but I think they never actually got hold of Brandenburg again.

They were beginning to get notions of conversion: well preached to and well beaten upon, you cannot hold

out forever. Even Mistevoi at one time professed tendencies to Christianity; perhaps partly for his Bride's

sake, the dog, we may call him, in a milder sense! But he relapsed dreadfully, after that insult; and his son

worse. On the other hand, Mistevoi's grandson was so zealous he went about with the Missionary Preachers,

and interpreted their German into Wendish: "Oh, my poor Wends, will you hear, then, will you understand?

This solid Earth is but a shadow: Heaven forever or else Hell forever, that is the reality!" SUCH "difference

between right and wrong" no Wend had heard of before: quite tremendously "important if true!"And

doubtless it impressed many. There are heavy Ditmarsch strokes for the unimpressible. By degrees all got

converted, though many were killed first; and, one way or other, the Wends are preparing to efface

This STADEANDDITMARSCH family (of Anglish or Saxon breed, if that is an advantage) seem

generally to have furnished the SALZWEDEL Office as well, of which Brandenburg was an offshoot, done

by deputy, usually also of their kin. They lasted in Brandenburg rather more than a hundred years;with

little or no BookHistory that is good to read; their History inarticulate rather, and stamped beneficently on

the face of things. Otto is a common name among them. One of their sisters, too, Adelheid (Adelaide,

NOBLENESS) had a strange adventure with "Ludwig the Springer:" romantic mythic man, famous in the

In Salzwedel, in Ditmarsch, or wherever stationed, they had a toilsome fighting life: sore difficulties with

their DITMARSCHERS too, with the plundering Danish populations; Markgraf after Markgraf getting killed

in the business. "ERSCHLAGEN, slain fighting with the Heathen," say the old Books, and pass on to

another. Of all which there is now silence forever. So many years men fought and planned and struggled

there, all forgotten now except by the gods; and silently gave away their life, before those countries could

become fencible and habitable! Nay, my friend, it is our lot too: and if we would win honor in this Universe,

the rumor of Histories and Morning Newspapers,which have to become wholly zero, one day, and fall

dumb as stones, and which were not perhaps very wise even while speaking,will help us little!

The DitmarschStade kindred, much slain in battle with the Heathen, and otherwise beaten upon, died out,

about the year 1l30 (earlier perhaps, perhaps later, for all is shadowy still); and were succeeded in the

Salzwedel part of their function by a kindred called "of Ascanien and Ballenstadt;" the ASCANIER or

ANALT Markgraves; whose History, and that of Brandenburg, becomes henceforth articulate to us; a History

not doubtful or shadowy any longer; but ascertainable, if reckoned worth ascertaining. Who succeeded in

Ditmarsch, let us by no means inquire. The Empire itself was in some disorder at this time, more abstruse of

aspect than usual; and these Northern Markgrafs, already become important people, and deep in general

It was about this same time that a second line of Kaisers had died out: the FRANKISH or SALIC line, who

had succeeded to the SAXON, of Henry the Fowler's blood. For the Empire too, though elective, had always

a tendency to become hereditary, and go in lines: if the last Kaiser left a son not unfit, who so likely as the

son? But he needed to be fit, otherwise it would not answer,otherwise it might be worse for him! There

were great labors in the Empire too, as well as on the Sclavic frontier of it: brave men fighting against

anarchy (actually set in pitched fight against it, and not always strong enough),toiling sore, according to

their faculty, to pull the innumerable crooked things straight. Some agreed well with the Pope,as Henry II.,

who founded Bamberg Bishopric, and much else of the like; [Kohler, pp. 102104. See, for instance,

Description de la Table d'Aute1 en or fin, donnee a la Cathedrale de Bale, par l'Empereur Henri II. en 1019

(Porentruy, 1838).] "a sore saint for the crown," as was said of David I., his Scotch congener, by a

descendant. Others disagreed very much indeed;Henry IV.'s scene at Canossa, with Pope Hildebrand and

the pious Countess (year 1077, Kaiser of the Holy Roman Empire waiting, three days, in the snow, to kiss the

foot of excommunicative Hildebrand), has impressed itself on all memories! Poor Henry rallied out of that

abasement, and dealt a stroke or two on Hildebrand; but fell still lower before long, his very Son going

against him; and came almost to actual want of bread, had not the Bishop of Liege been good to him. Nay,

after death, he lay four years waiting vainly even for burial,but indeed cared little about that.

Certainly this Son of his, Kaiser Henry V., does not shine in filial piety: but probably the poor lad himself

was hard bested. He also came to die, A.D. 1125, still little over forty, and was the last of the Frankish

Kaisers. He "left the REICHSINSIGNIEN [Crown, Sceptre and Coronation gear] to his Widow and young

Friedrich of Hohenstauffen," a sister's son of his,hoping the said Friedrich might, partly by that help,

follow as Kaiser. Which Friedrich could not do; being wheedled, both the Widow and he, out of their

insignia, under false pretences, and otherwise left in the lurch. Not Friedrich, but one Lothar, a stirring man

who had grown potent in the Saxon countries, was elected Kaiser. In the end, after waiting till Lothar was

done, Friedrich's race did succeed, and with brilliancy,Kaiser Barbarossa being that same Friedrich's son.

In regard to which dim complicacies, take this Excerpt from the imbroglio of Manuscripts, before they go

"By no means to be forgotten that the Widow we here speak of, Kaiser Henry V.'s Widow, who brought no

heir to Henry V., was our English Henry Beauclerc's daughter,granddaughter therefore of William

Conqueror,the same who, having (in 1127, the second year of her widowhood) married Godefroi Count of

Anjou, produced our Henry II. and our Plantagenets; and thereby, through her victorious Controversies with

King Stephen (that noble peer whose breeches stood him so cheap), became very celebrated as 'the Empress

Maud,' in our old HistoryBooks. Mathildis, Dowager of Kaiser Henry V., to whom he gave his

ReichsInsignia at dying: she is the 'Empress Maud' of English Books; and relates herself in this manner to

the Hohenstauffen Dynasty, and intricate German vicissitudes. Be thankful for any hook whatever on which

to hang half an acre of thrums in fixed position, out of your way; the smallest flintspark, in a world all black

And so we return to Brandenburg and the "ASCANIEN and BALLENSTADT" series of Markgraves.

This Ascanien, happily, has nothing to do with Brute of Troy or the pious AEneas's son; it is simply the name

of a most ancient Castle (etymology unknown to me, ruins still dimly traceable) on the north slope of the

Hartz Mountains; short way from Aschersleben,the Castle and Town of Aschersleben are, so to speak, a

second edition of Ascanien. Ballenstadt is still older; Ballenstadt was of age in Charlemagne's time; and is

still a respectable little Town in that upland range of country. The kindred, called GRAFS and ultimately

HERZOGS (Dukes) of "Ascanien and Ballenstadt," are very famous in old German History, especially down

from this date. Some reckon that they had intermittently been Markgrafs, in their region, long before this;

which is conceivable enough: at all events it is very plain they did now attain the Office in SALZWEDEL

(straightway shifting it to Brandenburg); and held it continuously, it and much else that lay adjacent, for

In Brandenburg they lasted for about two hundred years; in their Saxon dignities, the younger branch of them

did not die out (and give place to the Wettins that now are) for five hundred. Nay they have still their

representatives on the Earth: Leopold of Anhalt Dessau, celebrated "Old Dessauer," come of the junior

branches, is lineal head of the kin in Friedrich Wilhelm's time (while our little Fritzchen lies asleep in his

cradle at Berlin); and a certain Prince of AnhaltZerbst, Colonel in the Prussian Army, authentic PRINCE,

but with purse much shorter than pedigree, will have a Daughter by and by, who will go to Russia, and

"Brandenburg now as afterwards," says one of my old Papers, "was officially reckoned SAXON; part of the

big Duchy of Saxony; where certain famed BILLUNGS, lineage of an old 'Count Billung' (connected or not

with BILLINGSgate in our country, I do not know) had long borne sway. Of which big old Billungs I will

say nothing at all;this only, that they died out; and a certain Albert, 'Count of Ascanien and Ballenstadt'

(say, of ANHALT, in modern terms), whose mother was one of their daughters, came in for the northern part

of their inheritance. He made a clutch at the Southern too, but did not long retain that. Being a man very swift

and very sharp, at once nimble and strong, in the huge scramble that there then was,Uncle Billung dead

without heirs, a SALIC line of emperors going or gone out, and a HOHENSTAUFFEN not yet come in,he

made a rich game of it for himself; the rather as Lothar, the intermediate Kaiser, was his cousin, and there

"This is he they call 'Albert the Bear ( Albrecht der Bar );' first of the ASCANIEN Markgraves of

Brandenburg; first wholly definite MARKGRAF OF BRANDENBURG that there is; once a very shining

figure in the world, though now fallen dim enough again. It is evident he had a quick eye, as well as a strong

hand; and could pick what way was straightest among crooked things. He got the Northern part of what is

still called Saxony, and kept it in his family; got the Brandenburg Countries withal, got the Lausitz; was the

shining figure and great man of the North in his day. The Markgrafdom of SALZWEDEL (which soon

became of BRANDENBURG) he very naturally acquired (A.D. 1142 or earlier); very naturally, considering

We can only say, it was the luckiest of events for Brandenburg, and the beginning of all the better destinies it

has had. A conspicuous Country ever since in the world, and which grows ever more so in our late times.

He had many wars; inextricable coil of claimings, quarrellings and agreeings: fought much,fought in Italy,

too, "against the Pagans" (Saracens, that is). Cousin to one Kaiser, the Lothar above named; then a chief stay

of the Hohenstauffen, of the two Hohenstauffens who followed: a restless, muchmanaging, wide warring

man. He stood true by the great Barbarossa, second of the Hohenstauffen, greatest of all the Kaisers; which

was a luck for him, and perhaps a merit. He kept well with three Kaisers in his time. Had great quarrels with

"Henry the Lion" about that "Billung" Saxon Heritage; Henry carrying off the better part of it from Albert.

Except that same Henry, head of the Guelphs or Welfs, who had not Albert's talent, though wider lands than

He transferred the Markgrafdom to BRANDENBURG, probably as more central in his wide lands;

SALZWEDEL is henceforth the led Markgrafdom or MARCK, and soon falls out of notice in the world.

Salzwedel is called henceforth ever since the "Old Marck ( Alte Marck, Altmarck );" the Brandenburg

countries getting the name of "New Marck." Modern NEUMARK, modern "Middle Marck" (in which

stands Brandenburg itself in our time), "UCKER Marck" (OUTSIDE Marck,word UCKER is still seen in

UKRAINE, for instance): these are posterior Divisions, fallen upon as Brandenburg (under Albert chiefly)

Under Albert the Markgrafdom had risen to be an ELECTORATE withal. The Markgraf of Brandenburg was

now furthermore the KURFURST of Brandenburg; officially "Archtreasurer of the Holy Roman Empire;

"and one of the Seven who have a right (which became about this time an exclusive one for those Seven) to

choose, to KIEREN the Romish Kaiser; and who are therefore called KUR Princes, KURFURSTE or

Electors, as the highest dignity except the Kaiser's own. In reference to which abstruse matter, likely to

concern us somewhat, will the uninstructed English reader consent to the following Excerpt, slightly

"FURST (Prince) I suppose is equivalent originally to our noun of number, First. The old verb KIEREN

(participle ERKOREN still in use, not to mention 'ValKYR' and other instances) is essentially the same

word as our CHOOSE, being written KIESEN as well as KIEREN. Nay, say the etymologists, it is also

written KUSSEN (to KISS,to CHOOSE with such emphasis!), and is not likely to fall obsolete in that

form.The other Six Electoral Dignitaries who grew to Eight by degrees, and may be worth noting once by

"1. Three Ecclesiastical, MAINZ, COLN, TRIER (Mentz, Cologne, Treves), Archbishops all, with

sovereignty and territory more or less considerable;who used to be elected as Popes are, theoretically by

their respective Chapters and the Heavenly Inspirations, but practically by the intrigues and pressures of the

"2. Three Secular, SACHSEN, PFALZ, BOHMEN (Saxony, Palatinate, Bohemia); of which the last,

BOHMEN, since it fell from being a Kingdom in itself, to being a Province of Austria, is not very vocal in

the Diets. These Six, with Brandenburg, are the Seven Kurfursts in old time; SEPTEMVIRS of the Country,

"But now PFALZ, in the ThirtyYears War (under our Prince Rupert's Father, whom the Germans call the

`WinterKing'), got abrogated, put to the ban, so far as an indignant Kaiser could; and the vote and KUR of

Pfalz was given to his Cousin of BAIERN (Bavaria), so far as an indignant Kaiser could. However, at the

Peace of Westphalia (1648) it was found incompetent to any Kaiser to abrogate PFULZ or the like of Pfalz, a

Kurfurst of the Empire. So, after jargon inconceivable, it was settled, That PFALZ must be reinstated, though

with territories much clipped, and at the bottom of the list, not the top as formerly; and that BAIERN, who

could not stand to be balked after twenty years' possession, must be made EIGHTH Elector. The NINTH, we

saw (Year 1692), was Gentleman Ernst of HANOVER. There never was any Tenth; and the Holy

ROMISCHE REICH, which was a grand object once, but had gone about in a superannuated and plainly

crazy state for some centuries back, was at last put out of pain, by Napoleon, '6th August, 1806,' and allowed

None of Albert's wars are so comfortable to reflect on as those he had with the anarchic Wends; whom he

now fairly beat to powder, and either swept away, or else damped down into Christianity and keeping of the

peace. Swept them away otherwise; "peopling their lands extensively with Colonists from Holland, whom an

inroad of the sea had rendered homeless there." Which surely was a useful exchange. Nothing better is known

to me of Albert the Bear than this his introducing large numbers of Dutch Netherlanders into those countries;

men thrown out of work, who already knew how to deal with bog and sand, by mixing and delving, and who

first taught Brandenburg what greenness and cowpasture was. The Wends, in presence of such things, could

not but consent more and more to efface themselves,either to become German, and grow milk and cheese

The Wendish Princes had a taste for German wives; in which just taste the Albert genealogy was extremely

willing to indulge them. Affinities produce inheritances; by proper marriagecontracts you can settle on what

side the most contingent inheritance shall at length fall. Dim but pretty certain lies a time coming when the

Wendish Princes also shall have effaced themselves; and all shall be GermanBrandenburgish, not Wendish

any more.The actual Inhabitants of Brandenburg, therefore, are either come of Dutch Bogfarmers, or are

simple Lower SAXONS ("AngloSaxon," if you like that better), PLATTTEUTSCH of the common type;

an unexceptionable breed of people. Streaks of Wendish population, extruded gradually into the remoter

quagmires, and more inaccessible, less valuable sedgy moors and seastrands, are scattered about;

Mecklenburg, which still subsists separately after a sort, is reckoned peculiarly Wendish. In Mecklenburg,

Pommern, Pommerellen (Little Pomerania), are still to be seen physiognomies of a Wendish or Vandalic type

(more of cheek than there ought to be, and less of brow; otherwise good enough physiognomies of their

kind): but the general mass, tempered with such admixtures, is of the PlattDeutsch, Saxon or even Anglish

character we are familiar with here at home. A patient stout people; meaning considerable things, and very

Albert was a fine tall figure himself; DER SCHONE, "Albert the Handsome," was his name as often as

"Albert the Bear." That latter epithet he got, not from his looks or qualities, but merely from his heraldic

cognizance: a Bear on his shield. As was then the mode of names; surnames being scant, and not yet fixedly

in existence. Thus too his contemporaries, Henry THE LION of Saxony and Welfdom, William THE LION

of Scotland, were not, either of them, specially leonine men: nor had the PLANTAGENETS, or Geoffrey of

Anjou, any connection with the PLANT of BROOM, except wearing a twig of it in their caps on occasion.

Men are glad to get some designation for a grand Albert they are often speaking of, which shall distinguish

him from the many small ones. Albert "the Bear, DER BAR," will do as well as another.

It was this one first that made Brandenburg peaceable and notable. We might call him the second founder of

Brandenburg; he, in the middle of the Twelfth Century, completed for it what Henry the Fowler had begun

early in the Tenth. After two hundred and fifty years of barking and worrying, the Wends are now finally

reduced to silence; their anarchy well buried, and wholesome Dutch cabbage planted over it: Albert did

several great things in the world; but, this, for posterity, remains his memorable feat. Not done quite easily;

but, done: big destinies of Nations or of Persons are not founded GRATIS in this world. He had a sore

toilsome time of it, coercing, warring, managing among his fellowcreatures, while his day's work

lasted,fifty years or so, for it began early. He died in his Castle of Ballenstadt, peaceably among the Hartz

Mountains at last, in the year 1170, age about sixtyfive. It was in the time while Thomas a Becket was

roving about the world, coming home excommunicative, and finally getting killed in Canterbury

Cathedral;while Abbot Samson, still a poor little brown Boy, came over from Norfolk, holding by his

mother's hand, to St. Edmundsbury; having seen "SANTANAS s with outspread wings" fearfully busy in this

It was in those same years that a stout young fellow, Conrad by name, far off in the southern parts of

Germany, set out from the old Castle of Hohenzollern, where he was but junior, and had small outlooks, upon

a very great errand in the world. >From Hohenzollern; bound now towards Gelnhausen, Kaiserslautern, or

whatever temporary lodging the great Kaiser Barbarossa might be known to have, who was a wandering man,

his business lying everywhere over half the world, and needing the master's eye. Conrad's purpose is to find

This is a very indisputable event of those same years. The exact date, the figure, circumstances of it were,

most likely, never written anywhere but on Conrad's own brain, and are now rubbed out forevermore; but the

event itself is certain; and of the highest concernment to this Narrative. Somewhere about the year 1170,

likeliest a few years before that, [Rentsch, Brandenburgischer CederHein (Baireuth, l682), pp.

273276.See also Johann Ulrich Pregitzern, Teutscher Regierungsund EhrenSpiegel, vorbildend des

Hauses Hohenzollern (Berlin, 1703), pp. 9093. A learned and painful Book: by a Tubingen Professor, who

is deeply read in the old Histories, and gives Portraits and other Engravings of some value.] this Conrad,

riding down from Hohenzoliern, probably with no great stock of luggage about, him,little dreams of being

connected with Brandenburg on the other side of the world; but IS unconsciously more so than any other of

the then sons of Adam. He is the lineal ancestor, twentieth in direct ascent, of the little Boy now sleeping in

his cradle at Berlin; let him wait till nineteen generations, valiantly like Conrad, have done their part, and

gone out, Conrad will find he is come to this! A man's destiny is strange always; and never wants for

Hohenzollern lies far south in SCHWABEN (Suabia), on the sunward slope of the RauheAlp Country; no

great way north from Constance and its Lake; but well aloft, near the springs of the Danube; its back leaning

on the Black Forest; it is perhaps definable as the southern summit of that same huge old Hercynian Wood,

which is still called the SCHWARZWALD (Black Forest), though now comparatively bare of trees. ["There

are still considerable spottings of wood (pine mainly, and 'black' enough); HOLZHANDEL (timbertrade)

still a considerable branch of business there;and on the streams of the country are cunning contrivances

noticeable, for floating down the article into the Neckar river, and thence into the Rhine and to Holland."

( Tourist's Note. )] Fanciful Dryasdust, doing a little etymology, will tell you the name ZOLLERN is

equivalent to TOLLERY or Place of Tolls. Whereby HOHENZOLLERN comes to mean the HIGH or Upper

TOLLERY; and gives one the notion of antique pedlers climbing painfully, out of Italy and the Swiss

valleys, thus far; unstrapping their packhorses here, and chaffering in unknown dialect about TOLL. Poor

souls;it may be so, but we do not know, nor shall it concern us. This only is known: That a human kindred,

probably of some talent for coercing anarchy and guiding mankind, had, centuries ago, built its BURG there,

and done that function in a small but creditable way ever since;kindred possibly enough derivable from

"Thassilo," Charlemagne, King Dagobert, and other Kings, but certainly from Adam and the Almighty

Maker, who had given it those qualities;and that Conrad, a junior member of the same, now goes forth

from it in the way we see. "Why should a young fellow that has capabilities," thought Conrad, "stay at home

in hungry idleness, with no estate but his javelin and buff jerkin, and no employment but his hawks, when

there is a wide opulent world waiting only to be conquered?" This was Conrad's thought; and it proved to be

It was now the flowertime of the Romish Kaisership of Germany; about the middle or noon of Barbarossa

himself, second of the Hohenstauffens, and greatest of all the Kaisers of that or any other house. Kaiser fallen

unintelligible to most modern readers, and wholly unknown, which is a pity. No King so furnished out with

apparatus and arena, with personal faculty to rule and scene to do it in, has appeared elsewhere. A

magnificent magnanimous man; holding the reins of the world, not quite in the imaginary sense; scourging

anarchy down, and urging noble effort up, really on a grand Scale. A terror to evildoers and a praise to

welldoers in this world, probably beyond what was ever seen since. Whom also we salute across the

centuries, as a choice Beneficence of Heaven. Encamped on the Plain of Roncaglia [when he entered Italy, as

he too often had occasion to do], his shield was hung out on a high mast over his tent;" and it meant in those

old days, "Ho, every one that has suffered wrong; here is a Kaiser come to judge you, as he shall answer it to

HIS Master." And men gathered round him; and actually found some justice,if they could discern it when

found. Which they could not always do; neither was the justice capable of being perfect always. A fearfully

difficult function, that of Friedrich Redbeard. But an inexorably indispensable one in this world;though

sometimes dispensed with (to the huge joy of Anarchy, which sings Hallelujah through all its Newspapers)

Kaiser Friedrich had immense difficulties with his Popes, with his Milanese, and the like;besieged Milan

six times over, among other anarchies;had indeed a heavyladen hard time of it, his task being great and

the greatest. He made Gebhardus, the anarchic Governor of Milan, "lie chained under his table, like a dog, for

three days." For the man was in earnest, in that earnest time: and let us say, they are but paltry shammen

who are not so, in any time; paltry, and far worse than paltry, however high their plumes may be. Of whom

the sick world (Anarchy, both vocal and silent, having now swoln rather high) is everywhere getting

weary.Gebhardus, the anarchic Governor, lay three days under the Kaiser's table; as it would be well if

every anarchic Governor, of the soft type and of the hard, were made to do on occasion; asking himself, in

terrible earnest, "Am I a dog, then; alas, am not I a dog?" Those were serious old times.

On the other hand, Kaiser Friedrich had his Tourneys, his gleams of bright joyances now and then; one great

gathering of all the chivalries at Mainz, which lasted for three weeks long, the grandest Tourney ever seen in

this world. Gelnhausen, in the Wetterau (ruin still worth seeing, on its Island in the Kinzig river), is

understood to have been one of his Houses; Kaiserslautern (Kaiser's LIMPID, from its clear springwater) in

the Pfalz (what we call PALATINATE), another. He went on the Crusade in his seventieth year; [1189, A.D.;

Saladin having, to the universal sorrow, taken Jerusalem.] thinking to himself, "Let us end with one clear act

of piety:"he cut his way through the dangerous Greek attorneyisms, through the hungry mountain passes,

furious Turk fanaticisms, like a gray old hero: "Woe is me, my son has perished, then?" said he once, tears

wetting the beard now white enough; "My son is slain!But Christ still lives; let us on, my men!" And

gained great victories, and even found his son; but never returned home;died, some unknown sudden

death, "in the river Cydnus," say the most. [Kohler (p. 188), and the Authorities cited by him. Bunau's

Deutsche Kaiserund ReichsHistorie (Leipzig, 17281743), i., is the express Book of Barbarossa: an

elaborate, instructive Volume.] Nay German Tradition thinks he is not yet dead; but only sleeping, till the bad

world reach its worst, when he will reappear. He sits within the Hill near Salzburg yonder,says German

Tradition, its fancy kindled by the strange noises in that Hill (limestone Hill) from hidden waters, and by the

grand rocky look of the place: A peasant once, stumbling into the interior, saw the Kaiser in his stone

cavern; Kaiser sat at a marble table, leaning on his elbow; winking, only half asleep; beard had grown

through the table, and streamed out on the floor; he looked at the peasant one moment; asked him something

about the time it was; then dropped his eyelids again: Not yet time, but will be soon! [Riesebeck's Travels

(English Translation, London, 1787), i. 140, Busching, VolksSagen, (Leipzig, 1820), i. 333, He is winking

as if to awake. To awake, and set his shield aloft by the Roncalic Fields again, with: Ho, every one that is

suffering wrong;or that has strayed guideless, devilward, and done wrong, which is far fataler!

This was the Kaiser to whom Conrad addressed himself; and he did it with success; which may be taken as a

kind of testimonial to the worth of the young man. Details we have absolutely none: but there is no doubt that

Conrad recommended himself to Kaiser Redbeard, nor any that the Kaiser was a judge of men. Very earnest

to discern men's worth and capabilities; having unspeakable need of worth, instead of unworth, in those under

him! We may conclude he had found capabilities in Conrad; found that the young fellow did effective

services as the occasion rose, and knew how to work, in a swift, resolute, judicious and exact manner.

One thing farther is known, significant for his successes: Conrad found favor with "the Heiress of the

Vohburg Family," desirable young heiress, and got her to wife. The Vohburg Family, now much forgotten

everywhere, and never heard of in England before, had long been of supreme importance, of immense

possessions, and opulent in territories, and we need not add, in honors and offices, in those Franconian

Nurnberg regions; and was now gone to this one girl. I know not that she had much inheritance after all; the

vast Vohburg properties lapsing all to the Kaiser, when the male heirs were out. But she had pretensions, tacit

claims; in particular, the Vohburgs had long been habitual or in effect hereditary Burggrafs of Nurnberg; and

if Conrad had the talent for that office; he now, in preference to others, might have a chance for it. Sure

enough, he got it; took root in it, he and his; and, in the course of centuries, branched up from it, high and

wide, over the adjoining countries; waxing towards still higher destinies. That is the epitome of Conrad's

history; history now become very great, but then no bigger than its neighbors, and very meagrely recorded; of

There is nothing clearly known of Conrad more than these three facts: That he was a cadet of Hohenzollern

(whose father's name, and some forefathers' names are definitely known in the family archives, but do not

concern us); that he married the Heiress of the Vohburgs, whose history is on record in like manner; and that

he was appointed Burggraf of Nurnberg, year not precisely known, but before 1170, as would seem. "In a

REICHSTAG (Diet of the Empire) held at Regensburg in or about 1170," he formally complains, he and

certain others, all stanch Kaiser's friends (for in fact it was with the Kaiser's knowledge, or at his instigation),

of Henry the Lion's high procedures and malpractices; of Henry's League with the Pope, League with the

King of Denmark, and so forth; the said Henry having indeed fallen into opposition, to a dangerous

degree;and signs himself BURGGRAF OF NURNBERG, say the old Chronicles. [Rentsch, p. 276 (who

cites Aventinus, Trittheim, The old Document itself has long since perished, I conclude: but the Chronicles

may be accepted as reporters of so conspicuous a thing; which was the beginning of long strife in Germany,

and proved the ruin of Henry the Lion, supreme Welf grown overbig, and cost our English Henry II.,

whose daughter he had married, a world of trouble and expense, we may remark withal. Conrad therefore is

already Burggraf of Nurnberg, and a man of mark, in 1170: and his marriage, still more his first sally from

More is not known of Conrad: except indeed that he did not perish in Barbarossa's grand final Crusade. For

the antiquaries have again found him signed to some contract, or otherwise insignificant document, A.D.

1200. Which is proof positive that he did not die in the Crusade; and proof probable that he was not of

it,few, hardly any, of those stalwart 150,000 champions of the Cross having ever got home again. Conrad,

by this time, might have sons come to age; fitter for arms and fatigues than he: and indeed at Nurnberg, in

Deutschland generally, as Official Prince of the Empire, and man of weight and judgment, Conrad's services

might be still more useful, and the Kaiser's interests might require him rather to stay at home in that juncture.

Burggraf of Nurnberg he continued to be; he and his descendants, first in a selective, then at length in a

directly hereditary way, century after century; and so long as that office lasted in Nurnberg (which it did there

much longer than in other Imperial FreeCities), a COMES DE ZOLRE of Conrad's producing was always

Their acts, in that station and capacity, as Burggraves and Princes of the Empire, were once conspicuous

enough in German History; and indeed are only so dim now, because the History itself is, and was always,

dim to us on this side of the sea. They did strenuous work in their day; and occasionally towered up (though

little driven by the poor wish of "towering," or "shining" without need) into the high places of Public History.

They rest now from their labors, Conrad and his successors, in long series, in the old Monastery of

Heilsbronn (between Nurnberg and Anspach), with Tombs to many of them, which were very legible for

slight Biographic purposes in my poor friend Rentsch's time, a hundred and fifty years ago; and may perhaps

still have some quasiuse, as "sepulchral brasses," to another class of persons. One or two of those old buried

Figures, more peculiarly important for our little Friend now sleeping in his cradle yonder, we must endeavor,

as the Narrative proceeds, to resuscitate a little and render visible for moments.

As to the Office, it was more important than perhaps the reader imagines. We already saw Conrad first

Burggraf, among the magnates of the country, denouncing Henry the Lion. Every Burggraf of Nurnberg is, in

virtue of his ofice, "Prince of the Empire:" if a man happened to have talent of his own, and solid resources of

his own (which are always on the growing hand with this family), here is a basis from which he may go far

enough. Burggraf of Nurnberg: that means again GRAF (judge, defender, manager, G'REEVE) of the

Kaiser's BURG or Castle,in a word Kaiser's Representative and ALTER EGO,in the old Imperial

FreeTown of Nurnberg; with much adjacent very complex territory, also, to administer for the Kaiser. A

flourishing extensive City, this old Nurnberg, with valuable adjacent territory, civic and imperial, intricately

intermixed; full of commercial industries, opulences, not without democratic tendencies. Nay it is almost, in

some senses, the LONDON AND MIDDLESEX of the Germany that then was, if we will consider it!

This is a place to give a man chances, and try what stuff is in him. The office involves a talent for governing,

as well as for judging; talent for fighting also, in cases of extremity, and what is still better, a talent for

avoiding to fight. None but a man of competent superior parts can do that function; I suppose, no imbecile

could have existed many months in it, in the old earnest times. Conrad and his succeeding Hohenzollerns

proved very capable to do it, as would seem; and grew and spread in it, waxing bigger and bigger, from their

first planting there by Kaiser Barbarossa, a successful judge of men. And ever since that time, from "about

the year 1170," down to the year 1815,when so much was changed, owing to another (temporary) "Kaiser"

of new type, Napoleon his name,the Hohenzollerns have had a footing in Frankedand; and done

sovereignty in and round Nurnberg, with an enlarging Territory in that region. Territory at last of large

compass; which, under the names MARGRAFDOM OF ANSPACH, and of BAIREUTH, or in general

For the House went on steadily increasing, as it were, from the first day; the Hohenzollerns being always of a

growing, gaining nature;as men are that live conformably to the laws of this Universe, and of their place

therein; which, as will appear from good study of their old records, though idle rumor, grounded on no study,

sometimes says the contrary, these Hohenzollerns eminently were. A thrifty, steadfast, diligent,

clearsighted, stouthearted line of men; of loyal nature withal, and even to be called just and pious,

sometimes to a notable degree. Men not given to fighting, where it could be avoided; yet with a good swift

stroke in them, where it could not: princely people after their sort, with a high, not an ostentatious turn of

mind. They, for most part, go upon solid prudence; if possible, are anxious to reach the goal without treading

on any one; are peaceable, as I often say, and by no means quarrelsome, in aspect and demeanor; yet there is

generally in the Hohenzollerns a very fierce flash of anger, capable of blazing out in cases of urgency: this

latter also is one of the most constant features I have noted in the long series of them. That they grew in

Frankenland, year after year, and century after century, while it was their fortune to last, alive and active

Their old big Castle of Plassenburg (now a Penitentiary, with treadmill and the other furnishings) still stands

on its Height, near Culmbach, looking down over the pleasant meeting of the Red and White Mayn Rivers

and of their fruitful valleys; awakening many thoughts in the traveller. Anspach Schloss, and still more

Baireuth Schloss (Mansion, one day, of our little Wilhelmina of Berlin, Fritzkin's sister, now prattling there in

so old a way; where notabilities have been, one and another; which Jean Paul, too, saw daily in his walks,

while alive and looking skyward): these, and many other castles and things, belonging now wholly to

The Family did its due share, sometimes an excessive one, in religious beneficences and foundations; which

was not quite left off in recent times, though much altering its figure. Erlangen University, for example, was

of Wilhelmina's doing. Erlangen University;and also an OperaHouse of excessive size in Baireuth. Such

was poor Wilhelmina's sad figure of "religion." In the old days, their largest bequest that I recollect was to the

TEUTSCHE RITTER, Order of Teutonic Knights, very celebrated in those days. Junior branches from

Hohenzollern, as from other families, sought a career in that chivalrous devout Brotherhood now and then;

one pious Burggraf had three sons at once in it; he, a very bequeathing Herr otherwise, settled one of his

mansions, Virnsperg, with rents and incomings, on the Order. Which accordingly had thenceforth a

COMTHUREI (Commandery) in that country; Comthurei of Virnsperg the name of it: the date of donation is

A.D. 1294; and two of the old Herr's three RITTER sons, we can remark, were successively COMTHURS

(Commanders, stewardprefects) of Virnsperg, the first two it had. [Rentsch, p.288.]

This was in 1294; the palmy period, or culmination time of the TEUTSCHES RITTERTHUM. Concerning

Barbarossa's Army of Crusaders did not come home again, any more than Barbarossa. They were stronger

than Turk or Saracen, but not than Hunger and Disease; Leaders did not know then, as our little Friend at

Berlin came to know, that "an Army, like a serpent, goes upon its belly." After fine fighting and considerable

victories, the end of this Crusade was, it took to "besieging Acre," and in reality lay perishing as of murrain

on the beach at Acre, without shelter, without medicine, without food. Not even Richard Coeur deLion,

Richard's Crusade fell in with the fagend of Barbarossa's; and it was Richard chiefly that managed to take

Acre;at least so Richard flattered himself, when he pulled poor Leopold of Austria's standard from the

towers, and trailed it through the gutters: "Your standard? YOU have taken Acre?" Which turned out ill for

Richard afterwards. And Duke Leopold has a bad name among us in consequence; much worse than he

deserves. Leopold had stuff in him too. He died, for example, in this manner: falling with his horse, I think in

some siege or other, he had got his leg hurt; which hindered him in fighting. Leg could not be cured: "Cut it

off, then!" said Leopold. This also the leech could not do; durst not, and would not; so that Leopold was

come quite to a halt. Leopold ordered out two squires; put his thigh upon a block the sharp edge of an axe at

the right point across his thigh: "Squire first, hold you that axe; steady! Squire second, smite you on it with

forgehammer, with all your strength, heavy enough!" Squire second struck, heavy enough, and the leg flew

off; but Leopold took inflammation, died in a day or two, as the leech had predicted. That is a fact to be found

in current authors (quite exact or not quite), that surgical operation: [Mentzel, Geschichte der Deutschen

(Stuttgard and Tubingen, 1837), p. 309.] such a man cannot have his flag trailed through the gutters by any

CoeurdeLion.But we return to the beach at Acre, and the poor Crusaders, dying as of murrain there. It is

"The very Templars, Hospitallers, neglect us," murmured the dying Germans; "they have perhaps enough to

do, and more than enough, with their own countrymen, whose speech is intelligible to them? For us, it would

appear, there is no help!" Not altogether none. A company of pious soulscompassionate Lubeck

shipcaptains diligently forwarding it, and one Walpot von Bassenheim, a citizen of Bremen, taking the

leadformed themselves into a union for succor of the sick and dying; "set up canvas tents," medicinal

assuagements, from the Lubeck shipstores; and did what utmost was in them, silently in the name of Mercy

and Heaven. "This Walpot as not by birth a nobleman," says one of the old Chroniclers, "but his deeds were

noble." This pious little union proved unconsciously the beginning of a great thing. Finding its work prosper

here, and gain favor, the little union took vows on itself, strict chivalry forms, and decided to become

permanent. "Knights Hospitallers of our dear Lady of Mount Zion," that or something equivalent was their

first title, under Walpot their first GrandMaster; which soon grew to be "German Order of St. Mary"

(TEUTSCHE RITTER of the MARIEORDEN), or for shortness TEUTSCHES RITTERTHUM; under

which name it played a great part in the world for above three centuries to come, and eclipsed in importance

This was the era of Chivalry Orders, and GELUBDE; time for Bodies of Men uniting themselves by a Sacred

Vow, "GELUBDE"which word and thing have passed over to us in a singularly dwindled condition:

"CLUB" we now call it; and the vow, if sacred, does not aim very high! Templars and Hospitallers were

already famous bodies; the latter now almost a century old. Walpot's new GELUBDE was of similar intent,

only German in kind,the protection, defence and solacement of Pilgrims, with whatever that might involve.

The Teutsch Ritters earned character in Palestine, and began to get bequests and recognition; but did not long

continue there, like their two rival Orders. It was not in Palestine, whether the Orders might be aware of it or

not, that their work could now lie. Pious Pilgrims certainly there still are in great numbers; to these you shall

do the sacred rites: but these, under a Saladin bound by his word, need little protection by the sword. And as

for Crusading in the armed fashion, that has fallen visibly into the decline. After Barbarossa, CoeurdeLion

and Philippe Auguste have tried it with such failure, what wise man will be in haste to try it again? Zealous

Popes continue to stir up Crusades; but the Secular Powers are not in earnest as formerly; Secular Powers,

when they do go, "take Constantinople," "conquer Sicily," never take or conquer anything in Palestine. The

Teutsch Order helps valiantly in Palestine, or would help; but what is the use of helping? The Teutsch Order

has already possessions in Europe, by pious bequest and otherwise; all its main interests lie there; in fine,

after less than thirty years, Hermann von der Salza, a new sagacious TEUTSCHMEISTER or

HOCHMEISTER (so they call the head of the Order), fourth in the series, a farseeing, negotiating man,

finds that Venice will be a fitter place of lodging for him than Acre: and accordingly during his long

Mastership (A.D. 12101239), he is mostly to be found there, and not at Acre or Jerusalem.

He is very great with the busy Kaiser, Friedrich II., Barbarossa's grandson; who has the usual quarrels with

the Pope, and is glad of such a negotiator, statesman as well as armed monk. The usual quarrels this great

Kaiser had, all along, and some unusual. Normans ousted from Sicily, who used to be so Papal: a Kaiser NOT

gone on the Crusade, as he had vowed; Kaiser at last suspected of freethinking even:in which matters

Hermann much serves the Kaiser. Sometimes he is appointed arbiter between the Pope and Kaiser;does not

give it in the Kaiser's favor, but against him, where he thinks the Kaiser is wrong. He is reckoned the first

great Hochmeister, this Hermann von der Salza, a Thuringer by birth, who is fourth in the series of Masters:

perhaps the greatest to be found there at all, though many were considerable. It is evident that no man of his

time was busier in important public affairs, or with better acceptance, than Hermann. His Order, both Pope

and Emperor so favoring the Master of it, was in a vigorous state of growth all this while; Hermann well

But if the Crusades are ended,as indeed it turned out, only one other worth speaking of, St. Louis's, having

in earnest come to effect, or rather to miserable noneffect, and that not yet for fifty years;if the Crusades

are ended, and the Teutsch Order increases always in possessions, and finds less and less work, what

probably will become of the Teutsch Order? Grow fat, become luxurious, incredulous, dissolute, insolent;

and need to be burnt out of the way? That was the course of the Templars, and their sad end. They began

poorest of the poor, "two Knights to one Horse," as their Seal bore; and they at last took FIRE on very

opposite accounts. "To carouse like a Templar:" that had become a proverb among men; that was the way to

produce combustion, "spontaneous" or other! Whereas their fellow Hospitallers of St. John, chancing upon

new work (AntiTurk garrisonduty, so we may call it, successively in Cyprus, Rhodes, Malta, for a series of

ages), and doing it well, managed to escape the like. As did the Teutsch Order in a still more conspicuous

Ever since St. Adalbert fell massacred in Prussia, stamping himself as a Crucifix on that Heathen soil, there

have been attempts at conversion going on by the Christian neighbors, Dukes of Poland and others:

intermittent fits of fighting and preaching for the last two hundred years, with extremely small result. Body of

St. Adalbert was got at light weight, and the poor man canonized; there is even a Titular Bishop of Prussia;

and pilgrimages wander to the Shrine of Adalbert in Poland, reminding you of Prussia in a tragic manner; but

what avails it? Missionaries, when they set foot in the country, are killed or flung out again. The Bishop of

Prussia is titular merely; lives in Liefland (LIVONIA) properly Bishop of RIGA, among the Bremen

tradingsettlers and converted Lieflanders there, which is the only safe place,if even that were safe without

aid of armed men, such as he has there even now. He keeps his SCHWERTBRUDER (Brothers of the

Sword), a small Order of Knights, recently got up by him, for express behoof of Liefland itself; and these,

fighting their best, are sometimes troublesome to the Bishop, and do not much prosper upon Heathendom, or

gain popularity and resources in the Christian world. No hope in the SCHWERTBRUDER for Prussia; and

in massacred Missionaries what hope? The Prussian population continues Heathen, untamable to Gospel and

Law; and after two centuries of effort, little or no real progress has been made.

But now, in these circumstances, in the year 1226, the Titular Bishop of Prussia, having well considered the

matter and arranged it with the Polish Authorities, opens a communication with Hermann von der Salza, at

Venice, on the subject; "Crusading is over in the East, illustrious Hochmeister; no duty for a Teutsch Order

there at present: what is the use of crusading far off in the East, when Heathenism and the Kingdom of Satan

hangs on our own borders, close at hand, in the North? Let the Teutsch Order come to Preussen; head a

Crusade there. The land is fruitful; flows really with milk and honey, not to speak of amber, and was once

called the TERRESTRIAL PARADISE"by I forget whom. [Voigt, (if he had an Index!) knows.] In fact, it

is clear, the land should belong to Christ; and if the Christian Teutsch Ritterdom could conquer it from

Satanas for themselves, it would be well for all parties. Hermann, a man of sagacious clear head, listens

attentively. The notion is perhaps not quite new to him: at all events, he takes up the notion; negotiates upon

it, with Titular Bishop, with Pope, Kaiser, Duke of Poland, Teutsch Order; and in brief, about two years

afterwards (A.D. 1228), having done the negotiatings to the last item, he produces his actual Teutsch Ritters,

Year 1225, thinks Dryasdust, after a struggle. Place where, proves also at length discoverable in

Dryasdust,not too far across the north Polish frontier, always with "Masovia" (the now Warsaw region) to

fall back upon. But in what number; how; nay almost when, to a year,do not ask poor Dryasdust, who

overwhelms himself with idle details, and by reason of the trees is unable to see the wood. [Voigt, ii. 177,

184, 192.]The Teutsch Ritters straightway build a Burg for headquarters, spread themselves on this hand

and that; and begin their great task. In the name of Heaven, we may still say in a true sense; as they, every

The Prussians were a fierce fighting people, fanatically Anti Christian: the Teutsch Ritters had a perilous

neverresting time of it, especially for the first fifty years. They built and burnt innumerable stockades for

and against; built wooden Forts which are now stone Towns. They fought much and prevalently; galloped

desperately to and fro, ever on the alert. In peaceabler ulterior times, they fenced in the Nogat and the

Weichsel with dams, whereby unlimited quagmire might become grassy meadow,as it continues to this

day. Marienburg (MARY'S Burg), still a town of importance in that same grassy region, with its grand stone

Schloss still visible and even habitable; this was at length their Headquarter. But how many Burgs of wood

and stone they built, in different parts; what revolts, surprisals, furious fights in woody boggy places, they

had, no man has counted. Their life, read in Dryasdust's newest chaotic Books (which are of endless length,

among other ill qualities), is like a dim nightmare of unintelligible marching and fighting: one feels as if the

mere amount of galloping they had would have carried the Order several times round the Globe. What

multiple of the Equator was it, then, O Dryasdust? The Herr Professor, little studious of abridgment, does not

But always some preaching, by zealous monks, accompanied the chivalrous fighting. And colonists came in

from Germany; trickling in, or at times streaming. Victorious Ritterdom offers terms to the beaten Heathen;

terms not of tolerant nature, but which will be punctually kept by Ritterdom. When the flame of revolt or

general conspiracy burnt up again too extensively, there was a new Crusade proclaimed in Germany and

Christendom; and the Hochmeister, at Marburg or elsewhere, and all his marshals and ministers were

busy,generally with effect. High personages came on crusade to them. Ottocar King of Bohemia, Duke of

Austria and much else, the great man of his day, came once (A.D. 1255); Johann King of Bohemia, in the

next century, once and again. The mighty Ottocar, [Voigt, iii. 8087.] with his extensive far shining

chivalry, "conquered Samland in a month;" tore up the Romova where Adalbert had been massacred, and

burnt it from the face of the Earth. A certain Fortress was founded at that time, in Ottocar's presence; and in

honor of him they named it KING'S FORTRESS, "Konigsberg:" it is now grown a bigdomed metropolitan

City,where we of this Narrative lately saw a Coronation going on, and Sophie Charlotte furtively taking a

pinch of snuff. Among King Ottocar's esquires or subaltern junior officials on this occasion, is one RUDOLF,

heir of a poor Swiss Lordship and gray HillCastle, called HAPSBURG, rather in reduced circumstances,

whom Ottocar likes for his prudent hardy ways; a stout, modest, wise young man,who may chance to

redeem Hapsburg a little, if he live? How the shuttles fly, and the lifethreads, always, in this "loudroaring

Along with Ottocar too, as an ally in the Crusade, was Otto III. Ascanier Markgraf and Elector of

Brandenburg, greatgrandson of Albert the Bear;name Otto THE PIOUS in consequence. He too founded

a Town in Prussia, on this occasion, and called it BRANDENBURG; which is still extant there, a small

Brandenburg the Second; for these procedures he is called Otto THE PIOUS in History. His Wife, withal,

was a sister of Ottocar's; [Michaelis, i. 270; Hubner, t. 174.]which, except in the way of domestic felicity,

did not in the end amount to much for him; this Ottocar having flown too high, and melted his wings at the

None of the Orders rose so high as the Teutonic in favor with mankind. It had by degrees landed possessions

far and wide over Germany and beyond: I know not how many dozens of BALLEYS (rich Bailliwicks, each

again with its dozens of COMTHUREIS, Commanderies, or subordinate groups of estates), and Baillies and

Commanders to match;and was thought to deserve favor from above. Valiant servants, these; to whom

Heaven had vouchsafed great labors and unspeakable blessings. In some fifty or fiftythree years they had

got Prussian Heathenism brought to the ground; and they endeavored to tie it well down there by bargain and

arrangement. But it would not yet lie quiet, nor for a century to come; being still secretly Heathen; revolting,

conspiring ever again, ever on weaker terms, till the Satanic element had burnt itself out, and conversion and

Conversion and complete conquest once come, there was a happy time for Prussia: ploughshare instead of

sword; busy seahavens, German towns, getting built; churches everywhere rising; grass growing, and

peaceable cows, where formerly had been quagmire and snakes. And for the Order a happy time? A rich, not

a happy. The Order was victorious; Livonian "SwordBrothers," "Knights of Dobryn," minor Orders and

Authorities all round, were long since subordinated to it or incorporated with it; Livonia, Courland,

Lithuania, are all got tamed under its influence, or tied down and evidently tamable. But it was in these times

that the Order got into its wider troubles outward and inward; quarrels, jealousies, with Christian neighbors,

Poland, Pommern, who did not love it and for cause; wider troubles, and by no means so evidently useful

to mankind. The Order's wages, in this world, flowed higher than ever, only perhaps its work was beginning

On the whole, this Teutsch Ritterdom, for the first century and more, was a grand phenomenon; and flamed

like a bright blessed beacon through the night of things, in those Northern Countries. For above a century, we

perceive, it was the rallying place of all brave men who had a career to seek on terms other than vulgar. The

noble soul, aiming beyond money, and sensible to more than hunger in this world, had a beacon burning (as

we say), if the night chanced to overtake it, and the earth to grow too intricate, as is not uncommon. Better

than the career of stumporatory, I should fancy, and ITS Hesperides Apples, golden and of gilt horsedung.

Better than puddling away one's poor spiritual gift of God (LOAN, not gift), such as it may be, in building the

lofty rhyme, the lofty ReviewArticle, for a discerning public that has sixpence to spare! Times alter

greatly.Will the reader take a glimpse of Conrad von Thuringen's biography, as a sample of the old ways

of proceeding? Conrad succeeded Hermann von der Salza as GrandMaster, and his history is memorable as

Conrad, younger brother of the Landgraf of Thuringen,which Prince lived chiefly in the Wartburg,

romantic old HillCastle, now a WeimarEisenach property and showplace, then an abode of very earnest

people,was probably a childinarms, in that same Wartburg, while Richard CoeurdeLion was getting

home from Palestine and into troubles by the road: this will date Conrad for us. His worthy elder brother was

Husband of the lady since called SAINT Elizabeth, a very pious but also very fanciful young woman; and

I always guess his going on the Crusade, where he died straightway, was partly the fruit of the life she led

him; lodging beggars, sometimes in his very bed, continually breaking his night's rest for prayer, and

devotional exercise of undue length; "weeping one moment, then smiling in joy the next;" meandering about,

capricious, melodious, weak, at the will of devout whim mainly! However, that does not concern us. [Many

LIVES of the Saint. See, in particular, Libellus de Dictis Quatuor Ancillarum, is, Report of the evidence got

from Elizabeth's Four Maids, by an Official Person, Devil's Advocate or whatever he was, missioned by the

Pope to question them, when her Canonization came to be talked of. A curious piece):in Meuckenii

Scriptores Rexum Germanicarum (Lipsia, 17281730), ii. dd.; where also are other details.] Sure enough her

poor Landgraf went crusading, Year 1227 (Kaiser Friedrich II.'s Crusade, who could not put it off longer);

poor Landgraf fell ill by the road, at Brindisi, and died,not to be driven farther by any cause.

Conrad, left guardian to his deceased Brother's children, had at first much quarrel with Saint Elizabeth,

though he afterwards took far other thoughts. Meanwhile he had his own apanage, "Landgraf" by rank he too;

and had troubles enough with that of itself. For instance: once the Archbishop of an Mainz, being in debt, laid

a heavy tax on all Abbeys under him; on Reichartsbronn, an Abbey of Conrad's, among others. "Don't pay

it!" said Conrad to the Abbot. Abbot refused accordingly; but was put under ban by the Pope;obliged to

comply, and even to be "whipt thrice" before the money could be accepted. Two whippings at Erfurt, from

the Archbishop, there had been; and a third was just going on there, one morning, when Conrad, travelling

that way, accidentally stept in to matins. Conrad flames into a blazing whirlwind at the phenomenon

disclosed. "Whip my Abbot? And he IS to pay, then, Archbishop of Beelzebub?"and took the poor

Archbishop by the rochets, and spun him hither and thither; nay was for cutting him in two, had hot friends

hysterically busied themselves, and got the sword detained in its scabbard and the Archbishop away. Here is a

Another soon follows; from a quarrel he had with Fritzlar, Imperial FreeTown in those parts, perhaps a little

stiff upon its privileges, and high towards a Landgraf. Conrad marches, one morning (Year 1232) upon

insolent Fritzlar; burns the environs; but on looking practically at the ramparts of the place, thinks they are

too high, and turns to go home again. Whereupon the idle women of Fritzlar, who are upon the ramparts

gazing in fear and hope, burst into shrill universal jubilation of voice,and even into gestures, and liberties

with their dress, which are not describable in History! Conrad, suddenly once more all flame, whirls round;

storms the ramparts, slays what he meets, plunders Fritzlar with a will, and leaves it blazing in a general fire,

which had broken out in the business. Here is a pair of coils for Conrad; the like of which can issue only in

Conrad is grim and obstinate under these aspects; but secretly feels himself very wicked; knows not well

what will come of it. Sauntering one day in his outer courts, he notices a certain female beggar; necessitous

female of loose life, who tremulously solicits charity of him. Necessitous female gets some fraction of coin,

but along with it bullying rebuke in very liberal measure; and goes away weeping bitterly, and murmuring

about "want that drove me to those courses." Conrad retires into himself: "What is her real sin, perhaps,to

mine?" Conrad "lies awake all that night;" mopes about, in intricate darkness, days and nights; rises one

morning an altered man. He makes "pilgrimage to Gladbach," barefoot; kneels down at the churchdoor of

Fritzlar with bare back, and a bundle of rods beside him. "Whip me, good injured Christians for the love of

Jesus!"in brief, reconciles himself to Christian mankind, the Pope included; takes the TeutschRitter vows

upon him; [A.D. 1234 (Voigt, ii. 375423).] and hastens off to Preussen, there to spend himself, life and life's

resources thenceforth, faithfully, till he die. The one course left for Conrad. Which he follows with a great

strong step,with a thought still audible to me. It was of such stuff that Teutsch Ritters were then made;

Saint Elizabeth, who went to live at Marburg, in HessenCassel, after her Husband's death, and soon died

there, in a most melodiously pious sort, [A.D. 1231, age 24.] made the Teutsch Order guardian of her Son. It

was from her and the Grand Mastership of Conrad that Marburg became such a metropolis of the Order; the

GrandMasters often residing there, many of them coveting burial there, and much business bearing date of

the place. A place still notable to the ingenuous Tourist, who knows his whereabout. Philip the

Magnanimous, Luther's friend, memorable to some as Philip with the Two Wives, lived there, in that old

Castle,which is now a kind of CorrectionHouse and Garrison, idle blue uniforms strolling about, and

unlovely physiognomies with a jingle of iron at their ankles,where Luther has debated with the Zwinglian

Sacramenters and others, and much has happened in its time. Saint Elizabeth and her miracles (considerable,

surely, of their kind) were the first origin of Marburg as a Town: a mere Castle, with adjoining Hamlet,

Strange gray old silent Town, rich in so many memories; it stands there, straggling up its rocky hilledge,

towards its old Castles and edifices on the top, in a not unpicturesque manner; flanked by the river Lahn and

its fertile plains: very silent, except for the delirious screech, at rare intervals, of a railway train passing that

way from FrankfurtonMayn to Cassel. "Church of St. Elizabeth,"high, grand Church, built by Conrad

our Hochmeister, in reverence of his once terrestrial Sisterinlaw,stands conspicuous in the plain below,

where the Town is just ending. St. Elizabeth's Shrine was once there, and pilgrims wending to it from all

lands. Conrad himself is buried there, as are many Hochmeisters; their names, and shields of arms, Hermann's

foremost, though Hermann's dust is not there, are carved, carefully kept legible, on the shafts of the Gothic

arches,from floor to groin, long rows of them;and produce, with the other tombs, tombpaintings by

Durer and the like, thoughts impressive almost to pain. St. Elizabeth's LOCULUS was put into its shrine here,

by Kaiser Friedrich II. and all manner of princes and grandees of the Empire, "one million two hundred

thousand people looking on," say the old records, perhaps not quite exact in their arithmetic. Philip the

Magnanimous, wishing to stop "pilgrimages nowhither," buried the LOCULUS away, it was never known

where; under the floor of that Church somewhere, as is likeliest. Enough now of Marburg, and of its Teutsch

They had one or two memorable Hochmeisters and Teutschmeisters; whom we have not named here, nor

shall. [In our excellent Kohler's Muntzbelustigungen (Nurnberg, 1729 et seqq. ii. 382; v. 102; viii. 380; are

valuable glimpses into the Teutonic Order,as into hundreds of other things. The special Book upon it is

Voigt's, often cited here: Nine heavy Volumes; grounded on faithful reading, but with a fatal defect of almost

every other quality.] There is one Hochmeister, somewhere about the fiftieth on the list, and properly the last

real Hochmeister, Albert of HohenzollernCulmbach by name, who will be very memorable to us by and by.

Or will the reader care to know how Culmbach came into the possession of the Hohenzollerns, Burggraves of

In the Year 1248, in his Castle of Plassenburg,which is now a CorrectionHouse, looking down upon the

junction of the Red and White Mayn,Otto Duke of Meran, a very great potentate, more like a King than a

Duke, was suddenly clutched hold of by a certain wedded gentleman, name not given, "one of his domestics

or dependents," whom he had enraged beyond forgiveness (signally violating the Seventh Commandment at

his expense); and was by the said wedded gentleman there and then cut down, and done to death.

"Lamentably killed, jammerlich erstochen," says old Rentsch. [P. 293. Kohler, ReichsHistorie, p. 245.

Holle, Alte Geschichte der Stadt Baireuth (Baireuth, 1833), pp. 3437.] Others give a different color to the

homicide, and even a different place; a controversy not interesting to us. Slain at any rate he is; still a young

man; the last male of his line. Whereby the renowned Dukes of Meran fall extinct, and immense properties

Meran, we remark, is still a Town, old Castle now abolished, in the Tyrol, towards the sources of the Etsch

(called ADIGE by Italian neighbors). The Merans had been lords not only of most of the Tyrol; but Dukes of

"the Voigtland;"Voigtland, that is BAILLIELAND, wide country between Nurnberg and the Fichtelwald;

why specially so called, Dryasdust dimly explains, deducing it from certain Counts von Reuss, those strange

Reusses who always call themselves HENRY, and now amount to HENRY THE EIGHTIETH AND ODD,

with sidebranches likewise called Henry; whose nomenclature is the despair of mankind, and worse than

that of the Naples Lazzaroni who candidly have no names!Dukes of Voigtland, I say; likewise of

Dalmatia; then also Markgraves of Austria; also Counts of Andechs, in which latter fine country (north of

Munchen a day's ride), and not at Plassenburg, some say, the man was slain. These immense possessions,

which now (A.D. 1248) all fall asunder by the stroke of that sword, come to be divided among the slain man's

connections, or to be snatched up by active neighbors, and otherwise disposed of.

Active Wurzburg, active Bamberg, without much connection, snatched up a good deal: Count of Orlamunde,

married to the eldest Sister of the slain Duke, got Plassenburg and most of the Voigtland: a Tyrolese magnate,

whose Wife was an Aunt of the Duke's, laid hold of the Tyrol, and transmitted it to daughters and their

spouses,the finish of which line we shall see by and by: in short, there was much property in a

disposable condition. The Hohenzollern Burggraf of Nurnberg, who had married a younger Sister of the

Duke's two years before this accident, managed to get at least BAIREUTH and some adjacencies; big

Orlamunde, who had not much better right, taking the lion's share. This of Baireuth proved a notable

possession to the Hohenzollern family: it was Conrad the first Burggraf's greatgrandson, Friedrich, counted

"Friedrich III." among the Burggraves, who made the acquisition in this manner, A.D. 1248.

Onolzbach (On'zBACH or "brook," now called ANSPACH) they got, some fourscore years after, by

purchase and hard money down ("24,000 pounds of farthings," whatever that may be), [A.D. 1331: Stadt

Anspach, by J. B. Fischer (Anspach, 1786), p. 196.] which proved a notable twin possession of the family.

And then, in some seven years more (A.D. 1338), the big Orlamunde people, having at length, as was too

usual, fallen considerably insolvent, sold Plassenburg Castle itself, the Plassenburg with its Town of

Culmbach and dependencies, to the Hohenzollern Burggraves, [Rentsch, p. 157.] who had always ready

money about them. Who in this way got most of the Voigtland, with a fine Fortress, into hand; and had,

independently of Nurnberg and its Imperial properties, an important Princely Territory of their own.

Margraviate or Principality of CULMBACH (Plassenburg being only the Castle) was the general title; but

more frequently in later times, being oftenest split in two between brothers unacquainted with primogeniture,

there were two Margraviates made of it: one of Baireuth, called also "Margraviate On the Hill;" and one of

Anspach, "Margraviate Under the Hill:" of which, in their modern designations, we shall by and by hear more

Thus are the Hohenzollern growing, and never declining: by these few instances judge of many. Of their hard

labors, and the storms they had to keep under control, we could also say something: How the two young Sons

of the Burggraf once riding out with their Tutor, a big hound of theirs in one of the streets of Nurnberg

accidentally tore a child; and there arose wild mother'swail; and "all the Scythesmiths turned out,"

firebreathing, deaf to a poor Tutor's pleadings and explainings; and how the Tutor, who had ridden forth in

calm humor with two Princes, came galloping home with only one,the Smiths having driven another into

boggy ground, and there caught and killed him; [Rentsch, p. 306 (Date not given; guess, about 1270).] with

the Burggraf's commentary on that sad proceeding (the same Friedrich III. who had married Meran's Sister);

and the amends exacted by him, strict and severe, not passionate or inhuman. Or again how the Nurnbergers

once, in the Burggraf's absence, built a ringwall round his Castle; entrance and exit now to depend on the

Nurnbergers withal! And how the Burggraf did not fly out into battle in consequence, but remedied it by

imperturbable countenance and power of driving. With enough of the like sort; which readers can conceive.

This same Friedrich III., Greatgrandson of Conrad the first Burggraf, was he that got the Burggraviate made

hereditary in his family (A.D. 1273); which thereby rose to the fixed rank of Princes, among other advantages

it was gaining. Nor did this acquisition come gratis at all, but as the fruit of good service adroitly done;

service of endless importance as it proved. Friedrich's life had fallen in times of huge anarchy; the

Hohenstauffen line gone miserably out,Boy Conradin, its last representative, perishing on the scaffold

even (by a desperate Pope and a desperate Duke of Anjou); [At Naples, 25th October, 1268.] Germans,

Sicilian Normans, Pope and Reich, all at daggers drawn with one another; no Kaiser, nay as many as Three

at once! Which lasted from 1254 onwards; and is called "the Interregnum," or Anarchy "of Nineteen Years,"

Let us at least name the Three Kaisers, or Tripleelixir of NoKaiser; though, except as chronological

landmarks, we have not much to do with them. First Kaiser is William Count of Holland, a rough fellow,

Pope's protege, Pope even raising cash for him; till William perished in the Dutch peatbogs (horse and man,

furiously pursuing, in some fight there, and getting swallowed up in that manner); which happily reduces our

Second Kaiser is Alphonso King of Castille, Alphonso the Wise, whose saying about Ptolemy's Astronomy,

"That it seemed a crank machine; that it was pity the Creator had not taken advice!" is still remembered by

mankind;this and no other of his many sayings and doings. He was wise enough to stay at home; and

except wearing the title, which cost nothing, to concern himself very little about the Holy Roman

Empire,some clerk or two dating "TOLETI (at Toledo)," did languidly a bit of official writing now and

then, and that was all. Confused crank machine this of the German Empire too, your Majesty? Better stay at

The Third false Kaiserfutile call him rather, wanting clear majoritywas the English Richard of

Cornwall; younger Son of John Lackland; and little wiser than his Father, to judge by those symptoms. He

had plenty of money, and was liberal with it;no other call to Germany, you would say, except to get rid of

his money;in which he succeeded. He lived actually in Germany, twice over for a year or two:Alphonse

and he were alike shy of the Pope, as Umpire; and Richard, so far as his money went, found some gleams of

authority and comfortable flattery in the Rhenish provinces: at length, in 1263, money and patience being

both probably out, he quitted Germany for the second and last time; came home to Berkhamstead in

Hertfordshire here, [Gough's Camden, i.339.] more fool than he went. Till his death (A.D. 1271), he

continued to call himself, and was by many persons called, Kaiser of the Holy Roman Empire;needed a

German clerk or two at Berkhamstead, we can suppose: but never went back; preferring pleasant

Berkhamstead, with troubles of Simon de Montfort or whatever troubles there might be, to anything Germany

These were the Three futile Kaisers: and the LATE Kaiser Conrad's young Boy, who one day might have

swept the ground clear of them, perished,bright young Conradin, bright and brave, but only sixteen, and

Pope's captive by ill luck,perished on the scaffold; "throwing out his glove" (in symbolical protest) amid

the dark mute Neapolitan multitudes, that wintry morning. It was October 25th, 1268,Dante Alighieri then

a little boy at Florence, not three years old; gazing with strange eyes as the elders talked of such a

performance by Christ's Vicar on Earth. A very tragic performance indeed, which brought on the Sicilian

Germany was rocking down towards one saw not what,an Anarchic Republic of Princes, perhaps, and of

Free Barons fast verging towards robbery? Sovereignty of multiplex Princes, with a Peerage of intermediate

Robber Barons? Things are verging that way. Such Princes, big and little, each wrenching off for himself

what lay loosest and handiest to him, found it a stirring game, and not so much amiss. On the other hand,

some voice of the People, in feeble whimperings of a strange intensity, to the opposite effect, are audible to

this day. Here are Three old Minstrels (MINNESANGER) picked from Manesse's Collection by an obliging

No. 1 LOQUITOR (in cramp doggerel, done into speech): "To thee, O Lord, we poor folk make moan; the

Devil has sown his seeds in this land! Law thy hand created for protection of thy children: but where now is

No. 2: "The Princes grind in the Kaiser's mill: to the Reich they fling the siftings; and keep to themselves the

No. 3: "Like the Plague of Frogs, there they are come out; defiling the Reich's honor. Stork, when wilt thou

appear, then," and with thy stiff mandibles act upon them a little? [Mentzel, Geschichte der Deutschen, p.

It was in such circumstances, that Friedrich III., Burggraf of Nurnberg, who had long moaned and striven

over these woes of his country, came to pay that visit, late in the night (1st or 2d of October, 1273), to his

Cousin Rudolf Lord of Hapsburg, under the walls of Basel; a notable scene in History. Rudolf was besieging

Basel, being in some feud with the Bishop there, of which Friedrich and another had been proposed as

umpires; and Friedrich now waited on his Cousin, in this hasty manner,not about the Basel feud, but on a

far higher quite unexpected errand,to say, That he Rudolf was elected Kaiser, and that better times for the

Holy Roman Empire were now probable, with Heaven's help. [Rentsch, pp. 299, 285, 298.] We call him

Cousin; though what the kindred actually was, a kindred by mothers, remains, except the general fact of it,

disputable by Dryasdust. The actual visit, under the walls of Basel, is by some considered romantic. But that

Rudolf, tough steelgray man, besieging Basel on his own quarrel, on the terms just stated, was altogether

unexpectedly apprised of this great news, and that Cousin Friedrich of Nurnberg had mainly contributed to

such issue, is beyond questioh. [Kohler, pp. 249, 251.] The event was salutary, like life instead of death, to

Richard of Cornwall having at last died, and his futile German clerks having quitted Berkhamstead

forever,Alphonso of Castille, not now urged by rivalry, and seeing long since what a crank machine the

thing was, had no objection to give it up; said so to the Pope,who was himself anxious for a settled Kaiser,

the supplies of Papal German cash having run almost dry during these troubles. Whereupon ensued earnest

consultations among leading German men; Diet of the Empire, sternly practical (we may well perceive), and

with a minimum of talk, the Pope too being held rather well at a distance: the result of which was what we

see. [29th September, 1273.] Mainly due to Friedrich of Nurnberg, say all Historians; conjoining with him the

then Archbishop of Mainz, who is officially President Elector (literally CONVENER of Electors): they two

did it. Archbishop of Mainz had himself a pleasant accidental acquaintance with Rudolf,a night's lodging

once at Hapsburg, with escort over the Hills, in dangerous circumstances;and might the more readily be

made to understand what qualities the man now had; and how, in justness of insight, toughness of character,

Last time we saw Rudolf, near thirty years ago, he was some equerry or subaltern dignitary among the Ritters

of King Ottocar, doing a Crusade against the Prussian Heathen, and seeing his master found Konigsberg in

that country. Changed times now! Ottocar King of Bohemia, who (by the strong hand mainly, and money to

Richard of Cornwall, in the late troubles) has become Duke of Austria and much else, had himself expected

the Kaisership; and of all astonished men, King Ottocar was probably the most astonished at the choice made.

A dread sovereign, fierce, and terribly opulent, and every way resplendent to such degree; and this threadbare

Swiss gentlemanatarms, once "my domestic" (as Ottocar loved to term it), preferred to me! Flat insanity,

King Ottocar thought; refused to acknowledge such a Kaiser; would not in the least give up his unjust

But there also Rudolf contrived to be ready for him. Rudolf invaded his rich Austrian territories; smote down

Vienna, and all resistance that there was; [1276 (Kohler, p. 253).] forced Ottocar to beg pardon and peace.

"No pardon, nor any speech of peace, till you first do homage for all those lands of yours, whatever we may

find them to be!" Ottocar was very loath; but could not help himself. Ottocar quitted Prag with a resplendent

retinue, to come into the Danube country, and do homage to "my domestic" that once was. He bargained that

the sad ceremony should be at least private; on an Island in the Danube, between the two retinues or armies;

and in a tent, so that only official select persons might see it. The Island is called CAMBERG (near Vienna, I

conclude), in the middle of the Donau River: there Ottocar accordingly knelt; he in great pomp of tailorage,

Rudolf in mere buff jerkin, practical leather and iron;hide it, charitable canvas, from all but a few! Alas,

precisely at this moment, the treacherous canvas rushes down,hung so on purpose, thinks Ottocar; and it is

a tent indeed; but a tent without walls; and all the world sees me in this scandalous plight!

Ottocar rode home in deep gloom; his poor Wife, too, upbraided him: he straightway rallied into War again;

Rudolf again very ready to meet him. Rudolf met him, Friedrich of Nurnberg there among the rest under the

ReichsBanner; on the Marchfeld by the Donau (modern WAGRAM near by); and entirely beat and even

slew and ruined Ottocar. [26th August, 1278 (Kohler, p. 253.)] Whereby Austria fell now to Rudolf, who

made his sons Dukes of it; which, or even Archdukes, they are to this day. Bohemia, Moravia, of these also

Rudolf would have been glad; but of these there is an heir of Ottocar's left; these will require time and luck.

Prosperous though toilsome days for Rudolf; who proved an excellent bit of stuff for a Kaiser; and found no

rest, proving what stuff he was. In which prosperities, as indeed he continued to do in the perils and toils,

Burggraf Friedrich III. of Nurnberg naturally partook: hence, and not gratis at all, the Hereditary

Burggrafdom, and many other favors and accessions he got. For he continued Rudolf's steady helper, friend

and firstman in all things, to the very end. Evidently one of the most important men in Germany, and candor

will lead us to guess one of the worthiest, during those bad years of Interregnum, and the better ones of

Kaisership. After Conrad his greatgrandfather he is the second notable architect of the Family

House;founded by Conrad; conspicuously built up by this Friedrich III., and the first STORY of it

finished, so to speak. Then come two Friedrichs as Burggrafs, his son and his grandson's grandson, "Friedrich

IV." and "Friedrich VI.," by whom it was raised to the second story and the third,thenceforth one of the

That is the glimpse we can give of Friedrich first Hereditary Burggraf, and of his Cousin Rudolf first

Hapsburg Kaiser. The latest Austrian Kaisers, the latest Kings of Prussia, they are sons of these two men.

We have said nothing of the Ascanier Markgraves, Electors of Brandenburg, all this while; nor, in these

limits, can we now or henceforth say almost anything. A proud enough, valiant and diligent line of

Markgraves; who had much fighting and other struggle in the world,steadily enlarging their border upon

the Wends to the north; and adjusting it, with mixed success, against the WETTIN gentlemen, who are

Markgraves farther east (in the LAUSITZ now), who bound us to the south too (MEISSEN, Misnia), and who

in fact came in for the whole of modern Saxony in the end. Much fighting, too, there was with the

Archbishops of Magdeburg, now that the Wends are down: standing quarrel there, on the small scale, like

that of Kaiser and Pope on the great; such quarrel as is to be seen in all places, and on all manner of scales, in

None of our Markgraves rose to the height of their Progenitor, Albert the Bear; nor indeed, except massed up,

as "Albert's Line," and with a History ever more condensing itself almost to the form of LABEL, can they

pretend to memorability with us. What can Dryasdust himself do with them? That wholesome Dutch

cabbages continued to be more and more planted, and peatmire, blending itself with waste sand, became

available for Christian mankind, intrusive Chaos, and especially Divine TRIGLAPH and his ferocities

being well held aloof:this, after all, is the real History of our Markgraves; and of this, by the nature of the

case, Dryasdust can say nothing. "New Mark," which once meant Brandenburg at large, is getting subdivided

into MidMark, into UCKERmark (closest to the Wends); and in Old Mark and New much is spreading,

much getting planted and founded. In the course of centuries there will grow gradually to be "seven cities;

and as many towns," says one old jubilant Topographer, "as there are days in the year," struggling to count

In the year (guessed to be) 1240, one Ascanier Markgraf "fortifies Berlin;" that is, first makes Berlin a

German BURG and inhabited outpost in those parts:the very name, some think, means "Little Rampart"

(WEHRlin), built there, on the banks of the Spree, against the Wends, and peopled with Dutch; of which

latter fact, it seems, the old dialect of the place yields traces. [Nicolai, Beschreibung der Koniglichen

Residenzstadte Berlin und Potsdam (Berlin, 1786), i. pp. 16, 17 of "Einleitung." Nicolai rejects the

WEHRLIN etymology; admits that the name was evidently appellative, not proper, "The Berlin," "To the

Berlin;" finds in the world two objects, one of them at Halle, still called "The Berlin;" and thinks it must have

meant (in some language of extinct mortals) "Wild Pastureground," "The SCRUBS," as we should call

it.Possible; perhaps likely.] How it rose afterwards to be chosen for Metropolis, one cannot say, except that

it had a central situation for the now widened principalities of Brandenburg: the place otherwise is sandy by

nature, sand and swamp the constituents of it; and stands on a sluggish river the color of oil. Wendish

fishermen had founded some first nucleus of it long before; and called their fishing hamlet COLN, which is

said to be the general Wendish title for places FOUNDED ON PILES, a needful method where your basis is

swamp. At all events, "Coln" still designates the oldest quarter in Berlin; and "Coln on the Spree" (Cologne,

or Coln on the Rhine, being very different) continued, almost to modern times, to be the Official name of the

How the Dutch and Wends agreed together, within their rampart, inclusive of both, is not said. The river lay

between; they had two languages; peace was necessary: it is probable they were long rather on a taciturn

footing! But in the oily river you do catch various fish; Coln, amid its quagmires and straggling sluggish

waters, can be rendered very strong. Some husbandry, wet or dry, is possible to diligent Dutchmen. There is

room for trade also; Spree Havel Elbe is a direct waterroad to Hamburg and the Ocean; by the Oder, which

is not very far, you communicate with the Baltic on this hand, and with Poland and the uttermost parts of

Silesia on that. Enough, Berlin grows; becomes, in about 300 years, for one reason and another, Capital City

of the country, of these many countries. The Markgraves or Electors, after quitting Brandenburg, did not

come immediately to Berlin; their next Residence was Tangermunde (MOUTH of the TANGER, where little

Tanger issues into Elbe); a much grassier place than Berlin, and which stands on a Hill, clayandsand Hill,

likewise advantageous for strength. That Berlin should have grown, after it once became Capital, is not a

mystery. It has quadrupled itself, and more, within the last hundred years, and I think doubled itself within

One Ascanier Markgraf, and one only, Otto IV. by title, was a Poet withal; had an actual habit of doing verse.

There are certain socalled Poems of his, still extant, read by Dryasdust, with such enthusiasm as he can get

up, in the old Collection of Minnesingers, made by MANESSE the Zurich Burgermeister, while the matter

was much fresher than it now is. [Rudiger von Manesse, who fought the Austrians, too, made his Sammlung

(Collection) in the latter half of the fourteenth century; it was printed, after many narrow risks of destruction

in the interim, in 1758,Bodmer and Breitinger editing;at Zurich, 2 vols. 4to.] Madrigals all;

MINNESongs, describing the passion of love; how Otto felt under it,well and also ill; with little

This same Markgraf Otto IV., Year 1278, had a dreadful quarrel with the See of Magdeburg, about electing a

Brother of his. The Chapter had chosen another than Otto's Brother; Otto makes war upon the Chapter.

Comes storming along; "will stable my horses in your Cathedral," on such and such a day! But the

Archbishop chosen, who had been a fighter formerly, stirs up the Magdeburgers, by preaching ("Horses to be

stabled here, my Christian brethren"), by relics, and quasimiracles, to a furious condition; leads them out

against Otto, beats Otto utterly; brings him in captive, amid hooting jubilations of the conceivable kind:

"Stable ready; but where are the horses,Serene child of Satanas!" Archbishop makes a Wooden Cage for

Otto (big beams, spars stout enough, mere straw to lie on), and locks him up there. In a public situation in the

City of Magdeburg;visible to mankind so, during certain months of that year 1278. It was in the very time

while Ottocar was getting finished in the Marchfeld; much mutiny still abroad, and the new Kaiser Rudolf

Otto's Wife, all streaming in tears, and flaming in zeal, what shall she do? "Sell your jewels," so advises a

certain old Johann von Buch, discarded Exofficial: "Sell your jewels, Madam; bribe the Canons of

Magdeburg with extreme secrecy, none knowing of his neighbor; they will consent to ransom on terms

possible. Poor Wife bribed as was bidden; Canons voted as they undertook; unanimous for ransom,high,

but humanly possible. Markgraf Otto gets out on parole. But now, How raise such a ransom, our very jewels

being sold? Old Johann von Buch again indicates ways and means, miraculous old gentleman:Markgraf

Otto returns, money in hand; pays, and is solemnly discharged. The title of the sum I could give exact; but as

"We are clear, then, at this date?" said Markgraf Otto from his horse, just taking leave of the Magdeburg

Canonry. "Yes," answered they."Pshaw, you don't know the value of a Markgraf!" said Otto. "What is it,

then?""Rain gold ducats on his warhorse and him," said Otto, looking up with a satirical grin, "till horse

and Markgraf are buried in them, and you cannot see the point of his spear atop!"That would be a cone of

gold coins equal to the article, thinks our Markgraf; and rides grinning away. [Michaelis, i. 271; Pauli, i. 316;

Kloss; poor Archbishop, a valiant pious man, finding out that late strangely unanimous vote of his Chapter

for ransoming the Markgraf, took it so ill, that he soon died of a broken heart, say the old Books. Die he did,

before long;and still Otto's Brother was refused as successor. Brother, however, again survived; behaved

always wisely; and Otto at last had his way. "Makes an excellent Archbishop, after all!" said the

The same Otto, besieging some stronghold of his Magdeburg or other enemies, got an arrow shot into the

skull of him; into, not through; which no surgery could extract, not for a year to come. Otto went about,

sieging much the same, with the iron in his head; and is called Otto MIT DEM PFOILE, Otto

SAGITTARIUS, or Otto with the Arrow, in consequence. A Markgraf who writes Madrigals; who does

sieges with an arrow in his head; who lies in a wooden cage, jeered by the Magdeburgers, and proposes such

a cone of ducats: I thought him the memorablest of those forgotten Markgraves; and that his jolting

Lifepilgrimage might stand as the general sample. Multiply a year of Otto by 200, you have, on easy

conditions, some imagination of a History of the Ascanier Markgraves. Forgettable otherwise; or it can be

read in the gross, darkened with endless details, and thricedreary, half intelligible traditions, in Pauli's fatal

Quartos, and elsewhere, if any one needs.The year of that Magdeburg speech about the cone of ducats is

1278: King Edward the First, in this country, was walking about, a prosperous man of forty, with very LONG

Otto, as had been the case in the former Line, was a frequent name among those Markgraves: "Otto the

Pious" (whom we saw crusading once in Preussen, with King Ottocar his Brotherinlaw), "Otto the Tall,"

"Otto the Short (PARVUS);" I know not how many Ottos besides him "with the Arrow." Half a century after

this one of the ARROW (under his GrandNephew it was), the Ascanier Markgraves ended, their Line also

Not the successfulest of Markgraves, especially in later times. Brandenburg was indeed steadily an

Electorate, its Markgraf a KURFURST, or Elector of the Empire; and always rather on the increase than

otherwise. But the Territories were apt to be much split up to younger sons; two or more Markgraves at once,

the eldest for Elector, with other arrangements; which seldom answer. They had also fallen into the habit of

borrowing money; pawning, redeeming, a good deal, with Teutsch Ritters and others. Then they puddled

considerably,and to their loss, seldom choosing the side that proved winner,in the general broils of the

Reich, which at that time, as we have seen, was unusually anarchic. None of the successfulest of Markgraves

latterly. But they were regretted beyond measure in comparison with the next set that came; as we shall see.

Brandenburg and the Hohenzollern Family of Nurnberg have hitherto no mutual acquaintanceship whatever:

they go, each its own course, wide enough apart in the world;little dreaming that they are to meet by and

by, and coalesce, wed for better and worse, and become one flesh. As is the way in all romance. "Marriages,"

Friedrich IV. of Nurnberg, Son of that Friedrich III., Kaiser Rudolf's successful friend, was again a notable

increaser of his House; which finally, under his Greatgrandson, named Friedrich VI., attained the Electoral

height. Of which there was already some hint. Well; under the first of these two Friedrichs, some slight

approximation, and under his Son, a transient express introduction (so to speak) of Brandenburg to

Hohenzollern took place, without immediate result of consequence; but under the second of them occurred

the wedding, as we may call it, or union "for better or worse, till death do us part."How it came about?

Easy to ask, How! The reader will have to cast some glances into the confused REICHSHistory of the

time;timid glances, for the element is of dangerous, extensive sort, mostly jungle and shaking bog;and

we must travel through this corner of it, as on shoes of swiftness, treading lightly.

The Line of Rudolf of Hapsburg did not at once succeed continuously to the Empire, as the wont had been in

such cases, where the sons were willing and of good likelihood. After such a spell of anarchy, parties still ran

higher than usual in the Holy Roman Empire; and wideyawning splits would not yet coalesce to the old

pitch. It appears too the posterity of Rudolf, stiff, inarticulate, proud men, and of a turn for engrossing and

amassing, were not always lovely to the public. Albert, Rudolf's eldest son, for instance, Kaiser Albert

I.,who did succeed, though not at once, or till after killing Rudolf's immediate successor, [Adolf of Nassau;

slain by Albert's own hand; "Battle" of Hasenbuhel "near Worms, 2d July, 1298" (Kohler, p. 265).] Albert

was by no means a prepossessing man, though a tough and hungry one. It must be owned, he had a harsh ugly

character; and face to match: bignosed, looselipped, blind of an eye: not Kaiserlike at all to an Electoral

Body. "Est homo monoculus, et vultu rustico; non potest esse Imperator (A oneeyed fellow, and looks like a

clown; he cannot be Emperor)!" said Pope Boniface VIII., when consulted about him. [Kohler, pp. 267273;

Enough, from the death of Rudolf, A.D. 1291, there intervened a hundred aud fifty years, and eight

successive Kaisers singly or in line, only one of whom (this same Albert of the unlovely countenance) was a

Hapsburger,before the Family, often trying it all along, could get a third time into the Imperial saddle.

Where, after that, it did sit steady. Once in for the third time, the Hapsburgers got themselves "elected" (as

they still called it) time after time; always elected,with but one poor exception, which will much concern

my readers by and by,to the very end of the matter. And saw the Holy Roman Empire itself expire, and as

it were both saddle and horse vanish out of Nature, before they would dismount. Nay they still ride there on

the shadow of a saddle, so to speak; and are "Kaisers of AUSTRIA" at this hour. Steady enough of seat at

For during those hundred and fifty years,among those six intercalary Kaisers, too, who followed

Albert,they were always trying; always thinking they had a kind of quasi right to it; whereby the Empire

often fell into trouble at Electiontime. For they were proud stout men, our Hapsburgers, though of taciturn

unconciliatory ways; and Rudolf had so fitted them out with fruitful Austrian Dukedoms, which they much

increased by marriages and otherwise,Styria, Carinthia, the Tyrol, by degrees, not to speak of their native

HAPSBURG much enlarged, and claims on Switzerland all round it,they had excellent means of battling

for their pretensions and disputable elections. None of them succeeded, however, for a hundred and fifty

years, except that same oneeyed, looselipped unbeautiful Albert I.; a Kaiser dreadfully fond of earthly

goods, too. Who indeed grasped all round him, at property half his, or wholly not his: Rhinetolls, Crown of

Bohemia, Landgraviate of Thuringen, Swiss Forest Cantons, Crown of Hungary, Crown of France

even:getting endless quarrels on his hands, and much defeat mixed with any victory there was. Poor soul,

he had sixandtwenty children by one wife; and felt that there was need of apanages! He is understood

(guessed, not proved) to have instigated two assassinations in pursuit of these objects; and he very clearly

underwent ONE in his own person. Assassination first was of Dietzman the Thuringian Landgraf, an

AntiAlbert champion, who refused to be robbed by Albert,for whom the great Dante is (with almost

palpable absurdity) fabled to have written an Epitaph still legible in the Church at Leipzig. [Menckenii

Scriptores, i.?? Fredericus Admorsus (by Tentsel).] Assassination second was of Wenzel, the poor young

Bohemian King, Ottocar's Grandson and last heir. Sure enough, this important young gentleman "was

murdered by some one at Olmutz next year" (1306, a promising event for Albert then), "but none yet knows

Neither of which suspicious transactions came to any result for Albert; as indeed most of his unjust graspings

proved failures. He at one time had thoughts of the Crown of France; "Yours _I_ solemnly declare!" said the

Pope. But that came to nothing;only to France's shifting of the Popes to Avignon, more under the thumb of

France. What his ultimate success with Tell and the Forest Cantons was, we all know! A most clutching,

strongfisted, dreadfully hungry, tough and unbeautiful man. Whom his own Nephew, at last, had to

assassinate, at the Ford of the Reus (near Windisch Village, meeting of the Reus and Aar; 1st May, 1308):

"Scandalous Jew pawnbroker of an Uncle, wilt thou flatly keep from me my Father's heritage, then, intrusted

to thee in his hour of death? Regardless of God and man, and of the last look of a dying Brother? Uncle worse

than pawnbroker; for it is a heritage with NO pawn on it, with much the reverse!" thought the Nephew,and

stabbed said Uncle down dead; having gone across with him in the boat; attendants looking on in distraction

from the other side of the river. Was called Johannes PARRICIDA in consequence; fled out of human sight

that day, he and his henchmen, never to turn up again till Doomsday. For the pursuit was transcendent,

regardless of expense; the cry for legal vengeance very great (on the part of Albert's daughters chiefly),

though in vain, or nearly so, in this world. [Kohler, p. 272. Hormayr, OEsterreichischer Plutarch, oder Leben

Of the other six Kaisers not Hapsburgers we are bound to mention one, and dwell a little on his fortunes and

those of the family he founded; both Brandenburg and our Hohenzollerns coming to be much connected

therewith, as time went on. This is Albert's next successor, Henry Count of Luxemburg; called among

Kaisers Henry VII. He is founder, he alone among these NonHapsburgers, of a small intercalary LINE of

Kaisers, "the Luxemburg Line;" who amount indeed only to Four, himself included; and are not otherwise of

much memorability, if we except himself; though straggling about like wellrooted briers, in that favorable

ground, they have accidentally hooked themselves upon World History in one or two points. By accident a

somewhat noteworthy line, those Luxemburg Kaisers:a celebrated place, too, or name of a place, that

"LUXEMBOURG" of theirs, with its French Marshals, grand Parisian Edifices, lending it new lustre: what,

thinks the reader, is the meaning of Luzzenburg, Luxemburg, Luxembourg? Merely LUTZELburg, wrong

pronounced; and that again is nothing but LITTLEborough: such is the luck of names!

Heinrich Graf von Luxemburg was, after some pause on the parricide of Albert, chosen Kaiser, "on account

of his renowned valor," say the old Books,and also, add the shrewder of them, because his Brother,

Archbishop of Trier, was one of the Electors, and the Pope did not like either the Austrian or the French

candidate then in the field. Chosen, at all events, he was, 27th November, 1308; [Kohler, p. 274.] clearly, and

by much, the best Kaiser that could be had. A puissant soul, who might have done great things, had he lived.

He settled feuds; cut off oppressions from the REICHSTADTE (Free Towns); had a will of just sort, and

found or made a way for it. Bohemia lapsed to him, the old race of Kings having perished out,the last of

them far too suddenly "at Olmutz," as we saw lately! Some opposition there was, but much more favor

especially by the Bohemian People; and the point, after some small "Siege of Prag" and the like, was

definitely carried by the Kaiser. The now Burggraf of Nurnberg, Friedrich IV., son of Rudolf's friend, was

present at this Siege of Prag; [1310 (Rentsch, p. 311).] a Burggraf much attached to Kaiser Henry, as all good

He went to Italy, our Burggraf of Nurnberg and many more along with him, to pull the crooked

GuelfGhibelline Facts and Avignon Pope a little straight, if possible; and was vigorously doing it, when he

died on a sudden; "poisoned in sacramental wine," say the Germans! One of the crowning summits of human

scoundrelism, which painfully stick in the mind. It is certain he arrived well at Buonconvento near Sienna, on

the 24th September, 1313, in full march towards the rebellious King of Naples, whom the Pope much

countenanced. At Buonconvento, Kaiser Henry wished to enjoy the communion; and a Dominican monk,

whose dark rateyed look men afterwards bethought them of, administered it to him in both species (Council

of Trent not yet quite prohibiting the liquid species, least of all to Kaisers, who are by theory a kind of

"Deacons to the Pope," or something else [Voltaire, Essai sur les Moeurs, c. 67,?? Henri VII. ( UEuvres, xxi.

184).]);administered it in both species: that is certain, and also that on the morrow Henry was dead. The

Dominicans endeavored afterwards to deny; which, for the credit of human nature, one wishes they had done

with effect. [Kohler, p. 281 (Ptolemy of Lucca, himself a Dominican, is one of the ACCUSING spirits:

Muratori, l. xi. ?? Ptolomaeus Lucensis, A.D. 1313).] But there was never any trial had; the denial was

considered lame; and German History continues to shudder, in that passage, and assert. Poisoned in the wine

of his sacrament: the Florentines, it is said, were at the bottom of it, and had hired the rateyed

Dominican; "O Italia, O Firenze!" That is not the way to achieve Italian Liberty, or Obedience to God;

that is the way to confirm, as by frightful stygian oath, Italian Slavery, or continual Obedience, under varying

forms, to the Other Party! The voice of Dante, then alive among men, proclaims, sad and loving as a mother's

voice, and implacable as a voice of Doom, that you are wandering, and have wandered, in a terrible

Peter, the then Archbishop of Mainz, says there had not for hundreds of years such a death befallen the

German Empire; to which Kohler, one of the wisest moderns, gives his assent: "It could not enough be

lamented," says he, "that so vigilant a Kaiser, in the flower of his years, should have been torn from the world

in so devilish a manner: who, if he had lived longer, might have done Teutschland unspeakable benefit."

Henry VII. having thus perished suddenly, his Son Johann, scarcely yet come of age, could not follow him as

Kaiser, according to the Father's thought; though in due time he prosecuted his advancement otherwise to

good purpose, and proved a very stirring man in the world. By his Father's appointment, to whom as Kaiser

the chance had fallen, he was already King of Bohemia, strong in his right and in the favor of the natives;

though a titular Competitor, Henry of the Tyrol, beaten off by the late Kaiser, was still extant: whom,

however, and all other perils Johann contrived to weather; growing up to be a farsighted stouthearted man,

and potent Bohemian King, widely renowned in his day. He had a Son, and then two Grandsons, who were

successively Kaisers, after a sort; making up the "Luxemburg Four" we spoke of. He did Crusades, one or

more, for the Teutsch Ritters, in a shining manner; unhappily with loss of an eye; nay ultimately, by the

aid of quack oculists, with loss of both eyes. An ambitious man, not to be quelled by blindness; man with

much negotiation in him; with a heavy stroke of fight too, and tomper nothing loath at it; of which we shall

The pity was, for the Reich if not for him, he could not himself become Kaiser. Perhaps we had not then seen

Henry VII.'s fine enterprises, like a fleet of halfbuilt ships, go mostly to planks again, on the waste sea, had

his Son followed him. But there was, on the contrary, a contested election; Austria in again, as usual, and

again unsuccessful. The late Kaiser's Austrian competitor, "Friedrich the Fair, Duke of Austria," the

parricided Albert's Son, was again one of the parties. Against whom, with real but not quite indisputable

majority, stood Ludwig Duke of Bavaria: "Ludwig IV.," "Ludwig DER BAIER (the Bavarian)" as they call

him among Kaisers. Contest attended with the usual election expenses; warwrestle, namely, between the

parties till one threw the other. There was much confused wrestling and throttling for seven years or more

(13151322). Our Nurnberg Burggraf, Friedrich IV., held with Ludwig, as did the real majority, though in a

languid manner, and was busy he as few were; the Austrian Hapsburgs also doing their best, now under, now

above. Johann King of Bohemia was on Ludwig's side as yet. Ludwig's own Brother, KurPfalz (ancestor of

all the Electors, and their numerous Branches, since known there), an elder Brother, was, "out of spite as men

In the eighth year came a Fight that proved decisive. Fight at Muhldorf on the Inn, 23th September,

1322,far down in those Danube Countries, beyond where Marlborough ever was, where there has been

much fighting first and last; Burggraf Friedrich was conspicuously there. A very great Battle, say the old

Books,says Hormayr, in a new readable Book, [Hormayr, OEsterreichischer Plutarch, ii. 3137.] giving

minute account of it. Ludwig rather held aloof rearward; committed his business to the Hohenzollern

Burggraf and to one Schweppermann, aided by a noble lord called Rindsmaul ("COWMOUTH," no less),

and by others experienced in such work. Friedrich the Hapsburger DER SCHONE, Duke of Austria, and

selfstyled Kaiser, a gallant handsome man, breathed mere martial fury, they say: he knew that his Brother

Leopold was on march with a reinforcement to him from the Strasburg quarter, and might arrive any moment;

but he could not wait,perhaps afraid Ludwig might run;he rashly determined to beat Ludwig without

reinforcement. Our rugged fervid Hormayr (though imitating Tacitus and Johannes von Muller overmuch)

will instruct fully any modern that is curious about this big Battle: what furious charging, worrying; how it

"lasted ten hours;" how the blazing Handsome Friedrich stormed about, and "slew above fifty with his own

hand." To us this is the interesting point: At one turn of the Battle, tenth hour of it now ending, and the tug of

war still desperate, there arose a cry of joy over all the Austrian ranks, "Help coming! Help!"and Friedrich

noticed a body of Horse, "in Austrian cognizance" (such the cunning of a certain man), coming in upon his

rear. Austrians and Friedrich never doubted but it was Brother Leopold just getting on the ground; and rushed

forward doubly fierce. Doubly fierce; and were doubly astonished when it plunged in upon them,

sharpedged, as Burggraf Friedrich of Nurnberg,and quite ruined Austrian Friedrich. Austrian Friedrich

fought personally like a lion at bay; but it availed nothing. Rindsmaul (not lovely of lip, COWMOUTH,

socalled) disarmed him: "I will not surrender except to a Prince!"so Burggraf Friedrich was got to take

surrender of him; and the Fight, and whole Controversy with it, was completely won. [ Jedem Mann ein Ey

(One egg to every man), Dem frommen Schweppermann zwey (Two to the excellent Schweppermann}:

Tradition still repeats this old rhyme, as the Kaiser's Address to his Army, or his Head Captains, at supper,

Poor Leopold, the Austrian Brother, did not arrive till the morrow; and saw a sad sight, before flying off

again. Friedrich the Fair sat prisoner in the old Castle of Traussnitz (OBER PFALZ, Upper Palatinate, or

Nurnberg country) for three years; whittling sticks:Tourists, if curious, can still procure specimens of them

at the place, for a consideration. There sat Friedrich, Brother Leopold moving Heaven and Earth,and in

fact they said, the very Devil by art magic, [Kohler, p. 288.]to no purpose, to deliver him. And his poor

Ludwig the Bavarian reigned thenceforth,though never on easy terms. How grateful to Friedrich of

Nurnberg we need not say. For one thing, he gave him all the Austrian Prisoners; whom Friedrich,

judiciously generous, dismissed without ransom except that they should be feudally subject to him

henceforth. This is the third Hohenzollern whom we mark as a conspicuous acquirer in the Hohenzollern

family, this Friedrich IV., builder of the second story of the House. If Conrad, original Burggraf, founded the

House, then (figuratively speaking) the able Friedrich III., who was Rudolf of Hapsburg's friend, built it one

story high; and here is a new Friedrich, his Son, who has added a second story. It is astonishing, says

Dryasdust, how many feudal superiorities the Anspach and Baireuth people still have in Austria;they

maintain their own LEHNPROBST, or Official Manager for fiefcasualties, in that country:all which

proceed from this Battle of Muhldorf. [Rentsch, p. 313; Pauli; Battle fought on the 28th of September,

1322:eight years after BABBOCKBURN; while our poor Edward II. and England with him were in such a

welter with their Spencers and their Gavestons: eight years after Bannockburn, and fourandtwenty before

Kaiser Ludwig reigned some twentyfive years more, in a busy and even strenuous, but not a successful way.

He had good windfalls, too; for example, Brandenburg, as we shall see. He made friends; reconciled himself

to his Brother KurPfalz and junior Cousinry there, settling handsomely, and with finality, the debatable

points between them. Enemies, too, he made; especially Johann the Luxemburger, King of Bohemia, on what

ground will be seen shortly, who became at last inveterate to a high degree. But there was one supremely sore

element in his lot: a Pope at Avignon to whom he could by no method make himself agreeable. Pope who put

him under ban, not long after that Muhldorf victory; and kept him so; inexorable, let poor Ludwig turn as he

might. Ludwig's German Princes stood true to him; declared, in solemn Diet, the Pope's ban to be mere spent

shot, of no avail in Imperial Politics. Ludwig went, vigorously to Italy; tried setting up a Pope of his own; but

In fine, Ludwig had to carry this cross on his back, in a sorrowful manner, all his days. The Pope at last,

finding Johann of Bohemia in a duly irritated state, persuaded him into setting up an AntiKaiser,Johann's

second Son as AntiKaiser,who, though of little account, and called PFAFFENKAISER (Parsons'

Kaiser) by the public, might have brought new troubles, had that lasted. We shall see some ultimate glimpses

Two years before the victory at Muhldorf, a bad chance befell in Brandenburg: the ASCANIER Line of

Markgraves or Electors ended. Magniloquent Otto with the Arrow, Otto the Short, Hermann the Tall, all the

Ottos, Hermanns and others, died by course of nature; nephew Waldemar himself, a stirring man, died

prematurely (A.D. 1319), and left only a young cousin for successor, who died few months after: [September,

1320 (Pauli, i. 391). Michaelis, i. 260277.] the Line of Albert the Bear went out in Brandenburg. They had

lasted there about two hundred years. They had not been, in late times, the successfulest Markgraves:

territories much split up among younger sons, joint Markgraves reigning, which seldom answers; yet to the

last they always made stout fight for themselves; walked the stage in a high manner; and surely might be said

to quit it creditably, leaving such a Brandenburg behind them, chiefly of their making, during the Two

There were plenty of Ascanier Cousins still extant in those parts, Saxon dignitaries, Anhalt dignitaries, lineal

descendants of Albert the Bear; to some of whom, in usual times, Albert's inheritance would naturally have

been granted. But the times were of battle, uncertainty, contested election: and the Ascaniers, I perceive, had

rather taken Friedrich of Austria's side, which proved the losing one. Kaiser Ludwig DER BAIER would

appoint none of these; AntiKaiser Friedrich's appointments, if he made any, could be only nominal, in those

distant Northern parts. Ludwig, after his victory of Muhldorf, preferred to consider the Electorate of

Brandenburg as lapsed, lying vacant, ungoverned these three years; and now become the Kaiser's again.

Kaiser, in consequence, gave it to his Son; whose name also is Ludwig: the date of the Investiture is 1323

(year after that victory of Muhldorf); a date unfortunate to Brandenburg. We come now into a Line of

BAVARIAN Markgraves, and then of LUXEMBURG ones; both of which are of fatal significance to

The Ascanier Cousins, high Saxon dignitaries some of them, gloomed mere disappointment, and protested

hard; but could not mend the matter, now or afterwards. Their Line went out in Saxony too, in course of time;

gave place to the WETTINS, who are still there. The Ascanier had to be content with the more pristine state

of acquisitions,high pedigrees, old castles of Ascanien and Ballenstadt, territories of Anhalt or what else

they had;and never rose again to the lost height, though the race still lives, and has qualities besides its

pedigree. We said the "Old Dessauer," Leopold Prince of AnhaltDessau, was the head of it in Friedrich

Wilhelm's time; and to this day he has descendants. Catharine II. of Russia was of AnhaltZerbst, a junior

branch. Albert the Bear, if that is of any use to him, has still occasionally notable representatives.

Ludwig junior, Kaiser Ludwig the Bavarian's eldest son, was still under age when appointed Kurfurst of

Brandenburg in 1323: of course he had a "STATEHOLDER" (Viceregent, STATTHALTER); then, and

afterwards in occasional absences of his, a series of such, Kaiser's Councillors, Burggraf Friedrich IV. among

them, had to take some thought of Brandenburg in its new posture. Who these Brandenburg Statthalters were,

is heartily indifferent even to Dryasdust,except that one of them for some time was a Hohenzollern: which

circumstance Dryasdust marks with the due note of admiration. "What he did there," Dryasdust admits, "is

not written anywhere;"good, we will hope, and not evil;but only the Diploma nominating him (of date

1346, not in Ludwig's minority, but many years after that ended [Rentsch, p. 323.]) now exists by way of

record. A difficult problem he, like the other regents and viceregents, must have had; little dreaming that it

was intrinsically for a grandson of his own, and long line of grandsons. The name of this temporary

Statthalter, the first Hohenzollern who had ever the least concern with Brandenburg, is Burggraf Johann II.,

eldest Son of our distinguished Muhldorf friend Friedrich IV.; and Grandfather (through another Friedrich) of

Burggraf Friedrich VI.,which last gentleman, as will be seen, did doubtless reap the sowings, good and

bad, of all manner of men in Brandenburg. The same Johann II. it was who purchased Plassenburg Castle and

Territory (cheap, for money down), where the Family afterwards had its chief residence. Hof, Town and

Territory, had fallen to his Father in those parts; a gift of gratitude from Kaiser Ludwig:most of the

Kaiser Ludwig the Bavarian left his sons Electors of Brandenburg; "Electors, KURFURSTS," now

becomes the commoner term for so important a Country;Electors not in easy circumstances. But no son of

his succeeded Ludwig as Kaiser,successor in the Reich was that PfaffenKaiser, Johann of Bohemia's son,

a Luxemburger once more. No son of Ludwig's; nor did any descendant,except, after four hundred years,

that unfortunate Kaiser Karl VII., in Maria Theresa's time. He was a descendant. Of whom we shall hear

more than enough. The unluckiest of all Kaisers, that Karl VII.; less a Sovereign Kaiser than a bone thrown

into the ring for certain royal dogs, Louis XV., George II. and others, to worry about; watchdogs of the

gods; apt sometimes to run into hunting instead of warding.We will say nothing more of Ludwig the Baier,

or his posterity, at present: we will glance across to Preussen, and see, for one moment, what the Teutsch

Ritters are doing in their new Century. It is the year 1330; Johann II. at Nurnberg, as yet only coming to be

Burggraf, by no means yet administering in Brandenburg; and Ludwig junior seven years old in his new

The Teutsch Ritters, after infinite travail, have subdued heathen Preussen; colonized the country with

industrious German immigrants; banked the Weichsel and the Nogat, subduing their quagmires into

meadows, and their waste streams into deep ship courses. Towns are built, Konigsberg (KING Ottocar's

TOWN), Thoren (Thorn, CITY of the GATES), with many others: so that the wild population and the tame

now lived tolerably together, under Gospel and Lubeck Law; and all was ploughing and trading, and a rich

country; which had made the Teutsch Ritters rich, and victoriously at their ease in comparison. But along

with riches and the ease of victory, the common bad consequences had ensued. Ritters given up to luxuries, to

secular ambitions; ritters no longer clad in austere mail and prayer; ritters given up to wantonness of mind

and conduct; solemnly vowing, and quietly not doing; without remorse or consciousness of wrong, daily

eating forbidden fruit; ritters swelling more and more into the fattedox condition, for whom there is but one

In the year 1330, one Werner von Orseln was Grandmaster of these Ritters. The Grandmaster, who is still

usually the best man they can get, and who by theory is sacred to them as a GrandLama or Pope among

CardinalLamas, or as an Abbot to his Monks,Grand master Werner, we say, had lain down in

Marienburg one afternoon of this year 1330, to take his siesta, and was dreaming peaceably after a moderate

repast, when a certain devilridden mortal, Johann von Endorf, one of his Ritters, long grumbling about

severity, want of promotion and the like, rushed in upon the good old man; ran him through, dead for a ducat;

[Voigt, iv. 474, 482.]and consummated a PARRICIDE at which the very cross on one's white cloak

shudders! Parricide worse, a great deal, than that at the Ford of Reuss upon oneeyed Albert.

We leave the shuddering Ritters to settle it, sternly vengeful; whom, for a moment, it has struck broadawake

Young Ludwig Kurfurst of Brandenburg, Kaiser Ludwig's eldest son, having come of years, the Tutors or

Statthalters went home,not wanted except in cases of occasional absence henceforth;and the young man

endeavored to manage on his own strength. His success was but indifferent; he held on, however, for a space

of twenty years, better or worse. "He helped King Edward III. at the Siege of Cambray (A.D. 1339);"

[Michaelis, i. 279.] whose French politics were often connected with the Kaiser's: it is certain, Kurfurst

Ludwig "served personally with 600 horse [on good payment, I conclude] at that Siege of Cambray;"and

probably saw the actual Black Prince, and sometimes dined with him, as English readers can imagine. In

Brandenburg he had many checks and difficult passages, but was never quite beaten out, which it was easy to

A man of some ability, as we can gather, though not of enough: he played his game with resolution, not

without skill; but from the first the cards were against him. His Father's affairs going mostly ill were no help

to his, which of themselves went not well. The Brandenburgers, mindful of their old Ascanier sovereigns,

were ill affected to Ludwig and the new Bavarian sort. The Anhalt Cousinry gloomed irreconcilable; were

never idle, digging pitfalls, raising troubles. From them and others Kurfurst Ludwig had troubles enough;

which were fronted by him really not amiss; which we wholly, or all but wholly, omit in this place.

The wickedest and worst trouble of their raising was that of the resuscitated Waldemar (A.D. 1345): "False

Waldemar," as he is now called in Brandenburg Books. Waldemar was the last, or as good as the last, of the

Ascanier Markgraves; and he, two years before Ludwig ever saw those countries, died in his bed,

twentyfive good years ago; and was buried, and seemingly ended. But no; after twentyfive years,

Waldemar reappears: "Not buried or dead, only shamburied, shamdead; have been in the Holy Land all

this while, doing pilgrimage and penance; and am come to claim my own again, which strangers are much

Perkin Warbeck, POSTMORTEM Richard II., Dimitri of Russia, Martin Guerre of the CAUSES

CELEBRES: it is a common story in the world, and needs no commentary now. POSTMORTEM

Waldemar, it is said, was a Miller's Man, "of the name of Jakob Rehback;" who used to be about the real

Waldemar in a menial capacity, and had some resemblance to him. He showed signets, recounted

experiences, which had belonged to the real Waldemar. Many believed in his pretension, and took arms to

assert it; the Reich being in much internal battle at the time; poor Kaiser Ludwig, with his Avignon Popes and

angry Kings Johann, wading in deep waters. Especially the disaffected Cousinry, or Princes of Anhalt,

believed and battled for POSTMORTEM Waldemar; who were thought to have got him up from the first.

Kurfurst Ludwig had four or five most sad years with him;all the worse when the PFAFFENKAISER

(King Johann's son) came on the stage, in the course of them (A.D. 1346), and Kaiser Ludwig, yielding not

indeed to him, but to Death, vanished from it two years after; [Elected, 1314; Muhldorf, and Election

COMPLETE, 1322; died, 1347, age 60.] leaving Kurfurst Ludwig to his own shifts with the PfaffenKaiser.

Whom he could not now hinder from succeeding to the Reich. He tried hard; set up, he and others, an

AntiKaiser (GUNTHER OF SCHWARTZBURG, temporary Anti Kaiser, whom English readers can

forget again): he bustled, battled, negotiated, up and down; and ran across, at one time, to Preussen to the

Teutsch Ritters,presumably to borrow money:but it all would not do. The PfaffenKaiser carried it, in

the Diet and out of the Diet: Karl IV. by title; a sorry enough Kaiser, and by nature an enemy of Ludwig's.

It was in this whirl of intricate misventures that Kurfurst Ludwig had to deal with his False Waldemar,

conjured from the deeps upon him, like a new goblin, where already there were plenty, in the dance round

poor Ludwig. Of which nearly inextricable goblin dance; threatening Brandenburg, for one thing, with

annihilation, and yet leading Brandenburg abstrusely towards new birth and higher destinies,how will it be

possible (without raising new ghosts, in a sense) to give readers any intelligible notion? Here, flickering on

the edge of conflagration after duty done, is a poor Note which perhaps the reader had better, at the risk of

"Kaiser Henry VII., who died of sacramental wine, First of the Luxemburg Kaisers, left Johann still a boy of

fifteen, who could not become the second of them, but did in time produce the Second, who again produced

"Johann was already King of Bohemia; the important young gentleman, Ottocar's grandson, whom we saw

'murdered at Olmutz none yet knows by whom,' had left that throne vacant, and it lapsed to the Kaiser; who,

the Nation also favoring, duly put in his son Johann. There was a competitor, 'Duke of the Tyrol,' who

claimed on loose grounds; 'My wife was Aunt of the young murdered King,' said he; 'wherefore'! Kaiser,

and Johann after him, rebutted this competitor; but he long gave some trouble, having great wealth and

means. He produced a Daughter, Margaret Heiress of the Tyrol,with a terrible MOUTH to her face, and

none of the gentlest hearts in her body:that was perhaps his principal feat in the world. He died 1331; had

styled himself 'King of Bohemia' for twenty years,ever since 1308;but in the last two years of his life he

gave it up, and ceased from troubling, having come to a beautiful agreement with Johann.

"Johann, namely, wedded his eldest Son to this competitor's fine Daughter with the mouth (Year 1329): 'In

this manner do not Bohemia and the Tyrol come together in my blood and in yours, and both of us are made

men?' said the two contracting parties.Alas, no: the competitor Duke, father of the Bride, died some two

years after, probably with diminished hopes of it; and King Johann lived to see the hope expire dismally

altogether. There came no children, there came noIn fact Margaret, after a dozen years of wedlock, in

unpleasant circumstances, broke it off as if by explosion; took herself and her Tyrol irrevocably over to

Kaiser Ludwig, quite away from King Johann,who, his hopes of the Tyrol expiring in such dismal manner,

Tyrol explosion was in 1342. And now, keeping these preliminary dates and outlines in mind, we shall

understand the bigmouthed Lady better, and the consequences of her in the world.

What principally raised this dance of the devils round poor Ludwig, I perceive, was a marriage he had made,

three years before Waldemar emerged; of which, were it only for the sake of the Bride's name, some mention

is permissible. Margaret of the Tyrol, commonly called, by contemporaries and posterity, MAULTASCHE

(Mouthpoke, Pocketmouth), she was the bride:marriage done at Innspruck, 1342, under furtherance of

father Ludwig the Kaiser: such a mouth as we can fancy, and a character corresponding to it. This, which

seemed to the two Ludwigs a very conquest of the goldenfleece under conditions, proved the beginning of

Not a lovely bride at all, this Maultasche; who is verging now towards middle life withal, and has had enough

to cross her in the world. Was already married thirteen years ago; not wisely nor by any means too well. A

terrible dragon of a woman. Has been in nameless domestic quarrels; in wars and sieges with rebellious

vassals; claps you an iron cap on her head, and takes the field when need is: furious shebear of the Tyrol.

But she has immense possessions, if wanting in female charms. She came by mothers from that Duke of

Meran whom we saw get his death (for cause), in the Plassenburg a hundred years ago. [Antes, p.102.] Her

ancestor was Husband to an Aunt of that homicided Duke: from him, principally from him, she inherits the

Tyrol, Carinthia, Styria; is herself an only child, the last of a line: hugest Heiress now going. So that, in spite

of the mouth and humor, she has not wanted for wooers,especially prudent Fathers wooing her for their

In her Father's lifetime, Johann King of Bohemia, always awake to such symptoms of things, and having very

peculiar interests in this case, courted and got her for his CrownPrince (as we just saw), a youth of great

outlooks, outlooks towards Kaisership itself perhaps; to whom she was wedded, thirteen years ago, and duly

brought the Tyrol for Heritage: but with the worst results. Heritage, namely, could not be had without strife

with Austria, which likewise had claims. Far worse, the marriage itself went awry: Johann's CrownPrince

was "a softnatured Herr," say the Books: why bring your big shebear into a poor deer's den? Enough, the

marriage came to nothing, except to huge brawlings far enough away from us: and Margaret Pouchmouth

has now divorced her Bohemian CrownPrince as a Nullity; and again weds, on similar terms, Kaiser

Ludwig's son, our Brandenburg Kurfurst,who hopes possibly that HE now may succeed as Kaiser, on the

The marriage was done in the Church of Innspruck, 10th February, 1342 (for we love to be particular),

"Kaiser Ludwig," happy man, "and many Princes of the Empire, looking on;" little thinking what a coil it

would prove. "At the high altar she stript off her veil," symbol of wifehood or widowhood, "and put on a

JUNGFERNKRANZ (maiden'sgarland)," symbolically testifying how happy Ludwig junior still was. They

had a son by and by; but their course otherwise, and indeed thiswise too, was much checkered.

King Johann, seeing the Tyrol gone in this manner, gloomed terribly upon his CrownPrince; flung him aside

as a Nullity, "Go to Moravia, out of sight, on an apanage, you; be CrownPrince no longer!"And took to

fighting Kaiser Ludwig; colleagued diligently with the hostile Pope, with the King of France; intrigued and

colleagued far and wide; swearing by every method everlasting enmity to Kaiser Ludwig; and set up his son

Karl as PfaffenKaiser. Nay, perhaps he was at the bottom of POSTOBIT Waldemar too. In brief, he raised,

he mainly, this devils'dance, in which, Kaiser Ludwig having died, poor Kurfurst Ludwig, with Maultasche

Johann's poor CrownPrince, finding matters take this turn, retired into MAHREN (Moravia) as bidden;

"Margrave of Mahren;" and peaceably adjusted himself to his character of Nullity and to the loss of

Maultasche;chose, for the rest, a new Princess in wedlock, with more moderate dimensions of mouth; and

did produce sons and daughters on a fresh score. Produced, among others, one Jobst his successor in the

apanage or Margrafdom; who, as JOBST, or Jodocus, OF MAHREN, made some noise for himself in the

next generation, and will turn up again in reference to Brandenburg in this History.

As for Margaret Pouchmouth, she, with her new Husband as with her old, continued to have troubles, pretty

much as the sparks fly upwards. She had fierce siegings after this, and explosive procedures,little short of

Monk Schwartz, who was just inventing gunpowder at the time. We cannot hope she lived in Elysian

harmony with Kurfurst Ludwig;the reverse, in fact; and oftenest with the whole breadth of Germany

between them, he in Brandenburg, she in the Tyrol. Nor did Ludwig junior ever come to be Kaiser, as his

Father and she had hoped; on the contrary, King Johann of Bohemia's people,it was they that next got the

Ludwig and she had a son, as we said; Prince of the Tyrol and appendages, titular Margraf of Mahren and

much else, by nature: but alas, he died about ten; a precocious boy,fancy the wild weeping of a maternal

Shebear! And the Father had already died; [In 1361, died Kurfurst Ludwig; 1363, the Boy; 1366,

Maultasche herself.] a malicious world whispering that perhaps she poisoned them BOTH. The proud

woman, now old too, pursed her big coarse lips together at such rumor, and her big coarse soul,in a

gloomy scorn appealing beyond the world; in a sorrow that the world knew not of. She solemnly settled her

Tyrol and appendages upon the Austrian Archdukes, who were children of her Mother's Sister; whom she

even installed into the actual government, to make matters surer. This done, she retired to Vienna, on a

pension from them, there to meditate and pray a little, before Death came; as it did now in a short year or two.

Tyrol and the appendages continue with Austria from that hour to this, Margaret's little boy having died.

Margaret of the Pouchmouth, rugged dragoonmajor of a woman, with occasional steel cap on her head,

and capable of swearing terribly in Flanders or elsewhere, remains in some measure memorable to me.

Compared with Pompadour, Duchess of Cleveland, of Kendal and other highrouged unfortunate females,

whom it is not proper to speak of without necessity, though it is often done,Maultasche rises to the rank of

Historical. She brought the Tyrol and appendages permanently to Austria; was near leading Brandenburg to

annihilation, raising such a goblindance round Ludwig and it, yet did abstrusely lead Brandenburg towards a

Kaiser Ludwig died in 1347, while the False Waldemar was still busy. We saw Karl IV., Johann of Bohemia's

second son, come to the Kaisership thereupon, Johann's eldest Nullity being omitted. This Fourth

Karl,other three Karls are of the Charlemagne set, Karl the Bald, the Fat, and such like, and lie under our

horizon, while CHARLES FIFTH is of a still other set, and known to everybody,this Karl IV. is the Kaiser

who discovered the Well of KARLSBAD (Bath of Karl), known to Tourists of this day; and made the

GOLDEN BULL, which I forbid all Englishmen to take for an agricultural Prize Animal, the thing being far

There is little farther to be said of Karl in ReichsHistory. An unesteemed creature; who strove to make his

time peaceable in this world, by giving from the Holy Roman Empire with both hands to every bullbeggar,

or readypayer who applied. Sad sign what the Roman Empire had come and was coming to. The Kaiser's

shield, set up aloft in the Roncalic Plain in Barbarossa's time, intimated, and in earnest too, "Ho, every one

that has suffered wrong!"intimates now, "Ho, every one that can bully me, or has money in his pocket!"

Unadmiring posterity has confirmed the nickname of this Karl IV.; and calls him PFAFFENKAISER. He

kept mainly at Prag, ready for receipt of cash, and holding well out of harm's way. In younger years he had

been much about the French Court; in Italy he had suffered troubles, almost assassinations; much blown to

and fro, poor light wretch, on the chaotic Winds of his Time,steering towards no star.

Johann, King of Bohemia, did not live to see Karl an acknowledged Kaiser. Old Johann, blind for some time

back, had perished two years before that event;bequeathing a Heraldic Symbol to the World's History and

Chapter XII. BRANDENBURG IN KAISER KARL'S TIME; END OF THE BAVARIAN KURFURSTS. 67

to England's, if nothing more. Poor man, he had crusaded in Preussen in a brilliant manner, being fond of

fighting. He wrung Silesia, gradually by purchase and entreaty ( pretio ac prece ), from the Polish King;

[13271341 (Kohler, p. 302).] joined IT firmly to Bohemia and Germany,unconsciously waiting for what

higher destinies Silesia might have. For Maultasche and the Tyrol he brought sad woes on Brandenburg; and

yet was unconsciously leading Brandenburg, by abstruse courses, whither it had to go. A restless,

ostentatious, fargrasping, stronghanded man; who kept the world in a stir wherever he was. All which has

proved voiceless in the World's memory; while the casual Shadow of a Feather he once wore has proved

Being much implicated with the King of France, who with the Pope was his chief stay in these final

AntiLudwig operations, Johann in 1346, PfaffenKaiser Karl just set on foothad led his chivalry into

France, to help against the English Edwards, who were then very intrusive there. Johann was blind, but he

had good ideas in war. At the Battle of Crecy, 24th August, 1346, he advised we know not what; but he

actually fought, though stone blind. "Tied his bridle to that of the Knight next him; and charged in,"like

an old blind warhorse kindling madly at the sound of the trumpet;and was there, by some English lance

or yew, laid low. They found him on that field of carnage (field of honor, too, in a sort); his old blind face

looking, very blindly, to the stars: on his shield was blazoned a Plume of three ostrich feathers with "ICH

DIEN (I serve)" written under:with which emblem every English reader is familiar ever since! This Editor

himself, in very tender years, noticed it on the Britannic Majesty's wardrums; and had to inquire of children

That is all I had to say of King Johann and his "ICH DIEN." Of the Luxemburg Kaisers (four in number, two

sons of Karl still to come); who, except him of the sacramental wine, with "ICH DIEN" for son, are good for

little; and deserve no memory from mankind except as they may stick, not easily extricable, to the history of

nobler men:of them also I could wish to be silent, but must not. Must at least explain how they came in, as

"Luxemburg Kurfursts" in Brandenburg; and how they went out, leaving Brandenburg not annihilated, but

Imaginary Waldemar being still busy in Brandenburg, it was natural for Kaiser Karl to find him genuine, and

keep up that goblindance round poor Kurfurst Ludwig, the late Kaiser's son, by no means a lover of Karl's.

Considerable support was managed to be raised for Waldemar. Kaiser Karl regularly infeoffed him as real

Kurfurst, so far as parchment could do it; and in case of his decease, says Karl's diploma farther, the Princes

of Anhalt shall succeed, Ludwig in any case is to be zero henceforth. War followed, or what they called

war: much confused invading, bickering and throttling, for two years to come. "Most of the Towns declared

for Waldemar, and their old Anhalt line of Margraves:" Ludwig and the Bavarian sort are clearly not popular

here. Ludwig held out strenuously, however; would not be beaten. He had the King of Denmark for

Brotherinlaw; had connections in the Reich: perhaps still better he had the REICHSINSIGNIA, lately his

Father's, still in hand. He stood obstinate siege from the Kaiser's people and the Anhalters; shoutedin

Denmark to help; started an AntiKaiser, as we said,temporary AntiKaiser Gunther of Schwartzburg,

whom the reader can forget a second time:in brief, Ludwig contrived to bring Kaiser Karl, and Imaginary

Waldemar with his Anhalters, to a quietus and negotiation, and to get Brandenburg cleared of them. Year

1349, they went their ways; and that devils'dance, which had raged five years and more round Ludwig, was

Imaginary Waldemar, after some farther ineffectual wrigglings, retired altogether into private life, at the

Court of Dessau; and happily died before long. Died at the Court of Dessau; the Anhalt Cousins treating him

to the last as Head Representative of Albert the Bear, and real Prince Waldemar; for which they had their

reasons. Portraits of this False Waldemar still turn up in the German Printshops; [In Kloss ( Vaterlandische

Gemalde, ii. 29), a sorry Compilation, above referred to, without value except for the old Excerpts, there is a

Chapter XII. BRANDENBURG IN KAISER KARL'S TIME; END OF THE BAVARIAN KURFURSTS. 68

Copy of it.] and represent a very absurd fellow, much muffled in drapery, mouth partially open, eyes wholly

and widely so,never yet recovered from his astonishment at himself and things in general! How it fared

with poor Brandenburg, in these chaotic throttlings and vicissitudes, under the Bavarian Kurfursts, we can too

However, in that same year, 1349, temporary quietus having come, Kurfurst Ludwig, weary of the matter,

gave it over to his Brother: "Have not I an opulent Maultasche, GorgonWife, susceptible to kindness, in the

Tyrol; have not I in the Reich elsewhere resources, appliances?" thought Kurfurst Ludwig. And gave the

thing over to his next Brother. Brother whose name also is LUDWIG (as their Father's also had been, three

Ludwigs at once, for our dear Germans shine in nomenclature): "Ludwig THE ROMAN" this new one;the

elder Brother, our acquaintance, being Ludwig simply, distinguishable too as KURFURST Ludwig, or even

as Ludwig SENIOR at this stage of the affair. Kurfurst Ludwig, therefore, Year 1349, washes his hands of

Brandenburg while the quietus lasts; retaining only the Electorship and Title; and goes his ways, resolving to

take his ease in Bavaria and the Tyrol thenceforth. How it fared with him there, with his loving Gorgon and

him, we will not ask farther. They had always separate houses to fly to, in case of extremity! They held out,

better or worse, twelve years more; and Ludwig left his little Boy still surviving him, in 1361.

In Brandenburg, the new Markgraf Ludwig, who we say is called "THE ROMAN" (LUDWIG DER

ROMER, having been in Rome) to distinguish him, continued warring with the Anarchies, fifteen years in a

rather tough manner, without much victory on either side;made his peace with Kaiser Karl however,

delivering up the REICHSINSIGNIA; and tried to put down the domestic Robbers, who had got on foot,

"many of them persons of quality;" [Michaelis, i. 282.] till he also died, childless, A.D. 1365; having been

Whereupon Brandenburg, Electorship and all Titles with it, came to Otto, third son of Kaiser Ludwig, who is

happily the last of these Bavarian Electors. They were an unlucky set of Sovereigns, not hitherto without

desert; and the unlucky Country suffered much under them. By far the unluckiest, and by far the worst, was

this Otto; a dissolute, drinking, entirely worthless Herr; under whom, for eight years, confusion went worse

confounded; as if plain chaos were coming; and Brandenburg and Otto grew tired of each other to the last

In which state of matters, A.D. 1373, Kaiser Karl offered Otto a trifle of ready money to take himself away.

Otto accepted greedily; sold his Electorate and big Mark of Brandenburg to Kaiser Karl for an old

song,200,000 thalers (about 30,000 pounds, and only half of it ever paid); [Michaelis, i. 283.] withdrew

to his Schloss of Wolfstein in Bavaria; and there, on the strength of that or other sums, "rolled deep as

possible in every sort of debauchery." And so in few years puddled himself to death; foully ending the

Bavarian set of Kurfursts. They had lasted fifty years; with endless trouble to the Country and to themselves;

If Brandenburg suffered much under the Bavarian Kurfursts for Fifty years, it was worse, and approached to

the state of worst, under the Luxemburgers, who lasted for some Forty more. Ninety years of anarchy in all;

Karl IV. made his eldest Boy Wenzel, still only about twelve, Elector of Brandenburg; [1373 (born 1361).]

Wenzel shall be Kaiser and King of Bohemia, one day, thinks Karl;which actually came to pass, and little

to Wenzel's profit, by and by. In the mean while Karl accompanied him to Brandenburg; which country Karl

liked much at the money, and indeed ever after, in his old days, he seemed rather to busy himself with it. He

assembled some kind of STANDE (States) twice over; got the Country "incorporated with Bohemia" by

them, and made tight and handy so far. Brandenburg shall rest from its woes, and be a silent portion of

Bohemia henceforth, thinks Karl,if the Heavens so please. Karl, a futile Kaiser, would fain have done

something to "encourage trade" in Brandenburg; though one sees not what it was he did, if anything. He built

the Schloss of Tangermunde, and oftenest lived there in time coming; a quieter place than even Prag for him.

In short, he appears to have fancied his cheap Purchase, and to have cheered his poor old futile life with it, as

with one thing that had been successful. Poor old creature: he had been a Kaiser on false terms, "Ho every

one that dare bully me, or that has money in his pocket;"a Kaiser that could not but be futile! In five years'

time he died; [King of Bohemia, 1346, on his Father's death; Kaiser (acknowledged on Ludwig the BAIER'S

death), 1347; died, 1378, age 62.] and doubtless was regretted in Brandenburg and even in the Reich, in

In Brandenburg he left, instead of one indifferent or even bad governor steadily tied to the place and in

earnest to make the best of it, a fluctuating series of governors holding loose, and not in earnest; which was

infinitely worse. These did not try to govern it; sent it to the Pawnbroker, to a fluctuating series of

Pawnbrokers; under whom, for the next fiveandthirty years, Brandenburg tasted all the fruits of

Nongovernment, that is to say, Anarchy or Government by the Pawnbroker; and sank faster and faster,

towards annihilation as it seemed. That was its fate under the Luxemburg Kurfursts, who made even the

One thing Kaiser Karl did, which ultimately proved the saving of Brandenburg: made friendship with the

Hohenzollern Burggraves. These, Johann II., temporary "STUTTHALTER" Johann, and his Brother, who

were Coregents in the Family Domain, when Karl first made appearance,had stood true to Kaiser Ludwig

and his Son, so long as that play lasted at all; nay one of these Burggraves was talked of as Kaiser after

Ludwig's death, but had the wisdom not to try. Kaiser Ludwig being dead, they still would not recognize the

PFAFFENKAISER Karl, but held gloomily out. So that Karl had to march in force into the Nurnberg

country, and by great promises, by considerable gifts, and the "example of the other Princes of the Empire,"

["Halloweve, 1347, on the Field of Nurnberg," Agreement was come to (Rentsch, p. 326).] brought them

After which, their progress, and that of their successor (Johann's son, Friedrich V.), in the grace of Karl, was

something xtraordinary. Karl gave his Daughter to this Friedrich V.'s eldest Son; appointed a Daughter of

Friedrich's for his own Second Prince, the famed Sigismund, famed that is to be,which latter match did not

take effect, owing to changed outlooks after Karl's death. Nay there is a Deed still extant about marrying

children not yet born: Karl to produce a Princess within five years, and Burggraf Friedrich V. a Prince, for

that purpose! [Rentsch, p. 336.] But the Burggraf never had another Prince; though Karl produced the due

Princess, and was ready, for his share. Unless indeed this strange eagerlooking Document, not dated in the

old Books, may itself relate to the above wedding which did come to pass?Years before that, Karl had

made his muchesteemed Burggraf Friedrich V. "CaptainGeneral of the Reich;" "Imperial Vicar,"

(SUBSTITUTE, if need were), and much besides; nay had given him the Landgraviate of Elsass

(ALSACE),so far as lay with him to give,of which valuable country this Friedrich had actual possession

so long as the Kaiser lived. "Best of men," thought the poor light Kaiser; "never saw such a man!"

Which proved a salutary thought, after all. The man had a little Boy Fritz (not the betrothed to Karl's

Princess), still chasing butterflies at Culmbach, when Karl died. In this Boy lie new destinies for

Brandenburg: towards him, and not towards annihilation, are Karl and the Luxemburg Kurfursts and

Karl left three young Sons, Wenzel, Sigismund, Johann; and also a certain Nephew much older; all of whom

Wenzel the eldest Son, heritable Kurfurst of Brandenburg as well as King of Bohemia, was as yet only

seventeen, who nevertheless got to be Kaiser, [1378, on his Father's death.]and went widely astray, poor

soul. The Nephew was no other than Margrave Jobst of Moravia (son of Maultasche's late Nullity there), now

in the vigor of his years and a stirring man: to him, for a time, the chief management in Brandenburg fell, in

these circumstances. Wenzel, still a minor, and already Kaiser and King of Bohemia, gave up Brandenburg to

his two younger Brothers, most of it to Sigismund, with a cutting for Johann, to help their apanages; and

applied his own powers to govern the Holy Roman Empire, at that early stage of life.

To govern the Holy Roman Empire, poor soul;or rather "to drink beer, and dance with the girls;" in which,

if defective in other things, Wenzel had an eminent talent. He was one of the worst Kaisers, and the least

victorious on record. He would attend to nothing in the Reich; "the Prag white beer, and girls" of various

complexion, being much preferable, as he was heard to say. He had to fling his poor Queen's Confessor into

the River Moldau,Johann of Nepomuk, Saint so called, if he is not a fable altogether; whose Statue stands

on Bridges ever since, in those parts. Wenzel's Bohemians revolted against him; put him in jail; and he broke

prison, a boatman's daughter helping him out, with adventures. His Germans were disgusted with him;

deposed him from the Kaisership; [25th May, 1400 (Kohler, p. 331).] chose Rupert of the Pfalz; and then

after Rupert's death, [1410 (ib. p. 336).] chose Wenzel's own Brother Sigismund, in his stead,left Wenzel

to jumble about in his native Bohemian element, as King there, for nineteen years longer, still breaking pots

He ended, by apoplexy, or sudden spasm of the heart; terrible Zisca, as it were, killing him at secondhand.

For Zisca, stout and furious, blind of one eye and at last of both, a kind of human rhinoceros driven mad, had

risen out of the ashes of murdered Huss, and other bad Papistic doings, in the interim; and was tearing up the

world at a huge rate. Rhinoceros Zisca was on the Weissenberg, or a still nearer Hill of Prag since called

ZISCA BERG (Zisca Hill): and none durst whisper of it to the King. A servant waiting at dinner

inadvertently let slip the word: "Zisca there? Deny it, slave!" cried Wenzel frantic. Slave durst not deny.

Wenzel drew his sword to run at him, but fell down dead: that was the last pot broken by Wenzel. The

hapless royal eximperial Phantasm selfbroken in this manner. [30th July, 1419 (Hormayr, vii. 119).] Poor

soul, he came to the Kaisership too early; was a thin violent creature, sensible to the charms and horrors of

created objects; and had terrible rhinoceros Ziscas and unruly hornedcattle to drive. He was one of the worst

Kaisers ever known,could have done Operasinging much better;and a sad sight to Bohemia. Let us

leave him there: he was never actual Elector of Brandenburg, having given it up in time; never did any ill to

The real Kurfurst of Brandenburg all this while was Sigismund Wenzel's next Brother, under tutelage of

Cousin Jobst or otherwise;real and yet imaginary, for he never himself governed, but always had Jobst of

Mahren or some other in his place there. Sigismund, as above said, was to have married a Daughter of

Burggraf Friedrich V.; and he was himself, as was the young lady, well inclined to this arrangement. But the

old people being dead, and some offer of a King's Daughter turning up for Sigismund, Sigismund broke off;

and took the King's Daughter, King of Hungary's,not without regret then and afterwards, as is believed. At

any rate, the Hungarian charmer proved a wife of small merit, and a Hungarian successor she had was a wife

of light conduct even; Hungarian charmers, and Hungarian affairs, were much other than a comfort to

As for the disappointed Princess, Burggraf Friedrich's Daughter, she said nothing that we hear; silently

became a Nun, an Abbess: and through a long life looked out, with her thoughts to herself, upon the loud

whirlwind of things, where Sigismund (oftenest like an imponderous rag of conspicuous color) was riding

and tossing. Her two Brothers also, joint Burggraves after their Father's death, seemed to have reconciled

themselves without difficulty. The elder of them was already Sigismund's Brotherinlaw; married to

Sigismund's and Wenzel's sister,by such predestination as we saw. Burggraf Johann III. was the name of

this one: a stout fighter and manager for many years; much liked, and looked to, by Sigismund. As indeed

were both the Brothers, for that matter; always, together or in succession, a kind of righthand to Sigismund.

Friedrich the younger Burggraf, and ultimately the survivor and inheritor (Johann having left no sons), is the

famed Burggraf Friedrich VI., the last and notablest of all the Burggraves. A man of distinguished

importance, extrinsic and intrinsic; chief or among the very chief of German public men in his time;and

memorable to Posterity, and to this History, on still other grounds! But let us not anticipate.

Sigismund, if apanaged with Brandenburg alone, and wedded to his first love, not a King's Daughter, might

have done tolerably well there;better than Wenzel, with the Empire and Bohemia, did. But delusive

Fortune threw her golden apple at Sigismund too; and he, in the wide high world, had to play strange pranks.

His Fatherinlaw died in Hungary, Sigismund's first wife his only child. Fatherinlaw bequeathed

Hungary to Sigismund: [1387 (Sigismund's age then twenty).] who plunged into a strange sea thereby; got

troubles without number, beatings not a few,and had even to take boat, and sail for his life down to

Constantinople, at one time. In which sad adventure Burggraf Johann escorted him, and as it were tore him

out by the hair of the head. These troubles and adventures lasted many years; in the course of which,

Sigismund, trying all manner of friends and expedients, found in the Burggraves of Nurnberg, Johann and

Friedrich, with their talents, possessions and resources, the main or almost only sure support he got.

No end of troubles to Sigismund, and to Brandenburg through him, from this sublime Hungarian legacy! Like

a remote fabulous golden fleece, which you have to go and conquer first, and which is worth little when

conquered. Before ever setting out (A.D. 1387), Sigismund saw too clearly he would have cash to raise: an

operation he had never done with, all his life afterwards. He pawned Brandenburg to Cousin Jobst of Mahren;

got "20,000 Bohemian gulden,"I guess, a most slender sum, if Dryasdust would but interpret it. This was

the beginning of Pawnings to Brandenburg; of which when will the end be? Jobst thereby came into

Brandenburg on his own right for the time, not as Tutor or Guardian, which he had hitherto been. Into

Jobst tried at first to do some governing; but finding all very anarchic, grew unhopeful; took to making

matters easy for himself. Took, in fact, to turning a penny on his pawnticket; alienating crown domains,

winking hard at robberbarons, and the like;and after a few years, went home to Moravia, leaving

Brandenburg to shift for itself, under a Statthalter (VICEREGENT, more like a hungry landsteward), whom

nobody took the trouble of respecting. Robbercastles flourished; all else decayed. No highway not unsafe;

many a Turpin with sixteen quarters, and styling himself EDDLE HERR (noble Gentleman), took to "living

The Towns suffered much; any trade they might have had, going to wreck in this manner. Not to speak of

private feuds, which abounded ad libitum. Neighboring potentates, Archbishop of Magdeburg and others,

struck in also at discretion, as they had gradually got accustomed to do, and snapped away

(ABZWACKTEN) some convenient bit of territory, or, more legitimately, they came across to coerce, at their

own hand, this or the other Edle Herr of the Turpin sort, whom there was no other way of getting at, when he

carried matters quite too high. "Droves of six hundred swine,"I have seen (by reading in those old Books)

certain noble Gentlemen, "of Putlitz," I think, driving them openly, captured by the stronger hand; and have

heard the short querulous squeak of the bristly creatures: "What is the use of being a pig at all, if I am to be

stolen in this way, and surreptitiously made into ham?" Pigs do continue to be bred in Brandenburg: but it is

under such discouragements. Agriculture, trade, wellbeing and welldoing of any kind, it is not

encouragement they are meeting here. Probably few countries, not even Ireland, have a worse outlook, unless

help come. [Pauli, i. 541612. Michaelis, i. 283285.] Jobst came back in 1398, after eight years' absence;

but no help came with Jobst. The NEUMARK part of Brandenburg, which was Brother Johann's portion, had

fallen home to Sigismund, Brother Johann having died: but Sigismund, far from redeeming old pawntickets

with the Newmark, pawned the Newmark too,the second Pawnage of Brandenburg. Pawned the Newmark

to the Teutsch Ritters "for 63,000 Hungarian gold gulden" (I think, about 30,000 pounds): and gave no part of

Seeing which, and hearing such squeak of pigs surreptitiously driven, with little but discordant sights and

sounds everywhere, Jobst became disgusted with the matter; and resolved to wash his hands of it, at least to

have his money out of it again. Having sold what of the Domains he could to persons of quality, at an

uncommonly easy rate, and so pocketed what ready cash there was among them, he made over his

pawnticket, or properly he himself repawned Brandenburg to the Saxon Potentate, a speculative moneyed

man, Markgraf of Meissen, "Wilhelm the Rich" so called. Pawned it to Wilhelm the Rich,sum not named;

and went home to Moravia, there to wait events. This is the third Brandenburg pawning: let us hope there

And so we have now reached that point in Brandenburg History when, if some help do not come,

Brandenburg will not long be a country, but will either get dissipated in pieces and stuck to the edge of others

where some government is, or else go waste again and fall to the bisons and wild bears.

Who now is Kurfurst of Brandenburg, might be a question. "I UNquestionably!" Sigismund would answer,

with astonishment. "Soft, your Hungarian Majesty," thinks Jobst: "till my cash is paid, may it not probably be

another?" This question has its interest: the Electors just now (A.D. 1400) are about deposing Wenzel; must

choose some better Kaiser. If they wanted another scion of the House of Luxemburg; a mature old gentleman

of sixty; full of plans, plausibilities, pretensions,Jobst is their man. Jobst and Sigismund were of one mind

as to Wenzel's going; at least Sigismund voted clearly so, and Jobst said nothing counter: but the Kurfursts

did not think of Jobst for successor. After some stumbling, they fixed upon Rupert KURPFALZ (Elector

Rupert of the Pfalz proved a highly respectable Kaiser; lasted for ten years (14001410), with honor to

himself and the Reich. A strong heart, strong head, but short of means. He chastised petty mutiny with vigor;

could not bring down the Milanese Visconti, who had perched themselves so high on money paid to Wenzel;

could not heal the schism of the Church (Double or Triple Pope, RomeAvignon affair), or awaken the Reich

to a sense of its old dignity and present loose condition. In the late loose times, as Antiquaries remark,

[Kohler, p. 334; who quotes Schilter.] most Members of the Empire, Petty Princes even and Imperial Towns,

had been struggling to set up for themselves; and were now concerned chiefly to become Sovereign in their

own Territories. And Schilter informs us, it was about this period that most of them attained such rather

unblessed consummation; Rupert of himself not able to help it, with all his willingness. The People called

him "Rupert KLEMM (Rupert SMITH'SVICE)" from his resolute ways; which nicknamegiven him not

in hatred, but partly in satirical good willis itself a kind of history. From Historians of the REICH he

He had for Empress a Sister of Burggraf Friedrich's; which high lady, unknown to us otherwise, except by her

Tomb at Heidelberg, we remember for her Brother's sake. Kaiser Rupertgreatgrandson of that KurPfalz

who was Kaiser Ludwig's elder brotheris the culminating point of the Electors Palatine; the Highest that

Heidelberg produced. Ancestor of those famed Protestant "Palatines;" of all the Palatines or PFLAZES that

reign in these late centuries. Ancestor of the present Bavarian Majesty; Kaiser Ludwig's race having died out.

Ancestor of the unfortunate WINTERKONIG, Friedrich King of Bohemia, who is too well known in English

History;ancestor also of Charles XII. of Sweden, a highly creditable fact of the kind to him. Fact

indisputable: A cadet of PfalzZweibruck (DEUXPONTS, as the French call it), direct from Rupert, went to

serve in Sweden in his soldier business; distinguished himself in soldiering;had a Sister of the great Gustav

Adolf to wife; and from her a renowned Son, Karl Gustav (Christina's Cousin), who succeeded as King; who

again had a Grandson made in his own likeness, only still more of iron in his composition.Enough now of

Rupert's funeral is hardly done, when, over in Preussen, far off in the Memel region, place called Tannenberg,

where there is still "a churchyard to be seen," if little more, the Teutsch Ritters had, unexpectedly, a terrible

Defeat: consummation of their Polish Miscellaneous quarrels of long standing; and the end of their high

courses in this world. A ruined Teutsch Ritterdom, as good as ruined, ever henceforth. Kaiser Rupert died

18th May; and on the 15th July, within two months, was fought that dreadful "Battle of

Tannenberg,"Poland and Polish King, with miscellany of savage Tartars and revolted Prussians, VERSUS

Teutsch Ritterdom; all in a very high mood of mutual rage; the very elements, "wild thunder, tempest and

raindeluges," playing chorus to them on the occasion. [Voigt, vii. 82. Busching, Erdbeschreibung

(Hamburg, 1770), ii. 1038.] Ritterdom fought lionlike, but with insufficient strategic and other wisdom; and

was driven nearly distracted to see its pride tripped into the ditch by such a set. Vacant Reich could not in the

Jobst and Sigismund were competitors for the Kaisership; Wenzel, too, striking in with claims for

reinstatement: the House of Luxemburg divided against itself. Wenzel, finding reinstatement not to be

thought of, threw his weight, such as it was, into the scale of Cousin Jobst; remembering angrily how Brother

Sigismund voted in the Deposition case, ten years ago. The contest was vehement, and like to be lengthy.

Jobst, though he had made over his pawnticket, claimed to be Elector of Brandenburg; and voted for

Himself. The like, with still more emphasis, did Sigismund, or Burggraf Friedrich acting for him:

"Sigismund, sure, is Kur Brandenburg though under pawn!" argued Friedrich,and, I almost guess, though

that is not said, produced from his own purse, at some stage of the business, the actual money for Jobst, to

Both were elected (majority contested in this manner); and old Jobst, then above seventy, was like to have

given much trouble: but happily in three months he died; ["Jodocus BARBATUS," 21st July, 1411.] and

Sigismund became indisputable. Jobst was the son of Maultasche's Nullity; him too, in an involuntary sort,

she was the cause of. In his day Jobst made much noise in the world, but did little or no good in it. "He was

thought a great man," says one satirical old Chronicler; "and there was nothing great about him but the

"The cause of Sigismund's success with the Electors," says Kohler, "or of his having any party among them,

was the faithful and unwearied diligence which had been used for him by the abovenamed Burggraf

Friedrich VI. of Nurnberg, who took extreme pains to forward Sigismund to the Empire; pleading that

Sigismund and Wenzel would be sure to agree well henceforth, and that Sigismund, having already such

extensive territories (Hungary, Brandenburg and so forth) by inheritance, would not be so exact about the

REICHSTolls and other Imperial Incomes. This same Friedrich also, when the Election fell out doubtful,

was Sigismund's best support in Germany, nay almost his righthand, through whom he did whatever was

Sigismund is Kaiser, then, in spite of Wenzel. King of Hungary, after unheardof troubles and adventures,

ending some years ago in a kind of peace and conquest, he has long been King of Bohemia, too, he at last

became; having survived Wenzel, who was childless. Kaiser of the Holy Roman Empire, and so much else: is

not Sigismund now a great man? Truly the loom he weaves upon, in this world, is very large. But the weaver

was of headlong, highpacing, flimsy nature; and both warp and woof were gone dreadfully entangled!

This is the Kaiser Sigismund who held the Council of Constance; and "blushed visibly," when Huss, about to

die, alluded to the Letter of Safeconduct granted him, which was issuing in such fashion. [15th June, 1415.]

Sigismund blushed; but could not conveniently mend the matter,so many matters pressing on him just

now. As they perpetually did, and had done. An alwayshoping, neverresting, unsuccessful, vain and empty

Kaiser. Specious, speculative; given to eloquence, diplomacy, and the windy instead of the solid

arts;always short of money for one thing. He roamed about, and talked eloquently; aiming high, and

generally missing:how he went to conquer Hungary, and had to float down the Donau instead, with an

attendant or two, in a most private manner, and take refuge with the Grand Turk: this we have seen, and this

is a general emblem of him. Hungary and even the Reich have at length become his; but have brought small

triumph in any kind; and instead of ready money, debt on debt. His Majesty has no money, and his Majesty's

He is now (A.D. 1414) holding this Council of Constance, by way of healing the Church, which is sick of

Three simultaneous Popes and of much else. He finds the problem difficult; finds he will have to run into

Spain, to persuade a refractory Pope there, if eloquence can (as it cannot): all which requires money, money.

At opening of the Council, he "officiated as deacon;" actually did some kind of litanying "with a surplice

over him," [25th December, 1414 (Kohler, p. 340).] though Kaiser and King of the Romans. But this passage

of his opening speech is what I recollect best of him there: "Right Reverend Fathers, date operam ut illa

nefanda schisma eradicetur," exclaims Sigismund, intent on having the Bohemian Schism well dealt

with,which he reckons to be of the feminine gender. To which a Cardinal mildly remarking, "Domine,

schisma est generis neutrius (Schisma is neuter, your Majesty),"Sigismund loftily replies, "Ego sum Rex

Romanus et super grammaticam (I am King of the Romans, and above Grammar)!" [Wolfgang Mentzel,

Geschichte der Deutschen, i. 477.] For which reason I call him in my Notebooks Sigismund SUPER

How Jobst's pawnticket was settled I never clearly heard; but can guess it was by Burggraf Friedrich's

advancing the money, in the pinch above indicated, or paying it afterwards to Jobst's heirs whoever they

were. Thus much is certain: Burggraf Friedrich, these three years and more (ever since 8th July, 1411) holds

Sigismund's Deed of acknowledgment "for 100,000 gulden lent at various times:" and has likewise got the

Electorate of Brandenburg in pledge for that sum; and does himself administer the said Electorate till he be

The new journey into Spain requires new moneys; this Council itself, with such a pomp as suited Sigismund,

has cost him endless moneys. Brandenburg, torn to ruins in the way we saw, is a sorrowful matter; and,

except the title of it, as a feather in one's cap, is worth nothing to Sigismund. And he is still short of money;

and will forever be. Why could not he give up Brandenburg altogether; since, instead of paying, he is still

making new loans from Burggraf Friedrich; and the hope of ever paying were mere lunacy! Sigismund

revolves these sad thoughts too, amid his world wide diplomacies, and efforts to heal the Church. "Pledged

for 100,000 gulden," sadly ruminates Sigismund; "and 50,000 more borrowed since, by little and little; and

more ever needed, especially for this grand Spanish journey!" these were Sigismund's sad

thoughts:"Advance me, in a round sum, 250,000 gulden more," said he to Burggraf Friedrich, "250,000

more, for my manifold occasions in this time;that will be 400,000 in whole; [Rentsch, pp. 75, 357.]and

take the Electorate of Brandenburg to yourself, Land, Titles, Sovereign Electorship and all, and make me rid

of it!" That was the settlement adopted, in Sigismund's apartment at Constance, on the 30th of April, 1415;

signed, sealed and ratified,and the money paid. A very notable event in World History; virtually

The ceremony of Investiture did not take place till two years afterwards, when the Spanish journey had

proved fruitless, when much else of fruitless had come and gone, and Kaiser and Council were

probablymore at leisure for such a thing. Done at length it was by Kaiser Sigismund in utmost gala, with

the Grandees of the Empire assisting, and august members of the Council and world in general looking on; in

the big Square or Marketplace of Constance, 17th April, 1417;is to be found described in Rentsch, from

Nauclerus and the old Newsmongers of the time. Very grand indeed: much processioning on horseback,

under powerful trumpet peals and flourishes; much stately kneeling, stately rising, stepping backwards

(done well, ZIERLICH, on the Kurfurst's part); liberal expenditure of cloth and pomp; in short, "above

100,000 people looking on from roofs and windows," [Pauli, Allgemeine Preussische StaatsGeschichte, ii.

14. Rentsch, pp. 7678.] and Kaiser Sigismund in all his glory. Sigismund was on a high Platform in the

Marketplace, with stairs to it and from it; the illustrious Kaiser,red as a flamingo, "with scarlet mantle

What sum of modern money, in real purchasing power, this "400,000 Hungarian Gold Gulden" is, I have

inquired in the likely quarters without result; and it is probable no man exactly knows. The latest existing

representative of the ancient Gold Gulden is the Ducat, worth generally about a Halfsovereign in English.

Taking the sum at that latest rate, it amounts to 200,000 pounds; and the reader can use that as a note of

memory for the saleprice of Brandenburg with all its lands and honors,multiplying it perhaps by four or

six to bring out its effective amount in current coin. Dogcheap, it must be owned, for size and capability; but

in the most waste condition, full of mutiny, injustice, anarchy and highway robbery; a purchase that might

But so, at any rate, moribund Brandenburg has got its Hohenzollern Kurfurst; and started on a new career it

little dreamt of;and we can now, right willingly, quit Sigismund and the ReichsHistory; leave Kaiser

Sigismund to sink or swim at his own will henceforth. His grand feat, in life, the wonder of his generation,

was this same Council of Constance; which proved entirely a failure; one of the largest WINDEGGS ever

dropped with noise and travail in this world. Two hundred thousand human creatures, reckoned and

reckoning themselves the elixir of the Intellect and Dignity of Europe; two hundred thousand, nay some,

counting the lower menials and numerous unfortunate females, say four hundred thousand,were got

congregated into that little Swiss Town; and there as an Ecumenic Council, or solemnly distilled elixir of

what pious Intellect and Valor could be scraped together in the world, they labored with all their select might

for four years' space. That was the Council of Constance. And except this transfer of Brandenburg to

Friedrich of Hohenzollern, resulting from said Council in the quite reverse and involuntary way, one sees not

They did indeed burn Huss; but that could not be called a beneficial incident; that seemed to Sigismund and

the Council a most small and insignificant one. And it kindled Bohemia, and kindled rhinoceros Zisca, into

neverimagined flame of vengeance; brought mere disaster, disgrace, and defeat on defeat to Sigismund, and

kept his hands full for the rest of his life, however small he had thought it. As for the sublime four years'

deliberations and debates of this Sanhedrim of the Universe, eloquent debates, conducted, we may say,

under such extent of WIG as was never seen before or since,they have fallen wholly to the domain of

Dryasdust; and amount, for mankind at this time, to zero PLUS the Burning of Huss. On the whole, Burggraf

Friedrich's Electorship, and the first Hohenzollern to Brandenburg, is the one good result.

Adieu, then, to Sigismund. Let us leave him at this his culminating point, in the Marketplace of Constance;

red as a flamingo; doing one act of importance, though unconsciously and against his will.I subjoin here,

for refreshment of the reader's memory, a Synopsis, or bare arithmetical List, of those Intercalary

NonHapsburg Kaisers, which, now that its original small duty is done, may as well be printed as burnt:

Rudolf of Hapsburg died A.D. 1291, after a reign of eighteen vigorous years, very useful to the Empire after

its Anarchic INTERREGNUM. He was succeeded, not by any of his own sons or kindred, but by

l. Adolf of Nassau, 12911298. A stalwart but necessitous Herr; much concerned in the French projects

of our Edward Longshanks: miles stipendiarius Eduardi, as the Opposition party scornfully termed him. Slain

in battle by the AntiKaiser, Albrecht or Albert eldest son of Rudolf, who thereupon became Kaiser.

Albert I. (of Hapsburg, he), 12981308. Parricided, in that latter year, at the Ford of the Reuss.

2(a). Henry VII. of Luxemburg, 13081313; poisoned (1313) in sacramental wine. The first of the

Luxemburgers; who are marked here, in their order, by the addition of an alphabetic letter.

3. Ludwig der Baier, 13141347 (Duke of OBERBAIERN, Upper Bavaria; progenitor of the

4(b). Karl IV., 13471378, Son of Johann of Bohemia (Johann ICHDIEN), and Grandson of Henry VII.

Nicknamed the PFAFFENKAISER (Parsons'Kaiser). Karlsbad; the Golden Bull; Castle of Tangermunde.

5(c). Wenzel (or Wenceslaus), 13781400, Karl's eldest Son. Elected 1378, still very young; deposed in

1400, Kaiser Rupert succeeding. Continued King of Bohemia till his death (by Zisca AT SECONDHAND)

6. Rupert of the Pfalz, 14001410; called Rupert KLEMM (Pincers, Smith's_vice); Brotherinlaw to

Burggraf Friedrich VI. (afterwards Kurfurst Friedrich I.), who marched with him to Italy and often

elsewhither, Burggraf Johann the elder Brother inlaw being then oftenest in Hungary with Sigismund,

7(d). Sigismund, 14101437, Wenzel's younger Brother; the fourth and last of the Luxemburgers,

seventh and last of the Intercalary Kaisers. Sold Brandenburg, after thrice or oftener pawning it. Sigismund

Super~Grammaticam died 9th December, 1437; left only a Daughter, wedded to the then Albert Duke of

Austria; which Albert, on the strength of this, came to the Kingship of Bohemia and of Hungary, as his Wife's

inheritance, and to the Empire by election. Died thereupon in few months: "three crowns, Bohemia, Hungary,

the Reich, in that one year, 1438," say the old Historians; "and then next year he quitted them all, for a fourth

and more lasting crown, as is hoped." Kaiser Albert II., 14381439: After whom all are

Hapsburgers,excepting, if that is an exception, the unlucky Karl VII. alone (17421745), who descends

Burggraf Friedrich, on his first coming to Brandenburg, found but a cool reception as Statthalter.

[ "Johannistage" (24 June) "1412," he first set foot in Brandenburg, with due escort, in due state; only

Statthalter (Viceregent) as yet: Pauli, i. 594, ii. 58; Stenzel, Geschichte des Preussischen Staats (Hamburg,

1830, 1851), i. 167169.] He came as the representative of law and rule; and there had been many helping

themselves by a ruleless life, of late. Industry was at a low ebb, violence was rife; plunder, disorder

everywhere; too much the habit for baronial gentlemen to "live by the saddle," as they termed it, that is by

The Towns, harried and plundered to skin and bone, were glad to see a Statthalter, and did homage to him

with all their heart. But the Baronage or Squirearchy of the country were of another mind. These, in the late

anarchies, had set up for a kind of kings in their own right: they had their feuds; made war, made peace,

levied tolls, transitdues; lived much at their own discretion in these solitary countries;rushing out from

their stone towers ("walls fourteen feet thick"), to seize any herd of "six hundred swine," any convoy of

Lubeck or Hamburg merchantgoods, that had not contented them in passing. What were pedlers and

mechanic fellows made for, if not to be plundered when needful? Arbitrary rule, on the part of these Noble

RobberLords! And then much of the CrownDomains had gone to the chief of them,pawned (and the

pawnticket lost, so to speak), or sold for what trifle of ready money was to be had, in Jobst and Company's

time. To these gentlemen, a Statthalter coming to inquire into matters was no welcome phenomenon. Your

EDLE HERR (Noble Lord) of Putlitz, Noble Lords of Quitzow, Rochow, Maltitz and others, supreme in their

grassy solitudes this long while, and accustomed to nothing greater than themselves in Brandenburg, how

Such was more or less the universal humor in the Squirearchy of Brandenburg; not of good omen to Burggraf

Friedrich. But the chief seat of contumacy seemed to be among the Quitzows, Putlitzes, above spoken of; big

Squires in the district they call the Priegnitz, in the Country of the sluggish Havel River, northwest from

Berlin a fifty or forty miles. These refused homage, very many of them; said they were "incorporated with

Bohmen;" said this and that;much disinclined to homage; and would not do it. Stiff surly fellows, much

deficient in discernment of what is above them and what is not:a thickskinned set; bodies clad in buff

Friedrich was very patient with them; hoped to prevail by gentle methods. He "invited them to dinner;" "had

them often at dinner for a year or more:" but could make no progress in that way. "Who is this we have got

for a Governor?" said the noble lords privately to each other: "A NURNBERGER TAND (Nurnberg

Plaything, wooden image, such as they make at Nurnberg)," said they, grinning, in a thickskinned way:

"If it rained Burggraves all the year round, none of them would come to luck in this Country;"and

continued their feuds, tolllevyings, plunderings and other contumacies. Seeing matters come to this pass

after waiting above a year, Burggraf Friedrich gathered his Frankish menatarms; quietly made league with

the neighboring Potentates, Thuringen and others; got some munitions, some artillery togetherespecially

one huge gun, the biggest ever seen, "a twentyfour pounder" no less; to which the peasants, dragging her

with difficulty through the clayey roads, gave the name of FAULE GRETE (Lazy, or Heavy Peg); a

remarkable piece of ordnance. Lazy Peg he had got from the Landgraf of Thuringen, on loan merely; but he

turned her to excellent account of his own. I have often inquired after Lazy Peg's fate in subsequent times; but

could never learn anything distinct:the German Dryasdust is a dull dog, and seldom carries anything

Equipped in this way, Burggraf Friedrich (he was not yet Kurfurst, only coming to be) marches for the Havel

Country (early days of 1414); [Michaelis, i. 287; Stenzel, i. 168 (where, contrary to wont, is an insignificant

error or two). Pauli (ii. 58) is, as usual, lost in water.] makes his appearance before Quitzow's stronghouse

of Friesack, walls fourteen feet thick: "You Dietrich von Quitzow, are you prepared to live as a peaceable

subject henceforth: to do homage to the Laws and me?""Never!" answered Quitzow, and pulled up his

drawbridge. Whereupon Heavy Peg opened upon him, Heavy Peg and other guns; and, in some

eightandforty hours, shook Quitzow's impregnable Friesack about his ears. This was in the month of

February, 1414, day not given: Friesack was the name of the impregnable Castle (still discoverable in our

time); and it ought to be memorable and venerable to every Prussian man. Burggraf Friedrich VI., not yet

quite become Kurfurst Friedrich I., but in a year's space to become so, he in person was the beneficent

operator; Heavy Peg, and steady Human Insight, these were clearly the chief implements.

Quitzow being settled,for the country is in military occupation of Friedrich and his allies, and except in

some stone castle a man has no chance,straightway Putlitz or another mutineer, with his drawbridge up,

was battered to pieces, and his drawbridge brought slamming down. After this manner, in an incredibly short

period, mutiny was quenched; and it became apparent to Noble Lords, and to all men, that here at length was

a man come who would have the Laws obeyed again, and could and would keep mutiny down.

Friedrich showed no cruelty; far the contrary. Your mutiny once ended, and a little repented of, he is ready to

be your gracious Prince again: Fairplay and the social winecup, or inexorable war and Lazy Peg, it is at

your discretion which. Brandenburg submitted; hardly ever rebelled more. Brandenburg, under the wise

Kurfurst it has got, begins in a small degree to be cosmic again, or of the domain of the gods; ceases to be

chaotic and a mere cockpit of the devils. There is no doubt but this Friedrich also, like his ancestor Friedrich

III., the First Hereditary Burggraf, was an excellent citizen of his country: a man conspicuously important in

all German business in his time. A man setting up for no particular magnanimity, ability or heroism, but

unconsciously exhibiting a good deal; which by degrees gained universal recognition. He did not shine much

as ReichsGeneralissimo, under Kaiser Sigismund, in his expeditions against Zisca; on the contrary, he

presided over huge defeat and rout, once and again, in that capacity; and indeed had represented in vain that,

with such a species of militia, victory was impossible. He represented and again represented, to no purpose;

whereupon he declined the office farther; in which others fared no better. [Hormayr, OEsterreichischer

The offer to be Kaiser was made him in his old days; but he wisely declined that too. It was in Brandenburg,

by what he silently founded there, that he did his chief benefit to Germany and mankind. He understood the

noble art of governing men; had in him the justice, clearness, valor and patience needed for that. A man of

sterling probity, for one thing. Which indeed is the first requisite in said art:if you will have your laws

obeyed without mutiny, see well that they be pieces of God Almighty's Law: otherwise all the artillery in the

Friedrich "travelled much over Brandenburg;" looking into everything with his own eyes;making, I can

well fancy, innumerable crooked things straight. Reducing more and more that famishing dogkennel of a

Brandenburg into a fruitful arable field. His portraits represent a square headed, mildlooking solid

gentleman, with a certain twinkle of mirth in the serious eyes of him. Except in those Hussite wars for Kaiser

Sigismund and the Reich, in which no man could prosper, he may be defined as constantly prosperous. To

Brandenburg he was, very literally, the blessing of blessings; redemption out of death into life. In the ruins of

that old Friesack Castle, battered down by Heavy Peg, Antiquarian Science (if it had any eyes) might look for

the taproot of the Prussian Nation, and the beginning of all that Brandenburg has since grown to under the

Friedrich, in one capacity or another, presided over Brandenburg near thirty years. He came thither first of all

in 1412; was not completely Kurfurst in his own right till 1415; nor publicly installed, "with 100,000 looking

on from the roofs and windows," in Constance yonder, till 1417,age then some fortyfive. His

Brandenburg residence, when he happened to have time for residing or sitting still, was Tangermunde, the

Castle built by Kaiser Karl IV. He died there, 21st September, 1440; laden tolerably with years, and still

better with memories of hard work done. Rentsch guesses by good inference he was born about 1372. As I

count, he is seventh in descent from that Conrad, Burggraf Conrad I., Cadet of Hohenzollern, who came

down from the Rauhe Alp, seeking service with Kaiser Redbeard, above two centuries ago: Conrad's

generation and six others had vanished successively from the worldtheatre in that evermysterious manner,

and left the stage clear, when Burggraf Friedrich the Sixth came to be First Elector. Let three centuries, let

twelve generations farther come and pass, and there will be another still more notable Friedrich,our little

Fritz, destined to be Third King of Prussia, officially named Friedrich II., and popularly Frederick the Great.

This First Elector is his lineal ancestor, twelve times removed. [Rentsch, pp. 349372; Hubner, t. 176.]

Eleven successive Kurfursts followed Friedrich in Brandenburg. Of whom and their births, deaths, wars,

marriages, negotiations and continual multitudinous stream of smaller or greater adventures, much has been

written, of a dreary confused nature; next to nothing of which ought to be repeated here. Some list of their

Names, with what rememberable human feature or event (if any) still speaks to us in them, we must try to

give. Their Names, well dated, with any actions, incidents, or phases of life, which may in this way get to

adhere to them in the reader's memory, the reader can insert, each at its right place, in the grand Tide of

European Events, or in such Picture as the reader may have of that. Thereby with diligence he may produce

for himself some faint twilight notion of the Flight of Time in remote Brandenburg, convince himself that

remote Brandenburg was present all along, alive after its sort, and assisting, dumbly or otherwise, in the great

We have to say in general, the history of Brandenburg under the Hohenzollerns has very little in it to excite a

vulgar curiosity, though perhaps a great deal to interest an intelligent one. Had it found treatment duly

intelligent;which, however, how could it, lucky beyond its neighbors, hope to do! Commonplace

Dryasdust, and voluminous Stupidity, not worse here than elsewhere, play their Part.

It is the history of a State, or Social Vitality, growing from small to great; steadily growing henceforth under

guidance: and the contrast between guidance and noguidance, or mis guidance, in such matters, is again

impressively illustrated there. This we see well to be the fact; and the details of this would be of moment,

were they given us: but they are not;how could voluminous Dryasdust give them? Then, on the other hand,

the Phenomenon is, for a long while, on so small a scale, wholly without importance in European politics and

affairs, the commonplace Historian, writing of it on a large scale, becomes unreadable and intolerable.

Witness grandiloquent Pauli our fatal friend, with his Eight watery Quartos; which gods and men, unless

driven by necessity, have learned to avoid! [Dr. Carl Friedrich Pauli, Allgemeine Preussische

StaatsGeschichte, often enough cited here.] The Phenomenon of Brandenburg is small, remote; and the

essential particulars, too delicate for the eye of Dryasdust, are mostly wanting, drowned deep in details of the

unessential. So that we are well content, my readers and I, to keep remote from it on this occasion.

On one other point I must give the reader warning. A rock of offence on which if he heedlessly strike, I

reckon he will split; at least no help of mine can benefit him till he be got off again. Alas, offences must

come; and must stand, like rocks of offence, to the shipwreck of many! Modern Dryasdust, interpreting the

mysterious ways of Divine Providence in this Universe, or what he calls writing History, has done

uncountable havoc upon the best interests of mankind. Hapless godless dullard that he is; driven and driving

on courses that lead only downward, for him as for us! But one could forgive him all things, compared with

this doctrine of devils which he has contrived to get established, pretty generally, among his unfortunate

fellowcreatures for the time!I must insert the following quotation, readers guess from what author:

"In an impudent Pamphlet, forged by I know not whom, and published in 1766, under the title of Matinees du

Roi de Prusse, purporting to be 'Morning Conversations' of Frederick the Great with his Nephew the

HeirApparent, every line of which betrays itself as false and spurious to a reader who has made any direct or

effectual study of Frederick or his manners or affairs, it is set forth, in the way of exordium to these

pretended royal confessions, that 'notre maison,' our Family of Hohenzollern, ever since the first origin of it

among the Swabian mountains, or its first descent therefrom into the Castle and Imperial Wardenship of

Nurnberg, some six hundred years ago or more, has consistently travelled one road, and this a very notable

one. 'We, as I myself the royal Frederick still do, have all along proceeded,' namely, 'in the way of adroit

Machiavelism, as skilful gamblers in this world's business, ardent gatherers of this world's goods; and in brief

as devout worshippers of Beelzebub, the grand regulator and rewarder of mortals here below. Which creed

we, the Hohenzollerns, have found, and I still find, to be the true one; learn it you, my prudent Nephew, and

let all men learn it. By holding steadily to that, and working late and early in such spirit, we are come to what

you now see;and shall advance still farther, if it please Beelzebub, who is generally kind to those that serve

him well.' Such is the doctrine of this impudent Pamphlet; 'original Manuscripts' of which are still purchased

by simple persons,who have then nobly offered them to me, thrice over, gratis or nearly so, as a priceless

curiosity. A new printed edition of which, probably the fifth, has appeared within few years. Simple persons,

consider it a curious and interesting Document; rather ambiguous in origin perhaps, but probably authentic in

substance, and throwing unexpected light on the character of Frederick whom men call the Great. In which

"Who wrote that Pamphlet I know not, and am in no condition to guess. A certain snappish vivacity (very

unlike the style of Frederick whom it personates); a wearisome grimacing, gesticulating malice and

smartness, approaching or reaching the sad dignity of what is called 'wit' in modern times; in general the

rottenness of matter, and the epigrammatic unquiet graciosity of manner in this thing, and its elaborately

INhuman turn both of expression and of thought, are visible characteristics of it. Thought, we said,if

thought it can be called: thought all hamstrung, shrivelled by inveterate rheumatism, on the part of the poor

illthriven thinker; nay tied (so to speak, for he is of epigrammatic turn withal), as by cross ropes, right

shoulder to left foot; and forced to advance, hobbling and jerking along, in that sad guise: not in the way of

walk, but of saltation and dance; and this towards a false not a true aim, rather nowhither than

somewhither:Here were features leading one to think of an illustrious Prince de Ligne as perhaps

concerned in the affair. The Bibliographical Dictionaries, producing no evidence, name quite another person,

or series of persons, [A certain "N. de Bonneville" (afterwards a Revolutionary spiritualmountebank, for

some time) is now the favorite Name;proves, on investigation, to be an impossible one. Barbier

(Dictionnaire des Anonymes), in a helpless doubting manner, gives still others.] highly unmemorable

otherwise. Whereupon you proceed to said other person's acknowledged WORKS (as they are called); and

find there a style bearing no resemblance whatever; and are left in a dubious state, if it were of any moment.

In the absence of proof, I am unwilling to charge his Highness de Ligne with such an action; and indeed am

little careful to be acquainted with the individual who did it, who could and would do it. A Prince of

Coxcombs I can discern him to have been; capable of shining in the eyes of insincere foolish persons, and of

doing detriment to them, not benefit; a man without reverence for truth or human excellence; not knowing in

fact what is true from what is false, what is excellent from what is shamexcellent and at the top of the mode;

an apparently polite and knowing man, but intrinsically an impudent, dark and merely modishinsolent

man;who, if he fell in with Rhadamanthus on his travels, would not escape a horse whipping, Him we

will willingly leave to that beneficial chance, which indeed seems a certain one sooner or later; and address

ourselves to consider the theory itself, and the facts it pretends to be grounded on.

"As to the theory, I must needs say, nothing can be falser, more heretical or more damnable. My own poor

opinion, and deep conviction on that subject is well known, this long while. And, in fact, the summary of all I

have believed, and have been trying as I could to teach mankind to believe again, is even that same opinion

and conviction, applied to all provinces of things. Alas, in this his sad theory about the world, our poor

impudent Pamphleteer is by no means singular at present; nay rather he has in a manner the whole practical

"It is very certain, if Beelzebub made this world, our Pamphleteer, and the huge portion of mankind that

follow him, are right. But if God made the world; and only leads Beelzebub, as some ugly muzzled bear is

led, a longer or shorter temporary DANCE in this divine world, and always draws him home again, and peels

the unjust gains off him, and ducks him in a certain hot Lake, with sure intent to lodge him there to all

eternity at last,then our Pamphleteer, and the huge portion of mankind that follow him, are wrong.

"More I will not say; being indeed quite tired of SPEAKING on that subject. Not a subject which it concerns

me to speak of; much as it concerns me, and all men, to know the truth of it, and silently in every hour and

moment to do said truth. As indeed the sacred voice of their own soul, if they listen, will conclusively

admonish all men; and truly if IT do not, there will be little use in my logic to them. For my own share, I

want no trade with men who need to be convinced of that fact. If I am in their premises, and discover such a

thing of them, I will quit their premises; if they are in mine, I will, as old Samuel advised, count my spoons.

Ingenious gentlemen who believe that Beelzebub made this world, are not a class of gentlemen I can get

profit from. Let them keep at a distance, lest mischief fall out between us. They are of the set deserving to be

calledand this not in the way of profane swearing, but of solemn wrath and pity, I say of virtuous anger

and inexorable reprobationthe damned set. For, in very deed, they are doomed and damned, by Nature's

oldest Act of Parliament, they, and whatsoever thing they do or say or think; unless they can escape from that

"But with regard to the facts themselves, 'DE NOTRE MAISON,' I take leave to say, they too are without

basis of truth. They are not so false as the theory, because nothing can in falsity quite equal that. 'NOTRE

MAISON,' this Pamphleteer may learn, if he please to make study and inquiry before speaking, did not rise

by worship of Beelzebub at all in this world; but by a quite opposite line of conduct. It rose, in fact, by the

course which all, except fools, stockjobber stags, cheating gamblers, forging Pamphleteers and other

temporary creatures of the damned sort, have found from of old to be the one way of permanently rising: by

steady service, namely, of the Opposite of Beelzebub. By conforming to the Laws of this Universe; instead of

trying by pettifogging to evade and profitably contradict them. The Hohenzollerns too have a History still

articulate to the human mind, if you search sufficiently; and this is what, even with some emphasis, it will

teach us concerning their adventures, and achievements of success in the field of life. Resist the Devil, good

How the Hohenzollerns got their big Territories, and came to what they are in the world, will be seen.

Probably they were not, any of them, paragons of virtue. They did not walk in altogether speckless Sunday

pumps, or much clearstarched into consciousness of the moral sublime; but in rugged practical boots, and by

such roads as there were. Concerning their moralities, and conformities to the Laws of the Road and of the

Universe, there will much remain to be argued by pamphleteers and others. Men will have their opinion, Men

of more wisdom and of less; Apes by the DeadSea also will have theirs. But what man that believed in such

a Universe as that of this DeadSea Pamphleteer could consent to live in it at all? Who that believed in such a

Universe, and did not design to live like a Papin'sDigester, or PORCUS EPICURI, in an extremely ugly

manner in it, could avoid one of two things: Going rapidly into Bedlam, or else blowing his brains out? "It

will not do for me at any rate, this infinite Doghouse; not for me, ye Dryasdusts, and omnipotent

Dogmonsters and Mudgods, whoever you are. One honorable thing I can do: take leave of you and your

The First Friedrich's successor was a younger son, Friedrich II.; who lasted till 1471, above thirty years; and

proved likewise a notable manager and governor. Very capable to assert himself, and his just rights, in this

world. He was but Twentyseven at his accession; but the Berlin Burghers, attempting to take some liberties

with him, found he was old enough. He got the name IRONTEETH. Friedrich FERRATIS DENTIBUS, from

his decisive ways then and afterwards. He had his share of brabbling with intricate litigant neighbors; quarrels

now and then not to be settled without strokes. His worst war was with Pommern,just claims disputed

there, and much confused bickering, sieging and harassing in consequence: of which quarrel we must speak

anon. It was he who first built the conspicuous Schloss or Palace at Berlin, having got the ground for it (same

ground still covered by the actual fine Edifice, which is a second edition of Friedrich's) from the repentant

But his principal achievement in Brandenburg History is his recovery of the Province called the Neumark to

that Electorate. In the thriftless Sigismund times, the Neumark had been pledged, had been sold; Teutsch

Ritterdom, to whose dominions it lay contiguous, had purchased it with money down. The Teutsch Ritters

were fallen moneyless enough since then; they offered to pledge the Neumark to Friedrich, who accepted,

and advanced the sum: after a while the Teutsch Ritters, for a small farther sum, agreed to sell Neumark.

[Michaelis, i. 301.] Into which Transaction, with its dates and circumstances, let us cast one glance, for our

behoof afterwards. The Teutsch Ritters were an opulent domineering Body in Sigismund's early time; but

they are now come well down in Friedrich II.'s! And are coming ever lower. Sinking steadily, or with

desperate attempts to rise, which only increase the speed downwards, ever since that fatal Tannenberg

Business, 15th July, 1410. Here is the sad progress of their descent to the bottom; divided into three stages or

"PERIOD FIRST is of Thirty years: 14101440. A peace with Poland soon followed that Defeat of

Tannenberg; humiliating peace, with mulct in money, and slightly in territory, attached to it. Which again

was soon followed by war, and ever again; each new peace more humiliating than its foregoer. Teutsch Order

is steadily sinking,into debt, among other things; driven to severe financemeasures (ultimately even to

'debase its coin'), which produce irritation enough. Poland is gradually edging itself into the territories and the

interior troubles of Preussen; prefatory to greater operations that lie ahead there.

"SECOND PERIOD, of Fourteen years. So it had gone on, from bad to worse, till 1440; when the general

population, through its Heads, the Landed Gentry and the Towns, wearied out with fiscal and other

oppressions from its domineering Ritterdom brought now to such a pinch, began everywhere to stir

themselves into vocal complaint. Complaint emphatic enough: 'Where will you find a man that has not

suffered injury in his rights, perhaps in his person? Our friends they have invited as guests, and under show of

hospitality have murdered them. Men, for the sake of their beautiful wives, have been thrown into the river

like dogs,'and enough of the like sort. [Voigt, vii. 747; quoting evidently, not an express manifesto, but one

manufactured by the old Chroniclers.] No want of complaint, nor of complainants: Town of Thorn, Town of

Dantzig, Kulm, all manner of Towns and Baronages, proceeded now to form a BUND, or general Covenant

for complaining; to repugn, in hotter and hotter form, against a domineering Ritterdom with back so broken;

in fine, to colleague with Poland,what was most ominous of all. Baronage, Burgherage, they were German

mostly by blood, and by culture were wholly German; but preferred Poland to a Teutsch Ritterdom of that

nature. Nothing but brabblings, scufflings, objurgations; a great outbreak ripening itself. Teutsch Ritterdom

has to hire soldiers; no money to pay them. It was in these sad years that the Teutsch Ritterdom, fallen

moneyless, offered to pledge the Neumark to our Kurfurst; 1444, that operation was consummated. [Pauli, ii.

187,does not name the sum.] All this goes on, in hotter and hotter form, for ten years longer.

"PERIOD THIRD begins, early in 1454, with an important special catastrophe; and ends, in the Thirteenth

year after, with a still more important universal one of the same nature. Prussian BUND, or AntiOppression

Covenant of the Towns and Landed Gentry, rising in temperature for fourteen years at this rate, reached at

last the igniting point, and burst into fire. February 4th, 1454, the Town of Thorn, darling firstchild of

Teutsch Ritterdom,child 223 years old at this time, ["Founded 1231, as a wooden Burg, just across the

river, on the Heathen side, mainly round the stem of an immense old Oak that grew handy there,Seven

Barges always on the river (Weichsel), to fly to our own side if quite overwhelmed" Oak and Seven Barges is

still the Town's Arms of Thorn. See Kohler, Munzbelustigungen, xxii. 107; quoting Dusburg (a Priest of the

Order) and his old Chronica Terrae Prusciae, written in 1326.] and grown very big, and now very

angry,suddenly took its old parent by the throat, so to speak, and hurled him out to the dogs; to the

extraneous Polacks first of all. Town of Thorn, namely, sent that day its 'Letter of Renunciation' to the

Hochmeister over at Marienburg; seized in a day or two more the Hochmeister's Official Envoys, Dignitaries

of the Order; led them through the streets, amid universal storm of execrations, hootings and unclean

projectiles, straight, to jail; and besieged the Hochmeister's Burg (BASTILLE of Thorn, with a few Ritters in

it), all the artillery and all the throats and hearts of the place raging deliriously upon it. So that the poor

Bitters, who had no chance in resisting, were in few days obliged to surrender; [8th February, 1454, says

Voigt (viii. 361); 16th, says Kohler (Munzbelustigungen, xxii. 110).] had to come out in bare jerkin; and

Thorn ignominiously dismissed them into space forevermore,with actual 'kicks,' I have read in some

Books, though others veil that sad feature. Thorn threw out its old parent in this manner; swore fealty to the

King of Poland; and invited other Towns and Knightages to follow the example. To which all were willing,

"War hereupon, which blazed up over Preussen at large,Prussian Covenant and King of Poland VERSUS

Teutsch Ritterdom,and lasted into the thirteenth year, before it could go out again; out by lack of fuel

mainly. One of the fellest wars on record, especially for burning and ruining; above '300,000 fightingmen'

are calculated to have perished in it; and of towns, villages, farmsteads, a cipher which makes the fancy, as it

were, black and ashy altogether. Ritterdom showed no lack of fighting energy; but that could not save it, in

the pass things were got to. Enormous lack of wisdom, of reality and human veracity, there had long been;

and the hour was now come. Finance went out, to the last coin. Large mercenary armies all along; and in the

end not the color of money to pay them with; mercenaries became desperate; 'besieged the Hochmeister and

his Ritters in Marienburg;'finally sold the Country they held; formally made it over to the King of Poland,

to get their pay out of it. Hochmeister had to see such things, and say little. Peace, or extinction for want of

fuel, came in the year 1466. Poland got to itself the whole of that fine German Country, henceforth called

'WEST Preussen' to distinguish it, which goes from the left bank of the Weichsel to the borders of

Brandenburg and Neumark;would have got Neumark too, had not Kurfurst Friedrich been there to save it.

The Teutsch Order had to go across the Weichsel, ignominiously driven; to content itself with 'EAST

Preussen,' the KonigsbergMemel country, and even to do homage to Poland for that. Which latter was the

bitterest clause of all: but it could not be helped, more than the others. In this manner did its revolted children

fling out Teutsch Ritterdom ignominiously to the dogs, to the Polacks, first of all,Thorn, the eldest child,

And so the Teutsch Ritters are sunk beyond retrieval; and West Preussen, called subsequently "Royal

Preussen," NOT having homage to pay as the "Ducal" or East Preussen had, is German no longer, but Polish,

Sclavic; not prospering by the change. [What Thorn had sunk to, out of its palmy state, see in Nanke's

Wanderungen durch Preussen (Hamburg Altona, 1800), ii. 177200:a pleasant little Rook, treating mainly

of Natural History; but drawing you, by its innocent simplicity and geniality, to read with thanks whatever is

in it.] And all that fine German country, reduced to rebel against its unwise parent, was cut away by the

Polish sword, and remained with Poland, which did not prove very wise either; tilltill, in the Year 1773, it

was cut back by the German sword! All readers have heard of the Partition of Poland: but of the Partition of

It was in the second year of that final tribulation, marked above as Period Third, that the Teutsch Ritters,

famishing for money, completed the Neumark transaction with Kurfurst Friedrich; Neumark, already pawned

to him ten years before, they in 1455, for a small farther sum, agreed to sell; and he, long carefully steering

towards such an issue, and dexterously keeping out of the main broil, failed not to buy. Friedrich could

thenceforth, on his own score, protect the Neumark; keep up an invisible but impenetrable wall between it

and the neighboring anarchic conflagrations of thirteen years; and the Neumark has ever since remained with

As to Friedrich's Pomeranian quarrel, this is the figure of it. Here is a scene from Rentsch, which falls out in

Friedrich's time; and which brought much battling and broiling to him and his. Symbolical withal of much

that befell in Brandenburg, from first to last. Under the Hohenzollerns as before, Brandenburg grew by

aggregation, by assimilation; and we see here how difficult the process often was.

Pommern (POMERANIA), long Wendish, but peaceably so since the time of Albert the Bear, and growing

ever more German, had, in good part, according to Friedrich's notion, if there were force in human Treaties

and Imperial Laws, fallen fairly to Brandenburg, that is to say, the half of it, StettinPommern had fairly

fallen,in the year 1464, when Duke Otto of Stettin, the last Wendish Duke, died without heirs. In that case

by many bargains, some with bloody crowns, it had been settled, If the Wendish Dukes died out, the country

was to fall to Brandenburg;and here they were dead. "At Duke Otto's burial, accordingly, in the High

Church of Stettin, when the coffin was lowered into its place, the Stettin Burgermeister, Albrecht Glinde,

took sword and helmet, and threw the same into the grave, in token that the Line was extinct. But Franz von

Eichsted," apparently another Burgher instructed for the nonce, "jumped into the grave, and picked them out

again; alleging, No, the Dukes of WOLGASTPommern were of kin; these tokens we must send to his Grace

at Wolgast, with offer of our homage, said Franz von Eichsted." [Rentsch, p. 110 (whose printer has put his

date awry); Stenzel (i. 233) calls the man "LORENZ Eikstetten, a resolute Gentleman."]And sent they

were, and accepted by his Grace. And perhaps halfascore of bargains, with bloody crowns to some of

them; and yet other chances, and centuries, with the extinction of new Lines,had to supervene, before even

StettinPommern, and that in no complete state, could be got. [1648, by Treaty of Westphalia.] As to

Pommern at large, Pommern not denied to be due, after such extinction and reextinction of native Ducal

Lines, did not fall home for centuries more; and what struggles and inextricable armed litigations there were

for it, readers of BrandenburgHistory too wearisomely know. The process of assimilation not the least of an

This Friedrich was second son: his Father's outlook for him had, at first, been towards a Polish Princess and

the crown of Poland, which was not then so elective as afterwards: and with such view his early breeding had

been chiefly in Poland; Johann, the eldest son and heirapparent, helping his Father at home in the mean

while. But these Polish outlooks went to nothing, the young Princess having died; so that Friedrich came

home; possessed merely of the Polish language, and of what talents the gods had given him, which were

considerable. And now, in the mean while, Johann, who at one time promised well in practical life, had taken

to Alchemy; and was busy with crucibles and speculations, to a degree that seemed questionable. Father

Friedrich, therefore, had to interfere, and deal with this "Johann the Alchemist" (JOHANNES

ALCHEMISTA, so the Books still name him); who loyally renounced the Electorship, at his Father's bidding,

in favor of Friedrich; accepted Baireuth (better half of the Culmbach Territory) for apanage; and there

peacefully distilled and sublimated at discretion; the government there being an easier task, and fitter for a

soft speculative Herr. A third Brother, Albert by name, got Anspach, on the Father's decease; very capable to

As to the Burggrafship, it was now done, all but the Title. The First Friedrich, once he was got to be Elector,

wisely parted with it. The First Friedrich found his Electorship had dreadfully real duties for him, and that

this of the Burggrafship had fallen mostly obsolete; so he sold it to the Nurnbergers for a round sum: only the

Principalities and Territories are retained in that quarter. About which too, and their feudal duties, boundaries

and tolls, with a jealous litigious Nurnberg for neighbor, there at length came quarrelling enough. But Albert

the third Brother, over at Anspach, took charge of all that; and nothing of it fell in Johann's way.

The good Alchemist died,performed his last sublimation, poor man,six or seven years before his

Brother Friedrich; age then sixtythree. [14th November, 1464.] Friedrich, with his Iron Teeth and faculties,

only held out till fiftyeight,10th February, 1471. The manner of his end was peculiar. In that War with

Pommern, he sat besieging a Pomeranian town, Uckermunde the name of it: when at dinner one day, a

cannonball plunged down upon the table, [Michaelis, i. 303.] with such a crash as we can fancy; which

greatly confused the nerves of Friedrich; much injured his hearing, and even his memory thenceforth. In a

few months afterwards he resigned, in favor of his Successor; retired to Plassenburg, and there died in about a

Neither Friedrich nor Johann left other than daughters: so that the united Heritage, Brandenburg and

Culmbach both, came now to the third Brother, Albert; who has been in Culmbath these many years already.

A tall, fiery, tough old gentleman, of formidable talent for fighting, who was called the "ACHILLES OF

GERMANY" in his day; being then a very blazing farseen character, dim as he has now grown. [Born 1414;

Kurfurst, 14711486.] This Albert Achilles was the Third Elector; Ancestor he of all the Brandenburg and

Culmbach Hohenzollern Princes that have since figured in the world. After him there is no break or shift in

the succession, down to the little Friedrich now born;Friedrich the old Grandfather, First KING, was the

We have to say, they followed generally in their Ancestors' steps, and had success of the like kind, more or

less; Hohenzollerns all of them, by character and behavior as well as by descent. No lack of quiet energy, of

thrift, sound sense. There was likewise solid fairplay in general, no founding of yourself on ground that will

not carry;and there was instant, gentle but inexorable, crushing of mutiny, if it showed itself; which, after

the Second Elector, or at most the Third, it had altogether ceased to do. Young Friedrich II., upon whom

those Berlin Burghers had tried to close their gates, till he should sign some "Capitulation" to their mind, got

from them, and not quite in illhumor, that name IRONTEETH:"Not the least a Noseofwax, this one!

No use trying here, then!"which, with the humor attached to it, is itself symbolical of Friedrich and these

Hohenzollern Sovereigns. Albert, his Brother, had plenty of fighting in his time: but it was in the Nurnberg

and other distant regions; no fighting, or hardly any, needed in Brandenburg henceforth.

With Nurnberg, and the ExBurggrafship there, now when a new generation began to tug at the loose clauses

of that Bargain with Friedrich I., and all FreeTowns were going high upon their privileges, Albert had at one

time much trouble, and at length actual furious War;other FreeTowns countenancing and assisting

Nurnberg in the affair; numerous petty Princes, feudal Lords of the vicinity, doing the like by Albert. Twenty

years ago, all this; and it did not last, so furious was it. "Eight victories," they count on Albert's

part,furious successful skirmishes, call them;in one of which, I remember, Albert plunged in alone, his

Ritters being rather shy; and laid about him hugely, hanging by a standard he had taken, till his life was

nearly beaten out. [1449 (Rentsch, p. 399).] Eight victories; and also one defeat, wherein Albert got captured,

and had to ransom himself. The captor was one Kunz of Kauffungen, the Nurnberg hired General at the time:

a man known to some readers for his Stealing of the Saxon Princes (PRINZENRAUB, they call it); a feat

which cost Kunz his head. [Carlyle's Miscellanies (London, 1869), vi. ? PRINZENRAUB.] Albert, however,

prevailed in the end, as he was apt to do; and got his Nurnbergers fixed to clauses satisfactory to him.

In his early days he had fought against Poles, Bohemians and others, as Imperial general. He was much

concerned, all along, in those abstruse armedlitigations of the Austrian House with its dependencies; and

diligently helped the Kaiser,Friedrich III., rather a weakish, but an eager and greedy Kaiser,through

most of them. That inextricable HungarianBohemianPolish DONNYBROOK (so we may call it) which

Austria had on hand, one of Sigismund's bequests to Austria; distressingly tumultuous Donnybrook, which

goes from 1440 to 1471, fighting in a fierce confused manner; the AntiTurk Hunniades, the

AntiAustrian Corvinus, the royal Majesties George Podiebrad, Ladislaus POSTHUMUS, Ludwig OHNE

HAUT (Ludwig NOSKIN), and other Ludwigs, Ladislauses and Vladislauses, striking and getting struck at

such a rate:Albert was generally what we may call chiefconstable in all that; giving a knock here and then

one there, in the Kaiser's name. [Hormayr, ii. 138, 140 (? HUNYADY CORVIN); Rentsch, pp. 389422;

Michaelis, i. 304313.] Almost from boyhood, he had learned soldiering, which he had never afterwards

leisure to forget. Great store of fighting he had,say half a century of it, off and on, during the seventy and

odd years he lasted in this world. With the Donnybrook we spoke of; with the Nurnbergers; with the Dukes of

Bavaria (endless bickerings with these Dukes, Ludwig BEARDY, Ludwig SUPERBUS, Ludwig GIBBOSUS

or Hunchback, against them and about them, on his own and the Kaiser's score); also with the French, already

clutching at Lorraine; also with Charles the Rash of Burgundy;lastly with the Bishop of Bamberg, who got

Kurfurst Albert's Letter on this last emergency, to his Viceregent in Culmbach, is a famed Piece still extant

(date 1481); [Rentsch, p. 409.] and his plan in such emergency, is a simple and likely one: "Carry the dead

bodies to the Parson's house; let him see whether he will not bury them by and by!One must fence off the

Devil by the Holy Cross," says Albert,appeal to Heaven with what honest motherwit Heaven has

vouchsafed one, means Albert. "These fellows" (the Priests), continues he, "would fain have the temporal

sword as well as the spiritual. Had God wished there should be only one sword, he could have contrived that

as well as the two. He surely did not want for intellect (Er war gar ein weiser Mann)," want of intellect it

clearly was not!In short, they had to bury the dead, and do reason; and Albert hustled himself well clear of

Battle enough, poor man, with steel and other weapons:and we see he did it with sharp insight, good

forecast; now and then in a wildly leonine or AQUILINE manner. A tall hooknosed man, of lean, sharp,

rather taciturn aspect; nose and look are very aquiline; and there is a cloudy sorrow in those old eyes, which

seems capable of sudden effulgence to a dangerous extent. He was a considerable, diplomatist too: very great

with the Kaiser, Old Friedrich III. (Max's father, Charles V.'s GreatGrandfather); [How admirahle Albert is,

not to say "almost divine," to the Kaiser's then Secretary, oilymouthed AEneas Sylvius, afterwards Pope,

Rentsch can testify (pp. 401, 586); quoting AEneas's eulogies and gossipries ( Historia Rerum Frederici

Imperatoris, I conclude, though no book is named). Oily diligent AEneas, in his own young years and in

Albert's prime, had of course seen much of this "miracle" of Arms and Art, "miracle" and "almost divine,"

so to speak.] and managed many things for him. Managed to get the thricelovely Heiress of the Netherlands

and Burgundy, Daughter of that Charles the Rash, with her Seventeen Provinces, for Max, [1477]who was

thought thereupon by everybody to be the luckiest man alive; though the issue contradicted it before long.

Kurfurst Albert died in 1486, March 11, aged seventytwo. It was some months after Bosworth Fight, where

our Crooked Richard got his quietus here in England and brought the Wars of the Roses to their finale:a

little chubby Boy, the son of poor parents at Eisleben in Saxony, Martin Luther the name of him, was looking

into this abtruse Universe, with those strange eyes of his, in what rough woollen or linseywoolsey

Albert's funeral was very grand; the Kaiser himself, and all the Magnates of the Diet and Reich attending him

from Frankfurt to his last restingplace, many miles of road. For he died at the Diet, in FrankfurtonMayn;

having fallen ill there while busy,perhaps too busy for that age, in the harsh spring weather,electing

Prince Maximilian ("lucky Max," who will be Kaiser too before long, and is already deep in ILLluck,

tragical and other to be King of the Romans. The old Kaiser had "looked in on him at Onolzbach" (Anspach),

and brought him along; such a man could not be wanting on such an occasion. A man who "perhaps did more

for the German Empire than for the Electorate of Brandenburg," hint some. The Kaiser himself, Friedrich III.,

was now getting old; anxious to see Max secure, and to set his house in order. A somewhat anxious, creaky,

closefisted, ineffectual old Kaiser; [See Kohler ( Munzbelustigungen, vi. 393401; ii. 8996, for a vivid

account of him.] distinguished by his luck in getting Max so provided for, and bringing the Seventeen

Provinces of the Netherlands to his House. He is the first of the Hapsburg Kaisers who had what has since

been called the "Austrian lip"protrusive underjaw, with heavy lip disinclined to shut. He got it from his

Mother, and bequeathed it in a marked manner; his posterity to this day bearing traces of it. Mother's name

was Cimburgis, a Polish Princess, "Duke of Masovia's daughter;" a lady who had something of the

MAULTASCHE in her, in character as well as mouth.In old Albert, the poor old Kaiser has lost his right

Albert is buried at Heilsbronn in Frankenland, among his Ancestors,burial in Brandenburg not yet

common for these new Kurfursts:his skull, in an aftertime, used to be shown there, laid on the lid of the

tomb; skull marvellous for strength, and for "having no visible sutures," says Rentsch. Pious Brandenburg

Officiality at length put an end to that profanation, and restored the skull to its place,marvellous enough,

Albert's eldest Son, the Fourth Kurfurst, was Johannes Cicero (14861499): Johannes was his natural name,

to which the epithet "Cicero of Germany (CICERO GERMANIAE)" was added by an admiring public. He

had commonly administered the Electorate during his Father's absences; and done it with credit to himself.

He was an active man, nowise deficient as a Governor; creditably severe on highway robbers, for one

thing,destroys you "fifteen baronial robbertowers" at a stroke; was also concerned in the Hungarian

Bohemian DONNYBROOK, and did that also well. But nothing struck a discerning public like the talent he

had for speaking. Spoke "four hours at a stretch in Kaiser Max's Diets, in elegantly flowing Latin;" with a fair

share of meaning, too;and had bursts of parliamentary eloquence in him that were astonishing to hear. A

tall, squareheaded man, of erect, cheerfully composed aspect, head flung rather back if anything: his bursts

of parliamentary eloquence, once glorious as the day, procured him the name "Johannes CICERO;" and that

is what remains of them: for they are sunk now, irretrievable he and they, into the belly of eternal Night; the

final restingplace, I do perceive, of much Ciceronian ware in this world. Apparently he had, like some of his

Descendants, what would now be called "distinguished literary talents,"insignificant to mankind and us. I

find he was likewise called DER GROSSE, "John the GREAT;" but on investigation it proves to be mere

"John the BIG," a name coming from his tall stature and ultimate fatness of body.

For the rest, he left his family well off, connected with high Potentates all around; and had increased his

store, to a fair degree, in his time. Besides his eldest Son who followed as Elector, by name Joachim I., a

burly gentleman of whom much is written in Books, he left a second Son, Archbishop of Magdeburg, who in

time became Archbishop of Mainz and Cardinal of Holy Church, [Ulrich van Hutten's grand "Panegyric"

upon this Albert on his first Entrance into Mainz (9th October, 1514),"entrance with a retinue of 2,000

horse, mainly furnished by the Brandenburg and Culmbach kindred," say the old Books,is in Ulrichi ab

Hutten Equitis Germani Opera (Munch's edition; Berlin, 1821), i. 276310.]and by accident got to be

forever memorable in ChurchHistory, as we shall see anon. Archbishop of Mainz means withal

KURMAINZ, Elector of Mainz; who is Chief of the Seven Electors, and as it were their President or

"Speaker." Albert was the name of this one; his elder Brother, the then KurBrandenburg, was called

Joachim. Cardinal Albert KurMainz, like his brother Joachim KurBrandenburg, figures much, and blazes

widely abroad, in the busy reign of Karl V., and the inextricable LutheranPapal, TurkChristian business it

But the notable point in this Albert of Mainz was that of Leo X. and the Indulgences. [Pauli, v. 496499;

Rentsch, p. 869.] Pope Leo had permitted Albert to retain his Archbishopric of Magdeburg and other dignities

along with that of Mainz; which was an unusual favor. But the Pope expected to be paid for it,to have

30,000 ducats (15,000 pounds), almost a King's ransom at that time, for the "Pallium" to Mainz; PALLIUM,

or little Bit of woollen Cloth, on sale by the Pope, without which Mainz could not he held. Albert, with all his

dignities, was dreadfully short of money at the time. Chapter of Mainz could or would do little or nothing,

having been drained lately; Magdeburg, Halberstadt, the like. Albert tried various shifts; tried a little stroke of

trade in relics,gathered in the Mainz district "some hundreds of fractional sacred bones, and three whole

bodies," which he sent to Halle for pious purchase;but nothing came of this branch. The 15,000 pounds

remained unpaid; and Pope Leo, building St. Peter's, "furnishing a sister's toilet," and doing worse things, was

in extreme need of it. What is to be done? "I could borrow the money from the Fuggers of Augsburg," said

the Archbishop hesitatingly; "but then?""I could help you to repay it." said his Holiness: "Could repay

the half of it,if only we had (but they always make such clamor about these things) an Indulgence

published in Germany!""Well; it must be!" answered Albert at last, agreeing to take the clamor on himself,

and to do the feat; being at his wits'end for money. He draws out his Full Power, which, as first Spiritual

Kurfurst, he has the privilege to do; nominates (1516) one Tetzel for Chief Salesman, a Priest whose hardness

of face, and shiftiness of head and hand, were known to him; andhere is one Hohenzollern that has a place

in History! Poor man, it was by accident, and from extreme tightness for money. He was by no means a

violent Churchman; he had himself inclinations towards Luther, even of a practical sort, as the thing went on.

Cardinal Albert, KurMainz, shows himself a copious dexterous public speaker at the Diets and elsewhere in

those times; a man intent on avoiding violent methods;uncomfortably fat in his later years, to judge by the

Portraits. KurBrandenburg, KurMainz (the younger now officially even greater than the elder), these

names are perpetually turning up in the German Histories of that ReformationPeriod; absent on no great

occasion; and they at length, from amid the meaningless beadroll of Names, wearisomely met with in such

Albert Achilles the Third Elector had, before his accession, been Margraf of Anspach, and since his Brother

the Alchemist's death, Margraf of Baireuth too, or of the whole Principality,"Margraf of Culmbach" we

will call it, for brevity's sake, though the bewildering old Books have not steadily any name for it. [A certain

subaltern of this express title, "Margraf of Culmbach" (a Cadet, with some temporary appanage there, who

was once in the service of him they call the WinterKing, and may again be transiently heard of by us here),

is the altogether Mysterious Personage who prints himself "MARQUIS DE LULENBACH" in Bromley's

Collection of Royal Letters (London, 1787), pp. 52, of the most curious Books on the ThirtyYears War;

"edited" with a composed stupidity, and cheerful infinitude of ignorance, which still farther distinguish it.

The BROMLEY Originals well worth a real editing, turn out, on inquiry, to have been "sold as Autographs,

and dispersed beyond recovery, about fifty years ago."] After his accession, Albert Achilles naturally held

both Electorate and Principality during the rest of his life. Which was an extremely rare predicament for the

No other Elector held them both, for nearly a hundred years; nor then, except as it were for a moment. The

two countries, Electorate and Principality, Hohenzollern both, and constituting what the Hohenzollerns had in

this world, continued intimately connected; with affinity and clientship carefully kept, up, and the lesser

standing always under the express protection and as it were COUSINSHIP of the greater. But they had their

separate Princes, Lines of Princes; and they only twice, in the time of these Twelve Electors, came even

temporarily under the same head. And as to ultimate union, BrandenburgBaireuth and Brandenburg

Anspach were not incorporated with BrandenburgProper, and its new fortunes, till almost our own day,

namely in 1791; nor then either to continue; having fallen to Bavaria, in the grand Congress of Vienna, within

the next fiveandtwenty years. All which, with the complexities and perplexities resulting from it here, we

Culmbach the Elector left, at his death, to his Second Son, properly to two sons, but one of them soon

died, and the other became sole possessor;Friedrich by name; who, as founder of the Elder Line of

BrandenburgCulmbach Princes, must not be forgotten by us. Founder of the First or Elder Line, for there are

two Lines; this of Friedrich's having gone out in about a hundred years; and the AnspachBaireuth territories

having fallen home again to Brandenburg;where, however, they continued only during the then Kurfurst's

life.;ohann George (15251598), Seventh Kurfurst, was he to whom BrandenburgCulmbach fell

home,nay, strictly speaking, it was but the sure prospect of it that fell home, the thing itself did not quite

fall in his time, though the disposal of it did, ["Disposal," 1598; thing itself, 1603, in his Son's time.]to be

conjoined again with BrandenburgProper. Conjoined for the short potential remainder of his own life; and

then to be disposed of as an apanage again;which latter operation, as Johann George had

Johann George, accordingly (Year 1598), split the Territory in two; BrandenburgBaireuth was for his

second son, Brandenburg Anspach for his third: hereby again were two new progenitors of Culmbach

Princes introduced, and a New Line, Second or "Younger Line" they call it (Line mostly split in two, as

heretofore); whichafter complex adventures in its split condition, Baireuth under one head, Anspach under

anothercontinues active down to our little Fritz's time and farther. As will become but too apparent to us in

From of old these Territories had been frequently divided: each has its own little capital, Town of Anspach,

Town of Baireuth, [Populations about the same; 16,000 to 17,000 in our time.] suitable for such arrangement.

Frequently divided; though always under the closest cousinship, and ready for reuniting, if possible.

Generally under the Elder Line too, under Friedrich's posterity, which was rather numerous and often in need

of apanages, they had been in separate hands. But the understood practice was not to divide farther; Baireuth

by itself, Anspach by itself (or still luckier if one hand could get hold of both),and especially Brandenburg

by itself, uncut by any apanage: this, I observe, was the received practice. But Johann George, wise Kurfurst

as he was, wished now to make it surer; and did so by a famed Deed, called the Gera Bond (GERAISCHE

VERTRAG), dated 1598, [Michaelis, i. 345.] the last year of Johann George's life.

Hereby, in a Family Conclave held at that Gera, a little town in Thuringen, it was settled and indissolubly

fixed, That their Electorate, unlike all others in Germany, shall continue indivisible; Law of Primogeniture,

here if nowhere else, is to be in full force; and only the Culmbach Territory (if otherwise unoccupied) can be

split off for younger sons. Culmbach can be split off; and this again withal can be split, if need be, into two

(Baireuth and Anspach); but not in any case farther. Which HouseholdLaw was strictly obeyed henceforth.

Date of it 1598; principal author, Johann George, Seventh Elector. This "Gera Bond" the reader can note for

himself as an excellent piece of Hohenzollern thrift, and important in the Brandenburg annals. On the whole,

Brandenburg keeps continually growing under these Twelve Hohenzollerns, we perceive; slower or faster,

just as the Burggrafdom had done, and by similar methods. A lucky outlay of money (as in the case of

Friedrich Ironteeth in the Neumark) brings them one Province, lucky inheritance another:good

And so there goes on again, from Johann George downwards, a new stream of Culmbach Princes, called the

Younger or New Line, properly two contemporary Lines, of Baireuthers and Anspachers; always in

close affinity to Brandenburg, and with ultimate reversion to Brandenburg, should both Lines fail; but with

mutual inheritance if only one. They had intricate fortunes, service in foreign armies, much wandering about,

sometimes considerable scarcity of cash: but, for a hundred and fifty years to come, neither Line by any

Of this latter or New Culmbach Line, or split Line, especially of the Baireuth part of it, our little Wilhelmina,

little Fritz's Sister, who became Margravine there, has given all the world notice. From the Anspach part of it

(at that time in sore scarcity of cash) came Queen Caroline, famed in our George the Second's time. [See a

Synoptic Diagram of these Genealogies, infra, p. 388a.] From it too came an unmomentous Margraf, who

married a little Sister of Wilhelmina's and Fritz's; of whom we shall hear. There is lastly a still more

unmomentous Margraf, only son of said Unmomentous and his said Spouse; who again combined the two

Territories, Baireuth having failed of heirs; and who, himself without heirs, and with a frail Lady Craven as

Margravine,died at Hammersmith, close by us, in 1806; and so ended the troublesome affair. He had

already, in 1791, sold off to Prussia all temporary claims of his; and let Prussia have the Heritage at once

without waiting farther. Prussia, as we noticed, did not keep it long; and it is now part of the Bavarian

Of this Younger Line, intrinsically rather insignificant to mankind, we shall have enough to write in time and

Kurfurst Albert Achilles's second son, Friedrich (14601536), [Rentsch, pp. 593602.] the founder of the

Elder Culmbach Line, ruled his country well for certain years, and was "a man famed for strength of body

and mind;" but claims little notice from us, except for the sons he had. A quiet, commendable, honorable

man, with a certain pathetic dignity, visible even in the eclipsed state he sank into. Poor old gentleman,

after grand enough feats in war and peace, he fell melancholy, fell imbecile, blind, soon after middle life; and

continued so for twenty years, till he died. During which dark state, say the old Books, it was a pleasure to

see with what attention his Sons treated him, and how reverently the eldest always led him out to dinner. [Ib.

p. 612.] They live and dine at that high Castle of Plassenburg, where old Friedrich can behold the Red or

White Mayn no more. Alas, alas, Plassenburg is now a CorrectionHouse, where male and female scoundrels

do beating of hemp; and pious Friedrich, like eloquent Johann, has become a forgotten object. He was of the

German ReichsArray, who marched to the Netherlands to deliver Max from durance; Max, the King of the

Romans, whom, for all his luck, the mutinous Flemings had put under lockandkey at one time. [1482

(Pauli, ii. 389): his beautiful young Wife, "thrown from her horse," had perished in a thricetragic way, short

while before; and the Seventeen Provinces were unruly under the guardianship of Max.] That is his one feat

He was Johann Cicero's HALFbrother, child by a second wife. Like his Uncle Kurfurst Friedrich II., he had

married a Polish Princess; the sharp Achilles having perhaps an eye to crowns in that direction, during that

HungarianBohemianPolish Donnybrook. But if so, there again came nothing of a crown with it; though it

He had eight Sons that reached manhood; five or six of whom came to something considerable in the world,

and Three are memorable down to this day. One of his daughters he married to the Duke of Liegnitz in

Silesia; which is among the first links I notice of a connection that grew strong with that sovereign Duchy,

and is worth remarking by my readers here. Of the Three notable Sons it is necessary that we say something.

Casimir, the eldest, [14811527.] whose share of heritage is Baireuth, was originally intended for the

Church; but inclining rather to secular and military things, or his prospects of promotion altering, he early

quitted that; and took vigorously to the career of arms and business. A truculentlooking Herr, with

thoughtful eyes, and hanging underlip:HAT of enviable softness; loose disk of felt flung carelessly on,

almost like a nightcap artificially extended, so admirably soft;and the look of the man Casimir, between

his cataract of black beard and this semi nightcap, is carelessly truculent. He had much fighting with the

Nurnbergers and others; laid it right terribly on, in the way of strokes, when needful. He was especially

truculent upon the Revolt of Peasants in their BAUERNKRIEG (1525). Them in their wildest rage he

fronted; he, that others might rally to him: "Unhappy mortals, will you shake the world to pieces, then,

because you have much to complain of?" and hanged the ringleaders of them literally by the dozen, when

quelled and captured. A severe, rather truculent Herr. His brother George, who had Anspach for heritage, and

a right to half those prisoners, admonished and forgave his half; and pleaded hard with Casimir for mercy to

the others, in a fine Letter still extant; [In Rentsch, p. 627.] which produced no effect on Casimir. For the

dog's sake, and for all sakes, "let not the dog learn to eat LEATHER;" (of which his indispensable leashes and

muzzles are made)! That was a proverb often heard on the occasion, in Luther's mouth among the rest.

Casimir died in 1527, age then towards fifty. For the last dozen years or so, when the Father's malady became

hopeless, he had governed Culmbach, both parts of it; the Anspach part, which belonged to his next brother

George, going naturally, in almost all things, along with Baireuth; and George, who was commonly absent,

not interfering, except on important occasions. Casimir left one little Boy, age then only six, name Albert; to

whom George, henceforth practical sovereign of Culmbach, as his Brother had been, was appointed

Guardian. This youth, very full of fire, wildfire too much of it, exploded dreadfully on Germany by and by

(Albert ALCIBIADES the name they gave him); nay, towards the end of his nonage, he had been rather

Uncle George of Anspach, Casimir's next Brother, had always been of a peaceabler disposition than Casimir;

not indeed without heat of temper, and sufficient vivacity of every kind. As a youth, he had aided Kaiser Max

in two of his petty wars; but was always rather given "to reading Latin," to Learning, and ingenious pursuits.

His Polish Mother, who, we perceive, had given "Casimir" his name, proved much more important to George.

At an early age he went to his Uncle Vladislaus, King of Hungary and Bohemia: for Alas, after all, we

shall have to cast a glance into that unbeautiful HungarianBohemian scramble, comparable to an "Irish

Donnybrook," where Albert Achilles long walked as ChiefConstable. It behooves us, after all, to point out

some of the tallest heads in it; and whitherward, bludgeon in hand, they seem to be swaying and

George, then, at an early age went to his Uncle Vladislaus, King of Hungary and Bohemia: for George's

Mother, as we know, was of royal kin; daughter of the Polish King, Casimir IV. (late mauler of the Teutsch

Ritters); which circumstance had results for George and us. Daughter of Casimir IV. the Lady was; and

therefore of the Jagellon blood by her father, which amounts to little; but by her mother she was

Granddaughter of that Kaiser Albert II. who "got Three Crowns in one year, and died the next;" whose

posterity have ever since,up to the lips in trouble with their confused competitive accompaniments,

Hunniades, Corvinus, George Podiebrad and others, not to speak of dragon Turks coiling ever closer round

you on the frontier,been Kings of Hungary and Bohemia; TWO of the crowns (the HERITABLE two)

which were got by Kaiser Albert in that memorable year. He got them, as the reader may remember, by

having the daughter of Kaiser Sigismund to wife,Sigismund SUPER GRAMMATICAM, whom we left

standing, red as a flamingo, in the marketplace of Constance a hundred years ago. Thus Time rolls on in its

It is in this way that George's Uncle, Vladislaus, Albert's daughter's son, is now King of Hungary and

Bohemia: the last King Vladislaus they had; and the last King but one, of any kind, as we shall see anon.

Vladislaus was heir of Poland too, could he have managed to get it; but he gave up that to his brother, to

various younger brothers in succession; having his hands full with the Hungarian and Bohemian difficulty.

He was very fond of Nephew George; well recognizing the ingenuous, wise and loyal nature of the young

man. He appointed George tutor of his poor son Ludwig; whom he left at the early age of ten, in an evil

world, and evil position there. "Born without Skin," they say, that is, born in the seventh month;called

Ludwig OHNE HAUT (Ludwig NOSkin), on that account. Born certainly, I can perceive, rather thin of

George did his function honestly, and with success: Ludwig grew up a gallant, airy, brisk young King, in

spite of difficulties, constitutional and other; got a Sister of the great Kaiser Karl V. to wife;determined

(A.D. 1526) to have a stroke at the Turk dragon; which, was coiling round his frontier, and spitting fire at an

intolerable rate. Ludwig, a fine young man of twenty, marched away with much Hungarian chivalry, right for

the Turk (Summer 1526); George meanwhile going busily to Bohemia, and there with all his strength levying

troops for reinforcement. Ludwig fought and fenced, for some time, with the Turk outskirts; came at last to a

furious general battle with the Turk (29th August, 1526), at a place called Mohacz, far east in the flats of the

Lower Donau; and was there tragically beaten and ended. Seeing the Battle gone, and his chivalry all in

flight, Ludwig too had to fly; galloping for life, he came upon bog which proved bottomless, as good as

bottomless; and Ludwig, horse and man, vanished in it straightway from this world. Hapless young man, like

a flash of lightning suddenly going down thereand the Hungarian Sovereignty along with him. For

Hungary is part of Austria ever since; having, with Bohemia, fallen to Karl V.'s Brother Ferdinand, as now

the nearest convenient heir of Albert with his Three Crowns. Up to the lips in difficulties to this day!

George meanwhile, with finely appointed reinforcements, was in full march to join Ludwig; but the sad news

of Mohacz met him: he withdrew, as soon as might be, to his own territory, and quitted Hungarian politics.

This, I think, was George's third and last trial of war. He by no means delighted in that art, or had cultivated it

George by this time had considerable property; part of it important to the readers of this History. Anspach we

already know; but the Duchy of Jagerndorf,that and its pleasant valleys, fine huntinggrounds and

larchclad heights, among the Giant Mountains of Silesia,that is to us the memorable territory. George got

Some ten or fifteen years ago, the late King Vladislaus, our Uncle of blessed memory, loving George, and not

having royal moneys at command, permitted him to redeem with his own cash certain Hungarian Domains,

pledged at a ruinously cheap rate, but unredeemable by Vladislaus. George did so; years ago, guess ten or

fifteen. George did not like the Hungarian Domains, with their Turk and other inconveniences; he proposed

to exchange them with King Vladislaus for the BohemianSilesian Duchy of Jagerndorf; which had just then,

by failure of heirs, lapsed to the King. This also Vladislaus, the beneficent cashless Uncle, liking George

more and more, permitted to be done. And done it was; I see not in what year; only that the ultimate

investiture (done, this part of the affair, by Ludwig OHNE HAUT, and duly sanctioned by the Kaiser) dates

From the time of this purchase, and especially till Brother Casimir's death, which happened in 1527, George

resided oftener at Jagerndorf than at Anspach. Anspach, by the side of Baireuth, needed no management; and

in Jagerndorf much probably required the hand of a good Governor to put it straight again. The Castle of

Jagerndorf, which towers up there in a rather grand manner to this day, George built: "the old Castle of the

Schellenbergs" (extinct predecessor Line) now gone to ruins, "stands on a Hill with larches on it, some miles

off." Margraf George was much esteemed as Duke of Jagerndorf. What his actions in that region were, I

know not; but it seems he was so well thought of in Silesia, two smaller neighboring Potentates, the Duke of

Oppeln and the Duke of Ratibor, who had no heirs of their body, bequeathed, with the Kaiser's assent, these

towns and territories to George: [Rentsch, pp. 623, 127131. Kaiser is Ferdinand, Karl V.'s Brother,as yet

only KING of Bohemia and Hungary, but supreme in regard to such points. His assent is dated "17th June,

1531" in Rentsch.]in mere love to their subjects (Rentsch intimates), that poor men might be governed by a

wise good Duke, in the time coming. The Kaiser would have got the Duchies otherwise.

Nay the Kaiser, in spite of his preliminary assent, proved extortionate to George in this matter; and exacted

heavy sums for the actual possession of Oppeln and Ratibor. George, going so zealously ahead in Protestant

affairs, grew less and less a favorite with Kaisers. But so, at any rate, on peaceable unquestionable grounds,

grounds valid as Imperial Law and ready money, George is at last Lord of these two little Countries, in the

plain of SouthSilesia, as of Jagerndorf among the Mountains hard by. George has and holds the Duchy of

Jagerndorf, with these appendages (Jagerndorf since 1524, Ratibor and Oppeln since some years later); and

lives constantly, or at the due intervals, in his own strong MountainCastle of Jagerndorf there,we have no

doubt, to the marked benefit of good men in those parts. Hereby has Jagerndorf joined itself to the

Brandenburg Territories: and the reader can note the circumstance, for it will prove memorable one day.

In the business of the Reformation, Margraf George was very noble. A simplehearted, truthloving,

modestly valiant man; rising unconsciously, in that great element, into the heroic figure. "George the Pious

(DER FROMME)," "George the Confessor (BEKENNER)," were the names he got from his countrymen.

Once this business had become practical, George interfered a little more in the Culmbach Government; his

brother Casimir, who likewise had Reformation tendencies, rather hanging back in comparison to George.

In 1525 the Townpopulations, in the Culmbach region, big Nurnberg in the van, had gone quite ahead in the

new Doctrine; and were becoming irrepressibly impatient to clear out the old mendacities, and have the

Gospel preached freely to them. This was a questionable step; feasible perhaps for a great Elector of

Saxony;but for a Margraf of Anspach? George had come home from Jagerndorf, some three hundred miles

away, to look into it for himself; found it, what with darkness all round, what with precipices menacing on

both hands, and zealous, inconsiderate Townpopulations threatening to take the bit between their teeth, a

frightfully intricate thing. George mounted his horse, one day this year, day not dated farther, and "with only

six attendants" privately rode off, another two hundred miles, a good three days' ride, to Wittenberg; and

alighted at Dr. Martinus Lutherus's door. [Rentsch, p. 625.] A notable passage; worth thinking of. But such

visits of high Princes, to that poor house of the Doctor's, were not then uncommon. Luther cleared the doubts

of George; George returned with a resolution taken; "Ahead then, ye poor Voigtland Gospel populations! I

must lead you, we must on!"And perils enough there proved to be, and precipices on each hand:

BAUERNKRIEG, that is to say Peasants'War, Anabaptistry and Red Republic, on the one hand;

REICHSACHT, Ban of Empire, on the other. But George, eagerly, solemnly attentive, with ever new light

rising on him, dealt with the perils as they came; and went steadily on, in a simple, highly manful and

He did not live to see the actual Wars that followed on Luther's preaching:he was of the same age with

Luther, born few months later, and died two years before Luther; [4th March, 1484, 27th Dec., 1543,

George; 10th November, 148318th February, 1546, Luther.]but in all the intermediate principal

transactions George is conspicuously present; "George of Brandenburg," as the Books call him, or simply

At the Diet of Augsburg (1530), and the signing of the Augsburg Confession there, he was sure to be. He

rode thither with his Anspach Knightage about him, "four hundred cavaliers," Seckendorfs, Huttens,

Flanses and other known kindreds, recognizable among the lists; [Rentsch, p. 633.]and spoke there,

notbursts of parliamentary eloquence, but things that had meaning in them. One speech of his, not in the Diet,

but in the Kaiser's Lodging (15th June, 1530; no doubt, in Anton Fugger's house, where the Kaiser "lodged

for year and day" this time but WITHOUT the "fires of cinnamon" they talk of on other occasions [See

Carlyle's Miscellanies (iii. 259 n.). The House is at present an Inn, "Gasthaus zu den drei Mohren;" where

tourists lodge, and are still shown the room which the Kaiser occupied on such visits.]), is still very

celebrated. It was the evening of the Kaiser Karl Fifth's arrival at the Diet; which was then already, some time

since, assembled there. And great had been the Kaiser's reception that morning; the flower of Germany, all

the Princes of the Empire, Protestant and Papal alike, riding out to meet him, in the open country, at the

Bridge of the Lech. With highflown speeches and benignities, on both sides;only that the Kaiser willed

all men, Protestant and other, should in the mean while do the Popish litanyings, waxlight processionings and

idolatrous stageperformances with him on the morrow, which was CORPUSCHRISTI Day; and the

Protestants could not nor would. Imperial hints there had already been, from Innspruck; benign hopes, of the

nature of commands, That loyal Protestant Princes would in the interim avoid open discrepancies, perhaps

be so loyal as keep their chaplains, peculiar divine services, private in the interim? These were hints;and

now this of the CORPUSCHRISTI, a still more pregnant hint! Loyal Protestants refused it, therefore; flatly

declined, though bidden and again bidden. They attended in a body, old Johann of Saxony, young Philip of

Hessen, and the rest; Margraf George, as spokesman, with eloquent simplicity stating their reasons,to

Invinciblest allgracious Kaiser, loyal are we to your high Majesty, ready to do your bidding by night and by

day. But it is your bidding under God, not against God. Ask us not, 0 gracious Kaiser! I cannot, and we

cannot; and we must not, and dare not. And "before I would deny my God and his Evangel," these are

George's own words, "I would rather kneel down here before your Majesty, and have my head struck

off,"hitting his hindhead, or neck, with the edge of his hand, by way of accompaniment; a strange

radiance in the eyes of him, voice risen into musical alt: "Ehe Ich wolte meinen Gott und sein Evangelium

verlaugnen, ehe wolte Ich hier vor Eurer Majestat niderknien, und mir den Kopf abhauen lassen.""Nit

Kop ab, lover Forst, nit Kop ab!" answered Charles in his Flemish German; "Not head off, dear Furst, not

head off!" said the Kaiser, a faint smile enlightening those weighty gray eyes of his, and imperceptibly

animating the thick Austrian underlip. [Rentsch, p. 637. Marheineke, Geschichte der Teutschen Reformation

Speaker and company attended again on the morrow; Margraf George still more eloquent. Whose Speech

flew over Germany, like fire over dry flax; and still exists,both Speeches now oftenest rolled into one by

inaccurate editors. [As by Rentsch, ubi supra.] And the CORPUSCHRISTI idolatries were forborne the

Margraf and his company this time;the Kaiser himself, however, walking, nearly roasted in the sun, in

heavy purplevelvet cloak, with a big waxcandle, very superfluous, guttering and blubbering in the right

hand of him, along the streets of Augsburg. KurBrandenburg, KurMainz, high cousins of George, were at

this Diet of Augsburg; KurBrandenburg (Elector Joachim I., Cicero's son, of whom we have spoken, and

shall speak again) being often very loud on the conservative side; and eloquent KurMainz going on the

conciliatory tack. KurBrandenburg, in his zeal, had ridden on to Innspruck, to meet the Kaiser there, and

have a preliminary word with him. Both these high Cousins spoke, and bestirred themselves, a good deal, at

this Diet. They had met the Kaiser on the plains of the Lech, this morning; and, no doubt, gloomed

Till his death in 1543, George is to be found always in the front line of this high Movement, in the line where

KurSachsen, John the Steadfast (DER BESTANDIGE), and young Philip the Magnanimous of Hessen

were, and where danger and difficulty were. Readers of this enlightened goldnugget generation can form to

themselves no conception of the spirit that then possessed the nobler kingly mind. "The command of God

endures through Eternity, Verbum Dei Manet In AEternum," was the Epigraph and Lifemotto which John

the Steadfast had adopted for himself; "V. D. M. I. AE.," these initials he had engraved on all the furnitures

of his existence, on his standards, pictures, plate, on the very sleeves of his lackeys,and I can perceive, on

his own deep heart first of all. V. D. M. I. E.:or might it not be read withal, as Philip of Hessen sometimes

said (Philip, still a young fellow, capable of sport in his magnanimous scorn), "Verbum Diaboli Manet In

We must now take leave of Margraf George and his fine procedures in that crisis of WorldHistory. He had

got Jugerndorf, which became important for his Family and others: but what was that to the Promethean

conquests (such we may call them) which he had the honor to assist in making for his Family, and for his

Country, and for all men;very unconscious he of "bringing fire from Heaven," good modest simple man!

So far as I can gather, there lived, in that day, few truer specimens of the Honest Man. A rugged,

roughhewn, rather bluntnosed physiognomy: cheekbones high, cheeks somewhat bagged and wrinkly;

eyes with a due shade of anxiety and sadness in them; affectionate simplicity, faithfulness, intelligence,

veracity looking out of every feature of him. Wears plentiful white beard shortcut, plentiful goldchains,

ruffs, ermines;a hat not to be approved of, in comparison with brother Casimir's; miserable

invertedcolander of a hat; hanging at an angle of fortyfive degrees; with band of pearls round the top not

the bottom of it; insecure upon the fine head of George, and by no means to its embellishment.

One of his Daughters he married to the Duke of Liegnitz, a new link in that connection. He left one Boy,

George Friedrich; who came under ALCIBIADES, his Cousin of Baireuth's tutelage; and suffered much by

that connection, or indeed chiefly by his own conspicuously Protestant turn, to punish which, the Alcibiades

connection was taken as a pretext. In riper years, George Friedrich got his calamities brought well under; and

lived to do good work, Protestant and other, in the world. To which we may perhaps allude again. The Line

of Margraf George the Pious ends in this George Friedrich, who had no children; the Line of Margraf George,

and the Elder Culmbach Line altogether (1603), Albert Alcibiades, Casimir's one son, having likewise died

"Of the younger Brothers," says my Authority, "some four were in the Church; two of whom rose to be

"1. One, Wilhelm by name, was Bishop of Riga, in the remote Prussian outskirts, and became

Protestant;among the first great Prelates who took that heretical course; being favored by circumstances to

cast out the 'V. D. (Verbum Diaboli),' as Philip read it. He is a wiselooking man, with magnificent beard,

with something of contemptuous patience in the meditative eyes of him. He had great troubles with his Riga

people,as indeed was a perennial case between their Bishop and them, of whatever creed he might be.

"2. The other Prelate held fast by the Papal Orthodoxy: he had got upon the ladder of promotion towards

Magdeburg; hoping to follow his Cousin KURMAINZ, the eloquent conciliatory Cardinal, in that part of his

pluralities. As he did,little to his comfort, poor man; having suffered a good deal in the sieges and religious

troubles of his Magdeburgers; who ended by ordering him away, having openly declared themselves

Protestant, at length. He had to go; and occupy himself complaining, soliciting AulicCouncils and the like,

"3. The PROBST of Wurzburg (PROVOST, kind of HeadCanon there); orthodox Papal he too; and often

"4. A still more orthodox specimen, the youngest member of the family, who is likewise in orders:

Gumbrecht ('Gumbertus, a Canonicus of' Something or other, say the Books); who went early to Rome, and

became one of his Holiness Leo Tenth's Chamberlains; stood the 'Sack of Rome' (Constable de Bourbon's),

and was captured there and ransomed;but died still young (1528). These three were Catholics, he of

Catholic also was JOHANNES, a fifth Brother, who followed the soldiering and diplomatic professions,

oftenest in Spain; did Governmentmessages to Diets, and the like, for Karl V.; a high man and well seen of

his Kaiser;he had wedded the young Widow of old King Ferdinand in Spain; which proved, seemingly, a

troublous scene for poor Johannes. What we know is, he was appointed Commandant of Valencia; and died

there, still little turned of thirty,by poison it is supposed,and left his young Widow to marry a third time.

These are the Five minor Brothers, four of them Catholic, sons of old blind Friedrich of Plassenburg; who are

not, for their own sake, memorable, but are mentionable for the sake of the three major Brothers. So many

orthodox Catholics, while Brother George and others went into the heresies at such a rate! A family much

split by religion:and blind old Friedrich, dim of intellect, knew nothing of it; and the excellent Polish

Johannes of Valencia, and these Chief Priests, were all men of mark; conspicuous to the able editors of their

day: but the only Brother now generally known to mankind is Albert, Hochmeister of the Teutsch Ritterdom;

Albert was born in 1490; George's junior by six years, Casimir's by nine. He too had been meant for the

Church; but soon quitted that, other prospects and tendencies opening. He had always loved the ingenuous

arts; but the activities too had charms for him. He early shone in his exercises spiritual and bodily; grew tall

above his fellows, expert in arts, especially in arms;rode with his Father to Kaiser Max's Court; was

presented by him, as the light of his eyes, to Kaiser Max; who thought him a very likely young fellow; and

bore him in mind, when the Mastership of the Teutsch Ritterdom fell vacant. [Rentsch, pp. 840863.]

The Teutsch Ritterdom, ever since it got its back broken in that Battle of Tannenberg in 1410, and was driven

out of WestPreussen with such ignominious kicks, has been lying bedrid, eating its remaining revenues, or

sprawling about in helpless efforts to rise again, which require no notice from us. Hopeless of ever recovering

WestPreussen, it had quietly paid its homage to Poland for the Eastern part of that Country; quietly for some

couple of generations. But, in the third or fourth generation after Tannenberg, there began to rise

murmurs,in the Holy Roman Empire first of all. "Preussen is a piece of the Reich," said hot, inconsiderate

people; "Preussen could not be alienated without consent of the Reich!" To which discourses the afflicted

Ritters listened only too gladly; their dull eyes kindling into new false hopes at sound of them. The point was,

To choose as Hochmeister some man of German influence, of power and connection in the Country, who

might help them to their socalled right. With this view, they chose one and then another of such sort;and

Albert was chosen GrandMaster of Preussen, in February, 1511; age then twentyone. Made his entry into

Konigsberg, November next year; in grand cavalcade, "dreadful storm of rain and wind at the time,"poor

Albert all in black, and full of sorrow, for the loss of his Mother, the good Polish Princess, who had died

since he left home. Twenty months of preparation he had held since his Election, before doing anything: for

indeed the case was intricate. He, like his predecessor in office, had undertaken to refuse that Homage to

Poland; the Reich generally, and Kaiser Max himself, in a loose way of talk, encouraging him: "A piece of

the Reich," said they all; "Teutsch Ritters had no power to give it away in that manner." Which is a thing

Albert's predecessor, chosen on this principle, was a Saxon Prince, Friedrich of Meissen; cadet of Saxony;

potently enough connected, he too; who, in like manner, had undertaken to refuse the Homage. And zealously

did refuse it, though to his cost, poor man. From the Reich, for all its big talking, he got no manner of

assistance; had to stave off a Polish War as he could, by fair speaking, by diplomacies and contrivances; and

An idea prevails, in illinformed circles, that our new Grand Master Albert was no better than a kind of

cheat; that he took this GrandMastership of Preussen; and then, in gayety of heart, surreptitiously pocketed

Preussen for his own behoof. Which is an idle idea; inconsistent with the least inquiry, or real knowledge

how the matter stood. [Voigt, ix. 740749; Pauli, iv. 404407.] By no means in gayety of heart, did Albert

pocket Preussen; nor till after as tough a struggle to do other with it as could have been expected of any man.

One thing not suspected by the Teutsch Ritters, and least of all by their young Hochmeister, was, That the

Teutsch Ritters had well deserved that terrible downcome at Tannenberg, that ignominious dismissal out of

WestPreussen with kicks. Their insolence, luxury, degeneracy had gone to great lengths. Nor did that

humiliation mend them at all; the reverse rather. It was deeply hidden from the young Hochmeister as from

them, That probably they were now at length got to the end of their capability: and ready to be withdrawn

from the scene, as soon as any good way offered! Of course, they Were reluctant enough to fulfil their

bargain to Poland; very loath they to do Homage now for Preussen, and own themselves sunk to the second

degree. For the Ritters had still their old haughtiness of humor, their deepseated pride of place, gone now into

the unhappy CONSCIOUS state. That is usually the last thing that deserts a sinking House: pride of place,

gone to the conscious state;as if, in a reverse manner, the House felt that it deserved to sink.

For the rest, Albert's position among them was what Friedrich of Sachsen's had been; worse, not better; and

the main ultimate difference was, he did not die of it, like Friedrich of Sachsen; but found an outlet, not open

in Friedrich's time, and lived. To the Ritters, and vague Public which called itself the Reich, Albert had

promised he would refuse the Homage to Poland; on which Ritters and Reich had clapt their hands: and that

was pretty much all the assistance he got of them. The Reich, as a formal body, had never asserted its right to

Preussen, nor indeed spoken definitely on the subject: it was only the vague Public that had spoken, in the

name of the Reich. From the Reich, or from any individual of it, Kaiser or Prince, when actually applied to,

Albert could get simply nothing. From what, Ritters were in Preussen, he might perhaps expect promptitude

to fight, if it came to that; which was not much as things stood. But, from the great body of the Ritters,

scattered over Germany, with their rich territories (BALLEYS, bailliwicks), safe resources, and comfortable

"Teutschmeister" over them, he got flat refusal: [The titles HOCHMEISTER and TEUTSCHMEISTER are

defined, in many Books and in all manner of Dictionaries, as meaning the same thing. But that is not quite the

case. They were at first synonymous, so far as I can see; and after Albert's time, they again became so; but at

the date where we now are, and for a long while back, they represent different entities, and indeed oftenest,

since the Prussian DECLINE began, antagonistic ones. Teutschmeister, Sub president over the GERMAN

affairs and possessions of the Order, resides at Mergentheim in that Country: Hochmeister is Chief President

of the whole, but resident at Marienburg in Preussen, and feels there acutely where the shoe pinches,much

too acutely, thinks the Teutschmeister in his soft listslippers, at Mergentheim in the safe Wurzburg region.]

"We will not be concerned in the adventure at all; we wish you well through it!" Never was a spirited young

fellow placed in more impossible position. His Brother Casimir (George was then in Hungary), his Cousin

Joachim KurBrandenburg, Friedrich Duke of Liegnitz, a Silesian connection of the Family, ["Duke

Friedrich II.:" comes by mothers from Kurfurst Friedrich I.; marries Margraf George's Daughter even now,

1519 (Hubner, tt. 179, 100, 101).] consulted, advised, negotiated to all lengths, Albert's own effort was

incessant. "Agree with King Sigismund," said they; "Uncle Sigismund, your good Mother's Brother; a King

softly inclined to us all!""How agree?" answered Albert: "He insists on the Homage, which I have

promised not to give!" Casimir went and came, to Konigsberg, to Berlin; went once himself to Cracow, to the

King, on this errand: but it was a case of "Yes AND No;" not to be solved by Casimir.

As to King Sigismund, he was patient with it to a degree; made the friendliest paternal

professions;testifying withal, That the claim was undeniable; and could by him, Sigismund, never be

foregone with the least shadow of honor, and of course never would: "My dear Nephew can consider whether

his dissolute, vainminded, halfheretical Ritterdom, nay whether this Prussian fraction of it, is in a

condition to take Poland by the beard in an unjust quarrel; or can hope to do Tannenberg over again in the

For seven years, Albert held out in this intermediate state, neither peace nor war; moving Heaven and Earth

to raise supplies, that he might be able to defy Poland, and begin war. The Reich answers, "We have really

nothing for you." Teutschmeister answers again and again, "I tell you we have nothing!" In the end,

Sigismund grew impatient; made (December, 1519) some movements of a hostile nature. Albert did not

yield; eager only to procrastinate till he were ready. By superhuman efforts, of borrowing, bargaining,

soliciting, and galloping to and fro, Albert did, about the end of next year, get up some appearance of an

Army: "14,000 German mercenaries horse and foot," so many in theory; who, to the extent of 8,000 in actual

result, came marching towards him (October, 1520); to serve "for eight months." With these he will besiege

Dantzig, besiege Thorn; will plunge, suddenly, like a fiery javelin, into the heart of Poland, and make Poland

surrender its claim. Whereupon King Sigismund bestirred himself in earnest; came out with vast clouds of

Polish chivalry; overset Albert's 8,000;who took to eating the country, instead of fighting for it; being

indeed in want of all things. One of the gladdest days Albert had yet seen, was when he got the 8,000 sent

What then is to be done? "Armistice for four years," Sigismund was still kind enough to consent to that:

"Truce for four years: try everywhere, my poor Nephew; after that, your mind will perhaps become pliant."

Albert tried the Reich again: "Four years, 0 Princes, and then I must do it, or be eaten!" Reich, busy with

LutheranPapal, TurkChristian quarrels, merely shrugged its shoulders upon Albert. Teutschmeister did the

like; everybody the like. In Heaven or Earth, then, is there no hope for me? thought Albert. And his stock of

Meanwhile Dr. Osiander of Anspach had come to him; and the pious young man was getting utterly shaken in

his religion. Monkish vows, Pope, Holy Church itself, what is one to think, Herr Doctor? Albert, religious to

an eminent degree, was getting deep into Protestantism. In his many journeyings, to Nurnberg, to

Brandenburg, and up and down, he had been at Wittenberg too: he saw Luther in person more than once

there; corresponded with Luther; in fine believed in the truth of Luther. The Culmbach Brothers were both, at

least George ardently was, inclined to Protestantism, as we have seen; but Albert was foremost of the three in

this course. Osiander and flights of zealous Culmbach Preachers made many converts in Preussen. In these

Albert, we may believe, is greatly at a loss; and deep deliberations, Culmbach, Berlin, Liegnitz, Poland all

called in, are held:a case beyond measure intricate. You have given your word; word must be kept,and

cannot, without plain hurt, or ruin even, to those that took it of you. Withdraw, therefore; fling it up!Fling

it up? A valuable article to fling up; fling it up is the last resource. Nay, in fact, to whom will you fling it up?

The Prussian Ritters themselves are getting greatly divided on the point; and at last on all manner of points,

Protestantism ever more spreading among them. As for the German Brethren, they and their comfortable

Teutschmeister, who refused to partake in the dangerous adventure at all; are they entitled to have much to

Among others, or as chief oracle of all, Luther was consulted. "What would you have me do towards

reforming the Teutsch Order?" inquired Albert of his oracle. Luther's answer was, as may be guessed,

emphatic. "Luther," says one reporter, "has in his Writings declared the Order to be 'a thing serviceable

neither to God nor man,' and the constitution of it 'a monstrous, frightful, hermaphroditish, neither secular nor

spiritual constitution.'" [C. J. Weber, Daa Ritterwessen (Stuttgard, 1837), iii. 208.] We do not know what

Luther's answer to Albert was;but can infer the purport of it: That such a Teutsch Ritterdom was not, at

any rate, a thing long for this world; that white cloaks with black crosses on them would not, of themselves,

profit any Ritterdom; that solemn vows and high supramundane professions, followed by such practice as

was notorious, are an afflicting, not to say a damnable, spectacle on God's Earth;that a young Herr had

better marry; better have done with the wretched Babylonian Nightmare of Papistry altogether; better shake

oneself awake, in God's name, and see if there are not still monitions in the eternal sky as to what it is wise to

do, and wise not to do! This I imagine to have been, in modern language, the purport of Dr. Luther's

It is certain, Albert, before long, took this course; Uncle Sigismund and the resident Officials of the

Ritterdom having made agreement to it as the one practicable course. The manner as follows: 1. Instead of

Elected Hochmeister, let us be Hereditary Duke of Preussen, and pay homage for it to Uncle Sigismund in

that character. 2. Such of the resident Officials of the Ritterdom as are prepared to go along with us, we will

in like manner constitute permanent Feudal Proprietors of what they now possess as Liferent, and they shall

be Subvassals under us as Hereditary Duke. 3. In all which Uncle Sigismund and the Republic of Poland

That is, in sum, the Transaction entered into, by King Sigismund I. of Poland, on the one part, and

Hochmeister Albert and his Ritter Officials, such as went along with him, (which of course none could do

that were not Protestant), on the other part: done at Cracow, 8th April, 1525. [Rentsch, p. 850.Here,

certified by Rentsch, Voigt and others, is a wornout patch of Paper, which is perhaps worth printing:

1490, May 17, Albert is born. 1511, February 14, Hochmeister. 1519, December, King Sigismund's first

hostile movements. 1520, October, German Mercenaries arrive. 1520, November, try Siege of Dantzig. 1520,

November 17, give it up. 1521, April 10, Truce for Four Years. 1523, June, Albert consults Luther. 1524,

November, sees Luther. 1525, April 8, Peace of Cracow, and Albert to be Duke of Prussia.] Whereby Teutsch

Ritterdom, the Prussian part of it, vanished from the world; dissolving itself, and its "hermaphrodite

constitution," like a kind of Male Nunnery, as so many female ones had done in those years. A Transaction

giving rise to endless criticism, then and afterwards. Transaction plainly not reconcilable with the letter of the

law; and liable to have logic chopped upon it to any amount, and to all lengths of time. The Teutschmeister

and his German Brethren shrieked murder; the whole world, then, and for long afterwards, had much to say

To us, now that the logicchaff is all laid long since, the question is substantial, not formal. If the Teutsch

Ritterdom was actually at this time DEAD, actually stumbling about as a mere galvanized Lie beginning to

be putrid,then, sure enough, it behooved that somebody should bury it, to avoid pestilential effects in the

neighborhood. Somebody or other;first flaying the skin off, as was natural, and taking that for his trouble.

All turns, in substance, on this latter question! If, again, the Ritterdom was not dead?

And truly it struggled as hard as Partridge the Almanac maker to rebut that fatal accusation; complained

(Teutschmeister and GermanPapist part of it) loudly at the Diets; got Albert and his consorts put to the Ban

(GEACHTET), fiercely menaced by the Kaiser Karl V. But nothing came of all that; nothing but noise.

Albert maintained his point; Kaiser Karl always found his hands full otherwise, and had nothing but stamped

parchments and menaces to fire off at Albert. Teutsch Ritterdom, the Popish part of it, did enjoy its valuable

bailliwicks, and very considerable rents in various quarters of Germany and Europe, having lost only

Preussen; and walked about, for three centuries more, with money in its pocket, and a solemn white gown

with black cross on its back,the most opulent Social Club in existence, and an excellent place for

bestowing younger sons of sixteen quarters. But it was, and continued through so many centuries, in every

essential respect, a solemn Hypocrisy; a functionless merely eating Phantasm, of the nature of goblin, hungry

ghost or ghoul (of which kind there are many);till Napoleon finally ordered it to vanish; its time, even as

Albert, I can conjecture, had his own difficulties as Regent in Preussen. [15251568.] Protestant Theology, to

make matters worse for him, had split itself furiously into 'DOXIES; and there was an OSIANDERISM

(Osiander being the Duke's chaplain), much flamed upon by the more orthodox ISM. "Foreigners," too,

GermanAnspach and other, were ill seen by the native gentlemen; yet sometimes got encouragement. One

Funccius, a shining Nurnberg immigrant there, soninlaw of Osiander, who from Theology got into Politics,

had at last (1564) to be beheaded,old Duke Albert himself "bitterly weeping" about him; for it was none of

Albert's doing. Probably his new allodial Ritter gentlemen were not the most submiss, when made hereditary?

We can only hope the Duke was a Hohenzollern, and not quite unequal to his task in this respect. A man with

high bald brow; magnificent spadebeard; air much pondering, almost gaunt,gaunt kind of eyes

especially, and a slight cast in them, which adds to his severity of aspect. He kept his possession well, every

inch of it; and left all safe at his decease in 1568. His age was then near eighty. It was the tenth year of our

Elizabeth as Queen; invincible Armada not yet built; but Alba very busy, cutting off high heads in Brabant;

and stirring up the Dutch to such fury as was needful for exploding Spain and him.

This Duke Albert was a profoundly religious man, as all thoughtful men then were. Much given to Theology,

to Doctors of Divinity; being eager to know God's Laws in this Universe, and wholesomely certain of

damnation if he should not follow them. Fond of the profane Sciences too, especially of Astronomy: Erasmus

Reinhold and his Tabulae Prutenicae were once very celebrated; Erasmus Reinhold proclaims gratefully how

these his elaborate Tables (done according to the latest discoveries, 1551 and onwards) were executed upon

Duke Albert's high bounty; for which reason they are dedicated to Duke Albert, and called "PRUTENICAE,"

meaning PRUSSIAN. [Rentsch, p. 855.] The University of Konigsberg was already founded several years

Albert had not failed to marry, as Luther counselled: by his first Wife he had only daughters; by his second,

one son, Albert Friedrich, who, without opposition or difficulty, succeeded his Father. Thus was Preussen

acquired to the Hohenzollern Family; for, before long, the Electoral branch managed to get

MITBELEHNUNG (Coinfeftment), that is to say, Eventual Succession; and Preussen became a Family

One word must be spent on poor Albert, Casimir's son, [15221557] already mentioned. This poor Albert,

whom they call ALCIBIADES, made a great noise in that epoch; being what some define as the "Failure of a

Fritz;" who has really features of him we are to call "Friedrich the Great," but who burnt away his splendid

qualities as a mere temporary shine for the able editors, and never came to anything.

A high and gallant young fellow, left fatherless in childhood; perhaps he came too early into power:he

came, at any rate, in very volcanic times, when Germany was all in convulsion; the Old Religion and the New

having at length broken out into open battle, with huge results to be hoped and feared; and the largest game

going on, in sight of an adventurous youth. How Albert staked in it; how he played to immense heights of

sudden gain, and finally to utter bankruptcy, I cannot explain here: some German delineator of human

destinies, "Artist" worth the name, if there were any, might find in him a fine subject.

He was ward of his Uncle George; and the probable fact is, no guardian could have been more faithful.

Nevertheless, on approaching the years of majority, of majority but not discretion, he saw good to quarrel

with his Uncle; claimed this and that, which was not granted: quarrel lasting for years. Nay matters ran so

high at last, it was like to come to war between them, had not George been wiser. The young fellow actually

sent a cartel to his Uncle; challenged him to mortal combat,at which George only wagged his old beard,

we suppose, and said nothing. Neighbors interposed, the Diet itself interposed; and the matter was got

quenched again. Leaving Albert, let us hope, a repentant young man. We said he was full of fire, too much of

His profession was Arms; he shone much in war; went slashing and fighting through those Schmalkaldic

broils, and others of his time; a distinguished captain; cutting his way towards something high, he saw not

well what. He had great comradeship with Moritz of Saxony in the wars: two sworn brothers they, and

comrades in arms:it is the same dexterous Moritz, who, himself a Protestant, managed to get his too

Protestant Cousin's Electorate of Saxony into his hand, by luck of the game; the Moritz, too, from whom

Albert by and by got his last defeat, giving Moritz his death in return. That was the finale of their

He was by position originally on the Kaiser's side; had attained great eminence, and done high feats of arms

and generalship in his service. But being a Protestant by creed, he changed after that Schmalkaldic downfall

(rout of Muhlberg, 24th April, 1547), which brought Moritz an Electorate, and nearly cost Moritz's too

Protestant Cousin his life as well as lands. [Account of it in De Wette, Lebensgeschichte der Herzoge zu

Sachsen (Weimar, 1770), pp. 3235.] The victorious Kaiser growing now very high in his ways, there arose

complaints against him from all sides, very loud from the Protestant side; and Moritz and Albert took to arms,

This was early in 1552, five years after Muhlberg Rout or Battle. The there victorious Kaiser was now

suddenly almost ruined; chased like a partridge into the Innspruck Mountains,could have been caught, only

Moritz would not; "had no cage to hold so big a bird," he said. So the Treaty of Passau was made, and the

Kaiser came much down from his lofty ways. Famed TREATY OF PASSAU (22d August, 1552), which was

the finale of these broils, and hushed them up for a Fourscore years to come. That was a memorable year in

Albert, meanwhile, had been busy in the interior of the country; blazing aloft in Frankenland, his native

quarter, with a success that astonished all men. For seven months he was virtually King of Germany;

ransomed Bamberg, ransomed Wurzburg, Nurnberg (places he had a grudge at); ransomed all manner of

towns and places, especially rich Bishops and their towns, with VERBUM DIABOLI sticking in

them,at enormous sums. King of the world for a brief season;must have had some strange thoughts to

himself, had they been recorded for us. A pious man, too; not in the least like "Alcibiades," except in the

sudden changes of fortune he underwent. His Motto, or old rhymed Prayer, which he would repeat on getting

into the saddle for military work,a rough rhyme of his own composing,is still preserved. Let us give it,

with an English facsimile, or roughest mechanical penciltracing,by way of glimpse into the heart of a

vanished Time and its Manatarms: [Rentsch, p. 644.] Das Walt der Herr Jesus Christ, Mit dem Vater, der

uber uns ist: Wer starker ist als dieser Mann, Der komm und thu' ein Leid mir an.

rhyme's sake.] And the Father, who over us is: He that is stronger than that Man, [Sic.] Let him do me a

He was at the Siege of Metz (end of that same 1552), and a principal figure there. Readers have heard of the

Siege of Metz: How Henry II. of France fished up those "Three Bishoprics" (Metz, Toul, Verdun, constituent

part of Lorraine, a covetable fraction of Teutschland) from the troubled sea of German things, by aid of

Moritz now KURSACHSEN, and of Albert; and would not throw them in again, according to bargain, when

Peace, the PEACE OF PASSAU came. How Kaiser Karl determined to have them back before the year

ended, cost what it might; and Henry II. to keep them, cost what it might. How Guise defended, with all the

Chivalry of France; and Kaiser Karl besieged, [19th October, 1552, and onwards.] with an Army of 100,000

men, under Duke Alba for chief captain. Siege protracted into midwinter; and the "sound of his cannon heard

at Strasburg," which is eighty miles off, "in the winter nights." [Kohler, ReichsHistorie, p. 453; and more

especially Munzbelustigungen (Nurnberg, 17291750), ix. 121129. The Year of this Volume, and of the

Number in question, is 1737; the MUNZE or Medal "recreated upon" in of Henri II.]

It had depended upon Albert, who hung in the distance with an army of his own, whether the Siege could

even begin; but he joined the Kaiser, being reconciled again; and the trenches opened. By the valor of Guise

and his Chivalry,still more perhaps by the iron frosts and by the sleety rains of Winter, and the hungers

and the hardships of a hundred thousand men, digging vainly at the icebound earth, or trampling it when

sleety into seas of mud, and themselves sinking in it, of dysentery, famine, toil and despair, as they

cannonaded day and night,Metz could not be taken. "Impossible!" said the Generals with one voice, after

trying it for a couple of months. "Try it one other ten days," said the Kaiser with a gloomy fixity; "let us all

die, or else do it!" They tried, with double desperation, another ten days; cannon booming through the winter

midnight far and wide, four score miles round: "Cannot be done, your Majesty! Cannot,the winter and the

mud, and Guise and the walls; man's strength cannot do it in this season. We must march away!" Karl

listened in silence; but the tears were seen to run down his proud face, now not so young as it once was: "Let

Alcibiades covered the retreat to Diedenhof (THIONVILLE) they now call it): outmanoeuvred the French,

retreated with success; he had already captured a grand Due d'Aumale, a Prince of the Guises, valuable

ransom to be looked for there. It was thought he should have made his bargain better with the Kaiser, before

starting; but he had neglected that. Albert's course was downward thenceforth; Kaiser Karl's too. The French

keep these "Three Bishoprics (TROIS EVECHES)," and Teutschland laments the loss of them, to this hour.

Kaiser Karl, as some write, never smiled again;abdicated, not long after; retired into the Monastery of St.

Just, and there soon died. That is the siege of Metz, where Alcibiades was helpful. His own bargain with the

Dissatisfied with any bargain he could now get; dissatisfied with the Treaty of Passau, with such a finale and

hushingup of the Religious Controversy, and in general with himself and with the world, Albert again drew

sword; went loose at a high rate upon his BambergWurzburg enemies, and, having raised supplies there,

upon Moritz and those PassauTreatiers. He was beaten at last by Moritz, "Sunday, 9th July, 1553," at a

place called Sievershausen in the Hanover Country, where Moritz himself perished in the action.Albert

fled thereupon to France. No hope in France. No luck in other small and desperate stakings of his: the game is

done. Albert returns to a Sister he had, to her Husband's Court in Baden; a broken, bare and bankrupt

man;soon dies there, childless, leaving the shadow of a name. [Here, chiefly from Kohler

(Munzbelustigungen, iii. 414416), is the chronology of Albert's operations: Seizure of Nurnberg 11th

May to 22d June, 1552; Innspruck (with Treaty of Passau) follows. Then Siege of Metz, October to

December, 1552; Bamberg, Wurzburg and Nurnberg ransomed again, April, 1553; Battle of Sievershausen,

9th July, 1553. Wurzburg explode against him; Ban of the Empire, 4th May, 1554. To France thereupon;

returns, hoping to negotiate, end of 1556; dies at Pforzheim, at his Sister's, 8th January, 1557.See Pauli, iii.

120138. See also Dr. Kapp, Erinnerungen an diejenigen Markgrafen (a reprint from the Archiv fur

His death brought huge troubles upon Baireuth and the Family Possessions. So many neighbors, Bamberg,

Wurzburg and the rest, were eager for retaliation; a new Kaiser greedy for confiscating. Plassenburg Castle

was besieged, bombarded, taken by famine and burnt; much was burnt and torn to waste. Nay, had it not been

for help from Berlin,the Family had gone to utter ruin in those parts. For this Alcibiades had, in his turn, been

Guardian to Uncle George's Son, the George Friedrich we once spoke of, still a minor, but well known

afterwards; and it was attempted, by an eager Kaiser Ferdinand, to involve this poor youth in his Cousin's

illegalities, as if Ward and Guardian had been one person. Baireuth which had been Alcibiades's, Anspach

which was the young man's own, nay Jagerndorf with its Appendages, were at one time all in the clutches of

the hawk,had not help from Berlin been there. But in the end, the Law had to be allowed its course;

George Friedrich got his own Territories back (all but some surreptitious nibblings in the Jagerndorf quarter,

to be noticed elsewhere), and also got Baireuth, his poor Cousin's Inheritance; sole heir, he now, in

One owns to a kind of love for poor Albert Alcibiades. In certain sordid times, even a "Failure of a Fritz" is

better than some Successes that are going. A man of some real nobleness, this Albert; though not with

wisdom enough, not with good fortune enough. Could he have continued to "rule the situation" (as our

French friends phrase it); to march the fanatical Papistries, and Kaiser Karl, clear out of it, home to Spain and

San Justo a little earlier; to wave the coming Jesuitries away, as with a flaming sword; to forbid beforehand

the doleful ThirtyYears War, and the still dolefuler spiritual atrophy (the flaccid Pedantry, ever rummaging

and rearranging among learned marinestores, which thinks itself Wisdom and Insight; the vague

maunderings, flutings; indolent, impotent daydreaming and tobaccosmoking, of poor Modern Germany)

which has followed therefrom,ACH GOTT, he might have been a "SUCCESS of a Fritz" three times over!

He might have been a German Cromwell; beckoning his People to fly, eaglelike, straight towards the Sun;

instead of screwing about it in that sad, uncertain, and far too spiral manner!But it lay not in him; not in his

capabilities or opportunities, after all: and we but waste time in such speculations.

The Culmbach Brothers, we observe, play a more important part in that era than their seniors and chiefs of

Brandenburg. These Culmbachers, Margraf George aud Albert of Preussen at the head of them, march

valiantly forward in the Reformation business; while KURBRANDENBURG, Joachim I., their senior

Cousin, is talking loud at Diets, galloping to Innspruck and the like, zealous on the Conservative side; and

Cardinal Albert, KURMAINZ, his eloquent brother, is eager to make matters smooth and avoid violent

The Reformation was the great Event of that Sixteenth Century; according as a man did something in that, or

did nothing and obstructed doing, has he much claim to memory, or no claim, in this age of ours. The more it

becomes apparent that the Reformation was the Event then transacting itself, was the thing that Germany and

Europe either did or refused to do, the more does the historical significance of men attach itself to the phases

of that transaction. Accordingly we notice henceforth that the memorable points of Brandenburg History,

what of it sticks naturally to the memory of a reader or student, connect themselves of their own accord,

almost all, with the History of the Reformation. That has proved to be the Law of Nature in regard to them,

Brandenburg, not at first unanimously, by no means too inconsiderately, but with overwhelming unanimity

when the matter became clear, was lucky enough to adopt the Reformation;and stands by it ever since in

its everwidening scope, amid such difficulties as there might be. Brandenburg had felt somehow, that it

could do no other. And ever onwards through the times even of our little Fritz and farther, if we will

understand the word "Reformation," Brandenburg so feels; being, at this day, to an honorable degree,

incapable of believing incredibilities, of adopting solemn shams, or pretending to live on spiritual moonshine.

Which has been of uncountable advantage to Brandenburg: how could it fail? This was what we must call

obeying the audible voice of Heaven. To which same "voice," at that time, all that did not give ear,what

"Penalties:" quarrel not with the old phraseology, good reader; attend rather to the thing it means. The word

was heard of old, with a right solemn meaning attached to it, from theological pulpits and such places; and

may still be heard there with a half meaning, or with no meaning, though it has rather become obsolete to

modern ears. But the THING should not have fallen obsolete; the thing is a grand and solemn truth,

expressive of a silent Law of Heaven, which continues forever valid. The most untheological of men may still

assert the thing; and invite all men to notice it, as a silent monition and prophecy in this Universe; to take it,

with more of awe than they are wont, as a correct reading of the Will of the Eternal in respect of such matters;

and, in their modern sphere, to bear the same well in mind. For it is perfectly certain, and may be seen with

Protestant or not Protestant? The question meant everywhere: "Is there anything of nobleness in you, O

Nation, or is there nothing? Are there, in this Nation, enough of heroic men to venture forward, and to battle

for God's Truth VERSUS the Devil's Falsehood, at the peril of life and more? Men who prefer death, and all

else, to living under Falsehood,who, once for all, will not live under Falsehood; but having drawn the

sword against it (the time being come for that rare and important step), throw away the scabbard, and can say,

in pious clearness, with their whole soul: 'Come on, then! Life under Falsehood is not good for me; and we

Once risen into this divine whiteheat of temper, were it only for a season and not again, the Nation is

thenceforth considerable through all its remaining history. What immensities of DROSS and

cryptopoisonous matter will it not burn out of itself in that high temperature, in the course of a few years!

Witness Cromwell and his Puritans,making England habitable even under the CharlesSecond terms for a

couple of centuries more. Nations are benefited, I believe, for ages, by being thrown once into divine

whiteheat in this manner. And no Nation that has not had such divine paroxysms at any time is apt to come

That was now, in this epoch, the English of "adopting Protestantism;" and we need not wonder at the results

which it has had, and which the want of it has had. For the want of it is literally the want of loyalty to the

Maker of this Universe. He who wants that, what else has he, or can he have? If you do not, you Man or you

Nation, love the Truth enough, but try to make a Chapmanbargain with Truth, instead of giving yourself

wholly soul and body and life to her, Truth will not live with you, Truth will depart from you; and only

Logic, "Wit" (for example, "London Wit"), Sophistry, Virtu, the AEsthetic Arts, and perhaps (for a short

while) Bookkeeping by Double Entry, will abide with you. You will follow falsity, and think it truth, you

unfortunate man or nation. You will right surely, you for one, stumble to the Devil; and are every day and

Austria, Spain, Italy, France, Poland,the offer of the Reformation was made everywhere; and it is curious

to see what has become of the nations that would not hear it. In all countries were some that accepted; but in

many there were not enough, and the rest, slowly or swiftly, with fatal difficult industry, contrived to burn

them out. Austria was once full of Protestants; but the hidebound FlemishSpanish Kaiserelement

presiding over it, obstinately, for two centuries, kept saying, "No; we, with our dull obstinate Cimburgis

underlip and lazy eyes, with our ponderous Austrian depth of Habituality and indolence of Intellect, we

prefer steady Darkness to uncertain new Light!"and all men may see where Austria now is. Spain still

more; poor Spain, going about, at this time, making its "PRONUNCIAMIENTOS;" all the factious attorneys

in its little towns assembling to PRONOUNCE virtually this, "The Old IS a lie, then; good Heavens, after

we so long tried hard, harder than any nation, to think it a truth!and if it be not Rights of Man, Red

Republic and Progress of the Species, we know not what now to believe or to do; and are as a people

stumbling on steep places, in the darkness of midnight!"They refused Truth when she came; and now

Truth knows nothing of them. All stars, and heavenly lights, have become veiled to such men; they must now

follow terrestrial IGNES FATUI, and think them stars. That is the doom passed upon them.

Italy too had its Protestants; but Italy killed them; managed to extinguish Protestantism. Italy put up silently

with Practical Lies of all kinds; and, shrugging its shoulders, preferred going into Dilettantism and the Fine

Arts. The Italians, instead of the sacred service of Fact and Performance, did Music, Painting, and the

like:till even that has become impossible for them; and no noble Nation, sunk from virtue to VIRTU, ever

offered such a spectacle before. He that will prefer Dilettantism in this world for his outfit, shall have it; but

all the gods will depart from him; and manful veracity, earnestness of purpose, devout depth of soul, shall no

more be his. He can if he like make himself a soprano, and sing for hire;and probably that is the real goal

But the sharpestcut example is France;, to which we constantly return for illustration. France, with its keen

intellect, saw the truth and saw the falsity, in those Protestant times; and, with its ardor of generous impulse,

was prone enough to adopt the former. France was within a hair'sbreadth of becoming actually Protestant.

But France saw good to massacre Protestantism, and end it in the night of St. Bartholomew, 1572. The

celestial Apparitor of Heaven's Chancery, so we may speak, the Genius of Fact and Veracity, had left his

Writ of Summons; Writ was read;and replied to in this manner. The Genius of Fact and Veracity

accordingly withdrew;was staved off, got kept away, for two hundred years. But the writ of Summons had

been served; Heaven's Messenger could not stay away forever. No; he returned duly; with accounts run up,

on compound interest, to the actual hour, in 1792;and then, at last, there had to be a "Protestantism;" and

Nations did not so understand it, nor did Brandenburg more than the others; but the question of questions for

them at that time, decisive of their history for half a thousand years to come, was, Will you obey the heavenly

Brandenburg, in the matter of the Reformation, was at firstwith Albert of Mainz, Tetzel's friend, on the one

side, and Pious George of Anspach, "NIT KOP AB," on the othercertainly a divided house. But, after the

first act, it conspicuously ceased to be divided; nay KurBrandenburg and KurMainz themselves had known

tendencies to the Reformation, and were well aware that the Church could not stand as it was. Nor did the

cause want partisans in Berlin, in Brandenburg,hardly to be repressed from breaking into flame, while

Kurfurst Joachim was so prudent and conservative. Of this loud Kurfurst Joachim I., here and there

mentioned already, let us now say a more express word. [1484, 1499, 1535: birth, accession, death of

Joachim I., Big John's son, hesitated hither and thither for some time, trying if it would not do to follow the

Kaiser Karl V.'s lead; and at length, crossed in his temper perhaps by the speed his friends were going at,

declared formally against any farther Reformation; and in his own family and country was strict upon the

point. He is a man, as I judge, by no means without a temper of his own; very loud occasionally in the Diets

and elsewhere; reminds me a little of a certain King Friedrich Wilhelm, whom my readers shall know by

and by. A big, surly, rather bottlenosed man, with thick lips, abstruse wearied eyes, and no eyebrows to

His wife was a Danish Princess, Sister of poor Christian II., King of that Country: dissolute Christian, who

took up with a huckster woman's daughter,"mother sold gingerbread," it would appear, "at Bergen in

Norway," where Christian was Viceroy; Christian made acceptable love to the daughter, "DIVIKE (Dovekin,

COLUMBINA)," as he called her. Nay he made the gingerbread mother a kind of primeminister, said the

angry public, justly scandalized at this of the "Dovekin." He was married, meanwhile, to Karl V.'s own Sister;

but continued that other connection. [Here are the dates of this poor Christian, in a lump. Born, 1481; King,

1513 (Dovekin before); married, 1515; turned off, 1523; invades, taken prisoner, 1532; dies, 1559. Cousin,

and then Cousin's Son, succeeded.] He had rash notions, now for the Reformation, now against it, when he

got to be King; a very rash, unwise, explosive man. He made a "Stockholm BLUTBAD" still famed in

History (kind of open, ordered or permitted, Massacre of eighty or a hundred of his chief enemies there),

"Bloodbath," so they name it; in Stockholm, where indeed he was lawful King, and not without unlawful

enemies, had a bloodbath been the way to deal with them. Gustavus Vasa was a young fellow there, who

In Denmark and Sweden, rash Christian made ever more enemies; at length he was forced to run, and they

chose another King or successive pair of Kings. Christian fled to Kaiser Karl at Brussels; complained to

Kaiser Karl, his Brotherinlaw,whose Sister he had not used well. Kaiser Karl listened to his complaints,

with hanging underlip, with heavy, deep, undecipherable eyes; evidently no help from Karl.

Christian, after that, wandered about with inexecutable speculations, and projects to recover his crown or

crowns; sheltering often with Kurfurst Joachim, who took a great deal of trouble about him, first and last; or

with the Elector of Saxony, Friedrich the Wise, or after him, with Johann the Steadfast ("V. D. M. I. AE."

whom we saw at Augsburg), who were his Mother's Brothers, and beneficent men. He was in Saxony, on

such terms, coming and going, when a certain other Flight thither took place, soon to be spoken of, which is

the cause of our mentioning him here.In the end (A.D. 1532) he did get some force together, and made sail

to Norway; but could do no execution whatever there;on the contrary, was frozen in on the coast during

winter; seized, carried to Copenhagen, and packed into the "Castle of Sonderburg," a grim sealodging on the

shore of Schleswig,prisoner for the rest of his life, which lasted long enough. Sixandtwenty years of

prison; the first seventeen years of it strict and hard, almost of the dungeon sort; the remainder, on his fairly

abdicating, was in another Castle, that of Callundborg in the Island of Zealand, "with fine apartments and

conveniences," and even "a good bouse of liquor now and then," at discretion of the old soul. That was the

end of headlong Christian II.; he lasted in this manner to the age of seventyeight. [Kohler,

Munzbelustigungen, xi. 47, 48; Holberg, Danemarckische Staatsund ReichsHistorie (Copenhagen, 1731,

NOT the hig Book by Holberg), p. 241; Buddaus, Allgemeines Historisches Lexicon (Leipzig, 1709),?

His Sister Elizabeth at Brandenburg is perhaps, in regard to natural character, recognizably of the same kin as

Christian; but her behavior is far different from his. She too is zealous for the Reformation; but she has a right

to be so, and her notions that way are steady; and she has hitherto, though in a difficult position, done honor

to her creed. Surly Joachim is difficult to deal with; is very positive now that he has declared himself: "In my

house at least shall be nothing farther of that unblessed stuff." Poor Lady, I see domestic difficulties very

thick upon her; nothing but division, the very children ranging themselves in parties. She can pray to Heaven;

She partook once, by some secret opportunity, of the "communion under both kinds;" one of her Daughters

noticed and knew; told Father of it. Father knits up his thick lips; rolls his abstruse dissatisfied eyes, in an

ominous manner: the poor Lady, probably possessed of an excitable imagination too, trembles for herself. "It

is thought, His DURCHLAUCHT will wall you up for life, my Serene Lady; dark prison for life, which

probably may not be long!" These surmises were of no credibility: but there and then the poor Lady, in a

shiver of terror, decides that she must run; goes off actually, one night ("Monday after the LAETARE,"

which we find is 24th March) in the year 1528, [Pauli (ii. 584); who cites Seckendorf, and this fraction of a

Letter of Luther's, to one "LINCKUS" or Lincke, written on the Friday following (28th March, 1528):

"The Electress [MARGRAVINE he calls her] has fled from Berlin, by help of her Brother the King of

Denmark [poor Christian II.] to our Prince [Johann the Steadfast], because her Elector had determined to wall

her up, as is reported, on account of the Eucharist under both species. Pray for our Prince; the pious man and

affectionate soul gets a great deal of trouble with his kindred." Or thus in the Original: "Marchionissa

aufugit a Berlin, auxilio fratris, Regis Daniae, ad nostrum Principem, quod Marchio statuerat eam immurare

(ut dicitur) propter Eucharistiam utriusque speciei. Ora pro nostro Principe; der fromme Mann und

herzliche Mensch ist doch ja wohl geplaget" (Seckendorf, Historia Lutheranismi, ii.? 62, No. 8, p. 122).] in a

mean vehicle under cloud of darkness, with only one maid and groom, driving for life. That is very certain:

she too is on flight towards Saxony, to shelter with her uncle Kurfurst Johann,unless for reasons of state he

scruple? On the dark road her vehicle broke down; a spoke given way,"Not a bit of rope to splice it," said

the improvident groom. "Take my laceveil here," said the poor Princess; and in this guise she got to Torgau

(I could guess, her poor Brother's lodging),and thence, in short time, to the fine Schloss of Lichtenberg

hard by; Uncle Johann, to whom she had zealously left an option of refusal, having as zealously permitted

Nor did she get the least molestation from Husband Joachim;who I conjecture had intended, though a man

of a certain temper, and strict in his own house, something short of walling up for life: poor Joachim

withal! "However, since you are gone, Madam, go!" Nor did he concern himself with Christian II. farther, but

let him lie in prison at his leisure. As for the Lady, he even let his children visit her at Lichtenberg;

CryptoProtestants all; and, among them, the repentant Daughter who had peached upon her.

Poor Joachim, he makes a pious speech on his deathbed, solemnly warning his Son against these

newfangled heresies; the Son being already possessed of them in his heart. [Speech given in Rentsch, pp.

484439.] What could Father do more? Both Father and Son, I suppose, were weeping. This was in 1535,

this last scene; things looking now more ominous than ever. Of Kurfurst Joachim I will remember nothing

farther, except that once, twentythree years before, he "held a Tourney in NeuRuppin," year 1612; Tourney

on the most magnificent scale, and in NewRuppin, [Pauli, ii. 466.] a place we shall know by and by.

As to the Lady, she lived eighteen years in that fine Schloss of Lichtenberg; saw her children as we said; and,

silently or otherwise, rejoiced in the creed they were getting. She saw Luther's self sometimes; "had him

several times to dinner;" he would call at her Mansion, when his journeys lay that way. She corresponded

with him diligently; nay once, for a three months, she herself went across and lodged with Dr. Luther and his

Kate; as a royal Lady might with a heroic Sage,though the Sage's income was only Twentyfour pounds

sterling annually. There is no doubt about that visit of three months; one thinks of it, as of something human,

something homely, ingenuous and pretty. Nothing in surly Joachim's history is half so memorable to me, or

The Lady survived Joachim twenty years; of these she spent eleven still at Lichtenberg, in no overhaste to

return. However, her Son, the new Elector, declaring for Protestantism, she at length yielded to his

invitations: came back (1546), and ended her days at Berlin in a peaceable and venerable manner. Luckless

Brother Christian is lying under lockandkey all this while; smuggling out messages, and so on; like a voice

from the land of Dreams or of Nightmares, painful, impracticable, coming now and then.

Joachim II., Sixth Elector, no doubt after painful study, and intricate silent consideration ever since his

twelfth year when Luther was first heard of over the world, came gradually, and before his Father's death had

already come, to the conclusion of adopting the Confession of Augsburg, as the true Interpretation of this

Universe, so far as we had yet got; and did so, publicly, in the year 1539. [Rentsch, p. 452.] To the great joy

of Berlin and the Brandenburg populations generally, who had been of a Protestaut humor, hardly restrainable

by Law, for some years past. By this decision Joachim held fast, with a stout, weighty grasp; nothing

spasmodic in his way of handling the matter, and yet a heartiness which is agreeable to see. He could not join

in the Schmalkaldic War; seeing, it is probable, small chance for such a War, of many chiefs and little

counsel; nor was he willing yet to part from the Kaiser Karl V., who was otherwise very good to him.

He had fought personally for this Kaiser, twice over, against the Turks; first as Brandenburg Captain, learning

his art; and afterwards as Kaiser's Generalissimo, in 1542. He did no good upon the Turks, on that latter

occasion; as indeed what good was to be done, in such a quagmire of futilities as Joachim's element there

was? "Too sumptuous in his dinners, too much wine withal!" hint some calumniously. [Paulus Jovius, See

Pauli, iii. 7073.] "Hector of Germany!" say others. He tried some small prefatory Siege or scalade of Pesth;

could not do it; and came his ways home again, as the best course. Pedant Chroniclers give him the name

HECTOR, "Joachim Hector,"to match that of CICERO and that of ACHILLES. A man of solid structure,

this our Hector, in body and mind: extensive cheeks, very large heavyladen face; capable of terrible bursts

The Schmalkaldic War went to water, as the Germans phrase it: KurSachsen,that is, Johann Friedrich the

Magnanimous, Son of Johann "V. D. M. I. AE.," and Nephew of Friedrich the Wise,had his sorrowfully

valid reasons for the War; large force too, plenty of zealous copartners, Philip of Hessen and others; but no

generalship, or not enough, for such a business. Big Army, as is apt enough to happen, fell short of food;

Kaiser Karl hung on the outskirts, waiting confidently till it came to famine. Johann Friedrich would attempt

nothing decisive while provender lasted; and having in the end, strangely enough, and somewhat deaf to

advice, divided his big Army into three separate parts;Johann Friedrich was himself, with one of those

parts, surprised at Muhlberg, on a Sunday when at church (24th April, 1547); and was there beaten to sudden

ruin, and even taken captive, like to have his head cut off, by the triumphant angry Kaiser. Philip of Hessen,

somewhat wiser, was home to Marburg, safe with HIS part, in the interim.Elector Joachim II. of

Brandenburg had good reason to rejoice in his own cautious reluctances on this occasion. However, he did

He pleaded earnestly, passionately, he and Cousin or already "Elector" Moritz, [Pauli, iii. 102.]who was

just getting Johann Friedrich's Electorship fished away from him out of these troubles, [Kurfurst, 4th June,

1547.]for Johann Friedrich of Saxony's life, first of all. For Johann's life FIRST; this is a thing not to be

dispensed with, your Majesty, on any terms whatever; a sine qua non, [end italic] this life to Protestant

Germany at large. To which the Kaiser indicated, "He would see; not immediate death at any rate; we will

see." A life that could not and must not be taken in this manner: this was the FIRST point. Then, SECONDLY,

that Philip of Hessen, now home again at Marburg,not a bad or disloyal man, though headlong, and with

two wives,might not be forfeited; but that peace and pardon might be granted him, on his entire

submission. To which second point the Kaiser answered, "Yes, then, on his submission." These were the two

points. These pleadings went on at Halle, where the Kaiser now lies, in triumphantly victorious humor, in the

early days of June, Year 1547. Johann Friedrich of Saxony had been, by some Imperial CourtCouncil or

other, Spanish merely, I suppose,doomed to die. Sentence was signified to him while he sat at chess:

"Can wait till we end the game," thought Johann;"PERGAMUS," said he to his comrade, "Let us go on,

With Philip of Hessen things had a more conclusive aspect. Philip had accepted the terms procured for him;

which had been laboriously negotiated, brought to paper, and now wanted only the signmanual to them:

"Ohne einigen Gefangniss (without any imprisonment)," one of the chief clauses. And so Philip now came

over to Halle; was met and welcomed by his two friends, Joachim and Moritz, at Naumburg, a stage before

Halle;clear now to make his submission, and beg pardon of the Kaiser, according to bargain. On the

morrow, 19th June, 1547, the Papers were got signed. And next day, 20th June, Philip did, according to

bargain, openly beg pardon of the Kaiser, in his Majesty's Hall of Audience (Town House of Halle, I

suppose); "knelt at the Kaiser's feet publicly on both knees, while his Kanzler read the submission and

entreaty, as agreed upon;" and, alas, then the Kaiser said nothing at all to him.! Kaiser looked haughtily, with

impenetrable eyes and shelflip, over the head of him; gave him no hand to kiss; and left poor Philip kneeling

there. An awkward position indeed;which any German Painter that there were, might make a Picture of, I

have sometimes thought. Picture of some real meaning, more or less,if for symbolic. Towers of Babel,

medieval mythologies, and extensive smearings of that kind, he could find leisure!Philip having knelt a

reasonable time, and finding there was no help for it, rose in the dread silence (some say, with too sturdy an

expression of countenance); and retired from the affair, having at least done his part of it.

The next practical thing was now supper, or as we of this age should call it, dinner. Uncommonly select and

high supper: host the Duke of Alba; where Joachim, Elector Moritz, and another high Official, the Bishop of

Arras, were to welcome poor Philip after his troubles. How the grand supper went, I do not hear: possibly a

little constrained; the Kaiser's strange silence sitting on all men's thoughts; not to be spoken of in the present

company. At length the guests rose to go away. Philip's lodging is with Moritz (who is his soninlaw, as

learned readers know): "You Philip, your lodging is mine; my lodging is yours,I should say! Cannot we

ride together?""Philip is not permitted to go," said Imperial Officiality; "Philip is to continue here, and we

fear go to prison.""Prison?" cried they all: "OHNE EINIGEN GEFANGNISS (without ANY

imprisonment)!""As we read the words, it is 'OHNE EWIGEN GEFANGNISS (without ETERNAL

imprisonment),'" answer the others. And so, according to popular tradition, which has little or no credibility,

"No intention of imprisoning his DURCHLAUCHT of Hessen FOREVER; not forever!" answered they. And

Kurfurst Joachim, in astonished indignation, after some remonstrating and arguing, louder and louder, which

profited nothing, blazed out into a very whirlwind of rage; drew his sword, it is whispered with a

shudder,drew his sword, or was for drawing it, upon the Duke of Alba; and would have done, God knows

what, had not friends flung themselves between, and got the Duke away, or him away. {Pauli, iii. 103.] Other

accounts bear, that it was upon the Bishop of Arras he drew his sword; which is a somewhat different matter.

Perhaps he drew it on both; or on men and things in general;for his indignation knew no bounds. The

heavy solid man; yet with a human heart in him after all, and a Hohenzollern abhorrence of chicanery,

capable of rising to the transcendent pitch! His wars against the Turks, and his other Hectorships, I will

forget; but this, of a face so extensive kindled all into divine fire for poor Philip's sake, shall be memorable to

Philip got out by and by, though with difficulty; the Kaiser proving very stiff in the matter; and only yielding

to obstinate pressures, and the force of time and events. Philip got away; and then how Johann Friedrich of

Sachsen, after being led about for five years, in the Kaiser's train, a condemned man, liable to be executed

any day, did likewise at last get away, with his head safe and Electorate gone: these are known Historical

For, by and by, the Kaiser found tougher solicitation than this of Joachim's. The Kaiser, by his high carriage

in this and other such matters, had at length kindled a new War round him; and he then soon found himself

reduced to extremities again; chased to the Tyrol Mountains, and obliged to comply with many things. New

War, of quite other emphasis and management than the Schmalkaldic one; managed by Elector Moritz and

our poor friend Albert Alcibiades as principals. A Kaiser chased into the mountains, capable of being seized

by a little spurring;"Capture him?" said Albert. "I have no cage big enough for such a bird!" answered

Moritz; and the Kaiser was let run. How he ran then towards Treaty of Passau (1552), towards Siege of Metz

and other sad conclusions, "Abdication" the finale of them: these also are known phases in the Reformation

Here at Halle, in the year 1547, the great Kaiser, with Protestantism manacled at his feet, and many things

going prosperous, was at his culminating point. He published his INTERIM (1548, What you troublesome

Protestants are to do, in the mean time, while the Council of Trent is sitting, and till it and I decide for you);

and in short, drove and reinedin the Reich with a high hand and a sharp whip, for the time being.

Troublesome Protestants mostly rejected the Interim; Moritz and Alcibiades, with France in the rear of them,

took to arms in that way; took to ransoming fat Bishoprics ("Verbum Diaboli Manet," we know

where!);took to chasing Kaisers into the mountains;and times came soon round again. In all these

latter broils Kurfurst Joachim II., deeply interested, as we may fancy, strove to keep quiet; and to prevail, by

One sad little anecdote I recollect of Joachim: an Accident, which happened in those PassauInterim days, a

year or two after that drawing of the sword on Alba. Kurfurst Joachim unfortunately once fell through a

staircase, in that time; being, as I guess, a heavy man. It was in the Castle of Grimnitz, one of his many

Castles, a spacious enough old Huntingseat, the repairs of which had not been well attended to. The good

Herr, weighty of foot, was leading down his Electress to dinner one day in this Schloss of Grimnitz; broad

stair climbs round a grand Hall, hung with stagtrophies, groups of weapons, and the like hallfurniture. An

unlucky timber yielded; yawning chasm in the staircase; Joachim and his good Princess sank by gravitation;

Joachim to the floor with little hurt; his poor Princess (horrible to think of), being next the wall, came upon

the staghorns and boarspears down below! [Pauli, iii. 112.] The poor Lady's hurt was indescribable: she

walked lame all the rest of her clays; and Joachim, I hope (hope, but not with confidence), [Ib. iii. 194.] loved

her all the better for it. This unfortunate old Schloss of Grimnitz, some thirty miles northward of Berlin,

wasby the Eighth Kurfurst, Joachim Friedrich, Grandson of this one, with great renown to himself and to

itconverted into an Endowed High School: the famed Joachimsthal Gymnasium, still famed, though now

under some change of circumstances, and removed to Berlin itself. [Nicolai, p. 725.]

Joachim's first Wife, from whom descend the following Kurfursts, was a daughter of that Duke George of

Saxony, Luther's celebrated friend, "If it rained DukeGeorges nine days running."

This second Wife, she of the accident at Grimnitz, was Hedwig, King Sigismund of Poland's daughter; which

connection, it is thought, helped Joachim well in getting what they call the MITBELEHNUNG of Preussen

MITBELEHNUNG (Coinfeftment) in Preussen;whereby is solemnly acknowledged the right of Joachim

and his Posterity to the reversion of Preussen, should the Culmbach Line of Duke Albert happen to fail. It

was a thing Joachim long strove for; till at length his Fatherinlaw did, some twenty years hence, concede it

him. [Date, Lublin, 19th July, 1568: Pauli, iii. 177179, 193; Rentsch, p. 457; Stenzel, i. 341, 342.] Should

Albert's Line fail, then, the other Culmbachers get Preussen; should the Culmbachers all fail, the Berlin

Brandenburgers get it. The Culmbachers are at this time rather scarce of heirs: poor Alcibiades died childless,

as we know, and Casimir's Line is extinct; Duke Albert himself has left only one Son, who now succeeds in

Preussen; still young, and not of the best omens. Margraf George the Pious, he left only George Friedrich; an

excellent man, who is now prosperous in the world, and wedded long since, but has no children. So that,

between Joachim's Line and Preussen there are only two intermediate heirs;and it was a thing eminently

worth looking after. Nor has it wanted that. And so Kurfurst Joachim, almost at the end of his course, has

Another feat of like nature Joachim II. had long ago achieved; which likewise in the longrun proved

important in his Family, and in the History of the world: an "ERBVERBRUDERUNG," so they term it, with

the Duke of Liegnitz,date 1537. ERBVERBRUDERUNG ("Heritagebrotherhood," meaning Covenant to

succeed reciprocally on Failure of Heirs to either) had in all times been a common paction among German

Princes well affected to each other. Friedrich II., the then Duke of Liegnitz, we have transiently seen, was

related to the Family; he had been extremely helpful in bringing his young friend Albert of Preussen's affairs

to a good issue,whose Niece, withal, he had wedded:in fact, he was a close friend of this our Joachim's;

and there had long been a growing connection between the two Houses, by intermarriages and good offices.

The Dukes of Liegnitz were SovereignPrinces, come of the old Piasts of Poland; and had perfect right to

enter into this transaction of an ERBVERBRUDERUNG with whom they liked. True, they had, above two

hundred years before, in the days of King Johann ICHDIEN (A.D. 1329), voluntarily constituted themselves

Vassals of the Crown of Bohemia: [Pauli, iii. 22.] but the right to dispose of their Lands as they pleased had,

all along, been carefully acknowledged, and saved entire. And, so late as 1521, just sixteen years ago, the

Bohemian King Vladislaus the Last, our good Margraf George's friend, had expressly, in a Deed still extant,

confirmed to them, with all the emphasis and amplitude that LawPhraseology could bring to bear upon it,

the right to dispose of said Lands in any manner of way: "by written testament, or by verbal on their

deathbed, they can, as they see wisest, give away, sell, pawn, dispose of, and exchange (vergeben,

verkaufen, versetzen, verschaffen, verwechseln) these said lands," to all lengths, and with all manner of

freedom. Which privilege had likewise been confirmed, twice over (1522, 1524), by Ludwig the next King,

Ludwig OHNEHAUT, who perished in the bogs of Mohacz, and ended the native Line of

BohemianHungarian Kings. Nay, Ferdinand, King of the Romans, Karl V.'s Brother, afterwards Kaiser, who

absorbed that Bohemian Crown among the others, had himself, by implication, sanctioned or admitted the

privilege, in 1529, only eight years ago. [Stenzel, i. 323.] The right to make the ERBVERBRUDERUNG

And made accordingly it was: signed, sealed, drawn out on the proper parchments, 18th October, 1537; to the

following clear effect: "That if Duke Friedrich's Line should die out, all his Liegnitz countries, Liegnitz,

Brieg, Wohlau, should fall to the Hohenzollern Brandenburgers: and that, if the Line of Hohenzollern

Brandenburg should first fail, then all and singular the Bohemian Fiefs of Brandenburg (as Crossen,

Zullichau and seven others there enumerated) should fall to the House of Liegnitz." [Stenzel, i. 320.] It

seemed a clear Paction, questionable by no mortal. Doublemarriage between the two Houses (eldest Son, on

each side, to suitable Princess on the other) was to follow: and did follow, after some delays, 17th February,

1545. So that the matter seemed now complete: secure on all points, and a matter of quiet satisfaction to both

But Ferdinand, King of the Romans, King of Bohemia and Hungary, and coming to be Emperor one day, was

not of that sentiment. Ferdinand had once implicitly recognized the privilege, but Ferdinand, now when he

saw the privilege turned to use, and such a territory as Liegnitz exposed to the possibility of falling into

inconvenient hands, explicitly took other thoughts: and gradually determined to prohibit this

ERBVERBRUDERUNG. The States of Bohemia, accordingly, in 1544 (it is not doubtful, by Ferdinand's

suggestion), were moved to make inquiries as to this Heritage Fraternity of Liegnitz. [Ib. i. 322.] On which

hint King Ferdinand straightway informed the Duke of Liegnitz that the act was not justifiable, and must be

revoked. The Duke of Liegnitz, grieved to the heart, had no means of resisting. Ferdinand, King of the

Romans, backed by Kaiser Karl, with the States of Bohemia barking at his wink, were too strong for poor

Duke Friedrich of Liegnitz. Great corresponding between Berlin, Liegnitz, Prag ensued on this matter: but the

end was a summons to Duke Friedrich,summons from King Ferdinand in March, 1546, "To appear in the

Imperial Hall (KAISERHOF) at Breslau," and to submit that Deed of EBVERBRUDERUNG to the

examination of the States there. The States, already up to the affair, soon finished their examination of it (8th

May, 1546). The deed was annihilated: and Friedrich was ordered, furthermore, to produce proofs within six

months that his subjects too were absolved of all oaths or the like regarding it, and that in fact the Transaction

was entirely abolished and reduced to zero. Friedrich complied, had to comply: very much chagrined, he

returned home: and died next year,it is supposed, of heartbreak from this business. He had yielded

outwardly: but to force only. In a Codicil appended to his last Will, some months afterwards (which Will,

written years ago, had treated the ERBVERBRUDERUNG as a Fact settled), he indicates, as with his last

breath, that he considered the thing still valid, though overruled by the hand of power. Let the reader mark

The hand of power, namely, Ferdinand, King of the Romans, had applied in like manner to Joachim of

Brandenburg to surrender his portion of the Deed, and annihilate on his side too this

ERBVERBRUDERUNG. But Joachim refused steadily, and all his successors steadily, to give up this Bit of

Written Parchment: kept the same, among their precious documents, against some day that might come (and I

suppose it lies in the Archives of Berlin even now): silently, or in words, asserting that the Deed of

HeritageBrothership was good, and that though some hands might have the power, no hand could have the

How King Ferdinand permitted himself such a procedure? Ferdinand, says one of his latest apologists in this

matter, "considered the privileges granted by his Predecessors, in respect to rights of Sovereignty, as fallen

extinct on their death." [Stenzel, i. 323.] Whichif Reality and Fact would but likewise be so kind as

Joachim was not so great with Ferdinand as he had been with Charles the Imperial Brother. Joachim and

Ferdinand had many debates of this kind, some of them rather stiff. Jagerndorf, for instance, and the

BaireuthAnspach confiscations, in George Friedrich's minority. Ferdinand, now Kaiser, had snatched

Jagerndorf from poor young George Friedrich, son of excellent Margraf George whom we knew: "Part of the

spoils of Albert Alcibiades," thought Ferdinand, "and a good windfall,"though young George Friedrich had

merely been the Ward of Cousin Alcibiades, and totally without concern in those political explosions.

"Excellent windfall," thought Ferdinand: and held his grip. But Joachim, in his weighty steady way,

intervened: Joachim, emphatic in the Diets and elsewhere, made Ferdinand quit grip, and produce Jagerndorf

again. Jagerndorf and the rest had all to be restored: and, except some filchings in the Jagerndorf Appendages

(Ratibor and Oppeln, "restored" only in semblance, and at length juggled away altogether), [Rentsch, pp. 129,

130.] everything came to its right owner again. Nor would Joachim rest till Alcibiades's Territories too were

all punctually given back, to this same George Friedrich: to whom, by law and justice, they belonged, In

these points Joachim prevailed against a strong handed Kaiser, apt to "consider one's rights fallen extinct"

now and then. In this of Liegnitz all he could do was to keep the Deed, in steady protest silent or vocal.

But enough now of Joachim Hector, Sixth Kurfurst, and of his workings and his strugglings. He walked

through this world, treading as softly as might be, yet with a strong weighty step: rending the jungle steadily

asunder; well seeing whither he was bound. Rather an expensive Herr: built a good deal, completion of the

Schloss at Berlin one example: [Nicolai, p. 82.] and was not otherwise afraid of outlay, in the Reich's Politics,

or in what seemed needful: If there is a harvest ahead, even a distant one, it is poor thrift to be stingy of your

Joachim was always a conspicuous Public Man, a busy Politician in the Reich: stanch to his kindred, and by

no means blind to himself or his own interests. Stanch also, we must grant, and ever active, though generally

in a cautious, weighty, never in a rash swift way, to the great Cause of Protestantism, and to all good causes.

He was himself a solemnly devout man; deep awestricken reverence dwelling in his view of this Universe.

Most serious, though with a jocose dialect commonly, having a cheerful wit in speaking to men. Luther's

Books he called his SEELENSCHATZ (Soul'streasure): Luther and the Bible were his chief reading. Fond

of profane learning too, and of the useful or ornamental Arts; given to music, and "would himself sing aloud"

when he had a melodious leisurehour. Excellent old gentleman: he died, rather suddenly, but with much

nobleness, 3d January, 1571; age sixtysix. Old Rentsch's account of this event is still worth reading:

[Rentsch, p. 458.] Joachim's deathscene has a mild pious beauty which does not depend on creed.

He had a Brother too, not a little occupied with Politics, and always on the good side: a wise pious man,

whose fame was in all the churches: "Johann of Custrin," called also "Johann THE WISE," who busied

himself zealously in Protestant matters, second only in piety and zeal to his Cousin, Margraf George the

Pious; and was not so held back by official considerations as his Brother the Elector now and then. Johann of

Custrin is a very famous man in the old Books: Johann was the first that fortified Custrin: built himself an

illustrious Schloss, and "roofed it with copper," in Custrin (which is a place we shall be well acquainted with

by and by); and lived there, with the Neumark for apanage, a true man's life;mostly with a good deal of

business, warlike and other, on his hands; with good Books, good Deeds, and occasionally good Men,

Kaiser Karl, we said, was very good to Joachim; who always strove, sometimes with a stretch upon his very

conscience, to keep well with the Kaiser. The Kaiser took Joachim's young Prince along with him to those

Schmalkaldic Wars (not the comfortable side for Joachim's conscience, but the safe side for an anxious

Father); Kaiser made a Knight of this young Prince, on one occasion of distinction; he wrote often to Papa

about him, what a promising young hero he was,seems really to have liked the young man. It was Johann

George, Elector afterwards, Seventh Elector.This little incident is known to me on evidence. [Rentsch, p.

465.] A small thing that certainly befell, at the siege of Wittenberg (A.D. 1547), during those

The Schmalkaldic War having come all to nothing, the Saxon Elector sitting captive with sword overhead in

the way we saw, Saxon Wittenberg was besieged, and the Kaiser was in great hurry to get it. Kaiser in

person, and young Johann George for sole attendant, rode round the place one day, to take a view of the

works, and judge how soon, or whether ever, it could be compelled to give in. Gunners noticed them from the

battlements; gunners Saxon Protestant most likely, and in just gloom at the perils and indignities now lying

on their pious Kurfurst Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous. "Lo, you! Kaiser's self riding yonder, and one of

his silk JUNKERS. Suppose we gave the Kaiser's self a shot, then?" said the gunner, or thought: "It might

help a better man from his lifeperils, if such shot did!" In fact the gun flashed off, with due outburst, and

almost with due effect. The ball struck the ground among the very horses' feet of the two riders; so that they

were thrown, or nearly so, and covered from sight with a cloud of earth and sand;and the gunners thought,

for some instants, an unjust, obstinate Kaiser's life was gone; and a pious Elector's saved. But it proved not

so. Kaiser Karl and Johann George both emerged, in a minute or two, little the worse;Kaiser Karl perhaps

blushing somewhat, and flurried this time, I think, in the impenetrable eyes; and his Cimburgis lip closed for

the moment; and galloped out of shotrange. "I never forget this little incident," exclaims Smelfungus: "It

is one of the few times I can get, after all my reading about that surprising Karl V., I do not say the least

understanding or practical conception of him and his character and his affairs, but the least ocular view or

imagination of him, as a fact among facts!" Which is unlucky for Smelfungus.Johann George, still more

emphatically, never to the end of HIS life forgot this incident. And indeed it must be owned, had the shot

taken effect as intended, the whole course of human things would have been surprisingly altered;and for

one thing, neither FREDERICH THE GREAT, nor the present HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH, had ever risen

Of Johann George, this Seventh Elector, [1525; 15711598.] who proved a good Governor, and carried on

the Family Affairs in the old style of slow steady success, I will remember nothing more, except that he had

the surprising number of ThreeandTwenty children; one of them posthumous, though he died at the age of

He is Founder of the New Culmbach line: two sons of these twenty three children he settled, one in

Baireuth, the other in Anspach; from whom come all the subsequent Heads of that Principality, till the last of

them died in Hammersmith in 1806, as above said. [Rentsch, p. 475 (CHRISTIAN to Baireuth; JOACHIM

ERNST to Anspach);8ee Genealogical Diagram, inra, p. 309a.] He was a prudent, thrifty Herr; no

mistresses, no luxuries allowed; at the sight of a newfashioned coat, he would fly out on an unhappy youth,

and pack him from his presence. Very strict in point of justice: a peasant once appealing to him, in one of his

inspectionjourneys through the country, "Grant me justice, DURCHLAUCHT, against Soandso; I am

your highness's born subject!""Thou shouldst have it, man, wert thou a born Turk!" answered Johann

George.There is something anxious, grave and, as it were, surprised in the look of this good Herr. He made

the GERA BOND above spoken of;founded the Younger Culmbach Line, with that important Law of

Primogeniture strictly superadded. A conspicuous thrift, veracity, modest solidity, looks through the conduct

of this Herr;a determined Protestant he too, as indeed all the following were and are. [Rentsch, pp. 470,

Of Joachim Friedrich, his eldest Son, who at one time was Archbishop of Magdeburg,called home from

the wars to fill that valuable Heirloom, which had suddenly fallen vacant by an Uncle's death, and keep it

warm;and who afterwards, in due course, carried on a LOBLICHE REGIERUNG of the old style and

physiognomy, as Eighth Kurfurst, from his fiftieth to his sixtieth year (15981608): [Born, 1547; Magdehurg,

15661598 (when his Third Son got it,very unlucky in the ThirtyYears War afterwards).] of him we

already noticed the fine "JOACHIMSthal Gymnasium," or Foundation for learned purposes, in the old

Schloss of Grimnitz, where his serene Grandmother got lamed; and will notice nothing farther, in this place,

except his very great anxiety to profit by the Prussian MITBELEHNUNG,that Coinfeftment in Preussen,

achieved by his Grandfather Joachim II., which was now about coming to its full maturity. Joachim Friedrich

had already married his eldest Prince to the daughter of Albert Friedrich, Second Duke of Preussen, who it

was by this time evident would be the last Duke there of his Line. Joachim Friedrich, having himself fallen a

widower, did next year, though now counting fiftysix But it will be better if we explain first, a little, how

Duke Albert died in 1568, laden with years, and in his latter time greatly broken down by other troubles. His

Prussian RATHS (Councillors) were disobedient, his Osianders and Lutheran Calvinist Theologians were

all in fire and flame against each other: the poor old man, with the best dispositions, but without power to

realize them, had much to do and to suffer. Pious, just and honorable, intending the best; but losing his

memory, and incapable of business, as he now complained. In his sixtieth year he had married a second time,

a young Brunswick Princess, with whose foolish Brother, Eric, he had much trouble; and who at last herself

took so ill with the insolence and violence of these intrusive Councillors and Theologians, that the

householdlife she led beside her old Husband and them became intolerable to her; and she withdrew to

another residence,a little Huntingseat at Neuhausen, half a dozen miles from Konigsberg;and there, or

at Labiau still farther off, lived mostly, in a separate condition, for the rest of her life. Separate for

life:nevertheless they happened to die on the same day; 20th March, 1568, they were simultaneously

Albert left one Son; the second child of this last Wife: his one child by the former Wife, a daughter now of

good years, was married to the Duke of Mecklenburg. Son's name was Albert Friedrich; age, at his Father's

death, fifteen. A promising young Prince, but of sensitive abstruse temper;held under heavy tutelage by his

Raths and Theologians; and spurting up against them, in explosive rebellion, from time to time. He now

(1568) was to be sovereign Duke of Preussen, and the one representative of the Culmbach Line in that fine

Territory; Margraf George Friedrich of Anspach, the only other Culmbacher, being childless, though wedded.

We need not doubt, the Brandenburg Houseold Kurfurst Joachim II. still alive, and thrifty Johann George

the HeirApparentkept a watchful eye on those emergencies. But it was difficult to interfere directly; the

native Prussian Raths were very jealous, and Poland itself was a ticklish Sovereignty to deal with. Albert

Friedrich being still a Minor, the Polish King, Sigismund, proposed to undertake the guardianship of him, as

became a superior lord to a subject vassal on such an occasion. But the Prussian Raths assured his Majesty,

"Their young Prince was of such a lively intellect, he was perfectly fit to conduct the affairs of the

Government," especially with such a Body of expert Councillors to help him, "and might be at once declared

of age." Which was accordingly the course followed; Poland caring little for it; Brandenburg digesting the

arrangement as it could. And thus it continued for some years, even under new difficulties that arose; the

official Clique of Raths being the real Government of the Country; and poor young Albert Friedrich bursting

out occasionally into tears against them, occasionally into futile humors of a fiery nature.

OsianderTheology, and the battle of the 'DOXIES, ran very high; nor was Prussian Officiality a beautiful

These Prussian Raths, and the Prussian RITTERSCHAFT generally (Knightage, LandAristocracy), which

had its STANDE (States: or meetings of Parliament after a sort), were all along of a mutinous, contumacious

humor. The idea had got into their minds, That they were by birth what the ancient Ritters by election had

been; entitled, fit or not fit, to share the Government promotions among them: "The Duke is hereditary in his

office; why not we? All Offices, are they not, by nature, ours to share among us?" The Duke's notion, again,

was to have the work of his Offices effectually done; small matter by whom: the Ritters looked less to that

side of the question;regarded any "Foreigner" (German Anspacher, or other NonPrussian), whatever his

merit, as an intruder, usurper, or kind of thief, when seen in office. Their contentions, contumacies and

pretensions were accordingly manifold. They had dreams of an "Aristocratic Republic, with the Sovereign

reduced to zero," like what their Polish neighbors grew to. They had various dreams; and individuals among

them broke out, from time to time, into high acts of insolence and mutiny. It took a hundred and fifty years of

Brandenbufg horsebreaking, sometimes with sharp manipulation and a potent curbbit, to dispossess them

of that notion, and make them go steadily in harness. Which also, however, was at last got done by the

In a year or two, there came to be question of the marrying of young Duke Albert Friedrich. After due

consultation, the Princess fixed upon was Maria Eleonora, eldest Daughter of the then Duke of Cleve: to him

a proper Embassy was sent with that object; and came back with Yes for answer. Duke of Cleve, at that time,

was Wilhelm, called "the Rich" in HistoryBooks; a Sovereign of some extent in those lower Rhine

countries. Whom I can connect with the English reader's memory in no readier way than by the fact, That he

was younger brother, one year younger, of a certain "Anne of Cleves;"a large fat Lady, who was rather

scurvily used in this country; being called, by Henry VIII. and us, a "great Flanders mare," unsuitable for

espousal with a King of delicate feelings! This Anne of Cleves, who took matters quietly and lived on her

pension, when rejected by King Henry, was Aunt of the young Lady now in question for Preussen. She was

still alive here in England, pleasantly quiet, "at Burley on the Hill," till Maria Eleonora was seven years

old;who possibly enough still reads in her memory some fading vestige of new black frocks or trimmings,

and brief courtmourning, on the death of poor Aunt Anne over seas. Another Aunt is more honorably

distinguished; Sibylla, Wife of our noble Saxon Elector, Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous, who lost his

Electorate and almost his Life for religion's sake, as we have seen; by whom, in his perils and distresses,

Duke Wilhelm himself was a man of considerable mark in his day. His Duchy of Cleve included not only

CleveProper, but Julich (JULIERS), Berg, which latter pair of Duchies were a better thing than

CleveProper:Julich, Berg and various other small Principalities, which, gradually agglomerating by

marriage, heritage and the chance of events in successive centuries, had at length come all into Wilhelm's

hands; so that he got the name of Wilhelm the Rich among his contemporaries. He seems to have been of a

headlong, blustery, uncertain disposition; much tossed about in the controversies of his day. At one time he

was a Protestant declared; not without reasons of various kinds. The Duchy of Geldern (what we call

GUELDERS) had fallen to him, by express bequest of the last Owner, whose Line was out; and Wilhelm

took possession. But the Kaiser Karl V. quite refused to let him keep possession. Whereupon Wilhelm had

joined with the French (it was in the MoritzAlcibiades time); had declared war, and taken other high

measures: but it came to nothing, or to less. The end was, Wilhelm had to "come upon his knees" before the

Kaiser, and beg forgiveness; quite renouncing Geldern, which accordingly has gone its own different road

ever since. Wilhelm was zealously Protestant in those days; as his people are, and as he still is, at the period

we treat of. But he went into Papistry, not long after; and made other sudden turns and misventures: to all

appearance, rather an abrupt, blustery, uncertain Herr. It is to him that Albert Friedrich, the young Duke of

Preussen, guided by his Council, now (Year 1572) sends an Embassy, demanding his eldest Daughter, Maria

Duke Wilhelm answered Yea; "sent a CounterEmbassy," with whatever else was necessary; and in due time

the young Bride, with her Father, set out towards Preussen, such being the arrangement, there to complete the

matter. They had got as far as "Berlin, warmly welcomed by the Kurfurst Johann George; when, from

Konigsberg, a sad message reached them: namely, that the young Duke had suddenly been seized with an

invincible depression and overclouding of mind, not quite to be characterized by the name of madness, but

still less by that of perfect sanity. His eagerness to see his Bride was the same as formerly; but his spiritual

health was in the questionable state described. The young Lady paused for a little, in such mood as we may

fancy. She had already lost two offers, Bridegrooms snatched away by death, says Pauli; [Pauli, iv. 512.] and

thought it might be ominous to refuse the third. So she decided to go on; dashed aside her father's doubts;

sent her unhealthy Bridegroom "a flowergarland as lovetoken," who duly responded; and Father Wilhelm

and she proceeded, as if nothing were wrong. The spiritual state of the Prince, she found, had not been

exaggerated to her. His humors and ways were strange, questionable; other than one could have wished. Such

as he was, however, she wedded him on the appointed terms;hoping probably for a recovery, which never

The case of Albert's malady is to this day dim; and strange tales are current as to the origin of it, which the

curious in Physiology may consult; they are not fit for reporting here. [Ib. iv. 476.] It seems to have consisted

in an overclouding, rather than a total ruin of the mind. Incurable depression there was; gloomy torpor

alternating with fits of vehement activity or suffering; great discontinuity at all times:evident unfitness for

business. It was long hoped he might recover. And Doctors in Divinity and in Medicine undertook him:

Theologians, Exorcists, Physicians, Quacks; but no cure came of it, nothing but mutual condemnations,

violences and even execrations, from the said Doctors and their respective Official patrons, lay and clerical.

Must have been such a sceue for a young Wife as has seldom occurred, in romance or reality! Children

After five years' space, in 1578, [Pauli, iv. 476, 481, 482.] cure being now hopeless, and the very Council

admitting that the Duke was incapable of business,George Friedrich of AnspachBaireuth came into the

country to take charge of him; having already, he and the other Brandenburgers, negotiated the matter with

George Friedrich was by no means welcome to the Prussian Council, nor to the Wife, nor to the Landed

Aristocracy;other than welcome, for reasons we can guess. But he proved, in the judgment of all fair

witnesses, an excellent Governor; and, for sixand twenty years, administered the country with great and

lasting advantage to it. His Portraits represent to us a large ponderous figure of a man, very fat in his latter

years; with an air of honest sense, dignity, composed solidity;very fit for the task now on hand.

He resolutely, though in mild form, smoothed down the flaming fires of his Clergy; commanding now this

controversy and then that other controversy ("de concreto et de inconcreto," or whatever they were) to fall

strictly silent; to carry themselves on by thought and meditation merely, and without words. He tamed the

mutinous Aristocracy, the mutinous Burgermeisters, TownCouncil of Konigsberg, whatever mutiny there

was. He drained bogs, says old Rentsch; he felled woods, made roads, established inns. Prussia was well

governed till George's death; which happened in the year 1603. [Rentsch, pp. 666688.] Anspach, in the

mean while, Anspach, Baireuth and Jagerndorf, which were latterly all his, he had governed by deputy; no

need of visiting those quiet countries, except for purposes of kindly recreation, or for a swift general

supervision, now and then. By all accounts, an excellent, steadfast, wise and just man, this fat George

Friedrich; worthy of the Father that produced him ("Nit Kop ab, lover Forst, nit Kop ab!"), and that is

By his death without children much territory fell home to the Elder House; to be disposed of as was settled in

the GERA BOND five years before. Anspach and Baireuth went to two Brothers of the now Elector, Kurfurst

Joachim Friedrich, sons of Johann George of blessed memory: founders, they, of the "New Line," of whom

we know. Jagerndorf the Elector himself got; and he, not long after, settled it on one of his own sons, a new

Johann George, who at that time was fallen rather landless and out of a career: "Johann George of

Jagerndorf," so called thenceforth: whose history will concern us by and by. Preussen was to be incorporated

with the Electorate,were possession of it once had. But that is a ticklish point; still ticklish in spite of

Joachim Friedrich, as we intimated once, was not wanting to himself on this occasion. But the affair was full

of intricacies; a very wasps'nest of angry humors; and required to be handled with delicacy, though with

force and decision. Joachim Friedrich's eldest Son, Johann Sigismund, Electoral Prince of Brandenburg, had

already, in 1594, married one of Albert Friedrich the hypochondriac Duke of Preussen's daughters; and there

was a promising family of children; no lack of children. Nevertheless prudent Joachim Friedrich himself, now

a widower, age towards sixty, did farther, in the present emergency, marry another of these Princesses, a

younger Sister of his Son's Wife,seven months after George Friedrich's death,to make assurance doubly

sure, A man not to be balked, if he can help it. By virtue of excellent management,Duchess, Prussian

STANDE (States), and Polish Crown, needing all to be oontented,Joachim Friedrich, with gentle strong

pressure, did furthermore squeeze his way into the actual Guardianship of Preussen and the imbecile Duke,

which was his by right. This latter feat he achieved in the course of another year (11th March, 1605);

[Stenzel, i. 358.] and thereby fairly got hold of Preussen; which he grasped, "knuckleswhite," as we may

Good management was very necessary. The thing was difficult;and also was of more importance than we

yet altogether see. Not Preussen only, but a still better country, the Duchy of Cleve, CleveJulich, Duke

Wilhelm's Heritage down in the Rhineland, Heritage turning out now to be of right his eldest Daughter's

here, and likely now to drop soon,is involved in the thing. This first crisis, of getting into the Prussian

Administratorship, fallen vacant, our vigilant Kurfurst Joachim Friedrich has successfully managed; and he

holds his grip, knuckleswhite. Before long, a second crisis comes; where also he will have to grasp

decisively in,he, or those that stand for him, and whose knuckles can still hold, But that may go to a new

In the summer of 1608 (23d May, 1608) Johann Sigismund's (and his Father's) Motherinlaw, the poor

Wife of the poor imbecile Duke of Preussen, died. [Maria Eleonora, Duke Wilhelm of Cleve's eldest

Daughter: 1550, 1573, 1608 (Hubner, t. 286).] Upon which Johann Sigismund, HeirApparent of

Brandenburg and its expectancies, was instantly despatched from Berlin, to gather up the threads cut loose by

that event, and see that the matter took no damage. On the road thither news reached him that his own Father,

old Joachim Friedrich, was dead (18th July, 1608); that he himself was now Kurfurst; [1572, 16081619.]

The "young man"not now so young, being full thirtyfive and of fair experiencewas in difficulty, under

these overwhelming tidings; and puzzled, for a little, whether to advance or to return. He decided to advance,

and settle Prussian matters, where the peril and the risk were; Brandenburg business he could do by rescripts.

His difficulties in Preussen, and at the Polish Court, were in fact immense. But after a space of eight or nine

months, he did, by excellent management, not sparing money judiciously laid out on individuals, arrive at

some adjustment, better or worse, and got Preussen in hand; [29th April, 1609. Stenzel, i. 370.] legal

Administrator of the imbecile Duke, as his Father had been. After which he had to run for Brandenburg,

without loss of time: great matters being there in the wind. Nothing wrong in Brandenburg, indeed; but the

great Cleve Heritage is dropping, has dropped; over in Cleve, an immense expectancy is now come to the

Wilhelm of Cleve, the explosive Duke, whom we saw at Berlin and Konigsberg at the wedding of this poor

Lady now deceased, had in the marriagecontract, as he did in all subsequent contracts and deeds of like

nature, announced a Settlement of his Estates, which was now become of the highest moment for Johann

Sigismund. The Country at that time called Duchy of Cleve, consisted, as we said above, not only of

CleveProper, but of two other still better Duchies, Julich and Berg; then of the GRAFSCHAFT (County) of

Ravensburg, County of Mark, Lordship ofIn fact it was a multifarious agglomerate of many little

countries, gathered by marriage, heritage and luck, in the course of centuries, and now united in the hand of

this Duke Wilhelm. It amounted perhaps to two Yorkshires in extent. [See Busching, Erdbeschreibung, v.

642734.] A naturally opulent Country, of fertile meadows, shipping capabilities, metalliferous hills; and, at

this time, in consequence of the DutchSpanish War, and the multitude of Protestant refugees, it was getting

filled with ingenious industries; and rising to be, what it still is, the busiest quarter of Germany. A Country

lowing with kine; the hum of the flaxspindle heard in its cottages, in those old days,"much of the linen

called Hollands is made in Julich, and only bleached, stamped and sold, by the Dutch," says Busching. A

Country, in our days, which is shrouded at short intervals with the due canopy of coalsmoke, and loud with

This Duchy of Cleve, all this fine agglomerate of Duchies, Duke Wilhelm settled, were to be inherited in a

piece, by his eldest (or indeed, as it soon proved, his only) Son and the heirs of that Son, if there were any.

Failing heirs of that only Son, then the entire Duchy of Cleve was to go to Maria Eleonora as eldest Daughter,

now marrying to Friedrich Albert, Duke of Prussia, and to their heirs lawfully begotten: heirs female, if there

happened to be no male. The other Sisters, of whom there were three, were none of them to have the least

pretence to inherit Cleve or any part of it. On the contrary, they were, in such event, of the eldest Daughter or

her heirs coming to inherit Cleve, to have each of them a sum of ready money paid ["200,000

GOLDGULDEN," about 100,000 pounds; Pauli, vi. 542; iii. 504.] by the said inheritrix of Cleve or her heirs;

and on receiving that, were to consider their claims entirely fulfilled, and to cease thinking of Cleve for the

This Settlement, by express privilege of Kaiser Karl V., nay of Kaiser Maximilian before him, and the Laws

of the Reich, Duke Wilhelm doubted not he was entitled to make; and this Settlement he made; his Lawyers

writing down the terms, in their wearisome way, perhaps six times over; and struggling by all methods to

guard against the least misunderstanding. Cleve with all its appurtenances, Julich, Berg and the rest, goes to

the eldest Sister and her heirs, male or female: If she have no heirs, male or female, then, but not till then, the

next Sister steps into her shoes in that matter: but if she have, then, we repeat for the sixth and last time, no

Sister or Sister's Representative has the least word to say to it, but takes her 100,000 pounds, and ceases

The other three Sisters were all gradually married;one of them to PfalzNeuburg, an eminent Prince, in the

Bavarian region called the OBERPFALZ (Upper Palatinate), who, or at least whose eldest Son, is much

worth mentioning and remembering by us here;and, in all these marriagecontracts, Wilhelm and his

Lawyers expressed themselves to the like effect, and in the like elaborate sixfold manner: so that Wilhelm

Shortly after signing the last of these marriagecontracts, or perhaps it was in the course of signing them,

Duke Wilhelm had a stroke of palsy. He had, before that, gone into Papistry again, poor man. The truth is, he

had repeated strokes; and being an abrupt, explosive Herr, he at last quite yielded to palsy; and sank slowly

out of the world, in a cloud of semiinsanity, which lasted almost twenty years. [Died 25th January, 1592,

age 76.] Duke Wilhelm did leave a Son, Johann Wilhelm, who succeeded him as Duke. But this Son also

proved explosive; went half and at length wholly insane. Jesuit Priests, and their intrigues to bring back a

Protestant country to the bosom of the Church, wrapped the poor man, all his days, as in a burning

Nessus'Shirt; and he did little but mischief in the world. He married, had no children; he accused his

innocent Wife, the Jesuits and he, of infidelity. Got her judged, not properly sentenced; and then strangled

her, he and they, in her bed:"Jacobea of Baden (1597);" a thricetragic history. Then he married again;

Jesuits being extremely anxious for an Orthodox heir: but again there came no heir; there came only new

blazings of the Nessus'Shirt. In fine, the poor man died (Spring, 1609), and made the world rid of him. Died

25th March, 1609; that is the precise date;about a month before our new Elector, Johann Sigismund, got

his affairs winded up at the Polish Court, and came galloping home in such haste. There was pressing need of

For the painful exactitude of Duke Wilhelm and his Lawyers has profited little; and there are claimants on

claimants rising for that valuable Cleve Country. As indeed Johann Sigismund had anticipated, and been

warned from all quarters, to expect. For months past, he has had his faculties bent, with lynxeyed attention,

on that scene of things; doubly and trebly impatient to get Preussen soldered up, ever since this other matter

came to the burstingpoint. What could be done by the utmost vigilance of his Deputies, he had done. It was

the 25th of March when the mad Duke died: on the 4th of April, Johann Sigismund's Deputy, attended by a

Notary to record the act, "fixed up the Brandenburg Arms on the GovernmentHouse of Cleve;" [Pauli, vi.

566.] on the 5th, they did the same at Dusseldorf; on the following days, at Julich and the other Towns. But

already on the 5th, they had hardly got done at Dusseldorf, when there appearedyoung Wolfgang Wilhelm,

Heir Apparent of that eminent PfalzNeuburg, he in person, to put up the PfalzNeuburg Arms!

PfalzNeuburg, who married the Second Daughter, he is actually claiming, then;the whole, or part? Both

PfalzNeuburg's claim was for the whole Duchy. "All my serene Mother's!" cried the young Heir of

PfalzNeuburg: "Properly all mine!" cried he. "Is not she NEAREST of kin? Second Daughter, true; but the

Daughter; not Daughter OF a Daughter, as you are (as your Serene Electress is), O DURCHLAUCHT of

Brandenburg: consider, besides, you are female, I am male!" That was Pfalz Neuburg's logic: none of the

best, I think, in forensic genealogy. His tenth point was perhaps rather weak; but he had possession,

copossession, and the nine points good. The other Two Sisters, by their Sons or Husbands, claimed

likewise; but not the whole: "Divide it," said they: "that surely is the real meaning of Karl V.'s Deed of

Privilege to make such a Testament. Divide it among the Four Daughters or their representatives, and let us

Nor were these four claimants by any means all. The Saxon Princes next claimed; two sets of Saxon Princes.

First the minor set, GothaWeimar and the rest, the Ernestine Line so called; representatives of Johann

Friedrich the Magnanimous, who lost the Electorate for religion's sake at Muhlberg in the past century, and

from MAJOR became MINOR in Saxon Genealogy. "Magnanimous Johann Friedrich," said they, "had to

wife an Aunt of the now deceased Duke of Cleve; Wife Sibylla (sister of the Flanders Mare), of famous

memory, our lineal Ancestress. In favor of whom HER Father, the then reigning Duke of Cleve, made a

marriage contract of precisely similar import to this your Prussian one: he, and barred all his descendants, if

contracts are to be valid." This is the claim of the Ernestine Line of Saxon Princes; not like to go for much, in

But the Albertine Line, the present Elector of Saxony, also claims: "Here is a Deed," said he, "executed by

Kaiser Friedrich III. in the year 1483, [Pauli, ubi supra; Hubner, t. 286.] generations before your Kaiser Karl;

Deed solemnly granting to Albert, junior of Sachsen, and to his heirs, the reversion of those same Duchies,

should the Male Line happen to fail, as it was then likely to do. How could Kaiser Max revoke his Father's

deed, or Kaiser Karl his Greatgrandfather's? Little Albert, the Albert of the PRINZENRAUB, he who grew

big, and fought lionlike for his Kaiser in the Netherlands and Western Countries; he and his have clearly the

heirship of Cleve by right; and we, now grown Electors, and Seniors of Saxony, demand it of a grateful

"Nay, if that is your rule, that old Laws and Deeds are to come in bar of new, we," cry a multitude of

persons,French Dukes of Nevers, and all manner of remote, exotic figures among them, "we are the real

heirs! Ravensburg, Mark, Berg, Ravenstein, this patch and the other of that large Duchy of yours, were they

not from primeval time expressly limited to heirsmale? Heirsmale; and we now are the nearest heirsmale

of said patches and portions; and will prove it!"In short, there never was such a Lawsuit,so fat an affair

for the attorney species, if that had been the way of managing it,as this of Cleve was likely to prove.

What greatly complicated the affair, too, was the interest the Kaiser took in it. The Kaiser could not well

brook a powerful Protestant in that country; still less could his Cousin the Spaniard. Spaniards, worn to the

ground, coercing that world famous Dutch Revolt, and astonished to find that they could not coerce it at all,

had resolved at this time to take breath before trying farther. Spaniards and Dutch, after Fifty years of such

fighting as we know, have made a Twelveyears' Truce (1609): but the battled Spaniard, panting, pale in his

futile rage and sweat, has not given up the matter; he is only taking breath, and will try it again. Now Cleve is

his road into Holland, in such adventure; no success possible if Cleve be not in good hands. Brandenburg is

Nor will PfalzNeuburg. A Protestant of Protestants, this Palatine Neuburg too,junior branch, possible heir

in time coming, of KURPFALZ (Elector Palatine) himself, in the Rhine Countries; of KurPfalz, who is

acknowledged Chief Protestant: official "President" of the "Evangelical Union" they have lately made among

them in these menacing times;PfalzNeuburg too, this young Wolfgang Wilhelm, if he do not break off

kind, might be very awkward to the Kaiser in CleveJulich. Nay Saxony itself; for they are all

Protestants:unless perhaps Saxony might become pliant, and try to make itself useful to a munificent

Evidently what would best suit the Kaiser and Spaniards, were this, That no strong Power whatever got

footing in Cleve, to grow stronger by the possession of such a country:BETTER than best it would suit, if

he, the Kaiser, could himself get it smuggled into his hands, and there hold it fast! Which privately was the

course resolved upon at headquarters.In this way the "Succession Controversy of the Cleve Duchies" is

coming to be a very high matter; mixing itself, up with the grand ProtestantPapal Controversy, the general

armedlawsuit of mankind in that generation. Kaiser, Spaniard, Dutch, English, French Henri IV. and all

Meanwhile Brandenburg and Neuburg both hold grip of Cleve in that manner, with a mutually menacing

inquiring expression of countenance; each grasps it (so to speak) convulsively with the one hand, and has

with the other hand his sword by the hilt, ready to fly out. But to understand this BrandenburgNeuburg

phenomenon and the then significance of the CleveJulich Controversy, we must take the following bits of

Chronology along with us. For the German Empire, with Protestant complaints, and Papist usurpations and

severities, was at this time all a continent of sour thick smoke,already breaking out into dullred flashes here

and there, symptoms of the universal conflagration of a ThirtyYears War, which followed. SYMPTON

Donauworth, a Protestant Imperial Freetown, in the Bavarian regions, had been, for some fault on the part

of the populace against a flaring Massprocession which had no business to be there, put under Ban of the

Empire; had been seized accordingly (December, 1607), and much cuffed, and shaken about, by Duke

Maximilian of Bavaria, as executor of the said Ban; [Michaeelis, ii. 216; Buddaei LEXICON, i. 853.]who,

what was still worse, would by no means give up the Town when he had done with it; Town being handy to

him, and the man being stout and violently Papist. Hence the "Evangelical Union" which we saw,which

has not taken Donauworth yet. Nor ever will! Donauworth never was retaken; but is Bavarian at this hour, A

Town namable in History ever since. Not to say withal, that it is where Marlborough, did "the Lines of

Schellenberg" long after: Schellenberg ("Jingle Hill," so to render it) looks down across the Danube or

Donau River, upon Donauworth,its "Lines," and other histories, now much abolished, and quiet under

But now all Protestantism sounding everywhere, in angry mournful tone, "Donauwarth! Give up

Donauworth!"and an "Evangelical Union," with moneys, with theoretic contingents of force, being on foot

for that and the like objects;we can fancy what a scramble this of CleveJulich was like to be; and

especially what effect this duelling attitude of Brandenburg and Neuburg had on the Protestant mind.

Protestant neighbors, Landgraf Moritz of HessenCassel at their head, intervene in tremulous haste, in the

CleveJulich affair: "Peace, O friends! Some bargain; peaceable jointpossession; any temporary bargain, till

we see! Can two Protestants fall to slashing one another, in such an aspect of the Reich and its

Jesuitries?"And they did agree (Dortmund, 10th May, 1609) the first of their innumerable "agreements," to

some temporary jointpossession;the thricethankful Country doing homage to both, "with oath to the one

that SHALL be found genuine." And they did endeavor to govern jointly, and to keep the peace on those

For the Kaiser had already said (or his Aulic Council and Spanish Cousin, poor Kaiser Rodolf caring too little

about these things, [Rodolf II. (Kepler's too insolvent "Patron"), 15761612; then Matthias, Rodolf's Brother,

16121619, rather tolerant to Protestants;then Ferdinand II. his Uncle's Son, 16191637, much the reverse

of tolerant, by whom mainly came the ThirtyYears War,were the Kaisers of this Period.

Ferdinand III., Son of II: (16371657), who finished out the ThirtyYears War, partly by fighting of his

Kaiser Joseph (17051711) and Kaiser Karl VI. (17111740), Maria Theresa's Father.] had already said),

Cleve must absolutely not go into wrong hands. For which what safe method is there, but that the Kaiser

himself become proprietor? A Letter is yet extant, from the Aulic Council to their ViceChancellor, who had

been sent to negotiate this matter with the parties; Letter to the effect, That such result was the only good one;

that it must be achieved; "that he must devise all manner of quirks (alle Spitzfindigkeiten auffordern sollte),"

and achieve it. [Pauli, iii. 5055.] This curious Letter of a sublime Aulic Council, or Imperial HOFRATH, to

And accordingly quirks did not prove undevisable on behalf of the Kaiser. "Since you cannot agree," said the

Kaiser, "and there are so many of you who claim (we having privately stirred up several of you to the feat),

there will be nothing for it, but the Kaiser must put the Country under sequestration, and take possession of it

with his own troops, till a decision be arrived at,which probably will not be soon!"

And the Kaiser forthwith did as he had said; sent Archduke Leopold with troops, who forcibly took the Castle

of Julich; commanding all other castles and places to surrender and sequestrate themselves, in like fashion;

threatening Brandenburg and Neuburg, in a dreadful manner, with REICHSACHT (Ban of the Empire), if

they presumed to show contumacy. Upon which Brandenburg and Neuburg, ranking themselves together,

showed decided contumacy; "tore down the Kaiser's Proclamation," [Ib. iii. 524. Emperor's Proclamation, in

Dusseldorf, 23d July, 1609,taken down solemnly, 1st August, 1609,] having good help at their back.

And accordingly, "on the 4th of September, 1610," after a twomonths' siege, they, or the Dutch, French, and

Evangelical Union Troops bombarding along with them, and "many English volunteers" to help, retook

Julich, and packed Leopold away again. [Ib. iii. 527.] The Dutch and the French were especially anxious

about this Cleve business,poor Henri IV. was just putting those French troops in motion towards Julich,

when Ravaillac, the distracted Devil'sJesuit, did his stroke upon him; so that another than Henri had to lead

in that expedition. The actual Captain at the Siege was Prince Christian of Anhalt, by repute the first soldier

of Germany at that period: he had a horse shot under him, the business being very hot and furious;he had

still worse fortune in the course of years. There were "many English volunteers" at this Siege; English nation

hugely interested in it, though their King would not act except diplomatically. It was the talk of all the then

world,the evening song and the morning prayer of Protestants especially,till it was got ended in this

manner. It deserves to rank as SYMPTON SECOND in this business; far bigger flare of dull red in the

universal smokecontinent, than that of Donauworth had been. Are there no memorials left of those "English

volunteers," then? [In Carlyle's Miscellanies (vi. ? "Two Hundred and Fifty Years ago: a Fragment about

Duels") is one small scene belonging to them.] Alas, they might get edited as Bromley's Royal Letters

"Evangelical Union," formed some two years before, with what cause we saw, has KurPfalz [WinterKing's

Father; died 9th September, 1610, few days after this recapture of Julich.] at the head of it: but its troops or

operations were never of a very forcible character. KurBrandenburg now joined it formally, as did many

more; KurSachsen, anxious to make himself convenient in other quarters, never would. Add to these

phenomena, the now decisive appearance of a "Catholic LIGA" (League of Catholic Princes), which, by way

of counterpoise to the "Union," had been got up by Duke Maximilian of Bavaria several months ago; and

which now, under the same guidance, in these bad circumstances, took a great expansion of figure. Duke

Maximilian, "DONAUWORTH Max," finding the Evangelical Union go so very high, and his own Kaiser

like to be good for little in such business (poor hypochondriac Kaiser Rodolf II., more taken up with

turninglooms and blowpipes than with matters political, who accordingly is swept out of Julich in such

summary way),Donauworth Max has seen this a necessary institution in the present aspect.Both

"Union" and "League" rapidly waxed under the sound of the Julich cannon, as was natural.

KurSachsen, for standing so well aloof from the Union, got from the thankful Kaiser written Titles for these

Duchies of Cleve and Julich; Imperial parchments and infeftments of due extent; but never any Territory in

those parts. He never offered fight for his pretensions; and Brandenburg and NeuburgNeuburg

especially always answered him, "No!" with sword halfdrawn. So KurSachsen faded out again, and

took only parchments by the adventure. Practically there was no private Competitor of moment to

Brandenburg, except this Wolfgang Wilhelm of PfalzNeuburg; he alone having clutched hold.But we

hasten to SYMPTOM THIRD, which particularly concerns us, and will be intelligible now at last.

Brandenburg and Neuburg stood together against third parties; but their jointgovernment was apt to fall in

two, when left to itself, and the pressure of danger withdrawn. "They governed by the RATHS and STANDE

of the Country;" old methods and old official men: each of the two had his own ViceRegent

(STATTHALTER) present on the ground, who jointly presided as they could. Jarrings were unavoidable; but

how mend it? Settle the litigated Territory itself, and end their big lawsuit, they could not; often as they tried

it, with the whole world encouraging and urging them. [Old Sir Henry Wotton, Provost of Eton in his old

days, remembers how he went Ambassador on this errand,as on many others equally bootless;and

writes himself "Legatus," not only "thrice to Venice, twice to" but also "once to Holland in the Juliers matter

(semel in Juliacensi negotio):" see Reliquiae Wottonianae (London, 1672), Preface. It was "in 1614," say the

Biographies vaguely. His Despatches, are they in the PaperOffice still? His good old Book deserves new

editing, his good old genially pious life a proper elucidation, by some faithful man.] The meetings they had,

and the treaties and temporary bargains they made, and kept, and could not keep, in these and in the

In 1613 the Brandenburg STATTHALTER was Ernst, the Elector's younger Brother, Wolfgang Wilhelm in

person, for his Father, or rather for himself as heir of his Mother, represented Pfalz Neuburg. Ernst of

Brandenburg had adopted Calvinism as his creed; a thing hateful and horrible to the Lutheran mind (of which

sort was Wolfgang Wilhelm), to a degree now altogether inconceivable. Discord arose in consequence

between the STATTHALTERS, as to official appointments, sacred and secular: "You are for promoting

Calvinists!""And you, I see, are for promoting Lutherans!" Johann Sigismund himself had to intervene:

Wolfgang Wilhelm and he had their meetings, friendly colloquies:the final celloquy of which is still

We said, a strong flame of choler burnt in all these Hohenzollerns, though they held it well down. Johann

Sigismund, an excellent man of business, knew how essential a mild tone is: nevertheless he found, as this

colloquy went on, that human patience might at length get too much. The scene, after some examination, is

conceivable in this wise: Place Dusseldorf, Elector's apartment in the Schloss there; time late in the Year

1613, Day not discoverable by me. The two sat at dinner, after much colloquy all morning: Johann

Sigismund, a middleaged, bigheaded, sternfaced, honestlooking man; hair cropped, I observe; and

eyelids slightly contracted, as if for sharper vision into matters: Wolfgang Wilhelm, of features fallen dim to

me; an airy gentleman, well out of his teens, but, I doubt, not of wisdom sufficient; evidently very high and

His proposal, by way of final settlement, and end to all these brabbles, was this, and he insisted on it: "Give

me your eldest Princess to wife; let her dowry be your whole claim on Cleve Julich; I will marry her on that

condition, and we shall be friends!" Here evidently is a gentleman that does not want for conceit in

himself:consider too, in Johann Sigismund's opinion, he had no right to a square inch of these Territories,

though for peace' sake a joint share had been allowed him for the time! "On that condition, jackanapes?'

thought Johann Sigismund: "My girl is not a monster; nor at a loss for husbands fully better than you, I

should hope!" This he thought, and could not help thinking; but endeavored to say nothing of it. The young

jackanapes went on, insisting. Nature at last prevailed; Johann Sigismund lifted his hand (princely etiquettes

melting all into smoke on the sudden), and gave the young jackanapes a slap over the face. Veritable slap;

which opened in a dreadful manner the eyes of young PfalzNeuburg to his real situation; and sent him off

highflaming, vowing neverimagined vengeance. A remarkable slap; well testified to,though the old

Histories, struck blank with terror, reverence and astonishment, can for most part only symbol it in

dumbshow; [Pufendorf (Rer. Brandenb. lib. iv. ? 16, p. 213), and many others, are in this case. Tobias

Pfanner (Historia Pacis Westphalicae, lib. i. ? 9, p. 26) is explicit: "Neque, ut infida regnandi societas est,

Brandenburgio et Neoburgio diu conveniebat; eorumque jurgia, cum matrimonii faedere pacari posse

propinqui ipsorum credidissent, acrius ezarsere; inter epulas, quibus futurum generum Septemvir (the

"Sevensman," or Elector, "One of The Seven") excipiebat, hujus enim filia Wolfgango sperabatur, ob nescio

quos sermones eo inter utrumque altercalione provecta, ut Elector irae impotestior, nulla dignitatis, hospitii,

cognationis, affinitatisve verecundia cohibitus, intenderit Neoburgio manus, et contra tendentis os

verberaverit. Ita, quae apud concordes vincula caritatis, incitamenta irarum apud infensos erant." (Cited in

Kohler, Munzbelustiqungen, xxi. 341; who refers also to Levassor, Histoire de Louis XII.)Pauli (iii. 542)

For now Wolfgang Wilhelm, flaming off in neverimagined vengeance, posted straight to Munchen, to Max

of Bavaria there; declared himself convinced, or nearly so, of the RomanCatholic Religion; wooed, and in a

few weeks (10th November, 1613) wedded Max's younger Sister; and soon after, at Dusseldorf, pompously

professed such his blessed change of Belief,with immense flourish of trumpeting, and jubilant

pamphleteering, from Holy Church. [Kohler, ubi supra.] His poor old Father, the devoutest of Protestants,

wailed aloud his "Ichabod! the glory is departed!" holding "weekly fast and humiliation" ever after,and

died in few months of a broken heart. The Catholic League has now a new Member on those terms.

And on the other hand, Johann Sigismund, nearly with the like haste (25th December, 1613), declared

himself convinced of Calvinism, his younger Brother's creed; [Pauli, iii. 546.]which continues ever since

the Brandenburg Courtcreed, that of the People being mostly Lutheran. Men said, it was to please the

Dutch, to please the Julichers, most of whom are Calvinist. Apologetic Pauli is elaborate, but inconclusive. It

was very ill taken at Berlin, where even popular riot arose on the matter. In Prussia too it had its drawbacks.

And now, all being full of mutation, rearrangement and infinite rumor, there marched next year (1614), on

slight pretext, resting on great suspicions, Spanish troops into the JulichCleve country, and, countenanced

by Neuburg, began seizing garrisons there. Whereupon Dutch troops likewise marched, countenanced by

Brandenburg, and occupied other fortresses and garrisons: and so, in every strongplace, these were either

PapistSpaniards or CalvinistDutch; who stood there, fronting one another, and could not by treatying be

got out again;like clouds positively electric VERSUS clouds negatively. As indeed was getting to be the

case of Germany in general; case fatally visible in every Province, Principality and Parish there: till a

thunderstorm, and succession of thunderstorms, of Thirty Years' continuance, broke out. Of which these

huge rumors and mutations, and menacings of war, springing out of that final colloquy and slap in the face,

are to be taken as the THIRD premonitory Symptom. Spaniards and Dutch stand electrically fronting one

another in Cleve for seven years, till their Truce is out, before they clash together; Germany does not wait so

Five years more (1618), and there will have come a FOURTH Symptom, biggest of all, rapidly

consummating the process;Symptom still famed, of the following external figure: Three Official

Gentlemen descending from a window in the Castle of Prag: hurled out by impatient Bohemian

Protestantism, a depth of seventy feet, happily only into dung, and without loss of life. From which

follows a "King of Bohemia" elected there, King not unknown to us;"thunderclouds" all in one huge

clash, and the "continent of sour smoke" blazing all into a continent of thunderous fire: THIRTYYEARS

WAR, as they now call it! Such a conflagration as poor Germany never saw before or since.

These were the FOUR preliminary SYMPTOMS of that dismal business. "As to the primary CAUSES of it,"

says one of my Authorities, "these lie deep, deep almost as those of Original Sin. But the proximate causes

seem to me to have been these two: FIRST, That the JesuitPriests and Principalities had vowed and resolved

to have, by God's help and by the Devil's (this was the peculiarity of it), Europe made Orthodox again: and

then SECONDLY, The fact that a Max of Bavaria existed at that time, whose fiery character, cunning but

rash head, and fanatically Papist heart disposed him to attempt that enterprise, him with such resources and

Johann Sigismund did many swift decisive strokes of business in his time, businesses of extensive and

important nature; but this of the slap to Neuburg has stuck best in the idle memory of mankind. Dusseldorf,

Year 1613: it was precisely in the time when that same Friedrioh, not yet by any means "King of Bohemia,"

but already KurPfalz (Cousin of this Neuburg, and head man of the Protestants), was over here in England,

on a fine errand;namely, had married the fair Elizabeth (14th February, 1613), James the First's Princess;

"Goody Palsgrave," as her Mother floutingly called her, not liking the connection. What kind of a "King of

Bohemia" this Friedrich made, five or six years after, and what sea of troubles he and his entered into, we

know; the "WINTERKONIG" (WinterKing, fallen in times of FROST, or built of mere frost, a

SNOWking altogether soluble again) is the name he gets in German Histories. But here is another hook to

This brief Bohemian Kingship had not yet exploded on the Weissenberg of Prag, [Battle there, Sunday 8th

November, 1620.] when old Sir Henry Wotton being sent as Ambassador "to LIE abroad" (as he wittily

called it, to his cost) in that Business, saw, in the City of Lintz in the picturesque green country by the shores

of the Donau there, an ingenious person, who is now recognizable as one of the remarkablest of mankind, Mr.

John Kepler, namely: Keplar as Wotton writes him; addressing the great Lord Bacon (unhappily without

strict date of any kind) on that among other subjects. Mr. John's now evermemorable watching of those

Motions of the Star Mars, [ De Motibus Stellae Martis; Prag, 1609.] with "calculations repeated seventy

times," and also with Discovery of the Planetary Laws of this Universe, some, ten years ago, appears to be

unknown to Wotton and Bacon; but there is something else of Mr. John's devising [It seems, Baptista Porta

(of Naples, dead some years before) must have given him the essential hint,of whom, or whose hint, Mr.

John does not happen to inform his Excellency at present.] which deserves attention from an Instaurator of

"He hath a little black Tent (of what stuff is not much importing)," says the Ambassador, "which he can

suddenly set up where he will in a Field; and it is convertible (like a windmill) to all quarters at pleasure;

capable of not much more than one man, as I conceive, and perhaps at no great ease; exactly close and

dark,save at one hole, about an inch and a half in the diameter, to which he applies a long perspective

Trunk, with the convex glass fitted to the said hole, and the concave taken out at the other end, which

extendeth to about the middle of this erected Tent: through which the visible radiations of all the Objects

without are intromitted, falling upon a Paper, which is accommodated to receive them; and so he traceth them

with his pen in their natural appearance; turning his little Tent round by degrees, till he hath designed the

whole Aspect of the Field." [ Reliqui Wottonianae, (london 1672), p. 300.]In fact he hath a CAMERA

OBSCURA, and is exhibiting the same for the delectation of Imperial gentlemen lounging that way. Mr. John

invents such toys, writes almanacs, practises medicine, for good reasons; his encouragement from the Holy

Roman Empire and mankind being only a pension of 18 pounds a year, and that hardly ever paid. An

ingenious person, truly, if there ever was one among Adam's Posterity. Just turned of fifty and ill off for cash.

This glimpse of him, in his little black tent with perspective glasses, while the ThirtyYears War blazes out,

In the Cleve Duchies joint government had now become more difficult than ever: but it had to be persisted

in,under mutual offences, suspicions and outbreaks hardly repressed;no final Bargain of Settlement

proving by any method possible. Treaties enough, and conferences and pleadings, manifestoings:Could not

some painful German collector of Statistics try to give us the approximate quantity of impracticable treaties,

futile conferences, manifestoes correspondences; in brief, some authentical cipher (say in round millions) of

idle Words spoken by official human creatures and approximately (in square miles) the extent of Law

Stationery and other Paper written, first and last, about this Controversy of the Cleve Duchies? In that form it

When the WinterKing's explosion took place, [Crowned at Prag, 4th November N.S. 1619; beaten to ruin

there, and obliged to gallop (almost before dinner done), Sunday, 8th November, 1620.] and his own

unfortunate Pfalz (Palatinate) became the theatre of war (Tilly, Spinola, VERSUS Pfalzers, English, Dutch),

involving all the neighboring regions, CleveJulich did not escape its fate. The Spaniards and the Dutch, who

had long sat in gloomy armed truce, occupying with obstinate precaution the main Fortresses of these

JulichCleve countries, did now straightway, their Twelve Years' truce being out (1621), [Pauli, vi.

578580.] fall to fighting and besieging one another there; the huge War, which proved of Thirty Years,

In 1624, in pity to all parties, some attempt at practical Division of the Territory was again made: Neuburg to

have Berg and Julich, Brandenburg to have Cleve, Mark, Ravensburg and the minor appurtenances: and

Treaty to that effect was got signed (11th May, 1624). But it was not well kept, nor could be; and the statistic

cipher of new treaties, manifestoes, conferences, and approximate written area of LawPaper goes on

It was not till fortytwo years after, in 1666, as will be more minutely noticeable by and by, that an effective

partition could be practically brought about. Nor in this state was the Lawsuit by any means ended,as we

shall wearisomely see, in times long following that. In fact there never was, in the German Chanceries or out

of them, such a Lawsuit, Armed or Wigged, as this of the Cleve Duchies first and last. And the sentence was

not practically given, till the Congress of Vienna (1815) in our own day gave it; and the thing Johann

Sigismund had claimed legally in 1609 was actually handed over to Johann Sigismund's Descendant in the

seventh generation, after two hundred and six years. Handed over to him then,and a liberal rate of interest

allowed. These litigated Duchies are now the Prussian Province JulichBergCleve, and the nucleus of

A year before Johann Sigismund's death, Albert Friedrich, the poor eclipsed Duke of Prussia, died (8th

August, 1618): upon which our swift Kurfurst, not without need of his dexterities there too, got peaceable

possession of Prussia;nor has his Family lost hold of that, up to the present time. Next year (23d

December, 1619), he himself closed a swift busy life (labor enough in it for him perhaps, though only an age

of fortynine); and sank to his long rest, his works following him,unalterable thenceforth, not unfruitful

By far the unluckiest of these Electors, whether the most unworthy of them or not, was George Wilhelm,

Tenth Elector, who now succeeded Johann Sigismund his Father. The Father's eyes had closed when this

great flame was breaking out; and the Son's days were all spent amid the hot ashes and fierce blazings of it.

The position of Brandenburg during this sad ThirtyYears War was passive rather than active; distinguished

only in the former way, and as far as possible from being glorious or victorious. Never since the

Hohenzollerns came to that Country had Brandenburg such a time. Difficult to have mended it; impossible to

have quite avoided it;and Kurfurst George Wilhelm was not a man so superior to all his neighbors, that he

could clearly see his way in such an element. The perfect or ideal course was clear: To have frankly drawn

sword for his Religion and his Rights, so soon as the battle fairly opened; and to have fought for these same,

till he got either them or died. Alas, that is easily said and written; but it is, for a George Wilhelm especially,

difficult to do! His capability in all kinds was limited; his connections, with this side and that, were very

intricate. Gustavus and the WinterKing were his Brothersinlaw; Gustavus wedded to his Sister, he to

WinterKing's. His relations to Poland, feudal superior of Preussen, were delicate; and Gustavus was in

deadly quarrel with Poland. And then Gustavus's sudden layinghold of Pommern, which had just escaped

from Wallenstein and the Kaiser? It must be granted, poor George Wilhelm's case demanded

One can forgive him for declining the BohemianKing speculation, though his Uncle of Jagerndorf and his

Cousins of Liegnitz were so hearty and forward in it. Pardonable in him to decline the Bohemian

speculation;though surely it is very sad that he found himself so short of "butter and firewood" when the

poor ExKing, and his young Wife, then in a specially interesting state, came to take shelter with him! [Solltl

(Geschichte des Dreissigjahrigen Krieges, a trivial modern Book) gives a notable memorial from the

Brandenburg RATHS, concerning these their difficulties of housekeeping. Their real object, we perceive, was

to get rid of a Guest so dangerous as the ExKing, under Ban of the Empire, had now become.] But when

Gustavus landed, and flung out upon the winds such a banner as that of his,truly it was required of a

Protestant Governor of men to be able to read said banner in a certain degree. A Governor, not too IMperfect,

would have recognized this Gustavus, what his purposes and likelihoods were; the feeling would have been,

checked by due circumspectness: "Up, my men, let us follow this man; let us live and die in the Cause this

man goes for! Live otherwise with honor, or die otherwise with honor, we cannot, in the pass things have

come to!"And thus, at the very worst, Brandenburg would have had only one class of enemies to ravage it;

and might have escaped with, arithmetically speaking, HALF the harrying it got in that long Business.

But Protestant Germanysad shame to it, which proved lasting sorrow as wellwas all alike torpid;

Brandenburg not an exceptional case. No Prince stood up as beseemed: or only one, and he not a great one;

Landgraf Wilhelm of Hessen, who, and his brave Widow after him, seemed always to know what hour it was.

Wilhelm of Hessen all along;and a few wild hands, Christian of Brunswick, Christian of Anhalt, Johann

George of Jagerndorf, who stormed out tumultuously at first, but were soon blown away by the

TillyWallenstein TRADEWINDS and regulated armaments:the rest sat still, and tried all they could to

keep out of harm's way. The "Evangelical Union" did a great deal of manifestoing, pathetic, indignant and

other; held solemn Meetings at Heilbronn, old Sir Henry Wotton going as Ambassador to them; but never got

any redress. Had the Evangelical Union shut up its inkhorns sooner; girt on its fightingtools when the time

came, and done some little execution with them then, instead of none at all, we may fancy the Evangelical

Union would have better discharged its function. It might have saved immense wretchedness to Germany.

In fact, had there been no better Protestantism than that of Germany, all was over with Protestantism; and

Max of Bavaria, with fanatical Ferdinand II. as Kaiser over him, and Father Lammerlein at his right hand and

Father Hyacinth at his left, had got their own sweet way in this world. But Protestant Germany was not

Protestant Europe, after all. Over seas there dwelt and reigned a certain King in Sweden; there farmed, and

walked musing by the shores of the Ouse in Huntingdonshire, a certain man;there was a Gustav Adolf over

seas, an Oliver Cromwell over seas; and "a company of poor men" were found capable of taking Lucifer by

the beard,who accordingly, with his Lammerleins, Hyacinths, Habernfeldts and others, was forced to

The enormous ThirtyYears War, most intricate of modern Occurrences in the domain of Dryasdust, divides

itself, after some unravelling, into Three principal Acts or Epochs; in all of which, one after the other, our

Kurfurst had an interest mounting progressively, but continuing to be a passive interest.

Act FIRST goes from 1620 to 1624; and might be entitled "The Bohemian King Made and Demolished."

Personally the Bohemian King was soon demolished. His Kingship may be said to have gone off by

explosion; by one Fight, namely, done on the Weissenberg near Prag (Sunday, 8th November, 1620), while

he sat at dinner in the City, the boom of the cannon coming in with interest upon his high guests and him. He

had to run, in hot haste, that night, leaving many of his important papers,and becomes a WinterKing.

Winter King's account was soon settled. But the extirpating of his Adherents, and capturing of his

Hereditary Lands, Palatinate and UpperPalatinate, took three years more. Hard fighting for the Palatinate;

Tilly and Company against the "EvangelicalUnion Troops, and the English under Sir Horace Vere."

EvangelicalUnion Troops, though marching about there, under an Uncle of our Kurfurst (Margraf Joachim

Ernst, that lucky Anspach Uncle, founder of "the Line"), who professed some skill in soldiering, were a mere

Picture of an Army; would only "observe," and would not fight at all. So that the whole fighting fell to Sir

Horace and his poor handful of English; of whose grim posture "in Frankendale" [Frankenthal, a little Town

in the Palatinate, N.W. from Mannheim a short way.] and other Strongholds, for months long, there is talk

Then there were certain stern WarCaptains, who rallied from the Weissenberg Defeat:Christian of

Brunswick, the chief of them, titular Bishop of Halberstadt, a highflown, fiery young fellow, of terrible

fighting gifts; he flamed up considerably, with "the Queen of Bohemia's glove stuck in his Hat:" "Bright

Lady, it shall stick there, till I get you your own again, or die!" [16211623, age not yet twentyfive; died

(by poison), 1626, having again become supremely important just then. "Gottes Freund, der Pfaffen Feind

(God's Friend, Priests' Foe);" "Alles fur Ruhm und Ihr (All for Glory and Her," the bright Elizabeth,

become ExQueen), were mottoes of his. Buddaus IN VOCE (i. 649); Michaelis, i. 110.] Christian of

Brunswick, George of Jagerndorf (our Kurfurst's Uncle), Count Mansfeldt and others, made stormy fight

once and again, hanging upon this central "Frankendale" Business, till they and it became hopeless. For the

Kaiser and his Jesuits were not in doubt; a Kaiser very proud, unscrupulous; now clearly superior in force,

Christian of Brunswick, Johann George and Mansfeldt were got rid of: Christian by poison; Johann George

and Mansfeldt by other methods,chiefly by playing upon poor King James of England, and leading him by

the long nose he was found to have. The Palatinate became the Kaiser's for the time being; Upper Palatinate

(OBER PFALZ) Duke Max of Bavaria, lying contiguous to it, had easily taken. "Incorporate the OberPfalz

with your Bavaria," said the Kaiser, "you, illustrious, thriceserviceable Max! And let Lammerlein and

Hyacinth, with their Gospel of Ignatius, loose upon it. Nay, as a still richer reward, be yours the forfeited

KUR (Electorship) of this mad KurPfalz, or WinterKing. I will hold his RhineLands, his

UNTERPFALZ: his Electorship and OBERPFALZ, I say, are yours, Duke, henceforth KURFURST

Maximilian!" [Kohler, ReichsHistorie, p. 520.] Which was a hard saying in the ears of Brandenburg,

Saxony and the other Five, and of the Reich in general; but they had all to comply, after wincing. For the

Kaiser proceeded with a high hand. He had put the ExKing under Ban of the Empire (never asking "the

Empire" about it); put his Three principal Adherents, Johann George of Jagerndorf one of them, Prince

Christian of Anhalt (once captain at the Siege of Juliers) another, likewise under Ban of the Empire; [22d Jan.

1621 (ibid. p. 518).] and in short had flung about, and was flinging, his thunderbolts in a very Olympian

manner. Under all which, what could Brandenburg and the others do; but whimper some trembling protest,

"Clear against Law!"and sit obedient? The Evangelical Union did not now any more than formerly draw

out its fightingtools. In fact, the Evangelical Union now fairly dissolved itself; melted into a deliquium of

terror under these thunderbolts that were flying, and was no more heard of in the world.

Except in the "NETHERSAXON CIRCLE" (distant Northwest region, with its Hanover, Mecklenburg, with

its rich Hamburgs, Lubecks, Magdeburgs, all Protestant, and abutting on the Protestant North), trembling

Germany lay ridden over as the Kaiser willed. Foreign League got up by France, King James, Christian IV. of

Denmark (James's Brotherinlaw, with whom he had such "drinking" in Somerset House, long ago, on

Christian's visit hither [Old Histories of James I. (Wilson, went to water, or worse. Only the "NetherSaxon

Circle" showed some life; was levying an army; and had appointed Christian of Brunswick its Captain, till he

Act SECOND goes from 1624 to 1627 or even 1629; and contains drunken Christian's Exploits. Which were

unfortunate, almost to the ruin of Denmark itself, as well as of the NetherSaxon Circle;till in the latter of

these years he slightly rallied, and got a supportable Peace granted him (Peace of Lubeck, 1629); after which

he sits quiet, contemplative, with an evil eye upon Sweden now and then. The beatings he got, in quite

regular succession, from Tilly and Consorts, are not worth mentioning: the only thing one now remembers of

him is his alarming accident on the ramparts of Hameln, just at the opening of these Campaigns. At Hameln,

which was to be a strong post, drunken Christian rode out once, on a summer afternoon (1624), to see that the

ramparts were all right, or getting all right;and tumbled, horse and self (self in liquor, it is thought), in an

ominous alarming manner. Taken up for dead;nay some of the vague Histories seem to think he was really

Our Kurfurst had another Uncle put to the Ban in this Second Act, Christian Wilhelm Archbishop of

Magdeburg, "for assisting the Danish King;" nor was Ban all the ruin that fell on this poor Archbishop. What

could an unfortunate Kurfurst do, but tremble and obey? There was still a worse smart got by our poor

Does the reader remember that scene in the High Church of Stettin a hundred and fifty years ago? How the

Burgermeister threw sword and helmet into the grave of the last Duke of PommernStettin there; and a

forward Citizen picked them out again in favor of a Collateral Branch? Never since, any more than then,

could Brandenburg get Pommern according to claim. Collateral Branch, in spite of Friedrich Ironteeth, in

spite even of Albert Achilles and some fighting of his; contrived, by pleading at the Diets and stirring up

noise, to maintain its pretensions: and Treaties without end ensued, as usual; Treaties refreshed and

newsigned by every Successor of Albert, to a wearisome degree. The sum of which always was: "Pommern

does actual homage to Brandenburg; vassal of Brandenburg;and falls home to it, if the now Extant Line go

extinct." Nay there is an ERBVERBRUDERUNG (HeritageFraternity) over and above, established this long

time, and wearisomely renewed at every new Accession. Hundreds of Treaties, oppressive to think of:and

now the last Duke, old Bogislaus, is here, without hope of children; and the fruit of all that haggling, actual

For the Kaiser having so triumphantly swept off the WinterKing, and Christian IV. in the rear of him, and

got Germany ready for converting to Orthodoxy,wished now to have some hold of the Seaboard, thereby

to punish Denmark; nay thereby, as is hoped, to extend the blessings of Orthodoxy into England, Sweden,

Holland, and the other Heretic States, in due time. For our plans go far! This is the Kaiser's fixed wish, rising

to the rank of hope now and then: all Europe shall become Papist again by the help of God and the Devil. So

the Kaiser, on hardly any pretext, seized Mecklenburg from the Proprietors,"Traitors, how durst you join

Danish Christian?"and made Wallenstein Duke of it. Duke of Mecklenburg, "Admiral of the EAST SEA

(Baltic);" and set to "building ships of war in Rostock,"his plans going far. [Kohler, ReichsHistorie, pp,

524, 525.] This done, he seized Pommern, which also is a fine Seacountry,stirring up Max of Bavaria to

make some idle pretence to Pommern, that so the Kaiser might seize it "in sequestration till decided on."

Under which hard treatment, George Wilhelm had to sit sad and silent,though the Stralsunders would not.

Hence the worldfamous Siege of Stralsund (1628); fierce Wallenstein declaring, "I will have the Town, if it

hung by a chain from Heaven;" but finding he could not get it; owing to the Swedish succor, to the stubborn

temper prevalent among the Townsfolk, and also greatly to the rains and peatbogs.

A second Uncle of George Wilhelm's, that unlucky Archbishop of Magdeburg above mentioned, the Kaiser,

once more by his own arbitrary will, put under Ban of the Empire, in this Second Act: "Traitor, how durst

you join with the Danes?" The result of which was Tilly's Sack of Magdeburg (1012th May, 1631), a

transaction never forgettable by mankind.As for Pommern, Gustav Adolf, on his intervening in these

matters, landed there: Pommern was now seized by Gustav Adolf, as a landingplace and placeofarms,

indispensable for Sweden in the present emergency; and was so held thenceforth. Pommern will not fall to

And now we are at Act THIRD:Landing of Gustav Adolf "in the Isle of Usedom, 24th June, 1630," and

onward for Eighteen Years till the Peace of Westphalia, in 1648;on which, as probably better known to the

reader, we will not here go into details. In this Third Act too, George Wilhelm followed his old scheme,

peace at any price;as shy of Gustav as he had been of other Champions of the Cause; and except

Poor man, it was his fate to stand in the range of these huge collisions,Bridge of Dessau, Siege of

Stralsund, Sack of Magdeburg, Battle of Leipzig,where the Titans were bowling rocks at one another; and

he hoped, by dexterous skipping, to escape share of the game. To keep well with his Kaiser,and such a

Kaiser to Germany and to him,this, for George Wilhelm, was always the first commandment. If the Kaiser

confiscate your Uncles, against law; seize your Pommern; rob you on the public highways,George

Wilhelm, even in such case, is full of dubitations. Nay his PrimeMinister, one Schwartzenberg, a Catholic,

an Austrian Official at one time,Progenitor of the Austrian Schwartzenbergs that now are,was secretly

in the Kaiser's interest, and is even thought to have been in the Kaiser's pay, all along.

Gustav, at his first landing, had seized Pommern, and swept it clear of Austrians, for himself and for his own

wants; not too regardful of George Wilhelm's claims on it. He cleared out FrankfurtonOder, Custrin and

other Brandenburg Towns, in a similar manner,by cannon and storm, when needful;drove the

Imperialists and Tilly forth of these countries. Advancing, next year, to save Magdeburg, now shrieking

under Tilly's bombardment, Gustav insisted on having, if not some bond of union from his Brotherinlaw of

Brandenburg, at least the temporary cession of two Places of War for himself, Spandau and Custrin,

indispensable in any farther operation. Which cession Kurfurst George Wilhelm, though giving all his prayers

to the Good Cause, could by no means grant. Gustav had to insist, with more and more emphasis; advancing

at last, with military menace, upon Berlin itself. He was met by George Wilhelm and his Council, "in the

woods of Copenick," short way to the east of that City: there George Wilhelm and his Council wandered

about, sending messages, hopelessly consulting; saying among each other, "Que faire; ils ont des canons,

what can one do; they have got cannon?" [ OEvres de Frederic le Grand (Berlin, 18461856 et seqq.:

Memoires de Brandebourg ), i. 38. For the rest, Friedrich's Account of the Transaction is very loose and

scanty: see Pauli (iv. 568) and his minute details.] For many hours so; round the inflexible Gustav, who

was there like a fixed milestone, and to all questions and comers had only one answer! "Que faire; ils ont

des canons?" This was the 3d May, 1631. This probably is about the nadirpoint of the

BrandenburgHohenzollern History. The little Friedrich, who became Frederick the Great, in writing of it,

has a certain grim banter in his tone; and looks rather with mockery on the perplexities of his poor Ancestor,

On the whole, George Wilhelm did what is to be called nothing, in the ThirtyYears War; his function was

only that of suffering. He followed always the bad lead of Johann George, Elector of Saxony; a man of no

strength, devoutness or adequate human worth; who proved, on these negative grounds, and without

flagrancy of positive badness, an unspeakable curse to Germany. Not till the Kaiser fulminated forth his

RestitutionEdict, and showed he was in earnest about it (16291631), "Restore to our Holy Church what

you have taken from her since the Peace of Passau!"could this Johann George prevail upon himself to join

Sweden, or even to do other than hate it for reasons he saw. Seized by the throat in this manner, and ordered

to DELIVER, KurSachsen did, and Brandenburg along with him, make Treaty with the Swede. [8th

February, 1631 (Kohler, ReichsHistorie, pp. 526531.] in consequence of which they two, some months

after, by way of cooperating with Gustav on his great march Viennaward, sent an invading force into

Bohemia, Brandenburg contributing some poor 3,000 to it; who took Prag, and some other open Towns; but

"did almost nothing there," say the Histories, "except dine and drink." It is clear enough they were instantly

scattered home [October, 1633 (Stenzel, i. 503).] at the first glimpse of Wallenstein dawning on the horizon

Gustav having vanished (Field of Lutzen, 6th November, 1632 [Pauli, iv. 576.]), Oxenstiern, with his high

attitude, and "Presidency" of the "Union of Heilbronn," was rather an offence to KurSachsen, who used to

be foremost man on such occasions. KurSachsen broke away again; made his Peace of Prag, [1635, 20th

May (Stenzel, i. 513).] whom Brandenburg again followed; Brandenburg and gradually all the others, except

the noble Wilhelm of HessenCassel alone. Miserable Peace; bit of Chaos clouted up, and done over with

Official varnish;which proved to be the signal for continuing the War beyond visible limits, and rendering

After this, George Wilhelm retires from the scene; lives in Custrin mainly; mere miserable days, which shall

be invisible to us. He died in 1640; and, except producing an active brave Son very unlike himself, did

Among the innumerable sanguinary tusslings of this War are counted Three great Battles, Leipzig, Lutzen,

Nordlingen. Under one great Captain, Swedish Gustav, and the two or three other considerable Captains, who

appeared in it, high passages of furious valor, of fine strategy and tactic, are on record. But on the whole, the

grand weapon in it, and towards the latter times the exclusive one, was Hunger. The opposing Armies tried to

starve one another; at lowest, tried each not to starve. Each trying to eat the country, or at any rate to leave

nothing eatable in it: what that will mean for the country, we may consider. As the Armies too frequently, and

the Kaiser's Armies habitually, lived without commissariat, often enough without pay, all horrors of war and

of being a seat of war, that have been since heard of, are poor to those then practised. The detail of which is

still horrible to read. Germany, in all eatable quarters of it, had to undergo the process;tortured, torn to

pieces, wrecked, and brayed as in a mortar under the iron mace of war. [Curious incidental details of the state

it was reduced to, in the Rhine and Danube Countries, turn up in the Earl of Arundel and Surrey's TRAVELS

("Arundel of the Marbles") as Ambassador Extraordinary to the Emperor Ferdinando II. in 1636 (a small

Volume, or Pamphlet, London, 1637).] Brandenburg saw its towns sieged and sacked, its country populations

driven to despair, by the one party and the other. Three times,first in the. Wallenstein Mecklenburg period,

while fire and sword were the weapons, and again, twice over, in the ultimate stages of the struggle, when

starvation had become the methodBrandenburg fell to be the principal theatre of conflict, where all forms

of the dismal were at their height. In 1638, three years after that precious "Peace of Prag," the Swedes (Banier

VERSUS Gallas) starving out the Imperialists in those Northwestern parts, the ravages of the starving Gallas

and his Imperialists excelled all precedent; and the "famine about Tangermunde had risen so high that men

ate human flesh, nay human creatures ate their own children." [1638: Pauli, iv. 604.] "Que faire; ils ont des

This unfortunate George Wilhelm failed in getting Pommern when due; Pommern, firmly held by the

Swedes, was far from him. But that was not the only loss of territory he had. Jagerndorf, we have heard of

Johann George of Jagerndorf, Uncle of this George Wilhelm, how old Joachim Friedrich put him into

Jagerndorf, long since, when it fell home to the Electoral House. Jagerndorf is now lost; Johann George is

under REICHSACHT (Ban of Empire), ever since the WinterKing's explosion, and the thunderbolts that

has six feet of earth for a territory, far away in Transylvania, or the RIESENGEBIRGE (Giant Mountains)

Johann George, a frankhearted valiant man, concerning whom only good actions, and no bad one, are on

record, had notable troubles in the world; bad troubles to begin with, and worse to end in. He was second Son

of Kurfurst Joachim Friedrich, who had meant him for the Church. [15771624: Rentsch, p. 486.] The young

fellow was Coadjutor of Strasburg, almost from the time of getting into shortclothes. He was then, still very

young, elected Bishop there (1592); Bishop of Strasburg,but only by the Protestant part of the Canons; the

Catholic part, unable to submit longer, and thinking it a good time for revolt against a Protestant population

and obstinately heterodox majority, elected another Bishop,one "Karl of the House of Lorraine;" and there

came to be dispute, and came even to be fighting needed. Fighting; which prudent Papa would not enter into,

except faintly at secondhand, through the Anspach Cousins, or others that were in the humor. Troublesome

times for the young man; which lasted a dozen years or more. At last a Bargain was made (1604); Protestant

and Catholic Canons splitting the difference in some way; and the House of Lorraine paying Johann George a

great deal of money to go home again. [ OEuvres completes de Voltaire, 97 vols. (Paris, 18251832), xxxiii.

284.Kohler ( Reichs Historie, p. 487) gives the authentic particulars.] Poor Johann George came out of it

He was then (1606) put into Jagerndorf, which had just fallen vacant; our excellent fat friend, George

Friedrich of Anspach, Administrator of Preussen, having lately died, and left it vacant, as we saw. George

Friedrich's death yielded fine apanages, three of them in all: FIRST Anspach, SECOND, Baireuth, and this

THIRD of Jagerndorf for a still younger Brother. There was still a fourth younger Brother, Uncle of George

Wilhelm; Archbishop of Magdeburg this one; who also, as we have seen, got into REICHSACHT, into deep

trouble in the ThirtyYears War. He was in Tilly's thrice murderous Storm of Magdeburg (10th May,

1631); was captured, tumbled about by the wild soldiery, and nearly killed there. Poor man, with his mitre

and rochets left in such a state! In the end he even became CATHOLIC,from conviction, as was evident,

and bewilderment of mind;and lived in Austria on a pension; occasionally publishing polemical pamphlets.

As to Johann George, he much repaired and beautified the Castle of Jagerndorf, says Rentsch: but he

unfortunately went ahead into the WinterKing's adventure; which, in that sad battle of the Weissenberg,

made total shipwreck of itself, drawing Johann George and much else along with it. Johann George was

straightway tyrannously put to the Ban, forfeited of life and lands: [22d January, 1621 (Kohler,

ReichsHistorie, p. 518: and rectify Hubner, t. 178).] Johann George disowned the said Ban; stood out

fiercely for self and WinterKing; and did good fighting in the Silesian strongholds and mountainpasses:

but was forced to seek temporary shelter in SIEBENBURGEN (Transylvania); and died far away, in a year or

two (1624), while returning to try it again. Sleeps, I think, in the "Jablunka Pass;" the dumb GiantMountains

Jagerndorf was thus seized by Ferdinand II. of the House of Hapsburg; and though it was contrary to all law

that the Kaiser should keep it,poor Johann George having left Sons very innocent of treason, and Brothers,

and an Electoral. Nephew, very innocent,to whom, by old compacts and new, the Heritage in defect of him

was to fall,neither Kaiser Ferdinand II. nor Kaiser Ferdinand III. nor any Kaiser would let go the hold; but

kept Jagerndorf fast clenched, deaf to all pleadings, and monitions of gods or men. Till at length, in the fourth

generation afterwards, one "Friedrich the Second," not unknown to us, a sharp little man, little in stature,

but large in faculty and renown, who is now called "Frederick the Great,"clutched hold of the Imperial fist

(so to speak), seizing his opportunity in 1740; and so wrenched and twisted said close fist, that not only

Jagerndorf dropped out of it, but the whole of Silesia along with Jagerndorf, there being other claims withal.

And the account was at last settled, with compound interest,as in fact such accounts are sure to be, one

way or other. And so we leave Johann George among the dumb GiantMountains again.

Brandenburg had again sunk very low under the Tenth Elector, in the unutterable troubles of the times. But it

was gloriously raised up again by his Son Friedrich Wilhelm, who succeeded in 1640. This is he whom they

call the "Great Elector (GROSSE KURFURST);" of whom there is much writing and celebrating in Prussian

Books. As for the epithet, it is not uncommon among petty German populations, and many times does not

mean too much: thus Max of Bavaria, with his Jesuit Lambkins and Hyacinths, is, by Bavarians, called

"Maximilian the Great." Friedrich Wilhelm, both by his intrinsic qualities and the success he met with,

deserves it better than most. His success, if we look where he started and where he ended, was beyond that of

Chapter XVIII. FRIEDRICH WILHELM, THE GREAT KURFURST, ELEVENTH OF THE SERIES. 132

any other man in his day. He found Brandenburg annihilated, and he left Brandenburg sound and flourishing;

a great country, or already on the way towards greatness. Undoubtedly a most rapid, cleareyed, active man.

There was a stroke in him swift as lightning, wellaimed mostly, and of a respectable weight, withal; which

shattered asunder a whole world of impediments for him, by assiduous repetition of it for fifty years. [1620;

There hardly ever came to sovereign power a young man of twenty under more distressing, hopelesslooking

circumstances. Political significance Brandenburg had none; a mere Protestant appendage dragged about by a

Papist Kaiser. His Father's PrimeMinister, as we have seen, was in the interest of his enemies; not

Brandenburg's servant, but Austria's. The very Commandants of his Fortresses, Commandant of Spandau

more especially, refused to obey Friedrich Wilhelm, on his accession; "were bound to obey the Kaiser in the

first place." He had to proceed softly as well as swiftly; with the most delicate hand to get him of Spandau by

For twenty years past, Brandenburg had been scoured by hostile armies, which, especially the Kaiser's part of

which, committed outrages new in human history. In a year or two hence, Brandenburg became again the

theatre of business; Austrian Gallas advancing thither again (1644), with intent "to shut up Torstenson and his

Swedes in Jutland," where they had been chastising old Christian IV., now meddlesome again, for the last

time, and never a good neighbor to Sweden. Gallas could by no means do what he intended: on the contrary,

he had to run from Torstenson, what feet could do; was hunted, he and his MERODEBRUDER (beautiful

inventors of the "Marauding" Art), "till they pretty much all died (CREPERTIN)," says Koh1er.

[ ReichsHistorie, p. 556; Pauli, v. 24.] No great loss to society, the death of these Artists: but we can fancy

what their life, and especially what the process of their dying, may have cost poor Brandenburg again!

Friedrich Wilhelm's aim, in this as in other emergencies, was sunclear to himself, but for most part dim to

everybody else. He had to walk very warily, Sweden on one hand of him, suspicious Kaiser on the other; he

had to wear semblances, to be ready with evasive words; and advance noiselessly by many circuits. More

delicate operation could not be imagined. But advance he did: advance and arrive. With extraordinary talent,

diligence and felicity the young man wound himself out of this first fatal position: got those foreign Armies

pushed out of his Country, and kept them out. His first concern had been to find some vestige of revenue, to

put that upon a clear footing; and by loans or otherwise to scrape a little ready money together. On the

strength of which a small body of soldiers could be collected about him, and drilled into real ability to fight

and obey. This as a basis: on this followed all manner of things: freedom from Swedish Austrian invasions,

He was himself, as appeared by and by, a fighter of the first quality, when it came to that: but never was

willing to fight if he could help it. Preferred rather to shift, manoeuvre and negotiate; which he did in a most

vigilant, adroit and masterly manner. But by degrees he had grown to have, and could maintain it, an Army of

24,000 men: among the best troops then in being. With or without his will, he was in all the great Wars of his

time,the time of Louis XIV., who kindled Europe four times over, thrice in our Kurfurst's day. The

Kurfurst's Dominions, a long straggling country, reaching from Memel to Wesel, could hardly keep out of the

way of any war that might rise. He made himself available, never against the good cause of Protestantism and

German Freedom, yet always in the place and way where his own best advantage was to be had. Louis XIV.

had often much need of him: still oftener, and more pressingly, had Kaiser Leopold, the little Gentleman "in

scarlet stockings, with a red feather in his hat," whom Mr. Savage used to see majestically walking about,

with Austrian lip that said nothing at all. [ A Compleat History of Germany, by Mr. Savage (8vo, London,

1702), p. 553. Who this Mr. Savage was, we have no trace. Prefixed to the volume is the Portrait of a solid

Gentleman of forty: gloomily polite, with ample wig and cravat,in all likelihood some studious subaltern

Diplomatist in the Succession War. His little Book is very lean and barren: but faithfully compiled,and

might have some illumination in it, where utter darkness is so prevalent. Most likely, Addison picked his

story of the Siege of Weinsberg ("Women carrying out their Husbands on their back,"one of his best

Chapter XVIII. FRIEDRICH WILHELM, THE GREAT KURFURST, ELEVENTH OF THE SERIES. 133

SPECTATORS) out of this poor Book.] His 24,000 excellent fightingmen, thrown in at the right time, were

often a thing that could turn the balance in great questions. They required to be allowed for at a high

When the Peace of Westphalia (1648) concluded that ThirtyYears Conflagration, and swept the ashes of it

into order again, Friedrich Wilhelm's right to Pommern was admitted by everybody: and well insisted on by

himself: but right had to yield to reason of state, and he could not get it. The Swedes insisted on their

expenses: the Swedes held Pommern, had all along held it,in pawn, they said, for their expenses. Nothing

for it but to give the Swedes the better half of Pommern. FOREPommern (so they call it, "Swedish

Pomerania" thenceforth), which lies next the Sea: this, with some Towns and cuttings over and above, was

Sweden's share: Friedrich Wilhelm had to put up with HINDERPommern, docked furthermore of the Town

of Stettin, and of other valuable cuttings, in favor of Sweden. Much to Friedrich Wilhelm's grief and just

They gave him Three secularized Bishoprics, Magdeburg, Halberstadt, Minden, with other small remnants,

for compensation; and he had to be content with these for the present. But he never gave up the idea of

Pommern: much of the effort of his life was spent upon recovering ForePommern: thriceeager upon that,

whenever lawful opportunity offered. To no purpose then: he never could recover Swedish Pommern; only

his late descendants, and that by slowish degrees, could recover it all. Readers remember that Burgermeister

of Stettin, with the helmet and sword flung into the grave and picked out again:and can judge whether

Once, and once only, he had a voluntary purpose towards War, and it remained a purpose only. Soon after the

Peace of Westphalia, old PfalzNeuburg, the same who got the slap on the face, went into tyrannous

proceedings against the Protestant part of his subjects in JulichCleve: who called to Friedrich Wilhelm for

help. Friedrich Wilhelm, a zealous Protestant, made remonstrances, retaliations: ere long the thought struck

him, "Suppose, backed by the Dutch, we threw out this fantastic old gentleman, his Papistries, and pretended

claims and self, clear out of it?" This was Friedrich Wilhelm's thought; and he suddenly marched troops into

the Territory, with that view. But Europe was in alarm, the Dutch grew faint: Friedrich Wilhelm saw it would

not do. He had a conference with old PfalzNeuburg: "Young gentleman, we remember how your

Grandfather made free with us and our august countenance! Nevertheless we" In fine, the "statistic of

In 1666, as already said, an effective Partition of these litigated Territories was accomplished: Prussia to have

the Duchy of CleveProper, the Counties of Mark and Ravensburg, with other Patches and Pertinents:

Neuburg, what was the better share, to have Julich Duchy and Berg Duchy. Furthermore, if either of the

Lines failed, in no sort was a collateral to be admitted: but Brandenburg was to inherit Neuburg, or Neuburg

Brandenburg, as the case might be. [Pauli, v. 120129.] A clear Bargain this at last: and in the times that had

come, it proved executable so far. But if the reader fancies the Lawsuit was at last out in this way, he will be

a simple reader! In the days of our little Fritz, the Line of PfalzNeuburg was evidently ending: but that

Brandenburg and not a collateral should succeed it, there lay the quarrel, open still, as if it had never been

Friedrich Wilhelm's first actual appearance in War, Polish Swedish War (16551660), was involuntary in

the highest degree: forced upon him for the sake of his Preussen, which bade fair to be lost or ruined, without

blame of his or its. Nevertheless, here too he made his benefit of the affair. The big King of Sweden had a

standing quarrel with his big Cousin of Poland, which broke out into hot War; little Preussen lay between

Chapter XVIII. FRIEDRICH WILHELM, THE GREAT KURFURST, ELEVENTH OF THE SERIES. 134

them, and was like to be crushed in the collision. Swedish King was Karl Gustav, Christina's Cousin, Charles

Twelfth's Grandfather; a great and mighty man, lion of the North in his time: Polish King was one John

Casimir; chivalrous enough, and with clouds of forward Polish chivalry about him, glittering with barbaric

gold. Frederick III., Danish King for the time being, he also was much involved in the thing. Fain would

Friedrich Wilhelm have kept out of it, but he could not. Karl Gustav as good as forced him to join: he joined;

fought along with Karl Gustav an illustrious Battle; "Battle of Warsaw," three days long (2830th July, l656),

on the skirts of Warsaw,crowds "looking from the upper windows" there; Polish chivalry, broken at last,

Shortly after which, Friedrich Wilhelm, who had shone much in the Battle, changed sides. An inconsistent,

treacherous man? Perhaps not, O reader; perhaps a man advancing "in circuits," the only way he has; spirally,

face now to east, now to west, with his own reasonable private aim sunclear to him all the while?

John Casimir agreed to give up the "Homage of Preussen" for this service; a grand prize for Friedrich

Wilhelm. [Treaty of Labiau, 10th November, 1656 (Pauli, v. 7375); 20th November (Stenzel, iv. 128,who

always uses NEW STYLE).] What the Teutsch Ritters strove for in vain, and lost their existence in striving

for, the shifty Kurfurst has now got: Ducal Prussia, which is also called East Prussia, is now a free

sovereignty,and will become as "Royal" as the other Polish part. Or perhaps even more so, in the course of

time!Karl Gustav, in a high frame of mind, informs the Kurfurst, that he has him on his books, and will

A dangerous debtor in such matters, this Karl Gustav. In these same months, busy with the Danish part of the

Controversy, he was doing a feat of war, which set all Europe in astonishment. In January, 1658, Karl Gustav

marches his Army, horse, foot and artillery, to the extent of twenty thousand, across the Baltic ice, and takes

an Island without shipping,Island of Funen, across the Little Belt; three miles of ice; and a part of the sea

open, which has to be crossed on planks. Nay, forward from Funen, when once there, he achieves ten whole

miles more of ice; and takes Zealand itself, [Holberg's Danemarkische ReichsHistorie, pp. 406409.]to

the wonder of all mankind. An imperious, sternbrowed, swiftstriking man; who had dreamed of a new

Goth Empire: The mean Hypocrites and Fribbles of the South to be coerced again by noble Norse valor, and

taught a new lesson. Has been known to lay his hand on his sword while apprising an Ambassador (Dutch

HighMightiness) what his royal intentions were: "Not the sale or purchase of groceries, observe you, Sir!

My aims go higher!"Charles Twelfth's Grandfather, and somewhat the same type of man.

But Karl Gustav died, short while after; [13th February, 1660, age 38.] left his big wideraging Northern

Controversy to collapse in what way it could. Sweden and the fightingparties made their "Peace of Oliva"

(Abbey of Oliva, near Dantzig, 1st May, 1660); and this of Preussen was ratified, in all form, among the other

points. No homage more; nothing now above Ducal Prussia but the Heavens; and great times coming for it.

This was one of the successfulest strokes of business ever done by Friedrich Wilhelm; who had been forced,

by sheer compulsion, to embark in that big game."Royal Prussia," the Western or POLISH Prussia: this

too, as all Newspapers know, has, in our times, gone the same road as the other. Which probably, after all, it

may have had, in Nature, some tendency to do? Cut away, for reasons, by the Polish sword, in that Battle of

Tannenberg, long since; and then, also for reasons, cut back again! That is the fact;not unexampled in

Old Johann Casimir, not long after that Peace of Oliva, getting tired of his unruly Polish chivalry and their

ways, abdicated; retired to Paris; and "lived much with Ninon de 1'Enclos and her circle," for the rest of

his life. He used to complain of his Polish chivalry, that there was no solidity in them; nothing but outside

glitter, with tumult and anarchic noise; fatal want of one essential talent, the talent of Obeying; and has been

heard to prophesy that a glorious Republic, persisting in such courses, would arrive at results which would

Chapter XVIII. FRIEDRICH WILHELM, THE GREAT KURFURST, ELEVENTH OF THE SERIES. 135

Onward from this time, Friedrich Wilhelm figures in the world; public men watching his procedure; Kings

anxious to secure him, Dutch printsellers sticking up his Portraits for a hero worshipping Public. Fighting

hero, had the Public known it, was not his essential character, though he had to fight a great deal. He was

essentially an Industrial man; great in organizing, regulating, in constraining chaotic heaps to become cosmic

for him. He drains bogs, settles colonies in the wasteplaces of his Dominions, cuts canals; unweariedly

encourages trade and work. The FRIEDRICHWILHELM'S CANAL, which still carries tonnage from the

Oder to the Spree, [Executed, 16621668; fifteen English miles long (Busching, ERDBESCHREIBUNG, vi,

2193).] is a monument of his zeal in this way; creditable, with the means he had. To the poor French

Protestants, in the EdictofNantes Affair, he was like an express Benefit of Heaven: one Helper appointed,

to whom the help itself was profitable. He munificently welcomed them to Brandenburg; showed really a

noble piety and human pity, as well as judgment; nor did Brandenburg and he want their reward. Some

20,000 nimble French souls, evidently of the best French quality, found a home there;made "waste sands

about Berlin into potherb gardens;" and in the spiritual Brandenburg, too, did something of horticulture,

which is still noticeable. [Erman (weak Biographer of Queen SophieCharlotte, already cited), Memoires

pour sevir a l'Histoire den Refugies Francais dans les Etats du Roi de Prusse (Berlin, 17821794), 8 tt. 8vo.]

Certainly this Elector was one of the shiftiest of men. Not an unjust man either. A pious, Godfearing man

rather, stanch to his Protestantism and his Bible; not unjust by any means,nor, on the other hand, by any

means thickskinned in his interpretings of justice: Fairplay to myself always; or occasionally even the

Height of Fairplay! On the whole, by constant energy, vigilance, adroit activity, by an everready insight

and audacity to seize the passing fact by its right handle, he fought his way well in the world; left

Brandenburg a flourishing and greatly increased Country, and his own name famous enough.

A thickset stalwart figure; with brisk eyes, and high strong irregularly Roman nose. Good bronze Statue of

him, by Schluter, once a famed man, still rides on the LANGEBRUCKE (LongBridge) at Berlin; and his

Portrait, in huge frizzled LouisQuatorze wig, is frequently met with in German Galleries. Collectors of

Dutch Prints, too, know him: here a gallant, eaglefeatured little gentleman, brisk in the smiles of youth, with

plumes, with truncheon, caprioling on his warcharger, view of tents in the distance;there a sedate,

ponderous, wrinkly old man, eyes slightly puckered (eyes BUSIER than mouth); a face wellploughed by

Time, and not found unfruitful; one of the largest, most laborious, potent faces (in an ocean of circumambient

periwig) to be met with in that Century. [Both Prints are Dutch; the Younger, my copy of the Younger, has

lost the Engraver's Name (Kurfurst's age is twentyseven); the Elder is by MASSON, 1633, when Friedrich

Wilhelm was sixtythree.] There are many Histories about him, too; but they are not comfortable to read. [G.

D. Geyler, Leben und Thaten Friedrich Wihelms des Grossen (Frankfort and Leipzig, 1703), folio. Franz

Horn, Das Leben Friedrich Wilhelms des Grossen (Berlin, 1814). Pauli, StaatsGeschichte, Band v. (Halle,

1764). Pufendorf, De rebus gestis Friderici Wilhelmi Magni Electoris Brandenburgensis Commentaria (Lips.

et Berol. 1733, fol.)] He also has wanted a sacred Poet; and found only a bewildering Dryasdust.

His Two grand Feats that dwell in the Prussian memory are perhaps none of his greatest, but were of a kind to

strike the imagination. They both relate to what was the central problem of his life,the recovery of

Pommern from the Swedes. Exploit First is the famed "Battle of FEHRBELLIN (Ferry of BellEEN)," fought

on the 18th June, 1675. Fehrbellin is an inconsiderable Town still standing in those peaty regions, some

fiveandthirty miles northwest of Berlin; and had for ages plied its poor Ferry over the oilylooking, brown,

sluggish stream called Rhin, or Rhein in those parts, without the least notice from mankind, till this fell out. It

is a place of pilgrimage to patriotic Prussians, ever since Friedrich Wilhelm's exploit there. The matter went

Friedrich Wilhelm was fighting, far south in Alsace, on Kaiser Leopold's side, in the LouisFourteenth War;

that second one, which ended in the treaty of Nimwegen. Doing his best there,when the Swedes, egged on

by Louis XIV., made war upon him; crossed the Pomeranian marches, troop after troop, and invaded his

Brandenburg Territory with a force which at length amounted to some 16,000 men. No help for the moment:

Chapter XVIII. FRIEDRICH WILHELM, THE GREAT KURFURST, ELEVENTH OF THE SERIES. 136

Friedrich Wilhelm could not be spared from his post. The Swedes, who had at first professed well, gradually

went into plunder, roving, harrying, at their own will; and a melancholy time they made of it for Friedrich

Wilhelm and his People. Lucky if temporary harm were all the ill they were likely to do; lucky if! He

stood steady, however; in his solid manner, finishing the thing in hand first, since that was feasible. He then

even retired into winterquarters, to rest his men; and seemed to have left the Swedish 16,000 autocrats of the

Not so, however; very far indeed from so. Having rested his men for certain months, Friedrich Wilhelm

silently in the first days of June (1675) gets them under march again; marches, his Cavalry and he as first

instalment, with best speed from Schweinfurt, [Stenzel, ii. 347.] which is on the river Main, to Magdeburg; a

distance of two hundred miles. At Magdeburg, where he rests three days, waiting for the first handful of foot

and a field piece or two, he learns that the Swedes are in three parties wide asunder; the middle party of

them within forty miles of him. Probably stronger, even this middle one, than his small body (of "six

thousand Horse, twelve hundred Foot and three guns"); stronger, but capable perhaps of being surprised,

of being cut in pieces, before the others can come up? Rathenau is the nearest skirt of this middle party:

thither goes the Kurfurst, softly, swiftly, in the June night (1617th June, 1675); gets into Rathenau, by brisk

stratagem; tumbles out the Swedish Horse regiment there, drives it back towards Fehrbellin.

He himself follows hard;swift riding enough, in the summer night, through those damp Havel lands, in the

old Hohenzollern fashion: and indeed old Freisack Castle, as it chances,Freisack, scene of Dietrich von

Quitzow and LAZY PEG long since,is close by! Follows hard, we say: strikes in upon this midmost party

(nearly twice his number, but Infantry for the most part); and after fierce fight, done with good talent on both

sides, cuts it into utter ruin, as proposed. Thereby he has left the Swedish Army as a mere head and tail

WITHOUT body; has entirely demolished the Swedish Army. [Stenzel, ii. 350357.] Same feat intrinsically

as that done by Cromwell, on Hamilton and the Scots, in 1648. It was, so to speak, the last visit Sweden paid

to Brandenburg, or the last of any consequence; and ended the domination of the Swedes in those quarters. A

thing justly to be forever remembered by Brandenburg;on a smallish modern scale, the Bannockburn,

Sempach, Marathon, of Brandenburg. [See Pauli, v. 161169; Stenzel, ii. 335, 340347, 354; Kausler, Atlas

des plus memorables Batailles, Combats et Sieges, or Atlas der merkwurdigsten Schlachten, Treffen und

Belagerungen (German and French, Carlsruhe and Freiburg, 1831), p. 417, Blatt 62.]

Exploit Second was four years later; in some sort a corollary to this; and a windingup of the Swedish

business. The Swedes, in farther prosecution of their LouisFourteenth speculation, had invaded Preussen

this time, and were doing sad havoc there. It was in the dead of winter, Christmas, 1678, more than four

hundred miles off; and the Swedes, to say nothing of their other havoc, were in a case to take Konigsberg,

and ruin Prussia altogether, if not prevented. Friedrich Wilhelm starts from Berlin, with the opening Year, on

his long march; the Horsetroops first, Foot to follow at their swiftest; he himself (his Wife, his evertrue

"Louisa," accompanying, as her wont was) travels, towards the end, at the rate of "sixty miles a day." He gets

in still in time, finds Konigsberg unscathed. Nay it is even said, the Swedes are extensively falling sick;

having, after a long famine, found infinite "pigs, near Insterburg," in those remote regions, and indulged in

I will not describe the subsequent manoeuvres, which would interest nobody: enough if I say that on the 16th

of January, 1679, it had become of the highest moment for Friedrich Wilhelm to get from Carwe (Village

near Elbing) on the shore of the FRISCHE HAF, where he was, through Konigsberg, to Gilge on the

CURISCHE HAF, where the Swedes are,in a minimum of time. Distance, as the crow flies, is about a

hundred miles; road, which skirts the two HAFS [Pauli, v. 215222; Stenzel, ii. 392397.] (wide shallow

WASHES, as we should name them), is of rough quality, and naturally circuitous. It is ringing frost today,

and for days back:Friedrich Wilhelm hastily gathers all the sledges, all the horses of the district; mounts

some four thousand men in sledges; starts, with the speed of light, in that fashion. Scours along all day, and

after the intervening bit of land, again along; awakening the icebound silences. Gloomy Frische Haf, wrapt

Chapter XVIII. FRIEDRICH WILHELM, THE GREAT KURFURST, ELEVENTH OF THE SERIES. 137

in its Winter cloudcoverlids, with its wastes of tumbled sand, its poor frost bound fishinghamlets,

pinehillocks,desolatelooking, stern as Greenland or more so, says Busching, who travelled there in

wintertime, [Busching's Beitrage (Halle, 1789), vi. 160.]hears unexpected human noises, and huge

grinding and trampling; the four thousand, in long fleet of sledges, scouring across it, in that manner. All day

they rush along,out of the rimy hazes of morning into the olivecolored clouds of evening again,with

huge loudgrinding rumble;and do arrive in time at Gilge. A notable streak of things, shooting across

those frozen solitudes, in the NewYear, 1679;little short of Karl Gustav's feat, which we heard of, in the

other or Danish end of the Baltic, twenty years ago, when he took Islands without ships.

This Second Exploitsuggested or not by that prior one of Karl Gustav on the iceis still a thing to be

remembered by Hohenzollerns and Prussians. The Swedes were beaten here, on Friedrich Wilhelm's rapid

arrival; were driven into disastrous rapid retreat Northward; which they executed, in hunger and cold;

fighting continually, like Northern bears, under the grim sky; Friedrich Wilhelm sticking to their

skirts,holding by their tail, like an angry bearward with steel whip in his hand. A thing which, on the

small scale, reminds one of Napoleon's experiences. Not till Napoleon's huge fightingflight, a hundred and

thirty four years after, did I read of such a transaction in those parts. The Swedish invasion of Preussen has

And this, then, is the end of Sweden, and its bad neighborhood on these shores, where it has tyrannously sat

on our skirts so long? Swedish Pommern the Elector already had: last year, coming towards it ever since the

Exploit of Fehrbellin, he had invaded Swedish Pommern; had besieged and taken Stettin, nay Stralsund too,

where Wallenstein had failed;cleared Pommern altogether of its Swedish guests. Who had tried next in

Preussen, with what luck we see. Of Swedish Pommern the Elector might now say: "Surely it is mine; again

mine, as it long was; well won a second time, since the first would not do!" But no:Louis XIV. proved a

gentleman to his Swedes. Louis, now that the Peace of Nimwegen had come, and only the Elector of

Brandenburg was still in harness, said steadily, though anxious enough to keep well with the Elector: "They

are my allies, these Swedes; it was on my bidding they invaded you: can I leave them in such a pass? It must

not be!" So Pommern had to be given back. A miss which was infinitely grievous to Friedrich Wilhelm. The

Another miss which he had to put up with, in spite of his rights, and his good services, was that of the

Silesian Duchies. The HeritageFraternity with Liegnitz had at length, in 1675, come to fruit. The last Duke

of Liegnitz was dead: Duchies of Liegnitz, of Brieg, Wohlau, are Brandenburg's, if there were right done! But

Kaiser Leopold in the scarlet stockings will not hear of HeritageFraternity. "Nonsense!" answers Kaiser

Leopold: "A thing suppressed at once, ages ago; by Imperial power: flat ZERO of a thing at this time;and

you, I again bid you, return me your Papers upon it!" This latter act of duty Friedrich Wilhelm would not do;

but continued insisting. [Pauli, v. 321.] "Jagerndorf at least, O Kaiser of the world," said he; "Jagerndorf,

there is no color for your keeping that!" To which the Kaiser again answers, "Nonsense!"and even falls

upon astonishing schemes about it, as we shall see;but gives nothing. Ducal Preussen is sovereign, Cleve is

at Peace, HinterPommern ours;this Elector has conquered much: but the Silesian Heritages and

VorPommern, and some other things, he will have to do without. Louis XIV., it is thought, once offered to

His married and domestic life is very fine and human; especially with that OranienNassau Princess, who

was his first Wife (16461667); Princess Louisa of NassauOrange; Aunt to our own Dutch William, King

William III., in time coming. An excellent wise Princess; from whom came the Orange Heritages, which

afterwards proved difficult to settle:Orange was at last exchanged for the small Principality of Neufchatel

in Switzerland, which is Prussia's ever since. "Oranienburg (ORANGEBURG)," a Royal Countryhouse,

still standing, some twenty miles northwards from Berlin, was this Louisa's place: she had trimmed it up into

a little jewel, of the Dutch type,potherb gardens, training schools for young girls, and the like;a

favorite abode of hers, when she was at liberty for recreation. But her life was busy and earnest: she was

Chapter XVIII. FRIEDRICH WILHELM, THE GREAT KURFURST, ELEVENTH OF THE SERIES. 138

helpmate, not in name only, to an everbusy man. They were married young; a marriage of love withal.

Young Friedrich Wilhelm's courtship, wedding in Holland; the honest trustful walk and conversation of the

two Sovereign Spouses, their journeyings together, their mutual hopes, fears and manifold vicissitudes; till

Death, with stern beauty, shut it in: all is human, true and wholesome in it; interesting to look upon, and

Not but that he had his troubles with his womankind. Even with this his first Wife, whom he loved truly, and

who truly loved him, there were scenes; the Lady having a judgment of her own about everything that passed,

and the Man being choleric withal. Sometimes, I have heard, "he would dash his hat at her feet," saying

symbolically, "Govern you, then, Madam! Not the KurfurstHat; a Coif is my wear, it seems!" [Forster,

Friedrich Wilhelm I. Konig von Preussen (Potsdam, 1834), i. 177.] Yet her judgment was good; and he liked

to have it on the weightiest things, though her powers of silence might halt now and then. He has been

known, on occasion, to run from his PrivyCouncil to her apartment, while a complex matter was debating,

to ask her opinion, hers too, before it was decided. Excellent Louisa; Princess full of beautiful piety,

goodsense and affection; a touch of the NassauHeroic in her. At the moment of her death, it is said, when

speech had fled, he felt, from her hand which lay in his, three slight, slight pressures: "Farewell!" thrice

mutely spoken in that manner,not easy to forget in this world. [Wegfuhrer, Leben der Kurfurstin Luise

His second Wife, Dorothea,who planted the Lindens in Berlin, and did other husbandries, of whom we

have heard, fell far short of Louisa in many things; but not in tendency to advise, to remonstrate, and

plaintively reflect on the finished and unalterable. Dreadfully thrifty lady, moreover; did much in dairy

produce, farming of townrates, provisiontaxes: not to speak again of that Tavern she was thought to have

in Berlin, and to draw custom to in an oblique manner! What scenes she had with Friedrich her stepson, we

have seen. "Ah, I have not my Louisa now; to whom now shall I run for advice or help!" would the poor

He had some trouble, considerable trouble now and then, with mutinous spirits in Preussen; men standing on

antique Prussian franchises and parchments; refusing to see that the same were now antiquated, incompatible,

not to say impossible, as the new Sovereign alleged; and carrying themselves very stiffly at times. But the

Hohenzollerns had been used to such things; a Hohenzollern like this one would evidently take his measures,

soft but strong, and ever stronger to the needful pitch, with mutinous spirits. One Burgermeister of

Konigsberg, after much stroking on the back, was at length seized in open Hall, by Electoral writ,soldiers

having first gently barricaded the principal streets, and brought cannon to bear upon them. This

Burgermeister, seized in such brief way, lay prisoner for life; refusing to ask his liberty, though it was thought

he might have had it on asking. [Horn, Das Leben Friedrich Wilhelms des Grossen (Berlin, 1814), p. 68.]

Another gentleman, a Baron von Kalkstein, of old TeutschBitter kin, of very high ways, in the Provincial

Estates (STANDE) and elsewhere, got into lofty almost solitary opposition, and at length into mutiny proper,

against the new "NonPolish SOVEREIGN," and flatly refused to do homage at his accession in that new

capacity. [Supra, pp. 383, et seqq.] Refused, Kalkstein did, for his share; fled to Warsaw; and very fiercely, in

a loud manner, carried on his mutinies in the Diets and CourtConclaves there; his plea being, or plea for the

time, "Poland is our liege lord [which it was not always], and we cannot be transferred to you, except by our

consent asked and given," which too had been a little neglected on the former occasion of transfer. So that the

Great Elector knew not what to do with Kalkstein; and at length (as the case was pressing) had him

kidnapped by his Ambassador at Warsaw; had him "rolled into a carpet" there, and carried swiftly in the

Ambassador's coach, in the form of luggage, over the frontier, into his native Province, there to be judged,

and, in the end (since nothing else would serve him), to have the sentence executed, and his head cut off. For

the case was pressing! [Horn, pp. 8082.]These things, especially this of Kalkstein, with a boisterous

Polish Diet and parliamentary eloquence in the rear of him, gave rise to criticism; and required management

Chapter XVIII. FRIEDRICH WILHELM, THE GREAT KURFURST, ELEVENTH OF THE SERIES. 139

Of all his Ancestors, our little Fritz, when he grew big, admired this oue. A man made like himself in many

points. He seems really to have loved and honored this one. In the year 1750 there had been a new Cathedral

got finished at Berlin; the ancestral bones had to be shifted over from the vaults of the old one,the

buryingplace ever since Joachim II., that Joachim who drew his sword on Alba. "King Friedrich, with some

attendants, witnessed the operation, January, 1750. When the Great Kurfurst's coffin came, he made them

open it; gazed in silence on the features for some time, which were perfectly recognizable; laid his hand on

the hand long dead, and said, 'Messieurs, celuici a fait de grandes choses (This one did a great work)!'"

He died 29th April, 1688;looking with intense interest upon Dutch William's preparations to produce a

Glorious Revolution in this Island; being always of an ardent Protestant feeling, and a sincerely religious

man. Friedrich, CrownPrince, age then thirtyone, and already married a second time, was of course left

Chief Heir;who, as we see, has not declined the Kingship, when a chance for it offered. There were four

Halfbrothers of Friedrich, too, who got apanages, appointments. They had at one time confidently looked

for much more, their Mother being busy; but were obliged to be content, and conform to the GERA BOND

and fundamental Laws of the Country. They are entitled Margraves; two of whom left children, Margraves of

BrandenburgSchwedt, HEERMEISTERS (Head of the MaltaKnighthood) at Sonnenburg, Statthalters in

Magdeburg, or I know not what; whose names turn up confusedly in the Prussian Books; and, except as

temporary genealogical puzzles, are not of much moment to the Foreign reader. Happily there is nothing else

in the way of Princes of the Blood, in our little Friedrich's time; and happily what concern he had with these,

We said the Great Elector never could work his Silesian Duchies out of Kaiser Leopold's grip: to all his

urgencies the little Kaiser in red stockings answered only in evasions, refusals; and would quit nothing. We

noticed also what quarrels the young Electoral Prince, Friedrich, afterwards King, had got into with his

Stepmother; suddenly feeling poisoned after dinner, running to his Aunt at Cassel, coming back on treaty,

and the like. These are two facts which the reader knows: and out of these two grew a third, which it is fit he

In his last years, the Great Elector, worn out with labor, and harassed with such domestic troubles over and

above, had evidently fallen much under his Wife's management; cutting out large apanages (clear against the

GERA BOND) for her children;longing probably for quiet in his family at any price. As to the poor young

Prince, negotiated back from Cassel, he lived remote, and had fallen into open disfavor,with a very ill

effect upon his funds, for one thing. His father kept him somewhat tight on the moneyside, it is alleged; and

he had rather a turn for spending money handsomely. He was also in some alarm about the proposed

apanages to his Halfbrothers, the Margraves above mentioned, of which there were rumors going.

Now in these circumstances the Austrian Court, who at this time (1685) greatly needed the Elector's help

against Turks and others, and found him very urgent about these Silesian Duchies of his, fell upon what I

must call a very extraordinary shift for getting rid of the Silesian question. "Serene Highness," said they, by

their Ambassador at Berlin, "to end these troublesome talks, and to liquidate all claims, admissible and

inadmissible, about Silesia, the Imperial Majesty will give you an actual bit of Territory, valuable, though not

so large as you expected!" The Elector listens with both ears: What Territory, then? The "Circle of

Schwiebus," hanging on the northwestern edge of Silesia, contiguous to the Elector's own Dominions in these

FrankfurtonOder regions: this the generous Imperial Majesty proposes to give in feesimple to Friedrich

Wilhelm, and so to end the matter. Truly a most small patch of Territory in comparison; not bigger than an

English Rutlandshire, to say nothing of soil and climate! But then again it was an actual patch of territory; not

a mere parchment shadow of one: this last was a tempting point to the old harassed Elector. Such friendly

offer they made him, I think, in 1685, at the time they were getting 8,000 of his troops to march against the

Turks for them; a very needful service at the moment. "By the bye, do not march through Silesia, you! Or

march faster!" said the cautious Austrians on this occasion: "Other roads will answer better than Silesia!" said

they. [Pauli, v. 327, 332.] Baron Freytag, their Ambassador at Berlin, had negotiated the affair so far: "Circle

But Baron Freytag had been busy, in the mean while, with the young Prince; secretly offering Sympathy,

counsel, help; of all which the poor Prince stood in need enough. "We will help you in that dangerous matter

of the Apanages," said Freytag; "Help you in all things,"I suppose he would say,"necessary

pocketmoney is not a thing your Highness need want!" And thus Baron Freytag, what is very curious, had

managed to bargain beforehand with the young Prince, That directly on coming to power, he would give up

Schwiebus again, SHOULD the offer of Schwiebus be accepted by Papa. To which effect Baron Freytag held

a signed Bond, duly executed by the young man, before Papa had concluded at all. Which is very curious

Poor old Papa, worn out with troubles, accepted Schwiebus in liquidation of all claims (8th April, 1686), and

a few days after set his men on march against the Turks:and, exactly two months beforehand, on the 8th of

February last, the Prince had signed HIS secret engagement, That Schwiebus should be a mere phantasm to

Papa; that he, the Prince, would restore it on his accession. Both these singular Parcbments, signed, sealed

and done in the due legal form, lay simultaneously in Freytag's hand; and probably enough they exist yet, in

some dusty corner, among the solemn sheepskins of the world. This is literally the plan hit upon by an

Imperial Court, to assist a young Prince in his pecuniary and other difllculties, and get rid of Silesian claims.

Plan actually not unlike that of swindling moneylenders to a young gentleman in difficulties, and of

The Great Elector died two years after; Schwiebus then in his hand. The new Elector, once instructed as to

the nature of the affair, refused to give up Schwiebus; [19th September, 1689 Pauli, vii. 74).] declared the

transaction a swindle:and in fact, for seven years more, retained possession of Schwiebus. But the Austrian

Court insisted, with emphasis, at length with threats (no insuperable pressure from Louis, or the Turks, at this

time); the poor cheated Elector had, at last, to give up Schwiebus, in terms of his promise. [31st December,

1694.] He took act that it had been a surreptitious transaction, palmed upon him while ignorant, and while

without the least authority or power to make such a promise; that he was not bound by it, nor would be,

except on compulsion thus far: and as to binding Brandenburg by it, how could he, at that period of his

history, bind Brandenburg? Brandenburg was not then his to bind, any more than China was.

His Raths had advised Friedrich against giving up Schwiebus in that manner. But his answer is on record: "I

must, I will and shall keep my own word. But my rights on Silesia, which I could not, and do not in these

unjust circumstances, compromise, I leave intact for my posterity to prosecute. If God and the course of

events order it no otherwise than now, we must be content. But if God shall one day send the opportunity,

those that come after me will know what they have to do in such case." [Pauli, vii. 150.] And so Schwiebus

was given up, the Austrians paying back what Brandenburg had laid out in improving it, "250,000 GULDEN

(25,000 pounds);"and the Hand of Power had in this way, finally as it hoped, settled an old troublesome

account of Brandenburg's. Settled the SilesianDuchies Claim, by the temporary Phantasm of a Gift of

Schwiebus. That is literally the LiegnitzJagerndorf case; and the reader is to note it and remember it. For it

will turn up again in History. The Hand of Power is very strong: but a stronger may perhaps get hold of its

The "eventual succession to East Friesland," which had been promised by the Reich, some ten years ago, to

the Great Elector, "for what he had done against the Turks, and what he had suffered from those Swedish

Invasions, in the Common Cause:" this shadow of Succession, the Kaiser now said, should not be haggled

with any more; but be actually realized, and the Imperial sanction to it now given,effect to follow IF the

Friesland Line died out. Let this be some consolation for the loss of Schwiebus and your Silesian Duchies.

Here in Friesland is the ghost of a coming possession; there in Schwiebus was the ghost of a going one:

phantasms you shall not want for; but the Hand of Power parts not with its realities, however come by.

Poor Friedrich led a conspicuous life as Elector and King; but no public feat he did now concerns us like this

private one of Schwiebus. Historically important, this, and requiring to be remembered, while so much else

demands mere oblivion from us. He was a spirited man; did soldierings, fine Siege of Bonn (JulyOctober,

1689), sieges and campaignings, in person,valiant in action, royal especially in patience there,during

that Third War of LouisFourteenth's, the TreatyofRyswick one. All through the Fourth, or Spanish

SuccessionWar, his Prussian TenThousand, led by fit generals, showed eminently what stuff they were

made of. Witness Leopold of AnhaltDessau (still a YOUNG Dessauer) on the field of Blenheim;Leopold

had the right wing there, and saved Prince Eugene who was otherwise blown to pieces, while Marlborough

stormed and conquered on the left. Witness the same Dessauer on the field of Hochstadt the year before,

[Varnhagen von Ense, Biographische Denkmale (Berlin, 1845), ii, 155.] how he managed the retreat there. Or

see him at the Bridge of Cassano (1705); in the Lines of Turin (1706); [ Des weltberuhnden Furstens

Leopoldi von AnhultDessau Leben und Thaten (Leipzig, 1742, anonymous, by one MICHAEL RANFFT),

pp. 53, 61.] wherever hot service was on hand. At Malplaquet, in those murderous inexpugnable French

Lines, bloodiest of obstinate Fights (upwards of thirty thousand left on the ground), the Prussians brag that it

was they who picked their way through a certain peatbog, reckoned impassable; and got fairly in upon the

French wing,to the huge comfort of Marlborough, and little Eugene his brisk comrade on that occasion.

Marlborough knew well the worth of these Prussian troops, and also how to stroke his Majesty into

He was an expensive King, surrounded by cabals, by Wartenbergs male and female, by whirlpools of

intrigues, which, now that the game is over, become very forgettable. But one finds he was a strictly

honorable man; with a certain height and generosity of mind, capable of other nobleness than the upholstery

kind. He had what we may call a hard life of it; did and suffered a good deal in his day and generation, not at

all in a dishonest or unmanful manner. In fact, he is quite recognizably a Hohenzollern,with his back half

broken. Readers recollect that sad accident: how the Nurse, in one of those headlong journeys which his

Father and Mother were always making, let the poor child fall or jerk backward; and spoiled him much, and

indeed was thought to have killed him, by that piece of inattention. He was not yet Hereditary Prince, he was

only second son: but the elder died; and he became Elector, King; and had to go with his spine

distorted,distortion not glaringly conspicuous, though undeniable;and to act the Hohenzollern SO. Nay

who knows but it was this very jerk, and the halfruin of his nervous system,this doubled wish to be

beautiful, and this crooked back capable of being hid or decorated into straightness,that first set the poor

man on thinking of expensive ornamentalities, and Kingships in particular? History will forgive the Nurse in

Perhaps History has dwelt too much on the blind side of this expensive King. Toland, on entering his country,

was struck rather with the signs of good administration everywhere. No sooner have you crossed the Prussian

Border, out of Westphalia, says Toland, than smooth highways, welltilled fields, and a general air of

industry and regularity, are evident: solid milestones, brassbound, and with brass inscription, tell the

traveller where he is; who finds due guidance of fingerposts, too, and the blessing of habitable inns. The

people seem all to be busy, diligently occupied; villages reasonably swept and whitewashed; never was a

better set of Parish Churches; whether newbuilt or old, they are all in brandnew repair. The contrast with

Westphalia is immediate and great; but indeed that was a sad country, to anybody but a patient Toland, who

knows the causes of phenomena. No inns there, except of the naturally savage sort. "A man is very happy if

he finds clean straw to sleep on, without expecting sheets or coverings; let him readily dispense with plates,

forks and napkins, if he can get anything to eat. . . . He must be content to have the cows, swine and poultry

for his fellowlodgers, and to go in at the same passage that the smoke comes out at, for there's no other vent

for it but the door; which makes foreigners commonly say that the people of Westphalia enter their houses by

the chimney." And observe withal: "This is the reason why their beef and hams are so finely prepared and

ripened; for the fireplace being backwards, the smoke must spread over all the house before it gets to the

door; which makes everything within of a russet or sable color, not excepting the hands and faces of the

meaner sort." [ An Account of the Courts of Prussia and Hanover, by Mr. Toland (cited already), p. 4.] If

He founded Universities, this poor King; University of Halle; Royal Academy of Berlin, Leibnitz presiding:

he fought for Protestantism;did what he could for the cause of Cosmos VERSUS Chaos, after his fashion.

The magnificences of his Charlottenburgs, Oranienburgs and numerous Countryhouses make Toland almost

poetic. An affable kindly man withal, though quick of temper; his word sacred to him. A man of many

troubles, and acquainted with "the infinitely little (L'INFINIMENT PETIT)," as his Queen termed it.

Old King Friedrich I. had not much more to do in the world, after witnessing the christening of his Grandson

of like name. His leading forth or sending forth of troops, his multiplex negotiations, solemn ceremonials, sad

changes of ministry, sometimes transacted "with tears," are mostly ended; the everwhirling dustvortex of

intrigues, of which he has been the centre for a fiveandtwenty years, is settling down finally towards

everlasting rest. No more will Marlborough come and dexterously talk him over,proud to "serve as

cupbearer," on occasion, to so high a Kingfor new bodies of men to help in the next campaign: we have

ceased to be a King worthy of such a cupbearer, and Marlborough's campaigns too are all ended.

Much is ended. They are doing the sorrowful Treaty of Utrecht; Louis XIV. himself is ending; mournfully

shrunk into the corner, with his Missal and his Maintenon; looking back with just horror on Europe four

times set ablaze for the sake of one poor mortal in big periwig, to no purpose. Lucky if perhaps Missalwork,

orthodox litanies, and even Protestant Dragonnades, can have virtue to wipe out such a score against a man!

Unhappy Louis: the sunbright gold has become dim as copper; we rose in storms, and we are setting in

watery clouds. The Kaiser himself (Karl VI., Leopold's Son, Joseph I.'s younger Brother) will have to

The English, always a wonderful Nation, fought and subsidied from side to side of Europe for this

SpanishSuceession business; fought ten years, such fighting as they never did before or since, under "John

Duke of Marlborough," who, as is well known, "beat the French thorough and thorough." French entirely

beaten at last, not without heroic difficulty and as noble talent as was ever shown in diplomacy and war, are

ready to do your will in all things; in this of giving up Spain, among others:whereupon the English turn

round, with a sudden new thought, "No, we will not have our WILL done; it shall be the other way, the way it

WAS,now that we bethink ourselves, after all this fighting for our will!" And make Peace on those terms,

as if no war had been; and accuse the great Marlborough of many things, of theft for one. A wonderful

People; and in their Continental Politics (which indeed consist chiefly of Subsidies) thrice wonderful. So the

Treaty of Utrecht is transacting itself; which that of Rastadt, on the part of Kaiser and Empire, unable to get

on without Subsidies, will have to follow: and after such quantities of powder burnt, and courageous lives

Old Friedrich's Ambassadors are present at Utrecht, jangling and pleading among the rest; at Berlin too the

despatch of business goes lumbering on; but what thing, in the shape of business, at Utrecht or at Berlin, is of

much importance to the old man? Seems as if Enrope itself were waxing dim, and sinking to stupid

sleep,as we, in our poor royal person, full surely are. A Crown has been achieved, and diamond buttons

worth 1,500 pounds apiece; but what is a Crown, and what are buttons, after all?I suppose the tattle and

SINGERIES of little Wilhelmina, whom he would spend whole days with; this and occasional visits to a

young Fritzchen's cradle, who is thriving moderately, and will speak and do aperies one day,are his main

solacements in the days that are passing. Much of this Friedrich's life has gone off like the smoke of

fireworks, has faded sorrowfully, and proved phantasmal. Here is an old Autograph Note, written by him at

the side of that Cradle, and touching on a slight event there; which, as it connects two venerable

Correspondents and their Seventeenth Century with a grand Phenomenon of the Eighteenth, we will insert

here. The old King addresses his older Motherinlaw, famed Electress Sophie of Hanover, in these terms

"Ew. Churf. Durchlaucht werden sich zweifelsohne mit uns erfreuen, dass der kleine Printz (PRINZ)

Fritz nuhnmero (NUNMEHR) 6 Zehne (ZAHNE) hat und ohne die geringste incommoditet (TAT). Daraus

kann man auch die PREDESTINATION sehen, dass alle seine Bruder haben daran sterben mussen, dieser

aber bekommt sie ohne Muhe wie seine Schwester. Gott erhalte ihn uns noch lange zum trohst (TROST), in

"Your Electoral Serenity will doubtless rejoice with us that the little Prince Fritz has now got his sixth

tooth without the least INCOMMODITE. And therein we may trace a predestination, inasmuch as his

Brothers died of teething [ Not of cannonsound and weight of headgear, then, your Majesty thinks? That

were a painful thought? ]; and this one, as his Sister [WILHELMINA] did, gets them [THE TEETH] without

trouble. God preserve him long for a comfort to us:to whose protection I commit DIESELBE [ Your

One of Friedrich Rex's worst adventures was his latest; commenced some five or six years ago (1708), and

now not far from terminating. He was a Widower, of weakly constitution, towards fifty: his beautiful

ingenious "Serena," with all her Theologies, pinchofsnuff Coronations and other earthly troubles, was

dead; and the task of continuing the Hohenzollern progeny, given over to Friedrich Wilhelm the Prince

Royal, was thought to be in good hands. Majesty Friedrich with the weak back had retired, in 1708, to

Karlsbad, to rest from his cares; to take the salutary waters, and recruit his weak nerves a little. Here, in the

course of confidential promenadings, it was hinted, it was represented to him by some pickthank of a courtier,

That the task of continuing the Hohenzollern progeny did not seem to prosper in the present good hands; that

Sophie Dorothee, Princess Royal, had already borne two royal infants which had speedily died: that in fact it

was to be gathered from the medical men, if not from their words, then from their looks and cautious

innuendoes, that Sophie Dorothee, Princess Royal, would never produce a Prince or even Princess that would

live; which task, therefore, did now again seem to devolve upon his Majesty, if his Majesty had not

insuperable objections? Majesty had no insuperable objections; old Majesty listened to the flattering tale;

By due industry, a Princess was fixed upon for Bride, Princess Sophie Louisa of MecklenburgSchwerin, age

now twentyfour: she was got as Wife, and came home to Berlin in all pomp;but good came not with her

to anybody there. Not only did she bring the poor old man no children, which was a fault to be overlooked,

considering Sophie Dorothee's success; but she brought a querulous, weak and selfsufficient female humor;

found his religion heterodox,he being Calvinist, and perhaps even laxCalvinist, she Lutheran as the

Prussian Nation is, and strict to the bone:heterodox wholly, to the length of no salvation possible; and

times rose on the Berlin Court such as had never been seen before! "No salvation possible, says my Dearest?

Hah! And an innocent CourtMask or Dancing Soiree is criminal in the sight of God and of the Queen? And

we are children of wrath wholly, and a frivolous generation; and the Queen will see us all!"

The end was, his Majesty, through sad solitary days and nights, repented bitterly that he had wedded such a

SheDominic; grew quite estranged from her; the poor SheDominic giving him due return in her

way,namely, living altogether in her own apartments, upon orthodoxy, jealousy and other bad

nourishment. Till at length she went quite mad; and, except the due medical and other attendants, nobody saw

her, or spoke of her, at Berlin. Was this a cheering issue of such an adventure to the poor old expensive

Gentleman? He endeavored to digest in silence the bitter morsel he had cooked for himself; but reflected

In this way stands that matter in the Schloss of Berlin, when little Friedrich, who will one day be called the

Great, is born. Habits of the expensive King, hours of rising, modes of dressing, and so forth, are to be found

in Pollnitz; [Pollnitz, Memoiren zur Lebens und RegierungsGeschichte der Vier letzten Regenten des

Preussischen Staats (Berlin, 1791). A vague, inexact, but not quite uninstructive or uninteresting Book:

Printed also in FRENCH, which was the Original, same place and time.] but we charitably omit them all.

Even from foolish Pollnitz a good eye will gather, what was above intimated, that this feeblebacked,

heavyladen old King was of humane and just disposition; had dignity in his demeanor; had reticence,

patience; and, though hottempered like all the Hohenzollerns, that he bore himself like a perfect gentleman

for one thing; and tottered along his highlying lonesome road not in an unmanful manner at all. Had not his

nerves been damaged by that fall in infancy, who knows but we might have had something else to read of him

His last scene, of date February, 1713, is the tragical ultimatum of that fine Karlsbad adventure of the Second

marriage,Third marriage, in fact, though the First, anterior to "Serena," is apt to be forgotten, having lasted

short while, and produced only a Daughter, not memorable except by accident. This Third marriage, which

had brought so many sorrows to him, proved at length the death of the old man. For he sat one morning, in

the chill February days of the Year 1713, in his Apartment, as usual; weak of nerves, but thinking no special

evil; when, suddenly with huge jingle, the glass door of his room went to sherds; and there rushed

inbleeding and dishevelled, the fatal "White Lady" (WEISSE FRAU), who is understood to walk that

Schloss at Berlin, and announce Death to the Boyal inhabitants. Majesty had fainted, or was fainting. "Weisse

Frau? Oh no, your Majesty!"not that; but indeed something almost worse.Mad Queen, in her

Apartments, had been seized, that day, when half or quarter dressed; with unusual orthodoxy or unusual

jealousy. Watching her opportunity, she had whisked into the corridor, in extreme deshabille; and gone, like

the wild roe, towards Majesty's Suite of Rooms; through Majesty's glass door, like a catapult; and emerged as

we saw,in petticoat and shift, with hair streaming, eyes glittering, arms cut, and the other sad trimmings. O

Heaven, who could laugh? There are tears due to Kings and to all men. It was deep misery; deep enough

"SIN and misery," as Calvin well says, on the one side and the other! The poor old King was carried to bed;

and never rose again, but died in a few days. The date of the WEISSE FRAU'S death, one might have hoped,

was not distant either; but she lasted, in her sad state, for above twenty years coming.

Old King Friedrich's deathday was 25th February, 1713; the unconscious little Grandson being then in his

Fourteenth month. To whom, after this long, voyage round the world, we now gladly return.

* By way of reinforcement to any recollection the reader may have of these Twelve Hohenzollern Kurfursts, I

FRIEDRICH, second son of Kurfurst Albert Achilles, younger Brother of Johannes Cicero, got

CULMBACH: Anspach first, then Baireuth on the death of a younger Brother. Born 1460; got Anspach

1486; Baireuth 1495; followed Max in his VENETIAN CAMPAIGN, 1508; fell IMBECILE 1515; died

1536. Had a Polish Wife; from whom came interests in Hungary as well as Poland to his children. Friedrich

2. GEORGE THE PIOUS, who got ANSPACH (1515): born 1484; died 1543; got Jagerndorf, by purchase,

from his Mother's Hungarian connection, 1524. Protestant declared, 1528; and makes honorable figure in the

GEORGE FRIEDRICH; born 1539; went to administer Preussen when Cousin became incompetent; died

1603. Heir to his Father in ANSPACH and JAGERNDORF; also to his Cousin Alcibiades in BAIREUTH.

Had been left a minor (boy of 4, as the reader sees); Alcibiades his Guardian for a little while: from which

came great difficulties, and unjust ruin would have come, had not Kurfurst Joachim I. been helpful and

vigorous in his behalf. George Friedrich got at length most of his Territories into hand: Anspach and Baireuth

unimpaired, Jagerndorf too, except that Ratibor and Oppeln were much eaten into by the Imperial chicaneries

in that quarter. Died 1603, without children;upon which his Territories all reverted to the main

Brandenburg line, namely, to Johann George Seventh Kurfurst, or his representatives, according to the GERA

3. ALBERT; born 1490; Hochmeister of the Teutsch Ritters, 1511; declares himself Protestant, and Duke of

One Son, ALBERT FRIEDRICH: born 1553; follows as Duke 1568, declared MELANCHOLIC 1573;

died 1618. His Cousin George Friedrich administered for him till 1603; after which Joachim Friedrich; and

then, lastly, Joachim Friedrich's Son, Johann Sigismund the Ninth Kurfurst. Had married the Heiress of Cleve

(whence came a celebrated Cleve Controversy in aftertimes). No son; a good many daughters; eldest of

whom was married to Kurfurst Johann Sigismund; from her came the controverted Cleve Property.

Kurfurst Johann George settled Baireuth and Anspach on Two of his Younger Sons, who are Founders of the

"Younger Culmbach Line" (SPLIT Line or Pair of LINES). Jagerndorf the new Kurfurst, Joachim Friedrich,

kept; settled it on one of his younger sons. Here are the two new Founders in Baireuth and Anspach, and

(1.) CHRISTIAN, second son of Kurfurst Johann George: born 1581; got Baireuth 1603; died 1655. A

distinguished Governor in his sphere. Had two sons; the elder died before him, but left a son, Christian Ernst;

who (2.) succeeded, and (3.) whose son, George Wilhelm: 1644, 1655, 1712; 1678, 1712, 1726 (are BIRTH,

Upon which the posterity of Christian's second son succeeded. Second son of Christian notable to us in

two little ways: FIRST, That HE, George Albert, Margraf of CULMbach, is the inscrutable "Marquis de

LULENbach" of Bromley's Letters (antea p. 184, let the Commentators take comfort!); SECOND and better,

That from him came our little Wilhelmina's Husband,as will be afterwards explained. It was his grandson

(4.) that succeeded in Baireuth, George Friedrich Karl (1688, 1726, 1735); Father of Wilhelmina's Husband.

After whom (5.) his Son Friedrich (1711, 1735, 1763), Wilhelmina's Husband; who leaving (1763) nothing

hut a daughter, Baireuth fell to Anspach, 1769, after an old Uncle (6.), childless, had also died. SIX Baireuth

(1.) JOACHIM ERNST, third son of Kurfurst Johann George: born 1583; got Anspach 1603; died 1625. Had

military tendencies, experiences; did not thrive as Captain of the EVANGELICAL UNION (16191620)

when WINTERKING came up and THIRTYYEARS WAR along with him. Left two sons; elder of whom,

(2.) Friedrich, nominally Sovereign, age still only eighteen, fell in the Battle of Nordlingen (worst battle of

the ThirtyYears War, 1634); and the younger of whom, (3.) Albert, succeeded (1620, 1634, 1667), and his

son, (4.) Johann Friedrich (1654, 1667, 1686); and (5, 6, 7.) no fewer than three grandsons,children

mostly, though entitled "sovereign"in a PARALLEL way (Christian Albert, 1675, 1686, 1692; George

Friedrich, 1678, 1692, 1703; Wilhelm Friedrich, 1685, 1703, 1723). Two little points notable here also, and

FIRST, That one of the grandDAUGHTERS, fullsister of the last of these three parallel figures,

halfsister of the two former, wasQueen Caroline, George II.'s wife, who has still some fame with us.

SECOND, That the youngest of said three grandsons, Queen Caroline's fullbrother, left a son then

minor, who became major, (8.) and wedded a Sister of our dear little Wilhelmina's, of whom we shall hear

(Karl Wilhelm Friedrich, 1712, 1723, 1757); unmomentous Margraf otherwise. His and her one son it was,

(9.) Christian Friedrich Karl Alexander (1736, 1757, 1806), who inherited Baireuth, inherited Actress

Clairon, Lady Craven, and at Hammersmith (House once Bubb Doddington's, if that has any charm) ended

Of Friedrich's childhood, there is not, after all our reading, much that it would interest the English public to

hear tell of. Perhaps not much of knowable that deserves anywhere to be known. Books on it, expressly

handling it, and Books on Friedrich Wilhelm's Court and History, of which it is always a main element, are

not wanting: but they are mainly of the sad sort which, with pain and difficulty, teach us nothing, Books done

by pedants and tenebrific persons, under the name of men; dwelling not on things, but, at endless length, on

the outer husks of things: of unparalleled confusion, too;not so much as an Index granted you; to the poor

halfpeck of cinders, hidden in these wagonloads of ashes, no sieve allowed! Books tending really to fill the

mind with mere dustwhirlwinds,if the mind did not straightway blow them out again; which it does. Of

these let us say nothing. Seldom had so curious a Phenomenon worse treatment from the Dryasdust, species.

Among these Books, touching on Friedrich's childhood, and treating of his Father's Court, there is hardly

above one that we can characterize as fairly human: the Book written by his little Sister Wilhelmina, when

she grew to size and knowledge of good and evil; [ Memoires de Frederique Sophie Wilhelmine de Prusse,

Margrave de Bareith (Brunswick, Paris et Londres, l8l2), 2 vols. 8vo.]and this, of what flighty uncertain

nature it is, the world partly knows. A human Book, however, not a pedant one: there is a most shrill female

soul busy with intense earnestness here; looking, and teaching us to look. We find it a VERACIOUS Book,

done with heart, and from eyesight and insight; of a veracity deeper than the superficial sort. It is full of

mistakes, indeed; and exaggerates dreadfully, in its shrill female way; but is above intending to deceive:

deduct the due subtrahend, say perhaps twentyfive per cent, or in extreme cases as high as

seventyfive,you will get some human image of credible actualities from Wilhelmina. Practically she is

our one resource on this matter. Of the strange King Friedrich Wilhelm and his strange Court, with such an

HeirApparent growing up in it, there is no real light to be had, except what Wilhelmina gives,or kindles

dark Books of others into giving. For that, too, on long study, is the result of her, here and there. With so

flickery a waxtaper held over Friedrich's childhood,and the other dirty tallowdips all going out in

We perceive the little creature has got much from Nature; not the big arena only, but fine inward gifts, for he

is wellborn in more senses than one;and that in the breeding of him there are two elements noticeable,

widely diverse: the French and the German. This is perhaps the chief peculiarity; best worth laying hold of,

His nurses, governesses, simultaneous and successive, mostly of French breed, are duly set down in the

Prussian Books, and held in mind as a point of duty by Prussian men; but, in foreign parts, cannot be

considered otherwise than as a group, and merely with generic features. He had a Frau von Kamecke for

Head Governess, the lady whom Wilhelmina, in her famed Memoires, always writes KAMKEN; and of

whom, except the floating gossip found in that Book, there is nothing to be remembered. Under her, as

practical superintendent, SOUSGOUVERNANTE and quasimother, was the Dame de Roucoulles, a more

important person for us here. Dame de Roucoulles, once de Montbail, the same respectable EdictofNantes

French lady who, fiveandtwenty years ago, had taken similar charge of Friedrich Wilhelm; a fact that

speaks well for the character of her performance in that office. She had done her first edition of a Prussian

Prince in a satisfactory manner; and not without difficult accidents and singularities, as we have heard: the

like of which were spared her in this her second edition (so we may call it); a second and, in all manner of

ways, an improved one. The young Fritz swallowed no shoebuckles; did not leap out of window, hanging on

by the hands; nor achieve anything of turbulent, or otherwise memorable, in his infantine history; the course

of which was in general smooth, and runs, happily for it, below the ken of rumor. The Boy, it is said, and is

easily credible, was of extraordinary vivacity; quick in apprehending all things, and gracefully relating

himself to them. One of the prettiest, vividest little boys; with eyes, with mind and ways, of uncommon

brilliancy;only he takes less to soldiering than the paternal heart could wish; and appears to find other

things in the world fully as notable as loud drums, and stiff men drawn up in rows. Moreover, he is apt to be a

little unhealthy now and then, and requires care from his nurses, over whom the judicious Roucoulles has to

Of this respectable Madame de Roucoulles I have read, at least seven times, what the Prussian Books say of

her by way of Biography; but it is always given in their dull tombstone style; it has moreover next to no

importance; and I,alas, I do not yet too well remember it! She was from Normandy; of gentle blood, never

very rich; Protestant, in the EdictofNantes time; and had to fly her country, a young widow, with daughter

and motherinlaw hanging on her; the whole of them almost penniless. However, she was kindly received at

the Court of Berlin, as usual in that sad case; and got some practical help towards living in her new country.

Queen Sophie Charlotte had liked her society; and finding her of prudent intelligent turn, and with the style

of manners suitable, had given her Friedrich Wilhelm to take charge of. She was at that time Madame de

Montbail; widow, as we said: she afterwards wedded Roucoulles, a refugee gentleman of her own Nation,

who had gone into the Prussian Army, as was common for the like of him: She had again become a widow,

Madame de Roucoulles this time, with her daughter Montbail still about her, when, by the grateful good

sense of Friedrich Wilhelm, she was again intrusted as we see;and so had the honor of governessing

Frederick the Great for the first seven years of his life. Respectable lady, she oversaw his nurses,

papboats,"beersoup and bread," he himself tells us once, was his main diet in boyhood,beersoups,

dressfrocks, first attempts at walking; and then also his little bits of intellectualities, moralities; his

incipiencies of speech, demeanor, and spiritual development; and did her function very honestly, there is no

Wilhelmina mentions her, at a subsequent period; and we have a glimpse of this same Roucoulles, gliding

about among the royal youngfolk, "with only one tooth left" (figuratively speaking), and somewhat given to

tattle, in Princess Wilhelmina's opinion. Grown very old now, poor lady; and the dreadfulest bore, when she

gets upon Hanover and her experiences, and Queen Sophie Charlotte's, in that stupendously magnificent court

under Gentleman Ernst. Shun that topic, if you love your peace of mind! [ Memoires (above cited).]She

did certainly superintend the Boy Fritzkin for his first seven years; that is a glory that cannot be taken from

her. And her pupil, too, we agreeably perceive, was always grateful for her services in that capacity. Once a

week, if he were in Berlin, during his youthful time, he was sure to appear at the Roucoulles Soiree, and say

and look various pleasant things to his "CHER MAMAN (dear Mamma)," as he used to call her, and to the

respectable small parts she had. Not to speak of other more substantial services, which also were not wanting.

Roucoulles and the other female souls, mainly French, among whom the incipient Fritz now was, appear to

have done their part as well as could be looked for. Respectable EdictofNantes French ladies, with high

headgear, wide hoops; a clear, correct, but somewhat barren and meagre species, tightlaced and

highfrizzled in mind and body. It is not a very fertile element for a young soul: not very much of silent piety

in it; and perhaps of vocal piety more than enough in proportion. An element founding on what they call

"enlightened Protestantism," "freedom of thought," and the like, which is apt to become loquacious, and too

conscious of itself; terming, on the whole, rather to contempt of the false, than to deep or very effective

But it is, in some important senses, a clear and pure element withal. At lowest, there are no conscious

semifalsities, or volunteer hypocrisies, taught the poor Boy; honor, clearness, truth of word at least; a

decorous dignified bearing; various thin good things, are honestly inculcated and exemplified; nor is any bad,

ungraceful or suspicious thing permitted there, if recognized for such. It might have been a worse element;

and we must be thankful for it. Friedrich, through life, carries deep traces of this FrenchProtestant

incipiency: a very big widebranching royal tree, in the end; but as small and flexible a seedling once as any

The good old Dame de Roucoulles just lived to witness his accession; on which grand juncture and

afterwards, as he had done before, he continued to express, in graceful and useful ways, his gratitude and

honest affection to her and hers. Tea services, presents in cutglass and other kinds, with Letters that were

still more precious to the old Lady, had come always at due intervals:, and one of his earliest kingly gifts was

that of some suitable small pension for Montbail, the elderly daughter of this poor old Roucoulles, [Preuss,

Friedrich der Grosse, eine Lebensgeschichte (5 vols. Berlin, 18321834), v. (Urkundenbuch, p. 4). OEuvres

de Frederic (same Preuss's Edition, Berlin, 18461850, xvi. 184, 191. The Herr Doctor J. D. E. Preuss,

"Historiographer of Brandenburg," devoted wholly to the study of Friedrich for fiveandtwenty years past,

and for above a dozen years busily engaged in editing the OEuvres de Frederic, has, besides that

Lebensgeschichte just cited, three or four smaller Books, of indistinctly different titles, on the same subject. A

meritoriously exact man; acquainted with the outer details of Friedrich's Biography (had he any way of

arranging, organizing or setting them forth) as few men ever were or will be. We shall mean always this

Lebensgeschichte here, when no other title is given: and OEuvres de Frederic shall signify HIS Edition,

unless the contrary be stated.] who was just singing her DIMITTAES as it were, still in a blithe and pious

manner. For she saw now (in 1740) her little nursling grown to be a brilliant man and King; King gone out to

the Wars, too, with all Europe inquiring and wondering what the issue would be. As for her, she closed her

poor old eyes, at this stage of the business; piously, in foreign parts, far from her native Normandy; and did

not see farther what the issue was. Good old Dame, I have, as was observed, read some seven times over

what they call biographical accounts of her; but have seven times (by Heaven's favor, I do partly believe)

mostly forgotten them again; and would not, without cause, inflict on any reader the like sorrow. To

remember one worthy thing, how many thousand unworthy things must a man be able to forget!

From this EdictofMantes enviroument, which taught our young Fritz his first lessons of human

behavior,a polite sharp little Boy, we do hope and understand,he learned also to clothe his bits of

notions, emotions, and garrulous utterabilities, in the French dialect. Learned to speak, and likewise, what is

more important; to THINK, in French; which was otherwise quite domesticated in the Palace, and became his

second mothertongue. Not a bad dialect; yet also none of the best. Very lean and shallow, if very clear and

convenient; leaving much in poor Fritz unuttered, unthought, unpractised, which might otherwise have come

into activity in the course of his life. He learned to read very soon, I presume; but he did not, now or

afterwards, ever learn to spell. He spells indeed dreadfully ILL, at his first appearance on the writing stage, as

we shall see by and by; and he continued, to the last, one of the bad spellers of his day. A circumstance which

From all manner of sources,from inferior valetaille, Prussian Officials, Royal Majesty itself when not in

gala,he learned, not less rootedly, the corrupt Prussian dialect of German; and used the same, all his days,

among his soldiers, native officials, common subjects and wherever it was most convenient; speaking it, and

writing and misspelling it, with great freedom, though always with a certain aversion and undisguised

contempt, which has since brought him blame in some quarters. It is true, the Prussian form of German is but

rude; and probably Friedrich, except sometimes in Luther's Bible, never read any German Book. What, if we

will think of it, could he know of his first mothertongue! German, to this day, is a frightful dialect for the

stupid, the pedant and dullard sort! Only in the hands of the gifted does it become supremely good. It had not

yet been the language of any Goethe, any Lessing; though it stood on the eve of becoming such. It had

already been the language of Luther, of Ulrich Hutten, Friedrich Barbarossa, Charlemagne and others. And

several extremely important things had been said in it, and some pleasant ones even sung in it, from an old

date, in a very appropriate manner,had CrownPrince Friedrich known all that. But he could not

reasonably be expected to know:and the wiser Germans now forgive him for not knowing, and are even

So that, as we said, there are two elements for young Fritz, and highly diverse ones, from both of which he is

to draw nourishment, and assimilate what he can. Besides that EdictofNantes French element, and in

continual contact and contrast with it, which prevails chiefly in the Female Quarters of the Palace,there is

the native German element for young Fritz, of which the centre is Papa, now come to be King, and

powerfully manifesting himself as such. An abrupt peremptory young King; and German to the bone. Along

with whom, companions to him in his social hours, and fellowworkers in his business, are a set of very

rugged German sons of Nature; differing much from the French sons of Art. Baron Grumkow, Leopold

Prince of AnhaltDessau (not yet called the "OLD Dessauer," being under forty yet), General Glasenap,

Colonel Derschau, General Flans; these, and the other nameless Generals and Officials, are a curious

counterpart to the Camases, the Hautcharmoys and Forcades, with their nimble tongues and rapiers; still more

to the Beausobres, Achards, full of ecclesiastical logic, made of Bayle and Calvin kneaded together; and to

the highfrizzled ladies rustling in stiff silk, with the shadow of Versailles and of the Dragonnades alike

Born Hyperboreans these others; rough as hemp, and stout of fibre as hemp; native products of the rigorous

North. Of whom, after all our reading, we know little.O Heaven, they have had long lines of rugged

ancestors, cast in the same rude stalwart mould, and leading their rough life there, of whom we know

absolutely nothing! Dumb all those preceding busy generations; and this of Friedrich Wilhelm is grown

almost dumb. Grim semiarticulate Prussian men; gone all to pipeclay and mustache for us. Strange

blondcomplexioned, not unbeautiful Prussian honorable women, in hoops, brocades, and unintelligible

headgear and hairtowers,ACH GOTT, they too are gone; and their musical talk, in the French or

German language, that also is gone; and the hollow Eternities have swallowed it, as their wont is, in a very

Grumkow, a cunning, greedyhearted, longheaded fellow, of the old Pomeranian Nobility by birth, has a

kind of superficial polish put upon his Hyperboreanisms; he has been in foreign countries, doing legations,

diplomacies, for which, at least for the vulpine parts of which, he has a turn. He writes and speaks articulate

grammatical French; but neither in that, nor in native Pommerish PlattDeutsch, does he show us much,

except the depths of his own greed, of his own astucities and stealthy audacities. Of which we shall hear more

As to the Prince of AnhaltDessau, rugged man, whose very face is the color of gunpowder, he also knows

French, and can even write in it, if he like,having duly had a Tutor of that nation, and strange adventures

with him on the grand tour and elsewhere;but does not much practise writing, when it can be helped. His

children, I have heard, he expressly did not teach to read or write, seeing no benefit in that effeminate art, but

left them to pick it up as they could. His Princess, all rightly ennobled now, whom he would not but marry,

though sent on the grand tour to avoid it,was the daughter of one Fos an Apothecary at Dessau; and is still

a beautiful and prudent kind of woman, who seems to suit him well enough, no worse than if she had been

born a Princess. Much talk has been of her, in princely and other circles; nor is his marriage the only strange

thing Leopold has done. He is a man to keep the world's tongue wagging, not too musically always; though

himself of very unvocal nature. Perhaps the biggest mass of inarticulate human vitality, certainly one of the

biggest, then going about in the world. A man of vast dumb faculty; dumb, but fertile, deep; no end of

ingenuities in the rough head of him:as much motherwit, there, I often guess, as could be found in whole

A man of dreadful impetuosity withal. Set upon his will as the one law of Nature; storming forward with

incontrollable violence: a very whirlwind of a man. He was left a minor; his Mother guardian. Nothing could

prevent him from marrying this Fos the Apothecary's Daughter; no tears nor contrivances of his Mother,

whom he much loved, and who took skilful measures. Fourteen months of travel in Italy; grand tour, with

eligible French Tutor,whom he once drew sword upon, getting some rebuke from him one night in Venice,

and would have killed, had not the man been nimble, at once dexterous and sublime:it availed not. The

first thing he did, on reentering Dessau, with his Tutor, was to call at Apothecary Fos's, and see the

charming Mamsell; to go and see his Mother, wss the second thing. Mot even his grand passion for war could

eradicate Fos: he went to Dutoh William's wars; the wise mother still counselling, who was own aunt to

Dutoh William, and liked the scheme. He besieged Namur; fought and besieged up and down,with

insatiable appetite for fighting and sieging; with great honor, too, and ambitions awakening in

him;campaign after campaign: but along with the flamythundery ideal bride, figuratively called Bellona,

there was always a soft real one, Mamsell Fos of Dessau, to whom he continued constant. The Government of

his Dominions he left cheerfully to his Mother, even when he came of age: "I am for learning War, as the one

right trade; do with all things as you please, Mamma,only not with Mamsell, not with her!"

Readers may figure this scene too, and shudder over it. Some rather handsome male Cousin of Mamsell,

Medical Graduate or whatever he was, had appeared in Dessau:"Seems, to admire Mamsell much; of

course, in a Platonic way," said rumor: "He? Admire?" thinks Leopold;thinks a good deal of it, not in

the philosophic mood. As he was one day passing Fos's, Mamsell and the Medical Graduate are visible,

standing together at the window inside. Pleasantly looking out upon Nature,of course quite casually, say

some Histories with a sneer. In fact, it seems possible this Medical Graduate may have been set to act

shoeing horn; but he had better not. Leopold storms into the House, "Draw, scandalous canaille, and defend

yourself!"And in this, or some such way, a confident tradition says, he killed the poor Medical Graduate

there and then. One tries always to hope not: but Varnhagen is positive, though the other Histories say

nothing of it. God knows. The man was a Prince; no Reichshofrath, SpeyerWetzlar KAMMER, or other

Supreme Court, would much trouble itself, except with formal shakings of the wig, about such a peccadillo.

In fine, it was better for Leopold to marry the Miss Fos; which he actually did (1698, in his twentysecond

year), "with the lefthand,"and then with the right and both hands; having got her properly ennobled

before long, by his splendid military services. She made, as we have hinted, an excellent Wife to him, for the

This is a strange rugged specimen, this inarticulate Leopold; already getting mythic, as we can perceive, to

the polished vocal ages; which mix all manner of fables with the considerable history he has. Readers will see

him turn up again in notable forms. A man hitherto unknown except in his own country; and yet of very

considerable significance to all European countries whatsoever; the fruit of his activities, without his name

attached, being now manifest in all of them. He invented the iron ramrod; he invented the equal step; in fact,

he is the inventor of modern military tactics. Even so, if we knew it: the Soldiery of every civilized country

still receives from this man, on paradefields and battlefields, its word of command; out of his rough head

proceeded the essential of all that the innumerable Drillsergeants, in various languages, daily repeat and

enforce. Such a man is worth some transient glance from his fellowcreatures,especially with a little Fritz

Dessau, we should have said for the English reader's behoof, was and still is a little independent Principality;

about the size of Huntingdonshire, but with woods instead of bogs;revenue of it, at this day, is 60,000

pounds, was perhaps not 20, or even 10,000 in Leopold's first time. It lies some fourscore miles southwest of

Berlin, attainable by posthorses in a day. Leopold, as his Father had done, stood by Prussia as if wholly

native to it. Leopold's Mother was Sister of that fine Louisa, the Great Elector's first Wife; his Sister is

wedded to the Margraf of Schwedt, Friedrich Wilhelm's halfuncle. Lying in such neighborhood, and being

in such affinity to the Prussian House, the Dessauers may be said to have, in late times, their headquarters at

Berlin. Leopold and Leopold's sons, as his father before him had done, without neglecting their Dessau and

Principality, hold by the Prussian Army as their main employment. Not neglecting Dessau either; but going

thither in winter, or on call otherwise; Leopold least of all neglecting it, who neglects nothing that can be

He is General FieldMarshal of the Prussian Armies, the foremost man in warmatters with this new King;

and well worthy to be so. He is inventing, or brooding in the way to invent, a variety of things,"iron

ramrods," for one; a very great improvement on the fragile ineffective wooden implement, say all the Books,

but give no date to it; that is the first thing; and there will be others, likewise undated, but posterior, requiring

mention by and by. Inventing many things;and always well practising what is already invented, and known

for certain. In a word, he is drilling to perfection, with assiduous rigor, the Prussian Infantry to be the wonder

of the world. He has fought with them, too, in a conclusive manner; and is at all times ready for fighting.

He was in Malplaquet with them, if only as volunteer on that occasion. He commanded them in Blenheim

itself; stood, in the right or Eugene wing of that famed Battle of Blenheim, fiercely at bay, when the Austrian

Cavalry had all fled;fiercely volleying, charging, dexterously wheeling and manoeuvring; sticking to his

ground with a mastifflike tenacity,till Marlborough, and victory from the left, relieved him and others. He

was at the Bridge of Cassano; where Eugene and Vendome came to handgrips; where Mirabeau's

Grandfather, COLD'ARGENT, got his sixandthirty wounds, and was "killed" as he used to term it.

[Carlyle's Miscellanies, v. ? Mirabeau.] "The hottest fire I ever saw," said Eugene, who had not seen

Malplaquet at that time. While Cold'Argent sank collapsed upon the Bridge, and the horse charged over

him, and again charged, and beat and were beaten three several times,AnhaltDessau, impatient of such

fiddling hither and thither, swashed into the stream itself with his Prussian Foot: swashed through it,

waistdeep or breastdeep; and might have settled the matter, had not his cartridges got wetted. Old King

Friedrich rebuked him angrily for his impetuosity in this matter, and the sad loss of men.

Then again he was at the Storming of the Lines of Turin,Eugene's feat of 1706, and a most volcanic

business;was the first man that gotover the entrenchment there. Foremost man; face all black with the

smoke of gunpowder, only channelled here and there with rivulets of sweat;not a lovely phenomenon to

the French in the interior! Who still fought like madmen, but were at length driven into heaps, and obliged to

run. A while before they ran, AnhaltDessau, noticing some Captain posted with his company in a likely

situation, stept aside to him for a moment, and asked, "Am I wounded, think you.?No? Then have you

anything to drink?" and deliberately "drank a glass of aquavitae," the judicious Captain carrying a

pocketpistol of that sort, in case of accident; and likewise "eat, with great appetite, a bit of bread from one

of the soldiers' haversacks; saying, He believed the heat of the job was done, and that there was no fear

now!" Des weltberumkten Leopoldi, (Anonymous, by Ranfft, cited above), pp. 4245, 52, 65.]

A man that has been in many wars; in whose rough head, are schemes hatching. Any religion he has is of

Protestant nature; but he has not much,on the doctrinal side, very little. Luther's Hymn, Eine feste Burg ist

unser Gott, he calls "God Almighty's grenadiermarch." On joining battle, he audibly utters, with bared head,

some growl of rugged prayer, far from orthodox at times, but muoh in earnest: that lifting of his hat for

prayer, is his last signal on such occasions. He is very cunning as required, withal; not disdaining the

serpentine method when no other will do. With Friedrich Wilhelm, who is his secondcousin (Mother's

grandnephew, if the reader can count that), he is from of old on the best footing, and contrives to be his

Mentor in many things besides War. Till his quarrel with Grumkow, of which we shall hear, he took the lead

in political advising, too; and had schemes, or was thought to have, of which Queen Sophie was in much

A tall, strongboned, hairy man; with cloudy brows, vigilant swift eyes; has "a bluish tint of skin," says

Wilhelmina, "as if the gunpowder still stuck to him." He wears long mustaches; triangular hat, plume and

other equipments, are of thrifty practical size. Can be polite enough in speech; but hides much of his

meaning, which indeed is mostly inarticulate, and not always joyful to the bystander. He plays rough

pranks, too, on occasion; and has a big horselaugh in him, where there is a fop to be roasted, or the like. We

Remarkable men, many of those old Prussian soldiers: of whom one wishes, to no purpose, that there had

more knowledge been attainable. But the Books are silent; no painter, no genial seeingman to paint with his

pen, was there. Grim hirsute Hyperborean figures, they pass mostly mute before us: burly, surly; in

mustaches, in dim uncertain garniture, of which the buffbelts and the steel, are alone conspicuous. Growling

in guttural Teutsoh what little articulate meaning they had: spending, of the inarticulate, a proportion in

games, of chance, probably too in drinking beer; yet having an immense overplus which they do not so spend,

but endeavor to utter in such working as there may be. So have the Hyperboreans lived from of old. From the

times of Tacitus and Pytheas, not to speak of Odin and Japhet, what hosts of them have marched across

Existence, in that manner;and where is the memory that would, even if it could, speak of them all!

We will hope the mind of our little Fritz has powers of assimilation. BayleCalvin logics, and shadows of

Versailles, on this hand, and gunpowder Leopolds and inarticulate Hyperboreans on that: here is a wide

diversity of nutriment, all rather tough in quality, provided for the young soul. Innumerable unconscious

inferences he must have drawn in his little head! Prince Leopold's face, with the whiskers and blue skin, I

find he was wont, at after periods, to do in caricature, under the figure of a Cat's; horror and admiration not

the sole feelings raised in him by the FieldMarshal.For bodily nourishment he had "beersoup;" a

decided Spartan tone prevailing, wherever possible, in the breeding and treatment of him.

And we need not doubt, by far the most important element of his education was the unconscious

Apprenticeship he continually served to such a Spartan as King Friedrich Wilhelm. Of whose works and

ways he could not help taking note, angry or other, every day and hour; nor in the end, if he were intelligent,

help understanding them, and learning from them. A harsh Master and almost halfmad, as it many times

seemed to the poor Apprentice; yet a true and solid one, whose real wisdom was worth that of all the others,

With the death of old King Friedrich, there occurred at once vast changes in the Court of Berlin; a total and

universal change in the mode of living and doing business there. Friedrich Wilhelm, out of filial piety, wore

at his father's funeral the grand French peruke and other sublimities of French costume; but it was for the last

time: that sad duty once done, he flung the whole aside, not without impatience, and on no occasion wore

such costume again. He was not a friend to French fashions, nor had ever been; far the contrary. In his

boyhood, say the Biographers, there was once a grand embroidered clothofgold, or otherwise supremely

magnificent, little Dressinggown given him; but he would at no rate put it on, or be concerned with it; on the

contrary, stuffed it indignantly "into the fire;" and demanded wholesome useful duffel instead.

He began his reform literally at the earliest moment. Being summoned into the apartment where his poor

Father was in the last struggle, he could scarcely get across for KAMMERJUNKER, KAMMERHERRN,

Goldsticks, Silversticks, and the other solemn histrionic functionaries, all crowding there to do their sad

mimicry on the occasion: not a lovely accompaniment in Friedrich Wilhelm's eyes. His poor Father's

deathstruggle once done, and all reduced to everlasting rest there, Friedrich Wilhelm looked in silence over

the Unutterable, for a Short space, disregardful of the Goldsticks and their eager new homaging; walked

swiftly away from it to his own room, shut the door with a slam; and there, shaking the tears from his eyes,

commenced by a notable duty,the duty nearest hand, and therefore first to be done, as it seemed to him. It

was about one in the afternoon, 25th February, 1713; his Father dead half an hour before: "Tears at a Father's

deathbed, must they be dashed with rage by such a set of greedy Histrios?" thought Friedrich Wilhelm. He

summoned these his Courtpeople, that is to say, summoned their OBERHOFMARSCHALL and

representative; and through him signified to them, That, till the Funeral was over, their service would

continue; and that on the morrow after the Funeral, they were, every soul of them, discharged; and from the

highest Goldstick down to the lowest Pageinwaiting, the King's House should be swept entirely clean of

them;said House intending to start afresh upon a quite new footing. [Forster, i. 174; Pollnitz, Memoiren, ii.

4.] Which spread such a consternation among the courtier people, say the Histories, as was never seen before.

The thing was done, however; and nobody durst whisper discontent with it; this rugged young King, with his

plangent metallic voice, with his steadybeaming eyes, seeming dreadfully in earnest about it, and a person

that might prove dangerous if you crossed him. He reduced his Household accordingly, at once, to the lowest

footing of the indispensable; and discharged a whole regiment of superfluous official persons, courtflunkies,

inferior, superior and supreme, in the most ruthless manner. He does not intend keeping any

OBERHOFMARSCHALL, or the like idle person, henceforth; thinks a minimum of the Goldsticks ought to

Eight Lackeys, in the antechambers and elsewhere, these, with each a JAGERBURSCH (what we should

call an UNDERKEEPER) to assist when not hunting, will suffice: Lackeys at "eight THALERS monthly,"

which is six shillings a week. Three active Pages, sometimes two, instead of perhaps three dozen idle that

there used to be. In King Friedrich's time, there were wont to be a thousand saddlehorses at corn and hay:

but how many of them were in actual use? Very many of them were mere imaginary quadrupeds; their price

and keep pocketed by some knavish STALLMEISTER, Equerry or Headgroom. Friedrich Wilhelm keeps

only thirty Horses; but these are very actual, not imaginary at all; their corn not running into any knave's

pocket; but lying actually in the mangers here; getting ground for you into actual fourfooted speed, when,

on turf or highway, you require such a thing. About, thirty for the saddle,with a few carriageteams, are

what Friedrich Wilhelm can employ in any reasonable measure: and more he will not have about him.

In the like ruthless humor he goes over his Pensionlist; strikes three fourths of that away, reduces the

remaining fourth to the very bone. In like humor, he goes over every department of his Administrative,

Household and other Expenses: shears everything down, here by the hundred thalers, there by the ten, willing

even to save HALF A THALER. He goes over all this three several times;his Papers, the three successive

Lists he used on that occasion, have been printed. [Rodenbeck, Beitrage zur Bereicherung der

Lebembeschreibungen Friedrich Wilhelms I. und Friedrichs des Grossen (Berlin, 1836), pp. 99127.] He has

satisfied himself, in about two months, what, the effective minimum is; and leaves it so. Reduced to below

the fifth of what it was; 55,000 THALERS, instead of 276,000. [Stenzel, iii. 237.]

By degrees he went over, went into and through, every department of Prussian Business, in that fashion;

steadily, warily, irresistibly compelling every item of it, large and little, to take that same character of perfect

economy and solidity, of utility pure and simple. Needful work is to be rigorously well done; needless work,

and ineffectual or imaginary workers, to be rigorously pitched out of doors. What a blessing on this Earth;

worth purchasing almost at any price! The money saved is something, nothing if you will; but the amount of

mendacity expunged, has any one computed that? Mendacity not of tongue; but the far feller sort, of hand,

and of heart, and of head; short summary of all Devil'sworship whatsoever. Which spreads silently along,

once you let it in, with full purse or with empty; some fools even praising it: the quiet DRYROT of Nations!

To expunge such is greatly the duty of every man, especially of every King. Unconsciously, not thinking of

Devil'sworship, or spiritual dryrot, but of money chiefly, and led by Nature and the ways she has with us,

it was the task of Friedrich Wilhelm's life to bring about this beneficent result in all departments of Prussian

Business, great and little, public and even private. Year after year, he brings it to perfection; pushes it

unweariedly forward every day and hour. So that he has Prussia, at last, all a Prussia made after his own

image; the most thrifty, hardy, rigorous and Spartan country any modern King ever tied over; and himself (if

he thought of that) a King indeed. He that models Nations according to his own image, he is a King, though

Friedrich Wilhelm was wondered at, and laughed at, by innumerable mortals for his ways of doing; which

indeed were very strange. Not that he figured much in what is called Public History, or desired to do so; for,

though a vigilant ruler, he did not deal in protocolling and campaining,he let a minimum of that suffice

him. But in court soirees, where elegant empty talk goes on, and of all materials for it scandal is found

incomparably the most interesting. I suppose there turned up no name oftener than that of his Prussian

Majesty; and during these twentyseven years of his Reign, his wild pranks and explosions gave food for

For he was like no other King that then existed, or had ever been discovered. Wilder Son of Nature seldom

came into the artificial world; into a royal throne there, probably never. A wild man, wholly in earnest,

veritable as the old rocks,and with a terrible volcanic fire in him too. He would have been strange

anywhere; but among the dapper Royal gentlemen of the Eighteenth Century, what was to be done with such

an Orson of a King?Clap him in Bedlam, and bring out the ballotboxes instead? The modern generation,

too, still takes its impression of him from these rumors,still more now from Wilhelmina's Book; which

paints the outside savagery of the royal man, in a most striking manner; and leaves the inside vacant,

Nevertheless it appears there were a few observant eyes even of contemporaries, who discerned in him a

surprising talent for "National Economics" at least. One Leipzig Professor, Saxon, not Prussian by nation or

interest, recognizes in Friedrich Wilhelm "DEN GROSSEN WIRTH (the great Manager, Husbandryman, or

Landlord) of the epoch;" and lectures on his admirable "works, arrangements and institutions" in that kind.

[Rodenbeck's Beitrage (p. 14),Year, or Name of Lecturer, not mentioned.] Nay the dapper Royal

gentlemen saw, with envy, the indubitable growth of this mad savage Brother; and ascribed it to "his

avarice," to his mean ways, which were in such contrast to their sublime ones. That he understood National

Economics has now become very certain. His grim semiarticulate Papers and Rescripts, on these subjects,

are still almost worth reading, by a lover of genuine human talent in the dumb form. For spelling, grammar,

penmanship and composition, they resemble nothing else extant; are as if done by the paw of a bear: indeed

the utterance generally sounds more like the growling of a bear than anything that could be handily spelt or

parsed. But there is a decisive human sense in the heart of it; and there is such a dire hatred of empty

bladders, unrealities and hypocritical forms and pretences, what he calls "wind and humbug (WIND UND

BLAUER DUNST)," as is very strange indeed. Strange among all mankind; doubly and trebly strange among

the unfortunate species called Kings in our time. To whom,for sad reasons that could be given,"wind

and blue vapor (BLAUER DUNST)," artistically managed by the rules of Acoustics and Optics, seem to be

It must be owned that this man is inflexibly, and with a fierce slow inexorable determination, set upon having

realities round him. There is a divine idea of fact put into him; the genus sham was never hatefuler to any

man. Let it keep out of his way, well beyond the swing of that rattan of his, or it may get something to

remember! A just man, too; would not wrong any man, nor play false in word or deed to any man. What is

Justice but another form of the REALITY we love; a truth acted out? Of all the humbugs or "painted vapors"

known, Injustice is the least capable of profiting men or kings! A just man, I say; and a valiant and veracious:

but rugged as a wild bear; entirely inarticulate, as if dumb. No bursts of parliamentary eloquence in him, nor

the least tendency that way. His talent for StumpOratory may be reckoned the minimum conceivable, or

practically noted a ZERO. A man who would not have risen in modern Political Circles; man unchoosable at

hustings or in caucus; man forever invisible, and very unadmirable if seen, to the Able Editor and those that

hang by him. In fact, a kind of savage man, as we say; but highly interesting, if you can read dumb human

For the first ten years of his reign, he had a heavy, continual struggle, getting his finance and other branches

of administration extricated from their strangling imbroglios of coiled nonsense, and put upon a rational

footing. His labor in these years, the first of little Fritz's life, must have been great; the pushing and pulling

strong and continual. The good plan itself, this comes not of its own accord; it is the fruit of "genius" (which

means transcendent capacity of taking trouble, first of all): given a huge stack of tumbled thrums, it is not in

your sleep that you will find the vital centre of it, or get the first thrum by the end! And then the execution,

the realizing, amid the contradiction, silent or expressed, of men and things? Explosive violence was by no

means Friedrich Wilhelm's method; the amount of slow stubborn broadshouldered strength, in all kinds,

expended by the man, strikes us as very great. The amount of patience even, though patience is not reckoned

That of the RITTERDIENST (Knights'Service), for example, which is but one small item of his business,

the commuting of the old feudal duty of his Landholders to do Service in Wartime, into a fixed money

payment: nothing could be fairer, more clearly advantageous to both parties; and most of his "Knights" gladly

accepted the proposal: yet a certain factious set of them, the Magdeburg set, stirred up by some seven or eight

of their number, "hardly above seven or eight really against me," saw good to stand out; remonstrated,

recalcitrated; complained in the Diet (Kaiser too happy to hear of it, that he might have a hook on Friedrich

Wilhelm); and for long years that paltry matter was a provocation to him. [17171725. Forster, ii. 162165,

iv. 3134; Stenzel, iii. 316319; Samuel Buchholz, Neueste Preussisch Brandenburgische Geschichte

(Berlin, 1775), i. 197.] But if your plan is just, and a bit of Nature's plan, persist in it like a law of Nature.

This secret too was known to Friedrich Wilhelm. In the space of ten years, by actual human strength loyally

spent, he had managed many things; saw all things in a course towards management. All things, as it were,

fairly on the road; the multiplex team pulling one way, in rational human harness, not in imbroglios of coiled

How he introduced a new mode of farming his Domain Lands, which are a main branch of his revenue, and

shall be farmed on regular lease henceforth, and not wasted in peculation and indolent mismanagement as

heretofore; [Forster, ii. 206, 216.] new modes of levving his taxes and revenues of every kind: [Ib. ii. 190,

195.] How he at last concentrated, and harmonized into one easygoing effective GENERAL DIRECTORY,

[Completedd 19th January, 1723 (Ib. ii. 172).] the multifarious conflicting Boards, that were jolting and

jangling in a dark useandwont manner, and leaving their work half done, when he first came into power:

[Dohm, Denkwurdigkeiten meiner Zeit (Lemgo und Hanover, 18141819), iv. 88.] How he insisted on

having daylight introduced to the very bottom of every business, fairandsquare observed as the rule of it,

and the shortest road adopted for doing it: How he drained bogs, planted colonies, established manufactures,

made his own uniforms of Prussian wool, in a LAGERHAUS of his own: How he dealt with the Jew

Gompert about farming his Tobacoo;how, from many a crooked case and character he, by slow or short

methods, brought out something straight; would take no denial of what was his, nor make any demand of

what was not; and did prove really a terror to evildoers of various kinds, especially to prevaricators,

defalcators, imaginary workers, and slippery unjust persons: How he urged diligence on all mortals, would

not have the very Applewomen sit "without knitting" at their stalls; and brandished his stick, or struck it

fiercely down, over the incorrigibly idle:All this, as well as his ludicrous explosions and unreasonable

violences, is on record concerning Friedrich Wilhelm, though it is to the latter chiefly that the world has

directed its unwise attention, in judging of him. He was a very arbitrary King. Yes, but then a good deal of his

ARBITRIUM, or sovereign will, was that of the Eternal Heavens as well; and did exceedingly behoove to be

done, if the Earth would prosper. Which is an immense consideration in regard to his sovereign will and him!

He was prompt with his rattan, in urgent cases; had his gallows also, prompt enough, where needful. Let him

Yearly he made his country richer; and this not in money alone (which is of very uncertain value, and

sometimes has no value at all, and even less), but in frugality, diligence, punctuality, veracity,the grand

fountains from which money, and all real values and valors spring for men. To Friedrich Wilhelm in his

rustio simplicity, money had no lack of value; rather the reverse. To the homespun man it was a success of

most excellent quality, and the chief symbol of success in all kinds. Yearly he made his own revenues, and

his people's along with them and as the source of them, larger: and in all states of his revenue, he had

contrived to make his expenditure less than it; and yearly saved masses of coin, and "reposited them in

barrels in the cellars of his Schloss,"where they proved very useful, one day. Much in Friedrich Wilhelm

proved useful, beyond even his expectations. As a Nation's HUSBAND he seeks his fellow among Kings,

ancient and modern. Happy the Nation which gets such a Husband, once in the halfthousand years. The

Nation, as foolish wives and Nations do, repines and grudges a good deal, its weak whims and will being

thwarted very often; but it advances steadily, with consciousness or not, in the way of welldoing; and

afterlong times the harvest of this diligent sowing becomes manifest to the Nation and to all Nations.

Strange as it sounds in the Republic of Letters, we are tempted to call Friedrich Wilhelm a man of

genius;genius fated and promoted to work in National Husbandry, not in writing Verses or threevolume

Novels. A silent genius. His melodious stanza, which he cannot bear to see halt in any syllable, is a rough fact

reduced to order; fact made to stand firm on its feet, with the worldrocks under it, and looking free towards

all the winds and all the stars. He goes about suppressing platitudes, ripping off futilities, turning deceptions

inside out. The realm of Disorder, which is Unveracity, Unreality, what we call Chaos, has no fiercer enemy.

Honest soul, and he seemed to himself such a stupid fellow often; no tonguelearning at all; little capable to

give a reason for the faith that was in him. He cannot argue in articulate logic, only in inarticulate bellowings,

or worse. He must DO a thing, leave it undemonstrated; once done, it will itself tell what kind of thing it is,

by and by. Men of genius have a hard time, I perceive, whether born on the throne or off it; and must expect

contradictions next to unendurable,the plurality of blockheads being so extreme!

I find, except Samuel Johnson, no man of equal veracity with Friedrich Wilhelm in that epoch: and Johnson

too, with all his tonguelearning, had not logic enough. In fact, it depends on how much conviction you have.

Blessed be Heaven, there is here and there a man born who loves truth as truth should be loved, with all his

heart and all his soul; and hates untruth with a corresponding perfect hatred. Such men, in polite circles,

which understand that certainly truth is better than untruth, but that you must be polite to both, are liable to

get to the end of their logic. Even Johnson had a bellow in him; though Johnson could at any time withdraw

into silence, HIS kingdom lying all under his own hat. How much more Friedrich Wilhelm, who had no logic

whatever; and whose kingdom lay without him, far and wide, a thing he could not withdraw from. The

rugged Orson, he needed to be right. From utmost Memel down to Wesel again, ranked in a straggling

manner round the halfcircumference of Europe, all manner of things and persons were depending on him,

A man of clear discernment, very good natural eyesight; and irrefragably confident in what his eyes told him,

in what his belief was;yet of huge simplicity withal. Capable of being coaxed about, and led by the nose, to

a strange degree, if there were an artist dexterous enough, daring enough! His own natural judgment was

good, and, though apt to be hasty and headlong, was always likely to come right in the end; but internally, we

may perceive, his modesty, selfdistrust, anxiety and other unexpected qualities, must have been great. And

then his explosiveness, impatience, excitability; his conscious dumb ignorance of all things beyond his own

small horizon of personal survey! An Orson capable enough of being coaxed and tickled, by some firstrate

conjurer;firstrate; a secondrate might have failed, and got torn to pieces for his pains. But Seckendorf

and Grumkow, what a dance they led him on some matters,as we shall see, and as poor Fritz and others

He was full of sensitiveness, rough as he was and shaggy of skin. His wild imaginations drove him hither and

thither at a sad rate. He ought to have the privileges of genius. His tall Potsdam Regiment, his madlooking

passion for enlisting tall men; this also seems to me one of the whims of genius,an exaggerated notion to

have his "stanza" polished to the last punctilio of perfection; and might be paralleled in the history of Poets.

Stranger "man of genius," or in more peculiar circumstances, the world never saw!

Friedrich Wilhelm, in his CrownPrince days, and now still more when he was himself in the sovereign

place, had seen all along, with natural arithmetical intellect, That his strength in this world, as at present

situated, would very much depend upon the amount of potentialbattle that lay in him,on the quantity and

quality of Soldiers he could maintain, and have ready for the field at any time. A most indisputable truth, and

a heartfelt one in the present instance. To augment the quantity, to improve the quality, in this

thriceessential particular: here lay the keystone and crowning summit of all Friedrich Wilhelm's endeavors;

to which he devoted himself, as only the best Spartan could have done. Of which there will be other

opportunities to speak in detail. For it was a thing worldnotable; worldlaughable, as was then thought; the

In the Malplaquet time, once on some occasion, it is said, two English Officers, not well informed upon the

matter, and provoking enough in their contemptuous ignorance, were reasoning with one another in Friedrich

Wilhelm's hearing, as to the warlike powers of the Prussian State, and Whether the King of Prussia could on

his own strength maintain a standing army of 15,000? Without subsidies, do you think, so many as 15,000?

Friedrich Wilhelm, incensed at the thing and at the tone, is reported to have said with heat: "Yes, 30,000!"

[Forster, i. 138.] whereat the military men slightly wagged their heads, letting the matter drop for the present.

But he makes it good by degrees; twofold or threefold; and will have an army of from seventy to a hundred

thousand before he dies, ["72,000 fieldtroops, 30,000 garrisontroops" (Gestandnisse eines OEster

reichischen Veterans, Breslau, 1788, i. 64).] the bestdrilled of fighting men; and what adds much to the

wonder, a full Treasury withal. This is the Brandenburg Spartan King; acquainted with National Economics.

Alone of existing Kings he lays by money annually; and is laying by many other and far more precious

Friedrich Wilhelm's passion for drilling, recruiting and perfecting his army attracted much notice: laughing

satirical notice; in the hundred months of common rumor, which he regarded little; and notice iracund and

minatory, when it led him into collision with the independent portions of mankind, now and then. This latter

sort was not pleasant, and sometimes looked rather serious; but this too he contrived always to digest in some

tolerable manner. He continued drilling and recruiting,we may say not his Army only, but his Nation in all

departments of it, as no man before or since ever did: increasing, by every devisable method, the amount

In a military, and also in a much deeper sense, he may be defined as the great Drillsergeant of the Prussian

Nation. Indeed this had been the function of the Hohenzollerns all along; this difficult, unpleasant and

indispensable one of drilling. From the first appearance of Burggraf Friedrich, with good words and with

HEAVY PEG, in the wreck of anarchic Brandenburg, and downwards ever since, this has steadily enough

gone on. And not a little good drilling these populations have had, first and last; just orders given them (wise

and just, which to a respectable degree were Heaven's orders as well): and certainly Heavy Peg, for

instance,Heavy Peg, bringing Quitzow's strong House about his ears,was a respectable drummer's cat to

enforce the same. This has been going on these three hundred years. But Friedrich Wilhelm completes the

process; finishes it off to the last pitch of perfection. Friedrich Wilhelm carries it through every fibre and

cranny of Prussian Business, and so far as possible, of Prussian Life; so that Prussia is all a drilled phalanx,

ready to the word of command; and what we see in the Army is but the last consummate essence of what

exists in the Nation everywhere. That was Friedrich Wilhelm's function, made ready for him, laid to his hand

For I have remarked that, of all things, a Nation needs first to be drilled; and no Nation that has not first been

governed by socalled "Tyrants," and held tight to the curb till it became perfect in its paces and thoroughly

amenable to rule and law, and heartily respectful of the same, and totally abhorrent of the want of the same,

ever came to much in this world. England itself, in foolish quarters of England, still howls and execrates

lamentably over its William Conqueror, and rigorous line of Normans and Plantagenets; but without them, if

you will consider well, what had it ever been? A gluttonous race of Jutes and Angles, capable of no grand

combinations; lumbering about in potbellied equanimity; not dreaming of heroic toil and silence and

endurance, such as leads to the high places of this Universe, and the golden mountaintops where dwell the

Spirits of the Dawn. Their very ballotboxes and suffrages, what they call their "Liberty," if these mean

"Liberty," and are such a road to Heaven, AngloSaxon highroad thither,could never have been possible

for them on such terms. How could they? Nothing but collision, intolerable interpressure (as of men not

perpendicular), and consequent battle often supervening, could have been appointed those undrilled

AngloSaxons; their potbellied equanimity itself continuing liable to perpetual interruptions, as in the

Heptarchy time. An enlightened Public does not reflect on these things at present; but will again, by and by.

Looking with human eyes over the England that now is, and over the America and the Australia, from pole to

pole; and then listening to the Constitutional litanies of Dryasaust, and his lamentations on the old Norman

and Plantagenet Kings, and his recognition of departed merit and causes of effects,the mind of man is

Friedrich Wilhelm's History is one of ECONOMICS; which study, so soon as there are Kings again in this

world, will be precious to them. In that happy state of matters, Friedrich Wilhelm's History will well reward

study; and teach by example, in a very simple and direct manner. In what is called the Political, Diplomatic,

"Honortobe" department, there is not, nor can ever be, much to be said of him; this Economist King having

always kept himself well at home, and looked steadily to his own affairs. So that for the present he has, as a

King, next to nothing of what is called History; and it is only as a fellowman, of singular faculty, and in a

most peculiar and conspicuous situation, that he can be interesting to mankind. To us he has, as Father and

daily teacher and master of young Fritz, a continual interest; and we must note the master's ways, and the

main phenomena of the workshop as they successively turned up, for the sake of the notable Apprentice

He was not tall of stature, this arbitrary King: a floridcomplexioned stoutbuilt man; of serious, sincere,

authoritative face; his attitudes and equipments very Spartan in type. Man of short firm stature; stands (in

Pesne's best Portraits of him) at his ease, and yet like a tower. Most solid; "plumb and rather more;" eyes

steadfastly awake; cheeks slightly compressed, too, which fling the mouth rather forward; as if asking

silently, "Anything astir, then? All right here?" Face, figure and bearing, all in him is expressive of robust

insight, and direct determination; of healthy energy, practicality, unquestioned authority,a certain air of

royalty reduced to its simplest form. The face in Pictures by Pesne and others, is not beautiful or agreeable;

healthy, genuine, authoritative, is the best you can say of it. Yet it may have been, what it is described as

being, originally handsome. High enough arched brow, rather copious cheeks and jaws; nose smallish,

inclining to be stumpy; large gray eyes, bright with steady fire and life, often enough gloomy and severe, but

capable of jolly laughter too. Eyes "naturally with a kind of laugh in them," says Pollnitz;which laugh can

blaze out into fearful thunderous rage, if you give him provocation. Especially if you lie to him; for that he

hates above all things. Look him straight in the face: he fancies he can see in your eyes, if there is an internal

mendacity in you: wherefore you must look at him in speaking; such is his standing order.

His hair is flaxen, falling into the ashgray or darker; fine copious flowing hair, while he wore it natural. But

it soon got tied into clubs, in the military style; and at length it was altogether cropped away, and replaced by

brown, and at last by white, round wigs. Which latter also, though bad wigs, became him not amiss, under his

cockedhat and cockade, says Pollnitz. [Pollnitz, Memoiren (Berlin, 1791), ii. 568.] The voice, I guess, even

when not loud, was of clangorous and penetrating, quasimetallic nature; and I learn expressly once, that it

had a nasal quality in it. [Busching, Beitrage, i. 568.] His Majesty spoke through the nose; snuffled his

speech in an earnest ominously plangent manner. In angry moments, which were frequent, it must have

been unpleasant to listen to. For the rest, a handsome man of his inches; conspicuously wellbuilt in limbs

and body, and delicately finished off to the very extremities. His feet and legs, says Pollnitz, were very fine.

The hands, if he would have taken care of them, were beautifully white; fingers long and thin; a hand at once

nimble to grasp, delicate to feel, and strong to clutch and hold: what may be called a beautiful hand, because

Nothing could exceed his Majesty's simplicity of habitudes. But one loves especially in him his scrupulous

attention to cleanliness of person and of environment. He washed like a very Mussulman, five times a day;

loved cleanliness in all things, to a superstitious extent; which trait is pleasant in the rugged man, and indeed

of a piece with the rest of his character. He is gradually changing all his silk and other cloth roomfurniture;

in his hatred of dust, he will not suffer a floorcarpet, even a stuffed chair; but insists on having all of wood,

where the dust may be prosecuted to destruction. [Forster, i. 208.] Wife and womankind, and those that take

after them, let such have stuffing and sofas: he, for his part, sits on mere wooden chairs;sits, and also

thinks and acts, after the manner of a Hyperborean Spartan, which he was. He ate heartily, but as a rough

farmer and hunter eats; country messes, good roast and boiled; despising the French Cook, as an entity

without meaning for him. His favorite dish at dinner was bacon and greens, rightly dressed; what could the

French Cook do for such a man? He ate with rapidity, almost with indiscriminate violence: his object not

quality but quantity. He drank too, but did not get drunk: at the Doctor's order he could abstain; and had in

later years abstained. Pollnitz praises his fineness of complexion, the originally eminent whiteness of his skin,

which he had tanned and bronzed by hard riding and hunting, and otherwise worse discolored by his manner

of feeding and digesting: alas, at last his waistcoat came to measure, I am afraid to say how many Prussian

For some years after his accession he still appeared occasionally in "burgher dress," or unmilitary clothes;

"brown English coat, yellow waistcoat" and the other indispensables. But this fashion became rarer with him

every year; and ceased altogether (say Chronologists) about the year 1719: after which he appeared always

simply as Colonel of the Potsdam Guards (his own Lifeguard Regiment) in simple Prussian uniform: close

military coat; blue, with red cuffs and collar, buff waistcoat and breeches; white linen gaiters to the knee. He

girt his sword about the loins, well out of the mud; walked always with a thick bamboo in his hand; Steady,

not slow of step; with his triangular hat, creamwhite round wig (in his older days), and face tending to

purple,the eyes looking out mere investigation, sharp swift authority, and dangerous readiness to rebuke

and set the cane in motion:it was so he walked abroad in this earth; and the common run of men rather fled

For, in fact, he was dangerous; and would ask in an alarming manner, "Who are you?" Any fantastic, much

more any suspiciouslooking person, might fare the worse. An idle lounger at the streetcorner he has been

known to hit over the crown; and peremptorily despatch: "Home, Sirrah, and take to some work!" That the

Applewomen be encouraged to knit, while waiting for custom;encouraged and quietly constrained, and at

length packed away, and their stalls taken from them, if unconstrainable,there has, as we observed, an

especial rescript been put forth; very curious to read. [In Rodenbeck, Beitrage, p. 15.]

Dandiacal figures, nay people looking like Frenchmen, idle flaunting women even,better for them to be

going. "Who are you?" and if you lied or prevaricated ("Er blicke mich gerade an, Look me in the face,

then!"), or even stumbled, hesitated, and gave suspicion of prevaricating, it might be worse for you. A soft

answer is less effectual than a prompt clear one, to turn away wrath. "A Candidatus Theoligiae, your

Majesty," answered a handfast threadbare youth one day, when questioned in this manner."Where from?"

"Berlin, your Majesty.""Hm, na, the Berliners are a goodfornothing set." "Yes, truly, too many of them;

but there are exceptions; I know two.""Two? which then?" "Your Majesty and myself!"Majesty burst

into a laugh: the Candidatus was got examined by the Consistoriums, and Authorities proper in that matter,

This King did not love the French, or their fashions, at all. We said he dismissed the big Peruke,put it on

for the last time at his Father's funeral, so far did filial piety go; and then packed it aside, dismissing it, nay

banishing and proscribing it, never to appear more. The Peruke, and, as it were, all that the Peruke

symbolized. For this was a King come into the world with quite other aims than that of wearing big perukes,

and, regardless of expense, playing burstfrog to the ox of Versailles, which latter is itself perhaps a rather

useless animal. Of Friedrich Wilhelm's taxes upon wigs; of the old "Wiginspectors," and the feats they did,

plucking off men's periwigs on the street, to see if the governmentstamp were there, and to discourage

wiggery, at least all but the simple scratch or useful Welshwig, among mankind: of these, and of other

similar things, I could speak; but do not. This little incident, which occurred once in the reviewground on

the outskirts of Berlin, will suffice to mark his temper in that respect. It was in the spring of 1719; our little

Fritz then six years old, who of course heard much temporary confused commentary, direct and oblique,

triumphant male laughter, and perhaps rebellious female sighs, on occasion of such a feat.

Count Rothenburg, Prussian by birth, [Buchholz, Neueste PreuwssischBrandenburgische Geschichte, i. 28.]

an accomplished and able person in the diplomatic and other lines of business, but much used to Paris and its

ways, had appeared lately in Berlin, as French envoy,and, not unnaturally, in high French costume;

cockedhat, peruke, laced coat, and the other trimmings. He, and a group of dashing followers and adherents,

were accustomed to go about in that guise; very capable of proving infectious to mankind. What is to be done

with them? thinks the anxious Father of his People. They were to appear at the ensuing grand Review, as

Friedrich Wilhelm understood. Whereupon Friedrich Wilhelm took his measures in private. Dressed up,

namely, his ScavengerExecutioner people (what they call PROFOSSEN in Prussian regiments) in an

enormous exaggeration of that costume; cockedhats about an ell in diameter, wigs reaching to the houghs,

with other fittings to match: these, when Count Rothenburg and his company appeared upon the ground,

Friedrich Wilhelm summoned out, with some trumpetpeal or burst of fieldmusic; and they solemnly

crossed Count Rothenburg's field of vision; the strangest set of, Phantasms he had seen lately. Awakening

salutary reflections in him. [Forster, i. 165; Faasmann, Leben und Thaten des allerdurchlauchtigsten gc.

Konigs von Preussen Frederici Wilhelmi (Hambug und Breslau, 1735), pp. 223, 319.] Fancy that scene in

History; Friedrich Wilhelm for comicsymbolic Dramaturgist. Gods and men (or at least Houyhnhnm horses)

might have saluted it; with a Homeric laugh,so huge and vacant is it, with a suspicion of real humor

too:but the men were not permitted, on parade, more than a silent grin, or general irrepressible rustling

murmur; and only the gods laughed inextinguishably, if so disposed. The ScavengerExecutioners went back

to their place; and Count Rothenburg took a plain German costume, so long as he continued in those parts.

Friedrich Wilhelm has a dumb rough wit and mockery, of that kind, on many occasions; not without geniality

in its Brobdignag exaggeration and simplicity. Like a wild bear of the woods taking his sport; with some

sense of humor in the rough skin of him. Very capable of seeing through sumptuous costumes; and respectful

of realities alone. Not in French sumptuosity, but in native German thrift, does this King see his salvation; so

as Nature constructed him: and the world which has long lost its Spartans, will see again an original

NorthGerman Spartan; and shriek a good deal over him; Nature keeping her own counsel the while, and as

it were, laughing in her sleeve at the shrieks of the flunky world. For Nature, when she makes a Spartan,

means a good deal by it; and does not expect instant applauses, but only gradual and lasting.

"For my own part," exclaims a certain Editor once, "I perceive well there was never yet any great Empire

founded, Roman, English, down to Prussian or Dutch, nor in fact any great mass of work got achieved under

the Sun, but it was founded even upon this humblelooking quality of Thrift, and became achievable in virtue

of the same. Which will seem a strange doctrine, in these days of goldnuggets, railwayfortunes, and

miraculous, sumptuosities regardless of expense. Earnest readers are invited to consider it, nevertheless.

Though new; it is very old; and a sad meaning lies in it to us of these times! That you have squandered in idle

fooleries, building where there was no basis, your Hundred Thousand Sterling, your Eight Hundred Million

Sterling, is to me a comparatively small matter. You may still again become rich, if you have at last become

wise. But if you have wasted your capacity of strenuous, devoutly valiant labor, of patience, perseverance,

selfdenial, faith in the causes of effects; alas, if your once just judgment of what is worth something and

what is worth nothing, has been wasted, and your silent steadfast reliance on the general veracities, of

yourself and of things, is no longer there,then indeed you have had a loss! You are, in fact, an entirely

bankrupt individual; as you will find by and by. Yes; and though you had California in feesimple; and could

buy all the upholsteries, groceries, fundedproperties, temporary (very temporary) landed properties of the

world, at one swoop, it would avail you nothing. Henceforth for you no harvests in the Seedfield of this

Universe, which reserves its salutary bounties, and noble heavensent gifts, for quite other than you; and I

would not give a pin's value for all YOU will ever reap there. Mere imaginary harvests, sacks of nuggets and

the like; empty as the eastwind; with all the Demons laughing at you! Do you consider that Nature too is

a swollen flunky, hungry for veils; and can be taken in with your sublime airs of sumptuosity, and the large

balance you actually have in Lombard Street? Go to theGeneral Cesspool, with your nuggets and your

The flunky world, much stript of its plush and fat perquisites, accuses Friedrich Wilhelm bitterly of avarice

and the cognate vices. But it is not so; intrinsically, in the main, his procedure is to be defined as honorable

thrift,verging towards avarice here and there; as poor human virtues usually lean to one side or the other!

He can be magnificent enough too, and grudges no expense, when the occasion seems worthy. If the occasion

is inevitable, and yet not quite worthy, I have known him have recourse to strange shifts. The Czar Peter, for

example, used to be rather often in the Prussian Dominions, oftenest on business of his own: such a man is to

be royally defrayed while with us; yet one would wish it done cheap. Posthorses, "two hundred and

eightyseven at every station," he has from the Community; but the rest of his expenses, from Memel all the

way to Wesel? Friedrich Wilhelm's marginal response to his FINANZDIRECTORIUM, requiring orders

once on that subject, runs in the following strange tenor: "Yes, all the way (except Berlin, which I take upon

myself); and observe, you contrive to do it for 6,000 thalers (900 pounds),"which is uncommonly cheap,

about l pound per mile; won't allow you one other penny (nit einen Pfennig gebe mehr dazu ); but you are

( sollen Sie )," this is the remarkable point, "to give out in the world that it costs me from Thirty to Forty

Thousand!" [1717: Forster, i. 213.] So that here is the Majesty of Prussia, who beyond all men abhors lies,

giving orders to tell one? Alas, yes; a kind of lie, or fib (white fib, or even GRAY), the pinch of Thrift

compelling! But what a window into the artless innerman of his Majesty, even that GRAY fib;not done

"Verging upon avarice," sure enough: but, unless we are unjust and unkind, he can by no means be described

as a MISER King. He collects what is his; gives you accurately what is yours. For wages paid he will see

work done; he will ascertain more and more that the work done be work needful for him; and strike it off, if

not. A Spartan man, as we said,though probably he knew as little of the Spartans as the Spartans did of

him. But Nature is still capable of such products: if in Hellas long ages since, why not in Brandenburg now?

One of Fritz's earliest strong impressions from the outer world chanced to be of War,so it chanced, though

he had shown too little taste that way, and could not, as yet, understand such phenomena;and there must

have been much semiarticulate questioning and dialoguing with Dame de Roucoulles, on his part, about the

In the year 1715, little Fritz's third year, came grand doings, not of drill only, but of actual war and fighting:

the "Stralsund Expedition," Friedrich Wilhelm's one feat in that kind. Huge rumor of which fills naturally the

maternal heart, the Berlin Palace drawingrooms; and occupies, with new vivid interests, all imaginations

young and old. For the actual battledrums are now beating, the big cannonwains are creaking under way;

and military men take farewell, and march, tramp, tramp; Majesty in grenadierguard uniform at their head:

horse, foot and artillery; northward to Stralsund on the Baltic shore, where a terrible human Lion has taken up

his lair lately. Charles XII. of Sweden, namely; he has broken out of Turkish Bender or Demotica, and ended

his obstinate torpor, at last; has ridden fourteen or sixteen days, he and a groom or two, through desolate

steppes and mountain wildernesses, through crowded dangerous cities;"came by Vienna and by Cassel,

then through Pommern;" leaving his "royal train of two thousand persons" to follow at its leisure. He, for his

part, has ridden without pause, forward, ever forward, in darkest incognito, the indefatigable man;and

finally, on OldHallowmas Eve (22d11th November, 1714), far in the night, a Horseman, with two others

still following him, travelsplashed, and "white with snow," drew bridle at the gate of Stralsund; and, to the

surprise of the Swedish sentinel there, demanded instant admission to the Governor. The Governor, at first a

little surly of humor, saw gradually how it was; sprang out of bed, and embraced the knees of the snowy man;

Stralsund in general sprang out of bed, and illuminated itself, that same HallowEve:and in brief, Charles

XII., after five years of eclipse, has reappeared upon the stage of things; and menaces the world, in his old

fashion, from that City. From which it becomes urgent to many parties, and at last to Friedrich Wilhelm

The root of this Stralsund story belongs to the former reign, as did the grand apparition of Charles XII. on the

theatre of European History, and the terror and astonishment he created there. He is now thirtythree years

old; and only the winding up, both of him and of the Stralsund story, falls within our present field. Fifteen

years ago, it was like the bursting of a cataract of bombshells in a dull ballroom, the sudden appearance of

this young fighting Swede among the luxurious Kings and Kinglets of the North, all lounging about and

languidly minuetting in that manner, regardless of expense! Friedrich IV. of Denmark rejoicing over red

wine; August the Strong gradually producing his "three hundred and fiftyfour bastards;" [ Memoires de

Bareith (Wilhelmina's Book, Londres, 1812), i. 111.] these and other neighbors had confidently stept in, on

various pretexts; thinking to help themselves from the young man's properties, who was still a minor; when

the young minor suddenly developed himself as a major and maximus, and turned out to be such a FireKing

In consequence of which there had been no end of Northern troubles; and all through the LouisFourteenth or

Marlborough grand "Succession War," a special "Northern War" had burnt or smouldered on its own score;

Swedes VERSUS Saxons, Russians and Danes, bickering in weary intricate contest, and keeping those

Northern regions in smoke if not on fire. Charles XII., for the last five years (ever since Pultawa, and the

summer of 1709), had lain obstinately dormant in Turkey; urging the Turks to destroy Czar Peter. Which they

absolutely could not, though they now and then tried; and Viziers not a few lost their heads in consequence.

Charles lay sullenly dormant; Danes meanwhile operating upon his Holstein interests and adjoining

territories; Saxons, Russians, battering continually at Swedish Pommern, continually marching thither, and

then marching home again, without success,always through the Brandenburg Territory, as they needs

must. Which latter circumstance Friedrich Wilhelm, while yet only CrownPrince, had seen with natural

displeasure, could that have helped it. But Charles XII. would not yield a whit; sent orders peremptorily, from

his bed at Bender or Demotica, that there must be no surrender. Neither could the sluggish enemy compel

So that, at length, it had grown a feeble wearisome welter of inextricable strifes, with wornout combatants,

exhausted of all but their animosity; and seemed as if it would never end. Inveterate ineffective war; ruinous

to all good interests in those parts. What miseries had Holstein from it, which last to our own day!

Mecklenburg also it involved in sore troubles, which lasted long enough, as we shall see. But Brandenburg,

above all, may be impatient; Brandenburg, which has no business with it except that of unlucky

neighborhood. One of Friedrich Wilhelm's very first operations, as King, was to end this ugly state of

He had hailed even the Treaty of Utrecht with welcome, in hopes it might at least end these Northern

brabbles. This the Treaty of Utrecht tried to do, but could not: however, it gave him back his Prussian

Fighting Men; which he has already increased by six regiments, raised, we may perceive, on the ruins of his

late courtflunkies and dismissed goldsticks;with these Friedrich Wilhelm will try to end it himself. These

he at once ordered to form a Camp on his frontier, close to that theatre of contest; and signified now with

emphasis, in the beginning of 1713, that he decidedly wished there were peace in those Pommern regions.

Negotiations in consequence; [10th June, 1713: Buchholz, i. 21.] very wide negotiations, Louis XIV. and the

Kaiser lending hand, to pacify these fighting Northern Kings and their Czar: at length the Holstein

Government, representing their sworn ally, Charles XII., on the occasion, made an offer which seemed

promising. They proposed that, Stettin and its dependencies, the strong frontier Town, and, as it were, key of

Swedish Pommern, should be evacuated by the Swedes, and be garrisoned by neutral troops, Prussians and

Holsteiners in equal number; which neutral troops shall prohibit any hostile attack of Pommern from without,

Sweden engaging not to make any attack through Pommern from within. That will be as good as peace in

Pommern, till we get a general Swedish Peace. With which Friedrich Wilhelm gladly complies. [22d June,

Unhappily, however, the Swedish Commandant in Stettin would not give up the place, on any representative

or secondary authority; not without an express order in his King's own hand. Which, as his King was far

away, in abstruse Turkish circumstances and localities, could not be had at the moment; and involved new

difficulties and uncertainties, new delay which might itself be fatal. The end was, the Russians and Saxons

had to cannonade the man out by regular siege: they then gave up the Town to Prussia and Holstein; but

required first to be paid their expenses incurred in sieging it,400,000 thalers, as they computed and

Friedrich Wilhelm paid the money (Holstein not having a groschen); took possession of the Town, and

dependent towns and forts; intending well to keep them till repaid. This was in October, 1713; and ever since,

there has been actual tranquillity in those parts: the embers of the Northern War may still burn or smoulder

elsewhere, but here they are quite extinct. At first, it was a joint possession of Stettin, Holsteiners and

Prussians in equal number; and if Friedrich Wilhelm had been sure of his money, so it would have continued.

But the Holsteiners had paid nothing; Charles XII's sanction never could be expressly got, and the Holsteiners

were mere dependents of his. Better to increase our Prussian force, by degrees; and, in some good way, with a

minimum of violence, get the Holsteiners squeezed out of Stettin: Friedrich Wilhelm has so ordered and

contrived. The Prussian force having now gradually increased to double in this important garrison, the

Holsteiners are quietly disarmed, one night, and ordered to depart, under penalties;which was done.

Holding such a pawnticket as Stettin, buttoned in our own pocket, we count now on being paid our 60,000

Matters turned out as Friedrich Wilhelm had dreaded they might. Here is Charles XII. come back; inflexible

as cold Swedish iron; will not hear of any Treaty dealing with his properties in that manner: Is he a bankrupt,

then, that you will sell his towns by auction? Charles does not, at heart, believe that Friedrich Wilhelm ever

really paid the 60,000 pounds Charles demands, for his own part, to have, his own Swedish Town of Stettin

restored to him; and has not the least intention, or indeed ability, to pay money. Vain to answer: "Stettin, for

the present, is not a Swedish Town; it is a Prussian Pawnticket!"There was much negotiation,

correspondence; Louis XIV. and the Kaiser stepping in again to produce settlement. To no purpose. Louis,

gallant old Bankrupt, tried hard to take Charles's part with effect. But he had, himself, no money now; could

only try finessing by ambassadors, try a little menacing by them; neither of which profited. Friedrich

Wilhelm, wanting only peace on his borders, after fifteen years of extraneous uproar there, has paid 60,000

pounds in hard cash to have it: repay him that sum, with promise of peace on his borders, he will then quit

Stettin; till then not. Big words from a French Ambassador in big wig, will not suffice: "Bullying goes for

nothing ( Bange machen gilt nicht ),"the thing covenanted for will need to be done! Poor Louis the Great,

whom we now call "BANKRUPTGreat," died while these affairs were pending; while Charles, his ally, was

arguing and battling against all the world, with only a grandiloquent Ambassador to help him from Louis.

"J'ai trop aime la guerre," said Louis at his death, addressing a new small Louis (five years old), his

greatgrandson and successor: "I have been too fond of war; do not imitate me in that, ne m'imitez pas en

cela." [1st September, 1715.] Which counsel also, as we shall see, was considerably lost in air.

Friedrich Wilhelm had a true personal regard for Charles XII., a man made in many respects after his own

heart; and would fain have persuaded him into softer behavior. But it was to no purpose. Charles would not

listen to reasons of policy; or believe that his estate was bankrupt, or that his towns could be put in pawn.

Danes, Saxons, Russians, even George I. of England (Georgehaving just bought, of the Danish King, who

had got hold of it, a great Hanover bargain, Bremen and Verden, on cheap terms, from the quasibankrupt

estate of poor Charles),have to combine against him, and see to put him down. Among whom Prussia, at

length actually attacked by Charles in the Stettin regions, has reluctantly to take the lead in that repressive

movement. On the 28th of April, 1715, Friedrich Wilhelm declares war against Charles; is already on march,

with a great force, towards Stettin, to coerce and repress said Charles. No help for it, so sore as it goes against

us: "Why will the very King whom I most respect compel me to be his enemy?" said Friedrich Wilhelm.

One of Friedrich Wilhelm's originalities is his farewell Order and Instruction, to his three chief Ministers, on

this occasion. Ilgen, Dohna, Prinzen, tacit dusky figures, whom we meet in Prussian Books, and never gain

the least idea of, except as of grim, rather cunning, most reserved antiquarlan gentlemen,a kind of human

ironsafes, solemnly filled (under triple and quadruple patentlocks) with what, alas, has now all grown

wastepaper, dust and cobweb, to us:these three reserved cunning Gentlemen are to keep a

thricewatchful eye on all subordinate boards and persons, and see well that nobody nod or do amiss. Brief

weekly report to his Majesty will be expected; staffettes, should cases of hot haste occur: any questions of

yours are "to be put on a sheet of paper folded down, to which I can write marginalia:" if nothing particular is

passing, "NIT SCHREIBEN, you don't write." Pay out no money, except what falls due by the Books;

none;if an extraordinary case for payment arise, consult my Wife, and she must sign her order for it.

Generally in matters of any moment, consult my Wife; but her only, "except her and the Privy Councillors,

"My Wife shall be told of all things," he says elsewhere, "and counsel asked of her." The rugged

Paterfamilias, but the human one! "And as I am a man," continues he, "and may be shot dead, I command you

and all to take care of Fritz (FUR FRITZ ZU SORGEN), as God shall reward you. And I give you all, Wife to

begin with, my curse (MEINEN PLUCH), that God may punish you in Time and Eternity, if you do not, after

my death,"do what, O Heavens? bury me in the vault of the Schlosskirche," PalaceChurch at Berlin!

"And you shall make no grand todo (KEIN FESTIN) on the occasion. On your body and life, no festivals

and ceremonials, except that the regiments one after the other fire a volley over me." Is not this an ursine

manofgenius, in some sort, as we once defined him? He adds suddenly, and concludes: "I am assured you

will manage everything with all the exactness in the world; for which I shall ever zealously, as long as I live,

be your friend." [26th April, 1715: Cosmars und Klaproths Staatsrath, s. 223 (in Stenzel, iii. 269). Russians,

Saxons affected to intend joining Friedrich Wilhelm in his Pommern Expedition; and of the latter there did,

under a socalled FieldMarshal von Wackerbarth, of high plumes and titles, some four thousandof whom

only Colonel von Seckendorf, commanding one of the horseregiments, is remarkable to uscome and

serve. The rest, and all the Russians, he was as well pleased to have at a distance. Some sixteen thousand

Danes joined him, too, with the King of Denmark at their head; very furious, all, against the Swedishiron

Hero; but they were remarked to do almost no real service, except at sea a little against the Swedish ships.

George I. also had a fleet in the Baltic; but only "to protect English commerce." On the whole, the Siege of

Stralsund, to which the Campaign pretty soon reduced itself, was done mainly by Friedrich Wilhelm. He

stayed two months in Stettin, getting all his preliminaries completed; his good Queen, Wife "Feekin," was

with him for some time, I know not whether now or afterwards. In the end of June, he issued from Stettin;

took the interjacent outpost places; and then opened ground before Stralsund, where, in a few days more, the

Danes joined him. It was now the middle of July: a combined Army of wellnigh forty thousand against

Charles; who, to man his works, musters about the fourth part of that number. [Pauli, viii. 85101; Buchholz,

Stralsund, with its outer lines and inner, with its marshes, ditches, ramparts and abundant cannon to them, and

leaning, one side of it, on the deep sea, which Swedish ships command as yet, is very strong. Wallenstein, we

know, once tried it with furious assault, with bombardment, sap and storm; swore he would have it, "though it

hung by a chain from Heaven;" but could not get it, after all his volcanic raging; and was driven away, partly

by the Swedes and armed Townsfolk, chiefly by the marshfevers and continuous rains. Stralsund has been

taken, since that, by Prussian sieging; as old men, from the Great Elector's time, still remember. [lOth15th

October, 1678 (Pauli, v. 203, 205).] To Louis Fourteenth's menacing Ambassador, Friedrich Wilhelm seems

to intimate that indeed big bullying words will not take it, but that Prussian guns and men, on a just ground,

The details of this Siege of Stralsund are all on record, and had once a certain fame in the world; but, except

as a distant echo, must not concern us here. It lasted till midwinter, under continual fierce

countermovements and desperate sallies from the Swedish Lion, standing at bay there against all the world.

But Friedrich Wilhelm was vigilance itself; and he had his AnhaltDessaus with him, his Borcks,

Buddenbrocks, Finkensteins, veteran men and captains, who had learned their art under Marlborough and

Eugene. The Lion King's fierce sallies, and desperate valor, could not avail. Point after point was lost for him.

Koppen, a Prussian LieutenantColonel, native to the place, who has bathed in those waters in his youth,

remembers that, by wading to the chin, you could get round the extremity of Charles's main outer line.

Koppen states his project, gets it approved of; wades accordingly, with a select party, under cloud of night

(4th of November, eve of Gunpowderday, a most coldhot job); other ranked Prussian battalions awaiting

intently outside, with shouldered firelock, invisible in the dark; what will become of him. Koppen wades

successfully; seizes the first battery of said line,masters said line with its batteries, the outside battalions

and he. Irrepressibly, with horrible uproar from without and from within; the flying Swedes scarcely getting

up the Town drawbridge, as he chased them. That important line is lost to Charles.

Next they took the Isle of Rugen from him, which shuts up the harbor. Leopold of AnhaltDessau, our

rugged friend, in Danish boats, which were but ill navigated, contrives, about a week after that Koppen feat,

to effect a landingon Rugen at nightfall; beats off the weak Swedish party;entrenches, palisades himself

to the teeth, and lies down under arms. That latter was a wise precaution. For, about four in the morning,

Charles comes in person, with eight pieces of cannon and four thousand horse and foot: Charles is struck with

amazement at the palisade and ditch ("MEIN GOTT, who would have expected this!" he was heard

murmuring); dashes, like a fireflood, against ditch and palisade; tears at the pales himself, which prove

impregnable to his cannon and him. He storms and rages forward, again and again, now here, now there; but

is met everywhere by steady deadly musketry; and has to retire, fruitless, about daybreak, himself wounded,

Poor Charles, there had been no sleep for him that night, and little for very many nights: "on getting to horse,

on the shore at Stralsund, he fainted repeatedly; fell out of one faint into another; but such was his rage, he

always recovered himself, and got on horseback again." [Buchholz, i. 36.] Poor Charles: a bit of right royal

SwedishGerman stuff, after his kind; and tragically ill bested now at last! This is his exit he is now

making,still in a consistent manner. It is fifteen years now since he waded ashore at Copenhagen, and first

heard the bullets whistle round him. Since which time, what a course has he run; crashing athwart all manner

of ranked armies, diplomatic combinations, right onward, like a cannonball; tearing off many solemn wigs

in those Northern parts, and scattering them upon the winds,even as he did his own fullbottom wig,

impatiently, on that first day at Copenhagen, tiding it unfurthersome for actual business in batt1e. [Kohler,

In about a month hence, the last important hornwork is forced; Charles, himself seen fiercely fighting on the

place, is swept back from his last hornwork; and the general storm, now altogether irresistible, is evidently at

hand. On entreaty from his followers, entreaty often renewed, with tears even (it is said) and on bended

knees, Charles at last consents to go. He left no orders for surrender; would not name the word; "left only

ambiguous vague orders." But on the 19th December, 1715, he does actually depart; gets on board a little

boat, towards a Swedish frigate, which is lying above a mile out; the whole road to which, between Rugen

and the mainland, is now solid ice, and has to be cut as he proceeds. This slow operation, which lasted all

day, was visible, and its meaning well known, in the besiegers' lines. The King of Denmark saw it; and

brought a battery to bear upon it; his thought had always been, that Charles should be captured or killed in

Stralsund, and not allowed to get away. Friedrich Wilhelm was of quite another mind, and had even used

secret influences to that effect; eager that Charles should escape. It is said, he remonstrated very passionately

with the Danish King and this battery of his; nay, some add, since remonstrances did not avail, and the

battery still threatened to fire, Friedrich Wilhelm drew up a Prussian regiment or two at the muzzles of it, and

said, You shall shoot us first, then. [Buchholz, p. 138.] Which is a pleasant myth at least; and symbolical of

Charles reached his frigate about nightfall, but made little way from the place, owing to defect of wind. They

say, he even heard the chamade beating in Stralsund next day, and that a Danish frigate had nearly taken him;

both which statements are perhaps also a little mythical. Certain only that he vanished at this point into

Scandinavia; and general Europe never saw him more. Vanished into a cloud of untenable schemes, guided

by Alberoni, Baron Gortz and others; wild schemes, financial, diplomatic, warlike, nothing not chimerical in

them but his own unquenchable real energy;and found his death (by assassination, as appears) in the

trenches of Frederickshall, among the Norway Hills, one winter night, three years hence. Assassination

instigated by the Swedish Official Persons, it is thought. The bullet passed through both his temples; he had

clapt his hand upon the hilt of his sword, and was found leant against the parapet, in that attitude, gone

upon a long march now. So vanished Charles Twelfth; the distressed Official Persons and Nobility exploding

upon him in that rather damnable way,anxious to slip their muzzles at any cost whatever. A man of antique

character; true as a child, simple, even bashful, and of a strength and valor rarely exampled among men.

Openhearted Antique populations would have much worshipped such an Appearance;Voltaire, too, for

the artificial Moderns, has made a myth of him, of another type; one of those impossible castiron gentlemen,

heroically mad, such as they show in the Playhouses, pleasant but not profitable, to an undiscerning Pub1ic.

[See Adlerfeld ( Military History of Charles XII. London, 1740, 3 vols., "from the Swedish," through the

French) and Kohler ( Munzbelustigungen, ubi supra), for some authentic traits of his life and him.] The last of

the Swedish Kings died in this way; and the unmuzzled Official Persons have not made much of kinging it in

his stead. Charles died; and, as we may say, took the life of Sweden along with him; for it has never shone

among the Nations since, or been much worth mentioning, except for its misfortunes, spasmodic impotences

Stralsund instantly beat the chamade, as we heard; and all was surrender and subjection in those regions.

Surrender; not yet pacification, not while Charles lived; nor for half a century after his death, could

Mecklenburg, HolsteinGottorp, and other his confederates, escape a sad coil of calamities bequeathed by

him to them. Friedrich Wilhelm returned to Berlin, victorious from his first, which was also his last Prussian

War, in January, 1716; and was doubtless a happy man, NOT "to be buried in the Schlosskirche (under

penalty of God's curse)," but to find his little Fritz and Feekin, and all the world, merry to see him, and all

things put square again, abroad as at home. He forbade the "triumphal entry" which Berlin was preparing for

him; entered privately; and ordered a thanksgiving sermon in all the churches next Sunday.

In the King's absence nothing particular had occurred,except indeed the walking of a dreadful Spectre,

three nights over, in the corridors of the Palace at Berlin; past the doors where our little Prince and

Wilhelmina slept: bringing with it not airs from Heaven, we may fear, but blasts from the Other place! The

stalwart sentries shook in their paces, and became "halfdead" from terror. "A horrible noise, one night," says

Wilhelmina, "when all were buried in sleep: all the world started up, thinking it was fire; but they were much

surprised to find that it was a Spectre." Evident Spectre, seen to pass this way, "and glide along that gallery,

as if towards the apartments of the Queen's Ladies." Captain of the Guard could find nothing in that gallery,

or anywhere, and withdrew again:but lo, it returns the way it went! Stalwart sentries were found melted

into actual deliquium of swooning, as the Preternatural swept by this second time. "They said, It was the

Devil in person; raised by Swedish wizards to kill the PrinceRoyal." [Wilhelmina, Memoires de Bareith, i.

18.]l Poor PrinceRoyal; sleeping sound, we hope; little more than three years old at this time, and knowing

nothing of it!All Berlin talked of the affair. People dreaded it might be a "Spectre" of Swedish tendencies;

aiming to burn the Palace, spirit off the Royal Children, and do one knew not what?

Not that at all, by any means! The Captain of the Guard, reinforcing himself to defiance even of the

Preternatural, does, on the third or fourth apparition, clutch the Spectre; finds him to bea prowling Scullion

of the Palace, employed here he will not say how; who is straightway locked in prison, and so exorcised at

least. Exorcism is perfect; but Berlin is left guessing as to the rest,secret of it discoverable only by the

SpectreScullion, it turns out, had been employed by Grumkow, as spy upon one of the Queen's Maids of

Honor,suspected by him to be a Nomaid of Dishonor, and of ill intentions too,who lodges in that part

of the Palace: of whom Herr Grumkow wishes intensely to know, "Has she an intrigue with Creutz the new

FinanceMinister, or has she not?" "Has, beyond doubt!" the SpectreScullion hopes he has discovered,

before exorcism. Upon which Grumkow, essentially illuminated as to the required particular, manages to get

the SpectreScullion loose again, not quite hanged; glozing the matter off to his Majesty on his return: for the

rest, ruins entirely the Creutz speculation; and has the Nomaid called of Honorwith whom Creutz thought

to have seduced the young King also, and made the young King amenabledismissed from Court in a

peremptory irrefragable manner. This is the secret of the SpectreScullion, fully revealed by Wilhelmina

This one short glance into the Satan's InvisibleWorld of the Berlin Palace, we could not but afford the

reader, when an actual Goblin of it happened to be walking in our neighborhood. Such an InvisibleWorld of

Satan exists in most human Houses, and in all human Palaces;with its imps, familiar demons, spies,

gobetweens, and industrious badangels, continually mounting and descending by THEIR Jacob'sLadder,

or Palace Backstairs: operated upon by Conjurers of the GrumkowCreutz or other sorts. Tyrannous Mamsell

Leti, [Leti, Governess to Wilhelmina, but soon dismissed for insolent cruelty and other bad conduct, was

daughter of that Gregorio Leti ("Protestant Italian Refugee," "Historiographer of Amsterdam," who once had

a pension in this country; and who wrote HistoryBooks, a Life of Cromwell one of them, so regardless of the

difference between true and false.] treacherous Mamsell Ramen, valetsurgeon Eversmann, and plenty more:

readers of Wilhelmina's Book are too well acquainted with them. Nor are expert Conjurers wanting; capable

to work strange feats with so plastic an element as Friedrich Wilhelm's mind. Let this one short glimpse of

Creutz was not dismissed, as some people had expected he might be. Creutz continues FinanceMinister;

makes a great figure in the fashionable Berlin world in these coming years, and is much talked of in the old

Books,though, as he works mostly underground, and merely does budgets and financematters with

extreme talent and success, we shall hope to hear almost nothing more of him. Majesty, while CrownPrince,

when he first got his regiment from Papa, had found this Creutz "Auditor" in it; a poor but handsome fellow,

with perhaps seven shillings a week to live upon; but with such a talent for arranging, for reckoning and

recording, in brief for controlling finance, as more and more charmed the royal mind. [Mauvillon ("Elder

Mauvillon," ANONYMOUS), Histoire de Frederic Guillaume I., par M. de M(Amsterdam et Leipzig,

1741), i. 47. A vague flimsy compilation;gives abundant "StatePapers" (to such as want them), and

One of Majesty's first acts was to appoint him FinanceMinister; [4th May, 1713: Preuss, i. 349. n.] and there

he continued steady, not to be overset by little flaws of wind like this of the SpectreScullion's raising. It is

certain he did, himself, become rich; and helped well to make his Majesty so. We are to fancy him his

Majesty's bottleholder in that battle with the Finance Nightmares and Imbroglios, when so much had to be

subjugated, and drilled into step, in that department. Evidently a longheaded cunning fellow, much of the

Grumkow type;standing very low in Wilhelmina's judgment; and illseen, when not avoidable altogether,

by the Queen's Majesty. "The man was a poor Country Bailiff's (AMTMANN'S, kind of Taxmanager's) son:

from Auditor of a regiment," Papa's own regiment, "he had risen to be Director of Finance, and a Minister of

State. His soul was as low as his birth; it was an assemblage of all the vices," [Wilhelmina, i. 16.] says

Wilhelmina, in the language of exaggeration.Let him stand by his budgets; keep well out of Wilhelmina's

and the Queen's way;and very especially beware of coming on Grumkow's field again.

This Siege of Stralsund, the last military scene of Charles XII., and the FIRST ever practically heard of by

our little Fritz, who is now getting into his fourth year, and must have thought a great deal about it in his little

head,Papa and even Mamma being absent on it, and such a marching and rumoring going on all round

Most of his Tutors were picked up by the careful Papa in this Stralsund business. Duhan de Jandun, a young

French gentleman, familytutor to General Count Dohna (a cousin of our Minister Dohna's), but fonder of

fighting than of teaching grammar; whom Friedrich Wilhelm found doing soldier's work in the trenches, and

liked the ways of; he, as the foundationstone of tutorage, is to be first mentioned. And then Count Fink von

Finkenstein, a distinguished veteran, high in command (of whose qualities as HeadTutor, or occasional

travelling guardian Friedrich Wilhelm had experience in his own young days [ Biographisches Lexikon aaler

Helden und Militairpersonen, welche sich in Preussischen Diensten berumht gemacht haben (4 vols. Berlin,

1788), i. 418, ? Finkenatein.A praiseworthy, modest, highly correct Book, of its kind; which we shall, in

future, call MilitairLexikon, when referring to it.]); and LieutenantColonel Kalkstein, a prisonerofwar

from the Swedish side, whom Friedrich Wilhelm, judging well of him, adopts into his own service with this

view: these three come all from Stralsund Siege; and were of vital moment to our little Fritz in the subsequent

time. Colonel Seckendorf, again, who had a command in the four thousand Saxons here, and refreshed into

intimacy a transient old acquaintance with Friedrich Wilhelm, is not he too of terrible importance to Fritz

For the rest, here is another little incident. We said it had been a disappointment to Papa that his little Fritz

showed almost no appetite for soldiering, but found other sights more interesting to him than the

drillground. Sympathize, then, with the earnest Papa, as he returns home one afternoon,date not given,

but to all appearance of that year 1715, when there was such warrumoring, and marching towards

Stralsund;and found the little Fritz, with Wilhelmina looking over him, strutting about, and assiduously

The paternal heart ran over with glad fondness, invoking Heaven to confirm the omen. Mother was told of it;

the phenomenon was talked of,beautifulest, hopefulest of little drummers. Painter Pesne, a French

Immigrant, or Importee, of the last reign, a man of great skill with his brush, whom History yet thanks on

several occasions, was sent for; or he heard of the incident, and volunteered his services. A Portrait of little

Fritz drumming, with Wilhelmina looking on; to which, probably for the sake of color and pictorial effect, a

Blackamoor, aside with parasol in hand, grinning approbation, has been added,was sketched, and

dexterously worked out in oil, by Painter Pesne. Picture approved by mankind there and then. And it still

hangs on the wall, in a perfect state, in Charlottenburg Palace; where the judicious tourist may see it without

A really graceful little Picture; and certainly, to Prussian men, not without weight of meaning. Nor perhaps to

PictureCollectors and Cognoscenti generally, of whatever couutry,if they could forget, for a moment, the

correggiosity of Correggio, and the learned babble of the Saleroom and varnishing Auctioneer; and think,

"Why it is, probably, that Pictures exist in this world, and to what end the divine art of Painting was

bestowed, by the earnest gods, upon poor mankind?" I could advise it, once, for a little! Flaying of Saint

Bartholomew, Rape of Europa, Rape of the Sabines, Piping and Amours of goatfooted Pan, Romulus

suckled by the Wolf: all this, and much else of fabulous, distant, unimportant, not to say impossible, ugly and

unworthy, shall pass without undue severity of criticism, in a Household of such opulence as ours, where

much goes to waste, and where things are not on an earnest footing for this long while past! As Created

Objects, or as Phantasms of such, pictorially done, all this shall have much worth, or shall have little. But I

say, Here withal is one not phantasmal; of indisputable certainty, homegrown, just commencing business,

Fritz is still, if not in "longclothes," at least in longish and flowing clothes, of the petticoat sort, which look

as of darkblue velvet, very simple, pretty and appropriate; in a cap of the same; has a short raven's feather in

the cap; and looks up, with a face and eyes full of beautiful vivacity and child's enthusiasm, one of the

beautifulest little figures, while the little drum responds to his bits of drumsticks. Sister Wilhelmina, taller by

some three years, looks on in pretty marching attitude, and with a graver smile. Blackamoor, and

accompaniments elegant enough; and finally the figure of a grenadier, on guard, seen far off through an

We have engravings of this Picture; which are of clumsy poor quality, and misrepresent it much: an excellent

Copy in oil, what might be called almost a facsimile and the perfection of a Copy, is now (1854) in Lord

Ashburton's Collection here in England. In the Berlin Galleries,which are made up, like other Galleries, of

goatfooted Pan, Europa's Bull, Romulus's SheWolf, and the correggiosity of Correggio; and contain, for

instance, no Portrait of Frederick the Great; no Likenesses at all, or next to none at all, of the noble series of

Human Realities, or of any part of them, who have sprung not from the idle brains of dreaming Dilettanti, but

from the Head of God Almighty, to make this poor authentic Earth a little memorable for us, and to do a little

work that may be eternal there:in those expensive Halls of "High Art" at Berlin, there were, to my

experience, few Pictures more agreeable than this of Pesne's. Welcome, like one tiny islet of Reality amid the

shoreless sea of Phantasms, to the reflective mind, seriously loving and seeking what is worthy and

memorable, seriously hating and avoiding what is the reverse, and intent not to play the dilettante in this

The same Pesne, an excellent Artist, has painted Friedrich as PrinceRoyal: a beautiful young man with

MOISTlooking enthusiastic eyes of extraordinary brilliancy, smooth oval face; considerably resembling his

Mother. After which period, authentic Pictures of Friedrich are sought for to little purpose. For it seems he

never sat to any Painter, in his reigning days; and the Prussian Chodowiecki, [Pronounce

KODOVYETSKI;and endeavor to make some acquaintance with this "Prussian Hogarth," who has real

worth and originality.] Saxon Graff, English Cunningham had to pick up his physiognomy from the distance,

intermittently, as they could. Nor is Rauch's grand equestrian Sculpture a thing to be believed, or perhaps

pretending much to be so. The commonly received Portrait of Friedrich, which all German limners can draw

at once,the cockedhat, big eyes and alert air, reminding you of some uncommonly brisk Invalid

Drillsergeant or Greenwich Pensioner, as much as of a Royai Hero,is nothing but a general extract and

average of all the faces of Friedrich, such as has been tacitly agreed upon; and is definable as a received

But enough now of Pictures. This of the Little Drummer, the painting and the thing painted which remain to

us, may be taken as Friedrich's first appearance on the stage of the world; and welcomed accordingly. It is

one of the very few visualities or definite certainties we can lay hold of, in those young years of his, and bring

waste Prussian dustclouds of uninstructive garrulity which pretend to record them for us. Whether it came

into existence as a shadowy emanation from the Stralsund Expedition, can only be matter of conjecture. To

judge by size, these figures must have been painted about the year 1715; Fritz some three or four years old,

It remains only to be intimated, that Friedrich Wilhelm, for his part, had got all he claimed from this

Expedition: namely, Stettin with the dependent Towns, and quietness in Pommern. Stettin was, from of old,

the capital of his own part of Pommern; thrown in along with the other parts of Pommern, and given to

Sweden (from sheer necessity, it was avowed), at the Peace of Westphalia, sixty years ago or more:and

now, by good chance, it has come back. Wait another hundred years, and perhaps Swedish Pommern

altogether will come back! But from all this Friedrich Wilhelm is still far. Stettin and quiet are all he dreams

Stralsund he did not reckon his; left it with the Danes, to hold in pawn till some general Treaty. Nor was there

farther outbreak of war in those regions; though actual Treaty of Peace did not come till 1720, and make

matters sure. It was the new Queen of Sweden, Ulrique Eleonora (Charles's younger Sister, wedded to the

young Landgraf of HessenCassel),much aided by an English Envoy,who made this Peace with

Friedrich Wilhelm. A young English Envoy, called Lord Carteret, was very helpful in this matter; one of his

first feats in the diplomatic world. For which Peace, [Stockholm, 21st January, 1720: in Mauvillon (i.

380417) the Document itself at large.] Friedrich Wilhelm was so thankful, good pacific armedman, that

happening to have a Daughter born to him just about that time, he gave the little creature her Swedish

Majesty's name; a new "Ulrique," who grew to proper stature, and became notable in Sweden, herself, by and

In the Autumn of 1717, Peter the Great, coming home from his celebrated French journey, paid Friedrich

Wilhelm a visit; and passed four days at Berlin. Of which let us give one glimpse, if we can with brevity.

Friedrich Wilhelm and the Czar, like in several points, though so dissimilar in others, had always a certain

regard for one another; and at this time, they had been brought into closer intercourse by their common peril

from Charles XII., ever since that Stralsund business. The peril was real, especially with a Gortz and Alberoni

putting hand to it; and the alarm, the rumor, and uncertainty were great in those years. The wounded Lion

driven indignant into his lair, with Plotting Artists now operating upon the rage of the noble animal: who

knows what spring he will next take? George I. had a fleet cruising in the Baltic Sounds, and again a fleet;

paying, in that oblique way, for Bremen and Verden; which were got, otherwise, such a bargain to his

Hanover. Czar Peter had marched an Army into Denmark; united Russians and Danes count fifty thousand

there; for a conjunct invasion, and probable destruction, of Sweden: but that came to nothing; Charles looking

across upon it too dangerously, "visible in clear weather over from the Danish side." [1716: Fassmann, p.

171.] So Peter's troops have gone home again; Denmark too glad to get them away. Perhaps they would have

stayed in Denmark altogether; much liking the green pastures and convenient situation,had not Admiral

Norris with his cannon been there! Perhaps? And the Pretender is coming again, they say? And who knows

what is coming?How Gortz, in about a year hence was laid hold of, and let go, and then ultimately tried

and beheaded (once his lion Master was disposed of); [19th March, 1719: see Kohler ( Munzbelustiggungen,

vi. 233240, xvii. 297304) for many curious details of Gortz and his end.] how, Ambassador Cellamare, and

the Spanish part of the Plot, having been discovered in Paris, Cardinal Alberoni at Madrid was discovered,

and the whole mystery laid bare; all that mad business, of bringing the Pretender into England, throwing out

George I., throwing out the Regent d'Orleans, and much more,is now sunk silent enough, not worthy of

reawakening; but it was then a most loud matter; filling the European Courts, and especially that of Berlin,

with rumors and apprehensions. No wonder Friedrich Wilhelm was grateful for that Swedish Peace of his,

and named his little daughter "Ulrique" in honor of it. Tumultuous cloudworld of Lapland Witchcraft had

ceased hereby, and daylight had begun: old women (or old Cardinals) riding through the sky, on broomsticks,

to meet Satan, where now are they? The fact still dimly perceptible is, Europe, thanks to that pair of

BlackArtists, Gortz and Alberoni, not to mention Law the FinanceWizard and his French incantations, had

been kept generally, for these three or four years past, in the state of a Haunted House; riotous Goblins, of

unknown dire intent, walking now in this apartment of it, now in that; no rest anywhere for the perturbed

As to Friedrich Wilhelm, his plan in 1717, as all along, in this bewitched state of matters, was: To fortify his

Frontier Towns; Memel, Wesel, to the right and left, especially to fortify Stettin, his new acquisition;and to

put his Army, and his Treasury (or ArmyCHEST), more and more in order. In that way we shall better meet

whatever goblins there may be, thinks Friedrich Wilhelm. Count Lottum, hero of the Prussians at Malplaquet,

is doing his scientific uttermost in Stettin and those Frontier Towns. For the rest, his Majesty, invited by the

Czar and France, has been found willing to make paction with them, as he is with all pacific neighbors. In

fact, the Czar and he had their private Conference, at Havelberg, last year,Havelberg, some sixty miles

from Berlin, on the road towards Denmark, as Peter was passing that way;ample Conference of. five days;

[23d28th November, 1716: Fassmann, p. 172.]privately agreeing there, about many points conducive to

tranquillity. And it was on that same errand, though ostensibly to look after Art and the higher forms of

Civilization so called, that Peter had been to France on this celebrated occasion of 1717. We know he saw

much Art withal; saw Marly, Trianon and the grandeurs and politenesses;saw, among other things, "a

Medal of himself fall accidentally at his feet;" polite Medal "just getting struck in the Mint, with a rising sun

on it; and the motto, VIRES ACQUIRIT EUNDO." [Voltaire, OEuvres Completes (Histoire du Czar Pierre),

xxxi. 336.Kohler in Munzbelustigungen, xvii. 386392 (this very MEDAL the subject), gives authentic

account, day by day, of the Czar's visit there.] Ostensibly it was to see CETTE BELLE FRANCE; but

privately withal the Czar wished to make his bargain, with the Regent d'Orleans, as to these goblins walking

in the Northern and Southern parts, and what was to be done with them. And the result has been, the Czar,

Friedrich Wilhelm and the said Regent have just concluded an Agreement; [4th August, 1717; Buchholz, i.

43.] undertaking in general, that the goblins shall be well watched; that they Three will stand by one another

in watching them. And now the Czar will visit Berlin in passing homewards again. That is the position of

affairs, when he pays this visit. Peter had been in Berlin more than once before; but almost always in a

succinct rapid condition; never with his "Court" about him till now. This is his last, and by far his greatest,

Such a transit, of the Barbaric semifabulous Sovereignties, could not but be wonderful to everybody there. It

evidently struck Wilhelmina's fancy, now in her ninth year, very much. What her little Brother did in it, or

thought of it, I nowhere find hinted; conclude only that it would remain in his head too, visible occasionally

to the end of his life. Wilhelmina's Narrative, very loose, dateless or misdated, plainly wrong in various

particulars, has still its value for us: human eyes, even a child's, are worth something, in comparison to

human wantofeyes, which is too frequent in Historybooks and elsewhere!Czar Peter is now fortyfive,

his Czarina Catherine about thirtyone. It was in 1698 that he first passed this way, going towards Saardam

and practical Shipbuilding: within which twenty years what a spell of work done! Victory of Pultawa is

eight years behind him; [27th June, 1709.] victories in many kinds are behind him: by this time he is to be

reckoned a triumphant Czar; and is certainly the strangest mixture of heroic virtue and brutish Samoeidic

It was Sunday, 19th September, 1717, when the Czar arrived in Berlin. Being already sated with scenic

parades, he had begged to be spared all ceremony; begged to be lodged in Monbijou, the Queen's little

GardenPalace with river and trees round it, where he hoped to be quietest. Monbijou has been set apart

accordingly; the Queen, not in the benignest humor, sweeping all her crystals and brittle things away;

knowing the manners of the Muscovites. Nor in the way of ceremony was there much: King and Queen drove

out to meet him; rampartguns gave three big salvos, as the Czarish Majesty stept forth. "I am glad to see

you, my Brother Friedrich," said Peter, in German, his only intelligible language; shaking hands with the

Brother Majesty, in a cordial human manner. The Queen he, still more cordially, "would have kissed;" but

this she evaded, in some graceful effective way. As to the Czarina, who, for OBSTETRIC and other

reasons, of no moment to us, had stayed in Wesel all the time he was in France,she followed him now at

two days' distance; not along with him, as Wilhelmina has it. Wilhelmina says, she kissed the Queen's hand,

and again and again kissed it; begged to present her Ladies,"about four hundred socalled Ladies, who

were of her Suite."Surely not so many as four hundred, you too witty Princess? "Mere German

servingmaids for the most part," says the witty Princess; "Ladies when there is occasion, then acting aa

Queen Sophie was averse to salute these creatures; but the Czarina Catherine making reprisals upon our

Margravines, and the King looking painfully earnest in it, she prevailed upon herself. Was there ever seen

such a travelling tagraggery of a Sovereign Court before? "Several of these creatures [PRESQUE TOUTES,

says the exaggerative Princess] had, in their arms, a baby in rich dress; and if you asked, 'Is that yours, then?'

they answered, making salaams in Russian style, 'The Czar did me the honor ( m'a fait l'honneur de me faire

Which statement, if we deduct the due 25 per cent, is probably not mythic, after all. A day or two ago, the

Czar had been at Magdeburg, on his way hither, intent upon inspecting matters there; and the Official

Gentlemen,President Cocceji (afterwards a very celebrated man) at the head of them,waited on the

Czar, to do what was needful. On entering, with the proper Address or complimentary Harangue, they found

his Czarish Majesty "standing between two Russian Ladies," clearly Ladies of the above sort; for they stood

close by him, one of his arms was round the neck of each, and his hands amused themselves by taking

liberties in that posture, all the time Cocceji spoke. Nay, even this was as nothing among the Magdeburg

phenomena. Next day, for instance, there appeared in the audiencechamber a certain Serene highpacing

Duke of Mecklenburg, with his Duchess;thriceunfortunate Duke, of whom we shall too often hear again;

who, after some adventures, under Charles XII. first of all, and then under the enemies of Charles, had, about

a year ago, after divorcing his first Wife, married a Niece of Peter's:Duke and Duchess arrive now, by

order or gracious invitation of their Sovereign Uncle, to accompany him in those parts; and are announced to

an eager Czar, giving audience to his select Magdeburg public. At sight of which most desirable Duchess and

Brother's Daughter, how Peter started up, satyrlike, clasping her in his arms, and snatching her into an inner

room, with the door left ajar, and thereIt is too Samoeidic for human speech! and would excel belief, were

not the testimony so strong. [Pollnitz ( Memoiren, ii. 95) gives Friedrich Wilhelm as voucher, "who used to

relate it as from eyeandear witnesses."] A Duke of Mecklenburg, it would appear, who may count himself

the NONPLUSULTRA of husbands in that epoch;as among Sovereign Rulers, too, in a small or great

Duke and Duchess accompanied the Czar to Berlin, where Wilhelmina mentions them, as presentees; part of

those "four hundred" anomalies. They took the Czar home with them to Mecklenburg: where indeed some

Russian Regiments of his, left here on their return from Denmark, had been very useful in coercing the

rebellious Ritterschaft (KNIGHTAGE, or LandedGentry) of this Duke,till at length the general outcry,

and voice of the Reich itself, had ordered the said Regiments to get on march again, and take themselves

away. [The LAST of them, "July, 1717; " two months ago. (Michaelis, ii. 418.)] For all is rebellion, passive

rebellion, in Mecklenburg; taxes being so indispensable; and the Knights so disinclined; and this Duke a

Sovereign,such as we may construe from his quarrelling with almost everybody, and his NOT quarrelling

with an Uncle Peter of that kind. [One poor hint, on his behalf, let us not omit: "WIFE quitted him in 1719,

and lived at Moscow afterwards!" (General Mannstein, Memoirs of Russia, London, 1770, p. 27 n.)] His

troubles as Sovereign Duke, his flights to Dantzig, oustings, returns, lawpleadings and foolish confusions,

lasted all his life, thirty years to come; and were bequeathed as a sorrowful legacy to Posterity and the

neighboring Countries. Voltaire says, the Czar wished to buy his Duchy from him. [Ubi supra, xxxi. 414.]

And truly, for this wretched Duke, it would have been good to sell it at any price: but there were other words

than his to such a bargain, had it ever been seriously meditated. By this extraordinary Duchess he becomes

Father (real or putative) of a certain Princess, whom we may hear of; and through her again is Grandfather of

an unfortunate Russian Prince, much bruited about, as "the murdered Iwan," in subsequent times. With such a

Wilhelmina goes by hearsay hitherto; and, it is to be hoped, had heard nothing of these

MagdeburgMecklenburg phenomena; but after the Czarina's arrival, the little creature saw with her own

"Next day," that is, Wednesday, 22d "the Czar and his Spouse came to return the Queen's visit; and I saw the

Court myself." Palace GrandApartments; Queen advancing a due length, even to the outer guardroom;

giving the Czarina her right hand, and leading her into her audiencechamber in that distinguished manner:

King and Czar followed close;and here it was that Wilhelmina's personal experiences began. "The Czar at

once recognized me, having seen me before, five years ago [March, 1713]. He caught me in his arms; fell to

kissing me, like to flay the skin off my face. I boxed his ears, sprawled, and struggled with all my strength;

saying I would not allow such familiarities, and that he was dishonoring me. He laughed greatly at this idea;

made peace, and talked a long time with me. I had got my lesson: I spoke of his fleet and his

conquests;which charmed him so much, that he said more than once to the Czarina, 'If he could have a

child like me, he would willingly give one of his Provinces in exchange.' The Czarina also caressed me a

good deal. The Queen [Mamma] and she placed themselves under the dais, each in an armchair" of proper

dignity; "I was at the Queen's side, and the Princesses of the Blood," Margravines above spoken of, "were

"The Czarina was a little stumpy body, very brown, and had neither air nor grace: you needed only look at

her, to guess her low extraction." It is no secret, she had been a kitchenwench in her Lithuanian native

country; afterwards a female of the kind called unfortunate, under several figures: however, she saved the

Czar once, by her readywit and courage, from a devouring Turkish Difficulty, and he made her fortunate

and a Czarina, to sit under the dais as now. "With her huddle of clothes, she looked for all the world like a

German Playactress; her dress, you would have said, had been bought at a secondhand shop; all was out of

fashion, all was loaded with silver and greasy dirt. The front of her bodice she had ornamented with jewels in

a very singular pattern: A doubleeagle in embroidery, and the plumes of it set with poor little diamonds, of

the smallest possible carat, and very ill mounted. All along the facing of her gown were Orders and little

things of metal; a dozen Orders, and as many Portraits of saints, of relics and the like; so that when she

walked, it was with a jingling, as if you heard a mule with bells to its harness."Poor little Czarina; shifty

nutbrown fellowcreature, strangely chased about from the bottom to the top of this world; it is evident she

"The Czar, on the other hand, was very tall, and might be called handsome," continues Wilhelmina: "his

countenance was beautiful, but had something of savage in it which put you in fear." Partly a kind of

Milton'sDevil physiognomy? The Portraits give it rather so. Archangel not quite ruined, yet in sadly ruinous

condition; its heroism so bemired,with a turn for strong drink, too, at times! A physiognomy to make one

"The Czarina, who spoke German very ill herself, and did not understand well what the Queen said, beckoned

to her Fool to come near,"a poor female creature, who had once been a Princess Galitzin, but having got

into mischief, had been excused to the Czar by her high relations as mad, and saved from death or Siberia,

into her present strange harbor of refuge. With her the Czarina talked in unknown Russ, evidently "laughing

"At table," continues Wilhelmina, "the Czar placed himself beside the Queen. It is understood this Prince was

attempted with poison in his youth, and that something of it had settled on his nerves ever after. One thing is

certain, there took him very often a sort of convulsion, like Tic or St.Vitus, which it was beyond his power

to control. That happened at table now. He got into contortions, gesticulations; and as the knife was in his

hand, and went dancing about within arm'slength of the Queen, it frightened her, and she motioned several

times to rise. The Czar begged her not to mind, for he would do her no ill; at the same time he took her by the

hand, which he grasped with such violence that the Queen was forced to shriek out. This set him heartily

laughing; saying she had not bones of so hard a texture as his Catherine's. Supper done, a grand Ball had been

got ready; but the Czar escaped at once, and walked home by himself to Monbijou, leaving the others to

Wilhelmina's story of the Cabinet of Antiques; of the Indecent little Statue there, and of the orders Catherine

got to kiss it, with a "KOPF AB (Head off, if you won't)!" from the bantering Czar, whom she had to

obey,is not incredible, after what we have seen. It seems, he begged this bit of Antique Indecency from

Friedrich Wilhelm; who, we may fancy, would give him such an article with especial readiness. That same

day, fourth of the Visit, Thursday, 23d of the month, the august Party went its ways again; Friedrich Wilhelm

convoying "as far as Potsdam;" Czar and Suite taking that route towards Mecklenburg, where he still intends

some little pause before proceeding homeward. Friedrich Wilhelm took farewell; and never saw the Czar

It was on this Journey, best part of which is now done, that the famous Order bore, "Do it for six thousand

thalers; won't allow you one other penny ( nit einen Pfennig gebe mehr dazu ); but give out to the world that

it costs me thirty or forty thousand!" Nay, it is on record that the sum proved abundant, and even

superabundant, near half of it being left as overplus. [Forster, i. 215.] The hospitalities of Berlin, Friedrich

Wilhelm took upon himself, and he has done them as we see. You shall defray his Czarish Majesty, to the last

Peter's, VIATICUM, the Antique Indecency, Friedrich Wilhelm did not grudge to part with; glad to purchase

the Czar's goodwill by coin of that kind. Last year, at Havelberg, he had given the Czar an entire Cabinet of

Amber Articles, belonging to his late Father. Amber Cabinet, in the lump; and likewise such a Yacht, for

shape, splendor and outfit, as probably Holland never launched before; Yacht also belonging to his late

Father, and without value to Friedrich Wilhelm. The old King had got it built in Holland, regardless of

expense,15,000 pounds, they say, perhaps as good as 50,000 pounds now; and it lay at Potsdam: good

for what? Friedrich Wilhelm sent it down the Havel, down the Elbe, silk sailors and all, towards Hamburg

and Petersburg, with a great deal of pleasure. For the Czar, and peace and goodwill with the Czar, was of

essential value to him. Neither, at any rate, is the Czar a man to take gifts without return. Tall fellows for

soldiers: that is always one prime object with Friedrich Wilhelm; for already these Potsdam Guards of his are

getting ever more gigantic. Not less an object, though less an ideal or POETIC one (as we once defined), was

this other, to find buyers for the Manufactures, new and old, which he was so bent on encouraging. "It is

astonishing, what quantities of cloth, of hardware, salt, and all kinds of manufactured articles the Russians

buy from us," say the old Books;"see how our 'Russian Company' flourishes!" In both these objects, not to

Thus, this very Autumn, there arrive, astonished and astonishing, no fewer than a hundred and fifty human

figures (one half MORE than were promised), probably from seven to eight feet high; the tallest the Czar

could riddle out from his Dominions: what a windfall to the Potsdam Guard and its ColonelKing! And all

succeeding Autumns the like, so long as Friedrich Wilhelm lived; every Autumn, out of Russia a hundred of

the tallest mortals living. Invaluable,to a "man of genius" mounted on his hobby! One's "stanza" can be

In return for these Russian sons of Anak, Friedrich Wilhelm grudged not to send German smiths, millwrights,

drillsergeants, cannoneers, engineers; having plenty of them. By whom, as Peter well calculated, the inert

opaque Russian mass might be kindled into luminosity and vitality; and drilled to know the Art of War, for

one thing. Which followed accordingly. And it is observable, ever since, that the Russian Art of War has a

tincture of GERMAN in it (solid German, as contradistinguished from unsolid RevolutionaryFrench); and

hints to us of Friedrich Wilhelm and the Old Dessauer, to this hour.EXEANT now the Barbaric

In his seventh year, young Friedrich was taken out of the hands of the women; and had Tutors and

SubTutors of masculine gender, who had been nominated for him some time ago, actually set to work upon

their function. These we have already heard of; they came from Stralsund Siege, all the principal hands.

Duhan de Jandun, the young French gentleman who had escaped from grammarlessons to the trenches, he is

the practical teacher. LieutenantGeneral Graf Fink von Finkenstein and LieutenantColonel von Kalkstein,

they are Head Tutor (OBERHOFMEISTER) and SubTutor; military men both, who had been in many wars

besides Stralsund. By these three he was assiduously educated, subordinate schoolmasters working under

them when needful, in such branches as the paternal judgment would admit; the paternal object and theirs

being to infuse useful knowledge, reject useless, and wind up the whole into a military finish. These

appointments, made at different precise dates, took effect, all of them, in the year 1719.

Duhan, independently of his experience in the trenches, appears to have been an accomplished, ingenious and

conscientious man; who did credit to Friedrich Wilhelm's judgment; and to whom Friedrich professed himself

much indebted in after life. Their progress in some of the technical branches, as we shall perceive, was

indisputably unsatisfactory. But the mind of the Boy seems to have been opened by this Duhan, to a lively,

and in some sort genial, perception of things round him;of the strange confusedly opulent Universe he had

got into; and of the noble and supreme function which Intelligence holds there; supreme in Art as in Nature,

beyond all other functions whatsoever. Duhan was now turned of thirty: a cheerful amiable Frenchman; poor,

though of good birth and acquirements; originally from Champagne. Friedrich loved him very much; always

considered him his spiritual father; and to the end of Duhan's life, twenty years hence, was eager to do him

any good in his power. Anxious always to repair, for poor Duhan, the great sorrows he came to on his

Of Graf Fink von Finkenstein, who has had military experiences of all kinds and all degrees, from marching

as prisoner into France, "wounded and without his hat," to fighting at Malplaquet, at Blenheim, even at

Steenkirk, as well as Stralsund; who is now in his sixtieth year, and seems to have been a gentleman of rather

high solemn manners, and indeed of undeniable perfections,of this supreme Count Fink we learn almost

nothing farther in the Books, except that his little Pupil did not dislike him either. The little Pupil took not

unkindly to Fink; welcoming any benignant human ray, across these lofty gravities of the

OBERHOFMEISTER; went often to his house in Berlin; and made acquaintance with two young Finks about

his own age, whom he found there, and who became important to him, especially the younger of them, in the

course of the future. [ZedlitzNeukirch, Preussisches AdelsLexikon (Leipzig, l836), ii. 168.

MilitairLexicon, i. 420.] This Pupil, it may be said, is creditably known for his attachment to his Teachers

and others; an attached and attaching little Boy. Of Kalkstein, a rational, experienced and earnest kind of

man, though as yet but young, it is certain also that the little Fritz loved him; and furthermore that the Great

Friedrich was grateful to him, and had a high esteem of his integrity and sense. "My master, Kalkstein," used

to be his designation of him, when the name chanced to be mentioned in after times. They continued together,

with various passages of mutual history, for forty years afterwards, till Kalkstein's death. Kalkstein is at

present twentyeight, the youngest of the three Tutors; then, and ever after, an altogether downright correct

soldier and man. He is of Preussen, or Prussia Proper, this Kalkstein;of the same kindred as that mutinous

Kalkstein, whom we once heard of, who was "rolled in a carpet," and kidnapped out of Warsaw, in the Great

Elector's time. Not a direct descendant of that beheaded Kalkstein's but, as it were, his NEPHEW so many

times removed. Preussen is now far enough from mutiny; subdued, with all its Kalksteins, into a respectful

silence, not lightly using the right even of petition, or submissive remonstrance, which it may still have. Nor,

except on the score of parliamentary eloquence and newspaper copyright, does it appear that Preussen has

How these FinkKalkstein functionaries proceeded in the great task they had got,very great task, had they

known what Pupil had fallen to them,is not directly recorded for us, with any sequence or distinctness. We

infer only that everything went by inflexible routiue; not asking at all, WHAT pupil?nor much, Whether it

would suit any pupil? Duhan, with the tendencies we have seen in him, who is willing to soften the inflexible

when possible, and to "guide Nature" by a rather loose rein, was probably a genial element in the otherwise

strict affair. Fritz had one unspeakable advantage, rare among princes and even among peasants in these

ruined ages: that of NOT being taught, or in general not, by the kind called "Hypocrites, and even

SincereHypocrites,"fatalest species of the class HYPOCRITE. We perceive he was lessoned, all along,

not by enchanted Phantasms of that dangerous sort, breathing mendacity of mind, unconsciously, out of every

look; but by real Men, who believed from the heart outwards, and were daily doing what they taught. To

which unspeakable advantage we add a second, likewise considerable; That his masters, though rigorous,

were not unlovable to him;that his affections, at least, were kept alive; that whatever of seed (or of chaff

and hail, as was likelier) fell on his mind, had SUNSHINE to help in dealing with it. These are two

advantages still achievable, though with difficulty, in our epoch, by an earnest father in behalf of his poor

little son. And these are, at present, nearly all; with these well achieved, the earnest father and his son ought

to be thankful. Alas, in matter of education, there are no highroads at present; or there are such only as do

NOT lead to the goal. Fritz, like the rest of us, had to struggle his way, Nature and Didactic Art differing very

much from one another; and to do battle, incessant partial battle, with his schoolmasters for any education he

A very rough Document, giving Friedrich Wilhelm's regulations on this subject, from his own hand, has

come down to us. Most dull, embroiled, heavy Document; intricate, gnarled, and, in fine, rough and stiff as

natural bullheadedness helped by Prussian pipeclay can make it;contains some excellent hints, too; and

will show us something of Fritzchen and of Friedrich Wilhelm both at once. That is to say, always, if it can

be read! If by aid of abridging, elucidating and arranging, we can get the reader engaged to peruse it

patiently;which seems doubtful. The points insisted on, in a ponderous but straggling confused manner, by

1. Must impress my Son with a proper love and fear of God, as the foundation and sole pillar of our

temporal and eternal welfare. No false religions, or sects of Atheist, Arian (ArRian), Socinian, or whatever

name the poisonous things have, which can so easily corrupt a young mind, are to be even named in his

hearing: on the other hand, a proper abhorrence (ABSCHEU) of Papistry, and insight into its baselessness

and nonsensicality (UNGRUND UND ABSURDITAT), is to be communicated to him:"Papistry, which is

false enough, like the others, but impossible to be ignored like them; mention that, and give him due

abhorrence for it. For we are Protestant to the bone in this country; and cannot stand ABSURDITAT, least of

all hypocritically religious ditto! But the grand thing will be, "To impress on him the true religion, which

consists essentially in this, That Christ died for all men," and generally that the Almighty's justice is eternal

and omnipresent, "which consideration is the only means of keeping a sovereign person (SOUVERAINE

2. "He is to learn no Latin;" observe that, however it may surprise you. What has a living German man

and King, of the eighteenth Christian SOECULUM, to do with dead old Heathen Latins, Romans, and the

lingo THEY spoke their fraction of sense and nonsense in? Frightful, how the young years of the European

Generations have been wasted, for ten centuries back; and the Thinkers of the world have become mere

walking Sacks of Marinestores, "GELEHRTEN, Learned," as they call themselves; and gone LOST to the

world, in that manner, as a set of confiscated Pedants;babbling about said Heathens, and THEIR extinct

lingo and fraction of sense and nonsense, for the thousand years last past! Heathen Latins, Romans;who

perhaps were no great things of Heathen, after all, if well seen into? I have heard judges say, they were

INferior, in real worth and grist, to German homegrowths we have had, if the confiscated Pedants could

have discerned it! At any rate, they are dead, buried deep, these two thousand years; well out of our

way;and nonsense enough of our own left, to keep sweeping into corners. Silence about their lingo and

them, to this new CrownPrince! "Let the Prince learn French and German," so as to write and speak, "with

brevity and propriety," in these two languages, which may be useful to him in life. That will suffice for

languages,provided he have anything effectually rational to say in them. For the rest,

3. "Let him learn Arithmetic, Mathematics, Artillery, Economy to the very bottom." And, in short,

useful knowledge generally; useless ditto not at all. "History in particular; Ancient History only slightly

(NUR UBERHIN);but the History of the last hundred and fifty Years to the exactest pitch. The JUS

NATURALE and JUS GENTIUM," by way of handlamp to History, "he must be completely master of; as

also of Geography, whatever is remarkable in each Country. And in Histories, most especially the History of

the house of Brandenburg; where he will find domestic examples, which are always of more force than

foreign. And along with Prussian History, chiefly that of the Countries which have been connected with it, as

England, Brunswick, Hessen and the others. And in reading of wise Historybooks there must be

considerations made ( sollen beym Lesen kluger Historiarum Betrachtungen gemacht werden ) upon the

4. "With increasing years, you will more and more, to a most especial degree, go upon

Fortification,"mark you!"the Formation of a Camp, and the other WarSciences; that the Prince may,

from youth upwards, be trained to act as Officer and General, and to seek all his glory in the soldier

profession." This is whither it must all tend. You, Finkenstein and Kalkstein, "have both of you, in the highest

measure, to make it your care to infuse into my Son [EINZUPRAGEN, stamp into him] a true love for the

Soldier business, and to impress on him that, as there is nothing in the world which can bring a Prince renown

and honor like the sword, so he would be a despised creature before all men, if he did not love it, and seek his

sole glory (DIE EINZIGE GLORIA) therein." [Preuss, i. 1114 (of date 13th August, 1718).] Which is an

These are the chief FriedrichWilhelm traits; the rest of the document corresponds in general to what the late

Majesty had written for Friedrich Wilhelm himself on the like occasion. [Stenzel, iii. 572.] Ruthless contempt

of Useless Knowledge; and passionate insight into the distinction between Useful and Useless, especially into

the worth of Soldiering as a royal accomplishment, are the chief peculiarities here. In which latter point too

Friedrich Wilhelm, himself the most pacific of men, unless you pulled the whiskers of him, or broke into his

goods and chattels, knew very well what he was meaning,much better than we of the "Peace Society" and

"Philanthropic Movement" could imagine at first sight! It is a thing he, for his part, is very decided upon.

Already, a year before this time, [1st September, 1717: Preuss, i. 13.] there had been instituted, for express

behoof of little Fritz, a miniature Soldier Company, above a hundred strong; which grew afterwards to be

near three hundred, and indeed rose to be a permanent Institution by degrees; called Kompagnie der

Kronprinzlichen Kadetten (Company of CrownPrince Cadets). A hundred and ten boys about his own age,

sons of noble families, had been selected from the three Military Schools then extant, as a kind of tiny

regiment for him; where, if he was by no means commander all at once, he might learn his exercise in

fellowship with others. Czar Peter, it is likely, took a glance of this tiny regiment just getting into rank and

file there; which would remind the Czar of his own young days. An experienced LieutenantColonel was

appointed to command in chief. A certain handy and correct young fellow, Rentsel by name, about seventeen,

who already knew his fugling to a hair'sbreadth, was Drillmaster; and exencised them all, Fritz especially,

with due strictness; till, in the course of time and of attainments, Fritz could himself take the head charge.

Which he did duly, in a year or two: a little soldier thenceforth; properly strict, though of small dimensions;

in tight blue bit of coat and cockedhat: miniature image of Papa (it is fondly hoped and expected),

resembling him as a sixpence does a halfcrown. In 1721 the assiduous Papa set up a "little arsenal" for him,

"in the Orange Hall of the Palace:" there let him, with perhaps a chosen comrade or two, mount batteries, fire

exceedingly small brass ordnance, his EngineerTeacher, one Major von Senning, limping about (on cork

Rentzel, it is known, proved an excellent Drillsergeant;had good talents every way, and was a man of

probity and sense. He played beautifully on the flute too, and had a cheerful conversible turn; which naturally

recommended him still farther to Fritz; and awoke or encouraged, among other faculties, the musical faculty

in the little Boy. Rentzel continued about him, or in sight of him, through life; advancing gradually, not too

fast, according to real merit and service (Colonel in 1759); and never did discredit to the choice Friedrich

Wilhelm had made of him. Of Senning, too, EngineerMajor von Senning, who gave Fritz his lessons in

Mathematics, Fortification and the kindred branches, the like, or better, can be said. He was of graver years;

had lost a leg in the Marlborough Campaigns, poor gentleman; but had abundant sense, native worth and

cheery rational talk, in him: so that he too could never be parted with by Friedrich, but was kept on hand to

Thus, at least, is the military education of our CrownPrince cared for. And we are to fancy the little fellow,

from his tenth year or earlier, going about in miniature soldier figure, for most part; in strict

SpartanBrandenburg costume, of body as of mind. Costume little flattering to his own private taste for

finery; yet by no means unwholesome to him, as he came afterwards to know, In October, 1723, it is on

record, when George I. came to visit his Soninlaw and Daughter at Berlin, his Britannic Majesty, looking

out from his new quarters on the morrow, saw Fritzchen "drilling his Cadet Company;" a very pretty little

phenomenon. Drilling with clear voice, military sharpness, and the precision of clockwork on the Esplanade

(LUSTGARTEN) there;and doubtless the Britannic Majesty gave some grunt of acquiescence, perhaps

even a smile, rare on that square heavyladen countenance of his. That is the record: [Forster, i. 215.] and

truly it forms for us by far the liveliest little picture we have got, from those dull old years of European

History. Years already sunk, or sinking, into lonesome unpeopled Dusk for all men; and fast verging towards

vacant Oblivion and eternal Night;which (if some few articles were once saved out of them) is their just

Of ridingmasters, fencingmasters, swimmingmasters; much less of dancingmasters, musicmasters

(celebrated Graun, "on the organ," with Psalmtunes), we cannot speak; but the reader may be satisfied they

were all there, good of their kind, and pushing on at a fair rate. Nor is there lack anywhere of paternal

supervision to our young Apprentice, From an early age, Papa took the CrownPrince with him on his annual

Reviews. From utmost Memel on the Russian border, down to Wesel on the French, all Prussia, in every

nook of it, garrison, marchingregiment, board of management, is rigorously reviewed by Majesty once a

year. There travels little military Fritz, beside the military Majesty, amid the generals and official persons, in

their hardy Spartan manner; and learns to look into everything like a Rhadamanthine Argus, and how the eye

On his hunts, too, Papa took him. For Papa was a famous hunter, when at Wusterhausen in the season:hot

Beaglechase, hot Staghunt, your chief game deer; huge "ForceHunt" (PARFORCEJAGD, the woods all

beaten, and your wild beasts driven into straits and caudineforks for you); Boarhunting (SAUHETZE,

"sowbaiting," as the Germans call it), Partridgeshooting, Fox and Wolfhunting; on all grand

expeditions of such sort, little Fritz shall ride with Papa and party. Rough furious riding; now on swift steed,

now at places on WURSTWAGEN,WURSTWAGEN, "SausageCar" so called, most Spartan of vehicles,

a mere STUFFED POLE or "sausage" with wheels to it, on which you sit astride, a dozen or so of you, and

career;regardless of the summer heat and sandy dust, of the winter's froststorms and muddy rain. All this

the little CrownPrince is bound to do;but likes it less and less, some of us are sorry to observe! In fact he

could not take to hunting at all, or find the least of permanent satisfaction in shooting partridges and baiting

sows,"with such an expenditure of industry and such damage to the seedfields," he would sometimes

allege in extenuation. In later years he has been known to retire into some glade of the thickets, and hold a

little FluteHautbois Concert with his musical comrades, while the sows were getting baited. Or he would

converse with Mamma and her Ladies, if her Majesty chanced to be there, in a day for open driving. Which

things by no means increased his favor with Papa, a sworn hater of "effeminate practices."

He was "nourished on beersoup," as we said before. Frugality, activity, exactitude were lessons daily and

hourly brought home to him, in everything he did and saw. His very sleep was stingily meted out to him:

"Too much sleep stupefies a fellow!" Friedrich Wilhelm was wont to say;so that the very doctors had to

interfere, in this matter, for little Fritz. Frugal enough, hardy enough; urged in every way to look with

Moneyallowance completely his own, he does not seem to have had till he was seventeen. Exiguous

pocketmoney, counted in GROSCHEN (English PENCE, or hardly more), only his Kalkstein and

Finkenstein could grant as they saw good;about eighteenpence in the month, to start with, as would appear.

The other small incidental moneys, necessary for his use, were likewise all laid out under sanction of his

Tutors, and accurately entered in Daybooks by them, audited by Friedrich Wilhelm; of which some

specimens remain, and one whole month, September, 1719 (the Boy's eighth year), has been published. Very

singular to contemplate, in these days of goldnuggets and irrational manmountains fattened by mankind at

such a price! The monthly amount appears to have been some 3 pounds 10 shillings:and has gone, all but

the eighteenpence of sovereign pocketmoney, for small furnishings and very minute necessary

"To putting his Highness's shoes on the last;" for stretching them to the little feet,and only one "last,"

as we perceive. "To twelve yards of Hairtape,"HAARBAND, for our little queue, which becomes visible

here. "For drinkmoney to the Postilions." "For the Housemaids at Wusterhausen," Don't I pay them myself?

objects the auditing Papa, at that latter kind of items: No more of that. "For mending the flute, four

GROSCHEN [or pence];" "Two Boxes of Colors, sixteen ditto;" "For a live snipe, twopence;" "For grinding

the hanger [little swordkin];" "To a Boy whom the dog bit;" and chiefly of all, "To the KLINGBEUTEL,"

Collectionplate, or bag, at Church,which comes upon us once, nay twice, and even thrice a week,

eighteenpence each time, and eats deep into our straitened means. [Preuss, i. 17.]

On such terms can a little Fritz be nourished into a Friedrich the Great; while irrational manmountains, of

the beaverish or beaverishvulpine sort, take such a price to fatten them into monstrosity! The

Artmanufacture of your Friedrich can come very cheap, it would appear, if once Nature have done her part

in regard to him, and there be mere honest will on the part of the bystanders. Thus Samuel Johnson, too,

cost next to nothing in the way of board and entertainment in this world. And a Robert Burns, remarkable

modern Thor, a Peasantgod of these sunk ages, with a touch of melodious RUNES in him (since all else lay

under ban for the poor fellow), was raised on frugal oatmeal, at an expense of perhaps half a crown a week.

Nuggets and ducats are divine; but they are not the most divine. I often wish the Devil had the lion's share of

them,at once, and not circuitously as now. It would be an unspeakable advantage to the bewildered sons of

But with regard to our little CrownPrince's intellectual culture, there is another Document, specially from

Papa's hand, which, if we can redact, adjust and abridge it, as in the former case, may be worth the reader's

notice, and elucidate some things for him. It is of date, Wusterhausen, 3d September, 1721; little Fritz now in

his tenth year, and out there, with his Duhans and Finkensteins, while Papa is rusticating for a few weeks.

To HeadGovernor van Finkenstein, SubGovernor von Kalkstein, Preceptor Jacques Egide Duhan de

Jandun, and others whom it may concern: Regulations for schooling, at Wusterhausen, 3d September, 1721;

SUNDAY. "On Sunday he is to rise at 7; and as soon as he has got his slippers on, shall kneel down at his

bedside, and pray to God, so as all in the room may hear it [that there be no deception or short measure

palmed upon us], in these words: 'Lord God, blessed Father, I thank thee from my heart that thou hast so

graciously preserved me through this night. Fit me for what thy holy will is; and grant that I do nothing this

day, nor all the days of my life, which can divide me from thee. For the Lord Jesus my Redeemer's sake.

Amen.' After which the Lord's Prayer. Then rapidly and vigorously (GESCHWINDE UND HURTIG) wash

himself clean, dress and powder and comb himself [we forget to say, that while they are combing and

queuing him, he breakfasts, with brevity, on tea]: Prayer, with washing, breakfast and the rest, to be done

"This finished, all his Domestics and Duhan shall come in, and do family worship ( das grosse Gebet zu

halten ): Prayer on their knees, Duhan withal to read a Chapter of the Bible, and sing some proper Psalm or

Hymn [as practised in wellregulated families]:It will then be a quarter to 8. All the Domestics then

withdraw again; and Duhan now reads with my Son the Gospel of the Sunday; expounds it a little, adducing

the main points of Christianity;questioning from Noltenius's Catechism [which Fritz knows by heart]:it

"At 9 he brings my Son down to me; who goes to Church, and dines, along with me [dinner at the stroke of

Noon]: the rest of the day is then his own [Fritz's and Duhan's]. At halfpast 9 in the evening, he shall come

and bid me goodnight. Shall then directly go to his room; very rapidly (SEHR GESCHWIND) get off his

clothes, wash his hands [get into some tiny dressinggown or CASSAQUIN, no doubt]; and so soon as that is

done, Duhan makes a prayer on his knees, and sings a hymn; all the Servants being again there. Instantly after

which, my Son shall get into bed; shall be in bed at halfpast 10;"and fall asleep how soon, your Majesty?

MONDAY. "On Monday, as on all weekdays, he is to be called at 6; and so soon as called he is to rise; you

are to stand to him (ANHALTEN) that he do not loiter or turn in bed, but briskly and at once get up; and say

his prayers, the same as on Sunday morning. This done, he shall as rapidly as possible get on his shoes and

spatterdashes; also wash his face and hands, but not with soap. Farther shall put on his CASSAQUIN [short

dressinggown], have his hair combed out and queued, but not powdered. While getting combed and queued,

he shall at the same time take breakfast of tea, so that both jobs go on at once; and all this shall be ended

before halfpast 6." Then enter Duhan and the Domestics, with worship, Bible, Hymn, all as on Sunday; this

"From 7 till 9 Duhan takes him on History; at 9 comes Noltenius [a sublime Clerical Gentleman from Berlin]

with the Christian Religion, till a quarter to 11. Then Fritz rapidly (GESCHWIND) washes his face with

water, hands with soapandwater; clean shirt; powders, and puts on his coat;about 11 comes to the King.

Stays with the King till 2,"perhaps promenading a little; dining always at Noon; after which Majesty is apt

"Directly at 2, he goes back to his room. Duhan is there, ready; takes him upon the Maps and Geography,

from 2 to 3,giving account [gradually!] of all the European Kingdoms; their strength and weakness; size,

riches and poverty of their towns. From 3 to 4, Duhan treats of Morality ( soll die Moral tractiren ). From 4

to 5, Duhan shall write German Letters with him, and see that he gets a good STYLUM [which he never in

the least did]. About 5, Fritz shall wash his hands, and go to the King;ride out; divert himself, in the air

There, then, is a Sunday, and there is one Weekday; which latter may serve for all the other five:though

they are strictly specified in the royal monograph, and every hour of them marked out: How, and at what

points of time, besides this of HISTORY, of MORALITY, and WRITING IN GERMAN, of Maps and

GEOGRAPHY with the strength and weakness of Kingdoms, you are to take up ARITHMETIC more than

once; WRITING OF FRENCH LETTERS, so as to acquire a good STYLUM: in what nook you may

intercalate "a little getting by heart of something, in order to strengthen the memory;" how instead of

Noltenius, Panzendorf (another sublime Reverend Gentleman from Berlin, who comes out express) gives the

clerical drill on Tuesday morning;with which two onslaughts, of an hourandhalf each, the Clerical

Gentlemen seem to withdraw for the week, and we hear no more of them till Monday and Tuesday come

On Wednesday we are happy to observe a liberal slice of holiday come in. At halfpast 9, having done his

HISTORY, and "got something by heart to strengthen the memory [very little, it is to be feared], Fritz shall

rapidly dress himself, and come to the King. And the rest of the day belongs to little Fritz ( gehort vor

"SATURDAY, forenoon till halfpast 10, come History, Writing and Ciphering; especially repetition of what

was done through the week, and in MORALITY as well [adds the rapid Majesty], to see whether he has

profited. And General Graf von Finkenstein, with Colonel von Kalkstein, shall be present during this. If Fritz

has profited, the afternoon shall be his own. If he has not profited, he shall, from 2 to 6, repeat and learn

rightly what he has forgotten on the past days." And so the laboring week winds itself up. Here, however, is

one general rule which cannot be too much impressed upon YOU, with which we conclude:

"In undressing and dressing, you must accustom him to get out of, and into, his clothes as fast as is humanly

possible ( hurtig so viel als menschenmoglich ist ). You will also look that he learn to put on aud put off his

clothes himself, without help from others; and that he be clean and neat, and not so dirty ( nicht so schmutzig

Wusterhausen, where for the present these operations go on, lies about twenty English miles southeast of

Berlin, as you go towards Schlesien (Silesia);on the old Silesian road, in a flat moory country made of peat

and sand;and is not distinguished for its beauty at all among royal Huntinglodges. The Gohrde at

Hanover, for example, what a splendor there in comparison! But it serves Friedrich Wilhelm's simple

purposes: there is game abundant in the scraggy woodlands, otterpools, fishpools, and miry thickets, of

that old "Schenkenland" (belonged all once to the "SCHENKEN Family," till old King Friedrich bought it for

his Prince); retinue sufficient find nooks for lodgment in the poor old Schloss so called; and Noltenius and

Panzendorf drive out each once a week, in some light vehicle, to drill Fritz in his religious exercises.

One Zollner, a Tourist to Silesia, confesses himself rather pleased to find even Wusterhausen in such a

"Getting to the top of the ridge" (most insignificant "ridge," made by hand; Wilhelmina satirically says),

Tourist Zollner can discern with pleasure "a considerable Brook,"visible, not audible, smooth Stream, or

chain of meres and lakelets, flowing languidly northward towards Kopenik. Inaudible big Brook or Stream;

which, we perceive, drains a slightly hollowed Tract; too shallow to be called valley,of several miles in

width, of several yards in depth;Tract with wood here and there on it, and signs of grass and culture,

welcome after what you have passed. On the foreground close to you is the Hamlet of KonigsWusterhausen,

with tolerable Limetree Avenue leading to it, and the air of something sylvan from your Hilltop.

KonigsWusterhausen was once WENDISHWesterhausen, and not far off is DEUTSCHWusterhausen,

famed, I suppose, by factionfights in the Vandalic times: both of them are now KING'SWusterhausen

(since the King came thither), to distinguish them from other Wusterhausens that there are.

Descending, advancing through your Limetree Avenue, you come upon the backs of officehouses,

outhouses, stables or the like,on your left hand I have guessed,extending along the Highway. And in

the middle of these you come at last to a kind of Gate or vaulted passage (ART VON THOR, says Zollner),

where, if you have liberty, you face to the left, and enter. Here, once through into the free light again, you are

in a Court: foursquare space, not without prospect; right side and left side are lodgings for his Majesty's

gentlemen; behind you, well in their view, are stables and kitchens: in the centre of the place is a Fountain

"with hewn steps and iron railings;" where his simple Majesty has been known to sit and smoke, on summer

evenings. The fourth side of your square, again, is a palisade; beyond which, over bridge and moat and

intervening apparatus, you perceive, on its trim terraces, the respectable old Schloss itself. A rectangular

mass, not of vast proportions, with tower in the centre of it (tower for screwstair, the general roadway of the

House); and looking though weatherbeaten yet weathertight, and as dignified as it can. This is

A dreadfully crowded place, says Wilhelmina, where you are stuffed into garrets, and have not room to turn.

The terraces are of some magnitude, trimmed all round with a row of little clipped trees, one big limetree at

each corner;under one of these big limetrees, aided by an awning: it is his Majesty's delight to spread his

frugal but substantial dinner, fourandtwenty covers, at the stroke of 12, and so dine SUB DIO. If rain come

on, says Wilhelmina, you are wet to midleg, the ground being hollow in that place,and indeed in all

weathers your situation every way, to a vehement young Princess's idea, is rather of the horrible sort. After

dinner, his Majesty sleeps, stretched perhaps on some wooden settle or gardenchair, for about an hour;

regardless of the flaming heat, under his awning or not; and we poor Princesses have to wait, praying all the

Saints that they would resuscitate him soon. This is about 2 p.m.; happier Fritz is gone to his lessons, in the

These four Terraces, this rectangular Schloss with the four big lindens at the corners, are surrounded by a

Moat; black abominable ditch, Wilhelmina calls it; of the hue of Tartarean Styx, and of a far worse smell, in

fact enough to choke one, in hot days after dinner, thinks the vehement Princess. Three Bridges cross this

Moat or ditch, from the middle of three several Terraces or sides of the Schloss; and on the fourth it is

impassable. Bridge first, coming from the palisade and Officehouse Court, has not only human sentries

walking at it; but two white Eagles perch near it, and two black ditto, symbols of the heraldic Prussian Eagle,

screeching about in their littery way; item two black Bears, ugly as Sin, which are vicious wretches withal,

and many times do passengers a mischief. As perhaps we shall see, on some occasion. This is Bridge first,

leading to the Court and to the outer Highway; a King's gentleman, going to bed at night, has always to pass

these Bears. Bridge second leads us southward to a common Mill which is near by; its clacking audible upon

the common Stream of the region, and not unpleasant to his Majesty, among its meadows fringed with alders,

in a country of mere and moor. Bridge third, directly opposite to Bridge first and its Bears, leads you to the

Garden; whither Mamma, playing tocadille all day with her women, will not, or will not often enough, let us

poor girls go. [Zollner, Briefe uber Schlesien (Berlin, 1792), i. 2, 3; Wilhelmina, i. 364, 365.]

Such is Wusterhausen, as delineated by a vehement Princess, some years hence,who becomes at last

intelligible, by study and the aid of our Silesian Tourist. It is not distinguished among Country Palaces: but

the figure of Friedrich Wilhelm asleep there after dinner, regardless of the flaming sun (should he sleep too

long and the shadow of his Linden quit him),this is a sight which no other Palace in the world can match;

this will long render Wusterhausen memorable to me. His Majesty, early always as the swallows, hunts, I

should suppose, in the morning; dines and sleeps, we may perceive, till towards three, or later. His Official

business he will not neglect, nor shirk the hours due to it; towards sunset there may be a walk or ride with

Fritz, or Feekin and the womankind: and always, in the evening, his Majesty holds TABAGIE,

TABAKSCOLLEGIUM (Smoking College, kind of TobaccoParliament, as we might name it), an

Institution punctually attended to by his Majesty, of which we shall by and by speak more. At Wusterhausen

his Majesty holds his Smoking Session mostly in the open air, oftenest "on the steps of the Great Fountain"

(how arranged, as to seating and canvasscreening, I cannot say);smokes there, with his Grumkows,

Derschaus, AnhaltDessaus, and select Friends, in various slow talk; till Night kindle her mild starlights,

shake down her dark curtains over all Countries, and admonish weary mortals that it is now bedtime.

Not much of the Picturesque in this autumnal life of our little Boy. But he has employments in abundance;

and these make the permitted open air, under any terms, a delight. He can rove about with Duhan among the

gorse and heath, and their wild summer tenantry winged and wingless. In the woodlands are wild swine, in

the meres are fishes, otters; the drowsy Hamlets, scattered round, awaken in an interested manner at the

sound of our ponyhoofs and dogs. Mittenwalde, where are shops, is within riding distance; we could even

stretch to Kopenik, and visit in the big Schloss there, if Duhan were willing, and the cattle fresh. From some

churchsteeple or sandknoll, it is to be hoped, some blue streak of the Lausitz Hills may be visible: the Sun

and the Moon and the Heavenly Hosts, these full certainly are visible; and on an Earth which everywhere

produces miracles of all kinds, from the daisy or heatherbell up to the man, one place is nearly equal to

Fine Palaces, if Wusterhausen be a sorry one, are not wanting to our young Friend: whatsoever it is in the

power of architecture and upholstery to do for him, may be considered withal as done. Wusterhausen is but a

Huntinglodge for some few Autumn weeks: the Berlin Palace and the Potsdam, grand buildings both, few

Palaces in the world surpass them; and there, in one or the other of these, is our usual residence.Little

Fritz, besides his young Finkensteins and others of the like, has Cousins, children of his Grandfather's

Halfbrothers, who are comrades of his. For the Great Elector, as we saw, was twice wedded, and had a

second set of sons and daughters: two of the sons had children; certain of these are about the CrownPrince's

own age, "Cousins" of his (strictly speaking, Halfcousins of HIS FATHER'S), who are much about him in

his young days,and more or less afterwards, according to the worth they proved to have. Margraves and

Margravines of Schwedt,there are five or six of such young Cousins. Not to mention the eldest, Friedrich

Wilhelm by name, who is now come to manhood (born 1700);who wished much in after years to have had

Wilhelmina to wife; but had to put up with a younger Princess of the House, and ought to have been thankful.

This one has a younger Brother, Heinrich, slightly Fritz's senior, and much his comrade at one time; of whom

we shall transiently hear again. Of these two the Old Dessauer is Uncle: if both his Majesty and the

CrownPrince should die, one of these would be king. A circumstance which Wilhelmina and the Queen

have laid well to heart, and build many wild suspicions upon, in these years! As that the Old Dessauer, with

his gunpowder face, has a plot one day to assassinate his Majesty,plot evident as sunlight to Wilhelmina

and Mamma, which providentially came to nothing;and other spectral notions of theirs. [Wilhelmina, i. 35,

41.] The Father of these two Margraves (elder of the two Halfbrothers that have children) died in the time of

Old King Friedrich, eight or nine years ago. Their Mother, the scheming old Margravine, whom I always

Then, by another, the younger of those old Halfbrothers, there is a Karl, a second Friedrich Wilhelm, Cousin

Margraves: plenty of Cousins;and two young Margravines among them, [Michaelis, i. 425.] the youngest

about Fritz's own age. [NOTE OF THE COUSIN MARGRAVES.Great Elector, by his Second Wife, had

five Sons, two of whom left Children;as follows (so far as they concern us, he others omitted):

1. Son PHILIP'S Children (Mother the Old Dessauer's Sister) are: Friedrich Wilhelm (1700), who wished

much, but in vain, to marry Wilhelmina. Heinrich Friedrich (1709), a comrade of Fritz's in youth; sometimes

getting into scrapes;misbehaved, some way, at the Battle of Molwits (first of Friedrich's Battles), 1741,

and was inexorably CUT by the new King, and continued under a cloud thenceforth .This PHILIP ("Philip

2. Son ALBERT'S Children (Mother a Courland Princess) are: Karl (1705); lived near Custrin; became a

famed captain, in the Silesian Wars, under his Cousin. Friedrich (1701); fell at Molwitz, 1741. Friedrich

Wilhelm (a Margraf Friedrich Wilhelm "No. 2,"NAMESAKE of his now Majesty, it is like); born 1714;

killed at Prag, by a cannonshot (at King Friedrich's hand, reconnoitring the place), 1744.This ALBERT

("Albert Friedrich" ) died suddenly 1731, age fiftynine.] No want of Cousins; the CrownPrince seeing

much of them all; and learning pleasantly their various qualities, which were good in most, in some not so

good, and did not turn out supreme in any case. But, for the rest, Sister Wilhelmina is his grand confederate

and companion; true in sport and in earnest, in joy and in sorrow. Their truthful love to one another, now and

till death, is probably the brightest element their life yielded to either of them.

What might be the date of Fritz's first appearance in the Roucoulles "Soiree held on Wednesdays," in the

Finkenstein or any other Soiree, as an independent figure, I do not know. But at the proper time, he does

appear there, and with distinction not extrinsic alone;talks delightfully in such places; can discuss, even

with French Divines, in a charmingly ingenious manner. Another of his elderly consorts I must mention:

Colonel Camas, a highly cultivated Frenchman (French altogether by parentage and breeding, though born on

Prussian land), who was Tutor, at one time, to some of those young Margraves. He has lost an arm,left it in

those Italian Campaigns, under AnhaltDessau and Eugene; but by the aid of a cork substitute, dexterously

managed, almost hides the want. A gallant soldier, fit for the diplomacies too; a man of fine high ways.

[ MilitairLexicon, i. 308.] And then his WifeIn fact, the Camas House, we perceive, had from an early

time been one of the CrownPrince's haunts. Madam Camas is a German Lady; but for genial elegance, for

wit and wisdom and goodness, could not readily be paralleled in France or elsewhere. Of both these Camases

there will be honorable and important mention by and by; especially of the Lady, whom he continues to call

"Mamma" for fifty years to come, and corresponds with in a very beautiful and human fashion.

Under these auspices, in such environment, dimly visible to us, at Wusterhausen and elsewhere, is the

Friedrich Wilhelm holds Tabagie nightly; but at Wusterhausen or wherever he may be, there is no lack of

intricate Official Labor, which, even in the Tabagie, Friedrich Wilhelm does not forget. At the time he was

concocting those Instructions for his little Prince's Schoolmasters, and smoking meditative under the stars,

with Magdeburg "RITTERDIENST" and much else of his own to think of,there is an extraneous Political

Intricacy, making noise enough in the world, much in his thoughts withal, and no doubt occasionally

murmured of amid the tobaccoclouds. The Business of the Heidelberg Protestants; which is just coming to a

Indeed this Year 1719 was a particularly noisy one for him. This is the year of the "nephritic colic," which

befell at Brandenburg on some journey of his Majesty's; with alarm of immediate death; Queen Sophie sent

for by express; testament made in her favor; and intrigues, very black ones, Wilhelmina thinks, following

thereupon. [ Memoires de Bareith, i. 2629.] And the "Affair of Clement," on which the old Books are so

profuse, falls likewise, the crisis of it falls, in 1719. Of Clement the "Hungarian Nobleman," who was a mere

Hungarian Swindler, and Forger of Royal Letters; sowing mere discords, black suspicions, between Friedrich

Wilhelm and the neighboring Courts, Imperial and Saxon: "Your Majesty to be snapt up, some day, by hired

ruffians, and spirited away, for behoof of those treacherous Courts:" so that Friedrich Wilhelm fell into a

gloom of melancholy, and for long weeks "never slept but with a pair of loaded pistols under his

pillow:"of this Clement, an adroit Phenomenon of the kind, and intensely agitating to Friedrich

Wilhelm;whom Friedrich Wilhelm had at last to lay hold of, try, this very year, and ultimately hang, [Had

arrived in Berlin, "end of 1717;" stayed about a year, often privately in the King's company, poisoning the

royal mind; withdrew to the Hague, suspecting Berlin might soon grow dangerous;is wiled out of that

Territory into the Prussian, and arrested, by one of Friedrich Wilhelm's Colonels, "end of 1718;" lies in

Spandau, getting tried, for seventeen months; hanged, with two Accomplices, 18th April, 1720. (See, in

succession, Stenzel, iii. 298, 302; Fassmann, p. 321; Forster, ii. 272, and iii. 320324.)] amid the rumor and

wonder of mankind:of him, noisy as he was, and still filling many pages of the old Books, a hint shall

suffice, and we will say nothing farther. But this of the Heidelberg Protestants, though also rather an extinct

business, has still some claims on us. This, in justice to the "inarticulate man of genius," and for other

There reigns, in these years, at Heidelberg, as Elector Palatine, a kindtempered but abrupt and somewhat

unreasonable old gentleman, now verging towards sixty, Karl Philip by name; who has come athwart the

Berlin Court and its affairs more than once; and will again do so, in a singularly disturbing way. From before

Friedrich Wilhelm's birth, all through Friedrich Wilhelm's life and farther, this Karl Philip is a

stoneofstumbling there. His first feat in life was that of running off with a Prussian Princess from Berlin;

the rumor of which was still at its height when Friedrich Wilhelm, a fortnight after, came into the world,

the gossips still talking of it, we may fancy, when Friedrich Wilhelm was first swaddled. An unheardof

Readers have perhaps forgotten, that old King Friedrich I. once had a Brother; elder Brother, who died, to the

Father's great sorrow, and made way for Friedrich as CrownPrince. This Brother had been married a short

time; he left a Widow without children; a beautiful Lithuanian Princess, born Radzivil, and of great

possessions in her own country: she, in her crapes and closecap, remained an ornament to the new Berlin

Court for some time;not too long. The mourningyear once out, a new marriage came on foot for the

brilliant widow; the Bridegroom, a James Sobieski, eldest Prince of the famous John, King Sobieski; Prince

with fair outlooks towards Polish Sovereignty, and handy for those Lithuanian Possessions of hers: altogether

This marriage was on foot, not quite completed; when Karl Philip, Cadet of the Pfalz, came to Berlin;a

rather idle young man, once in the clerical way; now gone into the military, with secular outlooks, his elder

Brother, HeirApparent of the Pfalz, "having no children:"came to Berlin, in the course of visiting, and

roving about. The beautiful WidowPrincess seemed very charming to Karl Philip; he wooed hard; threw the

Princess into great perplexity. She had given her Yes to James Sobieski; inevitable weddingday was coming

on with James; and here was Karl Philip wooing so:in brief, the result was, she galloped off with Karl

Philip, on the eve of said weddingday; married Karl Philip (24th July, 1688); and left Prince James standing

there, too much like Lot's Wife, in the astonished Court of Berlin. [Michaelis, ii. 93.] Judge if the Berlin.

public talked,unintelligible to Friedrioh Wilhelm, then safe in swaddlingclothes.

King Sobieski, the Father, famed Deliverer of Vienna, was in high dudgeon. But Karl Philip apologized, to

all lengths; made his peace at last, giving a Sister of his own to be Wife to the injured James. This was Karl

Philip's first outbreak in life; and it was not his only one. A man not illdisposed, all grant; but evidently of

headlong turn, with a tendency to leap fences in this world. He has since been soldiering about, in a loose

way, governing Innspruck, fighting the Turks. But, lately, his elder Brother died childless (year 1716); and

left him Kurfurst of the Pfalz. His fair Radzivil is dead long ago; she, and a successor, or it may be two.

Except one Daughter, whom the fair Radzivil left him, he has no children; and in these times, I think, lives

His scarcity of progeny is not so indifferent to my readers as they might suppose. This new KURPFALZ

(ElectorPalatine) Karl Philip is by genealogywho, thinks the reader? PfalzNEUBURG by line; own

Grandson of that Wolfgang Wilhelm, who got the slap on the face long since, on account of the CleveJulich

matter! So it has come round. The Line of Simmern died out, WinterKing's Grandson the last of that; and

then, as right was, the Line of Neuburg took the top place, and became KurPfalz. The first of these was this

Karl Philip's Father, son of the Beslapped; an old man when he succeeded. Karl Philip is the third KurPfalz

of the Neuburg Line; his childless elder Brother (he who collected the Pictures at Dusseldorf, once notable

there) was second of the Neuburgs. They now, we say, are ElectorsPalatine, Head of the House;and, we

need not add, along with their Electorate and Neuburg Country, possess the CleveJulioh Moiety of Heritage,

about which there was such worrying in time past. Nay the last KurPfalz resided there, and collected the

"Dusseldorf Gallery," as we have just said; though Karl Philip prefers Heidelberg hitherto.

To Friedrich Wilhelm the scarcity of progeny is a thriceinteresting fact. For if this actual Neuburg should

leave no male heir, as is now humanly probable,the Line of Neuburg too is out; and then great things ought

to follow for our Prussian House. Then, by the last Bargain, made in 1666, with all solemnity, between the

Great Elector, our Grandfather of famous memory, and your serene Father the then PfalzNeuburg,

subsequently KurPfalz, likewise of famous memory, son of the Beslapped,the whole Heritage falls to

Prussia, no other Pfalz Branch having thenceforth the least claim to it. Bargain was express; signed, sealed,

sanctioned, drawn out on the due extent of sheepskin, which can still be read. Bargain clear enough: but will

That may one day be the interesting question. But that is not the question of controversy at present: not that,

but another; for Karl Philip, it would seem, is to be a frequent stoneofstumbling to the Prussian House. The

present question is of a ProtestantPapist matter; into which Friedrich Wilhelm has been drawn by his public

The Pfalz population was, from of old, ProtestantCalvinist; the ElectorsPalatine used to be distinguished

for their forwardness in that matter. So it still is with the Pfalz population; but with the Electors, now that the

House of Simmern is out, and that of Neuburg in, it is not so. The Neuburgs, ever since that slap, on the face,

have continued Popish; a sore fact for this Protestant population, when it got them for Sovereigns. Karl

Philip's Father, an old soldier at Vienna, and the elder Brother, a collector of Pictures at Dusseldorf, did not

outwardly much molest the creed of their subjects. Protestants, and the remnant of Catholics (remnant

naturally rather expanding now that the Court shone on it), were allowed to live in peace, according to the

Treaty of Westphalia, or nearly so; dividing the churches and churchrevenues equitably between them, as

directed there. But now that Karl Philip is come in, there is no mistaking his procedures. He has come home

to Heidelberg with a retinue of Jesuits about him; to whom the poor old gentleman, looking before and after

His nibblings at Protestant rights, his contrivances to slide Catholics into churches which were not theirs, and

the like foulplay in that matter, had been sorrowful to see, for some time past. The Elector of Mainz,

ChiefPriest of Germany, is busy in the same bad direction; he and others. Indeed, ever since the Peace of

Ryswick, where Louis XIV. surreptitiously introduced a certain "Clause," which could never be got rid of

again, ["CLAUSE OF THE FOURTH ARTICLE" is the technical name of it. FOURTH ARTICLE stipulates

that King Louis XIV. shall punctually restore all manner of towns and places, in the Palatinate (much

BURNT, somewhat BEJESUITED too, in late Wars, by the said Kihg, during his occupancy): CLAUSE OF

FOURTH ARTICLE (added to it, by a quirk, "at midnight," say the Books) contains merely these words,

"Religione tamen Catholica Romana, in locis sic restitutis, in statu quo nunc est remanente: RomanCatholic

religion to continue as it now is [as WE have made it to be] in such towns and places."Which CLAUSE

gave rise to very great but ineffectual lamenting and debating. (Scholl, Traites de Paix (Par. 1817), i.

433438; Buchholz; Spittler, Geschichte Wurtembergs; nibbling aggressions of this kind have gone on more

and more. Always too sluggishly resisted by the CORPUS EVANGELICORUM, in the Diets or otherwise, the

"United Protestant Sovereigns" not being an active "Body" there. And now more sluggishly than ever;said

CORPUS having August Elector of Saxony, Catholic (ShamCatholic) King of Poland, for its Official Head;

"August the Physically Strong," a man highly unconcerned for matters Evangelical! So that the nibblings go

on worse and worse. An offence to all Protestant Rulers who had any conscience; at length an unbearable on

to Friedrich Wilhelm, who, alone of them all, decided to intervene effectually, and say, at whatever risk there

Karl Philip, after some nibblings, took up the Heidelberg Catechism (which candidly calls the Mass

"idolatrous"), and ordered said Catechism, an Authorized Book, to cease in his dominions. HessenCassel, a

Protestant neighbor, pleaded, remonstrated, Friedrich Wilhelm glooming in the rear; but to no purpose. Our

old gentleman, his Priests being very diligent upon him, decided next to get possession of the

HEILIGEGEIST KIRCHE (Church of the Holy Ghost, principal Place of Worship at Heidelberg), and make

it his principal Cathedral Church there. By Treaty of Westphalia, or peaceably otherwise, the Catholics are

already in possession of the Choir: but the whole Church would be so much better. "Was it not Catholic

once?" thought Karl Philip to himself: "built by our noble Ancestor Kaiser Rupert of the Pfalz, Rupert

KLEMM ["Pincers," so named for his firmness of mind]: why should these Heretics have it? I will build

them another!" These thoughts, in 1719, the third year of Karl Philip's rule, had broken out into open action

(29th August, 4th September the consummation of it) [Mauvillon, i. 340345.] and precisely in the ime when

Friedrich Wilhelm was penning that first Didactic Morsel which we read, grave clouds from the Palatinate

For the poor Heidelberg Consistorium, as they could not undertake to give up their Church on request of his

Serenity,"How dare we, or can we?" answered they,had been driven out by compulsion and stratagem.

Partly strategic was the plan adopted, to avoid violence; smith's picklocks being employed, and also mason's

crowbars: but the end was, On the 31st of August, 1719, Consistorium and Congregation found themselves

fairly in the street, and the HEILIGEGEIST KIRCHE clean gone from them. Screen of the Choir is torn

down; one big Catholic edifice now; getting decorated into a Court Church, where Serene Highness may feel

The poor Heidelbergers, thus thrown into the street, made applications, lamentations; but with small prospect

of help: to whom apply with any sure prospect? Remonstrances from HessenCassel have proved unavailing

with his bigoted Serene Highness. CORPS EVANGELICORUM, so presided over as at present, what can be

had of such a Corpus? Longwinded lucubrations at the utmost; real action, in such a matter; none. Or will

the Kaiser, his Jesuits advising him, interfere to do us justice? KurMainz and the rest;it is everywhere one

story. Everywhere unhappy Protestantism getting bad usage, and ever worse; and no Corpus Evangelicorum,

or appointed Watchdog, doing other than hang its ears, and look sorry for itself and us!

The Heidelbergers, however, had applied to Friedrich Wilhelm among others. Friedrich Wilhelm, who had

long looked on these AntiProtestant phenomena with increasing anger, found now that this of the

Heidelberg Catechism and HEILIGEGEIST KIRCHE was enough to make one's patience run over. Your

unruly Catholic bull, plunging about, and goring men in that mad absurd manner, it will behoove that

somebody take him by the horns, or by the tail, and teach him manners. Teach him, not by vocal precepts, it

is likely, which would avail nothing on such a brute, but by practical cudgelling and scourging to the due

pitch. Pacific Friedrich Wilhelm perceived that he himself would have to do that disagreeable feat:the

growl of him, on coming to such resolution, must have been consolatory to these poor Heidelbergers, when

they applied!His plan is very simple, as the plans of genius are; but a plan leading direct to the end desired,

and probably the only one that would have done so, in the circumstances. Cudgel in hand, he takes the

Catholic bull,shall we say, by the horns?more properly perhaps by the tail; and teaches him manners.

Friedrich Wilhelm's first step, of course, was to remonstrate pacifically with his Serene Highness on the

HeidelbergChurch affair: from this he probably expected nothing; nor did he get anything. Getting nothing

from this, and the countenance of external Protestant Powers, especially of George I. and the Dutch, being

promised him in ulterior measures, he directed his Administrative Officials in Magdeburg, in Minden, in

Hamersleben, where are Catholic Foundations of importance, to assemble the Catholic Canons, Abbots, chief

Priests and all whom it might concern in these three Places, and to signify to them as follows:

"From us, your Protestant Sovereign, you yourselves and all men will witness, you have hitherto had the best

of usage, fairplay, according to the Laws of the REICH, and evenmore. With the Protestants at Heidelberg,

on the part of the Catholic Powers, it is different. It must cease to be different; it must become the same. And

to make it do so, you are the implement I have. Sorry for it, but there is no other handy. From this day your

Churches also are closed, your Public Worship ceases, and furthermore your Revenues cease; and all makes

dead halt, and falls torpid in respect of you. From this day; and so continues, till the day (may it be soon!)

when the Heidelberg Church of the Holy Ghost is opened again, and right done in that question. Be it yours

to speed such day: it is you that can and will, you who know those high Catholic regions, inaccessible to your

Protestant Sovereign. Till then you are as dead men; temporarily fallen dead for a purpose. And herewith God

That was Friedrich Wilhelm's plan; the simplest, but probably the one effectual plan. Infallible this plan, if

you dare stand upon it; which Friedrich Wilhelm does. He has a formidable Army, ready for fight; a Treasury

or Armychest in good order. George I. seconds, according to bargain; shuts the Catholic Church at Zelle in

his Luneburg Country, in like fashion; Dutch, too, and Swiss will endorse the matter, should it grow too

serious. All which, involving some diplomacy and correspondence, is managed with the due promptitude,

moreover. [Church of Zelle shut up, 4th November; Minden, 28th November; Monastery of Hamersleben, 3d

December, (Putter, Historische Entwickelung der hautigen Staatsverfassung des Teutschen Reichs,

Gottingen, 1788, ii. 384, 390).] And so certain doors are locked; and Friedrich Wilhelm's word, unalterable as

gravitation, has gone forth. In this manner is the mad Catholic bull taken by the TAIL: keep fast hold, and

The MagdeburgHamersleben people shrieked piteously; not to Friedrich Wilhelm, whom they knew to be

deaf on that side of his head, but to the Kaiser, to the Pope, to the Serenity of Heidelberg. Serene Highness of

Heidelberg was much huffed; Kaiser dreadfully so, and wrote heavy menacing rebukes. To which Friedrich

Wilhelm listened with a minimum of reply; keeping firm hold of the tail, in such bellowing of the animal.

The end was, Serene Highness had to comply; within three months, Kaiser, Serene Highness and the other

parties interested, found that there would be nothing for it but to compose themselves, and do what was just.

April 16th, 1720, the Protestants are reinstated in their HEILIGEGEIST KIRCHE; Heidelberg Catechism

goes its free course again, May 16th; and one Baron Reck [Michaelis, ii. 95; Putter, ii. 384, 390; Buchholz,

pp. 6163.] is appointed Commissioner, from the CORPUS EVANGELICORUM, to Heidelberg; who

continues rigorously inspecting Church matters there for a considerable time, much to the grief of Highness

and Jesuits, till he can report that all is as it should be on that head. Karl Philip felt so disgusted with these

results, he removed his Court, that same year, to Mannheim; quitted Heidelberg; to the discouragement and

visible decay of the place; and, in spite of humble petitions and remonstrances, never would return; neither he

Friedrich Wilhelm's praises from the Protestant public were great, on this occasion. Nor can we, who lie

much farther from it in every sense, refuse him some grin of approval. Act, and manner of doing the act, are

creditably of a piece with Friedrich Wilhelm; physiognomic of the rugged veracious man. It is one of several

such acts done by him: for it was a duty apt to recur in Germany, in his day. This duty Friedrich Wilhelm, a

solid Protestant after his sort, and convinced of the "nothingness and nonsensicality (UNGRUND UND

ABSURDITAT) of Papistry," was always honorably prompt to do. There is an honest baconandgreens

conscience in the man; almost the one conscience you can find in any royal man of that day. Promptly,

without tremulous counting of costs, he always starts up, solid as oak, on the occurrence of such a thing, and

says, "That is unjust; contrary to the Treaty of Westphalia; you will have to put down that!"And if words

avail not, his plan is always the same: Clap a similar thumbscrew, pressure equitably calculated, on the

Catholics of Prussia; these can complain to their Popes and Jesuit Dignitaries: these are under thumbscrew till

the Protestant pressure be removed. Which always did rectify the matter in a little time. One other of these

instances, that of the Salzburg Protestants, the last such instance, as this of Heidelberg was the first, will by

It is very observable, how Friedrich Wilhelm, hating quarrels, was ever ready to turn out for quarrel on such

an occasion; though otherwise conspicuously a King who stayed well at home, looking after his own affairs;

meddling with no neighbor that would be at peace with him. This properly is Friedrich Wilhelm's "sphere of

political activity" among his contemporaries; this small quasidomestic sphere, of forbidding injury to

Protestants. A most small sphere, but then a genuine one: nor did he seek even this, had it not forced itself

upon him. And truly we might ask, What has become of the other more considerable "spheres" in that epoch?

The supremest loudtrumpeting "political activities" which then filled the world and its newspapers, what has

the upshot of them universally been? Zero, and oblivion; no other. While this poor FriedrichWilhelm sphere

is perhaps still a countable quantity. Wise is he who stays well at home, and does the duty he finds lying

Great favor from the Protestant public: but, on the other hand, his Majesty had given offence in high places.

What help for it? The thing was a point of conscience with him; natural to the surly Royal Overseer, going his

rounds in the world, stick in hand! However, the Kaiser was altogether gloomy of brow at such disobedience.

A Kaiser unfriendly to Friedrich Wilhelm: witness that of the RITTERDIENST (our unreasonable

Magdeburg Ritters, countenanced by him, on such terms, in such style too), and other offensive instances that

could be given. Perhaps the Kaiser will not always continue gloomy of brow; perhaps the thoughts of the

Nor could King August the Physically Strong be glad to see his "Director" function virtually superseded, in

this triumphant way. A year or two ago, Friedrich Wilhelm had, with the due cautions and politic reserves,

inquired of the CORPUS EVANGELICORUM, "If they thought the present Directorship (that of August the

Physically Strong) a good one?" and "Whether he, Friedrich Wilhelm, ought not perhaps himself to be

Director?"To which, though the answer was clear as noonday, this poor Corpus had only mumbled some

"QUIETA NON MOVERE," or other wisefoolish saw; and helplessly shrugged its shoulders. [17171719,

when August's KURPRINZ, HeirApparent, likewise declared himself Papist, to the horror and astonishment

of poor Saxony, and wedded the late Kaiser Joseph's Daughter:not to Father August's horror; who was

steering towards "popularity in Poland," "hereditary Polish Crown," with the young man. (Buchholz, i.

5356.)] But King August himself,though a jovial social kind of animal, quite otherwise occupied in the

world; busy producing his three hundred and fiftyfour Bastards there, and not careful of Church matters at

all,had expressed his indignant surprise. And now, it would seem nevertheless, though the title remains

where it was, the function has fallen to another, who actually does it: a thing to provoke comparisons in the

Clement, the Hungarian forger, vender of false statesecrets, is well hanged; went to the gallows (18th April,

1720) with much circumstance, just two days before that Heidelberg Church was got reopened. But the

suspicions sown by Clement cannot quite be abolished by the hanging of him: Forger indisputably; but who

knows whether he had not something of fact for his? What with Clement, what with this Heidelberg business,

the Court of Berlin has fallen wrong with Dresden, with Vienna itself, and important clouds have risen.

There is an absurd Flame of War, blown out by Admiral Byng; and a new Man of Genius announces himself

The poor Kaiser himself is otherwise in trouble of his own, at this time. The Spaniards and he have fallen out,

in spite of Utrecht Treaty and Rastadt ditto; the Spaniards have taken Sicily from him; and precisely in those

days while Karl Philip took to shutting up the HEILIGEGEIST Church at Heidelberg, there was, loud

enough in all the Newspapers, silent as it now is, a "Siege of Messina" going on; Imperial and Piedmontese

troops doing duty by land, Admiral Byng still more effectively by sea, for the purpose of getting Sicily back.

Which was achieved by and by, though at an extremely languid pace. [Byng's Seafight, 10th August, 1718

(Campbell's Lives of the Admirals, iii. 468); whereupon the Spaniards, who had hardly yet completed their

capture of Messina, are besieged in it; 29th October, 1719, Messina retaken (this is the "Siege of

Messina"): February, 1720, Peace is clapt up (the chief article, that Alberoni shall be packed away), and a

"Congress of Cambrai" is to meet, and settle everything.] One of the most tedious Sieges; one of the paltriest

languid Wars (of extreme virulence and extreme feebleness, neither party having any cash left), and for an

object which could not be excelled in insignificance. Object highly interesting to Kaiser Karl VI. and

Elizabeth Farnese Termagant Queen of Spain. These two were red, or even were pale, with interest in it; and

to the rest of Adam's Posterity it was not intrinsically worth an ounce of gunpowder, many tons of that and of

better commodities as they had to spend upon it. True, the Spanish Navy got well lamed in the business;

Spanish Fleet blown mostly to destruction,"Roads of Messina, 10th August, 1718," by the dexterous Byng

(a creditable handy figure both in Peace and War) and his considerable Seafight there:if that was an

object to Spain or mankind, that was accomplished. But the "War," except that many men were killed in it,

and much vain babble was uttered upon it, ranks otherwise with that of Don Quixote, for conquest of the

enchanted Helmet of Mambrino, which when looked into proved to be a Barber's Basin.

Congress of Cambrai, and other high Gatherings and convulsive Doings, which all proved futile, and look

almost like Lapland witchcraft now to us, will have to follow this futility of a War. It is the first of a long

series of enchanted adventures, on which Kaiser Karl,duelling with that Spanish Virago, Satan's Invisible

World in the rear of her,has now embarked, to the woe of mankind, for the rest of his life. The first of

those terrificoludicrous paroxysms of crisis into which he throws the European Universe; he with his

Enchanted Barber'sBasin enterprises;as perhaps was fit enough, in an epoch presided over by the

Nightmares. Congress of Cambrai is to follow; and much else equally spectral. About all which there will be

enough to say anon! For it was a fearful operation, though a ludicrous one, this of the poor Kaiser; and it

tormented not the big Nations only, and threw an absurd Europe into paroxysm after paroxysm; but it whirled

up, in its wideweeping skirts, our little Fritz and his Sister, and almost dashed the lives out of them, as we

shall see! Which last is perhaps the one claim it now has to a cursory mention from mankind.

Byng's Seafight, done with due dexterity of manoeuvring, and then with due emphasis of broadsiding,

decisive of that absurd War, and almost the one creditable action in it, dates itself 10th August, 1718. And

about three months later, on the mimic stage at Paris there came out a piece, OEDIPE the title of it, [18th

November, 1718.] by one Francois Arouet, a young gentleman about twentytwo; and had such a run as

seldom was;apprising the French Populations that, to all appearance, a new man of genius had appeared

among them (not intimating what work he would do); and greatly angering old M. Arouet of the Chamber of

Accouuts; who thereby found his Son as good as cast into the whirlpools, and a solid Lawcareer thenceforth

impossible for the young fool. The name of that "M. Arouet junior" changes itself, some years hence, into

M. DE VOLTAIRE; under which latter designation he will conspicuously reappear in this Narrative.

And now we will go to our little CrownPrince again;ignorant, he, of all this that is mounting up in the

Wilhelmina says, [ Memoires, i. 22.] her Brother was "slow" in learning: we may presume, she means idle,

volatile, not always prompt in fixing his attention to what did not interest him. Moreover, he was often

weakly in health, as she herself adds; so that exertion was not recommendable for him. Herr von Loen (a

witty Prussian Official, and famed manofletters once, though forgotten now) testifies expressly that the

Boy was of bright parts, and that he made rapid progress. "The CrownPrince manifests in this tender age

[his seventh year] an uncommon capacity; nay we may say, something quite extraordinary ( etwas ganz

Ausserordentliches ). He is a most alert and vivacious Prince; he has fine and sprightly manners; and shows a

certain kindly sociality, and so affectionate a disposition that all things may be hoped of him. The French

Lady who [under Roucoulles] has had charge of his learning hitherto, cannot speak of him without

enthusiasm. 'C'est un esprit ange'lique (a little angel),' she is wont to say. He takes up, and learns, whatever is

put before him, with the greatest facility." [Van Loen, Kleine Schriften, ii. 27 (as cited in Rodenbeck, No. iv.

For the rest, that Friedrich Wilhelm's intentions and Rhadamanthine regulations, in regard to him, were

fulfilled in every point, we will by no means affirm. Rules of such exceeding preciseness, if grounded here

and there only on the SICVOLO, how could they be always kept, except on the surface and to the eye

merely? The good Duhan, diligent to open his pupil's mind, and give Nature fairplay, had practically found

it inexpedient to tie him too rigorously to the arbitrary formal departments where no natural curiosity, but

only order from without, urges the ingenious pupil. What maximum strictness in schooldrill there can have

been, we may infer from one thing, were there no other: the ingenious Pupil's mode of SPELLING. Fritz

learned to write a fine, freeflowing, rapid and legible businesshand; "Arithmetic" too, "Geography," and

many other Useful Knowledges that had some geniality of character, or attractiveness in practice, were

among his acquisitions; much, very much he learned in the course of his life; but to SPELL, much more to

punctuate, and subdue the higher mysteries of Grammar to himself, was always an unachievable perfection.

He did improve somewhat in after life; but here is the length to which he had carried that necessary art in the

course of nine years' exertion, under Duhan and the subsidiary preceptors; it is in the following words and

alphabetic letters that he gratefully bids Duhan farewell,who surely cannot have been a very strict

"Mon cher Duhan Je Vous promais (PROMETS) que quand j'aurez (J'AURAI) mon propre argent en main, je

Vous donnerez (DONNERAI) enuelement (ANNUELLEMENT) 2400 ecu (ECUS) par an, et je vous

aimerais (AIMERAI) toujour encor (TOUJORS ENCORE) un peu plus q'asteure (QU'A CETTE HEURE) s'il

"MY DEAR DUHAN,I promise to you, that when I shall have my money in my own hands, I will give

you annually 2400 crowns [say 350 pounds] EVERY YEAR; and that I will love you always even a little

The Document has otherwise its beauty; but such is the spelling of it. In fact his Grammar, as he would

himself now and then regretfully discern, in riper years, with some transient attempt or resolution to remedy

or help it, seems to have come mainly by nature; so likewise his "STYLUS" both in French and German, a

very fair style, too, in the former dialect:but as to his spelling, let him try as he liked, he never came within

The things ordered with such rigorous minuteness, if but arbitrary things, were apt to be neglected; the things

forbidden, especially in the like case, were apt to become doubly tempting. It appears, the prohibition of Latin

gave rise to various attempts, on the part of Friedrich, to attain that desirable Language. Secret lessons, not

from Duhan, but no doubt with Duhan's connivance, were from time to time undertaken with this view: once,

it is recorded, the vigilant Friedrich Wilhelm, going his rounds, came upon Fritz and one of his Preceptors

(not Duhan but a subaltern) actually engaged in this illicit employment. Friedrich himself was wont to relate

this anecdote in after 1ife. [Busching, Beitrage zu der Lebensgeschichte denkwurdiger Personen, v. 33.

Preuss, i. 24.] They had Latin books, dictionaries, grammars on the table, all the contraband apparatus; busy

with it there, like a pair of coiners taken in the fact. Among other Books was a copy of the Golden Bull of

Kaiser Karl IV., Aurea Bulla, from the little golden BULLETS or pellets hung to it,by which sublime

Document, as perhaps we hinted long ago, certain socalled Fundamental Constitutions, or at least

formalities and solemn practices, method of election, rule of precedence, and the like, of the Holy Roman

Empire, had at last been settled on a sure footing, by that busy little Kaiser, some three hundred and fifty

years before; a Document venerable almost next to the Bible in Friedrich Wilhelm's loyal eyes, "What is this;

what are you venturing upon here?" exclaims Paternal Vigilance, in an astonished dangerous tone. "Ihro

Majestat, ich explicire dem Prinzen Auream Bullam," exclaimed the trembling pedagogue: "Your Majesty, I

am explaining AUREA BULLA [Golden Bull] to the Prince!""Dog, I will GoldenBull you!" said his

Majesty, flourishing his rattan, "Ich will dich, Schurke, beaureambullam!" which sent the terrified wretch

off at the top of his speed, and ended the Latin for that time. [Forster, i. 356.]

Friedrich's Latin could never come to much, under these impediments. But he retained some smatterings of it

in mature life; and was rather fond of producing his classical scraps, often in an altogether mouldy, and

indeed hitherto inexplicable condition. "De gustibus non est disputandus," "Beati possEdentes," "CompIlle

intrare," "BeatUS pauperes spiritus;" the meaning of these can be guessed: but "Tot verbas tot spondera," for

example,what can any commentator make of that? "Festina lente," "Dominus vobiscum," "Flectamus

genua," "Quod bene notandum;" these phrases too, and some three or four others of the like, have been

riddled from his Writings by diligent men: [Preuss (i. 24) furnishes the whole stock of them.] "O tempora, O

The worst fruit of these contraband operations was, that they involved the Boy in clandestine practices, secret

disobediences, apt to be found out from time to time, and tended to alienate his Father from him. Of which

sad mutual humor we already find traces in that early Wusterhausen Document: "Not to be so dirty," says the

reproving Father. And the Boy does not take to hunting at all, likes verses, storybooks, fluteplaying better;

seems to be of effeminate tendencies, an EFFEMINIRTER KERL; affects French modes, combs out his hair

like a cockatoo, the foolish French fop, instead of conforming to the Armyregulation, which prescribes

This latter grievance Friedrich Wilhelm decided, at last, to abate, and have done with; this, for one. It is an

authentic fact, though not dated,dating perhaps from about Fritz's fifteenth year. "Fritz is a

QUERPFEIFER UND POET," not a Soldier! would his indignant Father growl; looking at those foreign

effeminate ways of his. QUERPFEIFE, that is simply "Germanflute," "CROSSPIPE" (or FIFE of any kind,

for we English have thriftily made two useful words out of the Deutsch root); "Crosspipe," being held

across the mouth horizontally. Worthless employment, if you are not born to be of the regimental band!

thinks Friedrich Wilhelm. Fritz is celebrated, too, for his fine foot; a dapper little fellow, altogether pretty in

the eyes of simple female courtiers, with his blond locks combed out at the temples, with his bright eyes,

sharp wit, and sparkling capricious ways. The cockatoo locks, these at least we will abate! decides the

And so, unexpectedly, Friedrich Wilhelm has commanded these bright locks, as contrary to military fashion,

of which Fritz has now unworthily the honor of being a specimen, to be ruthlessly shorn away. Inexorable:

the HOFCHIRURGUS (CourtSurgeon, of the nature of BarberSurgeon), with scissors and comb, is here;

ruthless Father standing by. Crop him, my jolly Barber; close down to the accurate standard; soaped club,

instead of flowing locks; we suffer no exceptions in this military department: I stand here till it is done. Poor

Fritz, they say, had tears in his eyes; but what help in tears? The judicious Chirurgus, however, proved

merciful. The judicious Chirurgus struck in as if nothing loath, snack, snack; and made a great show of

clipping. Friedrich Wilhelm took a newspaper till the job were done; the judicious Barber, still making a

great show of work, combed back rather than cut off these Apollo locks; did Fritz accurately into soaped

club, to the cursory eye; but left him capable of shaking out his chevelure again on occasion,to the lasting

On the whole, as we said, a youth needs good assimilating power, if he is to grow in this world! Noltenius

aud Panzendorf, for instance, they were busy "teaching Friedrich religion." Rather a strange operation this

too, if we were to look into it. We will not look too closely. Another pair of excellent most solemn

drillsergeants, in clerical black serge; they also are busy instilling dark doctrines into the bright young Boy,

so far as possible; but do not seem at any time to have made too deep an impression on him. May we not say

that, in matter of religion too, Friedrich was but illbested? Enlightened EdictofNantes Protestantism, a

cross between Bayle and Calvin: that was but indifferent babe's milk to the little creature. Nor could

Noltenius's Catechism, and ponderous drillexercise in orthodox theology, much inspire a clear soul with

Alas, it is a dreary litter indeed, mere wagonload on wagonload of shotrubbish, that is heaped round this

new human plant, by Noltenius and Company, among others. A wonder only that they did not extinguish all

Sense of the Highest in the poor young soul, and leave only a Sense of the Dreariest and Stupidest. But a

healthy human soul can stand a great deal. The healthy soul shakes off, in an unexpectedly victorious manner,

immense masses of dry rubbish that have been shot upon it by its assiduous pedagogues and professors. What

would become of any of us otherwise! Duhan, opening the young soul, by such modest gift as Duhan had, to

recognize black from white a little, in this embroiled high Universe, is probably an exception in some small

measure. But, Duhan excepted, it may be said to have been in spite of most of his teachers, and their diligent

endeavors, that Friedrich did acquire some human piety; kept the sense of truth alive in his mind; knew, in

whatever words he phrased it, the divine eternal nature of Duty; and managed, in the muddiest element and

most eclipsed Age ever known, to steer by the heavenly loadstars and (so we must candidly term it) to

FOLLOW God's Law; in some measure, with or without Noltenius for company. Noltenius's CATECHISM,

or ghostly Drillmanual for Fritz, at least the Catechism he had plied Wilhelmina with, which no doubt was

the same, is still extant. [Preuss, i. 15;specimens of it in Rodenbeck.] A very abstruse Piece; orthodox

LutheranCalvinist, all proved from Scripture; giving what account it can of this unfathomable Universe, to

the young mind. To modern Prussians it by no means shines as the indubitablest Theory of the Universe.

Indignant modern Prussians produce excerpts from it, of an abstruse nature; and endeavor to deduce

therefrom some of Friedrich's aberrations in matters of religion, which became notorious enough by and by.

Alas, I fear, it would not have been easy, even for the modern Prussian, to produce a perfect Catechism for

And there is another deeper thing to be remarked: the notion of "teaching" religion, in the way of

drillexercise; which is a very strange notion, though a common one, and not peculiar to Noltenius and

Friedrich Wilhelm. Piety to God, the nobleness that inspires a human soul to struggle Heavenward, cannot be

"taught" by the most exquisite catechisms,or the most industrious preachings and drillings. No; alas, no. Only

by far other methods,chiefly by silent continual Example, silently waiting for the favorable mood and

moment, and aided then by a kind of miracle, well enough named "the grace of God,"can that sacred

contagion pass from soul into soul. How much beyond whole Libraries of orthodox Theology is, sometimes,

the mute action, the unconscious look of a father, of a mother, who HAD in them "Devoutness, pious

Nobleness"! In whom the young soul, not unobservant, though not consciously observing, came at length to

recognize it; to read it, in this irrefragable manner: a seed planted thenceforth in the centre of his holiest

Noltenius wore black serge; kept the corners of his mouth well down; and had written a Catechism of repute;

but I know not that Noltenius carried much seed of living piety about with him; much affection from, or for,

young Fritz he could not well carry. On the whole, it is a bad outlook on the religious side; and except in

Apprenticeship to the rugged and as yet repulsive Honesties of Friedrich Wilhelm, I see no good element in

it. BayleCalvin, with Noltenius and Catechisms of repute: there is no "religion" to be had for a little Fritz

out of all that. Endless Doubt will be provided for him out of all that, probably disbelief of all that;and, on

the whole, if any form at all, a very scraggy form of moral existence; from which the Highest shall be

hopelessly absent; and in which anything High, anything not Low and Lying, will have double merit.

It is indeed amazing what quantities and kinds of extinct ideas apply for belief, sometimes in a menacing

manner, to the poor mind of man, and poor mind of child, in these days. They come bullying in upon him, in

masses, as if they were quite living ideas; ideas of a dreadfully indispensable nature, the evident counterpart,

and salutary interpretation, of Facts round him, which, it is promised the poor young creature, he SHALL

recognize to correspond with them, one day. At which "correspondence," when the Facts are once well

recognized, he has at last to ask himself with amazement, "Did I ever recognize it, then?" Whereby come

results incalculable; not good results any of them;some of them unspeakably bad! The ease of

CrownPrince Friedrich in Berlin is not singular; all cities and places can still show the like. And when it will

end, is not yet clear. But that it ever should have begun, will one day be the astonishment. As if the divinest

function of a human being were not even that of believing; of discriminating, with his Godgiven intellect,

what is from what is not; and as if the point were, to render that either an impossible function, or else what

we must sorrowfully call a revolutionary, rebellious and mutinous one. O Noltenius, O Panzendorf, do for

pity's sake take away your Catechetical ware; and say either nothing to the poor young Boy, or some small

thing he will find to be BEYOND doubt when he can judge of it! Fever, pestilence, are bad for the body; but

Doubt, impious mutiny, doubly impious hypocrisy, are these nothing for the mind? Who would go about

inculcating Doubt, unless he were far astray indeed, and much at a loss for employment!

But the sorest fact in Friedrich's schooling, the forest, for the present, though it ultimately proved perhaps the

most beneficent one, being well dealt with by the young soul, and nobly subdued to his higher uses, remains

Those vivacities of young Fritz, his taste for music, finery, those furtive excursions into the domain of Latin

and forbidden things, were distasteful and incomprehensible to Friedrich Wilhelm: Where can such things

end? They begin in disobedience and intolerable perversity; they will be the ruin of Prussia and of

Fritz!Here, in fact, has a great sorrow risen. We perceive the first small cracks of incurable divisions in the

royal household; the breaking out of fountains of bitterness, which by and by spread wide enough. A young

sprightly, capricions and vivacious Boy, inclined to selfwill, had it been permitted; developing himself into

foreign tastes, into French airs and ways; very ill seen by the heavyfooted practical Germanic Majesty.

The beginnings of this sad discrepancy are traceable from Friedrich's sixth or seventh year: "Not so dirty,

Boy!" And there could be no lack of growth in the mutual illhumor, while the Boy himself continued

growing; enlarging in bulk and in activity of his own. Plenty of new children come, to divide our regard

withal, and more are coming; five new Princesses, wise little Ulrique the youngest of them (named of Sweden

and the happy Swedish Treaty), whom we love much for her grave staid ways. Nay, next after Ulrique comes

even a new Prince; August Wilhelm, ten years younger than Friedrich; and is growing up much more

according to the paternal heart. Pretty children, all of them, more or less; and towardly, and comfortable to a

Father;and the worst of them a paragon of beauty, in comparison to perverse, clandestine, disobedient

And so the silent divulsion, silent on Fritz's part, exploding loud enough now and then on his Father's part,

goes steadily on, splitting ever wider; new offences ever superadding themselves. Till, at last, the rugged

Father has grown to hate the son; and longs, with sorrowful indignation, that it were possible to make August

Wilhelm CrownPrince in his stead. This Fritz ought to fashion himself according to his Father's pattern, a

wellmeant honest pattern; and he does not! Alas, your Majesty, it cannot be. It is the new generation come;

which cannot live quite as the old one did. A perennial controversy in human life; coeval with the genealogies

of men. This little Boy should have been the excellent paternal Majesty's exact counterpart; resembling him

at all points, "as a little sixpence does a big halfcrown:" but we perceive he cannot. This is a new coin, with

a stamp of its own. A surprising FRIEDRICH D'OR this; and may prove a good piece yet; but will never be

Conceive a rugged thicksided Squire Western, of supreme degree, or this Squire Western is a hot

Hohenzollern, and wears a crown royal;conceive such a burly NEPLUSULTRA of a Squire, with his

broadbased rectitudes and surly irrefragabilities; the honest German instincts of the man, convictions certain

as the Fates, but capable of no utterance, or next to none, in words; and that he produces a Son who takes into

Voltairism, piping, fiddling and belleslettres, with apparently a total contempt for Grumkow and the

giantregiment! Sulphurous rage, in gusts or in lasting tempests, rising from a fund of just implacability, is

The Mother, as mothers will, secretly favors Fritz; anxious to screen him in the day of highwind. Withal she

has plans of her own in regard to Fritz, and the others; being a lady of many plans. That of the

"DoubleMarriage," for example; of marrying her Prince and Princess to a Princess and Prince of the

EnglishHanoverian House; it was a pleasant eligible plan, consented to by Papa and the other parties; but

when it came to be perfected by treaty, amid the rubs of external and internal politics, what new amazing

discrepancies rose upon her poor children and her! Fearfully aggravating the quarrel of Father and Son,

almost to the fatal point. Of that "DoubleMarriage," whirled up in a universe of intriguing diplomacies, in

the "skirts of the Kaiser's huge SpectreHunt," as we have called it, there will be sad things to say by and by.

Plans her Majesty has; and silently a will of her own. She loves all her children, especially Fritz, and would

so love that they loved her.For the rest, all along, Fritz and Wilhelmina are sure allies. We perceive they

have fallen into a kind of cipherspeech; [ Memoires de Bareith, i. 168.] they communicate with one another

by telegraphic signs. One of their words, "RAGOTIN (Stumpy)," whom does the reader think it designates?

Papa himself, the Royal Majesty of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm I., he to his rebellious children is tyrant

"Stumpy," and no better; being indeed short of stature, and growing ever thicker, and surlier in these

Such incurable discrepancies have risen in the Berlin Palace: fountains of bitterness flowing ever wider, till

they made life all bitter for Son and for Father; necessitating the proud Son to hypocrisies towards his terrible

Father, which were very foreign to the proud youth, had there been any other resource. But there was none,

now or afterwards. Even when the young man, driven to reflection and insight by intolerable miseries, had

begun to recognize the worth of his surly Rhadamanthine Father, and the intrinsic wisdom of much that he

had meant with him, the Father hardly ever could, or could only by fits, completely recognize the Son's

worth. Rugged suspicious Papa requires always to be humored, cajoled, even when our feeling towards him is

genuine and loyal. Friedrich, to the last, we can perceive, has to assume masquerade in addressing him, in

writing to him,and in spite of real love, must have felt it a relief when such a thing was over. That is, all

along, a sad element of Friedrich's education! Out of which there might have come incalculable damage to

the young man, had his natural assimilative powers, to extract benefit from all things, been less considerable.

As it was, he gained selfhelp from it; gained reticence, the power to keep his own counsel; and did not let

the hypocrisy take hold of him, or be other than a hateful compulsory masquerade. At an uncommonly early

age, he stands before us accomplished in endurance, for one thing; a very bright young Stoic of his sort;

silently prepared for the injustices of men and things. And as for the masquerade, let us hope it was

essentially foreign even to the skin of the man! The reader will judge as he goes on. "Je n'ai jamais trompe

personne durant ma vie, I have never deceived anybody during my life; still less will I deceive posterity,"

[ Memoires depuis la Paix de Huberrtsbourg, 17631774 (AvantPropos), OEUVRES, vii. 8.] writes

Neither as to intellectual culture, in Duhan's special sphere, and with all Duhan's goodwill, was the

opportunity extremely golden. It cannot be said that Friedrich, who spells in the way we saw, "ASTEURE"

for "A CETTE HEURE," has made shining acquisitions on the literary side. However, in the longrun it

becomes clear, his intellect, roving on devious courses, or plodding along the prescribed tramroads, had

been wide awake; and busy all the while, bringing in abundant pabulum of an irregular nature.

He did learn "Arithmetic," "Geography," and the other useful knowledges that were indispensable to him. He

knows History extensively; though rather the Roman, French, and general European as the French have

taught it him, than that of "Hessen, Brunswick, England," or even the "Electoral and Royal House of

Brandenburg," which Papa had recommended. He read History, where he could find it readable, to the end of

his life; and had early begun reading it,immensely eager to learn, in his little head, what strange things had

We notice with pleasure a lively taste for facts in the little Boy; which continued to be the taste of the Man, in

an eminent degree. Fictions he also knows; an eager extensive reader of what is called Poetry, Literature, and

himself a performer in that province by and by: but it is observable how much of Realism there always is in

his Literature; how close, here as elsewhere, he always hangs on the practical truth of things; how Fiction

itself is either an expository illustrative garment of Fact, or else is of no value to him. Romantic readers of his

Literature are much disappointed in consequence, and pronounce it bad Literature;and sure enough, in

several senses, it is not to be called good! Bad Literature, they say; shallow, barren, most unsatisfactory to a

reader of romantic appetites. Which is a correct verdict, as to the romantic appetites and it. But to the man

himself, this qualityof mind is of immense moment and advantage; and forms truly the basis of all he was

good for in life. Once for all, he has no pleasure in dreams, in particolored clouds and nothingnesses. All his

curiosities gravitate towards what exists, what has being and reality round him. That is the significant thing to

him; that he would right gladly know, being already related to that, as friend or as enemy; and feeling an

unconscious indissoluble kinship, who shall say of what importance, towards all that. For he too is a little

Fact, big as can be to himself; and in the whole Universe there exists nothing as fact but is a fellowcreature

That our little Fritz tends that way, ought to give Noltenius, Finkenstein and other interested parties, the very

highest satisfaction. It is an excellent symptom of his intellect, this of gravitating irresistibly towards realities.

Better symptom of its quality (whatever QUANTITY there be of it), human intellect cannot show for itself.

However it may go with Literature, and satisfaction to readers of romantic appetites, this young soul promises

to become a successful Worker one day, and to DO something under the Sun. For work is of an extremely

unfictitious nature; and no man can roof his house with clouds and moonshine, so as to turn the rain from

It is also to be noted that his style of French, though he spelt it so ill, and never had the least mastery of

punctuation, has real merit. Rapidity, easy vivacity, perfect clearness, here and there a certain quaint

expressiveness: on the whole, he had learned the Art of Speech, from those old French Governesses, in those

old and new French Books of his. We can also say of his Literature, of what he hastily wrote in mature life,

that it has much more worth, even as Literature, than the common romantic appetite assigns to it. A vein of

distinct sense, and good interior articulation, is never wanting in that thinflowing utterance. The true is well

riddled out from amid the false; the important and essential are alone given us, the unimportant and

superfluous honestly thrown away. A lean wiry veracity (an immense advantage in any Literature, good or

bad!) is everywhere beneficently observable; the QUALITY of the intellect always extremely good, whatever

It is true, his spelling"ASTEURE" for "A CETTE HEURE"is very bad. And as for punctuation, he

never could understand the mystery of it; he merely scatters a few commas and dashes, as if they were shaken

out of a pepperbox upon his page, and so leaves it. These are deficiencies lying very bare to criticism; and I

confess I never could completely understand them in such a man. He that would have ordered arrest for the

smallest speck of mud on a man's buffbelt, indignant that any pipeclayed portion of a man should not be

perfectly pipeclayed: how could he tolerate false spelling, and commas shaken as out of a pepperbox over

his page? It is probable he cared little about Literature, after all; cared, at least, only about the essentials of it;

had practically no ambition for himself, or none considerable, in that kind;and so might reckon exact

obedience and punctuality, in a soldier, more important than good spelling to an amateur literary man: He

never minded snuff upon his own chin, not even upon his waistcoat and breeches: A merely superficial thing,

That Friedrich's Course of Education did on the whole prosper, in spite of every drawback, is known to all

men. He came out of it a man of clear and everimproving intelligence; equipped with knowledge, true in

essentials, if not punctiliously exact, upon all manner of practical and speculative things, to a degree not only

unexampled among modern Sovereign Princes so called, but such as to distinguish him even among the

studious class. Nay many "MenofLetters" have made a reputation for themselves with but a fraction of the

real knowledge concerning men and things, past and present, which Friedrich was possessed of. Already at

the time when action came to be demanded of him, he was what we must call a wellinformed and cultivated

man; which character he never ceased to merit more and more; and as for the action, and the actions, we

One point of supreme importance in his education was all along made sure of, by the mere presence and

presidence of Friedrich Wilhelm in the business: That there was an inflexible law of discipline everywhere

active in it; that there was a Spartan rigor, frugality, veracity inculcated upon him. "Economy he is to study to

the bottom;" and not only so, but, in another sense of the word, he is to practise economy; and does, or else

suffers for not doing it. Economic of his time, first of all: generally every other noble economy will follow

out of that, if a man once understand and practise that. Here was a truly valuable foundation laid; and as for

the rest, Nature, in spite of shotrubbish, had to do what she could in the rest.

But Nature had been very kind to this new child of hers. And among, the confused hurtful elements of his

Schooling, there was always, as we say, this eminently salutary and most potent one, of its being, in the

gross, APPRENTICESHIP TO FRIEDRICH WILHELM the Rhadamanthine Spartan King, who hates from

his heart all empty Nonsense, and Unveracity most of all. Which one element, well aided by docility, by

openness and loyalty of mind, on the Pupil's part, proved at length sufficient to conquer the others; as it were

to burn up all the others, and reduce their sour dark smoke, abounding everywhere, into flame and

illumination mostly. This radiant swiftpaced Son owed much to the surly, irascible, surefooted Father that

bred him. Friedrich did at length see into Friedrich Wilhelm, across the abstruse, thunderous, sulphurous

embodiments and accompaniments of the man;and proved himself, in all manner of important respects, the

filial sequel of Friedrich Wilhelm. These remarks of a certain Editor are perhaps worth adding:

"Friedrich Wilhelm, King of Prussia, did not set up for a Pestalozzi; and the plan of Education for his Son is

open to manifold objections. Nevertheless, as Schoolmasters go, I much prefer him to most others we have at

present. The wild man had discerned, with his rugged natural intelligence (not wasted away in the idle

element of speaking and of being spoken to, but kept wholesomely silent for most part), That human

education is not, and cannot be, a thing of VOCABLES. That it is a thing of earnest facts; of capabilities

developed, of habits established, of dispositions well dealt with, of tendencies confirmed and tendencies

repressed:a laborious separating of the character into two FIRMAMENTS; shutting down the

subterranean, well down and deep; an earth and waters, and what lies under them; then your everlasting azure

sky, and immeasurable depths of aether, hanging serene overhead. To make of the human soul a Cosmos, so

far as possible, that was Friedrich Wilhelm's dumb notion: not to leave the human soul a mere Chaos;how

much less a Singing or eloquently Spouting Chaos, which is ten times worse than a Chaos left MUTE,

confessedly chaotic and not cosmic! To develop the man into DOING something; and withal into doing it as

the Universe and the Eternal Laws require,which is but another name for really doing and not merely

seeming to do it:that was Friedrich Wilhelm's dumb notion: and it was, I can assure you, very far from

being a foolish one, though there was no Latin in it, and much of Prussian pipeclay!"

But the Congress of Cambrai is met, and much else is met and parted: and the Kaiser's SpectreHunt,

especially his Duel with the SheDragon of Spain, is in full course; and it is time we were saying something

We saw George I. at Berlin in October, 1723, looking out upon his little Grandson drilling the Cadets there;

Visits between Hanover and Berlin had been frequent for a long time back; the young Queen of Prussia,

sometimes with her husband, sometimes without, running often over to see her Father; who, even after his

accession to the English crown, was generally for some months every year to be met with in those favorite

regions of his. He himself did not much visit, being of taciturn splenetic nature: but this once he had agreed to

return a visit they had lately made him,where a certain weighty Business had been agreed upon, withal;

which his Britannic Majesty was to consummate formally, by treaty, when the meeting in Berlin took effect.

His Britannic Majesty, accordingly, is come; the business in hand is no other than that thricefamous

"DoubleMarriage" of Prussia with England; which once had such a sound in the ear of Rumor, and still

bulks so big in the archives of the Eighteenth Century; which worked such woe to all parties concerned in it;

and is, in fact, a firstrate nuisance in the History of that poor Century, as written hitherto. Nuisance

demanding urgently to be abated; were that well possible at present. Which, alas, it is not, to any great

degree; there being an important young Friedrich inextricably wrapt up in it, to whom it was of such vital or

almost fatal importance! Without a Friedrich, the affair could be reduced to something like its real size, and

recorded in a few pages; or might even, with advantage, be forgotten altogether, and become zero. More

gigantic instance of much ado about nothing has seldom occurred in human annals;had not there been a

CrownPrince Friedrich is still very young for marriagespeculations on his score: but Mamma has thought

good to take matters in time. And so we shall, in the next ensuing parts of this poor History, have to hear

almost as much about Marriage as in the foolishest Threevolume Novel, and almost to still less purpose. For

indeed, in that particular, Friedrich's young Life may be called a ROMANCE FLUNG

HELLSOVERHEAD;Marriage being the one event there, round which all events turn,but turn in the

inverse or reverse way (as if the Devil were in them); not only towards no happy goal for him or Mamma, or

us, but at last towards hardly any goal at all for anybody! So mad did the affair grow; and is so madly

recorded in those inextricable, dateless, chaotic Books. We have now come to regions of Narrative, which

seem to consist of murky Nothingness put on boil; not land, or water, or air, or fire, but a tumultuously

whirling commixture of all the four;of immense extent too. Which must be got crossed, in some human

Already, for a dozen years, this matter has been treated of. Queen Sophie Dorothee, ever since the birth of her

Wilhelmina, has had the notion of it; and, on her first visit afterwards to Hanover, proposed it to "Princess

Caroline,"Queen Caroline of England who was to be, and who in due course was;an excellent

accomplished BrandenburgAnspach Lady, familiar from of old in the Prussian Court: "You, Caroline,

Cousin dear, have a little Prince, Fritz, or let us call him FRED, since he is to be English; little Fred, who will

one day, if all go right, be King of England. He is two years older than my little Wilhelmina: why should not

they wed, and the two chief Protestant Houses, and Nations, thereby be united?" Princess Caroline was very

willing; so was Electress Sophie, the GreatGrandmother of both the parties; so were the Georges, Father and

Grandfather of Fred: little Fred himself was highly charmed, when told of it; even little Wilhelmina, with her

dolls, looked pleasantly demure on the occasion. So it remained settled in fact, though not in form; and little

Fred (a florid milkfaced foolish kind of Boy, I guess) made presents to his little Prussian Cousin, wrote bits

of loveletters to her; and all along afterwards fancied himself, and at length ardently enough became, her

little lover and intended,always rather a little fellow:to which sentiments Wilhelmina signifies that she

After our Prussian Fritz's birth, the matter took a still closer form: "You, dear Princess Caroline, you have

now two little Princesses again, either of whom might suit my little Fritzchen; let us take Amelia, the second

of them, who is nearest his age?" "Agreed!" answered Princess Caroline again. "Agreed!" answered all the

parties interested: and so it was settled, that the Marriage of Prussia to England should be a Double one, Fred

of Hanover and England to Wilhelmina, Fritz of Prussia to Amelia; and children and parents lived thenceforth

in the constant understanding that such, in due course of years, was to be the case, though nothing yet was

Queen Sophie Dorothee of Prussia was always eager enough for treaty, and conclusion to her scheme. True to

it, she, as needle to the pole in all weathers; sometimes in the wildest weather, poor lady. Nor did the

Hanover Serene Highnesses, at any time, draw back or falter: but having very soon got wafted across to

England, into new more complex conditions, and wider anxieties in that new country, they were not so

impressively eager as Queen Sophie, on this interesting point. Electress Sophie, judicious

GreatGrandmother, was not now there: Electress Sophie had died about a month before Queen Anne; and

never saw the English Canaan, much as she had longed for it. George I., her son, a taciturn, rather splenetic

elderly Gentleman, very foreign in England, and oftenest rather sulky there and elsewhere, was not in a

George I. had got into quarrel with his Prince of Wales, Fred's Father,him who is one day to be George II.,

always a rather foolish little Prince, though his Wife Caroline was Wisdom's self in a manner:George I.

had other much more urgent cares than that of marrying his disobedient foolish little Prince of Wales's

offspring; and he always pleaded difficulties, Acts of Parliament that would be needed, and the like,

whenever Sophie Dorothee came to visit him at Hanover, and urge this matter. The taciturn, inarticulately

thoughtful, rather sulky old Gentleman, he had weighty burdens lying on him; felt fretted and galled, in many

ways; and had found life, Electoral and even Royal, a deceptive sumptuosity, little better than a more or less

extensive "feast of SHELLS," next to no real meat or drink left in it to the hungry heart of man. Wife sitting

halffrantic in the Castle of Ahlden, waxing more and more into a grayhaired Megaera (with whom Sophie

Dorothee under seven seals of secrecy corresponds a little, and even the Prince of Wales is suspected of

wishing to correspond); a foolish disobedient Prince of Wales; Jacobite Pretender people with their Mar

Rebellions, with their Alberoni combinations; an English Parliament jangling and debating unmelodiously,

whose very language is a mystery to us, nothing but Walpole in doglatin to help us through it: truly it is not

a HeavenonEarth altogether, much as Mother Sophie and her foolish favorite, our disobedient Prince of

Wales, might long for it! And the Hanover Tail, the Robethons, Bernstorfs, Fabrices, even the Blackamoor

Porters,they are not beautiful either, to a taciturn Majesty of some sense, if he cared about their doings or

them. Voracious, plunderous, all of them; like hounds, long hungry, got into a rich house which has no

master, or a mere imaginary one. "MENTERIS IMPUDENTISSIME," said Walpole in his doglatin once, in

our Royal presence, to one of these official plunderous gentlemen, "You tell an impudent lie!"at which we

only laughed. [Horace Walpole, Reminiscences of George I. and George II. (London, 1786.)]

His Britannic Majesty by no means wanted sense, had not his situation been incurably absurd. In his young

time he had served creditably enough against the Turks; twice commanded the REICHSArmy in the

Marlborough Wars, and did at least testify his indignation at the inefficient state of it. His Foreign Politics, so

called, were not madder than those of others. Bremen and Verden he had bought a bargain; and it was natural

to protect them by such resources as he had, English or other. Then there was the WorldSpectre of the

Pretender, stretching huge over Creation, like the BrockenSpectre in hazy weather;against whom how

protect yourself, except by cannonading for the Kaiser at Messina; by rushing into every brabble that rose,

and hiring the parties with money to fight it out well? It was the established method in that matter; method

not of George's inventing, nor did it cease with George. As to Domestic Politics, except it were to keep quiet,

and eat what the gods had provided, one does not find that he had any.The sage Leibnitz would very fain

have followed him to England; but, for reasons indifferently good, could never be allowed. If the truth must

be told, the sage Leibnitz had a wisdom which now looks dreadfully like that of a wiseacre! In Mathematics

even,he did invent the Differential Calculus, but it is certain also he never could believe in Newton's

System of the Universe, nor would read the PRINCIPIA at all. For the rest, he was in quarrel about Newton

with the Royal Society here; ill seen, it is probable, by this sage and the other. To the Hanover Official

Gentlemen devouring their English deadhorse, it did not appear that his presence could be useful in these

parts. [Guhrauer, Gottfried Freiherr von Leibnitz, eine Biographie (Breslau, 1842); Ker of Kersland, Memoirs

Nor are the Hanover womankind his Majesty has about him, quasiwives or not, of a soulentrancing

character; far indeed from that. Two in chief there are, a fat and a lean: the lean, called "Maypole" by the

English populace, is "Duchess of Kendal," with excellent pension, in the English Peeragy; Schulenburg the

former German name of her; decidedly a quasiwife (influential, against her will, in that sad Konigsmark

Tragedy, at Hanover long since), who is fallen thin and old. "Maypole,"or bare Hoppole, with the leaves

all stript; lean, long, hard;though she once had her summer verdures too; and still, as an old quasiwife, or

were it only as an old article of furniture, has her worth to the royal mind, Schulenburgs, kindred of hers, are

Then besides this lean one, there is a fat; of whom Walpole (Horace, who had seen her in boyhood) gives

description. Big staring black eyes, with rim of circular eyebrow, like a coachwheel round its nave, very

black the eyebrows also; vast red face; cheeks running into neck, neck blending indistinguishably with

stomach,a mere cataract of fluid tallow, skinned over and curiously dizened, according to Walpole's

portraiture. This charming creature, Kielmannsegge by German name, was called "Countess of Darlington" in

this countrywith excellent pension, as was natural. They all had pensions: even Queen Sophie Dorothee, I

have noticed in our StatePaper Office, has her small pension, "800 pounds a year on the Irish

Establishment:" Irish Establishment will never miss such a pittance for our poor Child, and it may be useful

over yonder!This Kielmannsegge, Countess of Darlington was, and is, believed by the gossiping English

to have been a second simultaneous Mistress of his Majesty's; but seems, after all, to have been his

HalfSister and nothing more. HalfSister (due to Gentleman Ernst and a Countess Platen of bad Hanover

fame); grown dreadfully fat; but not without shrewdness, perhaps affection; and worth something in this dull

foreign country, mere cataract of animal oils as she has become. These Two are the amount of his Britannic

His Britannic Majesty's day, in St. James's, is not of an interesting sort to him; and every evening he comes

precisely at a certain hour to drink beer, seasoned with a little tobacco, and the company of these two women.

Drinks diligently in a sipping way, says Horace; and smokes, with such dull speech as there may be,not till

he is drunk, but only perceptibly drunkish; raised into a kind of cloudy narcotic Olympus, and opaquely

superior to the ills of life; in which state he walks uncomplainingly to bed. Government, when it can by any

art be avoided, he rarely meddles with; shows a rugged sagacity, where he does and must meddle: consigns it

to Walpole in doglatin,laughs at his "MENTIRIS." This is the First George; first triumph of the

Constitutional Principle, which has since gone to such sublime heights among us, heights which we at last

begin to suspect might be depths, leading down, all men now ask: Whitherwards? A muchadmired invention

in its time, that of letting go the rudder, or setting a wooden figure expensively dressed to take charge of it,

and discerning that the ship would sail of itself so much more easily! Which it will, if a peculiarly good

seaboat, in certain kinds of sea,for a time. Till the Sinbad "Magnetic Mountains" begin to be felt pulling,

or the circles of Charybdis get you in their sweep; and then what an invention it was!This, we say, is the

new Sovereign Man, whom the English People, being in some perplexity about the Pope aud other points,

have called in from Hanover, to walk before them in the ways of heroism, and by command and by example

guide Heavenwards their affairs and them. And they hope that he will do it? Or perhaps that their affairs will

Poor George, careless of these ulterior issues, has always trouble enough with the mere daily details,

Parliamentary insolences, Jacobite plottings, SouthSea Bubbles; and wishes to hunt, when he gets over to

Hanover, rather than to make MarriageTreaties. Besides, as Wilhelmina tells us, they have filled him with

lies, these Hanover Women and their emissaries: "Your Princess Wilhelmina is a monster of illtemper,

crooked in the back and what not," say they. If there is to be a Marriage, double or single, these Improper

Females must first be persuaded to consent. [ Memoires de Bareith. ] Difficulties enough. And there is none

to help; Friedrich Wilhelm cares little about the matter, though he has given his Yes,Yes, since you will.

But Sophie Dorothee is diligent and urgent, by all opportunities; and, at length, in 1723, the conjuncture is

propitious. Domestic Jacobitism, in the shape of Bishop Atterbury, has got, itself well banished; Alberoni and

his big schemes, years ago they are blown into outer darkness; Charles XII. is well dead, and of our Bremen

and Verden no question henceforth; even the Kaiser's SpectreHunt, or Spanish Duel, is at rest for the

present, and the Congress of Cambrai is sitting, or trying all it can to sit: at home or abroad, there is nothing,

not even Wood's Irish Halfpence, as yet making noise. And on the other hand, Czar Peter is rumored (not

without foundation) to be coming westward, with some huge armament; which, whether "intended for

And so now at last, in this favorable aspect of the stars, King George, over at Herrenhausen, was by much

management of his Daughter Sophie's, and after many hitches, brought to the mark. And Friedrich Wilhelm

came over too; ostensibly to bring home his Queen, but in reality to hear his Fatherinlaw's compliance to

the DoubleMarriage,for which his Prussian Majesty is willing enough, if others are willing. Praised be

Heaven, King George has agreed to everything; consents, one propitious day (Autumn 1723, day not

otherwise dated),Czar Peter's Armament, and the questionable aspects in France, perhaps quickening his

volitions a little. Upon which Friedrich Wilhelm and Queen Sophie have returned home, content in that

matter; and expect shortly his Britannic Majesty's countervisit, to perfect the details, and make a Treaty of

His Britannic Majesty, we say, has in substance agreed to everything. And now, in the silence of Nature, the

brown leaves of October still hanging to the trees in a picturesque manner, and Wood's Halfpence not yet

begun to jingle in the Drapier's Letters of Dean Swift,his Britannic Majesty is expected at Berlin. At

Berlin; properly at Charlottenburg a pleasant rural or suburban Palace (built by his Britannic Majesty's late

noble Sister, Sophie Charlotte, "the Republican Queen," and named after her, as was once mentioned), a mile

Poor Wilhelmina is in much trepidation about it; and imparts her poor little feelings, her anticipations and

"There came, in those weeks, one of the Duke of Gloucester's gentlemen to Berlin,"DUKE OF

GLOUCESTER is Fred our intended, not yet Prince of Wales, and if the reader should ever hear of a DUKE

OF EDINBURGH, that too is Fred,"Duke of Gloucester's gentlemen to Berlin," says Wilhelmina: "the

Queen had Soiree (APPARTEMENT); he was presented to her as well as to me. He made me a very obliging

compliment on his Master's part; I blushed, and answered only by a courtesy. The Queen, who had her eye on

me, was very angry I had answered the Duke's compliments in mere silence; and rated me sharply (ME

LAVA LA TETE D'IMPORTANCE) for it; and ordered me, under pain of her indignation, to repair that fault

tomorrow. I retired, all in tears, to my room; exasperated against the Queen and against the Duke; I swore I

would never marry him, would throw myself at the feet" And so on, as young ladies of vivacious temper,

in extreme circumstances, are wont: did speak, however, next day, to my Hanover gentleman about his

Duke, a little, though in an embarrassed manner. Alas, I am yet but fourteen, gone the 3d of July last:

tremulous as aspenleaves; or say, as sheetlightning bottled in one of the thinnest human skins; and have no

"Meanwhile," continues Wilhelmina, "the King of England's time of arrival was drawing nigh. We repaired,

on the 6th of October, to Charlottenburg to receive him. The heart of me kept beating, and I was in cruel

agitations. King George [my Grandfather, and Grand Uncle] arrived on the 8th, about seven in the

evening;"dusky shades already sinking over Nature everywhere, and all paths growing dim. Abundant

flunkies, of course, rush out with torches or what is needful. "The King of Prussia, the Queen and all their

Suite received him in the Court of the Palace, the 'Apartments' being on the groundfloor. So soon as he had

saluted the King and Queen, I was presented to him. He embraced me; and turning to the Queen said to her,

'Your daughter is very big of her age!' He gave the Queen his hand, and led her into her apartment, whither

everybody followed them. As soon as I came in, he took a light from the table, and surveyed me from head to

foot. I stood motionless as a statue, and was much put out of countenance. All this went on without his

uttering the least word. Having thus passed me in review, he addressed himself to my Brother, whom he

caressed much, and amused himself with, for a good while." Pretty little Grandson this, your Majesty;any

future of history in this one, think you? "I," says Wilhelmina, "took the opportunity of slipping

"The Queen made me a sign to follow her; and passed into a neighboring apartment, where she had the

English and Germans of King George's Suite successively presented to her. After some talk with these

gentlemen, she withdrew; leaving me to entertain them, and saying: 'Speak English to my Daughter; you will

find she speaks it very well.' I felt much less embarrassed, once the Queen was gone; and picking up a little

courage, I entered into conversation with these English. As I spoke their language like my mothertongue, I

got pretty well out of the affair, and everybody seemed charmed with me. They made my eulogy to the

Queen; told her I had quite the English air, and was made to be their Sovereign one day. It was saying a great

deal on their part: for these English think themselves so much above all other people, that they imagine they

"Their King [my Grandpapa] had got Spanish manners, I should say: he was of an extreme gravity, and

hardly spoke a word to anybody. He saluted Madam Sonsfeld [my invaluable thricedear Governess] very

coldly; and asked her 'If I was always so serious, and if my humor was of the melancholy turn?' 'Anything but

that, Sire,' answered the other: 'but the respect she has for your Majesty prevents her from being as sprightly

as she commonly is.' He wagged his head, and answered nothing. The reception he had given me, and this

question, of which I heard, gave me such a chill, that I never had the courage to speak to him,"was merely

"We were summoned to supper at last, where this grave Sovereign still remained dumb. Perhaps he was right,

perhaps he was wrong; but I think he followed the proverb, which says, Better hold your tongue than speak

badly. At the end of the repast he felt indisposed. The Queen would have persuaded him to quit table; they

bandied compliments a good while on the point; but at last she threw down her napkin, and rose. The King of

England naturally rose too; but began to stagger; the King of Prussia ran up to help him, all the company ran

bustling about him; but it was to no purpose: he sank on his knees; his peruke falling on one side, and his hat

[or at least his head, Madam!] on the other. They stretched him softly on the floor; where he remained a good

hour without consciousness. The pains they took with him brought back his senses, by degrees, at last. The

Queen and the King [of Prussia] were in despair all this while. Many have thought this attack was a herald of

the stroke of apoplexy which came by and by,"within four years from this date, and carried off his Majesty

"They passionately entreated him to retire now," continues Wilhelmina; "but he would not by any means. He

led out the Queen, and did the other ceremonies, according to rule; had a very bad night, as we learned

underhand;" but persisted stoically nevertheless, being a crowned Majesty, and bound to it. He stoically

underwent four or three other days, of festival, sightseeing, "pleasure" so called;among other sights, saw

little Fritz drilling his Cadets at Berlin;and on the fourth day (12th October, 1723, so thinks Wilhelmina)

fairly "signed the Treaty of the DoubleMarriage," English Townshend and the Prussian Ministry having

settled all things. [Wilhelmina, Memoires de Bareith, i. 83, 87,In Coxe ( Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole,

London, 1798), ii. 266, 272, 273, are some faint hints, from Townshend, of this Berlin journey.]

"Signed the Treaty," thinks Wilhelmina, "all things being settled." Which is an error on the part of

Wilhelmina. Settled many or all things were by Townshend and the others: but before signing, there was

Parliament to be apprised, there were formalities, expenditure of time; between the cup and the lip, such

things to intervene;and the sad fact is, the DoubleMarriage Treaty never was signed at all!However, all

things being now settled ready for signing, his Britannic Majesty, next morning, set off for the GOHRDE

This authentic glimpse, one of the few that are attainable, of their first Constitutional King, let English

readers make the most of. The act done proved dreadfully momentous to our little Friend, his Grandson; and

Thus, at any rate, was the Treaty of the DoubleMarriage settled, to the point of signing,thought to be as

good as signed. It was at the time when Czar Peter was making armaments to burn Sweden; when Wood's

Halfpence (on behalf of her Improper Grace of Kendal, the lean QuasiWife, "Maypole" or Hoppole, who

had run short of money, as she often did) were about beginning to jingle in Ireland; [Coxe (i. 216, 217, and

SUPPLY the dates); Walpole to Townshend, 13th October, 1723 (ib. ii. 275): "The Drapier's Letters" are of

1724.] when Law's Bubble "System" had fallen, well flaccid, into Chaos again; when Dubois the unutterable

Cardinal had at length died, and d'Orleans the unutterable Regent was unexpectedly about to do so,in a

most surprising SodomandGomorrah manner. [2d December, 1723: Barbier, Journal Historique du Regne

de Louis XV. (Paris, l847), i. 192, 196; Lacretelle, Histoire de France, 18me siecle; Not to mention other dull

and vile phenomena of putrid fermentation, which were transpiring, or sluttishly bubbling up, in poor

benighted rotten Europe here or there;since these are sufficient to date the Transaction for us; and what

does not stick to our Fritz and his affairs it is more pleasant to us to forget than to remember, of such an

Hereby, for the present, is a great load rolled from Queen Sophie Dorothee's heart. One, and, that the highest,

of her abstruse negotiations, cherished, labored in, these fourteen years, she has brought to a victorious

issue,has she not? Her poor Mother, once so radiant, now so dim and angry, shut in the Castle of Ahlden,

does not approve this DoubleMarriage; not she for her part;as indeed evil to all Hanoverian interests is

now chiefly her good, poor Lady; and she is growing more and more of a Megaera every day. With whom

Sophie Dorothee has her own difficulties and abstruse practices; but struggles always to maintain, under

sevenfold secrecy, some thread of correspondence and pious filial ministration wherever possible; that the

poor exasperated Mother, wretchedest and angriest of women, be not quite cut off from the kinship of the

living, but that some soft breath of pity may cool her burning heart now and then. [In Memoirs of Sophia

Dorothea (London, 1845), ii. 385, 393, are certain fractions of this Correspondence, "edited" in an amazing

manner.] A dark tragedy of Sophie's, this; the Bluebeard Chamber of her mind, into which no eye but her

In reference to Queen Sophie, and chronologically if not otherwise connected with this DoubleMarriage

Treaty, I will mention one other thing. Her Majesty had been in fluctuating health, all summer; unaccountable

symptoms turning up in her Majesty's constitution, languors, qualms, especially a tendency to swelling or

increase of size, which had puzzled and alarmed her Doctors and her. Friedrich Wilhelm, on conclusion of

the MarriageTreaty, had been appointed to join his Fatherinlaw, Britannic George, at the Gohrde, in some

three weeks' time, and have a bout of hunting. On the 8th of November, bedtime being come, he kissed his

Wilhelmina and the rest, by way of goodby; intending to start very early on the morrow:long journey

(150 miles or so), to be done all in one day. In the dead of the night, Queen Sophie was seized with dreadful

colics,pangs of colic or who knows what; Friedrich Wilhelm is summoned; rises in the highest alarm;

none but the maids and he at hand to help; and the colic, or whatever it may be, gets more and more dreadful.

Colic? O poor Sophie, it is travail, and no colic; and a clever young Princess is suddenly the result! None but

Friedrich Wilhelm and the maid for midwives; mother and infant, nevertheless, doing perfectly well.

Friedrich Wilhelm did not go on the morrow, but next day; laughed, ever and anon in loud hahas, at the part

he had been playing; and was very glad and merry. How the experienced Sophie, whose twelfth child this is,

came to commit such an oversight is unaccountable; but the fact is certain, and made a merry noise in Court

The clever little Princess, now born in this manner, is known by name to idle readers. She was christened

AMELIA; and we shall hear of her in time coming. But there was, as the Circulating Libraries still intimate, a

certain loudspoken braggart of the histrionicheroic sort, called Baron Trenck, windy, rash, and not without

mendacity, who has endeavored to associate her with his own transcendent and not undeserved illluck;

hinting the poor Princess into a sad fame in that way. For which, it would now appear, there was no basis

whatever! Most condemnable Trenck; whom, however, Robespierre guillotined finally, and so settled that

Of Sophie Dorothee's twelve children, including this Amelia, there are now eight living, two boys, six girls;

and after Amelia, two others, boys, are successively to come: ten in all, who grew to be men and women. Of

whom perhaps I had better subjoin a List; now that the eldest Boy and Girl are about to get settled in life; and

l. FREDERIKA SOPHIE WILHELMINA, ultimately Margravine of Baireuth, after strange adventures in

the marriagetreaty way. Wrote her Memoires there, about 1744. Of whom we shall hear much. Left a

Daughter, her one child; Daughter badly married, to "Karl reigning Duke of Wurtemberg" (Poet Schiller's

famous Serene Highness there), from whom she had to separate, with anger enough, by and by.

After Wilhelmina in the Family series came a second Prince, who died in the eleventh month. Then, 24th

3. FREDERIKA LOUISA, born 28th September, 1714; age now about nine. Margravine of Anspach,

30th May, 1729; Widow 1757. Her one Son, born 1736, was the LADYCRAVEN'S Anspach. Frederika

4. PHILIPPINA CHARLOTTE, born 13th of March, 1716; became Duchess of Brunswick (her Husband

was Eldest Brother of the "Prince Ferdinand" so famous in England in the SevenYears War); her Son was

the Duke who invaded France in 1792, and was tragically hurled to ruin in the Battle of Jena, 1806. The

After whom, in 1717, again a little Prince, who died within two years (our Fritz then seven,probably the

first time Death ever came before him, practically into his little thoughts in this world): then,

5. SOPHIE DOROTHEE MARIA, born 25th January, 1719; Margravine of Schwedt, 1734 (eldest

Magraf of Schwedt, mentioned above as a comrade of the CrownPrince). Her life not very happy; she died

1765. Left no son (Brotherinlaw succeeded, last of the Schwedt MARGRAVES): her Daughter, wedded to

Prince Friedrich Eugen, a Prussian Officer, Cadet of Wurtemberg and ultimately Heir there, is Ancestress of

the Wurtemberg Sovereignties that now are, and also (by one of HER daughters married to Paul of Russia) of

all the Czar kindred of our time. [Preuss, iv. 278; Erman, Vie de Sophie Charlotte, p. 2722.]

6. LOUISA ULRIQUE, born 24th July, 1720; married Adolf Friedrich, HeirApparent, subsequemly

King of Sweden, 17th July, 1744; Queen (he having acceded) 6th April, 1751; Widow 1771; died, at

Stockholm, 16th July, 1782. Mother of the subsequent Kings; her Grandson the DEPOSED> [OErtel, p. 83;

7. AUGUST WILHELM, born 9th August, 1722; HeirApparent after Friedrich (so declared by

Friedrich, 30th June, 1744); Father of the Kings who have since followed. He himself died, in sad

9. FRIEDRICH HEINRICH LUDWIG, born l8th January, 1726;the famed Prince Henri, of whom we

10. AUGUST FERDINAND, born 23d May, 1730: a brilliant enough little soldier under his Brother, full

of spirit and talent, but liable to weak health;was Father of the "Prince Louis Ferdinand," a tragic Failure

of something considerable, who went off in Liberalism, wit, in high sentiment, expenditure and debauchery,

greatly to the admiration of some persons; and at length rushed desperate upon the Frenoh, and found his

Treaty of DoubleMarriage is ready for signing, once the needful Parliamentary preludings are gone through;

Treaty is signed, thinks Wilhelmina,forgetting the distance between cup and lip! As to signing, or even

to burning, and giving up the thought of signing, alas, how far are we yet from that! Imperial

spectrehuntings and the politics of most European Cabinets will connect themselves with that; and send it

wandering wide enough, lost in such a jungle of intrigues, pettifoggings, treacheries, diplomacies domestic

The whole of which extensive Cabinet operations, covering square miles of paper at this moment,having

nevertheless, after ten years of effort, ended in absolute zero,were of no worth even to the managers of

them; and are of less than none to any mortal now or henceforth. So that the method of treating them becomes

a problem to History. To pitch them utterly out of window, and out of memory, never to be mentioned in

human speech again: this is the manifest prompting of Nature;and this, were not our poor CrownPrince

and one or two others involved in them, would be our ready and thricejoyful course. Surely the socalled

"Politics of Europe" in that day are a thing this Editor would otherwise with his whole soul, forget to all

eternity! "Putrid fermentation," ending, after the endurance of much malodor, in mere zero to you and to

every one, even to the rotting bodies themselves:is there any wise Editor that would connect himself with

that? These are the fields of History which are to be, so soon as humanly possible, SUPPRESSED; which

only Mephistopheles, or the bad Genius of Mankind, can contemplate with pleasure.

Let us strive to touch lightly the chief summits, here and there, of that intricate, most empty, mournful

Business,which was really once a Fact in practical Europe, not the mere nightmare of an Attorney's

Dream;and indicate, so far as indispensable, how the young Friedrich, Friedrich's Sister, Father, Mother,

Kaiser Karl VI., head of the Holy Romish Empire at this time, was a handsome man to look upon; whose life,

full of expense, vicissitude, futile labor and adventure, did not prove of much use to the world. Describable as

a laborious futility rather. He was second son of that little Leopold, the solemn little Herr in red stockings,

who had such troubles, frights, and runnings to and fro with the sieging Turks, liberative Sobieskis,

acquisitive Louis Fourteenths; and who at length ended in a sea of futile labor, which they call the Spanish

This Karl, second son, had been appointed "King of Spain" in that futile business; and with much sublimity,

though internally in an impoverished condition, he proceeded towards Spain, landing in England to get cash

for the outfit;arrived in Spain; and roved about there as TitularKing for some years, with the fighting

Peterboroughs, Galways, Stahrembergs; but did no good there, neither he nor his Peterboroughs. At length,

his Brother Joseph, Father Leopold's successor, having died, [17th April, 1711.] Karl came home from Spain

to be Kaiser. At which point, Karl would have been wise to give up his Titular Kingship in Spain; for he

never got, nor will get, anything but futile labor from hanging to it. He did hang to it nevertheless; and still, at

this date of George's visit and long afterwards, hangs,with notable obstinacy. To the woe of men and

Kaiser Karl shrieked mere amazement and indignation, when the English tired of fighting for him and it.

When the English said to their great Marlborough: "Enough, you sorry Marlborough! You have beaten Louis

XIV. to the suppleness of washleather, at our bidding; that is true, and that may have had its difficulties: but,

after all, we prefer to have the thing precisely as it would have been without any fighting. You, therefore,

what is the good of you? You are aperson whom we fling out like sweepings, now that our eyesight

Nothing ever had so disgusted and astonished Kaiser Karl as this treatment,not of Marlborough, whom he

regarded only as he would have done a pair of military boots or a holsterpistol of superior excellence, for

the uses that were in him,but of the Kaiser Karl his own sublime self, the heart and focus of Political

Nature; left in this manner, now when the sordid English and Dutch declined spending blood and money for

him farther. "Ungrateful, sordid, inconceivable souls," answered Karl, "was there ever, since the early

Christian times, such a martyr as you have now made of me!" So answered Karl, in diplomatic groans and

shrieks, to all ends of Europe. But the sulky English and Allies, thoroughly tired of paying and bleeding, did

not heed him; made their Peace of Utrecht [Peace of Utrecht, 11th April, 1713; Peace of Rastadt (following

upon the Preliminaries of Baden), 6th March, 1714.] with Louis XIV., who was now beaten supple; and Karl,

after a year of indignant protests and futile attempts to fight Louis on his own score, was obliged to do the

like. He has lost the Spanish crown; but still holds by the shadow of it; will not quit that, if he can help it. He

hunts much, digests well; is a sublime Kaiser, though internally rather poor, carrying his head high; and

Kaiser Karl, soon after the time of going to Spain had decided that a Wife would be necessary. He applied to

Caroline of Anspach, now English Princess of Wales, but at that time an orphaned BrandenburgAnspach

Princess, very Beautiful, graceful, gifted, and altogether unprovided for; living at Berlin under the

guardianship of Friedrich the first King. Her young Mother had married again,high enough match (to

KurSachsen, elder Brother of August the Strong, August at that time without prospects of the

Electorate);but it lasted short while: Caroline's Mother and Saxon Stepfather were both now, long since,

dead. So she lived at Berlin brilliant though unportioned;with the rough cub Friedrich Wilhelm much

following her about, and passionately loyal to her, as the Beast was to Beauty; whom she did not mind except

as a cub loyal to her; being five years older than he. [Forster, i. 107.] Indigent bright Caroline, a young lady

of fine aquiline features and spirit, was applied for to be Queen of Spain; wooer a handsome man, who might

even be Kaiser by and by. Indigent bright Caroline at once answered, No. She was never very orthodox in

Protestant theology; but could not think of taking up Papistry for lucre's and ambition's sake: be that always

The Spanish Majesty next applied at Brunswick Wolfenbuttel; no lack of Princesses there: Princesa

Elizabeth, for instance; Protestant she too, but perhaps not so squeamish? Old Anton Ulrich, whom some

readers know for the idle Books, longwinded Novels chiefly, which he wrote, was the Grandfather of this

favored Princess; a goodnatured old gentleman, of the idle ornamental species, in whose head most things, it

is likely, were reduced to vocables, scribble and sentimentality; and only a steady internal gravitation towards

praise and pudding was traceable as very real in him. Anton Ulrich, affronted more or less by the immense

advancement of Gentleman Ernst and the Hanoverian or YOUNGER Brunswick Line, was extremely glad of

the Imperial offer; and persuaded his timid Granddaughter, ambitious too, but rather consciencestricken,

That the change from Protestant to Catholic, the essentials being so perfectly identical in both, was a mere

trifle; that he himself, old as he was, would readily change along with her, so easy was it. Whereupon the

young Lady made the big leap; abjured her religion; [1st May, 1707, at Bamberg.]went to Spain as Queen

(with sad injury to her complexion, but otherwise successfully more or less);and sits now as Empress

beside her Karl VI. in a grand enough, probably rather dull, but not singularly unhappy manner.

She, a Brunswick Princess, with Nephews and Nieces who may concern us, is Kaiserinn to Kaiser Karl: for

aught I know of her, a kindly simple Wife, and unexceptionable Sovereign Majesty, of the sort wanted;

whom let us remember, if we meet her again one day. I add only of this poor Lady, distinguished to me by a

Daughter she had, that her mind still had some misgivings about the big leap she had made in the

ProtestantPapist way. Finding Anton Ulrich still continue Protestant, she wrote to him out of

Spain:"Why, O honored Grandpapa, have you not done as you promised? Ah, there must be a taint of

mortal sin in it, after all!" Upon which the absurdly situated old Gentleman did change his religion; and is

marked as a Convert in all manner of Genealogies and Histories; truly an old literary gentleman ducal and

serene, restored to the bosom of the Church in a somewhat peculiarly ridiculous manner. {Michaelis, i.

Ever after the Peace of Utrecht, when England and Holland declined to bleed for him farther, especially ever

since his own Peace of Rastadt made with Louis the year after Kaiser Karl had utterly lost hold of the Crown

of Spain; and had not the least chance to clutch that bright substance again. But he held by the shadow of it,

with a deadly Hapsburg tenacity; refused for twenty years, under all pressures, to part with the shadow: "The

Spanish Hapsburg Branch is dead; whereupon do not I, of the Austrian Branch, sole representative of Kaiser

Karl the Fifth, claim, by the law of Heaven, whatever he possessed in Spain, by law of ditto? Battles of

Blenheim of Malplaquet, Courtintrigues of Mrs. Masham and the Duchess: these may bring Treaties of

Utrecht, and what you are pleased to call laws of Earth;but a Hapsburg Kaiser knows higher laws, if you

Poor Kaiser Karl: he had a high thought in him really though a most misguided one. Titular King of Men; but

much bewildered into mere indolent fatuity, inane solemnity, high sniffing pride grounded on nothing at all; a

Kaiser much sunk in the sediments of his muddy Epoch. Sure enough, he was a proud lofty solemn Kaiser,

infinitely the gentleman in air and humor; Spanish gravities, ceremonials, reticences;and could, in a better

scene, have distinguished himself by better than mere statuesque immovability of posture, dignified

endurance of ennui, and Hapsburg tenacity in holding the grip. It was not till 1735, after tusslings and

wrenchings beyond calculation, that he would consent to quit the Shadow of the Crown of Spain; and let

The essence of what is called the European History of this Period, such History as a Period sunk dead in

spirit, and alive only in stomach, can have, turns all on Kaiser Karl, and these his clutchings at shadows.

Which makes a very sad, surprising History indeed; more worthy to be called Phenomena of Putrid

Fermentation, than Struggles of Human Heroism to vindicate itself in this Planet, which latter alone are

On the throne of Spain, beside Philip V. the melancholic new Bourbon, Louis XIV.'s Grandson, sat Elizabeth

Farnese, a termagant tenacious woman, whose ambitious cupidities were not inferior in obstinacy to Kaiser

Karl's, and proved not quite so shadowy as his. Elizabeth also wanted several things: renunciation of your

(Kaiser Karl's) shadowy claims; nay of sundry real usurpations you and your Treaties have made on the

actual possessions of Spain, Kingdom of Sicily, for instance; Netherlands, for instance; Gibraltar, for

instance. But there is one thing which, we observe, is indispensable throughout to Elizabeth Farnese: the

future settlement of her dear Boy Carlos. Carlos, whom as Spanish Philip's second Wife she had given to

Spain and the world, as Second or supplementary INFANT there,a troublesome gift to Spain and others.

"This dear Boy, surely he must have his Italian Apanages, which, you have provided for him: Duchies of

Parma and Piacenza, which will fall heirless soon. Security for these Italian Apanages, such as will satisfy a

Mother: Let us introduce Spanish garrisons into Parma and Piacenza at once! How else can we be certain of

getting those indispensable Apanages, when they fall vacant?" On this point Elizabeth Farnese was positive,

maternally vehement; would take no subterfuge, denial or delay: "Let me perceive that I shall have these

Duchies: that, first of all; or else not that only, but numerous other things will be demanded of you!"

Upon which point the Kaiser too, who loved his Duchies, and hoped yet to keep them by some turn of the

game, never could decide to comply. Whereupon Elizabeth grew more and more termagant; listened to wild

counsels; took up an Alberoni, a Ripperda, any wandering diplomatic bulldog that offered; and let them

loose upon the Kaiser and her other gainsayers. To the terror of mankind, lest universal war should

supervene. She held the Kaiser well at bay, mankind well in panic; and continually there came on all Europe,

for about twenty years, a terror that war was just about to break out, and the whole world to take fire. The

History so called of Europe went canting from side to side; heeling at a huge rate, according to the passes and

lunges these two giant figures, Imperial Majesty and the Termagant of Spain, made at one another, for a

There came next to no war, after all; sputterings of war twice over,1718, Byng at Messina, as we saw; and

then, in 1727, a second sputter, as we are to see:but the neighbors always ran with buckets, and got it

quenched. No war to speak of; but such negotiating, diplomatizing, universal hope, universal fear, and

infinite ado about nothing, as were seldom heard of before. For except Friedrich Wilhelm drilling his 50,000

soldiers (80,000 gradually, and gradually even twice that number), I see no Crowned Head in Europe that is

not, with immeasurable apparatus, simply doing ZERO. Alas, in an age of universal infidelity to Heaven,

where the Heavenly Sun has SUNK, there occur strange Spectrehuntings. Which is a fact worth laying to

heart.Duel of Twenty Years with Elizabeth Farnese, about the eventualities of Parma and Piacensa, and the

Shadow of the lost Crown of Spain; this was the first grand Spectrality of Kaiser Karl's existence; but this

Kaiser Karl meanwhile was rather short of heirs; which formed another of his real troubles, and involved him

in much shadowhunting. His Wife, the Serene Brunswick Empress whom we spoke of above, did at length

bring him children, brought him a boy even; but the boy died within the year; and, on the whole, there

remained nothing but two Daughters; Maria Theresa the elder of them, born 1717,the prettiest little maiden

in the world; no son to inherit Kaiser Karl. Under which circumstances Kaiser Karl produced now, in the

Year 1724, a Document which he had executed privately as long ago as 1713, only his Privy Councillors and

other Official witnesses knowing of it then; [19th April, 1713 (Stenzel, iii. 5222).] and solemnly publishes it

to the world, as a thing all men are to take notice of. All men had notice enough of this Imperial bit of

Sheepskin, before they got done with it, fiveandtwenty years hence. [Peace of AixlaChapelle, 1748.] A

By which Document, Kaiser Karl had formally settled, and fixed according to the power he has, in the shape

of what they call a Pragmatic Sanction, or unalterable Ordinance in his Imperial House, "That, failing

Heirsmale, his Daughters, his Eldest Daughter, should succeed him; failing Daughters, his Nieces; and in

short, that Heirsfemale ranking from their kinship to Kaiser Karl, and not to any prior Kaiser, should be as

good as Heirsmale of Karl's body would have been." A Pragmatic Sanction is the high name he gives this

document, or the Act it represents; "Pragmatic Sanction" being, in the Imperial Chancery and some others,

the received title for Ordinances of a very irrevocable nature, which a sovereign makes, in affairs that belong

wholly to himself, or what he reckons his own rights. [A rare kind of Deed, it would seem; and all the more

solemn. In 1438, Charles VI. of France, conceding the Gallican Church its Liberties, does, it by "SANCTION

PRAGMATIQUE;" Carlos III. of Spain (in 1759, "settling the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies on his third son")

does the like, which is the last instance of "PRAGMATIC SANCTION" in this world.]

This Pragmatic Sanction of Kaiser Karl's, executed 19th April, 1713, was promulgated, "gradually," now here

now there, from 1720 to 1724, {Stenzel, pp. 522, 523.]in which later year it became universally public;

and was transmitted to all Courts and Sovereignties, as an unalterable law of Things Imperial. Thereby the

good man hopes his beautiful little Theresa, now seven years old, may succeed him, all as a son would have

done, in the Austrian States and Dignities; and incalculable damages, wars, and chances of war, be prevented,

The world, incredulous of tomorrow, in its lazy way, was not sufficiently attentive to this new law of things.

Some who were personally interested, as the Saxon Sovereignty, and the Bavarian, denied that it was just:

reminded KaiserKarl that he was not the Noah or Adam of Kaisers; and that the case of Heirsfemale was

not quite a new idea on sheepskin. No; there are older Pragmatic Sanctions and settlements, by prior Kaisers

of blessed memory; under which, if Daughters are to come in, we, descended from Imperial Daughters of

older standing, shall have a word to say! To this Kaiser Karl answers steadily, with endless argument, That

every Kaiser is a Patriarch, and First Man, in such matters; and that so it has been pragmatically sanctioned

by him, and that so it shall and must irrevocably be. To the other Powers, and indolent impartial Sovereigns

of the world, he was lavish in embassies; in ardent representations; and spared no pains in convincing them

that tomorrow would surely come, and that then it would be a blessedness to have accepted this Pragmatic

Sanction, and see it lying for you as a Law of Nature to go by, and avoid incalculable controversies.

This was another vast Shadow, or confused highpiled continent of shadows, to which our poor Kaiser held

with his customary tenacity. To procure adherences and assurances to this dear Pragmatic Sanction, was,

even more than the shadow of the Spanish Crown, and above all after he had quitted that, the one grand

business of his Life henceforth. With which he kept all Europe in perpetual travail and diplomacy; raying out

ambassadors, and less ostensible agents, with bribes, and with entreaties and proposals, into every high

Sovereign Court and every low; negotiating unweariedly by all methods, with all men. For it was his

eveningsong and his morningprayer; the grand meaning of Life to him, till Life ended. You would have

said, the first question he asks of every creature is, "Will you covenant for my Pragmatic Sanction with me?

Oh, agree to it; accept that new Law of Nature: when the morrow comes, it will be salutary for you!"

Most of the Foreign Potentates idly accepted the thing,as things of a distant contingent kind are

accepted;made Treaty on it, since the Kaiser seemed so extremely anxious. Only Bavaria, having heritable

claims, never would. Saxony too (August the Strong), being in the like case, or a better, flatly refused for a

long time; would not, at all,except for a consideration. Bright little Prince Eugene, who dictated square

miles of Letters and DIplomacies on the subject (Letters of a steady depth of dulness, which at last grows

almost sublime), was wont to tell his Majesty: "Treatying, your Majesty? A welltrained Army and a full

Treasury; that is the only Treaty that will make this Pragmatic Sanction valid!" But his Majesty never would

believe. So the bright old Eugene dictated,or, we hope and guess, he only gave his clerks some keyword,

and signed his name (in three languages, "Eugenio von Savoye") to these square miles of dull epistolary

matter,probably taking Spanish snuff when he had done. For he wears it in both waistcoatpockets;has

(as his Portraits still tell us) given up breathing by the nose. The bright little soul, with a flash in him as of

Shadow of Pragmatic Sanction, shadow of the Spanish Crown,it was such shadowhuntings of the Kaiser

in Vienna, it was this of the Pragmatic Sanction most of all, that thwarted our Prussian DoubleMarriage,

which lay so far away from it. This it was that pretty nearly broke the hearts of Friedrich, Wilhelmina, and

their Mother and Father. For there never was such negotiating; not for admittance to the Kingdom of Heaven,

in the pious times. And the open goingsforth of it, still more the secret minings and molecourses of it, were

into all places. Above ground and below, no Sovereign mortal could say he was safe from it, let him agree or

not. Friedrich Wilhelm had cheerfully, and with all his heart, agreed to the Pragmatic Sanction; this above

ground, in sight of the sun; and rashly fancied he had then done with it. Till, to his horror, he found the

Imperial moles, by way of keeping assurance doubly sure, had been under the foundations of his very house

for long years past, and had all but brought it down about him in the most hideous manner!

Another object which Kaiser Karl pursued with some diligence in these times, and which likewise proved a

shadow, much disturbance as it gave mankind, was his "Ostend EastIndia Company." The Kaiser had seen

impoverished Spain, rich England, rich Holland; he had taken up a creditable notion about commerce and its

advantages. He said to himself, Why should not my Netherlands trade to the East, as well as these English

and Dutch, and grow opulent like them? He instituted (OCTROYA) an "Ostend EastIndia Company," under

due Patents and Imperial Sheepskins, of date 17th December, 1722, [Buchholz, i. 88; Pfeffel, Abrege

Chronologique de l'Histoire d'Allemagne (Park, 1776), ii. 522.] gave it what freedom he could to trade to the

East. "Impossible!" answered the Dutch, with distraction in their aspect; "Impossible, we say; contrary to

Treaty of Westphalia, to Utrecht, to Barrier Treaty; and destructive to the best interests of mankind,

especially to us and our tradeprofits! We shall have to capture your ships, if you ever send any."

To which the Kaiser counterpleaded, earnestly, diligently, for the space of seven years,to no effect. "We

will capture your ships if you ever send any," answered the Dutch and English. What ships ever could have

been sent from Ostend to the East, or what ill they could have done there, remains a mystery, owing to the

The Kaiser's laudable zeal for commerce had to expend itself in his Adriatic Territories,giving privileges to

the Ports of Trieste and Fiume; [Hormayr, OEsterreichischer Plutarch, x. 101.] making roads through the

Dalmatian HillCountries, which are useful to this day;but could not operate on the Netherlands in the

way proposed. The Kaiser's Imperial Ostend EastIndia Company, which convulsed the Diplomatic mind for

seven years to come, and made Europe lurch from side to side in a terrific manner, proved a mere paper

Company; never sent any ships, only produced Diplomacies, and "had the honor to be." This was the third

grand Shadow which the Kaiser chased, shaking all the world, poor crank world, as he strode after it; and this

also ended in zero, and several tons of diplomatic correspondence, carried once by breathless estaffettes, and

now silent, gravitating towards Acheron all of them, and interesting to the spiders only.

Poor good Kaiser: they say he was a humane stately gentleman, stately though shortish; fond of pardoning

criminals where he could; very polite to Muratori and the Antiquaries, even to English Rymer, in opening his

Archives to them,and made roads in the Dalmatian HillCountry, which remain to this day. I do not

wonder he grew more and more saturnine, and addicted to solid taciturn fieldsports. His Political

"PerforceHunt (PARFORCE JAGD)," with so many twofooted terriers, and legationary beagles,

distressing all the world by their baying and their burrowing, had proved to be of Shadows; and melted into

In process of this so terrific Duel with Elizabeth Farnese, and general combat of the Shadows, which then

made Europe quake, at every new lunge and pass of it, and which now makes Europe yawn to hear the least

mention of it, there came two sputterings of actual War. Byng's seavictory at Messina, 1718; Spanish "Siege

of Gibraltar," 1727, are the main phenomena of these two Wars, England, as its wont is, taking a shot in

both, though it has now forgotten both. And, on the whole, there came, so far as I can count, Seven grand

diplomatic Spasms or Crises,desperate general European Treatyings hither and then thither, solemn

Congresses two of them, with endless supplementary adhesions by the minor powers. Seven grand

mothertreaties, not to mention the daughters, or supplementary adhesions they had; all Europe rising

spasmodically seven times, and doing its very uttermost to quell this terrible incubus; all Europe changing

color seven times, like a lobster boiling, for twenty years. Seven diplomatic Crises, we say, marked changings

of color in the longsuffering lobster; and two socalled Wars,before this enormous zero could be settled.

Which high Treaties and Transactions, human nature, after much study of them, grudges to enumerate.

Apanage for Baby Carlos, ghost of a Pragmatic Sanction; these were a pair of causes for mankind! Be no

For the reader's convenience we must note the salient points; but grudge to do it. Salient points, now mostly

wrapt in Orcus, and terrestrially interesting only to the spiders,except on an occasion of this kind, when

part of them happens to stick to the history of a memorable man, To us they are mere bubblingsup of the

general putrid fermentation of the then Political World; and are too unlovely to be dwelt on longer than

indispensable. Triple Alliance, Quadruple Alliance, Congress of Cambrai, Congress of Soissons; Conference

of Pardo, Treaty of Hanover, Treaty of Wusterhausen, what are they? Echo answers, What? Ripperda and the

Queen of Spain, Kaiser Karl and his Pragmatic Sanction, are fallen dim to every mind. The Troubles of Thorn

(sad enough PapistProtestant tragedy in their time),who now cares to know of them? It is much if we find

a hearing for the poor Salzburg Emigrants when they get into Preussen itself. Afflicted human nature ought to

be, at last, delivered from the palpably superfluous; and if a few things memorable are to be remembered,

millions of things unmemorable must first be honestly buried and forgotten! But to our affair,that of

marking the chief bubblingsup in the abovesaid Universal Putrid Fermentation, so far as they concern us.

We already saw Byng sea fighting in the Straits of Messina; that was part of Crisis Second,sequel, in

powderandball, of Crisis First, which had been in paper till then. The Powers had interfered, by Triple, by

Quadruple Alliance, to quench the SpanishAustrian Duel (about Apanage for Baby Carlos, and a quantity of

other Shadows): "Triple Alliance" [4th January, 1717.] was, we may say, when France, England, Holland

laboriously sorted out terms of agreement between Kaiser and Termagant: "Quadruple" [18th July, 1718.]

was when Kaiser, after much coaxing, acceded, as fourth party; and said gloomily, "Yes, then." Byng's

Seafight was when Termagant said, "No, bythe Plots of Alberoni! Never will I, for my part, accede to

such terms!" and attacked the poor Kaiser in his Sicilies and elsewhere. Byng's Seafight, in aid of a

suffering Kaiser and his Sicilies, in consequence. Furthermore, the French invaded Spain, till Messina were

retaken; nay the English, by land too, made a dash at Spain, "Descent on Vigo" as they call it,in reference

"That same year [1719, year after Byng's Seafight, Messina just about recaptured], there took effect,

planned by the vigorous Colonel Stanhope, our Minister at Madrid, who took personal share in the thing, a

'Descent on Vigo,' sudden swoopdown upon Town and shipping in those Gallician, northwest regions.

Which was perfectly successful,Lord Cobham leading;and made much noise among mankind. Filled all

Gazettes at that time;but now, again, is all fallen silent for us,except this one thriceinsignificant point,

That there was in it, 'in Handyside's Regiment,' a Lieutenant of Foot, by name STERNE, who had left, with

his poor Wife at Plymouth, a very remarkable Boy called Lorry, or LAWRENCE; known since that to all

mankind. When Lorry in his LIFE writes, 'my Father went on the Vigo expedition,' readers may understand

this was it. Strange enough: that poor Lieutenant of Foot is now pretty much all that is left of this sublime

enterprise upon Vigo, in the memory of mankind;hanging there, as if by a single hair, till poor

TRISTRAM SHANDY be forgotten too." [ Memoirs of Laurence Sterne, written by himself for his Daughter

In short, the French and even the English invaded Spain; English Byng and others sank Spanish ships:

Termagant was obliged to pack away her Alberoni, and give in. She had to accede to "Quadruple Alliance,"

after all; making it, so to speak, a Quintuple one; making Peace, in fact, [17th February, 1720.] general

Congress of Cambrai met accordingly; in 1722,"in the course of the year," Delegates slowly raining

in,date not fixable to a day or month. Congress was "sat," as we said,or, alas, was only still endeavoring

to get seated, and wandering about among the chairs,when George I. came to Charlottenburg that evening,

October, 1723, and surveyed Wilhelmina with a candle. More inane Congress never met in this world, nor

will meet. Settlement proved so difficult; all the more, as neither of the quarrelling parties wished it. Kaiser

and Termagant, fallen as if exhausted, had not the least disposition to agree; lay diplomatically gnashing their

teeth at one another, ready to fight again should strength return. Difficult for third parties to settle on behalf

of such a pair. Nay at length the Kaiser's Ostend Company came to light: what will third parties, Dutch and

This poor Congresslet the reader fancy itspent two years in "arguments about precedencies," in mere

beatings of the air; could not get seated at all, but wandered among the chairs, till "February, 1724." Nor did

it manage to accomplish any work whatever, even then; the most inane of Human Congresses; and

memorable on that account, if on no other. There, in old stagnant Cambrai, through the third year and into the

fourth, were Delegates, Spanish, Austrian, English, Dutch, French, of solemn outfit, with a big tail to

each,"Lord Whitworth" whom I do not know, "Lord Polwarth" (Earl of Marchmont that will be, a friend of

Pope's), were the English Principals: [Scholl, ii. 197.]there, for about four years, were these poor

fellowcreatures busied, baling out water with sieves. Seen through the HornGate of Dreams, the figure of

A certain bright young Frenchman, Francois Arouet,spoiled for a solid lawcareer, but whose OEDIPE we

saw triumphing in the Theatres, and who will, under the new name of VOLTAIRE, become very memorable

to us,happened to be running towards Holland that way, one of his many journeys thitherward; and

actually saw this Congress, then in the first year of its existence. Saw it, probably dined with it. A Letter of

his still extant, not yet fallen to the spiders, as so much else has done, testifies to this fact. Let us read part of

it, the less despicable part,as a Piece supremely insignificant, yet now in a manner the one surviving

Document of this extraordinary Congress; Congress's own works and history having all otherwise fallen to

the spiders forever. The Letter is addressed to Cardinal Dubois;for Dubois, "with the face like a goat,"

[Herzogin von Orleans, BRIEFE.] yet lived (first year of this Congress); and Regent d'Orleans lived,

intensely interested here as third party:and a goatfaced Cardinal, once pimp and lackey, ugliest of created

souls, Archbishop of this same Cambrai "by Divine permission" and favor of Beelzebub, was capable of

". . . We are just arrived in your City, Monseigneur; where, I think, all the Ambassadors and all the Cooks in

Europe have given one another rendezvous. It seems as if all the Ministers of Germany had assembled here

for the purpose of getting their Emperor's health drunk. As to Messieurs the Ambassadors of Spain, one of

them hears two masses a day, and the other manages the troop of players. The English Ministers [a LORD

POLWARTH and a LORD WHITWORTH] send many couriers to Champagne, and few to London. For the

rest, nobody expects your Eminence here; it is not thought you will quit the PalaisRoyal to visit the sheep of

your flock in these parts [no!], it would be too bad for your Eminence and for us all. . . . Think sometimes,

Monseigneur, of a man who [regards your goatfaced Eminence as a beautiful ingenious creature; and such a

hand in conversation as never was). The one thing I will ask [of your goatfaced Eminence] at Paris will be,

to have the goodness to talk to me." [ OEuvres de Voltaire, 97 vols. (Paris, l8251834), lxviii. 95, 96.]

Alas, alas!The more despicable portions of this Letter we omit, as they are not history of the Congress, but

of Arouet Junior on the shady side. So much will testify that this Congress did exist; that its wiggeries and it

Elizabeth Farnese, seeing at what rate the Congress of Cambrai sped, lost all patience with it; and getting

more and more exasperations there, at length employed one Ripperda, a surprising Dutch BlackArtist whom

she now had for Minister, to pull the floor from beneath it (so to speak), and send it home in that manner.

Which Ripperda did. An appropriate enough catastrophe, comfortable to the reader; upon which perhaps he

Termagant Elizabeth had now one Ripperda for Minister; a surprising Dutch adventurer, once secretary of

some Dutch embassy at Madrid; who, discerning how the land lay, had broken loose from that subaltern

career, had changed his religion, insinuated himself into Elizabeth's royal favor; and was now "Duke de

Ripperda," and a diplomatic bulldog of the first quality, full of mighty schemes and hopes; in brief, a new

Alberoni to the Termagant Queen. This Ripperda had persuaded her (the third year of our inane Congress

now running out, to no purpose), That he, if he were sent direct to Vienna, could reconcile the Kaiser to her

Majesty, and bring them to Treaty, independently of Congresses. He was sent accordingly, in all privacy; had

reported himself as laboring there, with the best outlooks, for some while past; when, still early in 1725, there

occurred on the part of France, where Regent d'Orleans was now dead, and new politics bad come in

vogue,that "sending back," of the poor little Spanish: Infanta, ["5th April, 1725, quitted Paris" (Barbier,

Journal du Regne de Louis XV., i. 218).] and marrying of young Louis XV. elsewhere, which drove Elizabeth

Why they sent the poor little Lady home on those shocking terms? It seems there was no particular reason,

except that French Louis was now about fifteen, and little Spanish Theresa was only eight; and that, under

Duc de Bourbon, the new Premier, and none of the wisest, there was, express or implicit, "an ardent wish to

see royal progeny secured." For which, of course, a wife of eight years would not answer. So she was

returned; and even in a blundering way, it is said,the French Ambassador at Madrid having prefaced his

communication, not with light adroit preludings of speech, but with a tempest of tears and howling

lamentations, as if that were the way to conciliate King Philip and his Termagant Elizabeth. Transport of

indignation was the natural consequence on their part; order to every Frenchman to be across the border

within, say eightandforty hours; rejection forever of all French mediation at Cambrai or elsewhere;

question to the English, "Will you mediate for us, then?" To which the answer being merely "Hm!" with

looks of delay,order by express to Ripperda, to make straightway a bargain with the Kaiser; almost any

bargain, so it were made at once. Ripperda made a bargain: Treaty of Vienna, 30th April, 1725: [Scholl, ii.

201; Coxe, Walpole, i. 239250.] "Titles and Shadows each of us shall keep for his own lifetime, then they

shall drop. As to realities again, to Parma and Piacenza among the rest, let these be as in the Treaty of

Utrecht; arrangeable in the lump;and indeed, of Parma and Piacenza perhaps the less we say, the better at

present." This was, in substance, Ripperda's Treaty; the Third great European travailthroe, or change of

color in the longsuffering lobster. Whereby, of course, the Congress of Cambrai did straightway disappear,

the floor miraculously vanishing under it; and sinksfar below human eyereach by this timetowards the

Bottomless Pool, ever since. Such was the beginning, such the end of that Congress, which Arouet LE

JEUNE, in 1722, saw as a contemporary Fact, drinking champagne in Ramillies wigs, and arranging

The publication of this Treaty of Vienna (30th April, 1725), miraculous disappearance of the Congress of

Cambrai by withdrawal of the floor from under it, and close union of the Courts of Spain and Vienna as the

outcome of its slow labors,filled Europe, and chiefly the late mediating Powers, with amazement, anger,

terror. Made Europe lurch suddenly to the other side, as we phrased it, other gunwale now under water.

Wherefore, in Heaven's name, trim your ship again, if possible, ye high mediating Powers. This the mediating

Powers were laudably alert to do. Duc de Bourbon, and his young King about to marry, were of pacific

tendencies; anxious for the Balance: still more was Fleury, who succeeded Duc de Bourbon. Cardinal Fleury

(with his pupil Louis XV. under him, producing royal progeny and nothing worse or better as yet) began, next

year, his long supremacy in France; an aged reverend gentleman, of sly, delicately cunning ways, and

disliking war, as George I. did, unless when forced on him: now and henceforth, no mediating power more

George and Bourbon laid their heads together, deeply pondering this little less than awful state of the

Terrestrial Balance; and in about six months they, in their quiet way, suddenly came out with a Fourth Crisis

on the astonished populations, so as to right the ship's trim again, and more. "Treaty of Hanover," this was

their unexpected manoeuvre; done quietly at Herrenhausen, when his Majesty next went across for the

Hanover huntingseason. Mere hunting:but the diplomatists, as well as the beagles, were all in readiness

there. Even Friedrich Wilhelm, ostensibly intent on hunting, was come over thither, his abstruse Ilgens, with

their inkhorns, escorting him: Friedrich Wilhelm, hunting in unexpected sort, was persuaded to sign this

Treaty; which makes it unusually interesting to us. An exceptional procedure on the part of Friedrich

Wilhelm, who beyond all Sovereigns stays well at home, careless of affairs that are not his:procedure

Yes, surely;and yet something more, on Friedrich Wilhelm's part. His rights on the CleveJulich

Countries; reversion of Julich and Berg, once Karl Philip shall decease:perhaps these high Powers, for a

consideration, will guarantee one's undoubted rights there? It is understood they gave promises of this kind,

not too specific. Nay we hear farther a curious thing: "France and England, looking for immediate war with

the Kaiser, advised Friedrich Wilhelm to assert his rights on Silesia." Which would have been an important

procedure! Friedrich Wilhelm, it is added, had actual thoughts of it; the Kaiser, in those matters of the

RITTERDIENST, of the HEIDELBERG PROTESTANTS, and wherever a chance was, had been

unfriendly, little less than insulting, to Friedrich Wilhelm: "Give me one single Hanoverian brigade, to show

that you go along with me!" said his Prussian Majesty;but the Britannic never altogether would. [ OEuvres

de Frederic, i. 153.] Certain it is, Friedrich Wilhelm signed: a man with such FightingApparatus as to be

important in a Hanover Treaty. "Balance of Power, they tell me, is in a dreadful way: certainly if one can help

the Balance a little, why not? But Julich and Berg, one's own outlook of reversion there, that is the point to be

attended to:Balance, I believe, will somehow shift for itself!" On these principles, Friedrich Wilhelm

signed, while ostensibly hunting. [Fassmann, p. 368; Forster, Urkundenbuch, p. 67.] Treaty of Hanover,

which was to trim the ship again, or even to make it heel the other way, dates itself 3d September, 1725, and

is of this purport: "We three, France, England, Prussia to stand by each other as one man, in case any of us is

attacked,will invite Holland, Denmark, Sweden and every pacific Sovereignty to join us in such

For it is a state of the Balances little less than awful. Rumor goes that, by the Ripperda bargain, fatal to

mankind, Don Carlos was to get the beautiful young Maria Theresa to wife: that would settle the

ParmaPiacenza business and some others; that would be a compensation with a witness! Spain and Austria

united, as in Karl V.'s time; or perhaps some Succession War, or worse, to fight over again!

Fleury and George, as Duc de Bourbon and George had done, though both pacific gentlemen, brandished

weapons at the Kaiser; strongly admonishing him to become less formidable, or it would be worse for him.

Possible indeed, in such a shadowhunting, shadowhunted hour! Fleury and George stand looking with

intense anxiety into a certain spectral something, which they call the Balance of Power; no end to their

exorcisms in that matter. Truly, if each of the Royal Majesties and Serene Highnesses would attend to his

own affairs,doing his utmost to better his own land and people, in earthly and in heavenly respects, a

little,he would find it infinitely profitabler for himself and others. And the Balance of Power would settle,

in that case, as the laws of gravity ordered: which is its one method of settling, after all diplomacy!Fleury

and George, by their manifestoing, still more by their levying of men, George I. shovelling out his English

subsidies as usual, created deadly qualms in the Kaiser; who still found it unpleasant to "admit Spanish

Garrisons in Parma;" but found likewise his Termagant Friend inexorably positive on that score; and knew

not what would become of him, if he had to try fighting, and the SeaPowers refused him cash to do it.

Hereby was the ship trimmed, and more; ship now lurching to the other side again. George I. goes subsidying

Hessians, Danes; sounding manifestoes, beating drums, in an alarming manner: and the Kaiser, except it were

in Russia, with the new Czarina Catherine I. (that brown little woman, now become Czarina [8th February,

1725. Treaty with Kaiser (6th August, 1726) went to nothing on her death, 11th May, 1727.]), finds no ally to

speak of. An unlucky, spectrehunting, spectrehunted Kaiser; who, amid so many drums, manifestoes,

menaces, is now rolling eyes that witness everywhere considerable dismay. This is the Fourth grand Crisis of

Europe; crisis or travailthroe of Nature, bringing forth, and unable to do it, Baby Carlos's Apanage and the

Pragmatic Sanction. Fourth conspicuous change of color to the universal lobster, getting itself boiled on those

sad terms, for twenty years. For its sins, we need not doubt; for its own longcontinued cowardices, sloths

At this Fourth change we will gladly leave the matter, for a time; much wishing it might be forever. Alas, as

if that were possible to us! Meanwhile, let afflicted readers, looking before and after, readier to forget than to

remember in such a case, accept this Note, or Summary of all the Seven together, by way of help:

l. Triple Alliance, English, Dutch, French (4th January, 1717), saying, "Peace, then! No

Alberoniplotting; no Duelfighting permitted!" Same Powers, next year, proposing Terms of Agreement;

Kaiser gloomily accepting them; which makes it Quadruple Alliance (18th July, 1718); Termagant

2. First Sputter of War; Byng's Seafight, and the other pressures, compelling Termagant: Peace (26th

3. Congress of Cambrai, a weariness to gods and men, gets the floor pulled from under it (Ripperda's

feat, 30th April, 1725); so that Kaiser and Termagant stand ranked together, Apanage wrapt in mystery,to

4. Treaty of Hanover (France, England, Prussia, 3d September, 1725) restores the Balances, and more.

[These first Four lie behind us, at this point; but there are Three others still ahead, which we cannot hope to

5. Second Sputter of War: Termagant besieges Gibraltar (4th March, 17276th March, 1728): Peace at

that latter date; Congress of Soissons to settle the Apanage and other points, as formerly.

6. Congress of Soissons (14th June, 17289th November, 1729), as formerly, cannot in the least:

Termagaut whispers England; there is Treaty of Seville (9th November, 1729), France and England

undertaking for the Apanage. Congress vanishes; Kaiser is left solitary, with the shadow of Pragmatic

Sanction, in the night of things. Pause of an awful nature:but Fleury does not hasten with the Apanage, as

7. Treaty of Vienna (16th March, 1731): SeaPowers, leading Termagant by the hand, SeaPowers and

no France, unite with Kaiser again, according to the old laws of Nature;and Baby Carlos gets his Apanage,

Huge spectres and absurd bugaboos, stalking through the brain of dull thoughtless pusillanimous mankind,

do, to a terrible extent, tumble hither and thither, and cause to lurch from side to side, their ship of state, and

all that is embarked there, BREAKFASTTABLE, among other things. Nevertheless, if they were only

bugaboos, and mere Shadows caused by Imperial handlanterns in the general Night of the world,ought

Hitherto the worldtides, and ebbs and flows of external Politics, had, by accident, rather forwarded, than

hindered the DoubleMarriage. In the rear of such a Treaty of Hanover, triumphantly righting the European

Balances by help of Friedrich Wilhelm, one might have hoped this little domestic Treaty would, at last, get

itself signed. Queen Sophie did hasten off to Hanover, directly after her husband had left it under those

favorable aspects: but Papa again proved unmanageable; the Treaty could not be achieved.

Alas, and why not? Parents and Children, on both sides, being really desirous of it, what reason is there but it

should in due time come to perfection, and, without annihilating Time and Space, make four lovers happy?

No reason. Rubs doubtless had arisen since that Visit of George I., discordant procedures, chiefly about

Friedrich Wilhelm's recruiting operations in the Hanover territory, as shall be noted by and by: but these the

everwakeful enthusiasm of Queen Sophie, who had set her whole heart with a female fixity on this

DoubleMarriage Project, had smoothed down again: and now, Papa and Husband being so blessedly united

in their World Politics, why not sign the MarriageTreaty? Honored MajestyPapa, why not!"Tush, child,

you do not understand. In these tremendous circumstances, the celestial Sign of the BALANCE just about

canting, and the Obliquity of the Ecliptic like to alter, how can one think of little marriages? Wait till the

Truth is, George was in general of a slow, solemn, Spanish turn of manners; "intolerably proud, too, since he

got that English dignity," says Wilhelmina: he seemed always tacitly to look down on Friedrich Wilhelm, as

if the Prussian Majesty were a kind of inferior clownish King in comparison. It is certain he showed no

eagerness to get the Treaty perfected. Again and again, when specially applied to by Queen Sophie, on

Friedrich Wilhelm's order, he intimated only: "It was a fixed thing, but not to be hurried,English

Parliaments were concerned in it, the parties were still young," and so on;after which brief answer he

would take you to the window, and ask, "If you did not think the Herrenhausen Gardens and their Leibnitz

waterworks, and clippedbeech walls were rather fine?" [Pollnitz, Memoiren, ii. 226, 228,

In fact, the English Parliaments, from whom money was so often demanded for our fat Improper Darlingtons,

lean Improper Kendals and other royal occasions, would naturally have to make a marriagerevenue for this

fine Grandson of ours;Grandson Fred, who is now a young lout of, eighteen; leading an extremely

dissolute life, they say, at Hanover; and by no means the most beautiful of mortals, either he or the foolish

little Father of him, to our old sad heart. They can wait, they can wait! said George always.

But undoubtedly he did intend that both Marriages should take effect: only he was slow; and the more you

hurried him, perhaps the slower. He would have perfected the Treaty "next year," say the Authorities; meant

to do so, if well let alone: but Townshend whispered withal, "Better not urge him." Surly George was always

a man of his word; no treachery intended by him, towards Friedrich Wilhelm or any man. It is very clear,

moreover, that Friedrich Wilhelm, in this Autumn 1725, was, and was like to be, of high importance to King

George; a man not to be angered by dishonorable treatment, had such otherwise been likely on George's part.

Nevertheless George did not sign the Treaty "next year" either, such things having intervened;nor the

These delays about the DoubleMarriage Treaty are not a pleasing feature of it to Friedrich Wilhelm; who is

very capable of being hurt by slights; who, at any rate, dislikes to have loose thrums flying about, or that the

business of today should be shoved over upon tomorrow. And so Queen Sophie has her own sore

difficulties; driven thus between the Barbarians (that is, her Husband), and the deep Sea (that is, her Father),

to and fro. Nevertheless, since all parties to the matter wished it, Sophie and the younger parties getting even

enthusiastic about it; and since the matter itself was good, agreeable so far to Prussia and England, to

Protestant Germany and to Heaven and Earth,might not Sophie confidently hope to vanquish these and

Had it not been for the Imperial Shadowhuntings, and this rickety condition of the celestial Balance! Alas,

the outer elements interfered with Queen Sophie in a singular manner. Huge foreign worldmovements,

springing from Vienna and a spectrehaunted Kaiser, and spreading like an avalanche over all the Earth,

snatched up this little DoubleMarriage question; tore it along with them, reeling over precipices, one knew

not whitherward, at such a rate as was seldom seen before. Scarcely in the Minerva Press is there record of

such surprising, infinite and inextricable obstructions to a wedding or a doublewedding. Time and space,

which cannot be annihilated to make two lovers happy, were here turned topsyturvy, as it were, to make

four lovers,four, or at the very least three, for Wilhelmina will not admit she was ever the least in love, not

she, poor soul, either with loose Fred or his English outlooks,four young creatures, and one or more

elderly persons, superlatively wretched; and even, literally enough, to do all but kill some of them.

What is noteworthy too, it proved wholly inane, this huge worldocean of Intrigues and Imperial

Necromancy; ran dry at last into absolute nothing even for the Kaiser, and might as well not have been. And

Mother and Father, on the Prussian side, were driven to despair and pretty nearly to delirium by it; and our

poor young Fritz got tormented, scourged, and throttled in body and in soul by it, till he grew to loathe the

light of the sun, and in fact looked soon to have quitted said light at one stage of the business.

We are now approaching Act Second of the DoubleMarriage, where Imperial OrdnanceMaster Graf von

Seckendorf, a BlackArtist of supreme quality, despatched from Vienna on secret errand, "crosses the Palace

Esplanade at Berlin on a summer evening of the year 1726;" and evokes all the demons on our little

CrownPrince and those dear to him. We must first say something of an important step, shortly antecedent

Amid such commotion of the foreign elements and the domestic, an important change occurs in the

CrownPrince's course of schooling. It is decided that, whatever be his progress in the speculative branches,

it is time he should go into the Army, and practically learn soldiering. In his fourteenth year, 3d May, 1725,

[Preuss, i. 26; 106; and Buch fur Jedermann (a minor book of his, on the same subject, Berlin, 1837), ii. 13.]

not long before the Treaty of Hanover, he was formally named Captain, by Papa in Warcouncil. Grenadier

Guards, Potsdam Lifeguards, to be the regiment; and next year he is nominated Major, and, a vacancy

occurring, appointed to begin actual duty. It is on the "20th of August, 1726, that he flrat leads out his

battalion to the muster," on those terms. His age is not yet fifteen by four months;a very tiny Major among

those Potsdam giants; but by rank, we observe, he rides; and his horse is doubtless of the due height. And so

the tiny Cadetdrillinga have ended; long Files of Giants, splendent in goldlace and grenadiercaps, have

However it may have fared with his other schoollessons, here now is a schoolform he is advanced to, in

which there will be no resource but learning. Bad spelling might be overlooked by those that had charge of it;

bad drilling is not permissible on any terms. We need not doubt the CrownPrince did his soldierduty

faithfully, and learned in every point the conduct of an officer: penalty as of Rhadamanthus waited upon all

failure there. That he liked it is by no means said; he much disliked it, and his disgusts were many. An airy

young creature:and it was in this time to give one instance, that that shearing of his locks occurred: which

was spoken of above, where the CourtChirurgus proved so merciful. To clog the winged Psyche in

everreturning paraderoutine and military pipeclay,it seems very cruel. But it is not to be altered: in

spite of one's disgusts, the dull work, to the last item of it, has daily to be done. Which proved infinitely

beneficial to the CrownPrince, after all. Hereby, to his AthenianFrench elegancies, and airy promptitudes

and brilliancies, there shall lie as basis an adamantine Spartanism and Stoicism; very rare, but very

indispensable, for such a superstructure. Well exemplified, through after life, in this CrownPrince.

His regiment was the Potsdam Grenadier Guard; that unique giantregiment, of which the world has heard so

much in a vague halfmythical way. The giantregiment was not a Myth, however, but a bigboned

expensive Fact, tramping very hard upon the earth at one time, though now gone all to the ghostly state. As it

was a CLASSBOOK, so to speak, of our Friedrich's,ClassBook (printed in huge type) for a certain

branch of his schooling, the details of which are so dim, though the general outcome of it proved so

unforgettable,readers, apart from their curiosity otherwise, may as well take a glimpse of it on this

occasion. Vanished now, and grown a Giant Phantom, the like of it hardly again to be in this world; and by

With a wise instinct, Friedrich Wilhelm had discerned that all things in Prussia must point towards his Army;

that his Army was the heart and pith; the State being the tree, every branch and leaf bound, after its sort, to be

nutritive and productive for the Army's behoof. That, probably for any Nation in the longrun, and certainly

for the Prussian Nation straightway, life or death depends on the Army: Friedrich Wilhelm's head, in an

inarticulate manner, was full of this just notion; and all his life was spent in organizing it to a practical fact.

The more of potential battle, the more of life is in us: a MAXIMUM of potential battle, therefore; and let it be

the OPTIMUM in quality! How Friedrich Wilhelm cared, day and night, with all his heart and all his soul, to

bring his Army to the supreme pitch, we have often heard; and the more we look into his ways, the more we

are impressed with that fact. It was the central thing for him; all other things circulating towards it, deriving

from it: no labor too great, and none too little, to be undergone for such an object. He watched over it like an

Argus, with eyes that reached everywhere. Discipline shall be as exact as Euclid;short of perfection we do

not stop! Discipline and ever better discipline; enforcement of the rule in all points, improvement of the rule

itself where possible, were the great Drillsergeant's continual care. Daily had some loop fallen, which might

have gone ravelling far enough; but daily was he there to pick it up again, and keep the web unrent and

We said, it was the "poetic ideal" of Friedrich Wilhelm; who is a dumb poet in several particulars,and

requires the privileges of genius from those that READ his dumb poem. It must be owned he rises into the

fantastic here and there; and has crotchets of ultraperfection for his Army, which are not rational at all.

Crotchets that grew ever madder, the farther he followed them. This Lifeguard Regiment of foot, for instance,

in which the CrownPrince now is,Friedrich Wilhelm got it in his Father's time, no doubt a regiment then

of fair qualities; and he has kept drilling it, improving it, as poets polish stanzas, unweariedly ever

since:and see now what it has grown to! A Potsdam Giant Regiment, such as the world never saw, before

or since. Three Battalions of them,two always here at Potsdam doing formal lifeguard duty, the third at

Brandenburg on drill; 800 to the Battalion,2,400 sons of Anak in all. Sublime enough, hugely perfect to

the royal eye, such a mass of shining giants, in their longdrawn regularities and mathematical

manoeuvrings,like some streak of Promethean lightning, realized here at last, in the vulgar dusk of things!

Truly they are men supreme in discipline, in beauty of equipment; and the shortest man of them rises, I think,

towards seven feet, some are nearly nine feet high. Men from all countries; a hundred and odd come annually,

as we saw, from Russia,a very precious windfall: the rest have been collected, crimped, purchased out of

every European country, at enormous expense, not to speak of other trouble to his Majesty. James Kirkman,

an Irish recruit of good inches, cost him 1,200 pounds before he could be got inveigled, shipped and brought

safe to hand. The documents are yet in existence; [Forster, Handbuch der Geschichte, Geographie und

Statistik des Preussischen Reichs (Berlin, 1820), iv. 130, 132;not in a very lucid state.] and the Portrait of

this Irish fellowcitizen himself, who is by no means a beautiful man. Indeed, they are all portrayed; all the

privates of this distinguished Regiment are, if anybody cared to look at them Redivanoff from Moscow"

seems of far better bone than Kirkman, though still more stolid of aspect. One Hohmann, a born Prussian,

was so tall, you could not, though yourself tall, touch his bare crown with your hand; August the Strong of

Poland tried, on one occasion, and could not. Before Hohmann turned up, there had been "Jonas the

Norwegian Blacksmith,", also a dreadfully tall monster. Giant "Macdoll,"who was to be married, no

consent asked on EITHER side, to the tall young woman, which latter turned out to be a decrepit OLD

woman (all JestBooks know the myth),he also was an Irish Giant; his name probably M'Dowal. [Forster,

Preussens Helden im Krieg und Frieden (Berlin, l848), i. 531; no date to the story, no evidence what grain of

truth may be in it.] This Hohmann was now FLUGELMANN ("fugleman" as we have named it, leader of the

file), the Tallest of the Regiment, a very mountain of pipeclayed flesh and bone.

Here, in reference to one other of those poor Giants, is an Anecdote from Fassmann (who is very full on this

subject of the Giants; abstruse Historical Fassmann, often painfully cited by us): a most small Anecdote, but

then an indisputably certain one; which brings back to us, in a strange way, the vanished Time and its

populations; as the poorest authentic wooden lucifer may do, kindling suddenly, and' peopling the void Night

Fassmann, a very dark German literary man, in obsolete costume and garniture, how living or what doing we

cannot guess, found himself at Paris, gazing about, in the year 1713; where, among other things, the Fair of

St. Germain was going on. Loud, large Fair of St. Germain, "which lasts from Candlemas to the Monday

before Easter;" and Fassmann one day took a walk of contemplation through the same. Much noise,

gesticulation, little meaning. Showbooths, temporary theatres, merryandrews, sleightofhand men; and a

vast public, drinking, dancing, gambling, flirting, as its wont is. Nothing new for us there; new only that it all

lies five generations from us now. Did "the Old Pretender," who was then in his expectant period, in this

same village of St. Germain, see it too, as Fassmann did? And Louis XIV., he is at Versailles; drooping fast,

very dull to his Maintenon. And our little Fritz in Berlin is a child in arms;and the world is all awake as

usual, while Fassmann strolls through this noisy inanity of showbooths, in the year 1713.

Strolling along, Fassmann came upon a certain booth with an enormous Picture hung aloft in front of it:

"Picture of a very tall man, in HEYDUC livery, coat reaching to his ankles, in grand peruke, cap and big

heronplume, with these words, 'LE GEANT ALLEMAND (German Giant),' written underneath. Partly from

curiosity, partly "for country's sake," Fassmann expended twopence; viewed the gigantic fellowcreature;

admits he had never seen one so tall; though "Bentenrieder, the Imperial Diplomatist," thought by some to be

the tallest of men, had come athwart him once. This giant's name was Muller; birthplace the neighborhood of

Weissenfels;"a Saxon like myself. He had a small German Wife, not half his size. He made money readily,

showing himself about, in France, England, Holland;"and Fassmann went his way, thinking no more of the

"Coming to Potsdam, thirteen years after, in the spring of 1726, by his Majesty's order, to"in fact, to read

the Newspapers to his Majesty, and be generally useful, chiefly in the TobaccoCollege, as we shall

discover,"what was my surprise to find this same 'GEANT ALLEMAND' of St. Germain ranked among

the King's Grenadiers! No doubt of the identity: I renewed acquaintance with the man; his little German Wife

was dead; but he had got an English one instead, an uncommonly shifty creature. They had a neat little

dwellinghouse [as most of the married giants had], near the Palace: here the Wife sold beer [brandy not

permissible on any terms], and lodged travellers; I myself have lodged there on occasion. In the course of

some years, the man took swelling in the legs; good for nothing as a grenadier; and was like to fall heavy on

society. But no, his little Wife snatched him up, easily getting his discharge; carried him over with her to

England, where he again became a showgiant, and they were doing very well, when last heard of," in the

CountryWakes of George II.'s early time. And that is the real Biography of one Potsdam Giant, by a literary

The pay of these sublime Footguards is greatly higher than common; they have distinguished privileges and

treatment: on the other hand, their discipline is nonpareil, and discharge is never to be dreamt of, while

strength lasts. Poor Kirkman, does he sometimes think of the Hill of Howth, and that he will never see it

more? Kirkman, I judge, is not given to thought;considers that he has tobacco here, and privileges and

Tall men, not for this regiment only, had become a necessary of life to Friedrich Wilhelm. Indispensable to

him almost as his daily bread, To his heart there is no road so ready as that of presenting a tall man or two.

Friedrich Wilhelm's regiments are now, by his exact new regulations, levied and recruited each in its own

Canton, or specific district: there all males as soon as born are enrolled; liable to serve, when they have

grown to years and strength. All grown men (under certain exceptions, as of a widow's eldest son, or of the

like evidently ruinous cases) are liable to serve; Captain of the Regiment and AMTMANN of the Canton

settle between them which grown man it shall be. Better for you not to be tall! In fact it is almost a kindness

of Heaven to be gifted with some safe impediment of body, slightly crooked back or the like, if you much

dislike the career of honor under Friedrich Wilhelm. A general shadow of unquiet apprehension we can well

fancy hanging over those rural populations, and much unpleasant haggling now and then;nothing but the

King's justice that can be appealed to. King's justice, very great indeed, but heavily checked by the King's

Happily his value for industrial laborers and increase of population is likewise great. Townsfolk, skilful

workmen as the theory supposes, are exempt; the more ingenious classes, generally, his Majesty exempts in

this respect, to encourage them in others. For, on the whole, he is not less a Captain of Work, to his Nation,

than of other things. What he did for Prussia in the way of industries, improvements, new manufactures, new

methods; in settling "colonies," tearing up drowned bogs and subduing them into dry cornfields; in building,

draining, digging, and encouraging or forcing others to do so, would take a long chapter. He is the enemy of

For example, Potsdam itself. Potsdam, now a pleasant, grassy, leafy place, branching out extensively in fine

stone architecture, with swept pavements; where, as in other places, the traveller finds land and water

separated into two firmaments,Friedrich Wilhelm found much of it a quagmire, land and water still

weltering in one. In these very years, his cuttings, embankments, buildings, piledrivings there, are

enormous; and his perseverance needs to be invincible. For instance, looking out, one morning after heavy

rain, upon some extensive antiquagmire operations and strong piledrivings, he finds half a furlong of his

latest heavy piling clean gone. What in the world has become of it? Pooh, the swollen lake has burst it

topsyturvy; and it floats yonder, bottom uppermost, a halffurlong of distracted liquidpeat. Whereat his

Majesty gave a loud laugh, says Bielfeld, [Baron de Bielfeld, Lettres Familieres (second edition, a Leide,

1767), i. 31.] and commenced anew. The piles now stand firm enough, like the rest of the Earth's crust, and

carry strong ashlar houses and umbrageous trees for mankind; and trivial mankind can walk in clean pumps

No danger of this "Cantonsystem" of recruitment to the more ingenious classes, who could do better than

learn drill. Nor, to say truth, does the poor clayey peasant suffer from it, according to his apprehensions.

Often perhaps, could he count profit and loss, he might find himself a gainer: the career of honor turns out to

be, at least, a career of practical Stoicism and Spartanism; useful to any peasant or to any prince. Cleanliness,

of person and even of mind; fixed rigor of method, sobriety, frugality, these are virtues worth acquiring.

Sobriety in the matter of drink is much attended to here: his Majesty permits no distillation of strongwaters

in Potsdam, or within so many miles; [Fassmann, p. 728.] nor is sale of such allowed, except in the most

intensely select manner. The soldier's pay is in the highest degree exiguous; not above three halfpence a day,

for a common footsoldier, in addition to what rations he has:but it is found adequate to its purpose, too;

supports the soldier in sound health, vigorously fit for his work; into which points his Majesty looks with his

own eyes, and will admit no dubiety. Often, too, if not already OFTENEST (as it ultimately grew to be), the

peasantsoldier gets home for many months of the year, a soldierploughman; and labors for his living in the

old way. His Captain (it is one of the Captain's perquisites, who is generally a veteran of fifty, with a long

Spartan training, before he gets so high) pockets the pay of all these furloughs, supernumerary to the real

At any rate, enrolment, in time of peace, cannot fall on many: three or four recruits in the year, to replace

vacancies, will carry the Canton through its crisis. For we are to note withal, the third part of every regiment

can, and should by rule, consist of "foreigners,"men not born Prussians. These are generally men levied in

the Imperial Freetowns; "in the REICH" or Empire, as they term it; that is to say, or is mainly to say, in the

countries of Germany that are not Austrian or Prussian. For this foreign thirdpart too, the recruits must be

got; excuses not admissible for Captain or Colonel; nothing but recruits of the due inches will do. Captain

and Colonel (supporting their enterprise on frugal adequate "perquisites," hinted of above) have to be on the

outlook; vigilantly, eagerly; and must contrive to get them. Nay, we can take supernumerary recruits; and

have in fact always on hand, attached to each regiment, a stock of such. Any number of recruits, that stand

well on their legs, are welcome; and for a tall man there is joyin Potsdam, almost as if he were a wise man or

The consequence is, all countries, especially all German countries, are infested with a new species of

predatory twolegged animals: Prussian recruiters. They glide about, under disguise if necessary; lynxeyed,

eager almost as the Jesuit hounds are; not hunting the souls of men, as the spiritual Jesuits do, but their bodies

in a merciless carnivorous manner. Better not to be too tall, in any country, at present! Irish Kirkman could

not be protected by the aegis of the British Constitution itself. In general, however, the Prussian recruiter, on

British ground, reports, That the people are too well off, that there is little to be done in those parts. A tall

British sailor, if we pick him up strolling about Memel or the Baltic ports, is inexorably claimed by the

Diplomatists; no business doable till after restoration of him; and he proves a mere loss to us. [Despatches

in the StatePaper Office.] Germany, Holland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, these are the fruitful fields for

For example, in the town of Julich there lived and worked a tall young carpenter: one day a welldressed

positivelooking gentleman ("Baron von Hompesch," the records name him) enters the shop; wants "a stout

chest, with lock on it, for household purposes; must be of such and such dimensions, six feet six in length

especially, and that is an indispensable point,in fact it will be longer than yourself, I think, Herr

Zimmermann: what is the cost; when can it be ready?" Cost, time, and the rest are settled. "A right stout

chest, then; and see you don't forget the size; if too short, it will be of no use to me: mind;""JA WOHL!

GEWISS!" And the positivelooking, wellclad gentleman goes his ways. At the appointed day he

reappears; the chest is ready; we hope, an unexceptionable article? "Too short, as I dreaded!" says the

positive gentleman. "Nay, your honor," says the carpenter, "I am certain it is six feet six!" and takes out his

footrule."Pshaw, it was to be longer than yourself." "Well, it is.""No it isn't!" The carpenter, to end the

matter, gets into his chest; and will convince any and all mortals. No sooner is he in, rightly flat, than the

positive gentleman, a Prussian recruiting officer in disguise, slams down the lid upon him; locks it; whistles

in three stout fellows, who pick up the chest, gravely walk through the streets with it, open it in a safe place;

and findhorrible to relatethe poor carpenter dead; choked by want of air in this frightful middlepassage

of his. [Forster, ii. 305, 306; Pollnitz, ii. 518, 519.] Name of the Town is given, Julich as above; date not. And

if the thing had been only a popular Myth, is it not a significant one? But it is too true; the tall carpenter lay

Burgermeisters of small towns have been carried off; in one case, "a rich merchant in Magdeburg," whom it

cost a large sum to get free again. [Stenzel, iii. 356.] Prussian recruiters hover about barracks,

paradegrounds, in Foreign Countries; and if they see a tall soldier (the Dutch have had instances, and are

indignant at them), will persuade him to desert,to make for the country where soldiermerit is understood,

But the highest stretch of their art was probably that done on the Austrian Ambassador,tall Herr von

Bentenrieder; tallest of Diplomatists; whom Fassmann, till the Fair of St. Germain, had considered the tallest

of men. Bentenrieder was on his road as Kaiser's Ambassador to George I., in those CongressofCambrai

times; serenely journeying on; when, near by Halberstadt, his carriage broke. Carriage takes some time in

mending; the tall Diplomatic Herr walks on, will stretch his long legs, catch a glimpse of the Town withal, till

they get it ready again. And now, at some Guardhouse of the place, a Prussian Officer inquires, not too

reverently of a nobleman without carriage, "Who are you?" "Well," answered he smiling, "I am

BOTSCHAFTER (Messagebearer) from his Imperial Majesty. And who may you be that ask?""To the

Guardhouse with us!" Whither he is marched accordingly. "Kaiser's messenger, why not?" Being a most tall

handsome man, this Kaiser's BOTSCHAFTER, striding along on foot here, the Guardhouse Officials have

decided to keep him, to teach him Prussian drillexercise;and are thrown into a singular quandary, when

his valets and suite come up, full of alarm dissolving into joy, and call him "Excellenz!" [Pollnitz, ii.

Tall Herr von Bentenrieder accepted the prostrate apology of these Guardhouse Officials. But he naturally

spoke of the matter to George I.; whose patience, often fretted by complaints on that head, seems to have

taken fire at this transcendent instance of Prussian insolency. In consequence of this adventure, he

commenced, says Pollnitz, a system of decisive measures; of reprisals even, and of altogether peremptory,

minatory procedures, to clear Hanover of this nuisance; and to make it cease, in very fact, and not in promise

and profession merely. These were the first rubs Queen Sophie met with, in pushing on the

DoubleMarriage; and sore rubs they were, though she at last got over them. Coming on the back of that fine

Charlottenburg Visit, almost within year and day, and directly in the teeth of such friendly aspects and

prospects, this conduct on the part of his Britannic Majesty much grieved and angered Friedrich Wilhelm;

For it was the signal of a similar set of loud complaints, and menacing remonstrances (with little twinges of

fulfilment here and there) from all quarters of Germany; a tempest of trouble and public indignation rising

everywhere, and raining in upon Friedrich Wilhelm and this unfortunate Hobby of his. No riding of one's

poor Hobby in peaoe henceforth. Friedrich Wilhelm always answered, what was only superficially the fact,

That HE knew nothing of these violences and acts of illneighborship; he, a just King, was sorrier than any

man to hear of them; and would give immediate order that they should end. But they always went on again,

much the same; and never did end. I am sorry a just King, led astray by his Hobby, answers thus what is only

superficially the fact. But it seems he cannot help it: his Hobby is too strong for him; regardless of curb and

bridle in this instance. Let us pity a man of genius, mounted on so ungovernable a Hobby; leaping the

barriers, in spite of his best resolutions. Perhaps the poetic temperament is more liable to such morbid biases,

influxes of imaginative crotchet, and mere folly that cannot he cured? Friedrich Wilhelm never would or

could dismount from his Hobby: but he rode him under much sorrow henceforth; under showers of anger and

ridicule;contumelious words and procedures, as it were SAXA ET FAECES, battering round him, to a

Queen Sophie had, by delicate management, got over those first rubs, aud arrived at a Treaty of Hanover, and

clear ground again; far worse rubs lay ahead; but smooth travelling, towards such a goal, was not possible for

this Queen. Poor Lady, her Court, as we discern from Wilhelmina and the Books, is a sad welter of intrigues,

suspicions; of treacherous chambermaids, headvalets, pickthank scouts of official gentlemen and others

striving to supplant one another. Satan's Invisible World very busy against Queen Sophie! Under any terms,

much more under those of the DoubleMarriage, her place in a kindly but suspicious Husband's favor was

difficult to maintain. Restless aspirants, climbing this way or that, by laddersteps discoverable in this

abstruse element, are never wanting, and have the due eavesdropping satellites, now here, now there. Queen

Sophie and her party have to walk warily, as if among precipices and pitfalls. Of all which wide welter of

extinct contemptibilities, then and there so important, here and now become minus quantities, we again notice

the existence, but can undertake no study or specification whatever. Two Incidents, the latter of them dating

near the point where we now are, will sufficiently instruct the reader what a welter this was, in which Queen

Sophie and her bright little Son, the new Major of the Potsdam Giants, had to pass their existence.

Incident First fell out some six years ago or more,in 1719, year of the Heidelberg Protestants, of Clement

the Forger, when his Majesty "slept for weeks with a pistol under his pillow," and had other troubles. His

Majesty, on one of his journeys, which were always many, was taken suddenly ill at Brandenburg, that year:

so violently ill, that thinking himself about to die, he sent for his good Queen, and made a Will appointing her

Regent in case of his decease. His Majesty quite recovered before long. But Grumkow and the old Dessauer,

main aspirants; getting wind of this Will, and hunting out the truth of it,what a puddling of the waters these

two made in consequence; stirring up mire and dirt round the good Queen, finding she had been preferred to

them! [Wilhelmina, i. 26, 29.] Nay Wilhelmina, in her wild way, believes they had, not long after, planned to

"fire a Theatre" about the King, one afternoon, in Berlin City, and take his life, thereby securing for

themselves such benefit in prospect as there might be! Not a doubt of it, thinks Wilhelmina: "The young

Margraf, [Born 1700 (see vol. v. p. 393.] our precious Cousin, of Schwedt, is not he Sister'sson of that Old

Dessauer? Grandson of the Great Elector, even as Papa is. Papa once killed (and our poor CrownPrince also

made away with),that young Margraf, and his blue Foxtiger of an Uncle over him, is King in Prussia!

Obviously they meant to burn that Theatre, and kill Papa!" This is Wilhelmina's distracted belief; as,

doubtless, it was her Mother's on the day in question: a jealous, muchsuffering, transcendently exasperated

Incident Second shows us those, two rough Gentlemen fallen out of partnership, into open quarrel and even

duel. "Duel at the Copenick Gate," much noised of in the dull old Prussian Books, though always in a

reserved manner; not even the DATE, as if that were dangerous, being clearly given! It came in the wake of

that Hanover Treaty, as is now guessed; the two having taken opposite sides on that measure, and got

provoked into ripping up old sores in general. Dessau was AGAINST King George and the Treaty, it appears;

having his reasons, familyreasons of old standing: Grumkow, a bribable gentleman, was FOR,having also

perhaps his reasons. Enough, it came to altercations, objurgations between the two; which rose ever

higher,rose at length to wagerofbattle. Indignant challenge on the part of the Old Dessauer; which,

however, Grumkow, not regarded as a BARESARK in the fighting way, regrets that his Christian principles

do not, forsooth, allow him to accept. The King is appealed to; the King, being himself, though an orthodox

Christian, yet a still more orthodox Soldier, decides That, on the whole, General Grumkow cannot but accept

Dessau is on the field, at the Copenick Gate, accordingly, lateautumn afternoon (I calculate) of the year

1725;waits patiently till Grumkow make his appearance. Grumkow, with a chosen second, does at last

appear; advances pensively with slow steps. Gunpowder Dessau, black as a silent thundercloud, draws his

sword: and Grumkowdoes not draw his; presents it undrawn, with unconditional submission and apology:

"Slay me, if you like, old Friend, whom I have injured!" Whereat Dessau, uttering no word, uttering only

some contemptuous snort, turns his back on the phenomenon; mounts his horse and rides home. [Pollnitz, ii.

212, 214.] A divided man from this Grumkow henceforth. The Prince waited on her Majesty; signified his

sorrow for past estrangements; his great wish now to help her, but his total inability, being ousted by

Grumkow: We are for Halle, Madam, where our Regiment is; there let us serve his Majesty, since we cannot

here! [Wilhelmina, i. 90, 93.] And in fact the Old Dessauer lives mostly there in time coming; sunk

inarticulate in tactics of a truly deep nature, not stranding on politics of a shallow; a man still memorable

in the mythic traditions of that place. Better to drill men to perfection, and invent iron ramrods, against the

day they shall be needed, than go jostling, on such terms, with cattle of the Grumkow kind! And thus, we

perceive, Grumkow is in, and the Old Dessauer out; and there has been "a change of Ministry," change of

What the young CrownPrince did, said, thought, in such environment, of backstairs diplomacies, female

sighs and aspirations, Grumkow duels, drillings in the Giant Regiment, is not specified for us in the smallest

particular, in the extensive rubbishbooks that have been written about him. Ours is, to indicate that such

environment was: how a lively soul, acted on by it, did not fail to react, chameleonlike taking color from it,

and contrariwise taking color against it, must be left to the reader's imaginationOne thing we have gathered

and will not forget, That the Old Dessauer is out, and Grumkow in, that the rugged Son of Gunpowder,

drilling men henceforth at Halle, and in a dumb way meditating tactics as few ever did, has no share in the

The Kaiser's terror and embarrassment at the conclusion of the Hanover Treaty, as we saw, were extreme.

War possible or likely; and nothing but the termagant caprices of Elizabeth Farnese to depend on: no cash

from the SeaPowers; only cannonshot, invasion and hostility, from their cash and them: What is to be done?

To "caress the pride of Spain;" to keep alive the hopes, in that quarter, of marrying their Don Carlos, the

supplementary Infant, to our eldest Archduchess; which indeed has set the SeaPowers dreadfully on fire, but

which does leave Parma and Piacenza quiet for the present, and makes the Pragmatic Sanction too an affair of

Spain's own: this is one resource, though a poor one, and a dangerous. Another is, to make alliance with

Russia, by well flattering the poor little brown Czarina there: but is not that a still poorer? And what third is

There is a third worth both the others, could it be got done: To detach Friedrich Wilhelm from those

dangerous Hanover Confederates, and bring him gently over to ourselves. He has an army of 60,000, in

perfect equipment, and money to maintain them so. Against us or for us,60,000 PLUS or 60,000

MINUS;that will mean 120,000 fighting men; a most weighty item in any field there is like to be. If it lie

in the power of human art, let us gain this wild irritated King of Prussia. Dare any henchman of ours venture

to go, with honeycakes, with pattings and cajoleries, and slip the imperial muzzle well round the snout of

that rugged ursine animal? An iracund bear, of dangerous proportions, and justly irritated against us at

present? Our experienced FELDZEUGMEISTER, OrdnanceMaster and Diplomatist, Graf von Seckendorf,

a conscientious Protestant, and the cunningest of men, able to lie to all lengths,dare he try it? He has

fought in all quarters of the world; and lied in all, where needful; and saved money in all: he will try it, and

will succeed in it too! [Pollnitz, ii. 235; Stenzel, iii. 544; Forster, ii. 59, iii. 235, 239.]

The Second Act, therefore, of this foolish WorldDrama of the DoubleMarriage opens,on the 11th May,

1726, towards sunset, in the TABAGIE of the Berlin Palace, as we gather from laborious comparison of

windy Pollnitz with other indistinct witnesses of a dreary nature,in the following manner:

Prussian Majesty sits smoking at the window; nothing particular going on. A squarebuilt shortish steelgray

Gentleman, of military cut, past fifty, is strolling over the SCHLOSSPLATZ (spacious Square in front of the

Palace), conspicuous amid the sparse populations there; pensively recreating himself, in the yellow sunlight

and long shadows, as after a day's hard labor or travel. "Who is that?" inquires Friedrich Wilhelm, suspending

his tobacco. Grumkow answers cautiously, after survey: He thinks it must be OrdnanceMaster Seckendorf;

who was with him today; passing on rapidly towards Denmark, on business that will not

wait."Experienced Feldzeugmeister Graf von Seckendorf, whom we stand in correspondence with, of late,

and were expecting about this time? Whom we have known at the Siege of Stralsund, nay ever since the

Marlborough times and the Siege of Menin, in war and peace; and have always reckoned a solid reasonable

man and soldier: Why has he not come to us?""Your Majesty," confesses Grumkow, "his business is so

pressing! Business in Denmark will not wait. Seckendorf owned he had come slightly round, in his eagerness

to see our grand Review at Tempelhof the day after tomorrow: What soldier would omit the sight (so he was

pleased to intimate) of soldiering carried to the nonplusultra? But he hoped to do it quite incognito, among

the general public;and then to be at the gallop again: not able to have the honor of paying his court at this

time.""Court? NARRENPOSSEN (Nonsense)!" answers Friedrich Wilhelm,and opening the window,

beckons Seckendorf up, with his own royal head and hand. The conversation of a man who had rational

sense, and could tell him anything, were it only news af foreign parts in a rational manner, was always

And so Seckendorf, how can he help it, is installed in the Tabagie; glides into pleasant conversation there. A

captivating talker; solid for religion, for the rights of Germany against intrusive French and others: such

insight, orthodoxy, sense and ingenuity; pleasant to hear; and all with the due quantity of oil, though he "both

snuffles and lisps;" and has privately, in case of need, a capacity of lying,for he curiously distils you any

lie, in his religious alembics, till it become tolerable to his conscience, or even palatable, as elixirs

are;capacity of doubledistilled lying probably the greatest of his day. Seckendorf assists at the grand

Review, 13th May, 1726; witnesses with unfeigned admiration the nonplusultra of manoeuvring, and, in

fact, the general management, military and other, of this admirable King. [Pollnitz, ii. 235; Fassmann, pp.

367, 368.] Seckendorf, no question of it, will do his Denmark business swiftly, then, since your Majesty is

pleased so to wish. Seckendorf, sure enough, will return swiftly to such a King, whose familiar company,

In a week or two, Seckendorf is back to Berlin; attends his Majesty on the annual Military Tour through

Preussen; attends him everywhere, becoming quite a necessary of life to his Majesty; and does not go away at

all. Seckendorf's business, if his Majesty knew it, will not lead him "away;" but lies here on this spot; and is

now going on; the magicapparatus, Grumkow the mainspring of it, getting all into gear! Grumkow was once

clear for King George and the Hanover Treaty, having his reasons then; but now he has other reasons, and is

clear against those foreign connections. "Hm, hahYes, my estimable, justly powerful Herr von Grumkow,

here is a little Pension of 1,600 ducats (only 500 pounds as yet), which the Imperial Majesty, thinking of the

service you may do Prussia and Germany and him, graciously commands me to present; only 500 pounds

by the year as yet; but there shall be no lack of money if we prosper!" [Forster, iii. 233, 232; see also iv. 172,

And so there are now two BlackArtists, of the first quality, busy on the unconscious Friedrich Wilhelm; and

Seckendorf, for the next seven years, will stick to Friedrich Wilhelm like his shadow; and fascinate his whole

existence and him, as few wizards could have done. Friedrich Wilhelm, like St. Paul in Melita, warming his

innocent hands at the fire of dry branches here kindled for him, that miracle of a venomous serpent is this

that has fixed itself upon his finger? To Friedrich Wilhelm's enchanted sense it seems a birdofparadise,

trustfully perching there; but it is of the whipsnake kind, or a worse; and will stick to him tragically, if also

comically, for years to come. The world has seen the comedy of it, and has howled scornful laughter upon

Friedrich Wilhelm for it: but there is a tragic side, not so well seen into, where tears are due to the poor King;

and to certain others horsewhips, and almost gallowsropes, are due!Yes, had Seckendorf and Grumkow

both been well hanged, at this stage of the affair, whereby the affair might have soon ended on fair terms, it

had been welcome to mankind; welcome surely to the present Editor; for one; such a saving to him, of time

wasted, of disgust endured! And indeed it is a solacement he has often longed for, in these dreary operations

Grumkow is sworn to Imperial orthodoxy, then,probably the vulpine MIND (so to term it) went always

rather that way, and only his interest the other;Grumkow is well bribed, supplied for bribing others where

needful; stands orthodox now, under peril of his very head. All things have been got distilled into the

palatable state, spiritual and economic, for oneself and one's grand TrojanHorse of a Grumkow; and the

adventure proceeds apace. Seckendorf sits nightly in the TABAGIE (a kind of "Smoking Parliament," as we

shall see anon); attends on all promenades and journeys: one of the wisest heads, and so pleasant in discourse,

he is grown indispensable, and a necessary of life to us. Seckendorf's Biographer computes, "he must have

ridden, in those seven years, continually attending his Majesty, above 5,000 German miles," [Anonymous

(Seckendorf's GrandNephew) Versuch einer Lebensbeschreibung des Feldmarschalls Grafen von

Seckendorf (Leipzig, 1792, 1794), i. 6.]that is 25,000 English miles; or a trifle more than the length of the

In a month or two, [13th August, 1726 (Preuss, i. 37).] Seckendorfsince Majesty vouchsafes to honor us by

wishing it contrives to get nominated Kaiser's Minister at Berlin: unlimited prospects of Tabagie, and good

talk, now opening on Majesty. And impartial Grumkow, in Tabagie or wherever we are, cannot but admit,

now and then, that the Excellenz Herr Graf OrdnanceMaster has a deal of reason in what he says about

Foreign Politics, about intrusive French and other points. "Hm, Na," muses Friedrich Wilhelm to himself, "if

the Kaiser had not been so lofty on us in that HeidelbergProtestant affair, in the RitterDienst business, in

those damned 'recruiting' brabbles; always a very highsniffing surly Kaiser to us!" For in fact the Kaiser has,

all along, used Friedrich Wilhelm bitterly ill; and contemplates no better usage of him, except in show.

Usage? thinks the Kaiser: A big Prussian piece of Cannon, whom we wish to enchant over to us! Did LAZY

PEG complain of her "usage"?So that the Excellenz and Grumkow have a heavy problem of it; were they

not so diligent, and the Cannon itself well disposed. "Those BLITZ FRANZOSEN (blasted French)!" growls

Friedrich Wilhelm sometimes, in the TobaccoParliament: [Forster, ii. 12, for he hates the French, and would

fain love his Kaiser; being German to the bone, and of right loyal heart, though counted only a piece of

cannon by some. For one thing, his Prussian Majesty declines signing that Treaty of Hanover a second time:

now when the Dutch accede to it, after almost a year's trouble with them, the Prussian Ambassador, singular

to observe, "has no orders to sign;" leaves the English with their Hollanders and Blitz Franzosen to sign by

themselves, this time. [9th August, 1726. (Boyer, The Political State of Great Rrilain, a monthly periodical,

vol. xxxii. p. 77, which is the number for July, 1726.)] "We will wait, we will wait!" thinks his Prussian

"But then Julich and Berg!" urges he always; "Britannic Majesty and the Blitz Franzosen were to secure me

the reversion there. That was the essential point!"For this too Excellenz has a remedy; works out gradually

a remedy from headquarters, the amiable dexterous man: "Kaiser will do the like, your Majesty; Kaiser

himself will secure it you!"In brief, some three months after Seckendorf's instalment as Kaiser's Minister,

not yet five months since his appearance in the Schlossplatz that May evening, it is now Huntingseason,

and we are at Wusterhausen; Majesty, his two BlackArtists and the proper satellites on both sides all

there,a new and opposite Treaty, in extreme privacy, on the 12th of October, 1726, is signed at that

sequestered HuntingSchloss: "Treaty of Wusterhausen" so called; which was once very famous and

mysterious, and caused many wigs to wag. Wigs to wag, in those days especially, when knowledge of it was

first had; the rather as only half knowledge could be had of it; or can, mourns Dryasdust, who has still

difficulties about some "secret articles" in the Document. [Buchholz, i. 94 n.] Courage, my friend; they are

The essential purport of this Treaty, [Given IN EXTENSO (without the secret articles) in Forster, iv.

159166.] legible to all eyes, is, "That Friedrich Wilhelm silently drops the Hanover Treaty and Blitz

Franzosen; and explicitly steps over to the Kaiser's side; stipulates to assist the Kaiser with so many thousand,

if attacked in Germany by any Blitz Franzose or intrusive Foreigner whatever. In return for which, the Kaiser,

besides assisting Prussia in the like case with a like quotity of thousands, engages, in circuitous chancery

language, To be helpful, and humanly speaking effectua1, in that grand matter of Julich and

Berg;somewhat in the following strain: 'To our Imperial mind it does appear the King of Prussia has

manifest right to the succession in Julich and Berg; right grounded on express ERBVERGLEICH of 1624,

not to speak of Deeds subsequent: the Imperial mind, as supreme judge of such matters in the Reich, will not

fail to decide this Cause soon and justly, should it come to that. But we hope it may take a still better course:

for the Imperial mind will straightway set about persuading KurPfalz to comply peaceably; and even

undertakes to have something done, that way, before six months pass.'" [Art. v. in Forster, ubi supra.]

Humanly speaking, surely the Imperial mind will be effectual in the Julich and Berg matter. But it was very

necessary to use circuitous chancery language,inasmuch as the Imperial mind, desirous also to secure

KurPfalz's help in this sore crisis, had, about three months ago, [Treaty with KurPfalz, 16th August, 1726

(Forster, ii. 71).] expressly engaged to KurPfalz, That Julich and Berg should NOT go to Friedrich Wilhelm

in terms of the old Deed, but to KurPfalz's Cousins of Sulzbach, whom the old gentleman (in spite of

Deeds) was obstinate to prefer! There is no doubt about that fact, about that selfdevouring pair of facts. To

This is the once famous, now forgotten, "Treaty of Wusterhausen, 12th October, 1726;" which proved so

consolatory to the Kaiser in that dread crisis of his SpectreHunt; and the effects of which are very visible in

this History, if nowhere else. It caught up the PrussianEnglish DoubleMarriage; launched it into the huge

tide of Imperial Spectre Politics, into the awful swaggings and swayings of the Terrestrial LIBRA in general;

and nearly broke the heart of several Royal persons; of a memorable CrownPrince, among others. Which

last is now, pretty much, its sole claim to be ever mentioned again by mankind. As there was no performance,

nor an intention of any, in that JulichBerg matter, Excellenz Seckendorf had the task henceforth of keeping,

by artmagic or the PRETERnatural method,that is, by mere help of Grumkow and the Devil,his

Prussian Majesty steady to the Kaiser nevertheless. Always well divided from the English especially. Which

the Excellency Seckendorf managed to do. For six or seven years coming; or, in fact, till these

Spectrechasings ended, or ran elsewhither for consummation. Steady always, jealous of the English;

sometimes nearly mad, but always ready as a primed cannon: so Friedrich Wilhelm was accordingly managed

to be kept; his own Household gone almost into delirium; he himself looking out, with loyally fierce

survey, for any AntiKaiser War: "When do we go off, then?"though none ever came. And indeed nothing

came; and except those torments to young Friedrich and others, it was all Nothing. One of the strangest

Excellenz Seckendorf, whom Friedrich Wilhelm so loves, is by no means a beautiful man; far the reverse.

Bodily,and the spirit corresponds,a stiffbacked, petrified, stony, inscrutablelooking, and most

unbeautiful old Intriguer. Portraits of him, which are frequent, tell all one story. The brow puckered together,

in a wide web of wrinkles from each temple, as if it meant to hide the bad pair of eyes, which look suspicion;

inquiry, apprehension, habit of doubledistilled mendacity; the indeterminate projecting chin, with its thick,

chapped underlip, is shaken out, or shoved out, in millhopper fashion,as if to swallow anything there

may be, spoken thing or other, and grind it to profitable meal for itself. Spiritually he was an old Soldier let

for hire; an old Intriguer, Liar, Fighter, what you like. What we may call a human Soul standing like a

hackneycoach, this halfcentury past, with head, tongue, heart, conscience, at the hest of a discerning public

There is considerable faculty, a certain stiffnecked strength in the old fellow; in fact, nature had been rather

kind to him; and certainly his Uncle and Guardianthe distinguished Seckendorf who did the HISTORIA

LUTHERANISMI, a RITTER, and man of good mark, in Ernst THE PIOUS of SaxeGotha's timetook

pains about his education. But Nature's gifts have not prospered with him: how could they, in that

hackneycoach way of life? Considerable gifts, we say; shrunk into a strange bankruptcy in the development

of them. A stiffbacked, closefisted old gentleman, with millhopper chin,with puckery muchinquiring

eyes, which have never discovered any noble path for him in this world. He is a strictly orthodox Protestant;

zealous about external points of moral conduct; yet scruples not, for the Kaiser's shilling, to lie with energy to

all lengths; and fight, according to the ReichsHofrath code, for any god or man. He is gone mostly to

avarice, in these mature years; all his various strengths turned into strength of grasping. He is now fiftyfour;

a man public in the world, especially since he became the Kaiser's man: but he has served various masters, in

various capacities, and been in many wars;and for the next thirty years we shall still occasionally meet

He comes from Anspach originally; and has kindred Seckendorfs in office there, old Ritters in that Country.

He inherited a handsome castle and estate, Meuselwitz, near Altenburg in the Thuringen region, from that

Uncle, Ernst of SaxeGotha's man, whom we spoke of; and has otherwise gained wealth; all which he holds

like a vice. Once, at Meuselwitz, they say, he and some young secretary, of a smartish turn, sat working or

conversing, in a large room with only one candle to illuminate it: the secretary, snuffing the candle, snuffed it

out: "Pshaw," said Seckendorf impatiently, "where did you learn to handle snuffers?" "Excellenz, in a place

where there were two lights kept!" replied the 0ther. [ Sechendorje Leben (already cited), i. 4.]For the rest,

he has a good old Wife at Meuselwitz, who is now old, and had never any children; who loves him much, and

is much loved by him, it would appear: this is really the best fact I ever knew of him,poor bankrupt

creature; gone all to spiritual rheumatism, to strict orthodoxy, with unlimited mendacity; and avarice as the

general outcome! Stiffbacked, closefisted strength, all grown wooden or stony; yet some little well of

human Sympathy does lie far in the interior: one wishes, after all (since he could not be got hanged in time

for us), good days to his poor old Wife and him! He both lisps and snuffles, as was mentioned; writes

cunningly acres of despatches to Prince Eugene; never swears, though a military man, except on great

occasions one oath, JARNIBLEU,which is perhaps some flashnote version of CHAIRDEDIEU, like

PARBLEU, 'Zounds and the rest of them, which the Devil cannot prosecute you for; whereby an economic

Herr Pollnitz's account of Seckendorf is unusually emphatic; babbling Pollnitz rises into a strain of pulpit

eloquence, inspired by indignation, on this topic: "He affected German downrightness, to which he was a

stranger; and followed, under a deceitful show of piety, all the principles of Machiavel. With the most sordid

love of money he combined boorish manners. Lies [of the distilled kind chiefly] had so become a habit with

him, that he had altogether lost notion of employing truth in speech. It was the soul of a usurer, inhabiting

now the body of a warcaptain, now transmigrating into that of a huckster. False oaths, and the abominablest

basenesses, cost him nothing, so his object might be reached. He was miserly with his own, but lavish with

his Master's money; daily he gave most striking proofs of both these habitudes. And this was the man whom

we saw, for a space of time, at the head of the Kaiser's Armies, and at the helm of the State and of the

This cunning old Gentleman, to date from the autumn of 1726, may be said to have taken possession of

Friedrich Wilhelm; to have gone into him, Grumkow and he, as two devils would have done in the old

miraculous times: and, in many senses, it was they, not the nominal proprietor, that lived Friedrich Wilhelm's

life. For the next seven years, a figure went about, not doubting it was Friedrich Wilhelm; but it was in reality

SeckendorfandGrumkow much more. These two, conjurer and his man, both invisible, have caught their

royal wild Bear; got a rope round his muzzle;and so dance him about; now terrifying, now exhilarating all

the market by the pranks he plays! Grumkow, a very Machiavel after his sort, knew the nature of the royal

animal as no other did. Grumkow, purchased by his Pension of 500 pounds, is dogcheap at the Money, as

Seckendorf often urges at Vienna, Is he not? And they add a touch of extraordinary gift now and then, 40,000

florins (4,000 pounds) on one occasion: [In 1732: Forster, iii. 232.] for "Grumkow DIENET EHRLICH

(serves honorably)," urges Seckendorf; and again, "If anybody deserves favor [GNADE, meaning extra pay],

it is this gentleman;"WAHRLICH! Purchased Grumkow has ample money at command, to purchase other

people needed; and does purchase; so that all things and persons can be falsified and enchanted, as need is.

By and by it has got so far, that Friedrich Wilhelm's Ambassador at London maintains a

ciphercorrespondence with Grumkow; and writes to Friedrich Wilhelm, not what is passing in city or court

Of insinuations, by assent or contradiction, potent if you know the nature of the beast; of these we need not

speak. TabaksCollegium has become a workshop:human nature can fancy it! Nay human nature can still

read it in the British StatePaper Office, to boundless stupendous extent;but ought mostly to suppress it

This is a very strange part of Friedrich Wilhelm's history; and has caused much wonder in the world:

Wilhelmina's Book rather aggravating than assuaging that feeling, on the part of intelligent readers. A Book

written long afterwards, from her recollections, from her own oblique point of view; in a beautifully shrill

humor; running, not unnaturally, into confused exaggerations and distortions of all kinds. Not mendaciously

written anywhere, yet erroneously everywhere. Wilhelmina had no knowledge of the magical machinery that

was at work: she vaguely suspects Grumkow and Seckendorf; but does not guess, in the mad explosions of

Papa, that two devils have got into Papa, and are doing the mischief. Trusting to memory alone, she misdates,

mistakes, misplaces; jumbles all things topsyturvy;giving, on the whole, an image of affairs which is

altogether oblique, dislocated, exaggerative; and which, in fine, proves unintelligible, if you try to construe it

into a fact or thing DONE. Yet her Human Narrative, in that wide waste of merely Pedant Maunderings, is of

great worth to us. A green tree, a leafy grove, better or worse, in the wilderness of dead bones and

sand,how welcome! Many other Books have been written on the matter; but these to my experience, only

darken it more and more. Pull Wilhelmina STRAIGHT, the best you can; deduct a twentyfive or sometimes

even a seventyfive per cent, from the exaggerative portions of her statement; you will find her always true,

lucid, charmingly human; and by far the best authority on this part of her Brother's History. StatePapers to

some extent have also been printed on the matter; and of written StatePapers, here in England and

elsewhere, this Editor has, had several hundredweights distilled for him: but except as lights hung out over

Wilhelmina, nothing yet known, of published or manuscript, can be regarded as good for much.

O Heavens, had one but sevenleague boots, to get across that inane country,a bottomless whirlpool of

dust and cobwebs in many places;where, at any rate, we had so little to do! Elucidating, rectifying,

painfully contrasting, comparing, let us try to work out some conceivable picture of this strange Imperial

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING; and get our unfortunate CrownPrince, and our unfortunate selves, alive

In these distressing junctures, it may cheer the reader's spirits, and will tend to explain for him what is

coming, if we glance a little into the FriedrichWilhelm TABAGIE (TABAKSCOLLEGIUM or Smoking

College), more worthy to be called TobaccoParliament, of which there have already been incidental notices.

Friedrich Wilhelm, though an absolute Monarch, does not dream of governing without Law, still less without

Justice, which he knows well to be the one basis for him and for all Kings and men. His lifeeffort,

prosecuted in a grand, unconscious, unvarying and instinctive way, may be defined rather as the effort to find

out everywhere in his affairs what was justice; to make regulations, laws in conformity with that, and to guide

himself and his Prussia rigorously by these. Truly he is not of constitutional turn; cares little about the wigs

and formalities of justice, pressing on so fiercely towards the essence and fact of it; he has been known to tear

asunder the wigs and formalities, in a notably impatient manner, when they stood between him and the fact.

But Prussia has its Laws withal, tolerably abundant, tolerably fixed and supreme: and the meanest Prussian

man that could find out a definite Law, coming athwart Friedrich Wilhelm's wrath, would check Friedrich

Wilhelm in midvolley,or hope with good ground to do it. Hope, we say; for the King is in his own and

his people's eyes, to some indefinite extent, always himself the supreme ultimate Interpreter, and grand living

codex, of the Laws,always to some indefinite extent;and there remains for a subject man nothing but the

appeal to PHILIP SOBER, in some rash cases! On the whole, however, Friedrich Wilhelm is by no means a

lawless Monarch; nor are his Prussians slaves by any means: they are patient, stouthearted, subject men,

with a very considerable quantity of radical fire, very well covered in; prevented from idle explosions, bound

to a respectful demeanor, and especially to hold their tongues as much as possible.

Friedrich Wilhelm has not the least shadow of a Constitutional Parliament, nor even a PrivyCouncil, as we

understand it; his Ministers being in general mere Clerks to register and execute what he had otherwise

resolved upon: but he had his TABAKSCOLLEGIUM, TobaccoCollege, Smoking Congress, TABAGIE,

which has made so much noise in the world, and which, in a rough natural way: affords him the uses of a

Parliament, on most cheap terms, and without the formidable inconveniences attached to that kind of

Institution. A Parliament reduced to its simplest expression, and, instead of Parliamentary eloquence,

provided with Dutch claypipes and tobacco: so we may define this celebrated Tabagie of Friedrich

Tabagies were not uncommon among German Sovereigns of that epoch: George I. at Hanover had his

Smokingroom, and select smoking Party on an evening; and even at London, as we noticed, smoked nightly,

wetting his royal throat with thin beer, in presence of his fat and of his lean Mistress, if there were no other

company. Tobacco,introduced by the Swedish soldiers in the ThirtyYears War, say some; or even by the

English soldiers in the Bohemian or Palatinate beginnings of said War, say others;tobacco, once shown

them, was enthusiastically adopted by the German populations, long in want of such an article; and has done

important multifarious functions in that country ever since. For truly, in Politics, Morality, and all

departments of their Practical and Speculative affairs, we may trace its influences, good and bad, to this day.

Influences generally bad; pacificatory but bad, engaging you in idle cloudy dreams;still worse, promoting

composure among the palpably chaotic and discomposed; soothing all things into lazy peace; that all things

may be left to themselves very much, and to the laws of gravity and decomposition. Whereby German affairs

are come to be greatly overgrown with funguses in our Time; and give symptoms of dry and of wet rot,

wherever handled. George I., we say, had his Tabagie; and other German Sovereigns had: but none of them

turned it to a Political Institution, as Friedrich Wilhelm did. The thrifty man; finding it would serve in that

capacity withal. He had taken it up as a commonplace solace and amusement: it is a reward for doing

strenuously the day's heavy labors, to wind them up in this manner, in quiet society of friendly human faces,

into a contemplative smokecanopy, slowly spreading into the realm of sleep and its dreams. Friedrich

Wilhelm was a man of habitudes; his evening Tabagie became a law of Nature to him, constant as the setting

of the sun. Favorable circumstances, quietly noticed and laid hold of by the thrifty man, developed this

simple evening arrangement of his into a sort of Smoking Parliament, small but powerful, where

Stateconsultations, in a fitful informal way, took place; and the weightiest affairs might, by dexterous

management, cunning insinuation and manoeuvring from those that understood the art and the place, be bent

To ascertain what the true course in regard to this or the other high matter will be; what the public will think

of it; and, in short, what and how the ExecutiveRoyal shall DO therein: this, the essential function of a

Parliament and PrivyCouncil, was here, by artless cheap methods, under the bidding of mere Nature,

multifariously done; mere taciturnity and sedative smoke making the most of what natural intellect there

might be. The substitution of Tobaccosmoke for Parliamentary eloquence is, by some, held to be a great

improvement. Here is Smelfungus's opinion, quaintly expressed, with a smile in it, which perhaps is not all of

"Tobaccosmoke is the one element in which, by our European manners, men can sit silent together without

embarrassment, and where no man is bound to speak one word more than he has actually and veritably got to

say. Nay, rather every man is admonished and enjoined by the laws of honor, and even of personal ease, to

stop short of that point; at all events, to hold his peace and take to his pipe again, the instant he has spoken his

meaning, if he chance to have any. The results of which salutary practice, if introduced into Constitutional

Parliaments, might evidently be incalculable. The essence of what little intellect and insight there is in that

room: we shall or can get nothing more out of any Parliament; and sedative, gently soothing, gently clarifying

tobaccosmoke (if the room were well ventilated, open atop, and the air kept good), with the obligation to a

MINIMUM of speech, surely gives human intellect and insight the best chance they can have. Best chance,

instead of the worst chance as at present: ah me, ah me, who will reduce fools to silence again in any

measure? Who will deliver men from this hideous nightmare of StumpOratory, under which the grandest

Nations are choking to a nameless death, bleeding (too truly) from mouth and nose and ears, in our sad

This TobaccoCollege is the GrumkowandSeckendorf chief field of action. These two gentlemen

understand thoroughly the nature of the Prussian TobaccoParliament; have studied the conditions of it to the

most intricate cranny: no English Whipperin or eloquent Premier knows his St. Stephen's better, or how to

hatch a measure in that dim hot element. By hint, by innuendo; by contemplative smoke, speech and

forbearance to speak; often looking one way and rowing another,they can touch the secret springs, and

guide in a surprising manner the big dangerous Fireship (for such every StateParliament is) towards the

haven they intend for it. Most dexterous Parliamentmen (SmokeParliament); no Walpole, no Dundas, or

immortal Pitt, First or Second, is cleverer in Parliamentary practice. For their Fireship, though smaller than

the British, is very dangerous withal. Look at this, for instance: Seckendorf, one evening, far contrary to his

wont, which was prostrate respect in easy forms, and always judicious submission of one's own weaker

judgment, towards his Majesty,has got into some difficult defence of the Kaiser; defence very difficult, or

in reality impossible. The cautious man is flustered by the intricacies of his position, by his Majesty's

indignant countervolleys, and the perilous necessity there is to do the impossible on the spur of the

instant;gets into emphasis, answers his Majesty's volcanic fire by incipient heat of his own; and, in short,

seems in danger of forgetting himself, and kindling the TobaccoParliament into a mere conflagration. That

will be an issue for us! And yet who dare interfere? Friedrich Wilhelm's words, in high clangorous metallic

plangency, and the pathos of a lion raised by anger into song, fall hotter and hotter; Seckendorf's puckered

brow is growing of slatecolor; his shelflip, shuttling violently, lisps and snuffles mere unconciliatory

matter:What on earth will become of us?"Hoom! Boom!" dexterous Grumkow has drawn a

Hummingtop from his pocket, and suddenly sent it spinning. There it hums and caracoles, through the

bottles and glasses; reckless what dangerous breakage and spilth it may occasion. Friedrich Wilhelm looked

aside to it indignantly. "What is that?" inquired he, in metallic tone still high. "Pooh, a toy I bought for the

little Prince August, your Majesty: am only trying it!" His Majesty understood the hint, Seckendorf still

better; and a jolly touch of laughter, on both sides, brought the matter back into the safe tobaccoclouds

This Smoking Parliament or (TABAKSCOLLEGIUM of his Prussian Majesty was a thing much talked of

in the world; but till Seckendorf and Grumkow started their graud operations there, its proceedings are not on

record; nor indeed till then had its political or parliamentary function become so decidedly evident. It was

originally a simple SmokingClub; got together on hest of Nature, without ulterior intentions:thus English

PARLIAMENTA themselves are understood to have been, in the old Norman time, mere royal

ChristmasFestivities, with natural colloquy or PARLEYING between King and Nobles ensuing thereupon,

and what wisest consultation concerning the arduous things of the realm the circumstances gave rise to. Such

parleyings or consultations, always two in number in regard to every matter, it would seem, or even three;

one sober, one drunk, and one just after being drunk, proving of extreme service in practice, grew to be

A Smokingroom,with wooden furniture, we can suppose,in each of his Majesty's royal Palaces, was

set apart for this evening service, and became the Tabagie of his Majesty. A Tabagieroom in the Berlin

Schloss, another in the Potsdam, if the cicerone had any knowledge, could still be pointed out:but the

TobaccoPIPES that are shown as Friedrich Wilhelm's in the KUNSTKAMMER or Museum of Berlin, pipes

which no rational smoker, not compelled to it, would have used, awaken just doubt as to the cicerones; and

you leave the Locality of the Tabagie a thing conjectural. In summer season, at Potsdam and in country

situations, Tabagie could be held under a tent: we expressly know, his Majesty held Tabagie at Wusterhausen

nightly on the Steps of the big Fountain, in the Outer Court there. Issuing from Wusterhausen Schloss, and its

little clipped lindens, by the western side; passing the sentries, bridge and black ditch, with live Prussian

eagles, vicious black bears, you come upon the royal Tabagie of Wusterhausen; covered by an awning, I

should think; sending forth its bits of smokeclouds, and its hum of human talk, into the wide free Desert

round. Any room that was large enough, and had height of ceiling, and aircirculation and no clothfurniture,

would do: and in each Palace is one, or more than one, that has been fixed upon and fitted out for that object.

A high large Room, as the Engravings (mostly worthless) give it us: contented saturnine human figures, a

dozen or so of them, sitting round a large long Table, furnished for the occasion; long Dutch pipe in the

mouth of each man; supplies of knaster easily accessible; small pan of burning peat, in the Dutch fashion

(sandy native charcoal, which burns slowly without smoke), is at your left hand; at your right a jug, which I

find to consist of excellent thin bitter beer. Other costlier materials for drinking, if you want such, are not

beyond reach. On sidetables stand wholesome coldmeats, royal rounds of beef not wanting, with bread

thinly sliced and buttered: in a rustic but neat and abundant way, such innocent accommodations, narcotic or

nutritious, gaseous, fluid and solid, as human nature, bent on contemplation and an evening lounge, can

require. Perfect equality is to be the rule; no rising, or notice taken, when anybody enters or leaves. Let the

entering man take his place and pipe, without obligatory remarks: if he cannot smoke, which is Seckendorf's

case for instance, let him at least affect to do so, and not ruffle the established stream of things. And so, Puff,

slowly Pff!and any comfortable speech that is in you; or none, if you authentically have not any.

Old official gentlemen, military for most part; Grumkow, Derschau, Old Dessauer (when at hand),

Seckendorf, old General Flans (rugged PlattDeutsch specimen, capable of TOCADILLE or backgammon,

capable of rough slashes of sarcasm when he opens his old beard for speech): these, and the like of these,

intimate confidants of the King, men who could speak a little, or who could be socially silent

otherwise,seem to have been the staple of the Institution. Strangers of mark, who happened to be passing,

were occasional guests; Ginckel the Dutch Ambassador, though foreign like Seckendorf, was well seen there;

garrulous Pollnitz, who has wandered over all the world, had a standing invitation. Kings, high Princes on

visit, were sure to have the honor. The CrownPrince, now and afterwards, was often present; oftener than he

liked,in such an atmosphere, in such an element. "The little Princes were all wont to come in," doffing

their bits of triangular hats, "and bid Papa goodnight. One of the old Generals would sometimes put them

through their exercise; and the little creatures were unwilling to go away to bed."

In such Assemblage, when business of importance, foreign or domestic, was not occupying the royal

thoughts,the Talk, we can believe, was rambling and multifarious: the day's hunting, if at Wusterhausen;

the day's news, if at Berlin or Potsdam; old reminiscences, too, I can fancy, turning up, and talk, even in

Seckendorf's own time, about Siege of Menin (where your Majesty first did me the honor of some notice),

Siege of Stralsund, and duly on September 11th at leastMalplaquet, with Marlborough and Eugene:

what Marlborough said, looked: and especially Lottum, late Feldmarschall Lottum; [Died 1719.] and how the

Prussian Infantry held firm, like a wall of rocks, when the horse were swept away, rocks highly volcanic,

and capable of rolling forward too; and "how a certain Adjutant [Derschau smokes harder, and blushes

brown] snatched poor Tettau on his back, bleeding to death, amid the iron whirlwinds, and brought him out

of shotrange." [ MilitairLexikon, iv. 78, ? MajorGeneral von Tettau, and i. 348, ? Derschau. This was the

beginning of Derschau's favor with Friedrich Wilhelm, who had witnesssd this piece of faithful

work.]"Hm, na, such a Day, that, Herr Feldzeugmeister, as we shall not see again till the Last of the Days!"

Failing talk, there were Newspapers in abundance; scraggy Dutch Courants, Journals of the Rhine, FAMAS,

Frankfurt ZEITUNGS; with which his Majesty exuberantly supplied himself;being willing to know what

was passing in the high places of the world, or even what in the dark snuffy Editor's thoughts was passing.

This kind of matter, as some picture of the actual hour, his Majesty liked to have read to him, even during

mealtime. Some subordinate character, with clear windpipe,all the better too, if he be a bookman,

cognizant of History, Geography, and can explain everything,usually reads the Newspaper from some high

seat behind backs, while his Majesty and Household dine. The same subordinate personage may be worth his

place in the Tabagie, should his function happen to prove necessary there. Even bookmen, though generally

pedants and mere bags of wind and folly, are good for something, more especially if rich mines of

Friedrich Wilhelm had, in succession or sometimes simultaneously, a number of such Nondescripts, to read

his Newspapers and season his Tabagie;last evanescent phasis of the old CourtFool species;who form

a noticeable feature of his environment. One very famous literary gentleman of this description, who

distanced every competitor, in the Tabagie and elsewhere, for serving his Majesty's occasions, was Jakob

Paul Gundling; a name still laughingly remembered among the Prussian People. Gundling was a

CountryClergyman's son, of the Nurnberg quarter; had studied, carrying off the honors, in various

Universities; had read, or turned over, whole cartloads of wise and foolish Books (gravitating, I fear, towards

the latter kind); had gone the Grand Tour as travelling tutor, "as companion to an English gentleman." He had

seen courts, perhaps camps, at lowest cities and inns; knew in a manner, practically and theoretically, all

things, and had published multifarious Books of his own. [List of them, Twentyone in number, mostly on

learned Antiquarian subjects,in Forster, ii. 255, 256.] The sublime longeared erudition of the man was not

to be contested; manifest to everybody; thrice and four times manifest to himself, in the first place.

In the course of his roamings, and grand and little tours, he had come to Berlin in old King Friedrich's time;

had thrown powder in the eyes of men there, and been appointed to Professorships in the RitterAcademy, to

ChiefHeraldships,"Historiographer Royal," and perhaps other honors and emoluments. The whole of

which were cut down by the ruthless scythe of Friedrich Wilhelm, ruthlessly mowing his field clear, in the

manner we saw at his Accession. Whereby learned grandiloquent Gundling, much addicted to liquor by this

time, and turning the corner of forty, saw himself cast forth into the general wilderness; that is to say, walking

the streets of Berlin, with no resources but what lay within himself and his own hungry skin. Much given to

liquor too. How he lived, for a year or two after this,erudite pen and braggart tongue his only

resources,were tragical to say. At length a famous Tavernkeeper, the "LEIPZIGE POLTERHANS

(Leipzig KillCow, or BOISTEROUSJACK)," as they call him, finding what a dungeon of erudite talk this

Gundling was, and how gentlemen got entertained by him, gave Gundling the run of his Tavern (or, I fear,

only a seat in the drinkingroom); and it was here that General Grumkow found him, talking big, and

disserting DE OMNI SCIBILI, to the ancient Berlin gentlemen over their cups. A very Dictionary of a man;

who knows, in a manner, all things; and is by no means ignorant that he knows them: Would not this man suit

his Majesty? thought Grumkow; and brought him to Majesty, to read the Newspapers and explain everything.

Date is not given, or hinted at; but incidentally we find Gundling in full blast "in the year 1718;" [Von Loen,

Kleine Schriften, i. 201 (cited in Forster, i. 260).] and conclude his instalment was a year or two before.

Gundling came to his Majesty from the Taproom of BoisterousJack; read the Newspapers, and explained

everything: such a Dictionaryinbreeches (much given to liquor) as his Majesty had got, was never seen

before. Working into the man, his Majesty, who had a great taste for such things, discovered in him such

mines of collegelearning, courtlearning, without end; selfconceit, and depth of appetite, not less

considerable: in fine, such Chaotic Blockheadism with the consciousness of being Wisdom, as was wondrous

to behold,as filled his Majesty, especially, with laughter and joyful amazement. Here are mines of native

Darkness and Human Stupidity, capable of being made to phosphoresce and effervesce,are there not, your

Majesty? Omniscient Gundling was a prime resource in the Tabagie, for many years to come. Man with

sublimer stores of longeared Learning and Omniscience; man more destitute of Motherwit, was nowhere

to be met with. A man, bankrupt of Motherwit;who has Squandered any poor Motherwit he had in the

process of acquiring his sublime longeared Omniscience; and has retained only depth of appetite,

appetite for liquor among other things, as the consummation and bottomless cesspool of appetites:is not

The man was an Eldorado for the peculiar quizzing humor of his Majesty; who took immense delight in

working him, when occasion served. In the first years, he had to attend his Majesty on all occasions of

amusement; if you invite his Majesty to dinner, Gundling too must be of the party. Daily, otherwise,

Gundling was at the Tabagie; getting drunk, if nothing better. Vein after vein, rich in broad fun (very broad

and Brobdignagian, such as suits there), is discovered in him: without wit himself, but much the cause of wit.

None oftener shook the Tabagie with inextinguishable Hahas: daily, by stirring into him, you could wrinkle

He wore sublime clothes: Friedrich Wilhelm, whom we saw dress up his regimental ScavengerExecutioners

in French costume, for Count Rothenburg's behoof, made haste to load Gundling with Rathships,

Kammerherrships, Titles such as fools covet;gave him tolerable pensions too, poor devil, and even

functions, if they were of the imaginary or big insignificant sort. Above all things, his Majesty dressed him,

as the pink of fortunate ambitious courtiers. Superfine scarlet coat, gold buttonholes, blackvelvet facings

and embroideries without end: "strawcolored breeches; red silk stockings," with probably blue clocks to

them, "and shoes with red heels:" on his learned head sat an immense cloudperiwig of white goat'shair (the

man now growing towards fifty); in the hat a red feather:in this guise he walked the streets, the gold Key

of KAMMERHERR (Chamberlain) conspicuously hanging at his coatbreast; and looked proudly down

upon the world, when sober. Alas, he was often not sober; and fiends in human shape were ready enough to

take advantage of his unguarded situation. No man suffered ruder tarringandfeathering;and his only

comfort was his bane withal, that he had, under such conditions, the use of the royal cellars, and could always

His illustrious scarlet coat, by tumblings in the ditch, soon got dirty to a degree; and exposed him to the biting

censures of his Majesty, anxious for the respectability of his Hofraths. One day, two wicked Captains, finding

him prostrate in some lone place, cut off his Kammerherr KEY; and privately gave it to his Majesty. Majesty,

in Tabagie, notices Gundling's coatbreast: "Where is your Key, then, Herr Kammerherr?" "Hm,

hahunfortunately lost it, Ihro Majestat!""Lost it, say you?" and his Majesty looks dreadfully

grave."Key lost?" thinks Tabagie, grave Seckendorf included: "JARNIBLEU, that is something serious!"

"As if a Soldier were to drink his musket!" thinks his Majesty: "And what are the laws, if an ignorant fellow

is shot, and a learned wise one escapes?" Here is matter for a deliberative Tabagie; and to poor Gundling a

bad outlook, fatal or short of fatal. He had better not even drink much; but dispense with consolation, and

keep his wits about him, till this squall pass. After much deliberating, it is found that the royal clemency can

be extended; and an outlet devised, under conditions. Next Tabagie, a servant enters with one of the biggest

trays in the world, and upon it a "Wooden Key gilt, about an ell long;" this gigantic implement is solemnly

hung round the repentant Kammerherr; this he shall wear publicly as penance, and be upon his behavior, till

the royal mind can relent. Figure the poor blockhead till that happen! "On recovering his metal key, he goes

What Gundling thought to himself, amid these pranks and hoaxings, we do not know. The poor soul was not

born a fool; though he had become one, by collegelearning, vanity, strongdrink, and the world's perversity

and his own. Under good guidance, especially if bred to strict silence, he might have been in some measure a

luminous object,not as now a phosphorescent one, shining by its mere rottenness! A sad "Calamity of

Authors" indeed, when it overtakes a man!Poor Gundling probably had lucid intervals now and then;

tragic fits of discernment, in the innerman of him. He had a Brother, also a learned man, who retained his

senses; and was even a rather famed Professor at Halle; whose Portrait, looking very academic, solemn and

welltodo, turns up in old printshops; whose Books, concerning "Henry the Fowler ( De Henrico Aucupe ),"

"Kaiser Conrad I.," and other dim Historical objects, are still consultable,though with little profit, to my

experience. The name of this one was NICOLAUS HIERONYMUS; ours is JAKOB PAUL, the senior

brother,once the hope of the House, it is likely, and a fond Father's pride,in that poor old Nurnberg

Jakob Paul likewise continued to write Books, on Brandenburg Heraldries, Topography, Genealogies: even a

"LIFE" or two of some old Brandenburg Electors are still extant from his hand; but not looked at now by any

mortal. He had been, perhaps was again, Historiographer Royal; and felt bound to write such Books: several

of them he printed; and we hear of others still manuscript, "in five folio volumes written fair." He held

innumerable halfmock Titles and Offices; among others, was actual President of the Berlin Royal Society,

or ACADEMIE DES SCIENCES, Leibnitz's pet daughter,there Gundling actually sat in Office; and drew

the salary, for one certainty. "As good he as another," thought Friedrich Wilhelm: "What is the use of these

solemn fellows, in their big perukes, with their crabbed X+Y's, and scientiflc Pedler'sFrench; doing nothing

that I can see, except annually the Berlin Almanac, which they live upon? Let them live upon it, and be

Academy of Sciences makes its ALMANAC, and some peculium of profit by it; lectures perhaps a little "on

Anatomy" (good for something, that, in his Majesty's mind); but languisheswithout encouragement during

the present reign. Has his Majesty no prize questions to propose, then? None, or worse. He once officially put

these learned Associates upon ascertaining for him "Why Champagne foamed?" They, with a hidden vein of

pleasantry, required "material to experiment upon." Friedrich Wilhelm sent them a dozen, or certain dozens;

and the matter proved insoluble to this day. No King, scarcely any man, had less of reverence for the

Sciences so called; for Academic culture, and the art of the TalkingSchoolmaster in general! A King obtuse

to the fine Arts, especially to the vocal Arts, in a high degree. Literary fame itself he regards as mountebank

fame; the art of writing big admirable folios is little better to him than that of vomiting long coils of

wonderful ribbon, for the idlers of the marketplace; and he bearbaits his Gundling, in this manner, as

Nay, it is but lately (1723 the exact year) that he did his evermemorable feat in regard to Wolf and his

Philosophy, at Halle. Illustrious Wolf was recognized, at that time, as the second greater Leibnitz, and

HeadPhilosopher of Nature, who "by mathematical method" had as it were taken Nature in the fact, and

illuminated everything, so that whosoever ran might read,which all manner of people then tried to do, but,

have now quite ceased trying "by the Wolfmethod:"Immortal Wolf, somewhat of a stiff, reserved humor,

inwardly a little proud, and not wanting in private contempt of the contemptible, had been accused of

heterodoxy by the Halle Theologians. Immortal Wolf, croakily satirical withal, had of course defended

himself; and of course got into a shoreless sea of controversy with the Halle Theologians; pestering his

Majesty with mere wars, and rumors of war, for a length of time, from that Halle University. [In Busching

( Beitrage, i. l140) is rough authentic account of Wolf, and especially of all that,with several curious

LETTERS of Wolf's.] So that Majesty, unable to distinguish top or bottom in such a coil of argument; or to

do justice in the case, however willing and anxious, often passionately asked: "What, in God's name, is the

real truth of it?" Majesty appointed Commissions to inquire; read Reports; could for a long while make out

nothing certain. At last came a decision on the sudden;royal mind suddenly illuminated, it is a little

uncertain how. Some give the credit of it to Gundling, which is unlikely; others to "Two Generals" of piouis

orthodox turn, acquainted with Halle;and I have heard obscurely that it was the Old Dessauer, who also

knew Halle; and was no doubt wearied to hear nothing talked of there but injured Philosopher Wolf, and

injuring Theologian Lange, or VICE VERSA. Some practical military man, not given to take up with

shadows, it likeliest was. "In God's name, what is the real truth of all that?" inquired his Majesty, of the

practical man: "DOES Wolf teach hellish doctrines; as Lange says, or heavenly, as himself says?" "Teaches

babble mainly, I should think, and scientific Pedler's French," intimated the practical man: "But they say he

has one doctrine about oaths, and what he calls foundation of duty, which I did not like. Not a heavenly

doctrine that. Follow out that, any of your Majesty's grenadiers might desert, and say he had done no sin

against God!" [Busching, i. 8; Benekendorf, Karakterzilge aus dem Leben Konig Friedrich Wilhelm I.

(Anonymous, Berlin, 1787), ii. 23.] Friedrich Wilhelm flew into a paroxysm of horror; instantly redacted

brief Royal Decree [15th November (Busching says 8th), 1723.] (which is still extant among the curiosities of

the Universe), ordering Wolf to quit Halle and the Prussian Dominions, bag and baggage, forevermore,

within eighbandforty hours, "BEY STRAFE DES STRANGES, under pain of the halter!"

Halter: the HeadPhilosopher of Nature, found too late, will be hanged, as if he were a sheepstealer;

hanged, and no mistake! Poor Wolf gathered himself together, wife and baggage; girded up his loins; and ran

with the due despatch. He is now found sheltered under HessenDarmstadt, at Marburg, professing

something there; and all the intellect of the world is struck with astonishment, and with silent or vocal pity for

the poor man. It is but fair to say, Friedrich Wilhelm, gradually taking notice of the world's humor in

regard to this, began to have his own misgivings; and determined to read some of Wolf's Books for himself.

Reading in Wolf, he had sense to discern that here was a man of undeniable talent and integrity; that the

Practical Military judgment, loading with the iron ramrod, had shot wide of the mark, in this matter; and, in

short, that a palpable bit of foulplay had been done. This was in 1733;ten years after the shot, when his

Majesty saw, with his own eyes, how wide it had gone. He applied to Wolf earnestly, more than once, to

come back to him: Halle, Frankfurt, any Prussian University with a vacancy in it, was now wide open to

Wolf. But Wolf knew better: Wolf, with bows down to the ground, answered always evadingly;and never

Friedrich Wilhelm knew little of Booklearning or Bookwriting; and his notion of it is very shocking to us.

But the fact is, O reader, Bookwriting is of two kinds: one wise, and may be among the wisest of earthly

things; the other foolish, sometimes far beyond what can be reached by human nature elsewhere.

Blockheadism, Unwisdom, while silent, is reckoned bad; but Blockheadism getting vocal, able to speak

persuasively,have you considered that at all? Human Opacity falling into Phosphorescence; that is to say,

becoming luminous (to itself and to many mortals) by the very excess of it, by the very bursting of it into

putrid fermentation;all other forms of Chaos are cosmic in comparison!Our poor Friedrich Wilhelm had

seen only Gundlings among the Bookwriting class: had he seen wiser specimens, he might have formed, as

he did in Wolf's case, another judgment. Nay in regard to Gundling himself, it is observable how, with his

unutterable contempt, he seems to notice in him glimpses of the admirable (such acquirements, such

dictionaryfaculties, though gone distracted!),and almost has a kind of love for the absurd dog. Gundling's

pensions amount to something like 150 pounds; an immense sum in this Court. [Forster, i. 263, 284 (if you

can RECONCILE the two passages).] A blockhead admirable in some sorts; and of immense resource in

No end to the wild pranks, the Houyhnhnm horseplay they had with drunken Gundling. He has staggered

out in a drunk state, and found, or not clearly FOUND till the morrow, young bears lying in his bed;has

found his roomdoor walled up; been obliged to grope about, staggering from door to door and from port to

port, and land ultimately in the big Bears' den, who hugged and squeezed him inhumanly there. Once at

Wusterhausen, staggering blinddrunk out of the Schloss towards his lair, the sentries at the Bridge

(instigated to it by the Houyhnhnms, who look on) pretend to fasten some military blame on him: Why has he

omitted or committed soandso? Gundling's drunk answer is unsatisfactory. "Arrest, Herr Kammerrath, is it

to be that, then!" They hustle him about, among the Bears which lodge there;at length they lay him

horizontally across two ropes;take to swinging him hither and thither, up and down, across the black

Acherontic Ditch, which is frozen over, it being the dead of winter: one of the ropes, LOWER rope, breaks;

Gundling comes souse upon the ice with his sittingpart; breaks a big hole in the ice, and scarcely with legs,

arms and the remaining rope, can be got out undrowned. [Forster (i. 254280); founding, I suppose, on Leben

und Thaten des Freiherrn Paul von Gundling (Berlin, 1795); probably not one of the exactest Biographies.]

If, with natural indignation, he shut his door, and refuse to come to the Tabagie, they knock in a panel of his

door; and force him out with crackers, fireworks, rockets and malodorous projectiles. Once the poor

blockhead, becoming human for a moment, went clean away; to Halle where his Brother was, or to some

safer place: but the due inveiglements, sublime apologies, increase of titles, salaries, were used; and the

indispensable Phosphorescent Blockhead, and President of the Academy of Pedler'sFrench, was got back.

Drink remained always as his consolation; drink, and the deathless Volumes he was writing and printing.

Sublime returns came to him;Kaiser's Portrait set in diamonds, on one occasion, for his

PresentationCopies in high quarters: immortal fame, is it not his clear portion; still more clearly abundance

of good wine. Friedrich Wilhelm did not let him want for Titles;raised him at last to the Peerage; drawing

out the Diploma and Armorial Blazonry, in a truly FriedrichWilhelm manner, with his own hand. The

Gundlings, in virtue of the transcendent intellect and merits of this Founder Gundling, are, and are hereby

declared to be, of Baronial dignity to the last scion of them; and in "all RITTERRENNEN (Tournaments),

Battles, Fights, Camppitchings, Sealings, Siguetings, shall and may use the abovesaid Shield of

Arms,"if it can be of any advantage to them. A Prussian Majesty who gives us 150 pounds yearly, with

board and lodging and the run of his cellar, and honors such as these, is not to be lightly sneezed away,

though of queer humors now and then. The highest Personages, as we said, more than once made gifts to

Gundling; miniatures set in diamonds; purses of a hundred ducats: even Gundling, it was thought, might

throw in a word, mad or otherwise, which would bear fruit. It was said of him, he never spoke to harm

anybody with his Majesty. The poor blownup blockhead was radically not illnatured,at least, if you let

But the grandest explosious, in TobaccoParliament, were producible, when you got Two literary fools; and,

as if with Leydenjars, positive and negative, brought their vanities to bear on one another. This sometimes

happened, when TobacboParliament was in luck. Friedrich Wilhelm had a variety of MerryAndrew Raths

of the Gundling sort, though none ever came up to Gundling, or approached him, in worth as a

Herr Fassmann, who wrote Books, by Patronage or for the Leipzig Booksellers, and wandered about the

world as a star or comet of some magnitude, is not much known to my readers:but he is too well known to

me, for certain dark Books of his which I have had to read. [ Life of Friedrich Wilhelm, occasionally cited

here; Life of August the Strong; A very dim Literary Figure; undeniable, indecipherable Human Fact, of those

days; now fallen quite extinct and obsolete; his garniture, equipment, environment all very dark to us.

Probably a too restless, imponderous creature, too much of the Gundling type; structure of him GASEOUS,

not solid; Perhaps a little of the coxcomb naturally; much of the sycophant on compulsion,being sorely

jammed into corners, and without elbowroom at all, in this world. Has, for the rest, a recognizable talent for

"Magazine writing,"for Newspaper editing, had that rich mine, "California of the Spiritually Vagabond,"

been opened in those days. Poor extinct Fassmann, one discovers at last a vein of weak geniality in him; here

and there, real human sense and eyesight, under those strange conditions; and his poor Books, rotted now to

inanity, have left a small seedpearl or two, to the earnest reader. Alas, if he WAS to become "spiritually

vagabond" ("spiritually" and otherwise), might it not perhaps be wholesome to him that the California was

Fassmann was by no means such a fool as Gundling; but, he was much of a fool too. He had come to Berlin,

about this time, [1726, as he himself says (supra p. 8).] in hopes of patronage from the King or somebody;

might say to himself, "Surely I am a better man than Gundling, if the Berlin Court has eyesight." By the

King, on some wise General's recommending it, he was, as a preliminary, introduced to the Tabagie at least.

Here is the celebrated Gundling; there is the celebrated Fassmann. Positive Leydenjar, with negative close

by: in each of these two men lodges a fullcharged fiery electric virtue of selfconceit; destructive each of

the other;could a conductor be discovered. Conductors are discoverable, conductors are not wanting; and

many are the explosions between these mutuallydestructive human varieties;welcomed with hilarious,

rather vacant, huge horselaughter, in this TobaccoParliament and Synod of the Houyhnhnms.

Of which take this acme; and then end. Fassmann, a fellow not without sarcasm and sharpness, as you may

still see, has one evening provoked Gundling to the transcendent pitch,till words are weak, and only action

will answer. Gundling, driven to the exploding point, suddenly seizes his Dutch smokingpan, of

peatcharcoal ashes and redhot sand; and dashes it in the face of Fassmann; who is of course dreadfully

astonished thereby, and has got his very eyebrows burnt, not to speak of other injuries. Stand to him,

Fassmann! Fassmann stands to him tightly, being the better man as well as the more satirical; grasps

Gundling by the collar, wrenches him about, lays him at last over his knee, sittingpart uppermost; slaps said

sittingpart (poor sittingpart that had broken the ice of Wusterhausen) with the hot pan,nay some say,

strips it and slaps. Amid the inextinguishable horselaughter (sincere but vacant) of the Houyhnhnm

After which, his Majesty, as epilogue to such play, suggests, That feats of that nature are unseemly among

gentlemen; that when gentlemen have a quarrel, there is another way of settling it. Fassmann thereupon

challenges Gundling; Gundling accepts; time and place are settled, pistols the weapon. At the appointed time

and place Gundling stands, accordingly, pistol in hand; but at sight of Fassmann, throws his pistol away; will

not shoot any man, nor have any man shoot him. Fassmann sternly advances; shoots his pistol (powder

merely) into Gundling's sublime goat'shair wig: wig blazes into flame; Gundling falls shrieking, a dead man,

to the earth; and they quench and revive him with a bucket of water. Was there ever seen such horseplay?

Roaring laughter, huge, rude, and somewhat vacant, as that of the Norse gods over their ale at Yule time;as

if the face of the Sphinx were to wrinkle itself in laughter; or the fabulous Houyhnhnms themselves were

His Majesty at length gave Gundling a winecask, duly figured; "painted black with a white cross," which

was to stand in his room as MEMENTOMORI, and be his coffin. It stood for ten years; Gundling often

sitting to write in it; a good screen against draughts. And the poor monster was actually buried in this cask;

[Died 11th April, 1731, age 58: description of the Burial "at Bornstadt near Potsdam," in Forster, i. 276.]

Fassmann pronouncing some funeral oration,and the orthodox clergy uttering, from the distance, only a

mute groan. "The Herr Baron von Gundling was a man of many dignities, of much Booklearning; a man of

great memory," admits Fassmann, "but of no judgment," insinuates he, LOOKING FOR the Judgment

(EXPECTANS JUDICIUM)," says Fassmann, with a pleasant wit. Fassmann succeeded to all the

emoluments and honors; but did not hold them; preferred to run away before long: and after him came one

and the other, whom the reader is not to be troubled with here. Enough if the patient reader have seen, a little,

into that background of Friedrich Wilhelm's existence; and, for the didactic part, have caught up his real

views or instincts upon Spiritual Phosphorescence, or Stupidity grown Vocal, which are much sounder than

These were the sports of the TobaccoParliament; and it was always meant primarily for sport, for recreation:

but there is no doubt it had a serious function as well. "Business matters," adds Beneckendorf, who had

means of knowing, [Benekendorf, Karakterzuge, i. 137149; vi. 37.] "were often a subject of colloquy in the

TABAKSCOLLEGIUM. Not that they were there finished off, decided upon, or meant to be so. But

Friedrich Wilhelm often purposely brought up such things in conversation there, that he might learn the

different opinions of his generals and chief men, without their observing it,"and so might profit by the

The Treaty of Wusterhausen was not yet known to Queen Sophie, to her Father George, or to any external

creature: but that open flinching, and gradual withdrawal, from the Treaty of Hanover was too well known;

and boded no good to her pet project. Female sighs, male obduracies, and other domestic phenomena, are to

be imagined in consequence. "A grand Britannic Majesty indeed; very lofty Father to us, Madam, ever since

he came to be King of England: Stalking along there, with his nose in the air; not deigning the least notice of

us, except as of a thing that may be got to fight for him! And he does not sign the DoubleMarriage Treaty,

Madam; only talks of signing it,as if we were a starved coachhorse, to be quickened along by a wisp of

hay put upon the coachpole close ahead of us always!""JARNIBLEU!" snuffles Seckendorf with a

virtuous zeal, or looks it; and things are not pleasant at the royal dinnertable.

Excellenz Seckendorf, we find at this time, "often has his Majesty to dinner:" and such dinners; fitting one's

tastes in all points, no expense regarded (which indeed is the Kaiser's, if we knew it)! And in return,

Excellenz is frequently at dinner with his Majesty; where the conversation; if it turn on England, which often

happens, is more and more an offence to Queen Sophie. Seckendorf studies to be polite, reserved before the

Queen's Majesty at her own table; yet sometimes he lisps out, in his vile snuffling tone, halfinsinuations,

remarks on our Royal Kindred, which are irritating in the extreme. Queen Sophie, the politest of women, did

once, says Pollnitz, on some excessive pressure of that lisping snuffling unendurability, lose her royal

patience and flame out. With human frankness, and uncommonly kindled eyes, she signified to Seckendorf,

That none who was not himself a kind of scoundrel could entertain such thoughts of Kings and gentlemen!

Which hard saying kindled the stiffbacked rheumatic soul of Seckendorf (Excellenz had withal a temper in

him, far down in the deeps); who answered: "Your Majesty, that is what no one else thinks of me. That is a

name I have never permitted any one to give me with impunity." And verily, he kept his threat in that latter

At this stage, it is becoming, in the nature of things, unlikely that the projected DoubleMarriage, or any

union with England, can ever realize itself for Queen Sophie and her House. The Kaiser has decreed that it

never shall. Here is the King already irritated, grown indisposed to it; here is the Kaiser's Seckendorf, with

preternatural Apparatus, come to maintain him in that humor. To Queen Sophie herself, who saw only the

outside of Seckendorf and his Apparatus, the matter doubtless seemed big with difficulties; but to us, who see

the interior, the difficulties are plainly hopeless. Unless the Kaiser's mind change, unless many fixed things

One thing only is a sorrow; and this proved an immeasurable one: That they did not, that Queen Sophie did

not, in such case, frankly give it up: DoubleMarriage is not a law of Nature; it is only a project at Hanover

that has gone off again. There will be a life for our CrownPrince, and Princess, without a marriage with

England!It is greatly wise to recognize the impossible, the unreasonably difficult, when it presents itself: but

Queen Sophie Dorothee will have this DoubleMarriage, and it shall be possible. Pour Lady, she was very

obstinate; and her Husband was very arbitrary. A rough bear of a Husband, yet by no means an unloving one;

a Husband who might have been managed. She evidently made a great mistake in deciding not to obey this

man; as she had once vowed. By perfect prompt obedience she might have had a very tolerable life with the

rugged Orson fallen to her lot; who was a very honesthearted creature. She might have done a pretty stroke

of female work, withal, in taming her Orson; might have led him by the muzzle far enough in a private

But by disobedience, by rebellion open or secret? Friedrich Wilhelm was a Husband; Friedrich Wilhelm was

a King; and the most imperative man then breathing. Disobedience to Friedrich Wilhelm was a thing which,

in the Prussian State, still more in the Berlin Schloss and vital heart of said State, the laws of Heaven and of

Earth had not permitted, for any man's or any woman's sake, to be. The wide overarching sky looks down on

no more inflexible Sovereign Man than him in the redcollared blue coat and white leggings, with the

bamboo in his hand. A peaceable, capacious, not illgiven Sovereign Man, if you will let him have his way.

But to bar his way; to tweak the nose of his sovereign royalty, and ignominiously force him into another way:

that is an enterprise no man or devil, or body of men or devils, need attempt. Seckendorf and Grumkow, in

TobaccoParliament, understand it better. That attempt is impossible, once for all. The first step in such

attempt will require to be assassination of Friedrich Wilhelm; for you may depend on it, royal Sophie, so long

as he is alive, the feat cannot be done. O royal Sophie, O pretty Feekin, what a business you are making of it!

The year 1726 was throughout a troublous one to Queen Sophie. Seckendorf's advent; King George's

manifestoing; alarm of imminent universal War, nay sputters of it actually beginning (Gibraltar invested by

the Spaniards, ready for besieging, it is said): nor was this all. Sophie's poor Mother, worn to a tragic

Megaera, locked so long in the Castle of Ahlden, has taken up wild plans of outbreak, of escape by means of

secretaries, moneys in the Bank of Amsterdam, and I know not what; with all which Sophie, corresponding in

double and triple mystery, has her own terrors and sorrows, trying to keep it down. And now, in the depth of

the year, the poor old Mother suddenly dies. [13th November, 1726: Memoirs of Sophia Dorothea, Consort of

George I. (i. 386),where alao some of her concluding Letters ("edited" as if by the Nightmares) can be

read, but next to no sense made of them.] Burnt out in this manner, she collapses into ashes and long rest;

closing so her nameless tragedy of thirty years' continuance:what a Bluebeardchamber in the mind of

Sophie! Nay there rise quarrels about the Heritage of the Deceased, which will prove another sorrow.

The CrownPrince's young Life being, by perverse chance, involved and as it were absorbed in that foolish

question of his English Marriage, we have nothing for it but to continue our sad function; and go on painfully

fishing out, and reducing to an authentic form, what traces of him there are, from that disastrous beggarly

element,till once he get free of it, either dead or alive. The WINDS (partly by ArtMagic) rise to the

hurricane pitch, upon this Marriage Project and him; and as for the sea, or general tide of European

In the spring of 1727, War, as anticipated, breaks out; Spaniards actually begin battering at Gibraltar; Kaiser's

Ambassador at London is angrily ordered to begone. Causes of war were many: 1. Duke de

Ripperdatumbled out now, that illustrious diplomatic bulldog, at Madridsought asylum in the English

Ambassador's house; and no respect was had to such asylum: that is one cause. 2. Then, you English, what is

the meaning of these warfleets in the West Indies; in the Mediterranean, on the very coast of Spain? We

demand that you at once take them home again:which cannot be complied with. 3. But above all things, we

demand Gibraltar of you:which can still less be complied with. Termagant Elizabeth has set her heart on

Gibraltar: that, in such opportunity as this unexpected condition of the Balances now gives her, is the real

Cession of Gibraltar: there had been vague promises, years ago, on the Kaiser's part; nay George himself, raw

to England at that date, is said to have thought the thing might perhaps be done. Do it at once, then!" said

the Termagant Queen, and repeated, with ever more emphasis;and there being not the least compliance,

she has opened parallels before the place, and begun war and ardent firing there; [22d February, 1727 (Scholl,

ii. 212). Salmon, Chronological Historian (London, 1747; a very incorrect dark Book, useful only in defect

of better), ii. 173. Coxe, Memoirs of Walpole, i. 260, 261; ii. 498515.] preceded by protocols, debates in

Parliament; and the usual phenomena. It is the Fifth grand Crisis in the Kaiser's spectrehuntings; fifth

change in the color of the worldlobster getting boiled in that singular manner;Second Sputter of actual

Which proved futile altogether; and amounts now, in the human memory; to flat zero,unless the following

"Sputtering of War; that is to say, Siege of Gibraltar. A siege utterly unmemorable, and without the least

interest, for existing mankind with their ungrateful humor,if it be not; once more, that the Father of

TRISTRAM SHANDY was in it: still a Lieutenant of foot, poor fellow; brisk, small, hottempered, loving,

'liable to be cheated ten times a day if nine will not suffice you.' He was in this Siege; shipped to the Rock to

make stand there; and would have done so with the boldest,only he got into duel (hottempered, though of

lamblike innocence), and was run through the body; not entirely killed, but within a hair's breadth of it; and

unable for service while this sputtering went on. Little Lorry is still living; gone to school in Yorkshire, after

pranks enough, and misventures,halfdrowning 'in the millrace at Annamoe in Ireland,' for one.

[Laurence Sterne's Autobiography (cited above).] The poor Lieutenant Father died, soldiering in the West

Indies; soon after this; and we shall not mention him again. But History ought to remember that he is 'Uncle

Toby,' this poor Lieutenant, and take her measures!The Siege of Gibraltar, we still see with our eyes, was

Truly it might well enough have grown to universal flame of War. But this always needs two parties; and

pacific George would not be second party in it. George, guided by pacific Walpole, backed by pacific Fleury,

answers the ardent firing by phlegmatic patience and protocolling; not by counterfiring, except quite at his

convenience, from privateers, from warships here and there, and in sulky defence from Gibraltar itself.

Probably the Termagant, with all the fire she has, will not do much damage upon Gibraltar? Such was

George's hope. Whereby the flame of war, ardent only in certain Spanish batteries upon the point of San

Roque, does not spread hitherto,though all mortals, and Friedrich Wilhelm as much as any, can see the

imminent likelihood there is. In such circumstances, what a stroke of policy to have disjoined Friedrich

Wilhelm from the Hanover Alliance, and brought him over to our own! Is not Grumkow worth his pension?

To know the special figure of the CrownPrince's way of life in those years, who his friends, companions

were, what his pursuits and experiences, would be agreeable to us; but beyond the outline already given, there

is little definite on record. He now resides habitually at Potsdam, be the Court there or not; attending strictly

to his military duties in the Giant Regiment; it is only on occasion, chiefly perhaps in "Carnival time," that he

gets to Berlin, to partake in the gayeties of society. Who his associates there or at Potsdam were? Suhm, the

Saxon Resident, a cultivated man of literary turn, famed as his friend in time coming, is already at his

diplomatic post in Berlin, post of difficulty just now; but I know not whether they have yet any intimacy.

[Preuss, Friedrich mit seinen Verwandten und Freunden, p. 24.] This we do know, the CrownPrince begins

to be noted for his sprightly sense, his love of literature, his ingenuous ways; in the Court or other circles,

whatsoever has intelligence attracts him, and is attracted by him. The Roucoulles Soirees, gone all to dim

backram for us, though once so lively in their high periwigs and speculations,fall on Wednesday. When

the Finkenstein or the others fall,no doubt his Royal Highness knows it. In the TABAKSCOLLEGIUM,

there also, driven by duty, he sometimes appears; but, like Seckendorf and some others, he only affects to

smoke, and his pipe is mere white clay. Nor is the social element, any more than the narcotic vapor which

prevails there, attractive to the young Prince,though he had better hide his feelings on the subject.

Out at Potsdam, again, life goes very heavy; the winged Psyche much imprisoned in that pipeclay element, a

prey to vacancy and many tediums and longings. Daily return the giant drillduties; and daily, to the

uttermost of rigorous perfection, they must be done:"This, then, is the sum of one's existence, this?"

Patience, young "man of genius," as the Newspapers would now call you; it is indispensably beneficial

nevertheless! To swallow one's disgusts, and do faithfully the ugly commanded work, taking no council with

flesh and blood: know that "genius," everywhere in Nature, means this first of all; that without this, it means

nothing, generally even less. And be thankful for your Potsdam grenadiers and their pipeclay!

Happily he has his Books about him; his flute: Duhan, too, is here, still more or less didactic in some

branches; always instructive and companionable, to him. The CrownPrince reads a great deal; very many

French Books, new and old, he reads; among the new, we need not doubt, the Henriade of M. Arouet Junior

(who now calls himself VOLTAIRE), which has risen like a star of the first magnitude in these years.

[London, 1723, in surreptitious incomplete state, La Ligue the title; then at length, London, 1726, as

Henriade, in splendid 4to,by subscription (King, Prince and Princess of Wales at the top of it), which

yielded 8,000 pounds: see Voltaire, OEuvres Completes, xiii. 408.] An incomparable piece, patronized by

Royalty in England; the delight of all kindred Courts. The light dancing march of this new "Epic," and the

brisk clash of cymbal music audible in it, had, as we find afterwards, greatly captivated the young man. All is

not pipeclay, then, and torpid formalism; aloft from the murk of commonplace rise glancings of a starry

Out of Books, rumors and experiences, young imagination is forming to itself some Picture of the World as it

is, as it has been. The curtains of this strange lifetheatre are mounting, mounting, wondrously as in the

case of all young souls; but with what specialties, moods or phenomena of light and shadow, to this young

soul, is not in any point recorded for us. The "early Letters to Wilhelmina, which exist in great numbers,"

from these we had hoped elucidation: but these the learned Editor has "wholly withheld as useless," for the

present. Let them be carefully preserved, on the chance of somebody's arising to whom they may have

The worst feature of these years is Friedrich Wilhelm's discontent with them. A CrownPrince sadly out of

favor with Papa. This has long been on the growing hand; and these DoubleMarriage troubles, not to

mention again the newfangled French tendencies (BLITZ FRANZOSEN!), much aggravate the matter, and

accelerate its rate of growth. Already the paternal countenance does not shine upon him; flames often; and

Gibraltar still keeps sputtering; ardent ineffectual bombardment from the one side, sulky, heavy blast of

response now and then from the other: but the fire does not spread; nor will, we may hope. It is true, Sweden

and Denmark have joined the Treaty of Hanover, this spring; and have troops on foot, and money paid them;

But George is pacific; Gibraltar is impregnable; let the Spaniards spend their powder there.

As for the Kaiser, he is dreadfully poor; inapt for battle himself. And in the end of this same May, 1727, we

hear, his principal ally, Czarina Catherine, has died;poor brown little woman, Lithuanian housemaid,

Russian Autocrat, it is now all one; dead she, and can do nothing. Probably the Kaiser will sit still? The

Kaiser sits still; with eyes bent on Gibraltar, or rolling in graud Imperial inquiry and anxiety round the world;

Alas, in the end of June, what far other Job'spost is this that reaches Berlin and Queen Sophie? That George

I., her royal Father, has suddenly sunk dead! With the Solstice, or Summer pause of the Sun, 21st or 22d

June, almost uncertain which, the Majesty of George I. did likewise pause,in his carriage, on the road to

Osnabruck,never to move more. Whereupon, among the simple People, arose rumors of omens,

preternaturalisms, for and against: How his desperate Megaera of a Wife, in the act of dying, had summoned

him (as was presumable), to appear along with her at the Great JudgmentBar within year and day; and how

he has here done it. On the other hand, some would have it noted, How "the nightingales in Herrenhausen

Gardens had all ceased singing for the year, that night he died,"out of loyalty on the part of these little

What we know is, he was journeying towards Hanover again, hopeful of a little hunting at the Gorhde; and

intended seeing Osnabruck and his Brother the Bishop there, as he passed. That day, 21st June, 1727, from

some feelings of his own, he was in great haste for Osnabruck; hurrying along by extrapost, without real

cause save hurry of mind. He had left his poor old Maypole of a Mistress on the Dutch Frontier, that morning,

to follow at more leisure. He was struck by apoplexy on the road,arm fallen powerless, early in the day,

head dim and heavy; obviously an alarming case. But he refused to stop anywhere; refused any surgery but

such as could be done at once. "Osnabruck! Osnabruck!" he reiterated, growing visibly worse. Two subaltern

Hanover Officials, "PrivyCouncillor von Hardenberg, KAMMERHERR (Chamberlain) von Fabrice, were

in the carriage with him;" [Gottfried, Historische Chronik (Frankfurt, 1759), iii. 872. Boyer, The Political

State of Great Britain, vol. xxxiii. pp. 545, 546.] King chiefly dozing, and at last supported in the arms of

Fabrice, was heard murmuring, "C'EST FAIT DE MOI ('T is all over with me)!" And "Osnabruck!

Osnabruck!" slumberously reiterated he: To Osnabruck, where my poor old Brother, Bishop as they call him,

once a little Boy that trotted at my knee with blithe face, will have some human pity on me! So they rushed

along all day, as at the gallop, his few attendants and he; and when the shades of night fell, and speech had

now left the poor man, he still passionately gasped some gurgle of a sound like "Osnabruck;" hanging in

the arms of Fabrice, and now evidently in the article of death. What a gallop, sweeping through the slumber

In the hollow of the night (some say, one in the morning), they reach Osnabruck. And the poor old

Brother,Ernst August, once youngest of six brothers, of seven children, now the one survivor, has human

pity in the heart of him full surely. But George is dead; careless of it now. [Coxe (i. 266) is "indebted to his

friend Nathaniel Wraxall" for these details,the since famous Sir Nathaniel, in whose Memoirs (vague, but

NOT mendacious, not unintelligent) they are now published more at large. See his Memoirs of the Courts of

Berlin, Dresden, (London. 1799), i. 3540; also Historical Memoirs (London, 1836), iv. 516518.] After

sixtyseven years of it, he has flung his big burdens, English crowns, Hanoverian crownlets, sulkinesses,

indignations, lean women and fat, and earthly contradictions and confusions, fairly off him; and lies there.

The man had his big burdens, big honors so called, absurd enough some of them, in this world; but he bore

them with a certain gravity and discretion: a man of more probity, insight and general human faculty than he

now gets credit for. His word was sacred to him. He had the courage of a Welf, or LionMan; quietly royal in

that respect at least. His sense of equity, of what was true and honorable in men and things, remained

uneffaced to a respectable degree; and surely it had resisted much. Wilder puddle of muddy infatuations from

without and from within, if we consider it well,of irreconcilable incoherences, bottomless universal

hypocrisies, solecisms bred with him and imposed on him,few sons of Adam had hitherto lived in.

He was, in one word, the first of our Hanover Series of English Kings; that hitherto unique sort, who are

really strange to look at in the History of the World. Of whom, in the English annals, there is hitherto no

Picture to be had; nothing but an empty blur of discordant nonsenses, and idle, generally angry, flourishings

of the pen, by way of Picture. The English Nation, having flung its old Puritan, SwordandBible Faith into

the cesspool,or rather having set its old BibleFaith, MINUS any Sword, well up in the organloft, with

plenty of revenue, there to preach and organ at discretion, on condition always of meddling with nobody's

practice farther,thought the same (such their mistake) a mighty pretty arrangement; but found it hitch

before long. They had to throw out their beautiful NellGwynn Defenders of the Faith; fling them also into

the cesspool; and were rather at a loss what next to do. "Where is our real King, then? Who IS to lead us

Heavenward, then; to rally the noble of us to him, in some small measure, and save the rest and their affairs

from running Devilward?"The English Nation being in some difficulty as to Kings, the English Nation

clutched up the readiest that came to hand; "Here is our King!" said they,again under mistake, still under

their old mistake. And, what was singular, they then avenged themselves by mocking, calumniating, by

angrily speaking, writing and laughing at the poor mistaken King so clutched!It is high time the English

were candidly asking themselves, with very great seriousness indeed, WHAT it was they had done, in the

sight of God and man, on that and the prior occasion? And above all, What it is they will now propose to do

George's poor lean Mistress, coming on at the usual rate of the road, was met, next morning, by the sad

tidings. She sprang from her carriage into the dusty highway; tore her hair (or headdress), halffrantic;

declared herself a ruined woman; and drove direct to Berlin, there to compose her old mind. She was not ill

seen at Court there; had her connections in the world. Fieldmarshal Schulenburg, who once had the honor of

fighting (not to his advantage) with Charles XII., and had since grown famous by his AntiTurk

performances in the Venetian service, is a Brother of this poor Maypole's; and there is a Nephew of hers, one

of Friedrich Wilhelm's FieldOfficers here, whom we shall meet by and by. She has been obliging to Queen

Sophie on occasions; they can, and do, now weep heartily together. I believe she returned to England, being

Duchess of Kendal, with heavy pensions there; and "assiduously attended divine ordinances, according to the

German Protestant form, ever afterwards." Poor foolish old soul, what is this world, with all its dukeries!

The other or fat Mistress, "Cataract of fluid Tallow," Countess of Darlington, whom I take to have been a

HalfSister rather, sat sorrowful at Isleworth; and kept for many years a Black Raven, which had come flying

in upon her; which she somehow understood to be the soul, or connected with the soul, of his Majesty of

happy memory. [Horace Walpole, Reminiscences. ] Good Heavens, what fat fluidtallowy stupor, and

entirely sordid darkness, dwells among mankind; and occasionally finds itself lifted to the very top, by way

Friedrich Wilhelm wept tenderly to Brigadier Dubourgay, the British Minister at Berlin (an old military

gentleman, of diplomatic merit, who spells rather ill), when they spoke of this sad matter. My poor old Uncle;

he was so good to me in boyhood, in those old days, when I blooded Cousin George's nose! Not unkind, ah,

only proud and sad; and was called sulky, being of few words and heavyladen. Ah me, your Excellenz; if

the little nightingales have a11 fallen silent, what may not I, his Son and sephew, do?And the rugged

Majesty blubbered with great tenderness; having fountains of tears withal, hidden in the rocky heart of him,

I add only that the Fabrice, who had poor George in his arms that night, is a man worth mentioning. The same

Fabrice (Fabricius, or perhaps GOLDSCHMIDT in German) who went as Envoy from the HolsteinGottorp

people to Charles XII. in his Turkish time; and stayed with his Swedish Majesty there, for a year or two,

indeed till the catastrophe came. His Official LETTERS from that scene are in print, this long while, though

considerably forgotten; [ Anecdotes du Sejour du Roi de Suide a Bender, ou Lettres de M. le Baron de

Fabrice pour servir d'elaircissement a l'Histoire de Charles XII. (Hambourg, 1760, 8vo).] a little Volume,

worth many big ones that have been published on that subject. The same Fabrice, following Hanover

afterwards, came across to London in due course; and there he did another memorable thing: made

acquaintance with the Monsieur Arouet, then a young French Exile there, Arouet Junior ("LE JEUNE or L.

J."), who, by an ingenious anagram, contrived in his indignation at such banishment,writes himself

VOLTAIRE ever since; who has been publishing a HENRIADE, and doing other things. Now it was by

questioning this Fabrice, and industriously picking the memory of him clean, that M. de Voltaire wrote

another book, much more of an "Epic" than Henri IV.,a HISTORY, namely, OF CHARLES XII.; [See

Voltaire, OEuvres Completes, ii. 149, xxx. 7, 127. Came out in 1731 (ib. xxx. AvantPropos, p. ii).] which

seems to me the bestwritten of all his Books, and wants nothing but TRUTH (indeed a dreadful want) to

make it a possession forever. VOLTAIRE, if you want fine writing; ADLERFELD and FABRICE, if you would

Before this event, his Majesty was in gloomy humor; and special vexations had superadded themselves. Early

in the Spring, a difficult huff of quarrel, the consummation of a good many grudges long subsisting, had

fallen out with his neighbor of Saxony, the Majesty of Poland, August, whom we have formerly heard of, a

conspicuous Majesty in those days; called even "August the Great" by some persons in his own time; but now

chiefly remembered by his splendor of upholstery, his enormous expenditure in drinking and otherwise, also

by his three hundred and fiftyfour Bastards (probably the maximum of any King's performance in that line),

and called August DER STARKE, "August the Physically Strong." This exemplary Sovereign could not well

be a man according to Friedrich Wilhelm's heart: accordingly they had their huffs and little collisions now

and then: that of the Protestant Directorate and Heidelberg Protestants, for instance; indeed it was generally

about Protestantism; and more lately there had been high words and correspondings about the "Protestants of

Thorn" (a bad tragedy, of Jesuit intrusion and Polish ferocity, enacted there in 1724); [Account of it in

Buchholz, i. 98102.]in which sad business Friedrich Wilhelm loyally interfered, though Britannic George

of blessed memory and others were but lukewarm; and nothing could be done in it. Nothing except angry

correspondence with King August; very provoking to the poor soul, who had no hand but a nominal one in

In fact, August, with his glittering eyes and excellent physical constitution, was a very goodhumored fellow;

supremely pleasant in society; and by no means wishful to cheat you, or do you a mischief in

business,unless his necessities compelled him; which often were great. But Friedrich Wilhelm always kept

a good eye on such points; and had himself suffered nothing from the gay eupeptic Son of Belial, either in

their old Stralsund copartnery or otherwise. So that, except for these Protestant affairs,and alas, one other

little cause,Friedrich Wilhelm had contentedly left the Physically Strong to his own course, doing the

civilities of the road to him when they met; and nothing ill had fallen out between them. This other little

causealas, it is the old story of recruiting; one's poor Hobby again giving offence! Special recruiting

brabbles there had been; severe laws passed in Saxony about these kidnapping operations: and always in the

Diets, when question rose of this matter, August had been particularly loud in his denouncings. Which was

unkind, though not unexpected. But now, in the Spring of 1727, here has a worse case than any arisen.

Captain Natzmer, of I know not what Prussian Regiment, "SachsenWeimar Cuirassiers" [ MilitairLexikon,

iii. 104.] or another, had dropt over into Saxony, to see what could be done in picking up a tall man or two.

Tall men, one or two, Captain Natzmer did pick up, nay a tall deserter or two (Saxon soldier, inveigled to

desert); but finding his operations get air, he hastily withdrew into Brandenburg territory again. Saxon

Officials followed him into Brandenburg territory; snapt him back into Saxon; tried him by Saxon law

there;Saxon law, express in such case, condemns him to be hanged; and that is his doom accordingly.

"Captain Natzmer to swing on the gallows? Taken on Brandenburg territory too, and not the least notice

given me?" Friedrich Wilhelm blazes into flaming whirlwind; sends an Official Gentleman, one Katsch, to

his Excellenz Baron von Suhm (the CrownPrince's cultivated friend), with this appalling message: "If

Natzmer be hanged, for certain I will use reprisals; you yourself shall swing!" Whereupon Suhm, in panic,

fled over the marches to his Master; who bullied him for his pusillanimous terrors; and applied to Friedrich

Wilhelm, in fine frenzy of indignant astonishment, "What, in Heaven's name, such meditated outrage on the

law of nations, and flat insult to the Majesty of Kings, can have meant?" Friedrich Wilhelm, the first fury

being spent, sees that he is quite out of square; disavows the reprisals upon Suhm. "Message misdelivered by

my Official Gentleman, that stupid Katsch; never did intend to hang Suhm; oh, no;" with much other

correspondence; [In Mauvillon (ii. 189195) more of it than any one will read.]and is very angry at

himself, and at the Natzmer affair, which has brought him into this bad pass. Into open impropriety; into

danger of an utter rupture, had King August been of quarrelsome turn. But King August was not quarrelsome;

and then Seckendorf and the TobaccoParliament,on the Kaiser's score, who wants Pragmatic Sanction

and much else out of these two Kings, and can at no rate have them quarrel in the present juncture,were

eager to quench the fire. King August let Natzmer go; Suhm returned to his post; [Pollnitz, ii. 254.] and

things hustled themselves into some uneasy posture of silence again;uneasy to the sensitive fancy of

Friedrich Wilhelm above all. This is his worst collision with his Neighbor of Saxony; and springing from

These sorrows, the death of George I., with anxieties as to George II. and the course he might take; all this, it

was thought, preyed upon his Majesty's spirits;Wilhelmina says it was "the frequent carousals with

Seckendorf," and an affair chiefly of the royal digestiveapparatus. Like enough;or both might combine. It

is certain his Majesty fell into one of his hypochondrias at this time; talked of "abdicating" and other gloomy

things, and was very black indeed. So that Seckendorf and Grumkow began to be alarmed. It is several

months ago he had Franke the Halle Methodist giving ghostly counsel; his Majesty ceased to have the

Newspapers read at dinner; and listened to lugubrious Franke's exhortations instead. Did English readers ever

hear of Franke? Let them make a momentary acquaintance with this famous German Saint. August Hermann

Franke, a Lubeck man, born 1663; Professor of Theology, of Hebrew, Lecturer on the Bible; a wandering,

persecuted, pious man. Founder of the "Pietists," a kind of German Methodists, who are still a famed Sect in

that country; and of the WAISENHAUS, at Halle, grand Orphanhouse, built by charitable beggings of

Franke, which also still subsists. A reverend gentleman, very mournful of visage, now sixtyfour; and for the

present, at Berlin, discoursing of things eternal, in what Wilhelmina thinks a very lugubrious manner. Well;

but surely in a very serious manner! The shadows of death were already round this poor Franke; and in a few

weeks more, he had himself departed. [Died 8th June, 1727.] But hear Wilhelmina, what account she gives of

her own and the young GrenadierMajor's behavior on these mournful occasions. Seckendorf's dinners she

considers to be the cause; all spiritual, sorrows only an adjunct not worth mentioning. It is certain enough.

"His Majesty began to become valetudinary; and the hypochondria which tormented him rendered his humor

very melancholy. Monsieur Franke, the famous Pietist, founder of the Orphanhouse at Halle University,

contributed not a little to exaggerate that latter evil. This reverend gentleman entertained the King by raising

scruples of conscience about the most innocent matters. He condemned all pleasures; damnable all of them,

he said, even hunting and music. You were to speak of nothing but the Word of God only; all other

conversation was forbidden. It was always he that carried on the improving talk at table; where he did the

office of reader, as if it had been a refectory of monks. The King treated us to a sermon every afternoon; his

valetdechambre gave out a psalm, which we all sang; you had to listen to this sermon with as much devout

attention as if it had been an apostle's. My Brother and I had all the mind in the world to laugh; we tried hard

to keep from laughing; but often we burst out. Thereupon reprimand, with all the anathemas of the Church

hurled out on us; which we had to take with a contrite penitent air, a thing not easy to bring your face to at the

moment. In a word, this dog of a Franke [he died within few months, poor soul, CE CHIEN DE FRANKE]

"Such excess of bigotry awakened still more gothic thoughts in the King. He resolved to abdicate the crown

in favor of my Brother. He used to talk, He would reserve for himself 10,000 crowns a year; and retire with

the Queen and his Daughters to Wusterhausen. There, added he, I will pray to God; and manage the farming

economy, while my wife and girls take care of the household matters. You are clever, he said to me; I will

give you the inspection of the linen, which you shall mend and keep in order, taking good charge of laundry

matters. Frederika [now thirteen, married to ANSPACH two years hence], who is miserly, shall have charge

of all the stores of the house. Charlotte [now eleven, Duchess of BRUNSWICK by and by] shall go to market

and buy our provisions; and my Wife shall take charge of the little children, [says Friedrich Wilhelm], and of

the kitchen." [Little children are: 1. Sophie Dorothee, now eight, who married Margraf of Schwedt, and was

unhappy; 2. Ulrique, a grave little soul of seven, Queen of Sweden afterwards; 3. August Wilhelm, age now

five, became Father of a new Friedrich Wilhelm, who was King by and by, and produced the Kings that still

are; 4. Amelia, now four, born in the way we saw; and 5. HENRI, still in arms, just beginning to walk. There

will be a Sixth and no more (son of this Sixth, a Berlin ROUE was killed, in 1806, at the Battle of Jena, or a

Poor Friedrich Wilhelm; what an innocent IDYLLIUM;which cannot be executed by a King. "He had even

begun to work at an Instruction, or Farewell Advice, for my Brother;" and to point towards various steps,

which alarmed Grumkow and Seckendorf to a high degree." [Wilhelmina, Memoires de Bareith, i. 108.]

"Abdication," with a CrownPrince ready to fall into the arms of England, and a sudden finis to our

BlackArt, will by no means suit Seckendorf and Grumkow! Yet here is Winter coming; solitary

Wusterhausen, with the misty winds piping round it, will make matters worse: something must be contrived;

and what? The two, after study, persuade Fieldmarshal Flemming over at Warsaw (August the Strong's chief

man, the Flemming of Voltaire's CHARLES XII.; Prussian by birth, though this long while in Saxon service),

That if he the Fieldmarshal were to pay, accidentally, as it were, a little visit to his native Brandenburg just

now, it might have fine effects on those foolish BerlinWarsaw clouds that had risen. The Fieldmarshal, well

affected in such a case, manages the little visit, readily persuading the Polish Majesty; and dissipates the

clouds straightway,being well received by Friedrich Wilhelm, and seconded by the TobaccoParliament

with all its might. Out at Wusterhausen everything is comfortably settled. Nay Madam Flemming, young,

brilliant, and direct from the seat of fashion; it was she that first "built up" Wilhelmina's hair on just

principles, and put some life into her appearance. [Wilhelmina, i. 117.] And now the Fieldmarshal

(TobaccoParliament suggesting it) hints farther, "If his Prussian Majesty, in the mere greatness of his mind,

were to appear suddenly in Dresden when his royal Friend was next there,what a sunburst after clouds

were that; how welcome to the Polish Majesty!""Hm, Na, would it, then?"The Polish Majesty puts that

out of question; specially sends invitation for the Carnivaltime just coming; and Friedrich Wilhelm will,

accordingly, see Dresden and him on that occasion. [Ib. i. 108, 109; Pollnitz, ii. 254; Fassman, p. 374.] In

those days, Carnival means "Fashionable Season," rural nobility rallying to headquarters for a while, and

This, in substance, was the real origin of Friedrich Wilhelm's sudden visit to Dresden, which astonished the

world, in January next. It makes a great figure in the old Books. It did kindle Dresden Carnival and the

Physically Strong into supreme illumination, for the time being; and proved the seal of good agreement, and

even of a kind of friendliness between this heteroclite pair of Sovereigns,if anybody now cared for those

points. It is with our CrownPrince's share in it that we are alone concerned; and that may require a Chapter

One of the most important adventures, for our young CrownPrince, was this visit of his, along with Papa, to

Dresden in the Carnival of 1728. Visit contrived by Seckendorf and Company, as we have seen, to divert the

King's melancholy, and without view to the CrownPrince at all. The CrownPrince, now sixteen, and not in

the best favor with his Father, had not been intended to accompany; was to stay at Potsdam and diligently

drill: nevertheless an estafette came for him from the gallant Polish Majesty; Wilhelmina had spoken a

word to good Suhm, who wrote to his King, and the hospitable message came. Friedrich made no

loitering,to Dresden is but a hundred miles, one good day;he arrived there on the morrow after his

Father; King "on the 14th January, 1728," dates Fassmann; "CrownPrince on the 15th," which I find was

Thursday. The CrownPrince lodged with Fieldmarshal Flemming; Friedrich Wilhelm, having come in no

state, refused King August's pressings, and took up his quarters with "the General Fieldmarshal Wackerbarth,

Commandant in Dresden,"pleasant old military gentleman, who had besieged Stralsund along with him in

times gone. Except Grumkow, Derschau and one or two of less importance, with the due minimum of

Valetry, he had brought no retinue; the CrownPrince had Finkenstein and Kalkstein with him, Tutor and

SubTutor, officially there. And he lodges with old Count Flemming and his clever fashionable

Madam,the diligent but unsuccessful Flemming, a courtier of the highest civility, though iracund, and

Amongst the round of splendors now set on foot, Friedrich Wilhelm had, by accident of Nature, the spectacle

of a house on fire, rather a symbolic one in those parts,afforded him, almost to start with. Deep in the

first Saturday night, or rather about two in the morning of Sunday, Wackerbarth's grand house, kindling by

negligence somewhere in the garrets, blazed up, irrepressible; and, with its endless upholsteries, with a fine

library even, went all into flame: so that his Majesty, scarcely saving his CHATOULLE (box of preciosities),

had to hurry out in undress;over to Flemming's where his Son was; where they both continued thenceforth.

This was the one touch of rough, amid so much of dulcet that occurred: no evil, this touch, almost rather

The visit lasted till February 12th, four weeks and a day. Never was such thricemagnificent Carnival

amusements: illuminations, cannonsalvoings and fireworks; operas, comedies, redoubts, sowbaitings, fox

and badgerbaiting, reviewing, running at the ring:dinners of neverimagined quality, this, as a daily item,

To the young SoldierApprentice all this was, of course, in pleasant contrast with the Potsdam Guardhouse;

and Friedrich Wilhelm himself is understood to have liked at least the dinners, and the airy courteous ways,

light tablewit and extreme good humor of the host. A successful visit; burns off like successful fireworks,

piece after piece: and what more is to be said? Of all this nothing;nor, if we could help it, of another little

circumstance, not mentioned by the Newspapers or Fassmann, which constitutes the meaning of this Visit for

us now. It is a matter difficult to handle in speech. An English Editor, chary of such topics, will let two

witnesses speak, credible both, though not eyewitnesses; and leave it to the reader so. Babbling Pollnitz is

the first witness; he deposes, after alluding to the sumptuous dinings and drinkings there:

"One day the two Kings, after dinner, went in domino to the redoubt [RIDOTTO, what we now call ROUT or

evening party]. August had a mind to take an opportunity, and try whether the reports of Friedrich Wilhelm's

indifference to the fair sex were correct or not. To this end, he had had a young damsel (JUNGE PERSON) of

extraordinary beauty introduced into some sideroom; where they now entered. She was lying on a bed, in a

loose gauzy undress; and though masked, showed so many charms to the eye that the imagination could not

but judge very favorably of the rest. The King of Poland approached, in that gallant way of his, which had

gained him such favor with women. He begged her to unmask; she at first affected reluctance, and would not.

He then told her who he was; and said, He hoped she would not refuse, when two Kings begged her to show

them this complaisance. She thereupon took off her mask, and showed them one of the loveliest faces in the

world. August seemed quite enchanted; and said, as if it had been the first time he ever saw her, He could not

"Friedrich Wilhelm could not help looking at her. He said to the King of Poland, 'She is very beautiful, it

must be owned;'but at the same instant turned his eyes away from her; and left the room, and the ridotto

altogether without delay; went home, and shut himself in his room. He then sent for Herr von Grumkow, and

bitterly complained that the King of Poland wanted to tempt him. Herr von Grumkow, who was neither so

chaste nor so conscientious as the King, was for making a jest of the matter; but the King took a very serious

tone; and commanded him to tell the King of Poland in his name, 'That he begged him very much not to

expose him again to accidents of that nature, unless he wished to have him quit Dresden at once.' Herr von

Grumkow did his message. The King of Poland laughed heartily at it; went straight to Friedrich Wilhelm, and

excused himself. The King of Prussia, however, kept his grim look; so that August ceased joking, and turned

This is Pollnitz's testimony, gathered from the whispers of the Tabagie, or rumors in the Courtcircles, and

may be taken as indisputable in the main. Wilhelmina, deriving from similar sources, and equally uncertain in

details, paints more artistically; nor has she forgotten the sequel for her Brother, which at present is the

"One evening, when the rites of Bacchus had been well attended to, the King of Poland led the King [my

Father], strolling about, by degrees, into a room very richly ornamented, all the furniture and arrangements of

which were in a quite exquisite taste. The King, charmed with what he saw, paused to contemplate the

beauties of it a little; when, all on a sudden, a curtain rose, and displayed to him one of the most extraordinary

sights. It was a girl in the condition of our First Parents, carelessly lying on a bed. This creature was more

beautiful than they paint Venus and the Graces; she presented to view a form of ivory whiter than snow, and

more gracefully shaped than the Venus de' Medici at Florence. The cabinet which contained this treasure was

lighted by so many waxcandles that their brilliancy dazzled you, and gave a new splendor to the beauties of

"The Authors of this fine comedy did not doubt but the object would make an impression on the King's heart;

but it was quite otherwise. No sooner had he cast his eyes on the beauty than he whirled round with

indignation; and seeing my Brother behind him, he pushed him roughly out of the room, and immediately

quitted it himself; very angry at the scene they had been giving him, He spoke of it, that same evening, to

Grumkow, in very strong terms; and declared with emphasis that if the like frolics were tried on him again, he

"With my Brother it was otherwise. In spite of the King's care, he had got a full view of that Cabinet Venus;

and the sight of her did not inspire in him so much horror as in his father." [Wilhelmina, i. 112.]Very

likely not!And in fact, "he obtained her from the King of Poland, in a rather singular way (d'une facon

Wilhelmina says, her poor Brother had been already charmed over head and ears by a gay young baggage of

a Countess Orzelska; a very high and airy Countess there; whose history is not to be touched, except upon

compulsion, and as if with a pair of tongs, thrice famous as she once was in this Saxon Court of

Beelzebub. She was King August's natural daughter; a French milliner in Warsaw had produced her for him

there. In due time, a male of the three hundred and fiftyfour, one Rutowski, soldier by profession, whom we

shall again hear of, took her for mistress; regardless of natural halfsisterhood, which perhaps he did not

know of. The admiring Rutowski, being of a participative turn, introduced her, after a while, to his honored

parent and hers; by whom next Heavens, human language is unequal to the history of such things! And it is

in this capacity she now shines supreme in the Saxon Court; ogling poor young Fritz, and driving him

distracted;which phenomenon the Beelzebub ParentLover noticed with pain and jealousy, it would

"His Polish Majesty distinguished her extremely," says Pollnitz, [ Memoires, ii.261.] "and was continually

visiting her; so that the universal inference was"to the above unspeakable effect. "She was of fine figure;

had something grand in her air and carriage, and the prettiest humor in the world. She often appeared in men's

clothes, which became her very well. People said she was extremely openhanded;" as indeed the Beelzebub

ParentLover was of the like quality (when he had cash about him), and to her, at this time, he was profuse

beyond limit. Truly a tempting aspect of the Devil, this expensive Orzelska: something beautiful in her, if

there are no Laws in this Universe; not so beautiful, if there are! Enough to turn the head of a poor

CrownPrince, if she like, for some time. He is just sixteen gone; one of the prettiest lads and sprightliest; his

homage, clearly enough, is not disagreeable to the baggage. Wherefore jealous August, the

BeelzebubParent, takes his measures; signifies to Fritz, in direct terms, or by discreet diplomatic hints and

innuendoes, That he can have the Cabinet Venus (Formera her name, of Operasinger kind);hoping

thereby that the Orzelska will be left alone in time coming. A "facon assez singuliere" for a Sovereign

Thus has our poor Fritz fallen into the wake of Beelzebub; and is not in a good way. Under such and no better

guidance, in this illicit premature manner, he gets his introduction to the paradise of the world. The Formera,

beautiful as painted Chaos; yes, her; and why not, after a while, the Orzelska too, all the same? A

wonderful ArmidaGarden, sure enough. And cannot one adore the painted divine beauties there (lovely as

certain apples of the Dead Sea), for some time?The miseries all this brought into his existence,into his

relations with a Father very rigorous in principle, and with a Universe still more so,for years to come, were

neither few nor small. And that is the main outcome of the Dresden visitings for him and us.

Great pledges pass between the two Kings; Prussian CrownPrince decorated with the Order of the Saxon

Eagle, or what supreme distinction they had: Rutowski taken over to Berlin to learn war and drill, where he

did not remain long: in fact a certain liking seems to have risen between the two heteroclite individualities,

which is perhaps worth remembering as a point in natural history, if not otherwise. One other small result of

the visit is of pictorial nature. In the famed Dresden Gallery there is still a Picture, high up, visible if you

have glasses, where the Saxon CourtPainter, on Friedrich Wilhelm's bidding it is said, soon after these

auspicious occurrences, represents the two Majesties as large as life, in their respective costumes and features

(short Potsdam GrenadierColonel and tall Saxon Darius or Sardanapalus), in the act of shaking hands;

symbolically burying past grudges, and swearing eternal friendship, so to speak. [Forster, i. 226.] To this

Editor the Picture did not seem good for much; but Friedrich Wilhelm's Portrait in it, none of the best, may be

The visit ended on the 12th of February, as the Newspapers testify. Long before daybreak, at three in the

morning, Friedrich Wilhelm, "who had smoked after dinner till nine the night before," and taken leave of

everybody, was on the road; but was astonished to find King August and the Electoral Prince or

HeirApparent (who had privately sat up for the purpose) insist on conducting him to his carriage. [Boyer,

xxxv. l98.] "Great tokens of affection," known to the Newspapers, there were; and one token not yet known, a

promise on King August's part that he would return this evermemorable compliment in person at Potsdam

As for the poor CrownPrince, whom already his Father did not like, he now fell into circumstances more

abstruse than ever in that and other respects. Bad health, a dangerous lingering fit of that, soon after his return

home, was one of the first consequences. Frequent fits of bad health, for some years coming; with ominous

rumors, consultations of physicians, and reports to the paternal Majesty, which produced small comfort in

that quarter. The sad truth, dimly indicated, is sufficiently visible: his life for the next four or five years was

"extremely dissolute." Poor young man, he has got into a disastrous course; consorts chiefly with debauched

young fellows, as Lieutenants Katte, Keith, and others of their stamp, who lead him on ways not pleasant to

his Father, nor conformable to the Laws of this Universe. Health, either of body or of mind, is not to be

looked for in his present way of life. The bright young soul, with its fine strengths and gifts; wallowing like a

young rhinoceros in the mudbath:some say, it is wholesome for a human soul; not we!

All this is too certain; rising to its height in the years we are now got to, and not ending for four or five years

to come: and the reader can conceive all this, and whether its effects were good or not. Friedrich Wilhelm's

oldstanding disfavor is converted into open aversion and protest, many times into fits of sorrow, rage and

despair, on his luckless Son's behalf;and it appears doubtful whether this bright young human soul,

comparable for the present to a rhinoceros wallowing in the mudbath, with nothing but its snout visible, and

The rhinoceros soul got out; but not uninjured; alas, no; bitterly polluted, tragically dimmed of its finest

radiances for the remainder of life. The distinguished Sauerteig, in his SPRINGWURZELN, has these words:

"To burn away, in mad waste, the divine aromas and plainly celestial elements from our existence; to change

our holyofholies into a place of riot; to make the soul itself hard, impious, barren! Surely a day is coming,

when it will be known again what virtue is in purity and continence of life; how divine is the blush of young

human cheeks; how high, beneficent, sternly inexorable if forgotten, is the duty laid, not on women only, but

on every creature, in regard to these particulars? Well; if such a day never come again, then I perceive much

else will never come. Magnanimity and depth of insight will never come; heroic purity of heart and of eye;

noble pious valor, to amend us and the age of bronze and lacquer, how can they ever come? The scandalous

bronzelacquer age, of hungry animalisms, spiritual impotencies and mendacities, will have to run its course,

In the case of Friedrich, it is certain such a day never fully came. The "age of bronze and lacquer," so as it

then stood, relieved truly by a backbone of real Spartan IRON (of right battle STEEL when needed): this

was all the world he ever got to dream of. His ideal, compared to that of some, was but low; his existence a

hard and barren, though a genuine one, and only worth much memory in the absence of better. Enough of all

August the Strong paid his Returnvisit in May following. Of which sublime transaction, stupendous as it

then was to the Journalistic mind, we should now make no mention, except for its connection with those

points,and more especially for a foolish rumor, which now rose about Prince Fred and the

DoubleMarriage, on occasion of it. The magnificence of this visit and reception being so extreme,King

August, for one item, sailing to it, with sound of trumpet and hautbois, in silken flotillas gayer than

Cleopatra's, down the Elbe,there was a rush towards Berlin of what we will not call the scum, but must call

the foam of mankind, rush of the idle moneyed populations from all countries; and such a crowd there, for the

three weeks, as was seldom seen. Foam everywhere is stirred up, and encouraged to get under way.

Prince Frederick of Hanover and England, "Duke of Edinburgh" as they now call him, "Duke of Gloucester"

no longer, it would seem, nor "Prince of Wales" as yet; he, foamy as another, had thoughts of coming; and

rumor of him rose very high in Berlin,how high we have still singular proof. Here is a myth, generated in

the busy CourtImagination of Berlin at this time; written down by Pollnitz as plain fact afterwards; and from

him idly copied into COXE [Coxe's Walpole (London, 1798), i. 520.] and other English Books. We abridge

from watery Pollnitz, taking care of any sense he has. This is what ran in certain highfrizzled heads then and

there: and was dealt out in whispers to a privileged few, watery Pollnitz's informers among them, till they got

a myth made of it. Frederick Duke of Edinburgh, second hope of England at this time, he is the hero.

It appears, this loose young gentleman, standing in no favor with his sovereign Father, had never yet been

across to England, the royal Parent preferring rather not to have him in sight; and was living idle at Hanover;

very eager to be wedded to Wilhelmina, as one grand and at present grandest resource of his existence. It is

now May, 1728; and Frederick Duke of Edinburgh is twentyone. He writes to his Aunt and intended

Motherinlaw, Queen Sophie (date not ascertainable to a day, Note burnt as soon as read): "That he can

endure this tantalizing suspense no longer; such endless higgling about a supreme blessedness, virtually

agreed upon, may be sport to others, but is death to him. That he will come privately at once, and wed his

Wilhelmina; and so make an end; the bigwigs to adjust it afterwards as they can and may." Whereupon

Sophie Dorothee, gladdest of women, sends for Dubourgay the British Ambassador (Brigadier Dubourgay,

the respectable old gentleman who spells ill, who is strong for the DoubleMarriage always), to tell him what

fine news there is, and what answer she has sent. Respectable Dubourgay stands silent, with lengthening face:

"Your Majesty, how unfortunate that I of all men now hear it! I must instantly despatch a courier with the

news to London!" And the respectable man, stoically deaf to her Majesty's entreaties, to all considerations but

that of his evident duty, "sends the courier" (thinks Pollnitz);nips thereby that fine Hanover speculation in

the bud, sees Prince Fred at once summoned over to England, and produces several effects. Nearly the whole

of which, on examining the Documents, [Dubourgay's Despatches (1728: 29 May, 1 June, 5 October), in the

Pollnitz himself adds two circumstances, in regard to it, which are pretty impossible: as, first, that Friedrich

Wilhelm had joyfully consented to this clandestine marriage, and was eagerly waiting for it; second, that

George II. too had privately favored or even instigated the adventure, being at heart willing to escape the

trouble of Messages to Parliament, to put his Son in the wrong, and I know not what. [Pollnitz, ii. 272274.]

The particles of fact in the affair are likewise two: First, that Queen Sophie, and from her the Courtier Public

generally, expected the Hanover Royal Highness, who probably had real thoughts of seeing Berlin and his

Intended, on this occasion; Dubourgay reports daily rumors of the Royal Highness being actually "seen" there

in an evanescent manner; and Wilhelmina says, her Mother was so certain of him, "she took every ass or

mule for the Royal Highness,"heartily indifferent to Wilhelmina. This is the first particle of fact. The

Second is, that a subaltern Official about the Royal Highness, one Lamothe of Hanover, who had appeared in

Berlin about that time, was thrown into prison not long after, for what misbehavior none knew,for

encouraging dissolute Royal Highness in wild schemes, it was guessed. And so the Myth grew, and was

found ready for Pollnitz and his followers. Royal Highness did come over to England; not then as the Myth

bears, but nine months afterwards in December next; and found other means of irritating his imperative,

flighty, irascible and rather foolish little Father, in an everincreasing degree. "Very coldly received at

Court," it is said: ill seen by Walpole and the Powers; being too likely to become a focus of Opposition there.

The Visit, meanwhile, though there came no Duke of Edinburgh to see it, was sublime in the extreme; Polish

Majesty being magnificence itself; and the frugal Friedrich Wilhelm lighting up his dim Court into

insurpassable brilliancy, regardless of expense; so that even the Smoking Parliament (where August attended

now and then) became luminous. The CrownPrince, who in late months had languished in a state of

miserable health, in a manner ominous to his physicians, confined mostly to his room or his bed, was now

happily on foot again;and Wilhelmina notes one circumstance which much contributed to his recovery:

That the fair Orzelska had attended her natural (or unnatural) Parent, on this occasion; and seemed to be, as

Wilhelmina thinks, uncommonly kind to the CrownPrince. The HeirApparent of Saxony, a taciturn,

inoffensive, rather opaquelooking gentleman, now turned of thirty, and gone over to Papistry long since,

with views to be King of Poland by and by, which proved effectual as we shall find, was also here: Count

Bruhl, too, still in a very subaltern capacity, and others whom we and the CrownPrince shall have to know.

The HeirApparent's Wife (actual Kaiser's Niece, late Kaiser Joseph's Daughter, a severe Austrian lady,

But here, at first hand, is a slight view of that unique Polish Majesty, the Saxon Man of Sin; which the reader

may be pleased to accept out of idle curiosity, if for no better reason. We abridge from Wilhelmina; [i. 124.]

whom Fassmann, kindled to triple accuracy by this grand business, is at hand to correct where needful: [ Des

glorwurdigsten Fursten und Herrn, Herrn Friedrich Augusti des Grossen Leben und HeldenThaten (Of that

most glorious Prince and Lord, Lord Friedrich August the Great, King of Poland, the Life and Heroic Deeds),

by D. F. (David Fassmann), Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1734; 12mo, pp. 1040. A work written with upturned eyes

of prostrate admiration for "DERO MAJESTAT" ('Theiro' Majesty) AUGUST THE GREAT;" exact too, but

dealing merely with the CLOTHES of the matter, and such a matter: work unreadable, except on compulsion,

to the stupidest mortal. The same Fassmann, who was at the Fair of St. Germain, who lodged sometimes with

the Potsdam Giant, and whose ways are all fallen dark to us.] "The King of Poland arrived upon us at Berlin

on the 29th of May," says Wilhelmina; had been at Potsdam, under Friedrich Wilhelm's care, for three days

past: Saturday afternoon, 29th May, 1728; that is with exactitude the evermemorable date.

He paid his respects in her Majesty's apartment, for an instant, that evening; but made his formal visit next

day. Very grand indeed. Carried by two shining particolored creatures, heyducs socalled, through double

rows of mere peerages and sublimities, in a sublime sedan (being lame of a foot, foot lately amputated of two

toes, sore still open): "in a sedan covered with red velvet gallooned with gold," says the devout Fassmann,

tremblingly exact, "up the grand staircase along the grand Gallery;" in which supreme region (Apartments of

the late King Friedrich of gorgeous memory) her Majesty now is for the occasion. "The Queen received him

at the door of her third Antechamber," says Wilhelmina; third or outmost Antechamber, end of that grand

Gallery and its peerages and shining creatures: "he gave the Queen his hand, and led her in." We Princesses

were there, at least the grown ones of us were. All standing, except the Queen only. "He refused to sit, and

again refused;" stoically talked graciosities, disregarding the pain of his foot; and did not, till refusal

threatened to become uncivil, comply with her Majesty's entreaties. "How unpolite!" smiled he to us young

ones. "He had a majestic port and physiognomy; an affable polite air accompanied all his movements, all his

actions." Kind of stereotyped smile on his face; nothing of the inner gloom visible on our Charles II. and

similar men of sin. He looked often at Wilhelmina, and was complimentary to a degree,for reasons

undivinable to Wilhelmina. For the rest, "much broken for his age;" the terrible debaucheries (LES

DEBAUCHES TERRIBLES) having had their effect on him. He has fallen Widower last year. His poor Wife

was a BrandenburgBaireuth Princess; a devout kind of woman; austerely witnessing the irremediable in her

lot. He has got far on with his three hundred and fiftyfour; is now going fiftyfive;lame of a foot, as we

see, which the great Petit of Paris cannot cure, neither he nor any Surgeon, but can only alleviate by cutting

off two toes. Pink of politeness, no doubt of it; but otherwise the strangest dilapidated hulk of a twolegged

animal without feathers; probably, in fact, the chief Natural Solecism under the Sun at that

epoch;extremely complimentary to us Princesses, to me especially. "He quitted her Majesty's Apartment

after an hour's conversation: she rose to reconduct him, but he would by no manner of means permit

that,"and so vanished, carried off doubtless by the shining creatures again. The "Electoral Prince"

HeirApparent, next made his visit; but he was a dry subject in comparison, of whom no Princess can say

Young Maurice, "Count of Saxony," famed afterwards as MARECHAL DE SAXE, he also is here with his

HalfSister Orzelska and the others, in the train of the paternal Man of Sin; and makes acquaintance with

Friedrich. He is son of the female Konigsmark called Aurora ("who alone of mortals could make Charles

Twelfth fly his ground"); nephew, therefore, of the male Konigsmark who was cut down long ago at

Hanover, and buried in the fireplace. He resembles his Father in strength, vivacity, above all things in

debauchery, and disregard of finance. They married him at the due years to some poor rich woman; but with

her he has already ended; with her and with many others. Courland, Adrienne Lecouvreur, Anne Iwanowna

with the big cheek:the reader has perhaps searched out these things for himself from the dull

HistoryBooks;or perhaps it was better for him if he never sought them? Dukedom of Courland, connected

with Polish sovereignty, and now about to fall vacant, was one of Count Maurice's grand sallies in the world.

Adrienne Lecouvreur, foolish French Actress, lent him all the 30,000 pounds she had gathered by holding the

mirror up to Nature and otherwise, to prosecute this Courland business; which proved impossible for him. He

was adventurous enough, audacious enough; fought well; but the problem was, To fall in love with the

Dowager Anne Iwanowna, Cousin of Czar Peter II.; big brazen Russian woman (such a cheek the Pictures

give her, in size and somewhat in expression like a Westphalia ham!), who was Widow of the last active

Duke:and this, with all his adventurous audacity, Count Maurice could not do. The big Widow discovered

that he did not like Westphalia hams in that particular form; that he only pretended to like them; upon which,

in just indignation, she disowned and dismissed him; and falling herself to be Czarina not long afterwards,

and taking Bieren the Courlander for her beloved, she made Bieren Duke, and Courland became impossible

However, he too is a dashing young fellow; "circular black eyebrows, eyes glittering bright, partly with

animal vivacity, partly with spiritual;" stands six feet in his stockings, breaks horseshoes with his hands; full

of irregular ingenuity and audacity; has been soldiering about, ever since birth almost; and understands many

a thing, though the worst SPELLER ever known. With him too young Fritz is much charmed: the flower, he,

of the illegitimate three hundred and fiftyfour, and probably the chief achievement of the Saxon Man of Sin

in this world, where he took such trouble. Friedrich and he maintained some occasional correspondence

afterwards; but, to judge by Friedrich's part of it (mere polite congratulations on Fontenoy, and the like), it

must have been of the last vacuity; and to us it is now absolute zero, however clearly spelt and printed.

[Given altogether in OEuvres de Frederic le Grand, xvii. 300309. See farther, whoever has curiosity,

Preuss, Friedrichs Lebensgeschichte, iii. 167169; Espagnac, Vie du Comte de Saxe (a good little military

Book, done into German, Leipzig, 1774, 2 vols.); Cramer, Denkwurdigkeiten der Grafin Aurora von

The Physically Strong, in some three weeks, after kindling such an effulgence about Berlin as was never seen

before or since in Friedrich Wilhelm's reign, went his way again,"towards Poland for the Diet," or none of

us cares whither or for what. Here at Berlin he has been sublime enough. Some of the phenomena surpassed

anything Wilhelmina ever saw: such floods and rows of resplendent people crowding in to dinner; and she

could not but contrast the splendor of the Polish retinues and their plumages and draperies, with the

straitbuttoned Prussian dignitaries, all in mere soldier uniform, succinct "blue coat, white linen gaiters," and

no superfluity even in the epaulettes and red facings. At table, she says, they drank much, talked little, and

Dilapidated Polish Majesty, we observed, was extremely attentive to Wilhelmina; nor could she ascertain, for

long after, what the particular reason was. Long after, Wilhelmina ascertained that there had been the

wonderfulest scheme concocting, or as good as concocted, in these swearings of eternal friendship: no other

than that of marrying her, Wilhelmina, now a slim maiden coming nineteen, to this dilapidated Saxon Man of

Sin going (or limping) fiftyfive, and broken by DEBAUCHES TERRIBLES (rivers of champagne and

tokay, for one item), who had fallen a Widower last year! They had schemed it all out, Wilhelmina

understands: Friedrich Wilhelm to advance such and such moneys as dowry, and others furthermore as loan,

for the occasions of his Polish Majesty, which are manifold; Wilhelmina to have The Lausitz (LUSATIA) for

jointure, Lausitz to be Friedrich Wilhelm's pledge withal; and other intricate conditions; [Wilhelmina, i. 114.]

what would Wilhelmina have thought? One shudders to contemplate;hopes it might mostly be loose

It is certain, the dilapidated Polish Majesty having become a Widower, questions would rise, Will not he

marry again? And with whom? Certain also, he wants Friedrich Wilhelm's alliance; having great schemes on

the anvil, which are like to be delicate and perilous,schemes of "partitioning Poland," no less; that is to

say, cutting off the outskirts of Poland, flinging them to neighboring Sovereigns as propitiation, or price of

goodwill, and rendering the rest hereditary in his family. Pragmatic Sanction once acceded to, would

probably propitiate the Kaiser? For which, and other reasons, Polish Majesty still keeps that card in his hand.

Friedrich Wilhelm's alliance, with such an army and such a treasury, the uses of that are evident to the Polish

Majesty. By the blessing of Heaven, however, his marriage with Wilhelmina never came to anything: his

Electoral Prince, HeirApparent, objected to the jointures and alienations, softly, steadily; and the project had

And this man is probably one of the "Four Kings" she was to be asked by? A Swedish Officer, with some

skill in palmistry, many years ago, looked into her innocent little hand, and prophesied, "She was to be in

terms of courtship, engagement or as good as engagement, with Four Kings, and to wed none of them."

Wilhelmina counts them in her mature days. The FIRST will surprise everybody,Charles XII. of

Sweden;who never can have been much of a suitor, the rather as the young Lady was then only six gone;

but who, might, like enough, be talked of, by transient thirdparties, in those old Stralsund times. The

SECOND,cannot WE guess who the second is? The THIRD is this August the dilapidated Strong. As to

the SECOND, Wilhelmina sees already, in credulous moments, that it may be Hanover Fred, whom she will

never marry either;and does not see (nor did, at the time of writing her Memoires, "in 1744" say the

Books) that Fred never would come to Kingship, and that the Palmistry was incomplete in that point. The

FOURTH, again, is clearly young Czar Peter II.; of whom there was transient talk or project, some short time

after this of the dilapidated THIRD. But that too came to nothing; the poor young lad died while only fifteen;

nay he had already "fallen in love with his Aunt Elizabeth" (INFAME CATIN DU NORD in time coming),

and given up the Prussian prospect. [He was the Great Peter's Grandson (Son having gone a tragical road );

Czar, May, 1727January, 1730: Anne Iwanowna (Great Peter's Niece, elder Brother's Daughter), our

Courland friend with the big cheek, succeeded; till her death, October, 1740: then, after some slight shock of

revolution, the Elizabeth just mentioned, who was Daughter of the Great Peter by his little brown Czarina

Catherine whom we once met. See Mannstein, Memoirs of Russia (London, 1770), pp. 123, for some

account of Peter II.; and the rest of the Volume for a really intelligent History of this Anne, at least of her

All which would be nothing, or almost less, to Wilhelmina, walking fancyfree there,were it not for Papa

and Mamma, and the importunate insidious bystanders. Who do make a thing of it, first and last! Never in

any romance or stageplay was young Lady, without blame, without furtherance and without hindrance of

her own, so tormented about a settlement in life;passive she, all the while, mere clay in the hands of the

potter; and begging the Universe to have the extreme goodness only to leave her alone!

Thus too, among the train of King August in this Berlin visit, a certain Soldier Official of his, Duke of

Sachsen Weissenfels, Johann Adolf by name, a poor Cadet Cousin of the Saxon House, another elderly

Royal Highness of small possibility,was particularly attentive to Wilhelmina; now and on subsequent

occasions. Titular Duke of Weissenfels, Brother of the real Duke, and not even sure of the succession as yet;

but living on King August's pay; not without capacity of drink and the like, some allege:otherwise a mere

betitled, betasselled elderly military gentleman, of no special qualities, evil or good;who will often turn up

again in this History; but fails always to make any impression on us except that of a Serene Highness in the

abstract; unexceptionable Human Mask, of polite turn, behung with titles, and no doubt a stomach in the

inside of it: he now, and afterwards, by all opportunities, diligently continued his attentions in the Wilhelmina

quarter. For a good while it was never guessed what he could be driving at; till at last Queen Sophie,

becoming aware of it, took him to task; with cold severity, reminded him that some things are on one's level,

and some things not. To which humbly bowing, in unfeigned penitence, he retired from the audacity, back

foremost: Would never even in dreams have presumed, had not his Prussian Majesty authorized; would now,

since HER Prussian Majesty had that feeling, withdraw silently, and live forgotten, as an obscure Royal

Highness in the abstract (though fallen Widower lately) ought to do. And so at least there was an end of that

matter, one might hope,though in effect it still abortively started up now and then, on Papa's part, in his

Then there is the Margraf of Schwedt, Friedrich Wilhelm by name, chief Prince of the Blood, his Majesty's

Cousin, and the Old Dessauer's Nephew; none of the likeliest of men, intrinsically taken: he and his Dowager

Motherthe Dessauer's Sister, a highgoing, tacitly obstinate old Dowager (who dresses, if I recollect, in

flagrant colors)are very troublesome to Wilhelmina. The flagrant Dameshe might have been

"QueenMother" once forsooth, had Papa and my Brother but been made away with! watches her time,

And the DoubleMarriage, in such circumstances, are we to consider it as dead, then? In the soul of Queen

Sophie and those she can influence, it lives flamebright; but with all others it has fallen into a very dim

state. Friedrich Wilhelm is still privately willing, perhaps in a degree wishful; but the delays, the supercilious

neglects have much disgusted him; and he, in the mean while, entertains those new speculations. George II.,

never a lover of the Prussian Majesty's nor loved by him, has been very high and distant ever since his

Accession; offensive rather than otherwise. He also is understood to be vaguely willing for the thing; willing

enough, would it be so kind as accomplish itself without trouble to him. But the settlements, the applications

to Parliament:and all for this perverse Fred, who has become unlovely, and irritates our royal mind?

George pushes the matter into its pigeonholes again, when brought before him. Higher thoughts occupy the

soul of little George. Congress of Soissons, Convention of the Pardo, [Or, in effect, "Treaty of Madrid," 6th

March, 1728. This was the PREFACE to Soissons; Termagant at length consenting there, "at her Palace of

the Pardo" (Kaiser and all the world urging her for ten months past), to accept the Peace, and leave off

besieging Gibraltar to no purpose (Coxe, i. 303).] Treaty of Seville; a part to be acted on the worldtheatre,

with applauses, with envies, almost from the very demigods? Great Kaisers, overshadowing Nature with

their Pragmatic Sanctions, their preternatural Diplomacies, and making the Terrestrial Balance reel hither and

thither;Kaisers to be clenched perhaps by one's dexterity of grasp, and the Balance steadied again?

One royal soul there is who never will consent to have the DoubleMarriage die: Queen Sophie. She had

passed her own private actofparliament for it; she was a very obstinate wife, to a husband equally

obstinate. "JE BOULEVERSERAI L'EMPIRE," writes she once; "I will overturn the German Empire," if

they drive me to it, in this matter. [Letter copied by Dubourgay (in Despatch, marked PRIVATE, to Lord

Townshend, 3d14th May, 1729); no clear address given,probably to Dubourgay himself, CONVEYED

by "a Lady" (one of the Queen's Ladies), as he dimly intimates.] What secret manoeuvring and endeavoring

went on unweariedly on royal Sophie's part, we need not say; nor in what bad element, of darkness and

mendacity, of eavesdropping, rumoring, backstairs intriguing, the affair now moved. She corresponds on it

with Queen Caroline of England; she keeps her two children true to it, especially her Son, the more important

Queen Sophie did not overturn the Empire, but she did almost overturn her own and her family's existence,

by these courses; which were not wise in her case. It is certain she persuaded CrownPrince Friedrich, who

was always his Mother's boy, and who perhaps needed little bidding in this instance, "to write to Queen

Caroline of England;" Letters one or several: thricedangerous Letters; setting forth (in substance), His

deathless affection to that Beauty of the world, her Majesty's divine Daughter the Princess Amelia (a very

paragon of young women, to judge by her picture and one's own imagination); and likewise the firm

resolution he, Friedrich CrownPrince, has formed, and the vow he hereby makes, Either to wed that celestial

creature when permitted, or else never any of the Daughters of Eve in this world. Congresses of Soissons,

Smoking Parliaments, Preliminaries of the Pardo and Treaties of Seville may go how they can. If well, it shall

be well: if not well, here is my vow, solemn promise and unchangeable determination, which your gracious

Majesty is humbly entreated to lay up in the tablets of your royal heart, and to remember on my behalf,

It is clear such Letters were sent; at what date first beginning, we do not know;possibly before this date?

Nor would matters rise to the vowing pitch all at once. One Letter, supremely dangerous should it come to be

known, Wilhelmina has copied for us, [Wilhelmina, i. 183.]in Official style (for it is the Mother's

composition this one) and without date to it:the guessable date is about two years hence; and we will give

Such particulars are yet deeply unknown to Friedrich Wilhelm; but he surmises the general drift of things in

that quarter; and how a disobedient Son, crossing his Father's will in every point, abets his Mother's

disobedience, itself audacious enough, in regard to this one. It is a fearful aggravation of Friedrich Wilhelm's

illhumor with such a Son, which has long been upon the growing hand. His dislikes, we know, were

otherwise neither few nor small. Mere "disLIKES" properly so called, or dissimilarities to Friedrich Wilhelm,

a good many of them; dissimilarities also to a Higher Pattern, some! But these troubles of the

DoubleMarriage will now hurry them, the just and the unjust of them, towards the flaming pitch. The poor

youth has a bad time; and the poor Father too, whose humor we know! Surly gusts of indignation, not

unfrequently cuffs and strokes; or still worse, a settled aversion, and rage of the chronic kind; studied neglect

and contempt,so as not even to help him at table, but leave him fasting while the others eat; [Dubourgay,

SCAPIUS.] this the young man has to bear. The innumerable maltreatments, authentically chronicled in

Wilhelmina's and the other Books, though in a dateless, unintelligible manner, would make a tragic sum!

Here are two Billets, copied from the Prussian StateArchives, which will show us to what height matters

"WUSTERHAUSEN, 11th September, 1728. MY DEAR PAPA,I have not, for a long while, presumed to

come to my dear Papa; partly because he forbade me; but chiefly because I had reason to expect a still worse

reception than usual: and, for fear of angering my dear Papa by my present request, I have preferred making it

I therefore beg my dear Papa to be gracious to me; and can here say that, after long reflection, my conscience

has not accused me of any the least thing with which I could reproach myself. But if I have, against my will

and knowledge, done anything that has angered my dear Papa, I herewith most submissively beg forgiveness;

and hope my dear Papa will lay aside that cruel hatred which I cannot but notice in all his treatment of me. I

could not otherwise suit myself to it; as I always thought I had a gracious Papa, and now have to see the

contrary. I take confidence, then, and hope that my dear Papa will consider all this, and again be gracious to

me. And, in the mean while, I assure him that I will never, all my days, fail with my will; and,

To which Friedrich Wilhelm, by return of messenger, writes what follows. Very implacable, we may

perceive;not calling his Petitioner "Thou," as kind Paternity might have dictated; infinitely less by the

polite title "They (SIE)," which latter indeed, the distinguished title of "SIC," his Prussian Majesty, we can

remark, reserves for Foreigners of the supremest quality, and domestic Princes of the Blood; naming all other

Prussian subjects, and poor Fritz in this place, "He (ER)," in the style of a gentleman to his valet,which

style even a valet of these new days of ours would be unwilling to put up with. "ER, He," "His" and the other

derivatives sound loftily repulsive in the German ear; and lay open impassable gulfs between the Speaker and

the Spokento. "His obstinate"But we must, after all, say THY and THOU for intelligibility's sake:

"Thy obstinate perverse disposition [KOPF, head], which does not love thy Father,for when one does

everything [everything commanded] and really loves one's Father, one does what the Father requires, not

while he is there to see it, but when his back is turned too [His Majesty's style is very abstruse, illspelt,

intricate, and in this instance trips itself, and falls on its face here, a mere intricate nominative without a

verb!]For the rest, thou know'st very well that I can endure no effeminate fellow (EFEMINIRTEN KERL),

who has no human inclination in him; who puts himself to shame, cannot ride nor shoot; and withal is dirty in

his person; frizzles his hair like a fool, and does not cut it off. And all this I have, a thousand times,

reprimanded; but all in vain, and no improvement in nothing (KEINE BESSERUNG IN NITS IST). For the

rest, haughty, proud as a churl; speaks to nobody but some few, and is not popular and affable; and cuts

grimaces with his face, as if he were a fool; and does my will in nothing unless held to it by force; nothing

out of love;and has pleasure in nothing but following his own whims [own KOPF],no use to him in

These are not favorable outlooks for the DoubleMarriage. Nevertheless it comes and goes; and within three

weeks later, we are touched almost with a kind of pity to see it definitely emerging in a kind of Official state

once more. For the question is symbolical of important political questions. The question means withal, What

is to be done in these dreadful CongressofSoissons complexities, and mad reelings of the Terrestrial

Balance? Shall we hold by a dubious and rather losing Kaiser of this kind, in spite of his dubieties, his highly

inexplicit, procedures (for which he may have reasons) about the Promise of Julich and Berg? Or shall we not

clutch at England, after all,and perhaps bring him to terms? The Smoking Parliament had no Hansard; but,

we guess its Debates (mostly done in dumbshow) were cloudy, abstruse and abundant, at this time! The

Prussian Ministers, if they had any power, take different sides; old Ilgen, the oldest and ablest of them, is

Enough, in the beginning of October, Queen Sophie, "by express desire of his Majesty," who will have

explicit, Yes or No on that matter, writes to England, a Letter "PRIVATE AND OFFICIAL," of such

purport,Letter (now invisible) which Dubourgay is proud to transmit. [Despatch, 5th October, 1728, in

StatePaper Office.] Dubourgay is proud; and old Ilgen, her Majesty informed me on the morrow, "wept for

joy," so zealous was he on that side. Poor old gentleman,respectable rusty old Iron Safe with seven locks,

which nobody would now care to pick,he died few weeks after, at his post as was proper; and saw no

DoubleMarriage, after all. But Dubourgay shakes out his feathers; the DoubleMarriage being again

For England answers, cordially enough, if not, with all the hurry Friedrich Wilhelm wanted, "Yea, we are

willing for the thing;" and meets, with great equanimity and liberality, the new whims, difficulties and

misgivings, which arose on Friedrich Wilhelm's part, at a wearisome rate, as the negotiation went on; and

which are always frankly smoothed away again by the cooler party. Why did not the bargain close, then?

Alas, one finds, the answer YEA had unfortunately set his Prussian Majesty on viewing, through magnifiers,

what advantages there might have been in NO: this is a difficulty there is no clearing away! Probably, too, the

TobaccoParliament was industrious. Friedrich Wilhelm, at last, tries if Half will not do; anxious, as we all

too much are, "to say Yes AND No;" being in great straits, poor man:"Your Prince of Wales to wed

Wilhelmina at once; the other Match to stand over?" To which the English Government answers always

briefly, "No; both the Marriages or none!"Will the reader consent to a few compressed glances into the

extinct Dubourgay Correspondence; much compressed, and here and there a rushlight stuck in it, for his

behoof. Dubourgay, at Berlin, writes; my Lord Townshend, in St. James's reads, usually rather languid in

BERLIN, 9th NOVEMBER, 1728. "Prussian Majesty much pleased with English Answers" to the

YesorNo question: "will send a Minister to our Court about the time his Britannic Majesty may think of

coming over to his German Dominions. Would Finkenstein (Head Tutor), or would Knyphausen

(distinguished Official here), be the agreeable man?" "Either," answer the English; "either is good."

BERLIN, SAME DATE. "Queen sent for me just now; is highly content with the state of things. 'I have now,'

said her Majesty, 'the pleasure to tell you that I am free, God be blessed, of all the anguish I have labored

under for some time past, which was so great that I have several times been on the point of sending for you to

procure my Brother's protection for my Son, who, I thought, ran the greatest danger from the artifices of

NOV, 16th. "Queen told me: When the Court was at Wusterhausen," two months ago, hunting partridges and

wild swine, [Fassmann, p. 386.] "Seckendorf and Grumkow intrigued for a match between Wilhelmina and

the Prince of Weissenfels," elderly Royal Highness in the Abstract, whom we saw already, "thereby to

prevent a closer union between the Prussian and English Courts,and Grumkow having withal the private

view of ousting his antagonist the Prince of Anhalt [Old Dessauer, whom he had to meet in duel, but did not

fight], as Weissenfels, once Soninlaw, would certainly be made CommanderinChief," [Dubourgay, in

StatePaper Office (Prussian Despatches, vol. XXXV.)] to the extrusion of Anhalt from that office. Which

notable piece of policy her Majesty, by a little plain speech, took her opportunity of putting an end to, as we

saw. For the rest, "the Dutch Minister and also the French Secretaries here," greatly interested about the

peace of Europe, and the Congress of Soissons in these weeks, "have had a communication from this Court,

of the favorable disposition ours is in with respect to the Double Match,"beneficent for the Terrestrial

DECEMBER 25th. "Queen sent for me yesterday: Hopes she does no wrong in complaining of her Husband

to her Brother. King shows scruples about the Marriages; does not relish the expense of an establishment for

the Prince; hopes, at all events, the Marriage will not take place for a year yet;would like to know what

Dowry the English Princess is to bring?""No Dowry with our Princess," the English answer; "nor shall you

NEWYEAR'S DAY, 1729. "Queen sent for me: King is getting intractable about the Marriages; she

reasoned with him from two o'clock till eight," without the least permanent effect. "It is his covetousness," I

Dubourgay privately think!Knyphausen, who knows the King well, privately tells me, "He will come

round." "It is his avarice," thinks Knyphausen too; "nay it is also his jealousy of the Prince, who is very

popular with the Army. King does everything to mortify him, uses him like a child; CrownPrince bears it

with admirable patience." This is Knyphausen's weak notion; rather a weak creaky official gentleman, I

should gather, of a cryptosplenetic turn. "Queen told me some days later, His Majesty illused the

CrownPrince, because he did not drink hard enough; makes him hunt though ill;" is very hard upon the poor

CrownPrince,who, for the rest, "sends loving messages to England," as usual; [Dubourgay, 16th

January.] covertly meaning the Princess Amelia, as usual. "Some while ago, I must inform your Lordship, the

Prince was spoken to," by Papa as would appear, "to sound his inclination as to the Princess Caroline,"

Princess likewise of England, and whose age, some eighteen months less than his own, might be suitabler, the

Princess Amelia being half a year his elder; [Caroline born 10th June 1713; Amelia, 10th July, 1711.]

"but,"mark how true he stood,"his Royal Highness broke out into such raptures of love and passion for

the Princess Amelia, and showed so much impatience for the conclusion of that Match, as gave the King of

Prussia a great deal of surprise, and the Queen as much satisfaction." Truth is, if an old Brigadier Diplomatist

may be judge, "The great and good qualities of that young Prince, both of person and mind, deserve a distinct

and particular account, with which I shall trouble your Lordship another day;" [Despatch, 25th December,

1728.]which unluckily I never did; his Lordship Townshend having, it would seem, too little curiosity on

And so the matter wavers; and in spite of Dubourgay's and Queen Sophie's industry, and the CrownPrince's

willing mind, there can nothing definite be made of it at this time. Friedrich Wilhelm goes on visits, goes on

huntings; leaves the matter to itself to mature a little. Thus the negotiation hangs fire; and will do so,till

His Majesty is off for a Hunting Visit to the Old Dessauer, CrownPrince with him, who hates hunting.

Then, "19th January, 1729," says the reverential Fassmann, he is off for a grand hunt at Copenick; then for a

grander in Pommern (CrownPrince still with him): such a slaughter of wild swine as was seldom heard of,

and as never occurred again. No fewer than "1,882 head (STUCK) of wild swine, 300 of them of uncommon

magnitude," in the Stettin and other Pommern regions; "together with 1,720 STUCK in the Mark

Brandenburg, once 450 in a day: in all, 3,602 STUCK." Never was his Majesty in better spirits: a very

Nimrod or hunting Centaur; trampling the cobwebs of Diplomacy, and the cares of life, under his victorious

hoofs. All this slaughter of swine, 3,602 STUCK by tale, was done in the season 1729. "From which,"

observes the adoring Fassmann, [p. 387.] "is to be inferred the importance," at least in wild swine, "of those

royal Forests in Pommern and the Mark;" not to speak of his Majesty's supreme talent in hunting, as in other

What Friedrich Wilhelm did with such a mass of wild pork? Not an ounce of it was wasted, every ounce of it

brought money in. For there exist Official Schedules, lists as for a windowtax or propertytax, drawn up by

his Majesty's contrivance, in the chief Localities: every man, according to the house he keeps, is bound to

take, at a just value by weight, such and such quotities of suddenly slaughtered wild swine, one or so

many,and consume them at his leisure, as ham or otherwise,cash payable at a fixed term, and no

abatement made. [Forster, Beneckendorf (if they had an Index I).] For this is a King that cannot stand waste

This was one of Friedrich Wilhelm's grandest huntingbouts, this of January, 1729; at all events, he will

never have another such. By such fierce riding, and defiance of the winter elements and rules of regimen, his

Majesty returned to Potsdam with ill symptoms of health;symptoms never seen before; except transiently,

three years ago, after a similar bout; when the Doctors, shaking their heads, had mentioned the word

"Gout." "NARRENPOSSEN!" Friedrich Wilhelm had answered, "Gout?"But now, February, 1729, it

is gout in very deed. His poor Majesty has to admit: "I am gouty, then! Shall have gout for companion

henceforth. I am breaking up, then?" Which is a terrible message to a man. His Majesty's age is not fortyone

Adoring Fassmann gives a quite touching account of Friedrich Wilhelm's performances under gout, now and

generally, which were begun on this occasion. How he suffered extremely, yet never neglected his royal

duties in any press of pain. Could seldom get any sleep till towards four or five in the morning, and then had

to be content with an hour or two; after which his Official Secretaries came in with their Papers, and he

signed, despatched, resolved, with best judgment,the top of the morning always devoted to business. At

noon, up if possible; and dines, "in dressinggown, with Queen and children." After dinner, commonly to bed

again; and would paint in oil; sometimes do light joinerwork, chiselling and inlaying; by and by lie inactive

with select friends sitting round, some of whom had the right of entry, others not, under penalties.

Buddenbrock, Derschau, rough old Marlborough stagers, were generally there; these, "and two other

persons," Grumkow and Seckendorf, whom Fassmann does not name, lest he get into trouble,"sat, well

within earshot, round the bed. And always at the head was TheirO Majesty the Queen, sometimes with the

King's hand laid in hers, and his face turned up to her, as if he sought assuagement"O my dim old Friend,

"Sometimes the CrownPrince read aloud in some French Book," Title not given; CrownPrince's voice

known to me as very fine. Generally the Princess Louisa was in the room, too; Louisa, who became of

Anspach shortly; not Wilhelmina, who lies in fever and relapse and smallpox, and close at death's door,

almost since the beginning of these bad days. The CrownPrince reads, we say, with a voice of melodious

clearness, in French more or less instructive. "At other times there went on discourse, about public matters,

foreign news, things in general; discourse of a cheerful or of a serious nature," always with some substance of

sense in it,"and not the least smut permitted, as is too much the case in certain higher circles!" says adoring

Fassmann; who privately knows of "Courts" (perhaps the GLORWURDIGSTE, Gloryworthiest, August the

Great's Court, for one?) "with their hired TomFools," not yet an extinct species attempting to ground wit on

that bad basis. Prussian Majesty could not endure any "ZOTEN:" profanity and indecency, both avaunt. "He

had to hold out in this way, awake till ten o'clock, for the chance of night's sleep." Earlier in the afternoon, we

said, he perhaps does a little in oilpainting, having learnt something of that art in young times;there is a

poor artist in attendance, to mix the colors, and do the first sketch of the thing. Specimens of such Pictures

still exist, Portraits generally; all with this epigraph, FREDERICUS WILHELMUS IN TORMENTIS

PINXIT (Painted by Friedrich Wilhelm in his torments); and are worthy the attention of the curious.

Fassmann admits, "there might be spurts of IMpatience now and then; but how richly did Majesty make it

good again after reflection! He was also subject to whims even about people whom he otherwise esteemed.

One meritorious gentleman, who shall be nameless, much thought of by the King, his Majesty's nerves could

not endure, though his mind well did: 'Makes my gout worse to see him drilling in the esplanade there; let

another do it!'and vouchsafed an apologetic assurance to the meritorious gentleman afflicted in

consequence."O my dim old Friend, these surely are sublimities of the sickbed? "So it lasted for some

five weeks long," well on towards the summer of this bad year 1729. Wilhelmina says, in briefer business

language, and looking only at the wrong side of the tapestry, "It was a HellonEarth to us, Les peines du

Purgatoire ne pouvaient egaler celles que NOUS endurions;" [i. 157.] and supports the statement by

For, in the interim, withal, the English negotiation is as good as gone out; nay there are waterspouts brewing

aloft yonder, enough to wash negotiation from the world. Of which terrible weatherphenomena we shall

have to speak by and by: but must first, by way of commentary, give a glance at Soissons and the Terrestrial

The socalled Spanish War, and dangerous futile Siege of Gibraltar, had not ended at the death of George I.;

though measures had already been agreed upon, by the Kaiser and parties interested, to end it,only the

King of Spain (or King's Wife, we should say) made difficulties. Difficulties, she; and kept firing, without

effect, at the Fortress for about a year more; after which, her humor or her powder being out, Spanish Majesty

signed like the others. Peace again for all and sundry of us: "Preliminaries" of Peace signed at Paris, 31st

May, 1727, three weeks before George's death; "Peace" itself finally at the Pardo or at Madrid, the Termagant

having spent her powder, 6th March, 1728; [Scholl, ii. 212, 213.] and a "Congress" (bless the mark!) to settle

Congress, say at AixlaChapelle; say at Cambrai again,for there are difficulties about the place. Or say

finally at Soissons; where Fleury wished it to be, that he might get the reins of it better in hand; and where it

finally was,and where the ghost or name of it yet is, an empty enigma in the memories of some men.

Congress of Soissons did meet, 14th June, 1728; opened itself, as a Corporeal Entity in this world; sat for

above a year;and did nothing; Fleury quite declining the Pragmatic Sanction, though the anxious Kaiser

was ready to make astonishing sacrifices, give up his Ostend COMPANY (Paper Shadow of a Company), or

These Diplomatic gentlemen,say, are they aught? They seem to understand me, by each at once his choppy

finger laying on his skinny lips! Princes of the Powers of the Air, Shall we define them? It is certain the solid

Earth or her facts, except being held in perpetual terror by such workings of the Shadowworld, reaped no

effect from those Twenty Years of Congressing; Seckendorf himself might as well have lain in bed, as ridden

those 25,000 miles, and done such quantities of doubledistillations. No effect at all: only some futile

gunpowder spent on Gibraltar, and splinters of shot and shells (salable as old iron) found about the rocks

The sublime Congress of Soissons met, as we say, at the above date (just while the Polish Majesty was

closing his Berlin Visit); but found itself no abler for work than that of Cambrai had been. The Deputies from

France I do not mention; nor from Spain, nor from Austria. The Deputies from England were Colonel or now

properly BrigadierGeneral Stanhope, afterwards Lord Harrington; Horace Walpole (who is Robert's

Brother, and whose Secretary is Sir Thomas Robinson, "QUOI DONE, CRUSOE?" whom we shall hear of

farther); and Stephen Poyntz, a once bright gentleman, now dim and obsolete, whom the readers of Coxe's

Walpole have some nominal acquaintance with. Here, for Chronology's sake, is a clipping from the old

English newspapers to accompany them: "There is rumor that POLLY PEACHUM is gone to attend the

Congress at Soissons; where, it is thought, she will make as good a figure, and do her country as much

service, as several others that shall be nameless." [ Mist's Weekly Journal, 29th June, 1728.]

Their task seemed easy to the sanguine mind. The Kaiser has agreed with Spain in the ItalianApanage

matter; with the SeaPowers in regard to his Ostend Company, which is abolished forever: what then is to

prevent a speedy progress, and glad conclusion? The Pragmatic Sanction. "Accept my Pragmatic Sanction,"

said the Kaiser, "let that be the preliminary of all things.""Not the preliminary," answered Fleury; "we will

see to that as we go on; not the preliminary, by any means!" There was the rub. The sly old Cardinal had his

private treaties with Sardinia; views of his own in the Mediterranean, in the Rhine quarter; and answered

steadily, "Not the preliminary, by any means!" The Kaiser was equally inflexible. Whereupon immensities of

protocolling, arguing, and the Congress "fell into complete languor," say the Histories. [Scholl, ii. 215.]

Congress ate its dinner heartily, and wrote immensely, for the space of eighteen months; but advanced no

hair'sbreadth anywhither; no prospect before it, but that of dinner only, for unlimited periods.

Kaiser will have his Pragmatic Sanction, or not budge from the place; stands mulelike amid the rain of

cudgellings from the bystanders; can be beaten to death, but stir he will not.Hints, glances of the eye,

pass between Elizabeth Farnese and the other bystanders; suddenly, 9th November, 1729, it is found they

have all made a "TREATY OF SEVILLE" with Elizabeth Farnese; France, England, Holland, Spain, have all

closed,Italian Apanages to be at once secured, Ostend to be at once suppressed, with what else

behooves;and the Kaiser is left alone; standing upon his Pragmatic Sanction there, nobody bidding him

At which the Kaiser is naturally thrice and four times wroth and alarmed;and Seckendorf in the

TABAKSCOLLEGIUM had need to be doubly busy. As we shall find he is (though without effect), when

the time comes round:but we have not yet got to November of this Year 1729; there are still six or eight

important months between us and that. Important months; and a PrussianEnglish "Waterspout," as we have

Congress of Soissons, now fallen mythical to mankind, and as inane as that of Cambrai, is perhaps still

memorable in one or two slight points. First, it has in it, as one of the Austrian Deputies, that Baron von

Bentenrieder, tallest of living Diplomatists, who was pressed at one time for a Prussian soldier; readers

recollect it? Walking through the streets of Halberstadt, to stretch his long limbs till his carriage came up, the

Prussian sentries laid hold of him, "Excellent Potsdam giant, this one! "and haled him off to their

guardhouse; till carriage and lackeys came; then, "Thousand humblest pardons, your Excellenz!" who

forgave the fellows. Barely possible some lighter readers might wish to see, for one moment, an Excellenz

that has been seized by a Pressgang? Which perhaps never happened to any other Excellenz;the like of

which, I have been told, might merit him a soiree from strongminded women, in some remoter parts of the

world. Not to say that he is the tallest of living Diplomatists; another unique circumstance!Bentenrieder

soon died; and had his place at Soissons filled up by an Excellenz of the ordinary height, who had never been

pressed. But nothing can rob the Congress of this fact, that it once had Bentenrieder for member; and, so far,

Another point is humanly interesting in this Congress; but cannot fully be investigated for want of dates.

Always, we perceive, according to the news of it that reach Berlin,of England going right for the Kaiser or

going wrong for him,his Prussian Majesty's treatment of his children varies. If England go right for the

Kaiser, well, and his Majesty is in goodhumor with Queen, with CrownPrince and Wilhelmina. If England

go wrong for the Kaiser, dark clouds gather on the royal brow, in the royal heart; explode in thunderstorms;

and at length crockery goes flying through the rooms, blows descend on the poor Prince's back; and her

Majesty is in tears, mere Chaos come again. For as a general rule, unless the English Negotiation have some

prospering fit, and produce exceptional phenomena, Friedrich Wilhelm, ever loyal in heart, stands steadfast

by his Kaiser; ever ready "to strike out (LOS ZU SCHLAGEN," as he calls it) with his best strength in behalf

of a cause which, good soul, he thinks is essentially German;all the readier if at any time it seem now

exclusively German, the French, Spanish, English, and other unlovely Foreign world being clean cut loose

from it, or even standing ranked against it. "When will it go off, then (WANN GEHT ES LOS)?" asks

Friedrich Wilhelm often; diligently drilling his sixty thousand, and snorting contempt on "Ungermanism

(UNDEUTSCHHEIT)," be it on the part of friends or of enemies. Good soul, and whether he will ever get

Julich aud Berg out of it, is distractingly problematical, and the TobaccoParliament is busy with him!

Curious to see, so far as dates go, how Friedrich Wilhelm changes his tune to Wife and Children in exact

correspondence to the notes given out at Soissons for a Kaiser and his Pragmatic Sanction. Poor Prussian

Household, poor back, and heart, of CrownPrince; what a concert it is in this world, Smoking Parliament for

souffleur! Let the big Diplomatist Bassoon of the Universe go this way, there are caresses for a young Soldier

and his behavior in the giant regiment; let the same Bassoon sound that way, bangs and knocks descend on

him; the two keep time together,so busy is the Smoking Parliament with his Majesty of Prussia. The world

has seen, with horror and wonder, Friedrich Wilhelm's beating of his grown children: but the pair of

MEERKATZEN, or enchanted DemonApes, disguised as loyal Councillors, riding along with him the

length of a Terrestrial Equator, have not been so familiar to the world. Seckendorf, Grumkow: we had often

heard of DevilDiplomatists; and shuddered over horrible pictures of them in Novels; hoping it was all fancy:

but here actually is a pair of them, transcending all Novels;perhaps the highest cognizable fact to be met

with in DevilDiplomacy. And it may be a kind of comfort to readers, both to know it, and to discern

gradually what the just gods make of it withal. DevilDiplomatists do exist, at least have existed, never doubt

it farther; and their astonishingly dexterous mendacities and enchanted spiderwebs, CAN these go any

That the Congress of Cambrai was not a myth, we convinced ourselves by a letter of Voltaire's, who actually

saw it dining there in the Year 1722, as he passed that way. Here, for Soissons, in like manner, are two

Letters, by a less celebrated but a still known English hand; which, as utterances in presence of the fact itself,

leave no doubt on the subject. These the afflicted reader will perhaps consent to take a glance of. If the

Congress of Soissons, for the sake of memorable objects concerned there, is still to be remembered, and

The writer of these Letters is a serious, rather longnosed young English gentleman, not without intelligence,

and of a wholesome and honest nature; who became Lord Lyttelton, FIRST of those Lords, called also "the

Good Lord," father of "the Bad:" a lineal descendant of that Lyttelton UPON whom Coke sits, or seems to sit,

till the end of things: author by and by of a History of Henry the Second and other wellmeant books: a man

of real worth, who attained to some note in the world. He is now upon the Grand Tour,which ran, at that

time, by Luneville and Lorraine, as would appear; at which point we shall first take him up. He writes to his

Father, Sir Thomas, at Hagley among the pleasant Hills of Worcestershire,date shortly after the assembling

of that Congress to rear of him;and we strive to add a minimum of commentary. The "piece of

"DEAR SIR,I thank you for so kindly forgiving the piece of negligence I acquainted you of in my last.

Young fellows are often guilty of voluntary forgetfulness in those affairs; but I assure you mine was quite

"Mr. D. tells you true that I am weary of losing money at cards; but it is no less certain that without them I

shall soon be weary of Lorraine. The spirit of quadrille [obsolete game at cards] has possessed the land from

"This Court is fond of strangers, but with a proviso that strangers love quadrille. Would you win the hearts of

the Maids of Honor, you must lose your money at quadrille; would you be thought a wellbred man, you

must play genteelly at quadrille; would you get a reputation of good sense, show judgment at quadrille.

However in summer one may pass a day without quadrille; because there are agreeable promenades, and little

parties out of doors. But in winter you are reduced to play at it, or sleep, like a fly, till the return of spring.

"Indeed in the morning the Duke hunts,"mark that Duke, and two Sons he has. "But my malicious stars

have so contrived it, that I am no more a sportsman than a gamester. There are no men of learning in the

whole Country; on the contrary, it is a character they despise. A man of quality caught me, the other day,

reading a Latin Author; and asked me, with an air of contempt, Whether I was designed for the Church? All

this would be tolerable if I was not doomed to converse with a set of English, who are still more ignorant than

the French; and from whom, with my utmost endeavors, I cannot be absent six hours in the day. Lord"

BLANKBaltimore, or Heavenknowswho,"is the only one among them who has common sense; and

he is so scandalously debauched, in his principles as well as practice, that his conversation is equally

shocking to my morals and my reason."Could not one contrive to get away from them; to Soissons, for

example, to see business going on; and the Terrestrial Balance settling itself a little?

"My only improvement here is in the company of the Duke," who is a truly distinguished Duke to his bad

Country; "and in the exercise of the Academy,"of Horsemanship, or what? "I have been absent from the

latter near three weeks, by reason of a sprain I got in the sinews of my leg. My duty to my dear Mother; I

hope you and she continue well. I am, Sir, your dutiful Son.G. L." [ The Works of Lord George Lyttelton,

These poor Lorrainers are in a bad way; their Country all trampled to pieces by France, in the

LouisFourteenth and still earlier times. Indeed, ever since the futile Siege of Metz; where we saw the great

Kaiser, Karl V., silently weeping because he could not recapture Metz, [Antea, vol. v. p. 211.] the French

have been busy with this poor Country;new sections of it clipt away by them; "military roads through it,

ten miles broad," bargained for; its Dukes oftenest in exile, especially the Father of this present Duke: [A

famed Soldier in his day; under Kaiser Leopold, "the little Kaiser in red stockings," one of whose Daughters

he had to wife. He was at the Rescue of Vienna (Sobieski's), and in how many far fiercer services; his life

was but a battle and a march. Here is his famed Letter to the Kaiser, when death suddenly called, Halt!

"SACRED MAJESTY,According to your Orders, I set out from Innspruck to come to Vienna; but I am

stopped here by a Greater Master. I go to render account to Him of a life which I had wholly consecrated to

you. Remember that I leave a Wife with whom you are concerned [QUI ROUS TOUCHE,who is your

lawful Daughter]; Children to whom I can bequeath nothing but my sword; and Subjects who are under

(Henault, Abrege Chronologique, Paris, 1775, p. 850).Charles "V." the French uniformly call this one;

Charles "IV." the Germans, who, I conclude, know better.]and they are now waiting a good opportunity to

swallow it whole, while the people are so busy with quadrille parties. The present Duke, returning from exile,

found his Land in desolation, much of it "running fast to wild forest again;" and he has signalized himself by

unwearied efforts in every direction to put new life into it, which have been rather successful. Lyttelton, we

perceive, finds improvement in his company. The name of this brave Duke is Leopold; age now fortynine;

life and reign not far from done: a man about whom even Voltaire gets into enthusiasm. [Siecle de Louis

The Court and Country of Lorraine, under Duke Leopold, will prove to deserve this brief glance from

Lyttelton and us. Two sons Duke Leopold has: the elder, Franz, now about twenty, is at Vienna, with the

highest outlooks there: Kaiser Karl is his Father's cousingerman; and Kaiser Karl's young Daughter, high

beautiful Maria Theresa,the sublimest maiden now extant,yes, this lucky Franz is to have her: what a

prize, even without Pragmatic Sanction! With the younger son, Karl of Lorraine, Lyttelton may have made

acquaintance, if he cared: a lad of sixteen; by and by an Austrian General, as his father had been; General

much noised of,whom we shall often see beaten, in this world, at the head of men.But let us now get to

"I thank you, my dear Sir, for complying so much with my inclinations as to let me stay some time at

"One of my chief reasons for disliking Luneville was the multitude of English there; who, most of them, were

such worthless fellows that they were a dishonor to the name and Nation. With these I was obliged to dine

and sup, and pass a great part of my time. You may be sure I avoided it as much as possible; but MALGRE

MOI I suffered a great deal. To prevent any comfort from other people, they had made a law among

themselves, not to admit any foreigner into their company: so that there was nothing but English talked from

June to January.On the contrary, my countrymen at Soissons are men of virtue and good sense; they mix

perpetually with the French, and converse for the most part in that language. I will trouble you no more upon

this subject: but give me leave to say that, however capricious I may have been on other subjects, my

sentiments in this particular are the strongest proofs I ever gave you of my strong and hereditary aversion to

"Mr. Stanhope," our Minister, the Colonel or BrigadierGeneral, "is always at Fontainebleau. I went with Mr.

Poyntz," Poyntz not yet a dim figure, but a brilliant, who hints about employing me, "to Paris for four days,

when the Colonel himself was there, to meet him; he received me with great civility and kindness. We have

done expecting Mr. Walpole," fixed he in the Court regions; "who is obliged to keep strict guard over the

Cardinal," sly old Fleury, "for fear the German Ministers should take him from us. They pull and haul the

poor old gentleman so many ways, that he does not know where to turn, or into whose arms to throw

"Ripperda's escape to England,"grand Diplomatic bulldog that was, who took refuge in Colonel Stanhope's

at Madrid to no purpose, and kindled the sputtering at Gibraltar, is now got across to England, and will go to

Morocco and farther, to no purpose,"will very much embroil affairs; which did not seem to want another

obstacle to hinder them from coming to an accommodation. If the Devil is not very much wanting to his own

interests in this Business, it is impossible that the good work of Peace, should go on much longer. After all,

most young fellows are of his party; and wish he may bring matters to a War; for they make but ill Ministers

"No news from Madam" BLANK "and her beloved Husband. Their unreasonable fondness for each other can

never last: they will soon grow as cold to one another as the Town to The Beggars' Opera." And cannot warm

again, you think? "Pray Heaven I may prove a false prophet; but Married Love and English Music are too

NOVEMBER 20th, SOISSONS still. "This is one of the agreeablest Towns in France. The people are

infinitely obliging to strangers: we are of all their parties, and perpetually share with them in their pleasures. I

have learnt more French since I came hither, than I should have picked up in a twelvemonth in Lorraine....

"A fool with a majority on his side is the greatest tyrant in the world:"how can I go back to loiter in

Lorraine, honored Father, where fools are in such majority? "Then the extraordinary civilities I receive from

Mr. Poyntz: He has in a manner taken me into his family;" will evidently make an Apprentice of me. "The

first Packet that comes from Fontainebleau, I expect to be employed. Which is no small pleasure to me: and

DECEMBER 20th. "A sudden order to Mr. Poyntz has broken all my measures. He goes tomorrow to Paris,

to stay there in the room of Messrs. Stanhope and Walpole, who are on their return for England." Congress

falling into complete languor, if we knew it! But ought not I to accompany this friendly and distinguished Mr.

Poyntz, "who has already given me papers to copy;"in fact I am setting off with him, honored Father!...

"Prince Frederick's journey,"first arrival in England of dissolute Fred from Hanover, who had NOT been

to Berlin to get married last summer,"was very secret: Mr. Poyntz did not hear of it till Friday last; at least

he had no public notice of it." Why should he? "There will be fine struggling for places" in this Prince's new

Household. "I hope my Brother will come in for one." [Ayscough's Lyttelton, iii. 200231.]

But here we pull the string of the curtain upon Lyttelton, and upon his Congress falling into complete

languor; Congress destined, after dining for about a year more, to explode, in the Treaty of Seville, and to

leave the Kaiser sitting horrorstruck, solitary amid the wreck of Political Nature,which latter, however,

pieces itself together again for him and others. Beneficent Treaty of Vienna was at last achieved; Treaty and

Treaties there, which brought matters to their old bearing again, Austria united with the SeaPowers,

Pragmatic Sanction accepted by them, subsidies again to be expected from them; Baby Carlos fitted with his

Apanages, in some tolerable manner; and the Problem, with which Creation had groaned for some twenty

Lyttelton himself will get a place in Prince Frederick's Household, and then lose it; place in Majesty's

Ministry at last, but not for a long while yet. He will be one of Prince Frederick's men, of the Carterets,

Chesterfields, Pitts, who "patronize literature," and are in opposition to dark Walpole; one of the

"WestWickham set;"and will be of the Opposition party, and have his adventures in the world.

Meanwhile let him go to Paris with Mr. Poyntz; and do his wisest there and elsewhere.

Oh, he be de great orator, Littletony." [Caricature of 1741, on Lyttelton's getting into the Ministry,

with Carteret, Chesterfield, Argyll, and the rest: see Phillimore's Lyttelton (London, l845), i. 110; Johnson's

For now we are round at Friedrich Wilhelm's Pomeranian Hunting again, in the Newyear's time of 1729;

and must look again into the magnanimous sickroom which ensued thereon; where a small piece of business

is going forward. What a magnanimous patient Friedrich Wilhelm was, in Fassmann's judgment, we know:

but, it will be good to show both sides of the tapestry, and let Wilhelmina also speak. The small business is

only, a Treaty of Marriage for one of our Princesses: not Wilhelmina, but Louisa the next younger, who has

Fassmann makes a very touching scene of it. King is in bed, ill of his gout after that slaughter of the 3,602

wild swine: attendants are sitting round his Majesty, in the way we know; Queen Sophie at his head,

"Seckendorf and several others" round the bed. Letters arrive; Princess Frederika Louisa, a very young Lady,

has also had a Letter; which, she sees by the seal, will be interesting, but which she must not herself open.

She steps in with it; "beautiful as an angel, but rather foolish, and a spoilt child of fifteen," says Wilhelmina:

trips softly in with it; hands it to the King. "Give it to thy Mother, let her read it," says the King. Mother reads

it, with audible soft voice: Formal demand in marriage from the Serenity of Anspach, as foreseen.

"Hearken, Louisa (HORE, LUISE), it is still time," said the King: "Tell us, wouldst thou rather go to

Anspach, now, or stay with me? If thou choose to stay, thou shalt want, for nothing, either, to the end of thy

life. Speak!""At such unexpected question," says Fassmann, "there rose a fine blush over the Princess's

face, who seemed to be at a loss for her answer. However, she soon collected herself; kissed his Majesty's

hand, and said: 'Most gracious Papa, I will to Anspach!' To which the King: 'Very well, then; God give thee

all happiness and thousand blessings!But, hearken, Louisa,' the King's Majesty was pleased at the same

time to add, 'We will make a bargain, thou and I. You have excellent, Flour at Anspach (SCHONES MEHL);

but in Hams and Smoked Sausages you don't, come up, either in quality or quantity, to us in this Country.

Now I, for my part, like good pastries. So, from time to time, thou shalt send me a box of nice flour, and I

will keep thee in hams and sausages. Wilt thou, Louisa?' That the Princess answered Yea," says poor

Fassmann with the tear in his eye, "may readily be supposed!" Nay all that heard the thing round the royal

bed there simple humanities of that kind from so great, a Kinghad almost or altogether tears in their

This surely is a very touching scene. But now listen to Wilhelmina's account of another on the same subject,

between the same parties. "At table;" no date indicated, or a wrong one, but evidently after this: in fact, we

find it was about the beginning of March, 1729; and had sad consequences for Wilhelmina.

"At table his Majesty told the Queen that he had Letters from Anspach; the young Margraf to be at Berlin in

May for his wedding; that M. Bremer his Tutor was just coming with the ring of betrothal for Louisa. He

asked my Sister, If that gave her pleasure? and How she would regulate her housekeeping when married? My

Sister had got into the way of telling him whatever she thought, and hometruths sometimes, without his

taking it ill. She answered with her customary frankness, That she would have a good table, which should be

delicately served; and, added she, 'which shall be better than yours. And if I have children, I will not maltreat

them like you, nor force them to eat what they have an aversion to.''What do you mean by that?' replied the

King: 'what is there wanting at my table?''There is this wanting,' she said, 'that one cannot have enough;

and the little there is consists of coarse potherbs that nobody can eat.' The King," as was not unnatural, "had

begun to get angry at her first answer: this last put him quite in a fury; but all his anger fell on my Brother

and me. He first threw a plate at my Brother's head, who ducked out of the way; he then let fly another at me,

which I avoided in like manner. A hailstorm of abuse followed these first hostilities. He rose into a passion

against the Queen; reproaching her with the bad training she gave her children; and, addressing my Brother:

'You have reason to curse your Mother,' said he, 'for it is she that causes your being an illgoverned fellow

(UN MAL GOUVERNE). I had a Preceptor,' continued he, 'who was an honest man. I remember always a

story he told me in my youth. There was a man, at Carthage, who had been condemned to die for many

crimes he had committed. While they were leading him to execution, he desired he might speak to his

Mother. They brought his Mother: he came near, as if to whisper something to her;and bit away a piece of

her ear. I treat you thus, said he, to make you an example to all parents who take no heed to bring up their

children in the practice of virtue!Make the application,' continued he, always addressing my Brother: and

getting no answer from him, he again set to abusing us till he could speak no longer. We rose from table. As

we had to pass near him in going out, he aimed a great blow at me with his crutch; which, if I had not jerked

away from it, would have ended me. He chased me for a while in his wheelchair, but the people drawing it

Poor Wilhelmina, beaten upon by Papa in this manner, takes to bed in miserable feverish pain, is ordered out

by Mamma to evening party, all the same; is evidently falling very ill. "Ill? I will cure you!" says Papa next

day, and makes her swallow a great draught of wine. Which completes the thing: "declared smallpox," say

all the Doctors now. So that Wilhelmina is absent thenceforth, as Fassmann already told us, from the

magnanimous paternal sickroom; and lies balefully eclipsed, till the paternal gout and some other things

have run their course. "Smallpox; what will Prince Fred think? A perfect fright, if she do live!" say the

English Courtgossips in the interim. But we are now arrived at a very singular PrussianEnglish

The DoubleMarriage negotiation hung fire, in the end of 1728; but everybody thought, especially Queen

Sophie thought, it would come to perfection; old Ilgen, almost the last thing he did, shed tears of joy about it.

These fine outlooks received a sad shock in the Year now come; when secret grudges burst out into open

flame; and Berlin, instead of scenic splendors for a Polish Majesty, was clangorous with note of preparation

for imminent War. Probably Queen Sophie never had a more agitated Summer than this of 1729. We are now

arrived at that thricefamous Quarrel, or almost Duel, of Friedrich Wilhelm and his Britannic

Brotherinlaw little George II.; and must try to riddle from those distracted Papermasses some notice of it,

not wholly unintelligible to the reader. It is loudly talked of, loudly, but alas also loosely to a degree, in all

manner of dull Books; and is at once thricefamous and extremely obscure. The fact is, Nature intended it for

Chapter VI. IMMINENCY OF WAR OR DUEL BETWEEN THE BRITANNIC AND PRUSSIAN MAJESTIES. 270

eternal oblivion;and that, sure enough, would have been its fate long since, had not persons who were then

thought to be of no importance, but are now seen to be of some, stood connected with it more or less.

Friedrich Wilhelm, for his own part, had seen in the death of George I. an evil omen from the English quarter;

and all along, in spite of transient appearances to the contrary, had said to himself, "If the First George, with

his solemnities and tacit sublimities, was offensive now and then, what will the Second George be? The

Second George has been an offence from the beginning!" In which notions the Smoking Parliament, vitally

interested to do it, in these perilous Soissons times, big with the fate of the Empire and Universe, is assiduous

to confirm his Majesty. The Smoking Parliament, at Potsdam, at Berlin, in the solitudes of Wusterhausen, has

been busy; and much tobacco, much meditation and insinuation have gone up, in clouds more abstruse than

It is certain, George II. was a proud little fellow; very high and airy in his ways; not at all the man to

Friedrich Wilhelm's heart, nor reciprocally. A man of some worth, too; "scrupulously kept his word," say the

witnesses: a man always conscious to himself, "Am not I a man of honor, then?" to a punctilious degree. For

the rest, courageous as a Welf; and had some sense withal,though truly not much, and indeed, as it were,

none at all in comparison to what he supposed he had!One can fancy the aversion of the little dapper

Royalty to this heavyfooted Prussian Barbarian, and the Prussian Barbarian's to him. The bloody nose in

childhood was but a symbol of what passed through life. In return for his bloody nose, little George, five

years the elder, had carried off Caroline of Anspach; and left Friedrich Wilhelm sorrowing, a neglected

cub,poor honest Beast tragically shorn of his Beauty. Offences could not fail; these two Cousins went on

offending one another by the mere act of living simultaneously. A natural hostility, that between George II.

and Friedrich Wilhelm; anterior to Caroline of Anspach, and independent of the collisions of interest that

might fall out between them. Enmity as between a glancing selfsatisfied fop, and a loutish thicksoled man

of parts, who feels himself the better though the less successful. HouseMastiff seeing itself neglected, driven

to its hutch, for a tricksy Ape dressed out in ribbons, who gets favor in the drawingroom.

George, I perceive by the very StatePapers, George and his English Lords have a provoking slighting tone

towards Friedrich Wilhelm; they answer his violent convictions, and thoroughgoing rapid proposals, by brief

official negation, with an air of superiority,traces of, a polite sneer perceptible, occasionally. A mere

Clown of a King, thinks George; a mere gesticulating Coxcomb, thinks Friedrich Wilhelm. "MEIN BRUDER

DER COMODIANT, My Brother the Playactor" (particolored MerryAndrew, of a highflying turn)! was

Friedrich Wilhelm's private name for him, in after days. Which George repaid by one equal to it, "My Brother

the HeadBeadle of the Holy Roman Empire,""ERZSANDSTREUER," who solemnly brings up the

SANDBOX (no blottingpaper yet in use) when the Holy Roman Empire is pleased to write.

"ERZSANDSTREUER, ArchSandboxBeadle of the HEILIGE ROMISCHE REICH;" it is a lumbering

nickname, but intrinsically not without felicity, and the wittiest thing I know of little George.

Special cause of quarrel they had none that was of the least significance; and, at this time, prudent friends

were striving to unite them closer and closer, as the true policy for both; English Townshend himself rather

wishing it, as the best Prussian Officials eagerly did; Queen Sophie passionate for it; and only a purchased

Grumkow, a Seckendorf and the TobaccoParliament set against it. The Treaty of Wusterhausen was not

known; but the fact of some Treaty made or making, some Imperial negotiation always going on, was too

evident; and Friedrich Wilhelm's partialities to the Kaiser and his Seckendorf could be a secret nowhere.

Negotiation always going on, we say; for such indeed was the case,the Kaiser striving always to be loose

again (having excellent reasons, a secret bargain to the contrary, to wit!) in regard to that JulichandBerg

Succession; proposing "substitutes for Julich and Berg;" and Friedrich Wilhelm refusing to accept any

imaginable substitute, anything but the article itself. So that, I believe, the Treaty of Wusterhausen was never

perfectly ratified, after all; but hung, for so many years, always on the point of being so. These are the uses of

your purchased Grumkow, and of riding the length of a Terrestrial Equator keeping a Majesty in company. If,

Chapter VI. IMMINENCY OF WAR OR DUEL BETWEEN THE BRITANNIC AND PRUSSIAN MAJESTIES. 271

by a DoubleMarriage with England, that intricate web of chicanery had been once fairly slit in two, and new

combinations formed, on a basis not of fastandloose, could it have been of disadvantage to either of the

Countries, or to either of their Kings?Real and grave causes for agreement we find; real or grave causes for

quarrel none anywhere. But light or imaginary causes, which became at last effectual, can be enumerated, to

FIRST, the "Ahlden Heritage" was one cause of disagreement, which lasted long. The poor Mother of George

II. and of Queen Sophie had left considerable properties; "three million THALERS," that is 900,000 pounds,

say some; but all was rather in an unliquid state, not so much as her Will was to be had. The Will, with a

10,000 pounds or so, was in the hands of a certain Graf von Bar, one of her confidants in that sad

imprisonment: "money lent him," Busching says, [ Beitrage zur Lebensgeschichte denkwurdiger Personen

(Halle, 1783l789), i. 306, ? NUSSLER. Some distracted fractions of Business Correspondence with this

Bar, in Memoirs of Sophia Dorothea, unintelligible as usual there.] "to set up a WaxBleachery at

Cassel:"and the said Count von Bar was off with it, Testamentary Paper and all; gone to the

REICHSHOFRATH at Vienna, supreme Judges, in the Empire, of such matters. Who accordingly issued him

a "Protection," to start with: so that when the Hanover people attempted to lay hold of the questionable

waxbleaching Count, at FrankfurtonMayn,secretly sending "a lieutenant and twelve men" for that

object,he producec his Protection Paper, and the lieutenant and twelve men had to hasten home again.

[Ibid.] Count von Bar had to be tried at law,never ask with what results;and this itself was a long story.

Then as to the other properties of the poor Duchess, question arises, Are they ALLODIA, or are they

FEUDA,that is to say, shall the Son have them, or the Daughter? In short, there was no end to questions.

Friedrich Wilhelm has an Envoy at Hanover, one Kannegiesser, laboring at Hauover, the second of such he

has been obliged to send; who finds plenty of employment in that matter. "My Brother the COMODIANT

quietly put his Father's Will in his pocket, I have heard; and paid no regard to it (except what he was

compelled to pay, by Chesterfield and others): will he do the like with his poor Mother's Will?" Patience,

your Majesty: he is not a covetous man, but a selfwilled and a proud,always conscious to himself that he

Nay withal, before these testamentary bickerings are settled, here has a new JointHeritage fallen: on which

may rise discussions. Poor Uncle Ernst of Osnabruckto whom George I., chased by Death, went galloping

for shelter that night, and who could only weep over his poor Brother dead has not survived him many

months. The youngest Brother of the lot is now gone too. Electress Sophie's Seven are now all gone. She had

six sons: four became Austrian soldiers, three of whom perished in war long since; the other three, the

Bishop, the King, the eldest of the Soldiers, have all died within two years (17261728): [Michaelis, i. 153.

See Feder, Kurfurstinn Sophie; Hoppe, Geschichte der Stadt Hannover; Sophie Charlotte, "Republican

Queen" of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm's Mother, whom we knew long since, was the one Daughter. Her also

Uncle Ernst saw die, in his youth, as we may remember. They are all dead. And now the Heritages are to

settle, at least the recent part of them. Let Kannegiesser keep his eyes open. Kannegiesser is an expert

highmannered man; but said to be subject to sharpness of temper; and not in the best favor with the Hanover

Then, secondly, there is the business of Mecklenburg; deplorable Business for Mecklenburg, and for

everybody within wind of it, my poor readers included. Readers rememberwhat reader can ever

forget?that extraordinary Duke of Mecklenburg, the "Unique of Husbands," as we had to call him, who

camE with his extraordinary Duchess, to wait on her Uncle Peter, the Russian (say rather SAMOEIDIC)

Czar, at Magdeburg, a dozen years ago? We feared it was in the fates we might meet that man again; and so it

turns out! The Unique of Husbands has proved also to be the unluckiest of Misgoverning Dukes in his Epoch;

Chapter VI. IMMINENCY OF WAR OR DUEL BETWEEN THE BRITANNIC AND PRUSSIAN MAJESTIES. 272

and spreads mere trouble all round him. Mecklenburg is in a bad way, this long while, especially these ten

years past. "Owing to the CharlesTwelfth Wars," or whatever it was owing to, this unlucky Duke had fallen

into want of more money; and impoverished Mecklenburg alleged that it was in no condition to pay more.

Almost on his accession, while the tarbarrels were still blazing, years before we ever saw him, he demanded

new subvention from his RITTERS (the "Squires" of the Country); subvention new in Mecklenburg, though

common in other sovereign German States, and at one time in Mecklenburg too. The Ritters would not pay;

the Duke would compel them: Ritters appeal to Kaiser in Reichshofrath, who proves favorable to the Ritters.

Duke still declines obeying Kaiser; asserts that "he is himself in such matter the sovereign:" Kaiser

fulminates what of rusty thunder he has about him; to which the Duke, flung on his back by it, still continues

contumacious in mind and tongue: and so between thunder and contumacy, as between hammer and stithy,

the poor Country writhes painfully ever since, and is an affliction to everybody near it.

For ten years past, the unluckiest of Misgoverning Dukes has been in utter controversy with his Ritters;at

law with them before the Courts of the Empire, nay occasionally trying certain of them himself, and cutting

off their heads; getting Russian regiments, and then obliged to renounce Russian regiments;in short, a very

great trouble to mankind thereabouts. [Michaelis, ii. 416435.] So that the Kaiser in Reichshofrath, about the

date indicated (Year 1719), found good to send military coercion on him; and intrusted that function to the

HanoverBrunswick people, to George I. more especially; to whom, as KREISHAUPTMANN" ("Captain

of the Circle," Circle of LowerSaxony, where the contumacy had occurred), such function naturally fell.

The Hanover Sovereignty, sending 13,000 men, horse, foot and artillery into Mecklenburg, soon did their

function, with only some slight flourishes of fighting on the part of the contumacious Duke,in which his

chief Captain, one Schwerin, distinguishes himself: Kurt von Schwerin, whom we shall know better by and

by, for he went into the Prussian service shortly after. Colonel von Schwerin did well what was in him; but

could not save a refractory Duke, against such odds. The contumacious Duke was obliged to fly his

country;deposed, or, to begin with, suspended, a Brother of his being put in as interim Duke:and the

Unique of Husbands and paragon of Mismanaging Dukes lives about Dantzig ever since, on a Pension

allowed him by his interim Brother; contumacious to the last; and still stirring up strife, though now with

The Hanover Sovereignties did their function soon enough: but their "expenses for it," these they have in vain

demanded ever since. No money to be got from Mecklenburg; and Mecklenburg owes us "ten tons of

gold,"that is to say, 1,000,000 thalers, "tou" being the tenth part of a million in that coin. Hanover,

therefore, holds possessionand has held ever since, with competent small military forceof certain

Districts in Mecklenburg: Taxes of these will subsist our soldiery in the interim, and yield interest; the

principal once paid, we at once give them up; principal, by these schedules, if you care to count them, is one

million thalers (ten TONNEN GOLDES, as above said), or about 150,000 pounds. And so it has stood for ten

years past; Mecklenburg the most anarchic of countries, owing to the kind of Ritters and kind of Duke it has.

Poor souls, it is evident they have all lost their beaten road, and got among the IGNES FATUI and

peatpools: none knows the necessities and sorrows of this poor idle Duke himself! In his young years,

before accession, he once tried soldiering; served one campaign with Charles XII., but was glad to "return to

Hamburg" again, to the peaceable scenes of fashionable life there. [See German Spy (London, 1725, by

Lediard, Biographer of Marlborough) for a lively picture of the then Hamburg,resort of Northern Moneyed

Idleness, as well as of better things.] Then his Russian Unique of Wives: his probable adventures, prior

and subsequent, in Uncle Peter's sphere, can these have been pleasant to him? The angry Ritters, too, their

country had got much trampled to pieces in the CharlesTwelfth Wars, Stralsund Sieges: money seemed

necessary to the Duke, and the Ritters were very scarce of it. Add, on both sides, pride and want of sense,

with mutual anger going on CRESCENDO; and we have the sad phenomenon now visible: A Duke fled to

Dantzig, anarchic Ritters none the better for his going; Duke perhaps threatening to return, and much

flurrying his poor interim Brother, and stirring up the Anarchies:in brief, Mecklenburg become a house on

Chapter VI. IMMINENCY OF WAR OR DUEL BETWEEN THE BRITANNIC AND PRUSSIAN MAJESTIES. 273

In these miserable brabbles Friedrich Wilhelm did not hitherto officially interfere; though not uninterested in

them; being a next neighbor, and even, by known treaties, "eventual heir," should the Mecklenburg Line die

out. But we know he was not in favor with the Kaiser, in those old years; so the military coercion had been

done by other hands, and he had not shared in the management at all. He merely watched the course of

things; always advised the Duke to submit to Law, and be peaceable; was sometimes rather sorry for him,

Last year, however (1728),doubtless it was one of Seckendorf's minor measures, done in

TobaccoParliament,Friedrich Wilhelm, now a pet of the Kaiser's, is discovered to be fairly concerned in

that matter; and is conjoined with the HanoverBrunswick Commissioners for Mecklenburg; Kaiser specially

requiring that his Prussian Majesty shall "help in executing Imperial Orders" in the neighboring Anarchic

Country. Which rather huffed little George, hitherto, since, his Father's death, the principal, or as good as

sole Commissioner,if so big a Britannic Majesty COULD be huffed by paltry slights of that kind!

Friedrich Wilhelm, who has much meditated Mecklenburg, strains his intellect, sometimes to an intense

degree, to find out ways of settling it: George, who has never cared to meditate it, nor been able if he had, is

capable of sniffing scornfully at Friedrich Wilhelm's projects on the matter, and dismissing them as

moonshine. [Dubourgay Despatches and the Answers to them (more than once).] To a wise muchmeditative

HouseMastiff, can that be pleasant, from an unthinking dizened creature of the Ape species? The troubles of

Mecklenburg, and discrepancies thereupon, are capable of becoming a SECOND source of quarrel.

Cause THIRD is the old story of recruiting; a standing cause between Prussia and all its neighbors. And the

FOURTH cause is the tiniest of all: the "Meadow of Clamei." Meadow of Clamei, some square yards of

boggy ground; which, after long study, one does find to exist in the obscurest manner, discoverable in the

best Maps of Germany,some twenty miles south of the Elbe river, on the boundary between

HanoverLuneburg and PrussiaMagdeburg, dubious on which side of the boundary. Lonesome unknown

Patch of Meadow, lying far amid peaty wildernesses in those Salzwedel regions: unknown to all writing

mortals as yet; but which threatens, in this summer of 1729, to become famous as Runnymead among the

Meadows of History! And the FIFTH causeIn short, there was no real "cause" of the least magnitude; the

effect was produced by the combination of many small and imaginary ones. For if there is a will to quarrel,

we know there is a way. And perhaps the FIFTH namable cause, in efficiency worth all the others together,

might be found in the Debates of the Smoking Parliament that season, were the Journal of its Proceedings

extant! We gather symptoms, indisputable enough, of very diligent elaborations and insinuations there; and

conclude that to have been the really effective cause. Clouds had risen between the two Courts; but except for

Very soon after George's accession there began clouds to rise; the perfectly accomplished little George

assuming a severe and high air towards his rustic BrotherinLaw. "We cannot stand these Prussian

enlistments and encroachments; rectify these, in a high and severe manner!" says George to his Hanover

Officials. George is not warm on his throne till there comes in, accordingly, from the Hanover Officials a

Complaint to that effect, and even a List of Hanoverian subjects who are, owing to various injustices, now

serving in the Prussian ranks: "Your Prussian Majesty is requested to return us these men!"

This List is dated 22d January, 1728; George only a few months old in his new authority as yet. The Prussian

Majesty grumbles painfully responsive: "Will, with eagerness, do whatever is just; most surely! But is his

Britannic Majesty aware? Hanover Officials are quite misinformed as to the circumstances;"and does not

return any of the men. Merely a pacific grumble, and nothing done in regard to the complaints. Then there is

the Meadow of Clamei which we spoke of: "That belongs to Brandenburg, you say? Nevertheless the

contiguous parts of Hanover have rights upon it. Some 'eight cartloads of hay,' worth say almost 5 pounds or

Chapter VI. IMMINENCY OF WAR OR DUEL BETWEEN THE BRITANNIC AND PRUSSIAN MAJESTIES. 274

Friedrich Wilhelm feels that all this is a pettifogging vexatious course of procedure; and that his little Cousin

the COMODIANT is not treating him very like a gentleman. "Is he, your Majesty!" suggests the Smoking

Parliament.About the middle of March, Dubourgay hears Borck, an Official not of the Grumkow party,

sulkily commenting on "the constant hostility of the Hanover Ministry to us" in all manner of

points;inquires withal, Could not Mecklenburg be somehow settled, his Prussian Majesty being

somewhat anxious upon it? [Despatch, 17th March, 1729.] Anxious, yes: his poor Majesty, intensely

meditative of such a matter in the nightwatches, is capable of springing out of bed, with an "Eureka! I have

found what will do!" and demanding writing materials. He writes or dictates in his shirt, the good anxious

Majesty; despatches his Eureka by estafette on the wings of the wind: and your Townshend, your

UNmeditative George, receives it with curt official negative, and a polite sneer. [Dubourgay, 12th14th

A few weeks farther on, this is what the Newspapers report of Mecklenburg, in spite of his Prussian Majesty's

desire to have some mercy shown the poor infatuated Duke: "The Elector of Hanover and the Duke of

BrunswickWolfenbuttel," his Britannic Majesty and Squire in that sad business, "REFUSE to withdraw their

forces out of Mecklenburg, or part with the Chest of the Revenues thereof, until an entire satisfaction be

given them for the arrears of the Charges they have been at in putting the Sentence of the Aulic Council

[Kaiser's REICHSHOFRATH and rusty thunder] into execution against the said Duke." [Salmon's

Chronological Historian (London, 1748,a Book never to be quoted without caution), ii. 216;date

Matters grew greatly worse when George paid his first Visit to Hanover in character of King, early in the

Summer of 1729. Part of his road lies through Prussian Territory: "Shall he have free posthorses, as his late

Majesty was wont?" asks the Prussian Official person. "If he write to request them, yes," answers Friedrich

Wilhelm; "if he don't write, no." George does not write; pays for his posthorses;flourishes along to

Hanover, in absolute silence towards his clownish BrotherinLaw. You would say he looks over the head of

him, as if there were no such clown in existence;he has never yet so much as notified his arrival. "What is

this? There exists no Prussia, then, for little George?" Friedrich Wilhelm's inarticulate, interjectionary

utterances, in clangorous metallic tone, we can fancy them, now and then; and the TobaccoParliament is

busy! British Minister Dubourgay, steady old military gentleman, who spells imperfectly, but is intent to keep

down mischief, writes at last to Hanover, submissively suggesting, "Could not, as was the old wont, some

notification of the King's arrival be sent hither, which would console his Prussian Majesty?" To which my

Lord Townshend answers, "Has not been the custom, I am informed [WRONG informed, your Lordship]; not

necessary in the circumstances." Which is a high course between neighbors and royal gentlemen and

kinsfolk. The Prussian Court hereupon likewise shuts its lips; no mention of the Hanoverian Court, not even

by her Majesty and to Englishmen, for several weeks past. [Dubourgay.] Some inarticulate metallic growl, in

private, at dinner or in the TABAKSCOLLEGIUM: the rest is truculent silence. Nor are our poor Hanover

Recruits (according to our List of Pressed Hanoverians) in the least sent back; nor the Clamei Meadows

settled; "Big Meadow" or "Little one," both of which the Brandenburgers have mown in the mean time.

Hanover Pressed men not coming home,I think, not one of them, the Hanover Officials decide to seize

such Prussian Soldiers as happen to be seizable, in Hanover Territory. The highway in that bordercountry

runs now on this side of the march, now on that; watch well, and you will get Prussian Soldiers from time

to time! Which the Hanover people do; and seize several, common men and even officers. Here is once more

a high course of proceeding. Here is coal to raise smoke enough, if well blown upon,which, with

Seckendorf and Grumkow working the bellows, we may well fancy it was! But listen to what follows,

On the 28th June, 1729, hay lying now quite dry upon the Meadow of Clamei, lo, the Bailiff of Hanoverian

Buhlitz, Unpicturesque Traveller will find the peatsmoky little Village of Buhlitz near by a dusty little

Town called Luchow, midway from Hamburg to Magdeburg; altogether peaty, mossy country; in the

Chapter VI. IMMINENCY OF WAR OR DUEL BETWEEN THE BRITANNIC AND PRUSSIAN MAJESTIES. 275

Salzwedel district, where used to be Wendic populations, and a Marck or Border Fortress of Salzwedel set up

against them:Bailiff of Buhlitz, I say, sallies forth with several carts, with all the population of the Village,

with a troop of horse to escort, and probably flags flying and some kind of drums beating;publicly rakes

together the hay, defiant of the Prussian Majesty and all men; loads it on his carts, and rolls home with it;

leaving to the Brandenburgers nothing but stubble and the memory of having mown for Hanover to eat. This

is the 28th June, 1729; King of Prussia is now at Magdeburg, reviewing his troops; within a hundred miles of

these contested quagcountries: who can blame him that he flames up now into clear blaze of royal

indignation? The correspondence henceforth becomes altogether lively: but in the Britannic Archives there is

nothing of it,Dubourgay having received warning from my Lord Townshend to be altogether ignorant of

the matter henceforth, and let the Hanover Officials manage it. His Prussian Majesty returns home in the most

We may judge what a time Queen Sophie had of it; what scenes there were with CrownPrince Friedrich and

Wilhelmina, in her Majesty's Apartment and elsewhere! Friedrich Wilhelm is fast mounting to the redhot

pitch. The bullyings, the beatings even, of these poor Children, lovesick one of them, are lamentable to hear

of, as all the world has heard:"Disobedient unnatural whelps, biting the heels of your poor old parent

mastiff in his extreme need, what is to be done with you?" Fritz he often enough beats, gives a slap to with

his rattan; has hurled a plate at him, on occasion, when bad topics rose at table; nay at Wilhelmina too, she

says: but the poor children always ducked, and nothing but a little noise and loss of crockery ensued. Fritz he

deliberately detests, as a servant of the Devil, incorrigibly rebelling against the paternal will, and going on

those dissolute courses: a silly French cockatoo, suspected of disbelief in Scripture; given to nothing but

fifing and playbooks; who will bring Prussia aud himself to a bad end. "God grant he do not finish on the

gallows!" sighed the sad Father once to Grumkow. The records of these things lie written far and wide, in the

To me there was one undiplomatic reflection continually present: Heavens, could nobody have got a bit of

rope, and hanged those two Diplomatic swindlers; clearly of the scoundrel genus, more than common

pickpockets are? Thereby had certain young hearts, and honest old ones too, escaped being broken; and many

a thing might have gone better than it did. JARNIBLEU, Herr Feldzeugmeister, though you are an orthodox

Protestant, this thousandfold perpetual habit of distilled lying seems to me a bad one. I do not blame an old

military gentleman, with a brow so puckered as yours, for having little of the milk of human kindness so

called: but this of breaking, by force of lies merely, and for your own uses, the hearts of poor innocent

creatures, nay of grinding them slowly in the mortar, and employing their Father's hand to do it withal;

thisHerr General, forgive me, but there are moments when I feel as if the extinction of probably the

intensest scoundrel of that epoch might have been a satisfactory event!Alas, it could not be. Seckendorf is

lying abroad for his Kaiser; "the only really able man we have," says Eugene sometimes. Snuffles and lisps;

and travels in all, as they count, about 25,000 miles, keeping his Majesty in company. Here are some

glimpses into the interior, dull but at firsthand, which are worth clipping and condensing from Dubourgay,

30th JULY, 1729. To the respectable old Brigadier, this day or yesterday, "her Majesty, all in tears,

complained of her situation: King is nigh losing his senses on account of the differences with Hanover; goes

from bed to bed in the nighttime, and from chamber to chamber, 'like one whose brains are turned.' Took a

fit, at two in the morning, lately, to be off to Wusterhausen:"about a year ago Seckendorf and Grumkow

had built a Lodge out there, where his Majesty, when he liked, could be snug and private with them: thither

his Majesty now rushed, at two in the morning; but seemingly found little assuagement. "Since his return, he

gives himself up entirely to drink: Seckendorf," the snuffling Belial, "is busy, above ground and below;

has been heard saying He alone could settle these businesses, DoubleMarriage and all, would her Majesty

Chapter VI. IMMINENCY OF WAR OR DUEL BETWEEN THE BRITANNIC AND PRUSSIAN MAJESTIES. 276

"The King will not suffer the PrinceRoyal to sit next his Majesty at table, but obliges him to go to the lower

end; where things are so ordered," says the sympathetic Dubourgay, "that the poor Prince often rises without

getting one bit,"woe's me! "Insomuch that the Queen was obliged two days ago [28th July, 1729, let us

date such an occurrence] to send, by one of the servants who could be trusted, a Box of cold fowls and other

In the first blaze of the outrage at Clamei, Friedrich Wilhelm's ardent mind suggested to him the method of

single combat: defiance of George, by cartel, To give the satisfaction of a gentleman. There have been such

instances on the part of Sovereigns; though they are rare: Karl Ludwig of the Pfalz, Winterking's Son, for

example, did, as is understood, challenge Turenne for burning the Pfalz (FIRST burning that poor country

got); but nothing came of it, owing to Turenne's prudence. Friedrich Wilhelm sees well that it all comes from

George's private humor: Why should human blood be shed except George's and mine? Friedrich Wilhelm is

decisive for sending off the cartel; he has even settled the particulars, and sees in his glowing poetic mind

how the transaction may be: say, at Hildesheim for place; Derschau shall be my second; Brigadier Sutton (if

anybody now know such a man) may be his. Seconds, place and general outline he has schemed out, and

fixed, so far as depends on one party; will fairly fence and fight this insolent little Royal Gentleman; give the

world a spectacle (which might have been very wholesome to the world) of two Kings voiding their quarrel

In England the report goes, "not without foundation," think Lord Hervey and men of sarcastic insight in the

higher circles, That it was his Britannic Majesty who "sent or would have sent a challenge of single combat to

his Prussian Majesty," the latter being the passive party! Report flung into an INVERSE posture, as is liable

to happen; "going" now with its feet uppermost; "not without foundation," thinks Lord Hervey. "But whether

it [the cartel] was carried and rejected, or whether the prayers and remonstrances of Lord Townshend

prevented the gauntlet being actually thrown down, is a point which, to me [Lord Hervey] at least, has never

The Prussian Ministers, no less than Townshend would, feel well that this of Duel will never do.

Astonishment, FLEBILE LULIBRIUM, tragical tehee from gods and men, will come of the Duel! But how to

turn it aside? For the King is determined. His truculent veracity of mind points out this as the real way for

him; reasoning, entreating are to no purpose. "The true method, I tell you! As to the world and its

cackling,let the world cackle!" At length Borck hits on a consideration: "Your Majesty has been ill lately;

hand perhaps not so steady as usual? Now if it should turn out that your Majesty proved so inferior to

yourself as to Good Heavens!" This, it is said, was the point that staggered his Majesty.

TobaccoParliament, and Borck there, pushed its advantage: the method of duel (prevalent through the early

part of July, I should guess) was given up. [Bielfeld, Lettres familieres et autres (Second edition, 2 vols.

Leide, 1767), i. 117, 118.] Why was there no Hansard in that Institution of the Country? Patience, idle reader!

We shall get some scraps of the Debates on other subjects, by and by.But hear Dubourgay again, in the

AUGUST 9th, 1729. "Berlin looks altogether warlike. At Magdeburg they are busy making ovens to bake

Ammunitionbread; Artillery is getting hauled out of the Arsenal here;" all is clangor, din of preparation. "It

is said the King will fall on Mecklenburg;" can at once, if he like. "These intolerable usages from England

[Seckendorf is rumored to have said], can your Majesty endure them forever? Why not marry the

PrinceRoyal, at once, to another Princess, and have done with them!"or words to that effect, as reported

by Courtrumor to her Majesty and Dubourgay. And there is a Princess talked of for this Match, Russian

Princess, little Czar's Sister (little Czar to have Wilhelmina, DoubleMarriage to be with Russia, not with

England); but the little Czar soon died, little Czar's Sister went out of sight, or I know not what happened, and

Chapter VI. IMMINENCY OF WAR OR DUEL BETWEEN THE BRITANNIC AND PRUSSIAN MAJESTIES. 277

As for the CrownPrince, he has not fallen desperate; no; but appears to have strange schemes in him, deep

under cover. "He has said to a confidant [Wilhelmina, it is probable], 'As to his illtreatment, he well knew

how to free himself of that [will fly to foreign parts, your Highness?], and would have done so long since,

were it not for his Sister, upon whom the whole weight of his Father's resentment would then fall. Happen

what will, therefore, he is resolved to share with her all the hardships which the King his Father may be

pleased to put upon her." [Dubourgay, 11th August, 1729.] Means privately a flight to England, Dubourgay

I possess near a dozen Hanoverian and Prussian Despatches upon this strange Business; but should shudder to

inflict them on any innocent reader. Clear, grave Despatches, very brief and just, especially on the Prussian

side: and on a matter too, which truly is not lighter than any other Despatch matter of that intrinsically vacant

Epoch:O reader, would I could bury all vacant talk and writing whatsoever, as I do these poor Despatches

about the "eight cartloads of hay"! Friedrich Wilhelm is fairplay itself; will do all thinge, that Earth or

Heaven can require of him. Only, he is much in a hurry withal; and of this the Hanover Officials take

advantage, perhaps unconsciously, to keep him in provocation. He lies awake at night, his heart is sore, and

he has fled to drink. Towards the middle of August, here again is a phenomenon,"he springs out of bed

in the middle of night," has again an EUREKA as to this of Clamei: "Eureka, I see now what will bring a

settlement!" and sends off posthaste to Kannegiesser at Hanover. To Kannegiesser,Herr Reichenbach, the

special Envoy in this matter, being absent at the moment, gone to the Gohrde, I believe, where Britannic

Majesty itself is: but Kannegiesser is there, upon the Ahlden Heritages; acquainted with the ground, a rather

precise official man, who will serve for the hurry we are in. Posthaste; dove with olivebranch cannot go

too quick;Kannegiesser applying for an interview, not with the Britannic Majesty, who is at Gohrde,

hunting, but with the Hanover Council, isrefused admittance. Here are Herr Kannegiesser's official

"On the 15th day of August, at ten o'clock in the morning, I received Two Orders of Council [these are THE

EUREKA, never ask farther what they are]; despatched on the 13th instant at seven in the evening;

whereupon I immediately went to the Councilchamber here; and informed the Herr von Hartoff, Private

Secretary, who met me in a room adjoining, 'That, having something to propose to his Ministry [now sitting

deliberative in the interior here; something to propose to his Ministry] on the part of the Prussian Ministers, it

was necessary I should speak to them.' Herr von Hartoff, after having reported my demand, let me know, 'He

had received orders from the Ministry to defer what I had to say to another time.'

"I replied, 'That, since I could not be allowed the honor of an audience at that time, I thought myself obliged

to acquaint him I had received an Order from Berlin to apply to the Ministry of this place, in the name of the

Ministers of Prussia, and make the most pressing instances for a speedy Answer to a Letter lately delivered to

them by Herr Hofrath Reichenbath [my worthy Assistant here; Answer to his Letter in the first place]; and to

desire that the Answer might be lodged in my hands, in order to remit it with safety.'

"Herr von Hartoff returned immediately to the Councilchamber; and after having told the Ministers what I

had said, brought me the following answer, in about halfaquarter of an hour [seven minutes by the watch]:

'That the Ministers of this Court would not fail answering the said Letter as soon as possible; and would take

That was all that the punctual Kannegiesser could get out of them. "But," continues he, "not thinking this

reply sufficient, I added, 'That delays being dangerous, I would come again the next day for a more precise

Chapter VI. IMMINENCY OF WAR OR DUEL BETWEEN THE BRITANNIC AND PRUSSIAN MAJESTIES. 278

Rather a highmannered positive man, this Kannegiesser, of the Ahlden Heritages; not without sharpness of

"According to the orders received from the King my Master, and pursuant of my promise of yesterday, I went

at noon this day to the Castle (SCHLOSS), for the purpose, of making appearance in the Councilchamber,

"I let them know I was there, by Van Hartoff, Privy Secretary; and, in the mildest terms, desired to be

admitted to speak with them. Which was refused me a second time; and the following answer delivered me

by Van Hartoff: 'That since the Prussian Ministers had intrusted me with this Commission, the Ministers of

this Court had directed him to draw up my yesterday's Proposals in writing, and report them to the Council.'

"Whereupon I said, 'I could not conceive any reason why I was the only person who could not be admitted to

audience. That, however, as the Ministers of this Court were pleased to authorize him, Herr von Hartoff, to

receive my Proposals, I was obliged to tell him,' as the first or preliminary point of my Commission, 'I had

received orders to be very pressing with the said Ministers of this Court, for an Answer to a Letter from the

Prussian Ministry, lately delivered by Herr Legationsrath von Reichenbach; and finding that the said Answer

was not yet finished, I would stay two days for it, that I might be more secure of getting it. But that then I

should come to put them in mind of it, and desire audience in order to acquit myself of the REST of my

"The Privy Secretary drew up what I said in writing. Immediately afterwards he reported it to the Ministry,

and brought me this answer: 'That the Ministers of this Court would be as good as their word of yesterday,

and answer the abovementioned Letter with all possible expedition.' After which we parted."

"At two in the afternoon, this day, Herr von Hartoff came to my house; and let me know 'He had business of

consequence from the Ministry, and that he would return at five.' By my direction he was told, 'I should

"At the time appointed he came; and told me, 'That the Ministers of the Court, understanding from him that I

designed to ask audience tomorrow, did not doubt but my business would be to remind them of the Answer

which I had demanded yesterday and the day before. That such applications were not customary among

sovereign Princes; that they, the Ministers; 'dared not treat farther in that affair with me; that they desired me

not to mention it to them again till they had received directions from his Britannic Majesty, to whom they had

made their report; and that as soon as they received their instructions, the result of these should be

"To this I replied, 'That I did not expect the Ministers of this Court would refuse me the audience which I

designed to ask tomorrow; and that therefore I would not fail of being at the Councilchamber at eleven,

next day,' according to bargain, 'to know their answer to the rest of my Proposals.'Secretary Von Hartoff

would not hear of this resolution; and assured me positively he had orders to listen to nothing more on the

"At eleven, this day, I went to the Councilchamber, for the third time; and desired Secretary Hartoff 'To

prevail with the Ministry to allow me to speak with them, and communicate what the King of Prussia had

Chapter VI. IMMINENCY OF WAR OR DUEL BETWEEN THE BRITANNIC AND PRUSSIAN MAJESTIES. 279

"Herr von Hartoff gave them an account of my request; and brought me for answer, 'That I must wait a little,

because the Ministers were not yet all assembled.'" Which I did. "But after having made me stay almost an

hour, and after the President of the Council was come, Herr von Hartoff came out to me; and repeated what

he had said yesterday, in very positive and absolute terms, 'That the Ministers were resolved not to see me,

"To which I replied, 'That this was very hard usage; and the world would see how the King of Prussia would

relish it. But having strict orders from his Majesty, my most gracious Master, to make a Declaration to the

Ministers of Hanover in his name; and finding Herr von Hartoff would neither receive it, nor take a copy of

it, I had only to tell him that I was under the necessity of leaving it in writing,and had brought the Paper

with me,'" let Herr von Hartoff observe!"'And that now, as the Council were pleased to refuse to take it, I

was obliged to leave the said Declaration on a table in an adjoining room, in the presence of Herr von Hartoff

and other Secretaries of the Council, whom I desired to lay it before the Ministry.'

"After this I went home; but had scarcely entered my apartment, when a messenger returned me the

Declaration, still sealed as I left it, by order of the Ministers: and perceiving I was not inclined to receive it,

he laid it on my table, and immediately left the house." [A Letter from an English Traveller to his Friend at

London, relating to the Differences betwixt the Courts of Prussia and Hanover, with Copies of, Translated

from the French (London, A. Millar, at Buchanan's Head, 1730), pp. 2934. An excellent distinct little

Pamphlet; very explanatory in this matter,like the smallest rushlight in a dark cellar of shotlumber.]

Whereupon Kannegiesser, without loss of a moment, returns to Berlin, 19th August; and reports progress.

Simple honest Orson of a Prussian Majesty, what a bepainted, beribboned insulting Playactor Majesty has

he fallen in with! "Hm, so? Hm, na!" and I see the face of him, all colors of the prism, and eyes in a fine

frenzy; betokening thundery weather to some people! Instantly he orders 44,000 men to get on march;

[Friedrich Wilhelm's "Manifesto" is in Mauvillon, ii. 210215, dated "20th August, 1729" (the day after

Kannegieseer's return).] and these instantly begin to stir; small preparation needed, everready being the

word with them. From heavy guns, ammunitionwagons and draughthorses, down to the last buckle of a

spatterdash, things are all ticketed and ready in his Majesty's country; things, and still more evidently men.

Within a week, the amazed Gazetteers {Newspaper Editors we now call them) can behold the actual advent

of horse, foot and artillery regiments at Magdeburg; actual rendezvous begun, and with a frightful equable

velocity going on day after day. On the 15th day of September, if Fate's almanac hold steady, there will be

44,000 of them ready there. Such a mass of potentialbattle as George or the Hanover Officiality areready

Alas, far enough from that. Forces of their own they have, after a sort; subsidized Hessians, Danes, these they

can begin to stir up; but they have not a regiment ready for fighting; and have NOTHING, if all were ready,

which this 44,000 cannot too probably sweep out of the world. I suppose little George must have exhibited

some prismatic colors of countenance, too. This insulted Orson is swinging a tremendous club upon the little

peruked ribboned high gentleman, promenading loftily in his preserves yonder! The Prussian forces march,

steady, continual; CrownPrince Friedrich's regiment of Giants is on march, expressly under charge of

Friedrich himself:the young man's thoughts are not recorded for us; only that he gets praise from his

Father, so dexterous and perfect is he with the Giants and their getting into gear. Nor is there, says our

Foreign Correspondent, the least truth, in your rumor that the Prussian forces, officers or men, marched with

bad will; "conspicuously the reverse is the truth, as I myself can testify." [Pamphlet cited above.] And his

Britannic Majesty, now making a dreadful flutter to assemble as fast as possible, is like to get quite flung into

Chapter VI. IMMINENCY OF WAR OR DUEL BETWEEN THE BRITANNIC AND PRUSSIAN MAJESTIES. 280

What an amazement, among the Gazetteers: thunderclouds of war mounting up over the zenith in this

manner, and blotting out the sun; may produce an effect on the Congress of Soissons? Presumably: and his

Imperial Majesty, left sitting desolate on his Pragmatic Sanction, gloomily watching events, may find

something turn up to his advantage? Prussia and England are sufficiently in quarrel, at any rate; perhaps

almost too much.The Pope, in these circumstances, did a curious thing. The Pope, having prayed lately for

rain and got it, proceeds now, in the end of September, while such warrumors are still at their height in

Rome, to pray, or even do a Public Mass, or some other socalled Pontificality, "in the Chapel of Philip Neri

in the New Church," by way of still more effectual miracle. Prays, namely, That Heaven would be graciously

pleased to foment, and blow up to the proper degree, this quarrel between the two chief Heretic Powers,

Heaven's chief enemies, whereby Holy Religion might reap a good benefit, if it pleased Heaven. But, this

time, the miracle did not go off according to program. ["Extract of a Letter from Rome, 24th September,

For at this point, before the Pope had prayed, but while the troops and artillery were evidently all on march

("Such an artillery as I," who am Kaiser's ArtilleryMaster, "for my poor part, never had the happiness to see

before in any country," snuffles Seckendorf in the Smoking Parliament), and now swords are, as it were,

drawn, and in the air make horrid circles,the neighbors interfere: "Heavens I put up your swords!"and

the huge worldwide tumult suddenly (I think, in the very first days of this month September) collapses,

Of course it could never come to actual battle, after all. Too high a pickleherring tragedy that. Here is a

COMODIANT not wanting to be smitten into the bogs; an honest Orson who wants nothing, nor has ever

wanted, but fairplay. Fairplay; and not to be insulted on the streets, or have one's poor Hobby quite

knocked from under one!Neighbors, as we say, struck in; France, Holland, all the neighbors, at this point:

"Do it by arbitration; Wolfenbuttel for the one, SachsenGotha for the other; Commissioners to meet at

Brunswick!" And that, accordingly, was the course fixed upon; and settlement, by that method, was

accomplished, without difficulty, in some six months hence. [16th April, 1730 (Forster, ii. 105).] Whether

Clamei was awarded to Hanover or to Brandenburg, I never knew, or how the hay of it is cut at this moment.

I only know there was no battle on the subject; though at one time there was like to be such a clash of battle

as the old Markgraves never had with their old Wends; not if we put all their battlings into one.

Seckendorf's radiant brow has to pucker itself again: this fine project, of boiling the Kaiser's eggs by setting

the world on fire, has not prospered after all. The gloomy old villain came to her Majesty one day,

[Dubourgay, 30th July, 1729.] while things were near the hottest; and said or insinuated, He was the man that

could do these businesses, and bring about the DoubleMarriage itself, if her Majesty were not so harsh upon

him. Whereupon her Majesty, reporting to Dubourgay, threw out the hint, "What if we (that is, you) did give

him a forty or fifty thousand thalers verily, for he will do anything for money?" To which Townshend

answers from the Gohrde, to the effect: "Pooh, he is a mere bag of noxious futilities; consists of gall mainly,

and rusty old lies and crotchets; breathing very copperas through those old choppy lips of his: let him go to

the!" Next Spring, at the happy end of the Arbitration, which he had striven all he could to mar and to

retard, he fell quite ill; took to his bed for two days, colics, or one knows not what;"and I can't say I am

very sorry for him," writes the respectable Dubourgay. [25th April, 1730.] On the 8th day of September,

1729, Friedrich CrownPrince reenters Potsdam [Ib. 11th Sept. 1729.] with his two battalions of Giants; he

has done so well, the King goes out from Berlin to see him march in with them; rejoicing to find something

of a soldier in the young graceless, after all. "The King distributed 100,000 thalers (15,000 pounds) among

his Army;" being well pleased with their behavior, and doubtless right glad to be out of such a Business. The

Ahlden Heritages will now get liquidated; Mecklenburg,our Knyphausen, with the Hanover Consorts, will

The fact, on some of these points, turned out different; but it was now of less importance. As to Knyphausen's

proceedings at Mecklenburg, after the happy Peace, they were not so successful as had been hoped. Need of

Chapter VI. IMMINENCY OF WAR OR DUEL BETWEEN THE BRITANNIC AND PRUSSIAN MAJESTIES. 281

quarrel, however, between the Majesties, there henceforth was not in Mecklenburg; and if slight rufflings and

collisions did arise, it was not till after our poor DoubleMarriage was at any rate quite out of the game, and

they are without significance to us. But the truth is, though Knyphausen did his best, no settlement came; nor

indeed could ever come. Shall we sum up that sorry matter here, and wash our hands of it?

Knyphausen, we say, proved futile; nor could human wit have succeeded. The exasperated Duke was

contumacious, irrational; the two Majesties kept pulling different ways upon him. Matters grew from very

bad to worse; and Mecklenburg continued long a running sore. Not many months after this (I think, still in

1729), the irrational Duke, having got money out of Russia, came home again from Dantzig; to notable

increase of the Anarchies in Mecklenburg, though without other result for himself. The irrational Duke

proved more contumacious than ever, fell into deeper trouble than ever;at length (1733) he made

Proclamation to the Peasantry to rise and fight for him; who did turn out, with their billhooks and

bludgeons, under Captains named by him, "to the amount of 18,000 Peasants,"with such riot as may be

fancied, but without other result. So that the Hanover Commissioners decided to seize the very RESIDENZ

Cities (Schwerin and Domitz) from this mad Duke, and make the country clear of him,his Brother being

Interim Manager always, under countenance of the Commissioners. Which transactions, especially which

contemplated seizure of the Residence Cities, Friedrich Wilhelm, eventual heir, could not see with

equanimity at all. But having no forces in the country, what could he do? Being "JointCommissioner" this

long while past, though without armed interference hitherto, he privately resolves that he will have forces

there; the rather as the poor Duke professes penitence, and flies to him for help. Poor soul, his Russian

Unique of Wives has just died, far enough away from him this long while past: what a life they have had,

Enough, "on the 19th of October, 1733, LieutenantGeneral Schwerin,"the same who was Colonel

Schwerin, the Duke's chief Captain here, at the beginning of these troubles, now LientenantGeneral and a

distinguished PRUSSIAN officer, "marches into Mecklenburg with three regiments, one of foot, two of

horse:" [Buchholz, i. 122, 142; Michaelis, ii. 433, 437.] he, doubtless, will help in quelling those Peasant and

other Anarchies? Privately his mission is most delicate. He is not to fight with the Hanoverians; is delicately

but effectually to shove them well away from the Residence Cities, and fasten himself down in those parts.

Which the LieutenantGeneral dexterously does. "A night's quarter here in Parchim,"such is the

LieutenantGeneral's request, polite but impressive, from the outskirts of that little Town, a Town essential to

certain objects, and in fact the point he is aiming at: "night's quarter; you cannot refuse it to this Prussian

Company marching under the Kaiser's Commission?" No, the Hanoverian Lieutenant of Foot dare not take

upon him to refuse:but next morning, he is himself invited to withdraw, the Prussians having orders to

continue here in Parchim! And so with the other points and towns, that are essential in the enterprise on hand.

A dexterous LieutenantGeneral this Schwerin:his two HorseColonels are likewise men to be noted;

Colonel Wreech, with a charming young Wife, perhaps a too charming; Colonel Truchsess von Waldburg,

known afterwards, with distinction, in London Society and widely otherwise. And thus, in the end of 1733,

the Mecklenburg Residence Cities, happen what may, are secured for their poor irrational Duke. These things

may slightly ruffle some tempers at Hanover; but it is now 1733, and our poor DoubleMarriage is clean out

The irrational Duke could not continue in his Residence Cities, with the Brother administering over him; still

proving contumacious, he needed absolutely to be driven out, to Wismar or I know not whither; went

wandering about for almost twenty years to come; disturbed, and stirring up disturbance. Died 1747, still in

that sad posture; Interim Brother, with Posterity, succeeding. [Michaelis, ii. 434440.] But Hanover and

Prussia interfered no farther; the brother administered on his own footing, "supported by troops hired from

Hamburg. Hanover and Prussia, 400 Hanoverians, 200 Prussians, merely retained hold of their respective

Hypothecs [Districts held in pawn] till the expenses should be paid,"million of THALERS, and by those

Chapter VI. IMMINENCY OF WAR OR DUEL BETWEEN THE BRITANNIC AND PRUSSIAN MAJESTIES. 282

Prussia and Hanover retained hold of their Hypothecs; for as to the expenses, what hope was there? Fifty

years hence we find the Prussian Hypothecs occupied as at first; and "rights of enlistment exercised." Never

in this world were those expenses paid;nor could be, any part of them. The last accounts were: George III.

of England, on marrying, in 1761, a Mecklenburg Princess,"Old Queen Charlotte," then young

enough,handsomely tore up the bill; and so ended that part of a desperate debt. But of the Prussian part

there was no end, nor like to be any: "down to this day [says Buchholz, in 1775], two squadrons of the

Ziethen Hussars usually lie there," and rights of enlisting are exercised. I conclude, the French Revolution

and its Wars wiped away this other desperate item. And now let us hope that Mecklenburg is better off than

formerly,that, at least, our hands are clear of it in time coming. I add only, with satisfaction, that this

Unique of Dukes was no ancestor of Old Queen Charlotte's, but only a remote WelshUncle, far enough

Knyphausen did not settle Mecklenburg, as we perceive! Neither did Kannegiesser and the unliquidated

Heritages prosper, at Hanover, quite to perfection. One Heritage, that of Uncle Osnabruck, little George flatly

refused to share: FEUDUM the whole of that, not ALLODIUM any part of it, so that a Sister cannot claim.

Which, I think, was confirmed by the Arbitrators at Brunswick; thereby ending that. Then as to the Ahlden

ALLODIA or FEUDA, Kannegiesser, blamably or not, never could make much of the business. A precise

strict man, as we saw at the Hanover Councilroom lately; whom the Hanover people did not like. So he

made little of it. Nay at the end of next year (December, 1730), sending in his accounts to Berlin, he

demands, in addition to the three thalers (or nine shillings) daily allowed him, almost a second nine shillings

for sundries, chiefly for "hairpowder and shoeblacking"! And is instantly recalled; and vanishes from

Upon which Friedrich Wilhelm selects another; "sends deal boxes along with him," to bring home what cash

there is. This one's name is Nussler; an expectant Prussian Official, an adroit man, whom we shall meet again

doing work. He has the nine shillings a day, without hairpowder or blacking, while employed here; at Berlin

no constant salary whatever,had to "borrow 75 pounds for outfit on this business;"does a great deal of

work without wages, in hope of effective promotion by and by. Which did follow, after tedious years;

Friedrich Wilhelm finding him, on such proof (other proof will not do), FIT for promoting to steady

Nussler was very active at Hanover, and had his deal boxes; but hardly got them filled according to hope.

However, in some eighteen months he had actually worked out, in difficult instalments, about 13,000 pounds,

and dug the matter to the bottom. He came home with his last instalment, not disapproved of, to Berlin (May,

1732); six years after the poor Duchess's death, so the Ahlden ALLODIA too had their end.

While the Hanover Imminency was but beginning, and horrid crisis of War or Duelwas yet in nobody's

thoughts, the Anspach Wedding [30th May, 1729] had gone on at Berlin. To Friedrich Wilhelm's satisfaction;

not to his Queen's, the match being but a poor one. The bride was Frederika Louisa, not the eldest of their

Daughters, but the nexteldest: younger than Wilhelmina, and still hardly fifteen; the first married of the

Family. Very young she: and gets a very young Margraf,who has been, and still is a minor; under his

Mother's guardianship till now: not rich, and who has not had a good chance to be wise. The Motheran

excellent magnanimous Princess, still young and beautiful, but laboring silently under some mortal

Chapter VII. A MARRIAGE: NOT THE DOUBLEMARRIAGE: CROWNPRINCE DEEP IN TROUBLE. 283

diseasehas done her best to manage for him these last four or five years; [Pollnitz, Memoirs and Letters

(English Translation, London, I745), i. 200204. There are "MEMOIRS of Pollnitz," then "MEMOIRS AND

LETTERS," besides the "MEMOIRS of Brandenburg" (posthumous, which we often cite); all by this poor

man. Only the last has any Historical value, and that not much. The first two are only worth consulting,

cautiously, as loose contemporary babble,written for the Dutch Booksellers, one can perceive.] and, as I

Friday forenoon, 19th May, 1729, the young Margraf arrived in person at Berlin,just seventeen gone

Saturday last, poor young soul, and very foolish. Sublime royal carriage met him at the Prussian frontier; and

this day, what is more interesting, our "CrownPrince rides out to meet him; mounts into the royal carriage

beside him;" and the two young fools drive, in such a cavalcade of hoofs and wheels,talking we know not

what,into Potsdam; met by his Majesty and all the honors. What illustrious gala there then was in Potsdam

and the Court world, read,with tedium, unless you are in the tailor line,described with minute

distinctness by the admiring Fassmann. [pp.396401.] There are Generals, high Ladies, sons of Bellona and

Latona; there are dinners, there are hautboys,"twoandthirty blackamoors," in flaming uniforms, capable

of cymballing and hautboying "up the grand staircase, and round your table, and down again," in a frightfully

effective manner, while you dine. Madame Kamecke is to go as Oberhofmeisterinn to Anspach; and all the

lackeys destined thither are in their new liveries, blue turned up with red velvet. Which is delightful to see.

Review of the Giant grenadiers cannot fail; conspicuous on parade with them our CrownPrince as

LieutenantColonel: "the beauty of this Corps as well as the perfection of their EXERCITIA,"ah yes, we

know it, my dim old friend. The Marriage itself followed, at Berlin, after many exercitia, snipeshootings,

feastings, hautboyings; on the 30th of the month; with torchdance and the other customary trimmings;

"Bride's garter cut in snips" for dreaming upon "by his Royal Majesty himself." The LUSTBARKEITEN, the

stupendous public entertainments having ended, there is weeping and embracing (MORE HUMANO); and

the happy couple, socalled happy, retire to Anspach with their destinies and effects.

A foolish young fellow, this new Brotherinlaw, testifies Wilhelmina in many places. Finances in disorder;

Mother's wise management, ceasing too soon, has only partially availed. King "has lent some hundreds of

thousands of crowns to Anspach [says Friedrich at a later period], which there is no chance of ever being

repaid. All is in disorder there, in the finance way; if the Margraf gets his hunting and his heroning, he laughs

at all the rest; and his people pluck him bare at every hand." [Schulenburg's Letter (in Forster, iii. 72).] Nor

do the married couple agree to perfection;far from it: "hate one another like cat and dog (like the fire,

COMME LE FEU)," says Friedrich: [Correspondence (more than once).] "his Majesty may see what comes

of illassorted marriages!"In fact, the union proved none of the most harmonious; subject to squalls

always;but to squalls only; no open tempest, far less any shipwreck: the marriage held together till death,

the Husband's death, nearly thirty years after, divided it. There was then left one Son; the same who at length

inherited Baireuth too,inherited Lady Craven,and died in Bubb Doddington's Mansion, as we often

Last year, the Third Daughter was engaged to the HeirApparent of Brunswick; will be married, when of age.

Wilhelmina, flower of them all, still hangs on the bush, "asked," or supposed to be "asked by four Kings," but

not attained by any of them; and one knows not what will be her lot. She is now risen out of the sickness she

has had,not smallpox at all, as malicious English rumor gave it in England;and "looks prettier than

Here is a marriage, then; first in the Family;but not the DoubleMarriage, by a long way! The late

Hanover Tornado, sudden Waterspout as we called it, has quenched that Negotiation; and one knows not in

what form it will resuscitate itself. The royal mind, both at Berlin and St. James's, is in a very uncertain state

Chapter VII. A MARRIAGE: NOT THE DOUBLEMARRIAGE: CROWNPRINCE DEEP IN TROUBLE. 284

Friedrich Wilhelm's favor for the CrownPrince, marching home so gallantly with his Potsdam Giants, did

not last long. A few weeks later in the Autumn we have again ominous notices from Dubourgay. And here,

otherwise obtained, is a glimpse into the interior of the Berlin Schloss; momentary perfect clearness, as by a

flash of lightning, on the state of matters there; which will be illuminative to the reader.

This is another of those tragicomic scenes, tragic enough in effect, between Father and Son; Son now about

eighteen,fit to be getting through Oxford, had he been an English gentleman of private station. It comes

from the irrefragable Nicolai; who dates it about this time, uncertain as to month or day.

Fritz's love of music, especially of fluting, is already known to us. Now a certain Quantz was one of his

principal instructors in that art, and indeed gave him the last finish of perfection in it. Quantz, famed Saxon

musicmaster and composer, Leader of the CourtBand in Saxony, king of fluteplayers in his day, (a

villagefarrier's son from the Gottingen region, and himself destined to shoe horses, had not imperative

Nature prevailed over hindrances);Quantz, ever from Fritz's sixteenth year, was wont to come

occasionally, express from Dresden, for a week or two, and give the young man lessons on the flute. The

young man's Mother, good Queen Feekin, had begged this favor for him from the Saxon Sovereignties; and

pleaded hard for it at home, or at worst kept it secret there. It was one of the many good maternities,

clandestine and public, which she was always ready to achieve for him where possible;as he also knew full

well in his young grateful heart, and never forgot, however old he grew! Illustrious Quantz, we say, gives

Fritz lessons on the flute; and here is a scene they underwent;they and a certain brisk young soldier fellow,

Lieutenant von Katte, who was there too; of whom the reader will tragically hear more in time.

On such occasions Fritz was wont to pull off the tight Prussian coat or COATIE, and clap himself into

flowing brocade of the due roominess and splendor,bright scarlet dressinggown, done in gold, with tags

and sashes complete;and so, in a temporary manner, feel that there was such a thing as a gentleman's

suitable apparel. He would take his musiclessons, follow his clandestine studies, in that favorable

dress:thus Buffon, we hear, was wont to shave, and put on clean linen, before he sat down to write, finding

it more comfortable so. Though, again, there have been others who could write in considerable disorder; not

to say litter, and palpable imperfection of equipment: Samuel Johnson, for instance, did some really grand

writing in a room where there was but one chair, and that one incapable of standing unless you sat on it,

having only three feet. A man is to fit himself to what is round him: but surely a CrownPrince may be

Fritz and Quantz sat doing music, an unlawful thing, in this pleasant, but also unlawful costume; when

Lieutenant Katte, who was on watch in the outer room, rushes in, distraction in his aspect: Majesty just here!

Quick, double quick! Katte snatches the musicbooks and flutes, snatches Quantz; hurries with him and them

into some wallpress, or closet for firewood, and stands quaking there. Our poor Prince has flung aside his

brocade, got on his military coatie; and would fain seem busy with important or indifferent routine matters.

But, alas, he cannot undo the French hairdressing; cannot change the graceful French bag into the strict

Prussian queue in a moment. The French bag betrays him; kindles the paternal vigilance,alas, the paternal

wrath, into a tornado pitch. For his vigilant suspecting Majesty searches about; finds the brocade article

behind a screen; crams it, with loud indignation, into the fire; finds all the illicit French Books; confiscates

them on the spot, confiscates all manner of contraband goods:and there was mere sulphurous whirlwind in

those serene spaces for about an hour! If his Majesty had looked into the woodcloset? His Majesty, by

Heaven's express mercy, omitted that. Haude the Bookseller was sent for; ordered to carry off that poisonous

French cabinetlibrary in mass; sell every Book of it, to an undiscerning public, at what price it will fetch.

Which latter part of his order, Haude, in deep secrecy, ventured to disobey, being influenced thereto. Haude,

in deep secrecy, kept the cabinetlibrary secure; and "lent" the Prince book after book from it, as his Royal

Chapter VII. A MARRIAGE: NOT THE DOUBLEMARRIAGE: CROWNPRINCE DEEP IN TROUBLE. 285

Friedrich, it is whispered in TobaccoParliament, has been known, in his irreverent impatience, to call the

Grenadier uniform his "shroud (STERBEKITTEL, or deathclothes);" so imprisoning to the young mind and

body! Paternal Majesty has heard this blasphemous rumor; hence doubtless, in part, his fury against the wider

It was Quantz himself that reported this explosion to authentic Nicolai, many years afterwards; confessing

that he trembled, every joint of him, in the woodcloset, during that hour of hurricane; and the rather as he

had on "a red dresscoat," whioh color, foremost of the flaring colors, he knew to be his Majesty's aversion,

on a man's back. [Nicolai, Anekdoten (Berlin, 1790), ii. 148.] Of incomparable Quantz, and his heartthrilling

adagios, we hope to hear transiently again, under joyfuler circumstances. Of Lieutenant von Katte,a short

stout young fellow, with black eyebrows, pockmarked face, and rather dissolute manners,we shall not fail

It is not certain that the late Imminency of Duel had much to do with such explosions. The Hanover

Imminency, which we likened to a tropical waterspout, or sudden thunderous blottingout of the sky to the

astonished Gazetteers, seems rather to have passed away as waterspouts do,leaving the earth and air, if

anything, a little REFRESHED by such crisis. Leaving, that is to say, the two Majesties a little less disposed

for open quarrel, or rash utterance of their ill humor in time coming. But, in the mean while, all mutual

interests are in a painful state of suspended animation: in Berlin there is a privately rebellious Spouse and

Household, there is a TobaccoParliament withal;and the royal mind, sensitive, imaginative as a poet's, as

a woman's, and liable to transports as of a Norse Baresark, is of uncertain movement. Such a load of

intricacies and exaggerated anxieties hanging on it, the royal mind goes like the most confused smokejack,

sure only to HAVE revolutions; and we know how, afar from Soissons, and at home in TobaccoParliament,

the machine is influenced! Enough, the explosive procedures continue, and are on the increasing hand.

Majesty's hunting at Wusterhausen was hardly done, when that alarming Treaty of Seville came to light (9th

November, 1729), France and England ranked by the side of Spain, disposing of Princes and Apanages at

their will, and a Kaiser left sitting solitary,which awakens the domestic whirlwinds at Berlin, among other

results. "CANAILLE ANGLAISE, English Doggery!" and similar fine epithets, addressed to Wilhelmina and

the CrownPrince, fly about; not to speak of occasional crockery and other missiles. Friedrich Wilhelm has

forbidden these two his presence altogether, except at dinner: Out of my sight, ye Canaille Anglaise; darken

This is in the Wusterhausen time,Hanover Imminency only two months gone. And Mamma sends for us to

have private dialogues in her Apartment there, with spies out in every direction to make signal of Majesty's

return from his hunt,who, however, surprises as on one occasion, so that we have to squat for hours, and

almost get suffocated. [Wilhelmina, i. 172.] Whereupon the CrownPrince, who will be eighteen in a couple

of months, and feels the indignity of such things, begs of Mamma to be excused in future. He has much to

suffer from his Father again, writes Dubourgay in the end of November: "it is difficult to conceive the vile

stratagems that are made use of to provoke the Father against the Son." [Dubourgay, 28th November, 1729.]

Or again, take this, as perhaps marking an epoch in the business, a fortnight farther on:

DECEMBER 10th 1729. "His Prussian Majesty cannot bear the sight of either the Prince or Princess Royal:

The other day, he asked the Prince: 'Kalkstein makes you English; does not he?'" Kalkstein, your old Tutor,

Borck, Knyphausen, Finkenstein, they are all of that vile clique! "To which the Prince answered, 'I respect the

English because I know the people there love me;' upon which the King seized him by the collar, struck him

fiercely with his cane," in fact rained showers of blows upon him; "and it was only by superior strength,"

thinks Dubourgay, "that the poor Prince escaped worse. There is a general apprehension of something tragical

Truly the situation is so violent, it cannot last. And in effect a wild thought, not quite new, ripens to a

resolution in the CrownPrince under such pressures: In reference to which, as we grope and guess, here is a

Billet to Mamma, which Wilhelmina has preserved. Wilhelmina omits all trace of date, as usual; but

"I am in the uttermost despair. What I had always apprehended has at last come on me. The King has entirely

forgotten that I am his Son. This morning I came into his room as usual; at the first sight of me," or at the first

passage of Kalksteindialogue with me, "he sprang forward, seized me by the collar, and struck me a shower

of cruel blows with his rattan. I tried in vain to screen myself, he was in so terrible a rage, almost out of

himself; it was only weariness," not my superior strength, "that made him give up."

"I am driven to extremity. I have too much honor to endure such treatment; and I am resolved to put an end to

Is not this itself sufficiently tragical? Not the first stroke he had got, we can surmise; but the first torrent of

strokes, and open beating like a slave;which to a proud young man and Prince, at such age, is indeed

INtolerable. Wilhelmina knows too well what he meaus by "ending it in one way or another;" but strives to

reassure Mamma as to its meaning "flight," or the like desperate resolution. "Mere violence of the moment,"

Flight is not a new idea to the CrownPrince; in a negative form we have seen it present in the minds of

bystanders: "a CrownPrince determined NOT to fly," whispered they. [Dubourgay (9th August, 1729),

supra, p. 129.] Some weeks ago, Wilhelmina writes: "The King's bad treatments began again on his

reappearance" at Potsdam after the Hunting; "he never saw my Brother without threatening him with his

cane. My Brother told me day after day, He would endure everything from the King, only not blows; and that

if it ever came to such extremity, he would be prepared to deliver himself by running off." And here, it would

Wilhelmina, pitying her poor Brother, but condemning him on many points, continues: [i. 173, 174.]

"Lieutenant Keith," that wild companion of his, "had been gone some time, stationed in Wesel with his

regiment." Which fact let us also keep in mind. "Keith's departure had been a great joy to me; in the hope my

Brother would now lead a more regular life: but it proved quite otherwise. A second favorite, and a much

more dangerous, succeeded Keith. This was a young man of the name of Katte, CaptainLieutenant in the

regiment GENSD'ARMES. He was highly connected in the Army; his Mother had been a daughter of

Feldmarschall Graf von Wartensleben,"a highest dignitary of the last generation. Katte's Father, now a

General of distinction, rose also to be Feldmarschall; Cousins too, sons of a KammerPresident von Katte at

Magdeburg, rose to Army rank in time coming; but not this poor Katte,whom let the reader note!

"General Katte his Father," continues Wilhelmina, "had sent him to the Universities, and afterwards to travel,

desiring he should be a Lawyer. But as there was no favor to expect out of the Army, the young man found

himself at last placed there, contrary to his expectation. He continued to apply himself to studies; he had wit,

bookculture, acquaintance with the world; the good company which he continued to frequent had given him

polite manners, to a degree then rare in Berlin. His physiognomy was rather disagreeable than otherwise. A

pair of thick black eyebrows almost covered the eyes of him; his look had in it something ominous, presage

of the fate he met with: a tawny skin, torn by smallpox, increased his ugliness. He affected the freethinker,

and carried libertinism to excess; a great deal of ambition and headlong rashness accompanied this vice." A

dangerous adviser here in the Berlin element, with lightnings going! "Such a favorite was not the man to

bring back my Brother from his follies. This I learned at our [Mamma's and my] return to Berlin," from the

Wusterhausen and the Potsdam tribulations;and think of it, not without terror, now that the extremity

For one thing, Friedrich Wilhelm, weary of all this English pother and futility, will end the DoubleMarriage

speculation; Wilhelmina shall be disposed of, and so an end. Friedrich Wilhelm, once the hunting was over at

Wusterhausen, ran across, southward,to "Lubnow," Wilhelmina calls it,to Lubben in the Nether Lausitz,

[25th October, 1729 (Fassmann, p. 404).] a short day's drive; there to meet incognito the jovial Polish

Majesty, on his route towards Dresden; to see a review or so; and have a little talk with the evercheerful

Man of Sin. Grumkow and Seckendorf, of course these accompany; Majesty's shadow is not surer.

Review was held at Lubben, Weissenfels Commanderinchief taking charge; dinner also, a dinner or two,

with much talk and drink; and there it was settled, Wilhelmina has since known, that Weissenfels, Royal

Highness in the Abstract, was to be her Husband, after all. Weissenfels will do; either Weissenfels or else the

Margraf of Schwedt, thinks Friedrich Wilhelm; somebody shall marry the baggage out of hand, and let us

have done with that. Grumkow, as we know, was very anxious for it; calculating thereby to out the ground

from under the Old Dessauer, and make this Weissenfels Generalissimo of Prussia; a patriotic thought. Polish

Friedrich Wilhelm, on his return homewards, went round by Dahme for a night:not "Dam," O Princess,

there is no such town or schloss! Round by Dahme, a little town and patch of territory, in the Saxon

Countries, which was Weissenfels's Apanage;"where plenty of Tokay" cheered the royal heart; and, in

such mood, it seemed as if one's Daughter might do very well in this extremely limited position. And

Weissenfels, though with dark misgivings as to Queen Sophie, was but too happy to consent: the foolish

creature; a little given to liquor too! Friedrich Wilhelm, with this fine project in his head, drove home to

Potsdam;and there laid about him, on the poor CrownPrince, in the way we have seen; terrifying Queen

and Princess, who are at Berlin till Christmas and the Carnival be over. Friedrich Wilhelm means to see the

Polish Majesty again before long,probably so soon as this of Weissenfels is fairly got through the Female

Christmas came to Berlin, and the King with it; who did the gayeties for a week or two, and spoke nothing

about business to his Female Parliament. Dubourgay saw him, at Parade, on NewYear's morning; whither

all manner of Foreign Dignitaries had come to pay their respects: "Well," cried the King to Dubourgay, "we

shall have a War, then,"universa1 deadly tug at those Italian Apanages, for and against an insulted

Kaiser,"War; and then all that is crooked will be pulled straight!" So spake Friedrich Wilhelm on the

NewYear's morning; War in Italy, universal spasm of wrestle there, being now the expectation of foolish

mankind: Crooked will be pulled straight, thinks Friedrich Wilhelm; and perhaps certain high Majesties, deaf

to the voice of Shouldnot, will understand that of Cannot, Excellenz! Crooked will become straight?

"Indeed if so, your Majesty, the sooner the better!" I ventured to answer. [Dubourgay, 8th January, 1730.]

New Year's day is not well in, and the ceremonial wishes over, when Friedrich Wilhelm, his mind full of

serious domestic and foreign matter, withdraws to Potsdam again; and therefrom begins fulminating in a

terrible manner on his womankind at Berlin, what we called his Female Parliament,too much given to

opposition courses at present. Intends to have his measures passed there, in defiance of opposition;

straightway; and an end put to this inexpressible DoubleMarriage higglehaggle. Speed to him! we will

say.Three high Crises occur, three or even four, which can now without much detail be made intelligible to

the patient reader: on the back of which we look for some catastrophe and finis to the Business;any

Still early in January, a few days after his Majesty's return to Potsdam, three high Official gentlemen, Count

Fink van Finkenstein, old Tutor to the Prince, Grumkow and General Borck announce themselves one

morning; "Have a pressing message from the King to her Majesty." [Wilhelmina, i. 180.] Queen is

astonished; expecting anything sooner."This regards me, I have a dreading!" shuddered Wilhelmina to

Mamma. "No matter," said the Queen, shrugging her shoulders; "one must have firmness; and that is not what

I shall want;"and her Majesty went into the Audiencechamber, leaving Wilhelmina in such tremors.

Finkenstein, a friendly man, as Borck too is, explains to her Majesty, "That they three have received each a

Letter overnight, Letter from the King, enjoining in the FIRST place 'silence under pain of death;' in the

SECOND place, apprising them that he, the King, will no longer endure her Majesty's disobedience in regard

to the marriage of his Daughter, but will banish Daughter and Mother 'to Oranienburg,' quasidivorce, and

outer darkness, unless there be compliance with his sovereign will; THIRDLY, that they are accordingly to

go, all three, to her Majesty, to deliver the enclosed Royal Autograph [which Finkenstein presents], testifying

what said sovereign will is, and on the above terms expect her Majesty's reply;"as they have now

sorrowfully done, Finkenstein and Borck with real sorrow; Grumkow with the reverse of real.

Sovereign will is to the effect: "Write to England one other time, Will you at once marry, or not at once; Yea

or No? Answer can be here within a fortnight; three weeks, even in case of bad winds. If the answer be not

Yea at once; then you, Madam, you at once choose Weissenfels or Schwedt, one or the other,under what

Here is a crisis. But her Majesty did not want firmness. "Write to England? Yes, willingly. But as to

Weissenfels and Schwedt, whatever answer come from England,Impossible!" steadily answers her

Majesty. There was much discourse, suasive, argumentative; Grumkow "quoting Scripture on her Majesty, as

the Devil can on occasion," says Wilhelmina. Express Scriptures, Wives, be obedient to your husbands, and

the like texts: but her Majesty, on the Scripture side too, gave him as good as he brought. "Did not Bethuel

the son of Milcah, [Genesis xxiv. 1458.] when Abraham's servant asked his daughter in marriage for young

Isaac, answer, We will call the damsel and inquire of her mouth. And they called Rebecca, and said unto her,

Wilt thou go with this man? And she said, I will go." Scripture for Scripture, Herr von Grumkow! "Wives

must obey their husbands; surely yes. But the husbands are to command things just and reasonable. The

King's procedure is not accordant with that law. He is for doing violence to my Daughter's inclination, and

rendering her unhappy for the rest of her days;will give her a brutal debauchee," fat Weissenfels, so

describable in strong language; "a younger brother, who is nothing but the King of Poland's Officer; landless,

and without means to live according to his rank. Or can it be the State that will profit from such a marriage?

If they have a Household, the King will have to support it.Write to England; Yes; but whatever the answer

of England, Weissenfels never! A thousand times sooner see my child in her grave than hopelessly

miserable!" Here a qualm overtook her Majesty; for in fact she is in an interesting state, third month of her

time: "I am not well; You should spare me, Gentlemen, in the state I am in.I do not accuse the King,"

concluded she: "I know," hurling a glance at Grumkow, "to whom I owe all this;" and withdrew to her

interior privacies; reading there with Wilhelmina "the King's cruel Letter," and weeping largely, though firm

to the death. [Wilhelmina, i. 179182. Dubourgay has nothing,probably had heard nothing, there being

What to do in such a crisis? Assemble the Female Parliament, for one thing: good Madam Finkenstein (old

Tutor's wife), good Mamsell Bulow, Mamsell Sonsfeld (Wilhelmina's Governess), and other faithful

women:well if we can keep away traitresses, female spies that are prowling about; especially one

"Ramen," a Queen's soubrette, who gets trusted with everything, and betrays everything; upon whom

Wilhelmina is often eloquent. Never was such a traitress; took Dubourgay's bribe, which the Queen had

advised; and, all the same, betrays everything,bribe included. And the Queen, so bewitched, can keep

nothing from her. Female Parliament must, take precautions about the Ramen!For the rest, Female

Parliament advises two things: 1. Pressing Letter to England; that of course, written with the eloquence of

despair: and then 2. That in ease of utter extremity, her Majesty "pretend to fall ill." That is Crisis First; and

Letter goes to England, therefore; setting forth the extremity of strait, and pinch: "Now or never, O my Sister

Caroline!" Many such have gone, first and last; but this is the strongest of all. Nay the CrownPrince too

shall write to his Aunt of England: you, Wilhelmina, draw out, a fit brief Letter for him: send it to Potsdam,

he will copy it there! [Wilhelmina, i. 183.] So orders the Mother: Wilhelmina does it, with a terrified heart;

CrownPrince copies without scruple: "I have already given your Majesty my word of honor never to wed

any one but the Princess Amelia your Daughter; I here reiterate that Promise, in case your Majesty will

consent to my Sister's Marriage,"should that alone prove possible in the present intricacies. "We are all

reduced to such a state that"Wilhelmina gives the Letter in full; but as it is professedly of her own

composition, a loose vague piece, the very date of which you have to grope out for yourself, it cannot even

count among the several Letters written by the CrownPrince, both before and after it, to the same effect,

which are now probably all of them lost, [TRACE of one, Copy of ANSWER from Queen Caroline to what

seems to have been one, Answer rather of dissuasive tenor, is in StatePaper Office: Prussian Despatches,

vol. xl,dateless; probably some months later in 1780.] without regret to anybody; and we will not reckon it

worth transcribing farther. Such Missive, such two Missives (not now found in any archive) speed to England

by express; may the winds be favorable. Her Majesty waits anxious at Berlin; ready to take refuge in a bed of

In England, in the mean while, they have received a curious little piece of secret information. One

Reichenbach, Prussian Envoy at LondonDubourgay has long marvelled at the man and at the news he

sends to Berlin. Here, of date 17th January, 1730, is a Letter on that subject from Dubourgay, official but

private as yet, for "George Tilson, Esq.:"Tilson is UnderSecretary in the Foreign Office, whose name

often turns up on such occasions in the DUBOURGAY, the ROBINSON and other extinct Paperheaps of

that time. Dubourgay dates doubly, by old and new style; in general we print by the new only, unless the

"SIR,I believe you may remember that we have for a long time suspected that most of Reichenbach's

Despatches were dictated by some people here. About two days ago a Paper fell into my hands," realized

quietly for a consideration, "containing an Account of money charged to the 'Brothers Jourdan and Lautiers,'

Merchants here, by their Correspondent in London, for sending Letters from," properly in, or through, "your

"Jourdan and Lautiers's London Correspondents are Mr. Thomas Greenhill in Little Bell Alley and Mr. John

Motteux in St. Mary Axe. Mr. Guerin my Agent knows them very well; having paid them several little bills

on my account:"Better ask Mr. Guerin. "I know not through the hands of which of those Merchants the

abovementioned Letters have passed; but you have ways enough to find it out, if you think it worth while. I

make no manner of doubt but Grumkow and his party make use of this conveyance to (SIC) their instructions

to Reichenbach. In the Account which I have seen, 'eighteenpence' is charged for carrying each Letter to

Reichenbach: the charge in general is for 'Thirtytwo Letters;' and refers to a former Account." So that they

Here is a trail which Tilson will have no difficulty in running down. I forget whether it was in Bell Alley or

St. Mary Axe that the nest was found; but found it soon was, and the due springes were set; and game came

steadily dropping in,Letters to and Letters from,which, when once his Britannic Majesty had, with

reluctance, given warrant to open and decipher them, threw light on Prussian Affairs, and yielded fine sport

This is no other than the celebrated "Cipher Correspondence between Grumkow and Reichenbach;"

Grumkow covertly instructing his slave Reichenbach what the London news shall be: Reichenbach answering

him, To hear is to obey! Correspondence much noised of in the modern Prussian Books; and which was, no

doubt, very wonderful to Tilson and Company;capable of being turned to uses, they thought. The reader

shall see specimens by and by; and he will find it unimportant enough, and unspeakably stupid to him. It does

show Grumkow as the extreme of subtle fowlers, and how the dirtyfingered Seckendorf and he cooked their

birdlime: but to us that is not new, though at St. James's it was. Perhaps uses may lie in it there? At all events,

it is a pretty topic in Queen Caroline's apartment on an evening; and the little Majesty and she, with various

laughters and reflections, can discern, a little, How a poor King of Prussia is befooled by his servants, and in

what way a fierce Bear is led about by the nose, and dances to Grumkow's piping. Poor soul, much of his late

raging and growling, perhaps it was only Grumkow's and not his! Does not hate us, he, perhaps; but only

Grumkow through him? This doleful enchantment, and that the Royal Wild Bear dances only to tunes, ought

to be held in mind, when we want anything with him. Those, amid the teheeings, are reflections that

cannot escape Queen Caroline and her little George, while the Prussian Express, unknown to them, is on the

The Prussian Express, Queen Sophie's Courier to England, made his best speed: but he depends on the winds

for even arriving there; and then he depends on the chances for an answer there; an uncertain Courier as to

time: and it was not in the power of speed to keep pace with Friedrich Wilhelm's impatience. "No answer

yet?" growls Friedrich Wilhelm before a fortnight is gone. "No answer?"and January has not ended till a

new Deputation of the same Three Gentlemen, Finkenstein, Borck, Grumkow, again waits on the Queen, for

whom there is now this other message. "Wednesday, 25th January, 1730," so Dubourgay dates it; so likewise

Finkenstein and Borck, merciful persons, and always of the English party, were again profoundly sorry.

Borck has a blaze of temper in him withal; we hear he apprised Grumkow, at one point of the dialogue, that

he, Grumkow, was a "scoundrel," so Dubourgay calls it,which was one undeniable truth offered there that

day. But what can anything profit? The Message is: "Whatever the answer now be from England, I will have

nothing to do with it. Negative, procrastinative, affirmative, to me it shall be zero. You, Madam, have to

choose, for Wilhelmina, between Weissenfels and Schwedt; otherwise I myself will choose: and upon you

and her will alight Oranienburg, outer darkness, and just penalties of mutiny against the Authority set over

you by God and men. Weissenfels or Schwedt: choose straightway." This is the King's message by these

"You can inform the King," replied her Majesty, [Wilhelmina, i. 188.] "that he will never make me consent to

render my Daughter miserable; and that, so long as a breath of life (UN SOUFFLE DE VIE) remains in me, I

will not permit her to take either the one or the other of those persons." Is that enough? "For you, Sir," added

her Majesty, turning to Grumkow, "for you, Sir, who are the author of my misfortunes, may my curse fall

upon you and your house! You have this day killed me. But I doubt not, Heaven will hear my prayer, and

avenge these wrongs." [Dubourgay, 28th January, 1730; Wilhelmina, i. 188 (who suppresses the maledictory

Her Majesty does now, in fact, take to bed at Berlin; "fallen very ill," it would appear; which gives some

pause to Friedrich Wilhelm till he ascertain. "Poorly, for certain," report the Doctors, even Friedrich

Wilhelm's Doctor. The humane Doctors have silently given one another the hint; for Berlin is one tempest of

whispers about her Majesty's domestic sorrows, "Poorly, for interesting reasons: perhaps be worse before

she is better, your Majesty!""Hmph!" thinks Friedrich Wilhelm out at Potsdam. And then the treacherous

Ramen reports that it is all shamming; and his Majesty, a Bear, though a loving one, is driven into wrath

It is certain the Queen held, faster or looser, by her bed of sickness, as a main refuge in these emergencies:

the last shift of oppressed womankind;sanctioned by Female Parliament, in this instance. "Has had a

miscarriage!" writes Dubourgay, from Berlin gossip, at the beginning of the business. Nay at one time she

became really ill, to a dangerous length; and his Majesty did not at first believe it; and then was like to break

his heart, poor Bear; aud pardoned Wilhelmina and even Fritz, at the Mother's request,till symptoms

mended again. [Wilhelmina, i. 207.] JARNIBLEU, Herr Seckendorf, "Grumkow serves us honorably

(DIENET EHRLICH)"does not he!Ambiguous bed of sickness, a refuge in time of trouble, did not quite

terminate till May next, when her Majesty's time came; a fine young Prince the result; [23d May, 1730,

August Ferdinand; her last child.] and this mode of refuge in trouble ceased to be necessary.

Directly on the back of that peremptory act of disobedience by the womankind on Wednesday last, Friedrich

Wilhelm came to Berlin himself. He stormfully reproached his Queen, regardless of the sickbed; intimated

the infallible certainty, That Wilhelmina nevertheless would wed without delay, and that either Weissenfels

or Schwedt would be the man. And this said, he straightway walked out to put the same in execution.

Walked, namely, to the Mother Margravine of Schwedt, the lady in high colors, Old Dessauer's Sister; and

proposed to her that Wilhelmina should marry her Son."The supreme wish of my life, your Majesty,"

replied she of the high colors: "But, against the Princess's own will, how can I accept such happiness? Alas,

your Majesty, I never can!"and flatly refused his Majesty on those terms: a thing Wilhelmina will ever

So that the King is now reduced to Weissenfels; and returns still more indignant to her Majesty's apartment.

Weissenfels, however, it shall be; and frightful rumors go that he is written to, that he is privately coming,

and that there will be no remedy. [Wilhelmina, i. 197.] Wilhelmina, formerly almost too florid, is gone to a

shadow; "her waist hardly half an ell;" worn down by these agitations. The Prince and she, if the King see

In this high wind of extremity, the King now on the spot and in such temper, Borck privately advises, "That

her Majesty bend a little,pretend to give up the English connection, and propose a third party, to get rid of

Weissenfels.""What third party, then?""Well, there is young BrandenburgCulmbach, for example,

HeirApparent of Baireuth; Friedrich, a handsome enough young Prince, just coming home from the Grand

Tour, we hear; will have a fine Territory when his Father dies: age is suitable; old kinship with the House, all

moneyquarrels settled eight or ten years ago: why not him?""Excellent!" said her Majesty; and does

suggest him to the King, in the next SchwedtWeissenfels onslaught. Friedrich Wilhelm grumbles an assent,

"Well, then:but I will be passive, observe; not a GROSCHEN of Dowry, for one thing!"

And this is the first appearance of the young Margraf Friedrich, HeirApparent of Baireuth; who comes in as

a hypothetic figure, at this late stage;and will carry off the fair prize, as is well known. Still only doing the

Grand Tour; little dreaming of the high fortune about to drop into his mouth. So many wooers, "four Kings"

Not a bad young fellow at all, though no King. Wilhelmina, we shall find, takes charmingly to him, like a

good female soul; regretless of the Four Kings;finds her own safe little island there the prettiest in the

world, after such perils of drowning in stormy seas.Of his Brandenburg genealogy, degree of cousinship to

Queen Caroline of England, and to the lately wedded young gentleman of Anspach Queen Caroline's

Nephew, we shall say nothing farther, having already spoken of it, and even drawn an abstruse Diagram of it,

[Antea, vol. v. p. 309c.] sufficient for the most genealogical reader. But in regard to that of the peremptory

"Not a GROSCHEN of Dowry" from Friedrich Wilhelm (which was but a bark, after all, and proved the

reverse of a bite, from his Majesty), there may a word of explanation be permissible.

The Ancestor of this Baireuth Prince Friedrich,as readers knew once, but doubtless have forgotten

again,was a Younger Son; and for six generations so it stood: not till the Father of this Friedrich was of

good age, and only within these few years, did the Elder branch die out, and the Younger, in the person of

said Father, succeed to Baireuth. Friedrich's Grandfather, as all these progenitors had done, lived poorly, like

So that the Young Prince's Father, George Friedrich, present incumbent, as we may call him, of Baireuth,

found himselfwith a couple of Brothers he has, whom also we may transiently see by and byin very

straitened circumstances in their young years. THEIR Father, son of younger sons as we saw, was himself

poor, and he had Fourteen of them as family. Now, in old King Friedrich I.'s time, it became apparent, as the

then reigning Margraf of Baireuth's children all died soon after birth, that one of these necessitous Fourteen

was likely to succeed in Baireuth, if they could hold out. Old King Friedrich thereupon said, "You have

chances of succession; true enough,but nobody knows what will become of that. Sell your chance to me,

who am ultimate Heir of all: I will give you a round sum,the little 'Domain of Weverlingen' in the

Halberstadt Country, and say 'Half a Million Thalers;' there you can live comfortably, and support your

Fourteen Children,""Done," said the necessitous Cousin; went to Weverlingen accordingly; and there lived

the rest of his days, till 1708; leaving his necessitous Fourteen, or about Ten of them that were alive and

The young men, George Friedrich at the top of them, kept silence in Weverlingen, and conformed to Papa;

having nothing to live upon elsewhere. But they had their own thoughts; especially as their Cousin of

Baireuth was more and more likely to die childless. And at length, being in the Kaiser's service as soldiers

some of them, and having made what interest was feasible, they, early in Friedrich Wilhelm's reign, burst out.

That is to say, appealed to the REICHSHOFRATH (Imperial Aulic Council at Vienna; chief Court of the

Empire in such cases); openly protesting there, That their Papa had no power to make such a bargain, selling

their birthright for immediate pottage; and that, in brief, they would not stand by it at all;and summoned

Long lawsuit, in consequence; lengthy lawpleadings, and much parchment and wiggery, in that German

TripleElixir of Chancery; little to the joy of Friedrich Wilhelm. Friedrich Wilhelm, from the first, was

fairness itself: "Pay me back the money; and let it be, in all points, as you say!" answered Friedrich Wilhelm,

from the first. Alas, the money was eaten; how could the money be paid back? The Reichshofrath

dubitatively shook its wig, for years: "Bargain bad in Law; but Money clearly repayable: the Money was and

is good;what shall be done about the Money!" At length, in 1722, Friedrich Wilhelm, of himself, settled

with this present Margraf, then HeirPresumptive, How, by steady slow instalments, it could be possible,

from the revenues of Baireuth, thriftily administered, to pay back that HalfMillion and odd Thalers; and the

now Margraf, ever since his accession in 1726, has been annually doing it. So that there is, at this time,

nothing but composed kinship and friendship between the two Courts, the little and the big: only Friedrich

Wilhelm, especially with his will crossed in this matter of the Baireuth Marriage, thinks to himself, "Throw

more money into such a gulf? The 600,000 Thalers had better be got out first!" and says, he will give no

Dowry at all, nor take any charge, not so much as give away the Bride, but be passive in the matter.

Queen Sophie, delighted to conquer Grumkow at any rate, is charmed with this notion of Baireuth; and for a

moment forgets all other considerations: Should England prove slack and fail, what a resource will Baireuth

be, compared with Weissenfels! And Wilhelmina entering, her Majesty breaks forth into admiration over the

victory, or halfvictory, just gained: What a husband for you this, my dear, in comparison! And as

Wilhelmina cannot quite join in the rapture on a sudden; and cannot even consent, unless Papa too give his

real countenance to the match, Mamma flies out upon the poor young Lady: [Wilhelmina, i. 201.] "Take the

Grand Turk or the Great Mogul, then," said the Queen, "and follow your own caprice! I should not have

brought so many sorrows on myself, had I known you better. Follow the King's bidding, then; it is your own

affair. I will no longer trouble myself about your concerns;and spare me, please, the sorrow of your odious

presence, for I cannot stand it!" Wilhelmina wished to reply, but the answer was, "Silence! Go, I tell you!"

"All in tears." The DoubleMarriage drifting furiously this long while, in such a sea as never was; and

breakers now Close alee, have the desperate crew fallen to stavingin the liquorcasks, and quarrelling

with one another?Evident one thing is, her Majesty cannot be considered a perfectly wise Mother! We

shall see what her behavior is, when Wilhelmina actually weds this respectable young Prince. Ungrateful

creature, to wish Papa's consent as well as mine! that is the maternal feeling at this moment; and Wilhelmina

Nay, her Brother himself, who is sick of this permanent hurricane, and would fain see the end of it at any

price, takes Mamma's part; and Wilhelmina and he come to high words on the matter. This was the unkindest

cut of all:but, of course, this healed in a day. Poor Prince, he has his own allowance of insults, disgraces,

blows; has just been found out in some plan, or suspicion of a plan; found out to be in debt at least, and been

half miraculously pardoned;and, except, in flight, he still sees no deliverance ahead. Five days ago, 22d

January, 1730, there came out a CabinetOrder (summary Act of Parliament, so to speak) against "lending

money to Princes of the Blood, were it even to the PrinceRoyal." A crime and misdemeanor, that shall now

be; and Forfeiture of the Money is only part of the penalty, according to this CabinetOrder. Rumor is, the

CrownPrince had purchased a vehicle and appurtenances at Leipzig, and was for running off. Certainty is,

he was discovered to have borrowed 1,000 Thalers from a certain moneyed man at Berlin (money made from

French scrip, in Mississippi Law's time);which debt Friedrich Wilhelm instantly paid. "Your whole debt,

then, is that? Tell me the whole!""My whole debt," answered the Prince; who durst not own to about 9,000

other Thalers (1,500 pounds) he has borrowed from other quarters, first and last. Friedrich Wilhelm saw

perhaps some premonition of flight, or of desperate measures, in this business; and was unexpectedly mild:

paid the 1,000 Thalers instantly; adding the CabinetOrder against future contingencies. [Ranke, i. 296;

Forster, The Prince was in this humor when he took Mamma's side, and redoubled Wilhelmina's grief.

Bulow consoles the Princess: "Wait, I have news that will put her Majesty in fine humor!"And she really

proved as good as her word. Her news is, Dubourgay and Knyphausen, in this extremity of pinch, have

decided to send off not letters merely; but a speaking Messenger to the English Court. One Dr. Villa; some

kind of "English Chaplain" here, [Wilhelmina, i. 203; Dubourgay's Despatch, 28th January, 1730.] whose

chief trade is that he teaches Wilhelmina English; Rev. Dr. Villa, who honors Wilhelmina as he ought, shall

be the man. Is to go instantly; will explain what the fatal pass we are reduced to is, and whether Princess

Her Majesty is overjoyed to hear it: who would not be? Her Majesty "writes Letters" of the due vehemency,

thinks Wilhelmina,dare not write at all, says Dubourgay;but loads Villa with presents, with advices;

with her whole heart speeds him under way. "Dismissed, turned off for some fault or otheror perhaps

because the Princess knows enough of English?" so the rumor goes, in Villa's Berlin circle.

"The Chaplain set out with his despatches," says Wilhelmina, who does not name him, but is rather eloquent

upon his errand; "loaded with presents from the Queen. On taking leave of me he wept warm tears. He said,

saluting in the English fashion,"I hope with bended knee, and the maiden's fingers at his lips"'He would

deny his Country, if it did not do its duty on this occasion.'" And so hastened forth on his errand. Like a

CarrierPigeon sent in extremity;like Noah'sDove in the Deluge: may he revisit our perishing Ark with

Things, therefore, are got to a deadlock at Berlin: rebellious Womankind peremptorily refuse Weissenfels,

and take to a bed of sickness; inexpugnable there, for the moment. Baireuth is but a weak middle term; and

there are disagreements on it. Answer from England, affirmative or even negative, we have yet none.

Promptly affirmative, that might still avail, and be an honorable outcome. Perhaps better pause till that arrive,

and declare itself?Friedrich Wilhelm knows nothing of the Villa mission, of the urgencies that have been

To outward appearance, Friedrich Wilhelm, having written that message to Baireuth, seems easier in mind;

quiet with the Queen; though dangerous for exploding if Wilhelmina and the Prince come in view.

Wilhelmina mostly squats; Prince, who has to be in view, gets slaps and strokes "daily

(JOURNELLEMENT)," says the Princess,or almost daily. For the rest, it is evident enough, Weissenfels,

if not got passed through the Female Parliament, is thrown out on the second reading, and so is at least

finished. Ought we not to make a run to Dresden, therefore, and apprise the Polish Majesty? Short run to

Dresden is appointed for February 18th; [Fassmann, p. 404.] and the PrinceRoyal, perhaps suspected of

meditating something, and safer in his Father's company than elsewhere, is to go. Wilhelmina had taken leave

of him, night of the 17th, in her Majesty's Apartment; and was in the act of undressing for bed, when,judge

"There stept into the anteroom," visible in the halflight there, a most handsome little Cavalier, dressed, not

succinctly as Colonel of the Potsdam Giants, but "in magnificent French style. I gave a shriek, not

knowing who it was; and hid myself behind a screen. Madam de Sonsfeld, my Governess, not less frightened

than myself, ran out" to see what audacious person, at such undue hour, it could be. "But she returned next

moment, accompanying the Cavalier, who was laughing heartily, and whom I recognized for my Brother. His

BOOK VII. FEARFUL SHIPWRECK OF THE DOUBLEMARRIAGE PROJECT. FebruaryNovember, 1730. 295

dress so altered him, he seemed a different person. He was in the best humor possible.

"'I am come to bid you farewell once more, my dear Sister,' said he: 'and as I know the friendship you have

for me, I will not keep you ignorant of my designs. I go, and do not come back. I cannot endure the usage I

suffer; my patience is driven to an end. It is a favorable opportunity for flinging off that odious yoke; I will

glide out of Dresden, and get across to England; where I do not doubt I shall work out your deliverance too,

when I am got thither. So I beg you, calm yourself, We shall soon meet again in places where joy shall

succeed our tears, and where we shall have the happiness to see ourselves in peace, and free from these

Wilhelmina stood stupefied, in silence for some moments;argued long with her Brother; finally got him to

renounce those wild plans, or at least postpone them; and give her his word that he would attempt nothing on

the present occasion. This small Dresden Excursion of February, 1730, passed, accordingly, without accident,

It was but the prelude to a much grander Visit now agreed upon between the neighboring Majesties. For there

is a grand thing in the wind. Something truly sublime, of the scenicmilitary kind, which has not yet got a

name; but shall soon have a worldwide one,"Camp of Muhlberg," "Camp of Radewitz," or however to be

named,which his Polish Majesty will hold in those Saxon parts, in a month or two. A thing that will

astonish all the world, we may hope; and where the King and Prince of Prussia are to attend as chief guests.

It was during this brief absence in February, or directly after Friedrich Wilhelm had returned, that Queen

Sophie had that fit of real sickness we spoke of. Scarcely was his Majesty got home, when the Queen, rather

ambiguous in her sicknesses of late, fell really and dangerously ill: so that Friedrich Wilhelm, at last

recognizing it for real, came hurrying in from Potsdam; wept loud and abundantly, poor man; declared in

private, "He would not survive his Feekin;" and for her sake solemnly pardoned Wilhelmina, and even

Meanwhile Dr. Villa, in England, has sped not ill. Villa's eloquence of truth; the GrumkowReichenbach

Correspondence in St. Mary Axe: these two things produce their effect. These on the one hand; and then on

the other, certain questionable aspects of Fleury, after that fine Soissons Catastrophe to the Kaiser; and

certain interior quarrels in the English Ministry, partly grounded thereon:"On the whole, why should not

we detach Friedrioh Wilhelm from the Kaiser, if we could, and comply with a Royal Sister?" think they at St.

Political men take some interest in the question; "Why neglect your Prince of Wales?" grumbles the Public:

"It is a solid Protestant match, eligible for Prince Fred and us!""Why bother with the Kaiser and his

German puddles?" asks Walpole: "Once detach Prussia from him, the Kaiser will perhaps sit still, and leave

the world and us free of his Pragmatics and his Sanctions and Apanages.""Quit of him? German puddles?"

answers Townshend dubitatively,who has gained favor at headquarters by going deeply into said puddles;

and is not so ardent for the Prussian Match; and indeed is gradually getting into quarrel with Walpole and

In fact, there is one of those political tempests (dreadful to the teapot, were it not experienced in them) going

on in England, at this time,what we call a Change of Ministry;daily crisis laboring towards fulfilment,

or brewing itself ripe. Townshend and Walpole have had (how many weeks ago Coxe does not tell us) that

meeting in Colonel Selwyn's, which ended in their clutching at swords, nay almost at coatcollars: [Ib. p.

335.] honorable Brothersinlaw: but the good Sister, who used to reconcile them, is now dead. Their

quarrels, growing for some years past, are coming to a head. "When the firm used to be Townshend and

Walpole, all was well; when it had to become Walpole and Townshend, all was not well!" said Walpole

BOOK VII. FEARFUL SHIPWRECK OF THE DOUBLEMARRIAGE PROJECT. FebruaryNovember, 1730. 296

Things had already gone so far, that Townshend brought Chesterfield over from the Hague, last Autumn;a

Baron de Montesquieu, with the ESPRIT DE LOIS in his head, sailed with Lord Chesterfield on that

occasion, and is now in England "for two years;"but Chesterfield could not be made Secretary; industrious

Duke of Newcastle stuck so close by that office, and by the skirts of Walpole. Chesterfield and Townshend

VERSUS Walpole, Colonel Stanhope (Harrington) and the Pelhams: the Prussian Match is a card in that

game; and Dr. Villa's eloquence of truth is not lost on Queen Caroline, who in a private way manages, as

There lies in the StatePaper Office, [Close by Despatch (Prussian): "London, 8th February (o.s.)

17291730."] without date or signature, a loose detached bit of writing, in scholastic style, but brief and to

the purpose, which is evidently the Memorial of Villa; but as it teaches us nothing that we do not already

know, it need not be inserted here. The man, we can perceive farther, continued useful in those Official

quarters, answering questions about Prussia, helping in the St.MaryAxe decipherings, and in other small

ways, for some time longer; after which he vanishes again from all record,whether to teach English farther,

or live on some modicum of pension granted, no man knows. Poor old Dove, let out upon the Deluge in serge

gown: he did bring back a bit of olive, so to speak;had the presage but held, as it did in Noah's case!

In a word, the English Sovereignties and Ministries have determined that an Envoy Extraordinary (one

Hotham, they think of), with the due solemnity, be sent straightway to Berlin; to treat of those interesting

matters, and officially put the question there. Whom Dubourgay is instructed to announce to his Prussian

Majesty, with salutation from this Court. As Dubourgay does straightway, with a great deal of pleasure.

[Despatches: London, 8th February; Berlin, 2d March, 1780] How welcome to his Majesty we need not say.

And indeed, after such an announcement (1st March, 1730, the day of it), they fell into cheerful dialogue; and

the Brigadier had some frank conversation with his Majesty about the "Arbitration Commission" then sitting

at Brunswick, and European affairs in general. Conversation which is carefully preserved for us in the

Brigadier's Despatch of the morrow. It never was intrinsically of much moment; and is now fallen very

obsolete, and altogether of none: but as a glance at firsthand into the dim old thoughts of Friedrich Wilhelm,

"The King said next, That though we made little noise, yet he knew well our designwas to kindle a fire in

other parts of Lower Germany. To which I answered, That if his Majesty would give me favorable hearing, I

could easily persuade him of the peaceable intentions of our Allies. 'Well,' says he, 'the Emperor will abandon

the Netherlands, and who will be master of them? I see the day when you will make France so powerful, that

it will be difficult to bring them to reason again.'DUBOURGAY: 'If the Emperor abandoned the

Netherlands, they would be governed by their own Magistrate, and defended by their own Militia. As to the

French, we are too well persuaded of the benefit of our Allies, to' Upon which the King of Prussia said, 'It

appeared plainly we had a mind to dispose as we pleased of Kingdoms and provinces in Italy, so that

probably our next thought would be to do the same in Germany.'DUBOURGAY: 'The allotments made in

favor of Don Carlos have been made with the consent of the Emperor and the whole Empire. We could not

suffer a longer interruption of our commerce with Spain, for the sake of the small difference between the

Treaty of Seville and the Quadruple Alliance, in regard to the Garrison,'"to the introducing of Spanish

Garrisons, at once, into Parma and Piacenza; which was the special thunderbolt of the late Soissons

Catastrophe,or Treaty of Seville."'Well, then,' says his Prussian Majesty, 'you must allow, then, there IS an

infraction of the Quadruple Alliance, and that the Emperor will make war!' 'I hope not,' said I: (but if so, a

TenYears War, in conjunction with the Allies of Seville, never would be so bad as the interruption of our

"The King of Prussia's notion about our DISPOSING OF PROVINCES IN GERMANY," adds Dubourgay,

"is, I believe, an insinuation of Seckendorf, who, I doubt not, has made him believe we intended to do so with

BOOK VII. FEARFUL SHIPWRECK OF THE DOUBLEMARRIAGE PROJECT. FebruaryNovember, 1730. 297

Very probably:but Hotham is getting under way, hopeful to spoil that game. Prussian Majesty, we see, is

not insensible to so much honor; and brightens into hopefulness and fine humor in consequence. What

radiancy spread over the Queen's side of the House we need not say. The TobaccoParliament is like to have

a hard task.Friedrich Wilhelm privately is well inclined to have his Daughter married, with such outlooks,

if it can be done. The marriage of the CrownPrince into such a family would also be very welcome;

onlyonlyThere are considerations on that side. There are reasons; still more there are whims, feelings of

the mind towards an unloved HeirApparent: upon these latter chiefly lie the hopes of Seckendorf and the

What the TobaccoParliament's specific insinuations and deliberations were, in this alarming interim, no

Hansard gives us a hint. Faint and timid they needed, at first, to be; such unfavorable winds having risen,

blowing off at a sad rate the smoke of that abstruse Institution."JARNIBLEU!" snuffles the

Feldzeugmeister to himself. But "SI DEUS EST NOBISCUM," as Grumkow exclaims once to his beautiful

Reichenbach, or NOSTI as he calls him in their slang or cipher language, "If God is with us, who can prevail

against us?" For the Grumkow can quote Scripture; nay solaces himself with it, which is a feat beyond what

The Special Envoy to be sent to Berlin on this interesting occasion is a dignified Yorkshire Baronet; Sir

Charles Hotham, "Colonel of the HorseGrenadiers;" he has some post at Court, too, and is still in his best

years. His Wife is Chesterfield's Sister; he is withal a kind of soldier, as we see;a man of many

sabretashes, at least, and acquainted with CavalryDrill, as well as the practices of Goldsticks: his Father

was a General Officer in the Peterborough Spanish Wars. These are his eligibilities, recommending him at

Berlin, and to Official men at home. Family is old enough: Hothams of Scarborough in the East Riding; old

as WILHELMUS BASTARDUS; and subsists to our own day. This Sir Charles is lineal Son of the Hothams

who lost their heads in the Civil War; and he is, so to speak, lineal UNCLE of the Lords Hotham that now

are. For the rest, a handsome figure, prompt in French, and much the gentleman. So far has Villa sped.

Hotham got to Berlin on Sunday, 2d April, 1730. He had lingered a little, waiting to gather up some skirts of

that ReichenbachGrumkow Correspondence, and have them ready to show in the proper Quarter. For that is

one of the chief arrows in his quiver. But here he is at last: and on Monday, he is introduced at

Charlottenburg to the Prussian Majesty; and finds an abundant welcome to himself and his preliminaries.

"Marriage into that fine high Country (MAGNIFIKE LAND) will be welcome to my Daughter, I believe, as

flowers in May: to me also how can it be other than welcome!'Farther instructions,' you say? Yes, surely;

and terms honorable on both sides. Only say nothing of it, I had rather tell the girl myself." [Ranke, i. 284.]

To that frank purport spoke his Majesty;and invites the Excellency Hotham to stay dinner.

Great dinner at Charlottenburg, accordingly; Monday, 3d April, 1730: the two English Excellencies Hotham

and Dubourgay, then General Borck, Knyphausen, Grumkow, Seckendorf and others; "where," says

Hotham, giving Despatch about it, "we all got immoderately drunk." Of which dinner there is sordid

narrative, from Grumkow to his NOSTI (to his Reichenbach, in cant speech), still visible through St. Mary

Axe, were it worth much attention from us. Passages of wit, loaded with allusion, flew round the table: "A

German ducat is change for an English halfguinea," and the like sprightly things. Nay at one time, Hotham's

back being turned, they openly drink,his Majesty in a state of exhilaration, having blabbed the

secret:"To the health of Wilhelmina Princess of Wales!" Upon which the whole Palace of Charlottenburg

now bursts into tripudiation; the very valets cuttiug capers, making somersets,and rushing off with the

news to Berlin. Observable, only, that Hotham and Dubourgay sat silent in the tripudiation; with faces

diplomatically grave. Several points to be settled first; no hallooing till we are out of the wood.

BOOK VII. FEARFUL SHIPWRECK OF THE DOUBLEMARRIAGE PROJECT. FebruaryNovember, 1730. 298

News came to Berlin Schloss, doubtless at full gallop, which would only take a quarter of an hour. This is

Wilhelmina's experience of it. Afternoon of Monday, 3d of April, 1730, in the Schloss of Berlin,towards

"I was sitting quiet in my Apartment, busy with work, and some one reading to me, when the Queen's Ladies

rushed in, with a torrent of domestics in the rear; who all bawled out, putting one knee to the ground, 'They

were come to salute the Princess of Wales.' I fairly believed these poor people had lost their wits; they would

not cease overwhelming me with noise and tumult, their joy was so great they knew not what they did. When

the farce had lasted some time, they at last told me"what our readers know. What the demure Wilhelmina

professes she cared next to nothing about. "I was so little moved by it, that I answered, going on with my

work, 'Is that all?' Which greatly surprised them. A while afterwards my Sisters and several Ladies came also

to congratulate me. I was much loved; and I felt more delighted at the proofs each gave me of that than at

what occasioned them. In the evening I went to the Queen's: you may readily conceive her joy. On my first

entrance, she called me 'her dear Princess of Wales;' and addressed Madam de Sonsfeld as 'Milady.' This

latter took the liberty of hinting to her, that it would be better to keep quiet; that the King having yet given no

notice of this business, might be provoked at such demonstration, and that the least trifle could still ruin all

her hopes. The Countess Finkenstein joining her remonstrances to Sonsfeld's, the Queen, though with regret,

This is the effulgent flamingpoint of the longagitated English Match, which we have so often caught in a

bitterly smoking condition. "The King indeed spoke nothing of it to us, on his return to Berlin in a day or

two," says Wilhelmina; "which we thought strange." But everybody considered it certain, nothing but the

details left to settle. "Hotham had daily conferences with the King." "Every post brought letters from the

Prince of Wales:" of which Wilhelmina saw several,this for one specimen, general purport of the whole: "I

conjure you, my dear Hotham, get these negotiations finished! I am madly in love (AMOUREUX COMME

UN FOU), and my impatience is unequalled." {Ib. i. 218.] Wilhelmina thought these sentiments "very,

romantic" on the part of Prince Fred, "who had never seen me, knew me only by repute:"and answered his

Effulgent flamepoint;which was of very brief duration indeed, and which sank soon into bitterer smoke

than ever, down almost to the choking state. There are now six weeks of Diplomatic History at the Court of

Berlin, which end far otherwise than they began. Weeks wellnigh indecipherable; so distracted are they, by

blackart and abstruse activities above ground and below, and so distractedly recorded for us: of which, if it

Already next morning, after that grand Dinner at Charlottenburg, Friedrich Wilhelm, awakening with his due

headache, thought, and was heard saying, He had gone too far! Those gloomy looks of Hotham and

Dubourgay, on the occasion; they are a sad memento that our joyance was premature. The English mean the

DoubleMarriage; and Friedrich Wilhelm is not ready, and never fairly was, for more than the Single.

"Wilhelmina Princess of Wales, yes with all my heart; but Friedrich to an English PrincessHm, na;"and

in a day more: ["Instruction to his Ministers, 5th April," cited by Ranke, i. 285 n.] plainly "No." And there it

And why, No?Truly, as regarded CrownPrince Friedrich's marriage, the question had its real difficulties:

and then, still more, it had its imaginary; and the subterranean activities were busy! The witnesses,

contemporaneous and other, assign three reasons, or considerations and quasireasons, which the

TobaccoParliament and Friedrich Wilhelm's lively fancy could insist upon it till they became

FIRST, his rooted discontent with the CrownPrince, some even say his jealousy of the CrownPrince's

talents, render it unpleasant to think of promoting him in any way. SECOND, natural German loyalty,

enlivened by the hope of Julich and Berg, attaching Friedrich Wilhelm to the Kaiser's side of things, repels

him with a kind of horror from the AntiKaiser or FrenchEnglish side. "Marry my Daughter, if you like; I

shall be glad to salute her as Princess of Wales; but no union in your TreatyofSeville operations: in politics

go you your own road, if that is it, while I go mine; no tying of us, by Double or other Marriages, to go one

road." THIRD, the magnificence of those English. "Regardless of expense," insinuates the

TobaccoParliament; "they will send their grand Princess hither, with no end of money; brought up in

grandeur to look down on the like of us. She can dazzle, she can purchase: in the end, may there not be a

CrownPrince Party, capable of extinguishing your Majesty here in your own Court, and makiug Prussia a bit

of England; all eyes being turned to such sumptuous Princess and her CrownPrince,HeirApparent, or

These really are three weighty almost dreadful considerations to a poetictempered King and Smoking

Parliament. Out of which there is no refuge except indeed this plain fourth one: "No hurry about Fritz's

marriage; [Friedrich Wilhelm to Reichenbach (13th May), infra.] he is but eighteen gone; evidently too young

for housekeeping. Thirty is a good time for marrying. 'There is, thank God, no lack of royal lineage; I have

To all which there is to be added that everrecurring invincible gravitation towards the Kaiser, and also

towards Julich and Berg, by means of him,well acted on by the TobaccoParliament for the space of those

six weeks. During which, accordingly, almost from the first day after that Hotham Dinner of April 3d, the

answer of the royal mind, with superficial fluctuations, always is: "Wilhelmina at once, if you choose; likely

enough we might agree about CrownPrince Friedrich too, if once all were settled; but of the

DoubleMarriage, at this present time, HORE NIT, [Ranke, i. 285 n.] I will have nothing to say." And as the

English answer steadily, "Both or none!"meaning indeed to draw Prussia away from the Kaiser's

leadingstrings, and out of his present enchanted condition under the two BlackArtists he has about him, the

Negotiation sinks again into a mere smoking, and extinct or plainly extinguishing state. The

GrumkowNOSTI Cipher Correspondence might be reckoned as another efficient cause; though, in fact, it

was only a big concomitant symptom, much depended on by both parties, and much disappointing both. In

the way of persuading or perverting Friedrich Wilhelm's judgment about England, this deeplaid piece of

machinery does not seem to have done much, if anything; and Hotham, who with the English Court had

calculated on it (on their detection of it) as the grand means of blowing Grumkow out of the field, produced a

far opposite result on trying, as we shall see! That was a bit of heavy ordnance which disappointed

everybody. Seized by the enemy before it could do any mischief; enemy turned it round on the inventor; fired

it off on the inventor, andit exploded through the touchhole; singeing some people's whiskers: nothing

Would the reader wish to look into this NostiGrumkow Correspondence at all? I advise him, not. Good part

of it still lies in the PaperOffice here; [Prussian Despatches, vols. xl. xli.: in a fragmentary state; so much of

it as they had caught up, and tried to make use of;far too much.] likely to be published by the Prussian

Dryasdust in coming time: but a more sordid mass of eavesdroppings, kitchenashes and floorsweepings,

collected and interchanged by a pair of treacherous Flunkies (big bullying Flunky and little trembling

cringing one, Grumkow and Reichenbach), was never got together out of a gentleman's household. To no

idlest reader, armed even with barnacles, and holding mouth and nose, can the stirringup of such a dustbin

be long tolerable. But the amazing problem was this Editor's, doomed to spell the Event into clearness if he

could, and put dates, physiognomy and outline to it, by help of such FlunkySanscrit! That

NostiGrumkow Correspondence, as we now have it in the PaperOffice,interpretable only by acres of

British Despatches, by incondite dateless helpless Prussian Books ("printed Blotches of Human Stupor," as

Smelfungus calls them): how gladly would one return them all to St. Mary Axe, there to lie through Eternity!

It is like holding dialogue with a rookery; asking your way (perhaps in flight for life, as was partly my own

case) by colloquy with successive or even simultaneous Rookeries. Reader, have you tried such a thing? An

Wilhelmina pretends to give quotations [Wilhelmina, i. 233235.] from this subterranean

GrumkowReichenbach Correspondence; but hers are only extracts from some description or remembrance;

hardly one word is close to the original, though here and there some outline or shadow of a real passage is

traceable. What fractional elements, capable of gaining some vestige of meaning when laid together in their

cosmic order, I could pick from the circumambient immensity not cosmic, are here for the reader's behoof.

Let him skip, if, like myself, he is weary; for the substance of the story is elsewhere given. Or perhaps he has

the curiosity to know the speech of birds? With abridgment, by occasional change of phrase, above all by

immense omission,here, in specimen, is something like what the Rookery says to poor Friedrich Wilhelm

and us, through St. Mary Axe and the Copyists in the Foreign Office! Friedrich Wilhelm reads it (Hotham

gives him reading of it) some weeks hence; we not till generations afterwards. I abridge to the utmost;will

mark in single commas what is not Abridgment but exact Translation;with rigorous attention to dates, and

Gumkow from Berlin LOQUITUR, Reichenbach listening with both his ears (words caught up in St. Mary

BERLIN, 3d MARCH, 1730. "The time has now come when Reichenbach must play his game. Let him write

that the heads of the Opposition, who play Austria as a card in Parliament, 'are in consternation, Walpole

having hinted to them that he was about to make friends with the King of Prussia;' 'that by means of certain

ministers at Berlin, and by other subterranean channels (AUTRES SOUTERRAINS), his Prussian Majesty

had been brought to a disposition of that kind' [Knyphausen, Borck and others will be much obliged to

Reichenbach for so writing!], That Reichenbach knows they intend sending a Minister to Berlin; but is certain

enough, as perhaps they are, his Prussian Majesty will not let himself be lured or caught in the trap: but that

the very rumor of its being possible for him to change" from Austria, "would be an infinite gain to the

English Ministry,"salvation of them, in fact, in the Parliamentary cockpit. "That they had already given out

in the way of rumor, How sure they were of the Court of Berlin whenever it came to the point. That

Reichenbach had tried to learn from 73 [An Indecipherable.] what the real result from Berlin was; and did not

think it much, though the Walpole people," all hanging so perilously upon Prussia for their existence,

'affected a great gayety; and indeed felt what a gain it was even to have renewed the Negotiation with his

Prussian Majesty.' Here is a King likely to get himself illuminated at firsthand upon English affairs; by

'And so the King,' concludes Grumkow, 'will think Reichenbach is a witch (SORVIER) to be so well

informed about all that, and will redouble the good opinion he has of Reichenbach. And so, if Reichenbach

second my ideas, we will pack Borck and Knyphausen about their business; and will do the King faithful

service,' having, some of us, our private 500 pounds a year from Austria for doing it. 'The King perceives

only too well that the Queen's sickness is but sham (MOMERIE): judge of the effect that has! I am yours

entirely (TOUT A VOUS). I wait in great impatience to hear your news upon all this: for I inform you

accurately how the land lies here; so that it only depends upon yourself to shine, and to pass for a miracle of

just insight,'"SORCIER," or witch at guessing mysteries, Grumkow calls it again. He continues in another

BERLIN, 7th MARCH. (Let us give the original for a line or two): 'Queen Sophie will soon rise from her bed

of sickness, were this marriage done; La Mere du PrinceRoyal affecte toujours d�etre bien mal; mais des

que l�affaire entre le Prince de Galles et la PrincesseRoyale sera faite, on la verra bientot sur pied.' "It will

behoove that Reichenbach signify to the PrinceRoyal's Father that all this affair has been concocted at

Berlin with Borck and by 71 [An Indecipherable.] with Knyphausen and 103. [An Indeciherable.] That they

never lose sight of an alliance with the English Princess and the Prince of Prussia; and flatter themselves the

PrinceRoyal of Prussia will accompany the PrincessRoyal," Wilhelmina, "on HER marriage there." "In a

word, that all turns on this latter point," marriage of the PRINCERoyal as well; and "that Villa has given so

favorable a description of this Prince, that the English Princess will have him at what price soever. Nosti can

also allege the affair of 100,"whom we at last decipher to be LORD HARRINGTON, once Colonel

Stanhope, of Soissons, of the Madrid Embassy, of the descent on Vigo; a distinguished new Lord, with whom

Newcastle hopes to shove out Townshend,"Lord Harrington, and the division among the

Ministers:"great question, Shall the firm be Townshend and Walpole, or Walpole and Townshend? just

going on; brewing towards decision; in which the Prussian DoubleMarriage is really a kind of card, and may

"The whole Town of Berlin said, This Villa was dismissed by order of the King, for he taught the eldest

Princess English; but I see well it was Borck, 107, [An Indecipherable.] Knyphausen and Dubourgay that

despatched him, to give a true picture of the situation here. And if Nosti has written to his Majesty to the

same effect as he does to his Friend [Despatch to Majesty has not yet come under Friend's eye] on the Queen

of England's views about the PrinceRoyal of Prussia, it will answer marvellously (CELA VIENT A

MERVEILLE). I have apprised Seckendorf of all that Nosti writes to me." 'For the rest, Nosti may perfectly

assure himself that the King never will abandon Reichenbach; and if the PrinceRoyal,' sudden Fate

interfering, 'had the reins in his hand,in that case, Seckendorf promises to Reichenbach, on the part of the

Kaiser, all or more than all he can lose by the accession of the Prince. Monsieur Reichenbach may depend

upon that.' [Prussian Despatches, vol. xl. The second of these two Letters is copied, we perceive, by VILLA;

who transmits it to Hotham's Secretary at Berlin, with great hopes from it. Letter "unsigned," adds Villa

(POINT SIGNEE). First was transmitted by Townshend.Following are transmitted by It is in that way they

have got into the StatePaper Office,as ENCLOSURES in the varions Despatches that carried them out to

Slave Reichenbach at London, when this missive comes to hand, is busy copying scandal according to former

instructions for behoof of his Prussian Majesty, and my Bashaw Grumkow; for example:

LONDON, 10th MARCH, 1730. "... Reichenbach has told his Prussian Majesty today by a Courier who is

to pass through Brussels [Austrian Kinsky's Courier, no doubt], what amours the Prince of Wales," dissolute

Fred, "has on hand at present with actresses and operagirls. The King of Prussia will undoubtedly be

astonished. The affair merits some attention at present,"especialIy from an Excellenz like me.

[MISSIVE (body of important Grumkow Instructions just read by us) COMES TO HAND.]

LONDON, 14th MARCH, 1730. 'Reichenbach will write by the first, Ordinary [so they name Post, in those

days] all that Glumkow orders. Reichenbach sees well, they mean to play the deuce here ( jouent le diable a

quatre ici ): but Reichenbach will tell his Prussian Majesty what Grumkow finds fit.' Good Excellenz

Reichenbach 'flatters himself the King will remain firm, and not let his enemies deceive him. If Grumkow

and Seckendorf have opportunity they may tell his Prussian Majesty that the whole design of this Court is to

render his Country a Province dependent on England. When once the PrincessRoyal of England shall be

wedded to the PrinceRoyal of Prussia, the English, by that means, will form such a party at Berlin, that they

will altogether tie his Prussian Majesty's hands.' A comfortable piece of news to his Prussian Majesty in

TobaccoParliament. 'Reichenbach will assuredly be vigilant; depend on his answering Grumkow always by

Continues;turning his rookbill towards Majesty now. Same date (14th March), same time, place and

'... P.S. I had closed this Letter when a person of confidence came in [the fact being, my Grumkow's Missive

of instructions came in, or figuratively speaking, my Grumkow himself], and undertook to give me in a few

days a thorough insight into the intrigues which are concealed under the sending of this new Minister,'

Hotham, 'to Berlin; which, and how they have been concocted, he says, it will astonish me to hear. Of all this

I shall immediately inform your Majesty in a letter of my own hand; being ever eager to serve your Majesty

Hotham is now fairly gone, weeks ago; concluded to be now in Berlin,to the horror of both rooks. Here is

LONDON, APRIL, 1730. "... Hotham is no such conjurer as they fancy in Berlin;singular enough, how

these English are given to undervalue the Germans; whilst we in Germany overvalue them" ( avons une idee

trop vaste, they trap petite ). 'There is, for instance, Lord Chesterfield, passes here for a fairenough kind of

man (BON HOMME), and is a favorite with the King [not with Walpole or the Queen, if Nosti knew it]; but

nobody thinks him such a prodigy as you all do in Germany,'which latter bit of Germanism is an

undoubted fact; curious enough to the English, and to the Germans that now read in extinct Books.

Hotham, as we said, got to Berlin on the 2d of April. From Berlin comes thereupon, at great length, sordid

description by Grumkow, of that initiatory Hotham Dinner, April Third, with fearful details of the blazing

favor Hotham is in. Which his Majesty (when Hotham hands it to him, in due time) will read with painful

interest; as Reichenbach now does;but which to us is all mere puddle, omissible in this place.

To which sad Strophe, there straightway follows due Antistrophe, Reichenbach croaking responsive;and

we are to note, the rooks always speak in the third person and by ambiguous periphrasis; never once say "I"

or "You," unless forced by this Editor, for brevity's sake, to do it. Reichenbach from his perch thus hoarsely

LONDON, 11th APRIL. 'Reichenbach EST COUPDEFOUDRE,is struck by lightning,to hear these

Berlin news;'and expresses, in the style of a whipt dog, his sorrows, uncertainties and terrors, on the

occasion. "Struck with lightning. Feel myself quite ill, and not in a condition to write much today. It requires

another head than mine to veer round so often ( changer si souvent de systame ). In fine, Nosti est au bout de

son latin [is at his wit's end, poor devil)! Both Majesties have spoken openly of the favorable news from

Berlin; funds rose in consequence. New Minister [Walpole come to the top of the Firm, Townshend soon to

withdraw, impatient of the bottom] is allpowerful now: O TEMPORA, O MORES!" "I receive universal

congratulations, and have to smile" in a ghastly manner. "The King and Queen despise me. I put myself in

their way last Levee, bowing to the ground; but they did not even condescend to look." 'Notre grand

petitmaitre,' little George, the Olympian Jove of these parts, "passed on as if I had not been there."

'Chesterfield, they say, is to go, in great pomp, as Ambassador Extraordinary, and fetch the Princess over.

LONDON, 14th APRIL. "Slave Reichenbaoh cannot any longer write secret Letters to his Prussian Majesty

according to the old strain, of your prescribing; but must stand by his vacant Official Despatches: the scene

being entirely changed, he also must change his manner of writing"poor knave. "He will have to inform his

Majesty, however, by and by, though it is not safe at present," for example,'That his Britannic Majesty

is becoming from day to day more hated by all the world; and that the Prince of Wales is no longer liked by

the Public, as at first; because he begins to give himself airs, and takes altogether the manners of his Britannic

Majesty, that is to say of a puppy (PETITMAITRE); let my Amiable [Grumkow] be aware of that'

Yes, let him be aware of that, to his comfort,and still more, and all readers along with him, of what

'Reichenbach likewise with great confidence informs the Greatest Confidant he has in the world [same

amiable Glumkow], that he has discovered within this day or two,' a tremendous fact, known to our readers

some time ago, 'That the PrinceRoyal of Prussia has given his written assurances to the Queen here, Never

to many anybody in the world except the Princess Amelia of England, happen what will [Prussian Majesty

will read this with a terrible interest! Much nearer to him than it is to us]. In consideration of which Promise,

the Queen of England is understood,' falsely, 'to have answered that they should, at present, ask only the

PrincessRoyal of Prussia for their Prince of Wales,' and let the DoubleMarriage BE, seemingly, as his

Prussian Majesty wishes it. 'Monsieur de Reichenbaoh, did not speak of this to his Prussian Majesty; feeling

'Lord Townshend is still at his place in the country [Rainham in Norfolk]: but it is said he will soon come to

Town; having heard the great news that they had already got his Prussian Majesty by the nose. Reichenbach

forgets if he already told Grumkow that the rumor runs, Lord Chesterfield, in quality of Ambassador to

Berlin, is to bring the Princess Wilhelmina over hither:'you did already, poor confused wretch; unusually

APRIL 18th. "... Lord Stratford [to me an unknown Lordship} and heads of Opposition would like to

Truly, yes; they mean to ask in Parliament (as poor gamblers in that Cockpit are wont), 'And why did not you

make the offer sooner, then? Friendship with his Prussian Majesty, last year, would have saved the whole of

that large Waterspout about the Meadows of Clamei! Nay need we, a few months ago, have spent such loads

of gold subsidizing those Hessians and Danes against him? The treasures of this Country go a strange road,

Mr. Speaker! What is the use of our industries and riches?' Heavens, yes, what! But we continue to excerpt

Reichenbach "has said nothing of this to his Prussian Majesty, Reichenbach has not; too dangerous in own

present downpressed state:though amazingly exact always in news, and attached to his Prussian Majesty

as mortal seldom was. Need he fear their new Hotham, then? Does not fear Hotham, not he him, being a man

so careful of truth in his news. Dare not, however, now send any intelligence about the Royal Family here;

Prussian Majesty having ordered him not to write gossip like a spiteful woman: What is he to do? Instruct

"Know for the rest, and be aware of it, O Amiable, that Queen Caroline here is of opinion, The Amiable

Grumkow should be conciliated; and that Queen Sophie and Hotham are understood to have been trying it.

Do not abandon me, O Amiable; nay I know you will not, you and Seckendorf, never, though I am a poor

"Have found out a curious story, HISTOIRE FORT CRIEUSE,about one of Prince Fred's amourettes."

Story which this Editor, in the name of the whole human species, will totally suppress, and sweep into the

cesspool, to herald Reichenbach thither. Except only that this corollary by the Duchess of Kendal may be

"Duchess of Kendal [Hoppole EMERITA, now gone to devotion, whom we know, piously turns up her eyes

at such doings], thinks the Princess Wilhelmina will have a bad life of it with Fred, and that she 'will need the

wisdom of Solomon to get on here.' Not a good bargain, this Prince Fred and his Sister. A dissolute fellow he,

not liked by the Public" (I should hope). 'Then as to Princess Amelia, she, who was always haughty, begins to

give herself airs upon the PrinceRoyal of Prussia; she is as illtempered as her Father, and still more given

to backbiting (PLUS RAILLEUSE), and will greatly displease the Potsdam Majesty.'

These are cheering thoughts. "But what is to become of Nosti? Faithful to his Grumkow, to his

Seckendorfto his pair of sheepstealers, poor dog. But if trouble rise;oh, at least do not hang me, ye

Slave Nosti's terrors, could he see behind the scenes, are without foundation! the tremendous Hotham

Negotiation, all ablaze at that Charlottenburg Dinner, is sunk low enough into the smoking state, threatening

to go out altogether. Smoke there may still be, perceptible vestiges of smoke; which indeed, for a long time,

fitfully continued: but, at the time while Nosti, quaking in every joint of him, writes these terrors, Hotham

perceives that his errand is vain; that properly there has as good as extinction supervened. April 3d was the

flamepoint; which lasted in its brightness only for a few days or hours. April is not gone, or half gone, when

flaming has quite ceased, and the use of bellows, never so judicious, is becoming desperate: and long before

the end of May, no red is to be seen in the affair at all, and the very bellows are laid down.

Hereare the epochs: riddled out of such a mass of extinct rubbish as human nature seldom had to deal

with;here are certain extracts in a greatly condensed state, from the authentic voluminous Hotham

Despatches and Responses;which may conveniently interrupt the Nosti Babblement at this point.

BERLIN, 12th APRIL, 1730. "... Of one or two noteworthy points I have to apprise your Lordship. So soon

as his Majesty was sober, he found that he had gone too far at that grand dinner of Monday 3d; and was in

very bad humor in consequence. CrownPrince has written from Potsdam to his Sister, 'No doubt I am left

here lest the English wind get at me ( de peur que le vent anglais ne me touchat ).' Saw King at Parade, who

was a little vague; 'is giving matters his consideration.' Majesty has said to Borck and Knyphausen, 'If they

want the DoubleMarriage, and to detach me from the Kaiser, let them propose something about Julich and

Berg.' Sits the wind in that quarter? King has said since, to one Marschall, a PrivateSecretary who is in our

interest: 'I hate my Son, and my Son hates me: we are best asunder;let them make him STATTHALTER

(Viceregent) of Hanover, with his Princess!' Commission might be made out in the Princess Amelia's name;

proper conditions tied, and so on:Knyphausen suggests it could be done. Knyphausen is true to us; but he

stands alone [not alone, but cannot much help]; does not even stir in the NOSTI or ST.MARYAXE Affair

Prince Friedrich to be STATTHALTER in Hanover with his English Princess? That would save the expense

of an Establishment for him at home. That has been suggested by the Knyphausen or English party: and no

doubt it looked flattering to his Prussian Majesty for moments. This may be called Epoch first, after that

Then as to the NOSTI Affair, in which Knyphausen "does not stir as yet,"the fact is, it was only put into

Knyphausen's hands the day before YESTERDAY, as we soon discover; and Knyphausen is not so sure

about it as some are! That Hotham Despatch is of Wednesday, 12th April. And not till yesterday could Guy

Dickens report performance of the other important thing. Captain Guy Dickens, a brisk handy military man,

Secretary to Dubourgay this good while past, "Has duly received from Headquarters the successive

NOSTIGRUMKOW documents, caught up in St. Mary Axe; has now delivered them to Knyphausen, to be

laid before his Prussian Majesty in a good hour; and would fain (Tuesday, April 11th) hope some result from

this step." Not for almost a month does Hotham himself say anything of it to the Prussian Majesty, good hour

for Knyphausen not having come. But now, in regard to that Hanover Statthaltership, hear

Townshend,condensed, but not nearly so much so, my Lord being a succinct man who sticks always

LONDON, 27th APRIL. "Yes, you shall have the Hanover Viceregency. We will set up the CrownPrince

Friedrich in Hanover as desired; but will give the Commission to our own Princess, that being more

convenient for several reasons: CrownPrince, furthermore, must promise to come over to England when we

require him; ITEM may repay us our expenses hereafter, As to MarriagePortions, we will give none with

Alas, nothing came of this; Prussian Majesty, in spite of thrift, perceiving that, for several reasons, it would

not do. Meanwhile Grumkow, we learn from a secret source, [NOSTI, supra (18th April), p. 185; infra, p.

101.] has been considerably courted by Botham and her Prussian Majesty; Queen Caroline having signified

from England, That they ought to gain that knave,what price did he charge for himself? But this also

BERLIN, 18th APRIL. "... Grumkow is a thorn in my side: one would like to do him some service in return."

'Cannot you stop an ORIGINAL Letter of his' (we have only deciphered Copies as yet) to that Reichenbach

or NOSTI, 'strong enough to break his back? They will try. Hotham continues in next Despatch:

BERLIN, 22d APRIL. "Dined with the King again; CrownPrince was present: dreadfully dejected,'at

which one cannot help being moved; there is something so engaging in the Prince, and everybody says so

much good of him.'" Hear Hotham! Who again, three days after, says of our Fritz: 'If I am not much

mistaken, this young Prince will one day make a very considerable figure.' "Wish we could manage the

Marriage; but this Grumkow, this"Cannot they contrive to send an ORIGINAL strong enough?

Alas, from the same secret source we learn, within a week, that Grumkow's back is very strong; the

TobaccoParliament in full blast again, and Seckendorf's Couriers galloping to Vienna with the best news.

Nay his Majesty looks expressly "sour upon Hotham," or does not look at all; will not even speak when he

sees him; for a reason we shall hear. [NOSTI, infra (29th April), p. 191.] can it, be thought that any

liberality in use of the bellows or other fireimplements will now avail with his Majesty?

But at this point let our Two Rooks recommence a little: Nosti, on the 18th, we left quaking in every joint of

him;and good news was almost at the door, had afflicted Nosti known it. Grumkow's strain (suppressed by

us here), all this while, is in general, almost ever since the blaze of that Hotham Dinner went off into

repentant headache: 'Pshaw, don't fear!' Nay after a fortnight or so, it is again: 'Steady! we are all right?'

TobaccoParliament and the Royal Imagination making such progress. This is still but the third week since

BERLIN, 22d APRIL. 'King wants to get rid of the Princess' Wilhelmina, 'who is grown lean, ugly, with

pimples on her face ( qui est devenue maigre, laide, couperosee,' [This is one of the sentences Wilhelmina

has got hold of (Wilhelmina, i. 234).]dog: will nobody horsewhip that lie out of him!)'judge what a treat

that will be to a Prince of Wales, who has his amourettes!' All is right, Nosti, is it not?

BERLIN, 25th APRIL. "King declared to Seckendorf yesterday again, He might write to the Kaiser, That

while he lived, nothing should ever part his Majesty from the Kaiser and his Cause; that the French dare not

attack Luxembourg, as is threatened; and if they do! Upon which Seckendorf despatched a Courier to

"As to Hotham, he explains himself upon nothing,"stalks about with his nose in the air, as if there were

nothing farther to be explained. "I spoke yesterday of the Single Match, Wilhelmina and Prince of Wales;

King answered, even of the Single Match, Devil fly away with it!"or a still coarser phrase.

'Meanwhile the Queen, though at the end of her eighth month, is cheery as a fish in water; [Wilhelmina has

this too, in a disfigured state (i. 233).] and always forms grand project of totally ruining Seckendorf, by

Knyphausen's and other help.' "Hotham yesterday, glancing at Nosti no doubt, said to the SIEUR DE

POTSDAM [cant phrase for the King], 'That great Princes were very unlucky to have ministers that durst not

show themselves in good society; for the result was, they sent nothing but false news and rumors picked up in

"Coffeehouses?" answers Reichenbach, by and by: "Reichenbach is in English society of the first

distinction, and receives visits from Lords and Dukes. This all the world knows"to be nothing like the

At any rate, continues Grumkow, "the Queen's Husband said, aside, to Nosti's Friend, 'I see he is glancing at

Reichenbach; but he won't make much of that (cynically speaking, ne fera que de l�eau claire).' Hotham is by

no means a man of brilliant mind, and his manners are rough: but Ginkel," the Dutchman, "is cleverer (PLUS

LONDON, 25th APRIL. "... King has written to me, I AM to report to him any talk there may be in the Court

here about his Majesty! My Amiable and his Seckendorf, need they ask if Nosti will, and in a way to give

STROPHE (allegro by the Berlin Raven or Rook, who has not yet heard the above);Grumkow

BERLIN, 29th APRIL. "... Wrong not to write entertaining news of the English Court as heretofore. King

"What you say of the PrinceRoyal of Prussia's writing to the Queen of England, is very curious; and you did

well to say nothing of it to the Father; the thing being of extreme delicacy, and the proof difficult. But it

seems likely. And I insinuated something of it to his Majesty, the day before yesterday [27th April, 1730,

therefore? One momentary glance of Hansard into the TobaccoParliament], as of a thing I had learned from

a spy" (such my pretence, O Nosti)spy "who is the intimate friend of Knyphausen and plays traitor: you

may fancy that it struck terribly." Yes! "And his Majesty has looked sour upon Hotham ever since; and

passed above an hour in colloquy with Seckendorf and me, in sight both of English Hotham and Dutch

"It was true enough what Nosti heard of the Queen's fair speeches, and Hotham's, to the Friend of Nosti. But

it is all ended: the Queen's, weeks ago, being in vain: Hotham too, after some civilities, seems now

indifferent. 'ENFIN ['Afin' he always writes it, copying the indistinct gurgle of his own

horsedialect]AFIN FILOUTERIE TOUT PURE' (whole of it thimblerig, on their part).

"Admirable story, that of Prince Fred's amourette [sent to the cesspool by us, herald of Reichenbach thither]:

let his Majesty know it, by all means. What the Duchess of Kendal [lean tall female in expensive brocades,

with gilt prayerbooks, visible in the body to Nosti at that time], what the Duchess of Kendal says to you is

perfectly just; and as the Princess Wilhelmina is very illlooking [LAIDE,how dare you say so, dog?], I

believe she will have a bad life of it, the Prince of Wales being accustomed to daintier meats. Yes truly, she

will, as the Duchess says, 'need to be wiser than Solomon' to conciliate the humors down there (LA BAS)

with the genius of his Prussian Majesty and Queen.'As for your Princess Amelia, depend upon it, while the

Commandant of Potsdam lives, she will never get hold of the PrinceRoyal, though he is so furiously taken

BERLIN, 2d MAY."Wish you had not told the King so positively that the English say, it shall be Double

Match or none. Hotham said to the Swedish Ambassador: 'Reichenbach, walking in the dark, would give

himself a fine knock on the nose ( aurait un furieux pied de nez ), when,' or IF, 'the thing was done quite

Pooh, pooh! Hotham must have said "if," not "when;" Swede is quite astray!And indeed we will here leave

off, and shut down this magazine of rubbish; right glad to wash ourselves wholly from it (in three waters)

forevermore. Possibly enough the Prussian Dryasdust will, one day, print it IN EXTENSO, and with that

lucidity of comment and arrangement which is peculiar to him; exasperated readers will then see whether I

have used them ILL or not, according to the opportunity there was!Here, at any rate, my reader shall he

free of it. Indeed he may perceive, the negotiation was by this time come to a safe point, the

NostiGrumkows triumphant, and the interest of the matter mainly out. Farther transient anxieties this

amiable couple had, traceable in that last short croak from Grumkow,lest the English might consent to

that of the "SingleMarriage in the mean time" (which the English never did, or meant to do). For example,

LONDON, 12th MAY."Lord Townshend alarmingly hinted to me: Better have done with your

GrumkowandSeckendorf speculations: the illintentioned are perfectly sure to be found out at the end of

the account; and their tools will get ruined along with them. Nosti endeavored to talk big in reply: but he

shakes in his shoes nevertheless; and with a heart full of distraction exclaims now, Save yourselves, save

me!If Hotham speak of the SingleMarriage only, it is certain the PrinceRoyal must mean to run away,"

Yes, indeed! But these were transient terrors. The day is our own, my Grumkow; yes, our own, my

We have only to add what Hotham reports (Berlin, May 6th), That he "has had an interview with his Majesty,

and spoken of the St.MaryAxe affair; Knyphausen having found a moment to lay it before his Majesty."

So that the above Excerpts from St. Mary Axe (all but the last two),the above, and many more suppressed

by us,are in his Majesty's hands: and he is busy studying them; will, it is likely, produce them in an

What the emotions of the royal breast were during the perusal of this extraordinary dialogue of birds, which

has come to him through St. Mary Axe? Manifold probably: manifold, questionable; but not tragical, or

not immediately so. Certainly it is definable as the paltriest babble; no treason visible in it, nor constructive

treason; but it painfully indicates, were his Majesty candid, That his Majesty is subject to spies in his own

House; nay that certain parties do seem to fancy they have got his Majesty by the nose, and are piping tunes

with an eye to his dancing, thereto. This is a painful thought, which, I believe, does much agitate his Majesty

now and afterwards.A painful thought or suspicion, rising sometimes (in that temperament of his) to the

pitch of the horrible. I believe it occasionally, ever henceforth, keeps haunting the highly poetic temperament

of his Majesty, nor ever quits him again at all; stalking always, now and then, through the vacant chambers of

his mind, in what we may call the nightseason (or time of solitude and hypochondriacal

reflection),though in busy times again (in daylight, so to speak) he impatiently casts it from him. Poor

But figure Grumkow, figure the TobaccoParliament when Majesty laid these Papers on the Table! A

HANSARD of that night would be worth reading. There is thunderous note of interrogation on his Majesty's

face;what a glimmer in the hard puckery eyes of Feldzeugmeister Seckendorf, "JARNIBLEU!" No

doubt, an excessively astonished Parliament. Nothing but brass of face will now serve the principal

Of course Grumkow denies the Letters pointblank: Mere forgeries, these, of the English Court, plotting to

ruin your Majesty's faithful servant, and bring in other servants they will like better! May have written to

Reichenbach, nay indeed has, this or that trifling thing: but those Copyists in St. Mary Axe,

"deciphering,"garbling, manufacturing, till they make a romance of it,alas, your Majesty? Nay, at any

rate, what are the Letters? Grumkow can plead that they are the foolishest insignificant rubbish of

Courtgossip, not tending any bad road, if they have a tendency. That they are adapted to the nature of the

We have no HANSARD of this Session; all is conjecture and tobaccosmoke. What we know is, not the least

effect, except an internal trouble, was produced on the royal mind by the St.MaryAxe Discovery. Some

Question there might well be, inarticulately as yet, of Grumkow's fidelity, at least of his discretion; seeds of

suspicion as to Grumkow, which may sprout up by and by; resolution to keep one's eye on Grumkow. But the

first practical fruit of the matter is, fierce jealousy that the English and their clique do really wish to interfere

in our ministerial appointments; so that, for the present, Grumkow is firmer in his place than ever. And

One thing is certain, precisely a week after, his Majesty,much fluctuating in mind evidently, for the

Document "has been changed three or four times within fortyeight hours,"presents his final answer to

"1. For Hanover and your great liberality on that score, much obliged; but upon reconsideration think it will

not do. 2. Marriage FIRST, Prince of Wales to Wilhelmina,Consent with pleasure. 3. Marriage SECOND,

CrownPrince Friedrich with your Amelia,for that also we are extremely wishful, and trust it will one day

take effect: but first these SevilleTreaty matters, and differences between the Kaiser and allied English and

French will require to be pulled straight; that done, we will treat about the terms of Marriage SECOND. One

indispensable will be,That the English guarantee our Succession in Julich and Berg." [Hotham's Despatch,

"Outrageous" indeed!CrownPrince sends, along with this, a loving message by Hotham, of earnestly

deprecating tenor, to the Britannic Majesty; "begs his Britannic Majesty not to reject the King's Proposals,

whatever they may be,this for poor Sister Wilhelmina's sake. 'For though he, the CrownPrince, was

determined to lose his life sooner than marry anybody but the Princess Amelia, yet if this Negotiation were

broken off, his Father would go to extremities to force him and his poor Sister into other

engagements.'"Which, alas, what can it avail with the Britannic Majesty, in regard to such outrageous

Britannic Majesty's Ministry, as always, answers by return of Courier:"MAY 22d. Both Marriagea, or

none: Seville has no concern with both, more than with one: DITTO Julich and Berg,of which latter indeed

we know nothing,nor (ASIDE TO HOTHAM) mean to know." [Despatch, Whitehall, 11th May (22d by

N.S.]. Whereby Hotham perceives that it is as good to throw away the bellows, and oonsider the matter

extinct. Hotham makes ready for an Excursion into Saxony, to a thing called CAMP OF RADEWITZ, or

ENCAMPMENT OF RADEWITZ; a Military Spectacle of neverimagined magnificence, to be given by

August the Strong there, whither all the world is crowding;and considers any Business he had at Berlin to

Evidently Friedrich Wilhelm has not been much wrought upon by the St.MaryAxe Documents! One week

they have been revolving in the royal mind; part of a week in the Smoking Parliament (we know not what day

they were laid on the table there, but it must have been a grand occurrence within those walls!)and this

already (May 13th) is the result arrived at: Propositions, changed three or four times within fortyeight hours,

and definable at last as "outrageous;" which induce Hotham to lay down the bellows, and prepare to go his

One other public result there is from it, and as yet one only: Reichenbach, "from certain causes thereto

moving Us ( aus gewissen Uns dazu bewegenden Grunden )," gets a formal Letter of Recall. Ostensible

Letter, dated Berlin, 13th May, and signed Friedrich Wilhelm; which the English may read for their comfort.

Only that along with this, of the same date and signature, intended for Reichenbach's comfort, the same

Leather Bag brings a Private Letter (which Dickens or another has contrived to get sight of and copy),

apprising Reichenbach, That, unostensibly, his proceedings are approved of; that he is to continue at his post

till further orders, all the same, "and keep watch on these Marriages, about which there is such debating in the

world ( wovon in der Welt so viel debattirt wird ); things being still in the same state as half a year ago. That

is to say, I am ready for my Daughter's Marriage with the Prince of Wales: but for my Son, he is too young

yet; und hat es damit keine Eile, weil ich Gottlob noch zwei Sohne hab (nor is there any haste, as I have,

thank God, two other sons,"and a third ooming, if I knew it):"besides one indispensable condition will

be, that the English guarantee Julich and Berg," which perhaps they are not in the least hurry for, either!

What does the English Court think of that? Dated "Berlin, 13th May:" it is the same day when his Majesty's

matured Proposals, "changed thrice or oftener within the fortyeight hours," were handed to Hotham for

transmission to his Court. An interesting Leather Bag, this Ordinary from Berlin. Reichenbach, we observe,

will get his share of it some ten days after that alarming rebuke from Townshend; and it will relieve the poor

wretch from his worst terrors: "Go on with your eavesdroppings as before, you alarmed wretch!"There

does one Degenfeld by and by, a man of better quality (and on special haste, as we shall see) come and

supersede poor Nosti, and send him home:there they give Nosti some exiguous Pension, with hint to

disappear forevermore. Which he does; leaving only these St.MaryAxe Documents for his Lifemark in the

What the English Answer to his Majesty's Proposals of Berlin, May 13th, was, we have already seen;dated

"London, 22d May," probably few hours after the Courier arrived. Hotham, well anticipating what it would

be, had already, as we phrased it, "laid down the bellows;" left the Negotiation, as essentially extinct;and

was preparing for the "Camp at Radewitz," Britannic Majesty being anxious to hear what Friedrioh Wilhelm

"The King of Prussia's unsteadiness and want of resolution," writes Hotham (Berlin, 20th May), "will hinder

him from being either very useful to his friends, or very formidable to his enemies." And from the same

place, just about quitting it for Radewitz, he writes again, exactly a week after ("Berlin, 27th May"), to

enclose Copy of a remarkable Letter; remarkable to us also;but which, he knows and we, cannot influence

the English Answer now close at hand. Here is the copied Letter; copied in Guy Dickens's hand; from which

we translate,and also will give the original French in this instance, for behoof of the curious:

"MONSIEUR,Je crois que c'est de la derniere importance que je vous ecrive; et je suis assez triste d'avoir

des chases a vous dire que je devrois cacher a toute la terre: mais il faut franchir ce mauvais pas la; et vous

comptant de mes amis, je me resouds plus facilement a vous le dire. C'est que je suis traite d'une maniere

inouie du Roi, et que je sais qu'a present ils se trament de terribles choses contre moi, touchant certaines

Lettres que j'ai ecrites l'hiver passe, dont je crois que vous serez informe. Enfin pour vous parler franchement,

la vraie raison que le Roi a de ne vouloir point donner les mains a ce Mariage est, qu'il me veut toujours tenir

sur un bas pied, et me faire enrager toute sa vie, quand l'envie lui en prend; ainsi il ne l'accordera jamais. Si

l'on consent de votre cote que cette Princesse soit aussi traitee ainsi, vous pouvez comprendre aisement que je

serai fort triste de rendre malheureuse une personne que j'estime, et de rester toujours dans le meme etat ou je

suis. Pour moi done je crois qu'il vaudroit mieux finir le Mariage de ma Soeur ainsi auparavant, et ne point

demander au Roi seulement des assurances sur mon sujet, d'autant plus que sa parole n'y fait rien: suffit que

je reitere les promesses que j'ai deja fait au Roi mon Oncle, de ne prendre jamais d'autre epouse que sa

seconde fille la Princess Amelie. Je suis une personne de parole, qui pourra faire reussir ce que j'avance,

pourvu que l'on se fie a moi. Je vous le promets, et a present vous pouvez en avertir votre Cour; et je saurai

[StatePaper Office: Prussian Despatches, vol. xli. (enclosed in Sir Charles Hotham's Despatch, Berlin,

"Monsieur,I believe it is of the last importance that I should write to you; and I am very sad to have things

to say which I ought to conceal from all the earth. But one must take that bad leap; and reckoning you among

"The case is this: I am treated in an unheardof manner by the King; and I know there are terrible things in

preparation against me, touching certain letters which I wrote last winter, of which I believe you are

informed. In a word, to speak frankly to you, the real secret reason why the King will not consent to this

Marriage is, That he wishes to keep me on a low footing constantly, and to have the power of driving me

mad, whenever the whim takes him, throughout his life; thus he never will give his consent. If it were

possible that you on your side could consent that your Princess too should be exposed to such treatment, you

may well comprehend that I should be very sad to bring misery on a Person whom I esteem, and to remain

"For my own part, therefore, I believe it would be better to conclude my Sister's Marriage in the first place,

and not, even to ask from the King any assurances in regard to mine; the rather as his word has nothing to do

with it: it is enough that I here reiterate the promises which I have already made to the King my Uncle, Never

to take another wife than his second Daughter the Princess Amelia. I am a person of my word; and shall be

able to bring about what I set forth, provided there is trust put in me. I promise it you; and now you may give

your Court notice of it; and I shall manage to keep my promise. I remain yours always."

The CrownPrince, for Wilhelmina's sake and everybody's, is extremely anxious they should agree to the

Single Marriage in the interim: but the English Courtperhaps for no deep reason, perhaps chiefly because

little George had the whim of standing grandly immovable upon his first offernever would hear of that.

Which was an angry thought to the CrownPrince in after times, as we sometimes notice.

Here, to the like effect, is another Fragment from his Royal Highness, copied in the Dickens hand, and

enclosed in the same Despatch from Hotham;giving us a glance into the inner workshop of his Royal

"... Vous pouvez croire que je ferai tout ce que je peux pour faire reussir mon plan; mais l'on n'en remarquera

rien em dehors; que l'on m'en laisse agir en suite, je ferai bien moi seul reussir le reste. Je finis la par vous

"... You may believe I will exert all my resources to succeed in my plan; but there will be no outward sign

visible:leave me to act in this way, I will myself successfully bring it through. I end by again assuring you,

Which again produces no effect; the English Answer being steadily, "Both Marriages, or none."

And this, then, is what the Hotham mission is come to? Good Dubourgay is home, recalled about a month

ago, "for the sake of his health," [Townshend's polite Despatch to him, Whitehall, 21st April, 1730.]good

old gentleman, never to be heard of in Diplomatic History more. Dubourgay went in the first days of May;

and the month is not out, when Hotham is off to the Camp of Radewitz; leaving his Negotiation, as it were,

extinct. To the visible regret of the Berlin public generally; to the grievous disappointment of Queen Sophie,

of the CrownPrince and some others,not to speak of Wilhelmina's feelings, which are unknown to us.

Regretful Berlin, Wilhelmina and Mamma among the others, had, by accident, in these dejected

circumstances, a strange Sign from the Heavens provided them, one night,if we may be permitted to notice

it here. Monday, 29th May;and poor Queen Sophie, we observe withal, is in the hands of the MONTHLY

NURSE since Tuesday last! ["Prince Ferdinand (her last child, Father of him whose fate lay at Jenz

Monday 29th May, 1730, Friedrich Wilhelm and the CrownPrince and Party were at Potsdam, so far on

their way towards Radewitz. All is peaceable at Potsdam that night: but it was a night of wild phenomena at

Berlin; or rather of one wild phenomenon, the "Burning of the SANCTPETERS KIRCHE," which held the

whole City awake and in terror for its life. Dim Fassmann becomes unusually luminous on this affair

(probably an eyewitness to it, poor old soul); and enables us to fish up one old Night of Berlin City and its

For two years back Berlin had been diligently building a nonplusultra of Steeples to that fine Church of St.

Peter's. Highest Steeple of them all; one of the Steeples of the World, in a manner;and Berlin was now

near ending it. Tower, or shaft, has been complete some time, interior fittings going on; and is just about to

get its ultimate apex, a "CrownRoyal" set on it by way of finis. For his Majesty, the great AEdile, was much

concerned in the thing; and had given materials, multifarious helps: Three incomparable Bells, especially,

were his gift; melodious old Bells, of distinguished tone, "bigger than the Great Bell of Erfurt," than Tom of

Lincoln,or, as brief popular rumor has it, the biggest Bells in the World, at least of such a TONE. These

Bells are hung, silent but ready in their upper chamber of the Tower, and the gigantic Crown or apex is to go

on; then will the basketwork of scaffolding be peeled away, and the Steeple stretch, high and grand, into the

Far otherwise. On Monday evening, between eight and nine, there gathered thunder over Berlin; wild tumult

of the elements: thunderbolt "thrice in swift succession" struck the unfinished Steeple; in the "hood" of

which men thereupon noticed a light, as of a star, or sparkle of the sun; and straightway, in spite of the

raintorrents, there burst out blazes of flame. Blazes unquenchable; grand yet perilous to behold. The

firedrums beat, the alarmbells clanged, and ceased not; all Berlin struggling there, all night, in vain. Such

volumes of smoke: "the heavens were black as if you had hung them with mortcloth:" such roaring cataracts

of flame, "you could have picked up a copper doit at the distance of 800 yards.""Hissss!" what hissing

far aloft is that? That is the incomparable big Bells melting. There they vanish, their fine tones never to be

tried more, and ooze through the redhot ruin, "Hushshsht!" the last sound heard from them. And the stem

for holding that immense Crownroyal,it is a bar and bars of iron, "weighing sixteen hundredweight;"

down it comes thundering, crashing through the belly of St. Peter's, the fall of it like an earthquake all round.

And still the firedrums beat, and from all surviving Steeples of Berlin goes the clangor of alarm; "none but

the very young children can have slept that night," says our vigilant old friend.

Wind was awake, too; kindling the neighboring streets; storming towards the PowderMagazine; where

labor innumerable Artillerymen, "busy with hides from the tanpits, with stabledung, and other material;"

speed to them, we will say! Forty dwellinghouses went; but not the PowderMagazine; not Berlin utterly

(so to speak) by the PowderMagazine. On the morrow St. Peter's and neighborhood lay black, but still

inwardly burning; not for three days more could the ruins be completely quenched.

That was the news for Friedrich Wilhelm, before sunrise, on the point of his departure for Muhlberg and King

August's scenic exhibitions. "HM;but we must go, all the same! We will rebuild it!" said he.And truly

he did so. And the polite King August, sorry to hear of the Peterskirche, "gave him excellent sandstone from

the quarries of Pirna," says: Fassmann: "great blocks came boating down the Elbe" from that notable Saxon

Switzerland Country, notable to readers here in time coming; and are to be found, as ashlar, in the modern St.

Peter's at Berlin; a fact which the reader, till Pirna be better known to him, may remember if he likes.

The Camp of Muhlberg, called more properly the Camp of Radewitz, towards which Friedrich Wilhelm, with

English Hotham and many dignitaries are now gone, was one of the sublimest scenic military exhibitions in

the history of the world; leaving all manner of imitation tournaments, modern "tintournaments," out of sight;

and perhaps equalling the Field of the Cloth of Gold, or Barbarossa's Mainz Tournament in ancient times. It

lasted for a month, regardless of expense,June month of the year 1730;and from far and wide the idle of

mankind ran, by the thousand, to see it. Shall the thing be abolished utterly,as perhaps were proper, had

not our CrownPrince been there, with eyes very open to it, and yet with thoughts very shut;or shall some

flying trace of the big Zero be given? Riddling or screening certain cartloads of heavy old German printed

rubbish, [Chiefly the terrible compilation called HeldenStaats und LebensGeschichte des, Friedrichs des

Andern (History Heroical, Political and Biographical of Friedrich the Second), Frankfurt and Leipzig,

17591760, vol, i. first HALF, pp. 171210. There are ten thick and thin halfvolumes, and perhaps more.

One of the most hideous imbroglios ever published under the name of Book,without vestige of Index, and

on paper that has no margin and cannot stand ink,yet with many curious articles stuffed blindly into the

awful belly of it, like jewels into a ragsack, or into TEN ragsacks all in one; with far more authenticity

than you could expect in such case. Let us call it, for brevity, HeldenGeschichte, in future references.] to

omit the Hotham Despatches, we obtained the following shovelful of authentic particulars, perhaps not quite

The exact size of the Camp of Radewitz I nowhere find measured; but to judge on the map, [At p. 214.] it

must have covered, with its appendages, some ten or twelve square miles of ground. All on the Elbe, right

bank of the Elbe; Town of Muhlberg, chief Town of the District, lying some ten miles northwest; then, not

much beyond it, Torgau; and then famed Wittenberg, all on the northwest, farther down the River: and on the

other side, Meissen with its Potteries not far to the southeast of you, up the River, on the Dresden hand. Nay

perhaps many of my readers have seen the place, and not known, in their touring expeditions; which are now

blinder than ever, and done by steam, without even eyesight, not to say intelligence. Precisely where the

railway from Leipzig to Dresden crosses the Elbe,there, if you happen to have daylight, is a flat, rather

clayey country, dirtygreenish, as if depastured partly by geese; with a big full River Elbe sweeping through

it, banks barish for a mile or two; River itself swift, sleek and of flintcolor; not unpleasant to behold, thus

far on its journey from the Bohemian GiantMountains seaward: precisely there, when you have crossed the

Bridge, is the southmost corner of August the Strong's Encampment,vanished now like the last flock of

geese that soiled and nibbled these localities;and, without knowing it, you are actually upon memorable

Actually, we may well say; apart from August and his fooleries. For here also it was, on the ground now

under your eye, that Kurfurst Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous, having been surprised the day before at

public worship in the abovementioned Town of Muhlberg, and completely beaten by Kaiser Karl the Fifth

and his Spaniards and Duke of Alba, did, on Monday 25th April, 1547, ride forth as Prisoner to meet the said

Kaiser; and had the worst reception from him, poor man. "Take pity on me, O God! This is what it is come

to?" the magnanimous beaten Kurfurst was heard murmuring as he rode. At sight of the Kaiser, he

dismounted, pulled off his ironplated gloves, knelt, and was: for humbly taking the Kaiser's hand, to kiss it.

Kaiser would not; Kaiser looked thunderous tornado on him, with hands rigidly in the vertical direction. The

magnanimous Kurfurst arose therefore; doffed his hat: "Greatmightiest (GROSSMACHTIGSTER)

allgracious Kaiser, I am your Majesty's prisoner," said he, confining himself to the historical. "I AM Kaiser

now, then?" answered the sullen Tornado, with a black brow and hanging underjaw."I request my

imprisonment may be princelike," said the poor Prince. "It shall be as your deserts have been!""I am in

your power; you will do your pleasure on me," answered the other;and was led away, to hard durance and

peril of life for five years to come; his Cousin Moritz, having expertly jockeyed his Electoral dignities and

territories from him in the interim; [De Wette, Kursgefasste Lebensgeschichte der Herzoge zu Sachsen

Expert Cousin Moritz: in virtue of which same Moritz, or rather perhaps in VICE of him, August the Strong

is even now Elector of Saxony; Papist, PseudoPapist Apostate King of Poland, and Nonplusultra of

"gluttonous Royal Flunkies;" doomed to do these fooleries on God's Earth for a time. For the sins of the

fathers are visited upon the children,in ways little dreamt of by the flunky judgment,to the sixth

generation and farther. Truly enough this is memorable ground, little as King August, thinks of it; little as the

The ten square miles have been industriously prepared for many months past; shaved, swept by the best

engineer science: every village of it thoroughly cleaned, at least; the villages all let lodgings at a Californian

rate; in one village, Moritz by name, [Map at page 214.] is the slaughterhouse, killing oxen night and day;

and the bakehouee, with 160 mealy bakers who never rest: in another village, Strohme, is the playhouse of

the region; in another, Glaubitz, the postoffice: nothing could excel the arrangements; much superior, I

should judge, to those for the Siege of Troy, and other worldgreat enterprises. Worthy really of admiration,

had the business not been zero. Foreign Courts: European Diplomacy at large, wondered much what cunning

scheme lay hidden here. No scheme at all, nor purpose on the part of poor August; only that of amusing

himself, and astonishing the flunkies of Creation,regardless of expense. Three temporary Bridges, three

besides the regular ferry of the country, cross the Elbe; for the high officers, dames, damosels and lordships

of degree, and thousandfold spectators, lodge on both sides of the Elbe: three Bridges, one of pontoons, one

of woodrafts, one of barrels; immensely long, made for the occasion. The whole Saxon Army, 30,000 horse

and foot with their artillery, all in beautiful brandnew uniforms and equipments, lies beautifully encamped

in tents and wooden huts, near by Zeithayn, its rear to the Elbe; this is the "ARMEE LAGER (Camp of the

Army)" in our old Rubbish Books. Northward of which,with the Heath of Gorisch still well beyond, and

bluish to you, in the farther North,rises, on favorable ground, a high "Pavilion" elaborately built,

elaborately painted and gilded, with balcony stages round it; from which the whole ground, and everything

Eastward again, or from the Pavilion southeastward, at the right flank of the Army, where again rises a kind

of Height, hard by Radewitz, favorable for survey,there, built of sublime silk tents, or solid wellpainted

carpentry, the general color of which is bright green, with gilt knobs and gilt gratings all about, is the

:HAUPTLAGER," Headquarters, Main LAGER, Heart of all the LAGERS; where his Prussian Majesty,

and his Polish ditto, with their respective suites, are lodged. Kinglike wholly, in extensive green palaces

ready gilt and furnished; such drawingrooms, such bedrooms, "with floors of dyed wickerwork;" the gilt

mirrors, pictures, musical clocks; not even the fine bathingtubs for his Prussian Majesty have been

forgotten. Never did man or flunky see the like. Such immense successful apparatus, without and within; no

end of military valetaille, chiefly "janizaries," in Turk costume; improvised flowergardens even, and walks

of yellow sand,the whole Hill of Radewitz made into a flowergarden in that way. Nay, in the Army

LAGER too, many of the Captains have made little improvised flowergardens in that Camp of theirs, up and

down. For other Captains not of a poetical turn, there are billiards, coffeehouses, and plenty of excellent

beer and other liquor. But the mountains of cavalry hay, that stand guarded by patrols in the rearward places,

and the granaries of cavalry oats, are not to be told. Eastward, from their open porticos and precincts, with

imitation "janizaries" pacing silent lower down, the Two Majesties oversee the Army, at discretion; can

survey all things,even while dining, which they do daily, like very kings! Fritz is lodged there; has a

magnificent bed: poor young fellow, he alone now makes the business of any meaning to us. He is curious

enough to see the phenomena, military and other; but oppressed with black care: "My Amelia is not here, and

We could insist much on the notable people that were there; for the Lists of them are given. Many high

Lordships; some of whom will meet us again. Weissenfels, Wilhelmina's unfavored lover, how busy is he,

commanding gallantly (in the terrific ShamBattle) against Wackerbarth; General Wackerbarth, whose house

we saw burnt on a Dresden visit, not so long ago. Old Leopold of AnhaltDessau is there, the Old Dessauer;

with four of his Princes; instructed in soldiering, left without other instruction; without even writing, unless

they can pick it up for themselves. Likely young fellows too, with a good stroke of work in them, of battle in

them, when called for. Young Anspach, lately wedded, comes, in what state he can, poor youth; lodges with

the Prussian Majesty his Fatherinlaw; should keep rather quiet, his share of wisdom being small.

Seckendorf with his Grumkow, they also are here, in the train of Friedrich Wilhelm. Grumkow shoves the

bottle with their Polish and Prussian Majesties: in jolly hours, things go very high there. I observe they call

King August "LE PATRON," the Captain, or "Patroon;" a fine jollity dwelling in that Man of Sin. Or does

the reader notice HolsteinBeck, Prussian MajorGeneral; Prince of HolsteinBeck; a solid dull man;

capable of liquor, among other things: not wiser than he should be; sold all his Apanage or Princeship; for

example, and bought plate with it, wherefore they call him ever since "HolsteinVAISSELLE (Holstein

PLATE)" instead of HolsteinBeck. [Busching's Beitrage, iv. 109.] His next Brother, here likewise I should

think, being MajorGeneral in the Saxon service, is still more foolish. He, poor soul, is just about to marry

the Orzelska; incomparable Princess known to us, who had been her Father's mistress:marriage, as was

natural, went asunder again (1733) after a couple of years.But mark especially that middleaged heavy

gentleman, Prince of AnhaltZerbst, Prussian Commandant of Stettin. Not over rich (would not even be rich

if he came to be reigning Duke, as he will do); attentive at his post in those parts, ever since the

SiegeofStralsund time; has done his orders, fortified Stettin to perfection; solid, heavy taciturn man:of

whom there is nothing notable but this only, That last year his Wife brought him a little Daughter, Catharine

the name of her. His Wife is a foolish restless dame, highborn and penniless; let her nurse well this little

Catharine: little Catharine will become abundantly distinguished in a thirty years hence; Empress of all the

Russias that little girl; the Fates have so appointed it, mocking the prophecies of men! Here too is our poor

unmentionable Duke of Mecklenburg: poor soul, he has left his quarrels with the Ritterschaft for a week or

two, and is here breathing the air of the Elbe Heaths. His wild Russian Wife, wild Peter's niece and more, we

are relieved to know is dead; for her ways and Peter's have been very strange! To this unmentionable Duke of

Mecklenburg she has left one Daughter, a Princess ElizabethCatherine, who will be called Princess ANNE,

one day: whose fortunes in the world may turn out to be tragical. Potential heiress of all the Russias, that little

Elizabeth or Anne. Heiress by her wily aunt, Anne of Courland,Anne with the swollen cheek, whom

Moritz, capable of many things, and of being MARECHAL DE SAXE by and by, could not manage to fall in

love with there; and who has now just quitted Courland, and become Czarina: [Peter II., her Cousingerman,

died January, 1730 (Mannstein's Russia ).]if Aunt Anne with the big cheek should die childless, as is

In the train of King August are likewise splendors of a sort, if we had time for them. Dukes of

SachsenGotha, Dukes of Meiningen, most of the Dukes that put Sachsen to their name;SachsenWeimar

for one; who is Grandfather of Goethe's Friend, if not otherwise distinguished. The Lubomirskis,

Czartoryskis, and others of Polish breed, shall be considered as foreign to us, and go unnoticed. Nor are high

Dames wanting, as we see: vast flights of airy brighthued womankind, CrownPrincess at the head of them,

who lodges in Tiefenau with her CrownPrince,and though plainlooking, and not of the sweetest temper,

is a very high Lady indeed. Niece of the present Kaiser Karl, Daughter of the late Kaiser, Joseph of blessed

memory;for which reason August never yet will sign the Pragmatic Sanction, his CrownPrince having

hereby rights of his own in opposition thereto. She is young; to her is Tiefenau, northward, on the edge of the

Gorisch Heath, probably the choicest mansion in these circuits, given up: also she is Lady of "the Bucentaur,"

frigate equal to Cleopatra's galley in a manner; and commands, so to speak, by land and water. Supreme

Lady, she, of this sublime worldfoolery regardless of expense: so has the gallantry of August ordered it. Our

Friedrich and she will meet again, on occasions not like this!What the other Princesses and Countesses,

present on this occasion, were to CrownPrince Friedrich, except a general flowerbed of human

nature,ask not; nor even whether the Orzelska was so much as here! The Orzelska will be married, some

two months hence, [10th August, 1730 (Sir T. Robinson: Despatch from Dresden; in StatePaper Office).] to

a HolsteinBeck; not to Holstein PLATE, but to his Brother the unfortunate Saxon MajorGeneral: a man

surely not of nice tastes in regard to marriage;and I would recommend him to keep his light Wife at home

on such occasions. They parted, as we said, in a year or two, mutually indignant; and the Orzelska went to

Avignon, to Venice and elsewhither, and settled into Catholic devotion in cheap countries of agreeable

CrownPrince Friedrich, doubtless, looking at this flowerbed of human nature, and the reward of happy

daring paid by Beauty, has vivid images of Princess Amelia and her Viceregency of Hanover; bright

Princess and Viceregency, divided from him by bottomless gulfs, which need such a swim as that of

Leander across the material Hellespont was but a trifle to!In which of the villages Hotham and Dickens

lodged, I did not learn or inquire; nor are their copious Despatches, chronicling these sublime phenomena

from day to day for behoof of St. James's, other than entirely inane to us at this time. But one thing we do

learn from them: Our CrownPrince, escaping the paternal vigilance, was secretly in consultation with

Dickens, or with Hotham through Dickens; and this in the most tragic humor on his side. In such effulgences

of luxury and scenic grandeur, how sad an attendant is Black Care,nay foul misusage, not to be borne by

human nature! Accurate Professor Ranke has read somewhere,does not comfortably say where, nor

comfortably give the least date,this passage, or what authorizes him to write it. "In that PleasureCamp of

Muhlberg, where the eyes of so many strangers were directed to him, the CrownPrince was treated like a

disobedient boy, and one time even with strokes (KORPERLICH MISSHANDELT), to make him feel he

was only considered as such. The enraged King, who never weighed the consequences of his words, added

mockery to his manual outrage. He said, 'Had I been treated so by my Father, I would have blown my brains

out: but this fellow has no honor, he takes all that comes!'" [Ranke, Neun Bucher Preussischer Geschichte

(Berlin, 1847), i. 297.] EINMAL KORPERLICH MISSHANDELT: why did not the Professor give us time,

occasion, circumstances, and name of some eyewitness? For the fact, which stands reported in the like

fashion in all manner of Histories, we shall otherwise find to be abundantly certain; and it produced

conspicuous definite results. It is, as it were, the one fact still worth human remembrance in this expensive

Radewitz and its fooleries; and is itself left in that vague inert state, irremediable at present.

Beaten like a slave; while lodged, while figuring about, like a royal highness, in this sumptuous manner! It

appears clearly the poor Prince did hereupon, in spite of his word given to Wilhelmina, make up his mind to

run. Ingenious Ranke, forgetting again to date, knows from the Archives, that Friedrich went shortly

afterwards to call on Graf von Hoym, one day. Speaking to Graf von Hoym, who is Saxon FirstMinister,

and Factotum of the arrangements here, he took occasion cursorily to ask, Could not a glimpse of Leipzig,

among all these fine things, be had? Order for horses to or at Leipzig, for "a couple of officers" (Lieutenant

Keith and self),quietly, without fuss of passes and the like, Herr Graf?The Herr Graf glances into it with

eyes which have a twinkle in them: SCHWERLICH, Royal Highness. They are very strict about passes. Do

not try it, Royal Highness! [Ranke, ib.; Forster, i. 365, and more especially iii. 4 (Seckendorf's Narrative

there).] And Friedrich did desist, in that direction, poor youth; but tried it the more in others. Very busy, in

deep secrecy, corresponding with Lieutenant Katte at Berlin, consulting tragically with Captain Guy Dickens

here.Whether any hint or whisper came to the Prussian Majesty from Graf von Hoym? Lieutenant Keith

was, shortly after, sent to Wesel to mind his soldiering there, far down the Rhine Country in the Garrison of

Wesel; [Wilhelmina told us lately (supra, p. 149), Keith HAD been sent to Wesel; but she has misdated as

usual.] better there than colleaguing with a Fritz, and suggesting to him idle truancies or worse.

With Katte at Berlin the desperate Prince has concocted another scheme of Flight, this Hoym one being

impossible; scheme executable by Katte and him, were this Radewitz once over. And as for his consultations

with Guy Dickens, the result of them is: Captain Dickens, on the 16th of June, with eyes brisk enough, and

lips well shut, sets out from Radewitz express for London. This is what I read as abstract of HOTHAM'S

DESPATCH, 16th June, 1730, which Dickens is to deliver with all caution at St. James's: "CrownPrince has

communicated to Dickens his plan of escape; 'could no longer bear the outrages of his Father.' Is to attend his

Father to Anspath shortly (JOURNEY TO THE REICH, of which we shall hear anon), and they are to take a

turn to Stuttgard: which latter is not very far from Strasburg on the French side of the Rhine. To Strasburg he

will make his escape; stay six weeks or a couple of months (that his Mother be not suspected); and will then

proceed to England. Hopes England will take such measures as to save his Sister from ruin." These are his

fixed resolutions: what will England do in such abstruse case?Captain Dickens speeds silently with his

Despatch; will find Lord Harrington, not Townshend any more; [Resigned 15th May, 1730: Despatch to

Hotham, as farewell, of that date.] will copiously open his lips to Harrington on matters Prussian. A brisk

military man, in the prime of his years; who might do as Prussian Envoy himself, if nothing great were going

Hotham, meanwhile, resumes his report, as we too must do, of the Scenic Exhibitions;and, we can well

fancy, is getting weary of it; wishing to be home rather, "as his business here seems ended." [Preceding

Despatch (of 16th June).] One day he mentions a rumor (inane high rumors being prevalent in such a place);

"rumor circulated here, to which I do not give the slightest credit, that the PrinceRoyal of Prussia is to have

one of the Archduchesses," perhaps Maria Theresa herself! Which might indeed have saved immensities of

trouble to the whole world, as well as to the Pair in question, and have made a very different History for

Germany and the rest of us. Fancy it! But for many reasons, change of religion, had there been no other, it

was an impossible notion. "May be," thinks Hotham, "that the Court of Vienna throws out this bait to

continue the King's delusion,"or a snuffle from Seckendorf, without the Court, may have given it currency

Of the terrific ShamBattles, conducted by Weissenfels on one side and Wackerbarth on the other; of the

charges of cavalry, play of artillery, threatening to end in a very doomsday, round the Pavilion and the Ladies

and the Royalties assembled on the balconies there (who always go to dinner safe, when victory has declared

itself), I shall say nothing. Nor of that supreme "attack on the intrenchments:" blowingup of the very

Bridges; cavalry posted in the woods; host doing its very uttermost against host, with unheardof expenditure

of gunpowder and learned manoeuvre; in which "the Fleet" (of shallops on the Elbe, rigged mostly in silk)

took part, and the Bucentaur with all its cannon. Words fail on such occasions. I will mention only that

assiduous King August had arranged everything like the King of PlayhouseManagers; was seen, early in the

morning, "driving his own curricle" all about, in vigilant supervision and inspection; crossed the Tubbridge,

or perhaps the Floatbridge (not yet blown up), "in a WURSTWAGEN;" giving himself (what proved well

founded) the assurance of success for this great day;and finally that, on the morrow, there occurred an

illumination and display of fireworks, the like of which is probably still a desideratum.

For the Bucentaur and Fleet were all hung with colored lamplets; Headquarters (HAUPTLAGER) and

ArmyLAGER ditto ditto; gleaming upwards with their golden light into the silver of the Summer

Twilight:and all this is still nothing to the scene there is across the Elbe, on our southeast corner. You

behold that Palace of the Genii; wings, turrets, mainbody, battlements: it is "a gigantic wooden frame, on

which two hundred carpenters have been busy for above six months," ever since Christmas last. Two hundred

carpenters; and how many painters I cannot say: but they have smeared "six thousand yards of linen canvas;"

which is now nailed up; hung with lamps, begirt with fireworks, no end of rocketserpents,

catherinewheels; with cannon and fieldmusic, near and far, to correspond;and is now (evening of the

24th June, 1730) shining to men and gods. Pinnacles, turrets, tablatures, tipt with various fires and emblems,

all is there: symbolic Painting, six hundred yards of it, glowing with inner light, and legible to the very owls!

Arms now piled useless; Pax, with her Appurtenances; Mars resting (in that canvas) on trophies of laurel

honorably won: and there is an Inscription, done in lamplets, every letter taller than a man, were you close

upon it, "SIC FULTA MANEBIT (Thus supported it will stand)," the it being either PAX (Peace) or

DOMUS (the GeniiPalace itself), as your weak judgment may lead you to interpret delicate allusions. Every

letter bigger tban a man: it may be read almost at Wittenberg, I should think; flaming as PICA written on the

sky, from the steepletops there. THUS SUPPORTED IT WILL STAND; and pious mortals murmur, "Hope

so, I am sure!"and the cannons fire, almost without ceasing; and the fieldmusic, guided by telegraphs,

bursts over all the scene, at due moments; and the Catherinewheels fly hissing; and the Bucentaur and silk

Brigantines glide about like living flambeaus;and in fact you must fancy such a sight. King August, tired

to the bone, and seeing all successful, retired about midnight. Friedrich Wilhelm stood till the finale; Saxon

CrownPrince and he, "in a window of the highest house in Promnitz;" our young Fritz and the Margraf of

Anspach, they also, in a neighboring window, [24th25th June: HeldenGeschichte (above spoken of), i.

200] stood till the finale: two in the morning, when the very Sun was not far from rising.

Or is not the ultimate closing day perhaps still notabler; a day of universal eating? Debauchee King August

had a touch of genuine human goodhumor in him; poor devil, and had the best of stomachs. Eighty oxen, fat

as Christmas, were slain and roasted, subsidiary viands I do not count; that all the world might have one good

dinner. The soldiers, divided into proper sections, had cut trenches, raised flat mounds, laid planks; and so, by

trenching and planking, had made at once table and seat, wood well secured on turf. At the end of every table

rose a triglyph, two strong wooden posts with lintel; on the lintel stood spiked the ox's head, ox's hide

hanging beneath it as drapery: and on the two sides of the two posts hung free the four roasted quarters of

said ox; from which the common man joyfully helped himself. Three measures of beer he had, and two of

wine;which, unless the measures were miraculously small, we may take to be abundance. Thus they, in

two long rows, 30,000 of them by the tale, dine joyfully SUB DIO. The two Majesties and two

CrownPrinces rode through the ranks, as dinner went on: "King of Prussia forever!" and caps into the

air;at length they retire to their own HAUPTQUARTIER, where, themselves dining, they can still see the

soldiers dine, or at least drink their three measures and two. Dine, yea dine abundantly: let all mortals have

Royal dinner is not yet done when a new miracle appears on the field: the largest Cake ever baked by the

Sons of Adam. Drawn into the Headquarter about an hour ago, on a wooden frame with tent over it, by a

team of eight horses; tent curtaining it, guarded by Cadets; now the tent is struck and off;saw mortals ever

the like? It is fourteen ells (KLEINE ELLEN) long, by six broad; and at the centre half an ell thick. Baked by

machinery; how otherwise could peel or roller act on such a Cake? There are five thousand eggs in it;

thirtysix bushels (Berlin measure) of sound flour; one tun of milk, one tun of yeast, one ditto of butter;

crackers, gingerbreadnuts, for fillet or trimming, run all round. Plainly the Prince of Cakes! A Carpenter

with gigantic knife, handle of it resting on his shoulder,Head of the Board of Works, giving word of

command,enters the Cake by incision; cuts it up by plan, by successive signal from the Board of Works.

What high person would not keep for himself, to say nothing of eating, some fraction of such a Nonpareil?

There is cut and come again for all. Carpenter advances, by main trench and by side trenches, steadily to

I mention, as another trait of the poor devil of an August, full of goodhumor after all, That he and his

Royalties and big Lordships having dined, he gave the still groaning table with all its dishes, to be scrambled

for by "the janizaries." Janizaries, ImitationTurk valetaille; who speedily made clearance,many a bit of

Royal dinner done, the Colonel and Officers of every regiment, ranked in high order, with weapons drawn,

preceded by their respective bands of music, came marching up the Hill to pay their particular respects to the

Majesty of Prussia. Majesty of Prussia promised them his favor, everlasting, as requested; drank a glass of

wine to each party (steady, your Majesty!), who all responded by glasses of wine, and threw the glasses aloft

with shouts. Sixty pieces of artillery speaking the while, and the bands of music breathing their

sweetest;till it was done, and his Majesty still steady on his feet. He could stand a great deal of wine.

And now? Well, the Cake is not done, many cubic yards of cake are still left, and the very corporals can do

no more: let the Army scramble! Army whipt it away in no time. And now, alas now the time IS come for

parting. It is ended; all things end. Not for about an hour could the HERRSCHAFTEN (Lordships and minor

Sovereignties) fairly tear themselves away, under wailing music, and with the due emotion.

The Prussian Royalties, and select few, took boat down the River, on the morrow; towards Lichtenburg

HuntingPalace, for one day's slaughtering of game. They slaughtered there about one thousand living

creatures, all driven into heaps for them,"six hundred of red game" (of the stag species), "four hundred

black," or of the boar ditto. They left all these creatures dead; dined immensely; then did go, sorrowfully

sated; CrownPrince Friedrich in his own carriage in the rear; Papa in his, preceding by a few minutes; all the

wood horns, or French horns, wailing sad adieu;and hurried towards Berlin through the ambrosial night.

And so it is all ended. And August the Strongwhat shall we say of August? History must admit that he

attains the maximum in several things. Maximum of physical strength; can break horseshoes, nay

halfcrowns with finger and thumb. Maximum of sumptuosity; really a polite creature; no man of his means

so regardless of expense. Maximum of Bastards, three hundred and fiftyfour of them; probably no mortal

ever exceeded that quantity. Lastly, he has baked the biggest Bannock on record; Cake with 5,000 eggs in it,

and a tun of butter. These things History must concede to him. Poor devil, he was full of goodhumor too,

and had the best of stomachs. His amputated greattoe does not mend: out upon it, the world itself is all so

amputated, and not like mending! August the Strong, dilapidated at fiftythree, is fast verging towards a less

expensive country: and in three years hence will be lodged gratis, and need no cook or flunky of either sex.

"This Camp of Radewitz," says Smelfungus, one of my Antecessors, finishing his long narrative of it, "this

Camp is Nothing; and after all this expense of King August's and mine, it flies away like a dream. But alas,

were the Congresses of Cambrai and Soissons, was the lifelong diplomacy of Kaiser Karl, or the History of

torpid moribund Europe in those days, much of a Something? The Pragmatic Sanction, with all its

protocolling, has fled, like the temporary Playhouse of King August erected there in the village of Strohme.

Much talk, noise and imaginary interest about both; but both literally have become zero, WERE always zero.

As well talk about the one as the other."Then why not SILENCE about both, my Friend Smelfnngus? He

answers: "That truly is the thing to be aimed at;and if we had once got our own out of both, let both be

consumed with fire, and remain a handful of inarticulate black ashes forevermore." Heavens, will I, of all

"The moral to be derived, perhaps the chief moral visible at present, from all this Section of melancholy

History is: Modern Diplomacy is nothing; mind well your own affairs, leave those of your neighbors well

alone. The Pragmatic Sanction, breaking Fritz's, Friedrich Wilhelm's, Sophie's, Wilhelmina's, English

Amelia's and I know not how many private hearts, and distracting with vain terrors and hopes the general

soul of Europe for fiveandtwenty years, fell at once into dust and vapor, and went wholly towards limbo

on the stormwinds, doing nothing for or against any mortal. Friedrich Wilhelm's 80,000 welldrilled troops

remained very actual with their firelocks and iron ramrods, and did a thing or two, there being a Captain over

them. Friedrich Wilhelm's Directorium, welldrilled Prussian Downing Street, every man steady at his duty,

and no wind to be wasted where silence was better, did likewise very authentically remain, and still

remains. Nothing of genuine and human that Friedrich Wilhelm did but remained and remains an inheritance,

not the smallest item of IT lost or losable;and the rude foolish BoorKing (singular enough!) is found to be

While the Camp at Radewitz is dissolving itself in this manner, in the last days of June, Captain Guy

Dickens, the oracles at Windsor having given him their response as to Prince Friedrich's wild project, is

getting under way for Berlin again,whither also Hotham has returned, to wait for Dickens's arrival, and

directly thereupon come home. Dickens is henceforth to do the British Diplomacy here, any Diplomacy there

can well be; Dickens once installed, Hotham will, right gladly, wash his hands of this Negotiation, which he

considers to be as good as dead for a longish while past. First, however, he has one unexpected adventure to

go through in Berlin; of most unexpected celebrity in the world: this once succinctly set forth, History will

Guy Dickens, arriving we can guess about the 8th or 9th of July, brings two important Documents with him

to Berlin, FIRST, the English Response (in the shape of "Instructions" to himself, which may be ostensible in

the proper quarter) in regard to the CrownPrince's project of flight into England. Response which is no other

than might have been expected in the circumstances: "Britannic Majesty sorry extremely for the

CrownPrince's situation; ready to do anything in reason to alleviate it. Better wait, however: Prussian

Majesty will surely perhaps relent a little: then also the affairs of Europe are in a ticklish state. Better wait. As

to that of taking temporary refuge in France, Britannic Majesty thinks that will require a mature deliberation

(MURE DELIBERATION). Not even time now for inquiry of the French Court how they would take it;

which his Britannic Majesty thinks an indispensable preliminary,"and so terminates. The meaning, we

perceive, is in sum: "Hm, you won't, surely? Don't; at least Don't yet!" But Dryasdust, and any readers who

have patience, can here take the Original Paper; which is written in French (or French of Stratford at the

Bow), probably that the CrownPrince, if needful, might himself read it, one of these days:

"Monsieur Guy Dickens pourrait donner au Prince les assurances les plus fortes de la compassion que le Roi

a du triste etat ou il se trouve, et du desir sincere de Sa Majeste de concourir par tout ce qui dependra d'elle a

l'en tirer. M. Guy Dickens pourrait lui communiquer en meme terns les Instructions donnees a Monsieur

Hotham [ our Answer to the Outrageous propositions, which amounts to nothing, and may be spared the

reader ], et lui marquer qu'on avait lieu d�esperer que Sa Majeste Prussienne ne refuserait pas au moins de

s'expliquer un peu plus en detail qu'elle n'a fait jusqu'ici. Qu'en attendant les suites que cette negociation

pourrait avoir, Sa Majeste etait d'avis que le Prince ferait bien de differer un peu l'execution de son dessein

connu: Que la situation ou les affaires de l'Europe se trouvaient dans ce moment critique ne paraissait pas

propre a l'execution d'un dessein de cette nature: Que pour ce qui est de l'intention ou le Prince a temoigne

etre, de se retirer en France, Sa Majeste croit qu'elle demande une mure deliberation, et que le peu de tems

qui reste ne promet pas meme qu'on puisse s'informer de ce que la Cour de France pourrait penser ladessus;

dont Sa Majeste trouvait cependant absolument necessaire de l'assurer, avant de pouvoir conseiller a un

Prince qui lui est si cher de se retirer en ce pays la." [Prussian Despatches, vol. xii.: No date or signature;

bound up along with Harrington's Despatch, "Windsor, 20th June [1st July] 1730,"on the morrow of which

day we may fancy Captain Dickens took the road for Berlin again,where we auspiciously see him on

Monday, 10th July, probably a night or two after his arrival.] This is Document FIRST; of no concernment to

Hotham at this stage; but only to us and our CrownPrince. Document SECOND would at one time have

much interested Hotham: it is no other than a Grumkow Original seized at St. Mary Axe, such as Hotham

once solicited, "strong enough to break Grumkow's back." Hotham now scarcely hopes it will be "strong

enough." No matter; he presents it as bidden. On introducing Dickens as successor, Monday, 10th July, he

puts the Document into his Prussian Majesty's hand: and the result was most unexpected! Here is Hotham's

Despatch to Lord Harrington; which it will be our briefest method to give, with some minimum of needful

"MY LORD,Though the conduct of his Prussian Majesty has been such, for some time past, that one ought

to be surprised at nothing he does,it is nevertheless with great concern that I now have to acquaint your

Lordship with an extravagancy of his which happened yesterday," Monday, 10th July, 1730.

"The King of Prussia, had appointed me to be with him about noon, with Captain Guy Dickens [who has just

returned from England, on what secret message your Lordship knows!].We both attended his Prussian

Majesty, and I presented Captain Guy Dickens to him, who delivered his credentials: after which the King

talked to us a quarter of an hour about indifferent matters. Seeing him in a very good humor, I took that

opportunity of telling him, 'That as General Grumkow had denied his having held a Secret Correspondence

with Reichenbach, or having written the Letters I had some time ago delivered to his Majesty, I was now

ordered by the King my Master to put into his hands an Original Letter of General Grumkow'"

Where is that Original Letter? ask some minute readers. Minute readers, the IPSISSIMUM CORPUS of it

is lost to mankind. Official Copy of it lies safe here in the StatePaper Office (Prussian Despatches, volume

xli.; without date of its own, but near a Despatch dated 20th June, 1730); has, adjoined to it, an Autograph

jotting by George Second to the effect, "Yes, send it," and also some preliminary scribbles by Newcastle, to

the like purport. No date of its own, we say, though, by internal evidence and light of FASSMANN, [p. 404.]

it is conclusively datable "Berlin, 20th May," if anybody cared to date it. The Letter mentions lightly that

"pretended discovery [the St.MaryAxe one, laid on the table of TobaccoParliament, 6th May or soon

after], innocent trifles all _I_ wrote; hope you burnt them, nevertheless, according to promise: yours to me I

did burn as they came, and will defy the Devil to produce;" brags of his Majesty's fine spirits;and is,

Jotting and all, as insignificant a Letter as any other portion of the "Rookery Colloquy," though its fate was a

little more distinguished. Prussian Dryasdust is expected to give it in FACSIMILE, one day,surely no

British UnderSecretary will exercise an unwise discretion, and forbid him that small pleasure!

"which was an undeniable proof of all the rest, and could not but convince his Prussian Majesty of the truth

"He took the Letter from me, cast his eye upon it; and seeing it to be Grumkow's hand, said to me with all the

anger imaginable [fancy the thunderburst!], 'Messieurs, j'ai eu assez de ces choses la;' threw the Letter upon

the ground, and immediately turning his back went out of the room, and shut the door upon us,"

probably with a slam! And that is the naked truth concerning this celebrated Intercepted Letter. Majesty

answered explosively, his poor heart being in a burdened and grieved condition, not unlike growing a

haunted one,"I have had enough of that stuff before!" pitched the new specimen away, and stormily

whirled out with a slam of the door. That he stamped with his foot, is guessable. That he "lifted his foot as if

to kick the Honorable English Excellency," [Wilhelmina, i. 228.] which the English Excellency never could

have stood, but must have died on the spot,of this, though several Books have copied it from Wilhelmina,

"Your Lordship will easily imagine that Captain Guy Dickens and I were not a little astonished at this most

extraordinary behavior. I took up the Letter he had thrown upon the floor [IPSISSIMUM CORPUS of it lost

to mankind, last seen going into Hotham's pocket in this manner]; and returning home, immediately wrote

one to his Prussian Majesty, of which a copy is here enclosed." Let us read that essential Piece: sound

substance, in very stiff indifferent French of Stratford, which may as well be made English at once:

"SIRE,It is with the liveliest grief that I find myself under the necessity,after what has passed today at

the audience I had of your Majesty, where I neither did nor said anything in regard to that Letter of Monsieur

Grumkow's or to putting it into your Majesty's hands, that was not by my Master's order,it is, I say, Sire,

with the liveliest grief that I am obliged to inform your Majesty of the necessity there lies on me to despatch a

Courier to London to apprise the King my Master of an incident so surprising as the one that has just

happened. For which reason I beg (SUPPLIE) your Majesty will be pleased to cause the necessary Orders for

Posthorses to be furnished me, not only for the said Courier, but also for myself,since, after what has just

happened, it is not proper for me to prolong my stay here ( faire un plus long sejour ici ).

"About two hours afterwards, General Borck came to me; and told me He was in the utmost affliction for

what had happened; and beseeched me to have a little patience, and that he hoped means would be found to

make up the matter to me. Afterwards he communicated to me, by word of mouth, the Answer the King of

Prussia had given to the last Orders I had received by Captain Guy Dickens,"Orders, "Come home

"I told him that, after the treatment I had received at noon, and the affront put upon the King my Master's

character, I could no longer receive nor charge myself with anything that came from his Prussian Majesty.

That as to what related to me personally, it was very easily made up; but having done nothing but in

obedience to the King my Master's orders, it belonged to him only to judge what satisfaction was due for the

indignity offered to his character. Wherefore I did not look upon myself as authorized to listen to any

"In the evening, General Borck wrote a Letter to Captain Guy Dickens and two to me, the Copies of which

are enclosed,"fear not, reader! "The purport of them was to desire That I would take no farther notice of

what had happened, and that the King of Prussia desired I would come and dine with him next day."

Engaged otherwise, your Majesty, next day! "The Answer to these Letters I also enclose to your

Lordship,"reader not to be troubled with it. "I excused myself from dining with the King of Prussia, not

thinking myself at liberty to appear any more at Court till I received his Majesty's," my own King's,

"commands, and told General Borck that I looked upon myself as indispensably obliged to acquaint the King

my Master with everything that had passed, it being to no purpose to think of concealing it, since the thing

"This, my Lord, is the true state of this unaccountable accident. You will see, by General Borck's Letter, that

the King of Prussia, being now returned to his senses, is himself convinced of the extravagancy of this

proceeding; and was very desirous of having it concealed;which was impossible; for the whole Town

"As to my own part, I am not a little concerned at this unfortunate incident. As it was impossible to foresee

this fit of madness in the King of Prussia, there was no guarding against it: and after it had happened, I

thought I could do no less than resent it in the manner I have done,without prostituting the character with

which the King has been pleased to honor me. I hope, however, this affair will be attended with no ill

consequences: for the King of Prussia himself is at present so ashamed of his behavior, that he says, He will

order Count Degenfeld [Graf von Degenfeld, going at a leisurely pace to remove NOSTI from his perch

among you] [Supra, p. 197.] to hasten his journey to England, with orders to endeavor to make up the affair

"As I had already received the King's Orders, by Captain Guy Dickens, To return home forthwith, I thought,

after what had happened, the sooner I left this place the better; and the rather because it might be proper I

should make a report of it to his Majesty. I shall therefore set out a few hours after this Messenger; and will

"The King of Prussia sets out for Anspach on Saturday next," 11th July is Tuesday, Saturday next will be

15th July, which proves correct. [Fassmann, p. 410.] "I am, with the utmost respect, My Lord, Your

[StatePaper Office: Prussian Despatches, vol. xli.] No sooner was the door slammed to than his Majesty

began to repent. At sight of the demand for Posthorses, he repented bitterly; sent Borck to ask Hotham to

dinner, with what success we have seen. Sent Borck to negotiate, to correspond, to consult with Dickens, to

do his utmost in pacifying Hotham. All which Correspondence exists, but is not worth giving. Borck's

remonstrances are in rugged soldierlike style, full of earnestness and friendliness. Do not wreck, upon

trifles, a noble interest we have in common; King is jealous about foreign interference with his Ministers, but

meant nothing; I tell you it is nothing IHotham is polite, goodtempered; but remains inflexible: With

myself, on my own score, it were soon settled, or is already settled; but with the King my Master,no

expedient but posthorses! The Diplomatist world of Berlin is in a fuss; Queen Sophie and "the Minister of

Denmark," with other friendly Ministers, how busy! "All day," this day and the next, "they spent in comings

and goings" [Wilhelmina, i. 229, 230.] advising Hotham to relent: Hotham could not relent. The

CrownPrince himself writes, urged by a message from his Mother; CrownPrince sends Katte off from

Potsdam with this Billet [Ib. i. 230.] (if this be a correct copy to translate from)

"MONSIEUR,Having learned by M. de Leuvener," the Danish Minister, a judicious wellaffected man,

"what the King my Father's ultimate intentions are, I cannot doubt but you will yield to his desires. Think,

Monsieur, that my happiness and my Sister's depend on the resolution you shall take, and that your answer

will mean the union or the disunion forever of the two Houses! I flatter myself that it will be favorable, and

that you will yield to my entreaties. I never shall forget such a service, but recognize it all my life by the most

This Billet Katte delivers: but to this also Hotham remains inexorable; polite, hopeful even: No harm will

come; Degenfeld will go, I myself will help when at home; but for the present, no resource but posthorses!

And so Hotham, spirited judicious English gentleman, rolls off homewards, ["Wednesday," 12th (Dickens).]

a few hours after his Courier,and retires honorably into the shades of private life, steady there thenceforth.

He has not been successful in Berlin: surely his Negotiation is now OUT in all manner of senses! Long ago

(to use our former ignoble figure) he had "laid down the bellows, though there was still smoke traceable:" but

now, by this Grumkow Letter, he has, as it were, struck the POKER through the business; and that dangerous

manoeuvre, not proving successful, has been fatal and final! Queen Sophie and certain others may still flatter

themselves; but it is evident the Negotiation is at last complete. What may lie in flight to England and rash

desperate measures, which Queen Sophie trembles to think of, we do not know: but by regular negotiation

It is darkly apprehended the CrownPrince still meditates Flight; the maternal heart and Wilhelmina's are

grieved to see Lieutenant Katte so much in his confidencecould wish him a wiser councillor in such

predicaments and emergencies! Katte is greatly flattered by the Prince's confidence; even brags of it in

society, with his foolish loose tongue. Poor youth, he is of dissolute ways; has plenty of it unwise intellect,"

little of the "wise" kind; and is still under the years of discretion. Towards Wilhelmina there is traceable in

him something,something as of almost loving a bright particular star, or of thriceprivately worshipping it

for his own behoof. And Wilhelmina, during the late Radewitz time, when Mamma "gave four Apartments

(or Royal Soirees) weekly," was severe upon him, and inaccessible in these Court Soirees. A rash young fool;

carries a loose tongue:still worse, has a Miniature, recognizable as Wilhelmina; and would not give it up,

either for the Queen's Majesty or me!"Thousand and thousand pardons, High Ladies both; my loose tongue

shall be locked: but these two Miniatures, the Prince and Princess Royal, I copied them from two the Prince

had lent me and has got back, ask me not for these;never, oh, I cannot ever!"Upon which Wilhelmina

had to take a high attitude, and pass him speechless in the Soirees. The foolish fellow:and yet one is not

heartily angry either; only reserved in the Soirees; and anxious about one's Brother in such hands.

Friedrich Wilhelm repents much that Hotham explosion; is heard saying that he will not again treat in person

with any Envoy from foreign parts, being of too hot temper, but will leave his Ministers to do it. [Dickens's

Despatch, Berlin, 22d July (n.s.), 1730.] To Queen Sophie he says coldly, "Wilhelmina's marriage, then, is

off; an end to IT. Abbess of Herford [good Protestant refuge for unprovided Females of Quality, which is in

our gift], let her be Abbess there;"and writes to the then extant Abbess to make Wilhelmina "Coadjutress,"

or HeirApparent to that ChiefNunship! Nay what is still more mortifying, my Brother says, "On the whole,

I had better, had not I?" The cruel Brother; but indeed the desperate!for things are mounting to a pitch in

Queen Sophie's thoughts,they are not yet of surrender; that they will never be, while a breath of life is left

to Queen Sophie and her Project: we may fancy Queen Sophie's mood. Nor can his Majesty be in a sweet

temper; his vexations lately have been many. First, England is now off, not offandon as formerly: that

comfortable possibility, hanging always in one's thoughts, is fairly gone; and now we have nothing but the

Kaiser to depend on for Julich and Berg, and the other elements of our salvation in this world! Then the

St.MaryAxe discoveries, harassing shadows of suspicion that will rise from them, and the unseemly

Hotham catastrophe and one's own blame in it; Womankind and Household still virtually rebellious, and all

things going awry; Majesty is in the worst humor;bullies and outrages his poor CrownPrince almost

worse than ever. There have been rattanshowers, hideous to think of, descending this very week [Guy

Dickens's Despatch, 18th July, 1730.] on the fine head, and far into the high heart of a Royal Young Man;

who cannot, in the name of manhood, endure, and must not, in the name of sonhood, resist, and vainly calls

to all the gods to teach him WHAT he shall do in this intolerable inextricable state of matters.

Fate and these two BlackArtists have driven Friedrich Wilhelm nearly mad; and he, in turn, is driving

everybody so. He more than suspects Friedrich of an intention to fly; which is horrible to Friedrich Wilhelm:

and yet he bullies him occasionally, as a spiritless wretch, for bearing such treatment. "Cannot you renounce

the HeirApparentship, then; your little Brother is a fine youth. Give it up; and go, unmolested, to thein

fact to the Devil: Cannot you?""If your Majesty, against the honor of my Mother, declare that I am not

your eldest son: Yes, so; not otherwise, ever!" modestly but steadily persists the young man, whenever this

expedient is proposed to him,as perhaps it already sometimes is. Whereat the desperate Father can only

snort indignantly futile. A case growing nearly desperate. Desperate, yes, on all hands: unless one had the

"high mast" above alluded to, with two pulleys and ropes; and could see a certain Pair of Scoundrels mount

rapidly thither, what hope is there for anybody? A violent crisis does not last, however; that is one certainty in

it. Either these agonistic human beings, young and old, will all die, all go to Bedlam, with their intolerable

woes; or else something of explosive nature will take place among them. The maddest boil, unless it kill you

Of course Captain Dickens, the instant Hotham was gone, hastened privily to see the CrownPrince; saw

Katte and him "at the Gate of the Potsdam Palace at midnight," [Wilhelmina; Ranke, i. 301.] or in some other

less romantic way;read him the Windsor Paper of "INSTRUCTIONS" known to us; and preached from

that text. No definite countenance from England, the reverse rather, your Highness sees;how can there be?

Give it up, your Highness; at least delay it!CrownPrince does not give it up a whit; whether he delays it,

A busy week for the CrownPrince and Katte, this of the Hotham Catastrophe; who have many consultations,

the Journey to Anspach being on Saturday next! CrownPrince has given him in keeping a writingcase with

private letters; 1,000 ducats of money, money raised by loan, by picking jewels off some miniatures of honor,

and the like sore methods. Katte has his very coat, a gray topcoat or travelling roquelaure, in keeping;and

their schemes are many. Off we must and will be, by some opportunity. Could not Katte get a "Recruiting

Furlough," leave to go into the REICH on that score; and join one there? Lieutenant Keith is at Wesel; ready,

always ready. Into France, into Holland, England? If the English would not,there is war to be in Italy, say

all the Newspapers: why not a campaign as Volunteers in Italy, till we saw how matters went? Anything and

On Saturday the 15th July, 1730, early in the morning as his wont was, Friedrich Wilhelm, with a small train

of official military persons, rolled off from Potsdam, towards Leipzig, on that same journey of his, towards

Anspach and the Reich. To Anspach, to see our poor young daughter, lately married there; therefrom we can

have a run into the Reich, according to circumstances. In this wide route there lie many Courts and scenes,

which it might behoove us to look into; Courts needing to be encouraged to stand for the Kaiser's rights,

against those English, French and intrusive Foreigners of the Seville Treaty. We may hope at least to ease our

own heavy mind, and have the chaff somewhat blown out of it, by this rushing through the open

atmosphere.Such, so far as I can gather, were Friedrich Wilhelm's objects in this Journey; which turned out

to be a more celebrated one than he expected. The authentic records of it are slight, the rumors about it have

been many. [Forster (iii. 111) contains Seckendorf's Narrative, as sent to Vienna; Preuss (iv. 470), a

Prussian RELATIO EX ACTIS: these are the only two ORIGINAL pieces which I have seen; Excerpts of

others (correct doubtlees, but not in a very distinct condition) occur in Ranke, i. 294340.] After painful

sifting through mountains of dust and ashes for a poor cinder of a fact here and there, our duty is, to tell the

English reader one good time, what certainties, or available cinders, have anywhere turned up. CrownPrince

Friedrich, it has been decided, after some consultation, shall go with his Majesty. Better he go with us, to be

under our own eyes, lest he run away, or do other mischief. Old General Buddenbrock, old Colonel Waldau,

and LieutenantColonel Rochow travel in the same carriage with the Prince; are to keep a strict watch over

him, one of them at least to be always by him. Old General Buddenbrock, a grim but human old military

gentleman, who has been in all manner of wars: he fought at Steenkirk even, and in the Siege of Namur,

under Dutch William; stood, through Malplaquet and much else, under Marlborough; did the Siege of

Stralsund too, and descent on Rugen there, which was not his first acquaintance with Karl of Sweden; and is a

favorite old friend of Friedrich Wilhelm's. A good old gentleman, though very strict; now hard on sixty. He is

Old Waldau, not younger, though still only Colonel of Horse, likewise celebrates the Malplaquet anniversary;

a Pomeranian man, and silent smoker in the Tabagie, well seen by the master there. To these two elderly

authorities, LieutenantColonel Rochow, still only about forty, and probably sharper of eye, is adjoined as

active partner. I conclude, the Prince and Buddenbrock ride face forward; Buddenbrock can tell him about so

many things, if he is conversable: about Dutch William; about Charles XII., whose Polish fights he

witnessed, as an envoy from Berlin, long ago. A Colonel Krocher, I find, is general manager of the

Journey;and it does not escape notice that Friedrich, probably out of youthful curiosity, seems always very

anxious to know, to the uttermost settled point, where our future stages are to be. His Royal Highness laid in

a fair stock of District Maps, especially of the Rhine Countries, at Leipzig, too; [Forster, iii. 2.] and is

assiduous in studying them,evidently very desirous to know the face of Germany, the Rhine Countries in

Potsdam, Wittenberg, Leipzig, the wheels rush rapidly on, stage succeeding stage; and early in the afternoon

we are at Leipzig, never looking out at Luther's vestiges, or Karl V.'s, or thinking about Luther, which thou

and I, good English reader, would surely have done, in crossing Wittenberg and the birthplace of

Protestantism. At Leipzig we were thinking to have dined. At the Peter's Gate there,where at least fresh

horses are, and a topographic CrownPrince can send hastily to buy maps, a General Hopfgarten,

Commandant of the Town, is out with the military honors; he has, as we privately know, an excellent dinner

ready in the Pleissenburg Fortress yonder, [Fassmann, p. 410.] but he compliments to a dreadful extent!

Harangues and compliments in no end of florid inflated tautologic ornamental balderdash; repeating and

again repeating, What a neverimagined honor it is; in particular saying three times over, How the Majesty of

Saxony, King August, had he known, would have wished for wings to fly hither; and bowing to the very

ground, "as if, in the Polish manner, he wished to clasp your feet," said Friedrich Wilhelm afterwards. I can

fancy Friedrich Wilhelm somewhat startled! How, at the first mention of this idea of big August, with his

lame foot, taking wing, and coming like a gigantic partridge, with lame foot and cockedhat, Friedrich

Wilhelm grinned. How, at the second mention, and Polish threat of your feet, Friedrich Wilhelm, who hates

all lies, and cares not for salutations in the marketplace, jerks himself impatiently and saves his feet. At the

third mention, clear it is, Friedrich Wilhelm utters the word, "ANSPANNEN, Horses!"and in very truth

takes to the road again; hungry indeed, but still angrier; leaving Hopfgarten bent into the shape of a parabola,

and his grand dinner cooling futile, in what tragic humor we can imagine. [Ib. p. 411.] Why has no Prussian

Painter done that scene? Let another Chodowiecki, when another comes, try whether he cannot.

Friedrich Wilhelm regretted the dinner, regretted to hurt the good man's feelings; but could stand it no longer.

He rushes off for Meuselwitz, where Seckendorf, with at least silence, and some cold collation instead of

dinner, is awaiting him. Twenty miles off is Meuselwitz; up the flat valley of the Pleisse River towards

Altenburg; through a region memorable, were we not so hungry. Famed fights have had their arena here;

Lutzen, the top of its churchsteeple visible on your right, it is there where the great Gustavus fell two

hundred years ago: on that wide champaign, a kind of Bullring of the Nations, how many fights have been,

and will be! Altenburg one does not see tonight: happy were we but at Meuselwitz, a few miles nearer; and

Dinner enough, we need not doubt. The old Feldzeugmeister has a big line Schloss at Meuselwitz; his by

unexpected inheritance; with uncommonly fine gardens; with a good old Wife, moreover, blithe though

childless;and he is capable of "lighting more than one candle" when a King comes to visit him. Doubtless

the man hurls his thrift into abeyance; and blazes out with conspicuous splendor, on this occasion. A

beautiful Castle indeed, this Meuselwitz of his; the towers of Altenburg visible in the distance; Altenburg,

where Kunz von Kauffungen stole the two little Princes; centuries ago;where we do not mean to pause at

this time. On the morrow morning,unless they chose to stay over Sunday; which I cannot affirm or

deny,Seckendorf also has made his packages; and joins himself to Friedrich. Wilhelm's august travelling

party. Doing here a portion of the long space (length of the Terrestrial Equator in all) which he is fated to

From Meuselwitz, through Altenburg, Gera, Saalfeld, to Coburg, is our next day's journey. Up one fork of the

Leipzig Pleisse, then across the Leipzig Elster, these streams now dwindling to brooks; leading us up to the

watershed or central Hillcountries between the Mayn and Saale Rivers; where the same shower will run

partly, on this hand, northward by the Elster, Pleisse or other labyrinthic course, into the Saale, into the Elbe;

and partly, on the other hand, will flow southward into the Mayn; and so, after endless windings in the Fir

Mountains (FICHTELGEBIRGE), get by Frankfurt into the Rhine at Mainz. Mayn takes the south end of

your shower; Saale takes the north,or farther east yonder, shower will roll down into the same grand Elbe

River by the Mulde (over which the Old Dessauer is minded to build a new stone bridge; Wallenstein and

others, as well as Time, have ruined many bridges there). That is the line of the primeval mountains, and their

At Gera, dim, old Town,does not your Royal Highness well know the "Gera Bond (GERAISCHE

VERTRAG)"? Duhan: did not forget to inform you of that? It is the cornerstone of the House of

Brandenburg's advancement in the world. Here, by your august ancestors, the Law of Primogeniture was

settled, and much rubbish was annihilated in the House of Brandenburg: Eldest Son always to inherit the

Electorate unbroken; after Anspach and Baireuth no more apanages, upon any cause or pretext whatsoever;

and these themselves to lapse irrevocable to the main or Electoral House, should they ever fall vacant again.

Fine fruit of the decisive sense that was in the Hohenzollerns; of their fine talent for annihilating

rubbish,which feat, if a man can do it, and keep doing it, will more than most others accelerate his course

in this world. It was in this dim old Town of Gera, in the Year 1598, by him that had the twentythree

children, that the "GERA BOND" was brought to parchment. But indeed it was intrinsically only a renewal,

more solemnly sanctioned, of Albert Achilles's HAUS ORDNUNG (HouseOrder), done in 1478, above a

But see, we are under way again. His Prussian Majesty rushes forward without pause; will stop nowhere,

except where business demands; no Majesty of his day travels at such a speed. Orlamunde an hour

hence,your Royal Highness has heard of Orlamunde and its famed Counts of a thousand years back, when

Kaiser Redbeard was in the world, and the Junior Hohenzollern, tired of hawking, came down from the Hills

to him? Orlamunde (OrlaMOUTH) is not far off, on our right; and this itself is the Orla; this pleasant

streamlet we are now quitting, which has borne us company for some time: this too will get into the Saale,

and be at Magdeburg, quite beyond the Dessauer's Bridge, early tomorrow. Ha, here at last is Saalfeld,

Town and Schloss, and the incipient Saal itself: his Serene Highness SaalfeldCoburg's little

REZIDENZ;probably his Majesty will call on him, in passing? I have no doubt he does; and transacts the

Christian Ernst, whose Schloss this is, a gentleman of his Majesty's age (born 1683), married an amiable

FRAULEIN not of quality, whom indeed the Kaiser has ennobled: he lives here, I think, courting the shade

rather; and rules conjointly with his younger Brother, or HalfBrother, Franz Josias, who resides at Coburg.

Dukes of SaalfeldCoburg, such is their style, and in good part their possession; though, it is well known to

this travelling party and the world, there has been a Lawsuit about Coburg this halfcentury and more; and

though somewhere about 200 "CONCLUSA," [Michaelis, i. 524, 518; Busching, Erdbeschreibung, vi. 2464;

OErtel, t. 74; Hubner, t. 166.] or Decrees of Aulic Council, have been given in favor of the Saalfelders, their

rivals of Meiningen never end. Nor will end yet, for five years more to come; till, in 1735, "206 CONCLUSA

being given," they do end, and leave the Saalfelders in peaceable possession; who continue so ever since to

this day. [Carlyle's Miscellanies, vi. ? PRINZENRAUB.] How long his Majesty paused in that Schloss of

Saalfeld, or what he there did, or what he spake,except perhaps encourage Christian Ernst to stand by a

Kaiser's Majesty against these French insolences, and the native German, Spanish, English derelictions of

duty,we are left to the vaguest guess of fancy, And must get on to Coburg for the night.

At Coburg, in its snug valley, under the FESTUNG or Hill Castle, where Martin Luther sat solitary during

the Diet of Augsburg (Diet known to us, our old friend Margraf George of Anspach hypothetically "laying his

head on the block? there, and the great Kaiser, Karl V., practically burning daylight, with pitiable spilling of

wax, in the CORPUSCHRISTI procession there), [Antea, vol. v. p. 197.]where Martin Luther sat solitary,

and wrote that celebrated Letter about 16 Crows holding THEIR Parliament all round," and how "the pillars

of the world were never seen by anybody, and yet the world is held up, in these dumb continents of

space;"at Coburg, we will not doubt, his Majesty found Franz Josias at home, and illuminated to receive

him. Franz Josias, a hearty man of thirtyfive, he too will stand by the Kaiser in these coming storms? With a

weak contingent truly, perhaps some score or two of fighters: but many a little makes a mickle! remark,

however; two points, of a merely genealogical nature. First, that Franz Josias has, or rather is going to have, a

Younger Son, [Friedrich Josias: 17371815.] who in some sixty years hence will become dreadfully

celebrated in the streets of Paris, as "Austrian Coburg." The Austrian Coburg of RobesPierre and Company.

An immeasurable terror and portent,not much harm in him, either, when he actually comes, with nothing

but the Duke of York and Dunkirk for accompaniment,to those revolutionary French of 17921794. This

is point FIRST. Point SECOND is perhaps still more interesting; this namely: That Franz Josias has an Eldest

Son (boy of six when Friedrich Wilhelm makes his visit),a GRANDSON'S GRANDSON of whom is, at

this day, Prince of Wales among the English People, and to me a subject of intense reflection now and

From Coburg, Friedrich Wilhelm, after pause again unknown, rushed on to Bamberg; new scenes and ever

new opening on the eyes of our young Hero and his Papa. The course is down the valley of the Itz, one of the

many little valleys in the big slope of the Rodach; for the waters are now turned, and all streams and brooks

are gurgling incessantly towards the Mayn. Towards Frankfurt, Mainz and the Rhine,far enough from the

Saale, Mulde, or the Old Dessauer's Bridge today; towards Rotterdam and the uttermost Dutch swamps

today. Near upon Bamberg we cross the Mayn itself; Red Mayn and White conjoined, coming from

Culmbach and Baireuth, mark that, your Highness. A country of pleasant hills and vines: and in an hour

hence, through thick fir woods,each side of your road horribly decked with gibbeted thieves swinging

aloft, [Pollnitz, Memoirs and Letters (English Translation, London, 1745), i. 209. Let me say again, this is a

different Book from the "MEMOIRS of Pollnitz;" and a still different from the MEMOIREN, or "Memoirs of

Brandenburg BY Pollnitz:" such the excellence of nomenclature in that old fool!] you arrive at Bamberg,

chief of Bishoprics, the venerable town; whose Bishop, famous in old times, is like an Archbishop, and "gets

his pallium direct from the Pope,"much good may it do him! "Is bound, however, to give up his Territory,

if the Kaiser elected is landless,"far enough from likely now. And so you are at last fairly in the Mayn

Valley; River Mayn itself a little step to north;long course and many wide windings between you and

At Bamberg why should a Prussian Majesty linger, except for picturesque or for mere baiting purposes? At

Bamberg are certain fat Catholic Canons, in indolent, opulent circumstances; and a couple of sublime

Palaces, without any Bishop in them at present. Nor indeed does one much want Papist Bishops, wherever

they get their pallium; of them as well keep to windward! thinks his Majesty. And indeed there is no Bishop

here. The present Bishop of Bambergone of those Von Schonborns, Counts, sometimes Cardinals,

common in that fat Office,is a Kaiser's Minister of State; lives at Vienna, enveloped in red tape, as well as

red hat and stockings; and needs no exhortation in the Kaiser's favor. Let us yoke again, and go.Fir woods

all round, and dead malefactors blackening in the wind: this latter point I know of the then Bamberg; and

have explanation of it. Namely, that the PrinceBishop, though a humane Catholic, is obliged to act so. His

small Domain borders on some six or seven bigger sovereignties; and, being Ecclesiastical, is made a

cesspool to the neighboring scoundrelism; which state of things this Prince Bishop has said shall cease.

Young Friedrich may look, therefore, and old Friedrich Wilhelm and Suite; and make of it what they can.

"Bamberg, through Erlangen, to Nurnberg;" so runs the way. At Erlangen there loiters now, recruiting, a

certain Rittmeister von Katte, cousin to our Potsdam Lieutenant and confidant; to him this transit of the

Majesty and CrownPrince must be an event like few, in that stagnant place. French Refugees are in

Erlangen, busy building new straight streets; no University as yet;nay a high Dowager of Baireuth is in it,

somewhat exuberant Lady (friend Weissenfels's Sister) on whom Friedrich Wilhelm must call in passing.

This high Widow of Baireuth is not Mother of the present HeirApparent there, who will wed our

Wilhelmina one day;ah no, his Mother was "DIVORCED for weighty reasons;"[Hubner, t. 181.] and his

Father yet lives, in the single state; a comparatively prosperous gentleman these four years last past;

Successor, since four years past, of this Lady's Husband, who was his Cousingerman. Dreadfully poor

before that, the present Margraf of Baireuth, as we once explained; but now things are looking up with him

again, some jingle of money heard in the coffers of the man; and his eldest Prince, a fine young fellow, only

apt to stammer a little when agitated, is at present doing the return part of the Grand Tour,coming home by

Rittmeister von Katte, I doubt not, witnesses this transit of the incognito Majesty, this call upon the exuberant

Dowager; but can have little to say to it, he. I hope he is getting tall recruits here in the Reich; that will be the

useful point for him. He is our Lieutenant Katte's Cousin, an elder and wiser man than the Lieutenant. A

Reichsgraf's and Fieldmarshal's nephew, he ought to get advanced in his profession;and can hope to do so

when he has deserved it, not sooner at all, in that thricefortunate Country. Let the Rittmeister here keep

Bamberg is halfwayhouse between Coburg and Nurnberg; whole distance of Coburg and Nurnberg,say a

hundred and odd miles,is only a fair day's driving for a rapid King. And at Nurnberg, surely, we must

lodge for a night and portion of a day, if not for more. On the morrow, it is but a thirtyfive miles drive to

Anspach; pleasant in the summer evening, after all the sights in this old Nurnberg, "city of the Noricans

(NORICORUM BURGUN)." Trading Staple of the German world in old days; Toyshop of the German

world in these new. Albert Durer's and Hans Sach's City,mortals infinitely indifferent to Friedrich

Wilhelm. But is it not the seedground of the Hohenzollerns, this Nurnberg, memorable above cities to a

Prussian Majesty? Yes, there in that old white Castle, now very peaceable, they dwelt; considerably liable to

bickerings and mutinous heats; and needed all their skill and strength to keep matters straight. It is now upon

seven hundred years since the Cadet of Hohenzollern gave his hawk the slip, patted his dog for the last time,

and came down from the RoughAlp countries hitherward. And found favor, not unmerited I fancy, with the

great Kaiser Redbeard, and the fair Heiress of the Vohburgs; and in fact, with the Earth and with the Heavens

in some degree. A loyal, clever, and gallant kind of young fellow, if your Majesty will think? Much has

grown and waned since that time: but the Hohenzollerns, ever since, are on the waxing hand;unless this

Alas, it is not likely Friedrich Wilhelm, in the hurry and grating whirl of things, had many poetic thoughts in

him, or pious aurora memories from the Past Ages, instead of grumbly dusty provocations from the

present,his feeling, haste mainly, and need of getting through! The very CrownPrince, I should guess,

was as good as indifferent to this antique Cadet of the Hohenzollerns; and looked on Nurnberg and the old

white Castle with little but ENNUI: the Princess of England, and black cares on her beautiful account and his

own, possess him too exclusively. But in truth we do not even know what day they arrived or departed; much

less what they did or felt in that old City. We know only that the pleasant little town of Anspach, with its

huge unfinished SCHLOSS, lay fiveandthirty miles away; and that thither was the next and quasifinal bit

of driving. Southwestward thirtyfive miles; through fine summer hills and dales; climbing always, gently,

on the southward hand; still drained by the Mayn River, by the Regnitz and other tributaries of the

Mayn:halfway is Heilsbronn, [Not Heilbronn, the wellknown, much larger Town, in Wurtemberg, 80 or

100 miles to westward. Both names (which are applied to still other places) signify HEALTHWELL, or

even HOLYWELL,these two words, HEALTHY and HOLY (what is very remarkable), being the same

in old Teutonic speech.] with its old Monastery; where the bones of our Hohenzollern Forefathers rest, and

Albert Achilles's "skull, with no sutures visible." On the gloomy Churchwalls their memorials are still

legible: as for the Monastery itself, Margraf George, tour memorable Reformation friend, abolished

that,purged the monks away, and put Schoolmasters in their stead; who were long of good renown in those

parts, but have since gone to Erlangen, so to speak. The July sunset streaming over those old spires of

Heilsbronn might awaken thoughts in a Prussian Majesty, were he not in such haste.

At Anspach, what a thricehospitable youthfully joyful welcome from the young married couple there!

Margravine Frederika is still not qnite sixteen; "beautiful as Day," and rather foolish: fancy her joy at sight of

Papa's Majesty and Brother Fritz; and how she dances about, and perhaps bakes "pastries of the finest

Anspach flour." Ah, DID you send me Berlin sausages, then, you untrue Papa? Well, I will bake for you,

won't I;Sarah herself not more loyally {whom we read of in GENESIS), that time the Angels entered HER

Anspach, as we hint, has an unfinished Palace, of a size that might better beseem Paris or London; Palace

begun by former Margraves, left off once and again for want of cash; stands there as a sad monument of

several things;the young family living meanwhile in some solid comfortable wing, or adjacent edifioe, of

natural dimensions. They are so young, as we say, and not too wise. By and by they had a son, and then a

second son; which latter came to manhood, to old age; and made some noise in the foolish parts of the

Newspapers,winding up finally at Hammersmith, as we often explain;and was the last of the

AnspachBaireuth Margraves. I have heard farther that Frederika did not want for temper, as the

Hohenzollerns seldom do; that her Husband likewise had his own stock of it, rather scant of wisdom withal;

and that their life was not quite symphonious always, especially cash being short. The Dowager

Margravine, Margraf's Mother, had governed with great prudence during her Son's long minority. I think she

is now, since the marriage, gone to reside at her WITTWENSITZ (DowagerSeat) of Feuchtwang (twenty

miles southwest of us); but may have oome up to welcome the Majesties into these parts. Very beautiful, I

hear; still almost young and charming, though there is a mortal malady upon her, which she knows of.

[Pollnitz, Memoirs and Letters, i. 209 (date, 29th September, 1729;needs WATCHING before believing).]

Here are certain Seckendorfs too, this is the Feldzeugmeister's native country;and there are resources for a

Royal TravellingParty. How long the Royal Party stayed at Anspach I do not know; nor what they did

there,except that CrownPrince Friedrich is said to have privately asked the young Margraf to lend him a

pair of ridinghorses, and say nothing of it; who, suspecting something wrong, was obliged to make

As to the CrownPrince, there is no doubt but here at last things are actually coming to a crisis with him. To

say truth, it has been the young man's fixed purpose ever since he entered on this Journey, nay was ever since

that ignominy in the Camp of Radewitz, to run away;and indeed all this while he has measures going on

with Katte at Berlin of the nowornever sort. Rash young creatures, elder of them hardly above

fiveandtwenty yet: not good at contriving measures. But what then? Human nature cannot stand this

always; and it is time there were an end of deliberating. Can we ever have such a chance again?What I find

of certain concerning Friedrich while at Anspach is, That there comes by way of Erlangen, guided forward

from that place by the Rittmeister von Katte, a certain messenger and message, which proved of deep

importance to his Royal Highness. The messenger was Lieutenant Katte's servant: who has come express

from Berlin hither. He inquired, on the road, as he was bidden, at Erlangen, of Master's Cousin, the

experienced Rittmeister, Where his Royal Highness at present was, that he might deliver a Letter to him? The

Master's Cousin, who answered naturally, "At Anspach," knew nothing, and naturally could get to know

nothing, of what the message in this Letter was. But he judged, from crossquestionings, added to dim

whispering rumors he had heard, that it was questionable, probably in an extreme degree. Wherefore, along

with his Cousin the Lieutenant's messenger to Anspach, the Rittmeister forwarded a Note of his own to

LieutenantColonel Rochow, of this purport, "As a friend, I warn you, have a watchful eye on your high

charge!"and, for his own share, determined to let nothing escape him in his corner of the matter. This note

to Rochow, and the Berlin Letter for the CrownPrince reach Anspach by the same hand; Lieutenant Katte's

express, conscious of nothing, delivering them both. Rochow and the Rittmeister, though the poor Prince

does not know it, are broad awake to all movements he and the rash Lieutenant may make.

Lieutenant Katte, in this Letter now arrived, complains: "That he never yet can get recruiting furlough;

whether it be by accident, or that Rochow has given my Colonel a hint, no furlough yet to be had: will, at

worst, come without furlough and in spite of all men and things, whenever wanted. OnlyWesel still, if I

might advise!" This is the substance of Katte's message by express. Date must be the end of July, 1730; but

Deeply pondering these things, what shall the poor Prince do? From Canstatt, close by Stuttgard, a Town on

our homeward route, from Canstatt, where Katte was to "appear in disguise," had the furlough been got,

one might have slipt away across the Hills. It is but eighty miles to Strasburg, through the Kniebiss Pass,

where the Murg, the Kinzig, and the intricate winding mountain streams and valleys start Rhineward: a

labyrinthic rockandforest country, where pursuit or tracking were impossible. Near by Strasburg is Count

Rothenburg's Chateau; good Rothenburg, long Minister in Berlin,who saw those PROFOSSEN, or

ScavengerExecutioners in French Costume long since, and was always good to me:might not that be a

method? Lieutenant Keith indeed is in Wesel, waiting only a signal. Suppose he went to the Hague, and took

soundings there what welcome we should have? No, not till we have actually run; beware of making noise!

The poor Prince is in unutterable perplexity; can only answer Katte by that Messenger of his, to the effect

(date and Letter burnt like the former): "Doubt is on every hand; doubt,and yet CERTAINTY. Will write

And there is no question he did write again; more than once: letters by the post, which his faithful Lieutenant

Katte in Berlin received; one of which, however, stuck on the road; and this one, by some industry of

postmasters spirited into vigilance, as is likeliest, though others say by mere misaddressing, by "want of

BERLIN on the address,"fell into the hands of vigilant RITTMEISTER Katte at Erlangen. Who grew pale

in reading it, and had to resolve on a painful thing! This was, I suppose, among the last Letters of the series;

and must have been dated, as I guess, about the 29th of July, 1730; but they are now all burnt, huddled

Certain it is that the Royal TravellingParty left Anspach in a few days, to go, southward still, "by the

OEttingen Country towards Augsburg." [Fassmann, p. 410.] Feuchtwang (WET Wang, not Durrwang or

DRY Wang) is the first stage; here lives the Dowager Margravine of Anspach: here the Prince does some

inconceivably small fault "lets a knife, which he is handing to or from the Serene Lady, fall," [Ranke, i. 304

("from a Letter the Prince had written to Katte").] who, as she is weak, may suffer by the jingle; for which

Friedrich Wilhelm bursts out on him like the Irish Rebellion,to the silent despair of the poor Prince. The

poor Prince meditates desperate resolutions, but has to keep them strictly to himself.

Doubtless the Buddenbrock Trio, good old military gentlemen, would endeavor to speak comfort to him,

when they were on the road again. Here is Nordlingen, your Highness, where Bernhard of Weimar, for his

overhaste, got so beaten in the ThirtyYears War; would not wait till the Swedes were rightly gathered:

what general, if he have reinforcement at hand, would not wait for it? The waters now, you observe, run all

into the Wornitz, into the Donau: it is a famed warcountry this; known to me well in my young

EugeneMarlborough days!"Hm, Ha, yes!" For the Prince is preoccupied with black cares; and thinks

Blenheim and the Schellenberg businesses befell long since, and were perhaps simple to what he has now on

hand. That Feuchtwang scene, it would appear, has brought him to a resolution. There is a young page Keith

of the party, Lieutenant Keith of Wesel's Brother; of this page Keith, who is often busy about horses, he

cautiously makes question, What help may be in him? A willing mind traceable in this poor lad, but his

To Donauworth from Anspach, through Feuchtwang and Nordlingen, is some seventy or eighty miles. At

Donauworth one surely ought to lodge, and see the Schellenberg on the morrow; nay drive to the Field of

Hochstadt (Blenheim, BLINDHEIM), which is but a few miles farther up the River? Buddenbrock was there,

and AnhaltDessau: for their very sake, were there nothing farther, one surely ought to go? Such was the

probability, a visit to Blenheim field in passing. And surely, somewhere in those heartrending masses of

Historical Rubbish, I did at last find express evanescent mention of the fact,but cannot now say

where;the exact record, or conceivable image of which, would have been a perceptible pleasure to us.

Alas, in those dim dreary Books, all whirling dismal round one's soul, like vortices of dim Brandenburg sand,

how should anything human be searched out and mentioned to us; and a thousand, things nothuman be

searched out, and eternally suppressed from us, for the sake of that? I please myself figuring young Friedrich

looking at the vestiges of Marlborough, even in a preoccupied uncertain manner. Your Majesty too, this is the

very "Schellenberg (or JINGLEHILL)," this Hill we are now skirting, on highways, on swift wheels; which

overhangs Donauworth, our restingplace this hot July evening. Yes, your Majesty, here was a feat of

storming done,pang, pang!such a noise as never jingled on that Hill before: like Doomsday come; and a

herohead to rule the Doomsday, and turn it to heroic marching music. A very pretty feat of war, your

Majesty! His Majesty well knows it; feat of his Marlborough's doing, famed everywhere for the twentysix

years last past; and will go to see the Schellenberg and its Lines. The great Duke is dead four years; sank

sadly, eclipsed under tears of dotage of his own, and under human stupidity of other men's! But Buddenbrock

Hochstadt itselfBlenheim, as the English call it, meaning BLINDHEIM, the other village on the Fieldis

but a short way up the River; well worth such a detour. By what way they drove to the field of honor and

back from it, I do not know. But there, northward, towards the heights, is the little wood where

AnhaltDessau stood at bay like a Molossian dog, of consummate military knowledge; and saved the fight in

Eugene's quarter of it. That is visible enough; and worth looking at. Visible enough the rolling Donau,

Marlborough's place; the narrow ground, the bordering Hills all green at this season;and down old

Buddenbrock's cheek, end Anhalt's, there would roll an iron tear or two. Augsburg is but some thirty miles

off, once we are across the Donau,by the Bridge of Donauworth, or the Ferry of Hochstadt,swift

As for Friedrich, haunted and whipt onwards by that scene at Feuchtwang, he is inwardly very busy during

this latter part of the route. Probably there is some progress towards gaining Page Keith, Lieutenant Keith of

Wesel's Brother; some hope that Page Keith, at the right moment, can be gained: the Lieutenant at Wesel is

kept duly advised. To Lieutenant Katte at Berlin Friedrich now writes, I should judge from Donauworth or

Augsburg, "That he has had a scene at Feuchtwang; that he can stand it no longer. That Canstatt being given

up, as Katte cannot be there to go across the Kniebiss with us, we will endure till we are near enough the

Rhine. Once in the Rhineland, in some quiet Town there, handy for Speyer, for French Landau,"say

Sinzheim; last stage hitherward of Heidelberg, but this we do not write,"there might it not be? Be,

somewhere, it shall and must! You, Katte, the instant you hear that we are off, speed you towards the Hague;

ask for 'M. le Comte d'Alberville;' you will know that gentleman WHEN you see him: Keith, our Wesel

friend, will have taken the preliminary soundings;and I tell you, Count d'Alberville, or news of him, will

be there. Bring the greatcoat with you, and the other things, especially the 1,000 gold ducats. Count

d'Alberville at the Hague, if all have gone right:nay if anything go wrong, cannot he, once across the

Rhine, take refuge in the convents in those Catholic regions? Nobody, under the scapulary, will suspect such

a heretic as him. Speed, silence, vigilance! And so adieu!" A letter of such purport Friedrich did write; which

Letter, moreover, the Lieutenant Katte received: it was not this, it was another, that stuck upon the road, and

fell into the Rittmeister's hand. This is the young Prince's ultimate fixed project, brought to birth by that slight

accident of dropping the knife at Feuchtwang; [Ranke, i. 304.] and hanging heavy on his mind during this

Augsburg drive. At Augsburg, furthermore, "he bought, in all privacy, red cloth, of quantity to make a

topcoat;" red, the gray being unattainable in Katte's hands: in all privacy; though the watchful Rochow had

The travelling Majesty of Prussia went diligently up and down, investigating ancient Augsburg: saw, I doubt

not, the FUGGEREI, or ancient Hospice of the Fuggers,who were once Weavers in those parts, and are

now Princes, and were known to entertain Charles V. with fires of cinnamon, nay with transient flames of

Bankbills on one old occasion. Saw all the Fuggeries, I doubt not; the ancient LutherandMelanchthon

relics, DietHalls and notabilities of this renowned Free Town;perhaps remembered Margraf George, and

loudvoiced Kurfurst Joachim with the Bottlenose (our DIRECT Ancestor, though mistaken in opinion on

One passing phenomenon we expressly know he saw; a human, not a historically important one. Driving

through the streets from place to place, his Majesty came athwart some questionable quaint procession,

ribbony, perhaps musical; Majesty questioned it: "A wedding procession, your Majesty!""Will the Bride

step out, then, and let us see how she is dressed!" "VOM HERZEN GERN; will have the honor." Bride stept

out, with blushes,handsome we will hope; Majesty surveyed her, on the streets of Augsburg, having a

human heart in him; and (says Fassmann, as if with insidious insinuation) "is said to have made her a

present." She went her way; fulfilled her destiny in an anonymous manner: Friedrich Wilhelm, loudly named

in the world, did the like; and their two orbits never intersected again.Some fortyfive miles south of

Augsburg, up the Wertach River, more properly up the Mindel River, lies Mindelheim, once a name known

in England and in Prussia; once the Duke of Marlborough's "Principality:" given him by a grateful Kaiser

Joseph; taken from him by a necessitous Kaiser Karl, Joseph's Brother, that now is. I know not if his Majesty

remembers that transaction, now while in these localities; but know well, if he does, he must think it a shabby

On the same day, 1st August, 1730, we quit Augsburg; set out fairly homewards again. The route bends

westward this time; towards FrankfurtonMayn; there yachts are to be ready; and mere sailing thenceforth,

gallantly down the Rhinestream,such a yachtvoyage, in the summer weather, with no Tourists yet

Chapter VI. JOURNEY HOMEWARDS FROM THE REICH; CATASTROPHE ON JOURNEY HOMEWARDS 333

infesting it,to end, happily we will hope, at Wesel, in the review of regiments, and other business. First

stage, first pause, is to be at Ludwigsburg, and the wicked old Duke of Wurtemberg's; thither first from

Augsburg. We cross the Donau at Dillingen, at Gunzberg, or I know not where; and by tomorrow's sunset,

being rapid travellers, find ourselves at Ludwigsburg,clear through Canstatt, Stuttgard, and certainly no

Katte waiting there! Safe across the intermediate uplands, here are we fairly in the Neckar Country, in the

Basin of the Rhine again; and old Duke Eberhard Ludwig of Wurtemberg bidding us kindly welcome, poor

old bewildered creature, who has become the talk of Germany in those times. Will English readers consent to

a momentary glance into his affairs and him? Strange things are going on at Lndwigsburg; nay the origin of

Ludwigsburg, and that the Duke should be there and not at Stuttgard, is itself strange. Let us take this

"Duke Eberhard Ludwig, now an elderly gentleman of fiftyfour, has distinguished himself in his long reign,

not by political obliquities and obstinacies, though those also were not wanting, but by matrimonial and

amatory; which have rendered him conspicuous to his fellowscreatures, and still keep him mentionable in

History, briefly and for a sad reason. Duke Eberhard Ludwig was duly wedded to an irreproachable Princess

of BadenDurlach (Johanna Elizabeth) upwards of thirty years ago; and he duly produced one Son in

consequence, with other good results to himself and her. But in course of time Duke Eberhard Ludwig took to

consorting with bad creatures; took, in fact, to swashing about at random in the pool of amatory iniquity, as if

"Perceiving which, a certain young fellow, Gravenitz by name, who had come to him from the Mecklenbnrg

regions, by way of pushing fortune, and had got some pageship or the like here in Wurtemberg, recollected

that he had a young Sister at home; pretty and artful, who perhaps might do a stroke of work here. He sends

for the young Sister; very pretty indeed, and a gentlewoman by birth, though penniless. He borrows clothes

for her (by onerous contract with the haberdashers, it is said, being poor to a degree); he easily gets her

introduced to the Ducal Soirees; bids herShe knows what to do? Right well she knows what; catches, with

her piquant face, the dull eye of Eberhard Ludwig, kindles Eberhard Ludwig, and will not for something

quench him. Not she at all: How can SHE; your Serene Highness, ask her not! A virtuous young lady, she,

and come of a stainless Family!In brief, she hooks, she of all the fishes in the pool, this lumber of a Duke;

enchants him, keeps him hooked; and has made such a pennyworth of him, for the last twenty years and

more, as Germany cannot match. [Michaelis, iii. 440.] Her brother Gravenitz the page has become Count

Gravenitz the prime minister, or chief of the Governing Cabal; she Countess Gravenitz and Autocrat of

Wurtemberg. Loaded with wealth, with socalled honors, she and hers, there go they, flaunting skyhigh;

none else admitted to more than the liberty of breathing in silence in this Duchy; the poor Duke Eberhard

Ludwig making no complaint; obedient as a child to the bidding of his Gravenitz. He is become a mere

enchanted simulacrum of a Duke; bewitched under worse than Thessalian spells; without faculty of willing,

except as she wills; his People and he the plaything of this Circe or Hecate, that has got hold of him. So it has

lasted for above twenty years. Gravenitz has become the wonder of Germany; and requires, on these bad

grounds, a slight mention in Human History for some time to come. Certainly it is by the Gravenitz alone that

Eberhard Ludwig is remembered; and yet, down since Ulrich with the Thumb, [Ulricus POLLEX (right

thumb bigger than left); died A.D. 1265 (Michaelis, iii. 262).] which of those serene abstruse Beutelsbachers,

"Most persons in Wurtemberg, for quiet's sake, have complied with the Gravenitz; though not without

protest, and sometimes spoken protest. Thus the Right Reverend Osiander (let us name Osiander, Head of the

Church in Wurtemberg) flatly refused to have her name inserted in the Public Prayers; 'Is not she already

prayed for?' said Osiander: 'Do we not say, DELIVER US FROM EVIL?' said the indignant Protestant man.

And there is one other person that never will comply with her: the lawful Wife of Eberhard Ludwig. Serene

Lady, she has had a sad existenoe of it; the voice of her wrongs audible, to little purpose, this long while, in

Chapter VI. JOURNEY HOMEWARDS FROM THE REICH; CATASTROPHE ON JOURNEY HOMEWARDS 334

Heaven and on Earth. But it is not in the power of reward or punishment to bend her female will in the

essential point: 'Divorce, your Highness? When _I_ am found guilty, yes. Till then, never, your Highness,

never, never,' in steadv CRESCENDO tone:so that his Highness is glad to escape again, and drop the

subject. On which the Serene Lady again falls silent. Gravenitz, in fact, hopes always to be wedded with the

right, nay were it only with the left hand: and this Serene Lady stands like a fateful monument irremovably in

the way. The Serene Lady steadily inhabits her own wing of the Ducal House, would not exchange it for the

Palace of Aladdin; looks out there upon the grand equipages, high doings, impure splendors of her Duke and

his Gravenitz with a cleareyed silence, which seems to say more eloquently than words, 'MENE, MENE,

YOU are weighed!' In the land of Wurtemberg, or under the Sun, is no reward or punishment that can abate

this silence. Speak of divorce, the answer is as above: leave divorce lying, there is silence looking forth

cleareyed from that particular wing of the Palace, on things which the gods permit for a time.

"Cleareyed silence, which, as there was no abating of it, grew at last intolerable to the two sinners. 'Let us

remove,' said the Gravenitz, 'since her Serene Highness will not: build a new charming Palace,say at our

Hunting Seat, among those pleasant Hills in the Waiblingen region,and take the Court, out thither.' And

they have done so, in these late bad years; taking out with them by degrees all the Courtier Gentry, all the

RATHS, Government Boards, public businesses; and building new houses for them, there. ["From 1727 to

1730" was this latter removal. A huntinglodge, of Eberhard Ludwig's building, and named by him

LUGWIGSBURG, stood here since 1705; nucleus of the subsequent palace, with its "Pheasantries," its

"Favoritas," The place had originally been monastic (Busching, Erdbeschreibung, vi. 1519).] Founding, in

fact, a second Capital for Wurtemberg, with what distress, sulky misery and disarrangement, to Stuttgard and

the old Capital, readers can fancy. There it stands, that Ludwigsburg, the second Capital of Wurtemberg,

some ten or twenty miles from Stuttgard the first: a lasting memorial of Circe Gravenitz and her Ludwig. Has

not she, by her incantations, made the stone houses dance out hither? It remains to this day a pleasant town,

and occasional residence of sovereignty. WAIBLINGEN, within an hour's ride, has got memorability on

other grounds;what reader has not heard of GHIBELLINES, meaning Waiblingens? And in another hour

up the River, you will come to Beutelsbach itself, where Ulrich with the Thumb had his abode (better luck to

him!), and generated this Lover of the Gravenitz, and much other nonsense loud now and then for the last

"There is something of abstruse in all these Beutelsbachers, from Ulrich with the Thumb downwards: a mute

ennui, an inexorable obstinacy; a certain streak of natural gloom which no illumination can abolish. Veracity

of all kinds is great in them; sullen passive courage plenty of it; active courage rarer; articulate intellect

defective: hence a strange stiff perversity of conduct visible among them, often marring what wisdom they

have;it is the royal stamp of Fate put upon these men. What are called fateful or fated men; such as are

often seen on the top places of the world, making an indifferent figure there. Something of this, I doubt not, is

concerned in Eberhard Ludwig's fascination; and we shall see other instances farther down in this History.

"But so, for twenty years, the absurd Duke, transformed into a mere Porcus by his Circe in that scandalous

miraculous manner, has lived; and so he still lives. And his Serene Wife, equally obstinate, is living at

Stuttgard, happily out of his sight now. One Son, a weakly man, who had one heir, but has now none, is her

only comfort. His Wife is a Prussian Margravine (Friedrich Wilhelm's HALFAUNT), and cultivates

Calvinism in the Lutheran Country: this Husband of hers, he too has an abstruse life, not likely to last. We

need not doubt 'the Fates' are busy, and the evil demons, with those poor fellowbeings! Nay it is said the

Circe is becoming much of a Hecate now; if the bewitched Duke could see it. She is getting haggard beyond

the power of rouge; her mind, any mind she has, more and more filled with spleen, malice, and the dregs of

pride run sour. A disgusting creature, testifies one ExOfficial gentleman, once a Hofrath under her, but

obliged to run for life, and invoke free press in his defence: [ Apologie de Monsieur Forstner de

Breitembourg, (Paris, 1716; or "a Londres, aux depens de la Compagnie, 1745"): in Spittler, Geschichte

Wurtembergs (Spittlers WERKE, Stuttgard und Tubingen, 1828; vol. v.), 497539. Michaelis, iii. 428439,

gives (in abstruse Chancery German) a Sequel to this fine affair of Forstner's.] no end to the foul things she

Chapter VI. JOURNEY HOMEWARDS FROM THE REICH; CATASTROPHE ON JOURNEY HOMEWARDS 335

will say, of an unspeakable nature, about the very Duke her victim, testifies this ExOfficial: malicious as a

witch, says he, and as ugly as one in spite of paint,'TOUJOURS UN LAVEMENT A SES TROUSSES.'

But here is the august Prussian TravellingParty: shove aside your bewitchments and bewilderments; hang a

decent screen over many things! Poor Eberhard Ludwig, who is infinitely the gentleman, bestirs himself a

good deal to welcome old royal friends; nor do we hear that the least thing went awry during this transit of

the royalties. "Field of Blenheim, says your Majesty? Ah me!" For Eberhard Ludwig knows that ground;

stood the WorldBattle there, and so much has come and gone since then: Ah me indeed!

Friedrich Wilhelm and he have met before this, and have much to tell one another; Treaty of Seville by no

means their only topic. Nay the flood of cordiality went at length so far, that at last Friedrich Wilhelm, the

conscientious King, came upon the most intimate topics: Gravenitz; the Word of God; scandal to the

Protestant Religion: no likely heir to your Dukedom; clear peril to your own soul. Is not her Serene Highness

an unexceptionable Lady, heroic under sore woes; and your wedded Wife above all? 'MNA, and might

bring Heirs too: only forty come October: Ah Duke, ah Friend! AVISEZ LA FIN, Eberhard Ludwig;

consider the end of it all; we are growing old fellows now! The Duke, I conceive, who was rather a fat little

man, blushed blue, then red, and various colors; at length settling into steady pale, as it were, indicating

anthracitic whiteheat: it is certain he said at length, with emphasis, "I will!" And he did so, by and by.

Friedrich Wilhelm sent a messenger to Stuttgard to do his reverence to the high injured Lady there, perhaps to

show her afar off some ray of hope if she could endure. Eberhard Ludwig, raised to a whiteheat, perceives

that in fact he is heartily tired of this CirceHecate; that in fact she has long been an intolerable nightmare to

And his Royal Highness the CrownPrince all this while? Well, yes; his Royal Highness has got a Court

Tailor at Ludwigsburg; and, in all privacy (seen well by Rochow), has had the Augsburg red cloth cut into a

fine upper wrappage, over coat or roquelaure for himself; intending to use the same before long. Thus they

severally, the Father and the Son; these are their known acts at Ludwigsburg, That the Father persuaded

Eberhard Ludwig of the Gravenitz enormity, and that the Son got his red topcoat ready. On Thursday, 3d of

August (late in the afternoon, as I perceive), they, well entertained, depart towards Mannheim, KurPfalz

(Elector Palatine) old Karl Philip of the Pfalz's place; hope to be there on the morrow some time, if all go

well. Gloomy much enlightened Eberhard takes leave of them, with abstruse but grateful feelings; will stand

As accordingly he did. Next Summer, going on a visit northward, specially to Berlin, [There for some three

weeks, "till 9th June, 1731, with a suite of above fifty persons" (Fassmann, pp. 421, 422).] he left order that

the Gravenitz was to be got out of his sight, safe stowed away, before his return. Which by the proper

officers, military certain of them, was accomplished,by fixed bayonets at last, and not without futile demur

on the part of the Gravenitz. Poor Eberhard Ludwig, "he published in the pulpits, That he was now minded to

lead a better life,"had time now been left him. Same year, 1731, November being come, gloomy Eberhard

Ludwig lost, not unexpectedly, his one Son,the one Grandson was gone long since. The serene steadfast

Duchess now had her Duke again, what was left of him: but he was fallen into the sere and yellow leaf; in

two years more, he died childless; [31st October, 1733: Michaelis, iii. 441.] and his Cousin, Karl Alexander,

an Austrian Feldmarschall of repute, succeeded in Wurtemberg. With whom we may transiently meet, in time

coming; with whom, and perhaps less pleasantly with certain of his children; for they continue to this

Old Karl Philip, Kurfurst of the Pfalz, towards whom Friedrich Wilhelm is now driving, with intent to be

there tomorrow evening, is not quite a stranger to readers here; and to Friedrich Wilhelm he is much the

reverse, perhaps too much. This is he who ran away with poor Prince Sobieski's Bride from Berlin, at starting

in life; who fell upon his own poor Protestant Heidelbergers and their Church of the Holy Ghost (being

Chapter VI. JOURNEY HOMEWARDS FROM THE REICH; CATASTROPHE ON JOURNEY HOMEWARDS 336

himself Papist, ever since that slap on the face to his ancestor); and who has been in many quarrels with

Friedrich Wilhelm and others. A high expensive sovereign gentleman, this old Karl Philip; not, I should

suppose, the pleasantest of men to lodge with. One apprehends, he cannot be peculiarly well disposed to

Friedrich Wilhelm, after that sad Heidelberg passage of fence, twelve or eleven years ago. Not to mention the

inextricable JulichandBerg business, which is a standing controversy between them.

Poor old Kurfurst, he is now within a year of seventy. He has had crosses and losses; terrible campaignings

against the Turk, in old times; and always such a stock of quarrels, at home, as must have been still worse to

bear. A life of perpetual arguing, squabbling and battling,one's neighbors being such an unreasonable set!

Brabbles about Heidelberg Catechism, and Church of the Holy Ghost, so that foreign Kings interfered,

shaking their whips upon us. Then brabbles about boundaries; about inheritances, and detached properties

very many,clearly mine, were the neighbors reasonable! In fact this sovereign old gentleman has been in

the Kaiser's courts, or even on the edge of fight, oftener than most other men; and it is as if that first

adventure, of the Sobieski wedding turned topsyturvy, had been symbolical of much that followed in his

We remember that unpleasant Heidelberg affair: how hopeful it once looked; fact DONE, Church of the Holy

Ghost fairly ours; your CORPUS EVANGELICORUM fallen quasidead; and nothing now for it but

protocolling by diplomatists, pleading in the Diets by men in bombazine, never like ending at all;when

Friedrich Wilhelm did suddenly end it; suddenly locked up his own Catholic establishments and revenues,

and quietly inexorable put the key in his pocket; as it were, drew his own whip, with a "Will you whip MY

Jew?"and we had to cower out of the affair, Kaiser himself ordering us, in a most humiliated manner!

Readers can judge whether KurPfalz was likely to have a kindly note of Friedrich Wilhelm in that corner of

his memory. The poor man felt so disgusted with Heidelberg, he quitted it soon after. He would not go to

Dusseldorf (in the BergandJulich quarter), as his Forefathers used to do; but set up his abode at Mannheim,

where he still is. Friedrich Wilhelm, who was far from meaning harm or insolence in that Heidelberg affair,

hopes there is no grudge remaining. But so stand the facts: it is towards Mannheim, not towards Heidelberg

that we are now travelling!For the rest, this scheme of reprisals, or whipping your Jew if you whip mine,

answered so well, Friedrich Wilhelm has used it, or threatened to use, as the real method, ever since, where

needful; and has saved thereby much bombazine eloquence, and confusion to mankind, on several occasions.

But the worst between these two High Gentlemen is that JulichandBerg controversy; which is a sore still

running, and beyond reach of probable surgery. Old Karl Philip has no male Heir; and is like to be (what he

indeed proved) the last of the NEUBERG Electors Palatine. What trouble there rose with the first of them,

about that sad business; and how the then Brandenburger, much wrought upon, smote the then Neuburger

across the very face, and drove him into Catholicism, we have not forgotten; how can we ever?It is one

hundred and sixteen years since that afterdinner scene; and, O Heavens, what bickering and brabbling and

confused negotiation there has been; lawyers' pens going almost continually ever since, shadowing out the

mutual darkness of sovereignties; and from time to time the military implements brandishing themselves,

though loath generally to draw blood! For a hundred and sixteen years:but the Final Bargain, lying on

parchment in the archives of both parties, and always acknowledged as final, was to this effect: "You serene

Neuburg keep what you have got; we serene Brandenburg the like: Cleve with detached pertinents ours;

JulichandBerg mainly yours. And let us live in perpetual amity on that footing. And, note only

furthermore, when our Line fails, the whole of these fine Duchies shall be yours: if your Line fail, ours." That

was the plain bargain, done solemnly in 1624, and again more solemnly and brought to parchment with

signature in 1666, as Friedrich Wilhelm knows too well. And now the very case is about to occur; this old

man, childless at seventy, is the last of the Neuburgs. May not one reasonably pretend that a bargain should

"Tush," answers old Karl Philip always: "Bargain?" And will not hear reason against himself on the subject;

not even when the Kaiser asks him,as the Kaiser really did, after that Wusterhausen Treaty, but could get

Chapter VI. JOURNEY HOMEWARDS FROM THE REICH; CATASTROPHE ON JOURNEY HOMEWARDS 337

only negatives. Karl Philip has no romantic ideas of justice, or of old parchments tying up a man. Karl Philip

had one Daughter by that dear Radzivil Princess, Sobieski's stolen Bride; and he never, by the dear Radzivil

or her dear successor, [See Buchholz, i. 61 n.] had any son, or other daughter that lived to wed. One

Daughter, we say; a firstborn, extremely precious to him. Her he married to the young fortunate Sulzbach

Cousin, Karl Joseph HeirApparent of Sulzbach, who, by all laws, was to succeed in the Pfalz as well,Karl

Philip thinking furthermore, "He and she, please Heaven, shall hold fast by Dusseldorf too, and that fine

JulichandBerg Territory, which is mine. Bargains?" Such was, and is, the old man's inflexible notion. Alas,

this one Daughter died lately, and her Husband lately; [She in 1728; he in 1729: their eldest Daughter was

born 1721 (Hubner, t. 140; Michaelis, ii. 101, 123).] again leaving only Daughters; will not this change the

notion? Not a whit, though Friedrich Wilhelm may have fondly hoped it by possibility might, Not a whit:

Karl Philip cherishes his little Granddaughter, now a child of nine, as he did her Mother and her Mother's

Mother; hopes one day to see her wedded (as he did) to a new HeirApparent of the Pfalz and Sulzbach; and,

for her behoof, will hold fast by Berg and Julich, and part with no square inch of it for any parchment.

What is Friedrich Wilhelm to do? Seek justice for himself by his 80,000 men and the iron ramrods?

Apparently he will not get it otherwise. He is loath to begin that terrible game. If indeed Europe do take fire,

as is likely at Seville or elsewhereBut in the meanwhile how happy if negotiation would but serve! Alas,

and if the Kaiser, England; Holland and the others, could be brought to guarantee me,as indeed they should

(to avoid a CASUS BELLI), and some of them have said they will! Friedrich Wilhelm tried this

JulichandBerg Problem by the pacific method, all his life; strenuously, and without effect. Result perhaps

was coming nevertheless; at the distance of another hundred years!One thing I know: whatever rectitude

and patience, whatever courage, perseverance, or other human virtue he has put into this or another matter, is

not lost; not it nor any fraction of it, to Friedrich Wilhelm and his sons' sons; but will well avail him and

them, if not soon, then later, if not in Berg and Julich, then in some other quarter of the Universe, which is a

So stand matters as Friedrich Wilhelm journeys towards Mannheim: human politeness will have to cloak

well, and keep well down, a good many prickly points in the visit ahead. Alas, poor Friedrich Wilhelm has

The Royal Party, quitting Ludwigsburg,on Thursday, 3d August, 1730, some hours after dinner, as I

calculate it,had but a rather short journey before them: journey to a place called Sinzheim, some fifty or

sixty miles; a long way short of Heidelberg; the King's purpose being to lodge in that dilapidated silent Town

of Sinzheim, and leave both Heidelberg and Mannheim, with their civic noises, for the next day's work.

Sinzheim, such was the program, as the Prince and others understood it; but by some accident, or on better

calculation, it was otherwise decided in the royal mind: not at Sinzheim, intricate decayed old Town, shall we

lodge tonight, but five or six miles short of it, in the naturally silent Village of Steinfurth, where good clean

empty Barns are to be found. Which latter is a favorite method of his Majesty, fond always of free air and the

absence of fuss. Shakedowns, a temporary cooking apparatus, plenty of tobacco, and a tub to wash in: this is

what man requires, and this without difficulty can be got. His Majesty's tastes are simple; simple, and yet

good and human. Here is a small Royal Order, which I read once, and ever since remember,though the

reference is now blown away, and lost in those unindexed Sibylline Farragos, the terror of human

nature;let us copy it from memory, till some deliverer arise with finger on page. [Probably in Rodenbeck's

Beitrage, but long sad searching there, and elsewhere, proves unavailing at present. Historical Farragos

without INDEX; a hundred, or several hundred, blind sacks of Historical clippings, generally authentic too if

useless, and not the least scrap of LABEL on them:are not these a handy article!] "At Magdeburg, on this

ReviewJourney, have dinner for me, under a certain Tree you know of, outside the ramparts." Dinner of one

sound portion solid, one ditto liquid, of the due quality; readied honestly,and to be eaten under a shady

Tree; on the Reviewground itself, with the summer sky over one's head. Could Jupiter Tonans, had he been

Chapter VI. JOURNEY HOMEWARDS FROM THE REICH; CATASTROPHE ON JOURNEY HOMEWARDS 338

"At Sinzheim?" thinks his Royal Highness; and has spoken privily to the Page Keith. To glide out of their

quarters there, in that waste negligent old Town (where posthorses can be had), in the gray of the summer's

dawn? Across the Rhine to Speyer is but three hours riding; thence to Landau, into France, into? Enough,

Page Keith has undertaken to get horses, and the flight shall at last be. Husht, husht. Tomorrow morning,

Ruins of the Tower of Stauffen, HOHEN or High STAUFFEN, where Kaiser Barbarossa lived once, young

and ruddy, and was not yet a MYTH, "winking and nodding under the Hill at Salzburg,"yes, it is but a few

miles to the right there, were this a deliberate touring party. But this is a rapid driving one; knows nothing

about Stauffen, cares nothing.We cannot fancy Friedrich remembered Barbarossa at all; or much regarded

Heilbronn itself, the principal and only famous Town they pass this day. The St. Kilian's Church, your

Highness, and big stone giant at the top of the steeple yonder,adventurous masons and slater people get

upon the crown of his head, sometimes, and stand waving flags. [Buddaus, Lexicon, ii. ? Heilbronn.] The

Townhouse too (RATHHAUS), with its amazing old Clock? And Gotz von Berlichingen, the

TownCouncillors once had him in prison for one night, in the "Gotz's Tower" here; your Highness has heard

of "Gotz with the Iron Hand"? Berlichingens still live at Jaxthausen, farther down the Neckar Valley, in these

parts; and show the old HAND, considerably rusted now. Heilbronn, the most famous City on the Neckar;

and its old miraculous Holy Well? What cares his Highness! Weinsberg again, which is but a few miles to

the right of us,there it was that the Besieged Wives did that astonishing feat, 600 years ago; coming out, as

the capitulation bore, "with their most valuable property," each brought her Husband on her back (were not

the fact a little uncertain!)whereby the old Castle has, to this day, the name "WEIBERTREUE,

Faithfulness of Women." Welf's Duchess, Husband on back, was at the head of those women; a Hohenzollern

ancestor of yours, I think I have heard, was of the besieging party. [Siege is notorious enough; A.D. 1140:

Kohler Reichshistorie, p. 167, who does not mention the story of the women; Menzel (Wolfgang), Geschichte

der Deutschen, p. 287, who takes no notice that it is a highly mythical story, supported only by the

testimony of one poor Monk in Koln, vaguely chronicling fifty years after date and at that good distance.]

Alas, thinks his Royal Highness, is there not a flower of Welfdom now in England; and I, unluckiest of

Hohenzollerns, still far away from her here! It is at Windsor, not in Weinsberg, or among the ruins of

At Heilbronn our road branches off to the left; and we roll diligently towards Sinzheim, calculating to be

there before nightfall. Whew! Something has gone awry at Sinzheim: no right lodging in the waste Inns there;

or good clean Barns, of a promising character, are to be had nearer than there: we absolutely do not go to

Sinzheim tonight; we are to stop at Steinfurth, a small quiet Hamlet with Barns, four or five miles short of

that! This was a great disappointment to the Prince,and some say, a highly momentous circumstance in his

History: ["Might perhaps have succeeded at Sinzheim" (Seckendorf's Relation of the CrownPrince's

meditated Flight, p. 2;addressed to Prince Eugene few days afterwards; given in Forster, iii.

113).]however, he rallies in the course of the evening; speaks again to Page Keith. "Steinfurth

[STONYFORD, over the Brook here]; be it at Steinfurth, all the same!" Page Keith will manage to get

horses for us here, no less. And Speyer and the Ferry of the Rhine are within three hours. Favor us, Silence

On Friday morning, 4th August, 1730, "usual hour of starting, 3 A.M.," not being yet came, the Royal Party

lies asleep in two clean airy Barns, facing one another, in the Village of Steinfurth; Barns facing one another,

with the Heidelberg Highway and Village Green asleep in front between them; [Compare Wilhelmina, i. 259

(her Account of the Flight: "Heard it from my Brother,"and report it loosely after a dozen years!).] for it is

little after two in the morning, the dawn hardly beginning to break. Prince Friedrich, with his Trio of

Vigilance, Buddenbrock, Waldau, Rochow, lies in one Barn; Majesty, with his Seckendorf and party, is in the

other: apparently all still locked in sleep? Not all: Prince Friedrich, for example, is awake;the Trio is

Chapter VI. JOURNEY HOMEWARDS FROM THE REICH; CATASTROPHE ON JOURNEY HOMEWARDS 339

indeed audibly asleep; unless others watch for them, their six eyes are closed. Friedrich cautiously rises;

dresses; takes his money, his new red roquelaure, unbolts the Barndoor, and walks out. Trio of Vigilance is

sound asleep, and knows nothing: alas, Trio of Vigilance, while its own six eyes are closed, has appointed

Gummersbach the Valet comes to Rochow's bolster: "Hst, Herr OberstLieutenant, please awaken! Prince

Royal is up, has on his topcoat, and is gone out of doors!" Rochow starts to his habiliments, or perhaps has

them ready on; in a minute or two, Rochow also is forth into the gray of the morning;finds the young

Prince actually on the Green there; in his red roquelaure, leaning pensively on one of the travelling carriages.

"Guten Morgen, Ihro Konigliche Hoheit!" [Ranke, 1. 305.] Fancy such a salutation to the young man!

Page Keith, at this moment, comes with a pair of horses, too: "Whither with the nags, Sirrah?" Rochow asked

with some sharpness. Keith, seeing how it was, answered without visible embarrassment, "Herr, they are

mine and Kunz the Page's horses" (which, I suppose, is true); "ready at the usual hour!" Keith might

add."His Majesty does not go till five this morning;back to the stables!" beckoned Rochow; and,

according to the best accounts, did not suspect anything, or affected not to do so.

Page Keith returned, trembling in his saddle. Friedrich strolled towards the other Barn,at least to be out of

Rochow's company. Seckendorf emerges from the other Barn; awake at the common hour: "How do you like

his Royal Highness in the red roquelaure?" asks Rochow, as if nothing had happened. Was there ever such a

baffled Royal Highness; or young bright spirit chained in the Bear's Den in this manner? Our Steinfurth

project has gone to water; and it is not today we shall get across the Rhine!Not today; nor any other day,

on that errand, strong as our resolutions are! For new light, in a few hours afterwards, pours in upon the

project; and human finesse, or ulterior schemes, avail nothing henceforth. "The CrownPrince's meditated

Flight" has tried itself, and failed. Here and so that long meditation ENDS; this at Steinfurth was all the

overact it could ever come to. In few hours more it will melt into air; and only the terrible consequences will

By last night's arrangement, the Prince with his Trio was to set out an hour before his Father, which

circumstance had helped Page Keith in his excuses. Naturally the Prince had now no wish to linger on the

Green of Steinfurth, in such a posture of affairs: "Towards Heidelberg, then; let us see the big Tun there:

ALLONS!" How the young Prince and his Trio did this day's journey; where he loitered, what he saw, said or

thought, we have no account: it is certain only that his Father, who set out from Steinfurth an hour after him,

arrived in Mannheim several hours before him; and, in spite of Kurfurst Karl Philip's welcome, testified the

liveliest inquietude on that unaccountable circumstance. Beautiful Rhinestream, thricebeautiful trim

Mannheim;yes, all is beautiful indeed, your Serenity! But where can the Prince be? he kept ejaculating.

And Karl Philip had to answer what he could. Of course the Prince may be lingering about Heidelberg,

looking at the big Tun and other miracles:"I had the pleasure to repair that worldfamous Tub or Tun, as

your Majesty knows; which had lain half burnt, ever since Louis XIV. with his firebrand robberies lay upon

us, and burnt the Pfalz in whole, small honor to him! I repaired the Tun: [Kohler, Munzbelustigungen (viii.

418424; 145152), who gives a view of the world's wonder, lying horizontal with stairs running up to it.

Big Tuns of that kind were not uncommon in Germany; and had uses, if multiplex dues of wine were to be

paid IN NATURA: the Heidelberg, the biggest of them, is small to the WhitbreadandCompany, for

porter'sale, in our time.] it is probably the successfulest feat I did hitherto; and well worth looking at, had

your Majesty had time!""JA WOHL;but he came away an hour before me!"The polite Karl Philip, at

length, sent off one of his own Equerries to ride towards Heidelberg, or even to Steinfurth if needful, and see

what was become of the Prince. This Official person met the Prince, all in order, at no great distance; and

Why Papa was in such a fuss about this little circumstance? Truly there has something come to Papa's

knowledge since he started, perhaps since he arrived at Mannheim. Page Keith, who rides always behind the

King's coach, has ridden this day in an agony of remorse and terror; and at length (probably in Mannheim,

Chapter VI. JOURNEY HOMEWARDS FROM THE REICH; CATASTROPHE ON JOURNEY HOMEWARDS 340

once his Majesty is got to his Apartments, or now that he finds his Majesty so anxious there) has fallen on his

knees, and, with tears and obtestations, made a clean breast. Page Keith has confessed that the CrownPrince

and he were to have been in Speyer, or farther, at this time of the day; flying rapidly into France. "God's

Providence alone prevented it! Pardon, pardon: slay me, your Majesty; but there is the naked truth, and the

whole of it, and I have nothing more to say!" Hereupon ensues despatch of the Equerry; and hereupon, as we

may conjecture, the Equerry's return with Fritz and the Trio is an unspeakable relief to Friedrich Wilhelm.

Friedrich Wilhelm now summons Buddenbrock and Company straightway; shows, in a suppressedvolcanic

manner, with questions and statements,obliged to SUPPRESS oneself in foreign hospitable Serene

Houses,what atrocity of scandal and terror has been on the edge of happening: "And you three, Rochow,

Waldau, Buddenbrock, mark it, you three are responsible; and shall answer, I now tell you, with your heads.

Death the penalty, unless you bring HIM to our own Country again,'living or dead,'" added the

SuppressedVolcano, in low metallic tone; and the sparkling eyes of him, the red tint, and rustling gestures,

What Friedrich Wilhelm got to speak about with the old KurPfalz, during their serene psssages of

hospitality at Mannheim, is not very clear to me; his Prussian Majesty is privately in such a desperate humor,

and the old KurPfalz privately so discrepant on all manner of points, especially on the JulichandBerg

point. They could talk freely about the old Turk Campaigns, Battle of Zentha, [11th September, 1697;

Eugene's crowning feat;breaking of the Grand Turk's back in this world; who has staggered about, less and

less of a terror and outrage, more and more of a nuisance growing unbearable, ever since that day. See

Hormayr (iii. 97101) for some description of this useful bit of Heroism.] and Prince Eugene; very freely

about the Heidelberg Tun. But it is known old Karl Philip had his agents at the Congress of Soissons, to

secure that BergandJulich interest for the Sulzbachs and him: directly in the teeth of Friedrich Wilhelm.

How that may have gone, since the Treaty of Seville broke out to astonish mankind, will be unsafe to talk

about. For the rest, old Karl Philip has frankly adopted the Pragmatic Sanction; but then he has, likewise,

privately made league with France to secure him in that JulichandBerg matter, should the Kaiser break

promise;league which may much obstruct said Sanction. Nay privately he is casting glances on his

Bavarian Cousin, elegant ambitious Karl Albert. Kurfurst of Baiern,are not we all from the same

Wittelsbach stock, Cousins from of old?and will undertake, for the same JulichandBergobject, to secure

Bavaria in its claims on the Austrian Heritages in defect of Heirs Male in Austria. [Michaelis, ii. 99101.]

Which runs directly into the throat of said Pragmatic Sanction; and engages to make it, mere waste sheepskin,

so to speak! Truly old Karl Philip has his abstruse outlooks, this way, that way; most abstruse politics

altogether:and in fact we had better speak of the Battle of Zentha and the Heidelberg Tun, while this Visit

On the morrow, Saturday, August 5th, certain Frenchmen from the Garrison of Landau come across to pay

their court and dine. Which race of men Friedrich Wilhelm does not love; and now less than ever, gloomily

suspicious they may be come on parricide Fritz's score,you Rochow and Company keep an eye! By night

and by day an eye upon him! Friedrich Wilhelm was, no doubt, glad to get away on the morrow afternoon;

fairly out into the BergStrasse, into the summer breezes and umbrageous woods, with all his pertinents still

safe about him; rushing towards Darmstadt through the Sunday stillness, where he will arrive in the evening,

time enough. ["Sunday Evening arrive at Darmstadt," says Seckendorf (in Forster, iii. 3), but by mistake calls

The old Prince of Darmstadt, Ernst Ludwig, Landgraf of HessenDarmstadt, age now sixtythree, has a

hoary venerable appearance, according to Pollnitz, "but sits a horse well, walks well, and seems to enjoy

perfect health,"which we are glad to hear of. What more concerns us, "he lives usually, quite retired, in a

small house upon the Square," in this extremely small Metropolis of his, "and leaves his HeirApparent to

manage all business in the Palace and elsewhere." [Pollnitz, Memoirs and Letters, ii. 66.] poor old

Gentleman, he has the biggest Palace almost in the world; only he could not finish it for want of funds; and it

Chapter VI. JOURNEY HOMEWARDS FROM THE REICH; CATASTROPHE ON JOURNEY HOMEWARDS 341

lies there, one of the biggest futilities, vexatious to look upon. No doubt the old Gentleman has had vexations,

plenty of them, first and last. He is now got disgusted with the affairs of public life, and addicts himself very

much to "turning ivory," as the more eligible employment. He lives in that small house of his, among his

turninglathes and ivory shavings; dines in said small house, "at a table for four persons:" only on Sunday,

and above all on this Sunday, puts off his apron; goes across to the Palace; dines there in state, with his Heir

and the Grandees. He has a kinship by affinity to Friedrich Wilhelm; his Wife (dead long years since),

Mother of this HeirApparent, was an Anspach Princess, Aunt to the now Queen Caroline of England. Poor

old fellow, these insignificancies, and that he descends direct from Philip the Magnanimous of Hessen

(Luther's Philip, who insisted on the supplementary Wife), are all I know of him; and he is somewhat tragic

to me there, turning ivory in this extremely anarchic world. What the passages between him and Friedrich

Wilhelm were, on this occasion, shall remain conjectural to all creatures. Friedrich Wilhelm said, this Sunday

evening at Darmstadt to his own Prince: "Still here, then? I thought you would have been in Paris by this

time!"To which the Prince, with artificial firmness, answered, He could certainly, if he had wished;

[Seckendorf (in Forster, iii.), p. 3.] and being familiar with reproaches, perhaps hoped it was nothing.

From Darmstadt to FrankfurtonMayn is not quite forty miles, an easy morning drive; through the old

Country called of Katzenellenbogen; CATSELBOW, a name ridiculous to hear. [CATTIMELIBOCUM,

that is, CATTUMMELIBOCUM (CATTI a famed Nation, MELIBOCUS the chief Hill or Fortress of their

Country), is said to be the original;which has got changed; like ABALLABA into "Appleby," or GOD

ENCOMPASS US into "The Goat and Compasses," among ourselves.] BergStrasse and the Odenwald

(FOREST of the OTTI) are gone; but blue on the northeast yonder, if your Royal Highness will please to

look, may be seen summits of the SPESSART, a much grander forest,tall branchy timbers yonder, one day

to be masts of admirals, when floated down as far as Rotterdam, whitherward one still meets them going.

Spessart;and nearer, well hidden on the right, is an obscure village called DETTINGEN, not yet become

famous in the Newspapers of an idle world; of an England surely very idle to go thither seeking quarrels! All

which is, naturally, in the highest degree indifferent to a CrownPrince so preoccupied.They reach

Behold, at Frankfurt, the Trio of Vigilance, Buddenbrock and Company (horrible to think of!) signify, "That

we have the King's express orders Not to enter the Town at all with your Royal Highness. We, for our part,

are to go direct into one of the Royal Yachts, which swing at anchor here, and to wait in the same till his

Majesty have done seeing Frankfurt, and return to us." Here is a message for the poor young Prince:

Detected, prisoner, and a volcanic Majesty now likely to be in full play when he returns! Gilt weathercock

on the Mayn Bridge (which one Goethe used to look at, in the next generation)this, and the steepletops of

Frankfurt, especially that steepletop with the grinning skull of the mutinous malefactor on it, warning to

mankind what mutiny leads to; this, then, is what we are to see of Frankfurt; and with such a symphony as

our thoughts are playing in the background. Unhappy Son, unhappy Father, once more!

Nay Friedrich Wilhelm got new lights in Frankfurt: Rittmeister Katte had an estafette waiting for him there.

Estafette with a certain Letter, which the Rittmeister had picked up in Erlangen, and has shot across by

estafette to wait his Majesty here. Majesty has read with open eyes and throat: Letter from the CrownPrince

to Lieutenant Katte in Berlin: treasonous Flightproject now indisputable as the sun at noon!His Majesty

stept on board the Yacht in such humor as was never seen before: "Detestable rebel and deserter, scandal of

scandals!"it is confidently written everywhere (though Seckendorf diplomatically keeps silence), his

Majesty hustled and tussled the unfortunate CrownPrince, poked the handle of his cane into his face and

made the nose bleed,"Never did a Brandenburg face suffer the like of this!" cried the poor Prince, driven to

the edge of mad ignition and one knows not what: when the Buddenbrocks, at whatever peril interfered; got

the Prince brought on board a different Yacht; and the conflagration moderated for the moment. The Yachts

get under way towards Mainz and down the Rhinestream. The Yachts glide swiftly on the favoring current,

taking advantage of what wind there may be: were we once ashore at Wesel in our own country,wait till

Chapter VI. JOURNEY HOMEWARDS FROM THE REICH; CATASTROPHE ON JOURNEY HOMEWARDS 342

And so it was on these terms that Friedrich made his first acquaintance with the beauties of the

Rhine;readers can judge whether he was in a temper very open to the picturesque. I know not that they

paused at Mainz, or recollected Barbarossa's WorldTournament, or the Hochheim vineyards at all: I see the

young man's Yacht dashing in swift gallop, not without danger, through the Gap of Bingen; dancing wildly

on the boiling whirlpools of St. Goar, well threading the cliffs;the young man gloomily insensible to

danger of life, and charm of the picturesque. Coblenz (CONFLUENTIA), the Moselle and Ehrenbreitstein:

Majesty, smoking on deck if he like, can look at these through grimly pacifying tobacco; but to the

Over against Coblenz, nestled in between the Rhine and the foot of Ehrenbreitstein, [Pollnitz, Memoirs and

Letters, iii. 180.] there, perhaps even now, in his Hunting Lodge of Kerlich yonder, is his Serene Highness

the fat little Kurfurst of Trier, one of those Austrian Schonborns (Brother to him of Bamberg); upon whom

why should we make a call? We are due at Bonn; the fortunate young Kurfurst of Koln, richest Pluralist in

the Church, expects us at his Residence there. Friedrich Wilhelm views the fine Fortress of

Ehrenbreitstein:what would your Majesty think if this were to be yours in a hundred years; this and much

else, by way of compoundinterest for the BergandJulich and other outstanding debts? Courage, your

Majesty!On the fat little Kurfurst, at Kerlich here, we do not call: probably out hunting; "hunts every day,"

At Bonn, where we do step ashore to lodge with a lean Kurfurst, Friedrich Wilhelm strictly charges, in my

(Seckendorf's) hearing, the Trio of Vigilance to have an eye; to see that they bring the Prince on board again,

"LIVING OR DEAD."No fear, your Majesty. Prince listened with silent, almost defiant patience, "MIT

GROSSER GEDULD." [Seckendorf (in Forster, iii. 4).] At Bonn the Prince contrived to confide to

Seckendorf, "That he had in very truth meant to run away: he could not, at the age he was come to, stand such

indignities, actual strokes as in the Camp of Radewitz;and he would have gone long since, had it not been

for the Queen and the Princess his Sister's sake. He could not repent what he had done: and if the King did

not cease beating him in that manner, he would still do it. For loss of his own life, such a life as his had

grown, he cared little; his chief misery was, that those Officers who had known of the thing should come to

misfortune by his means. If the King would pardon these poor gentlemen, he would tell him everything. For

the rest, begged Seckendorf to help him in this labyrinth;nothing could ever so oblige him as help now;"

and more of the like sort. These things he said, at Bonn, to Seckendorf, the fountain of all his woes. [Ibid.]

What Seckendorf's reflections on this his sad handiwork now were, we do not know. Probably he made none,

being a strongminded casehardened old stager; but resolved to do what he could for the poor youth.

Somewhere on this route, at Bonn more likely than elsewhere, Friedrich wrote in pencil three words to

Lieutenant Keith at Wesel, and got it to the PostOffice: "SAUVEZVOUS, TOUT EST DECOUVERT (All

is found out;away)!" [Wilhelmina (i. 265) says it was a Page of the Old Dessauer's, a comrade of Keith's,

who, having known in time, gave him warning. Certain it is, this Note of Friedrich's, which the Books

generally assign as cause, could not have done it (infra, p. 275, and the irrefragable date there).]

Clement August, expensive Kurfurst of Koln (Elector of Cologne, as we call it), who does the hospitalities

here at Bonn, in a grand way, with "above a hundred and fifty chamberlains" for one item, glance at him,

reader; perhaps we shall meet the man again. He is younger Brother of the elegant ambitious Karl Albert,

Kurfurst of Bavaria, whom we have transiently heard of: sons both of them are of that "Elector of Bavaria"

who haunts us in the Marlborough Histories,who joined Louis XIV. in the Succession War, and got hunted

about at such a rate, after Blenheim especially. His Boys, prisoners of the Kaiser, were bred up in a

confiscated state, as sons of a mere private gentleman; nothing visibly ahead of them, at one time, but an

obscure and extremely limited destiny of that kind;though now again, on French favor, and the turn of

Fortune's inconstant wheel, they are mounting very high. Bavaria came all back to the old Elector of Bavaria;

even Marlborough's "Principality of MINDELHEIM" came. [At the Peace of Baden (corollary to

UTRECHT), 1714. Elector had been "banned" (GEACHTET, solemnly drummed out), 1706; nothing but

French pay to live upon, till he got back: died 26th February, 1726, when Karl Albert succeeded (Michaelis,

Chapter VI. JOURNEY HOMEWARDS FROM THE REICH; CATASTROPHE ON JOURNEY HOMEWARDS 343

ii. 255).] And the present Kurfurst, who will not do the Pragmatic Sanction at all, Kurfurst Karl Albert of

Baiern, our old Karl Philip of Mannheim's genealogical "Cousin;"we heard of abstruse colleaguings there,

tendencies to break the Pragmatic Sanction altogether, and reduce it to waste sheepskin! Not impossible Karl

Albert will go high enough. And this Clement August the cadet, he is Kurfurst of Koln; by good

electiontactics, and favor of the French, he has managed to succeed an Uncle here: has succeeded at

Osnabruck in like fashion;poor old Ernst August of Osnabruck (to whom we once saw George I. galloping

to die, and who himself soon after died), his successor is this same Clement August, the turn for a

CATHOLIC Bishop being come at Osnabruck, and the French being kind. Kurfurst of Koln, Bishop of

Osnabruck, ditto of Paderborn and Munster, ditto now of Hildesheim; richest Pluralist of the Church. Goes

about here in a languid expensive manner; "in green coat trimmed with narrow silverlace, small bagwig

done with French garniture (SCHLEIFE) in front; and has red heels to his shoes." A lanky indolent figure,

age now thirty; "tall and slouching of person, long lean face, hooknose, black beard, mouth somewhat

open." [Busching ( Beitrage, iv. 201204: from a certain Travelling Tutor's MS. DIARY of 1731; where also

is detail of the Kurfurst's mode of Dining,elaborate but dreary, both mode and detail). His Schloss is now

the Bonn University.] Has above one hundred and fifty chamberlains;and, I doubt not, is inexpressibly

wearisome to Friedrich Wilhelm in his Majesty's present mood. Patience for the moment, and politeness

above all things!The Trio of Vigilance had no difficulty with Friedrich; brought him on board safe again

next day, and all proceeded on their voyage; the Kurfurst in person politely escorting as far as Koln.

Koln, famed old City of the Three Kings, with its famed Cathedral where those three gentlemen are buried,

here the Kurfurst ceases escorting; and the flat old City is left, exciting what reflections it can. The

architectural Dilettanti of the world gather here; St. Ursula and her Eleven Thousand Virgins were once

massacred here, your Majesty; an English Princess she, it is said. "NARRENPOSSEN (Pack of nonsense)!"

grumbles Majesty.Pleasant Dusseldorf is much more interesting to his Majesty; the pleasant Capital of

Berg, which ought to be ours, if right could be done; if old Pfalz would give up his crotchets; and the bowls,

in the big game playing at Seville and elsewhere, would roll fair! Dusseldorf and that fine Palace of the

Pfalzers, which ought to be mine;and here next is Kaiserswerth, a place of sieges, cannonadings, known to

those I knew. 'MNA, from father to son and grandson it goes on, and there is no end to trouble and war!

His Majesty's next lodging is at Mors; old gaunt Castle in the Town of Mors, which (thanks to Leopold of

AnhaltDessau and the Iron Ramrods) is now his Majesty's in spite of the Dutch. There the lodging is, at an

hour's drive westward from the Rhineshore:where his Majesty quitted the River, I do not know; nor

whether the CrownPrince went to Mors with him, or waited in his Yacht; but guess the latter. His Majesty

intends for Geldern on the morrow, on matters of business thither, for the Town is his: but what would the

Prince, in the present state of things, do there?At Mors, Seckendorf found means to address his Majesty

privately, and snuffled into him suggestions of mercy to the repentant Prince, and to the poor Officers whom

he was so anxious about. "Well, if he WILL confess everything, and leave off his quirks and concealments:

In that dilapidated Castle of Mors,look at it, reader, though in the dark; we may see it again, or the shadow

of it, perhaps by moonlight. A very gaunt old Castle; next to nothing living in it, since the old Dessauer (by

stratagem, and without shot fired) flung out the Dutch, in the TreatyofUtrecht time; Mors Castle and

Territory being indisputably ours, though always withheld from us on pretexts. [Narrative of the march

thither (Night of 7th November, 1712), and dexterous surprisal of the place, in Leopoldi von AnhaltDessau

Leben und Thaten (Anonymous, by RANFFT), pp. 8590;where the Despatch of the astonished Dutch

Commandant himself, to their High Mightinesses, is given. Part of the Orange Heritage, this Mors,came by

the Great Elector's first Wife;but had hung SUB LITE (though the Parchments were plain enough) ever

since our King William's death, and earlier. Neuchatel, accepted instead of ORANGE, and not even of the

value of Mors, was another item of the same lot. Besides which, we shall hear of old Palaces at Loo and other

Chapter VI. JOURNEY HOMEWARDS FROM THE REICH; CATASTROPHE ON JOURNEY HOMEWARDS 344

At Geldern, in the pressure of business next day, his Majesty got word from Wesel, that Lieutenant Keith was

not now to be found in Wesel. "Was last seen there (that we can hear of) certain hours before your Majesty's

Allgracious Order arrived. Had saddled his own horse; came ambling through the Brunen Gate, 'going out to

have a ride,' he said; and did not return.""Keith gone, scandalous Keith, whom I pardoned only few weeks

ago; he too is in the Plot! Will the very Army break its oath, then?" His Majesty bursts into fire and flame, at

these new tidings; orders that Colonel Dumoulin (our expertest roguetracer) go instantly on the scent of

Keith, and follow him till found and caught. Also, on the other hand, that the CrownPrince be constituted

prisoner; sail down to Wesel, prisoner in his Yacht, and await upon the Rhine there his Majesty's arrival.

His Majesty, all business done in Geldern, drives across to Wesel; can see Fritz's Yacht waiting duly in the

River, and black Care hovering over her. It is on the evening of the 12th of August, 1730. And so his Majesty

ends this memorable Tour into the Reich; but has not yet ended the gloomy miseries, for himself and others,

At Berlin dark rumors of this intended flight, and actual Arrest of the CrownPrince, are agitating all the

world; especially Lieutenant Katte, and the Queen and Wilhelmina, as we may suppose. The first news of it

came tragically on the young Princess. [Apparently some rumor FROM FRANKFURT, which she confuses

in her aftermemory with the specific news FROM WESEL; for her dates here, as usual, are all awry

"Mamma had given a ball in honor of Papa's Birthday,"Tuesday, 15th August, 1730;and we were all

dancing in the fine saloons of Monbijou, with pretty intervals in the cool boscages and orangeries of the

place: all of us as happy as could be; Wilhelmina, in particular, dancing at an unusual rate. "We

recommenced the ball after supper. For six years I had not danced before; it was new fruit, and I took my fill

of it, without heeding much what was passing. Madame Bulow, who with others of them had worn long faces

all night, pleading 'illness' when one noticed it, said to me several times: 'It is late, I wish you had

done,''EH, MON DIEU!' I answered, 'let me have enough of dancing this one new time; it may be long

before it comes again.' 'That may well be!' said she. I paid no regard, but continued to divert myself. She

returned to the charge half an hour after: 'Will you end, then!' said she with a vexed air: (you are so engaged,

you have eyes for nothing.''You are in such a humor,' I replied, 'that I know not what to make of

it.''Look at the Queen, then, Madam; and you will cease to reproach me!' A glance which I gave that way

filled me with terror. There sat the Queen, paler than death, in a corner of the room, in low conference with

Sonsfeld and Countess Finkenstein. As my Brother was most in my anxieties, I asked, If it concerned him?

Bulow shrugged her shoulders, answering, 'I don't know at all!' A moment after, the Queen gave Goodnight;

and got into her carriage with me, speaking no word all the way to the Schloss; so that I thought my

Brother must be dead, and I myself took violent palpitations, and Sonsfeld, contrary to orders, had at last to

tell me in the course of the night." Poor Wilhelmina, and poor Mother of Wilhelmina!

The fact, of Arrest, and unknown mischief to the Prince, is taken for certain; but what may be the issues of it;

who besides the Prince have been involved in it, especially who will be found to have been involved, is

matter of dire guess to the three who are most interested here. Lieutenant Katte finds he ought to dispose of

the Prince's effects which were intrusted to him; of the thousand gold Thalers in particular, and, beyond and

before all, of the locked Writingdesk, in which lies the Prince's correspondence, the very Queen and

Princess likely to be concerned in it! Katte despatches these two objects, the Money and the little Desk, in all

secrecy, to Madam Finkenstein, as to the surest hand, with a short Note shadowing out what he thinks they

are: Countess Finkenstein, old General von Finkenstein's Wife, and a second mother to the Prince, she, like

her Husband, a sworn partisan of the Prince and his Mother, shall do with these precious and terrible objects

Madam Finkenstein carries them at once, in deep silence, to the Queen. Huge dismay on the part of the

Queen and Princess. They know too well what Letters may be there: and there is a seal on the Desk, and no

key to it; neither must it, in time coming, seem to have been opened, even if we could now open it. A

desperate pinch, and it must be solved. Female wit and Wilhelmina did solve it, by some preeminently acute

device of their despair; [Wilhelmina, i. 253257.] and contrived to get the Letters out: hundreds of Letters,

enough to be our death if read, says Wilhelmina. These Letters they burnt; and set to writing fast as the pen

would go, other letters in their stead. Fancy the mood of these two Royal Women, and the black whirlwind

they were in. Wilhelmina's despatch was incredible; pen went at the gallop night and day: new letters, of old

dates and of no meaning, are got into the Desk again; the Desk closed, without mark of injury, and shoved

aside while it is yet time.Time presses; his Majesty too, and the events, go at gallop. Here is a Letter from

his Majesty, to a trusty Mistress of the Robes, or whatever she is; which, let it arrive through what softening

"MY DEAR FRAU VON KAMECKE,Fritz has attempted to desert. I have been under the necessity to

have him arrested. I request you to tell my Wife of it in some good way, that the news may not terrify her.

And pity an unhappy Father. "FRIEDRICH WILHELM." [No date: "ARRIVED" (from Wesel, we conclude),

Sunday, "20th August," at the Palace of Berlin (Preuss, i. 42).] The same post brought an order to the Colonel

of the Gernsd'Armes to put that Lieutenant Katte of his under close confinement:we hope the thoughtless

young fellow has already got out of the way? He is getting his saddle altered: fettling about this and that; does

not consider what danger he is in. This same Sunday, his Major met him on the street of Berlin; said, in a

significant tone, "You still HERE, Katte!""I go this night," answered Katte; but he again put it off, did not

go this night; and the order for his arrest did come in. On the morrow morning, Colonel Pannewitz, hoping

now he was not there, went with the rhadamanthine order; and finding the unlucky fellow, was obliged to

Friedrich Wilhelm at Wesel has had rough passages with the Prince and others. On the Saturday evening,

12th August 1730, [Preuss, iv. 473; Seckendorf (Forster, iii. 6) says 13th, but WRONG.] his Majesty had the

Culprit brought on shore, to the Commandant's House, for an interview. Culprit proving less remorseful than

was expected, and evidently not confessing everything, a loud terrible scene ensued; which Friedrich

Wilhelm, the unhappy Father, winded up by drawing his sword to run the unnatural Son through the body.

Old General Mosel, Commandant of Wesel, sprang between them, "Sire, cut me to death, but spare your

Son!" and the sword was got back to its scabbard; and the Prince lodged in a separate room, two sentries with

fixed bayonets keeping watch over him. Friedrich Wilhelm did not see his face again for twelve months to

Military gentlemen of due grimness interrogated the Prince next evening, [Seckendorf (in Forster, iii. 5).]

from a Paper drawn up by his Majesty in the interim. Prince confesses little: Did design to get across the

Rhine to Landau; thence to Strasburg, Paris, in the strictest incognito; intended to volunteer there, thought he

might take French service, profoundly incognito, and signalize himself in the Italian War (just expected to

break out), which might have recovered him some favor from his Majesty: does not tell clearly where his

money came from; shy extremely of elucidating Katte and Keith;in fact, as we perceive, struggles against

mendacity, but will not tell the whole truth. "Let him lie in ward, then; and take what doom the Laws have

appointed for the like of him!" Divine Laws, are they not? Well, yes, your Majesty, divine and human;or

are there perhaps no laws but the human sort, completely explicit in this case? "He is my Colonel at least,"

thinks Friedrich Wilhelm, "and tried to desert and make others desert. If a rebellious CrownPrince, breaking

his Father's heart, find the laws still inarticulate; a deserting Colonel of the Potsdam Regiment finds them

Dumoulin, in the mean while, can make nothing of Keith, the runaway Lieutenant. Dumoulin, with his

sagacious organ, soon came upon the scent of Keith; and has discovered these things about him: One evening,

a week before his Majesty arrived, Sunday evening, 6th August, 1730, [RELATIO EX ACTIS: in Preuss, iv.

473.] Lieutenant Keith, doubtless smelling something, saddled his horse as above mentioned, decided to have

a ride in the country this fine evening, and issued out at the Brunen Gate of Wesel. He is on the right bank of

the Rhine; pleasant yellow fields on this hand and that. He ambles slowly, for a space; then gradually

awakens into speed, into full speed; arrives, within a couple of hours, at Dingden, a Village in the Munster

Territory, safe over the Prussian Border, by the shortest line: and from Dingden rides at more leisure, but

without losing time, into the Dutch Overyssel region, straight towards the Hague. He must be in the Hague?

said Dumoulin to the Official persons, on arriving there,to Meinertshagen the Prussian Ambassador there,

[Seckendorf (Forster, iii. 7).] and to Keppel, Dutch Official gentleman who was once Ambassador at Berlin.

Prussian Ambassador applies, and again applies, in the highest quarters; but we fear they are slack. Dumoulin

discovers that the man was certainly here; Keppel readily admits, He had Keith to dinner a few days ago: but

Dumoulin suspects he is with Lord Chesterfield, the English Ambassador here. A light was seen, for a night

or two, in one of the garretrooms of Lord Chesterfield's house,probably Keith reading?but Keith is not

to be heard of, on inquiry there; and the very light has now gone out. The Colonel at least," distinguished

English Lord is gone to England in these days; but his German Secretary is not gone: the House is inviolable,

impregnable to Prussia. Who knows, in spite of the light going out, but Keith is still there, merely with a

window shutter to screen him? One morning, it becomes apparent Keith is not there. One morning, a

gentleman at the seaside is admiring Dutch fishingskiffs, and how they do sail, "Pooh, Sir, that is nothing.!"

answers a man in multiplex breeches: "the other night I went across to England in one, with an Excellency's

Messenger who could not wait!"Truth is, the Chesterfield Secretary, who forbade lights, took the first

good night for conveying Keith to Scheveningen and the seaside; where a Fisherboat was provided for him;

which carried him, frail craft as it was, safe across to England. Once there, the Authorities took pity on the

poor fellow;furnished the modicum of cash and help; sent him with Admiral Norris to assist the

Portuguese, menaced with Spanish war at this time; among whom he gradually rose to be Major of Horse.

Friedrich Wilhelm cited him by tap of drum three times in Wesel, and also in the Gazettes, native and Dutch;

then, as he did not come, nailed an Effigy of him (cut in four, if I remember) on the gallows there; and

confiscated any property he had. Keith had more pedigree than property; was of Poberow in Pommern; son of

poor gentlefolks there. He sent no word of himself to Prussia, for the next ten years; so that he had become a

kind of myth to many people; to his poor Mother among the rest, who has her tragical surmises about him. He

will appear again; but not to much purpose. His Brother, the Page Keith, is packed into the Fusileer

Regiment, at Wesel here; and there walks sentry, unheard of for the rest of his life. So much for the Keiths.

[Preuss: Friedrich mit seinen Verwandten und Freunden, pp. 330, 392.See, on this and the other points,

Other difficulty there is as to the Prison of the Prince. Wesel is a strong Town; but for obvious reasons one

nearer Berlin, farther from the frontier, would be preferable. Towards Berlin, however, there is no route all on

Prussian ground: from these divided Cleve Countries we have to cross a bit of Hanover, a bit of

HessenCassel: suppose these Serene Highnesses were to interfere? Not likely they will interfere, answer

ancient military men, of due grimness; at any rate, we can go a roundabout road, and they need not know!

That is the method settled on; neighborhood of Berlin, clearly somewhere there, must be the place? Old

Castle of Mittenwalde, in the Wusterhausen environs, let that be the first restingpoint, then; Rochow,

Waldau, and the Wesel FusileerColonel here, sure men, with a trooper or two for escort, shall conduct the

Prisoner. By Treuenbrietzen, by circuitous roads: swift, silent, steady,and with vigilance, as you shall

answer!These preliminaries settled, Friedrich Wilhelm drives off homewards, black Care riding behind

him. He reaches Berlin, Sunday, 27th August; finds a world gone all to a kind of doomsday with him there,

On Sunday evening, 27th August, 1730, his Majesty, who had rested overnight at Potsdam from his rapid

journey, drove into Berlin between four and five in the afternoon. Deserter Fritz is following, under escort of

his three military gentlemen, at a slower rate and by circuitous routes, so as to avoid the territories of Hanover

and Hessen,towards Mittenwalde in the Wusterhausen neighborhood. The military gentlemen are vigilant

as Argus, and, though pitying the poor Prince, must be rigorous as Rhadamanthus. His attempts at escape, of

which tradition mentions more than one, they will not report to Papa, nor even notice to the Prince himself;

but will take care to render futile, one and all: his Majesty may be secure on that score.

The scenes that follow are unusual in royal history; and having been reported in the world with infinite noise

and censure, made up of laughter and horror, it will behoove us to be the more exact in relating them as they

actually befell. Very difficult to pull, out of that ravelled cartload of chaotic thrums, here a thread and there

a thread, capable of being brought to the straight state, and woven into legible narrative! But perhaps, by that

method the mingled laughter and horror will modify itself a little. What we can well say is, that pity also

ought not to be wanting. The next six months were undoubtedly by far the wretchedest of Friedrich Wilhelm's

life. The poor King, except that he was not conscious of intending wrong, but much the reverse, walked in the

hollow night of Gehenna, all that while, and was often like to be driven mad by the turn things had taken.

Here is scene first: Wilhelmina reports his Majesty's arrival that Sunday afternoon, to the following effect;

"The Queen was alone in his Majesty's Apartment, waiting for him as he approached. At sight of her, in the

distance, he called out: 'Your losel of a Son (VOTRE INDIGNE FILS) has ended at last; you have done with

HIM,' or words to that effect. 'What,' cried the Queen, 'you have had the barbarity to kill him?' 'Yes, I tell

you,but where is the sealed Desk?' The Queen went to her own Apartment to fetch it; I ran in to her there

for a moment: she was out of herself, wringing her hands, crying incessantly, and said without ceasing: 'MON

DIEU, MON FILS (O God, my Son)!' Breath failed me; I fell fainting into the arms of Madame de

Sonsfeld." The Queen took away the Writingcase; King tore out the letters, and went off; upon which the

"We learned from some attendant that, at least, my Brother was not dead. The King now came back. We all

ran to kiss his hands; but me he no sooner noticed than rage and fury took possession of him. He became

black in the face, his eyes sparkling fire, his mouth foaming. 'Infamous CANAILLE,' said he; 'darest thou

show thyself before me? Go, keep thy scoundrel of a Brother company!' And so saying, he seized me with

one hand, slapping me on the face with the other,'clenched as a fist (POING),'several blows; one of

which struck me on the temple, so that I fell back, and should have split my head against a corner of the

wainscot, had not Madame de Sonsfeld caught me by the headdress and broken the fall. I lay on the ground

without consciousness. The King, in a frenzy, was for striking me with his feet; had not the Queen, my

Sisters, and the rest, run between, and those who were present prevented him. They all ranked themselves

round me, which gave Mesdames de Kamecke and Sonsfeld time to pick me up. They put me in a chair in the

embrasure of a window; threw water on my face to bring me to life: which care I lamentably reproached them

with, death being a thousand times better, in the pass things had come to. The Queen kept shrieking, her

firmness had quite left her: she wrung her hands, and ran in despair up and down the room. The King's face

was so disfigured with rage, it was frightful to look upon. The little ones were on their knees, begging for

poor little beings, what a group: Amelia, the youngest girl, about six; Henri, in his bits of trousers, hardly

over four! For the rest, I perceive, this room was on the first or a lower floor, and such noises were very

audible. The Guard had turned out at the noise; and a crowd was collecting to see and hear: "Move on! Move

"The King had now changed his tune: he admitted that my Brother was still alive; but vowed horribly he

would put him to death, and lay me fast within four walls for the rest of my life. He accused me of being the

Prince's accomplice, whose crime was high treason;also of having an intrigue of love with Katte, to whom,

he said, I had borne several children." The timid Gouvernante flamed up at this unheardof insult: "'That is

not true,' said she, fiercely; 'whoever has told your Majesty such a thing has told a lie!' 'Oh, spare my Brother,

and I will marry the Duke of Weissenfels,' whimpered I; but in the great noise he did not hear; and while I

"Hustling aside to get rid of the handkerchief, I saw Katte crossing the Square. Four soldiers were conducting

him to the King; trunks, my Brother's and his own, sealed, were coming on in the rear. Pale and downcast, he

took off his hat to salute me," poor Katte, to me always so prostrate in silent respect, and now so unhappy!

"A moment after, the King, hearing he was come, went out exclaiming, 'Now I shall have proof about the

scoundrel Fritz and the offscouring (CANAILLE) Wilhelmina; clear proofs to cut the heads off them.'"The

two Hofdames again interfered; and one of them, Kamecke it was, rebuked him; told him, in the tone of a

prophetess, To take care what he was doing. Whom his Majesty gazed into with astonishment, but rather with

And so his Majesty flung out, seeking Katte; and vanished: Wilhelmina saw no more of him for about a year

after; being ordered to her room, and kept prisoner there on low diet, with sentries guarding her doors, and no

This is the celebrated assault of paternal Majesty on Wilhelmina; the rumor of which has gone into all lands,

exciting wonder and horror, but could not be so exact as this account at first hand. Naturally the crowd of

streetpassengers, once dispersed by the Guard, carried the matter abroad, and there was no end of

sympathetic exaggerations. Report ran in Berlin, for example, that the poor Princess was killed, beaten or

trampled to death; which we clearly see she was not. Voltaire, in that mass of angry calumnies, very

mendacious indeed, which he calls VIE PRIVEE DU ROI DE PRUSSE, mentions the matter with emphasis;

and says farther, The Princess once did him (Voltaire) the "honor to show him a black mark she carried on

her breast ever after;"which is likelier to be false than true. Captain Guy Dickens, the Legationary Captain,

who seems a clear, ingenuous and ingenious man, and of course had access to the highest circles of refined

rumor, reports the matter about ten days after, with several errors, in this manner:

"BERLIN, 5th SEPTEMBER, 1730. Four or five days ago [by the Almanac nine, and directly on his

Majesty's return, which Dickens had announced a week ago without that fact attached], the King dreadfully

illtreated Wilhelmina in bed [not in bed at all]; whole Castle (SCHLOSS or Palace) was alarmed; Guard

turned out," to clear away the crowd, as we perceive. Not properly a crowd, such was not permissible

there: but a stagnation of the passersby would naturally ensue on that esplanade; till the Guard turned out,

and indicated with emphasis, "Move on!" Dickens hears farther that "the Queen fares no better;"such is the

Poor Katte had a hard audience of it too. He fell at Friedrich Wilhelm's feet; and was spurned and

caned;for the rest, beyond what was already evident, had little or nothing to confess: Intention of flight and

of accompanying in flight very undeniable; although preliminaries and ulterior conditions of said flight not

perfectly known to Katte; known only that the thought of raising trouble in foreign Courts, or the least vestige

of treason against his Majesty, had not entered even into their dreams. A name or two of persons who had

known, or guessed, of these operations, is wrung from Katte;name of a Lieutenant Spaen, for one; who,

being on guard, had admitted Katte into Potsdam once or twice in disguise:for him and for the like of him,

of whatever rank or whichever sex, let arrests be made out, and the scent as with sleuthhounds be diligently

followed on all sides; and Katte, stript of his uniform, be locked up in the grimmest manner. Berlin, with the

As for the CrownPrince, prosecuting his circuitous route, he arrives safe at Mittenwalde; is lodged in the old

Castle there, I think, for two nights (but the date, in these indexless Books, is blown away again), in a room

bare of all things, with sentries at the door; and looks out, expecting Grumkow and the Officials to make

assault on him. One of these Officials, a certain "Gerber, Fiscal General," who, as head of Prussian Fiscals

(kind of Public Prosecutor, or supreme Essence of Bailiffs, Catchpoles and GrandJuries all in one), wears a

red cloak,gave the Prince a dreadful start. Red cloak is the Berlin Hangman's or Headsman's dress; and

poor Friedrich had the idea his end had summarily come in this manner. Soon seeing it was otherwise, his

He fronted Grumkow and the Officials, with a high, almost contemptuous look; answered promptly,if

possible, without lying, and yet without telling anything;showed selfpossession, pride; retorted

sometimes, "Have you nothing more to ask?" Grumkow finding there was no way made into anything, not

even into the secret of the Writingcase and the Royal Women's operations there, began at last, as Wilhelmina

says, to hint, That in his Majesty's service there were means of bringing out the truth in spite of refractory

humors; that there was a thing called the rack, not yet abolished in his Prussian Majesty's dominions!

Friedrich owned afterwards, his blood ran cold. However, he put on a high look: "A Hangman, such as you,

naturally takes pleasure in talking of his tools and his trade: but on me they will not produce any effect. I

have owned everything;and almost regret to have done so. For it is not my part to stand questionings and

bandy responses with a COQUIN COMME VOUS, scoundrel like you," reports Wilhelmina, [i. 280.] though

we hope the actual term was slightly less candid!Grumkow gathered his notes together; and went his ways,

with the man in red cloak and the rest; thus finishing the scene in Mittenwalde. Mittenwalde, which we used

to know long since, in our Wusterhausen rides with poor Duhan; little thinking what awaited us there one

Mittenwalde being finished, Friedrich, on Monday, 6th September, 1730, is sent forward to Custrin, a strong

little town in a quiet Country, some sixty or seventy miles eastward of Berlin. On the evening of the 5th he

finds himself lodged in a strong room of the Fortress there,room consisting af bare walls lighted from far

up; no furniture, not even the needfulest; everything indicating that the proud spirit and the iron laws shall

His sword was taken from him at Wesel; sword, uniform, every mark of dignity, all are now gone: he is clad

in brown prisondress of the plainest cut and cloth; his diet is fixed at tenpence a day ("to be got from the

cook's shop, six groschen for dinner, four for supper"); [Order, 14th September, 1730 (in Forster, i. 372).]

food to be cut for him, no knife allowed. Room is to be opened, morning, noon and evening, "on the average

not above four minutes each time;" lights, or single tallowlight, to be extinguished at seven P.M. Absolute

solitude; no flute allowed, far from it; no books allowed, except the Bible and a PrayerBook,or perhaps

Noltenius's MANUAL, if he took a hankering for it. There, shut out from the babble of fools, and conversing

only with the dumb Veracities, with the huge inarticulate meanings of Destiny, Necessity and Eternity, let the

fool of a Fritz bethink himself, if there is any thought in him! There, among the Bogs of the Oder, the very

sedges getting brown all round him, and the very curlews flying off for happier climes, let him wait, till the

As for Wilhelmina, she is close prisoner in her apartments in the Berlin Palaoe, sentries pacing at every

outlet, for many months to come. Wilhelmina almost rather likes it, such a dog of an existence has she had

hitherto, for want of being well let alone. She plays, reads; composes music; smuggles letters to and from

Mamma,one in Pencil, from my Brother even, O Heavens! Wilhelmina weeps, now and then, with her

good Sonsfeld; hopes nevertheless there will be some dawn to this RAGNAROK, or general "twilight of the

gods." Friedrich Wilhelm, convinced that England has had a hand in this treason, signifies officially to his

Excellency Captain Dickens, That the English negotiationa are concluded; that neither in the way of

SingleMarriage nor of DoubleMarriage will he have anything more to do with England. "Well," answers

England, "who can help it? Negotiation was not quite of our seeking. Let it so end!" [Dickens's Despatch,

25th September, 1730; and Harrington's Answer to it, of 6th October: Seckendorf (in Forster, iii. 9), 23d

September.]Nay at dinner one day (Seckendorf reports, while Fritz was on the road to Custrin) he proposes

the toast, "Downfall of England!" [Seckendorf (in Forster, iii. 11).] and would have had the Queen drink it;

who naturally wept, but I conjecture could not be made to drink. Her Majesty is a weeping, almost

brokenhearted woman; his Majesty a raging, almost brokenhearted man. Seckendorf and Grumkow are, as

it were, too victorious; and now have their apprehensions on that latter score. But they look on with

countenanoes well veiled, and touch the helm judiciously in TobaccoParliament, intent on the nearest harbor

Her Majesty nevertheless steadily persists; merely sinks deeper out of sight with her English schemes;

ducking till the wave go by. Messages, desperate appeals still go, through Mamsell Bulow, Wilhelmina's

Hofdame, and other channels; nay Wilhelmina thinks there were still intentions on the part of England, and

that the nonfulfilment of them at the last moment turned on accident; English "Courier arrived some hours

too late," thinks Wilhelmina. [Wilhelmina (i. 369, 384), and Preuss and others after her.] But that is a

mistake. The negotiation, in spite of her Majesty's endeavors, was essentially out; England, after such a

In that Writingcase his Majesty found what we know; nothing but mysterious effects of female art, and no

light whatever. It is a great source of wrath and of sorrow to him, that neither in the Writingcase, nor in

Katte's or the Prince's socalled "Confessions," can the thing be seen into. A deeper bottom it must have,

thinks his Majesty, but knows not what or where. To overturn the Country, belike; and fling the Kaiser, and

European Balance of Power, bottom uppermost? Me they presumably meant to poison! he tells Seckendorf

one day. [Dickens's Despatch, 16th September, 1730.] Was ever Father more careful for his children, soul

and body? Anxious, to excess, to bring them up in orthodox nurture and admonition: and this is how they

reward me, Herr Feldzeugmeister! "Had he honestly confessed, and told me the whole truth, at Wesel, I

would have made it up with him quietly there. But now it must go its lengths; and the whole world shall be

His Majesty is in a flaming height. He arrests, punishes and banishes, where there is trace of cooperation or

connection with Deserter Fritz and his schemes. The Bulows, brother and sister, brother in the King's service,

sister in Wilhelmina's, respectable goldstick people, originally of Hanover, are hurled out to Lithuania and the

world's end: let them live in Memel, and repent as they can. Minister Knyphausen, always of English

tendencies, he, with his Wife,to whom it is specially hard, while General Schwerin, gallant witty Kurt,

once of Mecklenburg, stays behind, is ordered to disappear, and follow his private rural business far off;

no minister, ever more. The Lieutenant Spaen of the Giant Regiment, who kept false watch, and did not tell

of Katte, gets cashiering and a year in Spandau. He wandered elsewhither, and came to something

afterwards, poor Spaen. [Preuss, i. 63, 66.] Bookseller Hanau with this bad Fritz's Books: To Memel with him

It is dangerous to have lent the CrownPrince money, contrary to the Royal Edict; lucky if loss of your

money will settle the account. Witness French Montholieu, for one; Count, or whatever he styled himself;

nailed to the gallows (in effigy) after he had fled. It is dangerous to have spoken kindly to the CrownPrince,

or almost to have been spoken to by him. Doris Ritter, a comely enough good girl, nothing of a beauty, but

given to music, Potsdam CANTOR'S (Precentor's) daughter, has chanced to be standing in the door, perhaps

to be singing within doors, once or twice, when the Prince passed that way: Prince inquired about her music,

gave her music, spoke a civility, as young men will,nothing more, upon my honor; though his Majesty

believes there was much more; and condemns poor Doris to be whipt by the Beadle, and beat hemp for three

years. Rhadamanthus is a strict judge, your Majesty; and might be a trifle better informed!Poor Doris got

out of this sad Pickle, on her own strength; and wedded, and did well enough, Prince and King happily

leaving her alone thenceforth. Voltaire, twenty years after, had the pleasure of seeing her at Berlin: "Wife of

one Shommers, Clerk of the HackneyCoach Office,"read, Schomer, FARMER of the Berlin

HackneyCoach Enterprise in general; decidedly a poor man. Wife, by this time, was grown hard enough of

feature: "tall, lean; looked like a Sibyl; not the least appearance how she could ever have deserved to be whipt

for a Prince." [Voltaire, OEuvres (calumnious Vie Privee du Roi de Prusse ), ii. 51, 52. Preuss, i. 64, 66.]

The excellent Tutor of the CrownPrince, good Duhan de Jandun, for what fault or complicity we know not,

is hurled off to Memel; ordered to live there,on what resources is equally unknown. Apparently his fault

was the general one, of having miseducated the Prince, and introduced these French Literatures, foreign

poisonous elements of thought and practice into the mind of his Pupil, which have ruined the young man. For

his Majesty perceives that there lies the source of it; that only total perversion of the heart and judgment, first

of all, can have brought about these dreadful issues of conduct. And indeed his Majesty understands, on

credible information, that Deserter Fritz entertains very heterodox opinions; opinion on Predestination, for

one;which is itself calculated to be the very mother of mischief, in a young mind inclined to evil. The

heresy about Predestination, or the "FREIE GNADENWAHL (Election by Free Grace)," as his Majesty

terms it, according to which a man is preappointed from all Eternity either to salvation or the opposite (which

is Fritz's notion, and indeed is Calvin's, and that of many benighted creatures, this Editor among them),

appears to his Majesty an altogether shocking one; nor would the whole Synod of Dort, or Calvin, or St.

Augustine in person, aided by a ThirtyEditor power, reconcile his Majesty's practical judgment to such a

tenet. What! May not Deserter Fritz say to himself, even now, or in whatever other deeps of sin he may fall

into, "I was foredoomed to it: how could I, or how can I, help it?" The mind of his Majesty shudders, as if

looking over the edge of an abyss. He is meditating much whether nothing can be done to save the lost Fritz,

at least the soul of him, from this horrible delusion:hurls forth your fine Duhan, with his metaphysics, to

remote Memel, as the first step. And signifies withal, though as yet only historically and in a speculative way,

to Finkenstein and Kalkstein themselves, That their method of training up a young soul, to do God's will, and

accomplish useful work in this world, does by no means appear to the royal mind an admirable one! [His

Letter to them (3d December, 1730) in Forster, ii. 382.] Finkenstein and Kalkstein were always covertly

That the treasonous mystery of this CrownPrince (parricidal, it is likely, and tending to upset the Universe)

must be investigated to the very bottom, and be condignly punished, probably with death, his Majesty

perceives too well; and also what terrible difficulties, formal and essential, there will be, But whatever

become of his perishable life, ought not, if possible, the soul of him to be saved from the claws of Satan!

"Claws of Satan;" "brand from the burning;" "for Christ our Saviour's sake;" "in the name of the most

merciful God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, Amen:"so Friedrich Wilhelm phrases it, in those confused old

documents and Cabinet Letters of his; [Forster, i. 374, 379, which awaken a strange feeling in the attentive

reader; and show us the ruggedest of human creatures melted into blubbering tenderness, and growling

huskily something which we perceive is real prayer. Here has a business fallen out, such as seldom occurred

The rumor of these things naturally fills all minds, and occupies all human tongues, in Berlin and Prussia,

though an Edict threatens, That the tongues shall be cut out which speak of them in any way, [Dickens, of 7th

November, 1730.] and sounds far and wide into foreign Courts and Countries, where there is no such Edict.

Friedrich Wilhelm's conduct, looked at from without, appears that of a hideous royal ogre, or blind

anthropophagous Polyphemus fallen mad. Looked at from within, where the Polyphemus has his reasons, and

a kind of inner rushlight to enlighten his path; and is not bent on maneating, but on discipline in spite of

difficulties,it is a wild enough piece of humanity, not so much ludicrous as tragical. Never was a royal bear

so led about before by a pair of conjuring pipers in the market, or brought to such a pass in his dancing for

"General Ginkel, the Dutch Ambassador here," writes Dickens, "told me of an interview he had with the

King;" being ordered by their High Mightinesses to solicit his Majesty in this matter. King "harbors 'most

monstrous wicked designs, not fit to be spoken of in words,' reports Ginkel. 'It is certain,' added he, 'if the

King of Prussia continue in the mind he is in at present, we shall see scenes here as wicked and bloody as any

that were ever heard of since the creation of the world.' 'Will sacrifice his whole family,' not the

CrownPrince alone; 'everybody except Grumkow being, as he fancies, in conspiracy against him.' Poor

enchanted King!'And all these things he said with such imprecations and disordered looks, foaming at the

mouth all the while, as it was terrible either to see or hear.'" That is Ginkel's report, as Dickens conveys it.

[Despatch, 7th September, 1730.] Another time, on new order, a month later, when Ginkel went again to

speak a word for the poor Prisoner, he found his Majesty clothed not in delirious thunder, but in sorrowful

thick fog; Ginkel "was the less able to judge what the King of Prussia meant to do with his Son, as it was

Poor Friedrich Wilhelm, through these months, wanders about, shifting from room to room, in the

nighttime, like a man possessed by evil fiends; "orders his carriage for Wusterhausen at two in the

morning," but finds he is no better there, and returns; drinks a great deal, "has not gone to bed sober for a

month past." [Ib. 19th December, 1730.] One night he comes gliding like a perturbed ghost, about midnight,

with his candle in his hand, into the Queen's apartment; says, wildly staring, "He thinks there is something

haunting him:"O Feekin, erring disobedient Wife, wilt not thou protect me, after all? Whither can I fly

when haunted, except to thee? Feekin, like a prudent woman, makes no criticism; orders that his Majesty's

bed be made up in her apartment till these phenomena cease. [Ib. 27th February, 1731.] A muchagitated

The question what is to be done with this unhappy CrownPrince, a Deserter from the army, a rebel against

the paternal Majesty, and a believer in the doctrine of Election by Free Grace, or that a man's good or ill

conduct is foredoomed upon him by decree of God,becomes more intricate the longer one thinks of it.

Seckendorf and Grumkow, alarmed at being too victorious, are set against violent high methods; and suggest

this and that consideration: "Who is it that can legally try, condemn, or summon to his bar, a CrownPrince?

He is Prince of the Empire, as well as your Majesty's Son!""Well, he is Heir of the Sovereign Majesty in

At length, after six or seven weeks of abstruse meditation, it is settled in TobaccoParliament and the royal

breast, That Katte and the CrownPrince, as Deserters from the Prussian Army, can and shall be tried by

CourtMartial; to that no power, on the earth or out of it, can have any objection worth attending to. Let a fair

CourtMartial of our highest military characters be selected and got ready. Let that, as a voice of

Rhadamanthus, speak upon the two culprits; and tell us what is to be done. By the middle of October, things

Poor Friedrich meanwhile has had a grim time of it, these two months back; left alone, in coarse brown

prisondress, within his four bare walls at Custrin; in uninterrupted, unfathomable colloquy with the

Destinies and the Necessities there. The King's stern orders must be fulfilled to the letter; the CrownPrince

is immured in that manner. At Berlin, there are the wildest rumors as to the state he has fallen into; "covered

with rags and vermin, unshaven, no comb allowed him, lights his own fire," says one testimony, which

Captain Dickens thinks worth reporting. For the truth is, no unofficial eye can see the CrownPrince, or

know what state he is in. And we find, in spite of the Edict, "tongues," not "cut out," kept wagging at a high

rate. "People of all ranks are unspeakably indignant" at certain heights of the business: "Margravine Albert

said publicly, 'A tyrant as bad as Nero!'" [Dickens, 7th November, 2d December, 1730.]

How long the CrownPrince's defiant humor held out, we are not told. By the middle of October there comes

proposal of "entire confession" from the Prince; and though, when Papa sends deputies accordingly, there is

next to nothing new confessed, and Papa's anger blazes out again, probably we may take this as the

turningpoint on his Son's part. With him, of course, that mood of mind could not last. There is no wildest

lion but, finding his bars are made of iron, ceases to bite them. The CrownPrince there, in his horror,

indignation and despair, had a lucid human judgment in him, too; loyal to facts, and well knowing their

inexorable nature, Just sentiments are in this young man, not capable of permanent distortion into spasm by

any form of injustice laid on them. It is not long till he begins to discern, athwart this terrible, quasiinfernal

element, that so the facts are; and that nothing but destruction, and no honor that were not dishonor, will be

got by not conforming to the facts. My Father may be a tyrant, and driven mad against me: well, well, let not

Grumkow is busy on the mild side of the business; of course Grumkow and all official men. Grumkow

cannot but ask himself this question among others: How if the King should suddenly die upon us! Grumkow

is out at Custrin, and again out; explaining to the Prince, what the enormous situation is; how inflexible,

inexorable, and of peril and horror incalculable to Mother and Sister and self and royal House; and that there

is one possibility of good issue, and only one: that of loyally yielding, where one cannot resist. By degrees,

some lurid troublous but perceptible lightgleam breaks athwart the black whirlwind of our indignation and

despair; and saner thoughts begin to insinuate themselves. "Obey, thou art not the strongest, there are stronger

Moreover, the first sweep of royal fury being past, his Majesty's stern regulations at Custrin began to relax in

fulfilment; to be obeyed only by those immediately responsible, and in letter rather than in spirit even by

those. President von Munchow who is head of the DomainKammer, chief representative of Government at

Custrin, and resides in the Fortress there, ventures after a little, the Prince's doors being closed as we saw, to

have an orifice bored through the floor above, and thereby to communicate with the Prince, and

sympathetically ask, What he can do for him? Many things, books among others, are, under cunning

contrivance, smuggled in by the judicious Munchow, willing to risk himself in such a service. For example,

Munchow has a son, a clever boy of seven years old; who, to the wonder of neighbors, goes into

child'spetticoats again; and testifies the liveliest desire to be admitted to the Prince, and bear him company a

little! Surely the law of Nocompany does not extend to that of an innocent child? The innocent child has a

row of pockets all round the inside of his long gown; and goes laden, miscellaneously, like a ship of the

desert, or cockboat not forbidden to cross the line. Then there are stools, one stool at least indispensable to

human nature; and the inside of this, once you open it, is a chestofdrawers, containing paper, ink, new

literature and much else. No end to Munchow'a goodwill, and his ingenuity is great. [Preuss, i. 46.]

A Captain Fouquet also, furthered I think by the Old Dessauer, whose man he is, comes to Custrin Garrison,

on duty or as volunteer, by and by. He is an old friend of the Prince's; ran off, being the Dessauer's little

page, to the Siege of Stralsund, long ago, to be the Dessauer's little soldier there: a readywitted,

hottempered, highly estimable man; and his real duty here is to do the Prince what service may be possible.

He is often with the Prince; their light is extinguished precisely at seven o'clock: "Very well, Lieutenant," he

would say, "you have done your orders to the CrownPrince's light. But his Majesty has no concern with

Captain Fouquet's candles!" and thereupon would light a pair. Nay, I have heard of Lieutenants who

punctually blew out the Prince's light, as a matter of duty and command; and then kindled it again, as a

civility left free to human nature. In short, his Majesty's orders can only be fulfilled to the letter;

Commandant Lepel and all Officers are willing not to see where they can help seeing. Even in the letter his

Meanwhile the CourtMartial, selected with intense study, installs itself at Copenick; and on the 25th of

October commences work. This Deserter CrownPrince and his accomplices, especially Katte his chief

accomplice, what is to be done with them? Copenick lies on the road to Custrin, within a morning's drive of

Berlin; there is an ancient Palace here, and room for a CourtMartial. "QUE FAIRE? ILS ONT DES

CANONS!" said the old Prussian Raths, wandering about in these woods, when Gustavus and his Swedes

were at the door. "QUE FAIRE?" may the new military gentlemen think to themselves, here again, while the

The Court consists of a President, LieutenantGeneral Schulenburg, an elderly Malplaquet gentleman of

good experience; one of the many Schulenburgs conspicuous for soldiering, and otherwise, in those times. He

is nephew of George I.'s lean mistress; who also was a Schulenburg originally, and conspicuous not for

soldiering. Lean mistress we say; not the Fat one, or cataract of tallow, with eyebrows like a cartwheel, and

dim coaly disks for eyes, who was George I.'s halfsister, probably not his mistress at all; and who now, as

Countess of Darlington so called, sits at Isleworth with good fat pensions, and a tame raven

comeofwill,probably the SOUL of George I. in some form. [See Walpole, Reminiscences. ] Not this

one, we say:but the threadpaper Duchess of Kendal, actual Exmistress; who tore her hair on the road

when apoplexy overtook poor George, and who now attends chapel diligently, poor old anatomy or lean

human nailrod. For the sake of the English reader searching into what is called "History," I, with

indignation, endeavor to discriminate these two beings once again; that each may be each, till both are

happily forgotten to all eternity. It was the latter, lean maypole or nailrod one, that was Aunt of

Schulenburg, the elderly Malplaquet gentleman who now presides at Copenick. And let the reader remember

The Court consisted farther of three MajorGenerals, among whom I name only Grumkow (MajorGeneral

by rank though more of a diplomatist and blackartist than a soldier), and Schwerin, Kurt von Schwerin of

Mecklenburg (whom Madam Knyphausen regrets, in her now exile to the Country); three Colonels, Derschau

one of them; three LieutenantColonels, three Majors and three Captains, all of whom shall be nameless

here. Lastly come three of the "Auditor" or the JudgeAdvocate sort: Mylius, the Compiler of sad Prussian

Quartos, known to some; Gerber, whose red cloak has frightened us once already; and the Auditor of Katte's

regiment. A complete CourtMartial, and of symmetrical structure, by the rule of three;of whose

proceedings we know mainly the result, nor seek much to know more. This Court met on Wednesday, 25th

October, 1730, in the little Town of Copenick; and in six days had ended, signed, sealed and despatched to

his Majesty; and got back to Berlin on the Tuesday next. His Majesty, who is now at Wusterhausen, in

Accomplices of the CrownPrince are two: FIRST, Lieutenant Keith, actual deserter (who cannot be caught):

To be hanged in effigy, cut in four quarters, and nailed to the gallows at Wesel:GOOD, says his Majesty.

SECONDLY, Lieutenant Katte of the Gensd'Armes, intended deserter, not actually deserting, and much

tempted thereto: All things considered, Perpetual Fortress Arrest to Lieutenant Katte:NOT GOOD this;

BAD this, thinks Majesty; this provokes from his Majesty an angry rebuke to the too lax CourtMartial.

Rebuke which can still be read, in growling, unlucid phraseology; but with a rhadamanthine idea clear

enough in it, and with a practical purport only too clear: That Katte was a sworn soldier, of the

Gensd'Armes even, or Bodyguard of the Prussian Majesty; and did nevertheless, in the teeth of his oath,

"worship the Rising Sun" when minded to desert; did plot and colleague with foreign Courts in aid of said

Rising Sun, and of an intended high crime against the Prussian Majesty itself on Rising Sun's part; far from at

once revealing the same, as duty ordered Lieutenant Katte to do. That Katte's crime amounts to hightreason

(CRIMEN LOESOE MAJESTATIS); that the rule is, FIAT JUSTITIA, ET PEREAT MUNDUS;and that,

in brief, Katte's doom is, and is hereby declared to be, Death. Death by the gallows and hot pincers is the

usual doom of Traitors; but his Majesty will say in this case, Death by the sword and headsman simply;

certain circumstances moving the royal clemency to go so far, no farther. And the CourtMartial has

straightway to apprise Katte of this same: and so doing, "shall say, That his Majesty is sorry for Katte: but

that it is better he die than that justice depart out of the world." [Preuss, i. 44.]

This is the iron doom of Katte; which no prayer or influence of mortal will avail to alter,lest justice depart

out of the world. Katte's Father is a General of rank, Commandant of Konigsberg at this moment; Katte's

Grandfather by the Mother's side, old Fieldmarshal Wartensleben, is a man in good favor with Friedrich

Wilhelm, and of high esteem and mark in his country for half a century past. But all this can effect nothing.

Old Wartensleben thinks of the Daughter he lost; for happily Katte's Mother is dead long since. Old

Wartensleben writes to Friedrich Wilhelm; his mournful Letter, and Friedrich Wilhelm's mournful but

inexorable answer, can be read in the Histories; but show only what we already know.

Katte's Mother, Fieldmarshal Wartensleben's Daughter, died in 1706; leaving Katte only two years old. He is

now twentysix; very young for such grave issues; and his fate is certainly very hard. Poor young soul, he did

not resist farther, or quarrel with the inevitable and inexorable. He listened to Chaplain Muller of the

Gensd'Armes; admitted profoundly, after his fashion, that the great God was just, and the poor Katte sinful,

foolish, only to be saved by miracle of mercy; and piously prepared himself to die on these terms. There are

three Letters of his to his Grandfather, which can still be read, one of them in Wilhelmina's Book,

[Wilhelmina, i. 302.] the sound of it like that of dirges borne on the wind, Wilhelmina evidently pities Katte

very tenderly; in her heart she has a fine royalmaiden kind of feeling to the poor youth. He did heartily

repent and submit; left with Chaplain Muller a Paper of pious considerations, admonishing the Prince to

submit. These are Katte's last employments in his prison at Berlin, after sentence had gone forth.

On Sunday evening, 6th November, it is intimated to him, unexpectedly at the moment, that he has to go to

Custrin, and there die;carriage now waiting at the gate. Katte masters the sudden flurry; signifies that all is

ready, then; and so, under charge of his old Major and two brother Officers, who, and Chaplain Muller, are in

the carriage with him, a troop of his own old Cavalry Regiment escorting, he leaves Berlin (rather on sudden

summons); drives all night, towards Custrin and immediate death. Words of sympathy were not wanting, to

which Katte answered cheerily; grim faces wore a cloud of sorrow for the poor youth that night. Chaplain

Muller's exhortations were fervent and continual; and, from time to time, there were heard, hoarsely

melodious through the damp darkness and the noise of wheels, snatches of "devotional singing," led by

It was in the gray of the winter morning, 6th November, 1730, that Katte arrived in Custrin garrison. He took

kind leave of Major and men: Adieu, my brothers; good be with you evermore!And, about nine o'clock he

is on the road towards the Rampart of the Castle, where a scaffold stands. Katte wore, by order, a brown dress

exactly like the Prince's; the Prince is already brought down into a lower room to see Katte as he passes (to

"see Katte die," had been the royal order; but they smuggled that into abeyance); and Katte knows he shall

see him. Faithful Muller was in the deathcar along with Katte: and he had adjoined to himself one Besserer,

the Chaplain of the Garrison, in this sad function, since arriving. Here is a glimpse from Besserer, which we

"His (Katte's) eyes were mostly directed to God; and we (Muller and I), on our part, strove to hold his heart

up heavenwards, by presenting the examples of those who had died in the Lord,as of God's Son himself,

and Stephen, and the Thief on the Cross,till, under such discoursing, we approached the Castle. Here, after

long wistful looking about, he did get sight of his beloved Jonathan," Royal Highness the CrownPrince, "at

a window in the Castle; from whom he, with the politest and most tender expression, spoken in French, took

leave, with no little emotion of sorrow." [Letter to Katte's Father (Extract, in Preuss, Friedrich mit Freunden

President Munchow and the Commandant were with the Prince; whose emotions one may fancy; but not

describe. Seldom did any Prince or man stand in such a predicament. Vain to say, and again say: "In the name

of God, I ask you, stop the execution till I write to the King!" Impossible that; as easily stop the course of the

stars. And so here Katte comes; cheerful loyalty still beaming on his face, death now nigh.

"PARDONNEZMOI, MON CHER KATTE!" cried Priedrich in a tone: Pardon me, dear Katte; oh, that this

should be what I have done for you!"Death is sweet for a Prince I love so well," said Katte, "LA MORT

EST DOUCE POUR UN SI AIMABLE PRINCE;" [Wilhelmina, i. 307; Preuss, i. 45.] and fared on,round

some angle of the Fortress, it appears; not in sight of Friedrich; who sank into a faint, and had seen his last

The body lay all day upon the scaffold, by royal order; and was buried at night obscurely in the common

churchyard; friends, in silence, took mark of the place against better times,and Katte's dust now lies

"Never was such a transaction before or since, in Modern History," cries the angry reader: "cruel, like the

grinding of human hearts under millstones, like" Or indeed like the doings of the gods, which are cruel,

though not that alone? This is what, after much sorting and sifting, I could get to know about the definite

facts of it. Commentary, not likely to be very final at this epoch, the reader himself shall supply at discretion.

Friedrich's feelings at this juncture are not made known to us by himself in the least; or credibly by others in

any considerable degree. As indeed in these confused Prussian HistoryBooks, copulent in nugatory

pedantisms and learned marinestores, all that is human remains distressingly obscure to us; so seldom, and

then only as through endless clouds of everwhirling idle dust, can we catch the smallest direct feature of the

young man, and of his real demeanor or meaning, on the present or other occasions! But it is evident this last

phenomenon fell upon him like an overwhelming cataract; crushed him down under the immensity of sorrow,

confusion and despair; his own death not a theory now, but probably a near fact,a welcome one in wild

moments, and then anon so unwelcome. Frustrate, bankrupt, chargeable with a friend's lost life, sure enough

he, for one, is: what is to become of him? Whither is he to turn, thoroughly beaten, foiled in all his

enterprises? Proud young soul as he was: the ruling Powers, be they just, be they unjust, have proved too hard

for him! We hear of tragic vestiges still traceable of Friedrich, belonging to this time: texts of Scripture

quoted by him, pencilsketches of his drawing; expressive of a mind dwelling in Golgothas, and pathetically,

Chaplain Muller of the Gensd,Armes, being found a pious and intelligent man, has his orders not to return at

once from Custrin; but to stay there, and deal with the Prince, on that horrible Predestination topic and his

other unexampled backslidings which have ended so. Muller stayed accordingly, for a couple of weeks,

intensely busy on the Predestination topic, and generally in assuaging, and mutually mollifying, paternal

Majesty and afflicted Son. In all which he had good success; and especially on the Predestination point was

triumphantly successful. Muller left a little Book in record of his procedures there; which, had it not been

bound over to the official tone, might have told us something. His Correspondence with the King, during

those two weeks, has likewise been mostly printed; [Forster, i. 376379.] and is of course still more

official, teaching us next to nothing, except poor Friedrich Wilhelm's profoundly devotional mood,

anxieties about "the claws of Satan" and the like, which we were glad to hear of above. In Muller otherwise is

BOOK VIII. CROWNPRINCE RETRIEVED: LIFE AT CUSTRIN. November, 1730February, 1732. 357

But, fifty years afterwards, there was alive a Son of this Muller's; an innocent Country Parson, not wanting in

sense, and with much simplicity and veracity; who was fished out by Nicolai, and set to recalling what his

Father used to say of this adventure, much the grandest of his life. In Muller Junior's Letter of Reminiscences

"When my Father first attempted, by royal order, to bring the CrownPrince to acknowledgment and

repentance of the fault committed, CrownPrince gave this excuse or explanation: 'As his Father could not

endure the sight of him, he had meant to get out of the way of his displeasure, and go to a Court with which

his Father was in friendship and relationship,'"clearly indicating England, think the Mullers Junior and

"For proof that the intention was towards England this other circumstance serves, that the one

confidantHerr van Keith, if I mistake not [no, you don't mistake], had already bespoken a ship for passage

"My Father used to say, he found an excellent knowledge and conviction of the truths of religion in the

CrownPrince. By the Prince's arrangement, my Father, who at first lodged with the Commandant, had to

take up his quarters in the room right above the Prince; who daily, often as early as six in the morning, rapped

on the ceiling for him to come down; and then they would dispute and discuss, sometimes halfdays long,

about the different tenets of the Christian Sects;and my Father said, the Prince was perfectly at home in the

Polemic Doctrines of the Reformed (Calvinistic) Church, even to the minutest points. As my Father brought

him proofs from Scripture, the Prince asked him one time, How he could keep chapter and verse so exactly in

his memory? Father drew from his pocket a little HandConcordance, and showed it him as one help. This he

had to leave with the Prince for some days. On getting it back, he found inside on the flyleaf, sketched in

pencil,"what is rather notable to History,"the figure of a man on his knees, with two swords hanging

crosswise over his head; and at the bottom these words of Psalm Seventythird (verses 25, 26), Whom have I

in Heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee. My flesh and my heart fainteth

and faileth; but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion forever." Poor Friedrich, this is a very

unexpected pensketch on his part; but an undeniable one; betokening abstruse nightthoughts and

"Whoever considers this fine knowledge of religion, and reflects on the peculiar character and genius of the

young Herr, which was ever struggling towards light and clearness (for at that time he had not become

indifferent to religion, he often prayed with my Father on his knees),will find that it was morally

impossible this young Prince could have thought [as some foolish persons have asserted] of throwing himself

into the arms of Papal Superstition [seeking help at Vienna, marrying an Austrian Archduchess, and I know

not what] or allow the intrigues of Catholic Priests to" Oh no, Herr Muller, nobody but very foolish

"When my Father, Herr von Katte's execution being ended, hastened to the CrownPrince; he finds him

miserably ill (SEHR ALTERIRT); advises him to take a coolingpowder in water, both which materials were

ready on the table. This he presses on him: but the Prince always shakes his head." Suspects poison, you

think? "Hereupon my Father takes from his pocket a paper, in which he carried coolingpowder for his own

use; shakes out a portion of it into his hand, and so into his mouth; and now the CrownPrince grips at my

Father's powder, and takes that." Privately to be made away with; death resolved upon in some way! thinks

That scene of Katte's execution, and of the Prince's and other people's position in regard to it, has never yet

been humanly set forth, otherwise the response had been different. Not humanly set forth,and so was only

BOOK VIII. CROWNPRINCE RETRIEVED: LIFE AT CUSTRIN. November, 1730February, 1732. 358

barked at, as by the infinitude of little dogs, in all countries; and could never yet be responded to in austere

VOX HUMANA, deep as a DE PROFUNDIS, terrible as a Chorus of AEschylus,for in effect that is rather

the character of it, had the barking once pleased to cease. "King of Prussia cannot sleep," writes Dickens: "the

officers sit up with him every night, and in his slumbers he raves and talks of spirits and apparitions."

[Despatch, 3d October, 1730.] We saw him, ghostlike, in the nighttime, gliding about, seeking shelter with

Feekin against ghosts; Ginkel by daylight saw him, now clad in thunderous tornado, and anon in sorrowful

fog. Here, farther on, is a new item,and joined to it and the others, a remarkable old one:

"In regard to Wilhelmina's marriage, and whether a Father cannot give his daughter in wedlock to whom he

pleases, there have been eight Divines consulted, four Lutheran, four Reformed (Calvinist); who, all but one

[he of the Garrison Church, a rhadamanthine fellow in serge], have answered, 'No, your Majesty!' It is

remarkable that his Majesty has not gone to bed sober for this month past." [Dickens, 9th and 19th December,

What Seckendorf and Grumkow thought of all these phenomena? They have done their job too well. They are

all for mercy; lean with their whole weight that way,in black qualms, one of them withal, thinking

tremulously to himself, "What if his now Majesty were to die upon us, in the interim!"

In regard to Friedrich, the CourtMartial needs no amendment from the King; the sentence on Friedrich, a

LieutenantColonel guilty of desertion, is, from President and all members except two, Death as by law. The

two who dissented, invoking royal clemency and pardon, were MajorGenerals by rank,Schwerin, as some

write, one of them, or if not Schwerin, then Linger; and for certain, Donhof,two worthy gentlemen not

known to any of my readers, nor to me, except as names, The rest are all coldly of opinion that the military

code says Death. Other codes and considerations may say this and that, which it is not in their province to

The Junius Brutus of a Royal Majesty had answered in his own heart grimly, Well then! But his Councillors,

Old Dessauer, Grumkow, Seckendorf, one and all interpose vehemently. "Prince of the Empire, your Majesty,

not a LieutenantColonel only! Must not, cannot;"nay good old Buddenbrock, in the fire of still

unsuccessful pleading, tore open his waistcoat: "If your Majesty requires blood, take mine; that other you

shall never get, so long as I can speak!" Foreign Courts interpose; Sweden, the Dutch; the English in a

circuitous way, round by Vienna to wit; finally the Kaiser himself sends an Autograph; [Date, 11th October,

1730 (Forster, i. 380).] for poor Queen Sophie has applied even to Seckendorf, will be friends with Grumkow

himself, and in her despair is knocking at every door. Junius Brutus is said to have had paternal affections

withal. Friedrich Wilhelm, alone against the whispers of his own heart and the voices of all men, yields at last

in this cause. To Seckendorf, who has chalked out a milder didactic plan of treatment, still rigorous enough,

[His Letter to the King, 1st November, 1730 (in Forster, i. 375, 376).] he at last admits that such plan is

perhaps good; that the Kaiser's Letter has turned the scale with him; and the didactic method, not the

beheading one, shall be tried. That Donhof and Schwerin, with their talk of mercy, with "their eyes upon the

Rising Sun," as is evident, have done themselves no good, and shall perhaps find it so one day. But that, at

any rate, Friedrich's life is spared; Katte's execution shall suffice in that kind. Repentance, prostrate

submission and amendment, these may do yet more for the prodigal, if he will in heart return. These

The unhappy prodigal is in no condition to resist farther. Chaplain Muller had introduced himself with Katte's

dying admonition to the CrownPrince to repent and submit. Chaplain Muller, with his wholesome

coolingpowders, with his ghostly counsels, and considerations of temporal and eternal nature,we saw

how he prospered almost beyond hope. Even on Predestination, and the real nature of Election by Free Grace,

all is coming right, or come, reports Muller. The Chaplain's Reports, Friedrich Wilhelm's grimly mollified

Responses on the same: they are written, and in confused form have been printed; but shall be spared the

English reader. And Grumkow has been out at Custrin, preaching to the same purport from other texts:

Grumkow, with the thought ever present to him, "What if Friedrich Wilhelm should die?" is naturally an

eloquent preacher. Enough, it has been settled (perhaps before the day of Katte's death, or at the latest three

days after it, as we can see), That if the Prince will, and can with free conscience, take an Oath ("no mental

reservation," mark you!) of contrite repentance, of perfect prostrate submission, and purpose of future entire

obedience and conformity to the paternal mind in all things, "GNADENWAHL" included,the paternal

mind may possibly relax his durance a little, and put him gradually on proof again. [King's Letter to Muller,

Towards which issue, as Chaplain Muller reports, the CrownPrince is visibly gravitating, with all his weight

and will. The very GNADENWAHL is settled; the young soul (truly a lover of Truth, your Majesty) taps on

his ceiling, my floor being overhead, before the winter sun rises, as a signal that I must come down to him; so

eager to have error and darkness purged away. Believes himself, as I believe him, ready to undertake that

Oath; desires, however, to see it first, that he may maturely study every clause of it. Say you verily so?

answers Majesty. And MAY my ursine heart flow out again, and blubber gratefully over a sinner saved, a

poor Son plucked as brand from the burning? "God, the Most High, give His blessing on it, then!" concludes

the paternal Majesty: "And as He often, by wondrous guidances, strange paths and thorny steps, will bring

men into the Kingdom of Christ, so may our Divine Redeemer help that this prodigal son be brought into His

communion. That his godless heart be beaten till it is softened and changed; and so he be snatched from the

claws of Satan. This grant us the Almighty God and Father, for our Lord Jesus Christ and His passion and

death's sake! Amen!I am, for the rest, your wellaffectioned King, FRIEDRICH WILHELM

It was Monday, 6th November, when poor Katte died. Within a fortnight, on the second Sunday after, there

has a Select Commission, Grumkow, Borck, Buddenbrock, with three other Soldiers, and the Privy

Councillor Thulmeyer, come out to Custrin: there and then, Sunday, November 19th, [Nicolai, exactest of

men, only that Documents were occasionally less accessible in his time, gives (ANEKDOTEN, vi. 187),

"Saturday, November 25th," as the day of the Oath; but, no doubt, the later inquirers, Preuss (i. 56) and

others, have found him wrong in this small instance.] these Seven, with due solemnity, administer the Oath

(terms of Oath conceivable by readers); Friedrich being found ready. He signs the Oath, as well as audibly

swears it: whereupon his sword is restored to him, and his prisondoor opened. He steps forth to the Town

Church with his Commissioners; takes the sacrament; listens, with all Custrin, to an illusive Sermon on the

subject; "text happily chosen, preacher handling it well." Text was Psalm Seventyseventh, verse eleventh

(tenth of our English version), And I said, This is my infirmity; but I will remember the years of the right

hand of the Host High; or, as Luther's version more intelligibly gives it, This I have to suffer; the right hand

of the Most High can change all. Preacher (not Muller but another) rose gradually into didactic pathos;

Prince, and all Custrin, were weeping, or near weeping, at the close of the business. [Preuss, i. 56.]

Straight from Church the Prince is conducted, not to the Fortress, but to a certain Town Mansion, which he is

to call his own henceforth, under conditions: an erring Prince half liberated, and mercifully put on proof

again. His first act here is to write, of his own composition, or helped by some official hand, this Letter to his

Allserenest Papa; which must be introduced, though, except to readers of German who know the "DERE"

(TheirO), "ALLERDURCHLAUCHTIGSTER," and strange pipeclay solemnity of the Courtstyle, it is like

Father, have,"I.E. "I have," if one durst write the "I,""by my disobedience as TheirO [YourO] subject

and soldier, not less than by my undutifulness as TheirO Son, given occasion to a just wrath and aversion

against me. With the Allobedientest respect I submit myself wholly to the grace of my most Allgracious

Father; and beg him, Most Allgraciously to pardon me; as it is not so much the withdrawal of my liberty in a

sad arrest (MALHEUREUSEN ARREST), as my own thoughts of the fault I have committed, that have

brought me to reason: Who, with allobedientest respect and submission, continue till my end,

[Preuss, i. 56, 57; and Anonymous, Friedrichs des Grossen Briefe an seinen Vater (Berlin, Posen und

This new House of Friedrich's in the little Town of Custrin, he finds arranged for him on rigorously thrifty

principles, yet as a real Household of his own; and even in the form of a Court, with Hofmarschall,

Kammerjunkers, and the other adjuncts;Court reduced to its simplest expression, as the French say, and

probably the cheapest that was ever set up. Hafmarschall (Courtmarshal) is one Wolden, a civilian Official

here. The Kammerjunkers are Rohwedel and Natzmer; Matzmer Junior, son of a distinguished Feldmarschall:

"a goodhearted but foolish forward young fellow," says Wilhelmina; "the failure of a coxcomb

(PETITMAITRE MANQUE)." For example, once, strolling about in a solemn Kaiser's Soiree in Vienna, he

found in some quiet corner the young Duke of Lorraine, Franz, who it is thought will be the divine Maria

Theresa's husband, and Kaiser himself one day. Foolish Natzmer found this noble young gentleman in a

remote corner of the Soiree; went up, nothing loath, to speak graciosities and insipidities to him: the noble

young gentleman yawned, as was too natural, a wide long yawn; and in an insipid familiar manner, foolish

Natzmer (Wilhelmina and the Berlin circles know it) put his finger into the noble young gentleman's mouth,

and insipidly wagged it there. "Sir, you seem to forget where you are!" said the noble young gentleman; and

closing his mouth with emphasis, turned away; but happily took no farther notice. [Wilhelmina, i. 310.] This

is all we yet know of the history of Natzmer, whose heedless ways and slapdash speculations, tinted with

Hofmarschall and these two Kammerjunkers are of the lawyer species; men intended for Official business, in

which the Prince himself is now to be occupied. The Prince has four lackeys, two pages, one valet. He wears

his sword, but has no swordtash (PORTE EPEE), much less an officer's uniform: a mere Prince put upon his

good behavior again; not yet a soldier of the Prussian Army, only hoping to become so again. He wears a

lightgray dress, "HECHTGRAUER (pikegray) frock with narrow silver cordings;" and must recover his

For there is, along with the new household, a new employment laid out for him in Custrin; and it shall be

seen what figure he makes in that, first of all. He is to sit in the DOMANENKAMMER or Government

Board here, as youngest Rath; no other career permitted. Let him learn Economics and the way of managing

Domain Lands (a very principal item of the royal revenues in this Country): humble work, but useful; which

he had better see well how he will do. Two elder Raths are appointed to instruct him in the Economic

Sciences and Practices, if he show faculty and diligence;which in fact he turns out to do, in a superior

This kind of life lasted with him for the next fifteen months, all through the year 1731 and farther; and must

have been a very singular, and was probably a highly instructive year to him, not in the Domain Sciences

alone. He is left wholly to himself. All his fellowcreatures, as it were, are watching him. Hundredeyed

Argus, or the Ear of Dionysius, that is to say, TobaccoParliament with its spies and reporters,no stirring

of his finger can escape it here. He has much suspicion to encounter: Papa looking always sadly askance,

sadly incredulous, upon him. He is in correspondence with Grumkow; takes much advice from Grumkow

(our promptergeneral, president in the Dionysius'Ear, and not an illwisher farther); professes much

thankfulness to Grumkow, now and henceforth. Thank you for flinging me out of the sixstory window, and

catching me by the coatskirts!Left altogether to himself, as we said; has in the whole Universe nothing

that will save him but his own good sense, his own power of discovering what is what, and of doing what will

He is to quit his French literatures and pernicious practices, one and all. His very flute, most innocent

"Princess," as he used to call his flute in old days, is denied him ever since he came to Custrin;but by

degrees he privately gets her back, and consorts much with her; wails forth, in beautiful adagios, emotions for

which there is no other utterance at present. He has liberty of Custrin and the neighborhood; out of Custrin he

is not to lodge, any night, without leave had of the Commandant. Let him walk warily; and in good earnest

study to become a new creature, useful for something in the Domain Sciences and otherwise.

CrownPrince Friedrich being settled so far, his Majesty takes up the case of Wilhelmina, the other ravelled

skein lying on hand. Wilhelmina has been prisoner in her Apartment at Berlin all this while: it is proper

Wilhelmina be disposed of; either in wedlock, filially obedient to the royal mind; or in some much sterner

Poor Wilhelmina never thought of disobeying her parents: only, which of them to obey? King looks towards

the Prince of Baireuth again, agreed on before those hurlyburlies now past; Queen looks far otherwards.

Queen Sophie still desperately believes in the English match for Wilhelmina; and has subterranean

correspondences with that Court; refusing to see that the negotiation is extinct there. Grumkow himself, so

overvictorious in his late task, is now heeling towards England; "sincere in his wish to be well with us,"

thinks Dickens: Grumkow solaces her Majesty with delusive hopes in the English quarter: "Be firm, child;

trust in my management; only swear to me, on your eternal salvation, that never, on any compulsion, will you

marry another than the Prince of Wales;give me that oath!" [Wilhelmina, i. 314.] Such was Queen Sophie's

last proposal to Wilhelmina, night of the 27th of January, 1731, as is computable,her Majesty to leave

for Potsdam on the morrow. They wept much together that night, but Wilhelmina dexterously evaded the

oath, on a religious ground. Prince of Baireuth, whom Papa may like or may not like, has never yet personally

made appearance: who or what will make appearance, or how things can or will turn, except a bad road, is

What with chagrin and confinement, what with bad diet (for the very diet is bad, quality and quantity alike

unspeakable), Wilhelmina sees herself "reduced to a skeleton;" no company but her faithful Sonsfeld, no

employment but her Books and Music; struggles, however, still to keep heart. One day, it is in February,

1731, as I compute, they are sitting, her Sonsfeld and she, at their sad mess of socalled dinner, in their

remote upper story of the Berlin Schloss, tramp of sentries the one thing audible; and were "looking

mournfully at one another, with nothing to eat but a soup of salt and water, and a ragout of old bones full of

hairs and slopperies [nothing else; that was its real quality, whatever fine name they might give it, says the

vehement Princess], we heard a sharp tapping at the window; and started up in surprise, to see what it could

be. It was a raven, carrying in its beak a bit of bread, which it left on the windowsill, and flew away." [Ib. i.

"Tears came into our eyes at this adventure." Are we become as Hebrew Elijahs, then; so that the wild ravens

have to bring us food? Truth is, there was nothing miraculous, as Wilhelmina found by and by. It was a tame

raven,not the soul of old George I., which lives at Isleworth on good pensions; but the pet raven of a

certain Margravine, which lost its way among the intricate roofs here. But the incident was touching. "Well,"

exclaimed Wilhelmina, "in the Roman Histories I am now reading, it is often said those creatures betoken

good luck." All Berlin, such the appetite for gossip, and such the famine of it in Berlin at present, talked of

this minute event: and the French Colonyold Protestant Colony, practical considerate peoplewere so

struck by it, they brought baskets of comfortable things to us, and left them daily, as if by accident, on some

neutral ground, where the maid could pick them up, sentries refusing to see unless compelled. Which fine

procedure has attached Wilhelmina to the French nation ever since, as a dexterous useful people, and has

The omen of the raven did not at once bring good luck: however, it did chance to be the turningpoint,

solstice of this long Greenland winter; after which, amid storms and alarms, daylight came steadily nearer.

Storms and alarms: for there came rumors of quarrels out at Potsdam, quarrels on the old score between the

Royal Spouses there; and frightful messages, through one Eversmann, an insolent royal lackey, about

wedding Weissenfels, about imprisonment for life and other hard things; through all which Wilhelmina

studied to keep her poor head steady, and answer with dignity yet discreetly. On the other hand, her Sisters

are permitted to visit her, and perceptible assuagements come. At length, on the 11th of May, there came

solemn Deputation, Borck, Grumkow, Thulmeyer in it, old real friends aud pretended new; which set poor

Wilhelmina wringing her hands (having had a Letter from Mamma overnight); but did bring about a solution.

It was Friday, 11th of May; a day of crisis in Wilhelmina's history; Queen commanding one thing, King

Entering, announcing themselves, with dreadful solemnity, these gentlemen, Grumkow the spokesman, in

soft phrase, but with strict clearness, made it apparent to her, That marry she must,the Hereditary Prince of

Baireuth,and without the consent of both her parents, which was unattainable at present, but peremptorily

under the command of one of them, whose vote was the supreme. Do this (or even say that you will do it,

whisper some of the wellaffected), his Majesty's paternal favor will return upon you like pent waters;and

the Queen will surely reconcile herself (or perhaps turn it all her own way yet! whisper the wellaffected).

Refuse to do it, her Majesty, your Royal Brother, you yourself Royal Highness, God only knows what the

unheardof issue will be for you all! Do it, let us advise you: you must, you must! Wilhelmina wrung her

hands; ran distractedly to and fro; the wellaffected whispering to her, the others "conversing at a window."

At length she did it. Will marry whom her allgracious Papa appoints; never wished or meant the least

disobedience; hopes, beyond all things, his paternal love will now return, and make everybody blessed;and

oh, reconcile Mamma to me, ye wellaffected! adds she.Bravissimo! answer they: her Majesty, for certain,

will reconcile herself; CrownPrince get back from Custrin, and all will be well. [Wilhelmina, i. 327333.]

Friedrich Wilhelm was overjoyed; Queen Sophie Dorothee was in despair. With his Majesty, who "wept" like

a paternal bear, on reembracing Wilhelmina the obedient some days hence, it became a settled point, and

was indicated to Wilhelmina as such, That the CrownPrince would, on her actual wedding, probably get

back from Custrin. But her Majesty's reconcilement,this was very slow to follow. Her Majesty was still in

flames of ire at their next interview; and poor Wilhelmina fainted, on approaching to kiss her hand.

"Disgraced, vanquished, and my enemies triumphing!" said her Majesty; and vented her wrath on

Wilhelmina; and fell ill (so soon as there was leisure), ill, like to die, and said, "Why pretend to weep, when it

is you that have killed me!"and indeed was altogether hard, bitter, upon the poor Princess; a chief sorrow

to her in these trying months. Can there be such wrath in celestial minds, venting itself so unreasonably?At

present there is no leisure for illness; grand visitors in quantity have come and are coming; and the Court is

brilliant exceedingly;his Majesty blazing out into the due magnificence, which was very great on this

occasion, domestic matters looking up with him again. The Serenities of Brunswick are here, young and old;

much liked by Friedrich Wilhelm; and almost reckoned family people,ever since their Eldest Son was

affianced to the Princess Charlotte here, last visit they made. To Princess Charlotte, Wilhelmina's second

junior,mischievous, coquettish creature she, though very pretty and insinuating, who seems to think her

Intended rather a phlegmatic young gentleman, as Wilhelmina gradually discovers. Then there is old Duke

Eberhard Ludwig, of Wurtemberg, whom we saw at Ludwigsburg last year, in an intricate condition with his

female world and otherwise, he too announces himself,according to promise then given. Old Duke

Eberhard Ludwig comes, stays three weeks in great splendor ofwelcome;poor old gentleman, his one son

is now dead; and things are getting earnest with him. On his return home, this time, he finds, according to

order, the foul witch Gravenitz duly cleared away; reinstates his injured Duchess, with the due feelings, better

These are among the high guests at Berlin; and there are plenty of others whom we do not name. Magnificent

dining; with "sixandtwenty blackamoors," highcolored creatures, marching up the grand staircase, round

the table, round it, and then down again, melodious, doing "janizary music," if you happen to prefer that

kind;trained creatures these blackamoors, all got when boys, and set to cymballing and fifing betimes, adds

my authority. [Fassmann, p. 726, Dining, boarhunting (if the boar be huntable), especially reviewing, fail

One evening, it is Sunday, 27th of May, latish, while the high guests, with Queen and Wilhelmina, are just

passing in to supper (King's Majesty having "gone to bed at seven," to be well astir for the review

tomorrow), a sound of wheels is heard in the court. Modest travellingequipage rolls up into the inner court;

to the foot of the grand staircase there, whither only Princes come:who can it be? The Queen sends to

inquire. Heavens, it is the Hereditary Prince of Baireuth! "Medusa's Head never produced such effect as did

this bit of news: Queen sat petrified; and I," by reflex, was petrified too! Wilhelmina passed the miserablest

night, no wink of sleep; and felt quite ill in the morning; in dread, too, of Papa's rough jests,and

wretched enough. She had begged much, last night! to be excused from the review. But that could not be: "I

must go," said the Queen after reflection, "and you with me." Which they did;and diversified the pomp and

Queen, Princess and the proper Dames had, by his Majesty's order, to pass before the line: Princess in much

trouble, "with three caps huddled on me, to conceal myself," poor soul. Margraf of Schwedt, at the head of

his regiment, "looked swollen with rage," high hopes gone in this manner;and saluted us with eyes turned

away. As for his Mother, the Dessau Margravine in high colors, she was "blue in the face" all day. Lines

passed, and salutations done, her Majesty and Dames withdrew to the safe distance, to look on:Such a

show, for pomp and circumstance, Wilhelmina owns, as could not be equalled in the world. Such wheeling,

rhythmic coalescing and unfolding; accurate as clockwork, far and wide; swift big column here, hitting

swift big column there, at the appointed place and moment; with their volleyings and trumpeting, bright

uniforms and streamers and fieldmusic,in equipment and manoeuvre perfect all, to the meanest drummer

or black kettledrummer:supreme drillsergeant playing on the thing, as on his huge piano, several square

miles in area! Comes of the Old Dessauer, all this; of the "equal step;" of the abstruse meditations upon

tactics, in that rough head of his. Very pretty indeed.But in the mean while an Official steps up: cap in

hand, approaches the Queen's carriage; says, He is ordered to introduce his Highness the Prince of Baireuth.

Prince comes up accordingly; a personable young fellow; intelligentlooking, selfpossessed; makes

obeisance to her Majesty, who answers in frosty politeness; andand Wilhelmina, faint, fasting, sleepless all

night, fairly falls aswoon. Could not be helped: and the whole world saw it; and Guy Dickens and the

Diplomatists wrote home about it, and there rose rumor and gossip enough! [Dickens, of 2d June, 1731 (in

pathetic terms); Wilhelmina, i. 341 (without pathos).] But that was the naked truth of it: hot weather,

agitation, want of sleep, want of food; not aversion to the Hereditary Prince, nothing of that. Rather the

contrary, indeed; and, on better acquaintance, much the contrary. For he proved a very rational, honorable

and eligible young Prince: modest, honest, with abundance of sense and spirit; kind too and good, hot temper

well kept, temper hot not harsh; quietly holds his own in all circles; good discourse in him, too, and sharp

repartee if requisite,though he stammered somewhat in speaking. Submissive Wilhelmina feels that one

might easily have had a worse husband. What glories for you in England! the Queen used. to say to her in old

times: "He is a Prince, that Frederick, who has a good heart, and whose genius is very small. Rather ugly than

handsome; slightly out of shape even (UN PEU CONTREFAIT). But provided you have the complaisance to

suffer his debaucheries, you will quite govern him; and you will be more King than he, when once his Father

is dead. Only see what a part you will play! It will be you that decide on the weal or woe of Europe, and give

law to the Nation," [Wilhelmina, i. 143.]in a manner! Which Wilhelmina did not think a celestial prospect

even then. Who knows but, of all the offers she had, "four" or three "crowned heads" among them, this final

modest honest one may be intrinsically the best? Take your portion, if inevitable, and be thankful!

The Betrothal follows in about a week: Sunday, 3d June, 1731; with great magnificence, in presence of the

high guests and all the world: and Wilhelmina is the affianced Bride of Friedrich of Baireuth:and that

enormous DoubleMarriage Tragicomedy, of Much Ado about Nothing, is at last ended. Courage, friends;

The high guests hereupon go their ways again; and the Court of Berlin, one cannot but suppose, collapses, as

after a great effort finished. Do not Friedrich Wilhelm and innumerable personsthe readers and the writer

of this History includedfeel a stone rolled off their hearts?It is now, and not till now, that Queen Sophie

falls sick, and like to die; and reproaches Wilhelmina with killing her. Friedrich Wilhelm hopes confidently,

not; waits out at Potsdam, for a few days, till this killing danger pass; then departs, with double impetuosity,

for Preussen, and despatch of Public Business; such a mountain of Domestic Business being victoriously got

Poor King, his life, this long while, has been a series of earthquakes and titanic convulsions. Narrow miss he

has had, of pulling down his house about his ears, and burying self, son, wife, family and fortunes, under the

ruinheap,a monument to remote posterity. Never was such an enchanted dance, of wellintentioned

Royal Bear with poetic temperament, piped to by two blackartists, for the Kaiser's and Pragmatic Sanction's

sake! Let TobaccoParliament also rejoice; for truly the play was growing dangerous, of late. King and

Not that his Majesty, while at the deepest in domestic intricacies, ever neglects Public Business. This very

summer he is raising Hussar Squadrons; bent to introduce the Hussar kind of soldiery into his Army;a

good deal of horsebreaking and new sabreexercise needed for that object. [Fassmann, pp. 417, 418.] The

affairs of the Reich have at no moment been out of his eye; glad to see the Kaiser edging round to the

SeaPowers again, and things coming into their old posture, in spite of that sad Treaty of Seville.

Nay, for the last two years, while the domestic volcanoes were at their worst, his Majesty has been

extensively dealing with a new question which has risen, that of the SALZBURG PROTESTANTS;

concerning which we shall hear more anon. Far and wide, in the Diets and elsewhere, he has been diligently,

piously and with solid judgment, handling this question of the poor Salzburgers; and has even stored up

moneys in intended solace of them (for he foresees what the end will be);moneys which, it appears about

this time, a certain Official over in Preussen has been peculating! In the end of June, his Majesty sets off to

Preussen on the usual Inspection Tour; which we should not mention, were it not in regard to that same

Official, and to something very rhadamanthine and particular which befell him; significant of what his

The Konigsberg DomainBoard (KRIEGS UND DOMANENKAMMER) had fallen awry, in various

points, of late; several things known to be outatelbows in that Country; the Kammer Raths evidently lax at

their post; for which reason they have been sharply questioned, and shaken by the collar, so to speak. Nay

there is one Rath, a socalled Nobleman of those parts, by name Schlubhut, who has been found actually

defaulting; peculating from that pious hoard intended for the Salzburgers: he is proved, and confesses, to

have put into his own scandalous purse no less than 11,000 thalers, some say 30,000 (almost 5,000 pounds),

which belonged to the Public Treasury and the Salzburg Protestants! These things, especially this latter

unheardof Schlubhut thing, the Supreme Court at Berlin (CRIMINALCOLLEGIUM) have been sitting on,

for some time; and, in regard to Schlubhut, they have brought out a result, which Friedrich Wilhelm not a

little admires at. Schlubhut clearly guilty of the defamation, say they; but he has moneys, landed properties:

let him refund, principal and interest; and have, say, three or four years' imprisonment, by way of memento.

"Years' imprisonment? Refund? Is theft in the highest quarters a thing to be let off for refunding?" growls his

Majesty; and will not confirm this sentence of his CriminalCollegium; but leaves it till he get to the spot,

and see with his own eyes. Schlubhut, in arrest or mild confinement all this while, ought to be bethinking

Once on the spot, judge if the Konigsberg DomainKammer had not a stiff muster to pass; especially if

Schlubhut's drillexercise was gentle! Schlubhut, summoned to private interview with his Majesty, carries his

head higher than could be looked for: Is very sorry; knows not how it happened; meant always to refund; will

refund, to the last penny, and make all good."Refund? Does He (ER) know what stealing means, then?

How the commonest convicted private thief finds the gallows his portion; much more a public Magistrate

convicted of theft? Is He aware that He, in a very especial manner, deserves hanging, then?"Schlubhut

looks offended dignity; conscious of rank, if also of quasitheft: "ES IST NICHT MANIER (it is not the

polite thing) to hang a Prussian Nobleman on those light terms!" answers Schlubhut, high mannered at the

wrong time: "I can and will pay the money back!"NOBLEman? Money back? "I will none of His

scoundrelly money." To strait Prison with this SCHURKE!And thither he goes accordingly: unhappiest of

mortals; to be conscious of rank, not at the right place, when about to steal the money, but at the wrong, when

And there, sure enough, Schlubhut lies, in his prison on the SCHLOSSPLATZ, or Castle Square, of

Konigsberg, all night; and hears, close by the DOMANENKAMMER, which is in the same Square,

DOMANENKAMMER where his Office used to be, a terrible sound of carpentering go on;unhappiest of

Prussian Noblemen. And in the morning, see, a high gallows built; close in upon the DomainKammer,

looking into the very windows of it;and there, sure enough, the unfortunate Schlubhut dies the thief's

death, few hours hence, speaking or thinking what, no man reports to me. Death was certain for him;

inevitable as fate. And so he vibrates there, admonitory to the other Raths for days,some say for

weeks,till by humble petition they got the gallows removed. The stumps of it, sawed close by the stones,

were long after visible in that Schlossplatz of Konigsberg. Here is prompt justice with a witness! Did readers

ever hear of such a thing? There is no doubt about the fact, [Benekendorf (Anonymous), Karakterzuge aus

dem Leben Konig Friedrich Wilhelm I. (Berlin, 1788), vii. 1520; Forster (ii. 268), though in all Prussian

Books it is loosely smeared over, without the least precision of detail; and it was not till after long searching

that I could so much as get it dated: July, 1731, while Friedrich CrownPrince is still in eclipse at Custrin,

and some six weeks after Wilhelmina's betrothal. And here furthermore, direct from the then Schlubhut

precincts, is a stray Note, meteorological chiefly; but worth picking up, since it is authentic. "Wehlau," we

observe, is on the road homewards again,on our return from uttermost Memel,a day's journey

"TUESDAY, 10th JULY, 1731. King dining with General Dockum at Wehlau,"where he had been again

reviewing, for about forty hours, all manner of regiments brought to rendezvous there for the purpose, poor

"General Katte with his regiment" among them;King at dinner with General Dockum after all that, "took

the resolution to be off to Konigsberg; and arrived here at the stroke of midnight, in a deluge of rain." This

brings us within a day, or two days, of Schlubhut's death, Terrible "combat of Bisons (URI, or

AUEROCHSEN, with such manes, such heads), of two wild Bisons against six wild Bears," then ensued; and

the Schlubhut human tragedy; I know not in what sequence,rather conjecture the Schlubhut had gone

FIRST. Pillau, road to Dantzig, on the narrow strip between the Frische Haf and Baltic, is the next stage

homewards; at Pillau, General Finkenstein (excellent old Tutor of the CrownPrince) is Commandant, and

expects his rapid Majesty, day and hour given, to me not known, Majesty goes in three carriages; Old

Dessauer, Grumkow, Seckendorf, Ginkel are among his suite; weather still very electric:

"At Fischhausen, halfway to Pillau, Majesty had a bout of elkhunting; killed sixty elks [MeltonMowbray

may consider it], creatures of the deer sort, nimble as roes, but strong as bulls, and four palms higher than

the biggest horse,to the astonishment of Seckendorf, Ginkel and the strangers there. Half an hour short of

Pillau, furious electricity again; thunderbolt shivered an oaktree fifteen yards from Majesty's carriage. And

at Pillau itself, the Battalion in Garrison there, drawn out in arms, by Count Finkenstein, to receive his

Majesty [rain over by this time, we can hope], had suddenly to rush forward and take new ground; Frische

Haf, on some pressure from the elements, having suddenly gushed out, two hundred paces beyond its old

watermark in that place." [See Mauvillon, ii. 293297;CORRECTING by Fassmann, p. 422.]

Pillau, Fischhausen,this is where the excellent old Adalbert stamped the earth with his life "in the shape of

a crucifix" eight hundred years ago: and these are the new phenomena there! The General Dockum,

Colonel of Dragoons, whom his Majesty dined with at Wehlau, got his death not many months after. One of

Dockum's Dragoon Lieutenants felt insulted at something, and demanded his discharge: discharge given, he

challenged Dockum, duel of pistols, and shot him dead. [7th April, 1732 ( MilitairLexikon, i. 365).] Nothing

And thus was the error of the CriminalCollegium rectified IN RE Schlubhut. For it is not in name only, but

in fact, that this Sovereign is Supreme Judge, and bears the sword in God's stead, interfering now and then,

when need is, in this terrible manner. In the same dim authentic Benekendorf (himself a member of the

CriminalCollegium in later times), and from him in all the Books, is recorded another interference

somewhat in the comic vein; which also we may give. Undisputed fact, again totally without precision or

details; not even datable, except that, on study, we perceive it may have been before this Schlubhut's

execution, and after the CriminalCollegium had committed their error about him, must have been while

this of Schlubhut was still vividly in mind; Here is the unprecise but indubitable fact, as the Prussian

"One morning early" (might be before Schlubhut was hanged, and while only sentence of imprisonment and

restitution lay on him), General Graf von Donhof, Colonel of a Musketeer Regiment, favorite old

soldier,who did vote on the mild side in that CourtMartial on the CrownPrince lately; but I hope has

been forgiven by his Majesty, being much esteemed by him these long years past;this Donhof, early one

morning, calls upon the King, with a grimly lamenting air. "What is wrong, Herr General?""Your Majesty,

my best musketeer, an excellent soldier, and of good inches, fell into a mistake lately,bad company getting

round the poor fellow; they, he among them, slipt into a house and stole something; trifle and without

violence: pay is but three halfpence, your Majesty, and the Devil tempts men! Well, the CriminalCollegium

have condemned him to be hanged; an excellent soldier and of good inches, for that one fault. Nobleman

Schlubhut was 'to make restitution,' they decreed: that was their decree on Schlubhut, one of their own set;

and this poor soldier, six feet three, your Majesty, is to dance on the top of nothing for a threehalfpenny

matter!"So would Donhof represent the thing,"fact being," says my Dryasdust, "it was a case of

housebreaking with theft to the value of 6,000 thalers and this musketeer the ringleader!"Well; but was

Schlubhut sentenced to hanging? Do you keep two weights and two measures, in that CriminalCollegium of

Friedrich Wilhelm feels this sad contrast very much; the more, as the soldier is his own chattel withal, and of

superlative inches: Friedrich Wilhelm flames up into wrath; sends off swift messengers to bring these Judges,

one and all instantly into his presence. The Judges are still in their dressinggowns, shaving, breakfasting;

they make what haste they can. So soon as the first three or four are reported to be in the anteroom, Friedrich

Wilhelm, in extreme impatience has them called in; starts discoursing with them upon the two weights and

two measures. Apologies, subterfuges do but provoke him farther; it is not long till he starts up, growling

terribly: "IHR SCHURKEN (Ye Scoundrels), how could you?" and smites down upon the crowns of them

with the Royal Cudgel itself. Fancy the hurryscurry, the unforensic attitudes and pleadings! Royal Cudgel

rains blows, right and left: blood is drawn, crowns cracked, crowns nearly broken; and "several Judges lost a

few teeth, and had their noses battered," before they could get out. The second relay meeting them in this

dilapidated state, on the staircases, dashed home again without the honor of a RoyaI interview. [Benekendorf,

vii. 33; Forster, ii. 270.] Let them learn to keep one balance, and one set of weights, in their LawCourt

hence forth.This is an actual scene, of date Berlin, 1731, or thereby; unusual in the annals of Themis. Of

which no constitutional country can hope to see the fellow, were the need never so pressing.I wish his

Majesty had been a thought more equal, when he was so rhadamanthine! Schlubhut he hanged, Schlubhut

being only Schlubhut's chattel; this musketeer, his Majesty's own chattel, he did not hang, but set him

His Majesty was always excessively severe on defalcations; any Chancellor, with his Exchequerbills gone

wrong, would have fared ill in that country. One Treasury dignitary, named Wilke (who had "dealt in tall

recruits," as a kind of bytrade, and played foul in some slight measure), the King was clear for hanging; his

poor Wife galloped to Potsdam, shrieking mercy; upon which Friedrich Wilhelm had him whipt by the

hangman, and stuck for life into Spandau. Still more tragicalwas poor Hesse's case. Hesse, some domain

Rath out at Konigsberg, concerned with moneys, was found with accountbooks in a state of confusion, and

several thousands short, when the outcome was cleared up. What has become of these thousands, Sir? Poor

old Hesse could not tell: "God is my witness, no penny of them eyer stuck to me," asseverated poor old

Hesse; "but where they are? My accountbooks are in such a state;alas, and my poor old memory is not

what it was!" They brought him to Berlin; in the end they actually hanged the poor old soul;and then

afterwards in his dusty lumberrooms, hidden in pots, stuffed into this nook and that, most or all of the

money was found! [Forster (ii. 269), Date and document exist for all these cases, though my Dryasdust gives

none; and the cases are indubitable; very rhadamanthine indeed. The soft quality of mercy,ah, yes, it is

beautiful and blessed, when permissible (though thriceaccursed, when not): but it is on the hard quality of

justice, first of all, that Empires are built up, and beneficent and lasting things become achievable to mankind,

A couple of weeks before Schlubhut's death, the English Newspapers are somewhat astir,in the way of

narrative merely, as yet. Ship Rebecca, Captain Robert Jenkins Master, has arrived in the Port of London,

with a strange story in her logbook. Of which, after due sifting, this is accurately the substance:

"LONDON, 23d27th JUNE, 1731. Captain Jenkins left this Port with the Rebecca, several months ago;

sailed to Jamaica, for a cargo of sugar. He took in his cargo at Jamaica; put to sea again, 6th April, 1731, and

proceeded on the Voyage homewards; with indifferent winds for the first fortnight. April 20th, with no wind

or none that would suit, he was hanging about in the entrance of the Gulf of Florida, not far from the

Havana,"almost too near it, I should think; but these baffling winds!"not far from the Havana, when a

Spanish GuardaCosta hove in sight; came down on Jenkins, and furiously boarded him: 'Scoundrel, what do

YOU want; contrabanding in these seas? Jamaica, say you? Sugar? Likely! Let us see your logwood, hides,

Spanish piecesofeight!' And broke in upon Jenkins, ship and person, in a most extraorinary manner. Tore

up his hatches; plunged down, seeking logwood, hides, piecesofeight; found none,not the least trace of

contraband on board of Jenkins. They brought up his quadrants, sextants, however; likewise his stock of

tallow candles: they shook and rummaged him, and all things, for piecesofeight; furiously advised him,

cutlass in hand, to confess guilt. They slashed the head of Jenkins, his left ear almost off. Order had been

given, 'Scalp him!'but as he had no hair, they omitted that; merely brought away the wig, and

slashed:still no confession, nor any piecesofeight. They hung him up to the yardarm,actual

neckhalter, but it seems to have been tarry, and did not run: still no confession. They hoisted him higher,

tied his cabinboy to his feet; neckhalter then became awfully stringent upon Jenkins; had not the

cabinboy (without head to speak of) slipt through, noose being tarry; which was a sensible relief to Jenkins.

Before very death, they lowered Jenkins, 'Confess, scoundrel, then!' Scoundrel could not confess; spoke of

'British Majesty's flag, peaceable English subject on the high seas.' 'British Majesty; high seas!' answered

they, and again hoisted. Thrice over they tried Jenkins in this manner at the yardarm, once with cabinboy

at his feet: never had man such a day, outrageous whiskerando cutthroats tossing him about, his poor

Rebecca and him, at such rate! Sun getting low, and not the least trace of contraband found, they made a last

assault on Jenkins; clutched the bloody slit ear of him; tore it mercilessly off; flung it in his face, 'Carry that

to your King, and tell him of it!' Then went their way; taking Jenkins's tallow candles, and the best of his

sextants with them; so that he could hardly work his passage home again, for want of latitudes;and has lost

in goods 112 pounds, not to speak of his ear. Strictly true all this; ship's company, if required, will testify on

their oath." [Daily Journal (and the other London Newspapers), 12th17th June (o.s.), 1731. Coxe's Walpole,

These surely are singular facts; calculated to awaken a maritime public careful of its honor. Which they

did,after about eight years, as the reader will see! For the present, there are growlings in the

coffeehouses; and, "THURSDAY, 28th JUNE," say the Newspapers, "This day Captain Jenkins with his

Owners," ear in his pocket, I hope, "went out to Hampton Court to lay the matter before his Grace of

Newcastle:" "Please your Grace, it is hardly three months since the illustrious Treaty of Vienna was signed;

Dutch and we leading in the Termagant of Spain, and nothing but halcyon weather to be looked for on that

side!" Grace of Newcastle, anxious to avoid trouble with Spain, answers I can only fancy what; and nothing

POPE (date not given me).] may "keep it in cotton," if he like; shall have "a better ship" for some

solacement. This is the first emergence of Jenkins and his ear upon negligent mankind. He and it will

But in regard to that Treaty of Vienna, seventh and last of the travailthroes for Baby Carlos's Apanage, let

the too oblivious reader accept the following Extract, to keep him on a level with Public "Events," as they are

"By that dreadful Treaty of Seville, Cardinal Fleury and the Spaniards should have joined with England, and

coerced the Kaiser VI ET ARMIS to admit Spanish Garrisons [instead of neutral] into Parma and Piacenza,

and so secure Baby Carlos his heritage there, which all Nature was in travail till he got. 'War in Italy to a

certainty!' said all the Newspapers, after Seville: and CrownPrince Friedrich, we saw, was running off to

have a stroke in said War;inevitable, as the Kaiser still obstinately refused. And the English, and great

George their King, were ready. Nevertheless, no War came. Old Fleury, not wanting war, wanting only to

fish out something useful for himself,Lorraine how welcome, and indeed the smallest contributions are

welcome! Old Fleury manoeuvred, hung back; till the Spaniards and Termagant Elizabeth lost all patience,

and the very English were weary, and getting auspicious. Whereupon the Kaiser edged round to the

SeaPowers again, or they to him; and comfortable ASYOUWERE was got accomplished: much to the

joy of Friedrich Wilhelm and others. Here are some of the dates to these sublime phenomena:

"MARCH 16th, 1731, Treaty of Vienna, England and the Kaiser coalescing again into comfortable

ASYOUWERE. Treaty done by Robinson [Sir Thomas, ultimately Earl of Grantham, whom we shall often

hear of in time coming]; was confirmed and enlarged by a kind of second edition, 22d July, 1731; Dutch

joining, Spain itself acceding, and all being now right. Which could hardly have been expected.

"For before the first edition of that Treaty, and while Robinson at Vienna was still laboring like Hercules in

it,the poor Duke of Parma died. Died; and no vestige of a 'Spanish Garrison' yet there, to induct Baby

Carlos according to old bargain. On the contrary, the Kaiser himself took possession,'till once the Duke's

Widow, who declares herself in the familyway, be brought to bed! If of a Son, of course he must have the

Duchies; if of a Daughter only, then Carlos SHALL get them, let not Robinson fear.' The due months ran, but

neither son nor daughter came; and the Treaty of Vienna, first edition and also second, was signed; and,

"OCTOBER 20th, 1731, Spanish Garrisons, no longer an hypothesis, but a bodily fact, 6,000 strong,

'convoyed by the British Fleet,' came into Leghorn, and proceeded to lodge themselves in the longlitigated

"DECEMBER 26th, Baby Carlos in highest person came in: Baby Carlos (more power to him!) got the

Duchies, and we hope there was an end. No young gentleman ever had such a pother to make among his

fellowcreatures about a little heritable property. If Baby Carlos's performance in it be anything in

"There is still some haggle about Tuscany, the Duke of which is old and heirless; Last of the Medici, as he

proved. Baby Carlos would much like to have Tuscany too; but that is a Fief of the Empire, and might easily

be better disposed of, thinks the Kaiser. A more or less uncertain point, that of Tuscany; as many points are!

Last of the Medici complained, in a polite manner, that they were parting his clothes before he had put them

off: however, having no strength, he did not attempt resistance, but politely composed himself, 'Well, then!'

[Scholl, ii. 219221; Coxe's Walpole, i. 346; Coxe's House of Austria (London, 1854), iii. 151.] Do readers

need to be informed that this same Baby Carlos came to be King of Naples, and even ultimately to be Carlos

III. of Spain, leaving a younger Son to be King of Naples, ancestor of the now Majesty there?"

And thus, after such Diplomatic earthquakes and travail of Nature, there is at last birth; the Seventh

Travailthroe has been successful, in some measure successful. Here actually is Baby Carlos's Apanage;

there probably, by favor of Heaven and of the SeaPowers, will the Kaiser's Pragmatic Sanction be, one day.

Treaty of Seville, most imminent of all those dreadful Imminencies of War, has passed off as they all did;

peaceably adjusts itself into Treaty of Vienna: A Termagant, as it were, sated; a Kaiser hopeful to be so,

Pragmatic Sanction and all: for the SeaPowers and everybody mere halcyon weather henceforth,not

extending to the Gulf of Florida and Captain Jenkins, as would seem! Robinson, who did the thing,an

expert man, bred to business as old Horace Walpole's Secretary, at Soissons and elsewhere, and now come to

act on his own score,regards this Treaty of Vienna (which indeed had its multiform difficulties) as a thing

CrownPrince has, long since, by Papa's order, written to the Kaiser, to thank Imperial Majesty for that

beneficent intercession, which has proved the saving of his life, as Papa inculcates. We must now see a little

how the saved CrownPrince is getting on, in his eclipsed state, among the Domain Sciences at Custrin.

Ever since the end of November last year, CrownPrince Friedrich, in the eclipsed state, at Custrin, has been

prosecuting his probationary course, in the Domain Sciences and otherwise, with all the patience, diligence

and dexterity he could. It is false, what one reads in some foolish Books, that Friedrich neglected the

functions assigned him as assessor in the KRIEGS UND DOMANENKAMMER. That would not have

been the safe course for him! The truth still evident is, he set himself with diligence to learn the

FriedrichWilhelm methods of administering Domains, and the art of Finance in general, especially of

Prussian Finance, the best extant then or since;Finance, Police, Administrative Business;and profited

well by the Raths appointed as tutors to him, in the respective branches. One Hille was his Financetutor;

whose "KOMPENDIUM," drawn up and made use of on this occasion, has been printed in our time; and is

said to be, in brief compass, a highly instructive Piece; throwing clear light on the exemplary

FriedrichWilhelm methods. [Preuss, i. 59 n.] These the Prince did actually learn; and also practise, all his

life,"essentially following his Father's methods," say the Authorities,with great advantage to himself,

Solid Nicolai hunted diligently after traces of him in the Assessor business here; and found some: Order from

Papa, to "make Report, upon the Glassworks of the Neumark:" Autograph signatures to common Reports,

one or two; and some traditions of his having had a hand in planning certain FarmBuildings still standing in

those parts:but as the Kammer Records of Custrin, and Custrin itself, were utterly burnt by the Russians in

1758, such traces had mostly vanished thirty years before Nicolai's time. [Nicolai, Anekdoten, vi. 193.]

Enough have turned up since, in the form of Correspondence with the King and otherwise: and it is certain

the CrownPrince did plan FarmBuildings;"both Carzig and Himmelstadt (Carzig now called

FRIEDRICHSFELDE in consequence)," [See Map] dim mossy Steadings, which pious Antiquarianism can

pilgrim to if it likes, were built or rebuilt by him:and it is remarkable withal how thoroughly instructed

Friedrich Wilhelm shows himself in such matters; and how paternally delighted to receive such proposals of

improvement introducible at the said Carzig and Himmelstadt, and to find young Graceless so diligent, and

his ideas even good. Forster, ii. 390, 387, 391.] Perhaps a momentary glance into those affairs may be

The Prince's life, in this his eclipsed state, is one of constraint, anxiety, continual liability; but after the first

months are well over, it begins to be more supportable than we should think. He is fixed to the little Town;

cannot be absent any night, without leave from the Commandant; which, however, and the various similar

restrictions, are more formal than real. An amiable CrownPrince, no soul in Custrin but would run by night

or by day to serve him. He drives and rides about, in that green peaty country, on Domain business, on visits,

on permissible amusement, pretty much at his own modest discretion. A green flat region, made of peat and

sand; human industry needing to be always busy on it: raised causeways with incessant bridges, black sedgy

ditch on this hand and that; many meres, muddy pools, stagnant or flowing waters everywhere; big muddy

Oder, of yellowishdrab color, coming from the south, big black Warta (Warthe) from the Polish fens in the

east, the black and yellow refusing to mingle for some miles. Nothing of the picturesque in this country; but a

good deal of the useful, of the improvable by economic science; and more of fine productions in it, too, of the

floral, and still more interesting sorts, than you would suspect at first sight. Friedrich's worst pinch was his

dreadful straitness of income; checking one's noble tendencies on every hand: but the gentry of the district

privately subscribed gifts for him (SE COTISIRENT, says Wilhelmina); and one way and other he contrived

to make ends meet. Munchow, his President in the Kammer, next to whom sits Friedrich, "King's place

standing always ready but empty there," is heartily his friend; the Munchows are diligent in getting up balls,

rural gayeties, for him; so the Hilles,nay Hille, severe Finance Tutor, has a Mamsell Hille whom it is

pleasant to dance with; [Preuss, i. 59.] nor indeed is she the only fascinating specimen, or flower of

loveliness, in those peaty regions, as we shall see. On the whole, his Royal Highness, after the first

paroxysms of Royal suspicion are over, and forgiveness beginning to seem possible to the Royal mind, has a

supportable time of it; and possesses his soul in patience, in activity and hope.

Unpermitted things, once for all, he must avoid to do: perhaps he will gradually discover that many of them

were foolish things better not done. He walks warily; to this all things continually admonish. We trace in him

some real desire to be wise, to do and learn what is useful if he can here. But the grand problem, which is

reality itself to him, is always, To regain favor with Papa. And this, Papa being what he is, gives a twist to all

other problems the young man may have, for they must all shape themselves by this; and introduces

something of artificial,not properly of hypocritical, for that too is fatal if found out,but of calculated,

reticent, of halfsincere, on the Son's part: an inevitable feature, plentifully visible in their Correspondence

now and henceforth. Corresponding with Papa and his Grumkow, and watched, at every step, by such an

Argus as the TobaccoParliament, real frankness of speech is not quite the recommendable thing; apparent

frankness may be the safer! Besides mastery in the Domain Sciences, I perceive the CrownPrince had to

study here another art, useful to him in after life: the art of wearing among his fellowcreatures a polite

cloakofdarkness. Gradually he becomes master of it as few are: a man politely impregnable to the intrusion

of human curiosity; able to look cheerily into the very eyes of men, and talk in a social way face to face, and

yet continue intrinsically invisible to them. An art no less essential to Royalty than that of the Domain

Sciences itself; and,if at all consummately done, and with a scorn of mendacity for help, as in this

case,a difficult art. It is the chief feature in the Two or Three Thousand LETTERS we yet have of

Friedrich's to all manner of correspondents: Letters written with the gracefulest flowing rapidity; polite,

affable,refusing to give you the least glimpse into his real inner man, or tell you any particular you might

As the History of Friedrich, in this Custrin epoch, and indeed in all epochs and parts, is still little other than a

whirlpool of simmering confusions, dust mainly, and sibylline papershreds, in the pages of poor Dryasdust,

perhaps we cannot do better than snatch a shred or two (of the partly legible kind, or capable of being made

legible) out of that hideous caldron; pin them down at their proper dates; and try if the reader can, by such

means, catch a glimpse of the thing with his own eyes. Here is shred first; a Piece in Grumkow's hand.

This treats of a very grand incident; which forms an era or turningpoint in the Custrin life. Majesty has

actually, after hopes long held out of such a thing, looked in upon the Prodigal at Custrin, in testimony of

possible pardon in the distance;sees him again, for the first time since that scene at Wesel with the drawn

sword, after year and day. Grumkow, for behoof of Seckendorf and the Vienna people, has drawn a rough

"Protocol" of it; and here it is, snatched from the Dustwhirlwinds, and faithfully presented to the English

reader. His Majesty is travelling towards Sonnenburg, on some grand KnightofMalta Ceremony there; and

"His Majesty arrived at Custrin yesterday [GESTERN Monday 15th, hour not mentioned], and proceeded

at once to the Government House, with an attendance of several hundred persons. MajorGeneral Lepel,"

Commandant of Custrin, "Colonel Derschau and myself are immediately sent for to his Majesty's apartment

there. PrivyCouncillor Walden," Prince's Hofmarschall, a solid legal man, "is ordered by his Majesty to

bring the CrownPrince over from his house; who accordingly in a few minutes, attended by Rohwedel and

Natzmer," the two Kammerjunkers, "entered the room where his Majesty and we were.

"So soon as his Majesty, turning round, had sight of him, the CrownPrince fell at his feet. Having bidden

"'You will now bethink yourself what passed year and day ago; and how scandalously you saw fit to behave

yourself, and what a godless enterprise you took in hand. As I have had you about me from the beginning,

and must know you well, I did all in the world that was in my power, by kindness and by harshness, to make

an honorable man of you. As I rather suspected your evil purpose, I treated you in the harshest and sharpest

way in the Saxon Camp,' at Radewitz, in those gala days, 'in hopes you would consider yourself, and take

another line of conduct; would confess your faults to me, and beg forgiveness. But all in vain; you grew ever

more stiffnecked. When a young man gets into follies with women, one may try to overlook it as the fault of

his age: but to do with forethought basenesses (LACHETEEN) and ugly actions; 'that is unpardonable. You

thought to carry it through with your headstrong humor: but hark ye, my lad (HORE, MEIN KERL), if thou

wert sixty or seventy instead of eighteen, thou couldst not cross my resolutions.' It would take a bigger man

to do that, my lad! 'And as, up to this date (BIS DATO) I have managed to sustain myself against any comer,

"'How have not I, on all occasions, meant honorably by you! Last time I got wind of your debts, how did I, as

a Father, admonish you to tell me all; I would pay all, you were only to tell me the truth. Whereupon you

said, There were still two thousand thalers beyond the sum named. I paid these also at once; and fancied I had

made peace with you. And then it was found, by and by, you owed many thousands more; and as you now

knew you could not pay, it was as good as if the money had been stolen; not to reckon how the French

vermin, Montholieu and partner, cheated you with their new loans.' Pfui!'Nothing touched me so much

[continues his Majesty, verging towards the pathetic], as that you had not any trust in me. All this that I was

doing for aggrandizement of the House, the Army and Finances, could only be for you, if you made yourself

worthy of it! I here declare I have done all things to gain your friendship;and all has been in vain!' At

which words the CrownPrince, with a very sorrowful gesture, threw himself at his Majesty's feet,"tears

"'Was it not your intention to go to England?' asked his Majesty farther on. The Prince answered 'JA!''Then

hear what the consequences would have been. Your Mother would have got into the greatest misery; I could

not but have suspected she was the author of the business. Your Sister I would have cast, for life, into a place

where she never would have seen sun and moon again. Then on with my Army into Hanover, and burn and

ravage; yes, if it had cost me life, land and people. Your thoughtless and godless conduct, see what it was

leading to. I intended to employ you in all manner of business, civil, military; but how, after such an action,

could I show the face of you to my Officers (soldiers) and other servants?The one way of repairing all this

is, That you seek, regardless of your very life in comparison, to make the fault good again!' At which words

the CrownPrince mournfully threw himself at his Royal Majesty's feet; begging to be put upon the hardest

proofs: He would endure all things, so as to recover his Majesty's grace and esteem.

"Whereupon the King asked him: 'Was it thou that temptedst Katte; or did Katte tempt thee?' The

CrownPrince without hesitation answered, 'I tempted him.''I am glad to hear the truth from you, at any

The Dialogue now branches out, into complex general form; out of which, intent upon abridging, we gather

"How do you like your Custrin life? Still as much aversion to Wusterhausen, and to wearing your shroud

[STERBEKITTEL, name for the tight uniform you would now be so glad of, and think quite other than a

shroud!] as you called it?" Prince's answer wanting. "Likely enough my company does not suit you: I have

no French manners, and cannot bring out BONMOTS in the PETITMAITRE way; and truly regard all that

as a thing to be flung to the dogs. I am a German Prince, and mean to live and die in that character. But you

can now say what you have got by your caprices and obstinate heart; hating everything that I liked; and if I

distinguished any one, despising him! If an Officer was put in arrest, you took to lamenting about him. Your

real friends, who intended your good, you hated and calumniated; those that flattered you, and encouraged

your bad purpose, you caressed. You see what that has come to. In Berlin, in all Prussia for some time back,

nobody asks after you, Whether you are in the world or not; and were it not one or the other coming from

Custrin who reports you as playing tennis and wearing French hairbags, nobody would know whether you

Hard sayings; to which the Prince's answers (if there were any beyond mournful gestures) are not given. We

come now upon Predestination, or the GNADENWAHL; and learn (with real interest, not of the laughing sort

alone) how his "Majesty, in the most conclusive way, set forth the horrible results of that AbsoluteDecree

notion; which makes out God to be the Author of Sin, and that Jesus Christ died only for some! Upon which

the CrownPrince vowed and declared (HOCH UND THEUER), he was now wholly of his Majesty's

The King, now thoroughly moved, expresses satisfaction at the orthodoxy; and adds with enthusiasm, "When

godless fellows about you speak against your duties to God, the King and your Country, fall instantly on your

knees, and pray with your whole soul to Jesus Christ to deliver you from such wickedness, and lead you on

better ways. And if it come in earnest from your heart, Jesus, who would have all men saved, will not leave

you unheard." No! And so may God in his mercy aid you, poor son Fritz. And as for me, in hopes the time

coming will show fruits, I forgive you what is past.To which the CrownPrince answered with

monosyllables, with many tears; "kissing his Majesty's feet;"and as the King's eyes were not dry, he

"It being his Majesty's birthday [4th August by OLD STYLE, 15th by NEW, fortythird birthday], the

Prince, all bewept and in emotion, followed his Father; and, again falling prostrate, testified such heartfelt

joy, gratitude and affection over this blessed anniversary, as quite touched the heart of Papa; who at last

clasped him in his arms [poor soul, after all!], and hurried out to avoid blubbering quite aloud. He stept into

his carriage," intending for Sonnenburg (chiefly by water) this evening, where a Serene Cousin, one of the

"The CrownPrince followed his Majesty out; and, in the presence of many hundred people, kissed his

Majesty's feet" again (linen gaiters, not DayandMartin shoes); "and was again embraced by his Majesty,

who said, 'Behave well, as I see you mean, and I will take care of you,' which threw the CrownPrince into

such an ecstasy of joy as no pen can express;" and so the carriages rolled away,towards the

KnightsofMalta business and Palace of the Head Knight of Malta, in the first place. [Forster, iii. 5054.]

These are the main points, says Grumkow, reporting next day; and the reader must interpret them as he can,

A CrownPrince with excellent histrionic talents, thinks the reader. Well; a certain exaggeration, immensity

of wish becoming itself enthusiasm; somewhat of that: but that is by no means the whole or even the main

part of the phenomenon, O reader. This CrownPrince has a real affection to his Father, as we shall in time

convince ourselves. Say, at lowest, a CrownPrince loyal to fact; able to recognize overwhelming fact, and

aware that he must surrender thereto. Surrender once made, the element much clears itself; Papa's side of the

question getting fairly stated for the first time. Sure enough, Papa, is God's Vicegerent in several undeniable

Dim old Fassmann yields a spark or two,as to his Majesty's errand at Sonnenburg. Majesty is going to

preside tomorrow "at the Installation of young Margraf Karl, new HERRMEISTER (GrandMaster) of the

Knights of St. John" there; "the Office having suddenly fallen vacant lately." Office which is an

heirloom;usually held by one of the Margraves, halfuncles of the King,some junior of them, not

provided for at Schwedt or otherwise. Margraf Albert, the last occupant, an old gentleman of sixty, died

lately, "by stroke of apoplexy while at dinner;" [21st June, 1731: Fassmann, p. 423; Pollnitz, ii. 390.]and

his eldest Son, Margraf Karl, with whom his Majesty lodges tonight, is now Herrmeister. "Majesty came at

6 P.M. to Sonnenburg [must have left Custrin about five]; fortytwo Ritters made at Sonnenburg next

day,"a certain Colonel or LieutenantGeneral von Wreech, whom we shall soon see again, is one of them;

Seckendorf another. "Fresh RITTERSCHLAG ["Knightstroke," Batch of Knights dubbed] at Sonnenburg,

29th September next," which shall not the least concern us. Note Margraf Karl, however, the new

Herrmeister; for he proves a soldier of some mark, and will turn up again in the Silesian Wars;as will a

poor Brother of his still more impressively, "shot dead beside the King," on one occasion there.

We add this of Dickens, for all the Diplomatists, and a discerning public generally, are much struck with the

Event at Custrin; and take to writing of it as news;and "Mr. Ginkel," Dutch Ambassador here, an

ingenious, honest and observant man, well enough known to us, has been out to sup with the Prince, next

day; and thus reports of him to Dickens: "Mr. Ginkel, who supped with the Prince on Thursday last," day

after the Interview, "tells me that his Royal Highness is extremely improved since he had seen him; being

grown much taller; and that his conversation is surprising for his age, abounding in good sense and the

Here are other shreds, snatched from the WitchCaldron, and pinned down, each at its place; which give us

POTSDAM, 21st AUGUST, 1731 (King to Wolden the Hofmarschall). ... "CrownPrince shall travel over,

and personally inspect, the following Domains: Quartschen, Himmelstadt, Carzig, Massin, Lebus, Gollow

and Wollup," dingy moorfarms dear to Antiquarians; "travel over these and not any other. Permission

always to be asked, of his Royal Majesty, in writing, and mention made to which of them the CrownPrince

means to go. Some one to be always in attendance, who can give him fit instruction about the husbandry; and

as the CrownPrince has yet only learned the theory, he must now be diligent to learn the same practically.

For which end it must be minutely explained to him, How the husbandry is managed,how ploughed,

manured, sown, in every particular; and what the differences of good and bad husbandry are, so that he may

be able of himself to know and judge the same. Of Cattlehusbandry too, and the affairs of Brewing

(VIEHZUCHT UND BRAUWESEN), the due understanding to be given him; and in the matter of Brewing,

show him how things are handled, mixed, the beer drawn off, barrelled, and all how they do with it (WIE

UBERALL DABEI VERFAHREN); also the malt, how it must be prepared, and what like, when good.

Useful discourse to be kept up with him on these journeys; pointing out how and why this is and that, and

whether it could not be better:"O King of a thousand!"Has liberty to shoot stags, moorcocks

(HUHNER) and the like; and a smallhunt [KLEINE JAGD, not a PARFORCE or big one] can be got up for

his amusement now and then;" furthermore "a little duckshooting from boat," on the sedgy waters there,if

the poor soul should care about it. Wolden, or one of the Kammerjunkers, to accompany always, and be

responsible. "No MADCHEN or FRAUENSMENSCH," no shadow of womankind;"keep an eye on him,

These things are in the Prussian Archives; of date the week after that interview. In two weeks farther, follows

the Prince's speculation about Carzig and the Building of a Farmstead there; with Papa's "real contentment

WUSTERHAUSEN, 11th SEPTEMBER (King to CrownPrince). ... "Only you must examine whether there

is meadowground enough, and how many acres can actually be allotted to that Farm. [Hear his Majesty!]

Take a Landsurveyor with you; and have all well considered; and exactly inform yourself what kind of land

it is, whether it can only grow rye, or whether some of it is barleyland: you must consider it YOURSELF,

and do it all out of your own head, though you may consult with others about it. In grazingground

in fact, it fails in nothing; and is got all done ("wood laid out to season straightway," and "what digging and

stubbing there is, proceeded with through the winter"): done in a successful and instructive manner, both

Carzig and Himmelstadt, though we will say nothing farther of them. [Forster, i. 387392.]

CUSTRIN, 22d SEPTEMBER (CrownPrince to Papa). ... "Have been at Lebus; excellent land out there;

fine weather for the husbandman." "Major Roder," unknown Major, "passed this way; and dined with me, last

Wednesday. He has got a pretty fellow (SCHONEN KERL) for my Most AllGracious Father's regiment [the

Potsdam Giants, where I used to be]; whom I could not look upon without bleeding heart. I depend on my

Most AllGracious Father's Grace, that he will be good to me: I ask for nothing and no happiness in the

world but what comes from You; and hope You will, some day, remember me in grace, and give me the Blue

Coat to put on again!" [BRIEFWECHSEL MIT VATER (OEuvres, xxvii. part 3d, p. 27).]To which Papa

Carzig goes on straightway; Papa charmed to grant the moneys; "wood laid out to season," and much

"stubbing and digging" set on foot, before the month ends. Carzig; and directly on the heel of it, on like

terms, Himmelstadt,but of all this we must say no more. It is clear the Prince is learning the Domain

Sciences; eager to prove himself a perfect son in the eyes of Papa. Papa, in hopeful moments, asks himself:

"To whom shall we marry him, then; how settle him?" But what the Prince, in his own heart, thought of it all;

how he looked, talked, lived, in unofficial times? Here has a crabbed dim Document turned up, which, if it

were not nearly undecipherable to the reader and me, would throw light on the point:

The reader knows LieutenantGeneral Schulenburg; stiff little military gentleman of grave years, nephew of

the maypole EMERITA who is called Duchess of Kendal in England. "Had a horse shot under him at

Malplaquet;" battlings and experiences enough, before and since. Has real sense, abundant real pedantry; a

Prussian soldier every inch. He presided in the Copenick Courtmartial; he is deeply concerned in these

CrownPrince difficulties. His Majesty even honors him by expecting he should quietly keep a monitorial

eye upon the CrownPrince;being his neighbor in those parts; ColonelCommandant of a regiment of

Horse at Landsberg not many miles off. He has just been at Vienna [September, 1731 ( MilitairLexikon, iii.

433).] on some "business", (quasidiplomatic probably, which can remain unknown to us); and has reported

upon it, or otherwise finished it off, at Berlin;whence rapidly home to Landsberg again. On the way

homewards, and after getting home, he writes these three Letters; offhand and in all privacy, and of course

with a business sincerity, to Grumkow;little thinking they would one day get printed, and wander into

these latitudes to be scanned and scrutinized! Undoubtedly an intricate crabbed Document to us; but then an

indubitable one. CrownPrince, Schulenburg himself, and the actual figure of Time and Place, are here

mirrored for us, with a business sincerity, in the mind of Schulenburg,as from an accidental patch of water;

ruffled bogwater, in sad twilight, and with sedges and twigs intervening; but under these conditions we do

Could not one, by any conceivable method, interpret into legibility this abstruse dull Document; and so pick

out here and there a glimpse, actual facetoface view, of CrownPrince Friedrich in his lightgray frock

with the narrow silver tresses, in his eclipsed condition there in the Custrin region? All is very mysterious

about him; his inward opinion about all manner of matters, from the GNADENWAHL to the late

DoubleMarriage Question. Even his outward manner of life, in its fleshandblood physiognomy,we

search in vain through tons of dusty lucubration totally without interest, to catch here and there the corner of

a feature of it. Let us try Schulenburg. We shall know at any rate that to Grumkow, in the Autumn 1731,

these words were luculent and significant: consciously they tell us something of young Friedrich;

unconsciously a good deal of LieutenantGeneral Schulenburg, who with his strict theologies, his military

stiffnesses, his reticent, pipeclayed, rigorous and yet human ways, is worth looking at, as an antique species

extinct in our time. He is just home from Vienna, getting towards his own domicile from Berlin, from

Custrin, and has seen the Prince. He writes in a wretched wayside tavern, or posthouse, between Custrin and

Landsberg,dates his letter "WIEN (Vienna)," as if he were still in the imperial City, so offhand is he.

"WIEN [properly BerlinLandsberg Highway, other side of Custrin], 4th October, 1731.

"I regret much to have missed the pleasure of seeing your Excellency again before I left Berlin. I set off

between seven and eight in the morning yesterday, and got to Custrin [seventy miles or so] before seven at

night. But the Prince had gone, that day, to the Bailliage of Himmelstadt" (up the Warta Country, eastward

some fiveandthirty miles, much preparatory digging and stubbing there); and he "slept at Massin

[circuitous road back], where he shot a few stags this morning. As I was told he might probably dine at

Kammin [still nearer Custrin, twelve miles from it; half that distance east of Zorndorf,mark that, O reader

(see Map)] with Madam Colonel Schoning, I drove thither. He had arrrived there a moment before me." And

"I found him much grown; an air of health and gayety about him. He caressed me greatly (ME GRACIEUSA

FORT); afterwards questioned me about my way of life in Vienna; and asked, if I had diverted myself well

there? I told him what business had been the occasion of my journey, and that this rather than amusements

had occupied me; for the rest, that there had been great affluence of company, and no lack of diversions. He

"Wrochem" Schulenburg calls her: young Wife of LieutenantGeneral von Wreech, a Marlborough

Campaigner, made a Knight of Malta the other day; [ MilitairLexikon, iv. 269.] HIS charming young

Wife, and Daughter of Madam Colonel Schoning our hostess here; lives at Tamsel, in high style, in these

"who did not appear indifferent to him." No!"and in fact she was in all her beauty; a complexion of lily

Charming creature; concerning whom there are anecdotes still afloat, and at least verses of this Prince's

writing; not too well seen by Wreech, lately made a Knight of Malta, who, though only turning forty, is

perhaps twice her age. The beautifulest, cleverest,fancy it; and whether the peaty Neumark produces

"We went to dinner; he asked me to sit beside him. The conversation fell, among other topics, on the Elector

Palatine's Mistress," crotchety old gentleman, never out of quarrels, with Heidelberg Protestants, heirs of

Julich and Berg, and in general with an unreasonable world, whom we saw at Mannheim last year; has a

Mistress,"Elector Yalatine's Mistress, called Taxis. CrownPrince said: 'I should like to know what that

good old gentleman does with a Mistress?' I answered, that the fashion had come so much in vogue, Princes

did not think they were Princes unless they had mistresses; and that I was amazed at the facility of women,

how they could shut their eyes on the sad reverse of fortune nearly inevitable for them;and instanced the

"Gravenitz;" example lately fallen out at Wurtemberg, as we predicted. Prayers of the Country, "Deliver us

from evil," are now answered there: Gravenitz quite over with it! Alas, yes; lately fallen from her high estate

in Wurtemberg, and become the topic of dinnertables; seized by soldiers in the nighttime; vain her high

refusals, assurances of being too unwell to dress, "Shall go in your shift, then,"is in prison, totally eclipsed.

[Michaelis, iii. 440; Pollnitz, i. 297.] Calming her fury, she will get out; and wearisomely wander about in

"There were other subjects touched upon; and I always endeavored to deduce something of moral instruction

"Among other things, he said, He liked the great world, and was charmed to observe the ridiculous weak side

of some people. 'That is excellent,' said I, 'if one profit by it oneself: but if it is only for amusement, such a

motive is worth little; we should rather look out for our own ridiculous weak side.' On rising, Hofmarschall

Wolden said to me," without much sincerity, "'YOU have done well to preach a little morality to him.' The

"'You have learned nothing of what is to become of me?' said he. I answered: 'It is supposed your Royal

Highness will return to Berlin, when the Marriage [Wilhelmina's] takes place; but as to what will come next, I

have heard nothing. But as your Highness has friends, they will not fail to do their endeavor; and M. de

Grumkow has told me he would try to persuade the King to give you a regiment, in order that your Highness

might have something to do.' It seemed as if that would give him pleasure. I then took the liberty of saying:

'Monseigneur, the most, at present, depends on yourself.'How so?' asked he. I answered, 'It is only by

showing good conduct, and proofs of real wisdom and worth, that the King's entire favor can be gained First

of all, to fear God'"And, in fact, I launched now into a moral preachment, or discursive Dialogue, of great

length; much needing to have the skirts of it tucked up, in a way of faithful abridgment, for behoof of poor

"SCHULENBURG: If your Highness behave well, the King will accord what you want: but it is absolutely

necessary to begin by that. PRINCE: I do nothing that can displease the King. SCHULENBURG: It

would be a little soon yet! But I speak of the future. Your Highness, the grand thing I recommend is to fear

God! Everybody says, you have the sentiments of an honest man; excellent, that, for a beginning; but without

the fear of God, your Highness, the passions stifle the finest sentiments. Must lead a life clear of reproach;

and more particularly on the chapter of women! Need not imagine you can do the least thing without the

King's knowing it: if your Highness take the bad road, he will wish to correct it; the end will be, he will bring

you back to live beside him; which will not be very agreeable. PRINCE: Hmph, No!SCHULENBURG:

Of the ruin to health I do not speak; IPRINCE: Pooh, one is young, one is not master of that;" and, in

fact, on this delicate chapter, which runs to some length, Prince answers as wildish young fellows will;

quizzing my grave self, with glances even at his Majesty, on alleged old peccadilloes of ours. Which

allegations or inferences I rebutted with emphasis. "But, I confess, though I employed all my rhetoric, his

mind did not seem to alter; and it will be a miracle if he change on this head." Alas, General! Can't be helped,

"He said he was not afraid of anything so much as of living constantly beside the King.SCHULENBURG:

Arm yourself with patience, Monseigneur, if that happen. God has given you sense enough; persevere to use

it faithfully on all occasions, you will gain the good graces of the King.PRINCE: Impossible; beyond my

power, indeed, said he; and made a thousand objections. SCHULENBURG: Your Highness is like one that

will not learn a trade because you do not already know it. Begin; you will certainly never know it otherwise!

Before rising in the morning, form a plan for your day,"in fact, be moral, oh, be moral!

His Highness now got upon the marriages talked of for him; an important point for the young man. He spoke,

hopefully rather, of the marriage with the Princess of Mecklenburg,Niece of the late Czar Peter the Great;

Daughter of that unhappy Duke who is in quarrel with his Ritters, and a trouble to all his neighbors, and to us

among the number. Readers recollect that young Lady's Serene Mother, and a meeting she once had with her

Uncle Peter,at Magdeburg, a dozen years ago, in a public drawingroom with alcove near; anecdote not

lightly to be printed in human types, nor repeated where not necessary. The Mother is now dead; Father still

up to the eyes in puddle and trouble: but as for the young Lady herself, she is Niece to the now Czarina Anne;

"But there will be difficulties; your Highness to change your religion, for one thing?PRINCE: Won't, by

any means: SCHULENBURG: And give up the succession to Prussia? PRINCE: A right fool if I

did!SCHULENBURG: Then this marriage comes to nothing.Thereupon next he said, If the Kaiser is so

strong for us, let him give me his second Daughter;" lucky Franz of Lorraine is to get the

first."SCHULENBURG: Are you serious? PRINCE: Why not? with a Duchy or two it would do very

well. SCHULENBURG: No Duchies possible under the Pragmatic Sanction, your Highness: besides, your

change of religion?PRINCE: Oh, as to that, never!Then this marriage also comes to nothing Of the

English, and their DoubleMarriage, and their Hotham brabble, he spoke lightly, as of an extinct matter,in

"But, said I, since you speak so much of marriages, I suppose you wish to be married?PRINCE: No; but if

the King absolutely will have it, I will marry to obey him. After that, I will shove my wife into the corner

(PLANTERAI LA MA FEMME), and live after my own faucy.SCHULENBURG: Horrible to think of!

For, in the first place, your Highness, is it not written in the Law of God, Adulterers shall not inherit the

Kingdom of Heaven?" And in the second place; and in the third and fourth place!To all which he answered

as wild young fellows do, especially if you force marriage on them. "I can perceive, if he marries, it will only

be to have more liberty than now. It is certain, if he had his elbows free, he would strike out (S'EN

DONNERAIT A GAUCHE). He said to me several times: 'I am young; I want to profit by my youth.'" A

questionable young fellow, Herr General; especially if you force marriage on him.

"This conversation done," continues the General, "he set to talking with the Madam Wreech," and her

complexion of lily and rose; "but he did not stay long; drove off about five [dinner at the stroke of twelve in

And so the Prince is off in the Autumn sunset, driving down the peaty hollow of the Warta, through

unpicturesque country, which produces Wreechs and incomparable flowers nevertheless. Yes; and if he look

a six miles to the right, there is the smoke of the evening kettles from Zorndorf, rising into the sky; and across

the River, a twenty miles to the left, is Kunersdorf: poor sleepy sandy hamlets; where nettles of the Devil are

"The beautiful Wreech drove off to Tamsel," her fine house; I to this wretched tavern; where, a couple of

hours after that conversation, I began writing it all down, and have nothing else to do for the night. Your

This young man may be orthodox on Predestination, and outwardly growing all that a Papa could wish; but

here are strange heterodoxies, here is plenty of mutinous capricious fire in the interior of him, Herr General!

In fact, a young man unfortunately situated; already become solitary in Creation; has not, except himself, a

friend in the world available just now. Tempestuous Papa storms one way, tempestuous Mamma Nature

another; and between the outsids and the inside there are inconsistencies enough.

Concerning the fair Wreech of Tamsel, with her complexion of lily and rose, there ensued by and by much

whispering, and rumoring underbreath; which has survived in the apocryphal AnecdoteBooks, not in too

distinct a form. Here, from first hand, are three words, which we may take to be the essence of the whole.

Grumkow reporting, in a sordid, occasionally smutty, spy manner, to his Seckendorf, from Berlin, eight or

ten months hence, has this casual expression: "He [King Friedrich Wilhelm] told me in confidence that

Wreech, the Colonel's Wife, isto P. R. (PrinceRoyal); and that Wreech vowed he would not own it for

his. And his Majesty in secret is rather pleased," adds the smutty spy. [Grumkow to Seckendorf, Berlin, 20th

August, 1732 (Forster, iii. 112).] Elsewhere I have read that the poor object, which actually came as

anticipated (male or female, I forget), did not live long;nor had Friedrich, by any opportunity, another

child in this world. Domestic Tamsel had to allay itself as it best could; and the fair Wreech became much a

stranger to Friedrich, surprisingly so to Friedrich the KING, as perhaps we may see.

Predestination, GNADENWAHL, Herr General: what is orthodoxy on Predestination, with these

accompaniments! [For Wreech, see Benekendorf, v. 94; for Schulenburg, ib. 26;and MilitairLexikon, iii.

432, 433, and iv. 268, 269. Vacant on the gossiping points; cautiously official, both these.] We go now to the

"The day before yesterday [that is, Wednesday, 17th October] I received an Order, To have only fifty Horse

at that post, and" Order which shows us that there has fallen out some recruiting squabble on the Polish

Frontier hereabouts; that the Polack gentlemen have seized certain Corporals of ours, but are about restoring

them; Order and affair which we shall omit. "Corporals will be got back: but as these Polack gentlemen: will

see, by the course taken, that we have no great stomach for BITING, I fancy they will grow more insolent;

"On the same day I was apprised, from Custrin, That the PrinceRoyal had resolved on an excursion to

Carzig, and thence to the Bailliage of Himmelstadt [digging and stubbing now on foot at Himmelstadt too],

which is but a couple of miles ["DEMIMILLE" German.] from this; that there would be a little hunt

between the two Bailliages; and that if I chose to come, I might, and the Prince would dine with

me."Which I did; and so, here again, Thursday, 18th October, 1731, in those remote WartaOder

Countries, is a glimpse of his Royal Highness at first hand. Schulenburg continues; not even taking a new

"They had shut up a couple of SPIESSER (young roes), and some stags, in the old wreck of a SAUGARTEN

[Boarpark, between Carzig and Himmelstadt; FAST RUINIRTEN SAUGARTEN, he calls it, daintily

throwing in a touch of German here]: the Prince shot one or two of them, and his companions the like; but it

does not seem as if this amusement were much to his taste. He went on to Himmelstadt; and at noon he

"At one o'clock we went to table, and sat till four. He spoke only of very indifferent things; except saying to

me: 'Do you know, the King has promised 400,000 crowns (60,000 pounds) towards disengaging those

Bailliages of the Margraf of Baireuth's,'" old Margraf, Bailliages pawned to raise ready cash; readers

remember what interminable Lawpleading there was, till Friedrich Wilhelm put it into a liquid state, "Pay

me back the moneys, then!" [Supra, pp. 161163.]"'400,000 thalers to the old Margraf, in case his Prince

(Wilhelmina's now Bridegroom) have a son by my Sister.' I answered, I had heard nothing of it.'But,' said

he, 'that is a great deal of money! And some hundred thousands more have gone the like road, to Anspach,

who never will be able to repay. For all is much in disorder at Anspach. Give the Margraf his Heronhunt

(CHASSE AU HERON), he cares for nothing; and his people pluck him at no allowance.' I said: That if these

Princes would regulate their expenditure, they might, little by little, pay off their debts; that I had been told at

Vienna the Baireuth Bailliages were mortgaged on very low terms, those who now held them making eight or

ten per cent of their money;"that the Margraf ought to make an effort; and so on. "I saw very well that

"Directly on rising from table, he went away; excusing himself to me, That he could not pass the night here;

that the King would not like his sleeping in the Town; besides that he had still several things to complete in a

Report he was sending off to his Majesty. He went to Nassin, and slept there. For my own share, I did not

press him to remain; what I did was rather in the way of form. There were with him President Munchow,"

civil gentleman whom we know, "an Engineer Captain Reger, and the three Gentlemen of his Court,"

Wolden, Rohwedel, Katzmer who once twirled his finger in a certain mouth, the insipid fellow.

"He is no great eater; but I observed he likes the small dishes (PETITS PLATS) and the high tastes: he does

not care for fish; though I had very fine trouts, he never touched them. He does not take brown soup (SOUPE

AU BOUILLON). It did not seem to me he cared for wine: he tastes at all the wines; but commonly stands by

"I introduced to him all the Officers of my Regiment who are here; he received them in the style of a king

[EN ROI, plenty of quiet pride in him, Herr General]. It is certain he feels what he is born to; and if ever he

get to it, will stand on the top of it. As to me, I mean to keep myself retired; and shall see of him as little as I

can. I perceive well he does not like advice," especially when administered in the way of preachment, by stiff

old military gentlemen of the allwise stamp;"and does not take pleasure except with people inferior to

him in mind. His first aim is to find out the ridiculous side of every one, and he loves to banter and quiz. It is

a fault in a Prince: he ought to know people's faults, and not to make them known to anybody whatever,"

which, we perceive, is not quite the method with private gentlemen of the allwise type!

"I speak to your Excellency as a friend; and assure you he is a Prince who has talent, but who will be the

slave of his passions (SE FERA DOMINER PAR SES PASSIONS,"not a felicitous prophecy, Herr

General); "and will like nobody but such as encourage him therein. For me, I think all Princes are cast in the

"At parting, he embraced me twice; and said, 'I am sorry I cannot stay longer; but another time I will profit

better.' Wolden [one of the Three] told me he could not describe how wellintentioned for your Excellency

the PrinceRoyal is [cunning dog!], who says often to Wolden [doubtless guessing it will be resaid], 'If I

cannot show him my gratitude, I will his posterity:'"profoundly obliged to the Grumkow kindred first and

And so, after survey of the spademen at Carzig and Himmelstadt (where Colonel Wreech, by the way, is

AMTSHAUPTMANN, official HeadMan), after shooting a SPIESSER or two, and dining and talking in

this sort, his Royal Highness goes to sleep at Massin; and ends one day of his then life. We proceed to Letter

A day or two after No. 2, it would appear, his Majesty, who is commonly at Wusterhausen hunting in this

season, has been rapidly out to Crossen, in these Landsberg regions (to south, within a day's drive of

Landsberg), rapidly looking after something; Grumkow and another Official attending him;other Official,

"Truchsess," is Truchsess von Waldburg, a worthy soldier and gentleman of those parts, whom we shall again

hear of. In No. 3 there is mention likewise of the "Kurfurst of Koln," Elector of Cologne; languid lanky

gentleman of Bavarian breed, whom we saw last year at Bonn, richest Pluralist of the Church; whom

doubtless our poor readers have forgotten again. Mention of him; and also considerable sulky humor, of the

Majesty'sOpposition kind, on Schulenburg's part; for which reason, and generally as a poor direct reflex of

time and place, reflex by ruffled bogwater, through sedges, and in twilight; dim but indubitable,we

"MONSIEUR,I trust your Excellency made your journey to Crossen with all the satisfaction imaginable.

Had I been warned sooner, I would have come; not only to see the King, but for your Excellency's sake and

Truchsess's: but I received your Excellency's Letter only yesterday morning; so I could not have arrived

before yesternight, and that late; for it is fifty miles off, and one has to send relays beforehand; there being no

"We are,not to make comparisons,like Harlequin! No sooner out of one scrape, than we get into

another; and all for the sake of those Big Blockheads (L'AMOUR DE CES GRANDS COLOSSES). What

the Kurfurst of Koln has done, in his character of Bishop of Osnabruck,"a deed not known to this Editor,

but clearly in the way of snubbing our recruiting system,"is too droll: but if we avenge ourselves, there

will be high play, and plenty of it, all round our borders! If such things would make any impression on the

spirit, of our Master: but they do not; they"in short, this recruiting system is delirious, thinks the stiff

Schulenburg; and scruples not to say so, though not in his place in Parliament, or even TobaccoParliament.

For there is a Majesty's Opposition in all lands and times. "We ruin the Country," says the Honorable

Member, "sending annually millions of money out of it, for a set of vagabond fellows (GENS A SAC ET A

CORDE), who will never do us the least service. One sees clearly it is the hand of God," darkening some

people's understanding; "otherwise it might be possible their eyes would open, one time or another!"A stiff

pipeclayed gentleman of great wisdom, with plenty of sulphur burning in the heart of him. The rest of his

Letter is all in the Opposition strain (almost as if from his place in Parliament, only far briefer than is usual

"within these walls"); and winds up with a glance at Victor Amadeus's strange feat, or rather at the Son's feat

done upon Victor, over in Sardinia; preceded by this interjectionary sentence on a Prince nearer home:

"As to the PrinceRoyal, depend on it he will do whatever is required of him [marry anybody you like if you

give him more elbowroom, for that is whither he aims.Not a bad stroke that, of the King of

Sardinia"Grand news of the day, at that time; now somewhat forgotten, and requiring a word from us:

Old King Victor Amadeus of Sardinia had solemnly abdicated in favor of his Son; went, for a twelvemonth or

more, into private felicity with an elderly Ladylove whom he had long esteemed the first of women;tired

of such felicity, after a twelvemonth; demanded his crown back, and could not get it! Ladylove and he are

taken prisoners; lodged in separate castles: [2d September, 1730 abdicated, went to Chambery; reclaims, is

locked in Rivoli, 8th October, 1731 (news of it just come to Schulenburg); dies there, 31st October, 1732, his

67th year.] and the wrath of the proud old gentleman is Olympian in character,split an oak table, smiting it

while he spoke (say the cicerones);and his silence, and the fiery daggers he looks, are still more emphatic.

But the young fellow holds out; you cannot play handydandy with a king's crown, your Majesty! say his

new Ministers. Is and will continue King. "Not a bad stroke of him," thinks Schulenburg,

"especially if his Father meant to play him the same trick," that is, clap him in prison. Not a bad

stroke;which perhaps there is another that could imitate, "if HIS Papa gave him the opportunity! But THIS

Papa will take good care; and the Queen will not forget the Sardinian business, when he talks again of

"But now had not we better have been friends with England, should war rise upon that Sardinian business?

General Schulenburg,"the famed Venetian Fieldmarshal, bruiser of the Turks in Candia, [Same who was

beaten by Charles XII. before; a worthy soldier nevertheless, say the Authorities: LIFE of him by Varnhagen

von Ense ( Biographische Denkmale, Berlin, 1845).] my honored Uncle, who sometimes used to visit his

Sister the Maypole, now EMERITA, in London, and sip beer and take tobacco on an evening, with George I.

of famous memory,he also "writes me this VictorAmadeus news, from Paris;" so that it is certain;

ExKing locked in Rivoli near a fortnight ago: "he, General Schulenburg, says farther, To judge by the

outside, all appears very quiet; but many think, at the bottom of the bag it will not be the same."

So far LieutenantGeneral Schulenburg; whom we thank for these contemporary glimpses of a young man

that has become historical, and of the scene he lived in. And with these three accidental utterances, as if they

(which are alone left) had been the sum of all he said in the world, let the LieutenantGeneral withdraw now

into silence: he will turn up twice again, after half a score of years, once in a nobler than talking attitude, the

closeharnessed, stalwart, slightly atrabiliar military gentleman of the old Prussian school.

These glimpses of the CrownPrince, reflected on us in this manner, are not very luculent to the

reader,light being indifferent, and mirror none of the best:but some features do gleam forth, good and

not so good; which, with others coming, may gradually coalesce into something conceivable. A Prince clearly

of much spirit, and not without petulance; abundant fire, much of it shining and burning irregularly at

present; being sore held down from without, and anomalously situated. Pride enough, thinks Schulenburg,

capricious petulance enough,likely to go into "a reign of the passions," if we live. As will be seen!

Wilhelmina was betrothed in June last: Wilhelmina, a Bride these six months, continues to be much

tormented by Mamma. But the Bridegroom, Prince of Baireuth, is gradually recommending himself to

persons of judgment, to Wilhelmina among others. One day he narrowly missed an unheardof accident: a

foolish servant, at some boarhunt, gave him a loaded piece on the halfcock; halfcock slipped in the

handling; bullet grazed his Majesty's very temple, was felt twitching the hair there;ye Heavens!

Whereupon impertinent remarks from some of the Dessau people (allies of Schwedt and the Margravine in

high colors); which were well answered by the Prince, and noiselessly but severely checked by a wellbred

King. [Wilhelmina, i. 356.] King has given the Prince of Baireuth a regiment; and likes him tolerably, though

the young man will not always drink as could be wished. Wedding, in spite of clouds from her Majesty, is

"This year," says Fassmann, "the building operations both in Berlin and Stettin,"in Stettin where new

fortifications are completed, in Berlin where gradually whole new quarters are getting built,"were

exceedingly pushed forward (AUSSERST POUSSIRT)." Alas, yes; this too is a questionable memorable

feature of his Majesty's reign. Late Majesty, old King Friedrich I., wishful,as others had been, for the

growth of Berlin, laid out a new Quarter, and called it Friedrichs Stadt; scraggy boggy ground, planned out

into streets, Friedrichs Strasse the chief street, with here and there a house standing lonesomely prophetic on

it. But it is this present Majesty, Friedrich Wilhelm, that gets the plan executed, and the Friedrichs Strasse

actually built, not always in a soft or spontaneous manner. Friedrich Wilhelm was the AEdile of his Country,

as well as the Drillsergeant; Berlin City did not rise of its own accord, or on the principle of leavealone,

any more than the Prussian Army itself. Wreck and rubbish Friedrich Wilhelm will not leave alone, in any

kind; but is intent by all chances to sweep them from the face of the Earth, that something useful, seemly to

the Royal mind, may stand there instead. Hence these building operations in the Friedrich Street and

The number of scraggy waste places he swept clear, first and last, and built tight human dwellings upon, is

almost uncountable. A common gift from him (as from his Son after him) to a man in favor, was that of a

new good House,an excellent gift. Or if the man is himself able to build, Majesty will help him, incite him:

"Timber enough is in the royal forests; stone, lime are in the royal quarries; scraggy waste is abundant: why

should any man, of the least industry or private capital, live in a bad house?" By degrees, the pressure of his

Majesty upon private men to build with encouragement became considerable, became excessive, irresistible;

and was much complained of, in these years now come. Old Colonel Derschau is the King's Agent, at Berlin,

in this matter; a hard stiff man; squeezes men, all manner of men with the least capital, till they build.

Nussler, for example, whom we once saw at Hanover, managing a certain contested Heritage for Friedrich

Wilhelm; adroit Nussler, though he has yet got no fixed appointment, nor pay except by the job, is urged to

build;second year hence, 1733, occurs the case of Nussler, and is copiously dwelt upon by Busching his

biographer: "Build yourself a house in the Friedrichs Strasse!" urges Derschau. "But I have no pay, no

capital!" pleads Nussler. "Tush, your Fatherinlaw, abstruse Kanzler von Ludwig, in Halle University,

monster of lawlearning there, is not he a monster of hoarded moneys withal? He will lend you, for his own

and his Daughter's sake. [Busching, Beitrage, i. 324.] Or shall his Majesty compel him?" urges Derschau.

And slowly, continually turns the screw upon Nussler, till he too raises for himself a firm good house in the

Friedrichs Stadt, Friedrichs Strasse, or STREET, as they now call it, which the Tourist of these days

knows. Substantial clear ashlar Street, miles or halfmiles long; straight as a line:Friedrich Wilhelm found

it scrag and quagmire; and left it what the Tourist sees, by these hard methods. Thus Herr PrivyCouncillor

Klinggraf too, Nussler's next neighbor: he did not want to build; far from it; but was obliged, on worse terms

than Nussler. You have such work, founding your house;for the NusslerKlinggraf spot was a fishpool,

and "carps were dug up" in founding;such piles, bound platform of solid beams; "4,000 thalers gone before

the first stone is laid:" and, in fact, the house must be built honestly, or it will be worse for the house and you.

"Cost me 12,000 thalers (l,800 pounds) in all, and is worth perhaps 2,000!" sorrowfully ejaculates Nussler,

when the job is over. Still worse with PrivyCouncillor Klinggraf: his house, the next to Nussler's, is worth

mere nothing to him when built; a soapboiler offers him 800 thalers (120 pounds) for it; and Nussler, to

avoid suffocation, purchases it himself of Klinggraf for that sum. Derschau, with his slow screwmachinery,

is very formidable;and Busching knows it for a fact, "that respectable Berlin persons used to run out of the

way of Burgermeister Koch and him, when either of them turned up on the streets!"

These things were heavy to bear. Truly, yes; where is the liberty of private capital or liberty of almost any

kind, on those terms? Liberty to ANNIHILATE rubbish and chaos, under known conditions, you may have;

but not the least liberty to keep them about you, though never so fond of doing it! What shall we say? Nussler

and the Soapboiler do both live in houses more human than they once had. Berlin itself, and some other

things, did not spring from Freetrade. Berlin City would, to this day, have been a Place of SCRUBS ("the

BERLIN," a mere appellative noun to that effect), had Freetrade always been the rule there. I am sorry his

Majesty transgresses the limits;and we, my friends, if we can make our Chaos into Cosmos by firing

Parliamentary eloquence into it, and bombarding it with BlueBooks, we will much triumph over his

Thus are the building operations exceedingly pushed forward, the Ear of Jenkins torn off, and Victor

Amadeus locked in ward, while our CrownPrince, in the eclipsed state, is inspected by a Sage in pipeclay,

Tuesday, 20th November, 1731, Wilhelmina's weddingday arrived, after a brideship of eight months; and

that young Lady's troublesome romance, more happily than might have been expected, did at last wind itself

up. Mamma's unreasonable humors continued, more or less; but these also must now end. Old wooers and

outlooks, "the four or three crowned heads,"they lie far over the horizon; faded out of one's very thoughts,

all these. Charles XII., Peter II. are dead; Weissenfels is not, but might as well be. Prince Fred, not yet

wedded elsewhere, is doing French madrigals in Leicester House; tending fowards the "West Wickham" set

of Politicians, the PittLyttelton set; stands ill with Father and Mother, and will not come to much. August

the DilapidatedStrong is deep in Polish troubles, in AntiKaiser politics, in drinkingbouts;his greattoe

never mended, never will mend. Gone to the spectral state all these: here, blooming with life in its cheeks, is

the one practical Fact, our good Hereditary Prince of Baireuth,privately our fate all along; which we

will welcome cheerfully; and be thankful to Heaven that we have not died in getting it decided for us!

Wedding was of great magnificence; Berlin Palace and all things and creatures at their brightest: the

BrunswickBeverns here, and other high Guests; no end of pompous ceremonials, solemnities and

splendors,the very train of one's gown was "twelve yards long." Eschewing all which, the reader shall

commodiously conceive it all, by two samples we have picked out for him: one sample of a Person, high

The Duchess Dowager of SachsenMeiningen, who has come to honor us on this occasion, a very large

Lady, verging towards sixty; she is the person. A living elderly Daughter of the Great Elector himself;

halfsister to the late King, halfaunt to Friedrich Wilhelm; widow now of her third husband: a singular

phenomenon to look upon, for a moment, through Wilhelmina's satirical spectacles. One of her three

husbands, "Christian Ernst of Baireuth" (Margraf there, while the present Line was but expectant), had been a

kind of WelshUncle to the Prince now Bridegroom; so that she has a double right to be here. "She had found

the secret of totally ruining Baireuth," says Wilhelmina; "Baireuth, and Courland as well, where her first

wedlock was;" perhaps Meiningen was done to her hand? Here is the Portrait of "my GrandAunt;" dashed

"It is said she was very fond of pleasing, in her youth; one saw as much still by her affected manners. She

would have made an excellent actress, to play fantastic parts of that kind. Her flaming red countenance, her

shape, of such monstrous extent that she could hardly walk, gave her the air of a Female Bacchus. She took

care to expose to view her"a part of her person, large but no longer beautiful,"and continually kept

patting it with her hands, to attract attention thither. Though sixty gone," fiftyseven in point of

fact,"she was tricked out like a girl; hair done in ribbonlocks (MARRONNES), all filled with gewgaws

of rosepink color, which was the prevailing tint in her complexion, and so loaded with colored jewels, you

This charming old Lady, daughter of the GROSSE KURFURST, and so very fat and rubicund, had a Son

once: he too is mentionable in his way,as a milestone (parish milestone) in the obscure Chronology of

those parts. Her first husband was the Duke of Courland; to him she brought an heir, who became Duke in his

turn,and was the final Duke, LAST of the "Kettler" or native Line of Dukes there. The Kettlers had been

Teutsch Ritters, Commandants in Courland; they picked up that Country, for their own behoof, when the

Ritterdom went down; and this was the last of them. He married Anne of Russia with the big cheek (Czar

Peter's Niece, who is since become Czarina); and died shortly after, twenty years ago; with tears doubtless

from the poor rosepink Mother, far away in Baireuth and childless otherwise; and also in a sense to the

sorrow of Courland, which was hereby left vacant, a prey to enterprising neighbors. And on those terms it

was that Saxons Moritz (our dissolute friend, who will be MARECHAL DE SAXE one day) made his clutch

at Courland, backed by moneys of the French actress; rumor of which still floats vaguely about. Moritz might

have succeeded, could he have done the first part of the feat, fallen in love with Swolncheeked Anne,

Dowager there; but he could not; could only pretend it: Courland therefore (now that the Swolncheek is

become Czarina) falls to one Bieren, a born Courlander, who could. [Last Kettler, Anne's Husband, died

(leaving only an old Uncle, fallen Into Papistry and other futility, who, till his death some twenty years after,

had to reside abroad and be nominal merely), 1711; Moritz's attempt with Adrienne Lecouvreur's cash was,

1726; Anne became Sovereign of all the Russias (on her poor Cousin Peter II.'s death), 1730; Bieren (BIRON

as he tried to write himself, being of poor birth) did not get installed till 1737; and had, he and Courland both,

several tumbles after that before getting to stable equilibrium.] We hurry to the "Grand Apartment" in

Berlin Schloss, and glance rapidly, with Wilhelmina (in an abridged form), how magnificent it is:

Royal Apartment, third floor of the Palace at Berlin, one must say, few things equal it in the world. "From the

Outer Saloon or Antechamber, called SALLE DES SUISSES [where the halberdier and valet people wait]

you pass through six grand rooms, into a saloon magnificently decorated: thence through two rooms more,

and so into what they call the PictureGallery, a room ninety feet long. All this is in a line." Grand all this;

but still only common in comparison. From the PictureGallery you turn (to right or left is not said, nor does

it matter) into a suite of fourteen great rooms, each more splendid than the other: lustre from the ceiling of the

first room, for example, is of solid silver; weighs, in pounds avoirdupois I know not what, but in silver coin

"10,000 crowns:" ceilings painted as by Correggio; "wallmirrors between each pair of windows are twelve

feet high, and their piers (TRUMEAUX) are of massive silver; in front of each mirror, table can be laid for

twelve;" twelve Serenities may dine there, flanked by their mirror, enjoying the Correggiosities above, and

the practical sublimities all round. "And this is but the first of the fourteen;" and you go on increasing in

superbness, till, for example, in the last, or superlative Saloon, you find "a lustre weighing 50,000 crowns; the

globe of it big enough to hold a child of eight years; and the branches (GUERIDONS) of it," I forget how

many feet or fathoms in extent: silver to the heart. Nay the musicbalcony is of silver; wearied fiddler lays

his elbow on balustrades of that precious metal. Seldom if ever was seen the like. In this superlative Saloon

Old King Friedrich, the expensive Herr, it was he that did the furnishing and Correggiopainting of these

sublime rooms: but this of the masses of wrought silver, this was done by Friedrich Wilhelm,incited

thereto by what he saw at Dresden in August the Strong's Establishment; and reflecting, too, that silver is

silver, whether you keep it in barrels in a coined form, or work it into chandeliers, mirrorframes and

musicbalconies. These things we should not have mentioned, except to say that the massive silver did

prove a hoard available, in after times, against a rainy day. Massive silver (well mixed with copper first) was

all melted down, stamped into current coins, native and foreign, and sent wandering over the world, before a

certain Prince got through his SevenYears Wars and other pinches that are ahead!

In fine, Wilhelmina's Wedding was magnificent; though one had rubs too; and Mamma was rather severe.

"Hair went all wrong, by dint of overdressing; and hung on one's face like a boy's. Crownroyal they had put

(as indeed was proper) on one's head: hair was in twentyfour locks the size of your arm: such was the

Queen's order. Gown was of clothofsilver, trimmed with Spanish goldlace (AVEC UN POINT

D'ESPAGNE D'OR); train twelve yards long;one was like to sink to the earth in such equipment."

Courage, my Princess!In fact, the Wedding went beautifully off; with dances and sublimities, slow solemn

Torchdance to conclude with, in those unparalleled upper rooms; GrandAunt Meiningen and many other

stars and rainbows witnessing; even the Margravine of Schwedt, in her high colors, was compelled to be

there. Such variegated splendor, such a dancing of the Constellations; sublunary Berlin, and all the world, on

tiptoe round it! Slow Torchdance, winding it up, melted into the shades of midnight, for this time; and there

But, on the following nights, there were Balls of a less solemn character; far pleasanter for dancing purposes.

It is to these, to one of these, that we direct the attention of all readers. Friday, 23d, there was again Ball and

Royal Evening Party"Grand Apartment" so called. Immense Ball, "seven hundred couples, all people of

condition:" there were "Four Quadrilles," or dancing places in the big sea of qualityfigures; each at its due

distance in the grand suite of rooms: Wilhelmina presides in Quadrille NUMBER ONE; place assigned her

was in the room called PictureGallery; Queen and all the Principalities were with Wilhelmina, she is to lead

off their quadrille, and take charge of it. Which she did, with her accustomed fire and elasticity;and was

circling there, on the light fantastic toe, time six in the evening, when Grumkow, whom she had been dunning

"I liked dancing," says she, "and was taking advantage of my chances. Grumkow came up, and interrupted

me in the middle of a minuet: 'EH, MON DIEU MADAME!' said Grumkow, 'you seem to have got bit by the

tarantula! Don't you see those strangers who have just come in?' I stopt short; and looking all round, I noticed

at last a young man dressed in gray, whom I did not know. 'Go, then, embrace the PriuceRoyal; there he is

before you!' said Grumkow. All the blood in my body went topsyturvy for joy. 'O Heaven, my Brother?'

cried I: 'But I don't see him; where is he? In God's name, let me see him!' Grumkow led me to the young man

in gray. Coming near, I recognized him, though with difficulty: he had grown amazingly stouter

(PRODIGIEUSEMENT ENGRAISSE), shortened about the neck; his face too had much changed, and was

no longer so beautiful as it had been. I sprang upon him with open arms (SAUTAI AU COU); I was in such a

state, I could speak nothing but broken exclamations: I wept, I laughed, like one gone delirious. In my life I

"The first sane step was to throw myself at the feet of the King: King said, 'Are you content with me? You

see I have kept my word!' I took my Brother by the hand; and entreated the King to restore him his

friendship. This scene was so touching, it drew tears from the eyes of everybody. I then approached the

Queen. She was obliged to embrace me, the King being close opposite; but I remarked that her joy was only

affected."Why then, O Princess? Guess, if you can, the female humors of her Majesty!

"I turned to my Brother again; I gave him a thousand caresses, and said the tenderest things to him: to all

which he remained cold as ice, and answered only in monosyllables. I presented the Prince (my Husband); to

whom he did not say one word. I was astonished at this fashion of procedure! But I laid the blame of it on the

King, who was observing us, and who I judged might be intimidating my Brother. But even his countenance

A muchchanged CrownPrince. What can be the meaning of it? Neither King nor he appeared at supper:

they were supping elsewhere, with a select circle; and the whisper ran among us, His Majesty was treating

him with great friendliness. At which the Queen, contrary to hope, could not conceal her secret pique. "In

fact," says Wilhelmina, again too hard on Mamma, "she did not love her children except as they served her

ambitious views." The fact that it was I, and not she, who had achieved the Prince's deliverance, was painful

"Ball having recommenced, Grumkow whispered to me, 'That the King was pleased with my frank kind ways

to my Brother; and not pleased with my Brother's cold way of returning it: Does he simulate, and mean still

to deceive me? Or IS that all the thanks he has for Wilhelmina? thinks his Majesty. Go on with your sincerity,

Madam; and for God's sake admonish the CrownPrince to avoid finessing!' CrownPrince, when I did, in

some interval of the dance, report this of Grumkow, and say, Why so changed and cold, then, Brother of my

heart? answered, That he was still the same; and that he had his reasons for what he did." Wilhelmiua

"Next morning, by the King's order, he paid me a visit. The Prince," my Husband, "was polite enough to

withdraw, and left me and Sousfeld alone with him. He gave me a recital of his misfortnues; I communicated

mine to him,"and how I had at last bargained to get him free again by my compliance. "He appeared much

discountenanced at this last part of my narrative. He returned thanks for the obligations I had laid on

him,with some caressings, which evidently did not proceed from the heart. To break this conversation, he

started some indifferent topic; and, under pretence of seeing my Apartment, moved into the next room, where

the Prince my Husband was. Him he ran over with his eyes from head to foot, for some time; then, after some

constrained civilities to him, went his way." What to make of all this? "Madam Sonsfeld shrugged her

Alas, yes, poor Wilhelmina; a CrownPrince got into terrible cognizance of facts since we last met him!

Perhaps already sees, not only what a Height of place is cut out for him in this world, but also in a dim way

what a solitude of soul, if he will maintain his height? Top of the frozen Schreckhorn;have you well

considered such a position! And even the way thither is dangerous, is terrible in this case. Be not too hard

Captain Dickens, who alone of all the Excellencies was not at the Wedding,and never had believed it

would be a wedding, but only a rumor to bring England round,duly chronicles this happy reappearance of

the PrinceRoyal: "about six, yesterday evening, as the company was dancing,to the great joy and surprise

of the whale Court;"and adds: "This morning the Prince came to the public Parade; where crowds of

people of all ranks flocked to see his Royal Highness, and gave the most open demonstrations of pleasure."

Wilhelmina, these noisy tumults, not all of them delightful, once done, gets out of the perplexed hurlyburly,

home towards still Baireuth, shortly after Newyear. [11th January, 1732 (Wilhelmina, ii. 20.] "Berlin was

become as odious to me as it had once been dear. I flattered myself that, renouncing grandeurs, I might lead a

soft and tranquil life in my new Home, and begin a happier year than the one that had just ended." Mamma

was still perverse; but on the edge of departure Wilhelmina contrived to get a word of her Father, and

"My discourse produced its effect; he melted into tears, could not answer me for sobs; he explained his

thoughts by his embracings of me. Making an effort, at length, he said: 'I am in despair that I did not know

thee. They had told me such horrible tales, I hated thee as much as I now love thee. If I had addressed myself

direct to thee, I should have escaped much trouble, and thou too. But they hindered me from speaking; said

thou wert illnatured as the Devil, and wouldst drive me to extremities I wanted to avoid. Thy Mother, by her

intriguings, is in part the cause of the misfortunes of the family; I have been deceived and duped on every

side. But my hands are tied; and though my heart is torn in pieces, I must leave these iniquities

unpunished!'"The Queen's intentions were always good, urged Wilhelmina. "Let us not enter into that

detail," answered he: "what is past is past; I will try to forget it;" and assured Wilhelmina that she was the

dearest to him of the family, and that he would do great things for her still,only part of which came to

effect in the sequel. "I am too sad of heart to take leave of you," concluded he: "embrace your Husband on

my part; I am so overcome that I must not see him." [Wilhelmina, ii. 4; who dates 11th January, 1732.] And

CrownPrince was back to Custrin again, many weeks before. Back to Custrin; but under totally changed

omens: his history, after that first emergence in Wilhelmina's dance "23d November about six P.M.," and

appearance at Parade on the morrow (Saturday morning), had been as follows. Monday November 26th) there

was again grand Ball, and the Prince there, not in gray this time. Next day, the old Dessauer and all the higher

Officers in Berlin petitioned, "Let us have him in the Army again, your Majesty!" Majesty consented: and so,

Friday, 30th, there was grand dinner at Seckendorf's, CrownPrince there, in soldier's uniform again; a

completely pardoned youth. His uniform is of the Goltz Regiment, Infantry: Goltz Regiment, which lies at

Ruppin,at and about, in that moory Country to the Northeast, some thirty or forty miles from

CrownPrince had to resume his Kammer work at Custrin, and see the Buildings at Carzig, for a three

months longer, till some arrangements in the Regiment Goltz were perfected, and finishing improvements

given to it. But "on the last day of February" (29th) 1732 being leapyear), his Royal Highness's Commission

to be Colonel Commandant of said Regiment is made out; and he proceeds, in discharge of the same, to

Ruppin, where his men lie. And so puts off the pikegray coat, and puts on the military blue one, [Preuss, i.

Ruppin is a little Town, in that northwest Fehrbellin region: Regiment Goltz had lain in detached quarters

hitherto; but is now to lie at Ruppin, the first Battalion of it there, and the rest within reach. Here, in Ruppin

itself, or ultimately at Reinsberg in the neighborhood, was Friedrich's abode, for the next eight years.

Habitual residence: with transient excursions, chiefly to Berlin in Carnival time, or on other great occasions,

and always strictly on leave; his employment being that of Colonel of Foot, a thing requiring continual

vigilance and industry in that Country. Least of all to be neglected, in any point, by one in his circumstances.

He did his military duties to a perfection satisfactory even to Papa; and achieved on his own score many other

duties and improvements, for which Papa had less value. These eight years, it is always understood, were

We described the CrownPrince as intent to comply, especially in all visible external particulars, with Papa's

will and pleasure; to distingnish himself by real excellence in Commandantship of the Regiment Goltz,

first of all. But before ever getting into that, there has another point risen, on which obedience, equally

Ever since the grand Catastrophe went off WITHOUT taking Friedrich's head along with it, and there began

to be hopes of a pacific settlement, question has been, Whom shall the CrownPrince marry? And the debates

about it in the Royal breast and in TobaccoParliament, and rumors about it in the world at large, have been

manifold and continual. In the Schulenburg Letters we saw the CrownPrince himself much interested, and

eagerly inquisitive on that head. As was natural: but it is not in the CrownPrince's mind, it is in the

TobaccoParliament, and the Royal breast as influenced there, that the thing must be decided. Who in the

world will it be, then? CrownPrince himself hears now of this party, now of that. England is quite over, and

the Princess Amelia sunk below the horizon. Friedrich himself appears a little piqued that Hotham carried his

nose so high; that the English would not, in those lifeanddeath circumstances, abate the least from their

"Both marriages or none,"thinks they should have saved Wilhelmina, and taken his word of honor for the

rest. England is now out of his head;all romance is too sorrowfully swept out: and instead of the "sacred

aircities of hope" in this high section of his history, the young man is looking into the "mean clay hamlets of

reality," with an eye well recognizing them for real. With an eye and heart already tempered to the due

hardness for them. Not a fortunate result, though it was an inevitable one. We saw him flirting with the

beautiful wedded Wreech; talking to LieutenantGeneral Schulenburg about marriage, in a way which shook

the pipeclay of that virtuous man. He knows he would not get his choice, if he had one; strives not to care.

Nor does he, in fact, much care; the romance being all out of it. He looks mainly to outward advantages; to

personal appearance, temper, good manners; to "religious principle," sometimes rather in the reverse way

(fearing an OVERPLUS rather);but always to likelihood of moneys by the match, as a very direct item.

Ready command of money, he feels, will be extremely desirable in a Wife; desirable and almost

indispensable, in present straitened circumstances. These are the notions of this illsituated Coelebs.

The parties proposed first and last, and rumored of in Newspapers and the idle brains of men, have been very

many, no limit to their numbers; it MAY be anybody: an intending purchaser, though but possessed of

sixpence, is in a sense proprietor of the whole Fair! Through Schulenburg we heard his own account of them,

last Autumn;but the far noblest of the lot was hardly glanced at, or not at all, on that occasion. The Kaiser's

eldest Daughter, sole heiress of Austria and these vast PragmaticSanction operations; Archduchess Maria

Theresa herself,it is affirmed to have been Prince Eugene's oftenexpressed wish, That the CrownPrince

of Prussia should wed the future Empress [Hormayr, Allgemeine Geschichte der neueslen Zeit (Wien, 1817),

i. 13; cited in Preuss, i. 71.] Which would indeed have saved immense confusions to mankind! Nay she alone

of Princesses, beautiful, magnanimous, brave, was the mate for such a Prince, had the Good Fairies been

consulted, which seldom happens:and Romance itself might have become Reality in that case: with high

results to the very soul of this young Prince! Wishes are free: and wise Eugene will have been heard, perhaps

often, to express this wish; but that must have been all. Alas, the preliminaries, political, especially religious,

are at once indispensable and impossible: we have to dismiss that daydream. A PapalProtestant Controversy

still exists among mankind; and this is one penalty they pay for not having settled it sooner. The Imperial

BOOK IX. LAST STAGE OF FRIEDRICH'S APPRENTICESHIP: LIFE IN RUPPIN. 17321736. 389

What the Imperial Court can do is, to recommend a Niece of theirs, insignificant young Princess, Elizabeth

Christina of BrunswickBevern, who is Niece to the Empress; and may be made useful in this way, to herself

and us, think the Imperial Majesties;will be a new tie upon the Prussians and the Pragmatic Sanction, and

keep the Alliance still surer for our Archduchess in times coming, think their Majesties. She, it is insinuated

by Seckendorf in TobaocoParliament; ought not she, Daughter of your Majesty's esteemed

friend,modestminded, innocent young Princess, with a Brother already betrothed in your Majesty's

Did we inform the reader once about Kaiser Karl's young marriage adventures; and may we, to remind him,

mention them a second time? How Imperial Majesty, some fiveandtwenty years ago, then only King of

Spain, asked Princess Caroline of Anspach, who was very poor, and an orphan in the world. Who at once

refused, declining to think of changing her religion on such a score;and now governs England,

telegraphing with Walpole, as Queen there instead. How Karl, now Imperial Majesty, then King of Spain,

next applied to BrunswickWolfenbuttel; and met with a much better reception there. Applied to old Anton

Ulrich, reigning Duke, who writes big Novels, and does other foolish goodnatured things; who persuaded

his Granddaughter that a change to Catholicism was nothing in such a case, that he himself should not care

in the least to change. How the Granddaughter changed accordingly, went to Barcelona, and was

wedded;and had to dun old Grandpapa, "Why don't you change, then?" Who did change thereupon;

thinking to himself, "Plague on it I must, then!" the foolish old Herr. He is dead; and his Novels, in six

volumes quarto, are all dead: and the Granddaughter is Kaiserinn, on those terms, a serene monotonous

wellfavored Lady, diligent in her Catholic exercises; of whom I never heard any evil, good rather, in her

eminent serene position. Pity perhaps that she had recommended her Niece for this young Prussian

gentleman; whom it by no means did "attach to the Family" so very careful about him at Vienna! But if there

lay a sin, and a punishment following on it, here or elsewhere, in her Imperial position, surely it is to be

charged on foolish old Anton Ulrich; not on her, poor Lady, who had never coveted such height, nor durst for

her soul take the leap thitherward, till the serene old literary gentleman showed her how easy it was.

Well, old Anton Ulrich is long since dead, [1714, age 70. Huber, t. 190.] and his religious accounts are all

settled beyond cavil; and only the sad duty devolves on me of explaining a little what and who his rather

insipid offspring are, so far as related to readers of this History. Anton Ulrich left two sons; the elder of

whom was Duke, and the younger had an Apanage, Blankenburg by name. Only this younger had

children,serene Kaiserinn that now is, one of them: The elder died childless, [1731, Michaelis, i. 132.]

precisely a few months before the times we are now got to; reigning Duke of BrunswickWolfenbuttel,

["WelfBOOTHS" (Hunted Camp of the Welfs), according to Etymology. "Brunswick," again, is

BRAUN'SWick; "Braun" (Brown) being an old militant Welf in those parts, who built some lodge for

himself, as a convenience there,Year 880, say the uncertain old Books. Hubner, t. 149; Michaelis, all but

certain Apanages, and does not concern us farther. To that supreme dignity the younger has now come, and

his Apanage of Blankenburg and children with him;so that there is now only one outstanding Apanage

(Bevern, not known to us yet); which also will perhaps get reunited, if we cared for it. Ludwig Rudolf is the

name of this new sovereign Duke of BrunswickWolfenbuttel, or Duke in chief; age now sixty; has a

shining, bustling, somewhat irregular Duchess, says Wilhelmina; and a noseor rather almost no nose, for

sad reasons! [Wilhelmina, ii. 121.] Other qualities or accidents I know not of him,except that he is Father

of the Vienna Kaiserinn; Grandfather of the Princess whom Seckendorf suggests for our Friedrich of Prussia.

In Ludwig Rudolf's insipid offspring our readers are unexpectedly somewhat interested; let readers patiently

attend, therefore. He had three Daughters, never any son. Two of his Daughters, eldest and youngest, are

alive still; the middle one had a sad fate long ago. She married, in 1711, Alexius the Czarowitz of Peter the

Great: foolish Czarowitz, miserable and making others miserable, broke her heart by ill conduct, ill usage, in

four years; so that she died; leaving him only a poor small Peter II., who is now dead too, and that matter

ended all but the memory of it. Some accounts bear, that she did not die; that she only pretended it, and ran

and left her intolerable Czarowitz. That she wedded, at Paris, in deep obscurity, an Officer just setting out for

BOOK IX. LAST STAGE OF FRIEDRICH'S APPRENTICESHIP: LIFE IN RUPPIN. 17321736. 390

Louisiana; lived many years there as a thrifty soldier's wife; returned to Paris with her Officer reduced to

halfpay; and told himor told some select Official person after him, under sevenfold oath, being then a

widow and necessitousher sublime secret. Sublime secret, which came thus to be known to a supremely

select circle at Paris; and was published in Books, where one still reads it. No vestige of truth in it,except

that perhaps a necessitous soldier's widow at Paris, considering of ways and means, found that she had some

trace of likeness to the Pictures of this Princess, and had heard her tragic story.

Ludwig Rudolf's second Daughter is dead long years ago; nor has this fable as yet risen from her dust. Of

Ludwig Rudolf's other two Daughters, we have said that one, the eldest, was the Kaiserinn; Empress

Elizabeth Christina, age now precisely forty; with two beautiful Daughters, sublime Maria Theresa the elder

of them, and no son that would live. Which last little circumstance has caused the Pragmatic Sanction, and

tormented universal Nature for so many years back! Ludwig Rudolf has a youngest Daughter, also married,

and a Mother in Germany,to this day conspicuously so;of whom next, or rather of her Husband and

Her Husband is no other than the esteemed Friend of Friedrich Wilhelm; Duke of BrunswickBevern, by

title; who, as a junior branch, lives on the Apanage of Bevern, as his Father did; but is sure now to inherit the

sovereignty and be Duke of BrunswickWolfenbuttel at large, he or his Sons, were the present incumbent,

Ludwig Rudolf, once out. Present incumbent, we have just intimated, is his Fatherinlaw; but it is not on

that ground that he looks to inherit. He is Nephew of old Anton Ulrich, Son of a younger Brother (who was

also "Bevern" in Anton's time); and is the evident Heirmale; old Anton being already fallen into the distaff,

with nothing but three Granddaughters. Anton's heir will now be this Nephew; Nephew has wedded one of

the Granddaughters, youngest of the Three, youngest Daughter of Ludwig Rudolf, Sovereign Duke that now

is; which Lady, by the family she brought him, if no otherwise, is memorable or mentionable here, and may

be called, a Mother in Germany. [ANTON ULRICH (18331714). Duke in Chief; that is, Duke of

"Mother in Germany." FERDINAND ALBERT (16361687), his younger Brother apanaged in Bevern;

BOOK IX. LAST STAGE OF FRIEDRICH'S APPRENTICESHIP: LIFE IN RUPPIN. 17321736. 391

Father Bevern her Husband, Ferdinand Albert the name of him, is now just fifty, only ten years younger than

his serene Fatherin law, Ludwig Rudolf:whom, I may as well say here, he does at last succeed, three

years hence (1735) and becomes Duke of Brunswick in General, according to hope; but only for a few

months, having himself died that same year. Poor Duke; rather a good man, by all the accounts I could hear;

though not of qualities that shone. He is at present "Duke of BrunswickBevern,"such his actual

nomenclature in those everfluctuating Sibyl'sleaves of German HistoryBooks, Wilhelmina's and the

others;expectant Duke of Brunswick in General; much a friend of Friedrich Wilhelm. A kind of Austrian

soldier he was formerly, and will again be for brief times; GeneralFeldmarschall so styled; but is not notable

in War, nor otherwise at all, except for the offspring he had by this serene Spouse of his. Insipid offspring,

1. Karl, eldest Son; who is sure to be Brunswick in General; who is betrothed to Princess Charlotte of

Prussia,"a satirical creature, she, fonder of my Prince than of him," Wilhelmina thinks. The wedding

nevertheless took effect. Brunswick in General duly fell in, first to the Father; then, in a few months more, to

Karl with his Charlotte: and from them proceeded, in due time, another Karl, of whom we shall hear in this

History;and of whom all the world heard much in the French Revolution Wars; in 1792, and still more

tragically afterwards. Shot, to death or worse, at the Battle of Jena, October, 1806; "battle lost before it was

begun,"such the strategic history they give of it. He peremptorily ordered the French Revolution to

suppress itself; and that was the answer the French Revolution made him. From this Karl, what NEW Queens

Caroline of England and portentous Dukes of Brunswick, sent upon their travels through the anarchic world,

2. Anton Ulrich; named after his august GreatGrandfather; does not write novels like him. At present a

young gentleman of eighteen; goes into Russia before long, hoping to beget Czars; which issues dreadfully

for himself and the potential Czars he begot. The reader has heard of a potential "Czar Iwan," violently done

to death in his room, one dim moonlight night of 1764, in the Fortress of Schlusselburg, middle of Lake

Ladoga; misty moon looking down on the stone battlements, on the melancholy waters, aud saying

3. Elizabeth Christina; to us more important than any of them. Namesake of the Kaiserinn, her august

Aunt; age now seventeen; insipid finecomplexioned young lady, who is talked of for the Bride of our

CrownPrince. Of whom the reader will hear more. CrownPrince fears she is "too religious,"and will

have "CAGOTS" about her (solemn persons in black, highly unconscious how little wisdom they have), who

4. A merry young Boy, now ten, called Ferdinand; with whom England within the next thirty years will

ring, for some time, loud enough: the great "Prince Ferdinand" himself,under whom the Marquis of

Granby and others became great; Chatham superintending it. This really was a respectable gentleman, and did

considerable things,a Trismegistus in comparison with the Duke of Cnmberland whom he succeeded. A

cheerful, singularly polite, modest, wellconditioned man withal. To be slightly better known to us, if we

5. Three other sons, all soldiers, two of them younger than Ferdinand; whose names were in the gazettes

down to a late period;whom we shall ignore in this place. The last of them was marched out of Holland,

where he had long been Commanderinchief on rather Tory principles, in the troubles of 1787. Others of

them we shall see storming forward on occasion, valiantly meeting death in the field of fight, all

It is of these that Ludwig Rudolf's youngest daughter, the serene Ferdinand Albert's wife, is Mother in

Germany; highly conspicuous in their day. If the question is put, it must be owned they are all rather of the

insipid type. Nothing but a kind of albuminous simplicity noticeable in them; no wit, originality, brightness in

the way of uttered intellect. If it is asked, How came they to the least distinction in this world?the answer

BOOK IX. LAST STAGE OF FRIEDRICH'S APPRENTICESHIP: LIFE IN RUPPIN. 17321736. 392

is not immediately apparent. But indeed they are Welf of the Welfs, in this respect as in others. One asks,

with increased wonder, noticing in the Welfs generally nothiug but the same albuminous simplicity, and

poverty rather than opulence of uttered intellect, or of qualities that shine, How the Welfs came to play such a

part, for the last thousand years, and still to be at it, in conspicuous places? Reader, I have observed that

uttered intellect is not what permanently makes way, but unuttered. Wit, logical brilliancy, spiritual

effulgency, true or FALSE,how precious to idle mankind, and to the Newspapers and HistoryBooks, even

when it is false: while, again, Nature and Practical Fact care next to nothing for it in comparison, even when

it is true! Two silent qualities you will notice in these Welfs, modern and ancient; which Nature much values:

FIRST, consummate human Courage; a noble, perfect, and as it were unconscious superiority to fear. And

then SECONDLY, much weight of mind, a noble not too conscious Sense of what is Right and NotRight, I

have found in some of them;which means mostly WEIGHT, or good gravitation, good observance of the

perpendicular; and is called justice, veracity, highhonor, and other such names. These are fine qualities

indeed, especially with an "albuminous simplicity" as vehicle to them. If the Welfs had not much articulate

intellect, let us guess they made a good use, not a bad or indifferent, as is commoner, of what they had.

Princess Elizabeth Christina, the insipid Brunswick specimen, backed by Seckendorf and Vienna, proves on

consideration the desirable to Friedrich Wilhelm in this matter. But his Son's notions, who as yet knows her

only by rumor, do not go that way. Insipidity, triviality; the fear of "CAGOTAGE" and frightful fellows in

black supremely unconscious what blockheads they are, haunts him a good deal. And as for any money

coming,her sublime Aunt the Kaiserinn never had much ready money; one's resources on that side are

likely to be exiguous. He would prefer the Princess of Mecklenburg, SemiRussian Catharine or Anna, of

whom we have heard; would prefer the Princess of Eisenach (whose name he does not know rightly); thinks

there are many Princesses preferable. Most of all he would prefer, what is well known of him in

TobaccoParliament, but known to be impossible, this long while back, to go upon a round of travel,as for

These candid considerations the CrownPrince earnestly suggests to Grumkow, and the secret committee of

TobaccoParliament; earnestly again and again, in his Correspondence with that gentleman, which goes on

very brisk at present. "Much of it lost," we hear;but enough, and to spare, is saved! Not a beautiful

correspondence: the tone of it shallow, hard of heart; tragically flippant, especially on the CrownPrince's

part; now and then even a touch of the hypocritical from him, slight touch and not with will: alas, what can

the poor young man do? Grumkowwhose ground, I think, is never quite so secure since that Nosti

business professes ardent attachment to the real interests of the Prince; and does solidly advise him of what

is feasible, what not, in headquarters; very exemplary "attachment;" credible to what length, the Prince well

enough knows. And so the Correspondence is unbeautiful; not very descriptive even,for poor Friedrich is

considerably under mask, while he writes to that address; and of Grumkow himself we want no more

"description;" and is, in fact, on its own score, an avoidable article rather than otherwise; though perhaps the

reader, for a poor involved CrownPrince's sake, will wish an exact Excerpt or two before we quite dismiss

Towards turning off the Brunswick speculation, or turning on the Mecklenburg or Eisenach or any other in its

stead, the Correspondence naturally avails nothing. Seckendorf has his orders from Vienna: Grumkow has his

pension,his creambowl duly set, for helping Beckendorf. Though angels pleaded, not in a tone of

tragic flippancy, but with the voice of breaking hearts, it would be to no purpose. The Imperial Majesties

have ordered, Marry him to Brunswick, "bind him the better to our House in time coming;" nay the Royal

mind at Potsdam gravitates, of itself, that way, after the first hint is given. The Imperial will has become the

Paternal one; no answer but obedience. What Grumkow can do will be, if possible, to lead or drive the

CrownPrince into obeying smoothly, or without breaking of harness again. Which, accordingly, is pretty

much the sum of his part in this unlovely Correspondence: the geehoing of an expert wagoner, who has got

BOOK IX. LAST STAGE OF FRIEDRICH'S APPRENTICESHIP: LIFE IN RUPPIN. 17321736. 393

a fiery young Arab thoroughly tied into his dastard sandcart, and has to drive him by voice, or at most by

slight crack of whip; and does it. Can we hope, a select specimen or two of these Documents, not on

Grumkow's part, or for Grumkow's unlovely sake, may now be acceptable to the reader? A Letter or two

picked from that large stock, in a legible state, will show us Father and Son, and how that tragic matter went

Papa's Letters to the CrownPrince during that final Custrin period,when Carzig and Himmelstadt were

going on, and there was such progress in Economics, are all of hopeful ruggedly affectionate tenor; and there

are a good few of them: style curiously rugged, intricate, headlong; and a strong substance of sense and worth

tortuously visible everywhere. Letters so delightful to the poor retrieved CrownPrince then and there; and

which are still almost pleasant reading to thirdparties, once you introduce grammar and spelling. This is one

exact specimen; most important to the Prince and us. Suddenly, one night, by estafette, his Majesty, meaning

nothing but kindness, and grateful to Seckendorf and TobaccoParliament for such an idea, proposes,in

"MY DEAR SON FRITZ,I am very glad you need no more physic. But you must have a care of yourself,

some days yet, for the severe weather; which gives me and everybody colds; so pray be on your guard

"You know, my dear Son, that when my children are obedient, I love them much: so, when you were at

Berlin, I from my heart forgave you everything; and from that Berlin time, since I saw you, have thought of

nothing but of your wellbeing and how to establish you,not in the Army only, but also with a right

Stepdaughter, and so see you married in my lifetime. You may be well persuaded I have had the Princesses

of Germany taken survey of, so far as possible, and examined by trusty people, what their conduct is, their

education and so on: and so a Princess has been found, the Eldest one of Bevern, who is well brought up,

"You will without delay (CITO) write me your mind on this. I have purchased the Von Katsch House; the

Feldmarschall," old Wartensleben, poor Katte's grandfather, "as Governor" of Berlin, "will get that to live in:

and his Government House, [Fine enough old House, or Palace, built by the Great Elector; given by him to

Graf Feldmarschall von Schomberg, the "Duke Schomberg" who was killed in the Battle of the Boyne: "same

House, opposite the Arsenal, which belongs now (1855) to his Royal Highness Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of

Prussia." (Preuss, i. 73; and OEuvres de Frederic, xxvi. 12 n.)] I will have made new for you, and furnish it

all; and give you enough to keep house yourself there; and will command you into the Army, April coming

"The Princess is not ugly, nor beautiful. You must mention it to no mortal;write indeed to Mamma (DER

MAMA) that I have written to you. And when you shall have a Son, I will let you go on your

Travels,wedding, however, cannot be before winter next. Meanwhile I will try aud contrive opportunity

that you see one another, a few times, in all honor, yet so that you get acquainted with her. She is a

Godfearing creature (GOTTESFURCHTIGES MENSCH), which is all in all; will suit herself to you [be

"God give his blessing to it; and bless You and your Posterity, and keep Thee as a good Christian. And have

God always before your eyes;and don't believe that damnable PARTICULAR tenet [Predestination]; and

be obedient and faithful: so shall it, here in Time and there in Eternity, go well with thee;and whoever

BOOK IX. LAST STAGE OF FRIEDRICH'S APPRENTICESHIP: LIFE IN RUPPIN. 17321736. 394

"When the Duke of Lorraine comes, I will have thee come. I think thy Bride will be here then. Adieu; God be

This important Missive reached Custrin, by estafette, that same midnight, 4th5th February; when Wolden,

"Hofmarschall of the Prince's Court" (titular Goldstick there, but with abundance of real functions laid on

him), had the honor to awaken the CrownPrince into the joy of reading. CrownPrince instantly despatched,

by another estafette, the requisite responses to Papa and Mamma,of which Wolden does not know the

contents at all, not he, the obsequious Goldstick;but doubtless they mean "Yes," CrownPrince appearing

so overjoyed at this splendid evidence of Papa's love, as the Goldstick could perceive. [Wolden's LETTER to

Friedrich Wilhelm, "5th February, 1732:" in Preuss, ii. part 2d (or URKUNDENOUCH), p. 206. Mamma's

answer to the message brought her by this return estafette, a mere formal VERYWELL, written from the

What the Prince's actual amount of joy was, we shall learn better from the following three successive

utterances of his, confidentially despatched to Grumkow in the intermediate days, before Berlin or this "Duke

of Lorraine" (whom our readers and the CrownPrince are to wait upon), with actual sight of Papa and the

Intended, came in course. Grumkow's Letters to the CrownPrince in this important interval are not extant,

nor if they were could we stand them: from the Prince's Answers it will be sufficiently apparent what the

tenor of them was. Utterance first is about a week after that of the estafette at midnight:

"MY DEAR GENERAL AND FRIEND,I was charmed to learn by your Letter that my affairs are on so

good a footing [Papa so well satisfied with my professions of obedience]; and you may depend on it I am

docile to follow your advice. I will lend myself to whatever is possible for me; and provided I can secure the

"Nevertheless, in making my bargain with the Duke of Bevern, manage that the CORPUS DELICTI [my

Intended] be brought up under her Grandmother [Duchess of BrunswickWolfenbuttel, Ludwig Rudolf's

Spouse, an airy coquettish Lady,let her be the tutoress and model of my Intended, O General]. For I should

prefer being made a"what shall we say? by a light wife,"or to serve under the haughty FONTANGE

[Species of topknot; so named from Fontange, an unfortunate female of Louis Fourteenth's, who invented the

ornament.] of my Spouse [as Ludwig Rudolf does, by all accounts], than to have a blockhead who would

"I beg you labor at this affair. When one hates romance heroines as heartily as I do, one dreads those 'virtues'

of the ferocious type [LES VERTUS FAROUCHES, so terribly aware that they are virtuous]; and I had

rather marry the greatest[unnamable]in Berlin, than a devotee with half a dozen ghastly hypocrites

(CAGOTS) at her beck. If it were still MOGLICH [possible, in German] to make her Calvinist

[REFORMEE; our CourtCreed, which might have an allaying tendency, and at least would make her go

with the stream]? But I doubt that:I will insist, however, that her Grandmother have the training of her.

"It afflicted me a little that the King still has doubts of me, while I am obeying in such a matter, diametrically

opposite to my own ideas. In what way shall I offer stronger proofs? I may give myself to the Devil, it will be

to no purpose; nothing but the old song over again, doubt on doubt.Don't imagine I am going to disoblige

the Duke, the Duchess or the Daughter, I beseech you! I know too well what is due to them, and too much

BOOK IX. LAST STAGE OF FRIEDRICH'S APPRENTICESHIP: LIFE IN RUPPIN. 17321736. 395

respect their merits, not to observe the strictest rules of what is proper, even if I hated their progeny and

"I hope to speak to you with open heart at Berlin.You may think, too, how I shall be embarrassed, having

to do the AMOROSO perhaps without being it, and to take an appetite for mute ugliness,for I don't much

trust Count Seckendorf's taste in this article,"in spite of his testimonies in TobaccoParliament and

elsewhere. "Monsieur! Once more, get this Princess to learn by heart the ECOLE DES MARIS and the

ECOLE DES FEMMES; that will do her much more good than TRUE CHRISTIANITY by the late Mr.

Arndt! [Johann Arndt ("late" this long while back), Von wahren Christenthum, Magdeburg, 1610.] If,

besides, she would learn steadiness of humor (TOUJOURS DANSER SUR UN PIED), learn music; and,

NOTA BENE, become rather too free than too virtuous, ah then, my dear General, then I should feel some

liking for her, and a Colin marrying a Phyllis, the couple would be in accordance: but if she is stupid,

naturally I renounce the Devil and her. It is said she has a Sister, who at least has common sense. Why take

the eldest, if so? To the King it must be all one. There is also a Princess Christina Marie of Eisenach [real

name being Christina WILHELMINA, but no matter], who would be quite my fit, and whom I should like to

try for. In fine, I mean to come soon into your Countries; [Did come, 26th February, as we shall see.] and

"Your Baireuth News is very interesting; I hope, in September next [time of a grand problem coming there

for Wilhelmina], my Sister will recover her first health. If I go travelling, I hope to have the consolation of

seeing her for a fortnight or three weeks; I love her more than my life; and for all my obediences to the King,

surely I shall deserve that recompense. The diversions for the Duke of Lorraine are very well schemed;

but"but what mortal can now care about them? Close, and seal. [Forster, iii. 160162; OEuvres de

As to this Duke of Lorraine just coming, he is Franz Stephan, a pleasant young man of twentyfive, son of

that excellent Duke Leopold Joseph, whom young Lyttelton of Hagley was so taken with, while touring in

those parts in the CongressofSoissons time. Excellent Duke Leopold Joseph is since dead; and this Franz

has succeeded to him,what succession there was; for Lorraine as a Dukedom has its neck under the foot of

France this great while, and is evidently not long for this world. Old Fleury, men say, has his eye upon it.

And in fact it was, as we shall see, eaten up by Fleury within four years' time; and this Franz proved the last

of all the Dukes there. Let readers notice him: a man of high destiny otherwise, of whom we are to hear

much. For ten years past he has lived about Vienna, being a born Cousin of that House (Grandmother was

Kaiser Leopold's own Sister); and it is understood, nay it is privately settled he is to marry the transcendent

Archduchess, peerless Maria Theresa herself; and is to reap, he, the whole harvest of that Pragmatic Sanction

sown with such travail of the Universe at large. May be King of the Romans (which means successor to the

We may as well say here, he did at length achieve these dignities, though not quite in the time or on the terms

proposed. King of the Romans old Kaiser Karl never could quite resolve to make him, having always

hopes of male progeny yet; which never came. For his peerless Bride he waited six years still (owing to

accidents), "attachment mutual all the while;" did then wed, 1738, and was the happiest of men and expectant

Kaisers:but found, at length, the Pragmatic Sanction to have been a strange sowing of dragon'steeth, and

the first harvest reapable from it a world of armed men!For the present he is on a grand Tour, for

instruction and other objects; has been in England last; and is now getting homewards again, to Vienna,

across Germany; conciliating the Courts as he goes. A pacific friendly eupeptic young man; CrownPrince

Friedrich, they say, took much to him in Berlin; did not quite swear eternal friendship; but kept up some

correspondence for a while, and "once sends him a present of salmon."But to proceed with the utterances

BOOK IX. LAST STAGE OF FRIEDRICH'S APPRENTICESHIP: LIFE IN RUPPIN. 17321736. 396

Utterance SECOND is probably of prior date; but introducible here, being an accidental Fragment, with the

"... As to what you tell me of the Princess of Mecklenburg," for whom they want a Brandenburg

Prince,"could not I marry her? Let her come into this Country, and think no more of Russia: she would

have a dowry of two or three millions of roubles,only fancy how I could live with that! I think that project

might succeed. The Princess is Lutheran; perhaps she objects to go into the Greek Church?I find none of

these advantages in this Princess of Bevern; who, as many people, even of the Duke's Court, say, is not at all

beautiful, speaks almost nothing, and is given to pouting (FAISANT LA FACHEE). The good Kaiserinn has

so little herself, that the sums she could afford her Niece would be very moderate." [Fragment given in

"Given to pouting," too! No, certainly; your Insipidity of Brunswick, without prospects of ready money;

dangerous for CAGOTAGE; "not a word to say for herself in company, and given to pouting:" I do not

Seckendorf, Schulenburg, Grumkow and all hands are busy in this matter: geehoing the CrownPrince

towards the mark set before him. With or without explosion, arrive there he must; other goal for him is

none!In the mean while, it appears, illustrious Franz of Lorraine, coming on, amid the proper

demonstrations, through Magdeburg and the Prussian Towns, has caught some slight illness and been obliged

to pause; so that Berlin cannot have the happiness of seeing him quite so soon as it expected. The high guests

invited to meet Duke Franz, especially the high Brunswicks, are already there. High Brunswicks, Bevern with

Duchess, and still more important, with Son and with Daughter:insipid CORPUS DELICTI herself has

appeared on the scene; and Grumkow, we find, has been writing some description of her to the

CrownPrince. Description of an unfavorable nature; below the truth, not above it, to avert disappointment,

nay to create some gleam of inverse joy, when the actual meeting occurs. That is his art in driving the fiery

little Arab ignominiously yoked to him; and it is clear he has overdone it, for once. This is Friedrich's THIRD

"Judge, my dear General, if I can have been much charmed with the description you give of the abominable

object of my desires! For the love of God, disabuse the King in regard to her [show him that she is a fool,

then]; and let him remember well that fools commonly are the most obstinate of creatures.

"Some months ago he wrote a Letter to Walden," the obsequious Goldstick, "of his giving me the choice of

several Princesses: I hope he will not give himself the lie in that. I refer you entirely to the Letter, which

Schulenburg will have delivered," little Schulenburg called here, in passing your way; all hands busy. "For

there is no hope of wealth, no reasoning, nor chance of fortune that could change my sentiment as expressed

there [namely, that I will not have her, whatever become of me]; and miserable for miserable, it is all one! Let

the King but think that it is not for himself that he is marrying me, but for MYself; nay he too will have a

thousand chagrins, to see two persons hating one another, and the miserablest marriage in the world;to

hear their mutual complaints, which will be to him so many reproaches for having fashioned the instrument

of our yoke. As a good Christian, let him consider, If it is well done to wish to force people; to cause

divorces, and to be the occasion of all the sins that an illassorted marriage leads us to commit! I am

determined to front everything in the world sooner: and since things are so, you may in some good way

BOOK IX. LAST STAGE OF FRIEDRICH'S APPRENTICESHIP: LIFE IN RUPPIN. 17321736. 397

"I have been unfortunate (MALHEUREUX) all my life; and I think it is my destiny to continue so. One must

be patient, and take the time as it comes. Perhaps a sudden tract of good fortune, on the back of all the

chagrins I have made profession of ever since I entered this world, would have made me too proud. In a

word, happen what will, I have nothing to reproach myself with. I have suffered sufficiently for an

exaggerated crime [that of "attempting to desert;"Heavens!]and I will not engage myself to extend my

miseries (CHAGRINS) into future times. I have still resources:a pistolshot can deliver me from my

sorrows and my life: and I think a merciful God would not damn me for that; but, taking pity on me, would,

in exchange for a life of wretchedness, grant me salvation. This is whitherward despair can lead a young

person, whose blood is not so quiescent as if he were seventy. I have a feeling of myself, Monsieur; and

perceive that, when one hates the methods of force as much as I, our boiling blood will carry us always

... "If there are honest people in the world, they must think how to save me from one of the most perilous

passages I have ever been in. I waste myself in gloomy ideas; I fear I shall not be able to hide my grief, on

coming to Berlin. This is the sad state I am in;but it will never make me change from being,"surely to

"I have received a Letter from the King; all agog (BIEN COIFFE) about the Princess. I think I may still finish

the week here. [26th, did arrive in Berlin: Preuss (in OEuvres, xxvii. part 3d, p. 58 n).] When his first fire of

approbation is spent, you might, praising her all the while, lead him to notice her faults. Mon Dieu, has he not

already seen what an illassorted marriage comes to,my Sister of Anspach and her Husband, who hate one

another like the fire! He has a thousand vexations from it every day. ... And what aim has the King? If it is to

assure himself of me, that is not the way. Madam of Eisenach might do it; but a fool not (POINT UNE

BETE);on the contrary, it is morally impossible to love the cause of our misery. The King is reasonable;

and I am persuaded he will understand this himself." [ OEuvres de Frederic, xvi. 41, 42.]

Very passionate pleading; but it might as well address itself to the eastwinds. Have eastwinds a heart, that

they should feel pity? JARNIBLEU, Herr Feldzeugmeister,only take care he don't overset things again!

Grumkow, in these same hours, is writing a Letter to the Prince, which we still have, [Ib. xvi. 43.] How

charmed his Majesty is at such obedience; "shed tears of joy," writes Grumkow, "and said it was the happiest

day of his life." Judge Grumkow's feelings soon after, on this furious recalcitration breaking out! Grumkow's

Answer, which also we still have [Ib. xvi. pp. 4446.] is truculence itself in a polite form:horrorstruck as

a Christian at the suicide notion, at thein fact at the whole matter; and begs, as a humble individual, not

wishful of violent death and destruction upon self and family, to wash his poor hands of it altogether.

Dangerous for the like of him; "interfering between Royal Father and Royal Son of such opposite humors,

would break the neck of any man," thinks Grumkow; and sums up with this pithy reminiscence: "I remember

always what, the King said to me at Wusterhausen, when your Royal Highness lay prisoner in the Castle of

Custrin, and I wished to take your part: 'Nein Grumkow, denket an diese Stelle, Gott gebe dass ich nicht wahr

rede, aber mein Sohn stirbt nicht eines naturlichen Todes; und Gott gebe dass er nicht unter Henkers Hande

komme. No, Grumkow, think of what I now tell you: God grant it do not come true,but my Son won't die a

natural death; God grant he do not come into the Hangman's hands yet!' I shuddered at these words, and the

King repeated them twice to me: that is true, or may I never see God's face, or have part in the merits of our

Saturday, 23d February, 1732, his Serene Highness of Lorraine did at length come to hand. Arrived in

Potsdam that day; where the two Majesties, with the Serene Beverns, with the Prince Alexander of

BOOK IX. LAST STAGE OF FRIEDRICH'S APPRENTICESHIP: LIFE IN RUPPIN. 17321736. 398

Wurtemberg, and the other high guests, had been some time in expectation. Suitable persons invited for the

occasion: Bevern, a titular Austrian Feldmarschall; Prince Alexander of Wurtemberg, an actual one (poor old

Eberhard Ludwig's Cousin, and likely to be Heir there soon); high quasiAustrian Serenities;not to

mention Schulenburg and others officially related to Austria, or acquainted with it. Nothing could be more

distinguished than the welcome of Duke Franz; and the things he saw and did, during his three weeks' visit,

are wonderful to Fassmann and the extinct Gazetteers. Saw the Potsdam Giants do their "EXERCITIA,"

transcendent in perfection; had a boarhunt; "did divine service in the Potsdam Catholic Church; "went by

himself to Spandau, on the Tuesday (26th), where all the guns broke forth, and dinner was ready: King,

Queen and Party having made off for Berlin, in the interim, to be ready for his advent there "in the evening

about, five." Majesties wait at Berlin, with their Party,among whom, say the old Newspapers, "is his Royal

Highness the CrownPrince:" CrownPrince just come in from Custrin; just blessed with the first sight of his

Serene Highness of Lorraine arrived punctually at five, with outburst of all the artilleries and hospitalities;

balls, soirees, EXERCITIA of the Kleist Regiment, of the Gernsd'Armes; dinners with Grumkow, dinners

with Seckendorf, evening party with the Margravine Philip (Margravine in high colors);one scenic miracle

The very first spectacle his Highness saw, a private one, and of no intense interest to him, we shall mention

here for our own behoof. "An hour after his arrival the Duke was carried away to his Excellency Herr Creutz

the FinanceMinister's; to attend a wedding there, along with his Majesty. Wedding of Excellency Creutz's

only Daughter to the Herr HOFJAGERMEISTER von Hacke." HOFJAGERMEISTER (Master of the

Hunt), and more specifically Captain Hacke, of the Potsdam Guard or Giant regiment, much and deservedly a

favorite with his Majesty. Majesty has known, a long while, the merits military and other of this Hacke; a

valiant expert exact man, of good stature, good service among the Giants and otherwise, though not himself

gigantic; age now turned of thirty;and unluckily little but his pay to depend on. Majesty, by way of

increment to Hacke, small increment on the pecuniary side, has lately made him "Master of the Hunt;" will,

before long, make him AdjutantGeneral, and his righthand man in Army matters, were he only rich;has,

in the mean while, made this excellent match for him; which supplies that defect. Majesty was the making of

Creutz himself; who is grown very rich, and has but one Daughter: "Let Hacke have her!" his Majesty

advised;and snatches off the Duke of Lorraine to see it done. [Fassmann, p. 430.]

Did the reader ever hear of FinanceMinister Creutz, once a poor Regiment's Auditor, when his Majesty, as

yet CrownPrince, found talent in him? Can readers fish up from their memory, twenty years back, anything

of a terrific Spectre walking in the Berlin Palace, for certain nights, during that "Stralsund Expedition" or

famed SwedishWar time, to the terror of mankind? Terrific Spectre, thought to be in Swedish

pay,properly a spy Scullion, in a small concern of Grumkow VERSUS Creutz? [Antea, vol. v. pp.

356358; Wilhelmina.] This is the same Creutz; of whom we have never spoken more, nor shall again, now

that his rich Daughter is well married to Hacke, a favorite of his Majesty's and ours. It was the Duke's first

But perhaps the wonderfulest thing, had he quite understood it, was that of the 10th March, which he was

invited to. Last obligation laid upon the CrownPrince, "to bind him to the House of Austria," that evening.

Of which take this account, external and internal, from authentic Documents in our hand.

Document FIRST is of an internal nature, from the Prince's own hand, written to his Sister four days

BOOK IX. LAST STAGE OF FRIEDRICH'S APPRENTICESHIP: LIFE IN RUPPIN. 17321736. 399

"MY DEAREST SISTER,Next Monday comes my Betrothal, which will be done just as yours was. The

Person in question is neither beautiful nor ugly, not wanting for sense, but very ill brought up, timid, and

totally behind in manners and social behavior (MANIERES DU SAVOIRVIVRE): that is the candid

portrait of this Princess. You may judge by that, dearest Sister, if I find her to my taste or not. The greatest

merit she has is that she has procured me the liberty of writing to you; which is the one solacement I have in

"You never can believe, my adorable Sister, how concerned I am about your happiness; all my wishes centre

there, and every moment of my life I form such wishes. You may see by this that I preserve still that sincere

friendship which has united our hearts from our tenderest years:recognize at least, my dear Sister, that you

did me a sensible wrong when you suspected me of fickleness towards you, and believed false reports of my

listening to talebearers; me, who love only you, and whom neither absence nor lying rumors could change

in respect of you. At least don't again believe such things on my score, and never mistrust me till you have

had clear proof,or till God has forsaken me, and I have lost my wits. And being persuaded that such

miseries are not in store to overwhelm me, I here repeat how much I love you, and with what respect and

sincere veneration,I am and shall be till death, my dearest Sister,Your most humble and faithful Brother

That was on the Thursday; Betrothal is on the Monday following. Document SECOND is from poor old

"Monday evening, all creatures are in gala, and the Royal Apartments upstairs are brilliantly alight; Duke of

Lorraine with the other high strangers are requested to take their place up there, and wait for a short while.

Prussian Majesty, Queen and CrownPrince with him, proceeds then, in a solemn official manner, to the

Durchlaucht of Bevern's Apartment, in a lower floor of the Palace; where the Bevern Party, Duke, Duchess,

Son and intended Charmer are. Prussian Majesty asks the Durchlaucht and Spouse, 'Whether the Marriage,

some time treated of, between that their Princess here present, and this his CrownPrince likewise here, is

really a thing to their mind?' Serene Spouses answer, to the effect, 'Yea, surely, very much!' Upon which they

all solemnly ascend to the Royal Apartments [upstairs where we have seen Wilhelmina dancing before now],

where Lorraine, Wurtemberg and the other sublimities are in waiting. Lorraine and the sublimities form a

semicircle; with the two Majesties, and pair of young creatures, in the centre. You young creatures, you are of

one intention with your parents in this matter? Alas, there is no doubt of it. Pledge yourselves, then, by

exchange of rings! said his Majesty with due business brevity. The rings are exchanged: Majesty embraces

the two young creatures with great tenderness;" as do Queen and Serenities; and then all the world takes to

embracing and congratulating; and so the betrothal is a finished thing. Bassoons and violins, striking up,

whirl it off in universal dancing,in "supper of above two hundred and sixty persons," princely or otherwise

sublime in rank, with "spouses and noble ladies there" in the due proportion. [Fassmann, pp. 432, 433.]

Here is fraction of another Note from the CrownPrince to his Sister at Baireuth, a fortnight after that

BERLIN, 24th MARCH, 1732 (to Princess Wilhelmina).... "God be praised that you are better, dearest

Sister! For nobody can love you more tenderly than I do.As to the Princess of Bevern [my Betrothed], the

BOOK IX. LAST STAGE OF FRIEDRICH'S APPRENTICESHIP: LIFE IN RUPPIN. 17321736. 400

Queen [Mamma, whom you have been consulting on these etiquettes] bids me answer, That you need not

style her `Highness,' and that you may write to her quite as to an indifferent Princess. As to 'kissing of the

hands,' I assure you I have not kissed them, nor will kiss them; they are not pretty enough to tempt one that

way. God long preserve you in perfect health! And you, preserve for me always the honor of your good

graces; and believe, my charming Sister, that never brother in the world loved with such tenderness a sister so

charming as mine; in short, believe, dear Sister, that without compliments, and in literal truth, I am yours

This is the Betrothal of the CrownPrince to an Insipidity of Brunswick. Insipidity's private feelings, perhaps

of a languidly glad sort, are not known to us; CrownPrince's we have in part seen. He has decided to accept

his fate without a murmur farther. Against his poor Bride or her qualities not a word more. In the Schloss of

Berlin, amid such tempests of female gossip (Mamma still secretly corresponding with England), he has to be

very reserved, on this head especially. It is understood he did not, in his heart, nearly so much dislike the

Duke Franz of Lorraine went off above a week ago, on the Saturday following the Betrothal; an amiable

serene young gentleman, well liked by the CrownPrince and everybody. "He avoided the Saxon Court,

though passing near it," on his way to old KurMainz; "which is a sign," thinks Fassmann, "that mutual

matters are on a weak footing in that quarter;"Pragmatic Sanction never accepted there, and plenty of

intricacies existing. CrownPrince Friedrich may now go to Ruppin and the Regiment Goltz; his business and

destinies being now all reduced to a steady condition;steady sky, rather leaden, instead of the tempestuous

thunderand lightning weather which there heretofore was. Leaden sky, he, if left well to himself, will

perhaps brighten a little. Study will be possible to him; improvement of his own faculties, at any rate. It is

much his determination. Outwardly, besides drilling the Regiment Goltz, he will have a steady

correspondence to keep up with his Brunswick Charmer;let him see that he be not slack in that.

Friedrich, after some farther pause in Berlin, till things were got ready for him, went to Ruppin. This is in the

Spring of 1732; [Still in Berlin, 6th March; dates from NAUEN (in the Ruppin neighborhood) for the first

time, 25th April, 1732, among his LETTERS yet extant: Preuss, OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. part lst, p. 4;

xvi. 49.] and he continued to have his residence there till August, 1736. Four important years of young life; of

which we must endeavor to give, in some intelligible condition, what traces go hovering about in such

Ruppin, where lies the main part of the Regiment Goltz, and where the CrownPrince Colonel of it dwells, is

a quiet dull, little Town, in that northwestern region; inhabitants, grown at this day to be 10,000, are perhaps

guessable then at 2,000. Regiment Goltz daily rolls its drums in Ruppin: Town otherwise lifeless enough,

except on marketdays: and the grandest event ever known in it, this removal of the CrownPrince

thither,which is doubtless much a theme, and proud temporary miracle, to Ruppin at present. Of society

Quiet Ruppin stands in grassy flat country, much of which is natural moor, and less of it reclaimed at that

time than now. The environs, except that they are a bit of the Earth, and have a bit of the sky over them, do

not set up for loveliness. Natural woods abound in that region, also peatbogs not yet drained; and fishy lakes

and meres, of a dark complexion: plenteous cattle there are, pigs among them;thicksoled husbandmen

inarticulately toiling and moiling. Some glassfurnaces, a royal establishment, are the only manufactures we

hear of. Not a picturesque country; but a quiet and innocent, where work is cut out, and one hopes to be well

left alone after doing it. This CrownPrince has been in far less desirable localities.

He had a reasonable house, two houses made into one for him, in the place. He laid out for himself a garden

in the outskirts, with what they call a "temple" in it,some more or less ornamental gardenhouse,from

which I have read of his "letting off rockets" in a summer twilight. Rockets to amuse a small dinnerparty, I

should guess,dinner of Officers, such as he had weekly or twice a week. On stiller evenings we can fancy

him there in solitude; reading meditative, or musically fluting;looking out upon the silent death of Day:

how the summer gloaming steals over the moorlands, and over all lands; shutting up the toil of mortals; their

very flocks and herds collapsing into silence, and the big Skies and endless Times overarching him and them.

With thoughts perhaps sombre enough now and then, but profitable if he face them piously.

His Father's affection is returning; would so fain return if it durst. But the heart of Papa has been sadly torn

up: it is too good news to be quite believed, that he has a son grown wise, and doing sonlike! Rumor also is

very busy, rumor and the Tobacco Parliament for or against; a little rumor is capable of stirring up great

storms in the suspicious paternal mind. All along during Friedrich's abode at Ruppin, this is a constantly

recurring weathersymptom; very grievous now and then; not to be guarded against by any

precaution;though steady persistence in the proper precaution will abate it, and as good as remove it, in

course of time. Already Friedrich Wilhelm begins to understand that "there is much in this Fritz,"who

knows how much, though of a different type from Papa's?and that it will be better if he and Papa, so

discrepant in type, and ticklishly related otherwise, live not too constantly together as heretofore. Which is

I perceive he read a great deal at Ruppin: what Books I know not specially: but judge them to be of more

serious solid quality than formerly; and that his reading is now generally a kind of studying as well. Not the

express Sciences or Technologies; not these, in any sort,except the military, and that an express exception.

These he never cared for, or regarded as the noble knowledges for a king or man. History and Moral

Speculation; what mankind have done and been in this world (so far as "History" will give one any glimpse

of that), and what the wisest men, poetical or other, have thought about mankind and their world: this is what

he evidently had the appetite for; appetite insatiable, which lasted with him to the very end of his days.

Fontenelle, Rollin, Voltaire, all the then French lights, and gradually others that lay deeper in the

firmament:what suppers of the gods one may privately have at Ruppin, without expense of wine! Such an

In his soldier business he is punctual, assiduous; having an interest to shine that way. And is, in fact,

approvable as a practical officer and soldier, by the strictest judge then living. Reads on soldiering withal;

studious to know the rationale of it, the ancient and modern methods of it, the essential from the unessential

in it; to understand it thoroughly,which he got to do. One already hears of conferences, correspondences,

with the Old Dessauer on this head: "Account of the Siege of Stralsund," with plans, with didactic

commentaries, drawn up by that gunpowder Sage for behoof of the CrownPrince, did actually exist, though

I know not what has become of it. Now and afterwards this Crown Prince must have been a great military

reader. From Caesar's COMMENTARIES, and earlier, to the Chevalier Folard, and the Marquis Feuquiere;

[ Memoires sur la Guerre (specially on the Wars of Louis XIV., in which Feuquiere had himself shone): a

new Book at this time (Amsterdam, 1731; first COMPLETE edition is, Paris, 1770, 4 vols. 4to); at Ruppin,

and afterwards, a chief favorite with Friedrich.] from Epaminondas at Leuctra to Charles XII. at Pultawa, all

manner of Military Histories, we perceive, are at his fingerends; and he has penetrated into the essential

heart of each, and learnt what it had to teach him. Something of this, how much we know not, began at

On the whole, Friedrich is prepared to distinguish himself henceforth by strictly conforming, in all outward

particulars possible, to the paternal will, and becoming the most obedient of sons. Partly from policy and

necessity, partly also from loyalty; for he loves his rugged Father, and begins to perceive that there is more

sense in his peremptory notions than at first appeared. The young man is himself rather wild, as we have

seen, with plenty of youthful petulance and longings after forbidden fruit. And then he lives in an element of

gossip; his whole life enveloped in a vast Dionysius'Ear, every word and action liable to be debated in

TobaccoParliament. He is very scarce of money, too, Papa's allowance being extremely moderate, "not

above 6,000 thalers (900 pounds)," says Seckendorf once. [Forster, iii. 114 (Seckendorf to Prince Eugene).]

There will be contradictions enough to settle: caution, silence, every kind of prudence will be much

In all outward particulars the CrownPrince will conform; in the inward, he will exercise a judgment, and if

he cannot conform, will at least be careful to hide. To do his Commandant duties at Ruppin, and avoid

offences, is much his determination. We observe he takes great charge of his men's health; has the Regiment

Goltz in a shiningly exact condition at the grand reviews;is very industrious now and afterwards to get tall

recruits, as a dainty to Papa. Knows that nothing in Nature is so sure of conciliating that strange old

gentleman; corresponds, accordingly, in distant quarters; lays out, now and afterwards, sums far too heavy for

his means upon tall recruits for Papa. But it is good to conciliate in that quarter, by every method, and at

every expense;Argus of TobaccoParliament still watching one there; and Rumor needing to be

industriously dealt with, difficult to keep down. Such, so far as we can gather, is the general figure of

Friedrich's life at Ruppin. Specific facts of it, anecdotes about it, are few in those dim Books; are uncertain as

to truth, and without importance whether true or not. For all his gravity and Colonelship, it would appear the

old spirit of frolic has not quitted him. Here are two small incidents, pointing that way; which stand on

record; credible enough, though vague and without importance otherwise. Incident FIRST is to the following

feeble effect; indisputable though extremely unmomentous: Regiment Goltz, it appears, used to have gold

trimmings; the Colonel CrownPrince petitioned that they might be of silver, which he liked better. Papa

answers, Yes. Regiment Goltz gets its new regimentals done in silver; the Colonel proposes they shall

solemnly BURN their old regimentals. And they do it, the Officers of them, SUB DIO, perhaps in the Prince's

garden, strippiug successively in the "Temple" there, with such degree of genial humor, loud laughter, or at

least boisterous mocksolemnity, as may be in them. This is a true incident of the Prince's history, though a

Incident SECOND is of slightly more significance; and intimates, not being quite alone in its kind, a

questionable habit or method the CrownPrince must have had of dealing with Clerical Persons hereabouts

when they proved troublesome. Here are no fewer than three such Persons, or Parsons, of the Ruppin

Country, who got mischief by him. How the first gave offence shall be seen, and how he was punished:

offences of the second and the third we can only guess to have been perhaps pulpitrebukes of said

punishments: perhaps general preaching against military levities, want of piety, nay open sinfulness, in

thoughtless young men with cockades. Whereby the thoughtless young men were again driven to think of

nocturnal charivari? We will give the story in Dr. Busching's own words, who looks before and after to great

distances, in a way worth attending to. The Herr Doctor, an endless Collector and Compiler on all manner of

subjects, is very authentic always, and does not want for natural sense: but he is also very crude,and here

and there not far from stupid, such his continual haste, and slobbery manner of working up those Hundred

and odd Volnmes of his: [See his Autobiography, which forms Beitrage, B. vi. (the biggest and last

"The sanguinecholeric temperament of Friedrich," says this Doctor, "drove him, in his youth, to sensual

enjoyments and wild amusements of different kinds; in his middle age, to fiery enterprises; and in his old

years to decisions and actions of a rigorous and vehement nature; yet so that the primary form of utterance, as

seen in his youth, never altogether ceased with him. There are people still among us (1788) who have had, in

their own experience, knowledge of his youthful pranks; and yet more are living, who know that he himself,

at table, would gayly recount what merry strokes were done by him, or by his order, in those young years. To

"While he was at NeuRuppin as Colonel of the Infantry Regiment there, the Chaplain of it sometimes

waited upon him about the time of dinner,having been used to dine occasionally with the former Colonel.

The CrownPrince, however, put him always off, did not ask him to dinner; spoke contemptuously of him in

presence of the Officers. The Chaplain was so inconsiderate, he took to girding at the CrownPrince in his

sermons. 'Once on a time,' preached he, one day, 'there was Herod who had Herodias to dance before him;

and he,he gave her John the Baptist's head for her pains!'" This HEROD, Busching says, was understood to

mean, and meant, the CrownPrince; HERODIAS, the merry corps of Officers who made sport for him;

JOHN THE BAPTIST'S HEAD was no other than the Chaplain not invited to dinner! "To punish him for

such a sally, the Crown Prince with the young Officers of his Regiment went, one night, to the Chaplain's

house," somewhere hard by, with cow'sgrass adjoining to it, as we see: and "first, they knocked in the

windows of his sleepingroom upon him [HINGEwindows, glass not entirely broken, we may hope]; next

there were crackers [SCHWARMER, "enthusiasts," so to speak!] thrown in upon him; and thereby the

Chaplain, and his poor Wife," more or less in an interesting condition, poor woman, "were driven out into the

courtyard, and at last into the dungheap there;"and so left, with their Head on a Charger to that terrible

That is Busching's version of the story; no doubt substantially correct; of which there are traces in other

quarters,for it went farther than Ruppin; and the CrownPrince had like to have got into trouble from it.

"Here is piety!" said Rumor, carrying it to TobaccoParliament. The CrownPrince plaintively assures

Grumkow that it was the Officers, and that they got punished for it. A likely story, the Prince's!

"When King Friedrich, in his old days, recounted this after dinner, in his merry tone, he was well pleased that

the guests, and even the pages and valets behind his back, laughed aloud at it." Not a pious old King, Doctor,

still less an orthodox one! The Doctor continues: "In a like style, at Nauen, where part of his regiment lay, he

hadby means of Herr von der Groben, his FirstLieutenant," much a comrade of his, as we otherwise

perceive"the Diaconus of Nauen and his Wife hunted out of bed, and thrown into terror of their lives, one

night:"offence of the Diaconus not specified. "Nay he himself once pitched his goldheaded stick through

Salpius the Church Inspector's window," offence again not specified, or perhaps merely for a little artillery

practice?"and the throw was so dexterous that it merely made a round hole in the glass: stick was lying on

the floor; and the Prince," on some excuse or other, "sent for it next morning." "Margraf Heinrich of

Schwedt," continues the Doctor, very trustworthy on points of fact, "was a diligent helper in such operations.

Kaiserling," whom we shall hear of, "FirstLieutenant von der Groben," these were prime hands; "Lieutenant

Buddenbrock [old Feldmarschall's son] used, in his old days, when himself grown high in rank and dining

with the King, to be appealed to as witness for the truth of these stories." [Busching, Beitrage zu der

Lebensgeschichte denkwurdiger Personen, v. 1921. Vol. v.wholly occupied with Friedrich II. King of

Prussia (Halle, 1788),is accessible in French and other languages; many details, and (as Busching's wont

is) few or none not authentic, are to be found in it; a very great secret spleen against Friedrich is also

traceable,for which the Doctor may have had his reasons, not obligatory upon readers of the Doctor. The

truth is, Friedrich never took the least special notice of him: merely employed and promoted him, when

expedient for both parties; and he really was a man of considerable worth, in an extremely crude form.]

These are the two Incidents at Ruppin, in such light as they have. And these are all. Opulent History yields

from a ton of broken nails these two brass farthings, and shuts her pocket on us again. A CrownPrince given

to frolic, among other things; though aware that gravity would beseem him better. Much gay bantering humor

in him, cracklings, radiations,which he is bound to keep well under cover, in present circumstances.

For three years past there has been much rumor over Germany, of a strange affair going on in the remote

Austrian quarter, down in Salzburg and its fabulous Tyrolese valleys. Salzburg, city and territory, has an

Archbishop, not theoretically Austrian, but sovereign Prince so styled; it is from him and his orthodoxies, and

pranks with his sovereign crosier, that the noise originates. Strange rumor of a body of the population

discovered to be Protestant among the remote Mountains, and getting miserably illused, by the Right

Reverend Father in those parts. Which rumor, of a singular, romantic, religious interest for the general

Protestant world, proves to be but too well founded. It has come forth in the form of practical complaint to

the CORPUS EVANGELICORUM at the Diet, without result from the CORPUS; complaint to various

With result at last; actual "Emigration of the Salzburgers:" and Germanyin these very days while the

CrownPrince is at Berlin betrothing himself, and Franz of Lorraine witnessing the EXERCITIA and

wonders theresees a singular phenomenon of a touching idyllic nature going on; and has not yet quite

forgotten it in our days. Salzburg Emigration was all in motion, flowing steadily onwards, by various routes,

towards Berlin, at the time the Betrothal took place; and seven weeks after that event, when the

CrownPrince had gone to Ruppin, and again could only hear of it, the First Instalment of Emigrants arrived

bodily at the Gates of Berlin, "30th April, at four in the afternoon;" Majesty himself, and all the world going

out to witness it, with something of a poetic: almost of a psalmist feeling, as well as with a practical on the

part of his Majesty. First Instalment this; copiously followed by others, all that year; and flowing on, in

smaller rills and drippings, for several years more, till it got completed. A notable phenomenon, full of lively

picturesque and other interest to Brandenburg and Germany;which was not forgotten by the CrownPrince

in coming years, as we shall transiently find; nay which all Germany still remembers, and even occasionally

The Salzburg Country, northeastern slope of the Tyrol (Donau draining that side of it, Etsch or Adige the

Italian side), is celebrated by the Tourist for its airy beauty, rocky mountains, smooth green valleys, and

swiftrushing streams; perhaps some readers have wandered to BadGastein, or Ischl, in these nomadic

summers; have looked into Salzburg, Berchtesgaden, and the BavarianAustrian boundarylands; seen the

woodenclock makings, saltworks, toymanufactures, of those simple people in their slouchhats; and can

bear some testimony to the phenomena of Nature there. Salzburg is the Archbishop's City, metropolis of his

bit of sovereignty that then was. [Tolerable description of it in the Baron Riesbeck's Travels through

Germany (London, 1787, Translation by Maty, 3 vols. 8vo), i. 124222; whose details otherwise, on this

Emigration business, are of no authenticity or value. A kind of Playactor and miscellaneous

Newspaperman in that time (not so opulent to his class as ours is); who takes the title of "Baron" on this

occasion of coming, out with a Book of Imaginary "Travels." Had personally lived, practising the

miscellaneous arts, about Lintz and Salzburg,and may be heard on the look of the Country, if on little

else.] A romantic City, far off among its beautiful Mountains, shadowing (itself in the Salza River, which

rushes down into the Inn, into the Donau, now becoming great with the tribute of so many valleys. Salzburg

we have not known hitherto except as the fabulous restingplace of Kaiser Barbarossa: but we are now

slightly to see it in a practical light; and mark how the memory of Friedrich Wilhelm makes an incidental

It is well known there was extensive Protestantism once in those countries. Prior to the ThirtyYears War,

the fair chance was, Austria too would all become Protestant; an extensive minority among all ranks of men

in Austria too, definable as the serious intelligence of mankind in those countries, having clearly adopted it,

whom the others were sure to follow. In all ranks of men; only not in the highest rank, which was pleased

rather to continue Official and Papal. Highest rank had its ThirtyYears War, "its sleek Fathers Lummerlein

and Hyacinth in Jesuit serge, its terrible Fathers Wallenstein in chainarmor;" and, by working late and early

then and afterwards, did manage at length to trample out Protestantism,they know with what advantage by

this time. Trample out Protestantism; or drive it into remote nooks, where under sad conditions it might

protract an unnoticed existence. In the Imperial FreeTowns, Ulm, Augsburg, and the like, Protestantism

continued, and under hard conditions contrives to continue: but in the country parts, except in unnoticed

nooks, it is extinct. Salzburg Country is one of those nooks; an extensive CryptoProtestantism lodging,

under the simple slouchhats, in the remote valleys there. Protestantism peaceably kept concealed, hurting

nobody; wholesomely forwarding the woodenclock manufacture, and arable or grazier husbandries, of those

poor people. More harmless sons of Adam, probably, did not breathe the vital air, than those dissentient

Successive Archbishops had known of this CryptoProtestantism, and in remote periods had made occasional

slight attempts upon it; but none at all for a long time past. All attempts that way, as ineffectual for any

purpose but stirring up strife, had been discontinued for many generations; [Buchholz, i. 148151.] and the

CryptoProtestantism was again become a mythical romantic object, ignored by Official persons. However,

in 1727, there came a new Archbishop, one "Firmian", Count Firmian by secular quality, of a strict lean

character, zealous rather than wise; who had brought his orthodoxies with him in a rigid and very lean form.

Right Reverend Firmian had not been long in Salzburg till he smelt out the CryptoProtestantism, and

determined to haul it forth from the mythical condition into the practical; and in fact, to see his lawbeagles

there worry it to death as they ought. Hence the rumors that had risen over Germany, in 1729: Lawterriers

penetrating into human cottages in those remote Salzburg valleys, smelling out some German Bible or devout

Book, making lists of Biblereading cottagers; haling them to the Right Reverend Father inGod; thence to

prison, since they would not undertake to cease reading. With fine, with confiscation, tribulation: for the

peaceable Salzburgers, respectful creatures, doffing their slouch hats almost to mankind in general, were

entirely obstinate in that matter of the Bible. "Cannot, your Reverence; must not, dare not!" and went to

prison or whithersoever rather; a wide cry rising, Let us sell our possessions and leave Salzburg then,

according to Treaty of Westphalia, Article soandso. "Treaty of Westphalia? Leave Salzburg?" shrieked the

Right Reverend Father: "Are we getting into open mutiny, then? Open extensive mutiny!" shrieked he.

Borrowed a couple of Austrian regiments,Kaiser and we always on the pleasantest terms,and marched

the most refractory of his Salzburgers over the frontiers (retaining their properties and families); whereupon

Refractory Salzburgers sent Deputies to the Diet; appealed, complained to the CORPUS

EVANGELICORUM, Treaty of Westphalia in hand,without result. CORPUS, having verified matters,

complained to the Kaiser, to the Right Reverend Father. The Kaiser, intent on getting his Pragmatic Sanction

through the Diet, and anxious to offend nobody at present, gave good words; but did nothing: the Right

Reverend Father answered a Letter or two from the CORPUS; then said at last, He wished to close the

Correspondence, had the honor to be,and answered no farther, when written to. CORPUS was without

result. So it lasted through 1730; rumor, which rose in 1729, waxing ever louder into practicable or

impracticable shape, through that next year; tribulation increasing in Salzburg; and noise among mankind. In

the end of 1730, the Salzburgers sent Two Deputies to Friedrich Wilhelm at Berlin; solidhearted, thick

soled men, able to answer for themselves, and give real account of Salzburg and the phenomena; this brought

"Are you actual Protestants, the Treaty of Westphalia applicable to you? Not mere fanatic mystics, as Right

Reverend Firmian asserts; protectible by no Treaty?" That was Friedrich Wilhelm's first question; and he set

his two chief Berlin Clergymen, learned Roloff one of them, a divine of much fame, to catechise the two

Salzburg Deputies, and report upon the point. Their Report, dated Berlin, 30th November, 1730, with

specimens of the main questions, I have read; [Fassmann, pp. 446448.] and can fully certify, along with

Roloff and friend, That here are orthodox Protestants, apparently of very pious peaceable nature, suffering

hard wrong; orthodox beyond doubt, and covered by the Treaty of Westphalia. Whereupon his Majesty

dismisses them with assurance, "Return, and say there shall be help!"and straightway lays hand on the

Salzburg being now a clear case, Friedrich Wilhelm writes to the Kaiser; to the King of England, King of

Denmark;orders preparations to be made in Preussen, vacant messuages to be surveyed, moneys to be laid

up;bids his man at the Regensburg Diet signify, That unless this thing is rectified, his Prussian Majesty

will see himself necessitated to take effectual steps: "reprisals" the first step, according to the old method of

his Prussian Majesty. Rumor of the Salzburg Protestants rises higher and higher. Kaiser intent on conciliating

every CORPUS, Evangelical and other, for his Pragmatic Sanction's sake, admonishes Right Reverend

Firmian; intimates at last to him, That he will actually have to let those poor people emigrate if they demand

it; Treaty of Westphalia being express. In the end of 1731 it has come thus far.

"Emigrate, says your Imperial Majesty? Well, they shall emigrate," answers Firmian; "the sooner the better!"

And straightway, in the dead of winter, marches, in convenient divisions, some nine hundred of them over the

frontiers: "Go about your business, then; emigrateto the Old One, if you like!""And our properties, our

goods and chattels?" ask they."Be thankful you have kept your skins. Emigrate, I say.!" And the poor nine

hundred had to go out, in the rigor of winter, "hoary old men among them, and women coming near their

time;" and seek quarters in the wide world mostly unknown to them. Truly Firmian is an orthodox Herr;

acquainted with the laws of fair usage and the time of day. The sleeping Barbarossa does not awaken upon

him within the Hill here:but in the Roncalic Fields, long ago, I should not have liked to stand in his shoes!

Friedrich Wilhelm, on this procedure at Salzburg, intimates to his Halberstadt and Minden Catholic

gentlemen, That their Establishments must be locked up, and incomings suspended; that they can apply to the

Right Reverend Firmian upon it;and bids his man at Regensburg signify to the Diet that such is the course

adopted here. Right Reverend Firmian has to hold his hand; finds both that there shall be Emigration, and that

it must go forward on human terms, not inhuman; and that in fact the Treaty of Westphalia will have to guide

it, not he henceforth. Those poor ousted Salzburgers cower into the Bavarian cities, till the weather mend, and

His Prussian Majesty has been maturing his plans, all this while; gathering moneys, getting lands ready.

We saw him hanging Schlubhut in the autumn of 1731, who had peculated from said moneys; and surveying

Preussen, under storms of thunder and rain on one occasion. Preussen is to be the place for these people;

Tilsit and Memel region, same where the big Fight of Tannenberg and ruin of the Teutsch Ritters took place:

in that fine fertile Country there are homes got ready for this Emigration out of Salzburg.

Long ago, at the beginning of this History, did not the reader hear of a pestilence in Prussian Lithuania?

Pestilence in old King Friedrich's time; for which the then CrownPrince, now Majesty Friedrich Wilhelm,

vainly solicited help from the Treasury, and only brought about partial change of Ministry and no help.

"Fiftytwo Towns" were more or less entirely depopulated; hundreds of thousands of fertile acres fell to

waste again, the hands that had ploughed them being swept away. The new Majesty, so soon as ever the

Swedish War was got rid of, took this matter diligently in hand; built up the fiftytwo ruined Towns; issued

Proclamations once and again (Years 1719, 1721) to the Wetterau, to Switzerland, Saxony, Schwaben;

[Buchholz, i. 148.] inviting Colonists to come, and, on favorable terms, till and reap there. His terms are

favorable, wellconsidered; and are honestly kept. He has a fixed set of terms for Colonists: their

roadexpenses thither, so much a day allowed each travelling soul; homesteads, ploughing implements,

cattle, land, await them at their journey's end; their rent and services, accurately specified, are light not heavy;

and "immunities" from this and that are granted them, for certain years, till they get well nestled. Excellent

arrangements: and his Majesty has, in fact, got about 20,000 families in that way. And still there is room for

thousands more. So that if the tyrannous Firmian took to tribulating Salzburg in that manner, Heaven had

provided remedies and a Prussian Majesty. Heaven is very opulent; has alchemy to change the ugliest

substances into beautifulest. Privately to his Majesty, for months back, this Salzburg Emigration is a most

manageable matter. Manage well, it will be a godsend to his Majesty, and fit, as by preestablished

harmony, into the ancient Prussian sorrow; and "two afflictions well put together shall become a

consolation," as the proverb promises! Go along then, Right Reverend Firmian, with your Emigration there:

only no foulplay in it,or Halberstadt and Minden get locked:for the rest of the matter we will

And so, February 2d, 1732, Friedrich Wilhelm's Proclamation [Copy of it in Mauvillon, February, 1732, ii.

311.] flew abroad over the world; brief and businesslike, cheering to all but Firmian; to this purport:

"Come, ye poor Salzburgers, there are homes provided for you. Apply at Regensburg, at Halle: Commissaries

are appointed; will take charge of your long march and you. Be kind, all Christian German Princes: do not

hinder them and me." And in a few days farther, still early in February (for the matter is all ready before

proclaiming), an actual Prussian Commissary hangs out his announcements and officialities at Donauworth,

old City known to us, within reach of the Salzburg Boundaries; collects, in a week or two, his first lot of

A long road and a strange: I think, above five hundred miles before we get to Halle, within Prussian land; and

then seven hundred more to our place there, in the utmost East. Men, women, infants and hoary grandfathers

are here;most of their property sold,still on ruinous conditions, think of it, your Majesty. Their poor bits

of preciosities and heirlooms they have with them; made up in succinct bundles, stowed on ticketed

baggagewains; "some have their own poor cart and horse, to carry the too old and the too young, those that

cannot walk." A pilgrimage like that of the Children of Israel: such a pilgrim caravan as was seldom heard of

in our Western Countries. Those poor succinct bundles, the making of them up and stowing of them; the

pangs of simple hearts, in those remote native valleys; the tears that were not seen, the cries that were

addressed to God only: and then at last the actual turning out of the poor caravan, in silently practical

condition, staff in hand, no audible complaint heard from it; ready to march; practically marching

here:which of us can think of it without emotion, sad, and yet in a sort blessed!

Every Emigrant man has four GROSCHEN a day (fourpence odd) allowed him for road expenses, every

woman three groschen, every child two: and regularity itself, in the shape of Prussian Commissaries, presides

over it. Such marching of the Salzburgers: host after host of them, by various routes, from February onwards;

above seven thousand of them this year, and ten thousand more that gradually followed,was heard of at all

German firesides, and in all European lands. A phenomenon much filling the general ear and imagination;

especially at the first emergence of it. We will give from poor old authentic Fassmann, as if caught up by

some sudden photograph apparatus, a rude but undeniable glimpse or two into the actuality of this business:

Glimpse FIRST is of an Emigrant Party arriving, in the cold February days of 1732, at Nordlingen, Protestant

FreeTown in Bavaria: three hundred of them; first section, I think, of those nine hundred who were packed

away unceremoniously by Firmian last winter, and have been wandering about Bavaria, lodging "in

Kaufbeuern" and various preliminary Towns, till the Prussian arrangements became definite. Prussian

Commissaries are, by this time, got to Donauworth; but these poor Salzburgers are ahead of them, wandering

under the voluntary principle as yet. Nordlingen, in Bavaria, is an old Imperial FreeTown; Protestantism not

suppressed there, as it has been all round; scene of some memorable fighting in the ThirtyYears War,

especially of a bad defeat to the Swedes and Bernhard of Weimar, the worst they had in the course of that bad

business. The Salzburgers are in number three hundred and thirtyone; time, "first days of February, 1732,

weather very cold and raw." The charitable Protestant Town has been expecting such an advent:

"Two chief Clergymen, and the Schoolmaster and Scholars, with some hundreds of citizens and many young

people" went out to meet them; there, in the open field, stood the Salzburgers, with their wives and their little

ones, with their bullockcarts and baggage wains," pilgriming towards unknown parts of the Earth. "'Come

in, ye blessed of the Lord! Why stand ye without?' said the Parson solemnly, by way of welcome; and

addressed a Discourse to them," devout and yet human, true every word of it, enough to draw tears from any

Fassmann that were there;Fassmann and we not far from weeping without words. "Thereupon they ranked

themselves two and two, and marched into the Town," straight to the Church, I conjecture, Town all out to

participate; "and there the two reverend gentlemen successively addressed them again, from appropriate texts:

Text of the first reverend gentleman was, And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or

father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall

inherit everlasting life. [Matthew xix. 29.] Text of the second was, Now the Lord had said unto Abraham, Get

thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee."

[Genesis xii. 1.] Excellent texts; well handled, let us hope,especially with brevity. After which the

strangers were distributed, some into publichouses, others taken home by the citizens to lodge.

"Out of the Spital there was distributed to each person, for the first three days, a halfpound of fleshmeat,

bread, and a measure of beer. The remaining days they got in money six CREUTZERS (twopence) each, and

bread. On Sunday, at the Churchdoors there was a collection; no less than eight hundred GULDEN [80

pounds; population, say, three thousand] for this object. At Sermon they were put into the central part of the

Church," all Nordlingen lovingly encompassing them; "and were taught in two sermons," texts not given,

What the true Church is built of, and then Of true Faith, and what love a Christian ought to have; Nordlingen

copiously shedding tears the while (VIELE THRANEN VERGOSSEN), as it well might. "Going to Church,

and coming from it, each Landlord walked ahead of his party; party followed two and two. On other days,

there was much catechising of them at different parts of the Town;"orthodox enough, you see, nothing of

superstition or fanaticism in the poor people;"they made a good testimony of their Evangelical truth.

"The Baggagewagons which they had with them, ten in number, upon which some of their old people sat,

were brought into the Town. The Baggage was unloaded, and the packages, two hundred and eightyone of

them in all [for Fassmann is Photography itself], were locked in the ZollHaus. Over and above what they

got from the Spital, the Churchcollection and the Townchest, Citizens were liberal; daily sent them food,

or daily had them by fours and fives to their own houses to meat." And so let them wait for the Prussian

Commissary, who is just at hand: "they would not part from one another, these three hundred and

thirtyone," says Fassmann, "though their reunion was but of that accidental nature." [Fassmann, pp. 439,

Glimpse SECOND: not dated; perhaps some ten days later; and a Prussian Commissary with this party:

"On their getting to the Anspach Territory, there was so incredible a joy at the arrival of these exiled Brothers

in the Faith (GLAUBENSBRUDER) that in all places, almost in the smallest hamlets, the bells were set

atolling; and nothing was heard but a peal of welcome from far and near." Prussian Commissary, when

about quitting Anspach, asked leave to pass through Bamberg; Bishop of Bamberg, too orthodox a

gentleman, declined; so the Commissary had to go by Nurnberg and Baireuth. Ask not if his welcome was

good, in those Protestant places. "At Erlangen, fifteen miles from Nurnberg, where are French Protestants and

a Dowager Margravine of Baireuth,"Widow of Wilhelmina's Fatherin law's predecessor (if the reader

can count that); DAUGHTER of Weissenfels who was for marrying Wilhelmina not long since! "at

Erlangen, the Serene Dowager snatched up fifty of them into her own House for Christian refection; and

Burghers of means had twelve, fifteen and even eighteen of them, following such example set. Nay certain

French Citizens, prosperous and childless, besieged the Prussian Commissary to allow them a few Salzburg

children for adoption; especially one Frenchman was extremely urgent and specific: but the Commissary, not

having any order, was obliged to refuse." [Fassmann, p. 441.] These must have been interesting days for the

"At Baireuth," other side of Nurnberg, "it was towards Good Friday when the Pilgrims under their

Commissarius arrived. They were lodged in the villages about, but came copiously into the Town; came all in

a body to Church on Good Friday; and at coming out, were one and all carried off to dinner, a very scramble

arising among the Townsfolk to get hold of Pilgrims and dine them. Vast numbers were carried to the

Schloss:" one figures Wilhelmina among them, figures the Hereditary Prince and old Margraf: their treatment

there was "beyond belief," says Fassmann; "not only dinner of the amplest quality and quantity, but much

money added and other gifts." From Baireuth the route is towards Gera and Thuringen, circling the Bamberg

Territory: readers remember Gera, where the Gera Bond was made?"At Gera, a commercial gentleman

dined the whole party in his own premises, and his wife gave four groschen to each individual of them; other

two persons, brothers in the place, doing the like. One of the poor pilgrim women had been brought to bed on

the journey, a day or two before: the Commissarius lodged her in his own inn, for greater safety;

Commissarius returning to his inn, finds she is off, nobody at first can tell him whither: a lady of quality

(VORMEHME DAME) has quietly sent her carriage for the poor pilgrim sister, and has her in the right

softest keeping. No end to people's kindness: many wept aloud, sobbing out, 'Is this all the help we can give?'

In this manner march these Pilgrims. "From Donauworth, by Anspach, Nurnberg, Baireuth, through Gera,

Zeitz, Weissenfels, to Halle," where they are on Prussian ground, and within few days of Berlin. Other

Towns, not upon the first straight route to Berlin, demand to have a share in these grand things; share is

willingly conceded: thus the Pilgrims, what has its obvious advantages, march by a good variety of routes.

Through Augsburg, Ulm (instead of Donauworth), thence to Frankfurt; from Frankfurt some direct to

Leipzig: some through Cassel, Hanover, Brunswick, by Halberstadt and Magdeburg instead of Halle. Starting

all at Salzburg, landing all at Berlin; their routes spread over the Map of Germany in the intermediate space.

"Weissenfels Town and Duke distinguished themselves by liberality: especially the Duke did;"poor old

drinking Duke; very Protestant all these Saxon Princes, except the Apostate or PseudoApostate the

Physically Strong, for sad political reasons. "In Weissenfels Town, while the Pilgrim procession walked, a

certain rude foreign fellow, flaxpedler by trade, ["HECHELTRAGER," Hawker of flax combs or

HECKLES;is oftenest a Slavonic Austrian (I am told).] by creed Papist or worse, said floutingly, 'The

Archbishop ought to have flung you all into the river, you!' Upon which a menial servant of the Duke's

suddenly broke in upon him in the way of actuality, the whole crowd blazing into flame; and the pedler

would certainly have got irreparable damage, had not the Town guard instantly hooked him away."

April 21st, 1732, the first actual body, a good nine hundred strong, [Buchholz, i. 156.] got to Halle; where

they were received with devout jubilee, psalmsinging, spiritual and corporeal refection, as at Nordlingen

and the other stages; "Archidiaconus Franke" being prominent in it,I have no doubt, a connection of that

"CHIEN DE FRANKE," whom Wilhelmina used to know. They were lodged in the Waisenhaus (old Franke's

ORPHANHOUSE); Official List of them was drawn up here, with the fit specificality; and, after three days,

they took the road again for Berlin. Useful Buchholz, then a very little boy, remembers the arrival of a Body

of these Salzburgers, not this but a later one in August, which passed through his native Village, Pritzwalk in

the Priegnitz: How village and village authorities were all awake, with opened stores and hearts; how his

Father, the Village Parson, preached at five in the afternoon. The same Buchholz, coming afterwards to

College at Halle, had the pleasure of discovering two of the Commissaries, two of the three, who had mainly

superintended in this Salzburg Pilgrimage. Let the reader also take a glance at them, as specimens worth

COMMISSARIUS FIRST: "Herr von Reck was a nobleman from the Hanover Country; of very great piety;

who, after his Commission was done, settled at Halle; and lived there, without servant, in privacy, from the

small means he had;seeking his sole satisfaction in attendance on the Theological and Ascetic

COMMISSARIUS SECOND: "Herr Gobel was a medical man by profession; and had the regular degree of

Doctor; but was in no necessity to apply his talents to the gaining of bread. His zeal for religion had moved

him to undertake this Commission. Both these gentlemen I have often seen in my youth," but do not tell you

A third Commissarius was of Preussen, and had religiousliterary tendencies. I suppose these three served

gratis;volunteers; but no doubt under oath, and tied by strict enough Prussian law. Physician, Chaplain,

Roadguide, here they are, probably of supreme quality, ready to our hand. [Buchholz, Neueste

Buchholz, after "his student time," became a poor Country schoolmaster, and then a poor CountryParson,

in his native Altmark. His poor Book is of innocent, clear, faithful nature, with some vein of "unconscious

geniality" in it here and there; a Book by no means so destitute of human worth as some that have

superseded it. This was posthumous, this "NEWEST HISTORY," and has a LIFE of the Author prefixed. He

has four previous Volumes on the "Ancient History of Bran denburg," which are not known to me.About

the Year 1745, there were four poor Schoolmasters in that region (two at Havelberg, one at Seehausen, one at

Werben), of extremely studious turn; who, in spite of the Elbe which ran between, used to meet on stated

nights, for colloquy, for interchange of Books and the like. One of them, the Werben one, was this Buchholz;

another, Seehausen, was the Winckelmann so celebrated in after years. A third, one of the Havelberg pair,

"went into Mecklenburg in a year or two, as Tutor to Karl Ludwig the Prince of Strelitz's children,"whom

also mark. For the youngest of these Strelitz children was no other than the actual "Old Queen Charlotte"

(ours and George III.'s), just ready for him with her Hornbooks about that time: Let the poor man have what

honor he can from that circumstance! "Prince Karl Ludwig," rather a foolishlooking creature, we may fall in

with personally by and by. It was the 30th April, 1732, seven weeks and a day since Crown Prince

Friedrich's Betrothal, that this first body of Salzburg Emigrants, nine hundred strong, arrived at Berlin; "four

in the afternoon, at the Brandenburg Gate;" Official persons, nay Majesty himself, or perhaps both Majesties,

waiting there to receive them. Yes, ye poor footsore mortals, there is the dread King himself; stoutish short

figure in blue uniform and white wig, strawcolored waistcoat, and white gaiters; stands uncommonly firm

on his feet; reddish, bluereddish face, with eyes that pierce through a man: look upon him, and yet live if

you are true men. His Majesty's reception of these poor people could not but be good; nothing now wanting

in the formal kind. But better far, in all the essentialities of it, there had not been hitherto, nor was henceforth,

the least flaw. This Salzburg Pilgrimage has found for itself, and will find, regulation, guidance, ever a

steppingstone at the needful place; a paved road, so far as human regularity and punctuality could pave one.

That is his Majesty's shining merit. "Next Sunday, after sermon, they [this first lot of Salzburgers] were

publicly catechised in church; and all the world could hear their pertinent answers, given often in the very

His Majesty more than once took survey of these Pilgrimage Divisions, when they got to Berlin. A pleasant

sight, if there were leisure otherwise. On various occasions, too, her Majesty had large parties of them over to

Monbijou, to supper there in the fine gardens; and "gave them Bibles," among other gifts, if in want of Bibles

through Firmian's industry. Her Majesty was Charity itself, Charity and Grace combined, among these

Pilgrims. On one occasion she picked out a handsome young lass among them, and had Painter Pesne over to

take her portrait. Handsome lass, by Pesne, in her Tyrolese Hat, shone thenceforth on the walls of Monbijou;

and fashion thereupon took up the Tyrolese Hat, "which has been much worn since by the beautiful part of

the Creation," says Buchholz; "but how many changes they have introduced in it no pen can trace."

At Berlin the Commissarius ceased; and there was usually given the Pilgrims a Candidatus Theologiae, who

was to conduct them the rest of the way, and be their Clergyman when once settled. Five hundred long miles

still. Some were shipped at Stettin; mostly they marched, stage after stage,four groschen a day. At the

farther end they found all ready; tight cottages, tillable fields, all implements furnished, and stock,even to

"FEDERVIEH," or Chanticleer with a modicum of Hens. Old neighbors, and such as liked each other, were

put together: fields grew green again, desolate scrubs and scrags yielding to grass and corn. Wooden clocks

even came to view,for Berchtesgaden neighbors also emigrated; and Swiss came, and Bavarians and

Something beautifully realidyllic in all this, surely:Yet do not fancy that it all went on like clockwork;

that there were not jarrings at every step, as is the way in things real. Of the Prussian Minister chiefly

concerned in settling this new Colony I have heard one saying, forced out of him in some pressure: "There

must be somebody for a scoldingstock and scapegoat; I will be it, then!" And then the Salzburg Officials,

what a humor they were in! No Letters allowed from those poor Emigrants; the wickedest rumors circulated

about them: "All cut to pieces by inroad of the Poles;" "Pressed for soldiers by the Prussian drill sergeant;"

"All flung into the Lakes and stagnant waters there; drowned to the last individual;" and so on. Truth

nevertheless did slowly pierce through. And the "GROSSE WIRTH," our idyllicreal Friedrich Wilhelm, was

wanting in nothing. Lists of their unjust losses in Salzburg were, on his Majesty's order, made out and

authenticated, by the many who had suffered in that way there, forced to sell at a day's notice, and the

like:with these his Majesty was diligent in the Imperial Court; and did get what human industry could of

compensation, a part but not the whole. Contradictory noises had to abate. In the end, sound purpose, built on

fact and the Laws of Nature, carried it; lies, vituperations, rumors and delusion sank to zero; and the true

result remained. In 1738, the Salzburg Emigrant Community in Preussen held, in all their Churches, a Day of

Thanksgiving; and admitted piously that Heaven's blessing, of a truth, had been upon this King and them.

There we leave them, a useful solid population ever since in those parts; increased by this time we know not

It cost Friedrich Wilhelm enormous sums, say the Old Histories; probably "ten TONS OF GOLD,"that is

to say, ten hundred thousand thalers; almost 150,000 pounds, no less! But he lived to see it amply repaid,

even in his own time; how much more amply since; being a man skilful in investments to a high degree

indeed. Fancy 150,000 pounds invested there, in the Bank of Nature herself; and a hundred millions invested,

say at Balaclava, in the Bank of Newspaper rumor: and the respective rates of interest they will yield, a

million years hence! This was the most idyllic of Friedrich Wilhelm's feats, and a very real one the while.

We have only to add or repeat, that Salzburgers to the number of about 7,000 souls arrived at their place this

first year; and in the year or two following, less noted by the public, but faring steadily forward upon their

four groschen a day, 10,000 more. Friedrioh Wilhelm would have gladly taken the whole; "but George II.

took a certain number," say the Prussian Books (George II., or pious Trustees instead of him), "and settled

them at Ebenezer in Virginia,"read, Ebenezer IN GEORGIA, where General Oglethorpe was busy

founding a Colony. [Petition to Parliament, 10th (21st) May, 1733, by Oglethorpe and his Trustees, for

10,000 pounds to carry over these Salzburgers; which was granted; Tindal's RAPIN (London, 1769), xx.

184.] There at Ebenezer I calculate they might go ahead, too, after the questionable fashion of that country,

Salzburg Emigration was a very real transaction on Friedrich Wilhelm's part; but it proved idyllic too, and

made a great impression on the German mind. Readers know of a Book called Hermann and Dorothea? It is

written by the great Goethe, and still worth reading. The great Goethe had heard, when still very little, much

talk among the elders about this Salzburg Pilgrimage; and how strange a thing it was, twenty years ago and

more. [1749 was Goethe's birthyear.] In middle life he threw it into Hexameters, into the region of the air;

and did that unreal Shadow of it; a pleasant work in its way, since he was not inclined for more.

Majesty seeing all these matters well in train,Salzburgers under way, CrownPrince betrothed according to

his Majesty's and the Kaiser's (not to her Majesty's, and highflying little George of England my Brother the

Comedian's) mind and will,begins to think seriously of another enterprise, half business, half pleasure,

which has been hovering in his mind for some time. "Visit to my Daughter at Baireuth," he calls it publicly;

but it means intrinsically Excursion into Bohmen, to have a word with the Kaiser, and see his Imperial

CrownPrince does not accompany on this occasion; CrownPrince is with his Regiment all this while; busy

minding his own affairs in the Ruppin quarter;only hears, with more or less interest, of these

SalzburgPilgrim movements, of this Excursion into Bohmen. Here are certain scraps of Letters; which, if

once made legible, will assist readers to conceive his situation and employments there. Letters otherwise of

no importance; but worth reading on that score. The FIRST (or rather first three, which we huddle into one) is

from "Nauen," few miles off Ruppin; where one of our Battalions lies; requiring frequent visits there:

"MONSIEUR MY DEAREST FRIEND,I send you a big mass of papers, which a certain gentleman named

Plotz has transmitted me. In faith, I know not in the least what it is: I pray you present it [to his Majesty, or in

"Tomorrow I go to Potsdam [a drive of forty miles southward], to see the exercise, and if we do it here

according to pattern. NEUE BESEN KEHREN GUT [New brooms sweep clean, IN GERMAN]; I shall have

to illustrate my new character" of Colonel; "and show that I am EIN TUCHTIGER OFFICIER (a right

NAUEN, 7th MAY, 1732. "... Thousand thanks for informing me how everything goes on in the world.

Things far from agreeable, those leagues [imaginary, in TobaccoParliament] suspected to be forming

against our House! But if the Kaiser don't abandon us; ... if God second the valor of 80,000 men resolved to

"Meanwhile, till events arrive, I make a pretty stir here (ME TREMOUSSE ICI D'IMPORTANCE), to bring

my Regiment to its requisite perfection, and I hope I shall succeed. The other day I drank your dear health,

Monsieur; and I wait only the news from my Cattlestall that the Calf I am fattening there is ready for

sending to you. I unite Mars and Housekeeping, you see. Send me your Secretary's name, that I may address

your Letters that way," our Correspondence needing to be secret in certain quarters.

NAUEN, 10th MAY, 1732. "You will see by this that I am exact to follow your instruction; and that the

SCHULZ of Tremmen [Village in the Brandenburg quarter, with a SCHULZ or Mayor to be depended on],

becomes for the present the mainspring of our correspondence. I return you all the things (PIECES) you had

the goodness to communicate to me,except Charles Douze, [Voltaire's new Book; lately come out, "Bale,

1731."] which attaches me infinitely. The particulars hitherto unknown which he reports; the greatness of that

Prince's actions, and the perverse singularity (BIZARRERIE) of his fortune: all this, joined to the lively,

brilliant and charming way the Author has of telling it, renders this Book interesting to the supreme degree. ...

I send you a fragment of my correspondence with the most illustrious Sieur Crochet," some French Envoy or

Emissary, I conclude: "you perceive we go on very sweetly together, and are in a high strain. I am sorry I

burnt one of his Letters, wherein he assured me he would in the Versailles Antechamber itself speak of me to

the King, and that my name had actually been mentioned at the King's Levee. It certainly is not my ambition

to choose this illustrious mortal to publish my renown; on the contrary, I should think it soiled by such a

mouth, and prostituted if he were the publisher. But enough of the Crochet: the kindest thing we can do for so

contemptible an object is to say nothing of him at all." [ OEuvres de Frederic, xvi. 49, 51.]...

Letter SECOND is to Jaagermeister Hacke, Captain of the Potsdam Guard; who stands in great nearness to

the King's Majesty; and, in fact, is fast becoming his factotum in Armydetails. We, with the Duke of

Lorraine and Majesty in person, saw his marriage to the Excellency Creutz's Fraulein Daughter not long

since; who we trust has made him happy;rich he is at any rate, and will be Adjutant General before long;

The Letter has its obscurities; turns earnestly on Recruits tall and short; nor have idle Editors helped us, by

the least hint towards "reading" it with more than the EYES. Old Dessauer at this time is Commandant at

Magdeburg; Buddenbrock, perhaps now passing by Ruppin, we know for a high old General, fit to carry

messages from Majesty,or, likelier, it may be Lieutenant Buddenbrock, his Son, merely returning to

Ruppin? We can guess, that the flattering Dessauer has sent his Majesty five gigantic men from the

Magdeburg regiments, and that Friedrich is ordered to hustle out thirty of insignificant stature from his own,

by way of countergift to the Dessauer;which Friedrich does instantly, but cannot, for his life, see how

(being totally cashless) he is to replace them with better, or replace them at all!

"MEIN GOTT, what a piece of news Buddenbrock has brought me! I am to get nothing out of Brandenburg,

my dear Hacke? Thirty men I had to shift out of my company in consequence [of Buddenbrock's order]; and

where am I now to get other thirty? I would gladly give the King tall men, as the Dessauer at Magdeburg

does; but I have no money; and I don't get, or set up for getting, six men for one [thirty short for five tall], as

he does. So true is that Scripture: To him that hath shall be given; and from him that hath not shall be taken

"Small art, that the Prince of Dessau's and the Magdeburg Regiments are fine, when they have money at

command, and thirty men GRATIS over and above! I, poor devil, have nothing; nor shall have, all my days.

Prithee, dear Hacke (BITTE IHN, LIEBER HACKE), think of all that: and if I have no money allowed, I

must bring Asmus [Recruit unknown to me] alone as Recruit next year; and my Regiment will to a certainty

'VERSPRECHEN UND HALTEN (To promise and to keep) ZIEMT WOHL JUNGEN UND ALTEN (Is

"I depend alone on you (IHN), dear Hacke; unless you help, there is a bad outlook. Today I have knocked

again [written to Papa for money]; and if that does not help, it is over. If I could get any money to borrow, it

would do; but I need not think of that. Help me, then, dear Hacke! I assure you I will ever remember it; who,

at all times, am my dear Herr Captain's devoted (GANZ ERGEBENER) servant and friend,

To which add only this Note, two days later, to Seckendorf; indicating that the process of "borrowing" has

already, in some form, begun,process which will have to continue: and to develop itself;and that his

"MY VERY DEAR GENERAL,I have written to the King, that I owed you 2,125 THALERS for the

Recruits; of which he says there are 600 paid: there remain, therefore, 1,525, which he will pay you directly.

"The King is going to Prague: I shall not be of the party [as you will]. To say truth, I am not very sorry; for it

would infallibly give rise to foolish rumors in the world. At the same time, I should have much wished to see

the Emperor, Empress, and Prince of Lorraine, for whom I have a quite particular esteem. I beg you,

Monsieur, to assure him of it;and to assure yourself that I shall always be,with a great deal of

And nowfor the Bohemian Journey, "Visit at Kladrup" as they call it;Ruppin being left in this assiduous

Kaiser Karl and his Empress, in this summer of 1732, were at Karlsbad, taking the waters for a few weeks.

Friedrich Wilhelm, who had long, for various reasons, wished to see his Kaiser face to face, thought this

would be a good opportunity. The Kaiser himself, knowing how it stood with the JulichandBerg and other

questions, was not anxious for such an interview; still less were his official people; among whom the very

ceremonial for such a thing was matter of abstruse difficulty. Seckendorf accordingly had been instructed to

hunt wide, and throw in discouragements, so far as possible;which he did, but without effect. Friedrich

Wilhelm had set his heart upon the thing; wished to behold for once a Head of the Holy Roman Empire, and

Supreme of Christendom; also to see a little, with his own eyes, into certain matters Imperial.

And so, since an express visit to Karlsbad might give rise to newspaper rumors, and will not suit, it is settled,

there shall be an accidental intersection of routes, as the Kaiser travels homeward,say in some quiet

Bohemian Schloss or Huntingseat of the Kaiser's own, whither the King may come incognito; and thus, with

a minimum of noise, may the needful passage of hospitality be done. Easy all of this: only the Vienna

Ministers are dreadfully in doubt about the ceremonial, Whether the Imperial hand can be given (I forget if

for kissing or for shaking)?nay at last they manfully declare that it cannot be given; and wish his Prussian

Majesty to understand that it must be refused. [Forster, i. 328.] "RES SUMMAE CONSEQUENTIAE," say

they; and shake solemnly their big wigs.Nonsense (NARRENPOSSEN)! answers the Prussian Majesty:

You, Seckendorf, settle about quarters, reasonable food, reasonable lodgings; and I will do the ceremonial.

Seckendorfworth glancing into, for biographical purposes, in this placehas written to his Court: That as

to the victual department, his Majesty goes upon good common meat; flesh, to which may be added all

manner of riverfish and crabs: sound old Rhenish is his drink, with supplements of brown and of white beer.

Dinnertable to be spread always in some airy place, gardenhouse, tent, big clean barn,Majesty likes air,

of all things;will sleep, too, in a clean barn or gardenhouse: better anything than being stifled, thinks his

Majesty. Who, for the rest, does not like mounting stairs. [Seckendorf's Report (in Forster, i. 330).] These are

Sunday, 27th July, 1732, accordingly, his Majesty, with five or six carriages, quits Berlin, before the sun is

up, as is his wont: eastward, by the road for FrankfurtonOder; "intends to look at Schulenburg's regiment,"

which lies in those parts,Schulenburg's regiment for one thing: the rest is secret from the profane vulgar.

Schulenburg's regiment (drawn up for Church, I should suppose) is soon looked at; Schulenburg himself, by

preappointment, joins the travelling party, which now consists of the King and Eight:known figures, seven,

Buddenbrock, Schulenburg, Waldau, Derschau, Seckendorf; Grumkow, Captain Hacke of the Potsdam

Guard; and for eighth the Dutch Ambassador, Ginkel, an accomplished knowing kind of man, whom also my

readers have occasionally seen. Their conversation, roadcolloquy, could it interest any modern reader? It

has gone all to dusk; we can know only that it was human, solid, for most part, and had much tobacco

intermingled. They were all of the Calvinistic persuasion, of the military profession; knew that life is very

serious, that speech without cause is much to be avoided. They travelled swiftly, dined in airy places: they are

a FACT, they and their summer dustcloud there, whirling through the vacancy of that dim Time; and have

The first night they got to Grunberg; a pleasant Town, of vineyards and of looms, across the Silesian frontier.

They are now turning more southeastward; they sleep here, in the Kaiser's territory, welcomed by some

Official persons; who signify that the overjoyed Imperial Majesty has, as was extremely natural, paid the bill

everywhere. On the morrow, before the shuttles awaken, Friedrich Wilhelm is gone again; towards the

Glogau region, intending for Liegnitz that night. Coursing rapidly through the green Silesian Lowlands, blue

Giant Mountains (RIESENGEBIRGE) beginning to rise on the southwestward far away. Dines, at noon,

under a splendid tent, in a country place called Polkwitz, ["Balkowitz," say Pollnitz (ii. 407) and Forster;

which is not the correct name.] with country Nobility (sorrow on them, and yet thanks to them) come to do

Here is Liegnitz, then. Here are the Katzbach and the Blackwater (SCHWARZWASSER), famed in war, your

Majesty; here they coalesce; gray ashlar houses (not without inhabitants unknown to us) looking on. Here are

the venerable walls and streets of Liegnitz; and the Castle which defied Baty Khan and his Tartars, five

hundred years ago. [1241, the Invasion, and Battle here, of this unexpected Barbarian.]Oh, your Majesty,

this Liegnitz, with its princely Castle, and wide rich Territory, the bulk of the Silesian Lowland, whose is it if

right were done? Hm, his Majesty knows full well; in Seckendorf's presence, and going on such an errand, we

must not speak of certain things. But the undisputed truth is, Duke Friedrich II., come of the Sovereign Piasts,

made that ERBVERBRUDERUNG, and his Grandson's Grandson died childless: so the heirship fell to us, as

the biggest wig in the most benighted Chancery would have to grant;only the Kaiser will not, never would;

the Kaiser plants his armed self on Schlesien, and will hear no pleading. Jagerndorf too, which we purchased

with our own moneyNo more of that; it is too miserable! Very impossible too, while we have Berg and

At Liegnitz, Friedrich Wilhelm "reviews the garrison, cavalry and infantry," before starting; then off for

Glatz, some sixty miles before we can dine. The goal is towards Bohemia, all this while; and his Majesty, had

he liked the mountainpasses, and unlevel ways of the Giant Mountains, might have found a shorter road and

a much more picturesque one. Road abounding in gloomy valleys, intricate rocklabyrinths, haunts of Sprite

RUBEZAHL, sources of the Elbe and I know not what. Majesty likes level roads, and interesting

rocklabyrinths built by man rather than by Nature. Majesty makes a wide sweep round to the east of all that;

leaves the Giant Mountains, and their intricacies, as a blue Sierra far on his right,had rather see Glatz

Fortress than the caverns of the Elbe; and will cross into Bohemia, where the Hills are fallen lowest. At Glatz

during dinner, numerous Nobilities are again in waiting. Glatz is in Jagerndorf region; Jagerndorf, which we

purchased with our own money, is and remains ours, in spite of the mishaps of the ThirtyYears

War;OURS, the darkest Chancery would be obliged to say, from under the immensest wig! Patience, your

From Glatz, after viewing the works, drilling the guard a little, not to speak of dining, and despatching the

Nobilities, his Majesty takes the road again; turns now abruptly westward, across the Hills at their lowest

point; into Bohemia, which is close at hand. Lewin, Nachod, these are the Bohemian villages, with their

remnant of Czechs; not a prosperous population to look upon: but it is the Kaiser's own Kingdom: "King of

Bohemia" one of his Titles ever since Sigismund SUPERGRAMMATICAM'S time. And here now, at the

meeting of the waters (Elbe one of them, a brawling mountainstream) is Jaromierz, respectable little Town,

with an Imperial Officiality in it,where the Official Gentlemen meet us all in gala, "Thrice welcome to this

Kingdom, your Majesty!" and signify that they are to wait upon us henceforth, while we do the Kaiser's

It is Tuesday night, 29th July, this first night in Bohemia. The Official Gentlemen lead his Majesty to superb

rooms, newhung with crimson velvet, and the due gold fringes and tresses,very grand indeed; but

probably not so airy as we wish. "This is the way the Kaiser lodges in his journeys; and your Majesty is to be

served like him." The goal of our journey is now within few miles. Wednesday, 30th July, 1732, his Majesty

awakens again, within these crimsonvelvet hangings with the gold tresses and fringes, not so airy as he

could wish; despatches Grumkow to the Kaiser, who is not many miles off, to signify what honor we would

It was on Saturday last that the Kaiser and Kaiserinn, returning from Karlsbad, illuminated Prag with their

serene presence; "attended highmass, vespers," and a good deal of other worship, as the meagre old

Newspapers report for us, on that and the Sunday following. And then, "on Monday, at six in the morning,"

both the Majesties left Prag, for a place called Chlumetz, southwestward thirty miles off, in the Elbe region,

where they have a pretty Hunting Castle; Kaiser intending "sylvan sport for a few days," says the old rag of a

Newspaper, "and then to return to Prag." It is here that Grumkow, after a pleasant morning's drive of thirty

miles with the sun on his back, finds Kaiser Karl VI.; and makes his announcements, and diplomatic inquiries

Had Friedrich Wilhelm been in Potsdam or Wusterhausen, and heard that Kaiser Karl was within thirty miles

of him, Friedrich Wilhelm would have cried, with open arms, Come, come! But the Imperial Majesty is

otherwise hampered; has his rhadamanthine Aulic Councillors, in vast amplitude of wig, sternly engaged in

study of the etiquettes: they have settled that the meeting cannot be in Chlumetz; lest it might lead to night's

lodgings, and to intricacies. "Let it be at Kladrup," say the Amplewigged; Kladrup, an Imperial Stud, or

HorseFarm, half a dozen miles from this; where there is room for nothing more than dinner. There let the

meeting be, tomorrow at a set hour; and, in the mean time, we will take precautions for the etiquettes. So it

Through Konigsgratz, down the right bank of the Upper Elbe, on the morrow morning, Thursday, 31st July,

1732, Friedrich Wilhelm rushes on towards Kladrup; finds that little village, with the Horseedifices, looking

snug enough in the valley of Elbe; alights, welcomed by Prince Eugenio von Savoye, with word that the

Kaiser is not come, but steadily expected soon. Prinoe Eugenio von Savoye: ACH GOTT, it is another thing,

your Highness, than when we met in the Flanders Wars, long since;at Malplaquet that morning, when your

Highness had been to Brussels, visiting your Lady Mother in case of the worst! Slightly grayer your Highness

is grown; I too am nothing like so nimble; the great Duke, poor man, is dead!Prince Eugenio von Savoye,

Kladrup is a Country House as well as a HorseFarm: a square court is the interior, as I gather; the

Horsebuildings at a reverent distance forming the fourth side. In the centre of this court, see what a

contrivance the Aulic Councillors have hit upon,there is a wooden stand built, with three staircases leading

up to it, one for each person, and three galleries leading off from it into suites of rooms: no question of

precedence here, where each of you has his own staircase and own gallery to his apartment! Friedrich

Wilhelm looks down like a rhinoceros on all those cobwebberies. No sooner are the Kaiser's carriagewheels

heard within the court, than Friedrich Wilhelm rushes down, by what staircase is readiest; forward to the very

carriagedoor; and flings his arms about the Kaiser, embracing and embraced, like mere human friends glad

to see one another. On these terms, they mount the wooden stand, Majesty of Prussia, Kaiser, Kaiserinn, each

by his own staircase; see, for a space of two hours, the Kaiser's foals and horses led about,which at least

fills up any gap in conversation that may threaten to occur. The Kaiser, a little man of high and humane air, is

not bright in talk; the Empress, a Brunswick Princess of fine carriage, Granddaughter of old Anton Ulrich

who wrote the Novels, is likewise of mute humor in public life; but old Nord Teutschland, cradle of one's

existence; Brunswick reminiscences; news of your Imperial Majesty's serene Father, serene Sister,

Brotherinlaw the Feldmarschall and Insipid Niece whom we have had the satisfaction to betroth

Dinner being near, you go by your own gallery to dress. From the drawingroom, Friedrich Wilhelm leads

out the Kaiserinn; the Kaiser, as Head of the world, walks first, though without any lady. How they drank the

healths, gave and received the ewers and towels, is written duly in the old Books, but was as indifferent to

Friedrich Wilhelm as it is to us; what their conversation was, let no man presume to ask. Dullish, we should

apprehend,and perhaps BETTER lost to us? But where there are tongues, there are topics: the Loom of

Time wags always, and with it the tongues of men. Kaiser and Kaiserinn have both been in Karlsbad lately;

Kaiser and Kaiserinn both have sailed to Spain, in old days, and been in sieges and things memorable:

Friedrich Wilhelm, solid Squire Western of the North, does not want for topics, and talks as a solid rustic

gentleman will. Native politeness he knows on occasion; to etiquette, so far as concerns his own pretensions,

he feels callous altogether,dimly sensible that the Eighteenth Century is setting in, and that solid

musketeers and not goldsticks are now the important thing. "I felt mad to see him so humiliate himself," said

Dinner lasted two hours; the Empress rising, Friedrich Wilhelm leads her to her room; then retires to his own,

and "in a quarter of an hour" is visited there by the Kaiser; "who conducts him," in so many minutes exact by

the watch, "back to the Empress,"for a sip of coffee, as one hopes; which may wind up the Interview well.

The sun is still a good space from setting, when Friedrich Wilhelm, after cordial adieus, neglectful of

etiquette, is rolling rapidly towards Nimburg, thirty miles off on the Prag Highway; and Kaiser Karl with his

Spouse move deliberately towards Chlumetz to hunt again. In Nimburg Friedrich Wilhelm sleeps, that

night; Imperial Majesties, in a muchtumbled world, of wild horses, ceremonial ewers, and Eugenios of

Savoy and Malplaquet, probably peopling his dreams. If it please Heaven, there may be another private

Nimburg, ah your Majesty, Son Fritz will have a night in Nimburg too;riding slowly thither amid the

wrecks of Kolin Battle, not to sleep well;but that happily is hidden from your Majesty. Kolin, Czaslau

(Chotusitz), Elbe Teinitz,here in this Kladrup region, your Majesty is driving amid poor Villages which

will be very famous by and by. And Prag itself will be doubly famed in war, if your Majesty knew it, and the

Ziscaberg be of bloodier memory than the Weissenberg itself!His Majesty, the morrow's sun having risen

upon Nimburg, rolls into Prag successfully about eleven A.M., Hill of Zisca not disturbing him; goes to the

Klein Seite Quarter, where an Aulic Councillor with fine Palace is ready; all the cannon thundering from the

walls at his Majesty's advent; and Prince Eugenio, the everpresent, being there to receive his Majesty,and

in fact to invite him to dinner this day at halfpast twelve. It is Friday, 1st of August, 1732.

By a singular chance, there is preserved for us in Fassmann's Book, what we may call an Excerpt from the old

Morning Post of Prag, bringing that extinct Day into clear light again; recalling the vanished DinnerParty

from the realms of Hades, as a thing that once actually WAS. The List of the Dinnerguests is given

complete; vanished ghosts, whom, in studying the old HistoryBooks, you can, with a kind of interest, fish

up into visibility at will. There is Prince Eugenio von Savoye at the bottom of the table, in the CountThun

Palace where he lodges; there bodily, the little man, in goldlaced coat of unknown cut; the eyes and the

tempers bright and rapid, as usual, or more; nose not unprovided with snuff, and lips in consequence rather

A big chairofstate stands for his Majesty at the upper end of the table: his Majesty will none of it; sits

down close by Prince Eugene at the very bottom, and opposite Prince Alexander of Wurtemberg, whom we

had at Berlin lately, a General of note in the Turkish and other wars: here probably there will be better talk;

and the big chair may preside over us in vacancy. Which it does. Prince Alexander, Imperial General against

the Turks, and Heir Apparent of Wurtemberg withal, can speak of many things,hardly much of his serene

Cousin the reigning Duke; whose health is in a too interesting state, the good though unlucky man. Of the

Gravenitz sitting now in limbo, or travelling about disowned, TOUJOURS UN LAVEMENT SES

TROUSSES, let there be deep silence. But the Prince Alexander can answer abundantly on other heads. He

comes to his inheritance a few months hence; actual reigning Duke, the poor serene Cousin having died: and

He is Ancestor of the Czars of Russia, this Prince Alexander, who is now dining here in the body, along with

Friedrich Wilhelm and Prince Eugene: Paul of Russia, unbeautiful Paul, married the second time, from

Mumpelgard (what the French call Montbeillard, in Alsace), a serene Granddaughter of his, from whom

come the Czars,thanks to her or not. Prince Alexander is Ancestor withal of our present "Kings of

Wurtemberg," if that mean anything: Father (what will mean something) to the serene Duke, still in

swaddlingclothes, [Born 21st January, 1732; Carl Eugen the name of him (Michaelis, iii. 450).] who will be

soninlaw to Princess Wilhelmina of Baireuth (could your Majesty foresee it); and will do strange pranks in

the world, upon poet Schiller and others. Him too, and Brothers of his, were they born and become of size,

we shall meet. A noticeable man, and not without sense, this Prince Alexander; who is now of a surety eating

Of the others eating figures, Stahrembergs, Sternbergs, Kinsky Ambassador to England, Kinsky Ambassador

to France, high Austrian dignitaries, we shall say nothing;who would listen to us? Hardly can the

HofKanzler Count von Sinzendorf, supreme of Aulic men, who holds the rudder of Austrian StatePolicy,

and probably feels himself loaded with importance beyond most mortals now eating here or

elsewhere,gain the smallest recognition from oblivious English readers of our time. It is certain he eats

here on this occasion; and to his Majesty he does not want for importance. His Majesty, intent on Julich and

Berg and other high matters, spends many hours next day, in earnest private dialogue with him. We mention

farther, with satisfaction, that Grumkow and OrdnanceMaster Seckendorf are both on the list, and all our

Prussian party, down to Hacke of the Potsdam grenadiers, friend Schulenburg visibly eating among the

others. Also that the dinner was glorious (HERRLICH), and ended about five. [Fassmann, p. 474.] After

which his Majesty went to two evening parties, of a high order, in the Hradschin Quarter or elsewhere; cards

in the one (unless you liked to dance, or grin idle talk from you), and supper in the other.

His Majesty amused himself for four other days in Prag, interspersing long earnest dialogues with Sinzendorf,

with whom he spent the greater part of Saturday, [Pollnitz, ii. 411.]results as to Julioh and Berg of a rather

cloudy nature. On Saturday came the Kaiser, too, and Kaiserinn, to their high Nouse, the Schloss in Prag; and

there occurred, in the incognito form, "as if by accident," three visits or countervisits, two of them of some

length. The King went dashing about; saw, deliberately or in glimpses, all manner of things,from "the

Military Hospital" to "the Tongue of St. Nepomuk" again. Nepomuk, an imaginary Saint of those parts;

pitched into the Moldau, as is fancied and fabled, by wicked King Wenzel (King and DeposedKaiser, whom

we have heard of), for speaking and refusing to speak; Nepomuk is now become the Patron of Bridges, in

consequence; stands there in bronze on the Bridge of Prag; and still shows a dried Tongue in the world: [ Die

Legende vom heiligen Johann von Nepomuk, von D. Otto Abel (Berlin, 1855); an acute bit of Historical

On Sunday, his Majesty, nothing of a straitlaced man, attended divine or quasidivine worship in the

Cathedral Churoh,where high Prince Bishops delivered PALLIUMS, did histrionisms; "manifested the

ABSURDITAT of Papistry" more or less. Coming out of the Church, he was induced to step in and stie the

rooms of the Schloss, or Imperial Palace. In one of the rooms, as if by accident, the Kaiser was found

lounging:"Extremely delighted to see your Majesty!"and they had the first of their long or considerable

dialogues together; purport has not transpired. The second considerable dialogue was on the morrow, when

Imperial Majesty, as if by accident, found himself in the CountNostitz Palace, where Friedrich Wilhelm

lodges. Delighted to be so fortunate again! Hope your Majesty likes Prag? Eternal friendship, OH JA:and

Prag is a place full of sights: his Majesty, dashing about in all quarters, has a busy time; affairs of state

(Julich and Berg principally) alternating with what we now call the LIONS. Zisca's drum, for instance, in the

Arsenal here? Would your Majesty wish to see Zisca's own skin, which he bequeathed to be a drum when HE

had done with it? "NARRENPOSSEN!"for indeed the thing is fabulous, though in character with Zisca. Or

the Council Chamber window, out of which "the Three Prag Projectiles fell into the Night of things," as a

modern Historian expresses it? Three Official Gentlemen, flung out one morning, [13th (23d) May, 1618

(Kohler, p. 507).] 70 feet, but fell on "sewerage," and did not die, but set the whole world on fire? That is too

certain, as his Majesty knows: that brought the crowning of the Winter King, Battle of the Weissenberg,

Or Wallenstein's Palace,did your Majesty look at that? A thing worth glancing at, on the score of History

and even of Natural History. That rugged son of steel and gunpowder could not endure the least noise in his

sleepingroom or even sittingroom,a difficulty in the soldiering way of life;and had, if I remember,

one hundred and thirty houses torn away in Prag, and sentries posted all round in the distance, to secure

silence for his much meditating indignant soul. And yonder is the Weissenberg, conspicuous in the western

suburban region: and here in the eastern, close by, is the Ziscaberg;O Heaven, your Majesty, on this

ZiscaHill will be a new "Battle of Prag," which will throw the Weissenberg into eclipse; and there is awful

The THIRD of the considerable dialogues in Prag was on this same Monday night; when his Majesty went to

wait upon the Kaiserinn, and the Kaiser soon accidentally joined them. Precious gracious words passed;on

Berg and Julich nothing particular, that we hear;and the High Personages, with assurances of everlasting

friendship, said adieu; and met no more in this world. On his toilettable Friedrich Wilhelm found a gold

Tobaccobox, sent by the highest Lady extant; gold Tobaccobox, item gold Tobacco stopper or

Pipepicker: such the parting gifts of her Imperial Majesty. Very precious indeed, and grateful to the honest

heart; yet testifying too (as was afterwards suggested to the royal mind) what these high people think of a

rustic Orson King; and how they fling their nose into the air over his Tabagies and him.

On the morrow morning early, Friedrich Wilhelm rolls away again homewards, by Karlsbad, by Baireuth; all

the cannon of Prag saying thrice, Good speed to him. "He has had a glorious time," said the Berlin

Courtlady to Queen Sophie one evening, "no end of kindness from the Imperial Majesties: but has he

brought Berg and Julich in his pocket?"Alas, not a fragment of them; nor of any solid thing whatever,

except it be the gold Tobaccobox; and the confirmation of our claims on EastFriesland (cheap liberty to let

us vindicate them if we can), if you reckon that a solid thing. These two Imperial gifts, such as they are, he

has consciously brought back with him;and perhaps, though as yet unconsciously, a third gift of much

more value, once it is developed into clearness: some dim trace of insight into the nomeaning of these high

people; and how they consider US as mere Orsons and wild Bisons, whom they will do the honor to consume

The great King Friedrich, now CrownPrince at Ruppin, writing of this Journey long afterwards,hastily,

incorrectly, as his wont is, in regard to all manner of minute outward particulars; and somewhat maltreating,

or at least misplacing, even the inward meaning, which was well known to him WITHOUT investigation, but

which he is at no trouble to DATE for himself, and has dated at random,says, in his thin rapid way, with

"His [King Friedrich Wilhelm's] experience on this occasion served to prove that goodfaith and the virtues,

so contrary to the corruption of the age, do not succeed in it. Politicians have banished sincerity (LA

CANDEUR) into private life: they look upon themselves as raised quite above the laws which they enjoin on

other people; and give way without reserve to the dictates of their own depraved mind.

"The guaranty of Julich and Berg, which Seckendorf had formally promised in the name of the Emperor,

went off in smoke; and the Imperial Ministers were in a disposition so opposed to Prussia, the King saw

clearly [not for some years yet] that if there was a Court in Europe intending to cross his interests, it was

certainly that of Vienna. This Visit of his to the Emperor was like that of Solon to Croesus [Solon not I

recognizable, in the grenadier costume, amid the tobaccosmoke, and dim accompaniments?]and he

returned to Berlin, rich still in his own virtue. The most punctilious censors could find no fault in his conduct,

except a probity carried to excess. The Interview ended as those of Kings often do: it cooled [not for some

time yet], or, to say better, it extinguished the friendship there had been between the two Courts. Friedrich

Wilhelm left Prag full of contempt [dimly, altogether unconsciously, tending to have some contempt, and in

the end to be full of it] for the deceitfulness and pride of the Imperial Court: and the Emperor's Ministers

disdained a Sovereign who looked without interest on frivolous ceremonials and precedences. Him they

considered too ambitious in aiming at the BergandJulich succession: them he regarded [came to regard] as

Very bitter, your Majesty; and, in all but the dates, true enough. But what a drop of concentrated absinthe

"In spite of so many subjects of discontent, the King wedded his Eldest Son [my not too fortunate self], out of

complaisance to the Vienna Court, with a Princess of BrunswickBevern, Niece to the Empress:"bitter

fact; necessitating change of date in the paragraphs just written. [ OEuvres de Frederic (Memoires de

Friedrich Wilhelm, good soul, cherishes the Imperial gifts, Tobaccobox included;claps the Arms of

EastFriesland on his escutcheon; will take possession of Friesland, if the present Duke die heirless, let

George of England say what he will. And so he rolls homeward, by way of Baireuth. He stayed but a short

while in Karlsbad; has warned his Wilhelmina that he will be at Baireuth on the 9th of the month.

Wilhelmina is very poorly; "near her time," as wives say; rusticating in "the Hermitage," a CountryHouse in

the vicinity of Baireuth; Husband and Fatherinlaw gone away, towards the Bohemian frontier, to hunt

boars. Oh, the bustle and the bother that high Lady had; getting her little Country House stretched out to the

due pitch to accommodate everybody,especially her foolish Sister of Anspach and foolish Brotherinlaw

and suite,with whom, by negligence of servants and otherwise, there had like to have risen incurable

quarrel on the matter. But the dexterous young Wife, gladdest; busiest and weakliest of hopeful creatures,

contrived to manage everything, like a Female Fieldmarshal, as she was. Papa was delighted; bullied the

foolish Anspach people,or would have done so, had not I intervened, that the matter might die. Papa was

gracious, happy; very anxious about me in my interesting state. "Thou hast lodged me to perfection, good

Wilhelmina. Here I find my wooden stools, tubs to wash in; all things as if I were at Potsdam:a good girl;

At dinner, his Majesty, dreading no ill, but intent only on the practical, got into a quiet, but to me most

dreadful, lecture to the old Margraf (my Fatherinlaw) upon debt and money and arrears: How he, the

Margraf, was cheated at every turn, and led about by the nose, and kept weltering in debt: how he should let

the young Margraf go into the Offices, to supervise, and withal to learn taxmatters and economics betimes.

How he (Friedrich Wilhelm) would send him a fellow from Berlin who understood such things, and would

drill his scoundrels for him! To which the old Margraf, somewhat flushed in the face, made some

embarrassed assent, knowing it in fact to be true; and accepted the Berlin man:but he made me (his poor

Daughterinlaw) smart for it afterwards: "Not quite dead YET, Madam; you will have to wait a

little!"and other foolish speech; which required to be tempered down again by a judicious female mind.

Grumkow himself was pleasant on this occasion; told us of Kladrup, the Prag etiquettes; and how he was like

to go mad seeing his Majesty so humiliate himself. Fraulein Grumkow, a niece of his, belonging to the

Austrian court, who is over here with the rest, a satirical intriguing baggage, she, I privately perceive, has

made a conquest of my foolish Brotherinlaw, the Anspach Margraf here;and there will be jealousies,

and a catanddog life over yonder, worse than ever! Tush, why should we talk?These are the phenomena

at Baireuth; Husband and Fatherinlaw having quitted their boarhunt and hurried home.

After three days, Friedrich Wilhelm rolled away again; lodged, once more, at Meuselwitz, with abstruse

Seckendorf, and his good old Wife, who do the hospitalities well when they must, in spite of the single candle

once visible. On the morrow after which, 14th August, 1732, his Majesty is off again, "at four in the

morning," towards Leipzig, intending to be home that night, though it is a long drive. At Leipzig, not to waste

time, he declines entering the Town; positively will not, though the cannonsalvos are booming all

round;"breakfasts in the suburbs, with a certain Horsedealer (ROSSHANDLER) now deceased:" a

respectable Centaur, capable, no doubt, of bargaining a little about cavalry mountings, while one eats, with

appetite and at one's ease. Which done, Majesty darts off again, the cannonsalvos booming out a second

time;and by assiduous driving gets home to Potsdam about eight at night. And so has happily ENDED this

Journey to Kladrup: [Fassmann, pp. 474479; Wilhelmina, ii. 4655; Pollnitz, ii. 407412; Forster, i.

We little expected to see the "DoubleMarriage" start up into vitality again, at this advanced stage; or, of all

men, Seckendorf, after riding 25,000 miles to kill the DoubleMarriage, engaged in resuscitating it! But so it

is: by endless intriguing, matchless in History or Romance, the Austrian Court had, at such expense to the

parties and to itself, achieved the first problem of stifling the harmless DoubleMarriage; and now, the wind

Wind is changed: consummate Robinson has managed to do his thrice salutary "Treaty of Vienna;" [16th

March, 1731, the TAIL of it (accession of the Dutch, of Spain, not quite coiled up till 20th February, 1732:

Scholl, i. 218222.] to clout up all differences between the SeaPowers and the Kaiser, and restore the old

Law of Nature,Kaiser to fight the French, SeaPowers to feed and pay him while engaged in that

necessary job. And now it would be gratifying to the Kaiser, if there remained, on this side of the matter, no

rent anywhere, if between his chief Sea ally and his chief Land one, the Britannic Majesty and the Prussian,

The honor of this fine resuscitation project is ascribed to Robinson by the Vienna people: "Robinson's

suggestion," they always say: how far it was, or whether at all it was or not, nobody at present knows. Guess

rather, if necessary, it had been the Kaiser's own! Robinson, as the thing proceeds, is instructed from St.

James's to "look on and not interfere;" [Despatches, in StatePaper Office] Prince Eugene, too, we can

observe, is privately against it, though officially urgent, and doing his best. Who knows,or need know?

Enough that High Heads are set upon it; that the diplomatic wigs are all wagging with it, from about the

beginning of October, 1732; and rumors are rife and eager, occasionally spurting out into the Newspapers:

DoubleMarriage after all, hint the old Rumors: DoubleMarriage somehow or other; CrownPrince to have

his English Princess, Prince Fred of England to console the Brunswick one for loss of her CrownPrince; or

else Prince Karl of Brunswick to And half a dozen other ways; which Rumor cannot settle to its

satisfaction. The whispers upon it, from Hanover, from Vienna, at Berlin, and from the Diplomatic world in

general, occasionally whistling through the Newspapers, are manifold and incessant,not worthy of the least

attention from us here. [Forster, iii. 111, 120, 108, 113, 122.] What is certain is, Seckendorf, in the end of

October, is corresponding on it with Prince Eugene; has got instructions to propose the matter in

TobaccoParliament; and does not like it at all. Grumkow, who perhaps has seen dangerous clouds

threatening to mount upon him, and never been quite himself again in the Royal Mind since that questionable

NOSTI business, dissuades earnestly, constantly. "Nothing but mischief will come of such a proposal," says

But Prince Eugene's orders are express; remonstrances, cunctations only strengthen the determination of the

High Heads or Head: Forward with this beautiful scheme! Seckendorf, puckered into dangerous anxieties, but

summoning all his cunning, has at length, after six weeks' hesitation, to open it, as if casually, in some

favorable hour, to his Prussian Majesty. December 5th, 1732, as we compute;a kind of epoch in his

Majesty's life. Prussian Majesty stares wideeyed; the breath as if struck out of him; repeats, "Julich and Berg

absolutely secured, say you? Buthm, na!"and has not yet taken in the unspeakable dimensions of the

occurrence. "What? Imperial Majesty will make me break my word before all the world? Imperial Majesty

has been whirling me about, face now to the east, face straightway round to the west: Imperial Majesty does

not feel that I am a man and king at all; takes me for a mere machine, to be seesawed and whirled hither and

thither, like a rotatory Clotheshorse, to dry his Imperial Majesty's linen upon. TAUSEND HIMMEL!"

The full dimensions of all this did not rise clear upon the intellect of Prussian Majesty,a slow intellect, but

a true and deep, with terrible earthquakes and poetic fires lying under it, not at once, or for months,

perhaps years to come. But they had begun to dawn upon him painfully here; they rose gradually into perfect

clearness: all things seen at last as what they were; with huge submarine earthquake for consequence, and

total change of mind towards Imperial Majesty and the drying of his Pragmatic linen, in Friedrich Wilhelm.

Amiable Orson, true to the heart; amiable, though terrible when too much put upon!

This dawning process went on for above two years to come, painfully, reluctantly, with explosions, even with

tears. But here, directly on the back of Seckendorf's proposal, and recorded from a sure hand, is what we may

call the peepofday in that matter: First Session of TobaccoParliament, close after that event. Event is on

the 5th December, 1732; Tobacco Session is of the 6th;glimpse of it is given by Speaker Grumkow

Grumkow, shattered into "headache" by this Session, writes Report of it to Seckendorf before going to bed.

Look, reader, into one of the strangest Political Establishments; and how a strange Majesty comports himself

there, directly after such proposal from Vienna to marry with England still!"Schwerin" is incidentally in

from FrankfurtonOder, where his Regiment and business usually lie: the other Honorable Members we

sufficiently know. Majesty has been a little out of health lately; perceptibly worse the last two days. "Syberg"

is a Goldcook (Alchemical gentleman, of very high professions), came to Berlin some time ago; whom his

Majesty, after due investigation, took the liberty to hang. [Forster, iii. 126.] Readers can now understand what

"I never saw such a scene as this evening. Derschau, Schwerin, Buddenbrock, Rochow, Flanz were present.

We had been about an hour in the Red Room [languidly doing our tobacco off and on], when he [the King]

had us shifted into the Little Room: drove out the servants; and cried, looking fixedly at me: 'No, I cannot

endure it any longer! ES STOSSET MIR DAS HERZ AB,' cried he, breaking into German: 'It crushes the

heart out of me; to make me do a bit of scoundrelism, me, me! I say; no, never! Those damned intrigues; may

"EGO (Grumkow). 'Of course, I know of nothing. But I do not comprehend your Majesty's inquietude,

"KING. 'What, make me a villain! I will tell it right out. Certain damned scoundrels have been about

betraying me. People that should have known me better have been trying to lead me into a dishonorable

scrape'("Here I called in the hounds, JE ROMPIS LES CHIENS," reports Grumkow, "for he was going to

"EGO. 'But, your Majesty, what is it ruffles you so? I know not what you talk of. Your Majesty has honorable

people about you; and the man who lets himself be employed in things against your Majesty must be a

"And, in short, a torrent of exclamations: which I strove to soften by all manner of incidents and

contrivances; succeeding at last,"by dexterity and time (but, at this point, the light is now blown out, and

we SEE no more):"so that he grew quite calm again, and the rest of the evening passed gently enough.

"Well, you see what the effect of your fine Proposal is, which you said he would like! I can tell you, it is the

most detestable incident that could have turned up. I know, you had your orders: but you may believe and

depend on it, he has got his heart driven rabid by the business, and says, 'Who knows now whether that

villain Syberg' Goldcook, that was hanged the other day, 'was not set on by some people to poison me?' In a

"What struck me most was when he repeated, 'Only think! Think! Who would have expected it of people that

should have known me; and whom I know, and have known, better than they fancy!'" Pleasant passage for

"In fine, as I was somewhat confused; and anxious, above all, to keep him from exploding with the secret, I

cannot remember everything, But Derschau, who was more at his ease, will be able to give you a full account.

He [the King] said more than once: 'THIS was his sickness; the thing that ailed him, this: it gnawed his heart,

and would be the death of him!' He certainly did not affect; he was in a very convulsive condition.

[JARNIBLEU, here is a piece of work, Herr Seckendorf!]Adieu, I have a headache." Whereupon to bed.

This Hansard Report went off direct to Prince Eugene; and ought to have been a warning to the high Vienna

heads and him. But they persisted not the less to please Robinson or themselves; considering his Prussian

Majesty to be, in fact, a mere rotatory Clotheshorse for drying the Imperial linen on; and to have no intellect

at all, because he was without guile, and had no vulpinism at all. In which they were very much mistaken

indeed. History is proud to report that the guileless Prussian Majesty, steadily attending to his own affairs in a

wise manner, though hoodwinked and led about by BlackArtists as he had been, turned out when Fact and

Nature subsequently pronounced upon it, to have had more intellect than the whole of them together,to

have been, in a manner, the only one of them that had any real "intellect," or insight into Fact and Nature, at

all. Consummate Blackart Diplomacies overnetting the Universe, went entirely to water, running down the

gutters to the last drop; and a prosperous Drilled Prussia, compact, organic in every part, from diligent

ploughsock to shining bayonet and iron ramrod, remained standing. "A full Treasury and 200,000

welldrilled men would be the one guarantee to your Pragmatic Sanction," Prince Eugene had said. But that

bit of insight was not accepted at Vienna; Blackart, and Diplomatic spiderwebs from pole to pole, being

Enough, Seckendorf was ordered to manipulate and soothe down the Prussian Majesty, as surely would be

easy; to continue his galvanic operations on the DoubleMatch, or produce a rotation in the purposes of the

royal breast. Which he diligently strove to do, when once admitted to speech again;Grumkow steadily

declining to meddle, and only Queen Sophie, as we can fancy, auguring joyfully of it. Seckendorf, admitted

to speech the third day after that explosive Session, snuffles his softest, his cunningest;continues to ride

diligently, the concluding portion (such it proved) of his 25,000 miles with the Prussian Majesty up and down

through winter and spring; but makes not the least progress, the reverse rather.

Their dialogues and arguings on the matter, here and elsewhere, are lost in air; or gone wholly to a single

point unexpectedly preserved for us. One day, riding through some village, Priort some say his Majesty calls

it, some give another name,advocate Seckendorf, in the fervor of pleading and arguing, said some word,

which went like a sudden flash of lightning through the dark places of his Majesty's mind, and never would

go out of it again while he lived after. In passionate moments, his Majesty spoke of it sometimes, a

clangorous pathos in his tones, as of a thing hideous, horrible, never to be forgotten, which had killed him,

death from a friend's hand. "It was the 17th of April, 1733, [All the Books (Forster, ii. 142, for one) mention

this utterance of his Majesty, on what occasion we shall see farther on; and give the date "1732," not 1733:

but except as amended above, it refuses to have any sense visible at this distance. The Village of Priort is in

the Potsdam region.] riding through Priort, a man said something to me: it was as if you had turned a dagger

about in my heart. That man was he that killed me; there and then I got my death!"

A strange passion in that utterance: the deep dumb soul of his Majesty, of dumbpoetic nature, suddenly

brought to a fatal clearness about certain things. "O Kaiser, Kaiser of the Holy Roman Empire; and this is

your return for my loyal faith in you? I had nearly killed my Fritz, my Wilhelmina, broken my Feekin's heart

and my own, and reduced the world to ruins for your sake. And because I was of faith more than human, you

took me for a dog? O Kaiser, Kaiser!"Poor Friedrich Wilhelm, he spoke of this often, in excited moments,

in his later years; the tears running down his cheeks, and the whole man melted into tragic emotion: but if

Fritz were there, the precious Fritz whom he had almost killed for their sake, he would say, flashing out into

proud rage, "There is one that will avenge me, though; that one! DA STEHT EINER, DER MICH RACHEN

WIRD!"[Forster, ii. 153.] Yes, your Majesty; perhaps that one. And it will be seen whether YOU were a

rotatory Clotheshorse to dry their Pragmatic linen upon, or something different a good deal.

In the Newyear's days of 1733, the topic among diplomatic gentlemen, which set many big wigs wagging,

and even tremulously came out in the gray leaves of gazetteers and garreteers of the period, was a royal

drama, dimly supposed to be getting itself up in Poland at this time. Nothing known about it for certain; much

guessed. "Something in the rumor!" nods this wig; "Nothing!" wags that, slightly oscillating; and gazetteers,

who would earn their wages, and have a peck of coals apiece to glad them in the cold weather, had to watch

with all eagerness the movements of King August, our poor old friend, the DilapidatedStrong, who is in

Saxony at present; but bound for Warsaw shortly,just about lifting the curtain on important events, it is

thought and not thought. Here are the certainties of it, now clear enough, so far as they deserve a glance from

January l0th, 1733, August the DilapidatedStrong of Poland has been in Saxony, looking after his poor

Electorate a little; and is on the road from Dresden homewards again;will cross a corner of the Prussian

Dominions, as his wont is on such occasions. Prussian Majesty, if not appearing in person, will as usual, by

some Official of rank, send a polite Wellspeedyou as the brother Majesty passes. This time, however, it

was more than politeness; the Polish Majesty having, as was thought, such intricate affairs in the wind. Let

Grumkow, the fittest man in all ways, go, and do the greeting to his old Patroon: greeting, or whatever else

Patroon left Dresden,"having just opened the Carnival" or fashionable Season there, opened and nothing

more,January l0th, 1733; [Fassmann, Leben Friedrich Augusti des Grossen, p. 994.] being in haste home

for a Polish Diet close at hand. On which same day Grumkow, we suppose, drives forth from Berlin, to

intersect him, in the Neumark, about Crossen; and have a friendly word again, in those localities, over jolly

wine. Intersection took place duly;there was exuberant joy on the part of the Patroon; and such a dinner

and night of drinking, as has seldom been. Abstruse things lie close ahead of August the DilapidatedStrong,

important to Prussia, and for which Prussia is important; let Grumkow try if he can fish the matter into

clearness out of these winecups. And then August, on his side, wishes to know what the Kaiser said at

Many are the timea August the Strong has made this journey; many are the carousals, on such and other

occasions, Grumkow and he have had. But there comes an end to all things. This was their last meeting, over

flowing liquor or otherwise, in the world. Satirical History says, they drank all night, endeavoring to pump

one another, and with such enthusiasm that they never recovered it; drank themselves to death at Crossen on

that occasion. [ OEuvres de Frederic (Memoires de Brandenbourg), i. 163.] It is certain August died within

three weeks; and people said of Grumkow, who lived six years longer, he was never well after this bout. Is it

worth any human Creature's while to look into the plans of this precious pair of individuals? Without the least

expense of drinking, the secrets they were pumping out of each other are now accessible enough,if it were

of importance now. One glance I may perhaps commend to the reader, out of these multifarious Notebooks

"August, by change of his religion, and other sad operations, got to be what they called the King of Poland,

thirty five years ago; but, though looking glorious to the idle public, it has been a crown of stingingnettles to

the poor man,a sedanchair running on rapidly, with the bottom broken out! To say nothing of the

scourgings he got, and poor Saxony along with him, from Charles XII., on account of this Sovereignty so

called, what has the thing itself been to him? In Poland, for these thirtyfive years, the individual who had

least of his real will done in public matters has been, with infinite management, and display of such

goodhumor as at least deserves credit, the nominal Sovereign Majesty of Poland. Anarchic Grandees have

been kings over him; ambitious, contentious, unmanageable;very fanatical too, and never persuaded that

August's Apostasy was more than a sham one, not even when he made his Prince apostatize too. Their

Sovereignty has been a mere peck of troubles, disgraces and vexations: for those thirtyfive years, an

everboiling pot of mutiny, contradiction, insolence, hardly tolerable even to such nerves as August's.

"August, for a long time back, has been thinking of schemes to clap some lid upon all that. To make the

Sovereignty hereditary in his House: that, with the good Saxon troops we have, would be a remedy;and in

fact it is the only remedy. John Casimir (who abdicated long ago, in the Great Elector's time, and went to

Paris,much charmed with Ninon de l'Enclos there) told the Polish Diets, With their LIBERUM VETO, and

'right of confederation' and rebellion, they would bring the country down under the feet of mankind, and

reduce their Republic to zero one day, if they persisted. They have not failed to persist. With some hereditary

King over it, and a regulated Saxony to lean upon: truly might it not be a change to the better? To the worse,

it could hardly be, thinks August the Strong; and goes intent upon that method, this long while back;and at

length hopes now, in few days longer, at the Diet just assembling, to see fruits appear, and the thing actually

"The difficulties truly are many; internal and external:but there are calculated methods, too. For the

internal: Get up, by bribery, persuasion, some visible minority to countenance you; with these manoeuvre in

the Diets; on the back of these, the 30,000 Saxon troops. But then what will the neighboring Kings say? The

neighboring Kings, with their bigmouthed manifestoes, pities for an oppressed Republic, overwhelming

forces, and invitations to 'confederate' and revolt: without their tolerance first had, nothing can be done. That

is the external difficulty. For which too there is a remedy. Cut off sufficient outlying slices of Poland; fling

these to the neighboring Kings to produce consent: Partition of Poland, in fact; large sections of its Territory

"Neighboring Kings, Kaiser, Prussia, Russia, to them it is not grievous that Poland should remain in perennial

anarchy, in perennial impotence; the reverse rather: a dead horse, or a dying, in the next stall,he at least

will not kick upon us, think the neighboring Kings. And yet,under another similitude,you do not like

your nextdoor neighbor to be always on the point of catching fire; smoke issuing, thicker or thinner, through

the slates of his roof, as a perennial phenomenon? August will conciliate the neighboring Kings. Russia,

bigcheeked Anne Czarina there, shall have not only Courland peaceably henceforth, but the Ukraine,

Lithuania, and other large outlying slices; that surely will conciliate Russia. To Austria, on its Hungarian

border, let us give the Country of Zips;nay there are other sops we have for Austria. Pragmatic Sanction,

hitherto refused as contrary to plain rights of ours,that, if conceded to a spectrehunting Kaiser? To

Friedrich Wilhelm we could give WestPreussen; WestPreussen torn away three hundred years ago, and

leaving a hiatus in the very continuity of Friedrich Wilhelm: would not that conciliate him? Of all enemies or

friends, Friedrich Wilhelm, close at hand with 80,000 men capable of fighting at a week's, notice, is by far the

"These are August's plans: WestPreussen for the nearest Neighbor; Zips for Austria; Ukraine, Lithuania, and

appendages for the Russian Czarina: handsome Sections to be sliced off, and flung to good neighbors; as it

were, all the outlying limbs and wings of the Polish Territory sliced off; compact body to remain, and

become, by means of August and Saxon troops, a Kingdom with government, not an imaginary Republic

without government any longer. In fact, it was the 'Partition of Poland,' such as took effect forty years after,

and has kept the Newspapers weeping ever since. Partition of Poland,MINUS the compact interior held

under government, by a King with Saxon troops or otherwise. Compact interior, in that effective partition,

forty years after, was left as anarchic as ever; and had to be again partitioned, and cut away altogether,with

new torrents of loud tears from the Newspapers, refusing to be comforted to this day.

"It is not said that Friedrich Wilhelm had the least intention of countenancing August in these dangerous

operations, still less of going shares with August; but he wished much, through Grumkow, to have some

glimpse into the dim program of them; and August wished much to know Friedrich Wilhelm's and

Grumkow's humor towards them. Grumkow and August drank oopiously, or copiously pressed drink on one

another, all night (llth12th January, 1733, as I compute; some say at Crossen, some say at Frauendorf a

royal domain near by), with the view of mutually fishing out those secrets;and killed one another in the

What were Grumkow's news at homecoming, I did not hear; but he continues very low and

shaky;refuses, almost with horror, to have the least hand in Seckendorf's mad project, of resuscitating the

English DoubleMarriage, and breaking off the Brunswick one, at the eleventh hour and after word pledged.

Seckendorf himself continues to dislike and dissuade: but the High Heads at Vienna are bent on it; and

Since November last, Wilhelmina is on visit at Berlin,first visit since her marriage;she stays there for

almost ten months; not under the happiest auspices, poor child. Mamma's reception of her, just off the long

winter journey, and extenuated with fatigues and sickly chagrins, was of the most cutting cruelty: "What do

you want here? What is a mendicant like you come hither for?" And next night, when Papa himself came

home, it was little better. "Ha, ha," said he, "here you are; I am glad to see you." Then holding up a light, to

take view of me: "How changed you are!" said he: "What is little Frederika [my little Baby at Baireuth]

doing?" And on my answering, continued: "I am sorry for you, on my word. You have not bread to eat; and

but for me you might go begging. I am a poor man myself, not able to give you much; but I will do what I

can. I will give you now and then a twenty or a thirty shillings (PAR DIX OU DOUZE FLORINS), as my

affairs permit: it will always be something to assuage your want. And you, Madam," said he, turning to the

Queen, "you will sometimes give her an old dress; for the poor child has n't a shift to her back." [Wilhelmina,

ii. 85.] This rugged paternal banter was taken too literally by Wilhelmina, in her weak state; and she was like

So that,except her own good Hereditary Prince, who was here "over from Pasewalk" and his regimental

duties, waiting to welcome her; in whose true heart, full of honest human sunshine towards her, she could

always find shelter and defence,native Country and Court offer little to the brave Wilhelmina. Chagrins

enough are here: chagrins also were there. At Baireuth our old Father Margraf has his crotchets, his

infirmities and outbreaks; takes more and more to liquor; and does always keep us frightfully bare in money.

No help from Papa here, either, on the finance side; no real hope anywhere (thinks Seckendorf, when we

consult him), except only in the Margraf's death: "old Margraf will soon drink himself dead," thinks

Seckendorf; "and in the mean while there is Vienna, and a noble Kaiserinn who knows her friends in case of

extremity!" thinks he. [Wilhelmina, ii. 81111.] Poor Princess, in her weak shattered state, she has a heavy

time of it; but there is a tough spirit in her; bright, sharp, like a swift sabre, not to be quenched in any coil; but

One of the blessings reserved for her here, which most of all concerns us, was the occasional sight of her

Brother. Brother in a day or two ["18th November," she says; which date is wrong, if it were of moment (see

OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. part 1st, where their CORRESPONDENCE is).] ran over from Ruppin, on short

leave, and had his first interview. Very kind and affectionate; quite the old Brother again; and "blushed"

when, at supper, Mamma and the Princesses, especially that wicked Charlotte (Papa not present), tore up his

poor Bride at such a rate. "Has not a word to answer you, but YES or NO," said they; "stupid as a block."

"But were you ever at her toilette?" said the wicked Charlotte: "Out of shape, completely: considerable

waddings, I promise you: and then"still worse features, from that wicked Charlotte, in presence of the

domestics here. Wicked Charlotte; who is to be her Sisterinlaw soon;and who is always flirting with my

Husband, as if she liked that better! CrownPrince retired, directly after supper: as did I, to my apartment,

"To the question, How with the King and you? he answered, 'That his situation was changing every moment;

that sometimes he was in favor, sometimes in disgrace;that his chief happiness consisted in absence. That

he led a soft and tranquil life with his Regiment at Ruppin; study and music his principal occupations; he had

built himself a House there, and laid out a Garden, where he could read, and walk about.' Then as to his

Bride, I begged him to tell me candidly if the portrait the Queen and my Sister had been making of her was

the true one. 'We are alone,' replied he, 'and I will conceal nothing from you. The Queen, by her miserable

intrigues, has been the source of our misfortunes. Scarcely were you gone when she began again with

England; wished to substitute our Sister Charlotte for you; would have had me undertake to contradict the

King's will again, and flatly refuse the Brunswick Match;which I declined. That is the source of her venom

against this poor Princess. As to the young Lady herself, I do not hate her so much as I pretend; I affect

complete dislike, that the King may value my obedience more. She is pretty, a complexion lilyandrose; her

features delicate; face altogether of a beautiful person. True, she has no breeding, and dresses very ill: but I

flatter myself, when she comes hither, you will have the goodness to take her in hand. I recommend her to

you, my dear Sister; and beg your protection for her.' It is easy to judge, my answer would be such as he

For which small glimpse of the fact itself, at firsthand, across a whirlwind of distracted rumors new and old

about the fact, let us be thankful to Wilhelmina. Seckendorf's hopeless attempts to resuscitate extinct English

things, and make the Prussian Majesty break his word, continue to the very last; but are worth no notice from

us. Grumkow's Drinkingbout with the DilapidatedStrong at Crossen, which follows now in January, has

been already noticed by us. And the DilapidatedStrong's farewell next morning,"Adieu, dear Grumkow; I

think I shall not see you again!" as he rolled off towards Warsaw and the Diet,will require farther notice;

but must stand over till this Marriage be got done. Of which latter Event,Wilhelmina once more kindling

the old dark Books into some light for us,the essential particulars are briefly as follows.

Monday, 8th June, 1733, the CrownPrince is again over from Ruppin: King, Queen and CrownPrince are

rendezvoused at Potsdam; and they set off with due retinues towards Wolfenbuttel, towards Salzdahlum the

Ducal Schloss there; Sister Wilhelmina sending blessings, if she had them, on a poor Brother in such

interesting circumstances. Mamma was "plunged in black melancholy;" King not the least; in the

CrownPrince nothing particular to be remarked. They reached Salzdahlum, Duke Ludwig Rudolf the

Grandfather's Palace, one of the finest Palaces, with Gardens, with antiques, with PictureGalleries no end; a

mile or two from Wolfenbuttel; built by old Anton Ulrich, and still the ornament of those parts; reached

Salzdahlum, Wednesday the 10th; where Bride, with Father, Mother, much more Grandfather, Grandmother,

and all the sublimities interested, are waiting in the highest gala; Wedding to be on Friday next.

Friday morning, this incident fell out, notable and somewhat contemptible: Seckendorf, who is of the retinue,

following his bad trade, visits his Majesty who is still in bed:"Pardon, your Majesty: what shall I say for

excuse? Here is a Letter just come from Vienna; in Prince Eugene's hand;Prince Eugene, or a Higher, will

say something, while it is still time!" Majesty, not in impatience, reads the little Prince's and the Kaiser's

Letter. "Give up this, we entreat you for the last time; marry with England after all!" Majesty reads, quiet as a

lamb; lays the Letter under his pillow; will himself answer it; and does straightway, with much simple

dignity, to the effect, "For certain, Never, my always respected Prince!" [Account of the Interview by

Seckendorf, in Forster, iii, 148155; Copy of the answer itself is in the StatePaper Office here.] Seckendorf,

having thus shot his last bolt, does not stay many hours longer at Salzdahlum;may as well quit Friedrich

Wilhelm altogether, for any good he will henceforth do upon him. This is the one incident between the

Same Friday, 12th June, 1733, at a more advanced hour, the Wedding itself took effect; Wedding which, in

spite of the mad rumors and whispers, in the Newspapers, Diplomatic Despatches and elsewhere, went off, in

all respects, precisely as other weddings do; a quite human Wedding now and afterwards. Officiating

Clergyman was the Reverend Herr Mosheim: readers know with approval the Ecclesiastical History of

Mosheim: he, in the beautiful Chapel of the Schloss, with Majesties and Brunswick Sublimities looking on,

performed the ceremony: and CrownPrince Friedrich of Prussia has fairly wedded the Serene Princess

Elizabeth Christina of BrunswickBevern, age eighteen coming, manners rather awkward, complexion

lilyandrose;and History is right glad to have done with the wearisome affair, and know it settled on any

tolerable terms whatever. Here is a Note of Friedrich's to his dear Sister, which has been preserved:

"MY DEAR SISTER,A minute since, the whole Ceremony was got finished; and God be praised it is over!

I hope you will take it as a mark of my friendship that I give you the first news of it.

"I hope I shall have the honor to see you again soon; and to assure you, my dear Sister, that I am wholly

yours (TOUT A VOUS). I write in great haste; and add nothing that is merely formal. Adieu. [ OEuvres,

One Keyserling, the Prince's favorite gentleman, came over express, with this Letter and the more private

news; Wilhelmina being full of anxieties. Keyserling said, The Prince was inwardly "well content with his

lot; though he had kept up the old farce to the last; and pretended to be in frightful humor, on the very

morning; bursting out upon his valets in the King's presence, who reproved him, and looked rather

pensive,"recognizing, one hopes, what a sacrifice it was. The Queen's Majesty, Keyserling reported, "was

charmed with the style and ways of the Brunswick Court; but could not endure the PrincessRoyal [new

Wife], and treated the two Duchesses like dogs (COMME DES CHIENS)." [Wilhelmina, ii. 114.] Reverend

Abbot Mosheim (such his title; Head Churchman, theological chief of Helmstadt University in those parts,

with a couple of extinct little ABBACIES near by, to help his stipend) preached next Sunday, "On the

Marriage of the Righteous," felicitous appropriate Sermon, said a grateful public; [Text, Psalm, xcli. 12;

"Sermon printed in Mosheim's Works." ]and in short, at Salzdahlum all goes, if not as merry as some

On Tuesday, both the Majesties set out towards Potsdam again; "where his Majesty," having business

waiting, "arrived some time before the Queen." Thither also, before the week ends, Crown Prince Friedrich

with his Bride, and all the Serenities of Brunswick escorting, are upon the road,duly detained by

complimentary harangues, tedious scenic evolutions at Magdeburg and the intervening Towns;grand

entrance of the PrincessRoyal into Berlin is not till the 27th, last day of the week following. That was such a

day as Wilhelmina never saw; no sleep the night before; no breakfast can one taste: between Charlottenburg

and Berlin, there is a review of unexampled splendor; "above eighty oarriages of us," and only a tent or two

against the flaming June sun: think of it! Review begins at four a.m.;poor Wilhelmina thought she would

verily have died, of heat and thirst and hunger, in the crowded tent, under the flaming June sun; before the

Review could end itself, and march into Berlin, trumpeting and salvoing, with the PrincessRoyal at the head

Of which grand flaming day, and of the unexampled balls and effulgent festivities that followed, "all Berlin

ruining itself in dresses and equipages," we will say nothing farther; but give only, what may still have some

significance for readers, Wilhelmina's Portrait of the PrincessRoyal on their first meeting, which had taken

place at Potsdam two days before. The PrincessRoyal had arrived at Potsdam too, on that occasion, across a

grand Review; Majesty himself riding out, Majesty and CrownPrince, who had preceded her a little, to

"The King led her into the Queen's Apartment; then seeing, after she had saluted us all, that she was much

heated and dispowdered (DEPOUDREE), he bade my Brother take her to her own room. I followed them

thither. My Brother said to her, introducing me: 'This is a Sister I adore, and am obliged to beyond measure.

She has had the goodness to promise me that she will take care of you, and help you with her good counsel; I

wish you to respect her beyond even the King and Queen, and not to take the least step without her advice: do

you understand?' I embraced the Princess Royal, and gave her every assurance of my attachment; but she

remained like a statue, not answering a word. Her people not being come, I repowdered her myself, and

readjusted her dress a little, without the least sign of thanks from her, or any answer to all my caressings. My

Brother got impatient at last; and said aloud: 'Devil's in the blockhead (PESTE SOIT DE LA BETE): thank

my Sister, then!' She made me a courtesy, on the model of that of Agnes in the ECOLE DES FEMMES. I

took her back to the Queen's Apartment; little edified by such a display of talent.

"The PrincessRoyal is tall; her figure is not fine: stooping slightly, or hanging forward, as she walks or

stands, which gives her an awkward air. Her complexion is of dazzling whiteness, heightened by the liveliest

colors: her eyes are pale blue, and not of much promise for spiritual gifts. Mouth small; features generally

small,dainty (MIGNONS) rather than beautiful:and the countenance altogether is so innocent and

infantine, you would think this head belonged to a child of twelve. Her hair is blond, plentiful, curling in

natural locks. Teeth are unhappily very bad, black and ill set; which are a disfigurement in this fine face. She

has no manners, nor the least vestige of tact; has much difficulty in speaking and making herself understood:

for most part you are obliged to guess what she means; which is very embarrassing." [Wilhelmina, ii.

The Berlin gayetiesfor Karl, HeirApparent of Brunswick, brother to this PrincessRoyal, wedded his

Charlotte, too, about a week hence [2d July, 1733.]did not end, and the serene Guests disappear, till far on

in July. After which an Inspection with Papa; and then Friedrich got back to Ruppin and his old way of life

there. Intrinsically the old studious, quietly diligent way of life; varied by more frequent excursions to

Berlin;where as yet the PrincessRoyal usually resides, till some fit residence be got ready in the Ruppin

The young Wife had an honest guileless heart; if little articulate intellect, considerable inarticulate sense; did

not fail to learn tact, perpendicular attitude, speech enough;and I hope kept well clear of pouting (FAIRE

LA FACHEE), a much more dangerous rock for her. With the gay temper of eighteen, and her native loyalty

of mind, she seems to have shaped herself successfully to the Prince's taste; and growing yearly gracefuler

and betterlooking was an ornament and pleasant addition to his Ruppin existence. These first seven years,

spent at Berlin or in the Ruppin quarter, she always regarded as the flower of her life. [Busching

Papa, according to promise, has faithfully provided a Crown Prince Palace at Berlin; all trimmed and

furnished, for occasional residences there; the late "Government House" (originally SCHOMBERG House),

newbuilt,which is, to this day, one of the distinguished Palaces of Berlin. PrincessRoyal had

Schonhausen given her; a pleasant Royal Mansion some miles out of Berlin, on the Ruppin side.

Furthermore, the PrinceRoyal, being now a wedded man, has, as is customary in such case, a special AMT

(Government District) set apart for his support; the "Amt of Ruppin," where his business lies. What the exact

revenues of Ruppin are, is not communicated; but we can justly fear they were far too frugal, and excused

the underhand borrowing, which is evident enough as a painful shadow in the Prince's life henceforth. He

does not seem to have been wasteful; but he borrows all round, under sevenfold secrecy, from benevolent

Courts, from Austria, Russia, England: and the only pleasant certainty we notice in such painful business is,

that, on his Accession, he pays with exactitude,sends his Uncle George of England, for example, the

complete amount in rouleaus of new coin, by the first courier that goes. [Despatch (of adjacent date) in the

A thought too frugal, his Prussian Majesty; but he means to be kind, bountiful; and occasionally launches out

into handsome munificence. This very Autumn, hearing that the CrownPrince and his Princess fancied

Reinsberg; an old Castle in their Amt Ruppin, some miles north of them,his Majesty, without word

spoken, straightway purchased Reinsberg, Schloss and Territory, from the owner; gave it to his

CrownPrince, and gave him money to new build it according to his mind. [23d Oct. 173316th March,

1734 (Preuss, i. 75).] Which the CrownPrince did with much interest, under very wise architectural advice,

for the next three years; then went into it, to reside;yet did not cease newbuilding, improving, artistically

A really handsome princely kind of residence, that of Reinsberg: got up with a thrift that most of all

astonishes us. In which improved locality we shall by and by look in upon him again. For the present we must

to Warsaw, where tragedies and troubles are in the wind, which turn out to be not quite without importance to

Meanwhile, over at Warsaw, there has an Event fallen out. Friedrich, writing rapidly from vague

reminiscence, as he often does, records it as "during the marriage festivities;" [ OEuvres (Memoires de

Brandenbourg), i. 163.] but it was four good months earlier. Event we must now look at for a moment.

In the end of January last, we left Grumkow in a low and hypochondriacal state, much shaken by that

drinkingbout at Crossen, when the Polisb Majesty and he were so anxious to pump one another, by copious

priming with Hungary wine. About a fortnight after, in the first days of February following (day is not given),

Grumkow reported something curious. "In my presence," says Wilhelmina, "and that of forty persons," for

the thing was much talked about, "Grumkow said to the King one morning: 'Ah Sire, I am in despair; the poor

Patroon is dead! I was lying broad awake, last night: all on a sudden, the curtains of my bed flew asunder: I

saw him; he was in a shroud: he gazed fixedly at me: I tried to start up, being dreadfully taken; but the

phantom disappeared!'" Here was an illustrious ghoststory for Berlin, in a day or two when the Courier

came. "Died at the very time of the phantom; Death and phantom were the same night," say Wilhelmina and

the miraculous Berlin public,but do not say WHAT night for either of them it was. [Wilhelmina, ii. 98.

Event happened, 1st February; news of it came to Berlin, 4th February: Fassmann (p. 485); Buchholz; By

help of which latter circumstance the phantom becomes reasonably unmiraculous again, in a nervous system

tremulous from drink. "They had been sad at parting," Wilhelmina says, "having drunk immensities of

Hungary wine; the Patroon almost weeping over his Grumkow: 'Adieu, my dear Grumkow,' said he; "I shall

Miraculous or not, the catastrophe is true: August, the once Physically Strong, lies dead;and there will be

no Partition of Poland for the present. He had the Diet ready to assemble; waiting for him, at Warsaw; and

good trains laid in the Diet, capable of fortunate explosion under a good engineer. Engineer, alas! The

Grumkow drinkingbout had awakened that old sore in his foot: he came to Warsaw, eager enough for

business; but with his stock of strength all out, and Death now close upon him. The Diet met, 26th27th

January; engineer all alert about the good trains laid, and the fortunate exploding of them; when, almost on

the morrow"Inflammation has come on!" said the Doctors, and were futile to help farther. The strong

body, and its life, was done; and nothing remained but to call in the Archbishop, with his extreme unctions

August made no moaning or recalcitrating; took, on the prescribed terms, the inevitable that had come. Has

been a very great sinner, he confesses to the Archbishop: "I have not at present strength to name my many

and great sins to your Reverence," said he; "I hope for mercy on the"on the usual rash terms. Terms

perhaps known to August to be rash; to have been frightfully rash; but what can he now do? Archbishop

thereupon gives absolution of his sins; Archbishop does,a baddish, unlikely kind of man, as August well

knows. August "laid his hand on his eyes," during such sad absolutionmummery; and in that posture had

breathed his last, before it was well over. ["Sunday, 1st February, 1733, quarter past 4 A.M." (Fassmann,

Leben Frederici Augusti Konigs in Pohlen, pp. 994997).] Unhappy soul; who shall judge

him?transcendent King of edacious Flunkies; not without fine qualities, which he turned to such a use

His death brought vast miseries on Poland; kindled foolish Europe generally into fighting, and gave our

CrownPrince his first actual sight and experience of the facts of War. For which reason, hardly for another,

the thing having otherwise little memorability at present, let us give some brief synopsis of it, the briefer the

better. Here, excerpted from multifarious old Notebooks, are some main heads of the affair:

"On the disappearance of August the Strong, his plans of Partitioning Poland disappeared too, and his fine

trains in the Diet abolished themselves. The Diet had now nothing to do, but proclaim the coming Election,

giving a date to it; and go home to consider a little whom they would elect. ["Interregnum proclaimed," 11th

February; Preliminary Diet to meet 21st April; meets; settles, before May is done, that the Election shall

BEGIN 25th August: it must END in six weeks thereafter, by law of the land.] A question weighty to Poland.

And not likely to be settled by Poland alone or chiefly; the sublime Republic, with LIBERUM VETO, and

Diets capable only of anarchic noise, having now reached such a stage that its Neighbors everywhere stood

upon its skirts; asking, 'Whitherward, then, with your anarchy? Not this way;we say, that way!'and were

apt to get to battle about it, before such a thing could be settled. A house, in your street, with perpetual smoke

coming through the slates of it, is not a pleasant house to be neighbor to! One honest interest the neighbors

have, in an Election Crisis there, That the house do not get on fire, and kindle them. Dishonest interests, in

"The poor house, during last Election Crisis,when August the Strong was flung out, and Stanislaus brought

in; Crisis presided over by Charles XII., with Czar Peter and others hanging on the outskirts, as Opposition

party,fairly got into flame; [Description of it in Kohler, Munzbelustigungen, vi. 228230.] but was

quenched down again by that stout Swede; and his Stanislaus, a native Pole, was left peaceably as King for

the years then running. Years ran; and Stanislaus was thrown out, Charles himself being thrown out; and had

to make way for August the Strong again:an ejected Stanislaus: King only in title; known to most readers

of this time. [Stanislaus Lesczinsky, "Woywode of Posen," born 1677: King of Poland, Charles XII.

superintending, 1704 (age then 27); driven out 1709, went to Charles XII. at Bender; to Zweibruck, 1714;

thence, on Charles's death, to Weissenburg (Alsace, or Strasburg Country): Daughter married to Louis XV.,

1725. Age now 56.Hubner, t. 97; Histoire de Stanislas I., Roi de Pologlne (English Translation, London,

"Poor man, he has been living in Zweibruck, in Weissenburg and such places, in that Debatable

FrenchGerman region,which the French are more and more getting stolen to themselves, in late

centuries:generally on the outskirts of France he lives; having now connections of the highest quality with

France. He has had fine Countryhouses in that Zweibruck (TWOBRIDGE, DeuxPonts) region; had

always the ghost of a Court there; plenty of money, a sinecure Countrygentleman life;and no

complaints have been heard from him. Charles XII., as proprietor of DeuxPonts, had first of all sent him

into those parts for refuge; and in general, easy days have been the lot of Stanislaus there.

"Nor has History spoken of him since, except on one small occasion: when the French Politician Gentlemen,

at a certain crisis of their game, chose a Daughter of his to be Wife for young Louis XV., and bring royal

progeny, of which they were scarce. This was in 17241725; Duc de Bourbon, and other Politicians male and

female, finding that the best move. A thing wonderful to the then Gazetteers, for nine days; but not now

worth much talk. The good young Lady, it is well known, a very pious creature, and sore tried in her new

station, did bring royal progeny enough, and might as well have held her hand, had she foreseen what

would become of them, poor souls! This was a great event for Stanislaus, the sinecure Countrygentleman, in

his FrenchGerman rustication. One other thing I have read of him, infinitely smaller, out of those ten years:

in Zweibruck Country, or somewhere in that FrenchGerman region, he 'built a pleasurecottage,'

conceivable to the mind, 'and called it SCHUHFLICK (ShoePatch),' [Busching, Erdbeschreibung, v.

1194.]a name that touches one's fancy on behalf of the innocent soul. Other fact I will not remember of

him. He is now to quit ShoePatch and his pleasant Weissenburg Castle; to come on the public stage again,

poor man; and suffer a second season of mischances and disgraces still worse than the first. As we shall see

"What individual the Polish Grandees would have chosen for King if entirely left alone to do it? is a question

not important; and indeed was never asked, in this or in late Elections. Not the individual who could have

BEEN a King among them were they, for a long time back, in the habit of seeking after; not him, but another

and indeed reverse kind of individual,the one in whom there lay most NOURISHMENT, nourishment of

any kind, even of the cash kind, for a practical Polish Grandee. So that the question was no longer of the least

importance, to Poland or the Universe; and in point of fact, the frugal Destinies had ceased to have it put, in

that quarter. Not Grandees of Poland; but Intrusive Neighbors, carrying Grandees of Poland 'in their

breechespocket' (as our phrase is), were the voting parties. To that pass it was come. Under such stern

penalty had Poland and its Grandees fallen, by dint of false voting: the frugal Destinies had ceased to ask

about their vote; and they were become machines for voting with, or pistols for fighting with, by bad

Neighbors who cared to vote! Nor did the frugal Destinies consider that the proper method, either; but had, as

It was under such omens that the Polish Election of 1733 had to transact itself. Austria, Russia, Prussia, as

next Neighbors, were the chief voting parties, if they cared to intrude;which Austria and Russia were clear

for doing; Prussia not clear, or not beyond the indispensable or evidently profitable. Seckendorf, and one

Lowenwolde the Russian Ambassador at Berlin, had, some time ago, in foresight of this event, done their

utmost to bring Friedrich Wilhelm into cooperation,offering fine baits, "Berg and Julich" again, among

others;but nothing definite came of it: peaceable, reasonably safe Election in Poland, other interest

Friedrich Wilhelm has not in the matter; and compliance, not cooperation, is what can be expected of him

by the Kaiser and Czarina. Cooperating or even complying, these three could have settled it; and

would,had no other Neighbor interfered. But other neighbors can interfere; any neighbor that has money to

spend, or likes to bully in such a matter! And that proved to be the case, in this unlucky instance.

Austria aud Russia, with Prussia complying, had,a year ago, before the late August's decease, his life

seeming then an extremely uncertain one, and foresight being always good, privately come to an

understanding, [31st December, 1731, "Treaty of Lowenwolde" (which never got completed or became

"1. That France was to have no hand in it whatever,no tool of France to be King; or, as they more politely

expressed it, having their eye upon Stanislaus, No Piast or native Pole could be eligible. "2. That neither

could August's Son, the new August, who would then be Kurfurst of Saxony, be admitted King of

Poland.And, on the whole, "3. That an Emanuel Prince of Portugal would be the eligible man." Emanuel of

Portugal, King of Portugal's Brother; a gentleman without employment, as his very Title tells us: gentleman

never heard of before or since, in those parts or elsewhere, but doubtless of the due harmless quality, as

Portugal itself was: he is to be the Polish King,vote these Intrusive Neighbors. What the vote of Poland

itself may be, the Destinies do not, of late, ask; finding it a superfluous question.

So had the Three Neighbors settled this matter:or rather, I should say, so had Two of them; for Friedrich

Wilhelm wanted, now or afterwards, nothing in this Election, but that it should not take fire and kindle him.

Two of the Neighbors: and of these two, perhaps we might guess the Kaiser was the principal contriver and

suggester; France and Saxony being both hateful to him, obstinate refusers of the Pragmatic Sanction, to

say nothing more. What the Czarina, Anne with the big cheek, specially wanted, I do not learn,unless it

were peaceable hold of Courland; or perhaps merely to produce herself in these parts, as a kind of regulating

Pallas, along with the Jupiter Kaiser of Western Europe;which might have effects by and by.

Emanuel of Portugal was not elected, nor so much as spoken of in the Diet. Nor did one of these Three

Regulations take effect; but much the contrary,other Neighbors having the power to interfere. France saw

good to interfere, a rather distant neighbor; Austria, Russia, could not endure the French vote at all; and so

France is not a near Neighbor; but it has a Stanislaus much concerned, who is eminently under the protection

of France: who may be called the "FATHER of France," in a sense, or even the "Grandfather;" his

Daughter being Mother of a young creature they call Dauphin, or "Child of France." Fleury and the French

Court decide that Stanislaus, Grandfather of France, was once King of Poland: that it will behoove, for

various reasons, he be King again. Some say old Fleury did not care for Stanislaus; merely wanted a quarrel

with the Kaiser,having got himself in readiness, "with Lorraine in his eye;" and seeing the Kaiser not

ready. It is likelier the hot young spirits, Belleisle and others, controlled old Fleury into it. At all events,

Stanislaus is summoned from his rustication; the French Ambassador at Warsaw gets his instructions. French

Ambassador opens himself largely, at Warsaw, by eloquent speech, by copious money, on the subject of

Stanislaus; finds large audience, enthusiastic receptivity;and readers will now understand the following

"AUGUST 25th, 1733. This day the Polish Election begins. So has the Preliminary Diet (kind of Polish

CAUCUS) ordered it; Preliminary Diet itself a very stormy matter; minority like to be 'thrown out of

window,' to be 'shot through the head,' on some occasions. [ History of Stanislaus (cited above), p. 136.]

Actual Election begins; continues SUB DIO, 'in the Field of Wola,' in a very tempestuous fashion; bound to

conclude within six weeks. Kaiser has his troops assembled over the border, in Silesia, 'to protect the freedom

of election;' Czarina has 30,000 under Marshal Lacy, lying on the edge of Lithuania, bent on a like object;

"So that Emanuel of Portugal is not heard of; and French interference is, with a vengeance,and Stanislaus,

a born Piast, is overwhelmingly the favorite. Intolerable to Austria, to Russia; the reverse to Friedrich

Wilhelm, who privately thinks him the right man. And Kurfurst August of Saxony is the other Candidate,

with troops of his own in the distance, but without support in Poland; and depending wholly on the Kaiser

and Czarina for his chance. And our 'three settled points' are gone to water in this manner!

"August seeing there was not the least hope in Poland's own vote, judiciously went to the Kaiser first of all:

'Imperial Majesty, I will accept your Pragmatic Sanction root and branch, swallow it whole; make me King of

Poland!''Done!' answers Imperial Majesty; [16th July, 1733; Treaty in Scholl, ii. 224231.] brings the

Czarina over, by good offers of August's and his;and now there is an effective Opposition Candidate in the

field, with strength of his own, and good backing close at hand. Austrian, Russian Ambassadors at Warsaw

lift up their voice, like the French one; open their purse, and bestir themselves; but with no success in the

Field of Wola, except to the stirring up of noise and tumult there. They must look to other fields for success.

The voice of Wola and of Poland, if it had now a voice, is enthusiastic for Stanislaus.

"SEPTEMBER 7th. A couple of quietlooking Merchants arrive in Warsaw,one of whom is Stanislaus in

person. Newspapers say he is in the French Fleet of War, which is sailing minatory towards these Coasts: and

there is in truth a Gentleman in Stanislaus's clothes on board there;to make the Newspapers believe.

Stanislaus himself drove through Berlin, a day or two ago; gave the sentry a ducat at the Gate, to be speedy

with the Passports,whom Friedrich Wilhelm affected to put under arrest for such negligent speed. And so,

on the 10th of the month, Stanislaus being now rested and trimmed; makes his appearance on the Field of

Wola itself; and captivates all hearts by the kind look of him. So that, on the second day after, 12th

September, 1733, he is, as it were, unanimously elected; with acclamation, with enthusiasm; and sees himself

actual King of Poland,if France send proper backing to continue him there. As, surely, she will not

fail?But there are alarming news that the Russians are advancing: Marshal Lacy with 30,000; and

"SEPTEBER 22d. Russians advancing more and more, no French help arrived yet, and the enthusiastic Polish

Chivalry being good for nothing against regular musketry,King Stanislaus finds that he will have to quit

Warsaw, and seek covert somewhere. Quits Warsaw this day; gets covert in Dantzig. And, in fact, from this

22d of September, day of the autumnal equinox, 1733, is a fugitive, blockaded, besieged Stanislaus: an

"OCTOBER 3d. Lacy and his Russians arrive in the suburbs of Warsaw, intent upon 'protecting freedom of

election.' Bridges being broken, they do not yet cross the River, but invite the free electors to come across and

vote: 'A real King is very necessary, Stanislaus being an imaginary one, brought in by compulsion, by

threats of flinging people out of window, and the like.' The free electors do not cross. Whereupon a small

handful, now free enough, and NOT to be thrown out of window, whom Lacy had about him, proceed to elect

August of Saxony; he, on the 5th of October, still one day within the legal six weeks, is chosen and declared

the real King:'twelve senators and about six hundred gentlemen' voting for him there, free they in Lacy's

quarters, the rest of Poland having lain under compulsion when voting for Stanislaus. That is the Polish

Election, so far as Poland can settle it. We said the Destinies had ceased, some time since, to ask Poland for

its vote; it is other people who have now got the real power of voting. But that is the correct state of the poll

August is crowned in Cracow before long; "August III.," whom we shall meet again in important

circumstances. Lacy and his Russians have voted for August; able, they, to disperse all manner of enthusiastic

Polish Chivalry; which indeed, we observe, usually stands but one volley from the Russian musketry; and

flies elsewhither, to burn and plunder its own domestic enemies. Far and wide, robbery and arson are

prevalent in Poland; Stanislaus lying under covert; in Dantzig,an imaginary King ever since the equinox,

but well trusting that the French will give him a plumper vote. French Warfleet is surely under way hither.

These are the news our CrownPrince hears at Ruppin, in the first months of his wedded life there. With

what interest we may fancy. Brandenburg is next neighbor; and these Polish troubles reach far enough;the

eversmoking house having taken fire; and all the street threatening to get on blaze. Friedrich Wilhelm,

nearest neighbor, stands anxious to quencth, carefully sweeping the hot coals across again from his own

Dantzig, strong in confidence of French help, refuses to give up Stanislaus when summoned; will stand siege

rather. Stands siege, furious lengthy siege,with enthusiastic defence; "a Lady of Rank firing off the first

gun," against the Russian batteries. Of the Siege of Dantzig, which made the next Spring and Summer loud

for mankind (FebruaryJune, 1734), we shall say nothing,our own poor field, which also grows loud

enough, lying far away from Dantzig,except: FIRST, That no French help came, or as good as none; the

minatory Warfleet having landed a poor 1,500 men, headed by the Comte de Plelo, who had volunteered

along with them; that they attempted one onslaught on the Russian lines, and that Plelo was shot, and the rest

were blown to miscellaneous ruin, and had to disappear, not once getting into Dantzig. SECONDLY, That

the Saxons, under Weissenfels, our poor old friend, with proper siegeartillery, though not with enough, did,

by effort (end of May), get upon the scene; in which this is to be remarked, that Weissenfels's siege artillery

"came by post;" two big mortars expressly passing through Berlin, marked as part of the Duke of

Weissenfels's Luggage. And THIRDLY, That Munnich, who had succeeded Lacy as Besieging General, and

was in hot haste, and had not artillery enough, made unheardof assaults (2,000 men, some say 4,000, lost in

one nightattack upon a post they call the Hagelberg; rash attack, much blamed by military men); [ OEuvres

de Frederic, xxvii. part 2d, p. 31.]but nevertheless, having now (by Russian Fleet, middle of June) got

So that at length, things being now desperate, Stanislaus, disguised as a cattledealer, privately quitted

Dantzig, night of 27th June, 1734; got across the intricate mudandwater difficulties of the Weichsel and its

mouths, flying perilously towards Preussen and Friedrich Wilhelm's protection. [Narrative by himself, in

HISTORY, pp. 235248.] Whereby the Siege of Dantzig ended in chamade, and levying of penalties;

penalties severe to a degree, though Friedrich Wilhelm interceded what he could. And with the Siege of

Dantzig, the blazing Polish Election went out in like manner; [Clear account, especially of Siege, in

Mannstein (pp. 7183), who was there as Munnich's Aidededamp.] having already kindled, in quarters

far away from it, conflagrations quite otherwise interesting to us. Whitherward we now hasten.

Franz of Lorraine, the young favorite of Fortune, whom we once saw at Berlin on an interesting occasion,

was about this time to have married his Imperial Archduchess; Kaiser's consent to be formally demanded and

given; nothing but joy and splendor looked for in the Court of Vienna at present. Nothing to prevent it,had

there been no Polish Election; had not the Kaiser, in his ShadowHunt (coursing the Pragmatic Sanction

chiefly, as he has done these twenty years past), gone rashly into that combustible foreign element. But so it

is: this was the fatal limit. The poor Kaiser's ShadowHunt, going Scotfree this long while, and merely

tormenting other people, has, at this point, by contact with inflammable Poland, unexpectedly itself caught

fire; goes now plunging, all in mad flame, over precipices one knows not how deep: and there will be a

lamentable singeing and smashing before the Kaiser get out of this, if he ever get! Kaiser Karl, from this

point, plunges down and down, all his days; and except in that Shadow of a Pragmatic Sanction, if he can still

save that, has no comfort left. Marriages are not the thing to be thought of at present!

Scarcely had the news of August's Election, and Stanislaus's flight to Dantzig, reached France, when France,

all in a state of readiness, informed the Kaiser, ready for nothing, his force lying in Silesia, doing the Election

functions on the Polish borders there, "That he the Kaiser had, by such treatment of the Grandfather of France

and the Polish Kingdom fairly fallen to him, insulted the most Christian Majesty; that in consequence the

most Christian Majesty did hereby declare War against the said Kaiser,"and in fact had, that very day (14th

of October, 1733), begun it. Had marched over into Lorraine, namely, secured Lorraine against accidents;

and, more specially, gone across from Strasburg to the German side of the Rhine, and laid siege to Kehl. Kehl

Fortress; a dilapidated outpost of the Reich there, which cannot resist many hours. Here is news for the

Kaiser, with his few troops all on the Polish borders; minding his neighbors' business, or chasing Pragmatic

Pacific Fleury, it must be owned, if he wanted a quarrel with the Kaiser, could not have managed it on more

advantageous terms. Generals, a Duc de Berwick, a Noailles, Belleisle; generals, troops, artillery, munitions,

nothing is wanting to Fleury; to the Kaiser all things. It is surmised, the French had their eye on Lorraine, not

on Stanislaus, from the first. For many centuries, especially for these last two,ever since that Siege of

Metz, which we once saw, under Kaiser Karl V. and Albert Alcibiades, France has been wrenching and

screwing at this Lorraine, wriggling it off bit by bit; till now, as we perceived on Lyttelton junior of Hagley's

visit, Lorraine seems all lying unscrewed; and France, by any good opportunity, could stick it in her pocket.

Such opportunity sly Fleury contrived, they say;or more likely it might be Belleisle and the other

adventurous spirits that urged it on pacific Fleury;but, at all events, he has got it. Dilapidated Kehl yields

straightway: [29th October, 1733. Memoires du Marechal de Berwick (in Petitot'e Collection, Paris, 1828), ii.

303.] Sardinia, Spain, declare alliance with Fleury; and not Lorraine only, and the Swabian Provinces, but

Italy itself lies at his discretion,owing to your treatment of the Grandfather of France, and these Polish

The astonished Kaiser rushes forward to fling himself into the arms of the SeaPowers, his one resource left:

"Help! moneys, subsidies, ye SeaPowers!" But the SeaPowers stand obtuse, arms not open at all, hands

buttoning their pockets: "Sorry we cannot, your Imperial Majesty. Fleury engages not to touch the

Netherlands, the Barrier Treaty; Polish Elections are not our concern!" and callously decline. The Kaiser's

astonishment is extreme; his big heart swelling even with a martyrfeeling; and he passionately appeals:

"Ungrateful, blind SeaPowers! No money to fight France, say you? Are the Laws of Nature fallen void?"

Imperial astonishment, sublime martyrfeeling, passionate appeals to the Laws of Nature, avail nothing with

the blind SeaPowers: "No money in us," answer they: "we will help you to negotiate." "Negotiate!"

answers he: and will have to pay his own Election brokenglass, with a sublime martyrfeeling, without

Fleury has got the Sardinian Majesty; "Sardinian doorkeeper of the Alps," who opens them now this way,

now that, for a consideration: "A slice of the Milanese, your Majesty;" bargains Fleury. Fleury has got the

Spanish Majesty (our violent old friend the Termagant of Spain) persuaded to join: "Your infant Carlos made

Duke of Parma and Piacenza, with such difficulty: what is that? Naples itself, crown of the Two Sicilies, lies

in the wind for Carlos;and your junior infant, great Madam, has he no need of apanages?" The Termagant

of Spain, "offended by Pragmatic Sanction" (she says), is ready on those terms; the Sardinian Majesty is

ready: and Fleury, this same October, with an overwhelming force, Spaniards and Sardinians to join, invades

Italy; great Marshal Villars himself taking the command. Marshal Villars, an extremely eminent old military

gentleman, somewhat of a friend, or husband of a ladyfriend, to M. de Voltaire, for one thing;and

Never had Kaiser such a bill of brokenglass to pay for meddling in neighbors, elections before. The year

was not yet ended, when Villars and the Sardinian Majesty had done their stroke on Lombardy; taken Milan

Citadel, taken Pizzighetone, the Milanese in whole, and appropriated it; swept the poor unprepared Kaiser

clear out of those parts. Baby Carlos and the Spaniards are to do the Two Sicilies, Naples or the land one to

begin with, were the Winter gone. For the present, Louis XV. "sings TE DEUM, at Paris, 23d December,

1733" [ Fastes du Regne de Louis XV. (Paris, 1766), i. 248.]a merry Christmas there. Villars, now above

fourscore, soon died of those fatigues; various Marshals, Broglio, Coigny, Noailles, succeeding him, some

of whom are slightly notable to us; and there was one Maillebois, still a subordinate under them, whose name

The FrenchAustrian War, which had now broken out, lasted a couple of years; the Kaiser steadily losing,

though he did his utmost; not so much a War, on his part, as a Being Beaten and Being Stript. The Scene was

Italy and the UpperRhine Country of Germany; Italy the deciding scene; where, except as it bears on

Germany, our interest is nothing, as indeed in Germany too it is not much. The principal events, on both

MARCH 29th, 1734. Baby Carlos with a Duke of Montemar for General, a difficult impetuous gentleman,

very haughty to the French allies and others, lands in Naples Territory; intending to seize the Two Sicilies,

according to bargain. They find the Kaiser quite unprepared, and their enterprise extremely feasible.

"MAY 10th. Baby Carloswhom we ought to call Don Carlos, who is now eighteen gone, and able to ride

the great horsemakes triumphant entry into Naples, having easily swept the road clear; styles himself 'King

of the Two Sicilies' (Papa having surrendered him his 'right' there); whom Naples, in all ranks of it, willingly

homages as such. Wrecks of Kaiser's forces intrench themselves, rather strongly, at a place called Bitonto, in

"MAY 25th. Montemar, in an impetuous manner, storms them there: which feat procures for him the title,

Duke of Bitonto; and finishes off the First of the Sicilies. And indeed, we may say, finishes Both the Sicilies:

our poor Kaiser having no considerable force in either, nor means of sending any; the SeaPowers having

buttoned their pockets, and the Combined Fleet of France and Spain being on the waters there.

"We need only add, on this head, that, for ten months more, Baby Carlos and Montemar went about

besieging, Gaeta, Messina, Syracuse; and making triumphal entries;and that, on the 30th of June, 1735,

Baby Carlos had himself fairly crowned at Palermo. [ Fastes de Louis XV., i. 278.] 'King of the Two Sicilies'

DE FACTO; in which eminent post he and his continue, not with much success, to this day.

"That will suffice for the Two Sicilies. As to Lombardy again, now that Villars is out of it, and the Coignys

"JUNE 29th, 1734. Kaiser, rallying desperately for recovery of the Milanese, has sent an Army thither, Graf

von Mercy leader of it: Battle of Parma between the French and it (29th June);totally lost by the Kaiser's

people, after furious fighting; Graf von Mercy himself killed in the action. Graf von Mercy, and what comes

nearer us, a Prince of Culmbach, amiable Uncle of our Wilhelmina's Husband, a brave man and Austrian

Soldier, who was much regretted by Wilhelmina and the rest; his death and obsequies making a melancholy

Court of Baireuth in this agitated year. The Kaiser, doing his utmost, is beaten at every point.

"SEPTEMBER 15th. Surprisal of the Secchia. Kaiser's people rally, under a General Graf von Konigseck

worth noting by us,and after some manoeuvring, in the GuastallaModena region, on the Secchia and Po

rivers there, dexterously steal across the Secchia that night (15th September), cutting off the small

guardparty at the ford of the Secchia, then wading silently; and burst in upon the French Camp in a truly

alarming manner. [Hormayr, xx. 84; Fastes, as it is liable to do, misdates.] So that Broglio, in command

there, had to gallop with only one boot on, some say 'in his shirt,' till he got some force rallied, and managed

to retreat more Parthianlike upon his brother Marechal's Division. Artillery, warchest, secret

correspondence, 'King of Sardinia's tent,' and much cheering plunder beside Broglio's odd boot, were the

consequences; the Kaiser's one success in this War; abolished, unluckily, in four days! The Broglio who

here gallops is the second French Marechal of the name, son of the first; a military gentleman whom we shall

but too often meet in subsequent stages. A son of this one's, a third Marechal Broglio, present at the Secchia

that bad night, is the famous Wargod of the Bastille time, fiftyfive years hence, unfortunate old

Wargod, the Titans being all up about him. As to Broglio with the one boot, it is but a triumph over him

"SEPTEMBER 19th. Battle of Guastalla, that day. Battle lost by the Kaiser's people, after eight hours, hot

fighting; who are then obliged to hurry across the Secchia again;and in fact do not succeed in fighting any

more in that quarter, this year or afterwards. For, next year (1735), Montemar is so advanced with the Two

Sicilies, he can assist in these Northern operations; and Noailles, a better Marechal, replaces the Broglio and

Coigny there; who, with learned strategic movements, sieges, threatenings of siege, sweeps the wrecks of

Austria, to a satisfactory degree, into the Tyrol, without fighting, or event mentionable thenceforth.

"This is the Kaiser's War of two Campaigns, in the Italian, which was the decisive part of it: a continual

Being Beaten, as the reader sees; a Being Stript, till one was nearly bare in that quarter."

In Germany the mentionable events are still fewer; and indeed, but for one small circumstance binding on us,

we might skip them altogether. For there is nothing comfortable in it to the human memory otherwise.

Marechal Duc de Berwick, a cautious considerable General (Marlborough's Nephew, on what terms is known

to readers), having taken Kehl and plundered the Swabian outskirts last Winter, had extensive plans of

operating in the heart of Germany, and ruining the Kaiser there. But first he needs, and the Kaiser is aware of

it, a "basis on the Rhine;" free bridge over the Rhine, not by Strasburg and Kehl alone: and for this reason, he

will have to besiege and capture Philipsburg first of all. Strong Town of Philipsburg, well down towards

SpeyerandHeidelberg quarter on the German side of the Rhine: [See map] here will be our bridge.

Lorraine is already occupied, since the first day of the War; Trarbach, strongplace of the Moselle and

Electorate of Trier, cannot be difficult to get? Thus were the Rhine Country, on the French side, secure to

France; and so Berwick calculates he will have a basis on the Rhine, from which to shoot forth into the very

Berwick besieged Philipsburg accordingly (Summer and Autumn); Kaiser doing his feeble best to hinder: at

the Siege, Berwick lost his life, but Philipsburg surrendered to his successor, all the same;Kaiser striving

to hinder; but in a most paralyzed manner, and to no purpose whatever. Andand this properly WAS the

Seizure of Nanci (that is, of Lorraine), seizure of Kehl we already heard of; then, prior to Philipsburg, there

was siege or seizure of Trarbach by the French; and, posterior to it, seizure of Worms by them; and by the

Germans there was "burning of a magazine in Speyer by bombs." And, in brief, on both sides, there was

marching and manoeuvring under various generals (our old rusty Seckendorf one of them), till the end of

1735, when the Italian decision arrived, and Truce and Peace along with it; but there was no other action

worth naming, even in the Newspapers as a wonder of nine days, The Siege of Philipsburg, and what hung

flickering round that operation, before and after, was the sumtotal of the German War.

Philipsburg, key of the Rhine in those parts, has had many sieges; nor would this one merit the least history

from us; were it not for one circumstance: That our CrownPrince was of the Opposing Army, and made his

first experience of arms there. A Siege of Philipsburg slightly memorable to us, on that one account. What

Friedrich did there, which in the military way was as good as nothing; what he saw and experienced there,

which, with some "eighty Princes of the Reich," a Prince Eugene for General, and three months under canvas

on the field, may have been something: this, in outline, by such obscure indications as remain, we would fain

make conceivable to the reader. Indications, in the History Books, we have as good as none; but must gather

what there is from WILHELMINA and the CrownPrince's LETTERS,much studying to be brief, were it

The Kaiserwith Kehl snatched from him, the Rhine open, and Louis XV. singing TE DEUM in the

Christmas time for what Villars in Italy had doneapplied, in passionate haste, to the Reich. The Reich,

though Fleury tried to cajole it, and apologize for taking Kehl from it, declares for the Kaiser's quarrel; War

against France on his behalf; [13th March, 1734 (Buchholz, i. 131).]it was in this way that Friedrich

Wilhelm and our CrownPrince came to be concerned in the Rhine Campaign. The Kaiser will have a

Reich'sArmy (were it good for much, as is not likely) to join to his own Austrian one. And if Prince Eugene,

who is Reich'sFeldmarschall, one of the TWO Feldmarschalls, get the Generalship as men hope, it is not

Unhappily the Reich'sArmy, raised frommultifarious contingents, and guided and provided for by many

heads, is usually good for little. Not to say that old KurPfalz, with an eye to French help in the

BergandJulich matter; old KurPfalz, and the Bavarian set (KURBAIERN and KURKOLN, Bavaria

and Cologne, who are Brothers, and of old cousinship to KurPfalz),quite refuse their contingents; protest

in the Diet, and openly have French leanings. These are bad omens for the Reich'sArmy. And in regard to

the Reich'sFeldmarschall Office, there also is a difficulty. The Reich, as we hinted, keeps two supreme

Feldmarschalls; one Catholic, one Protestant, for equilibrium's sake; illustrious Prince Eugenio von Savoye is

the Catholic;but as to the Protestant, it is a difficulty worth observing for a moment.

Old Duke Eberhard Ludwig of Wurtemberg, the unfortunate old gentleman bewitched by the Gravenitz

"Deliver us from evil," used to be the Reich'sFeldmarschall of Protestant persuasion;

CommanderinChief for the Reich, when it tried fighting. Old Eberhard had been at Blenheim, and had

marched up and down: I never heard he was much of a General; perhaps good enough for the Reich, whose

troops were always bad. But now that poor Duke, as we intimated once or more, is dead; there must be, of

Protestant type, a new Reich'sFeldmasschall had. One Catholic, unequalled among Captains, we already

Duke Eberhard's successor in Wurtemberg, Karl Alexander by name, whom we once dined with at Prag on

the Kladrup journey, he, a General of some worth, would be a natural person. Unluckily Duke Karl

Alexander had, while an Austrian Officer and without outlooks upon Protestant Wurtemberg, gone over to

Papacy, and is now Catholic. "Two Catholic Feldmarschalls!" cries the CORPUS EVANGELICORUM; "that

Well, on the other or Protestant side there appear two Candidates; one of them not much expected by the

reader: no other than Ferdinand Duke of BrunswickBevern, our CrownPrince's Fatherin law; whom we

knew to be a worthy man, but did not know to be much of a soldier, or capable of these ambitious views. He

is Candidate First. Then there is a Second, much more entitled: our gunpowder friend the Old Dessauer; who,

to say nothing of his soldier qualities, has promises from the Kaiser,he surely were the man, if it did not

hurt other people's feelings. But it surely does and will. There is Ferdinand of Bevern applying upon the score

of old promises too. How can people's feelings be saved? Protestants these two last: but they cannot both

have it; and what will Wurtemberg say to either of them? The Reich was in very great affliction about this

preliminary matter. But Friedrich Wilhelm steps in with a healing recipe: "Let there be four Reich's

Feldmarschalls," said Friedrich Wilhelm; "two Protestant and two Catholic: won't that do?"Excellent!

answers the Reich: and there are four Feldmarschalls for the time being; no lack of commanders to the

Reich'sArmy. BrunswickBevern tried it first; but only till Prince Eugene were ready, and indeed he had of

himself come to nothing before that date. Prince Eugene next; then Karl Alexander next; and in fact they all

might have had a stroke at commanding, and at coming to nothing or little,only the Old Dessauer sulked at

the office in this its fourfold state, and never would fairly have it, till, by decease of occupants, it came to be

twofold again. This glimpse into the distracted effete interior of the poor old Reich and its Politics, with

friends of ours concerned there, let it be welcome to the reader. [ Leopoldi von AnhaltDessau Leben (by

Friedrich Wilhelm was without concern in this War, or in what had led to it. Practical share in the Polish

Election (after that preliminary theoretic program of the Kaiser's and Czarina's went to smoke) Friedrich

Wilhelm steadily refused to take: though considerable offers were made him on both sides,offer of West

Preussen (Polish part of Prussia, which once was known to us) on the French side. [By De la Chetardie,

French Ambassador at Berlin (Buchholz, i. 130).] But his primary fixed resolution was to stand out of the

quarrel; and he abides by that; suppresses any wishes of his own in regard to the Polish Election;keeps

ward on his own frontiers, with good military besom in hand, to sweep it out again if it intruded there. "What

King you like, in God's name; only don't come over my threshold with his brabbles and him!"

But seeing the Kaiser got into actual French War, with the Reich consenting, he is bound, by Treaty of old

date (date older than WUSTERHAUSEN, though it was confirmed on that famous occasion), "To assist the

Kaiser with ten thousand men;" and this engagement he intends amply to fulfil. No sooner, therefore, had the

Reich given sure signs of assenting ("Reich's assent" is the condition of the ten thousand), than Friedrich

Wilhelm's orders were out, "Be in readiness!" Friedrich Wilhelm, by the time of the Reich's actual assent, or

Declaration of War on the Kaiser's behalf, has but to lift his finger: squadrons and battalions, out of

Pommern, out of Magdeburg, out of Preussen, to the due amount, will get on march whitherward you bid,

and be with you there at the day you indicate, almost at the hour. Captains, not of an imaginary nature, these

are always busy; and the King himself is busy over them. From big guns and wagonhorses down to

gunflints and gaiterstraps, all is marked in registers; nothing is wanting, nothing out of its place at any

From an early period, the French intentions upon Philipsburg might be foreseen or guessed: and in the end of

March, Marechal Berwick, "in three divisions," fairly appears in that quarter; his purpose evident. So that the

Reich'sArmy, were it in the least ready, ought to rendezvous, and reinforce the handful of Austrians there.

Friedrich Wilhelm's part of the Reich'sArmy does accordingly straightway get on march; leaves Berlin, after

the due reviewing, "8th April:" [Fassmann, p. 495.] eight regiments of it, three of Horse and five of Foot,

Goltz Footregiment one of them; a General Roder, unexceptionable General, to command in chief; and

will arrive, though the farthest off, "first of all the Reich'sContingents;" 7th of June, namely. The march,

Besides the Official Generals, certain high military dignitaries, Schulenburg, Bredow, Majesty himself at

their head, propose to go as volunteers;especially the CrownPrince, whose eagerness is very great, has

got liberty to go. "As volunteer" he too: as Colonel of Goltz, it might have had its unsuitabilities, in etiquette

and otherwise. Few volunteers are more interested than the CrownPrince. Watching the great Wartheatre

uncurtain itself in this manner, from Dantzig down to Naples; and what his own share in it shall be: this,

much more than his Marriage, I suppose, has occupied his thoughts since that event. Here out of Ruppin,

dating six or seven weeks before the march of the Ten Thousand, is a small sign, one among many, of his

outlooks in this matter. Small Note to his Cousin, Margraf Heinrich, the ill behaved Margraf, much his

comrade, who is always falling into scrapes; and whom he has just, not without difficulty, got delivered out

of something of the kind. [ OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. part 2d, pp. 8, 9.] He writes in German and in the

"RUPPIN. 23d FEBRUARY, 1734. MY DEAR BROTHER,I can with pleasure answer that the King hath

spoken of thee altogether favorably to me [scrape now abolished, for the time]:and I think it would not

have an ill effect, wert thou to apply for leave to go with the ten thousand whom he is sending to the Rhine,

and do the Campaign with them as volunteer. I am myself going with that corps; so I doubt not the King

"I take the freedom to send herewith a few bottles of Champagne; and wish" all manner of good things.

This Margraf Heinrich goes; also his elder Brother, Margraf Friedrich Wilhelm,who long persecuted

Wilhelmina with his hopes; and who is now about getting Sophie Dorothee, a junior Princess, much better

than he merits: Betrothal is the week after these ten thousand march; [16th April, 1734 (Ib. part 1st, p. 14 n).]

he thirty, she fifteen. He too will go; as will the other pair of Cousin Margraves,Karl, who was once our

neighbor in Custrin; and the Younger Friedrich Wilhelm, whose fate lies at Prag if he knew it. Majesty

himself will go as volunteer. Are not great things to be done, with Eugene for General?To understand the

insignificant Siege of Philipsburg, sumtotal of the Rhine Campaign, which filled the CrownPrince's and so

many other minds brimful; that Summer, and is now wholly out of every mind, the following Excerpt may be

"The unlucky little Town of Philipsburg, key of the Rhine in that quarter, fortified under difficulties by old

Bishops of Speyer who sometimes resided there, [Kohler, Munzbelustigungen, vi. 169.] has been dismantled

and refortified, has had its Rhinebridge torn down and set up again; been garrisoned now by this party, now

by that, who had 'right of garrison there;' nay France has sometimes had 'the right of garrison;'and the poor

little Town has suffered much, and been tumbled sadly about in the Successionwars and perpetual

controversies between France and Germany in that quarter. In the time we are speaking of, it has a

'flyingbridge' (of I know not what structure), with fortified 'bridgehead (TETEDEPONT,' on the western

or Franceward side of the River. Town's bulwarks, and complex engineering defences, are of good strength,

all put in repair for this occasion: Reich and Kaiser have an effective garrison there, and a commandant

determined on defence to the uttermost: what the unfortunate Inhabitants, perhaps a thousand or so in

number, thought or did under such a visitation of ruin and bombshells, History gives not the least hint

"The Rhine Valley here is not of great breadth: eastward the heights rise to be mountainous in not many

miles. By way of defence to this Valley, in the EugeneMarlborough Wars, there was, about forty miles

southward, or higher up the River than Philipsburg, a military line or chain of posts; going from Stollhofen, a

boggy hamlet on the Rhine, with cunning indentations, and learned concatenation of bog and bluff, up into

the inaccessibilities,LINES OF STOLLHOFEN, the name of it, which welldevised barrier did good

service for certain years. It was not till, I think, the fourth year of their existence, year 1707, that Villars, the

same Villars who is now in Italy, 'stormed the Lines of Stollhofen;' which made him famous that year.

"The Lines of Stollhofen have now, in 1734, fallen flat again; but Eugene remembers them, and, I could

guess, it was he who suggests a similar expedient. At all events, there is a similar expedient fallen upon:

LINES OF ETTLINGEN this time; onehalf nearer Philipsburg; running from Muhlburg on the Rhinebrink

up to Ettlingen in the Hills. [See map] Nearer, by twenty miles; and, I guess, much more slightly done. We

shall see these Lines of Ettlingen, one point of them, for a moment:and they would not be worth

mentioning at all, except that in careless Books they too are called 'Lines of STOLLHOFEN,' [Wilhelmina

(ii. 206), for instance; who, or whose Printer, call them "Lines of STOKOFF" even.] and the ingenuous

"Lines of ETTLINGEN" they are; related, as now said, to the Stollhofen set. Duke Ferdinand of

BrunswickBevern, one of the four Feldmarschalls, has some ineffectual handful of Imperial troops dotted

about, within these Lines and on the skirts of Philipsburg;eagerly waiting till the Reich'sArmy gather to

him; otherwise he must come to nothing. Will at any rate, I should think, be happy to resign in favor of Prince

On Mayday, Marechal Berwick, who has been awake in this quarter, "in three divisions," for a month

past,very impatient till Belleisle with the first division should have taken Trarbach, and made the Western

interior parts secure,did actually cross the Rhine, with his second division, "at Fort Louis," well up the

River, well south of Philipsburg; intending to attack the Lines of Ettlingen, and so get in upon the Town.

There is a third division, about to lay pontoons for itself a good way farther down, which will attack the Lines

simultaneously from within,that is to say, shall come upon the back of poor Bevern and his defensive

handful of troops, and astonish him there. All prospers to Berwick in this matter: Noailles his lieutenant (not

yet gone to Italy till next year), with whom is Maurice Comte de Saxe (afterwards Marechal de Saxe), an

excellent observant Officer, marches up to Ettlingen, May 3d; bivouacs "at the base of the mountain" (no

great things of a mountain); ascends the same in two columns, horse and foot, by the first sunlight next

morning; forms on a little plain on the top; issues through a thin wood,and actually beholds those same

LINES OF ETTLINGEN, the outmost eastern end of them: a somewhat inconsiderable matter, after all! Here

"These retrenchments, made in Turk fashion, consisted of big trees set zigzag (EN ECHIQUIER), twisted

together by the branches; the whole about five fathoms thick. Inside of it were a small forlorn of Austrians:

these steadily await our grenadiers, and do not give their volley till we are close. Our grenadiers receive their

volley; clear the intertwisted trees, after receiving a second volley (total loss seventyfive killed and

wounded); andthe enemy quits his post; and the Lines of Ettlingen ARE stormed!" [Noailles, Memoires (in

Petitot's Collection), iii. 207.] This is not like storming the Lines of Stollhofen; a thing to make Noailles

famous in the Newspapers for a year. But it was a useful small feat, and well enough performed on his part.

The truth is, Berwick was about attacking the Lines simultaneously on the other or Muhlburg end of them

(had not Noailles, now victorious, galloped to forbid); and what was far more considerable, those other

French, to the northward, "upon pontoons," are fairly across; like to be upon the BACK of Duke Ferdinand

and his handful of defenders. Duke Ferdinand perceives that he is come to nothing; hastily collects his people

from their various posts; retreats with them that same night, unpursued, to Heilbronn; and gives up the

command to Prince Eugene, who is just arrived there,who took quietly two pinches of snuff on hearing this

Berwick now forms the Siege, at his discretion; invests Philipsburg, 13th May; [Berwick, ii. 312; 23d, says

Noailles's Editor (iii. 210).] begins firing, night of the 3d4th June; Eugene waiting at Heilbronn till the

Reich'sArmy come up. The Prussian ten thousand do come, all in order, on the 7th: the rest by degrees, all

later, and all NOT quite in order. Eugene, the Prussians having joined him, moves down towards Philipsburg

and its cannonading; encamps close to rearward of the besieging French. "Camp of Wiesenthal" they call it;

Village of Wiesenthal with bogs, on the left, being his headqnarters; Village of Waghausel, down near the

River, a five miles distance, being his limit on the right. Berwick, in front, industriously battering Philipsburg

into the River, has thrown up strong lines behind him, strongly manned, to defend himself from Eugene;

across the River, Berwick has one Bridge, and at the farther end one battery with which he plays upon the

rear of Philipsburg. He is much criticised by unoccupied people, "Eugene's attack will ruin us on those

terms!"and much incommoded by overflowings of the Rhine; Rhine swoln by melting of the

mountainsnows, as is usual there. Which inundations Berwick had well foreseen, though the Warminister

at Paris would not: "Haste!" answered the Warminister always: "We shall be in right time. I tell you there

have fallen no snows this winter: how can inundation be?" "Depends on the heat," said Berwick; "there are

And so it proves, though the Warminister would not believe; and Berwick has to take the inundations, and

to take the circumstances;and to try if, by his own continual best exertions, he can but get Philipsburg into

the bargain. On the 12th of June, visiting his posts, as he daily does, the first thing, Berwick stept out of the

trenches, anxious for clear view of something; stept upon "the crest of the sap," a place exposed to both

French and Austrian batteries, and which had been forbidden to the soldiers,and there, as he anxiously

scanned matters through his glass, a cannonball, unknown whether French or Austrian, shivered away the

head of Berwick; left others to deal with the criticisms, and the inundations, and the operations big or little, at

Philipsburg and elsewhere! Siege went on, better or worse, under the next in command; "Paris in great

It is a hot siege, a stiff defence; Prince Eugene looks on, but does not attack in the way apprehended.

Southward in Italy, we hear there is marching, strategying in the Parma Country; Graf von Mercy likely to

come to an action before long. Northward, Dantzig by this time is all wrapt in firewhirlwinds; its sallyings

and outer defences all driven in; mere torrents of Russiau bombs raining on it day and night; French

auxiliaries, snapt up at landing, are on board Russian ships; and poor Stanislaus and "the Lady of Quality who

shot the first gun" have a bad outlook there. Towards the end of the month, the Berlin volunteer Generals, our

CrownPrince and his Margraves among them, are getting on the road for Philipsburg;and that is properly

Tuesday evening, 29th June, there is Ball at Monbijou; the Crown Prince and others busy dancing there, as

if nothing special lay ahead. Nevertheless, at three in the morning he has changed his balldress for a better,

he and certain more; and is rushing southward, with his volunteer Generals and Margraves, full speed, saluted

by the rising sun, towards Philipsburg and the Seat of War. And the same night, King Stanislaus, if any of us

cared for him, is on flight from Dantzig, "disguised as a cattledealer;" got out on the night of Sunday last,

Town under such a rain of bombshells being palpably too hot for him: got out, but cannot get across the

muddy intricacies of the Weichsel; lies painfully squatted up and down, in obscure alehouses, in that Stygian

Mud Delta,a matter of life and death to get across, and not a boat to be had, such the vigilance of the

Russian. Dantzig is capitulating, dreadful penalties exacted, all the heavier as no Stanislaus is to be found in

it; and search all the keener rises in the Delta after him. Through perils and adventures of the sort usual on

such occasions, [Credible modest detail of them, in a LETTER from Stanislaus himself ( History of

Stanislaus, already cited, pp. 235248).]l Stanislaus does get across; and in time does reach Preussen; where,

by Friedrich Wilhelm's order, safe opulent asylum is afforded him, till the Fates (when this War ends)

determine what is to become of the poor Imaginary Majesty. We leave him, squatted in the intricacies of the

MudDelta, to follow our CrownPrince, who in the same hour is rushing far elsewhither.

Margraves, Generals and he, in their small string of carriages, go on, by extrapost, day and night; no rest till

they get to Hof, in the Culmbach neighborhood, a good two hundred miles off,near Wilhelmina, and more

than halfway to Philipsburg. Majesty Friedrich Wilhelm is himself to follow in about a week: he has given

strict order against waste of time: "Not to part company; go together, and NOT by Anspach or

This latter was a sore clause to Friedrich, who had counted all along on seeing his dear faithful Wilhelmina,

as he passed: therefore, as the Papa's Orders, dangerous penalty lying in them, cannot be literally disobeyed,

the question rises, How see Wilhelmina and not Baireuth? Wilhelmina, weak as she is and unfit for travelling,

will have to meet him in some neutral place, suitablest for both. After various shiftings, it has been settled

between them that Berneck, a little town twelve miles from Baireuth on the Hof road, will do; and that

Friday, probably early, will be the day. Wilhelmina, accordingly, is on the road that morning, early enough;

Husband with her, and ceremonial attendants, in honor of such a Brother; morning is of sultry windless sort;

day hotter and hotter;at Berneck is no Crown Prince, in the House appointed for him; hour after hour,

Wilhelmina waits there in vain. The truth is, one of the smallest accidents has happened: the Generals "lost a

wheel at Gera yesterday;" were left behind there with their smiths, have not yet appeared; and the insoluble

question among Friedrich and the Margraves is, "We dare not go on without them, then? We dare; dare

we?" Question like to drive Friedrich mad, while the hours, at any rate, are slipping on! Here are three Letters

of Friedrich, legible at last; which, with Wilhelmina's account from the other side, represent a small entirely

human scene in this French Austrian War,nearly all of human we have found in the beggarly affair:

"MY DEAR SISTER,Here am I within six leagues [say eight or more, twentyfive miles English] of a

Sister whom I love; and I have to decide that it will be impossible to see her, after all!"Does decide so,

"I have never so lamented the misfortune of not depending on myself as at this moment! The King being but

very soursweet on my score, I dare not risk the least thing; Monday come a week, when he arrives himself, I

should have a pretty scene (SERAIS JOLIMENT TRAITE) in the Camp, if I were found to have disobeyed

"... The Queen commands me to give you a thousand regards from her. She appeared much affected at your

illness; but for the rest, I could not warrant you how sincere it was; for she is totally changed, and I have quite

lost reckoning of her (N'Y CONNAIS RIEN). That goes so far that she has done me hurt with the King, all

she could: however, that is over now. As to Sophie [young Sister just betrothed to the eldest Margraf whom

you know], she also is no longer the same; for she approves all that the Queen says or does; and she is

"The King is more difficult than ever; he is content with nothing, so as to have lost whatsoever could be

called gratitude for all pleasures one can do him,"marrying against one's will, and the like. "As to his

health, it is one day better, another worse; but the legs, they are always swelled, Judge what my joy must be

to get out of that turpitude,for the King will only stay a fortnight, at most, in the Camp.

"Adieu, my adorable Sister: I am so tired, I cannot stir; having left on Tuesday night, or rather Wednesday

morning at three o'clock, from a Ball at Monbijou, and arrived here this Friday morning at four. I recommend

myself to your gracious remembrance; and am, for my own part, till death, dearest Sister,"

This is Letter First; written Friday morning, on the edge of getting into bed, after such fatigue; and it has, as

natural in that mood, given up the matter in despair. It did not meet Wilhelmina on the road; and she had left

Baireuth;where it met her, I do not know; probably at home, on her return, when all was over. Let

"I got to Berneck at ten. The heat was excessive; I found myself quite worn out with the little journey I had

done. I alighted at the House which had been got ready for my Brother. We waited for him, and in vain

waited, till three in the afternoon. At three we lost patience; had dinner served without him. Whilst we were

at table, there came on a frightful thunderstorm. I have witnessed nothing so terrible: the thunder roared and

reverberated among the rocky cliffs which begirdle Berneck; and it seemed as if the world was going to

"It was four o'clock; and I could not understand what had become of my Brother. I had sent out several

persons on horseback to get tidings of him, and none of them came back. At length, in spite of all my prayers,

the Hereditary Prince [my excellent Husband] himself would go in search. I remained waiting till nine at

night, and nobody returned. I was in cruel agitations: these cataracts of rain are very dangerous in the

mountain countries; the roads get suddenly overflowed, and there often happen misfortunes. I thought for

certain, there had one happened to my Brother or to the Hereditary Prince." Such a 2d of July, to poor

"At last, about nine, somebody brought word that my Brother had changed his route, and was gone to

Culmbach [a House of ours, lying westward, known to readers]; there to stay overnight. I was for setting out

thither,Culmbach is twenty miles from Berneck; but the roads are frightful," White Mayn, still a young

River, dashing through the rocklabyrinths there, "and full of precipices:everybody rose in opposition,

and, whether I would or not, they put me into the carriage for Himmelkron [partly on the road thither], which

is only about ten miles off. We had like to have got drowned on the road; the waters were so swoln [White

"I arrived at last, about one in the morning. I instantly threw myself on a bed. I was like to die with

weariness; and in mortal terrors that something had happened to my Brother or the Hereditary Prince. This

latter relieved me on his own score; he arrived at last, about four o'clock,had still no news farther of my

Brother. I was beginning to doze a little, when they came to warn me that 'M. von Knobelsdorf wished to

speak with me from the PrinceRoyal.' I darted out of bed, and ran to him. He," handing me a Letter,

But let us now give Letter Second, which has turned up lately, and which curiously completes the picture

here. Friedrich, on rising refreshed with sleep at Hof, had taken a cheerfuler view; and the Generals still

lagging rearward, he thinks it possible to see Wilhelmiua after all. Possible; and yet so very dangerous,

perhaps not possible? Here is a second Letter written from Munchberg, some fifteen miles farther on, at an

after period of the same Friday: purport still of a perplexed nature, "I will, and I dare not;"practical

outcome, of itself uncertain, is scattered now by torrents and thunderstorms. This is the Letter, which

"MY DEAREST SISTER,I am in despair that I cannot satisfy my impatience and my duty,to throw

myself at your feet this day. But alas, dear Sister, it does not depend on me: we poor Princes, "the Margraves

and I," are obliged to wait here till our Generals [Bredow, Schulenburg and Company] come up; we dare not

go along without them. They broke a wheel in Gera [fifty miles behind us]; hearing nothing of them since, we

are absolutely forced to wait here. Judge in what a mood I am, and what sorrow must be mine! Express order

not to go by Baireuth or Anspach:forbear, dear sister, to torment me on things not depending on myself at

"I waver between hope and fear of paying my court to you. I hope it might still be at Berneck," this

evening,"if you could contrive a road into the Nurnberg Highway again; avoiding Baireuth: otherwise I

dare not go. The Bearer, who is Captain Knobelsdorf [excellent judicious man, old acquaintance from the

Custrin time, who attends upon us, actual Captain once, but now titular merely, given to architecture and the

fine arts (Seyfarth (Anonymous), Lebens und RegierungsGeschichte Friedrichs des Andern (Leipzig,

1786), ii. 200. OEuvres de Frederic, vii. 33. Preuss, Friedrich mit seinen Verwandten (Berlin. 1838), pp. 8,

17.)], will apprise you of every particular: let Knobelsdorf settle something that may be possible. This is how

I stand at present; and instead of having to expect some favor from the King [after what I have done by his

order], I get nothing but chagrin. But what is crueler upon me than all, is that you are ill. God, in his grace, be

pleased to help you, and restore the precious health which I so much wish you! ... FRIEDRICH."

Judicious Knobelsdorf settles that the meeting is to be this very morning at eight; Wilhelmina (whose

memory a little fails her in the insignificant points) does not tell us where: but, by faint indications, I perceive

it was in the LakeHouse, pleasant Pavilion in the ancient artificial Lake, or big ornamental Fishpond, called

BRANDENBURGER WEIHER, a couple of miles to the north of Baireuth: there Friedrich is to

stop,keeping the Paternal Order from the teeth outwards in this manner. Eight o'clock: so that Wilhelmina

is obliged at once to get upon the road again,poor Princess, after such a day and night. Her description of

"My Brother overwhelmed me with caresses; but found me in so pitiable a state, he could not restrain his

tears. I was not able to stand on my limbs; and felt like to faint every moment, so weak was I. He told me the

King was much angered at the Margraf [my FatherinLaw] for not letting his Son make the Campaign,"

concerning which point, said Son, my Husband, being HeirApparent, there had been much arguing in Court

and Country, here at Baireuth, and endless anxiety on my poor part, lest he should get killed in the Wars. "I

told him all the Margraf's reasons; and added, that surely they were good, in respect of my dear Husband.

'Well,' said he, 'let him quit soldiering, then, and give back his regiment to the King. But for the rest, quiet

yourself as to the fears you may have about him if he do go; for I know, by certain information, that there will

be no blood spilt.''They are at the Siege of Philipsburg, however.''Yes,' said my Brother, 'but there will

"The Hereditary Prince," my Husband, "came in while we were talking so; and earnestly entreated my

Brother to get him away from Baireuth. They went to a window, and talked a long time together. In the end,

my Brother told me he would write a very obliging Letter to the Margraf, and give him such reasons in favor

of the Campaign, that he doubted not it would turn the scale. 'We will stay together,' said he, addressing the

Hereditary Prince; 'and I shall be charmed to have my dear Brother always beside me.' He wrote the Letter;

gave it to Baron Stein [Chamberlain or Goldstick of ours], to deliver to the Margraf. He promised to obtain

the King's express leave to stop at Baireuth on his return;after which he went away. It was the last time I

saw him on the old footing with me: he has much changed since then!We returned to Baireuth; where I

was so ill that, for three days, they did not think I should get over it." [Wilhelmina, ii. 200202.]

CrownPrince dashes off, southwestward, through cross country, into the Nurnberg Road again; gets to

Nurnberg that same Saturday night; and there, among other Letters, writes the following; which will wind up

"MY DEAREST (TRESCHERE) SISTER,It would be impossible to quit this place without signifying,

dearest Sister, my lively gratitude for all the marks of favor you showed me in the WEIHERHAUS [House on

the Lake, today]. The highest of all that it was possible to do, was that of procuring me the satisfaction of

paying my court to you. I beg millions of pardons for so putting you about, dearest Sister; but I could not help

it; for you know my sad circumstances well enough. In my great joy, I forgot to give you the Enclosed. I

entreat you, write me often news of your health! Question the Doctors; and"and in certain contingencies,

the CrownPrince "would recommend goat'smilk" for his poor Sister. Had already, what was noted of him

"Adieu, my incomparable and dear Sister. I am always the same to you, and will remain so till my death.

Generals with their wheel mended, Margraves, Prince and now the Camp Equipage too, are all at Nurnberg;

and start on the morrow; hardly a hundred miles now to be done,but on slower terms, owing to the

Equipage. Heilbronn, place of arms or central stronghold of the Reich'sArmy, they reach on Monday: about

Eppingen, next night, if the wind is westerly, one may hear the cannon,not without interest. It was

Wednesday forenoon, 7th July, 1734, on some hilltop coming down from Eppingen side, that the Prince first

saw Philipsburg Siege, blotting the Rhine Valley yonder with its fire and counterfire; and the Tents of

Eugene stretching on this side: first view he ever had of the actualities of war. His account to Papa is so

"MOST ALLGRACIOUS FATHER, ... We left Nurnberg [nothing said of our Baireuth affair], 4th early,

and did not stop till Heilbronn; where, along with the Equipage, I arrived on the 5th. Yesterday I came with

the Equipage to Eppingen [twenty miles, a slow march, giving the fourgons time]; and this morning we came

to the Camp at Wiesenthal. I have dined with General Roder [our Prussian Commander]; and, after dinner,

rode with Prince Eugene while giving the parole. I handed him my Allgracious Father's Letter, which much

rejoiced him. After the parole, I went to see the relieving of our outposts [change of sentries there], and view

"We," your Majesty's Contingent, "are throwing up three redoubts: at one of them today, three musketeers

have been miserably shot [GESCHOSSEN, wounded, not quite killed]; two are of Roder's, and one is of

"Tomorrow I will ride to a village which is on our right wing; Waghausel is the name of it [Busching, v.

1152.] [some five miles off, north of us, near by the Rhine]; there is a steeple there, from which one can see

the French Camp; from this point I will ride down, between the two Lines," French and ours, "to see what

"There are quantities of hurdles and fascines being made; which, as I hear, are to be employed in one of two

different plans. The first plan is, To attack the French retrenchment generally; the ditch which is before it, and

the morass which lies on our left wing, to be made passable with these fascines. The other plan is, To amuse

the Enemy by a false attack, and throw succor into the Town.One thing is certain, in a few days we shall

have a stroke of work here. Happen what may, my Allgracious Father may be assured that" "and that I will

Neither of those fine plans took effect; nor did anything take effect, as we shall see. But in regard to that

"survey from the steeple of Waghausel, and ride home again between the Lines,"in regard to that, here is

an authentic fraction of anecdote, curiously fitting in, which should not be omitted. A certain Herr van Suhm,

Saxon Minister at Berlin, occasionally mentioned here, stood in much Correspondence with the

CrownPrince in the years now following: Correspondence which was all published at the due distance of

time; Suhm having, at his decease, left the Prince's Letters carefully assorted with that view, and furnished

with a Prefatory "Character of the PrinceRoyal (Portrait du PrinceRoyal, par M. de Suhm)." Of which

Preface this is a small paragraph, relating to the Siege of Philipsburg; offering us a momentary glance into

one fibre of the futile War now going on there. Of Suhm, and how exact he was, we shall know a little by and

by. Of "Prince von Lichtenstein," an Austrian man and soldier of much distinction afterwards, we have only

to say that he came to Berlin next year on Diplomatic business, and that probably enough he had been

eyewitness to the little fact,fact credible perhaps without much proving. One rather regretted there was no

date to it, no detail to give it whereabout and fixity in our conception; that the poor little Anecdote, though

indubitable, had to hang vaguely in the air. Now, however, the above dated LETTER does, by accident, date

Suhm's Anecdote too; date "July 8" as good as certain for it; the Siege itself having ended (July 18) in ten

days more. Herr von Suhm writes (not for publication till after Friedrich's death and his own):

"It was remarked in the Rhine Campaign of 1734, that this Prince has a great deal of intrepidity

(BEAUCOUP DE VALEUR). On one occasion, among others [to all appearance, this very day, "July 8,"

riding home from Waghausel between the lines], when he had gone to reconnoitre the Lines of Philipsburg,

with a good many people about him,passing, on his return, along a strip of very thin wood, the

cannonshot from the Lines accompanied him incessantly, and crashed down several trees at his side; during

all which he walked his horse along at the old pace, precisely as if nothing were happening, nor in his hand

upon the bridle was there the least trace of motion perceptible. Those who gave attention to the matter

remarked, on the contrary, that he did not discontinue speaking very tranquilly to some Generals who

accompanied him; and who admired his bearing, in a kind of danger with which he had not yet had occasion

to familiarize himself. It is from the Prince von Lichtenstein that I have this anecdote." [ Correspondance de

Frederic II. avec M. de Suhm (Berlin, 1787); Avantpropos, p. xviii. (written 28th April, 1740). The

CORRESPONDANCE is all in OEuvres de Frederic (xvi, 247408); but the Suhm Preface not.]

On the 15th arrived his Majesty in person, with the Old Dessauer, Buddenbrock, Derschau and a select suite;

in hopes of witnessing remarkable feats of war, now that the crisis of Philipsburg was coming on. Many

Princes were assembled there, in the like hope: Prince of Orange (honeymoon well ended [Had wedded

Princess Anne, George II.'s eldest, 25th (14th) March, 1734; to the joy of self and mankind, in England

here.]), a vivacious light gentleman, slightly crooked in the back; Princes of Baden, Darmstadt, Waldeck: all

manner of Princes and distinguished personages, fourscore Princes of them by tale, the eyes of Europe being

turned on this matter, and on old Eugene's guidance of it. Prince Fred of England, even he had a notion of

It was about this time, not many weeks ago, that Fred, now falling into much discrepancy with his Father, and

at a loss for a career to himself, appeared on a sudden in the Antechamber at St. James's one day; and

solemnly demanded an interview with his Majesty. Which his indignant Majesty, after some conference with

Walpole, decided to grant. Prince Fred, when admitted, made three demands: 1. To be allowed to go upon the

Rhine Campaign, by way of a temporary career for himself; 2. That he might have something definite to live

upon, a fixed revenue being suitable in his circumstances; 3. That, after those sad Prussian disappointments,

some suitable Consort might be chosen for him,heart and household lying in such waste condition. Poor

Fred, who of us knows what of sense might be in these demands? Few creatures more absurdly situated are to

be found in this world. To go where his equals were, and learn soldiering a little, might really have been

useful. Paternal Majesty received Fred and his Three Demands with fulminating look; answered, to the first

two, nothing; to the third, about a Consort, "Yes, you shall; but be respectful to the Queen;and now. off

Poor Fred, he has a circle of hungry Parliamenteers about him; young Pitt, a Cornet of Horse, young

Lyttelton of Hagley, our old Soissons friend, not to mention others of worse type; to whom this royal Young

Gentleman, with his vanities, ambitions, inexperiences, plentiful inflammabilities, is important for exploding

Walpole. He may have, and with great justice I should think, the dim consciousness of talents for doing

something better than "write madrigals" in this world; infinitude of wishes and appetites he clearly has;he

is full of inflammable materials, poor youth. And he is the Fireship those older hands make use of for

blowing Walpole and Company out of their anchorage. What a school of virtue for a young gentleman;and

for the elder ones concerned with him! He did not get to the Rhine Campaign; nor indeed ever to anything,

except to writing madrigals, and being very futile, dissolute and miserable with what of talent Nature had

given him. Let us pity the poor constitutional Prince. Our Fritz was only in danger of losing his life; but what

is that, to losing your sanity, personal identity almost, and becoming Parliamentary Fireship to his Majesty's

Friedrich Wilhelm stayed a month campaigning here; graciously declined Prince Eugene's invitation to lodge

in Headquarters, under a roof and within built walls; preferred a tent among his own people, and took the

In these weeks, the big Czarina, who has set a price (100,000 rubles, say 15,000 pounds) upon the head of

poor Stanislaus, hears that his Prussian Majesty protects him; and thereupon signifies, in high terms, That

she, by her Feldmarschall Munnich, will come across the frontiers and seize the said Stanislaus. To which

his Prussian Majesty answers positively, though in proper Diplomatic tone, "Madam, I will in no wise permit

it!" Perhaps his Majesty's remarkablest transaction, here on the Rhine, was this concerning Stanislaus. For

Seckendorf the Feldzeugmeister was here also, on military function, not forgetful of the Diplomacies; who

busily assailed his Majesty, on the Kaiser's part, in the same direction: "Give up Stanislaus, your Majesty!

How ridiculous (LACHERLICH) to be perhaps ruined for Stanislaus!" But without the least effect, now or

Poor Stanislaus, in the beginning of July, got across into Preussen, as we intimated; and there he continued,

safe against any amount of rubles and Feldmarschalls, entreaties and menaces. At Angerburg, on the Prussian

frontier, he found a steadfast veteran, LieutenantGeneral von Katte, Commandant in those parts (Father of a

certain poor Lieutenant, whom we tragically knew of long ago!)which veteran gentleman received tbe

Fugitive Majesty, [ MilitairLexikon, ii. 254.] with welcome in the King's name, and assurances of an

honorable asylum till the times and roads should clear again for his Fugitive Majesty. Fugitive Majesty, for

whom the roads and times were very dark at present, went to Marienwerder; talked of going "to Pillau, for a

seapassage," of going to various places; went finally to Konigsberg, and therewith a considerable Polish

Suite of Fugitives, very moneyless, and very expensive, most of them, who had accumulated about himset

up his abode. There for almost two years, in fact till this War ended, the Fugitive Polish Majesty continued;

Friedrich Wilhelm punctually protecting him, and even paying him a small Pension (50 pounds a

month),France, the least it could do for the Grandfather of France, allowing a much larger one; larger,

though still inadequate. France has left its Grandfather strangely in the lurch here; with "100,000 rubles on

his head." But Friedrich Wilhelm knows the sacred rites, and will do them; continues deaf as a doorpost

alike to the menaces and the entreaties of Kaiser and Czarina; strictly intimating to Munnich, what the Laws

of Neutrality are, and that they must be observed. Which, by his Majesty's good arrangements, Munnich,

willing enough to the contrary had it been feasible, found himself obliged to comply with. Prussian Majesty,

like a King and a gentleman, would listen to no terms about dismissing or delivering up, or otherwise, failing

in the sacred rites to Stanislaus; but honorably kept him there till the times and routes cleared themselves

again. [Forster, ii. 132, 134136.] A plain piece of duty; punctually done: the beginning of it falls here in the

Camp at Philipsburg, JulyAugust 1734; in May, 1736, we shall see some glimpse of the end!

His Prussian Majesty in Camp at Philipsburgso distinguished a volunteer, doing us the honor to encamp

here"was asked to all the Councilsofwar that were held," say the Books. And he did attend, the

CrownPrince and he, on important occasions: but, alas, there was, so to speak, nothing to be consulted of.

Fascines and hurdles lay useless; no attempt was made to relieve Philipsburg. On the third day after his

Majesty's arrival, July 18th, Philipsburg, after a stiff defence of six weeks, growing hopeless of relief, had to

surrender;French then proceeded to repair Philipsburg, no attempt on Eugene's part to molest them there. If

they try ulterior operations on this side the River, he countertries; and that is all.

Our CrownPrince, somewhat of a judge in after years, is maturely of opinion, That the French Lines were

by no means inexpugnable; that the French Army might have been ruined under an attack of the proper kind.

[ OEuvres de Frederic, i. 167.] Their position was bad; no room to unfold themselves for fight, except with

the Town's cannon playing on them all the while; only one Bridge to get across by, in case of coming to the

worse: defeat of them probable, and ruin to them inevitable in case of defeat. But Prince Eugene, with an

Army little to his mind (Reich'sContingents not to be depended on, thought Eugene), durst not venture:

"Seventeen victorious Battles, and if we should be defeated in the eighteenth and last?"

It is probable the Old Dessauer, had he been Generalissimo, with this same Army,in which, even in the

Reich's part of it, we know ten thousand of an effective character,would have done some stroke upon the

French; but Prince Eugene would not try. Much dimmed from his former self this old hero; age now 73; a

good deal wearied with the long march through Time. And this very Summer, his Brother's Son, the last male

of his House, had suddenly died of inflammatory fever; left the old man very mournful: "Alone, alone, at the

end of one's long march; laurels have no fruit, then?" He stood cautious, on the defensive; and in this capacity

But Philipsburg being taken, there is no longer the least event to be spoken of; the Campaign passed into a

series of advancings, retreatings, facing, and then rightabout facings,painful manoeuvrings, on both sides

of the Rhine and of the Neckar, without result farther to the French, without memorability to either side.

About the middle of August, Friedrich Wilhelm went away;health much hurt by his month under canvas,

amid Rhine inundations, and mere distressing phenomena. CrownPrince Friedrich and a select party

escorted his Majesty to Mainz, where was a Dinner of unusual sublimity by the Kurfurst there; [15th August

(Fassmann, p. 511.)]Dinner done, his Majesty stept on board "the Electoral Yacht;" and in this fine

hospitable vehicle went sweeping through the Binger Loch, rapidly down towards Wesel; and the

CrownPrince and party returned to their Camp, which is upon the Neckar at this time.

Camp shifts about, and CrownPrince in it: to Heidelberg, to Waiblingen, Weinheim; close to Mainz at one

time: but it is not worth following: nor in Friedrich's own Letters, or in other documents, is there, on the best

examination, anything considerable to be gleaned respecting his procedures there. He hears of the illsuccess

in Italy, Battle of Parma at the due date, with the natural feelings; speaks with a sorrowful gayety, of the

muddy fatigues, futilities here on the Rhine;has the sense, however, not to blame his superiors

unreasonably. Here, from one of his Letters to Colonel Camas, is a passage worth quoting for the credit of the

writer. With Camas, a distinguished Prussian Frenchman, whom we mentioned elsewhere, still more with

Madame Camas in time coming, he corresponded much, often in a fine filial manner:

"The present Campaign is a school, where profit may be reaped from observing the confusion and disorder

which reigns in this Army: it has been a field very barren in laurels; and those who have been used, all their

life, to gather such, and on Seventeen distinguished occasions have done so, can get none this time." Next

year, we all hope to be on the Moselle, and to find that a fruitfuler field ... "I am afraid, dear Camas, you think

I am going to put on the cothurnus; to set up for a small Eugene, and, pronouncing with a doctoral tone what

each should have done and not have done, condemn and blame to right and left. No, my dear Camas; far from

carrying my arrogance to that point, I admire the conduct of our Chief, and do not disapprove that of his

worthy Adversary; and far from forgetting the esteem and consideration due to persons who, scarred with

wounds, have by years and long service gained a consummate experience, I shall hear them more willingly

than ever as my teachers, and try to learn from them how to arrive at honor, and what is the shortest road into

the secret of this Profession." ["Camp at Heidelberg, 11th September, 1734" ( OEuvres, xvi. 131).]

This other, to Lieutenant Groben, three weeks earlier in date, shows us a different aspect; which is at least

equally authentic; and may be worth taking with us. Groben is Lieutenant,I suppose still of the Regiment

Goltz, though he is left there behind;at any rate, he is much a familiar with the Prince at Ruppin; was

ringleader, it is thought, in those midnight pranks upon parsons, and the other escapades there; [Busching, v.

20.] a merry man, eight years older than the Prince,with whom it is clear enough he stands on a very free

footing. Philipsburg was lost a month ago; French are busy repairing it; and manoeuvring, with no effect, to

get into the interior of Germany a little. Weinheim is a little Town on the north side of the Neckar, a dozen

miles or so from Mannheim;out of which, and into which, the Prussian Corps goes shifting from time to

time, as Prince Eugene and the French manoeuvre to no purpose in that RhineNeckar Country. "HERDEK

TEREMTETEM" it appears, is a bit of Hungarian swearing; should be ORDEK TEREMTETE; and means

"HERDEK TEREMTETE! 'Went with them, got hanged with them,' [ "Mitgegangen mitgehangen:" Letter is

in German.] said the Bielefeld Innkeeper! So will it be with me, poor devil; for I go dawdling about with this

Army here; and the French will have the better of us. We want to be over the Neckar again [to the South or

Philipsburg side], and the rogues won't let us. What most provokes me in the matter is, that while we are here

in such a wilderness of trouble, doing our utmost, by military labors and endurances, to make ourselves

"Duc de Bouillon has lost his equipage; our Hussars took it at Landau [other side the Rhine, a while ago].

Here we stand in mud to the ears; fifteen of the Regiment AltBaden have sunk altogether in the mud. Mud

comes of a waterspout, or sudden cataract of rain, there was in these Heidelberg Countries; two villages,

"Captain van Stojentin, of Regiment Flans," one of our eight Regiments here, "has got wounded in the head,

in an affair of honor; he is still alive, and it is hoped he will get through it.

"The DrillDemon has now got into the Kaiser's people too: Prince Eugene is grown heavier with his drills

than we ourselves. He is often three hours at it;and the Kaiser's people curse us for the same, at a frightful

rate. Adieu. If the Devil don't get thee, he ought. Therefore VALE. [ OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. part 3d, p.

No laurels to be gained here; but plenty of mud, and laborious hardship,met, as we perceive, with youthful

stoicism, of the derisive, and perhaps of better forms. Friedrich is twentytwo and some months, when he

makes his first Campaign. The general physiognomy of his behavior in it we have to guess from these few

indications. No doubt he profited by it, on the military side; and would study with quite new light and

vivacity after such contact with the fact studied of. Very didactic to witness even "the confusions of this

Army," and what comes of them to Armies! For the rest, the society of Eugene, Lichtenstein, and so many

Princes of the Reich, and Chiefs of existing mankind, could not but be entertaining to the young man; and

silently, if he wished to read the actual Time, as sure enough he, with human and with royal eagerness, did

wish,they were here as the ALPHABET of it to him: important for years coming. Nay it is not doubted, the

insight he here got into the condition of the Austrian Army and its management"Army left seven days

without bread," for one instancegave him afterwards the highly important notion, that such Army could be

Wilhelmina says, his chief comrade was Margraf Heinrich;the ILL Margraf; who was cut by Friedrich, in

after years, for some unknown bad behavior. Margraf Heinrich "led him into all manner of excesses," says

Wilhelmina,probably in the language of exaggeration. He himself tells her, in one of his LETTERS, a day

or two before Papa's departure: "The Camp is soon to be close on Mainz, nothing but the Rhine between

Mainz and our right wing, where my place is; and so soon as Serenissimus goes [LE SERENISSIME, so he

irreverently names Papa], I mean to be across for some sport," [ OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. part 1st, p. 17

(10th August).]no doubt the Ill Margraf with me! With the Elder Margraf, little Sophie's Betrothed, whom

he called "big clown" in a Letter we read, he is at this date in open quarrel,"BROUILLE A TOUTE

OUTRANCE with the mad Soninlaw, who is the wildest wildbeast of all this Camp." [Ibid.]

Wilhelmina's Husband had come, in the beginning of August; but was not so happy as he expected.

Considerably cut out by the Ill Heinrich. Here is a small adventure they had; mentioned by Friedrich, and

copiously recorded by Wilhelmina: adventure on some River,which we could guess, if it were worth

guessing, to have been the Neckar, not the Rhine. French had a fortified post on the farther side of this River;

CrownPrince, Ill Margraf, and Wilhelmina's Husband were quietly looking about them, riding up the other

side: Wilhelmina's Husband decided to take a pencil drawing of the French post, and paused for that object.

Drawing was proceeding unmolested, when his foolish Baireuth Hussar, having an excellent rifle

(ARQUEBUSE RAYEE) with him, took it into his head to have a shot at the French sentries at long range.

His shot hit nothing; but it awakened the French animosity, as was natural; the French began diligently firing;

and might easily have done mischief. My Husband, volleying out some rebuke upon the blockhead of a

Hussar, finished his drawing, in spite of the French bullets; then rode up to the CrownPrince and Ill

Margraf, who had got their share of what was going, and were in no goodhumor with him. Ill Margraf

rounded things into the Crown Prince's ear, in an unmannerly way, with glances at my Husband; who

understood it well enough; and promptly coerced such illbred procedures, intimating, in a polite impressive

way, that they would be dangerous if persisted in. Which reduced the Ill Margraf to a spiteful but silent

condition. No other harm was done at that time; the French bullets all went awry, or "even fell short, being

sucked in by the river," thinks Wilhelmina. [Wilhelmina, ii. 208, 209; OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. part 1st, p.

A more important feature of the CrownPrince's life in these latter weeks is the news he gets of his father.

Friedrich Wilhelm, after quitting the Electoral Yacht, did his reviewing at Wesel, at Bielefeld, all his

reviewing in those Rhine and Weser Countries; then turned aside to pay a promised visit to Ginkel the Berlin

Dutch Ambassador, who has a fine House in those parts; and there his Majesty has fallen seriously ill.

Obliged to pause at Ginkel's, and then at his own Schloss of Moyland, for some time; does not reach Potsdam

till the 14th September, and then in a weak, worsening, and altogether dangerous condition, which lasts for

months to come. [Fassmann, pp. 512533: September, 1734 January, 1735.] Wrecks of gout, they say, and

of all manner of nosological mischief; falling to dropsy. Case desperate, think all the Newspapers, in a

cautious form; which is Friedrich Wilhelm's own opinion pretty much, and that of those better informed. Here

are thoughts for a CrownPrince; well affected to his Father, yet suffering much from him which is grievous.

To bystanders, one now makes a different figure: "A CrownPrince, who may be King one of these

days,whom a little adulation were well spent upon!" From within and from without come agitating

influences; thoughts which must be rigorously repressed, and which are not wholly repressible. The

soldiering CrownPrince, from about the end of September, for the last week or two of this Campaign, is

We have still two little points to specify, or to bring up from the rearward whither they are fallen, in regard to

this Campaign. After which the wearisome Campaign shall terminate; CrownPrince leading his Ten

Thousand to Frankfurt, towards their winter quarters in Westphalia; and then himself running across from

Frankfurt (October 5th), to see Wilhelmina for a day or two on the way homewards:with much pleasure to

FIRST point is, That, some time in this Campaign, probably towards the end of it, the CrownPrince, Old

Dessauer and some others with them, "procured passports," went across, and "saw the French Camp," and

what new phenomena were in it for them. Where, when, how, or with what impression left on either side, we

do not learn. It was not much of a Camp for military admiration, this of the French. [ Memoires de Noailles

(passim).] There were old soldiers of distinction in it here and there; a few young soldiers diligently studious

of their art; and a great many young fops of high birth and high ways, strutting about "in red heeled shoes,"

with "Commissions got from Court" for this War, and nothing of the soldier but the epaulettes and

plumages,apt to be "insolent" among their poorer comrades. From all parties, young and old, even from

that insolent redheel party, nothing but the highest finish of politeness could be visible on this particular

occasion. Doubtless all passed in the usual satisfactory manner; and the CrownPrince got his pleasant

excursion, and materials, more or less, for after thought and comparison. But as there is nothing whatever of

it on record for us but the bare fact, we leave it to the reader's imagination,fact being indubitable, and

details not inconceivable to lively readers. Among the French dignitaries doing the honors of their Camp on

this occasion, he was struck by the General's Adjutant, a "Count de Rottembourg" (properly VON

ROTHENBURG, of German birth, kinsman to the Rothenburg whom we have seen as French Ambassador at

Berlin long since); a promising young soldier; whom he did not lose sight of again, but acquired in due time

to his own service, and found to be of eminent worth there. A Count von Schmettau, two Brothers von

Schmettau, here in the Austrian service; superior men, Prussian by birth, and very fit to be acquired by and

by; these the Crown Prince had already noticed in this Rhine Campaign,having always his eyes open to

The SECOND little point is of date perhaps two months anterior to that of the French Camp; and is marked

Before quitting Philipsburg, there befell one slight adventure, which, though it seemed to be nothing, is worth

recording here. One day, date not given, a young French Officer, of ingenuous prepossessing look, though

much flurried at the moment, came across as involuntary deserter; flying from a great peril in his own camp.

The name of him is Chasot, Lieutenant of such and such a Regiment: "Take me to Prince Eugene!" he

entreats, which is done. Peril was this: A high young gentleman, one of those fops in red heels, ignorant, and

capable of insolence to a poorer comrade of studious turn, had fixed a duel upon Chasot. Chasot ran him

through, in fair duel; dead, and is thought to have deserved it. "But Duc de Boufflers is his kinsman: run, or

you are lost!" cried everybody. The Officers of his Regiment hastily redacted some certificate for Chasot,

"Will not your Serene Highness protect me?""Certainly!" said Eugene;gave Chasot a lodging among his

own people; and appointed one of them, Herr Brender by name, to show him about, and teach him the nature

of his new quarters. Chasot, a brisk, ingenuous young fellow, soon became a favorite; eager to be useful

By and by,still at Philipsburg, as would seem, though it is not said,the CrownPrince heard of Chasot;

asked Brender to bring him over. Here is Chasot's own account: through which, as through a small

eyelethole, we peep once more, and for the last time, direct into the CrownPrince's Campaignlife on this

"Next morning, at ten o'clock the appointed hour, Brender having ordered out one of his horses for me, I

accompanied him to the Prince; who received us in his Tent,behind which he had, hollowed out to the

depth of three or four feet, a large Dining room, with windows, and a roof," I hope of good height, "thatched

with straw. His Royal Highness, after two hours' conversation, in which he had put a hundred questions to me

[a Prince desirous of knowing the facts], dismissed us; and at parting, bade me return often to him in the

"It was in this Diningroom, at the end of a great dinner, the day after next, that the Prussian guard

introduced a Trumpet from Monsieur d'Asfeld [French CommanderinChief since Berwick's death], with

my three horses, sent over from the French Army. Prince Eugene, who was present, and in good humor, said,

'We must sell those horses, they don't speak German; Brender will take care to mount you some way or

other.' Prinoe Lichtenstein immediately put a price on my horses; and they were sold on the spot at three

times their worth. The Prince of Orange, who was of this Dinner [slightly crookbacked witty gentleman,

English honeymoon well over], said to me in a halfwhisper, 'Monsieur, there is nothing like selling horses to

"After this sale, I found myself richer than I had ever been in my life. The PrinceRoyal sent me, almost

daily, a groom and led horse, that I might come to him, and sometimes follow him in his excursions. At last,

he had it proposed to me, by M. de Brender, and even by Prince Eugene, to accompany him to Berlin."

Which, of course, I did; taking Ruppin first. "I arrived at Berlin from Ruppin, in 1734, two days after the

marriage of Friedrich Wilhelm Margraf of Schwedt [Ill Margraf's elder Brother, wildest wild beast of this

camp] with the Princess Sophie,"that is to say, 12th of November; Marriage having been on the l0th, as the

Books teach us. Chasot remembers that, on the 14th, "the CrownPrince gave, in his Berlin mansion, a dinner

to all the Royal Family," in honor of that auspicious wedding. [Kurd vou Schlozer, Chasot (Berlin, 1856), pp.

2022. A pleasant little Book; tolerably accurate, and of very readable quality.]

Thus is Chasot established with the CrownPrince. He will turn up fighting well in subsequent parts of this

History; and again duelling fatally, though nothing of a quarrelsome man, as he asserts.

October 4th, the CrownPrince has parted with Prince Eugene,not to meet again in this world; "an old hero

gone to the shadow of himself," says the CrownPrince; [ OEuvres (Memoires de Brandebourg), i.

167.]and is giving his Prussian WarCaptains a farewell dinner at FrankfurtonMayn; having himself led

the Ten Thousand so far, towards Winterquarters, and handing them over now to their usual commanders.

They are to winter in Westphalia, these Ten Thousand, in the PaderbornMunster Country; where they are

nothing like welcome to the Ruling Powers; nor are intended to be so,KurKoln (proprietor there) and his

Brother of Bavaria having openly French leanings. The Prussian Ten Thousand will have to help themselves

to the essential, therefore, without welcome;and things are not pleasant. And the Ruling Powers, by

protocolling, still more the Commonalty if it try at mobbing, ["28th March, 1735" (Fassmann, p. 547);

Buchholz, i. 136.] can only make them worse. Indeed it is said the Ten Thousand, though their bearing was so

perfect otherwise, generally behaved rather ill in their marches over Germany, during this War,and always

worst, it was remarked by observant persons, in the countries (Bamberg and Wurzburg, for instance) where

their officers had in past years been in recruiting troubles. Whereby observant persons explained the

phenomenon to themselves. But we omit all that; our concern lying elsewhere. "Directly after dinner at

Frankfurt," the CrownPrince drives off, rapidly as his wont is, towards Baireuth. He arrives there on the

morrow; "October 5th," says Wilhelmina,who again illuminates him to us, though with oblique lights, for

Wilhelmina was in low spirits:weak health; add funeral of the Prince of Culmbach (killed in the Battle of

Parma), illness of Papa, and other sombre events:and was by no means content with the CrownPrince, on

this occasion. Strangely altered since we met him in July last! It may be, the CrownPrince, looking, with an

airy buoyancy of mind, towards a certain Event probably near, has got his young head inflated a littie, and

carries himself with a height new to this beloved Sister;but probably the sad humor of the Princess herself

has a good deal to do with it. Alas, the contrast between a heart knowing secretly its own bitterness, and a

friend's heart conscious of joy and triumph, is harsh and shocking to the former of the two! Here is the

Princess's account; with the subtrahend, twentyfive or seventyfive per cent, not deducted from it:

"My Brother arrived, the 5th of October. He seemed to me put out (DECONTENANCE); and to break off

conversation with me, he said he had to write to the King and Queen. I ordered him pen and paper. He wrote

in my room; and spent more than a good hour in writing a couple of Letters, of a line or two each. He then

had all the Court, one after the other, introduced to him; said nothing to any of them, looked merely with a

"Here his whole conversation consisted in quizzing (TURLUPINER) whatever he saw; and repeating to me,

above a hundred times over, the words 'little Prince,' 'little Court.' I was shocked; and could not understand

how he had changed so suddenly towards me. The etiquette of all Courts in the Empire is, that nobody who

has not at the least the rank of Captain can sit at a Prince's table: my Brother put a Lieuteuant there, who was

in his suite; saying to me, 'A King's Lieutenants are as good as a Margraf's Ministers.' I swallowed this

"After dinner, being alone with me, he said,"turning up the flippant side of his thoughts, truly, in a

questionable way: "'Our Sire is going to end (TIRE A SA FIN); he will not live out this month. I know I

have made you great promises; but I am not in a condition to keep them. I will give you up the Half of the

sum which the late King [our Grandfather] lent you; [Supra, pp. 161, 162.] I think you will have every reason

to be satisfied with that.' I answered, That my regard for him had never been of an interested nature; that I

would never ask anything of him, but the continuance of his friendship; and did not wish one sou, if it would

in the least inconvenience him. 'No, no,' said he, 'you shall have those 100,000 thalers; I have destined them

for you. People will be much surprised,' continued he, 'to see me act quite differently from what they had

expected. They imagine I am going to lavish all my treasures, and that money will become as common as

pebbles at Berlin: but they will find I know better. I mean to increase my Army, and to leave all other things

on the old footing. I will have every consideration for the Queen my Mother, and will sate her

(RASSASIERAI) with honors; but I do not mean that she shall meddle in my affairs; and if she try it, she will

find so.'" What a speech; what an outbreak of candor in the young man, preoccupied with his own great

"I fell from the clouds, on hearing all that; and knew not if I was sleeping or waking. He then questioned me

on the affairs of this Country. I gave him the detail of them. He said to me: 'When your goose (BENET) of a

Fatherinlaw dies, I advise you to break up the whole Court, and reduce yourselves to the footing of a

private gentleman's establishment, in order to pay your debts. In real truth, you have no need of so many

people; and you must try also to reduce the wages of those whom you cannot help keeping. You have been

accustomed to live at Berlin with a table of four dishes; that is all you want here: and I will invite you now

"For a long while my heart had been getting big; I could not restrain my tears, at hearing all these indignities.

'Why do you cry?' said he: 'Ah, ah, you are in low spirits, I see. We must dissipate that dark humor. The

music waits us; I will drive that fit out of you by an air or two on the flute.' He gave me his hand, and led me

into the other room. I sat down to the harpsichord; which I inundated (INONDAI) with my tears. Marwitz

[my artful Demoiselle d'Atours, perhaps too artful in time coming] placed herself opposite me, so as to hide

For the last two days of the visit, Wilhelmina admits, her Brother was a little kinder. But on the fourth day

there came, by estafette, a Letter from the Queen, conjuring him to return without delay, the King growing

worse and worse. Wilhelmina, who loved her Father, and whose outlooks in case of his decease appeared to

be so little flattering, was overwhelmed with sorrow. Of her Brother, however, she strove to forget that

strange outbreak of candor; and parted with him as if all were mended between them again. Nay, the day after

his departure, there goes a beautifully affectionate Letter to him; which we could give, if there were room:

[ OEuvres, xxvii. part 1st, p. 23.] "the happiest time I ever in my life had;" "my heart so full of gratitude and

so sensibly touched;" "every one repeating the words 'dear Brother' and 'charming PrinceRoyal:'"a Letter

in very lively contrast to what we have just been reading. A PrinceRoyal not without charm, in spite of the

As to the outbreak of candor, offensive to Wilhelmina and us, we suppose her report of it to be in substance

true, though of exaggerated, perhaps perverted tone; and it is worth the reader's note, with these deductions.

The truth is, our charming Princess is always liable to a certain subtrahend. In 1744, when she wrote those

Memoires, "in a Summerhouse at Baireuth," her Brother and she, owing mainly to gobetweens acting on

the susceptible female heart, were again in temporary quarrel (the longest and worst they ever had), and

hardly on speaking terms; which of itself made her heart very heavy;not to say that Marwitz, the too artful

Demoiselle, seemed to have stolen her Husband's affections from the poor Princess, and made the world look

all a little grim to her. These circumstances have given their color to parts of her Narrative, and are not to be

The CrownPrincewho goes by Dessau, lodging for a night with the Old Dessauer, and writes

affectionately to his Sister from that place, their Letters crossing on the roadgets home on the 12th to

Potsdam. October 12th, 1734, he has ended his Rhine Campaign, in that manner;and sees his poor Father,

with a great many other feelings besides those expressed in the dialogue at Baireuth.

It appears, Friedrich met a cordial reception in the sickroom at Potsdam; and, in spite of his levities to

Wilhelmina, was struck to the heart by what he saw there. For months to come, he seems to be continually

running between Potsdam and Ruppin, eager to minister to his sick Father, when military leave is procurable.

Other fact, about him, other aspect of him, in those months, is not on record for us.

Of his young Madam, or PrincessRoyal, peaceably resident at Berlin or at Schonhausen, and doing the

vacant officialities, formal visitings and the like, we hear nothing; of Queen Sophie and the others, nothing:

anxious, all of them, no doubt, about the event at Potsdam, and otherwise silent to us. His Majesty's illness

comes and goes; now hope, and again almost none. Margraf of Schwedt and his young Bride, we already

know, were married in November; and Lieutenant Chasot (two days old in Berlin) told us, there was Dinner

by the CrownPrince to all the Royal Family on that occasion;poor Majesty out at Potsdam languishing in

His Carnival the CrownPrince passes naturally at Berlin. We find he takes a good deal to the French

Ambassador, one Marquis de la Chetardie; a showy restless character, of fame in the Gazettes of that time;

who did much intriguing at Petersburg some years hence, first in a signally triumphant way, and then in a

signally untriumphant; and is not now worth any knowledge but a transient accidental one. Chetardie came

hither about Stanislaus and his affairs; tried hard, but in vain, to tempt Friedrich Wilhelm into

interference;is naturally anxious to captivate the CrownPrince, in present circumstances.

Friedrich Wilhelm lay at Potsdam, between death and life, for almost four months to come; the Newspapers

speculating much on his situation; political people extremely anxious what would become of him,or in

fact, when he would die; for that was considered the likely issue. Fassmann gives dolorous clippings from the

Leyden Gazette, all in a blubber of tears, according to the then fashion, but full of impertinent curiosity

withal. And from the Seckendorf private Papers there are Extracts of a still more inquisitive and notable

character: Seckendorf and the Kaiser having an intense interest in this painful occurrence.

Seckendorf is not now himself at Berlin; but running much about, on other errands; can only see Friedrich

Wilhelm, if at all, in a passing way. And even this will soon cease;and in fact, to us it is by far the most

excellent result of this FrenchAustrian War, that it carries Seckendorf clear away; who now quits Berlin and

the Diplomatic line, and obligingly goes out of our sight henceforth. The old OrdnanceMaster, as an

Imperial General of rank, is needed now for WarService, if he has any skill that way. In those late months,

he was duly in attendance at Philipsburg and the RhineCampaign, in a subaltern torpid capacity, like

BrunswickBevern and the others; ready for work, had there been any: but next season, he expects to have a

Division of his own, and to do something considerable.In regard to Berlin and the Diplomacies, he has

appointed a Nephew of his, a Seckendorf Junior, to take his place there; to keep the old machinery in gear, if

nothing more; and furnish copious reports during the present crisis. These Reports of Seckendorf

Juniorfull of eavesdroppings, got from a KAMMERMOHR (Nigger Lackey), who waits in the sickroom

at Potsdam, and is sensible to bribeshave been printed; and we mean to glance slightly into them. But as to

Seckendorf Senior, readers can entertain the fixed hope that they have at length done with him; that, in these

our premises, we shall never see him again;nay shall see him, on extraneous dim fields, far enough away,

Friedrich Wilhelm's own prevailing opinion is, that he cannot recover. His bodily sufferings are great:

dropsically swollen, sometimes like to be choked: no bed that he can bear to lie on; oftenest rolls about in

a Bathchair; very heavyladen indeed; and I think of tenderer humor than in former sicknesses. To the Old

Dessauer he writes, few days after getting home to Potsdam: "I am ready to quit the world, as Your Dilection

knows, and has various times heard me say. One ship sails faster, another slower; but they come all to one

haven. Let it be with me, then, as the Most High has determined for me." [Orlich, Geschichte der

Schlesischen Kriege (Berlin, 1841), i. 14. "From the Dessau Archives; date, 21st September, 1734."] He has

settled his affairs, Fassmann says, so far as possible; settled the order of his funeral, How he is to be buried,

in the Garrison Church of Potsdam, without pomp or fuss, like a Prussian Soldier; and what regiment or

regiments it is that are to do the triple volley over him, by way of finis and long farewell. His soul's interests

too, we need not doubt he is in deep conference, in deep consideration about these; though nothing is said

on that point. A serious man always, much feeling what immense facts he was surrounded with; and here is

now the summing up of all facts. Occasionally, again, he has hopes; orders up "two hundred of his Potsdam

Giants to march through the sickroom," since he cannot get out to them; or old Generals, Buddenbrock,

Waldau, come and take their pipe there, in reminiscence of a Tabagie. Here, direct from the fountainhead, or

"POTSDAM, SEPTEMBER 3Oth, 1734. Yesterday, for half an hour, the King could get no breath: he keeps

them continually rolling him about" in his Bathchair, "over the room, and cries 'LUFT, LUFT (Air, air)!'

"OCTOBER 2d. The King is not going to die just yet; but will scarcely see Christmas. He gets on his clothes;

argues with the Doctors, is impatient; won't have people speak of his illness;is quite black in the face;

drinks nothing but MOLL [which we suppose to be small bitter beer], takes physic, writes in bed.

"OCTOBER 5th. The Nigger tells me things are better. The King begins to bring up phlegm; drinks a great

deal of oatmeal water [HAFERGRUTZWASSER, comfortable to the sick]; says to the Nigger: 'Pray

October 5th: this is the day the CrownPrince arrives at Baireuth; to be called away by express four days

after. How valuable, at Vienna or elsewhere, our dark friend the Lackey's medical opinion is, may be

gathered from this other Entry, three weeks farther on,enough to suffice us on that head:

"The Nigger tells me he has a bad opinion of the King's health. If you roll the King a little fast in his

Bathchair, you hear the water jumble in his body,"with astonishment! "King gets into passions; has

beaten the pages [may we hope, our dark friend among the rest?], so that it was feared apoplexy would take

This will suffice for the physiological part; let us now hear our poor friend on the CrownPrince and his

"OCTOBER 12th. Return of the PrinceRoyal to Potsdam; tender reception.OCTOBER 21st. Things look

ill in Potsdam. The other leg is now also begun running; and above a quart (MAAS) of water has come from

it. Without a miracle, the King cannot live," thinks our dark friend. "The PrinceRoyal is truly affected

(VERITABLEMENT ATTENDRI) at the King's situation; has his eyes full of water, has wept the eyes out of

his head: has schemed in all ways to contrive a commodious bed for the King; wouldn't go away from

Potsdam. King forced him away; he is to return Saturday afternoon. The PrinceRoyal has been heard to say,

'If the King will let me live in my own way, I would give an arm to lengthen his life for twenty years.' King

always calls him Fritzchen. But Fritzchen," thinks Seckendorf Junior, "knows nothing about business. The

King is aware of it; and said in the face of him one day: 'If thou begin at the wrong end with things, and all go

topsyturvy after I am gone, I will laugh at thee out of my grave!'" [Seckendorf (BARON), Journal Secret;

So Friedrich Wilhelm; laboring amid the mortal quicksands; looking into the Inevitable, in various moods.

But the memorablest speech he made to Fritzchen or to anybody at present, was that covert one about the

Kaiser and Seckendorf, and the sudden flash of insight he got, from some word of Seckendorf's, into what

they had been meaning with him all along. Riding through the village of Priort, in debate about Vienna

politics of a strange nature, Seckendorf said something, which illuminated his Majesty, dark for so many

years, and showed him where he was. A ghastly horror of a country, yawning indisputable there; revealed to

one as if by momentary lightning, in that manner! This is a speech which all the ambassadors report, and

which was already mentioned by us,in reference to that opprobrious Proposal about the CrownPrince's

Marriage, "Marry with England, after all; never mind breaking your word!" Here is the manner of it, with

"Sunday last," Sunday, 17th October, 1734, reports Seckendorf, Junior, through the Nigger or some better

witness, "the King said to the PrinceRoyal: 'My dear Son, I tell thee I got my death at Priort. I entreat thee,

above all things in the world, don't trust those people (DENEN LEUTEN), however many promises they

make. That day, it was April 17th, 1733, there was a man said something to me: it was as if you had turned a

dagger round in my heart.'" [Seckendorf (BARON), Journal Secret; cited in Forster, ii. 142.]

Figure that, spoken from amid the dark sick whirlpools, the mortal quicksands, in Friedrich Wilhelm's voice,

clangorously plaintive; what a wild sincerity, almost pathos, is in it; and whether Fritzchen, with his eyes all

bewept even for what Papa had suffered in that matter, felt lively gratitudes to the House of Austria at this

It was four months after, "21st January, 1735," [Fassmann, p. 533.] when the King first got back to Berlin, to

enlighten the eyes of the Carnival a little, as his wont had been. The crisis of his Majesty's illness is over,

present danger gone; and the Carnival people, not without some real gladness, though probably with less than

they pretend, can report him well again. Which is far from being the fact, if they knew it. Friedrich Wilhelm

is on his feet again; but he never more was well. Nor has he forgotten that word at Priort, "like the turning of

a dagger in one's heart;"and indeed gets himself continually reminded of it by practical commentaries from

In April, Prince Lichtenstein arrives on Embassy with three requests or demands from Vienna: "1. That,

besides the Ten Thousand due by Treaty, his Majesty would send his Reich's Contingent," NOT

comprehended in those Ten Thousand, thinks the Kaiser. "2. That he would have the goodness to dismiss

Marquis de la Chetardie the French Ambassador, as a plainly superfluous person at a wellaffected German

Court in present circumstances;" person excessively dangerous, should the present Majesty die,

CrownPrince being so fond of that Chetardie. "3. That his Prussian Majesty do give up the false Polish

Majesty Stanislaus, and no longer harbor him in East Preussen or elsewhere." The whole of which demands

his Prussian Majesty refuses; the latter two especially, as something notably high on the Kaiser's part, or on

any mortal's, to a free Sovereign and Gentleman. Prince Lichtenstein is eloquent, conciliatory; but it avails

not. He has to go home emptyhanded;manages to leave with Herr von Suhm, who took care of it for us,

that Anecdote of the Crown Prince's behavior under cannonshot from Philipsburg last year; and does

The CrownPrince's hopes were set, with all eagerness, on getting to the RhineCampaign next ensuing; nor

did the King refuse, for a long while, but still less did he consent; and in the end there came nothing of it.

From an early period of the year, Friedrich Wilhelm sees too well what kind of campaigning the Kaiser will

now make; at a certain Weddingdinner where his Majesty was, precisely a fortnight after his Majesty's

arrival in Berlin, Seckendorf Junior has got, by eavesdropping, this utterance of his Majesty's: "The Kaiser

has not a groschen of money. His Army in Lombardy is gone to twentyfour thousand men, will have to

retire into the Mountains. Next campaign [just coming], he will lose Mantua and the Tyrol. God's righteous

judgment it is: a War like this! Comes of flinging old principles overboard,of meddling in business that

was none of yours;" and more, of a plangent alarming nature. [Forster, ii. 144 (and DATE it from Militair

Friedrich Wilhelm sends back his Ten Thousand, according to contract; sends, over and above, a beautiful

stock of "copper pontoons" to help the Imperial Majesty in that River Country, says Fassmann;sends also a

supernumerary Troop of Hussars, who are worth mentioning, "Sixscore horse of Hussar type," under one

Captain Ziethen, a taciturn, muchenduring, muchobserving man, whom we shall see again: these are to be

diligently helpful, as is natural; but they are also, for their own behoof, to be diligently observant, and learn

the Austrian Hussar methods, which his Majesty last year saw to be much superior. Nobody that knows

Ziethen doubts but he learnt; HussarColonel Baronay, his Austrian teacher here, became too well convinced

of it when they met on a future occasion. [ Life of Ziethen (veridical but inexact, by the Frau von Blumenthal,

a kinswoman of his; English Translation, very ill printed, Berlin, 1803), p. 54.] All this his Majesty did for

the ensuing campaign: but as to the CrownPrince's going thither, after repeated requests on his part, it is at

last signified to him, deep in the season, that it cannot be: "Won't answer for a CrownPrince to be sharer in

such a Campaign;be patient, my good Fritzchen, I will find other work for thee." [Friedrich's Letter, 5th

September, 1735; Friedrich Wilhelm's Answer next day ( OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. part 3d, 9395).]

Fritzchen is sent into Preussen, to do the Reviewings and Inspections there; Papa not being able for them this

season; and strict manifold Inspection, in those parts, being more than usually necessary, owing to the

RussianPolish troubles. On this errand, which is clearly a promotion, though in present circumstances not

a welcome one for the CrownPrince, he sets out without delay; and passes there the equinoctial and

autumnal season, in a much more useful way than he could have done in the RhineCampaign.

In the RhineMoselle Country and elsewhere the poor Kaiser does exert himself to make a Campaign of it;

but without the least success. Having not a groschen of money, how could he succeed? Noailles, as foreseen,

manoeuvres him, hitch after hitch, out of Italy; French are greatly superior, more especially when Montemar,

having once got Carlos crowned in Naples and put secure, comes to assist the French; Kaiser has to lean for

shelter on the Tyrol Alps, as predicted. Italy, all but some sieging of strongplaces, may be considered as lost

Nor on the Rhine did things go better. Old Eugene, "the shadow of himself," had no more effect this year than

last: nor, though Lacy and Ten Thousand Russians came as allies, Poland being all settled now, could the

least good be done. Reich's Feldmarschall Karl Alexander of Wurtemberg did "burn a Magazine" (probably

of hay among better provender) by his bombshells, on one occasion. Also the Prussian Ten ThousandOld

Dessauer leading them, General Roder having fallen illburnt something: an Islet in the Rhine, if I recollect,

"Islet of Larch near Bingen," where the French had a post; which and whom the Old Dessauer burnt away.

And then Seckendorf, at the head of thirty thousand, he, after long delays, marched to Trarbach in the interior

Moselle Country; and got into some explosive sputter of battle with Belleisle, one afternoon, some say,

rather beating Belleisle; but a good judge says, it was a mutual flurry and terror they threw one another into.

[ OEuvres de Frederic, i. 168.] Seckendorf meant to try again on the morrow: but there came an estafette that

night: "Preliminaries signed (Vienna, 3d October, 1735);try no farther!" ["Cessation is to be, 5th

November for Germany, 15th for Italy; Preliminaries" were, Vienna, "3d October," 1735 (Scholl, ii. 945).]

And this was the second RhineCampaign, and the end of the Kaiser's French War. The SeaPowers, steadily

refusing money, diligently run about, offering terms of arbitration; and the Kaiser, beaten at every point, and

reduced to his last groschen, is obliged to comply. He will have a pretty bill to pay for his PolishElection

frolic, were the settlement done! Fleury is pacific, full of bland candor to the SeaPowers; the Kaiser, after

The CrownPrince, meanwhile, has a successful journey into Preussen; sees new interesting scenes, Salzburg

Emigrants, exiled Polish Majesties; inspects the soldiering, the schooling, the tax gathering, the

domainfarming, with a perspicacity, a dexterity and completeness that much pleases Papa. Fractions of the

Reports sent home exist for us: let the reader take a glance of one only; the first of the series; dated

MARIENWERDER (just across the Weichsel, fairly out of Polish Preussen and into our own), 27th

September, 1735, and addressed to the "Most Allgracious King and Father;"abridged for the reader's

... "In Polish Preussen, lately the Seat of War, things look hideously waste; one sees nothing but women and a

few children; it is said the people are mostly running away,"owing to the RussianPolish procedures there,

in consequence of the blessed Election they have had. King August, whom your Majesty is not in love with,

has prevailed at this rate of expense. King Stanislaus, protected by your Majesty in spite of Kaisers and

Czarinas, waits in Konigsberg, till the Peace, now supposed to be coming, say what is to become of him:

once in Konigsberg, I shall have the pleasure to see him. "A detachment of fiveandtwenty Saxon Dragoons

of the Regiment Arnstedt, marching towards Dantzig, met me: their horses were in tolerable case; but some

are piebald, some sorrel, and some brown among them," which will be shocking to your Majesty, "and the

"Got hither to Marienwerder, last night: have inspected the two Companies which are here, that is to say,

LieutenantCol. Meier's and Rittmeister Haus's. In very good trim, both of them; and though neither the men

nor their horses are of extraordinary size, they are handsome welldrilled fellows, and a fine set of stiffbuilt

horses (GEDRUNGENEN PFERDEN). The fellows sit them like pictures (REITEN WIE DIE PUPPEN; I

saw them do their wheelings. Meier has some fine recruits; in particular two;"nor has the Rittmeister been

wanting in that respect. "Young horses" too are coming well on, sleek of skin. In short, all is right on the

Civil business, too, of all kinds, the CrownPrince looked into, with a sharp intelligent eye;gave praise,

gave censure in the right place; put various things on a straight footing, which were awry when he found

them. In fact, it is Papa's second self; looks into the bottom of all things quite as Papa would have done, and

is fatal to mendacities, practical or vocal, wherever he meets them. What a joy to Papa: "Here, after all, is one

that can replace me, in case of accident. This Apprentice of mine, after all, he has fairly learned the Art; and

Yes, your Majesty, it is a PrinceRoyal wise to recognize your Majesty's rough wisdom, on all manner of

points; will not be a Devil'sFRIEND, I think, any more than your Majesty was. Here truly are rare talents;

like your Majesty and unlike; and has a steady swiftness in him, as of an eagle, over and above! Such

powers of practical judgment, of skilful action, are rare in one's twentythird year. And still rarer, have

readers noted what a power of holding his peace this young man has? Fruit of his sufferings, of the hard life

he has had. Most important power; under which all other useful ones will more and more ripen for him. This

Prince already knows his own mind, on a good many points; privately, amid the world's vague clamor

jargoning round him to no purpose, he is capable of having HIS mind made up into definite Yes and No,so

Friedrich Wilhelm, we perceive, [His Letter, 24th October, 1735. (Ib. p. 99).] was in a high degree content

with this performance of the Prussian Mission: a very great comfort to his sick mind, in those months and

afterwards. Here are talents, here are qualities, visibly the FriedrichWilhelm stuff throughout, but cast in

an infinitely improved type:what a blessing we did not cut off that young Head, at the Kaiser's dictation, in

At Konigsberg, as we learn in a dim indirect manner, the Crown Prince sees King Stanislaus twice or

thrice,not formally, lest there be political offence taken, but incidentally at the houses of

thirdparties;and is much pleased with the old gentleman; who is of cultivated goodnatured ways, and

has surely many curious things, from Charles XII. downwards, to tell a young man. [Came 8th October, went

21st ( OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. part 3d, p. 98).] Stanislaus has abundance of useless refugee Polish

Magnates about him, with their useless crowds of servants, and no money in pocket; Konigsberg all on

flutter, with their draperies and them, "like a little Warsaw:" so that Stanislaus's big French pension, moderate

Prussian monthly allowance, and all resources, are inadequate; and, in fact, in the end, these Magnates had to

vanish, many of them, without settling their accounts in Konigsberg. [History of Stanislaus. ] For the present

they wait here, Stanislaus and they, till Fleury and the Kaiser, shaking the urn of doom in abstruse treaty after

Friedrich returned to Dantzig: saw that famous City, and late scene of War; tracing with lively interest the

footsteps of Munnich and his Siege operations,some of which are much blamed by judges, and by this

young Soldier among the rest. There is a pretty Letter of his from Dantzig, turning mainly on those points.

Letter written to his young Brotherinlaw, Karl of Brunswick, who is now become Duke there; Grandfather

and Father both dead; [Grandfather, 1st March, 1735; Father (who lost the Lines of Ettlingen lately in our

sight), 3d September, 1735. Supra, vol. vi. p. 372.] and has just been blessed with an Heir, to boot.

Congratulation on the birth of this Heir is the formal purport of the Letter, though it runs ever and anon into a

"DANTZIG, 26th OCTOBER, 1735. ... Thank my dear Sister for her services. I am charmed that she has

made you papa with so good a grace. I fear you won't stop there; but will go on peopling the world"one

knows not to what extent"with your amiable race. Would have written sooner; but I am just returning from

the depths of the barbarous Countries; and having been charged with innumerable commissions which I did

"I have viewed all the Russian labors in these parts; have had the assault on the Hagelsberg narrated to me;

been on the grounds; and own I had a better opinion of Marshal Munnich than to think him capable of so

distracted an enterprise. [ OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. part 2d, p. 31. Pressed for time, and in want of

batteringcannon, he attempted to seize this Hagelsberg, one of the outlying defences of Dantzig, by

nocturnal storm; lost two thousand men; and retired, WITHOUT doing "what was flatly impossible," thinks

the CrownPrince. See Mannstein, pp. 7779, for an account of it.] ... Adieu, my dear Brother. My

compliments to the amiable young Mother. Tell her, I beg you, that her proofessays are masterpieces

The Brunswick Masterpiece, achieved on this occasion, grew to be a man and Duke, famous enough in the

Newspapers in time coming: Champagne, 1792; Jena, 1806; George IV.'s Queen Caroline; these and other

distracted phenomena (pretty much blotting out the earlier better sort) still keep him hanging painfully in

men's memory. From his birth, now in this Prussian Journey of our Crown Prince, to his deathstroke on the

Fleury and the Kaiser, though it is long before the signature and last finish can take place, are come to terms

of settlement, at the CrownPrince's return; and it is known, in political circles, what the Kaiser's

PolishElection damages will probably amount to. Here are, in substance, the only conditions that could be

"1. Baby Carlos, crowned in Naples, cannot be pulled out again: Naples, the Two Sicilies, are gone without

return. That is the first loss; please Heaven it be the worst! On the other hand, Baby Carlos will, as some faint

compensation, surrender to your Imperial Majesty his Parma and Piacenza apanages; and you shall get back

your Lombardy,all but a scantling which we fling to the Sardinian Majesty; who is a good deal huffed,

having had possession of the Milanese these two years past, in terms of his bargain with Fleury. Pacific

Fleury says to him: 'Bargain cannot be kept, your Majesty; please to quit the Milanese again, and put up with

"2. The Crown of Poland, August III. has got it, by Russian bombardings and other measures: Crown shall

stay with August,all the rather as there would be no dispossessing him, at this stage. He was your Imperial

Majesty's Candidate; let him be the winner there, for your Imperial Majesty's comfort.

"3. And then as to poor Stanislaus? Well, let Stanislaus be Titular Majesty of Poland for life;which indeed

will do little for him:but in addition, we propose, That, the Dukedom of Lorraine being now in our hands,

Majesty Stanislaus have the liferent of Lorraine to subsist upon; andand that Lorraine fall to us of France

on his decease!'Lorraine?' exclaim the Kaiser, and the Reich, and the Kaiser's intended Soninlaw Franz

Duke of Lorraine. There is indeed a loss and a disgrace; a heavy item in the Election damages!

"4. As to Duke Franz, there is a remedy. The old Duke of Florence, last of the Medici, is about to die

childless: let the now Duke of Lorraine, your Imperial Majesty's intended Soninlaw, have Florence

instead.And so it had to be settled. 'Lorraine? To Stanislaus, to France?' exclaimed the poor Kaiser, still

more the poor Reich, and poor Duke Franz. This was the bitterest cut of all; but there was no getting past it.

This too had to be allowed, this item for the Election breakages in Poland. And so France, after nibbling for

several centuries, swallows Lorraine whole. Duke Franz attempted to stand out; remonstrated much, with

Kaiser and Hofrath, at Vienna, on this unheardof proposal: but they told him it was irremediable; told him at

last (one Bartenstein, a famed Aulic Official, told him), 'No Lorraine, no Archduchess, your Serenity!'and

Franz had to comply, Lorraine is gone; cunning Fleury has swallowed it whole. 'That was what he meant in

picking this quarrel.!' said Teutschland mournfully. Fleury was very pacific, candid in aspect to the

SeaPowers and others; and did not crow afflictively, did not say what he had meant.

"5. One immense consolation for the Kaiser, if for no other, is: France guarantees the Pragmatic

Sanction,though with very great difficulty; spending a couple of years, chiefly on this latter point as was

thought. [Treaty on it not signed till 18th November, 1738 (Scholl, ii. 246).] How it kept said guarantee, will

And these were the damages the poor Kaiser had to pay for meddling in Polish Elections;for galloping

thither in chase of his Shadows. No such account of broken windows was ever presented to a man before.

This may be considered as the consummation of the Kaiser's ShadowHunt; or at least its igniting and

exploding point. His Duel with the Termagant has at last ended; in total defeat to him on every point.

ShadowHunt does not end; though it is now mostly vanished; exploded in fire. ShadowHunt is now gone

all to Pragmatic Sanction, as it were: that now is the one thing left in Nature for a Kaiser; and that he will

love, and chase, as the summary of all things. From this point he steadily goes down, and at a rapid

rate;getting into disastrous Turk Wars, with as little preparation for War or Fact as a lifelong Hunt of

SHADOWS presupposes; Eugene gone from him, and nothing but Seckendorfs to manage for him;and

sinks to a low pitch indeed. We will leave him here; shall hope to see but little more of him.

In the Summer of 1736, in consequence of these arrangements, which were completed so far, though

difficulties on Pragmatic Sanction and other points retarded the final signature for many months longer,the

Titular Majesty Stanislaus girt himself together for departure towards his new Dominion or Liferent; quitted

Konigsberg; traversed Prussian Poland, safe this time, "under escort of LieutenantGeneral von Katte [our

poor Katte of Custrin's Father] and fifty cuirassiers;" reached Berlin in the middle of May, under flowerier

aspects than usual. He travelled under the title of "Count" Something, and alighted at the French

Ambassador's in Berlin: but Friedrich Wilhelm treated him like a real Majesty, almost like a real Brother; had

him over to the Palace; rushed out to meet him there, I forget how many steps beyond the proper limits; and

was hospitality itself and munificence itself;and, in fact, that night and all the other nights, "they smoked

above thirty pipes together," for one item. May 21st, 1736, [Forster (i. 227), following loose Pollnitz (ii. 478),

dates it 1735: a more considerable error, if looked into, than is usual in Herr Forster; who is not an

illinformed nor inexact man;though, alas, in respect of method (that is to say, want of visible method,

indication, or human arrangement), probably the most confused of all the Germans!] ExMajesty Stanislaus

went on his way again; towards France,towards Meudon, a quiet Royal House in France,till Luneville,

Nanci, and their Lorraine Palaces are quite ready. There, in these latter, he at length does find restingplace,

poor innocent insipid mortal, after such tossings to and fro: and M. de Voltaire, and others of mark, having

sometimes enlivened the insipid Court there, Titular King Stanislaus has still a kind of remembrance among

Of his Prussian Majesty we said that, though the Berlin populations reported him well again, it was not so.

The truth is, his Majesty was never well again. From this point, age only forty seven, he continues broken in

bodily constitution; clogged more and more with physical impediments; and his History, personal and

political withal, is as that of an old man, finishing his day. To the last he pulls steadily, neglecting no

business, suffering nothing to go wrong. Building operations go on at Berlin; pushed more than ever, in these

years, by the rigorous Derschau, who has got that in charge. No man of money or rank in Berlin but Derschau

is upon him, with heavier and heavier compulsion to build: which is felt to be tyrannous; and occasions an

ever deepening grumble among the moneyed classes. At Potsdam his Majesty himself is the Builder; and

Nor is the Army less an object, perhaps almost more. Nay, at one time, old KurPfalz being reckoned in a

dying condition, Friedrich Wilhelm is about ranking his men, prepared to fight for his rights in Julich and

Berg; Kaiser having openly gone over, and joined with France against his Majesty in that matter. However,

the old KurPfalz did not die, and there came nothing of fight in Friedrich Wilhelm's time. But his History,

on the political side, is henceforth mainly a commentary to him on that "word" he heard in Priort, "which was

as if you had turned a dagger in my heart!" With the Kaiser he has fallen out: there arise unfriendly passages

between them, sometimes sarcastic on Friedrich Wilhelm's part, in reference to this very War now ended.

Thus, when complaint rose about the Prussian misbehaviors on their late marches (misbehaviors notable in

Countries where their recruiting operations had been troubled), the Kaiser took a high severe tone, not

assuaging, rather aggravating the matter; and, for his own share, winded up by a strict prohibition of Prussian

recruiting in any and every part of the Imperial Dominions. Which Friedrich Wilhelm took extremely ill. This

is from a letter of his to the CrownPrince, and after the first gust of wrath had spent itself: "It is a clear

disadvantage, this prohibition of recruiting in the Kaiser's Countries. That is our thanks for the Ten Thousand

men sent him, and for all the deference I have shown the Kaiser at all times; and by this you may see that it

would be of no use if one even sacrificed oneself to him. So long as they need us, they continue to flatter; but

no sooner is the strait thought to be over, and help not wanted, than they pull off the mask, and have not the

least acknowledgment. The considerations that will occur to you on this matter may put it in your power to be

prepared against similar occasions in time coming." [6th February, 1736: OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. part 3d,

Thus, again, in regard to the winterquarters of the Ziethen Hussars. Prussian Majesty, we recollect, had sent

a Supernumerary Squadron to the last Campaign on the Rhine. They were learning their business, Friedrich

Wilhelm knew; but also were fighting for the Kaiser,that was what the Kaiser knew about them. Somewhat

to his surprise, in the course of next year, Friedrich Wilhelm received, from the Vienna WarOffice, a little

Bill of 10,284 florins (1,028 pounds 8 shillings) charged to him for the winter quarters of these Hussars. He

at once paid the little Bill, with only this observation: "Heartily glad that I can help the Imperial AERARIUM

with that 1,028 pounds 8 shillings. With the sincerest wishes for hundredthousandfold increase to it in said

AERARIUM; otherwise it won't go very far!" [Letter to Seckendorf (SENIOR): Forster, ii. 150.]

At a later period, in the course of his disastrous Turk War, the Kaiser, famishing for money, set about

borrowing a million gulden (l00,000 pounds) from the Banking House Splittgerber and Daun at Berlin.

Splittgerber and Daun had not the money, could not raise it: "Advance us that sum, in their name, your

Majesty," proposes the Vienna Court: "There shall be threepercent bonus, interest six per cent, and

security beyond all question!" To which fine offer his Majesty answers, addressing Seckendorf Junior:

"Touching the proposal of my giving the Bankers Splittgerber and Daun a lift, with a million gulden, to assist

in that loan of theirs, said proposal, as I am not a merchant accustomed to deal in profits and percentages,

cannot in that form take effect. Out of old friendship, however, I am, on TheirO Imperial Majesty's request,

extremely ready to pay down, once and away (A FOND PERDU), a couple of million gulden, provided the

Imperial Majesty will grant me the conditions known to your Uncle [FULFILMENT of that now oldish

JulichandBerg promise, namely!] which are FAIR. In such case the thing shall be rapidly completed!"

In a word, Friedrich Wilhelm falls out with the Kaiser more and more; experiences more and more what a

Kaiser this has been towards him. Queen Sophie has fallen silent in the History Books; both the Majesties

may look remorsefully, but perhaps best in silence, over the breakages and wrecks this Kaiser has brought

upon them. Friedrich Wilhelm does not meanly hate the Kaiser: good man, he sometimes pities him;

sometimes, we perceive, has a touch of authentic contempt for him. But his thoughts, in that quarter,

premature old age aggravating them, are generally of a tragic nature, not to be spoken without tears; and the

tears have a flash at the bottom of them, when he looks round on Fritz and says, "There is one, though, that

will avenge me!" Friedrich Wilhelm, to the last a broad strong phenomenon, keeps wending downward,

homeward, from this point; the Kaiser too, we perceive, is rapidly consummating his enormous

SpectreHunts and Duels with Termagants, and before long will be at rest. We have wellnigh done with

The CrownPrince, by his judicious obedient procedures in these Four Years at Ruppin, at a distance from

Papa, has, as it were, completed his APPRENTICESHIP; and, especially by this last InspectionJourney into

Preussen, may be said to have delivered his PROOFESSAY with a distinguished success. He is now out of

his Apprenticeship; entitled to take up his Indentures, whenever need shall be. The rugged old Master cannot

but declare him competent, qualified to try his own hand without supervision:after all those unheardof

confusions, like to set the shop on fire at one time, it is a blessedly successful Apprenticeship! Let him now,

theoretically at least, in the realms of Art, Literature, Spiritual Improvement, do his WANDERJAHRE, over

at Reinsberg, still in the old region,still well apart from Papa, who agrees best NOT in immediate

contact;and be happy in the new Domesticities, and larger opportunities, provided for him there; till a

On the CrownPrince's Marriage, three years ago, when the AMT or GovernmentDistrict RUPPIN, with its

incomings, was assigned to him for revenue, we heard withal of a residence getting ready. Hint had fallen

from the Prince, that Reinsberg, an old Country seat, standing with its Domain round it in that little

Territory of Ruppin, and probably purchasable as was understood, might be pleasant, were it once his and

well put in repair. Which hint the kind paternal Majesty instantly proceeded to act upon. He straightway gave

orders for the purchase of Reinsberg; concluded said purchase, on fair terms, after some months' bargaining;

[23d October, 1733, order given,16th March, 1734, purchase completed (Preuss, i. 75).]and set his best

Architect, one Kemeter, to work, in concert with the CrownPrince, to new build and enlarge the decayed

Schloss of Reinsberg into such a Mansion as the young Royal Highness and his Wife would like.

Kemeter has been busy, all this while; a solid, elegant, yet frugal builder: and now the main body of the

Mansion is complete, or nearly so, the wings and adjuncts going steadily forward; Mansion so far ready that

the Royal Highnesses can take up their abode in it. Which they do, this Autumn, 1736; and fairly commence

Joint Housekeeping, in a permanent manner. Hitherto it has been intermittent only: hitherto the

CrownPrincess has resided in their Berlin Mansion, or in her own Countryhouse at Schonhausen; Husband

not habitually with her, except when on leave of absence from Ruppin, in Carnival time or for shorter

periods. At Ruppin his life has been rather that of a bachelor, or husband abroad on business; up to this time.

But now at Reinsberg they do kindle the sacred hearth together; "6th August, 1736," the date of that

important event. They have got their Court about them, dames and cavaliers more than we expected; they

have arranged the furnitures of their existence here on fit scale, and set up their Lares and Penates on a thrifty

footing. Majesty and Queen come out on a visit to them next month; [4th September, 1736 (Ib.).]raising

the sacred hearth into its first considerable blaze, and crowning the operation in a human manner.

And so there has a new epoch arisen for the CrownPrince and his Consort. A new, and muchimproved one.

It lasted into the fourth year; rather improving all the way: and only Kingship, which, if a higher sphere, was

a far less pleasant one, put an end to it. Friedrich's happiest time was this at Reinsberg; the little Four Years

of Hope, Composure, realizable Idealism: an actual snatch of something like the Idyllic, appointed him in a

lifepilgrimage consisting otherwise of realisms oftenest contradictory enough, and sometimes of very grim

complexion. He is master of his work, he is adjusted to the practical conditions set him; conditions once

complied with, daily work done, he lives to the Muses, to the spiritual improvements, to the social

enjoyments; and has, though not without flaws of illweather,from the TobaccoParliament perhaps rather

less than formerly, and from the Financequarter perhaps rather more,a sunny time. His innocent insipidity

of a Wife, too, appears to have been happy. She had the charm of youth, of good looks; a wholesome perfect

loyalty of character withal; and did not "take to pouting," as was once apprehended of her, but pleasantly

gave and received of what was going. This poor Crown Princess, afterwards Queen, has been heard, in her

old age, reverting, in a touching transient way, to the glad days she had at Reinsberg. Complaint openly was

never heard from her, in any kind of days; but these doubtless were the best of her life.

Reinsberg, we said, is in the AMT Ruppin; naturally under the Crown Prince's government at present: the

little Town or Village of Reinsberg stands about, ten miles north of the Town Ruppin; not quite a

thirdpart as big as Ruppin is in our time, and much more pleasantly situated. The country about is of

comfortable, not unpicturesque character; to be distinguished almost as beautiful, in that region of sand and

moor. Lakes abound in it; tilled fields; heights called "hills;" and wood of fair growth,one reads of

"beechavenues" of "high lindenavenues:"a country rather of the ornamented sort, before the Prince with

his improvements settled there. Many lakes and lakelets in it, as usual hereabouts; the loitering waters

straggle, all over that region, into meshes of lakes. Reinsberg itself, Village and Schloss, stands on the edge

of a pleasant Lake, last of a mesh of such: the SUMMARY, or outfall, of which, already here a good strong

brook or stream, is called the RHEIN, Rhyn or Rein; and gives name to the little place. We heard of the Rein

at Ruppin: it is there counted as a kind of river; still more, twenty miles farther down, where it falls into the

Havel, on its way to the Elbe. The waters, I think, are drabcolored, not peatbrown: and here, at the source,

or outfall from that mesh of lakes, where Reinsberg is, the country seems to be about the best;sufficient, in

The little Town is very old; but, till the CrownPrince settled there, had no peculiar vitality in it. I think there

are now some potteries, glassmanufactories: Friedrich Wilhelm, just while the CrownPrince was removing

thither, settled a first Glasswork there; which took good root, and rose to eminence in the crystal,

Bohemiancrystal, whiteglass, cutglass, and other commoner lines, in the CrownPrince's time.

[ Bescheibung des Lutschlosses zu Reinsberg (Berlin, 1788); Author, a "Lieutenant Hennert," thoroughly

Reinsberg stands on the east or southeast side of its pretty Lake: Lake is called "the GRINERICK SEE" (as

all those remote Lakes have their names); Mansion is between the Town and Lake. A Mansion fronting, we

may say, four ways; for it is of quadrangular form, with a wet moat from the Lake begirdling it, and has a

spacious court for interior: but the principal entrance is from the Town side; for the rest, the Building is ashlar

on all sides, front and rear. Stands there, handsomely abutting on the Lake with two Towers, a Tower at each

angle, which it has on that lakeward side; and looks, over Reinsberg, and its steeple rising amid friendly

umbrage which hides the housetops, towards the rising sun. Townward there is room for a spacious

esplanade; and then for the stables, outbuildings, well masked; which still farther shut off the Town. To this

day, Reinsberg stands with the air of a solid respectable Edifice; still massive, raintight, though long since

deserted by the Princeships,by Friedrich nearly sixscore years ago, and nearly threescore by Prince Henri,

Brother of Friedrich's, who afterwards had it. Last accounts I got were, of talk there had risen of planting an

extensive NORMALSCHOOL there; which promising plan had been laid aside again for the time.

The old Schloss, residence of the Bredows and other feudal people for a long while, had good solid masonry

in it, and around it orchards, potherb gardens; which Friedrich Wilhelm's Architects took good care to extend

and improve, not to throw away: the result of their art is what we see, a beautiful CountryHouse, what might

be called a CountryPalace with all its adjuncts;and at a rate of expense which would fill English readers,

of this time, with amazement. Much is admirable to us as we study Reinsberg, what it had been, what it

became, and how it was made; but nothing more so than the small modicum of money lt cost. To our

wondering thought, it seems as if the shilling, in those parts, were equal to the guinea in these; and the reason,

if we ask it, is by no means flattering altogether. "Change in the value of money?" Alas, reader, no; that is not

above the fourth part of the phenomenon. Threefourths of the phenomenon are change in the methods of

administering money,difference between managing it with wisdom and veracity on both sides, and

managing it with unwisdom and mendacity on both sides. Which is very great indeed; and infinitely sadder

than any one, in these times, will believe! But we cannot dwell on this consideration. Let the reader take it

with him, as a constant accompaniment in whatever work of Friedrich Wilhelm's or of Friedrich his Son's, he

now or at any other time may be contemplating. Impious waste, which means disorder and dishonesty, and

loss of much other than money to all, parties,disgusting aspect of human creatures, master and servant,

working together as if they were not human,will be spared him in those foreign departments; and in an

English heart thoughts will arise, perhaps, of a wholesome tendency, though very sad, as times are.

It would but weary the reader to describe this CrownPrince Mansion; which, by desperate study of our

abstruse materials, it is possible to do with auctioneer minuteness. There are engraved VIEWS of Reinsberg

and its Environs; which used to lie conspicuous in the portfolios of collectors,which I have not seen. [See

Hennert, just cited, for the titles of them.] Of the House itself, engraved Frontages (FACADES),

Groundplans, are more accessible; and along with them, descriptions which are little

descriptive,wearisomely detailed, and as it were dark by excess of light (auctioneer light) thrown on them.

The reader sees, in general, a fine symmetrical Block of Buildings, standing in rectangular shape, in the

above locality;about two hundred English feet, each, the two longer sides measure, the Townward and the

Lakeward, on their outer front: about a hundred and thirty, each, the two shorter; or a hundred and fifty,

taking in their Towers just spoken of. The fourth or Lakeward side, however, which is one of the longer pair,

consists mainly of "Colonnade;" spacious Colonnade "with vases and statues;" catching up the outskirts of

Beyond doubt, a dignified, substantial pile of stonework; all of good proportions. Architecture everywhere

of cheerfully serious, solidly graceful character; all of sterling ashlar; the due RISALITES (projecting spaces)

with their attics and statues atop, the due architraves, cornices and corbels,in short the due opulence of

ornament being introduced, and only the due. Genuine sculptors, genuine painters, artists have been busy; and

in fact all the suitable fine arts, and all the necessary solid ones, have worked together, with a noticeable

fidelity, comfortable to the very beholder to this day. General height is about forty feet; two stories of ample

proportions: the Towers overlooking them are sixty feet in height. Extent of outer frontage, if you go all

round, and omit the Colonnade, will be five hundred feet and more: this, with the rearward face, is a thousand

feet of room frontage:fancy the extent of lodging space. For "all the kitchens and appurtenances are

underground;" the "left front" (which is a new part of the Edifice) rising comfortably over these. Windows I

did not count; but they must go high up into the Hundreds. No end to lodging space. Way in a detached

sideedifice subsequently built, called Cavalier House, I read of there being, for one item, "fifty lodging

rooms," and for another "a theatre." And if an English Duke of Trumps were to look at the bills for all that,

his astonishment would be extreme, and perhaps in a degree painful and salutary to him.

In one of these Towers the CrownPrince has his Library: a beautiful apartment; nothing wanting to it that

the arts could furnish, "ceiling done by Pesne" with allegorical geniuses and what not,looks out on mere

sky, mere earth and water in an ornamental state: silent as in Elysium. It is there we are to fancy the

Correspondence written, the Poetries and literary industries going on. There, or stepping down for a turn in

the open air, or sauntering meditatively under the Colonnade with its statues and vases (where weather is no

object), one commands the Lake, with its little tufted Islands, "Remus Island" much famed among them, and

"high beechwoods" on the farther side. The Lake is very pretty, all say; lying between you and the

sunset;with perhaps some other lakelet, or solitary pool in the wilderness, many miles away, "revealing

itself as a cup of molten gold," at that interesting moment. What the BookCollection was, in the interior, I

The CrownPrincess's Apartment, too, which remained unaltered at the last accounts had of it, [From

Hennert, namely, in 1778.] is very fine;take the anteroom for specimen: "This fine room," some twenty

feet height of ceiling, "has six windows; three of them, in the main front, looking towards the Town, the other

three, towards the Interior Court. The light from these windows is heightened by mirrors covering all the

piers (SCHAFTE, interspaces of the walls), to an uncommonly splendid pitch; and shows the painting of the

ceiling, which again is by the famous Pesne, to much perfection. The Artist himself, too, has managed to lay

on his colors there so softly, and with such delicate skill, that the lightbeams seem to prolong themselves in

the painted clouds and air, as if it were the real sky you had overhead." There in that cloudregion "Mars is

being disarmed by the Lovegoddesses, and they are sporting with his weapons. He stretches out his arm

towards the Goddess, who looks upon him with fond glances. Cupids are spreading out a draping." That is

Pesne's luxurious performance in the ceiling."Weaponfestoons, in bassorelievo, gilt, adorn the walls of

this room; and two Pictures, also by Pesne, which represent, in life size, the late King and Queen [our good

friends Friedrich Wilhelm and his Sophie], are worthy of attention. Over each of the doors, you find in

lowrelief the Profiles of Hannibal, Pompey, Scipio, Caesar, introduced as Medallions."

All this is very fine; but all this is little to another ceiling, in some big Saloon elsewhere, Musicsaloon, I

think: Black Night, making off, with all her sickly dews, at one end of the ceiling; and at the other end, the

Steeds of Phoebus bursting forth, and the glittering shafts of Day,with Cupids, Lovegoddesses, War

gods, not omitting Bacchus and his vines, all getting beautifully awake in consequence. A very fine room

indeed;used as a Music saloon, or I know not what,and the ceiling of it almost an ideal, say the

Endless gardens, pavilions, grottos, hermitages, orangeries, artificial ruins, parks and pleasances surround this

favored spot and its Schloss; nothing wanting in it that a Prince's establishment needs,except indeed it be

Except the old Ruppin duties, which imply continual journeyings thither, distance only a morning's ride;

except these, and occasional commissions from Papa, Friedrich is left master of his time and pursuits in this

new Mansion. There are visits to Potsdam, periodical appearances at Berlin; some Correspondence to keep

the TobaccoParliament in tune. But Friedrich's taste is for the Literatures, Philosophies: ayoung Prince

bent seriously to cultivate his mind; to attain some clear knowledge of this world, so allimportant to him.

And he does seriously read, study and reflect a good deal; his main recreations, seemingly, are Music, and the

converse of wellinformed, friendly men. In Music we find him particularly rich. Daily, at a fixed hour of the

afternoon, there is concert held; the reader has seen in what kind of room: and if the Artists entertained here

for that function were enumerated (high names, not yet forgotten in the Musical world), it would still more

astonish readers. I count them to the number of twenty or nineteen; and mention only that "the two Brothers

Graun" and "the two Brothers Benda" were of the lot; suppressing four other Fiddlers of eminence, and "a

Pianist who is known to everybody." [Hennert, p. 21.] The Prince has a fine sensibility to Music: does

himself, with thrilling adagios on the flute, join in these harmonious acts; and, no doubt, if rightly vigilant

against the Nonsenses, gets profit, now and henceforth, from this part of his resources.

He has visits, calls to make, on distinguished persons within reach; he has much Correspondence, of a

Literary or Social nature. For instance, there is Suhm the Saxon Envoy translating Wolf's Philosophy into

French for him; sending it in fascicles; with endless Letters to and from, upon it,which were then highly

interesting, but are now dead to every reader. The CrownPrince has got a PostOffice established at

Reinsberg; leathern functionary of some sort comes lumbering round, southward, "from the Mecklenburg

quarter twice a week, and goes by Fehrbellin," for the benefit of his Correspondences. Of his calls in the

There are Lists given us of the Prince's "Court" at Reinsberg; and one reads, and again reads, the dreariest

unmemorable accounts of them; but cannot, with all one's industry, attain any definite understanding of what

they were employed in, day after day, at Reinsberg:still more are their salaries and maintenance a mystery

to us, in that frugal establishment. There is Wolden for Hofmarschall, our old Custrin friend; there is Colonel

Senning, old Marlborough Colonel with the wooden leg, who taught Friedrich his drillings and

artillerypractices in boyhood, a fine sagacious old gentleman this latter. There is a M. Jordan, ExPreacher,

an ingenious PrussianFrenchman, still young, who acts as "Reader and Librarian;" of whom we shall hear a

good deal more. "Intendant" is Captain (ExCaptain) Knobelsdorf; a very sensible accomplished man, whom

we saw once at Baireuth; who has been to Italy since, and is now returned with beautiful talents for

Architecture: it is he that now undertakes the completing of Reinsberg, [Hennert, p. 29.] which he will

skilfully accomplish in the course of the next three years. Twenty Musicians on wind or string; Painters,

Antoine Pesne but one of them; Sculptors, Glume and others of eminence; and HofCavaliers, to we know

not what extent:how was such a Court kept up, in harmonious free dignity, and no halt in its finances, or

mean pinch of any kind visible? The Prince did get in debt; but not deep, and it was mainly for the tall

recruits he had to purchase. His moneyaccounts are by no means fully known to me: but I should question if

his expenditure (such is my guess) ever reached 3,000 pounds a year; and am obliged to reflect more and

Many of the Cavaliers, I find, for one thing, were of the Regiment Goltz; that was one evident economy.

"Rittmeister van Chasot," as the Books call him: readers saw that Chasot flying to Prince Eugene, and know

him since the Siege of Philipsburg. He is not yet Rittmeister, or Captain of Horse, as he became; but is of the

Ruppin Garrison; HofCavalier; "attended Friedrich on his late Prussian journey;" and is much a favorite,

when he can be spared from Ruppin. Captain Wylich, afterwards a General of mark; the Lieutenant

Buddenbrock who did the parsoncharivari at Ruppin, but is now reformed from those practices: all these are

of Goltz. Colonel Keyserling, not of Goltz, nor in active military duty here, is a friend of very old standing;

was officially named as "Companion" to the Prince, a long while back; and got into trouble on his account in

the disastrous AnteCustrin or Flight Epoch: one of the Prince's first acts, when he got pardoned after

Custrin, was to beg for the pardon of this Keyserling; and now he has him here, and is very fond of him. A

Courlander, of good family, this Keyserling; of good gifts too,which, it was once thought, would be

practically sublime; for he carried off all manner of college prizes, and was the AdmirableCrichton of

Konigsberg University and the Graduates there. But in the end they proved to be gifts of the vocal sort rather:

and have led only to what we see. A man, I should guess, rather of buoyant vivacity than of depth or strength

in intellect or otherwise. Excessively buoyant, ingenious; full of wit, kindly exuberance; a loyalhearted,

gaytempered man, and much a favorite in society as well as with the Prince. If we were to dwell on

Major van Stille, ultimately MajorGeneral von Stille, I should also mention: near twenty years older than

the Prince; a wise thoughtful soldier (went, by permission, to the Siege of Dantzig lately, to improve

himself); a man capable of rugged service, when the time comes. His military writings were once in

considerable esteem with professional men; and still impress a lay reader with favorable notions towards

Stille, as a man of real worth and sense. [ Campagnes du Roi de Prusse; a posthumous Book; ANTERIOR

There is, of course, a Chaplain in the Establishment: a Reverend "M. Deschamps;" who preaches to them

all,in French no doubt. Friedrich never hears Deschamps: Friedrich is always over at Ruppin on Sundays;

and there "himself reads a sermon to the Garrison," as part of the day's duties. Reads finely, in a melodious

feeling manner, says Formey, who can judge: "even in his old days, he would incidentally," when some

Emeritus Parson, like Formey, chanced to be with him, "roll out choice passages from Bossuet, from

Massillon," in a voice and with a look, which would have been perfection in the pulpit, thinks Formey.

M. Jordan, though he was called "LECTEUR (Reader)," did not read to him, I can perceive; but took charge

of the Books; busied himself honestly to be useful in all manner of literary or quasi literary ways. He was,

as his name indicates, from the French refugee department; a recent acquisition, much valued at Reinsberg.

Jordan's parents were wealthy religious persons, in trade at Berlin; this Jordan (Charles Etienne, age now

thirtysix) was their eldest son. It seems they had destined him from birth, consulting their own pious

feelings merely, to be a Preacher of the Gospel; the other sons, all of them reckoned clever too, were brought

up to secular employments. And preach he, this poor Charles Etienne, accordingly did; what best Gospel he

had; in an honest manner, all say,though never with other than a kind of reluctance on the part of Nature,

forced out of her course. He had wedded, been clergyman in two successive country places; when his wife

died, leaving him one little daughter, and a heart much overset by that event. Friends, wealthy Brothers

probably, had pushed him out into the free air, in these circumstances: "Take a Tour; Holland, England; feel

Jordan, in the course of his Tour, came to composure on several points. He found that, by frugality, by wise

management of some peculium already his, his little Daughter and he might have quietness at Berlin, and the

necessary food and raiment;and, on the whole, that he would altogether cease preaching, and settle down

there, among his Books, in a frugal manner. Which he did; and was living so, when the Prince, searching

for that kind of person, got tidings of him. And here he is at Reinsberg; bustling about, in a brisk, modestly

frank and cheerful manner: well liked by everybody; by his Master very well and ever better, who grew into

real regard, esteem and even friendship for him, and has much Correspondence, of a freer kind than is

common to him, with little Jordan, so long as they lived together. Jordan's death, ten years hence, was

probably the one considerable pain he had ever given his neighbors, in this the ultimate section of his life.

I find him described, at Reinsberg, as a small nimble figure, of SouthernFrench aspect; black, uncommonly

bright eyes; and a general aspect of adroitness, modesty, sense, sincerity; good prognostics, which on

For the sake of these considerations, I fished out, from the Old Book Catalogues and sea of forgetfulness,

some of the poor Books he wrote; especially a Voyage Litteraire, [ Histoire d'un Voyage Litteraire fait, en

MDCCXXXIII., en France, en Angleterre et en Hollande (2de edition, a La Haye, 1736).] Journal of that first

Sanitary Excursion or Tour he took, to get the clouds blown from his mind. A LITERARY VOYAGE which

awakens a kind of tragic feeling; being itself dead, and treating of matters which are all gone dead. So many

immortal writers, Dutch chiefly, whom Jordan is enabled to report as having effloresced, or being soon to

effloresce, in such and such forms, of Books important to be learned: leafy, blossomy Forest of Literature,

waving glorious in the then sunlight to Jordan;and it lies all now, to Jordan and us, not withered only, but

abolished; compressed into a film of indiscriminate PEAT. Consider what that peat is made of, O celebrated

or uncelebrated reader, and take a moral from Jordan's Book! Other merit, except indeed clearness and

commendable brevity, the Voyage Litteraire or other little Books of Jordan's have not now. A few of his

Letters to Friedrich, which exist, are the only writings with the least life left in them, and this an accidental

life, not momentous to him or us. Dryasdust informs me, "Abbe Jordan, alone of the CrownPrince's

cavaliers, sleeps in the Town of Reinsberg, not in the Schloss:" and if I ask, Why?there is no answer.

We have to say of Friedrich's Associates, that generally they were of intelligent type, each of them master of

something or other, and capable of rational discourse upon that at least. Integrity, loyalty of character, was

indispensable; good humor, wit if it could be had, were much in request. There was no man of shining

distinction there; but they were the best that could be had, and that is saying all. Friedrich cannot be said,

either as Prince or as King, to have been superlatively successful in his choice of associates. With one single

exception, to be noticed shortly, there is not one of them whom we should now remember except for

Friedrich's sake;uniformly they are men whom it is now a weariness to hear of, except in a cursory

manner. One man of shining parts he had, and one only; no man ever of really high and great mind. The latter

sort are not so easy to get; rarely producible on the soil of this Earth! Nor is it certain how Friedrich might

have managed with one of this sort, or he with Friedrich;though Friedrich unquestionably would have

tried, had the chance offered. For he loved intellect as few men on the throne, or off it, ever did; and the little

he could gather of it round him often seems to me a fact tragical rather than otherwise.

With the outer Berlin social world, acting and reacting, Friedrich has his connections, which obscurely

emerge on us now and then. Literary Eminences, who are generally of Theological vesture; any follower of

Philosophy, especially if he be of refined manners withal, or known in fashionable life, is sure to attract him;

and gains ample recognition at Reinsberg or on Townvisits. But the Berlin Theological or Literary world at

that time, still more the Berlin Social, like a sunk extinct object, continues very dim in those old records; and

to say truth, what features we have of it do not invite to miraculous efforts for farther acquaintance.

Venerable Beausobre, with his History of the Manicheans, [ Histoire critique de Manichee et du

Manicheisme: wrote also Remarques sur le Nouveau Testament, which were once famous; Histoire de la

Reformation; He is Beausobre SENIOR; there were two Sons (one of them born in second wedlock, after

Papa was 70), who were likewise given to writing.See Formey, Souvenirs d'un Citoyen, i. 3339.] and

other learned things,we heard of him long since, in Toland and the Republican Queen's time, as a light of

the world. He is now fourscore, grown white as snow; very serene, polite, with a smack of French noblesse in

him, perhaps a smack of affectation traceable too. The CrownPrince, on one of his Berlin visits, wished to

see this Beausobre; got a meeting appointed, in somebody's rooms "in the French College," and waited for the

venerable man. Venerable man entered, loftily serene as a martyr Preacher of the Word, something of an

ancient Seigneur de Beausobre in him, too; for the rest, soft as sunset, and really with fine radiances, in a

somewhat twisted state, in that good old mind of his. "What have you been reading lately, M. de Beausobre?"

said the Prince, to begin conversation. "Ah, Monseigneur, I have just risen from reading the sublimest piece

of writing that exists.""And what?" "The exordium of St. John's Gospel: In the Beginning was the Word;

and the Word was with God, and the Word was" Which somewhat took the Prince by surprise, as Formey

reports; though he rallied straightway, and got good conversation out of the old gentleman. To whom, we

perceive, he writes once or twice, [ OEuvres de Frederic, xvi. 121126. Dates are all of 1737; the last of

Beausobre's years.]a copy of his own verses to correct, on one occasion,and is very respectful and

Formey tells us of another French sage, personally known to the Prince since Boyhood; for he used to be

about the Palace, doing something. This is one La Croze; Professor of, I think, "Philosophy" in the French

College: sublime Monster of Erudition, at that time; forgotten now, I fear, by everybody. Swagbellied, short

of wind; liable to rages, to utterances of a coarse nature; a decidedly ugly, monstrous and rather stupid kind of

man. Knew twenty languages, in a coarse inexact way. Attempted deep kinds of discourse, in the

lectureroom and elsewhere; but usually broke off into endless welters of anecdote, not always of cleanly

nature; and after every two or three words, a desperate sigh, not for sorrow, but on account of flabbiness and

fat. Formey gives a portraiture of him; not worth copying farther. The same Formey, standing one day

somewhere on the streets of Berlin, was himself, he cannot doubt, SEEN by the CrownPrince in passing;

"who asked M. Jordan, who that was," and got answer:is not that a comfortable fact? Nothing farther came

of it;respectable ExParson Formey, though ever ready with his pen, being indeed of very vapid nature,

There is M. Achard, too, another Preacher, supreme of his sort, in the then Berlin circles; to whom or from

whom a Letter or two exist. Letters worthless, if it were not for one dim indication: That, on inquiry, the

CrownPrince had been consulting this supreme Achard on the difficulties of Orthodoxy; [ OEuvres de

Frederic, xvi. pp. 112117: date, MarchJune, 1736.] and had given him texts, or a text, to preach from.

Supreme Achard did not abolish the difficulties for his inquiring Prince,who complains respectfully that

"his faith is weak," and leaves us dark as to particulars. This Achard passage is almost the only hint we have

of what might have been an important chapter: Friedrich's Religious History at Reinsberg. The expression

"weak faith" I take to be meant not in mockery, but in ingenuous regret and solicitude; much painful

fermentation, probably, on the religious question in those Reinsberg years! But the old "GNADENWAHL"

business, the FreeGrace controversy, had taught him to be cautious as to what he uttered on those points.

The fermentation, therefore, had to go on under cover; what the result of it was, is notorious enough; though

Enough now of such details. Outwardly or inwardly, there is no History, or almost none, to be had of this

Reinsberg Period; the extensive records of it consisting, as usual, mainly of chaotic nugatory matter, opaque

to the mind of readers. There is copious correspondence of the CrownPrince, with at least dates to it for

most part: but this, which should be the main resource, proves likewise a poor one; the CrownPrince's

Letters, now or afterwards, being almost never of a deep or intimate quality; and seldom turning on events or

facts at all, and then not always on facts interesting, on facts clearly apprehensible to us in that extinct

The Thing, we know always, IS there; but vision of the Thing is only to be had faintly, intermittently. Dim

inane twilight, with here and there a transient SPARK falling somewhither in it;you do at last, by desperate

persistence, get to discern outlines, features:"The Thing cannot always have been Nothing," you reflect!

Outlines, features:and perhaps, after all, those are mostly what the reader wants on this occasion.

One of Friedrich's grand purposes at Reinsberg, to himself privately the grandest there, which he follows with

constant loyalty and ardor, is that of scaling the heights of the Muses' Hill withal; of attaining mastership,

discipleship, in Art and Philosophy;or in candor let us call it, what it truly was, that of enlightening and

fortifying himself with clear knowledge, clear belief, on all sides; and acquiring some spiritual panoply in

which to front the coming practicalities of life. This, he feels well, will be a noble use of his seclusion in

those still places; and it must be owned, he struggles and endeavors towards this, with great perseverance, by

Here at Reinsberg, one of his readiest methods, his pleasantest if not his usefulest, is that of getting into

correspondence with the chief spirits of his time. Which accordingly he forthwith sets about, after getting into

Reinsberg, and continues, as we shall see, with much assiduity. Rollin, Fontenelle, and other French lights of

the then firmament,his Letters to them exist; and could be given in some quantity: but it is better not. They

are intrinsically the common Letters on such occasions: "O sublime demigod of literature, how small are

princely distinctions to such a glory as thine; thou who enterest within the veil of the temple, and issuest with

thy face shining!" To which the response is: "Hm, think you so, most happy, gracious, illustrious Prince,

with every convenience round you, and such prospects ahead? Well, thank you, at any rate,and, as the Irish

say, more power to your Honor's Glory!" This really is nearly all that said Sets of Letters contain; and except

perhaps the Voltaire Set, none of them give symptoms of much capacity to contain more.

Certainly there was no want of Literary Men discernible from Reinsberg at that time; and the young Prince

corresponds with a good many of them; temporal potentate saluting spiritual, from the distance,in a way

highly interesting to the then parties, but now without interest, except of the reflex kind, to any creature. A

very cold and empty portion, this, of the Friedrich Correspondence; standing there to testify what his

admiration was for literary talent, or the great reputation of such; but in itself uninstructive utterly, and of

freezing influence on the now living mind. Most of those French lights of the then firmament are gone out.

Forgotten altogether; or recognized, like Rollin and others, for polished dullards, university bigwigs, and

long winded commonplace persons, deserving nothing but oblivion. To Montesquieu,not yet called

"Baron de Montesquieu" with ESPRIT DES LOIS, but "M. de Secondat" with (Anonymous) LETTRES

PERSANES, and already known to the world for a person of sharp audacious eyesight,it does not appear

that Friedrich addressed any Letter, now or afterwards. No notice of Montesquieu; nor of some others, the

absence of whom is a little unexpected. Probably it was want of knowledge mainly; for his appetite was not

fastidious at this time. And certainly he did hit the centre of the mark, and get into the very kernel of French

literature, when, in 1736, hardly yet established in his new quarters, he addressed himself to the shining

figure known to us as "Arouet Junior" long since, and now called M. DE VOLTAIRE; which latter is still a

name notable in Friedrich's History and that of Mankind. Friedrich's first Letter, challenging Voltaire to

correspondence, dates itself 8th August, 1736; and Voltaire's Answerthe Reinsberg Household still only in

On various accounts it will behoove us to look a good deal more strictly into this Voltaire; and, as his

relations to Friedrich and to the world are so multiplex, endeavor to disengage the real likeness of the man

from the circumambient noise and confusion which in his instance continue very great. "Voltaire was the

spiritual complement of Friedrich," says Sauerteig once: "what little of lasting their poor Century produced

lies mainly in these Two. A very somnambulating Century! But what little it DID, we must call Friedrich;

what little it THOUGHT, Voltaire. Other fruit we have not from it to speak of, at this day. Voltaire, and what

CAN be faithfully done on the Voltaire Creed; 'Realized Voltairism;'admit it, reader, not in a too

triumphant humor,is not that pretty much the net historical product of the Eighteenth Century? The rest of

its history either pure somnambulism; or a mere Controversy, to the effect, 'Realized Voltairism? How soon

shall it be realized, then? Not at once, surely!' So that Friedrich and Voltaire are related, not by accident only.

They are, they for want of better, the two Original Men of their Century; the chief and in a sense the sole

products of their Century. They alone remain to us as still living results from it, such as they are. And the

rest, truly, OUGHT to depart and vanish (as they are now doing); being mere ephemera; contemporary eaters,

scramblers for provender, talkers of acceptable hearsay; and related merely to the butteries and wiggeries of

their time, and not related to the Perennialities at all, as these Two were." With more of the like sort from

M. de Voltaire, who used to be M. FrancoisMarie Arouet, was at this time about forty, [Born 20th February,

1694; the younger of two sons: Father, "Francois Arouet, a Notary of the Chatelet, ultimately Treasurer of the

Chamber of Accounts;" Mother, "Marguerite d'Aumart, of a noble family of Poitou."] and had gone through

various fortunes; a man, now and henceforth, in a high degree conspicuous, and questionable to his

fellowcreatures. Clear knowledge of him ought, at this stage, to be common; but unexpectedly it is not.

What endless writing and biographying there has been about this man; in which one still reads, with a kind of

lazy satisfaction, due to the subject, and to the French genius in that department! But the man himself, and his

environment and practical aspects, what the actual physiognomy of his life and of him can have been, is dark

from beginning to ending; and much is left in an ambiguous undecipherable condition to us. A proper History

of Voltaire, in which should be discoverable, luminous to human creatures, what he was, what element he

His Father's name is known to us; the name of his Father's profession, too, but not clearly the nature of it; still

less his Father's character, economic circumstances, physiognomy spiritual or social: not the least possibility

granted you of forming an image, however faint, of that notable man and household, which distinguished

itself to all the earth by producing little Francois into the light of this sun. Of Madame Arouet, who, or what,

or how she was, nothing whatever is known. A human reader, pestered continually with the

MadameDenises, AbbeMignots and enigmatic nieces and nephews, would have wished to know, at least,

what children, besides Francois, Madame Arouet had: once for all, How many children? Name them, with

year of birth, year of death, according to the churchregisters: they all, at any rate, had that degree of history!

No; even that has not been done. Beneficent correspondents of my own make answer, after some research,

No register of the Arouets anywhere to be had. The very name VOLTAIRE, if you ask whence came it? there

is no answer, or worse than none.The fit "History" of this man, which might be one of the shining Epics of

his Century, and the lucid summary and soul of any HISTORY France then had, but which would require

almost a French demigod to do it, is still a great way off, if on the road at all! For present purposes, we

"YOUTH OF VOLTAIRE (16941725).French Biographers have left the Arouet Household very dark for

us; meanwhile we can perceive, or guess, that it was moderately well in economic respects; that Francois was

the second of the Two Sons; and that old Arouet, a steady, practical and perhaps rather sharptempered old

gentleman, of official legal habits and position, 'Notary of the Chatelet' and something else, had destined him

for the Law Profession; as was natural enough to a son of M. Arouet, who had himself succeeded well in

Law, and could there, best of all, open roads for a clever second son. Francois accordingly sat 'in chambers,'

as we call it; and his fellowclerks much loved him, the most amusing fellow in the world. Sat in

chambers, even became an advocate; but did not in the least take to advocateship;took to poetry, and other

airy dangerous courses, speculative, practical; causing family explosions and rebukes, which were without

effect on him. A young fool, bent on sportful pursuits instead of serious; more and more shuddering at Law.

To the surprise and indignation of M. Arouet Senior. Law, with its wigs and sheepskins, pointing towards

high honors and deep fleshpots, had no charms for the young fool; he could not be made to like Law.

"Whereupon arose explosions, as we hint; family explosions on the part of M. Arouet Senior; such that

friends had to interfere, and it was uncertain what would come of it. One judicious friend, 'M. Caumartin,'

took the young fellow home to his house in the country for a time;and there, incidentally, brought him

acquainted with old gentlemen deep in the traditions of Henri Quatre and the cognate topics; which much

"M. Arouet Senior stood strong for Law; but it was becoming daily more impossible. Madrigals, dramas (not

without actresses), satirical wit, airy verse, and all manner of adventurous speculation, were what this young

man went upon; and was getting more and more loved for; introduced, even, to the superior circles, and

recognized there as one of the brightest young fellows ever seen. Which tended, of course, to confirm him in

"Such things, strange to M. Arouet Senior, were in vogue then; wicked Regent d'Orleans having succeeded

sublime Louis XIV., and set strange fashions to the Quality. Not likely to profit this fool Francois, thought M.

Arouet Senior; and was much confirmed in his notion, when a rhymed Lampoon against the Government

having come out (LES J'AI VU, as they call it ["I have seen (J'AI VU)" this ignominy occur, "I have seen"

that other,to the amount of a dozen or two;"and am not yet twenty." Copy of it, and guess as to

authorship, in OEuvres de Voltaire, i. 321.]), and become the rage, as a clever thing of the kind will, it was

imputed to the brightest young fellow in France, M. Arouet's Son. Who, in fact, was not the Author; but was

not believed on his denial; and saw himself, in spite of his high connections, ruthlessly lodged in the Bastille

in consequence. 'Let him sit,' thought M. Arouet Senior, 'and come to his senses there!' He sat for eighteen

months (age still little above twenty); but privately employed his time, not in repentance, or in serious legal

studies, but in writing a Poem on his Henri Quatre. 'Epic Poem,' no less; LA LIGUE, as he then called it;

which it was his hope the whole world would one day fall in love with;as it did. Nay, in two years more,

he had done a Play, OEDIPE the renowned name of it; which ran for fortyeight nights' (18th November,

1718, the first of them); and was enough to turn any head of such age. Law may be considered hopeless, even

"Try him in the Diplomatic line; break these bad habits and connections, thought M. Arouet, at one time; and

sent him to the French Ambassador in Holland,on good behavior, as it were, and by way of temporary

banishment. But neither did this answer. On the contrary, the young fellow got into scrapes again; got into

amatory intrigues,young lady visiting you in men's clothes, young lady's mother inveigling, and I know not

what;so that the Ambassador was glad to send him home again unmarried; marked, as it were, 'Glass, with

care!' And the young lady's mother printed his Letters, not the least worth reading:and the old M. Arouet

seems now to have flung up his head; to have settled some small allowance on him, with peremptory no hope

of more, and said, 'Go your own way, then, foolish junior: the elder shall be my son.' M. Arouet disappears at

this point, or nearly so, from the history of his son Francois; and I think must have died in not many years.

Poor old M. Arouet closed his old eyes without the least conception what a prodigious evermemorable thing

he had done unknowingly, in sending this Francois into the world, to kindle such universal 'dry dungheap of

a rotten world,' and set it blazing! Francois, his Father's synonym, came to be representative of the family,

after all; the elder Brother also having died before long. Except certain confused nieceandnephew

personages, progeny of the sisters, Francois has no more trouble or solacement from the paternal household.

Francois meanwhile is his Father's synonym, and signs Arouet Junior, 'Francois Aroue l. j. (LE JEUNE).'

"'All of us Princes, then, or Poets!' said he, one night at supper, looking to right and left: the brightest fellow

in the world, well fit to be Phoebus Apollo of such circles; and great things now ahead of him. Dissolute

Regent d'Orleans, politest, most debauched of men, and very witty, holds the helm; near him Dubois the

Devil's Cardinal, and so many bright spirits. All the Luciferous Spiritualism there is in France is lifting

anchor, under these auspices, joyfully towards new latitudes and Isles of the Blest. What may not Francois

hope to become? 'Hmph!' answers M. Arouet Senior, steadily, so long as he lives. Here are one or two

"PHASIS FIRST (17251728).The accomplished Duc de Sulli (Year 1725, day not recorded), is giving in

his hotel a dinner, such as usual; and a bright witty company is assembled;the brightest young fellow in

France sure to be there; and with his electric coruscations illuminating everything, and keeping the table in a

roar. To the delight of most; not to that of a certain splenetic illgiven Duc de Rohan; grandee of high rank,

great haughtiness, and very illbehavior in the world; who feels impatient at the notice taken of a mere civic

individual, Arouet Junior. 'Quel est done ce jeune homme qui parle si haut, Who is this young man that talks

so loud, then?' exclaims the proud splenetic Duke. 'Monseigneur,' flashes the young man back upon him in an

electric manner, 'it is one who does not drag a big name about with him; but who secures respect for the name

he has!' Figure that, in the penetrating grandly clangorous voice (VOIX SOMBRE ET MAJESTUEUSE), and

the momentary flash of eyes that attended it. Duc de Rohan rose, in a sulphurous frame of mind; and went his

ways. What date? You ask the idle French Biographer in vain;see only, after more and more inspection,

that the incident is true; and with labor date it, summer of the Year 1725. Treaty of Utrecht itself, though all

the Newspapers and Own Correspondents were so interested in it, was perhaps but a foolish matter to date in

"About a week after, M. Arouet Junior was again dining with the Duc de Sulli, and a fine company as before.

A servant whispers him, That somebody has called, and wants him below. 'Cannot come,' answers Arouet;

'how can I, so engaged?' Servant returns after a minute or two: 'Pardon, Monsieur; I am to say, it is to do an

act of beneficence that you are wanted below!' Arouet lays down his knife and fork; descends instantly to see

what act it is. A carriage is in the court, and hackneycoach near it: 'Would Monsieur have the extreme

goodness to come to the door of the carriage, in a case of necessity?' At the door of the carriage, hands seize

the collar of him, hold him as in a vice; diabolic visage of Duc de Rohan is visible inside, who utters, looking

to the hackneycoach, some "VOILA, Now then!' Whereupon the hackney coach opens, gives out three

porters, or hired bullies, with the due implements: scandalous actuality of horsewhipping descends on the

back of poor Arouet, who shrieks and execrates to no purpose, nobody being near. 'That will do,' says Rohan

at last, and the gallant ducal party drive off; young Arouet, with torn frills and deranged hair, rushing up

stairs again, in such a mood as is easy to fancy. Everybody is sorry, inconsolable, everybody shocked;

nobody volunteers to help in avenging. 'Monseigneur de Sulli, is not such atrocity done to one of your guests,

an insult to yourself?' asks Arouet. 'Well, yes perhaps, but'Monseigneur de Sulli shrugs his shoulders, and

proposes nothing. Arouet withdrew, of course in a most blazing condition, to consider what he could, on his

"His Biographer Duvernet says, he decided on doing two things: learning English and the smallsword

exercise. [ La Vie de Voltaire, par M(a Geneve, 1786), pp. 5557; or pp. 6063, in his SECOND form of

the Book. The "M" is an Abbe Duvernet; of no great mark otherwise. He got into Revolution trouble

afterwards, but escaped with his head; and republished his Book, swollen out somewhat by new "Anecdotes"

and republican bluster, in this second instance; signing himself T. J. D. V (Paris, 1797). A vague but not

dark or mendacious little Book; with traces of real EYESIGHT in it,by one who had personally known

Voltaire, or at least seen and heard him.] He retired to the country for six months, and perfected himself in

these two branches. Being perfect, he challenged Duc de Rohan in the proper manner; applying ingenious

compulsives withal, to secure acceptance of the challenge. Rohan accepted, not without some difficulty, and

compulsion at the Theatre or otherwise:accepted, but withal confessed to his wife. The result was, no

measuring of swords took place; and Rohan only blighted by public opinion, or incapable of farther blight

that way, went at large; a convenient LETTRE DE CACHET having put Arouet again in the Bastille. Where

for six months Arouet lodged a second time, the innocent not the guilty; making, we can well suppose,

innumerable reflections on the phenomena of human life. Imprisonment once over, he hastily quitted for

England; shaking the dust of ungrateful France off his feet,resolved to change his unhappy name, for one

"Smelfungus, denouncing the torpid fatuity of Voltaire's Biographers, says he never met with one Frenchman,

even of the Literary classes, who could tell him whence this name VOLTAIRE originated. 'A PETITE

TERRE, small family estate,' they said; and sent him hunting through Topographies, far and wide, to no

purpose. Others answered, 'Volterra in Italy, some connection with Volterra,'and seemed even to know that

this was but fatuity. 'In evertalking, everprinting Paris, is it as in Timbuctoo, then, which neither prints nor

has anything to print?' exclaims poor Smelfungus! He tells us at last, the name VOLTAIRE is a mere

Anagram of AROUET L. J.you try it; A.R.O.U.E.T.L.J.=V.O.L.T.A.I.R.E and perceive at once, with

obligations to Smelfungus, that he has settled this small matter for you, and that you can be silent upon it

"The anagram VOLTAIRE, gloomily settled in the Bastille in this manner, can be reckoned a very famous

widesounding outer result of the Rohan impertinence and blackguardism; but it is not worth naming beside

the inner intrinsic result, of banishing Voltaire to England at this point of his course. England was full of

Constitutionality and Freethinking; Tolands, Collinses, Wollastons, Bolingbrokes, still living; very free

indeed. England, one is astonished to see, has its royalrepublican ways of doing; something Roman in it,

from Peerage down to Plebs; strange and curious to the eye of M. de Voltaire. Sciences flourishing; Newton

still alive, white with fourscore years, the venerable hoary man; Locke's Gospel of Common Sense in full

vogue, or even done into verse, by incomparable Mr. Pope, for the cultivated upper classes. In science, in

religion, in politics, what a surprising 'liberty' allowed or taken! Never was a freer turn of thinking. And

(what to M. de Voltaire is a pleasant feature) it is Freethinking with ruffles to its shirt and rings on its

fingers;never yet, the least, dreaming of the shirtless or SANSCULOTTIC state that lies ahead for it! That

"In a man just out of the Bastille on those terms, there is a mind driven by hard suffering into seriousness, and

provoked by indignant comparisons and remembrances. As if you had elaborately ploughed and pulverized

the mind of this Voltaire to receive with its utmost avidity, and strength of fertility, whatever seed England

may have for it. That was a notable conjuncture of a man with circumstances. The question, Is this man to

grow up a Court Poet; to do legitimate dramas, lampoons, witty verses, and wild spiritual and practical

magnificences, the like never seen; Princes and Princesses recognizing him as plainly divine, and keeping

him tied by enchantments to that poor trade as his task in life? is answered in the negative. No: and it is not

quite to decorate and comfort your 'dry dungheap' of a world, or the fortunate cocks that scratch on it, that

the man Voltaire is here; but to shoot lightnings into it, and set it ablaze one day! That was an important

alternative; truly of worldimportance to the poor generations that now are; and it was settled, in good part,

by this voyage to England, as one may surmise. Such is sometimes the use of a dissolute Rohan in this world;

"M. de Voltaire (for we now drop the Arouet altogether, and never hear of it more) came to Englandwhen?

Quitted Englandwhen? Sorrow on all fatuous Biographers, who spend their time not in laying permanent

foundationstones, but in fencing with the wind! I at last find indisputably, it was in 1726 that he came to

England: [Got out of the Bastille, with orders to leave France, "29th April" of that year ( OEuvres de

Voltaire, i. 40 n.).] and he himself tells us that he quitted it 'in 1728.' Spent, therefore, some two years there in

all,last year of George I.'s reign, and first of George II.'s. But mere inanity and darkness visible reign, in all

his Biographies, over this period of his life, which was above all others worth investigating: seek not to know

it; no man has inquired into it, probably no competent man now ever will. By hints in certain Letters of the

period, we learn that he lodged, or at one time lodged, in 'Maiden Lane, Covent Garden;' one of those old

Houses that yet stand in Maiden Lane: for which small fact let us be thankful. His own Letters of the period

are dated now and then from 'Wandsworth.' Allusions there are to Bolingbroke; but the Wandsworth is not

Bolingbroke's mansion, which stood in Battersea; the Wandsworth was one Edward Fawkener's; a man

somewhat admirable to young Voltaire, but extinct now, or nearly so, in human memory. He had been a

Turkey Merchant, it would seem, and nevertheless was admitted to speak his word in intellectual, even in

political circles; which was wonderful to young Voltaire. This Fawkener, I think, became Sir Edward

Fawkener, and some kind of 'Secretary to the Duke of Cumberland:'I judge it to be the same Fawkener; a

man highly unmemorable now, were it not for the young Frenchman he was hospitable to. Fawkener's and

Bolingbroke's are perhaps the only names that turn up in Voltaire's LETTERS of this English Period: over

which generally there reigns, in the French Biographies, inane darkness, with an intimation, half involuntary,

"We know, from other sources, that he had acquaintance with many men in England, with all manner of

important men: Notes to Pope in VoltaireEnglish, visit of Voltaire to Congreve, Notes even to such as Lady

Sundon in the interior of the Palace, are known of. The brightest young fellow in the world did not want for

introductions to the highest quarters, in that time of political alliance, and extensive private acquaintance,

between his Country and ours. And all this he was the man to improve, both in the trivial and the deep sense.

His bow to the divine Princess Caroline and suite, could it fail in graceful reverence or what else was needed?

Dexterous right words in the right places, winged with ESPRIT so called: that was the man's supreme talent,

in which he had no match, to the last. A most brilliant, swift, far glancing young man, disposed to make

himself generally agreeable. For the rest, his wonder, we can see, was kept awake; wonder readily inclining,

in his circumstances, towards admiration. The stereotype figure of the Englishman, always the same, which

turns up in Voltaire's WORKS, is worth noting in this respect. A rugged surly kind of fellow,

muchenduring, not intrinsically bad; splenetic without complaint, standing oddly inexpugnable in that

natural stoicism of his; taciturn, yet with strange flashes of speech in him now and then, something which

goes beyond laughter and articulate logic, and is the taciturn elixir of these two, what they call 'humor' in

their dialect: this is pretty much the REVERSE of Voltaire's own self, and therefore all the welcomer to him;

delineated always with a kind of mockery, but with evident love. What excellences are in England, thought

Voltaire; no Bastille in it, for one thing! Newton's Philosophy annihilated the vortexes of Descartes for him;

Locke's Toleration is very grand (especially if all is uncertain, and YOU are in the minority); then Collins,

Wollaston and Company,no vile Jesuits here, strong in their mendacious malodorous stupidity,

despicablest yet most dangerous of creatures, to check freedom of thought! Illustrious Mr. Pope, of the Essay

on Man, surely he is admirable; as are Pericles Bolingbroke, and many others. Even Bolingbroke's

highlacquered brass is gold to this young French friend of his.Through all which admirations and

exaggerations the progress of the young man, toward certain very serious attainments and achievements, is

"One other man, who ought to be mentioned in the Biographies, I find Voltaire to have made acquaintance

with, in England: a German M. Fabrice, one of several Brothers called Fabrice or Fabricius, concerning

whom, how he had been at Bender, and how Voltaire picked CHARLES DOUSE from the memory of him,

there was already mention. The same Fabrice who held poor George I. in his arms while they drove,

galloping, to Osnabriick, that night, IN EXTREMIS:not needing mention again. The following is more to

"Voltaire, among his multifarious studies while in England, did not forget that of economics: his Poem LA

LIGUE,surreptitiously printed, three years since, under that title (one Desfontaines, a hungry ExJesuit,

the perpetrator), [1723, VIE, par T. J. D. V. (that is, "M" in the second form), p. 59.]he now took in

hand for his own benefit; washed it clean of its blots; christened it HENRIADE, under which name it is still

known over all the world; and printed it; published it here, by subscription, in 1726; one of the first things

he undertook. Very splendid subscription; headed by Princess Caroline, and much favored by the opulent of

quality. Which yielded an unknown but very considerable sum of thousands sterling, and grounded not only

the worldrenown but the domestic finance of M. de Voltaire. For the fame of the 'new epic,' as this

HENRIADE was called, soon spread into all lands. And such fame, and other agencies on his behalf, having

opened the way home for Voltaire, he took this sum of Thousands Sterling along with him; laid it out

judiciously in some city lottery, or profitable scrip then going at Paris, which at once doubled the amount:

after which he invested it in Corntrade, Army Clothing, Barbarytrade, Commissariat Bacontrade, all

manner of wellchosen trades,being one of the shrewdest financiers on record;and never from that day

wanted abundance of money, for one thing. Which he judged to be extremely expedient for a literary man,

especially in times of Jesuit and other tribulation. 'You have only to watch,' he would say, 'what scrips, public

loans, investments in the field of agio, are offered; if you exert any judgment, it is easy to gain there: do not

"Voltaire got almost nothing by his Books, which he generally had to disavow, and denounce as surreptitious

supposititious scandals, when some sharpset Bookseller, in whose way he had laid the savory article as

bait, chose to risk his ears for the profit of snatching and publishing it. Next to nothing by his Books; but by

his fine financetalent otherwise, he had become possessed of ample moneys. Which were so cunningly

disposed, too, that he had resources in every Country; and no conceivable combination of confiscating Jesuits

and dark fanatic Official Persons could throw him out of a livelihood, whithersoever he might be forced to

run. A man that looks facts in the face; which is creditable of him. The vulgar call it avarice and the like, as

their way is: but M. de Voltaire is convinced that effects will follow causes; and that it well beseems a lonely

Ishmaelite, hunting his way through the howling wildernesses and confused ravenous populations of this

world, to have money in his pocket. He died with a revenue of some 7,000 pounds a year, probably as good

as 20,000 pounds at present; the richest literary man ever heard of hitherto, as well as the remarkablest in

some other respects. But we have to mark the second phasis of his life [in which Friedrich now sees him], and

"PHASIS SECOND (17281733).Returning home as if quietly triumphant, with such a talent in him, and

such a sanction put upon it and him by a neighboring Nation, and by all the world, Voltaire was warmly

received, in his old aristocratic circles, by cultivated France generally; and now in 1728, in his thirtysecond

year, might begin to have definite outlooks of a sufficiently royal kind, in Literature and otherwise. Nor is he

slow, far from it, to advance, to conquer and enjoy. He writes successful literature, falls in love with women

of quality; encourages the indigent and humble; eclipses, and in case of need tramples down, the too proud.

He elegizes poor Adrienne Lecouvreur, the Actress, our poor friend the Comte de Saxe's female friend;

who loyally emptied out her whole purse for him, 30,000 pounds in one sum, that he might try for Courland,

and whether he could fall in love with her of the Swollen Cheek there; which proved impossible. Elegizes

Adrienne, we slty, and even buries her under cloud of night: ready to protect unfortunate females of merit.

Especially theatrical females; having much to do in the theatre, which we perceive to be the pulpit or real

preachingplace of cultivated France in those years. All manner of verse, all manner of prose, he dashes off

with surprising speed and grace: showers of light spray for the moment; and always some current of graver

enterprise, Siecle de Louis Quatorze or the like, going on beneath it. For he is a most diligent, swift, unresting

man; and studies and learns amazingly in such a rackety existence. Victorious enough in some senses; defeat,

in Literature, never visited him. His Plays, coming thick on the heels of one another, rapid brilliant pieces, are

brilliantly received by the unofficial world; and ought to dethrone dull Crebillon, and the sleepy potentates of

Poetry that now are. Which in fact is their result with the public; but not yet in the highest courtly places;a

"Numerous enemies arise, as is natural, of an envious venomous description; this is another everwidening

shadow in the sunshine. In fact we perceive he has, besides the inner obstacles and griefs, two classes of

outward ones: There are Lions on his path and also Dogs. Lions are the ExBishop of Mirepoix, and certain

other dark Holy Fathers, or potent orthodox Official Persons. These, though Voltaire does not yet declare his

heterodoxy (which, indeed, is but the orthodoxy of the cultivated private circles), perceive well enough, even

by the HENRIADE, and its talk of 'tolerance,' horror of 'fanaticism' and the like, what this one's 'DOXY is;

and how dangerous he, not a mere mute man of quality, but a talking spirit with winged words, may be;and

they much annoy and terrify him, by their roaring in the distance. Which roaring cannot, of course, convince;

and since it is not permitted to kill, can only provoke a talking spirit into still deeper strains of heterodoxy for

his own private behoof. These are the Lions on his path: beasts conscious to themselves of good intentions;

but manifesting from Voltaire's point of view, it must be owned, a physiognomy unlovely to a degree. (Light

is superior to darkness, I should think,' meditates Voltaire; 'power of thought to the want of power! The ANE

DE MIREPOIX (Ass of Mirepoix), [Poor joke of Voltaire's, continually applied to this Bishop, or

ExBishop,who was thought, generally, a rather tenebrific man for appointment to the FEUILLE DES

BENEFICES (charge of nominating Bishops, keeping King's conscience, and who, in that capacity, signed

himself ANC (by no means "ANE," but "ANCIEN, Whilom") DE MIREPOIX,to the enragement of

Voltaire bften enough.] pretending to use me in this manner, is it other, in the court of Rhadamanthus, than

transcendent Stupidity, with transcendent Insolence superadded?' Voltaire grows more and more heterodox;

"The Dogs upon his path, again, are all the disloyal envious persons of the Writing Class, whom his success

has offended; and, more generally, all the dishonest hungry persons who can gain a morsel by biting him: and

their name is legion. It must be owned, about as ugly a Doggery ('INFAME CANAILLE' he might well

reckon them) as has, before or since, infested the path of a man. They are not hired and set on, as angry

suspicion might suggest; but they are covertly somewhat patronized by the Mirepoix, or orthodox Official

class. Scandalous ExJesuit Desfontaines, Thersites Freron,these are but types of an endless Doggery;

whose names and works should be blotted out; whose one claim to memory is, that the riding man so often

angrily sprang down, and tried horsewhipping them into silence. A vain attempt. The individual hound flies

howling, abjectly petitioning and promising; but the rest bark all with new comfort, and even he starts again

straightway. It is bad travelling in those woods, with such Lions and such Dogs. And then the sparsely

scattered HUMAN Creatures (so we may call them in contrast, persons of Quality for most part) are not

always what they should be. The grand mansions you arrive at, in this wastehowling solitude, prove

sometimes essentially Robbertowers;and there may be Armida Palaces, and divinelooking Armidas,

To think of it, the solitary Ishmaelite journeying, never so well mounted, through such a wilderness: with

lions, dogs, human robbers and Armidas all about him; himself lonely, friendless under the stars:one could

pity him withal, though that is not the feeling he solicits; nor gets hitherto, even at this impartial distance.

"One of the beautiful creatures of Quality,we hope, not an Armida,who came athwart Voltaire, in these

times, was a Madame du Chatelet; distinguished from all the others by a love of mathematics and the pure

sciences, were it nothing else. She was still young, under thirty; the literary man still under forty. With her

Husband, to whom she had brought a child, or couple of children, there was no formal quarrel; but they were

living apart, neither much heeding the other, as was by no means a case without example at that time;

Monsieur soldiering, and philandering about, in garrison or elsewhere; Madame, in a like humor, doing the

best for herself in the high circles of society, to which he and she belonged. Most wearisome barren circles to

a person of thought, as both she and M. de Voltaire emphatically admitted to one another, on first making

"Madame had tried the pure sciences and philosophies, in Books: but how much more charming, when they

come to you as a Human Philosopher; handsome, magnanimous, and the wittiest man in the world! Young

Madame was not regularly beautiful; but she was very piquant, radiant, adventurous; understood other things

than the pure sciences, and could be abundantly coquettish and engaging. I have known her scuttle off, on an

evening, with a couple of adventurous young wives of Quality, to the remote lodging of the witty M. de

Voltaire, and make his dim evening radiant to him. [One of Voltaire's Letters.] Then again, in public crowds,

I have seen them; obliged to dismount to the peril of Madame's diamonds, there being a jam of carriages, and

no getting forward for half the day. In short, they are becoming more and more intimate, to the extremest

degree; and, scorning the world, thank Heaven that they are mutually indispensable. Cannot we get away

from this scurvy wasp'snest of a Paris, thought they, and live to ourselves and our books?

"Madame was of high quality, one of the Breteuils; but was poor in comparison, and her Husband the like.

An old Chateau of theirs, named Cirey, stands in a pleasant enough little valley in Champagne; but so

dilapidated, gaunt and vacant, nobody can live in it. Voltaire, who is by this time a man of ample moneys,

furnishes the requisite cash; Madame and he, in sweet symphony, concert the plans: Cirey is repaired, at least

parts of it are, into a boudoir of the gods, regardless of expense; nothing ever seen so tasteful, so magnificent;

and the two withdraw thither to study, in peace, what sciences, pure and other, they have a mind to. They are

recognized as lovers, by the Parisian public, with little audible censure from anybody there,with none at all

from the easy Husband; who occasionally even visits Cirey, if he be passing that way; and is content to take

matters as he finds them, without looking below the surface. [See (whosoever is curious) Madame de

Grafigny, Vie Privee de Voltaire et de Madame du Chatelet (Paris, 1820). A six months of actual Letters

written by poor Grafigny, while sheltering at Cirey, Winter and Spring, 17381739; straitened there in

various respects,extremely ill off for fuel, among other things. Rugged practical Letters, shadowing out to

us, unconsciously oftenest, and like a very mirror, the splendid and the sordid, the seamy side and the

smooth, of Life at Cirey, in her experience of it. Published, fourscore years after, under the above title.] For

the Ten Commandments are at a singular pass in cultivated France at this epoch. Such illicitidyllic form of

life has been the form of Voltaire's since 1733,"for some three years now, when Friedrich and we first

make acquaintance with him. "It lasted above a dozen years more: an illicit marriage after its sort, and subject

only to the liabilities of such. Perhaps we may look in upon the Cirey Household, ourselves, at some future

"Madame admits that for the first ten years it was, on the whole, sublime; a perfect Eden on Earth, though

stormy now and then. [ Lettres Inedites de Madame la Marquise du Chastelet; auxquelles on a joint une

Dissertation (of hers): Paris, 1806.] After ten years, it began to grow decidedly dimmer; and in the course of

few years more, it became undeniably evident that M. de Voltaire 'did not love me as formerly:'in fact, if

Madame could have seen it, M. de Voltaire was growing old, losing his teeth, and the like; and did not care

for anything as formerly! Which was a dreadful discovery, and gave rise to results by and by.

"In this retreat at Cirey, varied with flying visits to Paris, and kept awake by multifarious Correspondences,

the quantity of Literature done by the two was great and miscellaneous. By Madame, chiefly in the region of

the pure sciences, in Newtonian Dissertations, competitions for Prizes, and the like: really sound and

ingenious Pieces, entirely forgotten long since. By Voltaire, in serious Tragedies, Histories, in light Sketches

and deep Dissertations:mockery getting ever wilder with him; the satirical vein, in prose and verse,

amazingly copious, and growing more and more heterodox, as we can perceive. His troubles from the

ecclesiastical or Lion kind in the Literary forest, still more from the rabid Doggery in it, are manifold,

incessant. And it is pleasantly notable,during these first ten years,with what desperate intensity,

vigilance and fierceness, Madame watches over all his interests and liabilities and casualties great and small;

leaping with her whole force into M. de Voltaire's scale of the balance, careless of antecedences and

consequences alike; flying, with the spirit of an angry broodhen, at the face of mastiffs, in defence of any

feather that is M. de Voltaire's. To which Voltaire replies, as he well may, with eloquent gratitude; with

Verses to the divine Emilie, with Gifts to her, verses and gifts the prettiest in the world;and industriously

"An ardent, aerial, gracefully predominant, and in the end somewhat termagant female figure, this divine

Emilie. Her temper, radiant rather than bland, was none of the patientest on occasion; nor was M. de Voltaire

the least of a Job, if you came athwart him the wrong way. I have heard, their domestic symphony was liable

to furious flaws,let us hope at great distances apart:that 'plates' in presence of the lackeys, actual

crockery or metal, have been known to fly from end to end of the dinnertable; nay they mention 'knives'

(though only in the way of oratorical action); and Voltaire has been heard to exclaim, the sombre and

majestic voice of him risen to a very high pitch: 'Ne me regardez tant de ces yeux hagards et louches, Don't

fix those haggard sidelong eyes on me in that way!'mere shrillness of pale rage presiding over the scene.

But we hope it was only once in the quarter, or seldomer: after which the element would be clearer for some

time. A lonesome literary man, who has got a Brood Phoenix to preside over him, and fly at the face of gods

"Perhaps we shall one day glance, personally, as it were, into Cirey with our readers;"Not with this Editor

or his! "It will turn out beyond the reader's expectation. Tolerable illicit restingplace, so far as the illicit can

be tolerable, for a lonesome Man of Letters, who goes into the illicit. Helpfulness, affection, or the flattering

image of such, are by no means wanting: squalls of infirm temper are not more frequent than in the most licit

establishments of a similar sort. Madame, about this time, has a swift Palfrey, 'ROSSIGNOL (Nightingale)'

the name of him; and gallops fairylike through the winding valleys; being an ardent rider, and welllooking

on horseback. Voltaire's study is inlaid withthe Grafigny knows all what:mere china tiles, gilt

sculptures, marble slabs, and the supreme of taste and expense: study fit for the Phoebus Apollo of France, so

far as Madame could contrive it. Takes coffee with Madame, in the Gallery, about noon. And his bedroom, I

expressly discern, [ Letters of Voltaire. ] looks out upon a running brook, the murmur of which is pleasant to

Enough, enough. We can perceive what kind of Voltaire it was to whom the CrownPrince now addressed

himself; and how luminous an object, shining afar out of the solitudes of Champagne upon the ardent young

man, still so capable of admiration. Model Epic, HENRIADE; model History, CHARLES DOUZE; sublime

Tragedies, CISAR, ALZIRE and others, which readers still know though with less enthusiasm, are blooming

fresh in Friedrich's memory and heart; such Literature as man never saw before; and in the background

Friedrich has inarticulately a feeling as if, in this man, there were something grander than all Literatures: a

Reform of human Thought itself; a new "Gospel," goodtidings or God'sMessage, by this man;which

Friedrich does not suspect, as the world with horror does, to be a new BA'SPEL, or Devil'sMessage of bad

tidings! A sublime enough Voltaire; radiant enough, over at Cirey yonder. To all lands, a visible Phoebus

Apollo, climbing the eastern steeps; with arrows of celestial "new light" in his quiver; capable of stretching

many a big foul Python, belly uppermost, in its native mud, and ridding the poor world of her Nightmares and

And so there begins, from this point, a lively Correspondence between Friedrich and Voltaire; which, with

some interruptions of a notable sort, continued during their mutual Life; and is a conspicuous feature in the

Biographies of both. The world talked much of it, and still talks; and has now at last got it all collected, and

elucidated into a dimly legible form for studious readers. [Preuss, OEuvres de Frederic, (xxi. xxii. xxiii.,

Berlin, 1853); who supersedes the lazy French Editors in this matter.] It is by no means the diabolically

wicked Correspondence it was thought to be; the reverse, indeed, on both sides;but it has unfortunately

become a very dull one, to the actual generation of mankind. Not without intrinsic merit; on the contrary (if

you read intensely, and bring the extinct alive again), it sparkles notably with epistolary grace and vivacity;

and, on any terms, it has still passages of biographical and other interest: but the substance of it, then so new

and shining, has fallen absolutely commonplace, the property of all the world, since then; and is now very

wearisome to the reader. No doctrine or opinion in it that you have not heard, with clear belief or clear

disbelief, a hundred times, and could wish rather not to hear again. The common fate of philosophical

originalities in this world. As a Biographical Document, it is worth a very strict perusal, if you are interested

that way in either Friedrich or Voltaire: finely significant hints and traits, though often almost evanescent, so

slight are they, abound in this Correspondence; frankness, veracity under graceful forms, being the rule of it,

strange to say! As an illustration of Two memorable Characters, and of their Century; showing on what terms

the sage Plato of the Eighteenth Century and his Tyrant Dionysius correspond, and what their manners are to

one another, it may long have a kind of interest to mankind: otherwise it has not much left.

In Friedrich's History it was, no doubt, an important fact, that there lived a Voltaire along with him, twenty

years his senior. With another Theory of the Universe than the Voltaire one, how much OTHER had

Friedrich too been! But the Theory called by Voltaire's name was not properly of Voltaire's creating, but only

of his uttering and publishing; it lay ready for everybody's finding, and could not well have been altogether

missed by such a one as Friedrich. So that perhaps we exaggerate the effects of Voltaire on him, though

undoubtedly they were considerable. Considerable; but not derived from this express correspondence, which

seldom turns on didactic points at all; derived rather from Voltaire's Printed WORKS, where they lay

derivable to all the world. Certain enough it is, Voltaire was at this time, and continued all his days,

Friedrich's chief Thinker in the world; unofficially, the chief Preacher, Prophet and Priest of this Working

King;no better off for a spiritual Trismegistus was poor Friedrich in the world! On the practical side,

Friedrich soon outgrew him,perhaps had already outgrown, having far more veracity of character, and an

intellect far better built in the silent parts of it, and trained too by hard experiences to know shadow from

substance;outgrew him, and gradually learned to look down upon him, occasionally with much contempt,

in regard to the practical. But in all changes of humor towards Voltaire, Friedrich, we observe, considers him

as plainly supreme in speculative intellect; and has no doubt but, for thinking and speaking, Nature never

made such another. Which may be taken as a notable feature of Friedrich's History; and gives rise to passages

Here, meanwhile, faithfully presented though in condensed form, is the starting of the Correspondence; First

Letter of it, and first Response. Two Pieces which were once bright as the summer sunrise on both sides, but

are now fallen very dim; and have much needed condensation, and abridgment by omission of the

unessential,so lengthy are they, so extinct and almost dreary to us! Sublime "Wolf" and his "Philosophy,"

how he was hunted out of Halle with it, long since; and now shines from Marburg, his "Philosophy" and he

supreme among mankind: this, and other extinct points, the reader's fancy will endeavor to rekindle in some

"MONSIEUR,Although I have not the satisfaction of knowing you personally, you are not the less known

to me through your Works. They are treasures of the mind, if I may so express myself; and they reveal to the

reader new beauties at every fresh perusal. I think I have recognized in them the character of their ingenious

Author, who does honor to our age and to human nature. If ever the dispute on the comparative merits of the

Moderns and the Ancients should be revived, the modern great men will owe it to you, and to you only, that

the scale is turned in their favor. With the excellent quality of Poet you join innumerable others more or less

related to it. Never did Poet before put Metaphysics into rhythmic cadence: to you the honor was reserved of

"This taste for Philosophy manifested in your writings, induces me to send you a translated Copy of the

Accusation and defence of M. Wolf, the most celebrated Philosopher of our days; who, for having carried

light into the darkest places of Metaphysics, is cruelly accused of irreligion and atheism. Such is the destiny

of great men; their superior genius exposes them to the poisoned arrows of calumny and envy. I am about

getting a Translation made of the Treatise on God, the Soul, and the World," Translation done by an

Excellency Suhm, as has been hinted,"from the pen of the same Author. I will send it you when it is

finished; and I am sure that the force of evidence in all his propositions, and their close geometrical sequence,

"The kindness and assistance you afford to all who devote themselves to the Arts and Sciences, makes me

hope that you will not exclude me from the number of those whom you find worthy of your instructions:it

is so I would call your intercourse by Correspondence of Letters; which cannot be other than profitable to

... "beauties without number in your works. Your HENRIADE delights me. The tragedy of CESAR shows us

sustained characters; the sentiments in it are magnificent and grand, and one feels that Brutus is either a

Roman, or else an Englishman (ou un Romain ou un Anglais). Your ALZIRE, to the graces of novelty adds ...

"Monsieur, there is nothing I wish so much as to possess all your Writings," even those not printed hitherto.

"Pray, Monsieur, do communicate them to me without reserve. If there be amongst your Manuscripts any that

you wish to conceal from the eyes of the public, I engage to keep them in the profoundest secrecy. I am

unluckily aware, that the faith of Princes is an object of little respect in our days; nevertheless I hope you will

make an exception from the general rule in my favor. I should think myself richer in the possession of your

Works than in that of all the transient goods of Fortune. These the same chance grants and takes away: your

Works one can make one's own by means of memory, so that they last us whilst it lasts. Knowing how weak

"If Poetry were what it was before your appearance, a strumming of wearisome idyls, insipid eclogues,

tuneful nothings, I should renounce it forever:" but in your hands it becomes ennobled; a melodious "course

of morals; worthy of the admiration and the study of cultivated minds (DES HONNETES GENS). You"in

fine, "you inspire the ambition to follow in your footsteps. But I, how often have I said to myself:

'MALHEUREUX, throw down a burden which is above thy strength! One cannot imitate Voltaire, without

"It is in such moments that I have felt how small are those advantages of birth, those vapors of grandeur, with

which vanity would solace us! They amount to little, properly to nothing (POUR MIEUX DIRE, RIEN).

Nature, when she pleases, forms a great soul, endowed with faculties that can advance the Arts and Sciences;

and it is the part of Princes to recompense his noble toils. Ah, would Glory but make use of me to crown your

successes! My only fear would be, lest this Country, little fertile in laurels, proved unable to furnish enough

"If my destiny refuse me the happiness of being able to possess you, may I, at least, hope one day to see the

man whom I have admired so long now from afar; and to assure you, by word of mouth, that I am,With all

the esteem and consideration due to those who, following the torch of truth for guide, consecrate their labors

By what route or conveyance this Letter went, I cannot say. In general, it is to be observed, these

FriedrichVoltaire Letters liable perhaps to be considered contraband at BOTH ends of their coursedo

not go by the Post; but by FrenchPrussian Ministers, by Hamburg Merchants, and other safe subterranean

channels. Voltaire, with enthusiasm, and no doubt promptly, answers within three weeks:

"MONSEIGNEUR,A man must be void of all feeling who were not infinitely moved by the Letter which

your Royal Highness has deigned to honor me with. My selflove is only too much flattered by it: but my

love of Mankind, which I have always nourished in my heart, and which, I venture to say, forms the basis of

my character, has given me a very much purer pleasure,to see that there is, now in the world, a Prince who

"Permit me to say, there is not a man on the earth but owes thanks for the care you take to cultivate by sound

philosophy a soul that is born for command. Good kings there never were except those that had begun by

seeking to instruct themselves; by knowinggood men from bad; by loving what was true, by detesting

persecution and superstition. No Prince, persisting in such thoughts, but might bring back the golden age into

his Countries! And why do so few Princes seek this glory? You feel it, Monseigneur, it is because they all

think more of their Royalty than of Mankind. Precisely the reverse is your case:and, unless, one day, the

tumult of business and the wickedness of men alter so divine a character, you will be worshipped by your

People, and loved by the whole world. Philosophers, worthy of the name, will flock to your States; thinkers

will crowd round that throne, as the skilfulest artisans do to the city where their art is in request. The

illustrious Queen Christina quitted her kingdom to go in search of the Arts; reign you, Monseigneur, and the

"May you only never be disgusted with the Sciences by the quarrels of their Cultivators! A race of men no

better than Courtiers; often enough as greedy, intriguing, false and cruel as these," and still more ridiculous in

the mischief they do. "And how sad for mankind that the very Interpreters of Heaven's commandments, the

Theologians, I mean, are sometimes the most dangerous of all! Professed messengers of the Divinity, yet men

sometimes of obscure ideas and pernicious behavior; their soul blown out with mere darkness; full of gall and

pride, in proportion as it is empty of truths. Every thinking being who is not of their opinion is an Atheist;

and every King who does not favor them will be damned. Dangerous to the very throne; and yet intrinsically

insignificant:" best way is, leave their big talk and them alone; speedy collapse will follow. ...

"I cannot sufficiently thank your Royal Highness for the gift of that little Book about Monsieur Wolf. I

respect Metaphysical ideas; rays of lightning they are in the midst of deep night. More, I think, is not to be

hoped from Metaphysics. It does not seem likely that the Firstprinciples of things will ever be known. The

mice that nestle in some little holes of an immense Building, know not whether it is eternal, or who the

Architect, or why he built it. Such mice are we; and the Divine Architect who built the Universe has never,

that I know of, told his secret to one of us. If anybody could pretend to guess correctly, it is M. Wolf."

Beautiful in your Royal Highness to protect such a man. And how beautiful it will be, to send me his chief

Book, as you have the kindness to promise! "The Heir of a Monarchy, from his palace, attending to the wants

of a recluse far off! Condescend to afford me the pleasure of that Book, Monseigneur. ...

"What your Royal Highness thinks of poetry is just: verses that do not teach men new and touching truths, do

not deserve to be read." As to my own poor versesBut, after all, "that HENRIADE is the writing of an

"I will obey your commands as to sending those unpublished Pieces. You shall be my public, Monseigneur;

your criticisms will be my reward: it is a price few Sovereigns can pay. I am sure of your secrecy: your virtue

and your intellect must be in proportion. I should indeed consider it a precious happiness to come and pay my

court to your Royal Highness! One travels to Rome to see paintings and ruins: a Prince such as you is a much

more singular object; worthier of a long journey! But the friendship [divine Emilie's] which keeps me in this

retirement does not permit my leaving it. No doubt you think with Julian, that great and much calumniated

"In whatever corner of the world I may end my life, be assured, Monseigneur, my wishes will continually be

for you,that is to say, for a whole People's happiness. My heart will rank itself among your subjects; your

glory will ever be dear to me. I shall wish, May you always be like yourself, and may other Kings be like

The Correspondence, once kindled, went on apace; and soon burst forth, finding nourishment all round, into a

shining little household fire, pleasant to the hands and hearts of both parties. Consent of opinions on

important matters is not wanting; nor is emphasis in declaring the same. The mutual admiration, which is

high,high and intrinsic on Friedrich's side; and on Voltaire's, high if in part extrinsic,by no means wants

for emphasis of statement: superlatives, tempered by the best art, pass and repass. Friedrich, reading

Voltaire's immortal Manuscripts, confesses with a blush, before long, that he himself is a poor Apprentice

that way. Voltaire, at sight of the Princely Productions, is full of admiration, of encouragement; does a little

in correcting, solecisms of grammar chiefly; a little, by no means much. But it is a growing branch of

employment; now and henceforth almost the one reality of function Voltaire can find for himself in this

beautiful Correspondence. For, "Oh what a CrownPrince, ripening forward to be the delight of human

nature, and realize the dream of sages, Philosophy upon the Throne!" And on the other side, "Oh what a

Phoebus Apollo, mounting the eastern sky, chasing the Nightmares,sowing the Earth with Orient pearl, to

begin with!"In which fine duet, it must be said, the Prince is perceptibly the truer singer; singing within

compass, and from the heart; while the Phoebus shows himself acquainted with art, and warbles in seductive

quavers, now and then beyond the pitch of his voice. We must own also, Friedrich proves little seducible;

shows himself laudably indifferent to such siren singing;perhaps more used to flattery, and knowing by

experience how little meal is to be made of chaff. Voltaire, in an ungrateful France, naturally plumes himself

a good deal on such recognition by a Foreign Rising Sun; and, of the two, though so many years the elder, is

Elegant gifts are despatched to Cirey; goldamber trinkets for Madame, perhaps an amber inkholder for

Monsieur: priceless at Cirey as the gifts of the very gods. By and by, a messenger goes express: the witty

Colonel Keyserling, witty but experienced, whom we once named at Reinsberg; he is to go and see with his

eyes, since his Master cannot. What a messenger there; ambassador from star to star! Keyserling's report at

Reinsberg is not given; but we have Grafigny's, which is probably the more impartial. Keyserling's embassy

was in the end of next year; [3d November, 1737 (as we gather from the Correspondence).] and there is

Friedrich has translated the name KEYSERLING (diminutive of KAISER) into "Caesarion;"and I should

have said, he plays much upon names and also upon things, at Reinsberg, in that style; and has a good deal of

airy symbolism, and cloudwork ingeniously painted round the solidities of his life there. Especially a

"Bayard Order," as he calls it: Twelve of his selectest Friends made into a Chivalry Brotherhood, the names

of whom are all changed, "Caesarion" one of them; with dainty devices, and mimetic procedures of the due

sort. Which are not wholly mummery; but have a spice of reality, to flavor them to a serious young heart. For

the selection was rigorous, superior merit and behavior a strict condition; and indeed several of these Bayard

Chevaliers proved notable practical Champions in time coming;for example Captain Fouquet, of whom we

have heard before, in the dark Custrin days. This is a mentionable feature of the Reinsberg life, and of the

young Prince's character there: pleasant to know of, from this distance; but not now worth knowing more in

The FriedrichVoltaire Correspondence contains much incense; due whiffs of it, from Reinsberg side, to the

"divine Emilie," Voltaire's quasi betterhalf or worsehalf; who responds always in her divinest manner to

Reinsberg, eager for more acquaintance there. The Du Chatelets had a Lawsuit in Brabant; very inveterate,

perhaps a hundred years old or more; with the "House of Honsbrouck:" [ Lettres Inedites de Voltaire (Paris,

1826), p. 9.] this, not to speak of other causes, flights from French peril and the like, often brought Voltaire

and his Dame into those parts; and gave rise to occasional hopes of meeting with Friedrich; which could not

take effect. In more practical style, Voltaire solicits of him: "Could not your Royal Highness perhaps

graciously speak to some of those Judicial Big wigs in Brabant, and flap them up a little!" Which Friedrich, I

think, did, by some good means. Happily, by one means or other, Voltaire got the Lawsuit ended,1740, we

might guess, but the time is not specified;and Friedrich had a new claim, had there been need of new, to be

regarded with worship by Madame. [Record of all this, left, like innumerable other things there, in an

intrinsically dark condition, lies in Voltaire's LETTERS,not much worth hunting up into clear daylight, the

process being so difficult to a stranger.] But the proposed meeting with Madame could never take effect; not

even when Friedrich's hands were free. Nay I notice at last, Friedrich had privately determined it never

shouldMadame evidently an inconvenient element to him. A young man not wanting in private power of

eyesight; and able to distinguish chaff from meal! Voltaire and he will meet; meet, and also part; and there

will be passages between them:and the reader will again hear of this Correspondence of theirs, where it has

a biographical interest. We are to conceive it, at present, as a principal light of life to the young heart at

Reinsberg; a cheerful new fire, almost an altarfire, irradiating the common dusk for him there.

Of another Correspondence, beautifully irradiative for the young heart, we must say almost nothing: the

Correspondence with Suhm. Suhm the Saxon Minister, whom we have occasionally heard of, is an old Friend

of the CrownPrince's, dear and helpful to him: it is he who is now doing those Translations of Wolf, of

which Voltaire lately saw specimens; translating WOLF at large, for the young man's behoof. The young

man, restless to know the best Philosophy going, had tried reading of Wolf's chief Book; found it too

abstruse, in Wolf's German: wherefore Suhm translates; sends it to him in limpid French; fascicle by fascicle,

with commentaries; young man doing his best to understand and admire,gratefully, not too successfully,

we can perceive. That is the staple of the famous SUHM CORRESPONDENCE; staple which nobody could

Suhm is also helpful in finance difficulties, which are pretty frequent; works out subventions, loans under a

handsome form, from the Czarina's and other Courts. Which is an operation of the utmost delicacy; perilous,

should it be heard of at Potsdam. Wherefore Suhm and the Prince have a covert language for it: and affect

still to be speaking of "Publishers" and "new Volumes," when they mean Lenders and BankDraughts. All

these loans, I will hope, were accurately paid one day, as that from George II. was, in "rouleaus of new gold."

We need not doubt the wholesome charm and blessing of so intimate a Correspondence to the CrownPrince:

and indeed his real love of the amiable Suhm, as Suhm's of him, comes beautifully to light in these Letters:

but otherwise they are not now to be read without weariness, even dreariness, and have become a

Concerning Graf von Manteufel, a third Literary Correspondent, and the only other considerable one, here,

"Manteufel was Saxon by birth, long a Minister of August the Strong, but quarrelled with August, owing to

some frail female it is said, and had withdrawn to Berlin a few years ago. He shines there among the

fashionable philosophical classes; underhand, perhaps does a little in the volunteer political line withal; being

a very busy pushing gentleman. Tall of stature, 'perfectly handsome at the age of sixty;' [Formey, Souvenirs

d'un Citoyen, i. 3945.] great partisan of Wolf and the Philosophies, awake to the Orthodoxies too. Writes

flowing elegant French, in a softly trenchant, somewhat too allknowing style. High manners traceable in

him; but nothing of the noble loyalty, natural politeness and pious lucency of Suhm. One of his Letters to

Friedrich has this slightly impertinent passage;Friedrich, just getting settled in Reinsberg, having

"'BERLIN, 26th AUGUST, 1736 (to the CrownPrince). ... I am well persuaded your Royal Highness will

regulate all that to perfection, and so manage that your fair sex will be charmed to find themselves with you

at Reinsberg, and you charmed to have them there. But permit me, your Royal Highness, to repeat in this

place, what I one day took the liberty of saying here at Berlin: Nothing in the world would better suit the

present interests of your Royal Highness and of us all, than some Heir of your Royal Highness's making!

Perhaps the tranquil convenience with which your Royal Highness at Reinsberg can now attend to that object,

will be of better effect than all those hasty and transitory visits at Berlin were. At least I wish it with the best

of my heart. I beg pardon, Monseigneur, for intruding thus into everything which concerns your Royal

Highness;'In truth, I am a rather impudent busybodyish fellow, with superabundant dashing manner,

speculation, utterance; and shall get myself ordered out of the Country, by my present correspondent, by and

by. 'Being ever,' with the due enthusiasm, 'MANTEUFEL.' [ OEuvres de Frederic, xxv. 487;Friedrich's

"To which Friedrich's Answer is of a kind to put a gag in the foul mouth of certain extraordinary

Pamphleteerings, that were once very copious in the world; and, in particular, to set at rest the Herr Dr.

Zimmermann, and his poor puddle of calumnies and credulities, got together in that weak pursuit of

"Which is the one good result I have gathered from the Manteufel Correspondence," continues our German

friend; whom I vote with! Or if the English reader never saw those Zimmermann or other dog like

Pamphleteerings and surmisings, let this Excerpt be mysterious and superfluous to the thankful English

On the whole, we conceive to ourselves the abundant nature of Friedrich's Correspondence, literary and

other; and what kind of event the transit of that Post functionary "from Fehrbellin northwards," with his

Thursday, 25th October, 1736, the CrownPrince, with Lieutenant Buddenbrock and an attendant or two,

drove over into Mecklenburg, to a Village and serene Schloss called Mirow, intending a small act of

neighborly civility there; on which perhaps an English reader of our time will consent to accompany him. It is

but some ten or twelve miles off, in a northerly direction; Reinsberg being close on the frontier there. A

pleasant enough morning'sdrive, with the October sun shining on the silent heaths, on the many colored

Mirow is an Apanage for one of the MecklenburgStrelitz junior branches: MecklenburgStrelitz being itself

a junior compared to the MecklenburgSchwerin of which, and its infatuated Duke, we have heard so much

in times past. Mirow and even Strelitz are not ina very shining state,but indeed, we shall see them, as it

were, with eyes. And the English reader is to note especially those Mirow people, as perhaps of some small

interest to him, if he knew it. The CrownPrince reports to papa, in a satirical vein, not ungenially, and with

... "Yesterday I went across to Mirow. To give my Most All gracious Father an idea of the place, I cannot

liken it to anything higher than GrossKreutz [term of comparison lost upon us; say GARRAT, at a venture,

or the CLACHAN OF ABERFOYLE]: the one house in it, that can be called a house, is not so good as the

Parson's there. I made straight for the Schloss; which is pretty much like the Gardenhouse in Bornim: only

there is a rampart round it; and an old Tower, considerably in ruins, serves as a Gateway to the House.

"Coming on the Drawbridge, I perceived an old stockingknitter disguised as Grenadier, with his cap,

cartridgebox and musket laid to a side, that they might not hinder him in his knitting work. As I advanced,

he asked, 'Whence I came, and whitherward I was going?' I answered, that 'I came from the Posthouse, and

was going over this Bridge:' whereupon the Grenadier, quite in a passion, ran to the Tower; where he opened

a door, and called out the Corporal. The Corporal seemed to have hardly been out of bed; and in his great

haste, had not taken time to put on his shoes, nor quite button his breeches; with much flurry he asked us,

'Where we were for, and how we came to treat the Sentry in that manner?' Without answering him at all, we

"Never in my life should I have taken this for a Schloss, had it not been that there were two glass lamps fixed

at the doorposts, and the figures of two Cranes standing in front of them, by way of Guards. We made up to

the House; and after knocking almost half an hour to no purpose, there peered out at last an exceedingly old

woman, who looked as if she might have nursed the Prince of Mirow's father. The poor woman, at sight of

strangers, was so terrified, she slammed the door to in our faces. We knocked again; and seeing there could

nothing be made of it, we went round to the stables; where a fellow told us, 'The young Prince with his

Consort was gone to NeuStrelitz, a couple of miles off [ten miles English]; and the Duchess his Mother,

who lives here, had given him, to make the better figure, all her people along with him; keeping nobody but

"It was still early; so I thought I could not do better than profit by the opportunity, and have a look at

NeuStrelitz. We took posthorses; and got thither about noon. NeuStrelitz is properly a Village; with only

one street in it, where Chamberlains, OfficeClerks, Domestics all lodge, and where there is an Inn. I cannot

better describe it to my Most Allgracious Father than by that street in Gumbinnen where you go up to the

Townhall,except that no house here is whitewashed. The Schloss is fine, and lies on a lake, with a big

"The first question I asked here was for the Prince of Mirow: but they told me he had just driven off again to

a place called Kanow; which is only a couple of miles English from Mirow, where we had been.

Buddenbrock, who is acquainted with NeuStrelitz, got me, from a chamberlain, something to eat; and in the

mean while, that Bohme came in, who was Adjutant in my Most Allgracious Father's Regiment [not of

Goltz, but King's presumably]: Bohme did not know me till I hinted to him who I was. He told me, 'The Duke

of Strelitz was an excellent seamster;'" fit to be Tailor to your Majesty in a manner, had not Fate been cruel,

"'and that he made beautiful dressinggowns (CASSAQUINS) with his needle.' This made me curious to see

him: so we had ourselves presented as Foreigners; and it went off so well that nobody recognized me. I

cannot better describe the Duke than by saying he is like old Stahl [famed old medical man at Berlin, dead

last year, physiognomy not known to actual readers], in a blond Abbe's periwig. He is extremely silly

(BLODE); his Hofrath Altrock tells him, as it were, everything he has to say." About fifty, this poor Duke;

shrunk into needlework, for a quiet life, amid such tumults from Schwerin and elsewhere.

"Having taken leave, we drove right off to Kanow; and got thither about six. It is a mere Village; and the

Prince's PleasureHouse (LUSTHAUS) here is nothing better than an ordinary HuntingLodge, such as any

Forestkeeper has. I alighted at the Miller's; and had myself announced" at the LUSTHAUS," by his maid:

upon which the MajorDomo (HAUSHOFMEISTER) came over to the Mill, and complimented me; with

whom I proceeded to the Residenz," that is, back again to Mirow, "where the whole Mirow Family were

assembled. The Mother is a Princess of Schwartzburg, and still the cleverest of them all," still under sixty;

good old Mother, intent that her poor Son should appear to advantage, when visiting the more opulent

Serenities. "His Aunt also," mother's sister, "was there. The Lady Spouse is small; a Niece to the Prince of

Hildburghausen, who is in the Kaiser's service: she was in the familyway; but (ABER) seemed otherwise to

"The first thing they entertained me with was, the sad misfortune come upon their best Cook; who, with the

cart that was bringing the provisions, had overset, and broken his arm; so that the provisions had all gone to

nothing. Privately I have had inquiries made; there was not a word of truth in the story. At last we went to

table; and, sure enough, it looked as if the Cook and his provisions had come to some mishap; for certainly in

the Three Crowns at Potsdam [worst inn, one may guess, in the satirical vein], there is better eating than here.

"At table, there was talk of nothing but of all the German Princes who are not right in their wits (NICHT

RECHT KLUG)," as Mirow himself, your Majesty knows, is reputed to be! "There was Weimar,

[Wilhelmina's acquaintance; wedded, not without difficulty, to a superfluous Baireuth Sisterinlaw by

Wilhelmina ( Memoires de Wilhelmina, ii. 185194): Grandfather of Goethe's Friend;is nothing like fairly

out of his wits; only has a flea (as we may say) dancing occasionally in the ear of him. Perhaps it is so with

the rest of these Serenities, here fallen upon evil tongues?] Gotha, Waldeck, Hoym, and the whole lot of

them, brought upon the carpet:and after our good Host had got considerably drunk, we rose,and he

lovingly promised me that 'he and his whole Family would come and visit Reinsberg.' Come he certainly

"I most submissively beg pardon of my Most Allgracious Father for this long Letter; and"we will

Dilapidated Mirow and its inmates, portrayed in this satirical way, except as a view of Serene Highnesses

fallen into Sleepy Hollow, excites little notice in the indolent mind; and that little, rather pleasantly

contemptuous than really profitable. But one fact ought to kindle momentary interest in English readers: the

young foolish Herr, in this dilapidated place, is no other than our "Old Queen Charlotte's" Father that is to

be, a kind of Ancestor of ours, though we little guessed it! English readers will scan him with new

curiosity, when he pays that return visit at Reinsberg. Which he does within the fortnight:

... "that my Most Allgracious Father has had the graciousness to send us some Swans. My Wife also has

been exceedingly delighted at the fine Present sent her. ... General Praetorius," Danish Envoy, with whose

Court there is some tiff of quarrel, "came hither yesterday to take leave of us; he seems very unwilling to quit

"This morning about three o'clock, my people woke me, with word that there was a Stafette come with

Letters,"from your Majesty or Heaven knows whom! "I spring up in all haste; and opening the

Letter,find it is from the Prince of Mirow; who informs me that 'he will be here today at noon.' I have got

all things in readiness to receive him, as if he were the Kaiser in person; and I hope there will be material for

some amusement to my Most Allgracious Father, by next post."Next post is half a week hence:

... "The Prince of Mirow's visit was so curious, I must give my Most Allgracious Father a particular report

of it. In my last, I mentioned how General Praetorius had come to us: he was in the room, when I entered with

the Prince of Mirow; at sight of him Praetorius exclaimed, loud enough to be heard by everybody, 'VOILA

LE PRINCE CAJUCA!' [Nickname out of some Romance, fallen extinct long since.] Not one of us could

help laughing; and I had my own trouble to turn it so that he did not get angry.

"Scarcely was the Prince got in, when they came to tell me, for his worse luck, that Prince Heinrich," the Ill

Margraf, "was come; who accordingly trotted him out, in such a way that we thought we should all have

died with laughing. Incessant praises were given him, especially for his fine clothes, his fine air, and his

"In the afternoon, to spoil his fine coat,"a contrivance of the Ill Margraf's, I should think,"we stept out

to shoot at target in the rain: he would not speak of it, but one could observe he was in much anxiety about

the coat. In the evening, he got a glass or two in his head, and grew extremely merry; said at last, 'He was

sorry that, for divers statereasons and businesses of moment, he must of necessity return home;'which,

however, he put off till about two in the morning. I think, next day he would not remember very much of it.

"Prince Heinrich is gone to his Regiment again; "Praetorius too is off;and we end with the proper

These Strelitzers, we said, are juniors to infatuated Schwerin; and poor Mirow is again junior to Strelitz:

plainly one of the least opulent of Residences. At present, it is Dowager Apanage (WITTWENSITZ) to the

Widow of the late Strelitz of blessed memory: here, with her one Child, a boy now grown to what manhood

we see, has the Serene Dowager lived, these twentyeight years past; a Schwartzburg by birth, "the cleverest

head among them all." Twentyeight years in dilapidated Mirow: so long has that Tailoring Duke, her eldest

STEPSON (child of a prior wife) been Supreme Head of MecklenburgStrelitz; employed with his needle,

or we know not how,collapsed plainly into tailoring at this date. There was but one other Son; this clever

Lady's, twenty years junior,"Prince of Mirow" whom we now see. Karl Ludwig Friedrich is the name of

this one; age now twentyeight gone. He, ever since the third month of him, when the poor Serene Father

died ("May, 1703"), has been at Mirow with Mamma; getting what education there was,not too

successfully, as would appear. Eight years ago, "in 1726," Mamma sent him off upon his travels; to Geneva,

Italy, France: he looked in upon Vienna, too; got a LieutenantColonelcy in the Kaiser's Service, but did not

like it; soon gave it up; and returned home to vegetate, perhaps to seek a wife,having prospects of

succession in Strelitz. For the Serene HalfBrother proves to have no children: were his tailoring once

finished in the world, our Prince of Mirow is Duke in Chief. On this basis the wedded last year; the little

Wife has already brought him one child, a Daughter; and has (as Friedrich notices) another under way, if it

prosper. No lack of Daughters, nor of Sons by and by: eight years hence came the little

Charlotte,subsequently Mother of England: much to her and our astonishment. [Born (at Mirow) 19th

May, 1744; married (London), 8th September, 1761; died, 18th November, 1818 (Michaelis, ii. 445, 446;

The poor man did not live to be Duke of Strelitz; he died, 1752, in little Charlotte's eighth year; Tailor Duke

SURVIVING him a few months. Little Charlotte's Brother did then succeed, and lasted till 1794; after whom

a second Brother, father of the now Serene Strelitzes;who also is genealogically notable. For from him

there came another still more famous Queen: Louisa of Prussia; beautiful to look upon, as "Aunt Charlotte"

was not, in a high degree; and who showed herself a Heroine in Napoleon's time, as Aunt Charlotte never was

called to do. Both Aunt and Niece were women of sense, of probity, propriety; fairly beyond the average of

Queens. And as to their early poverty, ridiculous to this gold nugget generation, I rather guess it may have

done them benefits which the goldnugget generation, in its Queens and otherwise, stands far more in want

But enough of this Prince of Mirow, whom Friedrich has accidentally unearthed for us. Indeed there is no

farther history of him, for or against. He evidently was not thought to have invented gunpowder, by the

public. And yet who knows but, in his very simplicity, there lay something far beyond the Ill Margraf to

whom he was so quizzable? Poor downpressed brother mortal; somnambulating so pacifically in Sleepy

He continued, though soon with less enthusiasm, and in the end very rarely, a visitor of Friedrich's during this

Reinsberg time. Patriotic English readers may as well take the few remaining vestiges, too, before quite

dismissiug him to Sleepy Hollow. Here they are, swept accurately together, from that Correspondence of

"REINSBERG, 18th NOVEMBER, 1736. ... report most submissively that the Prince of Mirow has again

been here, with his Mother, Wife, Aunt, Hofdames, Cavaliers and entire Household; so that I thought it was

the Flight out of Egypt [Exodus of the Jews]. I begin to have a fear of those good people, as they assured me

"REINSBERG, 1st FEBRUARY, 1737." Let us give it in the Original too, as a specimen of German

"Der Prints von Mihrau ist vohr einigen thagen hier gewessen und haben wier einige Wasser schwermer in

der See ihm zu Ehren gesmissen, seine frau ist mit eber thoten Printzesin nieder geKomen.Der General

"The Prince of Mirow was here a few days ago; and we let off, in honor of him, a few waterrockets over the

Lake: his Wife has been brought to bed of a dead Princess. General Schulenburg [with a small s] came hither

"REINSBERG, 28th MARCH, 1737. ... Prince von Mirow was here yesterday; and tried shooting at the

popinjay with us; he cannot see rightly, and shoots always with help of an operaglass."

"RUPPIN, 20th OCTOBER, 1737. The Prince of Mirow was with us last Friday; and babbled much in his

high way; among other things, whitelied to us, that the Kaiserinn gave him a certain porcelain snuffbox he

was handling; but on being questioned more tightly, he confessed to me he had bought it in Vienna." [ Briefe

an Vater, p. 71 (CARET in OEuvres ); pp. 85114.See Ib. 6th November, 1737, for faint trace of a visit;

And so let him somnambulate yonder, till the two Queens, like winged Psyches, one after the other, manage

Friedrich's Letters to his Father are described by some Prussian Editors as "very attractive, SEHR

ANZIEHENDE BRIEFE;" which, to a Foreign reader, seems a strange account of them. Letters very hard to

understand completely; and rather insignificant when understood. They turn on Gifts sent to and sent from,

"swans," "hams," with the unspeakable thanks for them; on recruits of so many inches; on the visitors that

have been; they assure us that "there is no sickness in the regiment," or tell expressly how much:wholly

small facts; nothing of speculation, and of ceremonial pipeclay a great deal. We know already under what

nightmare conditions Friedrich wrote to his Father! The attitude of the CrownPrince, sincerely reverent and

filial, though obliged to appear ineffably so, and on the whole struggling under such mountains of

encumbrance, yet loyally maintaining his equilibrium, does at last acquire, in these Letters, silently a kind of

beauty to the best class of readers. But that is nearly their sole merit. By far the most human of them, that on

the first visit to Mirow, the reader has now seen; and may thank us much that we show him no more of them.

[ Friedrich des Grossen Briefe an seinen Vater (Berlin, 1838). Reduced in size, by suitable omissions; and

properly spelt; but with little other elucidation for a stranger: in OEuvres, xxvii. part 3d, pp, 1123 (Berlin,

While these Mirow visits are about their best, and much else at Reinsberg is in comfortable progress,

Friedrich's first year there just ending, there come accounts from England of quarrels broken out between the

Britannic Majesty and his Prince of Wales. Discrepancies risen now to a height; and getting into the very

Newspapers;the Rising Sun too little under the control of the Setting, in that unquiet Country!

Prince Fred of England did not get to the Rhine Campaign, as we saw: he got some increase of Revenue, a

Household of his own; and finally a Wife, as he had requested: a SachsenGotha Princess; who, peerless

Wilhelmma being unattainable, was welcome to Prince Fred. She is in the familyway, this summer 1737, a

very young lady still; result thought to be dueWhen? Result being potential Heir to the British Nation,

there ought to have been good calculation of the time when! But apparently nobody had well turned his

attention that way. Or if Fred and Spouse had, as is presumable, Fred had given no notice to the Paternal

Majesty, "Let Paternal Majesty, always so cross to me, look out for himself in that matter." Certain it is,

Fred and Spouse, in the beginning of August, 1737, are out at Hampton Court; potential Heir due before long,

and no preparation made for it. August 11th in the evening, out at solitary Hampton Court; the poor young

Mother's pains came on; no Chancellor there, no Archbishop to see the birth,in fact, hardly the least

medical help, and of political altogether none. Fred, in his flurry, or by forethought,instead of dashing off

expresses, at a gallop as of Epsom, to summon the necessary persons and appliances, yoked wheeled vehicles

and rolled off to the old unprovided Palace of St. James's, London, with his poor Wife in person! Unwarned,

unprovided; where nevertheless she was safely delivered that same night,safely, as if by miracle. The crisis

might have taken her on the very highway: never was such an imprudence. Owing, I will believe, to Fred's

sudden flurry in the unprovided moment,unprovided, by reason of prior desuetudes and discouragements

to speech, on Papa's side. A shade of malice there might also be. Papa doubts not, it was malice aforethought

all of it. "Had the potential Heir of the British Nation gone to wreck, or been born on the highway, from my

quarrels with this bad Fred, what a scrape had I been in!" thinks Papa, and is in a towering permanence of

wrath ever since; the very Newspapers and coffeehouses and populaces now all getting vocal with it.

Papa, as it turned out, never more saw the face of Fred. Judicious Mamma, Queen Caroline, could not help a

visit, one visit to the poor young Mother, so soon as proper: coming out from the visit, Prince Fred

obsequiously escorting her to her carriage, found a crowd of people and populace, in front of St. James's; and

there knelt down on the street, in his fine silk breeches, careless of the mud, to "beg a Mother's blessing," and

show what a son he was, he for his part, in this sad discrepancy that had risen! Mamma threw a silent glance

on him, containing volumes of mixed tenor; drove off; and saw no more of Fred, she either. I fear, this

kneeling in the mud tells against Prince Fred; but in truth I do not know, nor even much care. [Lord Hervey,

Memoirs of George the Second, ii. 362370, 409.] What a noise in England about nothing at all!What a

noisy Country, your Prussian Majesty! Foolish "rising sun" not restrainable there by the setting or shining

one; opposition parties bowling him about among the constellations, like a very mad object!

But in a month or two, there comes worse news out of England; falling heavy on the heart of Prussian

Majesty: news that Queen Caroline herself is dead. ["Sunday evening, 1st December (20th Nov.), 1737." Ib.

pp. 510539.] Died as she had lived, with much constancy of mind, with a graceful modest courage and

endurance; sinking quietly under the load of private miseries long quietly kept hidden, but now become too

heavy, and for which the appointed rest was now here. Little George blubbered a good deal; fidgeted and

flustered a good deal: much put about, poor foolish little soul. The dying Caroline recommended HIM to

Walpole; advised his Majesty to marry again. "Non, j'aurai des maitresses (No, I'll have mistresses)!" sobbed

his Majesty passionately. "Ah, mon Dieu, cela n'empeche pas (that does not hinder)!" answered she, from

long experience of the case. There is something stoically tragic in the history of Caroline with her flighty

vaporing little King: seldom had foolish husband so wise a wife. "Dead!" thought Friedrich Wilhelm, looking

back through the whirlwinds of life, into sunny young scenes far enough away: "Dead!"Walpole continued

to manage the little King; but not for long; England itself rising in objection. Jenkins's Ear, I understand, is

lying in cotton; and there are mad inflammable strata in that Nation, capable of exploding at a great rate.

From the Eastern regions our Newspapers are very full of events: War with the Turk going on there; Russia

and Austria both doing their best against the Turk. The Russians had hardly finished their PolishElection

fighting, when they decided to have a stroke at the Turk,Turk always an especial eyesorrow to them,

since that "Treaty of the Pruth," and Czar Peter's sad rebuff there: Munnich marched direct out of Poland

through the Ukraine, with his eye on the Crimea and furious business in that quarter. This is his second

Campaign there, this of 1737; and furious business has not failed. Last year he stormed the Lines of Perecop,

tore open the Crimea; took Azoph, he or Lacy under him; took many things: this year he had laid his plans for

Oczakow;takes Oczakow, fiery event, blazing in all the Newspapers, at Reinsberg and elsewhere.

Concerning which will the reader accept this condensed testimony by an eyewitness?

"OCZAKOW, 13th JULY, 1737. Day before yesterday, Feldmarschall Munnich got to Oczakow, as he had

planned,"strong Turkish Town in the nook between the Black Sea and the estuary of the Dnieper; "with

intention to besiege it. Siegetrain, stores of every sort, which he had set afloat upon the Dnieper in time

enough, were to have been ready for him at Oczakow. But the flotilla had been detained by shallows, by

waterfalls; not a boat was come, nor could anybody say when they were coming. Meanwhile nothing is to be

had here; the very face of the earth the Turks have burnt: not a blade of grass for cavalry within eight miles,

nor a stick of wood for engineers; not a hole for covert, and the ground so hard you cannot raise redoubts on

"On his right, by the seashore, Munnich finds some remains of gardens, palisades; scrapes together some

vestige of shelter there (five thousand, or even ten thousand pioneers working desperately all that first night,

11th July, with only half success); and on the morrow commences firing with what artillery he has. Much

outfired by the Turks inside;his enterprise as good as desperate, unless the Dnieper flotilla come soon. July

12th, all day the firing continues, and all night; Turks extremely furious: about an hour before daybreak, we

notice burning in the interior, 'Some wooden house kindled by us, town got on fire yonder,'and, praise to

Heaven, they do not seem to succeed in quenching it again. Munnich turns out, in various divisions; intent on

trying something, had he the least engineer furniture;hopes desperately there may be promise for him in

"In the centre of Munnich's line is one General Keith, a deliberate stalwart Scotch gentleman, whom we shall

know better; Munnich himself is to the right: Could not one try it by scalade; keep the internal burning free to

spread, at any rate? 'Advance within musketshot, General Keith!' orders Munnich's AidedeCamp

cantering up. 'I have been this good while within it,' answers Keith, pointing to his dead men. AidedeCamp

canters up a second time: 'Advance within half musketshot, General Keith, and quit any covert you have!'

Keith does so; sends, with his respects to Feldmarschall Munnich, his remonstrance against such a waste of

human life. AidedeCamp canters up a third time: 'Feldmarschall Munnich is for trying a scalade; hopes

General Keith will do his best to cooperate!' 'Forward, then!' answers Keith; advances close to the glacis;

finds a wet ditch twelve feet broad, and has not a stick of engineer furniture. Keith waits there two hours; his

men, under fire all the while, trying this and that to get across; Munnich's scalade going off ineffectual in like

manner: till at length Keith's men, and all men, tire of such a business, and roll back in great confusion out

of shotrange. Munnich gives himself up for lost. And indeed, says Mannstein, had the Turks sallied out in

pursuit at that moment, they might have chased us back to Russia. But the Turks did not sally. And the

internal conflagration is not quenched, far from it;and about nine A.M. their PowderMagazine,

conflagration reaching it, roared aloft into the air, and killed seven thousand of them," [Mannstein, pp.

So that Oczakow was taken, sure enough; terms, life only: and every remaining Turk packs off from it, some

"twenty thousand inhabitants young and old" for one sad item.A very blazing semi absurd event, to be

read of in Prussian military circles,where General Keith will be better known one day.

Russian War with the Turk: that means withal, by old Treaties, aid of thirty thousand men from the Kaiser to

Russia. Kaiser, so ruined lately, how can he send thirty thousand, and keep them recruited, in such distant

expedition? Kaiser, much meditating, is advised it will be better to go frankly into the Turk on his own score,

and try for slices of profit from him in this game. Kaiser declares war against the Turk; and what is still more

interesting to Friedrich Wilhelm and the Berlin Circles, Seckendorf is named General of it. Feldzeugmeister

now Feldmarschall Seckendorf, envy may say what it will, he has marched this season into the LowerDonau

Countries,going to besiege Widdin, they say,at the head of a big Army (on paper, almost a hundred and

fifty thousand, light troops and heavy) virtually CommanderinChief; though nominally our fine young

friend Franz of Lorraine bears the title of Commander, whom Seckendorf is to drynurse in the way

sometimes practised. Going to besiege Widdin, they say. So has the poor Kaiser been advised. His wise old

Eugene is now gone; [Died 30th April, 1736.] I fear his advisers,a youngish Feldzeugmeister, Prince of

Hildburghausen, the chief favorite among them,are none of the wisest. All Protestants, we observe, these

favorite Hildburghausens, Schmettaus, Seckendorfs of his; and Vienna is an orthodox papal Court;and

there is a Hofkriegsrath (Supreme Council of War), which has ruined many a General, poking too

meddlesomely into his affairs! On the whole, Seckendorf will have his difficulties. Here is a scene, on the

Lower Donau, different enough from that at Oczakow, not far from contemporaneous with it. The Austrian

"KOLITZ, 2d JULY, 1737. This day, the Army not being on march, but allowed to rest itself, Grand Duke

Franz went into the woods to hunt. Hunting up and down, he lost himself; did not return at evening; and, as

the night closed in and no Generalissimo visible, the Generalissimo AD LATUS (such the title they had

contrived for Seckendorf) was in much alarm. Generalissimo AD LATUS ordered out his whole force of

drummers, trumpeters: To fling themselves, postwise, deeper and deeper into the woods all round; to drum

there, and blow, in everwidening circle, in prescribed notes, and with all energy, till the Grand Duke were

found. Grand Duke being found, Seckendorf remonstrated, rebuked; a thought too earnestly, some say, his

temper being flurried,"voice snuffling somewhat in alt, with lisp to help:"so that the Grand Duke took

offence; flung off in a huff: and always looked askance on the Feldmarschall from that time;" [See

Lebensgeschichte des Grafen van Schmettau (by his Son: Berlin, 1806), i. 27.]quitting him altogether

before long; and marching with Khevenhuller, Wallis, Hildburghausen, or any of the subordinate Generals

rather. Probably Widdin will not go the road of Oczakow, nor the Austrians prosper like the Russians, this

Pollnitz, in TobaccoParliament, and in certain Berlin circles foolishly agape about this new Feldmarschall,

maintains always, Seckendorf will come to nothing; which his Majesty zealously contradicts,his Majesty,

and some shortsighted private individuals still favorable to Seckendorf. [Pollnitz, Memoiren, ii. 497502.]

Exactly one week after that singular drumandtrumpet operation on Duke Franz, the Last of the Medici dies

at Florence; [9th July ( Fastes de Louis XV., p. 304).] and Serene Franz, if he knew it, is Grand Duke of

Tuscany, according to bargain: a matter important to himself chiefly, and to France, who, for Stanislaus and

Lorraine's sake, has had to pay him some 200,000 pounds a year during the brief intermediate state.

These remote occurrences are of small interest to his Prussian Majesty, in comparison with the Pfalz affair,

the CleveJulich succession, which lies so near home. His Majesty is uncommonly anxious to have this

matter settled, in peace, if possible. Kaiser and Reich, with the other Mediating Powers, go on mediating; but

when will they decide? This year the old Bishop of Augsburg, one Brother of the older KurPfalz Karl

Philip, dies; nothing now between us and the event itself, but Karl Philip alone, who is verging towards

eighty: the decision, to be peaceable, ought to be speedy! Friedrich Wilhelm, in January last, sent the expert

Degenfeld, once of London, to old Karl Philip; and has him still there, with the most conciliatory offers:

"Will leave your Sulzbachs a part, then; will be content with part, instead of the whole, which is mine if there

be force in sealed parchment; will do anything for peace!" To which the old KurPfalz, foolish old creature,

is steadily deaf; answers vaguely, negatively always, in a polite manner; pushing his Majesty upon

extremities painful to think of. "We hate war; but cannot quite do without justice, your Serenity," thinks

Friedrich Wilhelm: "must it be the eighty thousand iron ramrods, then?" Obstinate Serenity continues deaf;

and Friedrich Wilhelm's negotiations, there at Mannheim, over in Holland, and through Holland with

England, not to speak of Kaiser and Reich close at hand, become very intense; vehemently earnest, about this

matter, for the next two years. The details of which, inexpressibly uninteresting, shall be spared the reader.

Summary is, these Mediating Powers will be of no help to his Majesty; not even the Dutch will, with whom

he is specially in friendship: nay, in the third year it becomes fatally manifest, the chief Mediating Powers,

Kaiser and France, listening rather to political convenience, than to the claims of justice, go direct in

KurPfalz's favor;by formal treaty of their own, ["Versailles, 13th January, 1739" (Olrich, Geschichte der

Schlesischen Kriege, i. 13); Mauvillon, ii 405446; France and the Kaiser settle, "That the Sulzbachers shall,

as a preliminary, get provisional possession, on the now Serenity's decease; and shall continue undisturbed

for two years, till Law decide between his Prussian Majesty and them." Two years; Law decide;and we

know what are the NINEPOINTS in a Lawcase! This, at last, proved too much for his Majesty. Majesty's

abstruse dubitations, meditations on such treatment by a Kaiser and others, did then, it appears, gloomily

settle into fixed private purpose of trying it by the iron ramrods, when old KurPfalz should die, of

marching with eighty thousand men into the Cleve Countries, and SO welcoming any Sulzbach or other

guests that might arrive. Happily old KurPfalz did not die in his Majesty's time; survived his Majesty

several years: so that the matter fell into other hands,and was settled very well, near a century after.

Of certain wranglings with the little Town of Herstal,Prussian Town (part of the Orange Heritage, once

KING PEPIN'S Town, if that were any matter now) in the Bishop of Liege's neighborhood, Town highly

insignificant otherwise,we shall say nothing here, as they will fall to be treated, and be settled, at an after

stage. Friedrich Wilhelm was much grieved by the contumacies of that paltry little Herstal; and by the Bishop

of Liege's highflown procedures in countenancing them;especially in a recruiting ease that had fallen out

there, and brought matters to a head. ["December, 1738," is crisis of the recruiting case ( HeldenGeschichte,

ii. 63); "17th February, 1739," Bishop's highflown appearance in it (ib. 67); Kaiser's in consequence, "10th

April, 1739."] The Kaiser too was afflictively high in countenancing the Bishop;for which both Kaiser

and Bishop got due payment in time. But his Prussian Majesty would not kindle the world for such a

paltriness; and so left it hanging in a vexatious condition. Such things, it is remarked, weigh heavier on his

now infirm Majesty than they were wont. He is more subject to fits of hypochondria, to talk of abdicating.

"All gone wrong!" he would say, if any little flaw rose, about recruiting or the like. "One might go and live at

Venice, were one rid of it!" [Forster (place LOST).] And his deepstung clangorous growl against the

Kaiser's treatment of him bursts out, from time to time; though he oftenest pities the Kaiser, too; seeing him

It was in this Pfalz business that Herr Luiscius, the Prussian Minister in Holland, got into trouble; of whom

there is a light dash of outlineportraiture by Voltaire, which has made him memorable to readers. This "fat

King of Prussia," says Voltaire, was a dreadfully avaricious fellow, unbeautiful to a high degree in his

"He had a Minister at the Hague called Luiscius; who certainly of all Ministers of Crowned Heads was the

worst paid. This poor man, to warm himself, had made some trees be felled in the Garden of Honslardik,

which belonged at that time to the House of Prussia; he thereupon received despatches from the King,

intimating that a year of his salary was forfeited. Luiscius, in despair, cut his throat with probably the one

razor he had (SEUL RASOIR QU'IL EUT); an old valet came to his assistance, and unhappily saved his life.

In after years, I found his Excellency at the Hague; and have occasionally given him an alms at the door of

the VIEILLE COUR (Old Court), a Palace belonging to the King of Prussia, where this poor Ambassador had

lived a dozen years. It must be owned, Turkey is a republic in comparison to the despotism exercised by

Friedrich Wilhelm." [ OEuvres de Voltaire (Vie Pricee, or what they now call Memoires ), ii. 15.]

Here truly is a witty sketch; consummately dashed off, as nobody but Voltaire could; "round as Giotto's O,"

done at one stroke. Of which the prose facts are only as follows. Luiscius, Prussian Resident, not

distinguished by salary or otherwise, had, at one stage of these negotiations, been told, from headquarters,

He might, in casual extraofficial ways, if it seemed furthersome, give their High Mightinesses the hope, or

notion, that his Majesty did not intend actual war about that CleveJulich Succession, being a pacific

Majesty, and unwilling to involve his neighbors and mankind. Luiscius, instead of casual hint delicately

dropped in some good way, had proceeded by direct declaration; frank assurance to the High Mightinesses,

That there would be no war. Which had never been quite his Majesty's meaning, and perhaps was now

becoming rather the reverse of it. Disavowal of Luiscius had to ensue thereupon; who produced defensively

his instruction from headquarters; but got only rebukes for such heavyfooted clumsy procedure, so unlike

Diplomacy with its shoes of felt; and, in brief, was turned out of the Diplomatic function, as unfit for it;

and appointed to manage certain Orange Properties, fragments of the Orange Heritage which his Majesty still

has in those Countries. This misadventure sank heavily on the spirits of Luiscius, otherwise none of the

strongestminded of men. Nor did he prosper in managing the Orange Properties: on the contrary, he again

fell into mistakes; got soundly rebuked for injudicious conduct there,"cutting trees," planting trees, or

whatever it was;and this produced such an effect on Luiscius, that he made an attempt on his own throat,

distracted mortal; and was only stopped by somebody rushing in. "It was not the first time he had tried that

feat," says Pollnitz, "and been prevented; nor was it long till he made a new attempt, which was again

frustrated: and always afterwards his relations kept him close in view:" Majesty writing comfortable

forgiveness to the perturbed creature, and also "settling a pension on him;" adequate, we can hope, and not

excessive; "which Luiscius continued to receive, at the Hague, so long as he lived." These are the prose facts;

not definitely dated to us, but perfectly clear otherwise. [Pollnitz, ii. 495, 496;the "NEW attempt" seems to

Voltaire, in his Dutch excursions, did sometimes, in after years, lodge in that old vacant Palace, called

VIEILLE COUR, at the Hague; where he gracefully celebrates the decayed forsaken state of matters; dusky

vast rooms with dim gilding; forgotten libraries "veiled under the biggest spiderwebs in Europe;" for the

rest, an uncommonly quiet place, convenient for a writing man, besides costing nothing. A son of this

Luiscius, a good young lad, it also appears, was occasionally Voltaire's amanuensis there; him he did

recommend zealously to the new King of Prussia, who was not deaf on the occasion. This, in the fire of

satirical wit, is what we can transiently call "giving alms to a Prussian Excellency;" not now excellent, but

pensioned and cracked; and the reader perceives, Luiscius had probably more than one razor, had not one

been enough, when he did the rash act. Friedrich employed Luiscius Junior, with no result that we hear of

farther; and seems to have thought Luiscius Senior an absurd fellow, not worth mentioning again: "ran away

from the Cleve Country [probably some madhouse there] above a year ago, I hear; and what is the matter

where such a crackbrain end?" [Voltaire, OEuvres (Letter to Friedrich, 7th October, 1740), lxxii. 261; and

The Pfalz question being in such a predicament, and Luiscius diplomatizing upon it in such heavyfooted

manner, his Majesty thinks a journey to Holland, to visit one's Kinsfolk there, and incidentally speak a word

with the High Mightinesses upon Pfalz, would not be amiss. Such journey is decided on; CrownPrince to

accompany. Summer of 1738: a short visit, quite without fuss; to last only three days;mere sequel to the

Reviews held in those adjacent Cleve Countries; so that the Gazetteers may take no notice. All which was

done accordingly: CrownPrince's first sight of Holland; and one of the few reportable points of his

On the 8th of July, 1738, the Review Party got upon the road for Wesel: all through July, they did their

reviewing in those Cleve Countries; and then struck across for the Palace of Loo in Geldern, where a Prince

of Orange countable kinsman to his Prussian Majesty, and a Princess still more nearly connected, English

George's Daughter, own niece to his Prussian Majesty,are in waiting for this distinguished honor. The

Prince of Orange we have already seen, for a moment once; at the siege of Philipsburg four years ago, when

the sale of Chasot's horses went off so well. "Nothing like selling horses when your company have dined

well," whispered he to Chasot, at that time; since which date we have heard nothing of his Highness.

He is not a beautiful man; he has a crooked back, and features conformable; but is of prompt vivacious

nature, and does not want for sense and goodhumor. Paternal George, the gossips say, warned his Princess,

when this marriage was talked of, "You will find him very illlooking, though!" "And if I found him a

baboon!" answered she; being so heartily tired of St. James's. And in fact, for anything I have heard, they

do well enough together. She is George II.'s eldest Princess;next elder to our poor Amelia, who was once

so interesting to us! What the CrownPrince now thought of all that, I do not know; but the Books say, poor

Amelia wore the willow, and specially wore the Prince's miniature on her breast all her days after, which

were many. Grew corpulent, somewhat a huddle in appearance and equipment, "eyelids like upperLIPS,"

for one item: but when life itself fled, the miniature was found in its old place, resting on the old heart after

His Majesty's reception at Loo was of the kind he liked,cordial, honorable, unceremonious; and these were

three pleasant days he had. Pleasant for the CrownPrince too; as the whole Journey had rather been; Papa,

with covert satisfaction, finding him a wise creature, after all, and "more serious" than formerly. "Hm, you

don't know what things are in that Fritz!" his Majesty murmured sometimes, in these later years, with a fine

Loo itself is a beautiful Palace: "Loo, close by the Village Appeldoorn, is a stately brick edifice, built with

architectural regularity; has finely decorated rooms, beautiful gardens, and round are superb alleys of oak and

linden." [Busching, Erdbeschreibung, viii. 69.] There saunters pleasantly our CrownPrince, for these three

days;and one glad incident I do perceive to have befallen him there: the arrival of a Letter from Voltaire.

Letter much expected, which had followed him from Wesel; and which he answers here, in this brick Palace,

among the superb avenues and gardens. [ OEuvres, xxi. 203, the Letter, "Cirey, June, 1738;" Ib. 222, the

No doubt a glad incident, irradiating, as with a sudden sunburst in gray weather, the commonplace of things.

Here is news worth listening to; news as from the empyrean! Free interchange of poetries and proses, of

heroic sentiments and opinions, between the Unique of Sages and the Paragon of CrownPrinces; how

charming to both! Literary business, we perceive, is brisk on both hands; at Cirey the Discours sur l'Homme

("Sixth DISCOURS" arrives in this packet at Loo, surely a deathless piece of singing); nor is Reinsberg idle:

Reinsberg is copiously doing verse, such verse! and in prose, very earnestly, an "ANTI MACHIAVEL;"

which soon afterwards filled all the then world, though it has now fallen so silent again. And at Paris, as

Voltaire announces with a flourish, "M. de Maupertuis's excellent Book, Figure de la T'erre, is out;" [Paris,

1738: Maupertuis's "measurement of a degree," in the utmost North, 17361737 (to prove the Earth flattened

there). Vivid Narrative; somewhat gesticulative, but duly brief. The only Book of that great Maupertuis

which is now readable to human nature.] M. de Maupertuis, home from the Polar regions and from measuring

the Earth there; the sublimest miracle in Paris society at present. Might build, newbuild, an ACADEMY OF

SCIENCES at Berlin for your Royal Highness, one day? suggests Voltaire, on this occasion: and Friedrich, as

we shall see, takes the hint. One passage of the CrownPrince's Answer is in these terms;fixing this Loo

"LOO IN HOLLAND, 6th AUGUST, 1739. ... I write from a place where there lived once a great man

[William III. of England, our Dutch William]; which is now the Prince of Orange's House. The demon of

Ambition sheds its unhappy poisons over his days. He might be the most fortunate of men; and he is

devoured by chagrins in his beautiful Palace here, in the middle of his gardens and of a brilliant Court. It is

pity in truth; for he is a Prince with no end of wit (INFINIMENT D'ESPRIT), and has respectable qualites."

Not Stadtholder, unluckily; that is where the shoe pinches; the Dutch are on the Republican tack, and will not

have a Stadtholder at present. No help for it in one's beautiful gardens and avenues of oak and linden.

"I have talked a great deal about Newton with the Princess," about Newton; never hinted at Amelia; not

permissible!"from Newton we passed to Leibnitz; and from Leibnitz to the Late Queen of England,"

Caroline lately gone, "who, the Prince told me, was of Clarke's sentiment" on that important theological

controversy now dead to mankind.And of Jenkins and his Ear did the Princess say nothing? That is now

Pity that we cannot give these two Letters in full; that no reader, almost, could be made to understand them,

or to care for them when understood. Such the cruelty of Time upon this Voltaire Friedrich Correspondence,

and some others; which were once so rosy, sunny, and are now fallen drearily extinct,studiable by Editors

only! In itself the FriedrichVoltaire Correspondence, we can see, was charming; very blossomy at present:

businesses increasing; mutual admiration now risen to a great height, admiration sincere on both sides,

most so on the Prince's, and extravagantly expressed on both sides, most so on Voltaire's.

His Majesty, we said, had three pleasant days at Loo; discoursing, as with friends, on public matters, or even

on more private matters, in a frank unconstrained way. He is not to be called "Majesty" on this occasion; but

the fact, at Loo, and by the leading Mightinesses of the Republic, who come copiously to compliment him

there, is well remembered. Talk there was, with such leading Mightinesses, about the JulichandBerg

question, aim of this Journey: earnest enough private talk with some of them: but it availed nothing; and

would not be worth reporting now to any creature, if we even knew it. In fact, the Journey itself remains

mentionable chiefly by one very trifling circumstance; and then by another, not important either, which

followed out of that. The trifling circumstance is,That Friedrich, in the course of this Journey, became a

Freemason: and the unimportant sequel was, That he made acquaintance with one Bielfeld, on the occasion;

who afterwards wrote a Book about him, which was once much read, though never much worth reading, and

is still citable, with precaution, now and then. [Monsieur le Baron de Bielfeld, Lettres Familieres et Autres,

1763;second edition, 2 vols. a Leide, 1767, is the one we use here.] Trifling circumstance, of Freemasonry,

Among the dinnerguests at Loo, one of those three days, was a Prince of LippeBuckeburg,Prince of

small territory, but of great speculation; whose territory lies on the Weser, leading to Dutch connections; and

whose speculations stretch over all the Universe, in a high fantastic style:he was a dinnerguest; and one

of the topics that came up was Freemasonry; a phantasmal kind of object, which had kindled itself, or

rekindled, in those years, in England first of all; and was now hovering about, a good deal, in Germany and

other countries; pretending to be a new light of Heaven, and not a bogmeteor of phosphorated hydrogen,

conspicuous in the murk of things. Bogmeteor, foolish putrescent willo'wisp, his Majesty promptly

defined it to be: Tomfoolery and KINDERSPIEL, what else? Whereupon ingenious Buckeburg, who was

himself a Mason, man of forty by this time, and had high things in him of the Quixotic type, ventured on

defence; and was so respectful, eloquent, dexterous, ingenious, he quite captivated, if not his Majesty, at least

the CrownPrince, who was more enthusiastic for high things. CrownPrince, after table, took his

Durchlaucht of Buckeburg aside; talked farther on the subject, expressed his admiration, his conviction,his

wish to be admitted into such a Hero Fraternity. Nothing could be welcomer to Durchlaucht. And so, in all

privacy, it was made up betweeen them, That Durchlaucht, summoning as many mystic Brothers out of

Hamburg as were needful, should be in waiting with them, on the Crown Prince's road homeward,say at

Brunswick, night before the Fair, where we are to be,and there make the CrownPrince a Mason.

This is Bielfeld's account, repeated ever since; substantially correct, except that the scene was not Loo at all:

dinner and dialogue, it now appears, took place in Durchlaucht's own neighborhood, during the Cleve Review

time; "probably at Minden, 17th July;" and all was settled into fixed program before Loo came in sight.

[ OEuvres de Frederic, xvs. 201: Friedrich's Letter to this Durchlaucht, "Comte de Schaumbourg Lippe" he

calls him; date, "Moyland, 26th July, 1738: "Moyland, a certain SCHLOSS, or habitable Mansion, of his

Majesty's, few miles to north of Mors in the Cleve Country; where his Majesty used often to pause;and

where (what will be much more remarkable to readers) the CrownPrince and Voltaire had their first

meeting, two years hence.] Bielfeld's report of the subsequent procedure at Brunswick, as he saw it and was

himself part of it, is liable to no mistakes, at least of the involuntary kind; and may, for anything we know, be

He says (veiling it under discreet asterisks, which are now decipherable enough), The Durchlaucht of

LippeBuckeburg had summoned six Brethren of the Hamburg Lodge; of whom we mention only a Graf von

Kielmannsegge, a Baron von Oberg, both from Hanover, and Bielfeld himself, a Merchant's Son, of

Hamburg; these, with "Kielmannsegge's Valet to act as Tiler," Valet being also a Mason, and the rule equality

of mankind,were to have the honor of initiating the CrownPrince. They arrived at the Western Gate of

Brunswick on the 11th of August, as prearranged; Prussian Majesty not yet come, but coming punctually on

the morrow. It is Fairtime; all manner of traders, pedlers, showmen rendezvousing; many neighboring

Nobility too, as was still the habit. "Such a bulk of light luggage?" said the Customhouse people at the Gate;

but were pacified by slipping them a ducat. Upon which we drove to "Korn's Hotel" (if anybody now knew

it); and there patiently waited. No great things of a Hotel, says Bielfeld; but can be put up with;worst

feature is, we discover a Hanover acquaintance lodging close by, nothing but a wooden partition between us:

Prussian Majesty and suite, under universal cannonsalvos, arrived, Sunday the 12th; to stay till Wednesday

(three days) with his august Soninlaw and Daughter here. Durchlaucht Lippe presents himself at Court, the

rest of us not; privately settles with the Prince: "Tuesday night, eve of his Majesty's departure; that shall be

the night: at Korn's Hotel, late enough!" And there, accordingly, on the appointed night, 14th15th August,

1738, the lightluggage trunks have yielded their stageproperties; Jachin and Boaz are set up, and all things

are ready; Tiler (Kielmannsegge's Valet) watching with drawn sword against the profane. As to our Hanover

neighbor, on the other side the partition, says Bielfeld, we waited on him, this day after dinner, successively

paying our respects; successively pledged him in so many bumpers, he is lying dead drunk hours ago, could

not overhear a cannonbattery, he. And soon after midnight, the CrownPrince glides in, a Captain

Wartensleben accompanying, who is also a candidate; and the mysterious rites are accomplished on both of

Bielfeld could not enough admire the demeanor of this Prince, his clearness, sense, quiet brilliancy; and how

he was so "intrepid," and "possessed himself so gracefully in the most critical instants." Extremely genial air,

and so young, looks younger even than his years: handsome to a degree, though of short stature.

Physiognomy, features, quite charming; fine auburn hair (BEAU BRUN), a negligent plenty of it; "his large

blue eyes have something at once severe, sweet and gracious." Eligible Mason indeed. Had better make

despatch at present, lest Papa be getting on the road before him!Bielfeld delivered a small address,

composed beforehand; with which the Prince seemed to be content. And so, with masonic grip, they made

their adieus for the present; and the CrownPrince and Wartensleben were back at their posts, ready for the

His Majesty came on Sunday; goes on Wednesday, home now at a stretch; and, we hope, has had a good time

of it here, these three days. Daughter Charlotte and her Serene Husband, well with their subjects, well with

one another, are doing well; have already two little Children; a Boy the elder, of whom we have heard: Boy's

name is Karl, age now three; sprightly, reckoned very clever, by the fond parents;who has many things to

do in the world, by and by; to attack the French Revolution, and be blown to pieces by it on the Field of Jena,

for final thing! That is the fate of little Karl, who frolics about here, so sunshiny and ingenuous at present.

Karl's Grandmother, the Serene Dowager Duchess, Friedrich's own Motherinlaw, his Majesty and

Friedrich would also of course see here. Fine Younger Sons of hers are coming forward; the reigning Duke

beautifully careful about the furtherance of these Cadets of the House. Here is Prince Ferdinand, for instance;

just getting ready for the Grand Tour; goes in a month hence: [Mauvillon (FILS, son of him whom we cite

otherwise), Geschichte Ferdinands Herzogs von BraunschweigLuneburg (Leipzig, 1794), i. 1725.] a fine

eupeptic loyal young fellow; who, in a twenty years more, will be Chatham's Generalissimo, and fight the

French to some purpose. A Brother of his, the next elder, is now fighting the Turks for his Kaiser; does not

like it at all, under such Seckendorfs and WarMinistries as there are. Then, elder still, eldest of all the

Cadets, there is Anton Ulrich, over at Petersburg for some years past, with outlooks high enough: To wed the

Mecklenburg Princess there (Daughter of the unutterable Duke), and be as good as Czar of all the Russias one

day. Little to his profit, poor soul!These, historically ascertainable, are the aspects of the Brunswick Court

during those three days of Royal Visit, in Fairtime; and may serve to date the Masonic Transaction for us,

As for the Transaction itself, there is intrinsically no harm in this initiation, we will hope: but it behooves to

be kept well hidden from Papa. Papa's good opinion of the Prince has sensibly risen, in the course of this

Journey, "so rational, serious, not dangling about among the women as formerly;"and what a shock would

this of Korn's Hotel be, should Papa hear of it! Poor Papa, from officious talebearers he hears many things:

is in distress about Voltaire, about Heterodoxies;and summoned the Crown Prince, by express, from

Reinsberg, on one occasion lately, over to Potsdam, "to take the Communion" there, by way of case

hardening against Voltaire and Heterodoxies! Think of it, human readers!We will add the following stray

particulars, more or less illustrative of the Masonic Transaction; and so end that trifling affair.

The Captain Wartensleben, fellowrecipient of the mysteries at Brunswick, is youngest son, by a second

marriage, of old Feldmarschall Wartensleben, now deceased; and is consequently Uncle, HalfUncle, of poor

Lieutenant Katte, though some years younger than Katte would now have been. Tender memories hang by

Wartensleben, in a silent way! He is Captain in the Potsdam Giants; somewhat an intimate, and not

undeservedly so, of the CrownPrince;succeeds Wolden as Hofmarschall at Reinsberg, not many months

after this; Wolden having died of an apoplectic stroke. Of Bielfeld comes a Book, slightly citable; from no

other of the Brethren, or their Feat at Kern's, comes (we may say) anything whatever. The CrownPrince

prosecuted his Masonry, at Reinsberg or elsewhere, occasionally, for a year or two; but was never ardent in it;

and very soon after his Accession, left off altogether: "Child'splay and IGNIS FATUUS mainly!" A Royal

Lodge was established at Berlin, of which the new King consented to be patron; but he never once entered the

place; and only his Portrait (a welcomely good one, still to be found there) presided over the mysteries in that

Establishment. Harmless "fire," but too "fatuous;" mere flamecircles cut in the air, for infants, we know

With LippeBuckeburg there ensued some Correspondence, high enough on his Serenity's side; but it soon

languished on the Prince's side; and in private Poetry, within a two years of this Brunswick scene, we find

Lippe used proverbially for a typespecimen of Fools. ["Taciturne, Caton, avec mes bons parents, Aussi fou

que la Lippe met les jeunes gens." OEuvres, xi. 80 ( Discours sur la Faussete, written 1740).] A windy

fantastic individual;overwhelmed in financedifficulties too! Lippe continued writing; but "only

Secretaries now answered him" from Berlin. A son of his, son and successor, something of a Quixote too, but

Nor is Bielfeld with his Book a thing of much moment to Friedrich or to us. Bielfeld too has a light airy vein

of talk; loves Voltaire and the Philosophies in a light way;knows the arts of Society, especially the art of

flattering; and would fain make himself agreeable to the CrownPrince, being anxious to rise in the world.

His Father is a Hamburg Merchant, Hamburg "Sealingwax Manufacturer," not ill off for money: Son has

been at schools, high schools, under tutors, posturemasters; swashes about on those terms, with French

ESPRIT in his mouth, and lace ruffles at his wrists; still under thirty; showy enough, sharp enough;

considerably a coxcomb, as is still evident. He did transiently get about Friedrich, as we shall see; and hoped

to have sold his heart to good purpose there; was, by and by, employed in slight functions; not found fit for

grave ones. In the course of some years, he got a title of Baron; and sold his heart more advantageously, to

some rich Widow or Fraulein; with whom he retired to Saxony, and there lived on an Estate he had

His Book ( Lettres Familieres et Autres, all turning on Friedrich), which came out in 1763, at the height of

Friedrich's fame, and was much read, is still freely cited by Historians as an Authority. But the reading of a

few pages sufficiently intimates that these "Letters" never can have gone through a terrestrial Postoffice;

that they are an afterthought, composed from vague memory and imagination, in that fine Saxon retreat;a

sorrowful ghostlike "TRAVELS OF ANACHARSIS," instead of living words by an eyewitness! Not to be

cited "freely" at all, but sparingly and under conditions. They abound in small errors, in misdates, mistakes;

small fictions even, and impossible pretensions:foolish mortal, to write down his bit of knowledge in that

form! For the man, in spite of his lace ruffles and gesticulations, has brisk eyesight of a superficial kind: he

COULD have done us this little service (apparently his one mission in the world, for which Nature gave him

bed and board here); and he, the lace ruffles having gone into his soul, has been tempted into misdoing

it!Bielfeld and Bielfeld's Book, such as they are, appear to be the one conquest Friedrich got of

Freemasonry; no other result now traceable to us of that adventure in Korn's Hotel, crowning event of the

Feldmarschall Seckendorf, after unheardof wrestlings with the Turk War, and the Vienna WarOffice

(HOFKRIEGSRATH), is sitting, for the last three weeks,where thinks the reader?in the Fortress of

Gratz among the Hills of Styria; a StatePrisoner, not likely to get out soon! Seckendorf led forth, in 1737,

"such an Army, for number, spirit and equipment," say the Vienna people, "as never marched against the

Turk before;" and it must be owned, his ill success has been unparalleled. The blame was not altogether his;

not chiefly his, except for his rash undertaking of the thing, on such terms as there were. But the truth is, that

first scene we saw of him,an Army all gone out trumpeting and drumming into the woods to FIND its

CommanderinChief,was an emblem of the Campaign in general. Excellent Army; but commanded by

nobody in particular; commanded by a HOFKRIEGSRATH at Vienna, by a Franz Duke of Tuscany, by

Feldmarschall Seckendorf, and by subordinates who were disobedient to him: which accordingly, almost

without help of the Turk and his disorderly ferocity, rubbed itself to pieces before long. Roamed about, now

hither now thither, with plans laid and then with plans suddenly altered, Captain being Chaos mainly; in

swampy countries, by overflowing rivers, in hunger, hot weather, forced marches; till it was marched

gradualIy off its feet; and the clouds of chaotic Turks, who did finally show face, had a cheap pennyworth of

it. Never was such a campaign seen as this of Seckendorf in 1737, said mankind. Except indeed that the

present one, Campaign of 1738, in those parts, under a different hand, is still worse; and the Campaign of

1739, under still a different, will be worst of all!Kaiser Karl and his Austrians do not prosper in this Turk

War, as the Russians do,who indeed have got a General equal to his task: Munnich, a famed master in the

art of handling Turks and WarMinistries: real father of Russian Soldiering, say the Russians still. [See

MANNSTEIN for Munnich's plans with the Turk (methods and devices of steady Discipline in small

numbers VERSUS impetuous Ferocity in great); and Berenhorst ( Betrachtungen uber die Kriegskunst,

Campaign 1737, with clouds of chaotic Turks now sabring on the skirts of it, had not yet ended, when

Seckendorf was called out of it; on polite pretexts, home to Vienna; and the command given to another. At

the gates of Vienna, in the last days of October, 1737, an Official Person, waiting for the Feldmarschall, was

sorry to inform him, That he, Feldmarschall Seckendorf, was under arrest; arrest in his own house, in the

KOHLMARKT (Cabbagemarket so called), a captain and twelve musketeers to watch over him with fixed

bayonets there; strictly private, till the HOFKRIEGSRATH had satisfied themselves in a point or two.

"Hmph!" snuffled he; with brow blushing slatecolor, I should think, and gray eyes much alight. And ever

since, for ten months or so, Seckendorf, sealed up in the Cabbagemarket, has been fencing for life with the

HOFKRIEGSRATH; who want satisfaction upon "eightysix" different "points;" and make no end of

chicaning to one's clear answers. And the Jesuits preach, too: "A Heretic, born enemy of Christ and his

Kaiser; what is the use of questioning!" And the Heathen rage, and all men gnash their teeth, in this

Answering done, there comes no verdict, much less any acquittal; the captain and twelve musketeers, three of

them with fixed bayonets in one's very bedroom, continue. One evening, 21st July, 1738, glorious news from

the seat of Warnot TILL evening, as the Imperial Majesty was out huntingenters Vienna; blowing

trumpets; shaking flags: "Grand Victory over the Turks!" so we call some poor skirmish there has been; and

Vienna bursting all into three timesthree, the populace get very high. Populace rush to the Kohlmarkt:

break the Seckendorf windows; intent to massacre the Seckendorf; had not fresh military come, who were

obliged to fire and kill one or two. "The house captain and his twelve musketeers, of themselves, did

wonders; Seckendorf and all his domestics were in arms:" "JARNIBLEU" for the last time!This is while

the CrownPrince is at Wesel; sound asleep, most likely; Loo, and the Masonic adventure, perhaps twinkling

At two next morning, an Official Gentleman informs Seckendorf, That he, for his part, must awaken, and go

to Gratz. And in one hour more (3 A.M.), the Official Gentleman rolls off with him; drives all day; and

delivers his Prisoner at Gratz:"Not so much as a room ready there; Prisoner had to wait an hour in the

carriage," till some summary preparation were made. Wallneighbors of the poor Feldmarschall, in his

Fortress here, were "a GOLDCOOK (swindling Alchemist), who had gone crazy; and an Irish Lieutenant,

confined thirtytwo years for some loveadventure, likewise pretty crazy; their noises in the nighttime

much disturbed the Feldmarschall." [ Seckendorfs Leben, ii. 170277. See Schmettau, pp. 2759.] One

human thing there still is in his lot, the Feldmarschall's old Grafinn. True old Dame, she, both in the

Kohlmarkt and at Gratz, stands by him, "imprisoned along with him" if it must be so; ministering,

Rough old Feldmarschall; now turned of sixty: never made such a Campaign before, as this of 1737 followed

by 1738! There sits he; and will not trouble us any more during the present Kaiser's lifetime. Friedrich

Wilhelm is amazed at these sudden cantings of Fortune's wheel, and grieves honestly as for an old friend:

even the CrownPrince finds Seckendorf punished unjustly; and is almost, sorry for him, after all that has

We must add the following, distilled from the English Newspapers, though it is now almost four months after

"LONDON, 1st APRIL, 1738. In the English House of Commons, much more in the English Public, there has

been furious debating for a fortnight past: Committee of the whole House, examining witnesses, hearing

counsel; subject, the Termagant of Spain, and her West Indian procedures;she, by her procedures

somewhere, is always cutting out work for mankind! How English and other strangers, fallenin with in those

seas, are treated by the Spaniards, readers have heard, nay have chanced to see; and it is a fact painfully

known to all nations. Fact which England, for one nation, can no longer put up with. Walpole and the Official

Persons would fain smooth the matter; but the WestIndia Interest, the City, all Mercantile and Navigation

Interests are in dead earnest: Committee of the whole House, 'Presided by Alderman Perry,' has not ears

enough to hear the immensities of evidence offered; slow Public is gradually kindling to some sense of it.

This had gone on for two weeks, whenwhat shall we say?the EAR OF JENKINS reemerged for the

"Where Jenkins had been all this while,steadfastly navigating to and fro, steadfastly eating tough junk with

a wetting of rum; not thinking too much of past labors, yet privately 'always keeping his lost Ear in cotton'

(with a kind of ursine piety, or other dumb feeling),no mortal now knows. But to all mortals it is evident

he was home in London at this time; no doubt a noted member of Wapping society, the muchenduring

Jenkins. And witnesses, probably not one but many, had mentioned him to this Committee, as a case

eminently in point. Committee, as can still be read in its Rhadamanthine Journals, orders: 'DIE JOVIS, 16*

MARTII 17371738, That Captain Robert Jenkins do attend this House immediately;' and then more

specially, '17* MARTII" captious objections having risen in Official quarters, as we guess,'That Captain

Robert Jenkins do attend upon Tuesday morning next.' [ Commons Journals, xxiii. (in diebus).] Tuesday next

is 2lst March,1st of April, 1738, by our modern Calendar;and on that day, not adoubt, Jenkins does

attend; narrates that tremendous passage we already heard of, seven years ago, in the entrance of the Gulf of

Florida; and produces his Ear wrapt in cotton:setting all on flame (except the Official persons) at sight of

Official persons, as their wont is in the pressure of debate, endeavored to deny, to insinuate in their vile

Newspapers, That Jenkins lost his Ear nearer home and not for nothing; as one still reads in the History

Books. [Tindal (xx. 372). Coxe, Sheer calumnies, we now find. Jenkins's account was doubtless abundantly

emphatic; but there is no ground to question the substantial truth of him and it. And so, after seven years of

unnoticeable burning upon the thick skin of the English Public, the case of Jenkins accidentally burns

through, and sets England bellowing; such a smart is there of it,not to be soothed by Official wetcloths;

but getting worse and worse, for the nineteen months ensuing. And in shortBut we will not anticipate!

The Idyllium of Reinsbergof which, except in the way of sketchy suggestion, there can no history be

givenlasted less than four years; and is now coming to an end, unexpectedly soon. A pleasant Arcadian

Summer in one's life;though it has not wanted its occasional discords, flaws of ill weather in the general

sunshine. Papa, always in uncertain health of late, is getting heavier of foot and of heart under his heavy

burdens; and sometimes falls abstruse enough, liable to bewilderments from bad people and events: not much

worth noticing here. [See Pollnitz, ii. 509515; Friedrich's Letter to Wilhelmina ("Berlin, 20th January,

1739:" in OEuvres, xxvii. part 1st, pp. 60, 61); But the CrownPrince has learned to deal with all this; all this

is of transient nature; and a bright long future seems to lie ahead at Reinsberg;brightened especially by the

Literary Element; which, in this year of 1739, is brisker than it had ever been. Distinguished Visitors, of a

literary turn, look in at Reinsberg; the Voltaire Correspondence is very lively; on Friedrich's part there is

copious production, various enterprise, in the form of prose and verse; thoughts even of going to press with

some of it: in short, the Literary Interest rises very prominent at Reinsberg in 1739. Biography is apt to forget

the Literature there (having her reasons); but must at last take some notice of it, among the phenomena of the

To the young Prince himself, "courting tranquillity," as his door lintel intimated, [ "Frederico

tranquillitatem colenti" (Infra, p. 123).] and forbidden to be active except within limits, this of Literature was

all along the great light of existence at Reinsberg; the supplement to all other employments or wants of

employment there. To Friedrich himself, in those old days, a great and supreme interest; while again, to the

modern Biographer of him, it has become dark and vacant; a thing to be shunned, not sought. So that the fact

as it stood with Friedrich differs far from any description that can be given of the fact. Alas, we have said

already, and the constant truth is, Friedrich's literatures, his distinguished literary visitors and enterprises,

which were once brandnew and brilliant, have grown old as a garment, and are a sorrow rather than

otherwise to existing mankind! Conscientious readers, who would represent to themselves the vanished scene

As biographical documents, these Poetries and Proses of the young man give a very pretty testimony of him;

but are not of value otherwise. In fact, they promise, if we look well into them, That here is probably a

practical faculty and intellect of the highest kind; which again, on the speculative, especially on the poetical

side, will never be considerable, nor has even tried to be so. This young soul does not deal in meditation at

all, and his tendencies are the reverse of sentimental. Here is no introspection, morbid or other, no pathos or

complaint, no melodious informing of the public what dreadful emotions you labor under: here, in rapid

prompt form, indicating that it is truth and not fable, are generous aspirations for the world and yourself,

generous pride, disdain of the ignoble, of the dark, mendacious; here, in short, is a swifthanded, valiant,

STEELbright kind of soul; very likely for a King's, if other things answer, and not likely for a Poet's. No

doubt he could have made something of Literature too; could have written Books, and left some stamp of a

veracious, more or less victorious intellect, in that strange province too. But then he must have applied

himself to it, as he did to reigning: done in the cursory style, we see what it has come to.

It is certain, Friedrich's reputation suffers, at this day, from his writing. From his NOT having written

nothing, he stands lower with the world. Which seems hard measure;though perhaps it is the law of the

case, after all. "Nobody in these days," says my poor Friend, "has the least notion of the sinful waste there is

in talk, whether by pen or tongue. Better probably that King Friedrich had written no Verses; nay I know not

that David's Psalms did David's Kingship any good!" Which may be truer than it seems. Fine aspirations,

generous convictions, purposes,they are thought very fine: but it is good, on various accounts, to keep

them rather silent; strictly unvocal, except on call of real business; so dangerous are they for becoming

conscious of themselves! Most things do not ripen at all except underground. And it is a sad but sure truth,

that every time you SPEAK of a fine purpose, especially if with eloquence and to the admiration of

bystanders, there is the LESS chance of your ever making a fact of it in your poor life.If Reinsberg, and

its vacancy of great employment, was the cause of Friedrich's versewriting, we will not praise Reinsberg on

that head! But the truth is, Friedrich's verses came from him with uncommon fluency; and were not a deep

matter, but a shallow one, in any sense. Not much more to him than speaking with a will; than fantasying on

the flute in an animated strain. Ever and anon through his life, on small hint from without or on great, there

was found a certain leakage of verses, which he was prompt to utter;and the case at Reinsberg, or

In late months Friedrich had conceived one notable project; which demands a word in this place. Did modern

readers ever hear of "John Pine, the celebrated English Engraver"? John Pine, a man of good scholarship,

good skill with his burin, did "Tapestries of the House of Lords," and other things of a celebrated nature,

famous at home and abroad: but his peculiar feat, which had commended him at Reinsberg, was an Edition of

HORACE: exquisite old FLACCUS brought to perfection, as it were; all done with vignettes, classical

borderings, symbolic marginal ornaments, in fine taste and accuracy, the Text itself engraved; all by the

exquisite burin of Pine. ["London, 1737" ( Biographie Universelle, xxxiv. 465).] This Edition had come out

last year, famous over the world; and was by and by, as rumor bore, to be followed by a VIRGIL done in the

The Pine HORACE, part of the Pine VIRGIL too, still exist in the libraries of the curious; and are doubtless

known to the proper parties, though much forgotten by others of us. To Friedrich, scanning the Pine

phenomenon with interest then brandnew, it seemed an admirable tribute to classical genius; and the idea

occurred to him, "Is not there, by Heaven's blessing, a living genius, classical like those antique Romans, and

worthy of a like tribute?" Friedrich's idea was, That Voltaire being clearly the supreme of Poets, the

HENRIADE, his supreme of Poems, ought to be engraved like FLACCUS; text and all, with vignettes,

tailpieces, classical borderings beautifully symbolic and exact; by the exquisite burin of Pine. Which idea

the young heroworshipper, in spite of his financedifficulties, had resolved to realize; and was even now

busy with it, since his return from Loo. "Such beautiful enthusiasm," say some readers; "and in behalf of that

particular demigod!" Alas, yes; to Friedrich he was the best demigod then going; and Friedrich never had

For the rest, this heroic idea could not realize itself; and we are happy to have nothing more to do with Pine

or the HENRIADE. Correspondences were entered into with Pine, aud some pains taken: Pine's high prices

were as nothing; but Pine was busy with his VIRGIL; probably, in fact, had little stomach for the

HENRIADE; "could not for seven years to come enter upon it:" so that the matter had to die away; and

nothing came of it but a small DISSERTATION, or Introductory Essay, which the Prince had got

ready,which is still to be found printed in Voltaire's Works [ OEuvres, xiii. 393402.] and in Friedrich's,

if anybody now cared much to read it. Preuss says it was finished, "the 10th August, 1739;" and that minute

fact in Chronology, with the above tale of Heroworship hanging to it, will suffice my readers and me.

But there is another literary project on hand, which did take effect;much worthy of mention, this year; the

whole world having risen into such a Chorus of TE DEUM at sight of it next year. In this year falls, what at

any rate was a great event to Friedrich, as literary man: the printing of his first Book, assiduous writing of

it with an eye to print. The Book is that "celebrated ANTIMACHIAVEL," everpraiseworthy Refutation of

Machiavel's PRINCE; concerning which there are such immensities of Voltaire Correspondence, now

become, like the Book itself, inane to all readers. This was the chosen soul's employment of Friedrich, the

flower of life to him, at Reinsberg, through the yea? 1739. It did not actually get to press till Spring 1740; nor

actually come out till Autumn,by which time a great change had occurred in Friedrich's title and

circumstances: but we may as well say here what little is to be said of it for modern readers.

"The CrownPrince, reading this bad Book of Machiavel's, years ago, had been struck, as all honest souls,

especially governors or apprentices to governing, must be, if they thought of reading such a thing, with its

badness, its falsity, detestability; and came by degrees, obliquely fishing out Voltaire's opinion as he went

along, on the notion of refuting Machiavel; and did refute him, the best he could. Set down, namely, his own

earnest contradiction to such ungrounded noxious doctrines; elaborating the same more and more into clear

logical utterance; till it swelled into a little Volume; which, so excellent was it, so important to mankind,

Voltaire and friends were clear for publishing. Published accordingly it was; goes through the press next

Summer (1740), under Voltaire's anxious superintendence: [Here, gathered from Friedrich's Letters to

1738, MARCH 21, JUNE 17, "Machiavel a baneful man," thinks Friedrich. "Ought to be refuted by

1739, MARCH 22, Friedrich thinks of doing it himself. Has done it, DECEMBER 4;"a Book which

1740, APRIL 26, Book given up to Voltaire for printing. Printing finished; Book appears, "end of

SEPTEMBER," when a great change had occurred in Friedrich's title and position.] for the Prince has at

length consented; and Voltaire hands the Manuscript, with mystery yet with hints, to a Dutch Bookseller, one

Van Duren at the Hague, who is eager enough to print such an article. Voltaire himselfsuch his

magnanimous friendship, especially if one have Dutch Lawsuits, or business of one's own, in those parts

takes charge of correcting; lodges himself in the 'Old Court' (Prussian Mansion, called VIEILLE COUR, at

the Hague, where 'Luiscius,' figuratively speaking, may 'get an alms' from us); and therefrom corrects, alters;

corresponds with the Prince and Van Duren, at a great rate. Keeps correcting, altering, till Van Duren thinks

he is spoiling it for sale;and privately determines to preserve the original Manuscript, and have an edition

of that, with only such corrections as seem good to Van Duren. A treasonous step on this mule of a

Bookseller's part, thinks Voltaire; but mulishly persisted in by the man. Endless correspondence, to right and

left, ensues; intolerably wearisome to every reader. And, in fine, there came out, in Autumn next,"the

CrownPrince no longer a CrownPrince by that time, but shining conspicuous under Higher Title,"not

one ANTIMACHIAVEL only, but a couple or a trio of ANTIMACHIAVELS; as printed 'at the Hague;' as

reprinted 'at London' or elsewhere; the confused Bibliography of which has now fallen very insignificant.

First there was the Voltaire text, Authorized Edition, 'end of September, 1740;' then came, in few weeks, the

Van Duren one; then, probably, a third, combining the two, the variations given as footnotes:in short, I

know not how many editions, translations, printings and reprintings; all the world being much taken up with

"As to Friedrich himself, who of course says nothing of the ANTIMACHIAVEL in public, he privately, to

Voltaire, disowns all these editions; and intends to give a new one of his own, which shall be the right article;

but never did it, having far other work cut out for him in the months that came. But how zealous the worlds

humor was in that matter, no modern reader can conceive to himself. In the frightful Compilation called

HELDENGESCHICHTE, which we sometimes cite, there are, excerpted from the then 'Bibliotheques'

(NOUVELLE BIBLIOTHEQUE and another; shining Periodicals of the time, now gone quite dead), two

'reviews' of the ANTIMACHIAVEL, which fill modern readers with amazement: such a DOMINE

DIMITTAS chanted over such an article!These details, in any other than the Biographical point of view,

Truly, yes! The CrownPrince's ANTIMACHIAVEL, final correct edition (in two forms, Voltaire's as

corrected, and the Prince's own as written), stands now in clear type; [Preuss, OEuvres de Frederic, viii.

61163.] and, after all that jumble of printing and counterprinting, we can any of us read it in a few hours;

but, alas, almost none of us with the least interest, or, as it were, with any profit whatever. So different is

present tense from past, in all things, especially in things like these! It is sixscore years since the

ANTIMACHIAVEL appeared. The spectacle of one who was himself a King (for the mysterious fact was

well known to Van Duren and everybody) stepping forth to say with conviction, That Kingship was not a

thing of attorney mendacity, to be done under the patronage of Beelzebub, but of human veracity, to be set

about under quite Other patronage; and that, in fact, a King was the "born servant of his People"

(DOMESTIQUE Friedrich once calls it), rather than otherwise: this, naturally enough, rose upon the then

populations, unused to such language, like the dawn of a new day; and was welcomed with such applauses as

are now incredible, after all that has come and gone! Alas, in these sixscore years, it has been found so easy

to profess and speak, even with sincerity! The actual HeroKings were long used to be silent; and the

ShamHero kind grow only the more desperate for us, the more they speak and profess!This

ANTIMACHIAVEL of Friedrich's is a clear distinct Treatise; confutes, or at least heartily contradicts,

paragraph by paragraph, the incredible sophistries of Machiavel. Nay it leaves us, if we sufficiently force our

attention, with the comfortable sense that his Royal Highness is speaking with conviction, and honestly from

the heart, in the affair: but that is all the conquest we get of it, in these days. Treatise fallen more extinct to

Perhaps indeed mankind is getting weary of the question altogether. Machiavel himself one now reads only

by compulsion. "What is the use of arguing with anybody that can believe in Machiavel?" asks mankind, or

might well ask; and, except for Editorial purposes, eschews any ANTIMACHIAVEL; impatient to be rid of

bane and antidote both. Truly the world has had a pother with this little Nicolo Machiavelli and his perverse

little Book: pity almost that a Friedrich Wilhelm, taking his rounds at that point of time, had not had the

"refuting" of him; Friedrich Wilhelm's method would have been briefer than Friedrich's! But let us hope the

thing is now, practically, about completed. And as to the other question, "Was the Signor Nicolo serious in

this perverse little Book; or did he only do it ironically, with a serious inverse purpose?" we will leave that to

be decided, any time convenient, by people who are much at leisure in the world!

The printing of the ANTIMACHIAVEL was not intrinsically momentous in Friedrich's history; yet it might

as well have been dispensed with. He had here drawn a fine program, and needlessly placarded it for the

street populations: and afterwards there rose, as could not fail on their part, comparison between program and

performance; scornful cry, chiefly from men of weak judgment, "Is this King an ANTIMachiavel, then?

Pfui!" Of which,though Voltaire's voice, too, was heard in it, in angry moments,we shall say nothing:

the reader, looking for himself, will judge by and by. And herewith enough of the ANTIMACHIAVEL.

Composition of ANTIMACHIAVEL and speculation of the Pine HENRIADE lasted, both of them, all

through this Year 1739, and farther: from these two items, not to mention any other, readers can figure

In July this year the CrownPrince went with Papa on the Prussian Reviewjourney. ["Set out, 7th July"

( OEuvres, xxvii. part lst, 67 n.).] Such attendance on Review journeys, a mark of his being well with Papa,

is now becoming usual; they are agreeable excursions, and cannot but be instructive as well. On this

occasion, things went beautifully with him. Out in those grassy Countries, in the bright Summer, once more

he had an unusually fine time;and two very special pleasures befell him. First was, a sight of the

Emigrants, our Salzburgers and other, in their flourishing condition, over in Lithuania yonder. Delightful to

see how the waste is blossoming up again; busy men, with their industries, their steady pious husbandries,

making all things green and fruitful: horsedroves, cattleherds, waving cornfields;a very

"SCHMALZGRUBE (Butter pit)" of those Northern parts, as it is since called. [Busching, Erdbeschreibung,

ii. 1049.] The CrownPrince's own words on this matter we will give; they are in a Letter of his to Voltaire,

perhaps already known to some readers;and we can observe he writes rather copiously from those

"INSTERBURG, 27th JULY, 1739 (CrownPrince to Voltaire). ... Prussian Lithuania is a Country a hundred

and twenty miles long, by from sixty to forty broad; ["Miles ENGLISH," we always mean, UNLESS it was

ravaged by Pestilence at the beginning of this Century; and they say three hundred thousand people died of

disease and famine." Ravaged by Pestilence and the neglect of King Friedrich I.; till my Father, once his

"Since that time," say twenty years ago, "there is no expense that the King has been afraid of, in order to

succeed in his salutary views. He made, in the first place, regulations full of wisdom; he rebuilt wherever the

Pestilence had desolated: thousands of families, from the ends of Europe," seventeen thousand Salzburgers

for the last item, "were conducted hither; the Country repeopled itself; trade began to flourish again;and

"There are above half a million of inhabitants in Lithuania; there are more towns than there ever were, more

flocks than formerly, more wealth and more productiveness than in any other part of Germany. And all this

that I tell you of is due to the King alone: who not only gave the orders, but superintended the execution of

them; it was he that devised the plans, and himself got them carried to fulfilment; and spared neither care nor

pains, nor immense expenditures, nor promises nor recompenses, to secure happiness and life to this

halfmillion of thinking beings, who owe to him alone that they have possessions and felicity in the world.

"I hope this detail does not weary you. I depend on your humanity extending itself to your Lithuanian

brethren, as well as to your French, English, German, or other,all the more as, to my great astonishment, I

passed through villages where you hear nothing spoken but French.I have found something so heroic, in

the generous and laborious way in which the King addressed himself to making this desert flourish with

inhabitants and happy industries and fruits, that it seemed to me you would feel the same sentiments in

learning the circumstances of such a reestablishment. "I daily expect news of you from Enghien [in those

DutchLawsuit Countries]. ... The divine Emilie; ... the Duke [D'Aremberg, Austrian Soldier, of convivial

turn,remote WelshUncle to a certain little Prince de Ligne, now spinning tops in those parts; [Born 23d

May, 1735, this latter little Prince; lasted till 13th December, 1814 ("DANSE, MAIS IL NE MARCHE

PAS").] not otherwise interesting], whom Apollo contends for against Bacchues. ... Adieu. NE M'OUBLIEZ

This is one pleasant scene, to the CrownPrince and us, in those grassy localities. And now we have to

mention that, about a fortnight later, at Konigsberg one day, in reference to a certain Royal Stud or

Horsebreeding Establishment in those same Lithuanian regions, there had a still livelier satisfaction

happened him; satisfaction of a personal and filial nature. The name of this Royal Stud, inestimable on such

ground, is Trakehnen,lies south of Tilsit, in an upper valley of the Pregel river;very extensive

HorseEstablishment, "with seven farms under it," say the Books, and all "in the most perfect order," they

need hardly add, Friedrich Wilhelm being master of it. Well, the Royal Party was at Konigsberg, so far on the

road homewards again from those outlying parts, when Friedrich Wilhelm said one day to his Son, quite in a

cursory manner, "I give thee that Stud of Trakehnen; thou must go back and look to it;" which struck Fritz

For it is worth near upon 2,000 pounds a year (12,000 thalers); a welcome new item in our impoverished

budget; and it is an undeniable sign of Papa's goodhumor with us, which is more precious still. Fritz made

his acknowledgments, eloquent with looks, eloquent with voice, on coming to himself; and is, in fact, very

proud of his gift, and celebrates it to his Wilhelmina, to Camas and others who have a right to know such a

thing. Grand useful gift; and handed over by Papa grandly, in three business words, as if it had been a brace

of game: "I give it thee, Fritz!" A thing not to be forgotten. "At bottom, Friedrich Wilhelm was not

avaricious" (not a miser, only a man grandly abhorring waste, as the poor vulgar cannot do), "not avaricious,"

says Pollnitz once; "he made munificent gifts, and never thought of them more." This of

Trakehnen,perhaps there might be a whiff of coming Fate concerned in it withal: "I shall soon be dead, not

able to give thee anything, poor Fritz!" To the Prince and us it is very beautiful; a fine effulgence of the inner

man of Friedrich Wilhelm. The Prince returned to Trakehnen, on this glad errand; settled the business details

there; and, after a few days, went home by a route of his own;well satisfied with this Prussian Review

One sad thing there was, though Friedrich did not yet know how sad, in this Reviewjourney: the new fit of

illness that overtook his Majesty. From Pollnitz, who was of the party, we have details on that head. In his

Majesty's last bad illness, five years ago, when all seemed hopeless, it appears the surgeons had relieved

him,in fact recovered him, bringing off the bad humors in quantity,by an incision in the foot or leg. In

the course of the present fatigues, this old wound broke out again; which of course stood much in the way of

his Majesty; and could not be neglected, as probably the causes of it were. A regimental surgeon, Pollnitz

says, was called in; who, in two days, healed the wound,and declared all to be right again; though in fact,

as we may judge, it was dangerously worse than before. "All well here," writes Friedrich; "the King has been

out of order, but is now entirely recovered (TOUT A FAIT REMIS)." ["Konigsberg, 30th July, 1739," to his

Much reviewing and heavy business followed at Konigsberg;gift of Trakehnen, and departure of the

CrownPrince for Trakehnen, winding it up. Directly on the heel of which, his Majesty turned homewards,

the CrownPrince not to meet him till once at Berlin again. Majesty's first stage was at Pillau, where we have

been. At Pillau, or next day at Dantzig, Pollnitz observed a change in his Majesty's humor, which had been

quite sunshiny all this journey hitherto. At Dantzig Pollnitz first noticed it; but at every new stage it grew

worse, evil accidents occurring to worsen it; and at Berlin it was worst of all;and, alas, his poor Majesty

never recovered his sunshine in this world again! Here is Pollnitz's account of the journey homewards:

"Till now," till Pillau and Dantzig, "his Majesty had been in especially good humor; but in Dantzig his

cheerfulness forsook him;and it never came back. He arrived about ten at night in that City [Wednesday,

12th August, or thereby]; slept there; and was off again next morning at five. He drove only thirty miles this

day; stopped in Lupow [coast road through Pommern], with Herr von Grumkow [the late Grumkow's

Brother], Kammer President in this Pommern Province. From Lupow he went to a poor Village near Belgard,

EIGHTY miles farther;"last village on the great road, Belgard lying to left a little, on a side road;"and

"At Belgard, next morning, he reviewed the Dragoon Regiment von Platen; and was very ill content with it.

And nobody, with the least understanding of that business, but must own that never did Prussian Regiment

manoeuvre worse. Conscious themselves how bad it was, they lost head, and got into open confusion. The

King did all that was possible to help them into order again. He withdrew thrice over, to give the Officers

time to recover themselves; but it was all in vain. The King, contrary to wont, restrained himself amazingly,

and would not show his displeasure in public. He got into his carriage, and drove away with the Furst of

Anhalt," Old Dessauer, "and Von Winterfeld," Captain in the Giant Regiment, "who is now MajorGeneral

von Winterfeld; [MajorGeneral since 1743, of high fame; fell in fight, 7th September, 1757.] not staying to

dine with General von Platen, as was always his custom with Commandants whom he had reviewed. He bade

Prince Wilhelm and the rest of us stay and dine; he himself drove away,"towards the great road again, and

"We stayed accordingly; and did full justice to the good cheer," though poor Platen would certainly look

flustered, one may fancy. "But as the Prince was anxious to come up with his Majesty again, and knew not

"We found the King with Anhalt and Winterfeld, by and by; sitting in a village, in front of a barn, and eating

a cold pie there, which the Furst of Anhalt had chanced to have with him; his Majesty, owing to what he had

seen on the paradeground, was in the utmost illhumor (HOCHST UBLER LAUNE). Next day, Saturday,

he went a hundred and fifty or two hundred miles; and arrived in Berlin at ten at night. Not expected there till

the morrow; so that his rooms were locked,her Majesty being over in Monbijou, giving her children a

Nobody, not at first even the Doctors, much heeded this new fit of illness; which went and came: "changed

temper," deeper or less deep gloom of "bad humor," being the main phenomenon to by standers. But the sad

truth was, his Majesty never did recover his sunshine; from Pillau onwards he was slowly entering into the

shadows of the total Last Eclipse; and his journeyings and reviewings in this world were all done. Ten

Friedrich had not been long home again from Trakehnen and Preussen, when the routine of things at

Reinsberg was illuminated by Visitors, of brilliant and learned quality; some of whom, a certain Signor

Algarotti for one, require passing mention here. Algarotti, who became a permanent friend or satellite, very

luminous to the Prince, and was much about him in coming years, first shone out upon the scene at this

On his own score, Algarotti has become a wearisome literary man to modern readers: one of those

halfremembered men; whose books seem to claim a reading, and do not repay it you when given. Treatises,

of a serious nature, ON THE OPERA; setting forth, in earnest, the potential "moral uses" of the Opera, and

dedicated to Chatham; Neutonianismo per le Donne (Astronomy for Ladies): the mere Titles of such things

are fatally sufficient to us; and we cannot, without effort, nor with it, recall the brilliancy of Algarotti and

Algarotti was a rich Venetian Merchant's Son, precisely about the CrownPrince's age; shone greatly in his

studies at Bologna and elsewhere; had written Poesies (RIME); written especially that Newtonianism for the

Dames (equal to Fontenelle, said Fame, and orthodox Newtonian withal, not heterodox or Cartesian); and had

shone, respected, at Paris, on the strength of it, for three or four years past: friend of Voltaire in consequence,

of Voltaire and his divine Emilie, and a welcome guest at Cirey; friend of the cultivated world generally,

which was then laboring, divine Emilie in the van of it, to understand Newton and be orthodox in this

department of things. Algarotti did fine Poesies, too, once and again; did Classical Scholarships, and much

else: everywhere a clearheaded, methodically distinct, concise kind of man. A high style of breeding about

him, too; had powers of pleasing, and used them: a man beautifully lucent in society, gentle yet impregnable

there; keeping himself unspotted from the world and its discrepancies, really with considerable prudence,

He is somewhat of the Bielfeld type; a Merchant's Son, we observe, like Bielfeld; but a Venetian Merchant's,

not a Hamburg's; and also of better natural stuff than Bielfeld. Concentrated himself upon his task with more

seriousness, and made a higher thing of it than Bielfeld; though, after all, it was the same task the two had.

Alas, our "Swan of Padua" (so they sometimes called him) only sailed, paddling grandly, nowhither,as

the SwanGoose of the Elbe did, in a less stately manner! One cannot well bear to read his Books. There is

no light upon Friedrich to tempt us; better light than Bielfeld's there could have been, and much of it: but he

prudently, as well as proudly, forbore such topics. He approaches very near fertility and geniality in his

writings, but never reaches it. Dilettantism become serious and strenuous, in those departmentsWell, it was

beautiful to young Friedrich and the world at that time, though it is not to us!Young Algarotti,

twentyseven this year, has been touring about as a celebrity these four years past, on the strength of his fine

It was under escort of Baltimore, "an English Milord," recommended from Potsdam itself, that Algarotti

came to Reinsberg; the Signor had much to do with English people now and after. Where Baltimore first

picked him up, I know not: but they have been to Russia together; Baltimore by twelve years the elder of the

two: and now, getting home towards England again, they call at Reinsberg in the fine Autumn weather;and

considerably captivate the CrownPrince, Baltimore playing chief, in that as in other points. The visit lasted

five days: [20th25th September, 1739 ( OEuvres de Frederic, xiv. p. xiv).] there was copious speech on

many things;discussion about Printing of the ANTI MACHIAVEL; Algarotti to get it printed in England,

Algarotti to get Pine and his Engraved HENRIADE put under way; neither of which projects took

effect;readers can conceive what a charming five days these were. Here, in the CrownPrince's own

Chapter VII. LAST YEAR OF REINSBERG: TRANSIT OF BALTIMORE AND OTHER PERSONS AND THINGS. 510

REINSBERG, 25th SEPT. 1739 (CrownPrince to Papa). ... that "nothing new has occurred in the Regiment,

and we have few sick. Here has the English Milord, who was at Potsdam, passing through [stayed five days,

though we call it passing, and suppress the Algarotti, Baltimore being indeed chief]. He is gone towards

Hamburg, to take ship for England there. As I heard that my Most Allgracious Father wished I should show

him courtesy, I have done for him what I could. The Prince of Mirow has also been here," our old Strelitz

friend. Of Baltimore nothing more to Papa. But to another Correspondent, to the good Suhm (who is now at

Petersburg, and much in our intimacy, ready to transact loans for us, translate Wolf, or do what is wanted),

REINSBERG, 26th SEPTEMBER, 1739 (to Suhm). "We have had Milord Baltimore here, and the young

Algarotti; both of them men who, by their accomplishments, cannot but conciliate the esteem and

consideration of all who see them. We talked much of you [Suhm], of Philosophy, of Science, Art; in short,

of all that can be included in the taste of cultivated people (HONNETES GENS)." [ OEuvres de Frederic,

REINSBERG, 10th OCTOBER, 1739 (to Voltaire). "We have had Milord Baltimore and Algarotti here, who

are going back to England. This Milord is a very sensible man (HOMME TRESSENSE); who possesses a

great deal of knowledge, and thinks, like us, that sciences can be no disparagement to nobility, nor degrade an

illustrious rank. I admired the genius of this ANGLAIS, as one does a fine face through a crape veil. He

speaks French very ill, yet one likes to hear him speak it; and as for his English, he pronounces it so quick,

there is no possibility of following him. He calls a Russian 'a mechanical animal.' He says 'Petersburg is the

eye of Russia, with which it keeps civilized countries in sight; if you took this eye from it, Russia would fall

again into barbarism, out of which it is just struggling.' [Ib. xxi. 326, 327.] ... Young Algarotti, whom you

know, pleased me beyond measure. He promised that he"But Baltimore, promise or not, is the chief figure

Evidently an original kind of figure to us, CET ANGLAIS. And indeed there is already finished a rhymed

EPISTLE to Baltimore; Epitre sur la Liberte (copy goes in that same LETTER, for Voltaire's behoof), which

dates itself likewise October 10th; beginning, "L'esprit libre, Milord, qui regne en Angleterre," which,

though it is full of fine sincere sentiments, about human dignity, papal superstition, Newton, Locke, and

aspirations for progress of culture in Prussia, no reader could stand at this epoch.

What Baltimore said in answer to the EPITRE, we do not know; probably not much: it does not appear he

ever saw or spoke to Friedrich a second time. Three weeks after, Friedrich writing to Algarotti, has these

words: "I pray you make my friendships to Milord Baltimore, whose character and manner of thinking I truly

esteem. I hope he has, by this time, got my EPITRE on the English Liberty of Thought." [29th October 1739,

To Algarotti in London ( OEuvres, xviii. 5).] And so Baltimore passes on, silent in History

henceforth,though Friedrich seems to have remembered him to late times, as a kind of typefigure when

England came into his head. For the sake of this small transit over the sun's disk, I have made some inquiry

"He was Charles, Sixth Lord Baltimore, it appears; Sixth, and last but one. First of the Baltimores, we know,

was Secretary Calvert (16181624), who colonized Maryland; last of them (1774) was the Son of this

Charles; something of a fool, to judge by the face of him in Portraits, and by some of his doings in the world.

He, that Seventh Baltimore, printed one or two little Volumes "now of extreme rarity"cannot be too rare);

and winded up by standing an ugly Trial at Kingston Assizes (plaintiff an unfortunate female). After which

he retired to Naples, and there ended, 1774, the last of these Milords. [Walpole (by Park), Catalogue of Royal

"He of the Kingston Assizes, we say, was not this Charles; but his Son, whom let the reader forget. Charles,

age forty at this time, had travelled about the Continent a good deal: once, long ago, we imagined we had got

Chapter VII. LAST YEAR OF REINSBERG: TRANSIT OF BALTIMORE AND OTHER PERSONS AND THINGS. 511

a glimpse of him (but it was a guess merely) lounging about Luneville and Lorraine, along with Lyttelton, in

the CongressofSoissons time? Not long after that, it is certain enough, he got appointed a Gentleman of the

Bedchamber to Prince Fred; who was a friend of speculative talkers and cultivated people. In which situation

Charles Sixth Baron Baltimore continued all his days after; and might have risen by means of Fred, as he was

anxious enough to do, had both of them lived; but they both died; Baltimore first, in 1751, a year before Fred.

Bubb Doddington, diligent laborer in the same Fred vineyard, was much infested by this Baltimore,who,

drunk or sober (for he occasionally gets into liquor), is always putting out Bubb, and stands too well with our

Royal Master, one secretly fears! Baltimore's finances, I can guess, were not in too good order; mostly an

Absentee; Irish Estates not managed in the first style, while one is busy in the Fred vineyard! 'The best and

honestest man in the world, with a good deal of jumbled knowledge,' Walpole calls him once: 'but not

capable of conducting a party.'" [Walpole's Letters to Mann (London, 1843), ii. 175; 27th January, 1747. See

ib. i. 82.] Oh no;and died, at any rate, Spring 1751: [ Peerage of Ireland (London, 1768), ii. 172174.] and

Directly on the rear of these fine visitors, came, by invitation, a pair of the Korn'sHotel people; Masonic

friends; one of whom was Bielfeld, whose dainty Installation Speech and ways of procedure had been of

promise to the Prince on that occasion. "Baron von Oberg" was the other:Hanoverian Baron: the same who

went into the Wars, and was a "General von Oberg" twenty years hence? The same or another, it does not

much concern us. Nor does the visit much, or at all; except that Bielfeld, being of writing nature, professes to

give ocular account of it. Honest transcript of what a human creature actually saw at Reinsberg, and in the

Berlin environment at that date, would have had a value to mankind: but Bielfeld has adopted the fictitious

form; and pretty much ruined for us any transcript there is. Exaggeration, gesticulation, fantastic uncertainty

afflict the reader; and prevent comfortable belief, except where there is other evidence than Bielfeld's.

At Berlin the beautiful straight streets, Linden Avenues (perhaps a better sample than those of our day), were

notable to Bielfeld; bridges, statues very fine; grand esplanades, and such military drilling and parading as

was never seen. He had dinner invitations, too, in quantity; likes this one and that (all in prudent

asterisks),likes Truchsess von Waldburg very much, and his strange mode of bachelor housekeeping, and

the way he dines and talks among his fellowcreatures, or sits studious among his Military Books and

Paperlitters. But all is loose faroff sketching, in the style of Anacharsis the Younger; and makes no solid

Getting to Reinsberg, to the Town, to the Schloss, he crosses the esplanade, the moat; sees what we know,

beautiful square Mansion among its woods and waters;and almost nothing that we do not know, except the

way the moatbridge is lighted: "Bridge furnished," he says, "with seven Statues representing the seven

Planets, each holding in her hand a glass lamp in the form of a globe;"which is a pretty object in the

nighttime. The House is now finished; Knobelsdorf rejoicing in his success; Pesne and others giving the last

touch to some ceilings of a sublime nature. On the lintel of the gate is inscribed FREDERICO

TRANQUILLITATEM COLENTI (To Friedrich courting Tranquillity). The gardens, walks, hermitages,

grottos, are very spacious, fine: not yet completed, perhaps will never be. A Temple of Bacchus is just now

on hand, somewhere in those labyrinthic woods: "twelve gigantic Satyrs as caryatides, crowned by an

inverted Punchbowl for dome;" that is the ingenious Knobelsdorf's idea, pleasant to the mind. Knobelsdorf

is of austere aspect; austere, yet benevolent and full of honest sagacity; the very picture of sound sense, thinks

Bielfeld. M. Jordan is handsome, though of small stature; agreeable expression of face; eye extremely vivid;

brown complexion, bushy eyebrows as well as beard are black. [Bielfeld (abridged), i. 45.]

Or did the reader ever hear of "M. Fredersdorf," Head Valet at this time? Fredersdorf will become, as it were,

PrivyPurse, HouseFriend, and domestic Factotum, and play a great part in coming years. "A tall handsome

man;" much "silent sense, civility, dexterity;" something "magnificently clever in him," thinks Bielfeld (now,

Chapter VII. LAST YEAR OF REINSBERG: TRANSIT OF BALTIMORE AND OTHER PERSONS AND THINGS. 512

or else twenty years afterwards); whom we can believe. [Ib. p. 49.] He was a gift from General Schwerin, this

Fredersdorf; once a Private in Schwerin's regiment, at Frankfurt onOder,excellent on the flute, for one

quality. Schwerin, who had an eye for men, sent him to Friedrich, in the Custrin time; hoping he might suit in

fluting and otherwise. Which he conspicuously did. Bielfeld's account, we must candidly say, appears to be

As to the CrownPrince and Princess, words fail to express their gracious perfections, their affabilities, polite

ingenuities: Bielfeld's words do give us some pleasant shadowy conceivability of the CrownPrincess:

"Tall, and perfect in shape; bust such as a sculptor might copy; complexion of the finest; features ditto; nose,

I confess, smallish and pointed, but excellent of that kind; hair of the supremest flaxen, 'shining' like a flood

of sunbeams, when the powder is off it. A humane ingenuous Princess; little negligences in toilet or the like,

if such occur, even these set her off, so ingenuous are they. Speaks little; but always to the purpose, in a

simple, cheerful and wise way. Dances beautifully; heart (her soubrette assures me) is heavenly;and

Of the CrownPrincess there is some pleasant shadow traced as on cobweb, to this effect. But of the

CrownPrince there is no forming the least conception from what he says:this is mere cobweb with

Nothing elaborately painted on it. Nor do the portraits of the others attract by their verisimilitude. Here is

Colonel Keyserling, for instance; the witty Courlander, famous enough in the Friedrich circle; who went on

embassy to Cirey, and much else: he "whirls in with uproar (FRACAS) like Boreas in the Ballet;"

fowlingpiece on shoulder, and in his "dressinggown" withal, which is still stranger; snatches off Bielfeld,

unknown till that moment, to sit by him while dressing; and there, with much capering, pirouetting, and

indeed almost groundandlofty tumbling, for accompaniment, "talks of Horses, Mathematics, Painting,

Architecture, Literature, and the Art of War," while he dresses. This gentleman was once Colonel in Friedrich

Wilhelm's Army; is now fairly turned of forty, and has been in troubles: we hope he is not LIKE in the

Bielfeld Portrait;otherwise, how happy that we never had the honor of knowing him! Indeed, the

CrownPrince's Household generally, as Bielfeld paints it in flourishes of panegyric, is but unattractive;

barren to the modern onlooker; partly the Painter's blame, we doubt not. He gives details about their mode

of dining, taking coffee, doing concert; and describes once an incidental drinkingbout got up

aforethought by the Prince; which is probably in good part fiction, though not ill done. These fantastic

sketchings, rigorously winnowed into the credible and actual, leave no great residue in that kind; but what

Bielfeld made a visit privately to Potsdam, too: saw the Giants drill; made acquaintance with important

Captains of theirs (all in ASTERISKS) at Potsdam; with whom he dined, not in a too credible manner, and

even danced. Among the asterisks, we easily pick out Captain Wartensleben (of the Korn'sHotel operation),

and Winterfeld, a still more important Captain, whom we saw dining on cold pie with his Majesty, at a

barndoor in Pommern, not long since. Of the Giants, or their life at Potsdam, Bielfeld's word is not worth

hearing,worth suppressing rather; his knowledge being so small, and hung forth in so fantastic a way. This

transient sight he had of his Majesty in person; this, which is worth something to us,fact being evidently

lodged in it, "After churchparade," Autumn Sunday afternoon (day uncertain, Bielfeld's date being

fictitious, and even impossible), Majesty drove out to Wusterhausen, "where the quantities of game surpass

"I saw his Majesty only, as it were, in passing. If I may judge by his Portraits, he must have been of a perfect

beauty in his young time; but it must be confessed there is nothing left of it now. His eyes truly are fine; but

the glance of them is terrible: his complexion is composed of the strongest tints of red, blue, yellow,

green,"not a lovely complexion at all; "big head; the thick neck sunk between the shoulders; figure short

Chapter VII. LAST YEAR OF REINSBERG: TRANSIT OF BALTIMORE AND OTHER PERSONS AND THINGS. 513

"Going out to Wusterhausen," then, that afternoon, "October, 1739." How his Majesty is crushed down; quite

bulged out of shape in that sad way, by the weight of time and its pressures: his thoughts, too, most likely, of

a heavyladen and abstruse nature! The old Pfalz Controversy has misgone with him: Pfalz, and so much else

in the world;the world in whole, probably enough, near ending to him; the final shadows, sombre, grand

Last news come to Potsdam in these days is, The Kaiser has ended his disastrous Turk War; been obliged to

end it; sudden downbreak, and as it were panic terror, having at last come upon his unfortunate Generals in

those parts. Duke Franz was passionate to be out of such a thing; Franz, General Neipperg and others; and

now, "2d September, 1739," like lodgers leaping from a burning house, they are out of it. The Turk gets

Belgrade itself, not to mention wide territories farther east,Belgrade without shot fired;nay the Turk was

hardly to be kept from hanging the Imperial Messenger (a General Neipperg, Duke Franz's old Tutor, and

chief Confidant, whom we shall hear more of elsewhere), whose passport was not quite right on this

occasion!Never was a more disgraceful Peace. But also never had been worse fighting; planless,

changeful, powerless, melting into futility at every step:not to be mended by imprisonments in Gratz, and

still harsher treatment of individuals. "Has all success forsaken me, then, since Eugene died?" said the Kaiser;

and snatched at this Turk Peace; glad to have it, by mediation of France, and on any terms.

Has not this Kaiser lost his outlying properties at a fearful rate? Naples is gone; Spanish Bourbon sits in our

Naples; comparatively little left for us in Italy. And now the very Turk has beaten us small; insolently fillips

the Imperial nose of us, threatening to hang our Neipperg, and the like. Were it not for Anne of Russia,

whose big horsewhip falls heavy on this Turk, he might almost get to Vienna again, for anything we could

do! A Kaiser worthy to be pitied;whom Friedrich Wilhelm, we perceive, does honestly pity. A Kaiser

much beggared, much disgraced, in late years; who has played a huge lifegame so long, diplomatizing,

warring; and, except the Shadow of Pragmatic Sanction, has nothing to retire upon.

The Russians protested, with astonishment, against such Turk Peace on the Kaiser's part. But there was no

help for it. One ally is gone, the Kaiser has let go this Western skirt of the Turk; and "Thamas Kouli Khan"

(called also Nadir Shah, famed Oriental slasher and slayer of that time) no longer stands upon the Eastern

skirt, but "has entered India," it appears: the Russianstheir cash, too, running lowdo themselves make

peace, "about a month after;" restoring Azoph and nearly all their conquests; putting off the ruin of the Turk

War is over in the East, then; but another in the West, England against Spain (Spain and France to help), is

about beginning. Readers remember how Jenkins's Ear reemerged, Spring gone a year, in a blazing

condition? Here, through SYLVANUS URBAN himself, are two direct glimpses, a twelvemonth nearer

"LONDON, 19th FEBRUARY, 1739. The City Authorities,"laying or going to lay "the foundation of the

MansionHouse" (Edifice now very black in our time), and doing other things of little moment to us, "had a

Masquerade at the Guildhall this night. There was a very splendid appearance at the Masquerade; but among

the many humorous and whimsical characters, what seemed most to engage attention was a Spaniard, who

called himself 'Knight of the Ear;' as Badge of which Order he wore on his breast the form of a Star, with its

points tinged in blood; and on the body of it an Ear painted, and in capital letters the word JENKINS

encircling it. Across his shoulder there hung, instead of ribbon, a large Halter; which he held up to several

persons dressed as English Sailors, who seemed in great terror of him, and falling on their knees suffered him

to rummage their pockets; which done, he would insolently dismiss them with strokes of his halter. Several of

the Sailors had a bloody Ear hanging down from their heads; and on their hats were these words, EAR FOR

EAR; on others, NO SEARCH OR NO TRADE; with the like sentences." [ Gentleman's Magazine for 1739,

Chapter VII. LAST YEAR OF REINSBERG: TRANSIT OF BALTIMORE AND OTHER PERSONS AND THINGS. 514

p. 103;our DATES, as always, are N. 8.] The conflagration evidently going on; not likely to be damped

"LONDON, 19th MARCH, 1739." Grand Debate in Parliament, on the late "Spanish Convention," pretended

Bargain of redress lately got from Spain: Approve the Convention, or Not approve? "A hundred Members

were in the House of Commons before seven, this morning; and four hundred had taken their seat by ten;

which is an unheard of thing. Prince of Wales," Fred in person, "was in the gallery till twelve at night, and

had his dinner sent to him. Sir Robert Walpole rose: 'Sir, the great pains that have been taken to influence all

ranks and degrees of men in this Nation... But give me leave to'"apply a wet cloth to Honorable

Gentlemen. Which he does, really with skill and sense. France and the others are so strong, he urges; England

so unprepared; Kaiser at such a pass; 'War like to be, about the Palatinate Dispute [our friend Friedrich

Wilhelm's]: Where is England to get, allies?'and hours long of the like sort. A judicious wet cloth; which

For "William Pitts" (so they spell the great Chatham that is to be) was eloquent on the other side: "Despairing

Merchants," "Voice of England," and so on. And the world was all in an inflamed state. And Mr. Pulteney

exclaimed: Palatinate? Allies? "We need no allies; the case of Mr. Jenkins will raise us volunteers

everywhere!" And in short,after eight months more of haggling, and applying wet cloths,Walpole, in the

name of England, has to declare War against Spain; ["3d November (23d October), 1739."] the public humor

proving unquenchable on that matter. War; and no Peace to be, "till our undoubted right," to roadway on the

Such the effect of a small Ear, kept about one in cotton, from ursine piety or other feelings. Has not Jenkins's

Ear reemerged, with a vengeance? It has kindled a War: dangerous for kindling other Wars, and setting the

whole world on fire,as will be too evident in the sequel! The EAR OF JENKINS is a singular thing. Might

have mounted to be a constellation, like BERENICE'S HAIR, and other small facts become mythical, had the

This Summer, Anton Ulrich, at Petersburg, did wed his Serene Mecklenburg Princess, Heiress of all the

Russias: "July 14th, 1739,"three months before that Drive to Wusterhausen, which we saw lately. Little

Anton Ulrich, Cadet of Brunswick; our Friedrich's BrotherinLaw;a noticeably small man in comparison

to such bulk of destiny, thinks Friedrich, though the case is not without example! [A Letter of his to Suhm;

"Anton Ulrich is now fiveandtwenty," says one of my Notebooks; "a young gentleman of small stature,

shining courage in battle, but somewhat shy and bashful; who has had his troubles in Petersburg society, till

"WINTER, 17321733. He was sent for to Petersburg (his Serene Aunt the German Kaiserinn, and Kaiser

Karl's diplomatists, suggesting it there), with the view of his paying court to the young Mecklenburg

Princess, Heiress of all the Russias, of whom we have often heard. February, 1733, he arrived on this

errand;not approved of at all by the Mecklenburg Princess, by Czarina Anne or anybody there: what can be

done with such an uncomfortable little creature? They gave him the Colonelcy of Cuirassiers: 'Drill there, and

"SPRING, 1737. Muchenduring, diligently drilling, for four years past, he went this year to the Turk War

under Munnich;much pleased Munnich, at Oczakow and elsewhere; who reports in the War Office high

things of him. And on the whole,the serene Vienna people now again bestirring themselves, with whom

we are in copartnery in this Turk business,little Anton Ulrich is encouraged to proceed. Proceeds; formally

Chapter VII. LAST YEAR OF REINSBERG: TRANSIT OF BALTIMORE AND OTHER PERSONS AND THINGS. 515

"JULY 14th, 1739, weds her; the happiest little man in all the Russias, and with the biggest destiny, if it

prosper. Next year, too, there came a son and heir; whom they called Iwan, in honor of his Russian

Greatgrandfather. Shall we add the subsequent felicities of Anton Ulrich here; or wait till another

Better wait. This is all, and more than all, his Prussian Majesty, rolling out of Wusterhausen that afternoon,

At Wusterhausen, this Autumn, there is game as usual, but little or no hunting for the King. He has to sit

drearily within doors, for most part; listening to the rustle of falling leaves, to dim Winter coming with its

rains and winds. Fieldsports are a rumor from without: for him now no joyous sowbaiting,

In the beginning of November, he came to Berlin; was worse there, and again was better;strove to do the

Carnival, as had been customary; but, in a languid, lamed manner. One night he looked in upon an

eveningparty which General Schulenburg was giving: he returned home, chilled, shivering;, could not, all

night, be brought to heat again. It was the last eveningparty Friedrich Wilhelm ever went to. [Pollnitz (ii.

538); who gives no date.] LieutenantGeneral Schulenburg: the same who doomed young Friedrich to death,

as President of the CourtMartial; and then wrote the Three Letters about him which we once looked into:

illuminates himself in this manner in Berlin society, Carnival season, 1740, weather fiercely cold. Maypole

Schulenburg the lean Aunt, ExMistress of George I., over in London,I think she must now be dead? Or if

not dead, why not! Memory, for the tenth time, fails me, of the humanly unmemorable, whom perhaps even

flunkies should forget; and I will try it no more. The stalwart LieutenantGeneral will reappear on us once,

twice at the utmost, and never again. He gave the last eveningparty Friedrich Wilhelm ever went to.

Poor Friedrich Wilhelm is in truth very ill; tosses about all day, in and out of bed,bed and wheeledchair

drearily alternating; suffers much;and again, in Diplomatic circles, the rumors are rife and sinister. Ever

from this chill at Schulenburg's the medicines did him no good, says Pollnitz: if he rallied, it was the effect of

Nature, and only temporary. He does daily, with punctuality, his Official business; perhaps the best two hours

he has of the fourandtwenty, for the time hangs heavy on him. His old Generals sit round his bed, talking,

smoking, as it was five years ago; his Feekin and his Children much about him, out and in: the heavyladen,

weary hours roll round as they can. In general there is a kind of constant TabaksCollegium, old Flans,

Camas, Hacke, Pollnitz, Derschau, and the rest by turns always there; the royal Patient cannot be left alone,

without faces he likes: other Generals, estimable in their way, have a physiognomy displeasing to the sick

man; and will smart for it if they enter, "At sight of HIM every pain grows painfuler!"the poor King

being of poetic temperament, as we often say. Friends are encouraged to smoke, especially to keep up a

stream of talk; if at any time he fall into a doze and they cease talking, the silence will awaken him.

He is worst off in the night; sleep very bad: and among his sore bodily pains, ennui falls very heavy to a mind

so restless. He can paint, he can whittle, chisel: at last they even mount him a table, in his bed, with joiner's

tools, mallets, gluepots, where he makes small carpentry,the talk to go on the while;often at night is

the sound of his mallet audible in the Palace Esplanade; and Berlin townsfolk pause to listen, with many

thoughts of a sympathetic or at least inarticulate character: "HM, WEH, IHRO MAJESTAT: ACH GOTT,

pale Death knocks with impartial foot at the huts of poor men and the Palaces of Kings!" [Pollnitz, ii. 539.]

Reverend Herr Roloff, whom they call Provost (PROBST, Chief Clergyman) Roloff, a pious honest man and

preacher, he, I could guess, has already been giving spiritual counsel now and then; later interviews with

Roloff are expressly on record: for it is the King's private thought, ever and anon borne in upon him, that

Queen and Children, mostly hoping hitherto, though fearing too, live in much anxiety and agitation. The

CrownPrince is often over from Reinsberg; must not come too often, nor even inquire too much: his

affectionate solicitude might be mistaken for solicitude of another kind! It is certain he is in no haste to be

King; to quit the haunts of the Muses, and embark on Kingship. Certain, too, he loves his Father; shudders at

the thought of losing HIM. And yet again there will gleams intrude of a contrary thought; which the filial

heart disowns, with a kind of horror, "Down, thou impious thought!"We perceive he manages in general to

push the crisis away from him; to believe that real danger is still distant. His demeanor, so far as we can

gather from his Letters or other evidence, is amiable, prudent, natural; altogether that of a human Son in those

difficult circumstances. Poor Papa is heavyladen: let us help to bear his burdens; let us hope the crisis is

Once, on a favorable evening, probably about the beginning of April, when he felt as if improving, Friedrich

Wilhelm resolved to dress, and hold TobaccoParliament again in a formal manner, Let us look in there,

"A numerous party; Schwerin, Hacke, Derschau, all the chiefs and commandants of the Berlin Garrison are

there; the old circle full; social human speech once more, and pipes alight; pleasant to the King. He does not

himself smoke on this occasion; but he is unusually lively in talk; much enjoys the returning glimpse of old

days; and the Tobacco circle was proceeding through its phases, successful beyond common. All at once the

CrownPrince steps in; direct from Reinsberg: [12th April, 1740? ( OEuvres, xxvii. part lst, p. 29); Pollnitz is

dateless] an unexpected pleasure. At sight of whom the Tobacco circle, taken on the sudden, simultaneously

started up, and made him a bow. Rule is, in TobaccoParliament you do not risefor anybody; and they

have risen. Which struck the sick heart in a strange painful way. 'Hm, the Rising Sun?' thinks he; 'Rules

broken through, for the Rising Sun. But I am not dead yet, as you shall know!' ringing for his servants in

great wrath; and had himself rolled out, regardless of protestations and excuses. 'Hither, you Hacke!' said he.

"Hacke followed; but it was only to return on the instant, with the King's order, 'That you instantly quit the

Palace, all of you, and don't come back!' Solemn respectful message to his Majesty was of no effect, or of

less; they had to go, on those terms; and Pollnitz, making for his Majesty's apartment next morning as usual,

was twitched by a Gensd'arme, 'No admittance!' And it was days before the matter would come round again,

under earnest protestations from the one side, and truculent rebukes from the other." [Pollnitz (abridged), ii.

50.] Figure the CrownPrince, figure the poor sick Majesty; and what a time in those localities!

With the bright spring weather he seemed to revive; towards the end of April he resolved for Potsdam,

everybody thinking him much better, and the outer Public reckoning the crisis of the illness over. He himself

knew other. It was on the 27th of the month that he went; he said, "Fare thee well, then, Berlin; I am to die in

Potsdam, then (ICH WERDE IN POTSDAM STERBEN)!" The Mayflowers came late; the weather was

changeful, ungenial for the sick man: this winter of 1740 had been the coldest on record; it extended itself

into the very summer; and brought great distress of every kind;of which some oral rumor still survives in

all countries. Friedrich Wilhelm heard complaints of scarcity among the people; admonitions to open his

Corngranaries (such as he always has in store against that kind of accident); but he still hesitated and

For the rest, he is struggling between death and life; in general persuaded that the end is fast hastening on. He

sends for Chief Preacher Roloff out to Potsdam; has some notable dialogues with Roloff, and with two other

Potsdam Clergymen, of which there is record still left us. In these, as in all his demeanor at this supreme

time, we see the big rugged block of manhood come out very vividly; strong in his simplicity, in his veracity.

Friedrich Wilhelm's wish is to know from Roloff what the chances are for him in the other world,which is

not less certain than Potsdam and the giant grenadiers to Friedrich Wilhelm; and where, he perceives, never

half so clearly before, he shall actually peel off his Kinghood, and stand before God Almighty, no better than

a naked beggar. Roloff's prognostics are not so encouraging as the King had hoped. Surely this King "never

took or coveted what was not his; kept true to his marriagevow, in spite of horrible examples everywhere;

believed the Bible, honored the Preachers, went diligently to Church, and tried to do what he understood

God's commandments were?" To all which Roloff, a courageous pious man, answers with discreet words and

shakings of the head, "Did I behave ill, then; did I ever do injustice?" Roloff mentions Baron Schlubhut the

defalcating Amtmann, hanged at Konigsberg without even a trial. "He had no trial; but was there any doubt

he had justice? A public thief, confessing he had stolen the taxes he was set to gather; insolently offering, as

if that were all, to repay the money, and saying, It was not MANIER (good manners) to hang a nobleman!"

Roloff shakes his head, Too violent, your Majesty, and savoring of the tyrannous. The poor King must repent.

"Well,is there anything more? Out with it, then; better now than too late!"Much oppression, forcing

men to build in Berlin. "Oppression? was it not their benefit, as well as Berlin's and the Country's? I had

no interest in it other. Derschau, you who managed it?" and his Majesty turned to Derschau. For all the

smoking generals and company are still here; nor will his Majesty consent to dismiss them from the presence

and be alone with Roloff: "What is there to conceal? They are people of honor, and my friends." Derschau,

whose feats in the building way are not unknown even to us, answers with a hard face, It was all right and

orderly; nothing out of square in his building operations. To which Roloff shakes his head: "A thing of public

notoriety, Herr General.""I will prove everything before a Court," answers the Herr General with still

harder face; Roloff still austerely shaking his head. Hm!And then there is forgiveness of enemies; your

Majesty is bound to forgive all men, or how can you ask to be forgiven? "Well, I will, I do; you Feekin, write

to your Brother (unforgivablest of beings), after I am dead, that I forgave him, died in peace with

him."Better her Majesty should write at once, suggests Roloff."No, after I am dead," persists the Son of

Nature,that will be safer! [Wrote accordingly, "not able to finish without many tears;" honest sensible

Letter (though indifferently spelt), "Berlin, 1st June, 1740;"lies now in StatePaper Office: "ROYAL

LETTERS, vol. xciv., Prussia, 16891777."] An unwedgeable and gnarled big block of manhood and

simplicity and sincerity; such as we rarely get sight of among the modern sons of Adam, among the crowned

sons nearly never. At parting he said to Roloff, "You (ER, He) do not spare me; it is right. You do your duty

like an honest Christian man." [ Notata ex ore Roloffi ("found among the Seckendorf Papers," no date but

"May 1740"), in Forster, ii. 154, 155; in a fragmentary state: completed in Pollnitz, ii. 545549.]

Roloff, I perceive, had several Dialogues with the King; and stayed in Potsdam some days for that object. The

above bit of jotting is from the Seckendorf Papers (probably picked up by Seckendorf Junior), and is dated

only "May." Of the two Potsdam Preachers, one of whom is "Oesfeld, Chaplain of the Giant Grenadiers," and

the other is "Cochius, Calvinist Hofprediger," each published on his own score some Notes of dialogue and

circumstance; [Cochius the HOFPREDIGER'S (Calvinist Court Chaplain's) ACCOUNT of his Interviews

(first of them "Friday, 27th May, 1740, about 9 P.M."); followed by ditto from Oesfeld (Chaplain of the

Giants), who usually accompanied Cochius,are in Seyfarth, Geschichte Friedrich des Grossen (Leipzig,

17831788), i. (Beylage) 2440. Seyfarth was "Regiments Auditor" in Halle: his Work, solid though stupid,

consists nearly altogether of multifarious BEYLAGEN (Appendices) and NOTES; which are creditably

accurate, and often curious; and, as usual, have no Index for an unfortunate reader.] which are to the same

effect, so far as they concern us; and exhibit the same rugged Son of Nature, looking with all his eyesight into

the near Eternity, and sinking in a human and not inhuman manner amid the floods of Time. "Wa, Wa, what

The poor King's state is very restless, fluctuates from day to day; he is impatient of bed; sleeps very ill; is up

whenever possible; rolls about in his wheeledchair, and even gets into the air: at one time looking strong, as

if there were still months in him, and anon sunk in fainting weakness, as if he had few minutes to live.

Friedrich at Reinsberg corresponds very secretly with Dr. Eller; has other friends at Potsdam whose secret

news he very anxiously reads. To the last he cannot bring himself to think it serious." [Letter to Eller, 25th

On Thursday, 26th of May, an express from Eller, or the Potsdam friends, arrives at Reinsberg: He is to come

quickly, if he would see his Father again alive! The step may have danger, too; but Friedrich, a world of

feelings urging him, is on the road next morning before the sun. His journey may be fancied; the like of it

falls to all men. Arriving at last, turning hastily a corner of the Potsdam Schloss, Friedrich sees some

gathering in the distance: it is his Father in his ROLLWAGEN (wheeledchair),not dying; but out of

doors, giving orders about founding a House, or seeing it done. House for one Philips, a crabbed Englishman

he has; whose tongue is none of the best, not even to Majesty itself, but whose merits as a Groom, of English

and other Horses, are without parallel in those parts. Without parallel, and deserve a House before we die. Let

us see it set agoing, this blessed Mayday! Of Philips, who survived deep into Friedrich's time, and uttered

rough sayings (in mixed intelligible dialect) when put upon in his grooming, or otherwise disturbed, I could

obtain no farther account: the man did not care to be put in History (a very small service to a man); cared to

have a house with trim fittings, and to do his grooming well, the fortunate Philips.

At sight of his Son, Friedrich Wilhelm threw out his arms; the Son kneeling sank upon his breast, and they

embraced with tears. My Father, my Father; My Son, my Son! It was a scene to make all bystanders and

even Philips weep.Probably the emotion hurt the old King; he had to be taken in again straightway, his

show of strength suddenly gone, and bed the only place for him. This same Friday he dictated to one of his

Ministers (Boden, who was in close attendance) the Instruction for his Funeral; a rude characteristic Piece,

which perhaps the English reader knows. Too long and rude for reprinting here. [Copy of it, in Seyfarth (ubi

He is to be buried in his uniform, the Potsdam Grenadiers his escort; with military decorum, three volleys

fired (and take care they be well fired, "NICHT PLACKEREN"), so many cannonsalvos; and no fuss or

flaunting ceremony: simplicity and decency is what the tenant of that oak coffin wants, as he always did

when owner of wider dominions. The coffin, which he has ready and beside him in the Palace this good

while, is a stout piece of carpentry, with leather straps and other improvements; he views it from time to time;

solaces his truculent imagination with the look of it: "I shall sleep right well there," he would say. The image

he has of his Burial, we perceive, is of perfect visuality, equal to what a Defoe could do in imagining. All is

seen, settled to the last minuteness: the coffin is to be borne out by so and so, at such and such a door; this

detachment is to fallin here, that there, in the attitude of "cover arms" (musket inverted under left arm); and

the band is to play, with all its blackamoors, O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden (O Head, all bleeding wounded);

a Dirge his Majesty had liked, who knew music, and had a love for it, after his sort. Good Son of Nature: a

dumb Poet, as I say always; most dumb, but real; the value of him great, and unknown in these babbling

times. It was on this same Friday night that Cochius was first sent for; Cochius, and Oesfeld with him, "about

For the next three days (Saturday to Monday) when his cough and many sufferings would permit him,

Friedrich Wilhelm had long private dialogues with his Son; instructing him, as was evident, in the mysteries

of State; in what knowledge, as to persons and to things, he reckoned might be usefulest to him. What the

lessons were, we know not; the way of taking them had given pleasure to the old man: he was heard to say,

perhaps more than once, when the Generals were called in, and the dialogue interrupted for a while: "Am not

I happy to have such a Son to leave behind me!" And the grimly sympathetic Generals testified assent;

endeavored to talk a little, could at least smoke, and look friendly; till the King gathered strength for

continuing his instructions to his Successor. All else was as if settled with him; this had still remained to do.

This once done (finished, Monday night), why not abdicate altogether; and die disengaged, be it in a day or in

a month, since that is now the one work left? Friedrich Wilhelm does so purpose.

His state, now as all along, was fluctuating, uncertain, restless. He was heard murmuring prayers; he would

say sometimes, "Pray for me; BETET BETET." And more than once, in deep tone: "Lord, enter not into

judgment with Thy servant, for in Thy sight shall no man living be justified!" The wild Son of Nature,

looking into Life and Death, into Judgment and Eternity, finds that these things are very great. This too is a

characteristic trait: In a certain German Hymn ( Why fret or murmur, then? the title of it), which they often

sang to him, or along with him, as he much loved it, are these words, "Naked I came into the world, and

naked shall I go,""No," said he "always with vivacity," at this passage; "not quite nakid, I shall have my

uniform on:" Let us be exact, since we are at it! After which the singing proceeded again. "The late Graf

Alexander von Wartenberg"Captain Wartenberg, whom we know, and whose opportunities"was wont

Tuesday, 31st May, "about one in the morning," Cochius was again sent for. He found the King in very pious

mood, but in great distress, and afraid he might yet have much pain to suffer. Cochius prayed with him;

talked piously. "I can remember nothing," said the King; "I cannot pray, I have forgotten all my prayers."

"Prayer is not in words, but in the thought of the heart," said Cochius; and soothed the heavyladen man as

he could. "Fare you well," said Friedrich Wilhelm, at length; "most likely we shall not meet again in this

world." Whereat Cochius burst into tears, and withdrew. About four, the King was again out of bed; wished

to see his youngest Boy, who had been ill of measles, but was doing well: "Poor little Ferdinand, adieu, then,

my little child!" This is the Father of that fine Louis Ferdinand, who was killed at Jena; concerning whom

Berlin, in certain emancipated circles of it, still speaks with regret. He, the Louis Ferdinand, had fine

qualities; but went far aroving, into radicalism, into romantic love, into champagne; and was cut down on

From little Ferdinand's room Friedrich Wilhelm has himself rolled into Queen Sophie's. "Feekin, O my

Feekin, thou must rise this day, and help me what thou canst. This day I am going to die; thou wilt be with

me this day!" The good Wife rises: I know not that it was the first time she had been so called; but it did

prove the last. Friedrich Wilhelm has decided, as the first thing he will do, to abdicate; and all the Official

persons and companions of the sickroom, Pollnitz among them, not long after sunrise, are called to see it

done. Pollnitz, huddling on his clothes, arrived about five: in a corridor he sees the wheeled chair and poor

sick King; steps aside to let him pass: "'It is over (DAS IST VOLLBRACHT),' said the King, looking up to

me as he passed: he had on his nightcap, and a blue mantle thrown round him." He was wheeled into his

The royal stables are visible from this room: Friedrich Wilhelm orders the horses to be ridden out: you old

Furst of AnhaltDessau my oldest friend, you Colonel Hacke faithfulest of Adjutant Generals, take each of

you a horse, the best you can pick out: it is my last gift to you. Dessau, in silence, with dumbshow of

thanks, points to a horse, any horse: "You have chosen the very worst," said Friedrich Wilhelm: "Take that

other, I will warrant him a good one!" The grim old Dessauer thanks in silence; speechless grief is on that

stern gunpowder face, and he seems even to be struggling with tears. "Nay, nay, my friend," Friedrich

The Official people, Queen, Friedrich, Minister Boden, Minister Podewils, and even Pollnitz, being now all

present, Friedrich Wilhelm makes his Declaration, at considerable length; old General Bredow repeating it

aloud, [Pollnitz, ii. 561.] sentence by sentence, the King's own voice being too weak; so that all may hear:

"That he abdicates, gives up wholly, in favor of his good Son Friedrich; that foreign Ambassadors are to be

informed; that you are all to be true and loyal to my Son as you were to me"and what else is needful. To

which the judicious Podewils makes answer, "That there must first be a written Deed of his high Transaction

executed, which shall be straightway set about; the Deed once executed, signed and sealed,the high Royal

will, in all points, takes effect." Alas, before Podewils has done speaking, the King is like falling into a faint;

does faint, and is carried to bed: too unlikely any Deed of Abdication will be needed.

Ups and downs there still were; sore fluctuating labor, as the poor King struggles to his final rest, this

morning. He was at the window again, when the WACHTPARADE (Grenadiers on Guard) turned out; he

saw them make their evolutions for the last time. [Pauli, viii. 280.] After which, new relapse, new fluctuation.

It was about eleven o'clock, when Cochius was again sent for. The King lay speechless, seemingly still

conscious, in bed; Cochius prays with fervor, in a loud tone, that the dying King may hear and join. "Not so

loud!" says the King, rallying a little. He had remembered that it was the season when his servants got their

new liveries; they had been ordered to appear this day in full new costume: "O vanity! O vanity!" said

Friedrich Wilhelm, at sight of the ornamented plush. "Pray for me, pray for me; my trust is in the Saviour!"

he often said. His pains, his weakness are great; the cordage of a most tough heart rending itself piece by

piece. At one time, he called for a mirror: that is certain:rugged wild man, son of Nature to the last. The

mirror was brought; what he said at sight of his face is variously reported: "Not so worn out as I thought," is

Pollnitz's account, and the likeliest;though perhaps he said several things, "ugly face," "as good as dead

already;" and continued the inspection for some moments. [Pollnitz, ii. 564; Wilhelmina, ii. 321.] A grim,

"Feel mv pulse, Pitsch," said he, noticing the Surgeon of his Giants: "tell me how long this will last.""Alas,

not long," answered Pitsch."Say not, alas; but how do you (He) know?" "The pulse is

gone!""Impossible," said he, lifting his arm: "how could I move my fingers so, if the pulse were gone?"

Pitsch looked mournfully steadfast. "Herr Jesu, to thee I live; Herr Jesu, to thee I die; in life and in death thou

art my gain (DU BIST MEIN GEWINN)." These were the last words Friedrich Wilhelm spoke in this world.

He again fell into a faint. Eller gave a signal to the CrownPrince to take the Queen away. Scarcely were they

out of the room, when the faint had deepened into death; and Friedrich Wilhelm, at rest from all his labors,

No Baresark of them, nor Odin's self, I think, was a bit of truer human stuff;I confess his value to me, in

these sad times, is rare and great. Considering the usual Histrionic, Papin's Digester, TruculentCharlatan

and other species of "Kings," alone attainable for the sunk flunky populations of an Era given up to Mammon

and the worship of its own belly, what would not such a population give for a Friedrich Wilhelm, to guide it

on the road BACK from Orcus a little? "Would give," I have written; but alas, it ought to have been

"SHOULD give." What THEY "would" give is too mournfully plain to me, in spite of ballotboxes: a steady

and tremendous truth from the days of Barabbas downwards and upwards! Tuesday, 31st May, 1740,

between one and two o'clock in the afternoon, Friedrich Wilhelm died; age fiftytwo, coming 15th August

next. Same day, Friedrich his Son was proclaimed at Berlin; quilted heralds, with sound of trumpet and the

On Saturday, 4th June, the King's body is laid out in state; all Potsdam at liberty to come and see. He lies

there, in his regimentals, in his oaken coffin, on a raised place in the middle of the room; decent mortuary

draperies, lamps, garlands, banderols furnishing the room and him: at his feet, on a blackvelvet

TABOURET (stool), are the chivalry emblems, helmet, gauntlets, spurs; and on similar stools, at the right

hand and the left, lie his military insignia, hat and sash, sword, guidon, and what else is fit. Around, in

silence, sit nine veteran military dignitaries; Buddenbrock, Waldau, Derschau, Einsiedel, and five others

whom we omit to name. Silent they sit. A grim earnest sight in the shine of the lamplight, as you pass out of

the June sun. Many went, all day; looked once again on the face that was to vanish. Precisely at ten at night,

the coffinlid is screwed down: twelve Potsdam Captains take the coffin on their shoulders; fourandtwenty

Corporals with wax torches, fourandtwenty Sergeants with inverted halberts lowered; certain Generals on

order, and very many following as volunteers; these perform the actual burial,carry the body to the

Garrison Church, where are clergy waiting, which is but a small step off; see it lodged, oak coffin and all, in a

marble coffin in the side vault there, which is known to Tourists. [Pauli, viii. 281.] It is the end of the week,

Filial piety by no means intends to defraud a loved Father of the Spartan ceremonial contemplated as

obsequies by him: very far from it. Filial piety will conform to that with rigor; only adding what musical and

other splendors are possible, to testify his love still more. And so, almost three weeks hence, on the 23d of the

month, with the aid of Dresden Artists, of Latin Cantatas and other pomps (not inexcusable, though

somewhat out of keeping), the due Funeral is done, no Corpse but a Wax Effigy present in it; and in all

points, that of the Potsdam Grenadiers not forgotten, there was rigorous conformity to the Instruction left. In

all points, even to the extensive funeral dinner, and drinking of the appointed cask of wine, "the best cask in

The Potsdam Grenadiers fired their three volleys (not "PLACKERING," as I have reason to believe, but

well); got their allowance, dinnerliquor, and appointed coin of money: it was the last service required of

them in this world. That same night they were dissolved, the whole Four Thousand of them, at a stroke; and

ceased to exist as Potsdam Grenadiers. Colonels, Captains, all the Officers known to be of merit, were

advanced, at least transferred. Of the common men, a minority, of not inhuman height and of worth

otherwise, were formed into a new Regiment on the common terms: the stupid splayfooted eightfeet mass

were allowed to stalk off whither they pleased, or vegetate on frugal pensions; Irish Kirkman, and a few

others neither knockkneed nor without head, were appointed HEYDUCS, that is, porters to the King's or

Here are still two things capable of being fished up from the sea of nugatory matter; and meditated on by

The last breath of Friedrich Wilhelm having fled, Friedrich hurried to a private room; sat there all in tears;

looking back through the gulfs of the Past, upon such a Father now rapt away forever. Sad all, and soft in the

moonlight of memory,the lost Loved One all in the right as we now see, we all in the wrong! this, it

appears, was the Son's fixed opinion. Seven years hence, here is how Friedrich concludes the HISTORY of

his Father, written with a loyal admiration throughout: "We have left under silence the domestic chagrins of

this great Prince: readers must have some indulgence for the faults of the Children, in consideration of the

virtues of such a Father." [ OEuvres, i. 174 ( Memoires de Brandebourg: finished about 1747).] All in tears

In a little while the Old Dessauer, about to leave for Dessau, ventures in to the CrownPrince, CrownPrince

no longer; "embraces his knees;" offers, weeping, his condolence, his congratulation;hopes withal that his

sons and he will be continued in their old posts, and that he, the Old Dessauer, "will have the same authority

as in the late reign." Friedrich's eyes, at this last clause, flash out tearless, strangely Olympian. "In your posts

I have no thought of making change: in your posts, yes;and as to authority, I know of none there can be but

what resides in the King that is sovereign!" Which, as it were, struck the breath out of the Old Dessauer; and

sent him home with a painful miscellany of feelings, astonishment not wanting among them.

At an after hour, the same night, Friedrich went to Berlin; met by acclamation enough. He slept there, not

without tumult of dreams, one may fancy; and on awakening next morning, the first sound he heard was that

of the Regiment Glasenap under his windows, swearing fealty to the new King. He sprang out of bed in a

tempest of emotion; bustled distractedly to and fro, wildly weeping. Pollnitz, who came into the anteroom,

found him in this state, "halfdressed, with dishevelled hair, in tears, and as if beside himself." "These

huzzaings only tell me what I have lost!" said the new King."HE was in great suffering," suggested

Pollnitz; "he is now at rest." "True, he suffered; but he was here with us: and now!" [Ranke (ii. 46, 47),

In Berlin, from Tuesday, 31st May, 1740, day of the late King's death, till the Thursday following, the post

was stopped and the gates closed; no estafette can be despatched, though Dickens and all the Ambassadors

are busy writing. On the Thursday, Regiments, Officers, principal Officials having sworn, and the new King

being fairly in the saddle, estafettes and postboys shoot forth at the top of their speed; and Rumor, towards

every point of the compass, apprises mankind what immense news there is. [Dickens (in State Paper

A King's Accession is always a hopeful phenomenon to the public; more especially a young King's, who has

been talked of for his talents and aspirings,for his sufferings, were it nothing more, and whose

ANTIMACHIAVEL is understood to be in the press. Vaguely everywhere there has a notion gone abroad

that this young King will prove considerable. Here at last has a Lover of Philosophy got upon the throne, and

great philanthropies and magnanimities are to be expected, think rash editors and idle mankind. Rash editors

in England and elsewhere, we observe, are ready to believe that Friedrich has not only disbanded the Potsdam

Giants; but means to "reduce the Prussian Army one half" or so, for ease (temporary ease which we hope will

be lasting) of parties concerned; and to go much upon emancipation, political rosewater, and friendship to

At his first meeting of Council, they say, he put this question, "Could not the Prussian Army be reduced to

45,000?" The excellent young man. To which the Council had answered, "Hardly, your Majesty! The

JulichandBerg affair is so ominous hitherto!" These may be secrets, and dubious to people out of doors,

thinks a wise editor; but one thing patent to the day was this, surely symbolical enough: On one of his

Majesty's first drives to Potsdam or from it, a thousand children,in round numbers a thousand of them, all

with the RED STRING round their necks, and liable to be taken for soldiers, if needed in the regiment of

their Canton, "a thousand children met this young King at a turn of his road; and with shrill unison of wail,

sang out: "Oh, deliver us from slavery,"from the red threads, your Majesty. Why should poor we be liable

to suffer hardship for our Country or otherwise, your Majesty! Can no one else be got to do it? sang out the

thousand children. And his Majesty assented on the spot, thinks the rash editor. [ Gentleman's Magazine

(London, 1740), x. 318; Newspapers, "Goose, Madam?" exclaimed a philanthropist projector once, whose

scheme of sweeping chimneys by pulling a live goose down through them was objected to: "Goose, Madam?

You can take two ducks, then, if you are so sorry for the goose!"Rash editors think there is to be a reign of

Astraea Redux in Prussia, by means of this young King; and forget to ask themselves, as the young King

At home, too, there is prophesying enough, vague hope enough, which for most part goes wide of the mark.

This young King, we know, did prove considerable; but not in the way shaped out for him by the public;it

was in far other ways! For no public in the least knows, in such cases: nor does the man himself know, except

gradually and if he strive to learn. As to the public, "Doubtless," says a friend of mine, "doubtless it was

the Atlantic Ocean that carried Columbus to America; lucky for the Atlantic, and for Columbus and us: but

the Atlantic did not quite vote that way from the first; nay ITS votes, I believe, were very various at different

stages of the matter!" This is a truth which kings and men, not intending to be driftlogs or waste brine

obedient to the Moon, are much called to have in mind withal, from perhaps an early stage of their voyage.

Friedrich's actual demeanor in these his first weeks, which is still decipherable if one study well, has in truth

a good deal of the brilliant, of the popularmagnanimous; but manifests strong solid quality withal, and a

head steadier than might have been expected. For the Berlin world is all in a rather Auroral condition; and

Friedrich too is,the chains suddenly cut loose, and such hopes opened for the young man. He has great

things ahead; feels in himself great things, and doubtless exults in the thought of realizing them.

Magnanimous enough, popular, hopeful enough, with Voltaire and the highest of the world looking on: but

yet he is wise, too; creditably aware that there are limits, that this is a bargain, and the terms of it inexorable.

We discern with pleasure the old veracity of character shining through this giddy new element; that all these

fine procedures are at least unaffected, to a singular degree true, and the product of nature, on his part; and

that, in short, the complete respect for Fact, which used to be a quality of his, and which is among the highest

A trace of airy exuberance, of natural exultancy, not quite repressible, on the sudden change to freedom and

supreme power from what had gone before: perhaps that also might be legible, if in those opaque beadrolls

which are called Histories of Friedrich anything human could with certainty be read! He flies much about

from place to place; now at Potsdam, now at Berlin, at Charlottenburg, Reinsberg; nothing loath to run

whither business calls him, and appear in public: the gazetteer world, as we noticed, which has been hitherto

a most mute world, breaks out here and there into a kind of husky jubilation over the great things he is daily

doing, and rejoices in the prospect of having a Philosopher King; which function the young man, only

twentyeight gone, cannot but wish to fulfil for the gazetteers and the world. He is a busy man; and walks

boldly into his grand enterprise of "making men happy," to the admiration of Voltaire and an enlightened

Bielfeld speaks of immense concourses of people crowding about Charlottenburg, to congratulate, to solicit,

to tells us how he himself had to lodge almost in outhouses, in that royal village of hope, His emotions at

Reinsberg, and everybody's, while Friedrich Wilhelm lay dying, and all stood like greyhounds on the slip;

and with what arrowswiftness they shot away when the great news came: all this he has already described at

wearisome length, in his fantastic semifabulous way. [Bielfeld, i. 6877; ib. 81.]' Friedrich himself seemed

moderately glad to see Bielfeld; received his highflown congratulations with a benevolent yet somewhat

composed air; and gave him afterwards, in the course of weeks, an unexpectedly small appointment: To go to

Hanover, under Truchsess von Waldburg, and announce our Accession. Which is but a simple, mostly formal

The Britannic Majesty, or at least his Hanover people have been beforehand with this civility; Baron

Munchhausen, no doubt by orders given for such contingency, had appeared at Berlin with the due

compliment and condolence almost on the first day of the New Reign; first messenger of all on that errand;

Britannic Majesty evidently in a conciliatory humor,having his dangerous Spanish War on hand. Britannic

Majesty in person, shortly after, gets across to Hanover; and Friedrich despatches Truchsess, with Bielfeld

Friedrich does not neglect these points of good manners; along with which something of substantial may be

privately conjoined. For example, if he had in secret his eye on Julich and Berg, could anything be fitter than

to ascertain what the French will think of such an enterprise? What the French; and next to them what the

English, that is to say, Hanoverians, who meddle much in affairs of the Reich. For these reasons and others he

likewise, probably with more study than in the Bielfeld case, despatches Colonel Camas to make his

compliment at the French Court, and in an expert way take soundings there. Camas, a fat sedate military

gentleman, of advanced years, full of observation, experience and sound sense,"with one arm, which he

makes do the work of two, and nobody can notice that the other arm resting in his coatbreast is of cork, so

expert is he,"will do in this matter what is feasible; probably not much for the present. He is to call on

Voltaire, as he passes, who is in Holland again, at the Hague for some months back; and deliver him "a little

cask of Hungary Wine," which probably his Majesty had thought exquisite. Of which, and the other

insignificant passages between them, we hear more than enough in the writings and correspondences of

In such way Friedrich disposes of his Bielfelds; who are rather numerous about him now and henceforth.

Adventurers from all quarters, especially of the literary type, in hopes of being employed, much hovered

round Friedrich through his whole reign. But they met a rather strict judge on arriving; it cannot be said they

Favor, friendly intimacy, it is visible from the first, avails nothing with this young King; beyond and before

all things he will have his work done, and looks out exclusively for the man ablest to do it. Hence Bielfeld

goes to Hanover, to grin out euphuisms, and make graceful courtbows to our sublime little Uncle there. On

the other hand, Friedrich institutes a new Knighthood, ORDER OF MERIT so called; which indeed is but a

small feat, testifying mere hope and exuberance as yet; and may even be made worse than nothing, according

to the Knights he shall manage to have. Happily it proved a successful new Order in this last all essential

particular; and, to the end of Friedrich's life, continued to be a great and coveted distinction among the

Beyond doubt this is a radiant enough young Majesty; entitled to hope, and to be the cause of hope.

Handsome, to begin with; decidedly welllooking, all say, and of graceful presence, though hardly five feet

seven, and perhaps stouter of limb than the strict Belvedere standard. [Height, it appears, was five feet five

inches (Rhenish), which in English measure is five feet seven or a hair'sbreadth less. Preuss, twice over, by

a mistake unusual with him, gives "five feet two inches three lines" as the correct cipher (which it is of

NAPOLEON'S measure in FRENCH feet); then settles on the above dimensions from unexceptionable

authority (Preuss, Buch fur Jedermann, i. 18; Preuss, Fredrich der Grosse, i. 39 and 419).] Has a fine free

expressive face; nothing of austerity in it; not a proud face, or not too proud, yet rapidly flashing on you all

manner of high meanings. [Wille's Engraving after Pesne (excellent, both Picture and Engraving) is reckoned

the best Likeness in that form.] Such a man, in the bloom of his years; with such a possibility ahead, and

Voltaire and mankind waiting applausive!Let us try to select, and extricate into coherence and visibility

out of those Historical dustheaps, a few of the symptomatic phenomena, or physiognomic procedures of

Friedrich in his first weeks of Kingship, by way of contribution to some Portraiture of his then innerman.

On the day after his Accession, Officers and chief Ministers taking the Oath, Friedrich, to his Officers, "on

whom he counts for the same zeal now which he had witnessed as their comrade," recommends mildness of

demeanor from the higher to the lower, and that the common soldier be not treated with harshness when not

deserved: and to his Ministers he is still more emphatic, in the like or a higher strain. Officially announcing to

them, by Letter, that a new Reign has commenced, he uses these words, legible soon after to a glad Berlin

public: "Our grand care will be, To further the Country's wellbeing, and to make every one of our subjects

(EINEN JEDEN UNSERER UNTERTHANEN) contented and happy. Our will is, not that you strive to

enrich Us by vexation of Our subjects; but rather that you aim steadily as well towards the advantage of the

Country as Our particular interest, forasmuch as We make no difference between these two objects," but

consider them one and the same. This is written, and gets into print within the month; and his Majesty, that

same day (Wednesday, 2d June), when it came to personal reception, and actual taking of the Oath, was

pleased to add in words, which also were printed shortly, this comfortable corollary: "My will henceforth is,

If it ever chance that my particular interest and the general good of my Countries should seem to go against

each other,in that case, my will is, That the latter always be preferred." [Dickens, Despatch, 4th June,

1740: Preuss, Friedrichs Jugend und Thronbesteigung (Berlin, 1840), p. 325;quoting from the Berlin

This is a fine dialect for incipient Royalty; and it is brand new at that time. It excites an admiration in the

then populations, which to us, so long used to it and to what commonly comes of it, is not conceivable at

once. There can be no doubt the young King does faithfully intend to develop himself in the way of making

men happy; but here, as elsewhere, are limits which he will recognize ahead, some of them perhaps nearer

Meanwhile his first acts, in this direction, correspond to these fine words. The year 1740, still grim with cold

into the heart of summer, bids fair to have a late poor harvest, and famine threatens to add itself to other

hardships there have been. Recognizing the actualities of the case, what his poor Father could not, he opens

the Public Granaries,a wise resource they have in Prussian countries against the year of scarcity;orders

grain to be sold out, at reasonable rates, to the suffering poor; and takes the due pains, considerable in some

cases, that this be rendered feasible everywhere in his dominions. "Berlin, 2d June," is the first date of this

important order; fine program to his Ministers, which, we read, is no sooner uttered, than some performance

follows. An evident piece of wisdom and humanity; for which doubtless blessings of a very sincere kind rise

Nay furthermore, as can be dimly gathered, this scarcity continuing, some continuous mode of management

was set on foot for the Poor; and there is nominated, with salary, with outline of plan and other requisites, as

"Inspector of the Poor," to his own and our surprise, M. Jordan, late Reader to the CrownPrince, and still

much the intimate of his royal Friend. Inspector who seems to do his work very well. And in the November

coming this is what we see: "One thousand poor old women, the destitute of Berlin, set to spin," at his

Majesty's charges; vacant houses, hired for them in certain streets and suburbs, have been newplanked,

partitioned, warmed; and spinning is there for any diligent female soul. There a thousand of them sit, under

proper officers, proper wages, treatment;and the hum of their poor spindles, and of their poor inarticulate

old hearts, is a comfort, if one chance to think of it.Of "distressed needlewomen" who cannot sew, nor be

taught to do it; who, in private truth, are mutinous maidservants come at last to the net upshot of their

anarchies; of these, or of the like incurable phenomena, I hear nothing in Berlin; and can believe that, under

this King, Indigence itself may still have something of a human aspect, not a brutal or diabolic as is

commoner in some places.This is one of Friedrich's first acts, this opening of the Cornmagazines, and

arrangements for the Destitute; [ HeldenGeschichte, i. 367. Rodenbeck, Tagebuch aus Friedrichs des

Grossen Regentenleben (Berlin, 1840), i. 2, 26 (2d June, October, 1740): a meritorious, laborious, though

essentially chaotic Book, unexpectedly futile of result to the reader; settles for each Day of Friedrich's Reign,

so far as possible, where Friedrich was and what doing; fatally wants all index as usual.] and of this there can

be no criticism. The sound of hungry pots set boiling, on judicious principles; the hum of those old women's

spindles in the warm rooms: gods and men are well pleased to hear such sounds; and accept the same as part,

Friedrich makes haste, next, to strike into Lawimprovements. It is but the morrow after this of the

Cornmagazines, by KABINETSORDRE (Act of Parliament such as they can have in that Country, where

the Three Estates sit all under one Threecornered Hat, and the debates are kept silent, and only the upshot of

them, more or less faithfully, is made public),by Cabinet Order, 3d June, 1740, he abolishes the use of

Torture in Criminal Trials. [Preuss, Friedrichs Jugend und Thronbesteigung (Berlin, 1840,a minor Book

of Preuss's), p. 340. Rodenbeck, i. 14 ("3d June").] Legal Torture, "Question" as they mildly call it, is at an

end from this date. Not in any Prussian Court shall a "question" try for answer again by that savage method.

The use of Torture had, I believe, fallen rather obsolete in Prussia; but now the very threat of it shall

vanish,the threat of it, as we may remember, had reached Friedrich himself, at one time. Three or four

years ago, it is farther said, a dark murder happened in Berlin: Man killed one night in the open streets;

murderer discoverable by no method,unless he were a certain CANDIDATUS of Divinity to whom some

trace of evidence pointed, but who sorrowfully persisted in absolute and total denial. This poor Candidatus

had been threatened with the rack; and would most likely have at length got it, had not the real murderer been

discovered,much to the discredit of the rack in Berlin. This Candidatus was only threatened; nor do I know

when the last actual instance in Prussia was; but in enlightened France, and most other countries, there was as

yet no scruple upon it. Barbier, the Diarist at Paris, some time after this, tells us of a gang of thieves there,

who were regularly put to the torture; and "they blabbed too, ILS ONT JASE," says Barbier with official

jocosity. [Barbier, Journal Historique du Regne de Louis XV. (Paris, 1849), ii. 338 (date "Dec. 1742").]

Friedrich's Cabinet Order, we need not say, was greeted everywhere, at home and abroad, by three rounds of

applause;in which surely all of us still join; though the PER CONTRA also is becoming visible to some of

us, and our enthusiasm grows less complete than formerly. This was Friedrich's first step in Law Reform,

done on his fourth day of Kingship. A long career in that kind lies ahead of him; in reform of Law, civil as

well as criminal, his efforts ended with life only. For his love of Justice was really great; and the mendacities

and wiggeries, attached to such a necessary of life as Law, found no favor from him at any time.

To neglect the Philosophies, Fine Arts, interests of Human Culture, he is least of all likely. The idea of

building up the Academy of Sciences to its pristine height, or far higher, is evidently one of those that have

long lain in the CrownPrince's mind, eager to realize themselves. Immortal Wolf, exiled but safe at

Marburg, and refusing to return in Friedrich Wilhelm's time, had lately dedicated a Book to the

CrownPrince; indicating that perhaps, under a new Reign, he might be more persuadable. Friedrich makes

haste to persuade; instructs the proper person, Reverend Herr Reinbeck, Head of the Consistorium at Berlin,

to write and negotiate. "All reasonable conditions shall be granted" the immortal Wolf,and Friedrich adds

with his own hand as Postscript: "I request you (IHN) to use all diligence about Wolf. A man that seeks truth,

and loves it, must be reckoned precious in any human society; and I think you will make a conquest in the

realm of truth if you persuade Wolf hither again." [In OEuvres de Frederic (xxvii. ii. 185), the Letter given.]

This is of date June 6th; not yet a week since Friedrich came to be King. The ReinbeckWolf negotiation

which ensued can be read in Busching by the curious. [Busching's Beitrage (? Freiherr von Wolf), i. 63137.]

It represents to us a croaky, thrifty, longheaded old Herr Professor, in no haste to quit Marburg except for

something better: "obliged to wear woollen shoes and leggings;" "bad at mounting stairs;" and otherwise

needing soft treatment. Willing, though with caution, to work at an Academy of Sciences;but dubious if

the French are so admirable as they seem to themselves in such operations. Veteran Wolf, one dimly begins

to learn, could himself build a German Academy of Sciences, to some purpose, if encouraged! This latter was

probably the stone of stumbling in that direction. Veteran Wolf did not get to be President in the New

Academy of Sciences; but was brought back, "streets all in triumph," to his old place at Halle; and there, with

little other work that was heard of, but we hope in warm shoes and without much mounting of stairs, lived

peaceably victorious the rest of his days. Friedrich's thoughts are not of a German homebuilt Academy, but

of a French one: and for this he already knows a builder; has silently had him in his eye, these two years

past,Voltaire giving hint, in the LETTER we once heard of at Loo. Builder shall be that sublime

Maupertuis; scientific lion of Paris, ever since his feat in the Polar regions, and the charming Narrative he

gave of it. "What a feat, what a book!" exclaimed the Parisian cultivated circles, male and female, on that

occasion; and Maupertuis, with plenty of bluster in him carefully suppressed, assents in a grandly modest

way. His Portraits are in the Printshops ever since; one very singular Portrait, just coming out (at which there

is some laughing): a coarsefeatured, blusterous, rather triumphantlooking man, blusterous, though finely

complacent for the nonce; in copious dressinggown and fur cap; comfortably SQUEEZING the Earth and

her meridians flat (as if HE had done it), with his left hand; and with the other, and its outstretched finger,

asking mankind, "Are not you aware, then?" "Are not we!" answers Voltaire by and by, with endless

waggeries upon him, though at present so reverent. Friedrich, in these same days, writes this Autograph;

"My heart and my inclination excited in me, from the moment I mounted the throne, the desire of having you

here, that you might put our Berlin Academy into the shape you alone are capable of giving it. Come, then,

come and insert into this wild crabtree the graft of the Sciences, that it may bear fruit. You have shown the

Figure of the Earth to mankind; show also to a King how sweet it is to possess such a man as you.

"FEDERIC" (SIC). [ OEuvres, xvii. i. 334. The fantastic "Federic," instead of "Frederic," is, by this time, the

This Letterhow could Maupertuis prevent some accident in such a case?got into the Newspapers;

glorious for Friedrich, glorious for Maupertuis; and raised matters to a still higher pitch. Maupertuis is on the

Here is another little fact which had immense renown at home and abroad, in those summer months and long

June 22d, 1740, the GEISTLICHE DEPARTEMENT (Board of Religion, we may term it) reports that the

RomanCatholic Schools, which have been in use these eight years past, for children of soldiers belonging to

that persuasion, "are, especially in Berlin, perverted, directly in the teeth of Royal Ordinance, 1732, to

seducing Protestants into Catholicism;" annexed, or ready for annexing, "is the specific Report of

FiscalGeneral to this effect:"upon which, what would it please his Majesty to direct us to do?

His Majesty writes on the margin these words, rough and ready, which we give with all their grammatical

blotches on them; indicating a mind made up on one subject, which was much more dubious then, to most

"Die Religionen Musen (MUSSEN) alle Tollerirt (TOLERIRT) werden, und Mus (MUSS) der Fiscal nuhr

(NUR) das Auge darauf haben, das (DASS) keine der andern abrug Tuhe (ABBRUCH THUE), den (DENN)

hier mus (MUSS) ein jeder nach seiner Fasson Selich (FACON SELIG) werden." [Preuss, Thronbesteigung,

"All Religions must be tolerated (TOLLERATED), and the Fiscal must have an eye that none of them make

unjust encroachment on the other; for in this Country every man must get to Heaven in his own way."

Wonderful words; precious to the then leading spirits, and which (the spelling and grammar being mended)

flew abroad over all the world: the enlightened Public everywhere answering his Majesty, once more, with its

loudest "Bravissimo!" on this occasion. With what enthusiasm of admiring wonder, it is now difficult to

fancy, after the lapse of sixscore years! And indeed, in regard to all these worthy acts of Human Improvement

which we are now concerned with, account should be held (were it possible) on Friedrich's behalf how

extremely original, and bright with the splendor of new gold, they then were: and how extremely they are

fallen dim, by general circulation, since that. Account should be held; and yet it is not possible, no human

Toleration, in Friedrich's spiritual circumstances, was perhaps no great feat to Friedrich: but what the reader

hardly expected of him was Freedom of the Press, or an attempt that way! From England, from Holland,

Friedrich had heard of Free Press, of Newspapers the best Instructors: it is a fact that he hastens to plant a

seed of that kind at Berlin; sets about it "on the second day of his reign," so eager is he. Berlin had already

some meagre INTELLIGENZBLATT (Weekly or ThriceWeekly Advertiser), perhaps two; but it is a real

Newspaper, frondent with genial leafy speculation, and food for the mind, that Friedrich is intent upon: a

"LiteraryPolitical Newspaper," or were it even two Newspapers, one French, one German; and he rapidly

makes the arrangements for it; despatches Jordan, on the second day, to seek some fit Frenchman.

Arrangements are soon made: a Bookselling Printer, Haude, Bookseller once to the PrinceRoyal,whom

we saw once in a domestic flashoflightning long ago, [Antea, Book vi. c. 7.]is encouraged to proceed

with the improved German article, MERCURY or whatever they called it; vapid Formey, a facile pen, but not

a forcible, is the Editor sought out by Jordan for the French one. And, in short, No. 1 of Formey shows itself

in print within a month; ["2d July, 1740:" Preuss, Thronbesteigung, p. 330; and Formey, Souvenirs, i. 107,

rectified by the exact Herr Preuss.] and Haude and he, Haude picking up some grand Editor in Hamburg, do

In not many months, Formey, a facile and learned but rather vapid gentleman, demitted or was dismissed; and

the Journals coalesced into one, or split into two again; and went I know not what road, or roads, in time

coming,none that led to results worth naming. Freedom of the Press, in the case of these Journals, was

never violated, nor was any need for violating it. General Freedom of the Press Friedrich did not grant, in any

quite Official or steady way; but in practice, under him, it always had a kind of real existence, though a

fluctuating, ambiguous one. And we have to note, through Friedrich's whole reign, a marked disinclination to

concern himself with Censorship, or the shackling of men's poor tongues and pens; nothing but some

officious report that there was offence to Foreign Courts, or the chance of offence, in a poor man's pamphlet,

could induce Friedrich to interfere with him or it,and indeed his interference was generally against his

Ministers for having wrong informed him, and in favor of the poor Pamphleteer appealing at the

fountainhead. [Anonymous (Laveaux), Vie de Frederic II., Roi de Prusse (Strasbourg, 1787), iv. 82. A

worthless, now nearly forgotten Book; but competent on this point, if on any; Laveaux (a handy fellow,

fugitive ExMonk, with fugitive ExNun attached) having lived much at Berlin, always in the

pamphleteering line.] To the end of his life, disgusting Satires against him, Vie Privee by Voltaire, Matinees

du Roi de Prusse, and still worse Lies and Nonsenses, were freely sold at Berlin, and even bore to be printed

there, Friedrich saying nothing, caring nothing. He has been known to burn Pamphlets publicly,one

Pamphlet we shall ourselves see on fire yet;but it was without the least hatred to them, and for official

reasons merely. To the last, he would answer his reporting Ministers, "LE PRESSE EST LIBRE (Free press,

you must consider)!"grandly reluctant to meddle with the press, or go down upon the dogs barking at his

door. Those ill effects of Free Press (first stage of the ill effects) he endured in this manner; but the good

effects seem to have fallen below his expectation. Friedrich's enthusiam for freedom of the press, prompt

enough, as we see, never rose to the extreme pitch, and it rather sank than increased as he continued his

experiences of men and things. This of Formey and the two Newspapers was the only express attempt he

made in that direction; and it proved a rather disappointing one. The two Newspapers went their way

thenceforth, Friedrich sometimes making use of them for small purposes, once or twice writing an article

himself, of wildly quizzical nature, perhaps to be noticed by us when the time comes; but are otherwise,

except for chronological purposes, of the last degree of insignificance to gods or men.

"Freedom of the Press," says my melancholic Friend, "is a noble thing; and in certain Nations, at certain

epochs, produces glorious effects,chiefly in the revolutionary line, where that has grown indispensable.

Freedom of the Press is possible, where everybody disapproves the least abuse of it; where the 'Censorship'

is, as it were, exercised by all the world. When the world (as, even in the freest countries, it almost irresistibly

tends to become) is no longer in a case to exercise that salutary function, and cannot keep down loud unwise

speaking, loud unwise persuasion, and rebuke it into silence whenever printed, Freedom of the Press will not

answer very long, among sane human creatures: and indeed, in Nations not in an exceptional case, it becomes

All these are phenomena of Friedrich's first week. Let these suffice as sample, in that first kind. Splendid

indications surely; and shot forth in swift enough succession, flash following flash, upon an attentive world.

Betokening, shall we say, what internal sea of splendor, struggling to disclose itself, probably lies in this

young King; and how high his hopes go for mankind and himself? Yes, surely;and introducing, we remark

withal, the "New Era," of Philanthropy, Enlightenment and so much else; with French Revolution, and a

"world well suicided" hanging in the rear! Clearly enough, to this young ardent Friedrich, foremost man of

his Time, and capable of DOING its inarticulate or dumb aspirings, belongs that questionable honor; and a

very singular one it would have seemed to Friedrich, had he lived to see what it meant!

Friedrich's rapidity and activity, in the first months of his reign, were wonderful to mankind; as indeed

through life he continued to be a most rapid and active King. He flies about; mustering Troops, Ministerial

Boards, passing Edicts, inspecting, accepting Homages of Provinces;decides and does, every day that

passes, an amazing number of things. Writes many Letters, too; finds moments even for some verses; and

His Letters are copiously preserved; but, as usual, they are in swift official tone, and tell us almost nothing.

To his Sisters he writes assurances; to his friends, his Suhms, Duhans, Voltaires, eager invitations, general or

particular, to come to him. "My state has changed," is his phrase to Voltaire and other dear intimates; a tone

of pensiveness, at first even of sorrow and pathos traceable in it; "Come to me,"and the tone, in an old

dialect, different from Friedrich's, might have meant, "Pray for me." An immense new scene is opened, full of

possibilities of good and bad. His hopes being great, his anxieties, the shadow of them, are proportionate.

Duhan (his good old Tutor) does arrive, Algarotti arrives, warmly welcomed, both: with Voltaire there are

difficulties; but surely he too will, before long, manage to arrive. The good Suhm, who had been Saxon

Minister at Petersburg to his sorrow this long while back, got in motion soon enough; but, alas, his lungs

were ruined by the Russian climate, and he did not arrive. Something pathetic still in those final LETTERS of

Suhm. Passionately speeding on, like a spent steed struggling homeward; he has to pause at Warsaw, and in a

few days dies there,in a way mournful to Friedrich and us! To Duhan, and Duhan's children afterwards, he

was punctually, not too lavishly, attentive; in like manner to Suhm's Nephews, whom the dying man had

recommended to him.We will now glance shortly at a second and contemporaneous phasis of Friedrich's

Friedrich is far indeed from thinking to reduce his Army, as the Foreign Editor imagines. On the contrary, he

is, with all industry, increasing it. He changed the Potsdam Giants into four regiments of the usual stature; he

is busy bargaining with his Brotherinlaw of Brunswick, and with other neighbors, for still new

regiments;makes up, within the next few months, Eight Regiments, an increase of, say, 16,000 men. It

would appear he means to keep an eye on the practicalities withal; means to have a FightingApparatus of

We saw the Old Dessauer, in a sad hour lately, speaking beside the mark; and with what Olympian glance,

suddenly tearless, the new King flashed out upon him, knowing nothing of "authority" that could reside in

any Dessauer. Nor was that a solitary experience; the like befell wherever needed. Heinrich of Schwedt, the

Ill Margraf, advancing with jocose countenance in the way of old comradeship, in those first days, met

unexpected rebuff, and was reduced to gravity on the sudden: "JETZT BIN ICH KONIG,My Cousin, I am

now King!" a fact which the Ill Margraf could never get forgotten again. LieutenantGeneral Schulenburg,

too, the didactic Schulenburg, presuming, on old familiarity, and willing to wipe out the misfortune of having

once condemned us to death, which nobody is now upbraiding him with, rushes up from Landsberg,

unbidden, to pay his congratulations and condolences, driven by irresistible exuberance of loyalty: to his

astonishment, he is reminded (thing certain, manner of the thing not known), That an Officer cannot quit his

post without order; that he, at this moment, ought to be in Landsberg! [Stenzel, iv. 41; Preuss,

Thronbesteigung; Schulenburg has a hard old military face; but here is a young face too, which has grown

unexpectedly rigorous. Fancy the blank look of little Schulenburg; the light of him snuffed out in this manner

on a sudden. It is said he had thoughts of resigning, so indignant was he: no doubt he went home to

Landsberg gloomily reflective, with the pipeclay of his mind in such a ruinous condition. But there was no

serious anger, on Friedrich's part; and he consoled his little Schulenburg soon after, by expediting some

promotion he had intended him. "Terribly proud young Majesty this," exclaim the sweet voices. And indeed,

if they are to have a Saturnian Kingdom, by appearance it will be on conditions only!

Anticipations there had been, that old unkindnesses against the CrownPrince, some of which were cruel

enough, might be remembered now: and certain people had their just fears, considering what account stood

against them; others, VICE VERSA, their hopes. But neither the fears nor the hopes realized themselves;

especially the fears proved altogether groundless. Derschau, who had voted Death in that Copenick

CourtMartial, upon the Crown Prince, is continued in his functions, in the light of his King's countenance,

as if nothing such had been. Derschau, and all others so concerned; not the least question was made of them,

nor of what they had thought or had done or said, on an occasion once so tragically vital to a certain man.

Nor is reward much regulated by past services to the CrownPrince, or even by sufferings endured for him.

"Shocking ingratitude.!" exclaim the sweet voices here too,being of weak judgment, many of them! Poor

Katte's Father, a faithful old Soldier, not capable of being more, he does, rather conspicuously, make

Feldmarschall, make Reichsgraf; happy, could these honors be a consolation to the old man. The Munchows

of Custrin,readers remember their kindness in that sad time; how the young boy went into petticoats again,

and came to the CrownPrince's cell with all manner of furnishings,the Munchows, father and sons, this

young gentleman of the petticoats among them, he took immediate pains to reward by promotion: eldest son

was advanced into the General Directorium; two younger sons, to Majorship, to Captaincy, in their respective

Regiments; him of the petticoats "he had already taken altogether to himself," [Preuss, i. 66.] and of him we

shall see a glimpse at Wilhelmina's shortly, as a "milkbeard (JEUNE MORVEUX)" in personal attendance on

his Majesty. This was a notable exception. And in effect there came good public service, eminent some of it,

from these Munchows in their various departments. And it was at length perceived to have been, in the main,

because they were of visible faculty for doing work that they had got work to do; and the exceptional case of

Lieutenant Keith, again, whom we once saw galloping from Wesel to save his life in that bad affair of the

CrownPrince's and his, was nothing like so fortunate. Lieutenant Keith, by speed on that Wesel occasion,

and help of Chesterfield's Secretary, got across to England; got into the Portuguese service; and has there

been soldiering, very silently, these ten years past,skin and body safe, though his effigy was cut in four

quarters and nailed to the gallows at Wesel;waiting a time that would come. Time being come, Lieutenant

Keith hastened home; appealed to his effigy on the gallows;and was made a LieutenantColonel merely,

with some slight appendages, as that of STALLMEISTER (Curator of the Stables) and something else;

income still straitened, though enough to live upon. [Preuss, Friedrich mit Verwandten und Freunden, p.

281.] Small promotion, in comparison with hope, thought the poor Lieutenant; but had to rest satisfied with

it; and struggle to understand that perhaps he was fit for nothing bigger, and that he must exert himself to do

this small thing well. Hardness of heart in high places! Friedrich, one is glad to see, had not forgotten the

poor fellow, could he have done better with him. Some ten years hence, quite incidentally, there came to

Keith, one morning, a fine purse of money from his Majesty, one pretty gift in Keith's experience;much

the topic in Berlin, while a certain solemn English gentleman happened to be passing that way (whom we

mean to detain a little by and by), who reports it for us with all the circumstances. [Sir Jonas Hanway,

Lieutenant Spaen too had got into trouble for the CrownPrince's sake, though we have forgotten him again;

had "admitted Katte to interviews," or we forget what;had sat his "year in Spandau" in consequence; been

dismissed the Prussian service, and had taken service with the Dutch. Lieutenant Spaen either did not return

at all, or disliked the aspects when he did, and immediately withdrew to Holland again. Which probably was

wise of him. At a late period, King Friedrich, then a great King, on one of his Cleve Journeys, fell in with

Spaen; who had become a Dutch General of rank, and was of good manners and style of conversation: King

Friedrich was charmed to see him; became his guest for the night; conversed delightfully with him, about old

Prussian matters and about new; and in the colloquy never once alluded to that interesting passage in his

young life and Spaen's. [Nicolai, Anekdoten, vi. 178.] Hard as polished steel! thinks Spaen perhaps; but, if

candid, must ask himself withal, Are facts any softer, or the Laws of Kingship to a man that holds it? Keith

silently did his LieutenantColonelcy with the appendages, while life lasted: of the Page Keith, his Brother,

who indeed had blabbed upon the Prince, as we remember, and was not entitled to be clamorous, I never

heard that there was any notice taken; and figure him to myself as walking with shouldered firelock, a private

Fusileer, all his life afterwards, with many reflections on things bygone. [These and the other Prussian Keiths

are all of Scotch extraction; the Prussians, in natural German fashion, pronounce their name KAHIT

(English "KITE" with nothing of the Y in it), as may be worth remembering in a more important instance.]

Old friendship, it would seem, is without weight in public appointments here: old friends are somewhat

astonished to find this friend of theirs a King every inch! To old comrades, if they were useless, much more if

they were worse than useless, how disappointing! "One wretched Herr [name suppressed, but known at the

time, and talked of, and whispered of], who had, like several others, hoping to rise that way, been industrious

in encouraging the CrownPrince's vices as to women, was so shocked at the return he now met, that in

despair he hanged himself in LobeJun" (Lobegun, Magdeburg Country): here is a case for the humane!

Friend Keyserling himself, "Caesarion" that used to be, can get nothing, though we love him much; being an

idle topsyturvy fellow with revenues of his own. Jordan, with his finedrawn wit, French logics,

LITERARY TRAVELS, thin exactitude; what can be done for Jordan? Him also his new Majesty loves

much; and knows that, without some official living, poor Jordan has no resource. Jordan, after some waiting

and survey, is made "Inspector of the Poor;"busy this Autumn looking out for vacant houses, and

arrangements for the thousand spinning women;continues to be employed in mixed literary services

(hunting up of Formey, for Editor, was one instance), and to be in much real intimacy. That also was perhaps

about the real amount of amiable Jordan. To get Jordan a living by planting him in some office which he

could not do; to warm Jordan by burning our royal bed for him: that had not entered into the mind of Jordan's

royal friend. The Munchows he did promote; the Finks, sons of his Tutor Finkenstein: to these and other old

comrades, in whom he had discovered fitness, it is no doubt abundantly grateful to him to recognize and

employ it. As he notably does, in these and in other instances. But before all things he has decided to

remember that he is King; that he must accept the severe laws of that trust, and do IT, or not have done

anything. An inverse sign, pointing in the same way, is the passionate search he is making in Foreign

Countries for such men as will suit him. In these same months, for example, he bethinks him of two Counts

Schmettau, in the Austrian Service, with whom he had made acquaintance in the Rhine Campaign; of a Count

von Rothenburg, whom he saw in the French Camp there; and is negotiating to have them if possible. The

Schmettaus are Prussian by birth, though in Austrian Service; them he obtains under form of an Order home,

with good conditions under it; they came, and proved useful men to him. Rothenburg, a shining kind of figure

in Diplomacy as well as Soldiership, was Alsatian German, foreign to Prussia; but him too Friedrich

obtained, and made much of, as will be notable by and by. And in fact the soul of all these noble tendencies

in Friedrich, which surely are considerable, is even this, That he loves men of merit, and does not love men of

none; that he has an endless appetite for men of merit, and feels, consciously and otherwise, that they are the

This, which is the product of all fine tendencies, is likewise their centre or focus out of which they start again,

with some chance of fulfilment;and we may judge in how many directions Friedrich was willing to expand

himself, by the multifarious kinds he was inviting, and negotiating for. Academicians,and not Maupertuis

only, but all manner of mathematical geniuses (Euler whom he got, 's Gravesande, Muschenbroek whom he

failed of); and Literary geniuses innumerable, first and last. Academicians, Musicians, Players, Dancers even;

much more Soldiers and Civil Service men: no man that carries any honest "CAN DO" about with him but

may expect some welcome here. Which continued through Friedrich's reign; and involved him in much petty

trouble, not always successful in the lower kinds of it. For his Court was the cynosure of ambitious creatures

on the wing, or inclined for taking wing: like a lantern kindled in the darkness of the world; and many

Perhaps it had been better to stand by mere Prussian or German merit, native to the ground? Or rather,

undoubtedly it had! In some departments, as in the military, the administrative, diplomatic, Friedrich was

himself among the best of judges: but in various others he had mainly (mainly, by no means blindly or solely)

to accept noise of reputation as evidence of merit; and in these, if we compute with rigor, his success was

intrinsically not considerable. The more honor to him that he never wearied of trying. "A man that does not

care for merit," says the adage, "cannot himself have any." But a King that does not care for merit, what shall

One other fine feature, significant of many, let us notice: his affection for his Mother. When his Mother

addressed him as "Your Majesty," he answered, as the Books are careful to tell us: "Call me Son; that is the

Title of all others most agreeable to me!" Words which, there can be no doubt, came from the heart. Fain

would he shoot forth to greatness in filial piety, as otherwise; fain solace himself in doing something kind to

his Mother. Generously, lovingly; though again with clear view of the limits. He decrees for her a Title higher

than had been customary, as well as more accordant with his feelings; not "Queen Dowager," but "Her

Majesty the Queen Mother." He decides to build her a new Palace; "under the Lindens" it is to be, and of due

magnificence: in a month or two, he had even got bits of the foundation dug, and the Houses to be pulled

down bought or bargained for; [Rodenbeck, p. 15 (30th June23d Aug. 1740); and correct Stenzel (iv.

44).]which enterprise, however, was renounced, no doubt with consent, as the public aspects darkened.

Nothing in the way of honor, in the way of real affection heartily felt and demonstrated, was wanting to

Queen Sophie in her widowhood. But, on the other hand, of public influence no vestige was allowed, if any

was ever claimed; and the good kind Mother lived in her Monbijou, the centre and summit of Berlin society;

and restricted herself wisely to private matters. She has her domesticities, family affections, readings,

speculations; gives evening parties at Monbijou. One glimpse of her in 1742 we get, that of a perfectly

private royal Lady; which though it has little meaning, yet as it is authentic, coming from Busching's hand,

may serve as one little twinkle in that total darkness, and shall be left to the reader and his fancy:

A Count Henkel, a Thuringian gentleman, of high speculation, high pietistic ways, extremely devout, and

given even to writing of religion, came to Berlin about some Silesian properties,a man I should think of

lofty melancholic aspect; and, in severe type, somewhat of a lion, on account of his Book called

"DEATHBED SCENES, in four Volumes." Came to Berlin; and on the 15th August, 1742, towards evening

(as the everpunctual Busching looking into Henkel's Papers gives it), "was presented to the Queen Mother;

who retained him to supper; supper not beginning till about ten o'clock. The Queen Mother was extremely

gracious to Henkel; but investigated him a good deal, and put a great many questions," not quite easy to

answer in that circle, "as, Why he did not play? What he thought of comedies and operas? What Preachers he

was acquainted with in Berlin? Whether he too was a Writer of Books? [covertly alluding to the

DEATHBED SCENES, notes Busching]. And abundance of other questioning. She also recounted many

fantastic anecdotes (VIEL ABENTEUERLICHES) about Count von Zinzendorf [Founder of HERNNHUTH,

farshining spiritual Paladin of that day, whom her Majesty thinks rather a spiritual Quixote]; and declared

that they were strictly true." [Busching's Beitrage, iv. 27.]' Upon which, EXIT Henkel, borne by Busching,

This is one momentary glance I have met with of Queen Sophie in her Dowager state. The rest, though there

were seventeen years of it in all, is silent to mankind and me; and only her death, and her Son's great grief

Actual painful sorrow about his Father, much more any new outburst of weeping and lamenting, is not on

record, after that first morning. Time does its work; and in such a whirl of occupations, sooner than

elsewhere: and the loved Dead lie silent in their mausoleum in our hearts,serenely sad as Eternity, not in

loud sorrow as of Time. Friedrich was pious as a Son, however he might be on other heads. To the last years

of his life, as from the first days of his reign, it was evident in what honor he held Friedrich Wilhelm's

memory; and the words "my Father," when they turned up in discourse, had in that fine voice of his a tone

which the observers noted. "To his Mother he failed no day, when in Berlin, however busy, to make his visit;

With his own Queen, Friedrich still consorts a good deal, in these first times; is with her at Charlottenburg,

Berlin, Potsdam, Reinsberg, for a day or two, as occasion gives; sometimes at Reinsberg for weeks running,

in the intervals of war and business: glad to be at rest amid his old pursuits, by the side of a kind innocent

being familiar to him. So it lasts for a length of time. But these happy intervals, we can remark, grow rarer:

whether the Lady's humor, as they became rarer, might not sink withal, and produce an acceleration in the

rate of decline? She was thought to be capable of "pouting (FAIRE LA FACHEE)," at one period! We are

left to our guesses; there is not anywhere the smallest whisper to guide us. Deep silence reigns in all Prussian

Books.To feel or to suspect yourself neglected, and to become MORE amiable thereupon (in which course

alone lies hope), is difficult for any Queen! Enough, we can observe these meetings, within two or three

years, have become much rarer; and perhaps about the end of the third or fourth year, they altogether cease;

and pass merely into the formal character. In which state they continued fixed, liable to no uncertainty; and

were transacted, to the end of Friedrich's life, with inflexible regularity as the annual reviews were. This is a

curious section of his life; which there will be other opportunities of noticing. But there is yet no thought of it

anywhere, nor for years to come; though fables to the contrary were once current in Books. [Laveaux,

In the old mode of Administration, in the Ministries, Government Boards, he made no change. These

administrative methods of his wise Father's are admirable to Friedrich, who knows them well; and they

continue to be so. These men of his Father's, them also Friedrich knows, and that they were well chosen. In

methods or in men, he is inclined to make the minimum of alteration at present. One Finance Hofrath of a

projecting turn, named Eckart, who had abused the last weak years of Friedrich Wilhelm, and much afflicted

mankind by the favor he was in: this Eckart Friedrich appointed a commission to inquire into; found the

public right in regard to Eckart, and dismissed him with ignominy, not with much other punishment. Minister

Boden, on the contrary, high in the Finance Department, who had also been much grumbled at, Friedrich

found to be a good man: and Friedrich not only retained Boden, but advanced him; and continued to make

more and more use of him in time coming. His love of perfection in work done, his care of thrift, seemed

almost greater than his late Father's had been,to the disappointment of many. In the other Departments,

Podewils, Thulmeyer and the rest went on as heretofore;only in general with less to do, the young King

doing more himself than had been usual. Valori, "MON GROS VALORI (my fat Valori)," French Minister

here, whom we shall know better, writes home of the new King of Prussia: "He begins his government, as by

all appearance he will carry it on, in a highly satisfactory way: everywhere traits of benevolence, sympathy

for his subjects, respect shown to the memory of the Deceased," [Memoires des Negociations du Marquis de

Valori (a Paris, 1820), i. 20 ("June 13th, 1740"). A valuable Book, which we shall often have to quote: edited

in a lamentably ignorant manner.]no change made, where it evidently is not for the better.

Friedrich's "Three principal Secretaries of State," as we should designate them, are very remarkable. Three

Clerks he found, or had known of, somewhere in the Public Offices; and now took, under some advanced

title, to be specially his own Private Clerks: three vigorous longheaded young fellows, "Eichel,

Schuhmacher, Lautensack" the obscure names of them; [Rodenbeck, 15th June, 1740.] out of whom, now and

all along henceforth, he got immensities of work in that kind. They lasted all his life; and, of course, grew

ever more expert at their function. Close, silent; exact as machinery: ever ready, from the smallest clear hint,

marginal pencilmark, almost from a glance of the eye, to clothe the Royal Will in official form, with the due

rugged clearness and thrift of words. "Came punctually at four in the morning in summer, five in winter;" did

daily the day's work; and kept their mouths well shut. A very notable Trio of men; serving his Majesty and

the Prussian Nation as Principal Secretaries of State, on those cheap terms;nay almost as Houses of

Parliament with Standing Committees and appendages, so many Acts of Parliament admittedly rather wise,

being passed daily by his Majesty's help and theirs!Friedrich paid them rather well; they saw no society;

lived wholly to their work, and to their own families. Eichel alone of the three was mentioned at all by

mankind, and that obscurely; an "abstruse, reserved, longheaded kind of man;" and "made a great deal of

money in the end," insinuates Busching, [ Beitrage, v. 238, no friend of Friedrich's or his.

In superficial respects, again, Friedrich finds that the Prussian King ought to have a King's Establishment,

and maintain a decent splendor among his neighbors,as is not quite the case at present. In this respect he

does make changes. A certain quantity of new Pages, new Goldsticks; some considerable, not too

considerable, new furbishing of the Royal Household,as it were, a fair coat of new paint, with gilding not

profuse,brought it to the right pitch for this King, About "a hundred and fifty" new figures of the Page and

Goldstick kind, is the reckoning given. [ Helden Geschichte, i. 353.] So many of these; and there is an

increase of 16,000 to one's Army going on: that is the proportion noticeable. In the facts as his Father left

them Friedrich persisted all his life; in the semblances or outer vestures he changed, to this extent for the

Readers see there is radiance enough, perhaps slightly in excess, but of intrinsically good quality, in the

Aurora of this new Reign. A brilliant valiant young King; much splendor of what we could call a golden or

soft nature (visible in those "NewEra" doings of his, in those strong affections to his Friends); and also,

what we like almost better in him, something of a STEEL BRIGHT or stellar splendor (meaning, clearness

of eyesight, intrepidity, severe loyalty to fact),which is a fine addition to the softer element, and will keep

IT and its philanthropies and magnanimities well under rule. Such a man is rare in this world; how extremely

rare such a man born King! He is swift and he is persistent; sharply discerning, fearless to resolve and

perform; carries his great endowments lightly, as if they were not heavy to him. He has known hard misery,

"What he will grow to?" Probably to something considerable. Very certainly to something far short of his

aspirations; far different from his own hopes; and the world's concerning him. It is not we, it is Father Time

that does the controlling and fulfilling of our hopes; and strange work he makes of them and us. For example,

has not Friedrich's grand "New Era," inaugurated by him in a week, with the leading spirits all adoring, issued

since in French Revolution and a "world well suicided,"the leading spirits much thrown out in

consequence! New Era has gone to great lengths since Friedrich's time; and the leading spirits do not now

adore it, but yawn over it, or worse! Which changes to us the then aspect of Friedrich, and his epoch and his

aspirations, a good deal.On the whole, Friedrich will go his way, Time and the leading spirits going theirs;

and, like the rest of us, will grow to what he can. His actual size is not great among the Kingdoms: his

outward resources are rather to be called small. The Prussian Dominion at that date is, in extent, about

fourfifths of an England Proper, and perhaps not onefifth so fertile: subject Population is well under Two

Millions and a Half; Revenue not much above One Million Sterling,' [The exact statistic cipher is, at

Friedrich's Accession: PRUSSIAN TERRITORIES, 2,275 square miles German (56,875 English);

POPULATION, 2,240,000; ANNUAL REVENUE, 7,371,707 thalers 7 groschen (1,105,756 pounds without

the pence). See Prenss, Buch fur Jedermann, i. 49; Stenzel, iii. 692; small, were not thrift such a VECTIGAL.

This young King is magnanimous; not much to be called ambitious, or not in the vulgar sense almost at

all,strange as it may sound to readers. His hopes at this time are many;and among them, I perceive,

there is not wanting secretly, in spite of his experiences, some hope that he himself may be a good deal

"happier" than formerly. Nor is there any ascetic humor, on his part, to forbid trial. He is much determined to

try. Probably enough, as we guess and gather, his agreeablest anticipations, at this time, were of Reinsberg:

How, in the intervals of work well done, he would live there wholly to the Muses; have his chosen spirits

round him, his colloquies, his suppers of the gods. Why not? There might be a King of Intellects conceivable

withal; protecting, cherishing, practically guiding the chosen Illuminative Souls of this world. A new

Charlemagne, the smallest new Charlemagne of Spiritual type, with HIS Paladins round him; how glorious,

how salutary in the dim generations now going!These too were hopes which proved signally futile.

Rigorous Time could not grant these at all;granted, in his own hard way, other things instead. But, all

along, the Lifeelement, the Epoch, though Friedrich took it kindly and never complained, was ungenial to

"Somewhat of a rotten Epoch, this into which Friedrich has been born, to shape himself and his activities

royal and other!" exclaims Smelfungus once: "In an older earnest Time, when the eternally awful

meanings of this Universe had not yet sunk into dubieties to any one, much less into levities or into

mendacities, into huge hypocrisies carefully regulated,so luminous, vivid and ingenuous a young creature

had not wanted divine manna in his Pilgrimage through Life. Nor, in that case, had he come out of it in so

lean a condition. But the highest man of us is born brother to his Contemporaries; struggle as he may, there is

no escaping the family likeness. By spasmodic indignant contradiction of them, by stupid compliance with

them,you will inversely resemble, if you do not directly; like the starling, you can't get out!Most surely,

if there do fall manna from Heaven, in the given Generation, and nourish in us reverence and genial

nobleness day by day, it is blessed and well. Failing that, in regard to our poor spiritual interests, there is sure

to be one of two results: mockery, contempt, disbelief, what we may call SHORTDIET to the length of very

famine (which was Friedrich's case); or else slow poison, carefully elaborated and provided by way of daily

"Unhappy souls, these same! The slowpoison has gone deep into them. Instead of manna, this long while

back, they have been living on mouldy corrupt meats sweetened by sugaroflead; or perhaps, like Voltaire,

a few individuals prefer hunger, as the cleaner alternative; and in contemptuous, barren, mocking humor, not

yet got the length of geniality or indignation, snuff the eastwind by way of spiritual diet. Pilgriming along

on such nourishment, the best human soul fails to become very ruddy! Tidings about Heaven are fallen so

uncertain, but the Earth and her joys are still Interesting: 'Take to the Earth and her joys; let your soul go

out, since it must; let your five senses and their appetites be well alive.' That is a dreadful 'ShamChristian

Dispensation' to be born under! You wonder at the want of heroism in the Eighteenth Century. Wonder rather

at the degree of heroism it had; wonder how many souls there still are to be met with in it of some effective

capability, though dieting in that way,nothing else to be had in the shops about. Carterets, Belleisles,

Friedrichs, Voltaires; Chathams, Franklins, Choiseuls: there is an effective stroke of work, a fine fire of

heroic pride, in this man and the other; not yet extinguished by spiritual famine or slow poison; so robust is

"But in general, that sad Gospel, 'Souls extinct, Stomachs well alive!' is the credible one, not articulately

preached, but practically believed by the abject generations, and acted on as it never was before. What

immense sensualities there were, is known; and also (as some small offset, though that has not yet begun in

1740) what immense quantities of Physical Labor and contrivance were got out of mankind, in that Epoch

and down to this day. As if, having lost its Heaven, it had struck desperately down into the Earth; as if it were

a BEAVERkind, and not a mankind any more. We had once a Barbaossa; and a world all grandly true. But

from that to Karl VI., and HIS Holy Romish Reich in such a state of 'Holiness'!" I here cut short my

Readers are impatient to have done with these miscellaneous preludings, and to be once definitely under way,

such a Journey lying ahead. Yes, readers; a Journey indeed! And, at this point, permit me to warn you that,

where the ground, where Dryasdust and the Destinies, yield anything humanly illustrative of Friedrich and his

Work, one will have to linger, and carefully gather it, even as here. Large tracts occur, bestrewn with mere

pedantisms, diplomatic cobwebberies, learned marinestores, and inhuman matter, over which we shall have

to skip emptyhanded: this also was among the sad conditions of our Enterprise, that it has to go now too

slow and again too fast; not in proportion to natural importance of objects, but to several inferior

considerations withal. So busy has perverse Destiny been on it; perverse Destiny, edacious Chance;and the

Dryasdusts, too, and Nightmares, in Prussia as elsewhere, we know how strong they are!

Friedrich's character in old age has doubtless its curious affinities, its disguised identities, with these

prognostic features and indications of his youth: and to our readers,if we do ever get them to the goal, of

seeing Friedrich a little with their own eyes and judgments,there may be pleasant contrasts and

comparisons of that kind in store, one day. But the far commoner experience (which also has been my

"My friend, you will be luckier than I, if, after ten years, not to say, in a sense, twenty years, thirty years, of

reading and rummaging in those sad Prussian Books, ancient and new (which often are laudably authentic,

too, and exact as to details), you can gather any character whatever of Friedrich, in any period of his life, or

conceive him as a Human Entity at all! It is strange, after such thousandfold writing, but it is true, his

History is considerably unintelligible to mankind at this hour; left chaotic, enigmatic, in a good many

points,the military part of it alone being brought to clearness, and rendered fairly conceivable and credible

to those who will study. And as to the Man himself, or what his real Physiognomy can have been! Well, it

must be owned few men were of such RAPIDITY of face and aspect; so difficult to seize the features of. In

his action, too, there was such rapidity, such secrecy, suddenness: a man that could not be read, even by the

candid, except as in flashes of lightning. And then the anger of bystanders, uncandid, who got hurt by him;

the hasty malevolences, the stupidities, the opacities: enough, in modern times, what is saying much, perhaps

no man's motives, intentions, and procedure have been more belied, misunderstood, misrepresented, during

his life. Nor, I think, since that, have many men fared worse, by the Limner or Biographic class, the favorable

to him and the unfavorable; or been so smeared of and blotched of, and reduced to a mere blur and

dazzlement of cross lights, incoherences, incredibilities, in which nothing, not so much as a human nose, is

clearly discernible by way of feature!" Courage, reader, nevertheless; on the above terms let us march

Young Friedrich, as his Father had done, considers it unnecessary to be crowned. Old Friedrich, first of the

name, and of the King series, we did see crowned, with a pinch of snuff tempering the solemnities. That

Coronation once well done suffices all his descendants hitherto. Such an expense of money,of diluted

mendacity too! Such haranguing, gesturing, symbolic fugling, all grown half false:avoid lying, even with

Nothing of Coronation: but it is thought needful to have the HULDIGUNGEN (Homagings) done, the

Fealties sworn; and the young Majesty in due course goes about, or gives directions, now here now there, in

his various Provinces, getting that accomplished. But even in that, Friedrich is by no means straitlaced or

punctilious; does it commonly by Deputy: only in three places, Konigsberg, Berlin, Cleve, does he appear in

person. Mainly by deputy; and always with the minimum of fuss, and no haranguing that could be avoided.

Nowhere are the old STANDE (Provincial Parliaments) assembled, now or afterwards: sufficient for this and

for every occasion are the "Permanent Committees of the STANDE;" nor is much speaking, unessential for

"STANDEof Ritterschaft mainly, of Gentry small and great existed once in all those Countries, as

elsewhere," says one Historian; "and some of them, in Preussen, for example, used to be rather loud, and

inclined to turbulence, till the curb, from a judicious bridlehand, would admonish them. But, for a long

while past,especially since the Great Elector's time, who got an 'Excise Law' passed, or the foundations of

a good Excise Law laid; [Preuss, iv. 432; and Thronbesteigung, pp. 379383.] and, what with Excise, what

with DomainFarms, had a fixed Annual Budget, which he reckoned fair to both parties,they have been

dying out for want of work; and, under Friedrich Wilhelm, may be said to have gone quite dead. What work

was left for them? Prussian Budget is fixed, many things are fixed: why talk of them farther? The Prussian

King, nothing of a fool like certain others,"which indeed is the cardinal point, though my Author does not

say so,"is respectfully aware of the facts round him; and can listen to the rumors too, so far as he finds

good. The King sees himself terribly interested to get into the right course in all things, and avoid the wrong

one! Probably he does, in his way, seek 'wise Advice concerning the arduous matters of the Kingdom;' nay I

believe he is diligent to have it of the wisest:who knows if STANDE would always give it wiser;

especially STANDE in the haranguing condition?"Enough, they are not applied to. There is no Freedom in

that Country. "No Freedom to speak of," continues he: "but I do a little envy them their Fixed Budget, and

some other things. What pleasure there can be in having your household arrangements tumbled into disorder

every new Year, by a newcontrived scale of expenses for you, I never could ascertain!"

Friedrich is not the man to awaken Parliamentary sleepingdogs well settled by his Ancestors. Once or twice,

out of Preussen, in Friedrich Wilhelm's time, there was heard some whimper, which sounded like the

beginning of a bark. But Friedrich Wilhelm was on the alert for it: Are you coming in with your NIE

POZWALAM (your LIBERUM VETO), then? None of your Polish vagaries here. "TOUT LE PAYS SERA

RUINE (the whole Country will be ruined)," say you? (Such had been the poor Marshal or Provincial

SPEAKER'S Remonstrance on one occasion): "I don't believe a word of that. But I do believe the

Government by JUNKERS [Country Squires] and NIE POZWALAM will be ruined,"as it is fully meant to

be! "I am establishing the King's Sovereignty like a rock of bronze (ICH STABILIRE DIE

SOUVERAINETAT WIE EINEN ROCHER VON BRONZE)," some extremely strong kind of rock!

[Forster, b. iii. ( Urkundenbuch, i. 50); Preuss, iv. 420 n. "NIE POZWALAM" (the formula of LIBERUM

VETO) signifies "I Don't Permit!"] This was one of Friedrich Wilhelm's marginalia in response to such a

thing; and the mutinous whimper died out again. Parliamentary Assemblages are sometimes Collective

Wisdoms, but by no means always so. In Magdeburg we remember what trouble Friedrich Wilhelm had with

his unreasonable Ritters. Ritters there, in their assembled capacity, had the Reich behind them, and could not

be dealt with like Preussen: but Friedrich Wilhelm, by wise slow methods, managed Magdeburg too, and

In each Province, a Permanent Committeechosen, I suppose, by King and Knights assenting; chosen I

know not how, but admitted to be wisely chosenrepresents the once Parliament or STANDE; and has its

potency for doing good service in regard to all Provincial matters, from roads and bridges upwards, and is

impotent to do the least harm. Roads and bridges, Church matters, repartition of the Landdues, Army

matters,in fact they are an effective non haranguing Parliament, to the King's Deputy in every such

Province; well calculated to illuminate and forward his subaltern AMTmen and him. Nay, we observe it is

oftenest in the way of gifts and solacements that the King articulately communicates with these Committees

or their Ritterschafts. Projects for Draining of Bogs, for improved Highways, for better Husbandry; loans

granted them, LoanBanks established for the Province's behoof:no need of parliamentary eloquence on

It is from this quiescent, or busy but noiseless kind of STANDE and Populations that Friedrich has his

HULDIGUNG to take;and the operation, whether done personally or by deputy, must be an abundantly

simple one. He, for his part, is fortunate enough to find everywhere the Sovereignty ESTABLISHED; "rock

of bronze" not the least shaken in his time. He will graciously undertake, by Written Act, which is read before

the STANDE, King or King's Deputy witnessing there, "To maintain the privileges" of his STANDE and

Populations; the STANDE answer, on oath, with lifted hand, and express invocation of Heaven, That they

will obey him as true subjects; And sodoubtless with something of dining superadded, but no whisper of it

The HULDIGUNG itself is nothing to us, even with Friedrich there, as at Konigsberg, Berlin, Cleve, the

three exceptional places. To which, nevertheless, let us briefly attend him, for the sake of here and there some

direct glimpse we may get of the then Friedrich's actual physiognomy and ways. Other direct view, or the

chance of such, is not conceded us out of those sad Prussian Books; which are very full on this of the

HULDIGUNG, if silent on so many other points. [Preuss, Thronbesteigung, p. 382.]

To Konigsberg is his first excursion on this errand. Preussen has perhaps, or may be suspected of having,

some remnants of sour humors left in it, and remembrances of STANDE with haranguings and even mutinies:

there if anywhere the King in person may do good on such an occasion, He left Berlin, July 7th, bound

thitherward; here is Note of that first Royal Tour,specimen of several hundreds such, which he had to do in

"Friend Algarotti, charming talker, attended him; who else, official and nonofficial, ask not. The Journey is

to be circuitous; to combine various businesses, and also to have its amusements. They went by Custrin;

glancing at old known Country, which is at its greenest in this season. By Custrin, across the Neumark, into

Pommern; after that by an intricate winding route; reviewing regiments, inspecting garrisons, now here now

there; doing all manner of inspections; talking I know not what; oftenest lodging with favored Generals, if it

suited. Distance to Konigsberg, by the direct road, is about 500 miles; by this winding one, it must have been

800: Journey thither took nine days in all. Obliquely through Pommern, almost to the coast of the Baltic; their

ultimatum there a place called Coslin, where they reviewed with strictness,omitting Colberg, a small

SeaFortress not far rearward, time being short. Thence into WestPreussen, into Polish Territory, and

swiftly across that; keeping Dantzig and its noises wide enough to the left: one night in Poland; and the next

they are in OstPreussen, place called Liebstadt, again on homeground, and diligently reviewing there.

"The review at Liebstadt is remarkable in this, That the regiments, one regiment especially, not being what

was fit, a certain GrenadierCaptain got cashiered on the spot; and the old Commandant himself was soon

after pensioned, and more gently sent his ways. So strict is his Majesty. Contrariwise, he found

LieutenantGeneral von Katte's Garrison, at Angerburg, next day, in a very high perfection; and Colonel

Posadowsky's regiment specially so; with which latter gentleman he lodged that night, and made him farther

happy by the ORDER OF MERIT: Colonel Posadowsky, Garrison of Angerburg, far off in EastPreussen,

Chevalier of the Order of Merit henceforth, if we ever meet him again. To the good old LieutenantGeneral

von Katte, who no doubt dined with them, his Majesty handed, on the same occasion, a Patent of

Feldmarschall;intends soon to make him Graf; and did it, as readers know. Both Colonel and General

attended him thenceforth, still by a circuitous route, to Konigsberg, to assist in the solemnities there. By

Gumbinnen, by Trakehnen,the Stud of Trakehnen: that also his Majesty saw, and made review of; not

without emotion, we can fancy, as the sleek colts were trotted out on those new terms! At Trakehnen, Katte

and the Colonel would be his Majesty's guests, for the night they stayed. This is their extreme point eastward;

Konigsberg now lies a good way west of them. But at Trakehnen they turn; and, Saturday, 16th July, 1740,

after another hundred miles or so, along the pleasant valley of the Pregel, get to Konigsberg: ready to begin

business on Monday morning,on Sunday if necessary." [From Preuss, Thronbesteigung, pp. 382, 385;

On Sunday there did a kind of memorability occur: The HULDIGUNGS PREDIGT (Homage Sermon)by

a reverend Herr Quandt, chief Preacher there. Which would not be worth mentioning, except for this

circumstance, that his Majesty exceedingly admired Quandt, and thought him a most Demosthenic genius,

and the best of all the Germans. Quandt's text was in these words: "Thine are we, David, and on thy side, thou

Son of Jesse; Peace, peace be unto thee, and peace be to thine helpers; for thy God helpeth thee." [ First

Chronicles, xii. 18.] Quandt began, in a sonorous voice, raising his face with respectful enthusiasm to the

King, "Thine are we, O Friedrich, and on thy side, thou Son of Friedrich Wilhelm;" and so went on: sermon

brief, sonorous, compact, and sticking close to its text. Friedrich stood immovable, gazing on the eloquent

Demosthenic Quandt, with admiration heightened by surprise;wrote of Quandt to Voltaire; and, with

sustained enthusiasm, to the Public long afterwards; and to the end of his days was wont to make Quandt an

exception, if perhaps almost the only one, from German barbarism, and disharmony of mind and tongue. So

that poor Quandt cannot ever since get entirely forgotten, but needs always to be raked up again, for this

reason when others have ceased: an almost melancholy adventure for poor Quandt and Another!

The HULDIGUNG was rather grand; Harangue and Counterharangue permitted to the due length, and

proper festivities following: but the STANDE could not manage to get into vocal covenanting or deliberating

at all; Friedrich before leaving Berlin had answered their hint or request that way, in these words: "We are

likewise graciously inclined to give to the said STANDE, before their Homaging, the same assurance which

they got from our Herr Father's Majesty, who is now with God,"general assurance that their, and

everybody's, "Rights shall be maintained [as we see they are], with which, it is hoped (HOFFENTLICH),

they will be content, and get to peace upon this matter (SICH DABEI BERUHIGEN WERDEN)." [Preuss,

Friedrich gave away much corn here; that is, opened his Corn Granaries, on charitable terms, and took all

manner of measures, here as in other places, for relief of the scarcity there was. Of the illuminations, never so

grand, the reader shall hear nothing. A "TorchProcession of the Students" turned out a pretty

thing:Students marching with torches, with fine windmusic, regulated enthusiasm, fine succinct address

to his Majesty; and all the world escorting, with its "Live Forever!" Friedrich gave the Students "a

TRINKGELAG (Banquet of Liquors)," how arranged I do not know: and to the Speaker of the Address, a

likely young gentleman with VON to his name, he offered an Ensigncy of Foot ("in Camas's Fusileer

Regiment,"Camas now gone to Paris, embassying), which was joyfully accepted. Joyfully accepted;and

it turned out well for all parties; the young gentleman having risen, where merit was the rule of rising, and

become Graf and LieutenantGeneral, in the course of the next fifty years. [Preuss, Thronbesteigung, p. 387.]

Huldigung and TorchProcession over, the Royal Party dashed rapidly off, next morning (21st July),

homewards by the shortest route; and, in three days more, by FrankfurtonOder (where a glimpse of

General Schwerin, a favorite General, was to be had), were safe in Berlin; received with acclamation, nay

with "blessings and even tears" some say, after this pleasant Fortnight's Tour. General Schwerin, it is

rumored, will be made Feldmarschall straightway, the Munchows are getting so promoted as we said; edicts

are coming out, much business speeding forward, and the tongues of men keep wagging.

Berlin HULDIGUNGand indeed, by Deputy, that of nearly all the other Townswas on Tuesday, August

2d. At Berlin his Majesty was present in the matter: but, except the gazing multitudes, and hussar regiments,

ranked in the SchlossPlatz and streets adjoining, there was little of notable in it; the upholstery arrangements

thrifty in the extreme. His Majesty is prone to thrift in this of the Huldigung, as would appear; perhaps

regarding the affair as scenic merely. Here, besides this of Berlin, is another instance just occurring. It

appears, the Quedlinburg people, shut out from the light of the actual Royal Countenance, cannot do their

Homaging by Deputy, without at least a Portrait of the King and of the Queen: How manage? asks the

Official Person. "Have a Couple of Daubs done in Berlin, three guineas apiece; send them these," answers the

King! [ "On doit faire barbouiller de mauvaises copies a Berlin, la piece a 20 ecus. {end italic>FR."

Here in the Berlin Schloss, scene the Large Hall within doors, there is a "platform raised three steps; and on

this, by way of a kind of throne, an armchair covered with old black velvet;" the whole surmounted by a

canopy also of old black velvet: not a sublime piece of upholstery; but reckoned adequate. Friedrich mounted

the three steps; stood before the old chair, his Princes standing promiscuously behind it; his Ritters in

quantity, in front and to right and left, on the floor. Some Minister of the Interior explains suitably, not at too

great length, what they are met for; some junior Official, junior but of quality, responded briefly, for himself

and his order, to the effect, "Yea, truly:" the HULDIGUNGENSURKUNDE (Deed of Homage) was then

read by the proper Clerk, and the Ritters all swore; audibly, with lifted hands. This is the Ritter Huldigung.

His Majesty then steps out to the Balcony, for Oath and Homage of the general Population. General

population gave its oath, and "three great shouts over and above." "ES LEBE DER KONIG!" thrice, with all

their throats. Upon which a shower of Medals, "Homage Medals," gold and silver (quantity not mentioned)

rained down upon them, in due succession; and were scrambled for, in the usual way. "His Majesty," they

write, and this is perhaps the one point worth notice, "his Majesty, contrary to custom and to etiquette,

remained on the Balcony, some time after the ceremony, perhaps a full halfhour;"silent there, "with his

look fixed attentively on the immeasurable multitude before the Schloss; and seemed sunk in deep reflection

(BETRACHTUNG):"an almost awfully eloquent though inarticulate phenomenon to his Majesty, that of

those multitudes scrambling and huzzaing there! [Preuss, Thronbesteigung, p. 389.]

These, with the Cleve one, are all the Hornagings Friedrich was personally present at; the others he did by

Deputy, all in one day (2d August); and without fuss. Scenic matters these; in which, except where he can, as

in the Konigsberg case, combine inspections and grave businesses with them, he takes no interest. However,

he is now, for the sake chiefly of inspections and other real objects, bent on a Journey to Cleve;the fellow

of that to Konigsberg: Konigsberg, Preussen, the easternmost outlying wing of his long straggling

Dominions; and then CleveJulich, its counterpart on the southwestern side,there also, with such

contingencies hanging over CleveJulich, it were proper to make some mustering of the Frontier garrisons

and affairs. [In regard to the Day of HULDIGUNG at Cleve, which happily is not of the least moment to us,

Preuss ( Thronbesteigung, p, 390) and HeldenGeschichte, (i. 423) seem to be in flat contradiction.] His

Majesty so purposes: and we purpose again to accompany,not for inspection and mustering, but for an

unexpected reason. The grave Journey to Cleve has an appendage, or comic sidepiece, hanging to it; more

than one appendage; which the reader must not miss!Before setting out, read these two Fractions, snatched

from the Diplomatist Wastebag; looking well, we gain there some momentary view of Friedrich on the

Sunday, 14th August, 1740, Dickens, who has been reporting hitherto in a favorable, though in a languid

exoteric manner, not being in any height of favor, England or he,had express Audience of his Majesty;

being summoned out to Potsdam for that end: "Sunday evening, about 7 P.M."Majesty intending to be off

on the Cleve Journey tomorrow. Let us accompany Dickens. Readers may remember, George II. has been at

Hanover for some weeks past; Bielfeld diligently grinning euphemisms and courtly graciosities to him;

Truchsess hinting, on opportunity, that there are perhaps weighty businesses in the rear; which, however, on

the Britannic side, seem loath to start. Britannic Majesty is much at a loss about his Spanish War, so

dangerous for kindling France and the whole world upon him. In regard to which Prussia might be so

important, for or against.This, in compressed form, is what Dickens witnesses at Potsdam that Sunday

"Audience lasted above an hour: King turned directly upon business; wishes to have 'Categorical Answers' as

to Three Points already submitted to his Britannic Majesty's consideration. Clear footing indispensable

between us. What you want of me? say it, and be plain. What I want of you is, These three things:

"1. Guarantee for Julich and Berg. All the world knows WHOSE these Duchies are. Will his Britannic

Majesty guarantee me there? And if so, How, and to what lengths, will he proceed about it?

"2. Settlement about OstFriesland. Expectancy of OstFriesland soon to fall heirless, which was granted

me long since, though Hanover makes hagglings, counterclaimings: I must have some Settlement about that.

"3. The like about those perplexities in Mecklenburg. No difficulty there if we try heartily, nor is there

"These are my three claims on England; and I will try to serve England as far in return, if it will tell me how.

'Ah, beware of throwing yourself into the arms of France!' modestly suggests Dickens.'Well, if France will

guarantee me those Duchies, and you will not do anything?' answers his Majesty with a fine laugh: 'England I

consider my most natural friend and ally; but I must know what there is to depend on there. Princes are ruled

by their interest; cannot follow their feelings. Let me have an explicit answer; say, at Wesel, where I am to be

on the 24th,'" ten days hence. Britannic Majesty is at Hanover, and can answer within that time. "This he

twice told me, 'Wesel, 24th,' in the course of our interview. Permit me to recommend the matter to your

"During the whole audience," adds Dickens, "the King was in extreme good humor; and not only heard with

attention all the considerations I offered, but was not the least offended at any objections I made to what he

said. It is undoubtedly the best way to behave with frankness to him." These last are Dickens's own words; let

them modestly be a memorandum to your Lordship. This King goes himself direct to the point; and

straightforwardness, as a primary condition, will profit your Lordship with him. [Dickens (in StatePaper

Most true advice, this;and would perhaps be followed, were it quite easy! But things are very complicated.

And the Britannic Majesty, much plagued with Spanish War and Parliamentary noises in that unquiet Island,

is doubtless glad to get away to Hanover for a little; and would fain be on holiday in these fine rural months.

Which is not well possible either. Jenkins's Ear, rising at last like a fiery portent, has kindled the London Fog

over yonder, in a strange way, and the murky stagnancy is all getting on fire; the English intent, as seldom

any Nation was, to give the Spaniards an effectual beating. Which they hope they can,though unexpected

difficulties will occur. And, in the mean while, what a riddle of potentialities for his poor Majesty to read, and

Bielfeld, in spite of all this, would fain be full of admiration for the Britannic Majesty. Confesses he is below

the middle size, in fact a tiny little creature, but then his shape is perfect; leg much to be

commended,which his Majesty knows, standing always with one leg slightly advanced, and the Order of

the Garter on it, that mankind may take notice. Here is Bielfeld's description faithfully abridged:

"Big blue eyes, perhaps rather of parboiled character, though proud enough; eyes flush with his face or more,

rather IN RELIEF than on a level with it,"A FLEUR DE TETE, after the manner of a fish, if one might say

so, and betokening such an intellect behind them! "Attitude constrained, leg advanced in that way; his

courtiers call it majestic. Biggish mouth, strictly shut in the crescent or horseshoe form (FERMEE EN

CROISSANT); curly wig (A NOEUDS, reminding you of lamb'swool, color not known); eyebrows,

however, you can see are ashyblond; general tint is fundamentally livid; but when in good case, the royal

skin will take tolerably bright colors (PREND D'ASSEZ BELLES COULEURS). As to the royal mind and

understanding, what shall Bielfeld say? That his Majesty sometimes makes ingenious and just remarks, and is

laudably serious at all times, and can majestically hold his tongue, and stand with advanced leg, and eyes

rather more than flush. Sense of his dignity is high, as it ought to be; on great occasions you see pride and a

kind of joy mantling in the royal countenance. Has been known to make explosions, and to be very furious to

Prince Fred and others, when pricked into:but, my friend, what mortal is exempt from failings? Majesty

reads the English Newspapers every morning in bed, which are often biting. Majesty has his Walmoden, a

Hanoverian Improper Female, Countess of Yarmouth so called; quiet, autumnal, fair complexioned, stupid;

who is much a comfort to him. She keeps out of mischief, political or other; and gives Bielfeld a gracious nod

now and then." [Bielfeld, i. 158.] Harrington is here too;and Britannic Majesty and he are busy governing

About six weeks after that of Dickens,Cleve Journey and much else now ended,Praetorius the Danish

Envoy, whom we slightly knew at Reinsberg once, gives this testimony; writing home to an Excellency at

"To give your Excellency a just idea of the new Government here, I must observe that hitherto the King of

Prussia does as it were everything himself; and that, excepting the Finance Minister von Boden, who

preaches frugality, and finds for that doctrine uncommon acceptance, almost greater even than in the former

reign, his Majesty allows no counselling from any Minister; so that Herr von Podewils, who is now the

working hand in the department of Foreign Affairs, has nothing given him to do but to expedite the orders he

receives from the Cabinet, his advice not being asked upon any matter; and so it is with the other Ministers.

People thought the loss of Herr von Thulmeyer," veteran Foreign Minister whom we have transiently heard

of in the DoubleMarriage time, and perhaps have even seen at London or elsewhere, [Died 4th August

(Rodenbeck, p. 20).] "would be irreparable; so expert was he, and a living archive in that business: however,

his post seems to have vanished with himself. His salary is divided between Herr von Podewils," whom the

reader will sometimes hear of again, "Kriegsrath (Councillor of War) von Ilgen," son of the old gentleman we

used to know, "and Hofrath Sellentin who is RENDANT OF THE LEGATIONSKASSE" (Ambassadors'

Paymaster, we could guess, Ambassador Body having specialty of cash assigned it, comparable with the

specialty of value received from it, in this strict frugal Country),neither of which two latter names shall the

reader be troubled with farther. "A good many resolutions, and responses by the King, I have seen: they

combine laconic expression with an admirable business eye (GESCHAFTSBLICK). Unhappily,"at least

for us in the Diplomatic line, for your Excellency and me unhappily,"there is nobody about the King who

possesses his complete confidence, or whom we can make use of in regard to the necessary introductions and

preliminary movements. Hereby it comes that,as certain things can only be handled with cautious foresight

and circumlocution, and in the way of beginning wide,an Ambassador here is more thrown out of his

course than in any other Court; and knows not, though his object were steadily in sight, what road to strike

into for getting towards it." [Preuss, Thronbesteigung, p. 377 (2d October, 1740).]

King Friedrich did not quite keep his day at Wesel; indeed this 24th was not the first day, but the last of

several, he had appointed to himself for finis to that Journey in the Cleve Countries; Journey rather complex

to arrange. He has several businesses ahead in those parts; and, as usual, will group them with good

judgment, and thrift of time. Not inspections merely, but amusements, meetings with friends, especially

French friends: the question is, how to group them with skill, so that the necessary elements may converge at

the right moment, and one shot kill three or four birds. This is Friedrich's fine way, perceptible in all these

Journeys. The French friends, flying each on his own track, with his own load of impediments, Voltaire with

his Madame for instance, are a difficult element in such problem; and there has been, and is, much scheming

Voltaire is now at Brussels, with his Du Chatelet, prosecuting that endless "lawsuit with the House of

Honsbruck,"which he, and we, are both desirous to have done with. He is at the Hague, too, now and then;

printing, about to print, the ANTIMACHIAVEL; corresponding, to right and left, quarrelling with Van

Duren the Printer; lives, while there, in the VIEILLE COUR, in the vast dusky rooms with faded gilding, and

grand old Bookshelves "with the biggest spiderwebs in Europe." Brussels is his place for Law

Consultations, general family residence; the Hague and that old spiderweb Palace for correcting

Proofsheets; doing one's own private studies, which we never quite neglect. Fain would Friedrich see him,

fain he Friedrich; but there is a divine Emilie, there is a Maupertuis, there areIn short, never were such

difficulties, in the cooking of an egg with water boiling; and much vain correspondence has already been on

that subject, as on others equally extinct. Correspondence which is not pleasant reading at this time; the rather

as no reader can, without endless searching, even understand it. Correspondence left to us, not in the cosmic,

elucidated or legible state; left mainly as the Editorial rubbishwagons chose to shoot it; like a tumbled

quarry, like the ruins of a sacked city;avoidable by readers who are not forced into it! [Herr Preuss's

edition ( OEuvres de Frederic, vols. xxi. xxii. xxiii.) has come out since the above was written: it is agreeably

exceptional; being, for the first time, correctly printed, and the editor himself having mostly understood

it,though the reader still cannot, on the terms there allowed.] Take the following select bricks as sample,

"CHARLOTTENBURG, 12th JUNE, 1740.... My dear Voltaire, resist no longer the eagerness I have to

see you. Do in my favor whatever your humanity allows. In the end of August, I go to Wesel, and perhaps

Chapter III. FRIEDRICH MAKES AN EXCURSION, NOT OF DIRECT SORT INTO THE CLEVE COUNTRIES. 543

farther. Promise that you will come and join me; for I could not live happy, nor die tranquil, without having

embraced you! Thousand compliments to the Marquise," divine Emilie. "I am busy with both hands

[CornMagazines, Free Press, Abolition of Torture, and much else]; working at the Army with the one hand,

"BERLIN, 5th AUGUST, 1740.... I will write to Madame du Chatelet, in compliance with your wish:"

mark it, reader. "To speak to you frankly concerning her journey, it is Voltaire, it is you, it is my Friend that I

desire to see; and the divine Emilie with all her divinity is only the Accessory of the Apollo Newtonized.

"I cannot yet say whether I shall travel [incognito into foreign parts a little] or not travel;" there have been

rumors, perhaps private wishes; but... "Adieu, dear friend; sublime spirit, firstborn of thinking beings.

Love me always sincerely, and be persuaded that none can love and esteem you more than I. VALE.

"BERLIN, 6th AUGUST [which is next day].You will have received a Letter from me dated yesterday;

this is the second I write to you from Berlin; I refer you to what was in the other. If it must be (FAUT) that

Emilie accompany Apollo, I consent; but if I could see you alone, that is what I would prefer. I should be too

much dazzled; I could not stand so much splendor all at once; it would overpower me. I should need the veil

of Moses to temper the united radiance of your two divinities." ... In short, don't bring her, if you please.

"REMUSBERG [poetic for REINSBERG], 8th AUGUST, 1740.... My dear Voltaire, I do believe Van

Duren costs you more trouble and pains than you had with HENRI QUATRE. In versifying the Life of a

Hero, you wrote the history of your own thoughts; but in coercing a scoundrel you fence with an enemy who

is not worthy of you." To punish him, and cut short his profits, "PRINT, then, as you wish [your own edition

of the ANTIMACHIAVEL, to go along with his, and trip the feet from it]. FAITES ROULER LA PRESSE;

erase, change, correct; do as you see best; your judgment about it shall be mine.""In eight days I leave for

[where thinks the reader? "DANTZIG" deliberately print all the Editors, careful Preuss among them;

overturning the terrestrial azimuths for us, and making day night!]for Leipzig, and reckon on being at

Frankfurt on the 22d. In case you could be there, I expect, on my passage, to give you lodging! At Cleve or in

Holland, I depend for certain on embracing you." [Preuss, OEuvres de Frederic, xx. pp. 5, 1921; Voltaire,

Intrinsically the Friedrich correspondence at this time, with Voltaire especially, among many friends now on

the wing towards Berlin and sending letters, has,if you are forced into struggling for some understanding

of it, and do get to read parts of it with the eyes of Friedrich and Voltaire,has a certain amiability; and is

nothing like so waste and dreary as it looks in the chaotic or sackedcity condition. Friedrich writes with

brevity, oftenest on practicalities (the ANTIMACHIAVEL, the coming Interview, and the like), evidently

no time to spare; writes always with considerable sincerity; with friendliness, much admiration, and an

ingenuous vivacity, to M. de Voltaire. Voltaire, at his leisure in Brussels or the Old Palace and its

spiderwebs, writes much more expansively; not with insincerity, he either;with endless airy graciosities,

and ingenious twirls, and touches of flattering unction, which latter, he is aware, must not be laid on too

In regard to the ANTIMACHIAVEL,Sire, deign to give me your permissions as to the scoundrel of a

Van Duren; well worth while, Sire,"IT is a monument for the latest posterity; the only Book worthy of a

This is a strongish trowelful, thrown on direct, with adroitness; and even this has a kind of sincerity. Safer,

however, to do it in the oblique or reflex way,by Ambassador Cumas, for example:

Chapter III. FRIEDRICH MAKES AN EXCURSION, NOT OF DIRECT SORT INTO THE CLEVE COUNTRIES. 544

"I will tell you boldly, Sir [you M. de Camas], I put more value on this Book (ANTIMACHIAVEL) than on

the Emperor Julian's CAESAR, or on the MAXIMS of Marcus Aurelius,"I do indeed, having a kind of

property in it withal! [Voltaire, OEuvres, lxxii. 280 (to Camas, 18th October, 1740).]

In fact, Voltaire too is beautiful, in this part of the Correspondence; but much in a twitter,the Queen of

Sheba, not the sedate Solomon, in prospect of what is coming. He plumes himself a little, we perceive, to his

d'Argentals and French Correspondents, on this sublime intercourse he has got into with a Crowned Head, the

cynosure of mankind:Perhaps even you, my best friend, did not quite know me, and what merits I had!

Plumes himself a little; but studies to be modest withal; has not much of the peacock, and of the turkey has

nothing, to his old friends. All which is very naive and transparent; natural and even pretty, on the part of M.

de Voltaire as the weaker vessel. For the rest, it is certain Maupertuis is getting under way at Paris towards

the Cleve rendezvous. Brussels, too, is so near these Cleve Countries; within two days' good driving:if

Friedrich's intention is by no means for a straight journey towards Cleve: he intends for Baireuth first, then

back from Baireuth to Cleve,making a huge southward elbow on the map, with Baireuth for apex or

turningpoint:in this manner he will make the times suit, and have a convergence at Cleve. To

Baireuth;who knows if not farther? All summer there has gone fitfully a rumor, that he wished to see

France; perhaps Paris itself incognito? The rumor, which was heard even at Petersburg, [Raumer's Beitrage

(English Translation, London, 1837), p. 15 (Finch's Despatch, 24th June, 1740).] is now sunk dead again; but

privately, there is no doubt, a glimpse of the sublime French Nation would be welcome to Friedrich. He could

never get to Travelling in his young time; missed his Grand Tour altogether, much as he wished it; and he is

capable of pranks!Enough, on Monday morning, 15th August, 1740, [Rodenbeck, p. 15, slightly in error:

see Dickens's Interview, supra, p. 187.] Friedrich and Suite leave Potsdam; early enough; go, by Leipzig, by

the route already known to readers, through Coburg and the Voigtland regions; Wilhelmina has got warning,

sits eagerly expecting her Brother in the Hermitage at Baireuth, gladdest of shrill sisters; and full of anxieties

how her Brother would now be. The travelling party consisted, besides the King, of seven persons: Prince

August Wilhelm, King's next Brother, Heirapparent if there come no children, now a brisk youth of

eighteen; Leopold Prince of Anhalt Dessau, Old Dessauer's eldest, what we may call the "Young Dessauer;"

Colonel von Borck, whom we shall hear of again; Colonel von Stille, already heard of (grave men of fifty,

these two); milkbeard Munchow, an Adjutant, youngest of the promoted Munchows; Algarotti,

indispensable for talk; and Fredersdorf, the HouseSteward and domestic Factotum, once Private in

Schwerin's Regiment, whom Bielfeld so admired at Reinsberg, foreseeing what he would come to. One of

Friedrich's late acts was to give Factotum Fredersdorf an Estate of Land (small enough, I fancy, but with

countryhouse on it) for solace to the leisure of so useful a man,studious of chemistry too, as I have heard.

Seven in all, besides the King. [Rodenbeck, p. 19 (and for Chamberlain Fredersdorf's estate, p. 15).] Direct

towards Baireuth, incognito, and at the top of their speed. Wednesday, 17th, they actually arrive. Poor

Wilhelmina, she finds her Brother changed; become a King in fact, and sternly solitary; alone in soul, even as

"Algarotti, one of the first BEAUXESPRITS of this age," as Wilhelmina defines him,Friend Algarotti,

the young Venetian gentleman of elegance, in dusky skin, in very white linen and frills, with his fervid black

eyes, "does the expenses of the conversation." He is full of elegant logic, has speculations on the great world

and the little, on Nature, Art, Papistry, Anti Papistry, and takes up the Opera in an earnest manner, as

capable of being a school of virtue and the moral sublime. His respectable Books on the Opera and other

topics are now all forgotten, and crave not to be mentioned. To me he is not supremely beautiful, though

much the gentleman in manners as in ruffles, and ingeniously logical:rather yellow to me, in mind as in

skin, and with a taint of obsolete Venetian Macassar. But to Friedrich he is thricedear; who loves the Sharp

faceted cut of the man, and does not object to his yellow or ExtinctMacassar qualities of mind. Thanks to

that wandering Baltimore for picking up such a jewel and carrying him Northward! Algarotti himself likes

the North: here in our hardy climates,especially at Berlin, and were his loved Friedrich NOT a

Chapter III. FRIEDRICH MAKES AN EXCURSION, NOT OF DIRECT SORT INTO THE CLEVE COUNTRIES. 545

King,Algarotti could be very happy in the liberty allowed. At London, where there is no King, or none to

speak of, and plenty of free Intelligences, Carterets, Lytteltons, young Pitts and the like, he is also well, were

it not for the horrid smoke upon one's linen, and the little or no French of those proud Islanders.

Wilhelmina seems to like him here; is glad, at any rate, that he does the costs of conversation, better or worse.

In the rest is no hope. Stille, Borck are accomplished military gentlemen; but of tacit nature, reflective,

practical, rather than discursive, and do not waste themselves by incontinence of tongue. Stille, by his

military Commentaries, which are still known to soldiers that read, maintains some lasting remembrance of

himself: Borck we shall see engaged in a small bit of business before long. As to Munchow, the JEUNE

MORVEUX of an Adjutant, he, though his manners are well enough, and he wears military plumes in his hat,

is still an unfledged young creature, "bill still yellow," so to speak; and marks himself chiefly by a visible

hankering after that troublesome creature Marwitz, who is always coquetting. Friedrich's conversation,

especially to me Wilhelmina, seems "GUINDE, set on stilts," likewise there are frequent cuts of banter in

him; and it is painfully evident he distinguishes my Sister of Anspach and her foolish Husband, whom he has

invited over hither in a most eager manner, beyond what a poor Wilhelmina with her old love can pretend to.

Patience, my shrill Princess, Beauty of Baireuth and the world; let us hope all will come right again! My

shrill Princesswho has a melodious strength like that of warfifes, tooknows how to be patient; and

These were Three great Days at Baireuth; Wilhelmina is to come soon, and return the visit at Berlin. To wait

upon the King, known though incognito, "the Bishop of Bamberg" came driving over: [ HeldenGeschichte,

i. 419.] Schonborn, Austrian Kanzler, or who? His old City we once saw (and plenty of hanged malefactors

swinging round it, during that JOURNEY TO THE REICH);but the Bishop himself never to our

knowledge, Bishop being absent then, I hope it is the same Bishop of Bamberg, whom a Friend of

Busching's, touring there about that same time, saw dining in a very extraordinary manner, with medieval

trumpeters, "with waiters in spurs and buffbelts;" [Busching's Beitrage; Schlosser ( History of the

Eighteenth Century ) also quotes the scene.] if it is not, I have not the slightest shadow of acquaintance with

him, there have been so many Bishops of Bamberg with whom one wishes to have none! On the third day

Friedrich and his company went away, towards Wurzburg; and Wilhelmina was left alone with her

reflections. "I had had so much to say to him; I had got nothing said at all:" alas, it is ever so. "The King was

so changed, grown so much bigger (GRANDI), you could not have known him again;" stands finely erect and

at full breadth, every inch a King; his very stature, you would say, increased.Adieu, my Princess, pearl of

Princesses; all readers will expect your returnvisit at Berlin, which is to be soon.

Through Wurzburg, FrankfurtonMayn, speeds Friedrich; Wilhelmina and mankind understand that it is

homewards and to Cleve; but at Frankfurt, in deepest privacy, there occurs a sudden whirl southward,up

the RhineValley; direct towards Strasburg, for a sight of France in that quarter! So has Friedrich decided,

not quite suddenly, on new Letters here, or new computations about Cleve; but by forethought taken at

Baireuth, as rather appears. From Frankfurt to Strasburg, say 150 miles; from Strasburg home, is not much

The incognito is to be rigorous: Friedrich becomes COMTE DUFOUR, a PrussianFrench gentleman; Prince

August Wilhelm is Graf von Schaffgotsch, Algarotti is Graf von Pfuhl, Germans these two; what Leopold,

the Young Dessauer, called himself,still less what the others, or whether the others were there at all, and

not shoved on, direct towards Wesel, out of the way as is likelier, can remain uncertain to readers and me.

From Frankfurt, then, on Monday morning, 22d August, 1740, as I compute, through old known Philipsburg

Campaign country, and the lines of Ettlingen and Stollhofen; there the Royal Party speeds eagerly (weather

very bad, as appears): and it is certain they are at Kehl on Tuesday evening; looking across the long Rhine

Chapter III. FRIEDRICH MAKES AN EXCURSION, NOT OF DIRECT SORT INTO THE CLEVE COUNTRIES. 546

This looks to be a romantic fine passage in the History of the young King;though in truth it is not, and

proves but a feeble story either to him or us. Concerning which, however, the reader, especially if he should

hear that there exists precise Account of it, Two Accounts indeed, one from the King's own hand, will not fail

of a certain craving to become acquainted with details. This craving, foolish rather than wise, we consider it

thriftiest to satisfy at once; and shall give the King's NARRATIVE entire, though it is a jingling lean scraggy

Piece, partly rhyme, "in the manner of Bachaumont and La Chapelle;" written at the gallop, a few days hence,

and despatched to Voltaire:"You," dear Voltaire, "wish to know what I have been about, since leaving

Berlin; annexed you will find a description of it," writes Friedrich. [ OEuvres, xxii. 25 (Wesel, 2d Septemher,

1740).] Out of Voltaire's and other people's wastebaskets, it has at length been fished up, patch by patch,

and pasted together by victorious modern Editors; and here it is again entire. The other Narrative, which got

into the Newspapers soon after, is likewise of authentic nature,Fassmann, our poor old friend, confirming

it, if that were needful,and is happily in prose. [Given in HeldenGeschichte, i. 420423;see likewise

Fassmann's Merkwurdigster RegierungsAntritt (poor old Book on FRIEDRICH'S ACCESSION); Preuss

( Thronbesteigung, pp. 395400); Holding these two Pieces well together, and giving the King's faithfully

translated, in a complete state, it will be possible to satisfy foolish cravings, and make this Strasburg

Voltaire, OEuvres (scandalous Piece now called Memoires, once Vie Privee du Roi de Prusse ), ii. 2426;

finally, in Preuss, OEuvres de Frederic, xiv. 156161, the real and complete affair, as fished up by victorious

"I have just finished a Journey, intermingled with singular adventures, sometimes pleasant, sometimes the

reverse. You know I had set out for Baireuth,"BRUXELLES the beautiful French Editor wrote, which

makes Egyptian darkness of the Piece!"to see a Sister whom I love no less than esteem. On the road

[thither or thence; or likeliest, THERE], Algarotti and I consulted the map, to settle our route for returning by

Wesel. FrankfurtonMayn comes always as a principal stage;Strasburg was no great roundabout: we

chose that route in preference. The INCOGNITO was decided, names pitched upon [Comte Dufour, and the

others]; story we were to tell: in fine, all was arranged and concerted to a nicety as well as possible. We

But Heaven, which disposes of all things, Differently regulated this thing. With lanksided coursers, Lineal

descendants from Rosinante, With ploughmen in the dress of postilions, Blockheads of impertinent nature;

Our carriages sticking fast a hundred times in the road, We went along with gravity at a leisurely pace,

Knocking against the crags. The atmosphere in uproar with loud thunder, The raintorrents streaming over

the Earth Threatened mankind with the Day of Judgment [VERY BAD WEATHER], And in spite of our

Mais le ciel, qui de tout dispose, Regla differemment la chose. Avec de coursiers efflanques, En ligne droites

issus de Rosinante, Et des paysans en postillons masques, Dutors de race impertinente, Notre carrosse en

cent lieux accroche, Nous allions gravement, d'une allure indolente, Gravitant contre les rochers. Les airs

emus par le bruyant tonnerre, Les torrents d'eau repandus sur la terre, Du dernier jour menacaient les

humains; Et malgre notre impatience, Quatre bons jours en penitence Sont pour jamais perdus dans les

"Had all our fatalities been limited to stoppages of speed on the journey, we should have taken patience; but,

Chapter III. FRIEDRICH MAKES AN EXCURSION, NOT OF DIRECT SORT INTO THE CLEVE COUNTRIES. 547

For greedy landlords Seeing us pressed by hunger Did, in a more than frugal manner, In their infernal hovels,

Poisoning instead of feeding, Steal from us our crowns. O age different [in good cheer] from that of Lucullus!

Car des hotes interesses, De la faim nous voyant presses, D'une facon plus que frugale, Dans une chaumiere

infernale, En nous empoisonnant, Nous volaient nos ecus. O siecle different des temps de Lucullus!

"Frightful roads; short of victual, short of drink: nor was that all. We had to undergo a variety of accidents;

and certainly our equipage must have had a singular air, for in every new place we came to, they took us for

Some took us for Kings, Some for pickpockets well disguised; Others for old acquaintances. At times the

people crowded out, Looked us in the eyes, Like clowns impertinently curious. Our lively Italian [Algarotti]

swore; For myself I took patience; The young Count [my gay younger Brother, eighteen at present]

quizzed and frolicked; The big Count [Heirapparent of Dessau] silently swung his head, Wishing this

fine Journey to France, In the bottom of his heart, most christianly at the Devil.

Les uns nous prenaient pour des rois, D'autres pour des filous courtois, D'autrespour gens de connaissance;

Parfois le peuple s'attroupait, Entre les yeux nous regardait En badauds curieux, remplis d'impertinence.

Notre vif Italien jurait, Pour moi je prenais patience, Le jeune Comte folatrait, Le grand Comte se dandinait,

"We failed not, however, to struggle gradually along; at last we arrived in that Stronghold, where [as preface

Where the garrison, too supple, Surrendered so piteously After the first blurt of explosion From the cannon of

Ou a garnison, troupe flasque, Se rendit si piteusement Apres la premiere bourasque Du canon francais

You recognize Kehl in this description. It was in that fine Fortress,where, by the way, the breaches are still

lying unrepaired [Reich being a slow corpus in regard to such things], that the Postmaster, a man of more

No, said I to him; of passports We never had the whim. Strong ones I believe it would need To recall, to our

side of the limit, Subjects of Pluto King of the Dead: But, from the Germanic Empire Into the gallant and

cynical abode Of Messieurs your pretty Frenchmen, A jolly and beaming air, Rubicund faces, not ignorant

of wine, These are the passports which, legible if you look on us, Our troop produces to you for that end.

Non, lui disje, des passeports Nous n'eumes jamais la folie. Il en faudrait, je crois, de forts Pour

ressusciter a la vie De chez Pluton le roi des morts; Mais de l'empire germanique Au sejour galant et cynique

De Messieurs vos jolis Francais, Un air rebondissant et frais, Une face rouge et bachique, Sont les

"No, Messieurs, said the provident Master of Passports; no salvation without passport. Seeing then that

Necessity had got us in the dilemma of either manufacturing passports ourselves or not entering Strasburg,

we took the former branch of the alternative and manufactured one;in which feat, the Prussian arms, which

This is a fact, as the old Newspapers and confirmatory Fassmann more directly apprise us. "The Landlord [or

Postmaster] at Kehl, having signified that there was no crossing without Passport," Friedrich, at first,

Chapter III. FRIEDRICH MAKES AN EXCURSION, NOT OF DIRECT SORT INTO THE CLEVE COUNTRIES. 548

somewhat taken aback, bethought him of his watchseal with the Royal Arms on it; and soon manufactured

the necessary Passport, signeted in due form;which, however, gave a suspicion to the Innkeeper as to the

quality of his Guest. After which, Tuesday evening, 23d August, "they at once got across to Strasburg," says

my Newspaper Friend, "and put up at the SIGN OF THE RAVEN, there." Or in Friedrich's own jingle:

"We arrived at Strasburg; and the Customhouse corsair, with his inspectors, seemed content with our

These scoundrels spied us, With one eye reading our passport, With the other ogling our purse. Gold, which

was always a resource, Which brought, Jove to the enjoyment Of Danae whom he caressed; Gold, by which

Caesar governed The world happy under his sway; Gold, more a divinity than Mars or Love;

Wonderworking Gold introduced us That evening, within the walls of Strasburg." [Given thus far, with

several slight errors, in Voltaire, ii. 2426;the remainder, long unknown, had to be fished up, patch by

Ces scelerats nous epiaient, D'un oeil le passeport lisaient, De l'autre lorgnaient notre bourse. L'or, qui

toujours fut de ressource, Par lequel Jupin jouissait De Danae, qu'il caressait; L'or, par qui Cesar

gouvernait Le monde heureux sous son empire; L'or, plus dieu que Mars et l'Amour, Le soir, dans les murs

Sad doggerel; permissible perhaps as a sample of the Friedrich manufacture, surely not otherwise! There

remains yet more than half of it; readers see what their foolish craving has brought upon them! Doggerel out

of which no clear story, such story as there is, can be had; though, except the exaggeration and contortion,

there is nothing of fiction in it. We fly to the Newspaper, happily at least a prose composition, which begins

at this point; and shall use the Doggerel henceforth as illustration only or as repetition in the

Having got into Strasburg and the RAVEN HOTEL; Friedrich now on French ground at last, or at least on

HalfFrench, GermanFrench, is intent to make the most of circumstances. The Landlord, with one of

Friedrich's servants, is straightway despatched into the proper coffeehouses to raise a supperparty of

Officers; politely asks any likely Officer, "If he will not do a foreign Gentleman [seemingly of some

distinction, signifies Boniface] the honor to sup with him at the Raven?""No, by Jupiter!" answer the most,

in their various dialects: "who is he that we should sup with him?" Three, struck by the singularity of the

thing, undertake; and with these we must be content. Friedrichor call him M. le Comte Dufour, with Pfuhl,

Schaffgotsch and such escort as we see politely apologizes on the entrance of these officers: "Many

pardons, gentlemen, and many thanks. Knowing nobody; desirous of acquaintance:since you are so good,

how happy, by a little informality, to have brought brave Officers to keep me company, whom I value beyond

The Officers found their host a most engaging gentleman: his supper was superb, plenty of wine, "and one

red kind they had never tasted before, and liked extremely;"of which he sent some bottles to their lodging

next day. The conversation turned on military matters, and was enlivened with the due sallies. This foreign

Count speaks French wonderfully; a brilliant man, whom the others rather fear: perhaps something more than

a Count? The Officers, loath to go, remembered that their two battalions had to parade next morning, that it

was time to be in bed: "I will go to your review," said the Stranger Count: the delighted Officers undertake to

On the morrow, accordingly, they call and fetch him; he looks at the review; review done, they ask him to

supper for this evening: "With pleasure!" and "walks with them about the Esplanade, to see the guard march

by." Before parting, he takes their names, writes them in his tablets; says, with a smile, "He is too much

obliged ever to forget them." This is Wednesday, the 24th of August, 1740; FieldMarshal Broglio is

Chapter III. FRIEDRICH MAKES AN EXCURSION, NOT OF DIRECT SORT INTO THE CLEVE COUNTRIES. 549

Commandant in Strasburg, and these obliging Officers are "of the regiment Piedmont,"their names on the

King's tablets I never heard mentioned by anybody (or never till the King's Doggerel was fished up again).

FieldMarshal Broglio my readers have transiently seen, afar off;"galloping with only one boot," some say

"almost in his shirt," at the Ford of Secchia, in those Italian campaigns, five years ago, the Austrians having

stolen across upon him:he had a furious gallop, with no end of ridicule, on that occasion; is now

Commandant here; and we shall have a great deal more to do with him within the next year or two.

"This same day, 24th, while I [the Newspaper volunteer Reporter or Own Correspondent, seemingly a person

of some standing, whose words carry credibility in the tone of them] was with Field Marshal Broglio our

Governor here, there came two gentlemen to be presented to him; 'German Cavaliers' they were called; who, I

now find, must have been the Prince of Prussia and Algarotti. The FieldMarshal,"a rather highstalking

whiteheaded old military gentleman, bordering on seventy, of Piedmontese air and breed, apt to be sudden

and make flounderings, but the soul of honor, "was very polite to the two Cavaliers, and kept them to dinner.

After dinner there came a sostyled 'Silesian Nobleman,' who likewise was presented to the FieldMarshal,

and affected not to know the other two: him I now find to have been the Prince of Anhalt."

Of his Majesty's supper with the Officers that Wednesday, we are left to think how brilliant it was: his

Majesty, we hear farther, went to the Opera that night,the Polichinello or whatever the "Italian

COMODIE" was;"and a little girl came to his box with two lotterytickets fifteen pence each, begging the

foreign Gentleman for the love of Heaven to buy them of her; which he did, tearing them up at once, and

giving the poor creature four ducats," equivalent to two guineas, or say in effect even five pounds of the

present British currency. The fame of this foreign Count and his party at The Raven is becoming very loud

over Strasburg, especially in military circles. Our volunteer Own Correspondent proceeds (whom we mean to

"Next morning," Thursday, 25th August, "as the Marshal with above two hundred Officers was out walking

on the Esplanade, there came a soldier of the Regiment Luxemburg, who, after some stiff fugling motions, of

the nature of salutation partly, and partly demand for privacy, intimated to the Marshal surprising news: That

the Stranger in The Raven was the King of Prussia in person; he, the soldier, at present of the Regiment

Luxemburg, had in other days, before he deserted, been of the Prussian CrownPrince's regiment; had

consequently seen him in Berlin, Potsdam and elsewhere a thousand times and more, and even stood sentry

where he was: the fact is beyond dispute, your Excellency! said this soldier."Whew!

Whereupon a certain Colonel, Marquis de Loigle, with or without a hint from Broglio, makes off for The

Raven; introduces himself, as was easy; contrives to get invited to stay dinner, which also was easy. During

dinner the foreign Gentleman expressed some wish to see their fortress. Colonel Loigle sends word to

Broglio; Broglio despatches straightway an Officer and fine carriage: "Will the foreign Gentleman do me the

honor?" The foreign Gentleman, still struggling for incognito, declines the uppermost seat of honor in the

carriage; the two Officers, Loigle and this new one, insist on taking the inferior place. Alas, the incognito is

pretty much out. Calling at some coffeehouse or the like on the road, a certain female, "Madame de Fienne,"

named the foreign Gentleman "Sire,"which so startled him that, though he utterly declined such title, the

"After survey of the works, the two attendant Officers had returned to the FieldMarshal; and about 4 P.M.

the high Stranger made appearance there. But the thing had now got wind, 'King of Prussia here incognito!'

The place was full of Officers, who came crowding about him: he escaped deftly into the Marechal's own

Cabinet; sat there, an hour, talking to the Marechal [little admiring the Marechal's talk, as we shall find], still

insisting on the incognito,"to which Broglio, put out in his high paces by this sudden thing, and apt to

flounder, as I have heard, was not polite enough to conform altogether. "What shall I do, in this sudden

case?" poor Broglio is thinking to himself: "must write to Court; perhaps try to detain?" Friedrioh's chief

thought naturally is, One cannot be away out of this too soon. "Sha'n't we go to the Play, then, Monsieur le

Chapter III. FRIEDRICH MAKES AN EXCURSION, NOT OF DIRECT SORT INTO THE CLEVE COUNTRIES. 550

"The Marechal then went to the Play, and all his Officers with him; thinking their royal prize was close at

their heels. Marechal and Officers fairly ahead, coast once clear, their royal prize hastened back to The

Raven, paid his bill; hastily summoning Schaffgotsch and the others within hearing; shot off like lightning;

and was seen in Strasburg no more. Algarotti, who was in the box with Broglio, heard the news in the house;

regretful rumor among the Officers, 'He is gone!' In about a quarter of an hour Algarotti too slipped out; and

vanished by extra post" straight towards Wesel; but could not overtake the King (whose road, in the latter

part of it, went zigzag, on business as is likely), nor see him again till they met in that Town. [From

This is the Prose Truth of those fifty or eightandforty hours in Strasburg, which were so mythic and

romantic at that time. Shall we now apply to the Royal Doggerel again, where we left off, and see the other

side of the picture? Once settled in The Raven, within Strasburg's walls, the Doggerel continues:

"You fancy well that there was now something to exercise my curiosity; and what desire I had to know the

There I saw at length those French, Of whom you have sung the glories; A people despised by the English,

Whom their sad rationality fills with black bile; Those French, whom our Germans Reckon all to be destitute

of sense; Those French, whose History consists of Lovestories, I mean the wandering kind of Love, not the

constant; Foolish this People, headlong, highgoing, Which sings beyond endurance; Lofty in its good

fortune, crawling in its bad; Of an unpitying extent of babble, To hide the vacancy of its ignorant mind. Of

the Trifling it is a tender lover; The Trifling alone takes possession of its brain. People flighty, indiscreet,

imprudent, Turning like the weathercock to every wind. Of the ages of the Caesars those of the Louises are

the shadow; Paris is the ghost, of Rome, take it how you will. No, of those vile French you are not one: You

La je vis enfin ces Francais Dont vous avez chante la gloire; Peuple meprise' des Anglais, Que leur triste

raison remplit de bile noire; Ces Francais, que nos Allemands Pensent tous prives de bon sens; Ces

Francais, do nt l'amour pourrait dicter l'histoire, Je dis l'amour volage, et non l'amour constant; Ce peuple

fou, brusque et galant, Chansonnier insupportable, Superbe en sa fortune, en son malheur rampant, D'un

bavardage impitoyable, Pour cacher le creux d'un esprit ignorant, Tendre amant de la bagatelle, Elle entre

seule en sa cervelle; Leger, indiscret, imprudent, Comme ume girouette il revire a tout vent. Des siecles des

Cesars ceux des Louis sont l'ombre; Rome efface Paris en tout sens, en tout point. Non, des vils Francais

"Pardon, dear Voltaire, this definition of the French; at worst, it is only of those in Strasburg I speak. To

scrape acquaintance, I had to invite some Officers on our arrival, whom of course I did not know.

Three of them came at once, Gayer, more content than Kings; Singing with rusty voice. In verse, their

Trois d'eux s'en vinrent a la fois, Plus gais, plus contents que des rois, Chantant d'une voix enrouee, En vers,

"M. de la Crochardiere and M. Malosa [two names from the tablets, third wanting] had just come from a

Of their hot friendship I saw the flame grow, The Universe would have taken us for perfect friends: But the

instant of goodnight blew out the business; Friendship disappeared without regrets, With the games, the

Chapter III. FRIEDRICH MAKES AN EXCURSION, NOT OF DIRECT SORT INTO THE CLEVE COUNTRIES. 551

De leur chaude amitie je vis croitre le flamme, L'univers nous eut pris pour des amis parfaits; Mais l'instant

des adieux en detruisit la trame, L'amitie disparut, ssns causer des regrets, Avec le jeu, le vin, et la table, et

"Next day, Monsieur the Gouverneur of the Town and Province, Marechal of France, Chevalier of the Orders

of the King, Marechal Duc de Broglio, in fact," who was surprised at Secchia in the late War,

This General always surprised. Whom with regret, young Louis [your King] Saw without breeches in Italy

["With only one boot," was the milder rumor; which we adopted (supra, vol. vi. p. 472), but this sadder one,

too, was current; and "Broglio's breeches," or the vain aspiration after them, like a vanished ghost of

breeches, often enough turn up in the old Pamphlets.] Galloping to hide away his life From the Germans,

Ce general toujours surpris, Qu'a regret le jeune Louis Vit sans culottes en Italie, Courir pour derober sa vie

this General wished to investigate your Comte Dufour,foreign Count, who the instant he arrives sets about

inviting people to supper that are perfect strangers. He took the poor Count for a sharper; and prudently

advised M. de la Crochardiere not to be duped by him. It was unluckily the good Marechal that proved to be

He was born for surprise. His white hair, his gray beard, Formed a reverend exterior. Outsides are often

deceptive: He that, by the binding, judges Of a Book and its Author May, after a page of reading, Chance to

Il etait ne pour la surprise. Ses cheveux blancs, sa barbe grise, Formaient un sage exterieur. Le dehors est

souvent trompeur; Qui juge par la reliure D'un ouvrage et de son auteur Dans une page de lecture Peut

"That was my own experience; for of wisdom I could find nothing except in his gray hair and decrepit

Who, drunk with his own grandeur, Informs you of his name and his titles, And authority as good as

unlimited. He cited to me all the records Where his name is registered, Babbled about his immense power,

About his valor, his talents So salutary to France; He forgot that, three years ago [Six to a

nearness,"15th September, 1734," if your Majesty will be exact.] Men did not praise his prudence.

Qui, de sa grandeur enivre; Decline son nom et ses titres, Et son pouvoir a rien borne. Il me cita tous les

registres Ou son nom est enregistre; Bavard de son pouvoir immense, De sa valeur, de ces talents Si

salutaires a la France: Il oubliait, passe trois ans, Qu'on ne louait pas sa prudence.

By these Frenchmen, burning with glory, Who, on four sous a day, Will make of Kings and of Heroes the

memory flourish: Slaves crowned by the hands of Victory, Unlucky herds whom the Court Tinkles hither and

A ces Francais brulants de gloire, Dotes de quatre sous par jour, Qui des rois, des heros font fleurir la

memoire, Esclaves couronnes des mains de la victoire, Troupeaux malheureux que la cour Dirige au seul

Chapter III. FRIEDRICH MAKES AN EXCURSION, NOT OF DIRECT SORT INTO THE CLEVE COUNTRIES. 552

"That was my fated term. A deserter from our troops got eye on me, recognised me and denounced me.

This wretched gallowsbird got eye on me; Such is the lot of all earthly things; And so of our fine mystery

Ce malheureux pendard me vit, C'est le sort de toutes les choses; Ainsi de motre pot aux roses Tout le secret

Well; we must take this glimpse, such as it is, into the interior of the young man,fine buoyant, pungent

German spirit, roadways for it very bad, and universal raintorrents falling, yet with coruscations from a

higher quarter;and you can forget, if need be, the "Literature" of this young Majesty, as you would a

staccato on the flute by him! In after months, on new occasion rising, "there was no end to his gibings and

bitter pleasantries on the ridiculous reception Broglio had given him at Strasburg," says Valori, [ Memoires, i.

"Probably the weakest Piece I ever translated?" exclaims one, who has translated several such. Nevertheless

there is a straggle of pungent sense in it,like the outskirts of lightning, seen in that dismally wet weather,

which the Royal Party had. Its wit is very copious, but slashy, bantery, and proceeds mainly by exaggeration

and turning topsyturvy; a rather barren species of wit. Of humor, in the fine poetic sense, no vestige. But

there is surprising veracity,truthfulness unimpeachable, if you will read well. What promptitude,

too;what funds for conversation, when needed! This scraggy Piece, which is better than the things people

often talk to one another, was evidently written as fast as the pen could go."It is done, if such a Hand could

have DONE it, in the manner of Bachaumont and La Chapelle," says Voltaire scornfully, in that scandalous

"Some seventy or eighty years before that date, a M. Bachaumont and a M. la Chapelle, his intimate,

published, in Prose skipping off into dancings of Verse every now and then, 'a charming RELATION of a

certain VOYAGE or Home Tour' (whence or whither, or correctly when, this Editor forgets), ["First printed

in 1665," say the Bibliographies; "but known to La Fontaine some time before." Good!Bachaumont,

practically an important and distinguished person, not literary by trade, or indeed otherwise than by ennui,

was he that had given (some fifteen years before) the Nickname FRONDE (Bickering of Schoolboys) to the

wretched Historical Object which is still so designated in French annals.] which they had made in

partnership. 'RELATION' capable still of being read, if one were tolerably idle;it was found then to be

charming, by all the world; and gave rise to a new fashion in writing; which Voltaire often adopts, and is

supremely good at; and in which Friedrich, who is also fond of it, by no means succeeds so well."

Enough, Friedrich got to Wesel, back to his business, in a day or two; and had done, as we forever have, with

Friedrich got to Wesel on the 29th; found Maupertuis waiting there, according to appointment: an elaborately

polite, somewhat sublime scientific gentleman; ready to "engraft on the Berlin crabtree," and produce real

apples and Academics there, so soon as the King, the proprietor, may have leisure for such a thing. Algarotti

has already the honor of some acquaintance with Maupertuis. Maupertuis has been at Brussels, on the road

hither; saw Voltaire and even Madame,which latter was rather a ticklish operation, owing to grudges and

tiffs of quarrel that had risen, but it proved successful under the delicate guidance of Voltaire. Voltaire is up

to oiling the wheels: "There you are, Monsieur, like the [don't name What, though profane Voltaire does,

writing to Maupertuis a month ago]Three Kings running after you!" A new Pension to you from France;

Chapter III. FRIEDRICH MAKES AN EXCURSION, NOT OF DIRECT SORT INTO THE CLEVE COUNTRIES. 553

Russia outbidding France to have you; and then that LETTER of Friedrich's, which is in all the Newspapers:

"Three Kings,"you plainly great man, Trismegistus of the Sciences called Pure! Madame honors you, has

always done: one word of apology to the high female mind, it will work wonders; come now! [Voltaire,

No reader guesses in our time what a shining celestial body the Maupertuis, who is now fallen so dim again,

then was to mankind. In cultivated French society there is no such lion as M. Maupertuis since he returned

from flattening the Earth in the Arctic regions. "The Exact Sciences, what else is there to depend on?" thinks

French cultivated society: "and has not Monsieur done a feat in that line?" Monsieur, with fine exmilitary

manners, has a certain austere gravity, reticent loftiness and polite dogmatism, which confirms that opinion.

A studious exmilitary man,was Captain of Dragoons once, but too fond of study,who is conscious to

himself, or who would fain be conscious, that he is, in all points, mathematical, moral and other, the man. A

difficult man to live with in society. Comes really near the limit of what we call genius, of originality, poetic

greatness in thinking;but never once can get fairly over said limit, though always struggling dreadfully to

do so. Think of it! A fatal kind of man; especially if you have made a lion of him at any time. Of his envies,

deephidden splenetic discontents and rages, with Voltaire's return for them, there will be enough to say in

the ulterior stages. He wearsat least ten years hence he openly wears, though I hope it is not yet so

flagrant"a red wig with yellow bottom (CRINIERE JAUNE);" and as Flattener of the Earth, is, with his

own flattish red countenance and impregnable stony eyes, a man formidable to look upon, though intent to be

amiable if you do the proper homage. As to the quarrel with Madame take this Note; which may prove

Maupertuis is well known at Cirey; such a lion could not fail there. All manner of Bernouillis, Clairauts, high

mathematical people, are frequent guests at Cirey: reverenced by Madame,who indeed has had her own

private Professor of Mathematics; one Konig from Switzerland (recommended by those Bernouillis),

diligently teaching her the Pure Sciences this good while back, not without effect; and has only just parted

with him, when she left on this Brussels expedition. A BON GARCON, Voltaire says; though otherwise, I

think, a little noisy on occasion. There has been no end of Madame's kindness to him, nay to his Brother and

him,sons of a Theological Professorial SyriacHebrew kind of man at Berne, who has too many

sons;and I grieve to report that this heedless Konig has produced an explosion in Madame's feelings, such

as little beseemed him. On the road to Paris, namely, as we drove hitherward to the Honsbruck Lawsuit by

way of Paris, in Autumn last, there had fallen out some dispute, about the monads, the VIS VIVA, the

infinitely little, between Madame and Konig; dispute which rose CRESCENDO in disharmonious duet, and

"ended," testifies M. de Voltaire, "in a scene TRESDESAGREABLE." Madame, with an effort, forgave the

thoughtless fellow, who is still rather young, and is without malice. But thoughtless Konig, strong in his

opinion about the infinitely little, appealed to Maupertuis: "Am not I right, Monsieur?" "HE is right beyond

question!" wrote Maupertuis to Madame; "somewhat dryly," thinks Voltaire: and the result is, there is

considerable rage in one celestial mind ever since against another male one in red wig and yellow bottom;

and they are not on speaking terms, for a good many months past. Voltaire has his heart sore ("J'EN AI LE

COEUR PERCE") about it, needs to doubledose Maupertuis with flattery; and in fact has used the utmost

diplomacy to effect some varnish of a reconcilement as Maupertuis passed on this occasion. As for Konig,

who had studied in some Dutch university, he went by and by to be Librarian to the Prince of Orange; and we

shall not fail to hear of him again,once more upon the infinitely little. [From OEuvres de Voltaire, ii. 126,

Voltaire too, in his way, is fond of these mathematical people; eager enough to fish for knowledge, here as in

all elements, when he has the chance offered: this is much an interest of his at present. And he does attain

sound ideas, outlines of ideas, in this province,though privately defective in the due transcendency of

admiration for it;was wont to discuss cheerily with Konig, about VIS VIVA, monads, gravitation and the

infinitely little; above all, bows to the ground before the redwigged Bashaw, Flattener of the Earth, whom

for Madame's sake and his own he is anxious to be well with. "Fall on your face nine times, ye esoteric of

Chapter III. FRIEDRICH MAKES AN EXCURSION, NOT OF DIRECT SORT INTO THE CLEVE COUNTRIES. 554

only Impure Science!"intimates Maupertuis to mankind. "By all means!" answers M. de Voltaire, doing it

with alacrity; with a kind of loyalty, one can perceive, and also with a hypocrisy grounded on love of peace.

If that is the nature of the Bashaw, and one's sole mode of fishing knowledge from him, why not? thinks M.

de Voltaire. His patience with M. de Maupertuis, first and last, was very great. But we shall find it explode at

"Maupertuis had come to us to Cirey, with Jean Bernouilli," says Voltaire; "and thenceforth Maupertuis, who

was born the most jealous of men, took me for the object of this passion, which has always been very dear to

him." [VIE PRIVEE.] Husht, Monsieur! Here is a poor rheumatic kind of Letter, which illustrates the

the world flattened. "How the Devil, great Philosopher, would you have had me write to you at Wesel? I

fancied you gone from Wesel, to seek the King of Sages on his Journey somewhere. I had understood, too,

they were so delighted to have you in that fortified lodge (BOUGE FORTIFIE) that you must be taking

"You have already seen the jolly Ambassador of the amiablest Monarch in the world,"Camas, a fattish

man, on his road to Versailles (who called at Brussels here, with fine compliments, and a keg of Hungary

Wine, as YOU may have heard whispered). "No doubt M. de Camas is with you. For my own share, I think it

is after you that he is running at present. But in truth, at the hour while I say this, you are with the King;"a

lucky guess; King did return to Wesel this very day. "The Philosopher and the Prince perceive already that

they are made for each other. You and M. Algarotti will say, FACIAMUS HIC TRIA TABERNACULA: as

"Without doubt I would be with you if I were not at Brussels; but my heart is with you all the same; and is the

subject, all the same, of a King who is, formed to reign over every thinking and feeling being. I do not despair

that Madame du Chatelet will find herself somewhere on your route: it will be a scene in a fairy tale;she

will arrive with a SUFFICIENT REASON [as your Leibnitz says] and with MONADS. She does not love

you the less though she now believes the universe a PLENUM, and has renounced the notion of VOID. Over

her you have an ascendant which you will never lose. In fine, my dear Monsieur, I wish as ardently as she to

embrace you the soonest possible. I recommend myself to your friendship in the Court, worthy of you, where

Always an anxious almost tremulous desire to conciliate this big glaring geometrical bully in red wig.

Through the sensitive transparent being of M. de Voltaire, you may see that feeling almost painfully busy in

At Wesel, in the rear of all this travelling and excitement, Friedrich falls unwell; breaks down there into an

aguish feverish distemper, which, for several months after, impeded his movements, would he have yielded to

it. He has much business on hand, too, some of it of prickly nature just now;but is intent as ever on

seeing Voltaire, among the first things. Diligently reading in the VoltaireFriedrich Correspondence (which

is a sad jumble of misdates and opacities, in the common editions), [Preuss (the recent latest Editor, and the

only wellinformed one, as we said) prints with accuracy; but cannot be read at all (in the sense of

UNDERSTOOD) without other light.] this of the aguish condition frequently turns up; "Quartan ague," it

seems; occasionally very bad; but Friedrich struggles with it; will not be cheated of any of his purposes by it.

He had a busy fortnight here; busier than we yet imagine. Much employment there naturally is of the usual

Inspection sort; which fails in no quarter of his Dominions, but which may be particularly important here, in

these disputed BergJulich Countries, when the time of decision falls. How he does his Inspections we

know;and there are still weightier matters afoot here, in a silent way, of which we shall have to speak

before long, and all the world will speak. Business enough, parts of it grave and silent, going on, and the

much that is public, miscellaneous, small: done, all of it, in a rapidpunctual precise manner;and always,

after the crowded day, some passages of Supper with the Sages, to wind up with on melodious terms. A most

It was in these Cleve Countries, and now as probably as afterwards, that the light scene recorded in Laveaux's

poor HISTORY, and in all the AnecdoteBooks, transacted itself one day. Substance of the story is true;

"Inspecting his Finance Affairs, and questioning the parties interested, Friedrich notices a certain Convent in

Cleve, which appears to have, payable from the Forestdues, considerable revenues bequeathed by the old

Dukes, 'for masses to be said on their behalf.' He goes to look at the place; questions the Monks on this point,

who are all drawn out in two rows, and have broken into TEDEUM at sight of him: 'Husht! You still say

those Masses, then?' 'Certainly, your Majesty!''And what good does anybody get of them?' 'Your Majesty,

those old Sovereigns are to obtain Heavenly mercy by them, to be delivered out of Purgatory by

them.''Purgatory? It is a sore thing for the Forests, all this while! And they are not yet out, those poor

souls, after so many hundred years of praying?' Monks have a fatal apprehension, No. 'When will they be out,

and the thing complete?' Monks cannot say. 'Send me a courier whenever it is complete!' sneers the King, and

leaves them to their TEDEUM." [C. Hildebrandt's Modern Edition of the (mostly dubious) Anekdoten und

Charakterzuge aus dem Leben Friedrichs des Grossen (and a very ignorant and careless Edition it is; 6 vols.

12mo, Halberstadt, 1829), ii. 160; Laveaus (whom we already cited), Vie de Frederic; Nicolai's Anekdoten

alone, which are not included in this Hildebrandt Collection, are of sure authenticity; the rest, occasionally

true, and often with a kind of MYTHIC truth in them worth attending to, are otherwise of all degrees of

Mournful state of the Catholic Religion so called! How long must these wretched Monks go on doing their

lazy thricedeleterious torpid blasphemy; and a King, not histrionic but real, merely signify that he laughs at

them and it? Meseems a heavier whip than that of satire might be in place here, your Majesty? The lighter

whip is easier;Ah yes, undoubtedly! cry many men. But horrible accounts are running up, enough to sink

the world at last, while the heavier whip is lazily withheld, and lazy blasphemy, fallen torpid, chronic, and

quite unconscious of being blasphemous, insinuates itself into the very heart'sblood of mankind! Patience,

however; the heavy whip too is coming,unless universal death be coming. King Friedrich is not the man to

wield such whip. Quite other work is in store for King Friedrich; and Nature will not, by any suggestion of

that terrible task, put him out in the one he has. He is nothing of a Luther, of a Cromwell; can look upon

fakirs praying by their rotatory calabash, as a ludicrous platitude; and grin delicately as above, with the

What answer Friedrich found to his English proposals,answer due here on the 24th from Captain

Dickens,I do not pointedly learn; but can judge of it by Harrington's reply to that Despatch of Dickens's,

which entreated candor and open dealing towards his Prussian Majesty. Harrington is at Herrenhausen, still

with the Britannic Majesty there; both of them much at a loss about their Spanish War, and the French and

other aspects upon it: "Suppose his Prussian Majesty were to give himself to France against us!" We will

hope, not. Harrington's reply is to the effect, "Hum, drum:Berg and Julich, say you? Impossible to answer;

minds not made up here:What will his Prussian Majesty do for US?" Not much, I should guess, till

something more categorical come from you! His Prussian Majesty is careful not to spoil anything by

overhaste; but will wait and try farther to the utmost, Whether England or France is the likelier bargain for

Better still, the Prussian Majesty is intent to do something for himself in that BergJulich matter: we find him

silently examining these Wesel localities for a proper "entrenched Camp," Camp say of 40,000, against a

certain contingency that may be looked for. Camp which will much occupy the Gazetteers when they get eye

on it. This is one of the concerns he silently attends to, on occasion, while riding about in the Cleve

Countries. Then there is another small item of business, important to do well, which is now in silence

diligently getting under way at Wesel; which also is of remarkable nature, and will astonish the Gazetteer and

Diplomatic circles. This is the affair with the Bishop of Liege, called also the Affair of Herstal, which his

Majesty has had privately laid up in the corner of his mind, as a thing to be done during this Excursion. Of

which the reader shall hear anon, to great lengths, were a certain small preliminary matter, Voltaire's

Friedrich's First Meeting with Voltaire! These other high things were once loud in the Gazetteer and

Diplomatic circles, and had no doubt they were the World's History; and now they are sunk wholly to the

Nightmares, and all mortals have forgotten them,and it is such a task as seldom was to resuscitate the least

memory of them, on just cause of a Friedrich or the like, so impatient are men of what is putrid and

extinct:and a quite unnoticed thing, Voltaire's First Interview, all readers are on the alert for it, and ready

to demand of me impossibilities about it! Patience, readers. You shall see it, without and within, in such light

as there was, and form some actual notion of it, if you will cooperate. From the circumambient inanity of

Old Newspapers, Historical shotrubbish, and unintelligible Correspondences, we sift out the following

The Newspapers, though their eyes were not yet of the Argus quality now familiar to us, have been intent on

Friedrich during this BaireuthCleve Journey, especially since that sudden eclipse of him at Strasburg lately;

forming now one scheme of route for him, now another; Newspapers, and even private friends, being a good

deal uncertain about his movements. Rumor now ran, since his reappearance in the Cleve Countries, that

Friedrich meant to have a look at Holland before going home, And that had, in fact, been a notion or intention

of Friedrich's. "Holland? We could pass through Brussels on the way, and see Voltaire!" thought he.

In Brussels this was, of course, the rumor of rumors. As Voltaire's Letters, visibly in a twitter, still testify to

us. King of Prussia coming! Madame du Chatelet, the "Princess Tour" (that is, TourandTaxis), all manner

of high Dames are on the tiptoe. Princess Tour hopes she shall lodge this unparalleled Prince in her Palace:

"You, Madame?" answers the Du Chatelet, privately, with a toss of her head: "His Majesty, I hope, belongs

more to M. de Voltaire and me: he shall lodge here, please Heaven!" Voltaire, I can observe, has sublime

hostelry arrangements chalked out for his Majesty, in case he go to Paris; which he does n't, as we know.

Voltaire is all on the alert, awake to the great contingencies far and near; the ChateletVoltaire

breakfasttable,fancy it on those interesting mornings, while the post comes round! [Voltaire, xxii.

Alas, in the first days of September,Friedrich's Letter is dated "Wesel, 2d" (and has the STRASBURD

DOGGEREL enclosed in it),the Brussels Postman delivers far other intelligence at one's door; very

mortifying to Madame: "That his Majesty is fallen ill at Wesel; has an aguish fever hanging on him, and only

hopes to come:" VOILA, Madame!Next Letter, Wesel, Monday, 5th September, is to the effect: "Do still

much hope to come; tomorrow is my trembling day; if that prove to be off!"Out upon it, that proves not

to be off; that is on: next Letter, Tuesday, September 6th, which comes by express (Courier dashing up with

"WESEL, 6th September, 1740. "MY DEAR VOLTAIRE,In spite of myself, I have to yield to the

Quartan Fever, which is more tenacious than a Jansenist; and whatever desire I had of going to Antwerp and

Brussels, I find myself not in a condition to undertake such a journey without risk. I would ask of you, then,

if the road from Brussels to Cleve would not to you seem too long for a meeting; it is the one means of seeing

you which remains to me. Confess that I am unlucky; for now when I could dispose of my person, and

nothing hinders me from seeing you, the fever gets its hand into the business, and seems to intend disputing

"Let us deceive the fever, my dear Voltaire; and let me at least have the pleasure of embracing you. Make my

best excuses [polite, rather than sincere] to Madame the MARQUISE, that I cannot have the satisfaction of

seeing her at Brussels. All that are about me know the intention I was in; which certainly nothing but the

"Sunday next I shall be at a little Place near Cleve,"Schloss of Moyland, which, and the route to which,

this Courier can tell you of;"where I shall be able to possess you at my ease. If the sight of you don't cure

me, I will send for a Confessor at once. Adieu; you know my sentiments and my heart. [Preuss, OEuvres de

After which the Correspondence suddenly extinguishes itself; ceases for about a fortnight,in the bad

misdated Editions even does worse;and we are left to thick darkness, to our own poor shifts; Dryasdust

Here, from a painful Predecessor whose Papers I inherit, are some old documents and Studies on the

subject,sorrowful collection, in fact, of what poor sparks of certainty were to be found hovering in that

dark element;which do at last (so luminous are certainties always, or "sparks" that will shine steady)

coalesce into some feeble general twilight, feeble but indubitable; and even show the sympathetic reader how

they were searched out and brought together. We number and label these poor Patches of Evidence on so

No. 1. DATE OF THE FIRST INTERVIEW. It is certain Voltaire did arrive at the little Schloss of Moyland,

September llth, Sunday night,which is the "Sunday" just specified in Friedrich's Letter. Voltaire had at

once decided on complying,what else? and lost no time in packing himself: King's Courier on Thursday

late; Voltaire on the road on Saturday early, or the night before. With Madame's shrill blessing (not the most

musical in this vexing case), and plenty of fuss. "Was wont to travel in considerable style," I am told; "the

innkeepers calling him "Your Lordship (M. LE COMTE)." Arrives, sure enough, Sunday night; old Schloss

of Moyland, six miles from Cleve; "moonlight," I find,the Harvest Moon. Visit lasted three days.

No. 2. VOLTAIRE'S DRIVE THITHER. Schloss Moyland: How far from Brussels, and by what route? By

Louvain, Tillemont, Tongres to Maestricht; then from Maestricht up the Maas (left bank) to Venlo, where

cross; through Geldern and Goch to Cleve: between the Maas and Rhine this last portion. Flat damp country;

tolerably under tillage; original constituents bog and sand. Distances I guess to be: To Tongres 60 miles and

odd; to Maestricht 12 or 15, from Maestricht 75; in all 150 miles English. Two days' driving? There is

No. 3. OF THE PLACE WHERE. Voltaire, who should have known, calls it "PETIT CHATEAU DE

MEUSE;" which is a Castle existing nowhere but in Dreams. Other French Biographers are still more

imaginary. The little Schloss of Moylandby no means "Meuse," nor even MORS, which Voltaire probably

means in saying CHATEAU DE MEUSEwas, as the least inquiry settles beyond question, the place where

Voltaire and Friedrich first met. Friedrich Wilhelm used often to lodge there in his Cleve journeys: he made

thither for shelter, in the sickness that overtook him in friend Ginkel's house, coming home from the Rhine

Campaign in 1734; lay there for several weeks after quitting Ginkel's. Any other light I can get upon it, is

darkness visible. Busching pointedly informs me, [ Erdbeschreibung, v. 659, 677.] "It is a Parish [or patch of

country under one priest], and Till AND it are a Jurisdiction" (pair of patches under one court of

justice):which does not much illuminate the inquiring mind. Small patch, this of Moyland, size not given;

"was bought," says he, "in 1695, by Friedrich afterwards First King, from the Family of Spaen,"we once

knew a Lieutenant Spaen, of those Dutch regions,"and was named a Royal Mansion ever thereafter." Who

lived in it; what kind of thing was it, is it? ALTUM SILENTIUM, from Busching and mankind. Belonged to

the Spaens, fifty years ago;some shadow of our poor banished friend the Lieutenant resting on it? Dim

enough old Mansion, with "court" to it, with modicum of equipment; lying there in the moonlight;did not

look sublime to Voltaire on stepping out. So that all our knowledge reduces itself to this one point: of finding

Moyland in the Map, with DATE, with REMINISCENCE to us, hanging by it henceforth! Good. [Stieler's

Deutschland (excellent Map in 25 Pieces), Piece 12.Till is a mile or two northeast from Moyland;

Morswhich is near the Town of Ruhrort, about midway between Wesel and Dusseldorfmust be some

forty miles from Moyland, fortyfive from Cleve; southward of both. So that the place, "A DEUX LIEUES

DE CLEVES," is, even by Voltaire's showing, this Moyland; were there otherwise any doubt upon it.

"CHATEAU DE MEUSE"hanging out a prospect of MORS to usis bad usage to readers. Of an

intelligent man, not to say a Trismegistus of men, one expects he will know in what town he is, after three

days' experience, as here. But he does not always; he hangs out a mere "shadow of Mars by moonlight," till

we learn better. Duvernet, his Biographer, even calls it "SLEUSMEUSE;" some wonderful idea of Sluices

and a River attached to it, in Duvernet's head! [Duvernet (2d FORM of him,that is, Vie de Voltaire par T.

Of the Interview itself, with general bird'seye view of the Visit combined (in a very incorrect state), there is

direct testimony by Voltaire himself. Voltaire himself, twenty years after, in far other humor, all jarred into

angry sarcasm, for causes we shall see by and by,Voltaire, at the request of friends, writes down, as his

Friedrich Reminiscences, that scandalous VIE PRIVEE above spoken of, a most sad Document; and this is

the passage referring to "the little Place in the neighborhood of Cleve," where Friedrich now waited for him:

errors corrected by our laborious Friend. After quoting something of that Strasburg Doggerel, the whole of

"From Strasburg he," King Friedrich, "went to see his Lower German Provinces; he said he would come and

see me incognito at Brussels. We prepared a fine house for him,"were ready to prepare such hired house as

we had for him, with many apologies for its slight degree of perfection (ERROR FIRST),"but having

fallen ill in the little MansionRoyal of Meuse (CHATEAU DE MEUSE), a couple of leagues from

Cleve,"fell ill at Wesel; and there is no Chateau de MEUSE in the world (ERRORS 2d AND 3d),"he

wrote to me that he expected I would make the advances. I went, accordingly, to present my profound

homages. Maupertuis, who already had his views, and was possessed with the rage of being President to an

Academy, had of his own accord,"no, being invited, and at my suggestion (ERROR 4th),"presented

himself there; and was lodged with Algarotti and Keyserling [which latter, I suppose, had come from Berlin,

"At the door of the court, I found, by way of guard, one soldier. PrivyCouncillor Rambonet, Minister of

State[very subaltern man; never heard of him except in the Herstal Business, and here] was walking in the

court; blowing in his fingers to keep them warm." Sunday night, 11th September, 1740; world all bathed in

moonshine; and mortals mostly shrunk into their huts, out of the raw air. "He" Rambonet "wore big linen

ruffles at his wrists, very dirty [visibly so in the moonlight? ERROR 5th extends AD LIBITUM over all the

following details]; a holed hat; an old official periwig,"ruined into a totally unsymmetric state, as would

seem,"one side of which hung down into one of his pockets, and the other scarcely crossed his shoulder. I

was told, this man was now intrusted with an affair of importance here; and that proved true,"the Herstal

"I was led into his Majesty's apartment. Nothing but four bare walls there. By the light of a candle, I

perceived, in a closet, a little trucklebed two feet and a half broad, on which lay a man muffled up in a

dressinggown of coarse blue duffel: this was the King, sweating and shivering under a wretched blanket

there, in a violent fit of fever. I made my reverence, and began the acquaintance by feeling his pulse, as if I

had been his chief physician. The fit over, he dressed himself, and took his place at table. Algarotti,

Keyserling, Maupertuis, and the King's Envoy to the StatesGeneral"one Rasfeld (skilled in HERSTAL

matters, I could guess),"we were of this supper, and discussed, naturally in a profound manner, the

Immortality of the Soul, Liberty, Fate, the Androgynes of Plato [the ANDROGYNOI, or MenWomen, in

Plato's CONVIVIUM; by no means the finest symbolic fancy of the divine Plato],and other small topics of

This is Voltaire's account of the Visit,which included three "Suppers," all huddled into one by him

here;and he says nothing more of it; launching off now into new errors, about HERSTAL, the

ANTIMACHIAVEL, and so forth: new and uglier errors, with much more of mendacity and serious malice

Of this SupperParty, I know by face four of the guests: Maupertuis, Voltaire, Algarotti,

Keyserling;Rasfeld, Rambonet can sit as simulacra or mute accompaniment. Voltaire arrived on Sunday

evening; stayed till Wednesday. Wednesday morning, 14th of the month, the Party broke up: Voltaire rolling

off to left hand, towards Brussels, or the Hague; King to right, on inspection business, and circuitously

homewards. Three Suppers there had been, two busy Days intervening; discussions about Fate and the

Androgynoi of Plato by no means the one thing done by Voltaire and the rest, on this occasion. We shall find

elsewhere, "he declaimed his MAHOMET" (sublime new Tragedy, not yet come out), in the course of these

three evenings, to the "speechless admiration" of his Royal Host, for one; and, in the daytime, that he even

drew his pen about the Herstal Business, which is now getting to its crisis, and wrote one of the Manifestoes,

still discoverable. And we need not doubt, in spite of his now sneering tone, that things ran high and grand

here, in this paltry little Schloss of Moyland; and that those three were actually Suppers of the Gods, for the

"Councillor Rambonet,', with the holed hat and unsymmetric wig, continues Voltaire in the satirical vein,

"had meanwhile mounted a hired hack (CHEVAL DE LOUAGE;" mischievous Voltaire, I have no doubt he

went on wheels, probably of his own): "he rode all night; and next morning arrived at the gates of Liege;

where he took Act in the name of the King his Master, whilst 2,000 men of the Wesel Troops laid Liege

under contribution. The pretext of this fine Marching of Troops,"not a pretext at all, but the assertion,

correct in all points, of just claims long trodden down, and now made good with more spirit than had been

expected,"was certain rights which the King pretended to, over a suburb of Liege. He even charged me to

work at a Manifesto; and I made one, good or bad; not doubting but a King with whom I supped, and who

called me his friend, must be in the right. The affair soon settled itself by means of a million of

ducats,"nothing like the sum, as we shall see,"which he exacted by weight, to clear the costs of the Tour

to Strasburg, which, according to his complaint in that Poetic Letter [Doggerel above given], were so heavy."

That is Voltaire's view; grown very corrosive after Twenty Years. He admits, with all the satire: "I naturally

felt myself attached to him; for he had wit, graces; and moreover he was a King, which always forms a potent

seduction, so weak is human nature. Usually it is we of the writing sort that flatter Kings: but this King

praised me from head to foot, while the Abbe Desfontaines and other scoundrels (GREDINS) were busy

But let us take the contemporary account, which also we have at first hand; which is almost pathetic to read;

such a contrast between ruddy morning and the storms of the afternoon! Here are two Letters from Voltaire;

fine transparent human Letters, as his generally are: the first of them written directly on getting back to the

"THE HAGUE, 18th September, 1740. "I serve you, Monsieur, sooner than I promised; and that is the way

you ought to be served. I send you the answer of M. Smith," probably some German or Dutch SCHMIDT,

spelt here in English, connected with the Sciences, say with watercarriage, the typographies, or one need not

know what; "you will see where the question stands. "When we both left Cleve,"14th of the month,

Wednesday last; 18th is Sunday, in this old cobwebby Palace, where I am correcting

ANTIMACHIAVEL,"and you took to the right,"King, homewards, got to HAM that evening,"I

could have thought I was at the Last Judgment, where the Bon Dieu separates the elect from the damned.

DIVUS FREDERICUS said to you, 'Sit down at my right hand in the Paradise of Berlin;' and to me, 'Depart,

"Here I am accordingly in this phlegmatic place of punishment, far from the divine fire which animates the

Friedrichs, the Maupertuis, the Algarottis. For God's love, do me the charity of some sparks in these stagnant

waters where I am,"stiffening, cooling,"stupefying to death. Instruct me of your pleasures, of your

designs. You will doubtless see M. de Valori,"readers know de Valori; his Book has been published;

edited, as too usual, by a Human Nightmare, ignorant of his subject and indeed of almost all other things, and

liable to mistakes in every page; yet partly readable, if you carry lanterns, and love "MON GROS

VALORI:" "offer him, I pray you, my respects. If I do not write to him, the reason is, I have no news to

send: I should be as exact as I am devoted, if my correspondence could be useful or agreeable to him.

"Won't you have me send you some Books? If I be still in Holland when your orders come, I will obey in a

moment. I pray you do not forget me to M. de Keyserling,"Caesarion whom we once had at Cirey; a

headlong dusky little man of wit (library turned topsy turvy, as Wilhelmina called him), whom we have

"Tell me, I beg, if the enormous monad of Volfius[Wolf, would the reader like to hear about him? If so, he

has only to speak!] is arguing at Marburg, at Berlin, or at Hall [HALLE, which is a very different place].

"Adieu, Monsieur: you can address your orders to me 'At the Hague:' they will be forwarded wherever I am;

and I shall be, anywhere on earth,Yours forever (A VOUS POUR JAMAIS)." [Voltaire, lxxii. 252.]

Letter Second, of which a fragment may be given, is to one Cideville, a month later; all the more genuine as

there was no chance of the King's hearing about this one. Cideville, some kind of literary Advocate at Rouen

(who is wearisomely known to the reader of Voltaire's Letters), had done, what is rather an endemical

disorder at this time, some Verses for the King of Prussia, which he wished to be presented to his Majesty.

The presentation, owing to accidents, did not take place; hear how Voltaire, from his cobweb Palace at the

Hague, busy with ANTIMACHIAVEL, Van Duren and many other things,18th October, 1740, on which

"... This is my case, dear Cideville. When you sent me, enclosed in your Letter, those Verses (among which

there are some of charming and inimitable turn) for our Marcus Aurelius of the North, I did well design to

pay my court to him with them. He was at that time to have come to Brussels incognito: we expected him

there; but the Quartan Fever, which unhappily he still has, deranged all his projects. He sent me a courier to

Brussels," mark that point, my Cideville;"and so I set out to find him in the neighborhood of Cleve.

"It was there I saw one of the amiablest men in the world, who forms the charm of society, who would be

everywhere sought after if he were not King; a philosopher without austerity; full of sweetness, complaisance

and obliging ways (AGREMENS); not remembering that he is King when he meets his friends; indeed so

completely forgetting it that he made me too almost forget it, and I needed an effort of memory to recollect

that I here saw sitting at the foot of my bed a Sovereign who had an Army of 100,000 men. That was the

moment to have read your amiable Verses to him:"yes; but then?"Madame du Chatelet, who was to

have sent them to me, did not, NE L'A PA FAIT." Alas, no, they are still at Brussels, those charming Verses;

and I, for a month past, am here in my cobweb Palace! But I swear to you, the instant I return to Brussels, I,

Finally, here is what Friedrich thought of it, ten days after parting with Voltaire. We will read this also

(though otherwise ahead of us as yet); to be certified on all sides, and sated for the rest of our lives,

"Most respectable Inspector of the poor, the invalids, orphans, crazy people and Bedlams,I have read with

mature meditation the very profound Jordanic Letter which was waiting here;"and do accept your learned

"I have seen that Voltaire whom I was so curious to know; but I saw him with the Quartan hanging on me,

and my mind as unstrung as my body. With men of his kind one ought not to be sick; one ought even to be

"He has the eloquence of Cicero, the mildness of Pliny, the wisdom of Agrippa; he combines, in short, what

is to be collected of virtues and talents from the three greatest men of Antiquity. His intellect is at work

incessantly; every drop of ink is a trait of wit from his pen. He declaimed his MAHOMET to us, an admirable

Tragedy which he has done,"which the Official people smelling heresies in it ("toleration," "horrors of

fanaticism," and the like) will not let him act, as readers too well know:"he transported us out of ourselves;

I could only admire and hold my tongue. The Du Chatelet is lucky to have him: for of the good things he

flings out at random, a person who had no faculty but memory might make a brilliant Book. That Minerva

has just published her Work on PHYSICS: not wholly bad. It was Konig"whom we know, and whose late

tempest in a certain teapot"that dictated the theme to her: she has adjusted, ornamented here and there with

some touch picked from Voltaire at her Suppers. The Chapter on Space is pitiable; the"in short, she is still

"Adieu, most learned, most scientific, most profound Jordan,or rather most gallant, most amiable, most

jovial Jordan;I salute thee, with assurance of all those old feelings which thou hast the art of inspiring in

"I write the moment of my arrival: be obliged to me, friend; for I have been working, I am going to work still,

This is hastily thrown off for Friend Jordan, the instant after his Majesty's circuitous return home. Readers

cannot yet attend his Majesty there, till they have brought the Affair of Herstal, and other remainders of the

This Rambonet, whom Voltaire found walking in the court of the old Castle of Moyland, is an official

gentleman, otherwise unknown to History, who has lately been engaged in a Public Affair; and is now off

again about it, "on a hired hack" or otherwise,with very good instructions in his head. Affair which, though

in itself but small, is now beginning to make great noise in the world, as Friedrich wends homewards out of

his Cleve Journey. He has set it fairly alight, Voltaire and he, before quitting Moyland; and now it will go of

itself. The Affair of Herstal, or of the Bishop of Liege; Friedrich's first appearance on the stage of politics.

Concerning which some very brief notice, if intelligible, will suffice readers of the present day.

Heristal, now called Herstal, was once a Castle known to all mankind; King Pipin's Castle, who styled

himself "Pipin of Heristal," before he became King of the Franks and begot Charlemagne. It lies on the Maas,

in that fruitful Spa Country; left bank of the Maas, a little to the north of Liege; and probably began existence

as a grander place than Liege (LUTTICH), which was, at first, some Monastery dependent on secular Herstal

and its grandeurs:think only how the race has gone between these two entities; spiritual Liege now a big

City, black with the smoke of forges and steammills; Herstal an insignificant Village, accidentally talked of

Herstal, in the confused vicissitudes of a thousand years, had passed through various fortunes, and undergone

change of owners often enough. Fifty years ago it was in the hands of the Nassau Orange House; Dutch

William, our English Protestant King, who probably scarce knew of his possessing it, was Lord of Herstal till

his death. Dutch William had no children to inherit Herstal: he was of kinship to the Prussian House, as

readers are aware; and from that circumstance, not without a great deal of discussion, and difficult "Division

of the Orange Heritage," this Herstal had, at the long last, fallen to Friedrich Wilhelm's share; it and

For Dutch William was of kin, we say; Friedrich I. of Prussia, by his Mother the noble Wife of the Great

Elector, was full cousin to Dutch William: and the Marriage Contracts were express,though the High

Mightinesses made difficulties, and the collateral Orange branches were abundantly reluctant, when it came

to the fulfilling point. For indeed the matter was intricate. Orange itself, for example, what was to be done

with the Principality of Orange? Clearly Prussia's; but it lies imbedded deep in the belly of France, that will

be a CaesareanOperation for you! Had not Neuchatel happened just then to fall home to France (or in some

measure to France) and be heirless, Prussia's Heritage of Orange would have done little for Prussia!

Principality of Orange was, by this chance, long since, mainly in the First King's time, got settled:

[Neuchatel, 3d November, 1707, to Friedrich I., natives preferring him to "Fifteen other Claimants;" Louis

XIV. loudly protesting: not till Treaty of Utrecht (14th March 1713, first month of Friedrich Wilhelm's reign)

would Louis XIV., on cession of Orange, consent and sanction.] but there needed many years more of good

waiting, and of good pushing, on Friedrich Wilhelm's part; and it was not till 1732 that Friedrich Wilhelm got

the Dutch Heritages finally brought to the square: Neuchatel and Valengin, as aforesaid, in lieu of Orange;

and now furthermore, the Old Palace at Loo (that VIEILLE COUR and biggest cobwebs), with pertinents,

with Garden of Honslardik; and a string of items, bigger and less, not worth enumerating. Of the items, this

Herstal was one;and truly, so far as this went, Friedrich Wilhelm often thought he had better never have

The Herstal people, knowing the Prussian recruiting system and other rigors, were extremely unwilling to

come under Friedrich Wilhelm's sway, could they have helped it. They refused fealty, swore they never

would swear: nor did they, till the appearance, or indubitable foreshine, of Friedrich Wilhelm's bayonets

advancing on them from the East, brought compliance. And always after, spite of such quasifealty, they

showed a piglike obstinacy of humor; a certain insignificant, and as it were impertinent, deeprooted desire

to thwart, irritate and contradict the said Friedrich Wilhelm. Especially in any recruiting matter that might

arise, knowing that to be the weak side of his Prussian Majesty. All this would have amounted to nothing, had

it not been that their neighbor, the Prince Bishop of Liege, who imagined himself to have some obscure

claims of sovereignty over Herstal, and thought the present a good opportunity for asserting these, was

diligent to aid and abet the Herstal people in such their mutinous acts. Obscure claims; of which this is the

"The Bishop of Liege's claims on Herstal (which lie wrapt from mankind in the extensive jungle of his

lawpleadings, like a Bedlam happily fallen extinct) seem to me to have grown mainly from two facts more

"FACT FIRST. In Kaiser Barbarossa's time, year 1171, Herstal had been given in pawn to the Church of

Liege, for a loan, by the then proprietor, Duke of Lorraine and Brabant. Loan was repaid, I do not learn when,

and the Pawn given back; to the satisfaction of said Duke, or Duke's Heirs; never quite to the satisfaction of

the Church, which had been in possession, and was loath to quit, after hoping to continue. 'Give us back

Herstal; it ought to be ours!' Unappeasable sigh or grumble to this effect is heard thenceforth, at intervals, in

the Chapter of Liege, and has not ceased in Friedrich's time. But as the world, in its loud thoroughfares,

seldom or never heard, or could hear, such sighing in the Chapter, nothing had come of it,till

"FACT SECOND. In Kaiser Karl V.'s time, the Prince Bishop of Liege happened to be a Natural Son of old

Kaiser Max's;and had friends at headquarters, of a very choice nature. Had, namely, in this sort, Kaiser

Karl for Nephew or HalfNephew; and what perhaps was still better, as nearer hand, had Karl's Aunt, Maria

Queen of Hungary, then Governess of the Netherlands, for HalfSister. Liege, in these choice circumstances,

and by other good chances that turned up, again got temporary clutch or halfclutch of Herstal, for a couple

of years (date 15461548, the Prince of Orange, real proprietor, whose Ancestor had bought it for money

down, being then a minor); once, and perhaps a second time in like circumstance; but had always to renounce

it again, when the Prince of Orange came to maturity. And ever since, the Chapter of Liege sighs as before,

'Herstal is perhaps in a sense ours. We had once some kind of right to it!'sigh inaudible in the loud public

thoroughfares. That is the Bishop's claim. The name of him, if anybody care for it, is 'Georg Ludwig, titular

COUNT OF BERG,' now a very old man: Bishop of Liege, he, and has been snatching at Herstal again, very

eagerly by any skirt or tagrag that might happen to fly loose, these eight years past, in a rash and provoking

manner; [ Delices du Pais de Liege (Liege, 1738); HeldenGeschichte, ii. 5762.]age eightytwo at

present; poor old fool, he had better have sat quiet. There lies a rod in pickle for him, during these late

"I have Law Authority over Herstal, and power of judging there in the last appeal," said this

Bishop:"You!" thought Friedrich Wilhelm, who was far off, and had little time to waste. "Any Prussian

recruiter that behaves ill, bring him to me!" said the Bishop, who was on the spot. And accordingly it had

been done; one notable instance two years ago: a Prussian Lieutenant locked in the Liege jail, on complaint of

riotous Herstal; thereupon a Prussian Officer of rank (Colonel Kreutzen, worthy old Malplaquet gentleman)

coming as Royal Messenger, not admitted to audience, nay laid hold of by the Liege bailiff instead; and other

unheard of procedures. [ HeldenGeschichte, ii. 6373.] So that Friedrich Wilhelm had nothing but trouble

with this petty Herstal, and must have thought his neighbor Bishop a very contentious highflying gentleman,

who took great liberties with the Lion's whiskers, when he had the big animal at an advantage.

The episcopal procedures, eight years ago, about the First Homaging of Herstal, had been of similar

complexion; nor had other such failed in the interim, though this last outrage exceeded them all. This last

began in the end of 1738; and span itself out through 1739, when Friedrich Wilhelm lay in his final sickness,

less able to deal with it than formerly. Being a peaceable man, unwilling to awaken conflagrations for a small

matter, Friedrich Wilhelm had offered, through Kreutzen on this occasion, to part with Herstal altogether; to

sell it, for 100,000 thalers, say 16,000 pounds, to the highflying Bishop, and honestly wash his hands of it.

But the highflying Bishop did not consent, gave no definite answer; and so the matter lay,like an

unsettled extremely irritating paltry little matter,at the time Friedrich Wilhelm died.

The Gazetteers and public knew little about these particulars, or had forgotten them again; but at the Prussian

Court they were in lively remembrance. What the young Friedrich's opinion about them had been we gather

from this succinct notice of the thing, written seven or eight years afterwards, exact in all points, and still

carrying a breath of the old humor in it. "A miserable Bishop of Liege thought it a proud thing to insult the

late King. Some subjects of Herstal, which belongs to Prussia, had revolted; the Bishop gave them his

protection. Colonel Kreutzen was sent to Liege, to compose the thing by treaty; credentials with him, full

power, and all in order. Imagine it, the Bishop would not receive him! Three days, day after day, he saw this

Envoy apply at his Palace, and always denied him entrance. These things had grown past endurance."

[Preuss, OEuvres (Memoires de Brandebourg), end italic> ii. 53.] And Friedrich had taken note of Herstal

along with him, on this Cleve Journey; privately intending to put Herstal and the highflying Bishop on a

For indeed, on Friedrich's Accession, matters had grown worse, not better. Of course there was Fealty to be

sworn; but the Herstal people, abetted by the highflying Bishop, have declined swearing it. Apology for the

past, prospect of amendment for the future, there is less than ever. What is the young King to do with this

paltry little Hamlet of Herstal? He could, in theory, go into some ReichsHofrath, some

ReichsKammergericht (kind of treble and tenfold English CourtofChancery, which has lawsuits 250

years old),if he were a theoretic German King. He can plead in the Diets, and the Wetzlar

ReichsKammergericht without end: "All German Sovereigns have power to send their Ambassador thither,

who is like a mastiff chained in the backyard [observes Friedrich elsewhere] with privilege of barking at the

Moon," unrestricted privilege of barking at the Moon, if that will avail a practical man, or King's

Ambassador. Or perhaps the Bishop of Liege will bethink him, at last, what considerable liberty he is taking

with some people's whiskers? Four months are gone; Bishop of Liege has not in the least bethought him: we

Accordingly the Rath Rambonet, whom Voltaire found at Moyland that Sunday night, had been over at

Liege; went exactly a week before; with this message of very peremptory tenor from his Majesty:

"MY COUSIN,Knowing all the assaults (ATTEINTES) made by you upon my indisputable rights over my

free Barony of Herstal; and how the seditious ringleaders there, for several years past, have been

countenanced (BESTARKET) by you in their detestable acts of disobedience against me,I have

commanded my Privy Councillor Rambonet to repair to your presence, and in my name to require from you,

within two days, a distinct and categorical answer to this question: Whether you are still minded to assert

your pretended sovereignty over Herstal; and whether you will protect the rebels at Herstal, in their disorders

"In case you refuse, or delay beyond the term, the Answer which I hereby of right demand, you will render

yourself alone responsible, before the world, for the consequences which infallibly will follow. I am, with

Rambonet had started straightway for Liege, with this missive; and had duly presented it there, I guess on the

7th,with notice that he would wait fortyeight hours, and then return with what answer or noanswer there

might be. Getting no written answer, or distinct verbal one; getting only some vague mumblement as good as

none, Rambonet had disappeared from Liege on the 9th; and was home at Moyland when Voltaire arrived

that Sunday evening,just walking about to come to heat again, after reportiag progress to the above effect.

Rambonet, I judge, enjoyed only one of those divine Suppers at Moyland; and dashed off again, "on hired

hack" or otherwise, the very next morning; that contingency of Noanswer having been the anticipated one,

and all things put in perfect readiness for it. Rambonet's new errand was to "take act," as Voltaire calls it, "at

the Gates of Liege,"to deliver at Liege a succinct Manifesto, Pair of Manifestoes, both in Print (ready

beforehand), and bearing date that same Sunday, "Wesel, 11th September;" much calculated to amaze his

Reverence at Liege. Succinct good Manifestoes, said to be of Friedrich's own writing; the essential of the two

Exposition of the Reasons which have induced his Majesty the King of Prussia to make just Reprisals on the

"His Majesty the King of Prussia, being driven beyond bounds by the rude proceedings of the Prince Bishop

of Liege, has with regret seen himself forced to recur to the Method of Arms, in order to repress the violence

and affront which the Bishop has attempted to put upon him. This resolution has cost his Majesty much pain;

the rather as he is, by principle and disposition, far remote from whatever could have the least relation to

"But seeing himself compelled by the Bishop of Liege to take new methods, he had no other course but to

maintain the justice of his rights (LA JUSTICE DE SES DROITS), and demand reparation for the indignity

done upon his Minister Von Kreuzen, as well as for the contempt with which the Bishop of Liege has

"As too much rigor borders upon cruelty, so too much patience resembles weakness. Thus, although the King

would willingly have sacrificed his interests to the public peace and tranquillity, it was not possible to do so

in reference to his honor; and that is the chief motive which has determined him to this resolution, so contrary

"In vain has it been attempted, by methods of mildness, to come to a friendly agreement: it has been found,

on the contrary, that the King's moderation only increased the Prince's arrogance; that mildness of conduct on

one side only furnished resources to pride on the other; and that, in fine, instead of gaining by soft procedure,

"There being no means to have justice but in doing it for oneself, and the King being Sovereign enough for

such a duty,he intends to make the Prince of Liege feel how far he was in the wrong to abuse such

moderation so unworthily. But in spite of so much unhandsome behavior on the part of this Prince, the King

will not be inflexible; satisfied with having shown the said Prince that he can punish him, and too just to

overwhelm him. FREDERIC. "WESEL, September 11th, 174O." [ HeldenGeschichte, ii. 77. Said to be by

Whether Rambonet insinuated his PaperPacket into the Palace of Seraing, left it at the Gate of Liege (fixed

by nail, if he saw good), or in what manner he "took act," I never knew; and indeed Rambonet vanishes from

human History at this point: it is certain only that he did his Formality, say two days hence;and that the

Fact foreshadowed by it is likewise in the same hours, hour after hour, getting steadily done.

For the Manifestoes printed beforehand, dated Wesel, 11th September, were not the only thing ready at

Wesel; waiting, as on the slip, for the contingency of Noanswer. MajorGeneral Borck, with the due

Battalions, squadrons and equipments, was also ready. MajorGeneral Borck, the same who was with us at

Baireuth lately, had just returned from that journey, when he got orders to collect 2,000 men, horse and foot,

with the due proportion of artillery, from the Prussian Garrisons in these parts; and to be ready for marching

with them, the instant the contingency of Noanswer arrives,Sunday, 11th, as can be foreseen. Borck

knows his route: To Maaseyk, a respectable Town of the Bishop's, the handiest for Wesel; to occupy

Maaseyk and the adjoining "Counties of Lotz and Horn;" and lie there at the Bishop's charge till his

Borck is ready, to the last pontoon, the last munitionloaf; and no sooner is signal given of the Noanswer

come, than Borck, that same "Sunday, 11th," gets under way; marches, steady as clockwork, towards

Maaseyk (fifty miles southwest of him, distance now lessening every hour); crosses the Maas, by help of his

pontoons; is now in the Bishop's Territory, and enters Maaseyk, evening of "Wednesday, 14th,"that very

day Voltaire and his Majesty had parted, going different ways from Moyland; and probably about the same

hour while Rambonet was "taking act at the Gate of Liege," by nailhammer or otherwise. All goes punctual,

swift, cog hitting pinion far and near, in this small Herstal Business; and there is no mistake made, and a

Borck's management was throughout good: punctual, quietly exact, polite, mildly inflexible. Fain would the

Maaseyk TownBaths have shut their gates on him; desperately conjuring him, "Respite for a few hours, till

we send to Liege for instructions!" But it was to no purpose. "Unbolt, IHR HERREN; swift, or the petard will

have to do it!" Borck publishes his Proclamation, a mildspoken rigorous Piece; signifies to the Maaseyk

Authorities, That he has to exact a Contribution of 20,000 thalers (3,000 pounds) here, Contribution payable

in three days; that he furthermore, while he continues in these parts, will need such and such rations,

accommodations, allowances,"fifty LOUIS (say guineas) daily for his own private expenses," one

item;and, in mild rhadamanthine language, waves aside all remonstrance, refusal or delay, as superfluous

considerations: Unless said Contribution and required supplies come in, it will be his painful duty to bring

The highflying Bishop, much astonished, does now eagerly answer his Prussian Majesty, "Was from home,

was ill, thought he had answered; is the most illused of Bishops;" and other things of a hysteric character.

[Ib. ii. 85, 86 (date, 16th September).] And there came forth, as natural to the situation, multitudinous

complainings, manifestoings, applications to the Kaiser, to the French, to the Dutch, of a very shrieky

character on the Bishop of Liege's part; sparingly, if at all noticed on Friedrich's: the whole of which we shall

consider ourselves free to leave undisturbed in the rubbishabysses, as henceforth conceivable to the reader.

"SED SPEM STUPENDE FEFELLIT EVENTUS," shrieks the poor old Bishop, making moan to the Kaiser:

"ECCE ENIM, PRAEMISSA DUNTAXAT UNA LITERA, one Letter," and little more, "the said King of

Borussia has, with about 2,000 horse and foot, and warlike engines, in this month of September, entered the

Territory of Liege;" [ HeldenGeschichte, ii. 88.] which is an undeniable truth, but an unavailing. Borck is

there, and "2,000 good arguments with him," as Voltaire defines the phenomenon. Friedrich, except to

explain pertinently what my readers already know, does not write or speak farther on the subject; and readers

and he may consider the Herstal Affair, thus set agoing under Borck's auspices, as in effect finished; and that

his Majesty has left it on a satisfactory footing, and may safely turn his back on it, to wait the sure issue at

Voltaire told us he himself "did one Manifesto, good or bad," on this Herstal business:where is that Piece,

then, what has become of it? Dig well in the realms of Chaos, rectifying stupidities more or less enormous,

the Piece itself is still discoverable; and, were pieces by Voltaire much a rarity instead of the reverse, might

be resuscitated by a good Editor, and printed in his WORKS. Lies buried in the lonesome rubbishmountains

of that HeldenGeschichte, let a SISTE VIATOR, scratched on the surface, mark where. [Ib. ii. 9898.]

Apparently that is the Piece by Voltaire? Yes, on reading that, it has every internal evidence; distinguishes

itself from the surrounding pieces, like a slab of compact polished stone, in a floor rammed together out of

ruinous old bricks, broken bottles and mortardust;agrees, too, if you examine by the microscope, with the

external indications, which are sure and at last clear, though infinitesimally small; and is beyond doubt

It is not properly a Manifesto, but an anonymous memoir published in the Newspapers, explaining to

impartial mankind, in a legible brief manner, what the old and recent History of Herstal, and the Troubles of

Herstal, have been, and how chimerical and "null to the extreme of nullity (NULLES DE TOUT NULLITE)"

this poor Bishop's pretensions upon it are. Voltaire expressly piques himself on this Piece; [Letter to

Priedrich: dateless, datable "soon after 17th September;" which the rash dark Editors have by guess misdated

"August; "or, what was safer for them, omitted it altogether. OEuvres de Voltaire (Paris, 1818, 40 vols.) gives

the Letter, xxxix. 442 (see also ibid. 453, 463); later Editors, and even Preuss, take the safer course.] brags

also how he settled "M. de Fenelon [French Ambassador at the Hague], who came to me the day before

yesterday," much out of square upon the Herstal Business, till I pulled him straight. And it is evident

(beautifully so, your Majesty) how Voltaire busied himself in the Gazettes and Diplomatic circles, setting

Friedrich's case right; Voltaire very loyal to Friedrich and his Liege Cause at that time;and the contrast

between what his contemporary Letters say on the subject, and what his ulterior Pasquil called VIE PRIVEE

The dull stagnant world, shaken awake by this Liege adventure, gives voice variously; and in the Gazetteer

and Diplomatic circles it is much criticised, by no means everywhere in the favorable tone at this first blush

of the business. "He had written an ANTI Machiavel," says the Abbe St. Pierre, and even says Voltaire (in

the PASQUIL, not the contemporary LETTERS), "and he acts thus!" Truly he does, Monsieur de Voltaire;

and all men, with light upon the subject, or even with the reverse upon it, must make their criticisms. For the

rest, Borck's "2,000 arguments" are there; which Borck handles well, with polite calm rigor: by degrees the

As to the highflying Bishop, finding that hysterics are but wasted on Friedrich and Borck, and produce no

effect with their 2,000 validities, he flies next to the Kaiser, to the Imperial Diet, in shrillsounding Latin

obtestations, of which we already gave a flying snatch: "Your HUMILISSIMUS and FIDELISSIMUS

VASSALLUS, and most obsequient Servant, Georgius Ludovicus; meek, modest, and unspeakably in the

right: Was ever Member of the Holy Roman Empire so snubbed, and grasped by the windpipe, before? Oh,

help him, great Kaiser, bid the iron gripe loosen itself!" [ HeldenGeschichte, ii, 86116.] The Kaiser does

so, in heavy Latin rescripts, in German DEHORTATORIUMS more than one, of a sulky, imperative, and

indeed very lofty tenor; "Let Georgius Ludovicus go, foolish rash young Dilection (LIEBDEN, not

MAJESTY, we ourselves being the only Majesty), and I will judge between you; otherwise!" said the

Kaiser, ponderously shaking his Olympian wig, and lifting his gilt cane, or sceptre of mankind, in an

Olympian manner. Here are some touches of his second sublimest DEHORTATORIUM addressed to

Friedrich, in a very compressed state: [ HeldenGeschichte, ii. 127; a FIRST and milder (ibid. 73).]

We Karl the Sixth, Kaiser of (TITLES ENOUGH), ... "Considering these, in the Holy Roman Reich, almost

unheardof violent Doings (THATLICHKEITEN), which We, in Our SupremeJudge Office, cannot

altogether justify, nor will endure ... We have the trust that you yourself will magnanimously see How evil

counsellors have misled your Dilection to commence your Reign, not by showing example of Obedience to

the Laws appointed for all members of the Reich, for the weak and for the strong alike, but by such Doings

"We give your Dilection to know, therefore, That you must straightway withdraw those troops which have

broken into the Liege Territory; make speedy restitution of all that has been extorted; especially General

von Borck to give back at once those 50 louis d'or daily drawn by him, to renounce his demand of the 20,000

thalers, to make good all damage done, and retire with his whole military force (MILITZ) over the Liege

boundaries;and in brief, that you will, by law or arbitration, manage to agree with the Prince Bishop of

Liege, who wishes it very much. These things We expect from your Dilection, as Kurfurst of Brandenburg,

within the space of Two Months from the Issuing of this; and remain," Yours as you shall demean

"Given at Wien, 4th of October, 1740."The last Dehortatorium ever signed by Karl VI. In two weeks after

Dehortatoriums had their interest, at Berlin and elsewhere, for the Diplomatic circles; but did not produce the

least effect on Borck or Friedrich; though Friedrich noted the Kaiser's manner in these things, and thought

privately to himself, as was evident to the discerning, "What an amount of wig on that old gentleman!" A

notable Kaiser's Ambassador, Herr Botta, who had come with some Accession compliments, in these weeks,

was treated slightingly by Friedrich; hardly admitted to Audience; and Friedrich's public reply to the last

Dehortatorium had almost something of sarcasm in it: Evil counsellors yourself, Most Dread Kaiser! It is you

that are "misled by counsellors, who might chance to set Germany on fire, were others as unwise as they!"

Which latter phrase was remarkable to mankind.There is a long account already run up between that old

gentleman, with his Seckendorfs, Grumkows, with his dull insolencies, wiggeries, and this young gentleman,

who has nearly had his heart broken and his Father's house driven mad by them! Borck remains at his post;

rations duly delivered, and fifty louis a day for his own private expenses; and there is no answer to the Kaiser,

or in sharp brief terms (about "chances of setting Germany on fire"), rather worse than none.

Readers see, as well as Friedrich did, what the upshot of this affair must be;we will now finish it off, and

wash our hands of it, before following his Majesty to Berlin. The poor Bishop had applied, shrieking, to the

French for help;and there came some colloquial passages between Voltaire and Fenelon, if that were a

result. He had shrieked in like manner to the Dutch, but without result of any kind traceable in that quarter:

nowhere, except from the Kaiser, is so much as a DEHORTATORIUM to be got. Whereupon the once

highflying, now vainly shrieking Bishop discerns clearly that there is but one course left,the course which

has lain wide open for some years past, had not his flight gone too high for seeing it. Before three weeks are

over, seeing how Dehortatoriums go, he sends his Ambassadors to Berlin, his apologies, proposals:

[Ambassadors arrived 28th September; last Dehortatorium not yet out. Business was completed 20th October

(Rodenbeck, IN DIEBUS).] "Would not your Majesty perhaps consent to sell this Herstal, as your Father of

Friedrich answers straightway to the effect: "Certainly! Pay me the price it was once already offered for:

100,000 thalers, PLUS the expenses since incurred. That will be 180,000 thalers, besides what you have spent

already on General Borck's days' wages. To which we will add thatwretched little fraction of Old Debt, clear

as noon, but never paid nor any part of it; 60,000 thalers, due by the See of Liege ever since the Treaty of

Utrecht; 60,000, for which we will charge no interest: that will make 240,000 thalers,36,000 pounds,

instead of the old sum you might have had it at. Produce that cash; and take Herstal, and all the dust that has

risen out of it, well home with you." [Stenzel, iv. 60, who counts in gulden, and is not distinct.] The Bishop

thankfully complies in all points; negotiation speedily done ("20th Oct." the final date): Bishop has not, I

think, quite so much cash on hand; but will pay all he has, and 4 per centum interest till the whole be

And thus, in some six weeks after Borck's arrival in those parts, Borck's function is well done. The noise of

Gazettes and Diplomatic circles lays itself again; and Herstal, famous once for King Pipin, and famous again

for King Friedrich, lapses at length into obscurity, which we hope will never end. Hope;though who can

say? ROUCOUX, quite close upon it, becomes a Battleground in some few years; and memorabilities go

Friedrich spent ten days on his circuitous journey home; considerable inspection to be done, in Minden,

Magdeburg, not to speak of other businesses he had. The old Newspapers are still more intent upon him, now

that the Herstal Affair has broken into flame: especially the English Newspapers; who guess that there are

passages of courtship going on between great George their King and him. Here is one fact, correct in every

point, for the old London Public: "Letters from Hanover say, that the King of Prussia passed within a small

distance of that City the 16th inst. N.S., on his return to Berlin, but did not stop at Herrenhausen;"about

which there has been such hoping and speculating among us lately. [ Daily Post, 22d September, 1740; other

London Newspapers from July 31st downwards.] A fact which the extinct Editor seems to meditate for a day

or two; after which he says (partly in ITALICS), opening his lips the second time, like a Friar Bacon's Head

significant to the Public: "Letters from Hanover tell us that the Interview, which it was said his Majesty was

to have with the King of Prussia, did not take place, for certain PRIVATE REASONS, which our

It is well known Friedrich did not love his little Uncle, then or thenceforth; still less his little Uncle him:

"What is this Prussia, rising alongside of us, higher and higher, as if it would reach our own sublime level!"

thinks the little Uncle to himself. At present there is no quarrel between them; on the contrary, as we have

seen, there is a mutual capability of helping one another, which both recognize; but will an interview tend to

forward that useful result? Friedrich, in the intervals of an ague, with Herstal just broken out, may have

wisely decided, No. "Our sublime little Uncle, of the waxy complexion, with the proudly staring

fisheyes,no wit in him, not much sense, and a great deal of pride,stands dreadfully erect, 'plumb and

more,' with the Garterleg advanced, when one goes to see him; and his remarks are not of an entertaining

nature. Leave him standing there: to him let Truchsess and Bielfeld suffice, in these hurries, in this ague that

is still upon us." Upon which the dull old Newspapers, Owls of Minerva that then were, endeavor to draw

inferences. The noticeable fact is, Friedrich did, on this occasion, pass within a mile or two of his royal

Uncle, without seeing him; and had not, through life, another opportunity; never saw the sublime little man at

I believe Friedrich little knows the thickcoming difficulties of his Britannic Majesty at this juncture; and is

too impatient of these laggard procedures on the part of a man with eyes A FLEUR DETETE. Modern

readers too have forgotten Jenkins's Ear; it is not till after long study and survey that one begins to perceive

the anomalous profundities of that phenomenon to the poor English Nation and its poor George II.

The English sent off, last year, a scanty Expedition, "six ships of the line," only six, under Vernon, a fiery

Admiral, a little given to be fiery in Parliamentary talk withal; and these did proceed to PortoBello on the

Spanish Main of South America; did hurl out on PortoBello such a fiery destructive deluge, of gunnery and

bayonetwork, as quickly reduced the poor place to the verge of ruin, and forced it to surrender with

whatever navy, garrison, goods and resources were in it, to the discretion of fiery Vernon,who does not

prove implacable, he or his, to a petitioning enemy. Yes, humble the insolent, but then be merciful to them,

say the admiring Gazetteers. "The actual monster," how cheering to think, "who tore off Mr. Jenkins's Ear,

was got hold of [actual monster, or even three or four different monsters who each did it, the "hold got" being

mythical, as readers see], and naturally thought he would be slit to ribbons; but our people magnanimously

pardoned him, magnanimously flung him aside out of sight;" [ Gentleman's Magazine, x. 124, 145 (date of

the Event is 3d December N.S., 1739).] impossible to shoot a dog in cold blood. Whereupon Vernon returned

home triumphant; and there burst forth such a jubilation, over the day of small things, as is now astonishing

to think of. Had the Termagant's own Thalamus and Treasury been bombarded suddenly one night by redhot

balls, Madrid City laid in ashes, or Baby Carlos's Apanage extinguished from Creation, there could hardly

have been greater English joy (witness the "PortoBellos" they still have, new Towns so named); so flamy is

the murky element growing on that head. And indeed had the cipher of tarbarrels burnt, and of alebarrels

drunk, and the general account of wick and tallow spent in illuminations and in aldermanic exertions on the

matter, been accurately taken, one doubts if PortoBello sold, without shot fired, to the highest bidder, at its

floweriest, would have covered such a sum. For they are a singular Nation, if stirred up from their stagnancy;

It is said there is now another far grander Expedition on the stocks: military this time as well as naval,

intended for the Spanish Main;but of that, for the present, we will defer speaking. Enough, the Spanish

War is a most serious and most furious business to those old English; and, to us, after forced study of it,

shines out like faroff conflagration, with a certain lurid significance in the then night of things. Night

otherwise fallen dark and somniferous to modern mankind. As Britannic Majesty and his Walpoles have,

from the first, been dead against this Spanish War, the problem is all the more ominous, and the dreadful

For example, there is known, or as good as known, to be virtually some Family Compact, or covenanted

Brotherhood of Bourbonism, French and Spanish: political people quake to ask themselves, "How will the

French keep out of this War, if it continue any length of time? And in that case, how will Austria, Europe at

large? Jenkins's Ear will have kindled the Universe, not the Spanish Main only, and we shall be at a fine

pass!" The Britannic Majesty reflects that if France take to fighting him, the first stab given will probably be

in the accessiblest quarter and the intensely most sensitive,our own Electoral Dominions where no

Parliament plagues us, our dear native country, Hanover. Extremely interesting to know what Friedrich of

Well, truly it might have been King George's best bargain to close with Friedrich; to guarantee Julich and

Berg, and get Fredrich to stand between the French and Hanover; while George, with an England behind him,

in such humor, went wholly into that Spanish Business, the one thing needful to them at present. Truly; but

then again, there are considerations: "What is this Friedrich, just come out upon the world? What real fighting

power has he, after all that ridiculous drilling and recruiting Friedrich Wilhelm made? Will he be faithful in

bargain; is not, perhaps, from of old, his bias always toward France rather? And the Kaiser, what will the

Kaiser say to it?" These are questions for a Britannic Majesty! Seldom was seen such an insoluble imbroglio

of potentialities; dangerous to touch, dangerous to leave lying;and his Britannic Majesty's procedures upon

it are of a very slow intricate sort; and will grow still more so, year after year, in the new intricacies that are

coming, and be a weariness to my readers and me. For observe the simultaneous fact. All this while,

Robinson at Vienna is dunning the Imperial Majesty to remember old Marlborough days and the Laws of

Nature; and declare for us against France, in case of the worst. What an attempt! Imperial Majesty has no

money; Imperial Majesty remembers recent days rather, and his own last quarrel with France (on the Polish

Election score), in which you SeaPowers cruelly stood neuter! One comfort, and pretty much one only, is

left to a nearly bankrupt Imperial heart; that France does at any rate ratify Pragmatic Sanction, and instead of

enemy to that inestimable Document has become friend,if only she be well let alone. "Let well alone," says

the sad Kaiser, bankrupt of heart as well as purse: "I have saved the Pragmatic, got Fleury to guarantee it; I

will hunt wild swine and not shadows any more: ask me not!" And now this Herstal business; the Imperial

Dehortatoriums, perhaps of a high nature, that are like to come? More hopeless proposition the Britannic

Majesty never made than this to the Kaiser. But he persists in it, orders Robinson to persist; knocks at the

Austrian door with one hand, at the Prussian or AntiAustrian with the other; and gazes, with those proud

fish eyes, into perils and potentialities and a sea of troubles. Wearisome to think of, were not one bound to

it! Here, from a singular CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND, not yet got into print, are two

Excerpts; which I will request the reader to try if he can take along with him, in view of much that is

1. A JUST WAR."This War, which posterity scoffs at as the WAR OF JENKINS'S EAR, was, if we

examine it, a quite indispensable one; the dim muchbewildered English, driven into it by their deepest

instincts, were, in a chaotic inarticulate way, right and not wrong in taking it as the Commandment of

Heaven. For such, in a sense, it was; as shall by and by appear. Not perhaps since the grand Reformation

Controversy, under Oliver Cromwell and Elizabeth, had there, to this poor English People (who are

essentially dumb, inarticulate, from the weight of meaning they have, notwithstanding the palaver one hears

from them in certain epochs), been a more authentic cause of War. And, what was the fatal and yet foolish

circumstance, their Constitutional Captains, especially their King, would never and could never regard it as

such; but had to be forced into it by the public rage, there being no other method left in the case.

"I say, a most necessary War, though of a most stupid appearance; such the fatality of it:begun, carried on,

ended, as if by a People in a state of somnambulism! More confused operation never was. A solid placid

People, heavily asleep (and snoring much, shall we say, and inarticulately grunting and struggling under

indigestions, Constitutional and other? Do but listen to the hum of those extinct Pamphlets and Parliamentary

Oratories of theirs!),yet an honestly intending People; and keenly alive to any commandment from

Heaven, that could pierce through the thick skin of them into their big obstinate heart. Such a commandment,

then and there, was that monition about Jenkins's Ear. Upon which, so pungent was it to them, they started

violently out of bed, into painful sleepwalking; and went, for twenty years and more, clambering and

sprawling about, far and wide, on the giddy edge of precipices, over housetops and frightful cornices and

parapets; in a dim fulfilment of the said Heaven's command. I reckon that this War, though there were

intervals, Treaties of Peace more than one, and the War had various names,did not end till 1763. And then,

by degrees, the poor English Nation found that (at, say, a thousand times the necessary expense, and with

imminent peril to its poor head, and all the bones of its body) it had actually succeeded,by dreadful

exertions in its sleep! This will be more apparent by and by; and may be a kind of comfort to the sad English

reader, drearily surveying such somnambulisms on the part of his poor ancestors."

2. TWO DIFFICULTIES."There are Two grand Difficulties in this FarceTragedy of a war; of which only

one, and that not the worst of the Pair, is in the least surmised by the English hitherto. Difficulty First, which

is even worse than the other, and will surprisingly attend the English in all their Wars now coming, is: That

their fightingapparatus, though made of excellent material, cannot fight,being in disorganic condition;

one branch of it, especially the 'Military' one as they are pleased to call it, being as good as totally chaotic,

and this in a quiet habitual manner, this long while back. With the Naval branch it is otherwise; which also is

habitual there. The English almost as if by nature can sail, and fight, in ships; cannot well help doing it.

Sailors innumerable are bred to them; they are planted in the Ocean, opulent stormy Neptune clipping them in

all his moods forever: and then by nature, being a dumb, muchenduring, much reflecting, stout, veracious

and valiant kind of People, they shine in that way of life, which specially requires such. Without much

forethought, they have sailors innumerable, and of the best quality. The English have among them also,

strange as it may seem to the cursory observer, a great gift of organizing; witness their Arkwrights and others:

and this gift they may often, in matters Naval more than elsewhere, get the chance of exercising. For a Ship's

Crew, or even a Fleet, unlike a land Army, is of itself a unity, its fortunes disjoined, dependent on its own

management; and it falls, moreover, as no land army can, to the undivided guidance of one man,who (by

hypothesis, being English) has now and then, from of old, chanced to be an organizing man; and who is

always much interested to know and practise what has been well organized. For you are in contact with

verities, to an unexampled degree, when you get upon the Ocean, with intent to sail on it, much more to fight

on it;bottomless destruction raging beneath you and on all hands of you, if you neglect, for any reason, the

The English Navy is in tolerable order at that period. But as to the English Army,we may say it is, in a

wrong sense, the wonder of the world, and continues so throughout the whole of this History and farther!

Never before, among the rational sons of Adam, were Armies sent out on such terms,namely without a

General, or with no General understanding the least of his business. The English have a notion that

Generalship is not wanted; that War is not an Art, as playing Chess is, as finding the Longitude, and doing

the Differential Calculus are (and a much deeper Art than any of these); that War is taught by Nature, as

eating is; that courageous soldiers, led on by a courageous Wooden Pole with Cockedhat on it, will do very

well. In the world I have not found opacity of platitude go deeper among any People. This is Difficulty First,

not yet suspected by an English People, capable of great opacity on some subjects.

"Difficulty Second is, That their Ministry, whom they had to force into this War, perhaps do not go zealously

upon it. And perhaps even, in the above circumstances, they totally want knowledge how to go upon it, were

they never so zealous; Difficulty Second might be much helped, were it not for Difficulty First. But the

administering of War is a thing also that does not come to a man like eating.This Second Difficulty,

suspicion that Walpole and perhaps still higher heads want zeal, gives his Britannic Majesty infinite trouble;

And so, in short, he stands there, with the Garterleg advanced, looking loftily into a considerable sea of

troubles,that day when Friedrich drove past him, Friday, 16th September, 1740, and never came so near

The next business for Friedrich was a Visit at Brunswick, to the Affinities and Kindred, in passing; where

also was an important little act to be done: Betrothal of the young Prince, August Wilhelm, HeirPresumptive

whom we saw in Strasburg, to a Princess of that House, Louisa Amelia, younger Sister of Friedrich's own

Queen. A modest promising arrangement; which turned out well enough,though the young Prince, Father

to the Kings that since are, was not supremely fortunate otherwise. [Betrothal was 20th September, 1740;

Marriage, 5th January, 1742 (Buchholz, i. 207).] After which, the review at Magdeburg; and home on the

24th, there to "be busy as a Turk or as a M. Jordan,"according to what we read long since.

By this Herstal token, which is now blazing abroad, now and for a month to come, it can be judged that the

young King of Prussia intends to stand on his own footing, quite peremptorily if need be; and will by no

means have himself led about in Imperial harness, as his late Father was. So that a dull Public (Herrenhausen

very specially), and Gazetteer Owls of Minerva everywhere, may expect events. All the more indubitably,

when that spadework comes to light in the Wesel Country. It is privately certain (the Gazetteers not yet sure

about it, till they see the actual spades going), this new King does fully intend to assert his rights on

BergJulich; and will appear there with his iron ramrods, the instant old KurPfalz shall decease, let France

and the Kaiser say No to it or say Yes. There are, in fact, at a fit place, "Buderich in the neighborhood of

Wesel," certain rampart works, beginnings as of an Entrenched Camp, going on;"for Review purposes

merely," say the Gazetteers, IN ITALICS. Here, it privately is Friedrich's resolution, shall a Prussian Army,

of the due strength (could be wellnigh 100,000 strong if needful), make its appearance, directly on old

KurPfalz's decease, if one live to see such event. [Stenzel, iv. 61.] France and the Kaiser will probably take

To do his work like a King, and shun no peril and no toil in the course of what his work may be, is Friedrich's

rule and intention. Nevertheless it is clear he expects to approve himself magnanimous rather in the Peaceable

operations than in the Warlike; and his outlooks are, of all places and pursuits, towards Reinsberg and the

Fine Arts, for the time being. His Public activity meanwhile they describe as "prodigious," though the ague

still clings to him; such building, instituting, managing: OperaHouse, French Theatre, Palace for his

Mother;day by day, many things to be recorded by Editor Formey, though the rule about them here is

No doubt the ague is itself privately a point of moment. Such a vexatious paltry little thing, in this bright

whirl of Activities, Public and other, which he continues managing in spite of it; impatient to be rid of it. But

it will not go: there IT reappears always, punctual to its "fourth day,"like a snarling streetdog, in the high

Ballroom and Workroom. "He is drinking Pyrmont water;" has himself proposed Quinquina, a remedy just

come up, but the Doctors shook their heads; has tried snatches of Reinsberg, too short; he intends soon to be

out there for a right spell of country, there to be "happy," and get quit of his ague. The ague went,and by a

Monday, 17th October, came the Baireuth Visitors; Wilhelmina all in a flutter, and tremor of joy and sorrow,

to see her Brother again, her old kindred and the altered scene of things. Poor Lady, she is perceptibly more

tremulous than usual; and her Narrative, not in dates only, but in more memorable points, dances about at a

sad rate; interior agitations and tremulous shrill feelings shivering her this way and that, and throwing things

topsyturvy in one's recollection. Like the magnetic needle, shaky but steadfast (AGITEE MAI

CONSTANTE). Truer nothing can be, points forever to the Pole; but also what obliquities it makes; will

shiver aside in mad escapades, if you hold the paltriest bit of old iron near it,paltriest clack of gossip about

this loved Brother of mine! Brother, we will hope, silently continues to be Pole, so that the needle always

comes back again; otherwise all would go to wreck. Here, in abridged and partly rectified form, are the

"We arrived at Berlin the end of October [Monday, 17th, as above said]. My younger Brothers, followed by

the Princes of the Blood and by all the Court, received us at the bottom of the stairs. I was led to my

apartment, where I found the Reigning Queen, my Sisters [Ulrique, Amelia], and the Princesses [of the

Blood, as above, Schwedt and the rest]. I learned with much chagrin that the King was ill of tertian ague

[quartan; but that is no matter]. He sent me word that, being in his fit, he could not see me; but that he

depended on having that pleasure tomorrow. The Queen Mother, to whom I went without delay, was in a

dark condition; rooms all hung with their lugubrious drapery; everything yet in the depth of mourning for my

Father. What a scene for me! Nature has her rights; I can say with truth, I have almost never in my life been

so moved as on this occasion." Interview with Mammawe can fancy it"was of the most touching."

Wilhelmina had been absent eight years. She scarcely knows the young ones again, all so grown;finds

change on change: and that Time, as he always is, has been busy. That night the SupperParty was

Her Brother's welcome to her on the morrow, though ardent enough, she found deficient in sincerity,

deficient in several points; as indeed a Brother up to the neck in business, and just come out of an aguefit,

does not appear to the best advantage. Wilhelmina noticed how ill he looked, so lean and brokendown

(MAIGRE ET DEFAIT) within the last two months; but seems to have taken no account of it farther, in

striking her balances with Friedrich. And indeed in her Narrative of this Visit, not, we will hope, in the Visit

itself, she must have been in a high state of magnetic deflection,pretty nearly her maximum of such,

discoverable in those famous MEMOIRS,such a tumult is there in her statements, all gone to

groundandlofty tumbling in this place; so discrepant are the still ascertainable facts from this topsyturvy

picture of them, sketched by her four years hence (in 1744). The truest of magnetic needles; but so sensitive,

Wilhelmina was loaded with honors by an impartial Berlin Public that is Court Public; "but, all being in

mourning, the Court was not brilliant. The Queen Mother saw little company, and was sunk in sorrow;had

not the least influence in affairs, so jealous was the new King of his Authority,to the Queen Mother's

surprise," says Wilhelmina. For the rest, here is a King "becoming truly unpopular [or, we fancy so, in our

deflected state, and judging by the rumor of cliques]; a general discontent reigning in the Country, love of his

subjects pretty much gone; people speaking of him in no measured terms [in certain cliques]. Cares nothing

about those who helped him as Prince Royal, say some; others complain of his avarice [meaning steady

vigilance in outlay] as surpassing the late King's; this one complained of his violences of temper

(EMPORTEMENS); that one of his suspicions, of his distrust, his haughtinesses, his dissimulation" (meaning

polite impenetrability when he saw good). Several circumstances, known to Wilhelmina's own experience,

compel Wilhelmina's assent on those points. "I would have spoken to him about them, if my Brother of

Prussia [young August Wilhelm, betrothed the other day] and the Queen Regnant had not dissuaded me.

Farther on I will give the explanation of all this,"never did it anywhere. "I beg those who may one day read

these MEMOIRS, to suspend their judgment on the character of this great Prince till I have developed it."

[Wilhelmina, ii. 326.] O my Princess, you are true and bright, but you are shrill; and I admire the effect of

atmospheric electricity, not to say, of any neighboring marinestore shop, or miserable bit of broken pan, on

Wilhelmina is incapable of deliberate falsehood; and this her impression or reminiscence, with all its

exaggeration, is entitled to be heard in evidence so far. From this, and from other sources, readers will assure

themselves that discontents were not wanting; that King Friedrich was not amiable to everybody at this

time, which indeed he never grew to be at any other time. He had to be a King; that was the trade he

followed, not the quite different one of being amiable all round. Amiability is good, my Princess; but the

question rises, "To whom?for example, to the young gentleman who shot himself in Lobegun?" There are

young gentlemen and old sometimes in considerable quantities, to whom, if you were in your duty, as a King

of men (or even as a "King of one man and his affairs," if that is all your kingdom), you should have been

hateful instead of amiable! That is a stern truth; too much forgotten by Wilhelmina and others. Again, what a

deadening and killing circumstance is it in the career of amiability, that you are bound not to be

communicative of your inner man, but perpetually and strictly the reverse! It may be doubted if a good King

can be amiable; certainly he cannot in any but the noblest ages, and then only to a select few. I should guess

Friedrich was at no time fairly loved, not by those nearest to him. He was rapid, decisive; of wiry compact

nature; had nothing of his Father's amplitudes, simplicities; nothing to sport with and fondle, far from it.

Tremulous sensibilities, ardent affections; these we clearly discover in him, in extraordinary vivacity; but he

wears them under his polished panoply, and is outwardly a radiant but metallic object to mankind. Let us

carry this along with us in studying him; and thank Wilhelmina for giving us hint of it in her oblique

way.Wilhelmima's love for her Brother rose to quite heroic pitch in coming years, and was at its highest

when she died. That continuation of her MEMOIRS in which she is to develop her Brother's character, was

never written: it has been sought for in modern times; and a few insignificant pages, with evidence that there

is not, and was not, any more, are all that has turned up. [Pertz, Ueber die Denkwurdigkeiten der Markgrafin

van Bayreuth (Paper read in the Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin, 25th April, 1850).

Incapable of falsity prepense, we say; but the known facts, which stand abundantly on record if you care to

search them out, are merely as follows: Friedrich, with such sincerity as there might be, did welcome

Wilhelmina on the morrow of her arrival; spoke of Reinsberg, and of air and rest, and how pleasant it would

be; rolled off next morning, having at last gathered up his businesses, and got them well in hand, to Reinsberg

accordingly; whither Wilhelmina, with the Queen Regnant and others of agreeable quality, followed in two

days; intending a long and pleasant spell of country out there. Which hope was tolerably fulfilled, even for

Wilhelmina, though there did come unexpected interruptions, not of Friedrich's bringing.

Friedrich's pursuits and intended conquests, for the present, are of peaceable and even gay nature. French

Theatre, Italian Opera House, these are among the immediate outlooks. Voltaire, skilled in French acting, if

anybody ever were, is multifariously negotiating for a Company of that kind,let him be swift, be

successful. [Letters of Voltaire (PASSIM, in these months).] An Italian Opera there shall be; the House is still

to be built: Captain Knobelsdorf, who built Reinsberg, whom we have known, is to do it. Knobelsdorf has

gone to Italy on that errand; "went by Dresden, carefully examining the OperaHouse there, and all the

famed OperaHouses on his road." Graun, one of the best judges living, is likewise off to Italy, gathering

singers. Our Opera too shall be a successful thing, and we hope, a speedy. Such are Friedrich's outlooks at

A miscellaneous pleasant company is here; Truchsess and Bielfeld, home from Hanover, among them;

Wilhelmina is here;Voltaire himself perhaps coming again. Friedrich drinks his Pyrmont waters; works at

his public businesses all day, which are now well in hand, and manageable by couriers; at evening he appears

in company, and is the astonishment of everybody; brilliant, like a newrisen sun, as if he knew of no illness,

knew of no business, but lived for amusement only. "He intends Private Theatricals withal, and is getting

ready Voltaire's MORT DE CESAR." [Preuss, Thronbesteigung, p. 415.] These were pretty days at

Reinsberg. This kind of life lasted seven or eight weeks, in spite of interruptions of subterranean volcanic

nature, some of which were surely considerable. Here, in the very first week, coming almost volcanically, is

Tuesday forenoon, 25th October, 1740, Express arrives at Reinsberg; direct from Vienna five days ago; finds

Friedrich under eclipse, hidden in the interior, laboring under his aguefit: question rises, Shall the Express

be introduced, or be held back? The news he brings is huge, unexpected, transcendent, and may agitate the

sick King. Six or seven heads go wagging on this point,who by accident are namable, if readers care:

"Prince August Wilhelm," lately betrothed; "Graf Truchsess," home from Hanover; "Colonel Graf von

Finkenstein," old Tutor's Son, a familiar from boyhood upwards; "Baron Pollnitz" kind of chief Goldstick

now, or Master of the Ceremonies, not too witty, but the cause of wit; "Jordan, Bielfeld," known to us; and

lastly, "Fredersdorf," Majordomo and Factotum, who is grown from Valet to be PurseKeeper, confidential

Manager, and almost friend, a notable personage in Friedrich's History. They decide, "Better wait!"

They wait accordingly; and then, after about an hour, the tremblingfit being over, and Fredersdorf having

cautiously preluded a little, and prepared the way, the Despatch is delivered, and the King left with his

immense piece of news. News that his Imperial Majesty Karl VI. died, after short illness, on Thursday, the

20th last. Kaiser dead: House of Hapsburg, and its Five Centuries of tough wrestling, and uneasy Dominancy

in this world, ended, gone to the distaff:the counterwrestling Ambitions and Cupidities not dead; and

nothing but Pragmatic Sanction left between the fallen House and them! Friedrich kept silence; showed no

sign how transfixed he was to hear such tidings; which, he foresaw, would have immeasurable consequences

One of the first was, that it cured Friedrich of his ague. It braced him (it, and perhaps "a little quinquina

which he now insisted on") into such a tensity of spirit as drove out his ague like a mere hiccough; quite gone

in the course of next week; and we hear no more of that importunate annoyance. He summoned Secretary

Eichel, "Be ready in so many minutes hence;" rose from his bed, dressed himself; [Preuss, Thronbesteigung,

p. 416.]and then, by Eichel's help, sent off expresses for Schwerin his chief General, and Podewils his

chief Minister. A resolution, which is rising or has risen in the Royal mind, will be ready for communicating

to these Two by the time they arrive, on the second day hence. This done, Friedrich, I believe, joined his

company in the evening; and was as light and brilliant as if nothing had happened.

The Kaiser's death came upon the Public unexpectedly; though not quite so upon observant persons closer at

hand. He was not yet fiftysix out; a firmbuilt man; had been of sound constitution, of active, not

intemperate habits: but in the last six years, there had come such torrents of ill luck rolling down on him, he

had suffered immensely, far beyond what the world knew of; and to those near him, and anxious for him, his

strength seemed much undermined. Five years ago, in summer 1735, Robinson reported, from a sure hand:

"Nothing can equal the Emperor's agitation under these disasters [brought upon him by Fleury and the

Spaniards, as afterclap to his PolishElection feat]. His good Empress is terrified, many times, he will die in

the course of the night, when singly with her he gives a loose to his affliction, confusion and despair."

SeaPowers will not help; Fleury and mere ruin will engulf! "What augments this agitation is his distrust in

every one of his own Ministers, except perhaps Bartenstein," [Robinson to Lord Warrington, 5th July, 1735

(in StatePaper Office).]who is not much of a support either, though a gnarled weighty old stick in his way

("Professor at Strasburg once"): not interesting to us here. The rest his Imperial Majesty considers to be of

sublimated blockhead type, it appears. Prince Eugene had died lately, and with Eugene all good fortune.

And then, close following, the miseries of that Turk War, crashing down upon a man! They say, Duke Franz,

Maria Theresa's Husband, nominal Commander in those Campaigns, with the Seckendorfs and Wallises

under him going such a road, was privately eager to have done with the Business, on any terms, lest the

Kaiser should die first, and leave it weltering. No wonder the poor Kaiser felt broken, disgusted with the long

ShadowHunt of Life; and took to practical fieldsports rather. An Army that cannot fight, War Generals

good only to be locked in Fortresses, an Exchequer that has no money; after such wagging of the wigs, and

such Privy Councilling and such WarCouncilling:let us hunt wild swine, and not think of it! That, thank

Heaven, we still have; that, and Pragmatic Sanction well engrossed, and generally sworn to by mankind, after

The outer Public of that time, and Voltaire among them more deliberately afterwards, spoke of "mushrooms,"

an "indigestion of mushrooms;" and it is probable there was something of mushrooms concerned in the event,

Another subsequent Frenchman, still more irreverent, adds to this of the "excess of mushrooms," that the

Kaiser made light of it. "When the Doctors told him he had few hours to live, he would not believe it; and

bantered his Physicians on the sad news. 'Look me in the eyes,' said he; 'have I the air of one dying? When

you see my sight growing dim, then let the sacraments be administered, whether I order or not.'" Doctors

insisting, the Kaiser replied: "'Since you are foolish fellows, who know neither the cause nor the state of my

disorder, I command that, once I am dead, you open my body, to know what the matter was; you can then

come and let me know!"' [ Anecdotes Germaniques (Paris, 1769), p. 692.]in which also there is perhaps a

glimmering of distorted truth, though, as Monsieur mistakes even the day ("18th October," says he, not

2Oth), one can only accept it as rumor from the outside. Here, by an extremely sombre domestic Gentleman

of great punctuality and great dulness, are the authentic particulars, such as it was good to mention in Vienna

circles. [(Anonymous) Des Romischen Kaisers Carl VI. Leben und Thaten (Frankfurt und Leipzig, 1741), pp.

220227.] An extremely dull Gentleman, but to appearance an authentic; and so little defective in reverence

that he delicately expresses some astonishment at Death's audacity this year, in killing so many Crowned

Heads. "This year 1740," says he, "though the weather throughout Europe had been extraordinarily fine," or

fine for a cold year, "had already witnessed several Deaths of Sovereigns: Pope Clement XII., Friedrich

Wilhelm of Prussia, the Queen Dowager of Spain [Termagant's old stepmother, not Termagant's self by a

great way]. But that was not enough: unfathomable Destiny ventured now on Imperial Heads (WAGTE SICH

AUCH AN KAISERKRONEN): Karl VI., namely, and Russia's great, Monarchess;"an audacity to be

remarked. Of Russia's great Monarchess (Czarina Anne, with the big cheek) we will say nothing at present;

"Thursday, October 13th, returning from Halbthurn, a Hunting Seat of his," over in Hungary some fifty miles,

"to the Palace Favorita at Vienna, his Imperial Majesty felt slightly indisposed," indigestion of mushrooms

or whatever it was: had begun AT Halbthurn the night before, we rather understand, and was the occasion of

his leaving. "The Doctors called it cold on the stomach, and thought it of no consequence. In the night of

Saturday, it became alarming;" inflammation, thought the Doctors, inflammation of the liver, and used their

potent appliances, which only made the danger come and go; "and on the Tuesday, all day, the Doctors did

not doubt his Imperial Majesty was dying. ["Look me in the eyes; pack of fools; you will have to dissect me,

"At noon of that Tuesday he took the Sacrament, the Pope's Nuncio administering. His Majesty showed

uncommonly great composure of soul, and resignation to the Divine Will;" being indeed "certain,"so he

expressed it to "a principal Official Person sunk in grief" (Bartenstein, shall we guess?), who stood by him

"certain of his cause," not afraid in contemplating that dread Judgment now near: "Look at me! A man that is

certain of his cause can enter on such a Journey with good courage and a composed mind (MIT GUTEM

UND DELASSENEM MUTH)." To the Doctors, dubitating what the disease was, he said, "If Gazelli" my

late worthy Doctor, "were still here, you would soon know; but as it is, you will learn it when you dissect

me;"and once asked to be shown the Cup where his heart would lie after that operation.

"Sacrament being over," Tuesday afternoon, "he sent for his Family, to bless them each separately. He had a

long conversation with Grand Duke Franz," titular of Lorraine, actual of Tuscany, "who had assiduously

attended him, and continued to do so, during the whole illness." The Grand Duke's Spouse,Maria Theresa,

the noblehearted and the overwhelmed; who is now in an interesting state again withal; a little Kaiserkin

(Joseph II.) coming in five months; first child, a little girl, is now two years old;"had been obliged to take

to bed three days ago; laid up of grief and terror (VOR SCHMERZEN UND SCHRECKEN), ever since

Sunday the 16th. Nor would his Imperial Majesty permit her to enter this death room, on account of her

condition, so important to the world; but his Majesty, turning towards that side where her apartment was,

raised his right hand, and commanded her Husband, and the Archduchess her younger Sister, to tell his

Theresa, That he blessed her herewith, notwithstanding her absence." Poor Kaiser, poor Theresa! "Most

distressing of all was the scene with the Kaiserin. The night before, on getting knowledge of the sad certainty,

she had fainted utterly away (STARKE OHNMACHT), and had to be carried into the Grand Duchess's

[Maria Theresa's] room. Being summoned now with her Children, for the last blessing, she cried as in

despair, 'Do not leave me, Your Dilection, do not (ACH EUER LIEBDEN VERLASSEN MICH DOCH

NICHT)!'" Poor good souls! "Her Imperial Majesty would not quit the room again, but remained to the last.

"Wednesday, 19th, all day, anxiety, mournful suspense;" poor weeping Kaiserin and all the world waiting;

the Inevitable visibly struggling on. "And in the night of that day [night of 19th20th Oct., 1740], between

one and two in the morning, Death snatched away this most invaluable Monarch (DEN

PREISWURDIGSTEN MONARCHEN) in the 66th year of his life;" and Kaiser Karl VI., and the House of

Hapsburg and its Five tough Centuries of good and evil in this world had ended. The poor Kaiserin "closed

the eyes" that could now no more behold her; "kissed his hands, and was carried out more dead than alive."

[Anonymous, UT SUPRA, pp. 220227. Adelung, Pragmatische Staatsgeschichte (Gotha, 17621767), ii.

120. JOHANN CHRISTOPH Adelung; the same who did the DICTIONARY aud many other deserving

Books; here is the precise Title: "Pragmatische Staatsgeschichte Europens," that is, "Documentary History of

Europe, from Kaiser Karl's Death, 1740, till Peace of Paris, 1763." A solid, laborious and meritorious Work,

of its kind; extremely extensive (9 vols. 4to, some of which are double and even treble), mostly in the

undigested, sometimes in the quite uncooked or raw condition; perhaps about a fifth part of it consists of

"Documents" proper, which are shippable. It cannot help being dull, waste, dreary, but is everywhere

intelligible (excellent Indexes too),and offers an unhappy reader by far the best resource attainable for

A good affectionate Kaiserin, I do believe; honorable, truthful, though unwitty of speech, and converted by

Grandpapa in a peculiar manner, For her Kaiser too, after all, I have a kind of love. Of brilliant articulate

intellect there is nothing; nor of inarticulate (as in Friedrich Wilhelm's case) anything considerable: in fact his

ShadowHunting, and Duelling with the Termagant, seemed the reverse of wise. But there was something of

a high proud heart in it, too, if we examine; and even the Pragmatic Sanction, though in practice not worth

one regiment of iron ramrods, indicates a profoundly fixed determination, partly of loyal nature, such as the

gods more or less reward. "He had been a great builder," say the Histories; "was a great musician, fit to lead

orchestras, and had composed an Opera,"poor Kaiser. There came out large traits of him, in Maria Theresa

again, under an improved form, which were much admired by the world. He looks, in his Portraits, intensely

serious; a handsome man, stoically grave; much the gentleman, much the Kaiser or Supreme Gentleman. As,

in life and fact, he was; "something solemn in him, even when he laughs," the people used to say. A man

honestly doing his very best with his poor Kaisership, and dying of chagrin by it. "On opening the body, the

liverregion proved to be entirely deranged; in the place where the gallbladder should have been, a stone of

the size of a pigeon's egg was found grown into the liver, and no gallbladder now there."

That same morning, with earliest daylight, "Thursday, 20th, six A.M.," Maria Theresa is proclaimed by her

Heralds over Vienna: "According to Pragmatic Sanction, Inheritress of all the," Sovereign Archduchess of

Austria, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, for chief items. "At seven her Majesty took the Oath from the

Generals and Presidents of Tribunals,said, through her tears, 'All was to stand on the old footing, each in

his post,'" and the other needful words. Couriers shoot forth towards all Countries;one express courier

to Regensburg, and the enchanted Wiggeries there, to say That a new Kaiser will be needed; REICHSVicar

or Vicars (KurSachsen and whoever more, for they are sometimes disagreed about it) will have to

A second courier we saw arrive at Reinsberg; he likewise may be important. The Bavarian Minister, Karl

Albert KurBaiern's man, shot off his express, like the others; answer is, by return of courier, or even earlier

(for a messenger was already on the road), Make protest! "We KurBaiern solemnly protest against

Pragmatic Sanction, and the assumption of such Titles by the Daughter of the late Kaiser. King of Bohemia,

and in good part even of Austria, it is not you, Madam, but of right WE; as, by Heaven's help, it is our fixed

resolution to make good!" Protest was presented, accordingly, with all the solemnities, without loss of a

moment. To which Bartenstein and the Authorities answered "Poohpooh," as if it were nothing. It is the first

ripple of an immeasurable tide or deluge in that kind, threatening to submerge the new Majesty of

Hungary;as had been foreseen at Reinsberg; though Bartenstein and the Authorities made light of it,

Her Hungarian Majesty's chief Generals, Seckendorf, Wallis, Neipperg, sit in their respective prisonwards at

this time (from which she soon liberates them): KurBaiern has lodged protest; at Reinsberg there will be an

important resolution ready:and in the Austrian Treasury (which employs 40,000 persons, big and little)

there is of cash or available, resource, 100,000 florins, that is to say, 10,000 pounds net. [Mailath, Geschichte

des Oestreichischen Kaiserstaats (Hamburg, 1850), v. 8.] And unless Pragmatic sheepskin hold tighter than

some persons expect, the affairs of Austria and of this young Archduchess are in a threatening way.

His Britannic Majesty was on the road home, about Helvoetsluys or on the sea for Harwich, that night the

Kaiser died; of whose illness he had heard nothing. At London, ten days after, the sudden news struck

dismally upon his Majesty and the Political Circles there: "No help, then, from that quarter, in our Spanish

War; perhaps far other than help!"Nay, certain Gazetteers were afraid the grand new AntiSpanish

Expedition itself, which was now, at the long last, after such confusions and delays, lying ready, in great

strength, Naval and Military, would be countermanded,on PragmaticSanction considerations, and the

crisis probably imminent. [London Newspapers (31st Oct.6th Nov., 1740). But it was not countermanded; it

sailed all the same, "November 6th" (seventh day after the bad news); and made towards Shall we tell the

reader, what is Officially a dead secret, though by this time well guessed at by the Public, English and also

Spanish?towards Carthagena, to reinforce fiery Vernon, in the tropical latitudes; and overset Spanish

Commodore Anson, he also, after long fatal delays, is off, several weeks ago; [29th (18th) September, 1740.]

round Cape Horn; hoping (or perhaps already not hoping) to cooperate from the Other Ocean, and be

simultaneous with Vernon,on these loose principles of keeping time! Commodore Anson does, in effect,

make a Voyage which is beautiful, and to mankind memorable; but as to keeping tryst with Vernon, the very

Thursday, 27th October, two days after the Expresses went for them, Schwerin and Podewils punctually

arrived at Reinsberg. They were carried into the interior privacies, "to long conferences with his Majesty that

day, and for the next four days; Majesty and they even dining privately together;" grave business of state,

none guesses how grave, evidently going on. The resolution Friedrich laid before them, fruit of these two

days since the news from Vienna, was probably the most important ever formed in Prussia, or in Europe

during that Century: Resolution to make good our Rights on Silesia, by this great opportunity, the best that

will ever offer. Resolution which had sprung, I find, and got to sudden fixity in the head of the young King

himself; and which met with little save opposition from all the other sons of Adam, at the first blush and for

long afterwards. And, indeed, the making of it good (of it, and of the immense results that hung by it) was the

main business of this young King's Life henceforth; and cost him Labors like those of Hercules, and was in

the highest degree momentous to existing and not yet existing millions of mankind,to the readers of this

It is almost touching to reflect how unexpectedly, like a bolt out of the blue, all this had come upon Friedrich;

and how it overset his fine program for the winter at Reinsberg, and for his Life generally. Not the Peaceable

magnanimities, but the Warlike, are the thing appointed Friedrich this winter, and mainly henceforth. Those

"GOLDEN or soft radiances" which we saw in him, admirable to Voltaire and to Friedrich, and to an esurient

philanthropic world,it is not those, it is "the STEELBRIGHT or stellar kind," that are to become

predominant in Friedrich's existence: grim hailstorms, thunders and tornado for an existence to him, instead

of the opulent genialities and halcyon weather, anticipated by himself and others! Indisputably enough to us,

if not yet to Friedrich, "Reinsberg and Life to the Muses" are done. On a sudden, from the opposite side of

the horizon, see, miraculous Opportunity, rushing hitherward,swift, terrible, clothed with lightning like a

courser of the gods: dare you clutch HIM by the thundermane, and fling yourself upon him, and make for the

Empyrean by that course rather? Be immediate about it, then; the time is now, or else never!No fair judge

can blame the young man that he laid hold of the flaming Opportunity in this manner, and obeyed the new

omen. To seize such an opportunity, and perilously mount upon it, was the part of a young magnanimous

King, less sensible to the perils, and more to the other considerations, than one older would have been.

Schwerin and Podewils were, no doubt, astonished to learn what the Royal purpose was; and could not want

for commonplace objections many and strong, had this been the scene for dwelling on them, or dressing them

out at eloquent length. But they knew well this was not the scene for doing more than, with eloquent

modesty, hint them; that the Resolution, being already taken, would not alter for commonplace; and that the

question now lying for honorable members was, How to execute it? It is on this, as I collect, that Schwerin

and Podewils in the King's company did, with extreme intensity, consult during those four days; and were,

most probably, of considerable use to the King, though some of their modifications adopted by him turned

out, not as they had predicted, but as he. On all the Military details and outlines, and on all the Diplomacies

of this business, here are two Oracles extremely worth consulting by the young King.

To seize Silesia is easy: a Country open on all but the south side; open especially on our side, where a

battalion of foot might force it; the three or four fortresses, of which only two, Glogau and Neisse, can be

reckoned strong, are provided with nothing as they ought to be; not above 3,000 fighting men in the whole

Province, and these little expecting fight. Silesia can be seized: but the maintaining of it?We must try to

At Reinsberg it is not yet known that KurBaiern has protested; but it is well guessed he means to do so, and

that France is at his back in some sort. KurBaiern, probably KurSachsen, and plenty more, France being

secretly at their back. What low condition Austria stands in, all its ready resources run to the lees, is known;

and that France, getting lively at present with its Belleisles and adventurous spirits not restrainable by Fleury,

is always on the watch to bring Austria lower; capable, in spite of Pragmatic Sanction, to snatch the golden

moment, and spring hunterlike on a moribund Austria, were the huntingdogs once out and in cry. To

Friedrich it seems unlikely the Pragmatic Sanction will be a Law of Nature to mankind, in these

circumstances. His opinion is, "the old political system has expired with the Kaiser." Here is Europe, burning

in one corner of it by Jenkins's Ear, and such a smoulder of combustible material awakening nearer hand: will

not Europe, probably, blaze into general War; Pragmatic Sanction going to waste sheepskin, and universal

scramble ensuing? In which he who has 100,000 good soldiers, and can handle them, may be an important

Friedrich's mind, as to the fact, is fixed: seize Silesia we will: but as to the manner of doing it, Schwerin and

Podewils modify him. Their counsel is: "Do not step out in hostile attitude at the very first, saying, 'These

Duchies, Liegnitz, Brieg, Wohlau, Jagerndorf, are mine, and I will fight for them;' say only, 'Having, as is

well known, interests of various kinds in this Silesia, I venture to take charge of it in the perilous times now

come, and will keep it safe for the real owner.' Silesia seized in this fashion," continue they, "negotiate with

the Queen of Hungary; offer her help, large help in men and money, against her other enemies; perhaps she

will consent to do us right?" "She never will consent," is Friedrich's opinion. "But it is worth trying?" urge

the Ministers."Well," answers Friedrich, "be it in that form; that is the softspoken cautious form: any

form will do, if the fact be there." That is understood to have been the figure of the deliberation in this

conclave at Reinsberg, during the four days. [Stenzel (from what sources he does not clearly say, no doubt

from sources of some authenticity) gives this as summary of it, iv. 6165.] And now it remains only to fix the

Military details, to be ready in a minimum of time; and to keep our preparations and intentions in

And so, on the 1st of November, fifth morning since they came, Schwerin and Podewils, a world of new

business silently ahead of them, return to Berlin, intent to begin the same. All the Kings will have to take

their resolution on this matter; wisely, or else unwisely. King Friedrich's, let it prove the wisest or not, is

notably the rapidest,complete, and fairly entering upon action, on November 1st. At London the news of

the Kaiser's death had arrived the day before; Britannic Majesty and Ministry, thrown much into the dumps

by it, much into the vague, are nothing like so prompt with their resolution on it. Somewhat sorrowfully in

the vague. In fact, they will go jumbling hither and thither for about three years to come, before making up

their minds to a resolution: so intricate is the affair to the English Nation and them! Intricate indeed; and even

imaginary,definable mainly as a bottomless abyss of nightmare dreams to the English Nation and them!

Podewils and Schwerin gone, King Friedrich, though still very busy in workinghours, returns to his society

and its gayeties and brilliancies; apparently with increased appetite after these four days of abstinence. Still

busy in his workinghours, as a King must be; couriers coming and going, hundreds of businesses despatched

each day; and in the evening what a relish for society,Praetorius is quite astonished at it. Music, dancing,

playacting, suppers of the gods, "not done till four in the morning sometimes," these are the accounts

Praetorius hears at Berlin. "From all persons who return from Reinsberg," writes he, "the unanimous report is,

That the King works, the whole day through, with an assiduity that is unique; and then, in the evening, gives

himself to the pleasures of society, with a vivacity of mirth and sprightly humor which makes those Evening

Parties charming." [Excerpt, in Preuss, Thronbesteigung, p. 418.] So it had to last, with frequent short

journeys on Friedrich's part, and at last with change to Berlin as headquarters, for about seven weeks to

come,till the beginning of December, and the day of action, namely. A notable little Interim in Friedrich's

Friedrich's secret, till almost the very end, remained impenetrable; though, by degrees, his movements excited

much guessing in the Gazetteer and Diplomatic world everywhere. Military matters do seem to be getting

brisk in Prussia; arsenals much astir; troops are seen mustering, marching, plainly to a singular degree.

Marching towards the Austrian side, towards Silesia, some note. Yes; but also towards Cleve, certain

detachments of troops are marching,do not men see? And the Intrenchment at Buderich in those parts, that

is getting forward withal,though privately there is not the least prospect of using it, in these altered

circumstances. Friedrich already guesses that if he could get Silesia, so invaluable on the one skirt of him, he

mill probably have to give up his BergJulich claims on the other; I fancy he is getting ready to do so, should

the time come for such alternative. But he labors at Buderich, all the same, and "improves the roads in that

quarter,"which at least may help to keep an inquisitive public at bay. These are seven busy weeks on

Friedrich's part, and on the world's: constant realities of preparation, on the one part, industriously veiled; on

the other part, such shadows, guessings, spyings, spectral movements above ground and below; Diplomatic

shadows fencing, Gazetteer shadows rumoring;dreams of a world as if near awakening to something great!

"All Officers on furlough have been ordered to their posts," writes Bielfeld, on those vague terms of his: "On

arriving at Berlin, you notice a great agitation in all departments of the State. The regiments are ordered to

prepare their equipages, and to hold themselves in readiness for marching. There are magazines being formed

at FrankfurtonOder and at Crossen,"handy for Silesia, you would say? "There are considerable trains of

Artillery getting ready, and the King has frequent conferences with his Generals." [Bielfeld, i. 165 (Berlin,

30th November, is the date he puts to it).] The authentic fact is: "By the middle of November, Troops, to the

extent of 30,000 and more, had got orders to be ready for marching in three weeks hence; their public

motions very visible ever since, their actual purpose a mystery to all mortals except three.

Towards the end of November, it becomes the prevailing guess that the business is immediate, not

prospective; that Silesia may be in the wind, not Julich and Berg. Which infinitely quickens the shadowy

rumorings and Diplomatic fencings of mankind. The French have their special Ambassador here; a Marquis

de Beauvau, observant military gentleman, who came with the Accession Compliment some time ago, and

keeps his eyes well open, but cannot see through millstones. Fleury is intensely desirous to know Friedrich's

secret; but would fain keep his own (if he yet have one), and is himself quite tacit and reserved. To Fleury's

Marquis de Beauvau Friedrich is very gracious; but in regard to secrets, is for a reciprocal procedure. Could

not Voltaire go and try? It is thought Fleury had let fall some hint to that effect, carried by a bird of the air.

Sure enough Voltaire does go; is actually on visit to his royal Friend; "six days with him at Reinsberg;"

perhaps near a fortnight in all (20 November 2 December or so), hanging about those Berlin regions, on the

survey. Here is an unexpected pleasure to the parties;but in regard to penetrating of secrets, an

Voltaire's ostensible errand was, To report progress about the ANTIMACHIAVEL, the Van Duren

nonsense; and, at any rate, to settle the Moneyaccounts on these and other scores; and to discourse

Philosophies, for a day or two, with the First of Men. The real errand, it is pretty clear, was as above. Voltaire

has always a wistful eye towards political employment, and would fain make himself useful in high quarters.

Fleury and he have their touches of direct Correspondence now and then; and obliquely there are always

intermediates and channels. Small hint, the slightest twinkle of Fleury's eyelashes, would be duly speeded to

Voltaire, and set him going. We shall see him expressly missioned hither, on similar errand, by and by;

Of this his First Visit to Berlin, his Second to Friedrich, Voltaire in the VIE PRIVEE says nothing. But in his

SIECLE DE LOUIS XV. he drops, with proud modesty, a little footnote upon it: "The Author was with the

King of Prussia at that time; and can affirm that Cardinal de Fleury was totally astray in regard to the Prince

he had now to do with." To which a DATE slightly wrong is added; the rest being perfectly correct.

[ OEuvres (Siecle de Louis XV., c. 6), xxviii. 74.] No other details are to be got anywhere, if they were of

importance; the very dates of it in the best Prussian Books are all slightly awry. Here, by accident, are two

poor flintsparks caught from the dust whirlwind, which yield a certain sufficing twilight, when put in their

1. FRIEDRICH TO ALGAROTTI, AT BERLIN. From "Reinsberg, 21st Nov.," showing the smooth side.

"MY DEAR SWAN OF PADUA,Voltaire has arrived; all sparkling with new beauties, and far more

sociable than at Cleve. He is in very good humor; and makes less complaining about his ailments than usual.

Nothing can be more frivolous than our occupations here:" mere versemaking, dancing, philosophizing, then

cardplaying, dining, flirting; merry as birds on the bough (and Silesia invisible, except to oneself and two

2. FRIEDRICH TO JORDAN, AT BERLIN. "RUPPIN, 28th November. "... Thy Miser [Voltaire, now gone

to Berlin, of whom Jordan is to send news, as of all things else], thy Miser shall drink to the lees of his

insatiable desire (SIC) to enrich himself: he shall have the 3,000 thalers (450 pounds). He was with me six

days: that will be at the rate of 500 thalers (75 pounds) a day. That is paying dear for one's merryandrew

(C'EST BIEN PAYER UN FOU); never had courtfool such wages before." [Ib. xvii. 72. Particulars of the

moneypayment (travelling expenses chiefly, rather exorbitant, and THIS journey added to the list; and no

whisper of the considerable VanDuren moneys, and copyright of ANTIMACHIAVEL, in abatement) are

in Rodenbeck, i. 27. Exact sum paid is 3,300 thalers; 2,000 a good while ago, 1,300 at this time, which settles

Which latter, also at first hand, shows us the seamy side. And here, finally, with date happily appended, is a

poetic snatch, in Voltaire's exquisite style, which with the response gives us the medium view:

Non, vous n'etes qu'une coquette, Qui subjuguez les coeurs, et ne rous donnez pas."

"Mon ame sent le prix de vos divins appas; Mais ne presumez point qu'elle soit satisfaite. Traitre, vous me

Moi je ne vous quitterais pas." [ OEuvres de Frederic (xiv. 167); OEuvres de Voltaire;

Meaning, perhaps, in brief English: V. "Ah, you are but a beautiful coquette; you charm away our hearts,

and do not give your own [won't tell me your secret at all]!" F. "Treacherous Lothario, it is you that quit me

for a coquette [your divine Emilie; and won't stay here, and be of my Academy]; but however!" Friedrich

looked hopingly on the French, but could not give his secret except by degrees and with reciprocity. Some

days hence he said to Marquis de Beauvau, in the Audience of leave, a word which was remembered.

As to Friedrich himself, since about the middle of November his plans seem to have been definitely shaped

out in all points; Troops so many, when to be on march, and how; no important detail uncertain since then.

November 17th, he jots down a little Note, which is to go to Vienna, were the due hour come, by a special

Ambassador, one Count Gotter, acquainted with the ground there; and explain to her Hungarian Majesty,

what his exact demands are, and what the exact services he will render. Of which important little Paper

readers shall hear again. Gotter's demands are at first to be high: Our Four Duchies, due by law so long; these

and even more, considering the important services we propose; this is to be his first word;but, it appears,

he is privately prepared to put up with Two Duchies, if he can have them peaceably: Duchies of Sagan and

Glogau, which are not of the Four at all, but which lie nearest us, and are far below the value of the Four, to

Austria especially. This intricate point Friedrich has already settled in his mind. And indeed it is notably the

habit of this young King to settle matters with himself in good time: and in regard to all manner of points, he

will be found, on the day of bargaining about them, to have his own resolution formed and definitely

fixed;much to his advantage over conflicting parties, who have theirs still flying loose.

Another thing of much concernment is, To secure himself from danger of Russian interference. To this end he

despatches Major Winterfeld to Russia, a man well known to him;day of Winterfeld's departure is not

given; day of his arrival in Petersburg is "19th December" just coming. Russia, at present, is rather in a

staggering condition; hopeful for Winterfeld's object. On the 28th of October last, only eight days after the

Kaiser, Czarina Anne of Russia, she with the big cheek, once of Courland, had died; "audacious Death," as

our poor friend had it, "venturing upon another Crowned Head" there. Bieren her dear Courlander, once little

better than a Horsegroom, now Duke of Courland, Quasi Husband to the late Big Cheek, and thereby

sovereign of Russia, this long while past, is left Official Head in Russia. Poor little Anton Ulrich and his

august Spouse, well enough known to us, have indeed produced a Czar Iwan, some months ago, to the joy of

mankind: but Czar Iwan is in his cradle: Father and Mother's function is little other than to rock the cradle of

Iwan; Bieren to be Regent and Autocrat over him and them in the interim. To their chagrin, to that of

Feldmarschall Munnich and many others: the upshot of which will be visible before long. Czarina Anne's

death had seemed to Friedrich the opportune removal of a dangerous neighbor, known to be in the pay of

Austria: here now are new mutually hostile parties springing up; chance, surely, of a bargain with some of

them? He despatches Winterfeld on this errand;probably the fittest man in Prussia for it. How soon and

perfectly Winterfeld succeeded, and what Winterfeld was, and something of what a Russia he found it, we

These, and all points of importance, Friedrich has settled with himself some time ago. What his own private

thoughts on the Silesian Adventure are, readers will wish to know, since they can at first hand. Hear Friedrich

"This Silesian Project fulfilled all his (the King's) political views,"summed them all well up into one head.

"It was a means of acquiriug reputation; of increasing the power of the State; and of terminating what

concerned that longlitigated question of the BergJulich Succession;"can be sure of getting that, at

"Meanwhile, before entirely determining, the King weighed the risks there were in undertaking such a War,

and the advantages that were to be hoped from it. On one side, presented itself the potent House of Austria,

not likely to want resources with so many vast Provinces under it; an Emperor's Daughter attacked, who

would naturally find allies in the King of England, in the Dutch Republic, and so many Princes of the Empire

who had signed the Pragmatic Sanction." Russia wasor had been, and might again be in the pay of

Vienna. Saxony might have some clippings from Bohemia thrown to it, and so be gained over. Scanty

Harvest, 1740, threatened difficulties as to provisioning of troops. "The risks were great. One had to

apprehend the vicissitudes of war. A single battle lost might be decisive. The King had no allies; and his

troops, hitherto without experience, would have to front old Austrian soldiers, grown gray in harness, and

"On the other side were hopeful considerations,"four in number: FIRST, Weak condition of the Austrian

Court, Treasury empty, War Apparatus broken in pieces; inexperienced young Princess to defend a disputed

succession, on those terms. SECOND, There WILL be allies; France and England always in rivalry, both

meddling in these matters, King is sure to get either the one or the other. THIRD, Silesian War lies handy

to us, and is the only kind of Offensive War that does; Country bordering on our frontier, and with the Oder

running through it as a sure highroad for everything. FOURTH, "What suddenly turned the balance," or at

least what kept it steady in that posture,"news of the Czarina's death arrives:" Russia has ceased to count

"Add to these reasons," says the King, with a candor which has not been well treated in the History Books,

"Add to these reasons, an Army ready for acting; Funds, Supplies all found [lying barrelled in the Schloss at

Berlin];and perhaps the desire of making oneself a name," from which few of mortals able to achieve it are

exempt in their young time: "all this was cause of the War which the King now entered upon." [ OEuvres de

"Desire to make himself a name; how shocking!" exclaim several Historians. "Candor of confession that he

may have had some such desire; how honest!" is what they do not exclaim. As to the justice of his Silesian

Claims, or even to his own belief about their justice, Friedrich affords not the least light which can be new to

readers here. He speaks, when business requires it, of "those known rights" of his, and with the air of a man

who expects to be believed on his word; but it is cursorily, and in the business way only; and there is not here

or elsewhere the least pleading:a man, you would say, considerably indifferent to our belief on that head;

his eyes set on the practical merely. "Just Rights? What are rights, never so just, which you cannot make

valid? The world is full of such. If you have rights and can assert them into facts, do it; that is worth

We must add two Notes, two small absinthine drops, bitter but wholesome, administered by him to the Old

Dessauer, whose gloomy wonder over all this military whirl of Prussian things, and discontent that he, lately

the head authority, has never once been spoken to on it, have been great. Guessing, at last, that it was meant

for Austria, a Power rather dear to Leopold, he can suppress himself no longer; but breaks out into Cassandra

1. "REINSBERG, 24th November, 1740.I have received your Letter, and seen with what inquietude you

view the approaching march of my Troops. I hope you will set your mind at ease on that score; and wait with

patience what I intend with them and you. I have made all my dispositions; and Your Serenity will learn, time

enough, what my orders are, without disquieting yourself about them, as nothing has been forgotten or

Old Dessauer, cut to the bone, perceives he will have to quit that method and never resume it; writes next

how painful it is to an old General to see himself neglected, as if good for nothing, while his scholars are

2. "BERLIN, 2d DECEMBER, 1740.You may be assured I honor your merits and capacity as a young

Officer ought to honor an old one, who has given the world so many proofs of his talent (DEXTERITAT);

nor will I neglect Your Serenity on any occasion when you can help me by your good Counsel and

cooperation." But it is a mere "bagatelle" this that I am now upon; though, next year, it may become serious.

For the rest, Saxony being a neighbor whose intentions one does not know, I have privately purposed Your

Serenity should keep an outlook that way, in my absence. Plenty of employment coming for Your Serenity.

"But as to this present Expedition, I reserve it for myself alone; that the world may not think the King of

Prussia marches with a Tutor to the Field."FRIEDRICH. [Orlich, Geschichte der Schlesischen Kriege

And therewith Leopold, eagerly complying, has to rest satisfied; and beware of too much freedom with this

"Berlin, December 2d," is the date of that last Note to the Dessauer; date also of Voltaire's ADIEU with the

RESPONSE; on which same day, "Friday, December 2d," as I find from the Old Books, his Majesty,

quitting the Reinsberg sojourn, "had arrived in Berlin about 2 P.M.; accompanied by Prince August Wilhelm

[betrothed at Brunswick lately]; such a crowd on the streets as if they had never seen him before." He

continued at Berlin or in the neighborhood thenceforth. Busy days these; and Berlin a much whispering City,

as Regiment after Regiment marches away. King soon to follow, as is thought,"who himself sometimes

deigns to take the Regiments into highest own eyeshine, HOCHSTEIGENEN AUGENSCHEIN" (that is, to

review them), say the reverential Editors. December 6thBut let us follow the strict sequence of Phenomena

Of course her Hungarian Majesty, and her Bartensteins and Ministries, heard enough of those Prussian

rumors, interior Military activities, and enigmatic movements; but they seem strangely supine on the matter;

indeed, they seem strangely supine on such matters; and lean at ease upon the SeaPowers, upon Pragmatic

Sanction and other Laws of Nature. But at length even they become painfully interested as to Friedrich's

intentions; and despatch an Envoy to sift him a little: an expert Marchese di Botta, Genoese by birth, skilful

in the Russian and other intricacies; who was here at Berlin lately, doing the Accession Compliment (rather

ill received at that time), and is fit for the job. Perhaps Botta will penetrate him? That is becoming desirable,

in spite of the gay Private Theatricals at Reinsberg, and the Berlin Carnival Balls he is so occupied with.

England is not less interested, and the diligent Sir Guy is doing his best; but can make out nothing

satisfactory;much the reverse indeed; and falls into angry black anticipations. "Nobody here, great or

small," says his Excellency, "dares make any representation to this young Prince against the measures he is

pursuing; though all are sensible of the confusion which must follow. A Prince who had the least regard to

honor, truth and justice, could not act the part he is goingto do." Alas, no, Excellency Dickens! "But it is plain

his only view was, to deceive us all, and conceal for a while his ambitious and mischievous designs."

[Despatch, 29th November3d December, 1740: Raumer, p. 58.] "Never was such dissimulation!" exclaims

the Diplomatic world everywhere, being angered at it, as if it were a vice on the part of a King about to

invade Silesia. Dissimulation, if that mean mendacity, is not the name of the thing; it is the art of wearing a

polite cloak of darkness, and the King is little disturbed what name they call it.

Botta did not get to Berlin till December lst, had no Audience till the 5th;by which time it is becoming

evident to Excellency Dickens, and to everybody, that Silesia is the thing meant. Botta hints as much in that

first Audience, December 5th: "Terrible roads, those Silesian ones, your Majesy!" says Botta, as if

historically merely, but with a glance of the eye. "Hm," answers his Majesty in the same tone, "the worst that

comes of them is a little mud!"Next day, Dickens had express Audience, "Berlin, Tuesday 6th:" a smartish,

somewhat flurried Colloquy with the King; which, well abridged, may stand as follows:

DICKENS. ... "Indivisibility of the Austrian Monarchy, Sire!" KING. "Indivisibility? What do you

mean?"DICKENS. "The maintenance of the Pragmatic Sanction."KING. "Do you intend to support it? I

DICKENS. "England and Holland will much wonder at the measures your Majesty was taking, at the moment

when your Majesty proposed to join with them, and were making friendly proposals!" (Has been a deceitful

man, Sir Guy, at least an impenetrable;but this latter is rather strong on your part!) "What shall I write to

England?" ("When I mentioned this," says Dickens, "the King grew red in the face," eyes considerably

KING. "You can have no instructions to ask that question! And if you had, I have an answer ready for you.

England has no right to inquire into my designs. Your great SeaArmaments, did I ask you any questions

about them? No; I was and am silent on that head; only wishing you good luck, and that you may not get

beaten by the Spaniards." (Dickens hastily draws in his rash horns again; after a pass or two, King's natural

KING. "Austria as a Power is necessary against the Turks. But in Germany, what need of Austria being so

superlative? Why should not, say, Three Electors united be able to oppose her? ... Monsieur, I find it is your

notion in England, as well as theirs in France, to bring other Sovereigns under your tutorage, and lead them

about. Understand that I will not be led by either. ... Tush, YOU are like the Athenians, who, when Philip of

DICKENS. ... "Berg and Julich, if we were to guarantee them?" KING. "Hm. Don't so much mind that

Rhine Country: difficulties there,Dutch always jealous of one. But, on the other Frontier, neither England

nor Holland could take umbrage,"points clearly to Silesia, then, your Excellency Dickens? [Raumer, (from

Alas, yes! Troops and military equipments are, for days past, evidently wending towards Frankfurt, towards

Crossen, and even the Newspapers now hint that something is on hand in that quarter. Nay, this same day,

TUESDAY, 6th DECEMBER, there has come out brief Official Announcement, to all the Foreign Ministers

at Berlin, Excellency Dickens among them, "That his Royal Majesty, our most allgracious Herr, has taken

the resolution to advance a Body of Troops into Schlesien,"rather out of friendly views towards Austria

(much business lying between us about Schlesien), not out of hostile views by any means, as all Excellencies

shall assure their respective Courts. [Copy of the Paper in HeldenGeschichte, i. 447.] Announcement which

had thrown the Excellency Dickens into such a frame of mind, before he got his Audience today!

SATURDAY following, which was December l0th, Marquis de Beauvau had his Audience of leave;

intending for Paris shortly: Audience very gracious; covertly hinting, on both sides, more than it said; ending

in these words, on the King's side, which have become famous: "Adieu, then, M. le Marquis. I believe I am

going to play your game; if the aces fall to me, we will share ( Je vais, je crois, jouer votre jeu: si les as me

viennent, nous partagerons)!" [Voltaire, OEuvres (Siecle de Louis XV., c. 6), xxviii. 74.]

To Botta, all this while, Friedrich strove to be specially civil; took him out to Charlottenburg, that same

Saturday, with the Queen and other guests; but Botta, and all the world, being now certain about Silesia, and

that no amount of mud, or other terror on the roads, would be regarded, Botta's thoughts in this evening party

are not of cheerful nature. Next day, Sunday, December 11th, he too gets his Audience of leave; and cannot

help bursting out, when the King plainly tells him what is now afoot, and that the Prussian Ambassador has

got instructions what to offer upon it at Vienna. "Sire, you are going to ruin the House of Austria," cried

Botta, "and to plunge yourself into destruction (VOUS ABIMER) at the same time!""Depends on the

Queen," said Friedrich, "to accept the Offers I have made her." Botta sank silent, seemed to reflect, but

gathering himself again, added with an ironical air and tone of voice, "They are fine Troops, those of yours,

Sire. Ours have not the same splendor of appearance; but they have looked the wolf in the face. Think, I

conjure you, what you are getting into!" Friedrich answered with vivacity, a little nettled at the ironical tone

of Botta, and his mixed sympathy and menace: "You find my troops are beautiful; perhaps I shall convince

you they are good too." Yes, Excellency Botta, goodish troops; and very capable "to look the wolf in the

face,"or perhaps in the tail too, before all end! "Botta urged and entreated that at least there should be some

delay in executing this project. But the King gave him to understand that it was now too late, and that the

The secret is now out, therefore; Invasion of Silesia certain and close at hand. "A day or two before

marching," may have been this very day when Botta got his audience, the King assembled his Chief Generals,

all things ready out in the FrankfurtCrossen region yonder; and spoke to them as follows; briefly and to the

"Gentlemen, I am undertaking a War, in which I have no allies but your valor and your goodwill. My cause

is just; my resources are what we ourselves can do; and the issue lies in Fortune. Remember continually the

glory which your Ancestors acquired in the plains of Warsaw, at Fehrbellin, and in the Expedition to

Preussen [across the Frische Haf on ice, that time]. Your lot is in your own hands: distinctions and rewards

"But what need have I to excite you to glory? It is the one thing you keep before your eyes; the sole object

worthy of your labors. We are going to front troops who, under Prince Eugene, had the highest reputation.

Though Prince Eugene is gone, we shall have to measure our strength against brave soldiers: the greater will

be the honor if we can conquer. Adieu, go forth. I will follow you straightway to the rendezvous of glory

On the evening of Monday, 12th, there was, as usual, Masked (or HalfMasked) Ball, at the Palace. As usual;

but this time it has become mentionable in WorldHistory. Bielfeld, personally interested, gives us a vivid

glance into it;which, though pretending to be real and contemporaneous, is unfortunately MYTHICAL

only, and done at a great interval of years (dates, and even slight circumstances of fact, refusing to

conform);which, however, for the truth there is in it, we will give, as better than nothing. Bielfeld's

pretended date is, "Berlin, 15th December;" should have been 14th,wrong by a day, after one's best effort!

"BERLIN, 15th DECEMBER, 1740. As for me, dear Sister, I am like a shuttlecock whom the Kings of

Prussia and of England hit with their rackets, and knock to and fro. The night before last, I was at the Palace

Evening Party (ASSEMBLEE); which is a sort of Ball, where you go in domino, but without mask on the

face. The Queen was there, and all the Court. About eight o'clock the King also made his appearance. His

Majesty, noticing M. de G[that is DE GUIDIKEN, or Guy Dickens], English Minister, addressed him;

led him into the embrasure of a window, and talked alone with him for more than an hour [uncertain,

probably apocryphal this]. I threw, from time to time, a stolen glance at this dialogue, which appeared to me

to be very lively. A moment after, being just dancing with Madame the Countess deTHREE

ASTERISKS,I felt myself twitched by the domino; and turning, was much surprised to see that it was the

King; who took me aside, and said, 'Are your boots oiled (VOS BOTTES SONTELLES GRAISSIES, Are

you ready for a journey)? ' I replied, 'Sire, they will always be so for your Majesty's service.''Well, then,

Truchsess and you are for England; the day after tomorrow you go. Speak to M. de Podewils!'This was

said like a flash of lightning. His Majesty passed into another apartment; and I, I went to finish my minuet

with the Lady; who had been not less astonished to see me disappear from her eyes, in the middle of the

dance, than I was at what the King said to me." [Bielfeld, i. 167, 168.] Next morning, I

The fact is, next morning, Truchsess and I began preparation for the Court of London,and we did there, for

many months afterwards, strive our best to keep the Britannic Majesty in some kind of tune, amid the

prevailing discord of events;fact interesting to some. And the other fact, interesting to everybody, though

Bielfeld has not mentioned it, is, That King Friedrich, the same next morning, punctually "at the stroke of 9,"

rolled away Frankfurtward,into the First Silesian War! Tuesday, "13th December, this morning, the King,

privately quitting the Ball, has gone [after some little snatch of sleep, we will hope] for Frankfurt, to put

himself at the head of his Troops." [Dickens (in StatePaper Office), 13th December, 1740; see also

HeldenGeschichte, i. 452; Bellona his companion for long years henceforth, instead of Minerva and the

Hereby is like to be fulfilled (except that Friedrich himself is perhaps this "little stone") what Friedrich

prophesied to his Voltaire, the day after hearing of the Kaiser's death: "I believe there will, by June next, be

more talk of cannon, soldiers, trenches, than of actresses, and dancers for the ballet. This small Event changes

the entire system of Europe. It is the little stone which Nebuchadnezzar saw, in his dream, loosening itself,

and rolling down on the Image made of Four Metals, which it shivers to ruin." [Friedrich to Voltaire, busy

gathering actors at that time, 26th October, 1740 ( OEuvres de Frederic, xxii. 49).]

Schlesien, what we call Silesia, lies in elliptic shape, spread on the top of Europe, partly girt with mountains,

like the crown or crest to that part of the Earth;highest tableland of Germany or of the Cisalpine

Countries; and sending rivers into all the seas. The summit or highest level of it is in the southwest; longest

diameter is from northwest to southeast. From Crossen, whither Friedrich is now driving, to the Jablunka

Pass, which issues upon Hungary, is above 250 miles; the AXIS, therefore, or longest diameter, of our Ellipse

we may call 230 English miles;its shortest or conjugate diameter, from Friedland in Bohemia

(Wallenstein's old Friedland), by Breslau across the Oder to the Polish Frontier, is about 100. The total area

of Schlesien is counted to be some 20,000 square miles, nearly the third of England Proper.

Schlesienwill the reader learn to call it by that name, on occasion? for in these sad Manuscripts of ours the

names alternate is a fine, fertile, useful and beautiful Country. It leans sloping, as we hinted, to the East

and to the North; a long curved buttress of Mountains ("RIESENGEBIRGE, Giant Mountains," is their

bestknown name in foreign countries) holding it up on the South and West sides. This GiantMountain

Range,which is a kind of continuation of the SaxonBohemian "Metal Mountains (ERZGEBIRGE)" and

of the straggling Lausitz Mountains, to westward of these, shapes itself like a billhook (or elliptically, as

was said): handle and hook together may be some 200 miles in length. The precipitous side of this is, in

general, turned outwards, towards Bohmen, Mahren, Ungarn (Bohemia, Moravia, Hungary, in our dialects);

and Schlesien lies inside, irregularly sloping down, towards the Baltic and towards the utmost East, From the

Bohemian side of these Mountains there rise two Rivers: Elbe, tending for the West; Morawa for the

South;Morawa, crossing Moravia, gets into the Donau, and thence into the BlackSea; while Elbe, after

intricate adventures among the mountains, and then prosperously across the plains, is out, with its many

ships, into the Atlantic. Two rivers, we say, from the Bohemian or steep side: and again, from the Silesian

side, there rise other two, the Oder and the Weichsel (VISTULA); which start pretty near one another in the

Southeast, and, after wide windings, get both into the Baltic, at a good distance apart.

For the first thirty, or in parts, fifty miles from the Mountains, Silesia slopes somewhat rapidly; and is still to

be called a Hillcountry, rugged extensive elevations diversifying it: but after that, the slope is gentle, and at

length insensible, or noticeable only by the way the waters run. From the central part of it, Schlesien pictures

itself to you as a plain; growing ever flatter, ever sandier, as it abuts on the monotonous endless sandflats of

Poland, and the Brandenburg territories; nothing but Boundary Stones with their brass inscriptions marking

where the transition is; and only some Fortified Town, not far off, keeping the door of the Country secure in

On the other hand, the Mountain part of Schlesien is very picturesque; not of Alpine height anywhere (the

SchneeKoppe itself is under 5,000 feet), so that verdure and forest wood fail almost nowhere among the

Mountains; and multiplex industry, besung by rushing torrents and the swift young rivers, nestles itself high

up; and from wheat husbandry, madder and maize husbandry, to damaskweaving, metallurgy,

charcoalburning, tardistillery, Schlesien has many trades, and has long been expert and busy at them to a

BOOK XII. FIRST SILESIAN WAR, AWAKENING A GENERAL EUROPEAN ONE, BEGINS. December, 1740May, 1741. 589

high degree. A very pretty Ellipsis, or irregular Oval, on the summit of the European Continent;"like the

palm of a left hand well stretched out, with the Riesengebirge for thumb!" said a certain Herr to me,

stretching out his arm in that fashion towards the northwest. Palm, well stretched out, measuring 250 miles;

and the crossway 100. There are still beavers in Schlesien; the Katzbach River has gold grains in it, a kind of

Pactolus not now worth working; and in the scraggy lonesome pinewoods, grimy individuals, with kindled

mounds of pinebranches and smoke carefully kept down by sods, are sweating out a substance which they

Who first lived in Schlesien, or lived long since in it, there is no use in asking, nor in telling if one knew.

"The QUADI and the Lygii," says Dryasdust, in a groping manner: Quadi and consorts, in the fifth or sixth

Century, continues he with more confidence, shifted Romeward, following the general track of

contemporaneous mankind; weak remnant of Quadi was thereupon overpowered by Slavic populations, and

their Country became Polish, which the eastern rim of it still essentially is. That was the end of the Quadi in

those parts, says History. But they cannot speak nor appeal for themselves; History has them much at

discretion. Rude burial urns, with a handful of ashes in them, have been dug up in different places; these are

all the Archives and Histories the Quadi now have. It appears their name signifies WICKED. They are those

poor Quadi (WICKED PEOPLE) who always go along with the Marcomanni (MARCHMEN), in the

beadroll Histories one reads; and I almost guess they must have been of the same stock: "Wickeds and

Borderers;" considered, on both sides of the Border, to belong to the Dangerous Classes in those times. Two

things are certain: First, QUAD and its derivatives have, to this day, in the speech of rustic Germans,

something of that meaning,"nefarious," at least "injurious," "hateful, and to be avoided:" for example,

QUADdel, "a nettleburn;" QUETSchen, "to smash" (say, your thumb while hammering); And then a second

thing: The Polish equivalent word is ZLE (Busching says ZLEXI); hence ZLEzien, SCHLEsien, meaning

merely BADland, QUADland, what we might called DAMAGitia, or Country where you get into Trouble.

That is the etymology, or what passes for such. As to the History of Schlesien, hitherwards of these burial

urns dug up in different places, I notice, as not yet entirely buriable, Three Epochs.

FIRST EPOCH; CHRISTIANITY: A.D. 966. Introduction of Christianity; to the length of founding a

Bishopric that year, so hopeful were the aspects; "Bishopric of Schmoger" (SchMAGram, dim little Village

still discoverable on the Polish frontier, not far from the Town of Namslau); Bishopric which, after one

removal farther inward, got across the Oder, to "WRUTISLAV," which me now call Breslau; and sticks

there, as Bishopric of Breslau, to this day. Year 966: it was in Adalbert, our Prussian Saint and Missionary's

younger time. Preaching, by zealous Polacks, must have been going on, while Adalbert, Bright in Nobleness,

was studying at Magdeburg, and ripening for high things in the general estimation. This was a new gift from

the Polacks, this of Christianity; an infinitely more important one than that nickname of "ZLEZIEN," or

SECOND EPOCH; GET GRADUALLY CUT LOOSE FROM POLAND: A.D. 11391159. Twenty years of

great trouble in Poland, which were of lasting benefit to Schlesien. In 1139 the Polack King, a very potent

Majesty whom we could name but do not, died; and left his Dominions shared by punctual bequest among his

five sons. Punctual bequest did avail: but the eldest Son (who was King, and had Schlesien with much else to

his share) began to encroach, to grasp; upon which the others rose upon him, flung him out into exile;

redivided; and hoped now they might have quiet. Hoped, but were disappointed; and could come to no sure

bargain for the next twenty years,not till "the eldest brother," first author of these strifes, "died an exile in

Holstein," or was just about dying, and had agreed to take Schlesien for all claims, and be quiet thenceforth.

His, this eldest's, three Sons did accordingly, in 1159, get Schlesien instead of him; their uncles proving

honorable. Schlesien thereby was happy enough to get cut loose from Poland, and to continue loose; steering

a course of its own;parting farther and farther from Poland and its habits and fortunes. These three Sons, of

BOOK XII. FIRST SILESIAN WAR, AWAKENING A GENERAL EUROPEAN ONE, BEGINS. December, 1740May, 1741. 590

the late Polish Majesty who died in exile in Holstein, are the "Piast Dukes," much talked of in Silesian

Histories: of whose merits I specify this only, That they so soon as possible strove to be German. They were

Progenitors of all the "Piast Dukes," Proprietors of Schlesien thenceforth, till the last of them died out in

1675,and a certain ERBVERBRUDERUNG they had entered into could not take effect at that time. Their

merits as Sovereign Dukes seem to have been considerable; a certain piety, wisdom and nobleness of mind

not rare among them; and no doubt it was partly their merit, if partly also their good luck, that they took to

Germany, and leant thitherward; steering looser and looser from Poland, in their new circumstances. They

themselves by degrees became altogether German; their Countries, by silent immigration, introduction of the

arts, the composures and sobrieties, became essentially so. On the eastern rim there is still a Polack remnant,

its territories very sandy, its condition very bad; remnant which surely ought to cease its Polack jargon, and

learn some dialect of intelligible Teutsch, as the first condition of improvement. In all other parts Teutsch

reigns; and Schlesien is a green abundant Country; full of metallurgy, damaskweaving, grainhusbandry.

A.D. 1327; GET COMPLETELY CUT LOOSE. The Piast Dukes, who soon ceased to be Polish, and hung

rather upon Bohemia, and thereby upon Germany, made a great step in that direction, when King Johann, old

ICHDIEN whom we ought to recollect, persuaded most of them, all of them but two, "PRETIO AC

PRECE," to become Feudatories (Quasi Feudatories, but of a sovereign sort) to his Crown of Bohemia. The

two who stood out, resisting prayer and price, were the Duke of Jauer and the Duke of

Schweidnitz,loftyminded gentlemen, perhaps a thought too lofty. But these also Johann's son, little

Kaiser Karl IV., "marrying their heiress," contrived to bring in;one fruitful adventure of little Karl's,

among the many wasteful he made, in the German Reich. Schlesien is henceforth a bit of the Kingdom of

Bohemia; indissolubly hooked to Germany; and its progress in the arts and composures, under wise Piasts

with immigrating Germans, we guess to have become doubly rapid. [Busching, Erdbeschreibung, viii. 725;

THIRD EPOCH; ADOPT THE REFORMATION: A.D. 14141517. Schlesien, hanging to Bohemia in this

manner, extensively adopted Huss's doctrines; still more extensively Luther's; and that was a difficult element

in its lot, though, I believe, an unspeakably precious one. It cost above a Century of sad tumults, Zisca Wars;

nay above two Centuries, including the sad ThirtyYears War;which miseries, in Bohemia Proper, were

sometimes very sad and even horrible. But Schlesien, the outlying Country, did, in all this, suffer less than

Bohemia Proper; and did NOT lose its Evangelical Doctrine in result, as unfortunate Bohemia did, and sink

into sluttish "fanatical torpor, and big Crucifixes of japanned Tin by the wayside," though in the course of

subsequent years, named of Peace, it was near doing so. Here are the steps, or unavailing countersteps, in

A.D. 1537. Occurred, as we know, the ERBVERBRUDERUNG; Duke of Liegnitz, and of other extensive

heritages, making Deed of Brotherhood with KurBrandenburg;Deed forbidden, and so far as might be,

rubbed out and annihilated by the then King of Bohemia, subsequently Kaiser Ferdinand I., Karl V.'s Brother.

Duke of Liegnitz had to give up his parchments, and become zero in that matter: KurBrandenburg entirely

refused to do so; kept his parchments, to see if they would not turn to something.

A.D. 1624. Schlesien, especially the then Duke of Liegnitz (greatgrandson of the ERBVERBRUDERUNG

one), and poor Johann George, Duke of Jagerndorf, cadet of the then KurBrandenburg, went warmly ahead

into the WinterKing project, first fire of the ThirtyYears War; sufferings from Papal encroachment, in high

quarters, being really extreme. Warmly ahead; and had to smart sharply for it;poor Johann George with

forfeiture of Jagerndorf, with REICHESACHT (Ban of the Empire), and total ruin; fighting against which

he soon died. Act of Ban and Forfeiture was done tyrannously, said most men; and it was persisted in equally

so, till men ceased speaking of it;Jagerndorf Duchy, fruit of the Act, was held by Austria, ever after, in

defiance of the Laws of the Reich. Religious Oppression lay heavy on Protestant Schlesien thenceforth; and

many lukewarm individualities were brought back to Orthodoxy by that method, successful in the diligent

BOOK XII. FIRST SILESIAN WAR, AWAKENING A GENERAL EUROPEAN ONE, BEGINS. December, 1740May, 1741. 591

skilled hands of Jesuit Reverend Fathers, with fiscals and soldiers in the rear of them.

A.D. 1648. Treaty of Westphalia mended much of this, and set fair limits to Papist encroachment;had said

Treaty been kept: but how could it? By Orthodox Authority, auxious to recover lost souls, or at least to have

loyal subjects, it was publicly kept in name; and tacitly, in substance, it was violated more and more. Of the

"Blossoming of Silesian Literature," spoken of in Books; of the Poet Opitz, Poets Logan, Hoffmannswaldau,

who burst into a kind of Song better or worse at this Period, we will remember nothing; but request the reader

to remember it, if he is tunefully given, or thinks it a good symptom of Schlesien.

A.D. 1707. Treaty of Altranstadt: between Kaiser Joseph I. and Karl XII. Swedish Karl, marching through

those parts,out of Poland, in chase of August the Physically Strong, towards Saxony, there to beat him

soft,was waited upon by Silesian Deputations of a lamentable nature; was entreated, for the love of Christ

and His Evangel, to "Protect us poor Protestants, and get the Treaty of Westphalia observed on our behalf,

and fairplay shown!" Which Karl did; Kaiser Joseph, with such weight of French War lying on him, being

much struck with the tone of that dangerous Swede. The Pope rebuked Kaiser Joseph for such compliance in

the Silesian matter: "Holy Father," answered this Kaiser (not of distinguished orthodoxy in the House), "I am

too glad he did not ask me to become Lutheran; I know not how I should have helped myself!" [Pauli,

Allgemeine Preussische StaatsGeschichte (viii. 298592); Busching, Erdbeschreibung (viii. 700739);

Wuttke, Friedrichs des Grossen Besitzergreifung von Schlesien (Seizure of Silesia by Friedrich, 2 vols.

Leipzig, 1843), I mention only lest ingenuous readers should be tempted by the Title to buy it. Wuttke begins

at the Creation of the World; and having, in two heavy volumes, at last struggled down close TO the

BESITZERGREIFUNG or Seizure in question, calls halt; and stands (at ease, we will hope) immovably there

These are the Three Epochs;most things, in respect of this Third or Reformation Epoch, stepping steadily

downward hitherto. As to the Fourth Epoch, dating "13th Dec. 1740," which continues, up to our day and

farther, and is the final and crowning Epoch of Silesian History,read in the following Chapters.

At what hour Friedrich ceased dancing on that famous Ballnight of Bielfeld's, and how long he slept after,

or whether at all, no Bielfeld even mythically says: but next morning, as is patent to all the world, Tuesday,

13th December, 1740, at the stroke of nine, he steps into his carriage; and with small escort rolls away

towards FrankfurtonOder; [ HeldenGeschichte, i. 452; Preuss, Thronbesteigung, p. 456.] out upon an

Two youngish military men, AdjutantGenerals both, were with him, Wartensleben, Borck; both once fellow

Captains in the Potsdam Giants, and much in his intimacy ever since. Wartensleben we once saw at

Brunswick, on a Masonic occasion; Borck, whom we here see for the first time, is not the Colonel Borck

(properly MajorGeneral) who did the Herstal Operation lately; still less is he the venerable old Minister,

Marlborough Veteran, and now FieldMarshal Borck, whom Hotham treated with, on a certain occasion.

There are numerous Borcks always in the King's service; nor are these three, except by loose cousinry,

related to one another. The Borcks all come from Stettin quarter; a brave kindred, and old enough,"Old as

the Devil, DAS IST SO OLD ALS DE BORCKEN UND DE DUWEL," says the Pomeranian Proverb; the

AdjutantGeneral, a junior member of the clan, chances to be the notablest of them at this moment.

Wartensleben, Borck, and a certain Colonel von der Golz, whom also the King much esteems, these are his

company on this drive. For escort, or guard of honor out of Berlin to the next stages, there is a small body of

They drive rapidly, through the gray winter; reach Frankfurton Oder, sixty miles or more; where no doubt

there is military business waiting. They are forward, on the morrow, for dinner, forty miles farther, at a small

Town called Crossen, which looks over into Silesia; and is, for the present, headquarters to a Prussian Army,

standing ready there and in the environs. Standing ready, or hourly marching in, and rendezvousing; now

about 28,000 strong, horse and foot. A Rearguard of Ten or Twelve Thousand will march from Berlin in two

days, pause hereabouts, and follow according to circumstances: Prussian Army will then be some 40,000 in

all. Schwerin has been Commander, manager and mainspring of the business hitherto: henceforth it is to be

Among the Regiments, we notice "Schulenburg HorseGrenadiers," come along from Landsberg hither,

these HorseGrenadiers, with little Schulenburg at the head of them;"Dragoon Regiment Bayreuth,"

"Lifeguard Carbineers," "Derschau of Foot;" and other Regiments and figures slightly known to us, or that

will be better known. [List in HeldenGeschichte, i. 453.] Rearguard, just getting under way at Berlin, has

for leaders the Prince of HolsteinBeck ("HolsteinVAISSELLE," say wags, since the Principality went all

to SILVERPLATE) and the Hereditary Prince of AnhaltDessau, whom we called the Young Dessauer, on

the Strasburg Journey lately: Rearguard, we say, is of 12,000; main Army is 28,000; Horse and Foot are in

the proportion of about 1 to 3. Artillery "consists of 20 threepounders; 4 twelvepounders; 4 howitzers

(HAUBITZEN); 4 big mortars, calibre fifty pounds; and of Artillerymen 166 in all."

With this Force the young King has, on his own basis (pretty much in spite of all the world, as we find now

and afterwards), determined to invade Silesia, and lay hold of the Property he has long had there;not

computing, for none can compute, the sleeping whirlwinds he may chance to awaken thereby. Thus lightly

does a man enter upon Enterprises which prove unexpectedly momentous, and shape the whole remainder of

his days for him; crossing the Rubicon as it were in his sleep. In Life, as on Railways at certain points,

whether you know it or not, there is but an inch, this way or that, into what tram you are shunted; but try to

get out of it again! "The man is mad, CET HOMMELA EST FOL!" said Louis XV. when he heard it.

[Raumer, Beitrage (English Translation, called Frederick II. and his Times; from British Museum and

StatePaper 0ffice: a very indistinct poor Book, in comparison with whet it might have been), p. 73 (24th

At all events, the man means to try;and is here dining at Crossen, noon of Wednesday, the 14th; certain

important persons, especially two Silesian Gentlemen, deputed from Grunberg, the nearest Silesian Town,

who have come across the border on business,having the honor to dine with him. To whom his manner is

lively and affable; lively in mood, as if there lay no load upon his spirits. The business of these two Silesian

Gentlemen, a Baron von Hocke one of them, a Baron von Kestlitz the other, was To present, on the part of

the Town and Amt of Grunberg, a solemn Protest against this meditated entrance on the Territory of

Schlesien; Government itself, from Breslau, ordering them to do so. Protest was duly presented; Friedrich, as

his manner is, and continues to be on his march, glances politely into or at the Protest; hands it, in silence, to

some page or secretary to deposit in the due pigeonhole or wastebasket; and invites the two Silesian

Gentlemen to dine with him; as, we see, they have the honor to do. "He (ER) lives near Grunberg, then, Mein

Herr von Hocke?" "Close to it, IHRO MAJESTAT. My poor mansion, Schloss of DeutschKessel, is some

fifteen miles hence; how infinitely at your Majesty's service, should the march prove inevitable, and go that

way!""Well, perhaps!" I find Friedrich did dine, the second day hence, with one of these Gentlemen; and

lodged with the other. Government at Breslau has ordered such Protest, on the part of the Frontier populations

During these hours, it chanced that the big Bell of Crossen dropped from its steeple,fulness of time, or

entire rottenness of axletree, being at last completed, at this fateful moment. Perhaps an ominous thing?

Friedrich, as Caesar and others have done, cheerfully interprets the omen to his own advantage: "Sign that the

High is to be brought low!" says Friedrich. Were the marchroutes, wagontrains, and multifarious

adjustments perfect to the last item here at Crossen, he will with much cheerfulness step into Silesia,

On the second day he does actually cross; "the regiments marching in, at different points; some reaching as

far as 25 miles in." It is Friday, 16th December, 1740; there has a game begun which will last long! They

went through the Village of Lasgen; that was the first point of Silesian ground ("Circle of Schwiebus," our

old friend, is on the left near by); and "Schwerin's Regiment was the foremost." Others cross more to the left

or right; "marching through the Village of Lessen," and other dim Villages and little Towns, round and

beyond Grunberg; all regiments and divisions bearing upon Grunberg and the Great Road; but artistically

portioned out,several miles in breadth (for the sake of quarters), and, as is generally the rule, about a day's

Printed "Patent" or Proclamation, briefly assuring all Silesians, of whatever rank, condition or religion, "That

we have come as friends to them, and will protect all persons in their privileges, and molest no peaceable

mortal," is posted on Churchdoors, and extensively distributed by hand. Soldiers are forbidden, "under

penalty of the rods," Officers under that of "cassation with infamy," to take anything, without first bargaining

and paying ready money for it. On these terms the Silesian villages cheerfully enough accept their new

guests, interesting to the rural mind; and though the billeting was rather heavy, "as many as 24 soldiers to a

common Farmer (GARTNER)," no complaints were made. In one Schloss, where the owners had fled, and no

human response was to be had by the waywornsoldiery, there did occur some breakages and impatient

kickings about; which it grieved his Majesty to hear of, next morning;in one, not in more.

Official persons, we perceive, study to be absolutely passive. This was the Burgermeister's course at

Grunberg tonight; Grunberg, first Town on the Frontier, sets an example of passivity which cannot be

surpassed. Prussian troops being at the Gate of Grunberg, Burgermeister and adjuncts sitting in a tacit

expectant condition in their Townhall, there arrives a Prussian Lieutenant requiring of the Burgermeister the

Key of said Gate. "To deliver such Key? Would to God I durst, Mein Herr Lieutenant; but how dare I! There

is the Key lying: but to GIVE itYou are not the Queen of Hungary's Officer, I doubt?"The Prussian

Lieutenant has to put out hand, and take the Key; which he readily does. And on the morrow, in returning it,

when the march recommences, there are the same phenomena: Burgermeister or assistants dare not for the

life of them touch that Key: It lay on the table; and may again, in the course of Providence, come to

lie!The Prussian Lieutenant lays it down accordingly, and hurries out, with a grin on his face. There was

much small laughter over this transaction; Majesty himself laughing well at it. Higher perfection of passivity

The march, as readers understand, is towards Glogau; a strongish Garrison Town, now some 40 miles ahead;

the key of Northern Schlesien. Grunberg (where my readers once slept for the night, in the late King's time,

though they have forgotten it) is the first and only considerable Town on the hither side of Glogau. On to

Glogau, I rather perceive, the Army is in good part provisioned before starting: after Glogau,we must see.

Breadwagons, Baggage wagons, AmmunitionandArtillery wagons, all is in order; Army artistically

portioned out. That is the form of march; with Glogau ahead. King, as we said above, dines with his Baron

von Hocke, at the Schloss of DeutschKessel, short way beyond Grunberg, this first day: but he by no means

loiters there;cuts across, a dozen miles westward, through a country where his vanguard on its various

lines of march ought to be arriving;and goes to lodge, at the Schloss of Schweinitz, with his other Baron,

the Von Kestlitz of Wednesday at Crossen. [ HeldenGeschichte, i. 459.] This is Friday, 16th December, his

Silesia, in the way of resistance, is not in the least prepared for him. A month ago, there were not above 3,000

Austrian Foot and 600 Horse in the whole Province: neither the military Governor Count Wallis, nor the

Imperial Court, nor any Official Person near or far, had the least anticipation of such a Visit. Count Wallis,

who commands in Glogau, did in person, nine or ten days ago, as the rumors rose ever higher, run over to

Crossen; saw with his eyes the undeniable there; and has been zealously endeavoring ever since, what he

could, to take measures. Wallis is now shut in Glogau; his second, the now Acting Governor, General

Browne, a still more reflective man, is doing likewise his utmost; but on forlorn terms, and without the least

guidance from Court. Browne has, by violent industry, raked together, from Mahren and the neighboring

countries, certain fractions which raise his Force to 7,000 Foot: these he throws, in small parties, into the

defensible points; or, in larger, into the Chief Garrisons. New Cavalry he cannot get; the old 600 Horse he

keeps for himself, all the marching Army he has. [Particulars in HeldenGeschichte, i. 465; total of Austrian

Fain would he get possession of Breslau, and throw in some garrison there; but cannot. Neither he nor Wallis

could compass that. Breslau is a City divided against itself, on this matter; full of emotions, of expectations,

apprehensions for and against. There is a Supreme Silesian Government (OBERAMT "HeadOffice," kind

of Austrian ViceRoyalty) in Breslau; and there is, on Breslau's own score, a TownRath; strictly Catholic

both these, Vienna the breath of their nostrils. But then also there are fortyfour Incorporated Trades;

Oppressed Protestant in Majority; to whom Vienna is not breath, but rather the want of it. Lastly, the City

calls itself Free; and has crabbed privileges still valid; a "JUS PROESIDII" (or right to be one's own garrison)

one of them, and the most inconvenient just now. Breslau is a REICHSTADT; in theory, sovereign member

of the Reich, and supreme over its own affairs, even as Austria itself:and the truth is, old Theory and new

Fact, resolved not to quarrel, have lapsed into one another's arms in a quite inextricable way, in Breslau as

elsewhere! With a Head Government which can get no orders from Vienna, the very TownRath has little

alacrity, inclines rather to passivity like Grunberg; and a silent population threatens to become vocal if you

Breslau, that is to say the OBERAMT there, has sent courier on courier to Vienna for weeks past: not even

an answer;what can Vienna answer, with KurBaiern and others threatening war on it, and only l0,000

pounds in its National Purse? Answer at last is, "Don't bother! Danger is not so near. Why spend money on

couriers, and get into such a taking?" General Wallis came to Breslau, after what he had seen at Crossen; and

urged strongly, in the name of selfpreservation, first law of Nature, to get an Austrian real Garrison

introduced; wished much (horrible to think of!) "the suburbs should be burnt, and better ramparts raised:" but

could not succeed in any of these points, nor even mention some of them in a public manner. "You shall have

a Protestant for commandant," suggested Wallis; "there is Count von Roth, SilesianLutheran, an excellent

Soldier!""Thanks," answered they, "we can defend ourselves; we had rather not have any!" And the

Breslau Burghers have, accordingly, set to drill themselves; are bringing out old cannon in quantity; repairing

breaches; very strict in sentrywork: "Perfectly able to defend our City,so far as we see good!" Tuesday

last, December 13th (the very day Friedrich left Berlin), as this matter of the Garrison, long urged by the

OberAmt, had at last been got agreed to by the TownRath, "on proviso of consulting the Incorporated

Trades", or at least consulting their Guild Masters, who are usually a silent folk,the GuildMasters

suddenly became in part vocal; and their fortyfour Guilds unusually so:and there was tumult in Breslau,

in the SalzRing (big central Square or marketplace, which they call RING) such as had not been; idle

population, and guildbrethren of suspicious humor, gathering in multitudes into and round the fine old

Townhall there; questioning, answering, in louder and louder key; at last bellowing quite in alt; and on the

edge of flaming into one knew not what: [ HeldenGeschichte, i. 469.]till the matter of Austrian Garrison

(much more, of burning the suburbs!) had to be dropt; settled in what way we see.

Head Government (OBERAMT) has, through its Northern official people, sent Protest, strict order to the

Silesian Population to look sour on the Prussians:and we saw, in consequence, the two Silesian Gentlemen

did dine with Friedrich, and he has returned their visits; and the Mayor of Grunberg would not touch his keys.

Head Government is now redacting a "Patent," or still more solemn Protest of its own; which likewise it will

affix in the SalzRing here, and present to King Friedrich: and thisexcept "despatching by boat down the

river a great deal of meal to Glogau", which was an important quiet thing, of Wallis's enforcingis pretty

much all it can do. No Austrian Garrison can be got in ("Perfectly able to defend ourselves!")let

Government and Wallis or Browne contrive as they may. And as to burning the suburbs, better not whisper of

that again. Breslau feels, or would fain feel itself "perfectly able;"has at any rate no wish to be bombarded;

and contains privately a great deal of Protestant humor. Of all which, Friedrich, it is not doubted, has notice

General Browne is at present in the Southern parts; an able active man and soldier; but, with such a force

what can he attempt to do? There are three strong places in the Country, Glogau, then Brieg, both on the Oder

river; lastly Neisse, on the Neisse river, a branch of the Oder (one of the FOUR Neisse rivers there are in

Germany, mostly in Silesia,not handy to the accurate reader of German Books). Browne is in Neisse; and

will start into a strange stare when the flying post reaches him: Prussians actually on march! Debate with

them, if debate there is to be, Browne himself must contrive to do; from Breslau, from Vienna, no

Glogau, as we saw, means to defend itself; at least, General Wallis the Commandant, does, in spite of the

Glogau public; and is, with his whole might, digging, palisading, getting in meal, salt meat and other

provender;likewise burning suburbs, uncontrollable he, in the small place; and clearing down the outside

edifices and shelters, at a diligent rate. Yesterday, 15th December, he burnt down the "three OderMills,

which lie outside the big suburban Tavern, also the ZIEGELSCHEUNE (TileManufactory)," and other

valuable buildings, careless of public lamentation,fire catching the Town itself, and needing to be

quenched again. [ HeldenGeschichte, i. 473475.] Nay, he was clear for burning down, or blowing up, the

Protestant Church, indispensable sacred edifice which stands outside the walls: "Prussians will make a

blockhouse of it!" said Wallis. A chief Protestant, Baron von Something, begged passionately for only

twelve hours of respite,to lay the case before his Prussian Majesty. Respite conceded, he and another chief

Protestant had posted off accordingly; and did the next morning (Friday, 16th), short way from Crossen, meet

his Majesty's carriage; who graciously pulled up for a few instants, and listened to their story. "MEINE

HERREN, you are the first that ask a favor of me on Silesian ground; it shall be done you!" said the King;

and straightway despatched, in polite style, his written request to Wallis, engaging to make no military use

whatever of said Church, "but to attack by the other side, if attack were necessary." Thus his Majesty saved

the Church of Glogau; which of course was a popular act. Getting to see this Church himself a few days

hence, he said, "Why, it must come down at any rate, and be rebuilt; so ugly a thing!"

Wallis is making strenuous preparation; forces the inhabitants, even the upper kinds of them, to labor day and

night by relays, in his rampartings, palisadings; is for burning all the adjacent Villages,and would have

done it, had not the peasants themselves turned out in a dangerous state of mind. He has got together about

1,000 men. His powder, they say, is fifty years old; but he has eatable provender from Breslau, and means to

hold out to the utmost. Readers must admit that the Austrian military, Graf von Wallis to begin with, still

more, General Browne, who is a younger man and has now the head charge,behave well in their present

forsaken condition. Wallis (Graf FRANZ WENZEL this one, not to be confounded with an older Wallis

heard of in the late Turk War) is of Scotch descent,as all these Wallises are; "came to Austria long

generations ago; REICHSGRAFS since 1612:"Browne is of Irish; age now thirtyfive, ten years younger

"A GermanIrish Gentleman, this General (ultimately Fieldmarshal) Graf von Browne; one of those sad

exiled Irish Jacobites, or sons of Jacobites, who are fighting in foreign armies; able and notable men several

of them, and this Browne considerably the most so. We shall meet him repeatedly within the next eighteen

years. MaximilianUlysses Graf von Browne: I said he was born German; Basel his birthplace (23d October,

1705), Father also a soldier: he must not be confounded with a contemporary Cousin of his, who is also

'Fieldmarshal Browne,' but serves in Russia, Governor of Riga for a long time in the coming years. This

Austrian General, Fieldmarshal Browne, will by and by concern us somewhat; and the reader may take note

"Who the Irish Brothers Browne, the Fathers of these Marshals Browne, were? I have looked in what Irish

Peerages and printed Records there were, but without the least result. One big dropsical Book, of languid

quality, called King James's Irish ArmyList, has multitudes of Brownes and others, in an indistinct form; but

the one Browne wanted, the one Lacy, almost the one Lally, like the part of HAMLET, are omitted. There are

so many Irish in the like case with these Brownes. A Lacy we once slightly saw or heard of; busy in the

PolishElection time, besieging Dantzig (investing Dantzig, that Munnich might besiege it);that Lacy,

'Governor of Riga,' whom the RUSSIAN Browne will succeed, is also Irish: a conspicuous Russian man; and

will have a Son Lacy, conspicuous among the Austrians. Maguires, Ogilvies (of the Irish stock), Lieutenants

'Fitzgeral;' very many Irish; and there is not the least distinct account to be had of any of them." [For Browne

see "Anonymous of Hamburg" (so I have had to label a J.F.S. Geschichte des in fact, History of

SevenYears War, in successive volumes, done chiefly by the scissors; Leipzig and Frankfurt, 1759, et

seqq.), i. 123131 n.: elaborate Note of eight pages there; intimating withal that he, J.F.S., wrote the "Life of

Browne," a Book I had in vain sought for; and can now guess to consist of those same elaborate eight pages,

PLUS water and lathering to the due amount. Anonymous "of Hamburg" I call my J.F.S.,having fished

him out of the dustabysses in that City: a very poor take; yet worth citing sometimes, being authentic, as

even the darkest Germans generally are.For a glimpse of LACY (the Elder Lacy) see Busching, Beitrage,

vi. 162.For WALLIS (tombstone Note on Wallis) see (among others who are copious in that kind of

article, and keep large sacks of it, in admired disorder) Anonymous Seyfarth, Geschichte Friedrichs des

Andern (Leipzig, 17841788), i. 112 n.; and Anonymous, Leben der Marie Theresie (Leipzig, 1781), 27 n.:

laboriously authentic Books both; essentialy DICTIONARIES,stuffed as into a row of blind SACKS.]

Let us attend his Majesty on the next few marches towards Glogau, to see the manner of the thing a little;

after which it will behoove us to be much more summary, and stick by the main incidents.

Friedrich's march proceeds with speed and regularity. Strict discipline is maintained; all things paid for,

damage carefully avoided: "We come, not as invasive enemies of you or of the Queen of Hungary, but as

protective friends of Silesia and of her Majesty's rights there;her Majesty once allowing us (as it is

presumable she will) our own rights in this Province, no man shall meddle with hers, while we continue

here." To that effect runs the little "Patent," or initiatory Proclamation, extensively handed out, and posted in

public places, as was said above; and the practice is conformable. To all men, coming with Protests or

otherwise, we perceive, the young King is politeness itself; giving clear answer, and promise which will be

kept, on the above principle. Nothing angers him except that gentlemen should disbelieve, and run away.

That a mansion be found deserted by its owners, is the one evil omen for such mansion. Thus, at the Schloss

of Weichau (which is still discoverable on the Map, across the "Black Ochel" and the "White," muddy

streams which saunter eastward towards, the Oder there, nothing yet running westward for the Bober, our

other limitary river), next night after Schweinitz, second night in Silesia, there was no Owner to be met with;

and the look of his Majesty grew FINSTER (dark); remembering what had passed yesternight, in like case, at

that other Schloss from which the owner with his best portable furniture had vanished. At which Schloss, as

above noticed, some disorders were committed by angry parties of the march;doors burst open (doors

standing impudently dumb to the rational proposals made them!), inferior remainders of furniture smashed

into firewood, and the like,no doubt to his Majesty's vexation. Here at Weichau stricter measures were

taken: and yet difficulties, risks were not wanting; and the AMTMANN (Steward of the place) got pulled

about, and once even a stroke or two. Happily the young Herr of Weichau appeared in person on the morrow,

hearing his Majesty was still there: "Papa is old; lives at another Schloss; could not wait upon your Majesty;

nor, till now, could I have that honor.""Well; lucky that you have come: stay dinner!" Which the young

Count did, and drove home in the evening to reassure Papa; his Majesty continuing there another night, and

This day, Sunday, 18th, the Army rests; their first Sunday in Silesia, while the young Count pays his devoir:

and here in Weichau, as elsewhere, it is in the Church, Catholic nearly always, that the Heretic Army does its

devotions, safe from weather at least: such the Royal Order, they say; which is taken note of, by the

Heterodox and by the Orthodox. And ever henceforth, this is the example followed; and in all places where

there is no Protestant Church and the Catholics have one, the Prussian ArmyChaplain assembles his

buffbelted audience in the latter: "No offence, Reverend Fathers, but there are hours for us, and hours for

you; and such is the King's Order." There is regular divineservice in this Prussian Army; and even a good

Country Gentlemen, Town Mayors and other civic Authorities, soon learn that on these terms they are safe

with his Majesty; march after march he has interviews with such, to regulate the supplies, the necessities and

accidents of the quartering of his Troops. Clear, frank, open to reasonable representation, correct to his

promise; in fact, industriously conciliatory and pacificatory: such is Friedrich to all Silesian men. Provincial

Authorities, who can get no instructions from Headquarters; Vienna saying nothing, Breslau nothing, and

DeputyGovernor Browne being far south in Neisse,are naturally in difficulties: How shall they act? Best

not to act at all, if one can help it; and follow the Mayor of Grunberg's unsurpassable pattern!

"These Silesians," says an Excerpt I have made, "are still in majority Protestant; especially in this Northern

portion of the Province; they have had to suffer much on that and other scores; and are secretly or openly in

favor of the Prussians. Official persons, all of the Catholic creed, have leant heavy, not always conscious of

doing it, against Protestant rights. The Jesuits, consciously enough, have been and are busy with them; intent

to recall a Heretic Population by all methods, fair and unfair. We heard of Charles XII.'s interference,

threeandthirty years ago; and how the Kaiser, hard bested at that time, had to profess repentance and

engage for complete amendment. Amendment did, for the moment, accordingly take place. Treaty of

Westphalia in all its stipulations, with precautionary improvements, was reenacted as Treaty of Altranstadt;

with faithful intention of keeping it too, on Kaiser Joseph's part, who was not a superstitious man: 'Holy

Father, I was too glad he did not demand my own conversion to the Protestant Heresy, bested as I am,with

Louis Quatorze and Company upon the neck of me!' Some improvement of performance, very marked at

first, did ensue upon this Altranstadt Treaty. But the sternly accurate Karl of Sweden soon disappeared from

the scene; Kaiser Joseph of Austria soon disappeared; and his Brother, Karl VI., was a much more orthodox

"The Austrian Government, and Kaiser Karl's in particular, is not to be called an intentionally unjust one; the

contrary, I rather find; but it is, beyond others, ponderous; based broad on such multiplex formalities, old

habitudes; and GRAVITATION has a great power over it. In brief, Official human nature, with the best of

Kaisers atop, flagitated continually by Jesuit Confessors, does throw its weight on a certain side: the sad fact

is, in a few years the brightness of that Altranstadt improvement began to wax dim; and now, under long

Jesuit manipulation, Silesian things are nearly at their old pass; and the patience of men is heavily laden. To

see your Chapel made a Soldiers' Barrack, your Protestant School become a Jesuit one,Men did not then

think of revolting under injuries; but the poor Silesian weaver, trudging twenty miles for his Sunday sermon;

and perceiving that, unless their Mother could teach the art of reading, his boys, except under soul's peril,

would now never learn it: such a Silesian could not want for reflections. Voiceless, hopeless, but heavy; and

dwelling secretly, as under nightmare, in a million hearts. Austrian Officiality, wilfully unjust, or not wilfully

so, is admitted to be in a most heavy footed condition; can administer nothing well. Good Government in

"The secret joy of these populations, as Friedrich advances among them, becomes more and more a manifest

one. Catholic Officials do not venture on any definite hope, or definite balance of hope and fear, but adopt the

Mayor of Grunberg's course, and study to be passive and silent. The JesuitPriest kind are clear in their

minds for Austria; but think, Perhaps Prussia itself will not prove very tyrannous? At all events, be silent; it is

unsafe to stir. We notice generally, it is only in the Southern or Mountain regions of Silesia, where the

Catholics are in majority, that the population is not ardently on the Prussian side. Passive, if they are on the

other side; accurately passive at lowest, this it is prescribed all prudent men to be."

On the 18th, while divine service went on at Weichau, there was at Breslau another phenomenon observable.

Provincial Government in Breslau had, at length, after intense study, and across such difficulties as we have

no idea of, got its "Patent," or carefully worded Protestation against Prussia, brought to paper; and does, this

day, with considerable solemnity, affix it to the Rathhaus door there, for the perusal of mankind; despatching

a Copy for his Prussian Majesty withal, by two Messengers of dignity. It has needed courage screwed to the

stickingplace to venture on such a step, without instruction from Headquarters; and the utmost powers of

the Official mind have been taxed to couch this Document in language politely ambiguous, and yet strong

enough;too strong, some of us now think it. In any case, here it now is; Provincial Government's bolt, so to

speak, is shot. The affixing took place under dark weathersymptoms; actual outburst of thunder and rain at

the moment, not to speak of the other surer omens. So that, to the common mind at Breslau, it did not seem

there would much fruit come of this difficult performance. Breslau is secretly a muchagitated City; and

Prussian Hussar Parties, shooting forth to great distances ahead, were, this day for the first time, observed

And on the same Sunday we remark farther, what is still more important: Herr von Gotter, Friedrich's special

Envoy to Vienna, has his first interview with the Queen of Hungary, or with Grand Duke Franz the Queen's

Husband and CoRegent; and presents there, from Friedrich's own hand, written we remember when, brief

distinct Note of his Prussian Majesty's actual Proposals and real meaning in regard to this Silesian Affair.

Proposals anxiously conciliatory in tone, but the heavy purport of which is known to us: Gotter had been

despatched, time enough, with these Proposals (written above a month ago); but was instructed not to arrive

with them, till after the actual entrance into Silesia. And now the response to them is? As good as nothing;

perhaps worse. Let that suffice us at present. Readers, on march for Glogau, would grudge to pause over

Statepapers, though we shall have to read this of Friedrich's at some freer moment.

Monday, 19th, before daybreak, the Army is astir again, simultaneously wending forward; spread over wide

areas, like a vast cloud (potential thunder in it) steadily advancing on the winds. Length of the Army,

artistically portioned out, may be ten or fifteen miles, breadth already more, and growing more; Schwerin

always on the right or western wing, close by the Bober River as yet, through Naumburg and the Towns on

that side,Liegnitz and other important Towns lying ahead for Schwerin, still farther apart from the main

So that the march is in two Columns; Schwerin, with the westernmost small column, intending towards

Liegnitz, and thence ever farther southward, with his right leaning on the high lands which rise more and

more into mountains as you advance. Friedrich himself commands the other column, has his left upon the

Oder, in a country mounting continually towards the South, but with less irregularity of level, and generally

flat as yet. From beginning to end, the entire field of march lies between the Oder and its tributary the Bober;

climbing slowly towards the sources of both. Which two rivers, as the reader may observe, form here a

rectangular or trapezoidal space, ever widening as we go southward. Both rivers, coming from the Giant

Mountains, hasten directly north; but Oder, bulging out easterly in his sandy course, is obliged to turn fairly

westward again; and at Glogau, and a good space farther, flows in that direction;till once Bober strikes in,

almost at right angles, carrying Oder with HIM, though he is but a branch, straight northward again.

Northward, but ever slower, to the swollen Pommern regions, and sluggish exit into the Baltic there.

One of the worst features is the state of the weather. On Sunday, at Breslau, we noticed thunder bursting out

on an important occasion; "ominous," some men thought;omen, for one thing, that the weather was

breaking. At Weichau, that same day, rain began, the young Herr of Weichau, driving home to Papa from

dinner with Majesty, would get his share of it;and on Monday, 19th, there was such a pour of rain as kept

most wayfarers, though it could not the Prussian Army, within doors. Rain in plunges, fallen and falling,

through that blessed day; making roads into mere rivers of mud. The Prussian hosts marched on, all the same.

Headquarters, with the van of the wet Army, that night, were at Milkau;from which place we have a Note

of Friedrich's for Friend Jordan, perhaps producible by and by. His Majesty lodged in some opulent Jesuit

Establishment there. And indeed he continued there, not idle, under shelter, for a couple of days. The Jesuits,

by their two head men, had welcomed him with their choicest smiles; to whom the King was very gracious,

asking the two to dinner as usual, and styling them "Your Reverence." Willing to ingratiate himself with

persons of interest in this Country; and likes talk, even with Jesuits of discernment.

On the morrow (20th), came to him, here at Milkau, probably from some near stage, for the rain was

pouriug worse than ever,that Breslau "Patent," or strongish Protestation, by its two Messengers of dignity.

The King looked over it "without visible anger" or change of countenance; "handed it," we expressly see, "to

a Page to reposit" in the proper wastebasket;spoke politely to the two gentlemen; asked each or one of

them, "Are you of the OberAmt at Breslau, then?"using the style of ER (He)."No, your Majesty; we

are only of the LandStande" (Provincial Parliament, such as it is). "Upon which [do you mark!] his Majesty

became still more polite; asked them to dinner, and used the style of SIE." For their PATENT, now lying safe

Rain still heavier, rain as of Noah, continued through this Tuesday, and for days afterwards: but the Prussian

hosts, hastening towards Glogau, marched still on. This Tuesday's march, for the rearward of the Army,

10,000 foot and 2,000 horse; march of ten hours long, from Weichau to the hamlet Milkau (where his

Majesty sits busy and affable),is thought to be the wettest on record. Waters all out, bridges down, the

Country one wild lake of eddying mud. Up to the knee for many miles together; up to the middle for long

spaces; sometimes even up to the chin or deeper, where your bridge was washed away. The Prussians

marched through it, as if they had been slate or iron. Rank and file, nobody quitted his rank, nobody looked

sour in the face; they took the pouring of the skies, and the red seas of terrestrial liquid, as matters that must

be; cheered one another with jocosities, with choral snatches (tobacco, I consider, would not burn); and

swashed unweariedly forward. Ten hours some of them were out, their march being twenty or twentyfive

miles; ten to fifteen was the average distance come. Nor, singular to say, did any loss occur; except of

ALMOST one poor ArmyChaplain, and altogether of one poor Soldier's Wife;sank dangerously both of

them, beyond redemption she, taking the wrong side of some bridgeparapet. Poor Soldier's Wife, she is not

named to me at all; and has no history save this, and that "she was of the regiment Bredow." But I perceive

she washed herself away in a WorldTransaction; and there was one rough Bredower, who probably sat sad

that night on getting to quarters. His Majesty surveyed the damp battalions on the morrow (21st), not without

sympathy, not without satisfaction; allowed them a restday here at Milkau, to get dry and bright again; and

gave them "fifteen thalers a company," which is about ninepence apiece, with some words of praise.

Next day, Thursday, 22d, his Majesty and they marched on to Herrendorf; which is only five miles from

Glogau, and near enough for Headquarters, in the now humor of the place. Wallis has his messenger at

Herrendorf, "Sorry to warn your Majesty, That if there be the least hostility committed, I shall have to resist it

to the utmost." Headquarters continue six days at Herrendorf, Army (main body, or left Column, of the

As to the right Column, or Schwerin's Division, that, after a restday or two, gathers itself into more

complete separation here, tucking in its eastern skirts; and gets on march again, by its own route. Steadily

southward;and from Liegnitz, and the upland Countries, there will be news of Schwerin and it before long.

Rain ending, there ensued a ringing frost;not favorable for Siegeoperations on Glogau:and Silesia

became all of flinty glass, with white peaks to the Southwest, whither Schwerin is gone.

Friedrich was over from Herrendorf with the first daylight, "reconnoitring Glogau, and rode up to the very

glacis;" scanning it on all sides. [Ib. i. 484.] Since Wallis is so resolute, here is an intricate little problem for

Friedrich, with plenty of corollaries and conditions hanging to it. Shall we besiege Glogau, then? We have no

siegecannon here. Time presses, Breslau and all things in such crisis; and it will take time. By what methods

COULD Glogau be besieged?Readers can consider what a blind manythreaded coil of things, heaping

itself here in wide welters round Glogau, and straggling to the world's end, Friedrich has on hand: probably

One thing is evident, there ought to be siegecannon got straightway; and, still more immediate, the right

posts and batteringplaces should be ready against its coming."Let the Young Dessauer with that

Rearguard, or Reserve of 10,000, which is now at Crossen, come up and assist here," orders Friedrich; "and

let him be swift, for the hours are pregnant!" On farther reflection, perhaps on new rumors from Breslau,

Friedrich perceives that there can be no besieging of Glogau at this point of time; that the Reserve, Half of the

Reserve, must be left to "mask" it; to hold it in strict blockade, with starvation daily advancing as an alIy to

us, and with capture by bombarding possible when we like. That is the ultimate decision;arrived at through

a welter of dubieties, counterpoisings and perilous considerations, which we now take no account of. A most

busy week; Friedrich incessantly in motion, now here now there; and a great deal of heavy work got well and

rapidly done. The details of which, in these exuberant Manuscripts, would but weary the reader. Choosing of

the proper posts and batteringplaces (post "on the other side of the River," "on this side of it," "on the Island

in the middle of it"), and obstinate intrenching and preparing of the same in spite of frost; "wooden bridge

built" farther up; with "regulation of the river boats, the Polish Ferry," and much else: all this we omit; and

... "Most indispensable of all, the King has to provide Subsistences:and enters now upon the new plan,

which will have to be followed henceforth. The Provincial Chiefmen (LANDESAELTESTEN,

Land'sELDESTS, their title) are summoned, from nine or ten Circles which are likely to be interested: they

appear punctually, and in numbers,lest contumacy worsen the inevitable. King dines them, to start with; as

many as 'ninetyfive covers,'day not given, but probably one of the first in Herrendorf: not Christmas

"Dinner done, the ninetyfive Land'sEldest are instructed by proper parties, What the Infantry's ration is, in

meat, in bread, exact to the ounce; what the Cavalry's is, and that of the Cavalry's Horse. Tabular statement,

succinct, correct, clear to the simplest capacity, shows what quotities of men on foot, and of men on

horseback, or men with draughtcattle, will march through their respective Circles; LandsEldests conclude

what amount of meal and butcher'smeat it will be indispensable to have in readiness;what LandsEldest

can deny the fact? These Papers still exist, at least the longwinded Summary of them does: and I own the

reading of it far less insupportable than that of the mountains of Proclamatory, Manifesto and Diplomatic

matter. Nay it leaves a certain wholesome impression on the mind, as of business thoroughly well done; and a

matter, capable, if left in the chaotic state, of running to all manner of depths and heights, compendiously

"These LandsEldest undertake, in a mildly resigned or even hopeful humor. They will manage as required,

in their own Circles; will communicate with the Circles farther on; and everywhere the due proviants,

prestations, furtherances, shall be got together by fair apportionment on the Silesian Community, and be

punctually ready a,s the Army advances. Bookkeeping there is to be, legible record of everything; on all

hands 'quittance' for everything furnished; and a time is coming, when such quittance, presented by any

Silesian man, will be counted money paid by him, and remitted at the next taxday, or otherwise made good.

Which promise also was accurately kept, the hopedfor time having come. It must be owned the Prussian

Army understands business; and, with brevity, reduces to a minimum its own trouble, and that of other

people, non fighters, who have to do with it. Nonfighters, I say; to fighters we hope it will give a

respectable maximum of trouble when applied to!" [ HeldenGeschichte, i. 492499.]

The Gotter Negotiation at Vienna, which we saw begin there that wet Sunday, is now fast ending, as good as

ended; without result except of a negative kind. Gotter's Proposals,would the reader wish to hear these

Proposals, which were so intensely interesting at one time? They are fivefold; given with great brevity by

Friedrich, by us with still greater: 1. "Will fling myself heartily into the Austrian scale, and endeavor for

the interest of Austria in this Pragmatic matter, with my whole strength against every comer. 2. "Will make

treaty with Vienna, with Russia and the SeaPowers, to that effect. 3. "Will help by vote, and with whole

amount of interest will endeavor, to have GrandDuke Franz, the Queen's Husband, chosen Kaiser; and to

maintain such choice against all and sundry. Feel myself strong enough to accomplish this result; and may,

without exaggeration, venture to say it shall be done. 4. "To help the Court of Vienna in getting its affairs into

good order and fencible condition,will present to it, on the shortest notice, Two Million Gulden (200,000

pounds) ready money." Infinitely welcome this Fourth Proposition; and indeed all the other Three are

welcome: but they are saddled with a final condition, which pulls down all again. This, which is studiously

worded, politely evasive in phrase, and would fain keep old controversies asleep, though in substance it is so

fatally distinct,we give in the King's own words: 5. "For such essential services as those to which I bind

myself by the above very onerous conditions, I naturally require a proportionate recompense; some suitable

assurance, as indemnity for all the dangers I risk, and for the part (ROLE) I am ready to play: in short, I

require hereby the entire and complete cession of all Silesia, as reward for my labors and dangers which I

take upon myself in this course now to be entered upon for the preservation and renown of the House of

Austria;"Silesia all and whole; and we say nothing of our "rights" to it; politely evasive to her Hungarian

Majesty, though in substance we are so fatally distinct. [Preuss, Thronbesteigung, p. 451; "from

These were Friedrich's Proposals; written down with his own hand at Reinsberg, five or six weeks ago

(November 17th is the date of it); in what mood, and how wrought upon by Schwerin and Podewils, we saw

above. Gotter has fulfilled his instructions in regard to this important little Document; and now the effect of it

is? Gotter can report no good effect whatever. "Be cautious," Friedrich instructs him farther; "modify that

Fifth Proposal; I will take less than the whole, 'if attention is paid to my just claims on Schlesien.'" To that

effect writes Friedrich once or twice. But it is to no purpose; nor can Gotter, with all his industry, report other

than worse and worse. Nay, he reports before long, not refusal only, but refusal with mockery: "How strange

that his Prussian Majesty, whose official post in Germany, as Kur Brandenburg and Kaiser's Chamberlain,

has been to present ewer and towel to the House of Austria, should now set up for prescribing rules to it!" A

piece of wit, which could not but provoke Friedrich; and warn him that negotiation on this matter might as

well terminate. Such had been his own thought, from the first; but in compliance with Schwerin and Podewils

Better for Maria Theresa, and for all the world how much better, could she have accepted this Fifth

Proposition! But how could she, the high Imperial Lady, keystone of Europe, though by accident with only

a few pounds of ready money at present? Twenty years of bitter fighting, and agony to herself and all the

world, were necessary first; a new Fact of Nature having turned up, a new European Kingdom with real King

to it; NOT recognizable as such, by the young Queen of Hungary or by any other person, till it do its proofs.

What Friedrich's own humor is, what Friedrich's own inner man is saying to him, while all the world so

babbles about his Silesian Adventure? Of this too there are, though in diluted state, some glimmerings to be

Ingenious Jordan, Inspector of the Poor at Berlin,his thousand old women at their wheels humming

pleasantly in the background of our imaginations, though he says nothing of that,writes twice a week to his

Majesty: pleasant gossipy Letters, with an easy respectfulness not going into sycophancy anywhere; which

keep the campaigning King well abreast of the Berlin news and rumors: something like the essence of an Old

Newspaper; not without worth in our present Enterprise. One specimen, if we had room!

No. 1. "BERLIN, 14th DECEMBER, 1740 [day after his Majesty left]. Everybody here is on tiptoe for the

Event; of which both origin and end are a riddle to the most. I am charmed to see a part of your Majesty's

Dominions in a state of Pyrrhonism; the disease is epidemical here at present. Those who, in the style of

theologians, consider themselves entitled to be certain, maintain That your Majesty is expected with religious

impatience by the Protestants, and that the Catholics hope to see themselves delivered from a multitude of

imposts which cruelly tear up the beautiful bosom of their Church. You cannot but succeed in your valiant

and stoical Enterprise, since both religion and worldly interest rank themselves under your flag.

"Wallis," Austrian Commandant in Glogau, "they say, has punished a Silesian Heretic of enthusiastic turn, as

blasphemer, for announcing that a new Messiah is just coming. I have a taste for that kind of martyrdom.

Critical persons consider the present step as directly opposed to certain maxims in the ANTIMACHIAVEL.

"The word MANIFESTO[your Majesty's little PATENT on entering Silesia, which no reader shall be

troubled with at present]is the burden of every conversation. there is a short Piece of the kind to come out

today, by way of preface to a large complete exposition, which a certain Jurisconsult is now busy with.

People crowd to the Bookshops for it, as if looking out for a celestial phenomenon that had been

predicted.This is the beginning of my Gazette; can only come out twice a week, owing to the arrangement

of the Posts. Friday, the day your Majesty crosses into Silesia, I shall spend in prayer and devotional

NOTE, The above Manifesto rumor is correct; Jurisconsult is ponderous Herr Ludwig, Kanzler (Chancellor)

of Halle University, monster of lawlearning,who has money also, and had to help once with a House in

Berlin for one Nussler, a soninlaw of his, transiently known to us;ponderous Ludwig, matchless or

difficult to match in learning of this kind, will write ample enough Deductions (which lie in print still, to the

extent of tons' weight), and explain the ERBVERBRUDERUNG and violence done upon it, so that he who

No. 2. "BERLIN, SATURDAY, 17th DECEMBER. Manifesto has appeared," can be seen, under thick

strata of cobwebs, in many Books; [In HeldenGeschichte, i. 448, 453 (what Jordan now alludes to); IB.

559592 ("Deduction" itself, Ludwig in all his strength, some three weeks hence; in OLENSCHLAGER

(doubtless); in is not worth reading now: Incontestable rights which our House has for ages had on Schlesien,

and which doubtless the Hungarian Majesty will recognize; not the slightest injury intended, far indeed from

that; and so on!"people are surprised at its brevity; and, studying it as theologians do a passage of

Scripture, can make almost nothing of it. Clear as crystal, says one; dexterously obscure by design, says

"Rumor that the GrandDuke of Lorraine," Maria Theresa's Husband, "was at Reinsberg incognito lately,"

GrandDuke a concerting party, think people looking into the thing with strong spectacles on their nose! "M.

de Beauvau [French Ambassador Extraordinary, to whom the aces were promised if they came] said one

thing that surprised me: 'What put the King on taking this step, I do not know; but perhaps it is not such a bad

one.' Surprising news that the Elector of Saxony, King of Poland, is fallen into inconsolable remorse for

changing his religion [to Papistry, on Papa's hest, many long years ago] and that it is not to the Pope, but to

the King of Prussia, that he opens his heart to steady his staggering orthodoxy." Very astonishing to Jordan.

"One thing is certain, all Paris rings with your Majesty's change of religion" (over to Catholicism, say those

No. 3. "BERLIN, 20th DECEMBER. M. de Beauvau," French Ambassador, "is gone. Ended, yesterday, his

survey of the Cabinet of Medals; charmed with the same: charmed too, as the public is, with the rich present

he has got from said Cabinet [coronation medal or medals in gold, I could guess]: people say the King of

"Rumor of alliance between your Majesty and France with Sweden," premature rumor. Item, "Queen of

Hungary dead in childbirth;" ditto with still more emphasis! "The day before yesterday, in all churches,

was prayer to Heaven for success to your Majesty's arms; interest of the Protestant religion being the one

cause of the War, or the only one assigned by the reverend gentlemen. At sound of these words, the zeal of

the people kindles: 'Bless God for raising such a Defender! Who dared suspect our King's indifference to

A right clever thing this last (O LE BEAU COUP D'ETAT)! exclaims Jordan,though it is not clever or the

contrary, not being dramatically prearranged, as Jordan exults to think. Jordan, though there are dregs of old

devotion lying asleep in him, which will start into new activity when stirred again, is for the present a very

unbelieving little gentleman, I can perceive.This is the substance of public rumor at Berlin for one week.

JesuitEstablishment at Milkau, Friedrich just got in, out of the rain].Seigneur Jordan, thy Letter has given

me a deal of pleasure in regard to all these talkings thou reportest. Tomorrow [not tomorrow, nor next day;

wet troops need a rest] I arrive at our last station this side Glogau, which place I hope to get in a few days. All

favors my designs: and I hope to return to Berlin, after executing them gloriously and in a way to be content

with. Let the ignorant and the envious talk; it is not they that shall ever serve as loadstar to my designs; not

they, but Glory [LA GLOIRE; Fame, depending not on them]: with the love of that I am penetrated more than

ever; my troops have their hearts big with it, and I answer to thee for success. Adieu, dear Jordan. Write me

all the ill that the public says of thy Friend, and be persuaded that I love and will esteem thee always."F.

No. 4; "BERLIN, 24th DECEMBER. Your Majesty's Letter fills me with joy and contentment. The Town

declared your Majesty to be already in Breslau; founding on some Letter to a Merchant here. Ever since they

think of your Majesty acting for Protestantism, they make you step along with strides of Achilles to the ends

of Silesia. Foreign Courts are all rating their Ambassadors here for not finding you out.

"Wolf," his negotiations concluded at last, "has entered Halle almost like the triumphant Entry to Jerusalem.

A concourse of pedants escorted him to his house. Lange [his old enemy, who accused him of Atheism and

other things] has called to see him, and loaded him with civilities, to the astonishment of the old Orthodox."

There let him rest, well buttoned in gaiters, and avoiding to mount stairs. ... "Madame de Roucoulles has sent

me the three objects adjoined, for your Majesty's behoof,"woollen achievements, done by the needle, good

against the winter weather for one she nursed. The good old soul. Enough now, of Jordan. [ OEuvres de

Voltaire, who left Berlin 2d or 3d December, seems to have been stopt by overflow of rivers about Cleve,

then to have taken boat; and is, about this very time, writing to Friedrich "from a vessel on the Coasts of

Zealand, where I am driven mad." (Intends, privately, for Paris before long, to get his MAHOMET acted, if

"MY DEAR VOLTAIRE,I have received two of your Letters; but could not answer sooner; I am like

Charles Twelfth's ChessKing, who was always kept on the move. For a fortnight past, we have been

"I am too tired to reply to your charming Verses; and shivering too much with cold to taste all the charm of

them: but that will come round again. Do not ask poetry from a man who is actually doing the work of a

wagoner, and sometimes even of a wagoner stuck in the mud. Would you like to know my way of life? We

march from seven in the morning till four in the afternoon. I dine then; afterwards I work, I receive tiresome

visits; with these comes a detail of insipid matters of business. 'Tis wrongheaded men, punctiliously

difficult, who are to be set right; heads too hot which must be restrained, idle fellows that must be urged,

impatient men that must be rendered docile, plunderers to restrain within the bounds of equity, babblers to

hear babbling, dumb people to keep in talk: in fine, one has to drink with those that like it, to eat with those

"Such are my occupations;which I would willingly make over to another, if the Phantom they call Fame

(GLOIRE) did not rise on me too often. In truth, it is a great folly, but a folly difficult to cast away when once

you are smitten by it. [Phantom of GLOIRE somewhat rampant in those first weeks; let us see whether it will

"Adieu, my dear Voltaire; may Heaven preserve from misfortune the man I should so like to sup with at

night, after fighting in the morning! The Swan of Padua [Algarotti, with his big hooknose and dusky

solemnly greedy countenance] is going, I think, to Paris, to profit by my absence; the Philosopher Geometer

[big Maupertuis, in red wig and yellow frizzles, vainest of human kind] is squaring curves; poor little Jordan

[with the kindly hazel eyes, and pen that pleasantly gossips to us] is doing nothing, or probably something

near it. Adieu once more, dear Voltaire; do not forget the absent who love you. FREDERIC." [ OEuvres de

Meanwhile, on the Western road, and along the foot of the snowy peaks over yonder, Schwerin with the small

Right column is going prosperously forwards. Two columns always, as the reader recollects,two parallel

military currents, flowing steadily on, shooting out estafettes, or horseparties, on the right and left; steadily

submerging all Silesia as they flow forward. Left column or current is in slight pause at Glogau here; but will

directly be abreast again. On Tuesday, 27th, Schwerin is within wind of Liegnitz; on Wednesday morning,

while the fires are hardly lighted, or the smoke of Liegnitz risen among the Hills, Schwerin has done his feat

with the usual deftness: Prussian grenadiers came softly on the sentry, softly as a dream; but with sudden

levelling of bayonets, sudden beckoning, "To your Guardhouse!"and there, turn the key upon his poor

company and him. Whereupon the whole Prussian column marches in; tramp tramp, without music, through

the streets: in the Marketplace they fold themselves into a ranked mass, and explode into windharmony

and rolling of drums. Liegnitz, mostly in nightcap, looks cautiously out of window: it is a deed done, IHR

HERREN; Liegnitz ours, better late than never; and after so many years, the King has his own again.

Schwerin is sumptuously lodged in the Jesuits, Palace: Liegnitz, essentially a Protestant Town, has many

Thus is Liegnitz managed. A pleasant Town, amid pleasant hills on the rocky Katzbach; of which swift

stream, and other towns and passes on it, we shall yet hear more. Population, silently industrious in weaving

and otherwise, is now above 14,000; was then perhaps about half that number. Patiently inarticulate, by no

means bright in speech or sentiment; a muchenduring, steadygoing, frugal, pious and very desirable

The situation of Breslau, all this while, is very critical. Much bottled emotion in the place; no Austrian

Garrison admissible; Authorities dare not again propose such a thing, though Browne is turning every stone

for it,lest the emotion burst bottle, and take fire. I have dim account that Browne has been there, has got

300 Austrian dragoons into the Dom Insel (CATHEDRAL ISLAND; "Not in the City, you perceive!" says

General Browne: "no, separated by the Oder, on both sides, from the rest of the City; that stately mass of

edifices, and good military post");and had hoped to get the suburbs burnt, after all. But the bottled emotion

was too dangerous. For, underground, there are ANTIBrownes: one especially; a certain busy Deblin,

Shoemaker by craft, whom Friedrich speaks of, but gives no name to; this zealous Cordwainer, Deblin, and

he is not the only individual of like humor, operates on the guildbrothers and lower populations: [Preuss,

Thronbesteigung, p. 469; OEuvres de Frederic, ii. 61. ] things seem to be looking worse and worse for the

What the issue will be? Judge if Friedrich wished the Young Dessauer come! Friedrich's Hussar parties (or

Schwerin's, instructed by Friedrich) go to look if the Breslau suburbs are burnt. Far from it, if Friedrich

knew;the suburbs merely sit quaking at such a proposal, and wish the Prussians were here. "But there is

time ahead of us," said everybody at Breslau; "Glogau will take some sieging!" Browne, in the course of a

day or two,guessing, I almost think, that Glogau was not to be besieged,ranked his 300 Austrian

dragoons, and rode away; sending the Austrian StatePapers, in half a score of wagons, ahead of him.

"Archives of Breslau!" cried the general population, at sight of these wagons; and largely turned out, with

emotion again like to unbottle itself. "Mere TaxLedgers, and records of the Government Offices; come and

convince yourselves!" answered the Authorities. And the ten wagons went on; calling at Ohlau and Brieg, for

farther lading of the like kind. Which wagons the Prussian lighthorse chased, but could not catch. On to

Mahren went these Archivewagons; to Brunn, far over the Giant Mountains;did not come back for a long

while, nor to their former Proprietor at all. Tuesday, 27th, Leopold the Young Dessauer does finally arrive,

with his Reserve, at Glogau: never man more welcome; such a fermentation going on at Breslau,known to

Friedrich, and what it will issue in, if he delay, not known. With despatch, Leopold is put into his charge;

posts all yielded to him; orders given, blockade to be strictness itself, but no fighting if avoidable;

"starvation will soon do it, two months at most," hopes Friedrich, too sanguine as it proved:and with

earliest daylight on the 28th, Friedrich's Army, Friedrich himself in the van as usual, is on march again; at its

"SIEUR JORDAN,I march tomorrow for Breslau; and shall be there in four days [three, it happened;

there rising, as would seem, new reason for haste]. You Berliners [of the 24th last] have a spirit of prophecy,

which goes beyond me. In fine, I go my road; and thou wilt shortly see Silesia ranked in the list of our

Provinces. Adieu; this is all I have time to tell thee. Religion [Silesian Protestantism, and Breslau's

"Tell Maupertuis I grant those Pensions he proposes for his Academicians; and that I hope to find good

subjects for that dignity in the Country where I am, withal. Give him my compliments.

The march was of the swiftest,swifter even than had been expected;which, as Silesia is all ringing glass,

becomes more achievable than lately. But certain regiments outdid themselves in marching; "in three

marches, near upon seventy miles,"with their baggage jingling in due proximity. Through Glasersdorf,

thence through Parchwitz, Neumarkt, Lissa, places that will be better known to us;on Saturday, last night

of the Year, his Majesty lodged at a Schloss called Pilsnitz, five miles to west of Breslau; and vanward

regiments, a good few, quartered in the Western and Southern suburbs of Breslau itself; suburbs decidedly

glad to see them, and escape conflagration. The Towngates are hermetically shut;plenty of emotion

bottled in the 100,000 hearts within. The sentries on the walls presented arms; nay, it is affirmed, some could

Colonel Posadowsky (active Horse Colonel whom we have seen before, who perhaps has been in Breslau

before) left orders "at the Scultet GardenHouse," that all must be ready and the rooms warmed, his Majesty

intending to arrive here early on the morrow. Which happened accordingly; Majesty alighting duly at said

The issue of this Breslau transaction is known, or could be stated in few words; nor is the manner of it such as

would, for Breslau's sake, deserve many. But we are looking into Friedrich, wish to know his manners and

aspects: and here, ready to our hand, a Paper turns up, compiled by an exact person with better leisure than

ours, minutely detailing every part of the affair. This Paper, after the question, Burn or insert? is to have the

"SUNDAY, 1st JANUARY, 1741. The King having established himself in Herrn Scultet's GardenHouse,

not far from the Schweidnitz Gate, there began a delicate and great operation. The Prussians, in a soft

cautious manner, in the gray of the morning, push out their sentries towards the three Gates on this side of the

Oder; seize any 'Excise House,' or the like, that may be fit for a post; and softly put 'twenty grenadiers' in it.

All this before sunrise. Breslau is rigidly shut; Breslau thought always it could stand upon its guard, if

attacked;is now, in Official quarters, dismally uncertain if it can; general population becoming certain that

"About 7 A.M. a Prussian subaltern advancing within cry of the Schweidnitz Gate, requests of the

Townguard there, To send him out a TownOfficer. TownOfficer appears; is informed, 'That Colonels

Posadowsky and Borck, Commissioners or plenipotentiary Messengers from his Prussian Majesty, desire

admittance to the Chief Magistrate of Breslau, for the purpose of signifying what his Prussian Majesty's

instructions are.' TownOfficer bows, and goes upon his errand. TownOfficer is some considerable time

before he can return; City Authorities being, as we know, various, partly Imperial, partly Civic; elderly; and

some of them gone to church, for matins, or to be out of the way. However, he does at last return; admits

the two Colonels, and escorts them honorably, to the Chief RATHSSYNDIC (LordMayor) old Herr von

Gutzmar's; where the poor old "President of the OBER AMT" (Von Schaffgotsch the name of this latter) is

"Prussian Majesty's proposals are of the mildest sort: 'Nothing demanded of Breslau but the plainly

indispensable and indisputable, That Prussia be in it what Austria has been. In all else, STATUS QUO. Strict

neutrality to Breslau, respect for its privileges as a Free City of the Reich; protection to all its rights and

privileges whatsoever. Shall be guarded by its own Garrison; no Prussian soldier to enter except with

sidearms; only 30 guards for the King's person, who will visit the City for a few days;intends to form a

Magazine, with guard of 1,000 men, but only outside the City: no requisitions; ready money for everything.

Chief Syndic Gutzmar and President Schaffgotsch shall consider these points.' [ HeldenGeschichte, i. 537.]

Syndic and President answer, Surely! Cannot, however, decide till they have assembled the TownRath; the

two Herren Colonels will please to be guests of Breslau, and lodge in the City till then.

"And they lodged, accordingly, in the 'GROSSE RING' (called also SALZRING, big Central Square, where

the Rathhaus is); and they made and received visits,visited especially the Chief President's Office, the

OberAmt, and signified there, that his Prussian Majesty's expectation was, They would give some account

of that rather high Proclamation or 'Patent' they had published against him the other day, amid thunder and

lightning here, and what they now thought would be expedient upon it? All in grave official terms, but of

such a purport as was not exhilarating to everybody in those OberAmt localities.

"MONDAY MORNING, 2d JANUARY. The Rath is assembled; and consults, consults at great length.

RATHHouse and Syndic Gutzmar, in such crisis, would fain have advice from AMTHouse or President

Schaffgotsch; but can get none: considerable coming and going between them: at length, about 3 in the

afternoon, the Treaty is got drawn up; is signed by the due Breslau hands, and by the two Prussian

Colonels,which latter ride out with it, about 4 of the clock; victorious after thirty hours. Straight towards

the Scultet Garden ride they; Townguard presenting Arms, at the Schweidnitz Gate; nay Townband

breaking out into music, which is never done but to Ambassadors and high people. By thirty hours of steady

"Friedrich had waited patiently all Sunday, keeping steady guard at the Gates; but on Monday, naturally, the

thirty hours began to hang heavy: at all events, he perceived that it would be well to facilitate conclusions a

little from without. Breslau stands on the West, more strictly speaking, on the South side of the Oder, which

makes an elbow here, and thus bounds it, or mostly bounds it, on two sides. The big drabcolored River

spreads out into Islands, of a confused sort, as it passes; which are partly built upon, and constitute suburbs of

the Town,stretching over, here and there, into straggles of farther suburb beyond the River, where a road

with its bridge happens to cross for the Eastern parts. The principal of these Islands is the DOM

INSEL,"known to General Browne and us,"on which is the Cathedral, and the CLOSE with rich Canons

and their edifices; Island filled with strong high architecture; and a superior military post.

"Friedrich has already as good as possessed himself of the three landward Gates, which look to the south and

to the west; the riverward gates, or those on the north and the east, he perceives that it were good now also to

have; these, and even perhaps something more? 'Gather all the riverboats, make a bridge of them across the

Oder; push across 400 men:' this is done on Monday morning, under the King's own eye. This done, 'March

up to that riverward Gate, and also to that other, in a mild but dangerous looking manner; hew the beams of

said Gate in two; start the big locks; fling wide open said Gate and Gates:' this too is done; Townguard

looking mournfully on. This done, 'March forward swiftly, in two halves, without beat of

"Those three hundred Austrian Dragoons, we saw them leave the Dom Island, three days ago; there are at

present only Six Men, of the BISHOP'S Guard, walking under arms there,at the end of the chief bridge, on

the Townward side of their Dom Island. See, Prussian caps and muskets, ye six men under arms! The six men

clutch at their drawbridge, and hastily set about hoisting:alas, another Prussian corps, which has come

privately by the eastern (or Countryward) Bridge, King himself with it, taps them on the shoulder at this

instant; mildly constrains the six into their guardhouse: the drawbridge falls; 400 Prussian grenadiers take

quiet possession of the Dom Island: King may return to the Scultet Garden, having quickened the lazy hours

in this manner. To such of the Canons as he came upon, his Majesty was most polite; they most submiss. The

six soldiers of the drawbridge, having spoken a little loud,still more a too zealous beefeater of old

Schaffgotsch's found here, who had been very loud,were put under arrest; but more for form's sake; and

Nothing could be gentler on Friedrich's part, and on that of his two Colonels, than this delicate operation

throughout: and at 4 P.M., after thirty hours of waiting, it is done, and nobody's skin scratched. Old Syndic

Gutzmar, and the TownRath, urged by perils and a Town Population who are Protestant, have signed the

Surrender with goodwill, at least with resignation, and a feeling of relief. The OberAmt Officials have

likewise had to sign; full of all the silent spleen and despondency which is natural to the situation: spleen

which, in the case of old Schaffgotsch, weak with age, becomes passionately audible here and there. He will

have to give account of that injurious Proclamation, or Queen's "Patent," to this King that has now come.

In the Royal Entrance which took place next day, note these points. Syndic Gutzmar and the Authorities came

out, in grand coaches, at 8 in the morning; had to wait awhile; the King, having ridden away to look after his

manifold affairs, did not get back till 10. Town Guard and Garrison are all drawn out; Gates all flung open,

Prussian sentries withdrawn from them, and from the Excisehouses they had seized: King's

KitchenandProviant Carriages (four mules to each, with bells, with uncommonly rich housings): King's

Body Coach very grand indeed, and grandly escorted, the Thirty Body guards riding ahead; but nothing in

it, only a most superfine cloak "lined wholly with ermine" flung upon the seat. Other Coaches, more or less

grandly escorted; Head Cupbearers, Seneschals, Princes, Margraves:but where is the King? King had

ridden away, a second time, with chief Generals, taking survey of the Town Walls, round as far as the

ZIEGELTHOR (TileGate, extreme southeast, by the riveredge): he has thus made the whole circuit of

Breslau; unwearied in picking up useful knowledge, "though it was very cold," while that Procession of

At noon, his Majesty, thrifty of time, did enter: on horseback, Schwerin riding with him; behind him

miscellaneous chief Officers; Borck and Posadowsky among others; some miscellany of Pagepeople

following. With this natural escort, he rode in; TownMajor (Commandant of Townguard), with drawn

sword going ahead;King wore his usual Cocked Hat, and practical Blue Cloak, both a little dimmed by

service: but his gray horse was admirable; and four scarlet Footmen, grand as galloon and silver fringe could

make them, did the due magnificence in dress. He was very gracious; saluting to this side and to that, where

he noticed people of condition in the windows. "Along Schweidnitz Street, across the Great Ring, down

Albrecht Street." He alighted, to lodge, at the CountSchlegenberg House; which used to be the Austrian

Cardinal von Sinzendorf Primate of Silesia's hired lodging, Sinzendorf's furniture is put gently aside, on

this new occasion. King came on the balcony; and stood there for some minutes, that everybody might see

him. The "immense shoutings," Dryasdust assures me, have been exaggerated; and I am warned not to

believe the KRIEGSFAMA such and such a Number, except after comparing it with him.That day there

was dinner of more than thirty covers, Chief Syndic Gutzmar and other such guests; but as to the viands, says

my friend, these, owing to the haste, were nothing to speak of. [Helden Geschichte, i. 545548.]

Dinner, better and better ordered, King more and more gracious, so it continued all the four days of his

Majesty's stay:on the second day be had to rise suddenly from table, and leave his guests with an apology;

something having gone awry, at one of the Gates. Awry there, between the Town Authorities and a General

Jeetz of his,who is on march across the River at this moment (on what errand we shall hear), and a little

mistakes the terms. His Majesty puts Jeetz right; and even waits, till he sees his Brigade and him clear across.

A junior Schaffgotsch, [ HeldenGeschichte, ii. 159.] not the inconsolable Schaffgotsch senior, but his

Nephew, was one of the guests this second day; an ecclesiastic, but of witty fashionable type, and I think a

very worthless fellow, though of a family important in the Province. Dinner falls about noon; does not last

above two hours or three, so that there is space for a ride ("to the Dom," the first afternoon, "four runners"

As the Austrian Authorities sat silent in their place, and gave no explanation of that "Patent," affixed amid

thunder and lightning, they got orders from his Majesty to go their ways next day; and went. In behalf of

old President von Schaffgotsch, a chief of the Silesian Nobility, and man much loved, the Breslau people, and

men from every guild and rank of society, made petition That, he should be allowed to continue in his Town

House here. Which "first request of yours" his Majesty, with much grace, is sorry to be obliged to refuse. The

suppressed, and insuppressible, weak indignation of old Schaffgotsch is visible on the occasion; nor, I think,

does Friedrich take it ill; only sends him out of the way with it, for the time. The Austrian OberAmt

vanished bodily from Breslau in this manner; and never returned. Proper "WarCommission

(FELDKRIEGSCOMMISSARIAT)," with Munchow, one of those skilful Custrin Munchows, at the top of

it, organized itself instead; which, almost of necessity, became Supreme Government in a City ungoverned

otherwise:and truly there was little regret of the OberAmt, in Breslau; and ever less, to a marked extent,

On the 5th of January (fourth and last night here), his Majesty gave a grand Ball. Had hired, or Colonel

Posadowsky instead of him had hired, the Assembly Rooms (REDOUTENSAAL), for the purpose: "Invite

all the Nobility high and low;" expense by estimate is a ducat (halfguinea) each; do it well, and his

Majesty will pay. About 6 in the evening, his Majesty in person did us the honor to drive over; opened the

Ball with Madam the Countess von Schlegenberg (I should guess, a Dowager Lady), in whose house he

lodges. I am not aware that his Majesty danced much farther; but he was very condescending, and spoke and

smiled up and down;till, about l0 P.M., an Officer came in with a Letter. Which Letter his Majesty having

read, and seemingly asked a question or two in regard to, put silently in his pocket, as if it were a finished

thing. Nevertheless, after a few minutes, his Majesty was found to have silently withdrawn; and did not

return, not even to supper. Perceiving which, all the Prussian official people gradually withdrew; though the

dancing and supping continued not the less, to a late hour. [ HeldenGeschichte, i. 557.]

"Open the Austrian Mailbag (FELLEISEN); see a little what they are saying over there!" Such order had

evidently been given, this night. In consequence of which, people wrote by Dresden, and not the direct way,

in future; wishing to avoid that openable FELLEISEN. Next morning, January 6th, his Majesty had left for

Ohlau,early, I suppose; though there proved to be nothing dangerous ahead there, after all.

Ohlau is a pleasant little Town, two marches southeast of Breslau; with the Ohlau River on one side, and the

Oder on the other; capable of some defence, were there a garrison. Brieg the important Fortress, still on the

Oder, is some fifteen miles beyond Ohlau; after which, bending straight south and quitting Oder, Neisse the

still more important may be thirty miles:from Breslau to Neisse, by this route (which is BOW, not

STRING), sixtyfive or seventy miles. One of my Topographers yields this Note, if readers care for it:

"Ohlau River, an insignificant drabcolored stream, rises well south of Breslau, about Strehlen; makes, at

first, direct eastward towards the Oder; and then, when almost close upon it, breaks off to north, and saunters

along, irregularly parallel to Oder, for twenty miles farther, before it can fall fairly in. To this circumstance

both Breslau and a Town of Ohlau owe their existence; Towns, both of them, 'between the waters,' and

otherwise well seated; Ohlau sheltering itself in the attempted outfall of its little river; Breslau clustering

itself about the actual outfall: both very defensible places in the old rude time, and good for trade in all times.

Both Oder and Ohlau Rivers have split and spread themselves into islands and deltas a good deal, at their

place of meeting; and even have changed their courses, and cut out new channels for themselves, in the sandy

country; making a very intricate watery network of a site for Breslau: and indeed the Ohlau River here, for

centuries back, has been compelled into wide meanderings, mere filling of rampartditches, so that it issues

Ohlau had been expected to make some defence; General Browne having thrown 300 men into it, and done

what he could for the works. And Ohlau did at first threaten to make some; but thought better of it overnight,

and in effect made none; but was got (morning of January 9th) on the common terms, by merely marching up

to it in minatory posture. "Prisoners of War, if you make resistance; Free Withdrawal [Liberty to march away,

arms shouldered, and not serve against us for a year], if you have made none:" this is the common course,

where there are Austrian Soldiers at all; the course where none are, and only a few Syndics sit, with their

From Ohlau, proper Detachment, under General Kleist, is pushed forward to summon Brieg; Jeetz from the

other side of the river (whom we saw crossing at Breslau the other day, interrupting his Majesty's dinner) is to

cooperate with Kleist in that enterprise, were the Country once cleared on his, Jeetz's, east side of Oder;

especially were Namslau once had, a small Town and Castle over there, which commands the Polish and

Hungarian road. Friedrich's hopes are buoyant; Schwerin is swiftly rolling forward to rightward, nothing

resisting him; Detachment is gone from Schwerin, over the Hills, to Glatz (the GRAFSCHAFT, or County

Glatz, an Appendage to Schlesien), under excellent guidance; under guidance, namely, of Colonel Camas,

who has just come home from his Parisian Embassy, and got launched among the wintry mountains, on a new

operation,which, however, proves of noneffect for the present. [ HeldenGeschichte, i. 678; Orlich,

Indeed, it is observable that southward of Breslau, the dispute, what dispute there can be, properly begins;

and that General Browne is there, and shows himself a shining man in this difficult position. It must be

owned, no General could have made his small means go farther. Effective garrisons, 1,600 each, put into

Brieg and Neisse; works repaired, magazines collected, there and elsewhere; the rest of his poor 7,000

thriftily sprinkled about, in what good posts there are, and "capable of being got together in six hours:" a

superior soldier, this Browne, though with a very bad task; and seems to have inspired everybody with

something of his own temper. So that there is marching, detaching, miscellaneous difficulty for Friedrich in

this quarter, more than had been expected. If the fate of Brieg and Neisse be inevitable, Browne does wonders

Of the Prussian marches in these parts, recorded by intricate Dryasdust, there was no point so notable to me

as this unrecorded one: the Stone Pillar which, I see, the Kleist Detachment was sure to find, just now, on the

march from Ohlau to Brieg; last portion of that march, between the village of Briesen and Brieg. The Oder,

flowing on your left hand, is hereabouts agreeably clothed with woods: the country, originally a swamp, has

been drained, and given to the plough, in an agreeable manner; and there is an excellent road paved with solid

whinstone,quarried in Strehlen, twenty miles away, among the Hills to the right yonder, as you may guess;

road very visible to the Prussian soldier, though he does not ask where quarried. These beautiful

improvements, beautiful humanities, were done by whom? "Done in 1584," say the records, by "George

the Pious;" Duke of Liegnitz, Brieg and Wohlau; 156 years ago. "Pious" his contemporaries called this

George;he was son of the ERBVERBRUDERUNG Duke, who is so important to us; he was grandfather's

grandfather of the last Duke of all; after whom it was we that should have got these fine Territories; they

should all have fallen to the Great Elector, had not the Austrian strong hand provided otherwise. George did

these plantations, recoveries to the plough; made this perennial whinstone road across the swamps; upon

which, notable to the roughest Prussian (being "twelve feet high by eight feet square"), rises a Hewn Mass

with this Inscription on it,not of the name or date of George; but of a thought of his, which is not without a

pious beauty to me: Straverunt alii nobis, nos Posteritati; Omnibus at Christus stravit ad asra viam.

Others have made roads for us; we make them for still others: Christ made a road to the stars for us all.

I know not how many Brandenburgers of General Kleist's Detachment, or whether any, read this Stone; but

they do all rustle past it there, claiming the Heritage of this Pious George; and their mute dim interview with

him, in this manner, is a thing slightly more memorable than orders of the day, at this date.

It was on the 11th, two days after Ohlau, that General Kleist summoned Brieg; and Brieg answered

resolutely, No. There is a garrison of 1,600 here, and a proper magazine: nothing for it but to "mask" Brieg

too; Kleist on this side the River, Jeetz on that, had Jeetz once done with Namslau, which he has not by

any means. Namslau's answer was likewise stiffly in the negative; and Jeetz cannot do Namslau, at least not

the Castle, all at once; having no siegecannon. Seeing such stiffness everywhere, Friedrich writes to Glogau,

to the Young Dessauer, "Siegeartillery hither! Swift, by the Oder; you don't need it where you are!" and

The Prussians met with serious resistance, for the first time (9th January, same day when Ohlau yielded), at a

place called Ottmachau; a considerable little Town and Castle on the Neisse River, not far west of Neisse

Town, almost at the very south of Silesia. It lay on the route of Schwerin's Column; long distances ahead of

Liegnitz, say, by straight highway a hundred miles;during which, to right and to left, there had been

nothing but submission hitherto. No resistance was expected here either, for there was not hope in any; only

that Browne had been here; industrious to create delay till Neisse were got fully ready. He is, by every means,

girding up the loins of Neisse for a tight defence; has put 1,600 men into it, with proper stores for them, with

a resolute skilful Captain at the top of them: assiduous Browne had been at Ottmachau, as the outpost of

Neisse, a day or two before; and, they say, had admonished them "Not to yield on any terms, for he would

certainly come to their relief." Which doubtless he would have done, had it been in his power; but how,

except by miracle, could it be? On the 9th of January, when Schwerin comes up, Browne is again waiting

hereabouts. Again in defensive posture, but without force to undertake anything; stands on the Southern

Uplands, with Bohmen and Mahren and the Giant Mountains at his back;stands, so to speak, defensive at

his own Housedoor, in this manner; and will have, after SEEING Ottmachau's fate and Neisse's, to duck in

with a slam! At any rate, he had left these Towns in the above firm humor, screwed to the stickingplace; and

And so the Ottmachau Austrians, "260 picked grenadiers" (400 dragoons there also at first were, who, after

flourishing about on the outskirts as if for fighting, rode away), fire "DESPERAT," says my intricate friend;

[ HeldenGeschichte, i. 672677; Orlich, i. 50.] entirely refusing terms from Schwerin; kill twelve of his

people (Major de Rege, distinguished Engineer Major, one of them): so that Schwerin has to bring petards

upon them, four cannon upon them; and burst in their Town Gate, almost their Castle Gate, and pretty much

their Castle itself;wasting three days of his time upon this paltry matter. Upon which they do signify a

willingness for "Free Withdrawal." "No, IHR HERREN" answers, Schwerin; "not now; after such mad

explosion. His Majesty will have to settle it." Majesty, who is by this time not far off, comes over to

Ottmachau (January 12th); gives words of rebuke, rebuke not very inexorable; and admits them Prisoners of

War. "The officers were sent to Custrin, common men to Berlin;" the usual arrangement in such case.

Ottmachau Town belongs to the Right Reverend von Sinzendorf, Bishop of Breslau, and Primate; whose

especial Palace is in Neisse; though he "commonly sends his refractory Priests to do their penance in the

Schloss at Ottmachau here,"and, I should say, had better himself make terms, and come out hitherward,

Friedrich continues at Ottmachau; headquarters there thenceforth, till he see Neisse settled. On the morrow,

13th) he learns that the Siege Artillery is at Grotkau; well forward towards Neisse; halfway between Brieg

and it. Same day, Colonel Camas returns to him out of Glatz; five of his men lost; and reports That Browne

has had the roads torn up, that Glatz is mere ice and obstruction, and that nothing can be made of it at this

The truth is, Friedrich has got no Strong Place in Schlesien; all strengths make unexpected defence; paltry

little Namslan itself cannot be quite taken, Castle cannot, till Jeetz gets his siege artillery,which does not

come along so fast as that to Neisse does. Here is an Excerpt from my Dryasdust, exact though abridged,

"JANUARY 24th, 1741. Prussians, masters of the Town for a couple of weeks back, have got into the Church

at Namslau, into the Cloister; are preparing plank floors for batteries, cutting loopholes; diligent as

possible,siegeguns now at last just coming. The Castle fires fiercely on them, makes furious sallies, steals

six of our oxen,makes insolent gestures from the walls; at least one soldier does, this day. 'Sir, may I give

that fellow a shot?' asks the Prussian sentry. 'Do, then,' answers his Major: 'too insolent that one!' And the

sentry explodes on him; brings him plunging down, head foremost (HERUNTER PURZELTE); the too

insolent mortal, silent enough thenceforth." [ HeldenGeschichte, i. 703.]Jeetz did get his cannon, though

not till now, this very day I think; and then, in a couple of days more, Jeetz finished off Namslau ("officers to

Custrin, Common men to Berlin"); and thereupon blockades the Eastern side of Brieg, joining hands with

Kleist on the Western: whereby Brieg, like Glogau, is completely masked,till the season mend.

Friedrich, now that his artillery is come, expects no difficulty with Neisse. A "paltry hamlet (BICOQUE)" he

playfully calls it; and, except this, Silesia is now his. Neisse got (which would be the desirable thing), or put

under "mask" as Glogau is, and as Brieg is being, Austria possesses not an inch of land within these borders.

Here are some Epistolary snatches; still in the light style, not to say the flimsy and uplifted; but worth giving,

so transparent are they; off hand, like words we had heard his Majesty SPEAK, in his high mood:

1. "OTTMACHAU, 14th JANUARY, 1741 [second day after our arrival there]. My dear Monsieur Jordan,

my sweet Monsieur Jordan, my quiet Monsieur Jordan, my good, my benign, my pacific, my humanest

Monsieur Jordan,I announce to Thy Serenity the conquest of Silesia; I warn thee of the bombardment of

Neisse [just getting ready], and I prepare thee for still more important projects; and instruct thee of the

"This ought to suffice thee. Be my Cicero as to the justice of my cause, and I will be thy Caesar as to the

execution. Adieu: thou knowest whether I am not, with the most cordial regard, thy faithful friend.F."

2. "OTTMACHAU, 17th JANUARY, 1741. I have the honor to inform your Humanity that we are christianly

preparing to bombard Neisse; and that if the place will not surrender of goodwill, needs must that it be

beaten to powder (NECESSITE SERA DE L'ABIMER). For the rest, our affairs go the best in the world; and

soon thou wilt hear nothing more of us. For in ten days it will all be over; and I shall have the pleasure of

"I have seen neither my Brother [August Wilhelm, not long ago at Strasburg with us, and betrothed since

then] nor Keyserling: I left them at Breslau, not to expose them to the dangers of war. They perhaps will be a

little angry; but what can I do?The rather as, on this occasion, one cannot share in the glory, unless one is a

"Adieu, M. le Conseiller [Poor'sRATH, so styled]. Go and amuse yourself with Horace, study Pausanias,

and be gay over Anacreon. As to me, who for amusement have nothing but merlons, fascines and gabions,

[Merlons are mounds of earth placed behind the solid or blind parts of the parapet (that is, between the

embrasures) of a Fortification; fascines are bundles of brushwood for filling up a ditch; gabions, baskets filled

with earth to be ranged in defence till you get trenches dug.] I pray God to grant me soon a pleasanter and

peacefuler occupation, and you health, satisfaction and whatever your heart desires.F." [ OEuvres de

"OTTMACHAU, 17th JANUARY, 1741 [same day as the above to Jordan]. I have begun to settle the Figure

of Prussia: the outline will not be altogether regular; for the whole of Silesia is taken, except one miserable

hamlet (BICOQUE), which perhaps I shall have to keep blockaded till next spring.

"Up to this time, the whole conquest has cost only Twenty Men, and Two Officers, one of whom is the poor

De Rege, whom you have seen at Berlin,"De Rege, Engineer Major, killed here at Ottmachau, in

"You are greatly wanting to me here. So soon as you have talked that business over, write to me about it.

[What is the business? Whither is the dusky Swan of Padua gone?] In all these three hundred miles I have

found no human creature comparable to the Swan of Padua. I would willingly give ten cubic leagues of

ground for a genius similar to yours. But I perceive I was about entreating you to return fast, and join me

again,while you are not yet arrived where your errand was. Make haste to arrive, then; to execute your

commission, and fly back to me. I wish you had a Fortunatus Hat; it is the only thing defective in your outfit.

"Adieu, dear Swan of Padua: think, I pray you, sometimes of those who are getting themselves cut in slices

[ECHINER, chined] for the sake of glory here, and above all do not forget your friends who think a thousand

The object of the dear Swan's journey, or even the whereabouts of it, cannot be discovered without difficulty;

and is not much worth discovering. "Gone to Turin," we at last make out, "with secret commissions:"

[Denina, La Prusse Litteraire (Berlin, 1790), i. 198. A poor vague Book; only worth consulting in case of

extremity.] desirable to sound the Sardinian Majesty a little, who is Doorkeeper of the Alps, between France

and Austria, and opens to the best bidder? No great things of a meaning in this mission, we can guess, or

Algarotti had not gone upon it,though he is handy, at least, for keeping it unnoticed by the Gazetteer

species. Nor was the Swan successful, it would seem; the more the pity for our Swan! However, he comes

back safe; attends Friedrich in Silesia; and in the course of next month readers will see him, if any reader

Neisse, which Friedrich calls a paltry hamlet (BICOQUE) is a pleasant strongly fortified Town, then of

perhaps 6 or 8,000 inhabitants, now of double that number; stands on the right or south bank of the

Neisse,at this day, on both banks. Pleasant broad streets, high strong houses, mostly of stone. Pleasantly

encircled by green Hills, northward buttresses of the Giant Mountains; itself standing low and level, on rich

ground much inclined to be swampy. A lesser river, Biele, or Bielau, coming from the South, flows leisurely

enough into the Neisse,filling all the Fortress ditches, by the road. Orchardgrowth and meadow growth

are lordly (HERRLICH); a land rich in fruit, and flowing with milk and honey. Much given to weaving,

brewing, stocking making; and, moreover, trades greatly in these articles, and above all in Wine. Yearly on

St. Agnes Day, "21st January, if not a Sunday," there is a Winefair here; Hungarian, of every quality from

Tokay downward, is gathered here for distribution into Germany and all the Western Countries. While you

drink your Tokay, know that it comes through Neisse. St. Agnes Day falls but unhandily this year; and I think

Neisse is a Nest of Priests (PFAFFENNEST), says Friedrich once; which came in this way. About 600 years

ago, an illconditioned HeirApparent of the Liegnitz Sovereign to whom it then belonged, quarrelled with

his Father, quarrelled slightly with the Universe; and, after moping about for some time, went into the

Church. Having Neisse for an apanage already his own, he gave it to the Bishop of Breslau; whose, in spite of

the old Father's protestings, it continued, and continues. Bishops of Breslau are made very grand by it;

Bishops of Breslau have had their own difficulties here. Thus once (in our PerkinWarbeck time, A.D. 1497),

a Duke of Oppeln, sitting in some Official Conclave or meeting of magnates here,zealous for country

privilege, and feeling himself insufferably put upon,started up, openly defiant of Official men; glaring

wrathfully into Duke Casimir of Teschen (BohemianAustrian Captain of Silesia), and into the Bishop of

Breslau himself; nay at last, flashed out his sword upon those sublime dignitaries. For which, by and by, he

had to lay his head on the block, in the great square here; and died penitent, we hope.

This place, my Dryasdust informs me, had many accidents by floodage and by fire; was seized and reseized

in the ThirtyYears War especially, at a great rate: Saxon Arnheim, Austrian Holk, Swedish Torstenson; no

end to the battering and burning poor Neisse had, to the big ransoms "in new Reichsthalers and 300 casks of

wine." But it always rebuilt itself, and began business again. How happy when it could get under some

effectual Protector, of the Liegnitz line, of the AustrianBohemian line, and this or the other battering, just

suffered, was to be the last for some time!Here again is a battering coming on it; the first of a series that

The reader is requested to look at Neisse; for besides the Tokay wine, there will things arrive there.Neisse

River, let us again mention, is one of four bearing that name, and all belonging to the Oder:could not they

be labelled, then, or NUMBERED, in some way? This Neisse, which we could call Neisse the FIRST (and

which careful readers may as well make acquaintance with on their Map, where too they will find Neisse the

SECOND, "the WUTHENDE or Roaring Neisse," and two others which concern us less), rises in the

"Western SnowMountains (SCHNEEGEBIRGE)," Southwestern or Glatz district of the Giant Mountains;

drains Glatz County and grows big there; washes the Town of Glatz; then eastward by Ottmachau, by Neisse

Town; whence turning rather abruptly north or northeast, it gets into the Oder not far south of Brieg.

Neisse as a Place of Arms, the chief Fortress of Silesia and the nearest to Austria, is extremely desirable for

Friedrich; but there is no hope of it without some kind of Siege; and Friedrich determines to try in that way.

From Ottmachau, accordingly, and from the other sides, the SiegeArtillery being now at hand, due force

gathers itself round Neisse, Schwerin taking charge; and for above a week there is demonstrating and posting,

summoning and parleying; and then, for three days, with pauses intervening, there is extremely furious

bombardment, redhot at times: "Will you yield, then?"with steady negative from Neisse. Friedrich's

quarter is at Ottmachau, twelve miles off; from which he can ride over, to see and superintend. The fury of

his bombardment, which naturally grieved him, testifies the intensity of his wish. But it was to no purpose.

The Commandant, Colonel von Roth (the same who was proposed for Breslau lately, a wise head and a stout,

famed in defences) had "poured water on his ramparts," after well repairing them,made his ramparts all ice

and glass;and done much else. Would the reader care to look for a moment? Here, from our waste

"JANUARY, 1741: MONDAY, 9thWEDNESDAY, 11th. Monday, 9th, day when that sputter at Ottmachau

began,Prussian lighttroops appeared transiently on the heights about Neisse, for the first time. Directly on

sight of whom, Commandant Roth assembled the Burghers of the place; took a new Oath of Fidelity from

one and all; admonished them to do their utmost, as they should see him do. The ablebodied and likeliest of

them (say about 400) he has had arranged into Militia Companies, with what drill there could be in the

interim; and since his coming, has employed every moment in making ready. Wednesday, llth, he locks all

the Gates, and stands strictly on his guard. The inhabitants are mostly Catholic; with sumptuous Bishops of

Breslau, with KREUZHERREN (imaginary Teutsch or other Ritters with some reality of money), with Jesuit

Dignitaries, Church and QuasiChurch Officialities, resident among them: population, high and low, is

inclined by creed to the Queen of Hungary. Commandant Roth has only 1,200 regular soldiers; at the outside

1,600 men under arms: but he has gunpowder, he has meal; experience also and courage; and hopes these

may suffice him for a time. One of the most determined Commandants; expert in the defence of strong

places. A born Silesian (not Saxon, as some think),and is of the Augsburg Confession; but that

"THURSDAY, 12th. The Prussians, in regular force, appear on the Kaninchen Berg (Cony Hill, so called

from its rabbits), south of the River, evidently taking post there. Roth fires a signal shot; the Southern

Suburbs of Neisse, as preappointed, go up in flame; crackle high and far; in a lamentable manner

(ERBARMLICH), through the grim winter air." This is the day Friedrich came over to Ottmachau, and

"Next day, and next again, the same phenomena at Neisse; the Prussians edging ever nearer, building their

batteries, preparing to open their cannonade. Whereupon Roth burns the remaining Suburbs, with lamentable

crackle; on all sides now are mere ashes. Bishop's Mill, Franciscan Cloister, Bishop's Pleasuregarden, with

its summerhouses; Bishop's Hospital, and several Churches: Roth can spare none of these things, with the

Prussians nestling there. Surely the Bishop himself, respectable Cardinal Graf von Sinzendorf, had better get

out of these localities while time yet is?" "Saturday, 14th," that was the day Friedrich, at Ottmachau, wrote as

above to Jordan (Letter No. 1), while the Neisse Suburbs crackled lamentably, twelve miles off, "Schwerin

gets order to break up, in person, from Ottmachan tomorrow, and begin actual business on the Kaninchen

"SUNDAY, 15th. Schwerin does; marches across the River; takes post on the south side of Neisse: notable to

the Sunday rustics. Nothing but burnt villages and black walls for Schwerin, in that ConyHill quarter, and

all round; and Roth salutes him with one twentyfour pounder, which did no hurt. And so the cannonade

begins, Sunday, 15th; and intermittently, on both sides of the River, continues, always bursting out again at

intervals, till Wednesday; a mere preliminary cannonade on Schwerin's part; making noise, doing little hurt:

intended more to terrify, but without effect that way on Roth or the Townsfolk. The poor Bishop did, on the

second day of it, come out, and make application to Schwerin; was kindly conducted to his Majesty, who

happened to be over there; was kept to dinner; and easily had leave to retire to Freywalde, a CountryHouse

he has, in the safe distance. [ HeldenGeschichte, i. 683.] There let him be quiet, well out of these confused

"His Majesty's Headquarter is at Ottmachau, but in two hours he can be here any day; and looks into

everything; sorry that the cannonade does not yet answer. And remnants of suburbs are still crackling into

flame; high CountryHouses of Kreuzherren, of Jesuits; a fanatic people seemingly all set against us. 'If

Neisse will not yield of goodwill, needs is it must be beaten to powder,' wrote his Majesty to Jordan in these

circumstances, as we read above. Roth is sorry to observe, the Prussians have still one good

Bishop'smansion, in a place called the Karlau (KarlMeadow), with the Bishop's winter fuel all ready

"WEDNESDAY, 18th. This day two provocations happened. First, in the morning by his Majesty's order,

Colonel Borck (the same we saw at Herstal) had gone with a Trumpeter towards Roth; intending to inform

Roth how mild the terms would be, how terrible the penalty of not accepting them. But Roth or Roth's people

singularly disregard Borck and his Parley Trumpet; answer its blasts by musketry; fire upon it, nay again fire

worse when it advances a step farther; on these terms Borck and Trumpet had to return. Which much angered

his Majesty at Ottmachau that evening; as was natural. Same evening, our fine quarters in the Karlau crackled

up in flame, the Bishop's winter firewood all along with it: this was provocation second. Roth had taken order

with the Karlau; and got a resolute Butcher to do the feat, under pretext of bringing us beef. It is piercing

cold; only blackened walls for us now in the Karlau or elsewhere. His Majesty, naturally much angered,

orders for the morrow a dose of bombshells and redhot balls. Plant a few mortars on the North side too,

"THURSDAY, 19th. Accordingly, by 8 of the clock, cannon batteries reawaken with a mighty noise, and

redhot balls are noticeable; and at 10 the actual bombarding bursts out, terrible to hear and see;first shell

falling in Haubitz the Clothier's shop, but being happily got under. Roth has his City Militia companies,

organized with waterhose for quenching of the redhot balls: in which they became expert. So that though

the fire caught many houses, they always put it out. Late in the night, hearing no word from Roth, the

"FRIDAY, 20th. Still no word; on which, about 4 P.M., the Prussian batteries awaken again: volcanic torrent

of redhot shot and shells, for seven hours; still no word from Roth. About 11 at night his Majesty again

sends a Drum (Parley Trumpet or whatever it is) to the Gate; formally summons Roth; asks him, 'If he has

well considered what this can lead to? Especially what he, Roth, meant by firing on our first Trumpet on

Wednesday last?' Roth answered, 'That as to the Trumpet, he had not heard of it before. On the other hand,

that this mode of sieging by redhot balls seems a little unusual; for the rest, that he has himself no order or

intention but that of resisting to the last.' Some say the Drum hereupon by order talked of 'pounding Neisse

into powder, mere child'splay hitherto;' to which Roth answered only by respectful dumbshow.

"SATURDAY, 21stMONDAY, 23d. Midnight of FridaySaturday, on this answer coming, the

firevolcanoes open again;nine hours long; shells, and redhot material, in terrible abundance. Which hit

mostly the churches, Jesuits' Seminariums and Collegiums; but produced no change in Roth. From 9 A.M. the

batteries are silent. Silent still, next morning: Divine Service may proceed, if it like. But at 4 of the afternoon,

the batteries awaken worse than ever; from seven to nine bombs going at once. Universal rage, of noise and

horrid glare, making night hideous, till 10 of the clock; Roth continuing inflexible. This is the last night of the

Friedrich perceived that Roth would not yield; that the utter smashingdown of Neisse might more concern

Friedrich than Roth; that, in fine, it would be better to desist till the weather altered. Next day, "Monday,

23d, between noon and 1 o'clock," the Prussians drew back;converted the siege into a blockade. Neisse to

be masked, like Brieg and Glogau (Brieg only half done yet, Jeetz without cannon till tomorrow, 24th, and

little Namslau still gesticulating): "The only thing one could try upon it was bombardment. A Nest of Priests

(PFAFFENNEST); not many troops in it: but it cannot well be forced at present. If spring were here, it will

cost a fortnight's work." [FRIEDRICH TO THE OLD DESSAUER: Fraction of Letter (Ottmachau, 16th21st

January, 1741) cited by Orlich, i. 51;from the Dessau Archives, where Herr Orlich has industriously been.

To all but strictly military people these pieces of Letters are the valuable feature of Orlich's Book; and a

general reader laments that it does not all consist of such, properly elucidated and labelled into accessibility.]

A noisy business; "King's high person much exposed: a bombardier and then a sergeant were killed close by

Browne all this while has hung on the Mountainside, witnessing these things; sending stores towards Glatz

southwestward, and "ruining the ways" behind them; waiting what would become of Neisse. Neisse done,

Schwerin is upon him; Browne makes off Southeastward, across the Mountains, for Moravia and home;

Schwerin following hard. At a little place called Gratz, [The name, in old Slavic speech, signifies TOWN;

and there are many GRATZES: KONIGINgratz (QUEEN'S, which for brevity is now generally called

KONIGSgratz, in Bohemia); Gratz in Styria; WINDISCHgratz (Wendishtown); on the Moravian border,

Browne faced round, tried to defend the Bridge of the Oppa, sharply though without effect; and there came

(January 25th) a hot sputter between them for a few minutes:after which Browne vanished into the interior,

and we hear, in these parts, comparatively little more of him during this War. Friend and foe must admit that

he has neglected nothing; and fairly made the best of a bad business here. He is but an interim General, too;

his Successor just coming; and the Vienna Board of War is frequently troublesome,to whose windy

speculations Browne replies with sagacious scepticism, and here and there a touch of veiled sarcasm, which

was not likely to conciliate in high places. Had her Hungarian Majesty been able to retain Browne in his post,

instead of poor Neipperg who was sent instead, there might have been a considerably different account to

give of the sequel. But Neipperg was Tutor (WarTutor) to the GrandDuke; Browne is still of young

standing (age only thirtyfive), with a touch of veiled sarcasm; and things must go their course.

In Schlesien, Schwerin is now to command in chief; the King going off to Berlin for a little, naturally with

plenty of errand there. The Prussian Troops go into Winterquarters; spread themselves wide; beset the good

points, especially the Passes of the Hills, from Jagerndorf, eastward to the Jablunka leading towards

Hungary; nay they can, and before long do, spread into the Moravian Territories, on the other side; and

It was Monday, 23d, when the Siege of Neisse was abandoned: on Wednesday, Friedrich himself turns

homeward; looks into Schweidnitz, looks into Liegnitz; and arrives at Berlin as the week ends,much

acclamation greeting him from the multitude. Except those three masked Fortresses, capable of no defence to

speak of, were Winter over, Silesia is now all Friedrich's,has fallen wholly to him in the space of about

Seven Weeks. The seizure has been easy; but the retaining of it, perhaps he himself begins to see more

clearly, will have difficulties! From this point, the talk about GLOIRE nearly ceases in his Correspondence.

In those seven weeks he has, with GLOIRE or otherwise, cut out for himself such a life of labor as no man of

While Friedrich was so busy in Silesia, the world was not asleep around him; the world never is, though it

often seems to be, round a man and what action he does in it. That Sunday morning, First Day of the Year

1741, in those same hours while Friedrich, with energy, with caution, was edging himself into Breslau, there

went on in the Court of Versailles an interior Phenomenon; of which, having by chance got access to it face

Readers are languidly aware that phenomena do go on round their Friedrich; that their busy Friedrich, with

his few Voltaires and renowned persons, are not the only population of their Century, by any means.

Everybody is aware of that fact; yet, in practice, almost everybody is as good as not aware; and the World all

round one's Hero is a darkness, a dormant vacancy. How strange when, as here, some Wastepaper spill (so

to speak) turns up, which you can KINDLE; and, by the brief flame of it, bid a reader look with his own

eyes!From Herr Doctor Busching, who did the GEOGRAPHY and about a Hundred other Books,a man

of great worth, almost of genius, could he have elaborated his Hundred Books into Ten (or distilled, into

flasks of aquavitae, what otherwise lies tumbling as tanks of mash and wort, now run very sour and

malodorous); it is from Herr Busching that we gain the following rough Piece, illuminative if one can

The TitularHerr Baron Anton von Geusau, a gentleman of good parts, scholastic by profession, and of

Protestant creed, was accompanying as Travelling Tutor, in those years, a young Graf von Reuss. Graf von

Beuss is one of those indistinct Counts Reuss, who always call themselves "Henry;" and, being now at the

eightieth and farther, with uncountable collateral Henrys intertwisted, are become in effect anonymous, or of

nomenclature inscrutable to mankind. Nor is the young one otherwise of the least interest to us;except that

Herr Anton, the Travelling Tutor, punctually kept a Journal of everything. Which Journal, long afterwards,

came into the hands of Busching, also a punctual man; and was by him abridged, and set forth in print in his

Beitrage. Offering at present a singular daguerrotype glimpse of the then actual world, wherever Graf von

Reuss and his Geusau happened to be. Ninetenths of it, even in Busching's Abridgment, are now fallen

useless and wearisome; but to one studying the days that then were, even the effete commonplace of it

occasionally becomes alive again. And how interesting to catch, here and there, a Historical Figure on these

conditions; Historical Figure's very self, in his workday attitude; eating his victuals; writing, receiving

letters, talking to his fellowcreatures; unaware that Posterity, miraculously through some chink of the

Chapter VII. AT VERSAILLES, THE MOST CHRISTIAN MAJESTY CHANGES HIS SHIRT, AND BELLEISLE IS SEEN WITH PAPERS. 618

"SUNDAY, 1st JANUARY, 1741, Geusau and his young Gentleman leave Paris, at 5 in the morning, and

drive out to Versailles; intending to see the ceremonies of Newyear's day there. Very wet weather it had

been, all Wednesday, and for days before; [See in Barbier (ii. 283 et seqq.) what terrible Noahlike weather

it had been; big houses, long in soak, tumbling down at last into the Seine; CHASSE of St. Genevieve

brought out (two days ago), December 30th, to try it by miracle; but on this Sunday, Newyear's morning, all

is ice and glass; and they slid about painfully by lamplight,with unroughened horses, and on the Hilly or

Meudon road, having chosen that as fittest, the waters being out;not arriving at Court till 9. Nor finding

very much to comfort them, except on the side of curiosity, when there. Ushers, INTRODUCTEURS,

Cabinet Secretaries, were indeed assiduous to oblige; and the King's Levee will be: but if you follow it, to the

Chapel Royal to witness high mass, you must kneel at elevation of the host; and this, as reformed Christians,

Reuss and his Tutor cannot undertake to do. They accept a dinner invitation (12 the hour) from some good

Samaritan of Quality; and, for sights, will content themselves with the King's Levee itself, and generally with

what the King's Antechamber and the OEildeBoeuf can exhibit to them. The Most Christian King's Levee

[LEVER, literally here his Getting out of Bed] is a daily miracle of these localities, only grander on

"Till Majesty please to awaken, you saunter in the Salle des Ambassadeurs; whole crowds jostling one

another there; gossiping together in a diligent, insipid manner;" gossip all reported; snatches of which have

acquired a certain flavor by long keeping; which the reader shall imagine. "Meanwhile you keep your eye

on the Grate of the Inner Court, which as yet is only ajar, Majesty inaccessible as yet. Behold, at last, Grate

opens itself wide; sign that Majesty is out of bed; that the privileged of mankind may approach, and see the

"The whole Assemblage passed now into the King's Anteroom; had to wait there about half an hour more,

before the King's bedroom was opened. But then at last, lo you,there is the King, visible to Geusau and

everybody, washing his hands.' Which effected itself in this way: 'The King was seated; a

gentlemaninwaiting knelt, before him, and held the Ewer, a square vessel silvergilt, firm upon the King's

breast; and another gentlemaninwaiting poured water on the King's hands.' Merely an official washing, we

perceive; the real, it is to be hoped, had, in a much more effectual way, been going on during the halfhour

just elapsed. After washing, the King rose for an instant; had his dressinggown, a grand yellow silky article

with silver flowerings, pulled off, and flung round his loins; upon which he sat down again, and," observe

it, ye privileged of mankind,"the Change of Shirt took place! 'They put the clean shirt down over his head,'

says Anton, (and plucked up the dirty one from within, so that of the naked skin you saw little or nothing.'"

"His Majesty now quitted chair and dressinggown; stood up before the fire; and, after getting on the rest of

his clothing, which, on account of Czarina Anne's death [readers remember that], was of violet or mourning

color, he had the powdermantle thrown round him, and sat down at the Toilette to have his hair frizzled. The

Toilette, a table with white cover shoved into the middle of the room, had on it a mirror, a powderknife,

and"no mortal cares what. "The King," what all mortals note, as they do the heavenly omens, "is somewhat

talky; speaks sometimes with the Dutch Ambassador, sometimes with the Pope's Nuncio, who seems a jocose

kind of gentleman; sometimes with different French Lords, and at last with the Cardinal Fleury also,to

whom, however, he does not look particularly gracious,"not particularly this time. These are the omens;

happy who can read them!Majesty then did his morning prayer, assisted only by the common

Almonersinwaiting (Cardinal took no hand, much less any other); Majesty knelt before his bed, and

finished the business 'in less than six seconds.' After which mankind can ebb out to the Anteroom again; pay

their devoir to the Queen's Majesty, which all do; or wait for the Transit to Morning Chapel, and see

Chapter VII. AT VERSAILLES, THE MOST CHRISTIAN MAJESTY CHANGES HIS SHIRT, AND BELLEISLE IS SEEN WITH PAPERS. 619

"Queen's Majesty was already altogether dressed," says Geusau, almost as if with some disappointment; "all

in black; a most affable courteous Majesty; stands conversing with the Russian Ambassador, with the Dutch

ditto, with the Ladies about her, and at last, 'in a friendly and merry tone,' with old Cardinal Fleury. Her

Ladies, when the Queen spoke with them, showed no constraint at all; leant loosely with their arms on the

firescreens, and took things easy. Mesdames of France"Geusau saw Mesdames. Poor little souls, they are

the LOQUE, the COCHON (Rag, Pig, so Papa would call them, dear Papa), who become tragically visible

again in the Revolution time:all blooming young children as yet (Queen's Majesty some thirtyseven

gone), and little dreaming what lies fifty years ahead! King Louis's career of extraneous gallantries, which

ended in the ParcauxCerfs, is now just beginning: think of that too; and of her Majesty's fine behavior

under it; so affable, so patient, silent, now and always!"In a little while, their Majesties go along the Great

Gallery to Chapel;" whither the Protestant mind cannot with comfort accompany. [Busching, Beitrage, ii.

This is the daily miracle done at Versailles to the believing multitude; only that on Newyear's day, and

certain supreme occasions, the shirt is handed by a Prince of the Blood, and the towel for drying the royal

hands by a ditto, with other improvements; and the thing comes out in its highest power of

effulgence,especially if you could see high mass withal. In the Antechamber and (OEildeBoeuf,

Geusau, among hundreds of phenomena fallen dead to us, saw the Four following, which have still some

life: 1. Many Knights of the Holy Ghost (CHEVALIERS DU SAINT ESPRIT) are about; magnificently

piebald people, indistinct to us, and fallen dead to us: but there, among the company, do not we indisputably

see, "in full Cardinal's costume," Fleury the ancient Prime Minister talking to her Majesty? Blandly smiling;

soft as milk, yet with a flavor of alcoholic wit in him here and there. That is a man worth looking at, had they

painted him at all. Red hat, red stockings; a serenely definite old gentleman, with something of prudent

wisdom, and a touch of imperceptible jocosity at times; mildly inexpugnable in manner: this King, whose

Tutor he was twenty years ago, still looks to him as his father; Fleury is the real King of France at present.

His age is eightyseven gone; the King's is thirty (seven years younger than his Queen): and the Cardinal has

red stockings and red hat; veritably there, successively in both Antechambers, seen by Geusau, January 1st,

1741: that is all I know. 2. The Prince de Clermont, a Prince of the Blood, "handed the shirt," TESTE

Geusau. Some other Prince, notable to Geusau, and to us nameless, had the honor of the "towel:" but this

Prince de Clermont, a dissolute fellow of wasted parts, kind of Priest, kind of Soldier too, is seen visibly

handing the shirt there;whom the reader and I, if we cared about it, shall again see, getting beaten by

Prince Ferdinand, at Crefeld, within twenty years hence. These are points first and second, slightly

Of the actual transit to high mass, transit very visible in the Great Gallery or OEildeBoeuf, why should a

human being now say anything? Queen, poor Stanislaus's Daughter, and her Ladies, in their sublime sedans,

one flood of jewels, sail first; next sails King Louis, shirt warm on his back, with "thirtyfour Chevaliers of

the Holy Ghost" escorting; next "the Dauphin" (Boy of eleven, Louis XVI.'s. Father), and "Mesdames of

France, with"but even Geusau stops short. Protestants cannot enter that Chapel, without peril of idolatry;

wherefore Geusau and Pupil kept strolling in the general (OEildeBoeuf,and "the Dutch Ambassador

approved of it," he for one. And here now is another point, slightly noticeable: 3. High mass over, his

Majesty sails back from Chapel, in the same magnificently piebald manner; and vanishes into the interior;

leaving his Knights of the Holy Ghost, and other Courtier multitude, to simmer about, and ebb away as they

found good. Geusau and his young Reuss had now the honor of being introduced to various people; among

others "to the Prince de Soubise." Prince de Soubise: frivolous, insignificant being; of whom I have no

portrait that is not nearly blank, and content to be so;though Herr von Geusau would have one, with

features and costume to it, when he heard of the Beating at Rossbach, long after! Prince de Soubise is pretty

much a blank to everybody:and no sooner are we loose of him, than (what every reader will do well to

note) 4. Our Herren Travellers are introduced to a real Notability: Monseigneur, soon to be Marechal, the

Comte de Belleisle; whom my readers and I are to be much concerned with, in time coming. "A tall lean man

(LANGER HAGERER MANN), without much air of quality," thinks Geusau; but with much swift intellect

Chapter VII. AT VERSAILLES, THE MOST CHRISTIAN MAJESTY CHANGES HIS SHIRT, AND BELLEISLE IS SEEN WITH PAPERS. 620

and energy, and a distinguished character, whatever Geusau might think. "Comte de Belleisle was very civil;

but apologized, in a courtly and kind way, for the hurry he was in; regretting the impossibility of doing the

honors to the Comte de Reuss in this Country,his, Belleisle's, Journey into Germany, which was close at

hand, overwhelming him with occupations and engagements at present. And indeed, even while he spoke to

us," says Geusau, "all manner of Papers were put into his hand." [Busching, ii. 79; see Barbier, ii. 282, 287.]

"Journey to Germany, Papers put into his hand:" there is perhaps no Human Figure in the world, this Sunday

(except the one Figure now in those same moments over at Breslau, gently pressing upon the locked Gates

there), who is so momentous for our Silesian Operations; and indeed he will kindle all Europe into delirium;

and produce mere thunder and lightning, for seven years to come, with almost no result in it, except

Silesia! A tall lean man; there stands he, age now fiftysix, just about setting out on such errand. Whom one

Charles Louis Auguste Fouquet, Comte de Belleisle, is Grandson of that Intendant Fouquet, sumptuous

Financier, whom Louis XIV. at last threw out, and locked into the Fortress of Pignerol, amid the Savoy Alps,

there to meditate for life, which lasted thirty years longer. It was never understood that the sumptuous

Fouquet had altogether stolen public moneys, nor indeed rightly what he had done to merit Pignerol; and

always, though fallen somehow into such dire disfavor, he was pitied and respected by a good portion of the

public. "Has angered Colbert," said the public; "dangerous rivalry to Colbert; that is what has brought

Pignerol upon him." Out of Pignerol that Fouquet never came; but his Family bloomed up into light again;

had its adventures, sometimes its troubles, in the Regency time, but was always in a rising way:and here,

in this tall lean man getting papers put into his hand, it has risen very high indeed. Going as Ambassador

Extraordinary to the Germanic Diet, "to assist good neighbors, as a neighbor and Most Christian Majesty

should, in choosing their new Kaiser to the best advantage:" that is the official color his mission is to have.

Surely a proud mission;and Belleisle intends to execute it in a way that will surprise the Germanic Diet

and mankind. Privately, Belleisle intends that he, by his own industries, shall himself choose the right Kaiser,

such Kaiser as will suit the Most Christian Majesty and him; he intends to make a new French thing of

Germany in general; and carries in his head plans of an amazing nature! He and a Brother he has, called the

Chevalier de Belleisle, who is also a distinguished man, and seconds M. le Comte with eloquent fire and zeal

in all things, are grandsons of that old Fouquet, and the most shining men in France at present. France little

dreams how much better it perhaps were, had they also been kept safe in Pignerol!

The Count, lean and growing old, is not healthy; is ever and anon tormented, and laid up for weeks, with

rheumatisms, gouts and ailments: but otherwise he is still a swift ardent elastic spirit; with grand schemes,

with fiery notions and convictions, which captivate and hurry off men's minds more than eloquence could, so

intensely true are they to the Count himself;and then his Brother the Chevalier is always there to put them

into the due language and logic, where needed. [Voltaire, xxviii. 74; xxix. 392; A magnanimous highflown

spirit; thought to be of supreme skill both in War and in Diplomacy; fit for many things; and is still full of

ambition to distinguish himself, and tell the world at all moments, "ME VOILA; World, I too am

here!"His plans, just now, which are dim even to himself, except on the hither skirt of them, stretch out

immeasurable, and lie piled up high as the skies. The hither skirt of them, which will suffice the reader at

That your GrandDuke Franz, Maria Theresa's Husband, shall in no wise, as the world and Duke Franz

expect, be the Kaiser chosen. Not he, but another who will suit France better: "KurSachsen perhaps, the

socalled King of Poland? Or say it were Karl Albert KurBaiern, the hereditary friend and dependent of

France? We are not tied to a man: only, at any and at all rates, not GrandDuke Franz." This is the grand,

essential and indispensable point, alpha and omega of points; very clear this one to Belleisle,and towards

this the first steps, if as yet only the first, are also clear to him. Namely that "the 27th of February

Chapter VII. AT VERSAILLES, THE MOST CHRISTIAN MAJESTY CHANGES HIS SHIRT, AND BELLEISLE IS SEEN WITH PAPERS. 621

next",which is the time set by KurMainz and the native Officials for the actual meeting of their Reichstag

to begin Election Business, will be too early a time; and must be got postponed. [Adelung, ii. 185 ("27th

February 1st March, 1741, at FrankfurtonMayn," appointed by KurMainz "ArchChancellor of the

REICH," under date November 3d, 1740); ib. 236 ("Delay for a month or two," suggests KurPfalz, on

January 12th, seconded by others in the French interest); upon which the appointment, after some arguing,

collapsed into the vague, and there ensued delay enough; actual Election not till January 24th, 1742.]

Postponed; which will be possible, perhaps for long; one knows not for how long: that is a first step definitely

clear to Belleisle. Towards which, as preliminary to it and to all the others in a dimmer state, there is a second

thing clear, and has even been officially settled (all but the day): That, in the mean while, and surely the

sooner the better, he, Belleisle, Most Christian Majesty's Ambassador Extraordinary to the Reichstag

coming,do, in his most dazzling and persuasive manner, make a Tour among German Courts. Let us visit,

in our highest and yet in our softest splendor, the accessible German Courts, especially the likely or

welldisposed: Mainz, Koln, Trier, these, the three called Spiritual, lie on our very route; then Pfalz, Baiern,

Sachsen:we will tour diligently up and down; try whether, by optic machinery and artmagic of the mind,

In all these preliminary steps and points, and even in that alpha and omega of excluding GrandDuke Franz,

and getting a Kaiser of his own, Belleisle succeeded. With painful results to himself and to millions of his

fellowcreatures, to readers of this History, among others. And became in consequence the most famous of

mankind; and filled the whole world with rumor of Belleisle, in those years.A man of such intrinsic

distinction as Belleisle, whom Friedrich afterwards deliberately called a great Captain, and the only

Frenchman with a genius for war; and who, for some time, played in Europe at large a part like that of

Warwick the Kingmaker: how has he fallen into such oblivion? Many of my readers never heard of him

before; nor, in writing or otherwise, is there symptom that any living memory now harbors him, or has the

least approach to an image of him! "For the times are babbly," says Goethe," And then again the times are

Alas, if a man sow only chaff, in never so sublime a manner, with the whole Earth and the longeared

populations looking on, and chorally singing approval, rendering night hideous,it will avail him nothing.

And that, to a lamentable extent, was Belleisle's case. His scheme of action was in most felicitously just

accordance with the national sense of France, but by no means so with the Laws of Nature and of Fact; his

aim, grandiose, patriotic, what you will, was unluckily false and not true. How could "the times" continue

talking of him? They found they had already talked too much. Not to say that the French Revolution has since

come; and has blown all that into the air, miles aloft,where even the solid part of it, which must be

recovered one day, much more the gaseous, which we trust is forever irrecoverable, now wanders and whirls;

For my own share, being, as it were, forced accidentally to look at him again, I find in Belleisle a really

notable man; far superior to the vulgar of noted men, in his time or ours. Sad destiny for such a man! But

when the general Lifeelement becomes so unspeakably phantasmal as under Louis XV., it is difficult for

any man to be real; to be other than a playactor, more or less eminent,and artistically dressed. Sad enough,

surely, when the truth of your relation to the Universe, and the tragically earnest meaning of your Life, is

quite lied out of you, by a world sunk in lies; and you can, with effort, attain to nothing but to be a more or

less splendid lie along with it! Your very existence all become a vesture, a hypocrisy, and hearsay; nothing

left of you but this sad faculty of sowing chaff in the fashionable manner! After Friedrich and Voltaire, in

both of whom, under the given circumstances, one finds a perennial reality, more or less, Belleisle is next;

Chapter VII. AT VERSAILLES, THE MOST CHRISTIAN MAJESTY CHANGES HIS SHIRT, AND BELLEISLE IS SEEN WITH PAPERS. 622

Beyond doubt, there are in this man the biggest projects any French head has carried, since Louis XIV. with

his sublime periwig first took to striking the stars. How the indolent Louis XV. and the pacific Fleury have

been got into this sublimely adventurous mood? By Belleisle chiefly, men say;and by King Louis's first

Mistresses, blown upon by Belleisle; poor Louis having now, at length, left his poor Queen to her reflections,

and taken into that sad line, in which by degrees he carried it so far. There are three of them, it seems;the

first female souls that could ever manage to kindle, into flame or into smoke: in this or any other kind, that

poor torpid male soul: those Mailly Sisters, three in number (I am shocked to hear), successive, nay in part

simultaneous! They are proud women, especially the two younger; with ambition in them, with a bravura

magnanimity, of the theatrical or operatic kind; of whom Louis is very fond. "To raise France to its place,

your Majesty; the top of the Universe, namely!" "Well; if it could be done,and quite without trouble?"

thinks Louis. Bravura magnanimity, blown upon by Belleisle, prevails among these high Improper Females,

and generally in the Younger Circles of the Court; so that poor old Fleury has had no choice but to obey it or

retire. And so Belleisle stalks across the OEildeBoeuf in that important manner, visibly to Geusau; and is

A few weeks hence, he is farthera little out of the common turn, but not beyond his military merits or

capabilitiesmade Marechal de France; [ Fastes de Louis XV., i. 356 (12th February, 1741).] by way of

giving him a new splendor in the German Political World, and assisting in his operations there, which depend

much upon the laws of vision. French epigrams circulate in consequence, and there are witty criticisms; to

which Belleisle, such a dusky world of Possibility lying ahead, is grandly indifferent. Marechal de

France;and Geusau hears (what is a fact) that there are to be "thirty young French Lords in his suite;" his

very "Livery," or mere plush retinue, "to consist of 110 persons;" such an outfit for magnificence as was

never seen before. And in this equipment, "early in March" (exact day not given), magnificence of outside

corresponding to grandiosity of faculty and idea, Belleisle, we shall find, does practically set off towards

Germany;like a kind of French Belus, or God of the Sun; capable to dazzle weak German Courts, by

"There are curious daguerrotype glimpses of old Paris to be found in that Notebook of Geusau's", says

another Excerpt; "which come strangely home to us, like reality at firsthand;and a rather unexpected

Paris it is, to most readers; many things then alive there, which are now deep underground. Much Jansenist

Theology afloat; grand French Ladies piously eager to convert a young Protestant Nobleman like Reuss;

sublime Dorcases, who do not rouge, or dress high, but eschew the evil world, and are thrifty for the Poor's

sake, redeeming the time. There is a Cardinal de Polignac, venerable sage and expolitical person, of

astonishing erudition, collector of Antiques (with whom we dined); there is the Chevalier Ramsay,

theological Scotch Jacobite, late Tutor of the young Turenne. So many shining persons, now fallen indistinct

again. And then, besides gossip, which is of mild quality and in fair proportion,what talk, casuistic and

other, about the Moral Duties, the still feasible Pieties, the Constitution Unigenitus! All this alive, resonant at

dinnertables of Conservative stamp; the Miracles of Abbe Paris much a topic there:and not a whisper of

Infidel Philosophies; the very name of Voltaire not once mentioned in the Reuss section of Parisian things.

"There is rumor now and then of a 'Comte de Rothenbourg,' conspicuous in the Parisian circles; a shining

military man, but seemingly in want of employment; who has lost in gambling, within the last four years,

upwards of 50,000 pounds (1,300,000 livres, the exact cipher given). This is the Graf von Rothenburg whom

Friedrich made acquaintance with, in the Rhine Campaign six years ago, and has ever since had in his

eye;whom, in a few weeks hence, Friedrich beckons over to him into the Prussian States: 'Hither, and you

shall have work!' Which Rothenburg accepts; with manifold advantage to both parties:one of Friedrich's

"Of Cardinal Polignac there is much said, and several dinners with him are transacted, dialogue partly given:

a pious wise old gentleman really, in his kind (age now eightyfour); looking mildly forth upon a world just

about to overset itself and go topsyturvy, as he sees it will. His ANTILUCRETIUS was once such a

Chapter VII. AT VERSAILLES, THE MOST CHRISTIAN MAJESTY CHANGES HIS SHIRT, AND BELLEISLE IS SEEN WITH PAPERS. 623

Poem!but we mention him here because his fine Cabinet of Antiques came to Berlin on his death,

Friedrich purchasing; and one often hears of it (if one cared to hear) from the Prussian Dryasdust in

subsequent years. [Came to Charlottenburg, August, 1742 (old Polignac had died November last, ten months

after those Geusau times): cost of the Polignac Cabinet was 40,000 thalers (6,000 pounds) say some, 90,000

livres (under 4,000 pounds) say others; cheap at either price; and, by chance, came opportunely, "a fire

having just burnt down the Academy Edifice," and destroyed much ware of that kind. Rodenbeck, i. 73;

"Of Friedrich's unexpected Invasion of Silesia there are also talkings and surmisings, but in a mild indifferent

tone, and much in the vague. And in the bestinformed circles it is thought Belleisle will manage to HAVE

GrandDuke Franz, the Queen of Hungary's Husband, chosen Kaiser, and, in some mild good way, put an

I know not whether Major Winterfeld, who was sent to Petersburg in December last, had got back to Berlin in

February, now while Friedrich is there: but for certain the good news of him had, That he had been

completely successful, and was coming speedily, to resume his soldier duties in right time. As Winterfeld is

an important man (nearly buried into darkness in the dull Prussian Books), let us pause for a moment on this

Negotiation of his;and on the mad Russian vicissitudes which preceded and followed, so far as they

concern us. Russia, a big demisavage neighbor next door, with such caprices, such humors and interests, is

always an important, rather delicate object to Friedrich; and Fortune's mad wheel is plunging and canting in a

strange headlong way there, of late. Czarina Anne, we know, is dead; the Autocrat of All the Russias

following the Kaiser of the Romans within eight days. Iwan, her little Nephew, still in swaddlingclothes, is

now Autocrat of All the Russias if he knew it, poor little redcolored creature; and Anton Ulrich and his

Mecklenburg Russian Princess But let us take up the matter where our Notebooks left it, in Friedrich

"Czarina Anne with the big cheek," continues that Notebook, [Supra, p. 129.] "was extremely delighted to see

little Iwan; but enjoyed him only two months; being herself in dying circumstances. She appointed little Iwan

her Successor, his Mother and Father to be Guardians over him; but one Bieren (who writes himself Biron,

and "Duke of Courland,' being Czarina's QuasiHusband these many years) to be Guardian, as it were, over

both them and him. Such had been the truculent insatiable Bieren's demand on his Czarina. 'You are running

"Czarina Anne died 28th October, 1740; leaving a Czar in his cradle; little Czar Iwan of two months, with

Mother and Father to preside over him, and to be themselves presided over by Bieren, in this manner.

[Mannstein, pp. 264267 (28th October, by Russian or Old Style, is "17th;" we TRANSLATE, in this and

other cases, Russian or English, into New Style, unless the contrary is indicated). This was the first great

change for Anton Ulrich; but others greater are coming. Little Anton, readers know, is Friedrich's

Brotherinlaw, much patronized by Austria; Anton's spouse is the HalfRussian Princess Catherine of

Mecklenburg (now wholly Russian, and called Princess Anne), whom Friedrich at one time thought of

applying for, in his distress about a Wife. These two, will they side with Prussia, will they side with Austria?

It was hardly worth inquiry, had not Fortune's wheel made suddenly a great cant, and pitched them to the top,

"Bieren lasted only twenty days. He was very high and arbitrary upon everybody; Anne and Anton Ulrich

suffering naturally most from him. They took counsel with Feldmarschall Munnich on the matter; who, after

study, declared it a remediable case. Friday, 18th November, Munnich had, by invitation, to dine with Duke

Bieren; Munnich went accordingly that day, and dined; Duke looking a little flurried, they say: and the same

evening, dinner being quite over, and midnight come, Munnich had his measures all taken, soldiers ready,

warrant in hand;and arrested Bieren in his bed; mere Siberia, before sunrise, looming upon Bieren. Never

was such a change as this from 18th day to 19th with a supreme Bieren. Our friend Mannstein, excellent

punctual AidedeCamp of Munnich, was the executor of the feat; and has left punctual record of it, as he

does of everything,what Bieren said, and what Madam Bieren, who was a little obstreperous on the

occasion. [Mannstein, p. 268.] What side Anton Ulrich and Spouse will take in a quarrel between Prussia and

"Anton Ulrich and Wife Anne, that is to say, 'Regent Anne' and 'Generalissimo Anton Ulrich,' now ruled,

with Munnich for right hand man; and these were high times for Anton Ulrich, Generalissimo and

Czar'sFather; who indeed was modest, and did not often interfere in words, though grieved at the foolish

ways his Wife had. An indolent flabby kind of creature, she, unfit for an Autocrat; sat in her private

apartments, all in a huddle of undress; had foolish notions,especially had soubrettes who led her about by

the ear. And then there was a 'Princess Elizabeth,' Cousingerman of Regent Anne,daughter, that is to say,

last child there now was, of Peter the Great and his little brown Catherine: who should have been better

seen to. Harmless foolish Princess, not without cunning; young, plump, and following merely her flirtations

and her orthodox devotions; very orthodox and soft, but capable of becoming dangerous, as a centre of the

disaffected. As 'Czarina Elizabeth' before long, and ultimately as 'INFAME CATIN DU NORD, she" But

It was in this posture of affairs, about a month after it had begun, that Winterfeld arrived in Petersburg; and

addressed himself to Munnich, on the Prussian errand. Winterfeld was Munnich's Son inlaw (properly

stepsoninlaw, having married Munnich's stepdaughter, a Fraulein von Malzahn, of good Prussian kin); was

acquainted with the latitudes and longitudes here, and well equipped for the operation in hand. To Madam

Munnich, once Madam Malzahn, his Motherinlaw, he carried a diamond ring of 1,200 pounds, "small

testimony of his Prussian Majesty's regard to so high a Prussian Lady;" to Munnich's Son and Madam's a

present of 3,000 pounds on the like score: and the wheels being oiled in this way, and the steam so strong

(son Winterfeld an ardent man, father Munnich the like, supreme in Russia, and the thing itself a salutary

thing), the diplomatic speed obtained was great. Winterfeld had arrived in Petersburg December 19th: Treaty

of Alliance to the effect, "Firm friends and good neighbors, we Two, Majesties of Prussia and of All the

Russias; will help each the other, if attacked, with 12,000 men,"was signed on the 27th: whole

Transaction, so important to Friedrich, complete in eight days. Austrian Botta, directly on the heel of those

unsatisfactory Dialogues about Silesian roads, about troops that were pretty, but had never looked the wolf in

the face,had rushed off, full speed, for Petersburg, in hopes of running athwart such a Treaty as

Winterfeld's, and getting one for Austria instead. But he arrived too late; and perhaps could have done

nothing had he been in time. Botta tried his utmost for years afterwards, above ground and below, to obstruct

and reverse this thing; but it was to no purpose, and even to less; and only, in result, brought Botta himself

into flagrant diplomatic trouble and scandal; which made noise enough in the then Gazetteer world, and was

the finale of Botta's Russian efforts, [Adelung, iii. ii. 289; Mannstein, p. 375 ("Lapuschin Plot," of Botta's

raising, found out "August, 1743;" Botta put in arrest, though not worth mentioning now. The Russian

"Munnich, supreme in Russia since Bieren's removal, had wise counsels for the Regent Anne and her

Husband; though perhaps, being a high old military gentleman, he might be somewhat abrupt in his ways.

And there were domestic Ostermanns, foreign Bottas, La Chetardies, and dangerous Intriguers and

Opposition figures, to improve any grudge that might arise. Sure enough, in March, 1741, Feldmarschall

Munnich was forbid the Court (some Ostermann succeeding him there): 'Ever true to your Two Highnesses,

though no longer needed;'and withdrew, in a lofty friendly strain; his Son continuing at Court, though Papa

had withdrawn. Supreme Munnich had lasted about four months; Supreme Bieren hardly three weeks;and

"Munnich being gone to his own TownMansion, and Regent Anne sitting in hers in a huddle of undress;

little accessible to her longheaded melancholic Ostermann, and too accessible to her Livonian maid: with

poor little Anton Ulrich pouting and remonstrating, but unable to help,this state of matters, with such

intrigues undermining it, could not last forever. And had not Princess Elizabeth been of indolent luxurious

nature, intent upon her prayers and flirtations, it would have ended sooner even than it did. Princess Elizabeth

had a Surgeon called L'Estoc; a Marquis de la Chetardie, a highflown French Excellency (who used to be at

Berlin, to our young Friedrich's delight), was herWhat shall I say? La Chetardie himself had no scruple to

say it! These two plotted for her; these were ready,could she have been got ready; which was not so easy.

Regent Anne had her suspicions; but the Princess was so indolent, so good: at last, when directly taxed with

such a thing, the Princess burst into ingenuous weeping; quite disarmed Regent Anne's suspicions;but

found she had now better take L'Estoc's advice, and proceed at once. Which she did.

"And so, on the morrow morning, 5th December, 1741, by aid of the Preobrazinsky Regiment, and the

motions usual on such occasions, in fact by merely pulling out the props from an undermined state of

matters,she reduced said state gently to ruin, ready for carting to Siberia, like its foregoers; and was hereby

Czarina of All the Russias, prosperously enough for the rest of her life. Twenty years or rather more. An

indolent, orthodox, plump creature, disinclined to cruelty; 'not an ounce of nun's flesh in her composition,'

said the wits. She maintained the Friedrich Treaty, indignant at Botta and his plots; was well with Friedrich,

or might have been kept so by management, for there was no cause of quarrel, but the reverse, between the

Countries,could Friedrich have held his witty tongue, when eavesdroppers were by. But he could not

always; though he tried. And sarcastic quizzing (especially if it be truth too), on certain female topics, what

Improper Female, Czarina of All the Russias, could stand it? The history is but a distressing one, a disgusting

one, in human affairs. Elizabeth was orthodox, too, and Friedricb not, 'the horrid man!' The fact is,fact

dismally indubitable, though it is huddled into discreet dimness, and all details of it (as to what Friedrich's

witticisms were, and the like) are refused us in the Prussian Books,indignation, owing to such dismal

cause, became fixed hate on the Czarina's part, and there followed terrible results at last: A Czarina risen to

the cannibal pitch upon a man, in his extreme need;'INFAME CATIN DU NORD,' thinks the man!

Friedrich's wit cost him dear; him, and half a million others still dearer, twenty years hence."Till which

Major von Winterfeld had been in Russia before this; and had wooed his fair Malzahn there. He is the same

Winterfeld whom we once saw dining by the wayside with the late Friedrich Wilhelm, on that last

ReviewJourney his Majesty made. A Captain in the Potsdam Giants at that time; always in great favor with

the late King; and in still greater with the present,who finds in him, we can dimly discover, and pretty

much in him alone, a soul somewhat like his own; the one real "peer" he had about him. A man of little

education; bred in camps; yet of a proud natural eminency, and rugged nobleness of genius and mind. Let

readers mark this fiery herospirit, lying buried in those dull Books, like lightning among clay. Here is

"Winterfeld had gone, in Friedrich Wilhelm's time, with a party of Prussian drillsergeants for Petersburg

[year not given]; and duly delivered them there. He naturally saw much of Feldmarschall Munnich, naturally

saw the Stepdaughter of the Feldmarschall, a shining beauty in Petersburg; Winterfeld himself a man of

shining gifts, and character; and one of the handsomest tall men in the world. Mutual love between the

Fraulein and him was the rapid result. But how to obtain marriage? Winterfeld cannot marry, without leave

had of his superiors: you, fair Malzahn, are HofDame of Princess Elizabeth, all your fortune the jewels you

"They agreed to be patient, to be silent; to watch warily till Winterfeld got home to Prussia, till the Fraulein

also contrive to get home. Winterfeld once home, and the King's consent had, the Fraulein applied to Princess

Elizabeth for leave of absence: 'A few months, to see my friends in Deutschland, your Highness!' Princess

Elizabeth looked hard at her; answered evasively this and that. At last, being often importuned, she answered

plainly, 'I almost feel convinced thou wilt never come back!' Protestations from the Fraulein were not

wanting: 'Well then,' said Elizabeth, 'if thou art so sure of it, leave me thy jewels in pledge. Why not?' The

poor Fraulein could not say why; had to leave her jewels, which were her whole fine fortune, 'worth 100,000

rubles' (20,000 pounds); and is now the brave Wife of Winterfeld;but could never, by direct entreaty or

circuitous interest and negotiation, get back the least item of her jewels. Elizabeth, as Princess and as Czarina,

was alike deaf on that subject. Now or henceforth that proved an impossible private enterprise for Winterfeld,

though he had so easily succeeded in the public one." [Retzow, Charakteristik des siebenjahrigen Krieges

The new Czarina was not unmerciful. Munnich and Company were tried for life; were condemned to die, and

did appear on the scaffold (29th January, 1742), ready for that extreme penalty; but were there, on the

sudden, pardoned or halfpardoned by a merciful new Czarina, and sent to Siberia and outer darkness.

Whither Bieren had preceded them. To outer darkness also, though a milder destiny had been intended them

at first, went Anton Ulrich and his Household. Towards native Germany at first; they had got as far as Riga

on the way to Germany, but were detained there, for a long while (owing to suspicions, to Botta Plots, or I

know not what), till finally they were recalled into Russian exile. Strict enough exile, seclusion about

Archangel and elsewhere; in convents, in obscure uncomfortable places:little Iwan, after vicissitudes, even

went underground; grew to manhood, and got killed (partly by accident, not quite by murder), some

twentythree years hence, in his dungeon in the Fortress of Schlusselburg, below the level of the Ladoga

waters there. Unluckier Household, which once seemed the luckiest of the world, was never known. Canted

suddenly, in this way, from the very top of Fortune's wheel to the very bottom; never to rise more;and did

not even die, at least not all die, for thirty or forty years after. [Anton Ulrich, not till 15th May, 1775 (two

Daughters of his went, after this, to "Horstens, a poor Country House in Jutland," whither Catherine II. had

manumitted them, with pension;she had wished Anton Ulrich to go home, many years before; but he

would not, from shame).Iwan had perished 5th August, 1764 (Catherine II. blamed for his death, but

without cause); Iwan's Mother, Princess Anne, (mercifully) 18th March, 1746. See Russian Histories,

TOOKE, CASTERA, of which, except MANNSTEIN, is good for much, or to be trusted without scrutiny.]

This is the ChetardieL'Estoc conspiracy, of 5th December, 1741; the pitching up of Princess Elizabeth, and

the pitching down of Anton Ulrich and his Munnichs, who had before pitched Bieren down. After which,

matters remained more stationary at Petersburg: Czarina Elizabeth, fat indolent soul, floated with a certain

native buoyancy, with something of bulky steadiness, in the turbid plunge of things, and did not sink. On the

contrary, her reign, so called, was prosperous, though stupid; her big dark Countries, kindled already into

growth, went on growing rather. And, for certain, she herself went on growing, in orthodox devotions of

spiritual type (and in strangely heterodox ditto of NONspiritual!); in indolent mansuetudes (fell rages, if you

cut on the RAWS at all!); in perpetual incongruity; and, alas, at last, in brandyandwater, till, as

At her accession, and for two years following, Czarina Elizabeth, in spite of real disinclination that way, had

a War on her hands: the Swedish War (August, 1741August, 1743), which, after long threatening on the

Swedish side, had broken out into unwelcome actuality, in Anton Ulrich's time; and which could not, with all

the Czarina's industry, be got rid of or staved off; Sweden being bent upon the thing, reason or no reason.

War not to be spoken of, except on compulsion, in the most voluminous History! It was the unwisest of wars,

we should say, and in practice probably the contemptiblest; if there were not one other Swedish War coming,

which vies with it in these particulars, of which we shall be obliged to speak, more or less, at a future stage.

Of this present RussianSwedish war, having happily almost nothing to do with it, we can, except in the way

Poor Sweden, since it shot Karl XII. in the trenches at Fredericshall, could not get a King again; and is very

anarchic under its Phantasm King and free National Palaver,Senate with subaltern Houses;which

generally has French gold in its pocket, and noise instead of wisdom in its head. Scandalous to think of or

behold. The French, desirous to keep Russia in play during these high Belleisle adventures now on foot, had,

after much egging, bribing, flattering, persuaded vain Sweden into this War with Russia. "At Narva they were

80,000, we 8,000; and what became of them!" cry the Swedes always. Yes, my friends, but you had a Captain

at Narva; you had not yet shot your Captain when you did Narva! "Faction of Hats," "Faction of Caps" (that

is, NIGHTcaps, as being somnolent and disinclined to France and War): seldom did a oncevaliant

farshining Nation sink to such depths, since they shot their Captain, and said to Anarchy, "THOU art

Captaincy, we see, and the Divine thing!" Of the Wars and businesses of such a set of mortals let us shun

Mannstein gives impartial account, pleasantly clear and compact, to such as may be curious about this

SwedishRussian War; and, in the didactic point of view, it is not without value. To us the interesting

circumstance is, that it does not interfere with our Silesian operations at all; and may be figured as a mere

accompaniment of rumbling discord, or vacant faroff noise, going on in those Northern parts,to which

therefore we hope to be strangers in time coming. Here are some dates, which the reader may take with him,

"AUGUST 4th, 1741. The Swedes declare War: 'Will recover their lost portions of Finland, will,' They had

long been meditating it; they had Turk negotiations going on, diligent emissaries to the Turk (a certain Major

Sinclair for one, whom the Russians waylaid and assassinated to get sight of his Papers) during the late Turk

Russian War; but could conclude nothing while that was in activity; concluded only after that was

done,striking the iron when grown COLD. A chief point in their Manifesto was the assassination of this

Sinclair; scandal and atrocity, of which there is no doubt now the Russians were guilty. Various pretexts for

the War:prime movers to it, practically, were the French, intent on keeping Russia employed while their

Belleisle German adventure went on, and who had even bargained with third parties to get up a War there, as

"SEPTEMBER 3d, 1741. At Wilmanstrand,key of Wyborg, their frontier stronghold in Finland, which was

under Siege,the Swedes (about 5,000 of them, for they had nothing to live upon, and lay scattered about in

fractions) made fight, or skirmish, against a Russian attacking party: Swedes, rather victorious on their hill

top, rushed down; and totally lost their bit of victory, their Wilmanstrand, their Wyborg, and even the War

itself;for this was, in literal truth, the only fighting done by them in the entire course of it, which lasted

near two years more. The rest of it was retreat, capitulation, loss on loss without stroke struck; till they had

lost all Finland, and were like to lose Sweden itself, Dalecarlian mutiny bursting out ('Ye traitors,

misgovernors, worthy of death!'), with invasive Danes to rear of it;and had to call in the very Russians to

save them from worse. Czarina Elizabeth at the time of her accession, six months after Wilmanstrand, had

made truce, was eager to make peace: 'By no means!' answered Sweden, taking arms again, or rather taking

"JUNE 28th, 1743. They did halt; made Peace of Abo (Truce and Preliminaries signed there, that day: Peace

itself, August 17th); Czarina magnanimously restoring most of their Finland (thinking to herself, 'Not done

enough for me yet; cook it a little yet!'); and settling who their next King was to be, among other friendly

things. And in November following, Keith, in his Russian galleys, with some 10,000 Russians on board,

arrived in Stockholm; protective against Danes and mutinous Dalecarles: stayed there till June of next year,

1744." [Adelung, ii. 445. Mannstein, pp. 297 (Wilmanstrand Affair, himself present), 365 (Peace), 373

(Keith's RETURN with his galleys). Comte de Hordt (present also, on the Swedish side, and subsequently a

Soldier of Friedrich's) Memoires) (Berlin, 1789), i. 1888. The murder of Sinclair (done by "four Russian

subalterns, two miles from Naumberg in Silesia, 17th June, 1739, about 7 P.M.") is amply detailed from

Documents, in a late Book: Weber, Aus Vier Jahrhunderten (Leipzig, 1858), i. 274279.] Is not this a War!

On the Russian side, General Keith, under Fieldmarshal Lacy as chief in command (the same Keith whom

we saw at Oczakow under Munnich, some time ago), had a great deal of the work and management; which

was of a highly miscellaneous kind, commanding fleets of gunboats, and much else; and readers of

MANNSTEIN can still judge,much more could King Friedrich, earnestly watching the affair itself as it

went on,whether Keith did not do it in a solid and quietly eminent and valiant manner. Sagacious, skilful,

imperturbable, without fear and without noise; a man quietly ever ready. He had quelled, once, walking direct

into the heart of it, a ferocious Russian mutiny, or uproar from below, which would have ruined everything in

few minutes more. [Mannstein, p. 130 (no date, AprilMay, 1742.) He suffered, with excellent silence, now

and afterwards, much illusage from above withal;till Friedrich himself, in the third year hence, was lucky

enough to get him as General. Friedrich's Sister Ulrique, the marriage of Princess Ulrique,that also, as it

Friedrich stayed only three weeks at home; moving about, from Berlin to Potsdam, to Reinsberg and back: all

the gay world is in Berlin, at this Carnival time; but Friedrich has more to do with business, of a manifold and

overearnest nature, than with Carnival gayeties. French Valori is here, "my fat Valori," who is beginning to

be rather a favorite of Friedrich's: with Excellency Valori, and with the other Foreign Excellencies, there was

diplomatic passaging in these weeks; and we gather from Valori, in the inverse way (Valori fallen sulky), that

it was not ill done on Friedrich's part. He had some private consultation with the Old Dessauer, too;

"probably on military points," thinks Valori. At least there was noticed more of the drillsergeant than before,

in his handling of the Army, when he returned to Silesia, continues the sulky one. "Troops and generals did

not know him again,"so excessively strict was he grown, on the sudden. And truly "he got into details

which were beneath, not only a Prince who has great views, but even a simple Captain of

Infantry,"according to my (Valori's) military notions and experiences! [Valori, i. 99.]

The truth is, Friedrich begins to see, more clearly than he did with GLOIRE dazzling him, that his position is

an exceedingly grave one, full of risk, in the then mood and condition of the world; that he, in the whole

world, has no sure friend but his Army; and that in regard to IT he cannot be too vigilant! The world is

ominous to this youngest of the Kings more than to another. Sounds as of general Political Earthquake

grumble audibly to him from the deeps: all Europe likely, in any event, to get to loggerheads on this Austrian

Pragmatic matter; the Nations all watching HIM, to see what he will make of it:fugleman he to the

European Nations, just about bursting up on such an adventure. It may be a glorious position, or a not

Fuglemen the world and its Nations always have, when simultaneously bent anywhither, wisely or

unwisely; and it is natural that the most adventurous spirit take that post. Friedrich has not sought the post;

but following his own objects, has got it; and will be ignominiously lost, and trampled to annihilation under

the hoofs of the world, if he do not mind! To keep well ahead;to be rapid as possible; that were good:to

step aside were still better! And Friedrich we find is very anxious for that; "would be content with the Duchy

of Glogau, and join Austria;" but there is not the least chance that way. His Special Envoy to Vienna, Gotter,

and along with him Borck the regular Minister, are come home; all negotiation hopeless at Vienna; and

nothing but indignant war preparation going on there, with the most animated diligence, and more success

than had seemed possible. That is the law of Friedrich's Silesian Adventure: "Forward, therefore, on these

terms; others there are not: waste no words!" Friedrich recognizes to himself what the law is; pushes stiffly

forward, with a fine silence on all that is not practical, really with a fine steadiness of hope, and audacity

against discouragements. Of his anxieties, which could not well be wanting, but which it is royal to keep

strictly under lock and key, of these there is no hint to Jordan or to anybody; and only through accidental

chinks, on close scrutiny, can we discover that they exist. Symptom of despondency, of misgiving or

repenting about his Enterprise, there is none anywhere, Friedrich's fine gifts of SILENCE (which go deeper

than the lips) are noticeable here, as always; and highly they availed Friedrich in leading his life, though now

It was not on matters of drill, as Valori supposes, that Friedrich had been consulting with the Old Dessauer:

this time it was on another matter. Friedrich has two next Neighbors greatly interested, none more so, in the

Pragmatic Question: KurSachsen, Polish King, a foolish greedy creature, who is extremely uncertain about

his course in it (and indeed always continued so, now against Friedrich, now for him, and again against); and

KurHanover, our little George of England, whose course is certain as that of the very stars, and direct

against Friedrich at this time, as indeed, at all times not exceptional, it is apt to be. Both these Potentates must

be attended to, in one's absence; method to be gentle but effectual; the Old Dessauer to do it:and this is

what these consultings had turned upon; and in a month or two, readers, and an astonished Gazetteer world,

It was February 19th when Friedrich left Berlin; the 21st he spends at Glogau, inspecting the Blockade there,

and not ill content with the measures taken: "Press that Wallis all you can," enjoins he: "Hunger seems to be

slow about it! Summon him again, were your new Artillery come up; threaten with bombardment; but spare

the Town, if possible. Artillery is coming: let us have done here, and soon!" Next day he arrives, not at

Breslau as some had expected, but at Schweidnitz sidewards; a strong little Town, at least an elaborately

fortified, of which we shall hear much in time coming. It lies a day's ride west of Breslau: and will be quieter

for business than a big gazing Capital would be,were Breslau even one's own city; which it is not, though

perhaps tending to be. Breslau is in transition circumstances at present; a little uncertain WHOSE it is, under

its Munchows and new managers: Breslau he did not visit at all on this occasion. To Schweidnitz certain new

regiments had been ordered, there to be disposed of in reinforcing: there, "in the Count Hoberg's Mansion,"

he principally lodges for six weeks to come; shooting out on continual excursions; but always returning to

Algarotti, home from Turin (not much of a success there, but always melodious for talk), had travelled with

him; Algarotti, and not long after, Jordan and Maupertuis, bear him company, that the vacant moments too be

beautiful. We can fancy he has a very busy, very anxious, but not an unpleasant time. He goes rapidly about,

visiting his posts,chiefly about the Neisse Valley; Neisse being the prime object, were the weather once

come for siegework. He is in many Towns (specified in RODENBECK and the Books, but which may be

anonymous here); doubtless on many Steeples and Hilltops; questioning intelligent natives, diligently using

his own eyes: intent to make personal acquaintance with this new Country,where, little as he yet dreams of

it, the deadly struggles of his Life lie waiting him, and which he will know to great perfection before all is

Neisse lies deep enough in Prussian environment; like Brieg, like Glogau, strictly blockaded; our posts

thereabouts, among the Mountains, thought to be impregnable. Nevertheless, what new thing is this? Here are

swarms of loose HussarPandour people, wild Austrian Irregulars, who come pouring out of Glatz Country;

disturbing the Prussian posts towards that quarter; and do not let us want for Small War (KLEINE KRIEG) so

called. General Browne, it appears, is got back to Glatz at this early season, he and a General Lentulus busy

there; and these are the compliments they send! A very troublesome set of fellows, infesting one's purlieus in

winged predatory fashion; swooping down like a cloud of vulturous harpies on the sudden; fierce enough, if

the chance favor; then to wing again, if it do not. Communication, especially reconnoitring, is not safe in their

neighborhood. Prussian Infantry, even in small parties, generally beats them; Prussian Horse not, but is

oftener beaten,not drilled for this rabble and their ways. In pitched fight they are not dangerous, rather are

despicable to the disciplined man; but can, on occasion, do a great deal of mischief.

Thus, it was not long after Friedrich's coming into these parts, when he learnt with sorrow that a Body of

"500 Horse and 500 Foot" (or say it were only 300 of each kind, which is the fact [Orlich, i. 79; OEuvres de

Frederic, ii. 68.]) had eluded our posts in the Mountains, and actually got into Neisse. "The Foot will be of

little consequence," writes Friedrich; "but the Horse, which will disturb our communications, are a

considerable mischief." This was on the 5th of March. And about a week before, on the 27th of February,

there had wellnigh a far graver thing befallen,namely the capture of Friedrich himself, and the sudden

In most of the AnecdoteBooks there used to figure, and still does, insisting on some belief from simple

persons, a wonderful Story in very vague condition: How once "in the Silesian Wars," the King, in those

Upper Neisse regions, in the Wartha district between Glatz and Neisse, was, one day, within an inch of being

taken,clouds of Hussars suddenly rising round him, as he rode reconnoitring, with next to no escort, only

an adjutant or so in attendance. How he shot away, keeping well in the shade; and erelong whisked into a

Convent or Abbey, the beautiful Abbey of Kamenz in those parts; and found Tobias Stusche, excellent Abbot

of the place, to whom he candidly disclosed his situation. How the excellent Tobias thereupon instantly

ordered the bells to be rung for a mass extraordinary, Monks not knowing why; and, after bells, made his

appearance in high costume, much to the wonder of his Monks, with a SECOND Abbot, also in high

costume, but of shortish stature, whom they never saw before or after. Which two Abbots, or at least Tobias,

proceeded to do the socalled divine office there and then; letting loose the big chant especially, and the

growl of organs, in a singularly expressive manner. How the Pandours arrived in clouds meanwhile; entered,

in searching parties, more or less reverent of the mass; searched high and low; but found nothing, and were

obliged to take Tobias's blessing at last, and go their ways. How the Second Abbot thereupon swore eternal

friendship with Tobias, in the private apartments; and rode off asas a rescued Majesty, determined to be

more cautious in Pandour Countries for the future! [Hildebrandt, Anekdoten, i. 17. Pandour proper is a

FOOTsoldier (tall rawboned illwashed biped, in copious Turk breeches, rather barish in the top parts of

him; carries a very long musket, and has several pistols and butcher's knives stuck in his girdle): specifically

a footman; but readers will permit me to use him withal, as here, in the generic sense.] Which story, as to

the body of it, is all myth; though, as is oftenest the case, there lies in it some soul of fact too. The

HistoryBooks, which had not much heeded the little fact, would have nothing to do with this account of it.

Nevertheless the people stuck to their Myth; so that Dryasdust (in punishment for his sinful blindness to the

human and divine significance of facts) was driven to investigate the business; and did at last victoriously

bring it home to the small occurrence now called SKIRMISH OF BAUMGARTEN, which had nearly

There are two Valleys with roads that lead from that Southwest quarter of Silesia towards Glatz, each with a

little Town at the end of it, looking up into it: Wartha the name of the one: Silberberg that of the other.

Through the Wartha Valley, which is southernmost, young Neisse River comes rushing down,the blue

mountains thereabouts very pretty, on a clear spring day, says my touring friend. Both at Wartha, and at

Silberberg the little Town which looks into the mouth of the northernmost Valley, the Prussians have a post.

Old Derschau, Malplaquet Derschau, with headquarters at Frankenstein, some seven or eight miles nearer

Schweidnitz, has not failed in that precaution. Friedrich wished to visit Silberberg and Wartha; set out

accordingly, 27th February, with small escort, carelessly as usual: the Pandour people had wind of it; knew

his habits on such occasions; and, gliding through other roadless valleys, under an adventurous Captain, had

determined to whirl him off. And they were in fact not far from succeeding, had not a mistake happened.

Silberberg, and Wartha the southernmost, which stands upon the Neisse River (rushing out there into the

plainer country), are each about seven or eight miles from Frankenstein, the Headquarters; and there are

relays of posts, capable of supporting one another, all the way from Frankenstein to each. Friedrich rode to

Silberberg first; examined the post, found it right; then rode across to Wartha, seven or eight miles

southward; examined Wartha likewise; after which, he sat down to dinner in that little Town, with an Officer

or two for company,having, I suppose, found all right in both the posts. In the way hither, he had made

some change in the relay arrangements, which at first involved some diminution of his own escort, and then

some marching about and redistributing: so that, externally, it seemed as if the Principal Relayparty were

now marching on Baumgarten, an intermediate Village,at least so the Pandour Captain understands the

movements going on; and crouches into the due thickets in consequence, not doubting but the King himself is

for Baumgarten, and will be at hand presently. Principal relayparty, a squadron of Schulenburg's Dragoons,

with a stupid Major over them, is not quite got into Baumgarten, when "with horrible cries the Pandour

Captain with about 500 horse," plunges out of cover, direct upon the throat of it: and Friedrich, at Wartha, is

but just begun dining when tumult of distant musketry breaks in upon him. With Friedrich himself, at this

time, as I count, there might be 150 Horse; in Wartha post itself are at least "forty hussars and fifty foot." By

The stupid Major ought to have beaten this rabble, though above two to one of him. But he could not, though

he tried considerably; on the contrary, he was himself beaten; obliged to make off, leaving "ten dragoons

killed, sixteen prisoners, one standard and two kettledrums:"victorv and all this plunder, ye Pandour

gentry; but evidently no King. The Pandour gentry, on the instant, made off too, alarm being abroad; got into

some sidevalley, with their prisoners and drumandstandard honors, and vanished from view of mankind.

Friedrich had started from dinner; got his escort under way, with the forty hussars and the fifty foot, and what

small force was attainable; and hurried towards the scene. He did see, by the road, another strongish party of

Pandours; dashed them across the Neisse River out of sight;but, getting to Baumgarten, found the field

silent, and ten dead men upon it. "I always told you those Schulenburg Dragoons were good for nothing!"

writes he to the Old Dessauer; but gradually withal, on comparing notes, finds what a danger he had run, and

how rash and foolish he had been. "An ETOURDERIE (foolish trick)," he calls it, writing to Jordan; "a black

eye;" and will avoid the like. Vienna got its two kettle drums and flag; extremely glad to see them; and even

sang TEDEUM upon them, to general edification. [Orlich, i. 6264.] This is the naked primordial substance

out of which the above Myth grew to its present luxuriance in the popular imagination. Place, the little

Village of Baumgarten; day, 27th February, 1741. Of Tobias Stusche or the Convent of Kamenz, not one

authentic word on this occasion. Tobias did get promotions, favors in coming years: a worthy Abbot,

deserving promotion on general grounds; and master of a Convent very picturesque, but twelve miles from

Friedrich avoided visiting Breslau, probably for the reasons above given; though there are important interests

of his there, especially his chief Magazine; and issues of moment are silently working forward. Here are

contemporary Excerpts (in abridged form), which are authentic, and of significance to a lively reader:

"BRESLAU, MIDDLE OF JANUARY, 1741. The Prussian Envoy, Herr von Gotter, had appeared here,

returning from Vienna; Gotter, and then Borck, who made no secret in Breslau society, That not the slightest

hope of a peaceable result existed, as society might have flattered itself; but that war and battle would have to

decide this matter. A Saxon Ambassador was also here, waiting some time; message thought to be

insignificant:probably some vague admonitory stuff again from KurSachsen (Polish King, son of August

the Strong, a very insignificant man), who acts as REICHSVICARIUS in those Northern parts." For the

reader is to know, there are ReichsVicars more than one (nay more than two on this occasion, with

considerable jarring going on about them); and I could say much about their dignities, limits, duties,

[Adelung, ii. 143, Kohler, ReichsHistorie, pp. 585589.]if indeed there were any duties, except dramatic

ones! But the Reich itself, and Vicarship along with it, are fallen into a nearly imaginary condition; and the

Regensburg Diet (not Princes now, but mere Delegates of Princes, mostly Bombazine People), which, "ever

since 1663," has sat continual, instead of now and then, is become an Enchanted Piggery, strange to look

upon, under those earnest stars. "As King Friedrich did not call at Greslau," after those Neisse

bombardments, but rolled past, straight homewards, the three Excellencies all departed,Borck and Gotter

"JANUARY 19th. Schwerin too was here in the course of the winter, to see how the magazines and other

warpreparations were going on: Breslau outwardly and inwardly is whirling with business, and offers

phenomena. For instance, it is known that the ArmyChest, heaps of silver and gold in it, lies in the Scultet

GardenHouse, where the King lodged; and that only one sentry walks there, and that in the guardhouse

itself, which is some way off, there are only thirty men. January 19th, about 9 of the clock,

[ HeldenGeschichte, i. 700.] alarm rises, That 2,000 DIEBSGESINDEL (Collective Thiefrabble of

Breslau and dependencies) are close by; intending a stroke upon said Garden House and ArmyChest!

Perhaps this rumor sprang of its own accord; or perhaps not quite? It had been very rife; and ran high; not

without remonstrances in TownHall, and the like, which we can imagine. Issue was, The Officer on post at

Scultet's loaded his treasure in carts; conveyed it, that same night, to the interior of the City, in fact to the

OBERAMTSHAUS (GovernmentHouse that was); which doubtless was a step in the right direction.

For now the Two FeldKriegsCommissariat Gentlemen (one of whom is the expert Munchow, son of our

old Custrin friend), supreme Prussian Authorities here, do likewise shift out of their inns; and take old

Schaffgotsch's apartments in the same OberamtsHaus; mutely symbolling that perhaps THEY are likely to

become a kind of Government. And the reader can conceive how, in such an element, the function of

governing would of itself fall more and more into their hands. They were consummately polite, discreet,

friendly towards all people; and did in effect manage their business, tax gatherings in money and in kind,

"FEBRUARY 17th. ... This day also, there arrived at Breslau, by boat up the Oder, ten heavy cannon, three

mortars, and ammunition of powder, bombshells, balls, as much as loaded fifty wagons; the whole of which

were, in like manner, forwarded to Ohlau. This day, as on other days before and after. Great Magazines

forming here; the Military chiefly at Ohlau; at Breslau the Provender part,and this latter under noteworthy

circumstances. In the DomIsland, namely; which is definable (in a case of such necessity) as being 'outside

the walls.' Especially as the Reverend Fathers have mostly glided into corners, and left the place vacant. In

the DomIsland, it certainly is; and such a stock,all bought for money down, and spurred forward while

the roads were under frost,'such a stock as was not thought to be in all Silesia,' says exaggerative wonder.

The vacant edifices in the DomIsland are filled to the neck with meal and corn; the Prussian brigade now

quartering there ('without the walls,' in a sense) to guard the same. And in the Bishop's Garden [poor

Sinzendorf, far enough away and in no want of it just now] are mere haymows, bigger than houses: who can

object,in a case of necessity? No man, unless he politically meddle, is meddled with; politically meddling,

you are at once picked up; as one or two are,clapped into gentle arrest, or, like old Schaffgotsch, and even

Sinzendorf before long, requested to leave the Country till it get settled. Rigor there is, but not intentional

"FEBRUARYMARCH. Considerable recruiting in Schlesien: six hundred recruits have enlisted in Breslau

alone. Also his Prussian Majesty has sent a supply of Protestant Preachers, ordained for the occasion, to

minister where needed;which is piously acknowledged as a godsend in various parts of Silesia. Twelve

came first, all Berliners; soon afterwards, others from different parts, till, in the end, there were about Sixty in

all. Rigorous, punctilious avoidance of offence to the Catholic minorities, or of whatever least thing Silesian

Law does not permit, is enjoined upon them; 'to preach in barns or townhalls, where by Law you have no

Church.' Their salary is about 30 pounds a year; they are all put under supervision of the Chaplain of Margraf

Karl's Regiment" (a judicious Chaplain, I have no doubt, and fit to be a Bishop); and so far as appears, mere

benefit is got of them by Schlesien as well as by Friedrich, in this function. Friedrich is careful to keep the

balance level between Catholic and Protestant; but it has hung at such an angle, for a long while past! In

general, we observe the Catholic Dignitaries, and the zealous or fanatic of that creed, especially the Jesuits,

are apt to be against him: as for the nonfanatic, they expect better government, secular advantage; these

latter weigh doubtfully, and with less weight whichever way. In the general population, who are Protestant,

he recognizes friends;and has sent them Sixty Preachers, which by Law was their due long since. Here

"Detached Jesuit parties, here and there, seem to have mischief in hand in a small way, encouraging deserters

and the like;and we keep an eye on them. No discontent elsewhere, at least none audible; on the contrary,

much enlisting on the part of the Silesian youth, with other good symptoms. But in the Dom, there is, singular

to say, a Goblin found walking, one night;advancing, not with airs from Heaven, upon the Prussian sentry

there! The Prussian sentry handles arms; pokes determinedly into the Goblin, and finding him solid, ever

more determinedly, till the Goblin shrieked 'Jesus Maria!' and was hauled to the Guardhouse for

investigation." A weak Goblin; doubtless of the valet kind; worth only a little whipping; but testifies what the

"Another time, two deserter Frenchmen getting hanged [such the law in aggravated cases], certain polite

Jesuits, who had by permission been praying and extremeunctioning about them, came to thank the Colonel

after all was over. Colonel, a grave practical man, needs no 'thanks;' would, however, 'advise your

Reverences to teach your people that perjury is not permissible, that an oath sworn ought to be kept;' and in

fine 'would advise you Holy Fathers hereabouts, and others, to have a care lest you get into'And twitching

Schwerin has been doing his best in this interim; collecting magazines with double diligence while the roads

are hard, taking up the Keypositions far and wide, from the Jablunka round to the Frontier Valleys of Glatz

again. He was through Jablunka, at one time; on into Mahren, as far as Olmutz; levying contributions,

emitting patents: but as to intimidating her Hungarian Majesty, if that was the intention, or changing her mind

at all, that is not the issue got. Austria has still strength, and Pragmatic Sanction and the Laws of Nature

have! Very fixed is her Hungarian Majesty's determination, to part with no inch of Territory, but to drive the

How she has got the funds is, to this day, a mystery;unless George and Walpole, from their SecretService

Moneys, have smuggled her somewhat.? For the Parliament is not sitting, and there will be such jargonings,

such delays: a preliminary 100,000 pounds, say by degrees 200,000 pounds,we should not miss it, and in

her Majesty's hands it would go far! Hints in the English Dryasdust we have; but nothing definite; and we are

left to our guesses. [Tindal (XX. 497) says expressly 200,000 pounds, but gives no date or other particular.] A

romantic story, first set current by Voltaire, has gone the round of the world, and still appears in all Histories:

How in England there was a Subscription set on foot for her Hungarian Majesty; outcome of the enthusiasm

of English Ladies of quality,old Sarah Duchess of Marlborough putting down her name for 40,000 pounds,

or indeed putting down the ready sum itself; magnanimous veteran that she was. Voltaire says, omitting date

and circumstance, but speaking as if it were indubitable, and a thing you could see with eyes: "The Duchess

of Marlborough, widow of him who had fought for Karl VI. [and with such signal returns of gratitude from

the said Karl VI.], assembled the principal Ladies of London; who engaged to furnish 100,000 pounds among

them; the Duchess herself putting down [EN DEPOSA, tabling IN CORPORE] 40,000 pounds of it. The

Queen of Hungary had the greatness of soul to refuse this money;needing only, as she intimated, what the

Nation in Parliament assembled might please to offer her." [Voltaire, OEuvres (Siecle de Louis XV., c. 6),

One is sorry to run athwart such a piece of mutual magnanimity; but the fact is, on considering a little and

asking evidence, it turns out to be mythical. One Dilworth, an innocent English soul (from whom our

grandfathers used to learn ARITHMETIC, I think), writing on the spot some years after Voltaire, has this

useful passage: "It is the great failing of a strong imagination to catch greedily at wonders. Voltaire was

misinformed; and would perhaps learn, by a second inquiry, a truth less splendid and amusing. A

Contribution was, by Newswriters upon their own authority, fruitlessly proposed. It ended in nothing: the

Parliament voted a supply;"that did it, Mr. Dilworth; supplies enough, and many of them! "Fruitlessly, by

Newswriters on their own authority;" that is the sad fact. [ The Life and Heroick Actions of Frederick III.

(SIC, a common blunder), by W. H. Dilworth, M.A. (London, 1758), p. 25. A poor little Book, one of many

coming out on that subject just then (for a reason we shall see on getting thither); which contains, of available

now, the above sentence and no more. Indeed its brethren, one of them by Samnel Johnson (IMPRANSUS,

the imprisoned giant), do not even contain that, and have gone wholly to zero. Neither little Dilworth nor

big Voltaire give the least shadow of specific date; but both evidently mean Spring, 1742 (not 1741).]

It is certain, little George, who considers Pragmatic Sanction as the Keystone of Nature in a manner, has been

venturing far deeper than purse for that adorable object; and indeed has been diving, secretly, in muddier

waters than we expected, to a dangerous extent, on behalf of it, at this very time. In the first days of March,

Friedrich has heard from his Minister at Petersburg of a DETESTABLE PROJECT, [Orlich, i. 83 (scrap of

Note to Old Dessauer; no date allowed us; "early in March").]project for "Partitioning the Prussian

Kingdom," no less; for fairly cutting into Friedrich, and paring him down to the safe pitch, as an enemy to

Pragmatic and mankind. They say, a Treaty, Draught of a Treaty, for that express object, is now ready; and

lies at Petersburg, only waiting signature. Here is a Project! Contracting parties (Russian signature still

wanting) are: KurSachsen; her Hungarian Majesty; King George; and that Regent Anne (MRS. Anton

Ulrich, so to speak), who sits in a huddle of undress, impatient of Political objects, but sensible to the charms

of handsome men. To the charms of Count Lynar, especially: the handsomest of Danish noblemen (more an

ancient Roman than a Dane), whom the Polish Majesty, calculating cause and effect, had despatched to her,

with that view, in the dead of winter lately. To whom she has given ear;dismissing her Munnich, as we

saw above;and is ready for signing, or perhaps has signed! [ OEuvres de Frederic, ii. 68.] Friedrich's

astonishment, on hearing of this "detestable Project," was great. However, he takes his measures on it;right

lucky that he has the Old Dessauer, and machinery for acting on KurSachsen and the Britannic Majesty.

"Get your machinery in gear!" is naturally his first order. And the Old Dessauer does it, with effect: of which

Never did I hear, before or since, of such a plunge into the muddy unfathomable, on the part of little George,

who was an honorable creature, and dubitative to excess: and truly this rash plunge might have cost him dear,

had not he directly scrambled out again. Or did Friedrich exaggerate to himself his Uncle's real share in the

matter? I always guess, there had been more of loose talk, of hypothesis and fond hope, in regard to George's

share, than of determinate fact or procedure on his own part. The transaction, having had to be dropped on the

sudden, remains somewhat dark; but, in substance, it is not doubtful; [Tindal, xx. 497.] and Parliament itself

took afterwards to poking into it, though with little effect. KurSachsen's objects in the adventure were of the

earth, earthy; but on George's part it was pure adoration of Pragmatic Sanction, anxiety for the Keystone of

Nature, and lest Chaos come again. In comparison with such transcendent divings, what is a little

The Count Lynar of this adventure, who had wellnigh done such a feat in Diplomacy, may turn up

transiently again. A conspicuous, more or less ridiculous person of those times. Busching (our Geographical

friend) had gone with him, as Excellency's Chaplain, in this Russian Journey; which is a memorable one to

Busching; and still presents vividly, through his Book, those haggard Baltic Coasts in midwinter, to readers

who have business there. Such a journey for grimness of outlook, upon pinetufts and frozen sand; for cold

(the Count's very tobaccopipe freezing in his mouth), for hardship, for bad lodging, and extremity of dirt in

the unfreezable kinds, as seldom was. They met, one day on the road, a Lord Hyndford, English Ambassador

just returning from Petersburg, with his fourgons and vehicles, and arrangements for sleep and victual, in an

enviably luxurious condition,whom we shall meet, to our cost. They saw, in the body, old Fieldmarshal

Lacy, and dined with him, at Riga; who advised brandy schnapps; a recipe rejected by Busching. And other

memorabilia, which by accident hang about this Lynar. [Busching, Beitrage, vi. 132164.] All through

Regent Anne's time he continued a dangerous object to Friedrich; and it was a relief when Elizabeth CATIN

became Autocrat, instead of Deshabille Anne and her Lynar. Adieu to him, for fifteen years or more.

Of Friedrich's military operations, of his magazines, posts, diligent plannings and gallopings about, in those

weeks; of all this the reader can form some notion by looking on the map and remembering what has gone

before: but that subterranean growling which attended him, prophetic of Earthquake, that universal breaking

forth of Bedlams, now fallen so extinct, no reader can imagine. Bedlams totally extinct to everybody; but

which were then very real, and raged wide as the world, high as the stars, to a hideous degree among the then

And, alas, this is one of the grand difficulties for my readers and me; Friedrich's Lifeelement having fallen

into such a dismal condition. Most dismal, dark, ugly, that AustrianSuccession Business, and its

worldwide battlings, throttlings and intriguings: not Dismal Swamp, under a coverlid of London Fog, could

be uglier! A Section of "History" so called, which human nature shrinks from; of which the extant generation

already knows nothing, and is impatient of hearing anything! Truly, Oblivion is very due to such an Epoch:

and from me far be it to awaken, beyond need, its sordid Bedlams, happily extinct. But without Life

element, no Life can be intelligible; and till Friedrich and one or two others are extricated from it, Dismal

Swamp cannot be quite filled in. Courage, reader!Our Constitutional Historian makes this farther

"English moneys, desperate Russian intrigues, Treaties made and Treaties brokenIf instead of Pragmatic

Sanction with eleven Potentates guaranteeing, Maria Theresa had at this time had 200,000 soldiers and a full

treasury (as Prince Eugene used to advise the late Kaiser), how different might it have been with her, and

with the whole world that fell upon one another's throats in her quarrel! Some eight years of the most

disastrous War; and except the falling of Silesia to its new place, no result gained by it. War at any rate

inevitable, you object? EnglishSpanish War having been obliged to kindle itself; French sure to fall in, on

the Spanish side; sure to fall upon Hanover, so soon as beaten at sea, and thus to involve all Europe? Well, it

is too likely. But, even in that case, the poor English would have gone upon their necessary Spanish War, by

the direct road and with their eyes open, instead of somnambulating and stumbling over the chimneytops;

and the settlement might have come far sooner, and far cheaper to mankind. Nay, we are to admit that the

new place for Silesia was, likewise, the place appointed it by just Heaven; and Friedrich's too was a necessary

War. Heaven makes use of Shadowhunting Kaisers too; and its ways in this mad world are through the great

Money somewhere her Hungarian Majesty has got; that is one thing evident. She has an actual Army on foot,

"drawn out of Italy," or whence she could; formidable Army, says rumor, and getting well equipped;and

here are the Pandour Precursors of it, coming down like stormclouds through the Glatz valleys;nearly

finishing the War for her at a stroke, the other day, had accident favored;and have thrown reinforcement of

600 into Neisse. Friedrich is not insensible to these things; and amid such alarms from far and from near, is

becoming eager to have, at least, Glogau in his hand. Glogau, he is of opinion, could now, and should,

Glogau is not a strong place; after all the repairing, it could stand little siege, were we careless of hurting it.

But Wallis is obstinate; refuses Free Withdrawal; will hold out to the uttermost, though his meal is running

low. He pretends there is relief coming; relief just at hand; and once, in midnight time, "lets off a rocket and

fires six guns," alarming Prince Leopold as if relief were just in the neighborhood. A tough industrious

Friedrich thinks the place might be had by assault: "Open trenches; set your batteries going, which need not

injure the Town; need only alarm Wallis, and TERRIFY it; then, under cover of this noise and feint of

cannonading, storm with vigor." Leopold, the Young Dessauer, is cautious; wants petards if he must storm,

wants two new battalions if he must open trenches;he gets these requisites, and is still cunctatory. Friedrich

has himself got the notion, "from clear intelligence," true or not, that relief to Glogau is actually on way; and

under such imminences, Russian and other, in so ticklish a state of the world, he becomes more and more

impatient that this thing were done. In the first week of March, still hurrying about on inspectionbusiness,

he writes, from four or five different places ("Mollwitz near Brieg" is one of them, a Village we shall soon

know better), Note after Note to Leopold; who still makes difficulties, and is not yet perfect to the last finish

in his preparations. "Preparations!" answers Friedrich impatiently (date MOLLWITZ, 5th MARCH, the third

or fourth impatient Note he has sent); and adds, just while quitting Mollwitz for Ohlau, this Postscript in his

P.S. "I am sorry you have not understood me! They have, in Bohmen, a regular enterprise on hand for the

rescue of Glogau. I have Infantry enough to meet them; but Cavalry is quite wanting. You must therefore,

without delay, begin the siege. Let us finish there, I pray you!" [Orlich, i. 70.]

And next day, Monday 6th, to cut the matter short, he despatches his GeneralAdjutant Goltz in person (the

distance is above seventy miles), with this Note wholly in autograph, which nothing vocal on Leopold's part

"OHLAU, 6th MARCH. As I am certainly informed that the Enemy will make some attempt, I hereby with

all distinctness command, That, so soon as the petards are come [which they are], you attack Glogau. And

you must make your Arrangement (DISPOSITION) for more than one attack; so that if one fail, the other

shall certainly succeed. I hope you will put off no longer;otherwise the blame of all the mischief that might

Goltz arrived with this emphatic Piece, Tuesday Evening, after his course of seventy miles: this did at last

rouse our cautious Young Dessauer; and so there is next obtainable, on much compression, the following

"GLOGAU, 8th MARCH, 1741. His Durchlaucht the Prince Leopold summoned all the Generals at noon;

and informed them That, this very night, Glogau must be won. He gave them their Instructions in writing:

where each was to post himself; with what detachments; how to proceed. There are to be three Attacks: one

up stream, coming on with the River to its right; one down stream, River to its left; and a third from the

landward side, perpendicular to the other two. The very captains that shall go foremost are specified; at what

hour each is to leave quarters, so that all be ready simultaneously, waiting in the posts assigned;against

what points to advance out of these, and storm Rampart and Wall. Places, times, particulars, everything is

fixed with mathematical exactitude: 'Be steady, be correct, especially be silent; and so far as Law of Nature

will permit, be simultaneous! When the big steeple of Glogau peals Midnight,Forward, with the first

stroke; with the second, much more with the twelfth stroke, be one and all of you, in the utmost silence,

advancing! And, under pain of death, two things: Not one shot till you are in; No plundering when you

are.'In this manner is the silent threesided avalanche to be let go. Whereupon", says my Dryasdust, "the

Generals retired; and had, for one item, their firearms all cleaned and newloaded." [ HeldenGeschichte, i.

Without plans of Glogau, and more detail and study than the reader would consent to, there can no Narrative

be given. Glogau has Ramparts, due Ringfence, palisaded and repaired by Wallis; inside of this is an old

TownWall, which will need petards: there are about 1,000 men under Wallis, and altogether on the works,

not to count a mortar or two, fiftyeight big guns. The reader must conceive a poor Town under blockade, in

the wintry nighttime, with its tough Count Wallis; illoff for the necessaries of life; Town shrouded in

darkness, and creeping quietly to its bed. This on the one hand: and on the other hand, Prussian battalions

marching up, at 10 o'clock or later, with the utmost softness of step; "taking post behind the ordinary field

watches;" and at length, all standing ranked, in the invisible dark; silent, like machinery, like a sleeping

avalanche: Husht! No sentry from the walls dreams of such a thing. "Twelve!" sings out the steeple of

Glogau; and in grim whisper the word is, "VORWARTS!" and the threewinged avalanche is in motion.

They reach their glacises, their ditches, covered ways, correct as mathematics; tear out chevauxdefrise,

hew down palisades, in the given number of minutes: Swift, ye Regiment'scarpenters; smite your best! Four

cannonshot do now boom out upon them; which go high over their heads, little dreaming how close at hand

they are. The glacis is thirty feet high, of stiff slope, and slippery with frost: no matter, the avalanche, led on

by Leopold in person, by Margraf Karl the King's Cousin, by Adjutant Goltz and the chief personages, rushes

up with strange impetus; hews down a second palisade; surges in;Wallis's sentries extinct, or driven to

their main guards. There is a singular fire in the besieging party. For example, Four Grenadiers,I think of

this First Column, which succeeded sooner, certainly of the Regiment Glasenapp,four grenadiers, owing to

slippery or other accidents, in climbing the glacis, had fallen a few steps behind the general body; and on

getting to the top, took the wrong course, and rushed along rightward instead of leftward. Rightward, the first

thing they come upon is a mass of Austrians still ranked in arms; fiftytwo men, as it turned out, with their

Captain over them. Slight stutter ensues on the part of the Four Grenadiers; but they give one another the

hint, and dash forward: "Prisoners?" ask they sternly, as if all Prussia had been at their rear. The fiftytwo, in

the darkness, in the danger and alarm, answer "Yes.""Pile arms, then!" Three of the grenadiers stand to see

that done; the fourth runs off for force, and happily gets back with it before the comedy had become tragic for

his comrades. "I must make acquaintance with these four men," writes Friedrich, on hearing of it; and he did

reward them by present, by promotion to sergeantcy (to ensigncy one of them), or what else they were fit for.

Grenadiers of Glasenapp: these are the men Friedrich heard swearingin under his window, one memorable

morning when he burst into tears! At halfpast Twelve, the Ramparts, on all sides, are ours.

The Gates of the Town, under axe and petard, can make little resistance, to Leopold's Column or the other

two. A hole is soon cut in the TownGate, where Leopold is; and gallant Wallis, who had rallied behind it,

with his ArtilleryGeneral and what they could get together, fires through the opening, kills four men; but is

then (by order, and not till then) fired upon, and obliged to draw back, with his ArtilleryGeneral mortally

hurt. Inside he attempts another rally, some 200 with him; and here and there perhaps a housewindow tries

to give shot; but it is to no purpose, not the least stand can be made. Poor Wallis is rapidly swept back, into

the Marketplace, into the Main Guardhouse; and there piles arms: "Glogau yours, Ihr Herren, and we

prisoners of War!" The steeple had not yet quite struck One. Here has been a good hour'swork!

Glogau, as in a dream, or half awake, and timidly peeping from behind windowcurtains, finds that it is a

Town taken. Glogau easily consoles itself, I hear, or even is generally glad; Prussian discipline being so

perfect, and ingress now free for the necessaries of life. There was no plundering; not the least insult: no

townsman was hurt; not even in houses where soldiers had tried firing from windows. The Prussian

Battalions rendezvous in the Marketplace, and go peaceably about their patrolling, and other business; and

meddle with nothing else. They lost, in killed, ten men; had of killed and wounded, fortyeight; the Austrians

rather more. [Orlich, i. 75, 78; HeldenGeschichte, i. 829; irreconcilable otherwise, in some slight points.]

Wallis was to have been set free on parole; but was not,in retaliation for some severity of General

Browne's in the interim (picking up of two Silesian Noblemen, suspected of Prussian tendency, and locking

them in Brunn over the Hills),and had to go to Berlin, till that was repaired. To the wounded

ArtilleryGeneral there was every tenderness shown, but he died in few days.The other Prisoners were

marched to the CustrinStettin quarter; "and many of them took Prussian service."

And this is the Scalade of Glogau: a shining feat of those days; which had great rumor in the Gazettes, and

over all the then feverish Nations, though it has now fallen dim again, as feats do. Its importance at that time,

its utility to Friedrich's affairs, was undeniable; and it filled Friedrich with the highest satisfaction, and with

admiration to overflowing. Done 9th March, 1741; in one hour, the very earliest of the day.

Goltz posted back to Schweidnitz with the news; got thither about 5 P.M.; and was received, naturally, with

TEDEUMing;there was Royal Letter to Leopold, which flamed through all the Newspapers, and can

still be read in innumerable Books; Letter omissible in this place. We remark only how punctual the King is,

to reward in money as well as praise, and not the high only, but the low that had deserved: to Prince Leopold

he presents 2,000 pounds; to each private soldier who had been of the storm, say half a guinea,doubling

and quadrupling, in the special cases, to as high as twenty guineas, of our present money. To the old

Gazetteers, and their readers everywhere, this of Glogau is a very effulgent business; bursting out on them,

like sudden Budelight, in the uncertain stagnancy and expectancy of mankind. Friedrich himself writes of it

"The more I think of the Glogau business, the more important I find it. Prince Leopold has achieved the

prettiest military stroke (DIE SCHONSTE ACTION) that has been done in this Century. From my heart I

congratulate you on having such a Son. In boldness of resolution, in plan, in execution, it is alike admirable;

and quite gives a turn to my affairs." [Date, 13th March, 1741 (Orlich, i. 77).]

And indeed, it is a perfect example of Prussian discipline, and military quality in all kinds; such as it would

be difficult to match elsewhere. Most potently correct; coming out everywhere with the completeness and

exactitude of mathematics; and has in it such a fund of martial fire, not only ready to blaze out (which can be

exampled elsewhere), but capable of bottling itself IN, and of lying silently ready. Which is much rarer; and

very essential in soldiering! Due a little to the OLD Dessauer, may we not say, as well as to the Young?

Friedrich Wilhelm is fallen silent; but his heavy labors, and military and other drillings to Prussian mankind,

About three weeks after this of Glogau, Leopold the Old Dessauer, over in Brandenburg, does another thing

which is important to Friedrich, and of great rumor in the world. Steps out, namely, with a force of 36,000

men, horse, foot and artillery, completely equipped in all points; and takes Camp, at this early season, at a

place called Gottin, not far from Magdeburg, handy at once for Saxony and for Hanover; and continues there

encamped,"merely for review purposes." Readers can figure what an astonishment it was to KurSachsen

and British George; and how it struck the wind out of their Russian PartitionDream, and awoke them to a

sense of the awful fact!Capable of being slit in pieces, and themselves partitioned, at a day's warning, as it

were! It was on April 2d, that Leopold, with the first division of the 36,000, planted his flag near Gottin. No

doubt it was the "detestable Project" that had brought him out, at so early a season for tentlife, and nobody

could then guess why. He steadily paraded here, all summer; keeping his 36,000 well in drill, since there was

The Camp at Gottin flamed greatly abroad through the timorous imaginations of mankind, that Year; and in

the Newspapers are many details of it. And, besides the important general fact, there is still one little point

worth special mention: namely, that old Fieldmarshal Katte (Father of poor Lieutenant Katte whom we

knew) was of it; and perhaps even got his death by it: "Chief Commander of the Cavalry here," such honor

had he; but died at his post, in a couple of months, "at Rekahn, May 31st;" [ Militair Lexikon, ii. 254.] poor

old gentleman, perhaps unequal to the hardships of fieldlife at so early a season of the year.

At Glogau there was Homaging, on the very morrow after the storm; on the second day, the superfluous

regiments marched off: no want of vigorous activity to settle matters on their new footing there. General

Kalkstein (Friedrich's old Tutor, whom readers have forgotten again) is to be Commandant of Glogau; an

office of honor, which can be done by deputy except in cases of real stress. The place is to be thoroughly

newfortified,which important point they commit to Engineer Wallrave, a strongheaded heavybuilt

Dutch Officer, long since acquired to the service, on account of his excellence in that line; who did, now and

afterwards, a great deal of excellent engineering for Friedrich; but for himself (being of deep stomach withal,

and of life too dissolute) made a tragic thing of it ultimately. As will be seen, if we have leisure.

In seven or eight days, Prince Leopold having wound up his Glogau affairs, and completed the new

preliminaries there, joins the King at Schweidnitz. In the highest favor, as was natural. Kalkstein is to take a

main hand in the Siege of Neisse; for which operation it is hoped there will soon be weather, if not favorable

yet supportable. What of the force was superfluous at Glogau had at once marched off, as we observed; and is

now getting redistributed where needful. There is much shifting about; strengthening of posts, giving up of

posts: the whole of which readers shall imagine for themselves,except only two points that are worth

remembering: FIRST, that Kalkstein with about 12,000 takes post at Grotkau, some twentyfive miles north

of Neisse, ready to move on, and open trenches, when required: and SECOND, that HolsteinBeck gets

posted at Frankenstein (chief place of that Baumgarten Skirmish), say thirtyfive miles westbynorth of

Neisse; and has some 8 or 10,000 Horse and Foot thereabouts, spread up and down,who will be much

Friedrich has given up the Jablunka Pass; called in the Jablunka and remoter posts; anxious to concentrate,

before the Enemy get nigh. That is the King's notion; and surely a reasonable one; the AREA of the Prussian

Army, as I guess it from the Maps, being above 2,000 square miles, beginning at Breslau only, and leaving

out Glogau. Schwerin thinks differently, but without good basis. Both are agreed, "The Austrian Army cannot

take the field till the forage come," till the new grass spring, which its cavalry find convenient. That is the fair

supposition; but in that both are mistaken, and Schwerin the more dangerously of the two.Meanwhile, the

Pandour swarms are observably getting rifer, and of stormier quality; and they seem to harbor farther to the

East than formerly, and not to come all out of Glatz. Which perhaps are symptomatic circumstances? The

worst effect of these preliminary Pandour clouds is, Your scoutservice cannot live among them; they hinder

reconnoitring, and keep the Enemy veiled from you. Of that sore mischief Friedrich had, first and last, ample

experience at their hands! This is but the first instalment of Pandours to Friedrich; and the mere foretaste of

Behind the Mountains, in this manner, all is inane darkness to Friedrich and Schwerin. They know only that

Neipperg is rendezvousing at Olmutz; and judge that he will still spend many weeks upon it; the real facts

being: That Neipperg"who arrived in Olmutz on the 10th of March," the very day while Glogau was

homaginghas been, he and those above him and those under him, driving preparations forward at a furious

rate. That Neipperg held I think at Steinberg his hithermost post, some twenty miles hither of Olmutza

Council of War, "all the Generals and even Lentulus from Glatz, present at it," day not given; where the

unanimous decision was, "March straightway; save Neisse, since Glogau is gone!"and in fine, That on the

26th, Neipperg took the road accordingly, "in spite of furious snow blowing in his face;" and is ever since

(30,000 strong, says rumor, but perhaps 10,000 of them mere Pandours) unweariedly climbing the

Mountains, laboriously jingling forward with his heavy guns and ammunitionwagons; "contending with the

steep snowy icy roads;" intent upon saving Neisse. This is the fact; profoundly unknown to Friedrich and

Schwerin; who will be much surprised, when it becomes patent to them at the wrong time.

SCHWEIDNITZ, 27th MARCH. This day Friedrich, with considerable apparatus, pomp and processional

cymballing, greatly the reverse of his ulterior use and wont in such cases, quitted Schweidnitz and his

Algarottis; solemnly opening Campaign in this manner; and drove off for Ottmachau, having work there for

The Siege of Neisse is now to proceed forthwith; trenches to be opened April 4th. Friedrich is still of opinion,

that his posts lie too wide apart; that especially Schwerin, who is spread among the Hills in Jagerndorf

Country, ought to come down, and take closer order for covering the siege. [ OEuvres de Frederic, ii. 70.]

Schwerin answers, That if the King will spare him a reinforcement of eight squadrons and nine battalions

(say 1,200 Horse, 9,000 Foot), he will maintain himself where he is, and no Enemy shall get across the

Mountains at all. That is Schwerin's notion; who surely is something of a judge. Friedrich assents; will

himself conduct the reinforcement to Schwerin, and survey matters, with his own eyes, up yonder. Friedrich

marches from Ottmachau, accordingly, 29th March;Kalkstein, HolsteinBeck, and others are to be

rendezvoused before Neisse, in the interim; trenches ready for opening on the sixth day hence;and in this

Beautiful blue world of Hills, ridge piled on ridge behind that Neisse region; fruitful valleys lapped in them,

with grim stone Castles and busy little Towns disclosing themselves as we advance: that is Jagerndorf

Country,which Uncle George of Anspach, hundreds of years ago, purchased with his own money; which

we have now come to lay hold of as his Heir! Friedrich, I believe, thinks little of all this, and does not

remember Uncle George at all. But such are the facts; and the Country, regarded or not, is very blue and

beautiful, with the Spring sun shining on it; or with the sudden Spring storms gathering wildly on the peaks,

as if for permanent investiture, but vanishing again straightway, leaving only a powdering of snow.

He met Schwerin at Neustadt, halfway to Jagerndorf; whither they proceeded next day. "What news have

you of the Enemy?" was Friedrich's first question. Schwerin has no news whatever; only that the Enemy is far

off, hanging in long thin straggle from Olmutz westward. "I have a spy out," said Schwerin; "but he has not

returned yet,"nor ever will, he might have added. If diligent readers will now take to their Map, and attend

day by day, an invincible Predecessor has compelled what next follows into human intelligibility, and into the

Diary Form, for their behoof; readers of an idler turn can skip: but this confused hurryscurry of marches

"JAGERNDORF, 2d APRIL, 1741. This is the day when the Old Dessauer makes appearance with the first

brigades of his Camp at Gottin. Friedrich is satisfied with what he has seen of Jagerndorf matters; and intends

returning towards Neisse, there to commence on the 4th. He is giving his final orders, and on the point of

setting off, whenSeven Austrian Deserters, 'Dragoons of Lichtenstein,' come in; and report, That

Neipperg's Army is within a few miles! And scarcely had they done answering and explaining, when sounds

rise of musketry and cannon, from our outposts on that side; intimating that here is Neipperg's Army itself.

Seldom in his life was Friedrich in an uglier situation. In Jagerndorf, an open Town, are only some three or

four thousand men, 'with three fieldpieces, and as much powder as will charge them forty times.' Happily

these proved only the Pandour outskirts of Neipperg's Army, scouring about to reconnoitre, and not difficult

to beat; the real body of it is ascertained to be at Freudenthal, fifteen miles to westward, southwestward;

making towards Neisse, it is guessed, by the other or western road, which is the nearer to Glatz and to the

"Had Neipperg known what was in Jagerndorf! But he does not know. He marches on, next morning, at his

usual slow rate; wide clouds of Pandours accompanying and preceding him; skirmishing in upon all places

[upon Jagerndorf, for instance, though fifteen miles wide of their road], to ascertain if Prussians are there.

One can judge whether Friedrich and Schwerin were thankful when the huge alarm produced nothing! 'The

mountain,' as Friedrich says, 'gave birth to a mouse;'nay it was a 'mouse' of essential vital use to Friedrich

and Schwerin; a warning, That they must instantly collect themselves, men and goods; and begone one and

all out of these parts, doublequick towards Neisse. Not now with the hope of besieging Neisse,far from

that;but of getting their wide scattered posts together thereabouts, and escaping destruction in detail!

"APRIL 4th, HEADQUARTERS NEUSTADT. By violent exertion, with the sacrifice only of some remote

little storehouses, all is rendezvoused at Jagerndorf, within two days; and this day they march; King and

vanguard reaching Neustadt, some twentyfive miles forward, some twenty still from Neisse. At Neustadt,

the posts that had stood in that neighborhood are all assembled, and march with the King tomorrow. Of

Neipperg, except by transitory contact with his Pandour clouds, they have seen nothing: his road is pretty

much parallel to theirs, and some fifteen miles leftward, Glatzward; goes through Zuckmantel, Ziegenhals,

straight upon Neisse. [Zuckmantel, "TwitchCloak," occurs more than once as a Town's name in those

regions: name which, says my Dryasdust without smile visible, it got from robberies done on travellers,

"twitchings of your cloak," with standanddeliver, as you cross those wild mountain spaces. (Zeiller,

Beschreibung des Konigreichs Boheim, Frankfurt, 1650;a rather worthless old Book, like the rest of

Zeiller's in that kind.)] Neipperg's men are wearied with the long climb out of Mahren; and he struggles

towards Neisse as the first object;holding upon Glatz and Lentulus with his left. Numerous orders have

been speeded from the King's quarters, at Jagerndorf, and here at Neustadt; order especially to HolsteinBeck

at Frankenstein, and to Kalkstein at Grotkau, How they are to unite, first with one another; and then to cross

Neisse River, and unite with the King,to which end there is already a Bridge laid for them, or about to be

"APRIL 5th, HEADQUARTERS STEINAU. Steinau is a little Town twenty miles east of Neisse, on the

road to Kosel [strongish place, on the Oder, some forty miles farther east]: here Friedrich, with the main

body, take their quarters; rearguard being still at Neustadt. Temporary Bridge there is, ready or all but ready,

at Sorgau [twelve miles to north of us, on our left]: by this Kalkstein, with his 10,000, comes punctually

across; while other brigades from the Kosel side are also punctual in getting in; which is a great comfort: but

of HolsteinBeck there is no vestige, nor did there ever appear any. Holstein, 'whom none of the repeated

orders sent him could reach,' says Friedrich, 'remained comfortably in his quarters; and looked at the Enemy

rushing past him to right and left, without troubling his head with them.' [ OEuvres de Frederic, ii. 70.] The

too easyminded Holstein! Austrian Deserters inform us, That General Neipperg arrived today with his

Army in Neisse; and has there been joined by Lentulus with the Glatz force, chiefly cavalry, a good many

thousands. We may be attacked, then, this very night, if they are diligent? Friedrich marks out ground and

plan in such case, and how and where each is to rank himself. There came nothing of attack; but the poor

little Village of Steinau, with so many troops in it and baggagedrivers stumbling about, takes fire; burns to

ashes; 'and we had great difficulty in saving the artillery and powder through the narrow streets, with the

houses all burning on each hand.'" Fancy it,and the poor shrieking inhabitants; gone to silence long since

with their shrieks, not the least whisper left of them. "The Prussians bivouac on the field, each in the place

In this poor Steinau was a Schloss, which also went up in fire; disclosing certain mysteries of an almost

mythical nature to the German Public. It was the Schloss of a Grafin von Callenberg, a dreadful old Dowager

of MedeaMessalina type, who "always wore pistols about her;" pistols, and latterly, with more and more

constancy, a brandybottle;who has been much on the tongues of men for a generation back. Herr Nussler

(readers recollect shifty Nussler) knew her, in the way of business, at one time; with pity, if also with horror.

Some weeks ago, she was, by the Austrian Commandant at Neisse, summoned out of this Schloss, as in

correspondence with Prussian Officers: peasants breaking in, tied her with ropes to the bed where she was;

put bed and her into a farmcart, and in that scandalous manner delivered her at Neisse to the Commandant;

by which adventure, and its rages and unspeakabilities, the poor old Callenberg is since dead. And now the

very Schloss is dead; and there is finis to a human dust vortex, such as is sometimes noisy for a time.

Perhaps Nussler may again pass that way, if we wait. [Busching, Beitrage, ii.273 et seqq.]

"APRIL 6th, HEADQUARTERS FRIEDLAND. To Friedland on the 6th.,and do not, as expected, get

away next morning. Friedland is ten miles down the Neisse, which makes a bend of near ninety degrees

opposite Steinau; and runs thence straight north for the Oder, which it reaches some dozen miles or more

above Brieg. Both Steinau and Friedland are a good distance from the River; Friedland, the nearer of the two,

with Sorgau Bridge direct west of it, is perhaps eight miles from that important structure. There, being now

tolerably rendezvoused, and in strength for action, Friedrich purposes to cross Neisse River tomorrow;

hoping perhaps to meet HolsteinBeck, and incorporate him; anxious, at any rate, to get between the

Austrians and Ohlau, where his heavy Artillery, his Ammunition, not to mention other indispensables, are

lying. The peculiarity of Neipperg at this time is, that the ground he occupies bears no proportion to the

ground he commands. His regular Horse are supposed to be the best in the world; and of the Pandour kind,

who live, horse and man, mainly upon nothing (which means upon theft), his supplies are unlimited. He sits

like a volcanic reservoir, therefore, not like a common fire of such and such intensity and power to

"FRIDAY 7th APRIL, FRIEDLAND (still Headquarters). Unluckily, on trying, there is no passage to be

had at Sorgau. The Officer on charge there still holds the Bridge, but has been obliged to break away the

farther end of it; 'Lentulus and Dragoons, several thousands strong' (such is the report), having taken post

there. Friedrich commands that the Bridge be reinstated; fieldpieces to defend it; Prince Leopold to cross,

and clear the ways. All Friday, Friedrich waiting at Friedland, was spent in these details. Leopold in due force

started for Sorgau, himself with Cavalry in the van; Leopold did storm across, and go charging and fencing,

some space, on the other side; but, seeing that it was in truth Lentulus, and Dragoons without limit, had to

send report accordingly; and then to wind himself to this side again, on new order from the King. What is to

be done, then? Here is no crossing. Friedrich decides to go down the River; he himself to Lowen, perhaps

near twenty miles farther down, but where there is a Bridge and Highway leading over; Prince Leopold, with

the heavier divisions and baggages, to Michelau, some miles nearer, and there to build his Pontoons and

"SATURDAY, 8th APRIL, With great punctuality, the King and Leopold met at Michelau, both well across

the Neisse. Here on Pontoons, Leopold had got across about noon; and precisely as he was finishing, the

King's Column, which had crossed at Lowen, and come up the left bank again, arrived. The King, much

content with Leopold's behavior, nominates him General of Infantry, a stage higher in promotion, there and

then. Brieg Blockade is, as natural, given up; the Blockading Body joining with the King, this morning, while

he passed that way. From HolsteinBeck not the least whisper,nor to him, if we knew it.

"Neipperg has quitted Neisse; but walks invisible within clouds of Pandours; nothing but guessing as to

Neipperg's motions. Rightly swift, aud awake to his business, Neipperg might have done, might still do, a

stroke upon us here. But he takes it easy; marches hardly five miles a day, since he quitted Neisse again.

From Michelau, Friedrich for his part turns southwestward, in quest of Holstein and other interests; marches

towards Grotkau, not intending much farther that night. Thick snow blowing in their faces, nothing to be seen

ahead, the Prussian column tramps along. [ OEuvres de Frederic, ii. 156.] In Leipe, a little Hamlet sidewards

of the road, short way from Grotkau, our Hussar Vanguard had found Austrian Hussars; captured forty, and

from them learned that the Austrian Army is in Grotkau; that they took Grotkau half an hour before, and are

there! A poor Lieutenant Mitschepfal (whom I think Friedrich used to know in Reinsberg) lay in Grotkau,

'with some sixty recruits and deserters,' says Friedrich,and with several hundreds of camplaborers

(intended for the trenches, which will not now be opened):Mitschepfal made a stout defence; but, after

three hours of it, had to give in: and there is nothing now for us at Grotkau. 'Halt,' therefore! Neipperg is

evidently pushing towards Ohlau, towards Breslau, though in a leisurely way; there it will behoove us to get

the start of him, if humanly possible: To the right about, therefore, without delay! The Prussians repass Leipe

(much to the wonder of its simple people); get along, some seven miles farther, on the road for Ohlau; and

quarter, that night, in what handy villages there are; the King's Corps in two Villages, which he calls 'Pogrel

and Alsen,'"which are to be found still on the Map as "Pogarell and Alzenau," on the road from Lowen

This is the end of that March into the Mountains, with Neisse Siege hanging triumphant ahead. These are the

King's quarters, this wintry Spring night, Saturday, 8th April, 1741; and it is to be guessed there is more of

care than of sleep provided for him there. Seldom, in his life, was Friedrich in a more critical position; and he

well knows it, none better. And could have his remorses upon it,were these of the least use in present

circumstances. Here are two Letters which he wrote that night; veiling, we perceive, a very grim world of

thoughts; betokening, however, a mind made up. Jordan, Prince August Wilhelm HeirApparent, and other

fine individuals who shone in the Schweidnitz circle lately, are in Breslau, safe sheltered against this bad

"MY DEAREST BROTHER,The Enemy has just got into Silesia; we are not more than a mile (QUART

"If I die, do not forget a Brother who has always loved you very tenderly. I recommend to you my most dear

Mother, my Domestics, and my First Battalion [LIFEGUARD OF FOOT, men picked from his own old

Ruppin Regiment and from the disbanded Giants, star of all the Battalions]. [See Preuss, i. 144, iv. 309;

Nicolai, Beschreibung von Berlin, iii, 1252.] Eichel and Schuhmacher [Two of the Three Clerks] are

informed of all my testamentary wishes. Remember me always, you; but console yourself for my death: the

glory of the Prussian Arms, and the honor of the House have set me in action, and will guide me to my last

moment. You are my sole Heir: I recommend to you, in dying, those whom I have the most loved during my

life: Keyserling, Jordan, Wartensleben; Hacke, who is a very honest man; Fredersdorf [Factotum], and

Eichel, in whom you may place entire confidence. I bequeath 8,000 crowns (1,200 pounds, which I have with

me, to my Domestics; but all that I have elsewhere depends on you. To each of my Brothers and Sisters make

a present in my name; a thousand affectionate regards (AMITIES ET COMPLIMENTS) to my Sister of

Baireuth. You know what I think on their score; and you know better than I could tell you, the tenderness and

all the sentiments of most inviolable friendship with which I am, dearest Brother,

Friedrich's Testamentary arrangements in Note there,Six in all, at different times, besides this.]

"My DEAR JORDAN,We are going to fight tomorrow. Thou knowest the chances of war; the life of

Kings not more regarded than that of private people. I know not what will happen to me.

"If my destiny is finished, remember a friend, who loves thee always tenderly: if Heaven prolong my days, I

will write to thee after tomorrow, and thou wilt hear of our victory. Adieu, dear friend; I shall love thee till

The King, we incidentally discover somewhere, "had no sleep that night;" none, "nor the next night

"Tomorrow," Sunday, did not prove the Day of Fight, after all. Being a day of wild drifting snow, so that

you could not see twenty paces, there was nothing for it but to sit quiet. The King makes all his dispositions;

sketches out punctually, to the last item, where each is to station himself, how the Army is to advance in Four

Columns, ready for Neipperg wherever he may be,towards Ohlau at any rate, whither it is not doubted

Neipperg is bent. These snowy sixandthirty hours at Pogarell were probably, since the Custrin time, the

Neipperg, for his part, struggles forward a few miles, this Sunday, April 9th; the Prussians rest under shelter

in the wild weather. Neipperg's headquarters, this night, are a small Village or Hamlet, called Mollwitz:

there and in the adjacent Hamlets, chiefly in Laugwitz and Gruningen, his Army lodges itself:he is now

fairly got between us and Ohlau,if, in the blowing drift, we knew it, or he knew it. But, in this confusion of

the elements, neither party knows of the other: Neipperg has appointed that tomorrow, Monday, l0th, shall

Friedrich had despatched messengers to Ohlau, that the force there should join him; messengers are all

captured. The like message had already gone to Brieg, some days before, and the Blockading Body, a good

few thousand strong, quitted Brieg, as we saw, and effected their junction with him. All day, this Sunday, 9th,

it still snows and blows; you cannot see a yard before you. No hope now of HolsteinBeck. Not the least

news from any quarter; Ohlau uncertain, too likely the wrong way: What is to be done? We are cut off from

our Magazines, have only provision for one other day. "Had this weather lasted," says an Austrian reporter of

these things, "his Majesty would have passed his time very ill." [ Feldzuge der Preussen (the complete Title

is, Sammlung ungedruckter Nachrichten so die Geschichte der Feldzuge der Preussen von 1740 bis 1779

erlautern, or in English words, Collection of unprinted Narratives which elucidate the Prussian Campaigns

from 1740 to 1779: 5 vols. Dresden, 17821785), i. 33. Excellent Narratives, modest, brief, effective (from

Private Diaries and the like; many of them given also in SEYFARTH); well worth perusal by the studious

military man, and creditably characteristic of the Prussian writers of them and actors in them.]

Of the Battle of Mollwitz, as indeed of all Friedrich's Battles, there are ample accounts new and old, of

perfect authenticity and scientific exactitude; so that in regard to military points the due clearness is, on study,

completely attainable. But as to personal or human details, we are driven back upon a miscellany of sources;

most of which, indeed all of which except Nicolai, when he sparingly gives us anything, are of questionable

nature; and, without intending to be dishonest, do run out into the mythical, and require to be used with

caution. The latest and notablest of these, in regard to Mollwitz, is the pamphlet of a Dr. Fuchs; from which,

in spite of its amazing quality, we expect to glean a serviceable item here and there. [ Jubelschrift zur Feier

(Centenary) der Schlacht bei Mollwitz, 10 April, 1741, von Dr. Medicinae Fuchs (Brieg, 10th April, 1841).] It

is definable as probably the most chaotic Pamphlet ever written; and in many places, by dint of uncorrected

printing, bad grammar, bad spelling, bad sense, and in short, of intrinsic darkness in so vivacious a humor, it

has become abstruse as Sanscrit; and really is a sharp test of what knowledge you otherwise have of the

subject. Might perhaps be used in that way, by the Examining Military Boards, in Prussia and elsewhere, if

no other use lie in it? Fuchs's own contributions, mere ignorance, folly and credulity, are not worth

interpreting: but he has printed, and in the same abstruse form, one or two curious Parish Manuscripts,

particularly a "HISTORY" of this War, privately jotted down by the then Schoolmaster of Mollwitz, a good

simple accurate old fellowcreature; through whose eyes it is here and there worth while to look. In regard to

"This 'CentenaryCelebration Pamphlet' (Celebration itself, so obtuse was the Country, did not take effect)

was by a zealous, noisy but not wise, old Medical Gentleman of these parts, called Dr. Fuchs (FOX); who had

set his heart on raising, by subscription, a proper National Monument on the Field of Mollwitz, and so

closing his old career. Subscriptions did not take, in that April, 1841, nor in the following months or

twelvemonths: the zealous Doctor, therefore, indignantly drew his own purse; got a big Obelisk of Granite

hewn ready, with suitable Inscription on it; carted his big Obelisk from the quarries of Strehlen; assembled

the Country round it, on Mollwitz Field; and passionately discoursed and pleaded, That at least the Country

should bring blockandtackle, with proper framework, and set up this Obelisk on the pedestal he had there

built for it. The Country listened cheerfully (for the old Doctor was a popular man, clever though flighty); but

the Country was again obtuse in the way of active furtherance, and would not even bring blockandtackle.

The old Doctor had to answer, 'Well, then!' and go on his way on more serious errands. The cattle have much

undermined, and rubbed down, his poor Pedestal, which is of rubblework; his Obelisk still lies mournfully

horizontal, uninjured;and really ought to be set up, by some parishrate, or effort of the community

"MOLLWITZ, SUNDAY, 9th APRIL. Country for two days back: was in new alarm by the Austrian

Garrison of Brieg now left at liberty, who sallied out upon the Villages about, and plundered blackcattle,

sheep, grain, and whatever they could come at. But this day (Sunday) in Mollwitz the whole Austrian Army

was upon us. First, there went 300 Hussars through the Village to Gruningen, who quartered themselves

there; and rushed hither and thither into houses, robbing and plundering. From one they took his best horses,

from another they took linen, clothes, and other furnitures and victual. General Neuburg [Neipperg] halted

here at Mollwitz, with the whole Army; before the Village, in mind to quarter. And quarter was settled, so

that a BAUER [PloughFarmer] got four to five companies to lodge, and a GARTNER [SpadeFarmer] two

or three hundred cavalry. .The houses were full of Officers, the GARTE [Garths] and the Fields full of

horsemen and baggage; and all round, you saw nothing but fires burning; the ZAUNE [wooden railings] were

instantly torn down for firewood; the hay, straw, barley and haver, were eaten away, and brought to nothing;

and everything from the barns was carried out. And, as the whole Army could not lodge itself with us, 1,100

Infantry quartered at Laugwitz; Barzdorf got 400 Cavalry; and this day, nobody knew what would come of

Monday morning, the Prussians are up betimes; King Friedrich, as above noted, had not, or had hardly at all,

slept during those two nights, such his anxieties. This morning, all is calm, sleeked out into spotless white;

Pogarell and the world are wrapt as in a windingsheet, near two feet of snow on the ground. Air hard and

crisp; a hot sun possible about noon season. "By daybreak" we are all astir, rendezvousing, ranking,into

Four Columns; ready to advance in that fashion for battle, or for deploying into battle, wherever the Enemy

turn up. The orders were all given overnight, two nights ago; were all understood, too, and known to be

rhadamanthine; and, down to the lowest pioneer, no man is uncertain what to do. If we but knew where the

Scouts, GeneralAdjutants are out on the quest; to no purpose hitherto. One young GeneralAdjutant,

Saldern, whose name we shall know again, has ridden northward, has pulled bridle some way north of

Pogarell; hangs, gazing diligently through his spyglass, there;can see nothing but a Plain of silent snow,

with sparse bearding of bushes (nothing like a hedge in these countries), and here and there a tree, the

miserable skeleton of a poplar: when happily, owing to an Austrian DragoonBe pleased to accept (in

"Austrian Dragoon of the regiment Althan, native of Kriesewitz in this neighborhood, who was billeted in

Christopher Schonwitz's, had been much in want of a clean shirt, and other interior outfit; and had, last night,

imperatively despatched the man Scholzke, a farmservant of the said Christopher's, off to his, the Dragoon's,

Father in Kriesewitz, to procure such shirt or outfit, and to return early with the same; under penalty

ofScholzke and his master dare not think under what penalty. Scholzke, floundering homewards with the

outfit from Kriesewitz, flounders at this moment into Saldern's sphere of vision: 'Whence, whither?' asks

Saldern: 'Dost thou know where the Austrians are?' (RECHT GUT: in Mollwitz, whither I am going!' Saldern

takes him to the King,and that was the first clear light his Majesty had on the matter." [Fuchs, pp. 6, 7.]

That or something equivalent, indisputably was; Saldern and "a Peasant," the account of it in all the Books.

The King says to this Peasant, "Thou shalt ride with me today!" And Scholzke, Ploschke others call

him,heavyfooted rational biped knowing the ground there practically, every yard of it,did, as appears,

attend the King all morning; and do service, that was recognizable long years afterwards. "For always," say

the Books, "when the King held review here, Ploschke failed not to make appearance on the field of Pogarell,

At break of day the ranking and arranging began. Pogarell clock is near striking ten, when the last squadron

or battalion quits Pogarell; and the Four Columns, punctiliously correct, are all under way. Two on each side

of Ohlau Highway; steadily advancing, with pioneers ahead to clear any obstacle there may be. Few

obstacles; here and there a little ditch (where Ploschke's advice may be good, under the sleek of the snow), no

fences, smooth wide Plain, nothing you would even call a knoll in it for many miles ahead and around.

Mollwitz is some seven miles north from Pogarell; intermediate lie dusty fractions of Villages more than one;

two miles or more from Mollwitz we come to Pampitz on our left, the next considerable, if any of them can

"All these Dorfs, and indeed most German ones," says my Tourist, "are made on one type; an agglomerate of

dusty farmyards, with their stalls and barns; all the farmyards huddled together in two rows; a broad negligent

road between, seldom mended, never swept except by the elements. Generally there is nothing to be seen, on

each hand, but thatched roofs, dead clay walls and rude wooden gates; sometimes a poor publichouse, with

probable beer in it; never any shop, nowhere any patch of swept pavement, or trim gatheringplace for

natives of a social gossipy turn: the road lies sleepy, littery, good only for utilitarian purposes. In the middle

of the Village stands Church and Churchyard, with probably some gnarled trees around it: Church often

larger than you expected; the Churchyard, always fenced with high stoneandmortar wall, is usually the

principal military post of the place. Mollwitz, at the present day, has something of whitewash here and there;

one of the farmer people, or more, wearing a civilized prosperous look. The belfry offers you a pleasant view:

the roofs and steeples of Brieg, pleasantly visible to eastward; villages dotted about, Laugwitz, Barzdorf,

Hermsdorf, clear to your inquiring: and to westward, and to southward, tops of Hillcountry in the distance.

Westward, twenty miles off, are pleasant Hills; and among them, if you look well, shadowy Townspires,

which you are assured are Strehlen, a place also of interest in Friedrich's History.Your belfry itself, in

Mollwitz, is old, but not unsound; and the big iron clock grunts heavily at your ear, or perhaps bursts out in a

too deafening manner, while you study the topographies. Pampitz, too, seems prosperous, in its littery way;

the Church is bigger and newer,"owing to an accident we shall hear of soon; "Country all about seems

farmed with some industry, but with shallow ploughing; liable to drought. It is very sandy in quality; shorn of

umbrage; painfully naked to an English eye." That is the big champaign, coated with two feet of snow, where

Neipperg, all this while, is much at his ease on this white restingday, He is just sitting down to dinner at the

Dorfschulze�s (Village Provost, or miniature Mayor of Mollwitz), a composed man; whenrockets or

projectiles, and successive anxious sputterings from the steepletops of Brieg, are hastily reported: what can

it mean? Means little perhaps;Neipperg sends out a Hussar party to ascertain, and composedly sets himself

to dine. In a little while his Hussar party will come galloping back, faster than it went; faster and fewer;and

there will be news for Neipperg during dinner! Better here looking out, though it was a restday?

The truth is, the Prussian advance goes on with punctilious exactitude, by no means rapidly. Colonel Count

van Rothenburg, the same whom we lately heard of in Paris as a miracle of gambling, he now here, in a

new capacity, is warily leading the Vanguard of Dragoons; warily, with the Four Columns well to rear of

him: the Austrian Hussar party came upon Rothenburg, not two miles from Mollwitz; and suddenly drew

bridle. Them Rothenburg tumbles to the rightabout, and chases;finds, on advancing, the Austrian Army

totally unaware. It is thought, had Rothenburg dashed forward, and sent word to the rearward to dash forward

at their swiftest, the Austrian Army might have been cut in pieces here, and never have got together to try

battle at all. But Rothenburg had no orders; nay, had orders Not to get into fighting;nor had Friedrich

himself, in this his first Battle, learned that feline or leonine promptitude of spring which he subsequently

manifested. Far from it! Indeed this punctilious deliberation, and slow exactitude as on the reviewground, is

wonderful and noteworthy at the first start of Friedrich;the faithful apprenticehand still rigorous to the

rules of the old shop. Ten years hence, twenty years hence, had Friedrich found Neipperg in this condition,

Neipperg's account had been soon settled! Rothenburg drove back the Hussars, all manner of successive

Hussar parties, and kept steadily ahead of the main battle, as he had been bidden.

Pampitz Village being now passed, and in rear of them to left, the Prussian Columns halt for some instants;

burst into fieldmusic; take to deploying themselves into line. There is solemn wheeling, shooting out to right

and left, done with spotless precision: once in line,in two lines, "each three men deep," lines many yards

apart,they will advance on Mollwitz; still solemnly, field music guiding, and banners spread. Which will

be a work of time. That the King's frugal fielddinner was shot away, from its camp table near Pampitz (as

Fuchs has heard), is evidently mythical; and even impossible, the Austrians having yet no cannon within

miles of him; and being intent on dining comfortably themselves, not on firing at other people's dinners.

Fancy Neipperg's state of mind, busy beginning dinner in the little Schulze's, or TownProvost's house, when

the Hussars dashed in at full gallop, shouting "DER FEIND, The Enemy! All in march there; vanguard this

side of Pampitz; killed forty of us!"Quick, your Plan of Battle, then? Whitherward; How; What? answer or

perish! Neipperg was infinitely struck; dropt knife and fork: "Send for Romer, General of the Horse!" Romer

did the indispensable: a swift man, not apt to lose head. Romer's battleplan, I should hope, is already made;

or it will fare ill with Neipperg and him. But beat, ye drummers; gallop, ye aidesdecamp as for life! The

first thing is to get our Force together; and it lies scattered about in three other Villages besides Mollwitz,

miles apart. Neipperg's trumpets clangor, his aidesdecamp gallop: he has his left wing formed, and the

other parts in a state of rapid genesis, Horse and Foot pouring in from Laugwitz, Barzdorf, Gruningen, before

the Prussians have quite done deploying themselves, and got well within shot of him. Romer, by birth a

Saxon gentleman, by all accounts a superior soldier and excellent General of Horse, commands this Austrian

left wing, General Goldlein, [(Anonymous) MARIA THERESA (already cited), p. 8 n.] a Swiss veteran of

good parts, presiding over the Infantry in that quarter. Neipperg himself, were he once complete, will

Neipperg is to be in two lines, as the Prussians are, with horse on each wing, which is orthodox military

order. His length of front, I should guess, must have been something better than two English miles: a sluggish

Brook, called of Laugwitz, from the Village of that name which lies some way across, is on his right hand;

sluggish, boggy; stagnating towards the Oder in those parts: improved farming has, in our time, mostly

dried the strip of bog, and made it into coarse meadow, which is rather a relief amid the dry sandy element.

Neipperg's right is covered by that. His left rests on the Hamlet of Gruningen, a mileandhalf northeast of

Mollwitz;meant to have rested on Hermsdorf nearly east, but the Prussians have already taken that up. The

sun coming more and more round to west of south (for it is now past noon) shines right in Neipperg's face,

and is against him: how the wind is, nobody mentions,probably there was no wind. His regular Cavalry,

8,600, outnumbers twice or more that of the Prussians, not to mention their quality; and he has fewer

Infantry, somewhat in proportion; the entire force on each side is scarcely above 20,000, the Prussians

slightly in majority by count. In fieldpieces Neipperg is greatly outnumbered; the Prussians having about

threescore, he only eighteen. [Kausler, Atlas der merkwurdigsten Schlachten, p. 232.] And now here ARE the

Prussians, close upon our left wing, not yet in contact with the right,which in fact is not yet got into

existence;thank Heaven they have not come before our left got into existence, as our right (if you knew it)

The Prussians, though so ready for deploying, have had their own difficulties and delays. Between the boggy

Brook of Laugwitz on their left, and the Village of Hermsdorf, two miles distant, on which their right wing is

to lean, there proves not to be room enough; [ OEuvres de Frederic, ii. 73.] and then, owing to mistake of

Schulenburg (our old pipeclay friend, who commands the right wing of Horse here, and is not up in time),

there is too much room. Not room enough, for all the Infantry, we say: the last three Battalions of the front

line therefore, the three on the utmost right, wheel round, and stand athwart; EN POTENCE (as soldiers say),

or at right angles to the first line; hanging to it like a kind of lid in that part,between Schulenburg and

them,had Schulenburg come up. Thus are the three battalions got rid of at least; "they cap the First

Prussian line rectangularly, like a lid," says my authority,lid which does not reach to the Second Line by a

good way. This accidental arrangement had material effects on the right wing. Unfortunate Schulenburg did

at last come up:had he miscalculated the distances, then? Once on the ground, he will find he does not

reach to Hermsdorf after all, and that there is now too much room! What his degree of fault was I know not;

Friedrich has long been dissatisfied with these Dragoons of Schulenburg; "good for nothing, I always told

you" (at that Skirmish of Baumgarten): and now here is the General himself fallen blundering!In respect of

Horse, the Austrians are more than two to one; to make out our deficiency, the King, imitating something he

had read about Gustavus Adolphus, intercalates the Horse Squadrons, on each wing, with two Battalions of

Grenadiers, and SO lengthens them;"a manoeuvre not likely to be again imitated," he admits.

All these movements and arrangements are effected above a mile from Mollwitz, no enemy yet visible. Once

effected, we advance again with music sounding, sixty pieces of artillery well in front, steady,

steady!across the floor of snow which is soon beaten smooth enough, the stage, this day, of a great

adventure. And now there is the Enemy's left wing, Romer and his Horse; their right wing wider away, and

not yet, by a good space, within cannonrange of us. It is towards Two of the afternoon; Schulenburg now on

his ground, laments that he will not reach to Hermsdorf;but it may be dangerous now to attempt repairing

that error? At Two of the clock, being now fairly within distance, we salute Romer and the Austrian left, with

all our sixty cannon; and the sound of drums and clarinets is drowned in universal artillery thunder. Incessant,

for they take (by order) to "swiftshooting," which is almost of the swiftness of musketry in our Prussian

practice; and from sixty cannon, going at that rate, we may fancy some effect. The Austrian Horse of the left

wing do not like it; all the less as the Austrians, rather short of artillery, have nothing yet to reply with.

No Cavalry can stand long there, getting shivered in that way; in such a noise, were there nothing more. "Are

we to stand here like milestones, then, and be all shot without a stroke struck?" "Steady!" answers Romer.

But nothing can keep them steady: "To be shot like dogs (WIE HUNDE)! For God's sake (URN GOTTES

WILLEN), lead us forward, then, to have a stroke at them!"in tones ever more plangent, plaintively

indignant; growing ungovernable. And Romer can get no orders; Neipperg is on the extreme right, many

things still to settle there; and here is the cannonthunder going, and soon their very musketry will open.

Andand there is Schulenburg, for one thing, stretching himself out eastwards (rightwards) to get hold of

Hermsdorf; thinking this an opportunity for the manoeuvre. "Forward!" cries Romer; and his thirty

Squadrons, like bottled whirlwind now at last let loose, dash upon Schulenburg's poor ten (five of them of

Schulenburg's own regiment,who are turned sideways too, trotting towards Hermsdorf, at the wrong

moment,and dash them into wild ruin. That must have been a charge! That was the beginning of hours of

For the Prussian Horse fly wildly; and it is in vain to rally. The King is among them; has come in hot haste,

conjuring and commanding: poor Schulenburg addresses his own regiment, "Oh, shame, shame! shall it be

told, then?" rallies his own regiment, and some others; charges fiercely in with them again; gets a sabre

slash across the face,does not mind the sabreslash, small bandaging will do;gets a bullet through the

head (or through the heart, it is not said which); [ HeldenGeschichte, i. 899.] and falls down dead; his

regiment going to the winds again, and HIS care of it and of other things concluding in this honorable

manner. Nothing can rally that right wing; or the more you rally, the worse it fares: they are clearly no match

for Romer, these Prussian Horse. They fly along the front of their own First Line of Infantry, they fly

between the two Lines; Romer chasing,till the fire of the Infantry (intolerable to our enemies, and hitting

some even of our fugitive friends) repels him. For the notable point in all this was the conduct of the Infantry;

and how it stood in these wild vortexes of ruin; impregnable, immovable, as if every man of it were stone;

and steadily poured out deluges of fire,"five Prussian shots for two Austrian:"such is perfect discipline

The intolerable fire repels Romer, when he trenches on the Infantry: however, he captures nine of the

Prussian sixty guns; has scattered their Horse to the winds; and charges again and again, hoping to break the

Infantry too,till a bullet kills him, the gallant Romer; and some other has to charge and try. It was thought,

had Goldlein with his Austrian Infantry advanced to support Romer at this juncture, the Battle had been

gained. Five times, before Romer fell and after, the Austrians charged here; tried the Second Line too; tried

once to take Prince Leopold in rear there. But Prince Leopold faced round, gave intolerable fire; on one face

as on the other, he, or the Prussian Infantry anywhere, is not to be broken. "Prince Friedrich", one of the

Margraves of Schwedt, King's Cousin, whom we did not know before, fell in these wild rallyings and

wrestlings; "by a cannonball, at the King's hand," not said otherwise where. He had come as Volunteer, few

weeks ago, out of Holland, where he was a rising General: he has met his fate here,and Margraf Karl, his

The Prussian Horse, this right wing of it, is a ruined body; boiling in wild disorder, flooding rapidly away to

rearward, which is the safest direction to retreat upon. They "sweep away the King's person with them,"

say some cautious people; others say, what is the fact, that Schwerin entreated, and as it were commanded,

the King to go; the Battle being, to all appearance, irretrievable. Go he did, with small escort, and on a long

ride, to Oppeln, a Prussian post, thirtyfive miles rearward, where there is a Bridge over the Oder and a

safe country beyond. So much is indubitable; and that he despatched an Aidedecamp to gallop into

Brandenburg, and tell the Old Dessauer, "Bestir yourself! Here all seems lost!" and vanished from the

Field, doubtless in very desperate humor. Upon which the extraneous world has babbled a good deal,

"Cowardice! Wanted courage: Haha!" in its usual foolish way; not worth answer from him or from us.

Friedrich's demeanor, in that disaster of his right wing, was furious despair rather; and neither Schulenburg

nor Margraf Friedrich, nor any of the captains, killed or left living, was supposed to have sinned by

Indisputable it is, though there is deep mystery upon it, the King vanishes from Mollwitz Field at this point

for sixteen hours, into the regions of Myth, "into Fairyland," as would once have been said; but reappears

unharmed in tomorrow's daylight: at which time, not sooner, readers shall hear what little is to be said of

this obscure and muchdisfigured small affair. For the present we hasten back to Mollwitz,where the

murderous thunder rages unabated all this while; the very noise of it alarming mankind for thirty miles round.

At Breslau, which is thirty good miles off, horrible dull grumble was heard from the southern quarter ("still

better, if you put a staff in the ground, and set your ear to it"); and from the steepletops, there was dim

cloudland of powdersmoke discernible in the horizon there. "At Liegnitz," which is twice the distance, "the

earth sensibly shook," [ HeldenGeschichte; and Jordan's Letter, infra.]at least the air did, and the nerves

"Had Goldlein but advanced with his Foot, in support of gallant Romer!" say the Austrian Books. But

Goldlein did not advance; nor is it certain he would have found advantage in so doing: Goldlein, where he

stands, has difficulty enough to hold his own. For the notable circumstance, miraculous to military men, still

is, How the Prussian Foot (men who had never been in fire, but whom Friedrich Wilhelm had drilled for

twenty years) stand their ground, in this distraction of the Horse. Not even the two outlying Grenadier

Battalions will give way: those poor intercalated Grenadiers, when their Horse fled on the right and on the

left, they stand there, like a fixed stonedam in that wild whirlpool of ruin. They fix bayonets, "bring their

two fieldpieces to flank" (Winterfeld was Captain there), and, from small arms and big, deliver such a fire

as was very unexpected. Nothing to be made of Winterfeld and them. They invincibly hurl back charge after

charge; and, with dogged steadiness, manoeuvre themselves into the general Line again; or into contact with

the three superfluous Battalions, arranged EN POTENCE, whom we heard of. Those three, ranked athwart in

this right wing ("like a lid," between First Line and second), maintained themselves in like impregnable

fashion,Winterfeld commanding;and proved unexpectedly, thinks Friedrich, the saving of the whole.

For they also stood their ground immovable, like rocks; steadily spouting firetorrents. Five successive

charges storm upon them, fruitless: "Steady, MEINE KINDER; fix bayonets, handle ramrods! There is the

Horsedeluge thundering in upon you; reserve your fire, till you see the whites of their eyes, and get the

word; then give it them, and again give it them: see whether any man or any horse can stand it!"

Neipperg, soon after Romer fell, had ordered Goldlein forward: Goldlein with his Infantry did advance,

gallantly enough; but to no purpose. Goldlein was soon shot dead; and his Infantry had to fall back again,

ineffectual or worse. Iron ramrods against wooden; five shots to two: what is there but falling back? Neipperg

sent fresh Horse from his right wing, with Berlichingen, a new famed General of Horse; Neipperg is furiously

bent to improve his advantage, to break those Prussians, who are mere musketeers left bare, and thinks that

will settle the account: but it could in no wise be done. The Austrian Horse, after their fifth trial, renounce

charging; fairly refuse to charge any more; and withdraw dispirited out of ballrange, or in search of things

not impracticable. The Hussar part of them did something of plunder to rearward;and, besides poor

Maupertuis's adventure (of which by and by), and an attempt on the Prussian baggage and knapsacks, which

proved to be "too well guarded,""burnt the Church of Pampitz," as some small consolation. The Prussians

had stript their knapsacks, and left them in Pampitz: the Austrians, it was noticed, stript theirs in the Field;

built walls of them, and fired behind,the same, in a kneeling, more or less protected posture,which did not

In fact, the Austrian Infantry too, all Austrians, hour after hour, are getting wearier of it: neither Infantry nor

Cavalry can stand being riddled by swift shot in that manner. In spite of their knapsack walls, various

regiments have shrunk out of ballrange; and several cannot, by any persuasion, be got to come into it again.

Others, who do reluctantly advance,see what a figure they make; man after man edging away as he can, so

that the regiment "stands forty to eighty men deep, with lanes through it every two or three yards;" permeable

everywhere to Cavalry, if we had them; and turning nothing to the Enemy but colorsergeants and bare poles

of a regiment! And Romer is dead, and Goldlein of the Infantry is dead. And on their right wing, skirted by

that marshy Brook of Laugwitz,Austrian right wing had been weakened by detachments, when

Berlichingen rode off to succeed Romer,the Austrians are suffering: Posadowsky's Horse (among whom is

Rothenburg, once vanguard), strengthened by remnants who have rallied here, are at last prospering, after

reverses. And the Prussian fire of small arms, at such rate, has lasted now for five hours. The Austrian Army,

becoming instead of a web a mere series of flying tatters, forming into stripes or lanes in the way we see,

These symptoms are not hidden from Schwerin. His own ammunition, too, he knows is running scarce, and

fighters here and there are searching the slain for cartridges:Schwerin closes his ranks, trims and tightens

himself a little; breaks forth into universal fieldmusic, and with banners spread, starts in mass wholly,

An intelligent Austrian Officer, writing next week from Neisse, [ Feldzuge der Preussen (above cited), i. 38.]'

confesses he never saw anything more beautiful. "I can well say, I never in my life saw anything more

beautiful. They marched with the greatest steadiness, arrowstraight, and their front like a line

(SCHNURGLEICH), as if they had been upon parade. The glitter of their clear arms shone strangely in the

setting sun, and the fire from them went on no otherwise than a continued peal of thunder." Grand picture

indeed; but not to be enjoyed as a Work of Art, for it is coming upon us! "The spirits of our Army sank

altogether", continues he; "the Foot plainly giving way, Horse refusing to come forward, all things wavering

towards dissolution:"so that Neipperg, to avoid worse, gives the word to go;and they roll off at

doublequick time, through Mollwitz, over Laugwitz Bridge and Brook, towards Grotkau by what routes

they can. The sun is just sunk; a quarter to eight, says the intelligent Austrian Officer,while the Austrian

They had lost nine of their own cannon, and all of those Prussian nine which they once had, except one: eight

cannon MINUS, in all. Prisoners of them were few, and none of much mark: two Field marshals, Romer and

Goldlein, lie among the dead; four more of that rank are wounded. Four standards too are gone; certain

kettledrums and the like trophies, not in great number. LieutenantGeneral Browne was of these retreating

Austrians; a little fact worth noting: of his actions this day, or of his thoughts (which latter surely must have

been considerable), no hint anywhere. The Austrians were not much chased; though they might have been,

fresh Cavalry (two Ohlau regiments, drawn hither by the sound [Interesting correct account of their

movements and adventures this day and some previous days, in Nicolai, Anekdoten, ii. 142148.]) having

hung about to rear of them, for some time past; unable to get into the Fight, or to do any good till now.

Schwerin, they say, though he had two wounds, was for pursuing vigorously: but Leopold of Anhalt

overpersuaded him; urged the darkness, the uncertainty. Berlichingen, with their own Horse, still partly

covered their rear; and the Prussians, Ohlauers included, were but weak in that branch of the service. Pursuit

lasted little more than two miles, and was never hot. The loss of men, on both sides, was not far from equal,

and rather in favor of the Austrian side:Austrians counted in killed, wounded and missing, 4,410 men;

Prussians 4,613; [Orlich, i. 108; Kansler, p. 235, correct; HeldenGeschichte, i. 895, incorrect.]but the

Prussians bivouacked on the ground, or quartered in these Villages, with victory to crown them, and the

thought that their hard day's work had been well done. Besides Margraf Friedrich, Volunteer from Holland,

there lay among the slain Colonel Count von Finkenstein (Old Tutor's Son), King's friend from boyhood, and

much loved. He was of the six whom we saw consulting at the door at Reinsberg, during a certain aguefit;

Such was Mollwitz, the first Battle for Silesia; which had to cost many Battles first and last. Silesia will be

gained, we can expect, by fighting of this kind in an honest cause. But here is something already gained,

which is considerable, and about which there is no doubt. A new Military Power, it would appear, has come

upon the scene; the GazetteerandDiplomatic world will have to make itself familiar with a name not much

heard of hitherto among the Nations. "A Nation which can fight," think the Gazetteers; "fight almost as the

very Swedes did; and is led on by its King too,who may prove, in his way, a very Charles XII., or small

Macedonia's Madman, for aught one knows?" In which latter branch of their prognostic the Gazetteers were

The Fame of this Battle, which is now so sunk out of memory, was great in Europe; and struck, like a huge

wargong, with long resonance, through the general ear. M. de Voltaire had run across to Lille in those

Spring days: there is a good Troop of Players in Lille; a Niece, Madame Denis, wife of some Military

Commissariat Denis, important in those parts, can lodge the divine Emilie and me;and one could at last see

MAHOMET, after five years of struggling, get upon the boards, if not yet in Paris by a great way, yet in

Lille, which is something. MAHOMET is getting upon the boards on those terms; and has proceeded, not

amiss, through an Act or two, when a Note from the King of Prussia was handed to Voltaire, announcing the

victory of Mollwitz. Which delightful Note Voltaire stopt the performance till he read to the Audience:

"Bravissimo!" answered the Audience. "You will see," said M. de Voltaire to the friends about him, "this

Piece at Mollwitz will make mine succeed:" which proved to be the fact. [Voltaire, OEuvres (Vie Privee), ii.

74.] For the French are AntiAustrian; and smell great things in the wind. "That man is mad, your Most

Christian Majesty?" "Not quite; or at any rate not mad only!" think Louis and his Belleisles now.

Dimly poring in those old Books, and squeezing one's way into facetoface view of the extinct Time, we

begin to notice what a clangorous rumor was in Mollwitz to the then generation of mankind;betokening

many things; universal European War, as the first thing. Which duly came to pass; as did, at a slower rate, the

ulterior thing, not yet so apparent, that indeed a new hour had struck on the Time Horologe, that a New

Epoch had risen. Yes, my friends. New Charles XII. or not, here truly has a new Man and King come upon

the scene: capable perhaps of doing something? Slumberous Europe, rotting amid its blind pedantries, its lazy

hypocrisies, conscious and unconscious: this man is capable of shaking it a little out of its stupid refuges of

lies, and ignominious wrappages and bedclothes, which will be its grave clothes otherwise; and of

intimating to it, afar off, that there is still a Veracity in Things, and a Mendacity in ShamThings, and that the

This Mollwitz is a most deliberate, regulated, ponderously impressive (GRAVITATISCH) Feat of Arms, as

the reader sees; done all by Regulation methods, with orthodox exactitude; in a slow, weighty, almost

pedantic, but highly irrefragable manner. It is the triumph of Prussian Discipline; of military orthodoxy well

put in practice: the honest outcome of good natural stuff in those Brandenburgers, and of the supreme virtues

of Drill. Neipperg and his Austrians had much despised Prussian soldiering: "Keep our soup hot," cried they,

on running out this day to rank themselves; "hot a little, till we drive these fellows to the Devil!" That was

their opinion, about noon this day: but that is an opinion they have renounced for all remaining days and

years.It is a Victory due properly to Friedrich Wilhelm and the Old Dessauer, who are far away from it.

Friedrich Wilhelm, though dead, fights here, and the others only do his bidding on this occasion. His Son, as

yet, adds nothing of his own; though he will ever henceforth begin largely adding,right careful withal to

lose nothing, for the Friedrich Wilhelm contribution is invaluable, and the basis of everything; but it is

curious to see in what contrast this first Battle of Friedrich's is with his latter and last ones.

Considering the Battle of Mollwitz, and then, in contrast, the intricate Pragmatic Sanction, and what their

consequences were and their antecedents, it is curious once more! This, then, is what the Pragmatic Sanction

has come to? Twenty years of worldwide diplomacy, cunningly devised spiderthreads overnetting all the

world, have issued here. Your Congresses of Cambray, of Soissons, your GrumkowSeckendorf

Machiavelisms, all these might as well have lain in their bed. Real Pragmatic Sanction would have been, A

well trained Army and your Treasury full. Your Treasury is empty (nothing in it but those foolish 200,000

English guineas, and the passionate cry for more): and your Army is not trained as this Prussian one; cannot

keep its ground against this one. Of all those longheaded Potentates, simple Friedrich Wilhelm, son of

Nature, who had the honesty to do what Nature taught him, has come out, gainer. You all laughed at him as a

fool: do you begin to see now who was wise, who fool? He has an Army that "advances on you with

glittering musketry, steady as on the paradeground, and pours out fire like one continuous thunderpeal;" so

that, strange as it seems, you find there will actually be nothing for you buttaking to your heels, shall we

say?rolling off with despatch, as second best! These things are of singular omen. Here stands one that

will avenge Friedrich Wilhelm,if Friedrich Wilhelm were not already sufficiently avenged by the mere

verdict of facts, which is palpably coming out, as Time peels the wiggeries away from them more and more.

Mollwitz and such places are full of veracity; and no head is so thick as to resist conviction in that kind.

Of the King's Flight, or sudden disappearance into Fairyland, during this first Battle, the King himself, who

alone could have told us fully, maintained always rigorous silence, and nowhere drops the least hint. So that

the small fact has come down to us involved in a great bulk of fabulous cobwebs, mostly of an ill natured

character, set agoing by Voltaire, Valori and others {which fabulous process, in the goodnatured form, still

continues itself); and, except for Nicolai's good industry (in his ANEKDOTEN Book), we should have

difficulty even in guessing, not to say understanding, as is now partly possible. The few real particulars

and those do verify themselves, and hang perfectly together, when the big globe of fable is burnt off from

"Battle lost," said Schwerin: "but what is the loss of a Battle to that of your Majesty's own Person? For

Heaven's sake, go; get across the Oder; be you safe, till this decide itself!" That was reasonable counsel. If

defeated, Schwerin can hope to retreat upon Ohlau, upon Breslau, and save the Magazines. This side the

Oder, all will be movements, a whirlpool of Hussars; but beyond the Oder, all is quiet, open. To Ohlau, to

Glogau, nay home to Brandenburg and the Old Dessauer with his Camp at Gottin, the road is free, by the

other side of the Oder.Schwerin and Prince Leopold urging him, the King did ride away; at what hour,

with what suite, or with what adventures (not mostly fabulous) is not known:but it was towards Lowen,

fifteen miles off (where he crossed Neisse River, the other day); and thence towards Oppeln, on the Oder,

eighteen miles farther; and the pace was swift. Leopold, on reflection, ordered off a Squadron of

Gensd'Armes to overtake his Majesty, at Lowen or sooner; which they never did. Passing Pampitz, the King

threw Fredersdorf a word, who was among the baggage there: "To Oppeln; bring the Purse, the Privy

Writings!" Which Fredersdorf, and the Clerks (and another Herr, who became Nicolai's Fatherinlaw in

The King's suite was small, names not given; but by the time he got to Lowen, being joined by cavalry

fugitives and the like, it had got to be seventy persons: too many for the King. He selected what was his of

them; ordered the gates to be shut behind him on all others, and again rode away. The Leopold Squadron of

Gensd'Armes did not arrive till after his departure; and having here lost trace of him, called halt, and billeted

for the night. The King speeds silently to Oppeln on his excellent bay horse, the worsemounted gradually

giving in. At Oppeln is a Bridge over the Oder, a free Country beyond: Regiment La Motte lay, and as the

King thinks, still lies in Oppeln;but in that he is mistaken. Regiment La Motte is with the baggage at

Pampitz, all this day; and a wandering Hussar Party, some sixty Austrians, have taken possession of Oppeln.

The King, and the few who had not yet broken down, arrive at the Gate of Oppeln, late, under cloud of night:

"Who goes?" cried the sentry from within. "Prussians! A Prussian Courier!" answer they;and are fired

upon through the gratings; and immediately draw back, and vanish unhurt into Night again. "Had those

Hussars only let him in!" said Austria afterwards: but they had not such luck. It was at this point, according to

Valori, that the King burst forth into audible ejaculations of a lamentable nature. There is no getting over,

then, even to Brandenburg, and in an insolvent condition. Not open insolvency and bankrupt disgrace; no,

ruin, and an Austrian jail, is the one outlook. "O MON DIEU, O God, it is too much (C'EN EST TROP)!"

with other the like snatches of lamentation; [Valori, i. 104.] which are not inconceivable in a young man,

sleepless for the third night, in these circumstances; but which Valori knows nothing of, except by malicious

rumor from the valet class,who have misinformed Valori about several other points.

The King riding diligently, with or without ejaculations, back towards Lowen, comes at an early hour to the

Mill of Hilbersdorf, within a mileandhalf of that place. He alights at the Mill; sends one of his attendants,

almost the only one now left, to inquire what is in Lowen. The answer, we know, is: "A squadron of

Gensd'Armes there; furthermore, a Prussian Adjutant come to say, Victory at Mollwitz!" Upon which the

King mounts again;issues into daylight, and concludes these mythical adventures. That "in Lowen, in the

shop at the corner of the Marketplace, Widow Panzern, subsequently Wife Somethingelse, made his

Majesty a cup of coffee, and served a roast fowl along with it," cannot but be welcome news, if true; and that

his Majesty got to Mollwitz again before dark that same "day," [Fuchs, p. 11.] is liable to no controversy.

In this way was Friedrich snatched by Morgante into Fairyland, carried by Diana to the top of Pindus (or even

by Proserpine to Tartarus, through a bad sixteen hours), till the Battle whirlwind subsided. Friendly

imaginative spirits would, in the antique time, have so construed it: but these moderns were

maliciousvaletish, not friendly; and wrapped the matter in mere stupid worlds of cobweb, which require

burning. Friedrich himself was stonesilent on this matter, all his life after; but is understood never quite to

have pardoned Schwerin for the illluck of giving him such advice. [Nicolai, ii. 180195 (the one true

account); Laveaux, i. 194; Valori, i. 104; (the myth in various stages). Most distractedly mythical of all, with

the truth clear before it, is the latest version, just come out, in Was sich die Schlesier vom alten Fritz erzahlen

Friedrich's adventure is not the only one of that kind at Mollwitz; there is another equally

indubitable,which will remain obscure, halfmythical to the end of the world. The truth is, that Right Wing

of the Prussian Army was fallen chaotic, ruined; and no man, not even one who had seen it, can give account

of what went on there. The sage Maupertuis, for example, had climbed some tree or place of impregnability

("tree" Voltaire calls it, though that is hardly probable), hoping to see the Battle there. And he did see it,

much too clearly at last! In such a tide of charging and chasing, on that Right Wing and round all the Field in

the Prussian rear; in such wide bickering and boiling of Horsecurrents,which fling out, round all the

Prussian rear quarters, such a spray of Austrian Hussars for one element,Maupertuis, I have no doubt,

wishes much he were at home, doing his sines and tangents. An Austrian Hussarparty gets sight of him, on

his tree or other standpoint (Voltaire says elsewhere he was mounted on an ass, the malicious spirit!)too

certain, the Austrian Hussars got sight of him: his purse, gold watch, all he has of movable is given frankly;

all will not do. There are frills about the man, fine laces, cloth; a goodish yellow wig on him, for one

thing:their Slavonic dialect, too fatally intelligible by the pantomime accompanying it, forces sage

Maupertuis from his tree or standpoint; the big red face flurried into scarlet, I can fancy; or scarlet and

ashywhite mixed; andLet us draw a veil over it! He is next seen shirtless, the once very haughty, blustery,

and now muchhumiliated man; still conscious of supreme acumen, insight and pure science; and, though an

Austrian prisoner and a monster of rags, struggling to believe that he is a genius and the Trismegistus of

mankind. What a pickle! The sage Maupertuis, as was natural, keeps passionately asking, of gods and men,

for an Officer with some tincture of philosophy, or even who could speak French. Such Officer is at last

found; humanely advances him money, a shirt and suit of clothes; but can in nowise dispense with his going

to Vienna as prisoner. Thither he went accordingly; still in a mythical condition. Of Voltaire's laughing, there

is no end; and he changes the myth from time to time, on new rumors coming; and there is no truth to be had

from him. [Voltaire, OEuvres (Vie Prive), ii. 3334; and see his LETTERS for some were after the event.]

This much is certain: at Vienna, Maupertuis, prisoner on parole, glided about for some time in deep eclipse,

till the Newspapers began babbling of him. He confessed then that he was Maupertuis, Flattener of the Earth;

but for the rest, "told rather a blind story about himself," says Robinson; spoke as if he had been of the King's

suite, "riding with the King," when that Hussar accident befell;rather a blind story, true story being too sad.

The Vienna Sovereignties, in the turn things had taken, were extremely kind; GrandDuke Franz handsomely

pulled out his own watch, hearing what road the Maupertuis one had gone; dismissed the Maupertuis, with

that and other gifts, home:to Brittany (not to Prussia), till times calmed for engrafting the Sciences.

[ Helden Geschichte, i. 902; Robinson's Despatch (Vienna, 22d April, 1741, n.s.); Voltaire, ubi supra.]

On Wednesday, Friedrich writes this Note to his Sister; the first utterance we have from him since those wild

"MY DEAREST SISTER,I have the satisfaction to inform you that we have yesterday [day before

yesterday; but some of us have only had one sleep!] totally beaten the Austrians. They have lost more than

5,000 men, killed, wounded and prisoners. We have lost Prince Friedrich, Brother of Margraf Karl; General

Schulenburg, Wartensleben of the Carabineers, and many other Officers. Our troops did miracles; and the

result shows as much. It was one of the rudest Battles fought within memory of man.

"I am sure you will take part in this happiness; and that you will not doubt of the tenderness with which I am,

And on the same day there comes, from Breslau, Jordan's Answer to the late anxious little Note from

"BRESLAU, 11th April, 1741. "SIRE,Yesterday I was in terrible alarms. The sound of the cannon heard,

the smoke of powder visible from the steepletops here; all led us to suspect that there was a Battle going on.

Glorious confirmation of it this morning! Nothing but rejoicing among all the Protestant inhabitants; who had

begun to be in apprehension, from the rumors which the other party took pleasure in spreading. Persons who

were in the Battle cannot enough celebrate the coolness and bravery of your Majesty. For myself, I am at the

overflowing point. I have run about all day, announcing this glorious news to the Berliners who are here. In

"M. de Camas is here, very ill for the last two days; attack of feverthe Doctor hopes to bring him

through,"which proved beyond the Doctor: the good Camas died here three days hence (age sixty three);

an excellent GermanFrenchman, of much sense, dignity and honesty; familiar to Friedrich from infancy

onwards, and no doubt regretted by him as deserved. The Widow Camas, a fine old Lady, German by birth,

"One finds, at the corner of every street, an orator of the Plebs celebrating the warlike feats of your Majesty's

troops. I have often, in my idleness, assisted at these discourses: not artistic eloquence, it must be owned, but

spurting rude from the heart. ..." Jordan adds in his next Note: "This morning (14th) I quitted M. de Camas;

who, it is thought, cannot last the day. I have hardly left him during his illness:" [ OEuvres de Frederic, xvii.

Neipperg, meanwhile, had fallen back on Neisse; taken up a strong encampment in that neighborhood; he lies

thereabouts all summer; stretched out, as it were, in a kind of vigilant dogsleep on the threshold, keeping

watch over Neisse, and tries fighting no more at this time, or indeed ever after, to speak of. And always, I

think, with disadvantage, when he does try a little. He had been Grand Duke Franz's Tutor in Warmatters;

had got into trouble at Belgrade once before, and was almost hanged by the Turks. George II. had

occasionally the benefit of him, in coming years. Be not too severe on the poor man, as the Vienna public

was; he had some faculty, though not enough. "Governor of Luxemburg," before long: there, for most part,

let him peacefully drill, and spend the remainder of his poor life. Friedrich says, neither Neipperg nor

himself, at this time, knew the least of War; and that it would be hard to settle which of them made the more

Friedrich, in about three weeks hence, was fully ready for opening trenches upon Brieg; did open trenches,

accordingly, by moonlight, in a grand nocturnal manner (as readers shall see anon); and, by vigorous

cannonading,Marechal de Belleisle having come, by this time, to enjoy the fine spectacle,soon got

possession of Brieg, and held it thenceforth. Neisse now alone remained, with Neipperg vigilantly stretched

upon the threshold of it. But the Marechal de Belleisle, we say, had come; that was the weighty circumstance.

And before Neisse can be thought of, there is a whole Europe, bickering aloft into conflict; embattling itself

from end to end, in sequel of Mollwitz Battle; and such a preliminary sea of negotiating, diplomatic finessing,

pulsefeeling, projecting and palavering, with Friedrich for centre all summer, asas I wish readers could

The Battle of Mollwitz went off like a signalshot among the Nations; intimating that they were, one and all,

to go battling. Which they did, with a witness; making a terrible thing of it, over all the world, for above

seven years to come. Foolish Nations; doomed to settle their jarring accounts in that terrible manner! Nay, the

fewest of them had any accounts, except imaginary ones, to settle there at all; and they went into the

adventure GRATIS, spurred on by spectralities of the sick brain, by phantasms of hope, phantasms of terror;

Not that Mollwitz kindled Europe; Europe was already kindled for some two years past;especially since

the late Kaiser died, and his Pragmatic Sanction was superadded to the other troubles afoot. But ever since

that Image of JENKINS'S EAR had at last blazed up in the slow English brain, like a fiery constellation or

War, Europe was slowly but pretty surely taking fire. France "could not see Spain humbled," she said:

England (in its own dim feeling, and also in the fact of things) could not do at all without considerably

humbling Spain. France, endlessly interested in that SpanishEnglish matter, was already sending out fleets,

firing shots,almost, or altogether, putting forth her hand in it. "In which case, will not, must not, Austria

help us?" thought England,and was asking, daily, at Vienna (with intense earnestness, but without the least

Chapter XI. THE BURSTING FORTH OF BEDLAMS: BELLEISLE AND THE BREAKERS OF PRAGMATIC SANCTION. 656

result), through Excellency Robinson there, when the late Kaiser died. Died, poor gentleman;and left his

big Austrian Heritages lying, as it were, in the open marketplace; elaborately tied by diplomatic packthread

and Pragmatic Sanction; but not otherwise protected against the assembled cupidities of mankind!

Independently of Mollwitz, or of Silesia altogether, it was next to impossible that Europe could long avoid

blazing out; especially unless the SpanishEnglish quarrel got quenched, of which there was no likelihood.

But if not as cause, then as signal, or as signal and cause together (which it properly was), the Battle of

Mollwitz gave the finishing stroke, and set all in motion. This was "the little stone broken loose from the

mountain;" this, rather than the late Kaiser's Death, which Friedrich defined in that manner. Or at least, this

was the first LEAP it took; hitting other stones big and little, which again hit others with their leaping and

rolling, till the whole mountainside is in motion under law of gravity, and you behold one wide

stonetorrent thundering towards the valleys; shivering woods, farms, habitations clean away with it: fatal to

There is, accordingly, from this point, a change in Friedrich's Silesian Adventure; which becomes infinitely

more complicated for him,and for those that write of him, no less! Friedrich's business henceforth is not to

be done by direct fighting, but rather by waiting to see how, and on what side, others will fight: nor can we

describe or understand Friedrich's business, except as in connection with the immense, obsolete, and indeed

delirious Phenomenon called AustrianSuccession War, upon which it is difficult to say any human word. If

History, driven upon Dismal Swamp with its horrors and perils, can get across unsunk, she will be lucky!

For, directly on the back of Mollwitz, there ensued, first, an explosion of Diplomatic activity such as was

never seen before; Excellencies from the four winds taking wing towards Friedrich; and talking and

insinuating, and fencing and fugling, after their sort, in that Silesian Camp of his, the centre being there. A

universal rookery of Diplomatists;whose loud cackle and cawing is now as if gone mad to us; their work

wholly fallen putrescent and avoidable, dead to all creatures. And secondly, in the train of that, there ensued a

universal European War, the French and the English being chief parties in it; which abounds in battles and

feats of arms, spirited but delirious, and cannot be got stilled for seven or eight years to come; and in which

Friedrich and his War swim only as an intermittent Episode henceforth. What to do with such a War; how

extricate the Episode, and leave the War lying? The War was at first a good deal mad; and is now, to men's

imagination, fallen wholly so; who indeed have managed mostly to forget it; only the Episode (reduced

It is singular into what oblivion the huge Phenomenon called AustrianSuccession War has fallen; which,

within a hundred years ago or little more, filled all mortal hearts! The English were principals on one side;

did themselves fight in it, with their customary fire, and their customary guidance ("courageous Wooden Pole

with Cocked Hat," as our friend called it); and paid all the expenses, which were extremely considerable, and

are felt in men's pockets to this day: but the English have more completely forgotten it than any other People.

"Battle of Dettingen, Battle of Fontenay, what, in the Devil's name, were we ever doing there?" the

impatient Englishman asks; and can give no answer, except the general one: "Fit of insanity; DELIRIUM

TREMENS, perhaps FURENS; don't think of it!" Of Philippi and Arbela educated Englishmen can render

account; and I am told young gentlemen entering the Army are pointedly required to say who commanded at

AigosPotamos and wrecked the Peloponnesian War: but of Dettingen and Fontenoy, where is the living

Englishman that has the least notion, or seeks for any? The AustrianSuccession War did veritably rage for

eight years, at a terrific rate, deforming the face of Earth and Heaven; the English paying the piper always,

and founding their National Debt thereby:but not even that could prove mnemonic to them; and they have

dropped the AustrianSuccession War, with one accord, into the general dustbin, and are content it should lie

there. They have not, in their language, the least approach to an intelligible account of it: How it went on,

whitherward, whence; why it was there at all,are points dark to the English, and on which they do not wish

to be informed. They have quitted the matter, as an unintelligible huge EnglishandForeign Delirium

(which in good part it was); Delirium unintelligible to them; tedious, not to say in parts, as those of the

Chapter XI. THE BURSTING FORTH OF BEDLAMS: BELLEISLE AND THE BREAKERS OF PRAGMATIC SANCTION. 657

Austrian Subsidies, hideous and disgusting to them; happily now fallen extinct; and capable of being skipped,

in one's inquiries into the wonders of this England and this World. Which, in fact, is a practical conclusion

"Wars are not memorable," says Sauerteig, "however big they may have been, whatever rages and miseries

they may have occasioned, or however many hundreds of thousands they may have been the death

of,except when they have something of WorldHistory in them withal. If they are found to have been the

travailthroes of great or considerable changes, which continue permanent in the world, men of some

curiosity cannot but inquire into them, keep memory of them. But if they were travailthroes that had no

birth, who of mortals would remember them? Unless perhaps the feats of prowess, virtue, valor and

endurance, they might accidentally give rise to, were very great indeed. Much greater than the most were,

which came out in that AustrianSuccession case! Wars otherwise are mere futile transitory dustwhirlwinds

stilled in blood; extensive fits of human insanity, such as we know are too apt to break out;such as it rather

beseems a faithful Son of the House of Adam NOT to speak about again; as in houses where the grandfather

"Never again will that War, with its deliriums, mad outlays of blood, treasure, and of hope and terror, and

farspread human destruction, rise into visual life in any imagination of living man. In vain shall Dryasdust

strive: things mad, chaotic and without ascertainable purpose or result, cannot be fixed into human memories.

Fix them there by never so many Documentary Histories, elaborate longeared Pedantries, and cunning

threads, the poor human memory has an alchemy against such ill usage;it forgets them again; grows to

know them as a mere torpor, a stupidity and horror, and instinctively flies from Dryasdust and them."

Alive to any considerable degree, in the poor human imagination, this Editor does not expect or even wish the

AustrianSuccession War to be. Enough for him if it could be understood sufficiently to render his poor

History of Friedrich intelligible. For it enwraps Friedrich like a worldvortex henceforth; modifies every step

of his existence henceforth; and apart from it, there is no understanding of his business or him. "So much as

sticks to Friedrich:" that was our original bargain! Assist loyally, O reader, and we will try to make the

The first point to be noted is, Where did it originate? To which the answer mainly is, With that lean

Gentleman whom we saw with Papers in the OEildeBoeuf on Newyear's day last. With Monseigneur the

Marechal de Belleisle principally; with the ambitious cupidities and baseless vanities of the French Court and

Nation, as represented by Belleisle. George II.'s Spanish War, if you will examine, had a real necessity in it.

Jenkins's Ear was the ridiculous outside figure this matter had: Jenkins's Ear was one final item of it; but the

poor English People, in their wrath and bellowings about that small item, were intrinsically meaning: "Settle

the account; let us have that account cleared up and liquidated; it has lain too long!" And seldom were a

The EnglishSpanish War had a basis to stand on in this Universe. The like had the PrussianAustrian one;

so all men now admit. If Friedrich had not business there, what man ever had in an enterprise he ventured on?

Friedrich, after such trial and proof as has seldom been, got his claims on Schlesien allowed by the Destinies.

His claims on Schlesien;and on infinitely higher things; which were found to be his and his Nation's,

though he had not been consciously thinking of them in making that adventure. For, as my poor Friend

insists, there ARE Laws valid in Earth and in Heaven; and the great soul of the world is just. Friedrich had

business in this War; and Maria Theresa VERSUS Friedrich had likewise cause to appear in court, and do her

Chapter XI. THE BURSTING FORTH OF BEDLAMS: BELLEISLE AND THE BREAKERS OF PRAGMATIC SANCTION. 658

But if we ask, What Belleisle or France and Louis XV. had to do there? the answer is rigorously, Nothing.

Their own windy vanities, ambitions, sanctioned not by fact and the Almighty Powers, but by phantasm and

the babble of Versailles; transcendent selfconceit, intrinsically insane; pretensions over their

fellowcreatures which were without basis anywhere in Nature, except in the French brain alone: it was this

that brought Belleisle and France into a German War. And Belleisle and France having gone into an

AntiPragmatic War, the unlucky George and his England were dragged into a Pragmatic one,quitting

their own business, on the Spanish Main, and hurrying to Germany,in terror as at Doomsday, and zeal to

save the Keystone of Nature these. That is the notable point in regard to this War: That France is to be called

the author of it, who, alone of all the parties, had no business there whatever. And the wages due to France

for such a piece of industry,the reader will yet see what wages France and the other parties got, at the tail

We have often said, the SpanishEnglish War was itself likely to have kindled Europe; and again Friedrich's

Silesian War was itself likely,France being nearly sure to interfere. But if both these Wars were necessary

ones, and if France interfered in either of them on the wrong side, the blame will be to France, not to the

necessary Wars. France could, in no way, have interfered in a more barefacedly unjust and gratuitous manner

than she now did; nor, on any terms, have so palpably made herself the author of the conflagration of

deliriums that ensued for above Seven years henceforth. Nay for above Twenty years,the settlement of this

Silesian PragmaticAntipragmatic matter (and of Jenkins's Ear, incidentally, ALONG with this!) not having

It is very wrong to keep Enchanted Wiggeries sitting in this world, as if they were things still alive! By a

species of "conservatism," which gets praised in our Time, but which is only a slothful cowardice, base

indifference to truth, and hatred to trouble in comparison with lies that sit quiet, men now extensively practise

this method of procedure;little dreaming how bad and fatal it at all times is. When the brains are out,

things really ought to die; no matter what lovely things they were, and still affect to be, the brains being

out, they actually ought in all cases to die, and with their best speed get buried. Men had noses, at one time;

and smelt the horror of a deceased reality fallen putrid, of a once dear verity become mendacious,

phantasmal; but they have, to an immense degree, lost that organ since, and are now living comfortably

cheekbyjowl with lies. Lies of that sad "conservative" kind,and indeed of all kinds whatsoever: for that

kind is a general mother; and BREEDS, with a fecundity that is appalling, did you heed it much!

It was pity that the "Holy Romish Reich, Teutsch by Nation," had not got itself buried some ages before.

Once it had brains and life, but now they were out. Under the sway of Barbarossa, under our old antichaotic

friend Henry the Fowler, how different had it been! No field for a Belleisle to come and sow tares in; no

rotten thatch for a French Sungod to go sailing about in the middle of, and set fire to! Henry, when the

Hungarian PanSlavonic Savagery came upon him, had got ready in the interim; and a mangy dog was the

"tribute" he gave them; followed by the due extent of broken crowns, since they would not be content with

that. That was the due of Belleisle too,had there been a Henry to meet him with it, on his crossing the

marches, in Trier Country, in Spring, 1741: "There, you anarchic UpholsteryBelus, fancying yourself God

of the Sun; there is what Teutschland owes you. Go home with that; and mind your own business, which I am

But the sad truth is, for above Four Centuries now,and especially for Three, since little Kaiser Karl IV.

"gave away all the moneys of it," in his pressing occasions, this Holy Romish Reich, Teutsch by Nation, has

been more and ever more becoming an imaginary quantity; the Kaisership of it not capable of being worn by

anybody, except a Hapsburger who had resources otherwise his own. The fact is palpable. And Austria, and

AntiReformation Entity, "conservative" in that bad sense, of slothfully abhorring trouble in comparison with

Chapter XI. THE BURSTING FORTH OF BEDLAMS: BELLEISLE AND THE BREAKERS OF PRAGMATIC SANCTION. 659

lies, had not found the poison more malodorous in this particular than in many others. And had cherished its

"Holy Romish Reich" grown UNholy, phantasmal, like so much else in Austrian things; and had held firm

grip of it, these Three Hundred years; and found it a furthersome and suitable thing, though sensible it was

more and more becoming an Enchanted Wiggery pure and simple. Nor have the consequences failed; they

never do. Belleisle, Louis XIV., Henri II., Francois I.: it is long since the French have known this state of

matters; and been in the habit of breaking in upon it, fomenting internal discontents, getting up unjust

Wars,with or without advantage to France, but with endless disadvantage to Germany. Schmalkaldic War;

ThirtyYears War; Louis XIV.'s Wars, which brought Alsace and the other fine cuttings; late PolishElection

War, and its Lorraine; Austrian Succession War: many are the wars kindled on poor Teutschland by

neighbor France; and large is the sum of woes to Europe and to it, chargeable to that score. Which appears

even yet not to be completed?Perhaps not, even yet. For it is the penalty of being loyal to Enchanted

Wiggeries; of living cheekbyjowl with lies of a peaceable quality, and stuffing your nostrils, and searing

your soul, against the accursed odor they all have!For I can assure you the curse of Heaven does dwell in

one and all of them; and the son of Adam cannot too soon get quit of their bad partnership, cost him what it

Belleisle's Journey as Sungod began in March,"end of March, 1741," no date of a day to be had for that

memorable thing:and he went gyrating about, through the German Courts, for almost a year afterwards; his

course rather erratic, but always in a splendor as of Belus, with those hundred and thirty French Lords and

Valets, and the glory of Most Christian King irradiating him. Very diligent for the first six months, till

September or October next, which we may call his SEEDTIME; and by no means resting after nine or

twelve months, while the harrowing and hoeing went on. In January, 1742, he had the great satisfaction to see

a Bavarian Kaiser got, instead of an Austrian; and everywhere the fruit of his diligent husbandry begin to

BEARD fairly above ground, into a crop of facts (like armed men from dragon's teeth), and "the pleasure of

the" WHOM was it the pleasure of?"prosper in his hands." Belleisle was a pretty man; but I doubt it

was not "the Lord" he was doing the pleasure of, on this occasion, but a very Different Personage, disguised

Austria was not dangerous to France in late times, and now least of all; how far from it,humbled by the

loss of Lorraine; and now as it were bankrupt, itself in danger from all the world. And France, so far as

express Treaties could bind a Nation, was bound to maintain Austria in its present possessions. The bitter loss

of Lorraine had been sweetened to the late Kaiser by that solitary drop of consolation;as his Failure of a

Life had been, poor man: "Failure the most of me has been; but I have got Pragmatic Sanction, thanks to

Heaven, and even France has signed it!" Loss of Lorraine, loss of Elsass, loss of the Three Bishoprics; since

Karl V.'s times, not to speak of earlier, there has been mere loss on loss:and now is the time to

Towards humbling or extinguishing Austria, Belleisle has two preliminary things to do: FIRST, Break the

Pragmatic Sanction, and get everybody to break it; SECOND, Guide the KAISERWAHL (Election of a

Kaiser), so that it issue, not in GrandDuke Franz, Maria Theresa's Husband, as all expect it will, but in

another party friendly to France:say in Karl Albert of Bavaria, whose Family have long been good clients

of ours, dependent on us for a living in the Political World. Belleisle, there is little doubt, had from the first

cast his eye on this unlucky Karl Albert for Kaiser; but is uncertain as to carrying him. Belleisle will take

another if he must; KurSachsen, for example;any other, and all others, only not the GrandDuke: that is a

point already fixed with Belleisle, though he keeps it well in the background, and is careful not to hint it till

In regard to Pragmatic Sanction, Belleisle and France found no difficulty,or the difficulty only (which we

hope must have been considerable) of eating their own Covenant in behalf of Pragmatic Sanction; and

declaring, which they did without visible blush, That it was a Covenant including, if not expressly, then

tacitly, as all human covenants do, this clause, "SALVO JURE TERTII (Saving the rights of Third

Chapter XI. THE BURSTING FORTH OF BEDLAMS: BELLEISLE AND THE BREAKERS OF PRAGMATIC SANCTION. 660

Parties),"that is, of Electors of Bavaria, and others who may object, against it! O soul of honor, O first

Nation of the Universe, was there ever such a subterfuge? Here is a field of flowering corn, the biggest in the

world, begirt with elaborate ringfence, many miles of firm oakpaling pitched and buttressed; the poor

gentleman now dead gave you his Lorraine, and almost his life, for swearing to keep up said paling. And you

do keep it up, all except six yards; through which the biggest team on the highway can drive freely, and the

It appears, the first Nation of the Universe had, at an early period of their consultations, hit upon this of

SALVO JURE TERTII, as the method of eating their Covenant, before an enlightened public. [20th January,

1741, in their Note of Ceremony, recognizing Maria Theresa as Queen of Hungary, Note which had been due

so very long (ADELUNG, ii. 206), there is ominous silence on Pragmatic Sanction; "beginning of March,"

there is virtual avowal of SALVO JURE (ib. 279);open avowal on Belleisle's advent (ib. 305).] And they

persisted in it, there being no other for them. An enlightened public grinned sardonically, and was not taken

in; but, as so many others were eating their Covenants, under equally poor subterfuges, the enlightened public

could not grin long on any individual,could only gape mutely, with astonishment, on all. A glorious

example of veracity and human nobleness, set by the gods of this lower world to their gazing populations,

who could read in the Gazettes! What is truth, falsity, human Kingship, human Swindlership? Are the Ten

Commandments only a figure of speech, then? And it was some beggarly AttorneyDevil that built this

sublunary world and us? Questions might rise; had long been rising;but now there was about enough, and

the response to them was falling due; and Belleisle himself, what is very notable, had been appointed to get

ready the response. Belleisle (little as Belleisle dreamt of it, in these high Enterprises) was ushering in, by

way of response, a RAGNAROK, or Twilight of the Gods, which, as "French Revolution, or Apotheosis of

The operation once accomplished on its own Pragmatic Covenant, France found no difficulty with the others.

Everybody was disposed to eat his Covenant, who could see advantage in so doing, after that admirable

example. The difficulty of France and Belleisle rather was, to keep the hungry parties back: "Don't eat your

Covenant TILL the proper time; patience, we say!" A most sad Miscellany of Royalties, coming all to the

point, "Will you eat your Covenant, Will you keep it?"and eating, nearly all; in fact, wholly all that needed

On the first Invasion of Silesia, Maria Theresa had indignantly complained in every Court; and pointing to

Pragmatic Sanction, had demanded that such Law of Nature be complied with, according to covenant. What

Maria Theresa got by this circuit of the Courts, everybody still knows. Except England, which was willing,

and Holland, which was unwilling, all Courts had answered, more or less uneasily: "Law of

Nature,humph: yes!"and, far from doing anything, not one of them would with certainty promise to do

anything. From England alone and her little King (to whom Pragmatic Sanction is the Palladium of Human

Freedoms and the Keystone of Nature) could she get the least help. The rest hung back; would not open heart

or pocket; waited till they saw. They do now see; now that Belleisle has done his feat of Covenanteating!

Eleven great Powers, some count Thirteen, some Twelve, [Scholl, ii. 286; Adelung, LIST, ii. 127.]but no

two agree, and hardly one agrees with himself;enough, the Powers of Europe, from Naples and Madrid to

Russia and Sweden, have all signed it, let us say a Dozen or a Baker'sDozen of them. And except our little

English Paladin alone, whose interest and indeed salvation seemed to him to lie that way, and who needed no

Pragmatic Covenant to guide him, nobody whatever distinguished himself by keeping it. Between December,

1740, when Maria Theresa set up her cries in all Courts, on to April, 1741, England, painfully dragging

Holland with her, had alone of the Baker'sDozen spoken word of disapproval; much less done act of

hindrance. Two especially (France and Bavaria, not to mention Spain) had done the reverse, and disowned,

Chapter XI. THE BURSTING FORTH OF BEDLAMS: BELLEISLE AND THE BREAKERS OF PRAGMATIC SANCTION. 661

and declared against, Pragmatic Sanction. And after the Battle of Mollwitz, when the "little stone" took its

first leap, and set all thundering, then came, like the inrush of a fashion, throughout that high Miscellany or

Baker'sDozen, the general eating of Covenants (which was again quickened in August, for a reason we shall

see): and before November of that Year, there was no Covenant left to eat. Of the Baker'sDozen nobody

remained but little George the Paladin, dragging Holland painfully along with him;and Pragmatic Sanction

had gone to water, like ice in a June day, and its beautiful crystalline qualities and prismatic colors were

forever vanished from the world. Will the reader note a point or two, a personage or two, in this sordid

process,not for the process's sake, which is very sordid and smells badly, but for his own sake, to elucidate

1. ELECTOR OF BAVARIA.Karl Albert of Baiern is by some counted as a Signer of the Pragmatic

Sanction, and by others not; which occasions that discrepancy of sumtotal in the Books. And he did once, in

a sense, sign it, he and his Brother of Koln; but, before the late Kaiser's death, he had openly drawn back

from it again; and counted himself a Nonsigner. Signer or not, he, for his part, lost no moment (but rather

the contrary) in openly protesting against it, and signifying that he never would acknowledge it. Of this the

reader saw something, at the time of her Hungarian Majesty's Accession. Date and circumstances of it, which

deserve remembering, are more precisely these: October 20th, 1740, Karl Albert's Ambassador, Perusa by

name, wrote to Karl from Vienna, announcing that the Kaiser was just dead. From Munchen, on the 21st,

Karl Albert, anticipating such an event, but not yet knowing it, orders Perusa, in CASE of the Kaiser's

decease, which was considered probable at Munchen, to demand instant audience of the proper party

(Kanzler Sinzendorf), and there openly lodge his Protest. Which Perusa did, punctually in all points,no

moment LOST, but rather the contrary, as we said! Let poor Karl Albert have what benefit there is in that

fact. He was, of all the Anti Pragmatic CovenantBreakers (if he ever fairly were such), the only one that

proceeded honorably, openly and at once, in the matter; and he was, of them all, by far the most unfortunate.

This is the poor gentleman whom Belleisle had settled on for being Kaiser. And Kaiser he became; to his

frightful sorrow, as it proved: his crown like a crown of burning iron, or little better! There is little of him in

the Books, nor does one desire much: a tall aquiline type of man; much the gentleman in aspect; and in

reality, of decorous serious deportment, and the wish to be high and dignified. He had a kind of right, too, in

the AntiPragmatic sense; and was come of Imperial kindred,Kaiser Ludwig the Bavarian, and Kaiser

Rupert of the Pfalz, called Rupert KLEMM, or Rupert Smith'svice, if any reader now remember him, were

both of his ancestors. He might fairly pretend to Kaisership and to Austrian ownership,had he otherwise

been equal to such enterprises. But, in all ambitions and attempts, howsoever grounded otherwise, there is

this strict question on the threshold: "Are you of weight for the adventure; are not you far too light for it?"

Ambitious persons often slur this question; and get squelched to pieces, by bringing the Twelve Labors of

Hercules on Unherculean backs! Not every one is so lucky as our Friedrich in that particular,whose back,

though with difficulty, held out. Which poor Karl Albert's never had much likelihood to do. Few mortals in

any age have offered such an example of the tragedies which Ambition has in store for her votaries; and what

We said, he had a kind of right to Austria, withal. He descended by the female line from Kaiser Ferdinand I.

(as did KurSachsen, though by a younger Daughter than Karl Albert's Ancestress); and he appealed to

Kaiser Ferdinand's Settlement of the Succession, as a higher than any subsequent Pragmatic could be. Upon

which there hangs an incident; still famous to German readers. Karl Albert, getting into Public Argument in

this way, naturally instructed Perusa to demand sight of Kaiser Ferdinand's Last Will, the tenor of which was

known by authentic Copy in Munchen, if not elsewhere among the kindred. After some delay, Perusa (4th

November, 1740), summoning the other excellencies to witness, got sight of the Will: to his horror, there

stood, in the cardinal passage, instead of "MUNNLICHE" (male descendants), "EHELICHE" (lawfully

begotten descendants),fatal to Karl Albert's claim! Nor could he PROVE that the Parchment had been

scraped or altered, though he kept trying and examining for some days. He withdrew thereupon, by order,

straightway from Vienna; testifying in dumbshow what he thought. "It is your Copy that is false," cried the

Chapter XI. THE BURSTING FORTH OF BEDLAMS: BELLEISLE AND THE BREAKERS OF PRAGMATIC SANCTION. 662

Vienna people: "it has been foisted on you, with this wrong word in it; done by somebody (your friend, the

Excellency Herr von Hartmann, shall we guess?), wishing to curry favor with ambitious foolish persons!"

Such was the Austrian story. Perhaps in Munchen itself their Copyist was not known;for aught I learn, the

Copy was made long since, and the Copyist dead. Hartmann, named as Copyist by the Vienna people, made

emphatic public answer: "Never did I copy it, or see it!" And there rose great argument, which is not yet quite

ended, as to the question, "Original falsified, or Copy falsified?" and the modern vote, I believe, rather

clearly is, That the Austrian Officials had done itin a case of necessity. [Adelung, ii. 150154 (14th20th

November, 1740), gives the public facts, without commentary. Hormayr ( Anemonen aus dem Tagebuch

eines alten Pilgersmannes, Jena, 1845, i. 162169, our old Hormayr of the AUSTRIAN PLUTARCH, but

now Anonymous, and in Opposition humor) considers the case nearly proved against Austria, and that

Bartenstein and one Bessel, a pillar of the Church, were concerned in it.] Possible? "But you will lose your

soul!" said the Parson once to a poor old Gentlewoman, English by Nation, who refused, in dying, to

contradict some domestic fiction, to give up some domestic secret: "But you will lose your soul, Madam!"

"Tush, what signifies my poor silly soul compared with the honor of the family?"

2. KING FRIEDRICH;King Friedrich may be taken as the Anti Pragmatic next in order of time. He too

lost not a moment, and proceeded openly; no quirking to be charged upon him. His account of himself in this

matter always was: "By the Treaty of Wusterhausen, 1726, unquestionably Prussia undertook to guarantee

Pragmatic Sanction; the late Kaiser undertaking in return, by the same Treaty, to secure Berg and Julich to

Prussia, and to have some progress made in it within six months from signing. And unquestionably also, the

late Kaiser did thereupon, or even had already done, precisely the reverse; namely, secured, so far as in him

was possible, Berg and Julich to KurPfalz. Such Treaty, having in this way done suicide, is dead and

become zero: and I am free, in respect of Pragmatic Sanction, to do whatever shall seem good to me. My

wish was, and would still be, To maintain Pragmatic Sanction, and even to support it by 100,000 men, and

secure the Election of the GrandDuke to the Kaisership,were my claims on Silesia once liquidated. But

these have no concern with Pragmatic Sanction, for or against: these are good against whoever may fall Heir

to the House of Austria, or to Silesia: and my intention is, that the strong hand, so long clenched upon my

rights, shall open itself by this favorable opportunity, and give them out." That is Friedrich's case. And in

truth the jury everywhere has to find,so soon as instructed, which is a long process in some sections of it

(in England, for example),That Pragmatic Sanction has not, except helpless lamentations, "Alas that YOU

should be here to insist upon your rights, and to open fists long closed!"the least, word to say to Friedrich.

3. TERMAGANT OF SPAIN.Perhaps the most distracted of the Anti Pragmatic subterfuges was that

used by Spain, when the Shedragon or Termagant saw good to eat her Covenant; which was at a very early

stage. The Termagant's poor Husband is a Bourbon, not a Hapsburg at all: "But has not he fallen heir to the

Spanish Hapsburgs; become all one as they, an ALTEREGO of the Spanish Hapsburgs?" asks she. "And the

Austrian Hapsburgs being out, do not the Spanish Hapsburgs come in? He, I say, this BOURBONHapsburg,

he is the real Hapsburg, now that the Austrian Branch is gone; President he of the Golden Fleece [which a

certain "Archduchess," Maria Theresa, had been meddling with]; Proprietor, he, of Austrian Italy, and of all

or most things Austrian!"and produces Documentary Covenants of Philip II. with his Austrian Cousins; "to

which Philip," said the Termagant, "we Bourbons surely, if you consider it, are Heir and AlterEgo!" Is not,

this a curious case of testamentary right; human greed obliterating personal identity itself?

Belleisle had a great deal of difficulty, keeping the Termagant back till things were ripe. Her hope practically

was, Baby Carlos being prosperous King of Naples this long while, to get the Milanese for another Baby she

has,Baby Philip, whom she once thought of making Pope;and she is eager beyond measure to have a

stroke at the Milanese. "Wait!" hoarsely whispers Belleisle to her; and she can scarcely wait. Maria Theresa's

Note of Announcement "New Queen of Hungary, may it please you!" the French, as we saw, were very long

in answering. The Termagant did not answer it at all; complained on the contrary, "What is this, Madam!

Golden Fleece, you?"and, early in March, informed mankind that she was Spanish Hapsburg, the genuine

article; and sent off Excellency Montijos, a little man of great expense, to assist at the Election of a proper

Chapter XI. THE BURSTING FORTH OF BEDLAMS: BELLEISLE AND THE BREAKERS OF PRAGMATIC SANCTION. 663

Kaiser, and be useful to Belleisle in the great things now ahead. [Spain's GoldenFleece pretensions, 17th

January, 1741 (Adelung, ii. 233, 234); "Publishes at Paris," in March (ib. 293); and on the 23d March

accredits Montijos (ib. 293): Italian War, held back by Belleisle and the English Fleets, cannot get begun till

4. KING OF POLAND.The most ticklish card in Belleisle's game, and probably the greatest fool of these

AntiPragmatic Dozen, was KurSachsen, King of Poland. He, like Karl Albert KurBaiern, derives from

Kaiser Ferdinand, though by a YOUNGER Daughter, and has a like claim on the Austrian Succession; claim

nullified, however, by that small circumstance itself, but which he would fain mend by one makeshift or

another; and thinks always it must surely be good for something. This is August III., this King of Poland, as

readers know; son of August the Strong: Papa made him change to the Catholic religion so called,for the

sake of getting Poland, which proves a very poor possession to him. Who knows what damage the poor

creature may have got by that sad operation;which all Saxony sighed to the heart on hearing of; for it was

always hoped he had some real religion, and would deliver them from that Babylonish Captivity again! He

married Kaiser Joseph I.'s Daughter,Maria Theresa's Cousin, and by an Elder Brother;this, too, ought

surely to be something in the AntiPragmatic line? It is true, KurBaiern has to Wife another Daughter of

Kaiser Joseph's; but she is the younger: "I am senior THERE, at least! "thinks the foolish man.

Too true, he had finally, in past years, to sign Pragmatic Sanction; no help for it, no hope without it, in that

Polish Election time. He will have to eat his Covenant, therefore, as the first step in AntiPragmatism; and

he is extremely in doubt as to the How, sometimes as to the Whether. And shifts and whirls, accordingly, at a

great rate, in these months and years; now on Maria Theresa's side, deluded by shadows from Vienna, and

getting into Russian PartitionTreaties; anon tickled by Belleisle into the reverse posture; then again

reversing. An idle, easytempered, yet greedy creature, who, what with religious apostasy in early manhood,

what with flaccid ambitions since, and idle gapings after shadows, has lost helm in this world; and will make

His Palinurus and chief Counsellor, at present and afterwards, is a Count von Bruhl, once page to August the

Strong; now risen to such height: Bruhl of the three hundred and sixtyfive suits of clothes; whom it has

grown wearisome even to laugh at. A cunning little wretch, they say, and of deft tongue; but surely among

the unwisest of all the Sons of Adam in that day, and such a Palinurus as seldom steered before.

KurSachsen, being ReichsVicar in the Northern Parts,(KurBaiern and KurPfalz, as friends and good

Wittelsbacher Cousins surely ought, in a crisis like this, have agreed to be JOINTVicars in the Southern

Parts, and no longer quarrel upon it),KurSachsen has a good deal to do in the Election preludings,

formalities and prearrangements; and is capable, as KurPfalz and Cousin always are, of serving as chisel to

5. KING OF SARDINIA.ReichsVicar in the Italian Parts is Charles Amadeus King of Sardinia (tough

old Victor's Son, whom we have heard of): an office mostly honorary; suitable to the important individual

who keeps the Door of the Alps. Charles Amadeus had signed the Pragmatic Sanction; but eats his Covenant,

like the others, on example of France;having, as he now bethinks himself, claims on the Milanese. There

are two claimants on the Milanese, then; the Spanish Termagant, and he? Yes; and they will have their

difficulties, their extensive tusslings in Italian War and otherwise, to make an adjustment of it; and will give

Belleisle (at least the Doorkeeper will) an immensity of trouble, in years coming.

In this way do the Pragmatic people eat their own Covenant, one after the other, and are not ashamed;till

all have eaten, or as good as eaten; and, almost within year and day, Pragmatic Sanction is a vanished

quantity; and poor Kaiser Karl's lifelabor is not worth the sheepskin and stationery it cost him. History

reports in sum, That "nobody kept the Pragmatic Sanction; that the few [strictly speaking, the one] who acted

by it, would have done precisely the same, though there had never been such a Document in existence." To

George II., it is, was and will be, the Keystone of Nature, the true AntiFrench palladium of mankind; and

Chapter XI. THE BURSTING FORTH OF BEDLAMS: BELLEISLE AND THE BREAKERS OF PRAGMATIC SANCTION. 664

he, dragging the unwilling Dutch after him, will do great things for it: but nobody else does anything at all.

Might we hope to bid adieu to it, in this manner, and never to mention it again!

Document more futile there had not been in Nature, nor will be. Friedrich had not yet fought at Mollwitz in

assertion of his Silesian claim, when the poor Popepoor soul, who had no Covenant to eat, but took pattern

by othersclaimed, in solemn Allocution, Parma and Piacenza for the Holy See. [Adelung, ii. 376 (5th

April, 1741)] All the world is claiming. Of the Court of Wurtemberg and its Protestings, and "extensive

Deduction" about nothing at all, we do not speak; [Ib. ii. 195, 403.] nor of Montmorency claiming

Luxemburg, of which he is Titular "Duke;" nor of Monsignore di Guastalla claiming Mantua; nor ofIn

brief, the fences are now down; a broad French gap in those miles of elaborate paling, which are good only as

firewood henceforth, and any ass may rush in and claim a bellyful. Great are the works of Belleisle!

At equal step with the ruining of Pragmatic Sanction goes on that spoiling of GrandDuke Franz's Election to

the Kaisership: these two operations run parallel; or rather, under different forms, they are one and the same

operation. "To assist, as a Most Christian neighbor ought, in picking out the fit Kaiser," was Belleisle's

ostensible mission; and indeed this does include virtually his whole errand. Till three months after Belleisle's

appearance in the business, GrandDuke Franz never doubted but he should be Kaiser; Friedrich's offers to,

help him in it he had scorned, as the offer of a fifth wheel to his chariot, already rushing on with four. "Here

is KurBohmen, Austria's own vote," counts the GrandDuke; "KurSachsen, doing PrussianPartition

Treaties for us; KurTrier, our fat little Schonborn, Austrian to the bone; KurMainz, important chairman,

regulator of the Conclave; here are Four Electors for us: then also KurPfalz, he surely, in return for the

BergJulich service; finally, and liable to no question KurHanover, little George of England with his

endless guineas and resources, a little JacktheGiantkiller, greater than all Giants, Paladin of the Pragmatic

and us: here are Six Electors of the Nine. Let Brandenburg and the Bavarian Couple, KurBaiern and

By the time Belleisle had been three months in Germany, the Grand Duke's notion had changed; and he

began "applying to the SeaPowers," "to Russia," and all round. In Belleisle's sixth month, the GrandDuke,

after such demolition of Pragmatic, and such disasters and contradictions as had been, saw his case to be

desperate; though he still stuck to it, Austrianlike,or rather, Austria for him stuck to it, the GrandDuke

being careless of such things;and indeed, privately, never did give in, even AFTER the Election, as we

The Reich itself being mainly a Phantasm or Enchanted Wiggery, its "KaiserChoosing"

(KAISERWAHL),now getting under way at Frankfurt, with preliminary outskirts at Regensburg, and in

the Chancery of Mainzis very phantasmal, not to say ghastly; and forbidding, not inviting, to the human

eye. Nine Kurfursts, Choosers of Teutschland's real Captain, in none of whom is there much thought for

Teutschland or its interests,and indeed in hardly more than One of whom (Prussian Friedrich, if readers

will know it) is there the least thought that way; but, in general, much indifference to things divine or

diabolic, and thought for one's own paltry profits and losses only! So it has long been; and so it now is, more

than usual.Consider again, are Enchanted Wiggeries a beautiful thing, in this extremely earnest World?

The Kaiserwahl is an affair depending much on processions, proclamations, on delusions optical, acoustic; on

palaverings, manoeuvrings, holdings back, then hasty pushings forward; and indeed is mainly, in more senses

than one, under guidance of the Prince of the Power of the Air. Unbeautiful, like a World Parliament of

Nightmares (if the reader could conceive such a thing); huge formless, tongueless monsters of that species,

doing their "three readings,"under Presidency or chiefpipership as above! Belleisle, for his part, is

consummately skilful, and manages as only himself could. Keeps his game well hidden, not a hint or whisper

Chapter XI. THE BURSTING FORTH OF BEDLAMS: BELLEISLE AND THE BREAKERS OF PRAGMATIC SANCTION. 665

of it except in studied proportions; spreads out his lines, his birdlime; tickles, entices, astonishes; goes his

rounds, like a subtle Fowler, taking captive the minds of men; a PhoebusApollo, god of melody and of the

I believe, old KurPfalz, for the sake of French neighborhood, and BergandJulich, were there nothing

more, was very helpful to him; in March past, when the Election was to have been, when it would have

gone at once in favor of the GrandDuke, KurPfalz got the Election "postponed a little." Postponing,

procrastinating; then again pushing violently on, when things are ripe: Belleisle has only to give signal to a fit

KurPfalz. In all Kurfurst Courts, the French Ambassadors sing diligently to the tune Belleisle sets them; and

KurSachsen, as above hinted, was his most delicate operation, in the charming or trouttickling way. And

KurSachsenand poor Saxony, ever sinceknows if he did not do it well! "Deduct this KurSachsen

from the Austrian side," calculates Belleisle; "add him to ours, it is almost an equality of votes. KurBaiern,

our own Imperial Candidate; KurKoln, his Brother; KurPfalz, by genealogy his Cousin (not to mention

BergJulich matters); here are three Wittelsbachers, knit together; three sure votes; King Friedrich,

KurBrandenburg, there is a fourth; and if KurSachsen would join?" But who knows if KurSachsen will!

The poor soul has himself thoughts of being Kaiser; then no thoughts, and again some: thoughts which

Belleisle knows how to handle. "Yes, Kaiser you, your Majesty; excellent!" And sets to consider the

methods: "Hm, ha, hm! Think, your Majesty: ought not that Bohemian Vote to be excluded, for one thing?

KurBohmen is fallen into the distaff, Maria Theresa herself cannot vote. Surely question will rise, Whether

distaff can, validly, hand it over to distaff's husband, as they are about doing? Whether, in fact, KurBohmen

is not in abeyance for this time?" "So!" answered KurSachsen, Reichs Vicarius. And thereupon meetings

were summoned; Nightmare Committees sat on this matter under the ReichsVicar, slowly hatching it; and at

length brought out, "KurBohmen NOT transferable by the distaff; KurBohmen in abeyance for this time."

Greatly to the joy of Belleisle; infinitely to the chagrin of her Hungarian Majesty,who declared it a crying

injustice (though I believe legally done in every point); and by and by, even made it a plea of Nullity,

destructive to the Election altogether, when her Hungarian Majesty's affairs looked up again, and the world

would listen to Austrian sophistries and obstinacies. This was an essential service from KurSachsen.

[Began, indistinctly, "in March" (1741); languid "for some months" (Adelung, ii. 292); "November 4th," was

settled in the negative, "KurBohmen not to have a vote" ( Maria Theresiens Leben, p. 47 n.).

After which KurSachsen's own poor Kaisership died away into "Hm, ha, hm!" again, with a grateful

Belleisle. Who nevertheless dexterously retained KurSachsen as ally; tickling the poor wretch with other

baits. Of the Kaiser he had really meant all along, there was dead silence, except between the parties; no

whisper heard, for six months after it had been agreed upon; none, for two or near three months after formal

settlement, and signing and sealing. Karl Albert's Treaty with Belleisle was 18th May, 1741; and he did not

declare himself a Candidate till 1st4th July following. [Adelung, ii. 357, 421.] Belleisle understands the

Nightmare Parliaments, the electioneering art, and how to deal with Enchanted Wiggeries. More perfect

master, in that sad art, has not turned up on record to one's afflicted mind. Such a Sungod, and doing such a

Scavengerism! Belleisle, in the sixth month (end of August, 1741), feels sure of a majority. How Belleisle

managed, after that, to checkmate George of England, and make even George vote for him, and the

Kaiserwahl to be unanimous against Grand Duke Franz, will be seen. Great are Belleisle's doings in this

world, if they were useful either to God or man, or to Belleisle himself first of all!

Belleisle's schemes, in the rear of all this labor, are grandiose to a degree. Men wonder at the First Napoleon's

mad notions in that kind. But no Napoleon, in the fire of the revolutionary element; no ShamNapoleon, in

the ashes of it: hardly a Parisian Journalist of imaginative turn, speculating on the First Nation of the

Chapter XI. THE BURSTING FORTH OF BEDLAMS: BELLEISLE AND THE BREAKERS OF PRAGMATIC SANCTION. 666

Universe and what its place is,could go higher than did this grandiose Belleisle; a man with clear thoughts

in his head, under a torpid Louis XV. Let me see, thinks Belleisle. Germany with our Bavarian for Kaiser;

Germany to be cut into, say, Four little Kingdoms: 1. Bavaria with the lean Kaiserhood; 2. Saxony, fattened

by its share of Austria; 3. Prussia the like; 4. Austria itself, shorn down as above, and shoved out to the

remote Hungarian parts: VOILA. These, not reckoning Hanover, which perhaps we cannot get just yet, are

Four pretty Sovereignties. Three, or Two, of these hireable by gold, it is to be hoped. And will not France

have a glorious time of it; playing master of the revels there, egging one against the other! Yes, Germany is

then, what Nature designed it, a Province of France: little George of Hanover himself, and who knows but

England after him, may one day find their fate inevitable, like the others. O Louis, O my King, is not this an

outlook? Louis le Grand was great; but you are likely to be Louis the Grandest; and here is a World shaped,

Such are, in sad truth, Belleisle's schemes; not yet entirely hatched into daylight or articulation; bnt becoming

articulate, to himself and others, more and more. Reader, keep them well in mind: I had rather not speak of

them again. They are essential to our Story; but they are afflictively vain, contrary to the Laws of Fact; and

can, now or henceforth, in nowise be. My friend, it was not Beelzebub, nor Mephistopheles, nor

AutolyeusApollo that built this world and us; it was Another. And you will get your crown well rapped, M.

le Marechal, for so forgetting that fact! France is an extremely pretty creature; but this of making France the

supreme Governor and God'sVicegerent of Nations, is, was, and remains, one of the maddest notions.

France at its ideal BEST, and with a demi god for King over it, were by no means fit for such function; nay

of many Nations is eminently the unfittest for it. And France at its WORST or nearly so, with a Louis XV.

over it by way of demigod O Belleisle, what kind of France is this; shining in your grandiose

imagination, in such contrast to the stingy fact: like a creature consisting of two enormous wings, five

hundred yards in potential extent, and no body bigger than that of a common cock, weighing three pounds

It was "early in March" [Adelung, ii. 305.] when Belleisle, the Artificial Sungod, quitted Paris on this

errand. He came by the Moselle road; called on the Rhine Kurfursts, Koln, Trier, Mainz; dazzling them, so

far as possible, with his splendor for the mind and for the eye. He proceeded next to Dresden, which is a main

card: and where there is immense manipulation needed, and the most delicate trouttickling; this being a

skittish fish, and an important, though a foolish. Belleisle was at Dresden when the Battle of Mollwitz fell

out: what a windfall into Belleisle's game! He ran across to Friedrich at Mollwitz, to congratulate, to

Belleisle, I am informed, in this preliminary Tour of his, speaks only, or hints only (except in the proper

quarters), of Election Business; of the need there perhaps is, on the part of an Age growing in liberal ideas, to

exclude the Austrian GrandDuke; to curb that ponderous, harsh, ungenerous House of Austria, too long

lording it over generous Germany; and to set up some better House,Bavaria, for example; Saxony, for

example? Of his plans in the rear of this he is silent; speaks only by hints, by innuendoes, to the proper

parties. But ripening or ripe, plans do lie to rear; farstretching, highsoaring; in part, dark even at Versailles;

darkly fermenting, not yet developed, in Belleisle's own head; only the Future Kaiser a luminous fixed point,

By the end of August, 1741, Belleisle had become certain of his game; 24th January, 1742, he saw himself as

if winner. Before August, 1741, he had got his Electors manipulated, tickled to his purpose, by the witchery

of a PhoebusAutolycus or Diplomatic Sungod; majority secured for a Bavarian Kaiser, and against an

Austrian one. And in the course of that month,what was still more considerable!he was getting, under

mild pretexts, about a hundred thousand armed Frenchmen gently wafted over upon the soil of Germany.

Two complete French Armies, 40,000 each (PLUS their Reserves), one over the Upper Rhine, one over the

Lower; about which we shall hear a great deal in time coming! Under mild pretexts: "Peaceable as lambs,

don't you observe? Merely to protect Freedom of Election, in this fine neighbor country; and as allies to our

Chapter XI. THE BURSTING FORTH OF BEDLAMS: BELLEISLE AND THE BREAKERS OF PRAGMATIC SANCTION. 667

Friend of Bavaria, should he chance to be new Kaiser, and to persist in his modest claims otherwise." This

was his crowning stroke. Which finished straightway the remnants of Pragmatic Sanction and of every

obstacle; and in a shining manner swept the roads clear. And so, on January 24th following, the Election,

long held back by Belleisle's manoeuvrings, actually takes effect,in favor of Karl Albert, our invaluable

Bavarian Friend. Austria is left solitary in the Reich; Pragmatic Sanction, Keystone of Nature, which

Belleisle and France had sworn to keep in, is openly torn out by Belleisle and by France and the majority of

This was the harvest reaped by Belleisle, within year and day; after endless manoeuvring, such as only a

Belleisle in the character of Diplomatic Sungod could do. Beyond question, the distracted ambitions of

several German Princes have been kindled by Belleisle; what we called the rotten thatch of Germany is well

on fire. This diligent sowing in the Reichto judge by the 100,000, armed men here, and the counter

hundreds of thousands arming has been a pretty stroke of dragon'steeth husbandry on Belleisle's part.

It was April 26th when Marechal de Belleisle, with his Brother the Chevalier, with Valori and other bright

accompaniment, arrived in Friedrich's Camp. "Camp of Mollwitz" so named; between Mollwitz and Brieg;

where Friedrich is still resting, in a vigilant expectant condition; and, except it be the taking of Brieg, has

nothing military on hand. Wednesday, 26th April, the distinguished Excellencyescorted for the last three

miles by 120 Horse, and the other customary ceremoniesmakes his appearance: no doubt an interesting one

to Friedrich, for this and the days next following. Their talk is not reported anywhere: nor is it said with

exactitude how far, whether wholly now, or only in part now, Belleisle expounded his sublime ideas to

Friedrich; or what precise reception they got. Friedrich himself writes long afterwards of the event; but, as

usual, without precision, except in general effect. Now, or some time after, Friedrich says he found Belleisle,

one morning, with brow clouded, knit into intense meditation: "Have you had bad news, M. le Marechal?"

asks Friedrich. "No, oh no! I am considering what we shall make of that Moravia?""Moravia; Hm!"

Friedrich suppresses the glance that is rising to his eyes: "Can't you give it to Saxony, then? Buy Saxony into

the Plan with it!" "Excellent," answers Belleisle, and unpuckers his stern brow again.

Friedrich thinks highly, and about this time often says so, of the man Belleisle: but as to the man's

effulgencies, and widewinged Plans, none is less seduced by them than Friedrich: "Your chickens are not

hatched, M. le Marechal; some of us hope they never will be,though the incubationprocess may have uses

for some of us!" Friedrich knows that the Kaisership given to any other than Grand Duke Franz will be

mostly an imaginary quantity. "A grand Symbolic Cloak in the eyes of the vulgar; but empty of all things,

empty even of cash, for the last Two Hundred Years: Austria can wear it to advantage; no other mortal. Hang

it on Austria, which is a solid human figure,so." And Friedrich wishes, and hopes always, Maria Theresa

will agree with him, and get it for her Husband. "But to haug it on Bavaria, which is a lean bare pole? Oh, M.

le Marechal! And those Four Kingdoms of yours: what a brood of poultry, those! Chickens happily yet

UNhatched;eggs addle, I should venture to hope:only do go on incubating, M. le Marechal!" That is

Friedrich's notion of the thing. Belleisle stayed with Friedrich "a few days," say the Books. After which,

Friedrich, finding Belleisle too winged a creature, corresponded, in preference, with Fleury and the Head

Sources;who are always intensely enough concerned about those "aces" falling to him, and how the same

are to be "shared." [Details in HeldenGeschichte, i. 912, 962, 916; in OEuvres de Frederic, ii. 79, 80;

Instead of parade or review in honor of Belleisle, there happened to be a far grander military show, of the

practical kind. The Siege of Brieg, the Opening of the Trenches before Brieg, chanced to be just ready, on

Belleisle's arrival:and would have taken effect, we find, that very night, April 26th, had not a sudden

wintry outburst, or "tempest of extraordinary violence," prevented. Next night, night of the 27th28th, under

shine of the full Moon, in the open champaign country, on both sides of the River, it did take effect. An

uncommonly fine thing of its sort; as one can still see by reading Friedrich's strict Program for it,a most

Chapter XI. THE BURSTING FORTH OF BEDLAMS: BELLEISLE AND THE BREAKERS OF PRAGMATIC SANCTION. 668

minute, precise and allanticipating Program, which still interests military men, as Friedrich's first Piece in

that kind,and comparing therewith the Narratives of the performance which ensued. [ Ordre und

Dispositiones (SIC), wornach sich der General Lieutenant von Kalckstein bei Eroffnung der Trancheen,

(Oeuvres de Frederic, xxx. 3944): the Program. HeldenGeschichte, i. 916928: the Narrative.]

Kalkstein, Friedrich's old Tutor, is Captain of the Siege; under him Jeetz, long used to blockading about

Brieg. The silvery Oder has its due bridges for communication; all is in readiness, and waiting manifold as in

the slip,and there is Engineer Walrave, our Glogau Dutch friend, who shall, at the right instant, "with his

strawrope (STROHSEIL) mark out the first parallel," and be swift about it! There are 2,000 diggers, with

the due implements, fascines, equipments; duly divided, into Twelve equal Parties, and "always two

spademen to one pickman " (which indicates soft sandy ground): these, with the escorting or covering

battalions, Twelve Parties they also, on both sides of the River, are to be in their several stations at the fixed

moments; man, musket, mattock, strictly exact. They are to advance at Midnight; the covering battalions so

many yards ahead: no speaking is permissible, nor the least tobaccosmoking; no drum to be allowed for fear

of accident; no firing, unless you are fired on. The covering battalions are all to "lie flat, so soon as they get

to their ground, all but the Officers and sentries." To rear of these stand Walrave and assistants, silent, with

their strawrope; silent, then anon swift, and in whisper or almost by dumbshow, "Now, then!" After

whom the diggers, fascinemen, workers, each in his kind, shall fall to, silently, and dig and work as for life.

All which is done; exact as clockwork: beautiful to see, or half see, and speak of to your Belleisle, in the

serene moonlight! Half an hour's marching, half an hour's swift digging: the Townclock of Brieg was hardly

striking One, when "they had dug themselves in." And, before daybreak, they had, in two batteries, fifty

cannon in position, with a proper set of mortars (other side the River), ready to astonish Piccolomini and

his Austrians; who had not had the least whisper of them, all night, though it was full moon. Graf von

Piccolomini, an active gallant person, had refused terms, some time before; and was hopefully intent on doing

his best. And now, suddenly, there rose round Piccolomini such a tornado of cannonading and bombardment,

day after day, always "three guns of ours playing against one of theirs," that his guns got ruined; that "his

haymagazines took fire,"and the Schloss itself, which was adjacent to them, took fire (a sad thing to

Friedrich, who commanded pause, that they might try quenching, but in vain):and that, in short,

Piccolomini could not stand it; but on the 4th of May, precisely after one week's experience, hung out the

white flag, and "beat chamade at 3 of the afternoon." He was allowed to march out next morning, with escort

Friedrich in person (I rather guess, Belleisle not now at his side) saw the Garrison march out;kept

Piccolomini to dinner; a gallant Piccolomini, who had hoped to do better, but could not. This was a pretty

enough piece of Siegepractice. Torstenson, with his Swedes, had furiously besieged Brieg in 1642, a

hundred years ago; and could do nothing to it. Nothing, but withdraw again, futile; leaving 1,400 of his

people dead. Friedrich, the Austrian Garrison once out, set instantly about repairing the works, and improving

them into impregnability,our ugly friend Walrave presiding over that operation too.

Belleisle, we may believe, so long as he continued, was full of polite wonder over these things; perhaps had

critical advices here and there, which would be politely received. It is certain he came out extremely brilliant,

gifted and agreeable, in the eyes of Friedrich; who often afterwards, not in the very strictest language, calls

him a great man, great soldier, and by far the considerablest person you French have. It is no less certain,

Belleisle displayed, so far as displayable, his magnificent Diplomatic Ware to the best advantage. To which,

we perceive, the young King answered, "Magnificent, indeed!" but would not bite all at once; and rather

preferred corresponding with Fleury, on business points, keeping the matter dexterously hanging, in an

Belleisle, after we know not how many days, returned to Dresden; perfected his work at Dresden, or shoved it

well forward, with "that Moravia" as bait. "Yes, King of Moravia, you, your Polish Majesty, shall be!"and

Chapter XI. THE BURSTING FORTH OF BEDLAMS: BELLEISLE AND THE BREAKERS OF PRAGMATIC SANCTION. 669

it is said the simple creature did so style himself, by and by, in certain rare Manifestoes, which still exist in

the cabinets of the curious. Belleisle next, after only a few days, went to Munchen; to operate on Karl Albert

KurBaiern, a willing subject. And, in short, Belleisle whirled along incessantly, torch in hand; making his

"circuit of the German Courts,"details of said circuit not to be followed by us farther. One small thing only

I have found rememberable; probably true, though vague. At Munchen, still more out at Nymphenburg, the

fine CountryPalace not far off, there was of course long conferencing, long consulting, secret and intense,

between Belleisle with his people and Karl Albert with his. Karl Albert, as we know, was himself willing.

But a certain Baron von Unertlheavybuilt Bavarian of the old type, an old stager in the Bavarian

Ministries was of far other disposition. One day, out at Nymphenburg, Unertl got to the Councilroom,

while Belleisle and Company were there: Unertl found the apartment locked, absolutely no admittance; and

heard voices, the Kurfurst's and French voices, eagerly at work inside. "Admit me, Gracious Herr; UM

GOTTES WILLEN, me!" No admission. Unertl, in despair, rushed round to the garden side of the

Apartment; desperately snatched a ladder, set it up to the window, and conjured the Gracious Highness: "For

the love of Heaven, my ALLERGNADIGSTER, don't! Have no trade with those French! Remember your

illustrious Father, Kurfurst Max, in the Eugene Marlborough time, what a job he made of it, building actual

architecture on THEIR big promises, which proved mere acres of gilt balloon!" [Hormayr, Anemonen (cited

above), ii. 152.] Words terribly prophetic; but they were without effect on Karl Albert.

The rest of Belleisle's inflammatory circuitings and extensive travellings, for he had many first and last in this

matter, shall be left to the fancy of the reader. May 18th, he made formal Treaty with Karl Albert: Treaty of

Nymphenburg, "Karl Albert to be Kaiser; Bavaria, with Austria Proper added to it, a Kingdom; French

armies, French moneys, and other fine items." [Given in Adelung, ii. 359.] Treaty to be kept dead secret;

King Friedrich, for the present, would not accede. [Given in Adelung, ii. 421.] June 25th, after some

preliminary survey of the place, Belleisle made his Entry into Frankfurt: magnificent in the extreme. And still

did not rest there; but had to rush about, back to Versailles, to Dresden, hither, thither: it was not till the last

day of July that he fairly took up his abode in Frankfurt; andthe Election eggs, so to speak, being now all

laidset himself to hatch the same. A process which lasted him six months longer, with curious phenomena

to mankind. Not till the middle of August did he bring those 80,000 Armed Frenchmen across the Rhine, "to

secure peace in those parts, and freedom of voting." Not till November 4th had KurSachsen, with the

Nightmares, finished that important problem of the Bohemian Vote, "Bohemian Vote EXCLUDED for this

time;" after which all was ready, though still not in the least hurry. November 20th, came the first actual

"ElectionConference (WAHL CONFERENZ)" in the Romer at Frankfurt; to which succeeded Two

Months more of conferrings (upon almost nothing at all): and finally, 24th January, 1742, came the Election

itself, Karl Albert the man; poor wretch, who never saw another good day in this world.

Belleisle during those six months was rather high and airy, extremely magnificent; but did not want

discretion: "more like a Kurfurst than an Ambassador;" capable of "visiting KurMainz, with servants

purposely in OLD liveries,"where the case needed old, where KurMainz needed snubbing; not otherwise.

[Buchholz, ii. 57 n.] "The Marechal de Belleisle," says an Eyewitness, of some fame in those days, "comes

out in a variety of parts, among us here; plays now the General, now the Philosopher, now the Minister of

State, now the French Marquis;and does them all to perfection. Surely a master in his art. His Brother the

Chevalier is one of the sensiblest and besttrained persons you can see. He has a penetrating intellect; is

always occupied, and full of great schemes; and has nevertheless a staid kind of manner. He is one of the

most important Personages here; and in all things his Brother's right hand." [Von Loen, Kleine Schriften

(cited in Adelung, ii. 400).] In Frankfurt, both Belleisle and his Brother were much respected, the Brother

especially, as men of dignified behavior and shining qualities; but as to their hundred and thirty French Lords

and other Valetry, these by their extravagances and excesses (AUSSCHWEIFUNGEN) made themselves

extremely detestable, it would appear. [Buchholz, ii. 54; in Adelung, ii. 398 n., a French BROCARD on the

Chapter XI. THE BURSTING FORTH OF BEDLAMS: BELLEISLE AND THE BREAKERS OF PRAGMATIC SANCTION. 670

George II. did not hear of Mollwitz for above a fortnight after it fell out; but he had no need of Mollwitz to

kindle his wrath or his activity in that matter. [Mollwitz first heard of in London, April 25th (14th); Subsidy

of 300,000 pounds voted same day. London Gazette (April 11th14th, 1741); Commons Journals, xxiii. 705.]

George II. had seen, all along, with natural manifold aversion and indignation, these high attempts of his

Nephew. "Who is this new little King, that will not let himself be snubbed, and laughed at, and led by the

nose, as his Father did; but seems to be taking a road of his own, and tacitly defying us all? A very high

conduct indeed, for a Sovereign of that magnitude. Aspires seemingly to be the leader among German

Princes; to reduce Hanover and us,us, with the gold of England in our breechespocket,to the second

place? A reverend old Bishop of Liege, twitched by the rochet, and shaken hither and thither, like a reverend

old clothesscreen, till he agree to stand still and conform. And now a Silesia seized upon; a Pragmatic

Sanction kicked to the winds: the whole world to be turned topsy turvy, and Hanover and us, with our

The emotions, the prognosticatings, and distracted procedures of his Britannic Majesty, of which we have

ourselves seen somewhat, in this fermentation of the elements, are copiously set down for us by the English

Dryasdust (mostly in unintelligible form): but, except for sane purposes, one must be careful not to dwell on

them, to the sorrow of readers. Seldom was there such a feat of Somnambulism, as that by the English and

their King in the next twenty Years. To extract the particle of sanity from it, and see how the poor English did

get their own errand done withal, and Jenkins's Ear avenged,that is the one interesting point; Dryasdust

and the Nightmares shall, to all time, be welcome to the others. Here are some Excerpts, a select few; which

will perhaps be our readiest expedient. These do, under certain main aspects, shadow forth the intricate

posture of King George and his Nation, when Belleisle, as Protagonistes or Chief Bully, stept down into the

ring, in that manner; asking, "Is there an Antagonistes, then, or Chief Defender?" I will label them, number

them; and, with the minimum of needful commentary, leave them to imaginative readers.

The fuliginous explosions, more or less volcanic, which went on in Parliament and in English society, against

Friedrich's Silesian Enterprise, for long years from this date, are now all dead and avoidable,though they

have left their effects among us to this day. Perhaps readers would like to see the one reasonable word I have

fallen in with, of opposite tendency; Mr. Viner's word, at the first starting of that question: plainly sensible

word, which, had it been attended to (as it was not), might have saved us so much nonsense, not of idle talk

"LONDON, 19th APRIL, 1741. This day [Mollwitz not yet known, Camp of Gottin too well known!] King

George, in his own high person, comes down to the House of Lords,which, like the Other House, is sunk

painfully in Walpole Controversies, SpanishWar Controversies, of a merely domestic nature;and informs

both Honorable Houses, with extreme caution, naming nobody, That he much wishes they would think of

helping him in these alarming circumstances of the Celestial Balance, ready apparently to go heels

uppermost. To which the general answer is, 'Yes, surely!'with a vote of 300,000 pounds for her Hungarian

Majesty, a few days hence. From those continents of Parliamentary tufa, now fallen so waste and mournful,

"MR. VINER (on his legs): ... 'If I mistake not the true intention of the Address proposed,' in answer to his

Majesty's most gracious Speech from the Throne, 'we are invited to declare that we will oppose the King of

Prussia in his attempts upon Silesia: a declaration in which I see not how any man can concur who KNOWS

NOT the nature of his Prussian Majesty's Claim, and the Laws of the German Empire [NOR DO I, MR. V.]!

It ought therefore, Sir, to have been the first endeavor of those by whom this Address has been so zealously

supported, to show that his Prussian Majesty's Claim, so publicly explained [BY KAUZLER LUDWIG, OF

HALLE, WHO, IT SEEMS, HAS STAGGERED OR CONVINCED MR. VINER], so firmly urged and so

strongly supported, is without foundation and reason, and is only one of those imaginary titles which

Ambition may always find to the dominions of another.' (HEAR MR VINER!)" [Tindal, xx. 491, gives the

Royal Speech (DATE in a very slobbery condition); see also Coxe, House of Austria, iii. 365. Viner's

A most indispensable thing, surely. Which was never done, nor can ever be done; but was assumed as either

unnecessary or else done of its own accord, by that Collective Wisdom of England (with a sage George II. at

the head of it); who plunged into Dettingen, Fontenoy, Austrian Subsidies, AixlaChapelle, and foundation

Upon that of Kanzler Ludwig, and the "so public Explanation" (which we slightly heard of long since), here

"That the Diplomatic and Political world is universally in travail at this time, no reader need be told; Europe

everywhere in dim anxiety, heavyladen expectation (which to us has fallen so vacant); looking towards

inevitable changes and the huge inane. All in travail;and already uttering printed Manifestoes, Patents,

Deductions, and other public travailSHRIEKS of that kind. Printed; not to speak of the unprinted, of the oral

which vanished on the spot; or even of the written which were shot forth by breathless estafettes, and

unhappily did not vanish, but lie in archives, still humming upon us, "Won't you read me, then?"Alas,

except on compulsion, No! Life being precious (and time, which is the stuff of life), No!

"At Reinsberg as elsewhere, at Reinsberg first of all, it had been felt, in October last, that there would be

Manifestoes needed; learned Proof, the more irrefragable the better, of our Right to Silesia. It was settled

there, Let Ludwig, Kanzler of the University of Halle, do it. [Herr Kanzler Ludwig, monster of Antiquarian,

Legal and other Learning there: wealthy, too, and closefisted; whom we have seen obliged to open his

closed fist, and to do building in the Friedrich Strasse, before now; Nussler, his soninlaw, having no

money:as careless readers have perhaps forgotten?] Ludwig set about his new task with a proud joy.

Ludwig knows that story, if he know anything. Long years ago he put forth a Chapter upon it; weighty

Chapter; in a Book of weight, said Judges;Book weighing, in pounds avoirdupois and otherwise, none of

us now knows what: [Title of this weighty Performance (see Preuss, Thronbesteigung, p. 432) is, or was (size

not given), Germania Princeps (Halae, 1702). Preuss says farther, "That Book ii. c. 3 handles the Prussian

claims: Jagerndorf being ? 13; Liegnitz, ? 14; Oppeln and Ratibor, ? 16;and that Ludwig had sent a Copy

of this Argument [weighty Performance altogether? Or Book ii. c. 3 of it, which would have had a better

chance?] to King Friedrich, on the death of Kaiser Karl VI."]but, in after years, it used to be said by

flatterers of the Kanzler, 'Herr Kanzler, see the effect of Learning. It was you, it was your weighty Book, that

caused all this Worldtumult, and flung the Nations into one another's hair!' Upon which the old Kanzler

"Ludwig, directly on order given, gathered out his documents again, in the King's name this time; and

promised something weighty by Newyear's day at latest." Doubtless to the joy of Nussler, who has still no

regular appointment, though well deserving one. "And sure enough, on January 7th) at Berlin, 'in three

languages,' Ludwig's DEDUCTION had come out; an eager Public waiting for it: [Title is, Rechtsgegrundetes

Eigenthum (in the Latin copies, Patrimonium, and Propriete fondee en Droit in the French copies) des that

is to say, Legal Right of Propetiy in the RoyalElectoral House of Brandenburg to the Duchies and

Principalities of Jagerndorf, Liegnitz, Brieg, Wohlau (Berlin, 7th January, 1741).]and at Berlin it was

generally thought to be conclusive. I have looked into Ludwig's Deduction, stern duty urging, in this instance

for one: such portions as I read are nothing like so stupid as was expected; and, in fact, are not to be called

stupid at all, but fit for their purpose, and moderately intelligible to those who need them,"which happily

Judicious Mr. Viner availed nothing against the Proposed Address; any more than he would against the

Atlantic Tide, coming in unanimous, under influence of the Moon itself,as indeed this Address, and the

triumphant Subsidy which was voted in the rear of it, may be said to have done. [Coxe, iii. 265.] Subsidy of

300,000 pounds to her Hungarian Majesty; which, with the 200,000 pounds already gone that road, makes a

handsome Halfmillion for the present Year. The first gush of the Britannia Fountain,which flowed like an

Amalthea's Horn for seven years to come; refreshing Austria, and all thirsty Pragmatic Nations, to defend the

Keystone of this Universe. Unluckily every guinea of it went, at the same time, to encourage Austria in

scorning King Friedrich's offers to it; which perhaps are just offers, thinks Mr. Viner; which once listened to,

Pragmatic Sanction would be safe. [Mr. Viner was of Pupham, or Pupholm, in Lincolnshire, for which

County he sat then, and for many years before and after,from about 1713 till 1761, when he died. A solid,

instructed man, say his contemporaries. "He was a friend of Bolingbroke's, and had a house near

Bolingbroke's Battersea one." He is Great great grandfather to the present Mr. Viner, and to the Countess de

This Parliament is strong for Pragmatic Sanction, and has high resentments against Walpole; in both which

points the New Parliament, just getting elected, will rival and surpass it, especially in the latter point, that

of uprooting Walpole, which the Nation is bent on, with a singular fury. Pragmatic Sanction like to be ruined;

and Walpole furiously thrown out: what a pair of sorrows for poor George! During his late Caroline's time,

all went peaceably, and that of "governing" was a mere pleasure; Walpole and Caroline cunningly doing that

for him, and making him believe he was doing it. But now has come the crisis, the collapse; and his poor

"For above Ten Years, Walpole himself", says my Constitutional Historian (unpublished), "for almost

Twenty Years, Walpole virtually and through others, has what they call 'governed' England; that is to say, has

adjusted the conflicting Parliamentary Chaos into counterpoise, by what methods he had; and allowed

England, with Walpole atop, to jumble whither it would and could. Of crooked things made straight by

Walpole, of heroic performance or intention, legislative or administrative, by Walpole, nobody ever heard;

never of the least handbreadth gained from the Night realm in England, on Walpole's part: enough if he

could manage to keep the Parish Constable walking, and himself float atop. Which task (though intrinsically

zero for the Community, but all important to the Walpole, of Constitutional Countries) is a task almost

"This task Walpole did,in a sturdy, deepbellied, longheaded, JohnBull fashion, not unworthy of

recognition. A man of very forcible natural eyesight, strong natural heart,courage in him to all lengths; a

very block of oak, or of oakroot, for natural strength. He was always very quiet with it, too; given to digest

his victuals, and be peaceable with everybody. He had one rule, that stood in place of many: To keep out of

every business which it was possible for human wisdom to stave aside. 'What good will you get of going into

that? Parliamentary criticism, argument and botheration? Leave well alone. And even leave ill alone:are

you the tradesman to tinker leaky vessels in England? You will not want for work. Mind your pudding, and

say little!' At home and abroad, that was the safe secret. For, in Foreign Politics, his rule was analogous:

'Mind your own affairs. You are an Island, you can do without Foreign Politics; Peace, keep Peace with

everybody: what, in the Devil's name, have you to do with those dogworryings over Seas? Once more, mind

your pudding!' Not so bad a rule; indeed it is the better part of an extremely good one;and you might

reckon it the real rule for a pious Rritannic Island (reverent of God, and contemptuous of the Devil) in times

of general Downbreak and Spiritual Bankruptcy, when quarrellings of Sovereigns are apt to be mere

"In this manner, Walpole, by solid JohnBull faculty (and methods of his own), had balanced the

Parliamentary swaggings and clashings, for a great while; and England had jumbled whither it could, always

in a stupid, but also in a peaceable way. As to those same 'methods of his own' they werein fact they were

Bribery. Actual purchase of votes by money slipt into the hand. Go straight to the point. 'The direct real

method this,' thinks Walpole: 'is there in reality any other?' A terrible question to Constitutional Countries;

which, I hear, has never been resolved in the negative, by the modern improvements of science. Changes of

form have introduced themselves; the outward process, I hear, is now quite different. According as the

fashions and conditions alter,according as you have a Fourth Estate developed, or a Fourth Estate still in

the grub stage and only developing,much variation of outward process is conceivable.

"But Votes, under pain of Death Official, are necessary to your poor Walpole: and votes, I hear, are still

bidden for, and bought. You may buy them by money down (which is felony, and theft simple, against the

poor Nation); or by preferments and appointments of the unmeritorious man,which is felony

doubledistilled (far deadlier, though more refined), and theft most compound; theft, not of the poor Nation's

money, but of its soul and body so far, and of ALL its moneys and temporal and spiritual interests

whatsoever; theft, you may say, of collops cut from its side, and poison put into its heart, poor Nation! Or

again, you may buy, not of the Third Estate in such ways, but of the Fourth, or of the Fourth and Third

together, in other still more felonious and deadly, though refined ways. By doing claptraps, namely; letting

off Parliamentary bluelights, to awaken the Sleeping Swineries, and charm them into diapason for

you,what a music! Or, without clap trap or previous felony of your own, you may feloniously, in the

pinch of things, make truce with the evident Demagogos, and Son of Nox and of Perdition, who has got

'within those walls' of yours, and is grown important to you by the Awakened Swineries, risen into alt, that

follow him. Him you may, in your dire hunger of votes, consent to comply with; his Anarchies you will pass

for him into 'Laws,' as you are pleased to term them;instead of pointing to the whippingpost, and to his

wicked long ears, which are so fit to be nailed there, and of sternly recommending silence, which were the

salutary thing.Buying may be done in a great variety of ways. The question, How you buy? is not, on the

moral side, an important one. Nay, as there is a beauty in going straight to the point, and by that course there

is likely to be the minimum of mendacity for you, perhaps the direct moneymethod is a shade less damnable

than any of the others since discovered;while, in regard to practical damage resulting, it is of childlike

"That was Walpole's method; with this to aid his great natural faculty, longheaded, deepbellied, suitable to

the English Parliament and Nation, he went along with perfect success for ten or twenty years. And it might

have been for longer,had not the English Nation accidentally come to wish, that it should CEASE jumbling

NOwhither; and try to jumble SOMEwhither, at least for a little while, on important business that had risen

for England in a certain quarter. Had it not been for Jenkins's Ear blazing out in the dark English brain,

Walpole might have lasted still a long while. But his fate lay there:the first Business vital to England

which might turn up; and this chanced to be the Spanish War. How vital, readers shall see anon. Walpole,

knowing well enough in what state his Warapparatus was, and that of all his Apparatuses there was none in

a working state, but the Parliamentary one, resisted the Spanish War; stood in the door against it, with a

rhinoceros determination, nay almost something of a mastiff's; resolute not to admit it, to admit death as soon.

Doubtless he had a feeling it would be death, the sagacious man;and such it is now proving; the Walpole

"The English Nation was immensely astonished, which Walpole was not, any more than at the other Laws of

Nature, to find Walpole's Warapparatus in such a condition. All his Apparatuses, Walpole guesses, are in no

better, if it be not the Parliamentary one. The English Nation is immensely astonished, which Walpole again

is not, to find that his Parliamentary Apparatus has been kept in gear and smoothgoing by the use of OIL:

'Miraculous Scandal of Scandals!' thinks the English Nation. 'Miracle? Law of Nature, you fools!' thinks

Walpole. And in fact there is such a storm roaring in England, in those and in the late and the coming months,

as threatens to be dangerous to high roofs,dangerous to Walpole's head at one time. Storm such as had not

been witnessed in men's memory; all manner of Counties and Constituencies, with solemn indignation,

charging their representatives to search into that miraculous Scandal of Scandals, Law of Nature, or whatever

"To the now reader there is something almost pathetic in these solemn indignations, and high resolves to have

Purity of Parliament and thorough Administrative Reform, in spite of Nature and the Constitutional

Stars;and nothing I have met with, not even the Prussian Dryasdust, is so unsufferably wearisome, or can

pretend to equal in depth of dull inanity, to ingenuous living readers, our poor English Dryasdust's

interminable, oftenrepeated Narratives, volume after volume, of the debatings and colleaguings, the tossings

and tumults, fruitless and endless, in Nation and National Palaver, which ensued thereupon. Walpole (in

about a year hence), [February 13th (2d), 1742, quitting the House after bad usage there, said he would never

enter it again; nor did: February 22d, resigned in favor of Pulteney and Company (Tindal, xx. 530;

Thackeray, i. 45).] though he struck to the ground like a rhinoceros, was got rolled out. And a Successor, and

series of Successors, in the bright brandnew state, was got rolled in; with immense shouting from

mankind:but up to this date we have no reason to believe that the Laws of Nature were got abrogated on

that occasion, or that the constitutional stars have much altered their courses since."

That Walpole will probably be lost, goes much home to the Royal bosom, in these troublous Spring months

of 1741, as it has done and will do. And here, emerging from the Spanish Main just now, is a second sorrow,

which might quite transfix the Royal bosom, and drive Majesty itself to despair; awakening such insoluble

questions,furnishing such proof, that Walpole and a good few other persons (persons, and also things, and

ideas and practices, deeprooted in the Country) stand much in need of being lost, if England is to go a good

The Spanish War being of moment to us here, we will let our Constitutional Historian explain, in his own

dialect, How it was so vital to England; and shall even subjoin what he gives as History of it, such being so

"There was real cause for a War with Spain. It is one of the few cases, this, of a war from necessity. Spain, by

Decree of the Pope,some Pope long ago, whose name we will not remember, in solemn Conclave, drawing

accurately 'his Meridian Line,' on I know not what Telluric or Uranic principles, no doubt with great accuracy

'between Portugal and Spain,'was proprietor of all those Seas and Continents. And now England, in the

interim, by Decree of the Eternal Destinies, had clearly come to have property there, too; and to be practically

much concerned in that theoretic question of the Pope's Meridian. There was no reconciling of theory with

fact. 'Ours indisputably,' said Spain, with loud articulate voice; 'Holiness the Pope made it ours!'while fact

and the English, by Decree of the Eternal Destinies, had been grumbling inarticulately the other way, for

"In Oliver Cromwell's time, it used to be said, 'With Spain, in Europe, there may be peace or war; but

between the Tropics it is always war.' A state of things well recognized by Oliver, and acted on, according to

his opportunities. No settlement was had in Oliver's brief time; nor could any be got since, when it was

becoming yearly more pressing. Bucaniers, desperate naval gentlemen living on BOUCAN, or hung beef;

who are also called Flibustiers (FLIBUTIERS, 'Freebooters,' in French pronunciation, which is since grown

strangely into FILIBUSTERS, Fillibustiers, and other mad forms, in the Yankee Newspapers now current):

readers have heard of those dumb methods of protest. Dumb and furious; which could bring no settlement;

but which did astonish the Pope's Decree, slashing it with cutlasses and seacannon, in that manner, and

circuitously forwarded a settlement. Settlement was becoming yearly more needful: and, ever since the

Treaty of Utrecht especially, there had been an incessant haggle going on, to produce one; without the least

effect hitherto. What embassyings, bargainings, bargain breakings; what galloping of estafettes; acres of

diplomatic paper, now fallen to the spiders, who always privately were the real owners! Not in the Treaty of

Utrecht, not in the Congresses of Cambray, of Soissons, Convention of Pardo, by Ripperda, Horace Walpole,

or the wagging of wigs, could this matter be settled at all. Near two hundred years of chronic misery;and

had there been, under any of those wigs, a Head capable of reading the Heavenly Mandates, with heart

capable of following them, the misery might have been briefly ended, by a direct method. With what

immense saving in all kinds, compared with the oblique method gone upon! In quantity of bloodshed needed,

of money, of idle talk and estafettes, not to speak of higher considerations, the saving had been incalculable.

For it was England's one Cause of War during the Century we are now upon; and poor England's course,

when at last driven into it, went ambiguously circling round the whole Universe, instead of straight to the

mark. Had Oliver Cromwell lived ten years longer;but Oliver Cromwell did not live; and, instead of

Heroic Heads, there came in Constitutional Wigs, which makes a great difference.

"The pretensions of Spain to keep Half the World locked up in embargo were entirely chimerical; plainly

contradictory to the Laws of Nature; and no amount of Pope's Donation Acts, or Ceremonial in Rota or

Propaganda, could redeem them from untenability, in the modern days. To lie like a dog in the manger over

South America, and say snarling, 'None of you shall trade here, though I cannot!' what Pope or body of

Popes can sanction such a procedure? Had England had a Head, instead of Wigs, amid its diplomatists,

England, as the chief party interested, would have long since intimated gently to such dog in the manger:

'Dog, will you be so obliging as rise! I am grieved to say, we shall have to do unpleasant things otherwise.

Dogs have doors for their hutches: but to pretend barring the Tropic of Cancer,that is too big a door for

any dog. Can nobody but you have business here, then, which is not displeasing to the gods? We bid you

rise!' And in this mode there is no doubt the dog, bark and bite as he might, would have ended by rising; not

only England, but all the Universe being against him. And furthermore, I compute with certainty, the quantity

of fighting needed to obtain such result would, by this mode, have been a minimum. The clear right being

there, and now also the clear might, why take refuge in diplomatic wiggeries, in Assiento Treaties, and

Arrangements which are NOT analogous to the facts; which are but wigged mendacities, therefore; and will

but aggravate in quantity and in quality the fighting yet needed? Fighting is but (as has been well said) a

battering out of the mendacities, pretences, and imaginary elements: well batteredout, these, like dust and

chaff, fly torrentwise along the winds, and darken all the sky; but these once gone, there remain the facts

"The Assiento Treaty being fixed upon, the English ought to have kept it. But the English did not, in any

measure; nor could pretend to have done. They were entitled to supply Negroes, in such and such number,

annually to the Spanish Plantations; and besides this delightful branch of trade, to have the privilege of

selling certain quantities of their manufactured articles on those coasts; quantities regulated briefly by this

stipulation, That their Assiento Ship was to be of 600 tons burden, so many and no more. The Assiento Ship

was duly of 600 tons accordingly, promise kept faithfully to the eye; but the Assiento Ship was attended and

escorted by provisionsloops, small craft said to be of the most indispensable nature to it. Which

provisionsloops, and indispensable small craft, not only carried merchandise as well, but went and came to

Jamaica and back, under various pretexts, with ever new supplies of merchandise; converting the Assiento

Ship into a Floating Shop, the Tons burden and Tons sale of which set arithmetic at defiance. This was the

fact, perfectly well known in England, veiled over by mere smuggler pretences, and obstinately persisted in,

so profitable was it. Perfectly well known in Spain also, and to the Spanish GuardaCostas and SeaCaptains

in those parts; who were naturally kept in a perennial state of rage by it, and disposed to fly out into flame

upon it, when a bad case turned up! Such a case that of Jenkins had seemed to them; and their mode of

treating it, by tearing off Mr. Jenkins's Ear, proved to bebad shall we say, or good?intolerable to

The Jenkins'sEar Question, which then looked so mad to everybody, how sane has it now grown to my

Constitutional Friend! In abstruse ludicrous form there lay immense questions involved in it; which were

serious enough, certain enough, though invisible to everybody. Half the World lay hidden in embryo under it.

ColonialEmpire, whose is it to be? Shall Half the World be England's, for industrial purposes; which is

innocent, laudable, conformable to the Multiplicationtable at least, and other plain Laws? Or shall it be

Spain's for arroganttorpid shamdevotional purposes, contradictory to every Law? The incalculable Yankee

Nation itself, biggest Phenomenon (once thought beautifulest) of these Ages,this too, little as careless

readers on either side of the sea now know it, lay involved. Shall there be a Yankee Nation, shall there not be;

shall the New World be of Spanish type, shall it be of English? Issues which we may call immense. Among

the then extant Sons of Adam, where was he who could in the faintest degree surmise what issues lay in the

Jenkins'sEar Question? And it is curious to consider now, with what fierce deepbreathed doggedness the

poor English Nation, drawn by their instincts, held fast upon it, and would take no denial, as if THEY had

surmised and seen. For the instincts of simple guileless persons (liable to be counted STUPID, by the

unwary) are sometimes of prophetic nature, and spring from the deep places of this Universe!My

Constitutional Friend entitles his next Section CARTHAGENA; but might more fitly have headed it (for such

in reality it is, Carthagena proving the evanescent point of that sad business),

at length (after above four months' obscure quasideclaring of it, in the shape of Orders in Council, Letters of

Marque, and so on) got openly declared; 'Heralds at Arms at the usual places' blowing trumpets upon it, and

reading the royal Manifesto, date of which is five days earlier, 'Kensington, October 30th (19th).' The

principal Events that ensue, arrange themselves under Three Heads, this of PortoBello being the FIRST; and

(by intense smelting) are datable as follows:[ Gentleman's Magazine, ix. 551, x. 124, 142, 144, 350;

"Tuesday Evening, 1st December, 1739, Admiral Vernon, our chosen AntiSpaniard, finding, a while ago,

that he had missed the Azogue Ships on the Coast of Spain, and must try America and the Spanish Main, in

that view arrives at PortoBello. Next day, December 2d, Vernon attacks PortoBello; attacks certain Castles

so called, with furious broadsiding, followed by scalading; gets surrender (on the 3d);seamen have

allowance instead of plunder;blows up what Castles there are; and returns to Port Royal in Jamaica.

"Neverimagined joy in England, and fame to Vernon, when the news came: 'Took it with Six Ships,' cry

they; 'the scurvy Ministry, who had heard him, in the fire of Parliamentary debate, say Six, would grant him

no more: invincible Vernon!' Nay, next Year, I see, 'London was illuminated on the Anniversary of

PortoBello:' day settled in permanence as one of the Hightides of the Calendar, it would appear. And

'Vernon's Birthday' withalhow touching is stupidity when loyal!was celebrated amazingly in all the

chief Towns, like a kind of Christmas, when it came round; Nature having deigned to produce such a man,

for a poor Nation in difficulties. Invincible Vernon, it is thought by Gazetteers, 'will look in at Carthagena

shortly;' much more important Place, where a certain Governor Don Blas has been insolent withal, and

Vernon did, accordingly, look in on Carthagena; [ Gentleman's Magazine, x. 350.] cast anchor in the shallow

waste of surfs there, that Monday; and tried some bombarding, with bombketches and the like, from

Thursday till Saturday following. Vernon hopes he did hit the Jesuits' College, South Bastion, Customhouse

and other principal edifices; but found that there was no getting near enough on that seaward side. Found that

you must force the Interior Harbor,a big Inland Gulf or Lake, which gushes in by what they call

LITTLEMOUTH (Boca Chica), and has its Booms, Castles and Defences, which are numerous and

strongish;and that, for this end, you must have seven or eight thousand Land Forces, as well as an addition

of Ships. On Saturday Evening, therefore, Vernon calls in his bombketches; sails past, examining these

"Sunday, 3d April, 1740, 'about 10 at night' opens cannonade on Chagres (place often enough taken, by

cutlass and pistol, in the Bucanier times); and, on Tuesday, 5th, gets surrender of Chagres: 'Customhouse

crammed with goods, which we set fire to.' On news of which, there is again, in England, joy over the day of

small things. The poor English People are set on this business of avenging Jenkins's Ear, and of having the

Ocean Highway unbarred; and hope always it can be done by the Walpole Apparatuses, which ought to be in

working order, and are not. 'Support this hero, you Walpole and Company, in his Carthagena views: it will be

"Walpole and Company, aware of that fact, do take some trouble about it; and now, may not we say,

PAULLO MAJORA CANAMUS? All through that Summer, 1740,"while King Friedrich went rushing

about, to Strasburg, to Wesel; doing his Herstals and Practicalities, with a light high hand, in almost an

entertaining manner; and intent, still more, on his Voltaires and a Life to the Muses,"there was, in

England, serious heavy tumult of activity, secret and public. In the Dockyards, on the Drillgrounds, what a

stir: Camp in the Isle of Wight, not to mention Portsmouth and the SeaIndustries; 6,000 Marines are to be

embarked, as well as Land Regiments,can anybody guess whither? America itself is to furnish 'one

"Here is real haste and effort; but by no means such speed as could be wished; multiplex confusions and

contradictions occurring, as is usual, when your machinery runs foul. Nor are the Gazetteers without their

guesses, though they study to be discreet. 'Here is something considerable in the wind; a grand idea, for

certain;' and to men of discernment it points surely towards Carthagena and heroic Vernon out yonder?

Government is dumb altogether; and lays occasional embargo; trying hard (without success), in the delays

that occurred, to keep it secret from Don Blas and others. The outcome of all which was,

'July 3d,' as your first fond program bore; which delay was itself likely to be fatal, unless the Almanac, and

course of the Tropical Seasons would delay along with you!we say, On Sunday, 6th November, 1740

[Kaiser Karl's Funeral just over, and great thoughts going on at Reinsberg], RearAdmiral Sir Chaloner

Ogle,so many weeks and months after the set time,does sail from St. Helen's (guessed, for Carthagena);

all people sending blessings with him. Twentyfive big Ships of the Line, with three Half Regiments on

board; fireships, bombketches, in abundance; and eighty Transports, with 6,000 drilled Marines: a

SeaandLand Force fit to strengthen Hero Vernon with a witness, and realize his Carthagena views. A very

great day at Portsmouth and St. Helen's for these Sunday folk. [Tindal, xx. 463 (LISTS, there; date wrong,

"31st October," instead of 26th (o.s.),many things wrong, and all things left loose and flabby, and not

"Most obscure among the other items in that Armada of Sir Chaloner's, just taking leave of England; most

obscure of the items then, but now most noticeable, or almost alone noticeable, is a young

Surgeon'sMate,one Tobias Smollett; looking over the waters there and the fading coasts, not without

thoughts. A proud, soft hearted, though somewhat sternvisaged, caustic and indignant young gentleman.

Apt to be caustic in speech, having sorrows of his own under lock and key, on this and subsequent occasions.

Excellent Tobias; he has, little as he hopes it, something considerable by way of mission in this Expedition,

and in this Universe generally. Mission to take Portraiture of English Seamanhood, with the due grimness,

due fidelity; and convey the same to remote generations, before it vanish. Courage, my brave young Tobias;

through endless sorrows, contradictions, toils and confusions, you will do your errand in some measure; and

"Five weeks before (29th September, 1740, which was also several months beyond time set), there had sailed,

strictly hidden by embargoes which were little effectual, another Expedition, all Naval; intended to be

subsidiary to this one: Commodore Anson's, of three inconsiderable Ships; who is to go round Cape Horn, if

he can; to bombard Spanish America from the other side; and stretch out a hand to Vernon in his grand

Carthagena or ulterior views. Together they may do some execution, if we judge by the old Bucanier and

QueenElizabeth experiences? Anson's Expedition has become famous in the world, though Vernon got no

Well! Here truly was a business; not so illcontrived. Somebody of head must have been at the centre of this:

and it might, in result, have astonished the Spaniard, and tumbled him much topsyturvy in those

latitudes,had the machinery for executing it been well in gear. Under Friedrich Wilhelm's captaincy and

management, every person, every item, correct to its time, to its place, to its function, what a thing! But with

mere Walpole Machinery: alas, it was far too wide a Plan for Machinery of that kind, habitually out of order,

and only used to be as correct asas it could. Those DELAYS themselves, first to Anson, then to Ogle,

since the Tropical Almanac would not delay along with them, had thrown both Enterprises into weather such

as all but meant impossibility in those latitudes! This was irremediable;had not been remediable, by efforts

and pushings here and there. The best of management, as under Anson, could not get the better of this; worst

of management, as in the other case, was likely to make a fine thing of it! Let us hasten on:

"January 20th, 1741, We arrive, through much rough weather and other confused hardships, at Port Royal in

Jamaica; find Vernon waiting on the slip; the American Regiment, tolerably drilled by the Scotch

Lieutenants, in full readiness and equipment; a body of Negroes superadded, by way of pioneer laborers fit

for those hot climates. One sad loss there had been on the voyage hither: Land forces had lost their

Commander, and did not find another. General Cathcart had died of sickness on the voyage; a Charles Lord

Cathcart, who was understood to possess some knowledge of his business; and his Successor, one

Wentworth, did not happen to have any. Which was reckoned unlucky, by the more observant. Vernon,

though in haste for Carthagena, is in some anxiety about a powerful French Fleet which has been

manoeuvring in those waters for some time; intent on no good that Vernon can imagine. The first thing now

is, See into that French Fleet. French Fleet, on our going to look in the proper Island, is found to be all off for

home; men 'mostly starved or otherwise dead,' we hear; so that now, after this last short delay,To

"Wednesday Evening, 15th March, 1741, We anchor in the Playa Grande, the waste surfy Shallow which

washes Carthagena seaward: 124 sail of us, big and little. We find Don Blas in a very prepared posture. Don

Blas has been doing his best, this twelvemonth past; plugging up that BocaChica (LITTLE MOUTH)

Ingate, with batteries, booms, great ships; and has castles not a few thereabouts and in the Interior Lake or

Harbor; all which he has put in tolerable defence, so far as can be judged: not an inactive, if an insolent Don.

We spend the next five days in considering and surveying these Performances of his: What is to be done with

them; how, in the first place, we may force BocaChica; and get in upon his Interior Castles and him. After

"Monday, 20th March, Sir Chaloner, with broadsides, sweeps away some small defences which lie to left of

BocaChica [to our LEFT, to BocaChica's RIGHT, if anybody cares to be particular]. Whereupon the

Troops land, some of them that same evening; and, within the next two days, are all ashore, implements,

Negroes and the rest; building batteries, felling wood; intent to capture BocaChica Castle, and demolish the

WarShips, Booms, and fry of Fascine and other Batteries; and thereby to get in upon Don Blas, and have a

stroke at his Interior Castles and Carthagena itself. Till April 5th, here are sixteen days of furious intricate

work; not ill done:the physical labor itself, the building of batteries, with BocaChica firing on you over

the woods, is scarcely doable by Europeans in that season; and the Negroes who are able for it, 'fling down

their burdens, and scamper, whenever a gun goes off.' Furious fighting, too, there was, by seamen and

"On the sixteenth day, April 5th [King Friedrich hurrying from the Mountains that same day, towards

Steinau, which took fire with him at night], BocaChica Castle and the intricate WarShips, Booms, and

Castles thereabouts (Don Blas running off when the push became intense), are at last got. So that now,

through BocaChica, we enter the Interior Harbor or Harbors. 'Harbors' which are of wide extent, and deep

enough: being in fact a Lake, or rather Pair of Lakes, with Castles (CASTILLO GRANDE, 'Castle Grand,' the

chief of them), with WarShips sunk or afloat, and miscellaneous obstructions: beyond all which, at the

farther shore, some five miles off, Carthagena itself does at last lie potentially accessible; and we hope to get

in upon Don Blas and it. There ensue five days of intricate seawork; not much of broadsiding, mainly

tugging out of sunk WarShips, and the like, to get alongside of Castle Grand, which is the chief obstruction.

"April 10, Castle Grand itself is got; nobody found in it when we storm. Don Blas and the Spaniards seem

much in terror; burning any Ships they still have, near Carthagena; as if there were no chance now left." This

is the very day of Mollwitz Battle; near about the hour when Schwerin broke into fieldmusic, and advanced

with thunderous glitter against the evening sun! "Carthagena Expedition is, at length, fairly in contact with its

"Up to this point, mistakes of management had been made good by obstinate energy of execution; clear

victory had gone on so far, the Capture of Carthagena now seemingly at hand. One thing was unfortunate:

'the able Mr. Moor [meritorious Captain of Foot, who, by accident, had spent some study on his business], the

one real Engineer we had,' got killed in that BocaChica struggle: an end to poor Moor! So that the Siege of

Carthagena will have to go on WITHOUT Engineer science henceforth. May be important, that,who

knows? Another thing was still more palpably important: SeaGeneral Vernon had an undisguised contempt

for LandGeneral Wentworth. 'A mere blockhead, whose Brother has a Borough,' thinks Vernon (himself an

Opposition Member, of highsniffing, angry, not too magnanimous turn);and withdraws now to his Ships;

intimating: 'Do your Problem, then; I have set you down beside it, which was my part of the affair!'Let us

"Sunday, 16th April, Wentworth, once master of the Uppermost Lake or Harbor (what the Natives call the

SURGIDERO, or Anchorage Proper), had disembarked, high up to the right, a good way south of

Carthagena; meaning to attack therefrom a certain Fort Lazar, which stands on a Hill between Carthagena

and him: this Hill and Fort once his, he has Carthagena under his cannon; Carthagena in his pocket, as it

were. 'Fort not to be had without batteries,' thinks Wentworth; though the sickly rainy season has set in.

'Batteries? Scalingladders, you mean!' answers Vernon, with undisguised contempt. For the two are, by this

time, almost in open quarrel. Wentworth starts building batteries, in spite of the rain deluges; then stops

building;decides to do it by scalade, after all. And, at two in the morning of this Sunday, April 16th, sets

forth, in certain columns,by roads illknown, with arrangements that do NOT fit like clockwork,to

storm said Hill and Fort. The English are an obstinate people; and strenuous execution will sometimes amend

"The obstinate English, nothing in them but sullen fire of valor, which has to burn UNluminous, did, after

mistake on mistake, climb the rocks or heights of Lazar Hill, in spite of the world and Don Blas's

cannonading; but found, when atop, That Fort Lazar, raining cannonshot, was still divided from them by

chasms; that the scalingladders had not come (never did come, owing to indiscipline somewhere),and

that, without wings as of eagles, they could not reach Fort Lazar at all! For about four hours, they struggled

with a desperate doggedness, to overcome the chasms, to wrench aside the Laws of Nature, and do something

useful for themselves; patiently, though sulkily; regardless of the storm of shot which killed 600 of them, the

while. At length, finding the Laws of Nature too strong for them, they descended gloomily: 'in gloomy

"Yes; and we find they fell sick in multitudes, that night; and, 'in two days more, were reduced from 6,645 to

3,200 effective;' Vernon, from the sea, looking disdainfully on:and it became evident that the big Project

had gone to water; and that nothing would remain but to return straightway to Jamaica, in bankrupt condition.

Which accordingly was set about. And ten days hence (April 26th)) the final party of them did get on

board, punctual to take 'three tents,' their last rag of Siegefurniture, along with them; 'lest Don Blas have

trophies,' thinks poor Wentworth. And sailed away, with their sad Siege finished in such fashion. Strenuous

Siege; which, had the WarSciences been foolishness, and the Laws of Nature and the rigors of Arithmetic

and Geometry been stretchable entities, might have succeeded better!" [Smollett's Account, Miscellaneous

Works (Edinburgh, 1806), iv. 445469, is that of a highly intelligent Eyewitness, credible and intelligible in

"Evening of April 26th:"I perceive it was in the very hours while Belleisle arrived in Friedrich's Camp at

Mollwitz; eve of that Siege of Brieg, which we saw performing itself with punctual regard to said Laws and

rigors, and issuing in so different a manner! Nothing that my Constitutional Historian has said equals in

pungent enormity the matteroffact Picture, left by Tobias Smollett, of the sick and wounded, in the interim

"As for the sick and wounded", says Tobias, "they were, next day, sent on board of the transports and vessels

called hospitalships; where they languished in want of every necessary comfort and accommodation. They

were destitute of surgeons, nurses, cooks and proper provision; they were pent up between decks in small

vessels, where they had not room to sit upright; they wallowed in filth; myriads of maggots were hatched in

the putrefaction of their sores, which had no other dressing than that of being washed by themselves with

their own allowance of brandy; and nothing was heard but groans, lamentations and the language of despair,

invoking death to deliver them from their miseries. What served to encourage this despondence, was the

prospect of those poor wretches who had strength and opportunity to look around them; for there they beheld

the naked bodies of their fellowsoldiers and comrades floating up and down the harbor, affording prey to the

carrioncrows and sharks, which tore them in pieces without interruption, and contributing by their stench to

"This picture cannot fail to be shocking to the humane reader, especially when he is informed, that while

those miserable objects cried in vain for assistance, and actually perished for want of proper attendance,

every ship of war in the fleet could have spared a couple of surgeons for their relief; and many young

gentlemen of that profession solicited their captains in pain for leave to go and administer help to the sick and

wounded. The necessities of the poor people were well known; the remedy was easy and apparent; but the

discord between the chiefs was inflamed to such a degree of diabolical rancor, that the one chose rather to see

his men perish than ask help of the other, who disdained to offer his assistance unasked, though it might have

saved the lives of his fellow subjects." [Smollett, IBID. (Anderson's Edition), iv. 466.]

In such an amazing condition is the English Fighting Apparatus under Walpole, being important for

England's self only; while the Talking Apparatus, important for Walpole, is in such excellent gearing, so well

kept in repair and oil! By Wentworth's blame, who had no knowledge of war; by Vernon's, who sat famous

on the Opposition side, yet wanted loyalty of mind; by one's blame and another's, WHOSE it is idle arguing,

here is how your Fighting Apparatus performs in the hour when needed. Unfortunate General, or General's

CockedHat (a brave heart too, they say, though of brain too vacant, too opaque); unfortunate Admiral (much

blown away by vanity, innature and Parliamentary wind);doubly unfortunate Nation, that employs such

to lead its armaments! How the English Nation took it? The English Nation has had much of this kind to take,

first and last; and apparently will yet have. "Gloomy silence," like that of the poor men going home to their

This is a dreadful business, this of the wrecked Carthagena Expedition; such a force of warmunitions in

every kind, including the rare kind, human Courage and force of heart, only not human Captaincy, the

rarest kind,as could have swallowed South America at discretion, had there been Captains over it. Has

gone blundering down into Orcus and the shark's belly, in that unutterable manner. Might have been didactic

to Eugland, more than it was; England's skin being very thick against lessons of that nature. Might have

broken the heart of a little Sovereign Gentleman Curator of England, had he gone hypochondriacally into it;

which he was far from doing, brisk little Gentleman; looking out else whither, with those eyes A FLEUR

What became subsequently of the Spanish War, we in vain inquire of HistoryBooks. The War did not die

for many years to come, but neither did it publicly live; it disappears at this point: a River Niger, seen once

flowing broad enough; but issuingDoes it issue nowhere, then? Where does it issue? Except for my

Constitutional Historian, still unpublished, I should never have known where. By the time these disastrous

Carthagena tidings reached England, his Britannic Majesty was in Hanover; involved, he, and all his State

doctors, English and Hanoverian, in awful contemplation on Pragmatic Sanction, Kaiserwahl, Celestial

Balance, and the saving of Nature's Keystone, should this still prove possible to human effort and

contrivance. In which Imminency of Doomsday itself, the small EnglishSpanish matter, which the Official

people, and his Majesty as much as any, had bitterly disliked, was quite let go, and dropped out of view.

Forgotten by Official people; left to the dumb English Nation, whose concern it was, to administer as IT

Ansonwith his three ships gone to two, gone ultimately to oneis henceforth what Spanish War there

officially is. Anson could not meet those VernonWentworth gentlemen "from the other side of the Isthmus

of Darien," the gentlemen, with their Enterprise, being already bankrupt and away. Anson, with three

inconsiderable ships, which rotted gradually into one, could not himself settle the Spanish War: but he did, on

his own score, a series of things, ending in beautiful finis of the Acapulco Ship, which were of considerable

detriment, and of highly considerable disgrace, to Spain;and were, and are long likely to be, memorable

among the Seaheroisms of the world. Giving proof that real Captains, taciturn Sons of Anak, are still born in

England; and Seakings, equal to any that were. Luckily, too, he had some chaplain or ship'ssurgeon on

board, who saw good to write account of that memorable VOYAGE of his; and did it, in brief, perspicuous

terms, wise and credible: a real Poem in its kind, or Romance all Fact; one of the pleasantest little Books in

the World's Library at this date. Anson sheds some tincture of heroic beauty over that otherwise altogether

hideous puddle of mismanagement, platitude, disaster; and vindicates, in a pathetically potential way, the

Apart from Official Anson, the Spanish War fell mainly, we may say, into the hands ofof Mr. Jenkins

himself, and such Friends of his, at Wapping, Bristol and the Seaports, as might be disposed to go

privateering. In which course, after some crosses at first, and great complaints of losses to Spanish Privateers,

Wapping and Bristol did at length eminently get the upper hand; and thus carried on this Spanish War (or

SpanishFrench, Spain and France having got into one boat), for long years coming; in an entirely

inarticulate, but by no means quite ineffectual manner,indeed, to the ultimate clearance of the Seas from

both French and Spaniard, within the next twenty years. Readers shall take this little Excerpt, dated Three

BRISTOL, MONDAY, 21st (10th) SEPTEMBER, 1744. ... "Nothing is to be seen here but rejoicings for the

number of French prizes brought into this port. Our Sailors are in high spirits, and full of money; and while

on shore, spend their whole time in carousing, visiting their mistresses, going to plays, serenading, dressed

out with laced hats, tossels (SIC), swords with swordknots, and every other way of spending their money."

Carthagena, Walpole, Viners: here are Sorrows for a Britannic Majesty;and these are nothing like all. But

poor readers should have some respite; brief breathingtime, were it only to use their pockethandkerchiefs,

Chapter XIII. SMALLWAR: FIRST EMERGENCE OF ZIETHEN THE HUSSAR GENERAL INTO NOTICE. 682

After Brieg, Friedrich undertook nothing military, except strict vigilance of Neipperg, for a couple of months

or more. Military, especially offensive operations, are not the methods just now. Rest on your oars; see how

this seething Ocean of European Politics, and Peace or War, will settle itself into currents, into set winds; by

which of them a man may steer, who happens to have a fixed port in view. Neipperg, too, is glad to be

quiescent; "my Infantry hopelessly inferior," he writes to headquarters: "Could not one hire 10,000 Saxons,

think you,"or do several other chimerical things, for help? Except with his Pandour people, working what

mischief they can, Neipperg does nothing. But this Hungarian rabble is extensively industrious, scouring the

country far and wide; and gives a great deal of trouble both to Friedrich and the peaceable inhabitants. So that

there is plenty of Small War always going on:not mentionable here, any passage of it, except perhaps one,

at a place called Rothschloss; which concerns a remarkable Prussian Hussar Major, their famed Ziethen, and

We have heard of Captain, now Major Ziethen, how Friedrich Wilhelm sent him to the Rhine Campaign, six

years ago, to learn the Hussar Art from the Austrians there. One Baronay (BARONIAY, or even

BARANYAI, as others write him), an excellent hand, taught him the Art;and how well he has learned,

Baronay now sadly experiences. The affair of Rothschloss (in abridged form) befell as follows:

"In these SmallWar businesses, Baronay, Austrian MajorGeneral of Hussars, had been exceedingly

mischievous hitherto. It was but the other day, a Prussian regular party had to go out upon him, just in time;

and to REwrench 'sixty cartloads of meal,' wrenched by him from suffering individuals; with which he was

making off to Neisse, when the Prussians [from their Camp of Mollwitz, where they still are] came in sight.

"And now again (May 16th) news is, That Baronay, and 1,400 Hussars with him, has another considerable set

of mealcarts,in the Village of Rothschloss, about twenty miles southward, Frankenstein way; and means

to march with them Neisseward tomorrow. Two marches or so will bring him home; if Prussian diligence

prevent not. 'Go instantly,' orders Friedrich,appointing Winterfeld to do it: Winterfeld with 300 dragoons,

with Ziethen and Hussars to the amount of 600; which is more than one to two of Austrians.

"Winterfeld and Ziethen march that same day; are in the neighborhood of Rothschloss by nightfall; and take

their measures, block the road to Neisse, and do other necessary things. And go in upon Baronay next

morning, at the due rate, fiery men both of them; sweep poor Baronay away, MINUS the meal; who finds

even his road blocked (bridge bursting into cannonshot upon him, at one point), instead of bridge, a stream,

or slow current of quagmire for him,and is in imminent hazard. Ziethen's behavior was superlative (details

of it unintelligible off the ground); and Baronay fled totally in wreck;his own horse shot, and at the

moment no other to be had; swam the quagmire, or swashed through it, 'by help of a tree;" and had a near

miss of capture. Recovering himself on the other side, Baronay, we can fancy, gave a grin of various

expression, as he got into saddle again: 'The arrow so near killing was feathered from one's own wing,

too!'And indeed, a day or two after, he wrote Ziethen a handsome Letter to that effect."

[ HeldenGeschichte, i. 927; Orlich, i. 120. The Life of General de Zieten (English Translation, very ill

printed, Berlin, 1803), BY FRAU VON BLUMENTHAL (a vaguish eloquent Lady, but with access to

Ziethen, for minor good feats, had been made LieutenantColonel, the very day he marched; his Commission

dates May 16th, 1741; and on the morrow he handsels it in this pretty manner. He is now fortytwo; much

held down hitherto; being a man of inarticulate turn, hot and abrupt in his ways,liable always to

multifarious obstruction, and unjust contradiction from his fellowcreatures. But Winterfeld's report on this

occasion was emphatic; and Ziethen shoots rapidly up henceforth; Colonel within the year, General in 1744;

and more and more esteemed by Friedrich during their subsequent long life together.

Though perhaps the two most opposite men in Nature, and standing so far apart, they fully recognized one

another in their several spheres. For Ziethen too had good eyesight, though in abstruse sort:rugged simple

Chapter XIII. SMALLWAR: FIRST EMERGENCE OF ZIETHEN THE HUSSAR GENERAL INTO NOTICE. 683

son of the moorlands; nourished, body and soul, on orthodox frugal oatmeal (so to speak), with a large

sprinkling of fire and iron thrown in! A man born poor: son of some poor Squirelet in the Ruppin

Country;"used to walk five miles into Ruppin on Saturday nights," in early life, "and have his hair done

into club, which had to last him till the week following." [ MilitairLexikon, iv. 310.] A bigheaded,

thicklipped, decidedly ugly little man. And yet so beautiful in his ugliness: wise, resolute, true, with a dash

of high uncomplaining sorrow in him;not the "bleached nigger" at all, as PrintCollectors sometimes call

him! No; but (on those oatmeal terms) the SocratesOdysseus, the valiant pious Stoic, and much enduring

man. One of the best Hussar Captains ever built. By degrees King Friedrich and he grew to be,with

considerable tiffs now and then, and intervals of gloom and eclipse,what we might call sworn friends. On

which and on general grounds, Ziethen has become, like Friedrich himself, a kind of mythical person with the

soldiery and common people; more of a demigod than any other of Friedrich's Captains.

Friedrich is always eagerly in quest of men like Ziethen; specially so at this time. He has meditated much on

the bad figure his Cavalry made at Mollwitz; and is already drilling them anew in multiplex ways, during

those leisure days he now has,with evident success on the next trial, this very Summer. And, as his wont is,

will not rest satisfied there. But strives incessantly, for a series of summers and years to come, till he bring

them to perfection; or to the likeness of his own thought, which probably was not far from that. Till at length

it can be said his success became worldfamous; and he had such Seidlitzes and Ziethens as were not seen

Part First of his Britannic Majesty's Sorrows, the Britannic or Domestic Part, is now perhaps conceivable to

readers. But as to the Second, the Germanic or Pragmatic Part,articulate History, after much consideration,

is content to renounce attempting these; feels that these will remain forever inconceivable to mankind in the

now altered times. So small a gentleman; and he feels, dismally though with heroism, that he has got the axis

of the world on his shoulder. Poor Majesty! His eyes, proud as Jove's, are nothing like so perspicacious; a

pair of the poorest eyes: and he has to scan with them, and unriddle under pain of death, such a waste of

insoluble intricacies, troubles and worldperils as seldom was, even in Dreams. In fact, it is of the nature

of a long Nightmare Dream, all this of the Pragmatic, to his poor Majesty and Nation; and wakeful History

May 12th, betimes this Year, his Majesty got across to Hanover, Harrington with him; anxious to

contemplate near at hand that Camp of the Old Dessauer's at Gottin, and the other fearful phenomena, French,

Prussian and other, in that Country. His Majesty, as natural, was much in Germany in those Years; scanning

the phenomena; a long while not knowing what in the world to make of them. Bully Belleisle having stept

into the ring, it is evident, clear as the sun, that one must act, and act at once; but it is a perfect

sphinxenigma to say How. Seldom was Sovereign or man so spurred, and goaded on, by the highest

considerations; and then so held down, and chained to his place, by an imbroglio of counter considerations

and sphinxriddles! Thrice over, at different dates (which shall be given), the first of them this Year, he starts

up as in spasm, determined to draw sword, and plunge in; twice he is crushed down again, with sword half

drawn; and only the third time (in 1743) does he get sword out, and brandish it in a surprising though useless

manner. After which he feels better. But up to that crisis, his case is really tragical,had idle readers any

bowels for him; which they have not! One or two Fractions, snatched from the circumambient Paper Vortex,

BOOK XIII. FIRST SILESIAN WAR, LEAVING THE GENERAL EUROPEAN ONE ABLAZE ALL ROUND, GETS ENDED. May, 1741July, 1742. 684

... After the wonderful Russian PartitionTreaty, which his English Walpoles would not hear of,and which

has produced the Camp of Gottin, see, your Majesty!George does nothing rashly. Far from it: indeed,

except it be paying money, he becomes again a miracle of cunctations; and staggers about for years to come,

like the Shall we say, like the White Hanover Horse amid half a dozen sieves of beans? Alas, no, like the

Hanover Horse with the shadows of half a dozen Damocles'swords dangling into the eyes of it;enough to

"To do, to dare," thinks the Britannic Majesty;yes, and of daring there is a plenty: but, "In which direction?

What, How?" these are questions for a fussy little gentleman called to take the world on his shoulders. We

suppose it was by Walpole's advice that he gave her Hungarian Majesty that 200,000 pounds of

SecretService Money; advice sufficiently Walpolean: "Russian PartitionTreaties; horrible to think

of;beware of these again! Give her Majesty that cash; can be done; it will keep matters afloat, and spoil

nothing!" That, till the late Subsidy payable within year and day hence, was all of tangible his Majesty had

yet done;truly that is all her Hungarian Majesty has yet got by hawking the world, Pragmatic Sanction in

hand. And if that were the bit of generosity which enabled Neipperg to climb the Mountains and be beaten at

Mollwitz, that has helped little! Very big generosities, to a frightful cipher of Millions Sterling through the

coming years, will go the same road; and amount also to zero, even for the receiving party, not to speak of the

But wise or unwise, how great are his Britannic Majesty's activities in this Pragmatic Business! We may say,

they are prodigious, incessant, ubiquitous. They are forgotten now, fallen wholly to the spiders and the

dustbins;though Friedrich himself was not a busier King in those days, if perhaps a better directed. It is a

thing wonderful to us, but sorrowful and undeniable. We perceive the Britannic Majesty's own little mind

pulsing with this Pragmatic Matter, as the biggest volcano would do;shooting forth dust and smoke

(subsidies, diplomatic emissaries, treaties, offers of treaty, plans, foolish futile exertions), at an immense rate.

When the Celestial Balances are canting, a man ought to exert himself. But as to this of saving the House of

Austria from France,surely, your Britannic Majesty, the shortest way to that, if that is so indispensable,

were: That the House of Austria should consent to give up its stolen goods, better late than never; and to

make this King of Prussia its friend, as he offers to be! Joined with this King, it would manage to give

account of France and its balloon projects, by and by. Could your Britannic Majesty but take Mr. Viner's hint;

and, in the interim, mind your OWN business! His Britannic Majesty intends immediate fighting; and,

both in England and Hanover, is making preparation loud and great. Nay, he will in his own person fight, if

necessary, and rather likes the thought of it: he saw Oudenarde in his young days; and, I am told, traces in

himself a talent for Generalship. Were the Britannic Majesty to draw his own puissant sword!His own

puissant purse he has already drawn; and is subsidizing to right and left; knocking at all doors with money in

hand, and the question, "Any fighting done here?" In England itself there goes on much drilling, enlisting;

camping, proposing to camp; which is noisy enough in the British Newspapers, much more in the Foreign.

One actual Camp there was "on Lexden Heath near Colchester," from May till October of this 1741,

[Manifold but insignificant details about it, in the old Newspapers of those Months.]Camp waiting always

to be shipped across to the scene of action, but never was:this actual Camp, and several imaginary ones

here, which were alarming to the Continental Gazetteer. In England his Majesty is busy that way; still more

among his Hanoverians, now under his own royal eye; and among his Danes and Hessians, whom he has now

brought over into Hanover, to combine with the others. Danes and Hessians, 6,000 of each kind, he for some

time keeps back in stall, upon subsidy, ready for such an occasion. Their "Camp at Hameln," "Camp at

Nienburg" (will, with the Hanoverians, be 30,000 odd); their swashing and blaring about, intending to

encamp at Hameln, at Nienburg, and other places, but never doing it, or doing it with any result: this, with the

alarming English Camps at Lexden and in Dreamland, which also were void of practical issue, filled Europe

with rumor this Summer.Eager enough to fight; a noble martial ardor in our little HerculesAtlas! But

BOOK XIII. FIRST SILESIAN WAR, LEAVING THE GENERAL EUROPEAN ONE ABLAZE ALL ROUND, GETS ENDED. May, 1741July, 1742. 685

there lie such enormous difficulties on the threshold; especially these Two, which are insuperable or nearly

Difficulty FIRST, is that of the laggard Dutch; a People apt to be heavy in the sternworks. They are quite

languid about Pragmatic Sanction, these Dutch; they answer his Britannic Majesty's enthusiasm with an

obese torpidity; and hope always they will drift through, in some way; buoyant in their own fat, well ballasted

astern; and not need such swimming for life. "What a laggard notion," thinks his Majesty; "notion in ten pair

of breeches, so to speak!" This stirring up of the Dutch, which lasts year on year, and almost beats Lord Stair,

Lord Carteret, and our chief Artists, is itself a thing like few! One of his Britannic Majesty's great

difficulties;insuperable he never could admit it to be. "Surely you are a SeaPower, ye valiant Dutch; the

OTHER SeaPower? Bound by Barrier Treaty, Treaty of Vienna, and Law of Nature itself, to rise with us

against the fatal designs of France; fatal to your Dutch Barrier, first of all; if the Liberties of Mankind were

indifferent to you! How is it that you will not?" The Dutch cannot say how. France rocks them in security, by

oily mouthed Diplomatists, Fenelon and others: "Would not touch a stone of your Barrier, for the world, ye

admirable Dutch neighbors: on our honor, thrice and four times, No!" They have an eloquent Van Hoey of

their own at Paris; renowned in Newspapers: "Nothing but friendship here!" reports Van Hoey always; and

the Dutch answer his Britannic Majesty: "Hm, rise? Well then, if we must!"but sit always still.

Nowhere in Political Mechanics have I seen such a Problem as this of hoisting to their feet the

heavybottomed Dutch. The cunningest leverage, every sort of Diplomatic blockandtackle, Carteret and

Stair themselves running over to help in critical seasons, is applied; to almost no purpose. Pull long, pull

strong, pull all together,see, the heavy Dutch do stir; some four inches of daylight fairly visible below

them: bear a hand, oh, bear a hand! Pooh, the Dutch flap down again, as low as ever. As low,unless (by

Diplomatic art) you have WEDGED them at the four inches higher; which, after the first time or two, is

generally done. At the long last, partially in 1743 (upon which his Britannic Majesty drew sword),

completely in 1747, the Dutch were got to their feet; unfortunately good for nothing when they were!

Without them his Britannic Majesty durst not venture. Hidden in those dustbins, there is nothing so absurd,

or which would be so wearisome, did it not at last become slightly ludicrous, as this of hoisting the Dutch.

Difficulty SECOND, which in enormity of magnitude might be reckoned first, as in order of time it ranks

both first and last, is: The case of dear Hanover; case involved in mere insolubilities. Our own dear Hanover,

which (were there nothing more in it) is liable, from that Camp at Gottin, to be slit in pieces at a moment's

warning! No drawing sword against a nefarious Prussia, on those terms. The Camp at Gottin holds George in

checkmate. And then finally, in this same Autumn, 1741, when a Maillebois with his 40 or 50,000 French

(the Leftward or western of those Two Belleisle Armies), threatening our Hanover from another side, crossed

the Lower RhineBut let us not anticipate. The case of Hanover, which everybody saw to be his Majesty's

vulnerable point, was the constant open door of France and her machinations, and a never ending theme of

So that the case of Hanover proved insoluble throughout, and was like a perpetual running sore. Oh the

pamphleteerings, the denouncings, the complainings, satirical and elegiac, which grounded themselves on

Hanover, the CASE OF THE HANOVER FORCES, and innumerable other Hanoverian cases, griefs and

difficulties! So pungently vital to somnambulant mankind at that epoch; to us fallen dead as carrion, and

unendurable to think of. My friends, if you send for Gentlemen from Hanover, you must take them with

Hanover adhering more or less; and ought not to quarrel with your bargain, which you reckoned so divine!

No doubt, it is singular to see a Britannic Majesty neglecting his own Spanish War, the one real business he

has at present; and running about over all the world; busy, soul, body and breechespocket, in other people's

wars; egging on other fighting, whispering every likely fellow he can meet, "Won't you perhaps fight? Here is

for you, if so!"hand to breechespocket accompanying the word. But it must be said, and ought to be

better known than in our day it is, His Majesty's Ministers, and the English StateDoctors generally, were

precisely of the same mind. TO them too the Austrian Quarrel was everything, their own poor Spanish

BOOK XIII. FIRST SILESIAN WAR, LEAVING THE GENERAL EUROPEAN ONE ABLAZE ALL ROUND, GETS ENDED. May, 1741July, 1742. 686

Quarrel nothing; and the complaint they make of his Majesty is rather that he does not rush rapidly enough,

with brandished sword, as well as with guineas raining from him, into this one indispensable business.

"Owing to his fears for Hanover!" say they, with indignation, with no end of suspicion, angry pamphleteering

The suspicion of Hanover's checking his Majesty's Pragmatic velocity is altogether well founded; and there

need no more be said on that Hanover score. Be it well understood and admitted, Hanover was the Britannic

Majesty's beloved son; and the British Empire his opulent milkcow. Richest of milkcows; staff of one's

life, for grand purposes and small; beautiful big animal, not to be provoked; but to be stroked and

milked:Friends, if you will do a Glorious Revolution of that kind, and burn such an amount of tar upon it,

why eat sour herbs for an inevitable corollary therefrom! And let my present readers understand, at any rate,

that,except in Wapping, Bristol and among the simple instinctive classes (with whom, it is true, go Pitt and

some illustrious figures),political England generally, whatever of England had Parliamentary discourse of

reason, and did Pamphlets, Despatches, Harangues, went greatly along with his Majesty in that Pragmatic

Business. And be the blame of delirium laid on the right back, where it ought to lie, not on the wrong, which

has enough to bear of its own. And go not into that dustwhirlwind of extinct stupidities, O reader:what

reader would, except for didactic objects? Know only that it does of a truth whirl there; and fancy always, if

you can, that certain things and Human Figures, a Friedrich, a Chatham and some others, have it for their

LifeElement. Which, I often think, is their principal misfortune with Posterity; said LifeElement having

"One other thing surprises us in those Old Pamphlets," says my Constitutional Friend: "How the phrase,

'Cause of Liberty' ever and anon turns up, with great though extinct emphasis, evidently sincere. After

groping, one is astonished to find it means Support of the House of Austria; keeping of the Hapsburgs entire

in their old Possessions among mankind! That, to our greatgrandfathers, was the 'Cause of Liberty;'said

'Cause' being, with us again, Electoral Suffrage and other things; a notably different definition, perhaps still

"Our greatgrandfathers lived in perpetual terror that they would be devoured by France; that French

ambition would overset the Celestial Balance, and proceed next to eat the British Nation. Stand upon your

guard then, one would have said: Look to your ships, to your defences, to your industries; to your virtues first

of all,your VIRTUTES, manhoods, conformities to the Divine Law appointed you; which are the great and

indeed sole strength to any Man or Nation! Discipline yourselves, wisely, in all kinds; more and more, till

there be no anarchic fibre left in you. Unanarchic, disciplined at all points, you might then, I should say, with

supreme composure, let France, and the whole World at its back, try what they could do upon you and the

unique little Island you are so lucky as to live in?Foolish mortals: what Potentiality of Battle, think you

(not against France only, but against Satanas and the Ministers of Chaos generally), would a poor Friedrich

Wilhelm, not to speak of better, have got out of such a Possession, had it been his to put in drill! And drill is

not of soldiers only; though perhaps of soldiers first and most indispensably of all; since 'without Being,' as

my Friend Oliver was wont to say, 'Well being is not possible.' There is military drill; there is industrial,

economic, spiritual; gradually there are all kinds of drill, of wise discipline, of peremptory mandate become

effective everywhere, 'OBEY the Laws of Heaven, or else disappear from these latitudes!' Ah me, if one dealt

in daydreams, and prophecies of an England grown celestial,celestial she should be, not in gold nuggets,

continents all of beef, and seas all of beer, Abolition of Pain, and Paradise to All and Sundry, but in that quite

different fashion; and there, I should say, THERE were the magnificent Hope to indulge in! That were to me

the 'Cause of Liberty;' and any the smallest contribution towards that kind of 'Liberty ' were a sacred thing!

"Belleisle again may, if he pleases, call his the Cause of Sovereignty. A Sovereign Louis, it would appear,

has not governing enough to do within his own French borders, but feels called to undertake Germany as

well;a gentleman with an immense governing faculty, it would appear? Truly, good reader, I am sick of

heart, contemplating those empty sovereign mountebanks, and empty antagonist ditto, with their Causes of

BOOK XIII. FIRST SILESIAN WAR, LEAVING THE GENERAL EUROPEAN ONE ABLAZE ALL ROUND, GETS ENDED. May, 1741July, 1742. 687

Liberty and Causes of Anti Liberty; and cannot but wish that we had got the ashes of that WorldExplosion,

of 1789, well riddled and smelted, and the poor World were quit of a great many things!"

My Constitutional Historian of England, musing on Belleisle and his AntiPragmatic industries and

grandiosities,"how ChiefBully Belleisle stept down into the ring as a gay Volunteer, and foolish

ChiefDefender George had to follow dismally heroic, as a Conscript of Fate,"drops these words: in

"Nations that go into War without business there, are sure of getting business as they proceed; and if the

beginning were phantasms,especially phantasms of the hoping, selfconceited kind,the results for them

are apt to be extremely real! As was the case with the French in this War, and those following, in which his

Britannic Majesty played chief countertenor. From 1741, in King Friedrich's First War, onwards to

Friedrich's Third War, 17561763, the volunteer French found a great deal of work lying ready for

them,gratuitous on their part, from the beginning. And the results to them came out, first completely

"Nations, again, may be driven upon War by phantasm TERRORS, and go into it, in sorrow of heart, not

gayety of heart; and that is a shade better. And one always pities a poor Nation, in such case; as the very

Destinies rather do, and judge it more mercifully. Nay, the poor bewildered Nation may, among its

brainphantasms, have something of reality and sanity inarticulately stirring it withal. It may have a real

ordinance of Heaven to accomplish on those terms:and IF so, it will sometimes, in the most chaotic

circuitous ways, through endless hazards, at a hundred or a hundred thousand times the natural expense,

"They were Wars extraneous to England little less than to France; neither Nation had real business in them;

and they seem to us now a very mad object on the part of both. But they were not gratuitously gone into, on

the part of England; far from that. England undertook them, with its big heart very sorrowful, strange

spectralities bewildering it; and managed them (as men do sleepwalking) with a gloomy solidity of purpose,

with a heavyladen energy, and, on the whole, with a depth of stupidity, which were very great. Yet look at

the respective net results. France lies down to rot into grand SpontaneousCombustion, Apotheosis of

Sansculottism, and much else; which still lasts, to her own great peril, and the great affliction of neighbors.

Poor England, after such enormous stumbling among the chimneypots, and somnambulism over all the

world for twenty years, finds on awakening, that she is arrived, after all, where she wished to be, and a good

deal farther! Finds that her own important little errand is somehow or other, done;and, in short, that

'Jenkins's Ear [as she named the thing] HAS been avenged,' and the Ocean Highways 'opened' and a good

deal more, in a most signal way! For the Eternal Providenceslittle as poor Dryasdust now knows of it,

mumbling and maundering that sad stuff of hisdo rule; and the great soul of the world, I assure you once

more, is JUST. And always for a Nation, as for a man, it is very behooveful to be honest, to be modest,

By this time, however,Mollwitz having fallen out, and Belleisle being evidently on the steps,his

Britannic Majesty recognizes clearly, and insists upon it, strengthened by his Harringtons and everybody of

discernment, That, nefarious or not, this Friedrich will require to be bargained with. That, far from breaking

in upon him, and partitioning him (how far from it!), there is no conceivable method of saving the Celestial

Balances till HE be satisfied, in some way. This is the one step his Britannic Majesty has yet made, out of

these his choking imbroglios; and truly this is one. Hyndford, his best negotiator, is on the road for Friedrich's

Camp; Robinson at Vienna, has been directed to say and insist, "Bargain with that man; he must be bargained

And now, having opened the dustbin so far, that the reader's fancy might be stirred without affliction to his

lungs and eyes, let us shut it down again,might we but hope forever! That is too fond a hope. But the

BOOK XIII. FIRST SILESIAN WAR, LEAVING THE GENERAL EUROPEAN ONE ABLAZE ALL ROUND, GETS ENDED. May, 1741July, 1742. 688

background or sustaining element made imaginable, the few events deserving memory may surely go on at a

Friedrich's Silesian Camps this Summer, Camp of Strehlen chiefly, were among the strangest places in the

world. Friedrich, as we have often noticed, did not much pursue the defeated Austrians, at or near Mollwitz,

or press them towards flat ruin in their Silesian business: it is clear he anxiously wished a bargain without

farther exasperation; and hoped he might get it by judicious patience. Brieg he took, with that fine outburst of

bombardment, which did not last a week: but Brieg once his, he fell quiet again; kept encamping, here there,

in that MollwitzNeisse region, for above three months to come; not doing much, beyond the indispensable;

negotiating much, or rather negotiated with, and waiting on events. [In Camp of Mollwitz (nearer Brieg than

the Battlefield was) till 28th May (after the Battle seven weeks); then to Camp at Grotkau (28th May9th

June, twelve days); thence (9th June) to Friedewalde, Herrnsdorf; to Strehlen (21st June20th August, nine or

Both Armies were reinforcing themselves; and Friedrich's, for obvious reasons, in the first weeks especially,

became much the stronger. Once in May, and again afterwards, weary of the pace things went at, he had

resolved on having Neisse at once; on attacking Neipperg in his strong camp there, and cutting short the

tedious janglings and uncertainties. He advanced to Grotkau accordingly, some twelve or fifteen miles nearer

Neisse (28th May, stayed till 9th June), quite within wind of Neipperg and his outposts; but found still, on

closer inspection, that he had better wait;and do so withal at a greater distance from Neipperg and his

Pandour Swarms. He drew back therefore to Strehlen, northwestward, rather farther from Neisse than before;

and lay encamped there for nine or ten weeks to come. Not till the beginning of August did there fall out any

military event (Pandour skirmishing in plenty, hut nothing to call an event); and not till the end of August any

that pointed to conclusive results. As it was at Strehlen where mostly these Diplomacies went on, and the

Camp of Strehlen was the final and every way the main one, it may stand as the representative of these

Diplomatizing Camps to us, and figure as the sole one which in fact it nearly was.

Strehlen is a pleasant little Town, nestled prettily among its granite Hills, the steeple of it visible from

Mollwitz; some twentyfive miles west of Brieg, some thirty south of Breslau, and about as far northwest of

Neisse: there Friedrich and his Prussians lie, under canvas mainly, with outposts and detachments sprinkled

about under roofs:a Camp of Strehlen, more or less imaginable by the reader. And worth his imagining;

such a Camp, if not for soldiering, yet for negotiating and wagging of diplomatic wigs, as there never was

before. Here, strangely shifted hither, is the centre of European Politics all Summer. From the utmost ends of

Europe come Ambassadors to Strehlen: from Spain, France, England, Denmark, Holland,there are

sometimes nine at once, how many successively and in total I never knew. [ Helden Geschichte, i. 932.]

They lodge generally in Breslau; but are always running over to Strehlen. There sits, properly speaking, the

general Secret Parliament of Europe; and from most Countries, except Austria, representatives attend at

Strehlen, or go and come between Breslau and Strehlen, submissive to the evils of fieldlife, when need is. A

surprising thing enough to mankind, and big as the world in its own day; though gone now to small

bulk,one Human Figure pretty much all that is left of memorable in it to mankind and us.

French Belleisle we have seen; who is gone again, long since, on his wide errands; fat Valori too we have

seen, who is assiduously here. The other figures, except the English, can remain dark to us. Of Montijos, the

eminent Spaniard, a brown little man, magnificent as the Kingdom of the Incas, with half a page of titles (half

a peck, fiveandtwenty or more, of handles to his little name, if you should ever require it); who, finding

matters so backward at Frankfurt, and nothing to do there, has been out, in the interim, touring to while away

the tedium; and is here only as sequel and corroboration of Belleisle,say as bottleholder, or as high

wrought peacock'stail, to Belleisle:of the eminent Montijos I have to record next to nothing in the shape

of negotiation ("Treaty" with the Termagant was once proposed by him here, which Friedrich in his politest

way declined); and shall mention only, That his domestic arrangements were sumptuous and commodious in

the extreme. Let him arrive in the meanest village, destitute of human appliances, and be directed to the hut

where he is to lodge, straightway from the fourgons and baggagechests of Montijos is produced, first of

all, a round of arras hangings, portable tables, portable stove, gold plate and silver; thus, with waxlights,

wines of richest vintage, exquisite cookeries, Montijos lodges, a king everywhere, creating an Aladdin's

palace everywhere; able to say, like the Sage Bias, OMNIA MEA NAECUM PORTO. These things are

recorded of Montijos. What he did in the way of negotiation has escaped men's memory, as it could well

Of Hyndford's appurtenances for lodging we already had a glimpse, through Busching once;pointing

towards solid dinnercomforts rather than arras hangings; and justifying the English genius in that respect.

The weight of the negotiations fell on Hyndford; it is between him and French Valori that the matter lies,

Montijos and the others being mere satellites on their respective sides. Much battered upon, this Hyndford, by

refractory Hanoverians pitting George as Elector against the same George as King, and egging these two

identities to woful battle with each other, "Lay me at his Majesty's feet" full length, and let his Majesty say

which is which, then! A heavy, eating, haggling, unpleasant kind of mortal, this Hyndford; bites and grunts

privately, in a stupid ferocious manner, against this young King: "One of the worst of men; who will not take

up the Cause of Liberty at all, and is not made in the image of Hyndford at all." They are dreadfully stiff

reading, those Despatches of Hyndford: but they have particles of current news in them; interesting glimpses

of that same young King;likewise of Hyndford, laid at his Majesty's feet, and begging for self and brothers

any good benefice that may fall vacant. We can discern, too, a certain rough tenacity and horse dealer

finesse in the man; a broadbased, shrewdly practical Scotch Gentleman, wide awake; and can conjecture

that the diplomatic function, in that element, might have been in worse hands. He is often laid metaphorically

at the King's feet, King of England's; and haunts personally the King of Prussia's elbow at all times, watching

every glance of him, like a British housedog, that will not be taken in with suspicious travellers, if he can

Of Friedrich and his demeanor in this strange scene, centre of a World all drawing sword, and jumbling in

huge Diplomatic and other delirium about his ears, the reader will desire to see a direct glimpse or two. As to

the sad general Imbroglio of Diplomacies which then weltered everywhere, readers can understand that, it

has, at this day, fallen considerably obscure (as it deserved to do); and that even Friedrich's share of it is

indistinct in parts. The game, wide as Europe, and one of the most intricate ever played by Diplomatic human

creatures, was kept studiously dark while it went on; and it has not since been a pleasant object of study.

Many of the Documents are still unpublished, inaccessible; so that the various moves in the game, especially

what the exact dates and sequence of them were (upon which all would turn), are not completely

ascertainable,nor in truth are they much worth hunting after, through such an element. One thing we could

wish to have out of it, the one thing of sane that was in it: the demeanor and physiognomy of Friedrich as

there manifested; Friedrich alone, or pretty much alone of all these Diplomatic Conjurers, having a solid

veritable object in hand. The restthe spiders are very welcome to it: who of mortals would read it, were it

made never so lucid to him? Such traits of Friedrich as can be sifted out into the conceivable and indubitable

state, the reader shall have; the extinct Bedlam, that begirdled Friedrich far and wide, need not be resuscitated

except for that object. Of Friedrich's fairness, or of Friedrich's "trickiness, machiavelism and attorneyism,"

readers will form their own notion, as they proceed. On one point they will not be doubtful, That here is such

a sharpness of steady eyesight (like the lynx's, like the eagle's), and, privately such a courage and fixity of

April 26th, 1741, in the same days while Belleisle arrived in the Camp at Mollwitz, and witnessed that fine

opening of the cannonade upon Brieg, Excellency Hyndford got to Berlin; and on notifying the event, was

invited by the King to come along to Breslau, and begin business. England has been profuse enough in

offering her "good offices with Austria" towards making a bargain for his Prussian Majesty; but is busy also,

at the Hague, concerting with the Dutch "some strong joint resolution,"resolution, Openly to advise

Friedrich to withdraw his troops from Silesia, by way of starting fair towards a bargain. A very strong

resolution, they and the Gazetteers think it; and ask themselves, Is it not likely to have some effect? Their

High Mightinesses have been screwing their courage, and under English urgency, have decided (April 24th),

[ HeldenGeschichte, i. 964; the ADVICE itself, a very mildspoken Piece, but of riskish nature think the

Dutch, is given, ib. 965, 966.] "Yes, we will jointly so advise!" and Friedrich has got inkling of it from

Rasfeld, his Minister there. Hyndford's first business (were the Dutch Excellency once come up, but those

Dutch are always hanging astern!) is to present said "Advice," and try what will come of that, An "Advice"

now fallen totally insignificant to the Universe and to us,only that readers will wish to see how Friedrich

May 2d, Hyndford arrived in Breslau; and after some preliminary flourishings, and difficulties about

posthorses and furnitures in a seat of War, got to Brieg; and thence, May 7th, "to the Camp [Camp of

Mollwitz still], which is about an English mile off," Podewils escorting him from Brieg, and what we note

farther, Pollnitz too; our poor old Pollnitz, some kind of Chief Goldstick, whom we did not otherwise know

to be on active duty in those rude scenes. Belleisle had passed through Breslau while Hyndford was

there:"am unable to inform your Lordship what success he has had." Brieg Siege is done only three days

ago; Castle all lying black; and the new trenching and fortifying hardly begun. In a word, May 7th, 1741,

"about 11 A.M.," Excellency Hyndford is introduced to the King's Tent, and has his First Audience.

Goldstick having done his motions, none but Podewils is left present; who sits at a table, taking notes of what

is said. Podewils's Notes are invisible to me; but here, in authentic though carefully compressed state, is

Excellency Hyndford mentioned the Instructions he had, as to "good offices," friendship and so forth. "But

his Prussian Majesty had hardly patience to hear me out; and said in a passion [we rise, where possible,

Hyndford's own wording; readers will allow for the leaden quality in some parts]:

KING (in a passion). "'How is it possible, my Lord, to believe things so contradictory? It is mighty fine

all this that you now tell me, on the part of the King of England; but how does it correspond to his last Speech

to his Parliament [19th April last, when Mr. Viner was in such minority of one] and to the doings of his

Ministers at Petersburg [a pretty PartitionTreaty that; and the Excellency Finch still busy, as I know!] and at

the Hague [Excellency Trevor there, and this beautiful JointResolution and Advice which is coming!] to stir

up allies against me? I have reason rather to doubt the sincerity of the King of England. They perhaps mean

to amuse me. [That is Friedrich's real opinion. [His Letter to Podewils (Ranke, ii. 268).]] But, by God, they

are mistaken! I will risk everything rather than abate the least of my pretensions.'"

Poor Hyndford said and mumbled what he could; knew nothing what instructions Finch had, Trevor had,

KING. "'My Lord, there seems to be a contradiction in all this. The King of England, in his Letter, tells

me you are instructed as to everything; and yet you pretend ignorance! But I am perfectly informed of all.

And I should not be surprised if, after all these fine words, you should receive some strong letter or resolution

Hyndford, not in the strength of conscious innocence, stands silent; the King, "in his heat of passion," said to

KING TO PODEWILS (on the sudden). "'Write down, that my Lord would be surprised [as he should

be] to receive such Instructions!'" (A mischievous sparkle, half quizzical, half practical, considerably in the

Friedrich style.)Hyndford, "quite struck, my Lord, with this strange way of acting," and of poking into one,

protests with angry grunt, and "was put extremely upon my guard." Of course Podewils did net write. ...

HYNDFORD. "'Europe is under the necessity of taking some speedy resolution, things are in such a state

of crisis. Like a fever in a human body, got to such a height that quinquina becomes necessary.' ... That

expression made him smile, and he began to look a little cooler. ... 'Shall we apply to Vienna, your Majesty?'

HYNDFORD. "'Would your Majesty consent now to stand by his Excellency Gotter's original Offer at

Vienna on your part? Agree, namely, in consideration of Lower Silesia and Breslau, to assist the Queen with

all your troops for maintenance of Pragmatic Sanction, and to vote for the GrandDuke as Kaiser?'

"King hesitated, as if he had forgotten; Podewils answered, 'Three million florins (300,000 pounds).'

KING. "'I should not value the money; if money would content her Majesty, I would give more.' ... Here

was a long pause, which I did not break;"nor would the King. Podewils reminded me of an idea we had

been discoursing of together ("on his suggestion, my Lord, which I really think is of importance, and worth

FRIEDRICH. "'Yes; but [counts on his fingers, May, June, till he comes to December] not for less than

six months,till December 1st. By that time they could do nothing,'" the season out by that time.

HYNDFORD. "'His Excellency Podewils has been taking notes; if I am to be bound by them, might I

KING. "'Certainly!'"Podewils's Noteprotocol is found to be correct in every point; Hyndford, with

some slight flourish of compliments on both sides, bows himself away (invited to dinner, which he accepts,

"will surely have that honor before returning to Breslau");and so the First Audience has ended.

[Hyndford's Despatches, Breslau, 5th and 13th May, 1741. Are in StatePaper Office, like the rest of

Hyndford's; also in British Museum (Additional MSS. 11,365 the rough draughts of them.] Baronay and

Pandours are about,this is ten days before the Ziethen feat on Baronay;but no Pandour, now or

These utterances of Friedrich's, the more we examine them by other lights that there are, become the more

correctly expressive of what Friedrich's real feelings were on the occasion. Much contrary, perhaps, to

expectation of some readers. And indeed we will here advise our readers to prepare for dismissing altogether

that notion of Friedrich's duplicity, mendacity, finesse and the like, which was once widely current in the

world; and to attend always strictly to what Friedrich says, if they wish to guess what he is thinking; there

being no such thing as "mendacity" discoverable in Friedrich, when you take the trouble to inform yourself.

"Mendacity," my friends? How busy have the Owls been with Friedrich's memory, in different countries of

the world;perhaps even more than their sad wont is in such cases! For indeed he was apt to be of swift

abrupt procedure, disregardful of Owleries; and gave scope for misunderstanding in the course of his life. But

a veracious man he was, at all points; not even conscious of his veracity; but had it in the blood of him; and

never looked upon "mendacity" but from a very great height indeed. He does not, except where suitable, at

least he never should, express his whole meaning; but you will never find him expressing what is not his

meaning. Reticence, not dissimulation. And as to "finesse,"do not believe in that either, in the vulgar or

bad sense. Truly you will find his finesse is a very fine thing; and that it consists, not in deceiving other

people, but in being right himself; in well discerning, for his own behoof, what the facts before him are; and

in steering, which he does steadily, in a most vigilant, nimble, decisive and intrepid manner, by monition of

the same. No salvation but in the facts. Facts are a kind of divine thing to Friedrich; much more so than to

common men: this is essentially what Religion I have found in Friedrich. And, let me assure you, it is an

invaluable element in any man's Religion, and highly indispensable, though so often dispensed with! Readers,

especially in our time English readers, who would gain the least knowledge about Friedrich, in the extinct

Bedlam where his work now lay, have a great many things to forget, and sad strata of Owldroppings,

To Friedrich a bargain with Austria, which would be a getting into port, in comparisori to going with the

French in that distracted voyage of theirs, is highly desirable. "Shall I join with the English, in hope of some

tolerable bargain from Austria? Shall I have to join with the French, in despair of any?" Readers may

consider how stringent upon Friedrich that question now was, and how ticklish to solve. And it must be

solved soon,under penalty of "being left with no ally at all" (as Friedrich expresses himself), while the

whole world is grouping itself into armed heaps for and against! If the English would but get me a

bargain? Friedrich dare not think they will. Nay, scanning these English incoherences, these contradictions

between what they say here and what they do and say elsewhere, he begins to doubt if they zealously wish

it,and at last to believe that they sincerely do not wish it; that "they mean to amuse me" (as he said to

Hyndford) till my French chance too is over. "To amuse me: but, PAR DIEU!" His Notes to Podewils,

of which Ranke, who has seen them, gives us snatches, are vivid in that sense: "I should be ashamed if the

cunningest Italian could dupe me; but that a lout of a Hanoverian should do it!"and Podewils has great

difficulty to keep him patient yet a little; Valori being so busy on the other side, and the time so pressing.

Here are some dates and some comments, which the reader should take with him; here is a very strange

A few days after that First Audience, Ginkel the Dutch Excellency, with the due Papers in his pocket, did

arrive. Excellency Hyndford, who is not without rough insight into what lies under his nose, discovers clearly

that the grand DutchEnglish Resolution, or JointExhortation to evacuate Silesia, will do nothing but

mischief; and (at his own risk, persuading Ginkel also to delay) sends a Courier to England before presenting

it. And from England, in about a fortnight, gets for answer, "Do harm, think you? Hm, ha!Present it, all the

same; and modify by assurances afterwards,"as if these would much avail! This is not the only instance in

which St. James's rejects good advice from its Hyndford; the pity would be greater, were not the Business

what it is! Podewils has the greatest difficulty to keep Friedrich quiet till Hyndford's courier get back. And on

his getting back with such answer, "Present it all the same," Friedrich will not wait for that ceremony, or

delay a moment longer. Friedrich has had his Valori at work, all this while; Valori and Podewils, and endless

correspondence and consultation going on; and things hypothetically almost quite ready; so that

June 5th, 1741, Friedrich, spurring Podewils to the utmost speed, and "ordering secrecy on pain of death,"

signs his Treaty with France! A kind of provisional offandon Treaty, I take it to be; which was never

published, and is thought to have had many IFS in it: sigus this Treaty;and next day (June 6th, such is the

impetuosity of haste) instructs his Rasfeld at the Hague, "You will beforehand inform the High Mightinesses,

in regard to that Advice of April 24th, which they determined on giving me, through the Excellency Herr von

Ginkel along with Excellency Hyndford, That such Advice can, by me, only be considered as a blind

complaisance to the Court of Vienna's improper urgencies, improper in such a matter. That for certain I will

not quit Silesia till my claims be satisfied. And the longer I am forced to continue warring for them here,"

wasting more resource and risk upon them, "the higher they will rise!" [ HeldenGeschichte, i. 963.] And this

is what comes of that terribly courageous DutchEnglish "JointResolution of a strong nature;" it has

literally cut before the point: the Exhortation is not yet presented, but the Treaty with France is signed in

Undoubtedly this of June 5th is the most important Treaty in the AustrianSuccession War, and the cardinal

element of Friedrich's procedure in that Adventure. And it has never been published; nor, till Herr Professor

Ranke got access to the Prussian Archives, has even the date of signing it been rightly known; but is given

two or three ways in different express Collections of Treaties. [Scholl, ii. 297 (copying "Flassan, Hist. de la

Diplom. Franc. v. 142"), gives "5th July" as the date; Adelung (ii. 357, 390, 441) guesses that it was "in

August;" Valori (i. 108), who was himself in it, gives the correct date,but then his Editor (thought

inquiring readers) was such a sloven and ignoramus. See Stenzel, iv. 143; Ranke, ii. 274.] Herr Ranke knows

this Treaty, and the correspondences, especially Friedrich's correspondence with Podewils preparatory to it;

and speaks, as his wont is, several exact things about it; thanks to him, in the circumstances. I wish it could

be made, even with his help, fully intelligible to the reader! For, were the Treaty never so express, surely the

mode of keeping it, on both parts, was very strange; and that latter concerns us somewhat.

A very fastandloose Treaty, to all appearance! Outwardly it is a mere Treaty of Alliance, each party

guaranteeing the other for Fifteen Years; without mention made of the joint Belleisle Adventure now in the

wind. But then, like the postscript to a lady's letter, there come "secret articles" bearing upon that essential

item: How France, in the course of this current season 1741, is to bring an Army across the Rhine in support

of its friend KurBaiern VERSUS Austria; is, in the same term of time, to make Sweden declare war on

Russia (important for Friedrich, who is never sure a moment that those Russians will not break in upon him);

and finally, most important of all, That France "guarantees Lower Silesia with Breslau to his Prussian

Majesty." In return for which his Prussian Majestywill do what? It is really difficult to say what: Be a true

ally and second to France in its grand German Adventure? Not at all. Friedrich does not yet know, nor does

Belleisle himself quite precisely, what the grand German Adventure is; and Friedrich's wishes never were,

nor will be, for the prosperity of that. Support France, at least in its small Bavarian AntiAustrian Adventure?

By no means definitely even that. "Maintain myself in Lower Silesia with Breslau, and fight my best to such

end:" really that, you might say, is in substance the most of what Friedrich undertakes; though inarticulately

he finds himself bound to much more,and will frankly go into it, IF you do as you have said; and unless

you do, will not. Never was a more contingent Treaty: "unless you stir up Sweden, Messieurs; unless you

produce that Rhine Army; unless" such is steadily Friedrich's attitude; long after this, he refuses to say

whom he will vote for as Kaiser: "Fortune of War will decide it," answers he, in regard to that and to many

other things; and keeps himself to an incomprehensible extent loose; ready, for weeks and months after, to

make bargain on his own Silesian Affair with anybody that can. [Ranke, ii. 271, 275, 280.]

For indeed the French also are very contingent; Fleury hanging one way, Belleisle pushing another; and know

not how far they will go on the grand German Adventure, nor conclusively whether at all. Here is an

Anecdote by Friedrich himself. Valori was, one night, with him; and, on rising to take leave, the fat hand,

sticking probably in the big waistcoatpocket, twitched out a little diplomaticlooking Note; which Friedrich,

with gentle adroitness (permissible in such circumstances), set his foot upon, till Valori had bowed himself

out. The Note was from Amelot, French Minister of the Foreign Department: "Don't give his Prussian

Majesty Glatz, if it can possibly be helped." Very well, thought Friedrich; and did not forget the fine little

Note on burning it. [ OEuvres de Frederic, ii. 90.] There went, in French couriers' bags, a great many such, to

Austria some of them, of far more questionable tenor, within the next twelve months.

Two things we have to remark: FIRST, That Friedrich, with an eye to real business on his part in the

Bavarian Adventure, in which KurPfalz is sure to accompany, volunteered (like a real man of business, and

much to Belleisle's surprise) to renounce the Berg Julich controversy, and let KurPfalz have his way, that

there might be no quarrelling among allies. This too is contingent; but was gladly accepted by Belleisle.

SECOND, That Belleisle had instructed Valori, Not to insist on active help from Friedrich in the German

Adventure, but merely to stipulate for his Neutrality throughout, in case they could get no more. How

joyfully would Friedrich have accepted this,had Valori volunteered with it, which he did not! [Ranke, ii.

280.] But, after all, in result it was the same; and had to be,PLUS only a great deal of clamor by and by,

Was there ever so contingent a Treaty before? It is signed, Breslau, 5th June, 1741, and both parties have

their hands loose, and make use of their liberty for months to come; nay, in some sort, all along; feeling how

contingent it was! Friedrich did not definitely tie himself till 4th November next, five months after: when he

signed the FrenchBavarian Treaty, renounced BergJulich controversies, and fairly went into the

FrenchBavarian, smaller French Adventure; into the greater, or widewinged Belleisle one, he never went

nor intended to go,perhaps even the contrary, if needful. Readers may try to remember these elucidative

items, riddled from the immensities of Dryasdust: I have no more to give, nor can afford to return upon it.

May not we well say, as above, "A Treaty thought to have many IFS in it!"And now, 8th June, comes

solemnly the JointResolution itself; like mustard (under a flourish of trumpets) three days after dinner:

"CAMP OF GROTKAU, 8th JUNE. Hyndford and Ginkel [the same respectable old Ginkel whom we used

to know in Friedrich Wilhelm's time], having, according to renewed order, got out from Breslau with that

formidable DutchEnglish 'Advice' or JointExhortation in their pocket, did this day in the Camp at Grotkau

present the same. A very mildspoken Piece, though it had required such courage; and which is not now

worth speaking of, things having gone as we see. Friedrich received it with a gracious mien: 'Infinitely

sensible to the trouble his Britannic Majesty and their High Mightinesses took with his affairs; Document

should receive his best consideration,'which indeed it has already done, and its Answer withal: A

FRENCH Treaty signed three days ago, in virtue of it! 'Might I request a short Private Audience of your

Majesty?' solicits Hyndford, intending to modify by new assurances, as bidden.'Surely,' answers Friedrich.

"The two Excellencies dine with the King, who is in high spirits. After dinner, Hyndford gets his Private

Audience; does his best in the way of 'new assurances;' which produce what effect we can fancy. Among

other things, he appeals to the King's 'magnanimity, how grand and generous it will be to accept moderate

terms from Austria, to' KING (interrupting): 'My Lord, don't talk to me of magnanimity, a Prince [acting

not for himself but for his Nation] ought to consult his interest in the first place. I am not against Peace: but I

expect to have Four Duchies given me.'" [StatePaper Office (Hyndford, Breslau, 12th June, 1741).]

Hyndford and Ginkel slept that night in Grotkau Town: "at 4 next morning the King sent us word, That if we

had a mind to see the Army on march," just moving off, Strehlen way, "we might come out by the North

Gate." We accordingly saw the whole Army leave Camp; and march in four columns towards Friedewald,

where Marshal Neipperg is encamped." Not a bit of it, your Excellency! Neipperg is safe at Neisse; amid

inaccessible embankments and artificial mud: and these are mere HussarPandour rabble out here; whom a

push or two sends home again,would it could keep them there! But they are of sylvan (or SALVAGE)

nature, affecting the shade; and burst out, for theft and arson, sometimes at great distances, no calculating

where. "The King's Army lay all that night upon their arms, and encamped next morning, the 10th. I believe

nothing happened that day, for we were obliged to stay at Grotkau, for want of posthorses, a good part of it."

Hyndford hears (in secret Opposition Circles, and lays the flattering unction to his soul and your Lordship's):

"The King of Prussia's Army, as I am informed, unless he will take counsel, another campaign will go near to

ruin. Everything is in the greatest disorder; utmost dejection amongst the Officers from highest to

lowest;"fact being that the King has important improvements and new drillings in view (to go on at

Strehlen), Cavalry improvements, Artillery improvements, unknown to Hyndford and the Opposition; and

will not be ruined next campaign. "I hope the news we have here, of the taking of Carthagena, is true,"

By a different hand, from the southward Hungarian regions, far over the Hills, take this other entry; almost of

"PRESBURG, 25th JUNE. Maria Theresa, in high spirits about her English Subsidy and the bright aspects,

left Vienna about a week ago for Presburg [a drive of fifty miles down the fine Donau country]; and is

celebrating her Coronation there, as Queen of Hungary, in a very sublime manner. Sunday, 25th June, 1741,

that is the day of putting on your Crown,Iron Crown of St. Stephen, as readers know. The Chivalry of

Hungary, from Palfy and Esterhazy downward, and all the world are there; shining in loyalty and barbaric

gold and pearl. A truly beautiful Young Woman, beautiful to soul and eye, devout too and noble, though

illinformed in Political or other Science, is in the middle of it, and makes the scene still more noticeable to

us. See, as the finish of the ceremonies, she has mounted a high swift horse, sword girt to her side,a great

rider always, this young Queen;and gallops, Hungary following like a comettail, to the Konigsberg

[KING'SHILL so called; no great things of a Hill, O reader; made by barrow, you can see], to the top of the

Konigsberg; there draws sword; and cuts, grandly flourishing, to the Four Quarters of the Heavens: 'Let any

mortal, from whatever quarter coming, meddle with Hungary if he dare!' [Adelung, ii. 293, 294.] Chivalrous

Hungary bursts into passionate acclaim; old Palfy, I could fancy, into tears; and all the world murmurs to

itself, with moistgleaming eyes, 'REX NOSTER!' This is, in fact, the beautifulest King or Queen that now

is, this radiant young woman; beautiful things have been, and are to be, reported of her; and she has a terrible

voyage just ahead, little dreaming of it at this grand moment. I wish his Britannic Majesty, or Robinson

who has followed out hither, could persuade her to some compliance on the Silesian matter: what a thing

were that, for herself, and for all mankind, just now! But she will not hear of that; and is very obstinate, and

her stupid Hofraths equally and much more blamably so. Deaf to hard Facts knocking at their door; ignorant

By a notable coincidence, precisely while those swordflourishings go on at Presburg, Marechal Excellency

Belleisle is making his Public Entry into FrankfurtonMayn: [25th June, 1741 (Adelung, ii. 399).] Frankfurt

too is in cheery emotion; streets populous with Sunday gazers, and critics of the sublime in spectacle! This is

not Belleisle's first entrance; he himself has been here some time, settling his Household, and a good many

things: but today he solemnly leads in his Countess and Appendages (over from Metz, where Madame and he

officially reside in common times, "Governor of Metz," one of his many offices);leads in Madame, in

suitably resplendent manner; to kindle household fire, as it were; and indicate that here is his place, till he

have got a Kaiser to his mind. Twin Phenomena, these two; going on 500 miles apart; unconscious of one

Britannic George, both for Pragmatic's sake and for dear Hanover's, desires much there were a bargain made

with Friedrich: How is the Pragmatic to be saved at all, if Friedrich join France in its Belleisle machinations,

thinks George? And already here is that Camp of Gottin, glittering in view like a drawn sword pointed at

one's throat or at one's Hanover. Nay, in a month or two hence, as the Belleisle schemes got above ground in

the shape of facts, this desire became passionate, and a bargain with Prussia seemed the one thing needful.

For, alas, the reader will see there comes, about that time, a second sword (the Maillebois Army, namely),

pointed at one's throat from the French side of things: so that a Paladin of the Pragmatic, and Hanoverian

King of England, knows not which way to turn! George's sincerity of wish is perhaps underrated by

Friedrich; who indeed knows well enough on which side George's wishes would fall, if they had liberty

(which they have not), but much overrates "the astucity" of poor George and his English; ascribing, as is

often done, to finespun attorneyism what is mere cunctation, ignorance, negligence, and other forms of a

stupidity perhaps the most honest in the world! By degrees Friedrich understood better; but he never much

liked the English ways of doing business. George's desire is abundantly sincere, not wholly resting on

sublime grounds; and grows more and more intense every day; but could not be gratified for a good while

Cooperating with Hyndford, from the Vienna side, is Excellency Robinson; who has a still harder job of it

there. Pity poor Robinson, O English reader, if you can for indignation at the business he is in. Saving the

Liberties of Europe! thinks Robinson confidently: Founding the English National Debt, answers Fact; and

doing Bottom the Weaver, with long ears, in the miserablest Pickleherring Tragedy that ever was!This is

the same Robinson who immortalized himself, nine or ten years ago, by the First Treaty of Vienna;

thricesalutary Treaty, which DISJOINED Austria from BourbonSpanish Alliances, and brought her into

the arms of the grateful SeaPowers again. Imminent Downfall of the Universe was thus, glory to Robinson,

arrested for that time. And now we have the same Robinson instructed to sharpen all his faculties to the

cutting pitch, and do the impossible for this new and reverse face of matters. What a change from 1731 to

1741! Bugbear of dreadful AustrianSpanish Alliance dissolves now into sunlit clouds, encircling a beautiful

Austrian Andromeda, about to be devoured for us; and the Downfall of the Universe is again imminent, from

Spain and others joining AGAINST Austria. Oh, ye wigs, and eximious wig blocks, called righthonorable!

If a man, sovereign or other, were to stay well at home, and mind his own visible affairs, trusting a good deal

that the Universe would shift for itself, might it not be better for him? Robinson, who writes rather a heavy

style, but is full of inextinguishable heavy zeal withal, will have a great deal to do in these coming years.

Ancestor of certain valuable Earls that now are; author of immeasurable quantities of the Diplomatic cobwebs

To a modern English reader it is very strange, that Austrian scene of things in which poor Robinson is puffing

and laboring. The ineffable pride, the obstinacy, impotency, ponderous pedantry and helplessness of that dull

old Court and its Hofraths, is nearly inconceivable to modern readers. Stupid dilapidation is in all

departments, and has long been; all things lazily crumbling downwards, sometimes stumbling down with

great plunges. Cash is done; the world rising, all round, with plunderous intentions; and hungry Ruin, you

would say, coming visibly on with sevenleague boots: here is little room for carrying your head high among

mankind. High nevertheless they do carry it, with a grandly mournful though stolid insolent air, as if born

superior to this Earth and its wisdoms and successes and multiplicationtables and iron ramrods,really

with "a certain greatness," says somebody, "greatness as of great blockheadism" in themselves and their

neighbors;and, like some absurd old Hindoo Idol (crockery Idol of Somnauth, for instance, with the belly

of him smashed by battle axes, and the cartload of gold coin all run out), persuade mankind that they are a

god, though in dilapidated condition. That is our first impression of the thing.

But again, better seen into, there is not wantiug a certain worthily steadfast, conservative and broadbased

high air (reminding you of "Kill our own mutton, Sir!" and the ancient English Tory species), solid and loyal,

though stolid Ancient Austrian Tories, that definition will suffice for us;and Toryism too, the reader may

rely on it, is much patronized by the Upper Powers, and goes a long way in this world. Nay, without a good

solid substratum of that, what thing, with never so many ballot boxes, stumporators, and liberties of the

subject, is capable of going at all, except swiftly to perdition? These Austrians have taken a great deal of

ruining, first and last! Their relation to the then SeaPowers, especially to England embarked on the Cause of

Liberty, fills one with amazement, by no means of an idolatrous nature; and is difficult to understand at all, or

Of disposition to comply with Prussia, Robinson finds, in spite of Mollwitz and the sad experiences, no trace

at Vienna. The humor at Vienna is obstinately defiant; simply to regard Friedrich as a housebreaker or thief in

the night; whom they will soon deal with, were they once on foot and implements in their hand: "Swift, ye

SeaPowers; where are the implements, the cash, that means implements?" The Young Hungarian Majesty

herself is magnificently of that opinion, which is sanctioned by her Bartensteins and wisest Hofraths, with

hardly a dissentient (old Sinzendorf almost alone in his contrary notion, and he soon dies). Robinson urges

the dangers from France. No Hofrath here will allow himself to believe them; to believe them would be too

horrible. "Depend upon it, France's intentions are not that way. And at the worst, if France do rise against us,

it is but bargaining with France; better so than bargaining with Prussia, surely. France will be contentable

with something in the Netherlands; what else can she want of us? Parings from that outskirt, what are these

compared with Silesia, a horrid gash into the vital parts? And what is yielding to the King of France,

It is true they have no money, these blind dull people; but are not the SeaPowers, England especially, there,

created by Nature to supply money? What else is their purpose in Creation? By Nature's law, as the Sun

mounts in the Ecliptic and then falls, these Sea Powers, in the Cause of Liberty, will furnish us money. No

surrender; talk not to me of Silesia or surrender; I will die defending my inheritances: what are the

SeaPowers about, that they do not furnish more money in a prompt manner? These are the things poor

Robinson has to listen to: Robinson and England, it is self evident at Vienna, have one duty, that of

furnishing money. And in a prompt manner, if you please, Sir; why not prompt and abundant?

An English soul has small exhilaration, looking into those old expenditures, and bullyings for want of

promptitude! But if English souls will solemnly, under high Heaven, constitute a Duke of Newcastle and a

George II. their Captains of the march Heavenward, and say, without blushing for it, nay rejoicing at it, in the

face of the sun, "You are the most godlike Two we could lay hold of for that object,"what have English

souls to expect? My consolation is, and, alas, it is a poor one, the money would have been mostly wasted any

way. Buy men and gunpowder with your money, to be shot away in foreign parts, without renown or use: is

that so mnch worse than buying ridiculous upholsteries, idle luxuries, frivolities, and in the end unbeautiful

potbellies corporeal and spiritual with it, here at home? I am struck silent, looking at much that goes on

under these stars;and find that misappointment of your Captains, of your Exemplars and Guiding and

Governing individuals, higher and lower, is a fatal business always; and that especially, as highest instance of

it, which includes all the lower ones, this of solemnly calling Chief Captain, and King by the Grace of God, a

gentleman who is NOT so (and SEEMS to be so mainly by Malice of the Devil, and by the very great and

nearly unforgivable indifference of Mankind to resist the Devil in that particular province, for the present), is

the deepest fountain of human wretchedness, and the head mendacity capable of being done!

As for the brave young Queen of Hungary, my admiration goes with that of all the world. Not in the language

of flattery, but of evident fact, the royal qualities abound in that high young Lady; had they left the world, and

grown to mere costume elsewhere, you might find certain of them again here. Most brave, high and pious

minded; beautiful too, and radiant with goodnature, though of temper that will easily catch fire: there is

perhaps no nobler woman then living. And she fronts the roaring elements in a truly grand feminine manner;

as if Heaven itself and the voice of Duty called her: "The Inheritances which my Fathers left me, we will not

part with these. Death, if it so must be; but not dishonor:Listen not to that thief in the night!" Maria

Theresa has not studied, at all, the History of the Silesian Duchies; she knows only that her Father and

Grandfather peaceably held them; it was not she that sent out Seckendorf to ride 25,000 miles, or broke the

heart of Friedrich Wilhelm and his Household. Pity she had not complied with Friedrich, and saved such

rivers of bitterness to herself and mankind! But how could she see to do it,especially with little George at

her back, and abundance of money? This, for the present, is her method of looking at the matter; this

Her Husband, the Grand Duke, an inert, but goodtempered, well conditioned Duke after his sort, goes with

her. Him we shall see try various things; and at length take to banking and merchandise, and even

mealdealing on the great scale. "Our Armies had most part of their meal circuitously from him," says

Friedrich, of times long subsequent. Now as always he follows loyally his Wife's lead, never she his: Wife

being, intrinsically as well as extrinsically, the better man, what other can he do?Of compliance with

Friedrich in this Court, there is practically no hope till after a great deal of beating have enlightened it. Out of

deference to George and his ardors, they pretend some intention that way; and are "willing to bargain, your

And so, while the watchful edacious Hyndford is doing his best at Strehlen, poor Robinson, blown into triple

activity, corresponds in a boundless zealous manner from Vienna; and at last takes to flying personally

between Strehlen and Vienna; praying the inexorable young Queen to comply a little, and then the inexorable

young King to be satisfied with imaginary compliance; and has a breathless time of it indeed. His Despatches,

passionately longwinded, are exceedingly stiff reading to the like of us. O reader, what things have to be

read and carefully forgotten; what mountains of dust and ashes are to be dug through, and tumbled down to

Orcus, to disengage the smallest fraction of truly memorable! Well if, in ten cubic miles of dust and ashes,

you discover the tongue of a shoe buckle that has once belonged to a man in the least heroic; and wipe your

brow, invoking the supernal and the infernal gods. My heart's desire is to compress these Strehlen Diplomatic

horse dealings into the smallest conceivable bulk. And yet how much that is not metal, that is merely

cinders, has got through: impossible to prevent,may the infernal gods deal with it, and reduce Dryasdust to

limits, one day! Here, however, are important Public News transpiring through the old Gazetteers:

"MUNCHEN, JULY 1st [or in effect a few days later, when the Letters DATED July 1st had gone through

their circuitous formalities], [Adelung, ii. 421.] Karl Albert KurBaiern publicly declares himself Candidate

for the Kaisership; as, privately, he had long been rumored and believed to be. KurBaiern, they say, has of

militias and regulars together about 30,000 men on foot, all posted in good places along the Austrian

Frontier; and it is commonly thought, though little credible at Vienna, that he intends invading Austria as

well as contesting the Election. To which the Vienna Hofrath answers in the style of 'Pshaw!'

"VERSAILLES, 11th JULY. Extraordinary Council of State; Belleisle being there, home from Frankfurt, to

take final orders, and get official fiat put upon his schemes. 'All the Princes of the Blood and all the

Marechals of France attend;' question is, How the War is to be, nay, Whether War is to be at all,so

contingent is the FrenchPrussian Bargain, signed five weeks ago. Old Fleury, to give freedom of

consultation and vote, quits the room. Some are of opinion, one Prince of the Blood emphatically so, That

Pragmatic Sanction should be kept, at least War AGAINST it be avoided. But the contrary opinion triumphs,

King himself being strongly with it; Belleisle to be supreme in field and cabinet; shall execute, like a kind of

Dictator or ViceMajesty, by his own magnificent talent, those magnificent devisings of his, glorious to

France and to the King. [Ib. 417, 418; see also Baumer, p. 104 (if you can for his date, which is given in OLD

STYLE as if it were in New; a very eclipsing method!).] These many months, the French have been arming

with their whole might. The Vienna people hear now, That an 'Army of 40,000 is rumored to be coming,' or

even two Armies, 40,000 each; but will not imagine that this is certain, or that it can be seriously meant

against their high House, precious to gods and men. Belleisle having perfected the multiplex Army details,

rushes back to Frankfurt and his endless Diplomatic businesses (July 25th): Armies to be on actual march by

the 10th of August coming. 'During this Versailles visit, he had such a crowd of Officers and great people

"PASSAU, 31st JULY. Passau is the Frontier Austrian City on the Donau (meeting of the Inn and Donau

Valleys); a place of considerable strength, and a key or great position for military purposes. Austrian, or

QuasiAustrian; for, like Salzburg, it has a Bishop claiming some imaginary sovereignties, but always holds

with Austria. July 31st, early in the morning, a Bavarian Exciseman ('SaltInspector') applied at the gate of

Passau for admission; gate was opened;along with the Exciseman 'certain peasants' (disguised Bavarian

soldiers) pushed in; held the gate choked, till General Minuzzi, Karl Albert's General, with horse, foot,

cannon, who had been lurking close by, likewise pushed in; and at once seized the Town. Town speedily

secured, Minuzzi informs the Bishop, who lives in his Schloss of Oberhaus (strongish place on a Hill top,

other side the Donau), That he likewise, under pain of bombardment, must admit garrison. The poor Bishop

hesitates; but, finding bombardment actually ready for him, yields in about two hours. Karl Albert publishes

his Manifesto, 'in fortyfive pages folio' [Adelung, ii. 426.] (to the effect, 'All Austria mine; or as good as

all,if I liked!'); and fortifies himself in Passau. 'Insidious, nefarious!' shrieks Austria, in

CounterManifesto; calculates privately it will soon settle Karl Albert,'Unless, O Heavens, France with

Prussia did mean to back him!' and begins to have misgivings, in spite of itself."

Misgivings, which soon became fatal certainties. Robinson records, doubtless on sure basis, though not

dating it, a curious piece of stageeffect in the form of reality; "On hearing, beyond possibility of doubt, that

Prussia, France, and Bavaria had combined, the whole Aulic Council," Vienna Hofrath in a body, "fell back

into their chairs [and metaphorically into Robinson's arms] like dead men!" [Raumer, p. 104.] Sat staring

there;the wind struck out of them, but not all the folly by a great deal. Now, however, is Robinson's time to

EXCELLENCY ROBINSON HAS AUDIENCE OF FRIEDRICH (Camp of Strehlen, 7th August, 1741).

By unheardof entreaties nud conjurations, aided by these strokes of fate, Robinson has at length extorted

from his Queen of Hungary, and her wise Hofraths, something resembling a phantasm of compliance; with

which he hurries to Breslau and Hyndford; hoping against hope that Friedrich will accept it as a reality. Gets

to Breslau on the 3d of August; thence to Strehlen, consulting much with Hyndford upon this phantasm of a

compliance. Hyndford looks but heavily upon it;from us, in this place, far be it to look at all:alas, this is

the famed Scene they Two had at Strehlen with Friedrich, on Monday, August 7th; reported by the faithful

pen of Robinson, and vividly significant of Friedrich, were it but compressed to the due pitch. We will give it

in the form of Dialogue: the thing of itself falls naturally into the Dramatic, when the flabby parts are cut

away;and was perhaps worthier of a Shakspeare than of a Robinson, all facts of it considered, in the light

Scene is Friedrich's Tent, Prussian Camp in the neighborhood of the little Town of Strehlen: time 11 o'clock

A.M. Personages of it, Two British subjects in the high Diplomatic line: ponderous Scotch Lord of an

edacious gloomy countenance; florid Yorkshire Gentleman with important Proposals in his pocket. Costume,

frizzled peruke powdered; frills, wristfrills and other; shoebuckles, flapped waistcoat, courtcoat of

antique cut and much trimming: all this shall be conceived by the reader. Tight young Gentleman in Prussian

military uniform, blue coat, buff breeches, boots; with alert flashing eyes, and careless elegant bearing,

salutes courteously, raising his plumed hat. Podewils in common dress, who has entered escorting the other

Two, sits rather to rearward, taking refuge beside the writing apparatus.First passages of the Dialogue I

omit: mere pickeerings and beatings about the bush, before we come to close quarters. For Robinson, the

florid Yorkshire Gentleman, is charged to offer,what thinks the reader?two million guilders, about

200,000 pounds, if that will satisfy this young military King with the alert Eyes!

ROBINSON. ... "'Two hundred thousand pounds sterling, if your Majesty will be pleased to retire out of

KING. "'Retire out of Silesia? And for money? Do you take me for a beggar! Retire out of Silesia, which has

cost me so much treasure and blood in the conquest of it? No, Monsieur, no; that is not to be thought of! If

you have no better proposals to make, it is not worth while talking.' These words were accompnnied with

threatening gestures and marks of great anger;" considerably staggering to the Two Diplomatic British

gentlemen, and of evil omen to Robinson's phantasm of a compliance. Robinson apologetically hums and

hahs, flounders through the bad bit of road as he can; flounderingly indicates that he has more to offer.

ROBINSON (with preliminary flourishings and flounderings, yet confidently, as now tabling his best card).

... "'Permitted to offer your Majesty the whole of Austrian Guelderland; lies contiguous to your Majesty's

Possessions in the Rhine Country; important completion of these: I am permitted to say, the whole of

Austrian Guelderland!' Important indeed: a dirty stripe of moorland (if you look in Busching), about

KING. "'What do you mean? [turning to Podewils]QU'ESTCE QUE NOUS MANQUE DE TOUTE LA

KING (to Robinson). "'VOICI ENCORE DE GUEUSERIES (more rags and rubbish yet)! QUOI, such a

paltry scraping (BICOQUE) as that, for all my just claims in Silesia? Monsieur!' His Majesty's indignation

increased here, all the more as I kept a profound silence during his hot expressions, and did not speak at all

except to beg his Majesty's reflection upon what I had said. 'Reflection?'" asks the King, with eyes

dangerous to behold; "My Lord," continues Robinson, heavily narrative, "his contempt of what I had said

was so great," kicking his boot through Guelderland and the guilders as the most contemptible of objects,

"and was expressed in such violent terms, that now, if ever (as your Lordship perceives), it was time to make

the last effort;" play our trumpcard down at once; "a moment longer was not to be lost, to hinder the King

from dismissing us;" which sad destiny is still too probable, after the trumpcard. Trumpcard is this:

ROBINSON. ... "'The whole Duchy of Limburg, your Majesty! It is a Duchy which' I extolled the Duchy

to the utmost, described it in the most favorable terms; and added, that 'the Elector Palatine [old KurPfalz,

PODEWILS. "'Pardon, Monsieur: that is not so; the contrary of so; KurPfalz was not ready to give Berg for

it!'[We are not deep in German History, we British Diplomatic gentlemen, who are squandering, now and

of old, so much money on it! The Aulic Council, "falls into our arms like dead men;" but it is certain the

KING. "'It is inconceivable to me how Austria should dare to think of such a thing. Limburg? Are there not

solemn Engagements upon Austria, sanctioned and again sanctioned by all the world, which render every

ROBINSON. "'Engagements good as against the French, your Majesty. Otherwise the Barrier Treaty,

KING. "'That is your present interpretation, But the French pretend it was an arrangement more in their favor

ROBINSON. "'Your Majesty, by a little Engineer Art, could render Limburg impregnable to the French or

KING. "'Have not the least desire to aggrandize myself in those parts, or spend money fortifying there.

Useless to me. Am not I fortifying Brieg and Glogau? These are enough: for one who intends to live well

with his neighbors. Neither the Dutch nor the French have offended me; nor will I them by acquisitions in the

KING. "'Guarantees! Who minds or keeps guarantees in this age? Has not France guaranteed the Pragmatic

Sanction; has not England? Why don't you all fly to the Queen's succor?'"Robinson, inclined to pout, if he

ROBINSON. "'Hm, hm, your Majesty. ... Russia, for example, which Power with reference to Turkey'

KING. "'Good, Sir, good (BEAU, MONSIEUR, BEAU), the Russians! It is not proper to explain myself; but

I have means for the Russians' [a Swedish War just coming upon Russia, to keep its hand in use; so diligent

ROBINSON (with some emphasis, as a Britannic gentleman). "'Russia is not the only Power that has

engagements with Austria, and that must keep them too! So that, however averse to a breach'

KING ("laying his finger on his nose," mark him;aloud, and with such eyes). "'No threats, Sir, if you

please! No threats' ["in a loud voice," finger to nose, and with such eyes looking in upon me].

HYNDFORD (heavily coming to the rescue). "'Am sure his Excellency is far from such meaning, Sire. His

Excellency will advance nothing so very contrary to his Instructions.'Podewils too put in something

ROBINSON. "'Sire, I am not talking of what this Power or that means to do; but of what will come of itself.

To prophesy is not to threaten, Sire! It is my zeal for the Public that brought me hither; and'

KING. "'The Public will be much obliged to you, Monsieur! But hear me. With respect to Russia, you know

how matters stand. From the King of Poland I have nothing to fear. As for the King of England, he is my

relation [dear Uncle, in the Pawnbroker sense], he is my all: if he don't attack me, I won't him. And if he do,

the Prince of Anhalt [Old Dessauer out at Gottin yonder] will take care of him.'

ROBINSON. "'The common news now is [rumor in Diplomatic circles, rather below the truth this time], your

Majesty, after the 12th of August, will join the French. [King looks fixedly at him in silence.] Sire, I venture

to hope not! Austria prefers your friendship; but if your Majesty disdain Austria's advances, what is it to do?

Austria must throw itself entirely into the hands of France,and endeavor to outbid your Majesty.' [King

"King was quite silent upon this head," says Robinson, reporting: silence, guesses Robinson, founded most

probably upon his "consciousness of guilt"what I, florid Yorkshire Gentleman, call GUILT, as being

against the Cause of Liberty and us! "From time to time he threw out remarks on the advantageousness of his

KING. ... "'At the head of such an Army, which the Enemy has already made experience of; and which is

ready for the Enemy again, if he have appetite! With the Country which alone I am concerned with,

conquered and secured behind me; a Country that alone lies convenient to me; which is all I want, which I

now have; which I will and must keep! Shall I be bought out of this country? Never! I will sooner perish in it,

with all my troops. With what face shall I meet my Ancestors, if I abandon my right, which they have

transmitted to me? My first enterprise; and to be given up lightly?'"With more of the like sort; which

Friedrich, in writing of it long after, seems rather ashamed of; and would fain consider to have been mock

fustian, provoked by the real fustian of Sir Thomas Robinson, "who negotiated in a wordy highdroning way,

as if he were speaking in Parliament," says Friedrich (a Friedrich not taken with that style of eloquence, and

hoping he rather quizzed it than was serious with it, [ OEuvres de Frederic, ii. 84.]though Robinson and

Hyndford found in him no want of vehement seriousness, but rather the reverse!)He concludes: "Have I

need of Peace? Let those who need it give me what I want; or let them fight me again, and be beaten again.

Have not they given whole Kingdoms to Spain? [Naples, at one swoop, to the Termagant; as broken glass, in

that PolishElection freak!] And to me they cannot spare a few trifling Principalities? If the Queen does not

now grant me all I require, I shall in four weeks demand Four Principalities more! [Nay, I now do it, being in

sibylline tune.] I now demand the whole of Lower Silesia, Breslau included; and with that Answer you can

KING. "'With that.'" A most vehement young King; no negotiating with him, Sir Thomas! It is like

negotiating for the Sibyl's Books: the longer you bargain, the higher he will rise. In four weeks, time he will

demand Four Principalities more; nay, already demands them, the whole of Lower Silesia and Breslau. A

precious negotiation I have made of it! Sir Thomas, wideeyed, asks a second time:

HYNDFORD and ROBINSON (much flurried, to Podewils). "'Your Excellency, please to comprehend, the

KING. "'Messieurs, Messieurs, it is of no use even to think of it.' And taking off his hat," slightly raising his

hat, as salutation and finale, "he retired precipitately behind the curtain of the interior corner of the tent," says

ROBINSON (totally flurried, to Podewils). "'Your Excellency, France will abandon Prussia, will sacrifice

PODEWILS. "'No, no! France will not deceive us; we have not deceived France.'" (SCENE CLOSES;

CURTAIN FALLS.) [StatePaper Office (Robinson to Harrington, Breslau, 9th August, 1741); Raumer, pp.

The unsuccessfulest negotiation well imaginable by a public man. Strehlen, Monday, 7th August,

1741:Friedrich has vanished into the interior of his tent; and the two Diplomatic gentlemen, the wind

struck out of them in this manner, remain gazing at one another. Here truly is a young Royal gentleman that

knows his own mind, while so many do not. Unspeakable imbroglio of negotiations, mostly insane, welters

over all the Earth; the Belleisles, the Aulic Councils, the British Georges, heaping coil upon coil: and here,

notably, in that now so extremely sordid murk of wiggeries, inane diplomacies and solemn deliriums, dark

now and obsolete to all creatures, steps forth one little Human Figure, with something of sanity in it: like a

star, like a gleam of steel,shearing asunder your big balloons, and letting out their diplomatic

hydrogen;salutes with his hat, "Gentlemen, Gentlemen, it is of no use!" and vanishes into the interior of his

tent. It is to Excellency Robinson, among all the sons of Adam then extant, that we owe this interesting

Passage of History,authentic glimpse, face to face, of the young Friedrich in those extraordinary

circumstances: every feature substantially as above, and recognizable for true. Many Despatches his

Excellency wrote in this world,sixty or eighty volumes of them still left,but among them is this One: the

angriest of mankind cannot say that his Excellency lived and embassied quite in vain!

The Two Britannic Gentlemen, both on that distressing Monday and the day following, had the honor to dine

with the King: who seemed in exuberant spirits; cutting and bantering to right and left; upon the Court of

Vienna, among other topics, in a way which I Robinson "will not repeat to your Lordship." Bade me, for

example, "As you pass through Neisse, make my compliments to Marshal Neipperg; and you can say,

Excellency Robinson, that I hope to have the pleasure of calling, one of these days!"Podewils, who was

civil, pressed us much to stay over Wednesday, the 9th. "On Thursday is to be a Grand Review, one of the

finest military sights; to which the Excellencies from Breslau, one and all, are coming out." But we, having

our Despatches and Expresses on hand, pleaded business, and declined, in spite of Podewils's urgencies. And

set off for Breslau, Wednesday, morning,meeting various Excellencies, by degrees all the Excellencies, on

Readers must accept this Robinsoniad as the last of Friedrich's Diplomatic performances at Strehlen, which in

effect it nearly was; and from these instances imagine his way in such things. Various Letters there are, to

Jordan principally, some to Algarotti; both of whom he still keeps at Breslau, and sends for, if there is like to

be an hour of leisure. The Letters indicate cheerfulness of humor, even levity, in the Writer; which is worth

noting, in this wild clash of things now tumbling round him, and looking to him as its centre: but they

otherwise, though heartily aud frankly written, are, to Jordan and us, as if written from the teeth outward; and

throw no light whatever either on things befalling, or on Friedrich's humor under them. Reading diligently,

we do notice one thing, That the talk about "fame (GLOIRE)" has died out. Not the least mention now of

GLOIRE;perception now, most probably, that there are other things than "GLOIRE" to be had by taking

arms; and that War is a terribly grave thing, lightly as one may go into it at first! This small inference we do

negatively draw, from the Friedrich Correspondence of those months: and except this, and the levity of

humor noticeable, we practically get no light whatever from it; the practical soul and soul's business of

And veiled, too, in such a way that you do not notice any veil, the young King being, as we often intimate,

a master in this art. Which useful circumstance has done him much ill with readers and mankind. For if you

intend to interest readers,that is to say, idle neighbors, and fellowcreatures in need of gossip,there is

nothing like unveiling yourself: witness JeanJacques Rousseau, and many other poor waste creatures, going

off in selfconflagration, for amusement of the parish, in that manner. But may not a man have something

other on hand with his Existence than that of "setting fire to it [such the process terribly IS], to show the

people a fine play of colors, and get himself applauded, and pathetically blubbered over?" Alas, my

It is certain there was seldom such a lifeelement as this of Friedrich's in Summer, 1741. Here is the

enormous jumbling of a World broken loose; boiling as in very chaos; asking of him, him more than any

other, "How? What?" Enough to put GLOIRE out of his head; and awaken thoughts,terrors, if you were of

apprehensive turn! Surely no young man of twentynine more needed all the human qualities than Friedrich

now. The threatenings, the seductions, big Belleisle hallucinations,the perils to you infinite, if you MISS

the road. Friedrich did not miss it, as is well known; he managed to pick it out from that enormous jumble of

the elements, and victoriously arrived by it, he alone of them all. Which is evidence of silent or latent faculty

in him, still more wonderful than the loudresounding ones of which the world has heard. Probably there was

not, in his history, any chapter more significant of human faculty than this, which is not on record at all.

A day or two before that famous Audience of Hyndford and Robinson's, Neipperg had quitted his

impregnable Camp at Neisse, and taken the field again; in the hope of perhaps helping Robinson's

Negotiation by an inverse method. Should Robinson's offers not prove attractive enough, as is to be feared, a

push from behind may have good effects. Neipperg intends to have a stroke on Breslau; to twitch Breslau out

of Friedrich's hands, by a private manoeuvre on new resources that have offered themselves.

In Breslau, which is by great majority Protestant in creed and warmly Prussian in temper, there has been no

oppression or unfair usage heard of to any class of persons; and certainly in the matter of Protestant and

Catholic, there has been perfect equality observed. True, the change from favor and ascendency to mere

equality, is not in itself welcome to human creatures:one conceives, for various reasons of lower and

higher nature, a minority of discontented individuals in Breslau, zealous for their creed and old perquisites

sacred and profane; who long in secret, sometimes vocally to one another, for the good old times,when

souls were not liable to perish wholesale, and people guilty only of loyalty and orthodoxy to be turned out of

their offices on suspicion. Friedrich says, it was mainly certain zealous Old Ladies of Quality who went into

this adventure; and from whispering to one another, got into speaking, into meeting in one another's houses

for the purpose of concerting and contriving. [ OEuvres, ii. 82, 83.] Zealous Old Ladies of Quality,these

we consider were the TalkingApparatus or SecretParliament of the thing: but it is certain one or two

Official Gentlemen (Syndic Guzmar for instance, and others NOT yet become ExOfficial) had active hand

Continual Correspondence there was with Vienna, by those Old Ladies; Guzmar and the others shy of putting

pen to paper, and only doing it where indispensable. Zealous Addresses go to her Hungarian Majesty, "Oh,

may the Blessed Virgin assist your Majesty!" accompanied, it is said, with Subscriptions of money (poor

old souls); and what is much more dangerous and feasible, there goes prompt notice to Neipperg of

everything the Prussian Army undertakes, and the Postscript always, "Come and deliver us, your

Excellency." Of these latter Documents, I have heard of some with Syndic Guzmar's and other Official hands

to them. Generally such things can, through accidental Pandour channels, were there no other, easily reach

Chapter III. GRAND REVIEW AT STREHLEN: NEIPPERG TAKES AIM AT BRESLAU, BUT ANOTHER HITS IT. 704

Neipperg; though they do not always. Enough, could Neipperg appear at the Gates of Breslau, in some

concerted nighthour, or push out suitable Detachment on forced march that way,it is evident to him he

would be let in; might smother the few Prussians that are in the Dom Island, and get possession of the

Enemy's principal Magazine and the Metropolis of the Province. Might not the Enemy grow more tractable to

Neipperg marches from Neisse (1st6th August) with his whole Army; first some thirty miles westward up

the right or southern bank of the Neisse; then crosses the Neisse, and circles round to northward, giving

Friedrich wide room: [Orlich, i. 130, 133.] that night of Robinson's Audience, when Friedrich was so merry at

dinner, Neipperg was engaged in crossing the River; the second night after, Neipperg lay encamped and

intrenched at Baumgarten (old scene of Friedrich's Pandour Adventure), while Hyndford and Robinson had

got back to Breslau. In another day or so, he may hope to be within forcedmarch of Breslau, to detach

Unluckily for Neipperg's Adventure, the Prussians had wind of it, some time ago. They have got "a false

Sister smuggled into that OldLadies' Committee," who has duly reported progress; nay they have

intercepted something in Syndic Guzmar's own hand: and everything is known to Friedrich. The Protestant

population, and generally the practical quiet part of the Breslauers, are harassed with suspicion of some such

thing, but can gain no certainty, nor understand what to do. Protestants especially, who have been so zealous,

"who were seen dropping down on the streets to pray, while the muffled thunder came from Mollwitz that

day," [Ranke, ii. 289.]fancy how it would now be, were the tables suddenly turned, and indignant

Orthodoxy made supreme again, with memory fresh! But, in fact, there is no danger whatever to them.

Schwerin has orders about Breslau; Schwerin and the Young Dessauer are maturely considering how to

Readers recollect how Podewils pressed the Two Britannic Excellencies to stay in Strehlen a day or two

longer: "Grand Review, with festivities, just on hand; whole of the Foreign Ministers in Breslau invited out to

see it,"though Hyndford and Robinson would not consent; but left on the 9th, meeting the others at

different points of the road. Next day, Thursday, 10th August, was in fact a great day at Strehlen; grand

muster, manoeuvring of cavalry above all, whom Friedrich is delighted to find so perfect in their new

methods; riding as if they were centaurs, horse and man one entity; capable of plunging home, at full gallop,

in coherent masses upon an enemy, and doing some good with him. "Neipperg's Croatpeople, and

outpickets on the distant Hill sides, witnessed these manoeuvres," [Ranke, ii. 288.] I know not with what

criticism. Furthermore, about noontime, there was heard (mark it, reader) a distant cannonshot, one and no

more, from the Northern side; which gave his Majesty a lively pleasure, though he treated it as nothing. All

the Foreign Ministers were on the ground; doubtless with praises, so far as receivable; and in the afternoon

came festivities not a few. A great day in Strehlen: but in Breslau a much greater; which explained, to our

August 10th, at six in the morning, Schwerin, and under him the Young Dessauer,who had arrived in the

Southwestern suburbs of Breslau overnight, with 8,000 foot and horse, and had posted themselves in a

vigilant AntiNeipperg manner there, and laid all their plans,appear at the Nicolai Gate; and demand, in

the common way, transit for their regiments and baggages: "bound Northward," as appears; "to Leubus,"

where something of Pandour sort has fallen out. So many troops or companies at a time, that is the rule; one

quotity of companies you admit; then close and bolt, till it have marched across and out at the opposite Gate;

after which, open again for a second lot. But in this case,owing to accident (very unusual) of a

baggagewagon breaking down, and people hurrying to help it forward,the whole regiment gets in,

escorted as usual by the Townguard. Whole regiment; and marches, not straight through; but at a certain

corner strikes off leftward to the Marketplace; where, singular to say, it seems inclined to pause and

rearrange itself a little. Nay, more singular still, other regiments (owing to like accidents), from other Gates,

join it;andin fact "Herr Major of the Townguard, in the King's name, you are required to ground

Chapter III. GRAND REVIEW AT STREHLEN: NEIPPERG TAKES AIM AT BRESLAU, BUT ANOTHER HITS IT. 705

arms!" What can the Town Major do; Prussian grenadiers, cannoneers, gravely environing him? He sticks his

sword into the scabbard, an ExTown Major; and Breslau City is become Friedrich's, softly like a movement

during drill. [ HeldenGeschichte, i. 982, n. 227, 268; Adelung, ii. 439; Stenzel, iv. 152.]

Not the least mistake occurred. Cannon with caseshot planted themselves in all the thoroughfares,

Horsepatrols went circulating everywhere; Townarsenal, gates, walls, are laid hold of; Town guards all

disarmed, rather "with laughter on their part" than otherwise: "Majesty perhaps will give us muskets of his

own; well!" The operation altogether did not last above an hourand half, and nobody's skin got

scratched. Towards 9 A.M. Schwerin summoned the Town Dignitaries to their Rathhaus to swear fealty; who

at once complied; and on his stepping out with proposal, to the general population, of "a cheer for King

Friedrich, Duke of Lower Silesia," the poor people rent the skies with their "Friedrich and Silesia forever!"

which they repeated, I think, seven times. Upon which Schwerin fired off his signalcannon, pointing to the

South; where other posts and cannons took up the sound, and pushed it forward, till, as we noticed, it got to

Friedrich in few minutes, on the reviewground at Strehlen; right welcome to him, among the manoeuvrings

there. Protestant Breslau or cordwainer Doblin cannot lament such a result; still less dare the devout Old

Ladies of Quality openly lament, who are trembling to the heart, poor old creatures, though no evil came of it

to them; penitent, let off for the fright; checking even their aspirations henceforth.

Syndic Guzmar and the peccant Officials being summoned out to Strehlen, it had been asked of them, "Do

you know this Letter?" Upon which they fell on their knees, "ACH IHRO MAJESTAT!" unable to deny their

handwriting; yet anxious to avoid death on the scaffold, as Friedrich said was usual under such behavior; and

were sent home, after a few hours of arrest. [Orlich, i. 134; HeldenGeschichte, ii. 228.] Schwerin (as King's

substitute till the King himself one day arrive) continued to take the Homaging, and to make the many new

arrangements needful. All which went off in a soft and pleasantly harmonious manner; only the Jesuits

scrupling a little to swear as yet; and getting gently sent their ways, with revenues stopt in consequence.

Otherwise the swearing, which lasted for several days, was to appearance a joyful process, and on the part of

the general population an enthusiastic one, "ES LEBE KONIG FRIEDRICH!" rising to the welkin with

insatiable emphasis, seven times over, on the least signal given. Neipperg's Adventure, and Orthodox Female

Robinson and Hyndford have to witness these phenomena; Robinson to shoot off for Presburg again, with the

worst news in the world. Queen and Hofraths have been waiting in agony of suspense, "Will Friedrich

bargain on those gentle terms, and help us with 100,000 men?" Far from it, my friends; how far! "My most

important intelligence," writes the Russian Envoy there, some days ago, ["5 August, 1741," not said to whom

(in Ranke, ii. 324 n.).] is, that a Bavarian War has broken out, that KurBaiern is in Passau. God grant that

Monsieur Robinson may succeed in his negotiation! All here are in the completest irresolution, and total

This Breslau Adventure, which had yielded Friedrich so important an acquisition, was furthermore the cause

of ending these Strehlen inactivities, and of recommencing field operations. August 11th, Neipperg, provoked

by the grievous news just come from Breslau, pushes suddenly forward on Schweidnitz, by way of

consolation; Schweidnitz, not so strong as it might be made, where the Prussians have a principal Magazine:

"One might at least seize that?" thinks Neipperg, in his vexed humor. But here too Friedrich was beforehand

with him; broke out, rapidly enough, to Reichenbach, westward, which bars the Neipperg road to

Schweidnitz: upon which,or even before which (on rumor of it coming, which was not YET true),

Neipperg, half done with his first day's march, called halt; prudently turned back, and hastened, Baumgarten

way, to his strong Camp at Frankenstein again. His hope in the Schweidnitz direction had lasted only a few

hours; a hope springing on the mere spur of pique, soon recognizable by him as futile; and now anxieties for

selfpreservation had succeeded it on Neipperg's part. For now Friedrich actually advances on him, in a

menacing manner, hardly hoping Neipperg will fight; but determined to have done with the Neisse business,

in spite of strong camps and cunctations, if it be possible. [Orlich, i. 137, 138.]

It was August 16th, when Friedrich stirred out of Strehlen; August 21st, when he encamped at Reichenbach.

Till September 7th, he kept manoeuvring upon Neipperg, who countermanoeuvred with vigilance, good

judgment, and would not come to action: September 7th, Friedrich, weary of these hagglings, dashed off for

Neisse itself, hoped to be across Neisse River, and be between Neisse Town and Neipperg, before Neipperg

could get up. There would then be no method of preventing the Siege of Neisse, except by a Battle: so

Accordingly, September 11th, Friedrich's Vanguard was actually across the Neisse; had crossed at a place

called Woitz, and had there got Two Pontoon Bridges ready, when Friedrich, in the evening, came up with

the main Army, intending to cross;and was astonished to find Neipperg taking up position, in intricate

ground, near by, on the opposite side! Ground so intricate, hills, bogs, bushes of wood, and so close upon the

River, there was no crossing possible; and Friedrich's Vanguard had to be recalled. Two days of waiting, of

earnest ocular study; no possibility visible. On the third day, Friedrich, gathering in his pontoons overnight,

marched off, down stream: Neissewards, but on the left or north bank of the River; passed Neisse Town (the

River between him and it); and encamped at Gross Neundorf, several miles from Neipperg and the River.

Neipperg, at an equal step, has been wending towards his old Camp, which lies behind Neisse, between

Neisse and the Hills: there, a river in front, dams and muddy inundations all round him, begirt with plentiful

From Gross Neundorf, Friedrich persists twelve days (13th25th September), studying, endeavoring; mere

impossibility ahead. And by this time (what is much worth noting), Hyndford, silently quitting Breslau, has

got back to these scenes of war, occasionally visible in Friedrich's Camp again;on important mysterious

business; which will have results. Valori also is here in Camp; these two Excellencies jealously eying one

another; both of them with teeth rather on edge,Europe having suddenly got into such a plunge (as if the

highest mountains were falling into the deepest seas) since Friedrich began this Neipperg problem of his;in

On the twelfth day, Friedrich privately collects himself for a new method: marches, soon after midnight,

[26th September, 2 A.M.: Orlich, i. 144.] fifteen miles down the River (which goes northward in this part, as

the reader may remember); crosses, with all his appurtenances, unmolested; and takes camp a few miles

inland, or on the right bank, and facing towards Neisse again. He intends to be in upon Neipperg front the

rear quarter; and cut him off from Mahren and his daily convoys of food. "Daily food cut off,the

thickestskinned rhinoceros, the wildest lion, cannot stand that: here, for Neipperg, is one point on which all

his embankments and muddams will not suffice him!" thinks Friedrich. Certain preliminary operations, and

military indispensabilities, there first are for Friedrich,Town of Oppeln to be got, which commands the

Oder, our rearward highway; Castle of Friedland, and the country between Oder and Neisse Rivers:while

these preliminary things are being done (September 28thOctober 3d), Friedrich in person gradually pushes

forward towards Neipperg, reconnoitring, bickering with Croats: October 3d, preliminaries done, Neipperg's

Neipperg, well enough seeing what was meant, has by this time come out of his muddams and

impregnabilities; and advanced a few miles towards Friedrich. Neipperg lies now encamped in the Hamlet of

Griesau, a little way behind Steinau,poor Steinau, which the reader saw on fire one night, when Friedrich

and we were in those parts, in Spring last. Friedrich's Camp is about five miles from Neipperg's on the other

side of Steinau. A tolerable champaign country; I should think, mostly in stubble at this season. Nearly

midway between these two Camps is a pretty Schloss called Klein Schnellendorf, occupied by Neipperg's

Croats just now, of which Prince Lobkowitz (he, if I remember, but it matters nothing), an Austrian General

Friedrich's Oppeln preparations are about complete; and he intends to advance straightway. "Hold, for

Heaven's sake, your Majesty!" exclaims Hyndford; getting hold of him one day (waylaying him, in fact; for it

is difficult, owing to Valori); "Wait, wait; I have just been to theto the Camp of Neipperg," silently

gesticulates Hyndford: "Within a week all shall be right, and not a drop of blood shed!" Friedrich answers, by

silence chiefly, to the effect, "Tush, tush;" but not quite negatively, and does in effect wait. We had better

give the snatch of Dialogue in primitive authentic form; date is, Camp of Neundorf, September 22d:

FRIEDRICH (pausing impatiently, on the way towards his tent). "'MILORD, DE QUOI S'AGITIL A

HYNDFORD. "'Should much desire to have some assurance from your Majesty with regard to that neutrality

of Hanover you were pleased to promise.' All else is coming right; hastening towards beautiful settlement,

FRIEDRICH. "'Have not I great reason to be dissatisfied with your Court? Britannic Majesty, as King of

England and as Elector of Hanover, is wonderful! Milord, when you say a thing is white, Schweichelt, the

Hanoverian Excellency, calls it black, and VICE VERSA. But I will do your King no harm; none, I say!

Follow me to dinner; dinner is cold by this time; and we have made more than one person think of us. Swift!

This is a strange motion on the part of Hyndford; but Friedrich, severely silent to it, understands it very well;

as readers soon will, when they hear farther. But marvellous things have happened on the sudden! In these

three weeks, since the Camp of Strehlen broke up, there have been such Events; strategic, diplomatic: a very

avalanche of ruin, hurling Austria down to the Nadir; of which it is now fit that the reader have some faint

"AUGUST l5th, 1741. Robinson reappears in Presburg; and precious surely are the news he brings to an

Aulic Council fallen back in its chairs, and staring with the wind struck out of it. Their expected Seizure of

Breslau gone heels over head, in that way; Friedrich imperiously resolute, gleaming like the flash of steel

amid these murky imbecilities, and without the Cession of Silesia no Peace to be made with him! And all this

is as nothing, to news which arrives just on the back of Robinson, from another quarter.

"AUGUST 15th21st. French Army of 40,000 men, special Army of Belleisle, sedulously equipt and

completed, visibly crosses the Rhine at Fort Louis (an Island Fortress in the Rhine, thirty miles below

Strasburg; STONES of it are from the old Schloss of Hagenau);steps over deliberately there; and on the

sixth day is all on German ground. These troops, to be commanded by Belleisle, so soon as he can join them,

are to be the Elector of Bavaria's troops, KurBaiern Generalissimo over Belleisle and them; [ Fastes de

Louis XV., ii. 264.] and they are on rapid march to join that ambitious Kurfurst, in his Passau Expedition; and

"And what is this we hear farther, O Robinson, O Excellencies Hyndford, Schweichelt and Company: That

another French Army, of the same strength, under Maillebois, has in the selfsame days gone across the

Lower Rhine (at Kaisersworth, an hour's ride below Dusseldorf)! At Kaisersworth; ostensibly for comforting

and strengthening KurKoln (the lanky Ecclesiastical Gentleman, KurBaiern's Brother), their excellent ally,

should anybody meddle with him. Ostensibly for this; but in reality to keep the Sea Powers, and especially

George of England quiet. It marches towards Osnabruck, this Maillebois Army; quarters itself up and down,

looking over into Hanover,able to eat Hanover, especially if joined by the Prussians and Old Leopold, at

"These things happen in this month of August, close upon the rear of that steelshiny scene in the Tent at

Strehlen, where Friedrich lifted his hat, saying, ''T is of no use, Messieurs!'which was followed by the

seizure of Breslau the wrong way. Never came such a cataract of evil news on an Aulic Council before. The

poor proud people, all these months they have been sitting torpid, helpless, loftily stupid, like dumb idols; 'in

flat despair,' as Robinson says once, 'only without the strength to be desperate.'

"Sure enough the SeaPowers are checkmated now. Let them make the least attempt in favor of the Queen, if

they dare. Holland can be overrun, from Osnabruck quarter, at a day's warning. Little George has his

Hanoverians, his subsidized Hessians, Danes, in Hanover, his English on Lexden Heath: let him come one

step over the marches, Maillebois and the Old Dessauer swallow him. It is a surprising stroke of

theatricalpractical Art; brought about, to old Fleury's sorrow, by the genius of Belleisle, aud they say of

Madame Chateauroux; enough to strike certain Governing Persons breathless, for some time; and denotes that

the Universal Hurricane, or WorldTornado, has broken out. It is not recorded of little George that he fell

back in his chair, or stared wider than usual with those fisheyes: but he discerned well, glorious little man,

that here is left no shadow of a chance by fighting; that he will have to sit stockstill, under awful penalties;

and that if Maria Theresa will escape destruction, she must make her peace with Friedrich at any price."

This fine event, 80,000 French actually across the Rhine, happened in the very days while Friedrich and

Neipperg had got into wrestle again,Neipperg just off from that rash march for Schweidnitz, and whirling

back on rumor (15th August), while the first instalment of the French were getting over. Friedrich must admit

that the French fulfil their promises so far. A week ago or more, they made the Swedes declare War against

Russia, as covenanted. War is actually declared, at Stockholm, August 4th, the Faction of Hats prevailing

over that of Nightcaps, after terrible debates and efforts about the mere declaring of it, as if that alone were

the thing needed. We mentioned this War already, and would not willingly again. One of the most

contemptible Wars ever declared or carried on; but useful to Friedrich, as keeping Russia off his hands, at a

Marechal de Belleisle, wrapt in Diplomatic and Electioneering business, cannot personally take command for

the present; but has excellent lieutenants,one of whom is Comte de Saxe, Moritz our old friend, afterwards

Marechal de Saxe. Among the finest French Armies, this of Belleisle's is thought to be, that ever took the

field: so many of our Nobility in it, and what best Officers, Segurs, Saxes, future Marechal's, we have. Army

full of spirit and splendor; come to cut Germany in four, and put France at last in its place in the Universe.

Here is courage, here is patriotism, of a sort. And if this is not the good sort, the divinely pious, the humanly

noble,Fashionable Society feels it to be so, and can hit no nearer. Newfashioned "Army of the

Oriflamme," one might call this of Belleisle's; kind of ShamSacred French Army (quite in earnest, as it

thinks);led on, not by St. Denis and the Virgin, but by Sungod Belleisle and the Chateauroux, under these

"Let the Holy German Reich take no offence," said this Army, eager to conciliate: "we come as friends

merely; our intentions charitable, and that only. Bavarian Treaty of Nymphenburg (18th May last) binds us

especially, this time; Treaty of Westphalia binds us sacredly at all times. Peaceable to you, nay brotherly, if

only you will be peaceable!" Which the poor Reich, all but Austria and the SeaPowers, strove what it could

On reaching the German shore out of Elsass, "every Officer put, the Bavarian Colors, cockade of

blueandwhite, on his hat;" [Adelung, ii. 431.] a mere "Bavarian Army," don't you see? And the 40,000

wend steadily forward throngh Schwaben eastward, till they can join Karl Albert KurBaiern, who is

Generalissimo, or has the name of such. They march in Seven Divisions. Donauworth (a Town we used to

know, in Marlborough's time and earlier) is to be their first restingpoint; Ingolstadt their placeofarms:

will readers recollect those two essential circumstances? To Donauworth is 250 miles; to Passau will be 180

more: five or six long weeks of marching. But after Donauworth they are to go, the Infantry of them are, in

boats; Horse, under Saxe, marching parallel. Forward, ever forward, to Passau (properly to Scharding, twelve

miles up the Inn Valley, where his Bavarian Highness is in Camp); and thence, under his Bavarian Highness,

and in concert with him, to pour forth, delugelike, upon Linz, probably upon Vienna itself, down the Donau

Valley,why not to Vienna itself, and ruin Austria at one swoop? [Espagnac, Histoire de Maurice Comte de

Saxe (German Translation, Leipzig, 1774), i. 83:an excellent military compend. Campagnes des Trois

Marechaux (Maillebois, Broglio, Belleisle: Armsterdam. 1773), ii. 5356:in nine handy little volumes (or

if we include the NOAILLES and the COIGNY set, making "CING MARECHAUX," nineteen volumes in

all, and a twentieth for INDEX); consisting altogether of Official Letters (brief, rapid, meant for business,

NOT for printing in the Newspapers); which are elucidative BEYOND bargain, and would even be amusing

The second or Maillebois French Army spreads itself, by degrees, considerably over Westphalia;straitened

for forage, and otherwise not the best of neighbors. But, in theory, in speech, this too was abundantly

conciliatory,to the Dutch at least. "Nothing earthly in view, nothing, ye magnanimous Dutch, except to

lodge here in the most peaceable manner, paying our way, and keep down disturbances that might arise in

these parts. That might arise; not from you, ye magnanimous High Mightinesses, how far from it! Nor will

we meddle with one broken brick of your respectable Barrier, or Barrier Treaty, which is sacred to us, or do

you the shadow of an injury. No; a thousand times, upon our honor, No!" For brevity's sake, I lend them that

locution, "No, a thousand times,"and in actual arithmetic, I should think there are at least four or five

hundred times of it,in those extinct Diplomatic Eloquences of Excellency Fenelon and the other

French;vaguely counting, in one's oppressed imagination, during the Two Years that ensue. For the Dutch

lazily believed, or strove to believe, this No of Fenelon's; and took an obstinate laggard sitting posture, in

regard to Pragmatic Sanction; whereby the task of "hoisting" them (as above hinted), which fell upon a

Imagination may faintly picture what a blow this advent of Maillebois was to his Britannic Majesty, over in

Herrenhausen yonder! He has had of Danes six thousand, of Hessians six, of Hanoverians sixteen,in all

some 30,000 men, on foot here since Spring last, camping about (in two formidable Camps at this moment);

not to mention the 6,000 of English on Lexden Heath, eager to be shipped across, would Parliament permit;

and nowlet him stir in any direction if he dare. Camp of Gottin like a drawn sword at one's throat (at one's

Hanover) from the east; and lo, here a twin fellow to it gleaming from the south side! Maillebois can walk

into the throat of Hanover at a day's warning. And such was actually the course proposed by Maillebois's

Government, more than once, in these weeks, had not Friedrich dissuaded and forbidden. It is a strangling

crisis. What is his Britannic Majesty to do? Send orders, "Double YOUR diligence, Excellency Robinson!"

that is one clear point; the others are fearfully insoluble, yet pressiug for solution: in a six weeks hence

As for Robinson, he is duly with the Queen at Presburg; duly conjuring incessantly, "Make your peace with

Friedrich!" And her Majesty will not, on the terms. Poor Robinson, urged two ways at once, is flurried doubly

and trebly; tossed about as Diplomatist never was. King of Prussia flashes lightninglooks upon him,

clapping finger to nose; Maria Theresa, knowing he will demand cession of Silesia, shudders at sight of him;

and the Aulic Council fall into his arms like dead men, murmuring, "Money; where is your money?"

"AUGUST 29th. While Friedrich was pushing into Neipperg, in the Baumgarten Country, and could get no

battle out of him, Excellency Robinson reappears at Breslau; Maria Theresa, after deadly efforts on his part,

has mended her offers, in these terrible circumstances; and Robinson is here again. 'Half of Silesia, or almost

half, provided his Majesty will turn round, and help against the French:' these, secretly, are Robinson's rich

offers. The Queen, on consenting to these new offers, had 'wrung her hands,' like one in despair, and said

passionately, 'Unless accepted within a fortnight, I will not be bound by them!' 'Admit his Excellency to the

honor of an interview,' solicits Hyndford; 'his offers are much mended.' Notable to witness, Friedrich will not

see Robinson at all this time, nor even permit Podewils to see him; signifies plainly that he wants to hear no

more of his offers, and that, in fact, the sooner he can take himself away from Breslau, it will be the better. To

that effect, Robinson, rushing back in mortified astonished manner, reports progress at Presburg; to that and

no better. 'High Madam,' urges Robinson, still indefatigable, 'the King of Prussia's help would be life, his

hostility is death at this crisis. Peace must be with him, at any price!' 'Price?' answers her Majesty once: 'If

Austria must fall, it is indifferent to me whether it be by KurBaiern or KurBrandenburg!' [Stenzel, iv. 156.]

Nevertheless, in about a week she again yields to intense conjuring, and the evertightening pressure of

events;King George, except it be for counselling, is become stockstill, with Maillebois's sword at his

throat; and is, without metaphor, sinking towards absolute neutrality: 'Cannot help you, Madam, any farther;

must not try it, or I perish, my Hanover and I!'So that Maria Theresa again mends her offers: 'Give him all

Lower Silesia, and he to join with me!' and Robinson posthaste despatches a courier to Breslau with them.

Notable again: King Friedrich will not hear of them; answers by a 'No, I tell you! Time was, time is not. I

have now joined with France; and to join against it in this manner? Talk to me no more!'" [Friedrich to

Hyndford: "Au Camp [de Neuendorf] 14me septembre," 1741. "Milord j'ai recu les nouvelles propositions

d'alliance que l'infatigable Robinson vous envoie. Je les trouve aussi chimeriques que les

precedentes.""Ces gens sontils fols, Milord, de s'imaginer que je commisse la trahison de tourner en

leur faveur mes armes, et de"? "Je vous prie de ne me plus fatiguer avec de pareilles propositions, et de

me croire assez honnete homme pour ne point violer mes engagements. FREDERIC." (British Museum:

Here is a catastrophe for the Two Britannic Excellencies, and the Cause of Freedom! Robinson, in dudgeon

and amazement, has hurried back to Presburg, has ceased sending even couriers; and, in a three weeks hence

(9th October, a day otherwise notable), wishes "to come home," the game being up. [His Letter, "9th October,

1741" (in Lord Mahon's History of England, iii. Appendix, p. iii: edit. London, 1839). Such is Robinson's

gloomy view: finished, he, and the game lost,unless perhaps Hyndford could still do something? Of which

what hope is there! Hyndford, who has a rough sagacity in him, and manifests often a strong sense of the

practical and the practicable, strikes intoReaders, from the following Fragments of Correspondence, now

first made public, will gather for themselves what new course, veiled in triple mystery, Hyndford had struck

"BRESLAU, 2d SEPTEMBER, 1711 [on the heel of Robinson's second miscarriage]. ... My Lord, all

these contretemps are very unlucky at present, when time is so precious; for France is pressing the King of

Prussia in the strongest manner to declare himself; but whatever eventual preliminaries may be probably

agreed between them, I still doubt if they have any Treaty signed"have had one, any time these three

months (since 5th June last); signed sufficiently; but of a most fastandloose nature; neither party intending

to be rigorous in keeping it. "I wish to God the Court of Vienna may be brought to think before it is too late."

2. "BRESLAU, 6th SEPTEMBER. ... I am not without hopes of succeeding in a project which has occurred

to me on this occasion, and which seems to be pretty well relished by some people [properly by one

individual, Goltz, the King's Adjutant and factotum], who are in great confidence about the King of Prussia's

person; and I think it is the only thing that now remains to be tried; and as it is the least of two evils, I hope I

shall have the King my Master's approbation in attempting it; and if the Court of Vienna will open their eyes,

they must see it is the only thing left to save them from utter destruction;"and, finally, here it is:

"Since Mr. Robinson left this place,["Sooner YOU go, the better, Sir!"],I have been sounding the people

afore mentioned," the individual afore hinted at, "Whether the King of Prussia would hearken to a Neutrality

with respect to the Queen of Hungary, and at the same time fulfil his engagements to his Majesty with respect

to the defence of his Majesty's German Dominions, IF she would give him the Lower Silesia with Breslau?

At first they rejected it; saying it was a thing they dared not propose. However, I have reason to believe, by a

Letter I saw this day, that it has been proposed to the King, and that he is not absolutely averse to it. I shall

know more in a few days; but if it can be done at all, it must be done in the very greatest secrecy, for neither

the King nor his Ministers wish to appear in it; and I question if his Minister Podewils will be informed of it."

3. EXCELLENCY ROBINSON (in a flutter of excitement, temporary hope and excitement, about Goltz) TO

"PRESBURG, 8th SEPTEMBER (N.S.), 1741. My Lord, I could desire your Lordship to summon up, if it

were necessary, the spirit of all your Lordship's Instructions, and the sense of the King, of the Parliament, and

of the whole British Nation. It is upon this great moment that depends the fate, not of the House of Austria,

not of the Empire, but of the House of Brunswick, of Great Britain, and of all Europe. I verily believe the

King of Prussia does not himself know the extent of the present danger. With whatever motive he may act,

there is not one, not that of the mildest resentment, that can blind him to this degree, of himself perishing in

the ruin he is bringing upon others. With his concurrence, the French will, in less than six weeks, be masters

of the German Empire. The weak Elector of Bavaria is but their instrument: Prague and Vienna may, and

probably will, be taken in that short time. Will even the King of Prussia himself be reserved to the last?

"Upon this single transaction [of your Lordship's affair with the mysterious individual] depend the CITA

MORS, or the VICTORIA LAETA of all Europe. Nothing will equal the glory of your Lordship, in the latter

case, but that to be acquired by the King of Prussia in his immediate imitation of the great

Sobieski"reputed "savior of Vienna," O your Excellency! ... "Prince Lichtenstein will, if found in time

upon his estates in Bohemia, be, I believe, the person to repair to the King of Prussia, the moment your

Lordship shall have signed the Preliminaries. Once again, give me leave, my Lord, to express my most ardent

"BRESLAU, 9th SEPTEMBER, ... Received a message to meet him,"HIM, for we now speak in the

singular number, though still without naming Goltz,"one of the persons I mentioned in my former

Despatch: in a very unsuspected place; for we have agreed to avoid all appearance of familiarity. He told me

he had received a Letter this morning from the Camp," Prussian Majesty's Camp, or Bivouac (in the

Munsterberg HillCountry), on that march towards Woitz, for crossing the Neisse upon Neipperg, which

proved impracticable, "and that he could with pleasure tell me that the King agreed to this last trial,

although he would not, nor could appear in it. ... Then this person read to me a Paper, but I could not see

whether it was the King's hand or not; for when I desired to take a copy, he said he could not show me the

"'Toute la Basse Silesie, la riviere de Neisse pour limite, la ville de Neisse a nous, aussi bien que Glatz; de

l'autre cote de l'Oder l'ancien limite entre les Duches de Brieg et d'Oppeln. Namslau a nous. Les affaires de

religion IN STATU QUO. Point de dependance de la Boheme; cession eternelle. En echange nous n'irons pas

plus loin. Nous assiegerons Neisse PRO FORMA: le commandant se rendra et sortira. Nous prendrons les

quartiers tranquillement, et ils pourront mener leur Armee oh ils voudront. Que tout cela soit fini en douze

"'The whole of Lower Silesia, Neisse Town included; Neisse River for boundary:Glatz withal. Beyond the

Oder, for the Duchies of Brieg and Oppeln the ancient limits. Namslau ours. Affairs of Religion to continue

IN STATU QUO. No dependence [feudal tie or other, as there used to be] on Bohemia; cession of Silesia to

be absolute and forever.We, in return, will proceed no farther. We will besiege Neisse for form; the

Commandant shall surrender and depart. We will pass quietly into winterquarters; and the Austrian Army

may go whither it will. Bargain to be concluded within twelve days.'" [Coxe (iii. 272) gives this Translation,

not saying whence he had it.]Can his Excellency Hyndford get Vienna, get Feldmarschall Reipperg with

power from Vienna, to accept: Yes or No? Excellency Hyndford thinks, Yes; will try his very utmost!

"He (Goltz) then tore the Paper in very small pieces; and he repeated again, that if the affair should be

discovered, both the King and he were determined to deny it. ... 'But how about engagements with regard to

my Master's German Dominions; not a word about that?' He answered, 'You have not the least to fear from

France;' protested the King of Prussia's great regard for his Majesty of England, I told him these fine words

did not satisfy me; and that if this affair should succeed, I expected there should be some stipulation."

[ Hyndford Papers, fol. 115.] Yes; and came, about a fortnight hence, "waylaying his Majesty" to get

Prussian Dryasdust (poor soul, to whom one is often cruel!) shall glad himself with the following Two bits of

Autography from Goltz, who had instantly quitted Breslau again;and, to us, they will serve as date for the

actual arrival of Excellency Hyndford in those fighting regions, and commencement of his mysterious

"AU CAMP DE NEUENDORF, 16me septembre, a 9 heures du seir. (1.) "MILORD,Vons savez que je

suis porte pour la bonne cause. Sur ce pied je prends la liberte de vous conseiller en ami et serviteur, de venir

ici incessamment, et de presser votre voyage de sorte que vous puissiez paraitre publiquement lundi [18th]

vers midi. Vous trouverez 6 (SIC) chevaux de postes a Olau et a Grottkau tout prets. Hatezvous, Milord,

tout ce que vous pourrez au monde. J'ai l'honneur de" Meaning, in brief English:

"Be at Neundorf here, publicly, on Monday next, 18th, towards noon." Things being ripe. "Haste, Milord,

"Ce 18me a 3 heures apresmidi. (2). "Je suis an desespoir, Milord, de votre maladie. Voici le courrier que

vous attendiez. Venez le plutot que vous pourrez au monde; si non, dites au General Marwitz de quoi il s'agit,

afin qu'il puisse me le faire savoir. ... Le courrier serait arrive quatre heures plutot, si nous ne l'avions renvoye

au Comte Neuberg (SIC) a cause de votre maladie.GOLTZ." [ Hyndford Papers, fol. 150152.]That is

"Distressed inexpressibly by your Lordship's biliary condition. One cannot travel under colic;and things

were so ripe! Courier would have reached you four hours sooner, but we had to send him over to Neipperg

This is the Mystery, which, on September 22d, had arrived at that stage, indicated above: "Tush! Follow me:

Dinner is already falling cold, and there are eyes upon us!" And in about another fortnight But we shall

While these combined Mysteries and Warmovements go on, in Neisse and its Environs, the

WorldPhenomena continue,in Upper Austria and elsewhere. Of which take these select summits, or

LINZ, SEPTEMBER 14th. Karl Albert, being joined some days ago at Scharding by the first three French

Divisions, 15,000 men in all (the other four Divisions of them are still in the Donauworth Ingolstadt quarter,

making their manifold arrangements), has pushed forward, sixty miles (landmarches, south side of the

Donau, which makes a bend here), and this day, September 14th, appears at Linz. Pleasant City of Linz;

where, as readers may remember, Mr. John Kepler, long ago, busy discovering the System of the World

(grandest Conquest ever made, or to be made, by the Sons of Adam), had his poor CAMERA OBSCURA set

out, to get himself a livelihood in the interim: here now is Karl Albert's flag on the winds, and, as it were, the

Oriflamme with it, on a singularly different Adventure. "Open Gates!" demands Karl Albert with authority:

"Admit me to my Capital of Upper Austria!" Which cannot be denied him, there being nothing but

Karl Albert continued there some weeks, in a serenely victorious posture; doing acts of authority; getting

homaged by the STANDE; pushing out his forces farther and farther down the Donau, post after

post,victorious OriflammeBavarian Army may be 40,000 strong or so, in those parts. Friedrich urged him

much to push on without pause, and take opportunity by the forelock; sent Schmettau (elder of the two

Schmettaus, who is much employed on such business) to urge him; wrote an express Paper of Considerations

Vienna, all in terror, is fortifying itself; citizens toiling at the earthworks, resolute for making some defence;

Constituted Authorities, National Archives even, Court in a body, and all manner of Noble and Official

people, flying elsewhither to covert: chiefly to Presburg, where her Majesty already is. The Archives were

carried to Gratz; the two Dowager Empresses (for there are two, Maria Theresa's Mother, and Maria

Theresa's Aunt, Kaiser Joseph's Widow) fled different ways,I forget which. An agitated, paralyzed

population. Except the diligent wheelbarrows on the ramparts, no vehicle is rolling in Vienna but

furniturewagons loading for flight. General Khevenhuller with 6,000, who pesides with fine scientific skill,

and an iron calmness and clearness, over these fortifyings, is the only force left. [Anonymous, Histoire de la

Derniere Guerre de Boheme (a Francfort, 17451747, 4 tomes), i. 190. A lively succinct little Book, vague

not false; still readable, though not now, as then, with complete intelligence, to the unprepared reader. Said,

in Dictionaries, to be by Mauvillon PERE, though it resembles nothing else of his that is known to me.]'

Neipperg's, our only Army in the world, is hundreds of miles away, countermarching and manoeuvring about

Woitz, and Neisse Town and River,pretty sure to be beaten in the end,and it is high time there were a

DRESDEN, SEPTEMBER 19th (Excellency Hyndford just recovering from his colic, in Breslau),

KurSachsen, after many waverings, signs Treaty of Copartnery with France and Bavaria, seduced by "that

Moravia," and the ticklings of Belleisle acting on a weak mind. [Adelung, ii. 469, 304, 503.] His troops are

20,000, or rather more; said to be of good quality, and well equipped. In February last we saw him engaged in

Russian, AntiPrussian Partition schemes. In April, as these suddenly (on sight of the Camp of Gottin)

extinguished themselves, he agreed to go, in the pacific way, with her Hungarian Majesty for friend (Treaty

with her, signed 11th April); but never went (Treaty never ratified); kept his 20,000 lying about in Camp, in

an enigmatic manner,first about Torgau, latterly in the Lausitz, much nearer to the ERZGEBIRGE

(MetalMountains), Frontier of Bohemia;and now signs as above; intent to march as soon as possible. Is to

have Four Circles of Bohemia, imaginary Kingships of Moravia, and other prizes. Belleisle has tickled that

big trout: Belleisle could now have the Election as he wishes it, would the Electors but be speedy; but they

"Moriamur pro Rege nostro Maria Theresia," IN THE POETIC, AND THEN ALSO IN THE PROSE FORM.

PRESBURG, SEPTEMBER 21st. This is the date (or chief date, for, alas, there turn out to be two!) of the

worldfamous "MORIAMUR PRO REGE NOSTRO MARIA THERESIA;" of which there are now needed

Two Narratives; the generally received (in part mythical) going first, in the following strain:

"The Queen has been in Presburg mainly, where the Hungarian Diet is sitting, ever since her

Coronationceremony. On the 11th September [or 11th and 21st together], the afflicted Lady makes an

appearance there, which, for theatrical reality, has become very celebrated. Alas, it is but three months since

she galloped to the top of the Konigsberg, and cut defiantly with bright sabre towards the Four Points of the

Universe; and already it has come to this. Hungarian Magnates in high session, the high Queen enters,

beautiful and sad,and among her Ministers is noticeable a Nurse with the young Archduke, some six

months old, a fine thriving child, perhaps too wise for his age, who became Kaiser Joseph II. in after time.

"The Hungarian Session is not on record for me, Hall of meeting, Magyar Parliamentary eloquence unknown;

nor is any point conspicuously visible, exact and certain, except these [alas, not even these]: That it was the

11th of September; that her Majesty coming forward to speak, took the child in her arms, and there, in a clear

and melodiously piercing voice, sorrow and courage on her noble face, beautiful as the Moon riding among

wet stormy clouds, spake, as the Hungarian Archives still have it, a short Latin Harangue; in substance as

follows: ... 'Hostile invasion of Austria; imminent peril, to this Kingdom of Hungary, to our person, to our

children, to our crown. Forsaken by all,AB OMNIBUS DERELICTI [Britannic Majesty himself standing

stockstill, blamably, one thinks, the two swords being only at HIS throat, and a good way off!]I have

no resource but to throw myself on the loyalty and help of Your renowned Body, and invoke the ancient

Hungarian virtue to rise swiftly and save me!' Whereat the assembled Hungarian Synod, their wild Magyar

hearts touched to the core, start up in impetuous acclaim, flourish aloft their drawn swords, and shout

unanimously in passionate tenorvoice, 'MORIAMUR (Let us die) for our Rex Maria Theresa!' [ Maria

Theresiens Leben (which speaks hypothetically), iv, 44; Coxe, iii. 270 (who is positive, "after examining the

Documents").] Which were not vain words. For a general 'Insurrection' was thereupon decreed; what the

Magyars call their 'Insurrection,' which is by no means of rebellious nature; and many noblemen, old Count

Palfy himself a chief among them, though past threescore and ten, took the field at their own cost; and the

noise of the Hungarian Insurrection spread like a voice of hope over all Pragmatic countries."

A very beautiful heroic scene; which has gone about the world, circulating triumphantly through all hearts for

above a Century past; and has only of late acknowledged itself mythical,not true, except as toned down to

PRESBURG, SEPTEMBER 21st. Maria Theresa, since that fine Coronationscene, June 2Sth, has had a

mixed time of it with her Hungarian Diet; soft passages alternating with hard: a chivalrous people, most

consciously chivalrous; but a constitutional withal, very stiff upon their Charter (PACTA CONVENTA, or

whatever the name is); who wrangle much upon privileges, upon taxes, and are difficult to keep long in tune.

Ten days ago (September 11th), her Majesty tried them on a new tack; summoned them to her Palace; threw

herself upon their nobleness, "No allies but you in the world" (and other fine things, authentically, as above,

legible in the Archives to this day):so spake the beautiful young Queen, her eyes filling with tears as she

went on, and yet a noble fire gleaming through them. Which melted the Hungarian heart a good deal; and

produced fine cheering, some persons even shedding tears, and voices of "Life and Fortune to your Majesty!"

being heard in it. In which humor the Diet returned to its SessionHouse, and voted the "Insurrection,"or

general Arming of Hungary, County by County, each according to its own contingent;with all speed, in

pursuance of her Majesty's implied desire. This was voted in rapid manner; but again, in the detail of

executing, it was liable to haggles. From this day, however, matters did decidedly improve; PACTA

CONVENTA, or any remainder of them, are got adjusted,the good Queen yielding on many points. So

that, September 20th, GrandDuke Franz is elected Coregent,let him start from Vienna instantly, for

Instalment;and it is hoped the Insurrection will go well, and not prove haggly, or hang fire in the details.

At any rate, next day, September 21st, Duke Franz, who arrived last night,and Baby with him, or in the

train of him (to the joy of Mamma!)is in the Palace AudienceHall, "at 8 A.M.;" ready for the Diet, and

what Homagings aud mutual Oath, as new Coregent, are necessary. GrandDuke Franz, Mamma by his

side, with the suitable functionaries; and to rearward Nurse and Baby, not so conspicuous till needed. Diet

enters with the stroke of 8; solemnity proceeds. At the height of the solemnity, when Duke Franz, who is

really risen now to something of a heroic mood, in these emergencies and perils, has just taken his Oath, and

will have to speak a fit word or two,the Nurse, doubtless on hint given, steps forward; holds up Baby (a

fine noticing fellow, I have no doubt,"weighed sixteen pounds avoirdupois when born"); as if Baby too,

fine mutual product of the Two Coregents, were mutually swearing and appealing. Enough to touch any

heart. "Life and blood (VITAM ET SANGUINEM) for our Queen and Kingdom.!" exclaims the

GrandDuke, among other things. "Yes, VITAM ET SANGUINEM!" reechoes the Diet, "our life and our

blood!" manyvoiced, again and again;and returns to its own Place of Session, once more in a fine strain

And there, O reader, is the naked truth, neither more nor less. It was some Vienna Pamphleteer of theatrical

imaginative turn, finding the thing apt, a year or two afterwardswho by kneading different dates and

objects into one, boldly annihilating time and space, and adding a little paint,gave it that seductive

mythical form. From whom Voltaire adopted it, with improvements, especially in the little Harangue; and

from Voltaire gratefully the rest of mankind. [Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XV., c. 6 ( OEuvres, xxviii. 78); Coxe,

House of Austria, iii. 270; and innumerable others (who give this Myth); Maria Theresiens Leben, p. 44 n.

(who cites the Vienna Pamphleteers, without much believing them); Mailath (a Hungarian), Geschichte des

OEsterrichischen KaiserStaats (Hamburg, 1850), v. 1113 (who explodes the fable). Cut down to the

practical, it stands as above:by no means a bad thing still. That of "bringing in Baby" was a pretty touch in

the domesticroyal way;and surely very natural; and has no "art" in it, or none to blame and not love

rather, on the part of the bright young Mother, now girdled in such tragic outlooks, and so glad to have Baby

back at least, and Papa with him! It is certain the "Insurrection" was voted with enthusiasm; and even became

rapidly a fact. And there was, in few months hence, an immense mounted force of Hungarians raised, which

galloped and plundered (having almost no pay), and occasionally fenced and fought, very diligently during all

these Wars. Hussars, Croats, Pandours, Tolpatches, Warasdins, Uscocks, never heard of in war before: who

were found very terrible to look upon once, in the imagination or with the naked eye; but whose fighting

talent, against regular troops, was next to worthless; and who gradually became hateful rather than terrible in

HANOVER, SEPTEMBER 27th. Britannic Majesty, reduced to that frightful pinch, has at last given way.

Treaty of Neutrality for Hanover; engagement again to stick one's puissant Pragmatic sword into its scabbard,

to be perfectly quiescent and contemplative in these FrenchBavarian AntiAustrian undertakings, and digest

one's indignation as one can. For our Paladin of the Pragmatic what a posture! This is the first of Three

Attempts by our puissant little Paladin to draw sword;not till the third could he get his sword out, or do the

least fighting (even foolish fighting) with all the 40,000 he had kept on pay and subsidy for years back. The

Neutrality was for Hanover only, and had no specific limit as to time. Opportunities did rise; but something

always rose along with them,mainly the impossibility of hoisting those lazy Dutch, and checked one's

noble rage. His Majesty has covenantad to vote for Karl Albert as Kaiser; even he, and will make the thing

unanimous! A thoroughly checkmated Majesty. Passing home to England, this time in a gloomy condition

of mind, shortly after these humiliations, he was just issuing from Osnabruck by the Eastern Gate, when

Maillebois's people entered by the Western, the ugly shoes of them insulting his kibes in this manner. And

a furious AntiWalpole Parliament, most perturbed of National Palavers, is waiting him at St. James's.

Karl Albert lay at Linz for a month longer (till October 24th, six weeks in all); pausing in uncertainties, in a

pleasant dream of victory and sovereignty; not pouncing on Vienna, as Friedrich urged on the French and

him, to cut the matter by the root. He does push forward certain troops, Comte de Saxe with Three Horse

Regiments as vanguard, ever nearer to Vienna; at last to within forty miles of it; nay, lighthorse parties came

within twentyfive miles. And there was skirmishing with Mentzel, a sanguinary fellow, of whom we shall

Karl Albert has been sending out sovereign messages from Linz: Letters to Vienna;one letter addressed

"To the Archduchess Maria Theresa;" which came back unopened, "No such person known here." October

2d, he is getting homaged at Linz, by the STANDE of the Province,on summons sent some time

before,many of whom attend, with a willing enough appearance; KurBaiern rather a favorite in Upper

Austria, say some. Much fine processioning, melodious haranguing, there now is for Karl Albert, and a

pleasant dream of Sovereignty at Linz: but if he do not pounce upon Vienna till Khevenhuller get it fortified?

Khevenhuller is drawing home Italian Garrisons, gradually gathering something like an Army round him. In

Khevenhuller's imperturbable military head, one of the clearest and hardest, there is some hope. Above all, if

It was the second day after that Homaging at Linz, when Hyndford (Sept. 22d) with mysterious negotiations,

now nearly ripe, for disengaging Neipperg, waylaid his Prussian Majesty; and was answered, as we saw, with

It must be owned, these FriedrichHyndford Negotiations, following on an express FrenchPrussian Treaty

of June 5th, which have to proceed in such threefold mystery now and afterwards, are of questionable

distressing nature: nor can the fact that they are escorted copiously enough by a correspondent sort on the

French side, and indeed on the Austrian and on all sides, be a complete consolation,far otherwise, to the

ingenuous reader. Smelfungus indignantly calls it an immorality and a dishonor, "a playing with loaded dice;"

which in good part it surely was. Nor can even Friedrich, who has many pleas for himself, obtain spoken

acquittal; unspoken, accompanied with regrets and pity, is all even Friedrich can aspire to. My own

impression is, Smelfungus, if candid, would on clearer information and consideration have revoked much of

what he says here in censure of Friedrich. At all events, if asked: Where then is the specifical not

"superstitious" WANT of "veracity" you ever found in Friedrich? and How, OTHERWISE than even as

Friedrich did, would you, most veracious Smelfungus, have plucked out your Silesia from such an Element

and such a Time?he would be puzzled to answer. I give his Fragment as I find it, with these deductions:

"What negotiating we have had, and shall have," exclaims Smelfungus, my sad foregoer,"fit rather to be

omitted from a serious History, which intends to be read by human creatures! Bargaining, Promising,

Nonperforming. False in general as dicers' oaths; false on this side and on that, from beginning to end.

Intercepted Letters from Fleury; Letter dropping from Valori's waistcoatpocket, upon which Friedrich claps

his foot: alas, alas, we are in the middle of a whole world of that. Friedrich knows that the French are false to

him; he by no means intends to be romantically true to them, and that also they know. What is the use to

human creatures of recording all that melancholy stuff? If sovereign persons want their diplomacies NOT to

be swept into the ashpit, there are two conditions, especially one which is peremptory: FIRST, that they

should not be lies;SECOND, that they should be of some importance, some wisdom; which with known

lies is not a possible condition. To unravel cobwebs, and register laboriously and date and sort in the sorrow

of your soul the oaths of crowned dicers,what use is it to gods or men? Having well dressed and sliced

your cucumber, the next clear human duty is: Throw it out of window. In that foul Laplandwitch world, of

seething Diplomacies and monstrous wigged mendacities, horribly wicked and despicably unwise, I find

nothing notable, memorable even in a small degree, except this aspect of a young King who does know what

he means in it. Clear as a star, sharp as cutting steel (very dangerous to hydrogen balloons), he stands in the

"Magnanimous I can by no means call Friedrich to his allies and neighbors, nor even superstitiously

veracious, in this business: but he thoroughly understands, he alone, what just thing he wants out of it, and

what an enormous wigged mendacity it is he has got to deal with. For the rest, he is at the gamingtable with

these sharpers; their dice all cogged;and he knows it, and ought to profit by his knowledge of it. And in

short, to win his stake out of that foul weltering mellay, and go home safe with it if he can."

Very well, my friend! Let us keep to windward of the Diplomatic wizard'scaldron; let Hyndford, Valori and

Company preside over it, throwing in their eye of newt and limb of toad, as occasion may be. Enough, if the

reader can be brought to conceive it; and how the young King,who perhaps alone had real business in this

foul element, and did not volunteer into it like the others, though it now unexpectedly envelops him like a

worldwhirlwind (frightful enough, if one spoke of that to anybody), is struggling with his whole soul to get

well out of it. As supremely adroit, all readers already know him; his appearance what we called

He is dexterously holding aloof from Hyndford at present, clinging to French Valori as his chosen

companion: we may fancy what a time he has of it, like a polygamist amid jealous wives. It will quicken

Hyndford, he perceives, in these ulterior stages, to leave him well alone. Hyndford accordingly, as we have

noticed, could not see the King at all; had to try every plan, to watch, waylay the King for a bit of interview,

when indispensable. However, Hyndford, with his Neipperg in sight of the peril, manages better than

Robinson with his Aulic Council at a distance: besides he is a longheaded dogged kind of man, with a surly

edacious strength, not inexpert in negotiation, nor easily turned aside from any purpose he may have.

Between the two Camps, nearly midway, lies a Hamlet called Klein Schnellendorf, LITTLE Schnellendorf,

to distinguish it from another Schnellendorf called GREAT, which is a mile or two northwestward, out of the

straight line. Not far from the first of these poor Hamlets lies a Schloss or noble Mansion, likewise called

Klein Schnellendorf, belonging to a certain Count von Sternberg, who is not there at present, but whose

servants are, and a party of Croats over them for some days back: a pleasant airy Mansion among pleasant

gardens, well shut out from the intrusion of the world. Upon this Castle of KleinSchnellendorf judicious

Hyndford has cast his eye:and Neipperg, now come to a state of readiness, approves the suggestion of

Hyndford, and promptly at the due moment converts it into a fact. Arrests namely, on a given morning (the

last act of his Croats there, who withdrew directly with their batch of prisoners), every living soul within or

about the Mansion; "suspected of treason;" only for one day;and in this way, has it reduced to the

comfortable furnished solitude of Sleeping Beauty's Castle; a place fit for high persons to hold a Meeting in,

which shall remain secret as the grave. Such a thing was indispensable. For Friedrich, keeping shy of

Hyndford, as he well may with a Valori watching every step, has, by words, by silences, when Hyndford

could waylay him for a moment, sufficiently indicated what he will and what he will not; and, for one

indispensable condition, in the present thricedelicate Adventure, he will not sign anything; will give and

take word of honor, and fully bind himself, but absolutely not put pen to paper at all. Neipperg being willing

too, judicious Hyndford finds a medium. Let the parties meet at KleinSchnellendorf, and judicious

Hyndford be there with pen and paper. [Orlich, i. 146; HeldenGeschichte, i. 1009.]

Monday, 9th October, 1741, accordingly, there is meeting to be held. Hyndford, Neipperg with his General

Lentulus (a SwissAustrian General, whose Son served under Friedrich afterwards), these wait for Friedrich,

on the one hand:"to fix some cartel for exchange of prisoners," it is said;in these precincts of Klein

Schnellendorf; which are silent, vacant, yet comfortably furnished, like Sleeping Beauty's Castle. And

Friedrich, on the other hand, is actually riding that way, with Goltz;visiting outposts, reconnoitring, so to

speak. "Dine you with Prince Leopold (the Young Dessauer), my fine Valori; I fear I shan't be home to

dinner!" he had said when going off; hoodwinking his fine Valori, who suspects nothing. At a due distance

from KleinSchnellendorf, the very groom is left behind; and Friedrich, with Goltz only, pushes on to the

Schloss. All ready there; salutations soon done; business set about, perfected:and Hyndford with pen and

ink in his hand, he, by way of Protocol, or summary of what had bsen agreed on, on mutual word of honor,

most brief but most clear on this occasion, writes a State Paper, which became rather famous afterwards. This

KLEINSCHNELLENDORF, 9th OCTOBER, 1741. Britannic Excellency Hyndford testifies, That, here and

now, his Majesty of Prussia, and Neipperg on behalf of her Hungarian Majesty do, solemnly though only

"FIRST, That General Neipperg, on the 16th of the month [this day week] shall have liberty to retire through

the Mountains, towards Moravia; unmolested, or with nothing but shamattacks in the rear of him.

SECOND, That, in consequence, his Prussian Majesty, on making shamsiege of Neisse, shall have the place

surrendered to him on the fifteenth day. THIRD, That there shall be, nay in a sense, there hereby is, a Peace

made; his Majesty retaining Neisse and Silesia [according to the limits known to us:nothing said of Glatz];

and that a complete Treaty to that effect shall be perfected, signed and ratified, before the Year is out.

FOURTH, That these shamhostilities, but only sham, shall continue; and that his Majesty, wintering in

Bohewia, and carrying on sham hostilities [to the satisfaction of the French], shall pay his own expenses,

To these Four Things they pledge their word of honor; and Hyndford signs and delivers each a Copy.

Unwritten a Fifth Thing is settled, That the present transaction in all parts of it shall be secret as death,his

Majesty expressly insisting that, if the least inkling of it ooze out, he shall have right to deny it, and refuse in

Here is a pretty piece of work done for ourself and our allies, while Valori is quietly dining with the Prince of

Dessau! The King stayed about two hours; was extremely polite, and even frank and communicative. "A very

highspirited young King," thinks Neipperg, reporting of it; "will not stand contradiction; but a great deal can

be made of him, if you go into his ideas, and humor him in a delicate dexterous way. He did not the least hide

his engagements with France, Bavaria, Saxony; but would really, so far as I Neipperg could judge, prefer

friendship with Austria, on the given terms; and seems to have secretly a kind of pique at Saxony, and no

"Business being done [this is Hyndford's report], the King, who had been politeness itself, took Neipperg

aside, beckoning Hyndford to be of the party, 'I wish you too, my Lord, to hear every word:his Britannic

Majesty knows or should know my intentions never were to do him hurt, but only to take care of myself; and

pray inform him [what is the fact] that I have ordered my Army in Brandenburg to go into winterquarters,

and break up that Camp at Gottin.' Friedrich's talk to Neipperg is, How he may assault the French with

advantage: 'Join Lobkowitz and what force he has in Bohmen; go right into your enemies, before they can

unite there. If the Queen prosper, I shallperhaps I shall have no objection to join her by and by? If her

Majesty fail; well, every one must look to himself.'" These words Hyndford listened to with an edacious solid

countenance, and greedily took them down. [Hyndford's Despatch, Breslau, 14th October, 1741.]

Once more, a curious glimpse (perhaps imprudently allowed us, in the circumstances) into the real inner man

of Friedrich. He had, at this time, now that the Belleisle Adventure is left in such a state, no essential reason

to wish the French ruined,nor probably did he; but only stated both chances, as in the way of unguarded

soliloquy; and was willing to leave Neipperg a sweet morsel to chew. Secret mode of corresponding with the

Court of Austria is agreed upon; not direct, but thraugh certain Commandants, till the PeaceTreaty be

perfected,at latest "by December 24th," we hope. And so, "BON VOYAGE, and well across the

Mountains, M. LE MARECHAL; till we meet again! And you, Excellency Hyndford, be so good you as

write to me,for Valori's behoof,complaining that I am deaf to all proposals, that nothing can be had of

me. And other Letters, pray, of the like tenor, all round; to Presburg, to England, to Dresden:if the Couriers

are seized, it shall be well. 'Your Letter to myself, let a trumpet come with it while I am at dinner,' and Valori

beside me!""Certainly, your Majesty," answers Hyndford; and does it, does all this; which produces a

Thus, if the Austrians hold to their bargain, has Friedrich, in a most compendious manner, got done with a

Business which threatened to be infinite: by this short cut he, for his part, is quite out of the wastehowling

jungle of Enchanted Forest, and his foot again on the firm free Earth. If only the Austrians hold to their

bargain! But probably he doubts if they will. Well, even in that case, he has got Neisse; stands prepared for

meeting them again; and, in the mean while, has freedom to deny that there ever was such a bargain.

Of the Political morality of this game of fastandloose, what have we to say,except, that the dice on both

sides seem to be loaded; that logic might be chopped upon it forever; that a candid mind will settle what

degree of wisdom (which is always essentially veracity), and what of folly (which is always falsity), there

was in Friedrich and the others; whether, or to what degree, there was a better course open to Friedrich in the

circumstances:and, in fine, it will have to be granted that you cannot work in pitch and keep hands

evidently clean. Friedrich has got into the Enchanted Wilderness, populous with devils and their

works;and, alas, it will be long before he get out of it again, HIS life waning towards night before he get

victoriously out, and bequeath his conquest to luckier successors! It is one of the tragic elements of this

King's life; little contemplated by him, when he went lightly into the Silesian Adventure, looking for honor

bright, what he called "GLOIRE," as one principal consideration, hardly a year ago!

Neipperg, according to covenant, broke up punctually that day week, October 16th; and went over the

Mountains, through Jagerndorf, Troppau, towards Mahren; Prussians hanging on his rear, and skirmishing

about, but only for imaginary or ostensible purposes. After a threeweeks march, he gets to a place called

Frating, [Espagnac, i. 104.] easternmost border of Mahren, on the slopes of the Mannhartsberg HillCountry,

which is within wind of Vienna itself; where, as we can fancy, his presence is welcome as morning light in

Friedrich, on the morrow after Neipperg went, invested Neisse (October 17th); set about the Siege of Neisse

with all gravity, as if it had been the most earnest operation; which nobody of mankind, except three or four,

doubted but it was. Before opening of the trenches, Leopold young Dessauer took the road for Glatz Country,

and the adjoining Circles of Bohemia; there to canton himself, peaceably according to contract; and

especially to have an eye upon Glatz, should the KleinSchnellendorf engagement go awry in any point. The

King in his Dialogue with Neipperg had said several things about Glatz, and what a sacrifice he made there

for the sake of speedy pace, the French having guaranteed him Glatz, though he now forbore it. Leopold, who

has with him some 15,000 horse and foot, cantons himself judiciously in those ultramontane parts, "all the

artillery in the Glatz Country;" [ Helden Geschichte, ii. 431; Orlich, i. 174.]and we shall hear of him

Neisse is a formidable Fortress, much strengthened since last year; but here is a Besieger with much better

chance! He marked out parallels, sent summonses, reconnoitred, manoeuvred,in a way more or less

surprising to the eye of Valori, who is military, and knows about sieges. Rather singular, remarks Valori;

good engineers much wanted here! But the bombardment did finally begin: night of October 26th27th, the

Prussiaus opened fire; and, at a terrible rate, cannonaded and bombarded without intermission. In point of fire

and noise it is tremendous; Valori trusts it may be effective, in spite of faults; goes to Breslau in hope: "Yes,

go to Breslau, MON CHER VALORI; wait for me there. Neipperg be chased, say you? Shall not he,if we

had got this place!" And so the fire continues night and day. [ HeldenGeschichte, i. 1006.]

Fantastic Bielfeld, in his semifabulous style, has a LETTER on this bombardment, attractive to Lovers of

the Picturesque, (written long afterwards, and dated WRONG). As Bielfeld is a rapid clever creature of the

coxcomb sort, and doubtless did see Neisse Siege, and entertained seemingly a blazing incorrect recollection

of it, his PseudoNeisse Letter may be worth giving, to represent approximately what kind of scene it was

"Marechal Schwerin was lodged in a Village about threequarters of a mile from HeadQuarters. One day he

did me the honor to invite me to dinner; and even offered me a horse to ride thither with him. I found

excellent company; a superb repast, and wine of the gods. Host and guests were in high spirits; and the

pleasures of the table were kept up so late, that it was midnight when we rose. I was obliged to return to

HeadQuarters, having still to wait upon the King, as usual. The Marechal was kind enough to lend me

another horse; but the groom mischievously gave me the charger which the Marechal rode at the Battle of

Mollwitz; a very powerful animal, and which, from that day, had grown very skittish.

"I was made aware of this circumstance, before we were fairly out of the Village; and the night being of the

darkest, I twenty times ran the risk of breaking my neck. We had to pass over a hill, to get to HeadQuarters.

When I reached the top, a shudder came over me, and my hair stood on end. I had nobody with me but a

strange groom. The country all around was infested with troops and marauders; I was mounted on an

unmanageable horse. Under my feet, so to say, I saw the bombardment of the Town of Neisse. I heard the

roar of cannon and doleful shrieks. Above our batteries the whole atmosphere was inflamed; and to complete

the calamity, I missed the way, and got lost in the darkness. Finally, in descending the hill, my horse,

frightened, made a terrible swerve or sidejump. I did not know the cause; but after having, with difficulty,

got him into the road again, I found myself opposite to a deserter who had been hanged that day! I was

horribly disgusted by the sight; the gallows being very low, and the head of the malefactor almost parallel

with mine. I spurred on, and galloped away from such unpleasant night company. At last I arrived at

HeadQuarters, all in a perspiration. I sent my horse back; and went in to the King, who asked me at once,

why I was so heated. I made his Majesty a faithful report of all my disasters. He laughed much; and advised

me seriously not again to go out by night, and alone, beyond the circuit of HeadQuarters." [Bielfeld, ii. 31,

After four days and nights of this sublime Playhouse thunder (with real bullets in it, which killed some men,

and burnt considerable property), the Neisse Commandant (not Roth this time, Roth is now in Brunn),his

"fortnight of siege," Ottober 17th to October 3lst, being accomplished or nearly so,beat chamade; and was,

after grave enough treatying, allowed to march away. Marched, accordingly, on the correct

KleinSchnellendorf terms; most of his poor garrison deserting, and taking Prussian service. Ever since

which moment, Neisse, captured in this curious manner, has been Friedrich's and his Prussia's. November 1st,

the Prussian soldiers entered the place; and Friedrich, after diligent inspection and what orders were

necessary, left for Brieg on the following day;where general illuminating and demonstrating awaited him,

amid more serious business. After strict examinations, and approval of Walrave and his works at Brieg, he

again takes the road; enters Breslau, in considerable state (November 4th); where many Persons of Quality

are waiting, and the general Homaging is straightway to be,or indeed should have been some days ago, but

The Breslau HULDIGUNG,Friedrich sworn to and homaged with the due solemnities as "Sovereign Duke

of Lower Silesia,"was an event to throw into fine temporary frenzy the descriptive Gazetteers, and Breslau

City, overflowing with Quality people come to act and to see on the occasion. Event which can be left to the

reader's fancy, at this date. There were Corporations out in quantity, "all in cloaks" and with sublime

Addresses, partly in poetry, happily rather brief. There were beautiful Prussian Lifeguards ("First Battalion,"

admirable to the softer sex, not to speak of the harder); much military resonance and splendor. Friedrich

drove about in carriagesandsix, "nay carriageandeight, horses cream color:" a very high King indeed;

and a very busy one, for those four days (November 4th8th) 1741), but full of grace and condescension. The

HULDIGUNG itself took effect on the 7th; in the fine old Rathhaus, which Tourists still know,the

surrounding Applewomen sweeping themselves clear away for one day. Ancient Ducal throne and proper

apparatus there was; statesword unluckily wanting: Schwerin, who was to act GrandMarshal, could find no

statesword, till Friedrich drew his own and gave it him. [ HeldenGeschichte, i. 1022, 1025; ii. 349.]

Podewils the Minister said something, not too much; to which one Prittwitz, head of a Silesian Family of

which we shall know individuals, made pithy and pretty response, before swearing. "There were above Four

Hundred of Quality present, all in gala." The customary FreeGift of the STANDE Friedrich magnanimously

refused: "Impossible to be a burden to our Silesia in such harassed warcircumstances, instead of benefactor

and protector, as we intended and intend!" The Ceremony, swearing and all, was over in two hours; hundreds

of silver medals, not to speak of the gold ones, flying about; and Breslau giving itself up joyfully to dinner

and festivities. And, after dinner, that evening, to Illumination; followed by balls and jubilations for days

after, in a highly harmonious key. Of the lampsfestoons, astonishing transparencies, and glad symbolic

devices, I could say a great deal; but will mention only two, both of comfortably edible or quasiedible

1. That of David Schulze, Flesher by profession; who had a Transparency large as life, representing his

own fat Person in the act of felling a fat Ox; to which was appended this epigraph:

"Wer mir wird den Konig in Preussen verachten, Den will ich wie diesen Ochsen schlacten." "Who dares me

the King of Prussia insult, Him I will serve like this fat head of nolt." Signed "DAVID SCHULER, A

2. How, in another quarter, there was set aloft IN RE, by some Pastrycook of patriotic turn: "An actual Ox

roasted whole; filled with pheasants, partridges, grouse, hares and geese; Prussian Eagle atop, made of

roasted fowls, larks and the like,"unattainable, I doubt, except for money down. [ HeldenGeschichte, ii.

On the fifth morning, 9th November,after much work done during this short visit, much ceremonial

audiencing, latterly, and raising to the peerage,Friedrich rolled on to Glogau. Took accurate survey of the

engineering and other interests there, for a couple of days; thence to Berlin (noon of the llth), joyfully

received by Royal Family and all the world;and, as we might fancy, asking himself: "Am I actually home,

then; out of the enchanted jungles and their devilries; safe here, and listening, I alone in Peace, to the

universal din of War?" Alas, no; that was a beautiful hypothesis; too beautiful to be long credible! Before

reaching Berlin,or even Breslau, as appears,Friedrich, vigilantly scanning and discerning, had seen that

In a fortnight hence, Hyndford, who had followed to Berlin, got transient sight of the King one morning,

hastening through some apartment or other: "'My Lord,' said the King, (the Court of Vienna has entirely

divulged our secret. Dowager Empress Amelia [Kaiser Joseph's widow, mother of Karl Albert's wife] has

acquainted the Court of Bavaria with it; Wasner [Austrian Minister at Paris] has told Fleury; Sinzendorf [ditto

at Petersburg] has told the Court of Russia; Robinson, through Mr. Villiers [your Saxon Minister], has told

the Court of Dresden; and several members of your Government in England have talked publicly about it!'

And, with a shrug of the shoulders, he left me,"standing somewhat agape there. [Hyndford's Despatch,

The late general Homaging at Breslau, and solemn Taking Possession of the Country by King Friedrich,

under such peaceable omens, had straightway, as we gather, brought about, over Silesia at large, or at least

where pressingly needful, various little alterations, rectifications, by the Prussian model and new rule now

introduced. Of which, as it is better that the reader have some dim notion, if easily procurable, than none at

all, I will offer him one example; itself dim enough, but coming at firsthand, in the actual or ccncrete

At Landshut, a pleasant little Mountain Town, in the Principality of Schweidnitz, high up, on the infant River

Bober, near the Bohemian Frontier(English readers may see QUINCY ADAMS'S description of it, and of

the long wooden spouts which throw cataracts on you, if walking the streets in rain [John Quincy Adams

(afterwards President of the United States), Letters on Silesia (London, 1804). "The wooden spouts are now

gone" ( Tourist's Note, of 1858).]): at Landshut, as in some other Towns, it had been found good to remodel

the Town Magistracy a little; to make it partly Protestant, for one thing, instead of Catholic (and Austrian),

which it had formerly been. Details about the "high controversies and discrepancies" which had risen there,

we have absolutely none; nor have the special functions of the Magistracy, what powers they had, what work

they did, in the least become distinct to us: we gather only that a certain nameless Burgermeister (probably

Austrian and Catholic) had, by "Most gracious Royal SpecialOrder," been at length relieved from his labors,

and therewith "the much by him persecuted and afflicted Herr Theodorus Spener" been named Burgermeister

instead. Which respectable Herr Theodorus Spener, and along with him Herr Johann David Fischer as

RATHSSENIOR, and Herr Johann Caspar Ruffer, and also Herr Johann Jacob Umminger, as new Raths

(how many of the old being left I cannot say), were accordingly, on the 4th of December, 1741, publicly

installed, and with proper solemnity took their places; all Landshut looking on, with the conceivable interest

and astonishment, almost as at a change in the obliquity of the ecliptic,change probably for the better.

Respectable Herr Theodorus Spener (we hope it is SpeNer, for they print him SPEER in one of the two

places, and we have to go by guess) is ready with an Installation Speech on the occasion; and his Speech was

judged so excellent, that they have preserved it in print. Us it by no means strikes by its Demosthenic or other

qualities: meanwhile we listen to it with the closest attention; hoping, in our great ignorance, to gather from it

some glimmerings of instruction as to the affairs, humors, disposition and general outlook and condition of

Landshut, and Silesia in that juncture; and though a good deal disappointed, have made an Abstract of it in

the English language, which perhaps the reader too, in his great ignorance, will accept, in defect of better.

Scene is Landshut among the Giant Mountains on the Bohemian Border of Silesia: an old stone Town, where

there is from of old a busy trade in thread and linen; Town consisting, as is common there, of various narrow

winding streets comparable to spiderlegs, and of a roomy central Marketplace comparable to the body of

the spider; wide irregular Marketplace with the wooden spouts (dry for the moment) all projecting round it.

Time, 4th December, 1741 (doubtless in the forenoon); unusual crowd of population simmering about the

Market place, and full audience of the better sort gravely attentive in the interior of the Rathhaus;

Burgermeister Spener LOQUITUR [ HeldenGeschichte, ii. 416.] (liable to abridgment here and there, on

"I enter, then, in the name of the Most Holy Trinity, upon an Office, to which Divine Providence has

appointed, and the gracious and potent hand of a great King has raised me. Great as is the dignity [giddy

height of Mayoralty in Landshut], though undeserved, which the EverNerciful has thus conferred upon me,

equally great and much greater is the burden connected therewith. I confess" He confesses, in

highstalking earnest wooden language very foreign to us in every way: (1.) That his shoulders are too weak;

but that he trusts in God. For (2.) it is God's doing; and He that has called Spener, will give Spener strength,

the essential work being to do God's will, to promote His honor, and the common weal. (3.) That he comes

out of a smaller Office (Office not farther specified, probably exterior to the RATHSCOLLEGE, and

subaltern to the late tyrannous Mayor and it), and has taken upon him the Mayoralty of this Town (an evident

fact!); but that the labor and responsibility are dreadfully increased; and that the point is not increase of

honor, of respectability or income, but of heavy duties. (A sonorous, piousminded Spener; much more in

It is easy, intimates he, to govern a Town, if, as some have perhaps done, you follow simply your own will,

regardless of the sighs and complaints your subjects utter for injustice undergone, indifferent to the

thought that the caprice of one Town Sovereign is to be glorified by so many thousand tears (dim glance into

the past history of Landshut!). Such Town Sovereign persecutes innocence, stops his ears to its cry; flourishes

his sharp scourge; no one shall complain: for is it not justice? thinks such a Town Sovereign. The reason

is, He does not know himself, poor man; has had his eye always on the duties of his subjects towards him,

and rarely or never on his towards them. A Sovereign Mayor that governs by fear,he must live in continual

fear of every one, and of himself withal. A weak basis: and capable of total overturn in one day. On the

contrary, the love of your burgher subjects: that, if you can kindle it, will go on like a house on fire

(AUSBRUCH EINES FEURES), and streams of water won't put it out. ... "And [let us now take Spener's

very words] if a man keep the fear of God before his eyes, there will be no need for any other kind of fear.

"I will therefore, you especially Highhonored Gentlemen, study to direct all my judicial endeavors to the

honor of the great God, and to inviolable fidelity towards my most gracious King and Lord [Friedrich, by

"To the Citizens of this Town, from of old so dear to me, and now by Royal grace committed to my charge,

and therefore doubly and trebly to be held dear, I mean to devote myself altogether. I will, on every occasion

and occurrence, still more expressly than aforetime, stand by them; and when need is, not fail to bring their

case before the just Throne of our Anointed [Friedrich, by Decision of Providence]. Justice and fairness I will

endeavor, under whatever complexities, to make my loadstar. Yes, I shall and will, by means of this my

Office, equip myself with weapons whereby I may be capable to damp such humors (INTELLIGENTIEN),

should such still be (but I believe there are now none such), as may repugn against the Royal interest, with

possibility of being dangerous; and to put a bridle on mouths that are unruly. And, to say much in litlle

"Having now the honor and happiness to be put into Official friendship with those Gentlemen who, as

Burgermeisters, and as old and as new Members of Council, have for long years made themselves renowned

among us, I will entertain, in respect of the former [the old] a firm confidence That the zeal they have so

strongly manifested for behoof of the most serene Archducal House of Austria will henceforth burn in them

for our most Beloved Land's Prince whom God has now given us; that the fire of their lately plighted truth

and devotion, towards his Royal Majesty, shall shine not in words only, but in works, and be extinguished

only with their lives. [Can that be, O Spener or Speer? Are we alarmclocks, that need only to be wound up,

and told at what hour, and for whom?] God, who puts Kings in and casts them out, has given to us a no less

potent Sovereign than supremely loving Land'sFather, who, by the renown of his more than royal virtues,

had taken captive the hearts of his future subjects and children still sooner than even by his arms, familiar

otherwise to victory, he did the Land. And who shall be puissant and mighty enough, now to lead men's

minds in a contrary direction; to control the Most High Power, ruler over hearts and Lands, who had decreed

it should be so; and again to change this change? [Hear Spener: he has taken great pains with his Discourse,

"This change, Highhonored Gentlemen [of the Catholic persuasion], is also for you a not unhappy one. For

our now as pious as wise King will, especially in one most vital point, take pattern by the King of all Kings;

and means to be lord of his subjects only, not of the consciences of his subjects. He requires nothing from

you but what you are already bound by God, by conscience, and duty, to render: to wit, obedience and

inviolable unbroken fidelity. And by that, and without more asked than that, you will render yourselves

worthy of his protection, and become partakers of the Royal favor. Nay you will render yourselves all the

worthier in that high quarter, and the more meritorious towards our civic commonweal, the more you,

Highhonored Gentlemen [of the Catholic persuasion], accept, with all frankness of colleaguelove and

amity, me and the Evangelical brother Raths now introduced by Royal grace and power; and make the new

position generously tenable and available to us; and thereby bind with us the more firmly the band of

peace and colleagueunity, for helping up this dear, and for some years greatly fallen, Town along with us.

"We, for our poor part, will, one and all, strive only to surpass each other in obedience and faith to our Most

Gracious King. We will, as Regents of the Citizenry committed to us, go before them with a good example;

and prove to all and every one, That, little and in war untenable as our Landshut is, it shall, in extent and

impregnability of faith towards its Most Dearest Land'sPrince, approve itself unconquerable. As well I

as"Professes now, in the most intricate phraseology, that he, and Fischer and Umminger (giving not only

the titles, but a succinct history of all three, in a single sentence, before he comes to the verb!), bring a true

heart, would the reader perhaps like to see it IN NATURA, as a specimen of German humannature, and the

"As well I as [1.] The Titular Herr Johann David Fischer, distinguished trader and merchant of this Town,

who, by his tradings in and beyond our Silesian Countries, has made himself renowned, and by his merit and

address in particular instances [delicate instances known to Landshut, not to us] has made himself beloved,

who has now been installed as RathsSenior; and also as [2.] The Titular Herr Johann Caspar Ruffer,

wellrespected Citizen, and Revenueoffice Manager here, who for many years has with much fidelity and

vigilance managed the Revenueoffice, and who for his experience in the economic constitution of this Town

has been all graciously nominated RathsHerr;and not less [3.] The Titular Johann Jacob Umminger,

whilom Advocate at Law in Breslau, who, for his good studies in Law, and manifested skill in the practice of

Law, has been an allgraciously nominated Supernumerary Councillor and Notary'sAdjunct among

us:As well I as these Three not only assure you, Highhonored Gentlemen, of all imaginable estimation

and return of love on our part; but do likewise assure all and sundry these respectable Herren TownJurats

[specially present], representing here the universal wellbeloved Citizenry of our Town,that we bring a

heart sincere, and intent only on aiming at the welfare of a Citizenry so loveworthy. We have the firm

purpose by God's grace, so to order our walk, and so to conduct our government that we may, one day, when

summoned from our judgment seats to answer before the Universal Judgmentseat of Christ, be able to say,

with that pious King and Judge of Israel: 'Lord, thou knowest if we have walked uprightly before thee.' And

we hope to understand that the rewards of justice, in that Life, will be much more than those of injustice in

"We believe that the Most High will, in so far, bless these our honest purposes and wholesome endeavors, as

that the actual fruits thereof will in time coming, and when Peace now soon expected (which God grant) has

returned to us, be manifest; and that if, in our Office, as is common, we should rather have thorns of

persecution than roses of recompense to expect, yet to each of us there will at last accrue praise in the Earth

"Meanwhile we will unite all our wishes, That the Almighty may vouchsafe to his Royal Majesty, our now

Alldearest Duke and Land'sFather, many long years of life and of happy reign; and maintain this

Allhighest RoyalPrussian and ElectorBrandenburgic House in supremest splendor and prosperity,

undisturbed to the end of all Days; and along with it, our TownCouncil, and whole Merchantry and

Citizenry, safe under this Prussian Sceptre, in perpetual blessing, peace and unity [what a modest prayer!]: to

all which may Heaven speak its powerful Amen!" [ Helden Geschichte, ii. 416422.]

Whereupon solemn waving of hats; indistinct sough of loyal murmur from the universal Landshut

Population; after which, continued to the due extent, they return to their spindles and shuttles again.

We shall not dwell upon the movements of the French into Germany for the purpose of overwhelming

Austria, and setting up four subordinate little Sovereignties to take their orders from Louis XV. The plan was

of the mad sort, not recognized by Nature at all; the diplomacy was wide, expensive, grandiose, but vain and

baseless; nor did the soldiering that followed take permanent hold of men's memory. Human nature cannot

afford to follow out these loud inanities; and, at a certain distance of time, is bound to forget them, as

ephemera of no account in the general sum. Difficult to say what profit human nature could get out of such

transaction. There was no good soldiering on the part of the French except by gleams here and there; bad

Chapter VII. FRIEDRICH PURPOSES TO MEND THE KLEINSCHNELLENDORF FAILURE: FORTUNES OF THE BELLEISLE ARMAMENT. 725

soldiering for the most part, and the cause was radically bad. Let us be brief with it; try to snatch from it,

huge rotten heap of old exuviae and forgotten noises and deliriums, what fractions of perennial may turn up

Maillebois with his 40,000, we have seen how they got to Osnabruck, and effectually stilled the warfervor

of little George II.; sent him home, in fact, to England a checkmated man, he riding out of Osnabruck by one

gate, the French at the same moment marching in by the other. There lies Maillebois ever since; and will lie,

cantoned over Westphalia, "not nearer than three leagues to the boundary of Hanover," for a year and more.

There let Maillebois lie, till we see him called away elsewither, upon which the gallant little George,

checkmate being lifted, will get into notable military activity, and attempt to draw his sword again,

though without success, owing to the laggard Dutch. Which also, as British subjects, if not otherwise, the

readers of this Book will wish to see something of. Maillebois did not quite keep his stipulated distance of

"three leagues from the boundary" (being often short of victual), and was otherwise no good neighbor.

Among his FieldOfficers, there is visible (sometimes in trouble about quarters and the like) a Marquis du

Chatelet,who, I find, is Husband or ExHusband to the divine Emilie, if readers care to think of that!

[ Campagnes (i. 45, 193); and French PeerageBooks, ? DU CHATELAT.] Other known face, or point of

interest for or against, does not turn up in the Maillebois Operation in those parts.

As for the other still grander Army, Army of the Oriflamme as we have called it,which would be

Belleisle's, were not he so overwhelmed with embassying, and persuading the Powers of Germany, this,

since we last saw it, has struck into a new course, which it is essential to indicate. The major part of it (Four

rear Divisions! if readers recollect) lay at Ingolstadt, its place of arms; while the Vanward Three Divisions,

under Maurice Comte de Saxe, flowed onward, joining with Bavaria at Passau; down the Donau Country, to

Linz and farther, terrifying Vienna itself; and driving all the Court to Presburg, with (fabulous)

"MORIAMUR PRO REGE NOSTRO MARIA THERESIA," but with actual armament of Tolpatches,

Pandours, Warasdins, Uscocks and the like unsightly beings of a predatory centaur nature. Which fine

Hungarian Armament, and others still more ominous, have been diligently going on, while Karl Albert sat

enjoying his Homagings at Linz, his Pisgahviews Vienna ward; and asking himself, "Shall we venture

The question is intricate, and there are many secret biasings concerned in the solution of it. Friedrich, before

Klein Schnellendorf time, had written eagerly, had sent Schmettau with eager message, "Push forward; it is

feasible, even easy: cut the matter by the root!" This, they say, was Karl Albert's own notion, had not the

French overruled him;not willing, some guess, he should get Austria, and become too independent of them

all at once. Nay, it appears Karl Albert had inducements of his own towards Bohemia rather. The French have

had KurSachsen to manage withal; and there are interests in Bohemia of his and theirs,clippings of

Bohemia promised him as bribes, besides that "Kingdom of Moravia," to get his 21,000 set on march.

"Clippings of Bohemia? Interests of KurSachsen's in that Country?" asks Karl Albert with alarm: and thinks

it will be safer, were he himself present there, while Saxony and France do the clippings in question! Sure

enough, he did not push on. Belleisle, from the distance, strongly opined otherwise; Karl Albert himself had

jealous fears about Bohmen. Friedrich's importunities and urgencies were useless: and the one chance there

ever was for Karl Albert, for Belleisle and the Ruin of Austria, vanished without return.

Karl Albert has turned off, leftwards, towards his Bohemian Enterprises: French, Bavarians, Saxons, by their

several routes, since the last days of October, are all on march that way. We will mark an exact date here and

there, as fixed point for the reader's fancy. Poor Karl Albert, he had sat some six weeks at Linz,about three

weeks since that Homaging there (October 2d);imaginary Sovereign of Upper Austria; looking over to

Vienna and the Promised Land in general. And that fine Pisgahview was all he ever had of it. Of Austrian or

other Conquests earthly or heavenly, there came none to him in this Adventure;mere MINUS quantities

they all proved. For a few weeks more, there are, blended with awful portents, an imaginary gleam or two in

other quarters; after which, nothing but black horror and disgrace, deepening downwards into utter darkness,

Chapter VII. FRIEDRICH PURPOSES TO MEND THE KLEINSCHNELLENDORF FAILURE: FORTUNES OF THE BELLEISLE ARMAMENT. 726

for the poor man. Belleisle is an imaginary Sungod; but the poor Icarus, tempted aloft in that manner into

the earnest elements, and melting at once into quills and rags, is a tragic reality!Let us to our dates:

"OCTOBER 24th, The Bavarian Troops, who had lain at Mautern on the Donau some time, forty miles from

Vienna and the Promised Land, got under way again;not FORWARD, but sharp to left, or northward,

towards the Bohemian parts. Thither all the Belleisle Armaments are now bound; and a general rallying of

them is to be at Prag; for conquest of that Country, as more inviting than Austria at present. Comte de Saxe,

who had lain at St. Polten, a march to southward of Mautern, he with the Vanward of the great Belleisle

Army, bestirred himself at the same time; and followed steadily (Karl Albert in person was with Saxe), at a

handy distance by parallel roads. To Prag may be about 200 miles. Across the Mannhartsberg Country, clear

out of Austria, into Bohmen, towards Prag. At Budweis, or between that and Tabor, Towns of our old friend

Zisca's, of which we shall hear farther in these Wars; Towns important by their intricate environment of rock

and bog, far up among the springs of the Moldau,there can these Bavarians, and this French Vanward of

Belleisle, halt a little, till the other parties, who are likewise on march, get within distance.

For in these same days, as hinted above, the Rearward of the Belleisle Army (Four Divisions, strength not

accurately given) pushes forward from Donauworth, well rested, through the Bavarian Passes, towards

Bohemia and Prag: these have a longer march (say 250 miles)? to northeast; and the leader of them is one

Polastron, destined unhappily to meet us on a future occasion. With them go certain other Bavarians;

accompanying or preceding, as in the Vanward case. And then the Saxons (21,000 strong, a fine little Army,

all that Saxony has) are, at the same time, come across the Metal Mountains (ERZGEBIRGE), in quest of

those Bohemian clippings, of that Kingdom of Moravia: and march from the westward upon Prag,

Rutowsky leading them. Comte de Rutowsky, Comte de Saxe's Half Brother, one of the Three Hundred

and Fiftyfour:with whom is CHEVALIER de Saxe, a second younger ditto; and I think there is still a

third, who shall go unnamed. In this grand Oriflamme Expedition, Four of the RoyalSaxon Bastards

Chief General of these Saxons, says an Authentic Author, is Rutowsky; got from a Polish mother, I should

guess: he commands in chief here;once had a regiment under Friedrich Wilhelm, for a while; but has not

much head for strategy, it may be feared. But mark that Fourth individual of the Three Hundred and Fifty

four, who has a great deal. Fourth individual, called Comte de Saxe, who is now in that French Vanward a

good way to east, was (must I again remind you!) the produce of the fair Aurora von Konigsmark, Sister of

the Konigsmark who vanished instantaneously from the light of day at Hanover long since, and has never

reappeared more. It was in search of him that Aurora, who was indeed a shining creature (terribly insolvent

all her life, whose charms even Charles XII. durst not front), came to Dresden; and, in this Comte de Saxe,

men see the result. Tall enough, restless enough; most eupeptic, brisk, with a great deal of wild faculty,

running to waste, nearly all. There, with his black arched eyebrows, black swift physically smiling eyes,

stands Monseigneur le Comte, one of the strongestbodied and most dissoluteminded men now living on

our Planet. He is now turned of forty: no man has been in such adventures, has swum through such seas of

transcendent eupepticity determined to have its fill. In this new Quasisacred French Enterprise, under the

Banner of Belleisle and the Chateauroux, he has at last, after many trials, unconsciously found his

culmination: and will do exploits of a wonderful nature,very worthy of said Banner and its patrons.

"Here, then, are Three streams or Armaments pouring forward upon Prag; perhaps some 60,000 men in

all:a good deal uncertain what they are to do at Prag, except arrive simultaneously so far as possible.

Belleisle, far off, has fallen sick in these critical days. Comte de Saxe cannot see his way in the matter at all:

'What are we to live upon,' asks Comte de Saxe, 'were there nothing more!'For, simultaneously with these

Three Armaments on march, there is an important Austrian one, likewise on the road for Prag: that of

GrandDuke Franz, who has left Presburg, with say 30,000 (including the Pandour element); and duly meets

the Neipperg, or late Silesian Army;well capable, now, to do a stroke upon the Three Armaments, if he be

speedy? 'November 7th' it was when Grand Duke Franz picked up Neipperg, 'at Frating' deep in Moravia

Chapter VII. FRIEDRICH PURPOSES TO MEND THE KLEINSCHNELLENDORF FAILURE: FORTUNES OF THE BELLEISLE ARMAMENT. 727

(November 7th, the very day while Friedrich was getting homaged in Breslau), and turned him

northwestward again. The GrandDuke, in such strength, marches Ragward what he can; might be there

before the French, were he swift; and is at any rate in disagreeable proximity to that BudmeisTabor

And Belleisle, in these critical days, isconsider it!"Poor Belleisle, he has all the Election Votes ready; he

has done unspeakable labors in the diplomatic way; and leaves Europe in ebullition and conflagration behind

him. He has all these Armies in motion, and has got rid of 'that Moravia,'given it to Saxony, who adds the

title 'King of Moravia' to his other dignities, and has set on march those 21,000 men. 'Would he were ready

with them!' Belleisle had been saying, ever since the Treaty for them,Treaty was, September 19th.

Belleisle, to expedite him, came to Dresden [what day is not said, but deep in October]; intending next for the

Prag Country, there to commence General, the diplomacies being satisfactorily done. Valori ran over from

Berlin to wait upon him there. Alas, the Saxons are on march, or nearly so; but the great man himself, worn

down with these Herculean labors, has fallen into rheumatic fever; is in bed, out at Hubertsburg (serene

Country Palace of his Moravian Polish Majesty); and cannot get the least well, to march in person with the

Three Armaments, with the flood of things he has set reeling and whirling at such rate.

"The sympathies of Valori go deep at this spectacle. The Alcides, who was carrying the axis of the world,

fallen down in physical rheumatism! But what can sympathies avail? The great man sees the Saxons march

without him. The great man, getting no alleviation from physicians, determines, in his patriotic heroism, to

surrender glory itself; writes home to Court, 'That he is lamed, disabled utterly; that they must nominate

another General.' And they nominate another; nominate Broglio, the fat choleric Marshal, of Italian breed and

physiognomy, whom we saw at Strasburg last year, when Friedrich was there. Broglio will quit Strasburg too

soon, and come. A man fierce in fighting, skilled too in tactics; totally incompetent in strategy, or the art of

LEADING armies, and managing campaigns;defective in intelligence indeed, not wise to discern; dim of

vision, violent of temper; subject to sudden cranks, a headlong, very positive, loud, dull and angry kind of

man; with whose tumultuous imbecilities the great Belleisle will be sore tried by and by. 'I reckon this,'

Valori says, 'the root of all our woes;' this Letter which the great Belleisle wrote home to Court. Let men

mark it, therefore, as a cardinal point,and snatch out the date, when they have opportunity upon the

"Monseigneur the Comte de Saxe, before quitting the Vienna Countries, had left some 10,000 French and

Bavarians, posted chiefly in Linz, under a Comte de Segur, to maintain those Donau Conquests, which have

cost only the trouble of marching into them. Count Khevenhuller has ceased working at the ramparts of

Vienna, nothing of siege to be apprehended now, civic terror joyfully vanishing again; and busies himself

collecting an Army at Vienna, with intent of looking into those same French Segurs, before long. It is

"NOVEMBER 19th21st, The Three Belleisle Armaments, Karl Albert's first, have, simultaneously enough

for the case, arrived on three sides of Prag; and lie looking into it,extremely uncertain what to do when

there. To Comte de Saxe, to Schmettau, who is still here, the outlook of this grand Belleisle Army, standing

shelterless, provisionless, grim winter at hand, long hundreds of miles from home or help, is in the highest

degree questionable, though the others seem to make little of it: 'Fight the GrandDuke when he comes,' say

they; 'beat him, and' 'Or suppose, he won't fight? Or suppose, we are beaten by him?' answer Saxe and

Schmettau, like men of knowledge, in the same boat with men of none. (We have no strong place, or footing

in this Country: what are we to do? Take Prag!' advises Comte de Saxe, with earnestness, day after day. [His

Letters on it to Karl Albert and others (in Espagnac, i. 9499).] 'Take Prag: but how?' answer they. 'By

escalade, by surprise, and sword in hand, answers he: 'Ogilvy their General has but 3,000, and is perhaps no

wizard at his trade: we can do it, thus and thus, and then farther thus; and I perceive we are a lost Army if we

don't!' So counsels Maurice Comte de Saxe, brilliant, fervent in his military views;and, before it is quite

too late, Schmettau and he persuade Karl Albert, persuade Rutowsky chief of the Saxons; and Count

Chapter VII. FRIEDRICH PURPOSES TO MEND THE KLEINSCHNELLENDORF FAILURE: FORTUNES OF THE BELLEISLE ARMAMENT. 728

Polastron, Gaisson or whatever subaltern Counts there are, of French type, have to accede, and be saved in

"SATURDAY NIGHT, 25th NOVEMBER, 1741, brightest of moonshiny nights, our dispositions are all

made: Several attacks, three if I remember; one of them false, under some Polastron, Gaisson, from the south

side; a couple of them true, from the northwest and the southeast sides, under Maurice with his French, and

Rutowsky with his Saxons, these two. And there is great marching 'on the side of the KarlThor

(CharlesGate),' where Rutowsky is; and by Count Maurice 'behind the Wischerad;'and shortly after

midnight the grand game begins. That FrenchPolastron attack, false, though with dreadful cannonade from

the south, attracts poor Ogilvy with almost all his forces to that quarter; while the couple of Saxon Captains

(Rutowsky not at once successful, Maurice with his French completely so) break in upon Ogilvy from

rearward, on the right flank and on the left; and ruin the poor man. Military readers will find the whole detail

of it well given in Espagnac. Looser account is to be had in the Book they call Mauvillon's." [ Derniere

Guerre de Boheme, i. 252264. Saxe's own Account (Letter to Chevalier de Folard) is in Espagnac, i. 89 et

One thing I remember always: the bright moonlight; steeples of Prag towering serene in silvery silence, and

on a sudden the wreaths of volcanic fire breaking out all round them. The opposition was but trifling, null in

some places, poor Ogilvy being nothing of a wizard, and his garrison very small. It fell chiefly on Rutowsky;

who met it with creditable vigor, till relieved by the others. Comte Maurice, too, did a shifty thing. Circling

round by the outside of the Wischerad, by rural roads in the bright moonshine, he had got to the Wall at last,

hollow slope and sheer wall; and was puttingto his scalingladders,when, by ill luck, they proved too

short! Ten feet or so; hopelessly too short. Casting his head round, Maurice notices the Gallows hard by:

"There, see you, are a few short ladders: MES ENFANS, bring me these, and we will splice with rope!"

Supplemented by the gallows, Maurice soon gets in, cuts down the one poor sentry; rushes to the

Marketplace, finds all his Brothers rushing, embraces them with "VICTOIRE!" and "You see I am eldest;

"No point in all the War made a finer blaze in the French imagination, or figured better in the French

gazettes, than this of the Scalade of Prag, 25th November, 1741. And surely it was important to get hold of

Prag; nevertheless, intrinsically it is no great thing, but an opportune small thing, done by the Comte de Saxe,

It was while news of this exploit was posting towards Berlin, but not yet arrived there, that Friedrich, passing

through the apartment, intimated to Hyndford, "Milord, all is divulged, our KleinSchnellendorf mystery

public as the housetops;" and vanished with a shrug of the shoulders,thinking doubtless to himself, "What

is OUR next move to be, in consequence?" Treaty with Kur Baiern (November 4th) he had already signed in

consequence, expressly declaring for KurBaiern, and the French intentions towards him. This news from

PragPrag handsomely captured, if Vienna had been foolishly neglectedput him upon a new Adventure,

GrandDuke Franz, with that respectable amount of Army under him, ought surely to have advanced on

Prag, and done some stroke of war for relief of it, while time yet was. GrandDuke Franz, his Brother Karl

with him and his old Tutor Neipperg, both of whom are thought to have some skill in war, did advance

accordingly. But then withal there was risk at Prag; and he always paused again, and waited to consider.

From Frating, on the 16th, [Espagnac, i. 87.] he had got to Neuhaus, quite across Mahren into Bohemian

ground, and there joined with Lobkowitz and what Bohemian force there was; by this time an Army which

you would have called much stronger than the French. Forward, therefore! Yes; but with pauses, with

considerations. Pause of two days at Neuhaus; thence to Tabor (famed Zisca's Tabor), a safe post, where

Chapter VII. FRIEDRICH PURPOSES TO MEND THE KLEINSCHNELLENDORF FAILURE: FORTUNES OF THE BELLEISLE ARMAMENT. 729

again pause three days. From Tabor is broad highway to Prag, only sixty miles off now: screwing their

resolution to the stickingpoint, GrandDuke and Consorts advance at length with fixed determination, all

Friday, all Saturday (November 24th, 25th), part of Sunday too, not thinking it shall be only PART; and their

light troops are almost within sight of Prag, whenthey learn that Prag is scaladed the night before, and

quite settled; that there is nothing except destruction to be looked for in Prag! Back again, therefore, to the

TaborandBudweis land. They strike into that boggy broken country about Budweis, some 120 miles south

GrandDuke Franz had seen war, under Seckendorf, under Wallis and otherwise, in the disastrous Turk

Countries; but, though willing enough, was never much of a soldier: as to Neipperg, among his own men

especially, the one cry is, He ought to go about his business out of Austrian Armies, as an imbecile and even

a traitor. "Is it conceivable that Friedrich could have beaten us, in that manner, except by buying Neipperg in

the first place? Neipperg and the generality of them, in that luckless Silesian Business? Glogau scaladed with

the loss of half a dozen men; Brieg gone within a week; Neisse ditto: and Mollwitz, above all, where, in spite

of Romer and such Horsecharging as was never seen, we had to melt, dissolve, and roll away in the glitter

of the evening sun.!" The common notion is, they are traitors, partialtraitors, one and all. [ Guerre de

Boheme, saepius.] Poor Neipperg he has seen hard service, had ugly work to do: it was he that gave away

Belgrade to the Turks (so interpreting his orders), and the Grand Vizier, calling him Dog of a Giaour: spat in

his face, not far from hanging him; and the Kaiser and Vienna people, on his coming home, threw him into

prison, and were near cutting off his head. And again, after such sleety marchings through the Mountains, he

has had to dissolve at Mollwitz; float away in military deluge in the manner we saw. And now, next winter,

here is he lodged among the upland bogs at Budweis, escorted by mere curses. What a life is the soldier's,

like other men's; what a master is the world! Aulic Cabinet is not allwise; but may readily be wiser than the

vulgar, and, with a Maria Theresa at his head, it is incapable of truculent impiety like that. Neipperg, guilty of

not being a Eugene, is not hanged as a traitor; but placed quietly as Commandant in Luxemburg, spends there

the afternoon of his life, in a more commodious manner. Friedrich had, of late, rather admired his movements

The French, now with Prag for their place of arms, stretched themselves as far as Pisek, some seventy miles

southwestward; occupied Pisek, Pilsen and other Towns and posts, on the southwest side, some seventy miles

from Prag; looking towards the Bavarian Passes and homeward succors that might come: the Saxons, a while

after, got as far as Teutschbrod, eighty miles on the southeastward or Moravian hand. Behind these outposts,

Prag may be considered to hang on Silesia, and have Friedrich for security. This, in front or as forecourt of

Friedrich's Silesia, this inconsiderable section, was all of Bohemian Country the French and Confederates

ever held, and they did not hold this long. As for Karl Albert, he had his new pleasant Dream of Sovereignty

at Prag; Titular of Upper Austria, and now of Bohmen as well; and enjoyed his Feast of the Barmecide, and

glorious repose in the captured Metropolis, after difficulty overcome. December 7th, he was homaged (a

good few of the Nobility attending, for which they smarted afterwards), with much processioning, blaring and

TEDEUMing: on the 19th he rolled off, home to Munchen; there to await still higher RomishImperial

A day or two after the Capture of Prag, Marechal de Belleisle, partially cured of his rheumatisms, had

hastened to appear in that City; and for above four weeks he continued there, settling, arranging, ordering all

things, in the most consummate manner, with that fine military head of his. About Christmas time, arrived

Marechal de Broglio, his unfortunate successor or substitute; to whom he made everything over; and hastened

off for Frankfurt, where the final crisis of KAISERWAHL is now at hand, and the topstone of his work is to

be brought out with shouting. Marechal de Broglio had an unquiet Winter of it in his new command; and did

Chapter VII. FRIEDRICH PURPOSES TO MEND THE KLEINSCHNELLENDORF FAILURE: FORTUNES OF THE BELLEISLE ARMAMENT. 730

GrandDuke Franz edged himself at last a little out of that Tabor Budweis region, and began looking

Pragward again;hung about, for some time, with his Hungarian lighttroops scouring the country; but

still keeping Prag respectfully to right, at seventy miles distance. December 28th, to Broglio's alarm, he tried

a night attack on Pisek, the chief French outpost, which lies Franceward too, and might be vital. But he

found the French (Broglio having got warning) unexpectedly ready for him at Pisek,drawn up in the dark

streets there, with torrents of musketry ready for his Pandours and him;and entirely failed of Pisek. Upon

which he turned eastward to the BudweisTabor fastnesses again; left Brother Karl as Commander in those

parts (who soon leaves Lobkowitz as Substitute, Vienna in the idle wintertime being preferable); left

Brother Karl, and proceeded in person, south, towards the Donau Countries, to see how Khevenhuller might

Of Pisek and the nightskirmish at Pisek, glorious to France, think all the Gazettes, I should have said

nothing, were it not that Marechal Broglio, finding what a narrow miss he had made, established a

nightwatch there, or bivouac, for six weeks to come; such as never was before or since: Cavalry and

Infantry, in quantity, bivouacking there, in the environs of Pisek, on the grim Bohemian snow or snowslush,

in the depth of winter, nightly for six weeks, without whisper of an enemy at any time; whereby the Marechal

did save Pisek (if Pisek was ever again in danger), but froze horse and man to the edge of destruction or into

it; so that the "Bivouac of Pisek" became proverbial in French Messrooms, for a generation coming. [ Guerre

de Boheme, ii. 23, And one hears in the mind a clangorous nasal eloquence from antique gesticulative

mustachiofigures, witty and indignant,who are now gone to silence again, and their fruitless bivouacs,

and frosty and fiery toils, tumbling pellmell after them. This of Pisek was but one of the many unwise

hysterical things poor Broglio did, in that difficult position; which, indeed, was too difficult for any mortal,

One other thing we note: Graf von Khevenhuller, solid Austrian man, issued from Vienna, December 31st,

last day of the Year, with an Army of only some 15,000, but with an excellent military head of his own, to

look into those Conquests on the Donau. Which he finds, as he expected, to be mere conquests of stubble,

capable of being swept home again at a very rapid rate. "Khevenhuller, here as always, was consummate in

his choice of posts," says Lloyd; [General Lloyd, History of SevenYears War, (incidentally,

somewhere).]discovered where the ARTERIES of the business lay, and how to handle the same. By choice

of posts, by silent energy and military skill, Khevenhuller very rapidly sweeps Segur back; and shuts him up

in Linz. There Segur, since the first days of January, is strenuously barricading himself; "wedging beams

from house to house, across the streets;"and hopes to get provision, the Donau and the Bavarian streams

being still open behind him; and to hold out a little. It will be better if he do,especially for poor Karl Albert

and his poor Bavaria! Khevenhuller has also detached through the Tyrol a General von Barenklau

(BEAR'SCLAW, much heard of henceforth in these Wars), who has 12,000 regulars; and much Hussarfolk

under bloody Mentzel:across the Tyrol, we say; to fall in upon Bavaria and Munchen itself; which they are

too like doing with effect. Ought not Karl Albert to be upon the road again? What a thing, were the Kaiser

In fine, within a short two weeks or so, Karl Albert quits Munchen, as no safe place for him; comes across to

Mannheim to his Cousin Philip, old KurPfalz, whom we used to know, now extremely old, but who has

marriages of Granddaughters, and other gayeties, on hand; which a Cousin and prospective

Kaiserespecially if in peril of his lifemight as well come and witness. This is the excuse Karl Albert

makes to an indulgent Public; and would fain make to himself, but cannot. Barenklau and Khevenhuller are

too indisputable. Nay this rumor of Friedrich's "Peace with Austria," divulged Bargain of

KleinSchnellendorf, if this also (horrible to think) were true! Which Friedrich assures him it is not. Karl

Albert writes to Friedrich, and again writes; conjuring him, for the love of God, To make some thrust, then,

some inroad or other, on those mandevouring Khevenhullers; and take them from his, Karl Albert's, throat

and his poor Country's. Which Friedrich, on his own score, is already purposing to do.

Chapter VII. FRIEDRICH PURPOSES TO MEND THE KLEINSCHNELLENDORF FAILURE: FORTUNES OF THE BELLEISLE ARMAMENT. 731

The Austrian Court had not kept Friedrich's secret of Klein Schnellendorf, hardly even for a day. It was

whispered to the Dowager Empress, or Empresses; who whispered it, or wrote it, to some other high party; by

whom again as usual:in fact, the Austrian Court, having once got their Neipperg safe to hand, took no

pains to keep the secret; but had probably an interest rather in letting it filter out, to set Friedrich and his

Allies at variance. At all events, in the space of a few weeks, as we have seen, the rumor of a Treaty between

Austria and Friedrich was everywhere rife; Friedrich, as he had engaged, everywhere denying it, and indeed

clearly perceiving that there was like to be no ground for acknowledging it. The Austrian Court, instead of

"completing the Treaty before Newyear'sday," had broken the previous bargain; evidently not meaning to

complete; intent rather to wait upon their Hungarian Insurrection, and the luck of War.

There is now, therefore, a new turn in the game. And for this also Friedrich has been getting the fit card

ready; and is not slow to play it. Some time ago, November 4th,properly November 1st, hardly three

weeks since that of KleinSchnellendorf,finding the secret already out ("whispered of at Breslau, 28th

October," casually testifies Hyndford), he had tightened his bands with France; had, on November 4th,

formally acceded to Karl Albert's Treaty with France. [Accession agreed to, "Frankfurt, Nov. 1st," 1741;

ratified "Nov. 4th."] Glatz to be his: he will not hear of wanting Glatz; nor of wanting elsewhere the proper

Boundary for Schlesien, "Neisse River both banks" (which Neipperg had agreed to, in his late

And furthermore, KurSachsen being now a Partner in that French Bavarian Treaty,and a highly active

one (with 21,000 in the field for him), who is "King of Moravia" withal, and has some considerable northern

Paring of Bohemia thrown in, by way of "Road to Moravia,"Friedrich made, at the same time, special

Treaty with KurSachsen, on the points specially mutual to them; on the Boundary point, first of all. Which

Treaty otherwise not worth reading; except perhaps as it shows us Friedrich putting, in his brief direct way,

KurSachsen at once into Austria's place, in regard to OberSchlesien. "Boundary between your Polish

Majesty and me to be the River Neisse PLUS a full German mile;"which (to Belleisle's surprise) the Polish

Majesty is willing to accept; and consents, farther, Friedrich being of succinct turn, That Commissioners go

directly and put down the boundarystones, and so an end. "Let the Silesian matter stand where it stood,"

thinks Friedrich: "since Austria will not, will you? Put down the boundarypillars, then!"an interesting

little glance into Friedrich's inner man. And a Prussian Boundary Commissioner, our friend Nussler the man,

did duly appear;whom perhaps we shall meet,though no Saxon one quite did. [Busching, Beitrage, i.

339 (? NUSSLER).] It is this boundary clause, it is Friedrich's little decision, "Put down the pillars, then,"

that alone can now interest any mortal in this Saxon Bargain; the clause itself, and the bargain itself, having

quite broken down on the Saxon side, and proved imaginary as a covenant made in dreams. Could not be

Meanwhile, the preliminary diplomacies being done in this manner, Friedrich had ordered certain of his own

Forces to get in motion a little; ordered Leopold, who has had endless nicety of management, since the

French and Saxons came into those Bohemian Circles of his, to go upon Glatz; to lay fast hold of Glatz, for

one thing. And farther eastward, Schwerin, by order, has lately gone across the Mountains; seized Troppau,

Friedenthal; nay Olmutz itself, the Capital of Mahren,in one day (December 27th), garrison of Olmutz

being too weak to resist, and the works in disrepair. "In Heaven's name, what are your intentions, then?"

asked the Austrians there. "Peaceable in the extreme," answered Schwerin, "if only yours are. And if they are

NOT!" There sits Schwerin ever since, busy strengthening himself, and maintains the best discipline;

"The Austrians will not complete their bargain of Klein Schnellendorf?" thinks this young King; "Very

well; we will not press them to completion. We will not ourselves complete, should they now press. We will

try another method, and that without loss of time."It was a pungent reflection with Friedrich that Karl

Albert had not pushed forward on Vienna, from Linz that time, but had blindly turned off to the left, and

thrown away his one chance. "Cannot one still mend it; cannot one still do something of the like?" thinks

Friedrich now: "Schwerin in Olmutz; Prussian Troops cantoned in the Highlands of Silesia, or over in

Bohemia itself, near the scene of action; the Saxons eastward as far as Teutschbrod, still nearer; the French

triumphant at Prag, and reinforcement on the road for them: a combined movement on Vienna, done instantly

and with an impetus!" That is the thing Friedrich is now bent upon; nor will he, like Karl Albert, be apt to

At Berlin, accordingly, he has been hurrying on his work, inspection, preparation of many kinds,Marriage

of his Brother August Wilhelm, for one business; [6th January, 1742 (in Bielfeld, ii. 5569, exuberant

account of the Ceremony, and of B.'s part in it).]and (Jannary 18th), after a stay of two months, is off

fieldward again, on this new project. To Dresden, first of all; Saxony being an essential element; and Valori

being appointed to meet him there on the French side. It is January 20th, 1742, when Friedrich arrives; due

Opera festivities, "triple salute of all the guns," fail not at Dresden; but his object was not these at all. Polish

Majesty is here, and certain of the warlike Bastard Brothers home from Winterquarters, Comte de Saxe for

one; Valori also, punctually as due; and little Graf von Bruhl, highestdressed of human creatures, who is

"Your Polish Majesty, by treaty and title you are King of Moravia withal: now is the time, now or never, to

become so in fact! Forward with your Saxons:" urges Friedrich: "The Austrians and their Lobkowitz are

weak in that Country: at Iglau, just over the Moravian border, they have formed a Magazine; seize that,

snatch it from Lobkowitz: that gives us footing and basis there. Forward with your Saxons; Valori gives us

somany French; I myself will join with 20,000: swift, steady, all at once; we can seize Moravia, who knows

if not Vienna itself, and for certain drive a stroke right home into the very bowels of the Enemy!" That is

Friedrich's theme from the first hour of his arrival, and during all the fourand twenty that he stayed.

In one hour, Polish Majesty, who is fonder of tobacco and pastimes than of business, declared himself

convinced;and declared also that the time of Opera was come; whither the two Majesties had to proceed

together, and suspend business for a while. Polish Majesty himself was very easily satisfied; but with the

others, as Valori reports it, the argument was various, long and difficult. "Winter time; so dangerous, so

precarious," answer Bruhl and Comte de Saxe: There is this danger, this uncertainty, and then that

other;which the King and Valori, with all their eloquence, confute. "Impossible, for want of victual,"

answers Maurice at last, driven into a corner: "Iglau, suppose we get it, will soon be eaten; then where is our

provision?""Provision?" answers Valori: "There is M. de Sechelles, Head of our Commissariat in Prag;

such a Commissary never was before." "And you consent, if I take that in hand?" urges Friedrich upon them.

They are obliged to consent, on that proviso. Friedrich undertakes Sechelles: the Enterprise cannot now be

refused. [ OEuvres de Frederic, ii. 170; Valori, i. 139; "Alert, then; not a moment to be lost! Goodnight;

AU REVOIR, my noble friends!"and tomorrow many hours before daybreak, Friedrich is off for Prag,

At Prag he renews acquaintance with his old maladroit Strasburg friend, Marechal de Broglio, not with

increase of admiration, as would seem; declines the demonstrations and civilities of Broglio, business being

urgent: finds M. de Sechelles to be in truth the supreme of living Commissaries (ready, in words which

Friedrich calls golden, "to make the impossible possible"): "Only march, then, noble Saxons: swift!"and

dashes off again, next morning, to northeastward, through Leopold's Bohemian cantonments, Glatzward by

degrees, to be ready with his own share of the affair; no delay in him, for one. January 24th, after Konigsgratz

and other Prussian posts,January 24th, which is elsewhere so notable a day,his route goes northeast, to

Glatz, a hundred miles away, among the intricacies of the Giant Mountains, hither side of the Silesian

Highlands; wild route for winter season, if the young King feared any route. From Berlin, hither and farther,

he may have gone well nigh his seven hundred miles within the week; rushing on continually (starts, at say

four in the winter morning); doing endless business, of the ordering sort, as he speeds along.

Glatz, a southwestern mountainous Appendage to Silesia, abutting on Moravia and Bohemia, is a small

strong Country; upon which, ever since the first Friedrich times, we have seen him fixed; claiming it too, as

expenses from the Austrians, since they will not bargain. For he rises Sibyllike: a year ago, you might have

had him with his 100,000 to boot, for the one Duchy of Glogau; and now! At Glatz or in these adjacent

Bohemian parts, the Young Dessauer has been on duty, busy enough, ever since the late Siege of Neisse:

Glatz Town the Young Dessauer soon got, when ordered; Town, Population, Territory, all is his,all but the

high mountain Fortress (centre of the Town of Glatzj, with its stiffnecked Austrian Garrison shut up there,

which he is wearing out by hunger. We remember the little Note from Valori's waistcoatpocket, "Don't give

him Glatz, if you can possibly help it!" In his latest treaties with the French and their Allies, Friedrich has

very expressly bargained for the Country (will even pay money for it); [ OEuvres de Frederic, ii. 85.] and is

determined to have it, when the Austrians next take to bargaining. Of Glatz Fortress, now getting hungered

out by Leopold's Prussian Detachment, I will say farther, though Friedrich heeds these circumstances little at

present, that it stands on a scarped rock, girt by the grim intricate Hills; and that in the Arsenal, in dusty

fabulous condition, lies a certain Drum, which readers may have heard of. Drum is not a fable, but an antique

reality fallen flaccid; made, by express bequest, as is mythically said, from the skin of Zisca, above 300 years

ago: altogether mythic that latter clause. Drum, Fortress, Town, Villages and Territory, all shall be

Friedrich's, had hunger done its work. [Town already, after short scuffle, 14th January, 1742; Fortress, by

hunger (no firing nor being fired on, in the interim), 25th April following,when the once 2,000 of garrison,

worn to about 200, pale as shadows, marched away to Brunn; "only ten of them able for duty on arriving."

Friedrich, while at Glatz this time, gave a new Dress to the Virgin, say all the Biographers; of which the story

is this. Holy Virgin stood in the main Convent of Glatz, in rather a threadbare condition, when the Prussians

first approached; the Jesuits, and ardently Orthodox of both sexes, flagitating Heaven and her with their

prayers, that she would vouchsafe to keep the Prussians out. In which case pious Madame Something, wife of

the Austrian Commandant, vowed her a new suit of clothes. Holy Virgin did not vouchsafe; on the Contrary,

here the Prussians are, and Starvation with them. "Courage, nevertheless, my new friends!" intimates

Friedrich: "The Prussians are not bugaboos, as you imagined: Holy Virgin shall have a new coat, all the

same!" and was at the expense of the bit of broadcloth with trimmings. He was in the way of making such

investments, in his light sceptical humor; and found them answer to him. At Glatz, and through those

Bohemian and Silesian Cantonments, he sets his people in motion for the Moravian Expedition; rapidly stirs

up the due Prussian detachments from their Christmas rest among the Mountains; and has work enough in

these regions, now here now there. Schwerin is already in Olmutz, for a month past; and towards him, or his

January 26th, Friedrich, now with considerable retinue about him, gets from Glatz to Landskron, some fifty

miles Olmutzward; such a march as General Stille never saw,"through the ice and through the snow,

which covered that dreadful Chain of Mountains between Bohmen and Mahren: we did not arrive till very

late; many of our carriages broken down, and others overturned more than once." [Stille (Anonymous,

Friedrich's OldTutor Stille), Campagnes du Roi de Prusse (English Translation, 12mo, London, 1763), p. 5.

An intelligent, desirable little Volume,many misprints in the English form of it.] At Landskron next day,

Friedrich, as appointed, met the Chevalier de Saxe (CHEVALIER, by no means Comte, but a younger

Bastard, General of the Saxon Horse); and endeavored to concert everything: Prussian rendezvous to be at

Wischau, on the 5th next; thence straightway to meet the Saxons at Trebitsch (convenient for that Iglau),if

January 28th, past midnight, after another sore march, Friedrich arrived at Olmutz; a pretty Town,with an

excellent old Bishop, "a Graf von Lichtenstein, a little gouty man about fiftytwo years of age, with a

countenance open and full of candor; [Stille, p. 8.] in whose fine Palace, most courteously welcomed, the

King lodged till near the day of rendezvousing. We will leave him there, and look westward a little; before

going farther into the Moravian Expedition. Friedrich himself is evidently much bent on this Expedition; has

set his heart on paying the Austrians for their trickery at KleinSchnellendorf, in this handsome way, and still

picking up the chance against them which Karl Albert squandered. If only the French and Saxons would go

well abreast with Friedrich, and thrust home! But will they? Here is a surprising bit of news; not of good

"LINZ, 24th JANUARY, 1742 [day otherwise remarkable]. After the much barricading, and considerable

defiance and bravadoing, by Comte de Segur and his 10,000, he has lost this City in a scandalous manner [not

quite scandalous, but reckoned so by outside observers]; and Linz City is not now Segur's, but

Khevenhuller's. To Khevenhuller's first summons M. de Segur had answered, 'I will hang on the highest

gallows the next man that comes to propose such a thing!'and within a week [Khevenhuller having seized

the Donau River to rear of Linz, and blasted off the Bavarian party there], M. de Segur did himself propose it

('Free withdrawal: Not serve against you for a year'); and is this day beginning to march out of Linz."

[ Campagnes des Trois Marechaux, iii. 280, Adelung, iii. A, p. 12, and p. 15 (a Paris streetsong on it).] Here

is an example of defending KeyPositions! If Segur's be the pattern followed, those Conquests on the Donau

are like to go a fine road! There came to Friedrich, in all privacy, during his stay in Olmutz at this

Bishop's, a Diplomatic emissary from Vienna, one Pfitzner; charged with apologies, with important offers

probably;important; but not important enough. Friedrich blames himself for being too abrupt on the man;

might perhaps have learned something from him by softer treatment. [ OEuvres de Frederic, ii. 109.] After

three days, Pfitzner had to go his ways again, having accomplished nothing of change upon Friedrich.

On the day when Friedrich, overhung by the grim winter Mountains, was approaching Glatz, same day when

Segur was evacuating Linz on those sad terms, that is, on the 24th day of January, 1742,two Gentlemen

were galloping their best in the FrankfurtMannheim regions; bearing what they reckoned glad tidings

towards Mannheim and Karl Albert; who is there "on a visit" (for good reasons), after his triumphs at Prag

and elsewhere. The hindmost of the two Gentlemen is an Official of rank (little conscious that he is preceded

by a rival in messagebearing); Official Gentleman, despatched by the Diet of Frankfurt to inform Karl

Albert, That he now is actually Kaiser of the Holy Romish Empire; votes, by aid of Heaven and Belleisle,

having all fallen in his favor. Gallop, therefore, my Official Gentleman:alas, another Gentleman,

Nonofficial, knowing how it would turn, already sat booted and saddled, a good space beyond the walls of

Frankfurt, waiting till the cannon should fire; at the first burst of cannon, he (cunning dog) gives his horse the

spur; and is miles ahead of the toiling Official Gentleman, all the way. [Adelung, iii. A, 52.]

In the dreary mass of longwinded ceremonial nothingnesses, and intricate Belleisle cobwebberies, we seize

this one poor speck of human foolery in the native state, as almost the memorablest in that stupendous

business. Stupendous indeed; with which all Germany has been in travail these sixteen months, on such

terms! And in verity has got the thing called "German Kaiser" constituted, better or worse. Heavens, was a

Nation ever so bespun by gossamer; enchanted into paralysis, by mountains of extinct tradition, and the want

of power to annihilate rubbish! There are glittering threads of the finest Belleisle diplomacy, which seem to

go beyond the Dogstar, and to be radiant, and irradiative, like paths of the gods: and they are, seem what

they might, poor threads of idle gossamer, sunk already to dusty cobweb, unpleasant to poor human nature;

poor human nature concerned only to get them well swept into the fire. The quantities of which sad litter, in

Karl Albert, now at the topgallant of his hopes: homaged Archduke of Upper Austria, homaged King of

Bohemia, declared Kaiser of the German Nation,is the highesttitled mortal going: and, poor soul, it is

tragical, once more, to think what the reality of it was for him. Ejection from house and home; into difficulty,

poverty, despair; life in furnished lodgings, which he could not pay;and at last heartbreak, no refuge for

him but in the grave. All which is mercifully hidden at present; so that he seems to himself a man at the

topgallant of his wishes; and lives pleasantly, among his friends, with a halo round his head to his own

"Karl Albert, Kurfurst of Baiern [lazy readers ought to be reminded], whose achievements will concern us to

an unpleasant extent, for some years, is now a lean man of fortyfive; lean, erect, and of middle stature; a

Prince of distinguished look, they say; of elegant manners, and of fair extent of accomplishment, as Princes

go. His experiences in this world, and sudden ups and downs, have been and will be many. Note a few

"English readers know a Maximilian Kurfurst of Baiern, who took into French courses in the great

SpanishSuccession War; the Anti Marlborough Maximilian, who was quite ruined out by the Battle of

Blenheim; put under Ban of the Empire, and reduced to depend on Louis XIV. for a living,till times

mended with him again; till, after the Peace of Utrecht, he got reinstated in his Territories; and lived a dozen

years more, in some comparative comfort, though much sunk in debt. Well, our Karl Albert is the son of that

AntiMarlborough Kurfurst Maximilian; eldest surviving son; a daughter of the great Sobieski of Poland was

his mother. Nay, he is greatgrandson of another still more distinguished Maximilian, him of the

ThirtyYears War,(who took the Jesuits to his very heart, and let loose Ate on his poor Country for the

sake of them, in a determined manner; and was the First of all the Bavarian KURFURSTS, mere Dukes till

then; having got for himself the poor WinterKing's Electorship, or split it into two as ultimately settled, out

of that bad Business),greatgrandson, we say, of that forcible questionable First Kurfurst Max; and

descends from Kaiser Ludwig, 'Ludwig the BAIER,' if that is much advantage to him.

"In his young time he had a hard upcoming; seven years old at the Battle of Blenheim, and Papa living abroad

under Louis XIV.'s shelter, the poor Boy was taken charge of by the victorious Austrian Kaisers, and brought

up in remote Austrian Towns, as a young 'Graf von Wittelsbach' (nothing but his family name left him), mere

Graf and private nobleman henceforth. However, fortune took the turn we know, and he became Prince again;

nothing the worse for this Spartan part of his breeding. He made the Grand Tour, Italy, France, perhaps more

than once; saw, felt, and tasted; served slightly, at a Siege of Belgrade (one of the many Sieges of

Belgrade);wedded, in 1722, a Daughter of the late Kaiser Joseph's, niece of the late Kaiser Karl's, cousin

of Maria Theresa's; making the due 'renunciations,' as was thought; and has been Kurfurst himself for the last

fourteen Years, ever since 1726, when his Father died. A thrifty Kurfurst, they say, or at least has

occasionally tried to be so, conscious of the load of debts left on him; fond of pomps withal, extremely polite,

given to Devotion and to BILLETSDOUX; of gracious address, generous temper (if he had the means), and

great skill in speaking languages. Likes hunting a little,likes several things, we see!has lived tolerably

with his Wife and children; tolerably with his Neighbors (though sour upon the late Kaiser now and then);

and is an ornament to Munchen, and well liked by the population there. A lean, elegaut, middle sized

gentleman; descended direct from Ludwig the ancient Kaiser; from Maximilian the First Kurfurst, who

walked by the light of Father Lammerlein (LAMBKIN) and Compauy, thinking IT light from Heaven; and

lastly is son of Maximilian the Third Kurfurst, whom learned English readers know as the AntiMarlborough

"His most important transaction hitherto has been the marriage with Kaiser Joseph's Daughter;of which, in

Pollnitz somewhere, there is sublime account; forgettable, all except the date (Vienna, 5th October, 1722), if

by chance that should concern anybody. Karl Albert (KURPRINZ, Electoral Prince or HeirApparent, at that

time) made free renunciation of all right to Austrian Inheritances, in such terms as pleased Karl VI., the then

Kaiser; the due complete 'renunciations' of inheriting in Austria; and it was hoped he would at once sign the

Pragmatic Sanction, when published; but he has steadily refused to do so; 'I renounced for my Wife,' says

Kurfurst Karl, 'and will never claim an inch of Austrian land on her account; but my own right, derived from

Kaiser Ferdinand of blessed memory, who was Father of my Greatgrandmother, I did not, do not, never will

renounce; and I appeal to HIS Pragmatic Sanction, the much older and alone valid one, according to which, it

"This be says, and has steadily said or meant: 'It is I that am to be King of Bohemia; I that shall and will

inherit all your Austrias, Upper, Under, your Swabian Brisgau or Hither Austria, and what of the Tyrol

remained wanting to me. Your Archduchess will have Hungary, the StyrianCarinthian Territories; Florence,

I suppose, and the Italian ones. What is hers by right I will be one of those that defend for her; what is not

hers, but mine, I will defend against her, to the best of my ability!' This was privately, what it is now publicly,

his argument; from which he never would depart; refusing always to accept Kaiser Karl's new Pragmatic

Sanction; getting Saxony (who likewise had a Ferdinand great grandmother) to refuse,till Polish Election

compelled poor Saxony, for a time. Karl Albert had likewise secretly, in past years, got his abstruse old

Cousin of the Pfalz (who mended the Heidelberg Tun) to back him in a Treaty; nay, still better, still more

secretly, had got France itself to promise eventual hacking: and, on the whole, lived generally on rather

bad terms with the late Kaiser Karl, his Wife's Uncle; any reconciliation they had proving always of

temporary nature. In the Rhenish War (1734), Karl Albert, far from assisting the Kaiser, raised large forces of

his own; kept drilling them, in four or three camps, in an alarming manner; and would not even send his

Reich's Contingent (small body of 3,000 he is by law bound to send), till he perceived the War was just

expiring. He was in angry controversy with the Kaiser, claiming debts,debts contracted in the last

generation, and debts going back to the ThirtyYears War, amounting to hundreds of millions,when the

poor Kaiser died; refusing payment to the last, nay claiming lands left HIM, he says, by Margaret

Mouthpoke: [Michaelis, ii. 260; Buchholz, ii. 9; Hormayr, Anemonen, ii. 182; 'Cannot pay your Serene

Highness (having no money); and would not, if I could!' Leaving Karl Albert to protest to the

Karl Albert's subsequent history is known to readers; except the following small circumstance, which

occurred in his late transit, flight, or whatever we may call it, to Mannheim, and is pleasantly made notable to

us by Wilhelmina. "His Highness on the way from Munchen," intimates our Princess, "passed through

Baireuth in a very bad postchaise." This, as we elsewhere pick out, was on January 16th; Karl Albert in

posthaste for the marriageceremony, which takes place at Mannheim tomorrow. [Adelung, iii. A, 51.]

"My Margraf, accidentally hearing, galloped after him, came up with him about fifteen miles away: they

And eight days afterwards, 24th January, 1742, busy Belleisle (how busy for this year past, since we saw him

in the OEildeBoeuf!) gets him elected Kaiser;and Segur, in the selfsame hours, is packing out of Linz;

and one's Donau "Conquests," not to say one's Munchen, one's Baiern itself, are in a fine way! The marriage

ceremony, witnessed on the 17th, was one of the sublimest for KurPfalz and kindred; and it too had secretly

a touch of tragedy in it for the Poor Karl Albert. A double marriage: Two young Princesses,

Granddaughters, priceless Heiresses, to old KurPfalz; married, one of them to Duke Clement of Baiern,

Karl Albert's nephew, which is well enough: but married, the other and elder of them, to Theodor of

DeuxPonts, who will one daycould we pierce the merciful veilbe Kurfurst of Baiern, and succeed our

"Kaiser Karl VII.," such the style he took, is to be crowned February 12th; makes sublime Public Entry into

Frankfurt, with that view, January 31st;both ceremonies splendid to a wonder, in spite of finance

considerations. Which circumstance should little concern us, were it not that Wilhelmina, hearing the great

news (though in a dim illdated state), decided to be there and see; did go;and has recorded her

experiences there, in a shrill human manner. Wishful to see our fellowcreatures (especially if bound to look

at them), even when they are fallen phantasmal, and to make persons of them again, we will give this Piece;

sorry that it is the last we have of that fine hand. How welcome, in the murky puddle of Dryasdust, is any

glimpse by a lively glib Wilhelmina, which we can discern to be human! Hear what Wilhelmina says (in a

Wilhelmina, in the end of January, 1742,Karl Albert having shot past, one day lately, in a bad postchaise,

and kindled the thought in her,resolved to go and see him crowned at Frankfurt, by way of

pleasureexcursion. We will, struggling to be briefer, speak in her person; and indicate withal where the very

The Marwitz, elder Marwitz, her poor father being wounded at Mollwitz, [ MilitairLexikon, iii. 23; and

Preussische AdelsLexikon, iii. 365.] had gone to Berlin to nurse him; but she returned just now,not much

to my joy; I being, with some cause, jealous of that foolish minx. The Duchess Dowager of Wurtemberg also

came, sorrow on her; a foolish talking woman, always cutting jokes, making eyes, giggling and coquetting;

"HAS some wit and manner, but wearies you at last: her charms, now on the decline, were never so

considerable as rumor said; in the longrun she bores you with her French gayeties and sprightliness: her

character for gallantry is too notorious. She quite corrupted Marwitz, in this and a subsequent visit; turned the

poor girl's head into a French whirligig, and undermined any little moral principle she had. She was on the

road to Berlin,"of which anon, for it is not quite nothing to us; "but she was in no hurry, and would right

willingly have gone with us." And it required all our female diplomacy to get her under way again, and fairly

out of our course. January 28th, SHE off to Berlin; WE, same day, to FrankfurtonMayn. [Wilhelmina, ii.

Coronation was to have been (or we Countryfolk thought it was), January 31st: Let us be there

INCOGNITO, the night before; see it, and return the day after. That was our plan. Bad roads, waters all out;

we had to go night and day;reached the gates of Frankfurt, 30th January late. Berghover, our Legationsrath

there, says we are known everywhere; Coronation is not to be till February 12th! I was fatigued to death, a

bad cold on me, too: we turned back to the last Village; stayed there overnight. Back again to Berghover, in

secret (A LA SOURDINE), next night; will see the Public Entry of Karl Albert, which is to be tomorrow

(not quite, my Princess; January 31st for certain, [Adelung, iii. A, 63; did one the least care). "It was a very

grand thing indeed (DES PLUS SUPERBES); but I will not stop describing it. Masked ball that night; where

I had much amusement, tormenting the masks; not being known to anybody. We next day retired to a small

private House, which Berghover had got for us, out of Town, for fear of being discovered; and lodged there,

The weather was bitterly cold; we had brought no clothes; my dames and I nothing earthly but a black

ANDRIENNE each (whatever that may be), to spare bulk of luggage: strictest incognito was indispensable.

The Marwitzes, for giggling, raillery, French airs, and absolute impertinence, were intolerable, in that solitary

place. We return to Frankfurt again; have balls and theatres, at least: "of these latter I missed none. One

evening, my headdress got accidentally shoved awry, and exposed my face for a moment; Prince George of

HessenCassel, who was looking that way, recognized me; told the Prince of Orange of it;they are in our

Prince George of HessenCassel, did readers ever hear of him before? Transiently perhaps, in Friedrich's

LETTERS TO HIS FATHER; but have forgotten him again; can know him only as the outline of a shadow.

A fat solid military man of fifty; junior Brother of that solid WILHELM, Viceregent and virtual "Landgraf

of Hessen"(VICE an elder and eldest Brother, FRIEDRICH, the now Majesty of Sweden, who is actual

Hereditary Landgraf, but being old, childless, idle, takes no hold of it, and quite leaves it to Wilhelm),of

whom English readers may have heard, and will hear. For it is Wilhelm that hires us those "subsidized

6,000," who go blaring about on English pay (Prince George merely Commandant of them); and Wilhelm,

furthermore, has wedded his HeirApparent to an English Princess lately; [Princess Mary (age only about

seventeen), 28th June, 1740; Prince's name was Friedrich (became Catholic, 1749; WIFE made

familymanager in Consequence, which also (as the poor young fellow became Papist by and by) costs

certain English people, among others, a good deal of trouble. Uncle George, we say, is merely Commandant

of those blaring 6,000; has had his own real soldierings before this; his own labors, contradictions, in his

time; but has borne all patiently, and grown fat upon it, not quarrelling with his burdens or his nourishments.

As to the Prince of Orange, him we have seen more than once in times past: a young fellow in comparison,

sprightly, reckoned clever, but somewhat humpbacked; married an English Princess, years ago ("Papa, if he

were as ugly as a baboon!")which fine Princess, we find, has stopt short at Cassel, too fatigued on the

present occasion. "His ESPRIT," continues Wilhelmina, "and his conversation, delighted me. His Wife, he

said, was at Cassel; he would persuade her to come and make my acquaintance;"could not; too far, in this

cold season. "These two Serene Highnesses would needs take me home in their carriage; they asked the

Margraf to let them stay supper: from that hour they were never out of our house. Next morning, by means of

them, the secret had got abroad. KurKoln [lanky hooknosed gentleman, richest Pluralist in the Church] had

set spies on us; next evening he came up to me, and said, 'Madam, I know your Highness; you must dance a

measure with me!' That comes of one's headgear getting awry! We had nothing for it but to give up the

This dancing Elector of Koln, a man still only entering his forties, is the new Emperor's Brother: [Clement

August (Hubner, t. 134).] do readers wonder to see him dance, being an Archbishop? The fact is certain,let

the Three Kings and the Eleven Thousand Virgins say to it what they will. "He talked a long time with me;

presented to me the Princess Clemence his Niece [that is to say, Wife of his Nephew ClemENT; one of the

Two whom his now Imperial Majesty saw married the other day], [Michaelis, ii. 256, 123; Hubner, tt. 141,

134.] and then the Princess"in fact, presented all the three Sulzbach Princesses (for there is a youngest, still

to wed),"and then Prince Theodor [happy Husband of the eldest], and Prince Clement [ditto of the

younger];" and was very polite indeed. How keep our incognito, with all these people heaping civilities upon

us? Let us send to Baireuth for clothes, equipages; and retire to our country concealment till they arrive.

"Just as we were about setting off thither, I waiting till the Margraf were ready, the Xargraf entered, and a

Lady with him; who, he informed me, was Madame de Belleisle, the French Ambassador's Wife:"Wife of

the great Belleisle, the soul of all these high congregatings, consultations, coronations, who is not Kaiser but

maker of Kaisers: what is to be done!"I had carefully avoided her; reckoning she would have pretensions I

should not be in the humor to grant. I took my resolution at the moment [being a swift decisive creature]; and

received her like any other Lady that might have come to me. Her visit was not long. The conversation turned

altogether upon praises of the King [my Brother]. I found Madame de Belleisle very different from the notion

I had formed of her. You could see she had moved in high company (SENTAIT SON MONDE); but her air

appeared to me that of a waitingmaid (SOUBRETTE), and her manners insignificant." Let Madame take

"Monseigneur himself," when our equipages had come, "waited on me several times,"Monseigueur the

grand Marechal de Belleisle, among the other Principalities and Lordships: but of this lean man in black (who

has done such famous things, and will have to do the Retreat of Prag within year and day), there is not a word

farther said. Old Seckendorf too is here; "Reich'sGovernor of Philipsburg;" very ill with Austria, no wonder;

and striving to be well with the new Kaiser. Doubtless old Seckendorf made his visit too (being of Baireuth

kin withal), and snuffled his respects: much unworthy of mention; not lovely to Wilhelmina. Prince of

Orange, hunchbacked, but sprightly and much the Prince, bore me faithful company all the Coronation time;

Of the Coronation itself, though it was truly grand, and even of an Oriental splendor,[ Anemonen, ubi supra.]

I will say nothing. The poor Kaiser could not enjoy it much. He was dying of gout and gravel, and could

scarcely stand on his feet. Poor gentleman; and the French are driven dismally out of Linz; and the Austrians

are spreading like a lavaflood or general conflagration over BaiernDemon Mentzel, whom they call

Colonel Mentzel, he (if we knew it) is in Munchen itself, just as we are getting crowned here! And unless

King Friedrich, who is falling into Mahren, in the flank of them, call back this Infernal Chase a little, what

hope is there in those parts!The poor Kaiser, oftenest in his bed, is courting all manner of German

Princes, consulting with Seckendorfs, with cunning old stagers. He has managed to lead my Margraf into a

foolish bargain, about raising men for him. Which bargain I, on fairly getting sight of it, persuade my

Margraf to back out of; and, in the end, he does so. Meanwhile, it detains us some time longer in Frankfurt,

Among other things, by way of forwarding that Bargain I was so averse to, our Official People had settled

that I could not well go without having seen the Empress, after her crowning. Foolish people; entangling me

in new intricacies! For if she is a Kaiser's Daughter and Kaiser's Spouse, am not I somewhat too? "How a

King's Daughter and an Empress are to meet, was probably never settled by example: what number of steps

down stairs does she come? The armchair (FAUTEUIL), is that to be denied me?" And numerous other

questions. The official people, Baireuthers especially, are in despair; and, in fact, there were scenes. But I

held firm; and the Berlin ambassadors tempering, a medium was struck: steps of stairs, to the due number, are

conceded me; armchair no, but the Empress to "take a very small armchair," and I to have a big common

In her place, I confess I would have invented all manner of etiquettes, or any sort of contrivance, to save

myself from showing face. "Heavens! The Empress is below middle size, and so corpulent (PUISSANTE),

she looks like a ball; she is ugly to the utmost (LAIDE AU POSSIBLE), and without air or grace." Kaiser

Joseph's youngest Daughter,the gods, it seems, have not been kind to her in figure or feature! And her

mind corresponds to her appearance: she is bigoted to excess; passes her nights and days in her oratory, with

mere rosaries and gaunt superstitious platitudes of that nature; a dark fat dreary little Empress. "She was all in

a tremble in receiving me; and had so discountenanced an air, she could n't speak a word. We took seats.

After a little silence, I began the conversation, in French. She answered me in her Austrian jargon, That she

did not well understand that language, and begged I would speak to her in German. Our conversation was not

long. Her Austrian dialect and my LowerSaxon are so different that, till you have practised, you are not

mutually intelligible in them. Accordingly we were not. A bystander would have split with laughing at the

Babel we made of it; each catching only a word here and there, and guessing the rest. This Princess was so

tied to her etiquette, she would have reckoned it a crime against the Reich to speak to me in a foreign

"The Kaiser was to have been of this visit; but he had fallen so ill, he was considered even in danger of his

life. Poor Prince, what a lot had he achieved for himself!" reflects Wilhelmina, as we often do. He was soft,

humane, affable; had the gift of captivating hearts. Not without talent either; but then of an ambition far

disproportionate to it. "Would have shone in the second rank, but in the first went sorrowfully eclipsed," as

they say! He could not be a great man, nor had about him any one that could; and he needed now to be so.

This is the service a Belleisle can do; inflating a poor man to Kaisership, beyond his natural size! Crowned

Kaiser, and Mentzel just entering his Munchen the while; a Kaiser bedrid, stranded; lying ill there of gout and

gravel, with the Demon Mentzels eating him:well may his poor little bullet of a Kaiserinn pray for him

I am sorry to say this is almost the last scene we shall get out of Wilhelmina. She returns to Baireuth; breaks

there conclusively that unwise Frankfurt bargain; receives by and by (after several months, when much has

come and gone in the world) the returning Duchess of Wurtemberg, effulgent Dowager "spoken of only as a

Lais:" and has other adventures, alluded to up and down, but not put in record by herself any

farther.Sorrowfully let us hear Wilhelmina yet a little, on this Lais Duchess, who will concern us

somewhat. Dowager, much too effulgent, of the late Karl Alexander, a Reichs Feldmarschall (or

FOURTHPART of one, if readers could remember) and Duke of Wurtemberg,whom we once dined with

"This Princess, very famous on the bad side, had been at Berlin to see her three Boys settled there, whose

education she [and the STANDE of Wurtemberg, she being Regent] had committed to the King. These

Princes had been with us on their road thither, just before their Mamma last time. The Eldest, age fourteen,

had gone quite agog (S'ETOIT AMOURACHE) about my little Girl, age only nine; and had greatly diverted

us by his little gallantries [mark that, with an Alas!]. The Duchess, following somewhat at leisure, had missed

the King that time; who was gone for Mahren, January 18th. ... I found this Princess wearing pretty well. Her

features are beautiful, but her complexion is faded and very yellow. Her voice is so high and screechy, it cuts

your ears; she does not want for wit, and expresses herself well. Her manners are engaging for those whom

she wishes to gain; and with men are very free. Her way of thinking and acting offers a strange contrast of

pride and meanness. Her gallantries had brought her into such repute that I had no pleasure in her visits."

[Wilhelmina, ii. 335.] No pleasure; though she often came; and her Eldest Prince, and my little Girl Well,

Besides her three Boys (one of whom, as Reigning Duke, will become notorious enough to Wilhelmina and

mankind), the Lais Duchess has left at Berlinat least, I guess she has now left him, in exchange perhaps for

some othera certain very gallant, vagabond young Marquis d'Argens, "from Constantinople" last;

originally from the Provence countries; extremely dissolute creature, still young (whom Papa has had to

disinherit), but full of goodhumor, of gesticulative loyal talk, and frothy speculation of an AntiJesuit turn

(has written many frothy Books, too, in that strain, which are now forgotten): who became a very great

"In the end of July," continues Wilhelmina, "we went to Stouccard [Stuttgard, capital of Wurtemberg, O

beautiful glib tongue!], whither the Duchess had invited us: but" And there we are on blank paper; our dear

Wilhelmina has ceased speaking to us: her MEMOIRS end; and oblivious silence wraps the remainder!

Concerning this effulgent Dowager of Wurtemberg, and her late ways at Berlin, here, from Bielfeld, is

"BERLIN, FEBRUARY, 1742 [real date of all that is not fabulous in Bielfeld, who chaotically dates it "6th

December" of that Year]. ... A day or two after this [no matter WHAT] I went to the German Play, the only

spectacle which is yet fairly afoot in Berlin. In passing in, I noticed the Duchess Dowager of Wurtemberg,

who had arrived, during my absence, with a numerous and brilliant suite, as well to salute the King and the

Queens [King off, on his Moravian Business, before she came], and to unite herself more intimately with our

Court, as to see the Three Princes her Children settled in their new place, where, by consent of the States of

"As I had not yet had myself presented to the Duchess, I did not presume to approach too near, and passed up

into the Theatre. But she noticed me in the sidescenes; asked who I was [such a handsome fashionable

fellow], and sent me order to come immediately and pay my respects. To be sure, I did so; was most

graciously received; and, of course, called early next day at her Palace. Her GrandChamberlain had

appointed me the hour of noon. He now introduced me accordingly: but what was my surprise to find the

Princess in bed; in a negligee all new from the laundress, and the gallantest that art could imagine! On a table,

ready to her hand, at the DOSSIER or bedbead, stood a little Basin silvergilt, filled with Holy Water: the

rest was decorated with extremely precious Relics, with a Crucifix, and a Rosary of rockcrystal. Her dress,

the cushions, quilt, all was of Marseilles stuff, in the finest series of colors, garnished with superb lace. Her

cap was of Alencon lace, knotted witb a ribbon of green and gold. Figure to yourself, in this gallant

deshabille, a charming Princess, who has all the wit, perfection of mannerand is still only thirtyseven,

with a beauty that was once so brilliant! Round the celestial bed were courtiers, doctors, almoners, mostly in

devotional postures; the three young Princes; and a Dame d'Atours, who seemed to look slightly ENNUYEE

or bored." I had the honor to kiss her Serene Highness's hand, and to talk a great many peppered insipidities

Dinner followed, more properly supper, with lights kindled: "Only I cannot dress, you know," her Highness

had said; "I never do, except for the QueenMother's parties;"and rang for her maids. So that you are led

out to the Anteroom, and go grinning about, till a new and still more charming deshabille be completed, and

her Most Serene Highness can receive you again: "Now Messieurs! Pshaw, one is always stupid, no ESPRIT

at all except by candlelight!"After which, such a dinner, unmatchable for elegance, for exquisite

gastronomy, for AtticPaphian brilliancy and charm! And indeed there followed hereupon, for weeks on

weeks, a series of such unmatchable little dinners; chief parts, under that charming Presidency, being done by

"GrandChamberlain Baron de" Somethingorother, "by your humble servant Bielfeld, M. Jordan, and a

Marquis d'Argens, famous Provencal gentleman now in the suite of her Highness:" [Bielfeld, ii.

7478.]feasts of the Barmecide I much doubt, poor Bielfeld being in this Chapter very fantastic,

MISDATEful to a mad extent; and otherwise, except as to general effect, worth little serious belief.

We shall meet this Paphian Dowager again (Crucifix and Myrtle joined): meet especially her D'Argens, and

her Three little Princes more or less;wherefore, mark slightly (besides the D'Argens as above):

"1. The Eldest little Prince, Karl Eugen; made 'Reigning Duke' within three years hence [Mamma falling into

trouble with the STANDE]: a man still gloomily famous in Germany [Poet Schiller's Duke of Wurtemberg],

of inarticulate, extremeIy arbitrary turn, married Wilhelmina's Daughter by and by [with horrible usage of

"2. The Second little Prince, Friedrich Eugen, Prussian General of some mark, who will incidentally turn up

again, He was afterwards Successor to the Dukedom [Karl Eugen dying childless]; and married his Daughter

"3. Youngest little Prince, Ludwig Eugen, a respectable Prussian Officer, and later a French one: he is that

'Duc de Wirtemberg' who corresponds with Voltaire [inscrutable to readers, in most of the Editions]; and

But enough of all this. It is time we were in Mahren, where the Expedition must be blazing well ahead, if

While these Coronation splendors had been going on, Friedrich, in the Moravian regions, was making

experiences of a rather painful kind; his Expedition prospering there far otherwise than he had expected. This

winter Expedition to Mahren was one of the first Friedrich had ever undertaken on the Jointstock Principle;

and it proved of a kind rather to disgust him with that method in affairs of war.

Chapter X. FRIEDRICH DOES HIS MORAVIAN EXPEDITION WHICH PROVES A MERE MORAVIAN FORAY. 742

A deeply disappointing Expedition. The country hereabouts was in bad posture of defence; nothing between

us and Vienna itself, in a manner. Rushing briskly forward, living on the country where needful, on that Iglau

Magazine, on one's own Sechelles resources; rushing on, with the Saxons, with the French, emulous on the

right hand and the left, a Captain like Friedrich might have gone far; Vienna itselfwho knows!not yet

quite beyond the reach of him. Here was a way to check Khevenhuller in his Bavarian Operations, and whirl

him back, doublequick, for another object nearer home! But, alas, neither the Saxons nor the French

would rush on, in the least emulous. The Saxons dragged heavily arear; the French Detachment (a poor 5,000

under Polastron, all that a captious Broglio could be persuaded to grant) would not rush at all, but paused on

the very frontier of Moravia, Broglio so ordering, and there hung supine, or indeed went home.

Friedrich remonstrated, argued, turned back to encourage; but it was in vain. The Saxon Bastard Princes

"lived for days in any Schloss they found comfortable;" complaining always that there was no victual for

their Troops; that the Prussians, always ahead, had eaten the country. No end to haggling; and, except on

Friedrich's part, no hearty beginning to real business. "If you wish at all to be 'King of Moravia,' what is this!"

thinks Friedrich justly. Broglio, too, was unmanageable,piqued that Valori, not Broglio, had started the

thing;showed himself captious, dark, hysterically effervescent, now overcautious, and again capable of

To Broglio the fact at Linz, which everybody saw to be momentous, was overwhelming. Magnanimous

Segur, and his Linz "all wedged with beams," what a road have they gone! Said so valiantly they would make

defence; and did it, scarcely for four days: January 24th; before this Expedition could begin! True, M. le

Marechal, too true:and is that a reason for hanging back in this Mahren business; or for pushing on in it,

doublequick, with all one's strength? "But our Conquests on the Donau," thinks Broglio, "what will become

of them,and of us!" To Broglio, justly apprehensive about his own posture at Prag and on the Donau, there

never was such a chance of at once raking back all Austrians homewards, posthaste out of those countries.

But Broglio could by no means see it so,headstrong, blusterous, overcautious and hysterically headlong

old gentleman; whose conduct at Prag here brought Strasburg vividly to Friedrich's memory. Upon which, as

upon the ghost of Broglio's Breeches, Valori had to hear "incessant sarcasms" at this time.

In a word, from February 5th, when Friedrich, according to bargain, rendezvoused his Prussians at Wischau

to begin this Expedition, till April 5th, when he rerendezvoused them (at the same Wischau, as chanced) for

the purpose of ending it and going home, Friedrich, wrestling his utmost with Human Stupidity, "MIT

DER DUMMHEIT [as Schiller sonorously says], against which the very gods are unvictorious," had probably

two of the most provoking months of his Life, or of this First Silesian War, which was fruitful in such to him.

For the common cause he accomplished nearly nothing by this Moravian Expedition. But, to his own mind, it

was rich in experiences, as to the JointStock Principle, as to the Partners he now had. And it doubtless

quickened his steps towards getting personally out of this imbroglio of big FrenchGerman Wars,home to

Berlin, with Peace and Silesia in his pocket,which had all along been the goal of his endeavors. As a feat

of war it is by no means worth detailing, in this place,though succinct Stille, and bulkier German Books

give lucid account, should anybody chance to be curious. [Stille, Campaigns of the King of Prussia, i. 155;

HeldenGeschichte, ii. 548611; OEuvres de Frederic, ii. 110114; Orlich, ii.; Only under the other aspect,

as Friedrich's experience of Partnership, and especially of his now Partners, are present readers concerned to

Friedrich was punctual at Wischau; Headquarters there (midway between Olmutz and Brunn), Prussians all

assembled, 5th February, 1742. Wischau is some eighty miles EAST or inward of Iglau; the French and

Saxons are to meet us about Trebitsch, a couple of marches from that Teutschbrod of theirs, and well within

one march of Iglau, on our route thither. The French and Saxons are at Trebitsch, accordingly; but their minds

and wills seem to be far elsewhere. Rutowsky and the Chevalier de Saxe command the Saxons (20,000 strong

Chapter X. FRIEDRICH DOES HIS MORAVIAN EXPEDITION WHICH PROVES A MERE MORAVIAN FORAY. 743

on paper, 16,000 in reality); Comte de Polastron the French, who are 5,000, all Horse. Along with whom,

professedly as French Volunteer, has come the Comte de Saxe, capricious Maurice (Marechal de Saxe that

will be), who has always viewed this Expedition with disfavor. Excellency Valori is with the French

Detachment, or rather poor Valori is everywhere; running about, from quarter to quarter, sometimes to Prag

itself; assiduous to heal rents everywhere; clapping cement into manifold cracks, from day to day. Through

Valori we get some interesting glimpses into the secret humors and manoeuvres of Comte Maurice. It is

known otherwise Comte Maurice was no friend to Belleisle, but looked for his promotion from the opposite

or Noailles party, in the French Court: at present, as Valori perceives, he has got the ear of Broglio, and put

To these Saxon gentlemen, being BastardRoyal and important to conciliate, Friedrich has in a highflown

way assigned the Schloss of Budischau for quarters, an excellent superbly magnificent mansion in the

neighborhood of Trebitsch, "nothing like it to be seen except in theatres, on the Dropscene of The

Enchanted Island;" [Stille, Campaigns, p. 14.] where they make themselves so comfortable, says Friedrich,

there is no getting them roused to do anything for three days to come. And yet the work is urgent, and plenty

of it. "Iglau, first of all," urges Friedrich, "where the Austrians, 10,000 or so, under Prince Lobkowitz, have

posted themselves [right flank of that long straggle of Winter Cantonments, which goes leftwards to Budweis

and farther], and made Magazines: possession of Iglau is the foundationstone of our affairs. And if we

would have Iglau WITH the Magazines and not without, surely there is not a moment to be wasted!" In vain;

the Saxon Bastard Princes feel themselves very comfortable. It was Sunday the 11th of February, when our

junction with them was completed: and, instead of next morning early, it is Wednesday afternoon before

Prince Dietrich of AnhaltDessau, with the Saxon and French party roused to join his Prussians and him, can

at last take the road for Iglau. Prince Dietrich makes now the reverse of delay; marches all night, "bivouacs in

woods near Iglau," warming himself at stickfires till the day break; takes Iglau by merely marching into it

and scattering 2,000 Pandours, so soon as day has broken; but finds the Magazines not there. Lobkowitz

carted off what he could, then burnt "Seventeen Barns yesterday;" and is himself off towards Budweis

Headquarters and the Bohemian bogs again. This comes of lodging Saxon royal gentlemen too well.

Nay, Iglau taken, the affair grows worse than ever. Our Saxons now declare that they understand their orders

to be completed; that their Court did not mean them to march farther, but only to hold by Iglau, a solid

footing in Moravia, which will suffice for the present. Fancy Friedrich; fancy Valori, and the cracks he will

have to fill! Friedrich, in astonishment and indignation, sends a messenger to Dresden: "Would the Polish

Majesty BE 'King of Moravia,' then, or not be?" Remonstrances at Budischau rise higher and higher; Valori,

to prevent total explosion, flies over once, in the dead of the night, to deal with Rutowsky and Brothers.

Rutowsky himself seems partly persuadable, though dreadfully ill of rheumatism. They rouse Comte

Maurice; and Valori, by this Comte's caprices, is driven out of patience. "He talked with a flippant sophistry,

almost with an insolence" says Valori; "nay, at last, he made me a gesture in speaking,"what gesture,

thumb to nose, or what, the shuddering imagination dare not guess! But Valori, nettled to the quick, "repeated

it," and otherwise gave him as good as he brought. "He ended by a gesture which displeased me""and went

to bed." [Valori, i. 148, 149.] This is the night of February 18th; third night after Iglau was had, and the

Poor Polish Majesty, poor Karl Albert, above all, now "Kaiser Karl VII.," with nothing but those French for

breath to his nostrils! With his fine French Army of the Oriflamme, Karl Albert should have pushed along

last Autumn; and not merely "read the Paper" which Friedrich sent him to that effect, "and then laid it aside."

They will never have another chance, his French and he,unless we call this again a chance; which they are

again squandering! Linz went by capitulation; January 24th, the very day of one's "Election" as they called it:

and ever since that day of Linz, the series of disasters has continued rapid and uniform in those parts. Linz

gone, the rest of the French posts did not even wait to capitulate; but crackled all off, they and our Conquests

Chapter X. FRIEDRICH DOES HIS MORAVIAN EXPEDITION WHICH PROVES A MERE MORAVIAN FORAY. 744

on the Donau, like a train of gunpowder, and left the ground bare. And General von Barenklau

(BEAR'SCLAW), with the hideous fellow called Mentzel, Colonel of Pandours, they have broken through

into Bavaria itself, from the Tyrol; climbing by Berchtesgaden and the wild Salzburg Mountains, regardless

of Winter, and of poor Bavarian militiafolk;and have taken Munchen, one's very Capital, one's very

House and Home!Poor Karl Albert,and, what is again remarkable, it was the very day while he was

getting "crowned" at Frankfurt, "with Oriental pomp," that Mentzel was about entering Munchen with his

Pandours. [Coronation was February 12th; Capitulation to Mentzel, "Munchen, February 13th," is in Guerre

de Boheme, ii. 5659.] And this poor Archduke of the Austrian, King of Bohemia, Kaiser of the Holy

Romish Reich Teutsch by Nation, is becoming Titular merely, and owns next to nothing in these extensive

Sovereignties. Judge if there is not call for despatch on all sides!The Polish Majesty sent instant rather

angry order to his Saxons, "Forward, with you; what else! We would be King in Mahren!"

The Saxons then have to march forward; but we can fancy with what a will. Rutowsky flings up his command

on this Order (let us hope, from rheumatism partly), and goes home; leaving the Chevalier de Saxe to preside

in room of him. As for Polastron, he produces Order from Broglio, "Iglau got, return straightway;" must and

will cross over into Bohemia again; and does. Nay, the Comte de Saxe had, privately in his pocket, a

Commission to supersede Polastron, and take command himself, should Polastron make difficulties about

turning back. Poor Polastron made no difficulties: Maurice and he vanish accordingly from this Adventure,

and only the unwilling Saxons remain with Friedrich. Poor Polastron ("a poor weak creature," says Friedrich,

"fitter for his breviary than anything else") fell sick, from the hardships of campaigning; and soon died, in

those Bohemian parts. Maurice is heard of, some weeks hence, besieging Eger;very handsomely capturing

Eger: [19th April, 1742 ( Guerre de Boheme, ii. 7865).]on which service Broglio had ordered him after

his return. The former Commandant of the Siege, not very progressive, had just died; and Broglio, with

reason (all the more for his late Moravian procedures) was passionate to have done there. One of the first

auspicious exploits of Maurice, that of Eger; which paved the way to his French fortunes, and more or less

sublime glories, in this War. Friedrich recognizes his ingenuities, impetuosities, and superior talent in war;

wrote highflown Letters of praises, now and then, in years coming; but, we may guess, would hardly wish to

February 19th, these sad Iglau matters once settled, Friedrich, followed by the Saxons, plunges forward into

Moravia; spreads himself over the country, levying heavy contributions, with strict discipline nevertheless;

intent to get hold of Brunn and its Spielberg, if he could. Brunn is the strong place of Moravia; has a garrison

of 6 or 7,000; still better, has the valiant Roth, whom we knew in Neisse once, for Commandant: Brunn will

Schwerin, with a Detachment of 6,000 horse and foot, Posadowsky, Ziethen, Schmettau Junior commanding

under him, has dashed along far in the van; towards Upper Austria, through the Town of Horn, towards

Vienna itself; levying, he also, heavy contributions,with a hand of iron, and not much of a glove on it, as

we judge. There is a grim enough Proclamation (in the name of a "frightfully injured Kaiser," as well as

Kaiser's Ally), still extant, bearing Schwerin's signature, and the date "STEIN, 26th Feb. 1742." [In

HeldenGeschichte, ii. 556.] Stein is on the Donau, a mile or two from Krems, and twice as far from

Mautern, where the now Kaiser was in Autumn last. Forty and odd miles short of Vienna: this proved the

Pisgah of Schwerin in that direction, as it had done of Karl Albert. Ziethen, with his Hussars coursed some 20

miles farther, on the Vienna Highway; and got the length of Stockerau; a small Town, notable slightly, ever

Meanwhile, Prince Lobkowitz is rallying; has quitted Budweis and the Bohemian Bogs, for some check of

these insolences. Lobkowitz, rallying to himself what Vienna force there is, comes, now in good strength, to

Chapter X. FRIEDRICH DOES HIS MORAVIAN EXPEDITION WHICH PROVES A MERE MORAVIAN FORAY. 745

Waidhofen (rearward of Horn, far rearward of Stein and Stockerau), so that Ziethen and Schwerin have to

draw homeward again. Lobkowitz fortifies himself in Waidhofen; gathers Magazines there, as if towards

weightier enterprises. For indeed much is rallying, in a dangerous manner; and Moravia is now far other than

when Friedrich planned this Expedition. And at Vienna, 25th February last, there was held Secret Council,

and (much to Robinson's regret) a quite high Resolution come to,which Friedrich gets to know of, and

Friedrich keeps his Headquarter, all this while, closer and closer upon Brunn. First, chiefly at a Town called

Znaim, on the River Taya; manybranched river, draining all those Northwestern parts; which sends its

widening waters down to Presburg,latterly in junction with those of the Morawa from North, which

washes Olmutz, drains the Northern and Eastern parts, and gives the Country its name of "Moravia." Brunn

lies northeast of Friedrich, while in Znaim, some fifty miles; the Saxon headquarter is at Kromau, midway

towards that City. After Znaim, he shifts inward, to Selowitz, still in the same Taya Valley, but much nearer

Brunn; and there continues. [At Znaim, 19th February9th March; at Selowitz, 13th March5th April

Striving hard for Brunn; striving hard, under difficulties, for so many things distant and near; we may fancy

him busy enough;and are surprised at the fractions of light Jordan Correspondence which he still finds

time for. Pretty bits of Letters, in prose and doggerel, from and to those Moravian Villages; Jordan, "twice a

week," bearing the main weight; Friedrich, oftener than one could hope, flinging some word of

answer,very intent on Berlin gossip, we can notice. "Vattel is still here, your Majesty," [ OEuvres, xvii.

163, insinuates Jordan: young Vattel, afterwards of the DROIT DES GENS, whom his Majesty might have

kept, but did not.What more of your D'Argens, then; anything in your D'Argens? Friedrich will ask. "For

certain, D'Argens is full of ESPRIT," answers Jordan, in a dexterous way; and How the Effulgent of

Wurtemberg" has quarrelled outright with her D'Argens, and will not eat off silver (D'ARGENT), lest she

have to name him by accident!"with other gossip, in a fine brief airy form, at which Jordan excels.

Cheering the rare leisure hour, in one's Tent at Selowitz, Pohrlitz, Irrlitz, far away!There are also orders

about CICERO and Books. Of Business for most part, or of private feelings, nothing: Berlin gossip, and

Out from Headquarters, diligent operations shoot forth, far enough, along those TayaMorawa Valleys,

where Hungarian "Insurgents" are beginning to be dangerous. South of Brunn, all round Brunn, are diligent

operations, frequent skirmishings, constant strict levyings of contributions. The saving operation, Friedrich

well sees, would be to get hold of Brunn: but, unluckily, How? Vigilant Roth scorns all summoning; sallies

continually in a dangerous manner; and at length, when closer pressed, burns all the Villages round him: "we

counted as many as sixteen villages laid in ashes," says Friedrich. Here is small comfort of outlook.

And then the Saxons, at Kromau or wherever they may be: no end of trouble and vexation with these Saxons.

Their quarters are not fairly allotted, they say; we make exchange of quarters, without improvement

noticeable. "One fine day, on some slight alarm, they came rushing over to us, all in panic; ruined, merely by

Pandour noises, had not we marched them back, and reinstated them." Friedrich sends to Silesia for

reinforcemmts of his own, which he can depend upon. Sends to Silesia, to Glatz and the Young Dessauer;

nay to Brandenburg and the Old Dessauer? ultimately. Finding Roth would not yield, he has sent to

Dresden for SiegeArtillery: Polish Majesty there, titular "King of Moravia," answers that he cannot meet the

expense of carriage. "He had just purchased a green diamond which would have carried them thither and back

again:" What can be done with such a man?And by this time, early in March, Hungarian "MORIAMUR

PRO REGE" begins to show itself. Clouds of Hungarian Insurgents, of the Tolpatch, Pandour sort, mount

Chapter X. FRIEDRICH DOES HIS MORAVIAN EXPEDITION WHICH PROVES A MERE MORAVIAN FORAY. 746

over the Carpathians on us, all round the east, from south to north; and threaten to penetrate Silesia itself. So

that we have to sweep laboriously the MorawaTaya Valleys; and undertake first one and then another

And more serious still, Prince Karl and the regular Army, quickened by such KhevenhullerBarenklau

successes in the Donau Countries, are beginning to stir. Prince Karl, returning from Vienna and its

consultations, took command, 4th March; [ Helden Geschichte, ii. 557.] with whom has come old Graf von

Konigseck, an experienced head to advise with; Prince Karl is in motion, skirting us southward, about

Waidhofen, where Lobkowitz lay waiting him with Magazines ready. Rumor says, the force in those parts is

already 40,000, with more daily coming in. Friedrich has of his own, apart from the Saxons, some 24,000.

Prince Karl, with so many heavy troops, and with unlimited supply of light, is very capable of doing

mischief: he has orders (and Friedrich now knows of it) To go in upon us;such their decision in Secret

Council at Vienna, on the 25th of February last, That he must go and fight us:"Better we met him with

fewer thrums on our hands!" thinks Friedrich; and beckons the Old Dessauer out of Brandenburg withal.

"Swift, your Serenity; hitherward with 20,000!" Which the Old Dessauer (having 30,000 to pick from, late

CampofGottin people) at once sets about. Will be a security, in any event! [Orlich, i. 221: Date of the

Order, "13th March, 1742."] To finish with Brunn, Friedrich has sent for SiegeArtillery of his own; he urges

Chevalier de Saxe to close with him round Brunn, and batter it energetically into swift surrender. Is it not the

one thing needful? Chevalier de Saxe admits, half promises; does not perform. Being again urged, Why have

not you performed? he answers, "Alas, your Majesty, here are Orders for me to join Marshal Broglio at Prag,

"Altogether out of it," thinks Friedrich to himself: "may all the Powers be thanked! Then I too, without

disgrace, can go altogether out of it;and it shall be a sharp eye that sees me in jointstock with you again,

M. le Chevalier." Friedrich has written in his HISTORY, and Valori used to hear him often say in words,

Never were tidings welcomer than these, that the Saxons were about to desert him in this manner. Go: and

may all the Devils But we will not fall into profane swearing. It is proper to get out of this Enterprise at

one's best speed, and never get into the like of it again! Friedrich (on this strange Saxon revelation, 30th

March) takes instant order for assembling at Wischau again, for departing towards Olmutz; thence

homewards, with deliberate celerity, by the Landskron mountaincountry, Tribau, Zwittau, Leutomischl, and

the way he came. He has countermanded his Silesian reinforcements; these and the rest shall rendezvous at

Chrudim in Bohemia; whitherwards the two Dessauers are bound:in Brunn, with its wrecked environs,

famed Spielberg looking down from its conical height, and sixteen villages in ashes, Roth shall do his own

The Saxons pushed straight homewards; did not "rejoin Broglio," rejoin anybody,had, in fact, done with

this First Silesian War, as it proved; and were ready for the OPPOSITE side, on a Second falling out! Their

march, this time, was long and harassing,sad bloody passage in it, from Pandours and hostile

Villagepeople, almost at starting, "four Companies of our Rearguard cut down to nine men; Village burnt,

and Villagers exterminated (SIC), by the rescuing party." [Details in HeldenGeschichte, ii. 606; in They

arrived at Leitmeritz and their own Border, "hardly above 8,000 effective." Naturally, in a highly indignant

humor; and much disposed to blame somebody. To the poor Polish NONMoravian Majesty, enlightened by

his Bruhls and Staff Officers, it became a fixed truth that the blame was all Friedrich's,"starving us,

marching us about!"that Friedrich's conduct to us was abominable, and deserved fixed resentment. Which

accordingly it got, from the simple Polish Majesty, otherwise a goodnatured creature;got, and kept. To

Friedrich's very great astonishment, and to his considerable disadvantage, long after!

Friedrich's look, when Valori met him again coming home from this Moravian Futility, was "FAROUCHE,"

fierce and dark; his laugh bitter, sardonic; harsh mockery, contempt and suppressed rage, looking through all

he said. A proud young King, getting instructed in several things, by the stripes of experience. Look in that

young Portrait by Pesne, the full cheeks, and fine mouth capable of truculence withal, the brow not unused to

Chapter X. FRIEDRICH DOES HIS MORAVIAN EXPEDITION WHICH PROVES A MERE MORAVIAN FORAY. 747

knit itself, and the eyes flashing out in sharp diligent inspection, of a somewhat commanding nature. We can

fancy the face very impressive upon Valori in these circumstances. Poor Valori has had dreadful work;

running to and fro, with his equipages breaking, his servants falling all sick, his invaluable D'Arget (Valori's

chief Secretary, whom mark) quite disabled; and Valori's troubles are not done. He has been to Prag lately; is

returning futile, as usual. Driving through the Mountains to rejoin Friedrich, he meets the Prussians in retreat;

learns that the Pandours, extremely voracious, are ahead; that he had better turn, and wait for his Majesty

Friedrich, on the 5th of April, is in full march out of the Moravian Countries,which are now getting

submerged in deluges of Pandours; towards the abovesaid Chrudim, whereabouts his Magazines lie, where

privately he intends to wait for Prince Karl, and that Vienna Order of the 25th February, with hands clearer of

thrums. The march goes in proper columns, dislocations; Prince Dietrich, on the right, with a separate Corps,

bent elsewhither than to Chrudim, keeps off the Pandours. A march laborious, mountainous, on roads of

such quality; but, except baggagedifficulties and the like, nothing material going wrong. "On the 13th

[April], we marched to Zwittau, over the Mountain of Schonhengst. The passage over this Mountain is very

steep; but not so impracticable as it had been represented; because the cannon and wagons can be drawn

round the sides of it." [Stille, p. 86.] Yes;and readers may (in fancy) look about them from the top; for we

Friedrich gets to Chrudim, April 17th; there meets the Young Dessauer with his forces: by and by the Old

Dessauer, too, comes to an Interview there (of which shortly). The Old Dessauerhis 20,000 not with him,

at the moment, but resting some way behind, till he returnis to go eastward with part of them; eastward,

Troppau Jablunka way, and drive those Pandour Insurgencies to their own side of the Mountains: a job Old

Leopold likes better than that of the Gottin Camp of last year. Other part of the 20,000 is to reinforce Young

Leopold and the King, and go into cantonments and "refreshmentquarters" here at Chrudim. Here, living on

Bohemia, with Silesia at their back, shall the Troops repose a little; and be ready for Prince Karl, if he will

In Moravia, now overrun with Pandours, precursors of Prince Karl, he has left Prince Dietrich of Anhalt, able

still to maintain himself, with Olmutz as Headquarters, for a calculated term of days: Dietrich is, with all

diligence, to collect Magazines for that JablunkaTroppau Service, and march thither to his Father with the

same (cutting his way through those Pandour swarms); and leaving Mahren as bare as possible, for Prince

Karl's behoof. All which Prince Dietrich does, in a gallant, soldierlike, prudent and valiant manner,with

details of danger well fronted, of prompt dexterity, of difficulty overcome; which might be interesting to

soldier students, if there were among us any such species; but cannot be dwelt upon here. It is a march of 60

or 70 miles (northeast, not northwest as Friedrich's had been), through continual Pandours, perils and

difficulties:met in the due way by Prince Dietrich, whose toils and valors had been of distinguished quality

in this Moravian Business. Take one example, not of very serious nature (in the present March to

"OLISCHAU, EVENING OF APRIL 21st. Just as we were getting into Olischau [still only in the environs of

Olmutz], the Vanguard of Prince Karl's Army appeared on the Heights. It did not attack; but retired, Olmutz

way, for the night. Prince Dietrich, not doubting but it would return next day, made the necessary

preparations overnight. Nothing of it returned next day; Prince Dietrich, therefore, in the night of April 22d,

pushed forward his sickwagons, mealwagons, heavy baggage, peaceably to Sternberg; and, at dawn on the

morrow, followed with his army, Cavalry ahead, Infantry to rear;" nothing whatever happening,unless this

be a kind of thing:"Our Infantry had scarcely got the last bridge broken down after passing it, when the

roofs of Olischau seemed as it were to blow up; the Inhabitants simultaneously seizing that moment, and

firing, with violent diligence, a prodigious number of shot at us,no one of which, owing to their hurry and

the distance, took any effect;" [Stille, p. 50.] but only testified what their valedictory humor was.

Chapter X. FRIEDRICH DOES HIS MORAVIAN EXPEDITION WHICH PROVES A MERE MORAVIAN FORAY. 748

Or again(Place, this time, is UNGARISCHBROD, near Goding on the MoravianHungarian Frontier,

date MARCH 13th; one of those swift Outroads, against Insurgents or "Hungarian Militias" threatening to

gather): ... "Godinq on our Moravian side of the Border, and then Skalitz on their Hungarian, being thus

finished, we make for UngarischBrod," the next nucleus of Insurgency. And there is the following minute

phenomenon,fit for a picturesque human memory: "As this, from Skalitz to UngarischBrod, is a long

march, and the roads were almost impassable, Prince Dietrich with his Corps did not arrive till after dark. So

that, having sufficiently blocked the place with parties of horse and foot, he had, in spite of thickfalling

snow, to wait under the open sky for daylight. In which circumstances, all that were not on sentry lay down

on their arms;" slept heartily, we hope; "and there was half an ell of snow on them, when day broke."

[BERICHT VON DER UNTERNEHMUNG DES (in Seyfarth, Beylage, i. p. 508).] When day broke, and

they shook themselves to their feet again,to the astonishment of UngarischBrod! ...

There had been fine passages of arms, throughout, in this Business, round Brunn, in the March home, and

elsewhere; and Friedrich is well contented with the conduct of his men and generals,and dwells afterwards

with evident satisfaction on some of the feats they did. [For instance, TRUCHSESS VON WALDBURG'S

fine bit of Spartanism (14th March, at Lesch, near Brunn, near AUSTERLITZ withal), which was much

celebrated; King himself, from Selowitz, heard the cannonading (Seyfarth, Beylage, i. 518520). Selchow's

feat (ib. 521). Fouquet's (this is the CAPTAIN Fonquet, with "MY two candles, Sir," of the old Custrin

Prison time; who is dear to Friedrich ever since, and to the end): "Account of Fouquet's Grenadier Battalion,

to and at Fulnek, JanuaryApril, 1742 (is in Feldzuge der Preussen, i. 176184); especially his March, from

Fulnek, homewards, part of Prince Dietrich's that way (in Seyfarth, Beylage, i. 510515). With various others

(in SEYFARTH and FELDZUGE): well worth reading till you understand them.] I am sorry to say, General

Schwerin has taken pique at this preference of the Old Dessauer for the Troppau AntiPandour Operation;

and is home in a huff: not to reappear in active life for some years to come. "The Little Marlborough,"so

they call him (for he was at Blenheim, and has abrupt hot ways),will not participate in Prince Karl's

consolatory Visit, then! Better so, thinks Friedrich perhaps (remembering Mollwitz): "This is the freak of an

imitation ANGLAIS!" sneers he, in mentioning it to Jordan.Friedrich's Synopsis of this Moravian Failure

of an Expedition, in answer to Jordan's curiosity about it,curiosity implied, not expressed by the modest

"Moravia, which is a very bad Country, could not be held, owing to want of victual; and the Town of Brunn

could not be taken, because the Saxons had no cannon; and when you wish to enter a Town, you must first

make a hole to get in by. Besides, the Country has been reduced to such a state: that the Enemy cannot subsist

in it, and you will soon see him leave it. There is your little military lesson; I would not have you at a loss

what to think of our Operations; or what to say, should other people talk of them in your presence!"

"Winter Campaigns," says Friedrich elsewhere, much in earnest, and looking back on this thing long

afterwards, "Winter Campaigns are bad, and should always be avoided, except in cases of necessity. The best

Army in the world is liable to be ruined by them. I myself have made more Winter Campaigns than any

"In 1740," Winter Campaign which we saw, "there were hardly above two Austrian regiments in Silesia, at

Karl VI.'s death. Being determined to assert my right to that Duchy, I had to try it at once, in winter, and

carry the war, if possible, to the Banks of the Neisse. Had I waited till spring, we must have begun the war

between Crossen and Glogau; what was now to be gained by one march would then have cost us three or four

"If I did not succeed in the Winter Campaign of 1742," Campaign which we have just got out of, "which I

made with a design to deliver the Elector of Bavaria's Country, then overrun by Austria, it was because the

French acted like fools, and the Saxons like traitors." Mark that deliberate opinion.

Chapter X. FRIEDRICH DOES HIS MORAVIAN EXPEDITION WHICH PROVES A MERE MORAVIAN FORAY. 749

"In 174546," Winter Campaign which we expect to see, "the Austrians having got Silesia, it was necessary

to drive them out. The Saxons and they had formed a design to enter my Hereditary Dominions, to destroy

them with fire and sword. I was beforehand with them. I carried the War into the heart of Saxony."

[MILITARY INSTRUCTIONS WRITTEN BY "translated hy an Officer" (London, 1762), pp. 171, 172. One

of the best, or altogether tbe best, of Friedrich's excellent little Books written successively (thricePRIVATE,

could they have been kept so) for the instruction of his Officers. Is to be found now in OEuvres de Frederic,

xxviii. (that is vol. i. of the "OEuvres Militaires," which occupy 3 vols.) pp. 4 et seqq.]

Digesting many bitterenough thoughts, Friedrich has cantoned about Chrudim; expecting, in grim composed

humor, the one Consolation there can now be. February 25th, as readers well know, the Majesty of Hungary

and her Aulic Council had decided, "One stroke more, O Excellency Robinson; one Battle more for our

Silesian jewel of the crown! If beaten, we will then give it up; oh, not till then!" Robinson and

Hyndford,imagination may faintly represent their feelings, on the wilful downbreak of

KleinSchnellendorf; or what clamor and urgency the Majesty of Britain and they have been making ever

At Chrudim, and to the right and the left of it, sprinkled about in long, very thin, elliptic shape (thirty or forty

miles long, but capable of coalescing "within eightandforty hours"), there lies Friedrich: the Elbe River is

behind him; beyond Elbe are his Magazines, at Konigsgratz, Nimburg, Podiebrad, Pardubitz; the Giant

Mountains, and world of Bohemian Hills, closingin the background, far off: that is his position, if readers

will consult their Map. The consolatory Visit, he privately thinks, cannot be till the grass come; that is, not till

The Old Dessauer with part of his 20,000,aided by Boy Dietrich (KNABE, "Knave Dietrich," as one might

fondly call him) and the Moravian Mealwagons,accomplished his TroppauJablunka Problem perfectly

well; cleaning the Mountains, and keeping them clean, of that Pandour rabble, as he was the man to do. Nor

would his Expedition require mentioning farther,were it not for some slight passages of a purely

Biographical character; first of all, for certain rubs which befell between his Majesty and him. For example,

once, before that Interview at Chrudim, just on entering Bohemia thitherward, Old Leopold had seen good to

alter his marchroute; andon better information, as he thought it, which proved to be worsehad taken a

road not prescribed to him. Hearing of which, Friedrich reins him up into the right course, in this sharp

"CHRUDIM, 21st APRIL. I am greatly surprised that your Serenity, as an old Officer, does not more

accurately follow my orders which I give you. If you were skilfuler than Caesar, and did not with strict

accuracy observe my orders, all else were of no help to me. I hope this notice, once for all, will be enough;

and that in time coming you will give no farther causes to complain." [King to Furst Leopold (Orlich, i.

Friedrich, on their meeting at Chrudim, was the same man as ever. But the old Son of Gunpowder stood

taciturn, rigorous, in military business attitude, in the King's presence; had not forgotten the passage; and

indeed he kept it in mind for long months after. And during all this OberSchlesien time, had the hidden

grudge in his heart;doing his day's work with scrupulous punctuality; all the more scrupulous, they say.

Friedrich tried, privately through Leopold Junior, some slight touches of assuagement; but without effect; and

Besides that of keeping down Hungarian Enterprises in the Mountains, Old Leopold had, as would appear, to

take some general superintendence in OberSchlesien; and especially looks after the new Fortificationwork

going on in those parts. Which latter function brought him often to Neisse, and into contact with the ugly

Walrave, EngineerinChief there. A much older and much worthier acquaintance of ours, Herr

BoundaryCommissioner Nussler, happens also to be in Neisse;waiting for those Saxon Gentlemen; who

are unpunctual to a degree, and never come (nor in fact ever will, if Nussler knew it). Luckily Nussler kept a

Notebook; and Busching ultimately got it, condensed it, printed it;whereby (what is rare, in these

Dryasdust labyrinths, inane spectralities and cindermountains) there is sudden eyesight vouchsafed; and we

discern veritably, far off, brought face to face for an instant, this and that! I must translate some

Nussler had been in this Country, off and on, almost since Christmas last; ready here, if the Saxons had been

ready. As the Saxons were not ready, and always broke their appointment, Nussler had gone into the

... "From Berlin, 20th December, 1741; by Breslau,"where some pause and correspondence;"thence on,

Neisse way, as far as Lowen [so well known to Friedrich, that Mollwitz night!]. From Berlin to Lowen,

Nussler had come in a carriage: but as there was much snow falling, he here took a couple of sledges; in

which, along with his attendants, he proceeded some fifty miles, to Jauernik, a stage beyond Neisse, to the

southwest. Jauernik is a little Town lying at the foot of a Hill, on the top of which is the Schloss of

Johannisberg. Here it began to rain; and the getting up the Hill, on sledges, was a difficult matter. The

DROST [Steward] of this Castle was a Nobleman from BrunswickLuneburg; who, for the sake of a

marriage and this Drostship for dowry, had changed from Protestant to Roman Catholic,"poor soul! "His

wife and he were very polite, and showed Nussler a great deal of kindness. Nussler remarked on the left side

of this Johannisberg," western side a good few miles off, "the pass which leads from Glatz to Upper and

Lower Schlesien,"where the reader too has been, in that BAUMGARTEN SKIRMISH, if he could

remember it,"with a little Blockhouse in the bottom," and no doubt Prussian soldiers in it at the moment.

"Nussler, intent always on the useful, did not institute picturesque reflections; but considered that his King

would wish to have this Pass and Blockhouse; and determined privately, though it perhaps lay rather beyond

the boundarymark, that his Master must have it when the bargaining should come. ...

"On the homeward survey of these Borders, Nussler arrived at Steinau [little Village with Schloss, which we

saw once, on the march to Mollwitz, and how accident of fire devoured it that night], and at sight of the burnt

Schloss standing black there, he remembered with great emotion the Story of Grafin von Callenberg [dead

since, with her pistols and brandybottle] and of the Grafin's Daughter, in which he had been concerned as a

much interested witness, in old times. ... For the rest, the journey, amid ice and snow, was not only

troublesome in the extreme, but he got a lifelong gout by it [and no profit to speak of]; having sunk, once,

on thin ice, sledge and he, into a halffrozen stream, and got wetted to the loins, splashing about in such cold

manner,happily not quite drowned." The indefatigable Nussler; working still, like a very artist, wherever

The Saxon Gentlemen never came;privately the Saxons were quite off from the Silesian bargain, and from

Friedrich altogether;so that this border survey of Nussler's came to nothing, on the present occasion. But it

served him and Friedrich well, on a new boundarysettling, which did take effect, and which holds to this

day. Nussler, during these operations, and vain waitings for the Saxons, had Neisse for headquarters; and,

going and returning, was much about Neisse; Walrave, Marwitz (Father of Wilhelmina's baggage Marwitz),

Feldmarschall Schwerin (in earlier stages), and other high figures, being prominent in his circle there.

"The old Prince of Dessau came thither: for some days. [Busching, Beitrage, i. 347 (beginning of May as we

guess, but there is no date given).] He was very gracious to Nussler, who had been at his Court, and known

him before this. The Old Dessauer made use of Walrave's Plate; usually had Walrave, Nussler, and other

principal figures to dinner. Walrave's Plate, every piece of it, was carefully marked with a RAVEN on the

rim, that being his crest ["Wallraven" his name]: Old Dessauer, at sight of so many images of that bird,

threw out the observation, loud enough, from the top of the table, 'Hah, Walrave, I see you are making

yourself acquainted with the RAVENS in time, that they may not be strange to you at last,'"when they

come to eat you on the gibbet! (not a soft tongue, the Old Dessauer's). "Another day, seeing Walrave seated

between two Jesuit Guests, the Prince said: 'Ah, there you are right, Walrave; there you sit safe; the Devil

can't get you there!' As the Prince kept continually bantering him in this strain, Walrave determined not to

come; sulkily absented himself one day: but the Prince sent the ORDINANZ (Soldier in waiting) to fetch

"They had RomanCatholic victual for Walrave and others of that faith, on the meagredays; but Walrave eat

right before him, evidently nothing but the name of Catholic. Indeed, he was a man hated by the Catholics,

for his special rapacity on them. 'He is of no religion at all,' said the Catholic Prelate of Neisse, one day, to

Nussler; (greedy to plunder the Monasteries here; has wrung gold, silver aud jewels from them,nay from

the Pope himself,by threatening to turn Protestant, and use the Monasteries still worse. And the Pope,

hearing of this, had to send him a valuable Gift, which you may see some day.' Nussler did, one day, see this

preciosity: a Crucifix, ebony bordered with gold, and the Body all of that metal, on the smallest of altars,in

Walrave's bedroom. But it was the bedroom itself which Nussler looked at with a shudder," Nussler and we:

"in the middle of it stood Walrave's own bed, on his right hand that of his Wife, and on his left that of his

Mistress:"a brutish polygamous Walrave! "This Mistress was a certain QuarterMaster's

Wife,"QuarterMaster willing, it is probable, to get rid of such an article gratis, much more on terms of

profit. "Walrave had begged for him the Title of Hofrath from King Friedrich,"which, though it was but a

clipping of ribbon contemptible to Friedrich, and the brute of an Engineer had excellent talents in his

business, I rather wish Friedrich had refused in this instance. But he did not; "he answered in gibing tone, 'I

grant you the Hofrath Title for your QuarterMaster; thinking it but fit that a General's'What shall we call

her? (Friedrich uses the direct word)'should have some handle to her name.'" [Busching, Beitrage, i.

It was this Mistress, one is happy to know, that ultimately betrayed the unbeautiful Walrave, and brought him

to Magdeburg for the rest of his life.And now let us over the Mountains, to Chrudim again; a hundred and

It was before the middle of May, not of June as Friedrich had expected, that serious news reached Chrudim.

May 11th, from that place, there is a Letter to Jordan, which for once has no verse, no bantering in it: Prince

Karl actually coming on; Hussar precursors, in quantity, stealing across to attack our Magazines beyond

Elbe; and in consequence, Orders are out this very day: "Cantonments, cease; immediate rendezvous, and

Encampment at Chrudim here!" Which takes effect two days hence, Monday, 13th May: one of the finest

sights Stille ever saw. "His Majesty rode to a height; you never beheld such a scene: bright columns, foot and

horse, streaming in from every point of the compass, their clear arms glittering in the sun; lost now in some

hollow, then emerging, winding out with longdrawn glitter again; till at length their blue uniforms and

actual faces come home to you. Near upon 30,000 of all arms; trim exact, of stout and silently goodhumored

aspect; well rested, by this time;likely fellows for their work, who will do it with a will. The King seemed

to be affected by so glorious a spectacle; and, what I admired, his Majesty, though fatigued, would not rest

satisfied with reports or distant view, but personally made the tour of the whole Camp, to see that everything

was right, and posted the pickets himself before retiring." [Stille, p. 57 (or Letter X.).]

Prince Karl, since we last heard of him, had hung about in the Brunn and other Moravian regions, rallying his

forces, pushing out Croat parties upon Prince Dietrich's homemarch, and the like; very ill off for food, for

draughtcattle, in a wasted Country. So that he had soon quitted Mahren; made for Budweis and

neighborhood: dangerous to Broglio's outposts there? To a "Castle of Frauenberg," across the Moldau

from Budweis; which is Broglio's bulwark there, and has cost Broglio much revictualling, reinforcing, and

flurry for the last two months. Prince Karl did not meddle with Brauenberg, or Broglio, on this occasion;

leaves Lobkowitz, with some Reserveparty, hovering about in those parts;and himself advances, by

Teutschbrod (well known to the poor retreating Saxons latcey!) towards Chrudim, on his grand Problem, that

of 25th February last. Cautiously, not too willingly, old Konigseck and he. But they were inflexibly urged to

it by the Heads at Vienna; who, what with their Bavarian successes, what with their Moravian and other, had

got into a high key;and scorned the notion of "Peace," when Hyndford (getting Friedrich's permission, in

Broglio is in boundless flurry; nothing but spectres of attack looming in from Karl, from Khevenhuller, from

everybody; and Eger hardly yet got. [19th April ( Guerre de Boheme, ii. 7781.] Fine reinforcement, 25,000

under a Due d'Harcourt; this and other good outlooks there are; but it is the terrible alone that occupy Broglio.

And indeed the poor man especially ever since that Moravian Business would not thrive in spite of

himis not to be called well off! Friedrich and he are in correspondence, by no means mutually pleasant, on

the PrinceKarl phenomenon. "Evidently intending towards Prag, your Majesty perceives!" thinks Broglio.

"If not towards Chrudim, first of all, which is 80 miles nearer him, on his rode to Prag!" urges Friedrich, at

this stage: "Help me with a few regiments in this Chrudim Circle, lest I prove too weak here. Is not this the

bulwark of your Prag just now?" In vain; Broglio (who indeed has orders that way) cannot spare a man.

"Very well," thinks Friedrich; and has girded up his own strength for the Chrudim phenomenon; but does not

forget this new illustration of the JointStock Principle, and the advantages of Broglio Partnership.

Friedrich's beautiful Encampment at Chrudim lasted only two days. Precursor Tolpatcheries (and, in fact,

Prince Karl's Vanguard, if we knew it) come storming about, rifer and rifer; attempting the Bridge of Kolin

(road to our Magazines); attempting this and that; meaning to get between us and Prag; and, what is worse, to

seize the Magazines, Podiebrad, Nimburg, which we have in that quarter! Tuesday, May 15th, accordingly,

Friedrich himself gets on march, with a strong swift Vanguard, horse and foot (grenadiers, hussars,

dragoons), Pragward,probably as far as Kuttenberg, a fine high lying post, which commands those

Kodin parts;will march with despatch, and see how that matter is. The main Army is to follow under

Leopold of AnhaltDessau tomorrow, Wednesday," so soon as their loaves have come from

Konigsgratz,"for "an Army goes on its belly," says Friedrich often. Loaves do not come, owing to evil

chance, on this occasion: Leopold's people "take meal instead;" but will follow, next morning, all the same,

according to bidding. Readers may as well take their Map, and accompany in these movements; which issue

Tuesday morning, 15th May, Friedrich marches from Chrudim; on which same morning of the 15th, Prince

Karl, steadily on the advance he too, is starting,and towards the same point,from a place called

Chotieborz, only fifteen miles to southward of Chrudim. In this way, mutually unaware, but Prince Karl

getting soonest aware, the Vanguards of the Two Armies (Prince Karl's Vanguard being in many branches, of

Tolpatch nature) are cast athwart each other; and make, both to Friedrich and Prince Karl, an enigmatic

business of it for the next two days. Tuesday, 15th, Friedrich marching along, vigilantly observant on both

hands, some fifteen miles space, came that evening to a Village called Podhorzan, with Height near by;

[Stille, pp. 60, 61.] Height which he judged unattackable, and on the side of which he pitches his camp

accordingly,himself mounting the Height to look for news. News sure enough: there, south of us on the

heights of Ronnow, three or four miles off, are the Enemy, camped or pickeering about, 7 or 8,000 as we

judge. Lobkowitz, surely not Lobkowitz? He has been gliding about, on the French outskirts, far in the

southwest lately: can this be Lobkowitz, about to join Prince Karl in these parts?Truly, your Majesty, this

is not Lobkowitz at all; this is Prince Karl's Vanguard, and Prince Karl himself actually in it for the

moment, anxiously taking view of your Vanguard; recognizing, and admitting to himself, "Pooh, they will

be at Kuttenberg before us; no use in hastening. Headquarters at Willimow tonight; here at Ronnow

Tomorrow, 16th May, before sunrise at Podhorzan, the supposed Lobkowitz is clean vanished: there is no

Enemy visible to Friedrich, at Ronnow or elsewhere. Leaving Friedrich in considerable uncertainty: clear

only that there are Enemies copiously about; that he himself will hold on for Kuttenberg; that young Leopold

must get hitherward, with steady celerity at the top of his effort,parts of the ground being difficult;

especially a muddy Stream, called Dobrowa, which has only one Bridge on it fit for artillery, the Bridge of

Sbislau, a mile or two ahead of this. Instructions are sent Leopold to that effect; and farther that Leopold must

quarter in Czaslau (a substantial little Town, with bogs about it, and military virtues); and, on the whole, keep

close to heel of us, the Enemy in force being near, Upon which, his Majesty pushes on for Kuttenberg; Prince

Leopold following with best diligence, according to Program. His Majesty passed a little place called Neuhof

that afternoon (Wednesday, 16th May); and encamped a short way from Kuttenberg, behind or north of that

Town,out of which, on his approach, there fled a considerable cloud of Austrian Irregulars, and "left a

large baking of bread." Bread just about ready to their order, and coming hot out of the ovens; which was

very welcome to his Majesty that night; and will yield refreshment, partial refreshment, next morning, to

Poor Prince Leopold had his own difficulties this day; rough ground, very difficult to pass; and coming on the

Height of Podhorzan where his Majesty was yesterday, Leopold sees crowds of Hussars, needing a

cannonshot or two; sees evident symptoms, to southward, that the whole Force of the Enemy is advancing

upon him! "Speed, then, for Sbislau Bridge yonder; across the Dobrowa, with our Artillerywagons, or we

are lost!" Prince Karl, with Hussar parties all about, is fully aware of Prince Leopold and his movements,

and is rolling on, Ronnowward all day, to cut him off, in his detached state, if possible. Prince Karl might,

with ease, have broken this Dobrowa Bridge; and Leopold and military men recognize it as a capital neglect

Leopold, overloaded with such intricacies and anxieties, sends off three messengers, Officers of mark

(Schmettau Junior one of them), to apprise the King: the Officers return, unable to get across to his Majesty;

Leopold sends proper detachment of horse with them, uncertain still whether they will get through. And

night is falling; we shall evidently be too late for getting Czaslau: well if we can occupy Chotusitz and the

environs; a small clay Hamlet, three miles nearer us. It was 11 at night before the rear guard got into

Chotusitz: Czaslau, three miles south of us, we cannot attend to till tomorrow morning. [Orlich, pp.

236239.] And the three messengers, despatched with escort, send back no word. Have they ever got to his

Majesty? Leopold sends off a fourth. This fourth one does get through; reports to his Majesty, That, by all

appearance, there will be Battle on the morrow early; that not Czaslau, but only Chotusitz is ours; and that

Instructions are wanted. Deep in the night, this fourth messenger returns; a welcome awakening for Prince

Leopold; who studies his Majesty's Instructions, and will make his dispositions accordingly.

It is 2 or 3 in the morning, [Ib. p. 238.] in Leopold's Camp, Bivouac rather, with its face to the south, and

Chotusitz ahead. Thursday, 17th May, 1742; a furiously important Day about to dawn. High Problem of the

23th February last; Britannic Majesty and his Hyndfords and Robinsons vainly protesting:it had to be

tried; Hungarian Majesty having got, from Britannic, the sinews for trying it: and this is to be the Day.

Kuttenberg, Czaslau, Chotusitz and all these other places lie in what is called the Valley of the Elbe, but what

to the eye has not the least appearance of a hollow, but of an extensive plain rather, dimpled here and there;

and, if anything, rather sloping FROM the Elbe,were it not that dull bushless brooks, one or two,

sauntering to NORTHward, not southward, warn you of the contrary. Conceive a flat tract of this kind, some

three or four miles square, with Czaslau on its southern border, Chotusitz on its northern; flanked, on the

west, by a straggle of Lakelets, ponds and quagmires (which in our time are drained away, all but a tenth part

or so of remainder); flanked, on the east, by a considerable puddle of a Stream called the Dobrowa; and cut in

the middle by a nameless poor Brook ("BRTLINKA" some write it, if anybody could pronounce), running

parallel and independent,which latter, of more concernment to us here, springs beyond Czaslau, and is got

to be of some size, and more intricate than usual, with "islands" and the like, as it passes Chotusitz (a little to

east of Chotusitz); this is our Field of Battle. Sixty or more miles to eastward of Prag, eight miles or more

to southward of Elbe River and the Ford of ElbeTeinitz (which we shall hear of, in years coming). A scene

worth visiting by the curious, though it is by no means of picturesque character.

Uncomfortably bare, like most German plains; mean little hamlets, which are full of litter when you enter

them, lie sprinkled about; little churchspires (like suffragans to Chotusitz spire, which is near you); a ragged

untrimmed country: beyond the Brook, towards the Dobrowa, two or more miles from Chotusitz, is still

noticeable: something like a Deerpark, with umbrageous features, bushy clumps, and shadowy vestiges of a

Mansion, the one regular edifice within your horizon. Schuschitz is the name of this Mansion and Deerpark;

farther on lies Sbislau, where Leopold happily found his Bridge unbroken yesterday.

The general landscape is scrubby, littery; illtilled, scratched rather than ploughed; physiognomic of Czech

Populations, who are seldom trim at elbows: any beauty it has is on the farther side of the Dobrowa, which

does not concern Prince Leopold, Prince Karl, or us at present. Prince Leopold's camp lies east and west,

short way to north of Chotusitz. Schuschitz Hamlet (a good mile northward of Sbislau) covers his left, the

chain of Lakelets covers his right: and Chotusitz, one of his outposts, lies centrally in front. Prince Karl is

coming on, in four columns, from the Hills and intricacies south of Czaslau,has been on march all night,

intending a nightattack or camisado if he could; but could not in the least, owing to the intricate roadways,

and the discrepancies of pace between his four columns. The sun was up before anything of him

appeared:drawing out, visibly yonder, by the east side of Czaslau; 30,000 strong, they say. Friedrich's

Friedrich's Orders, which Leopold is studying, were: "Hold by Chotusitz for Centre; your left wing, see you

lean it on something, towards Dobrowa side,on that intricate Brook (Brtlinka) or Park wall of Schuschitz,

[SBISLAU, Friedrich hastily calls it ( OEuvres, ii. 121126); Stille (p. 63) is more exact.] which I think is

there; then your right wing westwards, till you lean again on something: two lines, leave room for me and my

force, on the corner nearest here. I will start at four; be with you between seven and eight,and even bring a

proportion of Austrian bread (hot from these ovens of Kuttenberg) to refresh part of you." Leopold of Anhalt,

a muchcomforted man, waits only for the earliest gray of the morning, to be up and doing. From Chotusitz

he spreads out leftwards towards the Brtlinka Brook,difficult ground that, unfit for cavalry, with its bog

holes, islands, gullies and broken surface; better have gone across the Brtlinka with mere infantry, and leant

on the wall of that Deerpark of Schuschitz with perhaps only 1,000 horse to support, well rearward of the

infantry and this difficult ground? So men think,after the action is over. [Stille, pp. 63, 67.] And indeed

there was certainly some misarrangement there (done by Leopold's subordinates), which had its effects

Leopold was not there in person, arranging that left wing; Leopold is looking after centre and right. He

perceives, the right wing will be his best chance; knows that, in general, cavalry must be on both wings. On a

little eminence in front of his right, he sees how the Enemy comes on; Czaslau, lately on their left, is now

getting to rear of them:"And you, stout old General Buddenbrock, spread yourself out to right a little,

hidden behind this rising ground; I think we may outflank their left wing by a few squadrons, which will be

Buddenbrock spreads himself out, as bidden: had Buddenbrock been reinforced by most of the horse that

could do no good on our LEFT wing, it is thought the Battle had gone better. Buddenbrock in this way,

secretly, outflanks the Austrians; to HIS right all forward, he has that string of marshy pools (Lakes of

Czirkwitz so called, outflowings from the Brook of Neuhof), and cannot be taken in flank by any means.

Brook of Neuhof, which his Majesty crossed yesterday, farther north;and ought to have recrossed by this

time?said Brook, hereabouts a mere fringe of quagmires and marshy pools, is our extreme boundary on the

west or right; Brook of Brtlinka (unluckily NOT wall of the Deerpark) bounds us eastward, or on our left,

Prince Karl, drawn up by this time, is in two lines, cavalry on right and left, but rather in bent order; bent

towards us at both ends (being dainty of his ground, I suppose); and comes on in hollowcrescent

form;which is not reckoned orthodox by military men. What all these Villages, human individuals and

terrified deer, are thinking, I never can conjecture! Thicksoled peasants, terrified nursingmothers: Better to

run and hide, I should say; mount your garron ploughhorses, hide your butterpots, meal barrels; run at

It is now past seven, a hot May morning, the Austrians very near; and yonder, of a surety, is his Majesty

coming. Majesty has marched since four; and is here at his time, loaves and all. His men rank at once in the

corner left for them; one of his horsegenerals, Lehwald, is sent to the left, to put straight what my be awry

there (cannot quite do it, he either);and the attack by Buddenhrock, who secretly outflanks here on the

right, this shall at once take effect. No sooner has his Majesty got upon the little eminence or rising ground,

and scanned the Austrian lines for an instant or two, than his cannonbatteries awaken here; give the Austrian

horse a good blast, by way of morning salutation and overture to the concert of the day. And Buddenbrock,

deploying under cover of that, charges, "first at a trot, then at a gallop," to see what can be done upon them

with the white weapon. Old Uuddenbrock, surely, did not himself RIDE in the charge? He is an old man of

seventy; has fought at Oudenarde, Malplaquet, nay at Steenkirk, and been run through the body, under Dutch

William; is an old acquaintance of Charles XII.s even; and sat solemnly by Friedrich Wilhelm's coffin, after

so much attendance during life. The special leader of the charge was Bredow; also a veteran gentleman, but

still only in the fifties; he, I conclude, made the charge; first at a trot, then at a gallop,with swords flashing

"The dust was prodigious," says Friedrich, weather being dry and ground sandy; for a space of time you

could see nothing but one huge whirlpool of dust, with the gleam of steel flickering madly in it: however,

Buddenbrock, outflanking the Austrian first line of horse, did hurl them from their place; by and by you see

the dust tempest running south, faster and faster south,that is to say, the Austrian horse in flight; for

Buddenbrock, outflanking them by three squadrons, has tumbled their first line topsyturvy, and they rush to

rearward, he following away and away. [ OEuvres de Frederic, ii. 123.] Now were the time for a fresh force

of Prussian cavalry,for example, those you have standing useless behind the gullies and quagmires on your

left wing (says Stille, after the event);due support to Buddenbrock, and all that Austrian cavalry were

But now again, see, do not the dustclouds pause? They pause, mounting higher and higher; they dance

wildly, then roll back towards us; too evidently back. Buddenbrock has come upon the secoud line of

Austrian horse; in too loose order Buddenbrock, by this time, and they have broken him:and it is a mutual

defeat of horse on this wing, the Prussian rather the worse of the two. And might have been serious,had not

Rothenburg plunged furiously in, at this crisis, quite through to the Austrian infantry, and restored matters, or

more. Making a confused result of it in this quarter. Austrian horseregiments there now were that fled quite

away; as did even one or two footregiments, while the Prussian infantry dashed forward on them, escorted

by Rothenburg in this manner,who got badly wounded in the business; and was long an object of solicitude

to Friedrich. And contrariwise certain Prussian horse also, it was too visible, did not compose themselves till

fairly arear of our foot. This is Shock First in the Battle; there are Three Shocks in all.

Partial charging, fencing and flourishing went on; but nothing very effectual was done by the horse in this

quarter farther. Nor did the fire or effort of the Prussian Infantry in this their right wing continue; Austrian

fury and chief effort having, by this time, broken out in an opposite quarter. So that the strain of the Fight lies

now in the other wing over about Chotusitz and the Brtlinka Brook; and thither I perceive his Majesty has

galloped, being "always in the thickest of the danger" this day. Shock Second is now on. The Austrians have

Prince Leopold's Left Wing, as we said, was entirely defective in the eye of tacticians (after the event). Far

from leaning on the wall of the Deerpark, he did not even reach the Brook,or had to weaken his force in

Chotusitz Village for that object. So that when the Austrian foot comes storming upon Chotusitz, there is but

"half a regiment" to defend it. And as for cavalry, what is to become of cavalry, slowly threading, under

cannonshot and musketry, these intricate quagmires and gullies, and dangerously breaking into files and

strings, before ever it can find ground to charge? Accordingly, the Austrian foot took Chotusitz, after

obstinate resistance; and old Konigseck, very ill of gout, got seated in one of the huts there; and the Prussian

cavalry, embarrassed to get through the gullies, could not charge except piecemeal, and then though in some

cases with desperate valor, yet in all without effectual result. Konigseck sits in Chotusitz;and yet withal the

Russians are not out of it, will not be driven out of it, but cling obstinately; whereupon the Austrians set fire

to the place; its dry thatch goes up in flame, and poor old Konigseck, quite lame of gout, narrowly escaped

And, see, the Austrian horse have got across the Brtlinka, are spread almost to the Deerpark, and strive hard

to take us in flank,did not the Brook, the bad ground and the platoonfiring (fearfully swift, from

discipline and the iron ramrods) hold them back in some measure. They make a violent attempt or two; but

the problem is very rugged. Nor can the Austrian infantry, behind or to the west of burning Chotusitz, make

an impression, though they try it, with 1evelled bayonets and deadly energy, again and again: the Prussian

ranks are as if built of rock, and their fire is so sure and swift. Here is one Austrian regiment, came rushing on

like lions; would not let go, death or nodeath:and here it lies, shot down in ranks; whole swaths of dead

men, and their muskets by them, as if they had got the word to take that posture, and had done it hurriedly!

A small transitory gleam of proud rage is visible, deep down, in the soul of Friedrich as he records this fact.

The Austrian horse, after such experimenting in the Brtlinka quarter, gallop off to try to charge the Prussians

in the rear; "pleasanter by far," judge many of them, "to plunder the Prussian Camp," which they descry in

those regions; whither accordingly they rush. Too many of them; and the Hussars as one man. To the

sorrowful indignation of Prince Karl, whose right arm (or wing) is fallen paralytic in this manner. After the

Fight, they repented in dust and ashes; and went to say so, as if with the rope about their neck; upon which he

Nor is Prince Karl's left wing gaining garlands just at this moment. Shock Third is awakening;and will be

decisive on Prince Karl. Chotusitz, set on fire an hour since (about 9 A.M.), still burns; cutting him in two, as

it were, or disjoining his left wing from his right: and it is on his right wing that Prince Karl is depending for

victory, at present; his left wing, ruffled by those first Prussian charges of horse, with occasional Prussian

swift musketry ever since, being left to its own inferior luck, which is beginning to produce impression on it.

And, lo, on the sudden (what brought finis to the business), Friedrich, seizing the moment, commands a

united charge on this left wing: Friedrich's right wing dashes forward on it, doublequick, takes it furiously,

on front and flank; fifteen fieldpieces preceding, and intolerable musketry behind them. So that the Austrian

The Austrian left wing, stormed in upon in this manner, swags and sways, threatening to tumble pellmell

upon the right wing; which latter has its own hands full. No Chotusitz or point of defence to hold by, Prince

Karl is eminently ill off, and will be hurled wholly into the Brtlinka, and the islands and gullies, unless he

mind! Prince Karl,what a moment for him!noticing this undeniable phenomenon, rapidly gives the word

for retreat, to avoid worse. It is near upon Noon; four hours of battle; very fierce on both the wings, together

or alternately; in the centre (westward of Chotusitz) mostly insignificant: "more than half the Prussians"

standing with arms shouldered. Prince Karl rolls rapidly away, through Czaslau towards southwest again;

loses guns in Czaslau; goes, not quite broken, but at doublequick time for five miles; cavalry, Prussian and

Austrian, bickering in the rear of him; and vanishes over the horizon towards Willimow and Haber that night,

This is the battle of Chotusitz, called also of Czaslau: Thursday, 17th May, 1742. Vehemently fought on both

sides;calculated, one may hope, to end this Silesian matter? The results, in killed and wounded, were not

very far from equal. Nay, in killed the Prussians suffered considerably the worse; the exact Austrian cipher of

killed being 1,052, while that of the Prussians was 1,905,owing chiefly to those fierce ineffectual

horsecharges and bickerings, on the right wing and left; "above 1,200 Prussian cavalry were destroyed in

these." But, in fine, the general loss, including wounded and missing, amounted on the Austrian side

(prisoners being many, and deserters very many) to near seven thousand, and on the Prussian to between four

and five. [Orlich, i. 255; Feldzuge der Preussen, p. 113; Stille, pp. 6271; Friedrich himself, OEuvres, ii.

121126; and (ib. pp. 145150) the Newspaper "RELATION," written also by him.] Two Generals Friedrich

had lost, who are not specially of our acquaintance; and several younger friends whom he loved. Rothenburg,

who was in that first charge of horse with Buddenbrock, or in rescue of Buddenbrock, and did exploits, got

badly hurt, as we saw,badly, not fatally, as Friedrich's first terror was,and wore his arm in a sling for a

Buddenbrock's charge, I since hear, was ruined by the DUST; [ OEuvres de Frederic, ii. 121.] the King's

vanguard, under Rothenburg, a "newraised regiment of Hussars in green," coming to the rescue, were

mistaken for Austrians, and the cry rose, "Enemy to rear!" which brought Rothenburg his disaster. Friedrich

much loved and valued the man; employed him afterwards as Ambassador to France and in places of trust.

Friedrich's Ambassadors are oftenest soldiers as well: bred soldiers, he finds, if they chance to have natural

intelligence, are fittest for all kinds of work.Some eighteen Austrian cannon were got; no standards,

because, said the Prussians, they took the precaution of bringing none to the field, but had beforehand rolled

them all up, out of harm's way.Let us close with this Fraction of topography old aud new:

"King Friedrich purchased Nine Acres of Ground, near Chotusitz, to bury the slain; rented it from the

proprietor for twentyfive years. [ HeldenGeschichte, ii. 634.] I asked, Where are those nine acres; what

crop is now upon them? but could learn nothing. A dim people, those poor Czech natives; stupid,

dirtyskinned, illgiven; not one in twenty of them speaking any German;and our dragoman a fortuitous

Jew Pedler; with the mournfulest of human faces, though a head worth twenty of those Czech ones, poor

oppressed soul! The Battleplain bears rye, barley, miscellaneous pulse, potatoes, mostly insignificant crops;

the nine heroacres in question, perhaps still of slightly richer quality, lie indiscriminate among the others;

"The Country, as you descend by dusty intricate lanes from Kuttenberg, with your left hand to the Elbe, and

at length with your back to it, would be rather pretty, were it well cultivated, the scraggy litter swept off, and

replaced by verdure and reasonable umbrage here and there. The Field of Chotusitz, where you emerge on it,

is a wide wavy plain; the steeple of Chotusitz, and, three or four miles farther, that of Czaslau (pronounce

'KOTusitz,' 'CHASlau'), are the conspicuous objects in it. The Lakes Friedrich speaks of, which covered his

right, and should cover ours, are not now there,'all, or mostly all, drained away, eighty years ago,'

answered the Czechs; answered one wiser Czech, when pressed upon, and guessed upon; thereby solving the

enigma which was distressful to us. Between those Lakes and the Brtlinka Brook may be some two miles;

Chotusitz is on the crown of the space, if it have a crown. But there is no 'height' on it, worth calling a height

except by the military man; no tree or bush; no fence among the scrubby ryes and pulses: no obstacle but that

Brook, which, or the hollow of which, you see sauntering steadily northward or Elbeward, a good distance

on your left, as you drive for Chotusitz and steeple. Schuschitz, a peaked brown edifice, is visible

everywhere, well ahead and leftwards, well beyond said hollow; something of wood and 'deerpark' still

"Chotusitz itself is a poor littery place; standing whitewashed, but much unswept: in two straggling rows,

now wide enough apart (no Konigseck need now get burnt there): utterly silent under the hot sun; not a child

looked out on us, and I think the very dogs lay wisely asleep. Church and steeple are at the farther or south

end of the Village, and have an older date than 1742. High up on the steeple, mending the clockhands or I

know not what, hung in mid air one Czech; the only living thing we saw. Population may be three or four

hundred,all busy with their teams or otherwise, we will hope. Czaslau, which you approach by something

of avenues, of human roads (dust and litter still abounding), is a much grander place; say of 2,000 or more:

shiny, white, but also somnolent; vast marketplace, or central square, sloping against you: two shiny Hotels

on it, with Austrian uniforms loitering about; and otherwise great emptiness and silence. The shiny Hotels

(shine due to paint mainly) offer little of humanly edible; and, in the interior, smells strike you asas the

OLDEST you have ever met before. A people not given to washing, to ventilating! Many gospels have been

preached in those parts, aud abstruse Orthodoxies, sometimes with fire and sword, and no end of emphasis;

but that of SoapandWater (which surely is as Catholic as any, and the plainest of all) has not yet got

Czaslau hangs upon the English mind (were not the ignorance so total) by another tie: it is the restingplace

of Zisca, whose drum, or the fable of whose drum, we saw in the citadel of Glatz. Zisca was buried IN his

skin, at Czaslau finally: in the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul there; with due epitaph; and his big mace or

battleclub, mostly iron, hung honorable on the wall close by. Kaiser Ferdinand, Karl V.'s brother, on a

Progress to Prag, came to lodge at Czaslau, one afternoon: "What is that?" said the Kaiser, strolling over this

PeterandPaul's Church, and noticing the mace. "Ugh! Faugh!" growled he angrily, on hearing what; and

would not lodge in the Town, but harnessed again, and drove farther that same night. The club is now gone;

but Zisca's dust lies there irremovable till Doomsday, in the land where his limbs were made. A great

behemoth of a warcaptain; one of the fiercest, inflexiblest, ruggedest creatures ever made in the form of

man. Devoured Priests, with appetite, wherever discoverable: Dishonorers of his Sister; murderers of the

God'switness John Huss; them may all the Devils help! Beat Kaiser Sigismund SUPRA

GRAMMATICAM again and ever again, scattering the Kitter hosts in an extraordinary manner;a Zisca

His birthplace, Troznow, is a village in the Budweis neighborhood, 100 miles to south. There, for three

centuries after him, stood "Zisca's Oak" (under shade of which, his mother, taken suddenly on the

harvestfield, had borne Zisca): a weird object, gate of Heaven and of Orcus to the superstitious populations

about. At midnight on the HallowEve, dark smiths would repair thither, to cut a twig of the Zisca Oak: twig

of it put, at the right moment, under your stithy, insures good luck, lends pith to arm and heart, which is

already good luck. So that a Bishop of those parts, being of some culture, had to cut it down, above a hundred

years ago,and build some Chapel in its stead; no Oak there now, but an orthodox Inscription, not dated that

Friedrich did not much pursue the Austrians after this Victory; having cleared the Czaslau region of them, he

continued there (at Kuttenberg mainly); and directed all his industry to getting Peace made. His experiences

of Broglio, and of what help was likely to be had from Broglio,whom his Court, as Friedrich chanced to

know, had ordered "to keep well clear of the King of Prussia,"had not been flattering. Beaten in this Battle,

Broglio's charity would have been a weak reed to lean upon: he is happy to inform Broglio, that though kept

Blustering Broglio might have guessed that HE now would have to look to himself. But he did not; his eyes

naturally dim and bad, being dazzled at this time, by "an everglorious victory" (so Broglio thinks it) of his

own achieving. Broglio, some couple of days after Czaslau, had marched hastily out of Prag for Budweis

quarter, where Lobkowitz and the Austrians were unexpectedly bestirring themselves, and threatening to

capture that "Castle of Frauenberg" (mythic old Hillcastle among woods), Broglio's chief post in those

regions. Broglio, May 24th, has fought a handsome skirmish (thanks partly to Belleisle, who chanced to

arrive from Frankfurt just in the nick of time, and joined Broglio): Skirmish of Sahay; magnified in all the

French gazettes into a Victory of Sahay, victory little short of Pharsalia, says Friedrich;the complete

account of which, forgotten now by all creatures, is to be read in him they call Mauvillon; [ Guerre de

Boheme, ii. 204.] and makes a pretty enough piece of fence, on the small scale. Lobkowitz had to give up the

"Why not drive him out of Budweis," think the Two French Marshals, "him and whatever force can come? If

those lucky Prussians would cooperate, and those unlucky Saxons, how easy were it!"Belleisle sets off to

persuade Friedrich, to persuade Saxony (and we shall see him on the route); Broglio waiting sublime, on the

hither side of the Moldau, well within wind of Budweis, till Belleisle prevail, and return with said

cooperation, What became of Broglio, waiting in this sublime manner, we shall also have to see; but

perhaps not for a great while yet (cannot pause on such absurd phenomena yet), though Broglio's

catastrophe is itself a thing imminent; and, within some ten days of that astonishing Victory of Sahay,

In actual loss of men or of ground, the results of that Chotusitz Affair were not of decisive nature. But it had

been fought with obstinacy; with great fury on the Austrian side (who, as it were, had a bet upon it ever since

February 25th), Britannic George, and all the world, looking on: and, in dispiritment and discredit to the

beaten party, its results were considerable. The voice of all the world, declaring through its Gazetteer Editors,

"You cannot beat those Prussians!" voice confirmed by one's own sad thoughts: in such sounding of the

rams horns round one's Jericho, there is always a strange influence (what is called panic, as if Pan or some

Among the Austrian Prisoners, there was a General Pallandt, mortally wounded too; whom Friedrich,

according to custom, treated with his best humanity, though all help was hopeless to poor Pallandt. Calling

one day at Pallandt's sickcouch, Friedrich was so sympathetic, humane and noble, that Pallandt was touched

by it; and said, "What a pity your noble Majesty and my noble Queen should ruin one another, for a set of

French intruders, who play false even to your Majesty!" "False?" Friedrich inquires farther: Pallandt, a man

familiar at Court, has seen a Letter from Fleury to the Queen of Hungary, conclusive as to Fleury's good

faith; will undertake, if permitted, to get his Majesty a sight of it. Friedrich permits; the Fleury letter comes;

to the effect: "Make peace with us, O Queen; with your Prussian neighbor you shall make what suits you!"

Friedrich read; learned conclusively, what perhaps he had already as good as known otherwise; and drew the

inference. [ HeldenGeschichte, ii. 633; Hormayr, Anemonen, ii. 186; Adelung, iii. A, 149 n.] Actual copy of

this letter the most ardent Gazetteer curiosity could not attain to, at that epoch; but the Pallandt story seems to

have been true;and as to the Fleury letter in such circumstances, copies of various Fleury letters to the like

purport are still public enough; and Fleury's private intentions, already guessed at by Friedrich, are in our

Certain enough, Peace with Friedrich is now on the way; and cannot well linger:what prospect has Austria

otherwise? Its very supplies from England will be stopped. Hyndford redoubles his diligence; Britannic

Majesty reiterates at Vienna: "Did not I tell you, Madam; there is no hope or possibility till these Prussians

are off our hands!" To which her Hungarian Majesty, as the bargain was, now sorrowfully assents;

sorrowfully, unwillingly,and always lays the blame on his Britannic Majesty afterwards, and brings it up

again as a great favor she had done HIM. "Did not I give up my invaluable Silesia, the jewel of my crown, for

you, cruel Britannic Majesty with the big purse, and no heart to speak of?" This she urges always, on

subsequent occasions; the highsouled Lady; reproachful of the patient, bigpursed little Gentleman, who

never answers as he might, "For ME, Madam? Well!" In short, Hyndford, Podewils and the Vienna

Of these negotiations which go on at Breslau, and of the acres of despatchcs, English, Austrian, and other, let

us not say one word. Enough that the Treaty is getting made, and rapidly,though military offences do not

quite cease; clouds of Austrian Pandours hovering about everywhere in Prince Karl's rear; pouncing down

upon Prussian outposts, convoys, mostly to little purpose; hoping (what proves quite futile) they may even

burn a Prussian magazine here or there. Contemptible to the Prussian soldier, though very troublesome to

him. Friedrich regards the Pandour sort, with their jingling savagery, as a kind of military vermin; not

conceivable a Prussian formed corps should yield to any odds of Pandour Tolpatch tagraggery. Nor does the

Prussian soldier yield; though sometimes, like the mastiff galled by inroad of distracted weasels in too great

quantity, he may have his own difficulties. Witness Colonel Retzow and the Magazine at Pardubitz

("daybreak, May 24th") VERSUS the infinitude of sudden Tolpatchery, bursting from the woods; rabid

enough for many hours, but ineffectual, upon Pardubitz and Retzow. A distinguished Colonel this; of whom

we shall hear again. Whose style of Narrative (modest, clear, grave, brief), much more, whose vigilant

inexpugnable procedure on the occasion, is much to be commended to the military man. [Given in Seyfarth,

Beylage, i. 548 et seqq.] Friedrich, the better to cover his Magazines, and be out of such annoyances, fell back

a little; gradually to Kuttenberg again (Tolpatchery vanishing, of its owm accord); and lay encamped there,

headquarters in the Schloss of Maleschau near by,till the Breslau Negotiations completed themselves.

Prince Karl, fringed with Tolpatchery in this manner, but with much desertion, much dispiritment, in his main

body,the HOOPS upon him all loose, so to speak,staggers zigzag back towards Budweis, and the

Lobkowitz Party there; intending nothing more upon the Prussians;capable now, think some

NONPrussians, of being well swept out of Budweis, and over the horizon altogether. If only his Prussian

Majesty will cooperate! thinks Belleisle. "Your King of Prussia will not, M. le Marechal!" answers

Broglio:No, indeed; he has tried that trade already, M. le Marechal! think Broglio and we. The suspicions

that Friedrich, so quiescent after his Chotusitz, is making Peace, are rife everywhere; especially in Broglio's

head and old Fleury's; though Belleisle persists with emphasis, officially and privately, in the opposite

Belleisle does go; starts for Kuttenberg, for Dresden; his beautiful Budweis project now ready, French

reinforcements streaming towards us, heart high again,if only Friedrich and the Saxons will cooperate.

Belleisle, the Two Belleisles, with Valori and Company, arrived June 2d at Kuttenberg, at the Schloss of

Maleschau;"spoke little of Chotusitz," says Stille; "and were none of them at the pains to ride to the

ground." Marechal Belleisle, for the next three days, had otherwise speech of Friedrich; especially, on June

5th, a remarkable Dialogue. "Won't your Majesty cooperate?" "Alas, Monseigneur de Belleisle" How

gladly would we give this last Dialogue of Friedrich's and Belleisle's, one of the most ticklish conceivable:

but there is not anywhere the least record of it that can be called authentic;and we learn only that Friedrich,

with considerable distinctness, gave him to know, "clearly" (say all the Books, except Friedrich's own), that

cooperation was henceforth a thing of the preterpluperfect tense. "All that I ever wanted, more than I ever

demanded, Austria now offers; can any one blame me that I close such a business as ours has all along been,

It is said, and is likely enough, the PallandtFleury Letter came up; as probably the MORAVIAN FORAY,

and various Broglio passages, would, in the train of said Letter. To all which, and to the inexorable painful

corollary, Belleisle, in his high lean way, would listen with a stern grandiose composure. But the rumors add,

On coming out into the Anteroom, dialogue and sentence now done, Monseigneur de Belleisle tore the

peruke from his head; and stamping on it, was heard to say volcanically, "That cursed parson,CE

MAUDIT CALOTTE [old Fleury],has ruined everything!" Perhaps it is not true? If true,the prompt

valets would quickly replace Monseigneur's wig; chasing his long strides; and silence, in so dignified a man,

would cloak whatever emotions there were. [Adelung, iii. A, 154; Guerre de Boheme, (silent about the wig)

admits, as all Books do, the perfect clearness;compare, however, OEuvres de Frederic; and also Broglio's

strange darkness, twelve days later, and Belleisle now beside him again ( Campagnes des Trois Marechaux,

v. 190, 191, of date 17th June);darkness due perhaps to the strange humor Broglio was then in?] He rolled

off, he and his, straightway to Dresden, there to invite cooperation in the Budweis Project; there also in

vain. "COoperation," M. le Marechal? Alas, it has already come to operation, if you knew it! Aud your

June 15th, Friedrich has a grand dinner of Generals at Maleschau; and says, in proposing the first bumper,

"Gentlemen, I announce to you, that, as I never wished to oppress the Queen of Hungary, I have formed the

resolution of agreeing with that Princess, and accepting the Proposals she has made me in satisfaction of my

rights,"telling them withal what the chief terms were, and praising my Lord Hyndford for his great

services. Upon which was congratulation, cordial, universal; and, with full rummers, "Health to the Queen of

Hungary!" followed by others of the like type, "GrandDuke of Lorraine!" and "The brave Prince Karl!"

Brevity being incumbent on us, we shall say only that the Hyndford Podewils operations had been speeded,

day and night; brought to finis, in the form of Signed Preliminaries, as "Treaty of Breslau, 11th June, 1742;"

and had gone to Friedrich's satisfaction in every particular. Thanks to the useful Hyndford,to the willing

mind of his Britannic Majesty, once so indignant, but made willing, nay passionately eager, by his love of

Human Liberty and the pressure of events! To Hyndford, some weeks hence, [2d August

( HeldenGeschichte, ii. 729).]I conclude, on Friedrich's request,there was Order of the Thistle sent;

and grandest investiture ever seen almost, done by Friedrich upon Hyndford (Jordan, Keyserling, Schwerin,

and the Sword of State busy in it; Two Queens and all the Berlin firmament looking on); and, perhaps better

still, on Friedrich's part there was gift of a Silver DinnerService; gift of the Royal Prussian Arms (which do

enrich ever since the Shield of those Scottish Carmichaels, as doubtless the DinnerService does their

Platechest); and abundant praise and honor to the useful Hyndford, heavy of foot, but sure, who had reached

This welcome Treaty, signed at Breslau, June 11th, and confirmed by "Treaty of Berlin, July 28th," in more

explicit solemn manner, to the selfsame effect, can be read by him that runs (if compelled to read Treaties);

[In HeldenGeschichte, i. 10611064 (Treaty of Breslau), ib. 10651070 (that of Berlin); to be found also in

1. "Silesia, Lower and Upper, to beyond the watershed and the Oppa stream,reserving only the

Principality of Teschen, with pertinents, which used to be reckoned Silesian, and the ulterior Mountaintops

[Mountaintops good for what? thought Friedrich, a year or two afterwards!]Silesia wholly, within those

limits, and furthermore the County Glatz and its dependencies, are and remain the property of Friedrich and

of his Heirs male or female; given up, and made his, to all intents and purposes, forevermore. With which

Friedrich, to the like long date, engages to rest satisfied, and claim nothing farther anywhere.

2. "Silesian DutchEnglish Debt [Loan of about Two Millions, better half of it English, contracted by the late

Kaiser, on Silesian security, in that dreadful PolishElection crisis, when the Sea Powers would not help,

but left it to their Stockbrokers] is undertaken by Friedrich, who will pay interest on the same till liquidated.

3. "Religion to stand where it is. Prussian Majesty not to meddle in this present or in other Wars of her

Hungarian Majesty, except with his ardent wishes that General Peace would ensue, and that all his friends,

This is the Treaty of Breslau (June 11th, 1742), or, in second more solemn edition, Treaty of Berlin (July

28th following); signed, ratified, guaranteed by his Britannic Majesty for one, [Treaty of Westminster,

between Friedrich aud George, 29th (18th) November, 1842 (Scholl, ii. 313).] and firmly planted on the

Diplomatic adamant (at least on the Diplomatic parchment) of this world. And now: Homewards, then;

Huge huzzaing, heraldtrumpeting, bobmajoring, bursts forth from all Prussian Towns, especially from all

Silesian ones, in those June days, as the drums beat homewards; elaborate Illuminations, in the short nights;

with bonfires, with transparencies,Transparency inscribed "FREDERICO MAGNO (To Friedrich THE

GREAT)," in one small instance, still of premature nature. [ HeldenGeschichte (ii. 702729) is endless on

these Illuminations; the Jauer case, of FREDERICO MAGNO (Jauer in Silesia), is of June 15th (ib. 712).]

Omitting very many things, about Silesian Fortresses, ArmyCantons, Silesian settlements, military and civil,

which would but weary the reader, we add only this from Bielfeld: dusty Transit of a victorious Majesty, now

on the threshold of home. Precise date (which Bielfeld prudently avoids guessing at) is July 11th, 1742; "M.

"We never stopped on the road, except some hours at Frankfurton Oder, where the Fair was just going on.

On approaching the Town, we found the highway lined on both sides with crowds of traders, and other

strangers of all nations; who had come out, attracted by curiosity to see the conqueror of Silesia, and had

ranged themselves in two rows there. His Majesty's entry into Frankfurt, although a very triumphant one, was

far from being ostentatious. We passed like lightning before the eyes of the spectators, and we were so

covered with dust, that it was difficult to distinguish the color of our coats and the features of our faces. We

made some purchases at Frankfurt; and arrived safely in the Capital [next day], where the King was received

Here is a successful young King; is not he? Has plunged into the Mahlstrom for his jewelled gold Cup, and

comes up with it, alive, unlamed. Will he, like that DIVER of Schiller's, have to try the feat a second time?

Friedrich's own Peace being made on such terms, his wish and hope was, that it might soon be followed by a

general European one; that, the livecoal, which had kindled this War, being quenched, the War itself might

go out. Silesia is his; farther interest in the Controversy, except that it would end itself in some fair manner,

he has none. "Silesia being settled," think many, thinks Friedrich for one, "what else of real and solid is there

The European Public, or benevolent individuals of it everywhere, indulged also in this hope. "How glorious is

my King, the youngest of the Kings and the grandest!" exclaims Voltaire (in his Letters to Friedrich, at this

time), and reexclaims, till Friedrich has to interfere, and politely stop it: "A King who carries in the one

hand an allconquering sword, but in the other a blessed olive branch, and is the Arbiter of Europe for

Peace or War!" "Friedrich the THIRD [so Voltaire calls him, counting ill, or misled by ignorance of German

nomenclature], Friedrich the Third, I mean Friedrich the Great (FREDERIC LE GRAND)," will do this, and

do that;probably the first emergence of that epithet in human speech, as yet in a quite private hypothetic

way. [Letters of Voltaire, in OEuvres de Frederic, xxii. 100, this last Letter is of date "July, 1742"almost

contemporary with the" Jauer Transparency" noticed above.] Opinions about Friedrich's conduct, about his

talents, his moralities, there were many (all wide of the mark): but this seemed clear, That the weight of such

a sword as his, thrown into either scale, would be decisive; and that he evidently now wished peace. An

unquestionable fact, that latter! Wished it, yes, right heartily; and also strove to hope,though with less

confidence than the benevolent outside Public, as knowing the interior of the elements better.

BOOK XIV. THE SURROUNDING EUROPEAN WAR DOES NOT END. August, 1742July, 1744. 763

These hopes, how fond they were, we now all know. True, my friends, the livecoal which kindled this

incendiary whirlpool (ONE of the livecoals, first of them that spread actual flame in these European parts,

and first of them all except Jenkins's Ear) is out, fairly withdrawn; but the fire, you perceive, rages not the

less. The fire will not quench itself, I doubt, till the bitumen, sulphur and other angry fuel have run much

lower! Austria has fighting men in abundance, England behind it has guineas; Austria has got injuries, then

successes:there is in Austria withal a dumb pride, quite equal in pretensions to the vocal vanity of France,

and far more stubborn of humor. The First Nation of the Universe, rashly hurling its finethroated

huntingpack, or Army of the Oriflamme, into Austria,see what a sort of badgers, and gloomily indignant

bears, it has awakened there! Friedrich had to take arms again; and an unwelcome task it was to him, and a

sore and costly. We shall be obliged (what is our grand difficulty in this History) to note, in their order, the

series of European occurrences; and, tedious as the matter now is, keep readers acquainted with the current of

that big War; in which, except Friedrich broad awake, and the Ear of Jenkins in somnambulancy, there is now

It is an error still prevalent in England, though long since exploded everywhere else, that Friedrich wanted

new wars, "new successful robberies," as our Gazetteers called them; and did wilfully plunge into this War

again, in the hope of again doing a stroke in that kind. English readers, on consulting the facts a little, will not

hesitate to sweep that notion altogether away. Shadow of basis, except in their own angry uninformed

imaginations, they will find it never had; and that precisely the reverse is manifest in Friedrich's History. A

perfectly clearsighted Friedrich; able to discriminate shine from substance; and gravitating always towards

the solid, the actual. That of "GLOIRE," which he owns to at starting, we saw how soon it died out, choked in

the dire realities. That of Conquering Hero, in the Macedonia'smadman style, was at all times far from him,

if the reader knew it,perhaps never farther from any King who had such allurements to it, such

opportunities for it. This his First Expedition to Silesiaa rushing out to seize your own stolen horse, while

the occasion answeredwas a voluntary one; produced, we may say, by Friedrich's own thought and the

Invisible Powers. But the rest were all purely compulsory,to defend the horse he had seized. Clear

necessities, and Powers very Visible, were the origin of all his other Expeditions and Warlike Struggles,

That recent "Moravian Foray;" the jointstock principle in War matters; and the terrible pass a man might

reduce himself to, at that enormous gamingtable of the gods, if he lingered there: think what considerations

these had been for him! So that "his look became FAROUCHE," in the sight of Valori; and the spectre of

Ruin kept him company, and such helldogs were in chase of him;till Czaslau, when the dice fell kind

again! All this had been didactic on a young docile man. He was but thirty gone. And if readers mark such

docility at those years, they will find considerable meaning in it. Here are prudence, moderation, clear

discernment; very unusual VERACITY of intellect, as we define it,which quality, indeed, is the summary

and victorious outcome of all manner of good qualities, and faithful performances, in a man. "Given up to

strong delusions," in the tragical way many are, Friedrich was not; and, in practical matters, very seldom

Certain it is, he now resumes his old Reinsberg Program of Life; probably with double relish, after such

experiences the other way; and prosecutes it with the old ardor; hoping much that his History will be of

halcyon pacific nature, after all. Would the mad War whirlpool but quench itself; dangerous for singeing a

near neighbor, who is only just got out of it! Fain would he be arbiter, and help to quench it; but it will not

quench. For a space of Two Years or more (till August, 1744, Twentysix Months in all), Friedrich, busy on

his own affairs, with carefully neutral aspect towards this War, yet with sword ready for drawing in case of

need, looks on with intense vigilance; using his wisest interference, not too often either, in that sense and in

that only, "Be at Peace; oh, come to Peace!"and finds that the benevolent Public and he have been

mistaken in their hopes. For the next Two Years, we say:for the first Year (or till about August, 1743),

with hope not much abated, and little actual interference needed; for the latter Twelvemonth, with hope ever

more abating; interference, warning, almost threatening ever more needed, and yet of no avail, as if they had

BOOK XIV. THE SURROUNDING EUROPEAN WAR DOES NOT END. August, 1742July, 1744. 764

been idle talking and gesticulation on his part:till, in August, 1744, he had toBut the reader shall

gradually see it, if by any method we can show it him, in something of its real sequence; and shall judge of it

Friedrich's Domestic History was not of noisy nature, during this interval:and indeed in the bewildered

Records given of it, there is nothing visible, at first, but one wide vortex of simmering inanities; leading to

the desperate conclusion that Friedrich had no domestic history at all. Which latter is by no means the fact!

Your poor Prussian Dryasdust (without even an Index to help you) being at least authentic, if you look a long

time intensely and on many sides, features do at last dawn out of those sad vortexes; and you find the old

Reinsberg Program risen to activity again; and all manner of peaceable projects going on. Friedrich visits the

Baths of Aachen (what we call AixlaChapelle); has the usual Inspections, business activities, recreations,

visits of friends. He opens his OperaHouse, this first winter. He enters on Law reform, strikes decisively

into that grand problem; hoping to perfect it. What is still more significant, he in private begins writing his

MEMOIRS. And furthermore, gradually determines on having a little Country House, place of escape from

his big Potsdam Palace; and gets plans drawn for it,place which became very famous, by the name of

SANSSOUCI, in times coming. His thoughts are wholly pacific; of Life to Minerva and the Arts, not to

Bellona and the Battles:and yet he knows well, this latter too is an inexorable element. About his Army, he

is quietly busy; augmenting, improving it; the staff of life to Prussia and him.

Silesian Fortressbuilding, under ugly Walrave, goes on at a steadily swift rate. Much Silesian settlement

goes on; fixing of the PrussianAustrian Boundaries without; of the Catholic Protestant limits within: rapid,

not too rough, remodelling of the Province from Austrian into Prussian, in the Financial, Administrative and

every other respect:in all which important operations the success was noiseless, but is considered to have

been perfect, or nearly so. Cannot we, from these enormous Paper masses, carefully riddled, afford the

In regard to the Marches, Herr Nussler, as natural, was again the person employed. Nussler, shifty soul,

wideawake at all times, has already seen this Country; "noticed the Pass into Glatz with its blockhouse,

and perceived that his Majesty would want it." From September 22d to December 12th, 1742, the actual

Operation went on; ratified, completely set at rest, 16th January following. [Busching, Beitrage, ? Nussler:

and Busching's Magazin, b. x. (Halle, 1776); where, pp. 475538, is a "GESCHICHTE DER

SHLESISCHEN GRANZSCHEIDUNG IM JAHR 1742," in great amplitude and authenticity.] Nussler

serves on three thalers (nine shillings) a day. The Austrian HeadCommissioner has 5 pounds (thirty thalers)

a day; but he is an elderly fat gentleman, pursy, scant of breath; cannot stand the rapid galloping about, and

thousandfold inspecting and detailing; leaves it all to Nussler; who goes like the wind. Thus, for example,

Nussler dictates, at evening from his saddle, the mutual Protocol of the day's doings; Old Pursy sitting by,

impatient for supper, and making no criticisms. Then at night, Nussler privately mounts again; privately, by

moonlight, gallops over the ground they are to deal with next day, and takes notice of everything. No wonder

the boundarypillars, set up in such manner, which stand to this day, bear marks that Prussia here and there

has had fair play!Poor Nussler has no fixed appointment yet, except one of about 100 pounds a year: in all

my travels I have seen no man of equal faculty at lower wages. Nor did he ever get any signal promotion, or

the least exuberance of wages, this poor Nussler; unless it be that he got trained to perfect veracity of

workmanship, and to be a man without dryrot in the soul of him; which indeed is incalculable wages.

Income of 100 pounds a year, and no dryrot in the soul of you anywhere; income of 100,000 pounds a year,

and nothing but dry and wet rot in the soul of you (ugly appetites unveracities, blusterous conceits,and

probably, as symbol of all things, a potbelly to your poor body itself): Oh, my friends!

BOOK XIV. THE SURROUNDING EUROPEAN WAR DOES NOT END. August, 1742July, 1744. 765

In settling the Spiritual or internal CatholicProtestant limits of Silesia, Friedrich did also a workmanlike

thing. Perfect fairness between Protestant and Catholic; to that he is bound, and never needed binding. But it

is withal his intention to be King in Catholic Silesia; and that no Holy Father, or other extraneous individual,

shall intrude with inconvenient pretensions there. He accordingly nominates the now Bishop of Neisse and

natural Primate of Silesia,Cardinal von Sinzendorf, who has made submission for any late Austrian

peccadilloes, and thoroughly reconciled himself,nominates Sinzendorf "VicarGeneral" of the Country;

who is to relieve the Pope of Silesian trouble, and be himself QuasiSupreme of the Catholic Church there.

"No offence, Holy Papa of Christian Mankind! Your holy religion is, and shall be, intact in these parts; but

the palliums, bulls and other holy wares and interferences are not needed here. On that footing, be pleased to

The Holy Father shrieked his loudest (which is now a quite calculable loudness, nothing like so loud as it

once was); declared he would "himself join the Army of Martyrs sooner;" and summoned Sinzendorf to

Rome: "What kind of HINGE are you, CARDINALIS of the Gates of" Husht! Shrieked his loudest, we

say; but, as nobody minded it, and as Sinzendorf would not come, had to let the matter take its course.

[Adelung, iii. A. 197200.] And, gradually noticing what correct observance of essentials there was, he even

came quite round, into a high state of satisfaction with this Heretic King, in the course of a few years.

Friedrich and the Pope were very polite to each other thenceforth; always ready to do little mutual favors.

And it is to be remarked, Friedrich's management of his Clergy, Protestant and Catholic, was always

excellent; true, in a considerable degree, to the real law of things; gentle, but strict, and without shadow of

hypocrisy, in which last fine particular he is singularly unique among Modern Sovereigns.

He recognizes honestly the uses of Religion, though he himself has little; takes a good deal of pains with his

Preaching Clergy, from the ArmyChaplain upwards,will suggest texts to them, with scheme of sermon,

on occasion;is always anxious to have, as Clerical Functionary, the right man in the important place; and

for the rest, expects to be obeyed by them, as by his Sergeants and Corporals. Indeed, the reverend men feel

themselves to be a body of Spiritual Sergeants, Corporals and Captains; to whom obedience is the rule, and

discontent a thing not to be indulged in by any means. And it is worth noticing, how well they seem to thrive

in this completely submissive posture; how much real Christian worth is traceable in their labors and them;

and what a fund of piety and religious faith, in rugged effectual form, exists in the Armies and Populations of

such a King. ["In 1780, at Berlin, the population being 140,000, there are of ECCLESIASTIC kind only 140;

that is 1 to the 1,000;at Munchen there are thirty times as many in proportion" (Mirabeau, Monarchie

By degrees the Munchows and Official Persons intrusted with Silesia got it wrought in all respects, financial,

administrative, judicial, secular and spiritual, into the Prussian model: a long tough job; but one that proved

well worth doing. [In Preuss (i. 197200), the various steps (from 1740 to 1806).] In this state, counts one

authority, it was worth to Prussia "about six times what it had been to Austria;"from some other forgotten

source, I have seen the computation "eight times." In money revenue, at the end of Friedrich's reign, it is a

little more than twice; the "eight times" and the "six times," which are but loose multiples, refer, I suppose, to

population, trade, increase of national wealth, of new regiments yielded by new cantons, and the like.

[Westphalen, in Feldzuge des Herzogs Ferdinand (printed, Berlin, 1859, written 100 years before by that

wellinformed person), i. 65, says in the rough "six times:" Preuss, iv. 292, gives, very indistinctly, the

ciphers of Revenue, in 1740 and SOME later Year: according to Friedrich himself ( Oeuvres, ii. 102), the

Silesian Revenue at first was "3,600,000 thalers" (540,000 pounds, little more than Half a Million);

Six or eight times as useful to Prussia: and to the Inhabitants what multiple of usefulness shall we give? To be

governed on principles fair and rational, that is to say, conformable to Nature's appointment in that respect;

and to be governed on principles which contradict the very rules of Cocker, and with impious disbelief of the

very Multiplication Table: the one is a perpetual Gospel of Cosmos and Heaven to every unit of the

BOOK XIV. THE SURROUNDING EUROPEAN WAR DOES NOT END. August, 1742July, 1744. 766

Population; the other a Gospel of Chaos and Beelzebub to every unit of them: there is no multiple to be found

in Arithmetic which will express that!Certain of these advantages, in the new Government, are seen at

once; others, the still more valuable, do not appear, except gradually and after many days and years. With the

one and the other, Schlesien appears to have been tolerably content. From that Year 1742 to this, Schlesien

has expressed by word and symptom nothing but thankfulness for the Transfer it underwent; and there is, for

the last Hundred Years, no part of the Prussian Dominion more loyal to the Hohenzollerns (who are the

Authors of Prussia, without whom Prussia had never been), than this their latest acquisition, when once it too

got moulded into their own image. [Preuss, i. 193, and ib. 200 (Note from Klein, a Silesian Jurist): "Favor not

merit formerly;" "Magistracies a regular branch of TRADE;""highway robbers on a strangely familiar

... December 7th, this Winter, Carnival being come or just coming, Friedrich opens his New OperaHouse,

for behoof of the cultivated Berlin classes; a fine Edifice, which had been diligently built by Knobelsdorf,

while those Silesian battlings went on. "One of the largest and finest Operahouses in the whole world; like a

sumptuous Palace rather. Stands free on all sides, space for 1,000 Coaches round it; Five great Entrances, five

persons can walk abreast through each; and insideyou should see, you should hear! Boxes more like rooms

or boudoirs, free view and perfect hearing of the stage from every point: air pure and free everywhere; water

aloft, not only for theatrical cascades, but to drown out any fire or risk of fire." [Seyfarth, i. 234; Nicolai,

Beschreibung von Berlin, i. 169.] This is Seyfarth's account, still capable of confirmation by travelling

readers of a musical turn. I have seen Operas with much more brilliancy of gas and gilding; but none nearly

so convenient to the human mind and sense; or where the audience (not now a gratis one) attended to the

"Perhaps it will attract moneyed strangers to frequent our Capital?"some guess, that was Friedrich's

thought. "At all events, it is a handsome piece of equipage, for a musical King and People; not to be

neglected in the circumstances. Thalia, in general,let us not neglect Thalia, in such a dearth of worshipable

objects." Nor did he neglect Thalia. The trouble Friedrich took with his Opera, with his DancingApparatus,

French Comedy, and the rest of that affair, was very great. Much greater, surely, than this Editor would have

thought of taking; though, on reflection, he does not presume to blame. The world is dreadfully scant of

worshipable objects: and if your Theatre is your own, to sweep away intrusive nonsense continually from the

gates of it? Friedrich's Opera costs him heavy sums (surely I once knew approximately what, but the sibylline

leaf is gone again upon the winds!)and he admits gratis a select public, and that only. [Preuss, i. 277; and

Preuss, Buch fur Jedermann, i. 100.] "This Winter, 174243, was unusually magnificent at Court: balls,

WIRTHSCHAFTEN [kind of MIMIC FAIRS], sledgeparties, masquerades, and theatricals of all

sorts;and once even, December 2d, the new Golden TableService [cost of it 200,000 pounds] was in

action, when the two Queens [Queen Regnant and Queen Mother] dined with his Majesty."

Months before that of the OperaHouse or those Silesian settlements, Friedrich, in the end of August, what is

the first thing visible in his Domestic History, makes a visit, for health's sake, to Aachen (AixlaChapelle so

called), with a view to the waters there. Intends to try for a little improvement in health, as the basis of

ulterior things. Health has naturally suffered a little in these Warhardships; and the Doctors recommend

Aix. After Wesel, and the Westphalian Inspections, Friedrich, accordingly, proceeds to Aix; and for about a

fortnight (23th August9th September) drinks the waters in that old restingplace of

Charlemagne;particulars not given in the Books; except that "he lodged with Baege" (if any mortal now

knew Baege), and did an Audience or so to select persons now unknown. He is not entirely incognito, but is

without royal state; the "guard of twenty men, the escort of 160 men," being no men of his, but presumably

mere Townguard of Aix coming in an honorary way. Aix is proud to see him; he himself is intent on the

BOOK XIV. THE SURROUNDING EUROPEAN WAR DOES NOT END. August, 1742July, 1744. 767

My friend, this was Charlemagne's high place; and his dust lies here, these thousand years last past. And there

used to soar "a very large Gilt Eagle," ten feet wide or so, aloft on the Cathedralsteeple there; Eagle turned

southward when the Kaiser was in Frankenland, eastward when he was in Teutsch or Teutonland; in fact,

pointing out the Kaiser's whereabouts to loyal mankind. [Kohler, ReichsHistorie. ] Eagle which shines on

me as a human fact; luminously gilt, through the dark Dryasdustic Ages, gone all spectral under Dryasdust's

sad handling. Friedrich knows farther, that for many centuries after, the "Reich's INSIGNIA

(REICHSKLEINODIEN)" used to be here,though Maria Theresa has them now, and will not give them

up. The whole of which points are indifferent to him. The practical, not the sentimental, is Friedrich's

interest;not to say that WERTER and the sentimental were not yet born into our afflicted Earth. A King

thoroughly practical;yet an exquisite player on the flute withal, as we often notice; whose adagio could

draw tears from you. For in himself, too, there were floods of tears (as when his Mother died); and he has

been heard saying, not bragging but lamenting, what was truly the fact, that "he had more feeling than other

men." But it was honest human feeling always; and was repressed, where not irrepressible;as it behooved

Friedrich's suite was not considerable, says the French spy at Aix on this occasion; pomp of Entrance,a

thing to be mute upon! "Came driving in with the common posthorses of the country; and such a set of

carriages as your Lordship, intent on the sublime, has no idea of." [SpyLetter, in Campagnes des Trois

Marechaux, i. 222.] Rumor was, His Britannic Majesty was coming (also on pretext of the waters) to confer

with him; other rumor is, If King George came in at one gate, King Friedrich would go out at the other. A

dubious Friedrich, to the French spy, at this moment; nothing like so admirable as he once was!

The French emotions (of which we say little), on Friedrich's making Peace for himself, had naturally been

great. To the French Public it was unexpected, somewhat SUDDEN even to the Court; and, sure enough, it

was of perilous importance in the circumstances. Few days ago, Broglio (by order given him) "could not

spare a man," for the Common Cause;and now the Common Cause has become entirely the Broglio one,

and Broglio will have the full use of all his men! "Defection [plainly treasonous to your Liege Lord and

Nation]! horrible to think of!" cried the French Public; the Court outwardly taking a lofty tragicelegiac tone,

with some air of hope that his Prussian Majesty would perhaps come round again, to the side of his afflicted

France! Of which, except in the way of helping France and the other afflicted parties to a just Peace if he

More affecting to Friedrich were the natural terrors of the poor Kaiser on this event. The Kaiser has already

had his Messenger at Berlin, in consequence of it; with urgent inquiries, entreaties; an expert Messenger,

who knows Berlin well. So other than our old friend, the OrdnanceMaster Seckendorf, now titular

Feldmarschall, whom one is more surprised than delighted to meet again! Being out with Austria

(clamoring for great sums of "arrears," which they will not pay), he has been hanging about this new Kaiser,

ever since Electiontime; and is again getting into employment, Diplomatic, Strategic, for some

years,though we hope mostly to ignore him and it. Friedrich's own feeling at sight of him,ask not about

it, more than if there had been none! Friedrich gave him "a distinguished reception;" Friedrich's answer sent

by him to the Kaiser was all kindness; emphatic assurance, "That, not 'hostility' by any means, that loyalty,

friendship, and aid wherever possible within the limits, should always be his rule towards the now Kaiser,

lawful Head of the Reich, in difficult circumstances." ["Audience, 30th July" (Adelung, iii. A, 217).] Which

was some consolation to the poor man,stript of his old revenues, old Bavarian Dominions, and unprovided

with new; this sublime Headship of the Reich bring moneyless; and one's new "Kingdom of Bohemia"

hanging in so uncertain a state, with nothing but a PharsaliaSahay to show for itself!

BOOK XIV. THE SURROUNDING EUROPEAN WAR DOES NOT END. August, 1742July, 1744. 768

Among Friedrich's "inconsiderable suite," at Aachen, was Prince Henri (his youngest Brother, age now

sixteen, a small, sensitive, shivering creature, but of uncommon parts); and another young man, Prince

Ferdinand of Brunswick, his Wife's youngest Brother; a soldier, as all the Brothers are; soldier in Friedrich's

Army, this one; in whose fine inarticulate eupeptic character are excellent dispositions and capacities

discernible. Ferdinand goes generally with the King; much about him in these years. All the Brothers follow

soldiering; it is the one trade of German Princes. When at home, Friedrich is still occasionally with his

Queen; who lives at Schonhausen, in the environs of Berlin, but goes with him to Charlottenburg, to old

Reinsberg; and has her share of galas in his company, with the Queen Mother and cognate Highnesses.

Another small fact, still more memorable at present, is, That Voltaire now made him a Third

Visit,privately on Fleury's instance, as is evident this time. Of which Voltaire Visit readers shall know

duly, by and by, what little is knowable. But, alas, there is first an immense arrear of Warmatters to bring

up; to which, still more than to Voltaire, the afflicted reader must address himself, if he would understand at

all what Friedrich's Environment, or circumambient Lifeelement now was, and how Friedrich, well or ill,

comported himself in the same. Brevity, this Editor knows, is extremely desirable, and that the scissors

should be merciless on those sad PaperHeaps, intolerable to the modern mind; but, unless the modern mind

Austrian affairs are not now in their nadirpoint; a long while now since they passed that. Austria, to all

appearance dead, started up, and began to strike for herself, with some success, the instant Walpole's

SOUPROYAL (that first 200,000 pounds, followed since by abundance more) got to her lips. Touched her

poor pale lips; and went tingling through her, like life and fiery elasticity, out of death by inanition! Cardinal

moment, which History knows, but can never date, except vaguely, some time in 1741; among the last acts of

Austria, thanks to its own Khevenhullers and its English guineas, was already rising in various quarters: and

now when the Prussian Affair is settled, Austria springs up everywhere like an elastic body with the pressure

taken from it; mounts steadily, month after month, in practical success, and in height of humor in a still

higher ratio. And in the course of the next Two Years rises to a great height indeed. Heresnatched, who

knows with what difficulty, from that shoreless bottomless slough of an Austrian Succession War,

deservedly forgotten, and avoided by extant mankindare some of the more essential phenomena, which

Friedrich had to witness in those months. To witness, to scan with such intense interest,rightly, at his

peril;and to interpret as actual "Omens" for him, as monitions of a most indisputable nature! No Haruspex,

I suppose, with or without "white beard, and long staff for cutting the Heavenly Vault into compartments

from the zenith downwards," could, in Etruria or elsewhere, "watch the flight of birds, now into this

compartment, now into that," with stricter scrutiny than, on the new terms, did this young King from his

"The first phenomenon, cheering to Austria, is that of the Britannic Majesty again clutching sword, with

evident intent to draw it on her behalf. [Tindal, xx. 552; Old Newspapers; Besides his potent souproyal of

HalfMillions annually, the Britannic Majesty has a considerable sword, say 40,000, of British and of

subsidized;sword which costs him a great deal of money to keep by his side; and a great deal of clamor

and insolent gibing from the Gazetteer species, because he is forced to keep it strictly in the scabbard

hitherto. This Year, we observe, he has determined again to draw it, in the Cause of Human Liberty, whatever

follow. From early Spring there were symptoms: Camps on Lexden and other Heaths, much reviewing in

HydePark and elsewhere; from all corners a universal marching towards the Kent Coast; the aspects being

favorable. 'We can besiege Dunkirk at any rate, cannot we, your High Mightinesses? Dunkirk, which, by all

the Treaties in existence, ought to need no besieging; but which, in spite of treatyings innumerable, always

does?' The High Mightinesses answer nothing articulate, languidly grumble something in OPTATIVE

tone;'meaning assent,' thinks the sanguine mind. 'Dutch hoistable, after all!' thinks he; 'Dutch will

cooperate, if they saw example set!' And, in England, the work of embarking actually begins.

"Britannic Majesty's purpose, and even fixed resolve to this effect, had preceded the PrussianAustrian

Settlement. May 20th, ["9th" by the Old Newspapers; but we always TRANSLATE their o.s.] 'Two regiments

of Foot,' first poor instalment of British Troops, had actually landed at Ostend;news of the Battle of

Chotusitz, much more, of the AustrianPrussian Settlement, or Peace of Breslau, would meet them THERE.

But after that latter auspicious event, things start into quick and doublequick time; and the Gazetteers get

vocal, almost lyrical: About Howard's regiment, Ponsonby's regiment, all manner of regiments, off to

Flanders, for a stroke of work; how 'Ligonier's Dragoons [a set of wild swearing fellows, whom Guildford is

happy to be quit of] rode through Bromley with their kettledrums going, and are this day at Gravesend to

"Yesterday [3d July, 1742] General Campbell's Regiment of Scotch Greys arrived in the Borough of

Southwark, on their march to Dover, where they are to embark for Flanders. They are fine hardy fellows, that

want no seasoning; and make an appearance agreeable to all but the innkeepers,"who have such billeting to

do, of late. [ Daily Post, June 23d (o.s.), 1742.] "Grey Dragoons," or Royal ScotsGreys, is the title of this

fine Regiment; and their Colonel is LieutenantGeneral John Campbell, afterwards Duke of Argyle (fourth

Duke), Cousin of the great second Duke of Argyle that now is. [Douglas, Scotch Peerage (Edinburgh, 1764),

p. 44.] Visibly billeting there, in Southwark, with such intentions:and, by accident, this Editor knows

Twenty of these fine fellows! Twenty or so, who had gone in one batch as Greys; sons of good Annandale

yeomen, otherwise without a career open: some Two of whom did get back, and lived to be old men; the

rumor of whom, and of their unheardof adventures, was still lingering in the air, when this Editor began

"But, all through those hot days, it is a universal drumming, kettledrumming, coastward; preparation of

transports at Gravesend, at the top of one's velocity. 'All the coopers in London are in requisition for

watercasks, so that our very brewers have to pause astonished for want of tubs.' There is pumping in of

water day and night, Sunday not excepted, then throwing of it out again [owing to new circumstances]: 250

saddlehorses, and 100 sumpter ditto, for his Majesty's own use,these need a deal of water, never to speak

of Ligonier and the Greys. 'For the honor of our Country, his Majesty will make a grander appearance this

Campaign than any of his Predecessors ever did; and as to the magnificence of his equipage,'besides the

350 quadrupeds, 'there are above 100 rich portmanteaus getting ready with all expedition.' [ Daily Post,

September 13th (I.E. 26th).] The Fat Boy too [Royal Highness Duke of Cumberland, one should say] is to go;

a most bravehearted, flaxenflorid, plump young creature; hopeful Son of Mars, could he once get

experience, which, alas, he never could, though trying it for fiveandtwenty years to come, under huge

expense to this Nation! There are to be 16,000 troops, perhaps more; '1,000 sandbags' (empty as yet);

"And so, from May on to September, it noisily proceeds, at multiplex rates? and often with more haste than

speed: and in such five months (seven, strictly counted) of clangorous movement and deadlift exertion,

there were veritably got across, of Horse and Foot with their equipments, the surprising number of '16,334

men.' [Adelung, iii. A, 201.] May 20th it began,that is, the embarking began; the noise and babble about it,

which have been incessant ever since, had begun in February before;and on September 26th, Ostend, now

almost weary of huzzaing over British glory by instalment, had the joy of seeing our final portions of

Artillery arrive: Such a Park of SiegeandField Artillery," exults the Gazetteer, "as"as these poor

"Magnanimous Lord Stair, already Plenipotentiary to the Dutch, is to be King's GeneralinChief of this fine

Enterprise; Carteret, another Lord of some real brilliancy, and perhaps of still weightier metal, is head of the

Cabinet; hearty, both of them, for these AntiFrench intentions: and the Public cannot but think, Surely

something will come of it this time? More especially now that Maillebois, about the middle of August, by a

strange turn of fortune, is swept out of the way. Maillebois, lying over in Westphalia with his 30 or 40,000,

on 'Check to your King' this year past, had, on sight of these AntiDunkirk movements, been ordered to look

Dunkirk way, and at length to move thitherward, for protection of Dunkirk. So that Stair, before his Dunkirk

business, will have to fight Maillebois; which Stair doubts not may be satisfactorily done. But behold, in

August and earlier, come marvellous news from the Prag quarter, tragical to France; and Maillebois is off, at

his best speed, in the reverse direction; on a far other errand!"Of which readers shall soon hear enough.

"Dunkirk, therefore, is now open. With 16,000 British troops, Hanoverians to the like number, and Hessians

6,000, together near 40,000, not to speak of Dutch at all, surely one might manage Dunkirk, if not something

still better? It is AFTER Maillebois's departure that these dreadful exertions, coopering of watercasks,

pumping all Sunday, go on at Gravesend: 'Swift, oh, be swift, while time is!' And

GeneralissimoPlenipotentiary Stair, who has run over beforehand, is ardent enough upon the Dutch; his

eloquence fiery and incessant: 'Magnanimous High Mightinesses, was there, will there again be, such a

chance? The Cause of Human Liberty may be secured forever! Dunkirkor what is Dunkirk even? Between

us and Paris, there is nothing, now that Maillebois is off on such an errand! Why should not we play

Marlborongh again, and teach them a little what Invasion means? It is ourselves alone that can hinder it!

"Stair was a pupil of Marlborough's; is otherwise a shining kind of man; and has immense things in his eye, at

this time. They say, what is not unlikely, he proposed an Interview with Friedrich now at Aachen; would

come privately, to 'take the waters' for a day or two,while Maillebois was on his new errand, and such a

crisis had risen. But Friedrich, anxious to be neutral and give no offence, politely waived such honor. Lord

Stair was thought to be something of a General, in fact as well as in costume;and perhaps he was so. And

had there been a proper COUNTESS of Stair, or new Sarah Jennings,to cover gently, by artmagic, the

Britannic Majesty and Fat Boy under a tub; and to put Britain, and British Parliament and resources, into

Stair's hand for a few years,who knows what Stair too might have done! A Marlborough in the War

Arts,perhaps still less in the Peace ones, if we knew the great Marlborough,he could not have been. But

there is in him a recognizable flash of magnanimity, of heroic enterprise and purpose; which is highly

peculiar in that sordid element. And it can be said of him, as of lightning striking ineffectual on the Bog of

Allen or the Stygian Fens, that his strrngth was never tried."For the upshot of him we will wait; not very

These are fine prospects, if only the Dutch prove hoistable. But these are as nothing to what is passing, and

has passed, in the Eastern Parts, in the BohemianBavarian quarter, since we were there. Poor Kaiser Karl,

what an outlook for him! His own real Bavaria, much more his imaginary "Upper Austria" and "Conquests on

the Donau," after that Segur Adventure, are plunging headlong. As to his once "Kingdom of Bohemia," it has

already plunged; nay, the Army of the Oriflamme is itself near plunging, in spite of that Pharsalia of a Sahay!

Bavaria itself, we say, is mostly gone to Khevenhuller; Segur with his French on march homeward, and

nothing but Bavarians left. Thz BelleisleBroglio grand Budweis Expedition is gone totally heels over head;

Belleisle and Broglio are getting, step by step, shut up in Prag and besieged there: while MailleboisLet us

try whether, by snatching out here a fragment and there a fragment, with chronological and other appliances,

it be not possible to give readers some conceivable notion of what Friedrich was now looking at with such

The poor Kaiser, who at one time counted "30,000 Bavarians of his own," has all along been ill served by

them and the bad Generals they had: two Generals; both of whom, Minuzzi, and old Feldmarschall Thorring

(Prime Minister withal), came to a bad reputation in this War. Beaten nearly always; Thorring quite

always,"like a DRUM, that Thorring; never heard of except when beaten," said the wits! Of such let us not

speak. Understand only, FIRST, that the French, reasonably soon after that Linz explosion, did, in such crisis,

get reinforcements on the road; a Duc d'Harcourt with some 25,000 faring forward, in an intermittent manner,

ever since "March 4th." And SECONDLY, that Khevenhuller has fast hold of Passau, the AustrianBavarian

KeyCity; is master of nearly all Bavaria (of Munchen, and all that lies south of the Donau); and is now

across on the north shore, wrenching and tugging upon Kelheim and the IngolstadtDonauworth regions,

with nothing but Thorring people and small French Garrisons to hinder him; where it will be fatal if he

quite prosper; Ingolstadt being our PlaceofArms, and House on the Highway, both for Bavaria and

"For months past, there had been a gleam of hope for Kaiser Karl, and his new 'Kingdom of Bohemia,' and

old Electorate of Bavaria, from the rumor of 'D'Harcourt's reinforcement,'a 20 or 30,000 new Frenchmen

marching into those parts, in a very detached intermittent manner; great in the Gazettes. But it proved a gleam

only, and came to nothing effectual. Poor D'Harcourt, owing to cross orders [Groglio clamorously demanding

that the new force should come to Prag; Karl Albert the Kaiser, nominally Generalin Chief, demanding

that it should go down the Donau and sweep his Bavaria clear], was in difficulty. To do either of these cross

orders might have brought some result; but to halfdo both of them, as he was enjoined to attempt, was not

wise! Some half of his force he did detach towards Broglio; which got to actual junction, partly before, partly

after, that PharsaliaSahay Affair, and raised Broglio to a strength of 24,000,still inadequate against Prince

Karl. Which done, D'Harcourt himself went down the Donau, on his original scheme, with the remainder of

his forces,now likewise become inadequate. He is to join with Feldmarschall Thorring in the"And does

MUNCHEN, 5th MAY. "Rumor of D'Harcourt had somewhat cleared Bavaria of Austrians; but the reality of

him, in a divided state, by no means corresponds. Thus Munchen City, in the last days of April, D'Harcourt

advancing, terrible as a rumor,rejoiced exceedingly to see the Austrians march out, at their best pace. And

the exultant populace even massacred a loitering Tolpatch or two; who well deserve it, think the populace,

judging by their experience for the last three months, since Barenklau and Mentzel became King here.

'Rumor of D'Harcourt?' answers Khevenhuller from the KelheimPassau side of things: 'Let us wait for sight

of him, at least!' And orders Munchen to be reoccupied. So that, alas, 'within a week,' on the 5th of May,

Barenklau is back upon the poor City; exacts severe vengeance for the Tolpatch business; and will give them

seven months more of his company, in spite of D'Harcourt, and 'the Army of Bavaria' as he now called

himself:"new "Army of Bavaria," when once arrived in those Countries, and joined with poor Thorring

and the Kaiser's people there. Such an "Army of Bavaria," first and last, asas Khevenhuller could have

wished it! Under D'Harcourt, joined with old Feldmarschall Thorring (him whom men liken to a DRUM,

"never heard of except when beaten"), this is literally the sum of what fighting it did:

"HILGARTSBERG (Deggendorf DonauCountry), MAY 28th. D'Harcourt and Thorring, after junction at

Donauworth several weeks ago, and a good deal of futile marching up and down in those Donau Countries,

on the left bank, for most part; Khevenhuller holding stiffly, as usual, by the Inn, the Iser, and the rivers

and countries on the right,did at last, being now almost within sight of Passau and that important valley of

the Inn across yonder, seriously decide to have a stroke at Passau, and to dislodge Khevenhuller, who is weak

in force, though obstinate. They perceive that there is, on this left bank, a post in the woods, Castle of

Hilgartsberg, none of the strongest Castles, rather a big Country Mansion than a Castle, which it will be

necessary first to take. They go accordingly to take it (May 28th, having well laid their heads together the day

before); march through intricate wet forest country, peat above all abundant; see the Castle of Hilgartsberg

towering aloft, picturesque object in the Donau Valley, left bank;are met by cannonshot, caseshot, shot

of every kind; likewise by Croats apparently innumerable, by cavalry sabrings and levelled bayonets; do not

behave too well, being excessively astonished; and are glad to get off again, leaving one of their guns lodged

in the mud, and about a hundred unfortunate men. [ Guerre de Boheme, ii. 146148, 136, This quite

disgusted D'Harcourt with the Passau speculation and these grim Khevenhuller outposts. He straightway took

to collecting Magazines; lodging himself in the attainable Towns thereabouts, Deggendorf the chief strength

for him; and gave up fighting till perhaps better times might arrive." We will wish him good success in the

victualling department, hope to hear no more of him in this History;and shall say only that Comte de Saxe,

before long, relieves him of this Bavarian Army; and will be seen at the head of it, on a most important

Kaiser Karl begins to have real thoughts of recalling this Thorring, who is grown so very AUDIBLE,

altogether home; and of appointing Seckendorf instead. A course which Belleisle has been strongly

recommending for some time. Seckendorf is at present "gathering meal in the OberPfalz" (Upper Palatinate,

road from Ingolstadt to Eger, to Bohmen generally), that is, forming Magazines, on the Kaiser's behalf there:

"Surely a likelier man than your Thorring!" urges Belleisle always. With whom the Kaiser does finally

comply; nominates Seckendorf commander,recalls the invaluable Thorring!" to his services in our Cabinet

Council, which more befit his great age." In which safe post poor Thorring, like a Drum NOT beaten upon,

has thenceforth a silent life of it; Seckendorf fighting in his stead,as we shall have to witness, more or less.

Khevenhuller's is a changed posture, since he stood in Vienna, eight or nine months ago; grimly resolute,

drilling his "6,000 of garrison," with the wheelbarrows all busy!But her Hungarian Majesty's chief success,

which is now opening into outlooks of a quite triumphant nature, has been that over the New Oriflamme

itself, the BelleisleBroglio Army,most sweet to her Majesty to triumph over! Shortly after Chotusitz,

shortly after that Pharsalia of a Sahay, readers remember Belleisle's fine Project, "Conjoined attack on

Budweis, and sweeping of Bohemia clear;"readers saw Belleisle, in the Schloss of Maleschau, 5th June

last, rushing out (with violence to his own wig, says rumor); hurrying off to Dresden for cooperation;

equally in vain. "Cooperation, M. le Marechal; attack on Budweis?"Here is another Fragment:

BUDWEIS, JUNE 4th,PRAG, JUNE 13th. "Broglio, ever since that Sahay [which had been fought so

gloriously on Frauenberg's account], lay in the Castle of Frauenberg, in and around,hither side of the

Moldau river, with his Pisek thirty miles to rear, and judicious outposts all about. There lay Broglio,

meditating the attack on Budweis [were cooperation once here],when, contrariwise, altogether on the

sudden, Budweis made attack on Broglio; tumbled him quite topsyturvy, and sent him home to Prag,

uncertain which end uppermost; rolling like a heap of mown stubble in the wind, rather than marching like an

"JUNE 4th, 1742 [day BEFORE that of Belleisle's "Wig" at Maleschau, had Belleisle known it!]Prince

Karl, being now free of the Prussians, and ready for new work, issued suddenly from Budweis; suddenly stept

across the Moldau,by the Bridge of MoldauTein, sweeping away the French that lay there. Prince Karl

swept away this first French Post, by the mere sight and sound of him; swept away, in like fashion, the

second and all following posts; swept Broglio himself, almost without shot fired, and in huge flurry, home to

Prag, doublequick, night and day,with much loss of baggage, artillery, prisoners, and total loss of one's

presence of mind. 'Poor man, he was born for surprises' [said Friedrich's Doggerel long ago]! Manoeuvred

consummately [he asserts] at different points, behind rivers and the like; but nowhere could he call halt, and

resolutely stand still. Which undoubtedly he could and should have done, say Valori and all judges;nothing

quite immediate being upon him, except the wastehowling tagraggery of Croats, whom it had been good to

quench a little, before going farther. On the third night, June 7th, he arrived at Pisek; marched again before

daybreak, leaving a garrison of 1,200,who surrendered to Prince Karl next day, without shot fired. Broglio

tumbling on abead, doublequick, with the tagraggery of Croats continually worrying at his heels,

baggagewagons sticking fast, country people massacring all stragglers, panted home to Prag on the 13th;

with 'the Gross of the Army saved, don't you observe!' And thinks it an excellent retreat, he if no oneelse.

"At Pisek, Prince Karl has ceased chasing with his regulars, the pace being so uncommonly swift. From

Pisek, Prince Karl struck off towards Pilsen, there to intercept a residue of Harcourt reinforcements who were

coming that way: from Broglio, who knew of it, but in such flurry could not mind it, he had no hindrance;

and it was by good luck, not management of Broglio's, that these poor reinforcements did in part get through

to him, and in part seek refuge in Eger again. Broglio has encamped under the walls of Prag; in a ruinous

though still blusterous condition; his positions all gone; except Prag and Eger, nothing in Bohemia now his."

PRAG, 17th JUNE17th AUGUST. "It is in this condition that Belleisle, returning from the

KuttenbergDresden mission (June 15th), finds his Broglio. Most disastrous, Belleisle thinks it; and nothing

but a Siege in Prag lying ahead; though Broglio is of different opinion, or, blustering about his late

miraculous retreat, and other high merits too little recognized, forms no opinion at all on such extraneous

points. ... From Versailles, they had auswered Belleisle: 'Nothing to be made of Dresden either, say you?

Then go you and take the command at Prag; send Broglio to command the Bavarian Army. See, you, what

can be done by fighting.' On this errand Belleisle is come, the heavyladen man, and Valori with him,if, in

this black crisis, Valori could do anything. Valori at least reports the colloquy the Two Marshals had [one bit

of colloquy, for they had more than one, though as few as possible; Broglio being altogether blusterous,

sulphurous, difficult to speak with on polite terms]. [Valori, i. 162166; Campagnes, v. 170, 124, 'Army of

Bavaria?' answers Broglio; 'I will have those Ten Battalions of the D'Harcourt reinforcement, then. I tell you,

Yes! Prag? Prag may go to the What have I to do with Prag? The oldest Marechal of France, superseded,

after such merits, and on the very heel of such a retreat! Nay, but where is YOUR commission to command in

Prag, M. le Marechal?' Belleisle, in the haste there was, has no Commission rightly drawn out by the

Waroffice; only an Order from Court. '_I_ have a regular commission, Monseigneur: I want a Sign manual

"Belleisle, tormented with rheumatic nerves, and of violent temper at any rate, compresses the immense

waste rage that is in him. His answers to Broglio are calm and lowvoiced; admirable to Valori. One thing he

wished to ascertain definitely: What M. de Broglio's intentions were; and whether he would, or would not, go

to Bavaria and take charge there? If so, he shall have all the Cavalry for escort; Cavalry, unless it be

dragoons, will only eat victual in case of siege.No, Broglio will not go with Cavalry; must have those Ten

Battalions, must have Signmanual; won't, in short!"Will stay, then, thinks Belleisle; and one must try to

drive him, as men do pigs, covertly and by the rule of contraries, while Prag falls under Siege.

What an outlook for his Most Christian Majesty's service,fatal altogether, had not Belleisle been a high

man, and willing to undertake pigdriving! ... "Discouragement in the Army is total, were it not for Belleisle;

anger against Broglio very great. The Officers declare openly, 'We will quit, if Broglio continue General! Our

commissions were made out in the name of Marechal de Belleisle [in the spring of last Year, when he had

such levees, more crowded than the King's!]we are not bound to serve another General!''You recognize

ME for your General?' asks Belleisle. 'Yes!''Then, I bid you obey M. de Broglio, so long as he is here.'

"JUNE 27th. The GrandDuke, Maria Theresa's Husband, come from Vienna to take commandinchief,

joins the Austrian main Army and his Brother Karl, this day: at Konigsaal, one march to the south of Prag.

Friedrich being now off their hands, why should not they besiege Prag, capture Prag! Under Khevenhullcr,

with Barenklau, and the Mentzels, Trencks,poor D'Harcourt merely storing victual, Bavaria lies safe

"Prag is begirdled, straitened more and more, from this day. Formal Siege to begin, so soon 'as the artillery

can come up' which is not for seven weeks yet]. And so, in fine, 'AUGUST 17th, all at once,' furious

bombardment bursts out, from 36 mortars and above 100 big guns, disposed in batteries around. [ Guerre de

Boheme, ii. 149, 170.] To which the French, Belleisle's high soul animating everything, as furiously

responded; making continual sallies of a hot desperate nature; especially, on the fifth day of the siege, one

sally [to be mentioned by and by] which was very famous at Prag and at Paris." ...

War in Italythe Spanish Termagant very high in her AntiPragmatic notionsthere had been, for eight

months past; and it went on, fiercely enough, doggedly enough, on both sides for Six Years more, till 1748,

when the general Finis came. War of which we propose to say almost nothing; but must request the reader to

The Spanish Termagant wished ardently to have the Milanese and pertinents, as an Apanage for her second

Infant, Don Philip; a young gentleman who now needs to be provided for, as Don Carlos had once done.

"Cannot get to be Pope this one, it appears," said the fond Mother (who at one time looked that way for her

Infant,): "Well, here is the Milanese fallen loose!" Readers know her for a lady of many claims, of illimitable

aspirations; and she went very high on the Pragmatic Question. "Headship of the Golden Fleece, Madam;

YOU head of it? I say all Austria, German and Italian, is mine!"though she has now magnanimously given

up the German part to Kaiser Karl VII.; and will be content with the Italian, as an Apanage for Don Philip.

A War in which these Three Elements are noticeable as the chief. FIRST, the Sardinian Majesty, [Charles

Emanuel, Victor Amadeus's Son (Hubner, t. 293): born 27th April, 1701; lived and reigned till 19th February,

1773 (OErtel, t. 77).] who is very anxious himself for Milanese parings and additaments; but, except by

skilfully playing offandon between the French side and the Austrian, has no chance of getting any. For

Spain he is able to fight; and also (on good British Subsidies) against Spain. Element SECOND is the British

Navy, cruising always between Spain and the Seat of War; rendering supplies by sea impossible,almost

impossible. THIRD, the Passes of Savoy; wild Alpine chasms, stonelabyrinths; inexpugnable, with a

Sardinian Majesty defending; which are the one remaining road, for Armies and Supplies, out of Spain or

The Savoy Passes are, in fact, the gist of the War; the insoluble problem for Don Philip and the French. By

detours, by circuitous effort and happy accident, your troops may occasionally squeeze through: but without

one secure road open behind them for supplies and recruitments, what good is it? Battles there are, behind the

Alps, on what we may call the STAGE itself of this Italian War theatre; but the grand steady battle is that of

France and Don Philip, struggling spasmodically, year after year, to get a road through the COULISSES or

sidescenes,namely, those Savoy Passes. They try it by this Pass and by that; Pass of Demont, Pass of

VillaFranca or Montalban (glorious for France, but futile), Pass of Exilles or Col d'Assiette (again glorious,

again futile and fatal); sometimes by the way of Nice itself, and rocky muletracks overhanging the seaedge

There were fine fightings, in the interior too, under Generals of mark; General Browne doing feats, excellent

old General Feldmarschall Traun, of whom we shall hear; Maillebois, Belleisle the Younger, of whom we

have heard. There was Battle of Campo Santo, new battle there (Traun's); there was Battle of Rottofreddo;

of Piacenza (doleful to Maillebois),followed by Invasion of Provence, by Revolt of Genoa and other

things: which all readers have now forgotten. [Two elaborate works on the subject are said to be instructive to

military readers: Buonamici (who was in it, for a while). De Bello Italico Commentarii (in Works of

Buonamici, Lyon, 1750); and Pezay, Campagnes de Maillebois (our Westphalian friend again) en Italie,

17451746 (Paris, 1775).] Readers are to imagine this Italian War, all along, as a fact very loud and real at

that time, and continually pulsing over into our German Events (like halfaudible thunder below the horizon,

into raging thunder above), little as we can afford to say of it here. One small Scene from this Italian

... "The Spanish Court, that is, Termagant Elizabeth, who rules everybody there, being in this humor, was

passionate to begin; and stood ready a good while, indignantly champing the bit, before the sad preliminary

obstacles could be got over. At Barcelona she had, in the course of last summer, doubly busy ever since

Mollwitz time, got into equipment some 15,000 men; but could not by any method get them across,owing

to the British Fleets, which hung blockading this place and that; blockading Cadiz especially, where lay her

Transportships and Warships, at this interesting juncture. Fleury's cunctations were disgusting to the ardent

mind; and here now, still more insuperable, are the British Fleets; hereand a pest to him!is your Admiral

"But again, on the other or Pragmatic side, there were cunctations. The Sardinian Majesty, Charles Emanuel

of Savoy, holding the door of the Alps, was difficult to bargain with, in spite of British Subsidies;stood out

for higher doorfees, a larger slice of the Milanese than could be granted him; had always one ear open for

France, too; in short, was tedious and capricious, and there seemed no bringing him to the point of drawing

sword for her Hungarian Majesty. In the end, he was brought to it, by a stroke of British Art,such to the

admiring Gazetteer and Diplomatic mind it seemed;equal to anything we have since heard of, on the part

"One day, 'middle of October last,' the Seventyfours of Haddock and perfidious Albion,Spanish official

persons, looking out from Cadiz Lighthouse, ask themselves, 'Where are they? Vanished from these waters;

not a Seventyfour of them to be seen!'Have got foul in the underworks, or otherwise some blunder has

happened; and the blockading Fleet of perfidious Albion has had to quit its post, and run to Gibraltar to refit.

That, I guess, was the Machiavellian stroke of Art they had done; without investigating Haddock and

Company [as indignant Honorable Members did], I will wager, That and nothing more!

"In any case, the Termagant, finding no Seventyfours there, and the wind good, despatches swiftly her

Transports and Warships to Barcelona; swiftly embarks there her 15,000, France cautiously assisting; and

lands them complete, 'by the middle of December,' Haddock feebly opposing, on the Genoa coast: 'Have at

the Milanese, my men!' Which obliges Charles Emanuel to end his cunctations, and rank at once in defence

of that Country, [Adelung, ii. 535, 538 (who believes in the "stroke of art"): what kind of "art" it was, learn

sufficiently in Gentleman's Magazine, of those months.] lest he get no share of it whatever. And so the game

began. Europe admired, with a shudder, the refined stroke of art; for in cunning they equal Beelzebub, those

perfidious Islanders;and are always at it; hence their greatness in the world. Imitate them, ye Peoples, if

you also would grow great. That is our Gazetteer Evangel, in this late epoch of Man's History." ...

Readers will transport themselves to the Bay of Naples, and beautiful Vesuvian scenery seen from sea. The

EnglishSpanish War, it would appear, is not quite dead, nor carried on by Jenkins and the Wapping people

alone. Here in this Bay it blazes out into something of memorability; and gives lively sign of its existence,

"SUNDAY, AUGUST 19th, Commodore Martin, who had arrived overnight, appears in the Bay, with due

modicum of seventyfours, 'dursley galleys,' bombvessels, on an errand from his Admiral [one Matthews]

and the Britannic Majesty, much to the astonishment of Naples. Commodore Martin hovers about, all

morning, and at 4 P.M. drops anchor,within shot of the place, fearfully near;and therefrom sends ashore

a Message: 'That his Sicilian Majesty [Baby Carlos, our notable old friend, who is said to be a sovereign of

merit otherwise], has not been neutral, in this Italian War, as his engagements bore; but has joined his force to

that of the Spaniards, declared enemies of his Britannic Majesty; which rash step his Britannic Majesty

hereby requires him to retract, if painful consequences are not at once to ensue!' That is Martin's message; to

which he stands doggedly, without variation, in the extreme flutter and multifarious reasoning of the poor

Court of Naples: 'Recall your 20,000 men, and keep them recalled,' persists Martin; and furthermore at last,

as the reasoning threatens to get lengthy: 'Your answer is required within one hour,'and lays his watch on

"The Court, thrown into transcendent tremor, with no resource but either to be burnt or comply, answers

within the hour: 'Yes: in all points.' Some eight hours or so of reasoning: deep in the night of Sunday, it is all

over; everything preparing to get signed and sealed; ships making ready to sail again;and on Tuesday at

sunrise, there is no Martin there. Martin, to the last topgallant, has vanished clean over the horizon; never to

be seen again, though long remembered. [Tindal's Rapin, xx. 572 (MISdates, and is altogether indistinct);

Gentleman's Magazine, xii. 494:CAME, "Sunday morning, 19th August, n.s.;" "anchored abont 4 p.m.;" "2

a.m. of 20th" all agreed; King Carlos's LETTER is GOT, ships prepared for sailing; sail that night, and

tomorrow, 21st, are out of sight.] One wonders, Were Pipes and Hatchway perhaps there, in Martin's

squadron? In what station Commodore Trunnion did then serve in the British Navy? Vanished ghosts of grim

mute seakings, there is no record of them but what is itself a kind of ghost! Ghost, or symbolical phantasm,

from the brain of that Tobias Smollett; an assistant Surgeon, who served in the body along with them, his

singular value altogether unknown."King Carlos's Neutrality, obtained in this manner, lasted for a

yearandhalf; a sensible alleviation to her Hungarian Majesty for the time. We here quit the Italian War;

"PRAG, 22d AUGUST. In the same hours, while Martin lay coercing Naples, the Army of the Oriflamme in

Prag City was engaged in 'furious sallies;'"readers may divine what that means for Prag and the

"Prag is begirdled, bombarded from all the Wischerads, Ziscabergs and Hill environments; every avenue

blocked, 'above 60,000 Austrians round it, near 40,000 of them regulars:' a place difficult to defend; but with

excellent arrangements for defence on Belleisle's part, and the garrison with its blood up. Garrison makes

continual furious sallies,which are eminently successful, say the French Newspapers; but which end, as all

sallies do, in returning home again, without conquest, except of honor;and on this Wednesday, 22d

August, comes out with the greatest sally of all. [ Campagnes, vi. 5; Guerre de Boheme, ii. 173.] While

Commodore Martin, many a Pipes and Hatchway standing grimly on the watch unknown to us, is steering

towards Matthews and the Toulon waters again. The equal sun looking down on all.

"It was about twelve o'clock, when this Prag sally, now all in order, broke out, several thousand strong, and

all at the white heat, now a constant temperature. Sally almost equal to that Pharsalia of a Sahay, it would

seem;concerning which we can spend no word in this brief summary. Fierce fighting, fiery irresistible

onslaught; but it went too far, lost all its captured cannon again; and returned only with laurels and a heavy

account of killed and wounded,the leader of it being himself carried home in a very bleeding state. 'Oh, the

incomparable troops!' cried Paris;cried Voltaire withal (as I gather), and in very high company, in that

"The Imperial Generals were just sitting down to dinner, when it broke out; had intended a Council of War,

over their wine, in the GrandDuke's tent: 'What, won't they let us have our dinner!' cried Prince Karl, in

petulant humor, struggling to be mirthful. He rather likes his dinner, this Prince Karl, I am told, and does not

object to his wine: otherwise a hearty, talky, freeandeasy Prince,'black shallowset eyes, face red, and

much marked with smallpox.' Clapping on his hat, faculties sharpened by hunger and impatience, let him do

his best, for several hours to come, till the sally abate and go its ways again. Leaving its cannon, and trophies.

No sally could hope to rout 60,000 men; this furious sally, almost equal to Sahay, had to return home again,

on the above terms. Upon which Prince Karl and the others got some snatch of dinner; and the inexorable

"The eyes of all Europe are turned towards Prag; a big crisis clearly preparing itself there. ... France, or aid in

France, is some 500 miles away. In D'Harcourt, merely gathering magazines, with his Khevenhuller near, is

no help; help, not the question there! The garrison of Eger, 100 miles to west of us, across the Mountains,

barely mans its own works. Other strong post, or support of any kind in these countries, we have now none.

We are 24,000; and of available resource have the Magazines in Prag, and our own right hands.

"The flower of the young Nobility had marched in that Oriflamme; now standing at bay, they and it, in

Prag yonder: French honor itself seems shut up there! The thought of it agitates bitterly the days and nights of

old Fleury, who is towards ninety now, and always disliked war. The French public too,we can fancy what

a public! The young Nobility in Prag has its spokesmen, and spokes women, at Versailles, whose

complaint waxes louder, shriller; the whole world, excited by rumor of those furious sallies, is getting shrill

and loud. What can old Fleury do but order Maillebois: 'Leave Dunkirk to its own luck; march immediately

for relief of Prag!' And Maillebois is already on march; his various divisions (August 9th20th) crossing the

... "Some time before the actual Bombardment, Fleury, seeing it inevitable, had ordered Belleisle to treat.

Belleisle accordingly had an interview, almost two interviews, with Konigseck. [ Guerre de Boheme, ii. 156

("2d July" the actual interview); ib. 161 (the corollary to it, confirmatory of it, which passed by letters).]

'Liberty to march home, and equitable Peace Negotiations in the rear?' proposed Belleisle. 'Absolute

surrender; Prisoners of War!' answered Konigseck; 'such is her Hungarian Majesty's positive order and

ultimatum.' The high Belleisle responded nothing unpolite; merely some, 'ALORS, MONSIEUR!' And rode

back to Prag, with a spirit all in white heat;gradually heating all the 24,000 white, and keeping them so.

"In fact, Belleisle, a highflown lion reduced to silence and now standing at bay, much distinguishes himself

in this Siege; which, for his sake, is still worth a moment's memory from mankind. He gathers himself into

iron stoicism, into concentration of endeavor; suffers all things, Broglio's domineering in the first place; as if

his own thin skin were that of a rhinoceros; and is prepared to dare all things. Like an excellent soldier, like

an excellent citizen. He contrives, arranges; leads, covertly drives the domineering Broglio, by rule of

contraries or otherwise, according to the nature of the beast; animates all men by his laconic words; by his

silences, which are still more emphatic. ... Sechelles, provident of the future, has laid in immense supplies of

indifferent biscuit; beef was not attainable: Belleisle dismounts his 4,000 cavalry, all but 400 dragoons;

slaughters 160 horses per day, and boils the same by way of butcher'smeat, to keep the soldier in heart. It is

his own fare, and Broglio's, to serve as example. At Broglio's quarter, there is a kind of ordinary of

horseflesh: Officers come in, silent speed looking through their eyes; cut a morsel of the boiled provender,

break a bad biscuit, pour one glass of indifferent wine; and eat, hardly sitting the while, in such haste to be at

the ramparts again. The 80,000 Townsfolk, except some Jews, are against them to a man. Belleisle cares for

everything: there is strict charge on his soldiers to observe discipline, observe civility to the Townsfolk; there

is occasional 'hanging of a Prag Butcher' or so, convicted of spyship, but the minimum of that, we will hope."

Maillebois has some 40,000 men: ahead of him 600 miles of difficult way; rainy season come, days

shortening; uncertain staff of bread ("Seckendorf's meal," and what other commissariat there may be): a

difficult march, to Amberg Country and the top of the OberPfalz. After which are Mountainpasses;

Bohemian Forest: and the Event? "Cannot be dubious!" thinks France, whatever Maillebois think. Witty

Paris, loving its timely joke, calls him Army of Redemption, "L'ARMEE DES MATHURINS,"a kind of

Priests, whose business is commonly in Barbary, about Christian bondage:how sprightly! And yet the

enthusiasm was great: young Princes of the Blood longing to be off as volunteers, needing strict prohibition

by the King;upon which, Prince de Conti, gallant young fellow, leaving his wife, his mistress, and

miraculously borrowing 2,500 pounds for equipments, rushed off furtively by post; and did join, and do his

best. Was reprimanded, clapt in arrest for three days; but afterwards promoted; and came to some distinction

The March goes continually southeast; by Frankfurt, thence towards Nurnberg Country ("be at Furth,

September 6th"), and the skirts of the PineMountains (FICHTELGEBIRGE),Anspach and Baireuth well

to your left;end, lastly, in the OBERPFALZ (Upper Palatinate), Town of Amberg there. Before trying the

Bohemian Passes, you shall have reinforcement. Best part of the "Bavarian Army," now under Comte de

Saxe, not under D'Harcourt farther, is to cease collecting victual in the DonauIser Countries (Deggendorf,

north bank of Donau, its headquarter); and to get on march,circling very wide, not northward, but by the

Donan, and even by the SOUTH, bank of it mainly (to avoid the hungry Mountains and their Tolpatcheries),

and, at Amberg, is to join Maillebois. This is a widelying game. The great Marlborough used to play

such, and win; making the wide elements, the times and the spaces, hit with exactitude: but a Maillebois? "He

is called by the Parisians, 'VIEUX PETITMAITRE (dandy of sixty,' so to speak); has a poor upturned nose,

with baboonface to match, which he even helps by paint." ... Here is one Scene; at FrankfurtonMayn; fact

FRANKFURT, "LATTER END OF AUGUST," 1742. "At Frankfurt, his Army having got into the

neighborhood,"not into Frankfurt itself, which, as a REICHSSTADT, is sacred from Armies and their

marchings,"Marechal de Maillebois, as in duty bound, waited on the Kaiser to pay his compliments there:

on which occasion, we regret to say, Marechal de Maillebois was not so reverent to the Imperial Majesty as

he should have been. Angry belike at the Adventure now forced on him, and harassed with many things;

seeing in the Imperial Majesty little but an unfortunate Playactor Majesty, who lives in furnished lodgings

paid for by France, and gives France and Maillebois an infinite deal of trouble to little purpose. Certain it is,

he addressed the Imperial Majesty in the most freeandeasy manner; very much the reverse of being dashed

by the sacred Presence: and his Officers in the antechamber, crowding about, all day, for presentation to the

Imperial Majesty, made a noise, and kept up a babble of talk and laughter, as if it had been a messroom,

instead of the Forecourt of Imperial Majesty. So that Imperial Majesty, barely master of its temper and able to

finish without explosion, signified to Maillebois on the morrow, That henceforth it would dispense with such

visits, Poor Imperial Majesty; a human creature doing Playactorisms of too high a flight. He had the finest

Palace in Germany; a wonder to the Great Gustavus long ago: and now he has it not; mere Meutzels and

horrent shaggy creatures rule in Munchen and it: and the Imperial quasi furnished lodgings are respected in

this manner!" [Van Loon, Kleine Schriften, ii. 271 (cited in Buchholz, ii. 71). CAMPAGNES is silent; usually

suppressing scenes of that kind.]The wits say of him, "He would be Kaiser or Nothing: see you, he is

Kaiser and Nothing!" [ "Aut nihil aut Caesar, Bavarus Dux esse volebat; Et nihil et Caesar factus utrumque

AUGUST 19thSEPTEMBER 14th. "Comte de Saxe is on march, from Deggendorf; north bank of the

Donau, by narrow mountain roads; then crosses the Donau to south bank, and a plain country;making large

circuit, keeping the River on his right,to meet Maillebois at Amberg; his force, some 10 or 12,000 men.

Seckendorf, now Bavarian Commanderinchief, accompanies Saxe; with considerable Bavarian force,

guess 20,000, 'marching always on the left.' Accompanies; but only to Regensburg, to StadtamHof, a

Suburb of Regensburg, where they cross the Donau again."SUBURB of Regensburg, mark that;

Regensburg itself being a ReichsStadt, very particularly sacred from War;the very ReichsDIET

commonly sitting here; though it has gone to Frankfurt lately, to be with its Kaiser, and out of these continual

trumpetings and tumults close by. [Went 10th May, 1742,after three months' arguing and protesting on the

Austrian part (Adelung, iii. A, 102, 138).] "At Regensburg, once across, Seckendorf with his Bavarians

calls halt; plants himself down in Kelheim, Ingolstadt, and the safe Garrisons thereabouts,calculates that, if

Khevenhuller should be called away Pragward, there may be a stroke doable in these parts. Saxe marches

on; straight northward now, up the Valley of the Naab; obliged to be a good deal on his guard. Mischievous

Tolpatcheries and Trencks, ever since he crossed the Donau again, have escorted him, to right, as close as

they durst; dashing out sometimes on the magazines." One of the exploits they had done, take only one:in

... "SEPTEMBER 7th, Trenck with his Tolpatcheries had appeared at Cham,a fine trading Town on the

hither or neutral side of the mountains [not in Bohmen, but in OberPfalz, old KurPfalz's country, whom

the Austrians hate];and summoning and assaulting Cham, over the throat of all law, had by fire and by

massacre annihilated the same. [Adelung, iii A, 258; Guerre de Boheme; Fact horrible, nearly incredible; but

true. The noise of which is now loud everywhere. Less lovely individual than this Trenck [Pandour Trenck,

Cousin of the Prussian one,] there was not, since the days of Attila and Genghis, in any War. Blusters

abominably, too; has written [save the mark!] an 'AUTOBIOGRAPHY,'having happily afterwards, in

Prison and even in Bedlam, time for such a Work;which is stuffed with sanguinary lies and exaggerations:

unbeautifulest of human souls. Has a face the color of indigo, too;got it, plundering in an Apothecary's [in

this same country, if I recollect]: 'ACH GOTT, your Grace, nothing of money here!' said the poor

Apothecary, accompanying Colonel Trenck with a lighted candle over house and shop. Trenck, noticing one

likely thing, snatched the candle, held it nearer:likely thing proved gunpowder; and Trenck, till Doomsday,

continues deep blue. [ Guerre de Boheme. ] Soul more worthy of damnation I have seldom known."

"SEPTEMBER 19th (five days after dropping Seckendorf), Saxe actually gets joined with Maillebois;not

quite at Amberg, but at Vohenstrauss, in that same Sulzbach Country, a forty miles to eastward, or

Pragward, of Amberg. Maillebois and he conjoined are between 50 and 60,000. They are got now to the

Bohemian Boundary, edge of the Bohemian Forest (big BOHMISCHE WALD, Mountainous woody

Country, 70 miles long); they are within 60 miles of Pilsen, within 100 of Prag itself,if they can cross the

"SEPTEMBER llth, the Besieged at Prag notice that the Austrian fire slackens; that the Enemy seems to be

taking away his guns. Villages and Farmsteads, far and wide all round, are going up in fire. A joyful

symptom:since August 13th, Belleisle has known of Maillebois's advent; guesses that the Austrians now

know it. SEPTEMBER 14th, their Firing has quite ceased. GrandDuke and Prince Karl are off to meet

this Maillebois, amid the intricate defiles, 'Better meet him there than here:'and on this fourth morning,

Belleisle, looking out, perceives that the Siege is raised. [Espagnac, i. 145; Campagnes, v. 348.]

"A blessed change indeed. No enemy here,perhaps some Festititz, with his canaille of Tolpatches, still

lingering about,no enemy worth mention. Parties go out freely to investigate:but as to forage? Alas, a

Country burnt, Villages black and silent for ten miles round;you pick up here and there a lean steer,

welcome amid boiled horseflesh; you bundle a load or two of neglected grass together, for what cavalry

remains. The genius of Sechelles, and help from the Saxon side, will be much useful!

"Perhaps the undeniablest advantage of any is this, That Broglio, not now so proud of the situation Prag is in,

or led by the rule of contraries, willingly quits Prag: Belleisle will not have to do his function by the medium

of pigdriving, but in the direct manner henceforth. 'Give me 6 or 8,000 foot, and what of the cavalry have

horses still uneaten,' proposes Broglio; 'I will push obliquely towards Eger,which is towards Saxony

withal, and opens our food communications there:I will stretch out a hand to Maillebois, across the

Mountain Passes; and thus bring a victorious issue!' [Espagnac, i. 170.] Belleisle consents: 'Well, since my

Broglio will have it so!'glad to part with my Broglio at any rate, 'Adieu, then, M. le Marechal (and,'

SOTTO VOCE, 'may it be long before we meet again in partnership)!' Broglio marches accordingly ('hand'

beautifully held out to Maillebois, but NOT within grasping distance); gets northwestward some 60 miles, as

"SEPTEMBER 19thOCTOBER 10th,,'Scene is, the EgerVohenStrauss Country, in and about that

Bohemian Forest of seventy miles. "For three weeks, Maillebois and the Comte de Saxe, trying their

utmost, cannot, or cannot to purpose, get through that Bohemian Wood. Only Three practicable Passes in it;

difficult each, and each conducting you towards more new difficulties, on the farther side; not

surmountable except by the determined mind. A gloomy business: a gloomy difficult region, solitary, hungry;

nothing in it but shaggy chasms (and perhaps Tolpatchery lurking), wastes, mountain woodlands, dumb trees,

damp brown leaves. Maillebois and Saxe, after survey, shoot leftwards to Eger; draw food and reinforcement

from the Garrison there. They do get through the Forest, at one Pass, the Pass nearest Eger;but find Prince

Karl and the GrandDuke ranked to receive them on the other side. 'Plunge home upon Prince Karl and the

GrandDuke; beat them, with your Broglio to help in the rear?' That possibly was Friedrich's thought as he

"But that was not the MailleboisBroglio method;nay, it is said Maillebois was privately forbidden 'to run

risks.' Broglio, with his stretchedout hand (12,000 some count him, and indeed it is no matter), sits quiet at

Toplitz, far too oblique: 'Come then, come, O Maillebois!' Maillebois,manoeuvring Prince Karl aside, or

Hunger doing it for him,did once push forward Pragward, by the Pass of Caaden; which is very oblique

to Toplitz. By the Pass of Caaden,down the Eger River, through those Mountains of the Circle of Saatz,

past a Castle of Ellenbogen, key of the same;and 'Could have done it [he said always after], had it not been

for Comte de Saxe!' Undeniable it is, Saxe, as vanguard, took that Castle of Ellenbogen; and, time being so

precious, gave the Tolpatchery dismissal on parole. Undeniable, too, the Tolpatchery, careless of parole,

beset Caaden Village thereupon, 4,000 strong; cut off our foreposts, at Caaden Village; and In short, we

had to retire from those parts; and prove an Army of Redemption that could not redeem at all!

"Maillebois and Saxe wend sulkily down the Naab Valley (having lost, say 15,000, not by fighting, but by

mud and hardship); and the rapt European Public (shillinggallery especially) says, with a sneer on its face,

'Pooh; ended, then!' Sulkily wending, Maillebois and Saxe (October 30thNovember 7th) get across the

Donau, safe on the southern bank again; march for the Iser Country and the D'Harcourt Magazines,and

OF SECKENDORF IN THE INTERIM. "For Belleisle and relief of Prag, Maillebois in person had proved

futile; but to Seckendorf, waiting with his Bavarians, the shadow and rumor of Maillebois had brought

famous results,famous for a few weeks. Khevenhuller being called north to help in those AntiMaillebois

operations, and only Barenklau with about 10,000 Austrians now remaining in Baiern, Seckendorf, clearly

superior (not to speak of that remnant of D'Harcourt people, with their magazines), promptly bestirred

himself, in the KelheimIngolstadt Country; got on march; and drove the Austrians mostly out of Baiern. Out

mostly, and without stroke of sword, merely by marching; out for the time. Munchen was evacuated, on

rumor of Seckendorf (October 4th): a glad City to see Barenklau march off. Much was evacuated,the Iser

Valley, down partly to the Inn Valley,much was cleared, by Seckendorf in these happy circumstances.

Who sees himself victorious, for once; and has his fame in the Gazettes, if it would last. Pretty much without

stroke of sword, we say, and merely by marching: in one place, having marched too close, the retreating

Barenklau people turned on him, 'took 100 prisoners' before going; [Espagnac, i. 166.]other fighting, in

this line 'Reconquest of Bavaria,' I do not recollect. Winter come, he makes for Maillebois and the Iser

Countries; cantons himself on the Upper Inn itself, well in advance of the French [Braunau his chief

strongplace, if readers care to look on the Map]; and strives to expect a combined seizure of Passau, and

AND OF BROGLIO IN THE INTERIM. "As for Broglio, left alone at Toplitz, gazing after a futile

Maillebois, he sends the better half of his Force back to Prag; other half he establishes at Leitmeritz: good

halfwayhouse to Dresden. 'Will forward Saxon provender to you, M. de Belleisle!' (never did, and were all

taken prisoners some weeks hence). Which settled, Broglio proceeded to the Saxon Court; who answered

him: 'Provender? Alas, Monseigneur! We are (to confess it to you!) at Peace with Austria: [Treatying ever

since "July 17th;" Treaty actually done, "11th September" (Adelung, iii. A, 201, 268).] not an ounce of

provender possible; how dare we?' but were otherwise politeness itself to the great Broglio. Great Broglio,

after sumptuous entertainments there, takes the road for Baiern; circling grandly "through Nurnberg with

escort of 500 Horse') to Maillebois's new quarters;takes command of the 'Bavarian Army' (may it be lucky

for him!); and sends Maillebois home, in deep dudgeon, to the merciless criticisms of men. 'Could have done

it,' persists the VIEUX PETITMAITRE always, 'had not'one knows what, but cares not, at this date!

"Broglio's quarters in the Iser Country, I am told, are fatally too crowded, men perishing at a frightful rate per

day. [Espagnac, i. 182.] 'Things all awry here,thanks to that Maillebois and others!' And Broglio's troubles

and procedures, as is everywhere usual to Broglio, run to a great height in this Bavarian Command. And poor

Seckendorf, in neighborhood of such a Broglio, has his adoes; eyes sparkling; face blushing slatecolor; at

times nearly driven out of his wits;but strives to consume his own smoke, and to have hopes on Passau

notwithstanding."And of Belleisle in Prag, and his meditations on the Oriflamme?Patience, reader.

Meantime, what a relief to Kaiser Karl, in such wreck of Bohemian Kingdoms and Castles in Spain, to have

got his own Munchen and Country in hand again; with the prospect of quitting furnished lodgings, and

seeing the color of real money! April next, he actually goes to Munchen, where we catch a glimpse of him.

["17th April, 1743," Montijos accompanying (Adelung, iii. B, 119, 120).] This same October, the Reich, after

endless debatings on the question, "Help our Kaiser, or not help?" [Ib. iii A, 289.] has voted him fifty

ROMERMONATE ("Romishmonths," still so termed, though there is NOT now any marching of the

Kaiser to Rome on business); meaning fifty of the known QUOTAS, due from all and sundry in such

case,which would amount to about 300,000 pounds (could it, or the half of it, be collected from so wide a

King Priedrich had come to the Baths of Aachen, August 25th; the Maillebois Army of Redemption being

then, to the last man of it, five days across the Rhine on its high errand, which has since proved futile.

Friedrich left Aachen, taking leave of his Voltaire, who had been lodging with him for a week by special

invitation, September 9th; and witnessed the later struggles and final inability of Maillebois to redeem, not at

Aix, but at Berlin, amid the ordinary course of his employments there. We promised something of Voltaire's

new visit, his Third to Friedrich. Here is what little we have,if the lively reader will exert his fancy on it.

Voltaire and his Du Chatelet had been to Cirey, and thence been at Paris through this Spring and Summer,

1742;engaged in what to Voltaire and Paris was a great thing, though a pacific one: The getting of

MAHOMET brought upon the boards. August 9th, precisely while the first vanguard of the Army of

Redemption got across the Rhine at Dusseldorf, Voltaire's Tragedy of MAHOMET came on the stage.

August 9th, llth, 13th, Paris City was in transports of various kinds; never were such crowds of Audience,

lifting a man to the immortal gods,though a part too, majority by count of heads, were dragging him to

Tartarus again. "Exquisite, unparalleled!" exclaimed good judges (as Fleury himself had anticipated, on

examining the Piece):"Infamous, irreligious, accursed!" vociferously exclaimed the bad judges; Reverend

Desfontaines (of Sodom, so Voltaire persists to define him), Reverend Desfontaines and others giving cue;

hugely vociferous, these latter, hugely in majority by count of heads. And there was such a bellowing and

such a shrieking, judicious Fleury, or Maurepas under him, had to suggest, "Let an actor fall sick; let M. de

Voltaire volunteer to withdraw his Piece; otherwise!" And so it had to be: Actor fell sick on the 14th

(Playbills sorry to retract their MAHOMET on the 14th); andin fact, it was not for nine years coming, and

after Dedication to the Pope, and other exquisite manoeuvres and unexpected turns of fate, that MAHOMET

could be acted a fourth time in Paris, and thereafter AD LIBITUM down to this day. [ OEuvres de Voltaire,

Such tempest in a teapot is not unexampled, nay rather is very frequent, in that Anarchic Republic called of

Letters. Confess, reader, that you too would have needed some patience in M. de Voltaire's place; with such a

Heaven's own Inspiration of a MAHOMET in your hands, and such a terrestrial Doggery at your heels.

Suppose the bitterest of your barking curs were a Reverend Desfontaines of Sodom, whom you yourself had

saved from the gibbet once, and again and again from starving? It is positively a great Anarchy, and Fountain

of Anarchies, all that, if you will consider; and it will have results under the sun. You cannot help it, say you;

there is no shutting up of a Reverend Desfontaines, which would be so salutary to himself and to us all?

No:and when human reverence (daily going, in such ways) is quite gone from the world; and your lowest

blockhead and scoundrel (usually one entity) shall have perfect freedom to spit in the face of your highest

Voltaire, keeping good silence as to all this, and minded for Brussels again, receives the King of Prussia's

invitation; lays it at his Eminency Fleury's feet; will not accept, unless his Eminency and my own King of

France (possibly to their advantage, if one might hint such a thing!) will permit it. [Ib. lxxii. 555 (Letter to

Fleury, "Paris, Aug. 22d").] "By all means; go, and"The rest is in dumbshow; meaning, "Try to pump

him for us!" Under such omens, Voltaire and his divine Emilie return to their Honsbruck Lawsuit: "Silent

Brussels, how preferable to Paris and its mad cries!" Voltaire, leaving the divine Emilie at Brussels,

September 2d, sets out for Aix,Aix attainable within the day. He is back at Brussels late in the evening,

September 9th:how he had fared, and what extent of pumping there was, learn from the following

1. TO CIDEVILLE (the Rouen Advocate, who has sometimes troubled us). ... "I have been to see the King of

Prussia since I began this Letter [beginning of it dates September 1st]. I have courageously resisted his fine

proposals. He offers me a beautiful House in Berlin, a pretty Estate; but I prefer my secondfloor in Madame

du Chatelet's here. He assures me of his favor, of the perfect freedom I should have;and I am running to

Paris [did not just yet run] to my slavery and persecution. I could fancy myself a small Athenian, refusing the

bounties of the King of Persia. With this difference, however, one had liberty [not slavery] at Athens; and I

2. TO MARQUIS D'ARGENSON (worthy official Gentleman, not War Minister now or afterwards;

WarMinister's senior brother, Voltaire's old schoolfellows, both these brothers, in the College of Louis

le Grand). ... "I have just been to see the King of Prussia in these late days [in fact, quitted him only

yesterday; both of us, after a week together, leaving Aix yesterday]: I have seen him as one seldom sees

Kings,much at my ease, in my own room, in the chimneynook, whither the same man who has gained

two Battles would come and talk familiarly, as Scipio did with Terence. You will tell me, I am not Terence;

"I learned some extraordinary things,"things not from Friedrich at all: mere dinnertable rumors; about the

16,000 English landing here ("18,000" he calls them, and farther on, "20,000") with the other 16,000 PLUS

6,000 of HanoverianHessian sort, expecting 20,000 Dutch to join them,who perhaps will not? "M. de

Neipperg [Governor of Luxemburg now] is come hither to Brussels; but brings no Dutch troops with him, as

he had hoped,"Dutch perhaps won't rise, after all this flogging and hoisting? "Perhaps we may soon get a

useful and glorious Peace, in spite of my Lord Stair, and of M. van Haren, the Tyrtaeus of the StatesGeneral

[famed Van Haren, eyes in a fine Dutch frenzy rolling, whose CauseofLiberty verses let no man inquire

after]: Stair prints Memoirs, Van Haren makes Odes; and with so much prose and so much verse, perhaps

their High and Slow Mightinesses [Excellency Fenelon sleeplessly busy persuading them, and native

"The English want to attack us on our own soil [actually Stair's plan]; and we cannot pay them in that kind.

The match is too unfair! If we kill the whole 20,000 of them, we merely send 20,000 Heretics to What

shall I say?A L'ENFER, and gain nothing; if they kill us, they even feed at our expense in doing it. Better

have no quarrels except on Locke and Newton! The quarrel I have on MAHOMET is happily only

3. TO THE CARDINAL DE FLEURY. "Monseigneur, ... to give your Eminency, as I am bound, some

account of my journey to Aixla Chapelle." Friedrich's guest there; let us hear, let us look.

"I could not get away from Brussels till the 2d of this month. On the road, I met a courier from the King of

Prussia, coming to reiterate his Master's orders on me. The King had me lodged near his own Apartment; and

he passed, for two consecutive days, four hours at a time in my room, with all that goodness and familiarity

which forms, as you know, part of his character, and which does not lower the King's dignity, because one is

duly careful not to abuse it [be careful!]. I had abundant time to speak, with a great deal of freedom, on what

your Eminency had prescribed to me; and the King spoke to me with an equal frankness.

"First, he asked me, If it was true that the French Nation was so angered against him; if the King was, and if

you were? I answered," mildly reprobatory, yet conciliative, "Hm, no, nothing permanent, nothing to speak

of." "He then deigned to speak to me, at large, of the reasons which had induced him to be so hasty with the

Peace." "Extremely remarkable reasons;" "dare not trust them to this Paper" (BroglioBelleisle discrepancies,

we guess, distracted Broglio procedures);they have no concern with that PallandtLetter Story, "they do

not turn on the pretended Secret Negotiations at the Court of Vienna [which are not pretended at all, as I

among others well know], in regard to which your Eminency has condescended to clear yourself [by denying

the truth, poor Eminency; there was no help otherwise]. All I dare state is, that it seems to me easy to lead

back the mind of this Sovereign, whom the situation of his Territories, his interest, and his taste would appear

"He said farther [what may be relied on as true by his Eminency Fleury, and my readers here], That he

passionately wished to see Bohemia in the Emperor's hands [small chance for it, as things now go!]; that he

renounced, with the best faith in the world, all claim whatever on Berg and Julich; and that, in spite of the

advantageous proposals which Lord Stair was making him, he thought only of keeping Silesia. That he knew

well enough the House of Austria would, one day, wish to recover that fine Province, but that he trusted he

could keep his conquest; that he had at this time 130,000 soldiers always ready; that he would make of

Neisse, Glogau, Brieg, fortresses as strong as Wesel [which he is now diligently doing, and will soon have

done]; that besides he was well informed the Queen of Hungary already owed 80,000,000 German crowns,

which is about 300 millions of our money [about 12 millions sterling]; that her Provinces, exhausted, and

lying wide apart, would not be able to make long efforts; and that the Austrians, for a good while to come,

could not of themselves be formidable." Of themselves, no: but with Britannic souproyal in quantity?

"My Lord Hyndford had spoken to him" as if France were entirely discouraged and done for: How false,

Monseigneur! "And Lord Stair in his letters represented France, a month ago, as ready to give in. Lord Stair

has not ceased to press his Majesty during this Aix Excursion even:" and, in spite of what your Eminency

hears from the Hague, "there was, on the 30th of August, an Englishman at Aix on the part of Milord Stair;

and he had speech with the King of Prussia [CROYEZ MOI!] in a little Village called Boschet [Burtscheid,

where are hot wells], a quarter of a league from Aix. I have been assured, moreover, that the Englishman

returned in much discontent. On the other hand, General Schmettau, who was with the King [elder

Schmettau, Graf SAMUEL, who does a great deal of envoying for his Majesty], sent, at that very time, to

Brussels, for Maps of the Moselle and of the Three Bishoprics, and purchased five copies,"means to

examine Milord Stair's proposed Seat of War, at any rate. (Here is a pleasant friend to have on visit to you, in

"Monseigneur," finely insinuates Voltaire in conclusion, "is not there" a certain Frenchman, true to his

Country, to his King, and to your Eminency, with perhaps peculiar facilities for being of use, in such delicate

case?"JE SUIS," much your Eminency's. [ OEuvres, lxxii. p. 568 (to Cideville), p. 579 (D'Argenson), p.

Friedrich, on the day while Voltaire at Brussels sat so busy writing of him, was at Salzdahl, visiting his

Brunswick kindred there, on the road home to his usual affairs. Old Fleury, age ninety gone, died 29th

January, 1743,five months and nineteen days after this Letter. WarMinister Breteuil had died January 1st.

Here is room for new Ministers and Ministries; for the two D'Argensons,if it could avail their old

Readers were anticipating it, readers have no sympathy; but the sad fact is, Britannic Majesty has NOT got

out his sword; this second paroxysm of his proves vain as the first did! Those laggard Dutch, dead to the

Cause of Liberty, it is they again. Just as the hour was striking, theyplump down, in spite of magnanimous

Stair, into their mud again; cannot be hoisted by eugineering. And, after all that filling and emptying of

water casks, and pumping and puffing, and straining of every fibre for a twelvemonth past, Britannic

Majesty had to sit down again, panting in an Olympian manner, with that expensive long sword of his still

Tongue cannot tell what his poor little Majesty has suffered from those Dutch,checking one's noble rage,

into mere zero, always; making of one's own glorious Army a mere expensive Phantasm! Hanoverian,

Hessian, British: 40,000 fighters standing in harness, year after year, at such cost; and not the killing of a

French turkey to be had of them in return. Patience, Olympian patience, withal! He cantons his troops in the

Netherlands Towns; many of the British about Ghent (who consider the provisions, and customs, none of the

best); [Letters of Officers, from Ghent ( Westminster Journal, Oct. 23d, his Hanoverians, Hessians, farther

northward, Hanover way;and, greatly daring, determines to try again, next Spring. Carteret himself shall

go and flagitate the Dutch. Patience; whip and hoist!What a conclusion, snorts the indignant British Public

"Next year, yes, exclaims one indignant Editor: 'if talking will do business, we shall no doubt perform

wonders; for we have had as much talking and puffing since February last, as during any ten years of the late

Administration' [ The Daily Post, December 31st (o.s.), 1742.] [under poor Walpole, whom you could not

enough condemn]! The Dutch? exclaims another: 'If WE were a Free People [F P he puts it, joining

caution with his rage], QUOERE, Whether Holland would not, at this juncture, come cap in hand, to sue for

our protection and alliance; instead of making us dance attendance at the Hague?' Yes, indeed;and then the

CASE OF THE HANOVER FORCES (fear not, reader; I understand your terror of lockedjaw, and will

never mention said CASE again); but it is singular to the Gazetteer mind, That these Hanover Forces are to be

paid by England, as appears; Hanover, as if without interest in the matter, paying nothing! Upon which, in

covert form of symbolic adumbration, of witty parable, what stinging commentaries, not the first, nor by

many thousands the last (very sad reading in our day) on this paltry Hanover Connection altogether: What

immensities it has cost poor England, and is like to cost, 'the Lord of the Manor' (great George our King)

being the gentleman he is; and how England, or, as it is adumbratively called, 'the Manor of St. James's,' is

become a mere 'feefarm to Mumland.' Unendurable to think of. 'Bob Monopoly, the late Tallyman

[adumbrative for Walpole, late Prime Minister], was much blamed on this account; and John the Carter [John

Lord Carteret], Clerk of the Vestry and present favorite of his Lordship, is not behind Robin in his care for

the Manor of MUMLAND' [In Westminster Journal (Feb. 12th, n.s., 1743), a long Apologue in this strain.]

(that contemptible Country, where their very beer is called MUM),and no remedy within view?"

"And Belleisle in Prag, left solitary there, with his heroic remnant,gone now to 17,000, the fourth man of

them in hospital, with Festititz Tolpatchery hovering round, and Winter and Hunger drawing nigh,what is

to become of Belleisle? Prince Karl and the GrandDuke had attended Maillebois to Bavaria; steadily to left

of Maillebois between Austria and him; and are now busy in the Passau Country, bent on exploding those

SeckendorfBroglio operations and intentions, as the chief thing now. Meanwhile they have detached Prince

Lobkowitz to girdle in Belleisle again; for which Lobkowitz (say, 20,000, with the Festititz Tolpatchery

included) will be easily able. On the march thither he easily picked up (18th25th November) that new

French Post of Leitmeritz (Broglio's fine 'Half way House to Saxony and Provender'), with its garrison of

2,000: the other posts and outposts, one and all, had to hurry home, in fear of a like fate. Beyond the circuit of

Prag, isolated in ten miles of burnt country, Belleisle has no resource except what his own head may furnish.

The black landscape is getting powdered with snow; one of the grimmest Winters, almost like that of 1740;

"Belleisle knows secretly what he will do. Belleisle has orders to come away from Prag; bring his Army off,

and the chivalry of France home to their afflicted friends. [ Campagnes, vi. 244251; Espagnac, i. 168.] A

thing that would have been so feasible two months ago, while Maillebois was still wriggling in the Pass of

Caaden; but which now borders on impossibility, if not reaches into it. As a primary measure, Belleisle keeps

those orders of his rigorously secret. Within the Garrison, or on the part of Lobkowitz, there is a far other

theory of Belleisle's intentions. Lobkowitz, unable to exist in the black circuit, has retired beyond it, and

taken the eastern side of the Moldau, as the least ruined; leaving the Tolpatchery, under one Festititz, to

caracole round the black horizon on the west. Farther, as the Moldau is rolling ice, and Lobkowitz is afraid of

his pontoons, he drags them out high and dry: 'Can be replaced in a day, when wanted.' In a day; yes, thinks

Belleisle, but not in less than a day;and proceeds now to the consummation. Detailed accounts exist,

Belleisle's own Account (rapid, exact, loftily modest); here, compressing to the utmost, let us snatch hastily

"On the 15th December, 1742, Prag Gates are all shut: Enter if you like; but no outgate. Monseigneur le

Marechal intends to have a grand foraging tomorrow, on the southwestern side of Prag. Lobkowitz heard of

it, in spite of the shut gates; for all Prag is against Belleisle, and does spywork for Lobkowitz. 'Let him

forage,' thought Lobkowitz; 'he will not grow rich by what he gathers;' and sat still, leaving his pontoons high

and dry. So that Belleisle, on the afternoon of December 16th,between 12 and 14,000 men, near 4,000 of

them cavalry, with cannon, with provisionwagons, baggagewagons, goods and chattels in mass,has

issued through the two Southwestern Gates; and finds himself fairly out of Prag. On the Pilsen road; about

nightfall of the short winter day: earth all snow and 'VERGLAS,' iron glazed; huge olive colored curtains of

the Dusk going down upon the Mountains ahead of him; shutting in a scene wholly grim for Belleisle.

Brigadier Chevert, a distinguished and determined man, with some 4,000 sick, convalescent and half able, is

left in Prag to man the works; the Marechal has taken hostages, twenty Notabilities of Prag; and neglected no

precaution. He means towards Eger; has, at least, got one march ahead; and will do what is in him, he and

every soul of those 14,000. The officers have given their horses for the baggagewagons, made every

sacrifice; the word Homewards kindles a strange fire in all hearts; and the troops, say my French authorities,

are unsurpassable. The Marechal himself, victim of rheumatisms, cannot ride at all; but has his light sledge

always harnessed; and, at a moment's notice, is present everywhere. Sleep, during these ten days and nights,

"Eger is 100 miles off, by the shortest Highway: there are two bad Highways, one by Pilsen southerly, one by

Karlsbad northerly,with their bridges all broken, infested by Hussars:we strike into a middle

combination of country roads, intricate parish lanes; and march zigzag across these frozen wildernesses: we

must dodge these Festititz Hussar swarms; and cross the rivers near their springs. Forward! Perhaps some

readers, for the high Belleisle's sake, will look out these localities subjoined in the Note, and reduced to

spelling. [Tachlowitz, Lischon (near Rakonitz); Jechnitz (as if you were for the Pilsen road; then turn as if for

the Karlsbad one); Steben (not discoverable, but a DESPATCH from it, Campagnes, v. 280), Chisch,

Luditz, Theysing (hereabouts you break off into smaller columns, separate parties and patches, cavalry all

ahead, among the Hills): Schonthal AND Landeck (Belleisle passes Christmasday at

Landeck, Campagnes, vii. 10); Einsiedel (AND by Petschau), Lauterbach, Konigswart, AND likewise by

Topl, Sandau, Treunitz (that is, into Eger from two sides).] Restingplaces in this grim wilderness of his:

poor snowclad Hamlets,with their little hood of human smoke rising through the snow; silent all of them,

except for the sound of here and there a flail, or crowing cock;but have been awakened from their torpor

by this transit of Belleisle. Happily the bogs themselves are iron; deepest bog will bear.

"Festititz tries us twice,very anxious to get Belleisle's Army chest, or money; we give him torrents of

sharp shot instead. Festititz, these two chief times, we pepper rapidly into the Hills again; he is reduced to

hang prancing on our flanks and rear. Men bivouac over fires of turf, amid snow, amid frost; tear down, how

greedily, any woodwork for fire. Leave a trumpet to beg quarter for the frozen and speechless;which is

little respected: they are lugged in carts, stript by the savageries, and cruelly used. There were first extensive

plains, then boggy passes, intricate mouutains; bog and rock; snow and VERGLAS.On the 26th, after

indescribable endeavors, we got into Eger;some 1,300 (about one in ten) left frozen in the wilderness; and

half the Army falling ill at Eger, of swollen limbs, sorethroats, and other fataler diseases, fatal then, or soon

after. Chevert, at Prag, refused summons from Prince Lobkowitz: 'No, MON PRINCE; not by any means! We

will die, every man of us, first; and we will burn Prag withal!'So that Lobkowitz had to consent to

everything; and escort Chevert to Eger, with bag and baggage, Lobkowitz furnishing the wagons.

"Comparable to the Retreat of Xenophon! cry many. Every Retreat is compared to that. A valiant feat, after

all exaggerations. A thing well done, say military men;'nothing to object, except that the troops were so

ruined;'and the most unmilitary may see, it is the work of a high and gallant kind of man. One of the

coldest expeditions ever known. There have been three expeditions or retreats of this kind which were very

cold: that of those Swedes in the Great Elector's time (not to mention that of Karl XII.'s Army out of Norway,

after poor Karl XII. got shot); that of Napoleon from Moscow; this of Belleisle, which is the only one

"The troops rest in Eger for a week or two; then homeward through the OberPfalz:'go all across the Rhine

at Speyer' (5th February next); the Bohemian Section of the Oriflamme making exit in this manner. Not quite

the eighth man of them left; fiveeighths are dead: and there are about 12,000 prisoners, gone to

Hungary,who ran mostly to the Turks, such treatment had they, and were not heard of again." [ Guerre de

Boheme, ii. 221 (for this last fact). IB. 204, and Espagnac, i. 176 (for particulars of the Retreat); and still

better, Belleisle's own Despatch and Private Letter (Eger, 2d January and 5th January, 1743), in Campagnes,

The Army of the Oriflamme gets home in this sad manner; Germany not cut in Four at all. "Implacable

Austrian badgers," as we call them, "gloomily indignant bears," how have they served this fine French

huntingpack; and from hunted are become hunters, very dangerous to contemplate! At Frankfurt, Belleisle,

for his own part, pauses; cannot, in this entirely downbroken state of body, serve his Majesty farther in the

military business; will do some needful diplomatics with the Kaiser, and retire home to government of Metz,

Prince Karl had been busy upon Braunau (the BAVARIAN Braunau, not the BOHEMIAN or another,

Seckendorf's chief post on the Inn); had furiously bombarded Braunau, with redhot balls, for some days;

[2d10th December (Espagnac, i. 171).] intent to explode the SeckendorfBroglio projects before winter

quite came. Seckendorf, in a fine frenzy, calls to Broglio, "Help!" and again calls; both Kaiser and he,

CRESCENDO to a high pitch, before Broglio will come. "Relieve Braunau? Well;but no fighting farther,

mark you!" answers Broglio. To the disgust of Kaiser and Seckendorf; who were eager for a combined

movement, and hearty attack on Prince Karl, with perhaps capture of Passau itself. At sight of Broglio and

Seckendorf combined, Prince Karl did at once withdraw from Braunau; but as to attacking him,"NON;

MILLE FOIS, NON!" answered Broglio disdainfully bellowing. First grand quarrel of Broglio and

Seckendorf; by no means their last. Prince Karl put his men in winterquarters, in those Passau regions;

postponing the explosion of the BroglioSeckendorf projects, till Spring; and returned to Vienna for the

Winter gayeties and businesses there. How the high Maria Theresa is contented, I do not hear;readers may

take this Note, which is authentic, though vague, and straggling over wide spaces of time still future.

"Does her Majesty still think of 'taking the command of her Armies on herself,' high Amazon that she is!"

Has not yet thought of that, I should guess. "At one time she did seriously think of it, says a good witness;

which is noteworthy. [Podewils, Der Wiener Hof (Court of Vienna, in the years 1746, 1747 and 1748; a

curious set of REPORTS for Friedrich's information, by Podewils, his Minister there); printed under that

Title, "by the Imperial Academy of Sciences" (Wien, 1850);may be worth alluding to again, if chance

offer.] Her Husband has been with the Armies, once, twice; but never to much purpose (Brother Karl doing

the work, if work were done);and this is about the last time, or the last but one, this in Winter 1742. She

loves her Husband thoroughly, all along; but gives him no share in business, finding he understands nothing

except Banking. It is certain she chiefly was the reformer of her Army," in years coming; "she, athwart many

impediments. An ardent rider, often on horseback, at paces furiously swift; her beautiful face tanned by the

weather. Very devout too; honest to the bone, athwart all her prejudices. Since our own Elizabeth! no

Woman, and hardly above one Man, is worth being named beside her as a Sovereign Ruler;she is 'a living

contradiction of the Salic Law,' say her admirers. Depends on England for money, All hearts and right hands

in Austria are hers. The loss of Schlesien, pure highway robbery, thrice doleful loss and disgrace, rankles

incurable in the noble heart, pious to its Fathers withal, and to their Heritages in the world, we shall see

with what issues, for the next twenty years, to that 'BOSE MANN,' unpardonably 'wicked man' of

Brandenburg. And indeed, to the end of her life, she never could get over it. To the last, they say, if a

Stranger, getting audience, were graciously asked, 'From what Country, then?' and should answer, 'Schlesien,

your Majesty!' she would burst into tears.'Patience, high Madam!' urges the Britannic Majesty: 'Patience;

may not there be compensation, if we hunt well?'" Austrian bears, implacable badgers, with Britannic

At Berlin it was gay Carnival, while those tragedies went on: Friedrich was opening his OperaHouse,

enjoying the first ballets, while Belleisle filed out of Prag that gloomy evening. Our poor Kaiser will not

"retain Bohemia," then; how far from it! The thing is not comfortable to Friedrich; but what help?

This is the gayest Carnival yet seen in Berlin, this immediately following the Peace; everybody saying to

himself and others, "GAUDEAMUS, What a Season!" Not that, in the present hurry of affairs, I can dwell on

operas, assemblies, balls, sledgeparties; or indeed have the least word to say on such matters, beyond

suggesting them to the imagination of readers. The operas, the carnival gayeties, the intricate considerations

and diplomacies of this Winter, at Berlin and elsewhere, may be figured: but here is one little speck, also

from the Archives, which is worth saving. Princess Ulrique is in her twentythird year, Princess Amelia in

her twentieth; beautiful clever creatures, both; Ulrique the more staid of the two. "Never saw so gay a

Carnival," said everybody; and in the height of it, with all manner of gayeties going on, think where the

BERLIN, "1st March, 1743. "MY DEAREST BROTHER,I know not if it is not too bold to trouble your

Majesty on private affairs: but the great confidence which my Sister [Amelia] and I have in your kindness

encourages us to lay before you a sincere avowal as to the state of our bits of finances (NOS PETITES

FINANCES), which are a good deal deranged just now; the revenues having, for two years and a half past,

been rather small; amounting to only 400 crowns (60 pounds) a year; which could not be made to cover all

the little expenses required in the adjustments of ladies. This circumstance, added to our card playing,

though small, which we could not dispense with, has led us into debts. Mine amount to 225 pounds (1,500

"We have not spoken of it to the QueenMother, though we are well sure she would have tried to assist us;

but as that could not have been done without some inconvenience to her, and she would have retrenched in

some of her own little entertainments, I thought we should do better to apply direct to Your Majesty; being

persuaded you would have taken it amiss, had we deprived the Queen of her smallest pleasure;and

especially, as we consider you, my dear Brother, the Father of the Family, and hope you will be so gracious

as help us. We shall never forget the kind acts of Your Majesty; and we beg you to be persuaded of the

perfect and tender attachment with which we are proud to be all our lives,Your Majesty's most humble and

"LOUISEULRIQUE; ANNEAMELIE [which latter adds anxiously as Postscript, Ulrique having written

"P.S. I most humbly beg Your Majesty not to speak of this to the QueenMother, as perhaps she would not

Poor little souls; bankruptcy just imminent! I have no doubt Friedrich came handsomely forward on this

grave occasion, though Dryasdust has not the grace to give me the least information. "Frederic Baron

Trenck," loudsounding Phantasm once famous in the world, now gone to the Nurseries as mythical, was of

this Carnival 174243; and of the next, and NOT of the next again! A tall actuality in that time; swaggering

about in sumptuous Lifeguard uniform, in his messrooms and assemblyrooms; much in love with

himself, the fool. And I rather think, in spite of his dog insinuations, neither Princess had heard of him till

twenty years hence, in a very different phasis of his life! The empty, noisy, quasitragic fellow;sounds

throughout quasitragically, like an empty barrel; wellbuilt, longing to be FILLED. And it is scandalously

false, what loud Trenck insinuates, what stupid Thiebault (always stupid, incorrect, and the prey of

stupidities) confirms, as to this matter,fit only for the Nurseries, till it cease altogether.

Voltaire and the divine Emilie are home to Cirey again; that of Brussels, with the Royal Aachen Excursion,

has been only an interlude. They returned, by slow stages, visit after visit, in October last,some slake

occurring, I suppose, in that interminable Honsbruck Lawsuit; and much business, not to speak of ennui,

urging them back. They are now latterly in Paris itself, safe in their own "little palace (PETIT PALAIS) at the

point of the Isle;" little jewel of a house on the Isle St. Louis, which they are warming again, after long

absence in Brussels and the barbarous countries. They have returned hither, on sufferance, on good behavior;

multitudes of small interests, small to us, great to them,death of old Fleury, hopeful changes of Ministry,

not to speak of theatricals and the like,giving opportunity and invitation. Madame, we observe, is marrying

her Daughter: the happy man a Duke of Montenero, illbuilt Neapolitan, complexion rhubarb, and face

consisting much of nose. [Letter of Voltaire, in OEuvres, lxxiii 24.] Madame never wants for business;

business enough, were it only in the way of shopping, visiting, consulting lawyers, doing the Pure Sciences.

As to Voltaire, he has, as usual, Plays to get acted,if he can. MAHOMET, no; MORT DE CESAR, yes OR

no; for the Authorities are shy, in spite of the Public. One Play Voltaire did get acted, with a success,think

of it, reader! The exquisite Tragedy MEROPE, perhaps now hardly known to you; of which you shall hear

But Plays are not all. Old Pleury being dead, there is again a Vacancy in the Academy; place among the

sacred Forty,vacant for Voltaire, if he can get it. Voltaire attaches endless importance to this place;

beautiful as a feather in one's cap; useful also to the solitary Ishmael of Literature, who will now in a certain

sense have Thirtynine Comrades, and at least one fixed HouseofCall in this world. In fine, nothing can be

more ardent than the wish of M. de Voltaire for these supreme felicities. To be of the Forty, to get his Plays

acted,oh, then were the Saturnian Kingdoms come; and a man might sing IO TRIUMPHE, and take his

ease in the Creation, more or less! Stealthily, as if on shoes of felt,as if on paws of velvet, with eyes

luminous, tail bushy,he walks warily, all energies compressively summoned, towards that high goal. Hush,

steady! May you soon catch that bit of savory red herring, then; worthiest of the human feline tribe!As to

"PARIS, WEDNESDAY, 20th FEBRUARY, 1743. First night of MEROPE; which raised the Paris Public

into transports, so that they knew not what to do, to express their feelings. 'Author! M. de Voltaire! Author!'

shouted they; summoning the Author, what is now so common, but was then an unheardof originality.

'Author! Author!' Author, poor blushing creature, lay squatted somewhere, and durst not come; was ferreted

out; produced in the Lady Villars's Box,Dowager MARECHALE DE VILLARS, and her Son's Wife

DUCHESSE DE VILLARS, being there; known friends of Voltaire's. Between these Two he stands ducking

some kind of bow; uncertain, embarrassed what to do; with a Theatre all in rapturous delirium round

him,uncertain it too, but not embarrassed. 'Kiss him! MADAME LA DUCHESSE DE VILLARS,

EMBRASSEZ VOLTAIRE!' Yes, kiss him, fair Duchess, in the name of France! shout all mortals;and the

younger Lady has to do it; does it with a charming grace; urged by Madame la Marechale her

motherinlaw. [Duvernet (T. J. D. V.), Vie de Voltaire, p. 128; Voltaire himself, OEuvres, ii. 142; Barbier,

ii. 358.] Ah, and Madame la Marechale was herself an old love of Voltaire's; who had been entirely unkind to

"Thus are you made immortal by a Kiss;and have not your choice of the Kiss, Fate having chosen for you.

The younger Lady was a Daughter of Marechal de Noailles [our fine old Marechal, gone to the Wars against

his Britannic Majesty in those very weeks]: infinitely clever (INFINIMENT D'ESPRIT); beautiful too, I

understand, though towards forty;hangs to the human memory, slightly but indissolubly, ever since that

Old Marechal de Noailles is to the Wars, we said;it is in a world all twinkling with watchfires, and raked

coals of War, that these fine Carnival things go on. Noailles is 70,000 strong; posted in the Rhine Countries,

middle and upper Rhine; vigilantly patrolling about, to support those staggering Bavarian Affairs; especially

to give account of his Britannic Majesty. Brittanic Majesty is thought to have got the Dutch hoisted, after all;

to have his sword OUT; and ere long does actually get on march; up the Rhine hitherward, as is too

Led by fond hopes,and driven also by that sad fear, of a Visit from his Britannic Majesty,the poor

Kaiser, in the rear of those late Seckendorf successes, quitted Frankfurt, April 17th; and the second day after,

got to Munchen. Saw himself in Munchen again, after a space of more than two years; "all ranks of people

crowding out to welcome him;" the joy of all people, for themselves and for him, being very great. Next day

he drove out to Nymphenburg; saw the Pandour devastations there,might have seen the window where the

rugged old Unertl set up his ladder, "For God's sake, your Serenity, have nothing to do with those

It was remarked, he quitted Munchen in a day or two; preferring Country Palaces still unruined,for

example, Wolnzach, a Schloss he has, some fifty miles off, down the Iser Valley, not far from the little Town

of Mosburg; which, at any rate, is among the BroglioSeckendorf posts, and convenient for business. Broglio

and Seckendorf lie dotted all about, from Braunau up to Ingolstadt and farther; chiefly in the Iser and Inn

Valleys, but on the north side of the Donau too; over an area, say of 2,000 square miles; Seckendorf

preaching incessantly to Broglio, what is sunclear to all eyes but Broglio's, "Let us concentrate, M. le

Marechal; let us march and attack! If Prince Karl come upon us in this scattered posture, what are we to do?"

The Kaiser himself takes Broglio in hand; has a scene with Broglio; which, to readers that study it, may be

symbolical of much that is gone and that is coming. It fell "about the middle of May" (prior to May 17th, as

readers will guess before long); and here, according to report, was the somewhat explosive finale it had.

Prince Conti, the same who ran to join Maillebois, and has proved a gallant fellow and got command of a

SCHLOSS OF WOLNZACH, MAY, 1743. ... "The Kaiser pressed, in the most emphatic manner, That the

Two Armies [French and Bavarian] should collect and unite for immediate action. To which Broglio declared

he could by no means assent, not having any order from Paris of that tenor. The Kaiser thereupon: 'I give you

my order for it; I, by the Most Christian King's appointment, am Commanderin Chief of your Army, as of

my own; and I now order you!'taking out his Patent, and spreading it before Broglio with the signmanual

visible, Broglio knew the Patent very well; but answered, 'That he could not, for all that, follow the wish of

his Imperial Majesty; that he, Broglio, had later orders, and must obey them!' Upon which the Imperial

Majesty, nature irrepressibly asserting itself, towered into Olympian height; flung his Patent on the table,

telling Conti and Broglio, 'You can send that back, then; Patents like that are of no service to me!' and quitted

them in a blaze." [Adelung, iii. B, 150; cites ETTAT POLITIQUE (Annual Register of those times), xiii. 16.

Nothing of this scene in Campagnes, which is officially careful to suppress the like of this.]

The indisputable fact is, Prince Karl is at the door; nay he has beaten in the door in a frightful manner; and

has Braunau, key of the Inn, again under siege. Not we getting Passau; it is he getting Braunau! A week ago

(9th May) his vanguard, on the sudden, cut to pieces our poor Bavarian 8,000, and their poor Minuzzi, who

were covering Braunau, and has ended him and them;Minuzzi himself prisoner, not to be heard of or

beaten more;and is battering Braunau ever since. That is the sad fact, whatever the theory may have been.

Prince Karl is rolling in from the east; Lobkowitz (Prag now ended) is advancing from the northward,

Khevenhuller from the Salzburg southern quarter: Is it in a sprinkle of disconnected fractions that you will

wait Prince Karl? The question of uniting, and advancing, ought to be a simple one for Broglio. Take this

other symbolic passage, of nearly the same date;posterior, as we guessed, to that Interview at Wolnzach.

"DINGELFINGEN, 17th MAY, 1743. At Dingelfingen on the Iser, a strongish central post of the French,

about fifty miles farther down than that Schloss of Wolnzach, there is a second argument, much

corroborative of the Kaiser's reasoning. About sunrise of the 17th, the Austrians, in sufficient force, chiefly of

Pandours, appeared on the heights to the south: they had been foreseen the night before; but the French

covering General, luckier than Minuzzi, did not wait for them; only warned Dingelfingen, and withdrew

across the River, to wait there on the safe left bank. Leader of the Austrians was one Leopold Graf von Daun,

active man of thirtyfive, already of good rank, who will be much heard of afterwards; Commandant in

Dingelfingen is a Brigadier du Chatelet, Marquis du ChateletLamont; whomafter search (in the interest of

some idle readers)I discover to be no other than the Husband of a certain Algebraic Lady! Identity made

out, mark what a pass he is at. Count Daun comes on in a tempest of furious fire; 'very heavy,' they say, from

great guns and small; till close upon the place, when he summons Du Chatelet: 'No;' and thereupon attempts

scalade. Cannot scalade, Du Chatelet and his people being mettlesome; takes then to flinging shells, to

burning the suburbs; Town itself catches fire,Town plainly indefensible. 'Truce for one hour' proposes Du

Chatelet (wishful to consult the covering General across the River): 'No,' answers Daun. So that Du Chatelet

has to jumble and wriggle himself out of the place; courageous to the last; but not in a very Parthian

fashion,great difficulty to get his bridge ruined (very partially ruined), behind him;and joins the

covering General, in a flustery singed condition! Were not pursued farther by Daun:and Prince Conti,

Head General in those parts, called it a fine defence, on examining." [ Campagnes, viii. 239; Espagnac, i.

"On the 19th," after one restday, "Graf von Daun set out for Landau [still on the Iser, farther down; Baiern

has ITS "Landau" too, and its "Landshut," both on this River], to seize Landau; which is another French place

of strength. The Garrison defended themselves for some time; after which they retired over the River [left

bauk, or wrong side of the Iser, they too]; and set fire to the Bridge behind them. The fire of the Bridge

caught the Town; Pandours helping it, as our people said; and Landau also was reduced to ashes."Poor

Landau, poor Dingelfingen, they cannot have the benefit of Louis XV.'s talent for governing Germany, quite

But where are the divine Emilie and Voltaire, that morning, while the Brigadier is in such taking? Sitting safe

in "that dainty little palace of Madame's (PETIT PALAIS) at the point of the Isle de St. Louis," intent on

quite other adventures; disgusted with the slavish Forty and their methods of Election (of which by and by);

and little thinking of M. le Brigadier and the dangers of war. Prince de Conti praised the Brigadier's

DEGGENDORF, 27th MAY. "Prince de Conti, at Deggendorf [other or north bank of the Donau,

Headquarters of Conti, which was thought to be well secured by batteries and defences on the steep heights

to landward], was himself suddenly attacked, the tenth day hence, 'May 27th, at daybreak,' in a still more

furious manner; and was tumbled out of Deggendorf amid whirlwinds of fire, in very flamy condition indeed.

The Austrians, playing on us from the uplands with their heavy artillery, made a breach in our outmost

battery: 'Not tenable!' exclaimed the Captain there: 'This way, my men!' and withdrew, like a shot, he and

party; sliding down the steep face of the mountain [feet foremost, I hope], home to Deggendorf in this

peculiar manner; leaving the AUSTRIANS to manage his guns. Our two lower batteries, ruled by this upper

one, had now to be abandoned; and Conti ran, Bridge of the Townditch breaking under him; baggages, even

to his own portmanteaus, all lost; and had a neckandneck race of it in getting to his DonauBridge, and

across to the safe side. With loss of everything, we say,personal baggage all included; which latter item,

Broglio, with Prince Karl in his bowels going at such a rate, may judge now whether it was wise to lie in that

loose posture, scattered over two thousand square miles, and snort on his judicious Seckendorf's advices and

urgencies as he did! Readers anticipate the issue; and shall not be wearied farther with detail. There are, as we

said, Three Austrian Armies pressing on this luckless Bavaria and its French Protectors: Khevenhuller, from

Salzburg and the southern quarter, pushing in his Dauns; Lobkowitz, hanging over us from the OberPfalz

(NaabRiver Country) on the north; and Prince Karl, on one or sometimes on both sides of the Donau,

pricking sharply into the rear of us; saying, by bayonets, burnt bridges, bombshells, "Off; swift; it will be

better for you!" And Broglio has lost head, a mere whirlwind of flaming gases; and your ablest Comte de

Saxe in such position, what can he do? Broglio writes to Versailles, That there will be no continuing in

Bavaria; that he recommends an order to march homewards;much to the surprise of Versailles.

"The Court of Versailles was much astonished at the message it got from Broglio; Court of Versailles had

always calculated that Broglio could keep Bavaria; and had gone into extensive measures for maintaining him

there. Experienced old Marechal de Noailles has a new French Army, 70,000 or more, assembled in the

Upper Rhine for that and the cognate objects [of whom, more specially, anon]: Noailles, by order from Court,

has detached 12,000, who are now marching their best, to reinforce Broglio;and indeed the Court 'had

already appointed the Generals and StaffOfficers for Broglio's Bavarian Army,' and gratified many men by

"Versailles, however, has to expedite the order: 'Come home, then.' Order or no order, Broglio's posts are all

crackling off again, bursting aloft like a chain of powdermines; Broglio is plunging head foremost, towards

Donauworth, towards Ingolstadt, his place of arms; Seckendorf now welcome to join him, but unable to do

anything when joined. Blustering Broglio has no steadfastness of mind; explodes like an inflammable body,

in this crackling off of the posts, and becomes a mere whirlwind of flaming gases. Old snuffling Seckendorf,

born to ill success in his old days, strong only in caution, how is he to quench or stay this crackling of the

posts? Broglio blusters, reproaches, bullies; Seckendorf quarrels with him outright, as he may well do:

'JARNIBLEU, such a delirious whirlwind of a Marechal; mere bickering flames and soot!'and looks out

"The unhappy Kaiser has run from Munchen again, to Augsburg for some brief shelter; cannot stay there

either, in the circumstances. Will he have to hurry back to Frankfurt, to bankruptcy and furnished

lodgings,nay to the Britannic Majesty's tender mercies, whose Army is now actually there? Those

indignant prophesyings to Broglio, at the Schloss of Wolnzach, have so soon come true! And Broglio and the

French arewhat a staff to lean upon! Enough, the poor Kaiser, after doleful 'Council of War held at

Augsburg, June 25th,' does on the morrow make off for Frankfurt again:whither else? Britannic Majesty's

intentions, friends tell him, friend Wilhelm of Hessen tells him, are magnanimous; eager for Peace to

Teutschland; hostile only to the French. Poor Karl took the road, June 26th;and will find news on his

"On which same day, 26th of June, as it chances, Broglio too has made his packages; left a garrison in

Ingolstadt, garrison in Eger; and is ferrying across at Donauworth,will see the Marlborough Schellenberg

as he passes,in full speed for the Rhine Countries, and the finis of this bad Business. [Adelung, iii. B. 152.]

On the road, I believe at Donauworth itself, Noailles's 12,000, little foreseeing these retrograde events, met

Broglio: 'Right about, you too!' orders Broglio; and speeds Rhineward not the less. And the same day of that

ferrying at Donauworth, and of the Kaiser's setting out for Frankfurt, Seckendorf,at NiederSchonfeld [an

old Monastery near the Town of Rain, in those parts], the Kaiser being now safe away,is making terms for

himself with Khevenhuller and Prince Karl: 'Will lie quiet as mere REICHSArmy, almost as Troops of the

Swabian Circle, over at Wembdingen there, in said circle, and be strictly neutral, if we can but get lived at

all!' [Ib. iii. B, 153.] Seckendorf concludes on the morrow, 27th June;which is elsewhere a memorable Day

"Broglio marched in Five Divisions [Du Chatelet in the Second Division, poor soul, which was led by Comte

de Saxe): [Espagnac, i. 198.] always in Five Divisions, swiftly, half a march apart; through the Wurtemberg

Country;lost much baggage, many stragglers; Tolpatcheries in multitude continually pricking at the skirts

of him; Prince Karl following steadily, Rhinewards also, a few marches behind. Here are omens to return

with! 'But have you seen a retreat better managed?' thinks Broglio to himself:" that is one consoling

In this manner, then, has the Problem of Bavaria solved itself. Hungarian Majesty, in these weeks, was

getting crowned in Prag; "Queen of Bohemia, I, not you; in the sight of Heaven and of Earth!" [Crowned 12th

May, 1743 (Adelung, iii. B, 128); "news of Prince Karl's having taken Braunau [incipiency of all these

successes] had reached her that very morning."]and was purifying her Bohemia: with some rigor (it is

said), from foreign defacements, treasonous compliances and the like, which there had been. To see your

Bavarian Kaiser, false King of Bohemia, your Broglio with his French, and the BohemianBavarian Question

in whole, all rolling Rhinewards at their swiftest, with Prince Karl sticking in the skirts of them:what a

Add to which fine set of results, simultaneously with them: His Britannic Majesty, third effort successful, has

got his sword drawn, fairly out at last; and in the air is making horrid circles with it, ever since March last;

nay does, he flatters himself, a very considerable slash with it, in this current month of June. Of which,

The fact is, though Stair could not hoist the Dutch, and our doublequick Britannic heroism had to drop dead

in consequence, Carteret has done it: Carteret himself rushed over in that crisis, a fiery emphatic man and

chief minister, [Arrived at the Hague "5th October, 1742" (Adelung, iii. A, 294).]"eager to please his

Master's humor!" said enemies. Yes, doubtless; but acting on his own turbid belief withal (says fact); and

revolving big thoughts in his head, about bringing Friedrich over to the Cause of Liberty, giving French

Ambition a lesson for once, and the like. Carteret strongly pulleying, "All hands, heaveoh!"and, no

doubt, those MailleboisBroglio events from Prag assisting him,did bring the High Mightinesses to their

legs; still in a staggering splay footed posture, but trying to steady themselves. That is to say, the High

Mightinesses did agree to go with us in the Cause of Liberty; will now pay actual Subsidies to her Hungarian

Majesty (at the rate of two for our three); and will add, so soon as humanly possible, 20,000 men to those

windbound 40,000 of ours;which latter shall now therefore, at once, as "Pragmatic Army" (that is the

term fixed on), get on march, Frankfurt way; and strike home upon the French and other enemies of

Pragmatic Sanction. This is what Noailles has been looking for, this good while, and diligently adjusting

Pragmatic Army lifted itself accordingly,Stair, and the most of his English, from Ghent, where the

wearisome Headquarters had been; Hanoverians, Hessians, from we will forget where;and in various

streaks and streams, certain Austrians from Luxemburg (with our old friend Neipperg in company) having

joined them, are flowing Rhineward ever since March 1st. ["February 18th," o.s. (Old Newspapers).] They

cross the Rhine at three suitable points; whence, by the north bank, home upon Frankfurt Country, and the

NoaillesBroglio operations in those parts. The English crossed "at Neuwied, in the end of April" (if anybody

is curious); "Lord Stair in person superintending them." Lord Stair has been much about, and a most busy

person; GeneralinChief of the Pragmatic Army till his Britannic Majesty arrive. Generalissimo Lord Stair;

and there is General Clayton, General Ligonier, "General Heywood left with the Reserve at Brussels:"and,

from the ashes of the Old Newspapers, the main stages and particulars of this surprising Expedition (England

marching as Pragmatic Army into distant parts) can be riddled out; though they require mostly to be flung in

again. Shocking weather on the march, mere Boreas and icy tempests; snow in some places two feet deep;

The Austrian Chief Generalwho lies about Wiesbaden, and consults with Stair, while the English are

crossingis Duke d'Ahremberg (Father of the Prince de Ligne, or "Prince of Coxcombs" as some call him):

little or nothing of military skill in D'Ahremberg; but Neipperg is thought to have given much counsel, such

as it was. With the Hessians there was some difficulty; hesitation on Landgraf Wilhelm's part; who pities the

poor Kaiser, and would fain see him back at Frankfurt, and awaken the Britannic magnanimities for him. "To

Frankfurt, say you? We cannot fight against the Kaiser!"and they had to be left behind, for some time; but

at length did come on, though late for business, as it chanced. General of these Hessians is Prince George of

Hessen, worthy stout gentleman, whom Wilhelmina met at the Frankfurt Gayeties lately. George's elder

Brother Wilhelm is Manager or ViceLandgraf, this long while back; and in seven or eight years hence

became, as had been expected, actual Landgraf (old King of Sweden dying childless);of which Wilhelm

we shall have to hear, at Hanau (a Town of his in those parts), and perhaps slightly elsewhere, in the course

of this business. A fat, just man, he too; probably somewhat iracund; not without troubles in his House. His

eldest Son, HeirApparent of Hessen, let me remind readers, has an English Princess to Wife; Princess Mary,

King George's Daughter, wedded two years ago. That, added to the Subsidies, is surely a point of

union;though again there may such discrepancies rise! A good while after this, the eldest Son becoming

Catholic (foolish wretch), to the horror of Papa,there rose still other noises in the world, about Hessen and

its Landgraves. Of good Prince George, who doubtless attended in War Councils, but probably said little, we

From Neuwied to Frankfurt is but a few days' march for the Pragmatic Army; in a direct line, not sixty miles.

Frankfurt itself, which is a REICHSSTADT (Imperial City), they must not enter: "Fear not, City or

Country!" writes Stair to it: "We come as saviors, pacificators, hostile to your enemies and disturbers only;

we understand discipline and the Laws of the Reich, and will pay for everything." [Letter itself, of brief

magnanimous strain, in Campagnes de Noailles, i. 127; date "Neuwied, 26th April, 1743" (Adelung, iii. B,

114).] For the rest, they are in no hurry. They linger in that FrankfurtNainz region, all through the month of

May; not unobservant of Noailles and his movements, if he made any; but occupied chiefly with gathering

provisions; forming, with difficulty, a Magazine in Hanau. "What they intended: or intend, by coming

hither?" asks the Public everywhere: "To go into the Donau Countries, and enclose Broglio between two

fires?" That had been, and was still, Stair's fine idea; but D'Ahremberg had disapproved the methods.

D'Ahremberg, it seems, is rather given to opposing Stair;and there rise uncertainties, in this Pragmatic

Army: certain only hitherto the Magazine in Hanau. And in secret, it afterwards appeared, the immediate real

errand of this Pragmatic Army had lainin the Chapter of Mainz Cathedral, and an Election that was going

The old KurMainz, namely, had just died; and there was a new "Chief Spiritual Kurfurst" to be elected by

the Canons there. KurMainz is Chairman of the Reich, an important personage, analogous to Speaker of the

House of Commons; and ought to be,by no means the Kaiser's young Brother, as the French and Kaiser are

proposing; but a man with Austrian leanings;say, Graf von Ostein, titular DOMCUSTOS (Cathedral

Keeper) here; lately Ambassador in London, and known in select society for what he is. Not much of an

Archbishop, of a Spiritual or Chief Spiritual Herr hitherto; but capable of being made one,were the

Pragmatic Army at his elbow! It was on this errand that the Pragmatic Army had come hither, or come so

early, and with their plans still unripe. And truly they succeeded; got their Ostein chosen to their mind: ["21st

March, 1743," Mainz vacant; "22d April," Ostein elected (Adelung, iii. B, 113, 121).] a new

KurMainz,whose leanings and procedures were very manifest in the sequel, and some of them important

before long. This was always reckoned one result of his Britannic Majesty's Pragmatic Campaign;and truly

some think it was, in strict arithmetic, the only one, though that is far from his Majesty's own opinion.

Friedrich, at an early stage, had inquired of his Britannic Majesty, politely but with emphasis, "What in the

world he meant, then, by invading the German Reich; leading foreign Armies into the Reich: in this

unauthorized manner?" To which the Britannic Majesty had answered, with what vague argument of words

we will not ask, but with a look that we can fancy,look that would split a pitcher, as the Irish say! Friedrich

persisted to call it an Invasion of the German Reich; and spoke, at first, of flatly opposing it by a Reich's

Army (30,000, or even 50,000, for Brandenburg's contingent, in such case); but as the poor Reich took no

notice, and the Britannic Majesty was positive, Friedrich had to content himself with protest for the present.

[Friedrich's Remonstrance and George's Response are in Adelung, iii. B, 132 (date, "March, 1743"); date of

Friedrich's first stirring in the matter is "January, 1743," and earlier (ib. p. 37, p. 8,

The exertions of Friedrich to bring about a Peace, or at least to diminish, not increase, the disturbance, are

forgotten now; wearisome to think of, as they did not produce the smallest result; but they have been

incessant and zealous, as those of a man to quench the fire which is still raging in his street, and from which

he himself is just saved. "Cannot the Reich be roused for settlement of this BavarianAustrian quarrel?"

thought Friedrich always. And spent a great deal of earnest endeavor in that direction; wished a Reich's

ARMY OF MEDIATION; "to which I will myself furnish 30,000; 50,000, if needed." Reich, alas! The Reich

is a horse fallen down to die,no use spurring at the Reich; it cannot, for many months, on Friedrich's

Proposal (though the question was far from new, and "had been two years on hand"), come to the decision,

"Well then, yes; the Reich WILL try to moderate and mediate:" and as for a Reich's MediationARMY, or

any practical step at all [The question had been started, "in August, 1741," by the Kaiser himself; "11th

March, 1743," again urged by him, after Friedrich's offer; "10th May, 1743," "Yes, then, we will try; but"

"Is not Germany, are not all the German Princes, interested to have Peace?" thinks Friedrich. "A union of the

independent German Princes to recommend Peace, and even with hand on swordhilt to command it; that

would be the method of producing Treaty of Peace!" thinks he always. And is greatly set on that method;

which, we find, has been, and continues to be, the soul of his many efforts in this matter. A fact to be noted.

Long poring in those mournful imbroglios of Dryasdust, where the fraction of living and important welters

overwhelmed by wildernesses of the dead and nugatory, one at length disengages this fact; and readers may

take it along with them, for it proves illuminative of Friedrich's procedures now and afterwards. A fixed

notion of Friedrich's, this of German Princes "uniting," when the common dangers become flagrant; a very

lively notion with him at present. He will himself cheerfully take the lead in such Union, but he must not

The Reich, when appealed to, with such degree of emphasis, in this matter,we see how the Reich has

responded! Later on, Friedrich tried "the Swabian Circle" (chief scene of these AustrianBavarian tusslings);

which has, like the other Circles, a kind of parliament, and pretends to be a political unity of some sort.

"Cannot the Swabian Circle, or Swabian and Frankish joined (to which one might declare oneself

PROTECTOR, in such case), order their own Captains, with military force of their own, say 20,000 men, to

rank on the Frontier; and to inform peremptorily all belligerents and tumultuous persons, French, Bavarian,

English, Austrian: 'No thoroughfare; we tell you, No admittance here!'" Friedrich, disappointed of the Reich,

had taken up that smaller notion: and he spent a good deal of endeavor on that too,of which we may see

some glimpse, as we proceed. But it proves all futile. The Swabian Circle too is a moribund horse; all these

Friedrich, of course, has thought much what kind of Peace could be offered by a mediating party. The Kaiser

has lost his Bavaria: yet he is the Kaiser, and must have a living granted him as such. Compensations,

aspirations, claims of territory; these will be manifold! These are a world of floating vapor, of greed, of

anger, idle pretension: but within all these there are the real necessities; what the case does require, if it is

ever to be settled! Friedrich discerns this AustrianBavarian necessity of compensation; of new land to cut

In January last, Friedrich, intensely meditating this business, had in private a brightenough idea: That of

secularizing those socalled Sovereign Bishoprics, AustrianBavarian by locality and nature, Passau,

Salzburg, Regensburg, idle opulent territories, with functions absurd not useful;and of therefrom cutting

compensation to right and to left. This notion he, by obscure channels, put into the head of Baron von

Haslang, Bavarian Ambassador at London; where it germinated rapidly, and came to fruit;was officially

submitted to Lord Carteret in his own house, in two highly artistic forms, one evening;and sets the

Diplomatic Heads all wagging upon it. [Adelung, iii. B, 84, 90, "January March, 1743."] With great hope, at

one time; till rumor of it got abroad into the Orthodox imagination, into the Gazetteer world; and raised such

a clamor, in those months, as seldom was. "Secularize, Hah! One sees the devilish heathen spirit of you; and

what kind of Kaiser, on the religious side, we now have the happiness of having!" So that Kaiser Karl had to

deny utterly, "Never heard of such a thing!" Carteret himself had, in politeness, to deny; much more, and for

dire cause, had Haslang himself, over the belly of facts, "Never in my dreams, I tell you!"and to get

ambiguous certificate from Carteret, which the simple could interpret to that effect. [Carteret's Letter (ibid.

It was only in whispers that the name of Friedrich was connected with this fine scheme; and all parties were

glad to get it soon buried again. A bright idea; but had come a century too soon. Of another Carteret

Negotiation with Kaiser Karl, famed as "Conferences of Hanau," which had almost come to be a Treaty, but

did not; and then, failing that, of a famous Carteret "Treaty of Worms," which did come to perfection, in

these same localities shortly afterwards; and which were infinitely interesting to our Friedrich, both the

Treaty and the Failure of the Treaty,we propose to speak elsewhere, in due time.

As to Friedrich's own endeavors and industries, at Regensburg and elsewhere, for effective mediation of

Peace; for the Reich to mediate, and have "Army of Mediation;" for a "Union of Swabian Circles" to do it;

for this and then for that to do it;as to Friedrich's own efforts and strugglings that way, in all likely and in

some unlikely quarters,they were, and continued to be, earnest, incessant; but without result. Like the

spurring of horses really DEAD some time ago! Of which no reader wishes the details, though the fact has to

be remembered. And so, with slight indication for Friedrich's sake,being intent on the stage of

events,we must leave that shadowy hypothetic region, as a wood in the background; the much foliage and

many twigs and boughs of which do authentically TAKE the trouble to be there, though we have to paint it in

Brittanic Majesty with his Yarmouth, and martial Prince of Cumberland, arrived at Hanover May 15th; soon

followed by Carteret from the Hague: [ Biographia Britannica (Kippin's,? Carteret), iii. 277.] a Majesty

prepared now for battle and for treaty alike; kind of earthly Jove, Arbiter of Nations, or victorious Hercules of

the Pragmatic, the sublime little man. At Herrenhausen he has a fine time; grandly fugling about; negotiating

with Wilhelm of Hessen and others; commanding his Pragmatic Army from the distance: and then at last,

dashing off rather in haste, he It is well known what enigmatic Exploit he did, at least the Name of it is

well known! Here, from the Imbroglios, is a rough Account; parts of which are introducible for the sake of

"After some five leisurely weeks in Herrenhausen, George II. (now an old gentleman of sixty), with his

martial Fat Boy the Duke of Cumberland, and Lord Carteret his DiplomatistinChief, quitted that pleasant

sojourn, rather on a sudden, for the actual Seat of War. By speedy journeys they got to Frankfurt Country; to

Hanau, June 19th; whence, still up the Mayn, twenty or thirty miles farther up, to Aschaffenburg,where the

Pragmatic Army, after some dangerous manoeuvring on the opposite or south bank of the River, has lain

encamped some days, and is in questionable posture. Whither his Majesty in person has hastened up. And

truly, if his Majesty's head contain any good counsel, there is great need of it here just now.

Chapter V. BRITANNIC MAJESTY FIGHTS HIS BATTLE OF DETTINGEN; AND BECOMES SUPREME JOVE OF GERMANY, IN A MANNER. 797

"Captains and men were impatient of that long loitering, hanging idle about Frankfurt all through May; and

they have at length started real business,with more valor than discretion, it is feared. They are some 40 or

44,000 strong: English 16,000; Hanoverians the like number; and of Austrians [by theory 20,000], say, in

effect, 12,000 or even 8,000: all paid by England. They have Hanau for Magazine; they have rearguard of

12,000 [the 6,000 Hessians, and 6,000 new Hanoverians], who at last are actually on march thither, near

arriving there: 'Forward!' said the Captaincy [said Stair, chiefly, it was thought]: 'Shall the whole summer

waste itself to no purpose?'and are up the River thus far, not on the most considerate terms.

"What this Pragmatic Army means to do? That is, and has been, a great question for all the world; especially

for Noailles and the French,not to say, for the Pragmatic itself! 'Get into Lorraine?' think the French: 'Get

into Alsace, and wrest it from us, for behoof of her Hungarian Majesty,'plundered goods, which indeed

belong to the Reich and her, in a sense! ELSSASS (Alsace, OUTER seat), with its ROADFortress

(STRASburg) plundered from the Holy Romish Reich by Louis XIV., in a way no one can forget; actually

plundered, as if by highway robbery, or by highway robbery and attorneyism combined, on the part of that

great Sovereign. 'To Strasburg? To Lorraine perhaps? Or to the Three Bishoprics'" (Metz, Toul,

Verdun:readers recollect that Siege of Metz, which broke the great heart of Karl V.? Who raged and fired

as man seldom did, with 50,000 men, against Guise and the intrusive French, for six weeks; sound of his

cannon heard at Strasburg on winter nights, 300 years ago: to no purpose; for his Captains of the Siege, after

trial and second trial, solemnly shook their heads; and the great Kaiser, breaking into tears, had to raise the

Siege of Metz; and went his way, never to smile more in this world: and Metz, and Toul, and Verdun, remain

"'Or they may purpose for the Donau Countries, where Broglio is crackling off like trains of gunpowder; and

lend hand to Prince Karl, thereby enclosing Broglio fires?' This, according to present aspects, is between two

the likeliest. And perhaps, had provenders and arrangements been made beforehand for such a march, this

had been the feasiblest: and, to my own notion, it was some wild hope of doing this without provenders or

prearrangements that had brought the Pragmatic into its present quarters at Aschaffenburg, which are for the

"Early in the Spring, the French Governmeut had equipped Noailles with 70,000 men, to keep watch, and

patrol about, in the RhineMayn Countries, and look into those points. Which he has been vigilantly

doing,posted of late on the south or left bank of the Mayn;and is especially vigilant, since June 14th,

when the Pragmatic Army got on march, across the Mayn at Hochst; and took to offering him battle, on his

own south side of the River. Noaillesthough his Force [still 58,000, after that Broglio Detachment of

12,000] was greatly the strongerwould not fight; preferred cutting off the Enemy's supplies, capturing his

riverboats, provisionconvoys from Hanau, and settling him by hunger, as the cheaper method. Impetuous

Stair was thwarted, by flat protest of his German colleagues, especially by D'Ahremberg, in FORCING battle

on those rash terms: 'We Austrians absolutely will not!' said D'Ahremberg at last, and withdrew, or was

withdrawing, he for his part, across the River again. So that Stair also was obliged to recross the River, in

indignant humor; and now lies at Aschaffenburg, suffering the sad alternative, short diet namely, which will

"Stair and D'Ahremberg do not well accord in their opinions; nor, it seems, is anybody in particular absolute

Chief; there are likewise heats and jealousies between the Hanoverian and the English troops ('Are not we

come for all your goods?' 'Yes, damn you, and for all our chattels too!')and withal it is frightfully uncertain

whether a high degree of intellect presides over these 44,000 fighting men, which may lead them to

something, or a low degree, which can only lead them to nothing!The blame is all laid on Stair; 'too rash,'

they say. Possibly enough, too rash. And possibly enough withal, even to a sound military judgment, in such

unutterable puddle of jarring imbecilities, 'rashness,' headlong courage, offered the one chance there was of

success? Who knows, had all the 44,000 been as rash as Stair and his English, but luck, and sheer hard

fighting, might have favored him, as skill could not, in those sad circumstances! Stair's plan was, 'Beat

Chapter V. BRITANNIC MAJESTY FIGHTS HIS BATTLE OF DETTINGEN; AND BECOMES SUPREME JOVE OF GERMANY, IN A MANNER. 798

Noailles, and you have done everything: provisions, opulent new regions, and all else shall be added to you!'

Stair's plan might have answered,had Stair been the master to execute it; which he was not. D'Ahremberg's

also, who protested, 'Wait till your 12,000 join, and you have your provisions,' was the orthodox plan, and

might have much to say for itself. But the two plans collapsing into one,that was the clearly fatal method!

Magnanimous Stair never made the least explanation, to an undiscerning Public or Parliament; wrapt himself

in strict silence, and accepted in a grand way what had come to him. [His Papers, to voluminous extent, are

still in the Family Archives;not inaccessible, I think, were the right student of them (who would be a rare

article among us!) to turn up.] Clear it is, the Pragmatic Army had come across again, at Aschaffenburg,

Sunday, June 16th; and was found there by his Majesty on the Wednesday following, with its two internecine

plans fallen into mutual death; a Pragmatic Army in truly dangerous circumstances.

"The English who were in and round Aschaffenburg itself, Hanoverians and Austrians encamping farther

down, had put a battery on the Bridge of Aschaffenburg; hoping to be able to forage thereby on the other side

of the Mayn. Whereupon Noailles had instantly clapt a redoubt, under due cover of a Wood, at his end of the

Bridge, 'No passage this way, gentlemen, except into the cannon's throat!'so that Marshal Stair,

reconnoitring that way, 'had his hat shot off,' and rapidly drew back again. Nay, before long, Noailles, at the

Village of Seligenstadt, some eight miles farther down, throws two wooden or pontoon bridges over; [Sketch

of Plan at p. 257.] can bring his whole Army across at Seligenstadt; prohibits all manner of supply to us from

Hanau or our Magazines by his arrangement there:"(Notable little Seligenstadt, "City of the Blessed;"

where Eginhart and Emma, ever since Charlemagne's time, lie waiting the Resurrection; that is the place of

these Noailles contrivances!)"Furthermore, we learn, Noailles has seized a post twenty miles farther up the

river (Miltenberg the name of it); and will prevent supplies from coming down to us out of Branken or the

Neckar Country. We had forgotten, or our COLLAPSE of plans had done it, that 'an army moves on its

stomach' (as the King of Prussia says), and that we have nothing to live upon in these parts!

"Such has the unfortunate fact turned out to be, when Britannic Majesty arrives; and it can now be discovered

clearly, by any eyes, however flat to the head. And a terrible fact it is. Discordant Generals accuse one

another; hungry soldiers cannot be kept from plundering: for the horses there is unripe rye in quantity; but

what is there for the men? My poor traditionary friends, of the Grey Dragoons, were wont (I have heard) to

be heartrending on this point, in after years! Famine being urgent, discipline is not possible, nor existence

itself. For a week longer, George, rather in obstinate hope than with any reasonable plan or exertion, still tries

it; finds, after repeated Councils of War, that he will have to give it up, and go back to Hanau where his living

is. Wednesday night, 26th June, 1743, that is the final resolution, inevitably come upon, without argument:

and about one on Thursday morning, the Army (in two columns, Austrians to vanward well away from the

River, English as rearguard close on it) gets in motion to execute said resolution,if the Army can.

"If the Army can: but that is like to be a formidably difficult business; with a Noailles watching every step of

you, today and for ten days back, in these sad circumstances. Eyes in him like a lynx, they say; and great

skill in war, only too cautious. Hardly is the Army gone from Aschaffenburg, when Noailles, pushing across

by the Bridge, seizes that post,no retreat now for us thitherward. His Majesty, who marches in the rear

division, has happily some artillery with him; repels the assaults from behind, which might have been more

serious otherwise. As it is, there play cannon across the River upon him:Why not bend to right, and get out

of range, asks the reader? The Spessart Hills rise, high and woody, on the right; and there is in many places

no marching except within range. Noailles has Five effective Batteries, at the various good points, on his side

of the River:and that is nothing to what he has got ready for us, were we once at Dettingen, within wind of

his Two Bridges a little beyond! Noailles has us in a perfect mousetrap, SOURICIERE as he felinely calls

"Dettingen, short way above those Pontoons at Seligenstadt, is near eight miles westward [NORTHwestward,

but let us use the briefer term] from Aschaffenburg: Dettingen is a poor peasant Village, of some size, close

on the Mayn, and on our side of it. A Brook, coming down from the Spessart Mountains, falls into the Mayn

Chapter V. BRITANNIC MAJESTY FIGHTS HIS BATTLE OF DETTINGEN; AND BECOMES SUPREME JOVE OF GERMANY, IN A MANNER. 799

there; having formed for itself, there and upwards, a considerable dell or hollow way; chiefly on the western

or right bank of which stands the Village with its barnyards and piggeries: on both sides of the great

Highroad, which here crosses the Brook, and will lead you to Hanau twenty miles off,or back to

Aschaffenburg, and even to Nurnberg and the Donau Countries, if you persevere. Except that of the

highroad, Dettingen Brook has no bridge. Above the Village, after coming from the Mountains, the banks of

it are boggy; especially the western bank, which spreads out into a scrubby waste of moor, for some good

space. In which scrubby moor, as elsewhere in this dell or hollow way itself, where the Village hangs, with its

hedges, piggeries, colegarths,there is like to be bad enough marching for a column of men! Noailles, as we

said, has Two Bridges thrown across the Mayn, just below; and the last of his Five Batteries, from the other

"By these Bridges he has passed 24,000 horse and foot across the River, under his Nephew the chivalrous

Duke of Grammont: these, with due artillery and equipment, are to occupy the Village; and to rank

themselves in battleorder to leftward of it, on the moor just mentioned,well behind that hollow way, with

its brook and bogs;and, one thing they must note well, Not to stir from that position, till the English

columns have got fairly into said hollow way and brook of Dettingen, and are plunging more or less

distractedly across the entanglements there. With cannon on their left flank, and such a gullet to pass through,

one may hope they will be in rather an attackable condition. Across that gullet it is our intention they shall

"This is Noailles's plan; one of the prettiest imaginable, say military men,had the execution but

corresponded. Noailles had seized Aschaffenburg, so soon as the English were out of it; Noailles, from his

batteries beyond the River, salutes the English march with continuous shot and thunder, which is very

discomposing: he sees confidently a really fair likelihood of capturing the Britannic Majesty and his

Pragmatic Army, unless they prefer to die on the ground. Seldom, since that of the Caudine Forks, did any

Army, by illluck and illguidance, get into such a pinfold,death or flat surrender seemingly their one

"Thus march these English, that dewy morning, Thursday, June 27th, 1743, with cannon playing on their left

flank; and such a fate ahead of them, had they known it;very short of breakfast, too, for most part. But they

have one fine quality, and Britannic George, like all his Welf race from Henry the Lion down to these days,

has it in an eminent degree: they are not easily put into flurry, into fear. In all Welf Sovereigns, and generally

in Teuton Populations, on that side of the Channel or on this, there is the requisite unconscious substratum of

taciturn inexpugnability, with depths of potential rage almost unquenchable, to be found when you apply for

it. Which quality will much stead them on the present occasion: and, indeed, it is perhaps strengthened by

their 'stupidity' itself, what neighbors call their 'stupidity;'want of idle imagining, idle flurrying, nay want

even of knowing, is not one of the worst qualities just now! They tramp on, paying a minimum of attention to

the cannon; ignorant of what is ahead; hoping only it may be breakfast, in some form, before the day quite

terminate. The day is still young, hardly 8 o'clock, when their advanced parties find Dettingen beset; find a

whole French Army drawn up, on the scrubby moor there; and come galloping back with this interesting bit

of news! Pause hereupon; much consulting; in fact, endless hithering and thithering, the affair being knotty:

'Fight, YES, now at last! But how?' Impetuous Stair was not wanting to himself; Neipperg too, they say, was

"Some six hours followed of thriceintricate deploying, planting of fieldpieces, counterbatteries; ranking,

reranking, shuffling hither and then thither of horse and foot; Noailles's cannonade proceeding all the while;

the English, still considerably exposed to it, and standing it like stones; chivalrous Grammont, and with better

reason the English, much wishing these preliminaries were done. A difficult business, that of deploying here.

The Pragmatic had no room, jammed so against the Spessart Hills, and obliged to lean FROM the River and

Noailles's cannon; had to rank itself in six, some say in eight lines; horse behind foot, as well as on flank;

unsatisfactory to the military mind: and I think had not done shuffling and reshuffling at 2 P.M.,when the

Chapter V. BRITANNIC MAJESTY FIGHTS HIS BATTLE OF DETTINGEN; AND BECOMES SUPREME JOVE OF GERMANY, IN A MANNER. 800

Enemy came bursting on, with a peremptory finish to it, 'Enough of that, MESSIEUR'S LES ANGLAIS!'

'Too much of it, a great deal!' thought Messieurs grimly, in response. And there ensued a really furious clash

of host against host; French chivalry (MAISON DU ROI, Black Mousquetaires, the Flower of their Horse

regiments) dashing, in right Gallic frenzy, on their natural enemies,on the English, that is; who, I find,

were mainly on the left wing there, horse and foot; and had mainly (the Austrians and they, very mainly) the

"'Grammont breaks orders! Thriceblamable Grammont!' exclaim Noailles and others, sorrowfully wringing

their hands. Even so! Grammont had waited seven mortal hours; one's courage burning all the while, courage

perhaps rather burning down,and not the least use coming of if. Grammont had, in natural impatience,

gradually edged forward; and, in the end, was being cannonaded and pricked into by the Enemy; and did at

last, with his MAISONDUROI, dash across that essential Hollow Way, and plunge in upon them on their

own side of it. And 'the, English foot gave their volley too soon;' ad Grammont did, in effect, partly repulse

and disorder the front ranks of them; and, blazing up uncontrollable, at sight of those first ranks in disorder,

did press home upon them more and more; get wholly into the affair, bringing on his Infantry as well: 'Let us

finish it wholly, now that our hand is in!'and took one cannon from the Enemy; and did other feats.

"So furious was that first charge of his; 'MAISONDUROI covering itself with glory,'for a short while.

MAISONDUROI broke three lines of the Enemy [three, not "Five"]; did in some places actually break

through; in others 'could not, but galloped along the front.' Three of their lines: but the fourth line would not

break; much the contrary, it advanced (Austrians and English) with steady fire, hotter and hotter: upon this

fourth line MAISONDUROI had, itself, to break, pretty much altogether, and rush home again, in ruinous

condition. 'Our front lines made lanes for them; terribly maltreating them with musketry on right and left, as

they galloped through.' And this was the end of Grammont's successes, this charge of horse; for his infantry

had no luck anywhere; and the essential crisis of the Battle had been here. It continued still a good while;

plenty of cannonading, fusillading, but in sporadic detached form; a confused series of small shocks and

knocks; which were mostly, or all, unfortunate for Grammont; and which at length knocked him quite off the

field. 'He was now interlaced with the English,' moans Noailles; 'so that my cannon, not to shoot Grammont

as well as the English, had to cease firing!' Well, yes, that is true, M. le Marechal; but that is not so important

as you would have it. The English had stood nine hours in this fire of yours; by degrees, leaning well away

from it; answering it with counter batteries;and were not yet ruined by it, when the Grammont crisis

came! Noailles should have dashed fresh troops across his Bridges, and tried to handle them well. Noailles

"The Fight lasted four hours; ever hotter on the English part, ever less hot on the French [fire of

anthracitecoal VERSUS flame of dry wood, which latter at last sinks ASHY!]and ended in total defeat of

the French. The French Infantry by no means behaved as their Cavalry had done. The GARDES

FRANCAISES [fire burning ashy, after seven hours of flaming], when Grammont ordered them up to take

the English in flank, would hardly come on at all, or stand one push. They threw away their arms, and

plunged into the River, like a drove of swimmers; getting drowned in great numbers. So that their comrades

nicknamed them 'CANARDS DU MEIN (Ducks of the Mayn):' and in English messrooms, there went

afterwards a saying: 'The French had, in reality, Three Bridges; one of them NOT wooden, and carpeted with

"... The English, it appears, did something by mere shouting. Partial huzzas and counterhuzzas between the

Infantries were going on at one time, when Stair happened to gallop up: 'Stop that,' said Stair; 'let us do it

right. Silence; then, One and all, when I give you signal!' And Stair, at the right moment, lifting his hat, there

burst out such a thundergrowl, edged with melodious ire in alt, as quite seemed to strike a damp into the

French, says my authority, 'and they never shouted more. ... Our ground in many parts was under rye,'

hedgeless fields of rye, chief graincrop of that sandy country. 'We had already wasted above 120,000 acres

of it,' still in the unripe state, so hungry were we, man and horse, 'since crossing to Aschaffenburg;'fighting

Chapter V. BRITANNIC MAJESTY FIGHTS HIS BATTLE OF DETTINGEN; AND BECOMES SUPREME JOVE OF GERMANY, IN A MANNER. 801

"King Friedrich's private accounts, deformed by ridicule, are, That the Britannic Majesty, his respectable old

Uncle, finding the French there barring his way to breakfast, understood simply that there must and should be

fighting, of the toughest; but had no plan or counsel farther: that he did at first ride up, to see what was what

with his own eyes; but that his horse ran away with him, frightened at the cannon; upon which he hastily got

down; drew sword; put himself at the head of his Hanoverian Infantry [on the right wing], and stood,left

foot drawn back, sword pushed out, in the form of a fencingmaster doing lunge,steadily in that defensive

attitude, inexpugnable like the rocks, till all was over, and victory gained. This is defaced by the spirit of

ridicule, and not quite correct. Britannic Majesty's horse [one of those 500 fine animals] did, it is certain, at

last dangerously run away with him; upon which he took to his feet and his Hanoverians. But he had been

repeatedly on horseback, in the earlier stages; galloping about, to look with his own eyes, could they have

availed him; and was heard encouraging his people, and speaking even in the English language, 'Steady, my

boys; fire, my brave boys, give them fire; they will soon run!' [ OEuvres de Frederic, (iii. 14): compare

Anonymous, Life of the Duke of Cumberland (p. 64 n.); Henderson's LIFE of ditto; Latterly, there can be no

doubt, he stands [and to our imagination, he may fitly stand throughout] in the above attitude of lunge; no

fear in him, and no plan; 'SANS PEUR ET SANS AVIS,' as me might term it. Like a real Hanoverian

Sovereign of England; like England itself, and its ways in those German Wars. A typical epitome of long

"The English Officers also, it is evident, behaved in their usual way:without knowledge of war, without

fear of death, or regard to utmost peril or difficulty; cheering their men, and keeping them steady upon the

throats of the French, so far as might be. And always, after that first stumble with the French Horse was

mended, they kept gaining ground, thrusting back the Enemy, not over the Dettingen Brook and

Moorground only, but, knock after knock, out of his woody or other coverts, back and ever back, towards

Welzheim, Kahl, and those Two Bridges of his. The flamy French [ligneous fire burning lower and lower,

VERSUS anthracitic glowing brighter and brighter] found that they had a bad time of it;found, in fact, that

they could not stand it; and tumbled finally, in great torrents, across their Bridges on the Mayn, many leaping

into the River, the English sitting dreadfully on the skirts of them. So that had the English had their Cavalry

in readiness to pursue, Noailles's Army, in the humor it had sunk to, was ruined, and the Victory would have

been conspicuously great. But they had, as too common, nothing ready. Impetuous Stair strove to get ready;

"pushed out the Grey Dragoons" for one item. But the Authorities refused Stair's counsel, as rash again; and

made no effectual pursuit at all;too glad that they had brushed their Battlefield triumphantly clear, and

"They stayed on the ground till 10 at night; settling, or trying to settle, many things. The Surgeons were busy

as bees, but able for Officers only;'Dress HIM first!' said the glorious Duke of Cumberland, pointing to a

young Frenchman [Excellency Fenelon's Son, grandnephew of TELEMAQUE] who was worse wounded

than his Highness. Quite in the PhilipSydney fashion; which was much taken notice of. 'All this while, we

had next to nothing to eat' (says one informant).Ten P.M.: after which, leaving a polite Letter to Noailles,

'That he would take care of our Wounded, and bury our Slain as well as his own,' we march [through a pour

of rain] to Hanau, where our victuals are, and 12,000 new Hessians and Hanoverians by this time.

"Noailles politely bandaged the Wounded, buried the Dead. Noailles, gathering his scattered battalions, found

that he had lost 2,659 men; no ruinous loss to him,the Enemy's being at least equal, and all his Wounded

fallen Prisoners of War. No ruinous loss to Noailles, had it not been the loss of Victory,which was a sore

blow to French feeling; and, adding itself to those Broglio disgraces, a new discouragement to Most Christian

Majesty. Victory indisputably lost:but is it not Grammont's blame altogether? Grammont bears it, as we

saw; and it is heavily laid on him. But my own conjecture is, forty thousand enraged people, of English and

other PlattTeutsch type, would have been very difficult to pin up, into captivity or death instead of

breakfast, in that manner: and it is possible if poor Grammont had not mistaken, some other would have done

Chapter V. BRITANNIC MAJESTY FIGHTS HIS BATTLE OF DETTINGEN; AND BECOMES SUPREME JOVE OF GERMANY, IN A MANNER. 802

so, and the hungry Baresarks (their blood fairly up, as is evident) would have ended in getting through."

[Espagnac, i. 193; Guerre de Boheme, i. 231. Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xiii. (for 1743), pp.

328481;containing Carteret's Despatch from the field; followed by many other Letters and indistinct

Narrations from Officers present (p. 434, "Plan of the Battle," blotchy, indecipherable in parts, but essentially

rather true),is worth examining. See likewise Anonymous, Memoirs of the late Duke of Cumberland

(Lond. 1767; the Author an ignorant, muchadoring militaryman, who has made some study, and is not so

stupid as he looks), pp. 5678; and Henderson (ignorant he too, muchadoring, and not military), Life of the

Duke of Cumberland (Lond. 1766), pp. 3248. Noailles's Official Account (ingenuously at a loss what to

say), in Campagnes, ii. B, 242253, 306310. OEuvres de Frederic, iii. 1114 (incorrect in many of the

This was all the Fighting that King George got of his Pragmatic Army; the gain from conquest made by it

was, That it victoriously struggled back to its breadcupboard. Stair, about two months hence, in the mere

loitering and higgling that there was, quitted the Pragmatic; magnanimously silent on his many wrongs and

disgusts, desirous only of "returning to the plough," as he expressed himself. The lofty man; wanted several

requisites for being a Marlborough; wanted a Sarah Jennings, as the preliminary of all!We will not attend

the lazy movements and procedures of the Pragmatic Army farther; which were of altogether futile character,

even in the temporary Gazetteer estimate; and are to be valued at zero, and left charitably in oblivion by a

pious posterity. Stair, the one brightishlooking man in it, being gone, there remain Majesty with his

D'Ahrembergs, Neippergs, and the Martial Boy; Generals Cope, Hawley, Wade, and many of leaden

It was not a successful Army, this Pragmatic. Dettingen itself, in spite of the rumoring of Gazetteers and

temporary persons, had no result,except the extremely bad one, That it inflated to an alarming height the

pride and belligerent humor of his Britannic, especially of her Hungarian Majesty; and made Peace more

difficult than ever. That of getting Ostein, with his Austrian leanings, chosen KurMainz,that too turned

out ill: and perhaps, in the course of the next few months, we shall judge that, had Ostein leant AGAINST

Austria, it had been better for Austria and Ostein. Of the Pragmatic Army, silence henceforth, rather than

One thing we have to mark, his Britannic Majesty, commander of such an Army,and of such a Purse,

which is still more stupendous,has risen, in the Gazetteer estimate and his own, to a high pitch of

importance. To be Supreme Jove of Teutschland, in a manner; and acts, for the present Summer, in that

sublime capacity. Two Diplomatic feats of his,one a Treaty done and tumbled down again, the other a

Treaty done and let stand ("Treaty of Worms," and "Conferences," or NONTreaty "of Hanau"),are of

moment in this History and that of the then World. Of these two Transactions, due both of them to such an

Army and such a Purse, we shall have to take some notice by and by; the rest shall belong to Night and her

Some ten days after Dettingen, Broglio (who was crackling off from Donauwurth, in view of the Lines of

Schellenberg, that very 27th of June) ended his retreat to the Rhine Countries; "glorious," though rather swift,

and eaten into by the Tolpatcheries of Prince Karl. "July 8th, at Wimpfen" (in the Neckar Region, some way

South of Dettingen), Broglio delivers his troops to Marechal de Noailles's care; and, next morning, rushes off

"The day after his arrival," says Friedrich, "he gave a grand ball in Strasburg:" [ OEuvres de Frederic, iii. 10.]

"Behold your conquering hero safe again, my friends!" An ungrateful Court judged otherwise of the hero.

Took his Strasburg Government from him, gave it to Marechal de Coigny; ordered the hero to his Estates in

the Country, Normandy, if I remember;where he soon died of apoplexy, poor man; and will trouble none

of us again. "A man born for surprises," said Friedrich long since, in the Strasburg Doggerel. Lost his

indispensable garnitures, at the Ford of Secchia once; and now, in these last twelve months, is considered to

Chapter V. BRITANNIC MAJESTY FIGHTS HIS BATTLE OF DETTINGEN; AND BECOMES SUPREME JOVE OF GERMANY, IN A MANNER. 803

have done a series of blustery explosions, derogatory to the glory of France, and ruinous to that sublime

A ruined Enterprise that, at any rate; seldom was Enterprise better ruined. Here, under Broglio, amid the

titterings of mankind, has the tail of the Oriflamme gone the same bad road as its head did; into zero and

outer darkness; leaving the expenses to pay. Like a mad tavernbrawl of one's own raising, the biggest that

ever was. Has cost already, I should guess, some 80,000 French drilled Men, paid down, on the nail, to the

inexorable Fates: and of coined Millions,how many? In subsidies, in equipments, in waste, in loss and

wreck: Dryasdust could not have told me, had he tried. And then the breakages, damages still chargeable; the

probable afterclap? For you cannot quite gratuitously tweak people by the nose, in your wanton humor, over

your wine!One willing man, or Most Christian Majesty, can at any time begin a quarrel; but there need

Most Christian Majesty is not so sensible of this fact as he afterwards became; but what with Broglio and the

extinct Oriflamme, what with Dettingen and the incipient Pragmatic, he is heartily disgusted and discouraged;

and wishes he had not thought of cutting Germany in Four. July 26th, Most Christian Majesty applies to the

German Diet; signifying "That he did indeed undertake to help the Kaiser, according to treaties; but was the

farthest in the world from meaning to invade Germany, on his own score. That he had and has no quarrel,

except with Austria as Kaiser's enemy; and is ready to be friends even with Austria. And now indeed intends

to withdraw his troops wholly from the German territory. And can therefore hope that all unpleasantness will

cease, between the German Nation and him; and that perhaps the Kaiser will be able to make peace with her

Majesty of Hungary on softer terms than at one time seemed likely. If only the animosities of sovereign

persons would assuage themselves, and each of us would look without passion at the issue really desirable for

him!" [Espagnac, i. 200. Adelung, iii. B, 199 (26th July); Ib. 201 (the Answer to it, 16th August).]

That is now, 26th July, 1743, King Louis's story for himself to the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire, Teutsch

by Nation, sitting at Frankfurt in rather disconsolate circumstances. The Diet naturally answered, "JA

WOHL, JA WOHL," in intricate official language, nobody need know what the Diet answered. But what

the Hungarian Majesty answered, strong and high in such Britannic backing,this was of such unexpected

tone, that it fixed everybody's attention; and will very specially require to be noted by us, in the course of a

We said, her Hungarian Majesty was getting crowned in Bohemia, getting personally homaged in Upper

Austria, about to get vice homaged in Bavaria itself,nothing but glorious pomp, but loyalty loudly vocal,

in Prag, in Linz and the onceafflicted Countries; at her return to Vienna, she has met the news of Dettingen;

and is ready to strike the stars with her sublime head. "My little Paladin become Supreme Jove, too: aha!"

Britannic Majesty stayed two whole months in Hanau, brushing himself up again after that fierce bout; and

considering, with much dubitation, What is the next thing? "Go in upon Noailles [who is still hanging about

here, with Broglio coming on in the exploded state]; wreck Broglio and him! Go in upon the French!" so

urges Stair always: rash Stair, urgent to the edge of importunity; English Officers and Martial Boy urgently

backing Stair; while the Hanoverian Officers and Martial Parent are steady to the other view. So that, in

respect of War, the next thing, for two months coming, was absolutely nothing, and to the end of the

Campaign was nothing worth a moment's notice from us. But on the Diplomatic side, there were two

somethings, CONFERENCES AT HANAU with poor Kaiser Karl, and TREATY AT WORMS with the

King of Sardinia; whichas minus quantities, or things less than nothingturned out to be highly

Chapter V. BRITANNIC MAJESTY FIGHTS HIS BATTLE OF DETTINGEN; AND BECOMES SUPREME JOVE OF GERMANY, IN A MANNER. 804

HANAU, 7th July1st AUGUST, 1743. "Poor Kaiser Karl had left Augsburg June 26th,while his Broglio

was ferrying at Donauworth, and his Seckendorf treatying for Armistice at NiederSchonfeld, the very day

before Dettingen. What a piece of news to him, that Dettingen, on his return to Frankfurt!

"A few days after Dettingen, July 3d, Noailles, who is still within call, came across to see this poor stepson of

Fortune; gives piteous account of him, if any one were now curious on that head: How he bitterly complains

of Broglio, of the nosubsidies sent, and is driven nearly desperate;not a penny in his pocket, beyond all.

Upon which latter clause Noailles munificently advanced him a $6,000. 'Draught of 40,000 crowns, in my

own name; which doubtless the King, in his compassion, will see good to sanction.' [ Campagnes de Noailles

(Amsterdam, 1760: this is a Sequel, or rather VICE VERSA, to that which we have called DES TROIS

MARECHAUX, being of the same Collection), i. 316328.] His feelings on the loss of Dettingen may be

pictured. But he had laid his account with such things;prepared for the worst, since that Interview with

"The poor Kaiser had already, as we saw, got into hopes of bargaining with his Britannic Majesty; and now

he instantly sets about it, while Hanau is victorious headquarters. Britannic Majesty is not himself very

forward; but Carteret, I rather judge, had taken up the notion; and on his Majesty's and Carteret's part, there is

actually the wish and attempt to pacificate the Reich; to do something tolerable for the poor Kaiser, as well as

satisfactory to the Hungarian Majesty,satisfactory, or capable of being (by the Purseholder) insisted on as

"And so the Landgraf of Hessen, excellent Wilhelm, King George's friend and gossip, is come over to that

little Town of Hanau, which is his own, in the Schloss of which King George is lodged: and there, between

Carteret and our Landgraf,the King of Prussia's Ambassador (Herr Klinggraf), and one or two selectly

zealous Official persons, assisting or watching,we have 'Conferences of Hanau' going on; in a zealous

fashion; all parties eager for Peace to Kaiser and Reich, and in good hope of bringing it about. The wish,

ardent to a degree, had been the Kaiser's first of all. The scheme, I guess, was chiefly of Carteret's devising;

who, in his magnificent mind, regardless of expense, thinks it may be possible, and discerns well what a

stroke it will be for the Cause of Liberty, and how glorious for a Britannic Majesty's Adviser in such

circumstances. July 7th, the Conferences began; and, so frank and loyal were the parties, in a week's time

matters were advanced almost to completion, the fundamental outlines of a bargain settled, and almost ready

"'Give me my Bavaria again!' the Kaiser had always said: 'I am Head of the Reich, and have nothing to live

upon!' On one preliminary, Carteret had always been inexorable: 'Have done with your French auxiliaries;

send every soul of them home; the German soil once cleared of them, much will be possible; till then

nothing.' KAISER: 'Well, give me back my Bavaria; my Bavaria, and something suitable to live upon, as

Head of the Reich: some decent Annual Pension, till Bavaria come into paying condition,cannot you, who

are so wealthy? And Bavaria might be made a Kingdom, if you wished to do the handsome thing. I will

renounce my Austrian Pretensions, quit utterly my French Alliances; consent to have her Hungarian

Majesty's august Consort made King of the Romans [which means Kaiser after me], and in fact be very safe

to the House of Austria and the Cause of Liberty.' To all this the thriceunfortunate gentleman, titular

Emperor of the World, and unable now to pay his milkscores, is eager to consent. To continue crossing the

Abysses on bridges of French rainbow? Nothing but French subsidies to subsist on; and these how

paid,Noailles's private pocket knows how! 'I consent,' said the Kaiser; 'will forgive and forget, and

bygones shall be bygones all round!' 'Fair on his Imperial Majesty's part,' admits Carteret; 'we will try to be

persuasive at Vienna. Difficult, but we will try.' In a meek matters had come to this point; and the morrow,

July 15th, was appointed for signing. Most important of Protocols, foundationstone of Peace to Teutschland;

King Friedrich and the impartial Powers approving, with Britannic George and drawn sword presiding.

Chapter V. BRITANNIC MAJESTY FIGHTS HIS BATTLE OF DETTINGEN; AND BECOMES SUPREME JOVE OF GERMANY, IN A MANNER. 805

"King Friedrich approves heartily; and hopes it will do. Landgraf Wilhelm is proud to have saved his

Kaiser,who so glad as the Landgraf and his Kaiser? Carteret, too, is very glad; exulting, as he well may, to

have composed these worlddeliriums, or concentrated them upon peccant France, he with his single head,

and to have got a value out of that absurd Pragmatic Army, after all. A man of magnificent ideas; who hopes

'to bring Friedrich over to his mind;' to unite poor Teutschland against such Oriflamme Invasions and

intolerable interferences, and to settle the account of France for a long while. He is the only English Minister

who speaks German, knows German situations, interests, ways; or has the least real understanding of this

huge German Imbroglio in which England is voluntarily weltering. And truly, had Carteret been King of

England, which he was not,nay, had King Friedrich ever got to understand, instead of misunderstand, what

"But it now, at the eleventh hour, came upon magnificent Carteret, now seemingly for the first time in its full

force, That he Carteret was not the master; that there was a bewildered Parliament at home, a poor peddling

Duke of Newcastle leader of the same, with his Lords of the Regency, who could fatally put a negative on all

this, unless they were first gained over. On the morrow, July 15th, Carteret, instead of signing, as expected,

has topurpose a fortnight's delay till he consult in England! Absolutely would not and could not sign, till a

Courier to England went and returned. To Landgraf Wilhelm's, to Klinggraf's and the Kaiser's very great

surprise, disappointment and suspicion. But Carteret was inflexible: 'will only take a fortnight,' said he; 'and I

"The Courier came back punctually in a fortnight. His Message was presented at Hanau, August 1st,and

ran conclusively to the effect: 'No! We, Noodle of Newcastle, and my other Lords of Regency, do not

consent; much less, will undertake to carry the thing through Parliament: By no manner of means!' So that

Carteret's lately towering Affair had to collapse ignominiously, in that manner; poor Carteret protesting his

sorrow, his unalterable individual wishes and future endeavors, not to speak of his Britannic Majesty's,and

politely pressing on the poor Kaiser a gift of 15,000 pounds (first weekly instalment of the 'Annual Pension'

that HAD, in theory, been set apart for him); which the Kaiser, though indigent, declined. [Adelung, iii. B,

"The disgust of Landgraf Wilhelm was infinite; who, honest man, saw in all this merely an artifice of

Carteret's, To undo the Kaiser with his French Allies, to quirk him out of his poor help from the French, and

have him at their mercy. 'Shame on it!' cried Landgraf Wilhelm aloud, and many others less aloud, Klinggraf

and King Friedrich among them: 'What a Carteret!' The Landgraf turned away with indignation from

perfidious England; and began forming quite opposite connections. 'You shall not even have my hired 6,000,

you perfidious! Thing done with such dexterity of art, too!' thought the Landgraf,and continued to think,

till evidence turned up, after many months. [CARTERET PAPERS (in British Museum), Additional MSS.

No. 22,529 (May, 1743January, 1745); in No. 22,527 (January September, 1742) are other

LandgrafWilhelm pieces of Correspondence.] This was Friedrich's opinion too, permanently, I

believe;and that of nearly all the world, till the thing and the Doer of the thing were contemptuously

forgotten. A piece of Machiavelism on the part of Carteret and perfidious Albion,equal in refined cunning

to that of the Ships with foul bottom, which vanished from Cadiz two years ago, and were admired with a

"This is the second stroke of Machiavellian Art by those Islanders, in their truly vulpine method. Stroke of

Art important for this History; and worth the attention of English readers,being almost of pathetic nature,

when one comes to understand it! Carteret, for this Hanau business, had clangor enough to undergo, poor

man, from Germans and from English; which was wholly unjust. 'His trade,' say the English(or used to

say, till they forgot their considerable Carteret altogether)'was that of rising in the world by feeding the

mad German humors of little George; a miserable trade.' Yes, my friends;but it was not quite Carteret's, if

you will please to examine! And none say, Carteret did not do his trade, whatever it was, with a certain

greatness,at least till habits of drinking rather took him, Poor man: impatient, probably, of such fortune

Chapter V. BRITANNIC MAJESTY FIGHTS HIS BATTLE OF DETTINGEN; AND BECOMES SUPREME JOVE OF GERMANY, IN A MANNER. 806

long continued! For he was thrown out, next Session of Parliament, by Noodle of Newcastle, on those strange

terms; and never could get in again, and is now forgotten; and there succeeded him still more mournful

phenomena,said Noodle or the poor Pelhams, namely,of whom, as of strauge minus quantities set to

Carteret, though there had been no Duke of Newcastle to run athwart this fine scheme, would have had his

difficulties in making her Hungarian Majesty comply. Her Majesty's great heart, incurably grieved about

Silesia, is bent on having, if not restoration one day, which is a hope she never quits, at any rate some ample

(cannot be too ample) equivalent elsewhere. On the Hanau scheme, united Teutschland, with England for

soul to it, would have fallen vigorously on the throat of France, and made France disgorge: Lorraine, Elsass,

the Three Bishoprics,not to think of Burgundy, and earlier plunders from the Reich,here would have

been "cut and come again" for her Hungarian Majesty and everybody!But Diana, in the shape of his Grace

It was while Carteret's courier was gone to England and not come back, that King Louis made the

abovementioned mild, almost penitent, Declaration to the Reich, "Good people, let us have Peace; and all be

as we were! I, for my share, wish to be out of it; I am for home!" And, in effect, was already home; every

Frenchman in arms being, by this time, on his own side of the Rhine, as we shall presently observe.

For, the same day, July 26th, while that was going on at Frankfurt, and Carteret's returncourier was due in

five days, his Britannic Majesty at Hanau had a splendid visit,tending not towards Peace with France, but

quite the opposite way. Visit from Prince Karl, with Khevenhuller and other dignitaries; doing us that honor

"till the evening of the 28th." Quitting their Army,which is now in these neighborhoods (Broglio well gone

to air ahead of it; Noailles too, at the first sure sniff of it, having rushed double quick across the

Rhine),these high Gentlemen have run over to us, for a couple of days, to "congratulate on Dettingen;" or,

better still, to consult, face to face, about ulterior movements. "Follow Noailles; transfer the seat of war to

France itself? These are my orders, your Majesty. Combined Invasion of Elsass: what a slash may be made

into France [right handselling of your Carteret Scheme] this very year!" "Proper, in every case!" answers the

Britannic Majesty; and engages to cooperate. Upon which Prince Karlafter the due reviewing, dinnering,

ceremonial blaring, which was splendid to witness [Anonymous, Duke of Cumberland, pp. 65, 86.]hastens

back to his Army (now lying about Baden Durlach, 70,000 strong); and ought to be swift, while the chance

These are fine prospects, in the French quarter, of an equivalent for Schlesien;very fine, unless Diana

intervene! Diana or not, French prospects or not, her Hungarian Majesty fastens on Bavaria with uncommon

tightness of fist, now that Bavaria is swept clear; well resolved to keep Bavaria for equivalent, till better

come. Exacts, by her deputy, Homage from the Population there; strict Oath of Fealty to HER; poor Kaiser

protesting his uttermost, to no purpose; Kaiser's poor Printer (at Regensburg, which is in Bavaria) getting

"tried and hanged" for printing such Protest! "She draughts forcibly the Bavarian militias into her Italian

Army;" is high and merciless on all hands;in a word, throttles poor Bavaria, as if to the choking of it

outright. So that the very Gazetteers in foreign places gave voice, though Bavaria itself, such a grasp on the

throat of it, was voiceless. Seckendorf's poor Bargain for neutrality as a Bavarian ReichArmy, her

Hungarian Majesty disdains to confirm; to confirm, or even to reject; treats Seckendorf and his Bavarian

Army little otherwise than as a stray dog which she has not yet shot. And truly the old Feldmarschall lies at

Wembdingen, in most disconsolate moulting condition; little or nothing to live upon;the English, generous

creatures, had at one time flung him something, fancying the Armistice might be useful; but now it must be

Chapter V. BRITANNIC MAJESTY FIGHTS HIS BATTLE OF DETTINGEN; AND BECOMES SUPREME JOVE OF GERMANY, IN A MANNER. 807

Hanau Conferences having failed, these things do not fail. Kaiser Karl is become tragical to think of. A

spectacle of pity to Landgraf Wilhelm, to King Friedrich, and serious onlookers;and perhaps not of pity

only, but of "pity and fear" to some of them! sullen Austria taking its sweet revenges, in this fashion.

Readers who will look through these small chinks, may guess what a worldwelter this was; and how

Friedrich, gazing into phase on phase of it, as into Oracles of Fate, which to him they were, had a History, in

August 16th came out her Hungarian Majesty's Response to that mild quasipenitent Declaration of King

Louis to the Reich; and much astonished King Louis and others, and the very Reich itself. "Out of it?" says

her Hungarian Majesty (whom we with regret, for brevity's sake, translate from Official into vulgate): "His

Most Christian Majesty wishes to be out of it:Does not he, the (what shall I call him) Crowned

Housebreaker taken in the fact? You shall get out of it, please Heaven, when you have made compensation

for the damage done; and till then not, if it please Heaven!" And in this strain (lengthily Official, though

indignant to a degree) enumerates the wanton unspeakable mischiefs and outrages which Austria, a kind of

sacred entity guaranteed by Law of Nature and Eleven Signatures of Potentates, has suffered from the Most

Christian Majesty,and will have compensation for, Heaven now pointing the way! [IN EXTENSO in

A most portentous Document; full of sombre emphasis, in sonorous snuffling tone of voice; enunciating, with

inflexible purpose, a number of unexpected things: very portentous to his Prussian Majesty among others.

Forms a turningpoint or crisis both in the French War, and in his Prussian Majesty's History; and ought to be

particularly noted and dated by the careful reader. It is here that we first publicly hear tell of Compensation,

the necessity Austria will have of Compensation,Austria does not say expressly for Silesia, but she says

and means for loss of territory, and for all other losses whatsoever: "Compensation for the past, and security

for the future; that is my full intention," snuffles she, in that slow metallic tone of hers, irrevocable except by

"Compensation for the past, Security for the future:" Compensation? what does her Hungarian Majesty

mean? asked all the world; asked Friedrich, the now Proprietor of Silesia, with peculiar curiosity! It is the

first time her Hungarian Majesty steps articulately forward with such extraordinary Claim of Damages, as if

she alone had suffered damage;but it is a fixed point at Vienna, and is an agitating topic to mankind in the

coming months and years. Lorraine and the Three Bishoprics; there would be a fine compensation. Then

again, what say you to Bavaria, in lieu of the Silesia lost? You have Bavaria by the throat; keep Bavaria, you.

Give "KurBaiern, Kaiser as they call him," something in the Netherlands to live upon? Will be better out of

Germany altogether, with his French leanings. Or, give him the Kingdom of Naples,if once we had

conquered it again? These were actual schemes, successive, simultaneous, much occupying Carteret and the

high Heads at Vienna now and afterwards; which came all to nothing; but should were it not impossible, be

Another still more unexpected point comes out here, in this singular Document, publicly for the first time:

Austria's feelings in regard to the Imperial Election itself. Namely, That Austria, considers, and has all along

considered, the said Election to be fatally vitiated by that Exclusion of the Bohemian Vote; to be in fact

nullified thereby; and that, to her clear view, the present socalled Kaiser is an imaginary quantity, and a

mere Kaiser of French shreds and patches! "DER SEYNSOLLENDE KAISER," snuffles Austria in one

passage, "Your Kaiser as you call him;" and in another passage, instead of "Kaiser," puts flatly "KurBaiern."

This is a most extraordinary doctrine to an Electoral Romish Reich! Is the Holy Romish Reich to DECLARE

"August 16th, this extraordinary Document was delivered to the Chancery of Mainz; and September 23d, it

was, contrary to expectation, brought to DICTATUR by said Chancery,"of which latter phrase, and

Chapter V. BRITANNIC MAJESTY FIGHTS HIS BATTLE OF DETTINGEN; AND BECOMES SUPREME JOVE OF GERMANY, IN A MANNER. 808

Had the late KurMainz (general ArchChairman, Speaker of the Diet) been still in office and existence,

certainly so shocking a Document had never been allowed "to come to DICTATUR,"to be dictated to the

Reich's Clerks; to have a first reading, as we should call it; or even to lie on the table, with a theoretic chance

that way. But Austria, thanks to our little George and his Pragmatic Armament, had got a new

KurMainz;by whom, in open contempt of impartiality, and in open leaning for Austria with all his

weight, it was duly forwarded to Dictature; brought before an astonished Diet (REICHSTAG), and endlessly

argued of in Reichstag and Reich,with small benefit to Austria, or the new KurMainz. Wise kindness to

Austria had been suppression of this Piece, not bringing of it to Dictature at all: but the new KurMainz,

called upon, and conscious of face sufficient, had not scrupled. "Shame on you, partial ArchChancellor!"

exclaims all the world. "Revoke such shamefully partial Dictature?" this was the next question brought

before the Reich. In which, KurHanover (Britannic George) was the one Elector that opined, No. Majority

conclusive; though, as usual, no settle ment attainable. This is the famous "DICTATURSACHE (Dictature

Question)," which rages on us, for about eleven months to come, in those distracted old Books; and seems as

if it would never end. Nor is there any saying when it would have ended;had not, in August, 1744,

something else ended, the King of Prussia's patience, namely; which enabled it to end, on the Kaiser's then

It must be owned, in general, the conduct of Maria Theresa to the Reich, ever since the Reich had ventured to

reject her Husband as Kaiser, and prefer another, was all along of a high nature; till now it has grown into

absolute contumacy, and a treating of the Reich's elected Kaiser as a merely chimerical personage. No law of

the Reich had been violated against her Hungarian Majesty or Husband: "What law?" asked all judges.

Vicarius KurSachsen sat, in committee, hatching for many months that Question of the KurBohmen Vote;

and by the prescribed methods, brought it out in the negative,every formality and regularity observed, and

nobody but your Austrian Deputy protesting upon it, when requested to go home. But, the high Maria had a

notion that the Reich belonged to her august Family and her; and that all Elections to the contrary were an

Thus too, long before this, in regard to the REICHSARCHIV Question. The Archives and indispensablest

Official Records and Papers of the Reich,these had lain so long at Vienna, the high Maria could not think

of giving them up. "So difficult to extricate what Papers are Austrian specially, from what are Austrian

Imperial;must have time!" answered she always. And neither the Kaiser's more and more pressing

demands, nor those of the late KurMainz, backed by the Reich, and reiterated month after month and year

after year, could avail in the matter. Mere angry correspondences, growing ever angrier;the Archives of the

Reich lay irrecoverable at Vienna, detained on this pretext and on that: nor were they ever given up; but lay

there till the Reich itself had ended, much more the Kaiser Karl VII.! These are high procedures.

As if the Reich had been one's own chattel; as if a NonAustrian Kaiser mere impossible, and the Reich and

its laws had, even Officially, become phantasmal! That, in fact, was Maria Theresa's inarticulate inborn

notion; and gradually, as her successes on the field rose higher, it became ever more articulate: till this of "the

SEYNSOLLENDE Kaiser" put a crown on it. Justifiable, if the Reich with its Laws were a chattel, or

rebellious vassal, of Austria; not justifiable otherwise. "Hear ye?" answered almost all the Reich (eight

Kurfursts, with the one exception of KurHanover: as we observed): "Our solemnly elected Kaiser, Karl VII.,

is a thing of quirks and quiddities, of French shreds and patches; at present, it seems, the Reich has no Kaiser

at all; and will go ever deeper into anarchies and unnamabilities, till it proceed anew to get one,of the right

Austrian type!"The Reich is a talking entity: King Friedrich is bound rather to silence, so long as possible.

His thoughts on these matters are not given; but sure enough they were continual, too intense they could

hardly be. "Compensation;" "The Reich as good as mine:" Whither is all this tending? Walrave and those

Chapter V. BRITANNIC MAJESTY FIGHTS HIS BATTLE OF DETTINGEN; AND BECOMES SUPREME JOVE OF GERMANY, IN A MANNER. 809

The "Combined Invasion of Elsass"let us say briefly, overstepping the order of date, and still for a moment

leaving Friedrichcame to nothing, this year. Prince Karl was 70,000; Britannic George (when once those

Dutch, crawling on all summer, had actually come up) was 66,000,nay 70,000; Karl having lent him that

beautiful cannibal gentleman, "Colonel Mentzel and 4,000 Tolpatches," by way of edgetrimming. Karl was

to cross in Upper Elsass, in the Strasburg parts; Karl once across, Britannic Majesty was to cross about

Mainz, and cooperate from Lower Elsass. And they should have been swift about it; and were not! All the

world expected a severe slash to France; and France itself had the due apprehension of it: but France and all

Prince Karl was slow with his preparations; Noailles and Coigny (Broglio's successor) were not slow;

"raising batteries everywhere," raising lines, "10,000 Elsass Peasants," and what not; so that, by the time

Prince Karl was ready (middle of August), they lay intrenched and minatory at all passable points; and Karl

could nowhere, in that UpperRhine Country, by any method, get across. Nothing got across; except once or

twice for perhaps a day, Butcher Trenck and his loose kennel of Pandours; who went about, plundering and

rioting, with loud rodomontade, to the admiration of the Gazetteers, if of no one else.

Nor was George's seconding of important nature; most dubitative, wholly passive, you would rather say,

though the River, in his quarter, lay undefended. He did, at last, cross the Rhine about Mainz; went languidly

to Worms,did an evermemorable TREATY OF WORMS there, if no fighting there or elsewhere. Went to

Speyer, where the Dutch joined him (sadly short of numbers stipulated, had it been the least matter);was at

Germersheim, at what other places I forget; manoeuvring about in a languid and as if in an aimless manner, at

least it was in a perfectly ineffectual one. Mentzel rode gloriously to Trarbach, into Lorraine; stuck up

Proclamation, "Hungarian Majesty come, by God's help, for her own again," and the like;of which

Document, now fallen rare, we give textually the last line: "And if any of you DON'T [don't sit quiet at least],

I will," to be brief, "first cut off your ears and noses, and then hang you out of hand." The singular Champion

of Christendom, famous to the then Gazetteers! [In Adelung (iii. B, 193) the Proclamation at large. I have, or

once had, a Life of Mentzel (Dublin, I think, 1744), "price twopence,"dear at the money.] Nothing farther

could George, with his Dutch now adjoined, do in those parts, but wriggle slightly to and fro without aim; or

stand absolutely still, and eat provision (great uncertainty and discrepancy among the Generals, and Stair

gone in a huff [Went, "August 27th, by Worms" (Henderson, Life of Cumberlund, p. 48), just while his

Majesty was beginning to cross.]),till at length the "Combined Pragmatic Troops" returned to Mainz

(October 11th); and thence, dreadfully in illhumor with each other, separated into their winterquarters in

Prince Karl tried hard in several places; hardest at, AltBreisach, far up the River, with Swabian Freiburg for

his place of arms;an Austrian Country all that, "Hithcr Austria," Swabian Austria. There, at AltBreisach,

lay Prince Karl (24th August3d September), his left leaning on that venerable sugarloaf Hill, with the

towers and ramparts on the top of it; looking wistfully into Alsace, if there were no way of getting at it. He

did get once halfway across the River, lodging himself in an Island called Rheinmark; but could get no

farther, owing to the NoaillesCoigny preparations for him. Called a Council of War; decided that he had not

Magazines, that it was too late in the season; and marched home again (October 12th) through the

Schwabenland; leaving, besides the strong Garrison of Freiburg, only Trenck with 12,000 Pandours to keep

the Country open for us, against next year. Britannic Majesty, as we observed, did then, almost

simultaneously, in like manner march home; [Adelung, iii. B, 192, 215; Anonymous, Cumberland, p.

121.]one goal is always clear when the day sinks: Make for your quarters, for your bed.

Prince Karl was gloriously wedded, this Winter, to her Hungarian Majesty's young Sister;glorious meed of

War; and, they say, a union of hearts withal;Wife and he to have Brussels for residence, and be

"JointGovernors of the Netherlands" henceforth. Stout Khevenhuller, almost during the rejoicings, took

fever, and suddenly died; to the great sorrow of her Majesty, for loss of such a soldier and man. [ Maria

Theresiens Leben, pp. 94, 45.] Britannic Majesty has not been successful with his Pragmatic Army. He did

Chapter V. BRITANNIC MAJESTY FIGHTS HIS BATTLE OF DETTINGEN; AND BECOMES SUPREME JOVE OF GERMANY, IN A MANNER. 810

get his new KurMainz, who has brought the Austrian Exorbitancy to a first reading, and into general view.

He did get out of the Dettingen mousetrap; and, to the admiration of the Gazetteer mind, and (we hope)

envy of Most Christian Majesty, he has, regardless of expense, played Supreme Jove on the German boards

for above three months running. But as to Settlement of the German Quarrel, he has done nothing at all, and

even a good deal less! Let me commend to readers this little scrap of Note; headed, "METHODS OF

1. There is one ready method of pacificating Germany: That his Britannic Majesty should firmly button

his breechespocket, 'Not one sixpence more, Madam!'and go home to his bed, if he find no business

waiting him at home. Has not he always the EAROFJENKINS Question, and the Cause of Liberty in that

succinct form. But, in Germany, sinews of war being cut, law of gravitation would at once act; and exorbitant

Hungarian Majesty, tired France, and all else, would in a brief space of time lapse into equilibrium, probably

2. Or, if you want to save the Cause of Liberty on a grand scale, there are those HANAU

CONFERENCES,Carteret's magnificent scheme: A united Teutschland (England inspiring it), to rush on

the throat of France, for 'Compensation,' for universal salving of sores. This second method, Diana having

3". There was nothing left for poor Carteret but a TREATY OF WORMS (concerning which, something

more explicit by and by): A Teutschland (the English, doubly and trebly inspiring it, as surely they will now

need!) to rush as aforesaid, in the DISunited and indeed nearly internecine state. Which third methodunless

Carteret can conquer Naples for the Kaiser, stuff the Kaiser into some satisfactory 'Netherlands' or the like,

and miraculously do the unfeasible (Fortune perhaps favoring the brave)may be called the unlikely one!

As poor Carteret probably guesses, or dreads; had he now any choice left. But it was love's last shift! And,

by aid of Diana and otherwise, that is the posture in which, at Mainz, 11th October, 1743, we leave the

"Compensation," from France in particular, is not to be had gratis, it appears. Somewhere or other it must be

had! Complaining once, as she very often does, to her Supreme Jove, Hungarian Majesty had written: "Why,

oh, why did you force me to give up Silesia!" Supreme Jove answers (at what date I never knew, though

Friedrich knows it, and "has copy of the Letter"): "Madam, what was good to give is good to take back (CC

In the last days of August, there appears at Berlin M. de Voltaire, on his Fourth Visit:thrice and four times

welcome; though this time, privately, in a somewhat unexpected capacity. Come to try his hand in the

diplomatic line; to sound Friedrich a little, on behalf of the distressed French Ministry. That, very privately

indeed, is Voltaire's errand at present; and great hopes hang by it for Voltaire, if he prove adroit enough.

Poor man, it had turned out he could not get his Academy Diploma, after all,owing again to intricacies and

heterodoxies. King Louis was at first willing, indifferent; nay the Chateauroux was willing: but orthodox

parties persuaded his Majesty; wicked Maurepas (the same who lasted till the Revolution time) set his face

against it; Maurepas, and ANC. de Mirepoix (whom they wittily call "ANE" or Ass of Mirepoix, that sour

opaque creature, lately monk), were industrious exceedingly; and put veto on Voltaire. A stupid Bishop was

preferred to him for filling up the Forty. Two Bishops magnanimously refused; but one was found with

ambitious stupidity enough: Voltaire, for the third time, failed in this small matter, to him great. Nay, in spite

of that kiss in MEROPE, he could not get his MORT DE CESAR acted; cabals rising; ANCIEN de Mirepoix

rising; Orthodoxy, sour Opacity prevailing again. To Madame and him (though finely caressed in the Parisian

circles) these were provoking months;enough to make a man forswear Literature, and try some other

Jacob'sLadder in this world. Which Voltaire had actual thoughts of, now and then. We may ask, Are these

things of a nature to create love of the Hierarchy in M. de Voltaire? "Your Academy is going to be a

Seminary of Priests," says Friedrich. The lynxeyed animal,anxiously asking itself, "Whitherward, then,

out of such a mess?"walks warily about, with its paws of velvet; but has, IN POSSE, claws under them, for

Nor, alas, is the Du Chatelet relation itself so celestial as it once was. Madame has discovered, think only

with what feelings, that this great man does not love her as formerly! The great man denies, ready to deny on

the Gospels, to her and to himself; and yet, at bottom, if we read with the microscope, there are symptoms,

and it is not deniable. How should it? Leafy May, hot June, by degrees comes October, sere, yellow; and at

last, a quite leafless condition,not Favonius, but gray Northeast, with its hailstorms (jealousies, barren

cankered gusts), your main wind blowing. "EMILIE FAIT DE L'ALGEBRE," sneers he once, in an

inadvertent moment, to some Ladyfriend: "Emilie doing? Emilie is doing Algebra; that is Emilie's

employment,which will be of great use to her in the affairs of Life, and of great charm in Society." [Letter

of Voltaire "To Madame Chambonin," end of 1742 ( OEuvres, Edition in 40 vols., Paris, 1818, xxxii.

148);is MISSED in the later Edition (97 vols., Paris, 1837), to which our habitual reference is.] Voltaire (if

you read with the microscope) has, on this side also, thoughts of being off. "Off on this side?" Madame flies

mad, becomes Megaera, at the mention or suspicion of it! A jealous, hightempered Algebraic Lady. They

have had to tell her of this secret Mission to Berlin; and she insists on being the conduit, all the papers to pass

through her hands here at Paris, during the great man's absence. Fixed northeast; that is, to appearance, the

domestic wind blowing! And I rather judge, the great man is glad to get away for a time.

This QuasiDiplomatic Speculation, one perceives, is much more serious, on the part both of Voltaire and of

the Ministry, than any of the former had been. And, on Voltaire's part, there glitter prospects now and then of

something positively Diplomatic, of a real career in that kind, lying ahead for him. Fond hopes these! But

among the new Ministers, since Fleury's death, are Amelot, the D'Argensons, personal friends, old

schoolfellows of the poor hunted man, who are willing he should have shelter from such a pack; and all

French Ministers, clutching at every floating spar, in this their general shipwreck in Germany, are aware of

the uses there might be in him, in such crisis. "Knows Friedrich; might perhaps have some power in

persuading him,power in spying him at any rate. Unless Friedrich do step forward again, what is to

become of us!"The mutual hintings, negotiatings, express interviews, bargainings and secretinstructions,

dimly traceable in Voltaire's LETTERS, had been going on perhaps since May last, time of those

ACADEMY failures, of those Broglio Despatches from the Donau Countries, "No staying here, your

Majesty!"and I think it was, in fact, about the time when Broglio blew up like gunpowder and tumbled

home on the winds, that Voltaire set out on his mission. "Visit to Friedrich," they call it;"invitation" from

Voltaire has lingered long on the road; left Paris, middle of June; [His Letters ( OEuvres, lxxiii. 42, 48).] but

has been exceedingly exerting himself, in the Hague, at Brussels, and wherever else present, in the way of

forwarding his errand, Spying, contriving, persuading; corresponding to right and left, corresponding,

especially much, with the King of Prussia himself, and then with "M. Amelot, Secretary of State," to report

progress to the best advantage. There are curious elucidative sparks, in those Voltaire Letters, chaotic as they

are; small sparks, elucidative, confirmatory of your dull History Books, and adding traits, here and there, to

the Image you have formed from them. Yielding you a poor momentary comfort; like reading some riddle of

no use; like light got incidentally, by rubbing dark upon dark (say Voltaire flint upon Dryasdust gritstone), in

those labyrinthic catacombs, if you are doomed to travel there. A mere weariness, otherwise, to the outside

reader, hurrying forward,to the light French Editor, who can pass comfortably on wings or balloons!

[ OEuvres, lxxiii. pp. 40138. Clogenson, a Dane (whose Notes, signed "Clog.," are in all tolerable recent

Editions), has, alone among the Commentators of Voltaire's LETTERS, made some real attempt towards

explaining the many passages that are fallen unintelligible. "Clog.," travelling on foot, with his eyes open,

isespecially on GermanHistory pointsincomparable and unique, among his French comrades going by

balloon; and drops a rational or halfrational hint now and then, which is meritoriously helpful. Unhappily he

is by no means wellread in that German matter, by no means always exact; nor indeed ever quite to be

trusted without trial had.] Voltaire's assiduous finessings with the Hague Diplomatist People, or with their

Secretaries if bribable; nay, with the Dutch Government itself ("through channels which I have

opened,"with infinitesimally small result); his spyings ("young Podewils," Minister here, Nephew of the

Podewils we have known, "young Podewils in intrigue with a Dutch Lady of rank:" think of that, your

Excellency); his preparatory subtle correspondings with Friedrich: his exquisite manoeuvrings, and really

great industries in the small way:all this, and much else, we will omit. Impatient of these preludings, which

have been many! Thus, at one point, Voltaire "took a FLUXION" (catarrhal, from the nose only), when

Friedrich was quite ready; then, again, when Voltaire was ready, and the fluxion off, Friedrich had gone upon

his Silesian Reviews: in short, there had been such crosspurposes, tedious delays, as are distressing to think

of;and we will say only, that M. de Voltaire did actually, after the conceivable adventures, alight in the

Berlin Schloss (last day of August, as I count); welcomed, like no other man, by the Royal Landlord there;

and that this is the Fourth Visit; and has (in strict privacy) weightier intentions than any of the foregoing,

Voltaire had a glorious reception; apartment near the King's; King gliding in, at odd moments, in the

beautifulest way; and for seven or eight days, there was, at Berlin and then at Potsdam, a fine awakening of

the sphereharmonies between them, with touches of practicality thrown in as suited. Of course it was not

long till, on some touch of that latter kind, Friedrich discerned what the celestial messenger had come upon

withal;a dangerous moment for M. de Voltaire, "King visibly irritated," admits he, with the aquiline glance

transfixing him! "Alas, your Majesty, mere excess of loyalty, submission, devotion, on my poor part! Deign

to think, may not this too,in the present state of my King, of my Two Kings, and of all Europe,be itself

a kind of spheral thing?" So that the aquiline lightning was but momentary; and abated to lambent twinklings,

with something even of comic in them, as we shall gather. Voltaire had his difficulties with Valori, too;

"What interloping fellow is this?" gloomed Valori, "A devoted secretary of your Excellency's; on his honor,

nothing more!" answered Voltaire, bowing to the ground:and strives to behave as such; giving Valori

"these poor Reports of mine to put in cipher," and the like. Very slippery ice hereabouts for the adroit man!

His reports to Amelot are of sanguine tone; but indicate, to the bystander, small progress; ice slippery, and a

twinkle of the comic. Many of them are lost (or lie hidden in the French Archives, and are not worth

disinterring): but here is one, saved by Beaumarchais and published long afterwards, which will sufficiently

bring home the old scene to us. In the Palace of Berlin or else of Potsdam (date must be, 6th8th September,

1743), Voltaire from his Apartment hands in a "Memorial" to Friedrich; and gets it back with

"Would your Majesty be pleased to have the kind condescension (ASSEZ DE BONTE) to put on the margin

MEMORIAL BY VOLTAIRE. "1. Your Majesty is to know that the Sieur Bassecour [signifies

BACKYARD], chief Burghermaster of Amsterdam, has come lately to beg M. de la Ville, French Minister

there, to make Proposals of Peace. La Ville answered, If the Dutch had offers to make, the King his master

MARGINALIA BY FRIEDRICH. "1. This Bassecour, or Backyard, seems to be the gentleman that has

MEMORIAL BY VOLTAIRE. "2. Is it not clear that the Peace Party will infallibly carry it, in

Holland,since Bassecour, one of the most determined for War, begins to speak of Peace? Is it not clear that

MARGINALIA BY FRIEDRICH. "2. I admire the wisdom of France; but God preserve me from ever

MEMORIAL BY VOLTAIRE. "3. In these circumstances, if your Majesty took the tone of a Master, gave

example to the Princes of the Empire in assembling an Army of Neutrality,would not you snatch the

sceptre of Europe from the hands of the English, who now brave you, and speak in an insolent revolting

manner of your Majesty, as do, in Holland also, the party of the Bentincks, the Fagels, the Opdams? I have

MARGINALIA BY FRIEDRICH. "3. This would be finer in an ode than in actual reality. I disturb myself

very little about what the Dutch and English say, the rather as I understand nothing of those dialects

MEMORIAL BY VOLTAIRE. "4. Do not you cover yourself with an immortal glory in declaring yourself,

with effect, the protector of the Empire? And is it not of most pressing interest to your Majesty, to hinder the

English from making your Enemy the GrandDuke [Maria Theresa's Husband] King of the Romans?

MARGINALIA BY FRIEDRICH. "4. France has more interest than Prussia to hinder that. Besides, on this

point, dear Voltaire, you are ill informed. For there can be no Election of a King of the Romans without the

MEMORIAL BY VOLTAIRE. "5. Whoever has spoken but a quarter of an hour to the Duke d'Ahremberg

[who spilt Lord Stair's fine enterprises lately, and reduced them to a DETTINGEN, or a getting into the

mousetrap and a getting out], to the Count Harrach [important Austrian Official], Lord Stair, or any of the

partisans of Austria, even for a quarter of an hour [as I have often done], has beard them say, That they burn

with desire to open the campaign in Silesia again. Have you in that case, Sire, any ally but France? And,

however potent you are, is an ally useless to you? You know the resources of the House of Austria, and how

many Princes are united to it. But will they resist your power, joined to that of the House of Bourbon?

MARGINALIA BY FRIEDRICH. "5. On les y recevra, Biribi, A la facon de Barbari, Mon ami. We will

receive them, Twiddledee, In the mode of Barbary, Don't you see? [Form of Song, very fashionable at Paris

(see Barbier soepius) in those years: "BIRIBI," I believe, is a kind of lotterygame.]

MEMORIAL BY VOLTAIRE. "6. If you were but to march a body of troops to Cleves, do not you awaken

terror and respect, without apprehension that any one dare make war on you? Is it not, on the contrary, the

one method of forcing the Dutch to concur, under your orders, in the pacification of the Empire, and

reestablishment of the Emperor, who will thus a second time he indebted to you for his throne, and will aid

MARGINALIA BY FRIEDRICH. "6. Vous voulez qu'en vrai dieu de la machine, "You will have me as

theatregod, then, "J'arrive pour te denouement? "Swoop in, and produce the catastrophe? "Qu'aux Anglais,

aux Pandours, a ce peuple insolent, "J'aille donner la discipline? "Tame to sobriety those English, those

Pandours, and obstreperous people? "Mais examinez mieux ma mine; "Examine the look of me better; "Je ne

MEMORIAL BY VOLTAIRE. "7. Whatever resolution may be come to, will your Majesty deign to confide

it to me, and impart the result,to your servant, to him who desires to pass his life at your Court? May I

have the honor to accompany your Majesty to Baireuth; and if your goodness go so far, would you please to

declare it, that I may have time to prepare for the journey? One favorable word written to me in the Letter on

that occasion [word favorable to France, ostensible to M. Amelot and the most Christian Majesty], one word

would suffice to procure me the happiness I have, for six years, been aspiring to, of living beside you." Oh,

MARGINALIA BY FRIEDRICH. "7. If you like to come to Baireuth, I shall be glad to see you there,

provided the journey don't derange your health. It will depend on yourself, then, to take what measures you

MEMORIAL BY VOLTAIRE. "8. During the short stay I am now to make, if I could be made the bearer of

some news agreeable to my Court, I would supplicate your Majesty to honor me with such a commission.

MARGINALIA BY FRIEDRICH. "8. I am not in any connection with France; I have nothing to fear nor to

hope from France. If you would like, I will make a Panegyric on Louis XV. without a word of truth in it: but

as to political business, there is, at present, none to bring us together; and neither is it I that am to speak first.

When they put a question to me, it will he time to reply: but you, who are so much a man of sense, you see

well what a ridiculous business it would he if, without ground given me, I set to prescribing projects of policy

MEMORIAL BY VOLTAIRE. "9. Do whatsoever you may please, I shall always love your Majesty with my

MARGINALIA BY FRIEDRICH. "9. I love you with all my heart; I esteem you: I will do all to have you,

except follies, and things which would make me forever ridiculous over Europe, and at bottom would he

contrary to my interests and my glory. The only commission I can give you for France, is to advise them to

behave with more wisdom than they have done hitherto. That Monarchy is a body with much strength, but

And so you may give it to Valori to put in cipher, my illustrious Messenger from the Spheres. [ OEuvres de

Worth reading, this, rather well. Very kingly, and characteristic of the young Friedrich. Saved by

Beaumarchais, who did not give it in his famous Kehl Edition of VOLTAIRE, but "had it in Autograph ever

after, and printed it in his DECADE PHILOSOPHIQUE, 10 Messidor, An vii. [Summer, 1799j:

Beaumarchais had several other Pieces of the same sort;" which, as bits of contemporary photographing, one

This "BIRIBI" Document, I suppose to have been delivered perhaps on the 7th; and that Friedrich HAD it,

"POTSDAM, 8th SEPTEMBER, 1743 [Friedrich to Voltaire].I dare not speak to a son of Apollo about

horses and carriages, relays and such things; these are details with which the gods do not concern themselves,

and which we mortals take upon us. You will set out on Monday afternoon, if you like the journey, for

Baireuth, and you will dine with me in passing, if you please [at Potsdam here].

"The rest of my MEMOIRE [Paper before given?] is so blurred and in so bad a state, I cannot yet send it

you.I am getting Cantos 8 and 9 of LA PUCELLE copied; I at present have Cantos 1, 2, 4, 5, 8 and 9: I

"I hear you supped yesternight in good company [great gathering in some high house, gone all asunder now];

"The finest wits of the Canton All collected in your name, People all who could not but be pleased with you,

All devout believers in Voltaire, Unanimously took you For the god of their Paradise.

"'Paradise,' that you may not be scandalized, is taken here in a general sense for a place of pleasure and joy.

See the 'remark' on the last verse of the MONDAIN." [ OEuvres de Frederic, xxii. 144; Voltaire, lxxiii. 100

(scandalously MISdated in Edition 1818, xxxix. 466). As to MONDAIN, and "remark" upon it, the ghost

of what was once a sparkle of successful coteriespeech and epistolary allusion,take this: "In the

MONDAIN Voltaire had written, 'LE PARADIS TERRESTRE EST OU JE SUIS;' and as the Priests made

outcry, had with airs of orthodoxy explained the phrase away," as Friedrich now affects to do; obliquely

Voltaire is to go upon the Baireuth Journey, then, according to prayer. Whether Voltaire ever got that

allimportant "word which he could show," I cannot say: though there is some appearance that Friedrich may

have dashed off for him the Panegyric of Louis, in these very hours, to serve his turn, and have done with

him. Under date 7th September, day before the Letter just read, here are snatches from another to the same

"POTSDAM, 7th SEPTEMBER, 1743 [Friedrich to Voltaire].You tell me so much good of France and of

its King, it were to be wished all Sovereigns had subjects like you, and all Commonwealths such

citizens,[you can show that, I suppose?] What a pity France and Sweden had not had Military Chiefs of

your way of thinking! But it is very certain, say what you will, that the feebleness of their Generals, and the

timidity of their counsels, have almost ruined in public repute two Nations which, not half a century ago,

inspired terror over Europe."... "Scandalous Peace, that of Fleury, in 1735; abandoning King Stanislaus,

cheating Spain, cheating Sardinia, to get Lorraine! And now this manner of abandoning the Emperor

[respectable Karl VII. of your making]; sacrificing Bavaria; and reducing that worthy Prince to the lowest

poverty, poverty, I say not, of a Prince, but into the frightfulest state for a private man!" Ah, Monsieur.

"And yet your France is the most charming of Nations; and if it is not feared, it deserves well to be loved. A

King worthy to command it, who governs sagely, and acquires for himself the esteem of all Europe,[there,

won't that do!] may restore its ancient splendor, which the Broglios, and so many others even more inept,

have a little eclipsed. That is assuredly a work worthy of a Prince endowed with such gifts! To reverse the sad

posture of affairs, nobly repairing what others have spoiled; to defend his country against furious enemies,

reducing them to beg Peace, instead of scornfully rejecting it when offered: never was more glory acquirable

by any King! I shall admire whatsoever this great man [CE GRAND HOMME, Louis XV., not yet visibly

tending to the dung heap, let us hope better things!] may achieve in that way; and of all the Sovereigns of

Europe none will be less jealous of his success than I:"there, my spheral friend, show that! [ OEuvres de

Frederic, xxii. 139: see, for what followed, OEuvres de Voltaire, lxxiii. 129 (report to Amelot, 27th October).]

Which the spheral friend does. Nor was it "irony," as the new Commentators think; not at all; sincere enough,

what you call sincere;Voltaire himself had a nose for "irony"! This was what you call sincere Panegyric in

liberal measure; why be stingy with your measure? It costs half an hour: it will end Voltaire's importunities;

and so may, if anything, oil the businesswheels withal. For Friedrich foresees business enough with Louis

and the French Ministries, though he will not enter on it with Voltaire. This Journey to Baireuth and

Anspach, for example, this is not for a visit to his Sisters, as Friedrich labels it; but has extensive purposes

hidden under that title,meetings with Franconian Potentates, earnest survey, earnest consultation on a state

of things altogether grave for Germany and Friedrich; though he understands whom to treat with about it,

whom to answer with a "BIRIBIRI, MON AMI." That Austrian Exorbitancy of a message to the Diet has

come out (August 16th, and is struggling to DICTATUR); the Austrian procedures in Baiern are in their full

flagrancy: Friedrich intends trying once more, Whether, in such crisis, there be absolutely no "Union of

German Princes" possible; nor even of any two or three of them, in the "Swabian and Franconian Circles,"

The Journey took effect, Tuesday, 10th September [Rodenbeck, i. 93.] (not the day before, as Friedrich had

been projecting); went by Halle, straight upon Baireuth; and ended there on Thursday. As usual, Prince

August Wilhelm, and Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, were of it; Voltaire failed not to accompany. What the

complexion of it was, especially what Friedrich had meant by it, and how ill he succeeded, will perhaps be

most directly visible through the following compressed Excerpts from Voltaire's long LETTER to Secretary

Amelot on the subject,if readers will be diligent with them. Friedrich, after four days, ran across to

Anspach on important business; came back with mere failure, and was provokingly quite silent on it; stayed

at Baireuth some three days more; thence home by Gotha (still on "Union" business, still mere failure), by

Leipzig, and arrived at Potsdam, September 25th; leaving Voltaire in Wilhelmina's charmed circle (of

which unhappily there is not a word said), for about a week more. Voltaire, directly on getting back to Berlin,

"resumes the thread of his journal" to Secretary Amelot; that is, writes him another long Letter:

"... The King of Prussia told me at Baireuth, on the 13th or 14th of last month, He was glad our King had sent

the Kaiser money;" useful that, at any rate; Noailles's 6,000 pounds would not go far. "That he thought M.

le Marechal de Noailles's explanation [of a certain small rumor, to the disadvantage of Noailles in reference

to the Kaiser] was satisfactory: 'but,' added he, 'it results from all your secret motions that you are begging

Peace from everybody, and there may have been something in this rumor, after all.'

"He then told me he was going over to Anspach, to see what could be done for the Common Cause [Kaiser's

and Ours]; that he expected to meet the Bishop of Wurzburg there; and would try to stir the Frankish and

Swabian Circles into some kind of Union. And, at setting off [from Baireuth, September 16th, on this errand],

he promised his Brotherinlaw the Margraf, He would return with great schemes afoot, and even with great

"... The Margraf of Anspach did say he would join a Union of Princes in favor of the Kaiser, if Prussia gave

example. But that was all. The Bishop of Wurzburg," a feeble old creature, "never appeared at Anspach, nor

even sent an apology; and Seckendorf, with the Imperial Army"Seckendorf, caged up at Wembdingen

(whom Friedrich drove off from Anspach, twenty miles, to see and consult), was in a disconsolate moulting

condition, and could promise or advise nothing satisfactory, during the dinner one took with him. [September

19th, "under a shady tree, after muster of the troops" (Rodenbeck, p. 93).] Four days running about on those

errands had yielded his Prussian Majesty nothing. "Whilst he (Prussian Majesty) was on this Anspach

excursion, the Margraf of Baireuth, who is lately made Fieldmarshal of his Circle, spoke much to me of

present affairs: a young Prince, full of worth and courage, who loves the French, hates the Austrians,"and

would fain make himself generally useful. "To whom I suggested this and that" (does your Lordship

"The King of Prussia, on returning to Baireuth [guess, 20th September], did not speak the least word of

business to the Margraf: which much surprised the latter! He surprised him still more by indicating some

intention to retain forcibly at Berlin the young Duke of Wurtemberg, under pretext, 'that Madam his Mother

intended to have him taken to Vienna,' for education. To anger this young Duke, and drive his Mother to

despair, was not the method for acquiring credit in the Circle of Swabia, and getting the Princes brought to

"The Duchess of Wurtemberg, who was there at Baireuth, by appointment, to confer with the King of Prussia,

sent to seek me. I found her all dissolved in tears. 'Ah!' said she,[But why is our dear Wilhelmina left

saying nothing; invisible, behind the curtains of envious Chance, and only a skirt of them lifted to show us

this Improper Duchess once more!]'Ah!' said she (the Improper Duchess, at sight of me), 'will the King of

Prussia be a tyrant, then? To pay me for intrusting my Boys to him, and giving him two Regiments [for

money down], will he force me to implore justice against him from the whole world? I must have my Child!

He shall not go to Vienna; it is in his own Country that I will have him brought up beside me. To put my Son

in Austrian hands? [unless, indeed, your Highness were driven into Financial or other straits?] You know if I

love France;if my design is not to pass the rest of my days there, so soon as my Son comes to majority!'

"In fine, the quarrel was appeased. The King of Prussia told me he would be gentler with the Mother; would

restore the Son if they absolutely wished it; but that he hoped the young Prince would of himself like better to

stay where he was." ..."I trust your Lordship will allow me to draw for those 300 ducats, for a new

carriage. I have spent all I had, running about these four months. I leave this for Brunswick and homewards,

And so the curtain drops on the Baireuth Journey, on the Berlin Visit; and indeed, if that were anything, on

Voltaire's Diplomatic career altogether. The insignificant Accidents, the dull Powers that be, say No. Curious

to reflect, had they happened to say Yes: "Go into the Diplomatic line, then, you sharp climbing creature,

and become great by that method; WRITE no more, you; write only Despatches and SpyLetters

henceforth!"how different a world for us, and for all mortals that read and that do not read, there had now

Voltaire fancies he has done his Diplomacy well, not without fruit; and, at Brunswick,cheered by the grand

welcome he found there,has delightful outlooks (might I dare to suggest them, Monseigneur?) of touring

about in the German Courts, with some Circular HORTATORIUM, or sublime BeggingLetter from the

Kaiser, in his hand; and, by witchery of tongue, urging Wurtemberg, Brunswick, Baireuth, Anspach, Berlin,

to compliance with the Imperial Majesty and France. [Ib. lxxiii. 133.] Would not that be sublime! But that,

like the rest, in spite of one's talent, came to nothing. Talent? Success? Madame de Chateauroux had, in the

interim, taken a dislike to M. Amelot; "could not bear his stammering," the fastidious Improper Female; flung

Amelot overboard,Amelot, and his luggage after him, Voltaire's diplomatic hopes included; and there was

How ravishing the thing had been while it lasted, judge by these other stray symptoms; hastily picked up,

partly at Berlin, partly at Brunswick; which show us the bright meridian, and also the blaze, almost still more

radiant, which proved to be sunset. Readers have heard of Voltaire's Madrigals to certain Princesses; and

must read these Three again,which are really incomparable in their kind; not equalled in graceful felicity

even by Goethe, and by him alone of Poets approached in that respect. At Berlin, Autumn 1743, Three

Au rang des rois j'etais monte. Je vous aimais, Princesse, et j'osais vous le dire!

"Pardon, charmante Ulrique; pardon, belle Amelie; J'ai cru n'aimer que vous la reste de ma vie,

Mais enfin j'entends et je vois Cette adorable Soeur dont l'Amour suit les traces:

[1. "A grain of truth is often mingled with the stupidest delusion. Yesternight, in the error of a dream, I had

risen to the rank of king; I loved you, Princess, and had the audacity to say so! The gods, at my awakening,

did not strip me wholly; my kingdom was all they took from me." 2. If Paris [of Troy] came back to decide

on the charms of you Two, he would halve the Apple, and produce no War." 3. "Pardon, charming Ulrique;

beautiful Amelia, pardon: I thought I should love only you for the rest of my life, and serve under your laws

only: but at last I hear and see this adorable Sister, whom Love follows as Page:Ah, it is not offending the

Three Graces to love them all three!" In Oeuvres de Voltaire, xviii.: No. 1 is, p. 292 (in OEuvres de

BRUNSWICK, 16th October (blazing sunset, as it proved, but brighter almost than meridian), a LETTER

FROM VOLTAIRE TO MAUPERTUIS (still in France since that horrible MollwitzPandour Business).

"In my wanderings I received the Letter where my dear Flattener of this Globe deigns to remember me with

so much friendship. Is it possible that... I made your compliments to all your friends at Berlin; that is, to all

the Court." "Saw Dr. Eller decomposing water into elastic air [or thinking he did so, 1743]; saw the Opera of

TITUS, which is a masterpiece of music [by Friedrich himself, with the important aid of Graun]: it was,

without vanity, a treat the King gave me, or rather gave himself; he wished I should see him in his glory.

"His OperaHouse is the finest in Europe. Charlottenburg is a delicious abode: Friedrich does the honors

there, the King knowing nothing of it. ... One lives at Potsdam as in the Chateau of a French Seigneur who

had culture and genius,in spite of that big Battalion of Guards, which seems to me the terriblest Battalion

"Jordan is still the same,BON GARCON ET DISCRET; has his oddities, his 1,600 crowns (240 pounds) of

pension. D'Argens is Chamberlain, with a gold key at his breastpocket, and 100 louis inside, payable

monthly. Chasot [whom readers made acquaintance with at Philipsburg long since], instead of cursing his

destiny, must have taken to bless it: he is Major of Horse, with income enough. And he has well earned it,

having saved the King's Baggage at the last Battle of Chotusitz,"what we did not notice, in the

"I passed some days [a fortnight in all] at Baireuth. Her Royal Highness, of course, spoke to me of you.

Baireuth is a delightful retreat, where one enjoys whatever there is agreeable in a Court, without the bother of

grandeur. Brunswick, where I am, has another species of charm. 'Tis a celestial Voyage this of mine, where I

pass from Planet to Planet," to tumultuous Paris; and, I do hope, to my unique Maupertuis awaiting me

We have only to remark farther, that Friedrich had again pressed Voltaire to come and live with him, and

choose his own terms; and that Voltaire (as a second string to his bow, should this fine Diplomatic one fail)

had provisionally accepted. Provisionally; and with one most remarkable clause: that of leaving out

Madame, "imagining it would be less agreeable to you if I came with others (AVEC D'AUTRES); and I

own, that belonging to your Majesty alone, I should have my mind more at ease:" [ OEuvres de Voltaire,

lxxiii. 112,116 (Proposal and Response, both of them "7th October," five days before leaving

Berlin).]whew! And then to add a third thing: That Madame, driven half delirious, by these delays, and

gyratings from Planet to Planet, especially by that last Fortnight at Baireuth, had rushed off from Paris, to

seek her vagabond, and see into him with her own eyes: "Could n't help it, my angels!" writes she to the

D'Argentals (excellent guardian angels, Monsieur and Madame; and, I am sure, PATIENT both of them, as

only MONSIEUR Job was, in the old case): "A whole fortnight [perhaps with madrigals to Princesses], and

only four lines to me!" and is now in bed, or lately was, at Lille, ill of slow fever (PETITE FIEVRE);

panting to be upon the road again. [ Lettres inedites de Madame du Chastelet a M. le Comte d'Argental

(Paris, 1806) p. 253. A curiously elucidative Letter this ("Brussels, 15th October, 1743"); a curious little

Fancy what a greeting for M. de Voltaire, from those eyes HAGARDES ET LOUCHES; and whether he

mentioned that pretty little clause of going to Berlin "WITHOUT others," or durst for the life of him whisper

of going at all! After pause in the Brussels region, they came back to Paris "in December;" resigned, I hope,

to inexorable Fate,though with such Diplomatic and other fine prospects flung to the fishes, and little but

Though Friedrich went upon the bantering tone with Voltaire, his private thoughts in regard to the

surrounding scene of things were extremely serious; and already it had begun to be apparent, from those

BritannicAustrian procedures, that some new alliance with France might well lie ahead for him. During

Voltaire's visit, that extraordinary Paper from Vienna, that the Kaiser was no Kaiser, and that there must be

"compensation" and satisfactory "assurance," had come into full glare of firstreading; and the

DICTATURSACHE, and denunciation of an evidently partial KurMainz, was awakening everywhere.

Voltaire had not gone, when,through Podewils Junior (probably with help of the improper Dutch female of

rank), Friedrich got to wit of another thing, not less momentous to him; and throwing fearful light on that

of "compensation" and "assurance." This was the Treaty of Worms,done by Carteret and George,

September 13th, during those languid Rhine operations; Treaty itself not languid, but a very lively thing, to

We have said, according to promise, and will say, next to nothing of Maria Theresa's Italian War; but hope

always the reader keeps it in mind. Big warclouds waltzing hither and thither, occasionally clashing into

bloody conflict; Sardinian Majesty and Infant Philip both personally in the field, fierce men both: Traun,

Browne, Lobkowitz, Lichtenstein, Austrians of mark, successively distinguishing themselves; Spain, too, and

France very diligent; Conti off thither, then in their turns Maillebois, Noailles:high military figures, but

remote; shadowy, thundering INaudibly on this side and that; whom we must not mention farther.

"The notable figure to us," says one of my Notes, "is Charles Emanuel, second King of Sardinia; who is at the

old trade of his Family, and shifts from side to side, making the warbalance vibrate at a great rate, now this

scale now that kicking the beam. For he holds the door of the Alps, Bully Bourbon on one side of it, Bully

Hapsburg on the other; and inquires sharply, "You, what will you give me? And you?" To Maria Theresa's

affairs he has been superlatively useful, for these Two Years past; and truly she is not too punctual in the

returns covenanted for. It appears to Charles Emanuel that the Queen of Hungary, elated in her high thought,

underrates his services, of late; that she practically means to give him very little of those promised slices

from the Lombard parts; and that, in the mean while, much too big a share of the War has fallen upon his

"Accordingly he grumbles, threatens: he has been listening to France, 'Bourbon, how much will you give me,

then?' and the answer is such that he informs the Queen of Hungary and the Britannic Majesty, of his

intention to close with Bourbon, since they on their side will do nothing considerable. George and his

Carteret, not to mention the Hungarian Majesty at all, are thunderstruck at such a prospect; bend all their

energies towards this essential point of retaining Charles Emanuel, which is more urgent even than getting

Elsass. 'Madam,' they say to her Majesty, (we cannot save Italy for you on other terms: Vigevanesco, Finale

[which is Genoa's], part of Piacenza [when once got]: there must be some slice of the Lombard parts to this

Charles Emanuel justly angry!' Whereat the high Queen storms, and in her high manner scolds little George,

as if he were the blamable party,pretending friendship, and yet abetting mere highway robbery or little

better. And his cash paid Madam, and his Dettingen mousetrap fought? 'Well, he has plenty of cash:is it

my Cause, then, or his Majesty's and Liberty's?' Posterity, in modern England, vainly endeavors to conceive

"And so there is a Treaty of Worms got concocted, after infinite effort on the part of Carteret, Robinson too

laboring and steaming in Vienna with boilers like to burst; and George gets it signed 13th September [already

signed while Friedrich was looking into Seckendorf and Wembdingen, if Friedrich had known it]: to this

effect, That Charles Emanuel should have annually, down on the nail, a handsome increase of Subsidy

(200,000 pounds instead of 150,000 pounds) from England, and ultimately beyond doubt some thinnish

specified slices from the Lombard parts; and shall proceed fighting for, not against; English Fleet

cooperating, English Purse ditto, regardless of expense; with other fit particulars, as formerly. [Scholl, ii.

330335; Adelung, iii. B, 222226; Coxe, iii. 296.] Maria Theresa, very angry, looks upon herself as a

martyr, nobly complying to suffer for the whim of England; and Robinson has had such labors and

endurances, a steamengine on the point of bursting is but an emblem of him. It was a necessary Treaty for

the Cause of Liberty, as George and Carteret, and all English Ministries and Ministers (Diana of Newcastle

very specially, in spite of Pitt and a junior Opposition Party) viewed Liberty. It was Love's last shift,Diana

having intervened upon those magnificent 'Conferences of Hanau' lately! Nevertheless Carteret was thrown

out, next year, on account of it. And Posterity is unable to conceive it; and asks always of little George, What,

in the name of wonder, had he to do there, fighting for or against, and hiring everybody he met to fight

against everybody? A King with eyes somewhat A FLEURDETETE: yes; and let us say, his Nation,

too,which has sat down quietly, for almost a century back, under mountains of nonsense, inwardly nothing

but dim Scepticism [except in the stomachic regions], and outwardly such a Trinacria of Hypocrisy

[unconscious, for most part] as never lay on an honest giant Nation before, was itself grown much of a fool,

"But the point intensely interesting to Friedrich in this Treaty of Worms was, That, in enumerating punctually

the other Treaties, old and recent, which it is to guarantee, and stand upon the basis of, there is nowhere the

least mention of Friedrich's BRESLAUANDBERLIN TREATY; thriceimportant Treaty with her

Hungarian Majesty on the Silesian matter! In settling all manner of adjoining and preceding matters, there is

nothing said of Silesia at all. Singular indeed. Treaties enough, from that of Utrecht downward, are

wearisomely mentioned here; but of the Berlin Treaty, Breslau Treaty, or any Treaty settling Silesia,much

less, of any Westminster Treaty, guaranteeing it to the King of Prussia,there is not the faintest mention!

Silesia, then, is not considered settled, by the high contracting parties? Little George himself, who guaranteed

it, in the hour of need, little more than a year ago, considers it fallen loose again in the new whirl of

contingencies? 'Patience, Madam: what was good to give is good to take!' On what precise day or month

Friedrich got notice of this expressive silence in the Treaty of Worms, we do not know; but from that

Friedrich recollects another thing, one of many others: that of those "ulterior mountains," which Austria had

bargained for as Boundary to Schlesien. Wild bare mountains; good for what? For invading Schlesien from

the Austrian side; if for nothing else conceivable! The small riddle reads itself to him so, with a painful flash

of light. [ OEuvres de Frederic, iii. 34.] Looking intensely into this matter, and putting things together,

Friedrich gets more and more the alarming assurance of the fate intended him; and that he will verily have to

draw sword again, and fight for Silesia, and as if for life. From about the end of 1743 (as I strive to compute),

there was in Friedrich himself no doubt left of it; though his Ministers, when he consulted them a good while

afterwards, were quite incredulous, and spent all their strength in dissuading a new War; now when the only

question was, How to do said War? "How to do it, to make ready for doing it? We must silently select the

ways, the methods: silent, wary,then at last swift; and the more like a lionspring, like a bolt from the blue,

The Problem was complicated, almost beyond example. The Reich, with a Kaiser reduced to such a pass, has

its potentialities of help or of hindrance,its thousandfold formulas, inane mostly, yet not inane wholly,

which interlace this matter everywhere, as with real threads, and with gossamer or apparent threads,which

it is essential to attend to. Wise head, that could discriminate the dead Formulas of such an imbroglio, from

the notdead; and plant himself upon the Living Facts that do lie in the centre there! "We cannot have a

Reichs MediationArmy, then? Nor a SwabianFranconian Army, to defend their own frontier?" No; it is

evident, none. "And there is no Union of Princes possible; no Party, anywhere, that will rise to support the

Kaiser whom all Germany elected; whom Austria and foreign England have insulted, ruined and officially

designated as nonextant?" Well, not quite No, none; YES perhaps, in some small degree,if Prussia will

step out, with drawn sword, and give signal. The Reich has its potentialities, its formulas not quite dead; but

Definite facts again are mainly twofold, and of a much more central nature. Fact FIRST: A France which sees

itself lamentably trodden into the mud by such disappointments and disgraces; which, on proposing peace,

has met insult and invasion;France will be under the necessity of getting to its feet, and striking for itself;

and indeed is visibly rising into something of determination to do it:there, if Prussia and the Kaiser are to

be helped at all, there lies the one real help. Fact SECOND: Friedrich's feelings for the poor Kaiser and the

poor insulted Reich, of which Friedrich is a member. Feelings, these, which are not "feigned" (as the English

say), but real, and even indignant; and about these he can speak and plead freely. For himself and his Silesia,

THROUGH the Kaiser, Friedrich's feelings are pungently real;and they are withal completely adjunct to

the other set of feelings, and go wholly to intensifying of them; the evident truth being, That neither he nor

Friedrich's abstruse diplomacies, and delicate motions and handlings with the Reich, that is to say, with the

Kaiser and the Kaiser's few friends in the Reich, and then again with the French, which lasted for eight or

nine months before closure (October, 1743 to June, 1744),are considered to have been a fine piece of

steering in difficult waters; but would only weary the reader, who is impatient for results and arrivals.

Ingenious Herr Professor Ranke,whose HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH consists mainly of such matter

excellently done, and offers mankind a wondrously distilled "ASTRAL SPIRIT," or ghostlike facsimile

(elegant gray ghost, with stars dimtwinkling through), of Friedrich's and other people's Diplomatizings in

this World,will satisfy the strongest diplomatic appetite; and to him we refer such as are given that way.

[Ranke, Neun Bucher Preussischer Geschichte, iii. 74137.]' "France and oneself, as SUBSTANCE of help;

but, for many reasons, give it carefully a legal German FORM or coat:" that is Friedrich's method as to

finding help. And he diligently prosecutes it;and, what is still luckier, strives to be himself at all points

Before the Year 1743 was out, Friedrich had got into serious Diplomatic Colloquy with France; suggesting,

urging, proposing, hypothetically promising. "February 21st, 1744," he secretly despatched Rothenburg to

Paris; who, in a shining manner, consults not only with the Amelots, Belleisles, but with the Chateauroux

herself (who always liked Friedrich), and with Louis XV. in person: and triumphantly brings matters to a

bearing. Ready here, on the French side; so soon as your Reich Interests are made the most of; so soon as

your Patriotic "Union of Reich's Princes" is ready! In March, 1744, the Reich side of the Affair was likewise

getting well forward ("we keep it mostly secret from the poor Kaiser, who is apt to blab"):and on May 22d,

1744, Friedrich, with the Kaiser and Two other wellaffected Parties (only two as yet, but we hope for more,

and invite all and sundry), sign solemnly their "UNION OF FRANKFURT;" famous little Fourfold outcome

of so much diplomatizing. [Ranke, ubi supra (Treaty is in Adelung, iv. 103105).] For the wellaffected

Parties, besides Friedrich, and the Kaiser himself, were as yet Two only: Landgraf Wilhelm of

HessenCassel, disgusted with the late Carteret astucities at Hanau, he is one (and hires, by and by, his poor

6,000 Hessians to the French and Kaiser, instead of to the English; which is all the help HE can give);

Landgraf Wilhelm, and for sole second to him the new KurPfalz, who also has men to hire. New KurPfalz:

our poor OLD friend is dead; but here is a new one, Karl Philip Theodor by name, of whom we shall hear

again long afterwards; who was wedded (in the FrankfurtCoronation time, as readers might have noted) to a

Granddaughter of the old, and who is, like the old, a Hereditary Cousin of the Kaiser's, and already helps

Only these Two as yet, though the whole Reich is invited to join; these, along with Friedrich and the Kaiser

himself, do now, in their general Patriotic "Union," which as yet consists only of Four, covenant, in Six

Articles, To,in brief, to support Teutschland's oppressed Kaiser in his just rights and dignities; and to do,

with the House of Austria, "all imaginable good offices" (not the least whisper of fighting) towards inducing

said high House to restore to the Kaiser his ReichsArchives, his Hereditary Countries, his necessary

Imperial Furnishings, called for by every law human and divine:in which endeavor, or innocently

otherwise, if any of the contracting parties be attacked, the others will guarantee him, and strenuously help.

"All imaginable good offices;" nothing about fighting anywhere,still less is there the least mention of

France; total silence on that head, by Friedrich's express desire. But in a Secret Article (to which France, you

may be sure, will accede), it is intimated, "That the way of good offices having some unlikelihoods, it MAY

become necessary to take arms. In which tragic case, they will, besides Hereditary Baiern (which is

INalienable, fixed as the rocks, by ReichsLaw), endeavor to conquer, to reconquer for the Kaiser, his

Kingdom of Bohmen withal, as a proper Outfit for Teutschland's Chief: and that, if so, his Prussian Majesty

(who will have to do said conquest) shall, in addition to his Schlesien, have from it the Circles of

Konigsgratz, Bunzlau and Leitmeritz for his trouble." This is the Treaty of Union, SecretArticle and all;

Done then and there; but no part of it made public, till August following, ["22d August 1744, by the Kaiser"

(Adelung, iv. 154.}] (when the upshot had come); and the Secret Bohemian Article NOT then made public,

nor ever afterwards,much the contrary; though it was true enough, but inconvenient to confess, especially

as it came to nothing. "A hypothetical thing, that," says Friedrich carelessly; "wages moderate enough, and

proper to be settled beforehand, though the work was never done." To reach down quite over the Mountains,

and have the Elbe for Silesian Frontier: this, as an occasional vague thought, or daydream in high moments,

was probably not new to Friedrich; and would have been very welcome to him,had it proved realizable,

which it did not. That this was "Friedrich's real end in going to War again," was at one time the opinion

loudly current in England and other uninformed quarters; "but it is not now credible to anybody," says Herr

Ranke; nor indeed worth talking of, except as a memento of the angry eclipses, and temporary dustclouds,

Rapidly progressive in the rear of all this, which was its legalizing German COAT, the French Treaty, which

was the interior SUBSTANCE, or muscular tissue, perfected itself under Rothenburg; and was signed June

5th, 1774 (anniversary, by accident, of that First Treaty of all, "June 5th, 1741");sanctioning, by France,

that Bohemian Adventure, if needful; minutely setting forth How, and under what contingencies, what efforts

made and what successes arrived at, on the part of France, his Prussian Majesty shall take the field; and try

Austria, not "with all imaginable good offices" longer, but with harder medicine. Of which Treaty we shall

only say farther, commiserating our poor readers, That Friedrich considerably MORE than kept his side of it;

and France very considerably LESS than hers. So that, had not there been punctual preparation at all points,

and good selfhelp in Friedrich, Friedrich had come out of this new Adventure worse than he did!

Long months ago, the Frenchas preliminary and rigorous SINE QUA NON to these Friedrich

Negotiationshad actually started work, by "declaring War on Austria, and declaring War on

England:"Not yet at War, then, after so much killing? Oh no, reader; mere "Allies" of Belligerents,

hitherto. These "Declarations" the French had made; [War on England, 15th March, 1744; on Austria, 27th

April (Adelung, iv. 78, 90).] and the French were really pushing forward, in an attitude of indignant energy,

to execute the same. As shall be noticed by and by. And through Rothenburg, through Schmettau, by many

channels, Friedrich is assiduously in communication with them; encouraging, advising, urging; their affairs

being in a sort his, ever since the signing of those mutual Engagements, May 22d, June 5th. And now enough

War lies ahead, inevitable to Friedrich. He has gradually increased his Army by 18,000; inspection more

minute and diligent than ever, has been quietly customary of late; Walrave's fortification works, impregnable

or nearly so, the work at Neisse most of all, Friedrich had resolved to SEE completed,before that French

Treaty were signed. A cautious young man, though a rapid; vividly awake on all sides. And so the

FrenchAustrian, FrenchEnglish game shall go on; the big bowls bounding and rolling (with velocities, on

courses, partly computable to a quick eye);and at the right instant, and juncture of hits, not till that nor

after that, a quick hand shall bowl in; with effect, as he ventures to hope. He knows well, it is a terrible game.

But it is a necessary one, not to be despaired of; it is to be waited for with closed lips, and played to one's

Friedrich, with the Spectre of inevitable War daily advancing on him, to him privately evident and certain if

as yet to him only, neglects in no sort the Arts and business of Peace, but is present, always with vivid

activity, in the common movement, serious or gay and festive, as the day brings it. During these Winter

months of 1743, and still more through Summer 1744, there are important War movements going on,the

French vehemently active again, the Austrians nothing behindhand,which will require some slight notice

from us soon. But in Berlin, alongside of all this, it is mere common business, diligent as ever, alternating

with Carnival gayeties, with marryings, givings in marriage; in Berlin there goes on, under halcyon weather,

the peaceable tide of things, sometimes in a high fashion, as if Berlin and its King had no concern with the

The Plauen Canal, an important navigationwork, canal of some thirty miles, joining Havel to Elbe in a

convenient manner, or even joining Oder to Elbe, is at its busiest:"it was begun June 1st, 1743 [all hands

diligently digging there, June 27th, while some others of us were employed at Dettingen,think of it!], and

was finished June 5th, 1745." [Busching, Erdbeschreibung, vi. 2192.] This is one of several such works now

January, 1744, Friedrich appoints, and briefly informs all his People of it, That any Prussian subject who

thinks himself aggrieved, may come and tell his story to the King's own self: ["January, 1744" (Rodenbeck, i.

98).]better have his story in firm succinct state, I should imagine, and such that it will hold water, in telling

it to the King! But the King is ready to hear him; heartily eager to get justice done him. A suitable boon, such

Permission, till LawReform take effect. And after LawReform had finished, it was a thing found suitable;

Again: on Friedrich's birthday, 24th January, 1744, the new Academy of Sciences had, in the Schloss of

Berlin, its first Session. But of this,in the absence of Maupertuis, Flattener of the Earth, who is still in

France, since that Mollwitz adventure; by and for behoof of whom, when he did return, and become

"Perpetual First President," many changes were made,I will not speak at present. Nor indeed afterwards,

except on good chance rising;the new Academy, with its Perpetual First President, being nothing like so

sublime an object now, to readers and me, as it then was to itself and Perpetual President and Royal Patron!

Vapid Formey is Perpetual Secretary; more power to him, as the Irish say. Poor Goldstick Pollnitz is an

Honorary Member;absent at this time in Baireuth, where those giggling Marwitzes of Wilhelmina's have

been contriving a marriage for the old fool. Of which another word soon: if we have time. Time cannot be

spent on those dim small objects: but there are two Marriages of a high order, of purport somewhat

Historical; there is Barberina the Dancer, throwing a flash through the Operatic and some other provinces: let

Marriage First, of an eminently Historical nature, is altogether Russian, or German become Russian, though

Friedrich is much concerned in it. We heard of the mad SwedishRussian War; and how Czarina Elizabeth

was kind enough to choose a Successor to the old childless Swedish King,Landgraf of HessenCassel by

nature; who has had a sorry time in Sweden, but kept merry and did not mind it much, poor old soul. Czarina

Elizabeth's one care was, That the Prince of Denmark should not be chosen to succeed, as there was talk of

his being: Sweden, Denmark, Norway, all grasped in one firm hand (as in the old "UnionofCalmar" times,

only with better management), might be dangerous to Russia. "Don't choose him of Denmark!" said

Elizabeth, the victorious Czarina; and made it a condition of granting Peace, and mostly restoring Finland, to

the infatuated Swedes. The person they did choose,satisfactory to the Czarina, and who ultimately did

become King of Sweden,was one Adolf Friedrich; a HolsteinGottorp Prince, come of Royal kin, and

cousinry to Karl XII.: he is "Bishop of Lubeck" or of Eutin, so styled; now in his thirtythird year; and at

least drawing the revenues of that See, though I think, not ecclesiastically given, but living oftener in

Hamburg, the then fashionable resort of those Northern Grandees. On the whole, a likely young gentleman;

accepted by parties concerned;and surely good enough for the Office as it now is. Of whom, for a reason

Above a year before this time, Czarina Elizabeth, a provident female, and determined not to wed, had pitched

upon her own Successor: [7th November, 1742 (Michaelis, ii. 627).] one Karl Peter Ulrich; who was also of

the same HolsteinGottorp set, though with Russian blood in him. His Grandfather was full cousin, and

chosen comrade, to Karl XII.; got killed in Karl's Russian Wars; and left a poor Son dependent on Russian

Peter the Great,who gave him one of his Daughters; whence this Karl Peter Ulrich, an orphan, dear to his

Aunt the Czarina. A Karl Peter Ulrich, who became tragically famous as Czar Peter Federowitz, or Czar Peter

III., in the course of twenty years! His Father and Mother are both dead; loving Aunt has snatched the poor

boy out of HolsteinGottorp, which is a narrow sphere, into Russia, which is wide enough; she has had him

converted to the Greek Church, named him Peter Federowitz, Heir and Successor;and now, wishing to see

Friedrich is decidedly interested; would grudge much to see an AntiPrussian Princess, for instance a Saxon

Princess (one of whom is said to Be trying), put into this important station! After a little thought, he

fixes,does the reader know upon whom? Readers perhaps, here and there, have some recollection of a

Prussian General, who is Titular Prince of AnhaltZerbst on his own score; and is actual Commandant of

Stettin in Friedrich's service, and has done a great deal of good fortification there and other good work.

Instead of Titular, he has now lately, by decease of an Elder Brother, become Actual or SemiActual (a

Brother joined with him in the poor Heirship); lives occasionally in the Schloss of Zerbst; but is glad to retain

Stettin as a solid supplement. His Wife, let the reader note farther, is Sister to the above mentioned Adolf

Friedrich, "Bishop of Lubeck," now HeirApparent to Sweden,in whom, as will soon appear, we are

otherwise interested. Wife seems to me an airy flighty kind of lady, highpaced, not too surepaced,weak

evidently in French grammar, and perhaps in human sense withal:but they have a Daughter,

SophieFrederike, now near fifteen, and very forward for her age; comely to look upon, wise to listen to: "Is

not she the suitable one?" thinks Friedrich, in regard to this matter. "Her kindred is of the oldest, old as Albert

the Bear; she has been frugally brought up, Spartanlike, though as a Princess by birth: let her cease skippiug

ropes on the ramparts yonder, with her young Stettin playmates; and prepare for being a Czarina of the

Russias," thinks he. And communicates his mind to the Czarina; who answers, "Excellent! How did I never

And so, on or about Newyear's day, 1744, while the Commandant of Stettin and his airy Spouse are doing

Christmas at their old Schloss of Zerbst, there suddenly come Estafettes; Expresses from Petersburg, heralded

by Express from Friedrich:with the astonishing proposal, "Czarina wishing the honor of a visit from

Madam and Daughter; no doubt, with such and such intentions in the rear." [Friedrich's Letters to Madam of

Zerbst (date of the first of them, 30th December, 1743), in OEuvres, xxv. 579589.] Madam, nor Daughter, is

nothing loath;the old Commandant grumbles in his beard, not positively forbidding: and in this manner,

after a Letter or two in imperfect grammar, Madam and Daughter appear in Carnival society at Berlin,

charming objects both; but do not stay long; in fact, stay only till their moneys and arrangements are

furnished them. Upon which, in all silence, they make for Petersburg, for Moscow; travel rapidly, arrive

successfully, in spite of the grim season. ["At Moscow, 7th (18th) February, 1744."] Conversion to the Greek

Religion, change of name from SophieFrederike to CatherineAlexiewna ("Let it be Catherine," said

Elizabeth, "my dear mother's name!"little brown Czarina's, whom we have seen):all this was completed

by the 12th of July following. And, in fine, next year (September 1st, 1745), Peter Federowitz and this same

CatherineAlexiewna, secondcousins by blood, were vouchsafed the Nuptial Benediction, and, with

invocation of the Russian Heaven and Russian Earth, were declared to be one flesh, [Ranke, iii. 129;

Memoires de Catherine II. (Catherine's own very curious bit of Autobiography;published by Mr. Herzen,

London, 1859), pp. 746.] though at last they turned out to be TWO FLESHES, as my reader well knows!

Some eighteen or nineteen years hence, we may look in upon them again, if there be a moment to spare. This

is Marriage first; a purely Russian one; built together and launched on its course, so to say, by Friedrich at

Marriage Second, done at Berlin in the same months, was of still more interesting sort to Friedrich and us:

that of Princess Ulrique to the abovenamed Adolf Friedrich, future King of Sweden. Marriage which went

on preparing itself by the side of the other; and was of twin importance with it in regard to the Russian

Question. The Swedish Marriage was not heard of, except in important whispers, during the Carnival time;

but a Swedish Minister had already come to Berlin on it, and was busy first in a silent and examining, then in

a speaking and proposing way. It seems, the Czarina herself had suggested the thing, as a counterpoliteness

to Friedrich; so content with him at this time. A thing welcome to Friedrich. And, in due course ("June,

1744"), there comes express Swedish Embassy, some Rodenskjold or Tessin, with a very shining train of

To which there is assent, by no means denial, in the proper quarter. Whereupon, after the widespread

necessary fuglings and preliminaries, there occurs (all by Procuration, Brother August Wilhelm doing the

Bridegroom's part), "July 17th, 1744," the Marriage itself: all done, this last act, and the foregoing ones and

the following, with a grandeur and a splendorunspeakable, we may say, in short. [ HeldenGeschichte, ii.

10451051.] Fantastic Bielfeld taxes his poor rouged Muse to the utmost, on this occasion; and becomes

positively wearisome, chanting the upholsteries of life;foolish fellow, spoiling his bits of facts withal, by

misrecollections, and even by express fictions thrown in as garnish. So that, beyond the general impression,

given in a highrouged state, there is nothing to be depended on. One Scene out of his many, which

represents to us on those terms the finale, or actual Departure of Princess Ulrique, we shall offer,with

"But, in fine, the day of departure did arrive,"eve of it did: 25th July, 1744; hour of starting to be 2 A.M.

tomorrow. "The King had nominated GrandMarshal Graf van Gotter [same Gotter whom we saw at

Vienna once: King had appointed Gotter and two others; not to say that two of the Princess's Brothers, with

her Sister the Margravine of Schwedt, were to accompany as far as Schwedt: six in all; though one's poor

memory fails one on some occasions!]to escort the Princess to Stralsund, where two Swedish Senators and

different high Lords and Ladies awaited her. Her Majesty the Queen Mother, judging by the movements of

her own heart that the moment of separation would produce a scene difficult to bear, had ordered an Opera to

divert our chagrin; and, instead of supper, a superb collation EN AMBIGU [kind of supperbreakfast, I

suppose], in the great Hall of the Palace. Her Majesty's plan was, The Princess, on coming from the Opera,

should, almost on flight, taste a morsel; take her travelling equipment, embrace her kinsfolk, dash into her

carriage, and go off like lightning. Herr Graf von Gotter was charged with executing this design, and with

"But all these precautions were vain. The incomparable Ulrique was too dear to her Family and to her

Country, to be parted with forever, without her meed of tears from them in those cruel instants. On entering

the OperaHall, I noticed everywhere prevalent an air of sorrow, of sombre melancholy. The Princess

appeared in Amazondress [ridinghabit, say], of rosecolor trimmed with silver; the little vest, turned up

with greenblue (CELADON), and collar of the same; a little bonnet, English fashion, of black velvet, with a

white plume to it; her hair floating, and tied with a rosecolored ribbon. She was beautiful as Love: but this

dress, so elegant, and so well setting off her charms, only the more sensibly awakened our regrets to lose her;

and announced that the hour was come, in which all this appeared among us for the last time. At the second

act, young Prince Ferdinand [Youngest Brother, Father of the JENA Ferdinand] entered the Royal Box; and

flinging himself on the Princess's neck with a burst of tears, said, 'Ah, my dear Ulrique, it is over, then; and I

shall never see you more!' These words were a signal given to the grief which was shut in all hearts, to burst

forth with the greatest vehemence. The Princess replied only with sobs; holding her Brother in her arms. The

Two Queens could not restrain their tears; the Princes and Princesses followed the example: grief is

epidemical; it gained directly all the Boxes of the first rank, where the Court and Nobility were. Each had his

own causes of regret, and each melted into tears. Nobody paid the least attention farther to the Opera; and for

"An involuntary movement took me towards the Palace. I entered the King's Apartments, and found the

Royal Family and part of the Court assembled. Grief had reached its height; everybody had his handkerchief

out; and I witnessed emotions quite otherwise affecting than those that Theatric Art can produce. The King

had composed an Ode on the Princess's departure; bidding her his last adieus in the most tender and touching

manner. It begins with these words: 'Partez, ma Soeur, partez; La Suede vous attend, la Suede

wishes you. [Does not now exist (see OEuvres de Frederic, xiv. 88, and ib. PREFACE p. xv).]

His Majesty gave it her at the moment when she was about to take leave of the Two Queens. [No, Monsieur,

not then; it came to her hand the second evening hence, at Schwedt; [Her own Letter to Friedrich ( OEuvres

de Frederic, xxvii. 372; "Schwedt, 28th July, 1744").] most likely not yet written at the time you fabulously

give;you foolish fantast, and "artist" of the SHAMkind!]The Princess threw her eyes on it, and fell into

a faint [No, you Sham, not for IT]: the King had almost done the like. His tears flowed abundantly. The

Princes and Princesses were overcome with sorrow. At last, Gotter judged it time to put an end to this tragic

scene. He entered the Hall, almost like Boreas in the Ballet of THE ROSE; that is to say, with a crash. He

made one or two whirlwinds; clove the press, and snatched away the Princess from the arms of the

QueenMother, took her in his own, and whisked her out of the Hall. All the world followed; the carriages

were waiting in the court; and the Princess in a moment found herself in hers. I was in such a state, I know

not how we got down stairs; I remember only that it was in a concert of lamentable sobbings. Madam the

Margrafin von Schwedt, who had been named to attend the Princess to Stralsund [read Schwedt] on the

Swedish frontier, this high Lady and the two Dames d'Atours who were for Sweden itself, having sprung into

the same carriage, the door of it was shut with a slam; the postillions cracked, the carriage shot away,and

hid the adorable Ulrique from the eyes of King and Court, who remained motionless for some minutes,

We said this Marriage was like the other, important for Public Affairs. In fact, security on the Russian and

Swedish side is always an object with Friedrich when undertaking war. "That the French bring about, help me

to bring about, a Triple Alliance of Prussia, Russia, Sweden:" this was a thing Friedrich had bargained to see

done, before joining in the War ahead: but by these Two Espousals Friedrich hopes he has himself as good as

done it. Of poor Princess Ulrique and her glorious reception in Sweden (after near miss of shipwreck, in the

Swedish Frigate from Stralsund), we shall say nothing more at present: except that her glories, all along, were

much dashed by chagrins, and dangerous imminencies of shipwreck,which latter did not quite overtake

HER, but did her sons and grandsons, being inevitable or nearly so, in that element, in the course of time.

Sister Amelia, whom some thought disappointed, as perhaps, in her foolish thought, she might a little be, was

made Abbess of Quedlinburg, which opulent benefice had fallen vacant; and, there or at Berlin, lived a

respectable Spinsterlife, doubtless on easier terms than Ulrique's. Always much loved by her Brother, and

loving him (and "taking care of his shirts," in the final times); noted in society, for her sharp tongue and

ways. Concerning whom Thiebault and his Trenck romances are worth no notice,if it be not with

horsewhips on opportunity. SCANDALUM MAGNATUM, where your Magnates are NOT fallen quite

counterfeit, was and is always (though few now reflect on it) a most punishable crime.

Princess Ulrique was hardly yet home in Sweden, when her Brother had actually gone forth upon the Wars

again! So different is outside from interior, now and then. "While the dancing and the marriagefestivities

went on at Court, we, in private, were busily completing the preparations for a Campaign," dreamed of by no

mortal, "which was on the point of being opened." [ OEuvres de Frederic, iii. 41.] July 2d, three weeks

before Princess Ulrique left, a certain Adventure of Prince Karl's in the Rhine Countries had accomplished

itself (of which in the following Book); and Friedrich could discern clearly that the moment drew rapidly

On the French side of the War, there has been visiblesince those high attempts of Britannic George and the

Hungarian Majesty, contumeliously spurning the Peace offered them, and grasping evidently at one's

Lorraines, Alsaces, and Three Bishopricsa marked change; comfortable to look at from Friedrich's side.

Most Christian Majesty, from the sad bent attitude of insulted repentance, has started up into the

perpendicular one of indignation: "Come on, then!"and really makes efforts, this Year, quite beyond

expectation. "Oriflamme enterprises, private intentions of cutting Germany in Four; well, have not I smarted

for them; as good as owned they were rather mad? But to have my apology spit upon; but to be myself

March 15h, 1744, Most Christian Majesty did, as we saw, duly declare War against England; against Austria,

April 26th: "England," he says, "broke its Convention of Neutrality (signed 27th September, 1741); broke

said Convention [as was very natural, no term being set] directly after Maillebois was gone; England, by its

Mediterranean Admirals and the like, has, to a degree beyond enduring, insulted the French coasts, harbors

and royal Navy: We declare War on England." And then, six weeks hence, in regard to Austria: "Austria,

refusing to make Peace with a virtuous Kaiser, whom we, for the sake of peace, had magnanimously helped,

and then magnanimously ceased to help;Austria refuses peace with him or us; on the contrary, Austria

attempts, and has attempted, to invade France itself: We therefore, on and from this 26th of April, 1744, let

the world note it, are at War with Austria." [In Adelung, iv. 78, 90, the two Manifestoes given.] Both these

Nor, what is far more important, have the necessary preparations been neglected; but are on a quite

unheardof scale. Such taxing and financiering there has been, last Winter:tax on your street lamp, on

your firewood, increased excise on meat and eatables of all kinds: Be patient, ye poor; consider GLOIRE,

and an ORIFLAMME so trampled on by the Austrian Heathen! Eatables, streetlamps, do I say? There is

36,000 pounds, raised by a tax onwell, on GARDEROBES (not translated)! A small help, but a help: NON

OLET, NON OLEAT. To what depths has Oriflamme come down!The result is, this Spring of 1744,

indignant France does, by land, and even by sea, make an appearance calculated to astonish Gazetteers and

men. Landforces 160,000 actually on foot: 80,000 (grows at last into 100,000, for a little while) as "Army of

the Netherlands,"to prick into Austria, and astonish England and the Dutch Barrier, in that quarter. Of the

rest, 20,000 under Conti are for Italy; 60,000 (by degrees 40,000) under Coigny for defence of the Rhine

Countries, should Prince Karl, as is surmisable, make new attempts there. [Adelung, iv. 78; Espagnac, ii. 3.]

And besides all this, there are Two strong Fleets, got actually launched, not yet into the deep sea, but ready

for it: one in Toulon Harbor, to avenge those Mediterranean insults; and burst out, in concert with an

impatient Spanish Fleet (which has lain blockaded here for a year past), on the insolent blockading English:

which was in some sort done. ["19th February, 1744," French and Spanish Fleets run out; 22d Feb. are

attacked by Matthews and Lestock; are rather beaten, not beaten nearly enough (Matthews and Lestock

blaming one another, Spaniards and French ditto, ditto: Adelung, iv. 3235); with the endless janglings,

correspondings, courtmartialings that ensue (Beatson, Naval and Military Memoirs, i. 197 et seqq.;

Gentleman's Magazine, and Old Newspapers, for 1744; The other strong Fleet, twenty sail of the line, under

Admiral Roquefeuille, is in Brest Harbor,intended for a still more delicate operation; of which anon.

Surely King Friedrich ought to admit that these are fine symptoms? King Friedrich has freely done so, all

along; intending to strike in at the right moment. Let us see, a little, how things have gone; and how the right

JANUARY 17th, 1744, There landed at Antibes on French soil a young gentleman, by name "Conte di

Spinelli," direct from Genoa, from Rome; young gentleman seemingly of small importance, but intrinsically

of considerable; who hastened off for Paris, and there disappeared. Disappeared into subterranean

consultations with the highest Official people; intending reappearance with emphasis at Dunkirk, a few weeks

hence, in much more emphatic posture. And all through February there is observable a brisk diligence of

Warpreparation, at Dunkirk: transportships in quantity, finally four warships; 15,000 chosen troops,

gradually marching in; nearly all on board, with their equipments, by the end of the month.

Clearly an Invading Army intended somewhither, England judges too well whither. AntiEnglish Armament;

to be led by, whom thinks the reader? That same "Conte di Spinelli," who is Charles Edward the Young

Pretender,Comte de Saxe commanding under him! This is no fable; it is a fact, somewhat formidable;

brought about, they say, by one Cardinal Tencin, an Official Person of celebrity in the then Versailles world;

who owes his red hat (whatever such debt really be) to old Jacobite influence, exerted for him at Rome; and

takes this method of paying his debt and his court at once. Gets, namely, his proposal, of a CharlesEdward

Invasion of England, to dovetail in with the other wide artilleries now bent on little George in the way we see.

Had not little George better have stayed at home out of these Pragmatic Wars? Fifteen thousand, aided by the

native Jacobite hosts, under command of Saxe,a Saxe against a Wade is fearful odds,may make some

figure in England! We hope always they will not be able to land. Imagination may conceive the flurry, if not

of Britannic mankind, at least of Britannic Majesty and his Official People, and what a stir and din they

"SATURDAY, 1st MARCH, 1744. For nearly a week past, there has been seen hanging about in the Channel,

and dangerously hovering to and fro [had entered by the Land'sEnd, was first noticed on Sunday last "nigh

the Eddistone"] a considerable French Fleet, sixteen great ships; with four or five more, probably belonging

to it, which now lie off Dunkirk: the intention of which is too well known in high quarters. This is the grand

Brest Fleet, Admiral Roquefeuille's; which believes it can command the Channel, in present circumstances,

the English ChannelFleets being in a disjoined condition,till Comte de Saxe, with his CharlesEdward

and 15,000, do ship themselves across! Great alarm in consequence; our Warforces, 40,000 of them, all in

Germany; not the least preparation to receive an Invasive Armament. Comte de Saxe is veritably at Dunkirk,

since Saturday, March 1st: busy shipping his 15,000; equipments mostly shipped, and about 10,000 of the

men: all is activity there; Roquefeuille hanging about Dungeness, with four of his twenty great ships detached

for more immediate protection of Saxe and those Dunkirk industries. To meet which, old Admiral Norris, off

and on towards the Nore and the Forelands, has been doing his best to rally force about him; hopes he will

"THURSDAY, 6th MARCH. Afternoon of March 5th, old Admiral Norris, hoping he was at length in

something like equality, 'tided it round the South Foreland;' saw Roquefeuille hanging, in full tale, within few

miles;and at once plunged into him? No, reader; not at once, nor indeed at all. A great seafight was

expected; but our old Norris thought it late in the day;and, in effect, no fight proved needful. Daylight was

not yet sunk, when there rose from the north eastward a heavy gale; blew all night, and by six next morning

was a raging storm; had blown Roquefeuille quite away out of those waters (fractions of him upon the rocks

of Guernsey); had tumbled Comte de Saxe's Transports bottom uppermost (so to speak), in Dunkirk

Roads;and, in fact, had blown the Enterprise over the horizon, and relieved the Official Britannic mind in

"M. le Comte de Saxewho had, by superhuman activity, saved nearly all his men, in that hideous

topsyturvy of the Transports and munitionsreturned straightway, and much more M. le Comte de Spinelli

with him, to Paris. Comte de Saxe was directly thereupon made Marechal de France; appointed to be

Colleague of Noailles in the ensuing Netherlands Campaign. 'Comte de Spinelli went to lodge with his Uncle,

the Cardinal GrandAlmoner FitzJames' [a zealous gentleman, of influence with the Holy Father], and there

in privacy to wait other chances that might rise. 'The 1,500 silver medals, that had been struck for distribution

in Great Britain,' fell, for this time, into the meltingpot again. [Tindal, xxi. 22 (mostly a puddle of

inaccuracies, as usual); Espagnac, i. 213; Gentleman's Magazine, xiv. 106, Barbier, ii. 382, 385, 388.]

"Great stir, in British Parliament and Public, there had latterly been on this matter: Arrestment of suspected

persons, banishment of all Catholics ten miles from London; likewise registering of horses (to gallop with

cannon whither wanted); likewise improvising of cavalry regiments by persons of condition, 'Set our plush

people on our coachhorses; there!' [Yes, THERE will be a Cavalry,inferior to General Ziethen's!]; and

were actually drilling them in several places, when that fortunate blast of storm (March 6th) blew everything

to quiet again. Fieldmarshal Earl of Stair, in regard to the Scottish populations, had shown a noble

magnanimity; which was recognized: and a General Sir John Cope rode off, post haste, to take the chief

command in that Country;where, in about eighteen months hence, he made a very shining thing of

"FRIDAY, 31st (20th) MARCH, 1744, A general press began for recruiting his Majesty's regiments, and

manning the Fleet; when upwards of 1,000 men were secured in the jails of London and Westminster; being

allowed sixpence a head per diem, by the Commissioners of the Landtax, who examine them, and send

those away that are found fit for his Majesty's service. The same method was taken in each County." Press

ceases; enough being got,press no more till farther order: 5th (16th) June. [ Gentleman's Magazine for

Britannic Majesty shaken by such omens, does not in person visit Germany at all this Year; nor, by his

Deputies, at all shine on the fields of War as lately. He, his English and he, did indeed come down with their

cash in a prompt and manful manner, but showed little other activity this year. Their troops were already in

the Netherlands, since Winter last; led now by a Fieldmarshal Wade, of whom one has heard; to whom

joined themselves certain Austrians, under Duc d'Ahremberg, and certain Dutch, under some other man in

cockedhat: the whole of whom, under Marshal Wade's chief guidance, did as good as nothing whatever.

"Inferior in force!" cried Marshal Wade; an indolent incompetent old gentleman, frightful to see in command

of troops: "inferior in force!" cried he, which was not at first quite the case. And when, by additions to

himself, and deductions (of a most unexpected nature) from his Enemy, he had become nearly double in

force, it was all the same: Marshal Wade (against whom indeed was Marechal de Saxe, now in sole

command, as we shall see) took shelter in safe places, witnessing therefrom the swift destruction of the

Netherlands, and would attempt nothing. Which indeed was perhaps prudent on the Marshal's part. Much

money was spent, and men enough did puddle themselves to death on the clay roads, or bivouacking in the

safe swamps; but not the least stroke of battle was got out of them under this old Marshal. Had perhaps "a

divided command, though nominal Chief," poor old gentleman;yes, and a head that understood nothing of

his business withal. One of those same astonishing "Generals" of the English, now becoming known in

Natural History; the like of whom, till within these hundred and fifty years, were not heard of among sane

Nations. Saxe VERSUS Wade is fearful odds. To judge by the way Saxe has of handling Wade, may not we

thank Heaven that it was not HERE in England the trial came on! Lift up both your hands, and blessnot

February 7th, 1744, Karl Eugen, the young Duke of Wurtemberg, Friedrich having got, from the Kaiser,

due Dispensation (VENIA AETATIS) for the young gentleman, and had him declared Duke Regnant, though

only sixteen,quitted Berlin with great pomp, for his own Country, on that errand. Friedrich had hoped

hereby to settle the Wurtemberg matters on a good footing, and be sure of a friend in Wurtemberg to the

Kaiser and himself. Which hope, like everybody's hopes about this young gentleman, was entirely

disappointed; said young gentleman having got into perverse, haughty, sulky, illconditioned ways, and

made a bad Life and Reign of it,better to lie mostly hidden from us henceforth, at least for many years to

come. The excellent Parting Letter which Friedrich gave him got abroad into the world; was christened the

MIRROR OF PRINCES, and greatly admired by mankind. It is indeed an almost faultless Piece of its kind;

comprising, in a flowing yet precise way, with admirable frankness, sincerity, sagacity, succinctness, a Whole

Duty of Regnant Man; [In OEuvres de Frederic, ix. 47.]but I fear it would only weary the reader; perfect

ADVICE having become so plentiful in our Epoch, with little but "pavement" to a certain Locality the

consequence! There is, of the same months, a TESTIMONIAL TO POLLNITZ, which also got abroad and

had its celebrity: this, as specimen of Friedrich on the comic side, will perhaps be less afflicting; and it will

Goldstick Pollnitz is at Baireuth in these months; fallen quite disconsolate since we last heard of him. His

fine marriage went awry,rich lady, very wisely, drawing back;and the foolish old creature has decided

on REchanging his religion; which he has changed already thrice or so, in his vagabond straits; for the

purpose of "retiring to a convent" this time. Friedrich, in candid brief manner, rough but wise, and not

without some kindness for an old dog one is used to, has answered, "Nonsense; that will never do!" But

Pollnitz persisting; formally demanding leave to demit, and lay down the goldstick, with that

view,Friedrich does at length send him Certificate of Leave; "which is drawn out with all the forms, and

was despatched through Eichel to the proper Board;" but which bears date APRIL FIRST, and though

officially valid, is of quizzical nature:perhaps already known to some readers; having got into the

Newspapers, and widely abroad, at a subsequent time. As authentic sample of Friedrich in that kind, here it

"Whereas the Baron de Pollnitz, born at Berlin [at Koln, if it made any matter], of honest parents so far as We

know,after having served Our Grandfather as Gentleman of the Chamber, Madam d'Orleans [wicked

Regent's Mother, a famed German Lady] in the same rank, the King of Spain in quality of Colonel, the

deceased Kaiser in that of Captain of Horse, the Pope as Chamberlain, the Duke of Brunswick as

Chamberlain, Duke of Weimar as Ensign, our Father as Chamberlain, and, in fine, Us as Grand Master of the

Ceremonies,"has, in spite of such accumulation of honors, become disgusted with the world; and requests

"We, remembering his important services to the House, in diverting for nine years long the late King our

Father, and doing the honors of our Court during the now Reign, cannot refuse such request; but do hereby

certify, That the said Baron has never assassinated, robbed on the highway, poisoned, forcibly cut purses, or

done other atrocity or legal crime at our Court; but has always maintained gentlemanly behavior, making not

more than honest use of the industry and talents he has been endowed with at birth; imitating the object of the

Drama, that is, correcting mankind by gentle quizzing; following, in the matter of sobriety, Boerhaave's

counsels; pushing Christian charity so far as often to make the rich understand that it is more blessed to give

than to receive; possessing perfectly the anecdotes of our various Mansions, especially of our wornout

Furnitures; rendering himself, by his merits, necessary to those who know him; and, with a very bad head,

"Our anger the said Baron never kindled but once,"in atrociously violating the grave of an Ancestress (or

Step Ancestress) of ours. [StepAncestress was Dorothea, the Great Elector's second Wife; of whom Pollnitz,

in his Memoirs and Letters, repeats the rumor that once she, perhaps, tried to poison her Stepson Friedrich,

First King. (See supra, vol. v. p. 47).] "But as the loveliest countries have their barren spots, the beautifulest

forms their imperfections, pictures by the greatest masters their faults, We are willing to cover with the veil

of oblivion those of the said Baron; do hereby grant him, with regret, the Congee he requires;and abolish

his Office altogether, to blot it from men's memory, not judging that anybody after the said Baron can be

worthy to fill it. "Done at Potsdam, this 1st of April, 1744. FREDERIC." [ OEuvres, xv. 193.]

The Office of Grand Master of the Ceremonies was, accordingly, abolished altogether. But Pollnitz, left loose

in this manner, did not gallop direct, or go at all, into monkhood, as he had expected; but, in fact, by degrees,

crept home to Berlin again; took the subaltern post of Chamberlain; and there, in the old fashion (straitened in

finance, making loans, retailing anecdotes, not witty but the cause of wit), wore out life's gray evening; till,

about thirty years hence, he died; "died as he had lived, swindling the very night before his decease," writes

Friedrich; [Letter to Voltaire, 13th August, 1775 ( OEuvres de Frederic, xxiii. 344). See Preuss, v. 241

(URKUNDENBUCH), the Letters of Friedrich to Pollnitz.] who was always rather kind to the poor old dog,

Early in May, the Berlin public first saw its Barberina dance, and wrote ecstatic Latin Epigrams about that

miracle of nature and art; [Rodenbeck, pp. 111, 190.]miracle, alas, not entirely omissible by us. Here is her

Story, as the Books give it; slightly mythical, I judge, in some of its nonessential parts; but good enough for

Barberina the Dancer had cost Friedrich some trouble; the pains he took with her elegant pirouettings and

poussettings, and the heavy salary he gave her, are an unexpected item in his history. He wished to favor the

Arts, yes; but did he reckon Operadancing a chief one among them? He had indeed built an OperaHouse,

and gave free admissions, supporting the cost himself; and among his other governings, governed the dancer

and singer troops of that establishment. Took no little trouble about his Opera:yet perhaps he privately

knew its place, after all. "Wished to encourage strangers of opulent condition to visit his Capital," say the

cunning ones. It may be so; and, at any rate, he probably wished to act the King in such matters, and not

grudge a little money. He really loved music, even opera music, and knew that his people loved it; to the

rough natural man, all rhythm, even of a Barberina's feet, may be didactic, beneficial: do not higgle, let us do

what is to be done in a liberal style. His agent at Venice for he has agents everywhere on the outlook for

himreports that here is a Female Dancer of the first quality, who has shone in London, Paris and the

Capital Cities, and might answer well, but whose terms will probably be dear. "Engage her," answers

Friedrich. And she is engaged on pretty terms; she will be free in a month or two, and then start.

[Zimmermann, Fragmente uber Friedrich den Grossen (Leipzig, 1790), i. 8892; Collini, ubi infra; Denina;

Well;but Barberina had, as is usual, subsidiary trades to her dancing: in particular, a young English

Gentleman had followed her up and down, says Zimmermann, and was still here in Venice passionately

attached to her. Which fact, especially which young English gentleman, should have been extremely

indifferent to me, but for a circumstance soon to be mentioned. The young English gentleman, clear against

Barberina's Prussian scheme, passionately opposes the same, passionately renews his own offers;induces

Barberina to inform the Prussian agent that she renounces her engagement in that quarter. Prussian agent

answers that it is not renounceable; that he has legal writing on it, and that it must be kept. Barberina rises

into contumacy, will laugh at all writing and compulsion. Prussian agent applies to Doge and Senate on the

subject, in his King's name; who answer politely, but do nothing: "How happy to oblige so great a King;

but" And so it lasts for certain months; Barberina and the young English gentleman contumacious in

Meanwhile a Venetian Ambassador happens to be passing through Berlin, in his way to or from some

Hyperborean State; arrives at some hotel, in Berlin;finds, on the morrow, that his luggage is arrested by

Royal Order; that he, or at least IT, cannot get farther, neither advance nor return, till Barberina do come.

"Impossible, Signor: a bargain is a bargain; and States ought to have lawcourts that enforce contracts

entered into in their territories." The Venetian Doge and Senate do now lay hold of Barberina; pack her into

postchaises, off towards Berlin, under the charge of armed men, with the proper transitpapers,as it were

under the address, "For his Majesty of Prussia, this side uppermost,"and thus she actually is conveyed, date

or month uncertain, by Innspruck or the Splugen, I cannot say which, over mountain, over valley, from

country to country, and from stage to stage, till she arrives at Berlin; Ambassador with baggage having been

As for the young English gentleman passionately attached, he followed, it is understood; faithful, constant as

shadow to the sun, always a stage behind; arrived in Berlin two hours after his Barberina, still passionately

attached; and now, as the rumor goes, was threatening even to marry her, and so save the matter. Supremely

indifferent to my readers and me. But here now is the circumstance that makes it mentionable. The young

English is properly a young Scotch gentleman; James Mackenzie the name of him,a grandson of the

celebrated Advocate, Sir George Mackenzie; and younger Brother of a personage who, as Earl of Bute,

became extremely conspicuous in this Kingdom in after years. That makes it mentionable,if only in the

shape of MYTH. For Friedrich, according to rumor, being still like to lose his Dancer in that manner, warned

the young gentleman's friends; and had him peremptorily summoned home, and the light fantastic toe left free

in that respect. Which procedure the indignant young gentleman (thinks my Author) never forgave;

continuing a hater of Friedrich all his days; and instilling the same sentiment into the Earl of Bute at a period

which was very critical, as we shall see. This is my Author's, the often fallacious though not mendacious Dr.

Zimmermann's, rather deliberate account; a man not given to mendacity, though filled with much vague

Readers of Walpole's George the Third know enough of this Mackenzie, "Earl's Brother, MACKINSY," and

the sorrowful difficulties about his Scotch lawoffice or benefice; in which matter "Mackinsy" behaves

always in a high way, and only the Ministerial Outs and Inns higgle pedlerlike, vigilant of the Liberties of

England, as they call them. In the end, Mackinsy kept his lawoffice or got it restored to him; 3,000 pounds a

year without excess of work; a man much the gentleman, according to the rule then current: in contemplative

rare moments, the man, looking back through the dim posterns of the mind, might see afar off a certain

pirouetting Figure, once far from indifferent, and not yet quite melted into cheerless gray smoke, as so much

of the rest is to Mr. Mackinsy and us. I have made, in the Scotch Mackenzie circles, what inquiry was due;

find no evidence, but various likelihoods, that this of the Barberina and him is fact, and a piece of his

biography. As to the inference deduced from it, in regard to Friedrich and the Earl of Bute, on a critical

occasion, that rests entirely with Zimmermann; and the candid mind inclines to admit that, probably, it is

but rumor and conjecture; streetdust sticking to the Doctor's shoes, and demanding merely to be well swept

Barberina, though a dancer, did not want for more essential graces. Very sprightly, very pretty and intelligent;

not without piquancy and pungency: the King himself has been known to take tea with her in mixed society,

though nothing more; and with passionate young gentlemen she was very successful. Not long after her

coming to Berlin, she made conquest of Cocceji, the celebrated Chancellor's Son; who finding no other

resource, at length privately married her. Voltaire's Collini, when he came to Berlin, in 1750, recommended

by a Signora Sister of the Barberina's, found the Barberina and her Mother dining daily with this Cocceji as

their guest: [Collini, Mon Sejour aupres de Voltaire (a Paris, 1807), pp. 1319.] Signora Barberina privately

informed Collini how the matter was; Signorina still dancing all the same,though she had money in the

English funds withal; and Friedrich had been so generous as give her the fixing of her own salary, when she

came to him, thissideuppermost, in the way we described. She had fixed, too modestly thinks Collini, on

5,000 thalers (about 750 pounds) a year; having heart and head as well as heels, poor little soul. Perhaps her

notablest feat in History, after all, was her leading this Collini, as she now did, into the service of Voltaire, to

be Voltaire's Secretary. As will be seen. Whereby we have obtained a loyal little Book, more credible than

At a subsequent period, Barberina decided on declaring her marriage with Cocceji; she drew her money from

the English funds, purchased a fine mansion, and went to live with the said Cocceji there, giving up the Opera

and public pirouettes. But this did not answer either. Cocceji's Mother scorned irreconcilably the Opera

alliance; Friedrich, who did not himself like it in his Chancellor's Son, promoted the young man to some

higher post in the distant Silesian region. But there, alas, they themselves quarrelled; divorced one another;

and rumor again was busy. "You, Cocceji yourself, are but a schoolmaster's grandson [Barberina, one easily

supposes, might have a temper withal]; and it is I, if you will recollect, that drew money from the English

funds!" Barberina married again; and to a nobleman of sixteen quarters this time, and with whom at least

there was no divorce. Successful with passionate gentlemen; having money from the English funds. Her last

name was GrafinnI really know not what. Her descendants probably still live, with sixteen quarters, in

those parts. It was thus she did her lifejourney, waltzing and walking; successfully holding her own against

the world. History declares itself ashamed of spending so many words on such a subject. But the Dancer of

Friedrich, and the authoress, prime or proximate, of Collini's Voltaire, claims a passing remembrance. Let us,

May 25th, 1744, just while Barberina began her pirouettings at Berlin, poor Karl Edzard, Prince of East

Friesland, long a weak malingering creature, died, rather suddenly; childless, and the last of his House, which

had endured there about 300 years. Our clever Wilhelmina at Baireuth, though readers have forgotten the

small circumstance, had married a superfluous Sisterinlaw of hers to this Karl Edward; and, they say, it

was some fond hope of progeny, suddenly dashed into nothingness, that finished the poor man, that night of

May 25th. In any case, his Territory falls to Prussia, by Reich's Settlement of long standing (16831694);

which had been confirmed anew to the late King, Friedrich Wilhelm: we remember how he returned with

it, honest man, from that KLADRUP JOURNEY in 1732, and was sniffed at for bringing nothing better. And

in the interim, his royal Hanover Cousins, coveting East Friesland, had clapt up an ERBVERBRUDERUNG

with the poor Prince there (Father, I think, of the one just dead): "A thing ULTRA VIRES," argued Lawyers;

"private, quasiclandestine; and posterior (in a sense) to Reich's CONCLUSUM, 1694."

On which ground, however, George II. now sued Fricdrich at Reich's Law,Friedrich, we need not say,

having instantly taken possession of OstFriesland. And there ensued arguing enough between them, for

years coming; very great expenditure of parchment, and of mutual barking at the moon (done always by

proxy, and easy to do); which doubtless increased the mutual illfeeling, but had no other effect. Friedrich,

who had been well awake to OstFriesland for some time back, and had given his Official people (Cocceji

his Minister of Justice, Chancellor by and by, and one or two subordinates) their precise Instructions, laid

hold of it, with a maximum of promptitude; thereby quashing a great deal of much more dangerous litigation

"In all Germany, not excepting even Mecklenburg, there had been no more anarchic spot than OstFriesland

for the last sixty or seventy years. A Country with parliamentarylife in extraordinary vivacity (rising indeed

to the suicidal or internecine pitch, in two or three directions), and next to no regentlife at all. A Country

that had loved Freedom, not wisely but too well! Ritter Party, Prince's Party, Towns' Party;always two or

more internecine Parties: 'False Parliament you: traitors!' 'We? False YOU, traitors!'The Parish Constable,

by general consent, kept walking; but for Government there was this of the Parliamentary Eloquences (three

at once), and Freedom's battle, fancy it, bequeathed from sire to son! 'The late Karl Edzard never once was in

Embden, his chief Town, though he lived within a dozen miles of it.'And then, still more questionable, all

these energetic little Parties had applied to the Neighboring Governments, and had each its small Foreign

Battalion, 'To protect US and our just franchises!' Imperial Reich'sSafeguard Battalion, Dutch Battalion,

Danish Battalion,Prussian, it first of all was (year 1683, Town of Embden inviting the Great Elector), but it

is not so now. The Prussians had needed to be quietly swift, on that 25th day of May, 1744.

"And truly they were so; Cocceji having all things ready; leading partymen already secured to him, troops

within call, and the like. The PrussiansEmbden TownCouncils inviting their astonished Dutch Battalion

not to be at homemarched quietly into Embden 'next day,' and took possession of the guns. Marched to

Aurich (official metropolis), Danes and Imperial Safeguard saying nothing; and, in short, within a week had,

in their usual exact fashion, got firm hold of chaotic OstFriesland. And proceeded to manage it, in like

sort,with effects soon sensible, and steadily continuing. Their Parliamentarylife Friedrich left in its full

vigor: 'Tax yourselves; what revenue you like; and see to the outlay of it yourselves. Allow me, as

LANDESHERR, some trifle of overplus: how much, then? Furthermore a few recruits,or recruit money

in lieu, if you like better!' And it was astonishing how the Parliamentary vitality, not shortened of its least

franchise, or coerced in any particular, but merely stroked the right way of the hair, by a gently formidable

hand, with good head guiding, sank almost straightway into dovelife, and never gave Friedrich any trouble,

whatever else it might do. The management was good; the opportunity also was good. 'In one sitting, the

Prussian Agent, arbitrating between Embden and the Ritters, settled their controversy, which had lasted fifty

years.' The poor Country felt grateful, which it might well do; as if for the laying of goblins, for the ending of

longcontinued local typhoon! Friedrich's first Visit, in 1751, was welcomed with universal jubilation; and

poor OstFriesland thanked him in still more solid ways, when occasion rose. [Ranke, iii. 370382.]

"It is not an important Country:only about the size of Cheshire; wet like it, and much inferior to it in

cheese, in resources for leather and livestock, though it perhaps excels, again, in clover seeds, rapeseeds,

Flanders horses, and the flax products. The 'clear overplus' it yielded to Friedrich, as Sovereign Administrator

and Defender, was only 3,200 pounds; for recruit MONEY, 6,000 pounds (no recruits in CORPORE); in all,

little more than 9,000 pounds a year. But it had its uses too. Embden, bigger than Chester, and with a better

harbor, was a place of good trade; and brought Friedrich into contact with seamatters; in which, as we shall

find, he did make some creditable incipiencies, raising expectations in the world; and might have carried it

Friedrich was at Pyrmont, taking the waters, while this of Friesland fell out; he had gone thither May 20th;

was just arrived there, four days before the death of Karl Edzard. [Rodenbeck, p. 102.] His Officials, well

preinstructed, managed the Ost Friesland Question mainly themselves. Friedrich was taking the waters;

ostensibly nothing more. But he was withal, and still more earnestly, consulting with a French Excellency

(who also had felt a need of the waters), about the French Campaign for this Season: Whether Coigny was

strong enough in the MiddleRhine Countries; how their Grand Army of the Netherlands shaped to prosper;

and other the like interesting points. [Ranke, iii. 165, 166.] Frankfurt Union is just signed (May 22d). Most

Christian Majesty is himself under way to the Netherlands, himself going to command there, as we shall see.

"Good!" answers Friedrich: "But don't weaken Coigny, think of Prince Karl on that side; don't detach from

Plenty of mutual consulting, as they walk in the woods there. And how profoundly obscure, to certain

Official parties much concerned, judge from the following small Document, preserved by accident:

LYTTELTON (our old Soissons Friend, now an Official in Prince Fred's Household, friend of Pitt, and much

ARGYLE STREET, LONDON, "May 5th [16th], 1744. "DEAR SIR,Mr. West [Gilbert West, of whom

there is still some memory] comes with us to Hagley; and, if you give me leave, I will bring our friend

Thomson too"oh Jamie Thamson, Jamie Thamson, oh! "His SEASONS will be published in about a

"I have no public news to tell you, which you have not had in the Gazettes, except what is said in Private

Letters from Germany, of the King of Prussia's having drunk himself into direct madness, and being confined

on that account; which, if true, may have a great effect upon the fate of Europe at this critical time." Yes

indeed, if true. "Those Letters say, that, at a review, he caused two men to be taken out of the line, and shot,

without any cause assigned for it, and ordered a third to be murdered in the same manner; but the Major of

the regiment venturing to intercede for him, his Majesty drew his sword, and would have killed the Officer

too, if he, perceiving his madness, had not taken the liberty to save himself, by disarming the King; who was

immediately shut up; and the Queen, his Mother, has taken the Regency upon herself till his recovery."

PAPAE! "I do not give you this news for certain; but it is generally believed in town. Lord Chesterfield says,

'He is only thought to be MAD in Germany, because he has MORE WIT than other Germans.'

"The King of Sardinia's Retreat from his lines at Villa Franca, and the loss of that Town [20th April, one of

those furious tussles, French and Spaniard VERSUS Sardinian Majesty, in the COULISSES or sidescenes

of the Italian WarTheatre, neither stage nor side scenes of which shall concern us in this place], certainly

bear a very ill aspect; but it is not considered as"anything to speak of; nor was it. "We expect with

impatience to know what will be the effect of the Dutch Ambassador to Paris,[to Valenciennes, as it turns

out, King Louis, on his high errand to the Netherlands, being got so far; and the "effect" was no effect at all,

except good words on his part, and persistence in the battering down of Menin and the Dutch Barrier, of

"I pray God the Summer may be happy to us, by being more easy than usual to you,"dear Father, much

suffering by incurable ailments. "It is the only thing wanting to make Hagley Park a Paradise.

"Poor Pope is, I am afraid, going to resign all that can die of him to death;"did actually die, 30th May (10th

June): a worldtragedy that too, though in small compass, and acting itself next door, at Twickenham,

without noise; a star of the firmament going out; twinstar, Swift (Carteret's old friend), likewise going

out, sunk in the socket, "a driveller and a show." ... "I am, with the truest respect and affection, dear Sir, your

"GEORGE LYTTELTON." [Ayscough, Lord Lyttelton's Miscellaneous Works, (Lond., 1776), iii. 318.]

Friedrich returned from Pyrmont, 11th June; saw, with a grief of his own, with many thoughts well hidden,

his Sister Ulrique whirled away from him, 26th July, in the gray of the summer dawn. In Berlin, in Prussia,

nobody but one is aware of worse just coming. And now the Wardrums suddenly awaken again; and poor

readersnot to speak of poor Prussia and its King!must return to that uncomfortable sphere, till things

Battle being once seen to be inevitable, it was Friedrich's plan not to wait for it, but to give it. Thanks to

Friedrich Wilhelm and himself, there is no Army, nor ever was any, in such continual preparation. Military

people say, "Some Countries take six months, some twelve, to get in motion for war: but in three weeks

Prussia can be across the marches, and upon the throat of its enemy." Which is an immense advantage to little

Prussia among its big neighbors. "Some Countries have a longer sword than Prussia; but none can unsheathe

The French, as was intimated, are in great vigor, this Year; thoroughly provoked; and especially since

Friedrich sent his Rothenburg among them, have been doing their very utmost. Their main effort is in the

Netherlands, at present;and indeed, as happened, continues all through this War to be. They by no means

intend, or ever did, to neglect Teutschland; yet it turns out, they have pretty much done with their fighting

there. And next Year, driven or led by accidents of various kinds, they quit it altogether; and turning their

whole strength upon the Netherlands and Italy, chiefly on the Netherlands, leave Friedrich, much to his

astonishment, with the German War hanging wholly round HIS neck, and take no charge of it farther! In

which, to Friedrich's Biographers, there is this inestimable benefit, if far the reverse to Friedrich's self: That

we shall soon have done with the French, then; with them and with so much else; and may, in time coming,

for most part, leave their huge Sorcerer's Sabbath of a European War to dance itself out, well in the distance,

not encumbering us farther, like a circumambient Bedlam, as it has hitherto done. Courage, reader! Let us

give, in a glance or two, some notion of the course things took, and what moment it was when Friedrich

struck in;whom alone, or almost alone, we hope to follow thenceforth; "Dismal Swamp" (so gracious was

It was mere accident, a series of bad accidents, that led King Louis and his Ministers into gradually forsaking

Friedrich. They were the farthest in the world from intending such a thing. Contrariwise, what brainbeating,

diplomatic spiderweaving, practical contriving, now and afterwards, for that object; especially now!

Rothenburg, Noailles, Belleisle, Cardinal Tencin, have been busy; not less the mistress Chateauroux, who

admires Friedrich, being indeed a highminded unfortunate female, as they say; and has thrown out Amelot,

not for stammering alone. They are able, almost high people, this new Chateauroux Ministry, compared with

Nay, what is most important of all, France has (unconsciously, or by mere help of Noailles and luck) got a

real General to her Armies: Comte de Saxe, now Marechal de Saxe; who will shine very splendent in these

Netherland operations,countershone by mere Wades, D'Ahrembergs, Cumberlands,in this and the Four

following Years. Noailles had always recognized Comte de Saxe; had long striven for him, in Official

quarters; and here gets the light of him unveiled at last, and set on a high place: loyal Noailles.

This was the Year, this 1744, when Louis XV., urged by his Chateauroux, the highsouled unfortunate

female, appeared in person at the head of his troops: "Go, Sire, go, MON CHOU (and I will accompany);

show yourself where a King should be, at the head of your troops; be a second LouisleGrand!" Which he

did, his Chateauroux and he; actually went to the Netherlands, with baggage train immeasurable, including

not cooks only, but playactors with their thunderbarrels (off from Paris, May 3d), to the admiration of the

Universe. [Adelung, iv. 113; Barbier, ii. 391, 394; Dulaure, Hist. de Paris; Took the command,

BOOK XV. SECOND SILESIAN WAR, IMPORTANT EPISODE IN THE GENERAL EUROPEAN ONE. 15th Aug. 174425th Dec. 1745. 837

nominalcommand, first days of June; and captured in notime Menin, Ipres, Furnes, and the Fort of Knock,

and as much of the Austrian Netherlands as he liked,that is to say, saw Noailles and Saxe do it;walking

rapidly forward from Siege to Siege, with a most thundering artillery; old Marshal Wade and consorts

dismally eating their victuals, and looking on from the distance, unable to attempt the least stroke in

opposition. So that the Dutch Barrier, if anybody now cared for it, did go all flat; and the Balance of Power

gets kicked out of its sacred pivot: to such purpose have the Dutch been hoisted! Terrible to think of;had

not there, from the opposite quarter, risen a surprising counterpoise; had not there been a Prince Karl, with his

70,000, pressing victoriously over the Rhine; which stayed the French in these sacrilegious procedures.

Prince Karl, some weeks ago, at Heilbronn, joined his Rhine Army, which had gathered thither from the

Austrian side, through Baiern, and from the HitherAustrian or Swabian Winterquarters; with full intent to

be across the Rhine, and home upon Elsass and the Compensation Countries, this Summer, under what

difficulties soever. Karl, or, as some whisper, old Marshal Traun, who is nominally second in command, do

make a glorious campaign of it, this Year;and lift the Cause of Liberty, at one time, to the highest pitch it

ever reached. Here, in brief terms, is Prince Karl's Operation on the Rhine, much admired by military men:

"STOCKSTADT, JUNE 20th, 1744. Some thirty and odd miles north of Mannheim, the Rhine, before turning

westward at Mainz, makes one other of its many Islands (of which there are hundreds since the leap at

Schaffhausen): one other, and I think the biggest of them all; perhaps two miles by five; which the Germans

call KUHKOPF (Cowhead), from the shape it has,a narrow semiellipse; River there splitting in two, one

split (the western) going straight, the other bending luxuriantly round: so that the HIND head or straight end

of the Island lies towards France, and the round end, or cowLIPS (so to speak) towards native Teutschland,

and the woody Hills of the BergStrasse thereabouts. Stockstadt, chief little Town looking over into this

Cowhead Island, lies under the CHIN: understand only farther that the German branch carries more than

twothirds of the River; that on the Island itself there is no town, or post of defence; and that Stockstadt is the

place for getting over. Coigny and the French, some 40,000, are guarding the River hereabouts, with lines,

with batteries, cordons, the best they can; Seckendorf, with 20,000 more ('Imperial' Old Bavarian Troops,

revivified, recruited by French pay), is in his garrison of Philipsburg, ready to help when needed:"not

moulting now, at Wembdingen, in that dismal manner; newfeathered now into "Kaiser's Army;" waiting in

his Philipsburg to guard the River there. "Coigny's French have ramparts, ditches, not quite unfurnished, on

their own shore, opposite this Cowhead Island (ISLE DE HERON, as they call it); looking over to the

hindhead, namely: but they have nothing considerable there; and in the Island itself, nothing whatever. 'If

now Stockstadt were suddenly snatched by us,' thinks Karl;'if a few pontoons were nimbly swung in?'

"JUNE 20th,Coigny's people all shooting FEUDEJOIE, for that never enough to be celebrated Capture

of Menin and the Dutch Barrier a fortnight ago,this is managed to be done. The active General Barenklau,

active Brigadier Daun under him, pushes rapidly across into Kuhkopf; rapidly throws up intrenchments,

ramparts, mounts cannon, digs himself in,greatly to Coigny's astonishment; whose people hereabouts, and

in all their lines and posts, are busy shooting FEUDEJOIE for those immortal Dutch victories, at the

moment, and never dreaming of such a thing. Fresh force floods in, Prince Karl himself arrives next day, in

support of Barenklau; Coigny (headquarters at Speyer, forty miles south) need not attempt dislodging him;

but must stand upon his guard, and prepare for worse. Which he does with diligence; shifting northward into

those StockstadtMainz parts; calling Seckendorf across the River, and otherwise doing his best,for about

"No attempt was made on Barenklau; nor, beyond the alarming of the CoignySeckendorf people, did

anything occur in Cowhead Island, unless it were the finis of an ugly bully and ruffian, who has more than

once afflicted us: which may be worth one word. Colonel Mentzel [copperfaced Colonel, originally

BOOK XV. SECOND SILESIAN WAR, IMPORTANT EPISODE IN THE GENERAL EUROPEAN ONE. 15th Aug. 174425th Dec. 1745. 838

Playactor, "Spy in Persia," and I know not what] had been at the seizure of Kuhkopf; a prominent man.

Whom, on the fifth day after ('June 25th'), Prince Karl overwhelmed with joy, by handing him a Patent of

Generalcy: 'Just received from Court, my Friend, on account of your merits old and late.''Aha,' said

Barenklau, congratulating warmly: 'Dine with me, then, Herr General Mentzel, this very day. The Prince

himself is to be there, Highness of HessenDarmstadt, and who not; all are impatient to drink your health!'

Mentzel had a glorious dinner; still more glorious drink,Prince Karl and the others, it is said, egging him

into much wild bluster and gasconade, to season their much wine. Eminent swill of drinking, with the loud

coarse talk supposable, on the part of Mentzel and consorts did go on, in this manner, all afternoon: in the

evening, drunk Mentzel came out for air; went strutting and staggering about; emerging finally on the

platform of some rampart, face of him huge and red as that of the foggiest rising Moon;and stood, looking

over into the Lorraine Country; belching out a storm of oaths, as to his taking it, as to his doing this and that;

and was even flourishing his sword by way of accompaniment; when, lo, whistling slightly through the

summer air, a rifleball from some sentry on the French side (writers say, it was a French drummer, grown

impatient, and snatching a sentry's piece) took the brain of him, or the belly of him; and he rushed down at

once, a totally collapsed monster, and mere heap of dead ruin, never to trouble mankind more." [ Guerre de

Boheme, iii. 165.] For which my readers and I are rather thankful. Voltaire, and perhaps other memorable

persons, sometimes mention this brute (miraculous to the Plebs and Gazetteers); otherwise eternal oblivion

were the best we could do with him. Trenck also, readers will be glad to understand, ends in jail and bedlam

"Prince Karl had not the least intention of crossing by this Cowhead Island. Nevertheless he set about two

other Bridges in the neighborhood, nearer Mainz (few miles below that City); kept manoeuvring his Force, in

huge halfmoon, round that quarter, and mysteriously up and down; alarming Coigny wholly into the Mainz

region. For the space of ten days; and then, stealing off to Schrock, a little Rhine Village above Philipsburg,

"NIGHT OF 30th JUNE1st JULY, Suddenly shot Pandour Trenck, followed by Nadasti and 6,000, across at

Schrock who scattered Seckendorf's poor outposts thereabouts to the winds; 'built a bridge before morning,

and next day another.' Next day Prince Karl in person appeared; and on the 3d of July, had his whole Army

with its luggages across; and had seized the Lines of Lauterburg and Weissenburg (celebrated northern

defence of Elsass),much to Coigny's amazement; and remained inexpugnable there, with Elsass open to

him, and to Coigny shut, for the present! [Adelung, iv. 139141.] Coigny made bitter wail, accusation, blame

of Seckendorf, blame of men and of things; even tried some fighting, Seckendorf too doing feats, to recover

those Lines of Weissenburg: but could not do it. And, in fact, blazing to and fro in that excited rather than

luminous condition, could not do anything; except retire into the strong posts of the background; and send

express on express, swifter than the wind if you can, to a victorious King overturning the Dutch Barrier:

"Admirable feat of Strategy! What a General, this Prince Karl!" exclaimed mankind,CauseofLiberty

mankind with special enthusiasm; and took to writing LIVES of Prince Karl, [For instance, The Life of his

Highness Prince Charles of with (London, 1746); one of the most distracted Blotches ever published under

the name of Book; wakening thoughts of a public dimness very considerable indeed, to which this could

offer itself as lamp!] as well as tarburning and TEDEUMing on an extensive scale. For it had sent the

Cause of Liberty bounding up again to the top of things, this of crossing the Rhine, in such fashion. And, in

effect, the Cause of Liberty, and Prince Karl himself, had risen hereby to their acme or culminating point in

WorldHistory; not to continue long at such height, little as they dreamt of that, among their tarburnings.

The feat itselfcontrived by Nadasti, people say, and executed (what was the real difficulty) by

Traunbrought Prince Karl very great renown, this Year; and is praised by Friedrich himself, now and

afterwards, as masterly, as Julius Caesar's method, and the proper way of crossing rivers (when executable) in

face of an enemy. And indeed Prince Karl, owing to Traun or not, is highly respectable in the way of

Generalship at present; and did in these Five Months, from June onward, really considerable things. At his

BOOK XV. SECOND SILESIAN WAR, IMPORTANT EPISODE IN THE GENERAL EUROPEAN ONE. 15th Aug. 174425th Dec. 1745. 839

very acme of Life, as well as of Generalship; which, alas, soon changed, poor man; never to culminate again.

He had got, at the beginning of the Year, the high Maria Theresa's one Sister, Archduchess Maria Anna, to

Wife; [Age then twentyfive gone: "born 14th September, 1718; married to Prince Karl 7th January, 1744;

died, of childbirth, 16th December same year" (Hormayr, OEsterreichischer Plutarch, iv. erstes Baudchen,

54).] the crown of long mutual attachment; she safe now at Brussels, diligent CoRegent, and in a promising

familyway; he here walking on victorious:need any man be happier? No man can be supremely happy

long; and this General's strategic felicity and his domestic were fatally cut down almost together. The Cause

of Liberty, too, now at the top of its orbit, wasBut let us stick by our Excerpting:

"DUNKIRK, 19th JULY, 1744 [Princess Ulrique's Wedding, just two days ago]. King Louis, on hearing of

the Job'snews from Elsass, instantly suspended his Conquests in Flanders; detached Noailles, detached this

one and that, doublequick, Division after Division (leaving Saxe, with 45,000, to his own resources, and the

fatuities of Marshal Wade); and, 19th July, himself hastens off from Dunkirk (leaving much of the luggage,

but not the Chateauroux behind him), to save his Country, poor soul. But could not, in the least, save it; the

reverse rather. August 4th, he got to Metz, Belleisle's strong town, about 100 miles from the actual scene; his

detached reinforcements, say 50,000 men or so, hanging out ahead like flame clouds, but uncertain how to

act;Noailles being always cunctatious in time of crisis, and poor Louis himself nothing of a

"METZ, AUGUST 8th, The Most Christian King fell ill; dangerously, dreadfully, just like to die. Which

entirely paralyzed Noailles and Company, or reduced them to mere hysterics, and excitement of the

unluminous kind. And filled France in general, Paris in particular, with terror, lamentation, prayers of forty

hours; and such a paroxysm of heroworship as was never seen for such an object before." [Espagnac, ii. 12;

For the Cause of Liberty here, we consider, was the culminating moment; Elsass, Lorraine and the Three

Bishoprics lying in their quasimoribund condition; Austrian claims of Compensation ceasing to be visions

of the heated brain, and gaining some footing on the Earth as facts. Prince Karl is here actually in Elsass,

master of the strong passes; elate in heart, he and his; France, again, as if fallen paralytic, into temporary

distraction; offering for resistance nothing hitherto but that universal wailing of mankind, Heroworship of a

thricelamentable nature, and the Prayers of FortyHours! Most Christian Majesty, now IN EXTREMIS,

centre of the basest hubbub that ever was, is dismissing Chateauroux. Noailles, Coigny and Company hang

well back upon the Hill regions, and strong posts which are not yet menaced; or fly vaguely, more or less

distractedly, hither and thither; not in the least like fighting Karl, much less like beating him. Karl has

Germany free at his back (nay it is a German population round him here); neither haversack nor

cartridgebox like to fail: before him are only a Noailles and consorts, flying vaguely about;and there is in

Karl, or under the same cloak with him at present, a talent of manoeuvring men, which even Friedrich finds

masterly. If old Marshal Wade, at the other end of the line, should chance to awaken and press home on Saxe,

and his remnant of French, with right vigor? In fact, there was not, that I can see, for centuries past, not even

King Friedrich, on hearing of these Rhenish emergencies and of King Louis's heroic advance to the rescue,

perceived that for himself too the moment was come; and hastened to inform heroic Louis, That though the

terms of their Bargain were not yet completed, Sweden, Russia and other points being still in a pendent

condition, he, Friedrich,with an eye to success of their Joint Adventure, and to the indispensability of joint

action, energy, and the top of one's speed now or never,would, by the middle of this same August, be on

the field with 100,000 men. "An invasion of Bohemia, will not that astonish Prince Karl; and bring him to his

RhineBridges again? Over which, if your Most Christian Majesty be active, he will not get, except in a half,

BOOK XV. SECOND SILESIAN WAR, IMPORTANT EPISODE IN THE GENERAL EUROPEAN ONE. 15th Aug. 174425th Dec. 1745. 840

or wholly ruined state. Follow him close; send the rest of your force to threaten Hanover; sit well on the skirts

of Prince Karl. Him as he hurries homeward, ruined or halfruined, him, or whatever Austrian will fight, I do

my best to beat. We may have Bohemia, and a beaten Austria, this very Autumn: see,and, in one

Campaign, there is Peace ready for us!" This is Friedrich's scheme of action; success certain, thinks he, if

only there be energy, activity, on your side, as there shall be on mine; and has sent Count Schmettau, filled

with fiery speed and determination, to keep the French full of the like, and concert mutual operations.

"Magnanimous!" exclaim Noailles and the paralyzed French Gentlemen (King Louis, I think, now past

speech, for Schmettau only came August 9th): "Most sublime behavior, on his Prussian Majesty's part!" own

they. And truly it is a fine manful indifference (by no means so common as it should be) to all interests, to all

considerations, but that of a Joint Enterprise one has engaged in. And truly, furthermore, it was immediate

salvation to the paralyzed French Gentlemen, in that alarming crisis; though they did not much recognize it

afterwards as such: and indeed were conspicuously forgetful of all parts of it, when their own danger was

Maria Theresa's feelings may be conceived; George II's feelings; and what the Cause of Liberty in general

felt, and furiously said and complained, whensuddenly as a DEUS EX MACHINA, or Supernal Genie in

the Minor TheatresFriedrich stept in. Precisely in this supreme crisis, 7th August, 1744, Friedrich's

Minister, Graf von Dohna, at Vienna, has given notice of the Frankfurt Union, and solemn Engagement

entered into: "Obliged in honor and conscience; will and must now step forth to right an injured Kaiser;

cannot stand these high procedures against an Imperial Majesty chosen by all the Princes of the Reich, this

unheardof protest that the Kaiser is no Kaiser, as if all Germany were but Austria and the Queen of

Hungary's. Prussian Majesty has not the least quarrel of his own with the Queen of Hungary, stands true, and

will stand, by the Treaty of Berlin and Breslau;only, with certain other German Princes, has done what all

German Princes and peoples not Austrian are bound to do, on behalf of their downtrodden Kaiser, formed a

Union of Frankfurt; and will, with armed hand if indispensable, endeavor to see right done in that matter." [In

Adelung, iv. 155, 156, the Declaration itself (Audience, "7th August, 1744." Dohna off homeward "on the

This is the astonishing fact for the Cause of Liberty; and no clamor and execration will avail anything. This

man is prompt, too; does not linger in getting out his Sword, when he has talked of it. Prince Karl's Operation

is likely to be marred amazingly. If this swift King (comparable to the old Serpent for devices) were to burst

forth from his Silesian strengths; tread sharply on the TAIL of Prince Karl's Operation, and bring back the

formidably fanged head of IT out of Alsace, five hundred miles all at once,there would be a business!

We will now quit the Rhine Operations, which indeed are not now of moment; Friedrich being suddenly the

key of events again. I add only, what readers are vaguely aware of, that King Louis did not die; that he lay at

death's door for precisely one week (8th15th August), symptoms mending on the 15th. In the

interim,Grand Almoner FitzJames (Uncle of our Conte di Spinelli) insisting that a certain Cardinal, who

had got the Sacraments in hand, should insist; and endless ministerial intrigue being busy,moribund Louis

had, when it came to the Sacramental point, been obliged to dismiss his Chateauroux. Poor Chateauroux; an

unfortunate female; yet, one almost thinks, the best man among them: dismissed at Metz here, and like to be

mobbed! That was the one issue of King Louis's deathsickness. Sublime sickness; during which all Paris

wept aloud, in terror and sorrow, like a child that has lost its mother and sees a mastiff coming; wept

sublimely, and did the Prayers of FortyHours; and called King Louis Le BIENAIME (The Well

beloved):merely some obstruction in the royal bowels, it turned out;a good cathartic, and the Prayers of

FortyHours, quite reinstated matters. Nay reinstated even Chateauroux, some time after,"the Devil being

well again," and, as the Proverb says, quitting his monastic view. Reinstated Chateauroux: but this time, poor

creature, she continued only about a day:"Sudden fever, from excitement," said the Doctors: "Fever?

Poison, you mean!" whispered others, and looked for changes in the Ministry. Enough, oh, enough!

BOOK XV. SECOND SILESIAN WAR, IMPORTANT EPISODE IN THE GENERAL EUROPEAN ONE. 15th Aug. 174425th Dec. 1745. 841

Old Marshal Wade did not awaken, though bawled to by his Ligoniers and others, and much shaken about,

poor old gentleman. "No artillery to speak of," murmured he; "want baggagewagons, too!" and lay still.

"Here is artillery!" answered the Official people; "With my own money I will buy you baggagewagons!"

answered the high Maria Anna, in her own name and her Prince Karl's, who are JointGovernors there.

Possibly he would have awakened, had they given him time. But time, in War especially, is the thing that is

never given. Once Friedrich HAD struck in, the moment was gone by. Poor old Wade! Of him also enough.

It was on Saturday, "early in the morning," 15th August, 1744, that Friedrich set out, attended by his two

eldest Brothers, Prince of Prussia and Prince Henri, from Potsdam, towards this new Adventure, which

proved so famous since. Sudden, swift, to the world's astonishment;actually on march here, in three

Columns (two through Saxony by various routes southeastward, one from Silesia through Glatz

southwestward), to invade Bohemia: rumor says 100,000 strong, fact itself says upwards of 80,000, on their

various routes, converging towards Prag. [ HeldenGeschichte, ii. 1165. Orlich (ii. 25, 27) enumerates the

various regiments.] His Columns, especially his Saxon Columns, are already on the road; he joins one

Column, this night, at Wittenberg; and is bent, through Saxony, towards the frontiers of Bohemia, at the

Through Saxony about 60,000 go: he has got the Kaiser's Order to the Government of Saxony, "Our august

Ally, requiring on our Imperial business a transit through you;"and Winterfeld, an excellent soldier and

negotiator, has gone forward to present said Order. A Document which flurries the Dresden Officials beyond

measure. Their King is in Warsaw; their King, if here, could do little; and indeed has been inclining to Maria

Theresa this long while. And Winterfeld insists on such despatch;and not even the Duke of Weissenfels is

in Town, Dresden Officials "send off five couriers and thirteen estafettes" to the poor old Duke;

[ HeldenGeschichte, ii. 1163.] get him at last; and The march is already taking effect; they may as well

consent to it: what can they do but consent! In the uttermost flurry, they had set to fortifying Dresden; all

hands driving palisades, picking, delving, making COUPURES (trenches, or sunk barricades) in the

streets;fatally aware that it can avail nothing. Is not this the Kaiser's Order? Prussians, to the amount of

"Friedrich's Manifestounder the modest Title, 'ANZEIGE DER URSACHEN (Advertisement of the

Causes which have induced his Prussian Majesty to send the Romish Kaiser's Majesty some Auxiliary

Troops)'had appeared in the Berlin Newspapers Thursday, 13th, only two days before. An astonishment to

all mankind; which gave rise to endless misconceptions of Friedrich: but which, supporting itself on proofs,

on punctually excerpted footnotes, is intrinsically a modest, quiet Piece; and, what is singular in

Manifestoes, has nothing, or almost nothing, in it that is not, so far as it goes, a perfect statement of the fact.

'Auxiliary troops, that is our essential character. No war with her Hungarian Majesty, or with any other, on

our own score. But her Hungarian Majesty, how has she treated the Romish Kaiser, her and our and the

Reich's Sovereign Head, and to what pass reduced him; refusing him Peace on any terms, except those of

selfannihilation; denying that he is a Kaiser at all;'and enumerates the various Imperial injuries, with

proof given, quiet footnotes by way of proof; and concludes in these words: 'For himself his Majesty requires

nothing. The question here is not of his Majesty's own interest at all [everything his Majesty required, or

requires, is by the Treaty of Berlin solemnly his, if the Reich and its Laws endure]: and he has taken up arms

simply and solely in the view of restoring to the Reich its freedom, to the Kaiser his Headship of the Reich,

and to all Europe the Peace which is so desirable.' [Given in Seyfarth, Beylage, i. 121136, with date

"'Pretences, subterfuges, lies!' exclaimed the Austrian and Allied Public everywhere, or strove to exclaim;

especially the English Public, which had no difficulty in so doing;a Public comfortably blank as to German

facts or nonfacts; and finding with amazement only this a very certain fact, That hereby is their own

Pragmatic thunder checked in midvolley in a most surprising manner, and the triumphant Cause of Liberty

brought to jeopardy again. 'Perfidious, ambitious, capricious!' exclaimed they: 'a Prince without honor,

without truth, without constancy;'and completed, for themselves, in hot rabid humor, that English Theory

of Friedrich which has prevailed ever since. Perhaps the most surprising item of which is this latter, very

prominent in those old times, That Friedrich has no 'constancy,' but follows his 'caprices,' and accidental

whirls of impulse:item which has dropped away in our times, though the others stand as stable as ever. A

monument of several things! Friedrich's suddenness is an essential part of what fighting talent he has: if the

Public, thrown into flurry, cannot judge it well, they must even misjudge it: what help is there?

"That the above were actually Friedrich's reasons for venturing into this Big Game again, is not now

disputable. And as to the rumor, which rose afterwards (and was denied, and could only be denied

diplomatically to the ear, if even to the ear), That Friedrich by Secret Article was 'to have for himself the

Three Bohemian Circles, Konigsgratz, Bunzlau, Leitmeritz, which lie between Schlesien and Sachsen,'

[ HeldenGeschichte, i. 1081; Scholl, ii. 349.]there is not a doubt but Friedrich had so bargained, 'Very

well, if we can get said Circles!' and would right cheerfully have kept and held them, had the big game gone

in all points completely well (game, to reinstate the Kaiser BOTH in Bohemia and Bavaria) by Friedrich's

fine playing. Not a doubt of all this:nor of what an extremely hypothetic outlook it then and always was;

Friedrich goes in Three Columns. One, on the south or left shore of the Elbe, coming in various branches

under Friedrich himself; this alone will touch on Dresden, pass on the south side of Dresden; gather itself

about Pirna (in the Saxon Switzerland so called, a notable locality); thence over the Metal Mountains into

Bohmen, by Toplitz, by Lowositz, Leitmeritz, and the Highway called the Pascopol, famous in War. The

Second Column, under Leopold the Young Dessauer, goes on the other or north side of the Elbe, at a fair

distance; marching through the Lausitz (rendezvous or startingpoint was Bautzen in the Lausitz) straight

south, to meet the King at Leitmeritz, where the grand Magazine is to be; and thence, still south, straight

upon Prag, in conjunction with his Majesty or parallel to him. [ HeldenGeschichte, i. 1081.] These are the

Two Saxon Columns. The Third Column, under Schwerin, collects itself in the interior of Silesia; is issuing,

by Glatz Country, through the Giant Mountains, BOHMISCHE KAMME (Bohemian COMBS as they are

called, which Tourists know), by the Pass of Braunau,disturbing the dreams of Rubezahl, if Rubezahl

happen to be there. This, say 20,000, will come down upon Prag from the eastern side; and be first on the

ground (31st August),first by one day. In the home parts of Silesia, well eastward of Glatz, there is left

another Force of 20,000, which can go across the Austrian Border there, and hang upon the Hills, threatening

And so, in its Three Columns, from west, from north, from east, the march, with a steady swiftness, proceeds.

Important especially those Two Saxon Columns from west and north: 60,000 of them, "with a frightful

(ENTSETZLICH) quantity of big guns coming up the Elbe." Much is coming up the Elbe; indispensable

Highway for this Enterprise. Three months' provisions, endless artillery and provender, is on the Elbe; 480

big boats, with immense VORSPANN (of tracehorses, dreadful swearing, too, as I have heard), will pass

through the middle of Dresden: not landing by any means. "No, be assured of it, ye Dresdeners, all flurried,

palisaded, barricaded; no hair of you shall be harmed." After a day or two, the flurry of Saxony subsided;

Prussians, under strict discipline, molest no private person; pay their way; keep well aloof, to south and to

north, of Dresden (all but the necessary ammunitionescorts do); and require of the Official people

nothing but what the Law of the Reich authorizes to "Imperial Auxiliaries" in such case. "The Saxons

themselves," Friedrich observes, "had some 40,000, but scattered about; King in Warsaw:dreadful terror;

making COUPURES and TETESDEPONT;could have made no defence." Had we diligently spent eight

days on them! reflects he afterwards. "To seize Saxony [and hobble it with ropes, so that at any time you

could pin it motionless, and even, if need were, milk the substance out of it], would not have detained us

eight days." [ OEuvres de Frederic, iii. 53.] Which would have been the true plan, had we known what was

getting ready there! Certain it is, Friedrich did no mischief, paid for everything; anxious to keep well with

Saxony; hoping always they might join him again, in such a Cause. "Cause dear to every Patriot German

Prince," urges Friedrich,though Bruhl, and the Polish, once "Moravian," Majesty are of a very different

"Maria Theresa, her thoughts at hearing of it may be imagined: 'The Evil Genius of my House afoot again!

My high projects on Elsass and Lorraine; Husband for Kaiser, Elsass for the Reich and him, Lorraine for

myself and him; gone probably to water!' Nevertheless she said (an Official person heard her say), 'My right

is known to God; God will protect me, as He has already done.' [ HeldenGeschichte, ii. 1024.] And rose

very strong, and magnanimously defiant again; perhaps, at the bottom of her heart, almost glad withal that

she would now have a stroke for her dear Silesia again, unhindered by Paladin George and his Treaties and

notions. What measures, against this nefarious Prussian outbreak, hateful to gods and men, are possible, she

rapidly takes: in Bohemia, in Bavaria and her other Countries, that are threatened or can help. And abates

nothing of heart or hope; praying withal, immensely, she and her People, according to the mode they have.

Sending for Prince Karl, we need not say, double quick, as the very first thing.

"Of Maria Theresa in Hungary,for she ran to Presburg again with her woes (August 16th, Diet just

assembling there),let us say only that Hungary was again chivalrous; that old Palfy and the general

Hungarian Nation answered in the old tone,VIVAT MARIA; AD ARMA, AD ARMA! with Tolpatches,

Pandours, Warasdins;and, in short, that great and small, in infinite 'Insurrection,' have still a stroke of

battle in them PRO REGE NOSTRO. Scarcely above a District or two (as the JASZERS and KAUERS, in

their overcautious way) making the least difficulty. Much enthusiasm and unanimity in all the others; here

and there a Hungarian gentleman complaining scornfully that their troops, known as among the best fighters

in Nature, are called irregular troops,irregular, forsooth! In one public consultation [District not important,

not very spellable, though doubtless pronounceable by natives to it], a gentleman suggests that 'Winter is

near; should not there be some slight provision of tents, of shelter in the frozen sleety Mountains, to our

gallant fellows bound thither?' Upon which another starts up, 'When our Ancestors came out of Asia Minor,

over the Palus Maeotis bound in winter ice; and, sabre in hand, cut their way into this fine Country which is

still ours, what shelter had they? No talk of tents, of barracks or accommodation there; each, wrapt in his

sheep skin, found it shelter sufficient. Tents!' [ Helden Geschichte, ii. 1030.] And the thing was carried by

"Wide wail in Bohemia that War is coming back. Nobility all making off, some to Vienna or the intermediate

Towns lying thitherward, some to their Countryseats; all out of Prag. Willing mind on the part of the

Common People; which the Government strains every nerve to make the most of. Here are fasts, processions,

Prayers of Forty Hours; here, as in Vienna and elsewhere. In Vienna was a Three Days' solemn Fast: the

like in Prag, or better; with procession to the shrine of St. Vitus,little likely to help, I should fear. 'Rise, all

fencible men,' exclaims the Government,'at least we will ballot, and make you rise:'Militia people enter

Prag to the extent of 10,000; like to avail little, one would fear. General Harsch, with reinforcement of real

soldiers, is despatched from Vienna; Harsch, one of our ablest soldiers since Khevenhuller died, gets in still

in time; and thus increases the Garrison of regulars to 4,000, with a vigorous Captain to guide it. Old Count

Ogilvy, the same whom Saxe surprised two years ago in the moonlight, snatching ladders from the

gallows,Ogilvy is again Commandant; but this time nominal mainly, and with better outlooks, Harsch

being under him. In relays, 3,000 of the Militia men dig and shovel night and day; repairing, perfecting the

ramparts of the place. Then, as to provisions, endless corn is introduced,farmers forced, the unwilling at

the bayonet's point, to deliver in their corn; much of it in sheaf, so that we have to thrash it in the

marketplace, in the streets that are wide: and thus in Prag is heard the sound of flails, among the

Militiadrums and so many other noises. With the great churchorgans growling; and the bass and treble

MISERERE of the poor superstitious People rising, to St. Vitus and others. In fact, it is a general Dance of St.

Vitus, except that of the flails, and Militiamen working at the ramparts,mostly not leading

anywhither." ["LETTER from a Citizen of Prag," date, 21st Sept. (in HeldenGeschichte, ii. 1168), which

Meanwhile Friedrich's march from west, from north, from east, is flowing on; diligent, swift; punctual to its

times, its places; and meets no impediment to speak of. At Tetschen on the SaxonBohemian Frontier,a

pleasant Schloss perched on its crags, as Tourists know, where the Elbe sweeps into Saxon Switzerland and

its long stone labyrinths,at Tetschen the Austrians had taken post; had tried to block the River, driving

piles into it, and tumbling boulders into it, with a view to stop the 480 Prussian Boats. These people needed

to be torn out, their piles and they: which was done in two days, the soldier part of it; and occupied the

boatmen above a week, before all was clear again. Prosperous, correct to program, all the rest; not needing

"AUGUST 15th, 1744, King left Potsdam; joined his First Column that night, at Wittenberg. Through

Mieissen, Torgau, Freyberg; is at Peterswalde, eastern slope of the Metal Mountains, August 25th; all the

"Friedrich had crossed Elbe by the Bridge of Meissen: on the southern shore, politely waiting to receive his

Majesty, there stood Feldmarschall the Duke of Weissenfels; to whom the King gave his hand," no doubt in

friendly style, "and talked for above half an hour,"with such success! thinks Friedrich by and by. We have

heard of Weissenfels before; the same poor Weissenfels who was Wilhelmina's Wooer in old time, now on

the verge of sixty; an extremely polite but weakish old gentleman; accidentally preserved in History. One of

those conspicuous "Human Clothes Horses" (phantasmal all but the digestive part), which abound in that

Eighteenth Century and others like it; and distress your Historical studies. Poor old soul; now Feldmarschall

and Commander inChief here. Has been in Turk and other Wars; with little profit to himself or others.

Used to like his glass, they say; is still very poor, though now Duke in reality as well as title (succeeded two

egregious Brothers, some years since, who had been spendthrift): he has still one other beating to get in this

world, from Friedrich next year. Died altogether, two years hence; and Wilhelmina heard no more of him.

"At Meissen Bridge, say some, was this Halfhour's Interview; at Pirna, the Bridge of Pirna, others say; [See

Orlich, ii. 25; and HeldenGeschichte, ii. 1166.]quite indifferent to us which. At Pirna, and hither and

thither in Saxon Switzerland, Friedrich certainly was. 'Who ever saw such positions, your Majesty?' For

Friedrich is always looking out, were it even from the window of his carriage, and putting military problems

to himself in all manner of scenery, 'What would a man do, in that kind of ground, if attacking, if attacked?

with that hill, that brook, that bit of bog?' and advises every Officer to be continually doing the like.

[MILITARY INSTRUCTIONS? RULES FOR A GOOD COMMANDER OF have, for certain, read this

Passage; but the reference is gone again, like a sparrow from the house top!] That is the value of picturesque

or other scenery to Friedrich, and their effect on good Prussian Officers and him.

"... At Tetschen, Colonel Kahlbutz," diligent Prussian Colonel, "plucks out those 100 Austrians from their

rock nest there; makes them prisoners of war;which detained the Leitmeritz branch of us two days. August

28th, junction at Leitmeritz thereupon. Magazine established there. Boats coming on presently. Friedrich

himself camped at Lobositz in this part,"Lobositz, or Lowositz, which he will remember one day.

"AUGUST 29th, March to Budin; that is, southward, across the Eger, arrive within forty miles of Prag.

Austrian Bathyani, summoned hastily out of his Bavarian posts, to succor in this pressing emergency, has

arrived in these neighborhoods,some 12,000 regulars under him, preceded by clouds of hussars, whom

Ziethen smites a little, by way of handsel;no other Austrian force to speak of hereabouts; and we are now

"SEPTEMBER 1st, To Mickowitz, near Welwarn, twenty miles from Prag. September 2d, Camp on the

And so they are all assembled about Prag, begirdling the poor City,third Siege it has stood within these

three years (since that moonlight November night in 1741);and are only waiting for their heavy artillery to

begin battering. The poor inhabitants, in spite of three sieges; the 10,000 raw militiamen, mostly of

Hungarian breed; the 4,000 regulars, and Harsch and old Ogilvy, are all disposed to do their best. Friedrich is

naturally in haste to get hold of Prag. But he finds, on taking survey: that the sword inhand method is not

now, as in 1741, feasible at all; that the place is in good posture of strength; and will need a hot battering to

tear it open. Owing to that accident at Tetschen, the siege cannon are not yet come up: "Build your batteries,

your Moldau bridges, your communications, till the cannon come; and beware of Bathyani meddling with

"Bathyani is within twenty miles of us, at Beraun, a compact little Town to southwest; gathering a Magazine

there; and ready for enterprises,in more force than Friedrich guesses. 'Drive him out, seize that Magazine

of his!' orders Friedrich (September 5th); and despatches General Hacke on it, a right man,"at whose

wedding we assisted (wedding to an heiress, long since, in Friedrich Wilhelm's time), if anybody now

remembered. "And on the morrow there falls out a pretty little 'Action of Beraun,' about which great noise

was made in the Gazettes PRO and CONTRA: which did not dislodge Bathyani by airy means; but which

might easily have ruined the impetuous Hacke and his 6,000, getting into masked batteries, Pandour

whirlwinds, charges of horses 'from front, from rear, and from both flanks,'had not he, with masterly

promptitude, whirled himself out of it, snatched instantly what best post there was, and defended himself

inexpugnably there, for six hours, till relief came." [DIE BEY BERAUN VORGEFALLENE ACTION (in

Seyfarth, Beylage, i. 136, 137).] Brilliant little action, well performed on both sides, but leading to nothing;

and which shall not concern us farther. Except to say that Bathyani did now, more at his leisure, retire out of

harm's way; and begin collecting Magazines at Pilsen far rearward, which may prove useful to Prince Karl, in

Siegecannon having at last come (September 8th), the batteries are all mounted:on Wednesday, 9th, late

at night, the Artillery, "in enormous quantity," opens its dread throat; poor Prag is startled from its bed by

torrents of shot, solid and shell, from three different quarters; and makes haste to stand to its guns. From three

different quarters; from Bubenetsch northward; from the Upland of St. Lawrence (famed WEISSENBERG,

or WhiteHill) westward; and from the Ziscaberg eastward (Hill of Zisca, where iron Zisca posted himself on

a grand occasion once),which latter is a broad long Hill, west end of it falling sheer over Prag; and on

another point of it, highest point of all, the Praguers have a strong battery and works. The Prag guns

otherwise are not too effectual; planted mostly on low ground. By much the best Prag battery is this of the

Ziscaberg. And this, after two days' experience had of it, the Prussians determine to take on the morrow.

SEPTEMBER 12th, Schwerin, who commands on that side, assaults accordingly; with the due steadfastness

and stormfulness: throwing shells and balls by way of prelude. Friedrich, with some group of staffofficers

and dignitaries, steps out on the Bubenetsch post, to see how this affair of the Ziscaberg will prosper: the

Praguers thereabouts, seeing so many dignitaries, turn cannon on them. "Disperse, IHR HERREN; have a

care!" cried Friedrich; not himself much minding, so intent upon the Ziscaberg. And could have skipt

indifferently over your cannonballs ploughing the ground,had not one fateful ball shattered out the life of

poor Prince Wilhelm; a good young Cousin of his, shot down here at his hand. Doubtless a sharp moment for

the King. Prince Margraf Wilhelm and a poor young page, there they lie dead; indifferent to the Ziscaberg

and all coming wars of mankind. Lamentation, naturally, for this young man,Brother to the one who fell at

Mollwitz, youngest Brother of the Margraf Karl, who commands in this Bubenetsch redoubt:But we must

lift our eyeglass again; see how Schwerin is prospering. Schwerin, with due steadfastness and stormfulness,

after his prelude of bombshells, rushes on doublequick; cannot be withstood; hurls out the Praguers, and

Their grand Zisca redoubt is gone, then; and two subsidiary small redoubts behind it withal, which the French

had built, and named "the magpienests (NIDS A PIE);" these also are ours. And we overhang, from our

Zisca Hill, the very roofs, as it were; and there is nothing but a long bare curtain now in this quarter, ready to

be battered in breach, and soon holed, if needful. It is not needful,not quite. In the course of three days

more, our Bubenetsch battery, of enormous power, has been so diligent, it has set fire to the Watermill;

burns irretrievably the Watermill, and still worse, the wooden Sluice of the Moldau; so that the river falls to

the everywhere wadable pitch. And Governor Harsch perceives that all this quarter of the Town is open to

White flag accordingly (Tuesday, 15th): "Free withdrawal, to the Wischerad; won't you?" "By no manner of

means!" answers Friedrich. Bids Schwerin from his Ziscaberg make a hole or two in that "curtain" opposite

him; and gets ready for storm. Upon which Harsch, next morning, has to beat the chamade, and surrender

Prisoner of War. And thus, Wednesday, 16th, it is done: a siege of one week, no more,after all that

thrashing of grain, drilling of militia, and other spirited preparation. Harsch could not help it; the Prussian

cannonading was so furious. [Orlich, ii. 3639; HeldenGeschichte, i. 1082, and ii. 1168; OEuvres de

Prag has to swear fealty to the Kaiser; and "pay a ransom of 200,000 pounds." Drilled militia, regulars,

Hungarians, about 16,000,only that many of the Tolpatches contrived to whisk loose,are marched

prisoners to Glatz and other strong places. Prag City, with plenty of provision in it, is ours. A brilliant

beginning of a Campaign; the eyes of all Europe turned again, in very various humor, on this young King. If

only the French do their duty, and hang well on the skirts of Marshal Traun (or of Prince Karl, the Cloak of

This electrically sudden operation on Prag was considered by astonished mankind, whatever else they might

think about it, a decidedly brilliant feat of War: falling like a bolt out of the blue,like three bolts, suddenly

coalescing over Prag, and striking it down. Friedrich himself, though there is nothing of boast audible here or

anywhere, was evidently very well satisfied; and thought the aspects good. There is Prince Karl whirling

instantly back from his Strasburg Prospects; the general St. Vitus Dance of Austrian things rising higher and

higher in these home parts:reasonable hope that "in the course of one Campaign," proud obstinate Austria

might feel itself so wrung and screwed as to be glad of Peace with neighbors not wishing War. That was the

young King's calculation at this time. And, had France done at all as it promised,or had the young King

himself been considerably wiser than he was,he had not been disappointed in the way we shall see!

Friedrich admits he did not understand War at this period. His own scheme now was: To move towards the

southwest, there to abolish Bathyani and his Tolpatches, who are busy gathering Magazines for Prince Karl's

advent; to seize the said Magazines, which will be very useful to us; then advance straight towards the Passes

of the Bohemian Mountains. Towns of Furth, Waldmunchen, unfortunate Town of Cham (burnt by Trenck,

where masons are now busy); these stand successive in the grand Pass, through which tbe highway runs;

some hundred miles or so from where we are: march, at one's swiftest, thitherward, Bathyani's Magazines to

help; and there await Prince Karl? It was Friedrich's own notion; not a bad one, though not the best. The best,

he admits, would have been: To stay pretty much where he was; abolish Bathyani's Tolpatch people, seizing

their Magazines, and collecting others; in general, well rooting and fencing himself in Prag, and in the Circles

that lie thereabouts upon the Elbe,bounded to southward by the Sazawa (branch of the Moldau), which

runs parallel to the Elbe;but well refusing to stir much farther at such an advanced season of the year.

That second plan would have been the wisest:then why not, follow it? Too tame a plan for the youthful

mind. Besides, we perceive, as indeed is intimated by himself, he dreaded the force of public opinion in

France. "Aha, look at your King of Prussia again. Gone to conquer Bohemia; and, except the Three Circles he

himself is to have of it, lets Bohemia go to the winds!" This sort of thing, Friedrich admits, he dreaded too

Chapter III. FRIEDRICH, DILIGENT IN HIS BOHEMIAN CONQUESTS, UNEXPECTEDLY COMES UPON PRINCE KARL, WITH NO FRENCH ATTENDING HIM. 847

much, at that young period; so loud had the criticisms been on him, in the time of the Breslau Treaty: "Out

upon your King of Prussia; call you that an honorable Ally!" Undoubtedly a weakness in the young King;

inasmuch, says he, as "every General [and every man, add we] should look to the fact, not to the rumor of the

fact." Well; but, at least, he will adopt his own other notion; that of making for the Passes of the Bohemian

Mountains; to abolish Bathyani at least, and lock the door upon Prince Karl's advent? That was his own plan;

and, though second best, that also would have done well, had there been no third.

But there was, as we hinted, a third plan, ardently favored by Belleisle, whose wartalent Friedrich much

respected at this time: plan built on Belleisle's reminiscences of the old TaborBudweis businesses, and

totally inapplicable now. Belleisle said, "Go southeast, not southwest; right towards the Austrian Frontier

itself; that will frighten Austria into a fine tremor. Shut up the roads from Austria: Budweis, Neuhaus; seize

those two Highroad Towns, and keep them, if you would hold Bohemia; the want of them was our ruin

there." Your ruin, yes: but your enemy was not coming from Alsace and the southwest then. He was coming

from Austria; and your own home lay on the southwest: it is all different now! Friedrich might well think

himself bewitched not to have gone for Cham and Furth, and the Passes of the BohmerWald, according to

his own notion. But so it was; he yielded to the big reputation of Belleisle, and to fear of what the world

would say of him in France; a weakness which he will perhaps be taught not to repeat. In fact, he is now

about to be taught several things;and will have to pay his schoolwages as he goes.

Friedrich made no delay in Prag; in haste at this late time of year. September 17th, on the very morrow of the

Siege, the Prussians get in motion southward; on the 19th, Friedrich, from his post to north of the City,

defiles through Prag, on march to Kunraditz,first stage on that questionable Expedition up the Moldau

Valley, right bank; towards Tabor, Budweis, Neuhaus; to threaten Austria, and please Belleisle and the

Prag is left under General Einsiedel with a small garrison of 5,000;Einsiedel, a steady elderly gentleman,

favorite of Friedrich Wilhelm's, has brief order, or outline of order to be filled up by his own good sense.

Posadowsky follows the march, with as many mealwagons as possible,draughtcattle in very ineffectual

condition. Our main Magazine is at Leitmeritz (should have been brought on to Prag, thinks Friedrich);

Commissariat very illmanaged in comparison to what it ought to be,to what it shall be, if we ever live to

make another Campaign. Heavy artillery is left in Prag (another fault); and from each regiment, one of its

baggagewagons. [ HeldenGeschichte, i. 1083; Orlich, ii. 41 et seqq.; Frederic, iii. 59; "We rest a day here

at Kunraditz: 21st September, get to the Sazawa River; 22d, to Bistritz (rest a day);26th, to Miltschin;

Friedrich goes in two Columns; one along the great road towards Tabor, under Schwerin this, and Friedrich

mainly with him; the other to the right, along the River's bank, under Leopold, Young Dessauer, which has to

go by wild country roads, or now and then roads of its own making; and much needs the pioneer (a difficult

march in the shortening days). Posadowsky follows with the proviant, drawn by cattle of the horse and ox

species, daily falling down starved: great swearing there too, I doubt not! General Nassau is vanguard, and

There are two Rivers, considerable branches of the Moldau, coming from eastward; which, and first of them

the Sazawa, concern us here. After mounting the southern Uplands from Prag for a day or two, you then

begin to drop again, into the hollow of a River called Sazawa, important in Bohemian Wars. It is of winding

course, the first considerable branch of the Moldau, rising in Teutschbrod Country, seventy or eighty miles to

Chapter III. FRIEDRICH, DILIGENT IN HIS BOHEMIAN CONQUESTS, UNEXPECTEDLY COMES UPON PRINCE KARL, WITH NO FRENCH ATTENDING HIM. 848

east of us: in regard to Sazawa, there is, at present, no difficulty about crossing; the Country being all ours.

After the Sazawa, mount again, long miles, day after day, through intricate stony desolation, rocks, bogs,

untrimmed woods, you will get to Miltschin, thence to Tabor: Miltschin is the crown of that rough moor

country; from Prag to Tabor is some sixty miles. After Miltschin the course of those brown mountainbrooks

is all towards the Luschnitz, the next considerable branch of the Moldau; branch still longer and more

winding than the Sazawa; Tabor towers up near this branch; Budweis, on the Moldau itself, is forty miles

farther; and there at last you are out of the stony moors, and in a rich champaign comfortable to man and

horse, were you but once there, after plodding through the desolations. But from that Sazawa by the

Luschnitz on to Budweis, mounting and falling in such fashion, there must be ninety miles or thereby. Plod

along; and keep a sharp eye on the whirling clouds of Pandours, for those too have got across upon

On the ninth day of their march, the Prussians begin to descry on the horizon ahead the steeples and

chimneytops of Tabor, on its high scarped rock, or "Hill of Zisca,"for it was Zisca and his Hussites that

built themselves this Bit of Inexpugnability, and named it Tabor from their Bibles,in those waste mountain

regions. On the tenth day (27th September), the Prussians without difficulty took Tabor; walls being ruined,

garrison small. We lie at Tabor till the 30th, last day of September. Thence, 2d October, part of us to

MoldauTein rightwards; where cross the Moldau by a Bridge, "Bridge" one has heard of, in old Broglio

times;cross there, with intent (easily successful) to snatch that "Castle of Frauenberg," darling of Broglio,

Both Columns got united at Tabor; and paused for a day or two, to rest, and gather up their draggled skirts

there. The Expedition does not improve in promise, as we advance in it; the march one of the most

untowardly; and Posadowsky comes up with only half of his provisioncarts,half of his cattle having fallen

down of bad weather, hillroads and starvation; what could he do? That is an ominous circumstance, not the

Three things are against the Prussians on this march; two of them accidental things. FIRST, there is, at this

late season too, the intrinsic nature of the Country; which Friedrich with emphasis describes as boggy, stony,

precipitous; a waste, hungry and altogether barren Country,too emphatically so described. But then

SECONDLY, what might have been otherwise, the Population, worked upon by Austrian officials, all fly

from the sight of us; nothing but fireless deserted hamlets; and the corn, if they ever had any, all thrashed and

hidden. No amount of money can purchase any service from them. Poor dark creatures; not loving Austria

much, but loving some others even less, it would appear. Of Bigoted Papist Creed, for one thing; that is a

great point. We do not meddle with their worship more or less; but we are Heretics, and they hate us as the

Night. Which is a dreadful difficulty you always have in Bohemia: nowhere but in the Circle of Konigsgraz,

where there are Hussites (far to the rear of us at this time), will you find it otherwise. This is difficulty

Then, THIRDLY, what much aggravates it,we neglected to abolish Bathyani! And here are Bathyani's

Pandours come across the Moldau on us. Plenty of Pandours;to whom "10,000 fresh Hungarians," of a new

Insurrection which has been got up there, are daily speeding forward to add themselves:such a swarm of

hornets, as darkens the very daylight for you. Vain to scourge them down, to burn them off by blaze of

gunpowder: they fly fast; but are straightway back again. They lurk in these bushy wildernesses, scraggy

woods: no foraging possible, unless whole regiments are sent out to do it; you cannot get a letter safely

carried for them. They are an unspeakable contemptible grief to the earnest leader of men.Let us proceed,

however; it will serve nothing to complain. Let us hope the French sit well on the skirts of Prince Karl: these

Friedrich pushes on from Tabor; shoots partly (as we have seen) across the Moldau, to the left bank as well;

captures romantic Frauenberg on its high rock, where Broglio got into such a fluster once. We could push to

Chapter III. FRIEDRICH, DILIGENT IN HIS BOHEMIAN CONQUESTS, UNEXPECTEDLY COMES UPON PRINCE KARL, WITH NO FRENCH ATTENDING HIM. 849

Pisek, too, and make a "Bivouac of Pisek," if we lost our wits! Nassau is in Budweis, in Neuhaus; and proper

garrisons are gone thither: nothing wanting on our side of the business. But these Pandours, these 10,000

Insurrection Hungarians, with their Trencks spurring them! A continual unblessed swarm of hornets, these;

which shut out the very light of day from us. Too literally the light of day: we can get no free messaging from

part to part of our own Army even. "As many as six Orderlies have been despatched to an outlying General;

and not one of them could get through to him. They have snapt up three Letterbags destined for the King

himself. For four weeks he is absolutely shut out from the rest of Europe;" knows not in the least what the

Kaiser, or the Most Christian or any other King, is doing; or whether the French are sitting well on Prince

Karl's skirts, or not attempting that at all. This also is a thing to be amended, a thing you had to learn, your

Majesty? An Army absolutely shut out from news, from letters, messages to or fro, and groping its way in

darkness, owing to these circumambient thunderclouds of Tolpatches, is not a wellsituated Army! And

alas, when at last the Letterbag did get through, and But let us not anticipate!

At Tabor there arose two opinions; which, in spite of the King's presence, was a new difficulty. South from

Tabor a day's march, the Highway splits; direct way for Vienna; lefthand goes to Neuhaus, righthand, or

straightforward rather, goes to Budweis, bearing upon Linz: which of these two? Nassau has already seized

Budweis; and it is a habitable champaign country in comparison. Neuhaus, farther from the Moldau and its

uses, but more imminent on Austria, would be easy to seize; and would frighten the Enemy more. Leopold

the Young Dcssauer is for Budweis; rapid Schwerin, a hardy outspoken man, is emphatic for the other place

as Headquarter. So emphatic are both, that the two Generals quarrel there; and Friedrich needs his authority

to keep them from outbreaks, from open incompatibility henceforth, which would be destructive to the

service. For the rest, Friedrich seizes both places; sends a detachment to Neuhaus as well; but holds by

Budweis and the Moldau region with his main Army; which was not quite gratifying to the hardy Schwerin.

On the opposite or left bank, holding Frauenberg, the renowned Hillfortress there, we make inroads at

discretion: but the country is woody, favorable to Pandours; and the right bank is our chief scene of action.

How we are to maintain ourselves in this country? To winter in these towns between the Sazawa and the

Luschnitz? Unless the French sit well on Prince Karl's skirts, it will not be possible.

French sitting well on Prince Karl's skirts? They are not molesting Prince Karl in the smallest; never tried

such a thing;are turned away to the Brisgan, to the Upper Rhine Country; gone to besiege Freyburg there,

and seize Towns; about the Lake of Constance, as if there were no Friedrich in the game! It must be owned

the French do liberally pay off old scores against Friedrich,if, except in their own imagination, they had

old scores against him. No man ever delivered them from a more imminent peril; and they, the rope once cut

that was strangling them, magnificently forget who cut it; and celebrate only their own distinguished conduct

It was moonlight, clear as day that night, 23d August, when Prince Karl had to recross the Rhine, close in

their neighborhood; [ Guerre de Boheme, iii. 196.]and instead of harassing Prince Karl "to half or to whole

ruin," as the bargain was, their distinguished conduct consisted in going quietly to their beds (old Marechal

de Noailles even calling back some of his too forward subalterns), and joyfully leaving Prince Karl, then and

afterwards, to cross the Rhine, and march for Bohmen, at his own perfect convenience.

"Seckendorf will sit on Karl's skirts," they said: "too late for US, this season; next season, you shall see!"

Such was their theory, after Louis got that cathartic, and rose from bed. Schmettau, with his importunities,

which at last irritated everybody, could make nothing more of it. "Let the King of France crown his glories by

the Siege of Freyburg, the conquest of Brisgau:for behoof of the poor Kaiser, don't you observe? Hither

Austria is the Kaiser's;and furthermore, were Freyburg gone, there will be no invading of Elsass again"

Chapter III. FRIEDRICH, DILIGENT IN HIS BOHEMIAN CONQUESTS, UNEXPECTEDLY COMES UPON PRINCE KARL, WITH NO FRENCH ATTENDING HIM. 850

And there, at Freyburg, the Most Christian King now is, and his Army up to the knees in mud, conquering

Hither Austria; besieging Freyburg, with much difficulty owing to the wet,besieging there with what

energy; a spectacle to the world! And has, for the present, but one wife, no mistress either! With rapturous

eyes France looks on; with admiration too big for words. Voltaire, I have heard, made pilgrimage to

Freyburg, with rhymed Panegyric in his pocket; saw those miraculous operations of a Most Christian King

miraculously awakened; and had the honor to present said Panegyric; and be seen, for the first time, by the

royal eyes, which did not seem to relish him much. [The Panegyric (EPITRE AU ROI DEVANT

FRIBOURG) is in OEuvres de Voltaire, xvii. 184.] Since the first days of October, Freyburg had been under

constant assault; "amid rains, amid frosts; a siege long and murderous" (to the besieging party);and was

not got till November 5th; not quite entirely, the Citadels of it, till November 25th; Majesty gone home to

Paris, to illuminations and triumphal arches, in the interim. [Adelung, iv. 266; Barbier, ii. 414 (13th

November, for the illuminations, grand in the extreme, in spite of wild rains and winds.] It had been a

difficult and bloody conquest to him, this of Freyburg and the Brisgau Country; and I never heard that either

the Kaiser or he got sensible advantage by it,though Prince Karl, on the present occasion, might be said to

"Seckendorf will do your Prince Karl," they had cried always: "Seckendorf and his Prussian Majesty! Are not

we conquering Hither Austria here, for the Kaiser's behoof?" Seckendorf they did officially appoint to

pursue; appoint or allow;and laid all the blame on Seckendorf; who perhaps deserved his share of it. Very

certain it is, Seckendorf did little or nothing to Prince Karl; marched "leisurely behind him through the

OberPfalz," skirting Baireuth Country, Karl and he, to Wilhelmina's grief; [Her Letters ( OEuvres de

Frederic, xxvii. i. 133, y behind him at a distance of four days," knew better than meddle with Prince Karl.

So that Prince Karl, "in twentyone marches," disturbed only by the elements and bad roads, reached

Waldmunchen 26th September, in the FurthCham Country; [Ranke, iii. 187.] and was heard to exclaim:

"We are let off for the fright, then (NOUS VOILA QUITTES POUR LA PEUR)!"Seckendorf, finding

nothing to live upon in OberPfalz, could not attend Prince Karl farther; but turned leftwards home to

Bavaria; made a kind of Second "Reconquest of Bavaria" (on exactly the same terms as the First, Austrian

occupants being all called off to assist in Bohmen again);concerning which, here is an Excerpt:

"Seckendorf, following at his leisure, and joined by the Hessians and Pfalzers, so as now to exceed 30,000,

leaves Prince Karl and the rest of the enterprise to do as it can; and applies himself, for his own share, as the

needfulest thing, to getting hold of Bavaria again, that his poor Kaiser may have where to lay his head, and

pay old servants their wages. Dreadfully exclaimed against, the old gentleman, especially by the French

comanagers: 'Why did not the old traitor stick in the rear of Prince Karl, in the difficult passes, and drive

him prone,while we went besieging Freyburg, and poaching about, trying for a bit of the Brisgau while

chance served!' A traitor beyond doubt; probably bought with money down: thinks Valori. But, after all, what

could Seckendorf do? He is now of weight for Barenklau and Bavaria, not for much more. He does sweep

Barenklau and his Austrians from Bavaria, clear out (in the course of this October), all but Ingolstadt and two

or three strong towns,Passau especially, 'which can be blockaded, and afterwards besieged if needful.' For

the rest, he is dreadfully illoff for provisions, incapable of the least, attempt on Passau (as Friedrich urged,

on hearing of him again); and will have to canton himself in homequarters, and live by his shifts till Spring.

"The noise of French censure rises loud, against not themselves, but against Seckendorf:Friedrich, before

that Tolpatch eclipse of Correspondence [when three of his Letterbags were seized, and he fell quite dark],

had too well foreboded, and contemptuously expressed his astonishment at the blame BOTH were well

earning: Passau, said he, cannot you go at least upon Passau; which might alarm the Enemy a little, and drag

him homewards? 'Adieu, my dear Seckendorf, your Officer will tell you how we did the Siege of Prag. You

and your French are wetted hens (POULES MOUILLEES),' cowering about like drenched hens in a day of

set rain. 'As I hear nothing of either of you, I must try to get out of this business without your

Chapter III. FRIEDRICH, DILIGENT IN HIS BOHEMIAN CONQUESTS, UNEXPECTEDLY COMES UPON PRINCE KARL, WITH NO FRENCH ATTENDING HIM. 851

help;'"otherwise it will be ill for me indeed! [Excerpted Fragment of a Letter from Friedrich,(exact date

not given, date of EXCERPT is, Donanworth Country, 23d September, 1744),which the French Agent in

Seckendorf's Army had a reading of ( Campagnes de Coigny, iv. 185187; ib. 216219: cited in Adelung, iv.

225).] "Which latter expression alarmed the French, and set them upon writing and bustling, but not upon

"Prince Karl had crossed the Rhine unmolested, in the clearest moonlight, August 23d24th; Seckendorf was

not wholly got to Heilbronn, September 8th: a pretty way behind Prince Karl! The 6,000 Hessians, formerly

in English pay, indignant Landgraf Wilhelm [who never could forgive that Machiavellian conduct of Carteret

at Hanau, never till he found out what it really was] has, this year, put into French pay. And they have now

joined Seckendorf; [Espagnac, ii. 13; Buchholz, ii. 123.] Prince Friedrich [Britannic Majesty's Soninlaw],

not good fat Uncle George, commanding them henceforth:with extreme lack of profit to Prince Friedrich,

to the Hessians, and to the French, as will appear in time. These 6,000, and certain thousands of Pfalzers

likewise in French pay, are now with Seckendorf, and have raised him to above 30,000;it is the one fruit

King Friedrich has got by that 'Union of Frankfurt,' and by all his long prospective haggling, and struggling

for a 'Union of German Princes in general.' Two pears, after that long shaking of the tree; both pears rotten, or

indeed falling into Seckendorf, who is a basket of such quality! 'Seckendorf, increased in this munificent

manner, can he still do nothing?' cry the French: 'the old traitor!''I have no magazines,' said Seckendorf,

'nothing to live upon, to shoot with; no money!' And it is a mutual crescendo between the 'perfidious

Seckendorf' and them; without work done. In the Nurnberg Country, some Hussars of his picked up Lord

Holderness, an English Ambassador making for Venice by that bad route. 'Prisoner, are not you?' But they

did not use him ill; on consideration, the Heads of Imperial Departments gave him a Pass, and he continued

his Venetian Journey (result of it zero) without farther molestation that I heard of. [Adelung, iv. 222.]

"These FrenchSeckendorf cunctations, recriminations and drenched hen procedures are an endless sorrow

to poor Kaiser Karl; who at length can stand it no longer; but resolves, since at least Bavaria, though

moneyless and in ruins, is his, he will in person go thither; confident that there will be victual and equipment

discoverable for self and Army were he there. Remonstrances avail not: 'Ask me to die with honor, ask me

not to lie rotting here;' [Ib. iv. 241.]and quits Frankfurt, and the Reich'sDiet and its babble, 17th October,

1744 (small sorrow, were it for the last time),and enters his Munchen in the course of a week. [17th

October, 1744, leaves Frankfurt; arrives in Munchen 23d (Adelung, iv. 241244).] Munchen is transported

with joy to see the Legitimate Sovereign again; and blazes into illuminations, forgetful who caused its past

wretchednesses, hoping only all wretchedness is now ended. Let ruined huts, and Cham and the burnt Towns,

rebuild themselves; the wasted hedges make up their gaps again: here is the King come home! Here, sure

enough, is an unfortunate Kaiser of the Holy Romish Reich, who can once more hope to pay his milkscores,

being a loved Kurfurst of Bavaria at least. Very dear to the hearts of these poor people;and to their purses,

interests and skins, has not he in another sense been dear? What a price the ambitions and cracked phantasms

of that weak brain have cost the seemingly innocent population! Population harried, hungered down, dragged

off to perish in Italian Wars; a Country burnt, tribulated, torn to ruin, under the harrow of Fate and ruffian

Trenck and Company. Britannic George, rather a dear morsel too, has come much cheaper hitherto. England

is not yet burnt; nothing burning there,except the dull fire of deliriums; Natural Stupidities all set flaming,

which (whatever it may BE in the way of loss) is not felt as a loss, but rather as a comfort for the time

being;and in fact there are only, say, a forty or fifty thousand armed Englishmen rotted down, and scarcely

a Hundred Millions of money yet spent. Nothing to speak of, in the cause of Human Liberty. Why

Populations suffer for their guilty Kings? My friend, it is the Populations too that are guilty in having such

Kings. Reverence, sacred Respect for Human Worth, sacred Abhorrence of Human Unworth, have you

considered what it means? These poor Populations have it not, or for long generations have had it less and

less. Hence, by degrees, this sort of 'Kings' to them, and enormous consequences following!"

Karl VII. got back to Munchen 23d October, 1744; and the tar barrels being once burnt, and indispensable

sortings effected, he went to the field along with Seckendorf, to encourage his men under Seckendorf, and

Chapter III. FRIEDRICH, DILIGENT IN HIS BOHEMIAN CONQUESTS, UNEXPECTEDLY COMES UPON PRINCE KARL, WITH NO FRENCH ATTENDING HIM. 852

urge the French by all considerations to come on. And really did what he could, poor man. But the cordage of

his life had been so strained and torn, he was not now good for much; alas, it had been but little he was ever

good for. A couple of dear Kurfursts, his Father and he; have stood these Bavarian Countries very high, since

One may fancy what were Friedrich's reflections when he heard that Prince Karl had, prosperously and

unmolested, got across, by those Passes from the OberPfalz, into Bohmen and the Circle of Pilsen, into

junction with Bathyani and his magazines; ["At Mirotitz, October 2d" (Ranke, iii. 194); Orlich, ii. 49.] heard,

moreover, that the Saxons, 20,000 strong, under Weissenfels, crossing the Metal Mountains, coming on by

Eger and Karlsbad regions, were about uniting with him (bound by Treaty to assist the Hungarian Majesty

when invaded);and had finally, what confirms everything, that the said Prince Karl in person (making for

Budweis, "just seen his advanced guard," said rumor under mistake) was but few miles off. Few miles off, on

the other side of the Moldau;of unknown strength, hidden in the circumambient clouds of Pandours.

Suppressing all the rages and natural reflections but those needful for the moment, Friedrich (October 4th, by

MoldauTein) dashes across the Moldau, to seek Prince Karl, at the place indicated, and at once smite him

down if possible;that will be a remedy for all things. Prince Karl is not there, nor was; the indication had

been false; Friedrich searches about, for four days, to no purpose. Prince Karl, he then learns for certain, has

crossed the Moldau farther down, farther northward, between Prag and us. Means to cut us off from Prag,

then, which is our fountain of life in these circumstances? That is his intention:"Old Traun, who is with

him, understands his trade!" thinks Friedrich. Traun, or the Prince, is diligently forming magazines, all the

Country carrying to him, in the Town of Beneschau, hither side of the Sazawa, some seventy miles north of

us, an important Town where roads meet:unless we can get hold of Beneschau, it will be ill with us here!

Across the River again, at any rate; and let us hasten thither. That is an affair which must be looked to; and

OCTOBER 8th, After four days' search ending in this manner, Friedrich swiftly crosses towards Tabor again,

to Bechin (over on the Luschnitz, one march), there to collect himself for Beneschau and the other intricacies.

Towards Tabor again, by his Bridge of MoldauTein;clouds of Pandour people, larger clouds than usual,

hanging round; hidden by the woods till Friedrich is gone. Friedrich being gone, there occurs the AFFAIR

OF MOLDAUTEIN, much talked of in Prussian Books. Of which, in extreme condensation, this is the

"OCTOBER 9th. Friedrich once off to Bechin, the Pandour clouds gather on his rearguard next day at Tein

Bridge here, to the number of about 10,000 [rumor counts 14,000]; and with desperate intent, and more

regularity than usual, attack the TeinBridge Party, which consists of perhaps 2,000 grenadiers and hussars,

the whole under Ziethen's charge,obliged to wait for a cargo of Breadwagons here. 'Defend your Bridge,

with cannon, with caseshot:' that is what the grenadiers do. The Pandour cloud, with horrid lanes cut in it,

draws back out of this; then plunges at the River itself, which can be ridden above or below; rides it, furious,

by the thousand: 'Off with your infantry; quit the Bridge!' cries Ziethen to his Captain there: 'Retire you,

Parthianlike; thricesteady,' orders Ziethen: 'It is to be hoped our hussars can deal with this mad doggery!'

And they do it; cutting in with iron discipline, with fierceness not undrilled; a wedge of iron hussars, with

ditto grenadiers continually wheeling, like so many reapers steady among windtossed grain; and gradually

give the Pandours enough. Seven hours of it, in all: 'of their sixty cartridges the grenadiers had fired

fiftyfour,' when it ended, about 7 P.M. The coming Breadwagons, getting word, had to cast their loaves

into the River (sad to think of); and make for Bechin at their swiftest. But the rearguard got off with its guns,

in this victorious manner: thanks to MajorGeneral Ziethen, Colonel Reusch and the others concerned.

Chapter IV. FRIEDRICH REDUCED TO STRAlTS; CANNOT MAINTAIN HIS MOLDAU CONQUESTS AGAINST PRICE KARL. 853

"Ziethen handsels his MajorGeneralcy in this fine way: [Patent given him "3d October, 1744," only a week

ago, "and ordered to be dated eight months back" (Rodenbeck, i. 109).] a man who has had promotion, and

also has had none, and may again come to have none;and is able to do either way. Never mind, my

excellent tacit friend! Ziethen is fiveandforty gone; has a face which is beautiful to me, though one of the

coarsest. Face thricehonest, intricately ploughed with thoughts which are well kept silent (the thoughts,

indeed, being themselves mostly inarticulate; thoughts of a simplehearted, muchenduring, hottempered

son of iron and oatmeal);decidedly rather likable, with its lazily hanging underlip, and respectable

Pandours give us trouble enough; no Magazine here, no living to be had in this Country beside them.

Unfortunate Colonel Jahnus went out from Tabor lately, to look after requisitioned grains: infinite Pandours

set upon him [Muhlhausen is the memorable place]; Jahnus was obstinate (too obstinate, thinks Friedrich),

and perished on the ground, he and 200 of his. [ OEuvres de Frederic, iii. 61.] Nay, next, a swarm of them

came to Tabor itself, Nadasti at their head; to try whether Tabor, with its small garrison, could not be

escaladed, and perhaps Prince Henri, who lies sick there, be taken? Tabor taught them another lesson; sent

them home with heads broken;which Friedrich thinks was an extremely suitable thing. But so it stands:

Here by the thousand and the ten thousand they hang round us; and Prince Karl It is of all things necessary

"Rapidity is indispensable,and yet how quit Tabor? We have detachments out at Neuhaus, at Budweis, and

in Tabor 300 men in hospital, whom there are no means of carrying. To leave them to the Tolpaches?

Friedrich confesses he was weak on this occasion; he could not leave these 300 men, as was his clear duty, in

this extremity of War. He ordered in his Neuhaus Detachment; not yet any of the others. He despatched

Schmerin towards Beneschau with all his speed; Schwerin was lucky enough to take Beneschau and its

provender,a most blessed fortune,and fences himself there. Hearing which, Friedrich, having now got

the Neuhaus Detachment in hand, orders the other Three, the Budweis, the Tabor here, and the Frauenberg

across the River, to maintain themselves; and then, leaving those southern regions to their chance, hastens

towards Beneschau and Schwerin; encamps (October 18th) near Beneschau, 'Camp of Konopischt,'

unattackable Camp, celebrated in the Prussian Books;and there, for eight days, still on the south side of

Sazawa, tries every shift to mend the bad posture of affairs in that LuschnitzSazawa Country. His Three

Garrisons (3,000 men in them, besides the 300 sick) he now sees will not be able to maintain themselves; and

he sends in succession 'eight messengers,' not one messenger of whom could get through, to bid them come

away. His own hope now is for a Battle with Prince Karl; which might remedy all things. [ OEuvres de

That is Friedrich's wish; but it is by no means Traun's, who sees that hunger and wet weather will of

themselves suffice for Friedrich. There ensues accordingly, for three weeks to come, in that confused

Country, a series of swift shufflings, checkings and manoeuvrings between these two, which is gratifying and

instructive to the strategic mind, but cannot be inflicted upon common readers. Two considerable

chessplayers, an old and a young; their chess board a bushy, rocky, marshy parallelogram, running fifty

miles straight east from Prag, and twenty or fewer south, of which Prag is the northwest angle, and

Beneschau, or the impregnable Konopischt the southwest: the reader must conceive it; and how Traun will

Chapter IV. FRIEDRICH REDUCED TO STRAlTS; CANNOT MAINTAIN HIS MOLDAU CONQUESTS AGAINST PRICE KARL. 854

not fight Friedrich, yet makes him skip hither and thither, chiefly by threatening his victuals. Friedrich's main

magazine is now at Pardubitz, the extreme northeast angle of the parallelogram. Parallelogram has one river

in it, with the innumerable rocks and brooks and quagmires, the river Sazawa; and on the north side, where

are Kuttenberg, Czaslau, Chotusitz, places again become important in this business, it is bounded by another

river, the Elbe. Intricate manoeuvring there is here, for three weeks following: "old Traun an admirable man!"

thinks Friedrich, who ever after recognized Traun as his Schoolmaster in the art of War. We mark here and

"RADICZ, OCTOBER 21st22d. At Radicz, a march to southwest of us, and on our side of the Moldau, the

Saxons, under Weissenfels, 20,000 effective, join Prince Karl; which raises his force to 69,514 men, some

10,000 more than Friedrich is master of. [Orlich, ii. 66.] Prospect of wintering between the Luschnitz and the

Sazawa there is now little; unless they will fight us, and be beaten. Friedrich, from his inaccessible Camp of

Konopischt, manoeuvres, reconnoitres, in all directions, to produce this result; but to no purpose. An Austrian

Detachment did come, to look after Beneschau and the Magazines there; but rapidly drew back again, finding

Konopischt on their road, and how matters were. Friedrich will guard the door of this SazawaElbe tract of

Country; hope of the SazawaLuschnitz tract has, in few days, fallen extinct. Here is news come to

Konopischt: our Three poor Garrisons, Budweis, Tabor, Frauenberg, already all lost; guns and men, after

defence to the last cartridge,in Frauenberg their water was cut off, it was eightandforty hours of thirst at

Frauenberg:one way or other, they are all Three gone; eight couriers galloping with message, 'Come away,'

were all picked up by the Pandours; so they stood, and were lost. 'Three thousand fighting men gone, for the

weak chance of saving three hundred who were in hospital!' thinks Friedrich: War is not a school of the weak

pities. For the chance of ten, you lose a hundred and the ten too. SazawaElbe tract of country, let us

"SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24th, Friedrich out reconnoitring from Konopischt discovers of a certainty that

the whole AustrianSaxon force is now advaucing towards Beneschau, and will, this night, encamp at

Marschowitz, to southwest, only one march from us! On the instant Friedrich hurries back; gets his Army on

march thitherward, though the late October sun is now past noon; off instantly; a stroke yonder will perhaps

be the cure of all. Such roads we had, says Friedrich, as never Army travelled before: long after nightfall, we

arrive near the Austrian camp, bivouac as we can till daylight return. At the first streak of day, Friedrich and

his chief generals are on the heights with their spyglasses: Austrian Army sure enough; and there they have

altered their posture overnight (for Traun too has been awake); they lie now opposite our RIGHT flank; 'on a

scarped height, at the foot of which, through swamps and quagmires, runs a muddy stream.' Unattackable on

this side: their right flank and foot are safe enough. Creep round and see their left:Nothing but copses,

swampy intricacies! We may shoulder arms again, and go back to Konopischt: no fight here! [ OEuvres de

Frederic, iii. 63, 64; Orlich, ii. 69.] Speaking of defensive Campaigns, says Friedrich didactically, years

afterwards, 'If such situations are to answer the purpose intended, the front and flanks must be equally strong,

but the rear entirely open. Such, for instance, are those heights which have an extensive front, and whose

flanks are covered by morasses:as was Prince Karl's Camp at Marschowitz in the year 1744, with its front

covered by a stream, and the wings by deep hollows; or that which we ourselves then occupied at

"OCTOBER 26thNOVEMBER 1st. The SazawaLuschnitz tract of Country is quite lost, then; lost with

damages: the question now is, Can we keep the SazawaElbe tract? For about three weeks more, Friedrich

struggles for that object; cannot compass that either. Want of horseprovender is very great:country

entirely eaten, say the peasants, and not a truss remaining. October 26th, Friedrich has to cross the Sazawa;

we must quit the door of that tract (hunger driving us), and fight for the interior in detail. Traun gets to

Beneschau in that cheap way; and now, in behalf of Traun, the peasants find forage enough, being zealous for

Queen and creed. Pandours spread themselves all over this SazawaElbe country; endanger our subsistences,

make our lives miserable. It is the old story: Friedrich, famine and mud and misery of Pandours compelling,

has to retire northward, Elbeward, inch by inch; whither the Austrians follow at a safe distance, and, in spite

Chapter IV. FRIEDRICH REDUCED TO STRAlTS; CANNOT MAINTAIN HIS MOLDAU CONQUESTS AGAINST PRICE KARL. 855

"Brave General Nassau, who much distinguishes himself in these businesses, has (though Friedrich does not

yet know it) dexterously seized Kolin, westward in those Elbe parts,ground that will be notable in years

coming. Important little feat of Nassau's; of which anon. On the other hand, our Magazine at Pardubitz,

eastward on the Elbe, is not out of danger: Pandours and regulars 2,000 and odd, 'sixty of the Pandour kind

disguised as peasants leading hay carts,' made an attempt there lately; but were detected by the vigilant

Colonel, and blown to pieces, in the nick of time, some of them actually within the gate. [ OEuvres de

Frederic, iii. 65.] Nay, a body of Austrian regulars were in full march for Kolin lately, intending to get hold

of the Elbe itself at that point (midway between Prag and Pardubitz): but the prompt General Nassau, as we

remarked, had struck in before them; and now holds Kolin;though, for several days, Friedrich could not

"Friedrich, standing with his back to Prag, which is fifty miles from him, and rather in need of his support

than able to give him any; and drawing his meal from the uncertain distance, with Pandours hovering

round,is in difficult case. While old Traun is kept luminous as midday; the circumambient atmosphere of

Pandours is tenebrific to Friedrich, keeps him in perpetual midnight. He has to read his position as with

flashes of lightning, for most part. A heavyladen, sorely exasperated man; and must keep his haggard

miseries strictly secret; which I believe he does. Were Valori here, it is very possible he might find the

countenance FAROUCHE again; eyes gloomy, on damp November mornings! Schwerin, in a huff, has gone

home: Since your Majesty is pleased to prefer his young Durchlaucht of Anhalt's advice, what can an elderly

servant (not without rheumatisms) do other?'Well!' answers Friedrich, not with eyes cheered by the

phenomenon. The ElbeSazawa tract, even this looks as if it would be hard to keep. A world very dark for

"From the French Camp far away, there comes, dated 17th October (third week of their Siege of Freyburg),

by way of help to Friedrich, magnanimous promise: 'So soon as this Siege is done, which will be speedily,

though it is difficult, we propose to send fifty battalions and a hundred squadrons,'"say only 60,000 horse

and foot (not a hoof or toe of which ever got that length, on actually trying it),"towards Westphalia, to

bring the Elector of Koln to reason [poor Kaiser's lanky Brother, who cannot stand the French procedures,

and has lately sold himself, that is sold his troops, to England], and keep the King of England and the Dutch

in check,"by way of solacement to your Majesty. Will you indeed, you magnanimous Allies?This was

picked up by the Pandours; and I know not but Friedrich was spared the useless pain of reading it. [Orlich, ii.

November, here is a lightningflash which reveals strange things to Friedrich. Traun's late manoeuvrings,

which have been so enigmatic, to right and to left, upon Prag and other points, issue now in an attempt

towards Pardubitz; which reveals to Friedrich the intention Traun has formed, of forcing him to choose one of

those two places, and let go the other. Formidable, fatal, thinks Friedrich; and yet admirable on the part of

Traun: 'a design beautiful and worthy of admiration.' If we stay near Prag, what becomes of our

communication with Silesia; what becomes of Silesia itself? If we go towards Pardubitz, Prag and Bohmen

are lost! What to do? 'Despatch reinforcement to Pardubitz; thanks to Nassau, the KolinPardubitz road is

ours!' That is done, Pardubitz saved for the moment. Could we now get to Kuttenberg before the old Marshal,

his design were overset altogether. Alas, we cannot march at once, have to wait a day for the bread. Forward,

nevertheless; and again forward, and again; three heavy marches in November weather: let us make a fourth

forced march, start tomorrow before dawn,Kuttenberg above all things! In vain; tomorrow, 4th

November, there is such a fog, dark as London itself, from six in the morning onwards, no starting till noon:

and then impossible, with all our efforts, to reach Kuttenberg. We have to halt an eight miles short of it, in

front of Kolin; and pitch tents there. On the morrow, 5th November, Traun is found encamped, unattackable,

between us and our object; sits there, at his ease in a friendly Country, with Pandour whirlpools flowing out

Chapter IV. FRIEDRICH REDUCED TO STRAlTS; CANNOT MAINTAIN HIS MOLDAU CONQUESTS AGAINST PRICE KARL. 856

and in; an irreducible case to Friedrich. November 5th, and for three days more, Friedrich, to no purpose, tries

his utmost;finds he will have to give up the ElbeSazawa region, like the others. Monday, November 9th,

Friedrich gathers himself at Kolin; crosses the Elbe by Kolin Bridge, that day. Point after point of the game

Kolin was, of course, attacked, that Monday evening, so soon as the main Army crossed: but, so soon as the

Army left, General Nassau had taken his measures; and, with his great guns and his small, handled the

Pandours in a way that pleased us. [ OEuvres de Frederic, iii. 68.] Thursday night following, they came back,

with regular grenadiers to support; under cloud of night, in great force, ruffian Trenck at the head of them: a

frightful phenomenon to weak nerves. But this also Nassau treated in such a fiery fashion that it vanished

without return; three hundred dead left on the ground, and ruffian Trenck riding off with his own crown

broken,beautiful indigo face streaking itself into GINGHAMpattern, for the moment!

Except Pardubitz, where also the due battalions are left, Friedrich now holds no post south of the Elbe in this

quarter; ElbeSazawa Tract is gone like the others, to all appearance. And we must now say, Silesia or Prag?

Prince Leopold, CouncilofWar being held on the matter, is for keeping hold of Prag: "Pity to lose all the

excellent siegeartillery we brought thither," says he. True, too true; an illmanaged business that of Prag!

thinks Friedrich sadly to himself: but what is Prag and artillery, compared to Silesia? Parthian retreat into

Silesia; and let Prag and the artillery go: that, to Friedrich, is clearly the sure course. Or perhaps the fatal

alternative will not actually arrive? So long as Pardubitz and Kolin hold; and we have the Elbe for barrier?

Truth is, Prince Karl has himself written to Court that, having now pushed his Enemy fairly over the Elbe,

and winter being come with its sleets and slushes, ruinous to troops that have been so marched about, the

Campaign ought to end;nay, his own young Wife is in perilous interesting circumstances, and the poor

Prince wishes to be home. To which, however, it is again understood, Maria Theresa has emphatically

NOVEMBER 9th19th: WE DEFEND THE ELBE RIVER. Friedrich has posted himself on the north shore

of the Elbe, from Pardubitz to the other side of Kolin; means to defend that side of the River, where go the

Silesian roads. At Bohdenetz, short way across from Pardubitz, he himself is; Prince Leopold is near Kolin:

thirty miles of river bank to dispute. The controversy lasts ten days; ends in ELBETEINITZ, a celebrated

"passage," in Books and otherwise. Friedrich is in shaggy, intricate country; no want of dingles, woods and

quagmires; now and then pleasant places too,here is Kladrup for example, where our Father came three

hundred miles to dine with the Kaiser once. The grooms and colts are all off at present; Father and Kaiser are

off; and much is changed since then. Grim tussle of War now; sleety winter, and the Giant Mountains in the

distance getting on their white hoods! Friedrich doubtless has his thoughts as he rides up and down, in sight

of Kladrup, among other places, settling many things; but what his thoughts were, he is careful not to say

except where necessary. Much is to be looked after, in this River controversy of thirty miles. Detachments lie,

at intervals, all the way; and mounted sentries, a sentry every five miles, patrol the Riverbank; vigilant, we

hope, as lynxes. Nothing can cross but alarm will be given, and by degrees the whole Prussian force be upon

it. This is the Circle of Konigsgratz, this that now lies to rear; and happily there are a few Hussites in it, not

utterly indisposed to do a little spying for us, and bring a glimmering of intelligence, now and then.

It is now the second week that Frietrich has lain so, with his mounted patrols in motion, with his Hussite

spies; guarding Argus like this thirty miles of River; and the Austrians attempt nothing, or nothing with

effect. If the Austrians go home to their winter quarters, he hopes to issue from Kolin again before Spring,

and to sweep the ElbeSazawa Tract clear of them, after all. Maria Theresa having answered No, it is likely

the Austrians will try to get across: Be vigilant therefore, ye mounted sentries. Or will they perhaps make an

attempt on Prag? Einsiedel, who has no garrison of the least adequacy, apprises us That "in all the villages

round Prag people are busy making ladders,"what can that mean? Friedrich has learned, by intercepted

letters, that something great is to be done on Wednesday, 18th: he sends Rothenburg with reinforcement to

Einsiedel, lest a scalade of Prag should be on the cards. Rothenburg is right welcome in the lines of Prag,

Chapter IV. FRIEDRICH REDUCED TO STRAlTS; CANNOT MAINTAIN HIS MOLDAU CONQUESTS AGAINST PRICE KARL. 857

though with reinforcement still ineffectual; but it is not Prag that is meant, nor is Wednesday the day.

Through Wednesday, Friedrich, all eye and ear, could observe nothing: much marching to and fro on the

Austrian side of the River; but apparently it comes to nothing? The mounted patrols had better be vigilant,

On the morrow, 5 A.M., what is this that is going on? Audible booming of cannon, of musketry and battle,

echoing through the woods, penetrates to Friedrich's quarters at Bohdenetz in the Pardubitz region: Attack

upon Kolin, Nassau defending himself there? Out swift scouts, and see! Many scouts gallop out; but none

comes back. Friedrich, for hours, has to remain uncertain; can only hope Nassau will defend himself. Boom

go the distant volleyings; no scout comes back. And it is not Nassau or Kolin; it is something worse: very

The Austrians, at 2 o'clock this morning, Austrians and Saxons, came in great force, in dead silence, to the

south brink of the River, opposite a place called Teinitz (ElbeTeinitz), ten miles east of Kolin; that was the

fruit of their marching yesterday. They sat there forbidden to speak, to smoke tobacco or do anything but

breathe, till all was ready; till pontoons, cannons had come up, and some gleam of dawn had broken. At the

first gleam of dawn, as they are shoving down their pontoon boats, there comes a "WERDA, Who goes?"

from our Prussian patrol across the River. Receiving no answer, he fires; and is himself shot down. One

Wedell, Wedell and Ziethen, who keep watch in this part, start instantly at sound of these shots; and make a

dreadful day of it for these invasive Saxon and Austrian multitudes. Naturally, too, they send off scouts,

galloping for more help, to the right and to the left. But that avails not. Wild doggery of Pandours, it would

seem, have already swum or waded the River, above Teinitz and below:"Want of vigilance!" barks

Friedrich impatiently: but such a doggery is difficult to watch with effect. At any rate, to the right and to the

left, the woods are already beset with Pandours; every scout sent out is killed: and to east or to west there

comes no news but an echoing of musketry, a boom of distant cannon. [Orlich, ii. 8285.] SaxonAustrian

battalions, four or five, with unlimited artillery going, VERSUS Wedell's one battalion, with musketry and

Ziethen's hussars: it is fearful odds. The Prussians stand to it like heroes; doggedly, for four hours, continue

the dispute,till it is fairly desperate; "two bridges of the enemy's now finished;"whereupon they

manoeuvre off, with Parthian or Prussian countenance, into the woods, safe, towards Kolin; "despatching

definite news to Friedrich, which does arrive about 11 A.M., and sets him at once on new measures."

This is a great feat in the Prussian military annals; for which, sad as the news was, Wedell got the name of

Leonidas attached to him by Friedrich himself. And indeed it is a gallant passage of war; "Forcing of the Elbe

at Teinitz;" of which I could give two Narratives, one from the Prussian, and one from the Saxon side;

[Seyfarth, Beylage, i. 595598; HeldenGeschichte, ii. 11751181.] didactic, admonitory to the military

mind, nay to the civic reader that has sympathy with heroisms, with work done manfully, and terror and

danger and difficulty well trampled under foot. Leonidas Wedell has an admirable silence, too; and Ziethen's

lazily hanging underlip is in its old attitude again, now that the spasm is over. "WAS THUTS? They are

Seeing, then, that they are fairly over, Friedrich, with a creditable veracity of mind, sees also that the game is

done; and that same night he begins manoeuvring towards Silesia, lest far more be lost by continuing the

play. One column, under Leopold the Young Dessauer, goes through Glatz, takes the Magazine of Pardubitz

along with it: good to go in several columns, the enemy will less know which to chase. Friedrich, with

another column, will wait for Nassau about Konigsgratz, then go by the more westerly road, through Nachod

and the Pass of Braunau. Nassau, who is to get across from Kolin, and join us northwards, has due

rendezvous appointed him in the Konigsgratz region. Einsiedel, in Prag, is to spike his guns, since he cannot

carry them; blow up his bastions, and the like; and get away with all discretion and all diligence,

Chapter IV. FRIEDRICH REDUCED TO STRAlTS; CANNOT MAINTAIN HIS MOLDAU CONQUESTS AGAINST PRICE KARL. 858

northwestward first, to Leitmeritz, where our magazines are; there to leave his heavier goods, and make

eastward towards Friedland, and across the "Silesian Combs" by what Passes he can. Will have a difficult

operation; but must stand to it. And speed; steady, simultaneous, regular, unresting velocity; that is the word

for all. And so it is done,though with difficulty, on the part of poor Einsiedel for one. It was Thursday,

19th November, when the Austrians got across the Elbe: on Monday, 23d, the Prussian rendezvousings are

completed; and Friedrich's column, and the Glatz one under Leopold, are both on march; infinite

baggagewagons groaning orderly along ("sickwagons well ahead," and the like precautions and

arrangements), on both these highways for Silesia: and before the week ends, Thursday, 26th, even Einsiedel

is under way. Let us give something of poor Einsiedel, whose disasters made considerable noise in the world,

"The two main columns were not much molested; that which went by Glatz, under Leopold, was not pursued

at all. On the rear of Friedrich's own column, going towards Braunau, all the way to Nachod or beyond, there

hung the usual doggery of Pandours, which required whipping off from time to time; bnt in the defiles and

difficult places due precaution was taken, and they did little real damage. Truchsess von Waldburg [our old

friend of the Spartan feat near Austerlitz in the MORAVIANFORAY time, whom we have known in

London society as Prussian Envoy in bygone years] was in one of the divisions of this column; and one day,

at a village where there was a little river to cross (river Mietau, Konigsgratz branch of the Elbe), got

provoked injudiciously into fighting with a body of these people. Intent not on whipping them merely, but on

whipping them to death, Truchsess had already lost some forty men, and the business with such crowds of

them was getting hot; when, all at once a loud squeaking of pigs was heard in the village," apprehensive

swineherd hastily penning his pigs belike, and some pig refractory;"at sound of which, the Pandour

multitude suddenly pauses, quits fighting, and, struck by a new enthusiasm, rushes wholly into the village;

leaving Truchsess, in a tragicomic humor, victorious, but half ashamed of himself. [ OEuvres de Frederic,

iii. 73.] In the beginning of December, Friedrich's column reached home, by Braunau through the Mountains,

the same way part of it had come in August; not quite so brilliant in equipment now as then.

"It was upon Einsiedel's poor Garrison, leaving Prag in such haste, that the real stress of the retreat fell; its

difficulties great indeed, and its losses great. Einsiedel did what was possible; but all things are not possible

on a week's warning. He spiked great guns, shook endless hundredweights of powder, and 10,000 stand of

arms, into the River; he requisitioned horses, oxen, without number; put mines under the bastions, almost

none of which went off with effect. He kept Prag accurately shut, the Praguers accurately in the dark; took his

measures prudently; and labored night and day. One measure I note of him: stringent Proclamation to the

inhabitants of Prag, 'Provision yourselves for three months; nothing but starvation ahead otherwise.' Alas, we

are to stand a fourth siege, then? say the Praguers. But where are provisions to be had? At such and such

places; from the Royal Magazines only, if you bring a certificate and ready money! Whereby Einsiedel got

delivered of his mealmagazine, for one thing. But his difficulties otherwise were immense.

"On the Thursday morning, 26th November, 1744, he marched. His wagons had begun the night before; and

went all night, rumbling continuous (Anonymous of Prag [Second "LETTER from a Citizen, (date, 27th

November, see supra, p. 348), in Helden Geschichte, ii. 11811188.] hearing them well), through the

Karlthor, northwest gate of Prag, across the Moldau Rridge. All night across that bridge,Leitmeritz road,

great road to the northwest:followed finally by the march of horse and foot. But news had already fled

abroad. Five hundred Pandours were in the City, backed by the Butchers' lads and other riotous GESINDEL,

before the rearguard got away. Sad tugging and wriggling in consequence, much firing from windows, and

uproarious chaos;so that Rothenburg had at last to remount a couple of guns, and blow it off with

caseshot. A drilled Prussian rearguard struggling, with stern composure, through a real bit of burning

chaos. With effect, though not without difficulty. Here is the scene on the Noldau Bridge, and past that high

Hradschin [Old Palace of the Bohemian Kings (pronounce RADsheen); one of the steepest Royal Sites in the

world.] mass of buildings; all Prag, not the Hradschin only, struggling to give us fatal farewell if it durst.

River is covered with Pandours firing out of boats; Bridge encumbered to impassability by forsaken wagons,

Chapter IV. FRIEDRICH REDUCED TO STRAlTS; CANNOT MAINTAIN HIS MOLDAU CONQUESTS AGAINST PRICE KARL. 859

the drivers of which had cut traces and run; shot comes overhead from the Hradschin on our left, much shot,

infinite tumult all round; thoroughfare impossible for twowheeled vehicle, or men in rank. 'Halt!' cries

Colonel Brandes, who has charge of the thing; divides them in three: 'First one party, deal with these

riverboats, that Pandour doggery; second party, pull these stray wagons to right and left, making the way

clear; third party, drag our own wagons forward, shoulder to shaft, and yoke them out of shotrange;you,

Captain Carlowitz,' and calls twenty volunteers to go with Carlowitz, and drag their own cannon, 'step you

forward, keep the gate of that Hradschin till we all pass!' In this manner, rapid, hard of stroke, clearheaded

and with stern regularity, drilled talent gets the burning Nessus' shirt wriggled off; and tramps successfully

forth with its baggages. About 11 A.M., this rearguard of Brandes's did; should have been at seven,right

"Einsiedel, after this, got tolerably well to Leitmeritz; left his heavy baggage there; then turned at an acute

angle right eastward, towards the Silesian Combs, as ordered: still a good seventy miles to do, and the

weather getting snowy and the days towards their shortest. Worse still; old Weissenfels, now in Prag with his

Saxons, is aware that Einsiedel, before ending, will touch on a wild highlying corner of the Lausitz which is

Saxon Country; and thitherward Weissenfels has despatched Chevalier de Saxe (in plenty of time, November

29th), with horse and foot, to waylay Einsiedel, and block the entrance of the Silesian Mountains for him.

Whereupon, in the latter end of his long march, and almost within sight of home, ensues the hardest brush of

all for Einsiedel. And, in the desolation of that rugged Hill country of the Lausitz, 'HOCHWALD (Upper

Weld),' twenty or more miles from Bohemian Friedland, from his entrance on the Mountain Barrier and

Silesian Combs, there are sceneswhich gave rise to a Court Martial before long. For unexpectedly, on the

winter afternoon (December 9th), Einsiedel, struggling among the snows and pathless Hills, comes upon

Chevalier de Saxe and his Saxon Detachment, intrenched with trees, snowredoubts, and a hollow bog

dividing us; plainly unassailable;and stands there, without covering, without 'food, fire, or salt,' says one

Eyewitness, 'for the space of fourteen hours.' Gazing gloomily into it, exchanging a few shots, uncertain

what more to do; the muchdubitating Einsiedel. 'At which the men were so disgusted and enraged, they

deserted [the foreign part of them, I fancy] in groups at a time,' says the above Eyewitness. Not to think

what became of the equipments, baggage wagons, sickwagons:too evident Einsiedel's loss, in all kinds,

was very considerable. Nassau, despatched by Leopold out of Glatz, from the other side of the Combs, is

marching to help Einsiedel; who knows, at this moment, where or whitherward? For the peasants are all

against us; our very guides desert, and become spies. 'Push to the left, over the Hochwald top, must not we?'

thinks Einsiedel: 'that is Lausitz, a Saxon Country; and Saxony, though the Saxons stand intrenched here,

with the knife at our throat, are not at war with us, oh no, only allies of her Majesty of Hungary, and neutral

otherwise!' And here, it is too clear, the Chevalier de Saxe stands intrenched behind his trees and snow; and it

is the fourteenth hour, men deserting by the hundred, without fire and without salt; and Nassau is

"Einsiedel pushes to the left, the Hochwald way; finds, in the Hochwald too, a Saxon Commandant waiting

him, with arms strictly shouldered. 'And we cannot pass through this moor skirt of Lausitz, say you, then?'

'Unarmed, yes; your muskets can come in wagons after you,' replies the Saxon Commandant of Lausitz.

'Thousand thanks, Herr Commandant; but we will not give you all that trouble,' answer Einsiedel and his

Prussians; 'and march on, overwhelming him with politenesses,' says Friedrich;the approach of Nassau,

above all, being a stringent civility. Of course, despatch is very requisite to Einsiedel; the Chevalier, with his

force, being still within hail. The Prussians march all night, with pitchlinks flaring,nights (I think) of the

13th15th December, 1744, up among the highlands there, rugged buttresses of the Silesian Combs: a sight

enough to astonish Rubezahl, if he happened to be out! As good chance would have it, Nassau and Einsiedel,

by preconcert, partly by lucky guess of their own, were hurrying by the same road: three heavenrending

cheers (December 16th) when we get sight of Nassau; and find that here is land! December 16th, we are

across,by Ruckersdorf, not far from Friedland (Bohmisch Friedland, not the Silesian town of that name,

once Wallenstein's); and rejoice now to look back on labor done." [ Helden Geschichte, ii. 11811190,

Chapter IV. FRIEDRICH REDUCED TO STRAlTS; CANNOT MAINTAIN HIS MOLDAU CONQUESTS AGAINST PRICE KARL. 860

These were intricate strange scenes, much talked of at the time: Rothenburg, ugly Walrave, Hacke, and other

known figures, concerned in them. Scenes in which Friedrich is not well informed; who much blames

Einsiedel, as he is apt to do the unsuccessful. Accounts exist, both from the Prussian and from the Saxon side,

decipherable with industry; not now worth deciphering to English readers. Only that final scene of the

pitchlinks, the night before meeting with Nassau, dwells voluntarily in one's memory. And is the farewell of

Einsiedel withal. Friedrich blames him to the last: though a CourtMartial had sat on his case, some months

after, and honorably acquitted him. Good solid, silent Einsiedel;and in some months more, he went to a

still higher court, got still stricter justice: I do not hear expressly that it was the winter marches, or strain of

mind; but he died in 1745; and that flare of pitchlinks in Rubezahl's country is the last scene of him to

us,and the end of Friedrich's unfortunate First Expedition in the Second Silesian War.

"Foiled, ultimately, then, on every point; a totally illordered game on our part! Evidently we, for our part,

have been altogether in the wrong, in various essential particulars. Amendment, that and no other, is the word

now. Let us take the scathe and the scorn candidly home to us;and try to prepare for doing better. The

world will crow over us. Well, the world knows little about it; the world, if it did know, would be partly in

the right!"Wise is he who, when beaten, learns the reasons of it, and alters these. This wisdom, it must be

owned, is Friedrich's; and much distinguishes him among generals and men. Veracity of mind, as I say, loyal

eyesight superior to sophistries; noble incapacity of selfdelusion, the root of all good qualities in man. His

epilogue to this Campaign is remarkable;too long for quoting here, except the first word of it and the

"No General committed more faults than did the King in this Campaign. ... The conduct of M. de Traun is a

model of perfection, which every soldier that loves his business ought to study, and try to imitate, if he have

the talent. The king has himself admitted that he regarded this Campaign as his school in the Art of War, and

M. de Traun as his teacher." But what shall we say? "Bad is often better for Princes than good;and instead

of intoxicating them with presumption, renders them circumspect and modest." [ OEuvres, iii.76, 77.] Let us

To the Court of Vienna, especially to the Hungarian Majesty, this wonderful reconquest of Bohemia, without

battle fought,or any cause assignable but Traun's excellent manoeuvring and Friedrich's imprudences and

trust in the French,was a thing of heavenly miracle; blessed omen that Providence had vouchsafed to her

prayers the recovery of Silesia itself. All the world was crowing over Friedrich: but her Majesty of Hungary's

views had risen to a clearly higher pitch of exultation and triumphant hope, terrestrial and celestial, than any

other living person's. "Silesia back again," that was now the hope and resolution of her Majesty's high heart:

"My wicked neighbor shall be driven out, and smart dear for the ill he has done; Heaven so wills it!" "Very

little uplifts the Austrians," says Valori; which is true, under such a Queen; "and yet there is nothing that can

No sooner is Bohemia cleared of Friedrich, than Maria, winter as it is, orders that there be, through the

GiantMountains, vigorous assault upon Silesia. Highland snows and ices, what are these to Pandour people,

who, at their first entrance on the scene of History, "crossed the PalusMaeotis itself [Father of Quagmires,

so to speak] in a frozen state," and were sufficiently accommodated each in his own dirty sheepskin?

"Prosecute the King of Prussia," ordered she; "take your winterquarters in Silesia!"and Traun, in spite of

the advanced season, and prior labors and hardships, had to try, from the southwestern Bohemian side, what

he could do; while a new Insurrection, coming through the Jablunka, spread itself over the southeast and east.

Seriously invasive multitudes; which were an unpleasant surprise to Friedrich; and did, as we shall see,

require to be smitten back again, and resmitten; making a very troublesome winter to the Prussians and

In a like sense, Maria Theresa had already (December 2d) sent forth her Manifesto or Patent, solemnly

apprising her everfaithful Silesian Populations, "That the Treaty of Breslau, not by her fault, is broken;

palpably a Treaty no longer. That they, accordingly, are absolved from all oaths and allegiance to the King of

Prussia; and shall hold themselves in readiness to swear anew to her Majesty, which will be a great comfort

to such faithful creatures; suffering, as her Majesty explains to them that they have done, under Prussian

tyranny for these two years past. Immediate deadlift effort there shall be; that is certain: and 'the Almighty

God assisting, who does not leave such injustices unpunished, We have the fixed Christian hope,

Omnipotence blessing our arms, of almost immediately (EHESTENS) delivering you from this temporary

Bondage (BISHERIGEN JOCH).' You can pray, in the mean while, for the success of her Majesty's arms;

good fighting, aided by prayer, in a Cause clearly Heaven's, will now, to appearance, bring matters swiftly

round again, to the astonishment and confusion of bad men." [In HeldenGeschichte, ii. 11941198; Ib.

These are her Majesty's views; intensely true, I doubt not, to her devout heart. Robinson and the English seem

not to be enthusiastic in that direction; as indeed how can they? They would fain be tender of Silesia, which

they have guaranteed; fain, now and afterwards, restrain her Majesty from driving at such a pace down hill:

but the declivity is so encouraging, her Majesty is not to be restrained, and goes faster and faster for the time

being. And indeed, under less devout forms, the general impression, among Pragmatic people, Saxon,

Austrian, British even, was, That Friedrich had pretty much ruined himself, and deserved to do so; that this of

his being mere "Auxiliary" to a Kaiser in distress was an untenable pretext, now justly fallen bankrupt upon

him. The evident fact, That he had by his "Frankfurt Union," and struggles about "union," reopened the door

for French tribulations and roughridings in the Reich, was universally distasteful; all chance of a "general

Friedrich's rapidity had served him ill with the Public, in this as in some other instances! Friedrich,

contemplating his situation, not selfdelusively, but with the candor of real remorse, was by no means yet

aware how very bad it was. For six months coming, partly as existing facts better disclosed themselves, as

France, Saxony and others showed what spirit they were of; partly as new sinister events and facts arrived

one after the other,his outlook continued to darken and darken, till it had become very dark indeed. There

is perennially the great comfort, immense if you can manage it, of making front against misfortune; of

looking it frankly in the face, and doing with a resolution, hour by hour, your own utmost against it. Friedrich

never lacked that comfort; and was not heard complaining. But from December 13th, 1744, when he hastened

home to Berlin, under such aspects, till June 4th, 1745, when aspects suddenly changed, are probably the

worst six months Friedrich had yet had in the world. During which, his affairs all threatening to break down

about him, he himself, behooving to stand firm if the worst was not to realize itself, had to draw largely on

what silent courage, or private inexpugnability of mind, was in him,a larger instalment of that royal quality

(as I compute) than the Fates had ever hitherto demanded of him. Ever hitherto; though perhaps nothing like

the largest of all, which they had upon their Books for him, at a farther stage! As will be seen. For he was

greatly drawn upon in that way, in his time. And he paid always; no man in his Century so well; few men, in

any Century, better. As perhaps readers may be led to guess or acknowledge, on surveying and considering.

To see, and sympathetically recognize, cannot be expected of modern readers, in the present great distance,

Friedrich, after despatching Nassau to cut out Einsiedel, had delivered the Silesian Army to the Old Dessauer,

who is to command in chief during Winter; and had then hastened to Berlin,many things there urgently

requiring his presence; preparations, reparations, not to speak of diplomacies, and what was the heaviest item

of all, new finance for the coming exertions. In Schweidnitz, on Leopold's appearance, there had been an

interview, due consultings, orderings; which done, Friedrich at once took the road; and was at Berlin,

Monday, December 14th,precisely in the time while Nassau and Einsiedel were marching with torchlights

in Rubezahl's Country, and near ending their difficult enterprise better or worse.

Friedrich, fastening eagerly on Home business, is astonished and provoked to learn that the Austrians, not

content with pushing him out of Bohmen, are themselves pushing into Schlesien,so Old Leopold reports,

with increasing emphasis day by day; to whom Friedrich sends impatient order: Hurl them out again; gather

what force you need, ten thousand, or were it twenty or thirty thousand, and be immediate about it; "I will as

soon be pitched (HERAUSGESCHMISSEN) out of the Mark of Brandenburg as out of Schlesien:" no delay,

I tell you! And as the Old Dessauer still explains that the ten or fifteen thousand he needs are actually

assembling, and cannot be got on march quite in a moment, Friedrich dashes away his incipient Berlin

Operations; will go himself and do it. Haggle no more, you tedious Old Dessauer:

BERLIN, "19th DECEMBER," 1744. "On the 21st [Monday, one week after my arriving], I leave Berlin, and

mean to be at Neisse on the 24th at latest. Your Serenity will in the interim make out the Orderof Battle

[which is also OrderofMarch] for what regiments are come in. For I will, on the 25th, without delay, cross

the Neisse, and attack those people, cost what it may,to chase them out of Schlesien and Glatz, and follow

them so far as possible. Your Serenity will therefore take your measures, and provide everything, so far as in

this short time you can, that the project may be executable the moment I arrive." [Friedrich to the Old

And rushed off accordingly, in a somewhat flamy humor; but at Schweidnitz, where the Old Dessauer met

him again, became convinced that the matter was weightier than he thought; not one of Tolpatchery alone,

but had Traun himself in it. Upon which Friedrich candidly drew bridle; hastened back, and, with a loss of

four days, was at his Potsdam Affairs again. To which he stuck henceforth, ardently, and I think rather with

increase of gloom, though without spurt of impatience farther, for three months to come. Before his

return,nay, had he known, it was the night before he went away,a strange little thing had happened in

the opposite or Western parts: surprising accident to Marechal de Belleisle; which now lies waiting his

"This Silesian Affair includes due inroad of Pandours; or indeed two inroads, southwest and southeast; and in

the southwest, or Traun quarter, regulars are the main element of it. Traun, 20,000 strong, PLUS

stormyenough Pandour ACCOMPANIMENT, is by this time through into Glatz; in three columns;is

master of all Glatz, except the RockFortress itself; and has spread himself, right and left, along the Neisse

River, and from the southwest northwards, in a skilful and dangerous manner. In concert with whom, far to

the east, are Pandour whirlwinds on their own footing (brandnew 'Insurrection' of them, got thus far)

starting from Olmutz and Brunn; scouring that eastern country, as far as Namslau northward [a place we were

at the taking of, in old Brieg times]; much more, infesting the Mountains of the South. A rather serious thing;

With Traun, we say: poor Prince Karl is off, weeks ago; on the saddest of errands. His beautiful young

Wife,Hungarian Majesty's one Sister, ViceRegents of the Netherlands he and she, conspicuous among

the bright couples of the world,she had a bad lyingin (child stillborn), while those grand Moldau

Operations went on; has been ill, poor lady, ever since; and, at Brussels, on December 16th, she herself lies

dead, Prince Karl weeping over her and the days that will not return. Prince Karl's felicities, private and

public, had been at their zenith lately, which was very high indeed; but go on declining from this day. Never

more the Happiest of Husbands (did not wed again at all); still less the Greatest of Captains, equal or superior

to Caesar in the Gazetteer judgment, with distracted EULOGIES, BIOGRAPHIES and such like filling the

air: before long, a WarCaptain of quite moderate renown; which we shall see sink gradually into no renown

at all, and even (unjustly) into MINUS quantities, before all end. A mad world, my masters!

"Between Traun on the southwest hand, and his Pandours on the southeast, the small Prussian posts have all

been driven in upon TroppauJagerndorf region; more and more narrowed there;and, in fine (two days

before this new Interview of Leopold and the impatient King at Schweidnitz), have had to quit the Troppau

Jagerndorf position; to quit the Hills altogether, and are now in full march towards Brieg. Of which march I

should say nothing, were it not that Marwitz, Father of Wilhelmina's giggling Marmitzes, commanded;and

came by his death in the course of it; though our Wilhelmina is not now there, pen in hand, to tell us what the

effects at Baireuth were. Marwitz had been left for dead on the Field of Mollwitz; lay so all night, but was

nursed to some kind of strength again by those giggling young women; and came back to Schlesien, to posts

of chief trust, for the last year or two,was guarding the Mountains, and even invading Mahren, during the

late Campaign;but saw himself reduced latterly to Jagerndorf and Troppau; and had even to retreat out of

these. And in the whirlpool of hurries thereupon,how is not very clear; by apoplexy, say some; by

accidental pistol from a servant of his own; in actual skirmish with Pandours,too certainly, one way or the

other, on December 23d (just during that second Interview at Schweidnitz), brave old Marwitz did suddenly

sink dead, and is ended. [ HeldenGeschichte, ii. 1201.] Even so, ye poor giggling creatures, and your loud

"Friedrich, looking candidly into these phenomena, could not but see that: what with Tolpatcheries, what with

Traun's 20,000 regulars, and the whole Army at their back, his Silesian Border is girt in by a very

considerable inroad of Austrians, huge Chain of them, in horseshoe form, 300 miles long, pressing in;

from beyond Glatz and Landshut, round by the southern Mountains, and up eastward again as far as Namslau,

nothing but war whirlwinds in regular or irregular form, in the centre of them Traun;and that the Old

"It was not till January 9th that Old Leopold, 25,000 strong, equipped to his mind, which was a difficult

matter, crossed the Neisse River; and marched direct upon Traun, with Ziethen charging ahead. Actually

marched; after which the main wrestle was done in a week. January 16th, Old Leopold got to Jagerndorf;

found the actual Traun concentrated at Jagerndorf; and drew up, to be ready for assault tomorrow

morning,had not Traun, candidly computing, judged it better to glide wholly away in the nighttime,

diligently towards Mahren, breaking the bridges behind him. And so, in effect, to give up the Silesian

Invasion for this time. After which, though there remained a good deal of rough tussling with Pandour details,

and some rugged exploits of fight, there isexcept that of Lehwald in clearing of Glatznothing farther

that we can afford to speak of. Lehwald's exploit, Lehwald VERSUS Wallis (same Wallis who defended

Glogau long since), which came to be talked of, and got name and date, 'Action of Habelschwert, February

14th,' something almost like a pitched fight on the small scale, is to the following effect:

"PLOMNITZ, NEAR HABELSCHWERT, 14th FEBRUARY, 1745. Old General Lehwald, marching in the

hollow ground near Habelschwert (hollow of the young Neisse River, twenty miles south of Glatz), with

intent to cut that Country free; the Enemy, whom he is in search of, appears in great force,posted on the

uphill ground ahead, half frozen difficult stream in front of them, cannon on flank, Pandour multitude in

woods; all things betokening inexpugnability on the part of the Enemy. So that Lehwald has to take his

measures; study well where the vital point is, the root of that extensive Austrian junglery, and cut in upon the

same. By considerable fire of effort, the uphill ground, halffrozen stream, sylvan Pandours, cannon

batteries, and what inexpugnabilities there may be, are subdued; Austrian wide junglery, the root of it slit

asunder rolls homeward simultaneously, not too fast: nay it halted, and reranked itself twice over, finding

woods and quaggy runlets to its mind; but was always slit out again, disrooted, and finally tumbled home,

having had enough. 'Wenzel Wallis,' Friedrich asserts with due scorn, 'was all this while in a Chapel; praying

ardently,' to St. Vitus, or one knows not whom; 'without effect; till they shouted to him, "Beaten, Sir! Off, or

you are lost!" upon which he sprang to saddle, and spurred with both heels (PIQUA DES DEUX).' [ OEuvres

de Frederic, iii. 79. 80.] That was the feat of Lehwald, clearing the Glatz Country with one good cut: a skilful

Captain; now getting decidedly oldish, close on sixty; whom we shall meet again a dozen years hence, still in

"The old Serene Highness himself, face the color of gunpowder, and bluer in the winter frost, went rushing

far and wide in an open vehicle, which he called his 'cart;' pushing out detachments, supervising everything;

wheeling hither and thither as needful; sweeping out the Pandour world, and keeping it out: not much of

fighting needed, but 'a great deal of marching [murmurs Friedrich], which in winter is as bad, and wears

down the force of the battalions.' Of all which we give no detail: sufficient to fancy, in this manner, the Old

Dessauer flapping his wide military wings in the faces of the Pandour hordes, with here and there a hard

twitch from beak or claws; tolerably keeping down the Pandour interest all Winter. His sons, Leopold and

Dietrich, were under him, occasionally beside him; the Junior Leopold so worn down with feverish gout he

could hardly sit on horseback at all, while old Papa went tearing about in his cart at that rate."

[ Unternehmung in OberSchlesien, unter dem Fursten Leopold von AnhaltDessau, im Januar und

There was, on the 21st of February, TEDEUM sung in the churches of Berlin "for the Deliverance of Silesia

from Invasion." Not that even yet the Pandours would be quite quiet, or allow Old Leopold to quit his cart;

far from it. And they returned in such increased and tempestuous state, as will again require mention, with the

earliest Spring:precursors to a second, far more serious and deadly "Invasion of Silesia;" for which it hangs

Hungarian Majesty, disappointed of Silesia,which, it seems, is not to be had "all at once (EHESTENS)," in

the form of miracle, makes amends by a rush upon Seckendorf and Bavaria; attacks Seckendorf furiously

("Bathyani pressing up the Donau Valley, with Browne on one hand, and Barenklau on the other") in

midwinter; and makes a terrible hand of him; reducing his "Reconquest of Bavaria" to nothing again, nay to

It is not divine miracle, Friedrich knows well, that has lost him his late Bohemian Conquests without battle

fought: it was rash choosing of a plan inexecutable without French cooperation, culpable blindness to the

chance that France would break its promises, and not cooperate. Had your Majesty forgotten the Joint

Stock Principle, then? His Majesty has sorrowful cause to remember it, from this time, on a still larger scale!

Reflections, indignant or exculpatory, on the conduct of the French in this Business are useless to Friedrich,

and to us. The performance, on their part, has been nearly the worst;though their intentions, while the

Austrian Dragon had them by the throat, were doubtless enthusiastically good! But, the big Austrian Dragon

being jerked away from Elsass, by Friedrich's treading on his tail, 500 miles off, they were charmed, quite

into new enthusiasm, to be rid of said Dragon: and, instead of chasing HIM according to bargain, took to

destroying his DEN, that he might be harmless thenceforth. Freyburg is a captured Town, to the joy and glory

of admiring France; and Friedrich's Campaign has gone the road we see! The Freyburg Illuminations having

burnt out, there might rise, in the triumphant mind, some thought of Friedrich again,perhaps almost of a

remorseful nature? Certain it is, the French intentions are now again magnanimous, more so than ever;

coupled now with some attempts at fulfilment, too; which obliges us to mention them here. They were still a

matter of important hope to Friedrich; hope which did not quite go out till August coming. Though, alas, it

did then go out, in gusts of indignation on Friedrich's part! And as the whole of these magnanimous French

intentions, latter like former, again came to zero, we are interested only in rendering them conceivable to

readers for Friedrich's sake,with the more brevity, the better for everybody. Two grand French Attempts

... "It is certain the French intend gloriously; regardless of expense. They are dismantling Freyburg, to render

it harmless henceforth. But, withal, in answer to the poor Kaiser's shrieks, they have sent Segur [our old Linz

friend], with 12,000, to assist Seckendorf; 'the bravest troops in the world,'"who did bravely take one

beating (at Pfaffenhofen, as will be seen), and go home again. ("They have Coigny guarding those fine

Brisgau Conquests. And are furthermore diplomatizing diligently, not to say truculently, in the Rhine

Countries; bullying poor little fat KurTrier, lean KurKoln and others, 'To join the Frankfurt Union' (not

one of whom would, under menace),though 'it is the clear duty of all Reich'sPrinces with a Kaiser under

oppression:'and have marched Maillebois, directly after Freyburg, into the Middle Rhine Countries, to

Koln Country, to Mainz Country, and to and fro, in support of said compulsory diplomacies;but without

To the "MiddleRhine Countries," observe, and under Maillebois, then under Conti, little matter under

whom: only let readers recollect the name of it;for it is the FIRST of the French Attempts to do something

of a jointstock nature; something for self AND Allies, instead of for self only. It caused great alarm in those

months, to Britannic George and others; and brought out poor Duc d'Ahremberg with portions (no English

included) of the poor Pragmatic Army, to go marching about in the winter slushes, instead of resting in bed,

[Adelung, iv. 276, 420 ("December, 1744June, 1745").]and is indeed a very loud business in the old

Gazettes and books, till August coming. Business which almost broke poor D'Ahremberg's heart, he says, "till

once I got out of it" (was TURNED out, in fact): Business of Pragmatic Army, under D'Ahremberg,

VERSUS MiddleRhine Army under Maillebois, under Conti; Business now wholly of Zero VERSUS Zero

to us,except for a few dates and reflex glimmerings upon King Friedrich. Result otherwise We shall see

"Attempt SECOND was still more important to Friedrich; being directed upon the Kaiser and Bavaria.

Belleisle is to go thither and take survey; Belleisle thither first: you may judge if the intention is sincere!

Valori is quite eloquent upon it. Directly after Freyburg, says he, Sechelles, that first of Commissaries, was

sent to Munchen. Sechelles cleared up the chaos of Accounts; which King Louis then instantly paid. 'Your

Imperial Majesty shall have Magazines also,' said Louis, regardless of expense; 'and your Army, with

auxiliaries (Segur and 25,000 of them French), shall be raised to 60,000.' Belleisle then came: 'We will have

Ingolstadt, the first thing, in Spring.' Alas, Belleisle had his Accident in the Harz; and all went aback, from

that time." [Valori, i. 322329.] Aback, too indisputably, all!"And Belleisle's Accident?" Patience, readers.

"The truth is, Attempt SECOND, and chief, broke down at once [Bathyani beating it to pieces, as will be

seen],the ruins of it painfully reacting on Attempt FIRST; which had the like fate some months later;and

there was no THIRD made. And, in fact, from the date of that latter downbreak, August, or end of July,

1745 [and quite especially from "September 13th," by which time several irrevocable things had happened,

which we shall hear of], the French withdrew altogether out of German entanglements; and concentrated

themselves upon the Netherlands, there to demolish his Britannic Majesty, as the likelier enterprise. This was

a course to which, ever since the Exit of Broglio and the Oriflamme, they had been more and more tending

and inclining, 'Nothing for us but loss on loss, to be had in Germany!' and so they at last frankly gave up that

bad Country. They fought well in the Netherlands, with great splendor of success, under Saxe VERSUS

Cumberland and Company. They did also some successful work in Italy;and left Friedrich to bear the

brunt in Germany; too glad if he or another were there to take Germany off their hand! Friedrich's feelings on

his arriving at this consummation, and during his gradual advance towards it, which was pretty steady all

along from those first 'drenchedhen (POULES MOUILLEES)' procedures, were amply known to

Excellency Valori, and may be conceived by readers,"who are slightly interested in the dates of them at

farthest. And now for the Belleisle Accident, with these faint preliminary lights.

Siege of Freyburg being completed, and the River and most other things (except always the bastions, which

we blow up) being let into their old channels there, Marechal de Belleisle, who is to have a chief management

henceforth,the Most Christian King recognizing him again as his ablest man in war or peace,sets forth

on a long tour of supervision, of diplomacy and general arrangement, to prepare matters for the next

Campaign. Need enough of a Belleisle: what a business we have made of it, since Friedrich trod on the

serpent's tail for us.! Nothing but our own Freyburg to show for ourselves; elsewhere, mere downrush of

everything whitherward it liked;and King Friedrich got into such a humor! Friedrich must be put in tune

again; something real and good to be agreed on at Berlin: let that be the last thing, crown of the whole. The

first thing is, look into Bavaria a little; and how the Kaiser, poor gentleman, in want of all requisites but

"In the end of November, Marechal Duc de Belleisle, with his Brother the Chevalier (now properly the

Count, there having been promotions), and a great retinue more, alights at Munchen; holds counsel with the

poor Kaiser for certain days:Money wanted; many things wanted; and all things, we need not doubt, much

fallen out of square. 'Those Seckendorf troops in their winterquarters,' say our French Inspectors and Segur

people, as usual, 'do but look on it, your Excellency! Scattered, along the valleys, into the very edge of

Austria; Austria will swallow them, the first thing, next year; they will never rendezvous again except in the

Austrian prisons. Surely, Monseigneur, only a man ignorant of war, or with treasonous intention [or illoff

for victuals],could post troops in that way? Seckendorf is not ignorant of war!' say they. [Valori, i. 206.]

For, in fact, suspicion runs high; and there is no end to the accusations just and unjust; and Seckendorf is as

ill treated as any of us could wish. Poor old soul. Probably nobody in all the Earth, but his old Wife in the

Schloss of Altenburg, has any pity for him,if even she, which I hope. He has fought and diplomatized and

intrigued in many countries, very much; and in his old days is hard bested. Monseigueur, whose part is rather

that of Jove the Cloudcompeller, is studious to be himself noiseless amid this noise; and makes no alteration

And indeed Seckendorf, tired of the Bavarian bedofroses, had privately fixed with himself to quit the

same;and does so, inexorable to the very Kaiser, on NewYear arriving. [ Seckendorfs Leben, p. 365.]

Succeeded by Thorring (our old friend DRUM Thorring), if that be an improvement. Marechal de Belleisle

has still a long journey ahead, and infinitely harder problems than these,assuagement of the King of

"WEDNESDAY, 9th DECEMBER, 1744, the Marechal leaves Munchen, northwards through OEttingen and

the BambergAnspach regions towards Cassel;journey of some three hundred and fifty miles: with a great

retinue of his own; with an escort of two hundred horse from the Kaiser; these latter to prevent any outfall or

insult in the Ingolstadt quarter, where the Austrians have a garrison, not at all very tightly blocked by the

Seckendorf people thereabouts. No insult or outfall occurring, the Marechal dismisses his escort at

OEttingen; fares forward in his twenty coaches and fourgons, some score or so of vehicles:mere neutral

Imperial Countries henceforth, where the Kaiser's Agent, as Marechal de Belleisle can style himself, and

Titular Prince of the German Empire withal, has only to pay his way. By Donauworth, by OEttingen; over the

Donau acclivities, then down the pleasant Valley of the Mayn. [See REVIEW OF THE CASE OF

"SUNDAY, 13th DECEMBER, Marechal de Belleisle arrives at Hanau [where we have seen Conferences

held before now, and Carteret, Prince Karl and great George our King very busy], there to confer with

Marshals Coigny, Maillebois and other high men, Commanders in those Rhine parts. Who all come

accordingly, except Marechal Maillebois, who is sorry that he absolutely cannot; but will surely do himself

the honor as Monseigneur returns." As Monseigneur returns! "And so, on Monday, 14th, Monseigneur starts

for Cassel; say a hundred miles right north; where we shall meet Prince Wilhelm of HessenCassel, a zealous

Ally; inform him how his Troops, under Seckendorf, are posted [at Vilshofen yonder; hiding how perilous

their post is, or promising alterations]; perhaps rest a day or two, consulting as to the common weal: How the

King of Prussia takes our treatment of him? How to smooth the King of Prussia, and turn him to harmony

again? We are approaching the true nodus of our business, difficulty of difficulties; and Wilhelm, the wise

Landgraf, may afford a hint or two. Thus travels magnanimous Belleisle in twenty vehicles, a man loaded

with weighty matters, in these deep Winter months; suffering dreadfully from rheumatic neuralgic ailments, a

Doctor one of his needfulest equipments; and has the hardest problem yet ahead of him.

"Prince Wilhelm's consultations are happily lost altogether; buried from sight forever, to the last hint,all

except as to what road to Berlin would be the best from Cassel. By Leipzig, through lowlying country, is the

great Highway, advisable in winter; but it runs a hundred and thirty miles to right, before ever starting

northward; such a roundabout. Not to say that the Saxons are allies of Austria,if there be anything in that.

Enemies, they, to the Most Christian King: though surely, again, we are on Kaiser's business, nay we are

titular 'Prince of the Reich,' for that matter, such the Kaiser's grace to us? Well; it is better perhaps to AVOID

the Saxon Territory. And, of course, the Hanoverian much more; through which lies the other Great Road!

'Go by the Harz,' advises Landgraf Wilhelm: 'a rugged Hill Country; but it is your hypotenuse towards Berlin;

passes at once, or nearly so, from Cassel Territory into Prussian: a rugged road, but a shorter and safer.' That

is the road Belleisle resolves upon. Twenty carriages; his Brother the Chevalier and himself occupy one; and

always the courier rides before, ordering forty posthorses to be ready harnessed.

"SUNDAY, 20th DECEMBER, 1744. In this way they have climbed the eastern shin of the Harz Range,

where the Harz is capable of wheel carriages; and hope now to descend, this night, to Halberstadt; and

thence rapidly by level roads to Berlin. It is sinking towards dark; the courier is forward to Elbingerode,

ordering forty horses to be out. Roughish uphill road; winter in the sky and earth, winter vapors and tumbling

windgusts: westward, in torn storm cloak, the Bracken, with its witchdances; highland Goslar, and ghost

of Henry the Fowler, on the other side of it. A multifarious wizard Country, much overhung by goblin

reminiscences, witch dances, sorcerers'sabbaths and the like,if a rheumatic gentleman cared to look on

it, in the cold twilight. Brrh! Waste chasmy uplands, snowchoked torrents; wild people, gloomy firs! Here at

last, by one's watch 5 P.M., is Elbingerode, uncomfortable little Town; and it is to be hoped the forty

"Behold, while the forty posthorses are getting ready, a thing takes place, most unexpected;which made

the name of Elbingerode famous for eight months to come. Of which let us hastily give the bare facts, Fancy

making of them what she can. Was Monseigneur aware that this Elbingerode, with a patch of territory round

it, is Hanoverian ground; one of those distracted patches or ragged outskirts frequent in the German map?

Prussia is not yet, and HessenCassel has ceased to be. Undoubtedly Hanoverian! Apparently the Landgraf

and Monseigneur had not thought of that. But Munchhausen of Hanover, spies informing him, had. The

Bailiff (Vogt, AdVOCATus) has gathered twenty JAGER [official Gamekeepers] with their guns, and a

select idle Sunday population of the place with or without guns: the Vogt steps forward, and inquires for

Monseigneur's passport. 'No passport, no need of any!''Pardon!' and signifies to Monseigneur, on the part

of George Elector of Hanover, King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, that Monseigneur is arrested!

"Monseigneur, with compressed or incompressible feelings, indignantly complies,what could he else,

unfortunate rheumatic gentleman?and is plucked away in such sudden manner, he for one, out of that big

German game of his raising. The twenty vehicles are dragged different roads; towards Scharzfels, Osterode,

or I know not where,handiest roads to Hanover;and Monseigneur himself has travelling treatment which

might be complained of, did not one disdain complaint: 'my Brother parted from me, nay my Doctor, and my

Interpreter;'"not even speech possible to me. [Letter of Belleisle next morning, "Neuhof, 21st December, 9

A.M." (in Valori, i. 204), to Munchhausen at Hanover,by no possibility "to Valori," as the distracted

French Editor has given it!] That was the Belleisle Accident in the Harz, Sunday Evening, 20th December,

"Afflicted indignant Valori, soon enough apprised, runs to Friedrich with the news,greets Friedrich with it

just alighting from that Silesian run of his own. Friedrich, not without several other things to think of, is

naturally sorry at such news; sorry for his own sake even; but not overmuch. Friedrich refuses 'to despatch a

party of horse,' and cut out Marechal de Belleisle. "That will never do, MON CHER!'and even gets into

FROIDES PLAISANTERIES: 'Perhaps the Marechal did it himself? Tallard, prisoner after Blenheim, made

PEACE, you know, in England?'and the like; which grieved the soul of Valori, and convinced him of

"Belleisle is lugged on to Hanover; his case not doubtful to Munchhausen, or the English Ministry,though

it raised great argument, (was the capture fair, was it unfair? Is he entitled to exchange by cartel, or not

entitled?' and produced, in the next eight months, much angry animated pamphleteering and negotiation. For

we hear by and by, he is to be forwarded to Stade, on the Hamburg seacoast, where English Seventyfours

are waiting for him; his case still undecided;and, in effect, it was not till after eight months that he got

dismissal. 'Lodged handsomely in Windsor Palace,' in the interim; free on his parole, people of rank very civil

to him, though the Gazetteers were sometimes illtongued, had he understood their PATOIS, or concerned

himself about such things. ["TUESDAY, 18th FEBRUARY [lst March, 1745], Marshal Belleisle landed at

Harwich; lay at Greenwich Palace, having crossed Thames at the Isle of Dogs: next morning, about 10, set

out, in a coachandsix, Colonel Douglas and two troops of horse escorting; arrived 3 P.M.,by

Camberwell, Clapham, Wandsworth, over Kingston and Staines Bridges,at Windsor Castle, and the

apartments ready for him." ( Gentleman's Magazine, 1745, p 107.) Was let go 13th (24th) August, again with

"It was a current notion among contemporary mankind, this of Friedrich, that Belleisle's capture might be a

mere collusion, meant to bring about a Peace in that Tallard fashion,wide of the truth as such a notion is,

far as any Peace was from following. To Britannic George and his Hanoverians it had merely seemed, Here

was a chief WarCaptain and Diplomatist among the French; the pivot of all these worldwide movements,

as Valori defines him; which pivot, a chance offering, it were well to twitch from its socket, and see what

would follow. Perhaps nothing will follow; next to nothing? A world, all waltzing in mad war, is not to be

stopped by acting on any pivot; your waltzing world will find new pivots, or do without any, and perhaps

This withdrawal of Belleisle, the one Frenchman respected by Friedrich, or much interested for his own sake

in things German, is reckoned a main cause why the French Alliance turned out so ill for Friedrich; and why

French effort took more and more a Netherlands direction thenceforth, and these new French magnanimities

on Friedrich's behalf issued in futility again. Probably they never could have issued in very much: but it is

certain that, from this point, they also do become zero; and that Friedrich, from his French alliance, reaped

from first to last nothing at all, except a great deal of obloquy from German neighbors, and from the French

side endless trouble, anger and disappointment in every particular. Which 'might be a joy (though not

unmixed) to Britannic Majesty and the subtle followers who had ginned this fine Belleisle bird in its flight

over the Harz Range? Though again, had they passively let him wing his way, and he had GOT "to be

Commander and Manager," as was in agitation,he, Belleisle and in Germany, instead of Marechal de Saxe

with the Netherlands as chief scene,what an advantage might that have been to them!

A still sadder cross for Friedrich, in the current of foreign Accidents and Diplomacies, was the next that

befell; exactly a month later,at Munchen, 20th January, 1745. Hardly was Belleisle's back turned, when her

Hungarian Majesty, by her Bathyani and Company, broke furiously in upon the poor Kaiser and his

SeckendorfSegur defences. Belleisle had not reached the Harz, when all was going topsyturvy there again,

and the DonauValley fast falling back into Austrian hands. Nor is that the worst, or nearly so.

"MUNCHEN, 20th JANUARY, 1745. This day poor Kaiser Karl laid down his earthly burden here, and at

length gave all his enemies the slip. He had been ill of gout for some time; a man of much malady always,

with no want of vexations and apprehensions. Too likely the Austrians will drive him out of Munchen again;

then nothing but furnished lodgings, and the French to depend upon. He had been much chagrined by some

Election, just done, in the Chapter of Salzburg. [Adelung, iv. 249, 276, 313.] The Archbishop thereit was

Firmian, he of the SALZBURG EMIGRATION, memorable to readershad died, some while ago. And

now, in flat contradiction to Imperial customs, prerogatives, these people had admitted an Austrian Garrison;

and then, in the teeth of our express precept, had elected an Austrian to their benefice: what can one account

it but an insult as well as an injury? And the neuralgic maladies press sore, and the gouty twinges; and

Belleisle is seized, perhaps with important papers of ours; and the SeckendorfSegur detachments were ill

placed; nay here are the Austrians already on the throat of them, in midwinter! It is said, a babbling valet, or

lordinwaiting, happened to talk of some skirmish that had fallen out (called a battle, in the valet rumor),

and how ill the French and Bavarians had fared in it, owing to their ill behavior. And this, add they, proved to

"The Kaiser took to bed, not much complaining; patient, mild, though the saddest of all mortals; and, in a day

or two, died. Adieu, adieu, ye loved faithful ones; pity me, and pray for me! He gave his Wife, poor little fat

devout creature, and his poor Children (eldest lad, his Heir, only seventeen), a tender blessing; solemnly

exhorted them, To eschew ambition, and be warned by his example;to make their peace with Austria; and

never, like him, try COM' E DURO CALLE, and what the charity of Christian Kings amounts to. This

counsel, it is thought, the Empress Dowager zealously accedes to, and will impress upon her Son. That is the

Austrian and CauseofLiberty account: King Friedrich, from the other side, has heard a directly opposite

one. How the Kaiser, at the point of death, exhorted his son, 'Never forget the services which the King of

France and the King of Prussia have done us, and do not repay them with ingratitude.' [ OEuvres de Frederic,

iii. 92;and see (PER CONTRA) in Adelung, iv. 314 A; in Coxe, The reader can choose which he will, or

reject both into the region of the uncertain. 'Karl Albert's pious and affectionate demeanor drew tears from all

eyes,' say the by standers: 'the manner in which he took leave of his Empress would have melted a heart of

stone.' He was in his fortyeighth year; he had been, of all men in his generation, the most conspicuously

What a downrush of confusion there ensued on this event, not to Bavaria alone, but to all the world, and to

King Friedrich more than another, no reader can now take the pains of conceiving. The "Frankfurt Union,"

then, has gone to air! Here is now no "Kaiser to be delivered from oppression:" here is a new Kaiser to be

elected,"GrandDuke Franz the man," cry the Pragmatic Potentates with exultation, "no Belleisle to

disturb!"and questions arise innumerable thereupon, Will France go into electioneering again? The new

KurBaiern, only seventeen, poor child, cannot be set up as candidate. What will France do with HIM; what

he with France? Whom can the French try as Candidate against the GrandDuke? KurSachsen, the Polish

Majesty again? Belleisle himself must have paused uncertain over such a welter,and probably have done,

like the others, little or nothing in it, but left it to collapse by natural gravitation.

Hungarian Majesty checked her Bavarian Armaments a little: "If perhaps this young KurBaiern will detach

himself from France, and on submissive terms come over to us?" Whereupon, at Munchen, and in the cognate

quarters, such wriggling, dubitating and diplomatizing, as seldom was,French, AntiFrench (Seckendorf

busiest of all), straining every nerve in that way, and for almost three months, nothing coming of it,till

Hungarian Majesty sent her Barenklaus and Bathyanis upon them again; and these rapidly solved the

Friedrich has still his hopes of Bavaria, so grandiloquent are the French in regard to it; who but would hope?

The French diplomatize to all lengths in Munchen, promising seas and mountains; but they perform little; in

an effectual manner, nothing. Bavarian "Army raised to 60,000;" counts in fact little above half that number;

with no General to it but an imaginary one; Segur's actual French contingent, instead of 25,000, is perhaps

12,000;and so of other things. Add to all which, Seckendorf is there, not now as War General, but as

extraofficial "Adviser;" busier than ever, "scandalous old traitor!" say the French;and Friedrich may

Friedrich, a week or two after the Kaiser's death, seeing Bavarian and French things in such a hypothetic

state, instructs his Ambassador at London to declare his, Friedrich's, perfect readiness and wish for Peace:

"Old Treaty of Breslau and Berlin made indubitable to me; the rest of the quarrel has, by decease of the

Kaiser, gone to air." To which the Britannic Majesty, rather elated at this time, as all Pragmatic people are,

answers somewhat in a careless way, "Well, if the others like it!" and promises that he will propose it in the

proper quarter. So that henceforth there is always a hope of Peace through England; as well as contrariwise,

especially till Bavaria settle itself (in April next), a hope of great assistance from the French. Here are

potentialities and counterpotentialities, which make the Bavarian Intricacy very agitating to the young King,

while it lasts. And indeed his world is one huge imbroglio of Potentialities and Diplomatic Intricacies,

agitating to behold. Concerning which we have again to remark how these huge Spectres of Diplomacy, now

filling Friedrich's world, came mostly in result to Nothing;shaping themselves wholly, for or against, in

exact proportion, direct or inverse, to the actual Quantity of Battle and effective Performance that happened

to be found in Friedrich himself. Diplomatic Spectralities, wide Fatamorganas of hope, and hideous big

Bugbears blotting out the sun: of these, few men ever had more than Friedrich at this time. And he is careful,

none carefuler, not to neglect his Diplomacies at any time;though he knows, better than most, that good

fighting of his own is what alone can determine the value of these contingent and aerial quantities,mere

A second grand Intricacy and difficulty, still more enigmatic, and pressing the tighter by its close

neighborhood, was that with the Saxons. "Are the Saxons enemies; are they friends? Neutrals at lowest;

bound by Treaty to lend Austria troops; but to lend for defence merely, not for offence! Could not one, by

good methods, make friends with his Polish Majesty?" Friedrich was far from suspecting the rages that lurked

in the Polish Majesty, and least of all owing to what. Owing to that old MORAVIANFORAY business; and

to his, Friedrich's, behavior to the Saxons in it; excellent Saxons, who had behaved so beautifully to

Friedrich! That is the sad fact, however. Stupid Polish Majesty has his natural envies, jealousies, of a

Brandenburg waxing over his head at this rate. But it appears, the Moravian Foray entered for a great deal

into the account, and was the final overwhelming item. Bruhl, by much descanting on that famous

Expedition,with such candid Eye witnesses to appeal to, such corroborative Staffofficers and

appliances, powerful on the idle heart and weak brain of a Polish Majesty,has brought it so far. Fixed

indignation, for intolerable usage, especially in that MoravianForay time: fixed; not very malignant, but

altogether obstinate (as, I am told, that of the pacific sheep species usually is); which carried Bruhl and his

Polish Majesty to extraordinary heights and depths in years coming! But that will deserve a section to itself

A third difficulty, privately more stringent than any, is that of Finance. The expenses of the late Bohemian

Expedition, "Friedrich's Army costing 75,000 pounds a month," have been excessive. For our next Campaign,

if it is to be done in the way essential, there are, by rigorous arithmetic, "900,000 pounds" needed. A frugal

Prussia raises no new taxes; pays its Wars from "the Treasure," from the Fund saved beforehand for

emergencies of that kind; Fund which is running low, threatening to be at the lees if such drain on it continue.

To fight with effect being the one sure hope, and salve for all sores, it is not in the Army, in the Fortresses,

the Fighting Equipments, that there shall be any flaw left! Friedrich's budget is a sore problem upon him;

needing endless shift and ingenuity, now and onwards, through this war:already, during these months, in

the Berlin Schloss, a great deal of those massive FriedrichWilhelm plate Sumptuosities, especially that

unparalleled MusicBalcony up stairs, all silver, has been, under Fredersdorf's management, quietly taken

And, in fact, no modern reader, not deeper in that distressing story of the AustrianSuccession War than

readers are again like to be, can imagine to himself the difficulties of Friedrich at this time, as they already

lay disclosed, and kept gradually disclosing themselves, for months coming; nor will ever know what

perspicacity, patience of scanning, sharpness of discernment, dexterity of management, were required at

Friedrich's hands;and under what imminency of peril, too; victorious deliverance, or ruin and annihilation,

wavering fearfully in the balance for him, more than once, or rather all along. But it is certain the deeper one

goes into that hideous Medea's Caldron of stupidities, once so flamy, now fallen extinct, the more is one

sensible of Friedrich's difficulties; and of the talent for all kinds of Captaincy,by no means in the Field

only, or perhaps even chiefly,that was now required of him. Candid readers shall accept these hints, and do

their best:Friedrich himself made not the least complaint of men's then misunderstanding him; still less

will he now! We, keeping henceforth the Diplomacies, the vaporous Foreshadows, and general Dance of

Unclean Spirits with their intrigues and spectralities, well underground, so far as possible, will stick to what

comes up as practical Performance on Friedrich's part, and try to give intelligible account of that.

Valori says, he is greatly changed, and for the better, by these late reverses of fortune. All the world notices

it, says Valori. No longer that brief infallibility of manner; that lofty light air, that politely disdainful view of

Valori and mankind: he has now need of men. Complains of nothing, is cheerful, quizzical; ardently busy

to "grind out the notches," as our proverb is; has a mild humane aspect, something of modesty, almost of

piety in him. Help me, thou Supreme Power, Maker of men, if my purposes are manlike! Though one does

not go upon the Prayers of FortyHours, or apply through St. Vitus and such channels, there may be

something of authentic petition to Heaven in the thoughts of that young man. He is grown very amiable; the

handsomest young bit of Royalty now going. He must fight well next Summer, or it will go hard with him!

Some time in January, a new Frenchman, a "Chevalier de Courten," if the name is known to anybody, was

here at Berlin; consulting, settling about mutual interests and operations. Since Belleisle is snatched from us,

it is necessary some Courten should come; and produce what he has got: little of settlement, I should fear, of

definite program that will hold water; in regard to War operations chiefly a magazine of clouds. [Specimens

of it, in Ranke, iii. 219.] For the rest, the Bavarian question; and very specially, Who the new Emperor is to

be? "King of Poland, thinks your Majesty?""By all means," answers Friedrich, "if you can! Detach him

from Austria; that will be well!" Which was reckoned magnanimous, at least publicspirited, in Friedrich;

considering what Saxony's behavior to him had already been. "By all means, his Polish Majesty for Kaiser;

do our utmost, Excellencies Valori, Courten and Company!" answers Friedrich,and for his own part, I

And so Valori is to go to Dresden, and manage this cloud or cobwebbery department of the thing; namely,

persuade his Polish Majesty to stand for the Kaisership: "Baiern, Pfalz, Koln, Brandenburg, there are four

votes, Sire; your own is five: sure of carrying it, your Polish Majesty; backed by the Most Christian King, and

his Allies and resources!" And Polish Majesty does, for his own share, very much desire to be Kaiser. But

none of us yet knows how he is tied up by Austria, AntiFriedrich, AntiFrench considerations; and can only

"accept if it is offered me:" thrice willing to accept, if it will fall into my mouth; which, on those terms, it

has so little chance of doing!Saxony and its mysterious affairs and intentions having been, to Friedrich, a

riddle and trouble and astonishment, during all this Campaign, readers ought to know the fact well;and no

reader could stand the details of such a fact. Here, in condensed form, are some scraps of Excerpt; which

"... By known Treaty, the Polish Majesty is bound to assist the Hungarian with 12,000 men, 'whenever

invaded in her own dominions.' Polish Majesty had 20,000 in the field for that object lately, part of them,

8,000 of them, hired by Britannic subsidy, as he alleges. The question now is, Will Saxony assist Austria in

invading Silesia, with or without Britannic subsidy? Friedrich hopes that this is impossible! Friedrich is

deeply unaware of the humor he has raised against himself in the Saxon Courtcircles; how the Polish

Majesty regards that Moravian Foray; with what a perfect hatred little Bruhl regards him, Friedrich; and to

what pitch of humor, owing to those MoravianForay starvings, marchings about and inhuman treatment of

the poor Saxon Army, not to mention other offences and afflictive considerations, Bruhl has raised the simple

Polish Majesty against Friedrich. These things, as they gradually unfolded themselves to Friedrich, were very

surprising. And proved very disadvantageous at the present juncture and for a long time afterwards. To

Friedrich disadvantageous and surprising; and to Saxony, in the end, ruinous; poor Saxony having got its

back broken by them, and never stood up in the world since! Ruined by this wretched little Bruhl; and

reduced, from the first place in Northern Teutschland, to a second or third, or no real place at all."

"January 8th, 1745, before the Old Dessauer got ranked in Schlesien against Traun, there had concluded itself

at Warsaw, by way of counterpoise to the 'Frankfurt Union,' a 'Union of Warsaw,' called also 'Quadruple

Alliance of Warsaw;' the Parties to which were Polish Majesty, Hungarian ditto, PrimeMovers, and the two

SeaPowers as Purseholders; stipulating, to the effect: 'We Four will hold together in affairs of the Reich

VERSUS that dangerous Frankfurt Union; we will'do a variety of salutary things; and as one practical

thing, 'There shall be, this Season, 30,000 Saxons conjoined to the Austrian Force, for which we SeaPowers

will furnish subsidy.'This was the one practical point stipulated, January 8th; and farther than this the

"But there was then proposed by the Polish and Hungarian Majesties, in the form of Secret Articles, an

ulterior Project; with which the SeaPowers, expressing mere disbelief and even abhorrence of it, refused to

have any concern now or henceforth. Polish Majesty, in hopes it would have been better taken, had given his

30,000 soldiers at a rate of subsidy miraculously low, only 150,000 pounds for the whole: but the

SeaPowers were inexorable, perhaps almost repented of their 150,000 pounds; and would hear nothing

"So that the 'Union of Warsaw' had to retire to its pigeonhole, content with producing those 30,000 Saxons

for the immediate occasion; and there had to be concocted between the Polish and Hungarian Majesties

themselves what is now, in the modern Pamphlets, called a 'TREATY of Warsaw,'much different from the

innocent, 'UNION of Warsaw;' though it is merely the specifying and fixing down of what had been

shadowed out as secret codicils in said 'Union,' when the SeaPower parties obstinately recoiled. Treaty of

Warsaw let us continue to call it; though its actual birthplace was Leipzig (in the profoundest secrecy, 18th

May, 1745), above four months after it had tried to be born at Warsaw, and failed as aforesaid. Warsaw

Union is not worth speaking of; but this other is a Treaty highly remarkable to the reader,and to Friedrich

"Treaty which, though it proved abortional, and never came to fulfilment in any part of it, is at this day one of

the remarkablest bits of sheepskin extant in the world. It was signed 18th May, 1745; [Scholl, ii. 350.] and

had cost a great deal of painful contriving, capable still of new altering and retouching, to hit mutual views:

Treaty not only for reconquering Silesia (which to the Two Majesties, though it did not to the SeaPowers,

seems infallible, in Friedrich's now ruined circumstances), but for cutting down that bad Neighbor to

something like the dimensions proper for a Brandenburg Vassal;in fact, quite the old 'Detestable Project' of

Spring, 1741, only more elaborated into detail (in which Britannic George knows better than to meddle!)

Saxony to have share of the parings, when we get them. 'What share?' asked Saxony, and long keeps asking.

'A road to Warsaw; Strip of Country carrying us from the end of the Lausitz, which is ours, into Poland,

which we trust will continue ours, would be very handy! Duchy of Glogau; some small paring of Silesia,

won't your Majesty?' 'Of my Silesia not one handbreadth,' answered the Queen impatiently (though she did

at last concede some outlying handbreadths, famed old 'Circle of Schwiebus,' if I recollect); and they have

had to think of other equivalent parings for Saxony's behoof (Magdeburg, Halberstadt, SaaleCircle, or one

knows not what); and have had, and will have, their adoes to get it fixed. Excellent bearskin to be slit into

straps; only the bear is still on his feet!Polish Majesty and Hungarian, Polish with especial vigor, Bruhl

quite restless upon it, arelittle as Valori or any mortal could dream of itengaged in this partition of the

bearskin, when Valori arrives. Of their innocent Union of Warsaw, there was, from the first, no secret made;

but the Document now called 'TREATY of Warsaw' needs to lie secret and thricesecret; and it was not till

1756 that Friedrich, having unearthed it by industries of his own, and studied it with great intensity for some

years, made it known to the world." [Adelung, v. 308. 397; Ranke, iii. 231 (who, for some reason of his own,

Treaties, vaporous Foreshadows of Events, have oftenest something of the ghost in them; and are importune

to human nature, longing for the Events themselves; all the more if they have proved abortional Treaties, and

become doubly ghostlike or ghastly. Nevertheless the reader is to note well this Treaty of Warsaw, as

important to Friedrich and him; and indeed it is perhaps the remarkablest Treaty, abortional or realized,

which got to parchment in that Century. For though it proved abortional, and no part of it, now or afterwards,

could be executed, and even the subsidy and 30,000 Saxons (stipulated in the "UNION of Warsaw") became

crow's meat in a manner,this preternatural "Treaty of Warsaw," trodden down never so much by the heel

of Destiny, and by the weight of new Treaties, superseding it or presupposing its impossibility or

inconceivability, would by no means die (such the humor of Bruhl, of the Two Majesties and others); but lay

alive under the ashes, carefully tended, for Ten or Twenty Years to come;and had got all Europe kindled

again, for destruction of that bad Neighbor, before it would itself consent to go out! And did succeed in

getting Saxony's back broken, if not the bad Neighbor's,in answer to the humor of little Bruhl; unfortunate

In those beautiful SaxonAustrian developments of the Treaty of Warsaw, Czarina Elizabeth, bobbing about

in that unlovely whirlpool of intrigues, amours, devotions and strong liquor, which her History is, took (ask

not for what reason) a lively part:and already in this Spring of 1745, they hope she could, by "a gift of two

millions for her pleasures" (gift so easy to you SeaPowers), be stirred up to anger against Friedrich. And she

did, in effect, from this time, hover about in a manner questionable to Friedrich; though not yet in anger, but

only with the wish to be important, and to make herself felt in Foreign affairs. Whether the SeaPowers gave

her that trifle of pocketmoney ("for her pleasures"), I never knew; but it is certain they spent, first and last,

very large amounts that way, upon her and hers; especially the English did, with what result may be

As for Graf von Bruhl, most rising man of Saxony, once a page; now by industry King August III.'s first

favorite and factotum; the fact that he cordially hates Friedrich is too evident; but the why is not known to

me. Except indeed, That no manespecially no man with three hundred and sixtyfive fashionable suits of

clothes usually about him, different suit each day of the yearcan be comfortable in the evident contempt of

another man. Other man of sarcastic bantering turn, too; tongue sharp as needles; whose sayings many birds

of the air are busy to carry about. Year after year, Bruhl (doubtless with help enough that way, if there had

needed such) hates him more and more; as the too jovial Czarina herself comes to do, wounded by things that

birds have carried. And now we will go with Valori,seeing better into some things than Valori yet can.

"Valori [I could guess about the 10th of February, but there is no date at all] was despatched to Dresden with

that fine project, Polish Majesty for Kaiser: is authorized to offer 60,000 men, with money corresponding,

and no end of brilliant outlooks;must keep back his offers, however, if he find the people indisposed.

Which he did, to an extreme degree; nothing but vague talk, procrastination, hesitation on the part of Bruhl.

This wretched little Bruhl has twelve tailors always sewing for him, and three hundred and sixtyfive suits of

clothes: so many suits, all pictured in a Book; a valet enters every morning, proposes a suit, which, after

deliberation, with perhaps amendments, is acceded to, and worn at dinner. Vainest of human clotheshorses;

foolishest coxcomb Valori has seen: it is visibly his notion that it was he, Bruhl, by his Saxon auxiliaries, by

his masterly strokes of policy, that checkmated Friedrich, and drove him from Bohemia last Year; and, for the

rest, that Friedrich is ruined, and will either shirk out of Silesia, or be cut to ribbons there by the Austrian

force this Summer. To which Valori hints dissent; but it is ill received. Valori sees the King; finds him, as

expected, the facsimile of Bruhl in this matter; Jesuit Guarini the like: how otherwise? They have his

"At four every morning, this Guarini, Jesuit Confessor to the King and Queen, comes to Bruhl; Bruhl settles

with him what his Majesty shall think, in reference to current business, this day; Guarini then goes, confesses

both Majesties; confesses, absolves, turns in the due way to secular matters. At nine, Bruhl himself arrives,

for Privy Council: 'What is your Majesty pleased to think on these points of current business?' Majesty

serenely issues his thoughts, in the form of orders; which are found correct to pattern. This is the process with

his Majesty. A poor Majesty, taking deeply into tobacco; this is the way they have him benetted, as in a dark

cocoon of cobwebs, rendering the whole world invisible to him. Which cunning arrangement is more and

more perfected every year; so that on all roads he travels, be it to mass, to hunt, to dinner, anywhither in his

Palace or out of it, there are faithful creatures keeping eye, who admit no unsafe man to the least glimpse of

him by night or by day. In this manner he goes on; and before the end of him, twenty years hence, has carried

it far. Nothing but disgust to be had out of business;mutinous Polish Diets too, some forty of them, in his

time, not one of which did any business at all, but ended in LIBERUM VETO, and Billingsgate

conflagration, perhaps with swords drawn: [See Buchholz, 154; more and more disagreeable to him. What

"The Queen herself, Maria Theresa's Cousin, an ambitious hardfavored Majesty,who had sense once to

dislike Bruhl, but has been quite reconciled to him by her Jesuit Messenger of Heaven (which latter is an oily,

rather stupid creature, who really wishes well to her, and loves a peaceable life at any price),even she will

not take the bait. Valori was in Dresden nine days (middle part of February, it is likely); never produced his

big bait, his 60,000 men and other brilliancies, at all. He saw old Feldmarschall Konigseck passing from

Vienna towards the Netherlands Camp; where he is to drynurse (so they irreverently call it, in time coming)

his Royal Highness of Cumberland, that magnificent English Babe of War, and do feats with him this

Summer." Konigseck, though Valori did not know it, has endless diplomacies to do withal; inspections of

troops, advisings, in Hanover, in Holland, in Dresden here; [Anonymous, Duke of Cumberland, p.

186.]and secures the Saxon ElectoralVote for his GrandDuke in passing. "The welcome given to

Konigseck disgusted Valori; on the ninth day he left; said adieu, seeing them blind to their interest; and took

post for Berlin,"where he finds Friedrich much out of humor at the Saxon reception of his magnanimities.

[Valori, i. 211219; OEuvres de Frederic, iii. 8185. For details on Bruhl, see Graf von Bruhl, Leben und

Charakter (1760, No Place): Anonymous, by one Justi, a noted Pamphleteer of the time: exists in English

too, or partly exists; but is unreadable, except on compulsion; and totally unintelligible till after very much

This Saxon intricacy, indecipherable, formidable, contemptible, was the plague of Friedrich's life, one

considerable plague, all through this Campaign. Perhaps nothing in the Diplomatic sphere of things caused

him such perplexity, vexation, indignation. An insoluble riddle to him; extremely contemptible, yet,with a

huge Russia tacked to it, and looming minatory in the distance, from time to time, formidable enough. Let

readers keep it in mind, and try to imagine it. It cost Friedrich such guessing, computing, arranging,

rearranging, as would weary the toughest reader to hear of in detail. How Friedrich did at last solve it (in

Early in March it becomes surmisable that Maillebois's MiddleRhine Army will not go a good road.

Maillebois has been busy in those countries, working extensive discontent; bullying mankind "to join the

Frankfurt Union," to join France at any rate, which nobody would consent to; and exacting merciless

contributions, which everybody had to consent to and pay.And now, on D'Ahremberg's mere advance,

with that poor Fraction of Pragmatic Army, roused from its winter sleep, Maillebois, without waiting for

D'Ahremberg's attack, rapidly calls in his truculent detachments, and rolls confusedly back into the Frankfurt

regions. [Adelung, iv. 276352 (December, 1744March, 1745).] Upon which D'Ahrembergif by no

means going upon Maillebois's throatsets, at least, to coercing Wilhelm of Hessen, our only friend in those

parts; who is already a good deal disgusted with the Maillebois procedures, and at a loss what to do on the

Kaiser's death, which has killed the Frankfurt Union too. Wise Wilhelm consents, under D'Ahremberg's

menaces, to become Neutral; and recall his 6,000 out of Baiern, wishes he had them home beside him even

With an Election in the wind, it is doubly necessary for the French, who have not even a Candidate as yet, to

stand supreme and minatory in the Frankfurt Country; and to King Friedrich it is painfully questionable,

whether Maillebois can do it. "Do it we will; doubt not that, your Majesty!" answer Valori and the French;

and study to make improvements, reinforcements, in their Rhine Army. And they do, at least, change the

General of their Middle Rhine Army,that is to say, recall Prince Conti out of Italy, where he has

distinguished himself, and send Maillebois thither in his stead,who likewise distinguishes himself THERE,

if that could be a comfort to us! Whether the distinguished Conti will maintain that Frankfurt Country in spite

of the Austrians and their Election movements, is still a question with Friedrich, though Valori continued

assuring him (always till July came) that, it was beyond question. "Siege of Tournay, vigorous Campaign in

the Netherlands (for behoof of Britannic George)!" this is the grand French program for the Year. This good

intention was achieved, on the French part; but this, like Aaron's rod among the serpents, proved to have

Those MailleboisD'Ahremberg affairs throw a damp on the Bavarian Question withal;in fact, settle the

Bavarian Question; her Hungarian Majesty, tired of the delays, having ordered Bathyani to shoulder arms

again, and bring a decision. Bathyani, with Barenklau to right of him, and Browne (our old Silesian friend) to

left, goes sweeping across those SeckendorfSegur posts, and without difficulty tumbles everything to ruin,

at a grand rate. The traitor Seckendorf had made such a choice of posts,left unaltered by Drum

Thorring;what could French valor do? Nothing; neither French valor, nor Bavarian want of valor, could do

anything but whirl to the rightabout, at sight of the Austrian SweepingApparatus; and go off explosively,

as in former instances, at a rate almost unique in military annals. Finished within three weeks or so! We

glance only at two points of it. March 21st, Bathyani stood to arms (to BESOMS we might call it), Browne

on the left, Barenklau on the right: it was March 21st when Bathyani started from Passau, up the Donau

"VILSHOFEN, 28th MARCH, 1745. Here, at the mouth of the Vils River (between Inn and Iser), is the first

considerable Post; garrison some 4,000; Hessians and Prince Friedrich the main part,who have their share

of valor, I dare say; but with such news out of Hessen, not to speak of the prospects in this Country, are

probably in poorish spirits for acting. General Browne summons them in Vilshofen, this day; and, on their

negative, storms in upon them, bursts them to pieces; upon which they beat chamade. But the Croats, who are

foremost, care nothing for chamade: go plundering, slaughtering; burn the poor Town; butcher [in round

numbers] 3,000 of the poor Hessians; and wound General Browne himself, while he too vehemently

interferes." [Adelung, iv. 356, and the half intelligible Footnote in Ranke, iii. 220.] This was the finale of

those 6,000 Hessians, and indeed their principal function, while in French pay;and must have been, we can

Judge how surprising to Prince Friedrich, and to his Papa on hearing of it! Note another point.

Precisely about this time twelvemonth, "March 16th, 1746," the same Prince Friedrich, with remainder of

those Hessians, now again completed to 6,000, and come back with emphasis to the Britannic side of things,

wasmarching out of Edinburgh, in much state, with streamers, kettledrums, Highness's coaches, horses,

ledhorses, on an unexpected errand. [Henderson (Whig Eyewitness). History of the Rebellion, 1745 and

1746 (London, 1748, reprint from the Edinburgh edition), pp. 104, 106, 107.] Toward Stirling, Perth; towards

Killiecrankie, and raising of what is called "the Siege of Blair in Athol" (most minute of "sieges," but

subtending a great angle there and then);much of unexpected, and nearer home than "Tournay and the

Netherlands Campaign," having happened to Britannic George in the course of this year, 1746! "Really very

fine troops, those Hessians [observes my orthodox Whig friend]: they carry swords as well as guns and

bayonets; their uniform is blue turned up with white: the Hussar part of them, about 500, have scimitars of a

great length; small horses, mostly black, of Swedish breed; swift durable little creatures, with long tails."

Honors, dinners, to his Serene Highness had been numerous, during the three weeks we had him in

Edinburgh; "especially that Ball, February 21st (o.s.), eve of his Consort the Princess Mary's Birthday [EVE

of birthday, "let us dance the auspicious morning IN] was, for affluence of Nobility and Gentry of both

PFAFFENHOFEN, APRIL 15th. "Unfortunate Segur, the Segur of Linz three years ago,whose conduct

was great, according to Valori, but powerless against traitors and fate!was again, once more, unfortunate in

those parts. Unfortunate Segur drew up at Pfaffenhofen (centre of the Country, many miles from Vilshofen)

to defend himself, when fallen upon by Barenklau, in that manner; but could not, though with masterly

demeanor; and had to retreat three days, with his face to the enemy, so to speak, fighting and manoeuvring all

the way: no shelter for him either but Munchen, and that, a most temporary one. Instead of taking

Straubingen, taking Passau, perhaps of pushing on to Vienna itself, this is what we have already come to. No

Rhine Army, MiddleRhine Army, Coigny, Maillebois, Conti, whoever it was, should send us the least

reinforcement, when shrieked to. No outlook whatever but rapid withdrawal, retreat to the Rhine Army, since

"The young KurBaiern is still polite, grateful [to us French], overwhelms us with politeness; but flies to

Augsburg, as his Father used to do. Notable, however, his poor fat little Mother won't, this time: 'No, I will

stay here, I for one, and have done with flying and running; we have had enough of that!' Seckendorf, quite

gone from Court in this crisis, reappears, about the middle of April, in questionable capacity; at a place called

Fussen, not far off, at the foot of the Tyrol Hills;where certain Austrian Dignitaries seem also to be

enjoying a picturesque Easter! Yes indeed: and, on APRIL 22d, there is signed a 'PEACE OF FUSSEN' there;

general amicable ASYOUWERE, between Austria and Bavaria ('Renounce your AntiPragmatic

moonshine forevermore, vote for our GrandDuke; there is your Bavaria back, poor wretches!') and

"The Bavarian Intricacy, which once excelled human power, is settled, then. Carteret and Haslang tried it in

vain [dreadful heterodox intentions of secularizing Salzburg, secularizing Passau, Regensburg, and loud

tremulous denial of such];Carteret and Wilhelm of Hesseu [Conferences of Hanau, which ruined Carteret],

in vain; King Friedrich, and many Kings, in vain: a thing nobody could settle;and it has at last settled

itself, as the generality of illguided and unlucky things do, by collapse. Delirium once out, the law of gravity

"Bought by Austria, that old villain!" cry the French. Friedrich does not think the Austrians bought

Seckendorf, having no money at present; but guesses they may have given him to understand that a certain

large arrear of payment due ever since those Turkish Wars,when Seckendorf, instead of payment, was

lodged in the Fortress of Gratz, and almost got his head cut off,should now be paid down in cash, or

authentic Papermoney, if matters become amicable. [ OEuvres de Frederic, iii. 22; Seckendorfs Leben, pp.

367376.] As they have done, in Friedrich's despite;who seems angrier at the old stager for this particular

Here, sure enough, are sad new intricacies in the Diplomatic, hypothetic sphere of things; and clouds piling

themselves ahead, in a very minatory manner to King Friedrich. Let King Friedrich, all the more, get his

Fighting Arrangements made perfect. Diplomacy is clouds; beating of your enemies is sea and land. Austria

and the Gazetteer world consider Friedrich to be as good as finished: but that is privately far from being

Friedrich's own opinion; though these occurrences are heavy and dismal to him, as none of us can now

Herr Ranke has got access, in the Archives, to a series of private utterances by Friedrich,Letters from him,

of a franker nature than usual, and letting us far deeper into his mind;which must have been well worth

reading in the original, in their fully dated and developed condition. From Herr Ranke's Fragmentary

Excerpts, let us, thankful for what we have got, select one or two. The Letters are to Minister Podewils at

Berlin; written from Silesia (Neisse and neighborhood), where, since the middle of March, Friedrich has

been, personally pushing on his Army Preparations, while the above sinister things befell.

NEISSE, 29th MARCH. ... "We find ourselves in a great crisis. If we don't, by mediation of England, get

Peace, our enemies from different sides [Saxony, Austria, who knows if not Russia withal!] will come

plunging in against me. Peace I cannot force them to. But if they must have War, we will either beat them, or

APRIL (no day given). ... "In any case, I have my troops well together. The sicknesses are ceasing; the

recruitments are coming in: shortly all will be complete. That does not hinder us from making Peace, if it will

only come; but, in the contrary case, nobody can accuse me of neglecting what was necessary."

APRIL 17th (still from Neisse). ... "I toil day and night to improve our situation. The soldiers will do their

duty. There is none among us who will not rather have his backbone broken than give up one footbreadth of

ground. They must either grant us a good Peace, or we will surpass ourselves by miracles of daring; and force

APRIL 20th. "Our situation is disagreeable; constrained, a kind of spasm: but my determination is taken. If

we needs must fight, we will do it like men driven desperate. Never was there a greater peril than that I am

now in. Time, at its own pleasure, will untie this knot; or Destiny, if there is one, determine the event. The

game I play is so high, one cannot contemplate the issue with cold blood. Pray for the return of my good

luck."Two days hence, the poor young KurBaiern, deaf to the French seductions and exertions, which

were intense, had signed his "Peace of Fussen" (22d April 1745),a finale to France on the German Field, as

Friedrich had left Berlin for Silesia March 15th; rather sooner than he counted on,Old Leopold pleading to

be let home. At Glogau, at Breslau, there had been the due inspecting: Friedrich got to Neisse on the 23d

(Bathyani just stirring in that Bavarian Business, Vilshofen and the Hessians close ahead); and on the 27th,

had dismissed Old Leopold, with thanks and sympathies, sent him home, "to recover his health." Leopold's

health is probably suffering; but his heart and spirits still more. Poor old man, he has just lostthe other

week, "5th February" lasthis poor old Wife, at Dessau; and is broken down with grief. The soft silk lining

of his hard Existence, in all parts of it, is torn away. Apothecary Fos's Daughter, Reich's Princess, Princess of

Dessau, called by whatever name, she had been the truest of Wives; "used to attend him in all his Campaigns,

for above fifty years back." "Gone, now, forever gone!"Old Leopold had wells of strange sorrow in the

rugged heart of him,sorrow, and still better things,which he does not wear on his sleeve. Here is an

incident I never can forget;dating twelve or thirteen years ago (as is computable), middle of July, 1732.

"Louisa, Leopold's eldest Daughter, Wife of Victor Leopold, reigning Prince of AnhaltBernburg, lay dying

of a decline." Still only twentythree, poor Lady, though married seven years ago; the end now evidently

drawing nigh. "A few days before her death,perhaps some attendant sorrowfully asking, 'Can we do

nothing, then?'she was heard to say, 'If I could see my Father at the head of his Regiment, yet

once!'"Halle, where the Regiment lies, is some thirty or more miles off; and King Friedrioh Wilhelm, I

suppose, would have to be written to:Leopold was ready the soonest possible; and, "at a set hour, marched,

in all pomp, with banner flying, music playiug, into the SCHLOSSHOF (Palace Court) of Bernburg; and did

the due salutations and manoeuvrings,his poor Daughter sitting at her window, till they ended;"figure

them, the last glitter of those muskets, the last wail of that bandmusic!"The Regiment was then marched

to the Waisenhaus (ORPHANHOUSE), where the common men were treated with bread and beer; all the

Officers dining at the Prince's Table. All the Officers, except Leopold alone, who stole away out of the

crowd; sat himself upon the balustrade of the Saale Bridge, and wept into the river." [LEBEN (12mo; not

Rannft's, but Anonymous like his), p. 234 n.]Leopold is now on the edge of seventy; ready to think all is

finished with him. Perhaps not quite, my tough old friend; recover yourself a little, and we shall see!

Old Leopold is hardly home at Dessau, when new Pandour Tempests, tides of ravaging War, again come

beating against the Giant Mountains, pouring through all passes; from utmost Jablunka, westward by

Jagerndorf to Glatz, huge influx of wild riding hordes, each with some support of Austrian grenadiers,

cannoniers; threatening to submerge Silesia. Precursors, Friedrich need not doubt, of a strenuous regular

attempt that way, Hungarian Majesty's fixed intention, hope and determination is, To expel him straightway

from Silesia. Her Patent circulates, these three months; calling on all men to take note of that fixed fact,

especially on all Silesian men to note it well, and shift their allegiance accordingly. Silesian men, in great

majority,our friend the Mayor of Landshut, for example?are believed to have no inclination towards

change: and whoever has, had clearly better not show any till he see! [In Ranke (iii. 234), there is vestige of

some intended "voluntary subscription by the common people of Glatz," for Friedrich's

behoof;contrariwise, in Orlich (ii. 380, "6th February, 1745," from the Dessau Archives), notice of one

individual, suspected of stirring for Austria, whom "you are to put under lock and key;"but he runs off, and

Friedrich's thousandfold preliminary orderings, movements, rearrangings in his Army matters, must not

detain us here;still less his dealings with the Pandour element, which is troublesome, rather than

dangerous. Vigilance, wise swift determination, valor drilled to its work, can deal with phenomena of that

nature, though never so furious and innumerable. Not a cheering service for drilled valor, but a very needful

one. Continual bickerings and skirmishings fell out, sometimes rising to sharp fight on the small

scale:Austrian grenadiers with cannon are on that Height to left, and also on this to right, meaning to cut

off our march; the difficult landscape furnished out, far and wide, with Pandour companies in position: you

must clash in, my Burschen; seize me that cannonbattery yonder; master such and such a post,there is the

heart of all that network of armed doggery; slit asunder that, the network wholly will tumble over the Hills

again. Which is always done, on the part of the Prussian Burschen; though sometimes not, without

difficulty.His Majesty is forming Magazines at Neisse, Brieg, and the principal Fortresses in those parts;

driving on all manner of preparations at the rapidest rate of speed, and looking with his own eyes into

everything. The regiments are about what we may call complete, arithmetically and otherwise; the cavalry

show good perfection in their new mode of manoeuvring; it is to be hoped the Fighting Apparatus

generally will give fair account of itself when the time comes. Our one anchor of hope, as now more and

On the Pandour element he first tried (under General Hautcharmoi, with Winterfeld as chief active hand) a

direct outburst or two, with a view to slash them home at once. But findiug that it was of no use, as they

always reappeared in new multitudes, he renounced that; took to calling in his remoter outposts; and, except

where Magazines or the like remained to be cared for, let the Pandours baffle about, checked only by the

fortified Towns, and more and more submerge the Hill Country. Prince Karl, to be expected in the form of

lion, mysteriously uncertain on which side coming to invade us,he, and not the innumerable weasel kind, is

our important matter! By the end of April (news of the PEACE OF FUSSEN coming withal), Friedrich had

quitted Neisse; lay cantoned, in Neisse Valley (between Frankenstein and Patschkau, "able to assemble in

fortyeight hours"); studying, with his whole strength, to be ready for the mysterious Prince Karl, on

The points of inrush, the tideways of these Pandour Deluges seem to be mainly three. Direct through the

Jablunka, upon Ratibor Country, is the first and chief; less direct (partly supplied by REFLUENCES from

Ratibor, when Ratibor is found not to answer), a second disembogues by Jagerndorf; a third, the westernmost,

by Landshut. Three main ingresses: at each of which there fall out little Fights; which are still celebrated in

the Prussian Books, and indeed well deserve reading by soldiers that would know their trade. In the Ratibor

parts, the invasive leader is a General Karoly, with 12,000 under him, who are the wildest horde of all:

"Karoly lodges in a wood: for himself there is a tent; his companions sleep under trees, or under the open sky,

by the edge of morasses." [Ranke, iii. 244.] It was against this Karoly and his horde that Hautcharmoi's little

expedition, or express attacking party to drive them home again, was shot out (8th2lst April). Which did its

work very prettily; Winterfeld, chief hand in it, crowning the matter by a "Fight of Wurbitz," [Orlich, ii. 136

(21st April).]where Winterfeld, cutting the taproot, in his usual electric way, tumbles Karoly quite INTO

the morasses, and clears the country of him for a time. For a time; though for a time only; Karoly or others

returning in a week or two, to a still higher extent of thousands; mischievous as ever in those

RatiborNamslau countries. Upon which, Friedrich, finding this an endless business, and nothing like the

most important, gives it up for the present; calls in his remoter detachments; has his Magazines carted home

to the Fortress Towns,Karoly trying, once or so, to hinder in that operation, but only again getting his

crown broken. ["Fight of Mocker," May 4th (Orlich, ii. 141).] Or if carting be too difficult, still do not waste

your Magazine:Margraf Karl, for instance, is ordered to Jagerndorf with his Detachment, "to eat the

Magazine;" hungry Pandours looking on, till he finish. On which occasion a renowned little Fight took place

(Fight of Neustadt, or of JagerndorfNeustadt), as shall be mentioned farther on.

So that, for certain weeks to come, the Tolpatcheries had free course, in those Frontier parts; and were left to

rove about, under check only of the Garrison Towns; Friedrich being obliged to look elsewhere after higher

perils, which were now coming in view. In which favorable circumstances, Karoly and Consorts did, at last,

make one stroke in those Ratibor countries; that of Kosel, which was greatly consolatory. [26th May, 1743

(Orlich, ii. 156158).] "By treachery of an Ensign who had deserted to them [provoked by rigor of discipline,

or some intolerable thing], they glided stealthily, one night, across the ditches, into Kosel" (a half fortified

place, Prussian works only half finished): which, being the Key of the Oder in those parts, they reckoned a

glorious conquest; of good omen and worthy of TEDEUMS at Vienna. And they did eagerly, without the

least molestation, labor to complete the Prussian works at Kosel: "One garrison already ours!"which was

not had from them without battering (and I believe, burning), when General von Nassau came to inquire after

Friedrich had always hoped that the Saxons, who are not yet in declared War with him, though bound by

Treaty to assist the Queen of Hungary under certain conditions, would not venture on actual Invasion of his

Territories; but in this, as readers anticipate, Friedrich finds himself mistaken. Weissenfels is hastening from

the Leitmeritz northwestern quarter, where he has wintered, to join Prince Karl, who is gathering himself

from Olmutz and his southeastern home region; their full intention is to invade Silesia together, and they

hope now at length to make an end of Friedrich and it. These Pandour hordes, supported by the necessary

grenadiers and cannoniers, are sent as vanguard; these cannot themselves beat him; but they may induce him

(which they do not) to divide his Force; they may, in part, burn him away as by slow fire, after which he will

be the easier to beat. Instead of which, Friedrich, leaving the Pandours to their luck, lies concentrated in

Neisse Valley; watching, with all his faculties, Prince Karl's own advent (coming on like Fate, indubitable,

yet involved in mysteries hitherto); and is perilously sensible that only in giving that a good reception is there

Prince Karl "who arrived in Olmutz April 30th," commands in chief again,saddened, poor man, by the loss

of his young Wife, in December last; willing to still his grief in action for the cause SHE loved;but old

Traun is not with him this year: which is a still more material circumstance. Traun is to go this year, under

cloak not of Prince Karl, but of GrandDuke Franz, to clear those Frankfurt Countries for the

KAISERWAHL and him. Prince Conti lies there, with his famous "MiddleRhine Army" (D'Ahremberg,

from the western parts, not nearly so diligent upon him as one could wish); and must, at all rates, be cleared

away. Traun, taking command of Bathyani's Army (now that it has finished the Bavarian job), is preparing to

push down upon Conti, while Bathyani (who is to supersede the laggard D'Ahremberg) shall push vigorously

up;and before summer is over, we shall hear of Traun again, and Conti will have heard!

Friedrich's indignation, on learning that the Saxons were actually on march, and gradually that they intended

to invade him, was great; and the whole matter is portentously enigmatic to him, as he lies vigilant in Neisse

Valley, waiting on the When and the How. Indignation;and yet there is need of caution withal. To be ready

for events, the Old Dessauer has, as one sure measure, been requested to take charge, once more, of a "Camp

of Observation" on the Saxon Frontier (as of old, in 1741); and has given his consent: ["April 25th" consents

(Orlich, ii. 130).] "Camp of Magdeburg," "Camp of Dieskau;" for it had various names and figures; checkings

of your hand, then layings of it on, heavier, lighter and again heavier, according to one's various READINGS

of the Saxon Mystery; and we shall hear enough about it, intermittently, till December coming: when it ended

"The Camp of Observation was to have begun May 1st; did begin somewhat later, 'near Magdeburg,' not too

close on the Frontier, nor in too alarming strength; was reinforced to about 30,000; in which state [middle of

August] it stept forward to Wieskau, then to Dieskau, close on the Saxon Border; and became,with a

Saxon Camp lying close opposite, and War formally threatened, or almost declared, on Saxony by

Friedrich,an alarmingly serious matter. Friedrich, however, again checked his hand; and did not

consummate till NovemberDecember. But did then consummate; greatly against his will; and in a way

flamingly visible to all men!" [Orlich, ii. 130, 209, 210: HeldenGeschichte, ii. 12241226; i. 1117.]

Friedrich's own incidental utterances (what more we have of Fractions from the Podewils Letters), in such

portentous aspect of affairs, may now be worth giving. It is not now to Jordan that he writes, gayly

unbosoming himself, as in the First War,poor Jordan lies languishing, these many months; consumptive,

too evidently dying:Not to Jordan, this time; nor is the theme "GLOIRE" now, but a far different!

April 20th or so, Orders are come to Berlin (orders, to Podewils's horror at such a thought), Whitherward,

should Berlin be assaulted, the Official Boards, the Preciosities and household gods are to betake

themselves:to Magdeburg, all these, which is an impregnable place; to Stettin, the Two Queens and Royal

Family, if they like it better. Podewils in horror, "hair standing on end," writes thereupon to Eichel, That he

hopes the management, "in a certain contingency," will be given to Minister Boden; he Podewils, with his

"APRIL 26th. ... 'I can understand how you are getting uneasy, you Berliners. I have the most to lose of you

all; but I am quiet, and prepared for events. If the Saxons take part,' as they surely will, 'in the Invasion of

Silesia, and we beat them, I am determined to plunge into Saxony. For great maladies, there need great

remedies. Either I will maintain my all, or else lose my all. [Hear it, friend; and understand it,with hair

lying flat!] It is true, the disaffection of the Russian Court, on such trifling grounds, was not to be expected;

and great misfortune can befall us. Well; a year or two sooner, a year or two later,it is not worth one's

while to bother about the very worst. If things take the better turn, our condition will be surer and firmer than

it was before. If we have nothing to reproach ourselves with, neither need we fret and plague ourselves about

bad events, which can happen to any man.''I am causing despatch a secret Order for Boden [on YOU know

what], which you will not deliver him till I give sign.'" On hearing of the Peace of Fussen, perhaps a day or

"APRIL [no distinct date; Neisse still? QUITS Neisse, April 28th]. ... Peace of Fussen, Bavaria turned against

me? 'I can say nothing to it,except, There has come what had to come. To me remains only to possess

myself in patience. If all alliances, resources, and negotiations fail, and all conjunctures go against me, I

prefer to perish with honor, rather than lead an inglorious life deprived of all dignity. My ambition whispers

me that I have done more than another to the building up of my House, and have played a distinguished part

among the crowned heads of Europe. To maintain myself there, has become as it were a personal duty; which

I will fulfil at the expense of my happiness and my life. I have no choice left: I will maintain my power, or it

may go to ruin, and the Prussian name be buried under it. If the enemy attempt anything upon us, we will

either beat him, or we will all be hewed to pieces, for the sake of our Country, and the renown of

SAME LETTER, OR ANOTHER? (Herr Ranke having his caprices!) ... "You are a good man, my Podewils,

and do what can be expected of you" (Podewils has been apologizing for his terrors; and referring hopefully

"to Providence"): "Perform faithfully the given work on your side, as I on mine; for the rest, let what you call

'Providence' decide as it likes [UNE PROVIDENCE AVEUGLE? Ranke, who alone knows, gives "BLINDE

VORSEHUNG." What an utterance, on the part of this little Titan! Consider it as exceptional with him,

unusual, accidental to the hard moment, and perhaps not so impious as it looks!]Neither our prudence nor

our courage shall be liable to blame; but only circumstances that would not favor us. ...

"I prepare myself for every event. Fortune may be kind or be unkind, it shall neither dishearten me nor uplift

me. If I am to perish, let it be with honor, and sword in hand. What the issue is to be Well, what pleases

Heaven, or the Other Party (J'AI JETE LE BONNET PAR DESSUS LES MOULINS)! Adieu, my dear

Podewils; become as good a philosopher as you are a politician; and learn from a man who does not go to

Elsner's Preaching [fashionable at the time], that one must oppose to ill fortune a brow of iron; and, during

this life, renounce all happiness, all acquisitions, possessions and lying shows, none of which will follow us

"By what points the AustrianSaxon Armament will come through upon us? Together will it be, or

separately? Saxons from the Lausitz, Austrians from Bohmen, enclosing us between two fires?"were

enigmatic questions with Friedrich; and the Saxons especially are an enigma. But that come they will, that

these Pandours are their preliminary veilingapparatus as usual, is evident to him; and that he must not spend

himself upon Pandours; but coalesce, and lie ready for the main wrestle. So that from April 28th, as above

noticed, Friedrich has gone into cantonments, some way up the Neisse Valley, westward of Neisse Town; and

is calling in his outposts, his detachments; emptying his Frontier Magazines; abandoning his

UpperSilesian Frontier more and more, and in the end altogether, to the Pandour hordes; a small matter

they, compared to the grand Invasion which is coming on. Here, with shiftings up the Neisse Valley, he lies

till the end of May; watching Arguslike, and scanning with every faculty the Austrian Saxon motions and

intentions, until at length they become clear to him, and we shall see how he deals with them.

His own lodging, or headquarter, most of this time (4th May27th May), is in the pleasant Abbey of

Camenz (mythic scene of that BAUMGARTENSKIRMISH business, in the First Silesian War). He has

excellent Tobias Stusche for company in leisure hours; and the outlook of bright Spring all round him,

flowering into gorgeous Summer, as he hurries about on his many occasions, not of an idyllic nature. [Orlich,

ii. 139; Ranke, iii. 242249.] But his Army is getting into excellent completeness of number, health,

equipment, and altogether such a spirit as he could wish. May 22d, here is another snatch from some Note to

Podewils, from this balmy Locality, potential with such explosions of another kind. CAMENZ, MAY 22d. ...

"The Enemies are making movements; but nothing like enough as yet for our guessing their designs. Till we

see, therefore, the thunder lies quiet in us (LA FOUDRE REPOSE EN MES MAINS). Ah, could we but have

What "that May Eleventh" is or was? Readers are curious to know; especially English readers, who guess

FONTENOY. And Historic Art, if she were strict, would decline to inform them at any length; for really the

thing is no better than a "Victory on the Scamander, and a Siege of Pekin" (as a certain observer did

afterwards define it), in reference to the matter now on hand! Well, Pharsalia, Arbela, the Scamander,

Armageddon, and so many Battles and Victories being luminous, by study, to cultivated Englishmen, and

one's own Fontenoy such a mystery and riddle,Art, after consideration, reluctantly consents to be

indulgent; will produce from her Paper Imbroglios a slight Piece on the subject, and print instead of burning.

"Glorious Campaign in the Netherlands, Siege of Tournay, final ruin of the Dutch Barrier!" this is the French

program for Season 1745, no Belleisle to contradict it; Belleisle secure at Windsor, who might have leant

more towards German enterprises. And to this his Britannic Majesty (small gain to him from that adroitness

in the Harz, last winter!) has to make front. And is strenuously doing so, by all methods; especially by heroic

expenditure of money, and ditto exposure of his Martial Boy. Poor old Wade, last year, perhaps Wade did

suffer, as he alleged, from "want of sufficient authority in that mixed Army"? Well, here is a Prince of the

Blood, Royal Highness of Cumberland, to command in chief. With a Konigseck to drynurse him, may not

Royal Highness, luck favoring, do very well? Luck did not favor; Britannic Majesty, neither in the

Netherlands over seas, nor at home (strange new domestic wool, of a tarry HIGHLAND nature, being thrown

him to card, on the sudden!), made a good Campaign, but a bad. And again a bad (1746) and again (1747),

ever again, till he pleased to cease altogether. Of which distressing objects we propose that the following one

... "In the end of April, Marechal de Saxe, now become very famous for his sieges in the Netherlands, opened

trenches before Tournay; King Louis, with his Dauphin, not to speak of mistresses, play actors and cookery

apparatus (in wagons innumerable), hastens to be there. A fighting Army, say of 70,000, besides the

garrisons; and great things, it is expected, will be done; Tournay, in spite of strong works and Dutch garrison

"Of the Siege, which was difficult and ardent, we will remember nothing, except the mischance that befell a

certain 'Marquis de Talleyrand' and his men, in the trenches, one night. Night of the 8th9th May, by

carelessness of somebody, a spark got into the Marquis's powder, two powderbarrels that there were; and,

with horrible crash, sent eighty men, Marquis Talleyrand and Engineer Du Mazis among them, aloft into the

other world; raining down their limbs into the covered way, where the Dutch were very inhuman to them, and

provoked us to retaliate. [Espagnac, ii. 27.] Du Mazis I do not know; but Marquis de Talleyrand turns out, on

study of the French Peerages, to be Uncle of a lame little Boy, who became Right Reverend Tallyrand under

"Hearing of this Siege, the Duke of Cumberland hastened over from England, with intent to raise the same.

Mustered his 'Allied Army' (once called 'Pragmatic'),self at the head of it; old Count Konigseck, who was

NOT burnt at Chotusitz, commanding the small Austrian quota [Austrians mainly are gone laggarding with

D'Ahremberg up the Rhine]; and a Prince of Waldeck the Dutch,on the plain of Anderlecht near Brussels,

May 4th; [Anonymous, Life of Cumberland, p. 180; Espagnac, ii. 26.] and found all things tolerably

complete. Upon which, straightway, his Royal Highness, 60,000 strong let us say, set forth; by slowish

marches, and a route somewhat leftward of the great Tournay Road [no place on it, except perhaps

STEENKERKE, ever heard of by an English reader]; and on Sunday, 9th May, [Espagnac, ii. 27.] precisely

on the morrow after poor Talleyrand had gone aloft, reached certain final Villages: Vezon, Maubray, where

he encamps, Briffoeil to rear; Camp looking towards Tournay and the setting sun,with Fontenoy short way

ahead, and Antoine to left of it, and Barry with its Woods to right:small peaceable Villages, which become

famous in the Newspapers shortly after. [Patch of Map at p. 440.] Royal Highness, resting here at Vezon, is

but some six or seven miles from Tournay; in low undulating Country, woody here and there, not without

threads of running water, and with frequent Villages and their adjuncts: the part of it now interesting to us lies

all between the BrusselsTournay Road and the Scheld River, all in immediate front of his Royal

Highness,to southeastward from beleaguered Tournay, where said Road and River intersect. How shall he

make some impression on the Siege of Tournay? That is now the question; and his Royal Highness struggles

Marechal de Saxe, whose habit is much that of vigilance, forethought, sagacious precaution, singular in so

dissolute a man, has neglected nothing on this occasion. He knows every foot of the ground, having sieged

here, in his boyhood, once before. Leaving the siegetrenches at Tournay, under charge of a ten or fifteen

thousand, he has taken camp here; still with superior force (56,000 as they count, Royal Highness being only

50,000 ranked), barring Royal Highness's way. Tournay, or at least the Marechal's trenches there, are on the

right bank of the Scheld; which flows from southeast, securing all on that hand. The broad Brussels Highway

comes in to him from the east;north of that he has nothing to fear, the ground being cut with bogs; no

getting through upon him, that way, to Tournay and what he calls the 'Under Scheld.' The 'Upper Scheld' too,

avail them nothing. There is only that triangle to the southeast, between Road and River, where the Enemy is

now manoeuvring in front of him, from which damage can well come; and he has done his best to be secure

there. Four villages or hamlets, close to the Scheld and onwards to the Great Road, Antoine, Fontenoy,

Barry, Ramecroix, with their lanes and boscages, make a kind of circular base to his triangle; base of some

six or eight miles; with hollows in it, brooks, and northward a considerable Wood [BOIS DE BARRY,

enveloping Barry and Ramecroix, which do not prove of much interest to us, though the BOIS does of a good

deal]. In and before each of those villages are posts and defences; in Antoine and Fontenoy elaborate

redoubts, batteries, redans connecting: in the Wood (BOIS DE BARRY), an abattis, or wall of felled trees, as

well as cannon; and at the point of the Wood, well within double range of Fontenoy, is a Redoubt, called of

Eu (REDOUTE D'EU, from the regiment occupying it), which will much concern his Royal Highness and us.

Saxe has a hundred pieces of cannon [say the English, which is correct], consummately disposed along this

space; no ingress possible anywhere, except through the cannon's throat; torrents of fire and crossfire

playing on you. He is armed to the teeth, as they say; and has his 56,000 arranged according to the best rules

of tactics, behind this murderous line of works. If his Royal Highness think of breaking in, he may count on a

"Saxe is only afraid his Royal Highness will not. Outside of these lines, with a 50,000 dashing fiercely round

us, under any kind of leading; pouncing on our convoys; harassing and sieging US,our siege of Toumay

were a sad outlook. And this is old Austrian Konigseck's opinion, too; though, they say, Waldeck and the

Dutch (impetuous in theory at least) opined otherwise, and strengthened Royal Highness's view. Two young

men against one old: 'Be it so, then!' His Royal Highness, resolute for getting in, manoeuvres and

investigates, all Monday 10th; his cannon is not to arrive completely till night; otherwise he would be for

breaking in at once: a fearless young man, fearless as ever his poor Father was; certainly a man SANS PEUY,

"Tuesday morning early, 11th May, 1745, cannon being up, and dispositions made, his Royal Highness

sallies out; sees his men taking their ground: Dutch and Austrians to the left, chiefly opposite Antoine;

English, with some Hanoverians, in the centre and to the right; infantry in front, facing Fontenoy, cavalry to

rear flanking the Wood of Barry,Konigseck, Ligonier and others able, assisting to plant them

advantageously; cannon going, on both sides, the while; radiant enthusiasm, SANS PEUR ET SANS AVIS,

looking from his Royal Highness's face. He has been on horseback since two in the morning; cannon started

thundering between five and six,has killed chivalrous Grammont over yonder (the Grammont of

Dettingen), almost at the first volley. And now about the time when ploughers breakfast (eight A.M., no

ploughing hereabouts today!), begins the attack, simultaneously or in swift succession, on the various

"The attacks took place; but none of them succeeded. Dutch and Austrians, on the extreme left, were to have

stormed Antoine by the edge of the River; that was their main task; right skirt of them to help US meanwhile

with Fontenoy. And they advanced, accordingly; but found the shot from Antoine too fierce: especially when

a subsidiary battery opened from across the River, and took them in flank, the Dutch and Austrians felt

astonished; and hastily drew aside, under some sheltering mound or earthwork they had found for themselves,

or prudently thrown up the night before. There, under their earthwork, stood the Dutch and Austrians;

patiently expecting a fitter time,which indeed never occurred; for always, the instant they drew out, the

batteries from Antoine, and from across the River, instantly opened upon them, and they had to draw in

again. So that they stood there, in a manner, all day; and so to speak did nothing but patiently expect when it

should be time to run. For which they were loudly censured, and deservedly. Antoine is and remains a total

"Royal Highness in person, with his English, was to attack Fontenoy;and is doing so, by battery and storm,

at various points; with emphasis, though without result. As preliminary, at an early stage he had sent forward

on the right, by the Wood of Barry, a Brigadier Ingoldsby 'with Semple's Highlanders' and other force, to

silence 'that redoubt yonder at the point of the Wood,' redoubt, fort, or whatever it be (famous REDOUTE

D'EU, as it turned out!),which guards Fontenoy to north, and will take us in flank, nay in rear, as we storm

the cannon of the Village. Ingoldsby, speed imperative on him, pushed into the Wood; found French

lighttroops ('God knows how many of them!') prowling about there; found the Redoubt a terribly strong

thing, with ditch, drawbridge, what not; spent thirty or forty of his Highlanders, in some frantic attempt on it

by rule of thumb;and found 'He would need artillery' and other things. In short, Ingoldsby, hasten what he

might, could not perfect the preparations to his mind, had to wait for this and for that; and did not storm the

Redoubt d'Eu at all; but hung fire, in an unaccountable manner. For which he had to answer (to

CourtMartial, still more to the Newspapers) afterwards; and prove that it was misfortune merely, or

misfortune and stupidity combined. Too evident, the REDOUTE D'EU was not taken, then or thenceforth;

which might have proved the saving of the whole affair, could Ingoldsby have managed it. Royal Highness

attacked Fontenoy, and reattacked, furiously, thrice over; and had to desist, and find Fontenoy impossible

"Here is a piece of work. Repulsed at all those points; and on the left and on the right, no spirit visible but

what deserves repulse! His Royal Highness blazes into resplendent PLATTDEUTSCH rage, what we may

call spiritual whiteheat, a man SANS PEUR at any rate, and pretty much SANS AVIS; decides that he must

and will be through those lines, if it please God; that he will not be repulsed at his part of the attack, not he

for one; but will plunge through, by what gap there is [900 yards Voltaire measures it [ OEuvres, xxviii. 150

(SIECLE DE LOUIS QUINZE, c. xv. "BATAILLE DE FONTENOI,"elaborately exact on all sucb

points).]] between Fontenoy and that Redoubt with its laggard Ingoldsby; and see what the French interior is

like! He rallies rapidly, rearranges; forms himself in thin column or columns [three of them, I think,which

gradually got crushed into one, as they advanced, under caunonshot on both hands],wheeling his left

round, to be rear, his right to be head of said column or columns. In column, the cannonshot from Fontenoy

on the left, and Redoubt d'Eu on our right, will tell less on us; and between these two deathdealing localities,

by the hollowest, least shelterless way discoverable, we mean to penetrate: (Forward, my men, steady and

swift, till we are through the shotrange, and find men to grapple with, instead of caseshot and projectile

iron!' Marechal de Saxe owned afterwards, 'He should have put an additional redoubt in that place, but he did

not think any Army would try such a thing' (cannon batteries playing on each hand at 400 yards

"These columns advance, however; through bushy hollows, water courses, through what defiles or

hollowest grounds there are; endure the cannonshot, while they must; trailing their own heavy guns by hand,

and occasionally blasting out of them where the ground favors;and do, with indignant patience, wind

themselves through, pretty much beyond direct shotrange of either d'Eu or Fontenoy. And have actually got

into the interior mystery of the French Line of Battle,which is not a little astonished to see them there! It is

over a kind of blunt ridge, or rising ground, that they are coming: on the crown of this rising ground, the

French regiment fronting it (GARDES FRANCAISES as it chanced to be) notices, with surprise,

fieldcannon pointed the wrong way; actual British artillery unaccountably showing itself there. Regiment of

GARDES rushes up to seize said fieldpieces: but, on the summit, perceives with amazement that it cannot;

that a heavy volley of musketry blazes into it (killing sixty men); that it will have to rush back again, and

report progress: Huge British force, of unknown extent, is readjusting itself into column there, and will be

"News true enough. The head of the English column comes to sight, over the rising ground, close by: their

officers doff their hats, politely saluting ours, who return the civility: was ever such politeness seen before? It

is a fact; and among the memorablest of this Battle. Nay a certain English Officer of markLord Charles

Hay the name of him, valued surely in the annals of the Hay and Tweeddale Housesteps forward from the

ranks, as if wishing something. Towards whom [says the accurate Espagnac] Marquis d'Auteroche,

grenadierlieutenant, with air of polite interrogation, not knowing what he meant, made a step or two:

'Monsieur,' said Lord Charles (LORD CHARLESHAY), 'bid your people fire (FAITES TIRER VOS

GENS)!' 'NON, MONSIEUR, NOUS NE TIRONS JAMAIS LES PREMIERS (We never fire first).'

[Espagnac, ii. 60 (of the ORIGINAL, Toulouse, 1789); ii. 48 of the German Translation (Leipzig, 1774), our

usual reference. Voltaire, endlessly informed upon details this time, is equally express: "MILORD

FRANCAISES, TIREZ!' To which Count d'Auteroche with a loud voice answered" ( OEuvres, vol. xxviii. p.

155.) See also Souvenirs du Marquis de Valfons (edited by a GrandNephew, Paris, 1860), p. 151;a poor,

considerably noisy and unclean little Book; which proves unexpectedly worth looking at, in regard to some of

those poor Battles and personages and occurrences: the Bohemian BelleisleBroglio part, to my regret, if to

no other person's, has been omitted, as extinct, or undecipherable by the GrandNephew.] After YOU, Sirs!

Is not this a bit of modern chivalry? A supreme politeness in that sniffing pococurante kind; probably the

It is almost pity to disturb an elegant Historical Passage of this kind, circulating round the world, in some

glory, for a century past: but there has a small irrefragable Document come to me, which modifies it a good

deal, and reduces matters to the business form. Lord Charles Hay, "LieutenantColonel," practical Head, "of

the First Regiment of Footguards," wrote, about three weeks after (or dictated in sad spelling, not himself

able to write for wounds), a Letter to his Brother, of which here is an Excerpt at first hand, with only the

spelling altered: ... "It was our Regiment that attacked the French Guards: and when we came within twenty

or thirty paces of them, I advanced before our Regiment; drank to them [to the French, from the pocketpistol

one carries on such occasions], and told them that we were the English Guards, and hoped that they would

stand till we came quite up to them, and not swim the Scheld as they did the Mayn at Dettingen [shameful

THIRD BRIDGE, not of wood, though carpeted with blue cloth there]! Upon which I immediately turned

about to our own Regiment; speeched them, and made them huzza,"I hope with a will. "An Officer

[d'Auteroche] came out of the ranks, and tried to make his men huzza; however, there were not above three or

four in their Brigade that did." ["Ath, May ye 20th, o.s." (to John, Fourth Marquis of Tweeddale, last

"Secretary of State for Scotland," and a man of figure in his day): Letter is at Yester House, East Lothian;

Very poor counterhuzza. And not the least whisper of that sublime "After you, Sirs!" but rather, in confused

form, of quite the reverse; Hay having been himself fired into ("fire had begun on my left;" Hay totally

ignorant on which side first),fired into, rather feebly, and wounded by those D'Auteroche people, while he

was still advancing with shouldered arms;upon which, and not till which, he did give it them: in liberal

dose; and quite blew them off the ground, for that day. From all which, one has to infer, That the mutual

salutation by hat was probably a fact; that, for certain, there was some slight preliminary talk and

gesticulation, but in the Homeric style, by no means in the EspagnacFrench, not chivalrous epigram at

all, mere rough banter, and what is called "chaffing;"and in short, that the French Messrooms (with their

eloquent talent that way) had rounded off the thing into the current epigrammatic redaction; the authentic

businessform of it being ruggedly what is now given. Let our Manuscript proceed.

"D'Auteroche declining the first fire,"or accepting it, if ever offered, nobody can say,"the three Guards

Regiments, Lord Charles's on the right, give it him hot and heavy, 'tremendous rolling fire;' so that

D'Auteroche, responding more or less, cannot stand it; but has at once to rustle into discontinuity, he and his,

and roll rapidly out of the way. And the British Column advances, steadily, terribly, hurling back all

opposition from it; deeper and deeper into the interior mysteries of the French Host; blasting its way with

gunpowder;in a magnificent manner. A compact Column, slowly advancing,apparently of some 16,000

foot. Pauses, readjusts itself a little, when not meddled with; when meddled with, has cannon, has rolling

fire,delivers from it, in fact, on both hands such a torrent of deadly continuous fire as was rarely seen

before or since. 'FEU INFERNAL,' the French call it. The French make vehement resistance. Battalions,

squadrons, regiment after regiment, charge madly on this terrible Column; but rush only on destruction

thereby. Regiment This storms in from the right, regiment That from the left; have their colonels shot, 'lose

the half of their people;' and hastily draw back again, in a wrecked condition. The cavalryhorses cannot

stand such smoke and blazing; nor indeed, I think, can the cavaliers. REGIMENT DU ROI rushing on, full

gallop, to charge this Column, got one volley from it [says Espagnac] which brought to the ground 460 men.

Natural enough that horses take the bit between their teeth; likewise that men take it, and career very madly

"The terrible Column with slow inflexibility advances; cannon (now in reversed position) from that Redoubt

d'Eu ('Shame on you, Ingoldsby!'), and irregular musketry from Fontenoy side, playing upon it; defeated

regiments making barriers of their dead men and firing there; Column always closing its gapped ranks, and

girdled with insupportable fire. It ought to have taken Fontenoy and Redoubt d'Eu, say military men; it ought

to have done several things! It has now cut the French fairly in two;and Saxe, who is earnestly surveying it

a hundred paces ahead, sends word, conjuring the King to retire instantly,across the Scheld, by Calonne

Bridge and the strong rearguard there,who, however, will not. King and Dauphin, on horseback both,

have stood 'at the Justice (GALLOWS, in fact) of our Lady of the Woods,' not stirring much, occasionally

shifting to a windmill which is still higher,ye Heavens, with what intrepidity, all day!'a good many

countryfolk in trees close behind them.' Countryfolk, I suppose, have by this time seen enough, and are

"In fact, the Battle hangs now upon a hair; the Battle is as good as lost, thinks Marechal de Saxe. His

battlelines torn in two in that manner, hovering in ragged clouds over the field, what hope is there in the

Battle? Fontenoy is firing blank, this some time; its cannonballs done. Officers, in Antoine, are about

withdrawing the artillery,then again (on new order) replacing it awhile. All are looking towards the Scheld

Bridge; earnestly entreating his Majesty to withdraw. Had the Dutch, at this point of time, broken heartily in,

as Waldeck was urging them to do, upon the redoubts of Antoine; or had his Royal Highness the Duke, for

his own behoof, possessed due cavalry or artillery to act upon these ragged clouds, which hang broken there,

very fit for being swept, were there an artilleryandhorse besom to do it,in either of these cases the Battle

was the Duke's. And a right fiery victory it would have been; to make his name famous; and confirm the

English in their mad method of fighting, like Baresarks or Janizaries rather than strategic human creatures.

[See, in Busching's Magazin, xvi. 169 ("Your illustrious 'Column,' at Fontenoy? It was fortuitous, I say; done

"But neither of these contingencies had befallen. The Dutch Austrian wing did evince some wish to get

possession of Antoine; and drew out a little; but the guns also awoke upon them; whereupon the

DutchAustrians drew in again, thinking the time not come. As for the Duke, he had taken with him of

cannon a good few; but of horse none at all (impossible for horse, unless Fontenoy and the Redoubt d'Eu

were ours!)and his horse have been hanging about, in the Wood of Barry all this while, uncertain what to

do; their old Commander being killed withal, and their new a dubitative person, and no orders left. The Duke

had left no orders; having indeed broken in here, in what we called a spiritual whiteheat, without asking

himself much what he would do when in: 'Beat the French, knock them to powder if I can!'Meanwhile the

French clouds are reassembling a little: Royal Highness too is readjusting himself, now got '300 yards ahead

"During which pause, Duc de Richelieu, famous blackguard man, gallops up to the Marechal, gallops rapidly

from Marechal to King; suggesting, 'were cannon brought AHEAD of this close deep Column, might not they

shear it into beautiful destruction; and then a general charge be made?' So counselled Richelieu: it is said, the

Jacobite Irishman, Count Lally of the Irish Brigade, was prime author of this notion,a man of tragic

notoriety in time coming. ["Thomas Arthur Lally Comte de Tollendal," patronymically "O'MuLALLY of

TULLINDALLY" (a place somewhere in Connaught, undiscoverable where, not material where): see our

dropsical friend (in one of his wheeziest states), King James's Irish ArmyList (Dublin, 1855), pp. 594600.]

Whoever was author of it, Marechal de Saxe adopts it eagerly, King Louis eagerly: swift it becomes a fact.

Universal rally, universal simultaneous charge on both flanks of the terrible Column: this it might resist, as it

has done these two hours past; but cannon ahead, shearing gaps through it from end to end, this is what no

column can resist;and only perhaps one of Friedrich's columns (if even that) with Friedrich's eye upon it,

could make its halfright about (QUART DE CONVERSION), turn its side to it, and manoeuvre out of it,

in such circumstances. The wrathful English column, slit into ribbons, can do nothing at manoeuvring; blazes

and rages, more and more clearly in vain; collapses by degrees, rolls into ribboncoils, and winds itself out

of the field. Not much chased, its cavalry now seeing a job, and issuing from the Wood of Barry to cover

the retreat. Not much chased;yet with a loss, they say, in all, of 7,000 killed and wounded, and about 2,000

"The Dutch and Austrians had found that the fit time was now come, or taken time by the forelock,their

part of the loss, they said, was a thousand and odd hundreds. The Battle ended about two o'clock of the day;

had begun about eight. Tuesday, 11th May, 1745: one of the hottest halfday's works I have known. A thing

much to be meditated by the English mind.King Louis stept down from the GallowsHill of Our Lady;

and KISSED Marechal de Saxe. Saxe was nearly dead of dropsy; could not sit on horseback, except for

minutes; was carried about in a wicker bed; has had a lead bullet in his mouth, all day, to mitigate the

intolerable thirst. Tournay was soon taken; the Dutch garrison, though strong, and in a strong place, making

"Royal Highness retired upon Ath and Brussels; hovered about, nothing daunted, he or his: 'Dastard fellows,

they would not come out into the open ground, and try us fairly!' snort indignantly the Gazetteers and

enlightened Public. [Old Newspapers.] Nothing daunted;but, as it were, did not do anything farther, this

Campaign; except lose Gand, by negligence VERSUS vigilance, and eat his victuals,till called home by

the Rebellion Business, in an unexpected manner! Fontenoy was the nearest approach he ever made to getting

victory in a battle; but a miss too, as they all were. He was nothing like so rash, on subsequent occasions; but

had no better luck; and was beaten in all his battlesexcept the immortal Victory of Culloden alone. Which

latter indeed, was it not itself (in the Gazetteer mind) a kind of apotheosis, or lifting of a man to the immortal

"Old Marechal de Noailles was in this Battle; busy about the redans, and proud to see his Saxe do well.

Chivalrous Grammont, too, as we saw, was there,killed at the first discharge. Prince de Soubise too (not

killed); a certain Lord George Sackville (hurt slightly,perhaps had BETTER have been killed!)and

others known to us, or that will be known. ArmySurgeon La Mettrie, of busy brain, expert with his

tourniquets and scalpels, but of wildly blusterous heterodox tongue and ways, is thricebusy in Hospital this

night,'English and French all one to you, nay, if anything, the English better!' those are the Royal

orders:La Mettrie will turn up, in new capacity, still blusterous, at Berlin, by and by.

"The French made immense explosions of rejoicing over this Victory of Fontenoy; Voltaire (now a man well

at Court) celebrating it in prose and verse, to an amazing degree (21,000 copies sold in one day); the whole

Nation blazing out over it into illuminations, arcs of triumph and universal threetimesthree:in short, I

think, nearly the heartiest National Huzza, loud, deep, longdrawn, that the Nation ever gave in like case.

Now rather curious to consider, at this distance of time. Miraculous Anecdotes, true and not true, are many.

Not to mention again that surprising offer of the first fire to us, what shall we say of the 'two campsutlers

whom I noticed,' English females of the lowest degree; 'one of whom was busy slitting the goldlace from a

dead Officer, when a cannonball came whistling, and shore her head away. Upon which, without sound

uttered, her neighbor snatched the scissors, and deliberately proceeded.' [De Hordt, Memoires, i. 108. A

FRENCH OFFICER'S ACCOUNT (translated in Gentleman's Magazine, 1745; where, pp. 246, 250, 291,

313, are many confused details and speculations on this subject).] A deliberate gloomy

Britannic Majesty is not successful this season; Highland Rebellions rising on him, and much going awry. He

is founding his National Debt, poor Majesty; nothing else to speak of. His poor Army, fighting never so well

in Foreign quarrels,and generally itself standing the brunt, with the copartners looking on till it is time to

run (as at Roucoux again next season, and at Lauffeld next),can win nothing but hard knocks and losses.

And is defined by mankind,in phraseology which we have heard again since then! as having "the heart

of a Lion and the head of an Ass." [Old Pamphlets, SOEPIUS.] Portentous to contemplate!

Cape Breton was besieged this Summer, in a creditable manner; and taken. The one real stroke done upon

France this Year, or indeed (except at sea) throughout the War. "Ruin to their Fisheries, and a clear loss of

1,400,000 pounds a year." Compared with which all these fine "Victories in Flanders" are a bottle of

moonshine. This was actually a kind of stroke;and this, one finds, was accomplished, under presidency of

a small squadron of King's ships, by ('NewEngland Volunteers," on funds raised by subscription, in the way

of jointstock. A shining Colonial feat; said to be very perfectly done, both scrip part of it, and fighting part;

[Adelung, v. 3235 ("27th June, 1745, after a siege of fortynine days"): see "Gibson, Journal of the Siege;"

"Mr. Prince (of the South Church, Boston), THANKSGIVING SERMON (price fourpence);" in the Old

Newspapers, 1745, 1748, multifarious Notices about it, and then about the "repayment" of those excellent

"jointstock" people.] and might have yielded, what incalculable dividends in the Fishery way! But had to

be given up again, in exchange for the Netherlands, when Peace came. Alas, your Majesty! Would it be quite

impossible, then, to go direct upon your own sole errand, the JENKINS'SEAR one, instead of stumbling

about among the Foreign chimneypots, far and wide, under nightmares, in this terrible manner?Let us to

Valori, who is to be of Friedrich's Campaign this Year, came posting off directly in rear of the glorious news

of Fontenoy; found Friedrich at Camenz, rather in spirits than otherwise; and lodged pleasantly with Abbot

Tobias and him, till the Campaign should begin. Two things surprise Valori: first, the great strength,

impregnable as it were, to which Neisse has been brought since he saw it last,superlative condition of that

Fortress, and of the Army itself, as it gathers daily more and more about Frankenstein here:and then

secondly, and contrariwise, the strangely neglected posture of mountainous or Upper Silesia, given up to

Pandours. Quite submerged, in a manner: Margraf Karl lies quiet among them at Jagerndorf, "eating his

magazine;" General Hautcharmoi (Winterfeld's late chief in that Wurben affair), with his small Detachment,

still hovers about in those Ratibor parts, "with the Strong Towns to fallback upon," or has in effect fallen

back accordingly; and nothing done to coerce the Pandours at all. While Prince Karl and Weissenfels are

daily coming on, in force 100,000, their intention certain; force, say, about 100,000 regular! Very singular to

"Sire, will not you dispute the Passes, then?" asks Valori, amazed: "Not defend your Mountain rampart,

then?" "MON CHER; the Mountain rampart is three or four hundred miles long; there are twelve or twenty

practicable roads through it. One is kept in darkness, too; endless Pandour doggery shutting out your

daylight:ill defending such a rampart," answers Friedrich. "But how, then," persists Valori; "but?" "One

day the King answered me," says Valori, "'MON AMI, if you want to get the mouse, don't shut, the trap;

leave the trap open (ON LAISSE LA SOURICIERE OUVERTE)!'" Which was a beam of light to the

inquiring thought of Valori, a military man of some intelligence. [See VALORI, i. 222, 224, 228.]

That, in fact, is Friedrich's purpose privately formed. He means that the Austrians shall consider him cowed

into nothing, as he understands they already do; that they shall enter Silesia in the notion of chasing him; and

shall, if need be, have the pleasure of chasing him,till perhaps a right moment arrive. For he is full of silent

finesse, this young King; soon sees into his man, and can lead him strange dances on occasion. In no man is

there a plentifuler vein of cunning, nor of a finer kind. Lynxeyed perspicacity, inexhaustible contrivance,

prompt ingenuity,a man very dangerous to play with at games of skill. And it is cunning regulated always

by a noble sense of honor, too; instinctively abhorrent of attorneyism and the swindler element: a cunning,

sharp as the vulpine, yet always strictly human, which is rather beautiful to see. This is one of Friedrich's

marked endowments. Intellect sunclear, wholly practical (need not be specially deep), and entirely loyal to

the fact before it; thisif you add rapidity and energy, prompt weight of stroke, such as was seldom met

with will render a man very dangerous to his adversary in the game of war.Here is the last of our

"From May 12th, Friedrich had been gathering closer and closer about Frankenstein; by the end of the month

(28th, as it proved) he intends that all Detachments shall be home, and the Army take Camp there. The most

are home; Margraf Karl, at Jagerndorf, has not yet done eating his magazine; but he too must come home.

Summon the Margraf home:it is not doubted he will cut himself through, he and his 12,000; but such is the

swarm of Pandours hovering between him and us, no estafette, or cleverest letterbearer, can hope to get

across to him. Ziethen with 500 Hussars, he must take the Letter; there is no other way. Ziethen mounts; fares

swiftly forth, towards Neustadt, with his Letter; lodges in woods; dodges the thickcrowding Tolpatcheries

(passes himself off for a Tolpatchery, say some, and captures Hungarian StaffOfficers who come to give

him orders [Frau van Blumenthal, Life of De Ziethen, pp. 171181 (extremely romantic; now given up as

mythical, for most part): see Orlich (ii. 150); but also Ranke (iii. 245), Preuss, is at length found out, and

furiously set upon, 'Ziethen, Hah!'but gets to Jagerndorf, Margraf Karl coming out to the rescue, and

delivers his Letter. 'Home, then, all of us tomorrow!' And so, Saturday, 22d May, before we get to Neustadt

on the way home, there is an authentic passage of arms, done very brilliantly by Margraf Karl against

Pandours and others. "To right of us, to left, barring our road, the enemy, 20,000 of them, stand ranked on

heights, in chosen positions; cannon batteries, grenadiers, dragoons of Gotha and infinite Pandours: military

jungle bristling far and wide. And you must push it heartily, and likewise cut the taproot of it (seize its big

guns), or it will not roll away. Margraf Karl shoots forth his steady infantry ('Silent till you see the whites of

their eyes!'),his cavalry with new manoeuvres; whose behavior is worthy of Ziethen himself:in brief, the

jungle is struck as by a whirlwind, the taproot of it cut, and rolls simultaneously out of range, leaving only

the Regiment of Gotha,, Regiment of Ogilvy and some Regulars, who also get torn to shreds, and utterly

ruined. Seeing which, the Pandour jungle plunges wholly into the woods, uttering horrible cries (EN

POUSSANT DES CRIS TERRIBLES), says Friedrich. [ OEuvres de Frederic, iii. 106. More specially

VORGEFALLENER ACTION (Seyfarth, Beylage, i. 159166).] Our new cavalrymanoeuvres deserve

praise. Margraf Karl had the honor to gain his Cousin's approbation this day; and to prove himself, says the

Cousin, (worthy of the grandfather he came from,'my own greatgrandfather; Great Elector,

FriedrichWilhelm; whose style of motion at Fehrbellin, or on the ice of the Frische Haf (soldiers all in

sledges, tearing along to be at the Swedes), was probably somewhat of this kind." ...

"Some days ago, Winterfeld had been pushed out to Landshut, with Detachment of 2,000, to judge a little for

himself which way the Austrians were coming, and to scare off certain Uhlans (the SAXON species of

Tolpatchery), who were threatening to be mischievous thereabouts. The Uhlans, at sound of Winterfeld,

jingled away at once: but, in a day or two, there came upon him, on the sudden, Pandour outburst in quite

other force;and in the very hours while Ziethen was struggling into Jagerndorf, and still more emphatically

next day, while Margraf Karl was handling his Pandours,Colonel Winterfeld, a hundred miles to westward

lapped among the Mountains, chanced to be dealing again with the same article. Very busy with it, from 4

o'clock this morning; likely to give a good account of the job. Steadily defending Landshut and himself,

against the grenadier battalions, cannon and furious overplus of Pandours (8,000 or 9,000, it is said, six to

one or so in the article of cavalry), which General Nadasti, a scientific leader of men or Pandours, skilfully

and furiously hurls upon Landshut and him, in an unexpected manner. Colonel Winterfeld had need of all his

heart and energy, in the intricate ground; against the furious overplus well manoeuvred: but in him too there

are manoeuvres; if he fall back here, it is to rush on double strong there; hour after hour he inexpugnably

defends himself,till General Stille, Friedrich's old Tutor, our worthy writing friend, whom we occasionally

quote, comes up with help; and Nadasti is at once brushed home again, with sore smart of failure, and 'the

loss of 600 killed,' among other items. [ Bericht von der am 21 Mai, 1745 bey Landshut rorgefallener Action,

in Feldzuge, i. 302305 (or in Seyfarth, Beylage, i. 155158); OEuvres de Frederic, iii. 105; Stille, pp.

120124 (who misdates, "23d May" for 22d).] Colonel Winterfeld was made MajorGeneral next day, for

this action. Colonel Winterfeld is cutting out a high course for himself, by his conduct in these employments;

solidity, brilliant effectuality, shining through all he does; his valor and value, his rapid just insight, fiery

energy and nobleness of mind more and more disclosing themselves,to one who is a judge of men, and

Friedrich has left the mousetrap open;and latterly has been baiting it with a pleasant spicing of toasted

cheese. One of his Spies, reporting from Prince Karl's quarters, Friedrich has at this time discovered to be a

DoubleSpy, reporting thither as well. DoubleSpy, there is an ugly fact;perhaps not quite convenient to

abolish it by hemp and gibbet; perhaps it could be turned to use, as most facts can? "Very good, my expert

Herr von Schonfeld [that was the knave's name]; and now of all things, whenever the Prince does get

across,instant word to us of that! Nothing so important to us. If he should get BETWEEN us and Breslau,

for example, what would the consequence be!" To this purport Friedrich instructs his DoubleSpy; sends him

off, unhanged, to Prince Karl's Camp, to blab this fresh bit of knowledge. "We likewise," says Friedrich,

"ordered some repairs on the roads leading to Breslau;"last turn of the hand to our bit of toasted fragrancy.

And Prince Karl is actually striding forward, at an eager pace:and Nadasti VERSUS Winterfeld, the other

day, could Winterfeld have guessed it, was the actual vanguard of the march; and will be up again

straightway! Whereupon Winterfeld too is called home; and all eyes are bent on the Landshut side.

Prince Karl, under these fine omens, had been urgent on the Saxons to be swift; Saxons under Weissenfels

did at last "get their cannon up," and we hear of them for certain, in junction with the Austrians, at Schatzlar,

on the Bohemian side of the Giant Mountains; climbing with diligence those wizard solitudes and highland

wastes. In a word, they roll across into Silesia, to Landshut (29th May); nothing doubting but Friedrich has

cowered into what retreats he has, as good as desperate of Silesia, and will probably be first heard of in

Breslau, when they get thither with their sieging guns. No cautious sagacious old Feldmarschall Traun is in

that Host at present; nothing but a Prince Karl, and a poor Duke of Weissenfels; who are too certain of

several things; very capable of certainty, and also of doubt, the wrong way of the facts. Their force is, by

strict count, 75,000; and they march from Landshut, detained a little by provender concerns, on the last day of

May 28th, Friedrich had encamped at Frankenstein; May 30th, he sets forth northwestward, to be nearer the

new scene; encamps at Reichenbach, that night; pushes forward again, next day, for Schweidnitz, for Striegau

(in all, a shift northwest of some forty miles);and from June 1st, lies stretched out between Schweidnitz

and Striegau, nine miles long; well hidden in the hollows of the little Rivers thereabouts (Schweidnitz Water,

Striegau Water), with their little knolls and hills; watching Prince Karl's probable place of egress from the

Mountain Country opposite. His main Camp is from Schweidnitz to Jauernik, some five miles long; but he

has his vanguard up as far as Striegau, Dumoulin and Winterfeld as vanguard, in good strength, a little way

behind or westward of that Town and Stream; Nassau and his Division are screened in the Wood called

Nonnenbusch (NUN'S BUSH), and there are outposts sprinkled all about, and vedettes watching from the

hilltops, from the Stanowitz Foxhill; the Zedlitz "Cowhill," "Winchill:" an Army not courting observation,

but intent very much to observe. Nadasti has appeared again; at Freyburg, few miles off, on this side of the

Mountains; goes out scouting, reconnoitring; but is "fired at from the growing corn," and otherwise

hoodwinked by false symptoms, and makes little of that business. Friedrich's Army we will compute at

70,000. [GeneralLieutenant Freiherr Leo von Lutzow, Die Schlacht von Hohenfriedbeg (Potsdam, 1845),

pp. 18, 21.] Not quite equal in number to Prince Karl's; and, in other particulars, willing and longing that

Friedrich's headquarter is at Jauernik: he goes daily riding hither, thither; to the top of the Fuchsberg

(FOXHILL at Stanowitz) with eager spyglass; daily many times looks with his spyglass to the ragged

peaks about Bolkenhayn, Kauder, Rohnstock; expecting the throw of the dice from that part. On Thursday, 3d

June: Do you notice that cloud of dust rising among the peaks over yonder? Dustcloud mounting higher and

higher. There comes the big crisis, then! There are the combined Weissenfels and Karl with their Austrian

Saxons, issuing proudly from their stone labyrinth; guns, equipments, baggages, all perfectly brought

through; rich Silesian plain country now fairly at their feet, Breslau itself but a few marches off:at sight of

all which, the Austrian big host bursts forth into universal fieldmusic, and shakes out its banners to the

wind. Thursday, 3d June, 1745; a dramatic Entry of something quite considerable on the Stage of History.

Friedrich, with Nassau and generals round, stands upon the Fuchsberg,his remarks not given, his looks or

emotions not described to us, his thought well known,and looks at it through his TUBUS (or spyglass):

There they are, then, and the big moment is come! Friedrich had seen the dust and the manoeuvring of them,

deeper in the Hills, from this same Fuchsberg yesterday, and inferred what was coming; calculated by what

roads or hilltracks they could issue: and how he, in each case, was to deal with them; his marchroutes are

all settled, plankbridges repaired, all privately is ready for these proud Austrian musical gentlemen, here in

the hollow. Friedrich has been upon this Fuchsberg with his TUBUS daily, many times since Monday last: it

is our general observatorium, says Stille, and commands a fine view into the interior of these Hills. A

Fuchsberg which has become notable in the Prussian maps: "the Stanowitz Fuchsberg," east side of Striegau

Water,let no tourist mistake himself; for there are two or even three other Fuchsbergs, a mile or so

northward on the western side of that Stream, which need to be distinguished by epithets, as the Striegau

Fuchsberg, the Graben Fuchsberg, and perhaps still others: comparable to the FOUR Neisse rivers, three

besides the one we know, which occur in this piece of Country! Our German cousins, I have often sorrowed

to find, have practically a most poor talent for GIVING NAMES; and indeed much, for ages back, is lying in

a sad state of confusion among them. Many confused things, rotting far and wide, in contradiction to the

plainest laws of Nature; things as well as names! All the welcomer this Prussian Army, this young Friedrich

leading it; they, beyond all earthly entities of their epoch, are not in a state of confusion, but of most strict

conformity to the laws of Arithmetic and facts of Nature: perhaps a very blessed phenomenon for Germany in

Prince Karl with Weissenfels, General Berlichingen and many plumed dignitaries, are dining on the Hilltop

near Hohenfriedberg: after having given order about everything, they witness there, over their wine, the issue

of their Columns from the Mountains; which goes on all afternoon, with fieldmusic, spread banners; and the

oldest General admits he never saw a finer review manoeuvre, or one better done, if so well. Thus sit they

on the Hilltop (GALGENBERG, not far from the gallows of the place, says Friedrich), in the beautiful June

afternoon. Silesia lying beautifully azure at their feet; the Zobtenberg, enchanted Mountain, blue and high on

one's eastern horizon; Prussians noticeable only in weak hussar parties four or five miles off, which vanish in

the hollow grounds again. All intending for Breslau, they, it is like;and here, red wine and the excellent

manoeuvre going on. "The AustrianandSaxon Army streamed out all afternoon," says a Country

Schoolmaster of those parts, whose Daybook has been preserved, [In Lutzow, pp. 123132.] "each regiment

or division taking the place appointed it; all afternoon, till late in the night, submerging the Country as in a

deluge," five miles long of them; taking post at the foot of the Hills there, from Hohenfriedberg round upon

Striegau, looking towards the morrow's sunrise. To us poor countryfolk not a beautiful sight; their light

On the other hand, the Austrian and Saxon gentlemen, from their GallowsHill at Hohenfriedberg, notice,

four or five miles in the distance, opposite them, or a little to the left of opposite, a Body of Prussian horse

and foot, visibly wending northward; like a long glittering serpent, the glitter of their muskets flashing back

yonder on the afternoon sun and us, as they mount from hollow to height. Ten or twelve thousand of them;

making for Striegau, to appearance. Intending to bivouac or billet there, and keep some kind of watch over

us; belike with an eye to being rearguard, on the retreat towards Breslau tomorrow? Or will they retreat

without attempting mischief? Serenity of Weissenfels engages to seize the heights and proper posts, over

yonder, this night yet; and will take Striegau itself, the first thing, tomorrow morning.

Yes, your Serenities, those are Prussians in movement: Vanguard Corps of Dumoulin,

Winterfeld;Rittmeister Seydlitz rides yonder: and it is not their notion to retreat without mischief. For

there stands, not so far off, on the Stanowitz Fuchsberg, a brisk little Gentleman, if you could notice him;

with his eyes fixed on you, and plans in the head of him now getting nearly mature. For certain, he is pushing

out that column of men; and all manner of other columns are getting order to push out, and take their ground;

and tomorrow morningyou will not find him in retreat! Such are the phenomena in that

StriegauHohenfriedberg region, while the sun is bending westward, on Thursday, 3d June, 1745.

"From Hohenfriedberg, which leans against the higher Mountains, there may be, across to Striegau northeast,

which stands well apart from them, among lower Hills of its own, a distance of about five English miles. The

intervening country is of flat, though upland nature: the first broad stage, or STAIRSTEP, so to speak,

leading down into the general interior levels of Silesia in those parts. A tract which is now tolerably dried by

draining, but was then marshy as well as bushy:flat to the eye, yet must be imperceptibly convexed a little,

for the line of watershed is hereabouts: walk from Hohenfriedberg to Striegau, the water on your left hand

flows, though mainly in ditches or imperceptible oozings, to the north and west,there to fall into an eastern

fork of the Roaring Neisse [one of our three new Neisses, which is a very quiet stream here; runs close by the

Mountain base, fed by many torrents, and must get its name, WUTHENDE or Roaring, from the suddenness

of its floods]: into this, bound northward and westward, run or ooze all waters on your left hand, as you go to

Striegau. Right hand, again, or to eastward, you will find all sauntering, or running in visible brooks into

Striegau Water [little River notable to us], which comes circling from the Mountains, past Hohenfriedberg,

farther south; and has got to some force as a stream before it reaches Striegau, and turns abruptly

eastward;eastward, to join Schweidnitz Water, and form with it the SECOND stairstep downwards to the

Plain Country. Has its Fuchsbergs, Kuhbergs and little knolls and heights interspersed, on both sides of it, in

"So that, looking eastward from the heights of Hohenfriedberg, our broad stage or stairstep has nothing of

the nature of a valley, but rather is a kind of insensibly swelling plain between two valleys, or hollows, of

small depth; and slopes both ways. Both ways; but MORE towards the StriegauWater valley or hollow; and

thence, in a lazily undulating manner, to other hollows and waters farther down. Friedrich's Camp lies in the

next, the SchweidnitzWater hollow; and is five, or even nine miles long, from Schweidnitz

northward;much hidden from the AustrianSaxon gentlemen at present. No hills farther, mere flat country,

to eastward of that. But to the north, again, about Striegau, the hollow deepens, narrows; and certain Hills,"

much notable at present, "rise to west of Striegau, definite peaked Hills, with granite quarries in them and

basalt blocks atop:Striegau, it appears, is, in old Czech dialect, TRZIZA, which means TRIPLE HILL, the

'Town of the Three Hills.' [Lutzow, p. 28.] An ancient quaint little Town, of perhaps 2,000 souls:

browngray, the stones of it venerably weathered; has its wide big marketplace, piazza, plain stones, silent

enough except on marketdays: nestles itself compactly in the shelter of its Three Hills, which screen it from

the northwest; and has a picturesque appearance, its Hills and it, projected against the big Mountain range

"Hohenfriedberg, at the other corner of our battlestage, on the road to Landshut, is a Village of no great

compass; but sticks pleasantly together, does not straggle in the usual way; climbs steep against its

GallowsHill (now called 'SIEGESBERG, Victory Hill,' with some tower or steeplemonument on it, built

by subscription); and would look better, if trimmed a little and habitually well swept. The higher Mountain

summits, Landshut way, or still more if you look southeastward, Glatzward, rise blue and huge, remote on

your right; to left, the Roaring Neisse range close at hand, is also picturesque, though less Alpine in type."

[Tourist's Note (1858).] ... And of all Hills, the notablest, just now to us, are those "Three" at Striegau.

Those Three Hills of Striegau his Serenity of Weissenfels is to lay hold of, this night, with his extreme left,

were it once got deployed and bivouacked. Those Hills, if he can: but Prussian Dumoulin is already on march

thither; and privately has his eye upon them, on Friedrich's part!For the rest, this upland platform,

insensibly sloping two ways, and as yet undrained, is of scraggy boggy nature in many places; much of it

damp ground, or sheer morass; better parts of it covered, at this season, with rank June grass, or greener

luxuriance of oats and barley. A humble peaceable scene; peaceable till this afternoon; dotted, too, with six or

seven poor Hamlets, with scraggy woods, where they have their fuel; most sleepy littery ploughman Hamlets,

sometimes with a SCHLOSS or Mansion for the owner of the soil (who has absconded in the present crisis of

things), their evening smoke rising rather fainter than usual; much cookery is not advisable with Uhlans and

Tolpatchcs flying about. Northward between Striegau and the higher Mountains there is an extensive

TEICHWIRTHSCHAFT, or "Pond Husbandry" (gleaming visible from Hohenfriedberg GallowsHill just

now); a combination of stagnant pools and carpponds, the ground much occupied hereabouts with what they

name CarpHusbandry. Which is all drained away in our time, yet traceable by the studious:quaggy

congeries of sluices and fishponds, no road through them except on intricate dams; have scrubby thickets

about the border;this also is very strong ground, if Weissenfels thought of defence there.

Which Weissenfels does not, but only of attack. He occupies the ground nevertheless, rearward of this

CarpHusbandry, as becomes a strategic man; gradually bivouacking all round there, to end on the Three

Hills, were his last regiments got up. The CarpHusbandry is mainly about Eisdorf Hamlet:in

Pilgramshayn, where Weissenfels once thought of lodging, lives our Writing Schoolmaster. The Mountains

lie to westward; flinging longer shadows, as the invasive troops continually deploy, in that beautiful manner;

and coil themselves strategically on the ground, a bent rope, cordon, or line (THREE lines in depth), reaching

from the front skirts of Hohenfriedberg to the Hills at Striegau again,terrible to behold.

In front of Hohenfriedberg, we say, is the extremity or right wing of the AustrianSaxon bivouac, or will be

when the process is complete; five miles to northeast, sweeping round upon Striegau region, will be their left,

where mainly are the Saxons,to nestle upon those Three Hills of Striegau: whitherward however,

Dumoulin, on Friedrich's behalf, is already on march. AustrianSaxon bivouac, as is the way in regulated

hosts, can at once become AustrianSaxon orderofbattle: and then, probably, on the Chord of that Arc of

five miles, the big Fight will roll tomorrow; Striegau one end of it, Hohenfriedbcrg the other. Flattish,

somewhat elliptic upland, stairstep from the Mountains, as we called it; tract considerably cut with ditches,

carphusbandries, and their tufts of wood; line from Striegau to Hohenfriedberg being axis or main diameter

of it, and in general the line of watershed: there, probably, will the tug of war be. Friedrich, on his Fuchsberg,

knows this; the AustrianSaxon gentlemen, over their wine on the GallowsHill, do not yet know it, but will

It was about four in the afternoon, when Valori, with a companion, waiting a good while in the King's Tent at

Jauernik, at last saw his Majesty return from the Fuchsberg observatory. Valori and friend have great news:

"Tournay fallen; siege done, your Majesty!" Valori's friend is one De Latour; who had brought word of

Fontenoy ("important victory on the Scamander," as Friedrich indignantly defined it to himself); and was bid

wait here till this Siegeof Tournay consummation ("as helpful to me as the Siege of Pekin!") should

supervene. They hasten to salute his Majesty with the glorious tidings, Hmph! thinks Friedrich: and we are at

deathgrips here, little to be helped by your taking Pekin! However, he lets wit of nothing. "I make my

compliments; mean to fight tomorrow." [Valori, i. 228.] Valori, as old soldier and friend, volunteers to be

Friedrich, I presume, at this late hour of four, may bc snatching a morsel of dinner; his orderlies are silently

speeding, plans taken, orders given: To start all, at eight in the evening, for the Bridge of Striegau; there to

cross, and spread to the right and to the left. Silent, not a word spoken, not a pipe lighted: silently across the

Striegau Water there. A march of three miles for the nearest, who are here at Jauernik; of nine miles for the

farthest about Schweidnitz; at Schweidnitz leave all your baggage, safe under the guns there. To the Bridge of

Striegau, diligently, silently march along; Bridge of Striegau, there cross Striegau Water, and deploy to right

Late in the dusk, Dumoulin and Winterfeld, whom we saw silently on march some hours ago, have silently

glided past Striegau, and got into the ThreeHill region, which is some furlong or so farther north:to his

surprise, Dumoulin finds Saxon parties posting themselves thereabouts. He attacks said Saxon parties; and

after some slight tussle, drives them mostly from their Three Hills; mostly, not altogether; one Saxon Hill is

precipitous on our hither side of it, and we must leave that till the dawn break. Of the other Heights Dumoulin

takes good possession, with cannon too, to be ready against dawn;and ranks himself out to leftward withal,

along the plain ground; for he is to be right wing, had the other troops come up. These are now all under way;

astir from Jauernik and Schweidnitz, silently streaming along; and Dumoulin bivouacs here,very silent he:

not so silent the Saxons; who are still marching in, over yonder, to westward of Dumoulin, their rearguard

groping out its posts as it best can in the dark. Elsewhere, miles and miles along the foot of the Mountains,

AustrianSaxon watch fires flame through the ambrosial night; and it is an impressive sight for

Dumoulin,still more for the poor Schoolmaster at Pilgramshayn and others, less concerned than Dumoulin.

"It was beautiful," says Stille, who was there, "to see how the plain about Rohnstock, and all over that way,

was ablaze with thousands of watchfires (TAUSEND UND ABER TAUSEND); by the light of these, we

could clearly perceive the enemy's troops continually defile from the Hills the whole night through." [Cited in

Serenity of Weissenfels, after all, does not lodge at Pilgramshayn; far in the night, he goes to sleep at

Rohnstock, a Schloss and Hamlet on that fork of Roaring Neisse, by the foot of the Mountains; three or four

miles off, yet handy enough for picking up Striegau the first thing tomorrow. His Highness Prince Karl lies

in Hausdorf, tolerable quarters, pretty much in the centre of his long bivouac; day's business well done, and

bottle (as one's wont rather is) well enjoyed. Nadasti has been out scouting; but was pricked into by hussar

parties, fired into from the growing corn; and could make out little, but the image of his own ideas. Nadasti's

ultimate report is, That the Prussians are perfectly quiet in their camp; from Jauernik to Schweidnitz,

watchfires all alight, sentries going their rounds. And so they are, in fact; sentries and watchfires,but

now nothing else there, a mere shell of a camp; the men of it streaming steadily along, without speech,

It was past eleven, so close and continuous went this march, before Valori and his Latour, with their carriages

and furnitures, could find an interval, and get well into it. Never will Valori forget the discipline of these

Prussians, and how they marched. Difficult ways; the hard road is for their artillery; the men march on each

side, sometimes to midleg in water,never mind. Wholly in order, wholly silent; Valori followed them

three leagues close, and there was not one straggler. Every private man, much more every officer, knows well

what grim errand they are on; and they make no remarks. Steady as Time; and, except that their shoes are not

of felt, silent as he. The Austrian watchfires glow silent manifold to leftward yonder; silent overhead are the

stars:the path of all duty, too, is silent (not about Striegau alone) for every well drilled man.

A grimmish feeling against the Saxons is understood to be prevalent among these men. Bruhl, Weissenfels

himself, have been reported talking high,"Reduce our King to the size of an Elector again," and other

foolish things;indeed, grudges have been accumulating for some time. "KEIN PARDON (No quarter)!" we

hear has been a word among the Saxons, as they came along; the Prussians growl to one another, "Very well

then, None!" Nay Friedrich's general order is, "No prisoners, you cavalry, in the heat of fight; cavalry, strike

at the faces of them: you infantry, keep your fire till within fifty steps; bayonet withal is to be relied on."

These were Friedrich's last general orders, given in the hollow of the night, near the foot of that Fuchsberg

where he had been so busy all day; a widish plain space hereabouts, Striegau Bridge now near: he had lain

snme time in his cloak, waiting till the chief generals, with the heads of their columns, could rendezvous here.

He then sprang on horseback; spoke briefly the essential things (one of them the above);"Had meant to be

more minute, in regard to positions and the like; but all is so in darkness, embroiled by the flare of the

Austrian watchfires, we can make nothing farther of localities at present: Striegau for right wing, left wing

opposite to Hohenfriedberg,so, and Striegau Water well to rear of us. Be diligent, exact, all faculties

awake: your own sense, and the Order of Battle which you know, must do the rest. Forward; steady: can I

doubt but you will acquit yourselves like Prussian men?" And so they march, across the Bridge at Striegau,

south outskirt of the Town,plank Bridge, I am afraid;and pour themselves, to right and to left,

To describe the Battle which ensued, Battle named of Striegau or Hohenfriedberg, excels the power of human

talent,if human talent had leisure for such employment. It is the huge shock and clash of 70,000 against

70,000, placed in the way we said. An enormous furious SIMALTAS (or "bothatonce," as the Latins

phrase it), spreading over ten square miles. Rather say, a wide congeries of electric simultaneities; all

ELECTRIC, playing madly into one another; most loud, most mad: the aspect of which is smoky, thunderous,

abstruse; the true SEQUENCES of which, who shall unravel? There are five accounts of it, all modestly

written, each truelooking from its own place: and a thricediligent Prussian Officer, stationed on the spot in

late years, has striven well to harmonize them all. [Five Accounts: 1. The Prussian Official Account, in

HeldenGeschichte, i. 10981102. 2. The Saxon, ib. 11031108. 3. The Austrian, ib. 11091115. 4. Stille's

(ii. 125133, of English Translation). 5. Friedrich's own, OEuvres, iii. 108118. Lutzow, above cited, is the

harmonizer. Besides which, two of value, in Feldzuge, i. 310323, 328336; not to mention Cogniazzo,

Confessions of an Austrian Veeran (Breslau, 17881791: strictly Anonymous at that time, and candid, or

almost more, to Prussian merit;still worth reading, here and throughout), ii. 123135; Well worth the study

of military men;who might make tours towards this and the other great battle field, and read such things,

were they wise. For us, a feature or two, in the huge general explosion, to assist the reader's fancy in

With the first streak of dawn, the dispute renewed itself between those Prussians and Saxons who are on the

Heights of Striegau. The two Armies are in contact here; they lie wide apart as yet at the other end.

Cannonading rises here, on both sides, in the dim gray of the morning, for the possession of these Heights.

The Saxons are outcannonaded and dislodged, other Saxons start to arms in support: the cry "To arms!"

spreads everywhere, rouses Weissenfels to horseback; and by sunrise a furious storm of battle has begun, in

this part. Hot and fierce on both sides; charges of horse, shock after shock, bayonetcharges of foot; the great

guns going like Jove's thunder, and the continuous tearing storm of small guns, very loud indeed: such a

noise, as our poor Schoolmaster, who lives on this spot, thinks he will hear only once again, when the Last

Trumpet sounds! It did indeed, he informs us, resemble the dissolution of Nature: "For all fell dark too;" a

general element of sulphurous powdersmoke, streaked with dull blazes; and death and destruction very nigh.

What will become of poor pacific mortals hereabouts? Rittmeister Seydlitz, Winterfeld his patron ride, with

knit brows, in these horsecharges; fiery Rothenburg too; Truchsess von Waldburg, at the head of his

Division,poor Truchsess known in London society, a cannonball smites the life out of him, and he ended

At the first clash of horse and foot, the Saxons fancied they rather had it; at the second, their horse became

distressed; at the third, they rolled into disorderly heaps. The foot also, stubborn as they were, could not stand

that swift firing, followed by the bayonet and the sabre; and were forced to give ground. The morning sun

shone into their eyes, too, they say; and there had risen a breath of easterly wind, which hurled the smoke

upon them, so that they could not see. Decidedly staggering backwards; getting to be taken in flank and

ruined, though poor Weissenfels does his best. About five in the morning, Friedrich came galloping

hitherward; Valori with him: "MON AMI, this is looking well! This will do, won't it?" The Saxons are fast

sinking in the scale; and did nothing thenceforth but sink ever faster; though they made a stiff defence, fierce

exasperation on both sides; and disputed every inch. Their position, in these scraggy Woods and Villages, in

It had proved to be farther north, too, than was expected; so that the Prussians had to wheel round a little

(right wing as a centre, fighting army as radius) before they could come parallel, and get to work: a delicate

manoeuvre, which they executed to Valori's admiration, here in the storm of battle; tramp, tramp, velocity

increasing from your centre outwards, till at the end of the radius, the troops are at treblequick, fairly

running forward, and the line straight all the while. Admirable to Valori, in the hot whirlwind of battle here.

For the great guns go, in horrid salvos, unabated, and the crackling thunder of the small guns; "terrible

tussling about those Carpponds, that quaggy Carphusbandry," says the Schoolmaster, "and the Heavens

blotted out in sulphurous fire streaked smoke. What had become of us pacific? Some had run in time, and

they were the wisest; others had squatted, who could find a nook suitable. Most of us had gathered into the

Nurserygarden at the foot of our Village; we sat quaking there,our prayers grown tremulously vocal;in

tears and wail, at least the women part. Enemies made reconcilement with each other," says he, "and dear

friends took farewell." [His Narrative, in Lutzow, UBI SUPRA.] One general Alleleu; the Last Day, to all

appearance, having come. Friedrich, seeing things in this good posture, gallops to the left again, where much

On the Austrian side, Prince Karl, through his morning sleep at Hausdorf, had heard the cannonading:

"Saxons taking Striegau!" thinks he; a pleasant lullaby enough; and continues to sleep and dream. Agitated

messengers rush in, at last; draw his curtains: "Prussians all in rank, this side Striegau Water; Saxons beaten,

or nearly so, at Striegau: we must stand to arms, your Highness!" "To arms, of course," answers Karl; and

hurries now, what he can, to get everything in motion. The bivouac itself had been in order of battle; but

naturally there is much to adjust, to put in trim; and the Austrians are not distinguished for celerity of

On Friedrich's side, so far as I can gather, there have happened two cross accidents. First, by that wheeling

movement, done to Valori's admiration in the Striegau quarter, the Prussian line has hitched itself up towards

Striegau, has got curved inward, and covers less ground than was counted on; so that there is like to be some

gap in the central part of;as in fact there was, in spite of Friedrich's efforts, and hitchings of battalions and

squadrons: an indisputable gap, though it turned to rich profit for Friedrich; Prince Karl paying no attention to

it. Upon such indisputable gap a wakeful enemy might have done Friedrich some perilous freak; but Karl was

in his bed, as we say;in a terrible flurry, too, when out of bed. Nothing was done upon the gap; and

The second accident is almost worse. Striegau Bridge (of planks, as I feared), creaking under such a heavy

stream of feet aud wheels all night, did at last break, in some degree, and needed to be mended; so that the

rearward regiments, who are to form Friedrich's left wing, are in painful retard;and are becoming

frightfully necessary, the Austrians as yet far outflanking us, capable of taking us in flank with that right wing

of theirs! The moment was agitating to a Generalinchief: Valori will own this young King's bearing was

perfect; not the least flurry, though under such a strain. He has aidesdecamp, dashing out everywhither

with orders, with expedients; Prince Henri, his younger Brother: galloping the fastest; nay, at last, he begs

Valori himself to gallop, with orders to a certain General Gessler, in whose Brigade are Dragoons. Which

Valori does,happily without effect on Gessler; who knows no Valori for an aidedecamp, and keeps the

Happily the Austrian right wing is in no haste to charge. Happily Ziethen, blocked by that incumbrance of the

Bridge mending, "finds a ford higher up," the assiduous Ziethen; splashes across, other regiments following;

forms in line well leftward; and instead of waiting for the Austrian charge, charges home upon them, fiercely

through the difficult grounds, No danger of the Austrians outflanking us now; they are themselves likely to

get hard measure on their flank. By the ford and by the Bridge, all regiments, some of them at treblequick,

get to their posts still in time. Accident second has passed without damage. Forward, then; rapid, steady; and

reserve your fire till within fifty paces! Prinoe Ferdinand of Brunswick (Friedrich's Brotherinlaw, a

brighteyed steady young man, of great heart for fight) tramps forth with his Division:steady!all

manner of Divisions tramp forth; and the hot storm, Ziethen and cavalry dashing upon that right wing of

The Austrian cavalry on this wing and elsewhere, it is clear, were ill off. "We could not charge the Prussian

left wing, say they, partly because of the morasses that lay between us; and partly [which is remarkable]

because they rushed across and charged us." [Austrian report, HeldenGeschichte, i. 1113.] Prince Karl is

sorry to report such things of his cavalry; but their behavior was bad and not good. The first shock threw

them wavering; the second,nothing would persuade them to dash forth and meet it. High officers

commanded, obtested, drew out pistols, Prince Karl himself shot a fugitive or two,it was to no purpose;

they wavered worse at every new shock; and at length a shock came (sixth it was, as the reporter counts)

which shook them all into the wind. Decidedly shy of the Prussians with their new manoeuvres, and terrible

way of coming on, as if sure of beating. In the Saxon quarter, certain Austrian regiments of horse would not

charge at all; merely kept firing from their carbines, and when the time came ran.

As for the Saxons, they have been beaten these two hours; that is to say, hopeless these two hours, and getting

beaten worse and worse. The Saxons cannot stand, but neither generally will they run; they dispute every

ditch, morass and tuft of wood, especially every village. Wrecks of the muddy desperate business last, hour

after hour. "I gave my men a little rest under the garden walls," says one Saxon Gentleman, "or they would

have died, in the heat and thirst and extreme fatigue: I would have given 100 gulden [10 pounds Sterling] for

a glass of water." [ Helden Geschichte, ubi supra.] The Prussians push them on, bayonet in back;

inexorable, not to be resisted; slit off whole battalions of them (prisoners now, and quarter given); take all

their guns, or all that are not sunk in the quagmires;in fine, drive them, part into the Mountains direct, part

by circuit thither, down upon the rear of the Austrian fight: through Hausdorf, Seifersdorf and other Mountain

gorges, where we hear no more of them, and shall say no more of them. A sore stroke for poor old

Weissenfels; the last public one he has to take, in this world, for the poor man died before long. Nobody's

blame, he says; every Saxon man did well; only some Austrian horseregiments, that we had among us, were

too shy. Adieu to poor old Weissenfels. Luck of war, what else,thereby is he in this pass.

And now new Prussian force, its Saxons being well abolished, is pressing down upon Prince Karl's naked left

flank. Yes;Prince Karl too will have to go. His cavalry is, for most part, shaken into ragged clouds;

infantry, steady enough men, cannot stand everything. "I have observed," says Friedrich, "if you step sharply

up to an Austrian battalion [within fifty paces or so], and pour in your fire well, in about a quarter of an hour

you see the ranks beginning to shake, and jumble towards indistinctness;" [ Military Instructions. ] a very

It was at this moment that LieutenantGeneral Gessler, under whom is the Dragoon regiment Baireuth, who

had kept his place in spite of Valori's message, determined on a thing,advised to it by General Schmettau

(younger Schmettau), who was near. Gessler, as we saw, stood in the rear line, behind that gap (most likely

one of several gaps, or wide spaces, left too wide, as we explained); Gessler, noticing the jumbly condition of

those Austrian battalions, heaped now one upon another in this part,motions to the Prussian Infantry to

make what farther room is needful; then dashes through, in two columns (self and the DragoonColonel

heading the one, French Chasot, who is LieutenantColonel, heading the other), sabre in hand, with

extraordinary impetus and fire, into the belly of these jumbly Austrians; and slashes them to rags, "twenty

battalions of them," in an altogether unexampled manner. Takes "several thousand prisoners," and such a haul

of standards, kettledrums and insignia of honor, as was never got before at one charge. Sixtyseven

standards by the tale, for the regiment (by most AllGracious Permission) wears, ever after, "67" upon its

cartridgebox, and is allowed to beat the grenadier march; [Orlich, ii. 179 (173 n., 179 n., slightly wrong);

MilitairLexikon, ii. 9, iv. 465, 468. See Preuss, i. 212; OEuvres de Frederic; many kettledrums memory

Prince Karl beats retreat, about 8 in the morning; is through Hohenfriedberg about 10 (cannon covering there,

and Nadasti as rearguard): back into the Mountains; a thoroughly wellbeaten man. Towards Bolkenhayn,

the Saxons and he; their heavy artillery and baggage had been left safe there. Not much pursued, and

gradually rearranging himself; with thoughts,no want of thoughts! Came pouring down, triumphantly

invasive, yesterday; returns, on these terms, in about fifteen hours. Not marching with displayed banners and

fieldmusic, this time; this is a far other march. The mousetrap had been left open, and we rashly went

in!Prince Karl's loss, including that of the Saxons (which is almost equal, though their number in the field

was but HALF), is 9,000 dead and wounded, 7,000 prisoners, 66 cannon, 73 flags and standards; the Prussian

is about 5,000 dead and wounded. [In Orlich (ii. 182) all the details.] Friedrich, at sight of Valori, embraces

his GROS VALORI; says, with a pious emotion in voice and look, "My friend, God has helped me

wonderfully this day!" Actually there was a kind of devout feeling visible in him, thinks Valori: "A singular

mixture, this Prince, of good qualities and of bad; I never know which preponderates." [Valori, SOEPIUS.]

Friedrich is blamed by some military men, and perhaps himself thought it questionable, that he did not pursue

Prince Karl more sharply. He says his troops could not; they were worn out with the night's marching and the

day's fighting. He himself may well be worn out. I suppose, for the last fourandtwenty hours he, of all the

contemporary sons of Adam, has probably been the busiest. Let us rest this day; rest till tomorrow morning,

and be thankful. "So decisive a defeat," writes he to his Mother (hastily, misdating "6th" June for 4th), "has

not been since Blenheim" [Letter in OEuvres de Frederic, xxvi. 71.] (which is tolerably true); and "I have

made the Princes sign their names," to give the good Mother assurance of her children in these perils of war.

Friedrich marched, on the morrow, likewise to Bolkenhayn; which the enemy have just left; our hussars

hanging on their rear, and bickering with Nadasti. Then again on the morrow, Sunday,"twelve hours of

continuous rain," writes Valori; but there is no down pour, or distress, or disturbance that will shake these

men from their ranks, writes Valori. And so it goes on, march after march, the Austrians ahead, Dumoulin

and our hussars infesting their rear, which skilfully defended itself: through Landshut down into Bohemia;

where are new successive marches, the Prussian quarterstaff stuck into the back of defeated Austria, "Home

with you; farther home!"and shogging it on,without pause, for about a fortnight to come. And then only

with temporary pause; that is to say, with intricate manoeuvrings of a month long, which shove it to

Konigsgratz, its ultimatum, beyond which there is no getting it. The stages and successive campings, to be

found punctually in the old Books and new, can interest only military readers. Here is a small theological

JUNE 8th, 1745. "The Army followed Dumoulin's Corps, and marched upon Landshut. On arriving in that

neighborhood, the King was surrounded by a troop of 2,000 Peasants,"of Protestant persuasion very

evidently! (which is much the prevailing thereabouts),"who begged permission of him 'to massacre the

Catholics of these parts, and clear the country of them altogether.' This animosity arose from the persecutions

which the Protestants had suffered during the Austrian domination, when their churches used to be taken

from them and given to the Popish priests,"churches and almost their children, such was the anxiety to

make them orthodox. The patience of these peasants had run over; and now, in the hour of hope, they

proposed the above sweeping measure. "The King was very far from granting them so barbarous a

permission. He told them, 'They ought rather to conform to the Scripture precept, to bless those that cursed

them, and pray for those that despitefully used them; such was the way to gain the Kingdom of Heaven.' The

peasants," rolling dubious eyes for a moment, "answered, His Majesty was right; and desisted from their cruel

pretension." [ OEuvres de Frederic, ii.218.] ..."On Hohenfriedberg Day," says another Witness, "as far as

the sound of the cannon was heard, all round, the Protestants fell on their knees, praying for victory to the

Prussians;" [In Ranke, iii. 259.] and at Breslau that evening, when the "Thirteen trumpeting Postilions" came

Prince Karl has skill in choosing camps and positions: his Austrians are much cowed; that is the grievous loss

in his late fight. So, from June 8th, when they quit Silesia,by two roads to go more readily,all through

that month and the next, Friedrich spread to the due width, duly pricking into the rear of them, drives the

beaten hosts onward and onward. They do not think of fighting; their one thought is to get into positions

where they can have living conveyed to them, and cannot be attacked; for the former of which objects, the

farther homewards they go, it is the better. The main pursuit, as I gather, goes leftward from Landshut, by

Friedland,the Silesian Friedland, once Wallenstein's. Through rough wild country, the southern slope of

the Giant Mountains, goes that slow pursuit, or the main stream of it, where Friedrich in person is; intricate

savage regions, cut by precipitous rocks and soaking quagmires, shaggy with woods: watershed between the

Upper Elbe and Middle Oder; Glatz on our left,with the rain of its mountains gathering to a Neisse River,

eastward, which we know; and on their west or hither side, to a Mietau, Adler, Aupa and other

manybranched feeders of the Elbe. Most complex military ground, the manoeuvrings on it endless, which

About the end of June, Karl and his Austrians find a place suitable to their objects: Konigsgratz, a compact

little Town, in the nook between the Elbe and Adler; covered to west and to south by these two streams;

strong enough to east withal; and sure and convenient to the southern roads and victual. Against which

Friedrich's manoeuvres avail nothing; so that he at last (20th July) crosses Elbe River; takes, he likewise, an

inexpugnable Camp on the opposite shore, at a Village called Chlum; and lies there, making a mutual

deadlock of it, for six weeks or more. Of the prior Camps, with their abundance of strategic shufflings,

wheelings, pushings, all issuing in this of Chlum, we say nothing: none of them, except the immediately

preceding one, called of Nahorzan, called also of Drewitz (for it was in parts a shifting entity, and flung the

LIMBS of it about, strategically clutching at Konigsgratz), had any permanency: let us take Chlum (the

longest, and essentially the last in those parts) as the general summary of them, and alone rememberable by

us. ["Camp of GrossParzitz [across the Mietau, to dislodge Prince Karl from his shelter behind that stream],

June 14th:" "Camp of Nahorzan, June 18th [and abstruse manoeuvrings, of a month, for Konigsgratz]: 20th

July," cross Elbe for Chlum; and lie, yourself also inexpugnable, there. See OEuvres de Frederic, (iii. 120 et

seq.); especially see Orlich (ii. pp. 193, 194, 203, an amplitude of inorganic details, sufficient to astonish the

Friedrich's purposes, at Chlum or previously, are not towards conquests in Bohemia, nor of fighting farther, if

he can help it. But, in the mean while, he is eating out these Bohemian vicinages; no invasion of Silesia

possible from that quarter soon again. That is one benefit: and he hopes always his enemies, under screw of

military pressure with the one hand, and offer of the olive branch with the other, will be induced to grant

him Peace. Britannic Majesty, after Fontenoy and Hohenfriedberg, not to mention the first rumors of a

Jacobite Rebellion, with France to rear of it, is getting eager to have Friedrich settled with, and withdrawn

from the game again;the rather, as Friedrich, knowing his man, has ceased latterly to urge him on the

subject. Peace with George the Purseholder, does not that mean Peace with all the others? Friedrich knows

the high Queen's indignation; but he little guesses, at this time, the humor of Bruhl and the Polish Majesty.

He has never yet sent the Old Dessauer in upon them; always only keeps him on the slip, at Magdeburg; still

hoping actualities may not be needed. He hopes too, in spite of her indignation, the Hungarian Majesty, with

an Election on hand, with the Netherlands at such a pass, not to speak of Italy and the Middle Rhine, will

come to moderate views again. On which latter points, his reckoning was far from correct! Within three

months, Britannic Majesty and he did get to explicit Agreement (CONVENTION OF HANOVER, 26th

August): but in regard to the Polish Majesty and the Hungarian there proved to be no such result attainable,

"Of military transactions in this Camp of Chlum, or in all these BohemianSilesian Camps, for near four

months, there is nothing, or as good as nothing: Chlum has no events; Chlum vigilantly guards itself; and

expects, as the really decisive to it, events that will happen far away. We are to conceive this military

business as a deadlock; attended with hussar skirmishes; attacks, defences, of outposts, of

provisionwagons from Moravia or Silesia:Friedrich has his food from Silesia chiefly, by several routes,

'convoys come once in the five days.' His horseprovender he forages; with Tolpatches watching him, and

continual scufflings of fight: 'for hay and glory,' writes one Prussian Officer, 'I assure you we fight well!'

Endless enterprising, manoeuvring, counter manoeuvring there at first was; and still is, if either party stir:

but here, in their mutually fixed camps, tacit mutual observances establish themselves; and amid the rigorous

armed vigilantes, there are traits of human neighborship. As usual in such cases. The guardparties do not

fire on one another, within certain limits: a signal that there are dead to bury, or the like, is strictly respected.

On one such occasion it was (June 30th, Camp ofNahorzan time) that Prince Ferdinand of

BrunswickPrince Ferdinand, with a young Brother Albert volunteering and learning his business here, who

are both Prussianhad a snatch of interview with a third muchloved Brother, Ludwig, who is in the

Austrian service. A Prussian officer, venturing beyond the limits, had been shot; Ferdinand's message, 'Grant

us burial of him!' found, by chance, Brother Ludwig in command of that Austrian outpost; who answers:

'Surely;and beg that I may embrace my Brothers!' And they rode out, those three, to the space

intermediate; talked there for half an hour, till the burial was done. [Mauvillon, Geschichte Ferdinands von

Braunschweig Luneburg, i. 118.] Fancy such an interview between the poor young fellows, the soul of

"Trenck of the Lifeguard was not quite the soul of honor. It was in the Nahorzan time too that Trenck, who

had, in spite of express order to the contrary, been writing to his Cousin the indigo Pandour, was put under

arrest when found out. 'Wrote merely about horses: purchase of horses, so help me God!' protests the

blusterous Lifeguardsman, loud as lungs will,whether with truth in them, nobody can say. 'Arrest for

breaking orders!' answers Friedrich, doubting or disbelieving the horses; and loud Trenck is packed over the

Hills to Glatz; to Governor Fouquet, or Substitute; where, by not submitting and repenting, by resisting

and rebelling, and ever again doing it, he makes out for himself, with Fouquet and his other Governors, what

kind of life we know! 'GARDEZ E'TROITEMENT CE DROLELA, IL A VOULU DEVENIR PANDOUR

AUPRES DE SON ONCLE (Keep a tight hold of this fine fellow; he wanted to become Pandour beside his

Uncle)!' writes Friedrich:'Uncle' instead of 'Cousin,' all one to Friedrich. This he writes with his own hand,

on the margin: 28th June, 1745; the inexorable Records fix that date. [Rodenbeck. iii. 381. Copy of the

Warrant, once PENES ME.] Which I should not mention, except for another inexorable date (30th

September), that is coming; and the perceptible slight comfort there will be in fixing down a loud blustering,

extensively fabulous blockhead, still fit for the Nurseries, to one undeniable premeditated lie, and

tarmarking him therewith, for benefit of more serious readers." As shall be done, were the 30th of

Here is still something,if it be not rather nothing, by a great hand! Date uncertain; CampofChlum time,

pretty far on: ... "There are continual foragings, on both sides; with parties mutually dashing out to hinder the

same. The Prussians have a detached post at Smirzitz; which is much harassed by Hungarians lurking about,

shooting our sentry and the like. An inventive head contrives this expedient. Stuff a Prussian uniform with

straw; fix it up, by aid of ropes and checkstrings, to stand with musket shouldered, and even to glide about

to right and left, on judicious pulling. So it is done: straw man is made; set upon his ropes, when the

Tolpatches approach; and pensively saunters to and fro,his living comrades crouching in the bushes near

by. Tolpatches fire on the walking straw sentry; straw sentry falls flat; Tolpatches rush in, esurient,

triumphant; are exploded in a sharp blast of musketry from the bushes all round, every wounded man made

prisoner;and come no more back to that post." Friedrich himself records this little fact: "slight pleasantry

to relieve the reader's mind," says he, in narrating it. [ OEuvres, iii. 123.] Enough of those small matters,

June 26th, a month before Chlum, General Nassau had been detached, with some 8 or 10,000, across Glatz

Country, into Upper Silesia, to sweep that clear again. Hautcharmoi, quitting the Frontier Towns, has joined,

raising him to 15,000; and Nassau is giving excellent account of the multitudinous Pandour doggeries there;

and will retake Kosel, and have Upper Silesia swept before very long. [Kosel, "September 5th:" Excellent,

lucid and even entertaining Account of Nassau's Expedition, in the form of DIARY (a model, of its kind), in

Feldzuge, iv. 257, 371, 532.] On the other hand, the Election matter (KAISERWAHL, a most important

point) is obviously in threatening, or even in desperate state! That famed MiddleRhine Army has gone to

JULY 5th19th, MIDDLERHINE COUNTRY. "The first Electionnews that reaches Friedrich is from the

MiddleRhine Country, and of very bad complexion. Readers remember Traun, and his Bathyanis, and his

intentions upon Conti there. In the end of May, old Traun, things being all completed in Bavaria, had got on

march with his Bavarian Army, say 40,000, to look into Prince Conti down in those parts; a fact very

interesting to the Prince. Traun held leftward, westward, as if for the Neckar Valley,'Perhaps intending to

be through upon Elsass, in those southern undefended portions of the Rhine?' Conti, and his Segur, and

MiddleRhine Army stood diligently on their guard; got their forces, defences, apparatuses, hurried

southward, from Frankfurt quarter where they lay on watch, into those Neckar regions. Which seen to be

done, Traun whirled rapidly to rightward, to northward; crossed the Mayn at Wertheim, wholly leaving the

Neckar and its Conti; having weighty business quite in the other direction,on the north side of the Mayn,

namely; on the Kinzig River, where Bathyani (who has taken D'Ahremberg's command below Frankfurt, and

means to bestir himself in another than the D'Ahremberg fashion) is to meet him on a set day. Traun having

thus, by strategic suction, pulled the Middle Rhine Army out of his and Bathyani's way, hopes they two will

manage a junction on the Kinzig; after junction they will be a little stronger than Conti, though decidedly

weaker taken one by one. Traun, in the long June days, had such a march, through the Spessart Forest (Mayn

River to his left, with our old friends Dettingen, Aschaffenburg, far down in the plain), as was hardly ever

known before: pathless wildernesses, rocky steeps and chasms; the sweltering June sun sending down the

upper snows upon him in the form of muddy slush; so that 'the infantry had to wade haunch deep in many of

the hollow parts, and nearly all the cavalry lost its horseshoes.' A strenuous march; and a wellschemed. For

at the Kinzig River (Conti still far off in the Neckar country), Bathyani punctually appeared, on the opposite

shore; and Traun and he took camp together; July 5th, at LangenSelbord (few miles north of Hanau, which

we know);and rest there; calculating that Conti is now a manageable quantity;and comfortably wait till

the Grand Duke arrives. [Adelung, iv. 421; v. 36.] For this is, theoretically, HIS Army; GrandDuke Franz

being the Commander's Cloak, this season; as Karl was last,a right lucky Cloak he, while Traun lurked

under him, not so lucky since! July 13th, Franz arrived; and Traun, under Franz, instantly went into Conti

(now again in those Frankfurt parts); clutched at Conti, Briareuslike, in a multiform alarming manner: so

that Conti lost head; took to mere retreating, rushing about, burning bridges;and in fine, July 19th, had

flung himself bodily across the Rhine (clouds of Tolpatches sticking to him), and left old Traun and his

GrandDuke supreme lord in those parts. Who did NOT invade Elsass, as was now expected; but lay at

Heidelberg, intending to play pacifically a surer card. All French are out of Teutschland again; and the game

"Nominally it was the GrandDuke that flung Conti over the Rhine; and delivered Teutschland from its

plagues. After which fine feat, salvatory to the Cause of Liberty, and destructive to French influence, what is

to prevent his election to the Kaisership? Friedrich complains aloud: 'Conti has given it up; you drafted

15,000 from him (for imaginary uses in the Netherlands),you have given it up, then! Was that our

bargain?' 'We have given it up,' answers D'Argenson the Warminister, writing to Valori; 'but,' And

supplies, instead of performance according to the laws of fact, eloquent logic; very superfluous to Friedrich

and the said laws! Valori, and the French Minister at Dresden, had again been trying to stir up the Polish

Majesty to stand for Kaiser; but of course that enterprise, eager as the Polish Majesty might be for such a

dignity, had now to collapse, and become totally hopeless. A new offer of Friedrich's to cooperate had been

refused by Bruhl, with a brevity, a decisiveness'Thinks me finished (AUX ABOIS),' says Friedrich; 'and

not worth giving terms to, on surrendering!' The foolish little creature; insolent in the wrong quarter!"

'The German Burden, then,which surely was mutual, at lowest, and lately was French altogether,the

French have thrown it off; the French have dropped their end of the BEARINGPOLES (so to speak), and

left Friedrich by himself, to stand or stagger, under the beweltered broken harnessgear and intolerable

weight! That is one's payment for cutting the rope from their neck last year! Long since, while the present

Campaign was being prepared for, under such financial pressures, Friedrich had bethought him, "The French

might, at least give me money, if they can nothing else?"and he had one day penned a Letter with that

object; but had thrown it into his desk again, "No; not till the very last extremity, that!" Friedrich did at last

despatch the unpleasant missive: "Service done you in Elsass, let us say little of it; but the repayment has

been zero hitherto: your Bavarian expenses (poor Kaiser gone, and Peace of Fussen come!) are now ended:

A round sum, say of 600,000 pounds, is becoming indispensable here, if we are to keep on our feet at all!"

Herr Ranke, who has seen the Most Christian King's response (though in a capricious way), finds "three or

four successive redactions" of the difficult passage; all painfully meaning, "Impossible, alas!"painfully

adding, "We will try, however!" And, after due cunctations, Friedrich waiting silent the while,Louis, Most

Christian King, who had failed in so many things towards Friedrich, does empower Valori To offer him a

subsidy of 600,000 livres a month, till we see farther. Twenty thousand pounds a month; he hopes this will

suffice, being himself run terribly low. Friedrich's feeling is to be guessed: "Such a dole might answer to a

Landgraf of HessenDarmstadt; but to me is not in the least suitable;"and flatly refuses it; FIEREMENT,

says Valori. [Ranke, iii. 235, 299 n. (not the least of DATE allowed us in either case); Valori. i. 240.]

MON GROS VALORI, who could not himself help all this, poor soul, "falls now into complete disgrace;"

waits daily upon Friedrich at the giving out of the parole, "but frequently his Majesty does not speak to me at

all." Hardly looks at me, or only looks as if I had suddenly become Zero Incarnate. It is now in these days, I

suppose, that Friedrich writes about the "Scamander Battle" (of Fontenoy), and "Capture of Pekin," by way of

helping one to fight the Austrians according to Treaty. And has a touch of bitter sarcasm in uttering his

complaints against, such treatment,the heart of him, I suppose, bitter enough. Most Christian King has felt

this of the Scamander, Friedrich perceives; Louis's next letter testifies pique;and of course we are farther

from help, on that side, than ever. "From the STANDE of the KurMark [Brandenburg] Friedrich was

offered a considerable subsidy instead; and joyfully accepted the same, 'as a loan:'"paid it punctually back,

too; and never, all his days, forgot it of those STANDE. [Stenzel, iv. 255; Ranke,

About the middle of August, there are certain Saxon phenomena which awaken dread expectation in the

world. Friedrich, watching, Argus like, near and far, in his Chlum observatory, has noticed that Prince Karl

is getting reinforced in Konigsgratz; 10,000 lately, 7,000 more coming;and contrariwise that the Saxons

seem to be straggling off from him; ebbing away, corps after corps,towards Saxony, can it be? There are

whispers of "Bavarian auxiliaries" being hired for them, too. And little Bruhl's late insolence; Bruhl's evident

belief that "we are finished (AUX ABOIS)"? Putting all this together, Friedrich judgeswith an indignation

very naturalthat there is again some insidious Saxon mischief, most likely an attack on Brandenburg, in the

wind. Friedrich orders the Old Dessauer, "March into them, delay no longer!" and publishes a clangorously

indignant Manifesto (evidently his own writing, and coming from the heart): [In Adelung, v. 6471 (no date;

"middle of August," say the Books).] "How they have, not bound by their Austrian Treaty, wantonly invaded

our Silesia; have, since and before, in spite of our forbearance, done so many things:and, in fact, have

finally exhausted our patience; and are forcing us to seek redress and safety by the natural methods," which

Old Leopold advances straightway, as bidden, direct for the Saxon frontier. To whom Friedrich shoots off

detachments,Prince Dietrich, with so many thousands, to reinforce Papa; then General Gessler with so

many,till Papa is 30,000 odd; and could eat Saxony at a mouthful; nothing whatever being yet ready there

on Bruhl's part, though he has such immense things in the wind! Nevertheless Friedrich again paused; did

not yet strike. The Saxon question has Russian bugbears, no end of complications. His Britannic Majesty,

now at Hanover, and his prudent Harrington with him, are in the act of laboring, with all earnestness, for a

general Agreement with Friedrich. Without farther bitterness, embroilment and bloodshed: how much

preferable for Friedrich! Old Dessauer, therefore, pauses: "Camp of Dieskau," which we have often heard of,

close on the Saxon Border; stands there, looking over, as with sword drawn, 30,000 good swords,but no

stroke, not for almost three months more. In three months, wretched Bruhl had not repented; but, on the

contrary, had completed his preparations, and gone to work;and the stroke did fall, as will be seen. That is

To Britannic George, for a good while past, it has been manifest that the Pragmatic Sanction, in its original

form, is an extinct object; that reconquest of Silesia, and such like, is melancholy moonshine; and that, in

fact, towards fighting the French with effect, it is highly necessary to make peace with Friedrich of Prussia

again. This once more is George's and his Harrington's fixed view. Friedrich's own wishes are known, or used

to be, ever since the late Kaiser's death,though latterly he has fallen silent, and even avoids the topic when

offered (knowing his man)! Herrington has to apply formally to Friedrich's Minister at Hanover. "Very well,

if they are in earnest this time," so Friedrich instructs his Minister: "My terms are known to you; no change

admissible in the terms;do not speak with me on it farther: and, observe, within four weeks, the thing

finished, or else broken off!" [Ranke, iii. 277281.] And in this sense they are laboring incessantly, with

Austria, with Saxony,without the least success;and Excellency Robinson has again a panting

uncomfortable time. Here is a scene Robinson transacts at Vienna, which gives us a curious facetoface

Robinson, in a copious sonorous speech (rather apt to be copious, and to fall into the Parliamentary

CANTOFERMO), sets forth how extremely ill we Allies are faring on the French hand; nothing done upon

Silesia either; a hopeless matter that,is it not, your Majesty? And your Majesty's forces all lying there, in

mere dead lock; and we in such need of bhem! "Peace with Prussia is indispensable."To which her

Majesty listened, in statuesque silence mostly; "never saw her so reserved before, my Lord." ...

ROBINSON. ... "'Madam, the Dutch will be obliged to accept Neutrality' [and plump down again, after such

QUEEN. "'Well, and if they did, they? "It would be easier to accommodate with France itself, and so finish

the whole matter, than with Prussia." My Army could not get to the Netherlands this season. No General of

mine would undertake conducting it at this day of the year. Peace with Prussia, what good could it do at

ROBINSON. "'England has already found, for subsidies, this year, 1,178,753 pounds. Cannot go on at that

rate. Peace with Prussia is one of the returns the English Nation expects for all it has done.'

QUEEN. "'I must have Silesia again: without Silesia the Kaiserhood were an empty title. "Or would you have

ROBINSON. "'In Bohemia itself things don't look well; nothing done on Friedrich: your Saxons seem to be

QUEEN. "'Prince Karl is himself capable of fighting the Prussians again. Till that, do not speak to me of

QUEEN. "'The GrandDuke is not so ambitions of an empty honor as to engage in it under the tutelage of

Prussia. Consider farther: the Imperial dignity, is it compatible with the fatal deprivation of Silesia? "One

ROBINSON. "'A battle, Madam, if won, won't reconquer Silesia; if lost, your Majesty is ruined at home.'

SOIR (Had I to agree with him tomorrow, I would try him in a battle this evening)!'" [Robinson's Despatch,

Her Majesty is not to be hindered; deaf to Robinson, to her Britannic George who pays the money. "Cruel

man, is that what you call keeping the Pragmatic Sanction; dismembering me of Province after Province, now

in Germany, then in Italy, on pretext of necessity? Has not England money, then? Does not England love the

Cause of Liberty? Give me till October!" Her Majesty did take till October, and later, as we shall see; poor

George not able to hinder, by power of the purse or otherwise: who can hinder high females, or low, when

they get into their humors? Much of this Austrian obstinacy, think impartial persons, was of female nature.

As for George, the time being run, and her Majesty and Saxony unpersuadable, he determined to accept

Friedrich's terms himself, in hope of gradually bringing the others to do it. August 26th, at Hanover, there is

signed a CONVENTION OF HANOVER between Friedrich and him: "Peace on the old BreslauBerlin

terms,precisely the same terms, but Britannic Majesty to have them guaranteed by All the Powers, on the

General Peace coming,so that there be no snakeprocedure henceforth." Silesia Friedrich's without fail,

dear Hanover unmolested even by a thought of Friedrich's;and her Hungarian Majesty to be invited, nay

urged by every feasible method, to accede. [Adelung, v. 75; is "in Rousset, xix. 441;" in Which done,

Britannic Majestyfor there has hung itself out, in the Scotch Highlands, the other day ("Glenfinlas, August

12th"), a certain Standard "TANDEM TRIUMPHANS," and unpleasant things are imminent!hurries home

at his best pace, and has his hands full there, for some time. On Austria, on Saxony, he could not prevail: "By

no manner of means!" answered they; and went their own road,jingling his Britannic subsidies in their

pocket; regardless of the once Supreme Jove, who is sunk now to a very different figure on the German

Friedrich's outlook is very bad: such a War to go on, and not even finance to do it with. His intimates, his

Rothenburg one time, have "found him sunk in gloomy thought." But he wears a bright face usually. No

wavering or doubting in him, his mind made up; which is a great help that way. Friedrich indicates, and has

indicated everywhere, for many months, that Peace, precisely on the old footing, is all he wants: "The Kaiser

being dead, whom I took up arms to defend, what farther object is there?" says he. "Renounce Silesia, more

honestly than last time; engage to have it guaranteed by everybody at the General Peace (or perhaps

Hohenfriedberg will help to guarantee it),and I march home!" My money is running down, privately thinks

he; guarantee Silesia, and I shall be glad to go. If not, I must raise money somehow; melt the big silver

balustrades at Berlin, borrow from the STANDE, or do something; and, in fact, must stand here, unless

That latter withal is still privately Friedrich's thought. Under his light air, he carries unspoken that grimly

clear determination, at all times, now and henceforth; and it is an immense help to the guidance of him. An

indispensable, indeed. No king or man, attempting anything considerable in this world, need expect to

achieve it except, tacitly, on those same terms, "I will achieve it or die!" For the world, in spite of rumors to

the contrary, is always much of a bedlam to the sanity (so far as he may have any) of every individual man. A

strict place, moreover; its very bedlamisms flowing by law, as do alike the sudden mud deluges, and the

steady Atlantic tides, and all things whatsoever: a world inexorable, truly, as gravitation itself;and it will

behoove you to front it in a similar humor, as the tacit basis for whatever wise plans you lay. In Friedrich,

from the first entrance of him on the stage of things, we have had to recognize this prime quality, in a fine

tacit form, to a complete degree; and till his last exit, we shall never find it wanting. Tacit enough,

unconscious almost, not given to articulate itself at all;and if there be less of piety than we could wish in

the silence of it, there is at least no playactor mendacity, or cant of devoutness, to poison the high worth of

it. No braver little figure stands on the Earth at that epoch. Ready, at the due season, with his mind silently

made up;able to answer diplomatic Robinsons, Bartensteins and the very Destinies when they apply. If you

will withdraw your snakish notions, will guarantee Silesia, will give him back his old Treaty of Berlin in an

irrefragable shape, he will march home; if not, he will never march home, but be carried thither dead rather.

There occurred at Frankfurtthe clear majority, seven of the nine Electors, Bavaria itself (nay Bohemia this

time, "distaff" or not), and all the others but Friedrich and KurPfalz, being so disposed or so disposable,

Traun being master of the groundno difficulty about electing GrandDuke Franz Stephan of Tuscany?

JointKing of Bohemia, to be Kaiser of the Holy Romish Reich. Friedrich's envoy protested;as did

KurPfalz's, with still more vehemence, and then withdrew to Hanau: the other Seven voted September 13th

1745: and it was done. A new Kaiser, Franz Stephan, or Franz I.,with our blessing on him, if that can avail

much. But I fear it cannot. Upon such mendacious EmptyCase of Kaiserhood, without even money to feed

itself, not to speak of governing, of defending and coercing; upon such entities the blessings of man avail

little; the gods, having warned them to go, do not bless them for staying! However, tarbarrels burn, the

fountains play (wine in some of them, I hope); Franz is to be crowned in a fortnight hence, with extraordinary

magnificence. At this last part of it Maria Theresa will, in her own high person, attend; and proceeds

accordingly towards Frankfurt, in the end of September (say the old Books), so soon as the Election is over.

Hungarian Majesty's bearing was not popular there, according to Friedrich,who always admires her after a

sort, and always speaks of her like a king and gentleman:but the High Lady, it is intimated, felt somewhat

too well that she was high. Not sorry to have it known, under the due veils, that her KaiserHusband is but of

a mimetic nature; that it is she who has the real power; and that indeed she is in a victorious posture at

present. Very high in her carriage towards the Princes of the Reich, and their privileges:poor KurPfalz's

notary, or herald, coming to protest (I think, it was the second time) about something, she quite disregarded

his tabards, pasteboards, or whatever they were, and clapt him in prison. The thing was commented upon; but

KurPfalz got no redress. Need we repeat,lazy readers having so often met him, and forgotten him

again,this is a new younger KurPfalz: Karl Theodor, this one; not Friedrich Wilhelm's old Friend, but his

Successor, of the Sulzbach line; of whom, after thirty years or so, we may again hear. He can complain about

Highish even towards her friends, this "EmpressQueen" (KAISERINKONIGIN, such her new title), and

has a kind of "Thankyoufor Nothing" air towards them. Prussian Majesty, she said, had unquestionable

talents; but, oh, what a character! Too much levity, she said, by far; heterodox too, in the extreme; a BOSER

MANN;and what a neighbor has he been! As to Silesia, she was heard to say, she would as soon part with

her petticoat as part with it. [ OEuvres de Frederic, iii. 126, 128.] So that there is not the least prospect of

peace here? "None," answer Friedrich's emissaries, whom he had empowered to hint the thing. Which is

Early in August, not long after that Audience of Robinson's, her Majesty, after repeated written messages to

Prince Karl, urging him to go into fight again or attempt something, had sent two high messengers: Prince

Lobkowitz, Duke d'Ahremberg, high dignitaries from Court, have come to Konigsgratz with the latest

urgencies, the newest ideas; and would fain help Prince Karl to attempt something. Daily they used to come

out upon a little height, in view of Friedrich's tent, and gaze in upon him, and round all Nature, "with big

tubes," he says, "as if they had been astronomers;" but never attempted anything. We remember

D'Ahremberg, and what part he has played, from the Dettingen times and onward. "A debauched old fellow,"

says Friedrich; "gone all to hebetude by his labors in that line; agrees always with the last speaker." Prince

Karl seems to have little stomach himself; and does not see his way into (or across) another Battle.

Lobkowitz, again, is always saying: "Try something! We are now stronger than they, by their detachings, by

our reinforcings" (indeed, about twice their number, regular and irregular), though most of the Saxons are

gone home. After much gazing through their tubes, the Austrians (August 23d) do make a small shift of

place, insignificant otherwise; the Prussians, next day, do the like, in consequence; quit Chlum, burning their

huts; post themselves a little farther up the Elbe,their left at a place called Jaromirz, embouchure of the

The worst fact is the multitude of Pandours, more and more infesting our provisionroads; and that

horseforage itself is, at last, running low. Detachments lie all duly round to right and left, to secure our

communications with Silesia, especially to left, out of Glatz, where runs one of the chief roads we have. But

"NEUSTADT, 8th SEPTEMBER. In that lefthand quarter, coming out of Glatz at a little Bohemian Town

called Neustadt, the Prussian Commander, Tauenzien by name, was repeatedly assaulted; and from

September 8th, had to stand actual siege, gallantly repulsing a full 10,000 with their big artillery, though his

walls were all breached, for about a week, till Friedrich sent him relief. Prince Lobkowitz, our old

antiBelleisle friend, who is always of forward fiery humor, had set them on this enterprise; which has turned

out fruitless. The King is much satisfied with Tauenzien; [Ib. 132.] of whom we shall hear again. Who indeed

becomes notable to us, were it only for getting one Lessing as secretary, by and by: Gotthold Ephraim

Lessing, whose fame has since gone into all countries; the man having been appointed a 'Secretary' to the

very Destinies, in some sort; that is to say, a Writer of Books which have turned out to have truth in them!

Tauenzien, a grimmish aquiline kind of man, of no superfluous words, has distinguished himself for the

present by defending Neustadt, which the Austrians fully counted to get hold of."

Let us give another little scene; preparatory to quitting this Country, as it is evident the King and we will

soon have to do; Country being quite eaten out, Pandours getting ever rifer, and the Season done:

JAROMIRZ, "EARLY IN SEPTEMBER," 1745. "Jaromirz is a little Bohemian Town on the Aupa, or

between the Aupa and Metau branches of the Upper Elbe; four or five miles north of Semonitz, where

Friedrich's quarter now is. Valori, so seldom spoken to, is lodged in a suburb there: 'Had not you better go

into the town itself?' his Majesty did once say; but Valori, dreading nothing, lodged on, 'Landlord a

Burgher whom I thought respectable.' Respectable, yes he; but his son had been dealing with Franquini the

Pandour, and had sold Valori,night appointed, measures all taken; a miracle if Valori escape. Franquini,

chief of 30,000 Pandours, has come in person to superintend this important capture; and lies hidden, with a

strong party, in the woods to rearward. Prussians about 200, scattered in posts, occupy the hedges in front, for

"In the dead of the night, Franquini emerges from the woods; sends forward a party of sixty, under the young

Judas; who, by methods suitable, gets them stealthily conducted into Papa's Barn, which looks across a

courtyard into Valori's very windows. From the Barn it is easy, on paws of velvet, to get into the House, if

you have a Judas to open it. Which you have:bolts all drawn for you, and even beams ready for barricading

if you be meddled with. 'Upstairs is his Excellency asleep; Excellency's room isto right, do you remember;

or to left''Pshaw, we shall find it!' The Pandours mount; find a bedroom, break it open,some fifteen or

sixteen of them, and one who knows a little French;come crowding forward: to the horror and terror of the

poor inhabitant.' 'QUE VOULEZVOUS DONC?' 'His Excellency Valori!' 'Well, no violence; I am your

prisoner: let me dress!' answers the supposed Excellency,and contrives to secrete portfolios, and tear or

make away with papers. And is marched off, under a select guard, who leave the rest to do the pillage. And

was not Valori at all; was Valori's Secretary, one D'Arget, who had called himself Valori on this dangerous

occasion! Valori sat quaking behind his partition; not till the Pandours began plundering the stables did the

Friedrich had his amusement out of this adventure; liked D'Arget, the clever Secretary; got D'Arget to himself

before long, as will be seen;and, in quieter times, dashed off a considerable Explosion of Rhyme, called

LE PALLADION (Valori as Prussia's "Palladium," with Devils attempting to steal him, and the like), which

was once thought an exquisite Burlesque,Kings coveting a sight of it, in vain,but is now wearisome

enough to every reader. [Valori, i. 242; OEuvres de Frederic, iii. 130: for the Fact. Exquisite Burlesque,

PALLADION itself, is in OEuvres, xi. 192271 (see IB. 139): a bad copy of that very bad Original, JEANNE

D'ARC,the only thing now good in it, Friedrich's polite yet positive refusal to gratify King Louis and his

Pompdour with a sight of it (see IB. PREFACE, xxiv, Friedrich's Letter to Louis; date of request and of

The famed beautiful Elbe River rises in romantic chasms, terrible to the picturesque beholder, at the roots of

the Riesengebirge; overlooked by the HoheKamms, and highest summits of that chain. "Out of eleven

wells," says gentle Dulness, "EILF or ELF QUELLEN, whence its name, Elbe for ELF." Sure enough, it

starts out of various wells; [Description, in Zollner, Briefe uber Schlesien, ii. 305; in rushes out, like a great

peacock's or pasha's tail, from the roots of the Giant Mountains thereabouts; and hurries southward,or even

rather eastward, at first; for (except the Iser to westward, which does not fall in for a great while) its chief

branches come from the eastern side: Aupa, Metau, Adler, the drainings of Glatz, and of that rugged Country

where Friedrich has been camping and manoeuvring all summer. On the whole, its course is southward for

the first seventy or eighty miles, washing Jaromirz, Konigshof, Konigsgratz, down to Pardubitz: at Pardubitz

it turns abruptly westward, and holds on so, bending even northward, by hill and plain, through the rest of its

Its first considerable branch, on that eastern or left bank, is the Aupa, which rises in the Pass of Schatzlar

(great struggling there, for convoys, just now); goes next by Trautenau, which has lately been burnt; and joins

the Elbe at Jaromirz, where Valori was stolen, or nearly so, from under the Prussian left wing. The Aupa runs

nearly straight south; the Elbe, till meeting it, has run rather southeast; but after joining they go south

together, augmented by the Metau, by the Adler, down to Pardubitz, where the final turn to west occurs.

Jaromirz, which lies in the very angle of Elbe and Aupa, is the left wing of Friedrich's Camp; main body of

the Camp lies on the other side of the Elbe, but of course has bridges (as at Smirzitz, where that straw sentry

did his pranks lately); bridges are indispensable, part of our provision coming always by that BOHEMIAN

Neustadt, from the northeast quarter out of Silesia; though the main course of our meal (and much fighting

for it) is direct from the north, by the Pass of Schatzlar, "Chaslard," as poor Valori calls it.

Thus Friedrich lay, when Valori escaped being stolen; when Tauenzien was assailed by the 10,000 Pandours

with siege artillery, and stood inexpugnable in the breach till Friedrich relieved him. Those Pandours "had cut

away his water, for the last two days;" so that, except for speedy relief, all valor had been in vain. Water

being gone, not recoverable without difficulties, Neustadt was abandoned (September 16th, as I guess);one

of our main Silesian roads for meal has ceased. We have now only Schatzlar to depend on; where

Franquinilying westward among the glens of the Upper Elbe, and possessed of abundant talent in the

Tolpatch way (witness Valori's narrow miss lately)gives us trouble enough. Friedrich determines to move

Saturday, 18th September, Friedrich crosses the Elbe at Jaromirz. Entirely unopposed; the Austrians were all

busy firing FEUDEJOIE for the Election of their GrandDuke: Election done five days ago at Frankfurt,

and the news just come. So they crackle about, and deliver rolling fire, at a great rate; proud to be

"IMPERIAL Army" henceforth, as if that could do much for them. There was also vast dining, for three days,

among the high heads, and a great deal of wine spent. That probably would have been the chance to

undertake something upon them, better than crossing the Elbe, says Friedrich looking back. But he did not

He is now, therefore, over into that Triangular piece of Country between Elbe and Aupa (if readers will

consult their Map); in that triangle, his subsequent notable operations all lie. He here proposes to move

northward, by degrees,through Trautenau, Schatzlar, and home; well eating this bit of Country too, the last

uneaten bit, as he goes. This well eaten, there will be no harbor anywhere for Invasion, through the Winter

"It is a triangular patch of Country, which has lain asleep since the Creation of the World; traversed only by

Boii (BOIHEIMERS, Bohemians), Czechs and other such populations, in Human History; but which

Friedrich has been fated to make rather notable to the Moderns henceforth. Let me recommend it to the

picturesque tourist, especially to the military one. Lovers of rocky precipices, quagmires, brawling torrents

and the unadulterated ruggedness of Nature, will find scope there; and it was the scene of a distinguished

passage of arms, with notable display of human dexterity and swift presence of mind. For the rest, one of the

wildest, and perhaps (except to the picturesque tourist) most unpleasant regions in the world. Wild stony

upland; topmost Upland, we may say, of Europe in general, or portion of such Upland; for the rainstorms

hereabouts run several roads,into the German Ocean and Atlantic by the Elbe, into the Baltic by the Oder,

into the Black Sea by the Donau;and it is the waste Outfield whither you rise, by long weeksjourneys,

"Much of it, towards the angle of Elbe and Aupa, is occupied by a huge waste Wood, called 'Kingdom Forest'

(KONIGREICH SYLVA or WALD, peculium of Old Czech Majesties, I fancy); may be sixty square miles in

area, the longer side of which lies along the Elbe. A Country of rocky defiles; lowish hills chaotically shoved

together, not wanting their brooks and quagmires, straight labyrinthic passages; shaggy with wild wood.

Some poor Hamlets here and there, probably the sleepiest in Nature, are scattered about; there may be patches

ploughable for rye [modern Tourist says snappishly, There are many such; whole region now drained;

reminded me of Yorkshire Highlands, with the Western Sun gilding it, that fine afternoon!]ploughable for

rye, buckwheat; boggy grass to be gathered in summer; charcoaling to do; pigs at least are presumable,

among these straggling outposts of humanity in their obscure Hamlets: poor ploughing, moiling creatures,

they little thought of becoming notable so soon! None of the Books (all intent on mere soldiering) take the

least notice of them; not at the pains to spell their Hamlets right: no more notice than if they also had been

stocks and mossgrown stones. Nevertheless, there they did evidently live, for thousands of years past, in a

dim manner;and are much terrified to have become the seat of war, all on a sudden. Their poor Hamlets,

Sohr, Staudentz, Prausnitz, Burgersdorf and others still send up a faint smoke; and have in them, languidly,

the livecoal of mysterious human existence, in those woods,to judge by the last maps that have come out.

It is in this Kingdom Forest (which he calls ROYAUME DE SILVA, instead of SYLVA DE ROYAUME)

that Friedrich now nmrches; keeping the body of the Forest well on his left, and skirting the southern and

eastern sides of it. Rough marching for his Majesty; painfully infested by Nadastian Tolpatches; who run out

on him from ambushes, and need to be scourged; one ambush in particular, at a place called Liebenthal

(second day's march, and near the end of it), where our Prussian Hussars, winding like fiery dragons on the

dangerous precipices, gave them better than they brought, and completely quenched their appetite for that

day. After Liebenthal, the march soon ends; three miles farther on, at the dim woldhamlet of Staudentz: here

a camp is pitched; here, till the Country is well eaten out, or till something else occur, we propose to tarry for

Horseforage abounds here; but there is no getting of it without disturbance from those dogs; you must fight

for every truss of grass: if a mealtrain is coming, as there does every five days, you have to detach 8,000

foot and 3,000 horse to help it safe in. A fretting fatiguing time for regular troops. Our bakery is at

Trautenau,where Valori is now lodging. The Tolpatchery, unable to take Trautenau, set fire to it, though it

is their own town, their own Queen's town; thatchy Trautenau, wooden too in the upper stories of it, takes

greedily to the fire; goes all aloft in flame, and then lies black. A scandalous transaction, thinks Friedrich.

The Prussian corn lay nearly all in cellars; little got, even of the Prussians, by such an atrocity: and your own

poor fellow subjects, where are they? Valori was burnt out here; again exploded from his quarters, poor

man;seems to have thought it a mere fire in his own lodging, and that he was an unfortunate diplomatist.

Happily he got notice (PRIVATISSIME, for no officer dare whisper in such cases) that there is an armed

party setting out for Silesia, to guard meal that is coming: Valori yokes himself to this armed party, and gets

safe over the Hills with it,then swift, by extra post, to Breslau and to civilized (partially civilized)

Friedrich had lain at Staudentz, in this manner, bickering continually for his forage, and eating the Country,

for about ten days: and now, as the latter process is well on, and the season drawing to a close: he determines

on a shift northward. Thursday, 30th September next, let there be one other grand forage, the final one in this

eaten tract, then northward to fresh grounds. That, it appears, was the design. But, on Wednesday, there came

in an Austrian deserter; who informs us that Prince Karl is not now in Konigsgratz, but in motion up the Elbe;

already some fifty miles up; past Jaromirz: his rear at Konigshof, his van at Arnau,on a level with burnt

Trautenau, and farther north than we ourselves are. This is important news. "Intending to block us out from

Schatzlar? Hmh!" Single scouts, or small parties, cannot live in this Kingdom Wood, swarming with

Pandours: Friedrich sends out a Colonel Katzler, with 500 light horse, to investigate a little. Katzler pushes

forward, on such lane or forest roadtrack as there is, towards Konigshof; beats back small hussar

parties;comes, in about an hour's space, not upon hussars merely, but upon dense masses of heavy horse

winding through the forest lanes; and, with that imperfect intelligence, is obliged to return. The deserter spake

truth, apparently; and that is all we can know. Forage scheme is given up; the order is, "Baggage packed, and

MARCH tomorrow morning at ten." Long before ten, there had great things befallen on the morrow!Try

"The Camp of Staudentz which two persons (the King, and General Stille, a more careful reporter, who also

was an eyewitness) have done their best to describewill, after all efforts, and an Ordnance Map to help,

remain considerably unintelligible to the reader; as is too usual in such cases. A block of highlying ground;

Friedrich's Camp on it, perhaps two miles long, looks to the south; small Village of Staudentz in front; hollow

beyond that, and second small Village, Deutsch Prausnitz, hanging on the opposite slope, with shaggy heights

beyond, and the Kingdom Forest there beginning: on the left, defiles, brooks and strait country, leading

towards the small town of Eypel: that is our left and front aspect, a hollow well isolating us on those sides.

Hollow continues all along the front; hollow definite on our side of it, and forming a tolerable

defence:though again, I perceive, to rightward at no great distance, there rise High Grounds which

considerably overhang us." A thing to be marked! "These we could not occupy, for want of men; but only

maintain vedettes upon them. Over these Heights, a mile or two westward of this hollow of ours, runs the big

winding hollow called Georgengrund (GEORGE'S BOTTOM), which winds up and down in that Kingdom

Forest, and offers a road from Konigshof to Trautenau, among other courses it takes.

"From the crown of those Heights on our right flank here, looking to the west, you might discern (perhaps

three miles off, from one of the sheltering nooks in the hither side of that Georgengrund), rising faintly

visible over knolls and dingles, the smoke of a little Forest Village. That Village is Sohr; notable ever since,

beyond others, in the Kingdom Wood. Sohr, like the other Villages, has its laneroads; its road to Trautenau,

to Konigshof, no doubt; but much nearer you, on our eastern slope of the Heights, and far hitherward of Sohr,

which is on the western, goes the great road [what is now the great road], from Konigshof to Trautenau, well

visible from Friedrich's Camp, though still at some distance from it. Could these Heights between us and

Sohr, which lie beyond the great road, be occupied, we were well secured; isolated on the right too, as on the

other sides, from Kingdom Forest and its ambushes. 'Should have been done,' admits Friedrich; 'but then, as it

Here, however, is the important point. In Sohr, this night, 29th September, in a most private manner, the

Austrians, 30,000 of them and more, have come gliding through the woods, without even their pipe lit, and

with thick veil of hussars ahead! Outposts of theirs lie squatted in the bushes behind Deutsch Prausnitz,

hardly 500 yards from Friedrich's Camp. And eastward, leftward of him, in the defiles about Eypel, lie

Nadasti and Ruffian Trenck, with ten or twelve thousand, who are to take him in rear. His "Camp of

Staudentz" will be at a fine pass tomorrow morning. The Austrian Gentlemen had found, last week, a certain

bare Height in the Forest (Height still known), from which they could use their astronomer tubes day after

Thursday morning, very early, 30th September, 1745, Friedrich was in his tent, busy with generals and

marchroutes,when a rapid orderly comes in, from that Vedette, or strong Piquet, on the Heights to our

right: "Austrians visibly moving, in quantity, near by!" and before he has done answering, the officer himself

arrives: "Regular Cavalry in great force; long dustcloud in Kingdom Forest, in the gray dawn; and, so far as

we can judge, it is their Army coming on." Here is news for a poor man, in the raw of a September morning,

by way of breakfast to him! "To arms!" is, of course, Friedrich's instant order; and he himself gallops to the

Piquet on the Heights, glass in hand. "Austrian Army sure enough, thirty to thirtyfive thousand of them, we

only eighteen. [ OEuvres de Frederic, iii. 139.] Coming to take us on the right flank here; to attack our Camp

by surprise: will crush us northward through the defiles, and trample us down in detail? Hmh! To run for it,

will never do. We must fight for it, and even attack THEM, as our way is, though on such terms. Quick, a

plan!" The head of Friedrich is a bank you cannot easily break by coming on it for plans: such a creature for

impromptu plans, and unexpected dashes swift as the panther's, I have hardly known,especially when you

squeeze him into a corner, and fancy he is over with it! Friedrich gallops down, with his plan clear enough;

and already the Austrians, horse and foot, are deploying upon those Heights he has quitted; Fifty Squadrons

of Horse for left wing to them, and a battery of Twentyeight big Guns is establishing itself where Friedrich's

Friedrich's right flank has to become his front, and face those formidable Austrian Heights and Batteries; and

this with more than Prussian velocity, and under the play of those twentyeight big guns, throwing caseshot

(GRENADES ROYALES) and so forth, all the while. To Valori, when he heard of the thing, it is

inconceivable how mortal troops could accomplish such a movement; Friedrich himself praises it, as a thing

honorably well done. Took about half an hour; caseshot raining all the while; soldier honorably

neverminding: no flurry, though a speed like that of spinningtops. And here we at length are, Staudentz

now to rear of us, behind our centre a good space; Burgersdorf in front of us to right, our left reaching to

Prausnitz: Austrian lines, three deep of them, on the opposite Height; we one line only, which matches them

They, that left wing of horse, should have thundered down on us, attacking us, not waiting our attack, thinks

Friedrich; but they have not done it. They stand on their height there, will perhaps fire carbines, as their wont

is. "You, Buddenbrock, go into them with your Cuirassiers!" Buddenbrock and the Cuirassiers, though it is

uphill, go into them at a furious rate; meet no countercharge, mere sputter of carbines;tumble them to mad

wreck, back upon their second line, back upon their third: absurdly crowded there on their narrow height, no

room to manoeuvre; so that they plunge, fifty squadrons of them, wholly into the Georgengrund rearward,

into the Kingdom Wood, and never come on again at all. Buddenbrock has done his job right well.

Seeing which, our Infantry of the right wing, which stood next to Buddenbrock, made impetuous charge

uphill, emulous to capture that Battery of Twentyeight; but found it, for some time, a terrible attempt. These

Heights are not to be called "hills," still less "mountains" (as in some careless Books); but it is a stiff climb at

doublequick, with twentyeight big guns playing in the face of you. Storms of caseshot shear away this

Infantry, are quenching its noble fury in despair; Infantry visibly recoiling, when our sole Three Regiments of

Reserve hurry up to support. Round these all rallies; rushes desperately on, and takes the Battery,of course,

This, I consider, is the crisis of the Fight; the back of the Austrian enterprise is already broken, by this sad

winging of it on the left. But it resists still; comes down again,the reserve of their left wing seen rapidly

making for Burgersdorf, intending an attack there; which we oppose with vigor, setting Burgersdorf on fire

for temporary screen; and drive the Austrian reserve rapidly to rearward again. But there is rally after rally of

them. They rank again on every new height, and dispute there; loath to be driven into Kingdom Wood, after

such a flourish of arms. One height, "bushy steep height," the lightlimbed valiant Prince, little Ferdinand of

Brunswick, had the charge of attacking; and he did it with his usual impetus and irresistibility:and,

strangely enough, the defender of it chanced to be that Brother of his, Prince Ludwig, with whom he had the

little Interview lately. Prince Ludwig got a wound, as well as lost his height. The third Brother, poor Prince

Albrecht, who is also here, as volunteer apprentice, on the Prussian side, gets killed. There will never be

another Interview, for all three, between the Camps! Strange times for those poor Princes, who have to seek

Meanwhile the Cavalry of Buddenbrock, that is to say of the right wing, having now no work in that quarter,

is despatched to reinforce the left wing, which has stood hitherto apart on its own ground; not attacked or

attacking,a left wing REFUSED, as the soldiers style it. Reinforced by Buddenbrock, this left wing of

horse does now also storm forward;"near the Village of Prausnitz" (Prausnitz a little way to rear of it),

thereabouts, is the scene of its feat. Feat done in such fashion that the Austrians opposite will not stand the

charge at all; but gurgle about in a chaotic manner; then gallop fairly into Kingdom Wood, without stroke

struck; and disappear, as their fellows had done. Whereupon the Prussian horse breaks in upon the adjoining

Infantry of that flank (Austrian right flank, left bare in this manner); champs it also into chaotic whirlpools;

cuts away an outskirt of near 2,000 prisoners, and sets the rest running. This seems to have been pretty much

the COUPDEGRACE of the Fight; and to have brought the Austrian dispute to finis. From the first, they

had rallied on the heights; had struggled and disputed. Two general rallies they made, and various partial, but

none had any success. They were driven on, bayonet in back, as the phrase is: with this sad slap on their right,

added to that old one on their left, what can they now do but ebb rapidly; pour in cataracts into Kingdom

Wood, and disappear there? [ OEuvres de Frederic, iii. 135143; Stille, pp. 144163; Orlich, ii. 227243;

Prince Karl's scheme was good, says Friedrich; but it was ill executed. He never should have let us form; his

first grand fault was that he waited to be attacked, instead of attacking. Parts of his scheme were never

executed at all. Duke d'Ahremberg, for instance, it is said, had so dim a notion of the ground, that he drew up

some miles off, with his back to the Prussians. Such is the rumor,perhaps only a rumor, in mockery of the

hebetated old gentleman fallen unlucky? On the other hand, that Nadasti made a failure which proved

important, is indubitable. Nadasti, with some thousands of Tolpatchery, was at Liebenthal, four miles to

southeast of the action; Ruffian Trenck lay behind Eypel, perhaps as far to east, of it: Trenck and Nadasti

were to rendezvous, to unite, and attack the Prussian Camp on its rear,"Camp," so ran the order, for it was

understood the Prussians would all be there, we others attacking it in front and both flanks;which turned

Nadasti came to his rendezvous in time; Ruffian Trenck did not: Nadasti grew tired of waiting for Trenck,

and attacked the Camp by himself:Camp, but not any men; Camp being now empty, and the men all

fighting, ranked at right angles to it, furlongs and miles away. Nadasti made a rare hand of the Camp;

plundered everything, took all the King's Campfurniture, ready money, favorite dog Biche,likewise poor

Eichel his Secretary, who, however, tore the papers first. Tolpatchery exultingly gutted the Camp; and at last

set fire to it,burnt even some eight or ten poor Prussian sick, and also "some women whom they caught.

We found the limbs of these poor men and women lying about," reports old General Lehwald; who knew

about it. A doggery well worthy of the gallows, think Lehwald and I. "Could n't help it; ferocity of wild

men," says Nadasti. "Well; but why not attack, then, with your ferocity?" Confused Courtmartial put these

questions, at Vienna subsequently; and Ruffian Trenck, some say, got injustice, Nadasti shuffling things upon

him; for which one cares almost nothing. Lehwald, lying at Trautenau, had heard the firing at sunrise; and

instantly marched to help: he only arrived to give Nadasti a slash or two, and was too late for the Fight. Oue

Schlichtling, on guard with a weak party, saved what was in the right wing of the Camp,small thanks to

him, the Main Fight being so near: Friedrich's opinion is, an Officer, in Schlichtling's place, ought to have

This was the Battle of Sohr; so called because the Austrians had begun there, and the Prussians ended there.

The Prussian pursuit drew bridle at that Village; unsafe to prosecute Austrians farther, now in the deeps of

Kingdom Forest. The Battle has lasted five hours. It must be now getting towards noon; and time for

breakfast, if indeed any were to be had; but that is next to impossible, Nadasti having been so busy. Not

without extreme difficulty is a manchet of bread, with or without a drop of wine, procured for the King's

Majesty this day. Many a tired hero will have nothing but tobacco, with springwater, to fall back upon.

Never mind! says the King, says everybody. After all, it is a cheap price to pay for missing an attack from

Lying COUSIN Trenck, of the Lifeguard, who is now in Glatz, gives vivid eyewitness particulars of these

things, time of the morning and so on; says expressly he was there, and what he did there, [Frederic Baron de

Trenck, Memoires, traduits par luimeme (Strasbnrg and Paris, 1789), i. 7478, 79.]though in Glatz under

lock and key, three good months before. "How could I help mistakes," said he afterwards, when people

objected to this and that in his blusterous mendacity of a Book: "I had nothing but my poor agitated memory

to trust to!" A man's memory, when it gets the length of remembering that he was in the Battle of Sohr while

bodily absent, ought it not toin fact, to strike work; to still its agitations altogether, and call halt? Trenck,

some months after, got clambered out of Glatz, by sewers, or I forget how; and leaped, or dropped, from

some parapet into the River Neisse, sinking to the loins in tough mud, so that he could not stir farther.

"Fouquet let me stand there half a day, before he would pick me out again." Rigorous Bouquet, human mercy

forbidding, could not let him stand there in permanence,as we, better circumstanced, may with advantage

Friedrich lay at Sohr five days; partly for the honor of the thing, partly to eat out the Country to perfection.

Prince Karl, from Konigshof, soon fell back to Konigsgratz; and lay motionless there, nothing but his

Tolpatcheries astir, Sohr Country all eaten, Friedrich, in the due Divisions, marched northward. Through

Trautenau, Schatzlar, his own Division, which was the main one;and, fencing off the Tolpatches

successfully with trouble, brings all his men into Silesia again. A good job of work behind them, surely!

Cantons them to right and left of Landshut, about Rohnstock and Hohenfriedberg, hamlets known so well;

and leaving the Young Dessauer to command, drives for Berlin (30th October), rapidly, as his wont is.

Prince Karl has split up his force at Konigsgratz; means, one cannot doubt, to go into winterquarters. If he

think of invading, across that eaten Country and those bad Mountains,well, our troops can all be got

At Trautenau, a week after Sohr, Friedrich had at last received the English ratification of that Convention of

Hanover, signed 26th August, almost a month ago; not ratified till September 22d. About which there had

latterly been some anxiety, lest his Britannic Majesty himself might have broken off from it. With Austria,

with Saxony, Britannic Majesty has been entirely unsuccessful:"May not Sohr, perhaps, be a fresh

persuasive?" hopes Friedrich;but as to Britannic Majesty's breaking off, his thoughts are far from that, if

we knew! Poor Majesty: not long since, Supreme Jove of Germany; and nowis like to be swallowed in

ragamuffin streetriots; not a thunderbolt within clutch of him (thunderbolts all sticking in the mud of the

Netherlands, far off), and not a constable's staff of the least efficacy! Consider these dates in combination.

"SUNDAY preceding, SEPTEMBER 26th, was such a Lord'sDay in the City of Edinburgh, as had not been

seen there,not since Jenny Geddes's stool went flying at the Bishop's head, above a hundred years before.

Big alarmbell bursting out in the middle of divine service; emptying all the Churches ('Highland rebels just

at hand!')into General Meeting of the Inhabitants, into Chaos come again, for the next forty hours. Till, in

the gaunt midnight, Tuesday, 2 A.M., Lochiel with about 1,000 Camerons, waiting slight opportunity,

crushed in through the Netherbow Port; and"And, about noon of that day, a poor friend of ours, loitering

expectant in the road that leads by St. Anthony's Well, saw making entry into paternal Holyrood,the

Young Pretender, in person, who is just being proclaimed Prince of Wales, up in the Highstreet yonder! "A

tall slender young man, about five feet ten inches high; of a ruddy complexion, highnosed, large rolling

brown eyes; long visaged, redhaired, but at that time wore a pale periwig. He was in a Highland habit

[coat]; over the shoulder a blue sash wrought with gold; red velvet breeches; a green velvet bonnet, with

white cockade on it and a gold lace. His speech seemed very like that of an Irishman; very sly [how did you

know, my poor friend?];spoke often to O'Sullivan [thought to be a person of some counsel; had been Tutor

to Maillebois's Boys, had even tried some irregular fighting under Maillebois]to O'Sullivan and"

[Henderson, Highland Rebellion, p. 14.] ... And on Saturday, in short, came PRESTONPANS. Enough of

such a Supreme Jove; good for us here as a timetable chiefly, or marker of dates!

Sunday, 3d October, King's Adjutant, Captain Mollendorf, a young Officer deservedly in favor, arrives at

Berlin with the joyful tidings of this Sohr business ("Prausnitz" we then called it): to the joy of all Prussians,

especially of a Queen Mother, for whom there is a Letter in pencil. After brief congratulation, Mollendorf

rushes on; having next to give the Old Dessauer notice of it in his Camp at Dieskau, in the Halle

neighborhood. Mollendorf appears in Halle suddenly next morning, Monday, about ten o'clock, sixteen

postilions trumpeting, and at their swiftest trot, in front of him;shooting, like a melodious morningstar,

across the rusty old city, in this manner,to Dieskau Camp, where he gives the Old Dessauer his good news.

Excellent Victory indeed; sharp striking, swift selfhelp on our part. Halle and the Camp have enough to

think of, for this day and the next. Whither Mollendorf went next, we will not ask: perhaps to Brunswick and

"On Wednesday, the 6th, about two in the afternoon, the Old Dessauer has his whole Army drawn out there,

with green sprigs in their hats, at Dieskau, close upon the Saxon Frontier; and, after swashing and

manoeuvring about in the highest military style of art, ranks them all in line, or two suitable lines, 30,000 of

them; and then, with clangorous outburst of trumpet, kettledrum and all manner of fieldmusic, fires off his

united artillery a first time; almost shaking the very hills by such a thunderous peal, in the still afternoon. And

mark, close fitted into the artillery peal, commences a rolling fire, like a peal spread out in threads, sparkling

strangely to eye and ear; from right to left, long spears of fire and sharp strokes of sound, darting aloft,

successive simultaneous, winding for the space of miles, then back by the rear line, and home to the

startingpoint: very grand indeed. Again, and also again, the artillery peal, and rolling smallarms fitted into

it, is repeated; a second and a third time, kettledrums and trumpets doing what they can. That was the Old

Dessauer's bonfiring (what is called FEUDEJOIE), for the Victory of Sohr; audible almost at Leipzig, if

the wind were westerly. Overpowering to the human mind; at least, to the old Newspaper reporter of that day.

But what was strangest in the business," continues he "(DAS CURIEUSESTE DABEY), was that the Saxon

Uhlans, lying about in the villages across the Border, were out in the fields, watching the sight, hardly 300

yards off, from beginning to end; and little dreamed that his High Princely Serenity," blue of face and

dreadful in war, "was quite close to them, on the Height called Bornhock; condescending to 'take all this into

HighSerene Eyeshine there; and, by having a white flag waved, deigning to give signal for the discharges

By this the reader may know that the Old Dessauer is alive, ready for action if called on; and Bruhl ought to

comprehend better how riskish his game with edgetools is. Bruhl is not now in an unprepared state:here

are Uhlans at one's elbow looking on. Rutowski's Uhlans; who lies encamped, not far off, in good force,

posted among morasses; strongly entrenched, and with schemes in his head, and in Bruhl's, of an aggressive,

thricesecret and very surprising nature! I remark only that, in Heidelberg Country, victorious old Traun is

putting his people into winterquarters; himself about to vanish from this History, [Went to

SIEBENBURGEN (Transylvania) as Governor; died there February, 1748, age seventyone ( Maria

Theresiens Leben, p. 56 n.).]and has detached General Grune with 10,000 men; who left Heidelberg

October 9th, on a mysterious errand, heeded by nobody; and will turn up in the next Chapter.

After this strenuous and victorious Campaign, which has astonished all public men, especially all Pragmatic

Gazetteers, and with which all Europe is disharmoniously ringing, Friedrich is hopeful there will be Peace,

through England;cannot doubt, at least, but the Austrians have had enough for one year;and looks

forward to certain months, if not of rest, yet of another kind of activity. Negotiation, Peace through England,

if possible; that is the high prize: and in the other case, or in any case, readiness for next Campaign;which

with the treasury exhausted, and no honorable subsidy from France, is a difficult problem.

That was Friedrich's, and everybody's, program of affairs for the months coming: but in that Friedrich and

everybody found themselves greatly mistaken. Bruhl and the Austrians had decided otherwise. "Open

mousetrap," at Striegau; claws of the sleeping cat, at Sohr: these were sad experiences; ill to bear, with the

SeaPowers grumbling on you, and the world sniffing its pity on you;but are not conclusive, are only

provoking and even maddening, to the sanguine mind. Two sad failures; but let us try another time. "A tricky

man; cunning enough, your King of Prussia!" thinks Bruhl, with a fellness of humor against Friedrich which

is little conceivable to us now: "Cunning enough. But it is possible cunning may be surpassed by deeper

cunning!"and decides, Bartenstein and an indignant EmpressQueen assenting eagerly, That there shall, in

the profoundest secrecy till it break out, be a third, and much fiercer trial, this Winter yet. The

BruhlBartenstein plan (owing mainly to the Russian Bugbear which hung over it, protective, but with

whims of its own) underwent changes, successive redactions or editions; which the reader would grudge to

hear explained to him. [Account of them in Orlich, ii. 273278 (from various RUTOWSKI Papers; and from

the contemporary satirical Pamphlet, "MONDSCHEINWURFE, Mirrorcastings of Moonshine, by

ZEBEDAUS Cuckoo, beaten Captain of a beaten Army."] Of the final or acted edition, some loose notion,

sufficient for our purpose, may be collected from the following fractions of Notes:

NOVEMBER 17th (INTERIOR OF GERMANY). ... "FeldmarschallLieutenant von Grune, a General of

mark, detached by Traun not long since, from the Rhine Country, with a force of 10,000 men, why is he

marching about: first to Baireuth Country, 'at Hof, November 9th,' as if for Bohemia; then north, to Gera ('lies

at Gera till the 17th'), as if for Saxony Proper? Prince Karl, you would certainly say, has gone into

winterquarters; about Konigsgratz, and farther on? Gone or going, sure enough, is Prince Karl, into the

convenient Bohemian districts,uncertain which particular districts; at least the Young Dessauer, watching

him from the Silesian side, is uncertain which. Better be vigilant, Prince Leopold!Grune, lying at Gera

yonder, is not intending for Prince Karl, then? No, not thither. Then perhaps towards Saxony, to reinforce the

Saxons? Or somewhither to find fat winterquarters: who knows? Indeed, who cares particularly, for such

"The Saxons quitted their inexpugnable Camp towards Halle, some time ago; went into cantonments farther

inland;the Old Dessauer (middle of October) having done the like, and gone home: his force lies rather

scattered, for convenience of food and forage. From the Silesian side, again, Prince Leopold, whose

headquarters are about Striegau, intimates, That he cannot yet say, with certainty, what districts Prince Karl

will occupy for winterquarters in Bohemia. Prince Karl is vaguely roving about; detaching Pandours to the

Silesian Mountains, as if for checking our victorious Nassau there;always rather creeping northward;

skirting Western Silesia with his main force; 30,000 or better, with Lobkowitz and Nadasti ahead. Meaning

"The private fact is, Prince Karl does not mean to go into winter quarters at all. In private fact, Prince Karl is

one of Three mysterious Elements or Currents, sent on a far errand: Grune is another: Rutowski's Saxon

Camp (now become Cantonment) is a third. Three Currents instinct with fire and destruction, but as yet quite

opaque; which have been launched,whitherward thinks the reader? On Berlin itself, and the Mark of

Brandenburg; there to collide, and ignite in a marvellous manner. There is their meetingpoint: there shall

they, on a sudden, smite one another into flame; and the destruction blaze, fiery enough, round Friedrich and

"It is a grand scheme; scheme at least on a grand scale. For the LEGS of it, Grune's march and Prince Karl's,

are about 600 miles long! Plan due chiefly, they say, to the yellow rage of Bruhl; aided by the contrivance of

Rutowski, and the counsel of Austrian military men. For there is much consulting about it, and redacting of

it; Polish Majesty himself very busy. To Bruhl's yellow rage it is highly solacing and hopeful. 'Rutowski,

lying close in his Cantonments, and then suddenly springing out, will overwhelm the Old Dessauer, who lies

wide;can do it, surely; and Grune is there to help if necessary. Dessauer blown to pieces, Grune, with

Rutowski combined, push in upon Brandenburg,Grune himself upon Berlin,from the west and south,

nobody expecting him. Prince Karl, not taking into winterquarters in Bohemia, as they idly think; but falling

down the Valley of the Bober, or Bober and Queiss, into the Lausitz (to Gorlitz, Guben, where we have

Magazines for him), comes upon it from the southeast,nobody expecting any of them. Three simultaneous

Armies hurled on the head of your Friedrich; combustible deluges flowing towards him, as from the ends of

Germany; so opaque, silent, yet of fire wholly: will not that surprise him!' thinks Bruhl. These are the

Bruhl, having constituted himself rival to Friedrich, and fallen into pale or yellow rage by the course things

took, this Plan is naturally his chief joy, or crown of joys; a bubbling well of solace to him in his parched

condition. He should, obviously, have kept it secret; thricesecret, the little fool;but a poor parched man is

not always master of his private bubbling wells in that kind! Wolfstierna is Swedish Envoy at Dresden;

Rudenskjold, Swedish Envoy at Berlin, has run over to see him in the dim November days. Swedes, since

Ulrique's marriage, are friendly to Prussia. Bruhl has these two men to dinner; talks with them, over his wine,

about Friedrich's insulting usage of him, among other topics. "Insulting; how, your Excellency?" asks

Rudenskjold, privately a friend of Friedrich. Bruhl explains, with voice quivering, those cuts in the Friedrich

manifesto of August last, and other griefs suffered; the two Swedes soothing him with what oil they have

ready. "No matter!" hints Bruhl; and proceeds from hint to hint, till the two Swedes are fully aware of the

grand scheme: Grune, Prince Karl; and how Destruction, with legs 500 miles long, is steadily advancing to

assuage one with just revenge. "Right, your Excellency!"only that Rudenskjold proceeds to Berlin; and

there straightway ("8th November") punctually makes Friedrich also aware. [Stenzel, iv. 262; Ranke, iii.

317323; Friedrich's own narrative of it, OEuvres, iii. 148.] Foolish Bruhl: a man that has a secret should not

Friedrich, having heard the secret, gazes into it with horror and astonishment: "What a time I have! This is

not living; this is being killed a thousand times a day!" [Ranke (iii. 321 n.): TO whom said, we are not

told.]with horror and astonishment; but also with what most luminous flash of eyesight is in him;

compares it with Prince Karl's enigmatic motions, Grune's open ones and the other phenomena;perceives

that it is an indisputable fact, and a thriceformidable; requiring to be instantly dealt with by the party

interested! Whereupon, after hearty thanks to Rudenskjold, there occur these rapidly successive phases of

FIRST (probably 9th or 10th November), there is Council held with Minister Podewils and the Old Dessauer;

Council from which comes little benefit, or none. Podewils and Old Leopold stare incredulous; cannot be

made to believe such a thing. "Impossible any Saxon minister or man would voluntarily bring the theatre of

war into his own Country, in this manner!" thinks the Old Dessauer, and persists to think,on what obstinate

ground Friedrich never knew. To which Podewils, "who has properties in the Lausitz, and would so fain think

them safe," obstinately, though more covertly, adheres. "Impossible!" urge both these Councillors; and

Friedrich cannot even make them believe it. Believe it; and, alas, believing it is not the whole problem!

Happily Friedrich has the privilege of ordering, with or without their belief. "You, Podewils, announce the

matter to foreign Courts. You, Serene Highness of Anhalt, at your swiftest, collect yonder, and encamp again.

Your eye well on Grune and Rutowski; and the instant I give you signal! I am for Silesia, to look after

Prince Karl, the other long leg of this Business." Old Leopold, according to Friedrich's account, is visibly

glad of such opportunity to fight again before he die: and yet, for no reason except some senile jealousy, is

not content with these arrangements; perversely objects to this and that. At length the King says,think of

this hard word, and of the eyes that accompany it!"When your Highness gets Armies of your own, you will

order them accordiug to your mind; at present, it must be according to mine." On, then; and not a moment

Old Leopold goes accordingly. Friedrich himself goes in a week hence. Orders, correspondences from

Podewils and the rest, are flying right and left;to Young Leopold in Silesia, first of all. Young Leopold

draws out his forces towards the SilesianLausitz border, where Prince Karl's intentions are now becoming

"On Monday, 15th, ["18th," Feldzuge, i. 402 (see Rodenbeck, i. 122).] at 7 A.M.," Friedrich rushes off, by

Crossen, full speed for Liegnitz; "with Rothenburg, with the Prince of Prussia and Ferdinand of Brunswick

accompanying." With what thoughts,though, in his face, you can read nothing; all Berlin being already in

such tremor! Friedrich is in Liegnitz next day; and after needful preliminaries there, does, on the Thursday

following, "at NiederAdelsdorf," not far off, take actual command of Prince Leopold's Army, which had

lain encamped for some days, waiting him. And now with such force in hand,35,000, soldiers every man

of them, and freshened by a month's rest,one will endeavor to do some good upon Prince Karl. Probably

sooner than Prince Karl supposes. For there is great velocity in this young King; a pantherlike suddenness of

spring in him: cunning, too, as any Felis of them; and with claws like the Felis Leo on occasion. Here follows

Prince Karl's intentions towards FrankfurtonOder Country, through the Lausitz, are now becoming

practically manifest. There is a Magazine for him at Guben, within thirty miles of Frankfurt; arrangements

getting ready all the way. A winter march of 150 miles;but what, say the spies, is to hinder? Prince Karl

dreams not that Friedrich is on the ground, or that anybody is aware. Which notion Friedrich finds that it will

be extremely suitable to maintain in Prince Karl. Friedrich is now at Adelsdorf, some thirty miles eastward of

the Lausitz Border, perhaps forty or more from the route Prince Karl will follow through that Province.

"It is a highlying irregularly hilly Country; hilly, not mountainous. Various streams rise out of it that have a

long course,among others, the Spree, which washes Berlin;especially three Valleys cross it, three Rivers

with their Valleys: Bober, Queiss, Neisse (the THIRD Neisse we have come upon); all running northward,

pretty much parallel, though all are branches of the Oder. This is Neisse THIRD, we say; not the Neisse of

Neisse City, which we used to know at the north base of the Giant Mountains, nor the Roaring Neisse, which

we have seen at Hohenfriedberg; but a third [and the FOURTH and last, "Black Neisse," thank Heaven, is an

upper branch of this, and we have, and shall have, nothing to do with it!]third Neisse, which we may call

the Lausitz Neisse. On which, near the head of it, there is a fine old spinning, linenweaving Town called

Zittau,where, to make it memorable, one Tourist has read, on the Townhouse, an Inscription worth

repeating: 'BENE FACERE ET MALE AUDIRE REGIUM EST, To do good and have evil said of you, is a

kingly thing.' Other Towns, as Gorlitz, and seventy miles farther the abovesaid Guben, lie on this same

Neisse,shall we add that Herrnhuth stands near the head of it? The wondrous Town of Herrnhuth

(LORD'S KEEPING), founded by Count Zinzendorf, twenty years before those dates; ["In 1722, the first

tree felled" (LIVES of Zinzendorf).] where are a kind of German MethodistQuakers to this day, who have

become very celebrated in the interim. An opulent enough, most silent, strictly regular, strange little Town.

The women are in uniform; wives, maids, widows, each their form of dress. Missionaries, speaking flabby

English, who have been in the West Indies or are going thither, seem to abound in the place; male population

otherwise, I should think, must be mainly doing trade elsewhere; nothing but prayers, preachings, charitable

boardingschooling and the like, appeared to be going on. Herrnhuth is 'a Sabbath Petrified; Calvinistic

Sabbath done into Stone,' as one of my companions called it." [Tourist's Note (Autumn, 1852).]

Herrnhuth, of which all Englishmen have heard, stands near the head of this our third Neisse; as does Zittau,

a few miles higher up. I can do nothing more to give it mark for them. Bober Valley, then Queiss Valley,

which run parallel though they join at last, and become Bober wholly before getting into the Oder,these

two Valleys and Rivers lie in Friedrich's own Territory; and are between him and the Lausitz, Queiss River

being the boundary of Silesia and the Lausitz here. It is down the Neisse that Prince Karl means to march.

There are Saxons already gathering about Zittau; and down as far as Guben they are making Magazines and

arrangements,for it is all their own Country in those years, though most of it is Prussia's now. Prince Karl's

march will go parallel to the Bober and the Queiss; separated from the Queiss in this part by an undulating

Friedrich has had somewhat to settle for the Southern Frontier of Silesia withal, which new doggeries of

Pandours are invading,to lie ready for Prince Karl on his return thither, whose grand meaning all this while

(as Friedrich well knows), is "Silesia in the lump" again, had he once cut us off from Brandenburg and our

supplies! General Nassau, far eastward, who is doing exploits in Moravia itself,him Friedrich has ordered

homeward, westward to his own side of the Mountains, to attend these new Pandour gentlemen; Winterfeld

he has called home, out of those Southern mountains, as likely to be usefuler here on this Western frontier.

Winterfeld arrived in Camp the same day with Friedrich; and is sent forward with a body of 3,000 light

troops, to keep watch about the Lausitz Frontier and the River Queiss; "careful not to quit our own side of

Friedrich lies strictly within his own borders, for a day or two; till Prince Karl march, till his own

arrangements are complete. Friedrich himself keeps the Bober, Winterfeld the Queiss; "all pass freely out of

the Lausitz; none are allowed to cross into it: thereby we hear notice of Prince Karl, he none of us." Perfectly

quiescent, we, poor creatures, and aware of nothing! Thus, too, Friedrichin spite of his warlike Manifesto,

which the Saxons are on the eve of answering with a formal Declaration of Waraffects great rigor in

considering the Saxons as not yet at war with him: respects their frontier, Winterfeld even punishes hussars

"for trespassing on Lausitz ground." Friedrich also affects to have roads repaired, which he by no means

intends to travel: the whole with a view of lulling Prince Karl; of keeping the mouse trap open, as he had

done in the Striegau case. It succeeded again, quite as conspicuously, and at less expense.

Prince Karlwhose Tolpatch doggery Winterfeld will not allow to pass the Queiss, and to whom no traveller

or tidings can come from beyond that Riverdiscerns only, on the farther shore of it, Winterfeld with his

3,000 light troops. Behind these, he discerns either nothing, or nothing immediately momentous; but

contentedly supposes that this, the superficies of things, is all the solid content they have. Prince Karl gets

under way, therefore, nothing doubting; with his Saxons as vanguard. Down the Neisse Valley, on the right or

Queissward side of it: Saturday, 20th November, is his first march in Lusatian territory. He lies that night

spread out in three Villages, Schonberg, Schonbrunn, Kieslingswalde; [ Feldzuge, i. 407 (Bericht von der

Action bey KatholischHennersdorf, some ten miles long; parallel to the Neisse River, and about four miles

from it, east or Queissward of it. Karl himself is rear, at Schonberg; fierce Lobkowitz is centre; the Saxons

are vanguard, 6,000 in all, posted in Villages, which again are some ten or twelve miles ahead of Prince

Karl's forces; the Queiss on their right hand, and the Naumburg Bridge of Queiss, where Winterfeld now is,

about fifteen miles to east. Their Uhlans circulate through the intervening space (were much patrolling

needed, in such quiet circumstances), and maintain the due communication. There lies Prince Karl, on

Saturday night, 20th November, 1745; an Army of perhaps 40,000, dnngerously straggling out above twenty

miles long; and appears to see no difficulty ahead. The Saxons, I think, are to continue where they are;

guarding the flank, while the Prince and Lobkowitz push forward, closer by Neisse River. In four marches

Seeing which state of matters, Winterfeld gives Friedrich notice of it; and that he, Winterfeld, thinks the

moment is come. "Pontoons to Naumburg, then!" orders Friedrich. Winterfeld, at the proper moment, is to

form a Bridge there. One permanent Bridge there already is; and two fords, one above it, one below: with a

second Bridge, there will be roadway for four columns, and a swift transit when needful. Sunday, 21st,

Friedrich quits the Bober, diligently towards Naumburg; marches Sunday, Monday; Tuesday, 23d, about

eleven A.M., begins to arrive there; Winterfeld and passages all ready. Forward, then, and let us drive in upon

Prince Karl; and either cut him in two, or force him to fight us; he little thinks where or on what terms. Sure

enough, in the worst place we can choose for him! Friedrich begins crossing in four columns at one P.M.;

crosses continuously for four hours; unopposed, except some skirmishing of Uhlans, while his Cavalry is

riding the Fords to right and left; Uhlans were driven back swiftly, so soon as the Cavalry got over. At five in

the evening, he has got entirely across, 35,000 horse and foot: Ziethen is chasing the Uhlans at full speed;

who at least will show us the way,for by this time a mist has begun falling, and the brief daylight is done.

Friedrich himself, without waiting for the rear of his force, and some while before this mist fell (as I judge), is

pushing forward, "a miller lad for his guide," across to Hennersdorf,Katholisch Hennersdorf, a long

straggling Village, eight or ten miles off, and itself two miles long,where he understands the Saxons are.

Miller lad guides us, over height and hollow, with his best skill, at a brisk pace;through one hollow, where

he has known the cattle pasture in summer time; but which proves impassable, and mere quagmire, at this

season. No getting through it, you unfortunate miller lad (GARCON DE MEUNIER). Nevertheless, we did

find passage through the skirts of it: nay this quagmire proved the luck of us; for the enemy, trustiug to it, had

no outguard there, never expecting us on that side. So that the vanguard, Ziethen and rapid Hussars, made an

excellent thing of it. Ziethen sends us word, That he has got into the body of Hennersdorf,"found the

Saxon Quartermaster quietly paying his men;"that he, Ziethen, is tolerably master of Hennersdorf, and will

Of course Friedrich now pushes on, double speed; detaches other force, horse and foot: which was lucky,

says my informant; for the Ziethen Hussars, getting good plunder, had by no means demolished the Saxons;

but had left them time to draw up in firm order, with a hedge in front, a little west of the Village;from

which post, unassailable by Ziethen, they would have got safe off to the main body, with little but an affront

and some loss of goods. The new forcea rapid Katzler with light horse in the van, cuirassiers and foot

rapidly following himsweeps past the long Village, "through a thin wood and a defile;" finds the enemy

firmly ranked as above said; cavalry their left, infantry on right, flanked by an impenetrable hedge; and at

once strikes in. At once, Katzler does, on order given; but is far too weak. Charges, he; but is counter

charged, tumbled back; the Saxons, horse and foot, showing excellent fight. At length, more Prussian force

coming up, cuirassiers charge them in front, dragoons in flank, hussars in rear; all attacking at once, and with

And now there remains only the Infantry, perhaps about 1,000 men (if one must guess); who form a square;

ply vigorously their field pieces and their firearms; and cannot be broken by horsecharges. In fact, these

Saxons made a fierce resistance;till, before long, Prussian Infantry came up; and, with counter fieldpieces

and musketries, blasted gaps in them; upon which the Cavalry got admittance, and reduced the gallant fellows

nearly wholly to annihilation either by death or capture. There are 914 Prisoners in this Action, 4 big guns,

and I know not how many kettledrums, standards and the like,all that were there, I suppose. The number

of dead not given. [Orlich, ii. 291; Feldzuge, i. 400413.] But, in brief, this Saxon Force is utterly cut to

pieces; and only scattered twos and threes of it rush through the dark mist; scattering terror to this hand and

that. The Prussians take their post at and round Hennersdorf that night; bivouacking, though only in sack

trousers, a blanket each man: "We work hard, my men, and suffer all things for a day or two, that it may

save much work afterwards," said the King to them; and they cheerfully bivouacked.

This was the Action of KatholischHennersdorf, fought on Tuesday, 23d November, 1745; and still

celebrated in the Prussian Annals, and reckoned a brilliant passage of war. KATHOLISCHHennersdorf,

some ten miles southwest of Naumburg ON THE QUEISS (for there are, to my knowledge, Twentyfive

other Villages called Hennersdorf, and Three several Towns of Naumburg, and many Castles and Hamlets so

named in dear Germany of the Nomenclatures):Katholisch Hennersdorf is the place, and Tuesday about

dusk the time. A sharp brush of fighting; not great in quantity, but laid in at the right moment, in the right

place. Like the prick of a needle, duly sharp, into the spinal marrow of a gigantic object; totally ruinous to

such object. Never, or rarely, in the Annals of War, was as much good got of so little fighting. You may, with

labor and peril, plunge a hundred dirks into your boaconstrictor; hack him with axes, bray him with

sledgehammers; that is not uncommon: but the one true prick in the spinal marrow, and the Artist that can

Next morning, Wednesday, 24th, the Prussians are early astir again; groping, on all manner of roads, to find

what Prince Karl is doing, in a world all covered in thick mist. They can find nothing of him, but broken

tumbrils, left baggagewagons, rumor of universal marching hither and marching thither;evidences of an

Army fallen into universal St. Vitus'sDance; distractedly hurrying to and fro, not knowing whitherward for

Prince Karl's farther movements are not worth particularizing. Ordering and crossordering; march this way;

no, back again: such a scene in that mist. Prince Karl is flowing homeward; confusedly deluging and gurgling

southward, the best he can. Next afternoon, near Gorlitz, and again one other time, he appears drawn up, as if

for fighting; but has himself no such thought; flies again, without a shot; leaves Gorlitz to capitulate, that

afternoon; all places to capitulate, or be evacuated. We hear he is for Zittau; Winterfeld with light horse

hastens after him, gets sight of him on the Heights at Zittau yonder, [ OEuvres de Frederic, iii. 157; Orlich, ii.

296.] "about two in the morning:" but the Prince has not the least notion to fight. Prince leaves Zittau to

capitulate,quits silently the Heights of Zittau at two A.M. (Winterfeld, very lively in the rear of him,

cutting off his baggage);and so tumbles, pellmell, through the Passes of Gabel, home to Bohemia again.

"On Saturday night, November 27th, the Prussians, pursuing Prince Karl, were cantoned in the Herrnhuth

neighborhood,my informant's regiment in the Town of Herrnhuth itself. [ Feldzuge, i. ubi supra.] Yes,

there lay the Prussians over Sunday; and might hear some weighty expounder, if they liked. Considerably

theological, many of these poor Prussian soldiers; carrying a Bible in their knapsack, and devout Psalms in

the heart of them. Twothirds of every regiment are LANDESKINDER, native Prussians; each regiment

from a special canton,generally rather religious men. The other third are recruits, gathered in the Free

Towns of the Reich, or where they can be got; not distinguished by devotion these, we may fancy, only

Before the week is done, that "first leg" of the grand Enterprise (the PrinceKarl leg) is such a leg as we see.

"Silesia in the lump,"fond dream again, what a dream! Old Dessauer getting signal, where now, too

probably, is Saxony itself?Ranking again at Aussig in Bohemia, Prince Karl5,000 of his men lost, and

all impetus and fire gonefalls gently down the Elbe, to join Rutowski at least; and will reappear within four

The Prussian Troops, in four great Divisions, are cantoned in that Lausitz Country, now so quiet; in and about

Bautzen and three other Towns of the neighborhood; to rest and be ready for the old Dessauer, when we hear

of him. The "Magazine at Guben in 138 wagons," the Gorlitz and other Magazines of Prince Karl in the due

number of wagons, supply them with comfortabIe unexpected provender. Thus they lie cantoned; and have

with despatch effectually settled their part of the problem. Question now is, How will it stand with the Old

Dessauer and his part? Or, better still, Would not perhaps the Saxons, in this humiliated state, accept Peace,

A "Correspondence" of a certain Excellency Villiers, English Minister at Dresden,Sir Thomas Villiers,

Grandfather of the present Earl of Clarendon,was very famous in those weeks; and is still worth mention,

as a trait of Friedrich's procedure in this crisis. Friedrich, not intoxicated with his swift triumph over Prince

Karl, but calculating the perils and the chances still ahead,miserably off for money too,admits to

himself that not revenge or triumph, that Peace is the one thing needful to him. November 29th, Old Leopold

is entering Saxony; and in the same hours, Podewils at Berlin, by order of Friedrich, writes to Villiers who is

in Dresden, about Peace, about mediating for Peace: "My King ready and desirous, now as at all times, for

Peace; the terms of it known; terms not altered, not alterable, no bargaining or higgling needed or allowable.

CONVENTION OF HANOVER, let his Polish Majesty accede honestly to that, and all these miseries are

ended." ["CORRESPONDANCE DU ROI AVEC SIR THOMAS VILLIERS;" commences, on Podewils's

part, 28th November; on Friedrich's, 4th December; ends, on Villier's, 18th December; fourteen Pieces in all,

four of them Friedrich's: Given in OEuvres de Frederic, iii. 183216 (see IB, 158), and in many other Books.]

Villiers starts instantly on this beneficent business; "goes to Court, on it, that very night;" Villiers shows

himself really diligent, reasonable, loyal; doing his very best now and afterwards; but has no success at all.

Polish Majesty is obstinate, I always think, in the way sheep are, when they feel themselves too much put

upon;and is deaf to everybody but Bruhl. Bruhl answers: "Let his Prussian Majesty retire from our

Territory;what is he doing in the Lausitz just now! Retire from our Territory; THEN we will treat!" Bruhl

still refuses to be desperate of his bad game;at any rate, Bruhl's rage is yellower than ever. That, very

evening, while talking to Villiers, he has had preparations going on;and next morning takes his Master,

Polish Majesty August III., with some comfortable minimum of apparatus (cigarboxes not forgotten), off to

Prag, where they can be out of danger till the thing decide itself. Villiers follows to Prag; desists not from his

eloquent Letters, and earnest persuasions at Prag; but begins to perceive that the means of persuading Bruhl

On the whole, negotiations have yet done little. Britannic George, though Purseholder, what is his success

here? As little is the Russian Bugbear persuasive on Friedrich himself. The Czarina of the Russias, a

luxurious lady, of far more weight than insight, has just notified to him, with more emphasis than ever, That

he shall not attack Saxony; that if he do, she with considerable vigor will attack him! That has always been a

formidable puzzle for Friedrich: however, he reflects that the Russians never could draw sword, or be ready

with their Army, in less than six months, probably not in twelve; and has answered, translating it into polite

official terms: "Feefawfum, your Czarish Majesty! Question is not now of attacking, but of being myself

Still worse was the result he got from Louis XV. Lately, "for form's sake," as he tells us, "and not expecting

anything," he had (November 15th) made a new appeal to France: "Ruin menacing your Most Christian

Majesty's Ally, in this huge sudden crisis of invasive AustrianSaxons; and for your Majesty's sake, may I

not in some measure say?" To which Louis's Answer is also given. A very sickly, unpleasant Document;

testifying to considerable pique against Friedrich;Ranke says, it was a joint production, all the Ministers

gradually contributing each his little pinch of irony to make it spicier, and Louis signing when it was

enough;very considerable pique against Friedrich; and something of the stupid sulkiness as of a fat bad

boy, almost glad that the house is on fire, because it will burn his nimble younger brother, whom everybody

calls so clever: "Sorry indeed, Sir my Brother, most sorry:and so you have actually signed that

HANOVER CONVENTION with our worst Enemy? France is far from having done so; France has done, and

will do, great things. Our Royal heart grieves much at your situation; but is not alarmed; no, Your Majesty

has such invention, vigor and ability, superior to any crisis, our clever younger Brother! And herewith we

pray God to have you in his holy keeping." This is the purport of King Louis's Letter;which Friedrich folds

together again, looking up from perusal of it, we may fancy with what a glance of those eyes. [Louis's

Original, in OEuvres de Frederic, iii. 173, 174 (with a much more satirical paraphrase than the above), and

He is getting instructed, this young King, as to alliances, grand combinations, French and other. His third

Note to Villiers intimates, "It being evident that his Polish Majesty will have nothing from us but fighting, we

must try to give it him of the best kind we have." ["Bautzen, 11th December, 1745" (UBI SUPRA).] Yes

truly; it is the ULTIMATE persuasive, that. Here, in condensed form, are the essential details of the course it

General Grune, on the road to Berlin, hearing of the rout at Hennersdorf, halted instantly,hastened

back to Saxony, to join Rutowski there, and stand on the defensive. Not now in that Halle Frontier region

(Rutowski has quitted that, and all the intrenchments and marshy impregnabilities there); not on that

HalleFrontier, but hovering about in the interior, Rutowski and Grune are in junction; gravitating towards

Dresden;expecting Prince Karl's advent; who ought to emerge from the Saxon Switzerland in few days,

were he sharp; and again enable us to make a formidable figure. Be speedy, Old Dessauer: you must settle the

The Old Dessauer has been tolerably successful, and by no means thinks he has been losing time. November

29th, "at three in the morning," he stept over into Saxony with its impregnable camps; drove Rutowski's

rearguard, or remnant, out of the quagmires, canals and intrenchments, before daylight; drove it, that same

evening, or before dawn of the morrow, out of Leipzig: has seized that Town,lays heavy contribution on it,

nearly 50,000 pounds (such our strait for finance), "and be sure you take only substantial men as sureties!"

[Orlich, ii. 308.]and will, and does after a two days' rest, advance with decent celerity inwards; though

"One must first know exactly whither; one must have bread, and preparations and precautions; do all things

solidly and in order," thinks the Old Dessauer. Friedrich well knows the whither; and that Dresden itself is, or

may be made, the place for falling in with Rutowski. Friedrich is now himself ready to join, from the Bautzen

region; the days and hours precious to him; and spurs the Old Dessauer with the sharpest remonstrances. "All

solidly and in order, your Majesty!" answers the Old Dessauer: solid strongboned old coachhorse, who has

his own modes of trotting, having done many a heavy mile of it in his time; and whose skin, one hopes, is of

Old Dessauer wishes two things: bread to live upon; and a sure Bridge over the Elbe whereby Friedrich may

join him. Old Dessauer makes for Torgau, far north, where is both an Elbe Bridge and a Magazine; which he

takes; Torgau and pertinents now his. But it is far down the Elbe, far off from Bautzen and Friedrich: "A

nearer Bridge and rendezvous, your Highness! Meissen [where they make the china, only fifty miles from

me, and twenty from Dresden], let that be the Bridge, now that you have got victual. And speedy; for

Heaven's sake, speedy!" Friedrich pushes out General Lehwald from Bautzen, with 4,000 men, towards

Meissen Bridge; Lehwald does not himself meddle with the Bridge, only fires shot across upon the Saxon

party, till the Old Dessauer, on the other bank, come up; and the Old Dessauer, impatience thinks, will

never come. "Three days in Torgau, yes, Your Majesty: I had bread to bake, and the very ovens had to be

built." A solid old roadster, with his own modes of trotting; needs thickness of skin. [Friedrich's Letters to

At long last, on Sunday, 12th December, about two P.M., the Old Dessauer does appear; or General Gessler,

his vanguard, does appear,Gessler of the sixtyseven standards,"always about an hour ahead." Gessler

has summoned Meissen; has not got it, is haggling with it about terms, when, towards sunset of the short day,

Old Dessauer himself arrives. Whereupon the Saxon Commandant quits the Bridge (not much breaking it);

and glides off in the dark, clear out of Meissen, towards Dresden,chased, but successfully defending

himself. [See Plan, p. 10.] "Had he but stood out for two days!" say the Saxons,"Prince Karl had then been

up, and much might have been different." Well, Friedrich too would have been up, and it had most likely

been the same on a larger scale. But the Saxon Commandant did not stand out; he glided off, safe; joined

Rutowski and Grune, who are lying about Wilsdruf, six or seven miles on the hither side of Dresden, and

eagerly waiting for Prince Karl. "Bridge and Town of Meissen are your Majesty's," reports the Old Dessauer

that night: upon which Friedrich instantly rises, hastening thitherward. Lehwald comes across Meissen

Bridge, effects the desired junction; and all Monday the Old Dessauer defiles through Meissen town and

territory; continually advances towards Dresden, the Saxons harassing the flanks of him a little,nay in one

defile, being sharp strenuous fellows, they threw his rear into some confusion; cut off certain carts and

prisoners, and the life of one brave General, Lieutenant General Roel, who had charge there. "Spurring one's

trot into a gallop! This comes of your fast marching, of your spurring beyond the rules of war!" thinks Old

But indeed the crisis is pressing. Prince Karl is across the Metal Mountains, nearing Dresden from the east;

Friedrich strikes into march for the same point by Meissen, so soon as the Bridge is his. Old Leopold is

advancing thither from the westward,steadily hour by hour; Dresden City the fateful goal. There,in

these middle days of December, 1745 (Highland Rebellion just whirling back from Derby again, "the London

shops shut for one day"),it is clear there will be a big and bloody game played before we are much older.

Very sad indeed: but Count Bruhl is not persuadable otherwise. By slumbering and sluggarding, over their

moneytills and fleshpots; trying to take evil for good, and to say, "It will do," when it will not do,

respectable Nations come at last to be governed by Bruhls; cannot help themselves;and get their backs

broken in consequence. Why not? Would you have a Nation live forever that is content to be governed by

Bruhls? The gods are wiser!It is now the 13th; Old Dessauer tramping forward, hour by hour, towards

On Tuesday, 14th, by break of day, Old Dessauer gets on march again; in four columns, in battle order;

steady all day,hard winter weather, ground crisp, and flecked with snow. The Pass at Neustadt, "his

cavalry went into it at full gallop;" but found nobody there. That night he encamps at a place called

Rohrsdorf; which may be eight miles westbynorth from Dresden, as the crow flies; and ten or more, if you

follow the highway round by Wilsdruf on your right. The real direct Highway from Meissen to Dresden is on

the other side of the Elbe, and keeps by the Riverbank, a fine level road; but on this western side, where

Leopold now is, the road is inland, and goes with a bend. Leopold, of course, keeps command of this road;

his columns are on both sides of it, River on their left at some miles distance; and incessantly expect to find

Rutowski, drawn out on favorable ground somewhere. The country is of fertile, but very broken character;

intersected by many brooks, making obliquely towards the Elbe (obliquely, with a leaning Meissenwards);

country always mounting, till here about Rohrsdorf we seem to have almost reached the watershed, and the

brooks make for the Elbe, leaning Dresden way. Good posts abound in such broken country, with its villages

and brooks, with its thickets, hedges and patches of swamp. But Rutowski has not appeared anywhere, during

Our four columns, therefore, lie all night, under arms, about Rohrsdorf: and again by morrow's dawn are astir

in the old order, crunching far and wide the frozen ground; and advance, charged to the muzzle with potential

battle. Slightly upwards always, to the actual watershed of the country; leaving Wilsdruf a little to their right.

Wilsdruf is hardly past, when see, from this broad table land, top of the country: "Yonder is Rutowski, at

last;and this new Wednesday will be a day!" Yonder, sure enough: drawn out three or four miles long;

with his right to the Elbe, his left to that intricate Village of Kesselsdorf; bristling with cannon; deep gullet

and swampy brook in front of him: the strongest post a man could have chosen in those parts.

The Village of Kesselsdorf itself lies rather in a hollow; in the slight beginning, or uppermost extremity, of a

little Valley or Dell, called the Tschonengrund,which, with its, quaggy brook of a Tschone, wends

northeastward into the Elbe, a course of four or five miles: a little Valley very deep for its length, and getting

altogether chasmy and precipitous towards the Elbeward or lower end. Kesselsdorf itself, as we said, is

mainly in a kind of hollow: between Old Leopold and Kesselsdorf the ground rather mounts; and there is

perceptibly a flat knoll or rise at the head of it, where the Village begins. Some trees there, and abundance of

cannon and grenadiers at this moment. It is the southwestern or leftmost point of Rutowski's line;

impregnable with its cannonbatteries and grenadiers. Rightward Rutowski extends in long lines, with the

quaggydell of Tschonengrund in front of him, parallel to him; Dell ever deepening as it goes.

Northeastward, at the extreme right, or Elbe point of it, where Grune and the Austrians stand, it has grown so

advanced upon: so we leave him standing there,which he did all day, in a purely meditative posture.

Rutowski numbers 35,000, now on this ground, with immensity of cannon; 32,000 we, with only the usual

fieldartillery, and such a Tschonengrund, with its half frozen quagmires ahead. A ticklish case for the old

Grim Old Dessauer having reconnoitred, and rapidly considered, decides to try it,what else?will range

himself on the west side of that Tschonengrund, horse and foot; two lines, wide as Rutowski opposite him;

but means to direct his main and prime effort against Kesselsdorf, which is clearly the key of the position, if

it can. be taken. For which end the Old Dessauer lengthens himself out to rightward, so as to outflank

Kesselsdorf;neglecting Grune (refusing Grune, as the soldiers say):"our horse of the right wing reached

from the Wood called Lerchenbusoh (LARCHBUSH) rightward as far as Freyberg road; foot all between

that Lerchenbusch and the big Birchtree on the road to Wilsdruf; horse of the left wing, from there to

Roitsch." [Stille (p. 181), who was present. See Plan.] It was about two P.M. before the old man got all his

deployments completed; what corps of his, deploying this way or that, came within wind of Kesselsdorf, were

saluted with cannon, thirty pieces or more, which are in battery, in three batteries, on the knoll there; but

otherwise no fighting as yet. At two, the Old Dessauer is complete; he reverently doffs his hat, as had always

been his wont, in prayer to God, before going in. A grim fervor of prayer is in his heart, doubtless; though the

words as reported are not very regular or orthodox: "O HERR GOTT, help me yet this once; let me not be

disgraced in my old days! Or if thou wilt not help me, don't help those HUNDSVOGTE [damned Scoundrels,

so to speak], but leave us to try it ourselves!" That is the Old Scandinavian of a Dessauer's prayer; a kind of

GODUR he too, Priest as well as Captain: Prayer mythically true as given; mythically, not otherwise. [Ranke,

iii. 334 n.] Which done, he waves his hat once, "On, in God's name!" and the storm is loose. Prussian right

wing pushing grandly forward, bent in that manner, to take Kesselsdorf and its firethroats in flank.

The Prussians tramp on with the usual grimbrowed resolution, foot in front, horse in rear; but they have a

terrible problem at that Kesselsdorf, with its retrenched batteries, and numerous grenadiers fighting under

cover. The very ground is sore against them; uphill, and the trampled snow wearing into a slide, so that you

sprawl and stagger sadly. Thirtyone big guns, and about 9,000 small, pouring out mere death on you, from

that knollhead. The Prussians stagger; cannot stand it; bend to rightwards, and get out of shotrange; cannot

manage it this bout. Rally, reinforce; try it again. Again, with a will; but again there is not a way. The

Prussians are again repulsed; fall back, down this slippery course, in more disorder than the first time. Had

the Saxons stood still, steadily handling arms, how, on such terms, could the Prussians ever have managed it?

But at sight of this second repulse, the Saxon grenadiers, and especially one battalion of Austrians who were

there (the only Austrians who fought this day), gave a shout "Victory!"and in the height of their

enthusiasm, rushed out, this Austrian battalion first and the Saxons after them, to charge these Prussians, and

sweep the world clear of them. It was the ruin of their battle; a fatal hollaing before you are out of the woods.

Old Leopold, quick as thought, noticing the thing, hurls cavalry on these victorious downplunging

grenadiers; slashes them asunder, into mere recoiling whirlpools of ruin; so that "few of them got back

unwounded;" and the Prussians storming in along with them,aided by ever new Prussians, from beyond the

Tschonengrund even,the place was at length carried; and the Saxon battle became hopeless.

For, their right being in such hurricane, the Prussians from the centre, as we hint, storm forward withal; will

not be held back by the Tschonengrund. They find the Tschonengrund quaggy in the extreme, "brook frozen

at the sides, but waistdeep of liquid mud in the centre;" cross it, nevertheless, towards the upper part of

it,young Moritz of Dessau leading the way, to help his old Father in extremity. They climb the opposite

side,quite slippery in places, but "helping one another up;"no Saxons there till you get fairly atop, which

was an oversight on the Saxon part. Fairly atop, Moritz is saluted by the Saxons with diligent

musketvolleys; but Moritz also has musketvolleys in him, bayonetcharges in him; eager to help his old

Papa at this hard pinch. Old Papa has the Saxons in flank; sends more and ever more other cavalry in on

them; and in fact, the right wing altogether storms violently through Kesselsdorf, and sweeps it clean. Whole

regiments of the Saxons are made prisoners; Roel's Light Horse we see there, taking standards; cutting

violently in to avenge Roel's death, and the affront they had at Meissen lately. Furious Moritz on their front,

from across the Tschonengrund; furious Roel (GHOST of Roel) and others in their flank, through

About nightfall,their horse having made poorish fight, though the foot had stood to it like men,they roll

universally away. The Prussian left wing of horse are summoned through the Tschonengrund to chase: had

there remained another hour of daylight, the Saxon Army had been one wide ruin. Hidden in darkness, the

Saxon Army ebbed confusedly towards Dresden: with the loss of 6,000 prisoners and 3,000 killed and

wounded: a completely beaten Army. It is the last battle the Saxons fought as a Nation, or probably will

Prince Karl had arrived at Dresden the night before; heard all this volleying and cannonading, from the

distance; but did not see good to interfere at all. Too wide apart, some say; quartered at unreasonably distant

villages, by some irrefragable ignorant War clerk of Bruhl's appointing,fatal Bruhl. Others say, his

Highness had himself no mind; and made excuses that his troops were tired, disheartened by the two beatings

lately,what will become of us in case of a third or fourth! It is certain, Prince Karl did nothing. Nor has

Grime's corps, the right wing, done anything except meditate:it stood there unattacked, unattacking; till

deep in the dark night, when Rutowski remembered it, and sent it order to come home. One Austrian

battalion, that of grenadiers on the knoll at Kesselsdorf, did actually fight;and did begin that fatal outbreak,

Had those grenadiers stood in their place, there is no Prussian but admits that it would have been a terrible

business to take Kesselsdorf and its batteries. But they did not stand; they rushed out, shouting "Victory;" and

lost us the battle. And that is the good we have got of the sublime Austrian Alliance; and that is the pass our

grand scheme of Partitioning Prussia has come to? Fatal little Bruhl of the three hundred and sixtyfive

clothes suits; Valet fatally become divine in Valethood,are not you costing your Country dear!

Old Dessauer, glorious in the last of his fields, lay on his arms all night in the posts about; three bullets

through his roquelaure, no scratch of wound upon the old man. Young Moritz too "had a bullet through his

coatskirt, and three horses shot under him; but no hurt, the Almighty's grace preserving him." [ Feldzuge, i.

434.] This Moritz is the Third of the Brothers, age now thirtythree; and we shall hear considerably about

him in times coming. A lean, tall, austere man; and, "of all the Brothers, most resembled his Father in his

ways." Prince Dietrich is in Leipzig at present; looking to that contribution of 50,000 pounds; to that, and to

other contributions and necessary matters;and has done all his fighting (as it chanced), though he survived

his Brothers many years. Old Papa will now get his discharge before long (quite suddenly, one morning, by

paralytic stroke, 7th April, 1747); and rest honorably with the Sons of Thor. [Young Leopold, the successor,

died 16th December, 1751, age fiftytwo; Dietrich (who had thereupon quitted soldiering, to take charge of

his Nephew left minor, and did not resume it), died 2d December, 1769; Moritz (soldier to the last), 11th

Friedrich himself had got to Meissen, Tuesday, l4th; no enemy on his road, or none to speak of: Friedrich was

there, or not yet far across, all Wednesday; collecting himself, waiting, on the slip, for a signal from Old

Leopold. Sound of cannon, up the Elbe Dresdenward, is reported there to Friedrich, that afternoon: cannon,

sure enough, notes Friedrich; and deep dimrolling peals, as of volleying smallarms; "the sky all on fire

over there," as the hoarfrosty evening fell. Old Leopold busy at it, seemingly. That is the glare of the Old

Dessauer's countenance; who is giving voice, in that manner, to the earthly and the heavenly powers;

Friedrich, as may be supposed, made his best speed next morning: "All well!" say the messengers; all well,

says Old Leopold, whom he meets at Wilsdruf, and welcomes with a joyful embrace; "dismounting from his

horse, at sight of Leopold, and advancing to meet him with doffed hat and open arms,"and such words and

treatments, that day, as made the old man's face visibly shine. "Your Highness shall conduct me!" And the

two made survey together of the actual Field of Kesselsdorf; strewn with the ghastly wrecks of battle,many

citizens of Dresden strolling about, or sorrowfully seeking for their lost ones among the wounded and dead.

No hurt to these poor citizens, who dread none; help to them rather: such is Friedrich's mind,concerning

which, in the AnecdoteBooks, there are Narratives (not worth giving) of a vapidly romantic character,

credible though inexact. [For the indisputable part, see Orlich, ii. 343, 344; and OEuvres de Frederic, iii.

170.] Friedrich, who may well be profuse of thanks and praises, charms the Old Dessauer while they walk

together; brave old man with his holed roquelaure. For certain, he has done the work there,a great deal of

work in his time! Joy looks through his old rough face, of gunpowder color: the Herr Gott has not delivered

him to those damned Scoundrels in the end of his days.On the morrow, Friday, Leopold rolled grandly

forward upon Dresden; Rutowski and Prince Karl vanishing into the Metal Mountains, by Pirna, for

On the Saturday evening, Dresden, capable of not the least defence, has opened all its gates, and Friedrich

and the Prussians are in Dresden; Austrians and wrecked Saxons falling back diligently towards the Metal

Mountains for Bohemia, diligent to clear the road for him. Queen and Junior Princes are here; to whom, as to

all men, Friedrich is courtesy itself; making personal visit to the Royalties, appointing guards of honor,

sacred respect to the Royal Houses; himself will lodge at the Princess Lubomirski's, a private mansion.

"That ferocious, false, ambitious King of Prussia"Well, he is not to be ruined in open fight, on the contrary

is ruinous there; nor by the cunningest ambuscades, and secret combinations, in field or cabinet: our

overwhelming Winter Invasion of himsee where it has ended! Bruhl and Polish Majestythe nocturnal

sky all on fire in those parts, and loud general doomsday comeare a much illuminated pair of gentlemen.

From the time Meissen Bridge was lost, Prince Karl too showing himself so languid, even Bruhl had

discerned that the case was desperate. On the very day of Kesselsdorf,not the day BEFORE, which would

have been such a thrift to Bruhl and others!Friedrich had a Note from Villiers, signifying joyfully that his

Polish Majesty would accept Peace. Thanks to his Polish Majesty:and after Kesselsdorf, perhaps the

EmpressQueen too will! Friedrich's offers are precisely what they were, what they have always been:

"Convention of Hanover; that, in all its parts; old treaty of Breslau, to be guaranteed, to be actually kept. To

me Silesia sure;from you, Polish Majesty, one million crowns as damages for the trouble and cost this

Triple Ambuscade of yours has given me; one million crowns, 150,000 pounds we will say; and all other

requisitions to cease on the day of signature. These are my terms: accept these; then wholly, As you were,

EmpressQueen and you, and all surviving creatures: and I march home within a week." Villiers speeds

rapidly from Prag, with the due olivebranch; with Count Harrach, experienced Austrian, and full powers.

Harrach cannot believe his senses: "Such the terms to be still granted, after all these beatings and

rebeatings!"then at last does believe, with stiff thankfulness and Austrian bows. The Negotiation need not

"His Majesty of Prussia was far too hasty with this Peace," says Valori: "he had taken a threap that he would

have it finished before the Year was done:"in fact, he knows his own mind, MON GROS VALORI, and

that is what few do. You shear through no end of cobwebs with that fine implement, a wisely fixed resolution

of your own. A Peace slow enough for Valori and the French: where could that be looked for?Valori is at

Berlin, in complete disgrace; his Most Christian King having behaved so like a Turk of late. Valori,

horrorstruck at such Peace, what shall he do to prevent it, to retard it? One effort at least. D'Arget his

Secretary, stolen at Jaromirz, is safe back to him; ingenious, ingenuous D'Arget was always a favorite with

Friedrich: despatch D'Arget to him. D'Arget is despatched; with reasons, with remonstrances, with

considerations. D'Arget's Narrative is given: an ingenuous offhand Piece;poor little crevice, through

which there is still to be had, singularly clear, and credible in every point, a direct glimpse of Friedrich's own

thoughts, in that manysounding Dresden,so loud, that week, with dinnerparties, with operas, balls,

December, between 18th and 25th). "MONSEIGNEUR,I arrived yesterday at 7 P.M.; as I had the

honor of forewarning you, by the word I wrote to the Abbe [never mind what Abbe; another ValoriClerk]

from Sonnenwalde [my halfway house between Berlin and this City]. I went, first of all, to M. de

Vaugrenand," our Envoy here; "who had the goodness to open himself to me on the Business now on hand. In

my opinion, nothing can be added to the excellent considerations he has been urging on the King of Prussia

"At halfpast 8, I went to his Prussian Majesty's; I found he was engaged with his Concert,"lodges in the

Lubomirski Palace, has his snatch of melody in the evening of such discordant days, "and I could not see

him till after halfpast 9. I announced myself to M. Eichel; he was too overwhelmed with affairs to give me

audience. I asked for Count Rothenburg; he was at cards with the Princess Lubomirski. At last, I did get to

the King: who received me in the most agreeable way; but was just going to Supper; said he must put off

answering till tomorrow morning, morning of this day. M. de Vaugrenand had been so good as prepare me

on the rumors of a Peace with Saxony and the Queen of Hungary. I went to M. Podewils; who said a great

many kind things to me for you. I could only sketch out the matter, at that time; and represented to Podewils

the brilliant position of his Master, who had become Arbiter of the Peace of Europe; that the moment was

come for making this Peace a General One, and that perhaps there would be room for repentance afterwards,

if the opportunity were slighted. He said, his Master's object was that same; and thus closed the conversation

"This morning, I again presented myself at the King of Prussia's. I had to wait, and wait; in fine, it was not till

halfpast 5 in the evening that he returned, or gave me admittance; and I stayed with him till after 7,"when

Concerttime was at hand again. Listen to a remarkable Dialogue, of the Conquering Hero with a humble

Friend whom he likes. "His Majesty condescended (A DAIGNE) to enter with me into all manner of details;

"That M. de Valori had done admirably not to come, himself, with that Letter from the King [Most Christian,

OUR King; Letter, the sickly Document above spoken of]; that there could not have been an Answer

expected,the Letter being almost of ironical strain; his Majesty [Most Christian] not giving him the least

hope, but merely talking of his fine genius, and how that would extricate him from the perilous entanglement,

and inspire him with a wise resolution in the matter! That he had, in effect, taken a resolution the wisest he

could; and was making his Peace with Saxony and the Queen of Hungary. That he had felt all the dangers of

the difficult situations he had been in,"sheer destruction yawning all round him, in huge imminency, more

than once, and no friend heeding;"that, weary of playing always doubleorquits, he had determined to

end it, and get into a state of tranquillity, which both himself and his People had such need of. That France

could not, without difficulty, have remedied his mishaps; and that he saw by the King's Letter, there was not

even the wish to do it. That his, Friedrich's, military career was completed,"so far as HE could foresee or

decide! "That he would not again expose his Country to the Caprices of Fortune, whose past constancy to him

was sufficiently astonishing to raise fears of a reverse (HEAR!). That his ambitions were fulfilled, in having

compelled his Enemies to ask Peace from him in their own Capital, with the Chancellor of Bohemia

"That he would always be attached to our King's interests, and set all the value in the world on his friendship;

but that he had not been sufficiently assisted to be content. That, observing henceforth an exact neutrality, he

might be enabled to do offices of mediation; and to carry, to the one side and to the other, words of peace.

That he offered himself for that object, and would be charmed to help in it; but that he was fixed to stop there.

That in regard to the basis of General Peace, he had Two Ideas [which the reader can attend to, and see where

they differed from the Event, and where not]:One was, That France should keep Ypres, Furnes, Tournay

[which France did not], giving up the Netherlands otherwise, with Ostend, to the English [to the English!] in

exchange for Cape Breton. The other was, To give up more of our Conquests [we gave them all up, and got

only the glory, and our Codfishery, Cape Breton, back, the English being equally generous], and bargain for

liberty to reestablish Dunkirk in its old condition [not a word of your Dunkirk; there is your Cape Breton,

and we also will go home with what glory there is,not difficult to carry!]. But that it was by England we

must make the overtures, without addressing ourselves to the Court of Vienna; and put it in his, Friedrich's,

power to propose a receivable Project of Peace. That he well conceived the great point was the Queen of

Spain [Termagant and Jenkins's Ear; Termagant's Husband, still living, is a lappet of Termagant's self]: but

that she must content herself with Parma and Piacenza for the Infant, Don Philip [which the Termagant did];

and give back her hold of Savoy [partial hold, of no use to her without the Passes] to the King of Sardinia."

And of the JENKINS'SEAR question, generous England will say nothing? Next to nothing; hopes a

modicum of putty and diplomatic varnish may close that troublesome question,which springs, meanwhile,

"These kind condescensions of his Majesty emboldened me to represent to him the brilliant position he now

held; and how noble it would be, after having been the Hero of Germany, to become, instead of one's own

pacificator, the Pacificator of Europe. 'I grant you,' said he, (MON CHER D'Arget; but it is too dangerous a

part for playing. A reverse brings me to the edge of ruin: I know too well the mood of mind I was in, last time

I left Berlin [with that Threelegged Immensity of Atropos, NOT yet mown down at Hennersdorf by a lucky

cut], ever to expose myself to it again! If luck had been against me there, I saw myself a Monarch without

throne; and my subjects in the cruelest oppression. A bad game that: always, mere CHECK TO YOUR

KING; no other move;I refer it to you, friend D'Arget:in fine, I wish to be at peace.'

"I represented to him that the House of Austria would never, with a tranquil eye, see his House in possession

of Silesia. 'Those that come after me,' said he, 'will do as they like; the Future is beyond man's reach. Those

that come after will do as they can. I have acquired; it is theirs to preserve. I am not in alarm about the

Austrians;and this is my answer to what you have been saying about the weakness of my guarantees. They

dread my Army; the luck that I have. I am sure of their sitting quiet for the dozen years or so which may

remain to me of life;quiet till I have, most likely, done with it. What! Are we never to have any good of

our life, then (NE DOISJE DONC JAMAIS JOUIR)? There is more for me in the true greatness of laboring

for the happiness of my subjects, than in the repose of Europe. I have put Saxony out of a condition to do

hurt. She owes 14,775,000 crowns of debt [two millions and a quarter sterling]; and by the Defensive

Alliance which I form with her, I provide myself [but ask Bruhl withal!] a help against Austria. I would not

henceforth attack a cat, except to defend myself.' ["These are his very words," adds D'Arget;and well

worth noting.] (Ambition (GLOIRE) and my interests were the occasion of my first Campaigns. The late

Kaiser's situation, and my zeal for France [not to mention interests again], gave rise to these second: and I

have been fighting always since for my own hearths,for my very existence, I might say! Once more, I

know the state I had got into:if I saw Prince Karl at the gates of Paris, I would not stir.''And us at the

gates of Vienna,' answered I promptly, 'with the same indifference?''Yes; and I swear it to you, D'Arget. In

a word, I want to have some good of my life (VEUX JOUIR). What are we, poor human atoms, to get up

"The rest of the conversation passed in general talk, about Literature, Theatres and such objects. My

reasonings and objectings, on the great matter, I need not farther detail: by the frank discourse his Prussian

Majesty was kind enough to go into, you may gather perhaps that my arguments were various, and not ill

chosen;and it is too evident they have all been in vain." Your Excellency's (really in a very faithful

way) D'ARGET. [Valori, i. 290294 (no date, except "Dresden, 1745,"sleepy Editor feeling no want of

D'Arget, about a month after this, was taken into Friedrich's service; Valori consenting, whose occupation

was now gone;and we shall hear of D'Arget again. Take this small Note, as summary of him: "D'Arget

(18th January, 1746) had some title, 'Secretary at Orders (SECRETAIRE DES COMMANDEMENTS),' bit

of pension; and continued in the character of reader, or miscellaneous literary attendant and agent, very much

liked by his Master, for six years coming. A man much heard of, during those years of office. March, 1752,

having lost his dear little Prussian Wife, and got into ill health and spirits, he retired on leave to Paris; and

next year had to give up the thought of returning;though he still, and to the end, continued loyally attached

to his old Master, and more or less in correspondence with him. Had got, before long, not through Friedrich's

influence at Paris, some small Appointment in the ECOLE MILITAIRE there. He is, of all the Frenchmen

Friedrich had about him, with the exception of D'Argens alone, the most honesthearted. The above Letter,

lucid, innocent, modest, altogether rational and practical, is a fair specimen of D'Arget: add to it the prompt

selfsacrifice (and in that fine silent way) at Jaromirz for Valori, and readers may conceive the man. He lived

at Paris, in meagre but contented fashion, RUE DE L'ECOLE MILITAIRE, till 1778; and seems, of all the

ExPrussian Frenchmen, to have known most about Friedrich; and to have never spoken any falsity against

him. Duvernet, the 'M' Biographer of VOLTAIRE, frequented him a good deal; and any true notions, or

glimmerings of such, that he has about Prussia, are probably ascribable to D'Arget." [See OEuvres de

The Treaty of Dresden can be read in Scholl, Flassan, Rousset, Adelung; but, except on compulsion, no

creature will now read it, nor did this Editor, even he, find it pay. Peace is made. Peace of Dresden is

signed, Christmas Day, 1745: "To me Silesia, without farther treachery or trick; you, wholly as you were."

Europe at large, as Friedrich had done, sees "the sky all on fire about Dresden." The fierce big battles done

against this man have, one and all of them, become big defeats. The strenuous machinations, highbuilt plans

cunningly devised,the utmost sumtotal of what the Imperial and Royal Potencies can, for the life of them,

do: behold, it has all tumbled down here, in loud crash; the final peal of it at Kesselsdorf; and the

consummation is flame and smoke, conspicuous over all the Nations. You will let him keep his own

henceforth, then, will you? Silesia, which was NOT yours nor ever shall be? Silesia and no afterthought? The

Saxons sign, the high Plenipotentiaries all; in the eyes of Villiers, I am told, were seen sublimely pious tears.

Harrach, bowing with stiff, almost incredulous, gratitude, swears and signs;hurries home to his Sovereign

Lady, with Peace, and such a smile on his face; and on her Imperial Majesty's such a smile!readers shall

There are but Two new points in the Treaty of Dresden,nay properly there is but One point, about which

posterity can have the least care or interest; for that other, concerning "The Toll of Schidlo," and settlement

of haggles on the Navigation of the Elbe there, was not kept by the Saxons, but continued a haggle still: this

One point is the Eleventh Article. Inconceivably small; but liable to turn up on us again, in a memorable

manner. That let us translate,for M. de Voltaire's sake, and time coming! STEUER means LandTax;

OBERSTEUEREINNAHME will be something like Royal Exchequer, therefore; and STEUERSCHEIN

will be approximately equivalent to Exchequer Bill. Article Eleventh stipulates:

"All subjects and servants of his Majesty the King of Prussia who hold bonds of the Saxon

OBERSTEUEREINNAHME shall be paid in full, capital and interest, at the times, and to the amount,

specified in said STEUERSCHEINE or Bonds." That is Article Eleventh. "The Saxon Exchequer," says

an old Note on it, "thanks to Bruhl's extravagance, has been as good as bankrupt, paying with inconvertible

paper, with SCHEINE (Things to be SHOWN), for some time past; which paper has accordingly sunk, let us

say, 25 per cent below its nominal amount in gold. All Prussian subjects, who hold these Bonds, are to be

paid in gold; Saxons, and others, will have to be content with paper till things come round again, if things

ever do." Yes;and, by ill chance, the matter will attract M. de Voltaire's keen eye in the interim!

Friedrich stayed eight days in Dresden, the loud theme of Gazetteers and rumors; the admired of two classes,

in all Countries: of the many who admire success, and also of the few who can understand what it is to

deserve success. Among his own Countrymen, this last Winter has kindled all their admirations to the

flaming pitch. Saved by him from imminent destruction; their enemies swept home as if by one invincible;

nay, sent home in a kind of noble shame, conquered by generosity. These feelings, though not encouraged to

speak, run very high. The Dresdeners in private society found him delightful; the high ladies especially:

"Could you have thought it; terrific Mars to become radiant Apollo in this manner!" From considerable

Collections of Anecdotes illustrating this fact, in a way now fallen vapid to us,I select only the

"Do readers recollect Friedrich's first visit to Dresden [in 1728], seventeen years ago; and a certain charming

young Countess Flemming, at that time only fourteen; who, like a Hebe as she was, contrived beautiful

surprises for him, and among other things presented him, so gracefully, on the part of August the Strong, with

his first flute?"No reader of this History can recollect it; nor indeed, except in a mythic sense, believe it! A

young Countess Flemming (daughter of old Feldmarschall Flemming) doubtless there might be, who

presented him a flute; but as to HIS FIRST flute? "That same charming young Countess Flemming is still

here, age now thirtyone; charming, more than ever, though now under a changed name; having wedded a

Von Racknitz (Supreme GentlemanUsher, or some such thing) a few years ago, and brought him children

and the usual felicities. How much is changed! August the Strong, where is he; and his famous Three

Hundred and Fiftyfour, Enchantress Orzelska and the others, where are they? Enchantress Orzelska wedded,

quarrelled, and is in a convent: her charming destiny concluded. Rutowski is not now in the Prussian Army:

he got beaten, Wednesday last, at Kesselsdorf, fighting against that Army. And the Chevalier de Saxe, he too

was beaten there;clambering now across the Metal Mountains, ask not of him. And the Marechal de Saxe,

he takes Cities, fights Battles of Fontenoy, 'mumbling a lead bullet all day;' being dropsical, nearly dead of

debaucheries; the most dissolute (or probably so) of all the Sons of Adam in his day. August the Physically

Strong is dead. August the Spiritually Weak is fled to Prag with his Bruhl. And we do not come, this time, to

get a flute; but to settle the account of Victories, and give Peace to Nations. Strange, here as always, to look

back,to look round or forward,in the mad huge whirl of that loudroaring Loom of Time!One of

Countess Racknitz's Sons happened to leave MANUSCRIPT DIARIES [rather feeble, not too

exactlooking], and gives us, from Mamma's reminiscences" ... Not a word more. [Rodenbeck, Beitrage, i.

The Peace, we said, was signed on Christmasday. Next day, Sunday, Friedrich attended Sermon in the

Kreuzkirche (Protestant High Church of Dresden), attended Opera withal; and on Monday morning had

vanished out of Dresden, as all his people had done, or were diligently doing. Tuesday, he dined briefly at

Wusterhausen (a place we once knew well), with the Prince of Prussia, whose it now is; got into his open

carriage again, with the said Prince and his other Brother Ferdinand; and drove swiftly homeward. Berlin,

drunk with joy, was all out on the streets, waiting. On the Heath of Britz, four or five miles hitherward of

Berlin, a body of young gentlemen ("Merchants mostly, who had ridden out so far") saluted him with

"VIVAT FRIEDRICH DER GROSSE (Long live Friedrich THE GREAT)!" thrice over;as did, in a less

articulate manner, Berlin with one voice, on his arrival there; Burgher Companies lining the streets;

Population vigorously shouting; Pupils of the Koln Gymnasium, with Clerical and School Functionaries in

who cites Beschreibung ("Description of his Majesty's Triumphant Entry, on the" and other Contemporary

Pamphlets. Rodenbeck, i. 124.] On reaching the Portal of the Palace, his Majesty stept down; and, glancing

round the SchlossPlatz and the crowded windows and simmering multitudes, saluted, taking off his hat;

which produced such a shout,naturally the loudest of all. And so EXIT King, into his interior. Tuesday,

23 P.M., 28th December, 1745: a King new christened in the above manner, so far as people could.

Illuminated Berlin shone like noon, all that night (the beginning of a GAUDEAMUS which lasted

miscellaneously for weeks):but the King stole away to see a friend who was dying; that poor Duhan de

Jaudun, his early Schoolmaster, who had suffered much for him, and whom he always much loved. Duhan

died, in a day or two. Poor Jordan, poor Keyserling (the "Cesarion" of young days): them also he has lost; and

often laments, in this otherwise bright time. {In OEuvres, xvii. 288; xviii. 141; IB. 142 (painfully tender

Friedrich has now climbed the heights, and sees himself on the upper tableland of Victory and Success; his

desperate lifeand death struggles triumphantly ended. What may be ahead, nobody knows; but here is fair

outlook that his enemies and Austria itself have had enough of him. No wringing of his Silesia from this "bad

Man." Not to be overset, this one, by never such exertions; oversets US, on the contrary, plunges us

heelsoverhead into the ditch, so often as we like to apply to him; nothing but heavy beatings, disastrous

breaking of crowns, to be had on trying there! "Five Victories!" as Voltaire keeps counting on his fingers,

with upturned eyes,Mollwitz, Chotusitz, Striegau, Sohr, Kesselsdorf (the last done by Anhalt; but omitting

Hennersdorf, and that sudden slitting of the big SaxonAustrian Projects into a cloud of feathers, as fine a

feat as any),"Five Victories!" counts Voltaire; calling on everybody (or everybody but Friedrich himself,

who is easily sated with that kind of thing) to admire. In the world are many opinions about Friedrich. In

Austria, for instance, what an opinion; sinister, gloomy in the extreme: or in England, which derives from

Austria,only with additional dimness, and with gloomy new provocations of its own before long! Many

opinions about Friedrich, all dim enough: but this, that he is a very demon for fighting, and the stoutest King

walking the Earth just now, may well be a universal one. A man better not be meddled with, if he will be at

Friedrich accordingly is not meddled with, or not openly meddled with; and has, for the Ten or Eleven Years

coming, a time of perfect external Peace. He himself is decided "not to fight with a cat," if he can get the

peace kept; and for about eight years hopes confidently that this, by good management, will continue

possible; till, in the last three years, electric symptoms did again disclose themselves, and such hope more

and more died away. It is well known there lay in the fates a Third Silesian War for him, worse than both the

others; which is now the main segment of his History still lying ahead for us, were this Halcyon Period done.

Halcyon Period counts from Christmasday, Dresden, 1745,"from this day, Peace to the end of my life!"

had been Friedrich's fond hope. But on the 9th day of September, 1756, Friedrich was again entering Dresden

(Saxony some twelve days before); and the Crowning Struggle of his Life was, beyond all expectation, found

Friedrich's History during this intervening Halcyon or Peace Period must, in some way, be made known to

readers: but for a great many reasons, especially at present, it behooves to be given in compressed form;

riddled down, to an immense extent, out of those sad Prussian Repositories, where the grain of perennial, of

significant and still memorable, lies overwhelmed under rubbish mountains of the fairly extinct, the

poisonously dusty and forgettable;ACH HIMMEL! Which indispensable preliminary process, how can an

English Editor, at this time, do it; no Prussian, at any time, having thought of trying it! From a painful

Predecessor of mine, I collect, rummaging among his dismal Papermasses, the following Three Fragments,

1. "Friedrich was as busy, in those Years, as in the generality of his life; and his actions, and salutary

conquests over difficulties, were many, profitable to Prussia and to himself. Very well worth keeping in

mind. But not fit for History; or at least only fit in the summary form; to be delineated in little, with large

generic strokes,if we had the means;such details belonging to the Prussian Antiquary, rather than to the

English Historian of Friedrich in our day. A happy Ten Years of time. Perhaps the time for Montesquieu's

aphorism, 'Happy the People whose Annals are blank in HistoryBooks!' The Prussian Antiquary, had he

once got any image formed to himself of Friedrich, and of Friedrich's History in its human lineaments and

organic sequences, will glean many memorabilia in those Years: which his readers then (and not till then)

will be able to intercalate in their places, and get human good of. But alas, while there is no intelligible

human image, nothing of lineaments or organic sequences, or other than a jumbled mass of Historical

MarineStores, presided over by Dryasdust and Human Stupor (unsorted, unlabelled, tied up in blind sacks),

the very Antiquary will have uphill work of it, and his readers will often turn round on him with a gloomy

2. "Friedrich's Lifelittle as he expected it, that day when he started up from his aguefit at Reinsberg, and

grasped the fiery Opportunity that was shooting pastis a Life of War. The chief memory that will remain of

him is that of a King and man who fought consummately well. Not Peace and the Muses; no, that is denied

him, though he was so unwilling, always, to think it denied! But his LifeTask turned out to be a Battle for

Silesia. It consists of Three grand Struggles of War. And not for Silesia only; unconsciously, for what far

"Deeply unconscious of it, they were passing their 'Trials,' his Nation and he, in the great

CivilServiceExamination Hall of this Universe: 'Are you able to defend yourselves, then; and to hang

together coherent, against the whole world and its incoherencies and rages?' A question which has to be asked

of Nations, before they can be recognized as such, and be baptized into the general commonwealth; they are

mere Hordes or accidental Aggregates, till that Question come. Question which this Nation had long been

getting ready for; which now, under this King, it answered to the satisfaction of gods and men: 'Yes, Heaven

assisting, we can stand on our defence; and in the longrun (as with air when you try to annihilate it, or crush

it to NOTHING) there is even an infinite force in us; and the whole world does not succeed in annihilating

us!' Upon which has followed what we term National Baptism;or rather this was the National Baptism, this

furious one in torrent whirlwinds of fire; done three times over, till in gods or men there was no doubt left.

That was Friedrich's function in the world; and a great and memorable one;not to his own Prussian Nation

"'Is Teutschland a Nation; is there in Teutschland still a Nation?' Austria, not dishonestly, but much sunk in

superstitions and involuntary mendacities, and liable to sink much farther, answers always, in gloomy proud

tone, 'Yes, I am the Nation of Teutschland!'but is mistaken, as turns out. For it is not mendacities,

conscious or other, but veracities, that the Divine Powers will patronize, or even in the end will put up with at

all. Which you ought to understand better than you do, my friend. For, on the great scale and on the small,

and in all seasons, circumstances, scenes and situations where a Son of Adam finds himself, that is true, and

even a sovereign truth. And whoever does not know it,human charity to him (were such always possible)

would be, that HE were furnished with handcuffs as a part of his outfit in this world, and put under guidance

of those who do. Yes; to him, I should say, a private pair of handcuffs were much usefuler than a

ballotbox,were the times once settled again, which they are far from being!" ...

"So that, if there be only Austria for Nation, Teutschland is in ominous case. Truly so. But there is in

Teutschland withal, very irrecognizable to Teutschland, yet authentically present, a Man of the properly

unconquerable type; there is also a select Population drilled for him: these two together will prove to you that

there is a Nation. Conquest of Silesia, Three Silesian Wars; labors and valors as of Alcides, in vindication of

oneself and one's Silesia: secretly, how unconsciously, that other and higher Question of Teutschland, and

of its having in it a Nation, was Friedrich's sore task and his Prussia's at that time. As Teutschland may be

perhaps now, in our day, beginning to recognize; with hope, with astonishment, poor Teutschland!" ...

3. "And in fine, leaving all that, there is one thing undeniable: In all human Narrative, it is the battle only, and

not the victory, that can be dwelt upon with advantage. Friedrich has now, by his Second Silesian War,

achieved Greatness: 'Friedrich the Great;' expressly so denominated, by his People and others. The struggle

upwards is the Romance; your hero once wedded,to GLORY, or whoever the Bride may be,the

Romance ends. Precise critics do object, That there may still lie difficulties, new perils and adventures

ahead:which proves conspicuously true in this case of ours. And accordingly, our Book not being a

Romance but a History, let us, with all fidelity, look out what these are, and how they modify our Royal

Gentleman who has got his wedding done. With all fidelity; but with all brevity, no less. For, inasmuch as"

Well, brevity in most cases is desirable. And, privately, it must be owned there is another consideration of no

small weight: That, our Prussian resources falling altogether into bankruptcy during PeacePeriods, Nature

herself has so ordered it, in this instance! Partly it is our Books (the Prussian Dryasdust reaching his acme on

those occasions), but in part too it is the Events themselves, that are small and want importance; that have

fallen dead to us, in the huge new Time and its uproars. Events not of flagrant notability (like battles or

warpassages), to bridle Dryasdust, and guide him in some small measure. Events rather which, except as

characteristic of one memorable Man and King, are mostly now of no memorability whatever. Crowd all

these indiscriminately into sacks, and shake them out pellmell on us: that is Dryasdust's sweet way. As if the

largest MarineStores Establishment in all the world had suddenly, on hest of some Necromancer or

maleficent person, taken wing upon you; and were dancing, in boundless mad whirl, round your devoted

head; simmering and dancing, very much at its ease; nowhither; asking YOU cheerfully, "What is your

You have to retire many yards, and gaze with a desperate steadiness; assuring yourself: "Well, it does, right

indisputably, shadow forth SOMEthing. This was a Thing Alive, and did at one time stick together, as an

organic Fact on the Earth, though it now dances in Dryasdust at such a rate!" It is only by selfhelp of this

sort, and long survey, with rigorous selection, and extremely extensive exclusion and oblivion, that you gain

the least light in such an element. "Brevity"little said, when little has been got to be knownis an evident

rule! Courage, reader; by good eyesight, you will still catch some features of Friedrich as we go along. To

SAY our little in a not unintelligible manner, and keep the rest well hidden, it is all we can do for you!

Friedrich's Journey to Pyrmont is the first thing recorded of him by the Newspapers. Gone to take the waters;

as he did after his former War. Here is what I had noted of that small Occurrence, and of one or two others

"MAY 1217th, 1746," say the old Books, "his Majesty sets out for Pyrmont, taking Brunswick by the way;

arrives at Pyrmont May 17th; stays till June 8th;" three weeks good. "Is busy corresponding with the King of

France about a General Peace; but, owing to the embitterment of both parties, it was not possible at this

time." Taking the waters at least, and amusing himself. From Brunswick, in passing, he had brought with him

his Brotherinlaw the reigning Duke; Rothenburg was there, and Brother Henri; D'Arget expressly;

Fluteplayer Quanz withal, and various musical people: "in all, a train of above sixty persons." I notice also

that Prince Wilhelm of Hessen was in Pyrmont at the time. With whom, one fancies, what speculations there

might be: About the late and present War passages, about the poor Peace Prospects; your Hessian "Siege" so

called "of Blair in Athol" (CULLODEN now comfortably done), and other cognate topics. That is the

It is no surprise to us to hear, in these months, of new and continual attention to Army matters, to Husbandry

matters; and to making good, on all sides, the ruins left by War. Of rebuilding (at the royal expense) "the

town of Schmiedeberg, which had been burnt;" of rebuilding, and repairing from their damage, all Silesian

villages and dwellings; and still more satisfactory, How, "in May, 1746, there was, in every Circle of the

Country, by exact liquidation of Accounts [so rapidly got done], exact payment made to the individuals

concerned, 1. of all the hay, straw and corn that had been delivered to his Majesty's Armies; 2. of all the

horses that had perished in the King's work; 3. of all the horses stolen by the Enemy, and of all the

moneycontributions exacted by the Enemy: payment in ready cash, and according to the rules of justice

It was from Pyrmont, May, 1746,or more definitely, it was "at Potsdam early in the morning, 15th

September," following,that Friedrich launched, or shot forth from its moorings, after much previous

attempting and preparing, a very great Enterprise; which he has never lost sight of since the day he began

reigning, nor will till his reign and life end: the actual Reform of Law in Prussia. "May 12th, 1746,"

Friedrich, on the road to Pyrmont, answers his Chief LawMinister Cocceji's REPORT OF PRACTICAL

PLAN on this matter: "Yes; looks very hopeful!"and took it with him to consider at Pyrmont, during his

leisure. Much considering of it, then and afterwards, there was. And finally, September 15th, early in the

morning, Cocceji had an Interview with Friedrich; and the decisive fiat was given: "Yes; start on it, in God's

name! Pommern, which they call the PROVINCIA LITIGIOSA; try it there first!" [Ranke, ii. 392.] And

Cocceji, a vigorous old man of sixty seven, one of the most learned of Lawyers, and a very Hercules in

cleaning LawStables, has, on Friedrich's urgencies,which have been repeated on every breathingtime of

Peace there has been, and even sometimes in the middle of War (last January, 1745, for example; and again,

express Order, January, 1746, a fortnight after Peace was signed),actually got himself girt for this salutary

work. "Wash me out that horror of accumulation, let us see the old Pavements of the place again. Every

Cocceji, who had been meditating such matters for a great while, ["1st March, 1738," Friedrich Wilhelm's

"Edict" on Law Reform: Cocceji ready, at that time;but his then Majesty forbore.] and was himself eager

to proceed, in spite of considerable wigged oppositions and secret reluctances that there were, did now, on

that fiat of September 15th, get his Select Commission of Six riddled together and adjoined to him,the

likeliest Six that Prussia, in her different Provinces, could yield;and got the STANDE of Pommern, after

due committeeing and deliberating, to consent and promise help. December 31st, 1746, was the day the

STANDE consented: and January 10th, 1747, Cocceji and his Six set out for Pommern. On a longish

Enterprise, in that Province and the others;of which we shall have to take notice, and give at least the dates

To sweep out pettifogging Attorneys, cancel improper Advocates, to regulate Fees; to war, in a calm but

deadly manner, against pedantries, circumlocutions and the multiplied forms of stupidity, cupidity and human

owlery in this department;and, on the whole, to realize from every Court, now and onwards, "A decision to

all Lawsuits within a Year after their beginning." This latter result, Friedrich thinks, will itself be highly

beneficial; and be the sign of all manner of improvements. And Cocceji, scanning it with those potent

laweyes of his, ventures to assure him that it will be possible. As, in fact, it proved;honor to Cocceji and

his King, and King's Father withal. "Samuel von Cocceji [says an old Note], son of a Law Professor, and

himself once such,was picked up by Friedrich Wilhelm, for the Official career, many years ago. A man of

wholesome, by no means weakly aspect,to judge by his Portrait, which is the chief 'Biography' I have of

him. Potent eyes and eyebrows, ditto blunt nose; honest, almost careless lips, and deep chin well dewlapped:

extensive penetrative face, not pincered together, but potently fallen closed;comfortable to see, in a wig of

such magnitude. Friedrich, a judge of men, calls him 'a man of sterling character (CARACTERE INTEGRE

ET DROIT), whose qualities would have suited the noble times of the Roman Republic.'" [ OEuvres, iv. 2.]

He has his Herculean battle, his Master and he have, with the Owleries and the vulturous

LawPedantries,which I always love Friedrich for detesting as he does:and, during the next five years,

the world will hear often of Cocceji, and of this Prussian LawReform by Friedrich and him.

His Majesty's exertions to make Peace were not successful; what does lie in his power is, to keep out of the

quarrel himself. It appears great hopes were entertained, by some in England, of gaining Friedrich over; of

making him Supreme Captain to the Cause of Liberty. And prospects were held out to him, quasioffers

made, of a really magnificent nature,undeniable, though obscure. Herr Ranke has been among the

Archives again; and comes out with fractional snatches of a very strange "Paper from England;" capriciously

hiding all details about it, all intelligible explanation: so that you in vain ask, "Where, When, How, By

whom?" and can only guess to yourself that Carteret was somehow at the bottom of the thing; AUT

CARTERETUS AUT DIABOLUS. "What would your Majesty think to be elected Stadtholder of Holland?

Without a Stadtholder, these Dutch are worth nothing; not hoistable, nor of use when hoisted, all palavering

and pulling different ways. Must have a Stadtholder; and one that stands firm on some basis of his own.

Stadtholder of Holland, King of Prussia,you then, in such position, take the reins of this poor floundering

English Dutch Germanic AntiFrench War, you; and drive it in the style you have. Conquer back the

Netherlands to us; French Netherlands as well. French and Austrian Netherlands together, yours in

perpetuity; Dutch Stadtholderate as good as ditto: this, with Prussia and its fighting capabilities, will be a

pleasant Protestant thing. Austria cares little about the Netherlands, in comparison. Austria, getting back its

Lorraine and Alsace, will be content, will be strong on its feet. What if it should even lose Italy? France,

Spain, Sardinia, the Italian Petty Principalities and Anarchies: suppose they tug and tussle, and collapse there

as they can? But let France try to look across the Rhine again; and to threaten Teutschland, England, and the

This is authentically the purport of Herr Ranke's extraordinary Document; [Ranke, iii. 359.] guessable as due

to CARTERETUS or DIABOLUS. Here is an outlook; here is a career as Conquering Hero, if that were one's

line! A very magnificent groundplan; hung up to kindle the fancy of a young King,who is far too prudent

to go into it at all. More definite quasiofficial offers, it seems, were made him from the same quarter:

Subsidies to begin with, such subsidies as nobody ever had before; say 1,000,000 pounds sterling by the

Year. To which Friedrich answered, "Subsidies, your Excellency?" (Are We a HackneyCoachman,

then?)and, with much contempt, turned his back on that offer. No fighting to be had, by purchase or

seduction, out of this young man. Will not play the Conquering Hero at all, nor the HackneyCoachman at

all; has decided "not to fight a cat" if let alone; but to do and endeavor a quite other set of things, for the rest

Friedrich, readers can observe, is not uplifted with his greatness. He has been too much beaten and bruised to

be anything but modestly thankful for getting out of such a deadly clash of chaotic swords. Seems to have

little pride even in his "Five Victories;" or hides it well. Talks not overmuch about these things; talks of them,

so far as we can hear, with his old comrades only, in praise of THEIR prowesses; as a simple human being,

not as a supreme of captains; and at times acknowledges, in a fine sincere way, the omnipotence of Luck in

One of the most characteristic traits, extensively symbolical of Friedrich's intentions and outlooks at this

Epoch, is his installing of himself in the little DwellingHouse, which has since become so celebrated under

the name of SansSouci. The plan of SansSoucian elegant commodious little "Country Box," quite of

modest pretensions, one story high; on the pleasant Hilltop near Potsdam, with other little green Hills, and

pleasant views of land and water, all roundhad been sketched in part by Friedrich himself; and the diggings

and terracings of the Hillside were just beginning, when he quitted for the Last War. "April 14th, 1745,"

while he lay in those perilous enigmatic circumstances at Neisse with Pandours and devouring bugbears

round him, "the foundation stone was laid" (Knobelsdorf being architect, once more, as in the old Reinsberg

case): and the work, which had been steadily proceeding while the Master struggled in those dangerous

battles and adventures far away from it, was in good forwardness at his return. An object of cheerful interest

It was not till May, 1747, that the formal occupation took place: "Mayday, 1747," he had a grand

Househeating, or "First Dinner, of 200 covers: and May 19th20th was the first night of his sleeping there."

For the next Forty Years, especially as years advanced, he spent the most of his days and nights in this little

Mansion; which became more and more his favorite retreat, whenever the noises and scenic etiquettes were

not inexorable. "SANSSOUCI;" which we may translate "NoBother." A busy place this too, but of the

quiet kind; and more a home to him than any of the Three fine Palaces (ultimately Four), which lay always

waiting for him in the neighborhood. Berlin and Charlottenburg are about twenty miles off; Potsdam, which,

like the other two, is rather consummate among Palaces, lies leftwise in front of him within a short mile. And

at length, to RIGHT hand, in a similar distance and direction, came the "NEUE SCHLOSS" (New Palace of

Potsdam), called also the "PALACE of SansSouci," in distinction from the DwellingHouse, or as it were

Certainly it is a significant feature of Friedrich; and discloses the inborn proclivity he had to retirement, to

study and reflection, as the chosen element of human life. Why he fell upon so ambitious a title for his Royal

Cottage? "NoBother" was not practically a thing he, of all men, could consider possible in this world: at the

utmost perhaps, by good care, "LESSBother"! The name, it appears, came by accident. He had prepared his

Tomb, and various Tombs, in the skirts of this new Cottage: looking at these, as the building of them went

on, he was heard to say, one day (Spring 1746), D'Argens strolling beside him: "OUI, ALORS JE SERAI

SANS SOUCI (Once THERE, one will be out of bother)!" A saying which was rumored of, and repeated in

society, being by such a man. Out of which rumor in society, and the evident aim of the Cottage Royal, there

was gradually born, as Venus from the froth of the sea, this name, "SansSouci;"which Friedrich adopted;

and, before the Year was out, had put upon his lintel in gold letters. So that, by "Mayday, 1747," the name

was in all men's memories; and has continued ever since. [Preuss, i. 268, Nicolai, iii. 1200.] Tourists know

this Cottage Royal: Friedrich's "Three Rooms in it; one of them a Library; in another, a little Alcove with an

iron Bed" (iron, without curtains; old softened HAT the usual royal nightcap)altogether a soldier's

lodging:all this still stands as it did. Cheerfully looking down on its gardenterraces, stairs, Greek statues,

and against the free sky:perhaps we may visit it in time coming, and take a more special view. In the Years

now on hand, Friedrich, I think, did not much practically live there, only shifted thither now and then. His

chief residence is still Potsdam Palace; and in Carnival time, that of Berlin; with Charlottenburg for

This of SansSouci is but portion of a wider Tendency, wider set of endeavors on Friedrich's part, which

returns upon him now that Peace has returned: That of improving his own Domesticities, while he labors at

so many public improvements. Gazing long on that simmering "Typhoon of Marinestores" above

mentioned, we do trace Three great Heads of Endeavor in this Peace Period. FIRST, the Reform of Law;

which, as above hinted, is now earnestly pushed forward again, and was brought to what was thought

completion before long. With much rumor of applause from contemporary mankind. Concerning which we

are to give some indications, were it only dates in their order: though, as the affair turned out not to be

completed, but had to be taken up again long after, and is an affair lying wide of British ken,there need

not, and indeed cannot, be much said of it just now. SECONDLY, there is eager Furthering of the

Husbandries, the Commerces, Practical Arts, especially at present, that of Foreign Commerce, and

Shipping from the Port of Embden. Which shall have due notice. And THIRDLY, what must be our main

topic here, there is that of Improving the Domesticities, the Household Enjoyments such as they were;

especially definable as Renewal of the old Reinsberg Program; attempt more strenuous than ever to realize

that beautiful ideal. Which, and the total failure of which, and the consequent quasi abandonment of it for

time coming, are still, intrinsically and by accident, of considerable interest to modern readers.

Curious, and in some sort touching, to observe how that old original LifeProgram still reemerges on this

King: "Something of melodious possible in one's poor life, is not there? A Life to the Practical Duties, yes;

but to the Muses as well!"Of Friedrich's success in his LawReforms, in his Husbandries, Commerces and

Furtherances, conspicuously great as it was, there is no possibility of making careless readers cognizant at

this day. Only by the great resultsa "Prussia QUADRUPLED" in his time, and the likecan studious

readers convince themselves, in a cold and merely statistic way. But in respect of Life to the Muses, we have

happily the means of showing that in actual vitality; in practical struggle towards fulfillment,and how

extremely disappointing the result was. In a word, Voltaire pays his Fifth and final Visit in this Period; the

Voltaire matter comes to its consummation. To that, as to one of the few things which are perfectly knowable

in this Period of TENYEARS PEACE, and in which mankind still take interest, we purpose mostly to

Ten years of a great King's life, ten busy years too; and nothing visible in them, of main significance, but a

crash of Author's Quarrels, and the Crowning Visit of Voltaire? Truly yes, reader; so it has been ordered.

Innumerable highdressed gentlemen, gods of this lower world, are gone all to inorganic powder, no

comfortable or profitable memory to be held of them more; and this poor Voltaire, without implement except

the tongue and brain of him,he is still a shining object to all the populations; and they say and symbol to

me, "Tell us of him! He is the man!" Very strange indeed. Changed times since, for dogs barking at the heels

of him, and lions roaring ahead,for Asses of Mirepoix, for foul creatures in high dizenment, and foul

creatures who were hungry valets of the same,this man could hardly get the highways walked! And indeed

had to keep his eyes well open, and always have covert within reach,under pain of being torn to pieces,

while he went about in the flesh, or rather in the bones, poor lean being. Changed times; within the Century

last past! For indeed there was in that man what far transcends all dizenment, and temporary potency over

valets, over legions, treasurevaults and dim millions mostly blockhead: a spark of Heaven's own lucency, a

gleam from the Eternities (in small measure);which becomes extremely noticeable when the Dance is over,

when your tallowdips and waxlights are burnt out, and the brawl of the night is gone to bed.

Public European affairs require little remembrance; the War burning well to leeward of us henceforth. A huge

world of smoky chaos; the special fires of it, if there be anything of fire, are all the more clear far in the

distance. Of which sort, and of which only, the reader is to have notice. Marechal de SaxeKing Louis

oftenest personally there, to give his name and countenance to things done is very glorious in the

Netherlands; captures, sometimes by surprisal, place after place (beautiful surprisal of Brussels last winter);

with sieges of Antwerp, Mons, Charleroi, victoriously following upon Brussels: and, before the end of 1746,

he is close upon Holland itself; intent on having Namur and Maestricht; for which the poor SeaPowers, with

a handful of Austrians, fight two Battles, and are again beaten both times. [1. Battle of Roucoux, 11th

October, 1746; Prince Karl commanding, English taking mainly the stress of fight;Saxe having already

outwitted poor Karl, and got Namur. 2. Battle of Lawfelt, or Lauffeld, called also of VAL, 2d July, 1747;

Royal Highness of Cumberland commanding (and taking most of the stress; Ligonier made prisoner, fighting

ill, and Bathyani and his Austrians hardly in the fire at all.] A glorious, evervictorious Marechal; and has an

Army very "hightoned," in more than one sense: indeed, I think, one of the loudesttoned Armies ever on

the field before. Loud not with well served Artillery alone, but with playactor Thunderbarrels (always an

Chapter II. PEEP AT VOLTAIRE AND HIS DIVINE EMILIE (BY CANDLELIGHT) IN THE TIDE OF EVENTS. 938

itinerant Theatre attends), with gasconading talk, with orgies, debaucheries,busy service of the Devil,

AND pleasant consciousness that we are Heaven's masterpiece, and are in perfect readiness to die at any

moment;our ELASTICITY and agility ("ELAN" as we call it) well kept up, in that manner, for the time

Hungarian Majesty, contrary to hope, neglects the Netherlands, "Holland and England, for their own sake,

will manage there!"and directs all her resources, and her lately AntiPrussian Armies (General Browne

leading them) upon Italy, as upon the grand interest now. Little to the comfort of the SeaPowers. But

Hungarian Majesty is decided to cut in upon the French and Spaniards, in that fine Country,who had been

triumphing too much of late; Maillebois and Senor de Gages doing their mutual exploits (though given to

quarrel); Don Philip wintering in Milan even (17451746); and the King of Sardinia getting into French

Strong cuts her Hungarian Majesty does inflict, on the Italian side; tumbles Infant Philip out of Milan and his

Carnival gayeties, in plenty of hurry; besieges Genoa, Marquis Botta d'Adorno (our old acquaintance Botta)

her siegecaptain, a native of this region; brings back the wavering Sardinian Majesty; captures Genoa, and

much else. Captures Genoa, we say,had not Botta been too rigorous on his countrymen, and provoked a

revolt again, Revolt of Genoa, which proved difficult to settle. In fine, Hungarian Majesty has, in the course

of this year 1746, with aid of the reconfirmed Sardinian Majesty, satisfactorily beaten the French and

Spaniards. Hasafter two murderous Battles gained over the MailleboisGages peopledriven both French

and Spaniards into corners, Maillebois altogether home again across the Var;nay has descended in actual

Invasion upon France itself. And, before Newyear's day, 1747, General Browne is busy besieging Antibes,

aided by English Seventy fours; so that "sixty French Battalions" have to hurry home, from winterquarters,

towards those Provencal Countries; and Marechal de Belleisle, who commands there, has his hands full.

Triumphant enough her Hungarian Majesty, in Italy; while in the Netherlands, the poor SeaPowers have met

with no encouragement from the Fates or her. ["Battle of Piacenza" (Prince Lichtenstein, with whom is

Browne, VERSUS Gages and Maillebois), 16th June, 1746 (ADELUNG, v. 427); "Battle of Rottofreddo"

(Botta chief Austrian there, and our old friend Barenklau getting killed there), 12th August, 1746 (IB. 462);

whereupon, 7th SEPTEMBER, Genoa (which had declared itself AntiAustrian latterly, not without cause,

and brought the tug of War into those parts) is coerced by Botta to open its gates, on grievous terms (IB.

484489); so that, NOVEMBER 30th, Browne, no Bourbon Army now on the field, enters Provence (crosses

the Var, that day), and tries Antibes: 5th11th DECEMBER, Popular Revolt in Genoa, and Expulsion of

proud Botta and his Austrians (IB. 518523); upon which surprising event (which could not be mended

during the remainder of the War), Browne's enterprise became impossible. See Buonamici, Histoire de la

derniere Revolution de Genes; Adelung, v. 516; vi. 31, All which the reader may keep imagining at his

convenience;but will be glad rather, for the present, to go with us for an actual look at M. de Voltaire and

the divine Emilie, whom we have not seen for a long time. Not much has happened in the interim; one or two

things only which it can concern us to know;scattered fragments of memorial, on the way thus far:

1. M. DE VOLTAIRE HAS, IN 1745, MADE WAY AT COURT. Divine Emilie picked up her Voltaire from

that fine Diplomatic course, and went home with him out of our sight, in the end of 1743; the Diplomatic

career gradually declaring itself barred to him thenceforth. Since which, nevertheless, he has had his

successes otherwise, especially in his old Literary course: on the whole, brighter sunshine than usual, though

never without tempestuous clouds attending. Goes about, with his divine Emilie, now wearing browner and

leaner, both of them; and takes the good and evil of life, mostly in a quiet manner; sensible that afternoon is

The thricefamous Pompadour, who had been known to him in the Chrysalis state, did not forget him on

becoming HeadButterfly of the Universe. By her help, one long wish of his soul was gratified, and did not

hunger or thirst any more. Some uncertain footing at Court, namely, was at length vouchsafed

him:uncertain; for the Most Christian Majesty always rather shuddered under those carbuncle eyes, under

Chapter II. PEEP AT VOLTAIRE AND HIS DIVINE EMILIE (BY CANDLELIGHT) IN THE TIDE OF EVENTS. 939

that voice "sombre and majestious," with such turns lying in it:some uncertain footing at Court; and from

the beginning of 1745, his luck, in the Court spheres, began to mount in a wonderful and worldevident

manner. On grounds tragically silly, as he thought them. On the Dauphin's Wedding,a Termagant's Infanta

coming hither as Dauphiness, at this time,there needed to be Courtshows, Dramaticules, Transparencies,

Feasts of Lanterns, or I know not what. Voltaire was the chosen man; Voltaire and Rameau (readers have

heard of RAMEAU'S NEPHEW, and musical readers still esteem Rameau) did their feat; we may think with

what perfection, with what splendor of reward. Alas, and the feat done was, to one of the parties, so

unspeakably contemptible! Voltaire pensively surveying Life, brushes the sounding strings; and hums to

very many], could never purchase me a single glance of the King; I had multitudes of enemies, and very little

fame:honors and riches rain on me, at last, for a Farce of the Fair" ( OEuvres, ii. 151). The "Farce" (which

by no means CALLED itself such) was PRINCESSE DE NAVARRE ( OEuvres, lxxiii. 251): first acted 23d

February, 1745, Day of the Wedding. Gentlemanship of the Chamber thereupon (which Voltaire, by

permission, sold, shortly after, for 2,500 pounds, with titles retained), and appointment as Historiographer

Royal. Poor Dauphiness did not live long; Louis XVI.'s Mother was a SECOND Wife, SaxonPolish

Majesty's Daughter.] Yes, my friend; it is a considerable ass, this world; by no means the Perfectly Wise put

at the top of it (as one could wish), and the Perfectly Foolish at the bottom. Witnessnay, witness Psyche

Pompadour herself, is not she an emblem! Take your luck without criticism; luck good and bad visits all.

2. AND GOT INTO THE ACADEMY NEXT YEAR, IN CONSEQUENCE. In 1746, the Academy itself,

Pompadour favoring, is made willing; Voltaire sees himself among the Forty: soul, on that side too, be at

ease, and hunger not nor thirst anymore. ["May 9th, 1746, Voltaire is received at the Academy; and makes a

very fine Discourse" (BARBIER, ii. 488). OEuvres de Voltaire, lxxiii. 355, 385, and i. 97.] This highest of

felicities could not be achieved without an ugly accompaniment from the surrounding Populace. Desfontaines

is dead, safe down in Sodom; but wants not for a successor, for a whole Doggery of such. Who are all awake,

and giving tongue on this occasion. There is M. Roi the "Poet," as he was then reckoned; jingling Roi, who

concocts satirical calumnies; who collects old ones, reprints the same,and sends Travenol, an

OperaFiddler, to vend them. From which sprang a Lawsuit, PROCES TRAVENOL, of famous melancholy

sort. As Voltaire had rather the habit of such sad melancholy Lawsuits, we will pause on this of Travenol for

3. SUMMARY OF TRAVENOL LAWSUIT. "Monday, 9th May, 1746, was the Day or reception at the

Academy; reception and fruition, thricesavory to Voltaire. But what an explosion of the Doggeries, before,

during and after that event! Voltaire had tried to be prudent, too. He had been corresponding with Popes, with

Cardinals; and, in a fine franklooking way, capturing their suffrages:not by lying, which in general he

wishes to avoid, but by speaking half the truth; in short, by advancing, in a dexterous, diplomatic way, the

uncloven foot, in those Vatican precincts. And had got the Holy Father's own suffrage for MAHOMET (think

of that, you Ass of Mirepoix!), among other cases that might rise. When this seat among the Forty fell vacant,

his very first measuremark it, Orthodox readerwas a Letter to the Chief Jesuit, Father Latour, Head of

one's old College of Louis le Grand. A Letter of fine filial tenor: 'My excellent old Schoolmasters, to whom I

owe everything; the representatives of learning, of decorum, of frugality and modest human virtue:in what

contrast to the obscure Doggeries poaching about in the streetgutters, and flying at the peaceable passenger!'

[In Voltairiana, ou Eloges Amphigouriques, (Paris, 1748), i. 150160, the LETTER itself, "Paris, 7th

February, 1746;" omitted (without need or real cause on any side) in the common Collections of OEuvres de

Voltaire. ] Which captivated Father Latour; and made matters smooth on that side; so that even the ANCIEN

Chapter II. PEEP AT VOLTAIRE AND HIS DIVINE EMILIE (BY CANDLELIGHT) IN THE TIDE OF EVENTS. 940

DE MIREPOIX said nothing, this time: What could he say? No cloven foot visible, and the Authorities

"Voltaire had started as Candidate with these judicious preliminaries. Voltaire was elected, as we saw; fine

Discourse, 9th May; and on the Official side all things comfortable. But, in the mean while, the Doggeries, as

natural, seeing the thing now likely, had risen to a neverimagined pitch; and had filled Paris, and, to

Voltaire's excruciated sense, the Universe, with their howlings and their hyenalaughter, with their pasquils,

satires, old and new. So that Voltaire could not stand it; and, in evil hour, rushed downstairs upon them;

seized one poor dog, Travenol, unknown to him as Fiddler or otherwise; pinioned Dog Travenol, with

pincers, by the ears, him for one;proper Policepincers, for we are now well at Court;and had a

momentary joy! And, alas, this was not the right dog; this, we say, was Travenol a Fiddler at the Opera, who,

except the streetnoises, knew nothing of Voltaire; much less had the least pique at him; but had taken to

hawking certain Pasquils (Jingler Roi's COLLECTION, it appears), to turn a desirable penny by them.

"And mistakes were made in the Affair Travenol,old FATHER Travenol haled to prison, instead of

Son,by the Lieutenant of Police and his people. And Voltaire took the highhand method (being well at

Court):and thereupon hungry Advocates took up Dog Travenol and his pincered ears: 'Serene Judges of the

Chatelet, Most Christian Populace of Paris, did you ever see a Dog so pincered by an Academical Gentleman

before, merely for being hungry?' And Voltaire, getting madder and madder, appealed to the Academy

(which would not interfere); filed Criminal Informations; appealed to the Chatelet, to the Courts above and to

the Courts below; and, for almost a year, there went on the 'PROCESTRAVENOL:' [About Mayday, 1746,

Seizure of Travenol; Pleadings are in vigor August, 1746; not done April, 1747. In Voltairiana, ii. 141206,

Pleadings, copiously given; and most of the original Libels, in different parts of that sad Book (compiled by

Travenol's Advocate, a very sad fellow himself): see also OEuvres de Voltaire, lxxiii. 355 n., 385 n.; IB. i.

97; BARBIER, ii. 487. All in a very jumbled, dateless, vague and incorrect condition.] Olympian Jove in

distressed circumstances VERSUS a hungry Dog who had eaten dirty puddings. Paris, in all its Saloons and

Literary Coffeehouses (figure the ANTRE DE PROCOPE, on Publication nights!), had, monthly or so, the

exquisite malign banquet; and grinned over the Law Pleadings: what Magazine Serial of our day can be so

"Lasted, I find, for above a year. From Spring, 1746, till towards Autumn, 1747: Voltaire's feelings

beingHaha, so exquisite, all the while!Well, reader, I can judge how amusing it was to high and low.

And yet Phoebus Apollo going about as mere Cowherd of Admetus, and exposed to amuse the populace by

his duels with dogs that have bitten him? It is certain Voltaire was a fool, not to be more cautious of getting

PROCESTRAVENOL escorting one's Triumphal Entry; what an adjunct! Always so: always in your utmost

radiance of sunshine a shadow; and in your softest outburst of Lydian or Spheral symphonies something of

eating Care! Then too, in the Courtcircle itself, "is Trajan pleased," or are all things well? Readers have

heard of that "TRAJAN ESTIL CONTENT?" It occurred Winter, 1745 (27th November, 1745, a date worth

marking), while things were still in the flush of early hope. That evening, our TEMPLE DE LA GLOIRE

(Temple of Glory) had just been acted for the first time, in honor of him we may call "Trajan," returning from

a "Fontenoy and Seven Cities captured:" [Seven of them; or even eight of a kind: Tournay, Ghent, Bruges,

Nieuport, Dendermond, Ath, Ostend; and nothing lost but Cape Breton and one's Codfishery.]

Et qui t'adore plus que moi?" [TEMPLE DE LA GLOIRE, Acte iv. ( OEuvres, xii. 328).]

Chapter II. PEEP AT VOLTAIRE AND HIS DIVINE EMILIE (BY CANDLELIGHT) IN THE TIDE OF EVENTS. 941

An allegoric Dramatic Piece; naturally very admirable at Versailles. Issuing radiant from Fall of the Curtain,

Voltaire had the farther honor to see his Majesty pass out; Majesty escorted by Richelieu, one's old friend in a

sense: "Is Trajan pleased?" whispered Voltaire to his Richelieu; overheard by Trajan,who answered in

words nothing, but in a visible glance of the eyes did answer, "Impertinent Lackey!"Trajan being a man

unready with speech; and disliking trouble with the people whom he paid for keeping his boots in polish. O

my winged Voltaire, to what dunghill BubblyJocks (COQS D'INDE) you do stoop with homage,

Evidently no perfect footing at Court, after all. And then the Pompadour, could she, HeadButterfly of the

Universe, be an anchor that would hold, if gales rose? Rather she is herself somewhat of a gale, of a continual

liability to gales; unstable as the wind! Voltaire did his best to be useful, as Court Poet, as director of Private

Theatricals;above all, to soothe, to flatter Pompadour; and never neglected this evident duty. But, by

degrees, the envious Lackeypeople made cabals; turned the Divine Butterfly into comparative indifference

for Voltaire; into preference of a Crebillon's poor faded Pieces: "Suitabler these, Madame, for the Private

Theatricals of a Most Christian Majesty." Think what a stab; crueler than daggers through one's heart:

"Crebillon?" M. de Voltaire said nothing; looked nothing, in those sacred circles; and never ceased outwardly

his worship, and assiduous tuning, of the Pompadour: but he feltas only Phoebus Apollo in the like case

can! "Away!" growled he to himself, when this atrocity had culminated. And, in effect, is, since the end of

1746 or so, pretty much withdrawn from the Versailles Olympus; and has set, privately in the distance (now

at Cirey, now at Paris, in our PETIT PALAIS there), with his whole will and fire, to do Crebillon's dead

Dramas into living oues of his own. Dead CATILINA of Crebillon into ROME SAUVEE of Voltaire, and the

other samples of dead into living,that stupid old Crebillon himself and the whole Universe may judge, and

even Pompadour feel a remorse!Readers shall fancy these things; and that the world is coming back to its

old poor drab color with M. de Voltaire; his divine Emilie and he rubbing along on the old confused terms.

One facetoface peep of them readers shall now have; and that is to be enough, or more than enough:

About the middle of August, 1747, King Friedrich, I find, was at home;not in his new SANSSOUCI by

any means, but running to and fro; busy with his Musterings, "grand review, and mimic attack on Bornstadt,

near Berlin;" INVALIDENHAUS (Military Hospital) getting built; Silesian Reviews just ahead; and, for the

present, much festivity and moving about, to Charlottenburg, to Berlin and the different Palaces; Wilhelmina,

"August 15th," having come to see him; of which fine visit, especially of Wilhelmina's thoughts on it,why

While all this is astir in Berlin and neighborhood, there is, among the innumerable other visits in this world,

one going on near Paris, in the Mansion or Palace of Sceaux, which has by chance become memorable. A

visit by Voltaire and his divine Emilie, direct from Paris, I suppose, and rather on the sudden. Which has had

the luck to have a LETTER written on it, by one of those rare creatures, a seeing Witness, who can make

others see and believe. The seeing Witness is little Madame de Staal (by no means Necker's Daughter, but a

much cleverer), known as one of the sharpest female heads; she from the spot reports it to Madame du

Deffand, who also is known to readers. There is such a glimpse afforded here into the actuality of old things

and remarkable human creatures, that Friedrich himself would be happy to read the Letter.

Chapter II. PEEP AT VOLTAIRE AND HIS DIVINE EMILIE (BY CANDLELIGHT) IN THE TIDE OF EVENTS. 942

Duchesse du Maine, Lady of Sceaux, is a sublime old personage, with whom and with whose high ways and

magnificent hospitalities at Sceaux, at Anet and elsewhere, Voltaire had been familiar for long years past. [In

OEuvres de Voltaire, lxxiii. 434 n, x. 8, "Clog." and others represent THIS Visit as having been to

Anet,though the record otherwise is express.] This Duchess, granddaughter of the great Conde, now a

dowager for ten years, and herself turned of seventy, has been a notable figure in French History this great

while: a living fragment of Louis le Grand, as it were. Was wedded to Louis's "Legitimated" Illegitimate, the

Duc du Maine; was in trouble with the Regent d'Orleans about AlberoniCellamare conspiracies (1718),

Regent having stript her lmsband of his high legitimatures and dignities, with little ceremony; which led her

to conspire a good deal, at one time. [DUC DU MAINE with COMTE DE TOULOUSE were products of

Louis XIV. and Madame de Montespan:"legitimated" by Papa's fiat in 1673, while still only young

children; DISlegitimated again by Regent d'Orleans, autumn, 1718; grand scene, "guards drawn out" and the

like, on this occasion (BARBIER, i. 811, ii. 181); futile Conspiracies with Alberoni thereupon; arrest of

Duchess and Duke (29th December, 1718), and closure of that poor business. Duc du Maine died 1736;

Toulouse next year; ages, each about sixtyfive. "Duc de Penthievre," Egalite's fatherinlaw, was

Toulouse's son; Maine has left a famous Dowager, whom we see. Nothing more of notable about the one or

the other.] She was never very beautiful; but had a world of grace and witty intelligence; and knew a Voltaire

when she saw him. Was the soul of courtesy and benignity, though proud enough, and carrying her head at its

due height; and was always very charming, in her lofty gracious way, to mankind. Interesting to all, were it

only as a living fragment of the Grand Epoch,kind of French Fulness of Time, when the world was at

length blessed with a Louis Quatorze, and Neplusultra of a Gentleman determined to do the handsome

thing in this world. She is much frequented by high people, especially if of a Literary or Historical turn.

President Henault (of the ABREGE CHRONOLOGIQUE, the wellfrilled, accurately powdered, most

correct old legal gentleman) is one of her adherents; Voltaire is another, that may stand for many: there is an

old Marquis de St. Aulaire, whom she calls "MON VIEUX BERGER (my old shepherd," that is to say,

sweetheart or flame of love); [BARBIER, ii. 87; see ib. (i. 811; ii. 181, 436; for many notices of her affairs

and her.] there is a most learned President de Mesmes, and others we have heard of, but do not wish to know.

Little De Staal was at one time this fine Duchess's maid; but has far outgrown all that, a favorite guest of the

Duchess's instead; holds now mainly by Madame du Deffand (not yet fallen blind),and is well turned of

fifty, and known for one of the shrewdest little souls in the world, at the time she writes. Her Letter is

addressed "TO MADAME DU DEFFAND, at Paris;" most freeflowing female Letter; of many pages, runs

"SCEAUX, TUESDAY, 15th AUGUST, 1747. ... Madame du Chatelet and Voltaire, who had announced

themselves as for today, and whom nobody had heard of otherwise, made their appearance yesternight, near

midnight; like two Spectres, with an odor of embalmment about them, as if just out of their tombs. We were

rising from table; the Spectres, however, were hungry ones: they needed supper; and what is more, beds,

which were not ready. The Housekeeper (CONCIERGE), who had gone to bed, rose in great haste. Gaya

[amiable gentleman, conceivable, not known], who had offered his apartment for pressing cases, was obliged

to yield it in this emergency: he flitted with as much precipitation and displeasure as an army surprised in its

camp; leaving a part of his baggage in the enemy's hands. Voltaire thought the lodging excellent, but that did

"As to the Lady, her bed turns out not to have been well made; they have had to put her in a new place

today. Observe, she made that bed herself, no servants being up, and had found a blemish or DEFAUT

of"word wanting: who knows what?"in the mattresses; which I believe hurt her exact mind, more than

her not very delicate body. She has got, in the interim, an apartment promised to somebody else; and she will

have to leave it again on Friday or Saturday, and go into that of Marechal de Maillebois, who leaves at that

Yes; Maillebois in the body, O reader. This is he, with the old apeface renewed by paint, whom we once

saw marching with an "Army of Redemption," haggling in the Passes about Eger, unable to redeem Belleisle;

Chapter II. PEEP AT VOLTAIRE AND HIS DIVINE EMILIE (BY CANDLELIGHT) IN THE TIDE OF EVENTS. 943

marching and haggling, more lately, with a "MiddleRhine Army," and the like noneffect; since which,

fighting his best in Italy,pushed home last winter, with Browne's bayonets in his back; Belleisle

succeeding him in dealing with Browne. Belleisle, and the "Revolt of Genoa" (fatal to Browne's Invasion of

us), and the Defence of Genoa and the mutual worryings thereabout, are going on at a great rate,and there

is terrible news out of those Savoy Passes, while Maillebois is here. Concerning which by and by. He is

grandson of the renowned Colbert, this Maillebois. A FieldMarshal evidently extant, you perceive, in those

vanished times: is to make room for Madame on Friday, says our little De Staal; and take leave of us,if for

"He came at the time we did, with his daughter and granddaughter: the one is pretty, the other ugly and

dreary [l'UNE, L'AUTRE; no saying which, in such important case! Madame la Marechale, the mother and

grandmother, I think must be dead. Not beautiful she, nor very benignant, "UNE TRESMECHANTE

FEMME, very catwitted woman," says Barbier; "shrieked like a devil, at Court, upon the Cardinal," about

that old ARMYOFREDEMPTION business; but all her noise did nothing]. [Barbier, ii, 332 ("November,

1742").] M. le Marechal has hunted here with his dogs, in these fine autumn woods and glades; chased a

bit of a stag, and caught a poor doe's fawn: that was all that could be got there.

"Our new Guests will make better sport: they are going to have their Comedy acted again [Comedy of THE

EXCHANGE, much an entertainment with them]: Vanture [conceivable, not known] is to do the Count de

Boursoufle (DE BLISTER or DE WINDBAG); you will not say this is a hit, any more than Madame du

Chatelet's doing the Hon. Miss Piggery (LA COCHONNIERE), who ought to be fat and short."

[L'ECHANGE, The Exchange, or WHEN SHALL I GET NARRIED? Farce in three acts: OEuvres, x.

167222; used to be played at Cirey and elsewhere (see plenty of details upon it, exact or not quite so, IB.

79).]Little De Staal then abruptly breaks off, to ask about her Correspondent's health, and her

Correspondent's friend old President Henault's health; touches on those "grumblings and discords in the

Army (TRACASSERIES DE L'ARMEE)," which are making such astir; how M. d'Argenson, our fine

WarMinister, man of talent amid blockheads, will manage them; and suddenly exclaims: "O my queen,

what curious animals men and women are! I laugh at their manoeuvres, the days when I have slept well; if I

have missed sleep, I could kill them. These changes of temper prove that I do not break off kind. Let us mock

other people, and let other people mock us; it is well done on both sides.[Poor little De Staal: to what a

posture have things come with you, in that fastrotting Epoch, of Hypocrisies becoming all insolvent!]

"WEDNESDAY, 16th. Our Ghosts do not show themselves by daylight. They appeared yesterday at ten in

the evening; I do not think we shall see them sooner today: the one is engaged in writing high feats

[SIECLE DE LOUIS XV., or what at last became such]; the other in commenting Newton. They will neither

play nor walk: they are, in fact, equivalent to ZEROS in a society where their learned writings are of no

significance.[Pauses, without notice given: for some hours, perhaps days; then resuming:] Nay, worse still:

their apparition tonight has produced a vehement declamation on one of our little social diversions here, the

game of CAVAGNOLE: ["Kind of BIRIBI," it would appear; in the height of fashion then.] it was continued

and maintained," on the part of Madame du Chatelet, you guess, "in a tone which is altogether unheard of in

this place; and was endured," on the part of Serene Highness, "with a moderation not less surprising. But

what is unendurable is my babble" And herewith our nimble little woman hops off again into the general

field of things; and gossips largely, How are you, my queen, Whither are you going, Whither we; That the

Maillebois people are away, and also the Villeneuves, if anybody knew them now; then how the Estillacs, to

the number of four, are coming tomorrow; and Cousin Soquence, for all his hunting, can catch nothing; and

it is a continual coming and going; and how Boursoufle is to be played, and a Dame Dufour is just come, who

will do a character. Rubrics, vanished Shadows, nearly all those high Dames and Gentlemen; LA PAUVRE

SaintPierre, "eaten with gout," who is she? "Still drags herself about, as well as she can; but not with me, for

I never go by land, and she seems to have the hydrophobia, when I take to the water. [Thread of date is gone!

I almost think we must have got to Saturday by this time:or perhaps it is only Thursday, and Maillebois off

prematurely, to be out of the way of the Farce? Little De Staal takes no notice; but continues gossiping

Chapter II. PEEP AT VOLTAIRE AND HIS DIVINE EMILIE (BY CANDLELIGHT) IN THE TIDE OF EVENTS. 944

"Yesterday Madame du Chatelet got into her third lodging: she could not any longer endure the one she had

chosen. There was noise in it, smoke without fire:privately meseems, a little the emblem of herself! As to

noise, it was not by night that it incommoded her, she told me, but by day, when she was in the thick of her

work: it deranges her ideas. She is busy reviewing her PRINCIPLES" NEWTON'S PRINCIPIA, no doubt,

but De Staal will understand it only as PRINCIPES, Principles in general:"it is an exercise she repeats

every year, without which the Principles might get away, and perhaps go so far she would never find them

again [You satirical little gypsy!]. Her head, like enough, is a kind of lockup for them, rather than a

birthplace, or natural home: and that is a case for watching carefully lest they get away. She prefers the high

air of this occupation to every kind of amusement, and persists in not showing herself till after dark. Voltaire

has produced some gallant verses [unknown to Editors] which help off a little the bad effect of such unusual

"SUNDAY, 27th. I told you on Thursday [no, you did n't; you only meant to tell] that our Spectres were

going on the morrow, and that the Piece was to be played that evening: all this has been done. I cannot give

you much of Boursoufle [done by one Vanture]. Mademoiselle Piggery [DE LA COCHONNIERE, Madame

du Chatelet herself] executed so perfectly the extravagance of her part, that I own it gave me real pleasure.

But Vanture only put his own fatuity into the character of Boursoufle, which wanted more: he played

naturally in a Piece where all requires to be forced, like the subject of it."What a pity none of us has read

this fine Farce! "One Paris did the part of MUSCADIN (Little Coxcomb), which name represents his

character: in short, it can be said the Farce was well given. The Author ennobled it by a Prologue for the

Occasion; which he acted very well, along with Madame Dufour as BARBE (Governess Barbara),who, but

for this brilliant action, could not have put up with merely being Governess to Piggery. And, in fact, she

disdained the simplicity of dress which her part required;as did the chief actress," Du Chatelet herself (age

now fortyone); "who, in playing PIGGERY, preferred the interests of her own face to those of the Piece,

and made her entry in all the splendor and elegant equipments of a Court Lady,"her "PRINCIPLES,"

though the key is turned upon them, not unlike jumping out of window, one would say! "She had a crow to

pluck [MAILLE A PARTIR, "clasp to open," which is better] with Voltaire on this point: but she is

sovereign, and he is slave. I am very sorry at their going, though I was worn out with doing her multifarious

"WEDNESDAY, 30th. M. le President [Henault] has been asked hither; and he is to bring you, my Queen!

Tried all I could to hinder; but they would not be put off. If your health and disposition do suit, it will be

charming. In any case, I have got you a good apartment: it is the one that Madame du Chatelet had seized

upon, after an exact review of all the Mansion. There will be a little less furniture than she had put in it;

Madame had pillaged all her previous apartments to equip this one. We found about seven tables in it, for one

item: she needs them of all sizes; immense, to spread out her papers upon; solid, to support her

NECESSAIRE; slighter, for her nicknacks (POMPONS), for her jewels. And this fine arrangement did not

save her from an accident like that of Philip II., when, after spending all the night in writing, he got his

despatches drowned by the oversetting of an inkbottle. The Lady did not pretend to imitate the moderation

of that Prince; at any rate, he was only writing on affairs of state; and the thing they blotted, on this occasion,

"This subject ought to be exhausted: one word more, and then it does end. The day after their departure, I

receive a Letter of four pages, and a Note enclosed, which announces dreadful burlyburly: M. de Voltaire

has mislaid his Farce, forgotten to get back the parts, and lost his Prologue: I am to find all that again

[excessively tremulous about his Manuscripts, M. de Voltaire; of such value are they, of such danger to him;

there is LA PUCELLE, for example,enough to hang a man, were it surreptitiously launched forth in

print!]I am to send him the Prologue instantly, not by post, because they would copy it; to keep the parts

for fear of the same accident, and to lock up the Piece 'under a hundred keys.' I should have thought one

Chapter II. PEEP AT VOLTAIRE AND HIS DIVINE EMILIE (BY CANDLELIGHT) IN THE TIDE OF EVENTS. 945

padlock sufficient for this treasure! I have duly executed his orders." [ Madame de Graffigny (Paris, 1820),

And herewith EXPLICIT DE STAAL. Scene closes: EXEUNT OMNES; are off to Paris or Versailles again;

to Luneville and the Court of Stanislaus again,where also adventures await them, which will be heard of!

"Figure to yourself," says some other Eyewitness, "a lean Lady, with big arms and long legs; small head,

and countenance losing itself in a cloudery of headdress; cocked nose [RETROUSSE, say you? Very

slightly, then; quite an unobjectionable nose!] and pair of small greenish eyes; complexion tawny, and mouth

too big: this was the divine Emilie, whom Voltaire celebrates to the stars. Loaded to extravagance with

ribbons, laces, facepatches, jewels and female ornaments; determined to be sumptuous in spite of

Economics, and pretty in spite of Nature:" Pooh, it is an enemy's hand that paints! "And then by her side,"

continues he, "the thin long figure of Voltaire, that Anatomy of an Apollo, affecting worship of her," [From

Rodenbeck (quoting somebody, whom I have surely seen in French; whom Rodenbeck tries to name, as he

could have done, but curiously without success), i. 179.]yes, that thin long Gentleman, with high

redheeled shoes, and the daintiest polite attitudes and paces; in superfine coat, laced hat under arm; nose and

underlip ever more like coalescing (owing to decay of teeth), but two eyes shining on you like carbuncles;

and in the ringing voice, such touches of speech when you apply for it! Thus they at Sceaux and elsewhere;

One thing is lamentable: the relation with Madame is not now a flourishing one, or capable again of being:

"Does not love me as he did, the wretch!" thinks Madame always;yet sticks by him, were it but in the form

of blister. They had been to Luneville, Spring, 1747; happy dull place, within reach of Cirey; far from

Versailles and its cabals. They went again, 1748, in a kind of permanent way; Titular Stanislaus, an opulent

dawdling creature, much liking to have them; and Father Menou, his Jesuit,who is always in quarrel with

the Titular Mistress,thinking to displace HER (as you, gradually discover), and promote the Du Chatelet to

that improper dignity! In which he had not the least success, says Voltaire; but got "two women on his ears

instead of one." It was not to be Stanislaus's mistress; nor a TITULAR one at all, but a real, that Madame was

fated in this dull happy place! Idle readers know the story only too well;concerning which, admit this other

"Stanislaus, as a Titular King, cannot do without some kind of Titular Army,were it only to blare about as

Lifeguard, and beat kettledrums on occasion. A certain tall highsniffing M. de St. Lambert, a young

Lorrainer of long pedigree and light purse, had just taken refuge in this Lifeguard [Summer 1748, or so], I

know not whether as Captain or Lieutenant, just come from the Netherlands Wars: of grave stiff manners; for

the rest, a good looking young fellow; thought to have some poetic genius, even; who is precious, surely,

in such an outoftheway place. Welcome to Voltaire, to Madame still more. Alas, readers know the

History,on which we must not dwell. Madame, a brown geometric Lady, age now fortytwo, with a Great

Man who has scandalously ceased to love her, casts her eye upon St. Lambert: 'Yes, you would be the

shoeinghorn, Monsieur, if one had time, you fine florid fellow, hardly yet into your thirties' And tries him

with a little coquetry; I always think, perhaps in this view chiefly? And then, at any rate, as he responded, the

thing itself became so interesting: 'Our Ulyssesbow, we can still bend it, then, aha! 'And is not that a pretty

stag withal, worth bringing down; florid, just entering his thirties, and with the susceptibilities of genius!

Voltaire was not blind, could he have helped it,had he been tremulously alive to help it. 'Your Verses to

her, my St. Lambert,ah, Tibullus never did the like of them. Yes, to you are the roses, my fine young

friend, to me are the thorns:' thus sings Voltaire in response; [ OEuvres, xvii. 223 (EPITRE A M. DE ST.

LAMBERT, 1749); In Memoires sur Voltaire par Longchamp et Wagniere (Paris, 1826), ii. 229 et seq.,

details enough and more.] perhaps not thinking it would go so far. And it went,alas, it went to all lengths,

mentionable and not mentionable: and M. le Marquis had to be coaxed home in the Spring of 1749,still

earlier it had been suitabler; and in September ensuing, M. de St. Lambert looking his demurest, there is an

important lyingin to be transacted! Newton's PRINCIPIA is, by that time, drawing diligently to its

Chapter II. PEEP AT VOLTAIRE AND HIS DIVINE EMILIE (BY CANDLELIGHT) IN THE TIDE OF EVENTS. 946

close;complicated by such far abstruser Problems, not of the geometric sort! Poor little lean brown woman,

The War, since Friedrich got out of it, does not abate in animosity, nor want for bloodshed, battle and

sieging; but offers little now memorable. March 18th, 1747, a ghastly Phantasm of a Congress, "Congress of

Breda," which had for some months been attempting Peace, and was never able to get into conference, or sit

in its chairs except for moments, flew away altogether; [In September, 1746, had got together; but would not

take life, on trying and again trying, and fell forgotten: February, 1747, again gleams up into hope: March

18th and the following days, vanishes for good (ADELUNG, v. 50; vi. 6, 62).] and left the War perhaps

angrier than ever, more hopelessly stupid than ever. Except, indeed, that resources are failing; money running

low in France, Parlements beginning to murmur, and among the Population generally a feeling that glory is

excellent, but will not make the national pot boil. Perhaps all this will be more effective than Congresses of

STADTHOLDER THERE. "After Fontenoy there has been much sieging and capturing in that Netherlands

Country, a series of successes gloriously delightful to Marechal de Saxe and the French Nation: likewise (in

bar of said sieging, in futile attempt to bar it) a Battle of Roucoux, October, 1746; with victory, or quasi

victory, to Saxe, at least with prostration to the opposite part. And farther on, there is a Battle of Lauffeld

coming, 2d July, 1747; with similar results; frustration evident, retreat evident, victory not much to speak of.

And in this gloriously delightful manner Saxe and the French Nation have proceeded, till in fact the

Netherlands Territory with all strongholds, except Maestricht alone, was theirs,and they decided on

attacking the Dutch Republic itself. And (17th April, 1747) actually broke in upon the frontier Fortresses of

Zealand; found the same dryrotten everywhere; and took them, Fortress after Fortress, at the rate of a

cannon salvo each: 'Ye magnanimous Dutch, see what you have got by not sitting still, as recommended!' To

the horror and terror of the poor Zealanders and general Dutch Population. Who shrieked to England for

help;and were, on the very instant, furnished with a modicum of Seventyfours (Dutch Courier returning

by the same); which landed the Courier April 23d, and put Walcheren in a state of security. [Adelung, vi.

"Whereupon the Dutch Population turned round on its Governors, with a growl of indignation, spreading ever

wider, waxing ever higher: 'Scandalous laggards, is this your mode of governing a free Republic? Freedom to

let the State go to dryrot, and become the laughingstock of mankind. To provide for your own paltry

kindred in the Stateemployments; to palaver grandly with all comers; and publish melodious Despatches of

Van Hoey? Had not Britannic Majesty, for his dear Daughter's sake, come to the rescue in this crisis, where

had we been? We demand a Stadtholder again; our glorious Nassau Orange, to keep some bridle on you!'

And actually, in this way, Populus and Plebs, by general turning out into the streets, in a gloomily indignant

manner, which threatens to become vociferous and dangerous,cowed the Heads of the Republic into

choosing the said Prince, with Princess and Family, as Stadtholder, HighAdmiral, HighEverything and

Supreme of the Republic. Hereditary, no less, and punctually perpetual; Princess and Family to share in it. In

which happy state (ripened into Kingship latterly) they continue to this day. A result painfully surprising to

Most Christian Majesty; gratifying to Britannic proportionately, or more;and indeed beneficial towards

abating dryrot and melodious palaver in that poor Land of the Free. Consummated, by popular outbreak of

vociferation, in the different Provinces, in about a week from April 23d, when those helpful Seventyfours

hove in sight. Stadtholdership had been in abeyance for fortyfive years. [Since our Dutch William's death,

1702.] The new Stadtholder did his best; could not, in the short life granted him, do nearly enough.Next

year there was a SECOND Dutch outbreak, or general turning into the streets; of much more violent

character; in regard to glaringly unjust Excises and Taxations, and to 'instant dismissal of your

Chapter II. PEEP AT VOLTAIRE AND HIS DIVINE EMILIE (BY CANDLELIGHT) IN THE TIDE OF EVENTS. 947

ExciseFarmers,' as the special first item. [Adelung, vi. 364 et seq.; Raumer, 182193 ("MarchSeptember,

1748"); or, in Chesterfield's Works, Dayrolles's Letters to Chesterfield: somewhat unintelligent and

unintelligible, both Raumer and he.] Which salutary object being accomplished (new Stadtholder well aiding,

in a valiant and judicious manner), there has no third dose of that dangerous remedy been needed since.

"JULY 19th, FATE OF CHEVALIER DE BELLEISLE. At the Fortress of Exilles, in one of those Passes of

the Savoy Alps,Pass of Col di Sieta, memorable to the French Soldier ever since,there occurred a

lamentable thing;" doubtless much talked of at Sceaux while Voltaire was there. "The Revolt of Genoa

(popular outburst, and expulsion of our poor friend Botta and his Austrians, then a famous thing, and a rarer

than now) having suddenly recalled the victorious General Browne from his Siege of Antibes and Invasion of

Provence,Marechal Duc de Belleisle, well reinforced and now become 'Army of Italy' in general, followed

steadfastly for 'Defence of Genoa' against indignant Botta, Browne and Company. For defence of Genoa; nay

for attack on Turin, which would have been 'defence' in Genoa and everywhere,had the captious Spaniard

consented to cooperate. Captious Spaniard would not; Couriers to Madrid, to Paris thereupon, and much

time lost;till, at the eleventh hour, came consent from Paris, 'Try it by yourself, then!' Belleisle tries it; at

least his Brother does. His Brother, the Chevalier, is to force that Pass of Exilles; a terrible fiery business, but

the backbone of the whole adventure: in which, if the Chevalier can succeed, he too is to be Marechal de

France. Forward, therefore, climb the Alpine stairs again; snatch me that Fort of Exilles.

"And so, July 19th, 1747, the Chevalier comes in sight of the Place; scans a little the frowning buttresses,

bristly with guns; the dumb Alps, to right and left, looking down on him and it. Chevalier de Belleisle judges

that, however difficult, it can and must be possible to French valor; and storms in upon it, huge and furious

(20,000, or if needful 30,000);but is torn into mere wreck, and hideous recoil; rallies, snatches a standard,

'We must take it or die,'and dies, does not take it; falls shot on the rampart, 'pulling at the palisades with

his own hands,' nay some say 'with his teeth,' when the last moments came. Within one hour, he has lost

4,000 men; and himself and his Brother's Enterprise lie ended there. [Voltaire, xxv. 221 et seq. (SIECLE DE

LOUIS QUINZE, c. 22); Adelung, vi 174.] Fancy his poor Brother's feelings, who much loved him! The

discords about Warmatters (TRACASSERIES DE L'ARMEE) were a topic at Sceaux lately, as De Staal

intimated. 'Why starve our Italian Enterprises; heaping every resource upon the Netherlands and Saxe?'

Diligent Defence of Genoa (chiefly by flourishing of swords on the part of France, for the Austrians were not

yet ready) is henceforth all the Italian War there is; and this explosion at Exilles may fitly be finis to it here.

Let us only say that Infant Philip did, when the Peace came, get a bit of Apanage (Parma and Piacenza or

some such thing, contemptibly small to the Maternal heart), and that all things else lapsed to their pristine

JULY 12thSEPTEMBER 18th: SIEGE OF THE CHIEF DUTCH FORTRESS. "Unexpected Siege of

BergenopZoom; two months of intense excitement to the Dutch Patriots and CauseofLiberty Gazetteers,

as indifferent and totally dead as it has now become. Marechal de Saxe, after his victory at Lauffeld, 2d July,

did not besiege Maestricht, as had been the universal expectation; but shot off an efficient lieutenant of his,

one Lowendahl, in due force, privately ready, to overwhelm BergenopZoom with sudden Siege, while he

himself lay between the beaten enemy and it. Bergen is the heart, of Holland, key of the Scheld, and quite

otherwise important than Maestricht. 'Coehorn's masterpiece!' exclaim the Gazetteers; 'Impregnable, you may

depend!' 'We shall see,' answered Saxe, answered Lowendahl the Dane (who also became Marechal by this

business); and after a great deal of furious assaulting and battering, took the Place September 18th, before

daylight," by a kind of surprisal or quasistorm;"the Commandant, one Cronstrom, a brave old Swede, age

towards ninety, not being of very wakeful nature! 'Did as well as could be expected of him,' said the Court

Martial sitting on his case, and forbore to shoot the poor old man. [Adelung, vi. 184, 206;"for Cronstrom,"

if any one is curious, "see Schlotzer, Schwedische Biographie, ii. 252 (in voce)."] A sore stroke, this of

Bergen, to Britannic Majesty and the Friends of Liberty; who nevertheless refuse to be discouraged."

Chapter II. PEEP AT VOLTAIRE AND HIS DIVINE EMILIE (BY CANDLELIGHT) IN THE TIDE OF EVENTS. 948

DECEMBER 25th, RUSSIANS IN BEHALF OF HUMAN LIBERTY. "March of 36,000 Russians from the

City of Moscow, this day; on a very long journey, in the hoary Christmas weather! Most, Christian Majesty is

ruinously short of money; Britannic Majesty has still credit, and a voting Parliament, but, owing to French

influence on the Continent, can get no recruits to hire. Gradually driven upon Russia, in such stress, Britannic

Majesty has this year hired for himself a 35,000 Russians; 30,000 regular foot; 4,000 ditto horse, and 1,000

Cossacks;uncommonly cheap, only 150,000 pounds the lot, not, 4 pounds per head by the year. And, in

spite of many difficulties and hagglings, they actually get on march, from Moscow, 25th December, 1747;

and creep on, all Winter, through the frozen peats wildernesses, through Lithuania, Poland, towards Bohmen,

Mahren: are to appear in the Rhine Countries, joined by certain Austrians; and astonish mankind next Spring.

Their Captain is one Repnin, Prince Repnin, afterwards famous enough in those Polish Countries;" which

is now the one point interesting to us in the thing. "Their Captain WAS, first, to be Lacy, old Marshal Lacy;

then, failing Lacy, 'Why not General Keith?'but proves to be Repnin, after much hustling and intriguing:"

"Such march of the Russians, on behalf of Human Liberty, in pay of Britannic Majesty, is a surprising fact;

and considerably discomposes the French. Who bestir themselves in Sweden and elsewhere against Russia

and it: with no result,except perhaps the incidental one, of getting our esteemed old friend Guy Dickens,

now Sir Guy, dismissed from Stockholm, and we hope put on halfpay on his return home." [Adelung, vi.

"Much hustling and intriguing," it appears, in regard to the Captaincy of these Russians. Concerning which

there is no word worthy to be said,except for one reason only, That it finished off the connection of

General Keith with Russia. That this of seeing Repnin, his junior and inferior, preferred to him, was, of many

disgusts, the last drop which made the cup run over;and led the said General to fling it from him, and seek

new fields of employment. From Hamburg, having got so far, he addresses himself, 1st September, 1747, to

Friedrich, with offer of service; who grasps eagerly at the offer: "Feldmarschall your rank; income, $1,200 a

year; income, welcome, all suitable:"and, October 28th, Feldmarschall Keith finishes, at Potsdam, a long

Letter to his Brother Lord Marischal, in these words, worth giving, as those of a very cleareyed sound

observer of men and things: "I have now the honor, and, which is still more, the pleasure, of being with the

King at Potsdam; where he ordered me to come," 17th current, "two days after he declared me Fieldmarshal:

Where I have the honor to dine and sup with him almost every day. He has more wit than I have wit to tell

you; speaks solidly and knowingly on all kinds of subjects; and I am much mistaken if, with the experience of

Four Campaigns, he is not the best Officer of his Army. He has several persons," Rothenburg, Winterfeld,

Swedish Rudenskjold (just about departing), not to speak of D'Argens and the French, "with whom he lives in

almost the familiarity of a friend,but has no favorite;and shows a natural politeness for everybody who

is about him. For one who has been four days about his person, you will say I pretend to know a great deal of

his character: but what I tell you, you may depend upon. With more time, I shall know as much of him as he

will let me know;and all his Ministry knows no more." [Varnhagen van Ense, Leben des Feldmarschalls

A notable acquisition to Friedrich;and to the two Keiths withal; for Friedrich attached both of them to his

Court and service, after their unlucky wanderings; and took to them both, in no common degree. As will

While that Russia Corps was marching out of Moscow, Cocceji and his Commissions report from Pommern,

that the Pomeranian Lawstables are completely clear; that the New Courts have, for many months back,

been in work, and are now, at the end of the Year, fairly abreast with it, according to program;have

"decided of Old Pending Lawsuits 2,400, all that there were (one of them 200 years old, and filling seventy

Chapter II. PEEP AT VOLTAIRE AND HIS DIVINE EMILIE (BY CANDLELIGHT) IN THE TIDE OF EVENTS. 949

Volumes); and of the 994 New ones, 772; not one Lawsuit remaining over from the previous Year." A highly

gratifying bit of news to his Majesty; who answers emphatically, EUGE! and directs that the Law Hercules

proceed now to the other Provinces,to the KurMark, now, and Berlin itself,with his salutary industries.

Naming him "Grand Chancellor," moreover; that is to say, under a new title, Head of Prussian Law,old

Arnim, "Minister of Justice," having shown himself disaffected to LawReform, and got rebuked in

consequence, and sulkily gone into private life. [Stenzel, iv. 321; Ranke, iii. 389.]

In February of this Year, 1747, Friedrich had something like a stroke of apoplexy; "sank suddenly

motionless, one day," and sat insensible, perhaps for half an hour: to the terror and horror of those about him.

Hemiplegia, he calls it; rush of blood to the head;probably indigestion, or gouty humors, exasperated by

over fatigue. Which occasioned great rumor in the world; and at Paris, to Voltaire's horror, reports of his

death. He himself made light of the matter: [To Voltaire, 22d February, 1747 ( OEuvres de Frederic, xxii.

164); see IB. 164 n.] and it did not prove to have been important; was never followed by anything similar

through his long life; and produced no change in his often wavering health, or in his habits, which were

always steady. He is writing MEMOIRS; settling "Colonies" (on his waste moors); improving Harbors.

Waiting when this European War will end; politely deaf to the offers of Britannic Majesty as to taking the

The preparations for Campaign 1748 were on a larger scale than ever. Britannic Subsidies, a New Parliament

being of willing mind, are opulent to a degree; 192,000 men, 60,000 Austrians for one item, shall be in the

Netherlands;coupled with this remarkable new clause, "And they are to be there in fact, and not on paper

only," and with a tareandtret of 30 or 40 per cent, as too often heretofore! Holland, under its new

Stadtholder, is stanch of purpose, if of nothing else. The 35,000 Russians, tramping along, are actually

dawning over the horizon, towards Teutschland,King Friedrich standing to arms along his Silesian Border,

vigilant "Cordon of Troops all the way," in watch of such questionable transit. [In ADELUNG, vi. 110, 143,

167, 399 ("April, 1747August, 1748"), account of the more and more visible illwill of the Czarina:

"jealousy" about Sweden, about Dantzig, Poland, Britannic Majesty and Parliament seem resolute to try, once

more, to the utmost, the power of the breechespocket in defending this sacred Cause of Liberty so called.

Breechespocket MINUS most other requisites: alas, with such methods as you have, what can come of it?

Royal Highness of Cumberland is a valiant man, knowing of War little more than the White Horse of

Hanover does;certain of ruin again, at the hands of Marechal de Saxe. So think many, and have their

dismal misgivings. "Saxe having eaten BergenopZoom before our eyes, what can withstand the teeth of

Saxe?" In fact, there remains only Maestricht, of considerable; and then Holland is as good as his! As for

King Louis, glory, with funds running out, and the pot ceasing to boil, has lost its charm to an afflicted

France and him. King Louis's wishes are known, this long while;and Ligonier, generously dismissed by

him after Lauffeld, has brought express word to that effect, and outline of the modest terms proposed in one's

On a sudden, too, "March 18th,"wintry blasts and hailstorms still raging,Marechal de Saxe, regardless

of Domestic Hunger, took the field, stronger than ever. Manoeuvred about; bewildering the mind of Royal

Highness and the Stadtholder ("Will he besiege Breda? Will he do this, will he do that?")poor Highness

and poor Stadtholder; who "did not agree well together," and had not the half of their forces come in, not to

speak of handling them when come! Bewilderment of these two once completed, Marechal de Saxe made "a

beautiful march upon Maestricht; " and, April 15th, opened trenches, a very Vesuvius of artillery, before that

place; Royal Highness gazing into it, in a doleful manner, from the adjacent steepletops. Royal Highness,

valor's self, has to admit: "Such an outlook; not half of us got together! The 60,000 Austrians are but 30,000;

the In fact, you will have to make Peace, what else?" [His Letters, in Coxe's Pelham ("March 29thApril

2d, 1748"), i. 405410.] Nothing else, as has been evident to practical Official People (especially to frugal

In a word, those 35,000 Russians are still far away under the horizon, when thoughts of a new Congress,

"Congress of Aixla Chapelle," are busying the public mind: "Mere moonshine again?" "Something real

this time?"And on and from March 17th (Lord Sandwich first on the ground, and Robinson from Vienna

coming to help), the actual Congress begins assembling there. April 24th, the Congress gets actually to

business; very intent on doing it; at least the three main parties, France, England, Holland, are supremely so.

Who, finding, for five diligent days, nothing but haggle and objection on the part of the others, did by

themselves meet under cloud of night, "night of April 29th30th;" andbring the Preliminaries to

perfection. And have them signed before daybreak; which is, in effect, signing, or at least fixing as certain,

the Treaty itself; so that Armistice can ensue straightway, and the War essentially end.

A fixed thing; the Purseholders having signed. On the safe rear of which, your recipient Subsidiary Parties

can argue and protest (as the EmpressQueen and her Kaunitz vehemently did, to great lengths), and

gradually come in and finish. Which, in the course of the next six months, they all did, EmpressQueen and

Excellency Kaunitz not excepted. And so, October 18th, 1748, all details being, in the interim, either got

settled, or got flung into corners as unsettleable (mostly the latter),Treaty itself was signed by everybody;

and there was "Peace of AixlaChapelle." Upon which, except to remark transiently how inconclusive a

conclusion it was, mere end of war because your powder is run out, mere truce till you gather breath and

gunpowder again, we will spend no word in this place. [Complete details in ADELUNG, vi. 225409:

"October, 1747," Ligonier returning, and first rumor of new Congress (226); "17th March, 1748," Sandwich

come (323); "April 29th30th," meet under cloud of night (326); Kaunitz protesting (339): "2d August,"

Russians to halt and turn (397); "are over into the Oberpfalz, magazines ahead at Nurnberg;" in September,

get to Bohmen again, and winter there: "18th October, 1748," Treaty finished (398, 409); Treaty itself given

(IB., Beylage, 44). See Gentleman's Magazine, and OLD NEWSPAPERS of 1748; Coxe's Pelham, ii. 741,

"The Treaty of AixlaChapelle was done in a hurry and a huddle; greatly to Maria Theresa's disgust. 'Why

not go on with your expenditures, ye SeaPowers? Can money and life be spent better? I have yet conquered

next to nothing for the Cause of Liberty and myself!' But the SeaPowers were tired of it; the Dutch

especially, who had been hoisted with such difficulty, tended strongly, New Stadtholder notwithstanding, to

plump down again into stable equilibrium on the broadbottom principle. Huddle up the matter; end it, well

if you can; any way end it. The Treaty contained many Articles, now become forgettable to mankind. There is

only One Article, and the Want of One, which shall concern us in this place. The One Article is: guarantee by

all the European Powers to Friedrich's Treaty of Dresden. Punctually got as bargained for, French

especially willing; Britannic Majesty perhaps a little languid, but his Ministers positive on the point; so that

Friedrioh's Envoy had not much difficulty at Aix. And now, Friedrich's Ownership of Silesia recognized by

all the Powers to be final and unquestionable, surely nothing more is wanted? Nothing, except keeping of

this solemn stipulation by all the Powers. How it was kept by some of them; in what sense some of them are

"The Want of an Article was, on the part of England, concerning JENKINS'S EAR. There is not the least

conclusion arrived at on that important SpanishEnglish Question; blind beginning of all these

conflagrations; and which, in its meaning to the somnambulant Nation, is so immense. No notice taken of it;

huddled together, some hasty shovelful or two of diplomatic ashes cast on it, 'As good as extinct, you see!'

Left smoking, when all the rest is quenched. Considerable feeling there was, on this point, in the heart of the

poor somnambulant English Nation; much dumb or semi articulate growling on such a PeaceTreaty: 'We

have arrived nowhere, then, by all this fighting, and squandering, and perilous stumbling among the

chimneypots? Spain (on its own showing) owed us 95,000 pounds. Spain's debt to Hanover; yes, you take

care of that; some old sixpenny matter, which nobody ever heard of before: and of Spain's huge debt to

England you drop no hint; of the 95,000 pounds, clear money, due by Spain; or of one's liberty to navigate

the High Seas, none!' [PROTEST OF ENGLISH MERCHANTS AGAINST, ("May, 1748") given in

ADELUNG, vi. 353358.] A Peace the reverse of applauded in England; though the wiser Somnambulants,

much more Pitt and Friends, who are broad awake on these German points, may well be thankful to see such

Well, surely this old admitted 95,000 pounds should have been paid! And, to a moral certainty, Robinson

and Sandwich must have made demand of it from the Spaniard. But there is no getting old Debts in,

especially from that quarter. "King Friedrich [let me interrupt, for a moment, with this poor composite Note]

is trying in Spain even now,ever since 1746, when Termagant's Husband died, and a new King came,for

payment of old debt: Two old Debts; quite tolerably just both of them. King Friedrich keeps trying till 1749,

three years in all: and, in the end, gets nothing whatever. Nothing,except some Merino Rams in the

interim," gift from the new King of Spain, I can suppose, which proved extremely useful in our Wool

Industries; "and, from the same polite Ferdinand VI., a Porcelain Vase filled with Spanish Snuff." That was

King Friedrich, let me note farther, is getting decidedly deep into snuff; holds by SPANIOL (a dry yellow

pungency, analogous to Lundy foot or IrishBlackguard, known to snuffy readers); always by Spaniol, we

say; and more especially "the kind used by her Majesty of Spain," the now Dowager Termagant: [Orders this

kind, from his Ambassador in Paris, "30th September, 1743:" the earliest extant trace of his snuffing habits

(Preuss, i. 409).NOTE FARTHER (if interesting): "The Termagant still lasted as Dowager, consuming

SPANIOL at least, for near twenty years (died 11th July, 1766); the new King, Ferdinand VI., was her

STEPson, not her son; he went mad, poor soul, and died (10th August, 1759): upon which, Carlos of Naples,

our own 'Baby Carlos' that once was, succeeded in Spain, 'King Carlos III. of Spain;' leaving his Son, a young

boy under tutelage, as King of the Two Sicilies (King 'Ferdinand IV.,' who did not die, but had his

difficulties, till 1825). Don Philip, who had fought so in those Savoy Passes, and got the bit of Parmesan

Country, died 1765, the year before Mamma."] which, also, is to be remembered. Dryasdust adds, in his

sweetly consecutive way: "Friedrich was very expensive about his snuffboxes; wore two big rich boxes in

his pockets; five or six stood on tables about; and more than a hundred in store, coming out by turns for

variety. The cheapest of them cost 300 pounds (2,000 thalers); he had them as high as 1,500 pounds. At his

death, there were found 130 of various values: they were the substance of all the jewelry he had; besides

these snuffboxes, two gold watches only, and a very small modicum of rings. Had yearly for personal

Expenditure 1,200,000 thalers [180,000 pounds of Civil List, as we should say]; SPENT 33,000 pounds of it,

and yearly gave the rest away in Royal beneficences, aid of burnt Villages, inundated Provinces, and

multifarious PATERPATRIAE objects." [Preuss, i. 409, 410,] In regard to JENKINS'S EAR, my

"SILESIA and JENKINS'S EAR, we often say, were the two bits of realities in this enormous hurlyburly of

imaginations, insane ambitions, and zeros and negative quantities. Negative Belleisle goes home, not with

Germany cut in Four and put under guidance of the First Nation of the Universe (so extremely fit for guiding

self and neighbors), but with the First Nation itself reduced almost to wallet and staff; bankrupt, beggared

'Yes,' it answers, 'in all but glory! Have not we gained Fontenoy, Roucoux, Lauffeld; and strongplaces

innumerable [mostly in a state of dryrot]? Did men ever fight as we Frenchmen; combining it with theatrical

entertainments, too! Sublime France, First Nation of the Universe, will try another flight (ESSOR), were she

"Yes, a new ESSOR ere long, and perhaps surprise herself and mankind! The losses of men, money and

resource, under this mad empty Enterprise of Belleisle's, were enormous, palpable to France and all mortals:

but perhaps these were trifling to the replacement of them by such GLOIRE as there had been. A GLOIRE of

plunging into War on no cause at all; and with an issue consisting only of foul gases of extreme levity.

Messieurs are of confessed promptitude to fight; and their talent for it, in some kinds, is very great indeed.

But this treating of battle and slaughter, of death, judgment and eternity, as light playhouse matters; this of

rising into such transcendency of valor, as to snap your fingers in the face of the Almighty Maker; this,

Messieurs, give me leave to say so, is a thing that will conduct you and your PREMIERE NATION to the

Devil, if you do not alter it. Inevitable, I tell you! Your road lies that way, then? Good morning, Messieurs;

Diplomatist Kaunitz gained his first glories in this Congress of Aix; which are still great in the eyes of some.

Age now thirty seven; a native of these Western parts; but henceforth, by degrees ever more, the shining star

and guide of Austrian Policies down almost to our own New Epoch. As, unluckily, he will concern us not a

little, in time coming, let us read this Note, as foreshadow of the man and his doings:

"The glory of Count, ultimately Prince, von KaunitzRietberg, is great in Diplomatic Circles of the past

Century. 'The greatest of Diplomatists,' they all say;and surely it is reckoned something to become the

greatest in your line. Farther than this, to the readers of these times, KaunitzRietberg's glory does not go. A

great character, great wisdom, lasting great results to his Country, readers do not trace in Kaunitz's

diplomacies,only temporary great results, or what he and the bystanders thought such, to Kaunitz himself.

He was the Supreme Jove, we perceive, in that extinct Olympus; and regards with sublime pity, not unallied

to contempt, all other diplomatic beings. A man sparing of words, sparing even of looks; will hardly lift his

eyelids for your sake, will lift perhaps his chin, in slight monosyllabic fashion, and stalk superlatively

through the other door. King of the vanished Shadows. A determined hater of Fresh Air; rode under glass

cover, on the finest day; made the very Empress shut her windows when he came to audience; fed, cautiously

daring, on boiled capons: more I remember not,except also that he would suffer no mention of the word

Death by any mortal. [Hormayr, OEsterreichischer Plutarch, iv. (3tes), 231283.] A most highsniffing,

fantastic, slightly insolent shadowking;ruled, in his time, the now vanished Olympus; and had the

difficult glory (defective only in result) of uniting France and Austria AGAINST the poor old Sea Power

milkcows, for the purpose of recovering Silesia from Friedrich, a few years hence!"These are wondrous

results; hidden under the horizon, not very far either; and will astonish Britannic Majesty and all readers, in a

In Summer, 1749, Marechal de Saxe, the other shiny figure of this mad Business of the Netherlands, paid

Friedrich a visit; had the honor to be entertained by him three days (July 13th16th, 1749), in his Royal

Cottage of SansSouci seemingly, in his choicest manner. Curiosity, which is now nothing like so vivid as it

then was, would be glad to listen a little, in this meeting of two Suns, or of one Sun and one immense

TarBarrel, or Atmospheric Meteor really of shining nature, and taken for a Sun. But the Books are silent;

not the least detail, or hint, or feature granted us. Only Fancy;and this of Smelfungus, by way of long

... "It was at Tongres, or in headquarters near it, 10th October, 1746,Battle expected on the morrow

[Battle of ROUCOUX, over towards Herstal, which we used to know], that M. Favart, Saxe's Playwright

and TheatreDirector, gave out in cheerful doggerel on fall of the Curtain, the announcement:

Nous ne songeons qu'a vos plaisires' [ Biographic Universelle, xiv. 209, ? Favart; Espagnac, ii. 162.]

'Day after tomorrow,' added he, taking the o5cial tone, (in honor of your laurels [gained already, since you

resolve on gaining them], we will have the honor of presenting'such and such a gay Farce, to as many of

you as remain alive! which was received with gay clapping of hands: admirable to the Universe, at least to

the Parisian UNIVERS and oneself. Such a prodigality of light daring is in these French gentlemen, skilfully

tickled by the Marechal; who uses this Playwright, among other implements, for keeping them at the proper

pitch. Was there ever seen such radiancy of valor? Very radiant indeed;yet, it seems to me, gone somewhat

into the phosphorescent kind; shining in the dark, as fish will do when rotten! War has actually its serious

character; nor is Death a farcical transaction, however high your genius may go. But what then? it is the

Marechal's trade to keep these poor people at the cutting pitch, on any terms that will hold for the moment.

"I know not which was the most dissolute Army ever seen in the world; but this of Saxe's was very dissolute.

Playwright Favart had withal a beautiful clever Wife,upon whom the courtships, munificent

blandishments, threatenings and utmost endeavors of Marechal de Saxe (in his character of goatfooted

Satyr) could not produce the least impression. For a whole year, not the least. Whereupon the Goatfooted

had to get LETTRE DE CACHET for her; had toin fact, produce the brutalest Adventure that is known of

him, even in this brutal kind. Poor Favart, rushing about in despair, not permitted to run him through the

belly, and die with his Wife undishonored, had to console himself, he and she; and do agreeable theatricalities

"Of Saxe's Generalship, which is now a thing fallen pretty much into oblivion, I have no authority to speak.

He had much wild natural ingenuity in him; cunning rapid whirls of contrivance; and gained Three Battles

and very many Sieges, amid the loudest clapping of hands that could well be. He had perfect intrepidity; not

to be flurried by any amount of peril or confusion; looked on that English Column, advancing at Fontenoy

with its FUE INFERNAL, steadily through his perspective; chewing his leaden bullet: 'Going to beat me,

then? Well!' Nobody needed to be braver. He had great goodnature too, though of hot temper and so full

of multifarious veracities; a substratum of inarticulate good sense withal, and much magnanimity run wild, or

run to seed. A big limbed, swashing, perpendicular kind of fellow; haughty of face, but jolly too; with a big,

not ugly strut;captivating to the French Nation, and fit God of War (fitter than 'Dalhousie,' I am sure!) for

that susceptive People. Understood their Army also, what it was then and there; and how, by theatricals and

otherwise, to get a great deal of fire out of it. Great deal of fire;whether by gradual conflagration or not, on

the road to ruin or not; how, he did not care. In respect of military 'fame' so called, he had the great advantage

of fighting always against bad Generals, sometimes against the very worst. To his fame an advantage; to

himself and his real worth, far the reverse. Had he fallen in with a Friedrich, even with a Browne or a Traun,

there might have been different news got. Friedrich (who was never stingy in such matters, except to his own

Generals, where it might do hurt) is profuse in his eulogies, in his admirations of Saxe; amiable to see, and

"It is certain the French Army reaped no profit from its experience of Marechal de Saxe, and the high

theatricalities, ornamental blackguardisms, and ridicule of death and life. In the longrun a graver face would

have been of better augury. King Friedrich's soldiers, one observes, on the eve of battle, settle their bits of

worldly business; and wind up, many of them, with a hoarse whisper of prayer. Oliver Cromwell's soldiers

did so, Gustaf Adolf's; in fact, I think all good soldiers: Roucoux with a Prince Karl, Lauffeld with a Duke of

Cumberland; you gain your Roucoux, your Lauffeld, Human Stupidity permitting: but one day you fall in

with Human Intelligence, in an extremely grave form;aud your 'ELAN,' elastic outburst, the quickest in

Nature, what becomes of it? Wait but another decade; we shall see what an Army this has grown. Cupidity,

dishonesty, floundering stupidity, indiscipline, mistrust; and an elastic outspurt (ELAN) turned often enough

"M. le Marechal survived AixlaChapelle little more than two years. Lived at Chambord, on the Loire, an

ExRoyal Palace; in such splendor as never was. Went down in a rosepink cloud, as if of perfect felicity; of

glory that would last forever,which it has by no means done. He made despatch; escaped, in this world, the

Nemesis, which often waits on what they call 'fame.' By diligent service of the Devil, in ways not worth

specifying, he saw himself, November 21st, 1750, flung prostrate suddenly: 'Putrid fever!' gloom the doctors

ominously to one another: and, November 30th, the Devil (I am afraid it was he, though clad in roseate

effulgence, and melodious exceedingly) carried him home on those kind terms, as from a Universe all of

About two months after those SaxeFriedrich hospitalities at SansSouci, Voltaire, writing, late at night,

from the hospitable Palace of Titular Stanislaus, has these words, to his trusted D'Argental:

LUNEVILLE, 4th SEPTEMBER, 1749. ... "Madame du Chatelet, this night, while scribbling over her

NEWTON, felt a little twinge; she called a waitingmaid, who had only time to hold out her apron, and catch

a little Girl, whom they carried to its cradle. The Mother arranged her papers, went to bed; and the whole of

that (TOUT CELA) is sleeping like a dormouse, at the hour I write to you." My guardian angels, "poor I

sha'n't have so easy a delivery of my CATILINA" (my ROME SAVED, for the confusion of old Crebillon

LUNEVILLE PALACE, 10th SEPTEMBER. "For the first three or four days, the health of the Mother

appeared excellent; denoting nothing but the weakness inseparable from her situation. The weather was very

warm. Milkfever came, which made the heat worse. In spite of remonstrances, she would have some iced

barleywater; drank a big glass of it;and, some instants after, had great pain in her head; followed by other

bad symptoms." Which brought the Doctor in again, several Doctors, hastily summoned; who, after

difficulties, thought again that all was comiug right. And so, on the sixth night, 10th September, inquiring

friends had left the sickroom hopefully, and gone down to supper, "the rather as Madame seemed inclined to

sleep. There remained none with her but M. de St. Lambert, one of her maids and I. M. de St. Lambert, as

soon as the strangers were gone, went forward and spoke some moments to her; but seeing her sleepy, drew

back, and sat chatting with us two. Eight or ten minutes after, we heard a kind of rattle in the throat,

intermixed with hiccoughs: we ran to the bed; found her, senseless; raised her to a sitting posture, tried

vinaigrettes, rubbed her feet, knocked into the palms of her hands;all in vain; she was dead!

"Of course the supperparty burst up into her room; M. le Marquis de Chatelet, M. de Voltaire, and the

others. Profound consternation: to tears, to cries succeeded a mournful silence. Voltaire and St. Lambert

remained the last about her bed. At length Voltaire quitted the room; got out by the Grand Entrance, hardly

knowing which way he went. At the foot of the Outer Stairs, near a sentry's box, he fell full length on the

pavement. His lackey, who was a step or two behind, rushed forward to raise him. At that moment came M.

de St. Lambert; who had taken the same road, and who now hastened to help. M. de Voltaire, once on his feet

again, and recognizing who it was, said, through his tears and with the most pathetic accent, 'AH, MON AMI,

it is you that have killed her to me!'and then suddenly, as if starting awake, with the tone of reproach and

despair, 'EH, MON DIEU, MONSIEUR, DE QUOI VOUS AVISIEZVOUS DE LUI FAIRE UN ENFANT

(Good God, Sir, what put it into your head to to)!'" [Longchamp et Wagniere, Memoires sur Voltaire, ii.

Poor M. de Voltaire; suddenly become widower, and flung out upon his shifts again, at his time of life! May

now wander, Ishmael like, whither he will, in this hard lonesome world. His grief is overwhelming, mixed

with other sharp feelings clue on the matter; but does not last very long, in that poignant form. He will turn

up on us, in his new capacity of singleman, again brilliant enough, within year and day.

Last Autumn, September, 1748, Wilhelmina's one Daughter, one child, was wedded; to that young

Durchlaucht of Wurtemberg, whom we saw gallanting the little girl, to Wilhelmina's amusement, some years

ago. About the wedding, nothing; nor about the wedded life, what would have been more curious:no

Wilhelmina now to tell us anything; not even whether Mamma the Improper Duchess was there. From Berlin,

the Two youngest Princes, Henri and Ferdinand, attended at Baireuth;Mannstein, our old Russian friend,

now Prussian again, escorting them. [Seyfarth, ii. 76.] The King, too busy, I suppose, with Silesian Reviews

and the like, sends his best wishes,for indeed the Match was of his sanctioning and advising; though his

wishes proved mere disappointment in the sequel. Friedrich got no "furtherance in the SwabianFranconian

Circles," or favor anywhere, by means of this Durchlaucht; in the end, far the reverse!In a word, the happy

couple rolled away to Wurtemberg (September 26th, 1748); he twenty, she sixteen, poor young creatures; and

There was but one child, and it soon died. The young Serene Lady was of airy high spirit; graceful, clever,

good too, they said; perhaps a thought too proud:but as for her Reigning Duke, there was seldom seen so

lurid a Serenity; and it was difficult to live beside him. A most arbitrary Herr, with glooms and whims;

dimeyed, ambitious, voracious, and the temper of an angry mule,very fit to have been haltered, in a

judicious manner, instead of being set to halter others! Enough, in six or seven years time, the bright Pair

found itself grown thunderous, opaque beyond description; and (in 1759) had to split asunder for good.

"Owing to the reigning Duke's behavior," said everybody. "Has behaved so, I would run him through the

body, if we met!" said his own Brother once:Brother Friedrich Eugen, a Prussian General by that time,

whom we shall hear of. [Preuss, iv. 149; Michaelis, iii. 451.] What thoughts for our dear Wilhelmina, in her

In these years, Friedrich goes on victoriously with his LawReform; Herculean Cocceji with Assistants,

backed by Friedrich, beneficently conquering Province after Province to him;KurMark, NeuMark,

Cleve (all easy, in comparison, after Pommern), and finally Preussen itself;to the joy and profit of the

same. Cocceji's method, so far as the Foreign onlooker can discern across much haze, seems to be

1. Extirpation (painless, were it possible) of the Pettifogger Species; indeed, of the Attorney Species

altogether: "Seek other employments; disappear, all of you, from these precincts, under penalty!" The

Advocate himself takes charge of the suit, from first birth of it; and sees it ended,he knows within what

2. Sifting out of all incompetent Advocates, "Follow that Attorney Company, you; away!"sifting out all

these, and retaining in each Court, with fees accurately settled, with character stamped sound, or at least

SOUNDEST, the number actually needed. In a milder way, but still more strictly, Judges stupid or otherwise

Chapter IV. COCCEJI FINISHES THE LAWREFORM; FRIEDRICH IS PRINTING HIS POESIES. 956

3. What seems to be Friedrich's own invention, what in outcome he thinks will be the summary of all good

LawProcedure: A final Sentence (three "instances" you can have, but the third ends it for you) within the

Year. Good, surely. A justice that intends to be exact must front the complicacies in a resolute piercing

manner, and will not be tedious. Nay a justice that is not moderately swift,human hearts waiting for it, the

while, in a cancerous state, instead of hopefully following their work,what, comparatively, is the use of its

Simple enough methods; rough and ready. Needing, in the execution, clear human eyesight, clear human

honesty,which happen to be present here, and without which no "method" whatever can be executed that

In the course of 1748, Friedrich, judging by Pommern and the other symptoms that his enterprise was safe,

struck a victorious Medal upon it: "FRIDERICUS BORUSSORUM REX," pressing with his sceptre the

oblique Balance to a level posture; with Epigraph, "EMENDATO JURE." [Letter to Cocceji, accompanying

Copy of the Medal in Gold, "24th June, 1748" (Seyfarth, ii. 67 n.).] And by Newyear's day, 1750, the matter

was in effect completed; and "justice cheap, expeditious, certain," a fact in all Prussian Lands.

Nay, in 17491751, to complete the matter, Cocceji's "Project of a general LawCode," PROJEKT DES

CORPORIS JURIS FRIDERICIANI, came forth in print: [Halle, 2 vols. folio (Preuss, i. 316; see IB. 315 n.,

as to the LAWPROCEDURE, $c. now settled by Cocceji).] to the admiration of mankind, at home and

abroad; "the First Code attempted since Justinian's time," say they. PROJECT translated into all languages,

and read in all countries. A poor mildewed copy of this CODEX FRIDERICIANUSdone at Edinburgh,

1761, not said by whom; evidently bought at least TWICE, and mostly never yet read (nor like being

read)is known to me, for years past, in a ghastly manner! Without the least profit to this present, or to any

other Enterprise;though persons of name in Jurisprudence call it meritorious in their Science; the first real

attempt at a Code in Modern times. But the truth is, this Cocceji CODEX remained a PROJECT merely,

never enacted anywhere. It was not till 1773, that Friedrich made actual attempt to build a LawCode and did

build one (the foundationstory of one, for his share, completed since), in which this of Cocceji had little

part. In 1773, the thing must again be mentioned; the "Second LawReform," as they call it. What we

practically know from this time is, That Prussian Lawsuits, through Friedrich's Reign, do all terminate, or

push at their utmost for terminating, within one year from birth; and that Friedrich's fame, as a beneficent

Justinian, rose high in all Countries (strange, in Countries that had thought him a Warscourge and

Conquering Hero); strange, but undeniable; [See Gentleman's Magazine, xx. 215218 ("May, 1750"):

eloquent, enthusiastic LETTER, given there, "of Baron de Spon to Chancellor D'Aguessan," on these

inimitable Law Achievements.] and that his own People, if more silently, yet in practice very gladly indeed,

welcomed his LawReform; and, from day to day, enjoyed the same,no doubt with occasional

Of Friedrich's Literary works, nobody, not even Friedrich himself, will think it necessary that we say much.

But the fact is, he is doing a great many things that way: in Prose, the MEMOIRS OF BRANDENBURG,

coming out as Papers in the Academy from time to time; [From 1746 and onward: first published complete

(after slight revision by Voltaire), Berlin, 1751.] in Verse, very secret as yet, the PALLADION ("exquisite

Burlesque," think some), the ART OF WAR (reckoned truly his best Piece in verse):and wishes sometimes

he had Voltaire here to perfect him a little. This too would be one of the practical charms of Voltaire.

[Friedrich's Letter to Algarotti ( OEuvres, xviii. 66), "12th September, 1749."] For though King Friedrich

knows and remembers always, that these things, especially the Verse part, are mere amusements in

comparison, he has the creditable wish to do these well; one would not fantasy ILL even on the Flute, if one

could help it. "Why does n't Voltaire come; as Quantz of the Flute has done?" Friedrich, now that Voltaire

has fallen widower, renews his pressings, "Why don't you come?" Patience, your Majesty; Voltaire will

Chapter IV. COCCEJI FINISHES THE LAWREFORM; FRIEDRICH IS PRINTING HIS POESIES. 957

Nobody can wish details in this Department: but there is one thing necessary to be mentioned, That Friedrich

in these years, 17491752, has Printers out at Potsdam, and is Printing, "in beautiful quarto form, with

copperplates," to the extent of twelve copies, the OEUVRES (Poetical, that is) DU PHILOSOPHE DE

SANSSOUCI. Only twelve copies, I have heard; gift of a single copy indicating that you are among the

choicest of the chosen. Copies have now fallen extremely rare (and are not in request at all, with my readers

or me); but there was one Copy which, or the Mistitle of which, as OEUVRE DE "POESHIE" DU ROI

MON MAITRE, became miraculously famous in a year or two;and is still memorable to us all! On

Voltaire's arrival, we shall hear more of these things. Enough to say at present that the OEUVRES DU

D'APOLLON,"three thinnish quarto volumes, all the Poetry then on hand,"was finished early in 1750,

before Voltaire came. That, when Voltaire came, a revisal was undertaken, a new Edition, with Voltaire's

corrections and other changes (total suppression of the PALLADION, for one creditable change): that this

Edition was to have been in Two Volumes; that One, accordingly, rather thicker than the former sort, was got

finished in 1752 (same TITLE, only the new Date, and "no DONJON DU CHATEAU this time"), One

Volume in 1752; after which, owing to the explosions that ensued, no Second came, nor ever will;and that

the actual contents of that far famed OEUVRE DE "POESHIE" (number of volumes even) are points of

mystery to me, at this day. [Herr Preussin the CHRONOLOGICAL LIST of Friedrich's Writings (a useful

accurate Piece otherwise), and in two other places where he triesis very indistinct on this of DONJON DU

CHATEAU; and it is all but impossible to ascertain from him WHAT, in an indisputable manner, the

OEUVRE DE "POESHIE" may have been. Here are the places for groping, if another should be induced to

try: OEuvres de Frederic, x. (Preface, p. ix); IB. xi. (Preface, p. ix); IB. Table Chhronologique (in what

Volume this is, you cannot yet say; seems preliminary to a GENERAL INDEX, which is infinitely wanted,

Friedrich's other employments are multifarious as those of a Land's Husband (not inferior to his Father in that

respect); and, like the benefits of the diurnal Sun, are to be considered incessant, innumerable and, in result to

usward, SILENT also, impossible to speak of in this place. From the highest pitch of Statecraft (Russian

Czarina now fallen plainly hostile, and needing lynxeyed diplomacy ever and anon), down to that of

Dredging and Fascinework (as at Stettin and elsewhere), of Odercanals, of Soapboiler Companies, and

MulberryandSilk Companies; nay of ordaining Where, and where not, the Crows are to he shot, and

(owing to cattle murrain) No VEAL to be killed: [Seyfarth, ii. 71, 83, 81; Preuss, Buch fur Jedermann, i.

101109; daily comes the tide of great and of small, and daily the punctual Friedrich keeps abreast of

it,and Dryasdust has noted the details, and stuffed them into blind sacks,for forty years.

The Review seasons, I notice, go somewhat as follows. For Berlin and neighborhood, May, or perhaps end of

April (weather now bright, and ground firm); sometimes with considerable pomp ("both Queens out," and

beautiful Female Nobilities, in "twentyfour green tents"), and often with great complicacy of manoeuvre. In

June, to Magdeburg, round by Cleve; and home again for some days. July is Pommern: Onward thence to

Schlesien, oftenest in August; Schlesien the last place, and generally not done with till well on in September.

But we will speak of these things, more specially, another time. Such "Reviews," for strictness of inspection

civil and military, as probably were not seen in the world since,or before, except in the case of this King's

British Diplomacies, next to the Russian, cause some difficulties in those years: of which more by and by.

Early in 1748, while Aix laChapelle was starting, ExExchequer Legge came to Berlin; on some obscure

object of a small Patch of Principality, hanging loose during those Negotiations: "Could not we secure it for

his Royal Highness of Cumberland, thinks your Majesty?" ExExchequer Legge was here; [Coxe's Pelham, i.

431, Rodenbeck, pp. 155, 160 (first audience 1st May, 1748);recalled 22d November, Aix being over.] got

handsome assurances of a general nature; but no furtherance towards his obscure, completely impracticable

And the second year after, early in 1750, came Sir Hanbury Williams, famed London Wit of Walpole's circle,

on objects which, in the main, were equally chimerical: "King of the Romans, much wanted;" "No Damage to

your Majesty's Shipping from our British Privateers;" and the like;about which some notice, and not very

much, will be due farther on. Here, in his own words, is Hanbury's Account of his First Audience:

... "On Thursday," 16th July, 1750, "I went to Court by appointment, at 11 A.M. The King of Prussia arrived

about 12 [at Berlin; King in from Potsdam, for one day]; and Count Podewils immediately introduced me into

the Royal closet; when I delivered his Britannic Majesty's Letters into the King of Prussia's hands, and made

the usual compliments to him in the best manner I was able. To which his Prussian Majesty replied, to the

best of my remembrance, as follows: "'I have the truest esteem for the King of Britain's person; and I set

the highest value on his friendship. I have at different times received essential proofs of it; and I desire you

would acquaint the King your Master that I will (SIC) never forget them.' His Prussian Majesty afterwards

said something with respect to myself, and then asked me several questions about indifferent things and

persons. He seemed to express a great deal of esteem for my Lord Chesterfield, and a great deal of kindness

for Mr. Villiers," useful in the PeaceofDresden time; "but did not once mention Lord Hyndford or Mr.

"I was in the closet with his Majesty exactly five minutes and a half. My audience done, Prussian Majesty

came out into the general room, where Foreign Ministers were waiting. He said, on stepping in, just one

word" to the Austrian Excellency; not even one to the Russian Excellency, nor to me the Britannic;

"conversed with the French, Swedish, Danish;"happy to be off, which I do not wonder at; to dine with

Mamma at Monbijou, among faces pleasant to him; and return to his Businesses and Books next day.

Witty Excellency Hanbury did not succeed at Berlin on the "Romish King Question," or otherwise; and

indeed went off rather in a hurry. But for the next six or seven years he puddles about, at a great rate, in those

Northern Courts; giving away a great deal of money, hatching many futile expensive intrigues at Petersburg,

Warsaw (not much at Berlin, after the first trial there); and will not be altogether avoidable to us in time

coming, as one could have wished. Besides, he is Horace Walpole's friend and select London Wit: he

contributed a good deal to the English notions about Friedrich; and has left considerable bits of acrid

testimony on Friedrich, "clear words of an Eyewitness," men call them,which are still read by everybody;

the said Walpole, and others, having since printed them, in very dark condition. [In Walpole, George the

Second (i. 448461), the Pieces which regard Friedrich. In Sir Charles Hanbury Williams's Works (edited by

a diligent, reverential, but ignorant gentleman, whom I could guess to be Bookseller Jeffery in person:

London, 1822, 3 vols. small 8vo) are witty Verses, and considerable sections of Prose, relating to other

persons and objects now rather of an obsolete nature.] Brevity is much due to Hanbury and his testimonies,

since silence in the circumstances is not allowable. Here is one Excerpt, with the necessary light for reading

... It is on this RomishKing and other the like chimerical errands, that witty Hanbury, then a much more

admirable man than we now find him, is prowling about in the German Courts, off and on, for some ten years

in all, six of them still to come. A sharpeyed man, of shrewish quality; given to intriguing, to spying, to

bribing; anxious to win his Diplomatic game by every method, though the stake (as here) is oftenest zero:

with fatal proclivity to Scandal, and what in London circles he has heard called Wit. Little or nothing of real

laughter in the soul of him, at any time; only a labored continual grin, always of malicious nature, and much

trouble and jerking about, to keep that up. Had evidently some modicum of real intellect, of capacity for

being wise; but now has fatally devoted it nearly all to being witty, on those poor terms! A perverse, barren,

spiteful little wretch; the grin of him generally an affliction, at this date. His Diplomatic Correspondence I do

not know. [Nothing of him is discoverable in the StatePaper Office. Many of his Papers, it would seem, are

in the Earl of Essex's hands;and might be of some Historical use, not of very much, could the British

Museum get possession of them. Abundance of BACKSTAIRS History, on those Northern Courts, especially

on Petersburg, and WarsawDresden,authentic Courtgossip, generally malicious, often not true, but

never mendacious on the part of Williams,is one likely item.] He did a great deal of Diplomatic business,

issuing in zero, of which I have sometimes longed to know the exact dates; seldom anything farther. His

"History of Poland," transmitted to the Right Hon. Henry Fox, by instalments from Dresden, in 1748, is [See

Hanbury's Works, vol. iii.]Well, I should be obliged to call it worthier of Goody TwoShoes than of that

Right Hon. Henry, who was a man of parts, but evidently quite a vacuum on the Polish side!

Of Hanbury's NewsLetters from Foreign Courts, four or five, incidentally printed, are like the contents of a

sloppail; uncomfortable to the delicate mind. Not lies on the part of Hanbury, but foolish scandal poured

into him; a man more filled with credulous incredible scandal, evil rumors, of malfeasances by kings and

magnates, than most people known. His rumored mysteries between poor Polish Majesty and pretty

Daughterinlaw (the latter a clever and graceful creature, Daughter of the late unfortunate Kaiser, and a

distinguished Correspondent of Friedrich's) are to be regarded as mere poisoned wind. [See Hanbury's Works,

ii. 209240.] That "Polish Majesty gets into his dressing gown at two in the afternoon" (inaccessible

thenceforth, poor lazy creature), one most readily believes; but there, or pretty much there, one's belief has to

stop. The stories, in WALPOLE, on the King of Prussia, have a grain of fact in them, twisted into huge

irrecognizable caricature in the Williams opticmachinery. Much else one can discern to be, in essence, false

altogether. Friedrich, who could not stand that intriguing, spying, shrewish, unfriendly kind of fellow at his

Court, applied to England in not many months hence, and got Williams sent away: ["22d January, 1751"

(MS. LIST in StatePaper Office).] on to Russia, or I forget whither;which did not mend the Hanbury

opticalmachinery on that side. The dull, tobaccosmoking SaxonPolish Majesty, about whom he idly

On the whole, if anybody wanted a swim in the sloppails of that extinct generation, Hanbury, could he find

an Editor to make him legible, might be printed. For he really was deep in that sloppail or extinctscandal

department, and had heard a great many things. Apart from that, in almost any other department,except in

so far as he seems to DATE rather carefully,I could not recommend him. The Letters and Excerpts given

in Walpole are definable as one pennyworth of bread,much ruined by such immersion, but very harmless

otherwise, could you pick it out and clean it,to twenty gallons of Hanbury sherrissack, or chamberslop. I

have found nothing that seems to be, in all points, true or probable, but this; worth cutting out, and rendering

"In the summer of last year, 1749, there was, somewhere in Mahren, a great Austrian Muster or Review;" all

the more interesting, as it was believed, or known, that the Prussian methods and manoeuvres were now to be

the rule for Austria. Not much of a Review otherwise, this of 1749; EmpressQueen and Husband not

personally there, as in coming Years they are wont to be; that high Lady being ardent to reform her Army,

root and branch, according to the Prussian model,more praise to her. [ Maria Theresiens Leben, p. 160

(what she did that way, ANNO 1749); p. 162 (PRESENT at the Reviews, ANNO 1750).] "At this Muster in

Mahren, Three Prussian Officers happened to make their appearance, for several imaginable reasons, of

little significance: 'For the purpose of inveigling people to desert, and enlist with them!' said the Austrian

Authorities; and ordered the Three Prussian Officers unceremoniously off the ground. Which Friedrich, when

he heard of it, thought an unhandsome pipeclay procedure, and kept in mind against the Austrian

"Next Summer," next Spring, 1750, "an Austrian Captain being in Mecklenburg, travelling about, met there

an old acquaintance, one Chapeau [HAT! can it be possible?], who is in great favor with the King of

Prussia:"very well, Excellency Hanbury; but who, in the name of wonder, can this HAT, or Chapeau, have

been? After study, one perceives that Hanbury wrote Chazeau, meaning CHASOT, an old acquaintance of

our own! Brilliant, sabring, melodying Chasot, LieutenantColonel of the Baireuth Dragoons; who lies at

Treptow, close on Mecklenburg, and is a declared favorite of the Duchess, often running over to the

RESIDENZ there. Often enough; but HONI SOIT, O reader; the clever Lady is towards sixty, childless,

musical; and her Husbanddo readers recollect him at all?is that collapsed TAILORING Duke whom

Friedrich once visited,and whose Niece, HalfNiece, is Charlotte, wise little hardfavored creature now of

six, in clean bib and tucker, Ancestress of England that is to be; whose Papa will succeed, if the Serene Tailor

die first, which he did not quite. To this Duchess, musical gallant Chasot may well be a resource, and she

to him. Naturally the Austrian Captain, having come to Mecklenburg, dined with Serene Highness, he and

Chasot together, with concert following, and what not, at the Schloss of NeuStrelitz:And now we will

"'The grand May Review at Berlin just ahead, won't you look in; it is straight on your road home?' suggests

Chasot to his travelling friend. 'One would like it, of all things,' answered the other: 'but the King?' 'Tush,'

said Chasot; 'I will make that all straight!' And applies to the King accordingly: 'Permission to an Austrian

Officer, a good acquaintance of mine.' 'Austrian Officer?' Friedrich's eyes lighten; and he readily gives the

permission. This was at Berlin, on the very eve of the Review; and Chasot and his Austrian are made happy

in that small matter. And on the morrow [end of May, 1750], the Austrian attends accordingly; but, to his

astonishment, has hardly begun to taste the manoeuvres, whenone of Friedrich's AidesdeCamp gallops

"Next day, the Austrian is for challenging Chasot. 'As you like, that way,' answers Chasot; 'but learn first, that

on your affront I rode up to the King; and asked, publicly, Did not your Majesty grant me permission?

Unquestionably, Monsieur Chasot;and if he had not come, how could I have paid back the Moravian

business of last year!'" [Walpole, George the Second, i. 457, 459.]This is much in Friedrich's way; not the

unwelcomer that it includes a satirical twitch on Chasot, whom he truly likes withal, or did like, though now a

little dissatisfied with those too frequent Mecklenburg excursions and extramilitary cares. Of this, merely

"Did you ever hear of anything so shocking?" is Hanbury's meaning here and elsewhere. "I must tell you a

story of the King of Prussia's regard for the Law of Nations," continues he to Walpole? [Ib. i. 458.] Which

proves to be a story, turned topsyturvy, of one Hofmann, Brunswick Envoy, who (quite BEYOND

commission, and a thing that must not be thought of at all!) had been detected in dangerous intriguings with

the everbusy Russian Excellency, or another; and got flung into Spandau, [Adelung, v. 534; vii.

132144.]seemingly pretty much his due in the matter. And so of other Hanbury things. "What a Prussia;

for rigor of command, one huge prison, in a manner!" King intent on punctuality, and all his business upon

the square. Society, official and unofficial, kept rather strictly to their tackle; their mode of movement not

that of loose oxen at all! "Such a detestable Tyrant,"who has ordered ME, Hanbury, elsewhither with my

By far the notablest arrival in Berlin is M. de Voltaire's July 10th; a few days before Hanbury got his First

Audience, "five minutes long." But that arrival will require a Chapter to itself; most important arrival, that,

of all! The least important, again, is probably that of Candidatus Linsenbarth, in these same weeks; a

rugged povertystricken old Licentiate of Theology; important to no mortal in Berlin or elsewhere:upon

whom, however, and upon his procedures in that City, we propose, for our own objects, to bestow a few

glances; rugged Narrative of the thing, in singular exotic dialect, but true every word, having fortunately

come to us from Linsenbarth's own hand. [Through Rodenbeck, Beitrage, i. 463 et seq.]

Berlin, it must be admitted, after all one's reading in poor Dryasdust, remains a dim empty object;

Teutschland is dim and empty: and out of the forty blind sacks, or out of four hundred such, what picture can

any human head form to itself of Friedrich as King or Man? A trifling Adventure of that poor individual,

called Linsenbarth CANDIDATUS THEOLOGIAE, one of the poorest of mortals, but true and credible in

every particular, comes gliding by chance athwart all that; and like the glimmer of a poor rushlight, or

kindled straw, shows it us for moments, a thing visible, palpable, as it worked and lived. In the great dearth,

Linsenbarth, if I can faithfully interpret him for the modern reader, will be worth attending to.

Date of Linsenbarth's Adventure is JuneAugust, 1750. "Schloss of Beichlingen" and "Village of

Hemmleben" are in the Thuringen Hill Country (Weimar not far off to eastward): the Hero himself, a tall

awkward rawboned creature, is, for perhaps near forty years past, a CANDIDATUS, say Licentiate, or

Curate without Cure. Subsists, I should guess, by schoolmasteringcheapest schoolmaster conceivable,

wages mere nothingin the Villages about; in the Village of Hemmleben latterly; age, as I discover, grown

to be sixtyone, in those straitened but by no means forlorn circumstances. And so, here is veteran

Linsenbarth of Hemmleben, a kind of Thuringian Dominie Sampson; whose Interview with such a brother

mortal as Friedrich King of Prussia may be worth looking at,if I can abridge it properly.

Well, it appears, in the year 1750, at this thriceobscure Village of Hemmleben, the worthy old pastor

Cannabich died;worthy old man, how he had lived there, modestly studious, frugal, chiefly on

farmproduce, with tobacco and Dutch theology; a modest blessing to his fellowcreatures! And now he is

dead, and the place vacant. Twenty pounds a Year certain; let us guess it twenty, with glebe land, piggeries,

poultryhutches: who is now to get all that? Linsenbarth starts with his Narrative, in earnest.

Linsenbarth, who I guess may have been Assistant to the deceased Cannabich, and was now out of work,

says: "I had not the least thought of profiting by this vacancy; but what happened? The Herr Graf von

Werthern, at Schloss Beichlingen, sent his Steward [LEHNSDIRECTOR, FIEFDIRECTOR is the title of

this Steward, which gives rise to obsolete thought of milldues, roadlabor, payments IN NATURA], his

Lehnsdirector, Herr Kettenbeil, over to my LOGIS [cheap boarding quarters]; who brought a gracious

salutation from his Lord; saying farther, That I knew too well [excellent Cannabich gone from us, alas!] the

Pastorate of Hemmleben was vacant; that there had various competitors announced themselves,

SUPPLICANDO, for the place; the Herr Graf, however, had yet given none of them the FIAT, but waited

always till I should apply. As I had not done so, he (the Lord Graf) would now of his own motion give me the

"Without all controversy, here was a VOCATIO DIVINA, to be received with the most submissive thanks!

But the lame second messenger came hitching in [HALTING MESSENGER, German proverb] very soon.

Kettenbeil began again: 'He must mention to me SUB ROSA, Her Ladyship the Frau Grafin wanted to have

her Lady'smaid provided for by this promotion, too; I must marry her, and take the living at the same time.'"

Whew! And this is the noble Lady's way of thinking, up in her fine Schloss yonder? Linsenbarth will none of

it. "For my notion fell at once," says he, "when I heard it was DO UT FACIAS, FACIO UT FACIAS (I give

that thou mayest do, I do that thou mayest do; Wilt have the kirk, then take the irk, WILLST DU DIE

PFARRE, SO NIMM DIE QUARRE); on those terms, my reply was: 'Most respectful thanks, Herr

Fiefjudge, and No, for such a vocation! And why? The vocation must have LIBERTATEM, there must be

no VITIUM ESSENTIALE in it; it must be right IN ESSENTIALI, otherwise no honest man can accept it

with a good conscience. This were a marriage on constraint; out of which a thousand INCONVENIENTIAE

might spring!'" Hear Linsenbarth, in the piebald dialect, with the sound heart, and preference of starvation

itself to some other things! Kettenbeil (CHAINAXE) went home; and there was found another Candidatus

willing for the marriage on constraint, "out of which INCONVENIENTIAE might spring," in Linsenbarth's

"And so did the sneakish courtly gentleman [HOFMANN, courtier as Linsenbarth has it], who grasped with

both hands at my rejected offer, experience before long," continues Linsenbarth. "For the loose thing of

courttatters led him such a life that, within three years, age yet only thirty, he had to bite the dust" (BITE AT

THE GRASS, says Linsenbarth, proverbially), which was an INCONVENIENTIA including all others. "And

"However, it was very ill taken of me. All over that Thuringian region I was cried out upon as a headstrong

foolish person: The Herr Graf von Werthern, so ran the story, had of his own kindness, without request of

mine, offered me a living; RARA AVIS, singular instance; and I, rash and without head, flung away such

gracious offer. In short, I was told to my face [by goodnatured friends], Nobody would ever think of me for

promotion again;" universal suffrage giving it clear against poor Linsenbarth, in this way.

"To get out of people's sight at least," continues he, "I decided to leave my native place, and go to Berlin,"

250 miles away or more. "And so it was that, on June the 20th, 1750, I landed at Berlin for the first time: and

here straightway at the PACKHOF (or Customhouse), in searching of my things, 400 THALERS (some 60

pounds), all in Nurnberg BATZEN, were seized from me;"BATZEN, quartergroats we may say; 7 and a

half batzen go to a shilling; what a sack there must have been of them, 9,000 in all, about the size of

herringscales, in bad silver; fruit of Linsenbarth's stern thrift from birth upwards:all snatched from him at

one swoop. "And why?" says he, quite historically: Yes, Why? The reader, to understand it wholly, would

need to read in Mylius's EdictenSammlung, in SEYFARTH and elsewhere; [Mylius, Edict xli., January,

1744, and to know the scandalous condition of German coinage at this time and long after; every needy little

Potentate mixing his coin with copper at discretion, and swindling mankind with it for a season; needing to

be peremptorily forbidden, confiscated or ordered home, by the like of Friedrich. Linsenbarth answers his

"The king had, some (six) years ago, had the batzen utterly cried down (GANZ UND GAR); they were not to

circulate at all in his Countries; and I was so bold, I had brought batzen hither into the King's Capital,

KONIGLICHE RESIDENZ itself! At the Packhof, there was but one answer, 'Contraband,

Contraband!'"Here was a welcome for a man. "I made my excuses: Did not the least know; came straight

from Thuringen, many miles of road; could not guess there What His Majesty the King had been pleased to

forbid in His (THEIRO) Countries. 'You should have informed yourself,' said the Packhof people; and were

deaf to such considerations. 'A man coming into such a Residenz Town as Berlin, with intent to abide there,

should have inquired a little what was what, especially what coins were cried down, and what allowed,' said

they of the Packhof." Poor Linsenbarth! "'But what am I to do now? How am I to live, if you take my very

money from me?' 'That is your outlook,' said they; and added, He must even find stowage for his stack of

herring scales or batzen, as soon as it was sealed up; 'we have no room for it in the Packhof!'" for a man:

Here is a roughish welcome "I must leave all my money here; and find stowage for it, in a day or two.

"There was, accordingly, a truckporter called in; he loaded my effects on his barrow, and rolled away. He

brought me to the WHITE SWAN in the JUDENSTRASSE [none of the grandest of streets, that Berlin

JEWRY], threw my things out, and demanded four groschen. Two of my batzen" 2 and a half exact, "would

have done; but I had no money at all. The landlord came out: seeing that I had a stuffed featherbed [note the

luggage of Linsenbarth: "FEDERBETT," of extreme tenuity], a trunk full of linens, a bag of Books and

other trifles, he paid the man; and sent me to a small room in the court yard [Inn forms a Court, perhaps four

stories high]: 'I could stay there,' he said; 'he would give me food and drink in the meanwhile.' And so I lived

in this Inn eight weeks long, without one red farthing, in mere fear and anxiety." June 20th PLUS eight weeks

brings us to August 15th; Voltaire in HEIGHT of feather; and very great things just ahead! ["Grand

The White Swan was a place where Carriers lodged: some limb of the Law, of Subaltern sort, whom

Linsenbarth calls "DER ADVOCAT B." (one of the Ousted of Cocceji, shall we fancy!), had to do with

Carriers and their piepowder lawsuits. Advocat B. had noticed the gray dreary CANDIDATUS, sitting

sparrowlike in remote corners; had spoken to him;undertook for a LOUIS D'OR, no purchase no pay, to

get back his batzen for him. They went accordingly, one morning, to "a grand House;" it was a Minister's

(name not given), very grand Official Man: he heard the Advocat B.'s short statement; and made answer:

"Monsieur, and is it you that will pick holes in the King's Law? I have understood you were rather aiming at

the HAUSVOGTEI [Common Jail of Berlin]: Go on in that way, and you are sure of your

promotion!"Advocat B. rushed out with Linsenbarth into the street; and there was neither pay nor purchase

Poor Linsenbarth was next advised, by simple neighbors, to go direct to the King; as every poor man can, at

certain hours of the day. "Write out your Case (Memorial) with extreme brevity," said they; "nothing but the

essential points, and those clear." Linsenbarth, steam at the highpressure, composed (CONZIPIRTE) a

Memorial of that right laconic sort; wrote it fair (MUNDIRTE ES); and went off therewith "at opening of

the Gates [middle time of August, 1750, no date farther), [August 21st? (See Rodenbeck, DIARY, which we

often quote, i. 205.)]without one farthing in my pocket, in God's name, to Potsdam." He continues:

"And at Potsdam I was lucky enough to see the King; my first sight of him. He was on the Palace Esplanade

there, drilling his troops [fine trim sanded Expanse, with the Palace to rear, and Garden walks and River to

front; where Friedrich Wilhelm sat, the last day he was out, and ordered Jockey Philips's house to be actually

set about; where the troops do evolutions every morning;there is Friedrich with cockedhat and blue coat;

"When the drill was over, his Majesty went into the Garden, and the soldiers dispersed; only four Officers

remained lounging upon the Esplanade, and walked up and down. For fright I knew not what to do; I pulled

the Papers out of my pocket,these were my Memorial, two Certificates of character, and a Thuringen Pass

[poor soul]. The Officers noticed this; came straight to me, and said, 'What letters has He there, then?' I

thankfully and gladly imparted the whole; and when the Officers had read them, they said, 'We will give you

[Him, not even THEE] a good advice, The King is extra gracious today, and is gone alone into the Garden.

"This I would not do; my awe was too great. They thereupon laid hands on me [the mischievous dogs, not

illhumored either]: one took me by the right arm, another by the left, 'Off, off; to the Garden!' Having got

me thither, they looked out for the King. He was among the gardeners, examining some rare plant; stooping

over it, and had his back to us. Here I had to halt; and the Officers began, in underhand tone [the dogs!], to

put me through my drill: 'Hat under left arm!Right foot foremost! Breast well forward!Head

up!Papers from pouch!Papers aloft in right hand!Steady! Steady!'And went their ways, looking

always round, to see if I kept my posture. I perceived well enough they were pleased to make game of me;

but I stood, all the same, like a wall, being full of fear. The Officers were hardly out of the Garden, when the

King turned round, and saw this extraordinary machine,"telegraph figure or whatever we may call it, with

papers pointing to the sky. "He gave such a look at me, like a flash of sunbeams glancing through you; and

sent one of the gardeners to bring my papers. Which having got, he struck into another walk with them, and

was out of sight. In few minutes he appeared again at the place where the rare plant was, with my Papers

open in his left hand; and gave me a wave with them To come nearer. I plucked up a heart, and went straight

towards him. Oh, how thrice and fourtimes graciously this great Monarch deigned to speak to me!

KING. "'My good Thuringian (LIEBER THURINGER), you came to Berlin, seeking to earn your bread by

industrious teaching of children; and here, at the Packhof, in searching your things, they have taken your

Thuringen hoard from you. True, the batzen are not legal here; but the people should have said to you: You

are a stranger, and did n't know the prohibition;well then, we will seal up the Bag of Batzen; you send it

back to Thuringen, get it changed for other sorts; we will not take it from you!

"'Be of heart, however; you shall have your money again, and interest too.But, my poor man, Berlin

pavement is bare, they don't give anything gratis: you are a stranger; before you are known and get teaching,

"I understood the speech right well; but my awe was too great to say: 'Your Majesty will have the allhighest

grace to allow me something!' But as I was so simple and asked for nothing, he did not offer anything. And

so he turned away; but had scarcely gone six or eight steps, when he looked round, and gave me a sign I was

LINSENBARTH. "'From 1716 to 1720.' ["Born 1689" (Rodenbeck, p. 474); twentyfive when he went.]

LINSENBARTHnames famed men; sunk now, mostly, in the bottomless wastebasket: "Buddaus" (who

did a DICTIONARY of the BAYLE sort, weighing four stone troy, out of which I have learned many a

thing), "Buddaeus," "Danz," "Weissenborn," "Wolf" (now back at Halle after his tribulations,poor man, his

KING (does not want to know what he was). "'What other useful Courses of Lectures (COLLEGIA) did you

LINSENBARTH. "'Thetics and Exegetics with Fortsch [How the deuce did Fortsch teach these things?];

Hermeneutics and Polemics with Walch [editor of Luther's Works, I suppose]; Hebraics with Dr. Danz;

Homiletics with Dr. Weissenborn; PASTORALE [not Pastoral Poetry, but the Art of Pastorship] and

MORALE with Dr. Buddaeus.' [There, your Majesty!what a glimpse, as into infinite extinct Continents,

filled with ponderous thorny inanities, invincible nasal drawling of didactic Titans, and the awful attempt to

spin, on all manner of wheels, roadharness out of split cobwebs: Hoom! Hoommm! Harness not to be had

on those terms. Let the dreary Limbus close again, till the general Day of Judgment for all this.]

KING (glad to get out of the Limbus). "'Were things as wild then at Jena, in your time, as of old, when the

LINSENBARTH. "'That sort of folly is gone quite out of fashion; and a man can lead a silent and quiet life

there, just as at other Universities, if he will attend to the DIC, CURHIC? [or know what his real errand is]. In

my time their Serene Highnesses, the Nursingfathers of the University (NUTRITORES

ACADEMIAE),of the Ernestine Line [WeimarGotha Highnesses, that is], were in the habit of having the

Rufflers (RENOMISTEN), Renowners as they are called, who made so much disturbance, sent to Eisenach to

lie in the Wartburg a while; there they learned to be quiet.' [Clock strikes Twelve,dinnertime of Majesty.]

KING. "'Now I must go: they are waiting for their soup'" (and so ends Dialogue for the present). 'Did the

"When we got out of the Garden," says Linsenbarth, silent on this point, "the four Officers were still there

upon the Esplanade [Captains of Guard belike]; they went into the Palace with the King,"clearly meaning

"I remained standing on the Esplanade. For twentyseven hours I had not tasted food: not a farthing IN

BONIS [of principal or interest] to get bread with; I had waded twenty miles hither, in a sultry morning,

through the sand. Not a difficult thing to keep down laughter in such circumstances!"Poor soul; but the

Royal mind is human too."In this tremor of my heart, there came a KAMMERHUSSAR [SoldierValet,

Valet reduced to his simplest expression] out of the Palace, and asked, 'Where is the man that was with my

King (MEINEM KONIG,THY King particularly?) in the Garden?' I answered, 'Here!' And he led me into

the Schloss, to a large Room, where pages, lackeys, and Kammerhussars were about. My Kammerhussar

took me to a little table, excellently furnished; with soup, beef; likewise carp dressed with gardensalad,

likewise game with cucumbersalad: bread, knife, fork, spoon and salt were all there [and I with an appetite

of twentyseven hours; I too was there]. My hussar set me a chair, said: 'This that is on the table, the King

has ordered to be served for you (IHM): you are to eat your fill, and mind nobody; and I am to serve. Sharp,

then, fall to!' I was greatly astonished, and knew not what to do; least of all could it come into my head

that the King's Kammerhussar, who waited on his Majesty, should wait on me. I pressed him to sit by me;

but as he refused, I did as bidden; sat down, took my spoon, and went at it with a will (FRISCH)!

"The hussar took the beef from the table, set it on the charcoal dish (to keep it hot till wanted); he did the like

with the fish and roast game; and poured me out wine and beer[was ever such a lucky Barmecide!] I ate

and drank till I had abundantly enough. Dessert, confectionery, what I could,a plateful of big black

cherries, and a plateful of pears, my waitingman wrapped in paper and stuffed them into my pockets, to be a

refreshment on the way home. And so I rose from the Royal table; and thanked God and the King in my

heart, that I had so gloriously dined,"HERRLICH, "gloriously" at last. Poor excellent downtrodden

"The hussar took away. At that moment a Secretary came; brought me a sealed Order (Rescript) to the

Packhof at Berlin, with my Certificates (TESTIMONIA), and the Pass; told down on the table five

Tailducats (SCHWANZDUKATEN), and a Gold Friedrich under them [about 3 pounds 10s., I think;

better than 10 pounds of our day to a common man, and better than 100 pounds to a Linsenbarth], saying,

"And if the hussar took me into the Palace, it was now the Secretary that took me out again. And there, yoked

with six horses, stood a royal Proviantwagon; which having led me to, the Secretary said: 'You people, the

King has given order you are to take this stranger to Berlin, and also to accept no drinkmoney from him.' I

again, through the HERRN SECRETARIUM, testified my most submissive thankfulness for all Royal

"On reaching Berlin, I went at once to the Packhof, straight to the officeroom,"standing more erect this

time,"and handed them my Royal Rescript. The Head man opened the seal; in reading, he changed color,

went from pale to red; said nothing, and gave it to the second man to read. The second put on his spectacles;

read, and gave it to the third. However, he [the Head man] rallied himself at last: I was to come forward, and

be so good as write a quittance (receipt), 'That I had received, for my 400 thalers all in Batzen, the same sum

in Brandenburg coin, ready down, without the least deduction.' My cash was at once accurately paid. And

thereupon the Steward was ordered, To go with me to the White Swan in the Judenstrasse, and pay what I

owed there, whatever my score was. For which end they gave him twentyfour thalers; and if that were not

enough, he was to come and get more." On these high terms Linsenbarth marched out of the Packhof for the

second time; the sublime head of him (not turned either) sweeping the very stars.

"That was what the King had meant when he said, "You shall have your money back and interest too:'

VIDELICET, that the Packhof was to pay my expenses at the White Swan. The score, however, was only 10

thaler,' 4 groschen, 6 pfennigs [30 shillings, 5 pence, and 2 or perhaps 3 quarterfarthings], for what I had run

up in eight weeks,"an uncommonly frugal rate of board, for a man skilled in Hermeneutics, Hebraics,

Polemics, Thetica, Exegetics, Pastorale, Morale (and Practical Christianity and the Philosophy of Zeno,

carried to perfection, or nearly so)! "And herewith this troubled History had its desired finish." And our

graywhiskered, rawboned, greathearted Candidatus lay down to sleep, at the White Swan; probably the

Linsenbarth dived now into Privateteaching, "INFORMATION," as he calls it; forming, and kneading into

his own likeness, such of the young Berliners as he could get hold of:surely not without some good effect

on them, the model having, besides Hermeneutics in abundance, so much natural worth about it. He himself

found the mine of Informing a very barren one, as to money: continued poor in a high degree, without honor,

without emolument to speak of; and had a straitened, laborious, and what we might think very dark

Lifepilgrimage. But the darkness was nothing to him, he carried such an inextinguishable frugal rushlight

within. Meat, clothes and fire he did not again lack, in Berlin, for the time he needed them,some

twentyseven years still. And if he got no printed praise in the Reviews, from baddish judges writing by the

sheet, here and there brother mortals, who knew him by their own eyes and experiences, looked, or

transiently spoke, and even did, a most real praise upon him now and then. And, on the whole, he can do

without praise; and will stand strokes even without wincing or kicking, where there is no chance.

A certain Berlin Druggist ("Herr MedicinalAssessor Rose," whom we may call Druggist First, for there

were Two that had to do with Linsenbarth) was good and human to him. In Rose's House, where he had come

to teach the children, and which continued, always thenceforth, a home to him when needful, he wrote this

NARRATIVE (Anno 1774); and died there, three years afterwards,"24th August, 1777, of apoplexy, age

88," say the Burial Registers. [In Rodenbeck, Beitrage, i. 472475, these latter Details (with others, in

confused form); IB. 462471, the NARRATIVE itself.] Druggist Second, on succeeding the humane

Predecessor, found Linsenbarth's papers in the drugstores of the place: Druggist Second chanced to be one

Klaproth, famed among the Scientific of the world; and by him the Linsenbarth Narrative was forwarded to

Of the then very famous "Berlin Carrousel of 1750" we propose to say little; the now chief interesting point

in it being that M. de Voltaire is curiously visible to us there. But the truth is, they were very great days at

Berlin, those of Autumn, 1750; distinguished strangers come or coming; the King giving himself up to

entertainment of them, to enjoyment of them; with such a hearty outburst of magnificence, this Carrousel the

apex of it, as was rare in his reign. There were his Sisters of Schwedt and Baireuth, with suite, his dear

Wilhelmina queen of the scene; ["Came 8th August" (Rodenbeck, 205).] there were It would be tedious to

count what other high Herrschaften and Durchlauchtig Persons. And to crown the whole, and entertain

Wilhelmina as a Queen should be, there had come M. de Voltaire; conquered at length to us, as we hope, and

the Dream of our Youth realized. Voltaire's reception, July 10th and ever since, has been mere splendor and

kindness; really extraordinary, as we shall find farther on. Reception perfect in all points, except that of the

Pompadour's Compliments alone. "That sublime creature's compliments to your Majesty; such her express

command! " said Voltaire. "JE NE LA CONNAIS PAS," answered Friedrich, with his clearringing voice, "I

don't know her;" [Voltaire to Madame Denis, "Potsdam, 11th August, 1750" ( OEuvres, lxxiv. 184).]

sufficient intimation to Voltaire, but painful and surprising. For which some diplomatic persons blame

Friedrich to this day; but not I, or any reader of mine. A very proud young King; in his silent way, always the

prouder; and stands in no awe of the Divine Butterflies and Crowned Infatuations never so potent, as more

In a Berlin of such stir and splendor, the arrivals of Sir Jonas Hanway, of the "young Lord Malton" (famed

Earl or Marquis of Rockingham that will be), or of the witty Excellency Hanbury, are as nothing;Sir

Jonas's as less than nothing. A Sir Jonas noticed by nobody; but himself taking note, dull worthy man; and

mentionable now on that account. Here is a Scrap regarding him, not quite to be thrown away:

"Sir Jonas Hanway was not always so extinct as he has now become. Readers might do worse than turn to his

now old Book of TRAVELS again, and the strange old London it awakens for us: A 'Russian Trading

Company,' full of hope to the then mercantile mind; a Mr. Hanway despatched, years ago, as Chief Clerk,

inexpressibly interested to manage well;and managing, as you may read at large. Has done his best and

utmost, all this while; and had such travellings through the Naphtha Countries, sailings on the Caspian; such

difficulties, successes,ultimately, failure. Owing to Mr. Elton and Thamas Kouli Khan mainly. Thamas

Kouli Khanotherwise called Nadir Shah (and a very hardheaded fellow, by all appearance)wiled and

seduced Mr. Elton, an ExNaval gentleman, away from his Ledgers, to build him Ships; having set his heart

on getting a Navy. And Mr. Elton did build him (spite of all I could say) a Bark or two on the

Caspian;most hopeful to the said Nadir Shah; but did it come to anything? It disgusted, it alarmed the

Russians; and ruined Sir Jonas,who is returning at this period, prepared to render account of himself at

London, in a loftily resigned frame of mind. [Jonas Hanway, An Account of (or in brief, TRAVELS: London,

3 vols. 4to, 1753), ii. 183. "Arrived in Berlin," from the Caspian and Petersburg side, "August 15th, 1750."]

"The remarks of Sir Jonas upon Berlinfor he exercises everywhere a sapient observation on men and

thingsare of dim tumidly insignificant character, reminding us of an extinct Minerva's Owl; and reduce

themselves mainly to this bit of ocular testimony, That his Prussian Majesty rides much about, often at a

rapid rate; with a pleasant business aspect, humane though imperative; handsome to look upon, though with

face perceptibly reddish [and perhaps snuff on it, were you near]. His age now thirtyeight gone; a set

appearance, as if already got into his forties. Complexion florid, figure muscular, almost tending to be plump.

"Listen well through Hanway, you will find King Friedrich is an object of great interest, personal as well as

official, and much the theme in Berlin society; admiration of him, pride in him, not now the audiblest tone,

though it lies at the bottom too: 'Our Friedrich the Great,' after all [so Hanway intimates, though not express

as to epithets or words used]. The King did a beautiful thing to LieutenantColonel Keith the other day [as

some readers may remember]: to LieutenantColonel Keith; that poor Keith who was nailed to the gallows

for him (in effigy), at Wesel long ago; and got far less than he had expected. The other day, there had been a

grand Review, part of it extending into Madam Knyphausen's grounds, who is Keith's Motherinlaw.

'Monsieur Keith,' said the King to him, 'I am sorry we had to spoil Madam's fine shrubbery by our

manoeuvres: have the goodness to give her that, with my apologies,'and handed him a pretty Casket with

key to it, and in the interior 10,000 crowns. Not a shrub of Madam's had been cut or injured; but the King,

you see, would count it 1,500 pounds of damage done, and here is acknowledgment for it, which please

"This King is doing something at Embden, Sir Jonas fears, or trying to do, in the TradeandNavigation way;

scandalous that English capitalists will lend money in furtherance of such destructive schemes by the

Foreigner! For the rest, Sir Jonas went to call on Lord Malton (Marquis of Rockingham that will be): an

amiable and sober young Nobleman, come thus far on his Grand Tour," and in time for the Carrousel. "His

Lordship's reception at Court here, one regretted to hear, was nothing distinguished; quite indifferent, indeed,

had not the QueenMother stept in with amendments. The Courts are not well together; pity for it. My Lord

and his Tutor did me the honor to return my visit; the rather as we all quartered in the same Inn. Amiable

young Nobleman,"so distinguished since, for having had unconsciously an Edmund Burke, and such

torrents of Parliamentary Eloquence, in his breechespocket (BREECHESPOCKET literally; how unknown

to Hanway!)"Amiable young Nobleman, is not it one's duty to salute, in passing such a one? Though I

"Sir Jonas also saw the Carrousel [of which presently]; and admired the great men of Berlin. Great men, all

obsolete now, though then admired to infinitude, some of them: 'You may abuse me,' said the King to some

stranger arrived in Berlin; 'you may abuse me, and perhaps here and there get praise by doing it: but I advise

you not to doubt of Lieberkuhn [the fashionable Doctor] in any company in Berlin,'" [Hanway, ii. 190, 202,

One Collini, a young Italian, quite new in Berlin, chanced also to be at the Carrousel, or at the latter half of

it,though by no means in quest of such objects just at present, poor young fellow! As he came afterwards

to be Secretary or Amanuensis of Voltaire, and will turn up in that capacity, let us read this Note upon

"Signor Como Alessandro Collini, a young Venetian gentleman of some family and education, but of no

employment or resource, had in late years been asking zealously all round among his home circle, What am I

to do with myself? mere echo answering, What,till a Signora Sister of Barberina the Dancer's answered:

'Try Berlin, and King FRIDERICO IL GRANDE there? I could give you a letter to my Sister!' At which

Collini grasps; gets under way for Berlin,through wild Alpine sceneries, foreign guttural populations; and

with what thoughts, poor young fellow. It is a common course to take, and sometimes answers, sometimes

not. The cynosure of vague creatures, with a sense of faculty without direction. What clouds of winged

migratory people gathering in to Berlin, all through this Reign. Not since Noah's Ark a stranger menagerie of

"Collini gazed upon the Alpine chasms, and shaggy icepalaces, with tender memory of the Adriatic;

courageously steered his way through the inoffensive guttural populations; had got to Berlin, just in this time;

been had to dinner daily by the hospitable Barberinas, young Cocceji always his fellowguest,'Privately,

my poor Signorina's Husband!' whispered old Mamma. Both the Barberinas were very kind to Collini;

cheering him with good auguries, and offers of help. Collini does not date with any punctuality; but the

German Books will do it for him. August 25th27th was Carrousel; and Collini had arrived few days before."

Readers have heard of the PLACE DU CARROUSEL at Paris; and know probably that Louis XIV. held

worldfamous Carrousel there (A.D. 1662); and, in general, that Carrousel has something to do with

Tourneying, or the Shadow of Tourneying. It is, in fact, a kind of superb betailored running at the ring,

instead of beblacksmithed running at one another. A Second milder Edition of those Tournament sports, and

dangerous trials of strength and dexterity, which were so grand a business in the Old iron Ages. Of which, in

the form of Carrousel or otherwise, down almost to the present day, there have been examples, among

puissant Lords;though now it is felt to have become extremely hollow; perhaps incapable of fully

A century ago, before the volcanic explosion of so many things which it has since become wearisome to think

of in this earnest world, the Tournament, emblem of an Age of Chivalry, which was gone: but had not yet

declared itself to be quite gone, and even to be turned topsyturvy, had still substance as a mummery,not

enough, I should say, to spend much money upon. Not much real money: except, indeed, the money were

offered you gratis, from other parties interested? Sir Jonas kindly informs us, by insinuation, that this was, to

a good degree, Friedrich's case in the now Carrousel: "a thing got up by the private efforts of different great

Lords and Princes of the blood;" each party tailoring, harnessing and furbishing himself and followers;

Friedrich contributing little but the arena and general outfit. I know not whether even the 40,000 lamps (for it

took place by night) were of his purchase, though that is likely; and know only that the Suppers and interior

Palace Entertainments would be his. "Did not cost the King much money," says Sir Jonas; which is

satisfactory to know. For of the Carrousel kind, or of the Royal Mummery kind in general, there has been,

for graceful arrangement, for magnificence regardless of expense,inviting your amiable Lord Malton, and

the idlers of all Countries, and awakening the rapture of Gazetteers,nothing like it since Louis the Grand's

time. Nothing,except perhaps that Camp of Muhlberg or Radowitz, where we once were. Done, this one,

not at the King's expense alone, but at other people's chiefly: that is an unexpected feature, welcome if true;

and, except for Sir Jonas, would not have helped to explain the puzzle for us, as it did in the then Berlin

circles. Muhlberg, in my humble judgment, was worth two of this as a Mummery;but the meritorious

It was, say all Gazetteers and idle eyewitnesses, a highly splendid spectacle. By much the most effulgent

exhibition Friedrich ever made of himself in the ExpensiveMummery department: and I could give in

extreme detail the phenomena of it; but, in mercy to poor readers, will not. Fancy the assiduous hammering

and sawing on the SchlossPlatz, amid crowds of gay loungers, giving cheerful note of preparation, in those

latter days of August, 1750. And, on WEDNESDAY NIGHT, 25th AUGUST, look and see,for the due

PALACEESPLANADE OF BERLIN, 25th AUGUST, 1750 (dusk sinking into dark): "Under a windy

nocturnal sky, a spacious Parallelogram, enclosed for jousting as at Aspramont or Trebisond. Wide enough

arena in the centre; vast amphitheatre of wooden seats and passages, firm carpentry and fitted for its business,

rising all round; Audience, select though multitudinous, sitting decorous and garrulous, say since halfpast

eight. There is royal box on the groundtier; and the King in it, King, with Princess Amelia for the prizes:

opposite to this is entrance for the Chevaliers,four separate entrances, I think. Who come,lo, at

last!with breathings and big swells of music, as Resuscitations from the buried Ages.

"They are in four 'Quadrilles,' so termed: Romans, Persians, Carthaginians, Greeks. Four Jousting Parties,

headed each by a Prince of the Blood:with such a splendor of equipment for jewels, silver helmets,

sashings, housings, as eye never saw. Prancing on their glorious battlesteeds (shambattle, steeds not sham,

but champing their bits as real quadrupeds with fire in their interior):how many in all, I forgot to count.

Perhaps, on the average, sixty in each Quadrille, fifteen of them practical Ritters; the rest mythologic winged

standardbearers, blackamoors, lictors, trumpeters and shining melodious phantasms as escort,of this latter

kind say in round numbers Two Hundred altogether; and of actual Ritters threescore. [Blumenthal, Life of De

Ziethen (Ziethen was in it, and gained a prize), i. 257263 et seq.; Voltaire's LETTERS to Niece Denis

( OEuvres, lxxiv. 174, 179, 198);and two contemporary 4tos on the subject, with Drawings which may

well continue unknown to every reader.] Who run at rings, at Turks' heads, and at other objects with

deathdoing lance; and prance and flash and career along: glorious to see and hear. Under proud flourishings

of drums and trumpets, under bursts and breathings of windmusic; under the shine of Forty Thousand

Lamps, for one item. All Berlin and the nocturnal firmament looking on,night rather gusty, 'which blew

"About midnight, Beauty in the form of Princess Amelia distributes the prizes; Music filling the air; and

human 'EUGE'S,' and the surviving lamps, doing their best. After which the Principalities and Ritters

withdraw to their Palace, to their Balls and their Supper of the gods; and all the world and his wife goes home

again, amid various commentary from high and low. 'JAMAIS, Never,' murmured one high Gentleman, of the

Et Venus qui donnait la pomme.'" [Never in Athens or Rome were there braver sights or a worthier prize:

I have seen the son of Mars [King Friedrich] with Paris's features, and Venus [Amelia] crowning the

And Amphitheatre and Lamps lapse wholly into darkness, and the thing has finished, for the time being.

August 27th, it was repeated by daylight: if possible, more charming than ever; but not to be spoken of

farther, under penalties. To be mildly forgotten again, every jot and tittle of it,except one small

insignificant iota, which, by accident, still makes it remarkable. Namely, that Collini and the Barberinas were

there; and that not only was Voltaire again there, among the Princes and Princesses; but that Collini saw

Voltaire, and gives us transient sight of him,thanks to Collini. Thursday, 27th August, 1750, was the

Daylight version of the Carrouse1; which Collini, if it were of any moment, takes to have PRECEDED that of

"Madame de Cocceji [so one may call her, though the known alias is Barberina] had engaged places; she

invited me to come and see this Festivity. We went;" and very grand it was. "The PalaceEsplanade was

changed" by carpentries and draperies "into a vast Amphitheatre; the slopes of it furnished with benches for

the spectators, and at the four corners of it and at the bottom, magnificently decorated boxes for the Court."

Vast oval Amphitheatre, the interior arena rectangular, with its Four Entrances, one for each of the Four

Quadrilles. "The assemblage was numerous and brilliant: all the Court had come from Potsdam to Berlin.

"A little while before the King himself made appearance, there rose suddenly a murmur of admiration, and I

heard all round me, from everybody, the name 'Voltaire! Voltaire!' Looking down, I saw Voltaire

accordingly; among a group of great lords, who were walking over the Arena, towards one of the Court

Boxes. He wore a modest countenance, but joy painted itself in his eyes: you cannot love glory, and not feel

gratefully the prize attached to it," attained as here. "I lost sight of him in few instants," as he approached

his Box "the place where I was not permitting farther view." [Collini, Mon Sejour, p. 21.]

This was Collini's first sight of that great man (DE CE GRAND HOMME). With whom, thanks to Barberina,

he had, in a day or two, the honor of an Interview (judgment favorable, he could hope); and before many

months, Accident also favoring, the inexpressible honor of seeing himself the great man's Secretary,how

Voltaire had now been here some Seven Weeks,arrived 10th July, as we often note;after (on his own

part) a great deal of haggling, hesitating and negotiating; which we spare our readers. The poor man having

now become a QuasiWidower; painfully rallying, with his whole strength, towards new

arrangements,now was the time for Friedrich to urge him: "Come to me! Away from all that dismal

imbroglio; hither, I say!" To which Voltaire is not inattentive; though he hesitates; cannot, in any case, come

without delay; lingers in Paris, readjusting many things, the poor shipwrecked being, among kind

D'Argentals and friends. Poor Ishmael, getting gray; and his tent in the desert suddenly carried off by a blast

To the legal Widower, M. le Marquis, he behaves in money matters like a Prince; takes that Paris Domicile,

in the Rue Traversiere, all to himself; institutes a new household there,Niece Denis to be female president.

Niece Denis, widow without encumbrances; whom in her married state, wife to some kind of Commissariat

Officer at Lille, we have seen transiently in that City, her Uncle lodging with her as he passed. A gadding,

flaunting, unreasonable, wouldbe fashionable female(a Du Chatelet without the grace or genius, and who

never was in love with you!)with whom poor Uncle had a baddish life in time coming. All which settled,

he still lingers. Widowed, grown old and less adventurous! 'That House in the Rue Traversiere, once his and

Another's, now his alone,for the time being, it is probably more like a Mausoleum than a House to him.

And Versailles, with its sulky Trajans, its Crebillon cabals, what charm is in Versailles? He thinks of going to

Italy for a while; has never seen that fine Country: of going to Berlin for a while: of going to In fact, Berlin

is clearly the place where he will land; but he hesitates greatly about lifting anchor. Friedrich insists, in a

bright, bantering, kindly way; "You were due to me a year ago; you said always, 'So soon as the lyingin is

Friedrich, since they met last, has had some experiences of Voltaire, which he does not like. Their roads,

trulyone adulating Trajan in Versailles, and growing great by "Farces of the Fair;" the other battling for his

existence against men and devils, Trajan and Company includedhave lain far apart. Their Correspondence

perceptibly languishing, in consequence, and even rumors rising on the subject, Voltaire wrote once: "Give

me a yard of ribbon, Sire [your ORDER OF MERIT, Sire], to silence those vile rumors!" Which Friedrich, on

such freeandeasy terms, had silently declined. "A meddlesome, forward kind of fellow; always getting into

scrapes and brabbles!" thinks Friedrich. But is really anxious, now that the chance offers again, to have such

a Levite for his Priest, the evident pink of Human Intellect; and tries various incitements upon him;hits at

last (I know not whether by device or by accident) on one which, say the French Biographers, did raise

A certain M. Baculard d'Arnaud, a conceited, foolish young fellow, much patronized by Voltaire, and given

to write verses, which are unknown to me, has been, on Voltaire's recommending, "Literary Correspondent"

to Friedrich (Paris BookAgent and the like) for some time past; corresponding much with Potsdam, in a way

found entertaining; and is now (April, 1750) actually going thither, to Friedrich's Court, or perhaps has gone.

At any rate, Friedrichby accident or by devicehad answered some rhymes of this D'Arnaud, "Yes;

welcome, young sunrise, since Voltaire is about to set!" [ OEuvres de Frederic, xiv. 95 (Verses "A

D'ARNAUD," of date December, 1749.)] I hope it was by device; D'Arnaud is such a silly fellow; too absurd,

to reckon as morning to anybody's sunset. Except for his involuntary service, for and against, in this Voltaire

Journey, his name would not now be mentionable at all. "Sunset?" exclaimed Voltaire, springing out of bed

(say the Biographers), and skipping about indignantly in his shirt: "I will show them I am not set yet!"

[Duvernet (Second), p. 159.] And instantly resolved on the Berlin Expedition. Went to Compiegne, where the

Court then was; to bid his adieus; nay to ask formally the Royal leave,for we are Historiographer and

titular Gentleman of the Chamber, and King's servant in a sense. Leave was at once granted him, almost

huffingly; we hope not with too much readiness? For this is a ticklish point: one is going to Prussia "on a

Visit" merely (though it may be longish); one would not have the door of France slammed to behind one! The

tone at Court did seem a little succinct, something almost of sneer in it. But from the Pompadour herself all

was friendly; mere witty, cheery graciosities, and "My Compliments to his Majesty of Prussia,"

In short, M. de Voltaire made all his arrangements; got under way; piously visited Fontenoy and the

Battlefields in passing: and is here, since July 10th,in very great splendor, as we see:on his Fifth Visit

to Friedrich. Fifth; which proved his Last,and is still extremely celebrated in the world. Visit much

misunderstood in France and England, down to this day. By no means sorted out into accuracy and

intelligibility; but left as (what is saying a great deal!) probably the wastest chaos of all the Sections of

Friedrich's History. And has, alone of them, gone over the whole world; being withal amusing to read, and

therefore well and widely remembered, in that mendacious and semiintelligible state. To lay these goblins,

full of noise, ignorance and mendacity, and give some true outline of the matter, with what brevity is

consistent with deciphering it at all, is now our sad task,laborious, perhaps disgusting; not impossible, if

Voltaire had taken every precaution that this Visit should succeed, or at least be no loss to one of the parties.

In a preliminary Letter from Paris,prose and verse, one of the cleverest diplomatic pieces ever penned;

Letter really worth looking at, cunning as the song of Apollo, Voltaire symbolically intimates: "Well, Sire,

your old Danae, poor malingering old wretch, is coming to her Jove. It is Jove she wants, not the Shower of

Jove; nevertheless"And Friedrich (thank Hanbury, in part, for that bit of knowledge) had remitted him in

hard money 600 pounds "to pay the tolls on his road." [Walpole, i. 451 ("Had it from Princess Amelia

herself"); see Voltaire to Friedrich, "Paris, 9th June, 1750;" Friedrich to Voltaire, "Potsdam, 24th May"

( OEuvres de Voltaire, lxxiv. 158, 155).] As a high gentleman would; to have done with those base elements

Nay furthermore, precisely two days before those splendors of the Carrousel, Friedrich,in answer to new

cunning croakeries and contrivances ("Sire, this Letter from my Niece, who is inconsolable that I should

think of staying here;" where, finding oneself so divinized, one is disposed to stay),has answered him like

a King: By Gold Key of Chamberlain, Cross of the Order of Merit, and Pension of 20,000 francs (850

pounds) a year,conveyed in as royal a Letter of Business as I have often read; melodious as Apollo, this

too, though all in business prose, and, like Apollo, practical God of the SUN in this case. ["Berlin, 23d

August, 1750" ( OEuvres de Frederic, xxii. 255);Voltaire to Niece Denis, "24th August" (misprinted

"14th"); to D'Argental, "28th August" ( OEuvres de Voltaire, lxxiv. 185, 196).] Dated 23d August, 1750. This

Letter of Friedrich's I fancy to be what Voltaire calls, "Your Majesty's gracious Agreement with me," and

often appeals to, in subsequent troubles. Not quite a Notarial Piece, on Friedrich's part; but strictly observed

Four days after which, Collini sees Voltaire serenely shining among the Princes and Princesses of the world;

Amphitheatre all whispering with bated breath, "Voltaire! Voltaire!" But let us hear Voltaire himself, from

Voltaire to his D'Argentals,to Niece Denis even, with whom, if with no other, he is quite without reserve,

in showing the bad and the good,continues radiantly eloquent in these first months: ... "Carrousel, twice

over; the like never seen for splendor, for [rather copious on this sublimity]After which we played ROME

SAUVEE [my AntiCrebillon masterpiece], in a pretty little Theatre, which I have got constructed in the

Princess Amelia's Antechamber. I, who speak to you, I played CICERO." Yes; and was manager and general

stageking and contriver; being expert at this, if at anything. And these beautiful Theatricals had begun

weeks ago, and still lasted many weeks; [Rodenbeck, "AugustOctober," 1750.]with such divine

consultings, directings, even orderings of the brilliant Royalties concerned.Duvernet (probably on

D'Arget's authority) informs us that "once, in one of the interacts, finding the soldiers allowed him for

Pretorian Guards not to understand their business here," not here, as they did at Hohenfriedberg and

elsewhere, "Voltaire shrilled volcanically out to them [happily unintelligible): 'F, Devil take it, I asked

for men; and they have sent me Germans (J'AI DEMANDE DES HOMMES, ET L'ON M'ENVOIE DES

ALLEMANDS)!' At which the Princesses were goodnatured enough to burst into laughter." [Duvernet

(Second), p. 162,time probably 15th October.] Voltaire continues: "There is an English Ambassador here

who knows Cicero's Orations IN CATILINAM by heart;" an excellent Etonian, surely. "It is not Milord

Tyrconnell" (blusterous Irish Jacobite, OUR Ambassador, note him, fat Valori having been recalled); no, "it

is the Envoy from England," Excellency Hanbury himself, who knows his Cicero by heart. "He has sent me

some fine verses on ROME SAUVEE; he says it is my best work. It is a Piece appropriate for Ministerial

people; Madame la Chanceliere," Cocceji's better half, "is well pleased with it. [ OEuvres, lxxiv. (LETTERS,

to the D'Argentals and Denis, "20th August23d September, 1750"), pp. 187, 219, 231, And then,"But

In Princess Amelia's Antechamber, there or in other celestial places, in Palace after Palace, it goes on. Gayety

succeeding gayety; mere Princesses and Princes doing parts; in ROME SAUVEE, and in masterpieces of

Voltaire's, Voltaire himself acting CICERO and elderly characters, LUSIGNAN and the like. Excellent in

acting, say the witnesses; superlative, for certain, as Preceptor of the art,though impatient now and then.

And wears such Jewelornaments (borrowed partly from a Hebrew, of whom anon), such magnificence of

tasteful dress;and walks his minuet among the Morning Stars. Not to mention the Suppers of the King:

chosen circle, with the King for centre; a radiant Friedrich flashing out to right and left, till all kindles into

coruscation round him; and it is such a blaze of spiritual sheetlightnings,wonderful to think of; Voltaire

especially electric. Never, or seldom, were seen such suppers; such a life for a Supreme Man of Letters so

"And so your Supreme of Literature has got into his due place at last,at the top of the world, namely;

though, alas, but for moments or for months. The King's own Friend; he whom the King delights to honor.

The most shining thing in Berlin, at this moment. Virtually a kind of PAPA, or Intellectual Father of

Mankind," sneers Smelfungus; "Pope improvised for the nonce. The new Fridericus Magnus does as the old

Pipinus, old Carolus Magnus did: recognizes his Pope, in despite of the base vulgar; elevates him aloft into

worship, for the vulgar and for everybody! Carolus Magnus did that thricesalutary feat [sublimely human, if

you think of it, and for long centuries successful more or less]; Fridericus Magnus, under other omens,

unconsciously does the like, the best he can! Let the Opera Fiddlers, the Frerons, Travenols and

Madame Denis, an expensive gay Lady, still only in her thirties, improvable by rouge, carries on great work

in the Rue Traversiere; private theatricals, suppers, flirtations with Italian travelling Marquises;finds

Intendant Longchamp much in her way, with his rigorous accountbooks, and restriction to 100 louis per

month; wishes even her Uncle were back, and cautions him, Not to believe in Friedrich's flattering unctions,

or put his trust in Princes at all. Voltaire, with the due preliminaries, shows Friedrich her Letter, one of her

Letters, [Now lost, as most of them are; Voltaire's Answer to it, already cited, is "24th August, 1750"

(misprinted "14th August," OEuvres, lxxiv. 185; see IB. lxxv. 135); King Friedrich's PRACTICAL Answer

(so munificent to Denis and Voltaire), "Your Majesty's gracious Agreement," bore date "August

Formey says: "In the Carnival time, which Voltaire usually passed at Berlin, in the Palace, people paid their

court to him as to a declared Favorite. Princes, Marshals, Ministers of State, Foreign Ambassadors, Lords of

the highest rank, attended his audience; and were received," says Formey, nowhere free from spite on this

subject, "in a sufficiently lofty style (HAUTEUR ASSEZ DEDAIGNEUSE). [Formey, Souvenirs, i. 235,

236.] A great Prince had the complaisance to play chess with him; and to let him win the pistoles that were

staked. Sometimes even the pistole disappeared before the end of the game," continues Formey, green with

spite;and reports that sad story of the candleends; bits of waxcandle, which should have remained as

perquisite to the valets, but which were confiscated by Voltaire and sent across to the waxchandler's. So,

doubtless, the spiteful rumor ran; probably little but spite and fable, Berlin being bitter in its gossip. Stupid

Thiebault repeats that of the candleends, like a thing he had seen (twelve years BEFORE his arrival in those

parts); and adds that Voltaire "put them in his pocket,"like one both stupid and sordid. Alas, the brighter

Friedrich, with the knowledge he already had of his yokefellow, one of the most skittish, explosive,

unruly creatures in harness, cannot be counted wise to have plunged so heartily into such an adventure

with him. "An undoubted Courser of the Sun!" thought Friedrich;and forgot too much the signs of bad

going he had sometimes noticed in him on the common highways. There is no doubt he was perfectly sincere

and simple in all this high treatment of Voltaire. "The foremost, literary spirit of the world, a man to be

honored by me, and by all men; the Trismegistus of Human Intellects, what a conquest to have made; how

cheap is a little money, a little patience and guidance, for such solacement and ornament to one's barren

Life!" He had rashly hoped that the dreams of his youth could hereby still be a little realized; and something

of the old Reinsberg Program become a fruitful and blessed fact. Friedrich is loyally glad over his Voltaire;

eager in all ways to content him, make him happy; and keep him here, as the Talking Bird, the Singing Tree

and the Golden Water of intelligent mankind; the glory of one's own Court, and the envy of the world. "Will

teach us the secret of the Muses, too; French Muses, and help us in our bits of Literature!" This latter, too, is a

consideration with Friedrich, as why should it not,though by no means the sole or chief one, as the French

On his side, Voltaire is not disloyal either; but is nothing like so completely loyal. He has, and continued

always to have, not unmixed with fear, a real admiration for Friedrich, that terrible practical Doer, with the

cutting brilliances of mind and character, and the irrefragable common sense; nay he has even a kind of love

to him, or something like it,love made up of gratitude for past favors, and lively anticipation of future.

Voltaire is, by nature, an attached or attachable creature; flinging out fond boughs to every kind of

excellence, and especially holding firm by old ties he had made. One fancies in him a mixed set of emotions,

direct and reflex,the consciousness of safe shelter, were there nothing more; of glory to oneself, derived

and still derivable from this high man:in fine, a sumtotal of actual desire to live with King Friedrich,

which might, surely, have almost sufficed even for Voltaire, in a quieter element. But the element was not

Whether Maupertuis, in red wig with yellow bottom, saw these high gauderies of the Carrousel, the Plays in

Princess Amelia's Antechamber, and the rest of it, I do not know: but if so, he was not in the top place; nor

did anybody take notice of him, as everybody did of Voltaire. Meanwhile, I have something to quote, as

abridged and distilled from various sources, chiefly from Formey; which will be of much concernment farther

Some four weeks after those Carrousel effulgencies, Perpetual President Maupertuis had a visit (September

21st, just while the Sun was crossing the Line; thanks to Formey for the date, who keeps a Notebook, useful

in these intricacies): visit from Professor Konig, an effective mathematical man from the Dutch parts. Whom

readers have forgotten again; though they saw him once: in violent quarrel, about the Infinitely Little, with

Madame du Chatelet, Voltaire witnessing with pain;it was just as they quitted Cirey together, ten years

ago, for these new courses of adventure. Do readers recall the circumstance? Maupertuis, referee in that

quarrel, had, with a bluntness offensive to the female mind, declared Konig indisputably in the right; and

there had followed a dryness between the divine Emilie and the Flattener of the Earth, scarcely to be healed

Konig has gone his road since then; become a fine solid fellow; Professor in a Dutch University; more latterly

Librarian to the Dutch Stadtholder: still frank of speech, and with a rugged free andeasy turn, but of

manful manners; really a person of various culture, and as is still noticeable, of a solid geometric turn of

mind. Having now, as Librarian at the Hague, more leisure and more money, he has made a run to

Berlin,chiefly or entirely to see his Maupertuis again, whom he still remembers gratefully as his first

Patron in older times, and a man of sound parts, though rather blusterous now and then, A little bit of

scientific business also he has with him. Konig is Member of the Berlin Academy, for some years back; and

there is a thing he would speak with the Perpetual President upon. "Wants nothing else in Berlin," says

Formey: a hearing by the road that Maupertuis was not there, he had actually turned homewards again: but

got truer tidings, and came on." The more was the pity, as perhaps will appear! "He arrived September 20th

[if you will be particular on cheeseparings]; called on me that day, being lodged in my neighborhood; and

next day, found Maupertuis at home;" [Formey, i. 176179.]and flew into his arms again, like a good boy

Maupertuis, not many months ago, had, in Two successive Papers, I think Two, communicated to the

Academy a Discovery of Metaphysico Mathematical or altogether Metaphysical nature, on the Laws of

Motion;Discovery which he has, since that, brought to complete perfection, and sent forth to the Universe

at large, in his sublime little Book of COSMOLOGY; [In La Beaumelle, Vie de Maupertuis (Paris, 1856), pp.

105130, confused account of this "Discovery," and of the gradual Publication of it to mankind,very

gradual; first of all in the old Paris times; in the Berlin ACADEMY latterly; and in fine, to all the world, in

this ESSAI DE COSMOLOGIE (Berlin, Summer of 1750).]grateful Academy striving to admire, and

believe, with its Perpetual President, that the Discovery was sublime to a degree; second only to the flattening

of the Earth; and would probably stand thenceforth as a milestone in the Progress of Human Thought. "Which

Discovery, then?" Be not too curious, reader; take only of it what shall concern you!

It is well known there have been, to the metaphysical head, difficulties almost insuperable as to How, in the

System of Nature, Motion is? How, in the name of wonder, it can be; and even, Whether it is at all?

Difficulties to the metaphysical head, sticking its nose into the gutter there;not difficult to my readers and

me, who can at all times walk across the room, and triumphantly get over them. But stick your nose into any

gutter, entity, or object, this of Motion or another, with obstinacy,you will easily drown, if that be your

determination!Suffice it for us to know in this matter, that Maupertuis, intensely watching Nature, has

discovered, That the key of her enigma (or at least the ultimate central DOOR, which hides all her Motional

enigmas, the key to WHICH cannot even be imagined as discoverable!) is, that "Nature is superlatively

THRIFTY in this affair of motion;" that she employs, for every Motion done or doable, "a MINIMUM OF

ACTION;" and that, if you well understand this, you will, at least, announce all her procedures in one

proposition, and have found the DOOR which leads to everything. Which will be a comfort to you; still

Perpetual President Maupertuis, having surprised Nature in this manner, read Papers upon it to an Academy

listening with upturned eyes; new Papers, perfected out of old,for he has long been hatching these

Phoenixeggs; and has sent them out complete, quite lately, in a little Book called COSMOLOGIE, where

alone I have had the questionable benefit of reading them. Grandly brief, as if coming from Delphi, the

utterance is; loftily solemn, elaborately modest, abstruse to the now human mind; but intelligible, had it only

been worth understanding:a painful little Book, that COSMOLOGIE, as the Perpetual President's generally

are. "Minimum of Action, LOI D'EPARGNE, Law of Thrift," he calls this sublime Discovery;thinks it will

be Sovereign in Natural Theology as well: "For how could Nature be a Saveall, without Designer

present?"and speaks, of course, among other technical points, about "VIS VIVA, or Velocity multiplied by

the Square of the Time:" which two points, "LOI D'EPARGNE," and that "the VIS VIVA is always a

Minimum," the reader can take along with him; I will permit him to shake the others into Limbo again, as

In La Beaumelle's Vie de Maupertuis (printed at last, Paris, 1856, after lying nearly a century in manuscript,

an obtuse worthless leaden little Book), there is much loud droning and detailing, about this COSMOLOGIE,

this sublime "Discovery," and the other sublime Discoveries, Insights and Apocalyptic Utterances of

Maupertuis; though in so confused a fashion, it is seldom you can have the poor pleasure of learning exactly

when, or except by your own severe scrutiny, exactly what. For reasons that will appear, certain of those

Apocalyptic Utterances by Perpetual President Maupertuis have since got a new interest, and one has actually

a kind of wish to read the IPSISSIMA VERBA of them, at this date! But in La Beaumelle (his modern Editor

lying fast asleep throughout) there is no vestige of help. Nay Maupertuis's own Book, [ OEuvres de

Maupertuis, Lyon, 1756, 4 vols. 4to.] luxurious creampaper Quartos, or Octaves made foursquare by

margin,which you buy for these and the cognate objects,proves altogether worthless to you. The

Maupertuis Quartos are not readable for their own sake (solemnly emphatic statement of what you already

know; concentrated struggle to get on wing, and failure by so narrow a miss; struggle which gets only on

tiptoe, and won't cease wriggling and flapping); and then (to your horror) they prove to be carefully cleaned

of all the MaupertuisVOLTAIRE matter; edition being SUBSEQUENT to that worldfamous explosion.

"Industrious Konig, like other mathematical people, has been listening to these Oracles on the 'Law of

Minimum,' by the Perpetual President; and grieves to find, after study, That said Law does not quite hold;

that in fact it is, like Descartes's old key or general door, worth little or nothing; as Leibnitz long ago seems to

have transiently recognized. Konig has put his strictures on paper: but will not dream of publishing, till the

Perpetual President have examined them and satisfied himself; and that is Konig's business at present, as he

knocks on Maupertuis, while Sol is crossing the Line. Maupertuis has a House of the due style: Wife a

daughter of Minister Borck's (high Borcks, 'old as the DIUVEL'); no children;his back courts always a

good deal dirty with pelicans, bustards, perhaps snakes and other zoological wretches, which sometimes

intrude into the drawingrooms, otherwise very fine. A man of some whims, some habits; arbitrary by nature,

but really honest, though rather sublimish in his interior, with red Wig and yellow bottom.

"Konig, all filial gladness, is received gladly;though, by degrees, with some surprise, on the paternal part,

to find Konig ripened out of son, client and pupil, into independent posture of a grown man. Frankly certain

enough about himself, and about the axioms of mathematics. Standing, evidently, on his own legs; kindly as

ever, but on these new terms,in fact rather an outspoken freeandeasy fellow (I should guess), not

thinking that offence can be taken among friends. Formey confesses, this was uncomfortable to Maupertuis;

in fact, a shock which he could not recover from. They had various meetings, over dinner aud otherwise, at

the Perpetual President's, for perhaps two weeks at this time (dates all to be had in Formey's Notebook, if

anybody would consult); in the whole course of which the shock to the Perpetual President increased, instead

of diminishing. Republican freedom and equality is evidently Konig's method; Konig heeds not a whit the

oracular talent or majestic position of Maupertuis; argues with the frankest logic, when he feels

dissent;drives a majestic Perpetual President, especially in the presence of third parties, much out of

patience. Thus, one evening, replying to some argument of the Perpetual President's, he begins: 'My poor

friend, MON PAUVRE AMI, don't you perceive, then' Upon which Maupertuis sprang from his chair,

violently stamping, and pirouetted round the room, 'Poor friend, poor friend? are you so rich: then!' frank

Konig merely grinning till the paroxysm passed. [Formey, i. 177.] Konig went home again, RE INFECTA

Such a Konighad better not have come! As to his strictures on the LAW OF THRIFT, the arguings on

them, alone together, or with friends by, merely set Maupertuis pirouetting: and as to the Konig Manuscripts

on them "to be published in the Leipzig ACTA, after your remarks and permission," Maupertuis absolutely

refused to look at said Manuscripts: "Publish them there, here, everywhere, in the Devil and his

Grandmother's name; and then there is an end, Monsieur!" Konig went his ways therefore, finding nothing

else for it; published his strictures, in the Leipzig ACTA in March next, and never saw Maupertuis again,

for one result, out of several that followed! I have no doubt he was out to Voltaire, more than once, in this

fortnight; and eat "the King's roast" pleasantly with that eminent old friend. Voltaire always thought him a

BON GARCON (justly, by all the evidence I have); and finds his talk agreeable, and his Berlin

newsespecially that of Maupertuis and his explosive pirouettings. Adieu, Herr Professor; you know not,

with your Leipzig ACTA and Fragment of Leibnitz, what an explosion you are preparing!

Voltaire's Terrestrial Paradise at Berlin did not long continue perfect. Scarcely had that grand Carrousel

vanished in the azure firmaments, when little clouds began rising in its stead; and before long, black

It must have been a painful surprise to Friedrich to hear from his Voltaire, some few weeks after those

munificences, That he, Voltaire, was in very considerable distress of mind, from the bad, not to call it the

felonious and traitorous, conduct of M. D'Arnaud,once Friedrich's shoeinghorn and "risingsun" for

Voltaire's behoof; now a vague flaunting creature, without significance to Friedrich or anybody! That

D'Arnaud had done this and done that, of an AntiVoltairian, treasonous nature;and that, in short, life was

impossible in the neighborhood of such a D'Arnaud! "D'Arnaud has corrupted my Clerk (Prince Henri

hungering in vain for LA PUCELLE, has got sight of it, in this way); [Clerk was dismissed accordingly (one

Tinois, an ingenious creature),and COLLINI appointed in his stead.] D'Arnaud has been gossiping to

Freron and the Paris Newspapers; D'Arnaud has" [Voltaire to Friedrich ( OEuvres de Frederic, xxii. 257),

undated, "November, 1750."] Has, in effect, been a flaunting young fool; of dissolute, esurient, slightly

profligate turn; occasionally helping in the Theatricals, and much studious to make himself notable, and

useful to the Princely kind. A D'Arnaud of nearly no significance, to Friedrich or to anybody. A D'Arnaud

whose bits of fooleries and struttings about, in the peacock or jackdaw way, might surely have been below

Friedrich, painfully made sensible what a skinless explosive Trismegistus he has got on hand, answers, I

suppose, in words little or nothing,in Letters, I observe, answers absolutely nothing, to Voltaire repeating

and rerepeating;does simply dismiss D'Arnaud (a "BON DIABLE," as Voltaire, to impartial people, calls

him), or accept D'Arnaud's demission, and cut the poor fool adrift. Who sallies out into infinite space, to Paris

latterly ("alive there in 1805"); and claims henceforth perpetual oblivion from us and mankind. And now

Alas, D'Arnaud is not well gone, when there has begun brewing in threefold secrecy a mass of galvanic

matter, which, in few weeks more, filled the Heavens with miraculous foul gases and the blackness of

darkness;which, in short, exploded about Newyear's time, as the worldfamous VOLTAIREHIRSCH

LAWSUIT, still remembered, though only as a portent and mystery, by observant onlookers. Of which it is

now our sad duty to say something; though nowhere, in the Annals of Jurisprudence, is there a more

despicable thing, or a deeper involved in lies and deliriums by current reporters of it, about which the sane

mind can be called upon accidentally to speak a word. Beaten, riddled, shovelled, washed in many waters, by

a patient though disgusted Predecessor in this field, there lies by me a copious but wearisome Narrative of

this matter;the more vivid portions of which, if rightly disengaged, and shown in sequence, may satisfy the

Duvernet (who, I can guess, had talked with D'Arget on the subject) has, alone of the French Biographers,

some glimmer of knowledge about it; Duvernet admits that it was a thing of Illegal Stock jobbing; that

1. "That M. de Voltaire had agreed with a Jew named Hirsch to go to Dresden and, illegally,

PURCHASE a good lot of STEUERSCHEINE [Saxon Exchequer Bills, which are payable in gold to a

BONA FIDE PRUSSIAN holding them, but are much in discount otherwise, as readers may remember]; and

given Hirsch a Draft on Paris, due after some weeks, for payment of the same; Hirsch leaving him a stock of

2. "That Hirsch, having things of his own in view with the money, sent no STEUERSCHEINE from

Dresden, nothing but vague lying talk instead of STEUER: so that Voltaire's suspicions naturally kindling, he

3. "That Hirsch coming, a settlement was tried: 'Give me back my Draft on Paris, you objectionable

blockhead of a Hirsch; there are your Diamonds, there is something even for your expenses (some fair

moiety, I think); and let me never see your unpleasant face again!' To which Hirsch, examining the diamonds,

answered [says Duvernet, not substantially incorrect hitherto, though stepping along in total darkness, and

very partial on Voltaire's behalf],Hirsch, examining the diamonds, answered, 'But you have changed some

of them! I cannot take these!'and drove Voltaire quite to despair, and into the LawCourts; which

imprisoned Hirsch, and made him do justice." [Duvernet (T.J.D.V.), 170, 173, 175:vague utterly; dateless

(tries one date, and is mistaken even in the Year); wrong in nearly every detail; "the 'STAIRE or STEUER

In which last clause, still more in the conclusion, that it was "to the triumph of Voltaire," Duvernet does

substantially mistake! And indeed, except as the best Parisian reflex of this matter, his Account is worth

nothing:though it may serve as Introduction to the following irrefragable Documents and more explicit

featurings. We learn from him, and it is the one thing we learn of credible, That "Voltaire, when it came to

Law Procedures, begged Maupertuis to speak for him to M. Jarriges," a Prussian Frenchman, "one of the

Judges; and that Maupertuis answered, 'I cannot interfere in a bad business (ME MELER D'UNE

MAUVAISE AFFAIRE).'" The other French Biographies, definable as "IGNORAMUS speaking in a loud

voice to IGNORATIS," require to be altogether swept aside in this matter. Even "Clog." jumbling Voltaire's

undated LETTERS into confusion thrice confounded, and droning out vituperatively in the dark, becomes a

MINUS quantity in these Friedrich affairs. In regard to the Hirsch Process, our one irrefragable set of

evidences is: The Prussian LAWREPORT by KLEIN,especially the Documents produced in Court, and

the Sentence given. [Ernst Ferdinand Klein, Annalen der Gesetzgebung und Rechtsgelehrsamkeit in den

Preussischen Staaten (Berlin und Stettin), 1790," v. 215260.] Other lights are to be gathered, with severe

scrutiny and caution, from the circumambient contemporary rumor,especially from the PREFACE to a

"Comedy" so called of "TANTALE EN PROCES (Tantalus," Voltaire, "at Law");which PREFACE is

evidently Hirsch's own Story, put into language for him by some humane friend, and addressed to a

"clearseeing Public." [TANTALE EN PROCES (ascribed to Friedrich himself, by some wonderful

persons!) is in Supplement aux OEuvres Posthumes de Frederic II. (Cologne, 1789), i. 319 et seq. Among the

weakest of Comedies (might be by D'Arnaud, or some such hand); nothing in it worth reading except the

Preface.] "And in fine," says my Manuscript, "by sweeping out the distinctly false, and well discriminating

the indubitable from what is still in part dubitable, sufficient twilight [abridgable in a high degree, I hope!]

"Saxon STEUERSCHEIN, some readers know, is, in the rough, equivalent to Exchequer Bill. Payable at the

Saxon Treasury; to Prussians, in gold; to all other men, in paper only,which (thanks to Bruhl and his

unheardof expenditures and financierings) is now at a discount say of 25, or even 30 per cent. By Article

Eleventh of the Dresden TREATY OF PEACE, King Friedrich, if our readers have not forgotten, got

stipulated, That all Prussian holders of these SCHEINE should be paid in gold; interest at the due days; and at

the due days principal itself:in gold they, whatever became of others. No farther specifications, as to proof,

method, limits or conditions of any kind, occur in regard to this Eleventh Article; which is a just one, beyond

doubt, but most carelessly drawn up. Apparently it trusts altogether to the personal honesty of all Prussian

subjects: 'Prove yourself a Prussian subject, and we pay your SteuerSchein in real money.' But now if a

Saxon or other NonPrussian, who can get no payment save in paper, were to have his Note smuggled or

trafficked over into Prussia, and presented as a Prussian one? In our time, such traffic would start on the

morrow morning; and in a week or two, all Notes whatsoever would be presented as Prussian, payable in

gold! Not so in those days;though a small contraband of that kind does by degrees threaten to establish

itself, and Friedrich had to publish severe rescripts (one before this HirschVoltaire business, [10th August,

1748 (Seyfarth, i. 62).] one still severer after), and menace it down again. The malpractice seems to have

proved menaceable in that manner; nor was any new arrangement made upon it,no change, till the

SteuerScheine, by their gradual terms, were all paid either in real money or imaginary, and thus, in the

Voltaire's rash Adventure, dangerous Navigation and gradual Wreck, in this Forbidden Sea of

SteuerScheine,will become conceivable to readers, on study diligent enough of the following Documents

"Je prie instamment monsieur hersch de venir demain mardi matin a potsdam pour affaire pressante, et

d'aporter (SIC) avec luy les diamants qui doivent servir pour la representation de la tragedie qui se jouera a

Which being interpreted, rightly spelt, and dated (as by chance we can do) with distinctness, will run as

"POTSDAM, Monday, 9th November, 1750. "I earnestly request Mr. Hirsch to come tomorrow

Tuesday morning to Potsdam, on business that is urgent; and to bring with him the Diamonds needed for the

Tragedy which is to be represented, at five in the evening, in His Royal Highness Prince Henry's Apartment."

"On Tuesday the 10th," say the Old Newspapers, "was ROME SAUVEE;" with Voltaire, perceptible there

as "CICERON," [Rodenbeck, i. 209.] in due splendor of diamonds; Hirsch having no doubt been punctual. A

glorious enough Cicero;and such a piece of "urgent business" done with your Hirsch, just before emerging

"Hirsch, in that NARRATIVE, describes himself as a young innocent creature. Not very old, we will believe:

but as to innocence!For certain, he is named Abraham Hirsch, or Hirschel: a Berlin Jew of the Period;

whom one inclines to figure as a florid oily man, of Semitic features, in the prime of life; who deals much in

jewels, moneys, loans, exchanges, all kinds of Jew barter; whether absolutely in old clothes, we do not

knowcertainly not unless there is a penny to be turned. The man is of oily Semitic type, not old in

years,there is a fraternal Hirsch, and also a paternal, who is head of the firm;and this young one seems

to be already old in Jew art. Speaks French and other dialects, in a Hebrew, partially intelligible manner;

supplies Voltaire with diamonds for his stagedresses, as we perceive. To all appearance, nearly destitute of

human intellect, but with abundance of vulpine instead. Very cunning; stupid, seemingly, as a mule

otherwise; and, on the whole, resembling in various points of character a mule put into breeches, and made

acquainted with the uses of money. He is come 'on pressing business,'perhaps not of stagediamonds

alone? Here now is DOCUMENT SECOND; nearly of the same date; may be of the very same;more likely

is a few days later, and betokens mysterious dialogue and consultation held on Tuesday 10th. It is in two

hands: written on some scrap or TORN bit of paper, to judge by the length of the lines.

'Savoir s'il est encore tems de declarer les billets qu'on a sur la steure. si on en specifie le numero dans la

'If it is still time to declare [to announce in Saxony and demand payment for] Notes one holds on the Steuer?

'l'on peut declarer des billets sur la steure, qu'on a en depost en pays etranger, et dont on ne pourra savoir le

'One can declare Notes on the Steuer, which one holds in deposit in Foreign Countries; and of which one

"Which of these Two was the Serpent, which the Eve, in this STEUER SCHEIN Tree of Knowledge, that

grew in the middle of Paradise, remains entirely uncertain. Hirsch, of course, says it was Voltaire; Voltaire

(not aware that DOCUMENT SECOND remained in existence) had denied that his Hirsch business was in

any way concerned with STEUER;and must have been a good deal struck, when DOCUMENT SECOND

came to light; though what could he do but still deny! Hirsch asserts himself to have objected the 'illegality,

the King's anger;' but that Voltaire answered in hints about his favor with the King; 'about his power to make

one a CourtJeweller,' if he liked; and so at last tempted the baby innocence of Hirsch;for the rest, admits

that the SteuerNotes were expected to yield a Profitof 35 per cent:and, in fact, a dramatic reader can

imagine to himself dialogue enough, at different times, going on, partly by words, partly by hint, innuendo

and dumbshow, between this Pair of StageBeauties. But, for near a fortnight after DOCUMENT FIRST,

"MONDAY, 23d NOVEMBER, 1750. It is credibly certain the Jew Hirsch came again, this day, to the Royal

Schloss of Potsdam, to Voltaire's apartment there [right overhead of King Friedrich's, it is!]where, after

such dialogue as can be guessed at, there was handed to Hirsch by Voltaire, in the form of Two negotiable

Bills, a sum of about 2,250 pounds; with which the Jew is to make at once for Dresden, and buy

SteuerScheine. [Hirsch's Narrative, in Preface to Tantale en Proces, p. 340.] SteuerScheine without fail:

'but in talking or corresponding on the matter, we are always to call them FURS or DIAMONDS,'mystery

of mysteries being the rule for us. This considerable sum of 2,250 pounds may it not otherwise, contrives

Voltaire, be called a 'Loan' to Jeweller Hirsch, so obliging a Jeweller, to buy 'Furs' or 'Diamonds' with? At a

gain of 35 per 100 Pieces, there will be above 800 pounds to me, after all expenses cleared: a very pretty

"Monday, 23d November:" The beautiful Wilhelmina, one remarks, is just making her packages; right sad to

end such a Visit as this had been! Thursday night, from her first sleepingplace, there is a touching Farewell

to her Brother;tender, melodiously sorrowful, as the Song of the Swan. [Wilhelmina to Friedrich,

"Brietzen, 26th November, JOUR FUNESTE POUR MOI" ( OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. i. 197).] To

Voltaire she was always good; always liked Voltaire. Voltaire would be saying his Adieus, in state, among

the others, to that high Being,just in the hours while such a scandalous HirschConcoction went, on

"As to the Two Bills and Voltaire's security for them, readers are to note as follows. Bill FIRST is a Draft, on

Voltaire's Paris Banker for 40,000 livres (about 1,600 pounds), not payable for some weeks: 'This I lend you,

Monsieur Hirsch; mind, LEND you,to buy Furs!' 'Yes, truly, what we call Furs;and before the Bill falls

payable, there will be effects for it in Monseigneur de Voltaire's hand; which is security enough for

Monseigneur.' The SECOND Bill, again"Truth is, there were in succession two Second Bills, an

INTENDEDSecond (of this same Monday 23d), which did not quite suit, and an ACTUALSecond (two

days later), which did. INTENDED Second Bill was one for 4,000 thalers (about 600 pounds), drawn by

Voltaire on the Sieur Ephraim,a very famous Jew of Berlin now and henceforth, with whom as

moneychanger, if not yet otherwise (which perhaps Ephraim thinks unlucky), Voltaire, it would seem, is in

frequent communication. This Bill, Ephraim would not accept; told Hirsch he owed M. de Voltaire nothing;

"turned me rudely away," says Hirsch (two of a trade, and no friends, he and I!)so that there is nothing to

be said of this Ephraim Bill; and except as it elucidates some dark portions of the whirlpools, need not have

been noticed at all. "Hirsch," continues my Authority, "got only Two available Bills; the first on Paris for

1,600 pounds, payable in some weeks; and, after a day or two, this other: The ACTUAL BILL SECOND;

which is a Draft for 4,430 thalers (about 650 pounds), by old Father Hirsch, head of the Firm, on Voltaire

himself:'Furs too with that, Monsieur Hirsch, at the rate of 35 per piece, you understand?' 'Yea, truly,

Monseigneur!'Draft accepted by Voltaire, and the cash for it now handed to Hirsch Son: the only

"For these Two Bills, especially for this Second, I perceive, Voltaire holds borrowed jewels (borrowed in

theatrical times, or partly bought, from the Hirsch Firm, and not paid for), which make him sure till he see the

STEUER Papers themselves.(And now off, my good Sieur Hirsch; and know that if you please ME, there

are things in my power which would suit a man in the Jeweller and Hebrew line!' Hirsch pushes home to

Berlin; primed and loaded in this manner; Voltaire naturally auxious enough that the shot may hit. Alas, the

"SUNDAY, 29th NOVEMBER, Hirsch, we hear, is still in Berlin. Fancy the humor of Voltaire, after such a

week as last! TUESDAY, December 1st) Hirsch still is not off: 'Go, you son of Amalek!' urges Voltaire; and

sends his Servant Picard, a very sharp fellow, for perhaps the third time,who has orders now, as Hirsch

discovers, to stay with him, not quit sight of him till he do go. [Hirsch's Narrative; see Voltaire's Letter to

D'Arget ( OEuvres, lxiv. 11).] Hirsch's hour of departure for Dresden is not mentioned in the ACTS; but I

guess he could hardly get over Wednesday, with Picard dogging him on these terms; and must have taken the

diligence on Wednesday night: to arrive in Dresden about December 4th. 'Well; at least, our shot is off; has

"Off, sure enough:and what should we say if the whole matter were already oozing out; if, on this same

Sunday evening, November 29th) not quite a week's time yet, the matter (as we learn long afterwards) had

been privately whispered to his Majesty: 'That Voltaire has sent off a Jew to buy SteuerScheine, and has

promised to get him made CourtJeweller!' [Voltaire, OEuvres, lxxiv. 314 ("Letter to Friedrich, February,

1751,"AFTER Catastrophe).], So; within a week, and before Hirsch is even gone! For men are very

porous; weighty secrets oozing out of them, like quicksilver through clay jars. I could guess, Hirsch, by way

of galling insolent Ephraim, had blabbed something: and in the course of five days, it has got to the very

King,this Kammerherr Voltaire being such a favorite and famous man as never was; the very bull'seye of

all kinds of Berlin gossip in these days. 'Hm, SteuerScheine, and the Jew Hirsch to be CourtJeweller, you

say?' thinks the King, that Sunday night; but locks the rumor in his Royal mind, he, for his part; or dismisses

it as incredible: 'There ought to be impervious vessels too, among the porous!' Voltaire notices nothing

particular, or nothing that he speaks of as particular. This must have been a horrid week to him, till Hirsch got

"But, the fortnight that follows is conceivable as still worse. Hirsch writing darkly, nothing to the purpose;

Voltaire driving often into Berlin, hearing from Ephraim hints about, 'No connection with that House;' 'If

Monseigneur have intrusted Hirsch with money,may there be a good account of it!' and the like. Black

Care devouring Monseigueur; but nothing definite; except the fact too evident, That Hirsch does not send or

bring the smallest shadow of SteuerScheine,'Peltries,' or 'Diamonds,' we mean,or any value whatever

for that Paris Bill of ours, payable shortly, and which he has already got cashed in Dresden. Nothing but

excuses, prevarications; stupid, incoherently deceptive jargon, as of a mule intent on playing fox with you.

Vivid Correspondence is conceivable; but nothing of it definite to us, except this sample" (which we give

DOCUMENT THIRD (torn fraction in Voltaire's hand: To Hirsch, doubtless; early in December). ... "Not

proper (IL NE FALLAIT PAS) to negotiate Bills of Exchange, and never produce a single diamond"bit of

peltry, or ware of any kind, you son of Amalek! "Not proper to say: I have got money for your bills of

exchange, and I bring you nothing back; and I will repay your money when you shall no longer be here [in

Germany at all]. Not proper to promise at 35 louis, and then say 30. To say 30, and then next morning 25.

You should at least have produced goods (IL FALLAIT EN DONNER) at the price current; very easy to do

when one was on the spot. All your procedures have been faults hitherto. [Klein, v. 259.]

"These are dreadful symptoms. SteuerNotes, promised at 35 discount, are not to be had except at 30. Say 30

then, and get done with it, mule of a scoundrel! Next day the 30 sinks to 25; and not a SteuerNote, on any

terms, comes to hand. And the mule of a scoundrel has drawn money, in Dresden yonder, for my Bill on

Paris,excellent to him for trade of his own! What is to be done with such an Ass of Balaam? He has got the

bit in his teeth, it would seem. Heavens, he too is capable of stopping short, careless of spur and cudgel; and

miraculously speaking to a NEW Prophet [strange new "Revealer of the Lord's Will," in modern dialect], in

this enlightened Eighteenth Century itself!One thing the new Prophet, can do: protest his Paris Bill.

"DECEMBER 12th [our next bit of certainty], Voltaire writes, haste, haste, to Paris, 'Don't pay;' and intimates

to Hirsch, 'You will have to return your Dresden Banker his money for that Paris Bill. At Paris I have

protested it, mark me; and there it never will be paid to him or you. And you must come home again

instantly, job undone, lies not untold, you!' Hirsch, with money in hand, appears not to have wanted for a

briskish trade of his own in the Dresden marts. But this of cutting off his supplies brings him instantly

back:"and at Berlin, DECEMBER 16th, new facts emerge again of a definite nature.

"WEDNESDAY, 16th DECEMBER, 1750. 'Today the King with Court and Voltaire come to Berlin for the

Carnival;' [Rodenbeck, i. 209.] today also Voltaire, not in Carnival humor, has appointed his Jew to meet

him. In the Royal Palace itself,we hope, well remote from Friedrich's Apartment!this sordid conference,

needing one's choicest diplomacy withal, and such exquisite handling of bit and spur, goes on. And probably

at great length. Of which, as the FINALE, and one clear feature significant to the fancy, here is, for record

of what they call 'COMPLETE SETTLEMENT,' which it was far from turning out to be:

"'Pour quittance generale promettant de rendre a Mr. de Voltaire tous billets, ordres et lettres de change a

moy donnez jusqu'a ce jour, 16 Decembre, 1750. "'Account all settled; I promising to return M. de Voltaire

all Letters, Orders and Bills of Exchange given me to this day, 16th December, 1750.

[Hirsch signs. But you have forgotten something, Monsieur Hirsch! Whereupon] et promets de donner a Mr.

de Voltaire dans le jour de demain ou apres au plustard deux cent guatrevingt frederics d'or au lieu de

deux cent quatrevingt louis d'or, que je lui ai payez, le tout pour quittance generale, ce 16 Decembre, 1750,

a berlin And promise to give M. de Voltaire, in the course of tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow at

latest, 280 FREDERICS D'OR, instead of 280 LOUIS D'OR [gold FREDERICS the preferabe coin, say

[Hirsch again signs; but has again forgotten something, most important thing. And]

je lui remettrai surtout les 40,000 livres de billets de change sur paris qu'il mavoit donnez et fiez' I will

especially return him the Bill on Paris for 40,000 livres (1,600 pounds) which he had given and trusted to

[and Hirsch signs for the last time]." [Klein, pp. 258, 260.] Symptomatic, surely, of a haggly settlement,

"'Pour quittance generale de tout compte solde entre nous, tout paye au sieur abraham hersch a berlin, 16

Decembre, 1750.Voltaire' "'Account all settled between us, payment of the Sieur Abraham Hirsch in full:

[which Second Piece, we perceive, is to lie in Hirsch's hand, to keep, if he find it valuable].

"This 'COMPLETE SETTLEMENT,'little less than miraculous to Voltaire and us,one finds, after

sifting, to have been the fruit of Voltaire's exquisite skill in treating and tuning his Hirsch (no harshness of

rebuke, rather some gleam of hope, of future bargains, help at Court): (Your expenses; compensation for

protesting of that Bill on Paris? Tush, cannot we make all that good! In the first place, I will BUY of you

these Jewels [this one discovers to have been the essence of the operation!], all or the best part of them,

which I have here in pawn for Papa's Bill: 650 pounds was it not? Well, suppose I on the instant take 450

pounds worth, or so, of these Jewels (I want a great many jewels); and you to pay me down a 200 or so of

gold LOUIS as balance,gold LOUIS, no, we will say FREDERICS rather. There now, that is settled.

Nothing more between us but settles itself, if we continue friends!' Upon which Hirsch walked home,

thankful for the good job in Jewels; wondering only what the Allowance for Expenses and Compensation will

be. And Voltaire steps out, newburnished, into the Royal Carnival splendors, with a load rolled from his

"This COMPLETE SETTLEMENT, meanwhile, rests evidently on two legs, both of which are hollow. 'What

will the handsome Compensation be, I wonder?' thinks Hirsch;and is horrorstruck to find shortly, that

Voltaire considers 60 thalers (about 9 pounds) will be the fair sum! 'More than ten times that!' is Hirsch's

privately fixed idea. On the other hand, Voltaire has been asking himself, 'My 450 pounds worth of Jewels,

were they justly valued, though?' Jew Ephraim (exaggerative and an enemy to this Hirsch House) answers,

'Justly? I would give from 300 pounds to 250 pounds for them!'So that the legs both crumbling to powder,

Complete Settlement crashes down into chaos: and there ensues,"But we must endeavor to be briefer!

There ensues, for about a week following, such an inextricable scramble between the Sieur Hirsch and M. de

Voltaire as,as no reader, not himself in the JewBill line, or paid for understanding it, could consent to

have explained to him. Voltaire, by way of mending the bad jewelbargain, will buy of Hirsch 200 pounds

worth more jewels; gets the new 200 pounds worth in hand, cannot quite settle what articles will suit: "This,

think you? That, think you?" And intricately shuffles them about, to Hirsch and back. Hirsch, singular to

notice, holds fast by that Protested Paris Bill; on frivolous pretexts, always forgets to bring that: "May have

its uses, that, in a Court of Justice yet!" Meetings there are, almost daily, in the Voltaire PalaceApartment;

DECEMBER 19th and DECEMBER 24th) there are Two DOCUMENTS (which we must spare the reader,

though he will hear of them again, as highly notable, especially of one of them, as notable in the extreme!)

"My Jewels are truly valued!" asseverates Hirsch always: "Ephraim is my enemy; ask Herr Reklam, chief

Jeweller in Berlin, an impartial man!" The meetings are occasionally of stormy character; Voltaire's patience

nearly out: "But did n't I return you that Topaz Ring, value 75 pounds? And you have NOT deducted it;

you!" "One day, Picard and he pulled a Ring [doubtless this Topaz] off my finger," says the pathetic

Hirsch, "and violently shoved me out of the room, slamming their door,"and sent me home, along the

corridors, in a very scurvy humor! Thus, under a skin of second settlement, there are two galvanic elements,

getting ever more galvanic, which no skin of settlement can prevent exploding before long.

Explosion there accordingly was; most sad and dismal; which rang through all the Court circles of Berlin;

and, like a sound of hooting and of weeping mixed, is audible over seas to this day. But let not the reader

insist on tracing the course of it henceforth. Klein, though faithful and exact, is not a Pitaval; and we find in

him errors of the press. The acutest Actuary might spend weeks over these distracted Moneyaccounts, and

inconsistent Lists of Jewels bought and not bought; and would be unreadable if successful. Let us say, The

business catches fire at this point; the VoltaireHirsch theatre is as if blown up into mere whirlwinds of

igneous rum and smoky darkness. Henceforth all plunges into Lawsuit, into chaos of conflicting

lies,undecipherable, not worth deciphering. Let us give what few glimpses of the thing are clearly

discernible at their successive dates, and leave the rest to picture itself in the reader's fancy.

It appears, that Meeting of DECEMBER 24th, above alluded to, was followed by another on Christmasday,

which proved the final one. Final total explosion took place at this new meeting;which, we find farther,

was at Chasot's Lodging (the CHAPEAU of Hanbury), who is now in Town, like all the world, for Carnival.

Hirsch does not directly venture on naming Chasot: but by implication, by glimmers of evidence elsewhere,

one sufficiently discovers that it is he: LieutenantColonel, King's Friend, a man glorious, especially ever

since Hohenfriedberg, and that haul of the "sixtyseven standards" all at once. In the way of Arbitration,

Voltaire thinks Chasot might do something. In regard to those 450 pounds worth of bought Jewels, there is

not such a judge in the world! Hirsch says: "Next morning [December 25th, morrow after that jumbly

Account, with probable slamming of the door, and still worse!], Voltaire went to a LieutenantColonel in the

King's service; and ask him to send for me." [Duvernet (Second), p. 172; Hirsch's Narrative (in Tantale, p.

344).] This is Chasot; who knows these jewels well. Duvernet,who had talked a good deal with D'Arget, in

latter years, and alone of Frenchmen sometimes yields a true particle of feature in things

Prussian,Duvernet tells us, these Jewels were once Chasot's own: given him by a fond Duchess of

Mecklenburg,musical old Duchess, verging towards sixty; HONI SOIT, my friend! What Hirsch gave

Chasot for these Jewels is not a doubtful quantity; and may throw conviction into Hirsch, hopes Voltaire.

DECEMBER 25th, 1750. The interview at Chasot's was not lengthy, but it was decisive. Hirsch never brings

that Paris Bill; privately fixed, on that point. Hirsch's claims, as we gradually unravel the intricate mulemind

of him, rise very high indeed. "And as to the value of those Jewels, and what I allowed YOU for them,

Monsieur Chasot; that is no rule: tradeprofits, you know"Nay, the mule intimates, as a last shift, That

perhaps they are not the same Jewels; that perhaps M. de Voltaire has changed some of them! Whereupon the

matter catches fire, irretrievably explodes. M. de Voltaire's patience flies quite done; and, fireeyed fury now

guiding, he springs upon the throat of Hirsch like a cato' mountain; clutches Hirsch by the windpipe;

tumbles him about the room: "Infamous canaille, do you know whom you have got to do with? That it is in

my power to stick you into a hole underground for the rest of your life? Sirrah, I will ruin and annihilate

you!"and "tossed me about the room with his fist on my throat," says Hirsch; "offering to have pity

nevertheless, if I would take back the Jewels, and return all writings." [Narrative (in Tantale ).] Eyes glancing

like a rattlesnake's, as we perceive; and such a phenomenon as Hirsch had not expected, this Christmas! In

short, the matter has here fairly exploded, and is blazing aloft, as a mass of intricate fuliginous ruin, not to be

deciphered henceforth. Such a scene for Chasot on the Christmasday at Berlin! And we have got to

Hirsch slunk hurriedly home, uncertain whether dead or alive. Old Hirsch, hearing of such explosion,

considered his house and family ruined; and, being old and feeble, took to bed upon it, threatening to break

his heart. Voltaire writes to Niece Denis, on the morrow; not hinting at the Hirsch matter, far from that; but in

uncommonly dreary humor: "My splendor here, my glory, never was the like of it; MAIS, MAIS," BUT, and

ever again BUT, at each new item,in fact, the humor of a glorious PhoenixPeacock suddenly douched

and drenched in dirty water, and feeling frost at hand! ["To Madame Denis" (lxxiv. 279, "Berlin Palace, 26th

December, 1750;"and ib. 249, 257, of other dates).] Humor intelligible enough, when dates are compared.

Better than that, Voltaire is applying, on all points of the compass, to Legal and Influential Persons, for help

in a Court of Law. To Chancellor Cocceji; to Jarriges (eminent Prussian Frenchman), President of Court; to

Maupertuis, who knows Jarriges, but "will not meddle in a bad business;"at last, even to dull reverend

Formey, whom he had not called on hitherto. Cocceji seems to have answered, to the effect, "Most certainly:

the Courts are wide open;"but as to "help"! December 30th, the Suit, Voltaire VERSUS Hirsch, "comes to

Protocol,"that is, Cocceji, Jarriges, Loper, three eminent men, have been named to try it; and Herr Hofrath

Bell, Advocate for Voltaire Plaintiff, hands in his First Statement that day. Berlin resounds, we may fancy

how! Rumor, laughter and wonder are in all polite quarters; and continue, more or less vivid, for above two

months coming. Here is one direct glimpse of Plaintiff, in this interim; which we will give, though the eyes

are none of the best: "The first visit I," Formey, "had from Voltaire was in the afternoon of January 8th) 1751

[Suit begun ten days ago]. I had, at the time, a large party of friends. Voltaire walked across the Apartment,

without looking at anybody; and, taking me by the hand, made me lead him to a cabinet adjoining. His

Lawsuit with a Jew was the matter on hand. He talked to me at large about his Lawsuit, and with the greatest

vehemence; he wound up by asking me to speak to LawPresident M. de Jarriges (since Chancellor): I

answered what was suitable;" probably did speak to Jarriges, but might as well have held my tongue.

"Voltaire then took his leave: stepping athwart the former Apartment with some precipitation, he noticed my

eldest little girl, then in her fourth year, who was gazing at the diamonds on his Cross of the Order of Merit.

'Bagatelles, bagatelles, MON ENFANT!' said he, and disappeared." [Formey, i. 232.]

On NewYear's day, Friday, 1st January, 1751, Voltaire had legally applied to Herr Minister von Bismark,

for Warrant to arrest Hirsch, as a person that will not give up Papers not belonging to him. Warrant was

granted, and Hirsch lodged in Limbo. Which worsens the state of poor old Father Hirsch; threatening now

really to die, of heartbreak and other causes. Hirsch Son, from the interior of Limbo, appeals to Bismark,

"Lord Chancellor Cocceji is seized of my Plea, your gracious Lordship!""All the same," answers Bismark;

"produce CAUTION, or you can't get out." Hirsch produces caution; and gets out, after a day or two;and

has been "brought to Protocol January 4th." No delay in this Court: both parties, through their Advocates, are

now brought to book; the points they agree in will be sifted out, and laid on this side as truth; what they differ

in, left lying on that side, as a mixture of lies to be operated on by farther processes and protocols.

We will not detail the Lawsuit;what I chiefly admire in it is its brevity. Cocceji has not reformed in vain.

Good Advocates, none other allowed; and no Advocate talks; he merely endeavors to think, see and discover;

holds his tongue if he can discover nothing: that doubtless is one source of the brevity!Many lies are stated

by Hirsch, many by Voltaire: but the Judges, without difficulty, shovel these aside; and come step by step

upon the truth. Hirsch says plainly, He was sent to buy STEUERSCHEINE at 35 per cent discount; Voltaire

entirely denies the SteuerNotes; says, It was an affair of Peltries and Jewelries, originating in loans of

money to this ungrateful Jew. Which necessitates much wriggling on the part of M. de Voltaire;but he has

himself written in a Lawyer's Office, in his young days, and knows how to twist a turn of expression. The

Judges are not there to judge about Steuer Notes; but they give you to understand that Voltaire's

Peltryand Jewelry story is moonshine. Hirsch produces the Voltaire Scraps of Writing, already known to

our readers; Voltaire says, "Mere extinct jottings; which Hirsch has furtively picked out of the grate,"or

may be said to have picked; Papers annihilated by our Bargain of December 16th, and which should have

been in the grate, if they were not; this felon never having kept his word in that respect. Peltries and

Jewelries, I say: he will not give me back that Paris Bill which was protested; pays me the other 3,000 crowns

(Draft of 650 pounds) in Jewels overvalued by half."Jewels furtively changed since Plaintiff had them of

DECEMBER;which the reader has not yet seen, but ought now to gain some notion of, if possible. They

affect once more, as that of December 16th had done, to be "Final Settlements" (or Final Settlement of 19th,

with CODICIL of 24th); and turn on confused Lists of Jewels, bought, returned, rebought (that "Topaz ring"

torn from one's hand, a conspicuous item), which no reader would have patience to understand, except in the

succinct form. Let all readers note them, however,at least the first of them, that of December 19th;

especially the words we mark in Italics, which have merited a sad place for IT in the history of human sin and

misery. Klein has given both Documents in engraved facsimile; we must help ourselves by simpler

methods. Berlin, December 19th, 1750; Voltaire writes, Hirsch signs;and the Italics are believed to be

words foisted in by M. de Voltaire, weeks after, while the Hirsch pleadings were getting stringent! Read,a

DOCUMENT FIFTH (in Voltaire's hand, written at two times; and the old writing MENDED in parts, to suit

the new!)."FOR PAYMENT OF 3,000 THALERS BY ME DUE, I have sold to M. de Voltaire, at the

price costing by estimation and tax, with 2 per cent for my commission ["OR GRATIFICATION," written

above], the following Diamonds, taxed [blotted into "TAXABLE"], as here adjoined; viz." seven pieces of

jewelry, pendeloques, with price affixed, among which is the violated Topaz,"the whole estimated by him

["him" crossed out, and "ME" written over it], being 3,640 thalers. Whereupon, received from Monsieur de

Voltaire [what is very strange; not intelligible without study!] the sum of 2,940 thalers, and he has given me

back the Topaz, with 60 crowns for my trouble. Berlin, 19th December, 1750." (Hitherto in Voltaire's

hand; after which Hirsch writes:) "APROUVE, A. Hirschel." [Sic: that is always his SIGNATURE;

"Abraham HirschEL," so given by Klein, while Klein and everybody CALL him Hirsch (STAG), as we have

done,if only to save a syllable on the bad bargain.] And between these two lines ("... 1750" and

"APPROVED ..."), there is crushed in, as afterthought, "VALUED BY MYSELF [Hirsch's self], 2,940, ADD

60, IS 3,000." And, in fine, below the Hirsch signature, on what may be called the bottom margin, there

is,I think, avowedly Voltaire's and subsequent,this: "N.B. that Hirsch's valuing of all the jewels [present

lot and former lot] is, by real estimation, between twice and thrice too high;" of which, it is hoped, your

Was there ever seen such a Paper; one end of it contradicting the other? Payment TO M. de Voltaire, and

payment BY M. de Voltaire; with other blottings and foistings, which print and italics will not represent!

Hirsch denies he ever signed this Paper. Is not that your writing, then: "APROUVE, A. Hirschel"?"No!"

and they convict him of falsity in that respect: the signature IS his, but the Paper has been altered since he

signed it. That is what the poor dark mortal meant to express; and in his mulish way, he has expressed into a

falsity what was in itself a truth. There is not, on candid examination of Klein's Facsimiles and the other

evidence, the smallest doubt but Voltaire altered, added and intercalated, in his own privacy, those words

which we have printed in italics; TAXES changed into TAXABLES ("estimated at" into "estimable at"), HIM

for ME, and so on; and above all, the now first line of the Paper, FOR PAYMENT OF 3,000 THALERS BY

ME DUE, and in last line the words VALUED BY MYSELF, are palpable interpolations, sheer falsifications,

No fact is more certain; and few are sadder in the history of M. de Voltaire. To that length has he been driven

by stress of Fortune. Nay, when the Judges, not hiding their surprise at the form of this Document, asked,

Will you swear it is all genuine? Voltaire answered, "Yes, certainly!"for what will a poor man not do in

extreme stress of Fortune? Hirsch, as a Jew, is not permitted to make oath, where a QuasiChristian will

swear to the contrary, or he gladly would; and might justly. The Judges, willing to prevent chance of perjury,

did not bring Voltaire to swearing, but contrived a way to justice without that.

FEBRUARY 18th, 1751, the Court arrives at a conclusion. Hirsch's Diamonds, whatever may have been

written or forged, are not, nor were, worth more than their value, think the Judges. The Paris Bill is admitted

to be Voltaire's, not Hirsch's, continue they;and if Hirsch can prove that Voltaire has changed the

Diamonds, not a likely fact, let him do so. The rest does not concern us. And to that effect, on the above day,

runs their Sentence: "You, Hirsch, shall restore the Paris Bill; mutual Papers to be all restored, or legally

annihilated. Jewels to be valued by sworn Experts, and paid for at that price. Hirsch, if he can prove that the

Jewels were changed, has liberty to try it, in a new Action. Hirsch, for falsely denying his Signature, is fined

ten thalers (thirty shillings), such lie being a contempt of court, whatever more."

"Ha, fined, you Jew Villain!" hysterically shrieks Voltaire: "in the wrong, weren't you, then; and fined thirty

shillings?" hysterically trying to believe, and make others believe, that he has come off triumphant. "Beaten

my Jew, haven't I?" says he to everybody, though inwardly well enough aware how it stands, and that he is a

Phoenix douched, and has a tremor in the bones! Chancellor Cocceji was far from thinking it triumphant to

him. Here is a small Note of Cocceji's, addressed to his two colleagues, Jarriges and Loper, which has been

"BERLIN, 20th FEBRUARY, 1751. The Herr President von Jarriges and PrivyCouncillor Loper are hereby

officially requested to bring the remainder of the Voltaire Sentence to its fulfilment: I am myself not well,

and can employ my time much better. The Herr von Voltaire has given in a desperate Memorial (EIN

DESPERATES MEMORIAL) to this purport: 'I swear that what is charged to me [believed of me] in the

Sentence is true; and now request to have the Jewels valued.' I have returned him this Paper, with notice that

So wrote Chancellor Cocceji, on the Saturday, washing his hands of this sorry business. Voltaire is ready to

make desperate oath, if needful. We said once, M. de Voltaire was not given to lying; far the reverse. But yet,

see, if you drive him into a corner with a sword at his throat,alas, yes, he will lie a little! Forgery lay still

less in his habits; but he can do a stroke that way, too (one stroke, unique in his life, I do believe), if a wild

boar, with frothy tusks, is upon him. Tell it not in Gath,except for scientific purposes! And be judicial,

arithmetical, in passing sentence on it; not shrieky, mobbish, and flying off into the Infinite!

Berlin, of course, is loud on these matters. "The man whom the King delighted to honor, this is he, then!"

King Friedrich has quitted Town, some while ago; returned to Potsdam "January 30th." Glad enough, I

suppose, to be out of all this unmusical blowing of catcalls and indecent exposure. To Voltaire he has taken

no notice; silently leaves Voltaire, in his nook of the Berlin Schloss, till the foul business get done.

"VOLTAIRE FILOUTE LES JUIFS (picks Jew pockets)," writes he once to Wilhelmina: "will get out of it

by some GAMBADE (summerset)," writes he another time; "but" ["31st December, 1750" ( OEuvres de

Frederic, xxvii, i. 198); "3d February, 1751" (ib. 201).] And takes the matter with boundless contempt,

doubtless with some vexation, but with the minimum of noise, as a Royal gentleman might. Jew Hirsch is

busy preparing for his new desperate Action; getting together proof that the Jewels have been changed. In

proof Jew Hirsch will be weak; but in pleading, in public pamphlets, and keeping a winged Apollo fluttering

disastrously in such a mudbath, Jew Hirsch will be strong. Voltaire, "out of magnanimous pity to him,"

consents next week to an Agreement. Agreement is signed on Thursday, 26th February, 1751:Papers all to

be returned, Jewels nearly all, except one or two, paid at Hirsch's own price. Whereby, on the whole, as Klein

computes, Voltaire lost about 150 pounds; elsewhere I have seen it computed at 187 pounds: not the least

matter which. Old Hirsch has died in the interim ("Of broken heart!" blubbers the Son); day not known.

And, on these terms, Voltaire gets out of the business; glad to close the intolerable rumor, at some cost of

money. For all tongues were wagging; and, in defect of a TIMES Newspaper, it appears, there had Pamphlets

come out; printed Satires, bound or in broadside;sapid, exhilarative, for a season, and interesting to the idle

mind. Of which, TANTALE EN PROCES may still, for the sake of that PREFACE to it, be considered to

have an obscure existence. And such, reduced to its authenticities, was the Adventure of the SteuerNotes. A

very bad Adventure indeed; unspeakably the worst that Voltaire ever tried, who had such talent in the finance

line. On which poor History is really ashamed to have spent so much time; sorting it into clearness, in the

disgust and sorrow of her soul. But perhaps it needed to be done. Let us hope, at least, it may not now need to

be done again. [Besides the KLEIN, the TANTALE EN PROCES and the Voltaire LETTERS cited above,

there is (in OEuvres de Voltaire, lxiv. pp. 61106, as SUPPLEMENT there), written offhand, in the very

thick of the Hirsch Affair, a considerable set of NOTES TO D'ARGET, which might have been still more

elucidative; but are, in their present dateless topsyturvied condition; a very wonder of confusion to the

This is the FIRST ACT of Voltaire's TragicFarce at the Court of Berlin: readers may conceive to what a

bleared frostbitten condition it has reduced the first Favonian efflorescence there. He considerably

recovered in the SECOND ACT, such the indelible charm of the Voltaire genius to Friedrich. But it is well

known, the First Act rules all the others; and here, accordingly, the Third Act failed not to prove tragical. Out

of First Act into Second the following EXTRACTS OF CORRESPONDENCE will guide the reader, without

Voltaire, left languishing at Berlin, has fallen sick, now that all is over;no doubt, in part really sick, the

unfortunate Phoenix Peafowl, with such a tremor in his bones;and would fain be near Friedrich and

warmth again; fain persuade the outside world that all is sunshine with him. Voltaire's Letters to Friedrich, if

he wrote any, in this Jew time, are lost; here are Friedrich's Answers to Two,one lost, which had been

written from Berlin AFTER the Jew affair was out of Court; and to another (not lost) after the Jew affair was

"POTSDAM, 24th February, 1751. "I was glad to receive you in my house; I esteemed your genius, your

talents and acquirements; and I had reason to think that a man of your age, wearied with fencing against

Authors, and exposing himself to the storm, came hither to take refuge as in a safe harbor.

"But, on arriving, you exacted of me, in a rather singular manner, Not to take Freron to write me news from

Paris; and I had the weakness, or the complaisance, to grant you this, though it is not for you to decide what

persons I shall take into my service. D'Arnaud had faults towards you; a generous man would have pardoned

them; a vindictive man hunts down those whom he takes to hating. In a word, though to me D'Arnaud had

done nothing, it was on your account that he had to go. You were with the Russian Minister, speaking of

things you had no concern with [Russian Excellency Gross, off home lately, in sudden dudgeon, like an angry

skyrocket, nobody can guess why! [Adelung, vii. 133 (about 1st December, 1750).]and it was thought I

had given you Commission." "You have had the most villanous affair in the world with a Jew. It has made a

frightful scandal all over Town. And that Steuer Schein business is so well known in Saxony, that they have

"For my own share, I have preserved peace in my house till your arrival: and I warn you, that if you have the

passion of intriguing and caballing, you have applied to the wrong hand. I like peaceable composed people;

who do not put into their conduct the violent passions of Tragedy. In case you can resolve to live like a

Philosopher, I shall be glad to see you; but if you abandon yourself to all the violences of your passions, and

get into quarrels with all the world, you will do me no good by coming hither, and you may as well stay in

To which Voltaire sighing pathetically in response, "Wrong, ah yes, your Majesty;and sick to death" (see

"POTSDAM, 28th February, 1751. "If you wish to come hither, you can do so. I hear nothing of

Lawsuits, not even of yours. Since you have gained it, I congratulate you; and I am glad that this scurvy affair

is done. I hope you will have no more quarrels, neither with the OLD nor with the New TESTAMENT. Such

worryings (CES SORTES DE COMPROMIS) leave their mark on a man; and with the talents of the finest

genius in France, you will not cover the stains which this conduct would fasten on your reputation in the

longrun. A Bookseller Gosse [read JORE, your Majesty? Nobody ever heard of Gosse as an extant quantity:

Jore, of Rouen, you mean, and his celebrated Lawsuit, about printing the HENRIADE, or I know not what,

long since [Unbounded details on the Jore Case, and from 1731 to 1738 continual LETTERS on it, in

OEuvres de Voltaire; came to a head in 1736 (ib. lxix. 375); Jore penitent, 1738 (ib. i. 262), a Bookseller

Jore, an Opera Fiddler [poor Travenol, wrong dog pincered by the ear], and a Jeweller Jew, these are, of a

surety, names which in no sort of business ought to appear by the side of yours. I write this Letter with the

rough commonsense of a German, who speaks what he thinks, without employing equivocal terms, and

loose assuagements which disfigure the truth: it is for you to profit by it.F." [ OEuvres de Frederic, xxii.

So that Voltaire will have to languish: "Wrong, yes;and sick, nigh dead, your Majesty! Ah, could not one

get to some Country Lodge near you, 'the MARQUISAT' for instance? Live silent there, and see your face

sometimes?" [In OEuvres de Frederic (xxii. 259261, 263266) are Four lamenting and repenting,

wheedling and ultimately whining, LETTERS from Voltaire, none of them dated, which have much about

"my dreadful state of health," my passion" for reposing in that MARQUISAT," to one of which Four, or

perhaps to the whole together, the above No. 2 of Friedrich seems to have been Answer. Of that indisputable

"MARQUISAT" no Nicolai says a word; even careful Preuss passes "Gosse" and it with shut lips.]

Languishing very much;gives cosy little dinners, however. Here are two other Excerpts; and these will

Monsieur, come and eat the King's roast meat (ROT DU ROI), today, Thursday, at two o'clock, in a

DOUCEMENT). A couple of philosophers, without being courtiers, may dine in the Palace of a

PhilosopherKing: I should even take the liberty of sending one of his Majesty's Carriages for you,at two

precise. After dinner, you would be at hand for your Academy meeting." [Formey, i. 234.]V. How

cosy!And King Friedrich has relented, too; grants me the Marquisat; can refuse me nothing!

VOLTAIRE TO D'ARGENTAL (POTSDAM, 15th MARCH 1751). ... "I could not accompany our

Chamberlain [Von Ammon, gone as Envoy to Paris, on a small matter ["Commercial Treaty;" which he got

done. See LONGCHAMP, if any one is curious otherwise about this Gentleman: "D'Hamon" they call him,

and sometimes "DAMON",to whom Niece Denis wanted to be Phyllis, according to Longchamp.]],

through the muds and the snows,where I should have been buried; I was ill," and had to go to the

MARQUISAT. "D'Arnaud and the pack of Scribblers would have been too glad. D'Arnaud, animated with

the true love of glory, and not yet grown sufficiently illustrious by his own immortal Works, has done ONE

of that kind,"by his behavior here. Has behaved to meoh, like a miserable, envious, intriguing, lying

little scoundrel; and made Berlin too hot for him: seduced Tinois my Clerk, stole bits of the Pucelle (brief

SIGHT of bits, for Prince Henri's sake) to ruin me. "D'Arnaud sent his lies to Freron for the Paris meridian

[that is his real crime]; delightful news from canaille to canaille: 'How Voltaire had lost a great Lawsuit,

respectable Jew Banker cheated by Voltaire; that Voltaire was disgraced by the King,' who of course loves

Jews; 'that Voltaire was ruined; was ill; nay at last, that Voltaire was dead.'" To the joy of Freron, and the

scoundrels that are printing one's PUCELLE. "Voltaire is still in life, however, my angels; and the King has

been so good to me in my sickness, I should be the ungratefulest of men if I didn't still pass some months

with him. When he left Berlin [30th January, six weeks ago], and I was too ill to follow him, I was the sole

animal of my species whom he lodged in his Palace there [what a beautiful bit of color to lay on!]He left

me equipages, cooks ET CETERA; and his mules and horses carted out my temporary furniture (MEUBLES

DE PASSADE) to a delicious House of his, close by Potsdam [MARQUISAT to wit, where I now stretch

myself at ease; Niece Denis coming to live with me there,talks of coming, if my angels knew it],and he

has reserved for me a charming apartment in his Palace of Potsdam, where I pass a part of the week.

"And, on close view, I still admire this Unique Genius; and he deigns to communicate himself to me;and if

I were not 300 leagues from you, and had a little health, I should be the happiest of men." [ OEuvres de

And, in short, better or worse, my SECOND ACT is begun, as you perceive!And certain readers will be

Two Foreign Events, following on the heel of the Hirsch Lawsuit, were of interest to our Berlin friends,

though not now of much to us or anybody. April 5th, 1751, the old King of Sweden, Landgraf of

HessenCassel, died; whereby not only our friend Wilhelm, the managing Landgraf, becomes Landgraf

indeed (if he should ever turn up on us again), but Princess Ulrique is henceforth Queen of Sweden, her

Husband the new King. No doubt a welcome event to Princess Ulrique, the high braveminded Lady; but

which proved intrinsically an empty one, not to say worse than empty, to herself and her friends, in times

following. Friedrich's connection with Sweden, which he had been tightening lately by a Treaty of Alliance,

came in the longrun to nothing for him, on the Swedish side; and on the Russian has already created

umbrages, kindled abstruse suspicions, indignations,Russian Excellency Gross, abruptly, at Berlin,

demanding horses, not long since, and posting home without other leavetaking, to the surprise of

mankind; Russian Czarina evidently in the sullens against Friedrich, this long while; dull impenetrable

clouds of anger lodging yonder, boding him no good. All which the Accession of Queen Ulrique will rather

tend to aggravate than otherwise. [Adelung, vii. 205 (Accession of Adolf Friedrich); ib. 133 (Gross's sudden

The Second Foreign Event is English, about a week prior in date, and is of still less moment: March 31st,

1751, Prince Fred, the Royal HeirApparent, has suddenly died. Had been ill, more or less, for an eight days

past; was now thought better, though "still coughing, and bringing up phlegm,"when, on "Wednesday

night between nine and ten," in some lengthier fit of that kind, he clapt his hand on his breast; and the

terrified valet heard him say, "JE SUIS MORT!"and before his poor Wife could run forward with a light,

he lay verily dead. [Walpole, GEORGE THE SECOND, i. 71.] The Rising Sun in England is vanished, then.

Yes; and with him his MOONS, and considerable moony workings, and slushings hither and thither, which

they have occasioned, in the muddy tidecurrents of that Constitutional Country. Without interest to us here;

or indeed elsewhere,except perhaps that our dear Wilhelmina would hear of it; and have her sad reflections

and reminiscences awakened by it; sad and manyvoiced, perhaps of an almost doleful nature, being on a

sickbed at this time, poor Lady. She quitted Berlin months ago, as we observed,her farewell Letter to

Friedrich, written from the first stage homewards, and melodious as the voice of sorrowful true hearts to us

and him, dates "November 24th," just while Voltaire (whom she always likes, and in a beautiful way protects,

"FRERE VOLTAIRE," as she calls him) was despatching Hirsch on that ill omened Predatory

STEUERMission. Her Brother is in real alarm for Wilhelmina, about this time; sending out Cothenius his

chief Doctor, and the like: but our dear Princess reemerges from her eclipse; and we shall see her again,

And so poor Fred is ended;and sulky people ask, in their cruel way, "Why not?" A poor dissolute flabby

fellowcreature; with a sad destiny, and a sadly conspicuous too. Could write Madrigals; be set to make

Opposition cabals. Read this sudden Epitaph in doggerel; an uncommonly successful Piece of its kind; which

is now his main monument with posterity. The "Brother" (hero of Culloden), the "Sister" (Amelia, our

Friedrich's first love, now growing gossipy and spiteful, poor Princess), are old friends:

"Here lies Prince Fred, Who was alive and is dead: Had it been his Father, I had much rather; Had it been his

Had it been his Sister, There's no one would have missed her; Had it been his whole generation, Best of all

for the Nation: But since it's only Fred, There's no more to be said." [Walpole, i. 436.]

A thing of more importance to us, two months after that catastrophe in London, is Friedrich's first Visit to

OstFriesland. May 3lst, having done his BerlinPotsdam Reviews and other current affairs, Friedrich sets

out on this Excursion. With OstFriesland for goal, but much business by the way. Towards Magdeburg, and

a short visit to the Brunswick Kindred, first of all. There is much reviewing in the Magdeburg quarter, and

thereafter in the Wesel; and reviewing and visiting all along: through Minden, Bielfeld, Lingen: not till July

13th does he cross the OstFriesland Border, and enter Embden. His three Brothers, and Prince Ferdinand of

Brunswick, were with him. [ HeldenGeschichte, iii. 506; Seyfarth, ii. 145; Rodenbeck, i. 216 (who gives a

foolish German myth, of Voltaire's being passed off for the King's Baboon, Voltaire not being there at all).]

On catching view of OstFriesland Border, see, on the BorderLine, what an Arch got on its feet: Triumphal

Arch, of frondent ornaments, inscriptions and insignia; "of quite extraordinary magnificence;" Arch which

"sets every one into the agreeablest admiration." Above a hundred such Arches spanned the road at different

points; multitudinous enthusiasm reverently escorting, "more than 20,000" by count: till we enter Embden;

where all is cannonsalvo, and threetimesthree; the thundershots continuing, "above 2,000 of them from

the walls, not to speak of response from the ships in harbor." Embden glad enough, as would appear, and

OstFriesland glad enough, to see their new King. July 13th, 1751; after waiting above six years.

Next day, his Majesty gave audience to the new "Asiatic Shipping Company" (of which anon), to the Stande,

and Magisterial persons; with many questions, I doubt not, about your new embankments, new

improvements, prospects; there being much procedure that way, in all manner of kinds, since the new

Dynasty came in, now six years ago. Embankments on your River, wide spaces changed from ooze to

meadow; on the Dollart still more, which has lain 500 years hidden from the sun. Does any reader know the

Dollart? OstFriesland has awakened to wonderful new industries within these six years; urged and guided

by the new King, who has great things in view for it, besides what are in actual progress.

That of dikes, seaembankments, for example; to OstFriesland, as to Holland, they are the first condition of

existence; and, in the past times, of extreme Parliamentary vitality, have been slipping a good deal out of

repair. Ems River, in those flat rainy countries, has ploughed out for itself a very wide embouchure, as

boundary between Groningen and OstFriesland. Muddy Ems, bickering with the German Ocean, does not

forget to act, if Parliamentary Commissioners do. These dikes, 120 miles of dike, mainly along both banks of

this muddy Ems River, are now watertight again, to the comfort of flax and clover: and this is but one item

of the diking now on foot. Readers do not know the Dollart, that uppermost round gulf, not far from Embden

itself, in the waste embouchure of Ems with its continents of mud and tide. Five hundred years ago, that ugly

whirl of muddy surf, 100 square miles in area, was a fruitful field, "50 Villages upon it, one Town, several

Monasteries and 50,000 souls:" till on Christmas midnight A.D. 1277, the winds and the stormrains having

got to their height, Ocean and Ems did, "about midnight," undermine the place, folded it over like a friable

bedquilt or monstrous doomed griddlecake, and swallowed it all away. Most of it, they say, that night, the

whole of it within ten years coming; [Busching, Erdbeschreibung, v. 845, 846; Preuss, i. 308, 309.]and

there it has hung, like an unlovely GOITRE at the throat of Embden, ever since. One little dot of an Island,

with six houses on it, near the Embden shore, is all that is left. Where probably his Majesty landed (July 15th,

being in a Yacht that day); but did not see, afar off, the "sunk steeple top," which is fabled to be visible at

Upon this Dollart itself there is now to be diking tried; King's DomainKammer showing the example.

Which Official Body did accordingly (without BlueBooks, but in good working case otherwise) break

ground, few months hence; and victoriously achieved a POLDER, or Diked Territory, "worth about 2,000

pounds annually;" "which, in 1756, was sold to the STANDE;" at twentyfive years purchase, let us say, or

for 50,000 pounds. An example of a convincing nature; which many others, and ever others, have followed

since; to gradual considerable diminution of the Dollart, and relief of OstFriesland on this side. Furtherance

of these things is much a concern of Friedrich's. The second day after his arrival, those audiences and

ceremonials done, Friedrich and suite got on board a Yacht, and sailed about all over this Dollart, twenty

miles out to sea; dined on board; and would have, if the weather was bright (which I hope), a pleasantly

edifying day. The harbor is much in need of dredging, the building docks considerably in disrepair; but shall

be refitted if this King live and prosper. He has declared Embden a "FreeHaven," inviting trade to it from all

peaceable Nations;and readers do not know (though Sir Jonas Hanway and the jealous mercantile world

well did) what magnificent Shipping Companies and SeaEnterprises, of his devising, are afoot there. Of

"September 1st, 1750, those Carrousel gayeties scarce done, 'The Asiatic Trading Company' stept formally

into existence; Embden the Headquarters of it; [Patent, or FREYHEITSBRIEF in HeldenGeschichte, iii.

457, 458.] chief Manager a Ritter De la Touche; one of the Directors our fantastic Bielfeld, thus turned to

practical value. A Company patronized, in all ways, by the King; but, for the rest, founded, not on his money;

founded on voluntary shares, which, to the regret of Hanway and others, have had much popularity in

commercial circles. Will trade to China. A thing looked at with umbrage by the English, by the Dutch. A

shame that English people should encourage such schemes, says Hanway. Which nevertheless many Dutch

and many English private persons do,among the latter, one English Lady (name unknown, but I always

suspect 'Miss Barbara Wyndham, of the College, Salisbury'), concerning whom there will be honorable notice

"At the time of Friedrich's visit, the Asiatic Company is in full vogue; making ready its first ship for Canton.

First ship, KONIG VON PREUSSEN (tons burden not given), actually sailed 17th February next (1752); and

was followed by a second, named TOWN OF EMBDEN, on the 19th of September following; both of which

prosperously reached Canton, and prosperously returned with cargoes of satisfactory profit. The first of them,

KONIG VON PREUSSEN, had been boarded in the Downs by an English Captain Thomson and his Frigate,

and detained some days,till Thomson 'took Seven English seamen out of her.' 'Act of Parliament, express!'

said his Grace of Newcastle. Which done, Thomson found that the English jealousies would have to hold

"Nay within a year hence, January 24th, 1753, Friedrich founded another Company for India:

'BENGALISCHE HANDELSGESELLSCHAFT;' which also sent out its pair of ships, perhaps oftener than

once; and pointed, as the other was doing, to wide fields of enterprise, for some time. But luck was wanting.

And, 'in part, mismanagement,' and, in whole, the SevenYears War put an end to both Companies before

long. Friedrich is full of these thoughts, among his other Industrialisms; and never quits them for

discouragement, but tries again, when the obstacles cease to be insuperable. Ever since the acquisition of

OstFriesland, the furtherance of SeaCommerce had been one of Friedrich's chosen objects. 'Let us carry

our own goods at least, Silesian linens, Memel timbers, stockfish; what need of the Dutch to do it?' And in

many branches his progress had been remarkable,especially in this carrying trade, while the War lasted,

and crippled all AntiEnglish belligerents. Upon which, indeed, and the conduct of the English Privateers to

him, there is a Controversy going on with the English Court in those years (began in 1747), most distressful

to his Grace of Newcastle;which in part explains those stingy procedures of Captain Thomson ('Home, you

seven English sailors!') when the first Canton ship put to sea. That Controversy is by no means ended after

three years, but on the contrary, after two years more, comes to a crisis quite shocking to his Grace of

Newcastle, and defying all solution on his Grace's side,the other Party, after such delays, five years

waiting, having settled it for himself!" Of which, were the crisis come, we will give some account.

On the third day of his Visit, Friedrich drove to Aurich, the seat of Government, and official little capital of

OstFriesland; where triumphal arches, joyful reverences, concourses, demonstrations, sumptuous Dinner

one item, awaited his Majesty: I know not if, in the way thither or back, he passed those "Three huge Oaks

[or the rotted stems or roots of them] under which the Ancient Frisians, Lords of all between Weser and

Rhine, were wont to assemble in Parliament" (WITHOUT Fourth Estate, or any Eloquence except of the

purely Business sort),or what his thoughts on the late OstFriesland Bandbox Parliaments may have been!

He returned to Embden that night; and on the morrow started homewards; we may fancy, tolerably pleased

"King Friedrich's main Objects of Pursuit in this Period," says a certain Author, whom we often follow, "I

define as being Three. 1. Reform of the Law; 2. Furtherance of Husbandry and Industry in all kinds,

especially of Shipping from Embden; 3. Improvement of his own Domesticities and Household

"In the First of these objects," continues he, "King Friedrich's success was very considerable, and got him

great fame in the world. In his Second head of efforts, that of improving the Industries and Husbandries

among his People, his success, though less noised of in foreign parts, was to the near observer still more

remarkable. A perennial business with him, this; which, even in the time of War, he never neglects; and

which springs out like a stemmed flood, whenever Peace leaves him free for it. His labors by all methods to

awaken new branches of industry, to cherish and further the old, are incessant, manifold, unwearied; and will

surprise the uninstructed reader, when he comes to study them. An airy, poetizing, bantering, lightly brilliant

King, supposed to be serious mainly in things of War, how is he moiling and toiling, like an evervigilant

LandSteward, like the most industrious City Merchant, hardestworking Merchant's Clerk, to increase his

"One day, these things will deserve to be studied to the bottom; and to be set forth, by writing hands that are

competent, for the instruction and example of Workers,that is to say, of all men, Kings most of all, when

there are again Kings. At present, I can only say they astonish me, and put me to shame: the unresting

diligence displayed in them, and the immense sumtotal of them, what man, in any the noblest pursuit, can

say that he has stood to it, sixandforty years long, in the style of this man? Nor did the harvest fail; slow

sure harvest, which sufficed a patient Friedrich in his own day; harvest now, in our day, visible to everybody:

in a Prussia all shooting into manufactures, into commerces, opulences, I only hope, not TOO fast, and on

more solid terms than are universal at present! Those things might be didactic, truly, in various points, to this

Generation; and worth looking back upon, from its high LAISSEZFAIRE altitudes, its triumphant Scrip

transactions and continents of goldnuggets,pleasing, it doubts not, to all the gods. To write well of what

is called 'Political Economy' (meaning thereby increase of money'sworth) is reckoned meritorious, and our

nearest approach to the rational sublime. But to accomplish said increase in a high and indisputable degree;

and indisputably very much by your own endeavors wisely regulating those of others, does not that approach

"To prevent disappointment, I ought to add that Friedrich is the reverse of orthodox in 'Political Economy;'

that he had not faith in FreeTrade, but the reverse;nor had ever heard of those ultimate Evangels,

unlimited Competition, fair Start, and perfervid Race by all the world (towards 'CHEAPANDNASTY,' as

the likeliest winningpost for all the world), which have since been vouchsafed us. Probably in the world

there was never less of a FreeTrader! Constraint, regulation, encouragement, discouragement, reward,

punishment; these he never doubted were the method, and that government was good everywhere if wise, bad

only if not wise. And sure enough these methods, where human justice and the earnest sense and insight of a

Friedrich preside over them, have results, which differ notably from opposite cases that can be imagined! The

desperate notion of giving up government altogether, as a relief from human blockheadism in your governors,

and their want even of a wish to be just or wise, had not entered into the thoughts of Friedrich; nor driven him

upon trying to believe that such, in regard to any Human Interest whatever, was, or could be except for a little

while in extremely developed cases, the true way of managing it. How disgusting, accordingly, is the Prussia

of Friedrich to a Hanbury Williams; who has bad eyes and dirty spectacles, and hates Friedrich: how singular

and lamentable to a Mirabeau Junior, who has good eyes, and loves him! No knave, no impertinent blockhead

even, can follow his own beautiful devices here; but is instantly had up, or comes upon a turnpike strictly

shut for him. 'Was the like ever heard of?' snarls Hanbury furiously (as an angry dog might, in a labyrinth it

sees not the least use for): 'What unspeakable want of liberty!'and reads to you as if he were lying outright;

but generally is not, only exaggerating, tumbling upside down, to a furious degree; knocking against the

labyrinth HE sees not the least use for. Mirabeau's Gospel of FreeTrade, preached in 1788, [MONARCHIE

PRUSSIENNE he calls it (A LONDRES, privately Paris, 1788), 8 vols. 8vo; which is a DeadSea of

Statistics, compiled by industrious Major Mauvillon, with this fresh current of a "Gospel" shining through it,

very fresh and brisk, of few yards breadth;dedicated to Papa, the true PROTevangelist of the thing.]a

comparatively recent Performance, though now some seventy or eighty years the senior of an English

(unconscious) Facsimile, which we have all had the pleasure of knowing,will fall to be noticed

"Many of Friedrich's restrictive notions,as that of watching with such anxiety that 'money' (gold or silver

coin) be not carried out of the Country,will be found mistakes, not in orthodox Dismal Science as now

taught, but in the nature of things; and indeed the Dismal Science will generally excommunicate them in the

lump,too. heedless that Fact has conspicuously vindicated the general sum total of them, and declared it

to be much truer than it seems to the Dismal Science. Dismal Science (if that were important to me) takes

insufficient heed, and does not discriminate between times past and times present, times here and times

Certain it is, King Friedrich's success in National Husbandry was very great. The details of the very many

new Manufactures, new successful everspreading Enterprises, fostered into existence by Friedrich; his

Canalmakings, Roadmakings, Bogdrainings, Colonizings and unwearied endeavorings in that kind, will

require a Technical Philosopher one day; and will well reward such study, and trouble of recording in a

human manner; but must lie massed up in mere outline on the present occasion. Friedrich, as LandFather,

Shepherd of the People, was great on the Husbandry side also; and we are to conceive him as a man of

excellent practical sense, doing unweariedly his best in that kind, all his life long. Alone among modern

Kings; his late Father the one exception; and even his Father hardly surpassing him in that particular.

In regard to Embden and the Shipping interests, OstFriesland awakened very ardent speculations, which

were a novelty in Prussian affairs; nothing of Foreign Trade, except into the limited Baltic, had been heard of

there since the Great Elector's time. The Great Elector had ships, Forts on the Coast of Africa; and tried hard

for Atlantic Trade,out of this same Embden; where, being summoned to protect in the troubles, he had got

some footing as Contingent Heir withal, and kept a "Prussian Battalion" a good while. And now, on much

fairer terms, not less diligently turned to account, it is his GreatGrandson's turn. Friedrich's successes in this

department, the rather as Embden and OstFriesland have in our time ceased to be Prussian, are not much

worth speaking of; but they connect themselves with some points still slightly memorable to us. How, for

example, his vigilantes and endeavors on this score brought him into rubbings, not collisions, but jealousies

Lawreform is gloriously prosperous; Husbandry the like, and Shipping Interest itself as yet. But in the Third

grand Head, that of realizing the Reinsberg Program, beautifying his Domesticities, and bringing his own

Hearth and Household nearer the Ideal, Friedrich was nothing like so successful; in fact had no success at all.

That flattering Reinsberg Program, it is singular how Friedrich cannot help trying it by every new chance, nor

cast the notion out of him that there must be a kind of Muses'Heaven realizable on Earth! That is the

Biographic Phenomenon which has survived of those Years; and to that we will almost exclusively address

Voltaire's Visit lasted, in all, about Thirtytwo Months; and is divisible into Three Acts or Stages. The first

we have seen: how it commenced in brightness as of the sun, and ended, by that Hirsch business, in

whirlwinds of smoke and soot,Voltaire retiring, on his passionate prayer, to that silent Countryhouse

which he calls the Marquisat; there to lie in hospital, and wash himself a little, and let the skies wash

The Hirsch business having blown over, as all things do, Voltaire resumed his place among the

CourtPlanets, and did his revolutions; striving to forget that there ever was a Hirsch, or a soot explosion of

that nature. In words nobody reminded him of it, the King least of all: and by degrees matters were again

tolerably glorious, and all might have gone well enough; though the primal perfect splendor, such fuliginous

reminiscence being ineffaceable, never could be quite reattained. The diamond Cross of Merit, the

Chamberlain gold Key, hung bright upon the man; a man the admired of men. He had work to do: work of his

own which he reckoned priceless (that immortal SIECLE DE LOUIS QUATORZE; which he stood by, and

honestly did, while here; the one fixed axis in those fooleries and whirlings of his);work for the King, "two

hours, one hour, a day," which the King reckoned priceless in its sort. For Friedrich himself Voltaire has,

with touches of real love coming out now and then, a very sincere admiration mixed with fear; and delights in

shining to him, and being well with him, as the greatest pleasure now left in life. Besides the King, he had

society enough, French in type, and brilliant enough: plenty of society; or, at his wish, what was still better,

none at all. He was bedded, boarded, lodged, as if beneficent fairies had done it for him; and for all these

things no price asked, you might say, but that he would not throw himself out of window! Had the man been

wise But he was not wise. He had, if no big gloomy devil in him among the bright angels that were there, a

multitude of ravening tumultuary imps, or little devils very ILLCHAINED; and was lodged, he and his

Reckoning up the matter, one cannot find that Voltaire ever could have been a blessing at Berlin, either for

Friedrich or himself; and it is to be owned that Friedrich was not wise in so longing for him, or clasping him

so frankly in his arms. As Friedrich, by this time, probably begins to discover;though indeed to Friedrich

the thing is of finite moment; by no means of infinite, as it was to Voltaire. "At worst, nothing but a little

money thrown away!" thinks Friedrich: "Sure enough, this is a strange Trismegistus, this of mine: star

firework shall we call him, or terrestrial smokeandsoot work? But one can fence oneself against the blind

vagaries of the man; and get a great deal of good by him, in the lucid intervals." To Voltaire himself the

position is most agitating; but then its glories, were there nothing more! Besides hy is always thinking to quit

it shortly; which is a great sedative in troubles. What with intermittencies (safe hidings in one's

MARQUISAT, or vacant interlunar cave), with alternations of offence and reconcilement; what with

occasional actual flights to Paris (whitherward Voltaire is always busy to keep a postern open; and of which

there is frequent talk, and almost continual thought, all along), flights to be called "visits," and privately

intending to be final, but never proving so,the VoltaireFriedrich relation, if left to itself, might perhaps

But, alas, no relation can be left to itself in this world, especially if you have a porous skin! There were

other French here, as well as Voltaire, revolving in the Courtcircle; and that, beyond all others, proved the

fatal circumstance to him. "NE SAVEZVOUS PAS, Don't you know," said he to Chancellor Jarriges one

day, "that when there are two Frenchmen in a Foreign Court or Country, one of them must die (FAUT QUE

L'UN DES DEUX PERISSE)?" [Seyfarth, ii. 191; Which shocked the mind of Jarriges; but had a kind of

truth, too. Jew Hirsch, run into for low smuggling purposes, had been a Cape of Storms, difficult to weather;

but the continual leeshore were those French,with a heavy gale on, and one of the rashest pilots! He did

strike the breakers there, at last; and it is well known, total shipwreck was the issue. Our Second Act, holding

out dubiously, in continual perils, till Autumn, 1752, will have to pass then into a Third of darker

Catastrophe which, by farther ill accident, proved noisy in the extreme; producing worldwide shrieks from

the one party, stone silence from the other; which were answered by unlimited hooting, catcalling and

hahaing from all parts of the WorldTheatre, upon both the shrieky and the silent party; catcalling not fallen

quite dead to this day. To Friedrich the catcalling was not momentous (being used to such things); though to

poor Voltaire it was unlimitedly so:and to readers interested in this memorable Pair of Men, the rights and

wrongs of the Affair ought to be rendered authentically conceivable, now at last. Were it humanly

possible, after so much catcalling at random! Smelfungus has a right to say, speaking of this matter:

"Never was such a jumble of loudroaring ignorances, delusions and confusions, as the current Records of it

are. Editors, especially French Editors, treating of a Hyperborean, Cimmerian subject, like this, are

easygoing creatures. And truly they have left it for us in a wonderful state. Dateless, much of it, by nature;

and, by the lazy Editors, MISdated into very chaos; jumbling along there, in mad defiance of top and bottom;

often the very Year given wrong: full everywhere of lazy darkness, irradiated only by stupid rages,

illdirected mockeries:and for issue, cheerfully malicious hootings from the general mob of mankind, with

unbounded contempt of their betters; which is not pleasant to see. When mobs do get together, round any

signal object; and editorial gentlemen, with talent for it, pour out from their respective barrelheads, in a

persuasive manner, instead of knowledge, ignorance set on fire, they are capable of carrying it far!Will it

be possible to pick out the small glimmerings of real light, from this mad dance of willo'wisps and

It will be very difficult, my friend;why did not you yourself do it? Most true, "those actual

VoltaireFriedrich LETTERS of the time are a resource, and pretty much the sole one: Letters a good few,

still extant; which all HAD their bit of meaning; and have it still, if well tortured till they give it out, or give

some glimmer of it out:"but you have not tortured them; you have left it to me, if I would! As I assuredly

To the outside crowd of observers, and to himself in good moments, Voltaire represents his situation as the

"Potsdam is Sparta and Athens joined in one; nothing but reviewing and poetry day by day. The Algarottis,

the Maupertuises, are here; have each his work, serious for himself; then gay Supper with a King, who is a

great man and the soul of good company." ... Sparta and Athens, I tell you: "a Camp of Mars and the Garden

of Epicurus; trumpets and violins, War and Philosophy. I have my time all to myself; am at Court and in

freedom,if I were not entirely free, neither an enormous Pension, nor a Gold Key tearing out one's pocket,

nor a halter (LICOU), which they call CORDON of an ORDER, nor even the Suppers with a Philosopher

who has gained Five Battles, could yield me the least happiness." [ OEuvres, lxxiv. 325, 326, 333 (Letters, to

D'Argental and others, "27th April8th May, 1751").] Looked at by you, my outside friends,ah, had I

But seen from within, it is far otherwise. Alongside of these warblings of a heart grateful to the first of Kings,

there goes on a series of utterances to Niece Denis, remarkable for the misery driven into meanness, that can

be read in them. Illhealth, discontent, vague terror, suspicion that dare not go to sleep; a strange vague

terror, shapeless or taking all shapesa body diseased and a mind diseased. Fear, quaking continually for

nothing at all, is not to be borne in a handsome manner. And it passes, often enough (in these poor

LETTERS), into transient malignity, into gusts of trembling hatred, with a tendency to relieve oneself by

private scandal of the house we are in. Seldom was a miserabler wrongside seen to a bit of royal tapestry. A

man hunted by the little devils that dwell unchained within himself; like Pentheus by the Maenads, like

Actaeon by his own Dogs. Nay, without devils, with only those terrible bowels of mine, and scorbutic gums,

it is bad enough: "Glorious promotions to me here," sneers he bitterly; "but one thing is indisputable, I have

lost seven of my poor residue of teeth since I came!" In truth, we are in a sadly scorbutic state; and that, and

the devils we lodge within ourselves, is the one real evil. Could not Suspicionwhy cannot she!take her

natural rest; and all these terrors vanish? Oh, M. de Voltaire!The practical purport, to Niece Denis, always

is: Keep my retreat to Paris open; in the name of Heaven, no obstruction that way!

Miserable indeed; a man fatally unfit for his present element! But he has Two considerable Sedatives, all

along; two, and no third visible to me. Sedative FIRST: that, he can, at any time, quit this illustrious

TartarusElysium, the envy of mankind;and indeed, practically, he is always as if on the slip; thinking to

be off shortly, for a time, or in permanence; can be off at once, if things grow too bad. Sedative SECOND is

far better: His own labor on LOUIS QUATORZE, which is steadily going on, and must have been a potent

From Berlin, already in Autumn, 1750, Voltaire writes to D'Argental: "I sha'n't go to Italy this Autumn [nor

ever in my life], as I had projected. But I will come to see YOU in the course of November" (far from it, I got

into STEUERSCHEINE then!) And again, after some weeks: "I have put off my journey to Italy for a

year. Next Winter too, therefore, I shall see you," on the road thither. "To my Country, since you live in it, I

will make frequent visits," very! "Italy and the King of Prussia are two old passions with me; but I cannot

treat FredericleGrand as I can the Holy Father, with a mere look in passing." [To D'Argental, "Berlin, 14th

September,Potsdam, 15th October, 1750" ( OEuvres, lxxiv. 220, 237).] Let this one, to which many might

be added, serve as sample of Sedative First, or the power and intention to be off before long.

In regard to Sedative Second, again: ... "The happiest circumstance is, "brought with me all my

LOUISFOURTEENTH Papers and Excerpts. 'I get from Leipzig, if no nearer, whatever Books are needed;'"

and labor faithfully at this immortal Production. Yes, day by day, to see growing, by the cunning of one's

own right hand, such perennial Solomon'sTemple of a SIECLE DE LOUIS QUATORZE:which of your

Kings, or truculent, TiglathPilesers, could do that? To poor me, even in the Potsdam tempests, it is possible:

what ugliest day is not beautiful that sees a stone or two added there!Daily Voltaire sees himself at work

on his SIECLE, on those fine terms; trowel in one hand, weapon of war in the other. And does actually

accomplish it, in the course of this Year 1751,with a great deal of punctuality and severe painstaking;

which readers of our day, fallen careless of the subject, are little aware of, on Voltaire's behalf. Voltaire's

reward was, that he did NOT go mad in that Berlin element, but had throughout a boweranchor to ride by.

"The King of France continues me as Gentleman of the Chamber, say you; but has taken away my Title of

Historiographer? That latter, however, shall still be my function. 'My present independence has given weight

to my verdicts on matters. Probably I never could have written this Book at Paris.' A consolation for one's

exile, MON ENFANT." [To Niece Denis ( OEuvres, lxxiv. 247, "28th October, 1750," and subsequent dates.]

It is proper also to observe that, besides shining at the King's Suppers like no other, Voltaire applies himself

honestly to do for his Majesty the small work required of him,that of Verse correcting now and then. Two

Specimens exist; two Pieces criticised, ODE AUX PRUSSIENS, and THE ART OF WAR: portions of that

Reprint now going on ("to the extent of Twelve Copies,"woe lies in one of them, most unexpected at this

time!) "AU DONJON DU CHATEAU;"under benefit of Voltaire's remarks. Which one reads curiously,

not without some surprise. [In OEuvres de Frederic, x. 276303.] Surprise, first at Voltaire's official fidelity;

his frankness, rigorous strictness in this small duty: then at the kind of correcting, instructing and lessoning,

that had been demanded of him by his Royal Pupil. Mere grammatical stylistic skindeep work: nothing (or,

at least, in these Specimens nothing) of attempt upon the interior structure, or the interior harmony even of

utterance: solely the Parisian niceties, graces, laws of poetic language, the FAS and the NEFAS in regard to

all that: this is what his Majesty would fain be taught from the fountainhead;one wonders his Majesty did

not learn to spell, which might have been got from a lower source!And all this Voltaire does teach with

great strictness. For example, in the very first line, in the very first word, set, before him:

"PRUSSIENS, QUE LA VALEUR CONDUISIT A LA GLOIRE," so Friedrich had written (ODE AUX

PRUSSIENS, which is specimen First); and thus Voltaire criticises: "The Hero here makes his PRUSSIENS

of two syllables; and afterwards, in another strophe, he grants them three. A King is master of his favors. At

the same time, one does require a little uniformity; and the IENS are usually of two syllables, as LIENS,

SILESIENS, AUTRICHIENS; excepting the monosyllables BIEN, RIEN"Enough, enough!A severe,

punctual, painstaking Voltaire, sitting with the schoolmaster's bonnet on head; ferula visible, if not actually in

hand. For which, as appears, his Majesty was very grateful to the Trismegistus of men.

Voltaire's flatteries to Friedrich, in those scattered little Billets with their snatches of verse, are the prettiest in

the world,and approach very near to sincerity, though seldom quite attaining it. Something traceable of

false, of suspicious, feline, nearly always, in those seductive warblings; which otherwise are the most

melodious bits of idle ingenuity the human brain has ever spun from itself. For instance, this heading of a

Note sent from one room to another,perhaps with pieces of an ODE AUX PRUSSIENS accompanying:

Was there ever such a turn given to taking physic! Still better is this other, the topic

worse,HAEMORRHOIDS (a kind of annual or periodical affair with the Royal Patient, who used to feel

Smelfungus says: "He is a consummate Artist in Speech, our Voltaire: that, if you take the word SPEECH in

its widest sense, and consider the much that can be spoken, and the infinitely more that cannot and should

not, is Voltaire's supreme excellency among his fellowcreatures; never rivalled (to my poor judgment)

Another fine circumstance is, that Voltaire has frequent leave of absence; and in effect passes a great deal of

his time altogether by himself, or in his own way otherwise. What with Friedrich's Review Journeys and

Business Circuits, considerable separations do occur of themselves; and at any time, Voltaire has but to plead

illness, which he often does; with ground and without, and get away for weeks, safe into the distance more or

less remote. He is at the Marquisat (as we laboriously make out); at Berlin, in the empty Palace, perhaps in

Lodgings of his own (though one would prefer the GRATIS method); nursing his maladies, which are many;

writing his LOUIS QUATORZE; "lonely altogether, your Majesty, and sad of humor,"yet giving his cosy

little dinners, and running out, pretty often, if well invited, into the brilliancies and gayeties. No want of

brilliant social life here, which can shine, more or less, and appreciate one's shining. The King's

Supperparties Yes, and these, though the brightest, are not the only bright things in our PotsdamBerlin

world. Take with you, reader, one or two of the then and there Chief Figures; Voltaire's fellowplayers;

strutting and fretting their hour on that Stage of Life. They are mostly not quite strangers to you.

We know the sublime Perpetual President in his red wig, and sublime supremacy of Pure Science. A gloomy

set figure; affecting the sententious, the emphatic and a composed impregnability,like the Jove of Science.

With immensities of gloomy vanity, not compressible at all times. Friedrich always strove to honor his

Perpetual President, and duly adore the Pure Sciences in him; but inwardly could not quite manage it, though

outwardly he failed in nothing. Impartial witnesses confess, the King had a great deal of trouble with his

gloomings and him. "Who is this Voltaire?" gloomily thinks the Perpetual President to himself. "A fellow

with a nimble tongue, that is all. Knows nothing whatever of Pure Sciences, except what fraction or tincture

he has begged or stolen from myself. And here is the King of the world in raptures with him!"

Voltaire from of old had faithfully done his kowtows to this King of the Sciences; and, with a sort of terror,

had suffered with incredible patience a great deal from him. But there comes an end to all things; Voltaire's

patience not excepted. It lay in the fates that Maupertuis should steadily accumulate, day after day, and now

more than ever heretofore, upon the sensitive Voltaire. Till, as will be seen, the sensitive Voltaire could

endure it no longer; but had to explode upon this big Bully (accident lending a spark); to go off like a

Vesuvius of crackers, fireserpents and skyrockets; envelop the red wig, and much else, in delirious

D'Argens, poor dissolute creature, is the best of the French lot. He has married, after so many temporary

marriages with Actresses, one Actress in permanence, Mamsell Cochois, a patient kind being; and settled

now, at Potsdam here, into perfectly composed household life. Really loves Friedrich, they say; the only

Frenchman of them that does. Has abundance of light sputtery wit, and Provencal fire and ingenuity; no

illnature against any man. Never injures anybody, nor lies at all about anything. A great friend of fine

weather; regrets, of his inheritances in Provence, chiefly one item, and this not overmuch,the bright

southern sun. Sits shivering in wintertime, wrapping himself in more and more flannel, two

Was the King's friend for thirty years; helped several meritorious people to his Majesty's notice; and never

did any man a mischief in that quarter. An erect, guileless figure; very tall; with vivid countenance,

chaotically vivid mind: full of bright sallies, irregular ingenuities; had a hot temper too, which did not often

run away with him, but sometimes did. He thrice made a visit to Provence,in fact ran away from the King,

feeling bantered and roasted to a merciless degree,but thrice came back. "At the end of the first stage, he

had always privately forgiven the King, and determined that the pretended visit should really be a visit only."

"Reads the King's Letters," which are many to him, "always bare headed, in spite of the draughts!" [Nicolai,

Algarotti is too prudent, politely egoistic and selfcontained, to take the trouble of hurting anybody, or get

himself into trouble for love or hatred. He fell into disfavor not long after that unsuccessful little mission in

the first Silesian War, of which the reader has lost remembrance. Good for nothing in diplomacy, thought

Friedrich, but agreeable as company. "Company in tents, in the seat of War, has its unpleasantness," thought

Algarotti;and began very privately sounding the waters at Dresden for an eligible situation; so that there

has ensued a quarrel since; then humble apologies followed by profound silence,till now there is

reconcilement. It is admitted Friedrich had some real love for Algarotti; Algarotti, as we gather, none at all

for him; but only for his greatness. They parted again (February, 1753) without quarrel, but for the last time;

[AlgarottiCorrespondence ( OEuvres de Frederic, xviii. 86).]and I confess to a relief on the occasion.

Friedrich, readers know by this time, had a great appetite for conversation: he talked well, listened well; one

of his chief enjoyments was, to give and receive from his fellowcreatures in that way. I hope, and indeed

have evidence, that he required good sense as the staple; but in the form, he allowed great latitude. He by no

means affected solemnity, rather the reverse; goes much upon the bantering vein; far too much, according to

the complaining parties. Took pleasure (cruel mortal!) in stirring up his company by the whip, and even by

the whip applied to RAWS; for we find he had "established," like the Dublin HackneyCoachman, "raws for

himself;" and habitually plied his implement there, when desirous to get into the gallop. In an inhuman

manner, said the suffering Cattle; who used to rebel against it, and go off in the sulks from time to time. It is

certain he could, especially in his younger years, put up with a great deal of zanyism, ingenious foolery and

rough tumbling, if it had any basis to tumble on; though with years he became more saturnine.

By far his chief Artist in this kind, indeed properly the only one, was La Mettrie, whom we once saw

transiently as ArmySurgeon at Fontenoy: he is now out of all that (flung out, with the dogs at his heels); has

been safe in Berlin for three years past. Friedrich not only tolerates the poor madcap, but takes some pleasure

in him: madcap we say, though poor La Mettrie had remarkable gifts, exuberant laughter one of them, and

was far from intending to be mad. Not Zanyism, but Wisdom of the highest nature, was what he drove

at,unluckily, with open mouth, and mind all in tumult. La Mettrie had left the Army, soon after that busy

Fontenoy evening: Chivalrous Grammont, his patron and protector, who had saved him from many scrapes,

lay shot on the field. La Mettrie, rushing on with mouth open and mind in tumult, had, from of old, been

continually getting into scrapes. Unorthodox to a degree; the Sorbonne greedy for him long since; such his

audacities in print, his heavy hits, boisterous, quizzical, logical. And now he had set to attacking the Medical

Faculty, to quizzing Medicine in his wild way; Doctor Astruc, Doctor This and That, of the first celebrity,

taking it very ill. So that La Mettrie had to demit; to get out of France rather in a hurry, lest worse befell.

He had studied at Leyden, under Boerhaave. He had in fact considerable medical and other talent, had he not

been so tumultuous and openmouthed. He fled to Leyden; and shot forth, in safety there, his fiery darts upon

Sorbonne and Faculty, at his own discretion,which was always a MINIMUM quantity:he had, before

long, made Leyden also too hot for him. His Books gained a kind of celebrity in the world; awoke laughter

and attention, among the adventurous of readers; astonishment at the blazing madcap (a BON DIABLE, too,

as one could see); and are still known to Catalogue makers,though, with one exception, L'HOMME

MACHINE, not otherwise, nor read at all. L'HOMME MACHINE (Man a Machine) is the exceptional Book;

smallest of Duodecimos to have so much wildfire in it, This MAN A MACHINE, though tumultuous La

Mettrie meant nothing but openmouthed Wisdom by it, gave scandal in abundance; so that even the Leyden

Magistrates were scandalized; and had to burn the afflicting little Duodecimo by the common hangman, and

Which he had to do,towards King Friedrich, usual refuge of the persecuted; seldom inexorable, where

there was worth, even under bad forms, recognizable; and not a friend to burning poor men or their books, if

it could be helped. La Mettrie got some post, like D'Arget's, or still more nominal; "readership;" some small

pension to live upon; and shelter to shoot forth his wildfire, when he could hold it no longer: fire, not of a

malignant incendiary kind, but pleasantly lambent, though maddish, as Friedrich perceived. Thus had La

Mettrie found a Goshen;and stood in considerable favor, at Court and in Berlin Society in the years now

current. According to Nicolai, Friedrich never esteemed La Mettrie, which is easy to believe, but found him a

jester and ingenious madcap, out of whom a great deal of merriment could be had, over wine or the like. To

judge by Nicolai's authentic specimen, their Colloquies ran sometimes pretty deep into the cynical, under

showers of wildfire playing about; and the highjinks must have been highish. [ Anekdoten, vi. 197227.]

When there had been enough of this, Friedrich would lend his La Mettrie to the French Excellency, Milord

Tyrconnel, to oblige his Excellency, and get La Mettrie out of the way for a while. Milord is at Berlin; a

Jacobite Irishman, of blusterous Irish qualities, though with plenty of sagacity and rough sense; likes La

Tyrconnel had said, at first,when Rothenburg, privately from Friedrich, came to consult him, "What are, in

practical form, those 'assistances from the Most Christian Majesty,' should we MAKE Alliance with him, as

your Excellency proposes, and chance to be attacked?""MORBLEU, assistance enough [enumerating

several]: MAIS MORBLEU, SI VOUS NOUS TROMPEX, VOUS SEREZ ECRASES (if you deceive us,

you will be squelched)!" [Valori, ii. 130, "He had been chosen for his rough tongue," says Valori; our French

Court being piqued at Friedrich and his sarcasms. Tyrconnel gives splendid dinners: Voltaire often of them;

does not love Potsdam, nor is loved by it. Nay, I sometimes think a certain DEMON NEWSWRITER (of

whom by and by), but do not know, may be some hungry Attache of Tyrconnel's. Hungry Attache, shut out

from the divine Suppers and upper planetary movements, and reduced to look on them from his cold hutch, in

a doglike angry and hungry manner? His flying allusions to Voltaire, "SON (Friedrich's) SQUELETTE

Of the military sort, about this time, Keith and Rothenburg appear most frequently as guests or companions.

Rothenburg had a great deal of Friedrich's regard: Winterfeld is more a practical Counseller, and does not

shine in learned circles, as Rothenburg may. A fiery soldier too, this Rothenburg, withal;a man probably of

many talents and qualities, though of distinctly decipherable there is next to no record of him or them. He had

a Parisian Wife; who is sometimes on the point of coming with Niece Denis to Berlin, and of setting up their

two French households there; but never did it, either of them, to make an Uncle or a Husband happy.

Rothenburg was bred a Catholic: "he headed the subscription for the famous 'KATHOLISCHE KIRCHE,'" so

delightful to the Pope and liberal Christians in those years; "but never gave a sixpence of money," says

Voltaire once: Catholic KIRK was got completed with difficulty; stands there yet, like a large washbowl set,

bottom uppermost, on the top of a narrowish tub; but none of Rothenburg's money is in it. In Voltaire's

Correspondence there is frequent mention of him; not with any love, but with a certain secret respect, rather

inclined to be disrespectful, if it durst or could: the eloquent vocal individual not quite at ease beside the more

silent thinking and acting one. What we know is, Friedrich greatly loved the man. There is some straggle of

CORRESPONDENCE between Friedrich and him left; but it is worth nothing; gives no testimony of that, or

of anything else noticeable:and that is the one fact now almost alone significant of Rothenburg. Much

loved and esteemed by the King; employed diplomatically, now and then; perhaps talked with on such

subjects, which was the highest distinction. Poor man, he is in very bad health in these months; has never

rightly recovered of his wounds; and dies in the last days of 1751,to the bitter sorrow of the King, as is still

on record. A highly respectable dim figure, far more important in Friedrich's History than he looks. As King's

Highly respectable too, and well worth talking to, though left very dim to us in the Books, is Marshal Keith;

who has been growing gradually with the King, and with everybody, ever since he came to these parts in

1747. A man of Scotch type; the broad accent, with its sagacities, veracities, with its steadfastly fixed

moderation, and its sly twinkles of defensive humor, is still audible to us through the foreign wrappages. Not

given to talk, unless there is something to be said; but well capable of it then. Friedrich, the more he knows

him, likes him the better. On all manner of subjects he can talk knowingly, and with insight of his own. On

Russian matters Friedrich likes especially to hear him,though they differ in regard to the worth of Russian

troops. "Very considerable military qualities in those Russians," thinks Keith: "imperturbably obedient,

patient; of a tough fibre, and are beautifully strict to your order, on the paradeground or off." "Pooh, mere

rubbish, MON CHER," thinks Friedrich always. To which Keith, unwilling to argue too long, will answer:

"Well, it is possible enough your Majesty may try them, some day; if I am wrong, it will be all the better for

us!" Which Friedrich had occasion to remember by and by. Friedrich greatly respects this sagacious

gentleman with the broad accent: his Brother, the Lord Marischal, is now in France: Ambassador at Paris,

since September, 1751: ["Left Potsdam 28th August" (Rodenbeck, i. 220).] "Lord Marischal, a Jacobite, for

Prussian Ambassador in Paris; Tyrconnel, a Jacobite, for French Ambassador in Berlin!" grumble the

Here, selected from more, are a few "fireflies,"not dancing or distracted, but authentic all, and stuck each

on its spit; shedding a feeble glimmer over the physiognomy of those Fifteen caliginous Months, to an

imagination that is diligent. Fractional utterances of Voltaire to Friedrich and others (in abridged form,

abridgment indicated): the exact dates are oftenest irretrievably gone; but the glimmer of light is indisputable,

all the more as, on Voltaire's part, it is mostly involuntary. Grouping and sequence must be other than that of

POTSDAM, 5th JUNE, 1751.King is off on that OstFriesland jaunt; Voltaire at Potsdam, "at what they

call the Marquisat," in complete solitude,preparing to die before long,sends his Majesty some poor

trifles of Scribbling, proofs of my love, Sire: "since I live solitary, when you are not at Potsdam, it would

seem I came for you only" (note that, your Majesty)! ... "But in return for the rags here sent, I expect the

Sixth Canto of your ART [ART DE LA GUERRE, one of the Two pupilandschoolmaster "Specimens"

mentioned above]; I expect the ROOF to the Temple of Mars. It is for you, alone of men, to build that

Temple; as it was for Ovid to sing of Love, and for Horace to give an ART OF POETRY." (Laying it on

Then again, later (after severe study, ferula in hand): "Sire, I return your Majesty your Six Cantos; I surrender

at discretion (LUI LAISSE CARTEBLANCHE) on that qu.estion of 'VICTOIRE.' The whole Poem is

worthy of you: if I had made this Journey only to see a thing so unique, I ought not to regret my Country." ...

And again (still no date): "GRAND DIEU! is not all that [HISTORY OF THE GREAT ELECTOR, by your

Majesty, which I am devouring with such appetite] neat, elegant, precise, and, above all,

philosophical!""Sire, you are adorable; I will pass my days at your feet. Oh, never make game of me (DES

NICHES)!" Has he been at that, say you! "If the Kings of Denmark, Portugal, Spain, did it, I should not care

a pin; they are only Kings. But you are the greatest man that perhaps ever reigned." [[In OEuvres de Frederic,

IS ON LEAVE OF ABSENCE, NEAR BY; WISHES TO BE CALLED AGAIN (No date)."Sire, if you

like free criticism, if you tolerate sincere praises, if you wish to perfect a Work [ART DE LA GUERRE, or

some other as sublime], which you alone in Europe are capable of doing, you have only to bid a Hermit come

IN BERLIN PALACE: PLEASE DON'T TURN ME OUT! (No date) ... "Next to you, I love work and

retirement. Nobody whatever complains of me. I ask of your Majesty, in order to keep unaltered the

happiness I owe to you, this favor, Not to turn me out of the Apartment you deigned to give me at Berlin, till

I go for Paris [always talking of that]. If I were to leave it, they would put in the Gazettes that I" Oh, what

would n't they put in, of one that, belonging to King Friedrich, lives as it were in the Disc of the Sun,

conspicuous to everybody!"I will go out [of the Apartment] when some Prince, with a Suite needing it to

lodge in, comes; and then the thing will be honorable. Chasot [gone to Paris] has been talking"unguarded

things of me! "I have not uttered the least complaint of Chasot: I never will of Chasot, nor of those who have

ROTHENBURG IS ILL; VOLTAIRE HAS BEEN TO SEE HIM ("Berlin, 14th," no month; year, too surely,

1751, as we shall find! Letter is IN VERSE)."Lieberkuhn was going to kill poor Rothenburg; to send him

off to Pluto,for liking his dish a little;monster Lieberkuhn! But Doctor Joyous," your reader, La

Mettrie,led by, need I say whom?"has brought him back to us:think of Lieberkuhn's solemn stare!

Pretty contrasts, those, of sublime Quacksalverism, with Sense under the mask of Folly. May the

haemorrhoidal vein"follows HERE, note it, exquisite reader, that of "CUL DE MON HEROS," cited

And then (a day or two after; King too haemorrhoidal to come twenty miles, but anxious to know): "Sire, no

doubt Doctor Joyous (LE MEDECIN JOYEUX) has informed your Majesty that when we arrived, the Patient

was sleeping tranquil; and Cothenius assured us, in Latin, that there was no danger. I know not what has

passed since, but I am persuaded your Majesty approves my journey" (of a street or two),MUST you speak

GOES TO AN EVENINGPARTY NOW AND THEN (To Niece Denis). ... "Madame Tyrconnel [French

Excellency's Wife] has plenty of fine people at her house on an evening; perhaps too many" (one of the first

houses in Berlin, this of my Lord Tyrcannel's, which we frequent a good deal). ... "Madame got very well

through her part of ANDROMAQUE [in those old playacting times of ours]: never saw actresses with finer

"As to Milord Tyrconnel, he is an Anglais of dignity,"Irish in reality, and a thought blusterous. "He has a

condensed (SERRE) caustic way of talk; and I know not what of frank which one finds in the English, and

does not usually find in persons of his trade. French Tragedies played at Berlin, I myself taking part; an

Englishman Envoy of France there: strange circumstances these, are n't they?" [To D'Argental this ( OEuvres

de Voltaire, lxxiv. 289).] Yes, that latter especially; and Milord Marischal our Prussian Envoy with you!

AT POTSDAM, BIG DEVILS OF GRENADIERS (No date). ... "But, Sire, one is n't always perched on

the summit of Parnassus; one is a man. There are sicknesses about; I did not bring an athlete's health to these

parts; and the scorbutic humor which is eating my life renders me truly, of all that are sick, the sickest. I am

absolutely alone from morning till night. My one solace is the necessary pleasure of taking the air, I bethink

me of walking, and clearing my head a little, in your Gardens at Potsdam. I fancy it is a permitted thing; I

present myself, musing;I find huge devils of Grenadiers, who clap bayonets in my belly, who cry FURT,

SACRAMENT, and DER KONIG [OFF, SACKERMENT, THE KING, quite tolerably spelt]! And I take to

my heels, as Austrians and Saxons would do before them. Have you ever read, that in Titus's or

MarcusAurelius's Gardens, a poor devil of a Gaulish Poet" In short, it shall be mended. [ OEuvres de

to"(Well, we know who that is: What of Marcus, then?)"A certain lover of his glory [STILL IN

VERSE] spoke once, at Supper, of a magnanimity of Marcus's;at which Marcus [flattery too thick] rather

gloomed, and sat quite silent, which was another fine saying of his [ENDS VERSE, STARTS PROSE]:

"Pardon, Sire, some hearts that are full of you! To justify myself, I dare supplicate your Majesty to give one

glance at this Letter (lines pencilmarked), which has just come from M. de Chauvelin, Nephew of the

famous GARDEDESSCEAUX. Your Majesty cannot gloom at him, writing these from the fulness of his

heart; nor at me, who" Pooh; no, then! Perhaps do you a NICHE again,poor restless fellow! [Ib. 280.]

POTSDAM PALACE (No date): SIRE, NZAY I CHANGE MY ROOM? ... "I ascend to your antechambers,

to find some one by whom I may ask permission to speak with you. I find nobody: I have to return:" and what

I wanted was this, "your protection for my SIECLE DE LOUIS QUATORZE, which I am about to print in

"I am unwell, I am a sick man born. And withal I am obliged to work, almost as much as your Majesty. I pass

the whole day alone. If you would permit that I might shift to the Apartment next the one I have,to that

where General Bredow slept last winter, I should work more commodiously. My Secretary (Collini) and I

could work together there. I should have a little more sun, which is a great point for me.Only the whim of

a sick man, perhaps! Well, even so, your Majesty will have pity on it. You promised to make me happy."

I SUSPECT THAT I AM SUSPECTED (No date)."Sire, if I am not brief, forgive me. Yesterday the

faithful D'Arget told me with sorrow that in Paris people were talking of your Poem." Horrible; but, O Sire,

me?"I showed him the eighteen Letters that I received yesterday. They are from Cadiz," all about

Finance, no blabbing there! "Permit me to send you now the last six from my Niece, numbered by her own

hand [no forgery, no suppression]; deign to cast your eyes on the places I have underlined, where she speaks

of your Majesty, of D'Argens, of Potsdam, of D'Ammon" (to whom she can't be Phyllis, innocent

being)!MON CHER VOLTAIRE, must I again do some NICHE upon you, then? Tie some tincanister to

your too sensitive tail? What an element you inhabit within that poor skin of yours! [Ib. 269.]

MAJESTY INVITES US TO A LITERARY CHRISTENING, POTSDAM (No date. These "Six Twins" are

the "ART DE LA GUERRE," in Six Chants; part of that revised Edition which is getting printed "AU

DONJON DU CHATEAU;" time must be, well on in 1751). Friedrich writes to Voltaire:

"I have just been brought to bed of Six Twins; which require to be baptized, in the name of Apollo, in the

waters of Hippocrene. LA HENRIADE is requested to become godmother: you will have the goodness to

bring her, this evening at five, to the Father's Apartment. D'Arget LUCINA will be there; and the Imagination

DEIGN TO SAY IF I HAVE OFFENDED. ... "As they write to me from Paris that I am in disgrace with

you, I dare to beg very earnestly that you will deign to say if I have displeased in anything! May go wrong by

ignorance or from overzeal; but with my heart never! I live in the profoundest retreat; giving to study my

whole" "Your assurances once vouchsafed [famous Document of August 23d]. I write only to my Niece. I"

(a page more of this)have my sorrows and merits, and absolutely no silence at all! [ OEuvres de Frederic,

xxii. 289.] "In the gift of Speech he is the most brilliant of mankind," said Smelfungus; but in the gift of

Silence what a deficiency! Friedrich will have to do that for Two, it would seem.

LOUIS QUATORZE is out. But, Heavens, see, your Majesty: a Pirate Printer, at FrankfurtonOder, has

been going on parallel with us, all the while; and here is his foul blotch of an Edition on sale, too! Bielfeld,"

fantastic fellow, "had proof sheets; Bielfeld sent them to a Professor there, though I don't blame Bielfeld:

result too evident. Protect me, your Majesty; Order all wagons, especially wagons for Leipzig, to be stopped,

Quite a simple thing: "All Prussia to the rescue!" thinks an ardent Proprietor of these Proofsheets. But then,

next day, hears that Rothenburg is dead. That the silent Rothenburg lay dying, while the vocal Voltaire was

writing these fooleries, to a King sunk in grief. "Repent, be sorry, be ashamed!" he says to himself; and does

instantly try;but with little success; FrankfurtonOder, with its Bielfeld proofsheets, still jangling along,

contemptibly audible, for some time. [Ib. 285287.] And afterwards, from FrankfurtonMayn new sorrow

rises on LOUIS QUATORZE, as will be seen.Friedrich's grief for Rothenburg was deep and severe; "he

had visited him that last night," say the Books; "and quitted his bedside, silent, and all in tears." It is mainly

From the current Narratives, as they are called, readers will recollect, out of this Voltaire Period, two small

particles of Event amid such an ocean of noisy froth,two and hardly more: that of the "OrangeSkin," and

THE ORANGESKIN (Potsdam, 2d September, 1751, to Niece Denis)Good Heavens, MON ENFANT,

what is this I hear (through the great Dionysius'Ear I maintain, at such expense to myself)! ... "La Mettrie, a

man of no consequence, who talks familiarly with the King after their reading; and with me too, now and

then: La Mettrie swore to me, that, speaking to the King, one of those days, of my supposed favor, and the bit

of jealousy it excites, the King answered him: "I shall want him still about a year:you squeeze the orange,

you throw away the skin (ON EN JETTE LECORCE)!'" Here is a pretty bit of babble (lie, most likely, and

bit of mischievous fun) from Dr. Joyous. "It cannot be true, No! And yet and yet?" Words cannot

express the agonizing doubts, the questionings, occasionally the horror of Voltaire: poor sick soul, keeping a

Dionysius'Ear to boot! This blurt of La Mettrie's goes through him like a shot of electricity through an

elderly sick HouseholdCat; and he speaks of it again and ever again,though we will not farther.

DIRTY LINEN (Potsdam, 24th July, 1752, To Niece Denis). ... "Maupertuis has discreetly set the rumor

going, that I found the King's Works very bad; that I said to some one, on Verses from the King coming in,

'Will he never tire, then, of sending me his dirty linen to wash?' You obliging Maupertuis!"

Rumor says, it was General Mannstein, once AidedeCamp in Russia, who had come to have his WORK

ON RUSSIA revised (excellent Work, often quoted by us [Did get out at last,in England, through Lord

Marischal and David Hume: see PREFACE to it (London, 1760).]), when the unfortunate Royal Verses came.

Perhaps M. de Voltaire did say it:why not, had it only been prudent? He really likes those Verses much

more than I; but knows well enough, SUB ROSA, what kind of Verses they are. This also is a horrible

suspicion; that the King should hear of this,as doubtless the King did, though without going delirious upon

it at all. ["To Niece Denis," dates as above ( OEuvres de Voltaire, lxxiv. 408, lxxv. 17).] Thank YOU, my

OF MAUPERTUIS, IN SUCCESSIVE PHASES. ... "Maupertuis is not of very engaging ways; he takes

my dimensions harshly with his quadrant: it is said there enters something of envy into his DATA. ... A

somewhat surly gentleman; not too sociable; and, truth to say, considerably sunk here [ASSEZ BAISSE, my

... "I endure Maupertuis, not having been able to soften him. In all countries there are insociable fellows, with

whom you are obliged to live, though it is difficult. He has never forgiven me for"omitting to cite him,

Paris he had got the Academy of Sciences into trouble, and himself into general dislike (DETESTER); then

came this Berlin offer. "Old Fleuri, when Maupertuis called to take leave, repeated that verse of Virgil, NEC

TIBI REGNANDI VENIAT TAM DIRA CUPIDO. Fleuri might have whispered as much to himself: but he

was a mild sovereign lord, and reigned in a gentle polite manner. I swear to you, Maupertuis does not, in his

"He has printed a little Pamphlet on Happiness (SUR LE BONHEUR); it is very dry and miserable. Reminds

you of Advertisements for things lost,so poor a chance of finding them again. Happiness is not what he

gives to those who read him, to those who live with him; he is not himself happy, and would be sorry that

... "A very sweet life here, Madame [Madame d'Argental, an outside party]: it would have been more so, if

Maupertuis had liked. The wish to please, is no part of his geometrical studies; the problem of being

agreeable to live with, is not one he has solved." [ OEuvres de Voltaire, lxxiv. 330, 504 (4th May, 1751, and

14th March, 1752), to the D'Argentals; to Niece Denis (6th November, 1750, and 24th August, 1751), lxxiv.

250, 385.]Add this Anecdote, which is probably D'Arget's, and worth credit: "Voltaire had

dinnerparty, Maupertuis one of them; party still in the drawingroom, dinner just coming up. 'President,

your Book, SUR LE BONHEUR, has given me pleasure,' said Voltaire, politely [very politely, considering

what we have just read]; given me pleasure, a few obscurities excepted, of which we will talk together

some evening.' 'Obscurities?' said Maupertuis, in a gloomy arbitrary tone: 'There may be such for you,

Monsieur!' Voltaire laid his hand on the President's shoulder [yellow wig near by], looked at him in silence,

with manytwinkling glance, gayety the topmost expression, but by no means the sole one: 'President, I

esteem you, JE VOUS ESTIME, MON PRESIDENT: you are brave; you want war: we will have it. But, in

the mean while, let us eat the King's roast meat.'" [Duvernet (2d FORM of him, always, p. 176.]

Friedrich's Answers to these Voltaire Letters, if he wrote any, are all gone. Probably he answered almost

nothing; what we have of his relates always to specific business, receipt of LOUIS QUATORZE, and the

like; and is always in friendly tone. Handsomely keeping Silence for Two! Here is a snatch from him, on

FRIEDRICH TO WIILHELMINA (November 17th, 1751)."I think the Margraf of Anspach will not have

stayed long with you. He is not made to taste the sweets of society: his passion for hunting, and the tippling

life he leads this long time, throw him out when he comes among reasonable persons. ... "I expect my Sister

of Brunswick, with the Duke and their eldest Girl, the 4th of next month,"to Carnival here. "It is seven

years since the Queen (our Mamma) has seen her. She holds a small Board of Wit at Brunswick; of which

your Doctor [Doctor Superville, DutchFrench, whose perennial merit now is, That he did not burn

Wilhelmina's MEMOIRS, but left them safe to posterity, for long centuries],of which your Doctor is the

director and oracle. You would burst outright into laughing when she speaks of those matters. Her natural

vivacity and haste has not left her time to get to the bottom of anything; she skips continually from one

subject to the other, and gives twenty decisions in a minute." [ OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. i. 202:On

About a month before Rothenburg's death, which was so tragical to Friedrich, there had fallen out, with a

hideous dash of farce in it, the death of La Mettrie. Here are Two Accounts, by different hands,which

LA METTRIE DIES.Two Accounts: 1. King Friedrich's: to Wilhelmina. "21st November, 1751. ... We

have lost poor La Mettrie. He died for a piece of fun: ate, out of banter, a whole pheasantpie; had a horrible

indigestion; took it into his head to have blood let, and convince the German Doctors that bleeding was good

in indigestion. But it succeeded ill with him: he took a violent fever, which passed into putrid; and carried

him off. He is regretted by all that knew him. He was gay; BON DIABLE, good Doctor, and very bad

Author: by avoiding to read his Books, one could manage to be well content with himself." [Ib. xxvii. i. 203.]

2. Voltaire's: to Niece Denis (NOT his first to her): Potsdam, 24th December, 1751. ... "No end to my

astonishment. Milord Tyrconnel," always ailing (died here himself), "sends to ask La Mettrie to come and see

him, to cure him or amuse him. The King grudges to part with his Reader, who makes him laugh. La Mettrie

sets out; arrives at his Patient's just when Madame Tyrconnel is sitting down to table: he eats and drinks, talks

and laughs more than all the guests; when he has got crammed (EN A JUSQU'AU MENTON), they bring

him a pie, of eagle disguised as pheasant, which had arrived from the North, plenty of bad lard, porkhash

and ginger in it; my gentleman eats the whole pie, and dies next day at Lord Tyrconnel's, assisted by two

Doctors," Cothenius and Lieberkuhn, "whom he used to mock at. ... How I should have liked to ask him, at

the article of death, about that Orangeskin!" [ OEuvres de Voltaire, lxxiv. 439, 450.]

Add this trait too, from authentic Nicolai, to complete the matter: "An Irish Priest, Father Macmahon,

Tyrconnel's Chaplain [more power to him], wanted to convert La Mettrie: he pushed into the sick

room;encouraged by some who wished to make La Mettrie contemptible to Friedrich [the charitable

souls]. La Mettrie would have nothing to do with this Priest and his talk; who, however, still sat and waited.

La Mettrie, in a twinge of agony, cried out, 'JESUS MARIE!' 'AH, VOUS VOILA ENFIN RETOURNE A

CES NOMS CONSOLATEURS!' exclaimed the Irishman. To which La Mettrie answered (in polite

language, to the effect), 'Bother you!' and expired a few minutes after." [Nicolai, Anekdoten, i. 20 n.]

Enough of this poor madcap. Friedrich's ELOGE of him, read to the Academy some time after, it was

generally thought (and with great justice), might as well have been spared. The Piece has nothing noisy,

nothing untrue; but what has it of importance? And surely the subject was questionable, or more. La Mettrie

... "He had been used to put himself at once on the most familiar footing with the King [says Thiebault,

UNbelievable]. Entered the King's apartment as he would that of a friend; plunged down whenever he liked,

which was often, and lay upon the sofas; if it was warm, took off his stock, unbuttoned his waistcoat, flung

his periwig on the floor;" [Thiebault, v. 405 (calls him "La Metherie;" knows, as usual, nothing).]highly

"The truth is," says Nicolai, "the King put no real value on La Mettrie. He considered him as a merryandrew

fellow, who might amuse you, when half seasover (ENTRE DEUX VINS). De la Mettrie showed himself

unworthy of any favor he had. Not only did he babble, and repeat about Town what he heard at the King's

table; but he told everything in a false way, and with malicious twists and additions. This he especially did at

Lord Tyrconnel, the then French Ambassador's table, where at last he died." [Nicolai, Anekdoten, i. 20.] But

On the whole, be not too severe on poor Voltaire! He is very fidgety, noisy; something of a pickthank, of a

wheedler; but, above all, he is scorbutic, dyspeptic; hagridden, as soul seldom was; and (in his oblique way)

APPEALS to Friedrich and us,not in vain. And, in short, we perceive, after the First Act of the Piece,

beginning in preternatural radiances, ending in whirlwinds of flaming soot, he has been getting on with his

Second Act better than could be expected. Gyrating again among the bright planets, circumjovial moons, in

the Court Firmament; is again in favor, and might Alas, he had his FELLOWmoons, his Maupertuis

above all! Incurable that Maupertuis misery; gets worse and worse, steadily from the first day. No smallest

entity that intervenes, not even a wandering La Beaumelle with his Book of PENSEES, but is capable of

worsening it. Take this of Smelfungus; this Pair of Cabinet Sketches,"hasty outlines; extant chiefly," he

LA BEAUMELLE."Voltaire has a fatal talent of getting into I quarrels with insignificant accidental

people; and instead of silently, with cautious finger, disengaging any bramble that catches to him, and

thankfully passing on, attacks it indignantly with potent steel implements, woodaxes, waraxes; brandishing

and hewing;till he has stirred up a whole wilderness of bramblebush, and is himself bramblechips all

over. M. Angliviel de la Beaumelle, for example, was nothing but a bramble: some conceited Licentiate of

Theology, who, finding the Presbytery of Geneva too narrow a field, had gone to Copenhagen, as Professor

of Rhetoric or some such thing; and, finding that field also too narrow, and not to be widened by attempts at

Literature, MES PENSEES and the like, in such barbarous Country",had now [end of 1751] come to

Berlin; and has Presentation copies of MES PENSEES, OU LE QU'EN DIRATON, flying right and left, in

hopes of doing better there. Of these PENSEES (Thoughts so called) I will give but one specimen" (another,

that of "King Friedrich a common man," being carefully suppressed in the Berlin Copies, of La Beaumelle's

"There have been greater Poets than Voltaire; there was never any so well recompensed: and why? Because

Taste (GOUT, inclination) sets no limits to its recompenses. The King of Prussia overloads men of talent

with his benefits for precisely the reasons which induce a little German Prince to overload with benefits a

buffoon or a dwarf." [ OEuvres de Voltaire, xxvii. 220 n.] Could there be a phenomenon more indisputably of

"He had no success at Berlin, in spite of his merits; could not come near the King at all; but assiduously

frequented Maupertuis, the flower of human thinkers in that era,who was very humane to him in

consequence. 'How is it, O flower of human thinkers, that I cannot get on with his Majesty, or make the least

way?' (HELAS, MONSIEUR, you have enemies!' answered he of the red wig; and told La Beaumelle (hear it,

ye Heavens), That M. de Voltaire had called his Majesty's attention to the PENSEE given above, one evening

"'Upon which, see, paltry La Beaumelle has become my enemy for life!' shrieks Voltaire many times

afterwards: 'And it was false, I declare to Heaven, and again declare; it was not I, it was D'Argens quizzing

me about it, that called his Majesty's attention to that PENSEE of Blockhead La Beaumelle,you

treacherous Perpetual President, stirring up enemies against me, and betraying secrets of the King's table.'

Sorrow on your red wig, and you!It is certain La Beaumelle, soon after this, left Berlin: not in love with

Voltaire. And there soon appeared, at FranfurtonMayn, a Pirate Edition of our brandnew SIECLE DE

LOUIS QUATORZE (with Annotations scurrilous and flimsy);La Beaumelle the professed Perpetrator;

'who received for the job 7 pounds 10s. net!' [Ib. xx.] asseverates the wellinformed Voltaire. Oh, M. de

Voltaire, and why not leave it to him, then? Poor devil, he got put into the Bastille too, by and by; Royal

"La Beaumelle had a long course of it, up and down the world, in and out of the Bastille; writing much, with

inconsiderable recompense, and always in a wooden manure worthy of his First vocation in the Geneva time.

'A man of pleasing physiognomy,' says Formey, 'and expressed himself well. I received his visit 14th

January, 1752,'to which latter small circumstance (welcome as a fixed date to us here) La Beaumelle's

Biography is now pretty much reduced for mankind. [Formey, ii. 221.] He continued Maupertuis's adorer:

and was not a bad creature, only a dull wooden one, with obstinate temper. A LIFE OF MAUPERTUIS of his

writing was sent forth lately, [ Vie de Maupertuis (cited above), Paris, 1866.] after lying hidden a hundred

years: but it is dull, dead, painfully ligneous, like all the rest; and of new or of pleasant tells us nothing.

"His enmity to M. de Voltaire did prove perpetual:a bramble that might have been dealt with by fingers, or

by fingers and scissors, but could not by axes, and their hewing and brandishing. 'This is the ninetyfifth

anonymous Calumny of La Beaumelle's, this that you have sent me!' says Voltaire once. The first stroke or

two had torn the bramble quite on end: 'He says he will pursue you to Hell even,' writes one of the Voltaire

kind friends from Frankfurt, on that 7 pounds 10s. business. 'A L'ENFER?' answers M. de Voltaire, with a

toss: 'Well, I should think so, he, and at a good rate of speed. But whether he will find me there, must be a

question!' If you want to have an insignificant accidental fellow trouble you all your days, this is the way of

ABBE DE PRADES."De Prades, 'Abbe de Prades, Reader to the King,' though happily not an enemy of

Voltaire's, is in some sort La Beaumelle's counterpart, or brother with a difference; concerning whom also,

one wants only to know the exact date of his arrival. As La Beaumelle felt too straittied in the Geneva

vestures (where it had been good for him to adjust himself, and stay); so did De Prades in the Sorbonne

ditto,and burst out, on taking Orders, not into eloquent Preachings or edifying Devotional Exercises; but

into loud blurts of mere heresy and heterodoxy. Blurts which were very loud, and I believe very stupid; which

failed of being sublime even to the Philosophic world; and kindled the Sorbonne into burning his Book, and

"Ran to Holland, and there continued blurting more at large, decidedly stupid for most part, thinks

Voltaire, 'but with glorious Passages, worth your Majesty's attention;'upon which, D'Alembert too helping,

poor De Prades was invited to the Readership, vacant by La Mettrie's eaglepie; and came gladly, and stayed.

At what date? one occasionally asks: for there are Royal Letters, dateless, but written in his hand, that raise

such question in the utter dimness otherwise. Date is 'September, 1752.' [Preuss, i. 368; ii. 115.] Farther

question one does not ask about De Prades. Rather an emphatic intrusive kind of fellow, I should

guess;wrote, he, not Friedrich, that ABRIDGMENT OF PLEURY'S ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY, and

other the like dreary Pieces, which used to be inflicted on mankind as Friedrich's.

"For the rest, having place and small pension,not, like La Beaumelle, obliged to pirate and annotate for 7

pounds 10s.he went on steadily, a good while; got a Canonry of Glogau [small Catholic benefice, bad if it

was not better than its now occupant]; and unluckily, in the SevenYearsWar time, fell into treasonous

Correspondence with his countrymen; which it was feared might be fatal, when found out. But no, not fatal.

Friedrich did lock him in Magdeburg for some months; then let him out: 'Home to Glogau, sirrah; stick to

your Canonry henceforth, and let us hear no more of you at all!' Which shall be his fate in these pages also."

Good, my friend; no more of him, then! Only recollect "September, 1752," if dateless Royal Letters in De

It must be owned, the King's French Colony of Wits were a sorry set of people. They tempt one to ask, What

is the good of wit, then, if this be it? Here are people sparkling with wit, and have not understanding enough

to discern what lies under their nose. Cannot live wisely with anybody, least of all with one another.

In fact, it is tragic to think how ill this King succeeded in the matter of gathering friends. With the whole

world to choose from, one fancies always he might have done better! But no, he could not; and chiefly for

this reason: His love of Wisdom was nothing like deep enough, reverent enough; and his love of ESPRIT (the

mere Garment or Phantasm of Wisdom) was too deep. Friends do not drop into one's mouth. One must know

how to choose friends; and that of ESPRIT, though a pretty thing, is by no means the one requisite, if indeed

it be a requisite at all. This present Wit Colony was the best that Friedrich ever had; and we may all see how

good it was. He took, at last more and more, into bantering his TableCompanions (which I do not wonder

at), as the chief good he could get of them. And had, as we said, especially in his later time, in the manner of

Dublin HackneyCoachmen, established upon each animal its RAW; and makes it skip amazingly at touch of

the whip. "Cruel mortal!" thought his cattle:but, after all, how could he well help it, with such a set?

Native Literary Men, German or Swiss, there also were about Friedrich's Court: of them happily he did not

require ESPRIT; but put them into his Academy; or employed them in practical functions, where honesty and

good sense were the qualities needed. Worthy men, several of these; but unmemorable nearly all. We will

mention Sulzer alone,and not for THEORIES and PHILOSOPHIES OF THE FINE ARTS [ Allgemeine

Theorie der Schonen Kunste, 3 vols.; (which then had their multitudes of readers); but for a Speech of

Friedrich's to him once, which has often been repeated. Sulzer has a fine rugged wholesome SwissGerman

physiognomy, both of face and mind; and got his admirations, as the Berlin HUGH BLAIR that then was: a

Friedrich had made him School Inspector; loved to talk a little with him, about business, were it nothing else.

"Well, Monsieur Sulzer, how are your Schools getting on?" asked the King one day,long after this, but

nobody will tell me exactly when, though the fact is certain enough: "How goes our Education business?"

"Surely not ill, your Majesty; and much better in late years," answered Sulzer."In late years: why?" "Well,

your Majesty, in former time, the notion being that mankind were naturally inclined to evil, a system of

severity prevailed in schools: but now, when we recognize that the inborn inclination of men is rather to good

than to evil, schoolmasters have adopted a more generous procedure.""Inclination rather to good?" said

Friedrich, shaking his old head, with a sad smile: "Alas, dear Sulzer, ACH MEIN LIEBER SULZER, I see

you don't know that damned race of creatures (ER KENNT NICHT DIESE VERDAMMTE RACE) as I do!"

[Nicolai, iii. 274;the thing appears to have been said in French ("JE VOIS BIEN, MON CHER SULZER,

APPARTENONS"); but the German form is irresistibly attractive, and is now heard proverbially from time to

time in certain mouths.] Here is a speech for you! "Pardon the King, who was himself so beneficent and

excellent a King!" cry several Editors of the rosepink type. This present Editor, for his share, will at once

"Perhaps I mistake," owns Voltaire, in his Pasquinade of a VIE PRIVEE, "but it seems to me, at these

Suppers there was a great deal of ESPRIT (real wit and brilliancy) going. The King had it, and made others

have; and, what is extraordinary, I never felt myself so free at any table." "Conversation most pleasant,"

testifies another, "most instructive, animated; not to be matched, I should guess, elsewhere in the world."

[Bielfeld, LETTERS; Voltaire, Vie Privee.] Very sprightly indeed: and a fund of good sense, a basis of

practicality and fact, necessary to be in it withal; though otherwise it can foam over (if some La Mettrie be

Practically, I can add only, That these Suppers of the gods begin commonly at halfpast eight ("Concert just

over"); and last till towards midnight,not later conveniently, as the King must be up at five (in

Summertime at four), and "needs between five and six hours of sleep." Or would the reader care to consult a

Piece expressly treating on all these points; kind of MANUSCRIPT NEWSPAPER, fallen into my hands,

which seems to have had a widish circulation in its day. ["IDEE DE LA PERSONNE, DE LA MANIERE DE

VIVRE, ET DE LA COUR DU ROI DE PRUSSE: juin, 1752." In the Robinson Papers (one Copy) now in

the British Museum.] I have met with Two Copies of it, in this Country: one of them, to appearance, once the

property of George Selwyn. The other is among the Robinson Papers: doubtless very luculent to Robinson,

who is now home in England, but remembers many a thing. Judging from various symptoms, I could guess

this MS. to have been much about, in the English Aristocratic Circles of that time; and to have, in some

measure, given said Circles their "Idea" (as they were pleased to reckon it) of that wonderful and

questionable King:highly distracted "Idea;" which, in diluted form, is still the staple English one. By the

label, DEMON NEWSWRITER, it is not meant that the Author of this poor Paper was an actual Devil, or

infernal Spiritual Essence of miraculous spectral nature. By no means! Beyond doubt, he is some poor

Frenchman, more or less definable as fleshandblood; gesturing about, visibly, at Berlin in 1752; in

cockedhat and bright shoebuckles; grinning elaborate salutations to certain of his fellowcreatures there.

Possibly some hungry ATTACHE of Milord Tyrconnel's Legation; fatally shut out from the beatitudes of this

barbarous Court, and willing to seek solacement, and turn a dishonest penny, in the PERCONTRA course?

Who he is, we need not know or care: too evident, he has the sad quality of transmuting, in his dirty organs,

heavenly Brilliancy, more or less, into infernal Darkness and Hatefulness; which I reckon to have been, at all

times, the principal function of a Devil;function still carried on extensively, under Firms of another title, in

Some snatches we will give. For, though it does not much concern a Man or King, seriously busy, what the

idle outer world may see good to talk of him, his Biographers, in time subsequent, are called to notice the

matter, as part of his Lifeelement, and characteristic of the world he had round him. Friedrich's affairs were

much a wonder to his contemporaries. Especially his Domesticities, an item naturally obscure to the outer

world, were wonderful; sure to be commented upon, to all lengths; and by the unintelligent, first of all. Of

contemporary mankind, as we have sometimes said, nobody was more lied of:of which, let this of the

Demon Newswriter be example, one instead of many. The Demon Newswriter, deriving only from outside

gossip and eavesdropping, is wrong very often,in fact, he is seldom right, except on points which have

been Officially fixed, and are within reach of an inquisitive Clerk of Legation. Wrong often enough, even in

regard to external particulars, how much more as to internal;and will need checking, as we go along.

Demon speaks first of Friedrich's stature, 5ft. 6in. (as we know better than this Demon); "pretty well

proportioned, not handsome, and even something of awkward (GAUCHE), acquired by a constrained bearing

[head slightly off the perpendicular, acquired by his flute, say the betterinformed]. Is of the greatest

politeness. Fine tone of voice,fine even in swearing, which is as common with him as with a grenadier,"

"Has never had a nightcap [sleeps bareheaded; in his later times, would sleep in his hat, which was always

soft as duffel, kneaded to softness as its first duty, and did very well]: Never a nightcap, dressinggown, or

pair of slippers [TRUE]; only a kind of cloth cloak [NOT QUITE], much worn and very dirty, for being

powdered in. The whole year round he goes in the uniform of his First Battalion of Guards:blue with red

facings, buttonhole trimmings in silver, frogs at the inner end; his coat buttons close to the shape; waistcoat

is plain yellow [strawcolor]; hat [threecornered] has edging of Spanish lace, white plume [horizontal,

resting on the lace all round]: boots on his legs all his life. He cannot walk with shoes [pooh, you!].

"He rises daily at five:"No, he does n't at all! In fact, we had better clap the lid on this Demon,

illinformed as to all these points; and, on such suggestion, give the real account of them, distilled from

Preuss says (if readers could but remember him): "An Almanac lies on the King's Table, marking for each

day what specific duties the day will bring. From five to six hours of sleep: in summer he rises about three,

seldom after four; in winter perhaps an hour later. In his older time, seven hours' sleep came to be the

stipulated quantity; and he would sleep occasionally eight hours or even nine, in certain medical

predicaments. Not so in his younger years: four A.M. and five, the set hours then. Summer and winter, fire is

lighted for him a quarter of an hour before. King rises; gets into his clothes: 'stockings, breeches, boots, he

did sitting on the bed' (for one loves to be particular); the rest in front of the fire, in standing posture.

"Letters specifically to his address, a courier (leaving Berlin, 9 P.M.) had brought him in the dead of night:

these, on the instant of the King's calling 'Here!' a valet in the ante chamber brought in to him, to be read

while his hair was being done. His uniform the King did not at once put on; but got into a CASAQUIN [loose

article of the dressinggown kind, only shorter than ours] of rich stuff, sometimes of velvet with precious

silver embroideries. These Casaquins were commonly skyblue (which color he liked), presents from his

Sisters and Nieces. Letters being glanced over, and hairclub done, the Lifeguard GeneralAdjutant hands

in the Potsdam Report (all strangers that have entered Potsdam or left it, the principal item): this, with a

Berlin Report, which had come with the Letters; and what of ArmyReports had arrived (Adjutant General

delivering these),were now glanced over. And so, by five o'clock in the summer morning, by six in the

winter, one sees, in the gross, what one's day'swork is to be; the miscellaneous STONES of it are now

mostly here, only mortar and walling of them to be thought of. GeneralAdjutant and his affairs are first

settled: on each thing a word or two, which the GeneralAdjutant (always a highly confidential Officer, a

"GeneralAdjutant gone, the King, in skyblue casaquin [often in very faded condition] steps into his

writingroom; walks about, reading his Letters more completely; drinking, first, several glasses of water;

then coffee, perhaps three cups with or without milk [likes coffee, and very strong]. After coffee he takes his

flute; steps about practising, fantasying: he has been heard to say, speaking of music and its effects on the

soul, That during this fantasying he would get to considering all manner of things, with no thought of what he

was playing; and that sometimes even the luckiest ideas about businessmatters have occurred to him while

dandling with the flute. Sauntering so, he is gradually breakfasting withal: will eat, intermittently, small

chocolate cakes; and after his coffee, cherries, figs, grapes, fruits in their season [very fond of fruit, and has

"Between nine and ten, most of one's planwork being got through, the questions of the day are settled, or

laid hold of for settling. Between nine and ten, King takes to reading the 'Excerpts' (I suppose, of the more

intricate or lengthier things) of Yesterday, which his three Cabinet Raths [Clerk Eichel and the other Two]

have prepared for him. King summons these Three, one after the other, according to their Department; hands

them the Letters just read, the Excerpts now decided on, and signifies, in a minimum of words, what the

answers are to be,Clerk, always in full dress, listening with both his ears, and pencil in hand. May have, of

Answers, CABINETORDERS so called, perhaps a dozen, to be ready with before evening. ["In a certain

KABINETSORDENKOPIALBUCH, of One of the three Clerks, years 17461752, there are, on the average,

"Eichel and Company dismissed, King flings off his casaquin, takes his regimental coat; has his hair touched

off with pomade, with powder; and is buttoned and ready in about five minutes;ready for Parade, which is

at the stroke of eleven, instead of later, as it used to be in Papa's time. If eleven is not yet come, he will get on

horseback; go sweeping about, oftenest with errands still, at all events in the free solitude of air, till

Paradetime do come. The Parole [Sentry'sWORD of the Day] he has already given his AdjutantGeneral.

Parole, which only the Adjutant and Commandant had known till now, is formally given out; and the troops

go through their exercises, manoeuvres, under a strictness of criticism which never abates." "Parade he by no

"At the stroke of twelve," continues Preuss, "dinner is served. Dinner threefold; that is, a second table and a

third. Only two courses, dishes only eight, even at the King's Table, (eight also at the Marshal's or second

Table); guests from seven to ten. Dinner plentiful and savory (for the King had his favorites among edibles),

by no means caring to be splendid,yearly expense of threefold Dinner (done accurately by contract) was

1,800 pounds." Linsenbarth we saw at the Third Table, and how he fared. "The dinnerservice was of

beautiful porcelain; not silver, still less gold, except on the grandest occasions. Every guest eats at

discretion,of course!and drinks at discretion, Moselle or Pontac [kind of claret]; Champagne and

Hungary are handed round on the King's signal. King himself drinks Bergerac, or other clarets, with water.

Dinner lasts till two;if the conversation be seductive, it has been known to stretch to four. The King's great

passion is for talk of the right kind; he himself talks a great deal, tippling wineandwater to the end, and

"With a bow from Majesty, dinner ends; guests gently, with a little saunter of talk to some of them, all

vanish; and the King is in his own Apartment again. Generally fluteplaying for about half an hour; till

Eichel and the others come with their day's work: trayloads of CabinetOrders, I can fancy; which are to be

'executed,' that is, to be glanced through, and signed. Signature for most part is all; but there are Marginalia

and Postscripts, too, in great number, often of a spicy biting character; which, in our time, are in request

among the curious." Herr Preuss, who has right to speak, declares that the spice of mockery has been

exaggerated; and that serious sense is always the aim both of Document and of Signer. Preuss had a windfall;

12,000 of these Pieces, or more, in a lump, in the way of gift; which fell on him like manna,and led, it is

said, to those Friedrich studies, extensive faithful quarryings in that vast wilderness of sliding shingle and

"Coffee follows this despatch of Eichel and Consorts; the day now one's own." Scandalous rumors, prose and

verse, connect themselves with this particular epoch of the day; which appear to be wholly LIES. Of which

presently. "In this afterdinner period fall the literary labors," says Preuss:a facile pen, this King's; only

two hours of an afternoon allowed it, instead of all day and the top of the morning. "About six, or earlier

even, came the Reader [La Mettrie or another], came artists, came learned talk. At seven is Concert, which

lasts for an hour; halfpast eight is Supper." [Preuss, i. 344347 (and, with intermittencies, pp. 356, 361, 363

Demon Newswriter says, of the Concert: "It is mostly of wind instruments," King himself often taking part

with his flute; "performers the best in Europe. He has three"what shall we call them? of male gender,"a

counteralt, and Mamsell Astrua, an Italian; they are unique voices. He cannot bear mediocrity. It is but

seldom he has any singing here. To be admitted, needs the most intimate favor; now and then some young

Lord, of distinction, if he meet with such." Concert, very well;but let us now, suppressing any little

"Dinner lasts one hour [says our Demon, no better informed]: upon which the King returns to his Apartment

with bows. It pretty often happens that he takes with him one of his young fellows. These are all handsome,

like a picture (FAITS A PEINDRE), and of the beautifulest face,"adds he, still worse informed; poisonous

malice mixing itself, this time, with the human darkness, and reducing it to diabolic. This Demon's Paper

abounds with similar allusions; as do the more desperate sort of Voltaire utterances,VIE PRIVEE treating

it as known fact; Letters to Denis in occasional paroxysms, as rumor of detestable nature, probably true of

one who is so detestable, at least so formidable, to a guilty sinner his Guest. Others, not to be called

diabolical, as Herr Dr. Busching, for example, speak of it as a thing credible; as good as known to the

wellinformed. And, beyond the least question, there did a thriceabominable rumor of that kind run,

whispering audibly, over all the world; and gain belief from those who had appetite. A most melancholy

business. Solacing to human envy;explaining also, to the dark human intellect, why this King had

commonly no Women at his Court. A most melancholy portion of my rawmaterial, this; concerning which,

1. That proof of the NEGATIVE, in this or in any such case, is by the nature of it impossible. That it is

indisputable Friedrich did not now live with his Wife, nor seem to concern himself with the empire of women

at all; having, except now and then his Sisters and some Foreign Princess on short visit, no women in his

Court; and though a great judge of Female merits, graces and accomplishments, seems to worship women in

that remote way alone, and not in any nearer. Which occasioned great astonishment in a world used so much

to the contrary. And gave rise to many conjectures among the idle of mankind, "What, on Earth, or under

Earth, can be the meaning of it?"and among others, to the above scandalous rumor, as some solacement to

2. That an opposite rumorwhich would indeed have been pretty fatal to this one, but perhaps still more

disgraceful in the eyes of a Demon Newswriterwas equally current; and was much elaborated by the

curious impertinent. Till Nicolai got hold of it, in Herr Dr. Zimmermann's responsible hands; and

conclusively knocked it on the head. [See Zimmermann's Fragmente, and Nicolai patiently pounding it to

3". That, for me, proof in the affirmative, or probable indication that way, has not anywhere turned up.

Nowhere for me, in these extensive minings and siftings. Not the least of probable indication; but

contrariwise, here and there, rather definite indications pointing directly the opposite way. [For example

("CORRESPONDENCE WITH FREDERSDORF"), OEuvres, xxvii. iii. 145.] Friedrich, in his own

utterances and occasional rhymes, is abundantly cynical; now and then rises to a kind of epic cynicism, on

this very matter. But at no time can the painful critic call it cynicism as of OTHER than an observer; always a

kind of vinegar cleanness in it, EXCEPT in theory. Cynicism of an impartial observer in a dirty element;

observer epically sensible (when provoked to it) of the brutal contemptibilities which lie in Human Life,

alongside of its big struttings and pretensions. In Friedrich's utterances there is that kind of cynicism

undeniable;and yet he had a modesty almost female in regard to his own person; "no servant having ever

seen him in an exposed state." [Preuss, i. 376.] Which had considerably strengthened rumor No. 2. O ye poor

impious Longeared,Longeared I will call you, instead of Twohorned and with only One hoof cloven!

Among the tragical platitudes of Human Nature, nothing so fills a considering brother mortal with sorrow and

despair, as this innate tendency of the common crowd in regard to its Great Men, whensoever, or almost

whensoever, the Heavens do, at long intervals, vouchsafe us, as their allincluding blessing, anything of

such! Practical "BLASPHEMY," is it not, if you reflect? Strangely possible that sin, even now. And ought to

be religiously abhorred by every soul that has the least piety or nobleness. Act not the mutinous flunky, my

4. That in these circumstances, and taking into view the otherwise known qualities of this high

FellowCreature, the present Editor does not, for his own share, value the rumor at a pin's fee. And leaves it,

and recommends his readers to leave it, hanging by its own head, in the sad subterranean regions,till

(probably not for a long while yet) it drop to a far Deeper and dolefuler Region, out of our way altogether.

"Lamentable, yes," comments Diogenes; "and especially so, that the idle public has a hankering for such

things! But are there no obscene details at all, then? grumbles the disappointed idle public to itself, something

of reproach in its tone. A public idleminded; much depraved in every way. Thus, too, you will observe of

dogs: two dogs, at meeting, run, first of all, to the shameful parts of the constitution; institute a strict

examination, more or less satisfactory, in that department. That once settled, their interest in ulterior matters

seems pretty much to die away, and they are ready to part again, as from a problem done."Enough, oh,

Practically we are getting no good of our Demon;and will dismiss him, after a taste or two more.

This Demon Newswriter has, evidently, never been to Potsdam; which he figures as the abode of horrid

cruelty, a kind of Tartarus on Earth;where there is a dreadful scarcity of women, for one item; lamentable

to one's moral feelings. Scarcity nothing like so great, even among the soldierclasses, as the Demon

Newswriter imagines to himself; nor productive of the results lamented. Prussian soldiers are not encouraged

to marry, if it will hurt the service; nor do their wives march with the Regiment except in such proportions as

there may be sewing, washing and the like women's work fairly wanted in their respective Companies: the

Potsdam First Battalion, I understand, is hardly permitted to marry at all. And in regard to lamentable results,

that of "LIEBSTENSCHEINE, SweetheartTICKETS,"or actual military legalizing of Temporary

Marriages, with regular privileges attached, and fixed rules to be observed,might perhaps be the notablest

point, and the SEMI lamentablest, to a man or demon in the habit of lamenting. [Preuss, i. 426.] For the rest,

a considerably dreadful place this Potsdam, to the flaccid, esurient and disorderly of mankind;"and strict as

"This King," he says, "has a great deal of ESPRIT; much less of real, knowledge (CONNAISSANCES) than

is pretended. He excels only in the military part; really excellent there. Has a facile expeditious pen and head;

understands what you say to him, at the first word. Not taking nor wishing advice; never suffering replies or

remonstrances, not even from his Mother. Pretty well acquainted with Works of ESPRIT, whether in Prose or

in Verse: burning [very hot indeed] to distinguish himself by performance of that kind; but unable to reach

the Beautiful, unless held up by somebody (ETAYE). It is said that, in a splenetic moment, his Skeleton of an

Apollo [SQUELETTE D'APOLLON, M. de Voltaire, who is lean exceedingly] exclaimed once, some time

ago, 'When is it, then, that he will have done sending me his dirty linen to wash?'

"The King is of a sharp mocking tongue withal; pricking into whoever displeases him; often careless of

policy in that. Understands nothing of Finance, or still less of Trade; always looking direct towards more

money, which he loves much; incapable of sowing [as some of US do!] for a distant harvest. Treats, almost

all the world as slaves. All his subjects are held in hard shackles. Rigorous for the least shortcoming, where

his interest is hurt:never pardons any fault which tends to inexactitude in the Military Service. Spandau

very full,"though I did not myself count. "Keeps in his pay nobody but those useful to him, and capable of

doing employments well [TRUE, ALWAYS]; and the instant he has no more need of them, dismissing them

with nothing [FALSE, GENERALLY]. The Subsidies imposed on his subjects are heavy; in constant

proportion to their Feudal Properties, and their Leases of Domains (CONTRATS ET BAUX); and, what is

dreadful, are exacted with the same rigor if your Property gets into debt,"no remission by the iron grip of

this King in the name of the State! Sell, if you can find a Purchaser; or get confiscated altogether; that is your

"People who get nearest him will tell you that his Politeness is not natural, but a remnant of old habit, when

he had need of everybody, against the persecutions of his Father. He respects his Mother; the only Female for

whom he has a sort of attention. He esteems his Wife, and cannot endure her; has been married nineteen

years, and has not yet addressed one word to her [how true!]. It was but a few days ago she handed him a

Letter, petitioning some things of which she had the most pressing want. He took the Letter, with that

smiling, polite and gracious air which he assumes at pleasure; and without breaking the seal, tore the Letter

up before her face, made her a profound bow, and turned his back on her." Was there ever such a Pluto

varnished into Literary Rosepink? Very proper Majesty for the Tartarus that here is.

... "The QueenMother," continues our Small Devil, "is a good fat woman, who lives and moves in her own

way (RONDEMENT). She has l6,000 pounds a year for keeping up her House. It is said she hoards. Four

days in the week she has Apartment [Royal Soiree]; to which you cannot go without express invitation. There

is supper table of twentyfour covers; only eight dishes, served in a shabby manner (INDECEMMENT) by

six little scoundrels of Pages. Men and women of the Country [shivering Natives, cheering their dull abode]

go and eat there. Steward Royal sends the invitations. At eleven, everybody has withdrawn. Other days, this

Queen eats by herself. Stewardess Royal and three Maids of Honor have their separate table; two dishes the

whole. She is shabbily lodged [in my opinion], when at the Palace. Her Monbijou, which is close to Berlin

"The Queen Regnant is the best woman in the world. All the year [NOT QUITE] she dines alone. Has

Apartment on Thursdays; everybody gone at nine o'clock. Her morsels are cut for her, her steps are counted,

and her words are dictated; she is miserable, and does what she can to hide it"according to our Small

Devil. "She has scarcely the necessaries of life allowed her,"spends regularly twothirds of her income in

charitable objects; translates FrenchCalvinist Devotional Works, for benefit of the German mind; and

complains to no Small Devil, of never so sympathizing nature. "At Court she is lodged on the second floor

[scandalous]. Schonhausen her Country House, with the exception of the Garden which is pretty

"Princess Amelia is rather amiable [thank you for nothing, Small Devil]; often out of temper becausethis is

so shocking a place for Ladies, especially for maiden Ladies. Lives with her Mother; special income very

small;Coadjutress of Quedlinburg; will be actual Abbess" in a year or two. [11th April, 1756: Preuss,

"Eldest Prince, HeirApparent,"do not speak of him, Small Devil, for you are misinformed in every

feature and particular:enough, "he is facsimile of his Brother. He has only 18,000 pounds a year, for self,

Wife, Household and Children [two, both Boys];and is said [falsely] to hoard, and to follow Trade,

"Prince Henri, who is just going to be married,"thank you, Demon, for reminding us of that. Bride is

Wilhelmina, Princess of Hessen Cassel. Marriage, 25th June, 1752;did not prove, in the end, very happy.

A small contemporary event; which would concern Voltaire and others that concern us. Three months ago,

April 14th, 1752, the Berlin PowderMagazine flew aloft with horrible crash; [In HeldenGeschichte (iii.

531) the details.]and would be audible to Voltaire, in this his Second Act. Events, audible or not, never

"Prince Henri," in Demon's opinion, "is the amiablest of the House. He is polite, generous, and loves good

company. Has 12,000 pounds a year left him by Papa." Not enough, as it proved. "If, on this Marriage, his

Brother, who detests him [witness Reinsberg and other evidences, now and onward], gives him nothing, he

won't be well off. They are furnishing a House for him, where he will lodge after wedding. Is reported to

contradicting],Potsdamite, in certain respects. Poor Princess, what a destiny for you!

"Prince Ferdinand, little scraping of a creature (PETIT CHAFOUIN), crapulous to excess, niggardly in the

extreme, whom everybody avoids,"much more whose Portrait, by a Magiclantern of this kind: which let

us hastily shut, and fling into the cellar! "Little Ferdinand, besides his 15,000 pounds a year, Papa's

bequest, gets considerable sums given him. Has lodging in the King's House; goes shifting and visiting about,

wherever he can live gratis; and strives all he can to amass money. Has to be in boots and uniform every three

days. Three months of the year practically with his regiment: but the shifts he has for avoiding expense are

What an illuminative "Idea" are the WalpoleSelwyn Circles picking up for their money!

Meantime there has a fine Controversy risen, of mathematical, philosophical and at length of very

miscellaneous nature, concerning that KonigMaupertuis dissentience on the LAW OF THRIFT. Wonderful

Controversy, much occupying the socalled Philosophic or Scientific world; especially the idler population

that inhabit there. Upon this item of the Infinitely Little,which has in our time sunk into Nothingatall,

and but for Voltaire, and the accident of his living near it, would be forgotten altogether,we must not enter

into details; but a few words to render Voltaire's share in it intelligible will be, in the highest degree,

necessary. Here, in brief form, rough and ready, are the successive stages of the Business; the origin and first

"SEPTEMBER, 1750, Konig, his wellmeant visit to Berlin proving so futile, had left Maupertuis in the

humor we saw;pirouetting round his Apartment, in tempests of rage at such contradiction of sinners on his

sublime Law of Thrift; and fulminating permission to Konig: 'No time to read your Paper of Contradictions;

publish it in Leipzig, in Jericho; anywhere in the Earth, in Heaven, in the Other Place, where you have the

opportunity!' Konig, returning on these terms, had nothing for it but to publish his Paper; and did publish it,

in the Leipzig Acta Eruditorum for March, 1751. There it stands, legible to this day: and if any of the human

species should again think of reading it, I believe it will be found a reasonable, solid and decisive Paper; of

steadfast, openly articulate, by no means insolent, tone; considerably modifying Maupertuis's Law of Thrift,

or Minimum of Action;fatal to the claim of its being a 'Sublime Discovery,' or indeed, so far as TRUE, any

discovery at all. [In Acta Eruditorum (Lipsiae, 1751): "De universali Principio AEquilibrii et Motus." By no

means uncivil to Maupertuis; though obliged to controvert him. For example: "Quoe itaque de Minima

Actionis in modificationibus modum obtinente in genere proferuntur vehementer laudo;" "continent nempe

facundum longeque pulcherrimum Dynamices sublimioris principium, cujus vim in difficillimis quoestionibus

soepe expertus fui." ] By way of finis to the Paper, there is given, what proves extremely important to us, an

Excerpt from an old LETTER OF LEIBNITZ'S; which perhaps it will be better to present here IN

"I add only a word, in finishing; and that is, that it appears Mr. Leibnitz had a theory of Action, perhaps much

more extensive than one would suspect at present. There is a Letter written by him to Mr. Hermann [an

ancient mathematical sage at Basel], where he uses these expressions: 'Action, is not what you think; the

consideration of Time enters into it; Action is as the product of the mass by the space and the velocity, or as

the time by the VIS VIVA. I have remarked that in the modifications of motion, the action becomes usually a

maximum or a minimum:and from this there might several propositions of great consequence be deduced.

It might serve to determine the curves described by bodies under attraction to one or more centres. I had

meant to treat of these things in the Second Part of my DYNAMIQUE; which I suppressed, the reception of

the First, by prejudice in many quarters, having disgusted me.'" [MAUPERTUISIANA, No. ii. 22 (from Acta

Eruditorum, ubi supra). In MAUPERTUISIANA, No. iv. 166, is the whole Letter, "Hanover, 16th October,

1707;" no ADDRESS left, judged to be to Hermann. MAUPERTUISIANA (Hamburg, 1753) is a mere

Bookseller's or even Bookbinder's Farrago, with printed TITLE PAGE and LIST, of the chief Pamphlets

which had appeared on this Business (sixteen by count, various type, all 8vo size, in my copy). Of which only

No. ii. (Konig's APPEL AU PUBLIC) and No. iv. (2d edition of said APPEL, with APPENDIX OF

CORRESPONDENCE) are illuminative to read.] Your Minimum of Action, it would appear, then, is in some

cases a Maximum; nothing can be said but that, in every case it is EITHER a Maximum or Minimum. What a

stroke for our LAW OF THRIFT, the "at last conclusive Proof" of an Intelligent Creator, as the Perpetual

President had fancied it! "Soho, what is this! My Discovery an Error? And Leibnitz discovered it, so far as

"May 28th8th OCTOBER, 1751. Maupertuis, compressing himself what he can, writes to Konig: 'Very

good, Monsieur. But please inform me where is that Letter of Leibnitz's; I have never seen or heard of it

before,and I want to make use of it myself.' To which Konig answers: 'Henzi gave it me, in Copy

[unfortunate Conspirator Henzi, who lost his head three years ago, by sentence of the Oligarch Government

at Berne]: [Government by "The Two Hundred;" of Select Vestry nature, very stiff, arbitrary and become

rife in abuses; against whom had risen angry mutterings more than once, and in 1749 a Select Plot (not select

ENOUGH, for they discovered it in time). Poor ExCaptain Henzi, "Clerk *of the SaltOffice," most frugal,

studious and quiet of men; a very miracle, It would appear, of genius, solid learning, philosophy and

piety,not the chief or first of the conspirators, but by far the most distinguished,was laid hold of, July

2d, 1749, and beheaded, with another of them, a day or two after. Much bewailed in a private way, even by

the better kinds of people. (Copious account of him in Adelung, vii. 8691.)]he, poor fellow, had no end of

Papers and Excerpts; had, as we know, above a hundred volumes of the latter kind; this, and some other

Letters of Leibnitz's, among them,I send you the whole Letter, copied faithfully from his Copy.' ["The

Hague, 26th June," in Maupertuisiana, No. iv. 130.] To that effect, still in perfect goodhumor, was Konig's

"'Hm, Copy? By Henzi?' grumbles Maupertuis to himself:'Search in Berne, then; it must be there, if

anywhere!' To Konig Maupertuis answers nothing: but sulkily resolves on having Search made;and, to

give solemnity to the matter, requests his Excellency Marquis de Paulmy, the French Ambassador at Berne,

to ask the Government there,Government having seized all Henzi's Papers, on beheading him. Excellency

Paulmy does, accordingly, make inquiry in the highest quarter; some inquiries up and down. Not the least

account of this, or of any Leibnitz Letter, to be had from among Henzi's Papers,the 'hundred volumes,'

seemingly, exist no longer; Original of this Leibnitz Piece is nowhere. For eight months the highest

Authorities have been looking about (with one knows not what vivacity or skill in searching), and have found

How lucky for the Perpetual President, had he stopped here! To Konig and the common contradiction of

sinners he could have opposed, as it was apparently his purpose to do, an Olympian silence, "Pshaw!"

Whereby the small matter, interesting to few, would have dropped gently into dubiety, into oblivion, and

been got well rid of. But this of the great Leibnitz, touching on one's LAW OF THRIFT; and not only

"discovering" it, half a century beforehand, but discovering that it was not true: to Leibnitz one must

speak;and the abstruse question is, What is one to say? "Find me the original; let us be certain, first:" that

you can say; that is one dear point; and pretty much the only one. The rest, at this time, as I conjecture, may

And now, had the Perpetual President but stopped here, there might still have rested a saving shadow of

suspicion on Konig's Excerpt, That it was not exact, that it might be wrong in some vital point: "You never

showed me the Original, Monsieur!" Unluckily, the Perpetual President did not stop. One cannot well fancy

him believing, now or ever, that Konig had forged the Excerpt. Most likely he had the fatal persuasion that

these were Leibnitz's words; and the question, What was to be said or done, if the Original SHOULD turn

up? might justly be alarming to a Son of the Pure Sciences. But at this point a new door of escape disclosed

itself: "Where is the Original, I say!"and he rushed, full speed, into that; galloping triumphantly, feeling all

"OCTOBER 7th (1751), Maupertuis summons his Academy: 'Messieurs, permit me to submit a case perhaps

requiring your attention. One of our number dissents from your President's Discovery of the Law of Thrift;

which surely he is free to do: but furthermore he gives an Excerpt purporting to be from Leibnitz; whereby it

would appear that your President's Discovery, sanctioned in your Acts as new, is not new, but Leibnitz's (so

far as it is good for anything), possibly stolen, therefore; and, at any rate, fiftyfour years old. In

selfdefence, I have demanded to see the Original of said Excerpt; and the Honorable Member in question

does not produce it. What say you?' 'Shame to him!' say they all [there seem to be but few Scientific

Members, and most of them, it is insinuated, have Pensions from the King through their Perpetual

"Accordingly, next day, OCTOBER 8th) Secretary Formey writes officially to Konig, 'Produce that Letter

within one month,'and has got his Majesty to order, That our Prussian Minister at the Hague shall take

charge of delivering such message, and shall mark on what day. Thing serious, you see!Prussian Minister

at the Hague delivers, and dockets accordingly. To Konig's astonishment; who is in a scene of deep trouble at

this time; Royal Highness the Stadtholder suddenly dead, or dying: 'died October 22d; leaving a very young

Heir, and a very sorrowful Widow and Country.' Much to think of, that lies apart from the Maupertuis matter!

Which latter, however, is so very serious too, his Prussian Majesty's Minister at Berne is now charged to

make new perquisition for the Leibnitz Original there: In short, within one month that Document is

High proceedings these;and calculated to have one result, if no other. Namely, that, at this point, as readers

can fancy, the idler Public, seeing a streetquarrel in progress, began to take interest in the Question of

MINIMUM; and quasiscientific gentlemen to gather round, and express, with cheery capable look, their

opinions,still legible in the vanished JUGEMENS LIBRES (of Hamburg), GAZETTE DE SAVANS

(Leipzig), and other poor Shadows of JOURNALS, if you daringly evoke them from the other side of Styx.

Which, the whole matter being now so indisputably extinct, shadowy, Stygian, we will not here be guilty of

"Konig, having in fact nothing more to say about the Leibnitz Excerpt, was in no breathless haste to obey his

summons; he sat almost two months before answering anything. Did then write however, in a friendly strain

to Maupertuis (December 10th, 1751). [ Maupertuisiana, No. iv. 132.] Almost on which same day, as it

chanced, the ACADEMIE, after two months' dignified waiting, had in brief terms repeated its order on

Konig. [December 11th, 1751 (Ib. 137). To which Konig makes no special answer (having as good as

answered the day before);but does silently send off to Switzerland to make inquiries; and does write once

or twice more, when there is occasion for explaining;always in a clear, sonorous, manfully firm and

respectful tone: 'That he himself had, or has, no kind of reason to doubt the authenticity of the Leibnitz

Letter; that to himself (and, so far as he can judge, to Maupertuis) the question of its authenticity is without

special interest;he, Konig, having thrown it in as a mere marginal illustration, which decides nothing,

either for or against the Law of Thrift. That he has, in obedience to the Academy, caused search to be made in

Switzerland, especially at Basel, where he judged the chance might lie; but that of this particular Letter

nothing has come to light; that he has two other Leibnitz Letters, of indifferent tenor, in the late Henzi's hand,

if these will serve in aught, [ Maupertuisiana, No. iv. 155; and ib. 172192, the two Letters

themselves.]but what farther can he do?' In short, Konig speaks always in a clear businesslike manful

tone; the one person that makes a really respectful and respectable figure in this Controversy of the Infinitely

Little. A man whom, viewed from this quiet distance, it seems almost inconceivably absurd to have suspected

"Question is, however, What the Academy will do? One Member, 'the best Geometer among them' [whose

name is not given, but which the Berlin Academy should write in big letters across this sad Page of their

Annals, by way of erasure to the same], dissented from the high line of procedure; asserting Konig's

innocence in this matter; nay, hinting agreement with Konig's opinion. But was met by such a storm, that he

withdrew from the deliberations; which henceforth went their own bad course, unanimous though slow. And

so the matter pendulates all through Winter, 175152, and was much the theme of idle men."

Voltaire heard of it vaguely all along; but not with distinctness till the end of July following. As Spring

advanced, Maupertuis had fallen ill of lungs,threatened with spitting of blood ("owing to excess of

brandy," hints the malicious Voltaire, "which is fashionable at St. Malo," birthplace of Maupertuis),and

could not farther direct the Academy in this affair. The Academy needs no direction farther. Here, very soon,

for a sick President's consolation, is what the Academy decides on, by way of catastrophe:

THURSDAY EVENING, 13th APRIL, 1752, The Academy met; Curator Monsieur de Keith, presiding;

about a score of acting Members present. To whom Curator de Keith, as the first thing, reads a magnanimous

brief Letter from our Perpetual President: "That, for two reasons, he cannot attend on this important occasion:

First, because he is too ill, which would itself be conclusive; but secondly, and A FORTIORI, because he is

in some sense a party to the cause, and ought not if he could." Whereupon, Secretary Formey having done his

Documentary flourishings, Curator Euler (great in Algebra, apparently not very great in common sense

and the rules of good temper)reads considerable "Report;" [Is No. 1 of Maupertuisiana. ] reciting, not in a

dishonest, but in a dim wearisome way, the various steps of the Affair, as readers already know them; and

concludes with this extraordinary practical result: "Things being so (LES CHOSES ETANT TELLES): the

Fragment being of itself suspect [what could Leibnitz know of Maxima and Minima? They were not

developed till one Euler did it, quite in late years!], [ Maupertuisians, No. i. 22.] of itself suspect; and

Monsieur Konig having failed to" is assuredly manifest that his cause is one of the worst (DES PLUS

MAUVAISES), and that this Fragment has been forged." Singular to think! "And the Academy, all things

duly considered, will not hesitate to declare it false (SUPPOSE), and thereby deprive it publicly of all

Curator de Keith then collects the votes,twentythree in all; some sixteen are of working Members; two

are from accidental Strangers ("travelling students," say the enemy); the rest from Curators of

Quality:Vote is unanimous, "Adopt the Report. Fragment evidently forged, and cannot have the least

shadow of authority (AUCUNE OMBRE D'AUTHORITE). Forged by whom, we do not now ask; nor what

the Academy could, on plain grounds, now do to Monsieur Konig [NOT nail his ears to the pump, oh no!];

enough, it IS forged, and so remains." Signed, "Curator de Keith," and Six other Officebearers; "Formey,

At the name Keith, a slight shadow (very slight, for how could Keith help himself?) crosses the mind: "Is this,

by ill luck, the Feldmarschall Keith?" No, reader; this is LieutenantColonel Keith; he of Wesel, with "Effigy

nailed to the Gallows" long since; whom none of us cares for. Sulzer, I notice too, is of this long eared

Sanhedrim. ACH, MEIN LIEBER SULZER, you don't know (do you, then?) DIESE VERDAMMTE RACE,

to what heights and depths of stupid malice, and malignant length of ear, they are capable of going.

"Thursday, 13th April," this is Forger Konig's doom:and, what is observable, next morning, with a crash

audible through Nature, the PowderMagazine flew aloft, killing several persons! [Supra, p. 203.] Had no

On authentic sight of this Sentence (for which Konig had at once, on hearing of it, applied to Formey, and

which comes to him, without help of Formey, through the Public Newspapers) Konig, in a brief, proud

enough, but perfectly quiet, mild and manful manner, resigns his Membership. "Ceases, from this day (June

18th, 1752), to have the honor of belonging to your Academy; 'an honor I had been the prouder of, as it came

to me unasked;'and will wish, you, from the outside henceforth, successful campaigns in the field of

Science." [ Maupertuisiana, No. iv. 129.] And sets about preparing his Pamphlet to instruct mankind on the

subject. Maupertuis, it appears, did write, and made others write to Konig's Sovereign Lady, the Dowager

Princess of Orange, "How extremely handsome it would be, could her Most Serene Highness, a friend to Pure

Science, be pleased to induce Monsieur Konig not to continue this painful Controversy, but to sit quiet with

what he had got." [Voltaire (infra).] Which her Most Serene Highness by no mean thought the suitable

course. Still less did Konig himself; whose APPEAL TO THE PUBLIC, with DEFENCE OF

APPEAL,reasonably well done, as usual, and followed and accompanied by the multitude of

Commentators,appeared in due course. ["September, 1752, Konig's APPEL" (Preuss, in OEuvres de

Frederic, xv. 60 n.).] Till, before long, the Public was thoroughly instructed; and nobody, hardly the signing

Curators, or thin Euler himself, not to speak of Perpetual Formey, who had never been strong in the matter,

could well believe in "forgery" or care to speak farther on such a subject. Subject gone wholly to the Stygian

The rumor of these things rose high and wide; and the quantity of publishing upon them, quasiscientifically

and otherwise, in the serious vein and the jocose, was greater than we should fancy. ["Letter from a Marquis;"

"Letter from Mr. T to M. S" (Mr. T. lives in London;"JE TRAVERSE LE Queen's Square, ET JE

RENCONTRE NOTRE AMI D: 'AVEZVOUS LA l'Appel au Public?' DITIL"); "Letter by Euler in

the Berlin Gazette," (in Maupertuisiana ).] Voltaire, for above a month past, had been fully aware of the case

(24th July, 1752, writing to Niece, "heard yesterday"); not without commentary to oneself and others.

Voltaire, with a kind of love to Konig, and a very real hatred to Maupertuis and to oppression generally, took

pen himself, among the others (Konig's APPEAL just out),could not help doing it, though he had better

not! The following small Piece is perhaps the one, if there be one, still worth resuscitating from the Inane

Kingdoms. Appeared in the BIBLIOTHEQUE RAISONNEE (mildshining Quarterly Review of those days),

"BERLIN, 18th SEPTEMBER, 1752. This is the exact truth, in reply to your inquiry. M. Moreau de

Maupertuis in a Pamphlet entitled ESSAI DE COSMOLOGIE, pretended that the only proof of the Existence

VOILA!] He asserts that in all possible cases, 'Action is a Minimum,' what has been demonstrated false; and

"M. Konig, as well as other Mathematicians, wrote against this strange assertion; and, among other things, M.

Konig cited some sentences of a Letter by Leibnitz, in which that great man says, He has observed 'that, in

the modifications of motion, the Action usually becomes either a Maximum or else a Minimum.'

"M. Moreau de Maupertuis imagined that, by producing this Fragment, it had been intended to snatch from

him the glory of his pretended discovery,though Leibnitz says precisely the contrary of what he advances.

He forced some pensioned members of the Academy, who are dependent on him, to summon M. Koinig"

As we know too well; and cannot bear to have repeated to us, even in the briefest and spiciest form!

"Sentence (JUGEMENT) on M. Konig, which declares him guilty of having assaulted the glory of the Sieur

Moreau Maupertuis by FORGING a Leibnitz Letter.Wrote then, and made write, to her Serene Highness

"Thus the Sieur Moreau Maupertuis has been convicted, in the face of Scientific Europe, not only of

plagiarism and blunder, but of having abused his place to suppress free discussion, and to persecute an honest

man who had no crime but that of not being of his opinion. Several members of our Academy have protested

against so crying a procedure; and would leave the Academy, were it not for fear of displeasing the King,

who is protector of it." [ OEuvres de Voltaire, lxiii. 227 (in Maupertuisiana, No. xvi).]

King Friedrich's position, in the middle of all this, was becoming uncomfortable. Of the controversy he

understood, or cared to understand, nothing; had to believe steadily that his Academy must be right; that

Konig was some loose bird, envious of an eagle Maupertuis, sitting aloft on his high Academic perch: this

Friedrich took for the truth of the matter;and could not let himself imagine that his sublime Perpetual

President, who was usually very prudent and Jovelike, had been led, by his truculent vanity (which

Friedrich knew to be immense in the man, though kept well out of sight), into such playing of fantastic tricks

before high Heaven and other onlookers. This view of the matter had hitherto been Friedrich's; nor do I

know that he ever inwardly departed from it;as outwardly he, for certain, never did; standing, Kinglike,

clear always for his Perpetual President, till this hurricane of Pamphlets blew by. Voltaire's little Piece,

This new bolt of electric fire, launched upon the stormtost President from Berlin itself, and even from the

King's House itself,by whom, too clearly recognizable,what an irritating thing! Unseemly, in fact, on

Voltaire's part; but could not be helped by a Voltaire charged with electricity. Friedrich evidently in

considerable indignation, finding that public measures would but worsen the uproar, took pen in hand; wrote

PARIS: [ OEuvres de Frederic, xv. 5964 (not dated; datable "October, 1752").] which Piece, of some

length, we cannot give here; but will briefly describe as manifesting no real knowledge of the

LAWOFTHRIFT Controversy; but as taking the above loose view of it, and as directed principally against

"the pretended Member of our Academy" (mischievous Voltaire, to wit), whom it characterizes as "such a

manifest retailer of lies," a "concocter of stupid libels:" "have you ever seen an action more malicious, more

dastardly, more infamous?"and other hard terms, the hardest he can find. This is the privilege of

But imagine now a King and his Voltaire doing witty discourse over their Supper of the gods (as, on the set

days, is duly the case); with such a consciousness, burning like Bude light, though close veiled, on the part of

Host and Guest! The FriedrichVoltaire relation is evidently under sore stress of weather, in those

winterautumn months of 1752,brown leaves, splashy rains and winds moaning outwardly withal. And,

alas, the irrepressibly electric Voltaire, still far from having ended, still only just beginning his

AntiMaupertuis discharges, has, in the interim, privately got his DOCTOR AKAKIA ready. Compared to

which, the former missile is as a popgun to a park of artillery shotted with old nails and broken glass!Such

a constraint, at the Royal dinnertable, amid wine and wit, could not continue. The credible account is, it

soon cracked asunder; and, after the conceivable sputterings, sparklings and flashings of various complexion,

issued in lambent airs of "tacit mutual understanding; and in reading of AKAKIA together,with peals of

"Readers know AKAKIA," [DIATRIBE DU DOCTEUR AKAKIA (in Voltaire, OEuvres, lxi. 1962).] says

Smelfungus: "it is one of the famous feats of Satirical Pyrotechny; only too pleasant to the corrupt Race of

Adam! There is not much, or indeed anything, of true poetic humor in it: but there is a gayety of malice, a

dexterity, felicity, inexhaustibility of laughing mockery and light banter, capable of driving a Perpetual

President delirious. What an Explosion of glasscrackers, fireballs, flamingserpents;generally, of

sleeping gunpowder, in its most artistic forms,flaming out skyhigh over all the Parish, on a sudden! The

almostsublime of Maupertuis, which exists in large quantities, here is a new artist who knows how to treat

it. The engineer of the Sublime (always painfully engineering thitherward without effect),an engineer of

the Comic steps in on him, blows him up with his own petards in a most unexampled manner. Not an owlery

has that poor Maupertuis, in the struggle to be sublime (often nearly successful, but never once quite),

happened to drop from him, but Voltaire picks it up; manipulates it, reduces it to the sublimely ridiculous;

lodges it, in the form of burning dust, about the head of MON PRESIDENT. Needless to say of the Comic

engineer that he is unfair, perversely exaggerative, reiterative, on the owleries of poor Maupertuis;it is his

function to BE all that. Clever, but wrong, do you say? Well, yes:and yet the ridiculous does require

ridicule; wise Nature has silently so ordered. And if ever truculent President in red wig, with his absurd

truculences, tyrannies and perpetual struggles after the sublime, did deserve to be exploded in laughter, it

could not have been more consummately done;though perversely always, as must be owned.

"'The hole bored through the Earth,' for instance: really, one sometimes reflects on such a thing; How you

would see daylight, and the antipodal gentleman (if he bent a little over) foot to foot; how a little stone flung

into it would exactly (but for air and friction) reach the other side of the world; would then, in a computable

few moments, come back quiescent to your hand, and so continue forevermore;with other the like

"'The Latin Town,' again: truly, if learning the Ancient Languages be human Education, it might, with a

Greek Ditto, supersede the Universities, and prove excellently serviceable in our struggle Heavenward by that

particular route. I can assure M. de Voltaire, it was once practically proposed to this King's

Greatgrandfather, the Grosse Kurfurst;who looked into it, with face puckered to the intensest, in his great

care for furtherance of the Terrestrial Sciences and Wisdoms; but forbore for that time. [Minute details about

it in Stenzel, ii. 234238; who quotes "Erman" (a poor old friend of ours) "SUR LE PROJET D'UNE VILLE

SAVANTE DANS LE BRANDEBOURG (Berlin, 1792):" date of the Project was 1667.] Then as to

'Dissecting the Brains of Patagonians;' what harm, if you can get them gross enough? And as to that of

(exalting your mind to predict the future,' does not, in fact, man look BEFORE and AFTER; are not Memory

"These thingswhich are mostly to be found in the 'LETTRES DE MAUPERTUIS' (Dresden, 1752, then a

brandnew Book), but are now clipt out from the Maupertuis Treatiseswe can fancy to be almost

sublimities.Almost, unfortunately not altogether. And then there is such a Sisyphuseffort visible in

dragging them aloft so far: and the nimble wicked Voltaire so seizes his moment, trips poor Sisyphus; and

sends him down, heelsoverhead, in a torrent of roaring debris! 'From gradual transpiration of our vital

force comes Death; which perhaps, by precautions, might be indefinitely retarded,' says Maupertuis. 'Yes,

truly,' answers the other: 'if we got ourselves japanned, coated with resinous varnish (INDUITS DE POIX

RESINEUX); who knows!' Not a sublime owlery can you drop, but it is manipulated, ground down, put in

rifled cannon, comes back on you as tempests of burning dust." Enough to send Maupertuis pirouetting

Peals of laughter (once you are allowed to be nonofficial) could not fail, as an ovation, from the King;so

report the French Biographers. But there was, besides, strict promise that the Piece should be suppressed:

"Never do to send our President pirouetting through the world in this manner, with his wig on fire; promise

me, on your honor!" Voltaire promised. But, alas, how could Voltaire perform! Once more the

Rhadamanthine fact is: Voltaire, as King's Chamberlain, was bound, without any promise, to forbear, and

rigidly suppress such an AKAKIA against the King's Perpetual President. But withal let candid readers

consider how difficult it was to do. The absurd blusterous Turkeycock, who has, every now and then, been

tyrannizing over you for twenty years, here you have him filled with gunpowder, so to speak, and the train

laid. There wants but one spark,(edition printed in Holland, edition done in Berlin, plenty of editions made

or makable by a little surreptitious legerdemain,and I never knew whether it was AKAKIA in print, or

AKAKIA in manuscript, that King and King's Chamberlain were now reading together, nor does it matter

much):your Turkey surreptitiously stuffed with gunpowder, I say; train ready waiting; one flintspark will

shoot him aloft, scatter him as flaming ruin on all the winds: and you are, once and always, to withhold said

spark. Perhaps, had AKAKIA not yet been writtenBut all lies ready there; one spark will do it, at any

On what day AKAKIA blazed out at Berlin, surreptitiously forwarded from Holland or otherwise, I could

never yet learn (so stupid these reporters). But "on November 2d" the King makes a Visit to sick Maupertuis,

which is published in all the Newspapers; [Rodenbeck, IN DIE; HeldenGeschichte, iii. 531, "2d November,

1752, 5 P.M."]and one might guess the AKAKIA conflagration, and cruel hahaings of mankind, to have

been tacitly the cause. Then or later, sure enough, AKAKIA does blaze aloft about that time; and all Berlin,

and all the world, is in conversation over Maupertuis and it,30,000 copies sold in Paris: and Friedrich

naturally was in a towering passion at his Chamberlain. Nothing for the Chamberlain but to fly his presence;

to shriek, piteously, "Accident, your Majesty! Fatal treachery and accident; after such precautions too!"and

fall sick to death (which is always a resource one has); and get into private lodgings in the

TAUBENSTRASSE, [At a "Hofrath Francheville's" (kind of subaltern Literary Character, see Denina, ii.

67), "TAUBENSTRASSE (Dove Street), No. 20:" stayed there till "March, 1753" (Note by Preuss, OEuvres

de Frederic, xxii. 306 n.).] till one either die, or grow fit to be seen again: "Ah, Sire"let us give the

Voltaire shriek of NOTGUILTY, with the Friedrich Answer; both dateless unluckily:

VOLTAIRE. "AH, MON DIEU, Sire, in the state I am in! I swear to you again, on my life, which I could

renounce without pain, that it is a frightful calumny. I conjure you to summon all my people, and confront

FRIEDRICH. "Your effrontery astonishes me. After what you have done, and what is clear as day, you

persist, instead of owning yourself culpable. Do not imagine you will make people believe that black is

?ONE p. 218, book XVI +++++++++++++++++ is, one does not want to see everything. But if you drive

the affair to extremity,all shall be made public; and it will be seen whether, if your Works deserve statues,

Most dark element (not in date only), with terrific thunderand lightning. Nothing for it but to keep one's

December 24th, 1752, there is one thing dismally distinct, Voltaire himself looking on (they say), from his

windows in Dove Street: the Public Burning of AKAKIA, near there, by the common Hangman. Figure it;

and Voltaire's reflections on it:haggardly clear that Act Third is culminating; and that the final catastrophe

is inevitable and nigh. We must be brief. On the eighth day after this dread spectacle (Newyear'sday 1753),

Voltaire sends, in a Packet to the Palace, his Gold Key and Cross of Merit. On the interior wrappage is an

Inscription in verse: "I received them with loving emotion, I return them with grief; as a brokenhearted

Andin a Letter enclosed, tender as the Song of Swanshas one wish: Permission for the waters of

Plonbieres, some alleviations amid kind nursing friends there; and to die craving blessings on your Majesty.

Friedrich, though in hot wrath, has not quite come that length. Friedrich, the same day, towards evening,

sends Fredersdorf to him, with Decorations back. And a long dialogue ensues between Fredersdorf and

Voltaire; in which Collini, not eavesdropping, "heard the voice of M. de Voltaire at times very loud." Precise

result unknown. After which, for three months more, follows waiting and hesitation and negotiation, also

quite obscure. Confused hithering and thithering about permission for Plombieres, about repentance, sorrow,

amendment, blame; in the end, reconciliation, or what is to pass for such. Recorded for us in that whirl of

misdated Letterclippings; in those Narratives, ignorant, and pretending to know: perhaps the darkest Section

Voltaire has got permission to return to Potsdam; Apartment in the Palace ready again: but he still lingers in

Dove Street; too ill, in real truth, for Potsdam society on those new terms. Does not quit Francheville's "till

March 5th;" and then only for another Lodging, called "the Belvedere", of suburban or rural kind. His case is

intricate to a degree. He is sick of body; spectrehaunted withal, more than ever;often thinks Friedrich,

provoked, will refuse him leave. And, alas, he would so fain NOT go, as well as go! Leave for Plombieres

,leave in the angrily contemptuous shape, "Go, then, forever and a day!"Voltaire can at once have: but

to get it in the friendly shape, and as if for a time only? His prospects at Paris, at Versailles, are none of the

best; to return as if dismissed will never do! Would fain not go, withal;and has to diplomatize at Potsdam,

by D'Argens, De Prades, and at Paris simultaneously, by Richelieu, D'Argenson and friends. He is greatly to

be pitied;even Friedrich pities him, the martyr of bodily ailments and of spiritual; and sends him "extract

of quinquina" at one time. [Letter of Voltaire's.] Three miserable months; which only an OEdipus could read,

and an OEdipus who had nothing else to do! The issue is well known. Of precise or indisputable, on the road

VOLTAIRE TO ONE BAGIEU HIS DOCTOR AT PARIS ("Berlin, 19th December," 1752, week BEFORE

his AKAKIA was burnt). ... "Wish I could set out on the instant, and put myself into your hands and into the

arms of my family! I brought to Berlin about a score of teeth, there remain to me something like six; I

brought two eyes, I have nearly lost one of them; I brought no erysipelas, and I have got one, which I take a

great deal of care of. ... Meanwhile I have buried almost all my Doctors; even La Mettrie. Remains only that I

bury Codenius [Cothenius], who looks too stiff, however,"and, at any rate, return to you in Spring, when

FRIEDRICH TO VOLTAIRE (Potsdam, uncertain date). "There was no need of that pretext about the waters

of Plombieres, in demanding your leave (CONGE). You can quit my service when you like: but, before

going, be so good as return me the Contract of your Engagement, the Key [Chamberlain's], the Cross [of

"I wish my Works, and only they, had been what you and Konig attacked. Them I sacrifice, with a great deal

of willingness, to persons who think of increasing their own reputation by lessening that of others. I have not

the folly nor vanity of certain Authors. The cabals of literary people seem to me the disgrace of Literature. I

do not the less esteem honorable cultivators of Literature; it is only the caballers and their leaders that are

degraded in my eyes. On this, I pray God to have you in his holy and worthy keeping.FRIEDRICH." [In

De Prades's hand; OEuvres de Frederic, xxii. 308, 309: Friedrich's own Minute to De Prades has, instead of

these last three lines: "That I have not the folly and vanity of authors, and that the cabals of literary people

VOLTAIRE SPECTRALLY GIVEN (Collini LOQUITUR). "One evening walking in the garden [at rural

Belvedere,after March 5th], talking of our situation, he asked me, 'Could you drive a coachandtwo?' I

stared at him a moment; but knowing that there must be no direct contradiction of his ideas, I said

'Yes.''Well, then, listen; I have thought of a method for getting away. You could buy two horses; a chariot

after that. So soon as we have horses, it will not appear strange that we lay in a little hay.''Yes, Monsieur;

and what should we do with that?' said I. 'LE VOICI (this is it). We will fill the chariot with hay. In the

middle of the hay we will put all our baggage. I will place myself, disguised, on the top of the hay; and give

myself out for a Calvinist Curate going to see one of his Daughters married in the next Town. You shall

drive: we take the shortest road for the Saxon Border; safe there, we sell chariot, horses, hay; then straight to

Leipzig, by post.' At which point, or soon after, he burst into laughing." [Collini, p. 53.]

VOLTAIRE TO FRIEDRICH ("Berlin, Belvedere," rural lodging, ["In the STRALAUER VORSTADT

(HODIE, Woodmarket Street):" Preuss's Note to this Letter, OEuvres de Frederic, xxii. 306 n.] "12th

March," 1753). "Sire, I have had a Letter from Konig, quite open, as my heart is. I think it my duty to send

your Majesty a duplicate of my Answer. ... Will submit to you every step of my conduct; of my whole life, in

whatever place I end it. I am Konig's friend; but assuredly I am much more attached to your Majesty; and if

he were capable the least in the world of failing in respect [as is rumored], I would"Enough!

FRIEDRICH RELENTS (To Voltaire; De Prades writing, Friedrich covertly dictating: no date). "The King

has held his Consistory; and it has there been discussed, Whether your case was a mortal sin or a venial? In

truth, all the Doctors owned that it was mortal, and even exceedingly confirmed as such by repeated lapses

and relapses. Nevertheless, by the plenitude of the grace of Beelzebub, which rests in the said King, he thinks

he can absolve you, if not in whole, yet in part. This would be, of course, in virtue of some act of contrition

and penitence imposed on you: but as, in the Empire of Satan, there is a great respect had of genius, I think,

on the whole, that, for the sake of your talents, one might pardon a good many things which do discredit to

your heart. These are the Sovereign Pontiff's words; which I have carefully taken down. They are a Prophecy

VOLTAIRE TO DE PRADES ("Belvedere, 15th March," 1753). "Dear Abbe, Your style has not appeared

to me soft. You are a frank Secretary of State:nevertheless I give you warning, it is to be a settled point

that I embrace you before going. I shall not be able to kiss you; my lips are too choppy from my devil of a

disorder [SCURVY, I hear]. You will easily dispense with my kisses; but don't dispense, I pray you, with my

"I own I am in despair at quitting you, and quitting the King; but it is a thing indispensable. Consider with our

dear Marquis [D'Argens], with Fredersdorf,PARBLEU, with the King himself, How you can manage that I

have the consolation of seeing him before I go. I absolutely will have it; I will embrace with my two arms the

Abbe and the Marquis. The Marquis sha'n't be kissed, any more than you; nor the King either. But I shall

perhaps fall blubbering; I am weak, I am a drenched hen. I shall make a foolish figure: never mind; I must,

once more, have sight of you two. If I cannot throw myself at the King's feet, the Plombieres waters will kill

me. I await your answer, to quit this Country as a happy or as a miserable man. Depend on me for life.V."

Three days after which, "evening of March 18th", [Collini, pp. 55, 56.] Voltaire, Collini with him and all his

packages, sets out for Potsdam; King's guest once more. Sees the King in person "after dinner, next day;"

stays with him almost a week, "quite gay together," "some private quizzing even of Maupertuis" (if we could

believe Collini or his master on that point); means "to return in October, when quite refitted,"does at least

(note it, reader), on that ground, retain his Cross and Key, and his Gift of the OEUVRE DE POESIES: which

he had much better have left! And finally, morning of March 25th) 1753, [Collini, p. 56; see Rodenbeck, i.

252.] drives off,towards Dresden, where there are Printing Affairs to settle, and which is the nearest safe

City;and Friedrich and he, intending so or not, have seen one another for the last time. Not quite intending

that extremity, either of them, I should think; but both aware that living together was a thing to be avoided

"Take care of your health, above all; and don't forget that I expect to see you again after the Waters!" such

was Friedrich's adieu, say the French Biographers, [Collini, p. 57; Duvernet, p. 186; OEuvres de Voltaire,

lxxv. 187 ("will return in October").] "who is himself just going off to the Silesian Reviews", add

they;who does, in reality, drive to Berlin that day; but not to the Silesian Reviews till May following. As

Voltaire, once safe on Saxon ground, was in no extreme haste for Plombieres. He deliberately settled his

Printing Affairs at Dresden; then at Leipzig;and scattered through Newspapers, or what portholes he had,

various fiery darts against Maupertuis; aggravating the humors in Berlin, and provoking Maupertuis to write

him an express Letter. Letter which is too curious, especially the Answer it gets, to be quite omitted:

"BERLIN, 3d APRIL, 1753. If it is true that you design to attack me again [with your LABEAUMELLE

doggeries and scurrilous discussions], I declare to you that I have still health enough to find you wherever

you are, and to take the most signal vengeance on you (VENGEANCE LA PLUS ECLATANTE). Thank the

respect and the obedience which have hitherto restrained my arm, and saved you from the worst adventure

"M. le President,I have had the honor to receive your Letter. You inform me that you are well; that your

strength is entirely returned; and that, if I publish La Beaumelle's Letter [private Letter of his, lent me by a

Friend, which proves that YOU set him against me], you will come and assassinate me. What ingratitude to

your poor medical man Akakia! ... If you exalt your soul so as to discern futurity, you will see that if you

come on that errand to Leipzig, where you are no better liked than in other places, and where your Letter is in

safe Legal hands, you run some risk of being hanged. Poor me, indeed, you will find in bed; and I shall have

nothing for you but my syringe and vessel of dishonor: but so soon as I have gained a little strength, I will

have my pistols charged CUM PULVERE PYRIO; and multiplying the mass by the square of the velocity, so

as to reduce the action and you to zero, I will put some lead in your head;it appears to have need of it.

ADIEU, MON PRESIDENT. AKAKIA." [Duvernet, pp. 186, 187; OEuvres de Voltaire, lxi. 5560.]

Here, in the history of Duelling, or challenging to mortal combat, is a unique article! At which the whole

world haha'd again; perhaps King Friedrich himself; though he was dreadfully provoked at it, too: "No

Dresden and Leipzig done with, Voltaire accepted an invitation to the Court of SachsenGotha (most polite

Serene Highnesses there, and especially a charming Duchess,who set him upon doing the ANNALES DE

L'EMPIRE, decidedly his worst Book). "About April 2lst" Voltaire arrived, stayed till the last days of May;

[ OEuvres de Voltaire, lxxv. 182 n. Clogenson's Note).] and had, for five weeks, a beautiful time at

Gotha;Wilhelmina's Daughter there (young Duchess of Wurtemberg, on visit, as it chanced),

[WilhelminaFriedrich Correspondence ( OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. iii. 258, 249).] and all manner of

graces, melodies and beneficences; a little working, too, at the ANNALES, in the big Library, between

whiles. Five decidedly melodious weeks. Beautiful interlude, or halfhour of orchestral fiddling in this

Voltaire Drama; halfhour which could not last! On the heel of which there unhappily followed an Afterpiece

or codicil to the Berlin Visit; which, so to speak, set the whole theatre on fire, and finished by explosion

worse than AKAKIA itself. A thing still famous to mankind;of which some intelligible notion must be left

The essence of the story is briefly this. Voltaire, by his fine deportment in parting with Friedrich, had been

allowed to retain his Decorations, his Letter of Agreement, his Royal BOOK OF POESIES (one of those

"Twelve Copies," printed AU DONJON DU CHATEAU, in happier times!)and in short, to go his ways as

a friend, not as a runaway or one dismissed. But now, by his late procedures at Leipzig, and "firings out of

portholes" in that manner, he had awakened Friedrich's indignation again,Friedrich's regret at allowing

him to take those articles with him; and produced a resolution in Friedrich to have them back. They are not

generally articles of much moment; but as marks of friendship, they are now all falsities. One of the articles

might be of frightful importance: that Book of Poesies; thriceprivate OEUVRE DE POESIES, in which are

satirical spurts affecting more than one crowned head: one shudders to think what fires a spiteful Voltaire

might cause by publishing these! This was Friedrich's idea;and by no means a chimerical one, as the Fact

proved; said OEUVRE being actually reprinted upon him, at Paris afterwards (not by Voltaire), in the crisis

of the SevenYears War, to put him out with his Uncle of England, whom it quizzed in passages. [Title of it

is, OEuvres du Philosophe de SansSouci (Paris, pretending to be "Potsdam," 1760), 1 vol. 12mo: at Paris,

"in January" this; whereupon, at Berlin, with despatch, "April 9th," "the real edition" (properly castrated) was

sent forth, under title, POESIES DIVERSES, 1 vol. big 8vo (Preuss, in OEuvres de Frederic, x. Preface, p. x.

See Formey, ii. 255, under date misprinted "1763").] "We will have those articles back," thinks Friedrich;

"that OEUVRE most especially! No difficulty: wait for him at Frankfurt, as he passes home; demand them of

him there." And has (directly on those new "firings through portholes" at Leipzig) bidden Fredersdorf take

measures accordingly. ["Friedrich to Wilhelmina, 12th April, 1753" ( OEuvres, xxvii. iii. 227).]

Fredersdorf did so; early in April and onward had his Official Person waiting at Frankfurt (one Freytag, our

Prussian Resident there, very celebrated ever since), vigilant in the extreme for Voltaire's arrival,and who

did not miss that event. Voltaire, arriving at last (May 31st), did, with Freytag's hand laid gently on his

sleeve, at once give up what of the articles he had about him;the OEUVRE, unluckily, not one of them;

and agreed to be under mild arrest ("PAROLE D'HONNEUR; in the LIOND'OR Hotel here!") till said

OEUVRE should come up. Under Fredersdorf's guidance, all this, and what follows; King Friedrich, after the

general Order given, had nothing more to do with it, and was gone upon his Reviews.

In the course of two weeks or more the OEUVRE DE POESIE did come. Voltaire was impatient to go. And

he might perhaps have at once gone, had Freytag been clearly instructed, so as to know the essential from the

unessential here. But he was not;poor subaltern Freytag had to say, on Voltaire's urgencies: "I will at once

report to Berlin; if the answer be (as we hope), 'All right,' you are that moment at liberty!" This was a thing

unexpected, astonishing to Voltaire; a thing demanding patience, silence: in three days more, with silence, as

turns out, it would have been all beautifully over,but he was not strong in those qualities!

Voltaire's arrest hitherto had been merely on his word of honor, "I promise, on my honor, not to go beyond

the Garden of this Inn." But he now, without warning anybody, privately revoked said word of honor; and

Collini and he, next morning, whisked shiftily into a hackneycoach, and were on the edge of being clear off.

To Freytag's terror and horror; who, however, caught them in time: and was rigorous enough now, and loud

enough;streetmob gathering round the transaction; Voltaire very loud, and Freytag too,the matter

taking fire here; and scenes occurring, which Voltaire has painted in a highly flagrant manner!

On the third day, Answer from Berlin had come, as expected; answer (as to the old score): "All right; let him

go!" But to punctual Freytag's mind, here is now a new considerable item of sundries: insult to his Majesty, to

wit; breaking his Majesty's arrest, in such insolent loud manner:and Freytag finds that he must write anew.

Post is very slow; and, though Fredersdorf answers constantly, from Berlin, "Let him go, let him go," there

have to be writings and rewritings; and it is not till July 7th (after a detention, not of nearly three weeks, as

it might and would have been, but of five and a day) that Voltaire gets off, and then too at full gallop, and in a

This is authentically the worldfamous Frankfurt Affair;done by Fredersdorf, as we say; Friedrich, absent

in Silesia, or in Preussen even, having no hand in it, except the original Order left with Fredersdorf. Voltaire

has used his flamingest colors on this occasion, being indeed dreadfully provoked and chagrined; painting the

thing in a very flagrant manner,known to all readers. Voltaire's flagrant Narrative had the round of the

world to itself, for a hundred years; and did its share of execution against Friedrich. Till at length, recently, a

precise impartial hand, the Herr Varnhagen, thought of looking into the Archives; and has, in a distinct,

minute and entertaining way, explained the truth of it to everybody;leaving the Voltaire Narrative in rather

sad condition. [Varnhagen von Ense, Voltaire in Frankfurt am Mayn, 1753 (separate, as here, 12mo, pp. 92;

or in Berliner Kalender for 1846).] We have little room; but must give, compressed, from Varnhagen and the

other evidences, a few of the characteristic points. The story falls into two Parts.

APRIL 11th, 1753 (few days after that of Maupertuis's Cartel, Voltaire having set to firing through

portholes again, and the King being swift in his resolution on it), Factotum Fredersdorf, who has a

freeflowing yet a steady and compact pen, directs Herr Freytag, our Resident at FrankfurtonMayn, To

procure from the Authorities there, on Majesty's request, the necessary powers; then vigilantly to look out for

Voltaire's arrival; to detain the said Voltaire, and, if necessary, arrest him, till he deliver certain articles

belonging to his Majesty: Cross of Merit, Gold Key, printed OEUVRE DE POESIES and Writings

(SKRIPTUREN) of his Majesty's; in short, various articles,the specification of which is somewhat

indistinct. In Fredersdorf's writing, all this; not so mathematically luminous and indisputable as in Eichel's it

would have been. Freytag put questions, and there passed several Letters between Fredersdorf and him; but it

was always uncomfortably hazy to Freytag, and he never understood or guessed that the OEUVRE DE

POESIES was the vital item, and the rest formal in comparison. Which is justly considered to have been an

unlucky circumstance, as matters turned. For help to himself, Freytag is to take counsel with one Hofrath

Schmidt; a substantial experienced Burgher of Frankfurt, whose rathship is Prussian.

APRIL 21st, Freytag answers, That Schmidt and he received his Majesty's Allgracious Orders the day

before yesterday (Post takes eight days, it would seem); that they have procured the necessary powers; and

are now, and will be, diligently watchful to execute the same. Which, one must say, they in right earnest are;

patrolling about, with lips strictly closed, eyes vividly open; and have a man or two privately on watch at the

likely stations, on the possible highways;and so continue, Voltaire doing his ANNALS OF THE EMPIRE,

and enjoying himself at Gotha, for weeks after, ["Left Gotha 25th May " (Clog. in OEuvres de Voltaire, xxv.

Freytag is in no respect a shining Diplomatist;probably some EMERITUS Lieutenant, doing his function

for 30 pounds a year: but does it in a practical solid manner. Writes with stiff brevity, stiff but distinct; with

perfect observance of grammar both in French and German; with good practical sense, and faithful effort to

do aright what his order is: no trace of "MonSIR," of "OEuvre de PoesHie," to be found in Freytag; and most,

or all, of the ridiculous burs stuck on him by Voltaire, are to be pulled off again asas fibs, or fictions,

solacing to the afflicted Wit. Freytag is not of quick or bright intellect: and unluckily, just at the crisis of

Voltaire's actual arrival, both Schmidt and Fredersdorf are off to Embden, where there is "Grand Meeting of

the Embden Shipping Company" (with comfortable dividends, let us hope),and have left Freytag to his

THURSDAY, MAY 31st, "about eight in the evening," Voltaire does arrive,most prosperous journey

hitherto, by Cassel, Marburg, Warburg, and other places famous then or since; Landgraf of Hessen (wise

Wilhelm, whom we knew) honorably lodging him; innkeepers calling him "Your Excellency," or "M. le

Comte;"and puts up at the Golden Lion at Frankfurt, where rooms have been ordered; Freytag well aware,

FRIDAY MORNING, JUNE 1st) "his Excellency and Suite" (Voltaire and Collini) have their horses

harnessed, carriage out, and are about taking the road again,when Freytag, escorted by a Dr. Rucker,

"Frankfurt Magistrate DE MAUVAISE MINE," [Collini, p. 77.] and a Prussian recruiting Lieutenant,

presents himself in Voltaire's apartment! Readers know Voltaire's account and MonSIR Collini's; and may

"Introductory civilities done (NACH GEMACHTEN POLITESSEN), I made him acquainted with the will of

your most Allgracious Majesty. He was much astonished (BESTURZT," no wonder); "he shut his eyes, and

flung himself back in his chair." [Varnhagen, p. 16.] Calls in his friend Collini, whom, at first, I had requested

to withdraw. Two coffers are produced, and opened, by Collini; visitation, punctual, long and painful, lasted

from nine A.M. till five P.M. Packets are made,a great many Papers, "and one Poem which he was

unwilling to quit" (perilous LA PUCELLE);inventories are drawn, duly signed. Packets are signeted,

mutually sealed, Rucker claps on the Townseal first, Freytag and Voltaire following with theirs. "He made

thousand protestations of his fidelity to your Majesty; became pretty weak [like fainting, think you, Herr

Resident?], and indeed he looks like a skeleton.We then made demand of the Book, OEUVRE DE

POESIES: That, he said, was in the Big Case; and he knew not whether at Leipzig or Hamburg" (knew very

well where it was); and finding nothing else would do, wrote for it, showing Freytag the Letter; and engaged,

Upon which,what is farther to be noted, though all seems now settled,Freytag, at Voltaire's earnest

entreaty, "for behoof of Madame Denis, a beloved Niece, Monsieur, who is waiting for me hourly at

Strasburg, whom such fright might be the death of!"puts on paper a few words (the few which Voltaire has

twisted into "MonSIR," "PoesHies" and so forth), to the effect, "That whenever the OEUVRE comes,

Voltaire shall actually have leave to go." And so, after eight hours, labor (nine A.M. to five P.M.), everything

is hushed again. Voltaire, much shocked and astonished, poor soul, "sits quietly down to his ANNALES"

(says Collini),to working, more or less; a resource he often flies to, in such cases. Madame Denis, on

receiving his bad news at Strasburg, sets off towards him: arrives some days before the OEUVRE and its Big

Case. King Friedrich had gone, May 1st) for some weeks, to his Silesian Reviews; June 1st (very day of this

great sorting in the Lion d'Or), he is off again, to utmost Prussia this time;and knows, hitherto and till quite

... Voltaire cannot have done much at his ANNALS, in this interim at the Golden Lion, "where he has liberty

to walk in the Garden." He has been, and is, secretly corresponding, complaining and applying, all round, at a

great rate: to Count Stadion the Imperial Excellency at Mainz, to French friends, to Princess Wilhelmina,

ultimately to Friedrich himself. [In OEuvres de Voltaire, lxxv. 207214, Letters to Stadion (of strange

enough tenor: see Varnhagen, pp. 30, In OEuvres de Frederic, xxii. 303, and in OEuvres de Voltaire, lxxv.

185, is the Letter to Friedrich (dateless, totally misplaced, and rendered unintelligible, in both Works): Letter

SENT through Wilhelmina (see her fine remarks in forwarding it, OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. iii. 234).] He

has been receiving visits, from Serene Highnesses, "Duke of Meiningen" and the like, who happen to be in

Town. Visit from iniquitous Dutch Bookseller, Van Duren (Printer of the ANTIMACHIAVEL); with whom

we had such controversy once. Iniquitous, now opulent and prosperous, Van Duren, happening to be here,

will have the pleasure of calling on an old distinguished friend: distinguished friend, at sight of him entering

the Garden, steps hastily up, gives him a box on the ear, without words but an interjection or two; and

vanishes within doors. That is something! "Monsieur," said Collini, striving to weep, but unable, "you have

had a blow from the greatest man in the world." [Collini, p. 182.] In short, Voltaire has been exciting great

MONDAY, 18th JUNE, the Big Case, lumbering along, does arrive. It is carried straight to Freytag's; and at

eleven in the morning, Collini eagerly attends to have it opened. Freytag,to whom Schmidt has returned

from Embden, but no Answer from Potsdam, or the least light about those SKRIPTUREN,is in the depths

of embarrassment; cannot open, till he know completely what items and SKRIPTUREN he is to make sure of

on opening: "I cannot, till the King's answer come!""But your written promise to Voltaire?" "Tush, that

was my own private promise, Monsieur; my own private prediction of what would happen; a thing PRO

FORMA", and to save Madame Denis's life. Patience; perhaps it will arrive this very day. Come again to me

at three P.M.;there is Berlin post today; then again in three days:I surely expect the Order will come by

this post or next; God grant it may be by this!" Collini attends at three; there is Note from Fredersdorf: King's

Majesty absent in Preussen all this while; expected now in two days. Freytag's face visibly brightens: "Wait

till next post; three days more, only wait!" [Varnhagen, pp. 3941.] And in fact, by next post, as we find, the

OPENSESAME did punctually come. Voltaire, and all this big cawing rookery of miseries and rages, would

have at once taken wing again, into the serene blue, could Voltaire but have had patience three days more!

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20th, Voltaire and Collini ("word. of honor" fallen dubious to them, dubious or

more),havmg laid their plan, striving to think it fair in the circumstances,walk out from the Lion d'Or,

"Voltaire in blackvelvet coat," [Ib. p. 46.] with their valuablest effects (LA PUCELLE and moneybox

included); leaving Madame Denis to wait the disimprisonment of OEUVRE DE POESIE and wind up the

general business. Walk out, very gingerly,duck into a hackneycoach; and attempt to escape by the Mainz

Gate! Freytag's spy runs breathless with the news; never was a Freytag in such taking. Terrified Freytag has

to "throw on his coat;" order out three men to gallop by various routes; jump into some Excellency's coach

(kind Excellency lent it), which is luckily standing yoked near by; and shoot with the velocity of life and

death towards Mainz Gate. Voltaire, whom the wellaffected Porter, suspecting something, has rather been

retarding, is still there: "Arrested, in the King's name!"and there is such a scene! For Freytag, too, is now

raging, ignited by such percussion of the terrors; and speaks, not like what they call "a learned sergeant", but

like a drilled sergeant in heat of battle: Vol taire's tongue, also, and Collini's,"Your Excellenz never heard

such brazenfaced lies thrown on a man; that I had offered, for 1,000 thalers, to let them go; that I had" In

"Freytag [to give one snatch from Collini's side] got into the carriage along with us, and led us, in this way,

across the mob of people to Schmidt's [to see what was to be done with us]. Sentries were put at the gate to

keep out the mob; we are led into a kind of countingroom; clerk, maid and manservants are about;

Madam Schmidt passes before Voltaire with a disdainful air, to listen to Freytag, recounting," in the tone not

of a LEARNED sergeant, what the matter is. They seize our effects; under violent protest, worse than vain.

"Voltaire demands to have at least his snuffbox, cannot do without snuff; they answer, 'It is usual to take

"His," Voltaire's, "eyes were sparkling with fury; from time to time he lifted them on mine, as if to interrogate

me. All on a sudden, noticing a door half open, he dashes through it, and is out. Madam Schmidt forms her

squad, shopmen and three maid servants; and, at their head, rushes after. 'What?' cries he, (cannot I be

allowed toto vomit, then?'" They form circle round him, till he do it; call out Collini, who finds him "bent

down, with his fingers in his throat, attempting to vomit; and is terrified; 'MON DIEU, are you ill, then?' He

answered in a low voice, tears in his eyes, 'FINGO, FINGO (I pretend,'" and Collini leads him back, RE

INFECTA. "The Author of the HENRIADE and MEROPE; what a spectacle! [Collini, pp. 81, 86.] ... Not for

two hours had they done with their writings and arrangings. Our portfolios and CASSETTE (moneybox)

were thrown into an empty trunk [what else could they be thrown into?]which was locked with a padlock,

and sealed with a paper, Voltaire's arms on the one end, and Schmidt's cipher on the other. Dorn, Freytag's

Clerk, was bidden lead us away. Sign of the BOUC" (or BILLYGOAT; there henceforth; LION D,OR

refusing to be concerned with us farther); twelve soldiers; Madame Denis with curtains of bayonets,and

other wellknown flagrancies. ... The 7th of July, Voltaire did actually go; and then in an extreme hurry,by

his own blame, again. These final passages we touch only in the lump; Voltaire's own Narrative of these

being so copious, flamingly impressive, and still known to everybody. How much better for Voltaire and us,

had nobody ever known it; had it never been written; had the poor hubbub, no better than a chance streetriot

all of it, after amusing old Frankfurt for a while, been left to drop into the gutters forever! To Voltaire and

Had there but been, among one's resources, a little patience and practical candor, instead of all that

vituperative eloquence and power of tragicomic description! Nay, in that case, this wretched streetriot

hubbub need not have been at all. Truly M. de Voltaire had a talent for speech, but lamentably wanted that of

silence! We have now only the sad duty of pointing out the principal mendacities contained in M. de

Voltaire's worldfamous Account (for the other side has been heard since that); and so of quitting a painful

business. The principal mendacitiesdeducting all that about "POE'ShIE" and the like, which we will define

1. That of the considerable files of soldiers (almost a Company of Musketeers, one would think) stuck up

round M. de Voltaire and Party, in THE BILLYGOAT; Madame Denis's bedcurtains being a screen of

bayonets, and the like. The exact number of soldiers I cannot learn: "a SCHILDWACHE of the Townguard

[means one; surely does not mean Four?] for each prisoner," reports the arithmetical Freytag; which, in the

extreme case, would have been twelve in whole (as Collini gives it); and "next day we reduced them to two",

2. That of the otherwise frightful night Madame Denis had; "the fellow Dorn [Freytag's Clerk, a poor,

hardworked frugal creature, with frugal wife and family not far off] insisting to sit in the Lady's bedroom;

there emptying bottle after bottle; nay at last [as Voltaire bethinks him, after a few days] threatening to"

Plainly to EXCEL all belief! A thing not to be spoken of publicly: indeed, what Lady could speak of it at all,

except in hints to an Uncle of advanced years?Proved fact being, that Madame Denis, all in a flutter, that

first night at THE BILLYGOAT, had engaged Dorn, "for a louisd'or," to sit in her bedroom; and did

actually pay him a louisd'or for doing so! This is very bad mendacity; clearly conscious on M. de Voltaire's

3. Very bad also is that of the moneys stolen from him by those Official people. M. de Voltaire knows

well enough how he failed to get his moneys, and quitted Frankfurt in a hurry! Here, inexorably certain from

the Documents, and testimonies on both parts, is that final Passage of the long Firework: last crackle of the

JULY 6th, complete OPENSESAME having come, Freytag and Schmidt duly invited Voltaire to be present

at the opening of seals (his and theirs), and to have his moneys and effects returned from that "old trunk" he

speaks of. But Voltaire had by this time taken a higher flight. July 6th, Voltaire was protesting before

Notaries, about the unheardof violence done him, the signal reparations due; and disdained, for the moment,

to concern himself with moneys or opening of seals: "Seals, moneys? Ye atrocious Highwaymen!"

Upon which, they sent poor Dorn with the sealed trunk in CORPORE, to have it opened by Voltaire himself.

Collini, in THE BILLYGOAT, next morning (July 7th)) says, he (Collini) had just loaded two

journeypistols, part of the usual carriagefurniture, and they lay on the table. At sight of poor Dorn

darkening his chamberdoor, Voltaire, the prey of various flurries and highflown vehemences, snatched one

of the pistols ("pistol without powder, without flint, without lock," says Voltaire; "efficient pistol just

loaded", testifies Collini);snatched said pistol; and clicking it to the cock, plunged Dornward, with

furious exclamations: not quite unlikely to have shot Dorn (in the fleshy parts),had not Collini hurriedly

struck up his hand, "MON DIEU, MONSIEUR!" and Dorn, with trunk, instantly vanished. Dorn, naturally,

ran to a Lawyer. Voltaire, dreading Trial for intended Homicide, instantly gathered himself; and shot away,

self and Pucelle with Collini, clear off; leaving Niece Denis, leaving moneys and other things, to wait till

After due lapse of days, in the due legal manner, the Trunk was opened; "the 19 pounds of expenses" (19

pounds and odd shillings, not 100 pounds or more, as Voltaire variously gives it) was accurately taken from it

by Schmidt and Freytag, to be paid where due,(in exact liquidation, "Landlord of THE BILLYGOAT" so

much, "HackneyCoachmen, Riding Constables sent in chase," so much, as per bill);and the rest, 76

pounds 10s. was punctually locked up again, till Voltaire should apply for it. "Send it after him," Friedrich

answered, when inquired of; "send it after him; but not [reflects he] unless there is somebody to take his

Receipt for it,"our gentleman being the man he is. Which case, or any application from Voltaire, never

turned up. "Robbed by those highwaymen of Prussian Agents!" exclaimed Voltaire everywhere, instead of

applying. Never applied; nor ever forgot. Would fain have engaged Collini to apply,especially when the

French Armies had got into Frankfurt,but Collini did not see his way. [Three Letters to Collini on the

So that, except as consolatory scoldingstock for the rest of his life, Voltaire got nothing of his 76 pounds

10s., "with jewels and snuffbox," always lying ready in the Trunk for him. And it had, I suppose, at the long

last, to go by RIGHT OF WINDFALL to somebody or other:unless, perhaps, it still lie, overwhelmed

under dust and lumber, in the garrets of the old Rathhaus yonder, waiting for a legal owner? What became of

it, no man knows; but that no doit of it ever went Freytag's or King Friedrich's way, is abundantly evident. On

the whole, what an entertaining Narrative is that of Voltaire's; but what a pity he had ever written it!

This was the finishing Catastrophe, tragical exceedingly; which went loudsounding through the world, and

still goes,the more is the pity. Catastrophe due throughout to three causes: FIRST, That Fredersdorf, not

Eichel, wrote the Order; and introduced the indefinite phrase SKRIPTUREN, instead of sticking by the

OEUVRE DE POESIES, the one essential point. SECOND, That Freytag was of heavy pipeclay nature.

THIRD, That Voltaire was of impatient explosrve nature; and, in calamities, was wont, not to be silent and

consider, but to lift up his voice (having such a voice), and with passionate melody appeal to the Universe,

"The poor Voltaire, after all!" ejaculates Smelfungus. "Lean, of no health, but melodious extremely (in a

shallow sense); and truly very lonely, old and weak, in this world. What an end to Visit Fifth; began in

Olympus, terminates in the Lockup! His conduct, except in the Jew Case, has nothing of bad, at least of

unprovokedly bad. 'Lost my teeth,' said he, when things were at zenith. 'Thought I should never weep

again,'now when they are at nadir. A sore blow to one's Vanity, in presence of assembled mankind; and

made still more poignant by noises of one's own adding. France forbidden to him [by expressive signallings];

miraculous Goshen of Prussia shut: (these old eyes, which I thought would continue dry till they closed

forever, were streaming in tears;'" [Letter from "Mainz, 9th July," third day of rout or flight; To Niece Denis,

How Voltaire now wanders about for several years, doing his ANNALES, and other Works; now visiting

Lyon City (which is all in GAUDEAMUS round him, though Cardinal Tencin does decline him as

dinnerguest); now lodging with Dom Calmet in the Abbey of Senones (ultimately in one's own firstfloor,

in Colmar near by), digging, in Calmet's Benedictine Libraries, stuff for his ANNALES; wandering about

(chiefly in Elsass, latterly on the Swiss Border), till he find rest for the sole of his foot: [Purchased LES

DELICES (The Delights), as he named it, a glorious Summer Residence, on the Lake, near Geneva

(supplemented by a Winter ditto, MONRION, near Lausanne), "in Febrnary, 1755" ( OEuvres, xvii. 243

n.);then purchased FERNEY, not far off, "in October, 1758;" and continued there, still more glorious, for

almost twenty years thenceforth (ib. lxxvii. 398, xxxix. 307: thank the exact "Clog." for both these Notes).]

all this may be known to readers; and we must say nothing of it. Except only that, next year, in his tent, or

hired lodgings at Colmar, the Angels visited him (Abraham like, after a sort). Namely, that one evening

(late in October, 1754), a knock came to his door, "Her Serene Highness of Baireuth wishes to see you, at the

Inn over there!" "Inn, Baireuth, say you? Heavens, what?"Or, to take it in the prose form:

"January 26th, 1753, about eight P.M. [while Voltaire sat desolate in Francheville's, far away], the Palace at

Baireuth,Margraf with candle at an open window, and gauze curtains nearhad caught fire; inexorably

flamed up, and burnt itself to ashes, it and other fine edifices adjoining. [Holle, STADT BAYREUTH

(Bayreuth, 1833), p. 178.] Wilhelmina is always very ill in health; they are now rebuilding their Palace:

Margraf has suggested, 'Why not try Montpellier; let us have a winter there!' On that errand they are (end of

October, 1754) got the length of Colmar; and do the Voltaire miracle in passing. Very charming to the poor

"'Eight hours in a piece, with the Sister of the King of Prussia" writes he: think of that, my friends! 'She

loaded me with bounties; made me a most beautiful present. Insisted to see my Niece; would have me go with

them to Montpellier.' [Letters (in OEuvres, lxxv. 450, 452), "Colmar, 23d October, 1754."] Other interviews

and meetings they had, there and farther on: Voltaire tried for the Montpellier; but could not. [Wrote to

Friedrich about it (one of his first Letters after the Explosion), applying to Friedrich "for a Passport" or Letter

of Protection; which Friedrich answers by De Prades, openly laughing at it ( OEuvres, xxiii. 6).] Wilhelmina

wintered at Montpellier, without Voltaire "Thank your stars!' writes Friedrich to her. The

FriedrichWilhelmina LETTERS are at their best during this Journey; here unfortunately very few).

[ OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. iii. 248273 (September, 1754, and onwards).] Winter done, Wilhelmina went

still South, to Italy, to Naples, back by Venice:at Naples, undergoing the Grotto del Cane and

neighborhood, Wilhelmina plucked a Sprig of Laurel from Virgil's Grave, and sent it to her Brother in the

These points, hurriedly put down, careful readers will mark, and perhaps try to keep in mind. Wilhelmina's

Tourings are not without interest to her friends. Of her Voltaire acquaintanceship, especially, we shall hear

again. With Voltaire, Friedrich himself had no farther Correspondence, or as good as none, for four years and

more. What Voltaire writes to him (with Gifts of Books and the like, in the tenderest regretful pathetically

COOING tone, enough to mollify rocks), Friedrich usually answers by De Prades, if at all,in a quite

discouraging manner. In the end of 1757, on what hint we shall see, the Correspondence recommenced, and

Voltaire at Potsdam is a failure, then. Nothing to be made of that. Law is reformed; Embden has its Shipping

Companies; Industry flourishes: but as to the Trismegistus of the Muses coming to our Hearth! Some Eight

of Friedrich's years were filled by these Three grand Heads of Effort; perfect Peace in all his borders: and in

1753 we see how the celestial one of them has gone to wreck. "Understand at last, your Majesty, that there is

no Muses'Heaven possible on Telluric terms; and cast that notion out of your head!"

Friedrich does cast it out, more and more, henceforth,"ACH, MEIN LIEBER SULZER, what was your

knowledge, then, of that damned race?" Casts it out, we perceive,and in a handsome silently stoical way.

Cherishing no wrath in his heart against any poor devil; still, in some sort, loving this and the other of them;

Chasot, Algarotti, Voltaire even, who have gone from him, too weak for the place: "Too weak, alas, yes; and

I, was I wise to try them, then?" With a fine humanity, new hope inextinguishably welling up; really with a

Eight of the Eleven Peace Years are gone in these courses. The next three, still silent and smooth to the

outward eye, were defaced by subterranean mutterings, electric heralds of coming storm. "Meaning battle and

wrestle again?" thinks Friedrich, listening intent. A far other than welcome message to Friedrich. A message

ominous; thrice unwelcome, not to say terrible. Requires to be scanned with all one's faculty; to be

interpreted; to be obeyed, in spite of one's reluctances and lazinesses. To plunge again into the Mahlstrom,

into the clash of Chaos, and dive for one's Silesia, the third time;horrible to lazy human nature: but if the

The public Events so called, which have been occupying mankind during this Voltaire Visit, require now

mainly to be forgotten; and may, for our purposes, be conveniently riddled down to Three. FIRST,

KingoftheRomans Question; SECOND, EnglishPrivateer Question; and then, hanging curiously related

to these Two, a THIRD, or "EnglishFrench Canada Question." Of some importance all of them; extremely

Witty Hanbury Williams, the English Excellency at Berlin, busy intriguing little creature, became distasteful

there, long since; and they had to take him away: "recalled," say the Documents, "22d January, 1751." Upon

which, no doubt, he made a noise in Downing Street; and got, it appears, "recredentials to Berlin, 4th

March, 1751;" [Manuscript LIST in StatePaper Office.] but I think did not much reside, nor intend to reside;

having all manner of wandering Continental duties to do; and a world of petty businesses and widespread

intrigues, Russian, German and other, on hand. Robinson, too, is now home; returned, 1748 (Treaty of Aix in

his pocket); and an Excellency Keith, more and more famous henceforth, has succeeded him in that Austrian

post. Busy people, these and others; now legationing in Foreign parts: able in their way; but whose work

proved to be that of spinning ropes from sand, and must not detain us at this time.

The errand of all these Britannic Excellencies is upon a notable scheme, which Royal George and his

Newcastle have devised, Of getting all made tight, and the Peace of Aix doubleriveted, so to speak, and

rendered secure against every contingency,by having Archduke Joseph at once elected "King of the

Romans." King of the Romans straightway; whereby he follows at once as Kaiser, should his Father die; and

is liable to no French or other intriguing; and we have taken a bond of Fate that the Balance cannot be canted

again. Excellent scheme, think both these heads; and are stirring Germany with all their might, purse in hand,

to cooperate, and do it. Inconceivable what trouble these prescient minds are at, on this uncertain matter. It

was Britannic Majesty's and Newcastle's main problem in this world, for perhaps four years (17491753):

"My own child," as a fond Noodle of Newcastle used to call it; though I rather think it was the other that

begot the wretched object, but had tired sooner of nursing it under difficulties.

Unhappily there needs unanimity of all the Nine Electors. The poorer you can buy; "Bavarian Subsidy," or

annual pension, is only 45,000 pounds, for this invaluable object; Koln is onlya mere trifle: [Debate on

"Bavarian Subsidy" (in Walpole, George the Second, i. 49): endless Correspondence between Newcastle and

his Brother (curious to read, though of the most longeared description on the Duke's part), in Coxe's

Pelham, ii, 338465 ("31st May, 17503d November, 1752"): precise Account (if anybody now wanted it),

in Adelung, vii. 146, 149, 154, et seq.] trifles all, in comparison of the sacred Balance, and dear Hanover kept

scathless. But unfortunately Friedrich, whom we must not think of buying, is not enthusiastic in the cause!

Far from it. The now Kaiser has never yet got him, according to bargain, a ReichsGuarantee for the Peace of

Dresden; and needs endless flagitating to do it. [Does it, at length, by way of furtherance to this

RomishKing Business, "23d January14th May, 1751" ( Adelung, vii. 217).] The chase of security and

aggrandizement to the House of Austria is by no means Friedrich's chief aim! This of King of the Romans

It was very triumphant, and I think at its hopefulest, in 1750, soon after starting,when Excellency Hanbury

first appeared at Berlin on behalf of it. That was Excellency Hanbury's first journey on this errand; and he

made a great many more, no man readier; a stirring, intriguing creature (and always with such moneys to

distribute); had victorious hopes now and then,which one and all proved fatuous. ["June, 1750," Hanbury

for Berlin (Britannic Majesty much anxious Hanbury were there): Hanbury to Warsaw next (hiring Polish

Majesty there); at Dresden, does make victorious Treaty, September, 1751; at Vienna, 1753 (still on the aawe

quest). Coxe's Pelham, ii. 339, 196, 469.] In 1751 and 1752, the darling Project met cross tides, foul winds,

political whirlpools ("Such a set are those German Princes!")and swam, indomitable, though near

desperate, as Project seldom did; till happily, in 1753, it sank drowned:and left his Grace of Newcastle

"Owing mainly to Friedrich's opposition!" exclaimed Noodle and the Political Circles. Which(though it

was not the fact; Friedrich's opposition, once that ReichsGuarantee of his own was got, being mostly

passive, "Push it through the stolid element, then, YOU stolid fellows, if you can!")awoke considerable

outcry in England. Lively suspicion there, of treasonous intentions to the Cause of Liberty, on his Prussian

Majesty's part; andcoupled with other causes that had risena great deal of illnature, in very dark

condition, against his Prussian Majesty. And it was not Friedrich's blame, chiefly or at all. If indeed Friedrich

would have forwarded the Enterprise:but he merely did not; and the element was viscous, stolid. Austria

itself had wished the thing; but with nothing like such enthusiasm as King George;to whom the refusal, by

Friedrich and Fate, was a bitter disappointment. Poor Britannic Majesty: Archduke Joseph came to be King

of the Romans, in due course; right enough. And long before that event (almost before George had ended his

vain effort to hasten it), Austria turned on its pivot; and had clasped, not England to its bosom, but France

(thanks to that exquisite Kaunitz); and was in arms AGAINST England, dear Hanover, and the Cause of

Liberty! Vain to look too far ahead,especially with those fisheyes. Smelfungus has a Note on Kaunitz;

readable, though far too irreverent of that superlative Diplomatist, and unjust to the real human merits he had.

"The struggles of Britannic George to get a King of the Romans elected were many. Friedrich never would

bite at this salutary scheme for strengthening the House of Austria: 'A bad man, is not he?' And all the while,

the Court of Austria seemed indifferent, in comparison;and Graf von KaunitzRietberg, Ambassador at

Paris, was secretly busy, wheeling Austria round on its axis, France round on its; and bringing them to

embrace in political wedlock! Feat accomplished by his Excellency Kaunitz (Paris, 17521753);

accomplished, not consummated; left ready for consummating when he, Kaunitz, now home as Prime

Minister, or helmsman on the new tack, should give signal. Thought to be one of the cleverest feats ever done

"Admirable feat, for the Diplomatic art which it needed; not, that I can see, for any other property it had. Feat

which brought, as it was intended to do, a Third Silesian War; death of about a million fighting men, and

endless woes to France and Austria in particular. An exquisite Diplomatist this Kaunitz; came to be Prince,

almost to be GodBrahma in Austria, and to rule the Heavens and Earth (having skill with his Sovereign

Lady, too), in an exquisite and truly surprising manner. Sits there sublime, like a gilt crockery Idol, supreme

"One reads all Biographies and Histories of Kaunitz: [Hormayr's (in OEsterreichischer Plutarch, iv. 3tes,

231283); one catches evidence of his well knowing his Diplomatic element, and how to rule it and impose

on it. Traits there are of human cunning, shrewdness of eye;of the loftiest silent human pride, stoicism,

perseverance of determination,but not, to my remembrance, of any conspicuous human wisdom whatever,

One asks, Where is his wisdom? Enumerate, then, do me the pleasure of enumerating, What he contrived that

the Heavens answered Yes to, and not No to? All silent! A man to give one thoughts. Sits like a

GodBrahma, human idol of gilt crockery, with nothing in the belly of it (but a portion of boiled chicken

daily, very illdigested); and such a prostrate worship, from those around him, as was hardly seen elsewhere.

Grave, inwardly unhappy looking; but impenetrable, uncomplaining. Seems to have passed privately an Act

of Parliament: 'KaunitzRietberg here, as you see him, is the greatest now alive; he, I privately assure

you!'and, by continued private determination, to have got all men about him to ratify the same, and accept

it as valid. Much can be done in that way with stupidish populations; nor is Beau Brummel the only instance

"Kaunitz is a man of long hollow face, nose naturally rather turned into the air, till artificially it got altogether

turned thither. Rode beautifully; but always under cover; day by day, under glass roof in the ridingschool, so

many hours or minutes, watch in hand. Hated, or dreaded, fresh air above everything: so that the Kaiserinn, a

noble lover of it, would always goodhumoredly hasten to shut her windows when he made her a visit.

Sumptuous suppers, soirees, he had; the pink of Nature assembling in his house; galaxy, domestic and

foreign, of all the Vienna Stars. Through which he would walk one turn; glancing stoically, over his nose, at

the circumambient whirlpool of nothings,happy the nothing to whom he would deign a word, and make

him something. O my friends!In short, it was he who turned Austria on its axis, and France on its, and

brought them to the kissing pitch. Pompadour and Maria Theresa kissing mutually, like Righteousness

andnot PEACE, at any rate! 'MA CHERE COUSINE,' could I have believed it, at one time?"

A SECOND PrussianEnglish cause of offence had arisen, years ago, and was not yet settled; nay is now

(Spring, 1753) at its height or crisis: Offence in regard to English Privateering.

Friedrich, ever since OstFriesland was his, has a considerable Foreign Trade,not as formerly from Stettin

alone, into the Baltic Russian ports; but from Embden now, which looks out into the Atlantic and the general

waters of Europe and the World. About which he is abundantly careful, as we have seen. Anxious to go on

good grounds in this matter, and be accurately neutral, and observant of the Maritime Laws, he had, in 1744,

directly after coming to possession of OstFriesland, instructed Excellency Andrie, his Minister in London,

to apply at the fountainhead, and expressly ask of my Lord Carteret: "Are hemp, flax, timber contraband?"

"No," answered Carteret; Andrie reported, No. And on this basis they acted, satisfactorily, for above a year.

But, in October, 1745, the English began violently to take PLANKS for contraband; and went on so, and ever

worse, till the end of the War. [Adelung, vii. 334.] Excellency Andrie has gone home; and a Secretary of

Legation, Herr Michel, is now here in his stead:a good few dreary old Pamphlets of Michel's publishing

(official Declaration, official Arguments, Documents, in French and English, 4to and 8vo, on this extinct

subject), if you go deep into the dustbins, can be disinterred here to this day. Tread lightly, touching only

the chief summits. The Haggle stretches through five years, 17481753,and then at last ceases

"JANUARY 8th, 1748 [War still on foot, but near ending], Michel applies about injuries, about various

troubles and unjust seizures of ships; Secretary Chesterfield answers, 'We have an Admiralty Court; beyond

question, right shall be done.' 'Would it were soon, then!' hints Michel. Chesterfield, who is otherwise

"FEBRUARY, 1748. Admiralty being still silent, Michel applies by Memorial, in a specific case: 'Two

Stettin Ships, laden with wine from Bordeaux, and a third vessel,' of some other Prussian port, laden with

corn; taken in Ramsgate Roads, whither they had been driven by storm: 'Give me these Ships back!'

Memorial to his Grace of Newcastle, this. Upon which the Admiralty sits; with deliberation, decides (June,

1748), 'Yes!' And 'there is hope that a Treaty of Commerce will follow;' [ Gentleman's Magazine, xviii. (for

"On the contrary, his Prussian Majesty's Merchants, perhaps encouraged by this piece of British justice, came

forward with more and ever more complaints and instances. To winnow the strictly true out of which, from

the halftrue or not provable, his Prussian Majesty has appointed a 'Commission,'" fit people, and under strict

charges, I can believe, "Commission takes (to Friedrich's own knowledge) a great deal of pains;and it does

not want for clean corn, after all its winnowing. Plenty of facts, which can be insisted on as indisputable.

'Such and such Merchant Ships [Schedules of them given in, with every particular, time, name, cargo, value]

have been laid hold of on the Ocean Highway, and carried into English Ports;OUT of which his Prussian

Majesty has, in all Friendliness, to beg that they be now redelivered, and justice done.' 'Contraband of War,'

answer the English; 'sorry to have given your Majesty the least uneasiness; but they were carrying''No,

pardon me; nothing contraband discoverable in them;' and hands in his verified Schedules, with perfectly

polite, but more and more serious request, That the said ships be restored, and damages accounted for. 'Our

Prize Courts have sat on every ship of them,' eagerly shrieks Newcastle all along: 'what can we do!' 'Nay a

Special Commission shall now [1751, date not worth seeking farther]special Commission shall now sit, till

"English Special Commission, counterpart of that Prussian one (which is in vacation by this time), sits

accordingly: but is very slow; reports for a long while nothing, except, 'Oh, give us time!' and reports, in the

end, nothing in the least satisfactory. ["Have entirely omitted the essential points on which the matter turns;

and given such confused account, in consequence, that it is not well possible to gather from their Report any

clear and just idea of it at all." (Verdict of the PRUSSIAN Commission: which had been reassembled by

Friedrich, on this Report from the English one, and adjured to speak only "what they could answer to God, to

the King and to the whole world," concerning it: Seyfarth, ii. 183.)] 'Prize Courts? Special Commission?'

thinks Friedrich: 'I must have my ships back!' And, after a great many months, and a great many haggles,

Friedrich, weary of giving time, instructs Michel to signify, in proper form ('23d November, 1752'), 'That the

Law's delay seemed to be considerable in England; that till the fulness of time did come, and right were done

his poor people, he, Friedrich himself, would hopefully wait; but now at last must, provisionally, pay his poor

people their damages;would accordingly, from the 23d day of April next, cease the usual payment to

English Bondholders on their Silesian Bonds; and would henceforth pay no portion farther of that Debt,

principal or interest [about 250,000 pounds now owing], but proceed to indemnify his own people from it, to

the just length,and deposit the remainder in Bank, till Britannic Majesty and Prussian could UNITE in

ordering payment of it; which one trusts may be soon!'" [Walpole, i. 295; Seyfarth, ii. 183, 157; Adelung, vii.

"November 23d, 1752, resolved on by Friedrich;" "consummated April 23d, 1753:" these are the dates of this

decisive passage (Michel's biggest Pamphlet, French and English, issuing on the occasion). February 8th,

1753, no redress obtainable, poor Newcastle shrieks, "Can't, must n't; astonishing!" and "the people are in

great wrath about it. April 12th, Friedrich replies, in the kindest terms; but sticking to his point." [Adelung,

vii. 336338.] And punctually continued so, and did as he had said. With what rumor in the City,

commentaries in the Newspapers and flutter to his Grace of Newcastle, may be imagined. "What a Nephew

have I!" thinks Britannic Majesty: "Hah, and Embden, OstFriesland, is not his. Embden itself is mine!" A

great deal of illnature was generated, in England, by this one affair of the Privateers, had there been no

other: and in dark cellars of men's minds (empty and dark on this matter), there arose strange caricature

Portraitures of Friedrich: and very mad notionsof Friedrich's perversity, astucity, injustice, malign and

dangerous intentionsare more or less vocal in the Old Newspapers and Distinguished Correspondences of

To what height the humor of the English ran against Friedrich is still curiously noticeable, in a small

Transaction of tragic ExJacobite nature, which then happened, and in the commentaries it awoke in their

imagination. Cameron of Lochiel, who forced his way through the NetherBow in Edinburgh, had been a

notable rebel; but got away to France, and was safe in some military post there. Dr. Archibald Cameron,

Lochiel's Brother, a studious contemplative gentleman, bred to Physic, but not practising except for charity,

had quitted his books, and attended the Rebel March in a medical capacity,"not from choice," as he

alleged, "but from compulsion of kindred;"and had been of help to various Loyalists as well; a foe of

Human Pain, and not of anything else whatever: in fact, as appears, a very mild form of Jacobite Rebel. He

too got, to France; but had left his Wife, Children and frugal Patrimonies behind him, and had to return in

proper concealment, more than once, to look after them. Two Visits, I think two, had been successfully

March 12th, 1753, wind of him being had, and the slothounds uncoupled and put on his trail, poor Cameron

was unearthed "at the Laird of Glenbucket's," and there laid hold of; locked in Edinburgh Castle,thence to

the Tower, and to Trial for High Treason. Which went against him; in spite of his fine pleadings, and manful

conciliatory appearances and manners. Executed 7th June, 1753. His poor Wife had twice squeezed her way

into the Royal Levee at Kensington, with Petition for mercy;fainted, the first time, owing to the press and

the agitation; but did, the second time, fall on her knees before Royal George, and supplicate,who had to

The truth is, poor Cameronthough, I believe, he had some vague Jacobite errands withalnever would

have harmed anybody in the rebel way; and might with all safety have been let live. But his Grace of

Newcastle, and the English generally, had got the strangest notion into their head. Those appointments of Earl

Marischal to Paris, of Tyrconnel to Berlin; Friedrich's nefarious spoiling of that salutary RomishKing

Project; and now simultaneous with that, his nefarious oonduct in our Privateer Business: all this, does it not

prove himas the Hanburys, Demon Newswriters and wellinformed persons have taught usto be one of

the worst men living, and a King bent upon our ruin? What is certain, though now wellnigh inconceivable, it

was then, in the upper Classes and Political Circles, universally believed, That this Dr. Cameron was properly

an "Emissary of the King of Prussia's;" that Cameron's errand here was to rally the Jacobite embers into new

flame;and that, at the first clear sputter, Friedrich had 15,000 men, of his best PrussianSpartan troops,

ready to ferry over, and help Jacobitism to do the matter this time! [Walpole, George the Second, i. 333, 353;

and Letters to Horace Mann (Summer, 1753), for the belief held. Adelung, vii. 338341, for the poor

About as likely as that the Cham of Tartary had interfered in the "Bangorian Controversy" (raging, I believe,

some time since,in Cremorne Gardens fist of all, which was Bishop Hoadly's Place,to the terror of

mitres and wigs); or that, the Emperor of China was concerned in Meux's PorterBrewery, with an eye to sale

of NUX VOMICA. Among all the Kings that then were, or that ever were, King Friedrich distinguished

himself by the grand human virtue (one of the most important for Kings and for men) of keeping well at

home, of always minding his own affairs. These were, in fact, the one thing he minded; and he did that

well. He was vigilant, observant all round, for weathersymptoms; thoroughly well informed of what his

neighbors had on hand; ready to interfere, generally in some judicious soft way, at any moment, if his own

Countries or their interests came to be concerned; certain, till then, to continue a speculative observer merely.

He had knowledge, to an extent of accuracy which often surprised his neighbors: but there is no instance in

which he meddled where he had no business;and few, I believe, in which he did not meddle, and to the

Later in his Reign, in the time of the American War (1777), there is, on the English part, in regard to

Friedrich, an equally distracted notion of the same kind brought to light. Again, a conviction, namely, or

moralcertainty, that Friedrich is about assisting the American Insurgents against us;and a very strange

and indubitable step is ordered to be taken in consequence. [ OEuvres de Frederic, xxvi. 394 (Friedrich to

Prince Henri, 29th June, 1777.)] As shall be noticed, if we have time. No enlightened Public, gazing for forty

or fifty years into an important Neighbor Gentleman, with intent for practical knowledge of him, could well,

though assisted by the cleverest Hanburys, and Demon and Angel Newswriters, have achieved less!

Question THIRD is But Question Third, so extremely important was it in the sequel, will deserve a

Question Third, FrenchEnglish Canada Question, is no other than, under a new form, our old friend the

inexorable JENKINS'SEAR QUESTION; soul of all these Controversies, andexcept Silesia and

Friedrich's Questionthe one meaning they have! Huddled together it had been, at the Peace of

AixlaChapelle, and left for closed under "New Spanish Assiento Treaty," or I know not what:you

thought to close it by Diplomatic putty and varnish in that manner: and here, by law of Nature, it comes

welling up on you anew. For IT springs from the Centre, as we often say, and is the fountain and determining

element of very large Sections of Human History, still hidden in the unseen Time.

"Ocean Highway to be free; for the English and others who have business on it?" The English have a real and

weighty errand there. "English to trade and navigate, as the Law of Nature orders, on those Seas; and to

ponderate or preponderate there, according to the real amount of weight they and their errand have? OR,

English to have their ears torn off; and imperious FrenchSpanish Bourbons, grounding on extinct

Pope'smeridians, GLOIRE and other imaginary bases, to take command?" The incalculable Yankee Nations,

shall they be in effect YANGKEE ("English" with a difference), or FRANGCEE ("French" with a

By Treaty of Utrecht (1713), "all Nova Scotia [ACADIE as then called], with Newfoundland and the adjacent

Islands," was ceded to the English, and has ever since been possessed by them accordingly. Unluckily that

Treaty omitted to settle a Line of Boundary to landward, or westward, for their "NOVA SCOTIA;" or

generally, a Boundary from NORTH TO SOUTH between the British Colonies and the French in those parts.

The Treaty of AixlaChapelle, eager to conclude itself, stipulated, with great distinctness, that Cape Breton,

all its guns and furnishings entire, should be restored at once (France extremely anxious on that point); but for

the rest had, being in such haste, flung itself altogether into the principle of STATUS QUOANTE, as the

short way for getting through. The boundary in America was vaguely defined, as "now to be what it had been

before the War." It had, for many years before the War, been a subject of constant altercation. ACADIE, for

instance, the NOVA SCOTIA of the English since Utrecht time, the French maintained to mean only "the

Peninsula", or Nook included between the Ocean Waters and the Bay of Fundy. And, more emphatic still, on

the "Isthmus" (or narrow space, at northwest, between said Bay and the Ocean or the Gulf of St. Lawrence)

they had built "Forts:" "Stockades," or I know not what, "on the Missaquish" (HODIE Missiquash), a

winding difficult river, northmost of the Bay of Fundy's rivers, which the French affirm to be the real limit in

that quarter. The sparse French Colonists of the interior, subjects of England, are not to be conciliated by

perfect toleration of religion and the like; but have an invincible proclivity to join their Countrymen outside,

and wish well to those Stockades on the Missiquash. It must be owned, too, the French Official People are far

from scrupulous or squeamish; show energy of management; and are very skilful with the Indians, who are an

important item. Canada is all French; has its Quebecs, Montreals, a St. Lawrence River occupied at all the

Southward and westward, France, in its exuberant humor, claims for itself The whole Basin of the St.

Lawrence, and the whole Basin of the Mississippi as well: "Have not we Stockades, Castles, at the military

points; Fortified Places in Louisiana itself?" Yes;and how many Ploughed Fields bearing Crop have you?

It is to the good Plougher, not ultimately to the good Cannonier, that those portions of Creation will belong?

The exuberant intention of the French is, after getting back Cape Breton, "To restrict those aspiring English

Colonies," mere Ploughers and Traders, hardly numbering above one million, "to the Space eastward of the

Alleghany Mountains," over which they are beginning to climb, "and southward of that Missiquash, or, at

farthest, of the Penobscot and Kennebunk" (rivers HODIE in the State of Maine). [La Gallisonniere,

Governor of Canada's DESPATCH, "Quebec, 15th January, 1749" (cited in Bancroft, History of the United

States, Boston, 1839, et seq.). "The English Inhabitants are computed at 1,051,000; French (in Canada

45,000, in Louisiana 7,000), in all 52,000:" History of British Dominions in North America (London, 1773),

p. 13. Bancroft (i. 154) counts the English Colonists in "1754 about 1,200,000."] That will be a very pretty

Parallelogram for them and their ploughs and tradepacks: we, who are 50,000 odd, expert with the rifle far

beyond them, will occupy the rest of the world. Such is the French exuberant notion: and, October, 1745,

before signature at AixlaChapelle, much more before Delivery of Cape Breton, the Commandant at Detroit

(west end of Lake Erie) had received orders, "To oppose peremptorily every English Establishment not only

thereabouts, but on the Ohio or its tributaries; by monition first; and then by force, if monition do not serve."

Establishments of any solidity or regularity the English have not in those parts; beyond the Alleghanies all is

desert: "from the Canada Lakes to the Carolinas, mere huntingground of the Six Nations; dotted with here

and there an English tradinghouse, or adventurous Squatter's farm:"to whom now the French are to say:

"Home you, instantly; and leave the Desert alone!" The French have distinct Orders from Court, and

energetically obey the same; the English have indistinct Orders from Nature, and do not want energy, or mind

to obey these: confusions and collisions are manifold, ubiquitous, continual. Of which the history would be

tiresome to everybody; and need only be indicated here by a mark or two of the main passages.

In 1749, three things had occurred worth mention. FIRST, Captain Coram, a publicspirited halfpay

gentleman in London, originator of the Foundling Hospital there, had turned his attention to the fine

capabilities and questionable condition of NOVA SCOTIA, with few inhabitants, and those mostly

disaffected; and, by many efforts now forgotten, had got the Government persuaded to despatch (June, 1749)

a kind of Halfpay or Military Colony to those parts: "more than 1,400 persons disbanded officers, soldiers

and marines, under Colonel Edward Cornwallis," Brother of the since famous Lord Cornwallis. [Coxe's

Pelham, ii. 113.] Who landed, accordingly, on that rough shore; stockaded themselves in, hardily

endeavoring and enduring; and next year, built a Town for themselves; Town of HALIFAX (so named from

the then Lord Halifax, President of the Board of Trade); which stands there, in more and more conspicuous

manner, at this day. Thanks to you, Captain Coram; though the ungrateful generations (except dimly in

CORAM Street, near your Hospital) have lost all memory of you, as their wont is. Blockheads; never mind

The SECOND thing is, an "Ohio Company" has got together in Virginia; Governor there encouraging;

Britannic Majesty giving Charter (March, 1749), and what is still easier, "500,000 Acres of Land" in those

Ohio regions, since you are minded to colonize there in a fixed manner. Britannic Majesty thinks the Country

"between the Monongahela and the Kanahawy" (southern feeders of Ohio) will do best; but is not particular.

Ohio Company, we shall find, chose at last, as the eligible spot, the topmost fork or very Head of the

Ohio,where Monongahela River from south and Alleghany River from north unite to form "The Ohio;"

where stands, in our day, the big sooty Town of Pittsburg and its industries. Ohio Company was laudably

eager on this matter; LandSurveyor in it (nay, at length, "Colonel of a Regiment of 150 men raised by the

Ohio Company") was Mr. George Washington, whose Family had much promoted the Enterprise; and who

was indeed a steadygoing, considerate, close mouthed Young Gentleman; who came to great distinction in

French Governor (La Gallisonniere still the man), getting wind of this Ohio Company still in embryo,

anticipates the birth; sends a vigilant Commandant thitherward, "with 300 men, To trace and occupy the

Valleys of the Ohio and of the St. Lawrence, as far as Detroit." That officer "buries plates of lead," up and

down the Country, with inscriptions signifying that "from the farthest ridge, whence water trickled towards

the Ohio, the Country belonged to France; and nails the Bourbon Lilies to the foresttrees; forbidding the

Indians all trade with the English; expels the English traders from the towns of the Miamis; and writes to the

Governor of Pennsylvania, requesting him to prevent all farther intrusion." Vigilant Governors, these French,

and well supported from home. Duquesne, the vigilant successor of La Gallisonniere (who is now wanted at

home, for still more important purposes, as will appear), finding "the lead plates" little regarded, sends, by

and by, 500 new soldiers from Detroit into those Ohio parts (march of 100 miles or so);"the French

Government having, in this year 1750, shipped no fewer than 8,000 men for their American

Garrisons;"and where the Ohio Company venture on planting a Stockade, tears it tragically out, as will be

The THIRD thing worth notice, in 1749, and still more in the following year and years, had reference to Nova

Scotia again. One La Corne, "a recklessly sanguinary partisan" (military gentleman of the Trenck,

INDIGOTrenck species), nestles himself (winter, 174950) on that Missiquash River, head of the Bay of

Fundy; in the Village of Chignecto, which is admittedly English ground, though inhabited by French. La

Corne compels, or admits, the Inhabitants to swear allegiance to France again; and to make themselves useful

in fortifying, not to say in drilling,with an eye to military work. Hearing of which, Colonel Cornwallis and

incipient Halifax are much at a loss. They in vain seek aid from the Governor of Massachusetts ("Assembly

to be consulted first, to be convinced; Constitutional rights:Nothing possible just, at once");and can only

send a party of 400 men, to try and recover Chignecto at any rate. April 20th, 1750, the 400 arrive there;

order La Corne instantly to go. Bourbon Flag is waving on his dikes, this side the Missiquash: high time that

he and it were gone. "Village Priest [flamingly orthodox, as all these Priests are, all picked for the business],

with his own hands, sets fire to the Church in Chignecto; "inhabitants burn their houses, and escape across the

river,La Corne as rearguard. La Corne, across the Missiquash, declares, That, to a certainty, he is now on

French ground; that he will, at all hazards, defend the Territory here; and maintain every inch of it,"till

regular Commissioners [due ever since the Treaty of Aix, had not that ROMISHKING Business been so

pressing] have settled what the Boundary between the two Countries is."Chignecto being ashes, and the

neighboring population gone, Cornwallis and his Four Hundred had to return to Halifax.

It was not till Autumn following, that Chignecto could be solidly got hold of by the Halifax people; nor till a

long time after, that La Corne could be dislodged from his stockades, and sent packing. [ Gentleman's

Magazine, xx. 539, 295.] September, 1750, a new Expedition on Chignecto found the place populous again,

Indians, French "Peasants" (seemingly Soldiers of a sort); who stood very fiercely behind their defences, and

needed a determined onrush, and "volley close into their noses," before disappearing. This was reckoned the

first military bloodshed (if this were really military on the French side). And in November following, some

small British Cruiser on those Coasts, falling in with a French Brigantine, from Quebec, evidently carrying

military stores and solacements for La Corne, seized the same; by force of battle, since not otherwise,three

men lost to the British, five to the French,and brought it to Halifax. "Lawful and necessary!" says the

Admiralty Court; "Sheer Piracy!" shriek the French; matters breaking out into actual flashes of flame, in

British Commissions, two in number, names not worth mention, have, at last, in this Year 1750, gone to

Paris; and are holding manifold conferences with French ditto,to no "purpose, any of them. One reads the

dreary tattle of the Duke of Newcastle upon it, in the Years onward: "Just going to agree," the Duke hopes;

"some difficulties, but everybody, French and English, wanting mere justice; and our and their

Commissioners being in such a generous spirit, surely they will soon settle it." [His Letters, in Coxe's

Pelham, ii. 407 ("September, 1751"), They never did or could; and steadily it went on worsening.

That notable private assertion of the French, That Canada and Louisiana mean all America West of the

Alleghanies, had not yet oozed out to the English; but it is gradually oozing out, and that England will have to

content itself with the moderate Country lying east of that Blue range. "Not much above a million of you",

say the French; "and surely there is room enough East of the Alleghanies? We, with our couple of Colonies,

are the real America;counting, it is true, few settlers as yet; but there shall be innumerable; and, in the

mean while, there are ArmyDetachments, Blockhouses, fortified Posts, command of the Rivers, of the

Indian Nations, of the waterhighways and military keys (to you unintelligible); and we will make it good!"

The exact cipher of the French (guessed to be 50,000), and their precise relativevalue as tillers and subduers

of the soil, in these Two Colonies of theirs, as against the English Thirteen, would be interesting to know:

curious also their little bill, of trouble taken in creating the Continent of America, in discovering it, visiting,

surveying, planting, taming, making habitable for man:and what Rhadamanthus would have said of those

Two Documents! Enough, the French have taken some trouble, more or less, especially in sending soldiers

out, of late. The French, to certain thousands, languidly tilling, hunting and adventuring, and very skilful in

wheedling the Indian Nations, are actually there; and they, in the silence of Rhadamanthus, decide that merit

shall not miss its wages for want of asking. "Ours is America West of the Alleghanies," say the French,

"Yours? Yours, of all people's?" answer the English; and begin, with lethargic effort, to awake a little to that

stupid Foreign Question; important, though stupid and foreign, or lying far off. Who really owned all

America, probably few Englishmen had ever asked themselves, in their dreamiest humors, nor could they

now answer; but, that North America does not belong to the French, can be doubtful to no English creature.

Pitt, Chatham as we now call him, is perhaps the Englishman to whom, of all others, it is least doubtful. Pitt

is in Office at last,in some subaltern capacity, "Paymaster of the Forces" for some years past, in spite of

Majesty's dislike of the outspoken man;and has his eyes bent on America;which is perhaps (little as you

In 1753 (28th August of that Year), goes message from the Home Government, "Stand on your defence, over

there! Repel by force any Foreign encroachments on British Dominions." [Holderness, OR Robinson our old

friend.] And directly on the heel of this, November, 1753, the Virginia Governor,urged, I can believe, by

the Ohio Company, who are lying windbound so long,despatches Mr. George Washington to inquire

officially of the French Commandant in those parts, "What he means, then, by invading the British

Territories, while a solid Peace subsists?" Mr. George had a long ride up those desert ranges, and down again

on the other side; waters all out, ground in a swash with December rains, no help or direction but from

wampums and wigwams: Mr. George got to Ohio Head (two big Rivers, Monongahela from South,

Alleghany from North, coalescing to form a doublebig Ohio for the Far West); and thought to himself,

"What an admirable threelegged place: might be Chief Post of those regions,nestegg of a diligent Ohio

Company.!" Mr. George, some way down the Ohio River, found a strongish French Fort, logbarracks, "200

riverboats, with more building," and a French Commandant, who cannot enter into questions of a diplomatic

nature about Peace and War: "My orders are, To keep this Fort and Territory against all comers; one must do

one's orders, Monsieur: Adieu!" And the steadfast Washington had to return; without result,except that of

the admirable Threelegged Place for dropping your Nestegg, in a commanding and defenceful way!

Ohio Company, painfully restrained so long in that operation, took the hint at once. Despatched, early in

1754, a Party of some Forty or Thirtythree stout fellows, with arms about them, as well as tools, "Go build

us, straightway, a Stockade in the place indicated; you are warranted to smite down, by shot or otherwise, any

gainsayer!" And furthermore, directly got on foot, and on the road thither, a "regiment of 150 men,"

Washington as Colonel to it, For perfecting said Stockade, and maintaining it against all comers.

Washington and his Hundredandfiftywagonage, provender and a piece or two of cannon, all well

attended tovigorously climbed the Mountains; got to the top 27th May, 1754; and there MET the

Thirtythree in retreat homewards! Stockade had been torn out, six weeks ago (17th April last); by

overwhelming French Force, from the Gentleman who said ADIEU, and had the riverboats, last Fall. And,

instead of our Stockade, they are now building a regular French Fort,FORT DUQUESNE, they call it, in

honor of their Governor Duquesne:against which, Washington and his regiment, what are they?

Washington, strictly surveying, girds himself up for the retreat; descends diligently homewards again, French

and Indians rather harassing his rear. Intrenches himself, 1st July, at what he calls "Fort Necessity," some

way down; and the second day after, 3d July, 1754, is attacked in vigorous military manner. Defends himself,

what he can, through nine hours of heavy rain; has lost thirty, the French only three;and is obliged to

capitulate: "Free Withdrawal" the terms given. This is the last I heard of the Ohio Company; not the last of

Washington, by any means. Ohio Company,its judicious Nestegg squelched in this manner, nay become a

By this time, surely high time now, serious military preparations were on foot; especially in the various

Colonies most exposed. But, as usual, it is a thing of most admired disorder; every Governor his own King or

ViceKing, horses are pulling different ways: small hope there, unless the Home Government (where too I

have known the horses a little discrepant, unskilful in harness!) will seriously take it in hand. The Home

Government is taking it in hand; horses willing, if a thought unskilful. Royal Highness of Cumberland has

selected General Braddock, and Two Regiments of the Line (the two that ran away at Prestonpans,ABSIT

OMEN). Royal Highness consults, concocts, industriously prepares, completes; modestly certain that here

About Newyear's day, 1755, Braddock, with his Two Regiments and completed apparatus, got to sea.

Arrived, 20th February, at Williamsburg in Virginia ("at Hampden, near there," if anybody is particular);

found now that this was not the place to arrive at; that he would lose six weeks of marching, by not having

landed in Pennsylvania instead. Found that his Stores had been mispacked at Cork,that this had happened,

and also that;and, in short, that Chaos had been very considerably prevalent in this Adventure of his; and

did still, in all that now lay round it, much prevail. Poor man: very brave, they say; but without knowledge,

except of fielddrill; a heart of iron, but brain mostly of pipeclay quality. A man severe and rigorous in

regimental points; contemptuous of the Colonial Militias, that gathered to help him; thricecontemptuous of

the Indians, who were a vital point in the Enterprise ahead. Chaos is very strong,especially if within

oneself as well! Poor Braddock took the Colonial Militia Regiments, Colonel Washington as AidedeCamp;

took the Indians and Appendages, Colonial Chaos much presiding: and after infinite delays and confused

Got on march; sprawled and haggled up the Alleghanies,such a Commissariat, such a wagonservice, as

was seldom seen before. Poor General and Army, he was like to be starved outright, at one time; had not a

certain Mr. Franklin come to him, with charitable oxen, with 500 poundsworth provisions live and dead,

subscribed for at Philadelphia,Mr Benjamin Franklin, since celebrated over all the world; who did not

much admire this irontempered General with the pipeclay brain. [Franklin's AUTOBIOGRAPHY;

Gentleman's Magazine, xxv. 378.] Thereupon, however, Braddock took the road again; sprawled and

staggered, at the long last, to the top; "at the top of the Alleghanies, 15th June;"and forward down upon

FORT DUQUESNE, "roads nearly perpendicular in some places," at the rate of "four miles" and even of "one

mile per day." Much wood all about,and the 400 Indians to rear, in a despised and disgusted condition,

July 8th, Braddock crossed the Monongahela without hindrance. July 9th, was within ten miles of FORT

DUQUESNE; plodding along; marching through a wood, when,Ambuscade of French and Indians burst

out on him, French with defences in front and store of squatted Indians on each flank,who at once blew

him to destruction, him and his Enterprise both. His men behaved very ill; sensible perhaps that they were not

led very well. Wednesday, 9th July, 1755, about three in the afternoon. His two regiments gave one volley

and no more; utterly terrorstruck by the novelty, by the misguidance, as at Prestonpans before; shot, it was

whispered, several of their own Officers, who were furiously rallying them with word and sword: of the sixty

Officers, only five were not killed or wounded. Brave men clad in soldier's uniform, victims of military

Chaos, and miraculous Nescience, in themselves and in others: can there be a more distressing spectacle?

Imaginary workers are all tragical, in this world; and come to a bad end, sooner or later, they or their

representatives here: but the Imaginary Soldierhe is paid his wages (he and his poor Nation are) on the

Braddock, refusing to fall back as advised, had five horses shot under him; was himself shot, in the arm, in

the breast; was carried off the field in a deathstupor,forward all that night, next day and next (to Fort

Cumberland, seventy miles to rear);and on the fourth day died. The Colonial Militias had stood their

ground, Colonel Washington now of some use again;who were ranked well to rearward; and able to

receive the ambuscade as an open fight. Stood striving, for about three hours. And would have saved the

retreat; had there been a retreat, instead of a panic rout, to save. The poor Generalebbing homewards, he

and his Enterprise, hour after hourroused himself twice only, for a moment, from his deathstupor: once,

the first night, to ejaculate mournfully, "Who would have thought it!" And again once, he was heard to say,

days after, in a tone of hope, "Another time we will do better!" which were his last words, "death following in

a few minutes." Weary, heavyladen soul; deep Sleep now descending on it,soft sweet cataracts of Sleep

and Rest; suggesting hope, and triumph over sorrow, after all:"Another time we will do better;" and in few

minutes was dead! [Manuscript JOURNAL OF GENERAL BRADDOCK'S EXPEDITION IN 1755 (British

Museum: King's Library, 271 e, King's Mss. 212): rawmaterial, this, of the Official Account ( London

Gazette, August 26th, 1755), where it is faithfully enough abridged. Will perhaps be printed by some

inquiring PITTSBURGHER, one day, after good study on the ground itself? It was not till 1758 that the

bones of the slain were got buried, and the infant Pittsburg (now so busy and smoky) rose from the ashes of

The Colonial Populations, who had been thinking of Triumphal Arches for Braddock's return, are struck to

the nadir by this news. French and Indians break over the Mountains, harrying, burning, scalping; the Black

Settlers fly inward, with horror and despair: "And the Home Government, too, can prove a broken reed?

What is to become of us; whose is America to be?"And in fact, under such guidance from Home

Governments and Colonial, there is no saying how the matter might have gone. To men of good judgment,

and watching on the spot, it was, for years coming, an ominous dubiety,the chances rather for the French,

"who understand war, and are all under one head." [Governor Pownal's Memorial (of which INFRA), in

Thackeray's Life of Chatham. ] But there happens to be in England a Mr. Pitt, with royal eyes more and more

indignantly set on this Business; and in the womb of Time there lie combinations and conjunctures. If the

The English had, before this, despatched their Admiral Boscawen, to watch certain Warships, which they

had heard the French were fitting out for America; and to intercept the same, by capture if not otherwise.

Boscawen is on the outlook, accordingly; descries a French fleet, Coast of Newfoundland, first days of June;

loses it again in the fogs of the GulfStream; but has, June 9th (a month before that of Braddock), come up

with Two Frigates of it, and, after short broadsiding, made prizes of them. And now, on this Braddock

Disaster, orders went, "To seize and detain all French Ships whatsoever, till satisfaction were had." And,

before the end of this Year, about "800 French ships (value, say, 700,000 pounds)" were seized accordingly,

where seizable on their watery ways. Which the French ("our own conduct in America being so undeniably

proper") characterized as utter piracy and robbery;and getting no redress upon it, by demand in that style,

had to take it as no better than meaning Open War Declared. [Paris, December 21st, 1755, Minister Rouille's

Remonstrance, with menace "UNLESS:" London, January 13th, 1756, Secretary Fox's reply, "WELL

THEN, NO!" Due official "Declaration of War" followed: on the English part, "17th May, 1756;" "9th June,"

The Burning of AKAKIA, and those foolish MaupertuisVoltaire Duellings (by syringe and pistol) had by no

means been Friedrich's one concern, at the time Voltaire went off. Precisely in those same months, Carnival

17521753, King Friedrich had, in a profoundly private manner, come upon certain extensive AntiPrussian

Symptoms, Austrian, Russian, Saxon, of a most dangerous, abstruse, but at length indubitable sort; and is,

ever since, prosecuting his investigation of them, as a thing of life and death to him! Symptoms that there

may well be a THIRD Silesian War ripening forward, inevitable, and of weightier and fiercer quality than

ever. So the Symptoms indicate to Friedrich, with a fatally increasing clearness. And, of late, he has to reflect

withal: "If these FrenchEnglish troubles bring War, our Symptoms will be ripe!" As, in fact, they proved to

King Friedrich's investigations and decisions on this matter will be touched upon, farther on: but readers can

take, in the mean time, the following small Documentary Piece as Note of Preparation. The facts shadowed

forth are of these Years now current (17521755), though this judicial Deposition to the Facts is of ulterior

In the course of 1756, as will well appear farther on, it became manifest to the Saxon Court and to all the

world that somebody had been playing traitor in the Dresden Archives. Somebody, especially in the Foreign

Department; copying furtively, and imparting to Prussia, Despatches of the most secret, thricesecret and

thrice dangerous nature, which lie reposited there! Who can have done it? Guesses, researcher, were many:

at length suspicion fell on one Menzel, a KANZELLIST (Government Clerk), of good social repute, and

superior official ability; who is not himself in the Foreign Department at all; but whose way of living, or the

like sign, had perhaps seemed questionable. In 1757, Menzel, and the Saxon Court and its businesses, were

all at Warsaw; Menzel dreaming of no disturbance, but prosecuting his affairs as formerly,when, one day,

September 24th (the slothounds, long scenting and tracking, being now at the mark), Menzel and an

Associate of his were suddenly arrested. Confronted with their crimes, with the proofs in readiness; and next

day,made a clear Confession, finding the matter desperate otherwise, Copy of which, in Notarial form,

exact and indisputable, the reader shall now see. As this story, of Friedrich and the Saxon Archives, was very

famous in the world, and mythic circumstances are prevalent, let us glance into it with our own eyes, since

"AT WARSAW, 25th SEPTEMBER, 1757: This day, in the King's Name, in presence of Legationsrath von

Saul, Hofrath Ferbers and Kriegsrath von Gotze the Undersigned: Examination of the KabinetsKanzellist

Menzel, arrested yesterday, and now brought from his place of arrest to the Royal Palace;who,

"His name is Friedrich Wilhelm Menzel; age thirtyeight; is a son of the late Hofrath and Privyreferendary

Menzel, who formerly was in the King's service, and died a few years back. Has been seventeen years

Kanzellist at the GEHEIME CABINETSCANZLEI (Secret Archive); had taken the oath when he entered on

"Acknowledges some Slips of Paper (ZETTEL), now shown to him, to be his handwriting: they contained

news intended to be communicated to the Prussian Secretary Benoit, now residing here", at Dresden

"Confesses that he has employed, here as well as previously in Dresden, his Brotherinlaw, the journeyman

goldsmith Erfurth (who was likewise arrested yesterday), to convey to the Prussian Secretaries, Plessmann

and Benoit, such pieces and despatches from the Secret Cabinet, especially the Foreign department, as he,

"Confesses having received, by degrees, since the year 1752, from the Prussian Minister (ENVOYE) von

Mahlzahn, and the Secretaries Plessmann and Benoit, for such communications, the sum of 3,000 thalers (450

"Was led into these treasonable practices by the following circumstance: He owed at that time 100 thalers on

a Promissory Note, to a certain Rhenitz, who then lived (HIELT SICH AUF) at Dresden, and who pressed

him much for payment. As he pleaded inability to pay, Rhenitz hinted that he could put him into the way of

getting money; and accordingly, at last, took him to the then Prussian Secretary Hecht, at Dresden; by whom

he was at once carried to the Prussian Minister von Mahlzahn; who gave him 100 thalers (15 pounds), with

the request to communicate to him, now and then, news from the Archive of the Cabinet. For a length of time

Prisoner could not accomplish this; as the said Von Mahlzahn wanted Pieces from the Foreign Office, and

especially the Correspondence with the two Imperial Courts of Austria and Russia. These papers were locked

in presses, which Prisoner could not get at; moreover, the Court had, in the mean time, gone to Warsaw,

Prisoner remaining at Dresden. In that way, many months passed without his being able to communicate

anything; till, at last, about December, 1752, the Secretary Plessmann gave him a whole bunch of keys, which

were said to be sent by Privycounsellor Eichel of Potsdam [whom we know], to try whether any of them

would unlock the presses of the Foreign Department. But none of them would; and Prisoner returned the

"And, about three weeks after this, Plessmann provided Prisoner with another set of keys; among which one

did unlock said presses. With this key Prisoner now repeatedly opened the presses; and provided Plessmann,

whenever required,oftenest, with Petersburg Despatches. Had also, three years ago (1754), here in

Warsaw, communicated Vienna Despatches, three or four times, to Benoit; especially on Sundays and

"The actual first of these Communications did not take place till after EasterFair, 1753; Prisoner not having,

till said Fair, received the second bunch of keys from Plessmann. Now and then he had to communicate

French Despatches. Whenever he gave original Despatches, he received them back shortly after, and replaced

them in the presses. During this present stay of the Court at Warsaw, has communicated little to Benoit

except from the CIRCULARS [Legation NEWSLETTERS], when he found anything noteworthy in them;

also, now and then, the Ponikau Despatches [Ponikau being at the Reich's Diet, in circumstances interesting

to us]. Has received, one time and another, several 100 thalers from Benoit, since the Court came hither

"He is named Johann Benjamin Erfurth; a goldsmith by trade; age thirtytwo; the Prisoner Menzel's

"Confesses that Menzel had made use of him, at Dresden, during one year: to deliver, several times, sealed

papers to the Prussian Secretary Plessmann, or rather mostly to Plessmann's servant. Also that, here in

Warsaw, he has had to carry Despatches to Benoit, and to deliver them into his own hands. Latterly he has

delivered the Despatches to certain Prussian peasants, who stopped at Benoit's, and who always relieved each

other; and every time, the one who went away directed Prisoner, in turn, to him that arrived.

"He received from Menzel, yesterday towards noon, a small sealed packet, which he was to convey to the

Prussian peasant who had made an appointment with him at the Prussian Office (HOF) here. But as he was

going to take it, and had just got outside of the Palace Court, a corporal took hold of him and arrested him.

Confesses having concealed the parcel in his trouserspocket, and to have denied that he had anything upon

"Plessmann never himself came into the Archive Office at Dresden; except the one time [a time that will be

notable to us!] when the Prussians were there to take away the Papers by force; then Plessmann was with

"Before leaving Dresden for Poland, last Year (1756), he, Menzel, had returned the said key to Plessmann;

who gave him others for use here. After his arrival here, he returned these keys to Benoit, in the presence of

Erfurth; saying, they were of no use to him, and that he could not get at the Despatches here. Prisoner farther

declares, that it was the Minister von Mahlzahn who, of his own accord, and quite at the beginning, made the

proposal concerning the keys; and when Plessmann brought the keys, he said expressly they were for the

Minister, along with fifty thalers, which he, Menzel, received at the same time. ACTUM UT SUPRA."

Signed as before. [ HeldenGeschichte, v. 677 (as BEYLAGE or Appendix to the KurSachsen "PRO

We could give some of the stolen Pieces, too; but they are of abstruse tenor, and would be mere enigmas to

readers here. Enough that Friedrich understands them. To Friedrich's intense and longcontinued scrutiny,

they indicate, what is next to incredible, but is at length fatally undeniable, That the old TREATY, which we

called OF WARSAW, "Treaty for Partitioning Prussia," is still (in spite of all subsequent and superincumbent

Treaties to the contrary) vigorously alive underground; that Saxon Bruhl and her Hungarian Majesty, to

whom is now added Czarish Majesty, are fixed as ever on cutting down this afflictive, too aspiring King of

Prussia to the size of a Brandenburg Elector; busy (in these Menzel Documents) considering how it may be

done, especially how the bear skin may be SHARED;and that, in short, there lies ahead, inevitable

Which punctually came true. The THIRD SILESIAN WARsince called SEVENYEARS WAR, that

proving to be the length of itis now near. Breaks out, has to break out, August, 1756. The heaviest and

direst struggle Friedrich ever had; the greatest of all his Prowesses, Achievements and Endurances in this

world. And, on the whole, the last that was very great, or that is likely to be memorable with Posterity. Upon

which, accordingly, we must try our utmost to leave some not untrue notion in this place: and that once

In 1755 it was that Voltaire wrote, not the first Letter, but the first very notable one, to his Royal Friend, after

their great quarrel: [Dated "The DELICES, near Geneva, 4th August, 1755" (in Rodenbeck, i. 287; in

OEuvres de Frederic, xxiii. 7; not given by any of the French Editors).] seductively repentant, and oh, so

true, so tender;Royal Friend still obstinate, who answers nothing, or answers only through De Prades:

"Yes, yes, we are aware!" And it was in the same Year that Friedrich first saw D'Alembert,Voltaire's

successor, in a sense. And farther on (1st November, 1755), that the Earthquake of Lisbon went, horribly

crashing, through the thoughts of all mortals, thoughts of King Friedrich, among others; whose reflections

on it, I apprehend, are stingy, snarlingly contemptuous, rather than valiant and pious, and need not detain us

here. One thing only we will mention, for an accidental reason: That Friedrich, this Year, made a short run to

Holland,and that actual momentary sight of him happens thereby to be still possible.

In Summer, 1755, after the WestCountry Reviews, and a short Journey into OstFriesland, whence to Wesel

on the Rhine,whither Friedrich had invited D'Alembert to meet him, whom he finds "UN

TRESAIMABLE GARCON," likely for the task in hand,Friedrich decided on a run into Holland: strictly

INCOGNITO, accompanied only by Balbi (Engineer, a Genoese) and one page. Bade his D'Alembert adieu;

and left Wesel thitherward June 19th. [Rodenbeck, i. 287.] At Amsterdam he viewed the Bramkamp

PictureGallery, the illustrious Countryhouse of Jew Pinto at TULPENBURG (Tulip borough!) ... "I saw

nothing but whimwhams (COLIFICHETS)," says he: "I gave myself out for a Musician of the King of

Poland;" wore a black wig moreover, "and was nowhere known:" [ OEuvres, xxvii. i. 268 ("Potsdam, 28th

June, 1755;" and ib. p. 270), to Wilhelmina, who is now on the return from her Italian Journey. UNCERTAIN

Anecdotes of adventures among the whimwhams, in Rodenbeck, for finis, got into the common

PassageBoat (TREKSCHUIT, no doubt) for Utrecht, that he might see the other fine Countryhouses along

the Vechte. Fine enough Countryhouses,not mud and sedges the main thing, as idle readers think. To

Arnheim up the Vechte in this manner; Wesel and his own Country just at hand again.

Now it happened that a young Swisspoor enough in purse, but not without talent and eyesight, assistant

Teacher in some Boarding school thereabouts; name of him De Catt, age twentyseven, "born at Morges

near Geneva 1728"had got holiday, or had got errand, poor good soul; had decided, on this same day (23d

June, 1755), to go to Utrecht, and so stept into the very boat where Friedrich was. He himself (in a Letter

"As I could n't get into the ROEF (cabin) because it was all engaged, I stayed with the other passengers in the

Steerage (DANS LA BARQUE MEME), and the weather being fine, came up on deck. After some time,

there stept out of the Cabin a man in cinnamon colored coat with gold buttonHOLES; in black wig; face

and coat considerably dusted with Spanish snuff. He looked fixedly at me, for a while; and then said, without

farther preface, 'Who are you, Monsieur?' This cavalier tone from an unknown person, whose exterior

indicated nothing very important, did not please me; and I declined satisfying his curiosity. He was silent.

But, some time after, he took a more courteous tone, and said: 'Come in here to me, Monsieur! You will be

better here than in the Steerage, amid the tobaccosmoke.' This polite address put an end to all anger; and as

the singular manner of the man excited my curiosity, I took advantage of his invitation. We sat down, and

"Do you see the man in the garden yonder, sitting smoking his pipe?' said he to me: 'That man, you may

depend upon it, is not happy.''I know not,' answered I: 'but it seems to me, until one knows a man, and is

completely acquainted with his situation and his way of thought, one cannot possibly determine whether he is

"My gentleman admitted this [very goodnatured!]; and led the conversation on the Dutch Government. He

criticised it,probably to bring me to speak. I did speak; and gave him frankly to know that he was not

perfectly instructed in the thing he was criticising.'You are right,' answered he; 'one can only criticise what

one is thoroughly acquainted with.'He now began to speak of Religion; and with eloquent tongue to

recount what mischief Scholastic Philosophy had brought upon the world; then tried to prove 'That Creation

was impossible.' At this last point I stood out in opposition. 'But how can one create Something out of

Nothing?' said he. 'That is not the question,' answered I; 'the question is, Whether such a Being as God can or

cannot give existence to what has yet none.' He seemed embarrassed, and added, 'But the Universe is

eternal.''You are in a circle,' said I; 'how will you get out of it?''I skip over it" said he, laughing; and then

"'What form of Government do you reckon the best?' inquired he, among other things. 'The monarchic, if the

King is just and enlightened.''Very well,' answered he; 'but where will you find Kings of that sort?' And

thereupon went into such a sally upon Kings, as could not in the least lead me to the supposition that he was

one. In the end he expressed pity for them, that they could not know the sweets of friendship; and cited on the

'I have not the honor to be acquainted with Kings,' said I; 'but to judge by what one has read in History of

several of them, I should believe, Monsieur, that you, on the whole, are right.''AH, OUI, OUI, I am right; I

"We now got to speak of Literature. The stranger expressed himself with enthusiastic admiration of Racine. A

droll incident happened during our dialogue. My gentleman wanted to let down a little sashwindow, and

could n't manage it. 'You don't understand that,' said I; 'let me do that.' I tried to get it down; but succeeded no

better than he. 'Monsieur,' said he, 'allow me to remark, on my side, that you, upon my honor, understand as

little of it as I!' 'That is true; and I beg your pardon; I was too rash in accusing you of want of

expertness.''Were you ever in Germany?' he now asked me. 'No; but I should like to make that journey: I

am very curious to see the Prussian States, and their King, of whom one hears so much.' And now I began to

launch out on Friedrich's actions; but he interrupted me rapidly, with the words: 'Nothing more of Kings,

Monsieur! What have we to do with them? We will spend the rest of our voyage on more agreeable and

cheering objects.' And now he spoke of the best of all possible worlds; and maintained that, in our Planet

Earth, there was more Evil than Good. I maintained the contrary; and this dispute brought us to the end of our

"On quitting me, he said, 'I hope, Monsieur, you will leave me your name: I am very glad to have made your

acquaintance; perhaps we shall see one another again.' I replied, as was fitting, to the compliment; and

begged him to excuse me for contradicting him a little. 'Ascribe this,' I concluded, 'to the illhumor which

various little journeys I had to make in these days have given me.' I then told him my name, and we parted."

[Laveaux, Histoire de Frederic (2d edition, Strasbourg, 1789, and blown now into SIX vols. instead of four;

dead all, except this fraction), vi. 365. Seyfarth, ii. 234, is right; ib. 170, wrong, and has led others wrong.]

Of this honest Henri de Catt, whom the King liked on this Interview, and sent for soon after, and at length got

as "LECTEUR DU ROI," we shall hear again. ["September, 1755," sent for (but De Catt was ill and

couldn't); "December, 1757" got (Rodenbeck, i. 285).] He did, from 1757 onwards, what De Prades now does

with more of noise, the old D'Arget functions; faithfully and well, for above twenty years;left a

NoteBook (not very Boswellian) about the King, which is latterly in the Royal Archives at Berlin; and

which might without harm, or even with advantage, be printed, but has never yet been. A very harmless De

Catt. And we are surely obliged to him for this view of the Travelling Gentleman "with the

cinnamoncolored coat, snuffy nose and black wig," and his manner of talking on light external subjects,

while the inner man of him has weights enough pressing on it. Age still under fiveandforty, but looks old

"June 23d, 1755:" it is in the very days while poor Braddock is staggering down the Alleghanies; Braddock

fairly over the top;and the Fates waiting him, at a Fortnight's distance. Far away, on the other side of the

World. But it is notable enough how Pitt is watching the thing; and will at length get hand laid on it, and get

the kingship over it for above four years. Whereby the JENKINS'S EAR QUESTION will again, this time

on better terms, coalesce with the SILESIAN, or PARTITIONOFPRUSSIA QUESTION; and both these

The illinformed world, entirely unaware of what Friedrich had been studying and ascertaining, to his bitter

sorrow, for four years past, was extremely astonished at the part he took in those French English troubles;

extremely provoked at his breaking out again into a Third Silesian War, greater than all the others, and

kindling all Europe in such a way. The illinformed world rang violently, then and long after, with a

Controversy, "Was it of his beginning, or Not of his beginning?" Controversy, which may in our day be

considered as settled by unanimous mankind; finished forever; and can now have no interest for any creature.

Omitting that, our problem is (were it possible in brief compass), To set forth, by what authentic traits there

are,not the "ambitious," "audacious," voracious and highly condemnable Friedrich of the Gazetteers,but

the thriceintricately situated Friedrich of Fact. What the Facts privately known to Friedrich were, in what

manner known; and how, in a more complex crisis than had yet been, Friedrich demeaned himself: upon

which latter point, and those cognate to it, readers ought not to be ignorant, if now fallen indifferent on so

many other points of the Affair. What a loudroaring, loose and empty matter is this tornado of vociferation

which men call "Public Opinion"! Tragically howling round a man; who has to stand silent the while; and

scan, wisely under pain of death, the altogether inarticulate, dumb and inexorable matter which the gods call

Fact! Friedrich did read his terrible Sphinxriddle; the Gazetteer tornado did pipe and blow. King Friedrich,

in contrast with his Environment at that time, will most likely never be portrayed to modern men in his real

proportions, real aspect and attitude then and there,which are silently not a little heroic and even pathetic,

when well seen into;and, for certain, he is not portrayable at present, on our side of the Sea. But what hints

and fractions of feature we authentically have, ought to be given with exactitude, especially with brevity, and

The secret sources of the Third Silesian War, since called "Seven Years War," go back to 1745; nay, we

may say, to the First Invasion of Silesia in 1740. For it was in Maria Theresa's incurable sorrow at loss of

Silesia, and her inextinguishable hope to reconquer it, that this and all Friedrich's other Wars had their origin.

Twice she had signed Peace with Friedrich, and solemnly ceded Silesia to him: but that too, with the Imperial

Lady, was by no means a finis to the business. Not that she meant to break her Treaties; far from her such a

thought,in the conscious form. Though, alas, in the unconscious, again, it was always rather near!

practically, she reckoned to herself, these Treaties would come to be broken, as Treaties do not endure

forever; and then, at the good moment, she did purpose to be ready. "Silesia back to us; Pragmatic Sanction

complete in every point! Was not that our dear Father's will, monition of all our Fathers and their Patriotisms

and Traditionary Heroisms; and in fact, the behest of gods and men?" Ten years ago, this notion had been cut

down to apparent death, in a disastrous manner, for the second time. But it did not die in the least: it never

thinks of dying; starts always anew, passionate to produce itself again as action valid at last; and lives in the

Imperial Heart with a tenacity that is strange to observe. Still stranger, in the envious ValetHeart,in that

The Peace of Dresden, Christmas, 1745, seemed to be an act of considerable magnanimity on Friedrich's part.

It was, at the first blush of it, "incredible" to Harrach, the Austrian Plenipotentiary; whose embarrassed,

astonished bow we remember on that occasion, with English Villiers shedding pious tears. But what is very

remarkable withal is a thing since discovered: [INFRA, next Note (p. 276).] That Harrach, magnanimous

signature hardly yet dry, did then straightway, by order of his Court, very privately inquire of Bruhl, "There is

Peace, you see; what they call Peace:but our TREATY OF WARSAW, for Partition of this magnanimous

man, stands all the same; does n't it?" To which, according to the Documents, Bruhl, hardly escaped from the

pangs of death, and still in a very paleyellow condition, had answered in effect, "Hah, say you so? One's

hatred is eternal;but that man's iron heel! Wait a little; get Russia to join in the scheme!"and hung back;

the willing mind, but the too terrified! And in this way, like a famishing dog in sight of a too dangerous leg of

mutton, Bruhl has ever since rather held back; would not reengage at all, for almost two years, even on the

Czarina's engaging; and then only in a cautious, conditional and hypothetic manner,though with famine

increasing day by day in sight of the desired viands. His hatred is fell; but he would fain escape with back

Friedrich has been aware of this mystery, at least wide awake to it and becoming ever more instructed, for

almost four years. Traitor Menzel the Saxon Kanzellistwe, who have prophetically read what he had to

confess when laid hold of, are aware, though as yet, and on to 1757, it is a dead secret to all mortals but

himself and "three others"has been busy for Prussia ever since "the end of 1752." Got admittance to the

Presses; sent his first Excerpt "about the time of EasterFair, 1753,"time of Voltaire's taking wing. And

has been at work ever since. Copying Despatches from the most secret Saxon Repositories; ready always on

Excellency Mahlzahn's indicating the Piece wanted; and of late, I should think, is busier than ever, as the

Saxon Mystery, which is also an Austrian and Russian one, gets more light thrown into it, and seems to be

fast ripening towards action of a perilous nature. The first Excerpts furnished by Menzel, readers can judge

how enigmatic they were. These Menzel Papers, copies mainly of Petersburg or Vienna DESPATCHES to

Bruhl, with Bruhl's ANSWERS,the principal of which were subsequently printed in their best arrangement

and liveliest point of vision [In Friedrich's Manifestoes, chiefly in MEMOIRE RAISONNE SUR LA

CONDUITE DES COURS DE VIENNE ET DE SAXE (compiled from the MENZEL ORIGINALS, so soon

as these were got hold of: Berlin, Autumn, 1756). A solid and able Paper; rapidly done, by one Count

Herzberg, who rose high in after times. Reprinted, with many other "Pieces" and "Passages," in Gesammelte

Nachrichten und Urkunden, which is a "Collection" of such (2 vols., 113 Nos. small 8vo, no Place, 1757,

my Copy of it).]are by no means a luminous set of Documents to readers at this day. Think what a study

they were at Potsdam in 1753, while still in the chaotic state; fished out, more or less at random, as Menzel

could lay hold of them, or be directed to them; the enigma clearing itself only by intense inspection, and

"Winterfeld was the first that got eye on this dangerous Saxon Mystery; some ExSaxon, about to settle in

Berlin, giving hint of it to Winterfeld; who needed only a hint. So soon as Winterfeld convinced himself that

there was weight in the affair, he imparted it to Friedrich: 'Scheme of partitioning, your Majesty, of picking

quarrel, then overwhelming and partitioning; most serious scheme, AustrianRussian as well as Saxon; going

on steadily for years past, and very lively at this time!' If true, Friedrich cannot but admit that this is serious

enough: important, thrice over, to discover whether it is true;and gives Winterfeld authority to prosecute it

to the bottom, in Dresden or wherever the secret may lie. Who thereupon charged Mahlzahn, the Prussian

Minister at Dresden, to find some proper Menzel, and bestir himself. How Mahlzahn has found his Menzel,

and has bestirred himself, we saw. Thiefkeys were made to pattern in Berlin; first set did not fit, second did;

and stealthy Menzel gains admittance to that Chamber of the Archives, can steal thither on shoes of felt when

occasion serves, and copy what you wish,for a consideration. Intermittently, since about EasterFair,

1753. Three persons are cognizant of it, Winterfeld, Mahlzahn, Friedrich; three, and no more. Probably the

abstrusest study; and the most intense, going on in the world at that epoch. [Rotzow, Charakteristik des

"At a very early stage of the Menzel Excerpts it became manifest that certain synchronous Austrian Ditto

would prove highly elucidative; that, in fact, it would be indispensable to get hold of these as well. Which

also Winterfeld has managed to do. A deep headed man, who has his eyes about him; and is very apt to

manage what he undertakes. One Weingarten Junior, a Secretary in the Austrian Embassy at Berlin

(Excellency Peubla's second Secretary), has his acquaintanceships in Berlin Society; and for one thing, as

Winterfeld discovers, is 'madly in love' with some Chambermaid or quasichambermaid (let us call her

Chambermaid), 'Daughter of the Castellan at Charlottenburg.' Winterfeld, through the due channels, applied

to this Chambermaid, 'Get me a small secret Copy of such and such Despatches, out of your Weingarten; it

will be well for you and him; otherwise perhaps not well!' Chambermaid, hope urging, or perhaps hope and

fear, did her best; Weingarten had to yield the required product and products, as required. By this

Weingarten, from some date not long after Menzel's first mysterious Dresden Excerpts, the necessary

Austrian glosses, so far as possible to Weingarten on the indications given him, have been regularly had, for

"Weingarten first came to be seriously suspected June, 1756 (Weingarten Junior, let us still say, for there was

a Senior of unstained fidelity); 'June 15th,' Excellency Peubla pointedly demands him from Friedrich and the

Berlin Police: 'Weingarten Junior, my SECOND Secretar, fugitive and traitor; hidden somewhere!'

["BERLIN, 22d JUNE: Every research making for Mr. Weingatten,in vain hitherto" ( Gentleman's

Magazine, xxvi., i. e. for 1756, p. 363).] Excellency Peubla is answered, 24th June: 'We would so fain catch

him, if we could! We have tried at Stendal,not there: tried his Motherinlaw; knows nothing: have

forborne laying up his poor Wife and Children; and hope her Imperial Majesty will have pity on that poor

creature, who is fallen so miserable.' [ HeldenGeschichte, iii. 713.] So that Excellency Peubla had nothing

for it but to compose himself; to honor the unstainable fidelity of Weingarten Senior by a public piece of

promotion, which soon ensued; and let the Junior run. Weingarten Junior, on the first suspicion, had vanished

with due promptitude,was not to be unearthed again. We perceive he has married his Charlottenburg

Beauty, and there are helpless babies. It seems, he lived long years after, in the Altmark, as a Herr von

Weiss,'his reflections manifold, but unknown. [Retzow, i. 37.] What is much notabler, Cogniazzo, the

Austrian Veteran, heard Weingarten's MASTER, Graf von Peubla, talk of the 'GRAND MYSTERE,' soon

after, and how Friedrich had heard of it, not from Weingarten alone, but from GrossFurst PETER, Russian

"As to Menzel, he did not get away. Menzel, as we saw, lasted in free activity till 1757; and was then put

under lock and key. Was not hanged; sat prisoner for twentyseven years after; overgrown with hair, legs and

arms chained together, heavy iron bar uniting both ankles; diet breadandwater;for the rest, healthy; and

died, not very miserable it is said, in 1784. Shocking traitors, Weingarten and he."

Yes, a diabolical pair, they, sure enough:and the thing they betrayed against their Masters, was that a

celestial thing? Servants of the Devil do fall out; and Servants not of the Devil are fain, sometimes, to raise a

The then world, as we said, was one loud uproar of logic on the right reading and the wrong of those

Sibylline Documents: "Did your King of Prussia interpret them aright, or even try it? Did not he use them as

a cloak for highway robbery, and swallowing of a peaceable Saxony, bad man that he surely is?" For

Friedrich's demeanor, this time again, when it came to the acting point, was of eminent rapidity; almost a

swifter lionspring than ever; and it brought on him, in the aerial or vocal way, its usual result: huge clamor

of rage and logic from uninformed mankind. Clamorous rage and logic, which has now sunk irresuscitably

dead; nothing of it much worth mentioning to modern readers, scarcely even its HIC JACET (in Footnotes,

for the benefit of the curious!),and it is, at last, a thing not doubtful to anybody that Friedrich, in that

matter did read aright. So that now the loud uproar is reduced to one small question with us, What did he read

in those Menzel Documents? What Fact lying in them was it that Friedrich had to read? Here, smelted down

by repeated roastings, is succinct answer;for the ultimate fragment of incombustible here as elsewhere,

will go into a nutshell, once the continents of DiplomatistGazetteer logic and disorderly stablelitter,

threatening to heap themselves over the very stars, have been faithfully burnt away.

Readers heard of a "Union of Warsaw," early in 1745, concluded by the SeaPowers and the SaxonPolish

and Hungarian Majesties: very harmless UNION of Warsaw, public to all the world,but with a certain

thricesecret "TREATY of Warsaw" (between Polish and Hungarian Majesty themselves two, the

SeaPowers being horror struck by mention of it) which had followed thereupon, in an eager and wonderful

manner. Thricesecret Treaty, for Partitioning Friedrich, and settling the respective shares of his skin. Treaty

which, to denote its origin, we called of Warsaw; though it was not finished there (shares of skin so difficult

to settle), and "Treaty of LEIPZIG, 18th May, 1745," is its ALIAS in Books:of which Treaty, as the

SeaPowers had recoiled horrorstruck, there was no whisper farther, to them or to the rest of exoteric

mankind;though it has been one of the busiest Entities ever since. From the Menzel Documents, I know

not after what circuitous gropings and searchings, Friedrich first got notice of that Treaty: [Now printed in

We said it was the remarkablest bit of sheepskin in its Century. Readers have heard too, That it was proposed

to Bruhl, by a grateful Austria, directly on signing the Peace of Dresden: "Our PartitionTreaty stands all the

same, does it not?"and in what humor Bruhl answered: "Hah? Get Russia to join!" Both these facts, That

there is a Treaty of Warsaw and that this is the AustrianSaxon temper and intention towards him and it,

Friedrich learned from the Menzel Documents. And if the reader will possess himself of these two facts, and

understand that they are of a germinative, most vital quality, indestructible by the times and the chances; and

have been growing and developing themselves, day and night ever since, in a truly wonderful manner,the

Russia was got to join;there are methods of operating on Russia, and kindling a poor fat Czarina into

strange suspicions and indignations. In May, 1746, within six months of the Peace of Dresden, a Treaty of

Petersburg, new version of the Warsaw one, was brought to parchment; Czarina and EmpressQueen

signing,Bruhl dying to sign, but not daring. How Russia has been got to join, and more and more

vigorously bear a hand; how Bruhl's rabidities of appetite, and terrors of heart, have continued ever since;

how Austria and Russia,Bruhl aiding with hysterical alacrity, haunted by terror (and at last mercifully

EXCUSED from signing), have, year after year, especially in this last year, 1755, brought the matter

nearer and nearer perfection; and the Two Imperial Majesties, with Bruhl to rear, wait only till they are fully

ready, and the world gives opportunity, to pick a quarrel with Friedrich, and overwhelm and partition him,

according to covenant: This, wandering through endless mazes of detail, is in sum what the Menzel

Documents disclose to Friedrich and us. How, in a space of ten years, the small seedgrain of a Treaty of

Warsaw, or Treaty of Petersburg, planted and nourished in that manner, in the Satan's Invisible World, has

grown into a mighty Tree there,prophetic of Facts near at hand; which were extremely sanguinary to the

This is the sumtotal: but for Friedrich's sake, and to illustrate the situation, let us take a few glances more,

into the then Satan's Invisible World, which had become so ominously busy round Friedrich and others. The

Czarina, we say, was got to engage; 22d May, 1746, there came a Treaty of Petersburg duly valid, which is

that of Warsaw under a new name: and still Bruhl durst not, for above a year coming,not till August 15th,

1747; [MEMOIRE RAISONNE (in Gesammelte Nachrichten ), i. 459.] and then, only in a hypothetic

halfandhalf way, with fear and trembling, though with hunger unspeakable, in sight of the viands. A very

wretched Bruhl, as seen in these Menzel Documents. On poor Polish Majesty Bruhl has played the sorcerer,

this long while, and ridden him as he would an enchanted quadruped, in a shameful manner: but how, in turn

(as we study Menzel), is Bruhl himself hagridden, hunted by his own devils, and leads such a ghastly

phantasmal existence yonder, in the Valley of the Shadow of CLOTHES,mere Clothes, metaphorical and

literal! ["MONTREZMOI DES VERTUS, PAS DES CULOTTES (Have you no virtues then to show me;

nothing but pain of breeches)!" exclaimed an impatient French Traveller, led about in Bruhl's Palace one day:

Archenholtz, Geschichte des Siebenjahrigen Krieges, i. 63.] Wretched Bruhl, agitated with hatreds of a rather

infernal nature, and with terrors of a not celestial, comes out on our sympathies, as a dog almost

pitiable,were that possible, with twelve tailors sewing for him, and a Saxony getting shoved over the

A famishing dog in the most singular situation. What he dare do, he does, and with such a will. But there is

almost only one thing safe to him: that of egging on the Czarina against Friedrich; of coining lies to kindle

Czarish Majesty; of wafting on every wind rumors to that end, and continually besieging with them the empty

Czarish mind. Bruhl has many Conduits, "the Sieur de Funck," "the Sieur Gross" plenty of Legationary

Sieurs and Conduits;which issue from all quarters on Petersburg, and which find there a Reservoir, and

due Russian SERVICEPIPES, prepared for them;and Bruhl is busy. "Commerce of Dantzig to be

ruined," suggests he, "that is plain: look at his Asiatic Companies, his Port of Embden. Poland is to be stirred

up;has not your Czarish Majesty heard of his intrigues there? Courland, which is almost become your

Majesty'scunningly snatched by your Majesty's address, like a valuable moribund whale adrift among the

shallows,this bad man will have it out to sea again, with the harpoons in it; fairly afloat amid the Polish

Anarchies again!" These are but specimens of Bruhl. Or we can give such in Bruhl's own words, if the reader

1. ... The Sieur de Funck, Saxon Minister at Petersburg, wrote to Count Bruhl, 9th July, 1755 (says an

"That the Sieur Gross [now Minister of Russia at Dresden, who vanished out of Berlin like an angry

skyrocket some years ago] would do a good service to the Common Cause, if he wrote to his Court, 'That

the King of Prussia had found a channel in Courland, by which he learned all the secrets of the Russian

Court;'" and Sieur Funck added, "that it was expected good use could be made of such a story with her

Czarish Majesty."To which Count Bruhl replies, 23d July, "That he has instructed the Sieur Gross, who

2. Sieur Prasse, same Funck's Secretary of Legation, at Petersburg, writes to Count Bruhl, 12th April, 1756:

"I am bidden signify to your Excellency that it is greatly wished, in order to favor certain views, you

would have the goodness to cause arrive in Petersburg, by different channels, the following intelligence: 'That

the King of Prussia, on pretext of Commerce, is sending officers and engineers into the Ukraine, to

reconnoitre the Country and excite a rebellion there.' And this advice, be pleased to observe, is not to come

direct from the Saxon Court, nor by the Envoy Gross, but by some third party,to the end there may be no

concert noticed;as they [L'ON, the "service pipes," and managing Excellencies, Russian and Austrian]

have given the same commission to other Ministers, so that the news shall come from more places than one.

"They [the said managing Excellencies] have also required me to write to the Baron de Sack," our Saxon

Minister in Sweden, "upon it, which I will not fail to do; and they assured me that our Court's advantage was

not less concerned in it than that of their own; adding these words [comfortable to one's soul], 'The King of

Prussia [in 1745] gave Saxony a blow which it will feel for fifty years; but we will give him one which he

To which beautiful suggestion Excellency Bruhl answers, 2d June, 1756: "As to the Secret Commission of

conveying to Petersburg, by concealed channels, Intelligence of Prussian machinations in the Ukraine, we are

still busy finding out a right channel; and they [L'ON, the managing Excellencies] shall very soon, one way

or the other, see the effect of my personal inclination to second what is so good an intention, though a little

artful (UN PEU ARTIFICIEUSE," UN PEU, nothing to speak of)! [MEMOIRE RAISONNE (in

Fancy a poor fat Czarina, of many appetites, of little judgment, continually beaten upon in this manner by

these SaxonAustrian artists and their Russian servicepipes. Bombarded with cunningly devised

fabrications, every wind freighted for her with phantasmal rumors, no ray of direct daylight visiting the poor

Sovereign Woman; who is lazy, not malignant if she could avoid it: mainly a mass of esurient oil, with alkali

on the back of alkali poured in, at this rate, for ten years past; till, by pouring and by stirring, they get her to

the state of SOAP and froth! Is it so wonderful that she does, by degrees, rise into eminent suspicion, anger,

fear, violence and vehemence against her bad neighbor? One at last begins to conceive those insane whirls,

continual mad suspicions, mad procedures, which have given Friedrich such vexation, surprise and

Friedrich is always specially eager to avoid illwill from Russia; but it has come, in spite of all he could do

and try. And these procedures of the Czarish Majesty have been so capricious, unintelligible, perverse, and

his feeling is often enough irritation, temporary indignation,which we know makes Verses withal! I can

nowhere learn from those Prussian imbroglios of Books, what the Friedrich Sayings or Satirical Verses

properly were: Retzow speaks of a PRODUKT, one at least, known in interior Circles. [Retzow, i. 34.]

PRODUKT which decidedly requires publication, beyond anything Friedrich ever wrote;though one can

do without it too, and invoke Fancy in defect of Print. The sharpness of Friedrich's tongue we know; and the

diligence of birds of the air. To all her other griefs against the bad man, this has given the finish in the tender

Czarish bosom;and like an envenomed drop has set the saponaceous oils (already dosed with alkali, and

well in solution) foaming deliriously over the brim, in neverimagined deluges of a hatred that is

unappeasable;very costly to Friedrich and mankind. Rising ever higher, year by year; and now risen, to

AT PETERSBURG, 14th15th MAY, 1753, "There was Meeting of the Russian Senate, with deliberation

"That it should be, and hereby is, settled as a fundamental maxim of the Russia Empire, Not only to oppose

any farther aggrandizement of the King of Prussia, but to seize the first convenient opportunity for

overwhelming (ECRASER), by superior force, the House of Brandenburg [Hear, hear!], and reducing it to its

former state of mediocrity." [MEMOIRE RAISONNE (in Gesammelte Nachrichten ), i. 421.] Leg of mutton

to be actually gone into. With what an enthusiasm of "Hear, hear!" from Bruhl and kindred parties; especially

from Bruhl,who, however, dare not yet bite, except hypothetically, such his terrors and tremors. Or, look

AT PETERSBURG, OCTOBER, 1755): "To which Fundamental Maxim, articulately fixed ever since those

Maydays of 1753, the august Russian Sanhedrim, deliberating farther in October, 1755, adds this remarkable

"That it is our resolution to attack the King of Prussia without farther discussion, whensoever the said King

shall attack any Ally of Russia's, or shall himself be attacked by any of them." Hailed by Bruhl, as natural,

with his liveliest approval. "A glorious Deliberation, that, indeed!" writes he: "It clears the way of action for

Russia's Allies in this matter; and for us too; though nobody can blame us, if we proceed with the extremest

caution,"and rather wait till the Bear is nearly killed. [MEMOIRE RAISONNE (in Gesammelte

Many marvels Friedrich had deciphered out of this WeingartenMenzel Apocalypse of Satan's Invisible

World; and one often fancies Friedrich's tone of mind, in his intense inspecting of that fateful continent of

darkness, and his labyrinthic stepping by degrees to the oracular points, which have a light in them when

flung open. But in respect of practical interest, this of October, 1755 (which would get to Potsdam probably

in few weeks after) must have surpassed all the others. Marvels many, one after the other: [For example, or in

recapitulation: a Treaty of Warsaw or Leipzig, to partition him (18th May, 1745); Treaty of Petersburg (22d

May, 1746, new form of Warsaw Treaty, with Czarina superadded); tremulous QuasiAccession thereto of

his Polish Majesty (most tremulous, hypothetic QuasiAccession, "YesANDNo," 15th August, 1747, and

often afterwards); first Deliberation of the Russian Senate, 15th May, 1753; For example, or in recapitulation:

a Treaty of Warsaw or Leipzig, to partition him (18th May, 1745); Treaty of Petersburg (22d May, 1746, new

form of Warsaw Treaty, with Czarina superadded); tremulous QuasiAccession thereto of his Polish Majesty

(most tremulous, hypothetic QuasiAccession, "YesANDNo," 15th August, 1747, and often afterwards);

first Deliberation of the Russian Senate, 15th May, 1753; no doubt left, long since, of the constant

disposition, preparation and fixed intention to partition him. But here, in this last indication by the Russian

Senate,which kindles into dismal evidence so many other enigmatic tokens,there has an ulterior oracular

point disclosed itself to Friedrich; in vaguer condition, but not less indubitable, and much more perilous:

namely, That now, at last (end of 1755), the Two Imperial Majesties, very eager both, consider that the time

is come. And areas Friedrich looks abroad on the AustrianRussian marchings of troops, campings, and

"They have agreed to attack me next Year (1756), if they can; and next again (1757), without IF:" so

Friedrich, putting written word and public occurrence together, gradually reads; and so, all readers will see,

the fact was,though Imperial Majesty at Schonbrunn, as we shall find, strove to deny it when applied to;

and scouted, as mere fiction and imagination, the notion of such an "Agreement." Which I infer, therefore,

NOT to have existed in parchment; not in parchment, but only in reality, and as a mutual Bond registered

inshall we say "in Heaven", as some are wont? registered, perhaps, in TWO Places, very separate

indeed! No truer "Agreement" ever did exist;though a devout Imperial Majesty denies it, who would

Poor Imperial Majesty: who can tell her troubles and straits in this abstruse time! Heaven itself ordering her

to get back the Silesia of her Fathers, if she could;yet Heaven always looking dubious, surely, upon this

method of doing it. By solemn Public Treaties signed in sight of all mankind; and contrariwise, in the very

same moments, by Secret Treaties, of a fell nature, concocted underground, to destroy the life of these!

Imperial Majesty flatters herself it may be fair: "Treaty of Dresden, Treaty of AixlaChapelle; Treaties

wrung from me by force, the tyrannic SeaPowers screwing us; Kaunitz can tell! A consummate Kaunitz;

who has provided remedies. Treaties do get broken. Besides, I will not go to War, unless HE the Bad One of

Prussia do!"Alas, your noble Majesty, plain it at least is, your love of Silesia is very strong. And

consummate Kaunitz and it have led you into strange predicaments. The Pompadour, for instance: who was it

that answered, "JE NE LA CONNAIS PAS; I don't know her, I"? How gladly would the Imperial Maria

Theresa, soul of Propriety, have made that answer! But she did not; she had to answer differently. For

Kaunitz was imperative: "A kind little Note to the Pompadour; one, and then another and another; it is

indispensable, your Imperial Majesty!" And Imperial Majesty always had to do it. And there exist in writing,

at this hour, various flattering little Notes from Imperial Majesty to that Address; which begin, "MA

SOEUR," says one good witness: [Hormayr (cited in Preuss, i. 433 n.,as are Duclos; Montgaillard;

MEMOIRES DE RICHELIEU; which ought to have been printed, before this, or given at least to the

Museums. "My Cousin," "Princess and Cousin," "Madame my dearest Sister:" Oh, high Imperial Soul, with

Friedrich was blamably imprudent in regard to Pompadour, thinks Valori: "A little complaisance might

have"what might it not have done!"But his Prussian Majesty would not. And while the Ministers of all

the other Powers" allied with France "went assiduously to pay their court to Madame, the Baron von

Knyphausen alone, by his Master's order, never once went ["Don't! JE NE LA CONNAIS PAS"], while

the EmpressQueen was writing her the most flattering letters. The Prince of Prussia, King's eldest Brother,

wished ardently to obtain her Portrait, and had applied to me for it; as had Prince Henri to my Predecessor.

The King, who has such gallant and seductive ways when he likes, could certainly have reconciled this

celebrated Lady",a highly important Improper Female to him and others. [Valori, i. 320.]

Yes; but he quite declined, not counting the costs. Costs may be immediate; profits are remote,remote, but

sure. Costs did indeed prove considerable, perhaps far beyond his expectation; though, I flatter myself, they

Friedrich's Enigma, towards the end of 1755 and onwards, is becoming frightfully stringent; and the solution,

"What practically will be the wise course for me?" does not lessen in abstruse intricacy, but the reverse, as it

grows more pressing. A very stormy and dubious Future, truly! Two circumstances in it will be highly

determinative: one of them evident to Friedrich; the other unknown to him, and to all mortals, except two or

That there will be an EnglishFrench War straightway; and that, as usual, the French, weaker at sea, will

probably attack Hanover; that is to say, bring the War home to one's own door, and ripen into fulfilment

those AustrianRussian Plots. This is the evident circumstance, fast coming on; visible to Friedrich and to

everybody. But that, in such event, Austria will join, not with England, but with France: this is a SECOND

circumstance, guessable by nobody; known only to Kaunitz and a select one or two; but which also will

greatly complicate Friedrich's position, and render his Enigma indeed astonishingly intricate, as well as

Britannic Majesty, I know not at what date, but before the launching of that poor Braddock thunderbolt,

much more after the tragic explosion it made, had felt that French War was nearly inevitable, and also that the

French method would be, as heretofore, to attack Hanover, and wound him in that tender part. There goes on,

accordingly, a lively Foreign Diplomatizing, on his Majesty's part, at present,in defect, almost total, of

Domestic Preparation, military and other;Majesty and Ministers expecting salvation from abroad, as usual.

Military preparation does lag at a shameful rate: but, on the other hand, there is a great deal of pondering,

really industrious considering and contriving, about Foreign Allies, and their subsidies and engagements.

That step, for example, the questionable Seizure of the French Ships WITHOUT Declaration of War, was a

contrivance by diplomatic Heads (of bad quality): "Seize their ships," said some bad Head, after meditating;

"put their ships in SEQUESTRATION, till they do us justice. If they won't, and go to War,then THEY are

the Aggressors, not we; and our Allies have to send their auxiliary quotas, as per contract!" So the Ships were

seized; held in sequestration, "till many of the cargoes (being perishable goods, some even fish) rotted."

[Smollett's History of England; And in return, as will be seen, not one auxiliary came to hand: so that the

diplomatic Head had his rotted cargoes, and much public obloquy, for his pains. Not a fortunate stroke of

Britannic Majesty, on applying at Vienna (through Keith, Sir or Mr. Robert Keith, the FIRST Excellency of

that name, for there are two, a father and a son, both Vienna Excellencies), was astonished to learn That, in

such event of an Aggression, even on Hanover, there was no cooperation to be looked for here. Altogether

cold on that subject, her Imperial Majesty seems; regardless of Excellency Keith's remonstrances and

urgencies; and, in the end, is flatly negatory: "Cannot do it, your Excellency; times so perilous, bad King of

Prussia so minatory,"not to mention, SOTTO VOCE that we have turned on our axis, and the wind (thanks

"Cannot? Will not?" Britannic Majesty may well stare, wideeyed; remembering such gigantic Subsidizings

and Alcides Labors, Dettingens, Fontenoys, on the percontra side. But so stands the fact: "No help from an

ungrateful Vienna;quick, then, seek elsewhere!" And Hanbury and the Continental British Excellencies

have to bestir themselves as they never did. Especially Hanbury; who is directed upon Russia,whom alone

of these Excellencies it is worth while to follow for a moment. Russia, on fair subsidy, yielded us a 35,000

last War (willingly granted, most useful, though we had no fighting out of them, mere terror of them being

Hanbury, cheerfully confident, provides himself with the requisites, store of bribemoney as the chief;at

Warsaw withal, he picks up one Poniatowski (airy sentimental coxcomb, rather of dissolute habits,

handsomest and windiest of young Polacks): "Good for a Lover to the GrandDuchess, this one!" thinks

Hanbury. Which proved true, and had its uses for Hanbury;GrandDuchess and GrandDuke (Catherine

and Peter, whom we saw wedded twelve years ago, HeirsApparent of this Russian Chaos) being an

abstrusely situated pair of Spouses; well capable of something political, in private ways, in such a scene of

affairs; and Catherine, who is an extremely clever creature, being out of a lover just now. A fine scene for the

Diplomatist, this Russia at present. Nowhere in the world can you do so much with bribery; quite a standing

item, and financial necessaryoflife to Officials of the highest rank there, as Hanbury well knows. [His

Letters (in Raumer), PASSIM.] That of Poniatowski proved, otherwise too, a notable stroke of Hanbury's;

and shot the poor Polish Coxcomb aloft into tragic altitudes, on the sudden, as we all know!

Hanbury's immense dexterities, and incessant labors at Petersburg, shall lie hidden in the sloppails: it is

enough to say, his guineas, his dexterities and auxiliary Poniatowskis did prevail; and he triumphantly signed

his Treaty (Petersburg, 30th September) "SubsidyTreaty for 55,000 men, 15,000 of them cavalry," not to

speak of "40 to 50 galleys" and the like; "to attack whomsoever Britannic Majesty bids: annual cost a mere

500,OOO pounds while on service; 100,000 pounds while waiting." [In Adelung, vii. 609.] And, what is

more, and what our readers are to mark, the 55,000 begin on the instant to assemble,along the Livonian

Frontier or Lithuanian, looking direct into Preussen. Diligently rendezvousing there; 55,000 of them, nay

gradually 70,000; no stinginess in the Czarina to her Ally of England. A most triumphant thing, thinks

Hanbury: Could another of you have done it? Signed, ready for ratifying, 30th September, 1755 (bad

Braddock news not hindering);and before it is ratified (this also let readers mark), the actual Troops

Hanbury's masterpiece, surely; a glorious triumph in the circumstances, and a difficult, thinks Hanbury. Had

Hanbury seen the inside of the cards, as readers have, he would not have thought it so triumphant. For years

past,especially since that "Fundamental maxim, May 14th15th, 1753," which we heard of,the Czarina's

longings had been fixed. And here nowscattering money from both hands of it, and wooing us with

diplomatic finessingsis the Fulfilment come! "Opportunity" upon Preussen; behold it here.

The Russian Senate again holds deliberation; declares (on the heel of this Hanbury Treaty), "in October,

1755," what we read above, That its AntiPrussian intentions aretruculent indeed. And it is the common

talk in Petersburg society, through Winter, what a dose the ambitious King of Prussia has got brewed for him,

[MEMOIRE RAISONNE (in Gesammelte Nachrichten ), i. 429, out of Russian indignation and resources,

miraculously set afloat by English guineas. A triumphant Hanbury, for the time being,though a tragical

King Friedrich's outlooks, on this consummation, may well seem to him critical. The sore longing of an

infuriated Czarina is now let loose, and in a condition to fulfil itself! To Friedrich these Petersburg news are

no secret; nor to him are the Petersburg private intentions a thing that can be doubted. Apart from the

MenzelWeingarten revelations, as we noticed once, it appears the GrandDuke Peter (a great admirer of

Friedrich, poor confused soul) had himself thricesecretly warned Friedrich, That the mysterious

Combination, Russia in the van, would attack him next Spring;"not Weingarten that betrayed our GRAND

MYSTERE; from first hand, that was done!" said Excellency Peubla, on quitting Berlin not long after.

[Cogniazzo, Gestandnisse eines OEsterreichischen Veterans (as cited above), i. 225. "September 16th, 1756,"

Peubla left Berlin (Rodenbeck, i. 298),three months after Weingarten's disappearance.] The Grand Mystery

is not uncertain to Friedrich; and it may well be very formidable,coupled with those Braddock explosions,

Seizures of French ships, and EnglishFrench War imminent, and likely to become a general European one;

which are the closing prospects of 1755. The French King he reckons not to be well disposed to him; their old

Treaty of "twelve years" (since 1744) is just about running out. Not friendly, the French King, owing to little

rubs that have been; still less the Pompadour;though who could guess how implacable she was at "not

being known (NE LA CONNAIS PAS)"! At Vienna, he is well aware, the humor towards him is mere

cannibalism in refined forms. But most perilous of all, most immediately perilous, is the implacable Czarina,

With a hope, as is credibly surmised, that the English might soothe or muzzle this implacable Czarina,

Friedrich, directly after Hanbury's feat in Petersburg, applied at London, with an Offer which was very

tempting there: "Suppose your Britannic Majesty would make, with me, an express 'NEUTRALITY

CONVENTION;' mutual Covenant to keep the German Reich entirely free of this War now threatening to

break out? To attack jointly, and sweep home again with vigor, any and every Armed NonGerman setting

foot on the German soil!" An offer most welcome to the Heads of Opposition, the Pitts and others of that

Country; who wish dear Hanover safe enough (safe in DavyJones's locker, if that would do); but are tired of

subsidizing, and fighting and tumulting, all the world over, for that high end. So that Friedrich's Proposal is

By no means much manipulation, both parties being willing. There was uncommonly rapid surgery of any

little difficulties and discrepancies; rapid closure, instant salutary stitching together of that long unhealable

Privateer Controversy, as the main item: "20,000 pounds allowed to Prussia for Prussian damages; and to

England, from the other side, the remainder of Silesiau Debt, painfully outstanding for two or three years

back, is to be paid off at once;"and in this way such "NEUTRALITY CONVENTION OF PRUSSIA

WITH ENGLAND" comes forth as a Practical Fact upon mankind. Done at Westminster, 16th January, 1756.

The steppingstone, as it proved, to a closer Treaty of the same date next Year; of which we shall hear a great

deal. The steppingstone, in fact, to many large things;and to the ruin of our late "RussianSubsidy

Treaty" (Hanbury's masterpiece), for one small thing. "That is a Treaty signed, sure enough," answer they of

St. James's; "and we will be handsome about it to her Czarish Majesty; but as to RATIFYING it, in its

What a clap of thunder to Excellency Hanbury; his masterpiece found suddenly a superfluity, an

incommodity! The Orthodox English course now is, "No foreign soldiers at all to be allowed in Germany;"

and there are the 55,000 tramping on with such alacrity. "We cannot ratify that Treaty, Excellency Hanbury,"

writes the Majesty's Ministry, in a tone not of gratitude: "you must turn it some other way!" A terrible blow to

Hanbury, who had been expecting gratitude without end. And now, try how he might, there was no turning it

another way; this, privately, and this only, being the Czarina's own way. A Czarina obstinate to a degree;

would not consent, even when they made her the liberal offer, "Keep your 55,000 at home; don't attack the

King of Prussia with them; you shall have your Subsidy all the same!" "No, I won't!" answered she,to

Hanbury's amazement. Hanbury had not read the WeingartenMenzel Documents; what double double of

toil and trouble might Hanbury have saved himself and others, could he have read them!

Hanbury could not, still less could the Majesty's Ministry, surmise the Czarina's secret at all, now or for a

good while coming. And in fact, poor Hanbury, busy as a Diplomatic bee, never did more good in Russia, or

out of it. By direction of the Majesty's Ministry, Hanbury still tried industriously, cash in both hands; tried

various things: "Assuage the Czarina's mind; reconcile her to King Friedrich;"all in vain. "Unite Austria,

Russia and England, can't you, then?in a Treaty against the Designs of France:" how very vain! Then, at a

later stage, "Get us the Czarina to mediate between Prussia and Austria" (so very possible to sleek them down

into peace, thought Majesty's Ministry):and unwearied Hanbury, cunning eloquence on his lips, and

money in both hands, tries again, and ever again, for many months. And in the way of making ropes from

sand, it must be owned there never was such twisting and untwisting, as that appointed Hanbury. Who in fact

broke his heart by it;and died mad, by his own hand, before long. [Hanbury's "Life" (in Works, vol. iii.)

gives sad account.] Poor soul, after all!Here are some Russian Notices from him (and he has many curious,

PETERSBURG, 2d OCTOBER, 1755. ... "The health of the Empress [Czarina Elizabeth, CATIN DU NORD,

age now fortyfive] is bad. She is affected with spitting of blood, shortness of breath, constant coughing,

swelled legs and water on the chest; yet she danced a minuet with me," lucky Hanbury. "There is great

fermentation at Court. Peter [GrandDuke Peter] does not conceal his enmity to the Schuwalofs [paramours

of CATIN, old and new]; Catherine [GrandDuchess, who at length has an Heir, unbeautiful Czar Paul that

will be, and "miscarriages" not a few] is on good terms with Bestuchef" (corruptiblest brute of a Chancellor

ever known, friend to England by England's giving him 10,000 pounds, and the like trifles, pretty frequently;

Friedrich's enemy, chiefly from defect of that operation)she is "on good terms with Bestuchef. I think it my

duty to inform the King [great George, who will draw his prognostics from it] of my observations upon her;

which I can the better do, as I often have conversations with her for hours together, as at supper my rank

"Since her coming to this Country, she has, by every method in her power, endeavored to gain the affections

of the Nation: she applied herself with diligence to study their language; and speaks it at present, as the

Russians tell me, in the greatest perfection. She has also succeeded in her other aim; for she is esteemed and

beloved here in a high degree. Her person is very advantageous, and her manners very captivating. She has

great knowledge of this Empire; and makes it her only study. She has parts; and Great Chancellor [brute

Bestuchef] tells me that nobody has more steadiness and resolution. She has, of late, openly declared herself

to me in respect of the King of Prussia;"hates him a good deal, "natural and formidable enemy of Russia;"

"heart certainly the worst in the world [and so on; but will see better by and by, having eyes of her

own]:she never mentions the King of England but with the utmost respect and highest regard; is

thoroughly sensible of the utility of the union between England and Russia; always calls his Majesty the

Empress's best and greatest Ally [so much of nourishment in him withal, as in a certain webfooted Chief of

Birds, reckoned chief by some]; and hopes he will also give his friendship and protection to the GrandDuke

and herself. As for the GrandDuke, he is weak and violent; but his confidence in the GrandDuchess is

so great, that sometimes he tells people, that though he does not understand things himself, his Wife

understands everything. Should the Empress, as I fear, soon die, the Government will quietly devolve on

them." [Hanbury's Despatch, "October 2d, 1755" (Raumer, pp. 223225); Subsidy Treaty still at its

Catherine's age is twentysix gone; her Peter's twentyseven: one of the cleverest young Ladies in the world,

and of the stoutesthearted, clearesteyed;yoked to a young Gentleman much the reverse. Thank Hanbury

for this glimpse of them, most intricately situated Pair; who may concern us a little in the sequel.And, in

justice to poor Hanover, the sad subjectmatter of Excellency Hanbury's Problems and Futilities in Russia

and elsewhere, let us save this other Fraction by a very different hand; and close that Hanbury scene:

"Friedrich himself was so dangerous," says the Constitutional Historian once: "Friedrich, in alliance with

France, how easy for him to catch Hanover by the throat at a week's notice, throw a deathnoose round the

throat of poor Hanover, and hand the same to France for tightening at discretion! Poor Hanover indeed; she

reaps little profit from her English honors: what has she had to do with these Transatlantic Colonies of

England? An unfortunate Country, if the English would but think; liable to be strangled at any time, for

England's quarrels: the Achilles'heel to invulnerable England; a sad function for Hanover, if it be a proud

one, and amazingly lucrative to some Hanoverians. The Country is very dear to his Britannic Majesty in one

sense, very dear to Britain in another! Nay Germany itself, through Hanover, is to be torn up by War for

Transatlantic interests,out of which she does not even get good Virginia tobacco, but grows bad of her

own. No more concern than the Ring of Saturn with these oversea quarrels; and can, through Hanover, be

torn to pieces by War about them. Such honor to give a King to the British Nation, in a strait for one; and

such profit coming of it:we hope all sides are grateful for the blessings received!"

To expectant mankind, especially to Vienna and Versailles, this BritannicPrussian Treaty was a great

surprise. And indeed it proved the signal of a general System of New Treaties all round. The first signal, in

fact,though by no means the first cause,of a total circumgyration, summerset, or tumble

heelsoverhead in the Political relations of Europe altogether, which ensued thereupon; miraculous, almost

as the Earthquake at Lisbon, to the Gazetteer, and Diplomatic mind, and incomprehensible for long years

after. First signal we say, by no means that it was the first cause, or indeed that it was a cause at all,the

thing being determined elsewhere long before; ever since 1753, when Kaunitz left it ready, waiting only its

Kaiser Franz, they say, when (probably during those Keith urgencies) the joining with France and turning

against poor Britannic Majesty was proposed in Council at Vienna, opened his usually silent lips; and opined

with emphasis against such a course, no Kaunitz or creature able to persuade Kaiser Franz that good would

come of it;though, finding Sovereign Lady and everybody against him, he held his peace again. And

returned to his private banking operations, which were more extensive than ever, from the new troubles

rising. "Lent the EmpressQueen, always on solid securities," says Friedrich, "large sums, from time to time,

in those Wars; dealt in Commissariat stores to right and left; we ourselves had most of our meal from him this

year." [ OEuvres de Frederic, iv. 8.] Kaiser Franz was, and continued, of the old way of thinking; but

consummate Kaunitz, and the High Lady's fixed passion for her Schlesien, had changed everybody else. The

September 22d, 1755, a few days before Hanbury's Subsidyfeat at Petersburg, which took such a whirl for

Hanbury, there had met for the first time at Versailles, more especially at Babiole, Pleasure House of the

Pompadour, a most Select Committee of Three Persons: Graf von Stahremberg, Austrian Ambassador;

Pompadour herself; and a certain infinitely elegant Count and Reverence de Bernis (beautiful

ClericoMundane Gentleman, without right Benefice hitherto, but much in esteem with the

Pompadour);for deepest practical consideration in regard to closure of a FrenchAustrian Alliance.

Reverend Count (subsequently Cardinal) de Bernis has sense in Diplomacy; has his experiences in Secular

Diplomatic matters; a softgoing cautious man, not yet official, but tending that way: whom the Pompadour

has brought with her as henchman, or unghostly counsellor, in this intricate Adventure.

Stahremberg, instructed from home, has no hesitation; nor has Pompadour herself, remembering that insolent

"JE NE LA CONNAIS PAS," and the percontra "MA COUSINE," "PRINCESSE ET SOEUR:"but

Bernis, I suppose, looks into the practical difficulties; which are probably very considerable, to the Official

French eye, in the present state of Europe and of the public mind. From September 22d, or autumnal equinox,

1755, onward to this BritannicPrussian phenomenon of January, 1756, the Pompadour Conclave has been

sitting,difficulties, no doubt, considerable. I will give only the dates, having myself no interest in such a

Committee at Babiole; but the dates sufficiently betoken that there were intricacies, conflicts between the

new and the old. Hitherto the axiom always was, "Prussia the Adjunct and Satellite of France:" now to be

JULY, 1755, that is two months before this Babiole Committee met, a Duc de Nivernois, respectable

intelligent dilettante French Nobleman, had been named as Ambassador to Friedrich, "Go, you respectable

wise Nivernois, Nobleman of Letters so called; try and retain Friedrich for us, as usual!" And now, on

meeting of the Babiole Committee, Nivernois does not go; lingers, saddled and bridled, till the very end of

the Year; arrives in Berlin January 12th, 1756. Has his First Audience January 14th; a man highly amiable to

The French, this good while back, are in no doubt about War with England, a right hearty War; and have

always expected to retain Prussia as formerly,though rather on singular terms. Some time ago, for instance,

M. de Rouille, WarMinister, requested Knyphausen, Prussian Envoy at Paris: "Suggest to your King's

Majesty what plunder there is at Hanover. Perfectly at liberty to keep it all, if he will plunder Hanover for

us!" [ OEuvres de Frederic, iv. 29.] Pleasant message to the proud King; who answered with the due brevity,

to the purport, "Silence, Sir!"with didactic effects on the surprised Rouille. Who now mends his proposal;

though again in a remarkable way. Instructs Nivernois, namely, "To offer King Friedrich the Island of

Tobago, if he will renew Treaty, and take arms for us. Island of Tobago (a deserted, litigated, but pretty

Island, were it ever ours), will not that entice this King, intent on Commerce?" Friedrich, who likes Nivernois

and his polite ways, answers quizzingly: "Island of Tobago? Island of Barataria your Lordship must be

meaning; Island of which I cannot be the Sancho Panza!" [Ib. 31.] And Nivernois found he must not mention

For the rest, Friedrich made no secret of his English Treaty; showed it with all frankness to Nivernois, in all

points: "Is there, can the most captious allege that there is, anything against France in it. My one wish and

aim, that of Peace for myself: judge!" Nivernois stayed till March; but seems to have had, of definite, only

Tobago and good words; so that nothing farther came of him, and there was no Renewal of Treaty then or

after. Thus, in his third month (March, 1756), practical Nivernois was recalled, without result;instead of

whom fat Valori was sent; privately intending "to do nothing but observe, in Berlin." From all which, we

infer that the Babiole Committee now saw land; and that Bernis himself had decided in the affirmative:

"Austria, not Prussia; yes, Madame!" To the joy of Madame and everybody. For, it is incredible, say all

witnesses, what indignation broke out in Paris when Friedrich made this new "defection," so they termed it;

revolt from his Liege Lord (who had been so exemplary to him on former occasions!), and would not bite at

Tobago when offered. So that the Babiole Committee went on, henceforth, with flowing sea; and by Mayday

(1st MAY, 1756) brought out its French Austrian Treaty in a completed state. "To stand by one another,"

like Castor and Pollux, in a manner; "24,000, reciprocally, to be ready on demand;" nay I think something of

"subsidies" withal,TO Austria, of course. But the particulars are not worth giving; the Performance, thanks

to a zealous Pompadour, having quite outrun the Stipulation, and left it practically out of sight, when the push

"France and England going to War in these sad circumstances, and France and Austria being privately

prepared [by Kaunitz and others] to swear everlasting friendship on the occasion, instead of everlasting

enmity as heretofore; unexpected changes, miraculous to the Gazetteers, became inevitable;nothing less, in

short, than explosion or topsyturvying of the old DiplomaticPolitical Scheme of Europe. Old dance of the

Constellations flung heelsoverhead on the sudden; and much pirouetting, jigging, setting, before they

could change partners, and continue their august dance again, whether in War or Peace. No end to the

industrious wonder of the Gazetteer mind, to the dark difficulties of the Diplomatic. What bafflings, agonistic

shufflings, impotent gazings into the dark; what seductive fiddling, and being fiddled to! A most sad function

of Humanity, if sometimes an inevitable one; which ought surely at all times to be got over as briefly as

possible. To be written of, especially, with a maximum of brevity; human nature being justly impatient of talk

Most true it is, and was most miraculous, though now quite forgotten again, Political Europe had to make a

complete whirl round on that occasion. And not in a day, and merely saying to itself, "Let me do

summerset!" as idle readers suppose,but with long months of agonistic shuffle and struggle in all places,

and such Diplomatic fiddling and being fiddled to, as seldom was before. Of which, these two instances, the

Bernis and the Hanbury, are to serve as specimen; two and no more: a universe of extinct fiddling

The French, in reality a good deal astonished at the Prussian Britannic Treaty, affected to take it easy:

"Treaty for Neutrality of Germany?" said they: "Very good indeed. Perhaps there are places nearer us, where

our troops can be employed to more advantage!" [Their "Declaration" on it (Adelung, vii. 613.]hinting

vocally, as henceforth their silent procedures, their diligence in the dockyards, moving of troops coastward

and the like, still more clearly did, That an Invasion of England itself was the thing next to be expected.

England and France are, by this time, alike fiercely determined on War; but their states of preparation are

very different. The French have Warships again, not to mention Armies which they always have; some

skilful Admirals withal,La Gallisonniere, our old Canada friend, is one, very busy at present;and mean

to try seriously the Question of SeaSupremacy once more. If an Invasion did chance to land, the state of

England would be found handy beyond hope! How many fighting regiments England has, I need not inquire,

nor with what strategic virtue they would go to work;enough to mention the singular fact (recently true,

and still, I perceive, too like the truth), That of all their regiments, "only Three are in this Country", or have

Colonels even nominated. Incredible; but certain. And the interesting point is, his Grace of Newcastle dare

not have Colonels, still less higher Officers nominated; because Royal Highness of Cumberland would have

the naming of them, and they would be enemies to his Grace. [Walpole, George the Second, ii. 19 (date,

"March 25th, 1755;" and how long after, is not said: but see Pitt's Speeches, ib., all through 1756, and

farther).] In such posture stands the Envy of surrounding Nations at this moment.

"Hire Hessians," cry they; "hire Hanoverians; if France land on us, we are undone!"and continue their

Parliamentary Eloquences in a most distressful manner. "Apply to the Dutch, at any rate, for their 6,000 as

per Treaty", cries everybody. Which is done. But the Dutch piteously wring their hands: "Dare not, your

Majesty; how dare we, for France and our neglected Barrier! Oh, generous Majesty, excuse us!"and the

generous Majesty has to do it; and leave the Dutch in peace, this time. Hessians, Hanoverians, after eloquence

enough, are at last got sent for, to guard us against this terrible Invasion: about 10,000 of each kind; and do

land, the native populations very sulky on them ("We won't billet you, not we; build huts, and be!"),

with much Parliamentary and Newspaper Commentary going on, of a distressful nature. "Saturday, 15th May,

1756, Hessians disembark at Southampton; obliged to pitch Camp in the neighborhood: Friday, 21st May, the

Hanoverians, at Chatham, who hut themselves Canterbury way;"and have (what is the sumtotal of their

achievements in this Country) a case of shoplifting, "pockethandkerchief, across the counter, in open day;"

one case (or what seemed to be one, but was not); ["At Maidstone, 13th Septemher, 1756;" Hanoverian

soldier, purchasing a handkerchief, imagines he has purchased two (not yet clipt asunder), haberdasher and he

having no language in common: Gentleman's Magazine, for 1756, pp. 259, 448, Walpole, SAEPIUS.] "and

the fellow not to be tried by us for it!" which enrages the constitutional heart. Alas, my heavyladen

constitutional heart; but what can we do? These drilled louts will guard us, should this terrible Invasion land.

And indeed, about three weeks BEFORE these louts arrived, the terrible Invasion had declared itself to have

been altogether a feint; and had lifted anchor, quite in the opposite direction, on an errand we shall hear of

About the same date, I observe, "the first regiment of Footguards practising the Prussian drillexercise in

Hyde Park;" and hope his Grace of Newcastle and the Hero of Culloden (immortal Hero, and aiming high in

Politics at this time) will, at least, have fallen upon some method of getting Colonels nominated. But the

wide weltering chaos of platitudes, agitated by hysterical imbecilities, regulating England in this great crisis,

fills the constitutional mind with sorrow; and indeed is definable, once more, as amazing! England is a

stubborn Country; but it was not by procedures of the CumberlandNewcastle kind that England, and her

Colonies, and Sea andLand Kingdoms, was built together; nor by these, except miracle intervene, that she

can stand long against stress! Looking at the dismal matter from this distance, there is visible to me in the

foggy heart of it one lucent element, and pretty much one only; the individual named William Pitt, as I have

read him: if by miracle that royal soul could, even for a time, get to something of Kingship there? Courage;

miracles do happen, let us hope!This is whitherward the grand Invasion had gone:

TOULON, 10th APRIL, 1756. La Gallisonniere, our old Canadian friend, a crooked little man of great

faculty, who has been busy in the dockyards lately, weighs anchor from Toulon; "12 sail of the line, 5 frigates

and above 100 transportships;" with the grand InvasionofEngland Armament on board: 16,000 picked

troops, complete in all points, Marechal Duc de Richelieu commanding. [Adelung, viii. 70.] Weighs anchor;

and, singular to see, steers, not for England, and the HessianHanover Defenders (who would have been in

such excellent time); but direct for Minorca, as the surer thing! Will seize Minorca; a socalled inexpugnable

Possession of the English,Key of their Mediterranean Supremacies;really inexpugnable enough; but

which lies in the usual dilapidated state, though by chance with a courageous old Governor in it, who will not

APRIL 18th, La Gallisonniere disembarks his Richelieu with a Sixteen Thousand, unopposed at PortMahon,

or Fort St. Philip, in Minorca; who instantly commences Siege there. To the astonishment of England and his

Grace of Newcastle who, except old Governor Blakeney, much in dilapidation ("wooden platforms rotten,"

"batteries out of repair," and so on), have nothing ready for Richelieu in that quarter. The story of Minorca;

and the furious humors and tragic consummations that arose on it, being still well known, we will give the

FORT ST. PHILIP, APRIL 18thMAY 20th. For a month, Richelieu, skilful in tickling the French troops,

has been besieging, in a high and grandiose way; La Gallisonniere vigilantly cruising; old Blakeney, in spite

of the rotten platforms, vigorously holding out; whenMay 19th, La Gallisonniere descries an English fleet

in the distance; indisputably an English fleet; and clears his decks for a serious Affair just coming.

THURSDAY, 20th MAY, Admiral Byng accordingly (for it is he, son of that old seaworthy Byng, who once

"blew out" a minatory Spanish Fleet and "an absurd Flame of War" in the Straits of Messina, and was made

Lord Torrington in consequence,happily now dead)Admiral Byng does come on; and gains himself a

name badly memorable ever since. Attacks La Gallisonniere, in a widelying, languid, hovering, uncertain

manner:"Far too weak" he says; "much disprovided, destitute, by blame of Ministry and of everybody"

(though about the strength of La Gallisonniere, after all);is almost rather beaten by La Gallisonniere; does

not in the least, beat him to the right degree:and sheers off: in the nighttime, straight for Gibraltar again.

To La Gallisonniere's surprise, it is said; no doubt to old Blakeney and his poor Garrison's, left so, to their

Blakeney and Garrison stood to their guns in a manful manner, for above a month longer; day after day, week

after week, looking over the horizon for some Byng or some relief appearing, to no purpose! JUNE 14th,

there are three available breaches; the walls, however, are very sheer (a Fortress hewn in the rock): Richelieu

scanning them dubiously, and battering his best, for about a fortnight more, is ineffectual on Blakeney.

JUNE 27th, Richelieu, taking his measures well, tickling French honor well, has determined on storm.

Richelieu, giving order of the day, "Whosoever of you is found drunk shall NOT be of the storm party"

(which produced such a teetotalism as nothing else had done),storms, that night, with extreme audacity.

The Place has to capitulate: glorious victory; honorable defence: and Minorca gone.

And England is risen to a mere smoky whirlwind, of rage, sorrow and darkness, against Byng and others.

Smoky darkness, getting streaked with dangerous fire. "Tried?" said his Grace of Newcastle to the City

Deputation: "Oh indeed he shall be tried immediately; he shall be hanged directly!"assure yourselves of

that. [Walpole, ii. 231: Details of the Siege, ib. 218225; in Gentleman's Magazine, xxvi. 256, 312313, 358;

in Adelung, vii.; And Byng's effigy was burnt all over England. And mobs attempt to burn his Seat and Park;

and satires and caricatures and firebrands are coming out: and the poor Constitutional Country is bent on

applying surgery, if it but know how. Surgery to such indisputable abominations was certainly desirable. The

new Relief Squadron, which had been despatched by Majesty's Ministry, was too late for Blakeney, but did

SPITHEAD, TUESDAY, 27th JULY, The superseded Byng arrives; is punctually arrested, on arriving: "Him

we will hang directly: is there anything else we can try [except, perhaps, it were hanging of ourselves, and

our fine methods of procedure], by way of remedying you?"War against France, now a pretty plain thing,

had been "declared," 17th May (French counterdeclaring, 9th June): and, under a Duke of Newcastle and a

Hero of Culloden, not even pulling one way, but two ways; and a TalkingApparatus full of discords at this

time, and pulling who shall say how many ways, the prospects of carrying on said War are none of the

best. Lord Loudon, a General without skill, and commanding, as Pitt declares, "a scroll of Paper hitherto" (a

good few thousands marked on it, and perhaps their Colonels even named), is about going for America; by no

means yet gone, a long way from gone: and, if the Laws of Nature be suspendedEnough of all that!

Friedrich's situation, in those fatefully questionable months and for many past (especially from January 16th

to July),readers must imagine it, for there is no description possible. In many intricacies Friedrich has

been; but never, I reckon, in any equal to this. Himself certain what the Two Imperial Women have vowed

against him; self and Winterfeld certain of that sad truth; and all other mortals ready to deny it, and fly

delirious on hint of it, should he venture to act in consequence! Friedrich's situation is not unimaginable,

when (as can now be done by candid inquirers who will take trouble enough) the one or two internal facts of

it are disengaged from the roaring ocean of clamorous delusions which then enveloped them to everybody,

and are held steadily in view, said ocean being well run off to the home of it very deep underground. Lies do

fall silent; truth waits to be recognized, not always in vain. No reader ever will conceive the strangling

perplexity of that situation, now so remote and extinct to us. All I can do is, to set down what features of it

have become indisputable; and leave them as detached traceries, as fractions of an outline, to coalesce into

Winterfeld's opinion was, for some time past, distinct: "Attack them; since it is certain they only wait to

attack us!" But Friedrich would by no means listen to that. "We must not be the aggressor, my friend; that

would spoil all. Perhaps the English will pacify the Russian CATIN for me; tie her, with packthreads, bribes

and intrigues, from stirring? Wait, watch!" Fiery Winterfeld, who hates the French, who despises the

Austrians, and thinks the Prussian Army a considerable Fact in Politics, has great schemes: far too great for a

practical Friedrich. "Plunge into the Austrians with a will: Prussian Soldiery,can Austrians resist it? Ruin

them, since they are bent on ruining us. Stir up the Hungarian Protestants; try all things. Home upon our

implacable enemies, sword drawn, scabbard flung away! And the French,what are the French? Our King

should be Kaiser of Teutschland; and he can, and he may:the French would then be quieter!" These things

Winterfeld carried in his head; and comrades have heard them from him over wine. [Retzow, i. 43, To all

which Friedrich, if any whisper of them ever got to Friedrich, would answer one can guess how.

It is evident, Friedrich had not given up his hope (indeed, for above a year more, he never did) that England

might, by profuse bribery,"such the power of bribery in that mad court!"assuage, overnet with

backstairs packthreads, or in some way compesce the Russian delirium for him. And England, his sole Ally in

the world, still tender of Austria, and unable to believe what the full intentions of Austria are; England

demands much wariness in his procedures towards Austria; reiterating always, "Wait, your Majesty! Oh,

His own Army, we need not say, is in perfect preparation. The Army let us guess, 150,000 regular, or near

200,000 of all arms and kinds [Archenholtz (i, 8) counts vaguely "160,000" at this date.] never was so

perfect before or since. Old Captains in it, whom we used to know, are grayer and wiser; young, whom we

heard less of, are grown veterans of trust. Schwerin, much a Cincinnatus since we last saw him, has laid down

his plough again, a fervid "little Marlborough" of seventytwo;and will never see that beautiful

Schwerinsburg, and its thriving woods and farmfields, any more. Ugly Walrave is not now chief Engineer;

one Balbi, a much prettier man, is. Ugly Walrave (Winterfeld suspecting and watching him) was found out;

convicted of "falsified accounts," of "sending plans to the Enemy," of who knows all what;and sits in

Magdeburg (in a thricesafe prisoncell of his own contriving), prisoner for life. ["Arrested at Potsdam 12th

February, 1748, and after trial put into the STERN at Magdeburg; sat there till he died, 16th January, 1773"

( MilitalrLexikon, iv. 150151).] The Old Dessauer is away, long since; and not the Old alone. Dietrich of

Dessau is now "Guardian to his Nephew," who is a Child left Heir there. Death has been busy with the

Dessauers:but here is Prince Moritz, "the youngest, more like his Father than any of them." Duke

Ferdinand of Brunswick, Moritz of Dessau, Keith, Duke of BrunswickBevern: no one of these people has

been idle, in the ten years past. Least of all, has the Chief Captain of them,whose diligence and vigilance

Friedrich's Army is in the perfection of order. Ready at the hour, for many months back; but the least motion

he makes with it is a subject of jealousy. Last year, on those Russian advancings and alacrities, he had

marched some Regiments into Pommern, within reach of Preussen, should the Russians actually try a stroke

there: "See!" cried all the world: "See!" cried the enlightened Russian Public. This year 1756, from June

onwards and earlier, there are still more fatal symptoms, on the Austrian side: great and evident

Warpreparations; Magazines forming; Camps in Bohemia, Moravia; Camp at Konigsgratz, Camp at

Prag,handy for the Silesian Border. Friedrich knows they have deliberated on their Pretext for a War, and

have fixed on what will do,some new small Prussian Mecklenburg brabble, which there has lately been;

paltry enough recruitingquarrel, such as often are (and has been settled mutually some time ago, this one,

but is capable of being ripped up again);and that, on this cobweb of a pretext, they mean to draw sword

when they like. Russia too has its Pretext ready. And if Friedrich hint of stirring, England whispers hoarse,

England and other friends, "Wait, your Majesty! Oh, beware!" To keep one's sword at its sharpest, and, with

an easy patient air, one's eyes vigilantly open: this is nearly all that Friedrich can do, in neighborhood of such

BERLIN, 31st JULY, 1756, Excellency Valori writes to Versailles: ... "to give you account of a Conversation

I have had, a day or two ago, with the Prince of Prussia [August Wilhelm, HeirApparent], who honors me

with a particular confidence,"and who appears to be, privately, like some others, very strong in the

Opposition view. "He talked to me of the present condition of the King his Brother, of his Brother's

apprehensions, of his military arrangements, of the little trust placed in him by neighbors, of their hostile

humor towards him, and of many other things which this good Prince [little understanding them, as would

appear, or the dangerous secret that lay under them] did not approve of. The Prince then said,"listen to

"'There is an Anecdote which continually recurs to me, in the passes we are got to at present. Putting the case

we might be attacked by Russia, and perhaps by Austria, the late Rothenburg was sent [as readers know], on

the King's part, to Milord Tyrconnel, to know of him what, in such case, were the helps he might reckon on

from France. Milord enumerated the various helps; and then added [being a blusterous Irishman, sent hither

for his ill tongue]: "Helps enough, you observe, Monsieur; but, MORBLEU, if you deceive us, you will be

squelched (VOUS SEREZ ECRASES)!" The King my 'Brother was angry enough at hearing such a speech:

but, my dear Marquis,' and the Prince turned full upon me with a face of inquiry, 'Can the thing actually come

true? And do you think it can be the interest of your Master [and his Scarlet Woman] to abandon us to the

fury of our enemies? Ah, that cursed Convention [NeutralityConvention with England]! I would give a

finger from my hand that it had never been concluded. I never approved of it; ask the Duc de Nivernois, he

knows what we said of it together. But how return on our steps? Who would now trust us?'" This Prince

appeared "to be much affected by the King his Brother's situation [of which he understood as good as

nothing], and agreed that he," the King his Brother, "had well deserved it." [Valori, ii, 129131.]

This is not the first example, nor the last, of August Wilhelm's owning a heedless, goodnatured tongue;

considerably prone to take the Opposition side, on light grounds. For which if he found a kind of solacement

and fame in some circles, it was surely at a dear rate! To his Brother, that bad habit would, most likely, be

known; and his Brother, I suppose, did not speak of it at all; such his Brother's custom in cases of the

kind.Judicious Valori, by way of answer, dilated on the peculiar esteem of his Majesty Louis XV. for the

Prussian Majesty,"so as my Instructions direct me to do;" and we hear no more of the Prince of Prussia's

talk, at this time; but shall in future; and may conjecture a great deal about the atmosphere Friedrich had now

to live in. A Friedrich undergoing, privately, a great deal of criticism: "Mad tendency to war; lust of

conquest; contempt for his neighbors, for the opinion of the world;no end of irrational tendencies:" [Ib. ii.

124151 ("July 27thAugust 21st").] from persons to whom the secret of his Problem is deeply unknown.

One wise thing the English have done: sent an Excellency Mitchell, a man of loyalty, of sense and honesty, to

be their Resident at Berlin. This is the noteworthy, not yet much noted, Sir Andrew Mitchell; by far the best

Excellency England ever had in that Court. An Aberdeen Scotchman, creditable to his Country: hardheaded,

sagacious; sceptical of shows; but capable of recognizing substances withal, and of standing loyal to them,

stubbornly if needful; who grew to a great mutual regard with Friedrich, and well deserved to do so;

constantly about him, during the next seven years; and whose Letters are among the perennially valuable

Documents on Friedrich's History. [Happily secured in the British Museum; and now in the most perfect

order for consulting (thanks to Sir F. Madden "and three years' labor" well invested); should certainly, and

will one day, be read to the bottom, and cleared of their darknesses, extrinsic and intrinsic (which are

Mitchell is in Berlin since June 10th. Mitchell, who is on the scene itself, and looking into Friedrich with his

own eyes, finds the reiterating of that "Beware, your Majesty!" which had been his chief task hitherto, a more

and more questionable thing; and suggests to him at last: "Plainly ask her Hungarian Majesty, What is your

meaning by those Bohemian Campings?" "Pshaw," answers Friedrich: "Nothing but some ambiguous answer,

perhaps with insult in it!"nevertheless thinks better; and determines to do so. [Mitchell Papers.]

July 18th, 1756, Friedrich despatches an Express to Graf von Klinggraf, his Resident at Vienna (an

experienced man, whom we have seen before in old Carteret, "ConferenceofHanau" times), To demand

audience of the Empress; and, in the fittest terms, friendly and courteous, brief and clear, to put that question

of Mitchell's suggesting. "Those unwonted Armaments, Camps in Bohmen, Camps in Mahren, and military

movements and preparations," Klinggraf is to say, "have caused anxiety in her Majesty's peaceable Neighbor

of Prussia; who desires always to continue in peace; and who requests hereby a word of assurance from her

Majesty, that these his anxieties are groundless." Friedrich himself hopes little or nothing from this; but he

has done it to satisfy people about him, and put an end to all scruples in himself and others. The Answer may

And, about the same time,likely enough, directly after, though there is no date given, to a fact which is

curious and authentic, Friedrich sent for two of his chief Generals, to Potsdam, for a secret Conference

with Winterfeld and him. The Generals are, old Schwerin and General Retzow Senior,MajorGeneral

Retzow, whom we used to hear of in the Silesian Wars,and whose Son reports on this occasion.

Conference is on this Imminency of War, and as to what shall be done in it. Friedrich explains in general

terms his dangers from Austria and Russia, his certainty that Austria will attack him; and asks, Were it, or

were it not, better to attack Austria, as is our Prussian principle in such case? Schwerin and

RetzowSchwerin first, as the eldest; and after him Retzow, "who privately has charge from the Prussian

Princes to do it"opine strongly: That indications are uncertain, that much seems inevitable which does not

come; that in a time of such tumultuous whirlings and unexpected changes, the true rule is, Watch well, and

After enough of this, with Winterfeld looking dissent but saying almost nothing, Friedrich gives sign to

Winterfeld;who spreads out, in their lucidest prearranged order, the principal Menzel Weingarten

Documents; and bids the two Military Gentlemen read. They read; with astonishment, are forced to believe;

stand gazing at one another;and do now take a changed tone. Schwerin, "after a silence of everybody for

some minutes,""bursts out like one inspired; 'If War is to be and must be, let us start tomorrow; seize

Saxony at once; and in that rich corny Country form Magazines for our Operations on Bohemia!'" [Retzow, i.

That is privately Friedrich's own full intention. Saxony, with its Elbe River as Highway, is his indispensable

preliminary for Bohemia: and he will not, a second time, as he did in 1744 with such results, leave it in an

unsecured condition. Adieu then, Messieurs; silent: AU REVOIR, which may be soon! Retzow Junior, a

rational, sincere, but rather pipeclayed man, who is wholly to be trusted on this Conference, with his Father

for authority, has some touches of commentary on it, which indicate (date being 1802) that till the end of his

life, or of Prince Henri his Patron's, there remained always in some heads a doubt as to Friedrich's wisdom in

regard to starting the SevenYears War, and to Schwerin's entire sincerity in that inspired speech. And still

more curious, that there was always, at Potsdam as elsewhere, a Majesty's Opposition Party; privately intent

to look at the wrong side; and doing it diligently,though with lips strictly closed for most part; without

words, except wellweighed and to the wise: which is an excellent arrangement, for a Majesty and Majesty's

From Retzow I learn farther, that Winterfeld, directly on the back of this Conference, took a Tour to the

Bohemian Baths, "To Karlsbad, or Toplitz, for one's health;" and wandered about a good deal in those

Frontier Mountains of Bohemia, taking notes, taking sketches (not with a picturesque view); and returned by

the Saxon Pirna Country, a strange stony labyrinth, which he guessed might possibly be interesting soon. The

Saxon Commandant of the Konigstein, lofty Fortress of those parts, strongest in Saxony, was of Winterfeld's

acquaintance: Winterfeld called on this Commandant; found his Konigstein too high for cannonading those

neighborhoods, but that there was at the base of it a new Work going on; and that the Saxons were, though

languidly, endeavoring to bestir themselves in matters military. Their entire Army at present is under 20,000;

but, in the course of next Winter, they expect to have it 40,000. Shall be of that force, against Season 1757.

No doubt Winterfeld's gatherings and communications had their uses at Potsdam, on his getting home from

Meanwhile, Klinggraf has had his Audience at Vienna; and has sped as ill as could have been expected. The

Answer given was of supercilious brevity; evasive, in effect null, and as good as answering, That there is no

answer. Two Accounts we have, as Friedrich successively had them, of this famed passage: FIRST,

Klinggraf's own, which is clear, rapid, and stands by the essential; SECOND, an account from the other side

of the scenes, furnished by Menzel of Dresden, for Friedrich's behoof and ours; which curiously illustrates the

foregoing, and confirms the interpretation Friedrich at once made of it. This is Menzel's account; in other

July 26th, it appears, Klinggrafhaving applied to Kaunitz the day before, who noticed a certain flurry in

him, and had answered carelessly, "Audience? Yes, of course; nay I am this moment going to the Empress:

only you must tell me about what?"was admitted to the Imperial Presence, he first of many that were

waiting. Imperial Presence held in its hand a snip of Paper, carefully composed by Kaunitz from the data, and

read these words: "DIE BEDENKLICHEN UMSTANDE, The questionable circumstances of the Time have

moved me to consider as indispensably necessary those measures which, for my own security and for defence

of my Allies, I am taking, and which otherwise do not tend the least towards injury of anybody

whatsoever;"and adding no syllable more, gave a sign with her hand, intimating to Klinggraf that the

Interview was done. Klinggraf strode through the Antechamber, "visibly astonished," say onlookers, at such

an Answer had. Answer, in fact, "That there is no answer," and the door flung in your face! [ Helden

Geschichte, iii. 772. In Valori, ii. 128, Friedrich's little Paper of INSTRUCTIONS to Klinggraf; this Vienna

ANSWER to it, ib. 138:see ib. 138, 162; and Gesammelte Nachrichten, ii. 214221.]

Friedrich, on arrival of report from Klinggraf, and without waiting for the Menzel side of the scenes, sees that

the thing is settled. Writes again, however (August 2d, probably the day after, or the same day, Klinggraf's

Despatch reached him); instructing Klinggraf To request "a less oracular response;" and specially, "If her

Imperial Majesty (Austria and Russia being, as is understood, in active League against, him) will say, That

Austria will not attack him this year or the next?" Draw up memorial of that, Monsieur Klinggraf; and send

us the supercilious NoAnswer: till which arrive we do not cross the Frontier,but are already everywhere

on march to it, in an industrious, cunningly devised, evident and yet impenetrably mysterious manner.

Excellency Valori never saw such activity of military preparation: such Artillery, "2,000 big pieces in the

Park here;" Regiments, Wagontrains, getting under way everywhere, no man can guess whitherward;

"drawn up in the Square here, they know not by what Gate they are to march." By three different Gates, I

should think; mysteriously, in Three Directions, known only to King Friedrich and his AdjutantGeneral,

all these Regiments in Berlin and elsewhere are on march. Towards Halle (Leipzig way); towards Brietzen

(Wittenberg and Torgau way); towards Bautzen neighborhood,towards Three settled Points of the Saxon

Frontier; will step across the instant the supercilious NoAnswer comes to hand. Are to converge about

Dresden and the Saxon Switzerland; about 65,000 strong, equipped as no Army before or since has been;

Bruhl and Polish Majesty's Army, still only about 18,000, have their apprehensions of such visit: but what

can they do? The Saxon Army draws out into Camp, at sight of this mysterious marching; strong Camp "in

the angle of Elbe and Mulde Rivers;"then draws in again; being too weak for use. And is thinking, Menzel

informs us, to take post in the stony labyrinthic Pirna Country: such the advice an Excellency Broglio has

given;French Excellency, now in Dresden; Marechal de Broglio's Son, and of little less explosive nature

than his Father was. Bruhl and Polish Majesty, guessing that the hour is come, are infinitely interested.

Interested, not flurried. "AustrianRussian AntiPrussian Covenant!" say Bruhl and Majesty, rather

comfortably to themselves: "We never signed it. WE never would sign anything; what have we to do with it?

Courage; steady; To Pirna, if they come! Are not Excellency Broglio, and France, and Austria, and the whole

It was full three weeks before Klinggraf's Message of Answer could arrive at Berlin. Of Friedrich in the

interim, launching such a worldadventure, himself silent, in the midst of a buzzing Berlin, take these

indications, which are luminous enough. Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick is to head one of the Three

"Columns." Duke Ferdinand, Governor of Magdeburg, is now collecting his Column in that neighborhood,

chiefly at Halle; whitherward, or on what errand, is profoundly unknown. Unknown even to Ferdinand,

except that it is for actual Service in the Field. Here are two Friedrich Letters (ruggedly Official, the first of

"For time of FieldService I have made the arrangement, That for the Subaltern Officers of your regiment,

over and above their ordinary Equipagemoneys, there shall, to each Subaltern Officer, and once for all, be

Eight Thalers [twentyfour shillings sterling] advanced. That sum [eight thalers per subaltern] shall be paid

to the Captain of every Company; and besides this there shall, monthly, Two Thalers be deducted from the

Subaltern's Pay, and be likewise paid over to the Captain:in return for which, He is to furnish Free Table

for the Subalterns throughout the Campaign, and so long as the regiment is in the field.

"Of the Two Baggagecarts per Company, the regiment shall take only One, and leave the other at home. No

Officer, let him be who or of what title he will, Generals not excepted, shall take with him the least of Silver

Plate, not even a silver spoon. Whoever wants, therefore, to keep table, great or small (TAFEL ODER

TISCH), must manage the same with tin utensils;without exception, be he who he will.

"Each Captain shall take with him a little Cask of Vinegar; of which, as soon as the regiments get to Camp,

he must give me reckoning, and I will then have him repaid. This Vinegar shall solely and exclusively be

employed for this purpose, That in places where the water is bad, there be poured into it, for the soldiers, a

few drops of the vinegar, to correct the water, and thereby preserve them from illnesses.

"So soon as the regiment gets on march, the Women who have permission to follow are put under command

of the Profoss; that thereby all plunderings and disorders may the more be guarded against. If the Captains

and Officers take Grooms (JAGER) or the like Domestics, there can muskets be given to these, that use may

be had of them, in case of an attack in quarters, or on march, when a WAGENBURG (wagonfortress) is to

... "Make as if you were meaning to go into Camp at Halle. The reason why I stop you is, that the Courier

from Vienna has not yet come. We must therefore reassure the Saxon neighborhood. ... I have been expecting

answer from hour to hour; cannot suitably begin a WarExpedition till it come; do therefore apprise Your

"And it is necessary, and my Will is, That, till farther order, you keep all the regiments and corps belonging

to your Column in the places where they are when this arrives. And shall, meanwhile, with your best skill

mask all this, both from the Town of Halle, and from the regiments themselves; making, in conformity with

what I said yesterday, as if you were a Corps of Observation come to encamp here, and were waiting the last

And in regard to the Vienna Courier, and Friedrich's attitude towards that Phenomenon, read only these Two

"MY DEAR BROTHER, MY DEAR SISTER,I write to you both at once, for want of time. I will follow

the advice you are so good as give me; and will take leave of the Queen [our dear Mamma] by Letter. And

that the reading of my Letter may not frighten her, I will send it by my Sister, to be presented in a favorable

"I have yet got no Answer from Vienna; by Klinggraf's account, I shall not receive it till tomorrow [came

this night], But I count myself surer of War than ever; as the Austrians have named Generals, and their Army

is ordered to march, from Kolin to Konigsgratz"Schlesien way. "So that, expecting nothing but a haughty

Answer, or a very uncertain one, on which there will be no reliance possible, I have arranged everything for

setting out on Saturday next. Tomorrow, so soon as the news comes, I will not fail to let you know.

Assuring you that I am, with a perfect affection, my dear Brother and my dear Sister,Yours,F."

Answer comes from Klinggraf that same night. Once more, an Answer almost worse than could have been

expected. "The 'League with Russia against you' is nonextant, a thing of your imagination: Have not we

already answered?" [In Gesammelte Urkunden, i. 217: Klinggraf's second question (done by Letter this time),

"MY DEAR BROTHER,I have already written to the Queen; softening things as much as I could [Letter

"You have seen the Paper I sent to Klinggraf. Their Answer is 'That they have not made an Offensive

Alliance with Russia against me.' The Answer is impertinent, high and contemptuous; and of the Assurance

that I required [as to This Year and next], not one word. So that the sword alone can cut this Gordian Knot. I

am innocent of this War; I have done what I could to avoid it; but whatever be one's love of peace, one

cannot and must not sacrifice to that, one's safety and one's honor. Such, I believe, will be your opinion too,

from the sentiments I know in you. At present, our one thought must be, To do War in such a way as may

cure our Enemies of their wish to break Peace again too soon. I embrace you with all my heart. I have had no

Ahead of that last Note, from an earlier hour of the same day, Thursday, 26th August, there is speeding forth,

"I hereby order that Your Dilection (EW. LIEBDEN), with all the regiments and corps in the Column

standing under your command, Shall now, without more delay, get on march, on the 29th inst.; and proceed,

according to the MarchTables and Instructions already given, to execute what Your Dilection has got in

The same Thursday, 26th, Excellency Mitchell, informed by Podewils of the King's wish to see him at

Potsdam, gets under way from Berlin; arrives "just time enough to speak with the King before he sat down to

supper." Very many things to be consulted of, and deliberatively touched upon, with Mitchell and England;

no end of things and considerations, for England and King Friedrich, in this that is now about to burst forth

on an astonished world!Over in London, we observe, just in the hours when Mitchell was harnessing for

Potsdam, and so many Orders and Letters were speeding their swiftest in that quarter, there is going forward,

"LONDON, THURSDAY, 26th AUGUST, 1756. About five in the afternoon, a noted Admiral [only in

Effigy as yet; but who has been held in miserable durance, and too actual question of death or life, ever since

his return: "Oh, yes indeed! Hang HIM at once",if that can be a remedy!] was, after having been privately

shown to many ladies and gentlemen, broughtin an open sedan, guarded by a number of young gentlemen

under arms, with drums beating, colors flyingto TowerHill, where a Gallows had been erected for him at

six the same morning. He was richly dressed, in a blue and gold coat, buff waistcoat, trimmed, in full

uniform. When brought under the Gallows, he stayed a small space, till his clergyman (a chimney sweeper)

had given him some admonitions: that done, he was drawn, by pulleys, to the top of the Gallows, which was

twenty feet high; every person expressing as much satisfaction as if it had been the real man.

"He remained there, guarded by the above volunteers, without any molestation, two hours; when, upon a

supposition of being obstructed by the Governor of the Tower, some sailors appeared, who wanted to pull

him down, in order to drag him along the streets. But a fire being kindled, which consisted of tarbarrels,

fagots, tables, tubs, he was consumed in about half an hour." [Old Newspapers ( Gentleman's Magazine, xxvi.

That is their employment on TowerHill, over yonder, while Mitchell is getting under way to see Friedrich.

Mitchell continued at Potsdam over Friday; and was still in eager consultation that night, when the King said

to him, with a certain expressiveness of glance: "BON SOIR, then;Tomorrow morning about four!" And

"... Am just returned to Berlin, in time to write to your Lordship. This morning, between four and five, I took

leave of the King of Prussia. Hr went immediately upon the Parade; mounted on horseback; and, after a very

short exercise of his Troops, put himself at their head; and marched directly for Belitz [halfway to Brietzen,

TREUENbrietzen as they call it]; where, Tomorrow, he will enter the Saxon Territory,"as, at their

respective points, his two other Columns will;and begin, who shall say what terrible game; incalculable to

your Lordship and me, with such Operations afoot on TowerHill! [Mitchell Papers, vi. 804 ("To Lord

Seven Hussar Regiments of Duke Ferdinand's Column got the length of Leipzig that Sunday Evening, 29th;

and took possession of the place. [In HeldenGeschichte, iii. 731, his "Proclamation" there, 29th August,

1756.] Duke Ferdinand to right of the King, Duke of BrunswickBevern to left,the Three Columns cross

the Border, at points, say 80 miles from one another; occasionally, on the march, bending to rightwards and

leftwards, to take in the principal Towns, and make settlements there, the two might be above a hundred

miles from Friedrich on each hand. The length of march for each Column,Ferdinand "from Leipzig, by

Chemnitz, Freyberg, Dippoldiswalde, to the Village of Cotta" (Pirna neighborhood, south of Elbe); Bevern,

"through the Lausitz, by Bautzen, to Lohmen" (same neighborhood, north of Elbe); King Friedrich, to

Dresden, by the course of the Elbe itself, was not far from equal, and may be called about 150 miles. They

marched with diligence, not with hurry; had their pauses, restdays, when business required. They got to their

The middle Column, under the King, where Marshal Keith is second in command, goes by Torgau (detaching

Moritz of Dessau to pick up Wittenberg, and ruin the slight works there); crosses the Elbe at Torgau,

September 2d; marches, cantoning itself day after day, along the southern bank of the River; leaves Meissen

to the left, I perceive, does not pass through Meissen; comes first at Wilsdruf on ground where we have

been,and portions of it, I doubt not, were billeted in Kesselsdorf; and would take a glance at the old Field,

if they had time. There is strict discipline in all the Columns; the authorities complying on summons, and

arranging what is needful. Nobody resists; townguards at once ground arms, and there is no soldier visible;

soldiers all ebbing away, whitherward we guess. [ HeldenGeschichte, iii. 732, 733; OEuvres de Frederic,

At Wilsdruf, Friedrich first learns for certain, that the Saxon Army, with King, with Bruhl and other chief

personages, are withdrawn to Pirna, to the inexpugnable Konigstein and Rock Country. The Saxon Army

had begun assembling there, September 1st, directly on the news that Friedrich was across the Border;

September 9th, on Friedrich's approach, the King and Dignitaries move off thither, from Dresden, out of his

way. Excellency Broglio has put them on that plan. Which may have its complexities for Friedrich, hopes

Broglio,though perhaps its still greater for some other parties concerned! For Bruhl and Polish Majesty, as

Meanwhile Friedrich pushes on: "Forward, all the same." Polish Majesty, dating from Struppen, in the Pirna

Country, has begun a Correspondence with Friedrich, very polite on both hands; and his AdjutantGeneral,

the Chevalier Meagher ("Chevalier de MARRE," as Valori calls him,MA'AR, as he calls himself in Irish),

has just had, at Wilsdruf, an interview with Friedrich; but is far from having got settlement on the terms he

wished. Polish Majesty magnanimously assenting to "a Road through his Country for military purposes;"

offers "the strictest Neutrality, strictest friendship even; has done, and will do, no injury whatever to his

Prussian Majesty["Did we ever SIGN anything?" whisper comfortably Bruhl and he to one

another];expects, therefore, that his Prussian Majesty will march on, whither he is bound; and leave him

That was Meagher's message; that is the purport of all his Polish Majesty's Eleven Letters to Friedrich, which

precede or follow, reiterating with a certain ovine obstinacy, insensible to time or change, That such is

Polish Majesty's fixed notion: "Strict neutrality, friendship even; and leave me unmolested here." [In OEuvres

de Frederic, iv. 235260 ("29th August10th September18th September," 1756), are collected now, the

Eleven Letters, with their Answers.] "Strict neutrality, yes: but disperse your Army, then," answers Friedrich;

send your Army back to its cantonments: I must myself have the keeping of my Highway, lest I lose it, as in

1744." This is Friedrich's answer; this at first, and for some time coming; though, as the aspects change, and

the dangerous elements heap themselves higher, Friedrich's answer will rise with them, and his terms, like the

Sibyl's, become worse and worse. This is the utmost that Meagher, at Wilsdruf, can make of it; and this, in

Next day, September 9th, Friedrich, with some Battalions, entered Dresden, most of his Column taking Camp

near by; General Wylich had entered yesterday, and is already Commandant there. Friedrich sends, by

Feldmarschall Keith, highest Officer of his Column, his homages to her Polish Majesty:nothing given us

of Keith's Interview; except by a sidewind, "That Majesty complained of those Prussian Sentries walking

about in certain of her corridors" (with an eye to Something, it may be feared!)of which, doubtless, Keith

undertook to make report. Friedrich himself waits upon the Junior Princes, who are left here: is polite and

gracious as ever, though strict, and with business enough; lodges, for his own part, "in the GardenHouse of

Princess Moczinska;"and next morning leads off his Column, a short march eastward, to the Pirna

Country; where, on the right and on the left, Ferdinand at Cotta, Bevern at Lohmen (if readers will look on

their Map), he finds the other Two in their due positions. Headquarter is GrossSedlitz (westernmost skirt

of the Rockregion); and will have to continue so, much longer than had been expected.

The Diplomatic world in Dresden is in great emotion; more especially just at present. This morning, before

leaving, Friedrich had to do an exceedingly strict thing: secure the Originals of those Menzel Documents.

Originals indispensable to him, for justifying his new procedures upon Saxony. So that there has been, at the

Palace, a Scene this morning of a very high and dissonant nature,"Marshal Keith" in it, "Marshal Keith

making a second visit" (say some loose and false Accounts);the facts being strictly as follows.

Far from removing those Prussian sentries complained of last night, here seems to be a double strength of

them this morning. And her Polish Majesty, a severe, hardfeatured old Lady, has been filled with indignant

amazement by a Prussian OfficerMajor von Wangenheim, I believe it isrequiring, in the King of

Prussia's name, the Keys of that Archiveroom; Prussian Majesty absolutely needing sight, for a little while,

of certain Papers there. "Enter that room? Archives of a crowned Head? Let me see the living mortal that will

dare to do it!"one fancies the indignant Polish Majesty's answer; and how, calling for materials, she

"openly sealed the door in question," in Wangenheim's presence. As this is a celebrated Passage, which has

been reported in several loose ways, let us take it from the primary source, Chancery style and all. Graf von

Sternberg, Austrian Excellency, writing from the spot and at the hour, informs his own Court, and through

"DRESDEN, 10th SEPTEMBER, 1756. The Queen's Majesty, this forenoon, has called to her all the Foreign

Ministers now at Dresden; and in Highest Own Person has signified to us, How, the Prussian intrusions and

hostilities being already known, Highest said Queen's Majesty would now simply state what had farther taken

"Highest said Queen's Majesty, to wit, had, in her own name, requested the King of Prussia, in conformity

with his assurances [by Keith, yesternight] of paying every regard for Her and the Royal Family, To remove

the Prussian Sentries pacing about in those Corridors,"Corridors which lead to the Secret Archives,

important to some of us!"Instead of which, the said King had not only doubled his Sentries there; but also,

by an Officer, demanded the Keys of the Archiveapartment [just alluded to]! And as the Queen's Majesty,

for security of all writings there, offered to seal the Door of it herself, and did so, there and then,the said

"Nor was he content therewith,"not by any means!"but the same Officer [having been with Wylich,

Commandant here] came back, a short time after, and made for opening of the Door himself. Which being

announced to the Queen's Majesty, she in her own person (HOCHSTDIESELBE, HighesttheSame) went

out again; and standing before the Door, informed him, 'How HighesttheSame had too much regard to his

Prussian Majesty's given assurance, to believe that such order could proceed from the King.' As the Officer,

however, replied, 'That he was sorry to have such an order to execute; but that the order was serious and

precise; and that he, by not executing it, would expose himself to the greatest responsibility," Her Majesty

continued standing before the Door; and said to the Officer, 'If he meant to use force, he might upon Her

"Upon which said Officer had gone away, to report anew to the King [I think, only to Wylich the

Commandant; King now a dozen miles off, not so easily reported to, and his mind known]; and in the mean

while Her Majesty had called to her the Prussian and English Ambassadors [Mahlzahn and Stormont; sorry

both of them, but how entirely resourceless,especially Mahlzahn!], and had represented and repeated to

them the above; beseeching that by their remonstrances and persuasions they would induce the King of

Prussia, conformably with his given assurance, to forbear. Instead, however, of any fruit from such

remonstrances and urgencies, final Order came, 'That, Queen's Majesty's own Highest Person

"Whereupon her Majesty, to avoid actual mistreatment, had been obliged to"to become passive, and, no

Keys being procurable from her, see a smith with his picklocks give these Prussians admission.

LegationSecretary Plessmann was there (Menzel one fancies sitting, rather pale, in an adjacent room [Supra,

p. 266.]); and they knew what to do. Their smith opens the required Box for them (one of several "all lying

packed for Warsaw," says Friedrich); from which soon taking what they needed, Wangenheim and Wylich

withdrew with their booty, and readers have the fruit of it to this day. "Which unheardof procedure, be

pleased, your Excellencies, to report to your respective Courts." [ Gesammelte Nachrichten, i. 222 (or "No.

Poor old Lady, what a situation! And I believe she never saw her poor old Husband again. The day he went to

Pirna (morning of yesterday, September 9th, Friedrich entering in the evening), these poor Spouses had, little

dreaming of it, taken leave of one another forevermore. Such profit lies in your Bruhl. Kings and Queens that

will be governed by a Jesuit Guarini, and a Bruhl of the Twelve Tailors, sometimes pay dear for it. They, or

their representatives, are sure to do so. Kings and Queens,yes, and if that were all: but their poor Countries

too? Their Countries;well, their Countries did not hate Beelzebub, in his various shapes, ENOUGH. Their

Countries should have been in watch against Beelzebub in the shape of Bruhls;watching, and also

Friedrich reckons himself to have 65,000 men in Saxony. Schwerin is issuing from Silesia, through the Glatz

Mountains, for Bohemia, at the head of 40,000. The Austrian force is inferior in quantity, and far from

ready:Two "Camps" in Bohemia they have; the chief one under Browne (looking, or intending, this Saxon

way), and a smaller under Piccolomini, in the KonigshofKolin region:if well run into from front and rear,

both Browne and Piccolomini might be beautifully handled; and a gash be cut in Austria, which might incline

her to be at peace again! Nothing hinders but this paltry Camp of the Saxons; itself only 18,000 strong, but in

a Country of such strength. And this does hinder, effectually while it continues: "How march to Bohemia, and

The Saxon Camp did continue,unmanageable by any method, for five weeks to come; the season of

waroperations gone, by that time: and Friedrich's First Campaign, rendered mostly fruitless in this

manner, will by no means check the Austrian truculencies, as by his velocity he hoped to do. No; but, on the

contrary, will rouse the Austrians, French and all Enemies, to a tenfold pitch of temper. And bring upon

himself, from an astonished and misunderstanding Public, such tempests and worldtornadoes of

To readers of a touring habit this Saxon Country is perhaps well known. For the last halfcentury it has been

growing more and more famous, under the name of "Saxon Switzerland (SACHSISCHE SCHWEITZ),"

instead of "Misnian Highlands (MEISSNISCHE HOCHLAND)," which it used to be called. A beautiful

enough and extremely rugged Country; interesting to the picturesque mind. Begins rising, in soft Hills, on

both sides of the Elbe, a few miles east of Dresden, as you ascend the River; till it rises into Hills of wild

character, getting ever wilder, and riven into wondrous chasms and precipices. Extends, say almost twenty

miles up the River, to Tetschen and beyond, in this eastern direction; and with perhaps ten miles of breadth

on each side of the River: area of the Rock region, therefore, is perhaps some four hundred square miles.

The Falkenberg (what we should call HAWKSCRAG) northeastward in the Lausitz, the Schneeberg (SNOW

MOUNTAIN), southeastward on the Bohemian border, are about thirtyfive miles apart: these two are both

reckoned to be in it,its last outposts on that eastern side. But the limits of it are fixed by custom only, and

We might define it as the Sandstone NECK of the Metal Mountains: a rather lower block, of Sandstone,

intercalated into the Metal Mountain range, which otherwise, on both hands, is higher, and of harder rocks.

Southward (as SHOULDER to this sandstone NECK) lies, continuous, broad and high, the "MetalMountain

range" specially so called: northward and northeastward there rise, beyond that Falkenberg, many mountains,

solitary or in groups,"the Metal Mountains" fading out here into "the Lausitz Hills," still in fine

picturesque fashion, which are Northern Border to the great Bohemian "Basin of the Elba," after you emerge

Saxon Switzerland is not very high anywhere; 2,000 feet is a notable degree of height: but it is torn and

tumbled into stone labyrinths, chasms and winding rockwalls, as few regions are. Grows pinewood, to the

topmost height; pinetrees far aloft look quietly down upon you, over sheer precipices, on your intricate path.

On the slopes of the Hills is grass enough; in the intervals are Villages and husbandries, are corn and milk for

the laborious natives,who depend mainly on quarrying, and pineforest work: pines and freestone, rafts

of long slim pines, and big stone barges, are what one sees upon the River there. A Note, not very geological,

"Elbe sweeps freely through this Country, for ages and aeons past; curling himself a little into snakefigure,

and with increased velocity, but silent mostly, and trim to the edge, a fine flint colored river;though in

aeons long anterior, it must have been a very different matter for torrents and waterpower. The Country is

one huge Block of Sandstone, so many square miles of that material; ribbed, channelled, torn and quarried, in

this manner, by the ever busy elements, for a million of Ages past! Chiefly by the Elbe himself, since he got

to be a River, and became cosmic and personal; ceasing to be a mere watery chaos of Lakes and Deluges

hereabouts. For the Sandstone was of various degrees of hardness; tenacious as marble some parts of it, soft

almost as sand other parts. And the primordial diluviums and worldold torrents, great and small, rushing

down from the Bohemian Highlands, from the Saxon Metal Mountains, with such storming, gurgling and

swashing, have swept away the soft parts, and left the hard standing in this chaotic manner, and bequeathed it

"Elbe has now a trim course; but Elbe too is busy quarrying and mining, where not artificially held in;and

you notice at every outlet of a Brook from the interior, north side and south side, how busy the Brook has

been. Boring, grinding, undermining; much helped by the frosts, by the rains. AEons ago, the Brook was a

lake, in the interior; but was every moment laboring to get out; till it has cut for itself that mountain gullet, or

sheerdown chasm, and brought out with it an Alluvium or Delta,on which, since Adam's time, human

creatures have built a Hamlet. That is the origin, or unwritten history, of most hamlets and cultivated spots

you fall in with here: they are the waste shavings of the Brook, working millions of years, for its own object

of getting into the Elbe in level circumstances. Ploughed fields, not without fertility, are in the interior, if you

ascend that Brook; the Hamlet, at the delta or mouth of it, is as if built upon its TONGUE and into its

"The road" one road, "from Dresden to Aussig, to Lobositz, Budin, Prag, runs up the riverbrink (south

brink); or, in our day, as PragDresden Railway, thunders through those solitudes; strangely awakening their

echoes; and inviting even the bewildered Tourist to reflect, if he could. The bewildered Tourist sees

rockwalls heavenhigh on both hands of him; River and he rushing on between, by law of gravitation, law

of ennui (which are laws of Nature both), with a narrow strip of sky in full gallop overhead; and has little

encouragement to reflect, except upon his own sorrows, and delirious circumstances, physical and moral.

'How much happier, were I lying in my bed!' thinks the bewildered Tourist;does strive withal to admire the

Picturesque, but with little success; notices the 'BASTEI (Bastion),' and other rigorously prescribed points of

the Sublime and Beautiful, which are to be 'done.' That you will have to DO, my friend: step out, you will

have to go on that Pinnacle, with indifferent Hotel attached; on that iron balcony, aloft among the clouds

yonder; and shudder to project over Elbeflood from such altitudes, admiring the Picturesque in prescribed

"This Country has for its permanent uses, timber, freestone, modicum of milk and haver, serviceable to the

generality;and to his Polish Majesty, at present, it is as the very Ark of Noah: priceless at this juncture;

being the strongest military country in the world. Excellent strength in it; express Fortresses; especially one

Fortress called the Konigstein, not far from Schandau, of a towering precipitous nature, with 'a well 900 feet

deep' in it, and pleasant Village outside at the base;Fortress which is still, in our day, reckoned a safe place

for the Saxon Archives and preciosities. Impregnable to gunpowder artillery; not to be had except by hunger.

And then, farther down the River, close by Pirna, presiding over Pirna, as that Konigstein in some sort does

over Schandau, is the Sonnenstein: Sonnenstein too was a Fortress in those days of Friedrich, but not

impregnable, if judged worth taking. The Austrians took it, a year or two hence; Friedrich retook it,

"Sonnenstein stands close east or upstream of Pirna, which is a town of 5,000 souls, by much the largest in

those parts; Konigstein a little downstream of Schandau, which latter is on the opposite or north side of the

River. These are the two chief Towns, which do all the trade of this region; picturesque places both: the

Tourist remembers Pirna? Standing on its sleek table or stair step, by the River's edge; well above

floodmark; green, shaggy or fringy mountains looking down on it to rearward; in front, beyond the River,

nothing visible but milelong creamcolored rockwall, with bushes at bottom and top, wall quarried by

Elbe, as you can see. Pirna is near the beginning [properly END, but we start from Dresden] or western

extremity of Saxon Schweitz. Schandau, almost at the opposite or eastern extremity, is still more picturesque;

standing on the delta of a little Brook, with high rockcliffs, with gardenshrubberies, sanded walks, tufts of

forestumbrage; a brightpainted, almost OPERATIClooking place,with spawaters, if I recollect: "yes

truly, and the "Bath Season" making its packages in great haste, breaking up prematurely, this Year

Directly on arriving at GrossSedlitz, Friedrich takes ocular survey of this Country, which is already not

unknown to him. He finds that the Saxons have secured themselves within the Mountains; a rocky streamlet,

Brook of Gottleube, which issues into Elbe just between GrossSedlitz and them, "through a dell of eighty or

a hundred feet deep," serving as their first defence; well in front of the mere rocky Heights and precipices

behind it, which stretch continuously along to southward, six miles or more, from Pirna and the south brink

of Elbe. At LangenHennersdorf, which is the southernmost part, these Heights make an elbow inwards, by

Leopoldshayn, towards the Konigstein, which is but four miles off; here too the Saxons are defended by a

Brook (running straight towards Konigstein, this one) in front of their Heights; and stand defensive, in this

way, along a rockbulwark of ten miles long: the passes all secured by batteries, by abatis, palisades, mile

after mile, as Friedrich rides observant leftward: behind them, Elbe rushing swifter through his rockwalls

yonder, with chasms and intricate gorges; defending them inexpugnably to rear. Six miles long of natural

bulwark (six to Hennersdorf), where the gross of the Saxons lie; then to Konigstein four other miles,

sufficiently, if more sparsely, beset by them. "No stronger position in the world," Friedrich thinks; [ OEuvres

de Frederic, iv. 83, 84 (not a very distinct Account; and far from accurate in the details,which are left

without effectual correction even in the best Editions).]and that it is impossible to force this place, without

a loss of life disproportionate even to its importance at present. Not to say that the Saxons will make terms all

the easier, BEFORE bloodshed rise between us;and furthermore that Hunger (for we hear they have

provision only for two weeks) may itself soon do it. "Wedge them in, therefore; block every outgate, every

entrance; nothing to get in, except gradually Hunger. Hunger, and on our part rational Offers, will suffice."

That is Friedrich's plan; good in itself,though the ovine obstinacy, and other circumstances, retarded the

execution of it to an unexpected extent, lamentable to Friedrich and to some others.

The PrussianSaxon military operations for the next five weeks need not detain us. Their respective positions

on the Heights behind that Brook Gottleube, and on the plainer Country in front of it, How the Prussians

lie, first Division of them, from GrossSedlitz to Zehist, under the King; then second Division from Zehist to

Cotta, and onward by "the Rothschenke" (REDHOUSE Tavern), by Markersbach, and sparsely as far as

Hellendorf on the Prag Highway; in brief, where all the Divisions of them lie, and under whom; and where

the Prussians, watching Elbe itself, have Batteries and Posts on the north side of it: all this is marked on the

Map; to satisfy ingenuous curiosity, should it make tour in those parts. To which add only these straggles

"The Saxons, between Elbe and their Lines, possess about thirty square miles of country. From Pirna or

Sonnenstein to Konigstein, as the crow flies, may be five miles east to west; but by Langen Hennersdorf,

and the elbow there, it will be ten: at Konigstein, moreover, Elbe makes an abrupt turn northward for a couple

of miles, instead of westward as heretofore, turning abruptly westward again after that: so that the Saxon

'Camp' or Occupancy here, is an irregular Trapezium, with Pirna and Konigstein for vertices, and with area

estimable as above,ploughable, a fair portion of it, and not without corn of its own. So that the 'two weeks'

provision' spun themselves out (short allowance aiding) to two months, before actual famine came.

... "The Highroad from the Lausitz parts crosses Elbe at Pirna; falls into the DresdenPrag Highroad there;

and from Pirna towards Toplitz, for the first few miles, this latter runs through the Prussian Posts; but we may

guess it is not much travelled at present. North of Elbe, too, the Prussians have batteries on the fit points;

detachments of due force, from GrossSedlitz Bridgeof Pontoons all round to Schandau, or beyond; could

fire upon the Konigstein, across the River: they have plugged up the Saxon position everywhere. They have a

Battery especially, and strong post, to cannonade the Bridge at Pirna, should the Saxons think of trying there.

It is now the one Saxon or even HalfSaxon Bridge; Sonnenstein and Pirna command the Saxon end of it, a

strong battery the Prussian end: a Bridge lying mainly idle, like the general Highway to Toplitz at this time.

Beyond the Konigstein, again, at a place called WendischFahre (WENDS'FERRY), the Prussians have, by

means of boats swinging wide at anchor on the swift current, what is called a Flyingbridge, with which the

north side can communicate with the south. They have a post at NiederRaden (OBER Raden, railway station

in our time, is on the south side): Nether Raden is an interesting little Hamlet, mostly invisible to mankind

(built in the THROAT of the stone chasms there), from which you begin mounting to the BASTEI far aloft.

Little, or even nothing, of fighting there is: why should there be? The military operations are a deadlock,

and require no word. Thirty thousand, half of the Prussian Force, lie, vigilant as lynxes, blockading here;

other half, 32,000, under Marshal Keith, have marched forward to Aussig, to Nollendorf on the Bohemian

frontier, to clear the ways, and look into any Austrian motion thereabouts,with whom, with some Pandour

detachment of whom, Duke Ferdinand, leading the vanguard, has had a little brush among the Hills; smiting

them home again, in his usual creditable way (September 13th); and taking Camp at Peterswalde, he and

others of the Force, that night. [ OEuvres de Frederic, iv. 85; ANONYMOUS OF HAMBURG, i. 19.] It is

with this Keith Army, with this if with any, that adventures are to be looked for at present.

Polish Majesty's Headquarters are at Struppen, well in the centre of the Saxon lines; "goes always to the

Konigstein to sleep." Polish Majesty's own table is, by Friedrich's permission for that special object, supplied

AD LIBITUM: but the common men were at once put on short allowance, which grows always the shorter.

Polish Majesty corresponds with Friedrich, as we saw; and above all, sends burning Messages to Austria, to

France, to every European Court, charged with mere shrieks: "Help me; a robber has me!" In which sense,

Excellencies of all kinds, especially one Lord Stormont, the English Excellency, daily running out from

Dresden to GrossSedlitz, are passionately industrious with Friedrich; who is eager enough to comply, were

there any safe means possible. But there are none. Unfortunately, too, it appears the Austrians are astir;

Feldmarschall Browne actually furbishing himself at Prag yonder with an eye hitherward, and extraordinary

haste and spirit shown: which obliges Friedrich to rise in his demands; ovine obstinacy, on the other side,

"Polish Majesty, we say, has liberty to bring in proviant for self and suite, rigorously for no mortal more; and

he lives well, in the culinary sense,surely for most part 'in his dressinggown,' too, poor loose collapsed

soul! Bruhl and he have plenty of formal business: but their one real business is that of crying, by estafettes

and every conceivable method, to Austria, 'Get us out of this!' To which Austria has answered, 'Yes; only

patience, and be steady!'Friedrich's headquarters are at Sedlitz; and the negotiating and responding which

he has, transcends imagination. His first hope was, Polish Majesty might be persuaded to join with him;on

the back of that, certainty, gradually coming, that Polish Majesty never would; and that the Austrians would

endeavor a rescue, were they once ready. Starvation, or the Austrians, which will be first here? is the

question; and Friedrich studies to think it will be the former. At all events, having settled on the starvation

method, and seen that all his posts are right, we perceive he does not stick close by Sedlitz; but runs now

hither now thither; is at Torgau, where an important establishment, kind of New Government for Saxony, on

the Finance side, is organizing itself. What his work with Ambassadors was, and how delicate the handling

... "Polish Majesty passes the day at Struppen, amid many vain noises of Soldiering, of Diplomatizing; the

night always at Konigstein, and finally both day and night,quite luxuriously accommodated, Bruhl and he,

to the very end of this Affair. Towards Struppen [this is weeks farther on, but we give it here], Comte de

Broglio [Old Broglio's elder Son, younger is in the Military line], who is Ambassador to his SaxonPolish

Majesty, sets out from Dresden for an interview with said Majesty. At the Prussian lines, he is informed,

'Yes, you can go; but, without our King's Order, you cannot return.' 'What? The Most Christian Majesty's

Ambassador, and treated in this way? I will go to where the Polish King is, and I will return to my own King,

so often as I find business: stop me at your peril!' and threatened and argued, and made a deal of blusterous

noise;far too much, thinks Valori; think the Prussian Officers, who are sorry, but inflexible. Margraf Karl,

Commandant of the place, in absence of King Friedrich (who is gone lately, on a Business we shall hear of),

earnestly dissuaded Excellency Broglio; but it was to no purpose. Next day Broglio appeared in his

statecarriage, formally demanding entrance, free thoroughfare: 'Do you dare refuse me?' 'Yes,' answered

Margraf Karl; 'we do and must.' Indignant Broglio reappeared, next day, on foot; LieutenantGeneral Prince

Friedrich Eugen of Wurtemberg the chief man in charge: 'Do you dare?' 'Indubitably, Yes;'and Broglio still

pushing on incredulous, Eugen actually raised his arm,elbow and forearm across the breast of Most

Christian Majesty's Ambassador,who recoiled, to Dresden, in mere whirlwinds of fire; and made the most

of it [unwisely, thinks Valori] in writing to Court. [Valori, ii. 349, 209, 353 ("Wednesday, 6th October," the

day of it, seemingly); ib. i. 312, Court, in high dudgeon, commanded Valori to quit Berlin without taking

leave. Valori, in his private capacity, wrote an Adieu; [Friedrich's kind Letter in answer to it, "2d November,

1756," in Valori, i. 313.] and in his public, as the fact stood, That he was gone without Adieu."

And the Dauphiness, daughter of those injured Polish Majesties, fell on her knees (Pompadour permitting and

encouraging) at the feet of Most Christian Majesty; on her knees, all in passion of tears; craved help and

protection to her loved old Mother, in the name of Nature and of all Kings: could any King resist? And his

Pompadour was busy: "Think of that noble Empress, who calls me COUSIN AND DEAR PRINCESS; think

of that insolent Prussian Robber: Ah, your Majesty:" and King Louis, though not a hating man, did privately

dislike Friedrich; and evil speeches of Friedrich's had been reported to him. And, in short, the upshot was:

King Louis, bound only to 24,000 for help of Austria, determined to send, and did send, above 100,000

across the Rhine, next Year, for that object; as will be seen. And all Frenchmenall except Belleisle, who is

oldare charmed with these new energetic measures, and beautiful new Austrian connections.

Certain it is, the Austrians are coming, her Imperial Majesty bent with all her might on relief of those Saxon

martyrs; which indeed is relief of herself, as she well perceives: "Courage, my friends; endure yet a little!"

Messengers smuggle themselves through the Mountain paths, and go and return, though with difficulty.

Since September 19th, the Correspondence with Polish Majesty has ceased: no persuading of the Polish

Majesty. Winterfeld went twice to him; conferred at large, Bruhl forbidden to be there, on the actual

stringencies and urgencies of Fact between the Two Countries; but it was with no result at all. Polish Majesty

has not the least intention that Saxony shall be even a Highway for Friedrich, if at any time Polish Majesty

can hinder it: "Neutrality," therefore, will not do for Friedrich; he demands Alliance, practical Partnership;

and to that his Polish Majesty is completely abhorrent. Diplomatizing may cease; nothing but wrestle of fight

Friedrich, able to get nothing from the Sovereign of Saxony, is reduced to grasp Saxony itself: and we can

observe him doing it; always the closer, always the more carefully, as the complicacy deepens, and the

obstinacy becomes more dangerous and provoking. What alternative is there? On first entering Saxony,

Friedrich had made no secret that he was not a mere bird of passage there. At Torgau, there was at once a

"FieldCommissariat" established, with Prussian Officials of eminence to administer, the Military Chest to be

deposited there, and Torgau to be put in a state of defence. Torgau, our Saxon Metropolis of WarFinance, is

becoming more and more the Metropolis of Saxon Finance in general. Saxon Officials were liable, from the

first, to be suspended, on Friedrich's order. Saxon FinanceOfficials, of all kinds, were from the first

instructed, that till farther notice there must be no disbursements without King Friedrich's sanction. And, in

fact, King Friedrich fully intends that Saxony is to help him all it can; and that it either will or else shall, in

this dire pressure of perplexity, which is due in such a degree to the conduct of the Saxon Government for

twelve years past. Would Saxony go with him in any form of consent, how much more convenient to

Friedrich! But Saxony will not; Polish Majesty, not himself suffering hunger, is obstinate as the decrees of

Fate (or as sheep, when too much put upon), regardless of considerations;and, in fine, here is Browne

actually afoot; coming to relieve Polish Majesty!The Austrians had uncommonly bestirred themselves:

The activity, the zeal of all ranks, ever since this expedition into Saxony, and clutching of Saxony by the

throat, contemporary witnesses declare to have been extraordinary. "Horses for Piccolomini's Cavalry,they

had scarcely got their horses, not to speak of training them, not to speak of cannon and the heavier requisites,

when Schwerin began marching out of Glatz on Piccolomini. As to the cannon for Browne and him,

draughtcattle seem absolutely unprocurable. Whereupon Maria Theresa flings open her own Imperial Studs:

'There, yoke these to our cannon; let them go their swiftest;'which awoke such an enthusiasm, that

noblemen and peasants crowded forward with their coachhorses and their carthorses, to relay Browne, all

through Bohemia, at different stages; and the cannon and equipments move to their places at the gallop, in a

manner," [Archenholtz, i. 24.]and even Browne, at the base of the Metal Mountains, has got most of his

equipments. And is astir towards Pirna (Army of 60,000, rumor says), for relief of the Saxon martyrs.

From the middle of September, Marshal Keith, as was observed, with Half of the Prussians, Duke Ferdinand

of Brunswick under him, has been on the Bohemian slope of the Metal Mountains; securing the roads, towns

and passes thereabouts, and looking out for the advance of Marshal Browne from the interior parts. Town of

Aussig, and the Riverroad (castle of Tetschen, on its high rock known to Tourists, which always needs to be

taken on such occasions), these Keith has secured. Lies encamped from Peterswalde to Aussig, the middle or

main strength of him being in the Hamlet of Johnsdorf (discoverable, if readers like): there lies Keith, fifteen

miles in length; like a strap, or bar, thrown across the back of that Metal Mountain Range,or part of its

back; for the range is very broad, and there is much inequality, and many troughs, big and little, partial and

general, in the crossing of it. A tract which my readers and I have crossed before now, by the "Pascopol" or

Browne, vigorously astir in the interior (cannon and equipments coming by relays at such a pace), is daily

advancing, with his best speed: in the last days of September, Browne is encamped at Budin; may cross the

Eger River any day, and will then be within two marches of Keith. His intentions towards Pirna Country are

fixed and sure; but the plan or route he will take is unknown to everybody, and indeed to Browne himself, till

he see near at hand and consider. Browne's problem, he himself knows, is abundantly abstruse,bordering

on the impossible; but he will try his best. To get within reach of the Saxons is almost impossible to Browne,

even were there no Keith there. As good as impossible altogether, by any line of march, while Keith is afoot

in those parts. By Aussig, down the River, straight for the interior of their Camp, it is flatly impossible: by the

south or southeast corner of their Camp (Gottleube way), or by the northeast (by Schandau way, right bank of

Elbe), it is virtually so,at least without beating Keith. Could one beat Keith indeed;but that will not be

"By the HellendorfHennersdorf side, in the wastes where Gottleube Brook gathers itself, Browne might

have a chance. There, on that southeast corner of their Camp, were he once there to attack the Prussians from

without, while the Saxons burst up from within, there," thinks a good judge, "is much the favorablest

place. But unless Browne's Army had wings, how is it ever to get there? Across those MetalMountain

ranges, barred by Keith:by Aussig, with the rocks overhanging Elbe River and him, he cannot go in auy

case. Were there no Keith, indeed (but there always is, standing ready on the spring), one might hold to

"By Schandau region, north side of the Elbe, is Browne's easiest, and indeed one feasible, point of

approach,no Prussians at present between him and that; the road open, though a far circuit northward for

Browne,were he to cross the Elbe in Leitmeritz circle, and march with velocity? That too will be

difficult, nearly impossible in sight of Keith. And were that even done, the egress for the Saxons, by

Schandau side, is through strait mountain gorges, intricate steep passes, crossings of the Elbe: what force of

Saxons or of Austrians will drive the Prussians from their redoubts and batteries there?" [ OEuvres de

Browne's problem is none of the feasiblest: but his orders are strict, "Relieve the Saxons, at all risks." And

Browne, one of the ablest soldiers liviug ("Your Imperial Majesty's best general," said the dying

Khevenhuller long since), will do his utmost upon it. Friedrich does not think the enterprise very

dangerous, beating of Keith the indispensable preliminary to it; but will naturally himself go and look into

Tuesday, September 28th, Friedrich quits Pirna Country by the Prag Highway; making due inspection of his

Posts as he goes along; and, the outmost of these once past, drives rapidly up the Mountains; gets, with small

escort, through Peterswalde on to Johnsdorf that night. Does not think this Keith position good; breaks up this

"Camp of Johnsdorf" bodily next morning; and marches down the Mountains, direct towards Browne; who,

we hear, is about crossing the Eger (his Pontoons now come at last), and will himself be on the advance.

From Turmitz, a poor mountain hamlet in the hollow of the Hills, which is headquarters that night, the

march proceeds again; Friedrich with the vanguard; Army, I think, on various countryroads, on both hands;

till all get upon the Great Road again,PragToplitzDresden Postroad; which is called, specially in this

part of it, and loosely in whole, "The Pascopol," and leads down direct to Budin and Browne.

"A 'Pascopol' famed in military annals," says our Tourist. "It is a road with many windings, many precipitous

sweeps of up and down; road precipitous in structure;offers views to the lover of wild Nature: huge

lonesome Hills scattered in the distance; waste expanses nearer hand, and futile attempts at moorish

agriculture; but little else that is comfortable. In times of Peace, you will meet, at long intervals, some

postvehicle struggling forward under melancholy circumstances; some cart, or dilapidated mongrel between

cart and basket, with a lean ox harnessed to it, and scarecrow driver, laden with pitcoal,which you wish

safe home, and that the scarecrow were getting warmed by it. But in Wartime the steep road is livelier; the

common Invasion road between Saxony and Bohemia; whole Armies sweeping over it, and their

thousandfold wagons and noises making clangor enough. ... One of those Hollows, on the Pascopol, is

Joachimsthal, with its old Silver Mines; yielding coins which were in request with traders, the silver being

fine. 'Let my ducat be a Joachimsthal one, then!' the old trader would say: 'a JOACHIMSTHALER;' or, for

brevity, a 'THALER;' whence THALER, and at last DOLLAR (almighty and otherwise),now going

round the world! [Busching, Erdbeschreibung, v. 178.] Pascopol finishes in Welmina Township. From the

last hamlet in Welmina, at the neck of the last Hill, step downward one mile, holding rather to the left, you

will come on the innocent Village of Lobositz, its poor cornmills and huckstershops all peaceably

The Countryroads where Friedrich's Army is on march, I should think, are mostly on the mounting hand.

For here, from Turmitz, is a trough again; though the last considerable one; and on the crest of that, we shall

look down upon the Bohemian Plains and the grand Basin of the Elbe,through various scrubby villages

which are not nameworthy; through one called Kletschen, which for a certain reason is. Crossing the shoulder

of Kletschenberg (HILL of this Kletschen), which abuts upon the Pascopol,yonder in bright sunshine is

your beautiful expansive Basin of the Elbe, and the green Bohemian Plains, revealed for a moment. Friedrich

snatches his glass, not with picturesque object: "See, yonder is Feldmarschall Browne, then! In camp yonder,

down by Lobositz, not ten miles from us,[it is most true; Browne marched this morning, long before the

Sun; crossed Eger, and pitched camp at noon] Good!" thinks Friedrich. And pushes down into the

Pascopol, into the hollows and minor troughs, which hide Browne henceforth, till we are quite near.

Quite near, through Welmina and a certain final gap of the Hills, Friedrich with the vanguard does emerge,

"an hour before sunset;" overhanging Browne; not above a mile from the Camp of Browne. A very large

Camp, that of Browne's, flanked to right by the Elbe; goes from Sulowitz, through Lobositz, to Welhoten

close on Elbe; and has properties extremely well worth studying just now! "Friedrich" the Books say,

"bivouacs by a fire of sticks," short way down on the southern slope of the Hill; and till sunset and after, has

eyeglass, brain, and faculties and activities sufficiently occupied for the rest of the night;his Divisions

gradually taking post behind him, under arms; "not till midnight, the very rearmost of them." ["Tuesday, 28th

September, left the Camp at Sedlitz, with 8 battalions 20 squadrons, to Johnsdorf: 29th, to Turmitz,Browne

is to pass the Eger tomorrow. From the tops of the Pascopol (30th), SEE an Austrian Camp in the Plain of

Lobositz. Vanguard bivouacs in the 'neck' of the two Hills or a little beyond." PRUSSIAN ACCOUNT OF

CAMPAIGN 1756 (in Gesammelte Nachrichten, i. 844845, 840858); Anonymous of Hamburg;

Welmina,or ReschniAujest, last pertinent of Welmina (but we will take Friedrich's name for it), offers to

the scrutinizing eye nothing, in our day, but some bewildered memory of "Alte Fritz" clinging obstinately

even to the Peasant mind thereabouts. A sleepy littery place; some biggish haggard untrimmed trees, some

broken backed sleepylooking thatched houses, not in contact, and each as far as might be with its back

turned on the other, and cloaked in its own litter and privacy. Probably no human creature will be visible, as

you pass through. Much straw lying about, chiefly where the few gaunt trees look down on it (cattle glad of

any shelter): in fact, it is mainly an extinct tumult of straw; nothing alive, as you pass, but a few poor oxen

languidly sauntering up and down, finding much to trample, little to eat. The Czech Populations (were it not

Close south of this poor Hamlet is a big Hill, conspicuous with three peaks; quite at the other base of which, a

good way down, lies Lobositz, the main Village in those parts; a place now of assiduous cornmill and fruit

trade; and one of the stations on the DresdenPrag Railway. This Hill is what Lloyd calls the Lobosch;

[MajorGeneral Lloyd, History of the late War in Germany, 17561759 (3 vols. 4to, London, 1781), i.

211.] twin to which, only flatter, is Lloyd's "Homolka Hill" (Hill of RADOSTITZ in more modern Plans

and Books). Conspicuous Heights, and important to us here,though I did not find the Peasants much know

them under those names. By the southern shoulder of this Lobosch Hill runs the road from Welmina to

Lobositz, with branches towards many other villages. To your right or southern hand, short way southward,

rises the other Hill, which Lloyd calls Homolka Hill; the gap or interval between Homolka and Lobosch,

perhaps a furlong in extent, is essentially the PASS through those uplands. This pass, Friedrich, at the first

moment, made sure of; filling the same with battalions, there to bivouac. He likewise promptly laid hold of

the two Hills, high Lobosch to his left, and lower Homolka to right; which precautionary measure it is

reckoned a fault in Browne to have neglected, that night; fault for which he smarted on the morrow.

From this upland pass, or neck between the two Mountains, Friedrich's battalions would have had a fine view,

had the morning shone for them: Lobositz, Leitmeritz, Melnick; a great fertile Valley, or expanse of fruitful

country, many miles in breadth and length; Elbe, like a silver stripe, winding grandly through the finest of all

his countries, before ducking himself into the rock tumults of that Pirna district. The mountain gorges of

Prag and Moldau River, south of Melnick, lie hidden under the horizon, or visible only as peaks, thirty miles

and more to southeastward; a bright country intervening, sprinkled with steepled towns. To northwestward,

far away, are the Lausitz Mountains, ranked in loose order, but massive, making a kind of range: and as

outposts to them in their scattered state, Hills of good height and aspect are scattered all about, and break the

uniformity of the Plain. Nowhere in North Germany could the Prussian battalions have a finer view,if the

The morning, first in October, was not fine; and it was far other than scenery that the Prussian battalions had

in hand!Friday, 1st October, 1756, Day should have broken: but where is day? At seven in the morning

(and on till eleven), thick mist lay over the plain; thin fog to the very hilltops; so that you cannot see a

hundred yards ahead. Lobositz is visible only as through a crape; farther on, nothing but gray sea; under

which, what the Austrians are doing, or whether there are any Austrians, who can say? Leftward on the

LoboschHill side, as we reconnoitre, some Pandours are noticeable, nestled in the vineyards there:that

sunward side of the Lobosch is all vineyards, belonging to the different Lobositzers: scrubby vineyards, all in

a brown plucked state at this season. Vineyards parted by low stone walls, say three or four feet high (parted

by hurdles, or by tiny trenches, in our day, and the stone walls mere stone facings): there are the Pandours

crouched, and give fire in a kneeling posture when you approach. Lower down, near Lobositz itself,

flickerings as of Horse squadrons, probably Hussar parties, twinkle dubious in the wavering mist. Problem

wrapt in mist; nothing to be seen; and all depends on judging it with accuracy! Seven by the clock: Deploy, at

Friedrich's vanguard of itself nearly fills that neck, or space between the Lobosch and Homolka Hills. He

spreads his Infantry and "hundred fieldpieces," in part, rightwards along the Homolka Hill; but chiefly

leftwards along the Lobosch, where their nearest duty is to drive off those Pandours. Always as a new

battalion, pushing farther leftward, comes upon its ground, the Pandours give fire on it;and it on the

Pandours; till the Left Wing is complete, and all the Lobosch is, in this manner, a crackling of Pandour

musketry. and antimusketry. Right Wing, steady to its guns on the Homolka, has as yet nothing to do. Those

wings of Infantry are two lines deep; the Cavalry, in three lines, is between them in the centre; no room for

Cavalry elsewhere, except on the outskirts some fringing of light horse, to be ready for emergencies.

The Pandour firing, except for the noise of it, does not amount to much; they can take no aim, says Lloyd,

crouching behind their stone fences; and the Prussian Battalions, steadily pushing downwards, trample out

their sputtering, and clear the Lobosch of them to a safe distance. But the ground is intricate, so wrapt in mist

for the present. That crackling lasts for hours; decisive of nothing; and the mist also, and one's anxious

Once, for some time, in the wavering of the mist, there was seen, down in the plain opposite our centre, a

body of Cavalry. Horse for certain: say ten squadrons of them, or 1,500 Horse; continually manoeuvring,

changing shape; now in more ranks, now in fewer; sometimes "checkerwise," formed like a draughtboard;

shooting out wings: they career about, one sees not whither, or vanish again into the mist behind. "Browne's

rearguard this, that we are come upon," thinks Friedrich; "these squatted Pandours, backed by Horse, must

be his rearguard, that are amusing us: Browne and the Army are off; crossing the Elbe, hastening towards

the Schandau, the Pirna quarter, while we stand bickering and idly sputtering here!" Weary of such idle

business, Friedrich orders forward Twenty of his Squadrons from the centre station: "Charge me those

Austrian Horse, and let us finish this." The Twenty Squadrons, preceded by a pair of fieldpieces, move

down hill; storm in upon the Austrian party, storm it furiously into the mist; are furiously chasing it, when

unexpected cannonbatteries, destructive caseshot, awaken on their left flank (batteries from Lobositz, one

may guess); and force them to draw back. To draw back, with some loss; and rank again, in an indignantly

blown condition, at the foot of their Hill. Indignant; after brief breathing, they try it once more.

"Don't try it!" Friedrich had sent out to tell them: for the mist was clearing; and Friedrich, on the higher

ground, saw new important phenomena: but it was too late. For the Twenty Squadrons are again dashing

forward; sweeping down whatever is before them: in spite of cannonvolleys, they plunge deeper and deeper

into the mist; come upon "a ditch twelve feet broad" (big swampy drain, such as are still found there,

grassgreen in summertime); clear said ditch; forward still deeper into the mist: and after three hundred

yards, come upon a second far worse "ditch;" plainly impassable this one,"ditch" they call it, though it is in

fact a vile sedgy Brook, oozing along there (the MORELL BACH, considerable Brook, lazily wandering

towards Lobositz, where it disembogues in rather swifter fashion);and are saluted with cannon, from the

farther side; and see serried ranks under the gauze of mist: Browne's Army, in fact! The Twenty Squadrons

have to recoil out of shotrange, the faster, the better; with a loss of a good many men, in those two charges.

Friedrich orders them up Hill again; much regretful of this second charge, which he wished to hinder; and

posts them to rearward,where they stand silent, the unconscious stoic philosophers in buff, and have little

It is now 11 o'clock; the mist all clearing off; and Friedrich, before that second charge, had a growing view of

the Plain and its condition. Beyond question, there is Browne; not in retreat, by any means; but in full array;

numerous, and his position very strong. Ranked, unattackable mostly, behind that oozy Brook, or BACH of

Morell; which has only two narrow Bridges, cannon plenty on both: one Bridge from the south parts to

Sulowitz (OUR road to Sulowitz and it would be by Radostitz and the Homolka); and then one other Bridge,

connecting Sulowitz with Lobositz,which latter is Browne's own Bridge, uniting right wing and left of

Browne, so to speak; and is still more unattackable, in the circumstances. What will Friedrich decide on

That oozy Morell Brook issues on Browne's side of Lobositz, cutting Browne in two; but is otherwise all in

Browne's favor. Browne extends through Lobositz; and beyond it, curves up to Welhoten on the Riverbrink;

at Lobositz are visible considerable redoubts, cannonbatteries and much regular infantry. Browne will be

difficult to force yonder, in the Lobositz part; but yonder alone can he be tried. He is pushing up more

Infantry that way; conscious probably of that fact,and that the Lobosch Hill is not his, but another's. What

would not Browne now give for the Lobosch Hill! Yesternight he might have had it gratis, in a manner; and

indeed did try slightly, with his Pandour people (durst not at greater expense),who have now ceased

sputtering, and cower extinct in the lower vineyards there. Browne, at any rate, is rapidly strengthening his

right wing, which has hold of Lobositz; pushing forward in that quarter,where the Brook withal is of

firmer bottom and more wadable. Thither too is Friedrich bent. So that Lobositz is now the key of the Battle;

Friedrich's cavalry is gone all to rearward. His right wing holds the Homolka Hill,that too would now be

valuable to Browne; and cannot be had gratis, as yesternight! Friedrich's left wing is on the Lobosch;

Pandours pretty well extinct before it, but now from Welhoten quarter new Regulars coming on thither,as

if Browne would still take the Lobosch? Which would be victory to him; but is not now possible to Browne.

Nor will long seem so;Friedrich having other work in view for him;meaning now to take Lobositz,

instead of losing the Lobosch to him! Friedrich pushes out his Left Wing still farther leftward, leftward and

downward withal, to clear those vineyardfences completely of their occupants, Pandour or Regular, old or

new. This is done; the vineyardfences swept;and the sweepings driven, in a more and more stormy

fashion, towards Welhoten and Lobositz; the Lobosch falling quite desperate for Browne.

Henceforth Friedrich directs all his industry to taking Lobositz; Browne, to the defending of it, which he does

with great vigor and fire; his batteries, redoubts, doing their uttermost, and his battalions rushing on, mass of

them after mass, at quick march, obstinate, fierce to a degree, in the height of temper; and showing such fight

as we never had of them before. Friedrich's Left Wing and Browne's Right now have it to decide between

them;any attempt Browne makes with his Left through Sulowitz (as he once did, and once only) is

instantly repressed by cannon from the Homolka Hill. And the rest of the Battle, or rather the Battle

itself,for all hitherto has been pickeering and groping in the mist,may be made conceivable in few

Friedrich orders the second line of his Left Wing to march up and join with the first; Right Wing, shoving

ITS two lines into one, is now to cover the Lobosch as well. Left Wing, in condensed condition, shall fall

down on Lobositz, and do its best. They are now clear of the vineyardworks; the ground is leveller, though

still sloping,a three furlongs from the Village, and somewhat towards the Elbe, when Browne's battalions

first came extensively to close grips; fierce enough (as was said); the toughest wrestle yet had with those

Austrians,coming on with steady fury, under such force of cannon; with iron ramrods too, and improved

ways, like our own. But nothing could avail them; the counterfury being so great. They had to go at the

Welhoten part, and even to run, plunging into Elbe, a good few of them, and drowning there, in the vain

hope to swim. "Never have my troops," says Friedrich, "done such miracles of valor, cavalry as well as

infantry, since I had the honor to command them. By this deadlift achievement (TOUR DE FORCE) I have

seen what they can do." [Letter to Schwerin, "Lobositz, 2d August, 1756" (Retzow, i. 64); RELATION DE

LA CAMPAGNE, 1756, that is, PRUSSIAN ACCOUNT (in Gesammelte Nachrichten), i. 848. Lloyd, UT

SUPRA, i. 211 (who has solid information at first hand, having been an actor in these Wars. A man of great

natural sagacity and insight; decidedly luminous and original, though of somewhat crabbed temper now and

then; a man well worth hearing on this and on whatever else he handles). Tempelhof, GESCHICHTE DES

SIEBENJAHRIGEN KRIEGES (which is at first a mere Translation of Lloyd, nothing new in it but certain

notes and criticisms on Lloyd; when Lloyd ends, Tempelhof, Prussian Major and Professor, a learned,

intelligent, but diffuse man, of far inferior talent to Lloyd, continues and completes on his own footing: six

very thin 4tos, Berlin, 1794), i. 38 (Battle, with FOOTNOTES), and ib. 51 (CRITICISM of Lloyd). Prussian

and Austrian Accounts in HeldenGeschichte, iii. 800 et seq. Many Narratives in FELDZUGE, and the

In fine, after some three hours more of desperate tugging and struggling, cannon on both sides going at a

great rate, and infinite musketry ("ninety cartridges a man on our Prussian side, and ammunition falling

done"), not without bayonetpushings, and smitings with the butt of your musket, the Austrians are driven

into Lobositz; are furiously pushed there, and, in spite of new battalions coming to the rescue, are fairly

pushed through. These Villagestreets are too narrow for new battalions from Browne; "much of the Village

should have been burnt beforehand," say cool judges. And now, sure enough, it does get burnt; Lobositz is

now all on fire, by Prussian industry. So that the Austrians have to quit it instantly; and rush off in great

The Prussian infantry, led by the Duke of BrunswickBevern ("Governor of Stettin," one of the

DukeFerdinand cousinry, frugal and valiant), gave the highest satisfaction; seldom was such firing, such

furious pushing; they had spent ninety cartridges a man; were at last quite out of cartridges; so that Bevern

had to say, "Strike in with bayonets, MEINE KINDER; buttends, or what we have; HERAN!" Our

Grenadiers were mainly they that burnt Lobositz. "How salutary now would it have been," says Epimetheus

Lloyd, "had Browne had a small battery on the other side of the Elbe;" whereby he might have taken them in

flank, and shorn them into the wind! Epimetheus marks this battery on his Plan; and is wise behindhand, at a

Browne's Right Wing, and probably his Army with it, would have gone much to perdition, now that Lobositz

was become Prussian,had not Browne, in the nick of the moment, made a masterly movement: pushed

forward his Centre and Left Wing, numerous battalions still fresh, to interpose between the chasing Prussians

and those fugitives. The Prussians, infantry only, cannot chase on such terms; the Prussian cavalry, we know,

is far rearward on the high ground. Browne retires a mile or two,southward, Budinward,not chased;

and there halts, and rearranges himself; thinking what farther he will do. His aim in fighting had only been to

defend himself; and in that humble aim he has failed. Chase of the Prussians over that HomolkaLobosch

country, with the high grounds rearward and the Metal Mountains in their hands, he could in no event have

The question now is: Will he go back to Budin; or will he try farther towards Schandau? Nature points to the

former course, in such circumstances; Friedrich, by way of assisting, does a thing much admired by

Lloyd;detaches Bevern with a strong party southward, out of Lobositz, which is now his, to lay hold of

Tschirskowitz, lying Budinward, but beyond the Budin Road. Which feat, when Browne hears of it, means

to him, "Going to cut me off from Budin, then? From my ammunitionstores, from my very

breadcupboard!" And he marches that same midnight, silently, in good order, back to Budin. He is not much

ruined; nay the Prussian loss is numerically greater: "3,308 killed and wounded, on the Prussian side; on the

Austrian, 2,984, with three cannon taken and two standards." Not ruined at all; but foiled, frustrated; and has

The Battle lasted seven hours; the last four of it very hot, till Lobositz was won and lost. It was about 5 P.M.

when Browne fired his retreatcannon:cannon happened to be loaded (say the AnecdoteBooks,

mythically given now and then); Friedrich, wearied enough, had flung himself into his carriage for a

moment's rest, or thankful reflection; and of all places, the ball of the retreat cannon lighted THERE.

Between Friedrich's feet, as he lay reclining,say the AnecdoteBooks, whom nobody is bound to believe.

On the strength of those two Prussian charges, which had retired from caseshot on their flank, and had not

wings, for getting over sedge and ooze, Austria pretended to claim the victory. "Two charges repelled by our

gallant horse; Lobositz, indeed, was got on fire, and we had nothing for it but to withdraw; but we took a new

position, and only left that for want of water;"with the like excuses. "Essentially a clear victory," said the

Austrians; and sang TEDEUM about it;but profited nothing by that piece of melody. The fact,

considerable or not, was, from the first, too undeniable: Browne beaten from the field. And beaten from his

attempt too (the Saxons not relievable by this method); and lies quiet in Budin again,with his water sure to

"MY DEAR SISTER,Your will is accomplished. Tired out by these Saxon delays, I put myself at the head

of my Army of Bohemia [Keith's hitherto]; and marched from Aussig toa Name which seemed to me of

good augury, being yours,to the Village of Welmina [Battle was called OF WELMINA, by the Prussians

at first]. I found the Austrians here, near Lobositz; and, after a Fight of seven hours, forced them to run.

Nobody of your acquaintance is killed, except Generals Luderitz and OErzen [who are not of ours].

"I return you a thousand thanks for the tender part you take in my lot. Would to Heaven the valor of my

Army might procure us a stable Peace! That ought to be the aim of War. Adieu, my dear Sister; I embrace

you tenderly, assuring you of the lively affection with which I amF." [ OEuvres, xxvii. i. 291.]

2. PRINCE OF PRUSSIA TO VALORI (who is still at Berlin, but soon going as it proves,Broglio's

explosion at the Lines of GrossSedlitz being on hand, during the King's absence, in these very hours

"You will know the news of the day; and I am persuaded you take part in it. All you say to me betokens the

conspiracy there is for the destruction of our Country. If that is determined in the Book of Fate, we cannot

"Had my advice been asked, a year ago, I should have voted to preserve the Alliance [with YOU] which we

had been used to for sixteen years [strictly for twelve, though in substance ever since 1740], and which was

by nature advantageous to us. But if my advice were asked just now, I should answer, That the said method

being now impossible, we are in the case of a ship's captain who defends himself the best he can, and when

all resources are exhausted, has, rather than surrender on shameful conditions, to fire the powder magazine,

and blow up his ship. You remember that of your Francois I."FORS L'HONNEUR; ah yes, very

well!"Perhaps it will be my poor Children who will be the victims of these past errors," for such I still

"The Gazettes enumerate the French troops that are to besiege Wesel, Geldern [Wesel they will get gratis,

poor Geldern will almost break their heart first], and take possession of Ost Friesland; the Russian

Declaration [Manifesto not worth reading] tells us Russia's intentions for the next year [most truculent

intentions]: we will defend ourselves to the last drop of our blood, and perish with honor. If you have any

"Remain always my friend; and believe that in all situations I will remain yours; and trying to do what my

duty is, will not forfeit the sentiments on your part which have been so precious to me. Your servant,

"Pity this good Prince contemplating the downfall of his House," suggests Valori: "He deserved a better fate!

He would be in despair to think I had sent this Letter to your Excellency; but I thought perhaps you would

show it to the King,"and that it might do good one day. [Valori (to the French Minister, "12th October,

1756"), ii. 204.] The Prussians lay in their "Camp of Lobositz," posted up and down in that neighborhood, for

a couple of weeks more; waiting whether Rrowne would attempt anything farther in the fighting way; and, in

fine, whether the solution of the crisis would fall out hereabouts, or on the other side of the Hills.

The disaster of October 1stfor which they were trying to sing TEDEUMS at Viennafell heavier on the

poor Saxons, in their cage at Pirna: "Alas, where is our deliverance now?" Friedrich's people, in their lines

here, gave them such a "joyfiring" for Lobositz as Retzow has seldom heard; huge volleyings, salvoings,

runningfires, starting out, artistically timed and stationed, thunderous, high; and borne by the echoes,

gloomily reverberative, into every dell and labyrinth of the Pirna Country;intended to strike a deeper damp

into them, thinks he. [Retzow, i. 67.] But Imperial Majesty was mindful, too; and straightway sent Browne

positive order, "Deliver me these poor Saxons at any price!" And in the course of not quite a week from

Lobositz, there arrives a confidential Messenger from Browne: "Courage still, ye caged Saxons; I will try it

another way! Only you must hold out till the 11th; on the 11th stand to your tools, and it shall be done."

Browne is to take a succinct Detachment, 8,000 picked men, horse and foot; to make a wider sweep with

these, well eastward by the foot of Lausitz Hills, and far enough from all Prussian parties and scouts; to

march, with all speed and silence, "through BohmLeipa, Kamnitz, Rumburg, Schluckenau; and come in

upon the Schandau region, quite from the northeast side; say, at Lichtenhayn; an eligible Village, which is but

seven miles or so from the Konigstein, with the chasmy country and the river intervening. Monday, October

llth, Browne will arrive at Lichtenhayn (sixty miles of circling march from Budin); privately post himself

near Lichtenhayn; Prussian posts, of no great strength, lying ahead of him there. You, indignant extenuated

Saxons, are to get yourselves across,near the Konigstein it will have to be, under cover of the Konigstein's

cannon,on the front or riverward side of those same Prussian posts: crossingplace (Browne's Messenger

settles) can be Thurmsdorf Hamlet, opposite the Lilienstein, opposite the Hamlets of Ebenheit and Halbstadt

"Monday night next, I say, post yourselves there, with hearts resolute, with powder dry; there, about the

eastern roots of the Lilienstein [beautiful Show Mountain, with stairsteps cut on it for Tourist people, by

August the Strong], and avoid the Prussian battery and abatis which is on it just now! You at Ebenheit, I at

Lichtenhayn, trimmed and braced for action, through that Monday night. Tuesday morning, the Konigstein, at

your beckoning, shall fire two cannonshots; which shall mean, 'All ready here!' Then forward, you, on those

Prussian posts by the front; I will attack them by the rear. With right fury, both of us! I am told, they are but

weak in those posts; surely, by double impetus, and deadlift effort from us both, they CAN be forced? Only

force them,you are in the open field again; and you march away with me, colors flying; your hungercage

This is Browne's plan. The poor Saxons accept,what choice have they?though the question of crossing

and bridgebuilding has its intricacies; and that inevitable item of "postponement till the 11th" is a sore

clause to them; for not only are there short and ever shorter rations, but grim famine itself is advancing with

large strides. The "daily twenty ounces of meal" has sunk to half that quantity; the "ounce or so of

butcher'smeat once a week" has vanished, or become HORSE of extreme leanness. The cavalry horses have

not tasted oats, nothing but hay or straw (not even water always); the artillery horses had to live by grazing,

brown leaves their main diet latterly. Not horses any longer; but walking trestles, poor animals! And the

men,well, they are fallen pale; but they are resolute as ever. The nine cornmills, which they have in this

circuit of theirs, grind now night and day; and all the cavalry are set to thresh whatever grain can be found

about; no hind or husbandman shall retain one sheaf: in this way, they hope, utter hunger may be staved off,

and the great attempt made. [PRECIS DE LA RETRAITE DE L'ARMEE SAXONNE DE SON CAMP DE

Browne skilfully and perfectly did his part of the Adventure. Browne arrives punctually at Lichtenhayn,

evening of the 11th; bivouacs, hidden in the Woods thereabouts, in cold damp weather; stealthily reconnoitres

the Prussian Villages ahead, and trims himself for assault, at sound of the two cannons tomorrow. But there

came no cannonsignal on the morrow; far other signallings and messagings tomorrow, and next day, and

next, from the Konigstein and neighborhood! "Wait, Excellency Feldmarschall [writes Bruhl to him, Note

after Note, instead of signalling from the Konigstein]: do wait a very little! You run no risk in waiting; we,

even if we MUST yield, will make that our first stipulation!" "YOU will?" grumbles Browne; and waits,

naturally, with extreme impatience. But the truth is, the Adventure, on the Saxon side of it, has already

altogether misgone; and becomes, from this point onwards, a mere series of failures, futilities and disastrous

miseries, tragical to think of. Worth some record here, since there are Documents abundant;especially as

Feldmarschall Rutowski (who is GeneralinChief, an old, not esteemed, friend of ours) has produced, or

caused to be produced, a Narrative, which illuminates the Business from within as well. [PRECIS, (just

("Diary," which is the Prussian Account: in Seyfarth, BEYLAGEN), ii. 2248.] The latter is our main

I know not how much of the blame was General Rutowski's: one could surmise some laxity of effort, and a

rather slovenlysurvey of facts, in that quarter. The Enterprise, from the first, was flatly impossible, say

judges; and it is certain, poor Rutowski's execution was not firstrate. "How get across the Elbe?" Rutowski

had said to himself, perhaps not quite with the due rigor of candor proportionate to the rigorous fact: "How

get across the Elbe? We have copper pontoons at Pirna; but they will be difficult to cart. Or we might have a

boatbridge; boats planked together two and two. At Pirna are plenty of boats; and by oar and trackrope, the

River itself might be a road for them? Boats or pontoons to Konigstein, by water or land, they must be got.

Eight miles of abysmal roads, our horses all extenuated? Impossible to cart these pontoons!" said Rutowski to

himself.Pity he had not tried it. He had a week to do those eight bad miles in; and 2,000 lean horses,

picking grass or brown leaves, while their riders threshed. "We will drag our pontoons by water, by the Elbe

towpath," thought Rutowski, "that will be easier;"and forthwith sets about preparing for it, secretly

collecting boats at Pirna, steersmen, towingmen, bridgetackle and what else will be necessary.

Rutowski made, at least, no delay. Browne's messenger, we find, had come to him, "Thursday, 7th:" and on

Friday night Rutowski has a squad of boatmen, steersmen and twoscore of towiug peasants ready; and

actually gets under way. They are escorted by the due battalions with fieldpieces;who are to fire upon the

Prussian batteries, and keep up such a blaze of musketry and heavier shot, as will screen the boats in passing.

Surely a ticklish operation, this;arguing a sanguine temper in General Rutowski! The south bank of the

River is ours; but there are various Prussian batteries, three of them very strong, along the north bank, which

will not fail to pelt us terribly as we pass. No help for it;we must trust in luck! Here is the sequel, with

ELBE RIVER, NIGHT OF OCTOBER 8th9th. Friday night, accordingly, so soon as Darkness (unusually

dark this night) has dropt her veil on the business, Rutowski sets forth. The Prussian battery, or bridge head

(TETEDEPONT), at Pirna, has not noticed him, so silent was he. But, alas, the other batteries do not fail to

notice; to give fire; and, in fact, on being answered, and finding it a serious thing, to burst out into horrible

explosion; unanswerable by the Saxon fieldpieces; and surely perilous to human nature steering and towing

those big RiverBoats. "Loyal to our King, and full of pity for him; that are we;"but towing at a rate, say

of two shillings per head! Before long, the forty towing peasants fling down their ropes, first one, then more,

then all, in spite of efforts, promises, menaces; and vanish among the thickets, forfeiting the two shillings,

on view of imminent death. Soldiers take the towingropes; try to continue it a little; but now the steersmen

also manage to call halt: "We won't! Let us out, let us out! We will steer you aground on the Prussian shore if

you don't!" making night hideous. And the towing enterprise breaks down for that bout; double barges

mooring on the Saxon shore, I know not precisely at what point, nor is it material.

SATURDAY NIGHT, OCTOBER 9th10th) New boatmen, forty new towmen have been hired at immense

increase of wages; say four shillings for the night: but have you much good probability, my General, that

even for that high guerdon imminence of death can be made indifferent to towmen? No, you have n't. The

matter goes this night precisely as it did last: towmen vanishing in the horrible cannon tumult; steersmen

shrieking, "We will ground you on the Prussian shore;" very soldiers obliged to give it up; and General

Rutowski himself obliged to wash his hands of it, as a thing that cannot be done. In fact, a thing which need

not have been tried, had Rutowski been rigorously candid with himself and his hopes, as the facts now prove

to be. "Twentyfour hours lost by this bad business" (says he; "thirtysix," as I count, or, to take it

rigorously, "forty eight" even): and now, Sunday morning instead of Friday, at what, in sad truth, is

metaphorically "the eleventh hour," Rutowski has to bethink him of his copper pontoons; and make the

SUNDAY, MONDAY, OCTOBER 10th11th, By unheardof exertions, all hands and all spenthorses now

at a deadlift effort night and day, Rutowski does get his pontoons carted out of the Pirna storehouse; lands

them at Thurmsdorf,opposite the Lilienstein,a mile or so short of Konigstein, where his Bridge shall be.

It is now the 11th, at night. And our pontoons are got to the ground, nothing more. Every man of us, at this

hour, should have been across, and trimming himself to climb, with bayonet fixed! Browne is ready,

expecting our signalshot to storm in on his side. And our bridge is not built, only the pontoons here. "All

things went perverse," adds Rutowski, for farther comfort: "we [Saxon HomeArmy] had with us, except

Officers, only Four Pontoniers, or trained Bridge builders; all the rest are at Warsaw:" sad thought, but too

TUESDAY, TILL WEDNESDAY EARLY (12th13th), Bridge, the Four Pontoniers, with Officers and

numb soldiers doing their best, is got built;Browne waiting for us, on thorns, all day; Prussians extensively

beginning to strengthen their posts, about the Lilienstein, about Lichtenhayn, or where risk is; and in fact

That same night, 12th13th, while the Bridge was struggling to complete itself,rain now falling, and

tempests broken out,the Saxon Army, from Pirna down to Hennersdorf, had lifted itself from its Lines, and

got under way towards Thurmsdorf, and the crossing place. Dark night, plunging rain; all the elements in

uproar. The worst roads in Nature; now champed doubly; "such roads as never any Army marched on

before." Most of their cannon are left standing; a few they had tried to yoke, broke down, "and choked up the

narrow road altogether; so that the cavalry had to dismount, and lead their horses by sidepaths,"figure

what sidepaths! Distance to Thurmsdorf, from any point of the Saxon Lines, cannot be above six miles: but

it takes them all that night and all next day. Such a march as might fill the heart with pity. Oh, ye Rutowskis,

Bruhls, though never so decorated by twelve tailors, what a sight ye are at the head of men! Dark night, wild

raging weather, labyrinthic roads worn kneedeep. It is broad daylight, Wednesday, 13th, and only the

vanguard is yet got across, trailing a couple of cannons; and splashes about, endeavoring to take rank there, in

Nothing of Browne comes, this Wednesday; but from the opposite GrossSedlitz and Gottleube side, the

Prussians are coming. This morning, at daylight, struck by symptoms, "the Prussians mounted our empty

redoubts:" they are now in full chase of us, Ziethen with Hussars as vanguard. A difficult bit of marching,

even Ziethen and his light people find it; sprawling forward, at their cheeriest, with daylight to help, and in

chase, not chased, through such intricacies of rock and mud. Ziethen's company did not assist the Saxons!

They wheel round, show fight, and there is volleying and bickering all day; the Saxon march getting ever

more perturbed. Nearly all the baggage has to be left. Ziethen takes into the woods near Thurmsdorf; giving

fire as the poor wet Saxons, now much in a pellmell condition, pass to their Bridge. [PRUSSIAN

ACCOUNT (in Gesammelte Nachrichten), i. 852.] Heavier Prussians are striding on to rear; these, from some

final hilltop, do at last belch out two cannonshots: figure the confusion at that Bridge, the speed now

becoming delirious there! Towards evening, rain still violent, the Saxons, baggageless, and rushing quite

pellmell the latter part of them, are mostly across, still countable to 14,000 or so;upon which they cut

their Bridge adrift, and let the river take it. At Raden, a few miles lower, the Prussians fished it out; rebuilt it

more deliberately,and we shall find it there anon. This day Friedrich, hearing what is afoot, has returned in

person from the Lobositz Country; takes Struppen as his headquarter, which was lately the Polish Majesty's.

From Browne there has nothing come this Wednesday; but tomorrow morning at seven there comes a Letter

[omitting the I] waited here at Lichtenhayn since Tuesday, expecting your signalcannon; hearing nothing of

it, conclude you have by misfortune not been able to get across; and that the Enterprise is up. My own

position being dangerous [Prussians of double my strength intrenched within few miles of me], I turn

homewards tomorrow at nine A.M.: ready for whatever occurs TILL then; and sorrowfully say adieu,"

Dreadful weather for Browne in his bivouac, and wearisome waiting, with Prussians and perils accumulating

on him! Browne was ill of lungs; coughing much; lodging, in these violent tempests, on the cold ground. A

right valiant soldier and man, as does appear; the flower of all the Irish Brownes (though they have quite

forgotten him in our time), and of all those Irish Exiles then tragically spending themselves in Austrian

quarrels! "You saw the great man," says one who seems to have been present, "how he sacrificed himself to

this Enterprise. What Austrian Fieldmarshal but himself would ever have lowered his loftiness to lead, in

person, so insignificant a Detachment, merely for the public good! I have seen staffofficers, distinguished

only by their sasheries and insignia, who would not have stirred to inspect a vedette without 250 men. Our

Fieldmarshal was of another turn. Sharing with his troops all the hardships, none excepted, of these critical

days; and in spite of a violent cough, which often brought the visible blood from his lungs, and had quite

worn him down; exposing himself, like the meanest of the Army, to the tempests of rainy weather. Think

what a sight it was, going to your very heart, and summoning you to endurance of every hardship,that

evening [not said which], when the Fieldmarshal, worn out with his fatigues and his disorder, sank out of

faintingfits into a sleep! The ground was his bed, and the storm of clouds his coverlid. In crowds his brave

warcomrades gathered round; stripped their cloaks, their coats, and strove in noble rivalry which of them

should have the happiness to screen the Father of the Army at their own cost of exposure, and by any device

keep the pelting of the weather from that loved head!" [Cogniazzo, Gestandnisse eines OEsterreichischen

Veterans, ii. 251.] There is a picture for you, in the heights of Lichtenhayn, as you steam past Schandau, in

contemplative mood; and perhaps think of "Justice to Ireland!" among other sad thoughts that rise.

From Thurmsdorf to the PontoonBridge there was a kind of road; down which the Saxons scrambled

yesterday; and, by painful degrees, got wriggled across. But, on the other shore, forward to the Hamlets of

Halbstadt and Ebenheit, there is nothing but a steep slippery footpath: figure what a problem for the 14,000 in

such weather! Then at Ebenheit, close behind, Brownewards, were Browne now there, rises the Lilienstein,

abrupt rocky mountain, its slopes on both hands washed by the River (River making its first elbow here,

closely girdling this Lilienstein): on both these slopes are Prussian batteries, each with its abatis; needing to

be stormed: that will be your first operation. Abatis and slopes of the Lilienstein once stormed, you fall

into a valley or hollow, raked again by Prussian batteries; and will have to mount, still storming, out of the

valley, skyhigh across the Ziegenruck (GOAT'SBACK) ridge: that is your second preliminary operation.

After which you come upon the work itself; namely, the Prussian redoubts at Lichtenhayn, and 12,000 men

"From the Konigstein to Pirna, Elbe, if serpentine, is like a serpent rushing at full speed. Just past the

Konigstein, the Elbe, from westward, as its general course is, turns suddenly to northward; runs so for a mile

and a half; then, just before getting to the BASTEI at Raden, turns suddenly to westward again, and so

continues. Tourists know Raden,"where the Prussians have just fished out a Bridge for themselves,"with

the BASTEI high aloft to west of it. The Old Inn, hospitable though sleepless, stands pleasantly upon the

Riverbrink, overhung by high cliffs: close on its left side, or in the intricacies to rear of it, are huts and

houses, sprinkled about, as if burrowed in the sandstone; more comfortably than you could expect. The site is

a narrow dell, narrow chasm, with labyrinthic chasms branching off from it; narrow and gloomy as seen from

the River, but opening out even into cornfields as you advance inwards: work of a small Brook, which is still

industriously tinkling and gushing there, and has in Pre Adamite times been a lake, and we know not what.

NiederRaden, this, on the north side of the River; of OberRaden, on the south side, there is nothing visible

from your Inn windows,"nor have we anything to do with it farther. An older Guide of Tourists yields us

... "To Halbstadt, thence to Ebenheit, your path is steeper and steeper; from Ebenheit to the Lilienstein you

take a guide. The Mountain is conical; coarse RED sandstone; steps cut for you where needed: August the

Strong's HuntingLodge (JAGDHUTTE) is here (August went thither in a grand way, 1708, with his Wife);

Lodge still extant, by the side of a wood;Lilienstein towering huge and sheer, solitary, grand, like some

colossal Pillar of the Cyclops, from this round Pediment of Country which you have been climbing; tops of

Lilienstein plumed everywhere with fir and birch, Pediment also very green and woody. August the Strong,

grandly visiting here, 1708, on finish of those stairsteps cut for you, set up an Ebenezer, or Column of

Memorial at this HuntingHut, with Inscription which can still be read, though now with difficulty in its

"FRIEDERICUS AUGUSTUS, REX [of what? Dare not say of POLAND just now, for fear of Charles XII.],

not of men, but of Saxon Electors] SUPERAVIT, ADITUMQUE FACILIOREM REDDI CURAVIT. ANNO

1708.""UT FORTUNAM VIRTUTE, As his fortune by valor, SO he conquered this rugged rock

by"Poor devil, only hear him:and think how good Nature is (for the time being) to poor devils and their

354 bastards! [M.(agister) Wilhelm Lebrecht Gotzinger, Schandau und seine Umgebungen, oder

Beschreibung der Sachsischen Schweitz (Dresden, 1812), pp. 145148. Gotzinger, who designates himself as

"Pastor at Neustadt near Stolpen" (northwest border of the Pirna Country), has made of this (which would

now be called a TOURIST'S GUIDE, and has something geological in it) a modest, good little Book, put

together with industry, clearness, brevity. Gives interesting Narrative of our present Business too, as gathered

Bruhl and the Polish Majesty, safe enough they, and snug in the Konigstein, are clear for advancing: "Die like

soldiers, for your King and Country!" writes Polish Majesty, "Thursday, two in the morning:" that also

Rutowski reads; and I think still other Royal Autographs, sent as Postscripts to that. From the Konigstein they

duly fire off the two Cannonshot, as signal that we are coming; signal which Browne, just in the act of

departing, never heard, owing to the piping of the winds and rattling of the rain. "Advance, my heroes!"

counsel they: "You cannot drag your ammunitions, say you; your poor couple of big guns? Here are his

Majesty's own royal horses for that service!"and, in effect, the royal stud is heroically flung open in this

pressure; and a splashing column of sleek quadrupeds, "150 royal draughthorses, early in the forenoon,"

[Gotzinger, p. 156.] swim across to Ebenheit accordingly, if that could encourage. And, "about noon, there is

strong cannonading from the Konigstein, as signal to Browne," who is off. Polish Majesty looking with his

spyglass in an astonished manner. In Vain! Rutowski and his Council of War sitting wet in a hut of

Ebenheit, with 14,000 starved men outside, who have stood seventytwo hours of rain, for one itemsee

"In fact," independently of weather and circumstances, "the Enterprise," says Friedrich, "was radically

impossible; nobody that had known the ground could have judged it other." Rutowski had not known it, then?

Browne never pretended to know it. Rutowski was not candid with the conditions; the conditions never

known nor candidly looked at; and THEY are now replying to him with candor enough. From the first his

Enterprise was a final flicker of false hope; going out, as here, by spasm, in the rigors of impossibility and flat

That column of royal horses sent splashing across the River,that was the utmost of selfsacrifice which I

find recorded of his Polish Majesty in this matter. He was very obstinate; his Bruhl and he were. But his

conduct was not very heroic. That royal Autograph, "General Rutowski, and ye true Saxons, attack these

Prussian lines, then; sell your lives like men" (not like Bruhl and me), must have fallen cold on the heart,

after seventytwo hours of rain! Rutowski's wet Council of War, in the hut at Ebenheit, rain still pouring,

answers unanimously, "That it were a leading of men to the butchery;" that there is nothing for it but

surrender. Bruhl and Majesty can only answer: "Welladay; it must be so, then!" Winterfeld, Prussian

Commander hereabouts, grants Armistice, grants liberal "wagonloads of bread" first of all; terms of

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15th, Rutowski goes across to Struppen, the late Saxon headquarter, now

Friedrich's;Friday gone a fortnight was the day of Lobositz. Winterfeld and he are the negotiators there;

Friedrich ratifying or refusing by marginal remarks. The terms granted are hard enough: but they must be

accepted. First preliminary of all terms has already been accepted: a gift of bread to these poor Saxons; their

haversacks are empty, their cartridgeboxes drowned; it has rained on them three days and nights. Last

upshot of all terms is still well known to everybody: That the 14,000 Saxons are compelled to become

That had been Friedrich's determination, and reading of his rights in the matter, now that hard had come to

hard. "You refused all terms; you have resisted to death (or death'sDOOR); and are now at discretion!" Of

the question, What is to be done with those Saxons? Friedricb had thought a great deal, first and last; and had

found it very intricate,as readers too will, if they think of it. "Prisoners of War,to keep them locked up,

with trouble and expense, in that fashion? They can never be exchanged: Saxony has now nothing to

exchange them with; and Austria will not. Their obstinacy has had costs to me; who of us can count what

"Never did I, for my poor part, authorize such a thing," loudly asseverated Rutowski afterwards. And indeed

the Capitulation is not precise on that interesting point. A lengthy Document, and not worth the least perusal

otherwise; we condense it into three Articles, all grounding on this general Basis, not deniable by Rutowski:

"The Saxon Army, being at such a pass, ready to die of hunger, if we did NOT lift our finger, has, so to

"1. Kettledrums, standards and the like insignia and matters of honor,carry these to the Konigstein,

with my regretful respects to his Polish Majesty. Konigstein to be a neutral Fortress during this War. Polish

Majesty at perfect liberty to go to Warsaw [as he on the instant now did, and never returned].

"2. Officers to depart on giving their parole, Not to serve against us during this War [Parole given,

"3. Rest of the Army, with all its equipments, munitions, soul and body (so to speak), is to surrender

utterly, and be ours, as all Saxony shall for the present be." [In Helden Geschichte, iii. 920928, at full

That is, in sum, the Capitulation of Struppen. Nothing articulate in it about the one now interesting

point,and in regard to that, I can only fancy Rutowski might interject, interrogatively, perhaps at some

length: "Our soldiers to be Prisoners of War, then?" "Prisoners; yes, clearly,unless they choose to

volunteer, and have a better fate! Prisoners can volunteer. They are at discretion; they would die, if we did

NOT lift our finger!" thus I suppose Winterfeld would rejoin, if necessary;and that, in the

WinterfeldRutowski Conferences, the thing had probably been kept in a kind of CHIAROSCURO by both

Very certain it is, Sunday, 17th October, 1756, Capitulation being signed the night before, Friedrich goes

across at NiederRaden (where the Pilgrim of the Picturesque now climbs to see the BASTEI; where the

Prussians have, by this time, a Bridge thrown together out of those Pontoons),goes across at

NiederRaden, up that chasmy Pass; rides to the Heights of Waltersdorf, in the opener country behind; and

pauses there, while the captive Saxon Army defiles past him, laying down its arms at his feet. Unarmed, and

now under Prussian word of command, these ExSaxon soldiers go on defiling; march through by that

Chasm of NiederRaden; cross to OberRaden; and, in the plainer country thereabouts, arein I know not

what length of hours, but in an incredibly short length, so swift is the managementchanged wholly into

That is the fact; fact loudly censured; fact surely questionable, to what intrinsic degree I at this moment do

not know. Fact much blamable before the loose public of mankind; upon which I leave men to their verdict. It

is not a fact which invites imitation, as we shall see! Fact how accomplished; by what methods? that would

be the question with me; but even that is left dark. "The horse regiments, three of heavy horse, he broke; and

distributed about, a good few in his own GardeduCorps." Three other horse regiments were in Poland, the

sole Saxon Army now left,of whom, at least of one man among whom, we may happen to hear. "Ten foot

regiments [what was reckoned a fault] he left together; in Prussian uniform, with Prussian Officers. They

were scattered up and down; put in garrisons; not easy handling them: they deserted by whole companies at a

time in the course of this War." [Preuss, ii. 22, 135; in Stenzel (v. 1620) more precise details.] Not a

measure for imitation, as we said!How Friedrich defended such hard conduct to the Saxons? Reader, I

know only that Destiny and Necessity, urged on by Saxons and others, was hard as adamant upon Friedrich at

this time; and that Friedrich did not the least dream of making any defence;and will have to take your

Moritz of Dessau had a terrible Winter of it, organizing and breaking in these Saxon people,got by

pressgang in this way. Polish Majesty, "with 500 of suite," had driven instantly for Warsaw; posthorses

most politely furnished him, and all the Prussian posts and soldiers well kept out of his road,road chosen

for him to that end. Poor soul, he never came back. For six years coming, he saw, from Warsaw in the

distance (amid anarchy and NIEPOZWALAM, which he never lacked there), the wide War raging, in

Saxony especially; and died soon after it was done. Nor did Bruhl return, except broken by that event, and to

die in few months after. Let us pity the poor fatgoose of a Majesty (not illnatured at all, only stupid and

idle): some pity even to the doomed phantasm Bruhl, if you can;and thank Heaven to have got done with

Friedrich's treatment of the Saxon Troops, Saxon Majesty and Country: who shall say that it was wise in all

points? It would be singular treatment, if it were! In all things, AFTER is so different from BEFORE and

DURING. The truth is, Friedrich hoped long to have made some agreement with the Saxons. And readers

now, in the universal silence, have no notion of Friedrich's complexities from fact, and of the loud howl of

hostile rumor, which was piping through all journals, diplomacies and foreign human throats, against him at

"The essential passages of War and Peace," says a certain Commentator, "during those Five weeks of Pirna,

can be made intelligible in small compass. But how the world argued of them then and afterwards, and rang

with hot Gazetteer and Diplomatic logic from side to side, no reader will now ever know. A world tornado

extinct, gone:think of the sounds uttered from human windpipes, shrill with rage some of them, hoarse

others with ditto; of the vituperations, execrations, printed and vocal,grating harsh thunder upon Friedrich

and this new course of his. Huge melody of Discords, shrieking, droning, grinding on that topic, through the

afflicted Universe in general, for certain years. The very Pamphlets printed on it,cannot Dryasdust give me

the number of tons weight, then? Dead now every Pamphlet of them; a thing fallen horrible to human nature;

I will give only this of Voltaire; a mild Epigram, done at The DELICES, in pleasant view of Ferney and good

things coming. A bolt shot into the stormtost Sea and its wreckages, by a Mariner now cheerily drying his

clothes on the shore there;in fact, an indifferent Epigram, on Kings Friedrich and George, which is now

"Rivals of Alexander the Great, this Uncle and Nephew make war, the one as a Pirate [seizure of those

French ships], the other [Saxony stolen] as Captain of an Accidental Thievingsquad,"PARTI BLEU, as

the French soldiers call it. [Walpole's LETTERS, "To Sir Horace Mann, 8th December; 1756."]

Pirna was no sooner done than Friedrich returned to the "Camp at Lobositz," where his victorious

KeithArmy has been lying all this while. The Camp of Lobositz, and all Camps Prussian and Austrian, are

about to strike their tents, and proceed to Winterquarters, to prepare against next Spring. Friedrich set off

thither October 18th (the very day after that of Waltersdorf); with intent to bring home Keith's Army, and see

if Browne meant anything farther (which Browne did not, or does only in the small Tolpatch way); also to

meet, Schwerin, whom he had summoned over from Silesia for a little conference there. Schwerin, after

eating Konigsgratz Country well, which was all he could do, as Piccolomini would not come out, and we

know how strong the ground is,had retired to Silesia again, in due season (snapping up, in a sharply

conclusive manner, any Tolpatcheries that attempted chase of him); taken Winter cantonments in Silesia,

headquarter Schweidnitz; and is now getting his Instructions, here personally, in the Metal Mountains, for a

Friedrich brought his KeithArmy home to GrossSedlitz, to join the other Force there; and distributed the

whole into their Winter quarters. Cantoned far and wide, spreading out from Pirna on both hands: on the left

or western hand, by Zwickau, Freyberg, Chemnitz, up to Leipzig, Torgau; and on the right or northeast hand,

by Zittau, Gorlitz, Bautzen, to protect the Lausitz against Austrian inroads,while a remote Detachment,

under Winterfeld, watches the Bober River with similar views. [In HeldenGeschichte, iii. 948 et seq., a

minute List by Place and Regiment.] All which done, or settled to be done, Friedrich quits GrossSedlitz,

The Saxon Army is incorporated, then; its King gone under the horizon; the Saxon Country has a Prussian

Board set over it, to administer all things of Government, especially to draw taxes and recruits from Saxony.

Torgau, seat of this new Board, has got fortified; "1,500 inhabitants were requisitioned as spademen for that

The Saxon Ministers are getting drilled, cashiered if necessary; and on all hands, rigorous methods going

forward;till Saxony is completely under grasp; in which state it was held very tight indeed, for the six

years coming. There is no detailing of all that; details, were they even known to an Editor at such distance,

would weary every reader. Enough to understand that Friedrich has not on this occasion, as he did in 1744,

omitted to disarm Saxony, to hobble it in every limb, and have it, at discretion, tied as with ropes to his

interests and him. [ HeldenGeschichte, iii. 945956.] His management was never accounted cruel; and it

was studiously the reverse of violent or irregular: but it had to be rigorous as the facts were;nor was it the

Poor Country, suffering for its Bruhl! In the Country, except for its Bruhl, there was no sin against Prussia;

the reverse rather. The Saxon population, as Protestants, have no goodwill to Austria and its aims of

aggrandizement. In Austrian spyletters, now and afterwards, they are described to us as "GUT

Whether Friedrich could have had much real hope to end the War this Year, or scare it off from beginning,

may be a question. If he had, it is totally disappointed. The Saxon Government has brought ruin on itself and

Country, but it has been of great damage to Friedrich. Would Polish Majesty have consented to disband his

soldiers, and receive Friedrich with a BONAFIDE "Neutrality," Friedrich could have passed the Mountains

still in time for a heavy stroke on Bohemia, which was totally unprepared for such a visit, And he

mightfrom the Towers of Prag, for instancehave, far more persuasively, held out the olivebranch to an

astonished Empress Queen: "Leave me alone, Madam; will you, then! Security for that; I wanted and want

nothing more!" But Polish Majesty, taking on him the character of Austrian martyr, and flinging himself into

Austria, it appears, is quite ungrateful: "Was n't he bound?" thinks Austria,as its wont rather is. Forgetful

of the great deliverance wrought for it by poor Polish Majesty; whom it could not deliverexcept into

bottomless wreck! Austria, grateful or not, stands unscathed; has time to prepare its Armaments, its vocal

Arguments: Austria is in higher provocation than ever; and its very Arguments, highly vocal to the Reich and

the world, "Is not this man a robber, and enemy of mankind?" do Friedrich a great deal of ill. Friedrich's

sudden Campaign, instead of landing him in the heart of the Austrian States, there to propose Peace, has

kindled nearly all Europe into flames of rage against him,which will not consist in words merely! Never

was misunderstanding of a man at a higher pitch: "Such treatment of a peaceable Neighbor and Crowned

Head,witness it, ye Heavens and thou Earth!" Dauphiness falling on her knees to Most Christian Majesty;

"Princess and dearest Sister" to Most Christian Majesty's Pompadour; especially no end of Pleading to the

German Reich, in a furious, DelphicPythoness or quasiinspired tone: all this goes on.

From the time when Pirna was blockaded, Kaiser Franz, his high Consort and sense of duty urging him, has

been busy in the Reich's Hofrath (kind of PrivyCouncil or Supreme Court of the Reich, which sits at

Vienna); busy there, and in the Reich's Diet at Regensburg; busy everywhere, with utmost diligence over

EXCITATORIUMS; so goes it, exploding like Vesuvius, shock on the back of shock:20th September it

began; and lasts, CRESCENDO, through Winter and onwards, at an extraordinary rate. [In

HeldenGeschichte (iv. 163174; iii. 956; and indeed PASSIM through those Volumes), the Originals in

frightful superabundance.] Of all which, leaving readers to imagine it, we will say nothing,except that it

points towards "Armed Interference by the Reich," "Reich's Execution Army;" nay towards "Ban of the

Reich" (total excommunication of this Enemy of Mankind, and giving of him up to Satan, by bell, book and

candle), which is a kind of thunderbolt not heard of for a good few ages past! Thunderbolt thought to be

gone mainly to rust by the judicious; which, however, the poor old Reich did grasp again, and attempt to

France too, urged by the noblest concern, feels itself called upon. France magnanimously intimates to the

Reich's Diet, once and again, "That Most Christian Majesty is guarantee of the Treaty of Westphalia; Most

Christian Majesty cannot stand such procedures;" and then the second time, "That Most Christian Majesty

will interfere practically,"by 100,000 men and odd. [ HeldenGeschichte, iv. 340 ("26th March, 1757").]

In short, the sleeping worldwhirlwinds are awakened against this man. General Dance of the Furies; there

go they, in the dusky element, those Eumenides, "giantlimbed, serpenthaired, slowpacing, circling, torch

in hand" (according to Schiller), scattering terror and madness. At least, in the Diplomatic Circles of

Friedrich, abundantly contemptuous of Reich'sthunder in the rusted kind, and well able to distinguish sound

from substance in the Reich or elsewhere, recognizes in all this sufficiently portentous prophecies of fact

withal; and understands, none better, what a perilous position he has got into. But he cannot mend it;can

only, as usual, do his own utmost in it. As readers will believe he does; and that his vigilance and diligence

are very great. Continual, ubiquitous and at the top of his bent, one fancies his effort must have

been,though he makes no noise on the subject. Considerable work he has with Hanover, this Winter; with

the poor English Government, and their "Army of Observation," which is to appear in the Hanover parts,

VERSUS those 100,000 French, next Spring. To Hanover he has sent Schmettau (the Younger Schmettau,

Elder is now dead) in regard to said Army; has made a new and closer Treaty with England (impossible to be

fulfilled on poor England's part);and laments, as Mitchell often does, the tragically embroiled condition of

that Country, struggling so vehemently, to no purpose, to get out of bed, and not unlike strangling or

smothering itself in its own blankets, at present! With and in regard to Saxony, his work is of course

extremely considerable; and in regard to his own Army, and its coming Business, considerablest of all.

CounterManifesto work, to state his case in a distinct manner, and leave it with the Populations if the

Diplomacies are deaf: this too, is copiously proceeding; under Artists who probably do not require much

supervision. In fact, no King living has such servants, in the Civil or the Military part, to execute his will.

And no King so little wastes himself in noises; a King who has good command of himself, first of all; not to

be thrown off his balance by any terror, any provocation even, though his temper is very sharp.

Friedrich in person is mainly at Dresden, lodged in the Bruhl Palace;endless wardrobes and magnificences

there; three hundred and sixtyFOUR Pairs of Breeches hanging melancholy, in a widowed manner: C'EST

ASSEZ DE CULOTTES; MONTREZMOI DES VERTUS! Bruhl is far away, in Poland; Madam Bruhl has

still her Apartments in this Palace,a frugal King needs only the necessary spaces. Madam Bruhl is very

busy here; and not to good purpose, being well seen into. "She had a cask of wine sent her from Warsaw,"

says Friedrich; "orders were given to decant for her every drop of the wine, but to be sure and bring us the

cask." Cask was found to have two bottoms, intermediate space filled with spycorrespondence. Madam

Bruhl protests and pleads, Friedrich not unpolite in reply; his last Letter to her says, "Madam, it is better that

Another high Dame gets sausages from Bohemia;some of Friedrich's light troops have an appetite, beyond

strict law for sausages; break in, find Letters along with the other stuffing. [ OEuvres de Frederic, iv. 108;

Mitchell, "27th March, 1757" (Raumer p. 321).] Friedrich has a good deal of watching and coercing to do in

that kind,some arresting, conveyance even to Custrin for a time, though nothing crueler proved needful. To

the poor Queen he keeps up civilities, but is obliged to be strict as Argus;she made him a Gift too, the

NIGHT of Correggio, admired NOTTE of Correggio; having heard that he sat before it silent for half an hour,

on entering that fine Gallery, which is due to our Sovereign Lord and his Bruhl, alas! On the other hand,

Friedrich had to take from her Majesty's Royal Abode those Hundred Swiss of Bodyguard; to discharge the

same, and put Prussians in their stead. Nay, at one time, on loud outcry from her Majesty, and great private

cause of complaint against her, there was talk of sending the poor Royal lady to Warsaw, after her Husband;

but her objection being violent, nothing came of that: Winter following, her poor Majesty died, [27th

Friedrich's outposts, especially in the Lausitz, are a good deal disturbed by Austrian Tolpatcheries; and do

feats, heroic in the small way, in smiting down that rabble. A valuable Officer or two is lost in such poor

service, poor but indispensable; [Funeral Discourses (of a very curious, ponderous and serious tone), in

Gesammelte Nachrichten, ii. 458, 464, and the troops have not always the repose which is intended them.

LieutenantColonel Loudon (Scotch by kindred, and famous enough before long) is the soul of these Croat

enterprises,and gets his Colonelcy by them, in a month or two; Browne recommending. Loudon had

arrived too late for Lobositz, but had been with Browne to Schandau; and, on the march homewards, did a

bright feat of the Croat kind:surprisal, very complete, of that HillCastle of Tetschen and considerable

Hussar Party there; done in a style which caught the eye of Browne; and was the beginning of great things to

poor Loudon, after his twenty years of painful eclipse under the Indigo Trencks, and miscellaneous

Doggeries, Austrian aud Russian. [LA VIE DU FELDMARECHAL BARON DE LOUDON (Translation of

Tetschen, therefore, will again need capture by the Prussians, if they again intend that way. And in the mean

while, Friedrich, to counterpoise those mischievous Croat people, has bethought him of organizing a similar

Force of his own;Foot chiefly, for, on hint of former experience, he already has Hussars in quantity. And,

this Winter, there are accordingly, in different Saxon Towns, three Irregular Regiments getting ready for him;

three "Volunteer Colonels" busily enlisting each his "Free Corps," such the title chosen;chief Colonel of

them one Mayer, now in Zwickau neighborhood with 6 or 700 loose handy fellows round him, getting

formed into strict battalion there: [Pauli (our old diffuse friend), Leben grosser Helden des gegenwartigen

Krieges (9 vols., Halle, 17591764), iii. 159, ? Mayr.] of whom, and of whose soldiering, we shall hear

farther. For the plan was found to answer; and extended itself year after year; and the "Prussian Free Corps,"

Outwardly Friedrich's Life is quiet; busy, none can be more so; but to the onlooker, placid, polite especially.

He hears sermon once or twice in the KreuzKirche (Protestant High Church); then next day will hear good

music, devotional if you call it so, in the Catholic Church, where her Polish Majesty is. Daily at the old hour

he has his own Concert, now and then assisting with his own flute. Makes donations to the Poor, and such

like, due from Saxon Sovereignty while held by him; on the other hand, reduces salaries at a sad rate Guarini,

Queen's Confessor, from near 2,000 pounds to little more than 300 pounds, for one instance;cuts off about

25,000 pounds in all under this head. [ Helden Geschichte, iv. 306 ("December, 1756").] And is heavy with

billeting, as new Prussians arrive. Billets at length in the very Ambassadors' Hotels,and by way of apology

to the Excellencies, signifies to them in a body: "Sorry for the necessity, your Excellencies: but ought not you

to go to Warsaw rather? Your credentials are to his Polish Majesty. He is not here; nor coming hither, for

some time!" Which hint, I suppose, the Excellencies mostly took. From his own Forests there came by the

Elbe great rafts of firewood, to warm his soldiers in their quarters. Once or twice he makes excursions, of a

day of two days; to the Lausitz, to Leipzig (through Freyberg, where he has a post of importance);very

gracious to the University people: "Students be troubled with soldiering? Far from it ye learned Gentlemen,

servants of the Muses! Recruitment, a lamentable necessity, is to go on under your own Official people, and

wholly by the old methods." [ HeldenGeschichte, iv. 303313; UNIVERSITATSANSCHLAG ZU

LEIPZIG, WEGEN DER WERBUNG ("UniversityPlacard about Enlisting:" in Gesammelte Nachrichten, i.

Once, and once only, he made a run to Berlin, January 4th18th, 1757: the last for six years and more. Came

with great despatch, Brother Henri with him, whole journey in one day; got, "to his Mother's about 11 at

night." [Ib. iv. 308.] A joyful meeting, for the kindred: cheerful lightgleam in the dark time, so suddenly

eclipsed to them and others by those hurricanes that have risen. His Majesty seems to be in perfect health;

and wears no look of gloom. At Berlin is no Carnival this year; all are grave, sunk in sad contemplations of

the future. Of his businesses in this interval, which were many, I will say nothing; only of one little Act he

did, the day before his departure: the writing of this SECRET LETTER OF INSTRUCTIONS to Graf Finck

von Finkenstein, his chief Home Minister, one of his old boycomrades, as readers may recollect. The Letter

was read by Count Finck with profound attention, 11th January, 1757, and conned over till he knew every

point of it; after which he sealed it up, inscribing on the Cover: "HOCHSTEIGENHANDIGE UND GANX

GEHEIME"that is, "Highest Autographic and altogether Secret Instructions, by the King, which, with the

Appendixes, were delivered to me, Graf von Finkenstein, the 12th of January, 1757." In this docketing it lay,

sealed for many years (none knows how many), then unsealed, still in strict keeping, in the Private Royal

Archives" [Preuss, i. 449.]till on Friedrich's Birthday, 24th January, 1854, it was, with some solemnity,

lithographed at Berlin, and distributed to a select public,as readers shall see.

"In the critical situation our affairs are in, I ought to give you my orders, so that in all the disastrous cases

which are in the possibility of events, you be authorized for taking the necessary steps.

"1. If it chanced (which Heaven forbid) that one of my Armies in Saxony were totally beaten; or that the

French should drive the Hanoverians from their Country [which they failed not to do], and establish

themselves there, and threaten us with an invasion into the Altmark; or that the Russians should get through

by the Neumark,you are to save the Royal Family, the principal DICASTERIA [LandSchedules, Lists of

Taxdues], the Ministries and the Directorium [which is the central Ministry of all]. If it is in Saxony on the

Leipzig side that we are beaten, the fittest place for the removal of the Royal Family, and of the Treasure, is

to Custrin: in such case the Royal Family and all above named must go, escorted by the whole Garrison" of

Berlin, "to Custrin. If the Russians entered by the Neumark, or if a misfortune befell us in the Lausitz, it

would be to Magdeburg that all would have to go: in fine, the last refuge is Stettin,but you must not go till

the last extremity. The Garrison, the Royal Family and the Treasure are inseparable, and go always together:

to this must be added the Crown Diamonds, the Silver Plate in the Grand Apartments,which, in such case,

"If it happened that I were killed, the Public Affairs must go on without the smallest alteration, or its being

noticeable that they are in other hands: and, in this case, you must hasten forward the Oaths and Homagings,

as well here as in Preussen; and, above all, in Silesia. If I should have the fatality to be taken prisoner by the

Enemy, I prohibit all of you from paying the least regard to my person, or taking the least heed of what I

might write from my place of detention. Should such misfortune happen me, I wish to sacrifice myself for the

State; and you must obey my Brother,who, as well as all my Ministers and Generals, shall answer to me

with their heads, Not to offer any Province or any Ransom for me, but to continue the War, pushing their

"I hope, and have ground to believe, that you, Count Finck, will not need to make use of this Instruction: but

in case of misfortune, I authorize you to employ it; and, as mark that it is, after a mature and sound

deliberation, my firm and constant will, I sign it with my Hand and confirm it with my Seal."

"Dans La Situation Critique ou se trouvent nos affaires je dois Vous donner mes Ordres pour que dans tout

Les Cas Malheureux qui sont dans la possibilite des Evenemens vous Soyez autorisse aux partis quil faut

prendre. 1)[Yes; but there follows no "2)" anywhere, such the haste!] Sil arivoit (de quoi le Ciel preserve)

qu'une de mes Armees en Saxse fut totallement battue, oubien que Les francais chassassent Les Hanovryeins

de Leur pais et si etablissent et nous menassassent d'un Invassion dans la Vieille Marche, ou que les Russes

penetrassent par La Nouvelle Marche, il faut Sauver la famille Royale, les principeaux Dicasteres les

Ministres et le Directoire. Si nous somes battus en Saxse du Cote de leipssic Le Lieu Le plus propre pour Le

transport de La famille et du Tressor est a Custrin, il faut en ce Cas que la famille Royalle et touts cidesus

nomez aillent esCortez de toute La Guarnisson a Custrin. Si les Russes entroient par la Nouvele Marche ou

quil nous arivat un Malheur en Lusace, il faudroit que tout Se transportat a Magdebourg, enfin Le

Dernirefuge est a Stetein, mais il ne hut y allrqu'a La Derniere exstremite La Guarnisson la famille Royalle et

le Tressort sent Inseparables et vont toujours ensemble il faut y ajouter les Diamans de la Couronne, et

L'argenterie des Grands Apartements qui en pareil cas ainsi que la Veselle d'or doit etre incontinant

Monoyee. Sil arivoit que je fus tue, il faut que Les affaires Continuent Leur train sans la Moindre allteration

et Sans qu'on s'apersoive qu'elles sont en d'autre Mains, et en ce Cas il faut hater Sermens et homages tant ici

qu'en prusse et surtout en Silesie. Si j'avois la fatalite d'etre pris prissonier par L'Enemy, je Defend qu'on Aye

le Moindre egard pour ma perssonne ni qu'on fasse La Moindre reflextion sur ce que je pourois ecrire de Ma

Detention, Si pareil Malheur m'arivoit je Veux me Sacriffier pour L'Etat et il faut qu'on obeisse a Mon frere

le quel ainsi que tout Mes Ministres et Generaux me reponderont de leur Tette qu'on offrira ni province ni

ransson pour moy et que lon Continuera la Guerre en poussant Ses avantages tout Come si je n'avais jamais

exsiste dans le Monde. J'espere et je dois Croire que Vous Conte finc n'aurez pas bessoin de faire usage de

Cette Instruction mais en cas de Malheur je Vous autorisse a L'Employer, et Marque que C'est apres Une

Mure et saine Deliberation Ma ferme et Constante Volonte je le Signe de Ma Main et la Muni de mon Cachet

"FEDERIC R." [Fac simile of Autograph (Berlin, 24th January, 1854), where is some indistinct History of

These, privately made law in this manner, are Friedrich's fixed feelings and resolutions;how fixed is now

farther apparent by a fact which was then still more private, guessable long afterwards only by one or two,

and never clearly known so long as Friedrich lived: the fact that he had (now most probably, though the date

is not known) provided poison for himself, and constantly wore it about his person through this War. "Five or

six small pills, in a small glass tube, with a bit of ribbon to it:" that stern relic lay, in a worn condition, in

some drawer of Friedrich's, after Friedrich was gone. [Preuss, ii. 175, 315 n.] For the Facts are peremptory;

Two days after this Finck missive, Friday, 12th, Friedrich took farewell at Berlin, drove to Potsdam that night

with his Brother, to Dresden next day. Adieu, Madam; Adieu, O Mother! said the King, in royal terms, but

with a heart altogether human. "May God above bless you, my Son!" the old Lady would reply:and the

Two had seen one another for the last time; Mother and Son were to meet no more in this world.

Seldom was there seen such a combination against any man as this against Friedrich, after his Saxon

performances in 1756. The extent of his sin, which is now ascertained to have been what we saw, was at that

time considered to transcend all computation, and to mark him out for partition, for suppression and

enchainment, as the general enemy of mankind. "Partition him, cut him down," said the Great Powers to one

another; and are busy, as never before, in raising forces, inciting new alliances and calling out the general

POSSE COMITATUS of mankind, for that salutary object. What tempestuous fulminations in the Reichstag,

Latterly the Swedes, who at first had compunctions on the score of Protestantism, have agreed to join in the

Partitioning adventure: "It brings us his Pommern, all Pommern ours!" cry the Swedish Parliamentary

Eloquences (with French gold in their pocket): "At any rate," whisper they, "it spites the Queen his

Sister!"and drag the poor Swedish Nation into a series of disgraces and disastrous platitudes it was little

anticipating. This precious FrenchSwedish Bargain ("Swedes to invade with 25,000; France to give fair

subsidy," and bribe largely) was consummated in March; ["21st March, 1757" (Stenzel, v. 38; but did not

become known to Friedrich for some months later; nor was it of the importance he then thought it, in the first

moment of surprise and provocation. Not indeed of importance to anybody, except, in the reverse way, to

poor Sweden itself, and to the French, who had spent a great deal of pains and money on it, and continued to

spend, with as good as no result at all. For there never was such a War, before or since, not even by Sweden

in the Captainless state! And the one profit the copartners reaped from it, was some discountenance it gave to

the rumor which had risen, more extensively than we should now think, and even some nucleus of fact in it as

appears, That Austria, France and the Catholic part of the Reich were combining to put down Protestantism.

To which they could now answer, "See, Protestant Sweden is with us!"and so weaken a little what was

As to France itself,to France, Austria, Russia,bound by such earthly Treaties, and the call of very

Heaven, shall they not, in united puissance and indignation, rise to the rescue? France, touched to the heart by

such treatment of a Saxon Kurfurst, and bound by Treaty of Westphalia to protect all members of the Reich

(which it has sometimes, to our own knowledge, so carefully done), is almost more ardent than Austria itself.

France, Austria, Russia; to these add Polish Majesty himself; and latterly the very Swedes, by French bribery

at Stockholm: these are the Partitioning Powers;and their shares (let us spare one line for their shares) are

The Swedes are to have Pommern in whole; PolishSaxon Majesty gets Magdeburg, Halle, and opulent slices

thereabouts; Austria's share, we need not say, is that jewel of a Silesia. Czarish Majesty, on the extreme East,

takes Preussen, KonigsbergMemel Country in whole; adds Preussen to her as yet too narrow Territories.

WeselCleve Country, from the other or Western extremity, France will take that clipping, and make much

of it. These are quite serious businessengagements, engrossed on careful parchment, that Spring, 1757, and I

suppose not yet boiled down into glue, but still to be found in dusty corners, with the tape much faded. The

high heads, making preparation on the due scale, think them not only executable, but indubitable, and almost

as good as done. Push home upon him, as united Posse Comitatus of Mankind; in a sacred cause of Polish

Majesty and Public Justice, how can one malefactor resist? "AH, MA TRESCHERE" and "Oh, my dearest

It is computed that there are arrayed against this one King, under their respective Kings, EmpressQueens,

Swedish Senates, Catins and Pompadours, populations to the amount of above 100 millions,in after stages,

I remember to have seen "150 millions" loosely given as the exaggerated cipher. Of armed soldiers actually

in the field against him (against Hanover and him), in 1757, there are, by strict count, 430,000. Friedrich's

own Dominions at this time contain about Five Millions of Population; of Revenue somewhat less than Two

Millions sterling. New taxes he cannot legally, and will not, lay on his People. His SCHATZ (readymoney

Treasure, or Hoard yearly accumulating for such end) is, I doubt not, well filled, express amount not

mentioned. Of drilled men he has, this Year, 150,000 for the field; portioned out thriftily,as well beseems,

against Four Invasions coming on him from different points. In the field, 150,000 soldiers, probably the best

that ever were; and in garrison, up and down (his Country being, by nature, the least defensible of all

Countries), near 40,000, which he reckons of inferior quality. So stands the account. [Stenzel, iv. 308, 306, v.

39; Ranke, iii. 415; Preuss, ii, 389, 43, 124; substantially true, I doubt not; but little or nothing of it so

definite and conclusively distinct as it ought, in all items, to have been by this time,had poor Dryasdust

known what he was doing.] These are, arithmetically precise, his resources,PLUS only what may lie in his

own head and heart, or funded in the other heads and hearts, especially in those 150,000, which he and his

Fathers have been diligently disciplining, to good perfection, for four centuries come the time.

France, urged by Pompadour and the enthusiasms, was first in the field. The French Army, in superb

equipment, though privately in poorish state of discipline, took the road early in March; "March 26th and

27th," it crossed the German Border, Cleve Country and Koln Country; had been rumored of since January

and February last, as terrifically grand; and here it now actually is, above 100,000 strong,110,405, as the

ArmyLists, flaming through all the Newspapers, teach mankind. [ HeldenGeschichte, iv. 391; iii. 1073.]

Bent mainly upon Prussia, it would seem; such the will of Pompadour. Mainly upon Prussia; Marechal

d'Estrees, crossing at Koln, made offers even to his Britannic Majesty to be forgiven in comparison; "Yield us

a road through your Hanover, merely a road to those HalberstadtMagdeburg parts, your Hanover shall have

neutrality!" "Neutrality to Hanover?" sighed Britannic Majesty: "Alas, am not I pledged by Treaty? And, alas,

withal, how is it possible, with that America hanging over us?" and stood true. Nor is this all, on the part of

magnanimous France: there is a Soubise getting under way withal, Soubise and 30,000, who will reinforce

the Reich's Armament, were it on foot, and be heard of by and by! So high runs French enthusiasm at present.

A new sting of provocation to Most Christian Majesty, it seems, has been Friedrich's conduct in that Damiens

matter (miserable attempt, by a poor mad creature, to assassinate; or at least draw blood upon the Most

Christian Majesty ["Evening of 5th January, 1757" (exuberantly plentiful details of it, and of the horrible

Law procedures which followed on it: In Adelung, viii. 197220; Barbier, about which Friedrich, busy and

oblivious, had never, in common politeness, been at the pains to condole, compliment, or take any notice

The WeselCleve Countries these French find abandoned: Friedrich's garrisons have had orders to bring off

the artillery and stores, blow up what of the works are suitable for blowing up; and join the "Britannic Army

of Observation" which is getting itself together in those regions. Considerable Army, Britannic wholly in the

money part: new Hanoverians so many, Brunswickers, Buckeburgers, Sachsen Gothaers so many; add those

precious HanoverianHessian 20,000, whom we have had in England guarding our liberties so long,who

are now shipped over in a lot; fair wind and full sea to them. Army of 60,000 on paper; of effective more than

50,000; Headquarters now at Bielefeld on the Weser;where, "April 16th," or a few days later, Royal

Highness of Cumberland comes to take command; likely to make a fine figure against Marechal d'Estrees and

his 100,000 French! But there was no helping it. Friedrich, through Winter, has had Schmettau earnestly

flagitating the Hanoverian Officialities: "The Weser is wadable in many places, you cannot defend the

Weser!" and counselling and pleading to all lengths,without the least effect. "Wants to save his own

Halberstadt lands, at our expense!" Which was the idea in London, too: "Don't we, by Apocalyptic

Newswriters and eyesight of our own, understand the man?" Pitt is by this time in Office, who perhaps might

have judged a little otherwise. But Pitt's seat is altogether temporary, insecure; the ruling deities Newcastle

and Royal Highness, who withal are in standing quarrel. So that Friedrich, Schmettau, Mitchell pleaded to the

deaf. Nothing but "Defend the Weser," and ignorant Fatuity ready for the Impossible, is to be made out there.

"Cannot help it, then," thinks Friedrich, often enough, in bad moments; "Army of Observation will have its

fate. Happily there are only 5,000 Prussians in it, Wesel and the other garrisons given up!"

Only 5,000 Prussians: by original Engagement, there should have been 25,000; and Friedrich's intention is

even 45,000 if he prosper otherwise. For in January, 1757 (Anniversary, or nearly so, of that NEUTRALITY

CONVENTION last year), there had beenencouraged by Pitt, as I could surmise, who always likes

Friedricha definite, much closer TREATY OF ALLIANCE, with "Subsidy of a million sterling,"

AntiRussian "Squadron of Observation in the Baltic," "25,000 Prussians," and other items, which I forget.

Forget the more readily, as, owing to the strange state of England (near suffocating in its Constitutional

bedclothes), the Treaty could not be kept at all, or serve as rule to poor England's exertions for Friedrich this

Year; exertions which were of the willingminded but futile kind, going forward pellmell, not by plan, and

could reach Friedrich only in the lump,had there been any "lump" of them to sum together. But Pitt had

gone out;we shall see what, in Pitt's absence, there was! So that this Treaty 1757 fell quite into the

wastebasket (not to say, far deeper, by way of "pavement" we know where!),and is not mentioned in any

English Book; nor was known to exist, till some Collector of such things printed it, in comparatively recent

times. ["M. Koch in 1802," not very perfectly (Scholl, iii. 30 n.; who copies what Koch has given).] A Treaty

1757, which, except as emblem of the then quasienchanted condition of England, and as Foreshadow of

Pitt's new Treaty in January, 1758, and of three others that followed and were kept to the letter, is not of

The thunderous fulminations in the Reich'sDietan injured Saxony complaining, an insulted Kaiser, after

vain DEHORTATORIUMS, reporting and denouncing "Horrors such as these: What say you, O

Reich?"have been going on since September last; and amount to boundless masses of the liveliest

Parliamentary Eloquence, now fallen extinct to all creatures. [Given, to great lengths, in HeldenGeschichte,

iii. iv. (and other easily avoidable Books).] The Kaiser, otherwise a solid pacific gentleman, intent on

commercial operations (furnishes a good deal of our meal, says Friedrich), is Officially extremely violent in

behalf of injured Saxony,that is to say, in fact, of injured Austria, which is one's own. KurMainz,

Chairman of the Diet (we remember how he was got, and a Battle of Dettingen fought in consequence, long

since); KurMainz is admitted to have the most decided Austrian leanings: Britannic George, Austria being

now in the opposite scale, finds him an unhandy KurMainz, and what profit it was to introduce false weights

into the Reich's balance that time! Not for long generations before, had the poor old semiimaginary Reich's

Diet risen into such paroxysms; nor did it ever again after. Never again, in its terrestrial History, was there

such agonistic parliamentary struggle, and terrific noise of parliamentary palaver, witnessed in the poor

Reich'sDiet. Noise and struggle rising ever higher, peal after peal, from September, 1756, when it started,

till August, 1757, when it had reached its acme (as perhaps we shall see), though it was far from ending then,

Contemporary bystanders remark, on the Austrian part, extraordinary rage and hatred against Prussia; which

is now the one point memorable. Austria is used to speak loud in the Diet, as we have ourselves seen: and it is

again (if you dive into those old AEolus'Caves, at your peril) unpleasantly notable to what pitch of fixed

rage, and hot sullen hatred Austria has now gone; and how the tone has in it a potency of worldwide

squealing and droning, such as you nowhere heard before. Omnipotence of droning, edged with shrieky

squealing, which fills the Universe, not at all in a melodious way. From the depths of the gamut to the shrieky

top again,a droning that has something of porcine or wildboar character. Figure assembled the wild boars

of the world, all or mostly all got together, and each with a knife just stuck into its side, by a felonious

individual too well known,you will have some notion of the sound of these things. Friedrich sometimes

remonstrates: "Cannot you spare such phraseology, unseemly to Kings? The quarrels of Kings have to be

decided by the sword; what profit in unseemly language, Madam?"but, for the first year and more, there

Friedrich's own Delegate at Regensburg, a Baron von Plotho, come of old Brandenburg kindred, is a resolute,

readytongued, very undaunted gentleman; learned in Diplomacies and Reich's Law; carries his head high,

and always has his story at hand. Argument, grounded on Reich's Law and the nature of the case, Plotho

never lacks, on spur of the hour: and is indeed a very commendable parliamentary mastiff; and honorable and

melodious in the bark of him, compared with those infuriated porcine specimens. He has KurHanover for

ally on common occasions, and generally from most Protestant members individually, or from the CORPUS

EVANGELICORUM in mass, some feeble whimper of support. Finds difficulty in getting his Reich's

Pleadings printed; dangerous, everywhere in those Southern Parts, to print anything whatever that is not

Austrian: so that Plotho, at length, gets printers to himself, and sets up a PrintingPress in his own house at

Regensburg. He did a great deal of sonorous pleading for Friedrich; proud, deepvoiced, ruggedly logical;

fairly beyond the Austrian quality in many cases,and always far briefer, which is another high merit.

October coming, we purpose to look in upon Plotho for one minute; "October 14th, 1757;" which may be

reckoned essentially the acme or tumingpoint of these unpleasant thunderings. [ HeldenGeschichte, iv.

What good he did to Friedrich, or could have done with the tongue of angels in such an audience, we do not

accurately know. Some good he would do even in the Reich'sDiet there; and out of doors, over a German

public, still more; and is worth his frugal wages,say 1,000 pounds a year, printing and all other expense

included! This is a mere guess of mine, Dryasdust having been incurious: but, to English readers it is

incredible for what sums Friedrich got his work done, no work ever better. Which is itself an appreciable

advantage, computable in pounds sterling; and is the parent of innumerable others which no Arithmetic or

Bookkeeping by Double Entry will take hold of, and which are indeed priceless for Nations and for persons.

But this poor old bedridden Reich, starting in agonistic spasm at such rate: is it not touching, in a Corpus

moribund for so many Centuries past! The Reich is something; though it is not much, nothing like so much as

even Kaiser Franz supposes it. Much or not so much, Kaiser Franz wishes to secure it for himself; Friedrich

to hinder him,and it must be a poor something, if not worth Plotho's wages on Friedrich's part.

It would insult the patience of every reader to go into these spasmodic tossings of the poor paralytic Reich; or

to mention the least item of them beyond what had some result, or fraction of result, on the world's real

affairs. We shall say only, therefore, that after tempests not a few of porcine squealing, answered always by

counterlatration on the vigilant Plotho's part;squealing, chiefly, from the Reich'sHofrath at Vienna, the

Head Tribunal of Imperial Majesty, which sits judging and denouncing there, touched to the soul, as if by a

knife driven into its side, by those unheardof treatments of Saxony and disregard to our

DEHORTATORIUMS, and which bursts out, peal after peal, filling the Universe, Plotho not

unvigilant;the poor old Reich'sDiet did at last get into an acting posture, and determine, by clear majority

of 99 against 60, that there should be a "Reich's Execution Army" got on foot. Reich's Execution Army to

coerce, by force of arms, this nefarious King of Prussia into making instant restitution to Saxony, with ample

damages on the nail; that right be done to Kurfursts of this Reich. To such height of vigor has the Reich's

Diet gone;and was voting it at Regensburg January 10th, 1757; [ HeldenGeschichte, iv. 252, 302, 330;

Stenzel, v. 32.] that very day when nefarious Friedrich at Berlin, casehardened in iniquity to such a pitch,

sat writing his INSTRUCTION TO COUNT FINCK, which we read not long since. Simultaneous

Reich'sDiet perfected its Vote; had it quite through, and sanctioned by the Kaiser's Majesty, January 29th:

"Arming to be a TRIPLUM" (triple contingent required of you this time); with Romishmonths

(ROMERMONATE) of cash contributions from all and sundry (rigorously gathered, I should hope, where

Austria has power), so many as will cover the expense. Army to be got on actual foot hastily, instantly if

possible: an "EILENDE REICHSEXECUTIONS ARMEE;" so it ran, but the word EILENDE (speedy) had

a mischance in printing, and was struck off into ELENDE (contemptibly wretched): so that on all

MarketSquares and Public Places of poor Teutschland, you read flaming Placards summoning out, not a

speedy or immediate, but "a MISERABLE Reich's Execution Army!" A word which, we need not say, was

laughed at by the unfeeling part of the public; and was often called to mind by the Reich's Execution Army's

For the Reich performed its Vote; actually had a Reich's Execution Army; the last it ever had in this world,

not by any means the worst it ever had, for they used generally to be bad. Commanders, managers are named,

Romermonate are gathered in, or the sure prospect of them; and, through MayJune, 1757, there is busy stir,

of drumming, preparing and enlisting, all over the Reich. End of July, we shall see the Reich's Army in

Camp; end of August, actually in the field; and later on, a touch of its fighting withal. Many other things the

Reich tried against unfortunate Friedrich,gradual advance, in fact, to Ban of the Reich (or total anathema

and cuttingoff from fire and water): but in none of these, in Ban as little as any, did it come to practical

result at all, or acquire the least title to be remembered at this day. Finis of Ban, some eight months hence,

has something of attractive as futility, the curious Death of a Futility. Finis of Ban (October 14th, already

indicated) we may for one moment look in upon, if there be one moment to spare; the restreaders may

fancy it; and read only of the actuality and fighting part, which will itself be enough for them on such a

Four Invasions, from their respective points of the compass, northeast, northwest, southeast and southwest:

here is a formidable outlook for the one man against whom they are all advancing open mouthed. The one

manwith nothing but a Duke of Cumberland and his Observation Army for backing in such duelhad

need to look to himself! Which, we well know, he does; wrapt in profoundly silent vigilance, with his plans

all laid. Of the Four Invasions, three, the Russian, French, Austrian, are very large; and the two latter,

especially the last, are abundantly formidable. The Swedish, of which there is rumoring, he hopes may come

to little, or not come at all. Nor is Russia, though talking big, and actually getting ready above 100,000 men,

so immediately alarming. Friedrich always hopes the English, with their guineas and their managements, will

do something for him in that quarter; and he knows, at worst, that the Russian Hundred Thousand will be a

very slowmoving entity. The Swedish Invasion Friedrich, for the present, leaves to chance: and against

Russia, he has sent old Marshal Lehwald into those Baltic parts; far eastward, towards the utmost Memel

Frontier, to put the Country upon its own defence, and make what he can of it with 30,000

men,WestPrussian militias a good few of them. This is all he can spare on the SwedishRussian side:

Austria and France are the perilous pair of entities; not to be managed except by intense concentration of

Friedrich's motions and procedures in cantonquarters, through Winter and in late months, have led to the

belief that he means to stand on the defensive; that the scene of the Campaign will probably be Saxony; and

that Austria, for recovering injured Saxony, for recovering dear Silesia, will have to take an invasive attitude.

And Austria is busy everywhere preparing with that view. Has Tolpatcheries, and advanced Brigades, still

harassing about in the Lausitz. A great Army assembling at Prag,Browne forward towards the Metal

Mountains securing posts, gathering magazines, for the crossing into Saxony there. There, it is thought, the

tug of war will probably be. Furious, and strenuous, it is not doubted, on this Friedrich's part: but against such

odds, what can he do? With Austrians in front, with Russians to left, with French to right and arear, not to

It is by no means Friedrich's intention that Saxony itself shall need to be invaded. Friedrich's habit is, as his

enemies might by this time be beginning to learn, not that of standing on the defensive, but that of GOING on

it, as the preferable method wherever possible. March 24th, Friedrich had quitted Dresden City; and for a

month after (headquarters Lockwitz, edge of the Pirna Country), he had been shifting, redistributing, his

cantoned Army, privately into the due Divisions, due readiness for march. Which done, on fixed days,

about the end of April, the whole Army, he himself from Lockwitz, April 20th,to the surprise of Austria

and the world, Friedrich in three grand Columns, Bevern out of the Lausitz, King himself over the Metal

Mountains, Schwerin out of Schlesien, is marching with extraordinary rapidity direct for Prag; in the notion

that a right plunge into the heart of Bohemia will be the best defence for Saxony and the other places under

This is a most unexpected movement; which greatly astonishes the worldtheatre, pit, boxes and gallery alike

(as Friedrich's sudden movements often do); and which is, above all, interesting on the stage itself, where the

actors had been counting on a quite opposite set of entries and activities! Feldmarschall Browne and General

Konigseck (not our old friend Konigseck, who used to dry nurse in the Netherlands, but his nephew and

heir) may cease gathering Magazines, in those Lausitz and MetalMountain parts: happy could they give

wings to those already gathered! Magazines, for Austrian service, are clearly not the things wanted there. One

does not burn one's Magazines till the last extremity; but wings they have none; and such is the enigmatic

velocity of those Prussian movements, one seldom has time even to burn them, in the last crisis of

catastrophe! Considerable portions of that provender fell into the Prussian throat; as much as "three months'

provision for the whole Army," count they,adding to those Frontier sundries the really important Magazine

which they seized at JungBunzlau farther in. [ HeldenGeschichte, iv. 613; It is one among their many

greater advantages from this surprisal of the enemy, and sudden topsyturvying of his plans. Browne and

Konigseck have to retire on Prag at their swiftest; looking to more important results than Magazines.

It is Friedrich's old plan. Long since, in 1744, we saw a march of this kind, Three Columns rushing with

simultaneous rapidity on Prag; and need not repeat the particulars on this occasion. Here are some Notes on

the subject, which will sufficiently bring it home to readers: "The Three Columns were, for a part of the

way, Four; the King's being, at first, in two branches, till they united again, on the other side of the Hills. For

the King," what is to be noted, "had shot out, three weeks before, a small preliminary branch, under Moritz of

Dessau; who marched, well westward, by Eger (starting from Chemnitz in Saxony); and had some tussling

with our poor old friend Duke d'Ahremberg, Browne's subordinate in those parts. D'Ahremberg, having

20,000 under him, would not quit Eger for Moritz; but pushed out Croats upon him, and sat still. This, it was

afterwards surmised, had been a feint on Friedrich's part; to give the Austrians pleasant thoughts: 'Invading

us, is he? Would fain invade us, but cannot!' Moritz fell back from Eger; and was ready to join the King's

march, (at Linay, April 23d' (third day from Lockwitz, on the King's part). Onwards from which point the

Columns are specifically Three; in strength, and on routes, somewhat as follows:

1. "The FIRST Column, or King's,which is 60,000 after this junction, 45,000 foot, 15,000 horse,quitted

Lockwitz (head quarter for a month past), WEDNESDAY, APRIL 20TH. They go by the Pascopol and

other roads; through Pirna, for one place: through Karbitz, Aussig, are at Linay on the 23d; where Moritz

joins: 24th, in the united state, forward again (leave Lobositz two miles to left); to Trebnitz, 25th, and rest

"At Aussig an unfortunate thing befell. Zastrow, respectable old General Zastrow, was to drive the Austrians

out of Aussig: Zastrow does it, April 22d23d, drives them well over the heights; April 25th, however,

marching forward towards Lobositz, Zastrow is shot through both temples (Pandour hid among the bushes

and cliffs, OTHER side of Elbe), and falls dead on the spot. Buried in GOTTLEUBE Kirk, 1st May."

In these Aussig affairs, especially in recapturing the Castle of Tetschen near by, Colonel Mayer, father of the

new "FreeCorps," did shining service;and was approved of, he and they. And, a day or two after, was

detached with a Fifteen Hundred of that kind, on more important business: First, to pick up one or two

Bohemian Magazines lying handy; after which, to pay a visit to the Reich and its bluster about

ExecutionArmy, and teach certain persons who it is they are thundering against in that awkwardly truculent

manner! Errand shiningly done by Mayer, as perhaps we may hear,and certainly as all the Newspapers

At crossing of the Eger, Friedrich's Column had some chasing of poor D'Ahremberg; attempting to cut him

off from his Bridges, Bridge of Koschlitz, Bridge of Budin; but he made good despatch, Browne and he; and,

except a few prisoners of Ziethen's gathering, and most of his Magazines unburnt, they did him no damage.

The chase was close enough; more than once, the Austrian head quarter of tonight was that of the

Prussians tomorrow. Monday, May 2d, Friedrich's Column was on the Weissenberg of Prag; Browne,

D'Ahremberg, and Prince Karl, who is now come up to take command, having hastily filed through the City,

leaving a fit garrison, the day before. Except his Magazines, nothing the least essential went wrong with

Browne; but Konigseck, who had not a Friedrich on his heels,Konigseck, trying more, as his opportunities

2. "Column SECOND, to the King's left, comes from the Lausitz under BrunswickBevern,18,000 foot,

5,000 horse. This is the Bevern who so distinguished himself at Lobositz last year; and he is now to

culminate into a still brighter exploit,the last of his very bright ones, as it proved. Bevern set out from

about Zittau (from Grottau, few miles south of Zittau), the same day with Friedrich, that is April 20th;and

had not well started till he came upon formidable obstacles. Came upon General Konigseck, namely: a

Konigseck manoeuvring ahead, in superior force; a Maguire, Irish subordinate of Konigseck's, coming from

the right to cut off our baggage (against whom Bevern has to detach); a Lacy, coming from the left;or

indeed, Konigseck and Lacy in concert, intending to offer battle. Battle of Reichenberg, which accordingly

ensued, April 21st,"of which, though it was very famous for so small a Battle, there can be no account

The short truth is, Konigseck falling back, Parthianlike, with a force of 30,000 or more, has in front of him

nothing but Bevern; who, as he issues from the Lausitz, and till he can unite with Schwerin farther southward,

is but some 20,000 odd: cannot Konigseck call halt, and bid Bevern return, or do worse? Konigseck, a

diligent enough soldier, determines to try; chooses an excellent position,at or round Reichenberg, which is

the first Bohemian Town, one march from Zittau in the Lausitz, and then one from Liebenau, which latter

would be Bevern's SECOND Bohemian stage on the Prag road, if he continued prosperous. Reichenberg,

standing nestled among hills in the Neisse Valley (one of those Four Neisses known to us, the Neisse where

Prince Karl got exploded, in that signal manner, Winter, 1745, by a certain King), offers fine capabilities;

which Konigseck has laid hold of. There is especially one excellent Hollow (on the left or western bank of

Neisse River, that is, ACROSS from Reichenberg), backed by woody hills, nothing but hills, brooks, woods

all round; Hollow scooped out as if for the purpose; and altogether of inviting character to Konigseck. There,

"Wednesday, April 20th," Konigseck posts himself, plants batteries, fells abatis; plenty of cannon, of horse

So that Bevern, approaching Reichenberg at evening, evening of his first march, Wednesday, April 20th,

finds his way barred; and that the difficulties may be considerable. "Nothing to be made of it tonight,"

thinks Bevern; "but we must try tomorrow!" and has to take camp, "with a marshy brook in front of him,"

some way on the hither side of Reichenberg; and study overnight what method of unbarring there may be.

Thursday morning early, Bevern, having well reconnoitred and studied, was at work unbarring. Bevern

crossed his own marshy brook; courageously assaulted Konigseck's position, left wing of Konigseck; stormed

the abatis, the batteries, plunged in upon Konigseck, man to man, horse to horse, and after some fierce

enough but brief dispute, tumbled Konigseck out of the ground. Konigseck made some attempt to rally;

attempted twice, but in vain; had fairly to roll away, and at length to run, leaving 1,000 dead upon the field,

about 500 prisoners; one or two guns, and I forget how many standards, or whether any kettledrums. This

was thought to be a decidedly bright feat on Bevern's part (rather mismanaged latterly on Konigseck's);

[Tempelhof, i. 100; Helden Geschichte, iii. 1077 (Friedrich's own Account, "Linay in Bohmen, 24th April,

1757"); There is, in Busching's italic> Magazin (xvi. 139 et seq.), an intelligible sketch of this Action of

Reichenherg, with satirical criticisms, which have some basis, on Lacy, Maguire and others, by an

Anonymous Military Cynic,who gives many such in BUSCHING (that of Fontenoy, for example), not

without force of judgment, and signs of wide study and experience in his trade.]much approved by

Friedrich, as he hears of it, at Linay, on his own prosperous march Pragward. A comfortable omen, were

Konigseck and Company, torn out of Reichenberg, and set running, could not fairly halt again and face about

till at Liebenau, twenty miles off, where they found some defile or difficult bit of ground fit for them; and this

too proved capable of yielding pause for a few hours only. For Schwerin, with his Silesian Column, was

coming up from the northeast, threatening Konigseck on flank and rear: Konigseck could only tighten his

straps a little at this Liebenau, and again get under way; and making vain attempts to hinder the junction of

Schwerin and Bevern, to defend the JungBunzlau Magazine, or do any good in those parts, except to detain

the SchwerinBevern people certain hours (I think, one day in all), had nothing for it but to gird himself

The Austrian force at Reichenberg was 20,000; would have been 30 and odd thousands, had Maguire come

up (as he might have done, had not the appearances alarmed him too much); Bevern, minus the Detachment

sent against Maguire, was but 15,000 in fight; and he has quite burst the Austrians away, who had plugged

his road for him in such force: is it not a comfortable little victory, glorious in its sort; and a good omen for

the bigger things that are coming? Bevern marched composedly on, after this inspiriting tussle, through

Liebenau and what defiles there were; April 24th, at Turnau, he falls into the Schwerin Column; incorporates

himself therewith, and, as subordinate constituent part, accompanies Schwerin thenceforth.

3. "Column THIRD was Schwerin's, out of Schlesien; counted to be 32,000 foot, 12,000 horse. Schwerin,

gathering himself, from Glatz and the northerly country, at Landshut,very careless, he, of the pleasant

Hills, and fine scattered peaks of the Giant Mountains thereabouts,was completely gathered foremost of all

the Columns, having farthest to go. And on Monday, 18th April, started from Landshut, Winterfeld leading

one division. In our days, it is the finest of roads; high level Pass, of good width, across the Giant Range;

pleasant painted hamlets sprinkling it, fine mountain ridges and distant peaks looking on; Schneekoppe

(SNOWfell, its head brightwhite till July come) attends you, far to the right, all the way:probably Sprite

Rubezahl inhabits there; and no doubt River Elbe begins his long journey there, trickling down in little

threads over yonder, intending to float navies by and by: considerations infinitely indifferent to Schwerin.

'The road,' says my Tourist, (is not Alpine; it reminds you of DerbyshirePeak country; more like the road

from Castletown to Sheffield than any I could name;'we have been in it before, my reader and I, about

Schatzlar and other places. Trautenau, well down the Hills, with swift streams, more like torrents, bound

Elbewards, watering it, is a considerable Austrian Town, and the Bohemian end of the Pass, Sohr only a

few miles from it: heartily indifferent to Schwerin at this moment; who was home from the Army, in a kind

of disfavor, or mutual pet, at the time Sohr was done. Schwerin's March we shall not give; his junction with

Bevern (at Turnau, on the Iser, April 24th), then their capture of JungBunzlau Magazine, and crossing of the

Elbe at Melnick, these were the important points; and, in spite of Konigseck's tusslings, these all went well,

The Austrians, some days ago, as we observed, filed THROUGH Prag, Sunday, May 1st, not a pleasant

holidayspectacle to the populations;and are all encamped on the Ziscaberg high ground, on the other side

of the City. Had they been alert, now was the time to attack Friedrich, who is weaker than they, while nobody

has yet joined him. They did not think of it, under Prince Karl; and Browne and the Prince are said to be in

Monday morning, 2d May, 1757, the Vanguard, or advanced troops of Friedrich's Column, had appeared

upon the Weissenberg, northwest corner of Prag (ground known to them in 1744, and to the poor

WinterKing in 1620): Vanguard in the morning; followed shortly by Friedrich himself; and, hour after hour,

by all the others, marching in. So that, before sunset, the whole force lay posted there; and had the romantic

City of Prag full in view at their feet. A most romantic, highpiled, manytowered, most unlevel old City; its

skylights and gilt steeplecocks glittering in the western sun,Austrian Camp very visible close beyond it,

spread out miles in extent on the Ziscaberg Heights, or eastern side; Prag, no doubt, and the Austrian

Garrison of Prag, taking intense survey of this Prussian phenomenon, with commentaries, with emotions,

hidden now in eternal silence, as is fit enough. One thing we know, "Headquarter was in Welleslawin:"

there, in that small Hamlet, nearly to north, lodged Friedrich, the then busiest man of Europe; whom Posterity

Prince Karl, our old friend, is now in chief command yonder; Browne also is there, who was in chief

command; their scheme of Campaign gone all awry. And to Friedrich, last night, at his quarters "in the

Monastery of Tuchomirsitz," where these two Gentlemen had lodged the night before, it was reported that

they had been heard in violent altercation; [ HeldenGeschichte, iv. 11 (exact "Diary of the march" given

there).] both of them, naturally, in illhumor at the surprising turn things had taken; and Feldmarschall

Browne firing up, belike, at some platitude past or coming, at some advice of his rejected, some imputation

cast on him, or we know not what. Prince Karl is now chief; and indignant Browne, as may well be the case,

dissents a good deal,as he has often had to do. Patience, my friend, it is near ending now! Prince Karl

means to lie quiet on the Ziscaberg, and hold Prag; does not think of molesting Friedrich in his solitary state;

and will undertake nothing, "till Konigseck, from JungBunzlau, come in," victorious or not; or till perhaps

even Daun arrive (who is, rather slowly, gathering reinforcement in Maren): "What can the enemy attempt on

us, in a Post of this strength?" thinks Prince Karl. And Browne, whatever his insight or convictions be, has to

"Weissenberg," let readers be reminded, "is on the hither or western side of Prag: the Hradschin [pronounce

RadSHEEN, with accent on the last syllable, as in "SchwerIN" and other such cases], the Hradschin, which is

the topmost summit of the City and of the Fashionable Quarter,old Bohemian Palace, still occasionally

habitable as such, and in constant use as a DOWNING STREET,lies on the slope or shoulder of the

Weissenberg, a good way from the top; and has a web of streets rushing down from it, steepest streets in the

world; till they reach the Bridge, and broadflowing Moldau (broad as Thames at halfflood, but nothing like

so deep); after which the streets become level, and spread out in intricate plenty to right and to left, and ahead

eastward, across the River, till the Ziscaberg, with frowning precipitous brow, suddenly puts a stop to them in

that particular direction. From Ziscaberg top to Weissenberg top may be about five English miles; from the

Hradschin to the foot of Ziscaberg, northwest to southeast, will be half that distance, the greatest length of

Prag City. Which is rather rhomboidal in shape, its longer diagonal this that we mention. The shorter

diagonal, from northmost base of Ziscaberg to southmost of Hradschin, is perhaps a couple of miles. Prag

stands nestled in the lap of mountains; and is not in itself a strong place in war: but the country round it,

Moldau ploughing his rugged chasm of a passage through the piled tableland, is difficult to manoeuvre in.

"Moldau Valley comes straight from the south, crosses Prag; andmaking, on its outgate at the northern end

of Prag (end of 'shortest diagonal' just spoken of), one big loop, or bend and counterbend, of horseshoe

shape," which will be notable to us anon"again proceeds straight northward and Elbeward. It is narrow

everywhere, especially when once got fairly north of Prag; and runs along like a QuasiHighland Strath,

amid rocks and hills. Big Hillranges, not to be called barren, yet with rock enough on each hand, and fine

side valleys opening here and there: the bottom of your Strath, which is green and fertile, with pleasant busy

Villages (much intent on waterpower and cottonspinning in our time), is generally of few furlongs in

breadth. And so it lasts, this pleasant Moldau Valley, mile after mile, on the northern or Lower Moldau,

generally straight north, though with one big bend eastward just before ending; and not till near Melnick, or

the mouth of Moldau, do we emerge on that grand Elbe Valley,glanced at once already, from Pascopol or

Friedrich's first problem is the junction with Schwerin: junction not to be accomplished south of Ziscaberg in

the present circumstances; and which Friedrich knows to be a ticklish operation, with those Austrians looking

on from the high grounds there. Tuesday, 3d May, in the way of reconnoitring, and decisively on Wednesday,

4th, Friedrich is off northward, along the western heights of Lower Moldau, proper force following him, to

seek a fit place for the pontoons, and get across in that northern quarter. "How dangerous that Schwerin is a

day too late!" murmurs he; but hopes the Austrians will undertake nothing. Keith, with 30,000, he has left on

the Weissenberg, to straiten Prag and the Austrian Garrison on that side: our wagontrains arrive from

Leitmeritz on that side, Elbeboats bring them up to Leitmeritz; very indispensable to guard that side of Prag.

Friedrich's fixed purpose also is to beat the Austrians, on the other side of it, and send them packing; but for

Up so far as Lissoley, the first day, Friedrich has found no fit place; but on the morrow, Thursday, 5th, farther

up, at a place called Seltz, Friedrich finds his side of the Strath to be "a little higher than the other,"proper,

therefore, for cannonading the other, if need be;and orders his pontoons to be built together there. He

knows accurately of the Schwerin Column, of the comfortable Bevern Victory at Reichenberg, and how they

have got the JungBunzlau Magazine, and are across the Elbe, their bridges all secured, though with delay of

one day; and do now wait only for the word,for the three cannonshot, in fact, which are to signify that

Friedrich's Bridge is speedily built (trained human hands can be no speedier), his batteries planted, his

precautions taken: the three cannonshot go off, audible to Schwerin; and Friedrich's troops stream speedily

across, hardly a Pandour to meddle with them. Nay, before the passage was completewhat lighthorse

squadrons are these? Hussars, seen to be Seidlitz's (missioned by Schwerin), appear on the outskirts: a

meeting worthy of three cheers, surely, after such a march on both sides! Friedrich lies on the eastern

Hilltops that night (Hamlet of Czimitz his Headquarter, discoverable if you wish it, scarcely three miles

north of Prag); and accurate appointment is made with Schwerin as to the meetingplace tomorrow

morning. Meetingplace is to be the environs of Prossik Village, southeastward over yonder, short way north

of the PragKonigsgratz Highway; and rather nearer Prag than we now are, in Czimitz here: time at Prossik

to be 6 A.M. by the clock; and Winterfeld and Schwerin to come in person and speak with his Majesty. This

Schwerin is on foot by the stroke of midnight; comes along, "over the heights of Chaber," by half a dozen, or

I know not how many roads; visible in due time to Friedrich's people, who are likewise punctually on the

advance: in a word, the junction is accomplished with all correctness. And, while the Columns are marching

up, Schwerin and Winterfeld ride about in personal conference with his Majesty; taking survey, through

spyglasses, of those Austrians encamped yonder on the broad back of their Zisca Hill, a couple of miles to

southward. "What a set of Austrians," exclaim military critics, "to permit such junction, without effort to

devour the one half or the other, in good time!" Friedrich himself, it is probable, might partly be of the same

opinion; but he knew his Austrians, and had made bold to venture. Friedrich, we can observe, always got to

know his man, after fighting him a month or two; and took liberties with him, or did not take, accordingly.

And, for most part,not quite always, as one signal exception will Show, he does it with perfect

accuracy; and often with vital profit to his measures. "If the Austrian cookingtents are asmoke before eight

in the morning," notes he, "you may calculate, in such case, the Austrians will march that day." [MILITARY

INSTRUCTIONS.] With a surprising vividness of eye and mind (beautiful to rival, if one could), he watches

the signs of the times, of the hours and the days and the places; and prophesies from them; reads men and

their procedures, as if they were mere handwriting, not too cramp for him.The Austrians have, by this

time, got their Konigseck home, very unvictorious, but still on foot, all but a thousand or two: they are

already stronger than the Prussians by count of heads; and till even Daun come up, what hurry in a Post like

this? The Austrians are viewing Friedrich, too, this morning; but in the blankest manner: their outposts fire a

cannonshot or two on his group of adjutants and him, without effect; and the Head people send their cavalry

Zisca Hill, where the Austrians now are, rises sheer up, of well nigh precipitous steepness, though there are

trees and grass on it, from the eastern side of Prag, say five or six hundred feet. A steep, picturesque, massive

green Hill; Moldau River, turning suddenly to right, strikes the northwest corner of it (has flowed well to

west of it, till then), and winds eastward round its northern base. As will be noticed presently. The ascent of

Ziscaberg, by roads, is steep and tedious: but once at the top, you find that it is precipitous on two sides only,

the City or westward side, and the Moldau or northward. Atop it spreads out, far and wide, into a waving

upland level; bare of hedges; ploughable all of it, studded with littery hamlets and farmsteadings; far and

wide, a kind of Plain, sloping with extreme gentleness, five or six miles to eastward, and as far to southward,

Another feature of the Ziscaberg, already hinted at, is very notable: that of the Moldau skirting its northern

base, and scarping the Hill, on that side too, into a precipitous, or very steep condition. Moldau having

arrived from southward, fairly past the end of Ziscaberg, had, so to speak, made up his mind to go right

eastward, quarrying his way through the lower uplands there, And he proceeds accordingly, hugging the

northern base of Ziscaberg, and making it steep enough; but finds, in the course of a mile or so, that he can no

more; upland being still rockbuilt, not underminable farther; and so is obliged to wind round again, to

northward, and finally straight westward, the way he came, or parallel to the way he came; and has effected

that great Horseshoe Hollow we heard of lately. An extremely pretty Hollow, and curious to look upon;

pretty villas, gardens, and a "Belvedere Park," laid out in the bottom part; with green mountainwalls rising

all round it, and a silver ring of river at the base of them: length of Horseshoe, from heel to toe, or from west

to east, is perhaps a mile; breadth, from heel to heel, perhaps half as much. Having arrived at his old distance

to west, Moldau, like a repentant prodigal, and as if ashamed of his frolic, just over against the old point he

swerved from, takes straight to northward again. Straight northward; and quarries out that fine narrow valley,

or QuasiHighland Strath, with its pleasant busy villages, where he turns the overshot machinery, and where

It is here, on this broad back of the Ziscaberg, that the Austrians now lie; looking northward over to the King,

and trying cannon shots upon him. There they have been encamping, and diligently intrenching themselves

for four days past; diligent especially since yesterday, when they heard of Friedrich's crossing the River.

Their groups of tents, and batteries at all the good points, stretch from near the crown of Ziscaberg, eastward

to the Villages of Hlaupetin, Kyge, and their Lakes, near four miles; and rearward into the interior one knows

not how far;Prince Karl, hardly awake yet, lies at Nussel, near the Moldau, near the Wischerad or

southeastmost point of Prag; six good miles westbysouth of Kyge, at the other end of the diagonal line.

About the same distance, right east from Nussel, and a mile or more to south of Kyge, over yonder, is a littery

Farmstead named Sterbohol, which is not yet occupied by the Austrians, but will become very famous in

Where the Austrian Camp or various Tentgroups were, at the time Friedrich first cast eye on them, is no

great concern of his or ours; inasmuch as, in two or three hours hence, the Austrians were obliged, rather

suddenly, to take Order of Battle; and that, and not their camping, is the thing we are curious upon. Let us

step across, and take some survey of that Austrian ground, which Friedrich is now surveying from the

distance, fully intending that it shall be a battleground in few hours; and try to explain how the Austrians

drew up on it, when they noticed the Prussian symptoms to become serious more and more. By nine in the

morning,some two hours after Friedrich began his scanning, and the Austrian outposts their firing of stray

cannonshots on him,it is Battlelines, not empty Tents (which there was not time to strike), that salute

From behind that verdant Horseshoe Chasm we spoke of, buttressed by the inaccessible steeps, and the

Moldau, doublefolded in the form of Horseshoe, all along the brow of that sloping expanse, stands (by 9

A.M. "foragers all suddenly called in") the Austrian front; the second line and the reserve, parallel to it, at

good distances behind. Ranked there; say 65,000 regulars (Prussian force little short of the same), on the

brow of Ziscaberg slope, some four miles long. Their right wing ends, in strong batteries, in intricate

marshes, knolls, lakelets, between Hlaupetin and Kyge: the extreme of their left wing looks over on that

Horseshoe Hollow, where Moldau tried to dig his way, but could not and had to turn back. They have

numerous redoubts, in front and in all the good places; and are busy with more, some of them just now

getting finished, treblequick, while the Prussians are seen under way. As many as sixty heavy cannon in

battery up and down: of field pieces they have a hundred and fifty. Excellent always with their Artillery,

these Austrians; plenty of it, wellplaced and well served: thanks to Prince Lichtenstein's fine labors within

these ten years past. [ OEuvres de Frederic, (in several places); see Hormayr, ? Lichtenstein.] The villages,

the farmsteads, are occupied; every rising ground especially has its battery,Homoly Berg, Tabor Berg,

"Mount of Tabor;" say KNOLL of Tabor (nothing like so high as Battersea Rise, hardly even as Constitution

Hill), though scriptural Zisca would make a Mount of it;these, and other BERGS of the like type.

That is the Austrian Battle Order (as it stood about 9, though it had still to change a little, as we shall see):

their first line, straight or nearly so, looking northward, stands on the brow of the Zisca Slope; their second

and their third, singularly like it, at the due distances behind;in the intervals, their tents, which stand

scattered, in groups wide apart, in the ample interior to southward. The cavalry is on both wings; left wing,

behind that Moldau Chasm, cannot attack nor be attacked,except it were on hippogriffs, and its enemy on

the like, capable of fighting in the air, overhead of these Belvedere Pleasuregrounds: perhaps Prince Karl

will remedy this oversight; fruit of close following of the orthodox practice? Prince Karl, supreme Chief,

commands on the left wing; Browne on the right, where he can attack or be attacked, NOT on hippogriffs. As

we shall see, and others will! Light horse, in any quantity, hang scattered on all outskirts. With foot, with

cannon batteries, with horse, light or heavy, they cover in long broad flood the whole of that Zisca Slope, to

near where it ceases, and the ground to eastward begins perceptibly to rise again.

In this latter quarter, Zisca Slope, now nearly ended, begins to get very swampy in parts; on the eastern

border of the Austrian Camp, at Kyge, Hostawitz, and beyond it southward, about Sterbohol and Michelup,

there are many little lakelets; artificial fish ponds, several of them, with their sluices, dams and apparatus: a

ragged broadish lacing of ponds and lakelets (all well dried in our day) straggles and zigzags along there,

connected by the miserablest Brook in nature, which takes to oozing and serpentizing forward thereabouts,

and does finally get emptied, now in a rather livelier condition, into the Moldau, about the TOEpart of that

Horseshoe or Belvedere region. It runs in sight of the King, I think, where he now is; this lower livelier part

of it: little does the King know how important the upper oozing portion of it will be to him this day. Near

Michelup are lakelets worth noticing; a little under Sterbohol, in the course of this miserable Brook, is a

string of fishponds, with their sluices open at this time, the water out, and the mud bottom sown with

herbprovender for the intended carps, which is coming on beautifully, green as leeks, and nearly ready for

Friedrich surveys diligently what he can of all this, from the northern verge. We will now return to Friedrich;

and will stay on his side through the terrible Action that is coming. Battle of Prag, one of the furious Battles

of the World; loud as Doomsday; the very Emblem of which, done on the Piano by females of energy,

scatters mankind to flight who love their ears! Of this great Action the Narratives old and modern are

innumerable; false some of them, unintelligible wellnigh all. There are three in Lloyd, known probably to

some of my readers. Tempelhof, with criticisms of these three, gives a fourth,perhaps the one Narrative

which human nature, after much study, can in some sort understand. Human readers, especially military, I

refer to that as their finale. [In Lloyd, i. 38 et seq. (the Three): in Tempelhof, i. 123 (the Fourth); ib. i. 144

(strength of each Army), 105149 (remarks of Tempelhof).The "HISTORY," or Series of Lectures on the

Battles of this War, "BY THE ROYAL STAFFOFFICERS"which, for the last thirty or forty years, is

used as TextBook, or Military EUCLID, in the Prussian CadetSchools,appears to possess the fit

professorial lucidity and amplitude; and, in regard to all Official details, enumerations and the like, is

received as of CANONICAL authority: it is not accessible to the general Public,though liberally enough

conceded in special cases; whereby, in effect, the main results of it are now become current in modern

Prussian Books. By favor in high quarters, I had once possession of a copy, for some months; but not, at that

time, the possibility of thoroughly reading any part of it.] Other interest than militaryscientific the Action

now has not much. The stormy fire of soul that blazed that day (higher in no ancient or modern Fight of men)

is extinct, hopeless of resuscitation for English readers. Approximately what the thing to human eyes might

be like; what Friedrich's procedure, humor and physiognomy of soul was in it: this, especially the latter head,

is what we search for,had lazy Dryasdust given us almost anything on this latter head! What little can be

gleaned from him on both heads let us faithfully give, and finish our sad part of the combat.

Friedrich, with his Schwerin and Winterfeld, surveying these things from the northern edge, admits that the

Austrian position is extremely strong; but he has no doubt that it must be, by some good method, attacked

straightway, and the Austrians got beaten. Indisputably the enterprise is difficult. Unattackable clearly, the

Austrians, on that left wing of theirs; not in the centre well attackable, nor in the front at all, with that stiff

ground, and such redoubts and points of strength: but round on their right yonder; take them in

flank,cannot we? On as far as Kyge, the Three have ridden reconnoitring; and found no possibility upon

the front; nor at Kyge, where the front ends in batteries, pools and quagmires, is there any. "Difficult, not

undoable," persists the King: "and it must be straightway set about and got done." Winterfeld, always for

action, is of that opinion, too: and, examining farther down along their right flank, reports that there the thing

Feasible perhaps: "but straightway?" objects Schwerin. His men have been on foot since midnight, and on

forced marches for days past: were it not better to rest for this one day? "Rest:and Daun, coming on with

30,000 of reinforcement to them, might arrive this night? Never, my good Feldmarschall;"and as the

Feldmarschall was a man of stiff notions, and had a tongue of some emphasis, the Dialogue went on,

probably with increasing emphasis on Friedrich's side too, till old Schwerin, with a quite emphatic flash of

countenance, crushing the hat firm over his brow, exclaims: "Well, your Majesty: the fresher fish the better

fish (FRISCHE FISCHE, GUTE FISCHE): straightway, then!" and springs off on the gallop southward, he

too, seeking some likely point of attack. He too, conjointly or not with Winterfeld, I do not know:

Winterfeld himself does not say; whose own modest words on the subject readers shall see before we finish.

But both are mentioned in the Books as searching, at handgallop, in this way: and both, once well round to

south, by the Podschernitz ["Podschernitz" is pronounced PotSHERnitz (should we happen to mentionn it

again); "Kyge," KEEGA.] quarter, with the Austrian right flank full in view, were agreed that here the thing

was possible. "Infantry to push from this quarter towards Sterbohol yonder, and then plunge into their

redoubts and them! Cavalry may sweep still farther southward, if found convenient, and even take them in

rear." Both agree that it will do in this way: ground tolerably good, slightly downwards for us, then slightly

upwards again; tolerable for horse even:the intermediate lacing of dirty lakelets, the fishponds with their

sluices drawn, Schwerin and Winterfeld either did not notice at all, or thought them insiginificant,

interspersed with such beautiful "pastureground,"of unusual verdure at this early season of the year.

The deployment, or "marching up (AUFMARSCHIREN)" of the Prussians was wonderful; in their

squadrons, in their battalions, horse, foot, artillery, wheeling, closing, opening; strangely checkering a

countryside,in movements intricate, chaotic to all but the scientific eye. Conceive them, flowing along,

from the Heights of Chaber, behind Prossik Hamlet (right wing of infantry plants itself at Prossik, horse

westward of them); and ever onwards in broad manycheckered tidestream, eastward, eastward, then

southward ("our artillery went through Podschernitz, the foot and horse a little on this westward side of it"):

intricate, manyglancing tide of coming battle; which, swift, correct as clockwork, becomes two lines, from

Prossik to near Chwala ("baggage well behind at Gbell"); thence round by Podschernitz quarter; and

descends, steady, swift, tornadostorm so beautifully hidden in it, towards Sterbohol, there to grip to.

Gradually, in stirring up those old dead pedantic recordbooks, the fact rises on us: silent whirlwinds of old

PlattDeutsch fire, beautifully held down, dwell in those mute masses; better human stuff there is not than

that old Teutsch (Dutch, English, PlattDeutsch and other varieties); and so disciplined as here it never was

before or since. "In an hour and half," what military men may count almost incredible, they are fairly on their

ground, motionless the most of them by 9 A.M.; the rest wheeling rightward, as they successively arrive in

the ChwalaPodschernitz localities; and, descending diligently, Sterbohol way; and will be at their

Meanwhile the Austrians, seeing, to their astonishment, these phenomena to the north, and that it is a quite

serious thing, do also rapidly bestir themselves; swarming like bees;bringing in their foraging Cavalry,

"No time to change your jacket for a coat:" rank, doublequick! Browne is on that right wing of theirs:

"Bring the left wing over hither," suggests Browne; "cavalry is useless yonder, unless they had

hippogriffs!"and (again Browne suggesting) the Austrians make a change in the position of their right

wing, both horse and foot: change which is of vital importance, though unnoted in many Narratives of this

Battle. Seeing, namely, what the Prussians intend, they wheel their right wing (say the last furlong or two of

their long Line of Battle) half round to right; so that the last furlong or two stands at right angles ("EN

POTENCE," gallowswise, or joiner'ssquarewise to the rest); and, in this way, make front to the Prussian

onslaught,front now, not flank, as the Prussians are anticipating. This is an important wheel to right, and

formation in joiner'ssquare manner; and involves no end of interior wheeling, marching and deploying;

which Austrians cannot manage with Prussian velocity. "Swift with it, here about Sterbohol at least, my men!

For here are the Prussians within wind of us!" urges Browne. And here straightway the hurricane does break

Winterfeld, the van of Schwerin's infantry (Schwerin's own regiment, and some others, with him), is striding

rapidly on Sterbohol; Winterfeld catches it before Browne can. But near by, behind that important post, on

the Homely Hill (BERG or "Mountain," nothing like so high as Constitution Mountain), are cannon

batteries of devouring quality; which awaken on Winterfeld, as he rushes out doublequick on the advancing

Austrians; and are fatal to Winterfeld's attempt, and nearly to Winterfeld himself. Winterfeld, heavily

wounded, sank in swoon from his horse; and awakening again in a pool of blood, found his men all off,

rushing back upon the main Schwerin body; "Austrian grenadiers gazing on the thing, about eighty paces off,

not venturing to follow." Winterfeld, half dead, scrambled across to Schwerin, who has now come up with

the main body, his front line fronting the Austrians here. And there ensued, about Sterbohol and

neighborhood, led on by Schwerin, such a deathwrestle as was seldom seen in the Annals of War.

Winterfeld's miss of Sterbohol was the beginning of it: the exact course of sequel none can describe, though

The Austrians now hold Sterbohol with firm grip, backed by those batteries from Homoly Hill. Redoubts,

cannonbatteries, as we said, stud all the field; the Austrian stock of artillery is very great; arrangement of it

cunning, practice excellent; does honor to Prince Lichtenstein, and indeed is the real force of the Austrians on

this occasion. Schwerin must have Sterbohol, in spite of batteries and ranked Austrians, and Winterfeld's

recoil tumbling round him:and rarely had the oldest veteran such a problem. Old Schwerin (fiery as ever,

at the age of 73) has been in many battles, from Blenheim onwards; and now has got to his hottest and his

last. "Vanguard could not do it; main body, we hope, kindling all the hotter, perhaps may!" A most willing

mind is in these Prussians of Schwerin's: fatigue of overmarching has tired the muscles of them; but their

hearts,all witnesses say, these (and through these, their very muscles, "always fresh again, after a few

Schwerin's Prussians, as they "march up" (that is, as they front and advance upon the Austrians), are

everywhere saluted by case shot, from Homoly Hill and the batteries northward of Homoly; but march on,

this main line of them, finely regardless of it or of Winterfeld's disaster by it. The general Prussian Order this

day is: "By push of bayonet; no firing, none, at any rate, till you see the whites of their eyes!" Swift, steady as

on the paradeground, swiftly making up their gaps again, the Prussians advance, on these terms; and are

now near those "fine sleek pasturegrounds, unusually green for the season." Figure the actual stepping upon

these "fine pasturegrounds:"mudtanks, verdant with mere "bearding oatcrop" sown there as

carpprovender! Figure the sinking of whole regiments to the knee; to the middle, some of them; the steady

march become a wild sprawl through viscous mud, mere caseshot singing round you, tearing you away at its

ease! Even on those terrible terms, the Prussians, by dams, by footpaths, sometimes one man abreast, sprawl

steadily forward, trailing their cannon with them; only a few regiments, in the footpath parts, cannot bring

their cannon. Forward; rank again, when the ground will carry; ever forward, the caseshot getting ever more

murderous! No human pen can describe the deadly chaos which ensued in that quarter. Which lasted, in

desperate fury, issue dubious, for above three hours; and was the crisis, or essential agony, of the Battle.

Footchargings, (once the mudtransit was accomplished), under storms of grapeshot from Homoly Hill; by

and by, Horsechargings, Prussian against Austrian, southward of Homoly and Sterbohol, still farther to the

Prussian left; huge whirlpool of tumultuous deathwrestle, every species of spasmodic effort, on the one side

and the other;King himself present there, as I dimly discover; Feldmarschall Browne eminent, in the last of

his fields; and, as the old NIEBELUNGEN has it, "a murder grim and great" going on.

Schwerin's Prussians, in that preliminary struggle through the mud tanks (which Winterfeld, I think, had

happened to skirt, and avoid), were hard bested. This, so far as I can learn, was the worst of the chaos, this

preliminary part. Intolerable to human nature, this, or nearly so; even to human nature of the Platt Teutsch

type, improved by Prussian drill. Winterfeld's repulse we saw; Schwerin's own Regiment in it. Various

repulses, I perceive, there were,"fresh regiments from our Second Line" storming in thereupon; till the

poor repulsed people "took breath," repented, "and themselves stormed in again," say the Books. Fearful

tugging, swagging and swaying is conceivable, in this Sterbohol problem! And after long scanning, I rather

judge it was in the wake of that first repulse, and not of some other farther on, that the veteran Schwerin

himself got his death. No one times it for us; but the fact is unforgettable; and in the dim whirl of sequences,

dimly places itself there. Very certain it is, "at sight of his own regiment in retreat," Feldmarschall Schwerin

seized the colors,as did other Generals, who are not named, that day. Seizes the colors, fiery old man:

"HERAN, MEINE KINDER (This way, my sons)!" and rides ahead, along the straight dam again; his "sons"

all turning, and with hot repentance following. "On, my children, HERAN!" Five bits of grapeshot, deadly

each of them, at once hit the old man; dead he sinks there on his flag; and will never fight more. "HERAN!"

storm the others with hot tears; Adjutant von Platen takes the flag; Platen, too, is instantly shot; but another

takes it. "HERAN, On!" in wild storm of rage and grief:in a word, they manage to do the work at

Sterbohol, they and the rest. First line, Second line, Infantry, Cavalry (and even the very Horses, I suppose),

fighting inexpressibly; conquering one of the worst problems ever seen in War. For the Austrians too,

especially their grenadiers there, stood to it toughly, and fought like men;and "every grenadier that

Done, that Sterbohol work;those Footchargings, Horsechargings; that battery of Homoly Hill; and,

hanging upon that, all manner of redoubts and batteries to the rightward and rearward:but how it was done

no pen can describe, nor any intellect in clear sequence understand. An enormous MELEE there: new

Prussian battalions charging, and ever new, irrepressible by caseshot, as they successively get up; Marshal

Browne too sending for new battalions at doublequick from his left, disputing stiffly every inch of his

ground. Till at length (hour not given), a cannonshot tore away his foot; and he had to be carried into Prag,

mortally wounded. Which probably was a most important circumstance, or the most important of all.

Important too, I gradually see, was that of the Prussian Horse of the Left Wing. Prussian Horse of the extreme

left, as already noticed, had, in the mean while, fallen in, well southward, round by certain lakelets about

Michelup, on Browne's extreme right; furiously charging the Austrian Horse, which stood ranked there in

many lines; breaking it, then again half broken by it; but again rallying, charging it a second time, then a third

time, "both to front and flank, amid whirlwinds of dust" (Ziethen busy there, not to mention indignant

Warnery and others);and at length, driving it wholly to the winds: "beyond Nussel, towards the Sazawa

Country;" never seen again that day. Prince Karl (after Browne's deathwound, or before, I never know)

came galloping to rally that important Right Wing of horse. Prince Karl did his very utmost there; obtesting,

praying, raging, threatening:but to no purpose; the Zietheners and others so heavy on the rear of

them:and at last there came a cramp, or intolerable twinge of spasm, through Prince Karl's own person

(breast or heart), like to take the life of him: so that he too had to be carried into Prag to the doctors. And his

Cavalry fled at discretion; chased by Ziethen, on Friedrich's express order, and sent quite over the horizon.

Enough, "by about halfpast one," Sterbohol work is thoroughly done: and the Austrian Battle, both its

The whole of this Austrian Right Wing, horse and foot, batteries and redoubts, which was put EN

POTENCE, or squarewise, to the main battle, is become a ruin; gone to confusion; hovers in distracted

clouds, seeking roads to run away by, which it ultimately found. Done all this surely was; and poor Browne,

mortally wounded, is being carried off the ground; but in what sequence done, under what exact vicissitudes

of aspect, special steps of cause and effect, no man can say; and only imagination, guided by these few data,

can paint to itself. Such a chaotic whirlwind of blood, dust, mud, artillerythunder, sulphurous rage, and

human death and victory, who shall pretend to describe it, or draw, except in the gross, the scientific plan

For, in the mean time,I think while the dispute at Sterbohol, on the extreme of the Austrian right wing "in

joiner'ssquare form," was past the hottest (but nobody will give the hour),there has occurred another

thing, much calculated to settle that. And, indeed, to settle everything;as it did. This was a volunteer

exploit, upon the very elbow or angle of said "joiner'ssquare;" in the wet grounds between Hlaupetin and

Kyge, a good way north of Sterbohol. Volunteer exploit; on the part of General Mannstein, our old Russian

friend; which Friedrich, a long way off from it, blames as a rash fault of Mannstein's, made good by Prince

Henri and Ferdinand of Brunswick running up to mend it; but which Winterfeld, and subsequent good judges,

admit to have been highly salutary, and to have finished everything. It went, if I read right, somewhat as

In the KygeHlaupetin quarter, at the corner of that Austrian right wing EN POTENCE, there had, much

contrary to Browne's intention, a perceptible gap occurred; the corner is open there; nothing in it but batteries

and swamps. The Austrian right wing, wheeling southward, there to form POTENCE; and scrambling and

marching, then and subsequently, through such ground at doublequick, had gone too far (had thinned and

lengthened itself, as is common, in such scrambling, and doublequick movement, thinks Tempelhof), and

left a little gap at elbow; which always rather widened as the stress at Sterbohol went on. Certain enough, a

gap there is, covered only by some halfmoon battery in advance: into this, General Mannstein has been

looking wistfully a long time: "Austrian Line fallen out at elbow yonder; clouted by some battery in

advance?"and at length cannot help dashing loose on it with his Division. A man liable to be rash, and

He would have fared ill, thinks Friedrich, had not Henri and Ferdinand, in pain for Mannstein (some think,

privately in preconcert with him), hastened in to help; and done it altogether in a shining way; surmounting

perilous difficulties not a few. Hard fighting in that corner, partly on the Sterbohol terms; batteries,

mudtanks; chargings, rechargings: "Comrades, you have got honor enough, KAMERADEN, IHR HABT

EHRE GENUG [the second man of you lying dead]; let us now try!" said a certain Regiment to a certain

other, in this business. [Archenholtz, i. 75; Tempelhof, Prince Henri shone especially, the gallant little

gentleman: coming upon one of those mudtanks with battery beyond, his men were spreading filewise, to

cross it on the dams; "BURSCHE, this way!" cried the Prince, and plunged in middledeep, right upon the

battery; and over it, and victoriously took possession of it. In a word, they all plunge forward, in a shining

manner; rush on those halfmoon batteries, regardless of results; rush over them, seize and secure them.

Rush, in a word, fairly into that Austrian hole atelbow, torrents more following them,and irretrievably

Forearm (Austrian right wing, if still struggling and wriggling about Sterbohol) is taken in flank;

shoulderarm, or main line, the like; we have them both in flank; with their own batteries to scour them to

destruction here:the Austrian Line, throughout, is become a ruin. Has to hurl itself rapidly to rightwards, to

rearwards, says Tempelhof, behind what redoubts and strong points it may have in those parts; and then, by

sure stages (Tempelhof guesses three, or perhaps four), as one redoubt after another is torn from the loose

grasp of it, and the stand made becomes ever weaker, and the confusion worse,to roll pellmell into Prag,

and hastily close the door behind it. The Prussians, Sterbohol people, Mannstein Henri people, left wing and

right, are quite across the Zisca Back, on by Nussel (Prince Earl's headquarter that was), and at the Moldau

Brink again, when the thing ends. Ziethen's Hussars have been at Nussel, very busy plundering there, ever

since that final charge and chase from Sterbohol. Plundering; and, I am ashamed to say, mostly drunk: "Your

Majesty, I cannot rank a hundred sober," answered Ziethen (doubtless with a kind of blush), when the King

applied for them. The King himself has got to Branik, farther up stream. Part of the Austrian foot fled,

leftwards, southwards, as their right wing of horse had all done, up the Moldau. About 16,000 Austrians are

distractedly on flight that way. Towards, the Sazawa Country; to unite with Daun, as the now advisable thing.

Near 40,000 of them are getting crammed into Prag; in spite of Prince Karl, now recovered of his cramp, and

risen to the frantic pitch; who vainly struggles at the Gate against such inrush, and had even got through the

Gate, conjuring and commauding, but was himself swum in again by those panic torrents of ebbtide.

Rallying within, he again attempted, twice over, at two different points, to get out, and up the Moldau, with

his broken people; but the Prussians, NusselBranik way, were awake to him: "No retreat up the Moldau for

you, Austrian gentlemen!" They tried by another Gate, on the other side of the River; but Keith was awake

too: "In again, ye Austrian gentlemen! Closed gates here too. What else?" Browne, from his bed of pain

(deathbed, as it proved), was for a much more determined outrush: "In the dead of night, rank, deliberately

adjust yourselves; storm out, one and all, and cut your way, night favoring!" That was Browne's last counsel;

but that also was not taken. A really noble Browne, say all judges; died here in about six weeks,and got

away from KriegsHofraths and Prince Karls, and the stupidity of neighbors, and the other ills that flesh is

At Branik the victorious King had one great disappointment: Prince Moritz of Dessau, who should have been

here long hours ago, with Keith's right wing, a fresh 15,000, to fall upon the enemy's rear;no Moritz

visible; not even now, when the business is to chase! "How is this?" "Ill luck, your Majesty!" Moritz's

Pontoon Bridge would not reach across, when he tried it. That is certain: "just three poor pontoons wanting,"

Rumor says:three or more; spoiled, I am told, in some narrow road, some shortcut which Moritz had

commanded for them: and now they are not; and it is as if three hundred had been spoiled. Moritz, would he

die for it, cannot get his Bridge to reach: his fresh 15,000 stand futile there; not even Seidlitz with his light

horse could really swim across, though he tried hard, and is fabled to have done so. Beware of shortcuts, my

Prince: your Father that is gone, what would he say of you here! It was the worst mistake Prince Moritz ever

made. The Austrian Army might have been annihilated, say judges (of a sanguine temper), had Moritz been

ready, at his hour, to fall on from rearward;and where had their retreat been? As it is, the Austrian Army is

not annihilated; only bottled into Prag, and will need sieging. The brightest triumph has a bar of black in it,

and might always have been brighter. Here is a flying Note, which I will subjoin:

Friedrich's dispositions for the Battle, this day, are allowed to have been masterly; but there was one signal

fault, thinks Retzow: That he did not, as Schwerin counselled, wait till the morrow. Fault which brought

many in the train of it; that of his "tired soldiers," says Retzow, being only a first item, and small in

comparison. "Had he waited till the morrow, those fishponds of Sterbohol, examined in the interim, need

not have been mistaken for green meadows; Prince Moritz, with his 15,000, would have been a fact, instead

of a false hope; the King might have done his marching down upon Sterbohol in the nighttime, and been

ready for the Austrians, flank, or even rear, at daybreak: the King might" In reality, this fault seems to

have been considerable; to have made the victory far more costly to him, and far less complete. No doubt he

had his reasons for making haste: Daun, advancing Prag ward with 30,000, was within three marches of

him; General Beck, Daun's vanguard, with a 10,000 of irregulars, did a kind of feat at Brandeis, on the

Prussian post there (our Saxons deserting to him, in the heat of action), this very day, May 6th; and might, if

lucky, have taken part at Ziscaberg next day. And besides these solid reasons, there was perhaps another.

Retzow, who is secretly of the Oppositionparty, and well worth hearing, knows personally a curious thing.

"Being then [in March or April, weeks before we left Saxony] employed to translate the PLAN OF

OPERATIONS into French, for Marshal Keith's use, who did not understand German, I well know that it

contained the following three main objects: 1. 'All Regiments cantoning in Silesia as well as Saxony march

for Bohemia on one and the same day. 2. Whole Army arrives at Prag May 4th [Schwerin was a day later,

and got scolded in consequence]; if the Enemy stand, he is attacked May 6th, and beaten. 3. So soon as Prag

is got, Schwerin, with the gross of the Army, pushes into Mahren,' and the heart of Austria itself; 'King

hastens with 40,000 to help of the Allied Army,'"Royal Highness of Cumberland's; who will much need it

Here is a very curious fact and consideration. That the King had so prophesied and preordained: "May 4th,

Four Columns arrive at Prag; May 6th, attack the Austrians, beat them,"and now wished to keep his word!

This is an aerial reason, which I can suspect to have had its weight among others. There were twirls of that

kind in Friedrich; intricate weak places; knots in the sound straight fibred mind he had (as in whose mind

are they not?),which now and then cost him dear! The AnecdoteBooks say he was very ill of body, that

day, May 6th; and called for something of drug nature, and swallowed it (drug not named), after getting on

horseback. The Evening Anecdote is prettier: How, in the rushing about, Austrians now flying, he got eye on

Brother Henri (clayey to a degree); and sat down with him, in the blessed sunset, for a minute or two, and

Certain it is, the victory was bought by hard fighting; and but for the quality of his troops, had not been there.

But the bravery of the Prussians was exemplary, and covered all mistakes that were made. Nobler fire, when

did it burn in any Army? More perfect soldiers I have not read of. PlattTeutsch firewhich I liken to

anthracite, in contradistinction to Gaelic blaze of kindled straw is thrice noble, when, by strict stern

discipline, you are above it withal; and wield your fireelement, as Jove his thunder, by rule! Otherwise it is

but halfadmirable: TurkJanissaries have it otherwise; and it comes to comparatively little.

This is the famed Battle of Prag; fought May 6th, 1757; which sounded through all the world,and used to

deafen us in drawingrooms within man's memory. Results of it were: On the Prussian side, killed, wounded

and missing, 12,500 men; on the Austrian, 13,000 (prisoners included), with many flags, cannon, tents, much

wargear gone the wrong road;and a very great humiliation and dispiritment; though they had fought well:

"No longer the old Austrians, by any means," as Friedrich sees; but have iron ramrods, all manner of Prussian

improvements, and are "learning to march," as he once says, with surprise not quite pleasant.

Friedrich gives the cipher of loss, on both sides, much higher: "This Battle," says he, "which began towards

nine in the morning, and lasted, chase included, till eight at night, was one of the bloodiest of the age. The

Enemy lost 24,000 men, of whom were 5,000 prisoners; the Prussian loss amounted to 18,000 fighting

men, without counting Marshal Schwerin, who alone was worth above 10,000." "This day saw the pillars

of the Prussian Infantry cut down," says he mournfully, seeming almost to think the "laurels of victory" were

purchased too dear. His account of the Battle, as if it had been a painful object, rather avoided in his

afterthoughts, is unusually indistinct;and helps us little in the extreme confusion that reigns otherwise,

both in the thing itself and in the reporters of the thing. Here is a word from Winterfeld, some private Letter,

two days after; which is well worth reading for those who would understand this Battle.

"The enemy had his Left Wing leaning on the City, close by the Moldau," at Nussel; "and stretched with his

Right Wing across the high Hill [of Zisca] to the village of Lieben [so he HAD stood, looking into Prag; but

faced about, on hearing that Friedrich was across the River]; having before him those terrible Defiles [DIE

TERRIBLEN DEFILEES, "Horseshoe of the Moldau," as we call it], and the village of Prossik, which was

crammed with Pandours. It was about halfpast six in the morning, when our Schwerin Army [myself part of

it, at this time] joined with the twenty battalions and twenty squadrons, which the King had brought across to

unite with us, and which formed our right wing of battle that day [our left wing were Schweriners, Sterbohol

and the fighting done by Schweriners after their long march]. The King was at once determined to attack the

Enemy; as also were Schwerin [say nothing of the arguing] and your humble servant (MEINE

"This too was selected, and decided on, my proposal being found good; and took effect in manner following:

We [Schweriners] had marched off leftwise, foremost; and we now, without halt, continued marching so

with the Left Wing" of horse, "which had the van (TETE); and moved on, keeping the road for Hlaupetin,

and ever thence onwards along for Kyge, round the Ponds of Unter Podschernitz, without needing to pass

"The Enemy, who at first had expected nothing bad, and never supposed that we would attack him at once,

FLAGRANTE DELICTO, and least of all in this point; and did not believe it possible, as we should have to

wade, breastdeep in part, through the ditches, and drag our cannon,was at first quite tranquil. But as he

began to perceive our real design (in which, they say, Prince Karl was the first to open Marshal Browne's

eyes), he drew his whole Cavalry over towards us, as fast as it could be done, and stretched them out as Right

Wing; to complete which, his Grenadiers and Hungarian Regulars of Foot ranked themselves as they got up

"The Enemy's intention was to hold with the Right Wing of his infantry on the Farmstead which they call

Sterbaholy [Sterbohol, a very dirty Farmstead at this day]; I, however, had the good luck, plunging on, head

foremost, with six battalions of our Left Wing and two of the Flank, to get to it before him. Although our

Second Line was not yet come forward, yet, as the battalions of the First were tolerably well together, I

decided, with General Fouquet, who had charge of the Flank, to begin at once; and, that the Enemy might not

have time to post himself still better, I pushed forward, quick step, out of the Farmstead" of Sterbohol "to

meet him,so fast, that even our cannon had not time to follow. He did, accordingly, begin to waver; and I

"Meanwhile, his fire of caseshot opened [from Homoly Hill, on our left], and we were still pushing

on,might now be about two hundred steps from the Enemy's Line, when I had the misfortune, at the head

of Regiment Schwerin, to get wounded, and, swooning away (VOR TOD), fell from my horse to the ground.

Awakening after some minutes, and raising my head to look about, I found nobody of our people now here

beside or round me; but all were already behind, in full flood of retreat (HOCH ANSCHLAGEN). The

Enemy's Grenadiers were perhaps eighty paces from me; but had halted, and had not the confidence to follow

us. I struggled to my feet, as fast as, for weakness, I possibly could; and got up to our confused mass

[CONFUSEN KLUMPEN,exact place, where?]: but could not, by entreaties or by threats, persuade a

single man of them to turn his face on the Enemy, much less to halt and try again.

"In this embarrassment the deceased Feldmarschall found me, and noticed that the blood was flowing

streamwise from my neck. As I was on foot, and none of my people now near, he bade give me his led horse

which he still had [and sent me home for surgery? Winterfeld, handsomely effacing himself when no longer

good for anything, hurries on to the Catastrophe, leaving us to guess that he was NOT an eyewitness

farther]bade give me the led horse which he still had; AND [as if that had happened directly after, which

surely it did not? AND] snatched the flag from Captain Rohr, who had taken it up to make the Bursche turn,

and rode forward with it himself.' But before he could succeed in the attempt, this excellent man, almost in a

minute, was hit with five caseshot balls, and fell dead on the ground; as also his brave Adjutant von Platen

"During this confusion and repulse, by which, as already mentioned, the Enemy had not the heart to profit,

not only was our Second Line come on, but those of the First, who had not suffered, went vigorously

(FRISCH) at the Enemy,"and in course of time (perhaps two hours yet), and by dint of effort, we did

manage Sterbohol and its batteries:"Like as [still in one sentence, and without the least punctuation;

Winterfeld being little of a grammarian, and in haste for the close], Like as Prince Henri's Royal Highness

with our Right Wing," Mannstein and he, "without waiting for order, attacked so PROMPT and with such

FERMOTE," in that elbowhole far north of US, "that everywhere the Enemy's Line began to give way; and

instead of continuing as Line, sought corpswise to gain the Heights, and there post itself. And as, without

winning said Heights, we could not win the Battle, we had to storm them all, one after the other; and this it

"The late Colonel von Goltz [if we glance back to Sterbohol itself], who, with the regiment Fouquet, was

advancing, righthand of Schwerin regiment" and your servant, "had likewise got quite close to the Enemy;

and had he not, at the very instant when he was levelling bayonets, been shot down, I think that he, with

myself and the Schwerin regiment, would have got in,"and perhaps have there done the job, special and

general, with much less expense, and sooner! [Preuss, ii. 4547 (in Winterfeld's hand; dated "Camp at Prag,

This is what we get from Winterfeld; a rugged, not much grammatical man, but (as I can perceive) with

excellent eyes in his head, and interior talent for twenty grammatical people, had that been his line. These,

faithfully rendered here, without change but of pointing, are the only words I ever saw of his: to my regret,

which surely the Prussian Dryasdust might still amend a little?in respect of so distinguished a person, and

chosen Peer of Friedrich's. This his brief theory of Prag Battle, if intensely read, I find to be of a piece with

Schwerin was much lamented in the Army; and has been duly honored ever since. His body lies in

Schwerinsburg, at home, far away; his Monument, finale of a series of Monuments, stands, now under special

"At first there was a monument of wood [TREE planted, I will hope], which is now all gone; round this

Kaiser Joseph II. once, in the year 1776, holding some review there, made his grenadier battalions and

artilleries form circle, fronting the sky all round, and give three volleys of great arms and small, Kaiser in the

centre doffing hat at each volley, in honor of the hero. Which was thought a very pretty thing on the Kaiser's

part. In 1824, the tree, I suppose, being gone to a stump, certain subscribing Prussian Officers had it rooted

out, and a modest Pyramid of redveined marble built in its room. Which latter the then King of Prussia,

Friedrich Wilhelm III., determined to improve upon; and so, in 1839, built a second Pyramid close by, bigger,

finer, and of Prussian iron, this one; purchasing also, from the Austrian Government, a rood or two of

ground for site; and appointing some perpetual Peculium, or increase of Pension to an Austrian Veteran of

merit for taking charge there. All which, perfectly in order, is in its place at this day. The actual Austrian

Pensioner of merit is a loudvoiced, hardfaced, very limited, but honest little fellow; who has worked a little

polygon ditch and miniature hedge round the two Monuments; keeps his own cottage, little garden, and self,

respectably clean; and leads stoically a lone life,no company, I should think, but the Sterbohol hinds, who

probably are Czechs and cannot speak to him. He was once 'of the regiment Hohenlohe;' suffers somewhat

from cold, in the wintertime, in those upland parts (the 'cords of wood' allowed him being limited); but

complains of nothing else. Two English names were in his Album, a military two, and no more. 'EHRET

DEN HELD (Honor the Hero)!' we said to him, at parting. 'Don't I?' answered he; glancing at his muddy bare

legs and little spade, with which he had been working in the Polygon Ditch when we arrived. I could wish

him an additional 'KLAFTER HOLZ' (cord more of firewood) now and then, in the cold months!

"Sterbohol Farmstead has been new built, in man's memory, but is dirty as ever. Agriculture, all over this

tableland of the Ziscaberg, I should judge to be bad. Not so the prospect; which is cheerfully extensive,

picturesque in parts, and to the student of Friedrich offers good commentary. Roads, mansions, villages:

Prossik, Kyge, Podschernitz, from the Heights of Chaber round to Nussel and beyond: from any knoll, all

Friedrich's Villages, and many more, lie round you as on a map,their dirt all hidden, nothing wanting to the

landscape, were it better carpeted with green (green instead of russet), and shaded here and there with wood.

A small wild pink, brightred, and of the size of a star, grows extensively about; of which you are tempted to

pluck specimens, as memorial of a Field so famous in War." [Tourist's Note (September, 1858).]

What Friedrich's emotions after the Battle of Prag were, we do not much know. They are not inconceivable, if

we read his situation well; but in the way of speech, there is, as usual, next to nothing. Here are two stray

FRIEDRICH A MONTH BEFORE PRAG (From Lockwitz, 25th March, to Princess Amelia, at

Berlin)."My dearest Sister, I give you a thousand thanks for the hints you have got me from Dr. Eller on

the illness of our dear Mother. Thricewelcome this; and reassures me [alas, not on good basis!] against a

"As to us and our posture of affairs, political and military, place yourself, I conjure you, above every

event. Think of our Country and remember that one's first duty is to defend it. If you learn that a misfortune

happens to one of us, ask, 'Did he die fighting?' and if Yes, give thanks to God. Victory or else death, there is

nothing else for us; one or the other we must have. All the world here is of that temper. What! you would

everybody sacrifice his life for the State, and you would not have your Brothers give the example? Ah, my

dear Sister, at this crisis, there is no room for bargaining. Either at the summit of glorious success, or else

abolished altogether. This Campaign now coming is like that of Pharsalia for Rome, or that of Leuctra for the

Greeks,"a Campaign we verily shall have to win, or go to wreck upon! [ OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. i.

FRIEDERICH SHORTLY AFTER PRAG (To his Mother, Letter still extant in Autograph, without

date)."My Brothers and I are still well. The whole Campaign runs risk of being lost to the Austrians; and I

find myself free, with 150,000 men. Add to this, that we are masters of a Kingdom [Bohemia here], which is

obliged to furnish us with troops and money. The Austrians are dispersed like straw before the wind. I will

send a part of my troops to compliment Messieurs the French; and am going [if I once had Prag!] to pursue

Friedrich, who keeps his emotions generally to himself, does not, as will be seen, remain quite silent to us

throughout this great Year; but, by accident, has left us some rather impressive gleanings in that kind;and

certainly in no year could such accident have been luckier to us; this of 1757 being, in several respects, the

greatest of his Life. From nearly the topmost heights down to the lowest deeps, his fortunes oscillated this

year; and probably, of all the sons of Adam, nobody's outlooks and reflections had in them, successive and

simultaneous, more gigantic forms of fear and of hope. He is on a very high peak at this moment; suddenly

emerging from his thick cloud, into thunderous victory of that kind; and warning all Pythons what they get by

meddling with the Sungod! Loud enough, farclanging, is the sound of the silver bow; gazetteers and men

all on pause at such new Phoebus Apollo risen in his wrath;the Victory at Prag considered to be much

more annihilative than it really was. At London, Lord Holderness had his Towerguns in readiness, waiting

for something of the kind; and "the joy of the people was frantic." [ Mitchell Papers and Memoirs (i. e the

PRINTED Selection, 2 vols. London, 1850;which will be the oftenest cited by us, "Papers AND

MEMOIRS"), i. 249: "Holderness to Mitchell, 20th May, 1757." Mitchell is now attending Friedrich; his

Letter from Keith's Camp, during the thunder of "Friday, May 6th," is given, ib. i. 248.]

Very dominant, our "Protestant Champion" yonder, on his Ziscaberg; bidding the enormous

PompadourTheresa combinations, the French, Austrian, Swedish, Russian populations and dread

sovereigns, check their proud waves, and hold at midflood. It is thought, had he in effect, "annihilated" the

Austrian force at Prag, that day (Friday, 6th May, as he might have done by waiting till Saturday, 7th), he

could then, with the due rapidity, rapidity being indispensable in the affair, have become master of Prag,

which meant of Bohemia altogether; and have stormed forward, as his program bore, into the heart, of an

Austria still terrorstricken, unrallied;in which case, it is calculated, the French, the Russians, Swedes,

much more the Reich and such like, would all have drawn bridle; and Austria itself have condescended to

make Peace with a Neighbor of such quality, and consent to his really modest desire of being let alone!

Possible, all this,think Retzow and others. [See RETZOW, i. 100108; ] But the King had not waited till

tomorrow; no persuasion could make him wait: and it is idle speculating on the small turns which here, as

Beyond question, Prag is not captured, and may, as now garrisoned, require a great deal of capturing:and

perhaps it is but a PEAK, this high dominancy of Friedrich's, not a solid tableland, till much more have been

done! Friedrich has nothing of the Gascon: but there may well be conceivable at this time a certain glow of

internal pride, like that of Phoebus amid the piled tempests,like that of the One Man prevailing, if but for a

short season, against the Devil and All Men: "I have made good my bit, of resolution so far: here are the

Austrians beaten at the set day, and Prag summoned to surrender, as per program!"

Intrinsically, Prag is not a strong City: we have seen it, taken in few days; in one night;and again, as in

Belleisle's time, we have seen it making tough defence for a series of weeks. It depends on the garrison, what

extent of garrison (the circuit of it being so immense), and what height of humor. There are now 46,000 men

caged in it, known to have considerable magazines; and Friedrich, aware that it will cost trouble, bends all his

strength upon it, and from his two camps, Ziscaberg, Weissenberg, due Bridges uniting, Keith and he batter

it, violently, aiming chiefly at the Magazines (which are not all bombproof); and hope they may succeed

The Vienna people are in the depths of amazement and discouragement; almost of terror, had it not been for a

few, or especially for one high heart among them. Feldmarschall Daun, on the news of May 6th, hastily fell

back, joined by the wrecks of the right wing, which fled Sazawa way. BrunswickBevern, with a 20,000, is

detached to look after Daun; finds Daun still on the retreat; greedily collecting reinforcements from the

homeward quarter; and hanging back, though now double or so of Bevern's strength. Amazement and

discouragement are the general feeling among Friedrich's enemies. Notable to see how the whole hostile

world marching in upon him,French, Russians, much more the Reich, poor faltering entity,pauses, as

with its breath taken away, at news of Prag; and, arrested on the sudden, with lifted foot, ceases to stride

forward; and merely tramptramps on the same place (nay in part, in the Reich part, visibly tramps

backward), for above a month ensuing! Who knows whether, practically, any of them will come on; [See

CORRESPONDANCE DU COMTE DE SAINTGERMAIN, an Eyewitness, i. 108 (cited in Preuss, ii. 50);

and not leave Austria by itself to do the duel with Friedrich? If Prag were but got, and the 46,000 well locked

away, it would be very salutary for Friedrich's affairs!Week after week, the City holds out; and there

seems no hope of it, except by hunger, and burning their Magazines by redhot balls.

Friedrich, as we saw, on entering Bohmen, had shot off a Light Detachment under Colonel Mayer,

southward, to seize any Austrian Magazines there were, especially one big Magazine at Pilsen:which

Mayer has handsomely done, May 2d (Pilsen "a bigger Magazine than JungBunzlau, even"); after which

Mayer is now off westward, into the OberPfalz, into the Nurnberg Countries; to teach the Reich a small

lesson, since they will not listen to Plotho. Prag Battle, as happens, had already much chilled the ardor of the

Reich! Mayer has two FreeCorps, his own and another; about 1,300 of foot; to which are added a 200 of

hussars. They have 5 cannon, carry otherwise a minimum of baggage; are swift wild fellows, sharp of stroke;

and do, for the time, prove didactic to the Reich; bringing home to its very bosom the late great lesson of the

Ziscaberg, in an applied form. Mayer made a pretty course of it, into the OberPfalz Countries; scattering the

poor Execution DrillSergeants and incipiencies of preparation, the deliberative County Meetings,

KREISConvents: ransoming Cities, Nurnberg for one city, whose cries went to Friedrich on the Ziscaberg,

and wide over the world. [In HeldenGeschichte, iv. 360367, the Nurnberg Letter and Response (3lst

May5th June, 1757): in Pauli, Leben grosser Helden (iii. 159 et seq.), Account of the Mayer Expedition;

also in MilitairLexikon, iii. 29 (quoting from Pauli).] Nurnberg would have been but too happy to "refuse its

contingent to the Reich's Army," as many others would have been (poor KurBaiern hurrying off a kind of

Embassy to Friedrich, great terror reigning among the wigs of Regensburg, and everybody drawing back that

could),had not Imperial menaces, and an Event that fell out by and by in Prag Country, forced compliance.

Mayer's Expedition made a loud noise in the Newspapers; and was truly of a shining nature in its kind; very

perfectly managed on Mayer's part, and has traits in it which are amusing to read, had one time. Take one

"At Furth in Anspach, 1st June [after six days' screwing of Nurnberg from without, which we had no cannon

to take], a Gratuity for the Prussian troops [amount not stated] was demanded and given: at Schwabach,

farther up the Regnitz River, they took quarters; no exemption made, clergy and laity alike getting soldiers

billeted. Meat and drink had to be given them: as also 100 carolines [guineas and better], and twenty new

uniforms. Upon which, next day, they marched to Zirndorf, and the Reichsgraf Puckler's Mansion, the

Schloss of Farrenbach there. Mayer took quarter in the Schloss itself. Here the noble owners got up a ball for

Mayer's entertainment; and did all they could contrive to induce a light treatment from him." Figure it, the

neighboring nobility and gentry in gala; Mayer too in his best uniform, and smiling politely, with those

"bright little black eyes" of his! For he was a brilliant airy kind of fellow, and had much of the chevalier, as

"Out of Farrenbach, the Mayer people circulated upon all the neighboring Lordships; at Wilhelmsdorf, the

ReichsFurst von Hohenlohe [a too busy AntiPrussian] had the worst brunt to bear. The adjacent Baireuth

lands [dear Wilhelmina, fancy her too in such neighborhood!] were to the utmost spared all billeting, and

even all transit,"though wandering sergeants of the Reich's Force, "one sergeant with the Wurzburg Herr

Commissarius and eight common men, did get picked up on Baireuth ground: and this or the other Anspach

Official (Anspach being disaffected), too busy on the wrong side, found himself suddenly Prisoner of War;

but was given up, at Wilhelmina?s gracious request. On Bamberg he was sharp as flint; and had to be; the

Bambergers, reinforced at last by 'Circle Militias (KREISTRUPPEN)' in quantity, being called out in mass

Of the "Affair at Vach," pretty little DrawnBattle (mostly an affair of art), Mayer VERSUS "Kreistroops to

the amount of 6,000, with twelve cannon, or some say twentyfour" (which they couldn't handle); and how

Mayer cunningly took a position unassailable, "burnt Bridges of the Regnitz River," and, plying his five

cannon against these ardent awkward people, stood cheerful on the other side; and then at last, in good time,

whisked himself off to the Hill of Culmbach, with all his baggage, inexpugnable there for three days:of all

this, though it is set down at full length, we can say nothing. [Pauli, iii. 159, (who gives Mayer's own

LETTER, and others, upon Vach).] And will add only, that, having girt himself and made his packages,

Mayer left the Hill of Culmbach; and deliberately wended home, by Coburg and other Countries where he

had business, eating his way; and early in July was safe in the Metal Mountains again; having fluttered the

Volscians in their Frankenland Corioli to an unexpected extent. It is one of five or six such sallies Friedrich

made upon the Reich, sometimes upon the Austrians and Reich together, to tumble up their magazines and

preparations. Rapid unexpected inroads, year after year; done chiefly by the FreeCorps; and famous enough

to the then Gazetteers. Of which, or of their doers, as we can in time coming afford little or no notice, let us

add this small Note on the FreeCorps topic, which is a large one in the Books, but must not interrupt us

"Before this War was done," say my Authorities, "there came gradually to be twentyone Prussian

FreeCorps,"foot almost all; there being already Hussars in quantity, ever since the first Silesian

experiences. "Notable Aggregates they were of loose wandering fellows, broken Saxons, Prussians, French;

'Hungarian Protestant' some of them, 'Deserters from all the Armies' not a few; attracted by the fame of

Friedrich,as the Colonels enlisting them had been; Mayer himself, for instance, was by birth a Vienna

man; and had been in many services and wars, from his fifteenth year and onwards. Most miscellaneous,

these Prussian FreeCorps; a swift faculty the indispensable thing, by no means a particular character: but

"They were, by origin, of AntiTolpatch nature, got up on the diamondcutdiamond principle; they stole a

good deal, with order sometimes, and oftener without; but there was nothing of the old MentzelTrenck

atrocity permitted them, or ever imputed to them; and they did, usually with good military talent, sometimes

conspicuously good, what was required of them. Regular Generals, of a high merit, one or two of their

Captains came to be: Wunsch, for example; Werner, in some sort; and, but for his sudden death, this Mayer

himself. Others of them, as Von Hordt (Hard is his Swedish name); and 'Quintus Icilius' (by nature

GUICHARD, of whom we shall hear a great deal in the Friedrich circle by and by), are distinguished as

honorably intellectual and cultivated persons. [Count de Hordt's Memoirs (autobiographical, or in the first

person: English Translation, London, 1806; TWO French Originals, a worse in 1789, and a better now at

last), Preface, ixii. In HeldenGeschichte, v. 102104, 93, a detailed "List of the FreeCorps in 1758"

(twelve of foot, two of horse, at that time): see Preuss, ii. 372 n.; Pauli (ubi supra), Life of Mayer. ]

"Poor Mayer died within two years hence (5th January, 1759); of fever, caught by unheardof exertions and

over fatigues; after many exploits, and with the highest prospect, opening on him. A man of many adventures,

of many qualities; a wild dash of chivalry in him all along, and much military and other talent crossed in the

growing. In the dull old Books I read one other fact which is vivid to me, That Wilhelmina, as sequel of those

first Franconian exploits and procedures, 'had given him her Order of Knighthood, ORDER OF SINCERITY

AND FIDELITY,'"poor dear Princess, what an interest to Wilhelmina, this flash of her Brother's thunder

thrown into those Franconian parts, and across her own pungent anxieties and sorrowfully affectionate

Shortly after Mayer, about the time when Mayer was wending homeward, General von Oldenburg, a very

valiant punctual old General, was pushed out westward upon Erfurt, a City of Kur Mainz's, to give

KurMainz a similar monition. And did it handsomely, impressively upon the Gazetteer world at least and

the Erfurt populations,though we can afford it no room in this place. Oldenburg's force was but some

2,000; Pirna Saxons most of them: such a winter Oldenburg has had with these Saxons; bursting out into

actual musketry upon him once; Oldenburg, volcanically steady, summoning the Prussian part, "To me, true

Prussian Bursche!"and hanging nine of the mutinous Saxons. And has coerced and compesced them (all

that did not contrive to desert) into soldierly obedience; and, 20th June, appears at the Gate of Erfurt with

them, to do his delicate errand there. Sharply conclusive, though polite and punctual. "Send to KurMainz

say you? Well, as to your Citadel, and those 1,400 soldiers all moving peaceably off thither,Yes. As to

your City: within one hour, Gate open to us, or we open it!" [In HeldenGeschichte (v. 371384) copious

Account, with the Missives to and from, the ReichsPleadings that followed, the MilitairLexikon, ?

Oldenburg.] And Oldenburg marches in, as vicesovereign for the time:but, indeed, has soon to leave

If Prag Siege go well, these MayerOldenburg expeditions will have an effect on the Reich: but if it go ill,

what are they, against Austria with its force of steady pressure? All turns on the issue of Prag Siege:a fact

extremely evident to Friedrich too! But these are what in the interim can be done. One neglects no

On the Britannic side, too, the outlooks are not good;much need Friedrich were through his Prag affair,

and "hastening with forty thousand to help his Allies,"that is, Royal Highness of Cumberland and

Britannic Purse, his only allies at this moment. Royal Highness and Army of Observation (should have been

67,000, are 50 to 60,000, hired Germans; troops good enough, were they tolerably led) finds the Hanover

Program as bad as Schmettau and Friedrich ever represented it; and, already,unless Prag go well, wears,

to the understanding eye, a very contingent aspect. D'Estrees outnumbers him; D'Estrees, too, is something of

D'Estrees, since April, is in Wesel; gathering in the revenues, changing the Officialities: much out of

discipline, they say;"hanging" gradually "1,000 marauders;" in round numbers 1,000 this Year. [Stenzel, v.

65; Retzow, i. 173.] D'Estrees does not yet push forward, owing to Prag. If he do It is well known how

Royal Highness fared when he did, and what a Campaign Royal Highness made of it this Year 1757! How

the Weser did prove wadable, as Schmettau had said to no purpose; wadable, bridgable; and Royal Highness

had to wriggle back, ever back; no stand to be made, or far worse than none: back, ever back, till he got into

the Sea, for that matter, and to the END of more than one thing! Poor man, friends say he has an incurable

Hanover Ministry, a Program that is inexecutable. As yet he has not lost head, any head he ever had: but he is

wonderful, he;and his England is! We shall have to look at him once again; and happily once only. Here,

from my Constitutional Historian, are some Passages which we may as well read in the present interim of

1. ENGLAND IN CRISIS. "England is indignant with its Hero of Culloden and his Campaign 1757; but

really has no business to complain. Royal Highness of Cumberland, wriggling helplessly in that manner, is a

fair representative of the England that now is. For years back, there has been, in regard to all things Foreign

or Domestic, in that Country, by way of National action, the miserablest haggling as to which of various

littlecompetent persons shall act for the Nation. A melancholy condition indeed!

"But the fact is, his Grace of Newcastle, ever since his poor Brother Pelham died (who was always a solid,

loyal kind of man, though a dull; and had always, with patient affection, furnished his Grace, much

UNsupplied otherwise, with Common sense hitherto), is quite insecure in Parliament, and knows not what

hand to turn to. Fox is contemptuous of him; Pitt entirely impatient of him; Duke of Cumberland (great in the

glory of Culloden) is aiming to oust him, and bear rule with his Young Nephew, the new Rising Sun, as the

poor Papa and Grandfather gets old. Even Carteret (Earl Granville as they now call him, a Carteret much

changed since those highsoaring WormsHanau times!) was applied to. But the answer waswhat could

the answer be? Highsoaring Carteret, scandalously overset and hurled out in that Hanau time, had already

tried once (long ago, and with such result!) to spring in again, and 'deliver his Majesty from factions;' and

actually had made a 'Granville Ministry;' Ministry which fell again in one day. ["11th February, 1746"

(Thackeray, Life of Chatham, i. 146).] To the complete disgust of CarteretGranville;who, ever since, sits

ponderously dormant (kind of Fixture in the Privy Council, this long while back); and is resigned, in a big

contemptuous way, to have had his really considerable career closed upon him by the smallest of mankind;

and, except occasional blurts of strong rugged speech which come from him, and a good deal of wine taken

into him, disdains making farther debate with the world and its elect Newcastles. Carteret, at this crisis, was

again applied to, 'Cannot you? In behalf of an afflicted old King?' But Carteret answered, No. [Ib. i. 464.]

"In short, it is admitted and bewailed by everybody, seldom was there seen such a Government of England

(and England has seen some strange Governments), as in these last Three Years. Chaotic Imbecility reigning

pretty supreme. Ruler's Work,policy, administration, governance, guidance, performance in any kind,

where is it to be found? For if even a Walpole, when his Talking Apparatus gets out of gear upon him, is

reduced to extremities, though the stoutest of men,fancy what it will be, in like case, and how the

ActingApparatuses and Affairs generally will go, with a poor hysterical Newcastle, now when his Common

Sense is fatally withdrawn! The poor man has no resource but to shuffle about in aimless perpetual fidget;

endeavoring vainly to say Yes and No to all questions, Foreign and Domestic, that may rise. Whereby, in the

Affairs of England, there has, as it were, universal St.Vitus's dance supervened, at an important crisis: and

the Preparations for America, and for a downright LifeandDeath Wrestle with France on the

JENKINS'SEAR QUESTION, are quite in a bad way. In an ominously bad. Why cannot we draw a veil

2. PITT, AND THE HOUR OF TIDE. "The fidgetings and shufflings, the subtleties, inane trickeries, and

futile hitherings and thitherings of Newcastle may be imagined: a man not incapable of trick; but anxious to

be well with everybody; and to answer Yes and No to almost everything,and not a little puzzled, poor soul,

to get through, in that impossible way! Such a paralysis of wriggling imbecility fallen over England, in this

great crisis of its fortunes, as is still painful to contemplate: and indeed it has been mostly shaken out of mind

by the modern Englishman; who tries to laugh at it, instead of weeping and considering, which would better

beseem. Pitt speaks with a tragical vivacity, in all ingenious dialects, lively though serious; and with a depth

of sad conviction, which is apt to be slurred over and missed altogether by a modern reader. Speaks as if this

brave English Nation were about ended; little or no hope left for it; here a gleam of possibility, and there a

gleam, which soon vanishes again in the fatal murk of impotencies, donothingisms. Very sad to the heart of

Pitt. A once brave Nation arrived at its critical point, and doomed to higgle and puddle there till it drown in

the gutters: considerably tragical to Pitt; who is lively, ingenious, and, though not quitting the Parliamentary

"In Walpole's Book [ Memoirs of the Last Ten Years of George II. ] there is the liveliest Picture of this dismal

Parliamentary Hellbroth,such a Mother of Dead Dogs as one has seldom looked into! For the Hour is

great; and the Honorable Gentlemen, I must say, are small. The hour, little as you dream of it, my Honorable

Friends, is pregnant with questions that are immense. Wide Continents, long Epochs and AEons hang on this

poor jargoning of yours; the Eternal Destinies are asking their much favored Nation, 'Will you, can

you?'muchfavored Nation is answering in that manner. Astonished at its own stupidity, and taking refuge

in laughter. The Eternal Destinies are very patient with some Nations; and can disregard their follies, for a

long while; and have their Cromwell, have their Pitt, or what else is essential, ready for the poor Nation, in a

"Certain it is,though how could poor Newcastle know it at all! here is again the hour of tide for

England. Tide is full again; has been flowing long hundreds of years, and is full: certain, too, that time and

tide wait on no man or nation. In a dialect different from Cromwell's or Pitt's, but with a sense true to theirs, I

call it the Eternal Destinies knocking at England's door again: 'Are you ready for the crisis, birthpoint of

long Ages to you, which is now come?' Greater question had not been, for centuries past. None to be named

with it since that high Spiritual Question (truly a much higher, and which was in fact the PARENT of this and

of all of high and great that lay ahead), which England and Oliver Cromwell were there to answer: 'Will you

hold by Consecrated Formulas, then, you English, and expect salvation from traditions of the elders; or are

you for Divine Realities, as the one sacred and indispensable thing?' Which they did answer, in what way we

know. Truly the Highest Question; which if a Nation can answer WELL, it will grow in this world, and may

come to be considerable, and to have many high Questions to answer,this of Pitt's, for example. And the

Answers given do always extend through coming ages; and do always bear harvests, accursed or else blessed,

according as the Answers were. A thing awfully true, if you have eye for it;a thing to make Honorable

Gentlemen serious, even in the age of percussion caps! No, my friend, Newcastleisms, impious

Poltrooneries, in a Nation, do not die:neither (thank God) do Cromwellisms and pious Heroisms; but are

alive for the poor Nation, even in its somnambulancies, in its stupidest dreams. For Nations have their

somnambulancies; and, at any rate, the questions put to Nations, in different ages, vary much. Not in any age,

or turningpoint in History, had England answered the Destinies in such a dialect as now under its Newcastle

3. OF WALPOLE, AS RECORDING ANGEL. "Walpole's George the Second is a Book of far more worth

than is commonly ascribed to it; almost the one original English Book yet written on those times,which, by

the accident of Pitt, are still memorable to us. But for Walpole,burning like a small steady light there,

shining faithfully, if stingily, on the evil and the good,that sordid muddle of the Pelham Parliaments, which

chanced to be the element of things now recognizable enough as great, would be forever unintelligible. He is

unusually accurate, punctual, lucid; an irrefragable authority on English points. And if, in regard to Foreign,

he cannot be called an understanding witness, he has read the best Documents accessible, has conversed with

select Ambassadors (Mitchell and the like, as we can guess); and has informed himself to a degree far beyond

most of his contemporaries. In regard to Pitt's Speeches, in particular, his brief jottings, done rapidly while

the matter was still shining to him, are the only Reports that have the least human resemblance. We may

thank Walpole that Pitt is not dumb to us, as well as dark. Very curious little scratchings and etchings, those

of Walpole; frugal, swift, but punctual and exact; hasty penandink outlines; at first view, all barren; bald as

an invoice, seemingly; but which yield you, after long study there and elsewhere, a conceivable notion of

what and how excellent these Pitt Speeches may have been. Airy, winged, like arrowflights of Phoebus

Apollo; very superlative Speeches indeed. Walpole's Book is carefully printed,few errors in it like that

'Chapeau' for CHASOT," which readers remember:"but, in respect to editing, may be characterized as still

wanting an Editor. A Book UNedited; little but lazy ignorance of a very hopeless type, thick contented

darkness, traceable throughout in the marginal part. No attempt at an Index, or at any of the natural helps to a

reader now at such distance from it. Nay, till you have at least marked, on the top of each page, what Month

and Year it actually is, the Book cannot be read at all,except by an idle creature, doing worse than nothing

4. PITT'S SPEECHES, FORESHADOWING WHAT. "It is a kind of epoch in your studies of modern

English History when you get to understand of Pitt's Speeches, that they are not Parliamentary Eloquences,

but things which with his whole soul he means, and is intent to DO. This surprising circumstance, when at

last become undeniable, makes, on the sudden, an immense difference for the Speeches and you! Speeches

are not a thing of high moment to this Editor; it is the Thing spoken, and how far the speaker means to do it,

that this Editor inquires for. Too many Speeches there are, which he hears admired all round, and has

privately to entertain a very horrid notion of! Speeches, the finest in quality (were quality really 'fine'

conceivable in such case), which WANT a corresponding fineness of source and intention, corresponding

nobleness of purport, conviction, tendency; these, if we will reflect, are frightful instead of beautiful.

Yes;and always the frightfuler, the 'finer' they are; and the faster and farther they go, sowing themselves in

the dim vacancy of men's minds. For Speeches, like all human things, though the fact is now little

remembered, do always rank themselves as forever blessed, or as forever unblessed. Sheep or goats; on the

right hand of the Final Judge, or else on the left. There are Speeches which can be called true; and, again,

Speeches which are not true:Heavens, only think what these latter are! Sacked wind, which you are

intended to SOW,that you may reap the whirlwind! After long reading, I find Chatham's Speeches to be

what he pretends they are: true, and worth speaking then and there. Noble indeed, I can call them with you:

the highly noble Foreshadow, necessary preface and accompaniment of Actions which are still nobler. A very

"Pitt, though nobly eloquent, is a Man of Action, not of Speech; an authentically Royal kind of Man. And if

there were a Plutarch in these times, with a good deal of leisure on his hands, he might run a Parallel between

Friedrich and Chatham. Two radiant Kings: very shining Men of Action both; both of them hard bested, as

the case often is. For your born King will generally have, if not "all Europe against him," at least pretty much

all the Universe. Chatham's course to Kingship was not straight or smooth,as Friedrich, too, had his

wellnigh fatal difficulties on the road. Again, says the Plutarch, they are very brave men both; and of a

clearness and veracity peculiar among their contemporaries. In Chatham, too, there is something of the flash

of steel; a very sharpcutting, penetrative, rapid individual, he too; and shaped for action, first of all, though

he has to talk so much in the world. Fastidious, proud, no King could be prouder, though his element is that

of FreeSenate and Democracy. And he has a beautiful poetic delicacy, withal; great tenderness in him,

playfulness, grace; in all ways, an airy as well as a solid loftiness of mind. Not born a King,alas, no, not

officially so, only naturally so; has his kingdom to seek. The Conquering of Silesia, the Conquering of the

"Pitt's Speeches, as I spell them from Walpole and the other faint tracings left, are full of genius in the vocal

kind, far beyond any Speeches delivered in Parliament: serious always, and the very truth, such as he has it;

but going in many dialects and modes; full of airy flashings, twinkles and coruscations. Sport, as of

sheetlightning glancing about, the bolt lying under the horizon; bolt HIDDEN, as is fit, under such a horizon

as he had. A singularly radiant man. Could have been a Poet, too, in some small measure, had he gone on that

line. There are many touches of genius, comic, tragic, lyric, something of humor even, to be read in those

"In one word, Pitt, shining like a gleam of sharp steel in that murk of contemptibilities, is carefully steering

his way towards Kingship over it. Tragical it is (especially in Pitt's case, first and last) to see a Royal Man, or

Born King, wading towards his throne in such an element. But, alas, the Born King (even when he tries,

which I take to be the rarer case) so seldom can arrive there at all;sinful Epochs there are, when Heaven's

curse has been spoken, and it is that awful Being, the Born ShamKing, that arrives! Pitt, however, does it.

Yes; and the more we study Pitt, the more we shall find he does it in a peculiarly high, manful and honorable

as well as dexterous manner; and that English History has a right to call him 'the acme and highest man of

Constitutional Parliaments; the like of whom was not in any Parliament called Constitutional, nor will again

Well, probably enough; too probably! But what it more concerns us to remember here, is the fact, That in

these dismal shufflings which have been, Pittin spite of Royal dislikes and Newcastle peddlings and

chicanerieshas been actually in Office, in the due topmost place, the poor English Nation ardently

demanding him, in what ways it could. Been in Office;and is actually out again, in spite of the Nation.

Was without real power in the Royal Councils; though of noble promise, and planting himself down,

herolike, evidently bent on work, and on ending that unutterable "St.Vitus'sdance" that had gone so high

all round him. Without real power, we say; and has had no permanency. Came in llth19th November, 1756;

thrown out 5th April, 1757. After six months' trial, the St. Vitus finds that it cannot do with him; and will

prefer going on again. The last act his Royal Highness of Cumberland did in England was to displace Pitt:

"Down you, I am the man!" said Royal Highness; and went to the Weser Countries on those terms.

Would the reader wish to see, in summary, what Pitt's Offices have been, since he entered on this career

about thirty years ago? Here, from our Historian, is the List of them in order of time; STAGES OF PITT'S

1. "DECEMBER, 1734, Comes into Parliament, age now twentysix; Cornet in the Blues as well; being poor,

and in absolute need of some career that will suit. APRIL, 1736, makes his First Speech: Prince Frederick

the subject,who was much used as batteringram by the Opposition; whom perhaps Pitt admired for his

madrigals, for his Literary patronizings, and favor to the WestWickham set. Speech, full of airy lightning,

was much admired. Followed by many, with the lightning getting denser and denser; always on the

Opposition side [once on the JENKINS'SEAR QUESTION, as we saw, when the Gazetteer Editor spelt him

Mr. Pitts]: so that Majesty was very angry, sulky Public much applausive; and Walpole was heard to say, 'We

must muzzle, in some way, that terrible Cornet of Horse!' but could not, on trial; this man's 'price,' as

would seem, being awfully high! AUGUSTOCTOBER, 1744, Sarah Duchess of Marlborough bequeathed

him 10,000 pounds as Commissariat equipment in this his Campaign against the Mudgods, [Thackeray, i.

138.]glory to the old Heroine for so doing! Which lifted Pitt out of the Cornetcy or Horseguards element,

2. "FEBRUARY 14th, 1746, ViceTreasurer for Ireland: on occasion of that PelhamGranville

'Asyouwere!' (Carteret Ministry, which lasted One Day), and the slight shufflings that were necessary.

Now first in Office,after such Ten Years of colliding and conflicting, and fine steering in difficult waters.

ViceTreasurer for Ireland: and 'soon after, on Lord Wilmington's death,' PAYMASTER OF THE FORCES.

Continued Paymaster about nine years. Rejects, quietly and totally, the big income derivable from Interest of

Government Moneys lying delayed in the Paymaster's hand ('Dishonest, I tell you!')and will none of it,

though poor. Not yet high, still low over the horizon, but shining brighter and brighter. Greatly contemptuous

of Newcastle and the Platitudes and Poltrooneries; and still a good deal in the Opposition strain, and NOT

always tempering the wind to the shorn lamb. For example, Pitt (still Paymaster) to Newcastle on King of the

Romans Question (1752 or so): 'You engage for Subsidies, not knowing their extent; for Treaties, not

knowing the terms!''What a bashaw!' moan Newcastle and the top Officials. 'Best way is, don't mind it,'

said Mr. Stone [one of their terriers,a hardheaded fellow, whose brother became Primate of Ireland by

3. "NOVEMBER 20th, 1755, Thrown out:on Pelham's death, and the general hurlyburly in Official

regions, and change of partners with no little difficulty, which had then ensued! Sir Thomas Robinson," our

old friend, "made Secretary,not found to answer. Pitt sulkily looking on America, on Minorca; on things

German, on things in general; warily set on returning, as is thought; but How? FOX to Pitt: 'Will you join

ME?'PITT: 'No,'with such politeness, but in an unmistakable way! Ten months of consummate steering

on the part of Pitt; Chancellor Hardwicke coming as messenger, he among others; Pitt's answer to him

dexterous, modestly royal. Pitt's bearing, in this grand juncture and crisis, is royal, his speakings and also his

silences notably fine. OCTOBER 20th, 1756: to Newcastle face to face, 'I will accept no situation under your

"NOVEMBER 19th, 1756, to England's great comfort, Sees himself Secretary of State (age now just

fortyeight). Has pretty much all England at his back; but has, in face of him, Fox, Newcastle and Company,

offering mere impediment and discouragement; Royal Highness of Cumberland looking deadly sour. Till

"APRIL 5th, 1757, King bids him resign; Royal Highness setting off for Germany the second day after. Pitt

had been IN rather more than Four months. England, at that time a silent Country in comparison, knew not

well what to do; took to offering him Freedoms of Corporations in very great quantity. Town after Town,

from all the four winds, sympathetically firing off, upon a misguided Sacred Majesty, its little Box, in this

oblique way, with extraordinary diligence. Whereby, after six months bombardment by Boxes, and also by

Events, JUNE 29th, 1757" We will expect June 29th. [Thackeray, i. 231, 264; Almon, Anecdotes of Pitt

In these sad circumstances, Preparations so called have been making for Hanover, for America;such

preparations as were never seen before. Take only one instance; let one be enough:

"By the London Gazette, well on in February, 1756, we learn that Lord Loudon, a military gentleman of

small faculty, but of good connections, has been nominated to command the Forces in America; and then,

more obscurely, some days after, that another has been nominated:one of them ought certainly to make

haste out, if he could; the French, by account, have 25,000 men in those countries, with real officers to lead

them! Haste out, however, is not what this Lord Loudon or his rival can make. In March, we learn that Lord

Loudon has been again nominated; in an improved manner, this time;and still does not look like going.

'Again nominated, why again?' Alas, reader, there have been hysterical fidgetings in a high quarter; internal

shiftings and shufflings, contradictions, new proposals, one knows not what. [ Gentleman's Magazine for

1756, pp. 92, 150, 359, 450.] One asks only: How is the business ever to be done, if you cannot even settle

"Seldom had Country more need of a Commander than America now. America itself is of willing mind; and

surely has resources, in such a Cause; but is full of anarchies as well: the different States and sections of it,

with their discrepant Legislatures, their halfdrilled Militias, pulling each a different way, there is, as in the

poor Mother Country, little result except of the St.Vitus kind. In some Legislatures are anarchic Quakers,

who think it unpermissible to fight with those hectoring French, and their tail of scalping Indians; and that the

'method of love' ought to be tried with them. What is to become of those poor people, if not even a Lord

The result was, Lord Loudon had not in his own poor person come to hand in America till August, 1756,

Season now done; and could only write home, "All is St. Vitus out here! Must have reinforcement of 10,000

men!" "Yes," answers Pitt, who is now in Office: "you shall have them; and we will take Cape Breton, please

Heaven!"but was thrown out; and by the wrigglings that ensued, nothing of the 10,000 reached Lord

Loudon till Season 1757 too was done. Nor did they then stead his Lordship much, then or afterwards; who

never took Cape Breton, nor was like doing it;but wriggled to and fro a good deal, and revolved on his

axis, according to pattern given. And set (what chiefly induces us to name him here) his not reverent enough

Subordinate, Lord Charles Hay, our old Fontenoy friend, into angry impatient quizzing of him;and by and

by into CourtMartial for such quizzing. [Peerage Books, ? Tweeddale.] CourtMartial, which was much

puzzled by the case; and could decide nothing, but only adjourn and adjourn;as we will now do, not

mentioning Lord Loudon farther, or the numerous other instances at all. ["1st May, 1760, MajorGeneral

Lord Charles Hay died" ( Gentleman's Magazine of Year); and his particular CourtMartial could adjourn for

the last time."I wrote something for Lord Charles," said the great Johnson once, many years afterwards;

"and I thought he had nothing to fear from a CourtMartial. I suffered a great loss when he died: he was a

mighty pleasing man in conversation, and a reading man" (Boswell's Life of Johnson: under date, "3d April,

Pitt, we just saw, far from being confirmed and furthered, has been thrown out by Royal Highness of

Cumberland, the last thing before crossing to that exquisite Weser Problem. "Nothing now left at home to

hinder us and our Hanover and Weser Problem!" thinks Royal Highness. No, indeed: a comfortable pacific

Nogovernment, or Battle of the Four Elements, left yonder; the Anarch Old waggling his addle head over it;

ready to help everybody, and bring fire and water, and Yes and No, into holy matrimony, if he could!Let

us return to Prag. Only one remark more; upon "April 5th." That was the Day of Pitt's Dismissal at St.

James's: and I find, at Schonbrunn it is likewise the day when REICHSHOFRATH (Kaiser in Privy

Council) decides, in respect to Friedrich, that Ban of the Reich must be proceeded with, and recommends

Reich's Diet to get through with the same. [ HeldenGeschichte (ReichsProcedures, UBI SUPRA).] Official

England ordering its Pitt into private life, and Official Teutschland its Friedrich into outlawry ("Be quiet

Friedrich's Siege of Prag proved tedious beyond expectation. In four days he had done that exploit in 1744;

but now, to the world's disappointment, in as many weeks he cannot. Nothing was omitted on his part: he

seized all egresses from Prag, rapidly enough; had beset them with batteries, on the very night or morrow of

the Battle; every egress beset, cannon and ruin forbidding any issue there. On the 9th of May, cannonading

began; proper siege cannon and ammunition, coming up from Dresden, were completely come May 19th;

after which the place is industriously battered, bombarded with redhot balls; but except by hunger, it will

not do. Prag as a fortress is weak, but as a breastwork for 50,000 men it is strong. The Austrians tried sallies;

but these availed nothing, very illconducted, say some. The Prussians, more than once, had nearly got

into the place by surprisal; but, owing to mere luck of the Austrians, never could,say the same parties.

A DIARIUM of Prag Siege is still extant, Two DIARIUMS; punctual diurnal account, both Austrian and

Prussian: [In HeldenGeschichte, iv. 4256, Prussian DIARIUM; ib. 7386, Austrian.] which it is far from

our intention to inflict on readers, in this haste. Siege lasted six weeks; four weeks extremely hot,from

May 19th, when the proper artilleries, in complete state, got up from Dresden. Line of siegeworks, or

intermittent series of batteries, is some twelve miles long; from Branik southward to beyond the Belvedere

northward, on both sides of the Moldau. King's Camp is on the Ziscaberg; Keith's on the Lorenz Berg,

embracing and commanding the Weissenberg; there are two Bridges of communication, Branik and Podoli:

King lodges in the Parsonage of Michel,the busiest of all the sons of Adam; what a set of meditations in

that Parsonage! The Besieged, 46,000 by count, offer to surrender Prag on condition of "Free withdrawal:"

"No; you shall engage, such of you as won't enlist with us, not to serve against me for six years." Here are

"MAY 19th, No sooner was our artillery come (all the grounds and beds for it had been ready beforehand),

"NIGHT OF THE 23d24th MAY, There broke out a furious sally; their first, and much their hottest, say the

Prussians: a very serious affair;which fell upon Keith's quarter, west side of the Moldau. Sally, say

something like 10,000 strong; picked men all, and strengthened with half a pound of horseflesh each"

(unluckily without salt): judge what the common diet must have been, when that was generous! "No salt to it;

but a fair supplement of brandy. Browne, from his bed of pain (died 26th June), had been strongly urgent.

Aim is, To force the Prussian lines, by determination and the help of darkness, in some weak point: the whole

Army, standing ranked on the walls, shall follow, if things go well; and storm itself through,away

"Sally broke out between 1 and 2 A.M.; but we had wind of it, and were on the alert. Sally tried on this place

and on that; very furious in places, but could not anywhere prevail. The tussling lasted for near six hours

(Prince Ferdinand" of Preussen, King's youngest Brother, "and others of us, getting hurts and doing

exploits),till, about 7 A.M., it was wholly swept in, with loss of 1,000 dead. Upon which, their whole

Army retired to its quarters, in a hopeless condition. Escape impossible. Near 50,000 of them; but in such a

posture. Provision of bread, the spies say, is not scarce, unless the Prussians can burn it, which they are

industriously trying (diligent to learn where the Magazines are, and to fire incessantly upon the same): plenty

of meal hitherto; but for butcher'smeat, only what we saw. Forage nearly done, and 12,000 horses standing

in the squares and marketplaces,not even stabling for them, not to speak of food or work,slaughtering

and salting [if one but had salt!] the one method. Horseflesh two kreutzers a pound; rises gradually to

"MAY 29th, About sunset there came a furious burst of weather: raintorrents mixed with battering

hail;some flaw of waterspout among the Hills; for it lasted hour on hour, and Moldau came down roaring

doubledeep, above a hundred yards too wide each way; with cargoes of ruin, tornup trees, drowned horses;

which sorely tried our Bridge at Branik. Bridge, half of it, did break away (Friedrich's half, fortyfour

pontoons; Keith's people got their end of the Bridge doubled in and saved): the Austrians, in Prag, fished out

twentyfour of Friedrich's pontoons; the other twenty we caught at our Bridge of Podoli, farther down. A

most wild night for the Prussian Army in tents; and indeed for Prag itself, the low parts of which were all

under water; unfortunate individuals getting drowned in the cellars; and, still more important, a great deal of

Austrian meal, which had been carried thither, to be safe from the redhot balls.

"It was thought the Austrians, our Bridge being down, might try a sally again. To prevent which, hardly was

the rain done, when, on our part, a rocket flew aloft; and there began on the City, from all sides, a deluge of

bombs and red hot balls. So that the still dripping City was set fire to, in various parts: and we could hear

[what this Editor never can forget] the WEHKLAGEN (wail) of the Townsfolk as they tried to quench it,

and it always burst out again. The firedeluge lasted for six hours."Human WEHKLAGEN, through the

hollow of Night, audible to the Prussians and us: "Woe's me! waterdeluges, then firedeluges; death on

every hand!" According to the Austrian accounts, there perished, by bursting of bombshells, falling of walls,

by hunger and other misery and hurts, "above 9,000 Townsfolk in this Siege." Yes, my Imperial friends; War

is not a thing of streamering and ornamental trumpeting alone; War is an inexorable, dangerously

incalculable thing. Is it not a terrible question, at whose door lies the beginning of a War!

"JUNE 5th, 12,000 poor people of Prag were pushed out: 'Useless mouths, will you contrive to disappear

some way!' But, after haggling about all day, they had to be admitted in again, under penalty of being shot.

"JUNE 8th, City looking black and ruinous, whole of the Neustadt in ashes; few houses left in the Jew Town;

in the Altstadt the fire raged on (WUTHETE FORT). Nothing but ruin and confusion over there; population

hiding in cellars, getting killed by falling buildings. Burgermeister and Townsfolk besiege Prince Karl, 'For

the Virgin's sake, have pity on us, Your Serenity!' Poor Prince Karl has to be deaf, whatever his feelings.

"He was diligent in attending mass, they say: he alone of the Princes, of whom there were several; two Saxon

Princes among others, Prince Xavier the elder of them, who will be heard of again. A profane set, these,

lodging in the CLEMENTINUM [vast Jesuit Edifice, which had been cleared out for them, and "the windows

filled with dung outside," against balls]: there, with wines of fine vintage, and cookeries plentiful and

exquisite, that know nothing of famine outside, they led an idle disorderly life, ran races in the long

corridors [not so bad a course], dressed themselves in Priests' vestures [which are abundant in such locality],

and made travesties and mummeries of Holy Religion; the wretched creatures, defying despair, as buccaneers

might when their ship is sinking. To surrender, everything forbids; of escape, there is no possibility.

"JUNE 9th, The bombardment abates; a LABORATORIUM of our own flew aloft by some spark or accident;

"JUNE 15th, From the King's Camp a few bombs [King himself now gone] kindled the City in three

places:"but there is, by this time, new game afield; Prag Siege awaiting its decision not at Prag, but some

Friedrich has been doing his utmost; diligent, by all methods, to learn where the Austrian Magazines were,

that is, on what special edifices and localities shot might be expended with advantage; and has fired into these

"Spies being, above all, essential in this business, Friedrich had bethought him of one Kasebier, a supreme of

Housebreakers, whom he has, safe with a ball at his ankle, doing forced labor at Spandau [in Stettin, if it

mattered]. Kasebier was actually sent for, pardon promised him if he could do the State a service. Kasebier

smuggled himself twice, perhaps three times, into Prag; but the fourth time he did not come back." [Retzow,

i. 108. n.] Another Note says: "Kasebier was a Tailor, and Son of a Tailor, in Halle; and the expertest of

Thieves. Had been doing forced labor, in Stettin, since 1748; twice did get into Prag; third time, vanished. A

highly celebrated Prussian thief; still a myth among the People, like Dick Turpin or Cartouche, except that his

We learn vaguely that the price of horseflesh in Prag has risen to double; famine very sore: but still one

hears nothing of surrender. And again there is vague rumor that the City may be as it will; but that the

Garrison has meal, after all we have ruined, which will last till October. Such a Problem has this King:

soluble within the time; or not soluble? Such a question for the whole world, and for himself more than any.

On and after June 9th, the bombardment at Prag abated, and never rose to briskness again; the place of trial

for decision of that Siege having flitted elsewhither, as we said. About that time, rumors came in, not so

favorable, from the Duke of Bevern; which Friedrich, strong in hope, strove visibly to disbelieve, but at last

could not. Bevern reports that Daun is actually coming on, far too strong for his resisting;in other terms,

that the Siege of Prag will not decide itself by bombardment, but otherwise and elsewhere. Of which we must

now give some account; brief as may be, especially in regard to the preliminary or marching part.

Daun, whose light troops plundered Brandeis (almost within wind of the Prussian Rear) on the day while

Prag Battle was fighting, had, on that fatal event, gradually drawn back to Czaslau, a place we used to know

fifteen years ago; and there, or in those neighborhoods, defensively manoeuvring, and hanging upon

Kuttenberg, Kolin, especially upon his Magazine of Suchdol, Daun, always rather drawing back, with

BrunswickBevern vigilantly waiting on him, has continued ever since; diligently recruiting himself; ranking

the remains of the right wing defeated at Prag; drawing regiments out of Mahren, or whencesoever to be had.

Till, by these methods, he is grown 60,000 strong; nearly thrice superior to Bevern; though being a "Fabius

Cunctator" (so called by and by), he as yet attempts nothing. Forty thousand in Prag, with Sixty here in the

Czaslau Quarter, [Tempelhof, i. 196; Retzow (i. 107, 109) counts 46,000+66,000.] that makes 100,000; say

his Prussian Majesty has twothirds of the number: can the Fabius Cunctator attempt nothing, before Prag

Order comes to him from Vienna: "Rescue Prag; straightway go upon it, cost what it like!" Daun does go

upon it; advances visibly towards Prag, Bevern obliged to fall back in front of him. Sunday, 12th June, Daun

despatches several Officers to Prince Karl at Prag, with notice that, "On the 20th, Monday come a week, he

will be in the neighborhood of Prag with this view:they, of course, to sally out, and help from rearward."

"Several Officers, under various disguises," go with that message, June 12th; but none of them could get into

the City; and some of them, I judge, must have fallen into the Prussian Hussar Parties:at any rate, the news

they carried did get into the Prussian circuit, and produced an instant resolution there. Early next morning,

Monday 13th, King Friedrich, with what disposable force is on the spot,10,000 capable of being spared

from siegework, and 4,000 more that will be capable of following, under Prince Moritz, in two days,sets

forth in all speed. Joins Bevern that same night; at Kaurzim, thirtyfive miles off, which is about midway

from Prag to Czaslau, and only three miles or so from Daun's quarters that night,had the King known it,

Daun must be instantly gone into; and shall,if he is there at all, and not fallen back at the first rumor of us,

as Friedrich rather supposes. In any case, there are preliminaries indispensable: the 4,000 of Prince Moritz

still to come up; secondly, bread to be had for us, which is baking at Nimburg, across the Elbe, twenty miles

off; lastly (or rather firstly, and most indispensable of all), Daun to be reconnoitred. Friedrich reconnoitres

Daun with all diligence; pushes on everything according to his wont; much obstructed in the reconnoitring by

Pandour clouds, under which Daun has veiled himself, which far outnumber our small Hussar force. Daun, as

usual,showing always great skill in regard to camps and positions,has planted himself in difficult

country: a little river with its boggy pools in front; behind and around, an intricate broken country of knolls

and swamps, one ridge in it which they even call a BERG or Hill, Kamhayek Berg; not much of a Hill after

all, but forming a long backbone to the locality, west end of it straight behind Daun's centre, at present.

Friedrich's position is from north to south; like Daun's, taking advantage of what heights and brooks there are;

and edging northward to be near his breadovens: right wing still holds by Kaurzim, left wing looking down

on Planian, a little Town on the High Road (KAISERSTRASSE) from Prag to Vienna. Little Town destined

to get up its name in a day or two,next little Town to which, twelve miles farther on, is Kolin, secretly

destined to become and continue still more famous among mankind. Kolin is close to the Elbe, left or south

bank; Elbe hereabouts strikes into his long northwestern course (to Wittenberg all the way; Pirna, say 150

miles off, is his halfway house in that direction);strikes off northward hereabouts, making for Nimburg,

among other places: Planian, right south of Nimburg, is already fifteen good miles from Elbe.

This is Friedrich's position, Wednesday, June 15th and the day following; somewhat nearer his ovens than

yesterday. Daun is yet parallel to him, has his centre behind Swoyschitz, an insignificant Village at the foot of

those Kamhayek Heights, which is, ever since, to be found in Maps. Friday, 17th, Friedrich's breadwagons

and 4,000 having come in, as doubtless the Pandours report in the proper place, Daun does not quite like his

strong position any more, but would prefer a stronger. Friday about sunset, "great clouds of dust" rise from

Daun: changing his position, the Prussians see, if for Pandours and gathering darkness they can at present see

little else. Daun, truly, observing the King to have in that manner edged up, towards Planian, is afraid of his

right wing from such a neighbor. So that the reader must take his Map again. Or, if he care not for such

things, let him skip, and leave me solitary to my sad function; till we can meet on easier ground, and report

the battle which ensued. Daun hustles his right wing back out of that dangerous proximity; wheels his whole

right wing and centre ninety degrees round, so as to reach out now towards Kolin, and lie on the north slope

of the Kamhayek ridge; places his left wing EN POTENCE (gibbetwise), hanging round the western end of

said Kamhayek, its southern extremity at Swoyschitz, its northern at Hradenin, where (not a mile from

Planian) his right wing had formerly been;with other intricate movements not worth following, under my

questionable guidance, on a Map with unpronounceable names. Enough to say that Daun's right wing is now

far east at Krzeczhorz, well beyond Chotzemitz, whereabouts his centre now comes to stand (and most of his

horse THERE, both the wings being hilly and rough, unfit for horse);and that, this being nearly the last of

Daun's shiftings and hustlings for the present, or indeed in essential respects the very last, readers may as well

Hustled into this still stronger place, with wheeling and shoving, which lasted to a late hour, Daun composes

himself for the night. He lies now, with centre and right looking northward, pretty much parallel to the

PlanianKolin or PragVienna Highway, and about a mile south of the same; extreme posts extending almost

to Kolin on that side; left wing well planted EN POTENCE; Kamhayek ridge, north face and west end of it,

completely his on both the exposed or AntiPrussian faces. Friedrich feels uncertain whether he has not gone

By break of day Friedrich starts, having cleared off certain Pandour swarms visible in places of difficulty,

who go on first notice, and without shot fired. [Lloyd, i. 61 et seq. (or Tempelhof's Translation, i. 151164);

Tempelhof's own Account is, i. 179196; Retzow's, i. 120149 (fewer errors of detail than usual); Kutzen,

Der Tag von Kolin (Breslau, 1857), a useful little compilation from many sources. Very incorrect most of the

common accounts are; Kausler's Schlachten, Jomini, and the like.] Marches through Planian in two columns,

along the Kolin Highway and to north of it; marches on, four or five miles farther, nothing visible but the

skirts of retiring Pandours,"Daun's rearguard probably?" Friedrich himself is with Ziethen, who has

the vanguard, as Friedrich's wont is, eagerly enough looking out; reaches a certain Inn on the wayside

(WIRTHSHAUS "of Slatislunz or GOLDENSUN," say the Modern Books,though I am driven to think it

Novomiesto, nearer Planian; but will not quarrel on the subject); Inn of good height for one thing; and there,

mounting to the topstory or perhaps the leads, descries Daun, stretching far and wide, leant against the

Kamhayek, in the summer morning. What a sight for Friedrich: "Big game SHALL be played, then; death

Friedrich calls halt: rest here a little; to consider, examine, settle how. A hot close morning; rest for an hour

or two, till our rear from Kaurzim come up: horses and men will be the better for it,horses can have a

mouthful of grass, mouthful of water; some of them "had no drink last night, so late in getting home." Poor

quadrupeds, they also have to get into a blaze of battlerage this day, and be blown to pieces a great many of

them,in a quarrel not of their seeking! Horse and rider are alike satisfied on that latter point; silently ready

At this Hostelry of Novomiesto (not of Slatislunz or "GOLDENSUN" at all, which is a "Sun" fallen

dismally eclipsed in other ways ["The Inn of SlatiSlunz was burnt, about twenty years ago; nothing of it but

the stone walls now dates from Friedrich's time. It is a biggish solidlooking House of two stories (whether

ever of three, I could not learn); stands pleasantly, at the crown of a long rise from Kolin;and inwardly,

alas, in our day, offers little but bad smells and negative quantities! Only the ground floor is now inhabited.

From the front, your view northward, Nimburg way, across the Elbe Valley, is fertile, widewaving, pretty:

but rearward, upstairs,having with difficulty got permission,you find bare balks, tattered feathers,

several hundredweight of pigeon's dung, and no outlook at all, except into walls of officehouses and the

overhanging brow of Heights,fatal, clearly, to any view of Daun, even from a third story!" (TOURIST'S

NOTE, 1858.)Tempelhof (UBI SUPRA) seems to have known the right, place; not, Retzow, or almost

anybody since: and indeed the question, except for expressly Military people, is of no moment.]), Friedrich

halted for three hours and more; saw Daun developing himself into new Order of Battle, "every part of his

position visible;" considered with his whole might what was to be tried upon him;and about noon, having

made up his mind, called his Generals, in sight of the phenomenon itself there, to give them their various

orders and injunctions in regard to the same. The Plan of Fight, which was thought then, and is still thought

by everybody, an excellent one,resting on the "oblique order of attack," Friedrich's favorite mode,was,

Daun has by this time deployed himself; in three lines, or two lines and a reserve; on the highlying

Champaign south of the PlanianKolin Great Road; south, say a mile, and over the crests of the rising

ground, or Kamhayek ridge, so that from the Great Road you can see nothing of him. His line, swaying here

and there a little, to take advantage of its ground, extends nearly five miles, from east to west; pointing

towards Planian side, the left wing of it; from Planian, eastward, the way Friedrich has marched, Daun's left

wing may be four miles distant. On the other side, Daun's right wingmain line always pretty parallel to the

Highway, and pointing rather southward of Kolinreaches to the small Hamlet of Krzeczhorz, which is two

miles off Kolin. In front of his centre is a Village called Chotzemitz (from which for a while, in those months,

the Battle gets its name, "Battle of Chotzemitz," by Daun's christening): in front of him, to right or to left of

Chotzemitz, are some four or even six other Villages (dim rustic Hamlets, invisible from the High Road),

every Village of which Daun has well beset with batteries, with good infantry, not to speak of Croat parties

hovering about, or dismounted Pandours squatted in the corn. That easternmost Village of his is spelt

"Krzeczhorz" (unpronounceable to mankind), a dirty little place; in and round which the Battle had its hinge

or cardinal point: the others, as abstruse of spelling, all but equally impossible to the human organs, we will

forbear to name, except in case of necessity. Half a mile behind Krzeczhorz (let us write it Kreczor, for the

future: what can we do?), is a thin little Oakwood, bushes mainly, but with sparse trees too, which is now

quite stubbed out, though it was then important enough, and played a great part in the result of this day's

work. Radowesnitz, a pronounceable little Village, half a mile farther or southward of the Oakbush, is

beyond the extremity of Daun's position; low down on a marshy little Brook, which oozes through lakes and

Most or all of these Villages are on little Brooks (natural thirst so leading them): always some little runlet of

water, not so swampy when there is any fall for it; in general lively when it gets over the ridge, and becomes

visible from this Highway. And it is curious to see what a considerable dell, or green ascending chasm, this

little thread of water, working at all moments for thousands of years, has hollowed out for itself in the sloping

ground; making a great military obstacle, if you are mounting to attack there. Poor Czech Hamlets all of

them, dirty, dark, malodorous, ignorant, abhorrent of German speech;in what nook those inarticulate

inhabitants, diving underground at a great rate this morning, have hidden themselves today, I know not. The

country consists of knolls and slopes, with swamps intermediate; rises higher on the Planian side; but except

the top of that Kamhayek ridge on the Planian side, and "Friedrich'sBerg" on the Kolin side, there is nothing

that you could think of calling a Hill, though many Books (and even Friedrich's Book) rashly say otherwise.

Friedrich'sBerg, now so called, is on the north side of the Highway: half a mile northeastward of Slatislunz,

the malodorous Inn. A conical height of perhaps a hundred and fifty feet; rises rather suddenly from the

stillsloping ground, checking the slope there; on which the Austrian populations have built some memorial

lately, notable to Tourists. Here Friedrich "stood during the Battle," say they; and the Prussians "had a battery

there." Which remains uncertain to me, at least the battery part of it: that Friedrich himself was there, now

and then, can be believed; but not that he kept "standing there" for long together. Friedrich'sBerg does

command some view of the Kreczor scene, which at times was cardinal, at others not: but Friedrich did not

Friedrich, from his Inn near Planian, seeing how Daun deploys himself, considers him impregnable on the left

wing; impregnable, too, in front: not so on the Kreczor side, right flank and rear; but capable of being rolled

together, if well struck at there. Thither therefore; that is his vulnerable point. March along his front: quietly

parallel in due Order of Battle, till we can bend round, and plunge in upon that. The Van, which consists of

Ziethen's Horse and Hulsen's Infantry; Van, having faced to right at the proper moment and so become Left

Wing, will attack Kreczor; probably carry it; each Division following will in like manner face to right when it

arrives there, and fall on in regular succession in support of Hulsen (at Hulsen's right flank, if Hulsen be

found prospering): our Right Wing is to refuse itself, and be as a Reserve,no fighting on the road, you

others, but steady towards Hulsen, in continual succession, all you; no facing round, no fighting anywhere,

The word is given about 2 P.M.; and all, on the instant, is in motion; rolls steadily eastward, in two columns,

which will become First Line and Second. One along the Highway, the second at due distance leftward on the

green ground, no hedge or other obstacle obstructing in that part of the world. Daun's batteries, on the right,

spit at them in passing, to no purpose; sputters of Pandour musketry, from coverts, there may be: Prussians

finely disregarding, pass along; flowing tidelike towards THEIR goal and place of choice. An impressive

phenomenon in the sunny afternoon; with Daun expectant of them, and the Czech populations well hidden

Ziethen, vanmost of all, finds Nadasti and his Austrian squadrons drawn across the Highway, hitherward of

the Kreczor latitude: Ziethen dashes on Nadasti; tumbles his squadrons and him away; clears the Road, and

Kreczor neighborhood, of Nadasti: drives him quite into the hollow of Radowesnitz, where he stood inactive

for the rest of the day. Hulsen now at the level of Kreczor (in the latitude of Kreczor, as we phrased it), halts,

faces to right; stiffly presses up, opens his cannonthunders, his bayonetcharges and platoonfires upon

Kreczor. Stiffly pressing up, in spite of the violent counterthunders, Hulsen does manage Kreczor without

very much delay, completely enough, and like a workman; takes the battery, two batteries; overturns the

Infantry;in a word, has seized Kreczor, and, as new tenant, swept the old, and their litter, quite out. Of all

which Ziethen has now the chase, and by no means will neglect that duty. Ziethen, driving the rout before

him, has driven it in some minutes past the little Oakwood above mentioned; and, or rather BUT,what is

much to be noted,is there taken in flank with cannonshot and musketry, Daun having put batteries and

Croat parties in the Oakwood; and is forced to draw bridle, and get out of range again.

Hulsen, advancing towards this little Oakwood, is surprised to discover, not the wood alone, but a strong

Austrian force, foot and horse, to rear of it;such had been Daun's and Nadasti's precaution, on view of

those Friedrich phenomena, flowing on from Planian, guessed to be hitherward. At sight of which Wood and

foot party, Hulsen, no new Battalion having yet arrived to second him, pauses, merely cannonading from the

distance, till new Battalions shall arrive. Unhappily they did not arrive, or not in due quantity at the set

time,for what reason, by what strange mistake? men still ask themselves. Probably by more mistakes than

one. Enough, Hulsen struggling here all day, with reinforcements never adequate, did take the Wood, and

then lose it; did take and lose this and that;but was unable to make more of it than keep his ground

thereabouts. A resolute man, says Retzow, but without invention of his own, or head to mend the mistakes of

others. In and about Kreczor, Hulsen did maintain himself with more and more tenacity, till the general

avalanche, fruit of sad mistakes swept HIM, quite spasmodically struggling at that period, off to the edge of

it, and all the others clean away! Mistakes have been to rightwards, one or even two, the fruit of which, small

at first, suffices to turn the balance, and ends in an avalanche, or precipitous descent of ruin on the Prussian

One mistake there was, miles westward on the right wing; due to Mannstein, our too impetuous Russian

friend, Mannstein well to right, while marching forward according to order, has Croat musketry spitting upon

him from amid the high corn, to an inconvenient extent: such was the common lot, which others had borne

and disregarded: perhaps it was beyond the average on Mannstein, or Mannstein's patience was less infinite;

any way it provoked Mannstein to boil over; and in an evil moment he said, "Extinguish me that Croat

canaille, then!" Regiment Bornstedt faced to right, accordingly; took to extinguishing the Croat canaille,

which of course fled at once, or squatted closer, but came back with reinforcements; drew Mannstein deeper

in, fatally delayed Bornstedt, and proved widely ruinous. For now he stopped the way to those following him:

regiments marching on to rear of Mannstein see Mannstein halted, volleying with the Austrians; ask

themselves "How? Is there new order come? Attack to be in this point?" And successively fall on to support

Mannstein, as the one clear point in such dubiety. So that the whole right wing from Regiment Bornstedt

westward is storming up the difficult steeps, in hot conflict with the Austrians there, where success against

them had been judged impracticable;and there is now no reserve force anywhere to be applied to in

emergency, for Hulsen's behoof or another's; and the Plan of Battle from Mannstein westward has been

fatally overturned. Poor Mannstein, there is no doubt, committed this error, being too fiery a man. Surely to

him it was no luxury, and he paid the smart for it in skin and soul: "badly wounded in this business;" nay, in

To Mannstein's mistake, Friedrich himself, in his account of Kolin, mainly imputes the disaster that followed;

and such, then and afterwards, was the universal judgment in military circles; loading the memory of too

impetuous Mannstein with the whole. [See Retzow, i. 135; Templehof, i. 214, 220.] Much talk there was in

Prussian military circles; but there must also have been an admirable silence on the part of some. To Three

Persons it was known that another strange incident had happened far ahead, far eastward, of Mannstein's

position: incident which did not by any means tend to alleviate, which could only strengthen and widen, the

evil results of Mannstein; and which might have lifted part of the load from Mannstein's memory! Not till the

present Century, after the lapse of almost fifty years, was this secret slowly dug out of silence, and submitted

The incident is this;never whispered of for near fifty years (so silent were the three); and endlessly tossed

about since that; the sense of it not understood till almost now. [See Retzow, i. 126; Berenhorst; then

FINALLY Kutzen, pp. 99, 217.] The three parties were: King Friedrich; Moritz of Dessau, leading on the

centre here; Moritz's young Nephew Franz, Heir of Dessau, a brisk lad of seventeen, learning War here as

Aidedecamp to Moritz: the exact spot is not known to me,probably the ground near that Inn of

Slatislunz, or GoldenSun; between the foot of Friedrich'sBerg and that:fact indubitable, though kept

dark so long. Moritz is marching with the centre, or main battle, that way, intending to wheel and turn

hillwards, Kreczorwise, as per order, certain furlongs ahead; when Friedrich (having, so I can conceive it,

seen from his Hilltop, how Hulsen had done Kreczor, altogether prosperous there; and what endless

capability there was of prospering to all lengths and speeding the general winning, were Hulsen but supported

soon enough, were there any safe shortcut to Hulsen) dashed from his Hilltop in hot haste towards Prince

Moritz, General of the centre, intending to direct him upon such shortcut; and hastily said, with Olympian

brevity and fire, "Face to right HERE!" With Jovelike brevity, and in such blaze of Olympian fire as we

may imagine. Moritz himself is of brief, crabbed, fiery mind, brief in temper; and answers to the effect,

"Impossible to attack the enemy here, your Majesty; postured as they are; and we with such orders gone

abroad!""Face to right, I tell you!" said the King, still more Olympian, and too emphatic for explaining.

Moritz, I hope, paused, but rather think he did not, before remonstrating the second time; neither perhaps was

his voice so low as it should have been: it is certain Friedrich dashed quite up to Moritz at this second

remonstrance, flashed out his sword (the only time he ever drew his sword in battle); and now, gone all to

mere Olympian lightning and thundertone, asks in THIS attitude, "WILL ER (Will He) obey orders,

Prince Franz, the young Nephew of Moritz, alone witnessed this scene; scene to be locked in threefold

silence. In his old age, Franz had whispered it to Berenhorst, his bastard HalfUncle, a famed military

Critic,who is still in the highest repute that way (Berenhorst's KRIEGSKUNST, and other deep Books),

and is recognizable, to LAY readers, for an abstruse strong judgment; with equal strength of abstruse temper

hidden behind it, and very privately a deep grudge towards Friedrich, scarcely repressible on opportunity.

From Berenhorst it irrepressibly oozed out; ["Heinrich van Berenhorst [a natural son of the Old Dessauer's],

in his Betrachtungen uber die Kriegskunst, is the first that alludes to it in print. (Leipzig, 1797,page in

SECOND edition, 1798, is i. 219)."] much more to Friedrich's disadvantage than it now looks when wholly

seen into. Not change of plan, not ruinous caprice on Friedrich's part, as Berenhorst, Retzow and others

would have it; only excess of brevity towards Moritz, and accident of the Olympian fire breaking out.

Friedrich is chargeable with nothing, except perhaps (what Moritz knows the evil of) trying for a shortcut!

Such is now the received interpretation. Prince Franz, to his last day, refused to speak again on the subject;

judiciously repentant, we can fancy, of having spoken at all, and brought such a matter into the streets and

their piepowder adjudications. [In KUTZEN, pp. 217237, a long dissertation on it.] For the present, he is

Friedrich, withdrawing to his Height again, and looking back on Moritz, finds that he is making right in upon

the Austrian line; which was by no means Friedrich's meaning, had not he been so brief. Friedrich, doubtless

with pain, remembers now that he had said only, "Face to right!" and had then got into Olympian tempest,

which left things dark to Moritz. "HALBLINKS, Half to left withal!" he despatches that new order to

Moritz, with the utmost speed: "Face to right; THEN, forward half to left." Had Moritz, at the first, got that

commentary to his order, there had probably been no remonstrance on Moritz's part, no Olympian scene to

keep silent; and Moritz, taking that diagonal direction from the first, had hit in at or below Kreczor, at the

very point where he was needed. Alas for overhaste; shortcuts, if they are to be good, ought at least to be

made clear! Moritz, on the new order reaching him, does instantly steer halfleft: but he arrives now above

Kreczor, strikes the Austrian line on this side of Kreczor; disjoined from Hulsen, where he can do no good to

Hulsen: in brief, Moritz, and now the whole line with him, have to do as Mannstein and sequel are doing,

attack in face, not in flank; and try what, in the proportion of one to two, uphill, and against batteries, they

And so, from right wing to left, miles long, there is now universal storm of volleying, bayonetcharging,

thunder of artillery, case shot, cartridgeshot, and sulphurous devouring whirlwind; the wrestle very tough

and furious, especially on the assaulting side. Here, as at Prag, the Prussian troops were one and all in the

fire; each doing strenuously his utmost, no complaint to be made of their performance. More perfect soldiers,

I believe, were rarely or never seen on any field of war. But there is no reserve left: Mannstein and the rest,

who should have been reserve, and at a General's disposal, we see what they are doing! In vain, or nearly so,

is Friedrich's tactic or manoeuvring talent; what now is there to manoeuvre? All is now gone up into one

combustion. To fan the fire, to be here, there, fanning the fire where need shows: this is now Friedrich's

function; "everywhere in the hottest of the fight," that is all we at present know of him, invisible to us

otherwise. This deathwrestle lasted perhaps four hours; till seven or towards eight o'clock in the June

And, in fact, at last the issue turned upon a hair;such the empire of Chance in War matters. Cautious Daun,

it is well known, did not like the aspect of the thing; cautious Daun thinks to himself, "If we get pushed back

into that Camp of yesternight, down the Kamhayek Heights, and right into the impassable swamps; the

reverse way, Heights now HIS, not ours, and impassable swamps waiting to swallow us? Wreck complete,

and surrender at discretion!" Daun writes in pencil: "The retreat is to Suchdol" (Kuttenberg way,

southward, where we have heights again and magazines); Daun's Aidedecamp is galloping everywhither

with that important Document; and Generals are preparing for retreat accordingly,one General on the right

wing has, visibly to Hulsen and us, his cannon out of battery, and under way rearwards; a welcome sight to

Hulsen, who, with imperfect reinforcement, is toughly maintaining himself there all day.

And now the Daun Aidedecamp, so Chance would have it, cannot find Nostitz the Saxon Commandant of

Horse in that quarter; finds a "Saxon LieutenantColonel B" ("Benkendorf" all Books now write him

plainly), who, by another little chance, had been still left there: "Can the Herr LieutenantColonel tell me

where General Nostitz is?" Benkendorf can tell;will himself take the message: but Benkendorf looks into

the important Pencil Document; thinks it premature, wasteful, and that the contrary is feasible! persuades

Nostitz so to think; persuades this regiment and that (Saxon, Austrian, horse and foot); though the cannon in

retreat go trundling past them: "Merely shifting their battery, don't you see:Steady!" And, in fine,

organizes, of Saxon and Austrian horse and foot in promising quantity (Saxons in great fury on the Pirna

score, not to say the Striegau, and other old grudges), a new unanimous assault on Hulsen.

The assault was furious, and became ever more so; at length irresistible to Hulsen. Hulsen's horse, pressing

on as to victory, are at last hurled back; could not be rallied; [That of "RUCKER, WOLLT IHR EWIG

LEBEN, Rascals, would you live forever?" with the "Fritz, for eight groschen, this day there has been

enough!"is to be counted pure myth; not unsuccessful, in its withered kind.] fairly fled (some of them);

confusing Hulsen's foot,foot is broken, instantly ranks itself, as the manner of Prussians is; ranks itself in

impromptu squares, and stands fiercely defensive again, amid the slashing and careering: wrestle of extreme

fury, say the witnesses. "This for Striegau!" cried the Saxon dragoons, furiously sabring. [Archenholtz, i.

100.] Yes; and is there nothing to account of Pirna, and the later scores? Scores unliquidated, very many still;

but the end is, Hulsen is driven away; retreats, Parthianlike, downhill, some space; whose sad example has

to spread rightwards like a powdertrain, till all are in retreat,northward, towards Nimburg, is the

Friedrich made vehement effort to rally the Horse, to rally this and that; but to no purpose: one account says

he did collect some small body, and marched forth at the head of it against a certain battery; but, in his rear,

man after man fell away, till LieutenantColonel Grant (not "Le Grand," as some call him, and indeed there

is an ACCENT of Scotch in him, still audible to us here) had to remark, "Your Majesty and I cannot take the

battery ourselves!" Upon which Friedrich turned round; and, finding nobody, looked at the Enemy through

Seeing the Battle irretrievably lost, he now called Bevern and Moritz to him; gave them charge of the

retreat"To Nimburg; cross Elbe there [fifteen good miles away]; and in the defiles of Planian have especial

care!" and himself rode off thitherward, his GardeduCorps escorting. Retzow says, "a swarm of fugitive

horse soldiers, baggagepeople, grooms and led horses gathered in the train of him: these latter, at one

point," Retzow has heard in Opposition circles, "rushed up, galloping: 'Enemy's hussars upon us!' and set the

whole party to the gallop for some time, till they found the alarm was false." [Ib. i. 140.] Of Friedrich we see

nothing, except as if by cloudy moonlight in an uncertain manner, through this and the other small Anecdote,

Daun gave no chase anywhere; on his extreme left he had, perhaps as preparative for chasing, ordered out the

cavalry; "General Stampach and cavalry from the centre," with cannon, with infantry and appliances, to clear

away the wrecks of Mannstein, and what still stands, to right of him, on the Planian Highway yonder. But

Stampach found "obstacles of ground," wet obstacles and also dry,Prussian posts, smaller and greater, who

would not stir a handbreadth: in fact, an altogether deadly storm of Negative, spontaneous on their part,

from the indignant regiments thereabouts, King's First Battalion, and two others; who blazed out on

Stampach in an extraordinary manner, tearing to shreds every attempt of his, themselves stiff as steel: "Die,

all of us, rather than stir!" And, in fact, the second man of these poor fellows did die there? [Kutzen, p. 138

(from the canonical, or "STAFFOFFICER'S" enumeration: see SUPRA, p. 403 n.).] So that Bevern,

Commander in that part, who was absent speaking with the King, found on his return a new battle broken out;

which he did not forbid but encourage; till Stampach had enough, and withdrew in rather torn condition. This,

if this were some preparative for chasing, was what Daun did of it, in the cavalry way; and this was all. The

infantry he strictly prohibited to stir from their position,"No saying, if we come into the level ground, with

such an enemy!"and passed the night under arms. Far on our left, or what was once our left, Ziethen with

all his squadrons, nay Hulsen with most of his battalions, continued steady on the ground; and marched away

"It seemed," says Tempelhof, in splenetic tone, "as if Feldmarschall Daun, like a good Christian, would not

suffer the sun to go down on his wrath. This day, nearly the longest in the year, he allowed the Prussian

cavalry, which had beaten Nadasti, to stand quiet on the field till ten at night [till nine]; he did not send a

single hussar in chase of the infantry. He stood all night under arms; and next day returned to his old Camp,

as if he had been afraid the King would come back. Arriving there himself, he could see, about ten in the

morning, behind Kaurzim and Planian, the whole Prussian Baggage fallen into such a coil that the wagons

were with difficulty got on way again; nevertheless he let it, under cover of the grenadier battalion

Manteuffel, go in peace." [Tempelhof, i. 195.] A man that for caution and slowness could make no use of his

The Austrian force in the Field this day is counted to have been 60,000; their losses in killed, wounded and

missing, 8,114. The Prussians, who began 34,000 in strength, lost 13,773; of whom prisoners (including all

the wounded), 5,380. Their baggage, we have seen, was not meddled with: they lost 45 cannon, 22 flags,a

loss not worth adding, in comparison to this sore havoc, for the second time, in the flower of the Prussian

Infantry. [Retzow, i. 141 (whose numbers are apt to be inaccurate); Kutzen, p. 144 (who depends on the

The news reached Prag Camp at two in the morning (Sunday, 19th): to the sorrowful amazement of the

Generals there; who "stood all silent; only the Prince of Prussia breaking out into loud lamentations and

accusations," which even Retzow thinks unseemly. Friedrich arrived that Sunday evening: and the Siege was

raised, next day; with next to no hindrance or injury. With none at all on the part of Daun; who was still

standing among the heights and swamps of Planian,busy singing, or shooting, universal TEDEUM, with

very great rolling fire and other pomp, that day while Friedrich gathered his Siegegoods and got on march.

No tongue can express the joy of the Austrians over this victory, vouchsafed them, in this manner, by

LieutenantColonel Benkendorf and the Powers above. Miraculously, behold, they are not upon the retreat to

Suchdol, at doublequick, and in ragged everlengthening line; but stand here, keeping rank all night, on the

PlanianKolin upland of the Kamhayek:behold, they have actually beaten Friedrich; for the first time, not

been beaten by him. Clearly beaten that Friedrich, by some means or other. With such a result, too; consider

it,drawn sword was at our throat; and marvellously now it is turned round upon his (if Daun be alert), and

welet us rejoice to all lengths, and sing TEDEUM and TEDAUNUM with one throat, till the Heavens

There was quite a hurricane, or lengthened storm, of jubilation and tripudiation raised at Vienna on this

victory: New ORDER OF MARIA THERESA, in suitable Olympian fashion, with no end of regulating and

inaugurating,with Daun the first Chief of it; and "Pensions to Merit" a conspicuous part of the plan, we are

glad to see. It subsists to this day: the grandest Military Order the Austrians yet have. Which then deafened

the world, with its infinite solemnities, patentings, discoursings, trumpetings, for a good while. As was

natural, surely, to that high Imperial Lady with the magnanimous heart; to that loyal solid Austrian People

with its puddinghead. Daun is at the top of the Theresa Order, and of military renown in Vienna circles;of

LieutenantColonel Benkendorf I never heard that he got the least pension or recognition;continued

quietly a military lion to discerning men, for the rest of his days. ["Died at Dresden, General of Cavalry," 5th

Nay once, on Dauu's TEDEUM day, he had a kind of recognition;and even, by good accident, can tell us

"I was sent for to headquarters by a trumpeter,"Benkendorf was, "when all was ready for the

TEDEUM. Feldmarschall Daun was pleased to say at sight of me, 'That as I had had so much to do with the

victory, it was but right I should thank our Herr Gott along with him.' Having no change of clothes,as the

servant, who was to have a uniform and some linens ready for me, had galloped off during the Fight, and our

baggage was all gone to rearward, I tried to hustle out of sight among the crowd of Imperial Officers all in

gala: but the reigning Duke of Wurtemberg [Wilhelmina's Soninlaw, a perverse obstinate Herr, growing

ever more perverse; one of Wilhelmina's sad afflictions in these days] called me to him, and said, 'He would

give his whole wardrobe, could he wear that dusty coat with such honor as I!'"yes; and tried hard, in his

How lucky that Polish Majesty had some remains of Cavalry still at Warsaw in the Pirna time; that they were

made into a Saxon Brigade, and taken into the Austrian service; Brigade of three Regiments, Nostitz for

Chief, and this Benkendorf a LieutenantColonel, among them;and that Polish Majesty, though himself

Of Friedrich's nightthoughts at Nimburg; how he slept, and what his dreams were, we have no account.

Seldom did a wearied heart sink down into oblivion on such terms. By narrow miss, the game gone; and with

such results ahead. It was a right valiant plunge this that he made, with all his strength and all his skill, home

upon the heart of his chief enemy. To quench his chief enemy before another came up: it was a valiant plan,

and valiantly executed; and it has failed. To dictate peace from the walls of Vienna: that lay on the cards for

him this morning; and at night? Kolin is lost, the fruit of Prag Victory too is lost; and Schwerin and new

tens of thousands, unreplaceable for worth in this world, are lost; much is lost! Courage, your Majesty, all is

To the young Graf von Anhalt, on the road to Nimburg, he is recorded to have said, "Don't you know, then,

that every man must have his reverses (MAIS NE SAVEZVOUS DONC PAS QUE CHAQUE HOMME

DOIT AVOIR SES REVERS)? It appears I am to have mine." [Rodenbeck, i. 309.] And more vaguely, in the

AnecdoteBooks, is mention of some stanch ruggedly pious old Dragoon, who brought, in his steel cap, from

some fineflowing well he had discovered, a draught of pure water to the King; old Mother Earth's own gift,

through her rugged Dragoon, exquisite refection to the thirsty wearied soul; and spoke, in his Dragoon

dialect,"Never mind, your Majesty! DER ALLMACHTIGE and we; It shall be mended yet. 'The Kaiserin

may get a victory for once; but does that send us to the Devil (DAVON HOLT UNS DER

Next morning, several Books, and many Drawings and Sculptures of a dim unsuccessful nature, give us view

of him, at Kimburg; sitting silent "on a BRUNNENROHR" (Fountain Apparatus, wastepipe or

feedingpipe, too high for convenient sitting): he is stooping forward there, his eyes fixed on the ground, and

is scratching figures in the sand with his stick, as the broken troops reassemble round him. Archenholtz says:

"He surveyed with speechless feeling the small remnant of his Lifeguard of Foot, favorite First Battalion;

1,000 strong yesterday morning, hardly 400 now;"gone the others, in that furious AntiStampach outburst

which ended the day's work! "All soldiers of this chosen Battalion were personally known to him; their

names, their age, native place, their history [the pick of his Ruppin regiment was the basis of it]: in one day,

Death had mowed them down; they had fought like heroes, and it was for him that they had died. His eyes

were visibly wet, down his face rolled silent tears." [Archenholtz, i. 104, 101; Kutzen, pp. 259, 138; Retzow,

In public I never saw other tears from this King,though in private I do not warrant him; his sensibilities,

little as you would think it, being very lively and intense. "To work, however!" This King can shake away

such things; and is not given overmuch to retrospection on the unalterable Past. "Like dewdrops from the

lion's mane" (as is figuratively said); the lion swiftly rampant again! There was manifold swift ordering,

considering and determining, at Nimburg, that day; and towards night Friedrich shot rapidly into

Headquarters at Prag, where, by order, there is, as the first thing of all, a very rapid business going on, well

To fold one's Siegegear and Army neatly together from those Two Hilltops, and march away with them

safe, in sight of so many enemies: this has to be the first and rapidest thing; if this be found possible, as one

calculates it may. After which, the world of enemies, held in the slip so long, will rush in from all the four

Friedrich's History for the remaining six months of this Year falls, accordingly, into three Sections. Section

FIRST: Waiting how and towards what objects his enemies, the Austrians first of all, will advance;this

lasts for about a month; Friedrich waiting mainly at Leitmeritz, on guard there both of Saxony and of Silesia,

till this slowly declare itself. Slowly, perhaps almost stupidly, but by no means satisfactorily to Friedrich, as

will be seen! After which, Section SECOND of his History lasts above two months; Friedrich's enemies

being all got to the ground, and united in hope and resolution to overwhelm and abolish him; but their plans,

positions, operations so extremely various that, for a long time (end of August to beginning of November),

Friedrich cannot tell what to do with them; and has to scatter himself into thin threads, and roam about,

chiefly in Thuringen and the West of Saxony, seeking something to fight with, and finding nothing; getting

more and more impatient of such paltry misery; at times nigh desperate; and habitually drifting on

desperation as on a lee shore in the night, despite all his efforts. Till, in Section THIRD, which goes from

November 5th, through December 5th, and into the New Year, he does find what to do; and does it,in a

Three Sections; of which the reader shall successively have some idea, if he exert himself; though it is only in

snatches, suggestive to an active fancy, that we can promise to dwell on them, especially on the First Two,

which lie pretty much unsurveyable in those chaotic records, like a worldwide coil of thrums. Let us be

swift, in Friedrich's own manner; and try to disimprison the small portions of essential! Here, partly from

Eyewitnesses, are some Notes in regard to Section First: [Westphalen, Geschichte der Feldzuge des Herzogs

"SUNDAY, 19th JUNE, At 2 A.M., Major Grant arrives at Prag [must have started instantly after that of "We

two cannot take the battery, your Majesty!"]goes to Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, interim Commander

on the Ziscaberg, with order To raise Siege. Consternation on the part of some; worse, on the Prince of

Prussia's part; the others kept silence at least,and set instantly to work. On both Hills, the cannons are

removed (across Moldau the ZiscaHill ones), batteries destroyed, Siegegear neatly gathered up, to go in

wagons to Leitmeritz, thence by boat to Dresden; all this lies ready done, the dangerous part of it done, when

"MONDAY, 20th, before sunrise, Siege raised. At three in the morning Friedrich marches from the

Ziscaberg; to eastward he, to AltBunzlau, thence to AhLissa,"Nimburg way, with what objects we shall

see. "Marshal Keith's fine performance. Keith, from the Weissenberg, does not march, such packing and

loading still; all the baggages and artilleries being with Keith. Not till four in the afternoon did Keith march;

but beautifully then; and folded himself away,rearguard under Schmettau 'retreating checkerwise,'

nothing but Tolpatcheries attempting on him,westward, Budinward, without loss of a linstock, not to

speak of guns. Very prettily done on the part of Keith. By Budin, to Leitmeritz, he; where the King will join

Friedrich's errand in AltLissa, eastward, while Keith went westward, was, To be within due arm'slength of

the MoritzBevern, or beaten Kolin Army, which is coming up that way; intending to take post, and do its

best, in those parts, with Zittau Magazine and the Lausitz to rear of it. One of our Eyewitnesses, a Herr

Westphalen, Ferdinand of Brunswick's Secretary,who, with his Chief, got into wider fields before

"TUESDAY, 21st JUNE, 1757. King's Headquarters in Lissa or neighborhood till Friday next; which is

central for both these movements,Thursday, orders seven regiments of horse to reinforce Keith. No

"FRIDAY, 24th. Prince Moritz with the Kolin Army made appearance, all safe, and is to command here;

King intending for Keith. After dinner, and the due interchange of battalions to that end, King sets off, with

Prince Henri, towards Keith; Headquarter in AltBunzlau again. SATURDAY NIGHT, at Melnick;

SUNDAY, Gastorf: MONDAY NIGHT, 27th JUNE, Leitmeritz; King lodges in the Cathedral Close, in sight

of Keith, who is on the opposite side of Elbe,but the town has a Bridge for tomorrow. 'Never was a

quieter march; not the shadow of a Pandour visible. The Duke [Ferdinand, my Chief, Chatham's jewel that is

to be, and precious to England] has suffered much from a'in fact, from a COURS DE VENTRE, temporary

bowelderangement, which was very troublesome, owing to the excessive heats by day, and coldness of the

"TUESDAY, 28th. Junction with Keith,Bridge rightly secured, due party of dragoons and foot left on the

right bank, to occupy a height which covers Leitmeritz. 'Clearing of the Pascopol' (that is, sweeping the

Pandours out of it) is the first business; Colonel Loudon with his Pandours, a most swift sharpcutting man,

being now here in those parts; doing a deal of mischief. Three days ago, Saturday, 25th, Keith had sent seven

battalions, with the proper steelbesoms, on that Pascopol affair; Tuesday, on junction, Majesty sends three

more: job done on Wednesday; reported 'done,' though I should not be surprised," says Westphalen, "if

No;and before quitting hold, what is this that Loudon (on the very day of the King's arrival, June 27th), on

the old Field of Lobositz over yonder, has managed to do! General Mannstein, wounded at Kolin, happened,

with others in like case, to be passing that way, towards Dresden and better surgery,when Loudon's Croats

set upon them, scattering their slight escort: "Quarter, on surrender! Prisoners?" "Never!" answered

Mannstein; "Never!" that too impetuous man, starting out from his carriage, and snatching a musket: and was

instantly cut down there. And so ends;a man of strong head, and of heart only too strong. [Preuss, ii. 58;

From Prag onwards, here has been a delicate set of operations; perfectly executed,thanks to Friedrich's

rapidity of shift, and also to the cautious slowly puzzling mind of Daun. Had Daun used any diligence, had

Daun and Prince Karl been broad awake, together or even singly! But Friedrich guessed they seldom or never

were; that they would spend some days in puzzling; and that, with despatch, he would have time for

everything. Daun, we could observe, stood singing TEDEUM, greatly at leisure, in his old Camp, 20th June,

while Friedrich, from the first gray of morning, and diligently all day long, was withdrawing from the

trenches of Prag,Friedrich's people, self and goods getting folded out in the finest gradation, and with

perfect success; no Daun to hinder him, Daun leisurely doing TEDEUM, forty miles off, helping on the

WRONG side by that exertion! [Cogniazzo, ii. 367.]"Poor Browne, he is dead of his wounds, in Prag

yonder," writes Westphalen, in his Leitmeritz Journal, "news came to us July 1st: men said, 'Ah, that was why

Till June 26th, Daun and Karl had not united; nor, except sending out Loudon and Croats, done anything,

either of them. Sunday, June 26th, at Podschernitz on the old Field of Prag, a week and a day after Kolin,

they did get together; still seemingly a little puzzled, "Shall we follow the King? Shall we follow Moritz and

Bevern?"nothing clear for some time, except to send out Pandour parties upon both. Moritz, since parting

with the King in Alt Bunzlau neighborhood, has gone northward some marches, thirty miles or so, to

JUNGBunzlau,meeting of Iser and Elbe, surely a good position:Moritz, on receipt of these Pandour

allowances of his, writes to the King, "Shall we retreat on Zittau, then, your Majesty? Straight upon Zittau?"

Fancy Friedrich's astonishment; who well intends to eat the Country first, perhaps to fight if there be

chance, and at least to lie OUTSIDE the doors of Silesia and the Lausitz, as well as of Saxony here!and

answers, with his own hand, on the instant: "Your Dilection will not be so mad!" [In Preuss, ii. 58, the

pungent little Autograph in full.] And at once recalls Moritz, and appoints the Prince of Prussia to go and take

command. Who directly went;a most important step for the King's interests and his own. Whose fortunes

At Leitmeritz the King continues four weeks, with his Army parted in this way; waiting how the endless

hostile element, which begirdles his horizon all round, will shape itself into combinations, that he may set

upon the likeliest or the needfulest of these, when once it has disclosed itself. Horizon all round is black

enough: Austrians, French, Swedes, Russians, Reichs Army; closer upon him or not so close, all are rolling

in: Saxony, the Lausitz and Silesia, Brandenburg itself, it is uncertain which of these may soonest require his

The very day after his arrival in Leitmeritz,Tuesday, 28th June, while that junction with Keith was going

on, and the troops were defiling along the Bridge for junction with Keith,a heavy sorrow had befallen him,

which he yet knew not of. An irreparable Domestic loss; sad complement to these Military and other Public

disasters. Queen Sophie Dorothee, about whose health he had been anxious, but had again been set quiet, died

at Berlin that day. [Monbijou, 28th June, 1757; born at Hanover, 27th March, 1687.] In her seventy first

year: of no definite violent disease; worn down with chagrins and apprehensions, in this black whirlpool of

Public troubles. So far as appears, the news came on Friedrich by surprise:"bad cough," we hear of, and of

his anxieties about it, in the Spring time; then again of "improvement, recovery, in the fine weather;" no

thought, just now, of such an event: and he took it with a depth of affliction, which my less informed readers

July 2d, the news came: King withdrew into privacy; to weep and bewail under this new pungency of grief,

superadded to so many others. Mitchell says: "For two days he had no levee; only the Princes dined with him

[Princes Henri and Ferdinand; Prince of Prussia is gone to JungBunzlau, would get the sad message there,

among his other troubles]: yesterday, July 3d, King sent for me in the afternoon,the first time he has seen

anybody since the news came:I had the honor to remain with him some hours in his closet. I must own to

your Lordship I was most sensibly afflicted to see him indulging his grief, and giving way to the warmest

filial affections; recalling to mind the many obligations he had to her late Majesty; all she had suffered, and

how nobly she bore it; the good she did to everybody; the one comfort he now had, to think of having tried to

make her last years more agreeable." [ Papers and Memoirs, i. 253; Despatch to Holderness, 4th July

(slightly abridged);see ib. i. 357359 (Private Journal). Westphalen, ii. 14. See OEuvres de Frederic, iv.

182.] In the thick of public business, this kind of mood to Mitchell seems to have lasted all the time of

Leitmeritz, which is about three weeks yet: Mitchell's Notebooks and Despatches, in that part, have a fine

Biographic interest; the wholly human Friedrich wholly visible to us there as he seldom is. Going over his

past Life to Mitchell; brief, candid, pious to both his Parents;inexpressibly sad; like moonlight on the grave

This Friedrich, upon whom the whole world has risen like a mad Sorcerer'sSabbath, how safe he once lay in

his cradle, like the rest of us, mother's love wrapping him soft:and now! These thoughts commingle in a

very tragic way with the avalanche of public disasters which is thundering down on all sides. Warm tears the

meed of this new sorrow; small in compass, but greater in poignancy than all the rest together. "My poor old

Mother, oh, my Mother, that so loved me always, and would have given her own life to shelter mine!"It

was at Leitmeritz, as I guess, that Mitchell first made decisive acquaintance, what we may almost call

intimacy, with the King: we already defined him as a sagacious, longheaded, loyalhearted diplomatic

gentleman, Scotch by birth and by turn of character; abundantly polite, vigilant, discreet, and with a fund of

general sense and rugged veracity of mind; whom Friedrich at once recognized for what he was, and much

took to, finding a hearty return withal; so that they were soon well with one another, and continued so.

Mitchell, as orders were, "attended the King's person" all through this War, sometimes in the blaze of battle

itself and nothing but cannonshot going, if it so chanced; and has preserved, in his multifarious Papers, a

Mitchell's occasional society, conversation with a man of sense and manly character, which Friedrich always

much loved, was, no doubt, a resource to Friedrich in his lonely roamings and vicissitudes in those dark

years. No other British Ambassador ever had the luck to please him or be pleased by him,most of them, as

ExExchequer Legge and the like ExParliamentary people, he seems to have considered dull, obstinate,

wooden fellows, of fantastic, abrupt rather abstruse kind of character, not worth deciphering;some of them,

as Hanbury Williams, with the mischievous tic (more like galvanism or St.Vitus'dance) which he called

"wit," and the inconvenient turn for plotting and intriguing, Friedrich could not endure at all, but had them as

At Leitmeritz, it appears, he kept withdrawn to his closet a good deal; gave himself up to his sorrows and his

thoughts; would sit many hours drowned in tears, weeping bitterly like a child or a woman. This is strange to

some readers; but it is true,and ought to alter certain current notions. Friedrich, flashing like clear steel

upon evildoers and mendacious unjust persons and their works, is not by nature a cruel man, then, or an

unfeeling, as Rumor reports? Reader, no, far the reverse;and public Rumor, as you may have remarked, is

apt to be an extreme blockhead, full of fury and stupidity on such points, and had much better hold its tongue

till it know in some measure. Extreme sensibility is not sure to be a merit; though it is sure to be reckoned

one, by the greedy dim fellows looking idly on: but, in any case, the degree of it that dwelt (privately, for

most part) in Friedrich was great; and to himself it seemed a sad rather than joyful fact. Speaking of this

matter, long afterwards, to Garve, a Silesian Philosopher, with whom he used to converse at Breslau, he

"And herein, I," the Herr Garve (venturing to dispute, or qualify, on one of his Majesty's favorite topics),

"believe, lies the real ground of 'happiness:' it is the capacity and opportunity to accomplish great things. This

the King would not allow; but said, That I did not sufficiently take into account the natural feelings, different

in different people, which, when painful, imbittered the life of the highest as of the lowest. That, in his own

life, he had experienced the deepest sufferings of this kind: 'And,' added he, with a touching tone of kindness

and familiarity, which never occurred again in his interviews with me, 'if you (ER) knew, for instance, what I

underwent on the death of my Mother, you would see that I have been as unhappy as any other, and

unhappier than others, because of the greater sensibility I had (WEIL ICH MEHR EMPFINDLICHKEIT

GEHABT HABE).'" [ Fragmente zur Schilderung des Geistes, des Charakters und der Regierung Friedrichs

des Zweiten, von Christian Garve (Breslau, 1798), i. 314316. An unexpectedly dull Book (Garve having

talent and reputation); kind of monotonous Preachment upon Friedrich's character: almost nothing but the

There needed not this new calamity in Friedrich's lot just now! From all points of the compass, his enemies,

held in check so long, are floating on: the confluence of disasters and illtidings, at this time, very great.

From JungBunzlau, close by, his Brother's accounts are bad; and grow ever worse,as will be seen! On the

extreme West, "July 3d," while Friedrich at Leitmeritz sat weeping for his Mother, the French take Embden

from him; "July 5th," the Russians, Memel, on the utmost East. June 30th, six days before, the Russians, after

as many months of haggling, did cross the Border; 37,000 of them on this point; and set to bombarding

Memel from land and sea. Poor Memel (garrison only 700) answered very fiercely, "sank two of their

gunboats" and the like; but the end was as we see,Feldmarschall Lehwald able to give no relief. For there

were above 70,000 other Russians (Feldmarschall Apraxin with these latter, and Cossacks and Calmucks

more than enough) crossing elsewhere, south in Tilsit Country, upon old Lehwald. [ HeldenGeschichte, iv.

407413.] Lehwald, with 30,000, in such circumstanceswhat is to become of Preussen and him! Nearer

hand, the Austrians, the French, the very Reichs Army, do now seem intent on business.

The Reichs Execution Army, we saw how Mayer and the Battle of Prag had checked it in the birthpangs;

and given rise to pangs of another sort; the poor Reichs Circles generally exclaiming, "What! Bring the war

into our own borders? Bring the King of Prussia on our own throats!"and stopping short in their

enlistments and preparations; in vain for Austrian Officials to urge them. Watching there, with awestruck

The Battle of Kolin has reversed all that; and the poor old Reich is again bent on business in the Execution

way. Drumming, committeeing, projecting, and endeavoring, with all her might, in all quarters; and, from and

after the event of Kolin, holding visible Encampment, in the Nurnberg Country; fractions of actual troops

assembling there. "On the Plains of Furth, between Furth and Farrenbach, east side the River Regnitz, there

was the Camp pitched," says my Anonymous Friend; who gives me a cheerful Copperplate of the thing: red

pennons, blue, and bright mixed colors; generals, tents; orderofbattle, and respective rallying points: with

Bamberg Country in front, and the peaks of the Pine Mountains lying pleasantly behind: a sight for the

curious. [J.F.S. (whom I named ANONYMOUS OF HAMBURG long since; who has boiled down, with

great diligence, the old Newspapers, and gives a great many dates, notes, without Index), i. 211, 224 (the

Copperplate).] It is the same ground where Mayer was careering lately; neighboring nobility and gentry glad

to come in gala, and dance with Mayer. Hither, all through July, come contingents straggling in, thicker and

thicker; "August 8th," things now about complete, the Bishop of Bamberg came to take survey of the Reichs

Heer (Bishop's remarks not given); August 10th, came the young reigning Duke of Hildburghausen (Duke's

granduncle is to be Commander), on like errand; August 11th) the ReichsHeer got on march. Westward

A truly ELENDE, or miserable, Reichs Execution Army (as the MISprinter had made it); but giving loud

voice in the Gazettes; and urged by every consideration to do something for itself. Prince of

Hildburghausena general of small merit, though he has risen in the Austrian service, and we have seen him

with Seckendorf in old Turk timeshas, for his Kaiser's sake, taken the command; sensible perhaps that

glory is not likely to be rife here; but willing to make himself useful. Kaiser and Austria urge, everywhere,

with all their might: Prince of HessenDarmstadt, who lay on the Weissenberg lately, one of Keith's

distinguished seconds there and a Prussian Officer of long standing, has, on Kaiser's order, quitted all that,

and become Hildburghausen's second here, in the Camp of Furth; thinking the path of duty lay that way,

though his Wife, one of the noble women of her age, thought very differently. [Her Letter to Friedrich,

"Berlin, 30th October, 1757," OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. ii. 135.] A similar Kaiser's order, backed by what

Lawthunder lay in the Reich, had gone out against Friedrich's own Brothers, and against every Reichs

Prince who was in Friedrich's service; but, except him of HessenDarmstadt, none of them had much

minded. [In Orlich, Furst Moritz von Anhalt Dessau (Berlin, 1842), pp. 74, 75, Prince Moritz's rather

mournful Letter on the subject, with Friedrich's sharp Answer.] I did not hear that his strategic talent was

momentous: but Prussia had taught him the routine of right soldiering, surely to small purpose; and Friedrich,

From about the end of June, the Reichs Army kept dribbling in: the most inferior Army in the world; no part

of it well drilled, most of it not drilled at all; and for variety in color, condition, method, and military and

pecuniary and other outfit, beggaring description. Hildburghausen does his utmost; Kaiser the like. The

number should have far exceeded 50,000; but was not, on the field, of above half that number: 25,000; add at

least 8,000 Austrian troops, two regiments of them cavalry; good these 8,000, the rest bad,that was the

Reichs Execution Army; most inferior among Armies; and considerable part of it, all the Protestant part,

privately wishing well to Friedrich, they say. Drills itself multifariously in that Camp between Furth and

Farrenbach, on the east side of Regnitz River. Fancy what a sight to Wilhelmina, if she ever drove that way;

which I think she hardly would. The Baireuth contingent itself is there; the Margraf would have held out stiff

on that point; but Friedrich himself advised compliance. Margraf of Anspachperverse tippling creature, ill

with his Wife, I doubthas joyfully sent his legal hundreds; will vote for the Reichs Ban against this worst

of Germans, whom he has for Brotherinlaw. Dark days in the heart of Wilhelmina, those of the Camp at

Furth. Days which grow ever darker, with strange flashings out of empyrean lightning from that shrill true

This ELENDE ReichsHeer, miserable "Army of the Circles," is mockingly called "the Hoopers, Coopers

(TONNELIERS)," and gets quizzing enough, under that and other titles, from an Opposition Public. Far other

from the French and Austrians; who are bent that it should do feats in the world, and prove impressive on a

robber King. Thus too, "for Deliverance of Saxony," to cooperate with ReichsHeer in that sacred object,

thanks to the zeal of Pompadour, Prince de Soubise has got together, in Elsass, a supplementary 30,000

(40,330 said Theory, but Fact never quite so many): and is passing them across the Rhine, in Frankfurt

Country, all through July, while the drilling at Furth goes on. With these, Soubise, simultaneously getting

under way, will steer northeastward; join the ReichsHeer about Erfurt, before August end; andand we

It must be owned, the French, Pompadour and love of glory urging, are diligent since the event of Kolin. In

select Parisian circles, the Soubise Army, or even that of D'Estrees altogether,produced by the tears of a

filial Dauphiness,is regarded as a quasi sacred, or uncommonly noble thing; and is called by her name,

"L'ARMEE DE LA DAUPHINE;" or for shortness "LA DAUPHINE" without adjunct. Thus, like a kind of

chivalrous Bellona, vengeance in her right hand, tears and fire in her eyes, the DAUPHINESS advances; and

will join ReichsHeer at Erfurt before August end. Such the will of Pompadour; Richelieu encouraging, for

reasons of his own. Soubise, I understand, is privately in pique against poor D'Estrees; ["Reappeared

unexpectedly in Paris [from D'Estree's Army], 22d June" (four days after Kolin): got up this DAUPHINESS

ARMY, by aid of Pompadour, with Richelieu, BARBIER, iv. 227, 231. Richelieu "busy at Strasburg lately"

(29th July: Collini's VOLTAIRE, p. 191).] and intends to eclipse him by a higher style of diligence; though

July 3d, we saw the D'Estrees people taking Embden; D'Estrees, quiet so long in his Camp at Bielefeld, had at

once bestirred himself, Kolin being done;shot out a detachment leftwards, and Embden had capitulated

that day. Adieu to the Shipping Interests there, and to other pleasant things! "July 9th, after sunset," D'Estrees

himself got on march from Bielefeld; set forth, in the cool of night, 60,000 strong, and 10,000 more to join

him by the road (the rest are left as garrisons, reserves,1,000 marauders of them swing as monitory

pendulums, on their various trees, for one item),direct towards Hanover and Royal Highness of

Cumberland; who retreats, and has retreated, behind the Ems, the Weser, back, ever back; and, to appearance,

To Friedrich, waiting at Leitmeritz, all these things are gloomily known; but the most pressing of them is that

of the Austrians and JungBunzlau close by. Let us give some utterances of his to Wilhelmina, nearly all we

have of direct from him in that time; and then hasten to the Prince of Prussia there:

LEITMERITZ, 1st JULY, 1757. ... "Sensible as heart can be to the tender interest you deign to take in what

concerns me. Dear Sister, fear nothing on my score: men are always in the hand of what we call Fate"

("Predestination, GNADENWAHL,"Pardon us, Papa!"CE QU'ON NOMME LE DESTIN); accidents

will befall people, walking on the streets, sitting in their room, lying in their bed; and there are many who

escape the perils of war. ... I think, through Hessen will be the safest route for your Letters, till we see; and

not to write just now except on occasions of importance. Here is a piece in cipher; anonymous,"intended

JULY 5th. "By a Courier of Plotho's, returning to Regensburg [who passes near you], I write to apprise my

dear Sister of the new misery which overwhelms us. We have no longer a Mother. This loss puts the crown

on my sorrows. I am obliged to act; and have not time to give free course to my tears. Judge, I pray you, of

the situation of a feeling heart put to so cruel a trial. All losses in the world are capable of being remedied;

JULY 7th. "You are too good; I am ashamed to abuse your indulgence. But do, since you will, try to sound

the French, what conditions of Peace they would demand; one might judge as to their intentions. Send that

Mirabeau (CE M. DE MIRABEAU) to France. Willingly will I pay the expense. He may offer as much as

five million thalers [750,000 pounds] to the Favorite [yes, even to the Pompadour] for Peace alone. Of

course, his utmost discretion will be needed;" should the English get the least wind of it! But if they are

gone to St. Vitus, and fail in every point, what can one do? CE M. DE MIRABEAU, readers will be surprised

to learn, is an Uncle of the great Mirabeau's; who has fallen into roving courses, gone abroad insolvent; and

"directs the Opera at Baireuth," in these years!One Letter we will give in full:

"MY DEAREST SISTER,Your Letter has arrived: I see in it your regrets for the irreparable loss we have

had of the best and worthiest Mother in this world. I am so struck down with all these blows from within and

"The French have just laid hold of Friesland [seized Embden, July 3d]; are about to pass the Weser: they have

instigated the Swedes to declare War against me; the Swedes are sending 17,000 men [rather more if

anything; but they proved beautifully ineffectual] into Pommern,"will be burdensome to Stralsund and the

poor country people mainly; having no Captain over them but a hydra headed National Palaver at home, and

a Longpole with Cockedhat on it here at hand. "The Russians are besieging Memel [have taken it, ten days

ago]: Lehwald has them on his front and in his rear. The Troops of the Reich," from your Plains of Furth

yonder, "are also about to march. All this will force me to evacuate Bohemia, so soon as that crowd of

"I am firmly resolved on the extremest efforts to save my Country. We shall see (QUITTE A VOIR) if

Fortune will take a new thought, or if she will entirely turn her back upon me. Happy the moment when I

took to training myself in philosophy! There is nothing else that can sustain the soul in a situation like mine. I

spread out to you, dear Sister, the detail of my sorrows: if these things regarded only myself, I could stand it

with composure; but I am bound Guardian of the safety and happiness of a People which has been put under

my charge. There lies the sting of it: and I shall have to reproach myself with every fault, if, by delay or by

overhaste, I occasion the smallest accident; all the more as, at present, any fault may be capital.

"What a business! Here is the liberty of Germany, and that Protestant Cause for which so much blood has

been shed; here are those Two great Interests again at stake; and the pinch of this huge game is such, that an

unlucky quarter of an hour may establish over Germany the tyrannous domination of the House of Austria

forever! I am in the case of a traveller who sees himself surrounded and ready to be assassinated by a troop of

cutthroats, who intend to share his spoils. Since the League of Cambrai [15081510, with a Pope in it and a

Kaiser and Most Christian King, iniquitously sworn against poor Venice;to no purpose, as happily

appears], there is no example of such a Conspiracy as that infamous Triumvirate [Austria, France, Russia]

now forms against me. Was it ever seen before, that three great Princes laid plot in concert to destroy a

Fourth, who had done nothing against them? I have not had the least quarrel either with France or with

Russia, still less with Sweden. If, in common life, three citizens took it into their heads to fall upon their

neighbor, and burn his house about him, they very certainly, by sentence of tribunal, would be broken on the

wheel. What! and will Sovereigns, who maintain these tribunals and these laws in their States, give such

example to their subjects? ... Happy, my dear Sister, is the obscure man, whose good sense from youth

upwards, has renounced all sorts of glory; who, in his safe low place, has none to envy him, and whose

"But these reflections are vain. We have to be what our birth, which decides, has made us in entering upon

this world. I reckoned that, being King, it beseemed me to think as a Sovereign; and I took for principle, that

the reputation of a Prince ought to be dearer to him than life. They have plotted against me; the Court of

Vienna has given itself the liberty of trying to maltreat me; my honor commanded me not to suffer it. We

have come to War; a gang of robbers falls on me, pistol in hand: that is the adventure which has happened to

me. The remedy is difficult: in desperate diseases there are no methods but desperate ones.

"I beg a thousand pardons, dear Sister: in these three long pages I talk to you of nothing but my troubles and

affairs. A strange abuse it would be of any other person's friendship. But yours, my dear Sister, yours is

known to me; and I am persuaded you are not impatient when I open my heart to you:a heart which is

yours altogether; being filled with sentiments of the tenderest esteem, with which I am, my dearest Sister,

your [in truth, affectionate Brother at all times] F." [ OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. i. 294, 295, 296298.]

The Prince of Prussia's Enterprise had its intricacies; but, by good management, was capable of being done.

At least, so Friedrich thought;though, in truth, it would have been better had Friedrich gone himself, since

the chief pressure happened to fall there! The Prince has to retire, Parthianlike, as slowly as possible, with

the late Kolin or MoritzBevern Army, towards the Lausitz, keeping his eye upon Silesia the while; of course

securing the passes and strong places in his passage, for defence of his own rear at lowest; especially securing

Zittau, a fine opulent Town, where his chief Magazine is, fed from Silesia now. The Army is in good strength

(guess 30,000), with every equipment complete, in discipline, in health and in heart, such as beseems a

Prussian Army,probably longing rather, if it venture to long or wish for anything not yet commanded, to

have a stroke at those Austrians again, and pay them something towards that late Kolin score.

The Prince arrived at JungBunzlau, June 30th; Winterfeld with him, and, at his own request, Schmettau. The

Austrians have not yet stirred: if they do, it may be upon the King, it may be upon the Prince: in three or even

in two marches, Prince and King can be together,the King only too happy, in the present oppressive coil of

doubts, to find the Austrians ready for a new passage of battle, and an immediate decision. The Austrians did,

in fact, break out, seemingly, at first, upon the King; but in reality upon the Prince, whom they judge safer

The Prince was thought to have a good judgment (too much talk in it, we sometimes feared), and fair

knowledge in military matters. The King, not quite by the Prince's choice, has given him Winterfeld for

Mentor; Winterfeld, who has an excellent military head in such matters, and a heart firm as steel,almost

like a second self in the King's estimation. Excellent Winterfeld;but then there are also Schmettau, Bevern

and others, possibly in private not too well affected to this Winterfeld. In fact, there is rather a multitude of

Counsellers;and an ingenuous finespirited Prince, perhaps more capable of eloquence on the Opposition

side, than of condensing into real wisdom a multitude of counsels, when the crisis rises, and the affair

becomes really difficult. Crisis did rise: the victorious Austrians, after such delay, had finally made up their

minds to press this one a little, this one rather than the King, and hang upon his skirts; Daun and Prince Karl

set out after him, just about the time of his arrival, "70,000 strong," the Prince hears; including plenty of

Pandours. Certain it is, the poor Prince's mind did flounder a good deal; and his procedures succeeded

extremely ill on this occasion. Certain, too, that they were extremely illtaken at headquarters: and that he

even died soon after,chiefly of broken heart, said the censorious world. It is well known how Europe rang

with the matter for a long while; and Books were printed, and Documents, and COLLECTIONS BY A

MASTER'S HAND. [ Lettres Secretes touchant la Deniere Guerre; de Main de Maitre; divisees en deux

parties (Francfort et Amsterdam, 1772): this is the Prince's own Statement, Proof in hand. By far the clearest

Account is in Schmettau's Leben (by his Son), pp. 353384. See also Preuss, ii. 5761, and especially ii.

407.] We, who can spend but a page or two on it, must carefully stand by the essential part.

"JUNE 30thJULY 3d, Prince at JungBunzlau, in chief command. Besides Winterfeld, the Generals under

him are Ziethen, Schmettau, Fouquet, Retzow, Goltz, and two others who need not be of our acquaintance.

Impossible to stay there, thinks the Prince, thinks everybody; and they shift to Neuschloss, westward thirty

miles. July 1st, Daun had crossed the Elbe (Daun let us say for brevity, though it is Daun and Karl, or even

Karl and Daun, Karl being chief, and capable of saying so at times, though Daun is very splendent since

Kolin),crossed the Elbe above Brandeis; Nadasti, with precursor Pandours, now within an hour's march of

"JULY 3d6th, At Neuschloss, which is thought a strong position, key of the localities there, and nearer

Friedrich too, the Prince stayed not quite four days; shifted to Bohm (BohmISCH) Leipa, JULY 7th,rather

off from Leitmeritz, but a march towards Zittau, where the provisions are. 'A bad change,' said the Prince's

friends afterwards; (change advised by Winterfeld,who never mentioned that circumstance to his Majesty,

many as he did mention, not in the best way!'Prince gets to Bohm Leipa July 7th; stays there, in

"Bohm Leipa is still not above thirty miles northeastward of the King; and it is about the same distance

southwestward from Zittau, out of which fine Town, partly by crossroads, the Prince gets his provisions on

this march. From Zittau hitherward, as far as the little Town of Gabel, which lies about half way, there is

broad High Road, the great Southern KAISERSTRASSE: from Gabel, for Bohm Leipa, you have to cross

southwestward by country roads; the keys to which, especially Gabel, the Prince has not failed to secure by

proper garrison parties. And so, for about a week, not quite uncomfortably, he continues at Bohm Leipa;

getting in his convoys from Zittau. Diligently scanning the Pandour stragglings and sputterings round him,

which are clearly on the increasing hand. Diligently corresponding with the King, meanwhile; who much

discourages undue apprehension, or retreat movement till the last pinch. 'Edging backward, and again

backward, you come bounce upon Berlin one day, and will then have to halt!'which is not pleasant to the

Prince. But, indisputably, the Pandour spurts on him do become Pandour gushings, with regulars also

noticeable: it is certain the Austrians are out,pretending first to mean the King and Leitmeritz; but knowing

better, and meaning the Prince and Bohm Leipa all the while."By way of supplement, take Daun's

Daun and Karl were at Podschernitz 26th June; 1st July, cross the Elbe, above Brandeis (Nadasti now within

an hour's march of Jung Bunzlau); 7th July (day while the Prince is flitting to Bohm Leipa), Daun is through

JungBunzlau to Munchengratz; thence to Liebenau; 14th, to Niemes, not above four miles from the Prince's

rightmost outpost (rightmost or eastmost, which looks away from his Brother); while a couple of advanced

parties, Beck and Maguire, hover on his flank Zittauward, and Nadasti (if he knew it) is pushing on to rear.

"THURSDAY, 14th JULY, About six in the evening, at Bohm Leipa, distinct cannonthunder is heard from

northeast: 'Evidently Gabel getting cannonaded, and our wagon convoy [empty, going to Zittau for meal,

General Puttkammer escorting] is in a dangerous state!' And by and by hussar parties of ours come in, with

articulate news to that bad effect: 'Gabel under hot attack of regulars; Puttkammer with his 3,000 vigorously

defending, will expect to be relieved within not many hours!' Here has the crisis come. Crisis sure

enough;and the Prince, to meet it, summons that refuge of the irresolute, a Council of War.

"Winterfeld, who is just come home in these moments, did not attend;not, till three next morning.

Winterfeld had gone to bed; fairly 'tired dead,' with long marching and hurrying about. To the poor Prince

there are three courses visible. Course FIRST, That of joining the King at Leitmeritz. Gabel, Zittau lost in

that case; game given up;reception likely to be bad at Leitmeritz! Course SECOND,the course Friedrich

himself would at once have gone upon, and been already well ahead with,That of instantly taking measures

for the relief of Puttkammer. Dispute Gabel to the last; retreat, on loss of it, Parthianlike, to Zittau, by that

broad Highway, short and broad, whole distance hence only thirty miles. 'Thirty miles,' say the multitude of

Counsellors: 'Yes, but the first fifteen, TO Gabel, is crossroad, hilly, difficult; they have us in flank!' 'We are

25,000,' urges the Prince; 'fifteen miles is not much!' The thing had its difficulties: the Prince himself, it

appears, faintly thought it feasible: '25,000 we; 20,000 they; only fifteen miles,' said he. But the variety of

Counsellors: 'Crossroads, defiles, flankmarch, dangerous,' said they. And so the third course, which was

incomparably the worst, found favor in Council of War: That of leaving Gabel and Puttkammer to their fate;

and of pushing off for Zittau leftwards through the safe Hills, by Kamnitz, Kreywitz, Rumburg;which, if

the reader look, is by a circuitous, nay quite parabolic course, twice or thrice as far:'In that manner let us

save Zittau and our Main Body!' said the Council of War. Yes, my friends: a cannonball, endeavoring to get

into Zittau from the townditch, would have to take a parabolic course;and the cannon ball would be

speedy upon it, and not have Hill roads to go by! This notable parabolic circuit of narrow steep roads may

have its difficulties for an Army and its baggages!" Enough, the poor Prince adopted that worst third course;

and even made no despatch in getting into it; and it proved ruinous to Zittau, and to much else, his own life

"JULY 16th22d. Thursday night, or Friday 3 A.M., that third and incomparably worst course was adopted:

Gabel, Puttkammer with his wagons, ensigns, kettledrums, all this has to surrender in a day: High Road to

Zittau, for the Austrians, is a smooth march, when they like to gather fully there, and start. And in the Hills,

with their jolts and precipitous windings, infested too by Pandours, the poor Prussian Main Body, on its wide

parabolic circuit, has a time of it! Loses its pontoons, loses most of its baggage; obliged to set fire, not to the

Pandours, but to your own wagons, and necessaries of army life; encamps on bleak heights; no food, not even

water; road quite lost, road to be rediscovered or invented; Pandours sputtering on you out of every bush and

hollow, your peasant wagoners cutting traces and galloping off:such are the phenomena of that march by

circuit leftward, on the poor Prince's part. March began, soon after midnight, SATURDAY, 16th, Schmettau

And, in fine, by FRIDAY, 22d, after not quite a week of it, the Prince, curving from northward (in parabolic

course, LESS speedy than the cannonball's would have been) into sight of Zittau, behold, there are the

Austrians far and wide to left of us, encamped impregnable behind the Neisse River there! They have got the

Eckart's Hill, which commands Zittau:and how to get into Zittau and our magazines, and how to subsist if

we were in? The poor Prince takes post on what Heights there are, on his own side of the Neisse; looks

About stroke of noon the Austrians, from their Eckartsberg, do a thing which was much talked of. They open

battery of redhot balls upon Zittau; kindle the roofs of it, shingleroofs in dry July; set Zittau all on blaze,

the 10,000 innocent souls shrieking in vain to Heaven and Earth; and before sunset, Zittau is ashes and

redhot walls, not Zittau but a cinderheap,Prussian Garrison not hurt, nor Magazine as yet; Garrison busy

with buckets, I should guess, but beginning to find the air grow very hot. On the morrow morning, Zittau is a

smouldering cinderheap, hotter and hotter to the Prussian Garrison; and does not exist as a City.

One of the most inhuman actions ever heard of in War, shrieks universal Germany; asks itself what could

have set a chivalrous Karl upon this devillike procedure? "Protestants these poor Zittauers were; shone in

commerce; no such weaving, industrying, in all Teutschland elsewhere: Hah! An eyesorrow, they, with their

commerce, their weavings and industryings, to Austrian Papists, who cannot weave or trade?" that was finally

the guess of some persons;wide of the mark, we may well judge. Prince Xavier of Saxony, present in the

Camp too, made no remonstrance, said others. Alas, my friends, what could Xavier probably avail, the

foolish fellow, with only three regiments? Prince Karl, it was afterwards evident, could have got Zittau

unburnt; and could even have kept the Prussians out of Zittau altogether. Zittau surely would have been very

useful to Prince Karl. But overnight (let us try to fancy it so), not knowing the Prussian possibilities, Prince

Karl, screwed to the devilish point, had got his furnaces lighted, his redhot balls ready; and so, hurried on by

his Pride and by his other Devils, had,There are devilish things sometimes done in War. And whole cities

are made ashes by them. For certain, here is a strange way of commencing your "Deliverance of Saxony"!

And Prince Karl carries, truly, a brandmark from this conflagration, and will till all memory of him cease.

As to Zittau, it rebuilt itself. Zittau is alive again; a strong stone city, in our day. On its newbuilt

Townhouse stands again "BENE FACERE ET MALE AUDIRE REGIUM EST, To do well, and be ill

spoken of, is the part of kings" [A saying of Alexander the Great's (Plutarch, in ALEXANDRE).] (amazingly

true of them,when they are not shams). What times for Herrnhuth; preparing for its Christian Sabbath,

The Prince of Prussia tells us, he "early next morning (Saturday, 23d July) had his tents pitched;" which was

but an unavailing procedure, with poor Zittau gone such a road. "Bring us bread out of that ruined Zittau,"

ordered the Prince: his Detachment returns ineffectual, "So hot, we cannot march in." And the Garrison

Colonel (one Dierecke and five battalions are garrison) sends out word: "So hot, we cannot stand it." "Stand it

yet a very little; and!" answers the Prince: but Dierecke and battalions cannot, or at least cannot long

enough; and set to marching out. In firm order, I have no doubt, and with some modicum of bread: but the

tumbling of certain burnt walls parted Colonel and men, in a sad way. Colonel himself, with the colors, with

the honors (none of his people, it seems, though they were scattered loose), was picked up by an Austrian

Next, evening, Sunday, after dark, Prince of Prussia strikes his tents again; rolls off in a very unsuccinct

condition; happily unchased, for he admits that chase would have been ruinous. Off towards Lobau (what

nights for Zinzendorf and Herrnhuth, as such things tumble past them!); thence towards Bautzen; and arrives

in the most lugubrious torn condition any Prussian General ever stood in. Reaches Bautzen on those

One may fancy Friedrich's indignation, astonishment and grief, when he heard of that march towards Zittau

through the Hills by a parabolic course; the issue of which is too gnessable by Friedrich. He himself instantly

rises from Leitmeritz; starts, in fit divisions, by the Pascopol, by the Elbe passes, for Pirna; and, leaving

Moritz of Dessau with a 10,000 to secure the Passes about Pirna, and Keith to come on with the Magazines,

hastens across for Bautzen, to look into these advancing triumphant Austrians, these strange Prussian

proceedings. On first hearing of that sidemarch, his auguries had been bad enough; [Letter to Wilhelmina

"Linay, 22d July" (second day of the march from Leitmeritz); OEuvres, xxvii. i. 298.] but the event has far

surpassed them. Zittau gone; the Army hurrying home, as if in flight, in that wrecked condition; the door of

Saxony, door of Silesia left wide open,Daun has only to choose! Day by day, as Friedrich advanced to

repair that mischief, the news of it have grown worse on him. Days rife otherwise in mere bad news. The

Russians in Memel, Preussen at their feet; Soubise's French and the Reich's Army pushing on for Erfurt, to

"deliver Saxony," on that western side: and from the FrenchEnglish scene of operations In those same

bad days Royal Highness of Cumberland has been doing a feat worth notice in the above connection! Read

"HASTENBECK, 22d26th JULY, 1757. Royal Highness, hitching back and back, had got to Hameln, a

strong place of his on the safe side of the Weser; and did at last, Hanover itself being now nigh, call halt; and

resolve to make a stand. July 22d [very day while the Prince of Prussia came in sight of Zittau, with the

Austrians hanging over it], Royal Highness took post in that favorable vicinity of Hameln; at perfect leisure

to select his ground: and there sat waiting D'Estrees,swamps for our right wing, and the Weser not far off;

small Hamlet of Hastenbeck in front, and a woody knoll for our left;totally inactive for four days long;

attempting nothing upon D'Estrees and his intricate shufflings, but looking idly noonward to the courses of

the sun, till D'Estrees should come up. Royal Highness is much swollen into obesity, into flabby torpor; a

changed man since Fontenoy times; shockingly inactive, they say, in this post at Hastenbeck. D'Estrees, too,

is ridiculously cautious, 'has manoeuvred fifteen days in advancing about as many British miles.' D'Estrees

did at last come up (July 25th), nearly two to one of Royal Highness,72,000 some count him, but

considerably anarchic in parts, overwhelmed with Court Generals and Princes of the Blood, for one

item;and decides on attacking, next morning. D'Estrees duly went to reconnoitre, but unluckily 'had mist

"And so, 26th JULY, Tuesday, there ensued a BATTLE OF HASTENBECK: the absurdest Battle in the

world; and which ought, in fairness, to have been lost by BOTH, though Royal Highness alone had the ill

luck. Both Captains behaved very poorly; and each of them had a subaltern who behaved well. D'Estrees,

with his 70,000 VERSUS 40,000 posted there, knows nothing of Royal Highness's position; sees only Royal

Highness's left wing on that woody Height; and after hours of preliminary cannonading, sends out General

Chevert upon that. Chevert, his subaltern [a bit of right soldier stuff, the Chevert whom we knew at Prag, in

old Belleisle times], goes upon it like fury; whom the Brunswick Grenadiers resist in like humor, hotter and

hotter. Some hard fighting there, on Royal Highness's left; Chevert very fiery, Grenadiers very obstinate; till,

on the centre, westward, in Royal Highness's chief battery there, some spark went the wrong way, and a

powderwagon shot itself aloft with hideous blaze and roar; and in the confusion, the French rushed in, and

the battery was lost. Which discouraged the Grenadiers; so that Chevert made some progress upon them, on

"Had Chevert known, or had D'Estrees known, there was, close behind said Height, a Hollow, through which

these Grenadiers might have been taken in rear. Dangerous Hollow, much neglected by Royal Highness, who

has only General Breitenbach with a weak party there. This Breitenbach, happening to have a head of his

own, and finding nothing to do in that Hollow or to rightward, bursts out, of his own accord, on Chevert's left

flank; cannonading, volleying, horse charging;the sound of which ('Hah, French there too!') struck a

damp through Royal Highness, who instantly ordered retreat, and took the road. What singular illluck that

sound of Breitenbach to Royal Highness! For observe, the EFFECT of Breitenbach,which was, to recover

the lost battery (gallant young Prince of Brunswick, 'Hereditary Prince,' or Duke that is to be, striking in upon

it with bayonetcharge at the right moment), made D'Estrees to order retreat! 'Battle lost,' thinks

D'Estrees;and with good cause, had Breitenbach been supported at all. But no subaltern durst; and Royal

Highness himself was not overtakable, so far on the road. Royal Highness wept on hearing; the Brunswick

Grenadiers too are said to have wept (for rage); and probably Breitenbach and the Hereditary Prince."

[Mauvillon, i. 228; Anonymous of Hamburg, i. 206 (who gives a Plan and all manner of details, if needed by

This is the last of Royal Highness's exploits in War. The retreat had been ordered "To Hanover;" but the

baggage by mistake took the road for Minden; and Royal Highness followed thither,much the same what

road he or it takes. Friedrich might still hope he would retreat on Magdeburg; 40,000 good soldiers might

find a Captain there, and be valuable against a D'Estrees and Soubise in those parts. But no; it was through

Bremen Country, to Stade, into the Sea, that Royal Highness, by ill luck, retreated! He has still one great

vexation to give Friedrich,to us almost a comfort, knowing what followed out of it;and will have to be

mentioned one other time in this History, and then go over our horizon altogether.

Whether Friedrich had heard of Hastenbeck the day his Brother and he met (July 29th, at Bautzen), I do not

know: but it is likely enough he may have got the news that very morning; which was not calculated to

increase one's good humor! His meeting with the Prince is royal, not fraternal, as all men have heard. Let us

give with brevity, from Schmettau Junior, the exact features of it; and leave the candid reader, who has

formed to himself some notion of kingship and its sorrows and stern conditions (having perhaps himself some

thing of kingly, in a small potential way), to interpret the matter, and make what he can of it:

"BAUTZEN, 29th JULY, 1757. The King with reinforcement is coming hither, from the Dresden side; to

take up the reins of this dishevelled Zittau Army; to speed with it against the Austrians, and, if humanly

possible, lock the doors of Silesia and Saxony again, and chase the intruders away. Prince of Prussia and the

other Generals have notice, the night before: 'At 4 A.M. tomorrow (29th), wait his Majesty.' Prince and

Generals wait accordingly, all there but Goltz and Winterfeld; they not, which is noted.

"For above an hour, no King; Prince and Generals ride forward: there is the King coming; Prince Henri,

Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick and others in his train. King, noticing them, at about 300 paces distance, drew

bridle; Prince of Prussia did the like, train and he saluting with their hats, as did the King's train in return.

King did not salute;on the contrary, he turned his horse round and dismounted, as did everybody else on

such signal. King lay down on the ground, as if waiting the arrival of his Vanguard; and bade Winterfeld and

Goltz sit by him." Poor Prince of Prussia, and battered heavyladen Generals! "After a minute or two, Goltz

came over and whispered to the Prince. 'Hither, MEINE HERREN, all of you; a message from his Majesty!'

cried the Prince. Whereupon, to Generals and Prince, Goltz delivered, in equable official tone, these affecting

words: 'His Majesty commands me to inform your Royal Highness, That he has cause to be greatly

discontented with you; that you deserve to have a Courtmartial held over you, which would sentence you

and all your Generals to death; but that his Majesty will not carry the matter so far, being unable to forget that

The Prince answered, He wanted only a Courtmartial, and the like, in stiff tone. Here is the Letter he writes

"MY DEAR BROTHER,The Letters you have written me, and the reception I yesterday met with, are

sufficient proof that, in your opinion, I have ruined my honor and reputation. This grieves, but it does not

crush me, as in my own mind I am not conscious of the least reproach. I am perfectly convinced that I did not

act by caprice: I did not follow the counsels of people incapable of giving good ones; I have done what I

thought to be suitablest for the Army. All your Generals will do me that justice.

"I reckon it useless to beg of you to have my conduct investigated: this would be a favor you would do me; so

I cannot expect it. My health has been weakened by these fatigues, still more by these chagrins. I have gone

"I have requested the Duke of Bevern to present the Army Reports; he can give you explanation of

everything. Be assured, my dear Brother, that in spite of the misfortunes which overwhelm me, and which I

have not deserved, I shall never cease to be attached to the State; and as a faithful member of the same, my

joy will be perfect when I learn the happy issue of your Enterprises. I have the honor to be"

"CAMP NEAR BAUTZEN, 30th July, 1757. "MY DEAR BROTHER,Your bad guidance has greatly

deranged my affairs. It is not the Enemy, it is your illjudged measures that have done me all this mischief.

My Generals are inexcusable; either for advising you so ill, or in permitting you to follow resolutions so

unwise. Your ears are accustomed to listen to the talk of flatterers only. Daun has not flattered you;behold

the consequences. In this aad situation, nothing is left for me but trying the last extremity. I must go and give

"I do not complain of your heart; but I do of your incapaciy, of your want of judgment in not choosing better

methods. A man who [like me; mark the phrase, from such a quarter!] has but a few days to live need not

dissemble. I wish you better fortune than mine has been: and that all the miseries and bad adventures you

have had may teach you to treat important things with more of care, more of sense, and more of resolution.

The greater part of the misfortunes which I now see to be near comes only from you. You and your Children

will be more overwhelmed by them than I. Be persuaded nevertheless that I have always loved you, and that

As the King went off to the Heights of Weissenberg, Zittau way, to encamp there against the Austrians, that

same evening, the Prince did not answer this Letter,except by asking verbally through LieutenantColonel

Lentulus (a mute Swiss figure, much about the King, who often turns up in these Histories), "for leave to

return to Dresden by the first escort.""Depends on himself;an escort is going this night! answered

Friedrich. And the Prince went accordingly; and, by two stages, got into Dresden with his escort on the

morrow. And had, not yet conscious of it, quitted the Field of War altogether; and was soon about to quit the

world, and die, poor Prince. Died within a year, 12th June, 1758, at Oranienburg, beside his Family, where he

had latterly been. [Preuss, ii. 60 (ib. 78).]Winterfeld was already gone, six months before him; Goltz went,

The poor Prince's fate, as natural, was much pitied; and Friedrich, to this day, is growled at for "inhuman

treatment" and so on. Into which question we do not enter, except to say that Friedrich too had his sorrows;

and that probably his concluding words, "with these sentiments I shall die," were perfectly true. MAIN DE

MAITRE went widely abroad over the world. The poor Prince's words and procedures were eagerly caught

up by a scrutinizing public,and some of the former were not too guarded. At Dresden, he said, one

morning, calling on a General Finck whom we shall hear of again: "Four such disagreeing, thinskinned,

highpacing (UNEINIGE, PIQUIRTE) Generals as Fouquet, Schmettau, Winterfeld and Goltz, about you,

what was to be done!" said the Prince to Finck. [Preuss, ii. 79 n.: see ib. 60, 78.]

His Wife, when at last he came to Oranienburg, nursed him fondly; that is one comfortable fact. Prince Henri,

to the last, had privately a grudge of peculiar intensity, on this score, against all the peccant parties, King not

excepted. As indeed he was apt to have, on various scores, the jealous, too vehement little man.

Friedrich's humor at this time I can guess to have been wellnigh desperate. He talks once of "a horse, on too

much provocation, getting the bit between its teeth; regardless thenceforth of chasms and precipices:" [Letter

to Wilhelmina, "Linay, 22d July" (cited above).]though he himself never carries it to that length; and

always has a watchful eye, when at his swiftest! From Weissenberg, that night, he drives in the Pandours on

Zittau and the Eckartsbergbut the Austrians don't come out. And, for three weeks in this fierce necessity of

being speedy, he cannot get one right stroke at the Austrians; who sit inexpugnable upon their Eckart's Hill,

bristling with cannon; and can in no way be manoeuvred down, or forced or enticed into Battle. A baffling,

bitterly impatient three weeks;two of them the worst two, he spends at Weissenberg itself, chasing

Pandours, and scuffling on the surface, till Keith and the Magazinetrain come up; even writing Verses

The instant Keith and the Magazines are come he starts for Bernstadt; 56,000 strong after this junction:and

a Prussian Officer, dating "Bernstadtel [Bernstadt on the now Maps], 21st August, 1757," sends us this

"AUGUST 15th, Majesty left Weissenberg, and marched hither, much to the enemy's astonishment, who had

lain perfectly quiet for a fortnight past, fancying they were a mastiff on the doorsill of Silesia: little thinking

to be trampled on in this unceremonious way! General Beck, when our hussars of the vanguard made

appearance, had to saddle and ride as for life, leaving every rag of baggage, and forty of his Pandours captive.

Our hussars stuck to him, chasing him into Ostritz, where they surprised General Nadasti at dinner; and did a

still better stroke of business: Nadasti himself could scarcely leap on horseback and get off; left all his field

equipage, coaches, horses, kitchenutensils, flunkies seventytwo in number,and, what was worst of all, a

secret box, in which were found certain Dresden Correspondences of a highly treasonous character, which

now the writers there may quake to think of;"if Friedrich, or we, could take much notiee of them, in this

Next day, August 16th, Friedrich detached five battalions to Gorlitz;Prince Karl (he calls it DAUN) still

camping on the Eckartsberg;and himself, about 4 P.M., with the main Army, marched up to those

Austrians on their Hill, to see if they would fight. [ OEuvres de Frederic, iv. 137.] No, they would n't: they

merely hustled themselves round so as to face him; face him, and even flank him with cannonbatteries if he

came too near. Steep ground, "precipitons front of rocks," in some places. "A hollow before their front;

Village of Wittgenau there, and three roads through it, ONE of them with width for wheels;" Daun sitting

inaccessible, in short. Next day, Winterfeld, with a detached Division, crossed the Neisse, tried Nadasti:

"Attack Nadasti, on his woody knoll at Hirschfeld yonder; they will have to rise and save him!" In vain, that

too; they let Nadasti take his own luck: for four days (16th20th August) everything was tried, in vain.

No Battle to be had from these Austrians. And it would have been so infinitely convenient to us: Reich's

Army and Soubise's French are now in the actual precincts of Erfurt (August 25th, Soubise took quarter

there); Royal Highness of Cumberland is staggering back into the Sea; Richelieu's French (not D'Estrees any

more, D'Estrees being superseded in this strange way) are aiming, it is thought, towards Magdeburg, had they

once done with Royal Highness; Swedes are getting hold of Pommern; Russians, in huge force, of Preussen:

how comfortable to have had our Austrians finished before going upon the others! For four days more

(August 20th24th), Friedrich arranges his Army for watching the Austrians, and guarding Silesia;Bevern

and Winterfeld to take command in his absence:and, August 25th, has to march; with a small Division,

which, at Dresden, he will increase by Moritz's, now needless in the Pirna Country; towards Thuringen; to

look into Soubise and the Reich's Army, as a thing that absolutely cannot wait. Arrives in Dresden, Monday,

"DRESDEN, 29th AUGUST, 1757, This day, about noon, his Majesty, with a part of his Army from the

Upper Lausitz, arrived at the Neustadt here. Though the kitchen had been appointed to be set up at what they

call The Barns (DIE SCHEUNEN), his Majesty was pleased to alight in Konigsbruck Street, at the new

House of Bruhl's Chamberlain, Haller; and there passed the night. Tuesday evening, 30th, his Majesty the

King, with his Lifeguards of Horse and of Foot, also with the Gensd'Armes and other Battalions, marched

through the City, about a mile out on the Freiberg road, and took quarter in Klein Hamberg. The 3lst, all the

Army followed,"a poor 23,000, Moritz and he, that was all! ["22,360" (Templehof, i. 228).]"the King's

fieldequipage, which had been taken from the Bruhl Palace and packed in twelve wagons, went with them."

[Rodenbeck, p. 316; Preuss, ii. 84 n; Mitchell's Interview ( Memoirs and Papers, i. 270).]

Before going upon this forlorn march of Friedrich's, one of the forlornest a son of Adam ever had, we must

speak of a thing which befell to rearward, while the march was only half done, and which greatly influenced

it and all that followed. It was the seventh day of Friedrich's march, not above eighty miles of it yet done,

when Winterfeld perished in fight. No Winterfeld now to occupy the Austrians in his absence; to stand

between Silesia and them, or assist him farther in his lonesome struggle against the world. Let us spend a

moment on the exit of that brave man: Bernstadt, Gorlitz Country, September 7th, 1757.

The Bevern Army, 36,000 strong, is still there in its place in the Lausitz, near Gorlitz; Prince Karl lies quiet

in his near Zittau, ever since he burnt that Town, and stood four days in arms unattackable by Friedrich with

prospect of advantage. The Court of Vienna cannot comprehend this state of inactivity: "Two to one, and a

mere Bevern against you, the King far away in Saxony upon his desperate AntiFrench mission there: why

not go in upon this Bevern? The French, whom we are by every courier passionately importuning to sweep

Saxony clear, what will they say of this strange mode of sweeping Silesia clear?" Maria Theresa and her

KriegsHofrath are much exercised with these thoughts, and with French and other remonstrances that come.

Maria Theresa and her KriegsHofrath at length despatch their supreme Kaunitz, Graf Kaunitz in person, to

stir up Prince Karl, and look into the matter with his own wise eyes and great heart: Prince Karl, by way of

treat to this high gentleman, determines on doing something striking upon Bevern.

Bevern lies with his main body about Gorlitz, in and to westward of Gorlitz, a pleasant Town on the left bank

of the Neisse (readers know there are four Neisses, and which of them this is), with fine hilly country all

round, bulky solitary Heights and Mountains rising out of fruitful plains,two Hochkirchs (HIGHKIRKS),

for example, are in this region, one of which will become extremely notable next year:Bevern has a strong

camp leaning on the due Heights here, with Gorlitz in its lap; and beyond Gorlitz, on the right bank of the

Neisse, united to him by a Bridge, he has placed Winterfeld with 10,000, who lies with his back to Gorlitz,

proper brooks and fencible places flanking him, has a Dorf (THORP) called Moys in HIS lap; and, some

short furlong beyond Moys, a 2,000 of his grenadiers planted on the top of a Hill called the Moysberg, called

also the Holzberg (WOODHILL) and Jakelsberg, of which the reader is to take notice. Fine outpost, with

proper batteries atop, with hussar squadrons and hussar pickets sprinkled about; which commands a far

outlook towards Silesia, and in marching thither, or in continuing here, is useful to have in hand,were it not

a little too distant from the main body. It is this Jakelsberg, capable of being snatched if one is sudden

enough, that Prince Karl decides on: it may be good for much or for little to Prince Karl; and, if even for

nothing, it will be a brilliant affront upon Winterfeld and Bevern, and more or less charming to Kaunitz.

Winterfeld, the ardent enterprising man, King's other self, is thought to be the mainspring of affairs here

(small thanks to him privately from Bevern, add some): and is stationed in the extreme van, as we see;

Winterfeld is engaged in many things besides the care of this post; and indeed where a critical thing is to be

done, we can imagine Winterfeld goes upon it. "We must try to stay here till the King has finished in

Saxony!" says Winterfeld always. To which Bevern replies, "Excellent, truly; but how?" Bevern has his

provender at Dresden, sadly far off; has to hold Bautzen garrisoned, and gets much trouble with his convoys.

Better in Silesia, with our magazines at hand, thinks Bevern, less mindful of other considerations.

Tuesday, September 6th, Prince Karl sends Nadasti to the right bank of the River, forward upon Moys, to do

the Jakelsberg before day tomorrow: only some 2,000 grenadiers on it; Nadasti has with him 15,000, some

count 20,000 of all arms, artillery in plenty; surely sufficient for the Jakelsberg; and Daun advances, with the

main body, on the other side of the River, to be within reach, should Moys lead to more serious

consequences. Nadasti diligently marches all day; posts himself at night within few miles of Moys; gets his

cannon to the proper Hills (GALLOWS Hill and others), his Croats to the proper Woods; and, before daylight

Wednesday morning, at the set hour, Nadasti, with artillery bursting out and quivering battlelines, is at work

accordingly; hurls up 1,000 Croats for one item, and regulars to the amount of "forty companies in three

lines." The grenadiers, somewhat astonished, for the morning was misty and their hussarposts had come

hastily in, stood upon their guard, like Prussian men; hurled back the 1,000 Croats fast enough; stubbornly

repulsed the regulars too, and tumbled them down hill with bulletstorm for accompaniment; gallantly foiling

this first attempt of Nadasti's. Of course Nadasti will make another, will make ever others; capture of the

Winterfeld was not at Moys, he was at Gorlitz, just got in from escorting an important mealconvoy hither

out of Bautzen; and was in conference with Bevern, when rumor of these Croat attacks came in at the gallop

from Moys. Winterfeld made little of the rumors: he had heard of some attack intended, but it was to have

been overnight, and has not been. "Mere foraging of Croat rabble, like yesterday's!" said Winterfeld, and

continued his present business. In few minutes the sound of heavy cannonading convinced him. "Haha, there

are my guests," said he; "we must see if we cannot entertain them right!" sprang to horseback, ordered on,

double quick, the three regiments nearest him, and was off at the gallop, too late; or, alas, too EARLY we

might rather say! Arriving at the gallop, Winterfeld found his grenadiers and their insufficient reinforcements

rolling back, the Hill lost; Winterfeld "sprang to a fresh horse," shot his lightning glances and energies, to his

hand and that; stormfully rallied the matter, recovered the Hill; and stormfully defended it, for, I should

guess, an hour or more; and might still have done one knows not what, had not a bullet struck him through

Three other reasons the Prussians give for loss of their Hill, which are of no consequence to them or to us in

comparison. First, that Bevern; on message after message, sent no reinforcement; that Winterfeld was left to

his own 10,000, and what he and they could make of it. Bevern is jealous of Winterfeld, hint they, and

willing to see his impetuous audacity checked. Perhaps only cautious of getting into a general action for what

was intrinsically nothing? Second, that two regiments of Infantry, whom Winterfeld detached doublequick

to seize a couple of villages (Leopoldshayn, Hermsdorf) on his right, and therefrom fusillade Nadasti on

flank, found the villages already occupied by thousands of Croats, with regular foot and cannonbatteries,

and could in nowise seize them. This was a great reverse of advantage. Third, that an AidedeCamp made a

small misnomer, misreport of one word, which was terribly important: "Bring me hither Regiment

Manteuffel!" Winterfeld had ordered. The AidedeCamp reported it "Grenadiers Manteuffel:" upon which,

the grenadiers, who were posted in a walled garden, an important point to Winterfeld's right, came instantly

to order; and Austrians instantly rushed in to the vacant post, and galled Winterfeld's other flank by their fire.

[Abundant Accounts in Seyfarth, ii. ( Beylagen), 162163; HeldenGeschichte, iv. 615633; Retzow, i.

Enough, Winterfeld lay bleeding to death, the Hill was lost, Prussians drawing off slowly and backforemost,

about two in the afternoon; upon which the Austrians also drew off, leaving only a small party on the Hill,

who voluntarily quitted it next morning. Next morning, likewise, Winterfeld had died. The Hill was, except

as bravado, and by way of comfort to Kaunitz, nothing for the Austrians; but the death of Winterfeld, which

had come by chance to them in the business, was probably a great thing. Better than two pitched battles

gained: who shall say? He was a shining figure, this Winterfeld; dangerous to the Austrians. The most

shining figure in the Prussian Army, except its Chief; and had great thoughts in his head. Prussia is not skilful

to celebrate her Heroes,the Prussian Muse of History, choked with dry military pipeclay, or with husky

cobwebbery and academic pedantry, how can she?but if Prussia can produce heroes worth celebrating, that

is the one important point. Apart from soldiership, and the outward features which are widely different, there

is traceable in Winterfeld some kinship in soul to English Chatham his contemporary; though he has not had

Winterfeld was by no means universally liked; as what brave man is or can be? Too susceptible to flattery;

too this, too that. He is, one feels always, except Friedrich only, the most shining figure in the Prussian Army:

and it was not unnatural he should be Friedrich's one friend,as seems to have been the case. Friedrich,

when this Job'smessage reached him (in Erfurt Country, eight days hence), was deeply affected by it. To

tears, or beyond tears, as we can fancy. "Against my multitude of enemies I may contrive resources," he was

heard to say; "but I shall find no Winterfeld again!" Adieu, my one friend, real Peer, sole companion to my

"The Prince of Prussia, contrariwise," says a miserable little Note, which must not be withheld, "brightened

up at the news: 'I shall now die much more content, knowing that there is one so bad and dangerous man

fewer in the Army!' And, six months after, in his actual deathmoments, he exclaimed: 'I end my life, the last

period of which has cost me so much sorrow; but Winterfeld is he who shortened my days!'" [Preuss, ii. 75;

citing Retzow.]Very bitter Opposition humors circulating, in their fashion, there as elsewhere in this

Bevern, the millstone of Winterfeld being off his neck, has become a more responsible, though he feels

himself a muchdelivered man. Had not liked Winterfeld, they say; or had even hated him, since those bad

Zittau times. Can now, at any rate, make for Schlesien and the mealmagazines, when he sees good. He will

find meal readier there; may he find other things corresponding! Nobody now to keep him painfully

On the third day after (September l0th), Bevern, having finished packing, took the road for Schlesien; Daun

and Karl attending him; nothing left of Daun and Karl in those Saxon Countries,except, at Stolpen, out

Dresdenwards, some ReservePost or Rearguard of 15,000, should we chance to hear of that again. And

from the end of September onwards, Bevern's star, once somewhat bright at Reichenberg, shot rapidly

downwards, under the horizon altogether; and there came, post after post, such news out of Schlesien, to

The SoubiseHildburghausen people had got rendezvoused at Erfurt about August 25th; 50,000 by account,

and no enemy within 200 miles of them; and in the Versailles circles it had been expected they would

proceed to the "Deliverance of Saxony" straightway. What is to hinder?Friedrich, haggling with the

Austrians at Bernstadt, could muster but a poor 23,000, when he did march towards Erfurt. In those same

neighborhoods, within reach of Soubise, is the Richelieu, late D'Estrees, Army; elated with Hastenbeck,

comfortably pushing Royal Highness of Cumberland, who makes no resistance, step by step, into the sea;

victoriously plundering, far and wide in those countries, Hanover itself the Headquarter. In the Versailles

circles, it is farther expected that Richelieu, "Conqueror of Minorca," will shortly besiege and conquer

Magdeburg, and so crown his glories. Why not; were the "Deliverance of Saxony" complete?

The whole of which turned out greatly otherwise, and to the sad disappointment of Versailles. The Conqueror

of Minorca is probably aware that the conquering of Magdeburg, against one whose platforms are not rotten,

and who does not "lie always in his bed," as poor old Blakeney did, will be a very different matter. And the

private truth is, Marrchal de Richelieu never turned his thoughts upon Magdeburg at all, nor upon any point

of war that had difficulties, but solely upon collecting plunder for himself in those Countries. One of the most

magnificent marauders on record; in no danger, he, of becoming monitory and a pendulum, like the 1,000 that

already swing in that capacity to rear of him! And he did manage, in this Campaign, which was the last of his

military services, so as to pay off at Paris "above 50,000 pounds of debts; and to build for himself a beautiful

Garden Mansion there, which the mocking populations called 'Hanover Pavilion (PAVILION

D'HANOVRE);'" a name still sticking to it, I believe. [Barbier, iii. 256, 271.] Of the Richelieu Campaign we

are happily delivered from saying almost anything: and the main interest for us turns now on that

SoubiseHildburghausen wing of it,which also is a sufficiently contemptible affair; not to be spoken of

Friedrich, with his 23,000 setting out from Dresden, August 30th, has a march of about 170 miles towards

Erfurt. He may expect to findcounting Richelieu, if Royal Highness of Cumberland persist in acting ZERO

as hithertoa confused mass of about 150,000 Enemies, of one sort and other, waiting him ahead; not to

think of those he has just left behind;and he cannot well be in a triumphant humor! Behind, before, around,

it is one gathering of Enemies: one point only certain, that he must beat them, or else die. Readers would fain

follow him in this forlorn march; him, the one point of interest now in it: and readers shall, if we can manage,

though it is extremely difficult. For, on getting to Erfurt, he finds his SoubiseHildburghausen Army off on

retreat among the inaccessible Hills still farther westward; and has to linger painfully there, and to detach,

and even to march personally against other Enemies; and then, these finished, to march back towards his

Erfurt ones, who are taking heart in the interim:and, in short, from September 1st to November 5th, there

are two months of confused manoeuvring and marching to and fro in that WestSaxon region, which are very

intricate to readers. November 5th is a day unforgettable: but anterior to that, what can we do? Here, dated,

are the Three grand Epochs of the thing; which readers had better fix in mind as a preliminary:

1. SEPTEMBER 13th, Friedrich has got to Erfurt neighborhood; but Soubise and Company are off

westward to the Hills of Eisenach, won't come down; Friedrich obliged to linger thereabouts, painfully

2. OCTOBER 11th, hearing that "15,000 Austrians" (that Stolpen Party, left as rearguard at Stolpen;

Croats mainly, under a General Haddick) are on march for Berlin, he rises in haste thitherward, through

Leipzig, Torgau, say 100 miles; hears that Haddick HAS been in Berlin (16th17th October) for one day, and

that he is off again full speed with a ransom of 30,000 pounds, which they have had to pay him: upon which

Friedrich calls halt in the Torgau country;and would have been uncertain what to do, had not

3. Soubise and Company, extremely elated with this Haddick Feat, come out from their Hills, intent to

deliver Saxony after all. So that Friedrich has to turn back (October 26th30th) through Leipzig again;

towards,in fact towards ROSSBACH and NOVEMBER 5th, in his old Saale Country, which does not

These are the cardinal dates; these let the reader recur to, if necessary, and keep steadily in mind: it will then

perhaps be possible to intercalate, in a manner intelligible to him, what other lucent phenomena there are; and

these dismal wanderings, and miserablest two months of Friedrich's life, will not be wholly a provoking

blotch of enigmatic darkness, but in some sort a thing with features in the twilight of the Past.

The march to Erfurt was of twelve days, and without adventure to speak of. Mayer and FreeBattalion had

the vanguard, Friedrich there as usual; main body, under Keith with Ferdinand and Moritz, following in

several columns: straight towards their goal; with steady despatch; for twelve days;weather often very wet.

[Tempelhof, i. 229; Rodenbeck, i. 317 (not very correct): in Westphalen (ii. 20 a personal Diary of this

March, and of what followed on Duke Ferdinand's part.] Seidlitz, with cavalry, had gone ahead, in search of

one Turpin, a mighty hunter and Hussar among the French, who was threatening Leipzig, threatening Halle:

but Turpin made off at sound of him, without trying fight; so that Seidlitz had only to halt, and rejoin, hoping

A march altogether of the common type,the stages of it not worth marking except for special

readers;and of memorable to us offers only this, if even this: at Rotha, in Leipzig Country, the eighth stage

"I feel, M. le Duc, that you have not been put in the post where you are for the purpose of Negotiating. I am

persuaded, however, that the Nephew of the great Cardinal Richelieu is made for signing treaties no less than

for gaining battles. I address myself to you from an effect of the esteem with which you inspire even those

"'T is a small matter, Monsieur (IL S'AGIT D'UNE BAGATELLE): only to make Peace, if people are

pleased to wish it! I know not what your Instructions are: but, in the supposition that the King your Master,

zow assured by your Successes, will have put it in your power to labor in the pacification of Germany, I

address to you the Sieur d'Elcheset" (Sieur Balbi is the real name of him, an Italian Engineer of mine, who

once served with you in the Fontenoy times, and some say he has privately a 15,000 pounds for your

Grace's acceptance,"the Sieur d'Elcheset), in whom you may place complete confidence.

"Though the events of this Year afford no hope that your Court still entertains a favorable disposition for my

interests, I cannot persuade myself that a union which has lasted between us for sixteen years may not have

left some trace in the mind. Perhaps I judge others by myself. But, however that may be, I, in short, prefer

putting my interests into the King your Master's hands rather thau into any other's. If you have not, Monsieur,

any Instructions as to the Proposal hereby made, I beg of you to ask such, and to inform me what the tenor of

"He who has merited statues at Genoa [ten years ago, in those ANTI Austrian times, when Genoa burst up

in revolt, and the French and Richelieu beautifully intervened against the oppressors]; he who conquered

Minorca in spite of immense obstacles; he who is on the point of subjugating Lower Saxony,can do

nothing more glorious than to restore Peace to Europe. Of all your laurels, that will be the fairest. Work in

this Cause, with the activity which has secured you such rapid progress otherwise; and be persuaded that

nobody will feel more grateful to you than, Monsieur le Duc, Your faithful Friend, FREDERIC."

[Given in RODENBECK, i. 313 (doubtless from Memoires de Richelieu, Paris, 1793, ix. 175, the one

fountainhead in regard to this small affair): for "the 15,000 pounds" and other rumored particulars, sea

Richelieu, it appears by any evidence there is, went willingly into this scheme; and applied at Versailles, as

desired; with a peremptory negative for result. Nothing came of the Richelieu attempt there; nor of "CE M.

DE MIRABEAU," if he ever went; nor of any other on that errand. Needless to apply for Peace at Versailles

(and a mere waste of your "sum of 15,000 pounds," which one hopes is fabulous in the present scarcity of

money):or should we perhaps have mentioned the thing at all, except for the sake of Wilhelmina, whose

fond scheme it is in this extremity of fate; scheme which she tries in still other directions, as we shall see; her

Brother willing too, but probably with much less hope. If a civil Letter and a bribe of Money will do it, these

This at Rotha is the day while Winterfeld, on Moys Hill, is meeting his death. Today at Pegau, in this

neighborhood, Seidlitz, who could not fall in with Turpin, has given the Hussars of Loudon a beautiful slap;

the first enemy we have seen on this march; and the last,nothing but Loudon and Hussars visibly about, the

rest of those SoubiseReichs people dormant, as would seem. "D'Elcheset," Balbi, or whoever he was, would

not find Richelieu at Hanover; but at a place called KlosterZeven, in Bremen Country, fifty or sixty miles

farther on. There, this day, are Richelieu with one Sporcken a Hanoverian, and one Lynar a Dane, rapidly

finishing a thing they were pleased to call "Convention of KlosterZeven;" which Friedrich regarded as

another huge misfortune fallen on him, though it proved to have been far the reverse a while after.

"Never was there a more futile Convention than that of Kloster Zeven; which filled all Europe with

lamentable noises, indignations and anxieties, during the remainder of that Year; and is now reduced, for

Europe and the Universe, to a silent mathematical point, or mere mark of position, requiring still to be

attended to in that character, though itself zero in any other. Here are the main particulars, in their sequence.

"August 3d, towards midnight, '11 P.M.' say the Books, Marechal de Richelieu arrives in the D'Estrees Camp

('Camp of Oldendorf,' still only one march west of Hastenbeck); to whom D'Estrees on the instant loftily

delivers up his Army; explains with loyalty, for a few days more, all things needful to the new Commander;

declines to be himself Second; and loftily withdraws to the Baths of Aachen 'for his health.'

"Royal Highness of Cumberland is, by this time, well on Elbeward, Oceanward. Till August 1st; for one

week, Royal Highness of Cumberland lay at Minden, some thirty odd miles from Hastenbeck; deploring that

sad mistake; but unpersuadable to stand, and try amendment of it: August lst, the French advancing on him

again, he moved off northward, seaward. By Nienburg, Verden, Rothenburg, Zeven, Bremenvorde,

Stade;arrived at Stade, on the tidal Waters of the Elbe, August 5th; and by necessity did halt there. From

Minden onwards, Richelieu, not D'Estrees, has had the chasing of Royal Highness: one of the simplest

functions; only that the country is getting muddy, difficult for artillerycarriage (thinks Richelieu), with an

Army so dilapidated, hungry, short of pay; and that Royal Highness, a very furious person to our former

knowledge, might turn on us like a boar at bay, endangering everything; and finally, that one's desire is not

"Britannic Majesty, in this awful state of his Hanover Armaments, has been applying at the Danish Court;

Richelieu too sends off an application thither: 'Mediate between us, spare useless bloodshed!' [Valfons, p.

291.]Whereupon Danish Majesty (Britannic's sonin law) cheerfully undertakes it; bids one Lynar bestir

himself upon it. Count Lynar, an esteemed Official of his, who lives in those neighborhoods; Danish Viceroy

in Oldenburg,much concerned with the Scriptures, the Sacred Languages and other seraphic studies,

and a changed man since we saw him last in the Petersburg regions, making love to Mrs. Anton Ulrich long

ago! Lynar, feeling the axis of the world laid on his shoulder in this manner, loses not a moment; invokes the

Heavenly Powers; goes on it with an alacrity and a despatch beyond praise. Runs to the Duke of Cumberland

at Stade; thence to Richelieu at Zeven; back to the Duke, back to Zeven: 'Won't you; and won't YOU?' and in

four short days has the once worldfamed 'Convention of KlosterZeven' standing on parchment,signed,

ready for ratifying: 'Royal Highness's Army to go home to their countries again [routes, methods, times:

when, how, and what next, all left unsettled], and noise of War to cease in those parts.' Signed cheerfully on

both sides 9th September, 1757; and Lynar striking the stars with his sublime head. [Busching (who alone is

exact in the matter), Beitrage, iv. 167, 168, ? Lynar: see Scholl, iii. 49; Valfons, pp. 202, 203; OEuvres de

"Unaccountable how Lynar had managed such a difficulty. He says seraphically, in a Letter to a friend, which

the Prussian hussars got hold of, 'The idea of it was inspired by the Holy Ghost:' at which the whole world

haha'd again. For it was a Convention vague, absurd, not capable of being executed; ratification of it refused

by both Courts, by the French Court first, if that was any matter:and the only thing now memorable of it is,

that IT was a total Futility; but, that there ensued from it a Fact still of importance; namely:

"That on the 5th of October following, Royal Highness quitted Stade, and his wrecked Army hanging

sorrowful there, like a flight of plucked cranes in midair;arrived at Kensington, October 12th; heard the

paternal Majesty say, that evening, 'Here is my son who has ruined me, and disgraced himself!'and

thereupon indignantly laid down his military offices, all and sundry; and ceased altogether to command

Armies, English or other, in this world. [In WALPOLE (iii. 5964) the amplest minuteness of detail.]

Whereby, in the then and now diagram of things, KlosterZeven, as a mathematical point, continues

"Pitt's magnanimity to Royal Highness was conspicuous. Royal Highness, it is said, had been very badly used

in this matter by his poor peddling Father and the Hanover Ministers; the matter being one puddle of

imbecilities from beginning to end. He was the soul of honor; brave as a Welf lion; but, of dim poor head;

and had not the faintest vestige [ALLERGERINGSTE says Mauvillon] of military skill: awful in the extreme

Ever since July 29th, three days after Hastenbeck, Pitt had been in Office again; such the bombardment by

CorporationBoxes and Events impinging on Britannic Majesty: but not till now, as I fancy, had Pitt's way, in

regard to those German matters, been clear to him. The question of a German Army, if you must, have a

NoGeneral at the top of it, might well be problematical to Pitt. To equip your strong fighting man, and send

him on your errand, regardless of expense; and, by way of preliminary, cut the head off him, before saying

"Goodspeed to you, strong man!" But with a General, Pitt sees that it can be different; that perhaps

"America can be conquered in Germany," and that, with a Britannic Majesty so disposed, there is no other

way of trying it. To this course Pitt stands henceforth, heedless of the gazetteer cackle, "Hah, our Pitt too

become German, after all his talking!"like a seventyfour under full sail, with sea, wind, pilot all of one

mind, and only certain waterfowl objecting. And is King of England for the next Four Years; the one King

poor England has had this long while;his hand felt shortly at the ends of the Earth. And proves such a

blessing to Friedrich, among others, as nothing else in this War; pretty much his one blessing, little as he

expected it. Before long, Excellency Mitchell begins consulting about a General, and Friedrich dimly sees

better things in the distance, and that KlosterZeven had not been the misfortune he imagined, but only "The

Friedrich's march has gone by Dobeln, Grimma, to Pegau and Rotha, Leipzig way, but, with Leipzig well to

right: it just brushes Weissenfels to rightward, next day after Rotha; crosses Saale River near Naumburg,

whence straight through Weimar Country, Weimar City on your left, to Erfurt on the northern side;and,

"ERFURT, TUESDAY 13th SEPTEMBER, 1757, About 10 in the morning [listen to a faithful Witness],

there appeared Hussars on the heights to northward:'Vanguard of his Prussian Majesty!' said Erfurt with

alarm, and our French guests with alarm. And scarcely were the words uttered, when said Vanguard, and

gradually the whole Prussian Army [only some 9,000, though we all thought it the whole], came to sight;

posting itself in halfmoon shape round us there; French and Reichs folk hurrying off what they could from

the Cyriaksberg and Petersberg, by the opposite gates,"towards Gotha, and the Hills of Eisenach.

"Think what a dilemma for Erfurt, jammed between two horns in this way, should one horn enter before the

other got out! Much parleying and supplicating on the part of Erfurt: Till at last, about 4 P.M., French being

all off, Erfurt flung its gates open; and the new Power did enter, with some due state: Prussian Majesty in

Person (who could have hoped it!) and Prince Henri beside him; Cavalry with drawn swords; Infantry with

fieldpieces, and the band playing"Prussian grenadier march, I should hope, or something equally

cheering. "The rest of the Vanguard, and, in succession, the Army altogether, had taken Camp outside,

looking down on the Northern Gate, over at Ilgertshofen, a village in the neighborhood, about two miles off."

That is the first sight Friedrich has of "LA DAUPHINE," as the Versailles people call this Bellona, come to

"deliver Saxony;" and she is considerably coyer than had been expected. Many sad days, and ardent vain

vows of Friedrich, before he could see the skirt of her again! From Ilgertshofen, northwestward to Dittelstadt,

Gamstadt, and other poor specks of villages in Gotha Territory, is ten or fifteen miles; from Dittelstadt

eastward to Buttstadt and Buttelstadt, in Weimar Country, may be twentyfive: in this area, Friedrich,

shifting about, chiefly for convenience of quarters,headquarter Kirschleben for a while, Buttelstadt

finally and longest,had to wander impatiently to and fro for four weeks and more; no work procurable, or

none worth mentioning:in the humor of a man whose House is on fire, flaming out of every window, front

and rear; who has run up with quenching apparatus; and cannot, being spellbound, get the least bucket of it

applied. And is by nature the rapidest soul now alive. Figure his situation there, as it gradually becomes

For the present, DAUPHINESS Bellona, hurrying to the Hills, has left some tagrag of remnant in Gotha.

Whereupon, the second day, here is an "Own Correspondent" again,not coming by electric telegraph, but

"GOTHA, THURSDAY, 15th SEPTEMBER. GrandDuke and Duchess, like everybody else, have been

much occupied all morning with the fact, that the Prussian Army [Seidlitz and a regiment or two, nothing

more] is actually here; took possession of the TownGates and Main Guard this morning,certain

HungarianFrench hussar rabble, hateful to every one in Gotha, having made off in time, rapidly towards

"Towards noon, his Royal Majesty in highest person, with his Lord Brother the Prince Henri's Royal

Highness, arrived in Gotha; sent straightway, by one of his Officers, a compliment to the GrandDuke; and

'would have the pleasure to come and dine, if his Serene Highness permitted.' Serene Highness, self and

Household always cordially Friedrich's, was just about sitting down to dinner; and answered with exuberantly

glad surprise,or was answering, when Royal Majesty himself stept in with smiling face; and embracing the

Duke, said: 'I timed myself to arrive at this moment, thinking your Durchlaucht would be at dinner, that I

might be received without ceremony, and dine like a neighbor among you.' Unexpected as this visit was, the

joy of Duke and Duchess," always fast friends to Friedrich, and the latter ever afterwards his correspondent,

"may be conceived, but not adequately expressed; as both the Serenities were touched, in the most affecting

"His Majesty requested that the Frau von Buchwald, our Most Gracious Duchess's HofDame, whose

qualities he much valued, might dine with them,"being always fond of sensible people, especially sensible

women. "The whole Highest and High company [Royal, that is, and Ducal] was, during table, uncommonly

merry. The King showed himself altogether content; and his bright clever talk and sprightly sallies,

awakening everybody to the like, left not the least trace visible of the weighty toils he was then engaged

in; as if the weightier these were, the less should they fetter the noble openness (FREYMUTHIGKEIT) of

"His Majesty having taken leave of Duke and Duchess, and graciously permitted the chiefest persons of the

Gotha Court to pay their respects, withdrew to his Army." [Letter in Helden Geschichte, iv. 638, 639.]

Slept, I find elsewhere, "at Gamstadt, on the floor of a little Inn;" meaning to examine Posts in that part, next

Here has been a cheerful little scene for Friedrich; the last he has in these black weeks. A laborious

"What a pity one knows nothing, nor can know, about this Duke and Duchess, though their names, especially

the latter's name, are much tossed to and fro in the Books! We heard of them, favorably, in Voltaire's time;

and may again, at least of the Lady, who is henceforth a Correspondent of Friedrich's. The above is a dim

direct view of them, probably our last as well as first. Duke's name is Friedrich III.; I do believe, a man of

solidity, honor and polite dignified sense, a highly respectable Duke of SachsenGotha, contented to be

obscure, and quietly do what was still doable in that enigmatic situation. He is Uncle to our George

III.;his Sister is the now PrincessDowager of Wales, with a Lord Bute, and I know not what questionable

figures and intrigues, or suspicions of intrigue, much about her. His Duchess, Louisa Dorothee, is a Princess

of distinguished qualities, literary tastes,Voltaire's Hostess, Friedrich's Correspondent: a bright and quietly

shining illumination to the circle she inhabits. Duke is now fiftyeight, Duchess fortyseven; and they lost

their eldest Son last year. There has been lately a considerable private brabble as to Tutorage of the Duke of

Weimar (Wilhelmina's maddish Duke, who is dead lately; and a Prince left, who soon died also, but left a

Son, who grew to be Goethe's friend); Tutorage claimed by various Cousins, has been adjudged to this one,

"As to the famed GrandDuchess, she is a SachsenMeiningen Princess, come of Ernst the Pious, of Johann

the Magnanimous, as her Husband and all these Sachsens are: when Voltaire went precipitant, with such

velocity, from the Potsdam Heaven, she received him at Gotha; set him on writing his HISTORY OF THE

EMPIRE, and endeavored to break his fall. She was noble to Voltaire, and well honored by that uncertain

Spirit. There is a fine Library at Gotha; and the Lady bright loves Books, and those that can write them;a

friend of the Light, a Daughter of the Sun and the Empyrean, not of Darkness and the Stygian Fens."

Friedrich's first Letter to her Highness was one of thanks, above a year ago, for an act of kindness, act of

justice withal, which she did to one of his Official people. Here, on the morrow of that dinner, is the second

Letter, much more aerial and cordial, in which style they all continue, now that he has seen the admired

"MADAM,Yesterday was a Day I shall never forget; which satisfied a just desire I have had, this long

while, to see and hear a Princess whom all Europe admires. I am not surprised, Madam, that you subdue

people's hearts; you are made to attract the esteem and the homage of all who have the happiness to know

you. But it is incomprehensible to me how you can have enemies; and how men representing Countries that

by no means wish to pass for barbarous, can have been so basely (INDIGNEMENT) wanting in the respect

they owe you, and in the consideration which is due to all sovereigns [French not famous for their refined

demeanor in Saxony this time]. Why could not I fly to prevent such disorders, such indecency! I can only

offer you a great deal of goodwill; but I feel well that, in present circumstances, the thing wanted is

effective results and reality. May I, Madam, be so happy as to render you some service! May your fortune be

equal to your virtues! I am with the highest consideration, Madam, your Highness's faithful Cousin, F."

To Wilhelmina he says of it, next day, still gratified, though sad news have come in the interim;death of

... "The day before yesterday I was in Gotha. It was a touching scene to see the partners of one's misfortunes,

with like griefs and like complaints. The Duchess is a woman of real merit, whose firmness puts many a man

to shame. Madam de Buchwald appears to me a very estimable person, and one who would suit you much:

intelligent, accomplished, without pretensions, and goodhumored. My Brother Henri is gone to see them

today. I am so oppressed with grief, that I would rather keep my sadness to myself. I have reason to

congratulate myself much on account of my Brother Henri; he has behaved like an angel, as a soldier, and

well towards me as a Brother. I cannot, unfortunately, say the same of the elder. He sulks at me (IL ME

BODE), and has sulkily retired to Torgau, from whence, I hear, he is gone to Wittenberg. I shall leave him to

his caprices and to his bad conduct; and I prophesy nothing good for the future, unless the younger guide

him." ["Kirschleben, near Erfurt, 17th September, 1757" ( OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. i. 306).] ...

This is part of a long sad Letter to Wilhelmina; parts of which we may recur to, as otherwise illustrative. But

before going into that tragic budget of bad news, let us give the finale of Gotha, which occurred the next

day,tragicomic in part,and is the last bit of action in those dreary four weeks.

GOTHA, 18th SEPTEMBER. "Since Thursday 15th, MajorGeneral Seidlitz," youngest MajorGeneral of

the Army, but a rapidly rising man, "has been Commandant in Gotha, under flourishing circumstances;

popular and supreme, though only with a force of 1,500, dragoons and hussars. Monday morning early,

Seidlitz's scouts bring word that the SoubiseHildburghausen people are in motion hitherward; French

hussars and Austrian, Turpin's, Loudon's, all that are; grenadiers in mass;total, say, 8,000 horse and foot,

with abundance of artillery;have been on march all night, to retake Gotha; with all the Chief Generals and

Dignitaries of the Army following in their carriages, for some hours past, to see it done. Seidlitz, ascertaining

these things, has but one course left,that of clearing himself out, which he does with orderly velocity: and

at 9 A.M. the Dignitaries and their 8,000 find open gates, Seidlitz clean off; occupy the posts, with due

emphasis and flourish; and proceed to the Schloss in a grand triumphant way, where privately they are not

very welcome, though one puts the best face on it, and a dinner of importance is the first thing imperative to

be set in progress. A flurried Court, that of Gotha, and much swashing of French plumes through it, all this

"Seidlitz has not flitted very far. Seidlitz has ranked his small dragoonhussar force in a hollow, two miles

off; has got warning sent to a third regiment within reach of him, 'Come towards me, and in a certain defile,

visible from Gotha eastward, spread yourselves so and so!'and judges by the swashing he hears of up

yonder, that perhaps something may still be done. Dinner, up in the Schloss, is just being taken from the spit,

and the swashing at its height, when'Hah what is that, though?' and all plumes pause. For it is Seidlitz,

artistically spread into single files, on the prominent points of vision; advancing again, more like 15,000 than

1,500: 'And in the Defile yonder, that regiment, do you mark it; the King's vanguard, I should say?To

"That is Seidlitz's fine Bit of Painting, hung out yonder, hooked on the sky itself, as temporary background to

Gotha, to be judged of by the connoisseurs. For pictorial effect, breadth of touch, truth to Nature and real

power on the connoisseur, I have heard of nothing equal by any artist. The high Generalcy, Soubise,

Hildburghausen, Darmstadt, mount in the highest haste; everybody mounts, happy he who has anything to

mount; the grenadiers tumble out of the Schloss; dragoons, artillery tumble out; Dauphiness takes wholly to

her heels, at an extraordinary pace: so that Seidlitz's hussars could hardly get a stroke at her; caught sixty and

odd, nine of them Officers not of mark; did kill thirty; and had such a haul of equipages and valuable effects,

cosmetic a good few of them, habilatory, artistic, as caused the hussar heart to sing for joy. Among other

plunder, was Loudon's Commission of MajorGeneral, just on its road from Vienna [poor Mannstein's death

the suggesting cause, say some];undoubtedly a shining Loudon; to whom Friedrich, next day, forwarded

the Document with a polite Note." [ HeldenGeschichte, iv. 640; Westphalen, ii. 37; OEuvres de Frederic,

The day after this bright feat of Seidlitz's, which was a slight consolation to Friedrich, there came a Letter

from the Duchess, not of compliment only; the Letter itself had to be burnt on the spot, being, as would seem,

dangerous for the High Lady, who was much a friend of Friedrich's. Their Correspondence, very polite and

graceful, but for most part gone to the unintelligible state, and become vacant and spectral, figures

considerably in the Books, and was, no doubt, a considerable fact to Friedrich. His Answer on this occasion

may be given, since we have it,lest there should not elsewhere be opportunity for a second specimen.

"MADAM,Nothing could happen more glorious to my troops than that of fighting, Madam, under your

eyes and for your defence. I wish their help could be useful to you; but I foresee the reverse. If I were

obstinately to insist on maintaining the post of Gotha with Infantry, I should ruin your City for you, Madam,

by attracting thither and fixing there the theatre of the War; whereas, by the present course, you will only

"A thousand thanks that you could, in a day like yesterday, find the moment to think of your Friends, and to

employ yourself for them. [Seidlitz's attack was brisk, quite sudden, with an effect like Harlequin's sword in

Pantomimes; and Gotha in every corner, especially in the Schloss below and ahove stairs,dinner cooked

for A, and eaten by B, in that manner,must have been the most agitated of little Cities.] I will neglect

nothing of what you have the goodness to tell me; I shall profit by these notices. Heaven grant it might be for

"The most signal mark of obedience I can give you consists unquestionably in doing your bidding with this

Letter. [Burn it, so soon as read.] I should have kept it as a monument of your generosity and courage: but,

Madam, since you dispose of it otherwise, your orders shall be executed; persuaded that if one cannot serve

one's friends, one must at least avoid hurting them; that one may be less circumspect for one's own interest,

but that one must be prudent and even timid for theirs. I am, with the highest esteem and the most perfect

consideration, Madam, your Highness's most faithful and affectionate Cousin,F." [ OEuvres de Frederic,

From Erfurt, on the night of his arrival, finding the Dauphiness in such humor, Friedrich had ordered

Ferdinand of Brunswick with his Division and Prince Moritz with his, both of whom were still at Naumburg,

to go on different errands,Ferdinand out Halberstadt Magdeburg way, whither Richelieu, vulturelike, if

not eaglelike, is on wing; Moritz to Torgau, to secure our magazine and be on the outlook there. Both of

them marched on the morrow (November 14th): and are sending him news,seldom comfortable news;

mainly that, in spite of all one can do (and it is not little on Ferdinand's part, the Richelieu vultures, 80,000 of

them, floating onward, leagues broad, are not to be kept out of Halberstadt, well if out of Magdeburg

itself;and that, in short, the general conflagration, in those parts too, is progressive. [In Orlich's First

Moritz, pp. 7189; and in Westphalen, ii. 23143 (about Ferdinand): interesting Documentary details,

Autographs of Friedrich, in regard to both these Expeditions.] Moritz, peaceable for some weeks in Torgau

Country, was to have an eye on Brandenburg withal, on Berlin itself; and before long Moritz will see

From Preussen, Friedrich hears of mere ravagings and horrid cruelties, CossackCalmuck atrocities, which

make human nature shudder: [In HeldenGeschichte, iv. 427437, the hideous details.] "Fight those

monsters; go into them at all hazards!" he writes to Lehwald peremptorily. Lehwald, 25,000 against 80,000,

does so; draws up, in front of Wehlau, not far east of Konigsberg, among woody swamps, AUGUST 30th, at

a Hamlet called GROSSJAGERSDORF, with his best skill; fights well, though not without mistakes; and is

beaten by cannon and numbers. [Tempelhof, i. 299; Retzow, i. 212; ("Russians lost about 9,000," by their

own tale 5,000; "the Prussians 3,000" and the Field).] Preussen now lies at Apraxin's discretion. This bit of

news too is on the road for Erfurt Country. Such a six weeks for the swift man, obliged to stand

Let us add here, that Apraxin did not advance on Konigsberg, or farther into Preussen at all; but, after some

loitering, turned, to everybody's surprise, and wended slowly home. "Could get no provision," said Apraxin

for himself. "Thought the Czarina was dying," said the world; "and that Peter her successor would take it

well!" Plodded slowly home, for certain; Lehwald following him, not too close, till over the border. Nothing

left of Apraxin, and his huge Expedition, but Memel alone; Memel, and a great many graves and ruins. So

that Lehwald could be recalled, to attend on the Swedes, before Winter came. And Friedrich's worst

forebodings did not take effect in this case;nor in some others, as we shall see!

Meanwhile, is it not remarkable that Friedrich wrote more Verses, this Autumn, than almost in any other

three months of his life? Singular, yes; though perhaps not inexplicable. And if readers could fairly

understand that fact, instead of running away with the shell of it, and leaving the essence, it would throw a

great light on Friedrich. He is not a brooding inarticulate man, then; but a brightglancing, articulate; not to

be struck dumb by the face of Death itself. Flashes cleareyed into the physiognomy of Death, and Ruin, and

the Abysmal Horrors opening; and has a sharp word to say to them. The explanation of his large cargo of

Verses this Autumn is, That always, alternating with such fiery velocity, he had intolerable periods of waiting

till things were ready. And took to verses, by way of expectorating himself, and keeping down his devils. Not

a bad plan, in the circumstances,especially if you have so wonderful a turn for expectoration by speech.

"All bad as Poetry, those Verses?" asks the reader. Well, some of them are not of firstrate goodness. Should

have been burnt; or the time marked which they took up, and whether it was good time wasted (which I

suppose it almost never was), or bad time skilfully got over. Time, that is the great point; and the hearttruth

Especially that notable Specimen from the Zittau Countries: the "Epistle to Wilhelmina (EPITRE A MA

SOEUR [ OEuvres de Frederic, xii. 3642.];" which is the keynote, as it were; the fountainhead of much

other verse, and of much prose withal, and Correspondencing not with Wilhelmina alone, of which also some

taste must be given. Primary EPITRE; written, I perceive, in that interval of waiting for Keith and the

magazines,though the final date is "Bernstadt, August 24th." Concerning which, Smelfungus takes,

overhastily, the liberty to say: "Strange, is it not, to be on the point of fighting for one's existence;

overwhelmed with so many businesses; and disposed to go into verse in addition! CONCEIVE that form of

mind; it would illuminate something of Friedrich's character: I cannot yet rightly understand such an aspect of

Understand it or not, we do gather by means of it some indisputable glimpses, nearly all the direct insight

allowed us out of any source, into Friedrich's inner man; what his thoughts were, what his humor was in that

unique crisis; and to readers in quest of that, these Pieces, fallen obsolete and frosty to all other kinds of

readers, are well worth perusing, and again perusing. Most veracious Documents, we can observe; nothing

could be truer; Confessions they are, in the most emphatic sense; no truer ever made to a Priest in the name of

the Most High. Like a soliloquy of NightThoughts, accidentally becoming audible to us. Mahomet, I find,

wrote the Koran in this manner. From these poor Poems, which are voices DE PROFUNDIS, there might, by

proper care and selection, be constructed a Friedrich's Koran; and, with commentary and elucidation, it would

be pleasant to read. The Koran of Friedrich, or the LamentationPsalms of Friedrich! But it would need an

Editor,other than Dryasdust! Mahomet's Koran, treated by the Arab Dryasdust (merely turning up the

bottom of that Box of Shoulder blades, and printing them), has become dreadfully tough reading, on this

side of the Globe; and has given rise to the impossiblest notions about Mahomet! Indisputable it is, Heroes, in

their affliction, Mahomet and David, have solaced themselves by snatches of Psalms, by Suras, bursts of

Utterance rising into Song;and if Friedrich, on far other conditions, did the like, what has History to say of

Wilhelmina comes out very strong, in this season of trouble; almost the last we see of our excellent

Wilhelmina. Like a lioness; like a shrill mother when her children are in peril. A noble sisterly affection is in

Wilhelmina; shrill Pythian vehemence trying the impossible. That a Brother, and such a Brother, the most

heroic now breathing, brave and true, and the soul of honor in all things, should have the whole world rise

round him, like a delirious Sorcerer'sSabbath, intent to hurl the mountains on him, seems such a horror

and a madness to Wilhelmina. Like the brood hen flying in the face of wild dogs, and packs of hounds in

full trail! Most Christian Pompadour Kings, enraged Czarinas, implacable EmpressQueens; a whole world

in armed delirium rushes on, regardless of Wilhelmina. Never mind, my noble one; your Brother will perhaps

manage to come up with this leviathan or that among the heap of them, at a good time, and smite into the fifth

rib of him. Your Brother does not the least shape towards giving in; thank the Heavens, he will stand to

Wilhelmina's hopes of a Peace with France; mission of her Mirabeau, missions and schemes not a few, we

have heard of on Wilhelmina's part with this view; but the notablest is still to mention: that of stirring up, by

Voltaire's means, an importantlooking Cardinal de Tencin to labor in the business. Eminency Tencin lives in

Lyon, known to the Princess on her Italian Tour;shy of asking Voltaire to dinner on that fine

occasion,but, except Officially, is not otherwise than wellaffected to Voltaire. Was once Chief Minister

of France, and would fain again be; does not like these Bernis novelties and Austrian Alliances, had he now

any power to overset them. Let him correspond with Most Christian Majesty, at least; plead for a Peace with

Prussia, Prussia being so ready that way. Eminency Tencin, on Voltaire's suggestion, did so, perhaps is even

now doing so; till ordered to hold HIS peace on such subjects. This is certain and well known; but nothing

else is known, or to us knowable, about it; Voltaire, in vague form, being our one authority, through whom it

is vain to hunt, and again hunt. [ OEuvres (Memoires), ii. 92, 93; IB. i. 143; Preuss, ii. 84.] The Dates, much

more the features and circumstances, all lie buried from us, andtill perhaps the LamentationPsalms are

Voltaire's procedure, one can gather, is polite, but twofaced; not sublime on this occasion. In fact, is

intended to serve himself. To the high Princess he writes devotionally, ready to obey in all things; and then to

his Eminency Cardinal Tencin, it rather seems as if the tone were: "Pooh! yes, your Eminency; such are the

poor Lady's notions. But does your Eminency take notice how high my connections are; what service a poor

obscure creature might perhaps do the State some day?" Friedrich himself is, in these ways, brought into

correspondence with Voltaire again; and occasionally writes to him in this War, and ever afterwards: Voltaire

responds with fine sympathy, always prettily, in the enthusiasm of the moment;and at other times he writes

a good deal about Friedrich, oftenest in rather a mischievous dialect. "The traitor!" exclaim some Prussian

writers, not many or important, in our time. In fact, there is a considerable touch of grinning malice (as of

Monkey VERSUS Cat, who had once burnt HIS paw, instead of getting his own burnt), in those utterances of

Voltaire; some of which the reader will grin over too, without much tragic feeling,the rather as they did

our Felis Leo no manner of ill, and show our incomparable SINGE with a sparkle of the TIGRE in him;

theoretic sparkle merely and for moments, which makes him all the more entertaining and interesting at the

Of Friedrich's LamentationPsalms we propose to give the First and the Last: these, with certain Prose

Pieces, intermediate and connecting, may perhaps be made intelligible to readers, and throw some light on

1. EPITRE A MA SOEUR (First of the LamentationPsalms).This is the famed "Epistle to Wilhelmina,"

already spoken of; which the King despatched from Bernstadt "August 24th," just while quitting those parts,

on the Erfurt Errand;though written before, in the tedium of waiting for Keith. The Piece is long,

vehement, altogether sincere; lyrically sings aloud, or declaims in rhyme, what one's indignant thought really

is on the surrounding woes and atrocities. We faithfully abridge, and condense into our briefest

Prose;readers can add water and the jingle of French rhymes AD LIBITUM. It starts thus:

"O sweet and dear hope of my remaining days; O Sister, whose friendship, so fertile in resources, shares all

my sorrows, and with a helpful arm assists me in the gulf! It is in vain that the Destinies have overwhelmed

me with disasters: if the crowd of Kings have sworn my ruin; if the Earth have opened to swallow me, you

still love me, noble and affectionate Sister: loved by you, what is there of misfortune? [Branches off into

"Huge continents of thundercloud, plots thickening against me [in those Menzel Documents], I watched

with terror; the sky getting blacker, no covert for me visible: on a sudden, from the deeps of Hell, starts forth

It was from thy Senate, stormful England, that she first launched out War. In remote climates first; in

America, far away;between France and thee. Old Ocean shook with it; Neptune, in the depths of his caves

(SES GROTTES PROFONDES), saw the English subjecting his waves (SES ONDES): the wild Iroquois,

prize of these crimes (FORFAITS), bursts out; detesting the tyrants who disturb his Forests,"and scalping

"Discord, charmed to see such an America, and feeble mortals crossing the Ocean to exterminate one another,

addresses the European Kings: 'How long will you be slaves to what are called laws? Is it for you to bend

under wornout notions of justice, right? Mars is the one God: Might is Right. A King's business is to do

"O daughter of the Caesars," Maria Theresa, "how, at these words, ambition, burning in thy soul, breaks out

uncontrollable! Probity, honor, treaties, duty: feeble considerations these, to a heart letting loose its flamy

passions; determining to rob the generous Germans of their liberties; to degrade thy equals; to extinguish

"Huge project""FIER TRIUMVIRAT,"what not: "From Roussillon and the sunny Pyrenees to frozen

Russia, all arm for Austria, and march at her bidding. They concert my downfall, trample on my rights.

"The Daughter of the Caesars, proudly certain of victory,'t is the way of the Great, whose commonplace

virtue, pusillanimous in reverses, overbearing in success, cannot bridle their cupidity, designates to the

Triumvirate what Kings are to be proscribed [Britannic George and me, Reich busy on us both even now],

and those ungrateful tyrants, by united crime, immolate to each other, without remorse, their dearest allies."

Theresa! it is England thou art selling to France;"Yes, a thing worth noting. "Thy generous support in thy

first adversities; thy one friend then, when a world had risen to devour thee. Thou reignest now:but it was

"And thou, lazy Monarch,"stupid Louis, let us omit him: "Pompadour, selling her lover to the highest

bidder, makes France, in our day, Austria's slave!" We omit Kolin Battle, too, spoken of with a proud

modesty (Prag is not spoken of at all); and how the neighboring ravenous Powers, onlookers hitherto, have

opened their throats with one accord to swallow Prussia, thinking its downfall certain: "Poor mercenary

Sweden, once so famous under its soldier Kings, now debased by a venal Senate;"Sweden, "what say I?

my own kindred [foolish Anspach and others], driven by perverse motives, join in the plot of horrors, and

"And thou, loved People [my own Prussians], whose happiness is my charge [notable how often he repeats

this] it is thy lamentable destiny, it is the danger which hangs over thee, that pierces my soul. The pomps of

my rank I could resign without regret. But to rescue thee, in this black crisis, I will spend my heart's blood.

Whose IS that blood but thine? With joy will I rally my warriors to avenge thy affront; defy death at the foot

of the ramparts [of Daun and his Eckartsberg, ahead yonder], and either conquer, or be buried under thy

"Preparing with such purpose, ye Heavens, what mournful cries are those that reach us: 'Death haa laid low

thy Mother!'Hah, that was the last stroke, then, which angry Fate had reserved for me. O Mother, Death

flies my misfortunes, and spreads his livid horrors over thee! [Very tender, very sad, what he says of his

"Thus Destiny with a deluge of torments fills the poisoned remnant of my days. The present is hideous to me,

"And now, ye promoters of sacred lies, go on leading cowards by the nose, in the dark windings of your

labyrinth:to me the enchantment is ended, the charm disappears. I see that all men are but the sport of

Destiny. And that, if there do exist some Gloomy and Inexorable Being, who allows a despised herd of

creatures to go on multiplying here, he values them as nothing; looks down on a Phalaris crowned, on a

Socrates in chains; on our virtues, our misdeeds, on the horrors of war, and all the cruel plagues which ravage

Earth, as a thing indifferent to him. Wherefore, my sole refuge and only haven, loved Sister, is in the arms of

Se trouve, chere soeur, dans les bras de la mort." [ OEuvres, xii. 3642; is sent off to Wilhelmina 24th

2. WILHELMINA TO VOLTAIRE, WITH SOMETHING OF ANSWER (First of certain intercalary Prose

Pieces).Wilhelmina has been writing to Voltaire before, and getting consolations since Kolin; but her

BAIREUTH, 19th AUGUST, 1757 (TO VOLTAIRE)."One first knows one's friends when misfortunes

arrive. The Letter you have written does honor to your way of thinking. I cannot tell you how much I am

sensible to what you have done [set Cardinal Tencin astir, with result we will hope]. The King, my Brother, is

as much so as I. You will find a Note here, which he bids me transmit to you [Note lost]. That great man is

still the same. He supports his misfortunes with a courage and a firmness worthy of him. He could not get the

Note transcribed. It began by verses. Instead of throwing sand on it, he took the inkbottle; that is the reason

This Note, we say, is lost to us;all but accidentally thus: Voltaire, 12th September, writes twice to

friends. Writing to his D'Argentals, he says: "The affairs of this King [Friedrich] go from bad to worse. I

know not if I told you of the Letter he wrote to me about three weeks ago [say August 17th18th: this same

Note through Wilhelmina, evidently]: 'I have learned,' says he, 'that you had interested yourself in my

successes and misfortunes. There remains to me nothing but to sell my life dear,' His Sister writes me one

"I am in a frightful state; and will not survive the destruction of my House and Family. That is the one

consolation that remains to me. You will have fine subjects for making Tragedies of. O times! O manners!

You will, by the illusory representation, perhaps draw tears; while all contemplate with dry eyes the reality of

these miseries: the downfall of a whole House, against which, if the truth were known, there is no solid

complaint. I cannot write farther of it: my soul is so troubled that I know not what I am doing. But whatever

happen, be persuaded that I am more than ever your friend,WILHELMINA." [In OEuvres de Frederic,

Friedrich, while Wilhelmina writes so, is at the foot of the Eckartsberg, eagerly manoeuvring with the

Austrians, in hopes of getting battle out of them,which he cannot. Friedrich, while he wrote that Note to

Voltaire, and instead of sandbox shook the inkbottle over it, was just going out on that errand.

VOLTAIRE, 12th SEPTEMBER (to a Lady whose Son is in the D'Estrees wars). [Ib. lxxii. 55. 56.]"Here

are mighty revolutions, Madame; and we are not at the end yet. They say there have 18,000 Hanoverians been

disposed of at Stade [Convention of Kloster Zeven]. That is no small matter. I can hope M. Richelieu [who

is "MON HEROS," when I write to himself] will adorn his head with the laurels they have stuck in his

pocket. I wish Monsieur your Son abundance of honor and glory without wounds, and to you, Madame,

unalterable health. The King of Prussia has written me a very touching Letter [one line of which we have

read]; but I have always Madame Denis's adventure on my heart," at Frankfurt yonder. "If I were well, I

would take a run to Frankfurt myself on the business," now that Soubise's reserves are in those parts, and

could give Freytag and Schmidt such a dusting for me, if they liked! Shall I write to Collini on it? Does write,

and again write, the second year hence, as still better chances rise. [Collini, pp. 208211 ("JanuaryMay,

3. WILHELMINA TO VOLTAIRE AGAIN, WITH ANSWER (Second of the Prose Pieces).Not a very

zealous friend of Friedrich's, after all, this Voltaire! Poor Wilhelmina, terrified by that EPITRE of her

Brother's, and his fixed purpose of seeking Death, has, in her despair (though her Letter is lost), been urging

Voltaire to write dissuading him;as Voltaire does. Of which presently. Her Letter to Voltaire on this

thriceimportant subject is lost. But in the very hours while Voltaire sat writing what we have just read,

"always with Madame Denis's adventure on my heart," Wilhelmina, at Baireuth, is again writing to him as

BAIREUTH, 12th SEPTEMBER, 1757 (TO VOLTAIRE)."Your Letter has sensibly touched me; that

which you addressed to me for the King [both Letters lost to us] has produced the same effect on him. I hope

you will be satisfied with his Answer as to what concerns yourself; but you will be as little so as I am with

the resolutions he has formed. I had flattered myself that your reflections would make some impression on his

mind. You will see the contrary by the Letter adjoined. "To me there remains nothing but to follow his

destiny if it is unfortunate. I have never piqued myself on being a philosopher; though I have made my efforts

to become so. The small progress I made did teach me to despise grandeurs and riches: but I could never find

in philosophy any cure for the wounds of the heart, except that of getting done with our miseries by ceasing

to live. The state I am in is worse than death. I see the greatest man of his age, my Brother, my friend,

reduced to the frightfulest extremity. I see my whole Family exposed to dangers and perhaps destruction; my

native Country torn by pitiless enemies; the Country where I am [Reichs Army, Anspach, what not] menaced

by perhaps similar misfortune. Would to Heaven I were alone loaded with all the miseries I have described to

"Pardon these details. You invite me, by the part you take in what regards me, to open my heart to you. Alas,

hope is wellnigh banished from it. Fortune, when she changes, is as constant in her persecutions as in her

favors. History is full of those examples: but I have found none equal to the one we now see; nor any War

as inhuman and as cruel among civilized nations. You would sigh if you knew the sad situation of Germany

and Preussen. The cruelties which the Russians commit in that latter Country make nature shudder. [Details,

horrible but authentic, in HeldenGeschichte, already cited.] How happy you in your Hermitage; where you

repose on your laurels, and can philosophize with a calm mind on the deliriums of men! I wish you all the

happiness imaginable. If Fortune ever favor us again, count on all my gratitude. I will never forget the marks

of attachment which you have given; my sensibility is your warrant; I am never halfand half a friend, and I

"Many compliments to Madame Denis. Continue, I pray you, to write to the King." [In Voltaire, ii. 197199;

heart is touched more than ever by the goodness and the confidence your Royal Highness deigns to show me.

How can I be but melted by emotion! I see that it is solely your nobleness of soul that renders you unhappy. I

feel myself born to be attached with idolatry to superior and sympathetic minds, who think like you. "You

know how much I have always, essentially and at heart, been attached to the King your Brother. The more

my old age is tranquil, and come to renounce everything, and make my retreat here a home and country, the

more am I devoted to that PhilosopherKing. I write nothing to him but what I think from the bottom of my

heart, nothing that I do not think most true; and if my Letter [dissuasive of seeking Death; wait, reader]

appears to your Royal Highness to be suitable, I beg you to protect it with him, as you have done the

4. FRIEDRICH TO WILHELMINA, AND, BY ANTICIPATION, HER ANSWER (Third of the Prose

Pieces)."KIRSCHLEBEN, NEAR ERFURT, 17th SEPTEMBER, 1757.My dearest Sister, I find no

other consolation but in your precious Letters. May Heaven reward so much virtue and such heroic

"Since I wrote last to you, my misfortunes have but gone on accumulating. It seems as though Destiny would

discharge all its wrath and fury upon the poor Country which I had to rule over. The Swedes have entered

Pommern. The French, after having concluded a Neutrality humiliating to the King of England and

themselves [KlosterZeven, which we know], are in full march upon Halberstadt and Magdeburg. From

Preussen I am in daily expectation of hearing of a battle having been fought: the proportion of combatants

being 25,000 against 80,000 [was fought, GrossJagersdorf, 30th August, and lost accordingly]. The

Austrians have marched into Silesia, whither the Prince of Bevern follows them. I have advanced this way to

fall upon the corps of the allied Army; which has run off, and intrenched itself, behind Eisenach, amongst

hills, whither to follow, still more to attack them, all rules of war forbid. The moment I retire towards

Saxony, this whole swarm will be upon my heels. Happen what may, I am determined, at all risks, to fall

upon whatever corps of the enemy approaches me nearest. I shall even bless Heaven for its mercy, if it grant

"Should this hope fail me, you will allow that it would be too hard to crawl at the feet of a company of

traitors, to whom successful crimes have given the advantage to prescribe the law to me. How, my dear, my

incomparable Sister, how could I repress feelings of vengeance and of resentment against all my neighbors,

of whom there is not one who did not accelerate my downfall, and will not, share in our spoils? How can a

Prince survive his State, the glory of his Country, his own reputation? A Bavarian Elector, in his nonage [Son

of the late poor Kaiser, and left, shipwrecked in his seventeenth year], or rather in a sort of subjection to his

Ministers, and dull to the biddings of honor, may give himself up as a slave to the imperious domination of

the House of Austria, and kiss the hand which oppressed his Father: I pardon it to his youth and his

ineptitude. But is that the example for me to follow? No, dear Sister, you think too nobly to give me such

mean (LACHE) advice. Is Liberty, that precious prerogative, to be less dear to a Sovereign in the eighteenth

century than it was to Roman Patricians of old? And where is it said, that Brutus and Cato should carry

magnanimity farther than Princes and Kings? Firmness consists in resisting misfortune: but only cowards

submit to the yoke, bear patiently their chains, and support oppression tranquilly. Never, my dear Sister,

"If I had followed only my own inclinations, I should have ended it (JE ME SERAIS DEPECHE) at once,

after that unfortunate Battle which I lost. But I felt that this would be weakness, and that it behooved me to

repair the evil which had happened. My attachment to the State awoke; I said to myself, It is not in seasons of

prosperity that it is rare to find defenders, but in adversity. I made it a point of honor with myself to redress

all that had got out of square; in which I was not unsuccessful; not even in the Lausitz [after those Zittau

disasters] last of all. But no sooner had I hastened this way to face new enemies, than Winterfeld was beaten

and killed near Gorlitz, than the French entered the heart, of my States, than the Swedes blockaded Stettin.

Now there is nothing effective left for me to do: there are too many enemies. Were I even to succeed in

beating two armies, the third would crush me. The enclosed Note [in cipher] will show you what I am still

"The gratitude, the tender affection, which I feel towards you, that friendship, true as the hills, constrains me

to deal openly with you. No, my divine Sister, I shall conceal nothing from you that I intend to do; all my

thoughts, all my resolutions shall be open and known to you in time. I will precipitate nothing: but also it will

"As for you, my incomparable Sister, I have not the heart to turn you from your resolves. We think alike, and

I cannot condemn in you the sentiments which I daily entertain (EPROUVE). Life has been given to us as a

benefit: when it ceases to be such"! "I have nobody left in this world, to attach me to it, but you. My

friends, the relations I loved most, are in the grave; in short, I have lost, everything. If you take the resolution

which I have taken, we end together our misfortunes and our unhappiness; and it will be the turn of them who

remain in this world, to provide for the concerns falling to their charge, and to bear the weight, which has lain

on us so long. These, my adorable Sister, are sad reflections, but suitable to my present condition.

"The day before yesterday I was at Gotha [yes, see above;and tomorrow, if I knew it, Seidlitz with

"But, it is time to end this long, dreary Letter; which treats almost of nothing but my own affairs. I have had

some leisure, and have used it to open on you a heart filled with admiration and gratitude towards you. Yes,

my adorable Sister, if Providence troubled itself about human affairs, you ought to be the happiest person in

the Universe. Your not being such, confirms me in the sentiments expressed at the end of my EPITRE. In

conclusion, believe that I adore you, and that I would give my life a thousand times to serve you. These are

the sentiments which will animate me to the last breath of my life; being, my beloved Sister, ever"

WILHELMINA'S ANSWER,by anticipation, as we said: written "15th September," while Friedrich was

"BAIREUTH, 15th SEPTEMBER, 1757. My dearest Brother, your Letter and the one you wrote to Voltaire,

my dear Brother, have almost killed me. What fatal resolutions, great God! Ah, my dear Brother, you say you

love me; and you drive a dagger into my heart. Your EPITRE, which I did receive, made me shed rivers of

tears. I am now ashamed of such weakness. My misfortune would be so great" in the issue there alluded to,

"that I should find worthier resources than tears. Your lot shall be mine: I will not survive either your

misfortunes or those of the House I belong to. You may calculate that such is my firm resolution.

"But, after this avowal, allow me to entreat you to look back at what was the pitiable state of your Enemy

when you lay before Prag! It is the sudden whirl of Fortune for both parties. The like can occur again, when

one is least expecting it, Caesar was the slave of Pirates; and he became the master of the world. A great

genius like yours finds resources even when all is lost; and it is impossible this frenzy can continue. My heart

bleeds to think of the poor souls in Preussen [Apraxin and his Christian Cossacks there,who, it is noted, far

excel the Calmuck worshippers of the DalaiLama]. What horrid barbarity, the detail of cruelties that go on

there! I feel all that you feel on it, my dear Brother. I know your heart, and your sensibility for your subjects.

"I suffer a thousand times more than I can tell you; nevertheless hope does not abandon me. I received your

Letter of the 14th by W. [who W. is, no mortal knows]. What kindness to think of me, who have nothing to

give you but a useless affection, which is so richly repaid by yours! I am obliged to finish; but I shall never

cease to be, with the most profound respect (TRESPROFOND RESPECT," that, and something still

5. FRIEDRICH'S RESPONSE TO THE DISSUASIVES OF VOLTAIRE (Last of the LamentationPsalms:

"Buttstadt, October 9th").Voltaire's Dissuasive Letter is a poor Piece; [ OEuvres de Voltaire, lxxvii. 8085

(LES DELICES, early in September, 1757: no date given).] not worth giving here. Remarkable only by

Friedrich's quiet reception of it; which readers shall now see, as Finis to those LamentationPsalms. There is

another of them, widely known, which we will omit: the EPITRE TO D'ARGENS; [In OEuvres de Frederic,

xii. 5056 ("Erfurt, 23d September, 1757 ").] passionate enough, wandering wildly over human life, and

sincere almost to shrillness, in parts; which Voltaire has also got hold of. Omissible here; the fixity of

purpose being plain otherwise to Voltaire and us. Voltaire's counterarguments are weak, or worse: "That

Roman death is not now expected of the Philosopher; that your Majesty will, in the worst event, still have

considerable Dominions left, all that your GreatGrandfather had; still plenty of resources; that, in Paris

Society, an estimable minority even now thinks highly of you; that in Paris itself your Majesty [does not say

expressly, as dethroned and going on your travels] would have resources!" To which beautiful considerations

Friedrich answers, not with fire and brimstone, as one might have dreaded, but in this quiet manner

Aux rigueurs du destin j'oppose ma constance. ["I am a man, and therefore born to suffer; to destiny's

But with these sentiments, I am far from condemning Cato and Otho. The latter had no fine moment in his

"Yes, if I were Voltaire and a private man, I could with much composure leave Fortune to her whirlings and

her plungings; to me, contented with the needful, her mad caprices and sudden topsy turvyings would be

"I know the ennui attending on honors, the burdensome duties, the jargon of grinning flatterers, those

pitiabilities of every kind, those details of littleness, with which you have to occupy yourself if set on high on

the stage of things. Foolish glory has no charm for me, though a Poet and King: when once Atropos has

ended me forever, what will the uncertain honor of living in the Temple of Memory avail? One moment of

practical happiness is worth a thousand years of imaginary in such Temple.Is the lot of high people so very

sweet, then? Pleasure, gentle ease, true and hearty mirth, have always fled from the great and their peculiar

"No, it is not fickle Fortune that has ever caused my sorrows; let her smile her blandest, let her frown her

fiercest on me, I should sleep every night, refusing her the least worship. But our respective conditions are

our law; we are bound and commanded to shape our temper to the employment we have undertaken. Voltaire

in his hermitage, in a Country where is honesty and safety, can devote himself in peace to the life of the

Philosopher, as Plato has described it. But as to me, threatened with shipwreck, I must consider how, looking

This is of October 9th; this ends, worthily, the Lamentation Psalms; work having now turned up, which is a

favorable change. Friedrich's notion of suicide, we perceive, is by no means that of puking up one's existence,

in the weak sick way of FELO DE SE; but, far different, that of dying, if he needs must, as seems too likely,

in uttermost spasm of battle for self and rights to the last. From which latter notion nobody can turn him. A

valiantly definite, lucid and shiningly practical soul,with such a power of always expectorating himself

into clearness again. If he do frankly wager his life in that manner, beware, ye Soubises, Karls and flaccid

October llth, express arrived, important express from General Finck (who is in Dresden, convalescent from

Kolin, and is even Commandant there, of anything there is to command), "That the considerable Austrian

Brigade or Outpost, which was left at Stolpen when the others went for Silesia, is all on march for Berlin."

Here is news! "The whole 15,000 of them," report adds;though it proved to be only a Detachment, picked

Tolpatches mostly, and of nothing like that strength; shot off, under a swift General Haddick, on this errand.

Between them and Berlin is not a vestige of force; and Berlin itself has nothing but palisades, and perhaps a

poor 4,000 of garrison. "March instantly, you Moritz, who lie nearest; cross Elbe at Torgau; I follow

instantly!" orders Friedrich; [His Message to Moritz, ORLICH, p. 73; Rodenbeck, p. 322 (dubious, or

wrong).]and that same night is on march, or has cavalry pushed ahead for reinforcement of Moritz.

Friedrich, not doubting but there would be captaincy and scheme among his Enemies, considered that the

Swedes, and perhaps the Richelieu French, were in concert with this Austrian movement, from east, from

north, from west, three Invasions coming on the core of his Dominions;and that here at last was work

ahead, and plenty of it! That was Friedrich's opinion, and most other people's, when the Austrian inroad was

first heard of: "mere triple ruin coming to this King," as the Gazetteers judged;great alarm prevailing

among the King's friends; in Berlin, very great. Friedrich, glad, at any rate, to have done with that dismal

lingering at Buttelstadt, hastens to arrange himself for the new contingencies; to post his Keiths, his

Ferdinands, with their handfuls of force, to best advantage; and push ahead after Moritz, by Leipzig, Torgau,

Berlinwards, with all his might. At Leipzig, in such press of business and interest,judge by the following

phenomenon, what a cleargoing soul this is, and how completely on a level with whatever it may be that he

"LEIPZIG, 15th OCTOBER, 1757 (Interview with Gottsched).At 11 this morning, Majesty came

marching into Leipzig; multitudes of things to settle there; things ready, things not yet ready, in view of the

great events ahead. Seeing that he would have time after dinner, he at once sent for Professor Gottsched, a

gigantic gentleman, Reigning King of German Literature for the time being, to come to him at 3 P.M.

Reigning King at that time; since gone wholly to the Dustbins,'Popular Delusion,' as old Samuel defines it,

having since awakened to itself, with scornful hahas upon its poor Gottsched, and rushed into other roads

worse and better; its poor Gottsched become a name now signifying Pedantry, Stupidity, learned Inanity and

"At 3 precise, the portly old gentleman (towards sixty now, huge of stature, with a shrieky voice, and speaks

uncommonly fast) bowed himself in; and a Colloquy ensued, on Literature and so forth, of the kind we may

conceive. Colloquy which had great fame in the world; Gottsched himself havingsuch the inaccuracy of

rumor and Dutch Newspapers, on the matterpublished authentic Report of it; [Next Year, in a principal

Leipzig Magazine, with name signed: given in HeldenGeschichte, iv. 728739 (with multifarious

commentaries and flourishings, denoting an attentive world). Nicolai, Anekdoten, iii. 286290.] now one of

the dullest bits of reading, and worth no man's bit of time. Colloquy which lasted three hours, with the

greatest vivacity on both sides; King impugning, for one principal thing, the roughness of German speech;

Gottsched, in swift torrents (far too copious in such company), ready to defend. 'Those consonants of ours,'

said the King, 'they afflict one's ear: what Names we have; all in mere K's and P's: KNAP, KNIP, KLOP,

KROTZ, KROK; your own Name, for example!'"Yes, his own Name, unmusical GottSCHED, and

signifying God'sDamage (God'sSKAITH) withal. "Husht, don't take a Holy Name in vain; call the man

SCHED ('Damage' by itself), can't we!" said a wit once. [Nicolai, Anekdoten, iii. 287.]"'Five consonants

together, TTSCH, TTSCH, what a tone!' continued the King. 'Hear, in contrast, the music of this Stanza of

Rousseau's [Repeats a stanza]. Who could express that in German with such melody?' And so on; branching

through a great many provinces; King's knowledge of all Literature, new and ancient, 'perfectly astonishing to

me;' and I myself, the swiftspeaking Gottsched, rather copious than otherwise. Catastrophe, and summary of

the whole, was: Gottsched undertook to translate the Rousseau Stanza into German of moderate softness; and

by the aid of water did so, that very night; [Copied duly in HeldenGeschichte, iv. 726.] sent it next day, and

had 'within an hour' a gracious Royal Answer in verse; calling one, incidentally, 'Saxon Swan, CYGNE

SAXON,' though one is such a Goose! 'Majesty to march at 7 tomorrow morning,' said a Postscript,no

"About ten days after [not to let this thing interrupt us again], Friedrich, on his return to Leipzig, had another

Interview with Gottsched; of only one hour, this time;but with many topics: Reading of some Gottsched

Ode (ODE, very tedious, frothy, watery, of THANKS to Majesty for such goodness to the Saxon Swan;

reading, too, of 'some of Madam Gottsched's Pieces'). Majesty confessed afterwards, Every hour from the

very first had lowered his opinion of the Saxon Swan, till at length Goosehood became too apparent.

"A saying of Excellency Mitchell's to Gottschedfor Gottsched, on that second Leipzig opportunity, went

swashing about among the King's Suite as wellis still remembered. They were talking of Shakspeare:

'Genial, if you will,' said Gottsched, 'but the Laws of Aristotle; Five Acts, unities strict!''Aristotle? What is

to hinder a man from making his Tragedy in Ten acts, if it suit him better?' 'Impossible, your

Excellency!''Pooh,' said his Excellency; 'suppose Aristotle, and general Fashion too, had ordered that the

clothes of every man were to be cut from five ells of cloth: how would the Herr Professor like [with these

huge limbs of his] if he found there were no breeches for him, on Aristotle's account?' Adieu to Gottsched;

most voluminous of men;who wrote a Grammar of the German Language, which, they say, did good. I

remember always his poor Wife with some pathos; who was a fine, graceful, loyal creature, of ten times his

intelligence; and did no end of writing and translating and compiling (Addison's CATO, Addison's

SPECTATOR, thousands of things from all languages), on order of her Gottsched, till life itself sank in such

enterprises; never doubting, tragically faithful soul, but her Gottsched was an authentic Seneschal of Phoebus

and the Nine." [Her LETTERS, collected by a surviving LadyFriend, "BRIEFE DER FRAU LUISE

ADELGUNDE VIKTORIE GOTTSCHED, born KULMUS (Dresden, 17711772, 3 vols. 8vo)," are, I

should suppose, the only Gottsched Piece which anybody would now think of reading.]

Monday, 17th, at seven, his Majesty pushed off accordingly; cheery he in the prospect of work, whatever his

friends in the distance be. Here, from Eilenburg, his first stage Torgauway, are a Pair of Letters in notable

WILHELMINA TO THE KING (on rumor of Haddick, swoln into a Triple Invasion, Austrian, Swedish,

"MY DEAREST BROTHER,Death and a thousand torments could not equal the frightful state I am in.

There run reports that make me shudder. Some say you are wounded; others, dangerously ill. In vain have I

tormented myself to have news of you; I can get none. Oh, my dear Brother, come what may, I will not

survive you. If I am to continue in this frightful uncertainty, I cannot stand it; I shall sink under it, and then I

shall be happy. I have been on the point of sending you a courier; but [environed as we are] I durst not. In the

"I know not what I have written; my heart is torn in pieces; I feel that by dint of disquietude and alarms I am

losing my wits. Oh, my dear, adorable Brother, have pity on me. Heaven grant I be mistaken, and that you

may scold me; but the least thing that concerns you pierces me to the heart, and alarms my affection too

"I can say no more. Grief chokes me; and I can only repeat that your fate shall be mine; being, my dear

What a shrill penetrating tone, like the wildly weeping voice of Rachel; tragical, painful, gone quite to

falsetto and above pitch; but with a melody in its dissonance like the singing of the stars. My poor shrill

"MY DEAREST SISTER,What is the good of philosophy unless one employ it in the disagreeable

moments of life? It is then, my dear Sister, that courage and firmness avail us.

"I am now in motion; and having once got into that, you may calculate I shall not think of sitting down again,

except under improved omens. If outrage irritates even cowards, what will it do to hearts that have courage?

"I foresee I shall not be able to write again for perhaps six weeks: which fails not to be a sorrow to me: but I

entreat you to be calm during these turbulent affairs, and to wait with patience the month of December;

paying no regard to the Nurnberg Newspapers nor to those of the Reich, which are totally Austrian.

"I am tired as a dog (COMME UN CHIEN). I embrace you with my whole heart; being with the most perfect

... (AT SOME OTHER HOUR, SAME PLACE AND DAY.) "'No possibility of Peace,' say your accounts

[Letter lost]; 'the French won't hear my name mentioned.' Well; from me they shall not farther. The way will

be, to speak to them by action, so that they may repent their impertinences and pride." [ OEuvres de Frederic,

The Haddick affair, after all the rumor about it, proved to be a very small matter. No Swede or Richelieu had

dreamt of cooperating; Haddick, in the end, was scarce 4,000 with four cannon; General Rochow,

Commandant of Berlin, with his small garrison, had not Haddick skilfully slidden through woods, and been

so magnified by rumor, might have marched out, and beaten a couple of Haddicks. As it was, Haddick

skilfully emerging, at the Silesian Gate of Berlin, 16th October, about eleven in the morning, demanded

ransom of 300,000 thalers (45,000 pounds); was refused; began shooting on the poor palisades, on the poor

drawbridge there; "at the third shot brought down the drawbridge;" rushed into the suburb; and was not to be

pushed out again by the weak party Rochow sent to try it. Rochow, ignorant of Haddick's force, marched off

thereupon for Spandau with the Royal Family and effects; leaving Haddick master of the suburb, and Berlin

to make its own bargain with him. Haddick, his Croats not to be quite kept from mischief, remained master of

the suburb, minatory upon Berlin, for twelve hours or more: and after a good deal of bargaining,ransom of

45,000 pounds, of 90,000 pounds, finally of 27,000 pounds and "two dozen pair of gloves to the Empress

Queen,"made off about five in the morning; wind of Moritz's advance adding wings to the speed of

Haddick. [ HeldenGeschichte, iv. 715723 (Haddick's own Account, and the Berlin one).]

Moritz did arrive next evening (18th); but with his tired troops there was no catching of Haddick, now three

marches ahead. Royal Family and effects returned from Spandau the day following; but in a day or two more,

removed to Magdeburg till the Capital were safe from such affronts. Much grumbling against Rochow.

"What could I do? How could I know?" answered Rochow, whose eyesight indeed had been none of the best.

Berlin smarts to the length of 27,000 pounds and an alarm; but asserts (not quite mythically, thinks Retzow),

that "the two dozen pair of gloves were all gloves for the left hand,"Berlin having wit, and a touch of

ABSINTHE in it, capable of such things! Friedrich heard the news at Annaburg, a march beyond Torgau; and

there paused, again uncertain, for about a week coming; after which, he discovered that Leipzig would be the

place; and returned thither, appointing a general rendezvous and concentration there.

Just while Haddick was sliding swiftly through the woods, Berlin now nigh, there occurred a thing at

Regensburg; tragic thing, but ending in farce,Finale of REICHSACHT, in short;about which all

Regensburg was loud, wailing or hahaing according to humor; while Berlin was paying its ransom and

"Reichs Diet had got its Ban of the Reich ready for Friedrich; CITATIO (solemn Summons) and all else

complete; nothing now wanted but to serve Citatio on him, or 'insinuate' it into him, as their phrase

is;which latter essential point occasions some shaking of wigs. Dangerous, serving Citatio in that quarter:

and by what art try to smuggle it into the hands of such a one? 'Insinuate it here into his, Plotho's, hand; that

is the method, and that will suffice!' say the wigs, and choose an unfortunate Reichs Notary, Dr. Aprill, to do

it; who, in ponderous Chancerystyle, gives the following affecting report,wonderful, but intelligible

"Citatio" to come and receive your Ban,a very solemnsounding Document, commencing (or perhaps it is

Aprill himself that so commences, no matter which), "'In the Name of the Most High God, the Father, Son

and Holy Ghost, Amen,'was given, Wednesday, 12th October, in the Year after Christ our dear Lord and

Saviour's Birth, 1757 Years, To me Georgius Mathias Josephus Aprill, sworn Kaiserlich Notarius Publicus;

In my Lodging, firstfloor fronting south, in Jacob Virnrohr the Innkeeper's House here at Regensburg, called

With which solemn Piece, Aprill proceeded next day, Thursday, halfpast 2 P.M., to Plotho's dwellingplace,

described with equal irrefragability; and, continues Aprill, "did there, by a servant of the Herr Ambassador

von Plotho's, announce myself; adding that I had something to say to his Excellency, if he would please to

admit me. To which the Herr Ambassador by the same servant sent answer, that he was ill with a cold, and

that I might speak to his Secretarius what I had to say. But, as I replied that my message was to his Excellenz

in person, the same servant came back with intimation that I might call again tomorrow at noon."

Tomorrow, at the stroke of noon, Friday, 14th October, Aprill punctually appears again, with recapitulation

of the pledge given him yesterday; and is informed that he can walk upstairs. "I proceeded thereupon, the

servant going before, up one pair of stairs, or with the appurtenances (GEZEUGEN) rather more than one

pair, into the Herr Ambassador Freiherr von Plotho's Anteroom; who, just as we were entering, stept in

himself, through a side door; in his dressinggown, and with the words, 'Speak now what you have to say.'

"I thereupon slipt into his hand CITATIO FISCALIS, and said"said at first nothing, Plotho avers; merely

mumbled, looked like some poor caitiff, come with Lawpapers on a trifling Suit we happen to have in the

Courts here;and only by degrees said (let us abridge; SCENE, Aprill and Plotho, Anteroom in Regensburg,

APTILL. "'I have to give your Excellenz this Writing,[which privately, could your Excellenz guess it, is]

CITATIO FISCALIS from the Reichstag, summoning his Majesty to show cause why Ban of the Reich

should not pass upon him!' His Excellenz at first took the CITATIO and adjuncts from me; and looking into

them to see what they were, his Excellenz's face began to color, and soon after to color a little more; and on

his looking attentively at CITATIO FISCALIS, he broke into violent anger and rage, so that he could not

stand still any longer; but with burning face, and both arms held aloft, rushed close to me, CITATIO and

APRILL. "'It is my Notarial Office; I must do it.' In spite of which the Freiherr von Plotho fell on me with all

PLOTHO. "'Take it back, wilt thou!' And as I resisted doing so, he stuck it in upon me, and shoved it down

with all violence between my coat and waistcoat; and, still holding me by the cloak, called to the two servants

who had been there, 'Fling him down stairs!' which they, being discreet fellows, and in no flurry, did not

quite, nor needed quite to do ('Must, sir, you see, unless!'), and so forced me out of the house; Excellenz

Plotho retiring through his Anteroom, and his Bodyservant, who at first had been on the stairs, likewise

disappearing as I got under way,"and have to report, in such manner, to the Universe and Reichs Diet, with

tears in my eyes. [Preuss, ii. 397401; in HeldenGeschichte, iv. 745749, Plotho's Account.]

What became of Reichs Ban after this, ask not. It fell dead by Friedrich's victories now at hand; rose again

into life on Friedrich's misfortunes (August, 1758), threatening to include George Second in it; upon which

the CORPUS EVANGELICORUM made some countermumblement;and, I have heard, the French

privately advised: "Better drop it; these two Kings are capable of walking out of you, and dangerously

kicking the table over as they go!" Whereby it again fell dead, positively for the last time, and, in short, is

HalfDissentients excepted,as Mecklenburg wholly and with a will; foolish Anspach wholly; and the

Anhalts haggling some dissent, and retracting it (why, I never knew);for which Mecklenburg and the

Anhalts, lying within clutch of one, had to repent bitterly in the years coming! Enough of all that.

The Haddick invasion,,which had got its gloves, lefthand or not, and part of its roadexpenses, brought

another consequence much more important on the PERCONTRA side. The triumphing, TEDEUMing

and jubilation over it,"His Metropolis captured; Royal Family in flight!"raised the Dauphiness Army,

and especially Versailles, into such enthusiasm, that Dauphiness came bodily out (on order from Versailles);

spread over the Country, plundering and insulting beyond example; got herself reinforced by a 15,000 from

the Richelieu Army; crossed the Saale; determined on taking Leipzig, beating Friedrich, and I know not what.

Keith, in Leipzig with a small Party, had summons from Soubise's vanguard (October 24th): Keith answered,

He would burn the suburbs;upon which, said vanguard, hearing of Friedrich's advent withal, took itself

rapidly away. And Soubise and it would fain have recrossed Saale, I have understood, had not Versailles been

In a word, Friedrioh arrived at Leipzig October 26th; Ferdinand, Moritz and all the others coming or already

come: and there is something great just at hand. Friedrich's stay in Leipzig was only four days. Cheering

prospect of work now ahead here;add to this, assurance from Preussen that Apraxin is fairly going home,

and Lehwald coming to look after the Swedes. Were it not that there is bad news from Silesia, things

generally are beginning to look up. Of the hour spent on Gottsched, in these four days, we expressly take no

notice farther; but there was another visit much less conspicuous, and infinitely more important: that of a

certain Hanoverian Graf von Schulenburg, not in red or with plumes, like a MajorGeneral as he was, but "in

the black suit of a Country Parson,"coming, in that unnoticeable guise, to inform Friedrich officially, "That

the Hanoverians and Majesty of England have resolved to renounce the Convention of KlosterZeven; to

bring their poor Stade Army into the field again; and do now request him, King Friedrich, to grant them Duke

Ferdinand of Brunswick to he General of the same." [Mauvillon, i. 256; Westphalen, i. 315: indistinct both,

and with slight variations. Mitchell Papers (in British Museum), likewise indistinct: Additional MSS. 6815,

pp. 96 and 108 ("Lord Holderness to Mitchell," doubtless on Pitt's instigation, "10th October, 1757," is the

beginning of it,two days before Royal Highness got home from Stade); see ib. 6806, pp. 241252.]

Here is an unnoticeable message, of very high moment indeed. To which Friedrich, already prepared, gives

his cheerful consent; nominations and practicalities to follow, the instant these present hurries are over. Who

it was that had prepared all this, whose suggestion it first was, Friedrich's, Mitchell's, George's, Pitt's, I do not

know,I cannot help suspecting Pitt; Pitt and Friedrich together. And certainly of all living men,

Ferdinandrelated to the English and Prussian royalties, a soldier of approved excellence, and likewise a

nobleminded, prudent, patient and invincibly valiant and steadfast manwas, beyond comparison, the

fittest for this office. Pitt is now fairly in power; and perceives,such Pitt's originality of view,that an

Army with a Captain to it may differ beautifully from one without. And in fact we may take this as the first

twitch at the reins, on Pitt's part; whose delicate strong hand, all England running to it with one heart, will be

felt at the ends of the earth before many months go. To the great and unexpected joy of Friedrich, for one.

"England has taken long to produce a great man," he said to Mitchell; "but here is one at last!"

Friedrich left Leipzig Sunday, October 30th; encamped, that night, on the famous Field of Lutzen, with the

vanguard, he (as usual, and Mayer with him, who did some brisk smiting home of what French there were);

Movements on the SoubiseHildburghausen part are all retrograde again;can Dauphiness Bellona do

nothing, then, except shuttle forwards and then backwards according to Friedrich's absence or presence? The

SoubiseHildburghausen Army does immediately withdraw on this occasion, as on the former; and makes for

the safe side of the Saale again, rapidly retreating before Friedrich, who is not above one to two of

them,more like one to three, now that Broglio's Detachment is come to hand. Broglio got to Merseburg

October 26th,guess 15,000 strong;considerably out of repair, and glad to have done with such a march,

and be within reach of Soubise. This is the Second Son of our old Blusterous Friend; a man who came to

some mark, and to a great deal of trouble, in this War; and ended, readers know how, at the Siege of the

So soon as rested, Broglio, by order, moves leftwards to Halle, to guard Saale Bridge there; Soubise himself

edging after him to Merseburg, on a similar errand; and leaving Hildburghausen to take charge of

Weissenfels and the Third Saale Bridge. That is Dauphiness's posture while Friedrich encamps at

Lutzen:let impatient human nature fix these three places for itself, and hasten to the catastrophe of

wretched Dauphiness. Soubise, it ought to be remembered, is not in the highest spirits; but his Officers in

overhigh, "Doing this PETIT MARQUIS DE BRANDEBOURG the honor to have a kind of War with him

(DE LUI FAIRE UNE ESPECE DE GUERRE)," as they term it. Being puffed up with general vanity, and

the newspaper rumor about Haddick's feat,which, like the gloves it got, is going all to lefthand in this

way. Hildburghausen and the others overrule Soubise; and indeed there is no remedy; "Provision almost

out;how retreat to our magazines and our fastnesses, with Friedrich once across Saale, and sticking to the

skirts of us?" Here, from eyewitnesses where possible, are the successive steps of Dauphiness towards her

"Monday, 31st October, 1757," as the TownSyndic of Weissenfels records, "about eight in the morning,

[Muller, SCHLACHT BEI ROSSBACH ("a Centenary Piece," Berlin, 1857,containing several curious

Extracts), p. 44, HeldenGeschichte, iv. 643, 651668.] the King of Prussia, with his whole Army" (or what

seemed to us the whole, though it was but a half; Keith with the other half being within reach to northward,

marching Merseburg way), "came before this Town." Has been here before; as Keith has, as Soubise and

others have: a town much agitated lately by transit of troops. It was from the eastern, or high landward side,

where the socalled Castle is, that Friedrich came: Castle built originally on some "White Crag (WEISSE

FELS" not now conspicuous), from which the town and whilom Duchy take their name.

"We have often heard of Weissenfels, while the poor old drunken Duke lived, who used to be a Suitor of

Wilhelmina's, liable to hard usage; and have marched through it, with the Salzburgers, in peaceable times. A

solid pleasantenough little place (6,000 souls or so); lies leant against high ground (White Crags, or

whatever it once was) on the eastern or right bank of the Saale; a Town in part flat, in part very steep; the

streets of it, or main street and secondaries, running off level enough from the River and Bridge; rising by

slow degrees, but at last rapidly against the high ground or cliffs, just mentioned; a stiff acclivity of streets,

till crowned by the socalled Castle, the 'Augustus Burg' in those days, the 'FriedrichWilhelm Barrack' in

"Saale is of good breadth here; has done perhaps two hundred miles, since he started, in the Fichtelgebirge

(PINE MOUNTAINS), on his long course Elbeward; received, only ten miles ago, his last big branch, the

widewandering Unstrut, coming in with much drainage from the northern parts:in breadth, Saale may be

compared to Thames, to Tay or Beauley; his depth not fordable, though nothing like so deep as Thames's;

main cargo visible is rafts of timber: banks green, definite, scant of wood; river of rather dark complexion,

From this Castle or landward side come Friedrich and his Prussians, on Monday morning about eight. "The

garrison, some 4,000 Reichs folk and a French Battalion or two, shut the Gates, and assembled in the

Marketplace,"a big square, close at the foot of the Heights; "on the other hand, from the top of the

Heights [KLAMMERK the particular spot], the Prussians cannonaded Town and Gates; to speedy bursting

open of the same; and rushed in over the walls of the Castlecourt, and by other openings into the Town: so

that the garrison above said had to quit, and roll with all speed across the Saale Bridge, and set the same on

fire behind them." This was their remedy for all the Three Bridges, when attacked; but it succeeded nowhere

"The fire was of extreme rapidity; prepared beforehand:" Bridge all of dry wood coated with pitch;"fire

reinforced too, in view of such event, by all the suet, lard and oleaginous matter the Garrison could find in

Weissenfels; some hundredweights of tallow dips, for one item, going up on this occasion." Bridge, "worth

100,000 thalers," is instantly ablaze: some 400 finding the bridge so flamy, and the Prussians at their skirts,

were obliged to surrender;Feldmarschall Hildburghausen, sleeping about two miles off, gets himself

awakened in this unpleasant manner. Flying garrison halt on the other side of the River, where the rest of

their Army is; plant cannon there against quenching of the Bridge; and so keep firing, answered by the

Prussians, with much noise and no great mischief, till 3 P.M., when the Bridge is quite gone (Tollkeeper's

Lodge and all), and the enterprise of crossing there had plainly become impossible.

Friedrich quickly, about a mile farther down the River, has picked out another crossingplace, in the interim,

and founded some new adequate plank or raft bridge there; which, by diligence all night, will be crossable

tomorrow. So that, except for amusing the enemy, the cannonading may cease at Weissenfels. A certain Duc

de Crillon, in command at this Weissenfels Bridgeburning and cannonade, has a chivalrous Anecdote

(amounting nearly to zero when well examined) about saving or sparing Friedrich's life on this interesting

occasion: How, being now on the safe side of the River, he Crillon with his staff taking some refection of

breakfast after the furious flurry there had been; there came to him one of his Artillery Captains, stationed in

an Island in the River, asking, "Shall I shoot the King of Prussia, Monseigneur? He is down reconnoitring his

end of the Bridge: sha'n't I, then?" To whom Crillon gives a glass of wine and smilingly magnanimous

answer to a negative effect. [ "Memoires militaires de Louis Duc de Crillon (Paris, 1791), p. 166;"as cited

by Preuss, ii. 88.] Concerning which, one has to remark, Not only, FIRST, that the Artillery Captain's power

of seeing Friedrich (which is itself uncertain) would indeed mean the power of aiming at him, but differs

immensely from that of hitting him with shot; so that this "Shall I kill the King?" was mainly thrasonic wind

from Captain Bertin. But SECONDLY, that there is no "Island" in the River thereabouts, for Captain Bertin

to fire from! So that probably the whole story is wind or little more: dreamlike, or at best some idle

thrasonictheoretic question, on the part of Bertin; proper answer thereto (consisting mainly in a glass of

wine) from Monseigneur: all which, on retrospection, Monseigneur feels, or would fain feel, to have been

not theoreticthrasonic but practical, and of a rather godlike nature. Zero mainly, as we said; Friedrich thanks

"The Prussians were billeted in the Town that night," says our Syndic; "and in many a house there came to be

twenty men, and even thirty and above it, lodged. All was quiet through the night; the French and the Reichs

folk were drawn back upon the higher grounds, about Burgwerben and on to Tagwerben; and we saw their

watchfires burning." Friedrich's Bridge meanwhile, unmolested by the enemy, is getting ready.

Keith, looking across to Merseburg on the morrow morning (Tuesday, Nov. 1st), whither he had marched

direct with the other Half of the Army, finds Merseburg Bridge destroyed, or broken; and Soubise with

batteries on the farther side, intending to dispute the passage. Keith despatches Duke Ferdinand to Halle,

another twelve miles down, who finds Halle Bridge destroyed in like manner, and Broglio intending to

dispute; which, however, on second thoughts, neither of them I did. Friedrich's new Bridge at HerrenMuhle

(LORDSHIPS' MILL) is of course an important point to them; Friedrich's passage now past dispute! "Let us

fall back," say they, "and rank ourselves a little; we are 50 or 60,000 strong; ill off for provisions; but well

The combined Army, "Dauphiness," or whatever we are to call it, does on Wednesday morning (November

2d) gather in its cannon and outskirts, and give up the Saale question; retire landwards to the higher grounds

some miles; and diligently get itself united, and into order of battle better or worse, near the Village of

Mucheln (which means Kirk MICHAEL, and is still written "SANCT MICHEL" by some on this occasion).

There Dauphiness takes post, leaning on the heights, not in a very scientific way; leaving Keith and

Ferdinand to rebuild their Bridges unmolested, and all Prussians to come across at discretion. Which they

have diligently done (2d3d November), by their respective Bridges; and on Thursday afternoon are all

across, encamped at Bedra, in close neighborhood to Mucheln; which Friedrich has been out reconnoitring

Next morning, accordingly, "by 2 o'clock, with a bright moon shining," Friedrich is on horseback, his Army

following. But on examining by moonlight, the enemy have shifted their position; turned on their axis, more

or less, into new woodpatches, new batteries and bogs; which has greatly mended their affair. No good

attacking them so, thinks Friedrich; and returns to his Camp; slightly cannonaded, one wing of him, from

some battery of the enemy; and immoderately crowed over by them: "Dare not, you see! Tried, and was

defeated!" cry their newspapers and they,for one day. Friedrich lodges again in Bedra this night, others say

in Rossbach; shifts his own Camp a little; left wing of it now at Rossbach (HOMEBROOK, or BECK, soon

to be a worldfamous Hamlet): the effects of hunger on the Dauphiness, so far from her supplies, will, he

calculates, be stronger than on him, and will bring her to better terms shortly. Dauphiness needs bread; one

may have fine clipping at the skirts of her, if she try retreat. That Dauphiness would play the prank she did

Meandering Saale is on one of his big turns, as he passes Weissenfels; turning, pretty rapidly here, from

southeastward, which he was a dozen miles ago, round to northeastward again or northward altogether, which

he gets to be at Merseburg, a dozen farther down. Right across from Weissenfels, lapped in this crook of the

Saale, or washed by it on south side and on east, rises, with extreme laziness, a dull circular lump of country,

six or eight miles in diameter; with Rossbach and half a dozen other scraggy sleepy Hamlets scattered on

it;which, till the morning of Saturday, 5th November, 1757, had not been notable to any visitor. The

topmost point or points, for there are two (not discoverable except by tradition and guess), the country people

do call Hills, JANUSHUGEL, POLZENHUGELHill sensible to wagonhorses in those bad loose

tracks of sandy mud, but unimpressive on the Tourist, who has to admit that there seldom was so flat a Hill.

Rising, let us guess, forty yards in the three or four miles it has had. Might be called a perceptibly potbellied

plain, with more propriety; flat country, slightly puffed up;in shape not steeper than the mould of an

immense teasaucer would be. Teasaucer 6 miles in diameter, 100 feet in depth, and of irregular contour,

Saale, at four or five miles distance, bounds this scraggy lump on the east and on the south. Westward and

northward, springing about Mucheln on each hand, and setting off to right and to left Saale ward, are what

we take to be two brooks; at least are two hollows: and behind these, the country rises higher; undulating still

on lazy terms, but now painted azure by the distance, not unpleasant to behold, with its litter all lapped out of

sight, and its poor brooks tinkling forward (as we judge) into the Saale, Merseburg way, or reversewise into

the Unstrut, the last big branch of Saale. Southward from our Janus Height, eight or nine miles off, may be

seen some vestige of Freiburg; steeple or gilt weathercock faintly visible, on the Unstrut yonder;which I

take to be Soubise's breadbasket at present. And farther off, and opposite the MOUTH of the Unstrut, well

across the Saale, lies another namable Town (visible in clear weather, as a smokecloud at certain hours,

about mealtime, when the kettles are on boil), the Town of Naumburg,one of several German

Naumburgs,the Naumburg of Gustaf Adolf; where his slain body lay, on the night of Lutzen Battle, with

his poor Queen and others weeping over it. Naumburg is on the other side of Saale, not of importance to

This is the circular block or lump of country, on the north or northwest side of which Friedrich now lies, and

which will become, he little thinks how memorable on the morrow. Over the heights, immediately eastward

of Friedrich, there is a kind of hollow, or scoopedout place; shallow valley of some extent, which deserves

notice against tomorrow: but in general the ground is lazily spherical, and without noticeable hollows or

valleys when fairly away from the River. A dull blunt lump of country; made of sand and mud,may have

been grassy once, with broom on it, in the pastoral times; is now under poor ploughhusbandry, arable or

scratchable in all parts, and looks rather miserable in wintertime. No vestige of hedge on it, of shrub or

bush; one tree, ugly but big, which may have been alive in Friedrich's time, stands not far from Rossbach

Various Hamlets lie sprinkled about: very sleepy, rusty, irregular little places; huts and cattlestalls huddled

down, as if shaken from a bag; much straw, thick thatch and crumbly mudbrick; but looking warm and

peaceable, for the Fourfooted and the Two footed; which latter, if you speak to them, are solid reasonable

people, with energetic German eyes and hearts, though so ill lodged. These Hamlets, needing shelter and

springwater, stand generally in some slight hollow, if well up the Height, as Rorschach is; sometimes, if

near the bottom, they are nestled in a sudden dell or gash,work of the primeval rains, accumulating from

above, and ploughing out their way. The rains, we can see, have been busy; but there is seldom the least

stream visible, bottom being too sandy and porous. On the western slope, there is in our time a kind of coal,

or coaldust, dug up; in the way of quarrying, not of mining; and one or two big chasms of this sort are

confusedly busy: the natives mix this valuable coaldust with water, mould it into bricks, and so use as fuel:

one of the features of these hamlets is the strange black bricks, standing on edge about the cottagedoors, to

drip, and dry in the sun. For this or for other reasons, the westward slope appears to be the best; and has a

major share of hamlets on it: Rossbach is high up, and looks over upon Mucheln, and its dim belfry and

appurtenances, which lie safe across the hollow, perhaps two miles off,safe from Friedrich, if there were

eatables and lodging to be had in such a place. Friedrich's left wing is in Rossbach. Bedra where Friedrich's

right wing is; Branderode where the Soubise right is; then Grost; Schevenroda, Zeuchfeld, Pettstadt,

Lunstadt,especially Reichartswerben, where Soubise's right will come to be: these the reader may take note

of in his Map. Several of them lie in ashes just then; plundered, replundered, and at last set fire to; so busy

have Soubise's hungry people been, of late, in the Country they came to "deliver." The Freiburg road, the

Naumburg road, both towards Merseburg, cross this Height; straight like the string, Saale by Weissenfels

The HERRENHAUS (Squire's Mansion) still stands in Rossbach, with the littery Hamlet at its flank: a high,

pavilionroofed, and though dilapidated, pretentious kind of House; some kind of court round it, some kind

of hedge or screen of brushwood and brickwall: terribly in need of the besom, it and its environment

throughout. King, I suppose, did lodge there overnight: certain it is the Squire was absent; and the Squire's

Man, three days afterwards, reported to him as follows: ... "Saturday, the 5th, about 8 A.M., his Majesty

mounted to the roof of the Herrenhaus here, some tiles having been removed [for that end, or by accident, is

not said], and saw how the French and Reichs Army were getting in movement" wriggling out of their

Camp leftwards, evidently aiming towards Grost. "In about an hour, near half their Army was through Grost,

and had turned southward, rather southeastward, from Grost, out in the Rossbach and Almsdorf region, and

proceeding still towards Pettstadt,"towards Schevenroda more precisely, not towards Pettstadt yet. "His

Majesty looked always through the perspective: and to me was the grace done to be ever at his side, and to

name for him the roads the French and Reichs Army was marching." [Muller, p. 50; Rodenbeck, p. 326.]

The King had heard of this phenomenon hours before, and had sent out Hussars and scouts upon it; but now

sees it with his eyes: "Going for Freiburg, and their breadcupboard," thinks the King; who does not as yet

make much of the movement; but will watch it well, and calculates to have a stroke at the rear end of it, in

due season. With which view, the cavalry, Seidlitz and Mayer, are ordered to saddle; foot regiments, and all

else, to be in readiness. This FrenchReichs Dauphiness is not rapid in her field exercise; and has a great

deal of wriggling and unwinding before she can fairly pick herself out, and get forward towards Schevenroda

on the Freiburg road. In three or in two parallel columns, artillery between them, horse ahead, horse arear;

haggling along there;making for their breadbaskets, thinks the King. A body of French, horse chiefly,

under St. Germain, come out, in the SchortauAlmsdorf part, with some salvoing and prancing, as if

intending to attack about Rossbach, where our left wing is: but his Majesty sees it to be a pretence merely;

and St. Germain, motionless, and doing nothing but cannonade a little, seems to agree that it is so.

Dauphiness continues her slow movements; King, in this Squire's Mansion of Rossbach, sits down to dinner,

dinner with Officers at the usual hour of noon,little dreaming what the Dauphiness has in her head.

Truth is, the Dauphiness is in exultant spirits, this morning; intending great things against a certain "little

Marquis of Brandenburg," to whom one does so much honor. Generals looking down yesterday on the King

of Prussia's Camp, able to count every man in it (and half the men being invisible, owing to bends of the

ground), counted him to 10,000 or so; and had said, "Pshaw, are not we above 50,000; let us end it! Take him

on his left. Round yonder, till we get upon his left, and even upon his rear withal, St. Germain cooperating

on the other side of him: on left, on rear, on front, at the same moment, is not that a sure game?" A very

ticklish game, answers surly sagacious Lloyd: "No general will permit himself to be taken in flank with his

Trying it meanwhile they are; marching along by the low grounds here, intending to sweep gradually

leftwards towards JanusHill quarter; there to sweep home upon him, coil him up, left and rear and front, in

their boaconstrictor folds, and end his trifle of an Army and him. "Why not, if we do our duty at all,

annihilate his trifle of an Army; take himself prisoner, and so end it?" Report says, Soubise had really, in

some moment of enthusiasm lately, warned the Versailles populations to expect such a thing; and that the

Duchess of Orleans, forgetful of poor King Louis's presence, had in HER enthusiasm, exclaimed: "TANT

MIEUX, I shall at last see a King, then!" But perhaps it is a mere French epigram, such as the winds often

generate there, and put down for fact. Friedrich's retreat to Weissenfels is cut off for Friedrich: an Austrian

party has been at the HerrenMuhle Bridge this morning, has torn it up and pitched it into the river; planks

far on to Merseburg by this time. And, in fact, unless Friedrich be nimble But that he usually is.

Friedrich's dinner had gone on with deliberation for about two hours, Friedrich's intentions not yet known to

any, but everybody, great and small, waiting eagerly for them, like greyhounds on the slip,when Adjutant

Gaudi, who had been on the Housetop the while, rushes into the Diningroom faster than he ought, and,

with some tremor in his voice and eyes, reports hastily: "At Schevenroda, at Pettstadt yonder! Enemy has

turned to left. Clearly for the left.""Well, and if he do? No flurry needed, Captain!" answered

Friedrich,(NOT in these precise words; but rebuking Gaudi, with a look not of laughter wholly, and with a

certain question, as to the state of Gaudi's stomachic part, which is still known in traditionary circles, but is

not mentionable here);and went, with due gravity, himself to the roof, with his Officers. "To the left, sure

enough; meaning to attack us there:" the thing Friedrich had despaired of is voluntarily coming, then; and

it is a thing of stern qualities withal; a wager of life, with glorious possibilities behind.

Friedrich earnestly surveys the phenomenon for some minutes; in some minutes, Friedrich sees his way

through it, at least into it, and how he will do it. Off, eastward; march! Swift are his orders; almost still

swifter the fulfillment of them. Prussian Army is a nimble article in comparison with Dauphiness! In half an

hour's time, all is packed and to the road; and, except Mayer and certain FreeCorps or LightHorse, to

amuse St. Germain and his Almsdorf people, there is not a Prussian visible in these localities to French eyes.

"At halfpast two," says the Squire's Man,or let us take him a sentence earlier, to lose nothing of such a

Document: "At noon his Majesty took dinner; sat till about two o'clock; then again went to the roof; and

perceived that the Enemy's Army at Pettstadt were turning about the little Wood there northeastward, as if for

Lunstadt [into the Lunstadt road];such cannonading too," from those Almsdorf people, "that the balls flew

over our heads,"or I tremulously thought so. "At halfpast two, the word was given, March! And good

speed they made about it, in this Herrenhaus, and out of doors too, striking their tents, and cording up and

trimly shouldering everything with incredible brevity," as if machinery were doing it; "and at three, on the

Prussian part, all was packed and out into the court for being carried off; and, in fact, the Prussian Army was

on march at three." Seidlitz, with all his Horse, vanishing round the corner of the Height; speeding along,

invisible on his northern slope there, straight for the JanusPolzen Hill part; the Infantry following,

But at this interesting point, the Editorssmall thanks to them, authentic but thricestupid mortalscut

short our Eyewitness, not so much as telling us his name, some of them not even his date or whereabouts;

and so the curtain tumbles down (as if its string had been cut, or suddenly eaten by unwise animals), and we

are left to gray hubbub, and our own resources at secondhand. Except only that a French Officerone of

those cannonading from Almsdorf, no doubt declares that "it was like a change of scene in the Opera

(DECORATION D'OPERA)," [Letter in MULLER: p. 60. In WESTPHALEN (ii. 128133) is a much

superior French Letter, intercepted somewhere, and fallen to Duke Ferdinand; well worth reading, on

Rossbach and the previous Affairs.] so very rapid; and that "they all rolled off eastward at quick time." At

extremely quick time; and soon, in the slight hollow behind Janus Hugel, vanished from sight of these

Almsdorf French, and of the SoubiseHildburghausen Army in general. Which latter is agreeably surprised at

the phenomenon; and draws a highly flattering conclusion from it. "Gone, then; off at doublequick for

Merseburg; aha!" think the SoubiseHildburghausen people: "Doublequick you too, my pretty men, lest

Seidlitz meanwhile, with his cavalry (thirtyeight squadrons, about 4,000 horse), is rapidly doing the order he

has had. Seidlitz at a sharp military trot, and the infantry at doublequick to keep up near him, which they

cannot quite do, are, as we have said, making right across for the PolzenHill and JanusHill quarter; their

route the string, French route the bow; and are invisible to the French, owing to the heights between. Seidlitz,

when he gets to the proper point eastward, will wheel about, front to southward, and be our left wing;

The exultant Dauphiness, or SoubiseHildburghausen Army (let us call it, for brevity's sake, Dauphiness or

French, which it mainly was), on that rapid disappearance of the Prussians, never doubted but the Prussians

were off on flight for Merseburg, to get across by the Bridge there. Whereat Dauphiness, doubly exultant,

mended her own pace, cavalry at a sharp trot, infantry doublequick, but unable to keep up,for the purpose

of capturing or intercepting the runaway Prussians. Speed, my friends,if you would do a stroke upon

Friedrich, and show the Versailles people a King at last! Thus they, hurrying on, in two parallel

columns,infantry, long floods of it, coming doublequick but somewhat fallen behind; cavalry 7,000 or so,

as vanguard,faster and faster; sweeping forward on their southern side of the JanusandPolzen slope, and

Seidlitz has his hussar pickets on the top, to keep him informed as to their motions, and how far they are got.

Seidlitz, invisible on the south slope of the Polzen Hugel, finds about halfpast three P.M. that he is now

fairly ahead of Dauphiness; Seidlitz halts, wheels, comes to the top, "Got the flank of them, sure enough!"

and without waiting signal or farther orders, every instant being precious, rapidly forms himself; and plunges

down on these poor people. "Compact as a wall, and with an incredible velocity (D'UNE VITESSE

INCROYABLE)," says one of them. Figure the astonishment of Dauphiness; of poor Broglio, who

commands the horse here. Taken in flank, instead of taking other people; intercepted, not in the least needing

to intercept! Has no time to form, though he tried what he could. Only the two Austrian regiments got

completely formed; the rest very incompletely; and Seidlitz, in the blaze of rapid steel, is in upon them. The

two Austrian regiments, and two French that are named, made what debate was feasible;courage nowise

wanting, in such sad want of captaincy; nay Soubise in person galloped into it, if that could have helped. But

from the first, the matter was hopeless; Seidlitz slashing it at such a rate, and plunging through it and again

through it, thrice, some say four times: so that, in the space of half an hour, this luckless cavalry was all

tumbling off the ground; plunging down hill, in full flight, across its own infantry or whatever obstacle,

Seidlitz on the hips of it; and galloping madly over the horizon, towards Freiburg as it proved; and was not

In about half an hour that bit of work was over; and Seidlitz, with his ranks trimmed again, had drawn

himself southward a little, into the Hollow of Tageswerben, there to wait impending phenomena. For

Friedrich with the Infantry is now emerging over Janus Hill, in a highly thunderous manner,eighteen

pieces of artillery going, and "four big guns taken from the walls of Leipzig;" and there will be events anon.

It is said, Hildburghausen, at the first glimpse of Friedrich over the hilltop, whispered to Soubise, "We are

lost, Royal Highness!""Courage!" Soubise would answer; and both, let us hope, did their utmost in this

Friedrich's artillery goes at a murderous rate; had come in view, over the hilltop, before Seidlitz

ended,"nothing but, the muzzles of it visible" (and the firetorrents from it) to us poor French below.

Friedrich's lines; or rather his one line, mere tip of his left wing,only seven battalions in it, five of them

under Keith from the second or reserve line; whole centre and right wing standing "refused" in oblique rank,

invisible, BEHIND the Hill, Friedrich's line, we say, the artillery to its right, shoots out in mysterious

Prussian rhythm, in echelons, in potences, obliquely down the JanusHill side; straight, rigid, regular as iron

clock work; and strides towards us, silent, with the lightning sleeping in it:Friedrich has got the flank of

Dauphiness, and means to keep it. Once and again and a third time, poor Soubise, with his poor regiments

much in an imbroglio, here heaped on one another, there with wide gaps, halt being so sudden,attempts to

recover the flank, and pushes out this regiment and the other, rightward, to be even with Friedrich. But sees

with despair that it cannot be; that Friedrich with his echelons, potences and mysterious Prussian resources,

pulls himself out like the pieces of a prospectglass, piece after piece, hopelessly fast and seemingly no end

to them; and that the flank is lost, and thatUnhappy Generals of Dauphiness, what a phenomenon for them!

A terrible Friedrich, not fled to Merseburg at all; but mounted there on the Janus Hill, as on his saddlehorse,

with face quite the other way;and for holsterpistol, has plucked out twentytwo cannon. Clad verily in

fire; Chimeralike, RIDING the Janus Hill, in that manner; left leg (or wing) of him spurning us into the

Hildburghausen, I will hope, does his utmost; Soubise, Broglio, for certain do. The French line is in front,

next the Prussians: poor Generals of Dauphiness are panting to retrieve themselves. But with regiments

jammed in this astonishing way, and got collectively into the lion's throat, what can be done? Steady, rigid as

iron clockwork, the Prussian line strides forward; at forty paces' distance delivers its first shock of lightning,

bursts into platoon fire; and so continues, steady at the rate of five shots a minute,hard to endure by poor

masses all in a coil. "The artillery tore down whole ranks of us," says the Wutenberg Dragoon; [His Letter in

Things began %o waver very soon, French reeling back from the Prussian fire, Reichs troops rocking very

uneasy, torn by such artillery; when, to crown the matter, Seidlitz, seeing all things rock to the due extent,

bursts out of Tageswerben Hollow, terribly compact and furious, upon the rear of them. Which sets all things

into inextricable tumble; and the Battle is become a rout and a riding into ruin, no Battle ever more. Lasted

twentyfive minutes, this second act of it, or till halfpast four: after which, the curtains rapidly descending

(Night's curtain, were there no other) cover the remainder; the only stagedirection, EXEUNT OMNES.

Which for a 50 or 60,000, ridden over by Seidlitz Horse, was not quite an easy matter! They left, of killed and

wounded, near 3,000; of prisoners, 5,000 (Generals among them 8, Officers 300): in sum, about 8,000; not to

mention cannon, 67 or 72; with standards, flags, kettledrums and meaner baggages AD LIBITUM in a

manner. The Prussian loss was, 165 killed, 376 wounded;between a sixteenth and a fifteenth part of theirs:

in number the Prussians had been little more than one to three; 22,000 of all arms,not above half of whom

ever came into the fire; Seidlitz and seven battalions doing all the fighting that was needed, St. Germain tried

to cover the retreat; but "got broken," he says,Mayer bursting in on him,and soon went to slush like the

Seldom, almost never, not even at Crecy or Poictiers, was any Army better beaten. And truly, we must say,

seldom did any better deserve it, so far as the Chief Parties went. Yes, Messieurs, this is the PETIT

MARQUIS DE BRANDEBOURG; you will know this one, when you meet him again! The flight, the French

part of it, was towards Freiburg Bridge; in full gallop, long after the chase had ceased; crossing of the Unstrut

there, hoarse, manyvoiced, all night; burning of the Bridge; found burnt, when Friedrich arrived next

morning. He had encamped at Obschutz, short way from the field itself. French Army, Reichs Army, all was

gone to staves, to utter chaotic wreck. Hildburghausen went by Naumburg; crossed the Saale there; bent

homewards through the Weimar Country; one wild flood of ruin, swift as it could go; at Erfurt "only one

regiment was in rank, and marched through with drums beating." His Army, which had been disgustingly

unhappy from the first, and was now fallen fluid on these mad terms, flowed all away in different rills, each

by the course straightest home; and Hildburghausen arriving at Bamberg, with hardly the ghost or mutilated

skeleton of an Army, flung down his truncheon,"A murrain on your Reichs Armies and regimental

chaoses!"and went indignantly home. Reichs Army had to begin at the beginning again; and did not

reappear on the scene till late next Year, under a new Commander, and with slightly improved conditions.

Dauphiness Proper was in no better case; and would have flowed home in like manner, had not home been so

far, and the way unknown. Twelve thousand of them rushed straggling through the Eichsfeld; plundering and

harrying, like Cossacks or Calmucks: "Army blown asunder, over a circle of forty miles' radius," writes St.

Germain: "had the Enemy pursued us, after I got broken [burst in upon by Mayer and his FreeCorps people]

we had been annihilated. Never did Army behave worse; the first cannonsalvo decided our rout and our

shame." [St. Germain to Verney: different Excerpts of Letters in the two weeks after Rossbach and before

In two days' time (November 7th), the French had got to Langensalza, fiftyfive miles from the Battlefield

of Rossbach; plundering, running, SACREDIEUing; a wild deluge of molten wreck, filling the Eichsfeld

with its waste noises, making night hideous and day too;in the villages Placards were stuck up, appointing

Soubise rode, with few attendants, all night towards Nordhausen, eighty miles off, foot of the Bracken

Country, where the Richelieu resources are;Soubise with few attendants, face set towards the Brocken;

"The joy of poor Teutschland at large," says one of my Notes, "and how all Germans, Prussian and

AntiPrussian alike, flung up their caps, with unanimous LEBEHOCH, at the news of Rossbach, has often

been remarked; and indeed is still almost touching to see. The perhaps bravest Nation in the world, though

the least braggart, very certainly EIN TAPFERES VOLK (as their Goethe calls them); so long insulted,

snubbed and trampled on, by a luckier, not a braver:has not your exultant Dauphiness got a beautiful little

dose administered her; and is gone off in foul shrieks, and pangs of the interior,let no man ask

whitherward! 'SI UN ALLEMAND PEUT AVOIR DE L'ESPRIT (Can a German possibly have sharpness of

wits)?' Well, yes, it would seem: here is one German graduate who understands his medicinechest, and the

quality of patients! Dauphiness got no pity anywhere; plenty of epigrams, and mostly nothing but laughter

even in Paris itself. Napoleon long after, who much admires Friedrich, finds that this Victory of Rossbach

was inevitable; 'but what fills me with astonishment and shame,' adds he, 'is that it was gained by six

battalions and thirty squadrons [seven properly, and thirtyeight] over such a multitude!' [Montholon,

MEMOIRES DE NAPOLEON (Napoleon's Precis des Guerres de Frrederic II., vii. 210).]It is well

known, Napoleon, after Jena, as if Jena had not been enough for him, tore down the first Monument of

Rossbach, some poor ashlar Pyramid or Pillar, raised by the neighborhood, with nothing more afflictive

inscribed on it than a date; and sent it off in carts for Paris (where no stone of it ever arrived, the Thuringen

carmen slinking off, and leaving it scattered in different places over the face of Thuringen in general); so that

they had the trouble of a new one lately." [Rodenbeck, Beitrage, i. 299; ib. p. 385, Lithograph of the poor

From Friedrich the "Army of the Circles," that is, Dauphiness and Company,called HOOPERS or

"Coopers" (TONNELIERS), with a desperate attempt at wit by pun,get their Adieu in words withal. This

is the famed CONGE DE L'ARMEE DES CERCLES ET DES TONNELIERS; a short metrical Piece; called

by Editors the most profane, most indecent, most and printed with asterisk veils thrown over the worst

passages. Who shall dare, searching and rummaging for insight into Friedrich, and complaining that there is

none, to lift any portion of the veil; and say, "SeeFaugh!" The cynicism, truly, but also the irrepressible

honest exultation, has a kind of epic completeness, and fulness of sincerity; and, at bottom, the thing is

nothing like so wicked as careless commentators have given out. Dare to look a little:

"ADIEU, GRANDS ERASEURS DE ROIS," so it starts: "Adieu, grand crushers of Kings; arrogant

windbags, Turpin, Broglio, Soubise, Hildburghausen with the gray beard, foolish still as when your beard

was black in the TurkWar time:brisk journey to you all!" That is the first stanza; unexceptionable, had we

room. The second stanza is,with the veils partially lifted; with probably "MOISE" put into the first blank,

Enough to say, the Author, with a wild burst of spiritual enthusiasm, sings the charms of the rearward part of

certain men; and what a royal ecstatic felicity there sometimes is in indisputable survey of the same. He rises

to the heights of Anti Biblical profanity, quoting Moses on the Hill of Vision; sinks to the bottomless of

human or ultrahuman depravity, quoting King Nicomedes's experiences on Caesar (happily known only to

the learned); and, in brief, recognizes that there is, on occasion, considerable beauty in that quarter of the

human figure, when it turns on you opportunely. A most cynical profane affair: yet, we must say by way of

parenthesis, one which gives no countenance to Voltaire's atrocities of rumor about Friedrich himself in this

matter; the reverse rather, if well read; being altogether theoretic, scientific; sings with gusto the glow of

beauty you find in that unexpected quarter,while KICKING it deservedly and with enthusiasm. "To see

the"what shall we call it: seat of honor, in fact, "of your enemy:" has it not an undeniable charm? "I own to

you in confidence, O Soubise and Company, this fine laurel I have got, and was so in need of, is nothing

more or other than the sight of your"FOUR ASTERISKS. "Oblige me, whenever clandestine Fate brings

us together, by showing me that"always that, if you would give me pleasure when we meet. "And oh," next

stanza says, "to think what our glory is founded on,"on view of that unmentionable object, I declare to

you!And through other stanzas, getting smutty enough (though in theory only), which we need not

prosecute farther. [ OEuvres de Frederic, xii. 7073 (WRITTEN at Freiburg, 6th November, when his

Majesty got thither, and found the Bridge burnt).] A certain heartiness and epic greatness of cynicism, life's

nakedness grown almost as if innocent again; an immense suppressed insuppressible Haha, on the part of this

King. Strange TEDEUM indeed. Coming from the very heart, truly, as few of them do; but not, in other

"NEAR WEISSENFELS [OBSCHUTZ, in fact; does not know yet what the Battle will be CALLED], 5th

"At last, my dear Sister, I can announce you a bit of good news. You were doubtless aware that the Coopers

with their circles had a mind to take Leipzig. I ran up, and hove them beyond Saale. The Duc de Richelieu

sent them a reinforcement of twenty battalions and fourteen squadrons [say 15,000 horse and foot]; they then

called themselves 63,000 strong. Yesterday I went to reconnoitre them; could not attack them in the post they

held. This had rendered them rash. Today they came out with the intention of attacking me; but I took the

start of them (LES AI PREVENU). It was a Battle EN DOUCEUR (soft to one's wish). Thanks to God I have

not a hundred men killed; the only General ill wounded is Meinecke. My Brother Henri and General Seidlitz

have slight hurts [gunshots, not so slight, that of Seidlitz] in the arm. We have all the Enemy's cannon, all

the ... I am in full march to drive them over the Unstrut [already driven, your Majesty; bridge burning].

"You, my dear Sister, my good, my divine and affectionate Sister [faithful to the bone, in good truth, poor

Wilhelmina], who deign to interest yourself in the fate of a Brother who adores you, deign also to share in my

joy. The instant I have time, I will tell you more. I embrace you with my whole heart; Adieu. F." [ OEuvres

Friedrich had no more fighting with the French. November 9th, at Merseburg, in all stillness, Duke Ferdinand

got his Britannic Commission, his full Powers, from Friedrich and the parties interested; in all stillness made

his arrangements, as if for Magdeburg and his Governorship there,Friedrich hastening off for Silesia the

while. Duke Ferdinand did stay six days in Magdeburg, inspecting or pretending to inspect; very pleasant

with his Sister and the Royalties that, are now there; but, at midnight of day sixth shot off silently on wider

errand. And, in sum, on Thursday, 24th November, 1757, appeared in Stade, on horseback at morning parade

there; intimating, to what joy of the poor Brunswick Grenadiers and others, That he was come to take

command; that KlosterZeven is abolished; that we are not an "Observation Army," rotting here in the parish

pound, any longer, but an "Allied Army" (such now our title), intending to strike for ourselves, and get out of

"THURSDAY, 24th NOVEMBERTUESDAY, 29th. Duke Ferdinand did accordingly pick up the reins of

this distracted Affair; and, in a way wonderful to see, shot sanity into every fibre of it; and kept it sane and

roadworthy for the Five Years coming. With a silent velocity, an energy, an imperturbable steadfastness and

clear insight into cause and effect; which were creditable to the school he came from; and were a very joyful

sight to Pitt and others concerned. So that from next Tuesday, 'November 29th, before daylight,' when

Ferdinand's batteries began playing upon Harburg (French Fortress nearest to Stade), the reign of the French

ceased in those Countries; and an astonished Richelieu and his French, lying scattered over all the West of

Germany, in readiness for nothing but plunder, had to fall more or less distracted in their turn; and do a

number of astonishing things. To try this and that, of futile, more or less frantic nature; be driven from post

after post; be driven across the Aller first of all;Richelieu to go home thereupon, and be succeeded by one

"DECEMBER 13th, a fortnight after Ferdinand's appearance, Richelieu had got to the safe side of the Aller

(burning of Zelle Bridge and Zelle Town there, his last act in Germany); Ferdinand's quarters now wide

enough; and vigorous speed of preparation going on for farther chase, were the weather mended.

FEBRUARY 17th, 1758, Ferdinand was on foot again; Prince de Clermont, the still more incompetent

successor of Richelieu, gazing wideeyed upon him, but doing nothing else: and for the next six weeks there

was seen a once triumphant RichelieuD'Estrees French Army, much in rags, much in disorder, in terror, and

here and there almost in despair, winging their way; like clouds of draggled poultry caught by a mastiff in

the corn. Across Weser, across Ems, finally across the Rhine itself, every feather of them,their longdrawn

cackle, of a shrieky type, filling all Nature in those months; the mastiff steadily following. [Mauvillon, i.

252284 ("9th November, 17571st April, 1758"); Westphalen, i. 316503 (abundantly explicit, authentic

and even entertaining,with the ample Correspondences, ib. ii. 147350); Schaper, Vie militaire du

Marechal Prince Ferdinand (2 tomes, 8vo, Magdebourg, 1796, 1799), i. 7100 (a careful Book; of an official

exactitude, like Westphalen's,and appears to be left incomplete like his).] To the astonishment of Pitt and

mankind. Can this be the same Army that Royal Highness led to the Sea and the Parish Pound? The same

identically, wasted to about twothirds by Royal Highness; not a drum in it changed otherwise, only One

"Pitt, when the news of Rossbach came, awakening the bonfires and steeplebells of England to such a pitch,

had resolved on an emphatic measure: that of sending English Troops to reinforce our Allied Army, and its

new General;such an Ally as that Rossbach one being rare in the eyes of Pitt. 'Postpone the meeting of

Parliament, yet a few days, your Majesty,' said Pitt, 'till I get the estimates ready!' [Thackeray, i. 310.] To

which Majesty assented, and all England with him: 'England's own Cause,' thinks Pitt, with confidence: 'our

way of Conquering America,and, in the circumstances, our one way!' English did land, accordingly; first

instalment of them, a 12,000 (in August next), increased gradually to 20,000; with no end of furnishings to

them and everybody; with results again satisfactory to Pitt; and very famous in the England that then was,

The effect of all which was, that Pitt, with his Ferdinands and reinforcements, found work for the French ever

onwards from Rossbach; French also turning as if exclusively upon perfidious Albion: and the thing became,

in Teutschland, as elsewhere, a duel of life and death between these natural enemies,Teutschland the

centre of it,Teutschland and the accessible French SeaTowns, but the circumference of it going round

from Manilla and Madras to Havana and Quebec again. Widespread furious duel; prize, America and life.

By land and sea; handsomely done by Pitt on both elements. Land part, we say, was always mainly in

Germany, under Ferdinand,in Hessen and the Westphalian Countries, as far west as Minden, as far east as

FrankfurtonMayn, generally well north of Rhine, well south of Elbe: that was, for five years coming, the

cockpit or place of deadly fence between France and England. Friedrich's arena lies eastward of that,

occasionally playing into it a little, and played into by it, and always in lively sympathy and consultation with

it: but, except the French subsidizings, diplomatizings. and great diligenae against him in foreign Courts,

Friedrich is, in practical respects, free of the French; and ever after Rossbach, Ferdinand and the English keep

them in full work, growing yearly too full. A heavy Business for England and Ferdinand; which is happily

kept extraneous to Friedrich thenceforth; to him and us; which is not on the stage of his affairs and ours, but

is to be conceived always as vigorously proceeding alongside of it, close beyond the scenes, and liable at any

time to make tragic entry on him again:of which we shall have to notice the louder occurrences and

Soubise, who had crept into the skirts of the Richelieu Army in Hanover or Hessen Country, had of course to

take wing in that general fright before the mastiff. Soubise did not cross the Rhine with it; Soubise made off

eastward; [Westphalen, i. 501 ("end of March, 1758"].]found new roost in HanauFrankfurt Country; and

had thoughts of joining the Austrians in Bohemia next Campaign; but got new order,such the pinches of a

winged Clermont with a mastiff Ferdinand at his poor draggled tail;and came back to the Ferdinand scene,

to help there; and never saw Friedrich again. Both Broglio and he had a good deal of fighting (mostly

beating) from Ferdinand; and a great deal of trouble and sorrow in the course of this War; but after Rossbach

it is not Friedrich or we, it is Ferdinand and the Destinies that have to do with them. Poor Soubise, except that

he was the creature of Generalissima Pompadour, which had something radically absurd in it, did not deserve

all the laughter he got: a man of some chivalry, some qualities. As for Broglio, I remember always, not

without human emotion, the two extreme points of his career as a soldier: Rossbach and the Fall of the

Bastille. He was towards forty, when Friedrich bestrode the Janus Hill in that fiery manner; he was turned of

seventy when, from the pavements of Paris, the Chimera of Democracy rose on him, in fire of a still more

DauphinessBellona, in her special and in her widest sense, has made exit, then. Gone, like clouds of

draggled poultry home across the Rhine. She was the most marauding Army lately seen, also the most

gasconading, and had the least capacity for fighting: three worse qualities no army could have. How she

fought, we have seen sufficiently. Before taking leave of her forever, readers, as she is a paragon in her kind,

would perhaps take a glance or two at her marauding qualities,by a good opportunity that offers. Plotho at

Regensburg, that a supreme Reichs Diet may know what a "deliverance of Saxony" this has been, submits

one day the following irrefragable Documents, "which have happened," not without good industry of my

own, "to fall into my [Plotho's] hands." They are Documents partly of epistolary, partly of a Petitionary form,

presented to Polish Majesty, out of that Saxon Country; and have an AFFIDAVIT quality about them, one

"COUNTY MARK, 20th JUNE, 1757. The French troops are going on here in a way to utterly ruin us.

Schmidt, their President of Justice, whom they set up in Cleve, has got orders to change all the Magistracies

of the Country [Protestant by nature], so as that half the members shall be Catholic. Bielefeld was openly

plundered by the French for three hours long. You cannot by possibility represent to yourself what the actual

state of misery in these Countries is. A SCHEFFEL of rye costs three thalers sixteen groschen [who knows

how many times its natural price!]. And now we are to be forced to eat the spoiled meal those French troops

brought with them; which is gone to such a state no animal would have it. This poisoned meal we are to buy

from them, ready money, at the price they fix; and that famine may induce us, they are about to stop the mills,

and forcibly take away what little bread corn we have left. God have pity on us, and deliver us soon! Next

week we are to have a transit of 6,000 Pfalzers [KurPfalz, foolish idle fellow, and KurBaiern too, are both

in subsidy of France, as usual; 6,000 Pfalzers just due here]; these, I suppose, will sweep us clean bare."

Wesel Fortress, Gate of the Rhine, could not be defended by Friedrich: and the Hanover Incapables, and

England still all in St. Vitus, would not hear of undertaking it; left it wide open for the French; never could

recover it, or get the RhineGate barred again, during the whole War. One hopes they repented;but

perhaps it was only Pitt and Duke Ferdinand that did so, instead! The Wesel Countries were at once occupied

by the French; "a conquest of her Imperial Majesty's;" continued to be administered in Imperial Majesty's

"LETTER FROM FREIBURG, SHORTLY AFTER ROSSBACH.It was on the 23d October, a Sunday,

that we of Freiburg had our first billeting of French; a body of Cavalry from different regiments [going to

take Leipzig, take Torgau, what not]: and from that day Freiburg never emptied of French, who kept

marching through it in extraordinary quantities. The marching lasted fourteen days, namely, till the 6th

November [day AFTER Rossbach; when they burnt our poor Bridge, and marched for the last time]; and

often the billeting was so heavy, that in a single house there were forty or fifty men. Who at all times had to

be lodged and dieted gratis; nay many householders, over and above the ordinary meal, were obliged to give

them money too; and many poor people, who can scarcely get their own bit of bread, had to run and bring at

once their sixteen or eighteen groschen [pence] worth of wine, not to speak of coffee and sugar. And a great

increase of the mischief it was always, that the soldiers and common people did not understand one another's

language."Heavy billeting; but what was that? ... "Vast, nearly impossible, quantities of forage and

provision," were wrung from us, as from all the other Towns and Villages about, "under continual threatening

to burn and raze us from the earth. Often did our French Colonel threaten, 'He would have the cannon opened

on Freiburg straightway.' Nay, had it stood by foraging, we might have reckoned ourselves lucky. But our

straits increased day by day; and sheer plundering became more and more excessive.

"The robbing and torturing of travellers, the plundering and burning of Saxon Villages ... Almost all the

Towns and Villages hereabouts are so plundered out, that many a one now has nothing but what he carries on

his body. Plundering was universal: and no sooner was one party away, than another came, and still another;

and often the same house was three or four times plundered. Branderode, a Village two leagues from this

[stands on the Field of Rossbach, if we look], is so ruined out, that nobody almost has anything left: Chief

Inspector Baron von Bose's Schloss there, with its splendid appointments, they ruined utterly; took all money,

victuals, valuables, furniture, clothes, linen and beds, all they could carry; what could not be carried away,

they cut, hewed and smashed to pieces; broke the winecasks; and even tore up the documents and letters

they found lying in the place. Branderode Dorf was twice set fire to by them; and was, at last, with Zeuchfeld,

which is an Amtsdorf,after both had been plundered,reduced to ashes. The Churches of Branderode and

Zeuchfeld, with several other Churches, were plundered; the altars broken, the altarcloths and other vestures

cut to pieces, and the sacred vessels and cups carried away,except [for we have a notarial exactness, and

will exaggerate nothing] that in the case of Branderode they sent the cup back. Of the pollution of the altars,

and of the blasphemous songs these people sang in the churches, one cannot think without horror.

"And it was merely our pretended Allies and Protectors that have desecrated our divine service, utterly

wasted our Country, reduced the inhabitants to want and desperation, and, in short, have so behaved that you

would not know this region again. Truly these troops have realized for us most of the infamies we heard

"It is one of their smallest doings that they robbed a Saxon Clergyman [name and circumstances can be given

if required), three times over, on the public Highway; shot at him, tied him to a horse's tail and dragged him

along with them; so that he is now lying ill, in danger of his life. On the whole, it is our beloved Pastors,

"Balgart and Zschieplitz, both Villages half a league from this, have likewise been heavily plundered; they

have even left the Parson nothing but what he wore on his back. Grost," another Rossbach place, "which

belongs to the Kammerjunker Heldorf, has likewise" ... OHE, SATIS!"All this happened between the 23d

and 3lst October; consequently before the Battle. ... In many Villages you see the trees and fields sprinkled

"In several Villages belonging to the Royal Electoral privy Councillor von Bruhl [who is properly the

fountain of all this and of much other misery to us, if we knew it!] the plundering likewise had begun; and a

quantity of about a hundred swine [so ho!] had been cut in pieces: but in the midst of their work, the Allies

heard that these were Bruhl estates, and ceased their havoc of them. These accordingly are the only lands in

"The appellation, every moment renewed, of 'Heretic!' was the courteous address from these people to our

fellowChristians; 'heretic dogs (KETZERISCHE HUNDE)' was a PRADICAT always in their mouth.

"In Weischutz," a mile or two from us, up the Unstrut, "a French Colonel who wanted to ride out upon the

works, made the there Pastor, Magister Schren, stoop down by way of horseblock, and mounted into the

saddle from his back. [Messieurs, you will kindle the wrath of mankind some day, and get a terrible plucking,

"Churches are all smashed; obscene songs were sung, in form of litany, from the pulpits and altars; what was

done with the communionvessels, when they were not worth stealing,"is hideous to the religious sense,

(ALLERUNTERTHANIGST), under date of the 13th current, represented to your Royal Majesty and

Electoral Translucency how heavily we were pressed down by the forage requisitions and transits of troops,

and the consequent, expenditure in food, drinking, in oats and hay, which no one pays,when directly

thereafter, on the 14th of October, a new French party, of the Fischer Corps,"Fischer is a mighty Hussar,

scarcely inferior to Turpin;, and stands in astonishing authority with Richelieu, and an Army whose object is

plunder, [Ferdinand's Correspondente, SOEPIUS ( Westphalen, i. 40127); party of the Fischer Corps, of

some sixty men and horse, arrived in the Town; demanded meat, drink, oats aud hay, and all things

necessary; which they received from us;and not only paid not one farthing for all this, but furthermore

some of them, instead of thanks to their Landlord, Rossold, forcibly broke up his press, drank his brandy, and

carried off a TOUTE (gatherall) with money in it. From a Tanner, Lindauer by name, they bargained for a

buckskin; and having taken, would not pay it. In the RATHSKELLER (Town Publichouse) they drank

much wine, and gave nothing for it: nay on marching off,because no mounted guide (REITENDER

BOTE) was at hand, and though they had before expressly said none such would be needed,they rushed

about like distracted persons (WIE RASENDE LEUTE) in the marketplace and in the streets; beat the

people, tumbled them about, and lugged them along, in a violent manner; using abusive language to a

"Hardly were we rid of this confusion and astonishment when, on October 21st, a whole swarm of horses,

men, women, children and wagons, which likewise all belonged to the Fischer Corps, and were commanded

by FirstLieutenant Schmidt, came into our Town. This troop consisted of 80 men, part infantry, part cavalry;

with some 80 workhorses, 10 baggagewagons, and about 100 persons, women, sick people and the like.

They stayed the whole night here; made meat, drink, corn, hay and whatever they needed be brought them;

"Our Inns were now almost quite exhausted of forage in corn or hay; and we knew not how we were to pay

what had been spent,when the thirty French Light Cavalry, of whom we, with profound submission, on the

13th HUJUS gave your Royal Majesty and Electoral Translucency account, renewed their visit upon us;

came, under the command of Rittmeister de Mocu, on the 22d of October [while the baggagewagons,

workhorses, women, sick, and so forth, were hardly gone], towards evening, into the Town; consumed in

meat and drink, oats and hay, and the like, what they could lay hold of; and next morning early marched

"Not enough that,besides the great foragecontribution (LIEFERUNG), which we already, with profound

submission, notified to your Royal Majesty and Electoral Translucency as having been laid upon us; and that,

by order of the Duc de Broglio, a new requisition is now laid on us, and we have had to engage for sixty

four more sacks of wheat, and thirtytwo of rye (as is noted under head A, in the enclosed copy),there has

farther come on us, on the part of the Reichs Army, from KreisCommissarius Heldorf [whose Schloss of

Grost, we perceive, they have since burnt, by way of thanks to him [Supra, No. 2.]], the simultaneous Order

for instant delivery of Forage (as under head B, here enclosed)! Thus are we, at the appointed places, all at

once to furnish such quantities, more than we can raise; and know not when or where we shall, either for

what has been already furnished, or for what is still to be, receive one penny of money: nay, over and above,

we are to sustain the many marchings of troops, and provide to the same what meat, drink, oats, hay and so

"So unendurable, and, taken all together, so hard (SIC) begins the conduct of these troops, that profess being

come as friends and helpers, to appear to us. And Heaven alone knows how long, under a continuance of such

things, the subjects (whom the Hailstorm of last year had at any rate impoverished) shall be able to support

the same. We would, were a reasonable delivery of forage laid upon us even at a low price, and the board and

billet of the marching troops paid to us even in part, lay out our whole strength in helping to bear the burdens

of the Fatherland; but if such things go on, which will soon leave us only bare life and empty huts, we can

look forward to nothing but our ruin and destruction. But, as it is not your Royal Majesty's and Electoral

Translucency's most gracious will that we, your Most Supreme Self's most faithful subjects, should entirely

perish, therefore we repeat our former most submissive prayer once again with hot (SIC) sorrow of mind to

HighesttheSame; and sob most submissively for that help which your Most Supreme Self, through most

gracious mediation with the Duc de Richelieu, with the Reichs Army or wherever else, might perhaps most

graciously procure for us. Who, in deepest longing thitherwards, with the most deepest devotion, remain"

How many Saxons and Germans generallyalas, how many men universallycry towards celestial

luminaries of the governing kind with the most deepest devotion, in their extreme need, under their

unsufferable injuries; and are truly like dogs in the backyard barking at the Moon. The Moon won't come

4. DAUPHINESS AFTER ROSSBACH. "ExciseInspector Neitsche, at Bebra, near Weissenfels [Bebra is

well ahead from Freiburg and the burnt Bridge, and a good twentyfive miles west of Weissenfels], writes

"May it please your Royal Majesty and Electoral Translucency, out of your highest grace, to take knowledge,

from the accompanying Registers SUB SIGNO MARTIS [sign unknown to readers here], of the things

which, in the name of this Township of Bebra, the Burgermeister Johann Adam, with the Raths and others

"It will be already well known to the ExciseInspection that on the 7th of November (A. C.) of the current

year [day before yesterday, in fact!], the French Army so handled this place as to have not only taken from

the inhabitants, by open force, all bread and articles of food, but likewise all clothes, beds, linens

(WASCHE), and other portable goods; that it has broken, split to pieces, and emptied out, all chests, boxes,

presses, drawers; has shot dead, in the backyards and on the thatchroofs, all manner of feathered stock, as

hens, geese, pigeons; also carried forth with it all swine, cow, sheep and horse cattle; laid violent hands on the

inhabitants, clapped guns, swords, pistols to their breast, and threatened to kill them unless they showed and

brought out whatever goods they had; or else has hunted them wholly out of their houses, shooting at them,

cutting, sticking and at last driving them away, thereby to have the freer room to rob and plunder: flung out

hay and other harveststock from the barns into the mud and dung, and had it trampled to ruin under the

horses, feet; nay, in fact, has dealt with this place in so unpermitted a way as even to the most hardhearted

man must seem compassionable."Poor fellows: CETERA DESUNT; but that is enough! What can a Polish

Majesty and Electoral Translucency do? Here too is a sorrowful howling to the Moon. [ HeldenGeschichte,

... "For a hundred miles round," writes St. Germain, "the Country is plundered and harried as if fire from

Heaven had fallen on it; scarcely have our plunderers and marauders left the houses standing. ... I lead a band

of robbers, of assassins, fit for breaking on the wheel; they would turn tail at the first gunshot, and are always

ready to mutiny. If the Government (LA COUR," with its Pompadour presiding, very unlikely for such an

enterprise!) "cannot lay the knife to the root of all this, we may give up the notion of War." [St. Germain,

Such a pitch have French Armies sunk to. When was there seen such a Bellona as Dauphiness before? Nay, in

fact, she is the same devil serving Army that Marechal de Saxe commanded with such triumph, Marechal

de Saxe in better luck for opponents; Army then in a younger stage of its development. Foaming then as

sweet must, as new wine, in the hands of a skilful vintner, poisonous but brisk; not run, as now, to the vinegar

state, intolerable to all mortals. She can now announce from her camptheatres the reverse of the Roucoux

program, "Tomorrow, Messieurs, you are going to fight; our Manager foresees"you will be beaten; and

we cannot say what or where the next Piece will be! Impious, licentious, highflaring efflorescence of all the

Vices is not to be redeemed by the one QuasiVirtue of readiness to be shot;sweet of that kind, and sour of

this, are the same substance, if you only wait. How kind was the Devil to his Saxe; and flew away with him

The fame of Friedrich is high enough again in the Gazetteer world; all people, and the French themselves,

laughing at their grandiloquent DauphinessBellona, and writing epigrams on Soubise. But Friedrich's

difficulties are still enormous. One enemy coming with open mouth, you plunge in upon, and ruin, on this

hand; and it only gives you room to attempt upon another bigger one on that. Soubise he has finished

handsomely, for this season; but now he must try conclusions with Prince Karl. Quick, towards Silesia, after

The news out of Silesia are ominously doubtful, bad at the best. Duke Bevern, once Winterfeld was gone,

had, as we observed, felt himself free to act; unchecked, but also unsupported, by counsel of the due heroism;

and had acted unwisely. Made direct for Silesia, namely, where are mealmagazines and strong places.

Prince Karl, they say, was also unwise; took no thought beforehand, or he might have gained marches,

disputed rivers, Bober, Queiss, with Bevern, and as good as hindered him from ever getting to Silesia. So say

critics, Retzow and others; perhaps looking too fixedly on one side of the question. Certain it is, Bevern

marched in peace to Silesia; found it by no means the better place it had promised to be.

Prince KarlDaun there as second, but Karl now the dominant hand was on the heels of Bevern, march

after march. Prince Karl cut athwart him by one cunning march, in Liegnitz Country; barring him from

Schweidnitz, the chief stronghold of Silesia, and to appearance from Breslau, the chief city, too. Bevern, who

did not want for soldiership, when reduced to his shifts, now made a beautiful manoeuvre, say the critics;

struck out leftwards, namely, and crossed the Oder, as if making for Glogau, quite beyond Prince Karl's

sphere of possibility,but turned to right, not to left, when across, and got in upon Breslau from the other or

east side of the River. Cunning manoeuvre, if you will, and followed by cunning manoeuvres: but the result

is, Prince Karl has got Schweidnitz to rear, stands between Breslau and it; can besiege Schweidnitz when he

likes, and no relief to it possible that will not cost a battle. A battle, thinks Friedrich, is what Bevern ought to

have tried at first; a wellfought battle might have settled everything, and there was no other good likelihood

in such an expedition: but now, by detaching reinforcements to this garrison and that, he has weakened

himself beyond right power of fighting. [ OEuvres de Frederic, iv. 141, 159.] Schweidnitz is liable to siege;

Breslau, with its poor walls and multitudinous population, can stand no siege worth mentioning; the Silesian

strong places, not to speak of mealmagazines, are like to go a bad road. Quite dominant, this Prince Karl;

placarding and proclaiming in all places, according to the new "Imperial Patent," [In HeldenGeschichte, (iv.

832, 833), Copy of it: "Absolved from all prior Treaties by Prussian Majesty's attack on us, We" ("21st Sept.

1757").] That Silesia is her Imperial Majesty's again! Which seems to be fast becoming the fact;unless

Bevern has now, October 1st, no manoeuvre left but to draw out of Breslau; post himself on the southern side

of it, in a safe angle there, marshy Lohe in front, broad Oder to rear, Breslau at his righthand with bread;

and there intrenching himself by the best methods, wait slowly, in a sitting posture, events which are

extensively on the gallop at present. One fancies, Had Winterfeld been still there! It is as brave an Army,

30,000, or more, as ever wore steel. Surely something could have been done with it; something better than

sit watching the events on full gallop all round! Bevern was a loyal, considerably skilful and valiant man; in

the Battle of Lobositz, and elsewhere, we have seen him brave as a lion: but perhaps in the other kind of

bravery wanted here, he Well, his case was horribly difficult; full of intricacy. And he sat, no doubt in a

very wretched state, consulting the oracles, with events (which are themselves oracular) going at such a pace.

Schweidnitz was besieged October 26th. Nadasti, with 20,000, was set to do it; Prince Karl, with 60,000,

ready to protect him; Prince Bevern asking the oracles:what a bit of news for Friedrich; breaking suddenly

the effulgency of Rossbach with a bar of ominous black! Friedrich, still in the thick of pure Saxon business,

makes instant arrangement for Silesia as well: Prince Henri, with such and such corps, to maintain the Saale,

and guard Saxony; Marshal Keith, with such and such, to step over into Bohemia, and raise contributions at

least, and tread on the tail of the big Silesian snake: all this Friedrich settles within a week; takes certain corps

of his own, effective about 13,000; and on November 13th marches from Leipzig. Round by Torgau, by

Muhlberg, Grossenhayn; by Bautzen, Weissenberg, across the Queiss, across the Bober; and so, with long

marches, strides continually forward, all hearts willing, and all limbs, though in this sad winter weather,

At Grossenhayn, fifth day of the march, Friedrich learns that Schweidnitz is gone. November 12th14th,

Schweidnitz went by capitulation; contrary to everybody's hope or fear; certainly a very short defence for

such a fortress. Fault of the Commandant, was everybody's first thought. Not probably the best of

Commandants, said others gradually; but his garrison had Saxons in it;one day "180 of them in a lump

threw down their arms, in the trenches, and went over to the Enemy." Owing to whatsoever, the place is gone.

Such towers, such curtains, starramparts; such an opulence of cannons, stores, munitions, a 30,000 pounds

of hard cash, one item. All is gone, after a fortnight's siege. What a piece of news, as heard by Friedrich,

coming at his utmost towards the scene itself! As seen by Bevern, too, in his questioning mood, it was an

On Monday, 14th, Schweidnitz fell; Karl, with Nadasti reunited to him, was now 80,000 odd; and lost no

time. On Tuesday next, NOVEMBER 22d, 1757, "at three in the morning," long hours before daybreak, Karl,

with his 60,000, all learnedly arranged, comes rolling over upon hapless Bevern: with no end of cannonading

and storm of war: BATTLE OF BRESLAU, they call it; ruinous to Bevern. Of which we shall attempt no

description: except to say, that Karl had five bridges on the Lohe, came across the Lohe by five Bridges; and

that Bevern stood to his arms, steady as the rocks, to prevent his getting over, and to entertain him when over;

that there were five principal attacks, renewed and rerenewed as long as needful, with torrents of shot, of

death and tumult; over six or eight miles of country, for the space of fifteen hours. Battle comparable only to

Malplaquet, said the Austrians; such a hurricane of artillery, strongly intrenched enemy and loud doomsday

of war. Did not end till nine at night; Austrians victorious, more or less, in four of their attacks or separate

enterprises: that is to say, masters of the Lohe, and of the outmost Prussian villages and posts in front of the

Prussian centre and right wing; victorious in that northern part;but plainly unvictorious in the southeast or

Prussian left wing,farthest off from Breslau, and under Ziethen's command, where they were driven

across the Lohe again, and lost prisoners and cannons, or a cannon. [In Seyfarth, Three Accounts; Beylagan,

Some of Bevern's people, grounding on this latter circumstance, and that they still held the Battlefield, or

most part of it, wrote themselves victorious;though in a dim brief manner, as if conscious of the contrary.

Which indeed was the fact. At the council of war, which he summoned that evening, there were proposals of

nightattack, and other fierce measures; but Bevern, rejecting the plan for a night attack on the Austrian

camp as too dubious, did, in the dark hours, through the silent streets of Breslau, withdraw himself across the

Oder, instead; leaving 80 cannon, and 5,000 killed and wounded; an evidently beaten man and Army. And

indeed did straightway disappear personally altogether, as no longer equal to events. Rode out, namely, to

reconnoitre in the gray of his second sad morning, on this new Bank of the Oder; saw little except gray mist;

but rode into a Croat outpost, only one poor groom attending him; and was there made prisoner:

intentionally, thought mankind; intentionally, thinks Friedrich, who was very angry with the poor man.

[Preuss, ii. 102. More exact in Kutzen, DER TAG VON LEUTHEN (Breslau, 1857,an excellent exact

little Compilation, from manifold sources well studied), pp. 166169, date "24th November."]

The poor man was carried to Vienna, if readers care to know; but being a near Cousin there (secondcousin,

no less, to the late EmpressMother), was by the high nowreigning EmpressQueen received in a

charmingly gracious manner, and sent home again without ransom. "To Stettin!" beckoned Friedrich sternly

from the distance, and would not see him at all: "To Stettin, I say, your official post in time of peace!

Command me the invalid Garrison there; you are fit for nothing better!"I will add one other thing, which

unhappily will seem strange to readers: that there came no whisper of complaint from Bevern; mere silence,

and loyal industry with his poor means, from Bevern; and that he proved heroically useful in Stettin two

years hence, against the Swedes, against the Russians in the SiegeofColberg time; and gained Friedrich's

favor again, with other good results. Which I observe was a common method with Prussian Generals and

soldiers, when, unjustly or justly, they fell into trouble of this kind; and a much better one than that of

complaining in the Newspapers, and demanding Commissions of Inquiry, presided over by Chaos and the

Bevern being with the Croats, the Prussian Army falls to General Kyau, as next in rank; who (directly in the

teeth of fierce orders that are speeding hither for Bevern and him) marches away, leaving Breslau to its fate;

and making towards Glogau, as the one sure point in this wreck of things. And Prince Karl, that same day,

goes upon Breslau; which is in no case to resist and be bombarded: so that poor old General Lestwitz, the

Prussian Commandant,always thought to be a valiant old gentleman, but who had been wounded in the late

Action, and was blamably discouraged,took the terms offered, and surrendered without firing a gun.

Garrison and he to march out, in "Free Withdrawal;" these are the terms: Garrison was 4,000 and odd, mostly

Silesian recruits; but there marched hardly 500 out with poor Lestwitz; the Silesian recruitspersuaded by

conceivable methods, that they were to be prisoners of war, and that, in short, Austria was now come to be

King again, and might make inquiry into men's conductfound it safer to take service with Austria, to

vanish into holes in Breslau or where they could; and, for instance, one regiment (or battalion, let us hide the

name of it), on marching through the Gate, consisted only of nine chief officers and four men. [Muller,

SCHLACHT BEI LEUTHEN (Berlin, 1857,professedly a mere abridgment and shadow of Kutzen:

There were lost 98 pieces of cannon; endless magazines and stores of war. A Breslau scandalously gone;a

Breslau preaching day after next (27th, which was Sunday), in certain of its churches, especially Cardinal

Schaffgotsch in the Dom Insel doing it, Thanksgiving Sermons, as per order, with unction real or official,

"That our ancient sovereigns are restored to us:" which Sermons except in the Schaffgotsch case, Prince

Karl and the high Catholic world all there in galawere "sparsely attended," say my authors. The Austrians

are at the top of their pride; and consider full surely that Silesia is theirs, though Friedrich were here twice

over. "What is Friedrich? We beat him at Kolin. His Prussians at Zittau, at Moys, at Breslau in the new

Malplaquet, were we beaten by them? Hnh!"and snort (in the Austrian messrooms), and snap their

It was at Gorlitz (scene of poor Winterfeld's death) that Friedrich, "on November 23d, the tenth day of his

march," first got rumor of the Breslau Malplaquet: "endless cannonading heard thereabouts all yesterday!"

said rumor from the east,more and more steadily, as Friedrich hastened forward;and that it was "a

victory for Bevern." Till, at Naumburg on the Queiss, he gets the actual tidings: Bevern gone to the Croats,

Ever from Grossenhayn onwards there had been message on message, more and more rigorous, precise and

indignant, "Do this, do that; your Dilection shall answer it with your head!"not one message of which

reached his Dilection, till Dilection and Fate (such the gallop of events) had done the contrary: and now

Dilection and his head have made a finish of it. "No," answers Friedrich to himself; "not till we are all

finished!"and pushes on, he too, like a kind of Fate. "What does or can he mean, then?" say the Austrians,

with scornful astonishment, and think his head must be turning: "Will he beat us out of Silesia with his

Potsdam GuardParade then?" "POTSDAMSCHE WACHTPARADE:"so they denominate his small

Army; and are very mirthful in their messrooms. "I will attack them, if they stood on the Zobtenberg, if they

stood on the steeples of Breslau!" said Friedrich; and tramped diligently forward. Day after day, as the real

tidings arrive, his outlook in Silesia is becoming darker and darker: a sternly dark march this altogether.

Prince Karl has thrown a garrison into Liegnitz on Friedrich's road; Prince Karl lies encamped with Breslau at

his back; has above 80,000 when fully gathered; and reigns supreme in those parts. Darker march there

seldom was: all black save a light that burns in one heart, refusing to be quenched till death.

Friedrich sends orders that Kyau shall be put in arrest; that Ziethen shall be general of the Bevern wreck,

shall bring it round by Glogau, and rendezvous with Friedrich at a place and day, Parchwitz, 2d of

December coming;and be steady, my old Ziethen. Friedrich brushes past the Liegnitz Garrison, leaves

Liegnitz and it a trifle to the right; arrives at Parchwitz November 28th; and there rests, or at least his weary

troops do, till Ziethen come up; the King not very restful, with so many things to prearrange; a life or death

crisis now nigh. Well, it is but death; and death has been fronted before now! We who are after the event, on

the safe sunny side of it, can form small image of the horrors and the inward dubieties to him who is passing

through it;and how Hope is needed to shine heroically eternal in some hearts. Fire of Hope, that does not

issue in mere blazings, mad audacities and chaotic despair, but advances with its eyes open, measuredly,

counting its steps, to the wrestlingplace,this is a godlike thing; much available to mankind in all the

Friedrich, at Parchwitz, assembled his Captains, and spoke to them; it was the night after Ziethen came in,

night of December 3d, 1757; and Ziethen, no doubt, was there: for it is an authentic meeting, this at

FRIEDRICH'S SPEECH TO HIS GENERALS (Parchwitz, 3d December, 1757). [From RETZOW, i.

"It is not unknown to you, MEINE HERREN, what disasters have befallen here, while we were busy with the

French and Reichs Army. Schweidnitz is gone; Duke of Bevern beaten; Breslau gone, and all our warstores

there; good part of Silesia gone: and, in fact, my embarrassments would be at the insuperable pitch, had not I

boundless trust in you, and your qualities, which have been so often manifested, as soldiers and sons of your

Country. Hardly one among you but has distinguished himself by some nobly memorable action: all these

"I flatter myself, therefore, that in this case too nothing will be wanting which the State has a right to expect

of your valor. The hour is at hand. I should think I had done nothing, if I left the Austrians in possession of

Silesia. Let me apprise you, then: I intend, in spite of the Rules of Art, to attack Prince Karl's Army, which is

nearly thrice our strength, wherever I find it. The question is not of his numbers, or the strength of his

position: all this, by courage, by the skill of our methods, we will try to make good. This step I must risk, or

everything is lost. We must beat the enemy, or perish all of us before his batteries. So I read the case; so I will

"Make this my determination known to all Officers of the Army; prepare the men for what work is now to

ensue, and say that I hold myself entitled to demand exact fulfilment of orders. For you, when I reflect that

you are Prussians, can I think that you will act unworthily? But if there should be one or another who dreads

to share all dangers with me, he,"continued his Majesty, with an interrogative look, and then pausing for

answer,"can have his Discharge this evening, and shall not suffer the least reproach from me."Modest

strong bass murmur; meaning "No, by the Eternal!" if you looked into the eyes and faces of the group. Never

will Retzow Junior forget that scene, and how effulgently eloquent the veteran physiognomies were.

"Hah, I knew it," said the King, with his most radiant smile, "none of you would desert me! I depend on your

help, then; and on victory as sure."The speech winds up with a specific passage: "The Cavalry regiment

that does not on the instant, on order given, dash full plunge into the enemy, I will, directly after the Battle,

unhorse, and make it a Garrison regiment. The Infantry battalion which, meet with what it may, shows the

least sign of hesitating, loses its colors and its sabres, and I cut the trimmings from its uniform! Now

goodnight, Gentlemen: shortly we have either beaten the Enemy, or we never see one another again."

An excellent temper in this Army; a rough vein of heroism in it, steady to the death;and plenty of hope in it

too, hope in Vater Fritz. "Never mind," the soldiers used to say, in John Duke of Marlborough's time,

"Corporal John will get us through it!"That same evening Friedrich rode into the Camp, where the

regiments he had were now all gathered, out of their cantonments, to march on the morrow. First regiment he

came upon was the LifeGuard Cuirassiers: the men, in their accustomed way, gave him good evening,

which he cheerily returned. Some of the more veteran sort asked, ruggedly confidential, as well as loyal:

"What is thy news, then, so late?" "Good news, children (KINDER): tomorrow you will beat the Austrians

tightly!" "That we will, by!" answered they. "But think only where they stand yonder, and how they

have intrenched themselves?" said Friedrich. "And if they had the Devil in front and all round them, we will

knock them out; only thou lead us on!""Well, I will see what you can do: now lay you down, and sleep

sound; and good sleep to you!" "Goodnight, Fritz!" answer all; [Muller, p. 21 (from Kaltenhorn, of whom

INFRA); Preuss, as Fritz ambles on to the next regiment, to which, as to every one, he will have some word.

Was it the famous Pommern regiment, this that he next spoke to, who answered Loudon's summons to

them once (as shall be noticed by and by) in a way ineffable, though unforgettable? Manteuffel of Foot; yes,

no other! [Archenholtz, ii. 61; and Kutzen, p. 35.] They have their own opinion of their capacities against an

enemy, and do not want for a good conceit of themselves. "Well, children, how think you it will be

tomorrow? They are twice as strong as we." "Never thou mind that; there are no Pommerners among them;

thou knowest what the Pommerners can do!"FRIEDRICH: "Yea, truly, that do I; otherwise I durst not risk

the battle. Now good sleep to you! tomorrow, then, we shall either have beaten the Enemy or else be all

dead." "Yea," answered the whole regiment; "dead, or else the Enemy beaten:" and so went to deep sleep,

preface to a deeper for many of them,as beseems brave men. In this world it much beseems the brave man,

These snatches of Camp Dialogue, much more the Speech preserved to us by Retzow Junior, appear to be

true; though as to the dates, the circumstances, there has been debating. [Kutzen, pp. 175181.] Other

Anecdotes, dubious or more, still float about in quantity; of which let us give only one; that of the Deserter

(which has merit as a myth). "What made thee desert, then?" "Hm, alas, your Majesty, we were got so down

in the world, and had such a time of it!""Well, try it one day more; and if we cannot mend matters, thou

A learned Doctor, one of the most recent on these matters, is astonished why the Histories of Friedrich should

be such dreary reading, and Friedrich himself so prosaic, barren an object; and lays the blame upon the Age,

insensible to real greatness; led away by claptrap Napoleonisms, regardless of expense. Upon which

"To my sad mind, Herr Doctor, it seems ascribable rather to the Dryasdust of these Ages, especially to the

Prussian Dryasdust, sitting comfortable in his Academies, waving sublimely his long ears as he tramples

human Heroisms into unintelligible pipeclay and dreary continents of sand and cinders, with the Doctors all

"Had the sacred Poet, or man of real Human Genius, been at his work, for the thousand years last past,

instead of idly fiddling far away from his work,which surely is definable as being very mainly, That of

INTERPRETING human Heroisms; of painfully extricating, and extorting from the circumambient chaos of

muddy babble, rumor and mendacity, some not inconceivable human and divine Image of them, more and

more clear, complete and credible for mankind (poor mankind dumbly looking up to him for guidance, as to

what it shall think of God and of Men in this Scene of Things), I calculate, we should by this time have

had a different Friedrich of it; O Heavens, a different world of it, in so many respects!

"My esteemed Herr Doctor, it is too painful a subject. Godlike fabulous Achilles, and the old Greek Kings of

men, one perceives, after study, to be dim enough Grazier Sovereigns, 'living among infinite dung,' till their

sacred Poet extricated them. And our UNsacred alldesecrating Dryasdust,Herr Doctor, I must say, it fills

me with despair! Authentic human Heroisms, not fabulous a whit, but true to the bone, and by all appearance

very much nobler than those of godlike Achilles and pious AEneas ever could have been,left in this

manner, trodden under foot of man and beast; man and beast alike insensible that there is anything but

common mud under foot, and grateful to anybody that will assure them there is nothing. Oh, Doctor, oh,

Doctor! And the results of itYou need not go exclusively 'to France' to look at them. They are too visible in

the socalled 'Social Hierarchies,' and sublime gilt Doggeries, sltcred and secular, of all Modern Countries!

"Prussian Dryasdust," he says elsewhere, "does make a terrible job of it; especially when he attempts to weep

through his pipeclay, or rise with his long ears into the moral sublime. As to the German People, I find that

they dimly have not wanted sensibility to Friedrich; that their multitudes of Anecdotes, still circulating

among them in print and VIVA VOCE, are proof of this. Thereby they have at least made a MYTH of

Friedrich's History, and given some rhythmus, life and cheerful human substantiality to his work and him.

Accept these Anecdotes as the Epic THEY could not write of him, but were longing to hear from somebody

who could. Who has not yet appeared among mankind, nor will for some time. Alas, my friend, on piercing

through the bewildering nimbus of babble, malignity, mendacity, which veils sevenfold the Face of

Friedrich from us, and getting to see some glimpses of the Face itself, one is sorrowfully struck dumb once

more. What a suicidal set of creatures; commanding as with one voice, That there shall be no Heroism more

among them; that all shall be Doggery and Common place henceforth. 'ACH, MEIN LIEBER SULZER,

you don't know that damned brood!'Well, well. 'Solomon's Temple,' the Moslems say, 'had to be built

under the chirping of ten thousand Sparrows.' Ten thousand of them; committee of the whole house,

unanimously of the opposite view;and could not quite hinder it. That too is something!"

More to our immediate purpose is this other thing: That the Austrians have been in Council of War; and, on

deliberation, have decided to come out of their defences; to quit their strong Camp, which lies so eligibly,

ahead of Breslau and arear of Lissa and of Schweidnitz Water yonder; to cross Schweidnitz Water, leave

Lissa behind them; and meet this offensively aggressive Friedrich in pitched fight. Several had voted, No,

why stir?Daun especially, and others with emphasis. "No need of fighting at all," said Daun: "we can

defend Schweidnitz Water; ruin him before he ever get across." "Defend? Be assaulted by an Army like his?"

urges Lucchesi, the other Chief General: "It is totally unworthy of us! We have gained the game; all the

honors ours; let us have done with it. Give him battle, since he fortunately wishes it; we finish him, and

gloriously finish the War too!" So argued Lucchesi, with vivacity, persistency,to his own ill luck, but

evidently with approval from Prince Karl. Everybody sees, this is the way to Prince Karl's favor at present.

"Have not I reconquered Silesia?" thinks Prince Karl to himself; and beams applause on the high course, not

the low prudent one. [Kutzen, pp. 4548.] In a word, the Austrians decide on stepping out to meet Friedrich

in open battle: it was the first time they ever did so; and it was likewise the last.

Sunday, December 4th, at four in the morning, Friedrich has marched from Parchwitz, straight towards the

Austrian Camp; [Muller, p. 26.] he hears, one can fancy with what pleasure, that the Austrians are advancing

towards him, and will not need to be forced in their strong position. His march is in four columns, Friedrich

in the vanguard; quarters to be Neumarkt, a little Town about fourteen miles off. Within some miles of

Neumarkt, early in the afternoon, he learns that there are a thousand Croats in the place, the Austrian Bakery

at work there, and engineer people marking out an Austrian Camp. "On the Height beyond Neumarkt, that

will be?" thinks Friedrich; for he knows this ground, having often done reviews here; to Breslau all the way

on both hands, not a rood of it but is familiar to him. Which was a singular advantage, say the critics; and a

Friedrich, before entering Neumarkt, sends a regiment to ride quietly round it on both sides, and to seize that

Height he knows of. Height once seized, or ready for seizing, he bursts the barrier of Neumarkt; dashes in

upon the thousand Croats; flings out the Croats in extreme hurry, musketry and sabre acting on them; they

find their Height beset, their retreat cut off, and that they must vanish. Of the 1,000 Croats, "569 were taken

prisoners, and 120 slain," in this unexpected sweeping out of Neumarkt. Better still, in Neumarkt is found the

Austrian Bakery, set up and in full work;delivers you 80,000 breadrations hotandhot, which little

expected to go such a road. On the Height, the Austrian stakes and engineertools were found sticking in the

How Prince Karl came to expose his Bakery, his staff of life so far ahead of him? Prince Karl, it is clear, was

a little puffed up with high thoughts at this time. The capture of Schweidnitz, the late "Malplaquet" (poorish

AntiBevern Malplaquet), capture of Breslau, and the low and lost condition of Friedrich's Silesian affairs,

had more or less turned everybody's head,everybody's except Feldmarschall Daun's alone:and witty

messtables, we already said, were in the daily habit of mocking at Friedrich's march towards them with

aggressive views, and called his insignificant little Army the "Potsdam GuardParade." [Cogniazzo, ii.

417422.] That was the common triumphant humor; naturally shared in by Prince Karl; the ready way to

flatter him being to sing in that tune. Nobody otherwise can explain, and nobody in any wise can justify,

Prince Karl's ignorance of Friedrich's advance, his almost voluntary losing of his staffoflife in that manner.

Prince Karl's soldiers have each (in the cold form) three days, provision in their haversacks: they have come

across the Weistritz River (more commonly called Schweidnitz Water), which was also the height of

contemptuous imprudence; and lie encamped, this night, in long line, not illchosen (once the River IS

behind), perpendicular to Friedrich's march, some ten miles ahead of him. Since crossing, they had learned

with surprise, How their Bakery and Croats had been snapt up; that Friedrich was not at a distance, but

near;and that arrangements could not be made too soon! Their position intersects the Great Road at right

angles, as we hint; and has villages, swamps, woody knolls; especially, on each wing, good defences. Their

right wing leans on Nypern and its impassable peatbogs, a Village two or three miles north from the Great

Road; their centre is close behind another Village called Leuthen, about as far south from it: length of their

bivouac is about five miles; which will become six or so, had Nadasti once taken post, who is to form the left

wing, and go down as far as Sagschutz, southward of Leuthen. Seven battalions are in this Village of

Leuthen, eight in Nypern, all the Villages secured; woods, scraggy abatis, redoubts, not forgotten: their

cannon are numerous, though of light calibre. Friedrich has at least 71 heavy pieces; and 10 of them are

formidably heavy,brought from the walls of Glogau, with terrible labor to Ziethen; but with excellent

effect, on this occasion and henceforth. They got the name of "Boomers, Bellowers (DIE BRUMMER),"

those Ten. Friedrich was in great straits about artillery; and Retzow Senior recommended this hauling up of

the Ten Bellowers, which became celebrated in the years coming. And now we are on the Battleground, and

From Neumarkt, on Monday, long before day, the Prussians, all but a small party left there to guard the

Bakery and Army Properties, are out again; in four columns; towards what may lie ahead. Friedrich, as usual

in such cases, for obvious reasons, rides with the vanguard. To Borne, the first Village on the Highway, is

some seven or eight miles. The air is damp, the dim incipiences of dawn struggling among haze; a little way

on this side Borne, we come on ranks of cavalry drawn across the Highway, stretching right and left into the

It proves to be poor General Nostitz, with his three Saxon regiments of dragoons, famous since Kolinday,

and a couple of Hussar regiments, standing here as outpost;who ought to have been more alert; but they

could not see through the dark, and so, instead of catching, are caught. The Prussians fall upon them, front

and flank, tumble them into immediate wreck; drive the whole outpost at full gallop home, through Borne,

upon Nypern and the right wing,without news except of this symbolical sort. Saxon regiments are quite

ruined, "540 of them prisoners" (poor Nostitz himself not prisoner, but wounded to death [Died in Breslau,

the twelfth day after (Seyfarth, ii. 362).]); and the ground clear in this quarter.

Friedrich, on the farther side of Borne, calls halt, till the main body arrive; rides forward, himself and staff, to

the highest of a range or suite of knolls, some furlongs ahead; sees there in full view, far and wide, the

Austrians drawn up before him. From Nypern to Sagschuitz yonder; miles in length; and so distinct, while the

light mended and the hazes faded, "that you could have counted them [through your glasses], man by man."

A highly interesting sight to Friedrich; who continues there in the profoundest study, and calls up some horse

regiments of the vanguard to maintain this Height and the range of Heights running south from it. And there,

I think, the King is mainly to be found, looking now at the Austrians, now at his own people, for some three

hours to come. His plan of Battle is soon clear to him: Nypern, with its bogs and scrags, on the Austrian right

wing, is tortuous impossible ground, as he well remembers, no good prospect for us there: better ground for

us on their left yonder, at Leuthen, even at Sagschutz farther south, whither they are stretching themselves.

Attempt their left wing; try our "Oblique Order" upon that, with all the skill that is in us; perhaps we can do it

rightly this time, and prosper accordingly! That is Friedrich's plan of action. The four columns once got to

Borne shall fall into two; turn to the right, and go southward, ever southward:they are to become our two

Lines of Battle, were they once got to the right point southward. Well opposite Sagschutz, that will be the

point for facing to left, and marching up,in "Oblique Order," with the utmost faculty they have!

"The Oblique Order, SCHRAGE STELLUNG," let the hasty reader pause to understand, "is an old plan

practised by Epaminondas, and revived by Friedrich,who has tried it in almost all his Battles more or less,

from Hohenfriedberg forward to Prag, Kolin, Rossbach; but never could, in all points, get it rightly done till

now, at Leuthen, in the highest time of need. "It is a particular manoeuvre," says Archenholtz, rather

sergeantwise, "which indeed other troops are now [1793] in the habit of imitating; but which, up to this

present time, none but Prussian troops can execute with the precision and velocity indispensable to it. You

divide your line into many pieces; you can push these forward stairwise, so that they shall halt close to one

another," obliquely, to either hand; and so, on a minimum of ground, bring your mass of men to the required

point at the required angle. Friedrich invented this mode of getting into position; by its close ranking, by its

depth, and the manner of movement used, it had some resemblance to the "Macedonian Phalanx,"chiefly

in the latter point, I should guess; for when arrived at its place, it is no deeper than common. "Forming itself

in this way, a mass of troops takes up in proportion very little ground; and it shows in the distance, by reason

of the mixed uniforms and standards, a totally chaotic mass of men heaped on one another," going in rapid

mazes this way and that. "But it needs only that the Commander lift his finger; instantly this living coil of

knotted intricacies develops itself in perfect order, and with a speed like that of mountain rivers when the ice

"Your Enemy is ranked as here, in long line, three or two to one. You march towards him, but keep him

uncertain as to how you will attack; then do on a sudden march up, not parallel to him, but oblique, at an

angle of 45 degrees,swift, vehement, in overpowering numbers, on the wing you have chosen. Roll that

wing together, ruined, in upon its own line, you may roll the whole five miles of line into disorder and ruin,

and always be in overpowering number at the point of dispute. Provided, only, you are swift enough about it,

sharp enough! But extraordinary swiftness, sharpness, precision is the indispensable condition;by no

means try it otherwise; none but Prussians, drilled by an Old Dessauer, capable of doing it. This is the

SCHRAGE ORDNUNG, about which there has been such commentating and controversying among military

people: whether Friedrich invented it, whether Caesar did it, how Epaminondas, how Alexander at Arbela;

The four columns rustled themselves into two, and turned southward on the two sides of Borne;southward

henceforth, for about two hours; as if straight towards the Magic Mountain, the Zobtenberg, far off, which is

conspicuous over all that region. Their steadiness, their swiftness and exactitude were unsurpassable. "It was

a beautiful sight," says Tempelhof, an eye witness: "The heads of the columns were constantly on the same

level, and at the distance necessary for forming; all flowed on exact, as if in a review. And you could read in

the eyes of our brave troops the noble temper they were in." [Tempelhof, i. 288, 287.] I know not at what

point of their course, or for how long, but it was from the column nearest him, which is to be first line, that

the King heard, borne on the winds amid their fieldmusic, as they marched there, the sound of

Psalms,manyvoiced melody of a Church Hymn, well known to him; which had broken out, band

accompanying, among those otherwise silent men. The fact is very certain, very strange to me: details not

Und wenn ich's thu', so gieb dass es gerathe wohl." ["HYMNBOOK of Porst" (Prussian

One has heard the voice of waters, one has paused in the mountains at the voice of faroff Covenanter

psalms; but a voice like this, breaking the commanded silences, one has not heard. "Shall we order that to

cease, your Majesty?" "By no means," said the King; whose hard heart seems to have been touched by it, as

might well be. Indeed there is in him, in those grim days, a tone as of trust in the Eternal, as of real religious

piety and faith, scarcely noticeable elsewhere in his History. His religion, and he had in withered forms a

good deal of it, if we will look well, beiug almost always in a strictly voiceless state,nay, ultravoiceless,

or voiced the wrong way, as is too well known. "By no means!" answered he: and a moment after, said to

some one, Ziethen probably: "With men like these, don't you think I shall have victory this day!"

The loss of their Saxon Forepost proved more important to the Austrians than it seemed;not computable in

prisoners, or killed and wounded. The Height named Scheuberg,"Borne Rise" (so we might call it, which

has got its Pillar of memorial since, with gilt Victory atop [Not till 1854 (Kutzen, pp. 194, 195).];where

Friedrich now is and where the Austrians are not, is at once a screen and a point of vision to Friedrich. By

loss of their Nostitz Forepost, they had lost view of Friedrich, and never could recover view of him; could not

for hours learn distinctly what he was about; and when he did come in sight again, it was in a most

unexpected place! On the farther side of Borne, edge of the big expanse of open country there, Friedrich has

halted; ridden with his adjutants to the top of "the Scheuberg (ShyHILL)," as the Books call it, though it is

more properly a blunt Knoll or "Rise," the nearest of a Chain of Knolls, or swells in the ground, which

Except the Zobtenberg, rising blue and massive, on the southern horizon (famous mythologic Mountain,

reminding you of an ARTHUR'S SEAT in shape too, only bigger and solitary), this Country, for many miles

round, has nothing that could be called a Hill; it is definable as a bare widewaving champaign, with slight

bumps on it, or slow heavings and sinkings. Country mostly under culture, though it is of sandy quality; one

or two sluggish brooks in it; and reedy meres or mires, drained in our day. It is dotted with Hamlets of the

usual kind; and has patches of scraggy fir. Your horizon, even where bare, is limited, owing to the wavy

heavings of the ground; windmills and churchbelfries are your only resource, and even these, from about

Leuthen and the Austrian position, leave the Borne quarter mostly invisible to you. Leuthen Belfry, the same

which may have stood a hundred years before this Battle, ends in a small tileroof, open only at the

gables:"Leuthen Belfry," says a recent Tourist, "is of small resource for a view. To south you can see some

distance, Sagschutz, Lobetintz and other Hamlets, amid scraggy firpatches, and meadows, once miry pools;

but to north you are soon shut in by a swell or slow rise, with two windmills upon it [important to readers at

present]; and to eastward [Breslau side and Lissa side], or to westward [Friedrich's side], one has no view,

except of the old warped rafters and their old mouldy tiles within few inches; or, if by audacious efforts at

each end, to the risk of your neck, you get a transient peep, it is stopt, far short of Borne, by the slow irregular

In short, Friedrich keeps possession of that Borne ridge of Knolls, escorted by Cavalry in good numbers;

twinkling about in an enigmatic way:"Prussian right wing yonder," think the Austrians "whitherward, or

what can they mean?"and keeps his own columns and the Austrian lines in view; himself and his

movements invisible, or worse, to the Austrian Generals from any spyglass or conjecture they can employ.

The Austrian Generals are in windmills, on churchbelfries, here, there; diligently scanning the abstruse

phenomenon, of which so little can be seen. Daun, who had always been against this adventure, thinks it

probable the vanished Prussians are retiring southward: for Bohemia and our Magazines probably. "These

good people are smuggling off (DIE GUTEN LEUTE PASCHEN AB)," said he: "let them go in peace."

[Muller, p. 36.] Daun, that morning, in his reconnoitrings, had asked of a peasant, "What is that, then?"

(meaning the top of a Villagesteeple in the distance, but thought by the peasant to be meaning something

nearer hand). "That is the Hill our King chases the Austrians over, when he is reviewing here!" Which Daun

Lucchesi, on the other hand, scanning those Borne Hills, and the cavalry of Friedrich's escort twinkling hither

and thither on them, becomes convinced to a moral certainty, That yonder is the Prussian Vanguard, probable

extremity of left wing; and that he, Lucchesi, here at Nypern, is to be attacked. "Attacked, you?" said one

Montazet, French Agent or Emissary here: "unless they were snipes, it is impossible!" But Lucchesi saw it

He sends to say that such is the evident fact, and that he, Lucchesi, is not equal to it, but must have large

reinforcement of Horse to his right wing. "Tush!" answer Prince Karl and Daun; and return only argument,

verbal consolation, to distressed Lucchesi. Lucchesi sends a second message, more passionately pressing, to

the like effect; also with the like return. Upon which he sends a third message, quite passionate: "If Cavalry

do not come, I will not be responsible for the issue!" And now Daun does collect the required reinforcement;

"all the reserve of Horse, and a great many from the left wing;"and, Daun himself heading them, goes off

at a swift trot; to look into Lucchesi and his distresses, three or four miles to right, five or six from where the

Wending always south, on their western or invisible side of those Knolls, Friedrich's people have got to about

the level, or LATITUDE as we might call it, of Nadasti's left. To Radaxdorf, namely, to Lobetintz, or still

farther south, and perhaps a mile to west of Nadasti. Friedrich has mounted to Lobetintz Windmill; and

judges that the time is come. Daun and Cavalry once got to support their right wing, and our south latitude

being now sufficient, Friedrich, swift as Prussian manoeuvring can do it, falls with all his strength upon their

left wing. Forms in oblique order,horse, foot, artillery, all perfect in their paces; and comes streaming over

the Knolls at Sagschutz, suddenly like a firedeluge on Nadasti, who had charge there, and was expecting no

such adventure! How Friedrich did the forming in oblique order was at that time a mystery known only to

Friedrich and his Prussians: but soldiers of all countries, gathering the secret from him, now understand it,

and can learnedly explain it to such as are curious. Will readers take a touch more of the

"You go stairwise (EN ECHELON)," says he: "first battalion starts, second stands immovable till the first

have done fifty steps; at the fiftyfirst, second battalion also steps along; third waiting for ITS fiftyfirst step.

First battalion [rightmost battalion or leftmost, as the case may be; rightmost in this Leuthen case] doing fifty

steps before the next stirs, and each battalion in succession punctually doing the same:" march along on these

terms,or halt at either end, while you advance at the other,it is evident you will swing yourself out of the

parallel position into any degree of obliquity. And furthermore, merely by halting and facing half round at the

due intervals, you shove yourself to right or to left as required (always to right in this Leuthen case): and

soprovided you CAN march as a pair of compasses wouldyou will, in the given number of minutes,

impinge upon your Enemy's extremity at the required angle, and overlap him to the required length:

whereupon, At him, in flank, in front, and rear, and see if he can stand it! "A beautiful manoeuvre" says

Captain Archenholtz; "devised by Friedrich," by Friedrich inheriting Epaminondas and the Old Dessauer;

"and which perhaps only Friedrich's men, to this day, could do with the requisite perfection."

Nadasti, a skilful WarCaptain, especially with Horse, was beautifully posted about Sagschutz; his extreme

left folded up EN POTENCE there (elbow of it at Sagschutz, forearm of it running to Gohlau eastward);

POTENCE ending in firwood Knolls with Croat musketeers, in ditches, ponds, difficult ground, especially

towards Gohlau. He has a strong battery, 14 pieces, on the Height to rear of him, at the angle or elbow of his

POTENCE; strong abatis, well manned in front to rightwards: upon this, and upon the Croats in the firwood,

the Prussians intend their attack. General Wedell is there, Prince Moritz as chief, with six battalions, and their

batteries, battery of 10 Brummers and another; Ziethen also and Horse: coming on, in swift fireflood, and at

an angle of forty five degrees. Most unexpected, strange to behold! From southwest yonder; about one

Nadasti, though astonished at the Prussian firedeluge, stands to his arms; makes, in front, vigorous defence;

and even takes, in some sort, the initiative,that is, dashes out his Cavalry on Ziethen, before Ziethen has

charged. Ziethen's Horse, who are rightmost of the Prussians: and are bare to the right,ground offering no

bush, no brook there (though Ziethen, foreseeing such defect, has a clump of infantry near by to mend

it),reel back under this first shock, coming downhill upon them; and would have fared badly, had not the

clump of infantry instantly opened fire on the Nadasti visitors, and poured it in such floods upon them, that

they, in their turn, had to reel back. Back they, well out of range;and leave Ziethen free for a

counterattack shortly, on easier terms, which was successful to him. For, during that first tussle of his, the

Prussian Infantry, to left of Ziethen, has attacked the Sagschutz Firwood; clears that of Croats; attacks

Nadasti's line, breaks it, their Brummer battery potently assisting, and the rage of Wedell and everybody

being extreme. So that, in spite of the fine ground, Nadasti is in a bad way, on the extreme left or outmost

point of his POTENCE, or tactical KNEE. Round the kneepan or angle of his POTENCE, where is the

abatis, he fares still worse. Abatis, beswept by those ten Brummers and other Batteries, till bullet and bayonet

can act on it, speedily gives way. "They were mere Wurtembergers, these; and could not stand!" cried the

Austrians apologetically, at a great rate, afterwards; as if anybody could well have stood.

Indisputably the Wurtembergers and the abatis are gone; and the Brandenburgers, storming after them, storm

Nadasti's interior battery of 14 pieces; and Nadasti's affairs are rapidly getting desperate in this quarter.

Figure Prince Karl's scouts, galloping madly to recall that Daun Cavalry! Austrian Battalions, plenty of them,

rush down to help Nadasti; but they are met by the crowding fugitives, the chasing Prussians; are themselves

thrown into disorder, and can do no good whatever. They arrive on the ground flurried, blown; have not the

least time to take breath and order: the fewest of them ever got fairly ranked, none of them ever stood above

one push: all goes rolling wildly back upon the centre about Leuthen. Chaos come on us;and all for mere

lack of time: could Nadasti but once stretch out one minute into twenty! But he cannot. Nadasti does not

himself lose head; skilfully covers the retreat, trying to rally once and again. Not for the first few furlongs, till

the ditches, till the firwood, quagmires are all done, could Ziethen, now on the open ground, fairly hew in;

"take whole battalions prisoners;" drive the crowd in an altogether stormy manner; and wholly confound the

Prince Karl, his messengers flying madly, has struggled as man seldom did to put himself in some posture

about Leuthen, to get up some defences there. Leuthen itself, the churchyard of it especially, is on the

defensive. Men are bringing cannon to the windmills, to the swelling ground on the north side of Leuthen;

they dig ditches, build batteries,could they but make Time halt, and Friedrich with him, for one quarter of

an hour. But they cannot. By the extreme of diligence, the Austrians have in some measure swung themselves

into a new position, or imperfect Line round Leuthen as a centre,Lucchesi, voluntarily or by order,

swinging southwards on the one hand; Nadasti swinging northwards by compulsion;new Line at an angle

say of 75 degrees to the old one. And here, for an hour more, there was stiff fighting, the stiffest of the

day;of which, take one direct glimpse, from the Austrian side, furnished by a Young Gentleman famous

Leuthen, let us premise, is a long Hamlet of the usual littery sort; with two rows, in some parts three, of

farmhouses, barns, cattlestalls; with Church, or even with two Churches, a Protestant and a Catholic; goes

from east to west above a mile in length. With the wrecks of Nadasti tumbling into it pellmell from the

southeast, and Lucchesi desperately endeavoring to swing round from the northwest, not quite incoherently,

and the Prussian firestorm for accompaniment, Leuthen is probably the most chaotic place in the Planet

Earth during that hour or so (from halfpast two to halfpast three) while the agony lasted. At one o'clock

Nadasti was attacked; at two he is tumbling in midcareer towards Leuthen: I guess the date of this Excerpt,

or testimony by a Notable Eye witness, may be halfpast two; crisis of the agony just about to begin: and

before four it was all finished again. Eyewitness is the young Prince de Ligne, now Captain in an Austrian

Regiment of Foot; and standing here in this perilous posture, having been called in as part of the Reserve. He

"Cry had risen for the Reserve," in which was my regiment, "and that it must come on as fast as

possible,"to Leuthen, west of us yonder. "We ran what we could run. Our LieutenantColonel fell killed

almost at the first; beyond this we lost our Major, and indeed all the Officers but three,three only, and

about eleven or twelve of the Voluuteer or Cadet kind. We had crossed two successive ditches, which lay in

an orchard to left of the first houses in Leuthen; and were beginning to form in front of the Village. But there

was no standing of it. Besides a general cannonade such as can hardly be imagined, there was a rain of case

shot upon this Battalion, of which I, as there was no Colonel left, had to take command; and a third Battalion

of the Royal Prussian Footguards, which had already made several of our regiments pass that kind of

muster, gave, at a distance of eighty paces, the liveliest fire on us. It stood as if on the paradeground, that

"The Austrian regiment Andlau, at our right hand, could not get itself formed properly by reason of the

houses; it was standing thirty deep, and sometimes its shot hit us on the back. On my left the Austrian

regiment Merci ran its ways; and I was glad of that, in comparison. By no method or effort could I get the

dragoons of Bathyani, who stood fifty yards in rear of me, to cut in a little, and help me out,"no good

cutting hereabouts, think the dragoons of Bathyani. "My soldiers, who were still tired with running, and had

no cannon (these either from necessity or choice they had left behind), were got scattered, fewer in number,

and were fighting mainly out of sullenness. More our honor, than the notion of doing good in the affair,

prevented us from running off. An Ensign of the regiment Arberg helped me awhile to form, from his and my

own fragments, a kind of line; but he was shot down. Two Officers of the Grenadiers brought me what they

still had. Some Hungarians, too, were luckily got together. But at last, as, with all helps and the remnants of

my own brave Battalion, I had come down to at most 200, I drew back to the Height where the Windmill is,"

[Kutzen p. 103 (from "Prince de Ligne's DIARY, i. 63, German Translation").]where many have drawn

Stiff fighting at Leuthen; especially furious till Leuthen Churchyard, a place with high stone walls, was got.

Leuthen Village, we observe, was crammed with Austrians spitting fire from every coign of vantage; Church

and Churchyard especially are a citadel of death. Cannon playing from the Windmill Heights, too;

moments are inestimable. The Prussian Commander (name charitably hidden) at Leuthen Churchyard seems

to hesitate in the murderous firedeluge: Major Mollendorf, namable from that day forward, growling, "No

time this for study," dashes out himself, "EIN ANDRER MANN (Follow me, whoever is a man)!"smashes

in the ChurchGate of the place, nine muskets blazing on him through it; smashes, after a desperate struggle,

The Austrians, on confused terms, made stiff dispute in this second position for about an hour. The Prussian

Reserve was ordered up by Friedrich; the Prussian left wing, which had stood "refused," about Radaxdorf, till

now: at one time nearly all the Prussians were in fire. Friedrich is here, is there, wherever the press was

greatest; "Prince Ferdinand," whom we now and then find named, as a diligent little fellow, and ascertain to

be here in this and other Battles of Friedrich's,"Prince Ferdinand at one time pointed his cannon on the

Bush or FirClump of Radaxdorf;an aidedecamp came to him with message: "You are firing on the

King; the King is yonder!" At which Ferdinand [his dear little Brother] ERSCHRACK," or almost fainted

Stiff dispute; and had the Austrians possessed the Prussian dexterity in manoeuvring, and a Friedrich been

among them, perhaps? But on their own terms, there was from the first little hope in it. "Behind the

Windmills they are a hundred men deep;" by and by, your Windmills, riddled to pieces, have to be

abandoned; the Prussian left wing rushing on with bayonets, will not all of you have to go? Lucchesi, with his

abundant Cavalry, seeing this latter movement and the Prussian flank bare in that part, will do a stroke upon

them;and this proved properly the finale of the matter, finale to both Lucchesi and it.

The Prussian flank was to appearance bare in that leftward quarter; but only to appearance: Driesen with the

left wing of Horse is in a Hollow hard by; strictly charged by Friedrich to protect said flank, and take nothing

else in hand. Driesen lets Lucchesi gallop by, in this career of his; then emerges, ranked, and comes storming

in upon Lucchesi's back,entirely confounding his astonished Cavalry and their career. Astonished Cavalry,

bulletstorm on this side of them, edge of sword on that, take wing in all directions (or all except to west and

south) quite over the horizon; Lucchesi himself gets killed,crosses a still wider horizon, poor man. He

began the ruin, and he ends it. For now Driesen takes the bared Austrians in flank, in rear; and all goes

tumbling here too, and in few minutes is a general deluge rearward towards Saara and Lissa side.

At Saara the Austrians, sun just sinking, made a third attempt to stand; but it was hopelessly faint this time;

went all asunder at the first push; and flowed then, torrentwise, towards all its Bridges over the Schweidnitz

Water, towards Breslau by every method. There are four Bridges, Stabelwitz below Lissa; Goldschmieden,

Hermannsdorf, above; and the main one at Lissa itself, a standing Bridge on the Highroad (also of wood); and

by this the chief torrent flows; Prussian horse pursuing vigorously; Prussian Infantry drawn up at Saara,

resting some minutes, after such a day's work. [Archenholtz, i. 209; Seyfarth, Beylagen, ii. 243252 (by an

eyewitness, intelligent succinct Account of the Battle and previous March; ib. 252272, of the Sieges

Truly a memorable bit of work; no finer done for a hundred years, or for hundreds of years; and the results of

it manifold, immediate and remote. About 10,000 Austrians are left on the field, 3,000 of them slain;

prisoners already 12,000, in a short time 21,000; flags 51, cannon 116;"Conquest of Silesia" gone to water;

Prince Karl and Austria fallen from their high hopes in one day. The Prussians lost in killed 1,141, in

wounded 5,118; 85 had been taken prisoners about Sagschutz and Gohlau, in the first struggle there. [Kutzen,

pp. 118, 125.] There and at Leuthen Village had been the two tough passages; about an hour each; in three

hours the Battle was done. "MEINE HERREN," said Friedrich that night at parole, "after such a spell of

work, you deserve rest. This day will bring the renown of your name, and of the Nation's, to the latest

High and low had shone this day; especially these four: Ziethen, Driesen, Retzow,and above all Moritz of

Dessau. Riding up the line, as night fell, Friedrich, in passing Moritz and the right wing, drew bridle for an

instant: "I congratulate you on the Victory, Herr Feldmarschall!" cried he cheerily, and with emphasis on the

last word. Moritz, still very busy, answered slightly; and Friedrich repeated louder, "Don't you hear that I

congratulate you, Herr FELDMARSCHALL!"a glad sound to Moritz, who ever since Kolin had stood

rather in the shadow. "You have helped me, and performed every order, as none ever did before in any

Riding up the line, all now grown dusky, Friedrich asks, "Any battalion a mind to follow me to Lissa?" Three

battalions volunteering, follow him; three are plenty. At Saara, on the Great Road, things are fallen utterly

dark. "Landlord, bring a lantern, and escort." Landlord of the poor Tavern at Saara escorts obediently; lantern

in his right hand, left hand holding by the King's stirrupleather,King (Excellency or General, as the

Landlord thinks him) wishing to speak with the man. Will the reader consent to their Dialogue, which is

dullish, but singular to have in an authentic form, with Nicolai as voucher? [ Anekdoten, iii. 231235.] Like

some poor old horseshoe, ploughed up on the field. Two farthings worth of rusty old iron; now little other

than a curve of brown rust: but it galloped at the Battle of Leuthen; that is something!

KING. "Come near; catch me by the stirrupleather [Landlord with lantern does so]. We are on the Breslau

Great Road, that goes through Lissa, are n't we?" LANDLORD. "Yea, Excellenz." KING. "Who are you?"

LANDLORD. "Your Excellenz, I am the KRATSCHMER [Silesian for Landlord] at Saara." KING. "You

have had a great deal to suffer, I suppose." LANDLORD. "ACH, your Excellenz, had not I! For the last

eightand forty hours, since the Austrians came across Schweidnitz Water, my poor house has been

crammed to the door with them, so many servants they have; and such a bullying and tumbling:they have

driven me half mad; and I am clean plundered out." KING. "I am sorry indeed to hear that!Were there

Generals too in your house? What said they? Tell me, then." LANDLORD. "With pleasure, your Excellenz.

Well; yesterday noon, I had Prince Karl in my parlor, aud his Adjutants and people all crowding about. Such

a questioning aud bothering! Hundreds came dashing in, and other hundreds were sent out: in and out they

went all night; no sooner was one gone, than ten came. I had to keep a roaring fire in the kitchen all night; so

many Officers crowding to it to warm themselves. And they talked and babbled this and that. One would say,

That our King was coming on, then, 'with his Potsdam GuardParade.' Another answers, 'OACH, he dare n't

come! He will run for it; we will let him run.' But now my delight is, our King has paid them their fooleries

so prettily this afternoon!" KING. "When got you rid of your high guests?" LANDLORD. "About nine this

morning the Prince got to horse; and not long after three, he came past again, with a swarm of Officers; all

going full speed for Lissa. So full of bragging when they came; and now they were off, wrong side foremost!

I saw how it was. And ever after him, the flood of them ran, Highroad not broad enough,an hour and more

before it ended. Such a pellmell, such a welter, cavalry and musketeers all jumbled: our King must have

given them a dreadful lathering. That is what they have got by their bragging and their lying,for, your

Excellenz, these people said too, 'Our King was forsaken by his own Generals, all his first people had gone

and left him:' what I never in this world will believe." KING (not liking even rumor of that kind). "There you

are right; never can such a thing be believed of my Army." LANDLORD (whom this "MY" has transfixed).

"MEIN GOTT, you are our GNADIGSTER KONIG (most gracious King) yourself! Pardon, pardon, if, in my

stupidity, I have" KING. "No, you are an honest man:probably a Protestant?" LANDLORD. "JOA,

Crackcrack! At this point the Dialogue is cut short by sudden musketshots from the woody fields to right;

crackle of about twelve shots in all; which hurt nothing but some horse's feet,had been aimed at the light,

and too low. Instantly the light is blown out, and there is a hunting out of Croats; Lissa or environs not

evacuated yet, it seems; and the King's Entrance takes place under volleyings and cannonadings.

King rides directly to the Schloss, which is still a fine handsome house, off the one street of that poor

Village,north side of street; well railed off, and its old ditches aud defences now trimmed into

flowerplots. The Schloss is full of Austrian Officers, bustling about, intending to quarter, when the King

enters. They, and the force they still had in Lissa, could easily have taken him: but how could they know?

Friedrich was surprised; but had to put the best face on it. [In Kutzen (pp. 121, 209 et seq.) explanation of the

true circumstances, and source of the mistake.] "BON SOIR, MESSIEURS!" said he, with a gay tone,

stepping in: "Is there still room left, think you?" The Austrians, bowing to the dust, make way reverently to

the divinity that hedges a King of this sort; mutely escort him to the best room (such the popular account);

and for certain make off, they and theirs, towards the Bridge, which lies a little farther east, at the end of the

Weistritz or Schweidnitz Water is a biggish muddy stream in that part; gushing and eddying; not voiceless,

vexed by mills and their weirs. Some firing there was from Croats in the lower houses of the Village, and

they had a cannon at the farther bridgeend; but they were glad to get away, and vanish in the night; muddy

Weistritz singing hoarse adieu to their cannon and them. Prussian grenadiers plunged indignant into the

houses; made short work of the musketries there. In few minutes every Croat and Austrian was across, or

silenced otherwise too well; Prussian cannon now going in the rear of them, and continuing to go,such had

been the order, "till the powder you have is done." Fire of musketry and occasional cannon lasts all night,

from the Lissa or Prussian side of the River,"lest they burn this Bridge, or attempt some mischief." A thing

The Prussian host at Saara, hearing these noises, took to its arms again; and marched after the King. Thick

darkness; silence; tramp, tramp:a Prussian grenadier broke out, with solemn tenor voice again, into

ChurchMusic; a known ChurchHymn, of the homely TEDEUM kind; in which fiveandtwenty

And thus they advance; melodious, farsounding, through the hollow Night, once more in a highly

remarkable manner. A pious people, of right Teutsch stuff, tender though stout; and, except perhaps Oliver

Cromwell's handful of Ironsides, probably the most perfect soldiers ever seen hitherto. Arriving at the end of

Lissa, and finding all safe as it should be there, they make their bivouac, their parallelogram of two lines,

miles long across the fields, left wing resting on Lissa, right on Guckerwitz; andhaving, I should think, at

least tobacco to depend on, with abundant stick fires, and healthy joyful heartspass the night in a

Leuthen was the most complete of all Friedrich's victories; two hours more of daylight, as Friedrich himself

says, and it would have been the most decisive of this century. [ OEuvres de Frederic, iv. 167.] As it was, the

ruin of this big Army, 80,000 against 30,000, ["89,200 was the Austrian strength before the Battle" (deduct

the Garrisons of Schweidnitz and Liegnitz): Preuss, ii. 109 (from the STAFFOFFICERS).] was as good as

total; and a world of Austrian hopes suddenly collapsed; and all their Silesian Apparatus, making sure of

Silesia beyond an IF, was tumbled into wreck,by this one stroke it had got, smiting the cornerstone of it

as if with unexpected lightning. On the morrow after Leuthen, Friedrich laid siege to Breslau; Karl had left a

garrison of 17,000 in it, and a stout Captain, one Sprecher, determined on defence: such interests hung on

Breslau, such immensities of stores were in it, had there been nothing else. Friedrich, pushing with all his

strength, in spite of bad weather and of Sprecher's industrious defence, got it in twelve days. [7th19th

December: DIARIUM, of it in Helden Geschichte, iv. 955961.] Sprecher had posted placards on the

gallows and up and down, terrifically proclaiming that any man convicted of mentioning surrender should be

instantly hanged: but Friedrich's bombardment was strong, his assaults continual; and the ditches were

threatening to freeze. On the seventh day of the siege, a Laboratorium blew up; on the ninth, a

PowderMagazine, carrying a lump of the rampart away with it. Sprecher had to capitulate: Prisoners of War,

we 17,000; our cannons, ammunitions (most opulent, including what we took from Bevern lately); these, we

and Breslau altogether, alas, it is all yours again. Liegnitz Garrison, seeing no hope, consented to withdraw

on leave. [26th December: HeldenGeschichte, iv. 1016.] Schweidnitz cannot be besieged till Spring come:

except Schweidnitz, Maria Theresa, the high Kaiserinn, has no foot of ground in Silesia, which she thought to

be hers again. Gone utterly, Patents and all; Schweidnitz alone waiting till spring. To the lively joy of Silesia

in general; to the thrice lively sorrow and alarm of certain individuals, leading Catholic Ecclesiastics

mainly, who had misread the signs of the times in late months! There is one Schaffgotsch, Archbishop or

headman of them, especially, who is now in a bad way. Never was such royal favor; never such ingratitude,

say the Books at wearisome length. Schaffgotsch was a showy man of quality, nephew of the quondam

Austrian Governor, whom Friedrich, across a good deal of Papal and other opposition, got pushed into the

Catholic Primacy, and took some pains to make comfortable there,Order of the Black Eagle, guest at

Potsdam, and the like;having a kind of fancy for the airy Schaffgotsch, as well as judging him suitable for

this Silesian HighPriesthood, with his moderate ideas and quality ways,which I have heard were a little

dissolute withal. To the whole of which Schaffgotsch proved signally traitorous and ingrate; and had plucked

off the Black Eagle (say the Books, nearly breathless over such a sacrilege) on some public occasion, prior to

Leuthen, and trampled it under his feet, the unworthy fellow. Schaffgotsch's pathetic Letter to Friedrich, in

the new days posterior to Leuthen, and Friedrich's contemptuous inexorable answer, we could give, but do

not: why should we? O King, I know your difficulties, and what epoch it is. But, of a truth, your airy

dissolute Schaffgotsch, as a grateful "Archbishop and GrandVicar," is almost uglier to me than as a Traitor

ungrateful for it; and shall go to the Devil in his own way! They would not have him in Austria; he was not

well received at Rome; happily died before long. [Preuss, ii. 113, 114; Kutzen, pp. 12, 155160, for the real

particculars.] Friedrich was not cruel to Schaffgotsch or the others, contemptuously mild rather; but he knew

henceforth what to expect of them, and slightly changed this and that in his Silesian methods in consequence.

Of Prince Karl let us add a word. On the morrow after Leuthen, Captain Prince de Ligne and old Papa

D'Ahremberg could find little or no Army; they stept across to Grabschen, a village on the safe side of the

Lohe, and there found Karl and Daun: "rather silent, both; one of them looking, 'Who would have thought it!'

the other, 'Did n't I tell you?'"and knowing nothing, they either, where the Army was. Army was, in fact, as

yet nowhere. "Croat fellows, in this Farmstead of ours," says De Ligne, "had fallen to shooting pigeons." The

night had been unusually dark; the Austrian Army had squatted into woods, into officehouses,

farmvillages, over a wide space of country; and only as the day rose, began to dribble in. By count, they are

still 50,000; but heartbroken, beaten as men seldom were. "What sound is that?" men asked yesterday at

Brieg, forty miles off; and nobody could say, except that it was some huge Battle, fateful of Silesia and the

world. Breslau had it louder; Breslau was still more anxious. "What IS all that?" asked somebody (might be

Deblin the Shoemaker, for anything I know) of an Austrian sentry there: "That? That is the Prussians giving

us such a beating as we never had." What news for Deblin the Shoemaker, if he is still above ground!

"Prince Karl, gathering his distracted fragments, put 17,000 into Breslau by way of ample garrison there; and

with the rest made off circuitously for Schweidnitz; thence for Landshut, and down the Mountains, home to

Konigsgratz,self and Army in the most wrecked condition. Chased by Ziethen; Ziethen (sticking always to

the hocks of them,' as Friedrich eagerly enjoins on him; or sometimes it is, 'sitting on the breeches of them:'

for about a fortnight to come. [Eleven Royal Autographs: in Blumenthal, Life of De Ziethen (ii. 94111), a

feeble incorrect Translation of them.] Ziethen took 2,000 prisoners; no end of baggages, of wagons left in the

difficult places: wild weather even for Ziethen, still more for Karl, among the SilesianBohemian Hillroads:

heavy rains, deep muds, then sudden glass, with cutting snow blasts: 'An Army not a little dilapidated,'

writes Prince Karl, almost with tears in his eyes; (Army without linens, without clothes; in condition truly sad

and pitiable; and has always, so close are the enemy, to encamp, though without tents.' [Kutzen, p. 134

("Prince Karl to the Kaiser, December 14th").]. Did not get to Konigsgratz, and safe shelter, for ten days

more. Counted, at Konigsgratz in the Christmas time, 37,000 rank and file,'22,000 of whom are gone to

"Universal astonishment, indignation, even incredulity, is the humor at Vienna: the high Kaiserinn herself,

kept in the dark for some time, becomes dimly aware; and by Kaiser Franz's own advice she relieves Prince

Karl from his military employments, and appoints Daun instead. Prince Karl withdrew to his Government of

the Netherlands; and with the aid of generous liquors, and what natural magnanimity he had, spent a noiseless

life thenceforth; Sword laid entirely on the shelf; and immortal Glory, as of Alexander and the like, quite

making its exit from the scene, convivial or other. 'The first General in the world,' so he used to be ten years

ago, in Austria, in England, Holland, the thrice greatest of Generals: but now he has tried Friedrich in Five

pitched Battles (Czaslau, Hohenfriedberg, Sohr, then Prag, then Leuthen);been beaten every time, under

every form of circumstance; and now, at Leuthen, the fifth beating is such, no public, however ignorant, can

stand it farther. The ignorant public changes its longeared eulogies into contumeliously horrid shrieks of

condemnation; in which one is still farther from joining. 'That crossing of the Rhine,' says Friedrich, 'was a

BELLE CHOSE; but flatterers blew him into dangerous selfconceit; besides, he was illobeyed, as others of

us have been.' ["Prince de Ligne, Memoires snr Frederic (Berlin, 1789), p. 38 " (Preuss, ii. 112).] Adieu to

him, poor redfaced soul;and good liquor to him, at least if he can take it in moderation!"

The astonishment of all men, wise and simple, at this sudden oversetting of the scene of things, and turning of

the gazetteer diplomatic theatre bottom uppermost, was naturally extreme, especially in gazetteer and

diplomatic circles; and the admiration, willing or unwilling, of Friedrich, in some most essential points of

him, rose to a high pitch. Better soldier, it is clear, has not been heard of in the modern ages. Heroic

constancy, courage superior to fate: several clear features of a hero;pity he were such a liar withal, and

ignorant of common honesty; thought the simple sort, in a bewildered manner, endeavoring to forget the

latter features, or think them not irreconcilable. Military judges of most various quality, down to this day,

pronounce Leuthen to be essentially the finest Battle of the century; and indeed one of the prettiest feats ever

done by man in his Fighting Capacity. Napoleon, for instance, who had run over these Battles of Friedrich

(apparently somewhat in haste, but always with a word upon them which is worth gathering from such a

source), speaks thus of Leuthen: "This Battle is a masterpiece of movements, of manoeuvres, and of

resolution; enough to immortalize Friedrich, and rank him among the greatest Generals. Manifests, in the

highest degree, both his moral qualities and his military." [Montholon, Memoires de Napoleon, vii. 211. This

Napoleon SUMMARY OF FRIEDRICH'S CAMPAIGNS, and these brief Bits of Criticism, are pleasant

reading, though the fruit evidently of slight study, and do credit to Napoleon perhaps still more than to

How the English Walpoles, in Parliament and out of it; how the Prussian Sulzers, D'Argenses, the Gazetteer

and vague public, may have spoken and written at that time, when the matter was fresh and on everybody's

1. A LETTER OF FRIEDRICH'S TO D'ARGENS (Durgoy, near Breslau, 19th December, 1757)."Your

friendship seduces you, MON CHER; I am but a paltry knave (POLISSON) in comparison with 'Alexander,'

and not worthy to tie the shoelatchets of 'Caesar'! Necessity, who is the mother of industry, has made me

"We have got here [this day, by capitulation of Breslau] from fourteen to fifteen thousand prisoners: so that,

in all, I have above twentythree thousand of the Queen's troops in my hands, fifteen Generals, and above

seven hundred Officers. 'T is a plaster on my wounds, but it is far enough from healing them.

"I am now about marching to the Mountain region, to settle the chain of quarters there; and if you will come,

you will find the roads free and safe. I was sorry at the Abbe's treason,"paltry De Prades, of whom we

2. A POTTERYAPOTHEOSIS OF FRIEDRICH."There stands on this mantelpiece," says one of my

Correspondents, the amiable Smelfungus, in short, whom readers are acquainted with, "a small China Mug,

not of bad shape; declaring itself, in one obscure corner, to be made at Worcester, 'R. I., Worcester, 1757'

(late in the season, I presume, demand being brisk); which exhibits, all round it, a diligent

Potter'sApotheosis of Friedrich, hastily got up to meet the general enthusiasm of English mankind. Worth,

"Front side, when you take our Mug by the handle for drinking from it, offers a poor wellmeant China

Portrait, labelled KING OF PRUSSIA: Copy of Friedrich's Portrait by Pesne, twenty years too young for the

time, smiling out nobly upon you; upon whom there descends with rapidity a small Genius (more like a

Cupid who had hastily forgotten his bow, and goes headforemost on another errand) to drop a wreath on this

deserving head;wreath far too small for ever getting on (owing to distance, let us hope), though the artless

Painter makes no sign; and indeed both Genius and wreath, as he gives them, look almost like a big insect,

which the King will be apt to treat harshly if he notice it. On the opposite side, again, separated from

Friedrich's back by the handle, is an enormous image of Fame, with wings filling half the Mug, with two

trumpets going at once (a bass, probably, and a treble), who flies with great ease; and between her eager face

end the unexpectant one of Friedrich (who is 180 degrees off, and knows nothing of it) stands a circular

Trophy, or Imbroglio of drums, pikes, muskets, cannons, fieldflags and the like; very slightly tied

together, the knot, if there is one, being hidden by some fantastic bit of scroll or escutcheon, with a Fame

and ONE trumpet scratched on it; and high out of the Imbroglio rise three standards inscribed with Names,

which we perceive are intended to be names of Friedrich's Victories; standards notable at this day, with

"Standard first, which flies to the westward or leftward, has 'Reisberg' (no such place on this distracted globe,

but meaning Bevern's REICHENBERG, perhaps),'Reisberg,' 'Prague,' 'Collin.' Middle standard curves

beautifully round its staff, and gives us to read, 'Welham' (nonextant, too; may mean WELMINA or

Lobositz), 'Rossbach' (very good), 'Breslau' (poor Bevern's, thought a VICTORY in Worcester at this time!).

Standard third, which flies to eastward or right hand, has 'Neumark' (that is, NEUMARKT and the Austrian

Breadovens, 4th December); 'Lissa' (not yet LEUTHEN in English nomenclature); and 'Breslau' again,

which means the capture of Breslau CITY this time, and is a real success, 7th19th December;giving us

the approximate date, Christmas, 1757, to this hasty Mug. A Mug got up for temporary English enthusiasm,

and the accidental instruction of posterity. It is of tolerable China; holds a good pint, 'To the Protestant Hero,

with all the honors;' and offers, in little, a curious eyehole into the then England, with its then lights and

notions, which is now so deephidden from us, under volcanic ashes, French Revolutions, and the wrecks of

Friedrich, during those grand victories, is suffering sadly in health, "COLIQUE DEPUIS HUIT JOURS,

neither sleep nor appetite;" "eight months of mere anguishes and agitations do wear one down." He is tired

too, he says, of the mere businesstalk, coarse and rugged, which has been his allotment lately; longs for

some humanly roofed kind of lodging, and a little talk that shall have flavor in it. [Letters of his to Prince

Henri (December 26th, OEuvres, xxvi. 167, 169; Stenzel, v: 123).] The troops once all in their

Winterquarters, he sits down in Breslau as his own winteringplace: place of relaxation,of rest, or at least

of changed labor,no man needing it more. There for some three months he had a tolerable time; perhaps,

by contrast, almost a delightful. Readers must imagine it; we have no details allowed us, nor any time for

There come various visitors, various gayeties,King's Birthday (January 24th); quality Balls, "at which

Royal Majesty sometimes deigned to show himself." A lively Breslau, in comparison. Sister Amelia paid a

beautiful visit of a fortnight or more: Sister Amelia, and along with her, two married Cousins (once

Margravines of Schwedt), whose Husbands, little Brother Ferdinand, and Eugen of Wurtemberg, are

wintering here. The Marquis d'Argens, how exquisitely treated we shall see, is a principal figure; Excellency

Mitchell, deep in very important business just now, is another. Reader de Catt (he who once, in a Dutch

RiverBoat, got into conversation with the snuffy gentleman in black wig) made his new appearance, this

Winter,needed now, since De Prades is off. "Should you have known me again?" asked Friedrich. "Hardly,

in that dress; besides, your Majesty looks thinner." "That I can believe, with the cursed life I have been

leading!" [Rodenbeck, i. 285.] There came also, day not given, a Captain Guichard ("Major Quintus Icilius"

that is to be) with his new Book on the Art Military of the Ancients, MEMOIRES MILITAIRES SUR LES

GRECS ET LES ROMAINS; [a La Haye, 2 tomes, 4to, 1757 (Nicolai, Anekdoten, vi. 134)] which cannot but

be welcome to Friedrich. A solid account of that matter, by the first man who ever understood both War and

Greek. Far preferable to Folard's, a man without Greek at all, and with military ideas not a little fantastic here

and there. Of Captain Guichard, were his Book once read, and himself a little known, there will be more to

say. For the present, fancy him retained as supernumerary:and in regard to Friedrich's Winter generally,

1. ON THE ROAD TO LEUTHEN "(Torgau, 15th November 1757). ... I have been obliged to have the Abbe

arrested [De Prades, of whom enough, long since]; he has been playing the spy, and I have many evident

proofs of it. That is very infamous and very ungrateful.I have made a prodigious quantity of verses

(PRODIGIEUSEMENT DE VERS). If I live, I will show them you in Winterquarters: if I perish, they are

"Adieu, my dear Marquis. I fancy you to be in bed: don't rot there;and remember you have promised to

join me in Winterquarters;"on this latter point Friedrich is very urgent, amiably eager; prepared to wrap

the poor Marquis in cotton, and carry him and lodge him, like glass with care. [ OEuvres de Frederic, ] xix,

2. WHILE SETTLING THE WINTERQUARTERS ("Striegau, 26th December, 1757:" Siege of Breslau

done ten days ago). ... "What a pleasure to hear you are coming! Your travelling you can do in your own way.

I have chosen a party of Light Horse (JAGER), who will appear at Berlin to conduct you. You can make

short journeys: the first to Frankfurt, the second to Crossen, the third to Grunberg, fourth to Glogau, fifth to

Parchwitz, sixth to Breslau. I have directed that horses be ordered for you, that your rooms be warmed

everywhere, and good fowls ready on all roads. Your apartment in this House [Royal House in Breslau,

which the King has built for himself years ago] is carpeted, hermetically shut. You shall suffer nothing from

draughts or from noise." [Ib. xix. 48.]Lucky Marquis; what a Landlord! Came accordingly; stayed till deep

in April,waiting latterly for weather, I perceive; long after the King himself was off. Thus:

3. FRIEDRICH ON THE FIELD AGAIN FOR FIVE WEEKS PAST ("Munsterberg, 23d April, 1758").

"Adieu, dear Marquis; I fancy you are now in Berlin again. Go to Charlottenburg whenever and how you like;

take care of yourself; and be ready for the beginning of October next! As to me, MON CHER, I am off to

fight windmills and ostriches (AUTRUCHES), that is, Russians and Austrians (AUTRICHIENS). Adieu,

There circulated in the Newspapers, this Winter, something of what was called a LETTER from Friedrich to

Maria Theresa, formally proposing Peace, after these magnificent successes. And certainly, of all things in

the Earth, Friedrich would have best liked Peace, this year, last year, and for the next five years: "Go home,

then, good neighbors; don't break into my house, don't cut my poor throat, and we will be friends again!"

Friedrich, it appears, had actually, finding or making opportunity, sent some polite Letter, of pacific tenor, in

his light clever way, to that address;not without momentary hopes of perhaps getting good from it. [In

PREUSS, ii. 130 (Friedrich's Letter mostly given;bearer a Prince van Lobkowitz, prisoner at Leuthen, now

going home on handsome terms) Stenzel, v. 124 (for the PERCONTRA feeling).] And the Kaiserinn

herself, Austria's high Mother, did, they say, after such a Leuthen coming on the back of such a Rossbach,

feel discouraged; but the Pompadour (not France's Mother, whatever she might be to France) was of far other

mind: "Do not speak of it, MA REINE! Double or quits, that is our game: can we yield for a little illluck?

France dismisses its D'Argenson, "What Armies are these of his; flying home on us, like draggled poultry,

across the Rhine!" summons the famed Belleisle to be WarMinister, and give things an eaglequality:

["26th February, 1758" (BARBIER, iv. 258).] France engages to pay its subsidies better (France now the

general paying party, Austria, Sweden, Russia itself, all looking to France,would she were as punctual as

England used to be!),in a word, engages to be magnanimous extremely, and will hear of nothing but

persistence. "Shall not we reap, then, where there is such a harvest standing white to us?" Kaunitz admits that

there never will again be such a chance.Peace, it is clear enough, will not be got of these people by any

Letter, or human device whatever, except simply by uttermost, more or less miraculous fighting for it.

Friedrich is profoundly aware of this fact;is busy completing his Army: 145,000 for the field, this Year,

53,000 the Silesian part, "a good many of them Austrian deserters;" [Stenzel, v. 155.] and is closing an

And if this is the mood in France and Austria, think what Russia's will be! The Czarina is not dead of dropsy,

as some had expected, but, on the contrary, alive, and fiercer than ever; furious against Apraxin, and

determined that Fermor, his successor, shall defy Winter, and begin work at once. She has indignantly

dismissed Apraxin (to be tried by CourtMartial, he); dismisses Bestuchef the Chancellor; appoints a new

General, Fermor by name; orders Fermor to go and lose not a moment, now in the depth of Winter since it

was not done in the crown of Summer, and take possession of East Preussen in her name.

Which Fermor does; 16th January, crosses the border again, 31,000 in all, without opposition except from the

frost; plants himself up and down,only two poor Prussian battalions there; who retire, with their effects,

especially "with seven wagons of money." January 22d, Fermor enters Konigsberg; publishes no end of

proclamations, manifestoes, rescripts, to inform the poor people, trembling at the Cossack atrocities of last

Year, "That his august Sovereign Elizabeth of All the Russias has now become Proprietress of East Preussen,

which shall be perfectly protected and exquisitely wellgoverned henceforth; and that all men of official or

social position have, accordingly, to come and take the oath to her, with the due alacrity and punctuality, at

No man is willing for the operation, most men shudder at it; but who can help them? Surely it was an

unblessed operation. Poor souls, one pities them; for at heart they were, and continued, loyal to their own

King; thoroughly abhorrent of becoming Russian, as Czarish Majesty has thoroughly resolved they shall.

Some few absconded, leaving their property as spoil; the rest swore, with mental reservation, with shifts, such

as they could devise:for example, some were observed to swear with gloves on; the right hand, which they

held up, was a mere right FIST with a stuffed glove at the end of it,SO help me Beelzebub (or whoever is

the recording Angel here)! [ HeldenGeschichte, v. 141149: Preuss, ii. 145, iii. 578, iv. 477, And thus does

Preussen, with astonishment, as by the spell of a Czarina Circe, find itself changed suddenly to Russian: and

does not recover the old human form till four years hence,when, again suddenly, as we shall see, the Circe

Friedrich could not mend or prevent this bad Business; but was so disgusted with it, he never set foot in East

Preussen again,never could bear to behold it, after such a transformation into temporary Russian shape. I

cannot say he abhorred this constrained Oath as I should have done: on the contrary, in the first spurt of

indignation, he not only protested aloud, but made reprisals, "Swear ME those Saxons, then!" said he; and

some poor magistrates of towns, and official people, had to make a figure of swearing (if not allegiance

altogether, allegiance for the time being), in the same sad fashion, till one's humor cooled again. [Preuss, ii.

163: Oath given in HeldenGeschichte, v. 631.] East Preussen, lost in this way, held by its King as before, or

more passionately now than ever; still loved Friedrich, say the Books; but it is Russia's for the present, and

the mischief is done. East Preussen itself, Circe Czarina cherishing it as her own, had a much peaceabler

time: in secret it even sent moneys, recruits, numerous young volunteers to Friedrich; much more, hopes and

prayers. But his disgust with the late transformation by enchantment was inexpiable.

It was May or June, as had been anticipated, before the Russian main Army made its practical appearance in

those parts. Fermor had, in the interim, seized Thorn, seized Elbing ("No offence, magnanimous Polacks, it is

only for a time!"),and would fain have had Dantzig too, but Dantzig would n't. Not till June 16th did the

unwieldy mass (on paper 104,000, and in effect, and exclusive of Cossack rabble, about 75,000) get on way;

and begin slowly staggering westward. Very slowly, and amid incendiary fire and horrid cruelty, as

Lehwald was just finishing with the Swedes,had got them all bottled up in Stralsund again, about

NewYear's time, when these Russians crossed into Preussen. We said nothing of the Swedish socalled

Campaign of last Year;and indeed are bound to be nearly silent of that and of all the others. Five

Campaigns of them, or at least Four and a half; such Campaigns as were never made before or since. Of

Campaign 1757, the memorable feature is, that of the whole "Swedish Division," as the laughing Newspapers

called it, which was "put to flight by five Berlin Postilions;"substantially a truth, as follows:

"Night of September 12th13th, 1757, the Swedes, 22,000 strong, did at last begin business; crossed Peene

River, the boundary between their Pommern and ours; and, having nothing but some fractions of Militia to

oppose them, soon captured the Redoubts there; spread over Prussian Pommern, and on into the Uckermark;

diligently raising contributions, to a heavy amount. No less than 90,000 pounds in all for this poor Province;

"Towards the end of October they had got as much as 60,000 pounds from the northern parts of Uckermark,

Prentzlow being their head quarter during that operation; and they now sent out a Detachment of 200

grenadiers and 100 dragoons towards Zehdenick, another little Town, some forty miles farther south, there to

wring out the remaining sum. The Detachment marched by night, not courting notice; but people had heard of

its coming; and five Prussian Postilions,shifty fellows, old hussars it may be, at any rate skilful on the

trumpet, and furnished with hussar jackets and an old pistol each, determined to do something for their

Country. The Swedish Detachment had not marched many miles, when,after or before some flourishes of

martial trumpeting,there verily fell on the Swedish flank, out of a clump of dark wood, five shots, and

wounded one man. To the astonishment and panic of the other two hundred and ninetynine; who made

instant retreat, under new shots and trumpettones, as if it were from five whole hussar regiments; retreat

doublequick, to Prentzlow; alarm waxing by the speed; alarm spreading at Prentzlow itself: so that the

whole Division got to its feet, recrossed the Peene; and Uckermark had nothing more to pay, for that bout!

This is not a fable, such as go in the Newspapers," adds my Authority, "but an accurate fact:"

[ HeldenGeschichte, iv. 764, 807; Archenholtz, i. 160.]probably, in our day, the alone memorable one of

"The French," says another of my Notes, "who did the subsidying all round (who paid even the Russian

Subsidy, though in Austria's name), had always an idea that the Swedes22,000 stout men, this year, 4,000

of them cavalrymight be made to cooperate with the Russians; with them or with somebody; and do

something effective in the way of destroying Friedrich. And besides their subsidies and bribings, the French

took incredible pains with this view; incessantly contriving, correspondencing, and running to and fro

between the parties: [For example: M. le Marquis de Montalembert, CORRESPONDANCE AVEC ETANT

EMPLOYE PAR LE ROI DE FRANCE A L'ARMEE SUEDOISE, 17571761 ("with the Swedish Army,"

yes, and sometimes with the Russian,and sometimes on the French Coasts, ardently fortifying against Pitt

and his Descents there:a very intelligent, industrious, observant man; still amusing to read, if one were

idler), A LONDRES (evidently Paris), 1777, 3 vols. small 8vo. Then, likewise very intelligent, there is a

Montazet, a Mortaigne, a Caulaiucourt; a CAMPAGNE DES RUSSES EN 1757; in short, a great deal of

fine faculty employed there in spinning ropes from sand.] but had not, even from the Russians and Czarish

Majesty, much of a result, and from the Swedes had absolutely none at all. By French industry and

flagitation, the Swedish Army was generally kept up to about 20,000: the soldiers were expert with their

fightingtools, knew their fieldexercise well; had fine artillery, and were stout hardy fellows: but the

guidance of them was wonderful. 'They had no fieldcommissariat,' says one Observer, 'no fieldbakery, no

magazines, no pontoons, no light troops; and,' among the Higher Officers, 'no subordination.' [Archenholtz, i.

158.] Were, in short, commanded by nobody in particular. Commanded by Senator Committeemen in

Stockholm; and, on the field, by Generals anxious to avoid responsibility; who, instead of acting, held

continual Councils of War. The history of their Campaigns, year after year, is, in summary, this:

"Late in the season (always late, WarOffices at home, and Captaincies here, being in such a state), they

emerged from Stralsund, an impregnable place of their own,where the men, I observe, have had to live on

dried fishy substances, instead of natural boiled oatmeal; [Montalembert, i. 3237, 335. 394, (that of the

demand for Neise PORRIDGE, which interested me, I cannot find again).] and have died extensively in

consequence: they march from Stralsund, a forty or thirty miles, till they reach the SwedishPommern

boundary, Peene River; a muddy sullen stream, flowing through quagmire meadows, which are miles broad,

on each shore. River unfordable everywhere; only to be crossed in four or five places, where paved

causeways are. The Swedes, with deliberation, cross Peene; after some time, capture the bits of Redoubts, and

the one or two poor Prussian Towns upon it; Anklam Redoubt, PEENEMUNDE (Peenemouth) Redoubt;

and rove forward into Prussian Pommern, or over into the Uckermark, for fifty, for a hundred miles; exacting

contributions; foraging what they can; making the poor countrypeople very miserable, and themselves not

happy,their soldiers 'growing yearly more plunderous,' says Archenholtz, 'till at length they got, though

much shyer of murder, to resemble Cossacks,' in regard to other pleas of the crown.

"There is generally some fractional regiment or two of Prussian force, left under some select General

Manteuffel, Colonel Belling; who hangs diligently on the skirts of them, exploding by all opportunities.

There have been Country Militias voluntarily got on foot, for the occasion; five or six small regiments of

them; officered by Prussian Veterans of the Squirearchy in those parts; who do excellent service. The

Governor of Stettin, Bevern, our old Silesian friend, strikes out now and then, always vigilant, prompt and

effective, on a chance offering. This, through Summer, is what opposition can be made: and the Swedes,

without magazines, scout service, or the like military appliances, but willing enough to fight [when they can

see], and living on their shifts, will rove inward, perhaps 100 miles; say southwestward, say southeastward

[towards Ruppin, which we used to know],they love to keep Mecklenburg usually on their flank, which is

a friendly Country. Small fights befall them, usually beatings; never anything considerable. That is their

"Then, in Autumn, some remnant more of Prussian regulars arrive, disposable now for that service; upon

which the Swedes are driven over Peene again (quite sure to be driven, when the River with its quagmires

freezes); lose Anklam Redoubt, Peenemunde Redoubt; lose Demmin, Wollin; are followed into Swedish

Pommern, oftenest to the gates of Stralsund, and are locked up there, there and in Rugen adjoining, till a new

season arrive."This year (17571758), Lehwald, on turning the key of Stralsund, might have done a fine

feat; frost having come suddenly, and welded Rugen to mainland. "What is to hinder you from starving them

into surrender?" signifies Friedrich, hastily: "Besiege me Stralsund!" Which Lehwald did; but should have

been quicker about it; or the thaw came too soon, and admitted ships with provision again. Upon which

Lehwald resigned, to a General Graf von Dohna; and went home, as grown too old: and Dohna kept them

bottled there till the usual Russian Advent (deep in June); by which time, what with limited stockfish diet,

what with sore labor (breaking of the ice, whenever frost reappeared) and other hardship, more than half of

them had died. "Every new season there was a new General tried; but without the least improvement.

There was mockery enough, complaint enough; indignant laughter in Stockholm itself; and the Dalecarlians

thought of revolting: but the Senator Committeemen held firm, ballasted by French gold, for four years.

"The Prussian Militias are a fine trait of the matter; about fifteen regiments in different parts;about five in

Pommern, which set the example; which were suddenly raised last Autumn by the STANDE themselves,

drilled in Stettin continually, while the Swedes were under way, and which stood ready for some action,

under veterans of the squirearchy, when the Swedes arrived. They were kept up through the War. The

STANDE even raised a little fleet, [Archenholtz, i. 110.] river fleet and coast fleet, twelve gunboats, with a

powerful carronade in each, and effective men and captain; a great check on plundering and coast mischief,

Friedrich was very sensible of these procedures on the part of his STANDE; and perhaps readers are not

prepared for such, or for others of the like, which we could produce elsewhere, in a Country without

Constitution to speak of. Friedrich raises no new taxes, except upon himself exclusively, and these to the

very blood: Friedrich gets no LifeandFortune Addresses of the vocal or printed sort, but only of the

acted. Very much the preferable kind, where possible, to all parties concerned. These poor militias and

flotillas one cheerfully puts on record; cheerfully nothing else, in regard to such a Swedish War;nor shall

we henceforth insult the human memory by another word upon it that is not indispensable.

One of Friedrich's most important affairs, at present,vitally connected with his Army and its furnishings,

which is the all important,was his Subsidy Treaty with England. It is the third treaty he has signed with

England in regard to this War; the second in regard to subsidy for it; and it is the first that takes real practical

effect. It had cost difficulty in adjusting, not a little correspondence and management from Mitchell; for the

King is very shy about subsidy, though grim necessity prescribes it as inevitable; and his pride, and his

reflections on the last Subsidy Treaty, "One Million sterling, Army of Observation, and Fleet in the Baltic,"

instead of which came Zero and KlosterZeven, have made him very sensitive. However, all difficulties are

got over; Plenipotentiary Knyphausen, Pitt, Britannic Majesty and everybody striving to be rational and

practical; and at London, 11th April, 1758, Subsidy Treaty, admirably brief and to the point, is finished: [In

four short Articles; given in HeldenGeschichte, v. 16, 17.] "That Friedrich shall have Four Million Thalers,

that is, 670,000 pounds; payable in London to his order, in October, this Year; which sum Friedrich engages

to spend wholly in maintenance and increase of his Army for behoof of the common object;neither party to

dream of making the least shadow of peace or truce without the other." Of Baltic Fleet, there is nothing said;

nor, in regard to that, was anything done, this year or afterwards; highly important as it would have been to

Friedrich, with the Navies so called of both Sweden and Russia doing their worst upon him. "Why not spare

me a small English squadron, and blow these away?" Nor was the why ever made clear to him; the private

why being, that Czarish Majesty had, last year, intimated to Britannic, "Any such step on your part will

annihilate the now old friendship of Russia and England, and be taken as a direct declaration of

War!"which Britannic Majesty, for commercial and miscellaneous reasons, hoped always might be

In all the spoken or covenanted points the Treaty was accurately kept: 670,000 pounds, twothirds of a

million very nearly, will, in punctual promptitude, come to Friedrich's hand, were October here. And in

regard to Ferdinand (a point left silent, this too), Friedrich's expectations were exceeded, not the contrary, so

long as Pitt endured. This is the Third EnglishPrussian Treaty of the SevenYears War, as we said above;

and it is the First that took practical effect: this was followed by three others, year after year, of precisely the

same tenor, which were likewise practical and punctually kept,the last of them, "12th December, 1760,"

had reference to Subsidy for 1761:and before another came, Pitt was out. So that, in all, Friedrich had Four

Subsidies; 670,000 pounds x4=2,680,000 pounds of English money altogether:and it is computed by some,

there was never as much good fighting otherwise had out of all the 800,000,000 pounds we have funded in

that peculiar line of enterprise. [First Treaty, 16th January, 1756 (is in HeldenGeschichte, iii. 681), "We will

oppose by arms any foreign Armament entering Germany;" Second Treaty, 11th January, 1757 (never

published till 1802), is in Scholl, iii. 3032: "one million subsidy, a Fleet (not KEPT at all); after which,

Third Treaty (the FIRST really issuing in subsidy and performance) is 11th April, 1758 (given in

HeldenGeschichte, v. 17); Fourth (really SECOND), 7th December, 1758 (Ib. v. 752); Fifth (THIRD), 9th

Pitt had no difficulty with his Parliament, or with his Public, in regard to this Subsidy; the contrary rather.

Seldom, if ever, was England in such a heat of enthusiasm about any Foreign Man as about Friedrich in these

months since Rossbach and what had followed. Celebrating this "Protestant Hero," authentic new Champion

of Christendom; toasting him, with all the honors, out of its Worcester and other Mugs, very high indeed.

Take these Three Clippings from the old Newspapers, omitting all else; and rekindle these, by good

inspection and consideration, into feeble symbolic lamps of an old illumination, now fallen so extinct.

No. 1. REVEREND MR. WHITFIELD AND THE PROTESTANT HERO. "Monday, January 2d," 1758,

"was observed as a Day of Thanksgiving, at the Chapel in TottenhamCourt Road [brandnew Chapel, still

standing and acting, though now in a dingier manner], by Mr. Whitfield's people, for the signal Victories

gained by the King of Prussia over his Enemies. [ Gentleman's Magazine, xxviii. (for 1758), p. 41.]'Why

rage the Heathen; why do the people imagine a vain thing? Sinful beings we, perilously sunk in sin against

the Most High:but they, do they think that, by earthly propping and hoisting, their unblessed Chimera, with

his Three Hats, can sweep away the Eternal Stars!'"In this strain, I suppose: Protestant Hero and Heaven's

longsuffering Patiences and Mercies in raising up such a one for a backsliding generation; doubtless with

No. 2. KING OF PRUSSIA'S BIRTHDAY (Tuesday, January 24th). "This being the Birthday of the King of

Prussia, who then entered into the fortyseventh year of his age, the same was observed with illuminations

and other demonstrations of joy;"throughout the Cities of London and Westminster, "great rejoicings and

illuminations," it appears, [ Gentleman's Magazine, xxviii. (for 1758), p. 43; and vol. xxix. p. 42, for next

year's birthday, and p. 81 for another kind of celebration.]now shining so feebly at a century's

distance!No. 3 is still more curious; and has deserved from us a little special inquiring into.

No. 3. MISS BARBARA WYNDHAM'S SUBSIDY. "March 13th, 1758,"while Pitt and Knyphausen are

busy on the Subsidy Treaty, still not out with it, the Newspapers suddenly announce,

"Miss Bab. Wyndham, of Salisbury, sister of Henry Wyndham, Esq., of that City, a maiden lady of ample

fortune, has ordered her banker to prepare the sum of 1,000 pounds to be immediately remitted, in her own

name, as a present to the King of Prussia." [ London Chronicle, March 14th16th, 1758; Lloyd's Evening

Post; Doubtless to the King of Prussia's surprise, and that of London Society, which would not want for

Before long, the Subsidy Treaty being now out, and the Wyndham topic new again, London Society reads, in

the same Newspaper, a Documentary Piece, calculated to help in its commentaries. There is good likelihood

of guess, though no certainty now attainable, that the "English Lady" referred to may be Miss Bab.

herself;of whose longvanished biography, and brisk, airy, nomadic ways, we catch hereby a faint

"TO THE AUTHORS OF THE LONDON CHRONICLE. London Chronicle, of 13th15th April, 1758.

"The following Account, which is a real fact, will serve to show with what punctuality and exactness the

King of Prussia attends to the most minute affairs, and how open he is to applications from all persons.

"An English Lady being possessed of actions [shares] in the Embden Company, and having occasion to raise

money on them, repaired to Antwerp [some two years ago, as will be seen], and made application for that

purpose to a Director of the Company, established there by the King of Prussia for the managing all affairs

relative thereto. This person," Van Erthorn the name of him, "very willingly entered into treaty with her; but

the sum he offered to lend being far short of what the actions would bring, and he also insisting on forfeiture

of her right in them, if not redeemed in twelve months, she broke off with him, and had recourse to some

merchants at Antwerp, who were inclinable to treat with her on much more equitable terms. The proceeding

necessarily brought the parties before this Director for receiving his sanction, which was essential to the

solidity of the agreement; and he, finding he was like to lose the advantage he had flattered himself with,

disputed the authenticity of the actions, and thereby threw her into such discredit, as to render all attempts to

raise money on them ineffectual. Upon this the Lady wrote a Letter by the common post to his Majesty of

Prussia, accompanied with a Memorial complaining of the treatment she had received from the Director; and

she likewise enclosed the actions themselves in another letter to a friend at Berlin. By the return of the post,

his Majesty condescended to answer her Letter; and the actions were returned authenticated; which so

restored her credit, that in a few hours all difficulties were removed relating to the transaction she had in

hand; and it is more than probable the Director has felt his Majesty's resentment for his illbehavior.The

"'SIR,Having had the happiness to pay my court to your Majesty during a pretty long residence at Berlin

[say in Voltaire's time; Miss Barbara's "Embden Company," I observe, was the first of the two, date 1750;

that of 1753 is not hers], and to receive such marks of favor from their Majesties the Queens [a Barbara

capable of shining in the Royal soirees at Monbijou, of talking to, or of, your Voltaires and lions, and

investing moneys in the new Embden Company] as I shall ever retain a grateful sense of,I presume to

flatter myself that your Majesty will not be offended at the respectful liberty I have taken in laying before you

my complaints against one Van Erthorn, a Director of the Embden China Company, whose bad behavior to

me, as set forth in my Memorial, hath forced me to make a very long and expensive stay at this place; and, as

the considerable interest I have in that Company may farther subject me to his caprices, I cannot forbear

laying my grievances at the foot of your Majesty's throne; most respectfully supplicating your Majesty that

you would be graciously pleased to give orders that this Director shall not act towards me for the future as he

"'I hope for this favor from your Majesty's sovereign equity; and I shall never cease offering up my ardent

prayers for the prosperity of your glorious reign; having the honor to be, with the most respectful zeal, Sir,

"'MADAM,I received the Letter of the 19th instant, which you thought proper to write to me; and was not

a little displeased to hear of the bad behavior of one of the Directors of the Asiatic Company of Embden

towards you, of which you were forced to complain. I shall direct your grievances to be examined, and have

just now despatched my orders for that purpose to Lenz, my President of the Chamber of East Friesland,'

Chief Judge in those parts. [Seyfarth, ii. 139.] 'You may assure yourself the strictest justice shall be done you

Whether this refers to Miss Barbara or not, there is no affirming. But the interesting point is, Friedrich did

receive and accept Miss Barbara's 1,000 pounds. The Prussian account, which calls her "an English

JUNGFRAU, LADY SALISBURY, who actually sent a sum of money," [Preuss, ii. 124, whose reference is

merely "Gentleman's Magazine for 1758." Both in the ANNUAL REGISTER of that Year (i. 86),and in the

Gentleman's Magazine, pp. 142, 177, the above Paragraph and Letters are copied from the Newspapers, but

without the smallest commentary (there or elsewhere), or any mention of a "Lady Salisbury."] would not

itself be satisfactory: but, by good chance, there is still living, in Salisbury City, a very aged Gentleman, well

known for his worth, and intelligence on such matters, who, being inquired of, makes reply at once: That the

First Earl of Malmesbury (who was of his acquaintance, and had many anecdotes and reminiscences of

Friedrich, all noted down, it was understood, with diplomatic exactitude, but never yet published or become

accessible) did, as "I well remember, among other things, mention the King's telling him that he," the King,

"had received a Thousand Pounds from Miss Wyndham; with a part of which he had bought the Flute then in

his hand." [Letter from John Fowler, Esq., "Salisbury, 2d April, 1860," to a Friend of mine (PENES ME): of

Barbara's identity, or otherwise, with the Antwerp Embden Lady, Mr. F. can say nothing.] Which latter

circumstance, too, is curious. For, at all times, however straitened Friedrich's Exchequer might be, it was his

known habit, during this War, to have always, before the current year ended, the ways and means completely

settled and provided for the year coming; so that everything could be at once paid in money (good money or

bad,good still up to this date);And nothing was observed to fall short, so much as the customary

liberality of his gifts to those about him. I infer, therefore: Friedrich had decided to lay out this 1,000 pounds

in what he would call luxuries, chiefly gifts,and, among other things, had said to himself, "I will have a

new flute, too!" Probably one of his last; for I understand he had, by this time (Malmesbury's time, 1772),

James Harris, First Earl of Malmesbury, was Resident at Berlin, 1772: that is all the date we have for the

King's saying, "And with part of it I bought this Flute!" Date of Lord Malmesbury's mention of it at

Salisbury, we have none,likeliest there might be various dates; a thing mentioned more than once, and not

improvable by dating. The Wyndhams still live in the Close of Salisbury; a respected and wellknown

Family; record of them (none of Barbara there, or elsewhere except here) to be found in the County Histories.

[Britton's Beauties of England and Wales, xv. part ii. p. 118; Hoare's Salisbury (mistaken, p. 815); I only

know farther, Barbara died May, 1765, "aged and wealthy," and "with the bulk of her fortune endowed a

Charity, to be called 'Wyndham College,'" [ANNUAL REGISTER (for 1765), viii. 86.]which I hope still

flourishes. Enough on this small Wyndham matter; which is nearly altogether English, but in which Friedrich

While this Subsidy Treaty is getting settled in England, Duke Ferdinand has his French in full cackle of

universal flight; and before the signing of it (April 11th), every feather of them is over the Rhine; Duke

Ferdinand busy preparing to follow. Glorious news, day after day, coming in, for Pitt, for Miss Barbara and

for all English souls, Royal Highness of Cumberland hardly excepted! The "Descent on Rochefort," last

Autumn, had a good deal disappointed Pitt and England;an expensively elaborate Expedition, military and

naval; which could not "descend" at all, when it got to the point; but merely went groping about, on the

muddy shores of the Charente, holding councils of war yonder; "cannonaded the Isle of Aix for two hours;"

and returned home without result of any kind, Courtsmartial following on it, as too usual. This was an

unsuccessful firststroke for Pitt. Indeed, he never did much succeed in those Descents on the French Coast,

though never again so ill as this time. Those are a kind of things that require an exactitude as of clockwork, in

all their parts: and Pitt's Generalcies and WarOffices,we know whether they were of the Prussian type or

of the Swedish! A very grievous hindrance to Pitt;which he will not believe to be quite incurable. Against

which he, for his part, stands up, in grim earnest, and with his whole strength; and is now, and at all times,

doing what in him lies to abate or remedy it:successfully, to an unexpected degree, within the next four

years. From America, he has decided to recall Lord Loudon, as a cunctatory haggling mortal, the reverse of a

General; how very different from his Austrian Cousin! [Cousins certainly enough; their Progenitors were

Brothers, of that House, about 1568,when Matthew, the cadet, went "into Livonia," into foreign Soldiering

(Papa having fallen Prisoner "at the Battle of Langside," 1568, and the Family prospects being low); from this

Matthew comes, through a scrips of Livonian Soldiers, the famed Austrian Loudon. Douglas, Peerage of

Scotland, p. 425; VIE DE LOUDON (illinformed on that point and some others) says, the first Livonian

Loudon came from Ayrshire, "in the fourteenth century".] "Abercrombie may be better," hopes he;was

better, still not good. But already in the gloomy imbroglio over yonder, Pitt discerns that one Amherst (the

son of people unimportant at the hustings) has military talent: and in this puddle of a Rochefort Futility, he

has got his eye on a young Officer named Wolfe, who was Quartermaster of the Expedition; a young man

likewise destitute of Parliamentary connection, but who may be worth something. Both of whom will be

heard of! In a four years' determined effort of this kind, things do improve: and it was wonderful, to what

amount,out of these chaotic WarOffices little better than the Swedish, and ignorant Generalcies fully

On Pitt, amid confused clouds, there is bright dawn rising; and Friedrich too, for the last month, in Breslau,

has a cheerful prospect on that Western side of his horizon. Here is one of his Postscripts, thrown off in

Autograph, which Duke Ferdinand will read with pleasure: "I congratulate you, MON CHER, with my whole

heart! May you FLEURDELYS every French skin of them; cutting out on their"what shall we say

(LEUR IMPRIMANT SUR LE CUE)!"the Initials of the Peace of Westphalia, and packing them across

the Rhine," tattooed in that latest extremity of fashion! [Friedrich to Duke Ferdinand, "Grussau, 19th March,

1758:" in Knesebeck, Herzog Ferdinand, i. 64. Herzog Ferdinand wahrend des 7jahrigen Krieges ("from

the English aud Prussian Archives") is the full Title of Knesebeck's Book: LETTERS altogether; not very

intelligently edited, but well worth reading by every student, military and civil: 2 vols. 8vo. Hannover, 1857.]

Friedrich, grounding partly on those Rhine aspects, has his own scheme laid for Campaign 1758. It is the old

scheme tried twice already: to go home upon your Enemy swiftly, with your utmost collective strength, and

try to strike into the heart of him before he is aware. Friedrich has twice tried this; the second time with

success, respectable though far short of complete. Weakened as now, but with Ferdinand likely to find the

French in employment, he means to try it again; and is busy preparing at Neisse and elsewhere, though

keeping it a dead secret for the time. There is, in fact, no other hopeful plan for him, if this prove feasible at

all. Double your velocity, you double your momentum. One's weight is given,weight growing less and

less;but not, or not in the same way and degree, one's velocity, one's rightness of aim. Weight given: it is

only by doubling or trebling his velocity that a man can make his momentum double or treble, as needed!

Friedrich means to try it, readers will see how,were the Fort of Schweidnitz once had; for which object

Friedrich watches the weather like a very D'Argens, eager that the frost would go. Recapture of Schweidnitz,

the last speck of Austrianism wiped away there; that is evidently the preface to whatsoever day'swork may

March 15th, frost being now off, Friedrich quits Breslau and D'Argens,his Headquarter thenceforth

KlosterGrussau, near Landshut, troops all getting cantoned thereabout, to keep Bohemia quiet,and goes at

once upon Schweidnitz. With the top of the morning, so to speak; means to have Schweidnitz before

campaigning usually can begin, or common laborers take their tools in this trade. The Austrian Commandant

has been greatly strengthening the works; he had, at first, some 8,000 of garrison; but the three months'

blockade has been tight upon him and them; and it is hoped the thing can be done.

APRIL 1st2d,Siegematerial being got to the ground, and Siege Division and Covering Army all in their

places,in spite of the heavy rains, we open our first parallel, Austrian Commandant not noticing till it is

nearly done. April 8th, we have our batteries built; and burst out, at our best rate, into cannonade; aiming a

good deal at "Fort No. 1," called also "GALGEN or Gallows Fort," which we esteem the principal.

Cannonade continues day after day, prospers tolerably on Gallows Fort,"though the wet weather, and

hardship to the troops, are grievous circumstances, and make Friedrich doubly urgent. "Try it by storm!"

counsels Balbi, who is Engineer. Night of APRIL 15th16th storm takes place; with such vigor and such

cunning, that the Gallows Fort is got for almost nothing (loss of ten men);and few hours after, Austria beat

the chamade. [Tempelhof, ii. 2125; HeldenGeschichte, v. 109123: above all, Tielcke, Beytrage zur

KriegsKunst und zur Geschichte des Krieges von 1756 bis 1763 (6 vols. 4to, Freyberg, 17751786), iv.

4376. Volume iv. is wholly devoted to Schweidnitz and its successive Sieges.] Fiftyone new Austrian

guns, for one item, and about 7,000 pounds of money. Prisoners of War the Garrison, 8,000 gone to 4,900;

with such stores as we can guess, of ours and theirs added: Balbi was Prussian EngineerinChief, Treskau

Unfortunate Schweidnitz underwent four Sieges, four captures or recaptures, in this War;upon all of which

we must be quite summary, only the results of them important to us. For the curious in sieges, especiaIly for

the scientifically curious, there is, by a Captain Tielcke, excellent account of all these Schweidnitz Sieges,

and of others;ArtilleryCaptain Tielcke, in the Saxon or SaxonRussian service; whom perhaps we shall

Fouquet, on the first movement towards Schweidnitz, had been detached from Landshut to sweep certain

Croat Parties out of Glatz; Ziethen, with a similar view, into Troppau Country; both which errands were at

once perfectly done. Daun lies behind the Bohemian Frontier (betimes in the field he too, "arrived at

Konigsgratz, March 13th"); and is, with all diligence, perfecting his new levies; intrenching himself on all

points, as man seldom did; "felling whole forests," they say, building abatis within abatis; not doubting,

especially on these ZiethenFouquet symptoms, but Friedrich's Campaign is to be an Invasion of Bohemia

again. "Which he shall not do gratis!" hopes Daun; and, indeed, judges say the entrance would hardly have

Schweidnitz being done, and Daun deep in the Bohemian problem, Friedrich, in an unintelligible manner,

breaks out from Grussau and the Landshut region (April 19th25th), not straight southward, as Daun had

been expecting, but straight southeastward through Neisse, Jagerndorf: all gone, or all but Ziethen and

Fouquet gone, that way;meaning who shall say what, when news of it comes to Daun? In two divisions,

from 30 to 40,000 strong; through Jagerndorf, ever onward through Troppau, and not till THEN turning

southward: indubitable march of that cunning Enemy; rapidly proceeding, his 40,000 and he, along those

elevated upland countries, watershed of the Black Sea and the Baltic, bleakly illumined by the April sun; a

march into the mists of the future tense, which do not yet clear themselves to Daun. Seeing the march turn

southward at Troppau, a light breaks on Daun: "Ha! coming round upon Bohemia from the east, then?" That

is Daun's opinion, for some time yet; and he immediately starts that way, to save a fine magazine he has at

Leutomischl over there. Daun, from Skalitz near Konigsgratz where he is, has but some eighty miles to

march, for the King's hundred and fifty; and arrives in those parts few days after the King; posts himself at

Leutomischl, veiled in Pandours. Not for two weeks more does he ascertain it to have been a march upon the

Olmutz Country, and the intricate forks of the Morawa River; with a view to besieging Olmutz, by this wily

Enemy! Upon which Daun did strive to bestir himself thitherward, at last; and, though very slow and

hesitative, his measures otherwise were unexceptionable, and turned out luckier than had been expected by

Olmutz is an ancient pleasant little City, in the Plains of Mahren, romantic, indistinct to the English mind;

with Domes, with Steeples eminent beyond its size,population little above 10,000 souls; has its

PrinceArchbishop and ecclesiastic outfittings, with whom Friedrich has lodged in his time. City which

trades in leather, and Russian and Moldavian droves of oxen. Memorable to the Slavic populations for its

grand Czech Library, which was carried away by the Swedes, happily into thick night; [To Stralsund (1645),

"and has not since been heard of."] also for that poor little Wenzel of theirs (last heir of the Bohemian Czech

royalties, whom no reader has the least memory of) being killed on the streets here; uncertain, to this day,

by whom, though for whose benefit that daggerstroke ended is certain enough; [Supra, vol. v. p. 118.]

poor little Wenzel's dust lies under that highest Dome, of the old Cathedral yonder, if anybody thought of

such a thing in hot practical times. Poor Lafayette, too, lodged here in prison, when the Austrians seized him.

City trades in leather and live stock, we said; has much to do with artillery, much with ecclesiastry;and

Friedrich besieged it, for seven weeks, in the hot summer days of 1758, to no purpose. Friedrich has been in

Olmiitz more than once before; his Schwerin once took it in a single day, and it was his for months, in the old

MoravianForay time: but the place is changed now; become an arsenal or military storehouse of Austria;

strongly fortified, and with a Captain in it, who distinguishes himself by valiant skill and activity on this

Friedrich's Olmutz Enterprise, the rather as it was unsuccessful, has not wanted critics. And certainly,

according to the ordinary rules of cautious prudence, could these have been Friedrich's in his present

situation, it was not to be called a prudent Enterprise. But had Friedrich's arrangements been punctually

fulfilled, and Olmutz been got in fair time, as was possible or probable, the thing might have been done very

well. Duke Ferdinand, in these early May days, is practically making preparations to follow the French across

the Rhine; no fear of French Armies interfering with us this year. Dohna has the Swedes locked in Stralsund

(capable of being starved, had not the thaw come); and in HinterPommern he has General Platen, with a

tolerable Detachment, watching Fermor and his Russians; Dohna, with Platen, may entertain the Russians for

a little, when they get on way,which we know will be at a slow pace, and late in the season. Prince Henri

commands in Saxony, say with 30,000;King's vicegerent and other self there, "Do YOUR wisest and

promptest; hold no councils of war!" Prince Henri, altogether on the aggressive as yet, is waiting what Reichs

Army there may be;has already had Mayer and Free Corps careering about in Franken Country once and

again, tearing up the incipiencies and preparations, with the usual emphasis; and is himself intending to

follow thither, in a still more impressive manner. Friedrich's calculation is, Prince Henri will have his hands

And now, supposing Olmutz ours, and Vienna itself open to our insults, does not, by rapid suction, every

armed Austrian flow thitherward; Germany all drained of them: in which case, what is to hinder Prince Henri

from stepping into Bohmen, by the Metal Mountains; capturing Prag; getting into junction with us here, and

tumbling Austria at a rate that will astonish her! Her, and her miscellaneous tagraggery of Confederates, one

and all. Konigsberg, Stralsund, Bamberg; Russians, Swedes, Reichsfolk, here, in Mahren, will be the

crown of the game for all these. Prosper in Mahren, all these are lamed; one right stroke at the heart, the

limbs become manageable quantities! This was Friedrich's program; and had not imperfections of execution,

beyond what was looked for, and also a good deal of plain illluck, intervened, this bold stroke for Mahren

The march thither (started from Neisse April 27th) was beautiful: Friedrich with vanguard and first division;

Keith with rearguard and second, always at a day's distance; split into proper columns, for convenience of

road and quarter in the hungry countries; threading those silent mountain villages, and upper streamlets of

Oder and Morawa: Ziethen waving intrusive Croateries far off; Fouquet, in thousands of wagons, shoving on

from Neisse, "in four sections," with the due intervals, under the due escorts, the immensity of stores and

siegefurniture, through Jagerndorf, through Troppau, and onwards; [Table of his routes and stages in

TEMPELHOF, ii. 46.]punctual everybody; besiegers and siege materials ready on their ground by the set

day. Daun too had made speed to save his Magazine. Daun was at Leutomischl, May 5th,a forty miles to

west of the Morawa,few days after Friedrich had arrived in those countries by the eastern or left bank, by

Troppau, Gibau, Littau, Aschmeritz, Prossnitz; and a week before Friedrich had finished his reconnoitrings,

campings, and taken position to his mind. Camps, four or more (shrank in the end to three), on both banks of

the River; a matter of abstruse study; so that it was May 12th before Friedrich first took view of Olmutz

itself, and could fairly begin his Problem,Daun, with his best Tolpatcheries, still unable to guess what it

Of the Siege I propose to say little, though the accounts of it are ample, useful to the Artillerist and Engineer.

If the reader can be made to conceive it as a blazing loudsounding fact, on which, and on Friedrich in it, the

eyes of all Europe were fixed for some weeks, it may rest now in impressive indistinctness to us. Keith is

Captain of the Siege, whom all praise for his punctual firmness of progress; Balbi as before, is Engineer,

against whom goes the criticism, Keith's first of all, that he "opened his first parallel 800 yards too far

off,"which much increased the labor, and the expenditure of useless gunpowder, shot having no effect at

such a distance. There were various criticisms: some real, as this; some imaginary, as that Friedrich grudged

gunpowder, the fact being that he had it not, except after carriage from Neisse, say a hundred and twenty

miles off,Troppau, his last Silesian Town, or safe place (his for the moment), is eighty miles;and was

Friedrich is not thought to shine in the sieging line as he does in the fighting; which has some truth in it,

though not very much. When Friedrich laid himself to engineering, I observe, he did it well: see Neisse,

Graudenz, Magdeburg. His Balbi went wrong with the parallels, on this occasion; many things went wrong:

but the truly grievous thing was his distance from Silesia and the supplies. A hundred and twenty miles of

hillcarriage, eighty of them disputable, for every shot of ammunition and for every loaf of bread; this was

hard to stand:and perhaps no Warapparatus but a Prussian, with a Friedrich for sole chiefmanager, could

have stood it so long. Friedrich did stand it, in a wonderfully tolerable manner; and was continuing to stand it,

and make fair progress; and it is not doubted he would have got Olmutz, had not there another fact come on

him, which proved to be of unmanageable nature. The actual loss, namely, of one Convoy, after so many had

come safe, and when, as appears, there was now only one wanted and no more!Let us attend to this a little.

Had Daun, at Olmutz, been as a Duke of Cumberland relieving Tournay, rushing into fight at Fontenoy, like a

Hanover White Horse, neck clothed with thunder, and head destitute of knowledge, how lucky had it

been for Friedrich! But Daun knows his trade better. Daun, though superior in strength, sits on his Magazine,

clear not to fight. By no art of manoeuvring, had Friedrich much tried it, or hoped it, this time, could Daun

have been brought to give battle. As Fabins Cunctator he is here in his right place; taking impregnable

positions, no man with better skill in that branch of business; pushing out parties on the Troppau road; and

patiently waiting till this dangerous Enemy, with such endless shifts in him, come in sight perhaps of his last

cartridge, or perhaps make some stumble on the way towards that consummation. Daun is aware of

Friedrich's surprising qualities. Bos against Leo, Daun feels these procedures to be altogether feline (FELIS

LEONINE); such stealthy glidings about, deceptive motions, appearances; then such a rapidity of spring upon

you, and with such a set of claws,destructive to bovine or rhinoceros nature: in regard to all which, Bos, if

he will prosper, surely cannot be too cautious. It was remarked of Daun, that he was scrupulously careful;

never, in the most impregnable situations, neglecting the least precaution, but punctiliously fortifying himself

to the last item, even to a ridiculous extent, say Retzow and the critics. It was the one resource of Daun: truly

a solid stubborn patience is in the man; stubborn courage too, of bovinerhinoceros type; stupid, if you

will, but doing at all times honestly his best and his wisest without flurry; which character is often of

surprising value in War; capable of much mischief, now and then, to quicker people. Rhinoceros Daun did

play his Leo a bad prank more than once; and this of barring him out from Olmutz was one of them, perhaps

Daun's management of this Olmutz business is by no means reckoned brilliant, even in the Fabius line; but,

on the contrary, inert, dimminded, inconclusive; and in reality, till almost the very last, he had been of little

help to the besieged. For near three weeks (till May 23d) Daun sat at Leutomischl, immovable on his

breadbasket there, forty or more miles from Olmutz; and did not see that a Siege was meant. May

27th28th, Balbi opened his first parallel, in that mistaken way; four days before which, Daun does move

inwards a march or so, to Zwittau, to Gewitsch (still thirty miles to west of Olmutz); still thinking of

Bohemia, not of any siege; still hanging by the mountains and the breadbasket. And there,about

Gewitsch, siege or no siege, Daun sits down again; pretty much immovable, through the five weeks of

bombardment; and,except that Loudon and the Light Horse are very diligent to do a mischief, "attempting

our convoys, more than once, to no purpose, and alarming some of our outposts almost every night, but every

night beaten off,"does, in a manner, nothing; sits quiet, behind his impenetrable veil of Pandours, and lets

the bombardment take its course. Had not express Order come from Vienna on him, it is thought Daun would

have sat till Olmutz was taken; and would then have gone back to Leutomischl and impregnable posts in the

Hills. On express order, he But gather, first, these poor sparks in elucidation:

"The 'destructive sallies' and the like, at Olmutz, were principally an affair of the gazetteers and the

imagination: but it is certain, Olmutz this time was excellently well defended; the Commandant, a vigorous

skilful man, prompt to seize advantages; and Garrison and Townsfolk zealously helping: so that Friedrich's

progress was unusually slow. Friedrich's feelings, all this while, and Balbi's (who 'spent his first 1,220 shots

entirely in vain,' beginning so far off), may be judged of,the sound of him to Balbi sometimes stern

enough! As when (June 9th) he personally visits Balbi's parallels (top of the Tafelberg yonder); and inquires,

'When do you calculate to get done, then?' West side of Olmutz and of the River (east side lies mostly under

water), there is the bombarding; seventyone heavy guns; Keith, in his expertest manner, doing all the

captaincies: Keith has about 8,000 of foot and horse, busy and vigilant, with their faces to the east. In a ring

of four camps, or principally three (Prossnitz, Littau, and Neustadt, which is across the River), all looking

westward or northwestward, some, ten or twenty miles from Keith, Friedrich (headquarters oftenest

Prossnitz, the chief camp) stands facing Daun; who lies concentric to him, at the distance of another ten or

twenty miles, in good part still thirty or forty miles from Olmutz, veiled mostly under a cloud of Pandours.

"Of Friedrich's impatiences we hear little, though they must have been great. Prince Henri is ready for Prag;

many things are ready, were Olmutz but done! May 22d, Prince Henri had followed Mayer in person, with a

stronger corps, to root out the Reichsfolk,and is now in Bamberg City and Country. And is even in

Baireuth itself, where was lately the Camp of the new Reichs General, Serene Highness of Zweibruck, and

his nascent Reichs Army; who are off bodily to Bohemia, 'to Eger and the Circle of Saatz,' a week before.

[ HeldenGeschichte, v. 206209. Wilhelmina's pretty Letter to Friedrich ("Baireuth, 10th May"); Friedrich's

Answer ("Olmutz, June, 1758"); in OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. i. 313315.] Fancy that visit of Henri's to a

poor Wilhelmina; the last sight she ever had of a Brother, or of the old Prussian uniforms, clearing her of

Zweibrucks and sorrowful guests! Our poor Wilhelmina, alas she is sunk in sickness this year more than ever;

journeying towards death, in fact; and is probably the most pungent, sacredly tragic, of Friedrich's sorrows,

now and onwards. June 12th, Friedrich's pouting Brother, the Prince of Prussia, died; this also he had to hear

in Camp at Olmutz. 'What did he die of?' said Friedrich to the Messenger, a Major Something. 'Of chagrin,'

"On the last night of May, by beautiful management, military and other, Duke Ferdinand is across the Rhine;

again chasing the French before him; who, as they are far more numerous, cannot surely but make some

stand: so that a Battle there may be expected soon,let us hope, a Victory; as indeed it beautifully proved to

be, three weeks after. [Battle of Crefeld, 23d June.] On the other hand, Fermor and his Russians are astir;

continually wending towards Brandenburg, in their voluminous manner, since June 16th, though at a slow

On express from Vienna, Daun did bestir himself; cautiously got on foot again; detached, across the River, an

expert Hussar General ("Be busy all ye Loudons, St. Ignons, Ziskowitzes, doubly now!"), expert Hussar

General, one item of whose force is 1,100 chosen grenadiers;and himself cautiously stept southward and

eastward, nearer the Siege Lines. The Hussar General's meaning seemed to be some mischief on our Camp of

Neustadt and the outposts there; but in reality it was to throw his 1,100 into Olmutz (useful to the

Commandant); whichby ingenious manoeuvring, and guidance from the peasants "through bushy woods

aud bypaths" on that east side of the Riverthe expert Hussar General, though Ziethen was sent over to

handle him, did perfectly manage, and would not quit for Ziethen till he saw it finished. Which done, Daun

keeps stepping still farther southward, nearer the Siege Lines; and, at Prossnitz, morning of June 22d,

Friedrich, with his own eyes, sees Daun taking post on the opposite heights; says to somebody near him,

"VOILA LES AUTRICHIENS, ILS APPRENNENT A MARCHER, There are the Austrians; they are

learning to march, though!"getting on their feet, like infants in a certain stage ("MARCHER" having that

meaning too, though I know not that the King intended it);they have learned a great many things, since

your Majesty first met them. Friedrich took Daun to be, now at last, meaning Battle for Olmutz, and made

some slight arrangements accordingly; but that is not Daun's intention at all; as Friedrich will find to his cost,

in few days. That very day, Daun has vanished again, still in the southerly direction, again under veil of

Meanwhile, in spite of all things, the Siege makes progress; "June 22d, Balbi's sap had got to their glacis, and

was pushing forward there,"June 22d, day when Daun made momentary appearance, and the

reinforcement stole in:within a fortnight more, Balbi promises the thing shall be done. But supplies are

indispensable: one other convoy from Troppau, and let it be a big one, "between 3 and 4,000 wagons," meal,

money, iron, powder; Friedrich hopes this one, if he can get it home, will suffice. Colonel Mosel is to bring

this Convoy; a resolute expert Officer, with perhaps 7,000 foot and horse: surely sufficient escort: but, as

Daun is astir, and his Loudons, Ziskowitzes and light people are gliding about, Friedrich orders Ziethen to

meet this important Convoy, with some thousands of new force, and take charge of bringing it in. Mosel was

to leave Troppau June 26th; Ziethen pushes out to meet him from the Olmutz end, on the second day after;

The driving of 3,000 fourhorse wagons, under escort, ninety miles of road, is such an enterprise as cannot

readily be conceived by sedentary pacific readers;much more the attack of such! Military science,

constraining chaos into the cosmic state, has nowhere such a problem. There are twelve thousand horses, for

one thing, to be shod, geared, kept roadworthy and regular; say six thousand country wagoners, thicksoled

peasants: then, hanging to the skirts of these, in miscellaneous crazy vehicles and weak teams, equine and

asinine, are one or two thousand sutler people, male and female, not of select quality, though on them, too,

we keep a sharp eye. The series covers many miles, as many as twenty English miles (says Tempelhof),

unless in favorable points you compress them into five, going four wagons abreast for defence's sake.

Defence, or escort, goes in three bulks or brigades; vanguard, middle, rearguard, with sparse pickets

intervening; wider than five miles, you cannot get the parts to support one another. An enemy breaking in

upon you, at some difficult point of road, woody hollow or the like, and opening cannon, musketry and

hussar exercise on such an object, must make a confused transaction of it! Some commanders, for the road

has hitherto been mainly pacific, divide their train into parts, say four parts; moving with their partial escorts,

with an interval of one day between each two: this has its obvious advantages, but depends, of course, on the

road being little infested, so that your partial escort will suffice to repel attacks. Toiling forward, at their

diligent slow rate, I find these trains from Troppau take about six days (from Neisse to Olmutz they take

eleven, but the first five are peaceable [Tempelhof, ii. 48.]);can't be hurried beyond that pace, if you would

save your laggards, your irregulars, and prevent what we may call RAGGERY in your rearward parts; the

skirts of your procession get torn by the bushes if you go faster. This time Colonel Mosel will have to mend

his pace, however, and to go in the lump withal; the case being critical, as Mosel knows, and MORE than he

Daun, who has friends everywhere, and no lack of spies in this country, generally hears of the convoys. He

has heard, in particular, of this important one, in good time. Hitherto Daun had not attempted much upon

convoys, nor anything with success: King's posted corps and other precautions are of such a kind, not even

Loudon, when he tried his best, could do any good; and common wandering hussar parties are as likely to get

a mischief as to do one, on such service. Cautious Daun had been busy enough keeping his own Camp safe,

and flinging a word of news or encouragement, at the most a trifle of reinforcement, into Olmutz. when

possible. But now it becomes evident there must be one of two things: this convoy seized, or else a battle

risked;and that in defect of both these, the inevitable third thing is, Olmutz will straightway go.

MajorGeneral Loudon, the best partisan soldier extant, and ripening for better things, has usually a force of

perhaps 10,000 under him, four regiments of them regular grenadiers; and has been active on the convoys,

though hitherto unsuccessful. Let an active Loudon, with increased force, try this, their vitally important

convoy, from the west side of the River; an active Ziskowitz cooperating on the east side, where the road

itself is; and do their uttermost! That is Daun's plan,now in course of execution. Daun, instead of meaning

battle, that day when Friedrich saw him, was cautiously stealing past, intending to cross the River farther

down; and himself support the operation. Daun has crossed accordingly, and has doubled up northward again

to the fit point; Ziskowitz is in the fit point, in the due force, on this east side too. Loudon, on the west side,

goes by Muglitz, Hof; making a long deep bend far to westward and hillward of all the Prussian posted corps

and precautions, and altogether hidden from them; Loudon aims to be in Troppau neighborhood,

"Guntersdorf, near Bautsch," by the proper day, and pay Mosel an unexpected visit in the passage there.

Colonel Mosel, marshalling his endless Trains with every excellent precaution, and the cleverest dispositions

(say the Books), against the known and the unknown, had got upon the road, and creaked forward,

manywheeled, out of Troppau, Monday, 26th June. [Tempelhof, ii. 8994.] The roads, worn by the much

travelling and wet weather, were utterly bad; the pace was perhaps quicker than usual; the muchjolting

Train got greatly into a jumble:Mosel, to bring up the laggards, made the morrow a restday; did get about

twothirds of his laggards marshalled again; ordered the others to return, as impossible. They say, had it not

been for this restday, which seemed of no consequence, Loudon would not have been at Guntersdorf in

time, nor have attempted as he did at Guntersdorf and afterwards. At break of day (Wednesday, 28th), Mosel

is again on the road; heavily jumbling forward from his quarters in Bautsch. Few miles on, towards

Guntersdorf, he discovers Loudon posted ahead in the defiles. What a sight for Mosel, in his character of

Wagoner up with the dawn! But Mosel managed the defiles and Loudon this time; halted his train, dashed up

into the woody heights and difficult grounds; stormed Loudon's cannon from him, smote Loudon in a valiant

Loudon, I conjecture, would have struggled farther, had not he known that there would be a better chance

again not very many miles ahead. London has studied this Convoy; knows of Ziethen coming to it with so

many; of Ziskowitz coming to him, Loudon, with so many; that Ziethen cannot send for more (roads being all

beset by our industry yesterday), that Ziskowitz can, should it be needful;and that at Domstadtl there is a

defile, or confused woody hollow, of unequalled quality! Mosel jumbles on all day with his Train, none

molesting; at night gets to his appointed quarters, Village of Neudorfl; [The L, or EL, is a diminutive in these

Names: (NEUDORFL) "NewThorpLET," (DOMSTADTL) "CathedralTownLET," and the like.] and there

finds Ziethen: a glad meeting, we may fancy, but an anxious one, with Domstadtl ahead on the morrow.

Loudon concerts with Ziskowitz this day; calls in all reinforcements possible, and takes his measures.

Thursday morning, Ziethen finds the Train in such a state, hardly half of it come up, he has to spend the

whole day, Mosel and he, in rearranging it: Friday morning, June 30th, they get under way again;Friday,

The Pass of Domstadtl, lapped in the dim Moravian distance, is not known to me or to my readers; nor indeed

could the human pen or intellect, aided by ocular inspection or whatever helps, give the least image of what

now took place there, rendering Domstadtl a memorable locality ever since. Understand that Ziethen and

Mosel, with their waste slow deluge of wagons, come jumbling in, with anxiety, with

precautions,precautions doubled, now that the woody intricacies about Domstadtl rise in sight. "Pooh, it is

as we thought: there go Austrian cannonsalvos, horsecharges, volleying musketries, as our first wagons

enter the Pass;and there will be a job!" Indecipherable to mankind far off, or even near. Of which only this

feature and that can be laid hold of, as discernible, by the most industrious man. Escort, in three main bodies,

vanguard, middle, rearguard, marches on each side; infantry on the left, cavalry on the right, as the ground

is leveller there. Length of the Train in statute miles, as it jumbles along at this point, is not given; but we

know it was many miles; that horses and wagoners were in panic hardly restrainable; and we dimly descry,

here especially, human drillsergeantcy doing the impossible to keep chaos plugged down. The poor

wagoner, cannon playing ahead, whirls homeward with his vehicle, if your eye quit him,still better, and

handier, cuts his traces, mounts in a good moment, and is off at heavyfooted gallop, leaving his wagon.

The Prussian Vanguard, one Krockow its commander, repulsed that first Austrian attack; swept the Bass clear

for some minutes; got their section of the carriages, or some part of it, 250 in all, hurried through; then halted

on the safe side, to wait what Ziethen would do with the remainder. Ziethen does his best and bravest, as

everybody does; keeps his wagonchaos plugged down; ranks it in square mass, as a wagon fortress

(WAGENBURG); ranks himself and everybody, his cannon, his platoon musketry, to the best advantage

round it; furiously shoots out in all manner of ways, against the furious Loudon on this flank, and the furious

Ziskowitz on that; takes hills, loses them; repels and is repelled (wagonchaos ever harder to keep plugged);

finally perceives himself to be beaten; that the wagonchaos has got unplugged (fancy it!)and that he,

Ziethen, must retreat; back foremost if possible. He did retreat, fighting all the way to Troppau; and the

Krockow, with the 250, has got under way again; hearing the powder wagons start into the air (fired by the

enemy), and hearing the cannon and musketry take a northerly course, and die away in that ominous

direction. These 250 were all the carriages that came in: happily, by Ziethen's prudence, the money, a large

sum, had been lodged in the vanmost of these. The rest of the Convoy, ball, powder, bread, was of little value

to Loudon, but beyond value to Friedrich at this moment; and it has gone to annihilation and the belly of

Chaos and the Croats. Among the tragic wrecks of this Convoy there is one that still goes to our heart. A

longish, almost straight row of young Prussian recruits stretched among the slain, what are these? These were

700 recruits coming up from their cantons to the Wars; hardly yet six months in training: see how they have

fought to the death, poor lads, and have honorably, on the sudden, got manumitted from the toils of life.

Seven hundred of them stood to arms, this morning; some sixtyfive will get back to Troppau; that is the

invoice account. They lie there, with their blond young cheeks and light hair; beautiful in death;could not

have done better, though the sacred poet has said nothing of them hitherto,nor need, till times mend with

us and him. Adieu, my noble young Brothers; so brave, so modest, no Spartan nor no Roman more; may the

Contrary to some current notions, it is comfortably evident that there was a considerable fire of loyalty in the

Prussians towards their King, during this War; loyalty kept well under cover, not wasting itself in harangues

or noisy froth; but coming out, among all ranks of men, in practical attempts to be of help in this high

struggle, which was their own as well as his. The STANDE, landed Gentry, of Pommern and other places, we

heard of their poor little Navy of twelve gunboats, which were all taken by the Swedes. Militia Regiments

too, which did good service at Colberg, as may transiently appear by and by:in the gentry or upper classes,

a respectable zeal for their King. Then, among the peasantry or lower classHere are Seven Hundred who

stood well where he planted them. And their Mothers Be Spartan also, ye Mothers! In peaceable times,

Tempelhof tells us the Prussian Mother is usually proud of having her son in this King's service: a country

wife will say to you: "I have three of them, all in the regiment," Billerbeck, Itzenplitz, or whatever be the

Canton regiment; "the eldest is ten inches [stands five feet ten], the second is eleven, the third eight, for

Daun, on the day of this Domstadtl business, and by way of masking it, feeling how vital it was, made

various extensive movements, across the River by several Bridges; then hither, thither, on the farther side of

Olmutz, mazing up and down: Friedrich observing him, till he should ripen to something definite, followed

his bombarding the while; perhaps having hopes of wager of battle ensuing. Of the disaster at Domstadtl

Friedrich could know nothing, Loudon having closed the roads. Daun by no means ripens into battle: news of

the disaster reached Friedrich next day (Saturday, July 1st),who "immediately assembled his Generals, and

spoke a few inspiring words to them," such as we may fancy. Friedrich perceives that Olmutz is over; that his

Third Campaign, third lunge upon the Enemy's heart, has prospered worse, thus far, than either of the others;

that he must straightway end this of Olmutz, without any success whatever, and try the remaining methods

and resources. No word of complaint, they say, is heard from Friedrich in such cases; face always hopeful,

tone cheery. A man in Friedrich's position needs a good deal of Stoicism, Greek or other.

That Saturday night the Prussian bombardment is quite uncommonly furious, long continuing; no night yet

like it:the Prussians are shooting off their superfluous ammunition this night; do not quite end till Sunday

is in. On Sunday itself, packings, preparations, all completed; and, "Keith, with above 4,000 wagons, safe on

the road since 2 A.M."the Prussians softly vanish in long smooth streams, with music playing, unmolested

by Daun; and leaving nothing, it is boasted, but five or three mortars, which kept playing to the last, and one

Of the retreat there could be much said, instructive to military men who were studious; extremely fine retreat,

say all judges;of which my readers crave only the outlines, the results. Daun, it was thought, should have

ruined Friedrich in this retreat; but he did nothing of harm to him. In fact, for a week he could not

comprehend the phenomenon at all, and did not stir from his place,which was on the other, or wrong, side

of the River. Daun had never doubted but the retreat would be to Silesia; and he had made his detachments,

and laid himself out for doing something upon it, in that direction: but, lo, what roads are these, what motions

whitherward? In about a week it becomes manifest that the retreat, which goes on various roads, sometimes

three at once, has converged on Leutomischl; straight for Bohemia instead of Silesia; and that Daun is fallen

seven days behind it; incapable now to do anything. Not even the Magazine at Leutomischl could be got

Keith and the baggage once safe in Leutomischl (July 8th), all goes in deliberate long column; Friedrich

ahead to open the passages. July 14th, after five more marches, Friedrioh bursts up Konigsgratz; scattering

any opposition there is; and sits down there, in a position considered, he knows well how inexpugnable; to

live on the Country, and survey events. The 4,000 baggagewagons came in about entire. Fouquet had the

first division of them, and a secondary charge of the whole; an extremely strict, almost pedantic man, and of

very fiery temper: "HE, D'OU VENEZVOUS?" asked he sharply of Retzow senior, who had broken

through his order, one day, to avert great mischief: "How come you here, MON GENERAL?" "By the

Highway, your Excellency!" answered Retzow in a grave stiff tone. [Retzow, i. 302.]

Keith himself takes the rearguard, the most ticklish post of all, and manages it well, and with success, as his

wont is. Under sickness at the time, but with his usual vigilance, prudence, energy; qualities apt to be

successful in War. Some brushes of Croat fighting he had from Loudon; but they did not amount to anything.

It was at Holitz, within a march of Konigsgratz, that Loudon made his chief attempt; a vehement,

wellintended thing; which looked well at one time. But Keith heard the cannonading ahead; hurried up with

new cavalry, new sagacity and fire of energy; dashed out horsecharges, seized hilltops, of a vital nature;

and quickly ended the affair. A man fiery enough, and prompt with his stroke when wanted, though

commonly so quiet. "Tell Monsieur,"some General who seemed too stupid or too languid on this

occasion,"Tell Monsieur from me," said Keith to his Aide decamp, "he may be a very pretty thing, but

he is not a man (QU'IL PEUT ETRE UNE BONNE CHOSE, MAIS QU'IL N'EST PAS UN HOMME)!"

[Varnhagen, Leben des Jakob von Keith, p. 227.] The excellent vernacular Keith;still a fine breadth of

accent in him, one perceives! He is now past sixty; troubled with asthma; and I doubt not may be,

occasionally, thinking it near time to end his campaigns. And in fact, he is about ending them; sooner than he

Daun, picking his steps and positions, latterly with threefold precaution, got into Konigsgratz neighborhood,

a week after Friedrich; and looked down with enigmatic wonder upon Friedrich's new settlement there.

Forage abundant all round, and the corn harvest growing white;here, strange to say, has Friedrich got

planted in the inside of those innumerable Daun redoubts, and "woods of abatis;" and might make a very

pretty "Bohemian Campaign" of it, after all, were Daun the only adversary he had! Judges are of opinion, that

Daun, with all his superiority of number, could not have disrooted Friedrich this season. [Tempelhof, ii.

170176, 185;who, unluckily, in soldier fashion, here as too often elsewhere, does not give us the

Arithmetical Numbers of each, but counts by "Battalions" and " Squadrons," which, except in time of Peace,

are a totally uncertain quantity:guess vaguely, 75,000 against 30,000.] Daun did try him by the Pandour

methods, "1,000 Croats stealing in upon Konigsgratz at one in the morning," and the like; but these availed

nothing. By the one effectual method, that of beating him in battle, Daun never would have tried. What did

disroot Friedrich, then?Take the following dates, and small hints of phenomena in other parts of the big

Theatre of War. "Konitz" is a little Polish Town, midway between Dantzig and Friedrich's Dominions:

"KONITZ, 16th JUNE, 1758. This day Feldmarschall Fermor arrives in his principal Camp here. For many

weeks past he has been dribbling across the Weichsel hitherward, into various small camps, with Cossack

Parties flying about, under check of General Platen. But now, being all across, and reunited, Fermor shoots

out Cossack Parties of quite other weight and atrocity; and is ready to begin business,still a little uncertain

how. His Cossacks, under their Demikows, Romanzows; capable of no good fighting, but of endless

incendiary mischief in the neighborhood;shoot far ahead into Prussian territory: Platen, Hordt with his

FreeCorps, are beautifully sharp upon them; but many beatings avail little. 'They burn the town of Driesen

[Hordt having been hard upon them there]; town of Ratzebuhr, and nineteen villages around;'burn poor old

women and men, one poor old clergyman especially, wind him well in strawroping, then set fire, and leave

him;and are worse than fiends or hyenas. Not to be checked by Platen's best diligence; not, in the end, by

Platen and Dohna together. Dohna (18th June) has risen from Stralsund in check of them,leaving the

unfortunate Swedes to come out [shrunk to about 7,000, so unsalutary their stockfish diet there],these

hyenaCossacks being the far more pressing thing. Dohna is diligent, gives them many slaps and checks;

Dohna cannot cut the taproot of them in two; that is to say, fight Fermor and beat him: other effectual check

"TSCHOPAU (in Saxony), 21st JUNE. Prince Henri has quitted Bamberg Country; and is home again,

carefully posted, at Tschopau and up and down, on the southern side of Saxony; with his eye well on the

Passes of the Metal Mountains,where now, in the turn things at Olmutz have taken, his clear fate is to be

invaded, NOT to invade. The Reichs Army, fairly afoot in the Circle of Saatz, counts itself 35,000; add

15,000 Austrians of a solid quality, there is a Reichs Army of 50,000 in all, this Year. And will certainly

invade Saxony,though it is in no hurry; does not stir till August come, and will find Prince Henri

elaborately on his guard, and little to be made of him, though he is as one to two.

"CREFELD (Rhine Country), 23d JUNE. Duke Ferdinand, after skilful shoving and advancing, some forty or

fifty miles, on his new or French side of the Rhine, finds the French drawn up at Crefeld (June 23d); 47,000

of them VERSUS 33,000: in altogether intricate ground; canalditches, osierthickets, farmvillages,

peatbogs. Ground defensible against the world, had the 47,000 had a Captain; but reasonably safe to attack,

with nothing but a Clermont acting that character. Ferdinand, I can perceive, knew his Clermont; and took

liberties with him. Divided himself into three attacks: one in front; one on Clermont's right flank, both of

which cannonaded, as if in earnest, but did not prevent Clermont going to dinner. One attack on front, one on

right flank; then there was a third, seemingly on left flank, but which winded itself round (perilously

imprudent, had there been a Captain, instead of a Clermont deepish in wine by this time), and burst in upon

Clermont's rear; jingling his wineglasses and decanters, think at what a rate;scattering his 47,000 and him

to the road again, with a loss of men, which was counted to 4,000 (4,000 against 1,700), and of

honorwhatever was still to lose!" [Mauvillon, i. 297309; Westphalen, i. 588604; Tempelhof;

Ferdinand, it was hoped, would now be able to maintain himself, and push forward, on this French side of the

Rhine: and had Wesel been his (as some of us know it is not!), perhaps. he might. At any rate, veteran

Belleisle took his measures:dismissal of Clermont Prince of the Blood, and appointment of Contades, a

man of some skill; recall of Soubise and his 24,000 from their Austrian intentions; these and other strenuous

measures,and prevented such consummation. A gallant young Comte de Gisors, only son of Belleisle,

perished in that disgraceful Crefeld:unfortunate old man, what a business that of "cutting Germany in four"

"LOUISBURG (North America), JULY 8th. Landing of General Amherst's people at Louisburg in Cape

Breton; with a view of besieging that important place. Which has now become extremely difficult; the

garrison, and their defences, military, naval, being in full readiness for such an event. Landing was done by

Brigadier Wolfe; under the eye of Amherst and Admiral Boscawen from rearward, and under abundant fire of

batteries and musketries playing on it ahead: in one of the surfiest seas (but we have waited four days, and it

hardly mends), tossing us about like corks;so that 'many of the boats were broken;' and Wolfe and people

'had to leap out, breastdeep,' and make fight for themselves, the faster the better, under very intricate

circumstances! Which was victoriously done, by Wolfe and his people; really in a rather handsome manner,

that morning. As were all the subsequent Siegeoperations, on land and on water, by them and the

others:till (August 8th) the Siege ended: in complete surrender,positively for the last time (Pitt fully

intends); no Austrian Netherlands now to put one on revoking it! [General Amherst's DIARY OF THE

"These are pretty victories, cheering to Pitt and Friedrich; but the difficult point still is that of Fermor. Whose

Cossacks, and their devillike ravagings, are hideous to think of: unrestrainable by Dohna, unless he could

cut the root of them; which he cannot. JUNE 27th [while Colonel Mosel, with his 3,000 wagons, still only

one stage from Troppau, was so busy], slow Fermor rose from Konitz; began hitching southward, southward

gradually to Posen,a considerably stronger Polish Town; on the edge both of Brandenburg and of

Silesia;and has been sitting there, almost ever since our entrance into Bohemia; his Cossacks burning and

wasting to great distances in both Countries; no deciding which of them he meant to invade with his main

Army. Sits there almost a month, enigmatic to Dohna, enigmatic to Friedrich: till Friedrich decides at last that

he cannot be suffered longer, whichever of them he mean; and rises for Silesia (August 2d). Precisely about

which day Fermor had decided for Brandenburg, and rolled over thither, towards Custrin and the

Friedrich's march to Landshut is, again, much admired. Daun had beset the three great roads, the two likeliest

especially, with abundant Pandours, and his best Loudons and St. Ignons: Friedrich, making himself

enigmatic to Daun, struck into the third road by Skalitz, Nachod; circuitous, steep, but lying Glatzward,

handy for support of various kinds. He was attempted, once or more, by Pandours, but used them badly; fell

in with Daun's old abatis (well winddried now), in different places, and burnt them in passing. And in five

days was in KlosterGrussau, safe on his own side of the Mountains again. One point only we will note, in

these Pandour turmoilings. From Skalitz, the first stage of his march, he answers a Letter of Brother

TO PRINCE HENRI (at Tachopau in Saxony). "What you write to me of my Sister of Baireuth [that she has

been in extremity, cannot yet write, and must not be told of the Prince of Prussia's death lest it kill her] makes

me tremble! Next to our Mother, she is what I have the most tenderly loved in this world. She is a Sister who

has my heart and all my confidence; and whose character is of price beyond all the crowns in this universe.

From my tenderest years, I was brought up with her: you can conceive how there reigns between us that

indissoluble bond of mutual affection and attachment for life, which in all other cases, were it only from

disparity of ages, is impossible. Would to Heaven I might die before her;and that this terror itself don't

take away my life without my actually losing her!" [ OEuvres de Frederic, xxvi. 179, "Klenny, near Skalitz,

3d August, 1758;" Henri's Letter is dated "Camp of Tschopau, 28th July" (ib. 277).] ...

At Grussau (August 9th) he writes to his dear Wilhelmina herself: "O you, the dearest of my family, you

whom I have most at heart of all in this world,for the sake of whatever is most precious to you, preserve

yourself, and let me have at least the consolation of shedding my tears in your bosom! Fear nothing for US,

and" O King, she is dying, and I believe knows it, though you will hope to the last! There is something

piercingly tragical in those final Letters of Friedrich to his Wilhelmina, written from such scenes of wreck

and storm, and in Wilhelmina's beautiful everloving quiet Answers, dictated when she could no longer

write. ["July 18th" is the last by her hand, and "almost illegible;"still extant, it seems, though withheld

from us. Was received at Grussau here, and answered at some length ( OEuvres, xxvii. i. 316), according to

the specimen just given. Two more of hers follow, and four of the King's (ib. 317322). Nearly meaningless,

Friedrich had last left Grussau April 18th; he has returned to it August 8th: after sixteen weeks of a very

eventful absence. In Grussau he stayed two whole days;busy enough he, probably, though his people were

resting! August 10th he draws up, for Prince Henri, "under seal of the most absolute secrecy," and with

admirable businesslike strictness, brevity and clearness, forgetting nothing useful, remembering nothing

useless, a Paper of Directions in case of a certain event: "I march tomorrow against the Russians: as the

events of War may lead to all sorts of accidents, and it may easily happen to me to be killed, I have thought it

my duty to let you know what my plans were," and what you are to do in that event,"the rather as you are

Guardian of our Nephew [late Prince of Prussia's Son] with an unlimited authority." Oath from all the armies

the instant I am killed: rapid, active, as ever; the enemy not to notice that there is any change in the

command. I intend to "beat the Russians utterly [A PLATE COUTURE, splayseam], if it be possible;" then

to gives you his "itinerary," too, or probable address, till "the 25th" (notably enough); in short, forgets

nothing useful, nor remembers anything that is not, in spite of his hurry. ["DISPOSITION

TESTAMENTAIRE" (so they have labelled it); given in OEuvres, iv. (APPENDICE) 261, 262. Friedrich's

TESTAMENT proper is already made, and all in order, years ago ("11th January 1752"): of this there

followed Two new Redactions (new EDITIONS with slight improvements, "7th November, 1768," and "8th

January, 1769" the FINALLY valid one); and various Supplements, or summary Enforcements (as here), at

different times of crisis. see PREUSS, iv. 277, 401, and OEuvres de Frederic, vi. p. 13 (of Preface), for some

confused account of that matter.] For Mlnlster Finck also there went a Paper; seal lzot needing to be opened

With Margraf Karl, and Fouquet under him, who are to guard Silesia, he leaves in two Divisions about Half

the late Olmutz Army:added to the other force, this will make about 40,000 for that service. [Stenzel, v.

163.] Keith has the chief command here; but is ordered to Breslau, in the mean time, for a little rest and

recovery of health. Friday, 11th August, Friedrich himself, with the other Half, pushes off towards Fermor

and the Cossack demons; through Liegnitz, through Hohenfriedberg Country, straight for Frankfurt, with his

Sunday, 20th August, Friedrich, with his small Army, hardly above 15,000 I should guess, arrived at

FrankfurtonOder: "his Majesty," it seems, "lodged in the Lebus Suburb, in the house of a Clergyman's

Widow; and was observed to go often out of doors, and listen to the cannonading, which was going on at

Custrin." [Rodenbeck, i. 347.] From Landshut hither, he has come in nine days; the swiftest marching; a fiery

spur of indignation being upon all his men and him, for the last two days fierier than ever, longing all to

have a blow at those incendiary Russian gentlemen. Five days ago, the Russians, attempting blindly on the

Garrison of Custrin, had burnt,nothing of the Garrison at all,but the poor little Town altogether. Which

has filled everybody with lamentation and horror. And, listen yonder, they are still busy on the solitary

Garrison of Custrin;audible enough to Friedrich from his northern or Lebus Suburb, which lies nearest the

Of Fermor's redhot savagery on Custrin, it is lamentably necessary we should say something: to say much

would he a waste of record; as the thing itself was a waste of powder. A thing hideous to think of; without the

least profit to Fermor, but with total ruin to all the inhabitants, and to the many strangers who had sought

refuge there. One interior circumstance is memorable and lucky to us. ArtilleryCaptain Tielcke happened to

be with these people; had come in the train of "two Saxon Princes, serving as volunteers;" and, with a

singular lucidity, and faithful good sense, not scientific alone, he illuminates these biack Russian matters for

Tielcke's Book of Contributions to the Art of War [ Beytrage zur KriegeKunst und (ZUR) Geschichte des

Krieges von 1756 bis 1763 (six thin vols. 4to, with many Plates); cited above.] is still in repute with Soldiers,

especially in the Artillery line; and indeed shows a sound geometrical head, and contains bits of excellent

Historical reading interspersed among the scientific parts. This Tielcke, it appears, was a common

footsoldier, one of those Pirna 14,000 made Prussian against their will; but Tielcke had a milkmaid for

sweetheart in those regions, who, good soul, gave him her generous farewell, a suit of her clothes, perhaps a

pair of her pails; and in that guise he walked out of bondage. Clear away; to Warsaw, to favor with the King

and others (being of real merit, an excellent, studious, modest little man); and here he now reappears, in a

higher capacity; as articulate Eyewitness of the Custrin Business and the Zorndorf, among much other

Up to Custrin, the Journal of the Operations of the Russian Army, which I could give from day to day,

["TAGEBUCH BEYDER (Diary of both Armies from the beginning of the Campaign till Zorndorf"), in

Tielcke, ii. 175; Tempelhof, ii. 136, 216224; Helden Geschichte, v.; is of no interest except to the Nether

Powers of this Universe; the Russian Operations hitherto having consisted in slow marches, sluttish

cookeries, cantonings, bivouackings, with destruction of a poor innocent Country, and arson, theft and

murder done on the great scale by inhuman vagabonds, Cossacks so called, not tempered on this occasion by

the mercy of Calmucks. The regular Russian Army, it appears, participates in the common horror of mankind

against such a method of making war; but neither Feldmarschall Fermor, nor General Demikof (properly

THEMICOUD, a Swiss, deserving little thanks from us, who has taken in hand to command these

Missionaries of the Pit), can help the results above described. Which are justly characterized as abominable,

to gods and men; and not fit to be recorded in human Annals; execration, and, if it were possible, oblivion,

being the human resource with them., The Russian Officers, it seems, despise tbis Cossack rabble incredibly;

for their fighting qualities withal are close on zero, though their talent for arson and murder is so

considerable. And contrariwise, the Cossacks, for their part, have no objection to plunder, or even, if

obstreperous, to kill, any regular Officer they may meet unescorted in a good place. Their talent for arson is

great. They do uncountable damage to the Army itself; provoking all the Country people to destroy by fire

what could be eaten or used, the foraging, food and equipments of horse and man; so that horse and man have

to be fed by victual carted hundreds of miles out of Poland; and the Russian Army sticks, as it were, tethered

with a welter of broken porridgepots and rent mealbags hung to every foot it has.

East Preussen is quiet from the storms of War; holds its tongue well, and hopes better days: but the Russians

themselves are little the better for it, a country so lately burned bare; they are merely flung so many scores of

miles forward, farther from home and their real resources, before they can begin work, They have no port on

the Baltic: poor blockheads, they are aware how desirable, for instance, Dantzig would be; to help feeding

them out of ships; but the Dantzigers won't. Colberg, a poor little place, with only 700 militia people in it,

would be of immense service to them as a seahaven: but even this they have not yet tried to get; and after

trying, they will find it a job. "Why not unite with the Swedes and take Stettin (the finest harbor in the

Baltic), which would bring Russia, by ships, to your very hand?" This is what Montalembert is urgent upon,

year after year, to the point of wearying everybody; but he can get no official soul to pay heed to him,the

difficulties are so considerable. "Swedes, what are they?" say the Russians: "Russians what?" say the Swedes.

"Sweden would be so handy for the Artilleries," urges Montalembert; "Russians for the Soldiery, or covering

and fighting part.""Can't be done!" Officiality shakes its head: and Montalembert is obliged to be silent.

The Russians have got into the Neumark of Brandenburg, on those bad terms; and are clearly aware that,

without some Fortress as a Place of Arms, they are an overgrown Incompetency and Monstrosity in the field

of War; doing much destruction, most of which proves self destructive before long. But how help it? If the

carrying of meal so far be difficult what will the carrying of siegefurniture be? A flat impossibility. Fermor,

aware of these facts, remembers what happened at Oczakow,long ago, in our presence, and Keith's and

Munnich's, if the reader have not quite forgot. Munnich, on that occasion, took Oczakow without any

siegefurniture whatever, by boldly marching up to it; nothing but audacity and good luck on his side.

Fermor determines to try Custrin in the like way,if peradventure Prussian soldiery be like Turk?

Fermor rose from Posen August 2d, almost three weeks ago; making daily for the Neumark and those

unfortunate Oder Countries; nobody but Dohna to oppose him,Dohna in the ratio of perhaps one against

four. Dohna naturally laid hold of Frankfurt and the Oder Bridge, so that Fermor could not cross there;

whereupon Fermor, as the next best thing, struck northward for the Warta (black Polish stream, last big

branch of Oder); crossed this, at his ease, by Landsberg Bridge, August 10th [Tempelhof, ii. 216.] and after a

day or two of readjustment in Landsberg, made for Custrin Country (his next headquarter is at Gross

Kamin); hoping in some accidental or miraculous way to cross Oder thereabouts, or even get hold of Custrin

as a Place of Arms. If peradventure he can take Custrin without proper siegeartillery, in the Oczakow or

AntiTurk way? Fermor has been busy upon Custrin since August 15th;in what fashion we partly heard,

The Castle of Custrin, built by good Johann of Custrin, and "roofed with copper," in the Reformation

times,we know it from of old, and Friedrich has since had some knowledge of it. Custrin itself is a rugged

little Town, with some moorland traffic, and is still a place of great military strength, the garrison of those

parts. Its rough pavements, its heavy stone battlements and barriers, give it a guarled obstinate aspect,stern

enough place of exile for a CrownPrince fallen into such disfavor with Papa! A rugged, compact, by no

means handsome little Town, at the meeting of the Warta and the Oder; stands naturally among sedges,

willows and drained mire, except that human industry is pleasantly busy upon it, and has long been. So that

the neighborhood is populous beyond expectation; studded with rough cottages in whitewash; hamlets in a

paved condition; and comfortable signs of labor victoriously wrestling with the wilderness. Custrin, an

arsenal and garrison, begirt with two rivers, and with awful bulwarks, and bastions cased in stone,"perhaps

too high," say the learned,is likely to be impregnable to Russian engineering on those terms. Here, with

TUESDAY, 15th AUGUST, 1758. At two in the morning, several thousand Russians, grenadiers, under

Quartermaster General Stoffeln, whom the readers of Mannstein know from old Oczakow times, are astir;

pushing along from Gross Kamin, through the scraggy firwoods, and flat peat countries; intending a stroke on

Custrin, if perhaps they can get it: [Tempelhof, ii. 217; but Tielcke, ii. 69 et seq., the real source.]not the

slightest chance to get Custrin; Prussian soldiership and Turkish being two quite different things! The

pickeering and manoeuvring of Stoffeln shall not detain us. Stoffeln came along by the Landsberg road

(course of the now KonigsbergCustrin Railway); and drove in the Prussian outparties, who at first took

him for Cossacks. Stoffeln set himself down on the north side of the place; planted cannon in certain

claypits thereabouts, and about nine o'clock began firing shells and incendiary grenadoes at a great rate.

Tielcke saw everything,and had the honor to take luncheon, that evening, with certain chief Officers,

sitting on the ground, after all was over, and only a few shots from the Garrison still dropping. [Tielcke, ii. 75

At the third grenade, which, it seems, fell into a straw magazine, Custrin took fire; could not be quenched

again, so much dry wood in it, so much disorder too, the very soldiers some of them disorderly (a bad

deserter set); so that it soon flamed aloft,from side to side one sea of flame: and man, woman and child,

every soul (except the Garrison, which sat enclosed in strong stone), had to fly across the River, under

penalty of death by fire. Of Custrin, by five in the evening, there was nothing left but the black ashes; the

Garrison standing unharmed, and the Church, Schoolhouse and some stone edifices in a charred skeleton

condition. "No life was lost, except that of one child in arms." All Neumark had lodged its valuables in this

place of strength; all are fled now in horror and terror across the Oder, by the Bridge, before it also

unquenchably takes fire, at the western or nonRussian end of the place. Such a day as was seldom seen in

Fermor, in the evening, said to his Artillery People: "Why have you ceased to fire grenadoes?" "Excellency,

the Town is out; nothing now but ashes and stone." "Never mind; give them the rest, one every quarter of an

hour. We shall not need the grenadoes again. The cannonballs we shall; them, therefore, do not waste." On

the morrow morning, after this performance on the Town, Fermor sends a Trumpeter: "Surrender or else!"

rather in the tremendous style. "Or else?" answers the Commandant, pointing to the ashes, to the black

inconsumable stones; and is deaf to this EXPOSTFACTO Trumpeter. The Russians say they sent one

yesterday morning, not EXPOSTFACTO, but he was killed in the pickeerings, and never heard of again. A

mile or so to rear of Custrin, on the westward or Berlin side of the River, lies Dohna for the last four days;

expecting that the Laws of Nature will hold good, and Custrin prove tenable against such sieging. So stands it

We left Friedrich in the Lebus Suburb of Frankfurt, Sunday, August 20th, listening to the distant cannonade.

Next morning, he is here himself; at Dohna's Camp of Gorgast, taking survey of affairs; came early, under

rapid small escort, leaving his Army to follow; scorn and contemptuous indignation the humor of him, they

say; resolution to be swiftly home upon that surprising Russian armament, and teach it new manners. The

black skeleton of Custrin stares hideously across the River; "Custrin Siege" so called still going on;had

better make despatch now, and take itself away! He greatly despises Russian soldiership: "Pooh, pooh," he

would answer, if Keith from experience said, "Your Majesty does not do it justice;"and Keith has been

known to hint, "If the trial ever come, your Majesty will alter that opinion." A day or two hence, amid these

hideous Russian firetraceries, the Hussars bring him a dozen of Cossacks they have made prisoners:

Friedrich looks at the dirty green vagabonds; says to one of his Staff: "And this is the kind of Doggery I have

to bother with!"The sight of the poor countrypeople, and their tears of joy and of sorrow on his

reappearance among them, much affected him. Taking inspection of Dohna, he finds Dohna wonderfully

clean, pipeclayed, complete: "You are very fine indeed, you;I bring you a set of fellows, rough as

GRASTEUFELN ["grassdevils," I never know whether insects or birds]; but they can bite,"hope you can!

Tuesday, August 32d, at five in the morning our Army has all arrived, the Frankfurt people just come in;

30,000 of us now in Camp at Gorgast. Friedrich orders straightway that a certain Russian Redoubt on the

other side of the River, at Schaumburg, a mile or two down stream, be well cannonaded into ruin,as if he

took it for some incipiency of a Russian Bridge, or were himself minded to cross here, under cover of

Custrin. Friedrich's intention very certainly is to cross,here or not just here;and that same night, after

some hours of rest to the Frankfurt people,night of TuesdayWednesday, Friedrich, having persuaded the

Russians that his crossingplace will be their Redoubt at Schaumburg, marches ten or twelve miles down the

River, silently his 30,000 and he, till opposite the Village of Gustebiese; rapidly makes his Bridges there,

unmolested: Fermor, with his eye on the cannonaded Redoubt only, has expected no such matter; and is much

astonished when he hears of it, twenty hours after. Friedrich, across with the vanguard, at an early hour of

Wednesday, gets upon the knoll at Gustebiese for a view; and all Gustebiese, hearing of him, hurries out,

with lowvoiced tremulous blessings, irrepressible tears: "God reward your Majesty, that have come to

us!"and there is a hustling and a struggling, among the women especially, to kiss the skirts of his coat.

Poor souls: one could have stood tremendous cheers; but this is a thing I forgive Friedrich for being visibly

Friedrich leaves his baggage on the other side of the Oder, and the Bridge guarded; our friend Hordt, with his

FreeCorps, doing it, Friedrich marches forward some ten miles that night; eastward, straight for Gross

Kamin, as if to take the Russians in rear; encamps at a place called Klossow, spreading himself obliquely

towards the Mutzel (black sluggish tributary of the Oder in those parts), meaning to reach Neu Damm on the

Mutzel tomorrow, there almost within wind of the Russians, and be ready for crossing on them. It was at

Klossow (23d August, evening), that the Hussars brought in their dozen or two of Cossacks, and he had his

first sight of Russian soldiery; by no means a favorable one, "Ugh, only look!"As we are now approaching

Zorndorf, and the monstrous tug of Battle which fell out there, readers will be glad of the following:

"From Damm on the Mutzel, where Friedrich intends crossing it tomorrow night, south to Gross Kamin, not

far from the Warta, where Fermor's headquarter lately was, may be about five miles. From Custrin, Kamin

lies northeast about eight or ten miles: Zorndorf, the most considerable Village in this tract, lieslittle

dreaming of the sad glory coming to itpretty much in the centre between big Warta and smaller Mutzel.

The Country is by nature a peat wilderness, far and wide; but it has been tamed extensively; grows crops,

green pastures; is elsewhere covered with wood (Scotch fir, scraggy in size, but evidently under forest

management); perhaps half the country is in Fir tracts, what they call HEIDEN (Heaths); the cultivated spaces

lying like lightgreen islands with blackgreen channels and expanses of circumambient Fir. The Drewitz

Heath, the Massin or Zither Heath, and others about Zorndorf, will become notable to us. The Country is now

much drier than in Friedrich's time; the human spade doing its duty everywhere: so that much of the

Battleground has become irrecognizable, when compared with the old marshy descriptions given of it.

Zorndorf, a rough substantial Hamlet, has nothing of boggy now visible near by; lies east to west, a firm

broad highway leading through: a sea of forest before it, to south; to north, good dry barleygrounds or

ryegrounds, sensibly rising for half a mile, then waving about in various slow slight changes of level

towards Quartschen, Zicher, forming an irregular cleared 'island,' altogether of perhaps four miles by three,

with unlimited circumambiencies of wood. It was here, on this island as we call it, that the Battle, which has

"Zorndorf (or even the open ground half a mile to north of it, which will be more important to us) is probably

not 50 feet above the level of the Mutzel, nor 100 above Warta and Oder, six miles off; but it is the crown of

the Country;the ground dropping therefrom every way, in lazy dull waves or swells; towards Tamsel and

Gross Kamin on southeast; towards BirkenBusch, Quartschen, Darmutzel [DAR of the Mutzel, whatever

"DAR" may be.] on northwest; as well as towards Damm and its Bridge northeast, where Friedrich will soon

be, and towards Custrin southwest, where he lately was, each a five or six miles from Zorndorf.

"Such is the poor moorland tract of Country; Zorndorf the centre of it,where the battle is likely to

be:Zorndorf and environs a bare quasiisland among these woods; extensive bald crown of the landscape,

girt with a frizzle of firwoods all round. Boggy pools there are, especially on the western side (all drained in

our time). Mutzel, or north side, is of course the lowest in level: and accordingly," what is much to be marked

by readers here, "from the south, or Zorndorf side, at wide intervals, there saunter along, in a slow obscure

manner, Three miserable continuous Leakages, or oozy Threads of Water, all making for Quartschen, to north

or northwest, there to disembogue into the Mutzel. Each of these has its little Hollow; of which the

westernmost, called Zabern Hollow (ZABERNGRUND), is the most considerable, and the most important to

us here: GALGENGRUND (GallowsHollow) is also worth naming in this Battle; the third Leakage, though

without importance, invites us to name it, HOSEBRUCH, quasi STOCKING quagmire,because you can

use no stockings there, except with manifest disadvantage."Take this other concluding trait:

... "Inexpressible fringe of marsh, two or three miles broad, mostly bottomless, woven with sluggish creeks

and stagnant pools, borders the Warta for many miles towards Landsberg; CustrinLandsberg Causeway the

alone sure footing in it; after which, the country rises insensibly, but most beneficially, and is mainly drier till

you get to the Mutzel again, and find the same fringe of mud lacework again, Zorndorf we called the crown

of it. Tamsel, Wilkersdorf, Klein Kamin, Gross Kamin, and other places known to us, lie on the dry turffuel

country, but looking over close upon the hem of that marshfringe, and no doubt getting peats, wild ducks,

Thursday, August 24th, Friedrich is again speeding on; occupying Darmutzel and other crossingplaces of

the Mutzel; [Mitchell to Holderness, "DErmItzel, 24th August, 1758" (MEMOIRS AND PAPERS, i. 425; Ib.

ii. 4047, Mitchell's Private Journal).] by no means himself crossing there; on the contrary, carefully

breaking all the Bridges before he go ("No retreat for those Russian vagabonds, only death or surrender for

them!")himself not intending to cross till he be up at Damm, Neu Damm, well eastward of his Russians,

and have got them all pinfolded between Mutzel and Oder in that way. In the evening, he reaches Damm and

the Mill of Damm, some three or four miles higher up the Mutzel;and there pushes partly across at once.

That is to say, his vanguard at once, and takes a defensive position; his Artillery and other Divisions by

degrees, in the silent night hours; and, before daybreak tomorrow, every soul will be across, and the Bridge

Fermor's roving Cossack clouds seldom bring him in intelligence; but only return stained with charcoal grime

and red murder: up to late last night, he had not known where Friedrich was at all; had idly thought him busy

with the Schaumburg Redoubt, on the other side of Oder, fencing and precautioning: but now (night of the

23d), these Cossacks do come in with news, "Indisputable to our poor minds, the Prussians are at Klossow

yonder,captured a dozen green vagabonds of us, and have sent us galloping!"which news, with the night

Instantly he raises the siege of Custrin, any siege there was; gets his immense baggagetrain shoved off that

night to Klein Kamin, Landsberg way; summons the force from Landsberg to join him without loss of a

moment;and in the meanwhile pitches himself in long bivouac in the Drewitz Wood or FirHeath, with the

quaggy Zaberngrund in front. Quaggy Zaberngrund,do readers remember it; one of those "Three

continuous Leakages," very important, to Fermor and us at present? This is the safest place Fermor can find

for himself; scraggy firs around, good quagmires and Zabern Hollow in front; looking to the east, waiting

what a new day will bring. That was Fermor's posture, while Friedrich quitted Klossow in the dawn of the

24th. Be busy, ye Cossack doggeries; return with news, not with mere grime and marks of blood on your

Evening of the 24th, Cossacks report that Friedrich has got to Damm Mill; has hold of the Bridge there; and

may be looked for, sure as the daylight, tomorrow. Fermor is 50,000 odd, his Landsberg forces all coming

in; one Detachment out Stettin way, which cannot come in; Fermor finds that his baggagetrain is fairly on

the road to Klein Kamin;and that he will have to quit this bosky bivouac, and fight for himself in the open

Artless Fermor draws out to the open ground, north of Zorndorf, south of Quartschen; arranges himself in

huge quadrilateral mass, with his "staffbaggage" (lighter baggage) in the centre, and his front, so to speak,

everywhere. [Excellent Plan of him, or rather Plans, in his successive shapes, in Tielcke, ii. (PLATES 4, 5, 6,

7, 8).] Mass, say two miles long by one mile broad; but it is by no means regular, and has many zigzags

according to the ground, and narrows and droops southward on the eastern end: one of the most artless

arrangements; but known to Fermor, and the readiest on this pinch of time. Munnich devised this

quadrilateral mode; and found it good against the Turks, and their deluges of raging horse and foot: Fermor

could perhaps do better; but there is such a press of hurry. Fermor's western flank, or biggest breadth of

quadrilateral, leans on that Zabern Hollow, with its fine quagmires; his eastern, narrowest part, droops down

on certain mudpools and conveniences towards Zicher. Gallows Hollow, a slighter than the Zabern, runs

through the centre of him; and with his best people he fronts towards the Mutzel Bridges, especially towards

DammMill Bridge whence Friedrich will emerge, sure as the sunrise, one knows not with what issue.

Artless Fermor is nothing daunted; nor are his people; but stand patiently under arms, regardless of future and

Friday, August 25th, by halfpast three in the morning, Friedrich is across the Mutzel; self and Infantry by

DammMutzel Bridge, cavalry by another Bridge (KERSTENBRUGGE, means "Christian Bridge," in the

dialect of Charlemagne's time, a very old arrangement of Successive Logs up there!) some furlongs higher

up. The Bridge at Damm is perhaps some three miles from the nearest Russians about Zicher; but Friedrich

has no thought of attacking Fermor there; he has a quite other program laid, and will attack Fermor precisely

on the side opposite to there. Friedrich's intention is to sweep quite round this monstrous Russian

quadrilateral; to break in upon it on the western flank, and hurl it back upon Mutzel and its quagmires. He has

broken his two bridges after passing, all bridges are gone there, and the country is bottomless: surrender at

discretion if once you are driven thither! And Friedrich's own retreat, if he fail, is short and open to Custrin.

"Admirable," say the Critics, "and altogether in Friedrich's style!"Friedrich, adds one Critic, was not aware

that the Russian HeavyBaggage Train, which is their powderflask and breadbasket and staff of life, lies at

Klein Kamin, within few miles on his left just now, Russians themselves on his right; that the Russians could

have been abolished from those countries without fighting at all! [Retzow, i. 305329.] This is very true.

Friedrich's haste is great, his humor hot; and he has not heard of this KleinKamin fact, which in common

times he would have done, and of which in a calmer mood he would, with a fine scientific gusto, have taken

Friedrich pours incessant southward; cavalry parallel to infantry and a certain distance beyond it, eastward of

it; and they have burnt the Bridges; which is a curious fact! Continually southward, as if for Tamsel:poor

old Tamsel, do readers recollect it at all, does Friedrich at all? No pleasant dinner, or lilyandrose

complexions, there for one today!Some distance short of Tamsel, Friedrich, emerging, turns

westward;intending what on earth? thinks Fermor. Friedrich has been mostly hidden by the woods all this

while, and enigmatic to Fermor. Fermor does now at last see the color of the facts;and that one's chief front

must change itself to southward, one's best leg and arm be foremost, or towards Zorndorf, not towards the

Mutzel as hitherto. Fermor stirs up his Quadrilateral, makes the required change, "You, best or northern line,

step across, and front southward; across to southward, I say; secondbest go northward in their stead:" and

so, with some other slight polishings, suggested by the ground and phenomena, we anew await this Prussian

Enigma with our best leg foremost. The march or circular sweep of these Prussian lines, from Damm Bridge

through the woods and champaign to their appointed place of action, is seven or eight miles; lines when

Friedrich pours steadily along, horse and foot, by the rear cf Wilkersdorf, of Zorndorf,Russian Minotaur

scrutinizing him in that manner with dull bloodshot eyes, uncertain what he will do. It is eight in the morning,

hot August; wind a mere lull, but southernly if any. Small Hussar pickets ride to right of the main Army

March; to keep the Cossacks in check: who are roving about, all on wing; and pert enough, in spite of the

Hussar pickets, Desperado individuals of them gallop up to the Infantry ranks, and fire off their pistols

there,without reply; reply or firing, till the word come, is strictly forbidden. Infantry pours along, like a

ploughman drawing his furrow, heedless of the circling crows. Crows or Cossacks, finding they are not

regarded, set fire to Zorndorf, and gallop off. Zorndorf goes up readily, mainly wood and straw; rolls in big

clouds of smoke far northward in upon the Russian Minotaur, making him still blinder in the important

Friedrich rides up to view the Zabern Hollow: "Beyond expectation deep; very boggy too, with its foul

leakage or brook: no attacking of their western flank through this Zaberngrund;attack the corner of them,

then; here on the southwest!" That is Friedrich's rapid resource. The lines halt, accordingly; make ready.

Behind flaming Zorndorf stands his extreme left, which is to make the attack; infantry in front; horse to rear

and farther leftwards,and under the command of Seidlitz in this quarter, which is an important

circumstance. Right wing, reaching to behind Wilkersdorf, is to refuse itself; whole force of centre is to push

upon that Russian corner, to support the left in doing it;according to the Leuthen or LEUCTRA principle,

The first division of the Prussian Infantry, or extreme Left, marches forward by the west end of flaming

Zorndorf; next division, which should stand close to right of it, or even behind it in action, and follow it close

into the Russian fire, has to march by the east end of Zorndorf; this is a farther road, owing to the flames; and

not a lucky one. Second division could never get into fair contact with that first division again: that was the

mistake: and it might have been fatal, but was not, as we shall see. First division has got clear of Zorndorf, in

advancing towards its Russian business;is striding forward, its left flank safe against the Zaberngrund;

steadily by fixed stages, against the fated Russian Corner, which is its point of attack. First division, second

division, are clear of Zorndorf, though with a wide gap between them; are steadily striding forward towards

the Russian Corner. Two strong batteries, wide apart, have planted themselves ahead; and are playing upon

the Russian Quadrilateral, their fires crossing at the due Corner yonder, with terrible effect; Russian artillery,

which are multitudinous and all gathered down to this southwestern corner, are responding, though with their

fire spread, and far less effectual. The Prussian line steps on, extreme left perhaps in too animated a manner;

their cannon batteries enfilade the thick mass of Russians at a frightful rate ("forty two men of a certain

regiment blown away by a single ball," in one instance [Tielcke.]), drive the interior baggagehorses to

despair: a very agitated Quadrilateral, under its grim canopy of cannon smoke, and of straw smoke, heaped

on it from the Zorndorf side here. Manteuffel, leader of that first or leftmost division, sees the internal

simmering; steps forward still more briskly, to firing distance; begins his platoon thunder, with the due steady

fury, had the second division but got up to support Manteuffel! The second division is in fire too; but not

Fermor notices the gap, the wavering of Manteuffel unsupported; plunges out in immense torrent, horse and

foot, into the gap, into Manteuffel's flank and front; hurls Manteuffel back, who has no support at hand:

"ARAH, ARAH (Hurrah, Hurrah)! Victory, Victory!" shout the Russians, plunging wildly forward, sweeping

all before them, capturing twentysix pieces of cannon, for one item. What a moment for Friedrich; looking

on it from some knoll somewhere near Zorndorf, I suppose; hastily bidding Seidlitz strike in: "Seidlitz, now!"

The hurrahing Russians cannot keep rank at that rate of going. like a buffalo stampede; but fall into heaps and

gaps: Seidlitz, with a swiftness, with a dexterity beyond praise, has picked his way across that quaggy Zabern

Hollow; falls, with say 5,000 horse, on the flank of this big buffalo stampede; tumbles it into instant

ruin;which proves irretrievable, as the Prussian Infantry come on again, and back Seidlitz.

In fifteen minutes more (I guess it now to be ten o'clock), the Russian Minotaur, this end of it, on to the

Gallows Ground, is one wild mass. Seldom was there seen such a charge; issuiug in such deluges of wreck, of

chaotic flight, or chaotic refusal to fly. The Seidlitz cavalry went sabring till, for very fatigue, they gave it up,

and could no more. The Russian horse fled to Kutzdorf, Fermor with them, who saw no more of this Fight,

and did not get back till dark;had not the Bridges been burnt, and no crossing of the Mutzel possible,

Fermor never would have come back, and here had been the end of Zorndorf. Luckier if it had! But there is

no crossing of the Mutzel, there is only drowning in the quagmires there:death any way; what can be done

The Russian infantry stand to be sabred, in the above manner, as if they had been dead oxen. More remote

from Seidlitz, they break open the sutlers' brandycasks, and in few minutes get roaring drunk. Their officers,

desperate, split the brandycasks; soldiers flap down to drink it from the puddles; furiously remonstrate with

their officers, and "kill a good many of them" (VIELE, says Tielcke), especially the foreign sort. "A frightful

bloodbath," by all the Accounts: bloodbath, brandybath, and chief Nucleus of Chaos then extant

aboveground. Fermor is swept away: this chaos, the very Prussians drawing back from it, wearied with

massacring, lasts till about one o'clock. Up to the Gallowsground the Minotaur is mere wreck and delirium:

but beyond the Gallowsground, the other half forms a new front to itself; becomes a new Minotaur, though

in reduced shape. This is Part First of the Battle of Zorndorf; Friedrichon the edge of great disaster at one

moment, but miraculously savedhas still the other half to do (unlucky that he left no Bridges on the

Half of the Minotaur is gone to shreds in this manner; but the attack upon it, too, is spent: what is to be done

with the other half of the monster, which is again alive; which still stands, and polypuslike has arranged a

new life for itself, a new front against the Galgengrund yonder? Friedrich brings his right wing into action.

Rapidly arranges right wing, centre, all of the left that is disposable, with batteries, with cavalry; for an attack

on the opposite or southeastern end of his monster. If your monster, polypuslike, come alive again in the

tailpart, you must fell that other head of him. Batteries, well in advance, begin work upon the new head of

the monster, which was once his tail; fresh troops, long lines of them, pushing forward to begin

platoonvolleying: time now, I should guess, about halfpast two. Our infantry has not yet got within

musketrange,when torrents of Russian Horse, Foot too following, plunge out; wideflowing, stormfully

swift; and dash against the coming attack. Dash against it; stagger it; actually tumble it back, in the centre

part; take one of the batteries, and a whole battalion prisoners. Here again is a moment! Friedrich, they say,

rushed personally into this vortex; rallied these broken battalions, again rallied and led them up; but it was to

no purpose: they could not be made to stand, these centre battalions; "some sudden panic in them, a thing

unaccountable," says Tempelhof; "they are Dohna's people, who fought perfectly at Jagersdorf, and often

elsewhere" (they were all in such a finely burnished state the other day; but have not biting talent, like the

grassdevils): enough, they fairly scour away, certain disgraceful battalions, and are not got ranked again till

below Wilkersdorf, above a mile off; though the grassdevils, on both hands of them, stand grimly steady,

What would have become of the affair one knows not, if it had not been that Seidlitz once more made his

appearance. On Friedrich's order, or on his own, I do not know; but sure it is, Seidlitz, with sixtyone

squadrons, arriving from some distance, breaks in like a DEUS EX MACHINA, swift as the stormwind,

upon this Russian Horse torrent; drives it again before him like a mere torrent of chaff, back, ever back, to

the shore of Acheron and the Stygian quagmires (of the Mutzel, namely); so that it did not return again; and

the Prussian infantry had free field for their platoon exercise. Their rage against the Russians was extreme;

and that of the Russians corresponded. Three of these grassdevil battalions, who stood nearest to Dohna's

runaways, were natives of this same burnt out Zorndorf Country; we may fancy the PlattTeutsch hearts of

them, and the sacred lightning, with a moisture to it, that was in their eyes. PlattTeutsch platooning,

bayonetcharging,on such terms no Russian or mortal Quadrilateral can stand it. The Russian Minotaur

goes all to shreds a second time; but will not run. "No quarter!""Well, then, none!"

"Shortly after four o'clock," say my Accounts, "the firing," regular firing, "altogether ceased; ammunition

nearly spent, on both sides; Prussians snatching cartridgeboxes of Russian dead;" and then began a tug of

deadly massacring and wrestling man to man, "with bayonets, with butts of muskets, with hands, even with

teeth [in some Russian instances], such as was never seen before." The Russians, beaten to fragments, would

not run: whither run? Behind is Mutzel and the bog of Acheron;on Mutzel is no bridge left; "the shore of

Mutzel is thick with men and horses, who have tried to cross, and lie there swallowed in the ooze""like a

pavement," says Tielcke. The Russians,never was such VIS INERTIAE as theirs now. They stood like

sacks of clay, like oxen already dead; not even if you shot a bullet through them, would they fall at once, says

Complete disorder reigned on both sides; except that the Prussians could always form again when bidden, the

Russians not. This lasted till nightfall,Russians getting themselves shoved away on these horrid terms, and

obstinate to take no other. Towards dark, there appeared, on a distant knoll, something like a ranked body of

them again,some 2,000 foot and half as many horse; whom Themicoud (superlative Swiss Cossack,

usually written Demikof or Demikow) had picked up, and persuaded from the shore of Acheron, back to this

knoll of vantage, and some cannon with them. Friedrich orders these to be dispersed again: General Forcade,

with two battalions, taking the front of them, shall attack there; you, General Rauter, bring up those Dohna

fellows again, and take them in flank. Forcade pushes on, Rauter too,but at the first taste of cannon shot,

these poor Dohnapeople (such their now flurried, disgraced state of mind) take to flight again, worse than

before; rush quite through Wilkersdorf this time, into the woods, and can hardly be got together at all.

Scandalous to think of. No wonder Friedrich "looked always askance on those regiments that had been beaten

at Gross Jagersdorf, and to the end of his life gave them proofs of it:" [Retzow;and still more emphatically,

Briefe eines alten Preussischen Officiers (Hohenzollern, 1790), i. 34, ii. 52, very natural, if the rest were like

Of poor General Rauter, Tempelhof and the others, that can help it, are politely silent; only Saxon Tielcke

tells us, that Friedrich dismissed him, "Go, you, to some other trade!"which, on Prussian evidence too,

expressed in veiled terms, I find to be the fact: MilitairLexikon, obliged to have an article on Rauter, is very

brief about it; hints nothing unkind; records his personal intrepidity; and says, "in 1758 he, on his request, had

Forcade, left to himself, kept cannonading Themicoud; Themicoud responding, would not go; stood on his

knoll of vantage, but gathered no strength: "Let him stand," said Friedrich, after some time; and Themicoud

melted in the shades of night, gradually towards the hither shore of Acheron,that is, of AcheronMutzel,

none now attempting to PAVE it farther, but simmering about at their sad leisure there. Feldmarschall Fermor

is now got to his people again, or his people to him; reunited in place and luck: such a chaos as Fermor never

saw before or after. No regiment or battalion now is; mere simmering monads, this fine Army; officers doing

their utmost to cobble it into something of rank, without regard to regiments or qualities. Darkness seldom

Wild Cossack parties are scouring over all parts of the field; robbing the dead, murdering the wounded; doing

arson, too, wherever possible; and even snatching at the Prussian cannon left rearwards, so that the Hussars

have to go upon them again. One large mass of them plundering in the Hamlet of Zicher, the Hussars

surrounded: the Cossacks took to the outhouses; squatted, ran, called in the aid of fire, their constant friend:

above 400 of them were in some big barn, or range of straw houses; and set fire to it,but could not get out

for Hussars; the Hussars were at the outgate: Not a devil of you! said the Hussars; and the whole four

hundred perished there, choked, burnt, or slain by the Hussars,and this poor Planet was at length rid of

Friedrich sends for his tentequipages; and the Army pitches its camp in two big lines, running north and

south, looking towards the Russian side of things; Friedrich's tent in front of the first line; a warrior King

among his people, who have had a day's work of it. The Russian loss turns out, when counted, to have been

21,529 killed, wounded and missing, 7,990 of them killed; the Prussian sumtotal is 11,390 (above the

Prussian third man), of whom 3,680 slain. And on the shores of Acheron northward yonder, there still is a

simmering. And far and wide the country is alight with incendiary fires,many devils still abroad.

Excellency Mitchell, about eight in the evening, is sent for by the King; finds various chief Generals, Seidlitz

among them, on their various businesses there; congratulates "on the noble victory [not so conclusive

hitherto] which Heaven has granted your Majesty." "Had it not been for him," said Friedrich,"Had it not

been for him, things would have had a bad look by this time!" and turned his suneyes upon Seidlitz, with a

fine expression in them. [Preuss, ii. 153. Mitchell (ii. 432) mentions the Interview, nothing of Seidlitz.] To

which Seidlitz's reply, I find, was an embarrassed blush and of articulate only, "Hm, no, ha, it was your

Majesty's Cavalry that did their duty,but Wakenitz [my second] does deserve promotion!" which

Fermor, during the nightwatches, having cobbled himself into some kind of ranks or rows, moves down

well westward of Zabern Hollow; to the Drewitz Heath, where he once before lay, and there makes his

bivouac in the wood, safe under the firtrees, with the Zabern ground to front of him. By the above

reckoning, 28 or 29,000 still hang to Fermor, or float vaporously round him; with Friedrich, in his two lines,

are some 18,000:in whole, 46,000 tired mortals sleeping thereabouts; near 12,000 others have fallen into a

deeper sleep, not liable to be disturbed;and of the wounded on the field, one shudders to imagine.

Next day, Saturday, 26th, Fermor, again brought into some kind of rank, and safe beyond the quaggy Zabern

ground, sent out a proposal, "That there be Truce of Three Days for burying the dead!"Dohna, who

happened to be General in command there, answers, "That it is customary for the Victor to take charge of

burying the slain; that such proposal is surprising, and quite inadmissible, in present circumstances." Fermor,

in the mean while, had drawn himself out, fronting his late battlefield and the morning sun; and began

cannonading across the Zabern ground; too far off for hitting, but as if still intending fight: to which the

Prussians replied with cannon, and drew out before their tents in fighting order. In both armies there was

question, or talk, of attacking anew; but in both "there was want of ammunition," want of real likelihood. On

Fermor's side, that of "attacking" could be talk only, and on Friedrich's, besides the scarcity of ammunition,

all creatures, foot and especially horse, were so worn out with yesterday's work, it was not judged practically

expedient. A while before noon, the Prussians retired to their Camp again; leaving only the artillery to

respond, so far as needful, and bowwow across the Zabern ground, till the Russians lay down again.

Friedrich's Hussars knew of the Russian WAGENBURG, or general baggage reservoirs, at Klein Kamin, by

this time. The Hussars had been in it, last night; rummaging extensively, at discretion for some time; and had

brought away much money and portable plunder. Why Friedrich, who lay direct between Fermor and his

Wagenburg, did not, this day, extinguish said Wagenburg, I do not know; but guess it may have been a fault

of omission, in the great welter this was now grown to be to the weary mind. Beyond question, if one had

blown up Fermor's remaining gunpowder, and carried off or burnt his mealsacks, he must have cowered

away all the faster towards Landsberg to seek more. Or perhaps Friedrich now judged it immaterial, and a

About midnight of SaturdaySunday, there again rose bowwowing, bellowing of Russian cannon; not from

beyond the Zabern ground this time, nor stationary anywhere, but from the south some transient part of it, and

not far off;one ball struck a carriage near the King's tent, and shattered it. Thick mist mantles everything,

and it is difficult to know what the Russians have on hand in their sylvan seclusions. After a time, it becomes

manifest the Russians are on retreat; winding round, through the southern woods, behind Zorndorf and the

charred Villages, to Klein Kamin, Landsberg way. Friedrich, following now on the heel of them, finds all got

to Klein Kamin, to breakfast there in their Wagenburg refectory, sharply vigilant, many FLECHES (little

arrowshaped redoubts, so named) and much artillery round them. Nothing considerable to be done upon

them, now or afterwards, except pick up stragglers, and distress their rear a little. The King himself, in the

first movement, was thought to be in alarming peril, such a blaze of caseshot rose upon him, as he went

reconnoitring foremost of all. [Tempelhof, ii. 216238; Tielcke, ii. 79154; Archenholtz, i. 253264;

HeldenGeschichte, v. 156179 (with many LISTS, private LETTERS and the like details);

And this was, at last, the end of Zorndorf Battle; on the third day this. Was there ever seen such a fight of

Theseus and the Minotaur! Theseus, rapid, dexterous, with Heaven's lightning in his eyes, seizing the

Minotaur; lassoing him by the hinder foot, then by the right horn; pouring steel and destruction into him, the

very dust darkening all the air. Minotaur refusing to die when killed; tumbling to and fro upon its Theseus;

the two lugging and tugging, flinging one another about, and describing figures of 8 round each other for

three days before it ended. Minotaur walking off on his own feet, after all. It was the bloodiest battle of the

SevenYears War; one of the most furious ever fought; such rage possessing the individual elements; rage

unusual in modern wars. Must have altered Friedrich's notion of the Russians, when he next comes to speak

with Keith. It was not till the fourth day hence (August 31st), so unattackably strong was this position at

Klein Kamin, that the Russian Minotaur would fairly get to its feet a second time, and slowly stagger off, in

real earnest, Landsberg way and Konigsberg way;Friedrich right glad to leave Dohna in attendance on it;

and hasten off (September 2d) towards Saxony and Prince Henri, where his presence is now become very

Fermor, walking off in this manner,not till the third day, nay not conclusively till the seventh day, after

Zorndorf,strove at first to consider himself victorious. "I passed the night on the field of battle [or NOT far

from it, for good reasons, Mutzel being bridgeless]: may not I, in the language of enthusiasm, be considered

conqueror? Here are 26 of their cannon, got when I cried 'Arah' prematurely. (Where the 103 pieces of my

own are, and my 27 flags, and my Armychest and sundries? Dropped somewhere; they will probably turn

up again!)" thinks Fermor,or strives to think, and says. So that, at Petersburg, at Paris and Vienna, in the

next three weeks, there were TEDEUMS, Ambrosian chantings, firesof joy; and considerable arguing

among the Gazetteers on both parts, till the dust settled, and facts appeared as they were. To the effect:

"TE DEUM non LAUDAMUS; alas no, we must retract; and it was good gunpowder thrown after bad!"

On always homewards, but at its own pace, waited on by Dohna, goes the Russian Monster: violently

caseshotting if you prick into its rearward parts. One Palmbach,under Romanzow, I think, who had not

taken part in the Battle, being out Stettin way, and unable to join till now,Palmbach, with a Detachment of

15,000, which was thought sufficient for the object, did try to make a dash on Colberg,how happy had we

any port on the Baltic, to feed us in this Country! But though Colberg is the paltriest crow'snest

(BICOQUE), according to all engineers, and is defended only by 700 militia (the Colonel of them, one

Heyde, a gray old Halfpay, not yet renowned in the soldier world, as he here came to be), Palmbach, with

his best diligence, could make nothing of it; but, after battering, bombarding, even scalading, and in all ways

blurting and blazing at a mighty rate for four weeks, and wasting a great deal of gunpowder and 2,000

Russian lives, withdrew on those remarkable terms. [In HeldenGeschichte, v. 349365 ("3d3lst October,

1758"), a complete and minute JOURNAL of this First Siege of Colberg, which is interesting to read of, as all

the Three of them are.] And did then, as tail of Fermor, what Fermor and the Russian Monster was

universally doing, make off at a good pace,having nothing to live upon farther,and vanish from those

September 2d, Friedrich, leaving all that, had marched for Saxony; his presence urgently required there. Daun

ought to be far on with the conquest of that Country? Might have had it, say judges, if he had been as swift as

some.At Zorndorf, among the Russian Prisoners were certain Generals, Soltikof, Czernichef, Sulkowski

the Pole, proud people in their own eyes: no lodging for them but the cellars of Custrin. Russian Generals

complained, "Is this a lodging for FieldOfficers of rank!" Friedrich was not used to profane swearing, or

vituperative outbursts; but he answered to the effect: "Silence, ye incendiary individuals. Is there a choice left

of lodgings, and for you above others!" Upon which they lay silent for some days, till better suited; in fact,

So soon as Friedrich quitted Bohemia and Silesia for his Russian Enterprise, there rose high question at

Vienna, "To what shall our Daun now turn himself?" A Daun, a Reichs Army, free for new employment; in

Saxony not much to oppose them, in Silesia almost nothing in comparison. "Recapture of Silesia?" Yes truly;

that is the steady polestar at Vienna. But they have no Magazines in Silesia, no Siegefurnitures; and the

season is far spent. They decide that there shall be a stroke upon Dresden, and recovery of Saxony, in

Friedrich's absence. Nothing there at present but a Prince Henri, weak in numbers, say one to two of the

Reichs Army by itself. Let the Reichs Army rise now, and advance through the Metal Mountains from

southeast on Prince Henri; let Daun circle round on him, through the Lausitz from northeast: cannot they

extinguish Henri between them; snatch Dresden, a weak illfortified place, by sudden onslaught, and

recapture Saxony? That will be magnanimous to our august Allies;and that will be an excellent scaffolding

for recapture of Silesia next year. And cannot Daun leave a Force in the Silesian vicinities,Deville with so

many thousands, Harsch with so many,to besiege one of their Frontier Places; Neisse, for example?

Siegefurnitures to come from Mahren: Neisse is not farther from Olmutz than Olmutz was from it.

That was the scheme fallen upon; now getting executed while Friedrich is at Zorndorf well away. And that, if

readers fix it intelligently in their memory, will suffice to introduce to them the few words more that can be

allowed us here upon it. A very few words, compressed to the utmost,merely as preface to Hochkirch,

whither we must hasten; Hochkirch being the one incident which, except to studious soldiers, has now and

here any interest, out of the very many incidents which, then and there, were so intensely interesting to all

mankind. To readers who are curious, and will take with them any poorest authentic Outline of the Localities

"Daun, pushing out with his best speed, along the BohemianSilesian border, had got to Zittau AUGUST

17th; which poor City is to be his basis and storehouse; the greatest activity and wagoning now visible

there,"among the burnt walls getting rebuilt. And in the same days, Zweibruck and his Reichs Army are

vigorously afoot; Zweibruck pushing across the Metal Mountains, the fastest he can; intending to plant

himself in Pirna Country. Not to mention General Dombale, Zweibruck's Austrian Second; who has the

Austrian 15,000 with him; and, by way of preface, has emerged to westward, in ZwickauTschopau Country;

calculating that Prince Henri will not be able to attend to him just now. And in effect Prince Henri, intent

upon Zweibruck and the Pirna Country, takes position in the old Prussian ground there ('headquarter Gross

Seidlitz,' as in 1756); and can only leave a Detachment in Tschopau Country to wait upon Dombale; who

does at least shoot out Croat parties, 'quite across Saxony, to Halle all the way,' and entertain the Gazetteers,

"AUGUST 19th, from Zittau, Daun, after short pause, again pushes forward,nothing but Ziethen attending

him in the distance, till we see whitherward;Margraf Karl waiting impatient, at Grussau, till Ziethen see.

[Tempelhof, ii. 258, 260 et seq.] Daun, soon after Zittau, shoots out Loudon, Brandenburg way, as if

magnanimously intending 'cooperation with the Russians;' which would give Daun pleasure, could it be

done without cost. Loudon does despatch a 500 hussars to Frankfurt [Friedrich now gone for Custrin], who, I

think, carry a Letter for Fermor there; but lose it by the way,"for the benefit of readers, if they will wait.

"Loudon captures a poor little place in Brandenburg itself; bullies it into surrender, after a day (the very day

of Zorndorf Battle, 'August 25th'):place called Peitz, garrisoned by forty five invalids; who go on 'free

withdrawal,' poor old souls, and leave their exiguous stock of saltvictual and military furnitures to Loudon.

[In HeldenGeschichte, v. 229232, the "Capitulation" IN EXTENSO.] Upon which Loudon whirls back out

of those Countries; finding his skirts trodden on by Ziethen,who now sees what Daun and he are at; and

warns Margraf Karl [properly Keith, who has now joined again, as real president or chief] That HITHER is

the way. Margraf Karl, on the slip for some time past, starts from Grussau instantly (I should guess, not above

25,000 of all arms); leaving Fouquet with perhaps 10,000 to do his utmost, when Generals Harsch and

Deville with their 20 or 30,000 come upon Silesia and him,as indeed they are already doing; already

blockading Neisse, more or less, with an eye to besieging it so soon as possible.

"Meanwhile, Serene Highness of Zweibruck, the Reichsfolk and some Austrians with him, prefaced by

Dombale more to westward, is wending into Pirna Country; and, in spite of what Prince Henri can do (Mayor

and the Free Corps shining diligent, and Henri one of the watchfulest of men), Zweibruck does get in; sets

Maguire with Austrians upon besieging Pirna, that is to say, the Sonnenstein of Pirna; 3d5th SEPTEMBER,

gets the Sonnenstein, a thought sooner than was counted on; [In HeldenGeschichte, v. 223228, account of

this poor Siege, and of the movements before and after.] and roots himself there,'headquarters in

Struppen' again, 'bridge at OberRaden' again, all as in 1756; which, if nothing else can well do it, may give

his Highness a momentary interest with some readers here. Prince Henri is at Gross Seidlitz, alive every fibre

of him: but with Daun circling round to northward on his left, intending evidently to take him in flank or rear;

with Dombale already to rear, in the above circumstances, on his right; and Zweibruck himself lying here in

front free to act, and impregnable if acted upon: what is Prince Henri to do? It is for Henri's rear, not his

flank, that Daun aims: AUGUST 26th, Daun, who had got to Gorlitz, a march or two from Zittau, started

again at his best step by the Bautzen Highway towards Meissen Bridge, a 70 or 80 miles down the Elbe: there

Daun intends to cross, and to double back upon Dresden and Prince Henri; who will thus find himself

enclosed between THREE fires,if two were not enough, or even if one (the Daun one itself, or the

Zweibruck itself, not to count the Dombale), in such strength as Prince Henri has!

"A lost Prince Henri,if there be not shift in him, if there be not help coming to him! Prince Henri, seeing

how it was, drew back from Gross Seidlitz; with beautiful suddenness, one night; unmolested: in the

morning, Zweibruch's hussars find him posted inexpugnable on the Heights of Gahmig,which is nearer

Dresden a good step; nearer Dombale; and not so ready to be enclosed by Daun, without enclosure of

Dresden too. Prince Henri's manoeuvring, in this difficult situation, is the admiration of military men: how he

stuck by Gahmig; but threw out, in the vital points, little camps, 'camp of Kesselsdorf' (a place

memorable), on the west of Dresden; and on the east, in the north suburb of Dresden itself across the River

(should we have to go across the River for Daun's sake), a 'strong abatis;' and neglected nothing; self and

everybody under him, lively as eagles to make themselves dangerous, Mayer in particular distinguishing

himself much. Prince Henri would have been a hard morsel for Daun. But beyond that, there is help on the

Daun, since August 26th, is striding towards Meissen Bridge; without rest, day after day, at the very top of

his speed,which I find is "nine miles a day;" [Tempelhof, ii. 261.] Bos being heavy of foot, at his best.

September 1st, Daun has got within ten miles of Meissen Bridge, whenHere is news, my friends; King of

Prussia has beaten our poor Russians; will soon be in full march this way! King of Prussia and Margraf Karl

both bending hitherward; at the rate, say, of "nineteen miles a day," instead of nine:Meissen Bridge is not

the thing we shall want! Daun instantly calls halt, at this news; waits, intrenches; and, in a day or two, finding

the news true, hurries to rearward all he can. From the Russian side too, Daun has heard of Zorndorf, and the

grand "Victory" of Fermor there; but knows well, by this sudden reemergence of the Anti Fermor, what

Was it here while waiting about Meissen, or where was it, that Daun got his Letter to Fermor answered in that

singular way? The Letter of two weeks ago,carried by Loudon's Hussars, or by whomsoever, for certain,

it was retorted or returned upon Daun; not as if from the DeadLetter Office, but with an Answer he little

expected! Here is what record I have; very vague for a wellknown little fact of sparkling nature:

"A curious Letter fell into Friedrich's hands [Bearer, I always guess, the Loudon HussarCaptain with his

500, pretending to form junction with Fermor], Prussian Hussars picking it up somewhere, date, place,

circumstances, blurred into oblivion in those poor Books; Letter itself indisputable enough, and Answer

"Your Excellenz does not know that wily Enemy as I do. By no means get into battle with such a one.

Cautiously manoeuvre about; detain him there, till I have got my stroke in Saxony done: don't try fighting

"Your Excellenz was in the right to warn me against a cunning Enemy, whom you knew better than I. Here

have I tried fighting him, and got beaten. Your unfortunate "FERMOR." [Muller, Kurzgefasste Beschreibung

der drei Schlesischen Kriege (Berlin, 1755); in whom, alone of all the reporters, is the story given in an

intelligible form. This Muller's Book is a meritoriously brief Summary, incorrect in no essential particular,

and with all the BattlePlans on one copperplate: LIEUTENANT Muller, this one; not PROFESSOR Muller,

September 9th, Friedrich and Margraf Karl, correct to their appointment, meet at Grossenhayn, some miles

north of Meissen and its Bridge; by which time Daun is clean gone again, back well above Dresden again,

strongly posted at Stolpen (a place we once heard of, in General Haddick's time, last Year), well in contact

with Daun's Pirna friends across the River, and out of dangerous neighborhoods. Friedrich and the Margraf

have followed Daun at quick step; but Daun would pause nowhere, till he got to Stolpen, among the bushy

gullets and chasms. September 12th, Friedrich had speech of Henri, and the pleasure of dining with him in

Dresden. Glad to meet again, under fortunate management on both parts; and with much to speak and consult

A day or two before, there had lain (or is said to have lain) a grand scheme in Daun: Zweibruck to burst out

from Pirna by daybreak, and attack the Camp of Gahmig in front (35,000 against 20,000); Daun to cross the

River on pontoons, some hours before, under cloud of night, and be ready on rear and left flank of Gahmig

(with as many supplemental thousands as you like): what can save Prince Henri? Beautiful plan; on which

there were personal meetings and dinings together by Zweibruck and Daun; but nothing done. [Tempelhof, ii.

262265.] At the eleventh hour, say the Austrian accounts, Zweibruck sent word, "Impossible tomorrow;

cannot get in my OutParties in time!"and next day, here is Friedrich come, and a collapse of everything.

Or perhaps there never seriously was such a plan? Certain it is, Daun takes camp at Stolpen, a place known to

him, one of the strongest posts in Germany; intrenches himself to the teeth,good rearguard towards Zittau

and the Magazines; River and Pirna on our left flank; Loudon strong and busy on our right flank, barring the

road to Bautzen; and obstinately sits there, a very bad tooth in the jaw of a certain King; not to be extracted

by the best kinds of forceps and the skilfulest art, for nearly a month to come. Four Armies, Friedrich's,

Henri's, Daun's, Zweibruck's, all within swordstroke of each other,the universal Gazetteer world is on

tiptoe. But except Friedrich's eager shiftings and rubbings upon Stolpen (west side, north, and at length

Friedrich has his food convenient from Dresden; but a road to Bautzen withal is what he cannot do

without;and there lies the sorrow, and the ACHING, as this tooth knows well, and this jaw well! Harsch

and Deville are busy upon Neisse, have Neisse under blockade, perhaps upon Kosel too, for some time past,

[Neisse "blockaded more and more" since August 4th (Kosel still earlier, but only by Pandour people); not

completely so till September 30th, or even till October 26th: HeldenGeschichte, v. 268270.] and are

carting the siegestock to begin bombardment: a road to Silesia, before very long, Friedrich must and will

have. Friedrich's operations on Daun in this post are patiently artful, and curious to look upon, but beyond

description here: enough to say, that in the second week he makes his people hut themselves (weather wet

and bad); and in the fourth week, finding that nothing contrivable would provoke Daun into fighting,he

loads at Dresden provisions for I think nine days; makes, from two or from three sides, a sudden spurt upon

Loudon, who is Daun's northern outpost; brushes Loudon hastily away; and himself takes the road for

Bautzen, by Daun's right flank, thrown bare in this manner. [Tempelhof, ii. 278.]

Road for Bautzen; which is the road for Zittau withal, for Daun's breadbasket, as well as for Neisse and

Harsch! Nine days' provision; that is our small outfit, that and our own righthands; and the waste world lies

all ahead. OCTOBER 1st, Retzow, as vanguard, sweeps out the few Croats from Bautzen, deposits his

mealwagons there; occupies Hochkirch, and the hilly environs to east; is to take possession of Weissenberg

especially, and of the Stromberg Hill and other strong points: which Retzow punctually does, forgetting

nothing,except perhaps the Stromberg, not quite remembered in time; a thing of small consequence in

Hearing of which, Daun, with astonishment, finds that he must quit those beautifully chasmy fastnesses of

Stolpen, and look to his bread; which is getting to lie under the enemy's feet, if Zittau road be left yonder as it

is. OCTOBER 5th, after councils of war and deliberation enough, Daun gets under way; [Ib. ii. 279.]

cautiously, favored by a night very dark and wet, glides through to right of Friedrich's people, softly along

between Bautzen and the Pirna Country; nobody molesting him, so dark and wet: and after one other march

in those bosky solitudes, sits down at Kittlitz,ahead or to east of Bautzen, of Hochkirch, of Retzow and all

Friedrich's people;and again sets to palisading and intrenching there. Kittlitz, near Lobau, there is Daun's

new headquarter; Lobau Water, with its intricate hollows, his line of defence: his posts going out a mile to

north and to south of Kittlitz. And so sits; once more blocking Zittau road, and quietly waiting what Friedrich

Friedrich is at Bautzen since the 7th; impatient enough to be forward, but must not till a second larger

provisionconvoy from Dresden come in. Convoy once in, Friedrich hastens off, Tuesday, 10th October,

towards Weissenberg Country, where Retzow is; some ten or twelve miles to eastward,Zittauward, if that

chance to suit us; Silesiaward, as is sure to suit. At the "Pass of Jenkowitz," short way from Bautzen,

Pandours attempt our baggage; need to be battered off, and again off: which apprises Friedrich that Daun's

whole Army is ahead in the neighborhood somewhere. Marching on, Friedrich, from the knoll of Hochkirch,

shoulder of the southern Hills, gets complete view of Daun,stretching north and south, at right angles to

the Zittau roads and to Friedrich, in the way we described;and is a little surprised, and I could guess

piqued, at seeing Daun in such a state of forwardness. "Encamp here, then!" he says,here, on this row of

Heights parallel to Daun, within a mile of Daun: just here, I tell you! under the very nose of Daun, who is

above two to one of us; and see what Daun will do. Marwitz, his favorite Adjutant, one of those freespoken

Marwitzes, loyal, skilful, but liable to stiff fits, takes the liberty to remonstrate, argue; says at length, He,

Marwitz, dare not be concerned in marking out such an encampment; not he, for his poor part! And is put

under arrest; and another Adjutant does it; cannon playing on his people and him while engaged in the

Friedrich's obstinate rashness, this Tuesday Evening, has not wanted its abundant meed of blame,rendered

so emphatic by what befell on Saturday morning next. His somewhat too authoritative fixity; a certain

radiancy of selfconfidence, dangerous to a man; his sovereign contempt of Daun, as an inert dark mass, who

durst undertake nothing: all this is undeniable, and worth our recognition in estimating Friedrich. One

considerably extenuating circumstance does at last turn up,in the shape of a new piece of blame to the

erring Friedrich; his sudden anger, namely, against the meritorious General Retzow; his putting Retzow under

arrest that Tuesday Evening: "How, General Retzow? You have not taken hold of the Stromberg for me!"

That is the secret of Retzow: and on studying the ground you will find that the Stromberg, a blunt tabular

Hill, of good height, detached, and towering well up over all that region, might have rendered Friedrich's

position perfectly safe. "Seize me the Stromberg tomorrow morning, the first thing!" ordered Friedrich. And

a Detachment went accordingly; but found Daun's people already there,indisposed to go; nay determined

not to go, and getting reinforced to unlimited amounts. So that the Stromberg was left standing, and remained

Daun's; furnished with plenty of cannon by Daun. Retzow's arrest, Retzow being a steady favorite of

Friedrich's, was only of a few hours: "pardonable that oversight," thinks Friedrich, though it came to cost him

dear. For the rest, I find, Friedrich's keeping of this Camp, without the Stromberg, was intended to end, the

third day hence: "Saturday, 14th, then, since Friday proves impossible!" Friedrich had settled. And it did end

Saturday, 14th, though at an earlier HOUR, and with other results than had been expected. Keith said, "The

Austrians deserve to be hanged if they don't attack us here." "We must hope they are more afraid of us than

even of the gallows," answered Friedrich. A very dangerous Camp; untenable without the Stromberg. Let us

"Hochkirch (HIGHkirk) is an old WendishSaxon Village, standing pleasantly on its Hilltop, conspicuous

for miles round on all sides, or on all but the south side, where it abuts upon other Heights, which gradually

rise into Hills a good deal higher than it. The Village hangs confusedly, a jumble of cottages and colegarths,

on the crown and north slope of the Height; thatched, in part tiled, and built mostly of rough stone blocks, in

our time,not of wood, as probably in Friedrich's. A solid, sluttishly comfortablelooking Village; with

pleasant hayfields, or long narrow haystripes (each villager has his stripe), reaching down to the northern

levels. The Church is near the top; Churchyard, and some little space farther, are nearly horizontal ground, till

the next Height begins sloping up again towards the woody Hills southward. The view from this little

esplanade atop, still better from the Church belfry, is wide and pretty. Free on all sides except the south:

pleasant Heights and Hollows, of arable, of wood, or pasture; well watered by rushing Brooks, all making

northward, direct for Spree (the Berlin Spree), or else into the Lobau Water, which is the first big branch of

"The place is still partly of Wendish speech; the Parson has to preach one half of the Sunday in Wend, the

other in German. Among the Hills to south," well worth noting at present, "is one called CZARNABOG, or

'Devil's Hill;' where the Wendish Devil and his Witches (equal to any German on his Blocksberg, or

preternatural Bracken of the Harz) hold their annual WITCHES' SABBATH,a thing not to be

contemplated without a shudder by the Wendish mind. Thereabouts, and close from Hochkirch southward, all

is shadowy intricacy of thicket and wild wood. Northward too from Hochkirch, and all about, I perceive the

scene was woodier then than now;and must have looked picturesque enough (had anybody been in quest of

that), with the multifarious uniforms, and tented people sprinkled far and wide among the leafy

In the Village of Wuischke, precisely at the northern base of that shaggy Czarnabog or Devil's Hill, stand

Loudon and 3,000 Croats and grenadiers, as the extreme left of Daun's position. Wuischke is nearly straight

south of Hochkirch; so far westward has Loudon pushed forward with his Croats, hidden among the Hills;

though Daun's general position lies a good mile to east of Friedrich's:irregularly north and south, both

Friedrich and Daun; the former ignorant what Croats and Loudonries, there may be among those Devil's Hills

to his right; the latter not ignorant. Friedrich's right wing, Keith in command of it, stretches to Hochkirch and

a little farther: beyond Hochkirch, it has Four flank Battalions in potence form, with proper vedettes and

pickets; and above all, with a strong Battery of Twenty Guns, which it maintains on the next Height

immediately adjoining Hochkirch, and perceptibly higher than Hochkirch. This is the finis of Keith on his

right; andexcept those vedettes, and pickets of Freecorps people, thrown out a little way ahead into the

bushes, on that sideFriedrich's right wing knows nothing of the shaggy elevations horrent with wood,

which lie to southward; and merely intends to play its Twenty Cannon upon them, should they give birth to

From Hochkirch northward or nearly so, but sprinkled about in all the villages and points of strength, as far

up as Drehsa and beyond Drehsa, to near Kotitz, a less important village, Friedrich extends about four miles;

centre at Rodewitz, where his own headquarter is, above two miles north of Hochkirch. Not far from

Rodewitz, but a little to left and ahead, stands his second and best Battery, of Thirty Guns; ready to play upon

Lauska, a poor village, and its roadway, should the Austrians try anything there, or from their Stromberg

post, which is a good mile behind Lauska. His strength, in these lines, some count to be only 28,000, or less.

Four or five miles to northeast, in and behind Weissenberg (which we used to know last summer), lies

Retzow, with perhaps 10 or 12,000, which will bring him up to 40,000, were they properly joined with him as

a left wing. Daun's force counts 90,000; with Friedrich lying under his nose in this insolent manner.

Daun's headquarter, as we said, is Kittlitz; a Village some two miles short of Lobau, in the direction

southeast of Friedrich; perhaps five miles to southeast of Rodewitz, Friedrich's lodging. It is close upon the

BautzenZittau Highway; Zittau some twenty miles to south of it, Herrnhuth and the pacific Brethren about

halfway thither. Kittlitz lies more to south than Hochkirch itself; and Daun's outposts, as we saw, circle

quite round among those Devil's Hills, and envelop Friedrich's right flank. But Daun's main force lies chiefly

northward, and well to west, of Kittlitz; parallel to Friedrich, and eastward of him; with elaborate

intrenchments; every village, brook, bridge, height and bit of good ground, Stromberg to end with, punctually

secured. Obliquely over the Stromberg, holding the Stromberg and certain Villages to southeast and to

northwest of it, lies D'Ahremberg, as right wing: about 20,000 he, put into oblique potence; looking into

Kotitz, which is Friedrich's extreme left; and in a good measure dividing Friedrich from the Retzow 10,000.

And lastly, as reserve, in front of Reichenbach, eight or nine miles to east of all that, lies the Prince of

BadenDurlach, 25,000 or so; barring Retzow on that side, and all attempts on the Silesian Road there.

Daun's lines, not counting in the southern outposts or Devil'sHill parties, are considerably longer than

Friedrich's, and also considerably deeper. The two headquarters are about five miles apart: but the two

frontsdivided by a brook and good hollow running here (one of many such, making all for Lobau

Water)are not half a mile apart. Towards Hochkirch and the top of this brook, the opposing posts are quite

crammed close on one another; divided only by their hollow. Many brooks, each with a definite hollow, run

tinkling about here, swift but straitened to get out; especially Lobau Water, which receives them all, has to

take a quite meandering circling course (through Daun's quarters and beyond them) before it can disembogue

in Spree, and decidedly set out for Berlin under that new name. The Landscapeseen from Hochkirch

Village, still better from the Churchsteeple which lifts you high above it, and commands all round except to

the south, where Friedrich's batteryheight quite shuts you in, and hides even those Devil's Hills beyondis

cheerful and pretty. Village belfries, steeples and towers; airy green ridges of heights, and intricate greener

valleys: now rather barer than you like. The Tourist tells me, in Friedrich's time there must have been a great

Friedrich, for some time,probably ever since Wednesday morning, when he found the Stromberg was not

to be his,had decided to be out of this bad post. In which, clearly enough, nothing was to be done, unless

Daun would attempt something else than more and more intrenching and palisading himself. Friedrich on the

second day (Thursday, 12th) rode across to Weissenberg, to give Retzow his directions, and take view of the

ground: "Saturday night, Herr Retzow, sooner it cannot be [Friedrich had aimed at Friday night, but finds the

Provisionconvoy cannot possibly be up]; Saturday night, in all silence, we sweep round out of this,we

and you;hurl BadenDurlach about his business; and are at Schops and Reichenbach, and the Silesian

Highway open, next morning, to us!" [Tempelhof, ii. 320.] Quietly everything is speeding on towards this

consummation, on Friedrich's part. But on Daun's part there isstarted, I should guess, on the very same

Thursdayanother consummation getting ready, which is to fall out on Saturday MORNING, fifteen hours

Keith's opinion, that the Austrians deserve to be hanged if they don't attack us here, is also Loudon's opinion

and Lacy's, and indeed everybody's,and at length Daun's own; who determines to try something here, if

never before or after. This plan, all judges admit, was elaborate and good; and was well executed too,Daun

himself presiding over the most critical part of the execution. A plan to have ruined almost any Army, except

this Prussian one and the Captain it chanced to have. A universal camisado, or surprisal of Friedrich in his

Camp, before daylight: everybody knows that it took effect (Hochkirch, Saturday, 14th October, 1758, 5

A.M. of a misty morning); nobody expects of an unassisted fellowcreature much light on so doubly dark a

thing. But the truth is, there are ample accounts, exact, though very chaotic; and the thing, steadily examined,

till its essential features extricate themselves from the unessential, proves to be not quite so unintelligible, and

Daun's plan is very elaborate, and includes a great many combinations; all his 90,000 to come into it,

simultaneously or in succession. But the first and grandly vital part, mainspring and father to all the rest, is

this: That Daun, in person, after nightfall of Friday, shall, with the pick of his force, say 30,000 horse and

foot, with all their artilleries and tools, silently quit his now position in front of Hochkirch, Friedrich's right

wing. Shall sweep off, silently to southward and leftward, by Wuischke; thence westward and northward, by

the northern base of those Devil Mountains, through the shaggy hollows and thick woods there, hitherto

inhabited by Croats only, and unknown to the Prussians: forward, ever forward, through the nightwatches

that way; till he has fairly got to the flank of Hochkirch and Friedrich: Daun to be standing there, all round

from the southern environs of Hochkirch, westward through the Woods, by Meschwitz, Steindorfel, and even

north to Waditz (if readers will consult their Map), silently enclosing Friedrich, as in the bag of a net, in this

manner;ready every man and gun by about four on Saturday morning. Are to wait for the stroke of five in

Hochkirch steeple; and there and then to begin business,there first; but, on success THERE, the whole

90,000 everywhere,and to draw the strings on Friedrich, and bag and strangle his astonished people and

The difficulty has been to keep it perfectly secret from so vigilant a man as Friedrich: but Daun has

completely succeeded. Perhaps Friedrich's eyes have been a little dimmed by contempt of Daun: Daun, for

the last two days especially, has been more diligent than ever to palisade himself on every point; nothing,

seemingly, on hand but felling woods, building abatis, against some dangerous Lion'sspring. They say also,

he detected a traitor in his camp; traitor carrying Letters to Friedrich under pretence of fresh eggs,one of

the eggs blown, and a Note of Daun's Procedures substituted as yolk. "You are dead, sirrah," said Daun;

"hoisted to the highest gallows: Are not you? But put in a Note of my dictating, and your beggarly life is

saved." Retzow Junior, though there is no evidence except of the circumstantial kind, thinks this current story

may be true. [Retzow, i. 347.] Certain it is, neither Friedrich nor any of his people had the least suspicion of

Daun's project, till the moment it exploded on them, when the clock at Hochkirch struck five. Daun, in the

last two days, had been felling even more trees than they are aware of,thousands of trees in those Devil's

wildernesses to Friedrich's right; and has secretly hewn himself roads, passable by night for men and

ammunitionwagons there:and in front of Friedrich, especially Hochkirch way, Daun seems busier than

ever felling wood, this Friday night; numbers of people running about with axes, with lanterns over there, as

if in the push of hurry, and making a great deal of noise. "Intending retreat for Zittau tomorrow!" thinks

Friedrich, as the false eggyolk had taught him; or merely, "That poor precautionary fellow!" supposing the

false yolk a myth. In short, Daun has got through his nocturnal wildernesses with perfect success. And stands,

dreamt of by no enemy, in the places appointed for his 30,000 and him; and that poor old clock of Hochkirch,

unweariedly grunting forward to the stroke of five, will strike up something it is little expecting!

The Prussians have vedettes, pickets and small outposts of Free corps people scattered about within their

border of that Austrian Wood, the body of which, about Hochkirch as everywhere else, belongs wholly to

Croats. Of course there are guardparties, sentries duly vigilant, in the big Battery to southeast of

Hochkirch,and along southwestward in that POTENCE, or forearm of Four Battalions, which are

stationed there. Four good Battalions looking southward there, with Cavalry to right; Ziethen's Cavalry,

whose horses stand saddled through the night, ready always for the nocturnal "Pandourade," which seldom

fails them. There, as elsewhere, are the due vigilances, watchmen, watchfires. The rest of the Prussian Army

is in its blankets, wholly asleep, while Daun stands waiting for the stroke of five.

That Daun, bursting in with his chosen 30,000, will trample down the sleeping Prussian POTENCE at

Hochkirch; capture its big Battery to left, its Village of Hochkirch to rear, and do extensive ruin on the whole

right wing of Friedrich; rendering Friedrich everywhere an easy conquest to the rest of Daun's people, who

stand, far and wide, duly posted and prepared, waiting only their signal from Hochkirch: much of this, all of it

that had regard to Hochkirch Battery and Village, and the Prussians stationed there, Daun did execute. And

readers, from the data they have got, must conceive the manner of it,human description of the next Two

Hours, about Hochkirch, in the thick darkness there, and stormful sudden inroad, and stormful resistance

made, being manifestly an impossible thing. Nobody was "massacred in his bed" as the sympathetic

gazetteers fancied; nobody was killed, that I hear of, without arms, in his hand: but plenty of people perished,

fierce of humor, on both sides; and from halfpast five till towards eight, there was a general blaze of fiery

chaos pushing out ever and anon, swallowed in the belly of Night again, such as was seldom seen in this

world. Instead of confused details, and wearisome enumeration of particulars, which nobody would listen to

or understand, we will give one intelligent young gentleman's experience, our friend Tempelhof's, who stood

in this part of the Prussian Line; experience distinct and indubitable to us; and which was pretty accurately

symbolical, I otherwise see, of what befell on all points thereabouts. Faithfully copied, and in the essential

Tempelhof, at that time a subaltern of artillery, was stationed with a couple of 24pounders in attendance on

the Battalion Plothow, which with three others and some cavalry lay to the south side of Hochkirch, forming

a kind of forearm or POTENCE there to right of the big Battery, with their rear to Hochkirch; and keeping

vedettes and Freecorps parties spread out into the woods and Devil's Hills ahead. Tempelhof had risen about

three, as usual; had his guns and gunners ready; and was standing by the watchfire, "expecting the

customary Pandourade," and what form it would take this morning. "Close on five o'clock; and not a mouse

stirring! We are not to have our Pandourade, then?" On a sudden, noise bursts out; noise enough, sharp fire

among the Freecorps people; fire growing ever sharper, noisier, for the next halfhour, but nothing

whatever to be seen. "Battalion Plothow had soon got its clothes on, all to the spatterdashes; and took rank to

right and left of the FLECHE, and of my two guns, in front of its post: but on account of the thick fog

everything was totally dark. I fired off my cannons [shall we say straight southward?] to learn whether there

was anything in front of us. No answer: 'Nothing therePshaw, a mere crackery (GEKNACKER) of

Pandours and our Free corps people, after all!' But the noise grew louder, and came ever nearer; I turned my

guns towards it [southward, southeastward, or perhaps a gun each way?]and here we had a salvo in

response, from some battalions who seemed to be two hundred yards or so ahead. The Battalion Plothow

hereupon gave fire; I too plied my cannons what I could,and had perhaps delivered fifteen double shots

from them, when at once I tumbled to the ground, and lost all consciousness" for some minutes or moments.

Awakening with the blood running down his face, poor Tempelhof concluded it had been a musketshot in

the head; but on getting to his hands and knees, he found the place "full of Austrian grenadiers, who had crept

in through our tents to rear; and that it had been a knock with the butt of the musket from one of those

fellows, and not a bullet" that had struck him down. Battalion Plothow, assailed on all sides, resisted on all

sides; and Tempelhof saw from the ground,I suppose, by the embers of watchfires, and by rare flashes of

musketry, for they did not fire much, having no room, but smashed and stabbed and cut,"an infantry fight

which in murderous intensity surpasses imagination. I was taken prisoner at this turn; but soon after got

This latter circumstance, of being delivered by the Cavalry, I find to be of frequent occurrence in that first act

of the business there: the Prussian Battalion, surprised on front and rear, always makes murderous fight for

itself: is at last overwhelmed, obliged to retire, perhaps opening its way by bayonet charge;upon which our

Cavalry (Ziethen's, and others that gathered to him) cutting in upon the disordered surprisers, cut them into

flight, rescue the prisoners, and for a time reinstate matters. The Prussian battalions do not run (nobody runs);

but when repulsed by the endless odds, rally again. The big Battery is not to be had of them without fierce

and dogged struggle; and is retaken more than once or twice. Still fiercer, more dogged, was the struggle in

Hochkirch Village; especially in Hochkirch Church and Churchyard,whither the Battalion MargrafKarl

had flung themselves; the poor Village soon taking fire about them. Soon taking fire, and continuing to be a

scene of capture and recapture, by the flamelight; while Battalion MargrafKarl stood with invincible

stubbornness, pouring death from it; not to be compulsed by the raging tide of Austrian grenadiers; not by

"six Austrian battalions," by "eight," or by never so many. Stood at bay there; levelling whole masses of

them,till its cartridges were spent, all to one or two per man; and Major Lange, the heroic Captain of it,

said, "We shall have to go, then, my men; let us cut ourselves through!"and did so, in an honorably

invincible manner; some brave remnant actually getting through, with Lange himself wounded to death.

I think it was not till towards six o'clock that the right wing generally became aware what the case was:

"More than a Pandourade, yes;"though what it might be, in the thick fog which had fallen, blotting out all

vestiges of daylight, nobody could well say. Rallied Battalions, reinforced by this or the other Battalion

hurrying up from leftward, always charge in upon the enemy, in Hochkirch or wherever he is busy; generally

push him back into the Night; but are then fallen upon on both flanks by endless new strength, and obliged to

draw back in turn. And Ziethen's Horse, in the mean while, do execution; breaking in on the tumultuous

victors; new Cuirassiers, Gensd'Armes dashing up to help, so soon as saddled, and charging with a will: so

that, on the whole, the enemy, variously attempting, could make nothing of us on that western, or rearward

side,thanks mainly to Ziethen and the Horse. "Had we but waited till three or four of our Battalions had got

up!" say the Prussian narrators. But it is thick mist; few yards ahead you cannot see at all, unless it be flame;

and close at hand, all things and figures waver indistinct,hairy outlines of blacker shadows on a ground of

It must have been while Lange was still fighting, perhaps before Lange took to the Church of Hochkirch,

scarcely later than half past six (but nobody thought of pulling out his watch in such a business!)about

six, or halfpast six, when Keith, who has charge of this wing, and lodges somewhere below or north of

Hochkirch, came to understand that his big Battery was taken; that here was such a Pandourade as had not

been before; and that, of a surety, said Battery must be retaken. Keith springs on horseback; hastily takes

"Battalion Kannacker" and several remnants of others; rushes upwards, "leaving Hochkirch a little to right;

direct upon the big Battery." Recaptures the big Battery. But is set upon by overwhelming multitudes, bent to

have it back;is passionate for new assistance in this vital point; but can get none: had been "DISARTED

by both his Aidedecamps," says poor John Tebay, a wandering English horsesoldier, who attends him as

mounted groom; "asked twenty times, and twenty more, 'Where are my Aidede camps!'" ["Captens

Cockcey and Goudy" he calls them(COCCEJI whose Father the Kanzler we have seen, and GAUDI whose

self),who both had, in succession, struck into Hochkirch as the less desperate place, according to Tebay:

see TEBAY'S LETTER to Mitchell, "Crossen, October 29th" (in MEMOIRS AND PAPERS, ii. 501505);

which is probably true every word, allowing for Tebay's temper; but is highly indecipherable, though not

entirely so after many readings and researehings.]but could get no response or reinforcement; and at

length, quite surrounded and overwhelmed, had to retire; opening his way by the bayonet; and before long,

suddenly stopping short,falling dead into Tebay's arms; shot through the heart. Two shots on the right side

he had not regarded; but this on the left side was final: Keith's fightings are suddenly all done. Tebay, in

distraction, tried much to bring away the body; but could by no present means; distractedly "rid for a coach;"

found, on return, that the Austrians had the ground, and the body of his master; Hochkirch, Church and all,

To appearance, it was this news of Keith's repulse (I know not whether of Keith's DEATH as yet) that first

roused Friedrich to a full sense of what was now going on, two miles to south of him. Friedrich, according to

his habits, must have been awake and afoot when the Business first broke out; though, for some considerable

time, treating it as nothing but a common crackery of Pandours. Already, finding the Pandourade louder than

usual, he had ordered out to it one battalion and the other that lay handy: but now he pushes forward several

battalions under Franz of Brunswick (his youngest Brotherinlaw), with Margraf Karl and Prince Moritz:

"Swift you, to Hochkirch yonder!"and himself springs on horseback to deal with the affair. Prince Franz of

Brunswick, poor young fellow, cheerily coming on, near Hochkirch had his head shorn off by a cannonball.

Moritz of Dessau, too, "riding within twenty yards of the Austrians," so dark was it, he so nearsighted, got

badly hit,and soon after, driving to Bautzen for surgery, was made prisoner by Pandours; [In

ARCHENHOLTZ (i. 289, 290) his dangerous adventures on the road to Bautzen, in this wounded condition.]

never fought again, "died next year of cancer in the lip." Nothing but triumphant Austrian shot and

Friedrich himself, by this time, is forward in the thick of the tumult, with another body of battalions; storming

furiously along, has his horse shot under him; storms through, "successfully, by the other side of Hochkirch"

(Hochkirch to his left):but finds, as the mist gradually sinks, a ring of Austrians massed ahead, on the

Heights; as far as Steindorfel and farther, a general continent of Austrians enclosing all the south and

southwest; and, in fact, that here is now nothing to be done. That the question of his flank is settled; that the

question now is of his front, which the appointed Austrian parties are now upon attacking. Question

especially of the Heights of Drehsa, and of the Pass and Brook of Drehsa (rearward of his centre part), where

his one retreat will lie, Steindorfel being now lost. Part first of the Affair is ended; Part second of it begins.

Rapidly enough Friedrich takes his new measures. Seizes Drehsa Height, which will now be key of the field;

despatches Mollendorf thither (Mollendorf our courageous Leuthen friend); who vigorously bestirs himself;

gets hold of Drehsa Height before the enemy can; Ziethen cooperating on the Heights of Kumschutz, Canitz

and other points of vantage. And thus, in effect, Friedrich pulls up his torn right skirt (as he is doing all his

other skirts) into new compact front against the Austrians: so that, in that southwestern part especially; the

Austrians do not try it farther; but "retire at full gallop," on sight of this swift seizure of the Keys by

Mollendorf and Ziethen. Friedrich also despatches instant order to Retzow, to join him at his speediest.

Friedrich everywhere rearranges himself, hither, thither, with skilful rapidity, in new Line of Battle; still

hopeful to dispute what is left of the field;longing much that Retzow could come on wings.

By this time (towards eight, if I might guess) Day has got the upper hand; the Daun Austrians stand visible on

their Ring of Heights all round, behind Hochkirch and our late Battery, on to westward and northward, as far

as Steindorfel and Waditz; extremely busy rearranging themselves into something of line; there being

much confusion, much simmering about in clumps and gaps, after such a tussle. In front of us, to eastward,

the appointed Austrian parties are proceeding to attack: but in daylight, and with our eyes open, it is a thing

of difficulty, and does not prosper as Hochkirch did. Duke D'Ahremberg, on their extreme right, had in

charge to burst in upon our left, so soon as he saw Hochkirch done: D'Ahremberg does try; as do others in

their places, near Daun; but with comparatively little success. D'Ahremberg, meeting something of check or

hindrance where he tried, pauses, for a good while, till he see how others prosper. Their grand chance is their

superiority of number; and the fact that Friedrich can try nothing upon THEM, but must stand painfully on

the defensive till Retzow come. To Friedrich, Retzow seems hugely slow about it. But the truth is,

BadenDurlach, with his 20,000 of Reserve, has, as per order, made attack on Retzow, 20,000 against 12:

one of the feeblest attacks conceivable; but sufficient to detain Retzow till he get it repulsed. Retzow is

Meanwhile, the Austrians on front do, in a sporadic way, attack and again attack our batteries and posts;

especially that big Battery of Thirty Guns, which we have to north of Rodewitz. The Austrians do take that

Battery at last; and are beginning again to be dangerous,the rather as D'Ahremberg seems again to be

thinking of business. It is high time Retzow were here! Few sights could be gladder to Friedrich, than the first

glitter of Retzow's vanguard, horse, under Prince Eugen of Wurtemberg,beautifully wending down from

Weissenberg yonder; skilfully posting themselves, at Belgern and elsewhere, as thorns in the sides of

D'Ahremberg (sharp enough, on trial by D'Ahremberg). Followed, before long, by Retzow himself; serenely

crossing Lobau Water; and, with great celerity, and the best of skill, likewise posting himself,hopelessly to

D'Ahremberg, who tries nothing farther. The sun is now shining; it is now ten of the day. Had Retzow come

an hour sooner; efore we lost that big Battery and other things! But he could come no sooner; be thankful

Friedrich, judging that nothing now can be made of the affair, orders retreat. Retreat, which had been getting

schemed, I suppose, and planned in the gloom of the royal mind, ever since loss of that big Battery at

Rodewitz. Little to occupy him, in this interim; except indignant waiting, rigorously steady, and some languid

interchange of cannonshot between the parties. Retreat is to KleinBautzen neighborhood (new

headquarter Doberschutz, outposts Kreckwitz and Purschwitz); four miles or so to northwest. Rather a

shifting of your ground, which astonishes the military reader ever since, than a retreating such as the common

run of us expected. Done in the usual masterly manner; part after part mending off, Retzow standing minatory

here, Mollendorf minatory there, in the softest quasirhythmic sequence; Cavalry all drawn out between

Belgern and Kreckwitz, baggagewagons filing through the Pass of Drehsa;not an Austrian meddling with

it, less or more; Daun and his Austrians standing in their ring of five miles, gazing into it like stone statues;

their regiments being still in a confused state,and their Daun an extremely slow gentleman. [Tempelhof, ii.

319336; Seyfarth, Beylagen, i. 432453; HeldenGeschichte, v. 241257; Archenholtz,

And in this manner Friedrich, like a careless swimmer caught in the Mahlstrom, has not got swallowed in it;

but has made such a buffeting of it, he is here out of it again, without bone broken, not, we hope, without

instruction from the adventure. He has lost 101 pieces of cannon, most of his tents and campfurniture; and,

what is more irreparable, above 8,000 of his brave people, 5,381 of them and 119 Officers (Keith and Moritz

for two) either dead or captive. In men the Austrian loss, it seems, is not much lower, some say is rather a

shade higher; by their own account, 325 Officers, 5,614 rank and file, killed and wounded,not reckoning

1,000 prisoners they lost to us, and "at least 2,000" who took that chance of deserting in the intricate dark

Friedrich, all say, took his punishment in a wonderfully cheerful manner. De Catt the Reader, entering to him

that evening as usual, the King advanced, in a tragic declamatory attitude; and gave him, with proper voice

Not a little to De Catt's comfort. [Rodenbeck, i. 354.] During the retreat itself, Retzow Junior had come, as

Papa's AidedeCamp, with a message to the King; found him on the heights of Klein Bautzen, watching the

movements. Message done with, the King said, in a smiling tone, "Daun has played me a slippery trick

today!" "I have seen it," answered Retzow; "but it is only a scratch, which your Majesty will soon manage

to heal again.""GLAUBT ER DIES, Do you think so?" "Not only I, but the whole Army firmly believe it

of your Majesty.""You are quite right," added the King, in a confidentially candid way: "We will manage

Daun. What I lament is, the number of brave men that have died this morning." [Retzow, i. 359 n.] On the

morrow, he was heard to say publicly: "Daun has let us out of checkmate; the game is not lost yet. We will

rest ourselves here, a few days; then go for Silesia, and deliver Neisse." The AnecdoteBooks (perhaps not

mythicalIy) add this: "Where are all your guns, though?" said the King to an Artilleryman, standing vacant on

parade, next day. "IHRO MAJESTAT, the Devil stole them all, last night!""Hm, well, we must have them

Nothing immoderately depressive in Hochkirch, it appears;though, alas, on the fourth day after, there came

a message from Baireuth; which did strike one down: "My noble Wilhelmina dead; died in the very hours

while we were fighting here!" [On a common Business Letter to Prince Henri, "Doberschutz, 18th October,

1758," is this sudden bit of Autograph: "GRAND DIEU, MA SOEUR DE BAREITH!" (Schoning, Der

siebenjahrige Krieg, nach der Original Correspondens aus den StaatsArchiven: Potsdam, 1851: i. 287.)]

Readers must conceive it: coming unexpected more or less, black as sudden universal hurricane, on the heart

of the man; a sorrow sacred, yet immeasurable, irremediable to him; as if the sky too were falling on his head,

in aid of the mean earth and its ravenings:of all this there can nothing be said at present. Friedrich's one

relief seems to have been the necessity laid on him of perpetual battling with outward business;we may

fancy, in the rapid weeks following, how much was lying at all times in the background of his mind

Daun, it appears, was considerably elated; spent a great deal of his time, so precious just at present, in writing

despatches, in congratulating and being congratulated;did an elaborate TEDEUM, or Ambrosian Song, in

Artillery and VOX HUMANA,which with the adjuncts, say splenetic people, as at Kolin, sensibly assisted

Friedrich's affairs. Daun was by no means of braggart turn; but the recognition of his matchless achievement

by the gazetteer public, whether in exultation or in lamentation, was loud and universal; and the joy, in

Vienna and the cognate quarters, knew no bounds for the time being. Thus, among other tokens, the Holiness

of our Lord the Pope, blessing Heaven for such success against the Heretic, was pleased to send him "a

Consecrated Hat and Sword,"such as the old Popes were wont, very long ago, to bestow on distinguished

Champions against the Heathen,(much jeered at, and crowed over, by a profane Friedrich [ OEuvres de

Frederic, xv. 122, 124, 126, in PREUSS, ii. 196, compiete List of these poor Pieces; which are hearty, not

hypocritical, in their contemptuons hilarity, but have little other metit.]): "the effect of which miraculous

furnishings," says Tempelhof, "turned out to be that the Feldmarschall never gained any success more;" in

fact, except that small thing on Finck next Year, never any, as it chanced. Daun had withdrawn to his old

Camp, on the day of Hochkirch; leaving only a detachment on the field there: it was not for six or seven days

more that he stept out to the Kreckwitz and Purschwitz neighborhood; more within sight of his vanquished

enemy,but nothing like vigilant enough of what might still be in him, after such vanquishing!We must

spare this Note, for the sake of a heroic kind of man, who had not too much of reward in the world:

"Tebay could not recover Keith's body: Croats had the plundering of Keith; other Austrians, not of Croat

kind, carried the dead General into Hochkirch Church: Lacy's emotion on recognizing him there, like a

tragic gleam of his own youth suddenly brought back to him, as in starlight, piercing and sad, from twenty

years distance,is well known in Books. On the morrow, Sunday, October 15th, Keith had honorable

soldier'sburial there,'twelve cannon' salvoing thrice, and 'the whole Corps of Colloredo' with their

muskets thrice; Lacy as chief mourner, not without tears. Four months after, by royal order, Keith's body was

conveyed to Berlin; reinterred in Berlin, in a still more solemn public manner, with all the honors, all the

regrets; and Keith sleeps now in the GarnisonKirche:far from bonnie Inverugie; the hoarse seawinds

and caverns of Dunottar singing vague requiem to his honorable line and him, in the imaginations of some

few. 'My Brother leaves me a noble legacy,' said the old Lord Marischal: 'last year he had Bohemia under

ransom; and his personal estate is 70 ducats, (about 25 pounds). [Varnhagen, p. 261.]

"In Hochkirch Church there is still, not in the Churchyard as formerly, a fine, modestly impressive

Monument to Keith; modest Urn of black marble on a Pedestal of gray,and, in gold letters, an Inscription

not easily surpassable in the lapidary way: ... 'DUM IN PRAELIO NON PROCUL HINC INCLINATAM

DECET OCCUBUIT. D. XIV. OCTOBRIS' These words go through you like the clang of steel. [In

RODENBECK, i. 149. Given also (very nearly correct) in CORRESPONDEENCE OF SIR ROBERT

MURRAY KEITH (London, 1849), i. 151. This is the junior of the two Diplomatic Roberts, genealogical

cousins of Keith; by this one (in 1771, not 1776 as German Guide books have it) the Hochkirch Monument

was set up. A very interesting Collection of LETTERS those of his;edited with the usual darkness, or

rather more.] Friedrich's sorrow over him ('tears,' high eulogies, 'LOUA EXTREMEMENT') is itself a

monument. Twenty years after, Keith had from his Master a Statue, in Berlin. One of Four; to the Four most

deserving: Schwerin (1771), Winterfeld (1777), Seidlitz (1779, Keith (when?), [Nicolai (Beschreibung der

Residenzstadte, i. 193, 194) gives these dates for the Three, and for Keith's no date.]which still stand in the

"Hochkirch Church has beeu rebuilt in late years: a spapious airy Church, with galleries, and requisites,

especially with free air, light and cleanliness. Capable perhaps of 1,500 sitters: half of them Wends. 'Above

700 skeletons, in one heap, were dug out, in cutting the new foundations. The strong outer Door of the old

Church, red oak, I should think, is still retained in that capacity; still shows perhaps half a dozen rough big

quasi KEYHOLES, torn through it in different parts, and daylight shining in, where the old bullets passed.

The Keith Monument, perhaps four feet high, is on the flagged floor, left side of the pulpit, close by the

wall,'the bench where Keith's body lay has had to be cased in new plank [zinc would be better] against the

Old Lord MarischalGeorge, "MARECHAL D'ECOSSE" as he always signs himselfwas by this time

seventytwo; King's Governor of Neufchatel, for a good while past and to come (17541763). In "James,"

the junior, but much the stronger and more solid, he has lost, as it were, a FATHER and younger brother at

once; father, uuder beautiful conditions; and the tears of the old man are natural and affecting. Ten years

older than his Brother; and survived him still twenty years. An excellent cheery old soul, he too; honest as the

sunlight, with a fine small vein of gayety, and "pleasant wit," in him: what a treasure to Friedrich at Potsdam,

in the coming years; and how much loved by him (almost as one BOY loves another), all readers would be

There followed upon Hochkirch five weeks of rapid events; such as nobody had been calculating on. To the

reader, so weary of marchings, manoeuvrings, surprisals, campings and details of war, not many words, we

Friedrich stayed ten days, refitting himself, in that Camp of KleinBautzen, on one of the branches of the

Spree. Daun, who had retired to his old strong place, on the 14th, scarcely occupying Hochkirch Field at all,

came out in about a week; and took a strong post near Friedrich; not attempting anything upon him, but

watching him, now better within sight. Friedrich's fixed intention is, to march to Neisse all the same; what

probably Daun, under the shadow of his laurels and his new Papal Hat, may not have considered possible,

with the road to Neisse blocked by 80,000 men. Friedrich has refitted himself with the requisite new cannon

and furnitures, from Dresden; especially with Prince Henri and 6,000 foot and horse,led by Prince Henri in

person; so Prince Henri would have it, the capricious little man; and that Finck should be left in Saxony

instead of him. All which weakens Saxony not a little. But Friedrich hopes the Reichs Army is a feeble

article; ill off for provision in those parts, and not likely to attempt very much on the sudden. Accordingly:

SUNDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 22d, Convoy of many wagons quit Bautzen (Bautzen Proper, not the

Village, but the Town), laden with all the wounded of Hochkirch; above 3,000 by count, to carry them to

Dresden for deliberate surgery. Keith's Tebay, I perceive, is in this Convoy; not ill hurt, but willing to lie in

Hospital a little, and consider. These poor fellows cannot get to Dresden: on the second day, a Daun

Detachment, hussaring about in those parts, is announced ahead; and (by new order from headquarters) the

Convoy turns northwards for Hoyerswerda,(to Tebay's disgust with the Commandant; "shied off," says

Tebay, "for twelve hussars!" [Second LETTER from Tebay, in Mitchell, ubi supra.])and, I think, in the

end, went on to Glogau instead of Dresden. Which was very fortunate for Tebay and the others. The poor

wounded being thus disposed of, Friedrich next night, at 10 o'clock, Monday, 23d, in the softest manner,

pushes off his Bakery and Army Stores a little way, northward down the Spree Valley, on the western fork of

the Spree (fork farthest from Daun); follows, himself, with the rest of the Army, next evening, down the

eastern fork, also northward. "Going for Glogau," thinks Daun, when the hussars report about it (late on

Tuesday night): "Let him go, if he fancy that a road TO Neisse! But, indeed, what other shift has he,"

considers Daun, "but to try rallying at Glogau yonder, safe under the guns?"and is not in the slightest haste

United with his baggagecolumn, Friedrich proceeds northeastward; crosses Spree still northward or

northeastward; encamps there, in the dark hours of Tuesday; no Daun heeding him. Before daylight, however,

Friedrich is again on foot; in several columns now, for the bad countryroads ahead;and has struck straight

SOUTHeastward, if Daun were noting him. And, in the afternoon of Wednesday, Daun is astonished to learn

that this wily Enemy is arrived in Reichenbach vicinity; sweeping in our poor posts thereabouts; immovably

astride of the Silesian Highway, after all! An astonished Daun hastens out, what he can, to take survey of the

sudden Phenomenon. Tries it, next day and next, with his best Loudons and appliances; finds that this

Phenomenon can actually march to Neisse ahead of him, indifferent to Pandours, or giving them as good as

they bring;and that nothing but a battle and beating (could we rashly dream of such a thing, which we

cannot) will prevent it. "Very well, then!" Daun strives to say. And lets the Phenomenon march (FROM

Gorlitz, OCTOBER 30th); Loudon harassing the rear of it, for some days; not without counter harassment,

much waste of cannonading, and ruin to several poor Lausitz Villages by fire,"Prussians scandalously burn

them, when we attack!" says Loudon. Till, at last, finding this march impregnably arranged, "split into two

routes," and ready for all chances, Loudon also withdraws to more promising business. Poor General Retzow

Senior was of this march; absolutely could not be excused, though fallen ill of dysentery, like to die;and

did die, the day after he got to Schweidnitz, when the difficulties and excitement were over. [Retzow, i. 372.]

Of Friedrich's march, onward from Gorlitz, we shall say nothing farther, except that the very wind of it was

salvatory to his Silesian Fortresses and interests. That at Neisse, on and after November 1st,which is the

third or second day of Friedrich's march,General Treskow, Commandant of Neisse, found the

bombardment slacken more and more ("King of Prussia coming," said the Austrian deserters to us); and that,

on November 6th, Treskow, looking out from Neisse, found the Austrian trenches empty, Generals Harsch

and Deville hurrying over the Hills homewards, pickings to be had of them by Treskow,and Neisse

Siege a thing finished. [TAGEBUCH, ("Diary of the Siege of Neisse," 4th August, 26th October, 6th

November, 1758, "1 A.M. suddenly"), in Seyfarth, Beylagen, ii. 468472: of Treskow's own writing; brief

and clear. HeldenGeschichte, v. 268270.] It had lasted, in the way of blockade and halfblockade, for

about three months; Deville, for near one month, halfblockading, then Harsch (since September 30th)

wholly blockading, with Deville under him, and an army of 20,000; though the actual cannonade, very fierce,

but of no effect, could not begin till little more than a week ago,so difficult the getting up of

siegematerial in those parts. Kosel, under Commandant Lattorf, whose praises, like Treskow's, were

great,had stood four months of Pandour blockading and assaulting, which also had to take itself away on

advent of Friedrich. Of Friedrich, on his returnjourney, we shall hear again before long; but in the mean

OCTOBER 30th, Daun, seeing Neisse Siege as good as gone to water, decided with himself that he could still

do a far more important stroke: capture Dresden, get hold of Saxony in Friedrich's absence. Daun turned

round from Reichenbach, accordingly; and, at his slow footed pace, addressed himself to that new errand.

Had he made better despatch, or even been in better luck, it is very possible he might have done something

there. In Dresden, and in Governor Schmettau with his small garrison, there is no strength for a siege; in

Saxony is nothing but some poor remnant under Finck, much of it Freecorps and light people: capable of

being swallowed by the Reichs Army itself,were the Reichs Army enterprising, or in good circumstances

otherwise. It is true the Russians have quitted Colberg as impossible; and are flowing homewards dragged by

hunger: the little Dohna Army will, therefore, march for Saxony; the little AntiSwedish Army, under

Wedell, has likewise been mostly ordered thither; both at their quickest. For Daun, all turns on despatch;

Daun, I have no doubt, stirred his slow feet the fastest he could. NOVEMBER 7th, Daun was in the

neighborhood of Pirna Country again, had his Bridge at Pirna, for communication; urged the Reichs Army to

bestir itself, Now or never. Reichs Army did push out a little against Finck; made him leave that perpetual

Camp of Gahmig, take new camps, Kesselsdorf and elsewhere; and at length made him shoot across Elbe, to

the northwest, on a pontoon bridge below Dresden, with retreating room to northward, and shelter under the

guns of that City. Reichs Army has likewise made powerful detachments for capture of Leipzig and the

northwestern towns; capture of Torgau, the Magazine town, first of all: summon them, with force evidently

overpowering, "Free withdrawal, if you don't resist; and if you do!" At Torgau there was actual attempt

made (November 12th), rather elaborate and dangerous looking; under Haddick, with near 10,000 of the

"Austrianauxiliary" sort: to whom the old Commandant judging Wedell, the late AntiSwedish Wedell,

to be now near rushed out with "300 men and one big gun;" and made such a firing and gesticulation as

was quite extraordinary, as if Wedell were here already: till Wedell's self did come in sight; and the

overpowering Reichs Detachment made its best speed elsewhither. [Tempelhof, "Letter from a Prussian

Officer," in HeldenGeschichte, v. 286.] The other Sieges remained things of theory; the other Reichs

Meanwhile, Daun, with the proper Artilleries at last ready, comes flowing forward (NOVEMBER 8th9th);

and takes post in the Great Garden, or south side of Dresden; minatory to Schmettau and that City. The walls,

or works, are weak; outside there is nothing but Mayer and the Free Corps to resist, who indeed has surpassed

himself this season, and been extraordinarily diligent upon that lazy Reichs Army. Commandant Schmettau

signifies to Daun, the day Daun came in sight, "If your Excellenz advance farther on me, the grim Rules of

War in besieged places will order That I burn the Suburbs, which are your defences in attacking me,"and

actually fills the fine houses on the Southern Suburb with combustible matter, making due announcements, to

Court and population, as well as to Dann. "Burn the Suburbs?" answers Daun: "In the name of civilized

humanity, you will never think of such thing!" "That will I, your Excellenz, of a surety, and do it!" answers

Schmettau. So that Dresden is full of pity, terror and speculation. The common rumor is, says Excellency

Mitchell, who is sojourning there for the present, "That Bruhl [nefarious Bruhl, born to be the death of us!]

has persuaded Polish Majesty to sanction this enterprise of Daun's,"very careless, Bruhl, what become of

Certain enough, NOVEMBER 9th, Daun does come on, regardless of Schmettau's assurances; so that, "about

midnight:" Mayer, who "can hear the enemy busily building four big batteries" withal, has to report himself

driven to the edge of those high Houses (which are filled with combustibles), and that some Croats are got

into the upper windows. "Burn them, then!" answers Schmettasu (such the dire necessity of sieged places):

and, "at 3 A.M." (three hours' notice to the poor inmates), Mayer does so; hideous flames bursting out,

punctually at the stroke of 3: "whole Suburb seemed on blaze [about a sixth part of it actually so], nay you

would have said the whole Town was environed in flames." Excellency Mitchell climbed a steeple: "will not

describe to your Lordship the horror, the terror and confusion of this night; wretched inhabitants running with

their furniture [what of it they had got flung out, between 12 o'clock and 3] towards the Great Garden; all

Dresden, to appearance, girt in flames, ruins and smoke." Such a night in Dresden, especially in the Pirna

Suburb, as was never seen before. [Mitchell, Memoirs and Papers, i. 459. In HeldenGeschichte, v.

295302, minute account (corresponding well with Mitchell's); ib. 303333, the certified details of the

damage done: "280 houses lost;" "4 human lives."] This was the sad beginning, or attempt at beginning, of

Dresden Siege; and this also was the end of it, on Daun's part at present. For four days more, he hung about

the place, minatory, hesitative; but attempted nothing feasible; and on the fifth day, "for a certain weighty

reason," as the Austrian Gazettes express it,he saw good to vanish into the Pirna RockCountry, and be

The Truth is, Daun's was an intricate case just now; needing, above all things, swiftness of treatment; what, of

all things, it could not get from Daun. His denunciations on that burnt Suburb were again loud; but Schmettau

continues deaf to all that,means "to defend himself by the known rules of war and of honor;" declares, he

"will dispute from street to street, and only finish in the middle of Polish Majesty's Royal Palace."

Denunciation will do nothing! Daun had above 100,000 men in those parts. Rushing forward with sharp shot

and bayonet storm, instead of logical denunciation, it is probable Daun might have settled his Schmettau. But

the hour of tide was rigorous, withal;and such an ebb, if you missed it in hesitating! NOVEMBER 15th,

Daun withdrew; the ebbing come. That same day, Friedrich was at Lauban in the Lausitz, within a hundred

miles again; speeding hitherward; behind him a Silesia brushed clear, before him a Saxony to be brushed.

"Reason weighty" enough, think Daun and the Austrian Gazettes! But such, since you have missed the

tidehour, is the inexorable fact of ebb,going at that frightful rate. Daun never was the man to dispute

November 20th, Friedrich arrived in Dresden; heard, next day, that Daun had wheeled decisively homeward

from Pirna Country; that the Reichs Army and he are diligently climbing the Metal Mountains; and that there

is not in Saxony, more than in Silesia, an enemy left. What a Sequel to Hochkirch! "Neisse and Dresden

both!" we had hoped as sequel, if lucky: "Neisse OR Dresden" seemed infallible. And we are climbing the

And Campaign Third has closed in this manner;leaving things much as it found them. Essentially a drawn

match; Contending Parties little altered in relative strength;both of them, it may be presumed, considerably

weaker. Friedrich is not triumphant, or shining in the light of bonfires, as last Year; but, in the mind of

judges, stands higher than ever (if that could help him much); and is not "annihilated" in the least, which is

Friedrich's marches, especially, have been wonderful, this Year. In the springtime, old Marechal de

Belleisle, French Minister of War, consulting officially about future operations, heard it objected once: "But

if the King of Prussia were to burst in upon us there?" "The King of Prussia is a great soldier," answered M.

de Belleisle; "but his Army is not a shuttle (NAVETTE),"to be shot about, in that way, from side to side of

the world! No surely; not altogether. But the King of Prussia has, among other arts, an art of marching

Armies, which by degrees astonishes the old Marechal. To "come upon us EN NAVETTE," suddenly "like a

shuttle" from the other side of the web, became an established phrase among the French concerned in these

unfortunate matters. [Archenholtz, i. 316; Montalembert, SAEPIUS, for the phrase "EN NAVETTE."]

"The PittandFerdinand Campaign of 1758," says a Note, which I would fain abridge, "is more palpably

victorious than Friedrich's, much more an affair of bonfires than his; though it too has had its rubs. Loss of

honor at Crefeld; loss of Louisburg and Codfishery: these are serious blows our enemy has had. But then, to

temper the joy over Louisburg, there was, at Ticonderoga, by Abercrombie, on the small scale (all the extent

of scale he had), a melancholy Platitude committed: that of walking into an enemy without the least

reconnoitring of him, who proves to be chindeep in abatis and fieldworks; and kills, much at his ease,

about 2,000 brave fellows, brought 5,000 miles for that object. And obliges you to walk away on the instant,

and quit Ticonderoga, like asurely like a very tragic Dignitary in Cockedhat! To be cashiered, we will

hope; at least to be laid on the shelf, and replaced by some Wolfe or some Amherst, fitter for the business!

Nor were the Descents on the French Coast much to speak of: 'Great Guns got at Cherbourg,' these truly, as

exhibited in HydePark, were a comfortable sight, especially to the simpler sort: but on the other hand, at

Morlaix, on the part of poor old General Bligh and Company, there had been a Platitude equal or superior to

that of Abercrombie, though not so tragical in loss of men. 'What of that?' said an enthusiastic Public, striking

their balance, and joyfully illuminating. Here is a Clipping from Ohio Country, 'LETTER of an Officer

"'Our small Corps under General Forbes, after much sore scrambling through the Wildernesses, and

contending with enemies wild and tame, is, since the last four days, in possession of Fort Duquesne

[PITTSBURG henceforth]: Friday, 24th, the French garrison, on our appearance, made off without fighting;

took to boats down the Ohio, and vanished out of those Countries,'forever and a day, we will hope. 'Their

LouisianaCanada communication is lost; and all that prodigious tract of rich country,'which Mr.

Washington fixed upon long ago, is ours again, if we can turn it to use. 'This day a detachment of us goes to

Braddock's field of battle [poor Braddock!], to bury the bones of our slaughtered countrymen; many of whom

the French butchered in cold blood, and, to their own eternal shame and infamy, have left lying above ground

ever since. As indeed they have done with all those slain round the Fort in late weeks;'calling themselves a

civilized Nation too!" [Old Newspapers (in Gentleman's Magazine for 1759, pp. 41, 39).]

LOWER RHINE, JULYNOVEMBER, 1758. "Ferdinand's manoeuvres, after Crefeld, on the Franceward

side of Rhine, were very pretty: but, without Wesel, and versus a Belleisle as WarMinister, and a Contades

who was something of a General, it would not do. Belleisle made uncommon exertions, diligent to get his

broken people drilled again; Contades was wary, and countermanoeuvred rather well. Finally, Soubise"

(readers recollect him and his 24 or 30,000, who stood in Frankfurt Country, on the hither or north side of

Rhine), famed Rossbach Soubise,"pushing out, at Belleisle's bidding, towards Hanover, in a region vacant

otherwise of troops, became dangerous to Ferdinand. 'Making for Hanover?' thought Ferdinand: 'Or

perhaps meaning to attack my 12,000 English that are just landed? Nay, perhaps my RhineBridge itself, and

the small Party left there?' Ferdinand found he would have to return, and look after Soubise. Crossed,

accordingly (August 8th), by his old Bridge at Rees,which he found safe, in spite of attempts there had

been; ["Fight of Meer" (Chevert, with 10,000, beaten off, and the Bridge saved, by Imhof, with 3,000;both

clever soldiers; Imhof in better luck, and favored by the ground: "5th August, 1758"): MAUVILLON, i.

315.]and never recrossed during this War. Judges even say his first crossing had never much solidity of

outlook in it; and though so delightful to the public, was his questionablest step.

"On the 12,000 English, Soubise had attempted nothing. Ferdinand joined his English at Soest (August 20th);

to their great joy and his; [Duke of Marlborough's heavyladen LETTER to Pitt, "Koesfeld, August 15th:"

"Nothing but rains and uncertainties;" "marching, latterly, up to our middles in water;" have come from

Embden, straight south towards Wesel Country, almost 150 miles (Soest still a good sixty miles to southeast

of us). CHATHAM CORRESPONDENCE (London, 1838), i. 334, 337. The poor Duke died in two months

hence; and the command devolved on Lord George Sackville, as is too well known.] 10 to 12,000 as a first

instalment:Grandlooking fellows, said the Germans. And did you ever see such horses, such splendor of

equipment, regardless of expense? Not to mention those BERGSCHOTTEN (Scotch Highlanders), with their

bagpipes, sporrans, kilts, and exotic costumes and ways; astonishing to the German mind. [Romantic view of

the BERGSCHOTTEN (2,000 of them, led by the Junior of the Robert Keiths above mentioned, who is a

soldier as yet), in ARCHENHOLTZ, i. 351353: IB. and in PREUSS, ii. 136, of the "uniforms with gold and

silver lace," of the superb horses, "one regiment all roan horses, another all black, another all" Out of all

whom (BERGSCHOTTEN included), Ferdinand, by management,and management was needed, got a

"Nor, in regard to Hanover, could Soubise make anything of it; though he did (owing to a couple of stupid

fellows, General Prince von Ysenburg and General Oberg, detached by Ferdinand on that service) escape the

lively treatment Ferdinand had prepared for him; and even gave a kind of Beating to each of those stupid

fellows, [1. "Fight of Sandershausen" (Broglio, as Soubise's vanguard, 12,000; VERSUS Ysenburg, 7,000,

who stupidly would not withdraw TILL beaten: "23d July, 1758," BEFORE Ferdinand had come across

again). 2. Fight of Lutternberg (Soubise, 30,000; VERSUS Oberg, about 18,000, who stupidly hung back till

Soubise was all gathered, and THEN still more stupidly: "10th October, 1758"). See MAUVILLON, i. 312

(or better, ARCHENHOLTZ, i. 345); and MAUVILLON, i. 327. Both Lutternberg and Sandershausen are in

the neighborhood of Cassel;as many of those Ferdinand fights were.]one of which, Oberg's one, might

have ruined Oberg and his Detachment altogether, had Soubise been alert, which he by no means was! 'Paris

made such jeering about Rossbach and the Prince de Soubise,' says Voltaire, [ Histoire de Louis XV. ] 'and

nobody said a word about these two Victories of his, next Year!' For which there might be two reasons: one,

according to Tempelhof, that 'the Victories were of the soso kind (SIC WAREN AUCH DARNACH);' and

another, that they were ascribed to Broglio, on both occasions,how justly, nobody will now argue!

"Contades had not failed, in the mean while, to follow with the main Army; and was now elaborately

manoeuvring about; intent to have Lippstadt, or some Fortress in those RhineWeser Countries. On the tail of

that second soso Victory by Soubise, Contades thought, Now would be the chance. And did try hard, but

without effect. Ferdinand was himself attending Contades; and mistakes were not likely. Ferdinand, in the

thick of the game (October 21st 30th), 'made a masterly movement'that is to say, cut Contades and his

Soubise irretrievably asunder: no junction now possible to them; the weaker of them liable to ruin,unless

Contades, the stronger, would give battle; which, though greatly outnumbering Ferdinand, he was cautious

not to do. A melancholic cautious man, apt to be overcautious,nicknamed 'L'APOTHECAIRE' by the

Parisians, from his down looks,but had good soldier qualities withal. Soubise and he haggled about, a short

while,not a long, in these dangerous circumstances; and then had to go home again, without result, each

the way he came; Contades himself repassing through Wesel, and wintering on his own side of the Rhine."

How Pitt is succeeding, and aiming to succeed, on the French Foreign Settlements: on the Guinea Coast, on

the High Seas everywhere; in the West Indies; still more in the East,where General Lally (that fiery

O'MulLALLY, famous since Fontenoy), missioned with "fullpowers," as they call them, is raging up and

down, about Madras and neighborhood, in a violent, impetuous, more and more bankrupt manner:Of all

this we can say nothing for the present, little at any time. Here are two facts of the financial sort, sufficiently

illuminative. The muchexpending, much subsidying Government of France cannot now borrow except at 7

per cent Interest; and the rate of Marine Insurance has risen to 70 per cent. [Retzow, ii. 5.] One way and

other, here is a Pitt clearly progressive; and a longpending JENKINS'SEAR QUESTION in a fair way to

Friedrich stays in Saxony about a month, inspecting and adjusting; thence to Breslau, for Winterquarters.

His Winter is like to be a sad and silent one, this time; with none of the gayeties of last Year; the royal heart

heavy enough with many private sorrows, were there none of public at all! This is a word from him, two days

"There is nothing left for us, MON CHER MYLORD, but to mingle and blend our weeping for the losses we

have had. If my head were a fountain of tears, it would not suffice for the grief I feel.

"Our Campaign is over; and there has nothing come of it, on one side or the other, but the loss of a great

many worthy people, the misery of a great many poor soldiers crippled forever, the ruin of some Provinces,

the ravage, pillage and conflagration of some flourishing Towns. Exploits these which make humanity

shudder: sad fruits of the wickedness and ambition of certain People in Power, who sacrifice everything to

their unbridled passions! I wish you, MON CHER MYLORD, nothing that has the least resemblance to mv

destiny; and everything that is wanting to it. Your old friend, till death."F. [ OEuvres de Frederic, xx. 273.]

The posting of the Five Armies this WinterFive of them in Germany, not counting the Russians, who have

vanished to Cimmeria over the horizon, for their months of restis something wonderful, and strikes the

picturesque imagination. Such a Chain of Posts, for length, if for nothing else! From the centre of Bohemia

eastward, Daun's Austrians are spread all round the western Silesian Border and the southeastern Saxon;

waited on by Prussians, in more or less proximity. Next are the Reichsfolk; scattered over Thuringen and the

Franconian Countries; fronting partly into Hessen and Duke Ferdinand's outskirts:the main body of Duke

Ferdinand is far to westward, in Munster Country, vigilant upon Contades, with the Rhine between. Contades

and Soubise,adjoining on the Reichsfolk are these Two French Armies: Soubise's, some 25,000, in

Frankfurt Ems Country, between the Mayn and the Lahn, with its back to the Rhine; then Contades, onward

to Maes River and the Dutch Borders, with his face to the Rhine,and Duke Ferdinand observant of him on

the other side. That is the "CORDON of Posts" or winterquarters this Year. "From the Giant Mountains and

the Metal Mountains, to the Ocean;to the mouth of Rhine," may we not say; "and back again to the Swiss

Alps or springs of Rhine, that UpperRhine Country being all either French or Austrian, and a basis for

Soubise?" [Archenholtz, i. 306.] Not to speak of Ocean itself, and its winged WarFleets, lonesomely

"This is such a Chain of mutually vigilant Winterquarters," says Archenholtz, "as was never drawn in

Germany, or in Europe, before." Chain of about 300,000 fighting men, poured out in that lengthy manner.

Taking their winter siesta there, asleep with one eye open, till reinforced for new business of death and

destruction against Spring. Pathetic surely, as well as picturesque. "Three Campaigns there have already

been," sighs the peaceable observer: "Three Campaigns, surely furious enough; Eleven Battles in them,"

[Stenzel, v. 185. This, I suppose, would be his enumeration: LOBOSITZ (1756); PRAG, KOLIN,

Hastenbeck, GrossJagersdorf, ROSSBACH, Breslau, LEUTHEN, (1757); Crefeld, ZORNDORF,

HOCHKIRCH (1758): "eleven hitherto in all."] a Prag, a Kolin, Leuthen, Rossbach;must there still be

others, then, to the misery of poor mankind?" thus sigh many peaceful persons. Not considering what are, and

have been, the rages, the iniquities, the loud and silent deliriums, the mad blindnesses and sins of mankind;

and what amount, of CALCINING these may reasonably take. Not calcinable in three Campaigns at all, it

would appear! Four more Campaigns are needed: then there will be innocuous ashes in quantity; and a result

It is notably one of Friedrich's fond hopes,of which he keeps up several, as bright cloudhangings in the

haggard inner world he now has,that Peace is just at hand; one right struggle more, and Peace must come!

And on the part of Britannic George and him, repeated attempts were made,one in the end of this Year

1759;but one and all of them proved futile, and, unless for accidental reasons, need not be mentioned here.

Many men, in all nations, long for Peace; but there are Three Women at the top of the world who do not; their

wrath, various in quality, is great in quantity, and disasters do the reverse of appeasing it.

The French people, as is natural, are weary of a War which yields them mere losses and disgraces; "War

carried on for Austrian whims, which likewise seem to be impracticable!" think they. And their Bernis

himself, Minister of Foreign Affairs, who began this sad FrenchAustrian Adventure, has already been

BOOK XIX. FRIEDRICH LIKE TO BE OVERWHELMED IN THE SEVENYEARS WAR. 17591760. 1262

remonstrating with Kaunitz, and grumbling anxiously, "Could not the Swedes, or somebody, be got to

mediate? Such a War is too ruinous!" Hearing which, the Pompadour is shocked at the favorite creature of

her hands; hastens to dismiss him ("Be Cardinal then, you ingrate of a Bernis; disappear under that Red

Hat!")and appoints, in his stead, one Choiseul (known hitherto as STAINVILLE, Comte de Stainville,

French Excellency at Vienna, but now made Duke on this promotion), Duc de Choiseul; [Minister of Foreign

Affairs, "11th November, 1758" (Barbier, iv. 294).] who is a Lorrainer, or Semi Austrian, by very birth; and

probably much fitter for the place. A swift, impetuous kind of man, this Choiseul, who is still rather young

than otherwise; plenty of proud spirit in him, of shifts, talent of the reckless sort; who proved very notable in

French trade being ruined withal, money is running dreadfully low: but they appoint a new

ControllerGeneral; a M. de Silhouette, who is thought to have an extraordinary creative genius in Finance.

Had he but a FortunatusPurse, how lucky were it! With Fortunatus Silhouette as purseholder, with a fiery

young Choiseul on this hand, and a fiery old Belleisle on that, Pompadour meditates great things this

Year,Invasions of England; stronger German Armies; better German Plans, and slashings home upon

Hanover itself, or the vital point;and flatters herself, and her poor Louis, that there is on the anvil, for

1759, such a French Campaign as will perhaps astonish Pitt and another insolent King. Very fixed, fell and

feminine is the Pompadour's humor in this matter. Nor is the Czarina's less so; but more, if possible;

unappeasable except by death. Imperial Maria Theresa has masculine reasons withal; great hopes, too, of late.

To Pitt this Campaign 1759, in spite of bad omens at the outset, proved altogether splendid: but greatly the

reverse on Friedrich's side; to whom it was the most disastrous and unfortunate he had yet made, or did ever

make. Pitt at his zenith in public reputation; Friedrich never so low before, nothing seemingly but extinction

near ahead, when this Year ended. The truth is, apart from his specific pieces of illluck, there had now

begun for Friedrich a new rule of procedure, which much altered his appearance in the world. Thrice over had

he tried by the aggressive or invasive method; thrice over made a plunge at the enemy's heart, hoping so to

disarm or lame him: but that, with resources spent to such a degree, is what he cannot do a fourth time: he is

Prussia has always its King, and his unrivalled talent; but that is pretty much the only fixed item: Prussia

VERSUS France, Austria, Russia, Sweden and the German Reich, what is it as a field of supplies for war!

Except its King, these are failing, year by year; and at a rate fatally SWIFT in comparison. Friedrich cannot

now do Leuthens, Rossbachs; farshining feats of victory, which astonish all the world. His fine Prussian

veterans have mostly perished; and have been replaced by new levies and recruits; who are inferior both in

discipline and native quality;though they have still, people say, a noteworthy taste of the old Prussian sort

in them; and do, in fact, fight well to the last. But "it is observable," says Retzow somewhere, and indeed it

follows from the nature of the case, "that while the Prussian Army presents always its best kind of soldiers at

the beginning of a war, Austria, such are its resources in population, always improves in that particular, and

its best troops appear in the last campaigns." In a word, Friedrich stands on the defensive henceforth;

disputing his ground inch by inch: and is reduced, more and more, to battle obscurely with a hydracoil of

enemies and impediments; and to do heroisms which make no noise in the Gazettes. And, alas, which cannot

Friedrich, say all judges of soldiership and human character who have studied Friedrich sufficiently, "is

greater than ever," in these four Years now coming. [Berenhorst, in Kriegskunst; Retzow; And this, I have

found more and more to be a true thing; verifiable and demonstrable in time and place, though, unluckily

for us, hardly in this time or this place at all! A thing which cannot, by any method, be made manifest to the

general reader; who delights in shining summary feats, and is impatient of tedious preliminaries and

investigations,especially of MAPS, which are the indispensablest requisite of all. A thing, in short, that

belongs peculiarly to soldierstudents; who can undergo the dull preliminaries, most dull but most inexorably

BOOK XIX. FRIEDRICH LIKE TO BE OVERWHELMED IN THE SEVENYEARS WAR. 17591760. 1263

needed; and can follow out, with watchful intelligence, and with a patience not to be wearied, the

multifarious topographies, details of movements and manoeuvrings, year after year, on such a Theatre of

War. What is to be done with it here! If we could, by significant strokes, indicate, under features true so far as

they went, the great wide fireflood that was raging round the world; if we could, carefully omitting very

many things, omit of the things intelligible and decipherable that concern Friedrich himself, nothing that had

meaning: IF indeed! But it is idle preluding. Forward again, brave reader, under such conditions as there

Friedrich's Winter in Breslau was of secluded, silent, sombre character, this time; nothing of stir in it but from

work only: in marked contrast with the last, and its kindly visitors and gayeties. A Friedrich given up to his

manifold businesses, to his silent sorrows. "I have passed my winter like a Carthusian monk," he writes to

D'Argens: "I dine alone; I spend my life in reading and writing; and I do not sup. When one is sad, it becomes

at last too burdensome to hide one's grief continually; and it is better to give way to it by oneself, than to

carry one's gloom into society. Nothing solaces me but the vigorous application required in steady and

continuous labor. This distraction does force one to put away painful ideas, while it lasts: but, alas, no sooner

is the work done, than these fatal companions present themselves again, as if livelier than ever. Maupertuis

was right: the sum of evil does certainly surpass that of good:but to me it is all one; I have almost nothing

more to lose; and my few remaining days, what matters it much of what complexion they be?" ["Breslau, 1st

The loss of his Wilhelmina, had there been no other grief, has darkened all his life to Friedrich. Readers are

not prepared for the details of grief we could give, and the settled gloom of mind they indicate. A loss

irreparable and immeasurable; the light of life, the one loved heart that loved him, gone. His passionate

appeals to Voltaire to celebrate for him in verse his lost treasure, and at least make her virtues immortal, are

perhaps known to readers: [ODE SUR LA MORT DE S. A. S. MADAME LA PRINCESSE DE BAREITH

(in OEuvres de Voltaire, xviii. 7986): see Friedrich's Letter to him (6th November, 1758); with Voltaire's

VERSES in Answer (next month); Friedrich's new Letter (Breslau, 23d January 1759), demanding something

more, followed by the ODE just cited (Ib. lxxii. 402; lxxviii. 82, 92; or OEuvres de Frederic, xxiii. 2024:

alas, this is a very feeble kind of immortality, and Friedrich too well feels it such. All Winter he dwells

The War is ever more dark and dismal to him; a wearing, harassing, nearly disgusting task; on which,

however, depends life or death. This Year, he "expects to have 300,000 enemies upon him;" and "is, with his

utmost effort, getting up 150,000 to set against them." Of business, in its many kinds, there can be no lack! In

the intervals he also wrote considerably: one of his Pieces is a SERMON ON THE LAST JUDGMENT;

handed to Reader De Catt, one evening:to De Catt's surprise, and to ours; the Voiceless in a dark Friedrich

trying to give itself some voice in this way! [ OEuvres de Frederic, xv. 110 (see Preuss's PREFACE there;

Formey, SOUVENIRS, i. 37; Another Piece, altogether practical, and done with excellent insight, brevity,

modesty, is ON TACTICS; [REFLEXIONS SUR LA TACTIQUE: in OEuvres de Frederic, xxviii.

153166.] properly it might be called, "Serious very Private Thoughts," thrown on paper, and

communicated only to two or three, "On the new kind of Tactics necessary with those Austrians and their

Allies," who are in such overwhelming strength. "To whose continual sluggishness, and strange want of

concert, to whose incoherency of movements, languor of execution, and other enormous faults, we have

owed, with some excuse for our own faults, our escaping of destruction hitherto,"but had better NOT trust

that way any longer! Fouquet is one of the highly select, to whom he communicates this Piece; adding along

with it, in Fouquet's case, an affectionate little Note, and, in spite of poverty, some Newyear's Gift, as

usual,the "Widow's Mite [300 pounds, we find]; receive it with the same heart with which it was set apart

for you: a small help, which you may well have need of, in these calamitous times." ["Breslau, 23d

December, 1758;" with Fouquet's Answer, 2d January, 1759: in OEuvres de Frederic, xx. 114117.] Fouquet

much admires the new Tactical Suggestions;seems to think, however, that the certainly practicable one is,

in particular, the last, That of "improving our Artillery to some equality with theirs." For which, as may

BOOK XIX. FRIEDRICH LIKE TO BE OVERWHELMED IN THE SEVENYEARS WAR. 17591760. 1264

Finance is naturally a heavy part of Friedrich's Problem; the part which looks especially impossible, from our

point of vision! In Friedrich's Country, the War Budget does not differ from the Peace one. Neither is any

borrowing possible; that sublime Art, of rolling over on you know not whom the expenditure, needful or

needless, of your heavyladen self, had not yetthough England is busy at itbeen invented among

Nations. Once, or perhaps twice, from the STANDE of some willing Province, Friedrich negotiated some

small Loan; which was punctually repaid when Peace came, and was always gratefully remembered. But

these are as nothing, in face of such expenses; and the thought how he did contrive on the Finance side, is and

was not a little wonderful. An ingenious Predecessor, whom I sometimes quote, has expressed himself in

"Such modicum of Subsidy [he is speaking of the English Subsidy in 1758], how useful will it prove in a

Country bred everywhere to Spartan thrift, accustomed to regard waste as sin, and which will lay out no

penny except to purpose! I guess the Prussian Exchequer is, by this time, much on the ebb; idle precious

metals tending everywhere towards the meltingpot. At what precise date the FriedrichWilhelm balustrades,

and enormous silver furnitures, were first gone into, Dryasdust has not informed me: but we know they all

went; as they well might. To me nothing is so wonderful as Friedrich's Budget during this War. One day it

will be carefully investigated, elucidated and made conceivable and certain to mankind: but that as yet is far

from being the case. We walk about in it with astonishment; almost, were it possible, with incredulity.

Expenditure on this side, work done on that: human nature, especially British human nature, refuses to

conceive it. Never in this world, before or since, was the like. The Friedrich miracles in War are great; but

those in Finance are almost greater. Let Dryasdust bethink him; and gird his flabby loins to this Enterprise;

The general Secret of Prussian Thrift, I do fear, is lost from the world. And how an Army of about 200,000,

in field and garrison, could be kept on foot, and in some ability to front combined Europe, on about Three

Million Sterling annually ("25 million THALERS"=3,150,000 pounds, that is the steady WarBudget of

those years), remains to us inconceivable enough;mournfully miraculous, as it were; and growing ever

more so in the Nuggetgenerations that now run. Meanwhile, here are what hints I could find, on the Origins

of that modest Sum, which also are a wonder: [Preuss, ii. 388392; Stenzel, v. 137141.]

"The hoarded Prussian Moneys, or 'TREASURES' [two of them, KLEINE SCHATZ, GROSSE SCHATZ,

which are rigidly saved in Peace years, for incidence of War], being nearly run out, there had come the

English Subsidy: this, with Saxony, and the Home revenues and remnants of SCHATZ had sufficed for 1758;

but will no longer suffice. Next to Saxony, the English Subsidy (670,000 pounds due the second time this

year) was always Friedrich's principal resource: and in the latter years of the War, I observe, it was nearly

twice the amount of what all his Prussian Countries together, in their ravaged and wornout state, could yield

him. In and after 1759, besides Home Income, which is gradually diminishing, and English Subsidy, which is

"FIRST, there is that of wringing money from your Enemies, from those that have deserved ill of you,such

of them as you can come at. Enemies, open or secret, even Illwishers, we are not particular, provided only

they lie within arm'slength. Under this head fall principally three Countries (and their three poor

Populations, in lieu of their Governments): Saxony, Mecklenburg (or the main part of it,

MecklenburgSCHWERIN), and Anhalt; from these three there is a continual forced supply of money and

furnishings. Their demerits to Friedrich differ much in intensity; nor is his wringing of themwhich in the

cases of Mecklenburg and Saxony increases year by year to the nearly intolerable pitchquite in the simple

ratio of their demerits; but in a compound ratio of that and of his indignation and of his wants.

BOOK XIX. FRIEDRICH LIKE TO BE OVERWHELMED IN THE SEVENYEARS WAR. 17591760. 1265

"Saxony, as Prime Author of this War, was from the first laid hold of, collared tightly: 'Pay the shot, then,

what you can' (in the end it was almost what you cannot)! As to MecklenburgSchwerin, the grudge against

Prussia was of very old standing, some generations now; and the present Duke, not a very wise Sovereign

more than his Ancestors, had always been ill with Friedrich; willing to spite and hurt him when possible: in

Reichs Diet he, of all German Princes, was the first that voted for Friedrich's being put to Ban of the

Reich,he; and his poor People know since whether that was a wise step! The little Anhalt Princes, too, all

the Anhalts, Dessau, Bernburg, Cothen, Zerbst [perhaps the latter partially excepted, for a certain Russian

Lady's sake], had voted, or at least had ambiguously halfvoted, in favor of the Ban, and done other

unfriendly things; and had now to pay dear for their bits of enmities. Poor souls, they had but One Vote

among them all Four; and they only half gave it, tremulously pulling it back again. I should guess it was

their terrors mainly, and overreadiness to reckon Friedrich a sinking ship; and to leap from the deck of him,

with a spurn which he took for insolent! The AnhaltDessauers particularly, who were once of his very

Army, half Prussians for generations back, he reckoned to have used him scandalously ill.

"This Year the requisition on the Four Anhaltswhich they submit to patiently, as people who have leapt

into the wrong shipis, in precise tale: of money, 330,000 thalers (about 50,000 pounds); recruits, 2,200;

horses, 1,800. In Saxony, besides the fixed Taxes, strict confiscation of Meissen Potteries and every Royalty,

there were exacted heavy 'Contributions,' more and more heavy, from the few opulent Towns, chiefly from

Leipzig; which were wrung out, latterly, under great severities,'chief merchants of Leipzig all clapt in

prison, kept on breadandwater till they yielded,'AS great severities as would suffice, but NOT greater;

which also was noted. Unfortunate chief merchants of Leipzig,with Bruhl and Polish Majesty little likely

to indemnify them! Unfortunate Country altogether. An intelligent Saxon, who is vouched for as impartial,

bears witness as follows: 'And this I know, that the oppressions and plunderings of the Austrians and

Reichsfolk, in Saxony, turned all hearts away from them; and it was publicly said, We had rather bear the

steady burden of the Prussians than such help as these our pretended Deliverers bring.' [Stenzel (citing from

KRIEGSKANZLEI, which I have not), v. 137 n.] Whereby, on the whole, the poor Country got its back

broken, and could never look up in the world since. Resource FIRST was abundantly severe.

"Resource SECOND is strangest of all;and has given rise to criticism enough! It is no other than that of

issuing base money; mixing your gold and silver coin with copper,this, one grieves to say, is the Second

and extreme resource. (A rude methodwould we had a betterof suspending Cashpayments, and paying

by banknotes instead!' thinks Friedrich, I suppose. From his Prussian Mints, from his Saxon [which are his

for the present], and from the little AnhaltBernburg Mint [of which he expressly purchased the sad

privilege,for we are not a Coiner, we are a King reduced to suspend Cashpayments, for the time being],

Friedrich poured out over all Germany, in all manner of kinds, huge quantities of bad Coin. This, so long as it

would last, is more and more a copious fountain of supply. This, for the first time, has had to appear as an

item in WarBudget 1759: and it fails in no following, but expands more and more. It was done through

Ephraim, the not lovely Berlin Jew, whom we used to hear of in Voltaire's time;through Ephraim and two

others, Ephraim as President: in return for a net Sum, these shall have privilege to coin such and such

amounts, so and so alloyed; shall pay to General Tauentzien, Army Treasurer, at fixed terms, the Sums

specified: 'Go, and do it; our MintOfficers sharply watching you; MintOfficers, and General Tauentzien

[with a young Herr Lessing, as his Chief Clerk, of whom the King knows nothing]; Go, ye unlovely!' And

Ephraim and Company are making a great deal of money by the unlovely job. Ephraim is the pair of tongs,

the hand, and the unlovely job, are a royal man's. Alas, yes. And none of us knows better than King Friedrich,

perhaps few of us as well, how little lovely a job it was; how shockingly UNkingly it was,though a

practice not unknown to German Kings and Kinglets before his time, and since down almost to ours. [In

STENZEL (v. 141) enumeration of eight or nine unhappy Potentates, who were busy with it in those same

years.] In fact, these are all unkingly practices;and the English Subsidy itself is distasteful to a proud

BOOK XIX. FRIEDRICH LIKE TO BE OVERWHELMED IN THE SEVENYEARS WAR. 17591760. 1266

"The first coinages of Ephraim had, it seems, in them about 37ths of copper; something less than the half,

and more than the third," your gold sovereign grown to be worth 28s. 6d. "But yearly it grew worse; and in

1762 [English Subsidy having failed] matters had got inverted; and there was three times as much copper as

silver. Commerce, as was natural, went rocking and tossing, as on a sea under earthquakes; but there was

always ready money among Friedrich's soldiers, as among no other: nor did the common people, or retail

purchasers, suffer by it. 'Hah, an Ephraimite!' they would say, grinning not illhumoredly, at sight of one of

these pieces; some of which they had more specifically named 'BLUEGOWNS' [owing to a tint of blue

perceivable, in spite of the industrious plating in real silver, or at least "boiling in some solution" of it]; these

"By this time, whatever of money, from any source, can be scraped together in Friedrich's world, flows

wholly into the ArmyChest, as the real citadel of life. In these latter years of the War, beginning, I could

guess, from 1759, all Civil expenditures, and wages of Officials, cease to be paid in money; nobody of that

kind sees the color even of bad coin; but is paid only in 'Paper Assignments,' in Promises to Pay 'after the

Peace.' These Paper Documents made no pretence to the rank of Currency: such holders of them as had

money, or friends, and could wait, got punctual payment when the term did arrive; but those that could not,

suffered greatly; having to negotiate their debentures on ruinous terms, sometimes at an expense of

threefourths.I will add Friedrich's practical Schedule of Amounts from all these various Sources; and

what Friedrich's own view of the Sources was, when he could survey them from the safe distance.

"SCHEDULE OF AMOUNTS [say for 1761]. To make up the Twentyfive Million thalers, necessary for the

they have been, . . . . . . . . . . 4 millions only. From Saxony and the other Wringings, . . . . . 7 millions.

In sum Twentysix Millions; leaving you one Million of margin, and always a plenty of cash in hand for

"Friedrich's own view of these sad matters, as he closes his History of the SevenYears War [at "Berlin, 17th

December, 1763"], is in these words: 'May Heaven grant,if Heaven deign to look down on the paltry

concerns of men,that the unalterable and flourishing destiny of this Country preserve the Sovereigns who

shall govern it from the scourges and calamities which Prussia has suffered in these times of trouble and

subversion; that they may never again be forced to recur to the violent and fatal remedies which we (L'ON)

have been obliged to employ in maintenance of the State against the ambitious hatred of the Sovereigns of

Europe, who wished to annihilate the House of Brandenburg, and exterminate from the world whatever bore

BOOK XIX. FRIEDRICH LIKE TO BE OVERWHELMED IN THE SEVENYEARS WAR. 17591760. 1267

Friedrich, being denied an aggressive course this Year, by no means sits idly expectant and defensive in the

interim; but, all the more vigorously, as is observable, from February onwards, strikes out from him on every

side: endeavoring to spoil the Enemy's Magazines, and cripple his operations in that way. So that there was,

all winter through, a good deal of SmallWar (some of it not Small), of more importance than

usual,chiefly of Friedrich's originating, with the above view, or of Ferdinand his Ally's, on a still more

pressing score. And, on the whole, that immense AustrianFrench Cordon, which goes from the Carpathians

to the Ocean, had by no means a quiet time; but was broken into, and violently hurled back, in different parts:

some four, or even five, attacks upon it in all; three of them by Prince Henri,in two of which Duke

Ferdinand's people cooperated; the business being for mutual behoof. These latter Three were famous in the

world, that Winter; and indeed are still recognizable as brilliant procedures of their kind; though, except dates

and results, we can afford almost nothing of them here. These Three, intended chiefly against Reichs people

and their Posts and Magazines, fell out on the western and middle part of the Cordon. Another attack was in

the extreme eastward, and was for Friedrich's own behoof; under Fouquet's management;intended against

the AustrianMoravian Magazines and Preparations, but had little success. Still another assault, or invasive

outroad, northward against the Russian Magazines, there also was; of which by and by. Besides all which,

and more memorable than all, Duke Ferdinand, for vital reasons of his own, fought a Battle this Spring,

It is not necessary the reader should load his memory with details of all these preliminary things; on the

contrary, it is necessary that he keep his memory clear for the far more important things that lie ahead of

these, and entertain these in a summary way, as a kind of foreground to what is coming. Perhaps the

following Fractions of Note, which put matters in something of Chronological or Synoptical form, will

suffice him, or more than suffice. He is to understand that the grand tug of War, this Year, gradually turns out

not to be hereabouts, nor with Daun and his adjacencies at all, but with the Russians, who arrive from the

opposite Northern quarter; and that all else will prove to be merely prefatory and nugatory in comparison.

SUDDENLY BECOME FRENCH. "Prince de Soubise lies between Mayn and Lahn, with his 25,000;

beautifully safe and convenient,though ill off for a placeofarms in those parts. Opulent Frankfurt, on his

right; how handy would that be, were not Reichs Law so express! Marburg, Giessen are outposts of his; on

which side one of Ferdinand's people, Prince von Ysenburg, watches him with an 8 or 10,000, capable of

"On the Eve of Newyear's day, or on the auspicious Day itself, Soubise requests, of the Frankfurt

Authorities, permission for a regiment of his to march through that Imperial City. To which, by law and

theory, the Imperial City can say Yes or No; but practically cannot, without grave inconvenience, say other

than Yes, though most Frankfurters wish it could. 'Yes,' answer the Frankfurt Magnates; Yes surely, under the

known conditions. Tuesday, January 2d, about 5 in the morning, while all is still dark in Frankfurt, regiment

Nassau appears, accordingly, at the Sachsenhausen Gate, Townguard people all ready to receive it and

escort it through; and is admitted as usual. Quite as usual: but instead of being escorted through, it orders, in

calm peremptory voice, the Townguard, To ground arms; with calm rapidity proceeds to admit ten other

regiments or battalions, six of them German; seizes the artillery on the Walls, seizes all the other

Gates:and poor Frankfurt finds itself tied hand and foot, almost before it is out of bed! Done with great

exactitude, with the minimum of confusion, and without a hurt skin to anybody. The Inhabitants stood silent,

gazing; the Townguard laid down their arms, and went home. Totally against Law; but cleverly done;

perhaps Soubise's chief exploit in the world; certainly the one real success the French have yet had.

"Soubise made haste to summon the Magistrates: 'Law of Necessity alone, most honored Sirs! Reichs Law is

clear against me. But all the more shall private liberties, religions, properties, in this Imperial FreeTown, be

sacred to us. Defence against any aggression: and the strictest discipline observed. Depend on me, I bid

you!'And kept his word to an honorable degree, they say; or in absence, made it be kept, during the Four

BOOK XIX. FRIEDRICH LIKE TO BE OVERWHELMED IN THE SEVENYEARS WAR. 17591760. 1268

Years that follow. Most Frankfurters are, at heart, AntiFrench: but Soubise's affability was perfect; and he

gave evening parties of a sublime character; the Magistrates all appearing there, in their square perukes and

Soubise soon went home, to assist in important businesses, Invasion of England, no less; let England look

to itself this Summer!and Broglio succeeded him, as ArmyCaptain in the Frankfurt parts; with laurels

accruing, more or less. Soubise, like Broglio, began with Rossbach; Soubise ends with Frankfurt, for the

present; where Broglio also gains his chief laurels, as will shortly be seen. Frankfurt is a great gain to France,

though an illicit one. It puts a bar on Duke Ferdinand in that quarter; secures a startingpoint for attacks on

Hessen, Hanover; for cooperation with Contades and the Lower Rhine. It is the one success France has yet

had in this War, or pretty much that it ever had in it. Due to Prince de Soubise, in that illegal fashion. A

highly remarkable little Boy, now in his tenth year, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, has his wondering eyes on

these things: and, short while hence, meets daily, on the stairs and lobbies at home, a pleasant French Official

Gentlemen who is quartered there; between whom and Papa occur rubs,as readers may remember, and

weeks after this Frankfurt achievement, certain Reichsfolk and Austrian Auxiliaries are observed to be

cutting down endless timber, '18,800 palisades, 6,000 trees of 60 feet,' and other huge furnishings, from the

poor Duke of Gotha's woods; evidently meaning to fortify themselves in Erfurt. Upon which Prince Henri

detaches a General Knobloch thitherward, Duke Ferdinand contributing 4,000 to meet him there; which

combined expedition, after some sharp knocking and shoving, entirely disrooted the Austrians and

Reichsfolk, and sent them packing. Had them quite torn out by the end of the month; and had planned to

'attack them on two sides at once' (March 2d), with a view of swallowing them whole,when they (these

Reichs Volscians, in such a state of flutter) privately hastened off, one and all of them, the day before."

This was BREAKAGE FIRST of the Grand Cordon; an explosive hurling of it back out of those Erfurt parts.

Done by Prince Henri's people, in concert with Duke Ferdinand's,who were mutually interested in the

March, these intrusive Austrian Reichsfolk made some attempt to come back into those Countries; but again

got nothing but hard knocks; and gave up the Erfurt project. For, close following on this FIRST, there was a

SECOND still deeper and rougher Breakage, in those same regions; the Hereditary Prince of Brunswick

dashing through, on a special Errand of Ferdinand's own [of which presently], with an 8 or 10,000, in his

usual fiery manner; home into the very bowels of the Reich (April 3d, and for a week onward); and returning

with 'above 2,000 prisoners' in hand; especially with a Reich well frightened behind him;still in time for

Duke Ferdinand's Adventure [in fact, for his Battle of Bergen, of which we are to hear]. Had been well

assisted by Prince Henri, who 'made dnngerous demonstrations in the distance,' and was extremely

diligentthough the interest was chiefly Ferdinand's this time." [Tempelhof, iii. 1922.]Contemporary

with that FIRST Erfurt Business, there went on, 300 miles away from it, in the quite opposite direction,

ACROSS THE POLISH FRONTIER: FEBRUARY, 24thMARCH 4th. "In the end of February, General

Wobersnow, an active man, was detached from Glogau, over into Poland, Posen way, To overturn the

Russian provision operations thereabouts; in particular, to look into a certain highflying Polack, a Prince

Sulkowski of those parts; who with all diligence is gathering food, in expectation of the Russian advent; and

indeed has formally 'declared War against the King of Prussia;' having the right, he says, as a Polish Magnate,

subject only to his own high thought in such affairs. The Russians and their wars are dear to Sulkowski. He

fell prisoner in their cause, at Zorndorf, last Autumn; was stuck, like all the others, Soltikoff himself among

BOOK XIX. FRIEDRICH LIKE TO BE OVERWHELMED IN THE SEVENYEARS WAR. 17591760. 1269

them, into the vaulted parts of Custrin Garrison: 'I am sorry I have no Siberia for you,' said Friedrich, looking,

not in a benign way, on the captive Dignitaries, that hot afternoon; 'go to Custrin, and see what you have

provided for yourselves!' Which they had to do; nothing, for certain days, but cellarage to lodge in; King

inexorable, deaf to remonstrance. Which possibly may have contributed to kindle Sulkowski into these

"At any rate, Wobersnow punctually looks in upon him: seizes his considerable stock of Russian proviants;

his belligerent force, his high person itself; and in one luckless hour snuffs him out from the list of potentates.

His belligerent force, about 1,000 Polacks, were all compelled, 'by the cudgel, say my authorities, to take

Prussian service [in garrison regiments, and well scattered about, I suppose]; his own high person found itself

sitting locked in Glogau, left to its reflections. Sat thus 'till the War ended,' say some; certainly till the

Sulkowski War had been sufficiently exploded by the laughter of mankind." Here are, succinctly, the dates of

"End of February, Wobersnow gathers, at Glogau, a force of about 8,000 horse and foot. Marches, 24th

FEBRUARY, over Oder Bridge, straight into Poland; that same night, to the neighborhood of Lissa and

Reisen (Sulkowski's dominion), about thirty miles northeast of Glogau. Sulkowski done next day;part of

the capture is 'fifteen small guns.' Wobersnow goes, next, for Posen; arrives, 28th FEBRUARY; destroys

Russian Magazine, ransoms Jews. Shoots out other detachments on the Magazine Enterprise;detaches

Platen along the Warta, where are picked up various items, among others 'eighty tuns of brandy,'but

himself proceeds no farther than Posen. MARCH 4th, sets out again from Posen, homewards."

POLEN, IM FEB. UND MARZ. 1759: in Seyfarth, Beylagen, ii. 526529. HeldenGeschichte, v. 829.] We

To the Polish Republic so called, Friedrich explained politely, not apologetically: "Since you allow the

Russians to march through you in attack of me, it is evident to your just minds that the attacked party must

have similar privilege." "Truly!" answered they, in their just minds, generally; and I made no complaint about

Sulkowski (though Polish Majesty and Primate endeavored to be loud about "Invasion" and the like):and

indeed Polish Republic was lying, for a long while past, as if brokenbacked, on the public highway, a

Nation anarchic every fibre of it, and under the feet and hoofs of travelling Neighbors, especially of Russian

Neighbors; and is not now capable of saying much for itself in such cases, or of doing anything at all.

FRANKFURT COUNTRY, APRIL 13th: DUKE FERDINAND'S BATTLE OF BERGEN. "Duke Ferdinand,

fully aware what a stroke that seizure of Frankfurt was to him, resolved to risk a long march at this bad

season, and attempt to drive the French out. Contades was absent in Paris,no fear of an attack from

Contades's Army; Broglio's in Frankfurt, grown now to about 35,000, can perhaps be beaten if vigorously

attacked. Ferdinand appoints a rendezvous at Fulda, of various Corps, Prince Ysenburg's and others, that lie

nearest, Hessians many of them, Hanoverians others; proceeds, himself, to Fulda, with a few attendants [a

drive of about 200 miles];having left Lord George Sackville [mark the sad name of him!]Sackville,

head of the English, and General Sporken, a Hanoverian,to take charge in Munster Country, during his

absence. It was from Fulda that he shot out the Hereditary Prince on that important Errand we lately spoke of,

under the head of 'BREAKAGE SECOND,'namely, to clear his right flank, and scare the Reich well off

him, while he should be marching on Frankfurt. All which, Henri assisting from the distance, the Hereditary

Prince performed to perfection,and was back (APRIL 8th) in excellent time for the Battle.

"Ferdinand stayed hardly a day in Fulda, ranking himself and getting on the road. Did his long march of

above 100 miles without accident or loss of time;of course, scaring home the Broglio Outposts in haste

enough, and awakening Broglio's attention in a high degree;and arrives, Thursday, April 12th, at

Windecken, a Village about fifteen miles northeast of Frankfurt; where he passes the night under arms;

intending Battle on the morrow. Broglio is all assembled, 35,000 strong; his Assailant, with the Hereditary

BOOK XIX. FRIEDRICH LIKE TO BE OVERWHELMED IN THE SEVENYEARS WAR. 17591760. 1270

Prince come in, counts rather under 30,000. Broglio is posted in, and on both sides of, Bergen, a highlying

Village, directly on Ferdinand's road to Frankfurt. Windecken is about fifteen miles from Frankfurt; Bergen

about six:idle Tourists of our time, on their return from Homburg to that City, leave Bergen a little on their

left. The ground is mere hills, woody dales, marshy brooks; Broglio's position, with its Village, and Hill, and

ravines and advantages, is the choicest of the region; and Broglio's methods, procedures and arrangements in

"FRIDAY, 13th APRIL, 1759, Ferdinand is astir by daybreak; comes on, along one of those woody balleys,

pickeering, reconnoitring; in the end, directly up the Hill of Bergen; straight upon the keypoint. It is

about 10 A.M., when the batteries and musketries awaken there; very loud indeed, for perhaps two hours or

more. Prince von Ysenburg is leader of Ferdinand's attacking party. Their attack is hot and fierce, and they

stick to it steadily; though gardenhedges, orchards and impediments are many, and Broglio, with, much

cannon helping, makes vigorous defence. These Ysenburgers fought till their cartridges were nearly spent,

and Ysenburg himself lay killed; but could not take Bergen. Nor could the Hereditary Prince; who, in aid of

them, tried it in flank, with his own usual impetuosity rekindling theirs, and at first with some success; but

was himself taken in flank by Broglio's Reserve, and obliged to desist. No getting of Bergen by that method.

"Military critics say coolly, 'You should have smashed it well with cannon, first [which Ferdinand had not in

stock here]; and especially have flung grenadoes into it, till it was well in flame: impossible otherwise!'

[Mauvillon, ii. 19.] The Ysenburgers and Hereditary Prince withdraw. No pursuit of them; or almost less than

none; for the one or two French regiments that tried it (against order), nearly got cut up. Broglio, like a very

Daun at Kolin, had strictly forbidden all such attempts: 'On no temptation quit your ground!'

"The Battle, after this, lay quiet all afternoon; Ferdinand still in sight; motioning much, to tempt French valor

into chasing of him. But all in vain: Broglio, though his subalterns kept urging, remonstrating, was

peremptory not to stir. Whereupon, towards evening, across certain woody Heights, perhaps still with some

hope of drawing him out, Ferdinand made some languid attempt on Broglio's wing, or wings;and this also

failing, had to give up the affair. He continued cannonading till deep in the night; withdrew to Windecken:

and about two next morning, marched for home,still with little or no pursuit: but without hope of Frankfurt

"Ferdinand had lost 5 cannon, and of killed and wounded 2,500; the French counted their loss at about 1,900.

[Mauvillon, ii. 1019; Tempelhof, iii. 2631.] The joy of France over this immense victory was

extraordinary. Broglio was made Prince of the Reich, Marechal de France; would have been raised to the

stars, had one been able,for the time being. 'And your immense victory,' so sneered the bystanders,

'consists in not being beaten, under those excellent conditions;perhaps victory is a rarity just now!'"

This is the Battle which our BoyFriend Johann Wolfgang watched with such interest, from his

garretwindow, hour after hour; all Frankfurt simmering round him, in such a whirlpool of self

contradictory emotions; till towards evening, when, in long rows of carts, poor wounded Hessians and

Hanoverians came jolting in, and melted every heart into pity. into wailing sorrow, and eagerness to help. A

little later, Papa Goethe, stepping downstairs, came across the Official French Gentleman; who said radiantly:

"Doubtless you congratulate yourself and us on this victory to his Majesty's arms." "Not a whit

(KEINESWEGS)," answers Papa Goethe, a stiff kind of man, nowise in the mood of congratulating: "on the

contrary, I wish they had chased you to the Devil, though I had had to go too!" Which was a great relief to his

feelings, though a dangerous one in the circumstances. [Goethe's WERKE (Stuttgart und Tubingen, 1829),

"Ferdinand's Battle was hardly ending, when Prince Henri poured across the Mountains,in two columns,

Hulsen leading the inferior or rightmost one,into LeitmeritzEger Country; and made a most successful

BOOK XIX. FRIEDRICH LIKE TO BE OVERWHELMED IN THE SEVENYEARS WAR. 17591760. 1271

business of the Austrian Magazines he found there. Magazines all filled; Enemy all galloping for Prag:

Daun himself, who is sitting vigilant, far in the interior, at Jaromirtz this month past, was thrown into huge

flurry, for some days! Speedy Henri (almost on the one condition of BEING speedy) had his own will of the

Magazines: burnt, Hulsen and he, 'about 600,000 pounds worth' of Austrian provender in those parts, 'what

would have kept 50,000 men five months in bread' (not to mention hay at all); gave the Enemy sore slaps

(caught about 3,000 of him, NOT yet got on gallop for Prag); burnt his 200 boats on the Elbe: forced him

to begin anew at the beginning; and did, in effect, considerably lame and retard certain of his operations

through the Summer. Speedy Henri marched for home April 20th; and was all across the Mountains April

23d: a profitable swift nine days." [Tempelhof iii. 4753; HeldenGeschichte, v. 963966.]And on the

sixth day hence he will have something similar, and still more important, on foot. A swift man, when he

BREAKAGE FOURTH: INTO MAHREN (APRIL 16th21st). "This is Fouquet's attempt, alluded to above;

of whichas every reader must be satisfied with SmallWarwe will give only the dates. Fouquet, ranking

at Leobschutz, in Neisse Country, did break through into Mahren, pushing the Austrians before him; but

found the Magazines either emptied, or too inaccessible for any worth they had;could do nothing on the

Magazines; and returned without result; home at Leobschutz again on the fifth day." [ HeldenGeschichte, v.

958963; Tcmpelhof, iii. 4447.] This, however, had a sequel for Fouquet; which, as it brought the King

BREAKAGE FIFTH: INTO FRANKEN (MAY 5thJUNE 1st). "This was Prince Henri's Invasion of the

BambergNurnberg Countries; a much sharper thing than in any former Year. Much the most famous, and,"

luckily for us, "the last of the SmallWar affairs for the present. Started,from Tschopau region, Bamberg

way,April 29thMay 5th. In Three Columns: Finck leftmost, and foremost (Finck had marched April 29th,

pretending to mean for Bohemia); after whom Knobloch; and (May 5th) the Prince himself. Who has an eye

to the Reichs Magazines and Preparations, as usual;nay, an eye to their Camp of Rendezvous, and to a

fight with their miscellaneous Selves and Auxiliaries, if they will stand fight. 'You will have to leave Saxony,

and help us with the Russians, soon: beat those Reichs people first!' urged the King; 'well beaten, they will

not trouble Saxony for a while.' If they will stand fight? But they would not at all. They struck their tents

everywhere; burnt their own Magazines, in some cases; and only went mazing hither and thither,

gravitating all upon Nurnberg, and an impregnable Camp which they have in that neighborhood. Supreme

Zweibruck was himself with them; many Croats, Austrians, led by Maguire and others; all marching,

whirling at a mighty rate; with a countenance sometimes of vigor, but always with Nurnberg Camp in rear.

There was swift marching, really beautiful manoeuvring here and there; sharp bits of fighting, too, almost in

the battleform:Maguire tried, or was for trying, a stroke with Finck; but made off hastily, glad to get

away. [Templehof, iii. 64.] May 11th, at Himmelskron in Baireuth, one Riedesel of theirs had fairly to ground

arms, self and 2,500, and become prisoners of war." Much of this manoeuvring and scuffling was in Baireuth

Territory. Twice, or even thrice, Prince Henri was in Baireuth Town: "marched through Baireuth," say the

careless Old Books. Through Baireuth:No Wilhelmina now there, with her tremulous melodies of

welcome! Wilhelminn's loves, and terrors for her loved, are now all still. Perhaps her poor Daughter of

Wurtemberg, wandering unjustly disgraced, is there; Papa, the Widower Margraf, is for marrying again:

[Married 20th September, 1759 (a Brunswick Princess, Sister'sdaughter of his late Wife); died within four

"In Bamberg," says a Note from Archenholtz, "the Reichs troops burnt their Magazine; and made for

Nurnberg, as usual; but left some thousand or two of Croats, who would not yet. Knobloch and his Prussians

appeared shortly after; summoned Bamberg, which agreed to receive them; and were for taking possession;

but found the Croats determined otherwise. Fight ensued; fight in the streets; which, in hideousness of noises,

if in nothing else, was beyond parallel. The inhabitants sat all quaking in their cellars; not an inhabitant was

to be seen: a City dead,and given up to the demons, in this manner. Not for some hours were the Croats got

entirely trampled out. Bamberg, as usual, became a Prussian placeofarms; was charged to pay ransom of

BOOK XIX. FRIEDRICH LIKE TO BE OVERWHELMED IN THE SEVENYEARS WAR. 17591760. 1272

40,000 pounds;'cannot possibly!' did pay some 14,000 pounds, and gave bills for the remainder."

[Archenholtz. i. 371373.] Which bills, let us mark withal, the Kaiser in Reichs Diet decreed to be invalid:

"Don't pay them!" A thing not forgotten by Friedrich;though it is understood the Bambergers, lest worse

might happen, privately paid their bills. "The Expedition lasted, in whole, not quite four weeks: June 1st,

Prince Henri was at the Saxon frontier again; the German world all ringing loud,in jubilation,

counterjubilation and a great variety of tones,with the noise of what he had done. A sharp swift man; and,

sure enough, has fluttered the Reichs Volscians in their Corioli to an unexpected degree." [Seyfarth,

FRANKEN, IM JAHR, 1759; Helden Geschichte, v. 10331039; Tempelhof, ????, et seq.]

A Colonel Wunsch (LieutenantColonel of the Free Corps WUNSCH) distinguished himself in this

Expedition; The beginning of notably great things to him in the few following months. Wunsch is a

Wurtemberger by birth; has been in many services, always in subaltern posts, and, this year, will testify

strangely how worthy he was of the higher. What a Year, this of 1759, to stout old Wunsch! In the Spring,

here has he just seen his poor son, Lieutenant Wunsch, perish in one of these scuffles; in Autumn, he will see

himself a General, shining suddenly bright, to his King and to all the world; before Winter, he will be

Prisoner to Austria, and eclipsed for the rest of this war!Kleist, of the GREEN HUSSARS, also made a

figure here; and onwards rapidly ever higher; to the top of renown in his business:fallen heir to Mayer's

place, as it were. A Note says: "Poor Mayer of the Free Corps does not ride with the Prince on this occasion.

Mayer, dangerously worn down with the hard services of last Year, and himself a man of too sleepless

temper, caught a fever in the Newyear time; and died within few days: burnt away before his time; much

regretted by his Brethren of the Army, and some few others. Gone in this way; with a high career just

opening on him at the long last! Mayer was of Austrian, of half Spanish birth; a musical, really melodious,

affectionate, but indignant, wildly stormful mortal; and had had adventures without end. Something of

pathos, of tragedy, in the wild Life of him. [Still worth reading: in Pauli (our old watery

BRANDENBURGHISTORY Friend). Leben grosser Helden (Halle, 17591764, 9 vols.), iii.

142188;much the best Piece in that still rather watery (or windy) Collection, which, however, is

authentic, and has some tolerable Portraits.] A man of considerable genius, military and other:genius in the

sleepless kind, which is not the best kind; sometimes a very bad kind. The fame of Friedrich invites such

people from all sides of the world; and this was no doubt a sensible help to him."But enough of all this.

Here, surely, is abundance of preliminary SmallWar, on the part of a Friedrich reduced to the

defensive!Fouquet's Sequel, hinted at above, was to this effect. On Fouquet's failing to get hold of the

Moravian Magazines, and returning to his Post at Leobschutz, a certain rash General Deville, who is Austrian

chief in those parts, hastily rushed through the Jagerndorf Hills, and invaded Fouquet. Only for a few days;

and had very bad success, in that bit of retaliation. The King, who is in Landshut, in the middle of his main

cantonments, hastened over to Leobschutz with reinforcement to Fouquet; in the thought that a

finishingstroke might be done on this Deville;and would have done it, had not the rash man plunged off

again (May 1st, or the night before); homewards, at full speed. So that Friedrich, likewise at full speed, could

catch nothing of him; but merely cannonade him in the Passes of Zuckmantel, and cut off his rearguard of

Croats. Poor forlorn of Croats, whom he had left in some bushy Chasm; to gain him a little time, and then to

perish if THEY must! as Tempelhof remarks. [Tempelhof, iii. 56.] Upon which Friedrich returned to

It was from this Landshut region, where his main cantonments are, that Friedrich had witnessed all these

Inroads, or all except the very earliest of them; the first Erfurt one, and the Wobersnow Sulkowski. He had

quitted Breslau in the end of March, and gone to his cantonments; quickened thither, probably, by a stroke

that had befallen him at Griefenberg, on his Silesian side of the Cordon. At Griefenberg stood the Battalion

Duringshofen, with its Colonel of the same name,grenadier people of good quality, perhaps near 1,000 in

whole. Which Battalion, General Beck, after long preliminary study of it, from his Bohemian

side,marching stealthily on it, one night (March 2526th), by two or more roads, with 8,000 men, and

BOOK XIX. FRIEDRICH LIKE TO BE OVERWHELMED IN THE SEVENYEARS WAR. 17591760. 1273

much preliminary Croatwork,contrived to envelop wholly, and carry off with him, before help could

come up. This, I suppose, had quickened Friedrich's arrival. He has been in that region ever since,in

Landshut for the last week or two; and returns thither after the Deville affair.

And at Landshut,which is the main Pass into Bohemia or from it, and is the grand observatorypoint at

present,he will have to remain till the first days of July; almost three months. Watching, and waiting on the

tedious Daun, who has the lifting of the curtain this Year! Daun had come to Jaromirtz, to his cantonments,

"March 24th" (almost simultaneously with Friedrich to his); expecting Friedrich's Invasion, as usual. Long

days sat Daun, expecting the King in Bohemia:"There goes he, at last!" thought Daun, on Prince Henri's

late flamy appearance there (BREAKAGE THIRD we labelled it);and Daun had hastily pushed a Division

thitherward, doublequick, to secure Prag; but found it was only the Magazines. "Above four millions worth

[600,000 pounds, counting the THALERS into sterling], above four millions worth of bread and forage gone

to ashes, and the very boats burnt? Well; the poor Reichsfolk, or our poor Auxiliaries to them, will have

At what exact point of time Daun came to see that Friedrich was not intending Invasion, and would, on the

contrary, require to be invaded, I do not know. But it must have been an interesting discovery to Daun, if he

foreshadowed to himself what results it would have on him: "Taking the defensive, then? And what is to

become of one's Cunctatorship in that case!" Yes, truly. Cunctatorship is not now the trade needed; there is

nothing to be made of playing FabiusCunctator:and Daun's fame henceforth is a diminishing quantity.

The Books say he "wasted above five weeks in corresponding with the Russian Generals." In fact, he had

now weeks enough on hand; being articulately resolved (and even commanded by Kriegshofrath) to do

nothing till the Russians came up;and also (INarticulately and by command of Nature) to do as little as

possible after! This Year, and indeed all years following, the Russians are to be Daun's best card.

Waiting for three months here till the curtain rose, it was Friedrich that had to play Cunctator. A wearisome

task to him, we need not doubt. But he did it with anxious vigilance; ever thinking Daun would try

something, either on Prince Henri or on him, and that the Play would begin. But the Play did not. There was

endless scuffling and bickering of Outposts; much hitching and counter hitching, along that

BohemianSilesian Frontier,Daun gradually hitching up, leftwards, northwards, to be nearer his Russians;

Friedrich counterhitching, and, in the end, detaching against the Russians, as they approached in actuality.

The details of all which would break the toughest patience. Not till July came, had both parties got into the

Lausitz; Daun into an impregnable Camp near MarkLissa (in Gorlitz Country); Friedrich, opposite and

eastward of him, into another at Schmottseifen:still after which, as the Russians still were not come, the

hitching (if we could concern ourselves with it), the maze of strategic shuffling and counter dancing, as the

Except that of General Beck on Battalion Duringshofen,if that was meant as retaliatory, and was not rather

an originality of Beck's, who is expert at such strokes,Daun, in return for all these injurious Assaults and

Breakages, tried little or no retaliation; and got absolutely none. Deville attempted once, as we saw; Loudon

once, as perhaps we shall see: but both proved futile. For the present absolutely none. Next Year indeed,

Loudon, on Fouquet at Landshut But let us not anticipate! Just before quitting Landshut for Schmottseifen,

Friedrich himself rode into Bohemia, to look more narrowly; and held Trautenau, at the bottom of the Pass,

for a day or twoBut the reader has had enough of SmallWar! Of the present Loudon attempt, Friedrich,

writing to Brother Henri, who is just home from his Franconian Invasion (BREAKAGE FIFTH), has a casual

word, which we will quote. "ReichHennersdorf" is below Landshut, farther down the Pass; "Liebau" still

REICHHENNERSDORF, 9th JUNE. "My congratulations on the excellent success you have had [out in

Frankenland yonder]! Your prisoners, we hear, are 3,000; the desertion and confusion in the Reichs Army are

affirmed to be enormous:I give those Reichs fellows two good months [scarcely took so long] to be in a

BOOK XIX. FRIEDRICH LIKE TO BE OVERWHELMED IN THE SEVENYEARS WAR. 17591760. 1274

condition to show face again. As for ourselves, I can send you nothing but contemptibilities. We have never

yet had the beatific vision of Him with the Hat and Consecrated Sword [Papal Daun, that is]; they amuse us

with the Sieur Loudon instead;who, three days ago [7th July, two days] did us the honor of a visit, at the

Gallows of Liebau. He was conducted out again, with all the politeness imaginable, on to near Schatzlar,"

well over the Bohemian Border; "where we flung a score of cannon volleys into the"into the "DERRIERE

Perhaps the only points now noticeable in this tedious Landshut interim, are Two, hardly noticed then at all

by an expectant world. The first is: That in the King's little inroad down to Trautenau, just mentioned, four

cannon drawn by horses were part of the King's fighting gear,the first appearance of Horse Artillery in the

world. "A very great invention," says the military mind: "guns and carriages are light, and made of the best

material for strength; the gunners all mounted as postilions to them. Can scour along, over hill and dale,

wherever horse can; and burst out, on the sudden, where nobody was expecting artillery. Devised in 1758;

ready this Year, four light sixpounders; tried first in the King's raid down to Trautenau [June 29th30th].

Only four pieces as yet. But these did so well, there were yearly more. Imitated by the Austrians, and

The second fact is: That Herr Guichard (Author of that fine Book on the Warmethods of the Greeks and

Romans) is still about Friedrich, as he has been for above a year past, if readers remember; and, during those

tedious weeks, is admitted to a great deal of conversation with the King. Readers will consent to this Note on

Guichard; and this shall be our ultimatum on the wearisome Three Months at Landshut.

MAJOR QUINTUS ICILIUS. "Guichard is by birth a Magdeburger, age now thirtyfour; a solid staid man,

with a good deal of hard faculty in him, and of culture unusual for a soldier. A handy, sagacious, learned and

intelligent man; whom Friedrich, in the course of a year's experience, has grown to see willingly about him.

There is something of positive in Guichard, of stiff and, as it were, GRITTY, which might have offended a

weaker taste; but Friedrich likes the rugged sense of the man; his real knowledge on certain interesting heads;

and the precision with which the known and the not rightly known are divided from one another, in Guichard.

"Guichard's business about the King has been miscellaneous, not worth mention hitherto; but to appearance

was well done. Of talk they are beginning to have more and more; especially at Landshut here, in these days

of waiting; a great deal of talk on the Wars of the Ancients, Guichard's Book naturally leading to that subject.

One night, datable accidentally about the end of May, the topic happened to be Pharsalia, and the excellent

conduct of a certain Centurion of the Tenth Legion, who, seeing Pompey's people about to take him in flank,

suddenly flung himself into oblique order [SCHRAGE STELLUNG, as we did at Leutheu], thereby

outflanking Pompey's people, and ruining their manoeuvre and them. 'A dexterous man, that Quintus Icilius

the Centurion!' observed Friedrich. 'Ah, yes: but excuse me, your Majesty, his name was Quintus Caecilius,'

said Guichard. 'No, it was Icilius,' said the King, positive to his opinion on that small point; which Guichard

had not the art to let drop; though, except assertion and counterassertion, what could be made of it there? Or

"Next day, Guichard came with the book [what "Book" nobody would ever yet tell me], and putting his finger

on the passage, 'See, your Majesty: Quintus CAEcilius!' extinguished his royal opponent. 'Hm,' answered

Friedrich: 'so?Well, you shall be Quintus Icilius, at any rate!' And straightway had him entered on the

Army Books 'as Major Quintus Icilius;' his Majorship is to be dated '10th April, 1758' (to give him seniority);

and from and after this '26th May, 1759,' he is to command the late Du Verger's FreeBattalion. All which

was done:the WarOffices somewhat astonished at such advent of an antique Roman among them; but

writing as bidden, the hand being plain, and the man an undeniable article. Onward from which time there is

always a 'Battalion Quintus' on their Books, instead of Battalion Du Verger; by degrees two Batallions

Quintus, and at length three, and Quintus become a Colonel:at which point the War ended; and the three

FreeBattalions Quintus, like all others of the same type, were discharged." This is the authentic origin of the

BOOK XIX. FRIEDRICH LIKE TO BE OVERWHELMED IN THE SEVENYEARS WAR. 17591760. 1275

new name Quintus, which Guichard got, to extinction of the old; substantially this, as derived from Quintus

himself, though in the precise details of it there are obscurities, never yet solved by the learned. Nicolai,

for example, though he had the story from Quintus in person, who was his familiar acquaintance, and often

came to see him at Berlin, does not, with his usual punctuality, say, nor even confess that he has forgotten,

what Book it was that Quintus brought with him to confute the King on their IciliusCaecilius controversy;

Nicolai only says, that he, for his part, in the fields of Roman Literature and History, knows only three

QuintusIciliuses, not one of whom is of the least likelihood; and in fact, in the above summary, I have had

to INVERT my Nicolai on one point, to make the story stick together. [Nicolai, Anekdoten, vi. 129145.]

"Quintus had been bred for the clerical profession; carefully, at various Universities, Leyden last of all; and

had even preached, as candidate for license,I hope with moderate orthodoxy;though he soon renounced

that career. Exchanged it for learned and vigorous general study, with an eye to some College Professorship

instead. He was still hardly twentythree, when, in 1747, the new Stadtholder," Prince of Orange, whom we

used to know, "who had his eye upon him as a youth of merit, graciously undertook to get him placed at

Utrecht, in a vacancy which had just occurred there, whither the Prince was just bound, on some

ceremonial visit of a high nature. The glad Quintus, at that time Guichard and little thinking of such an alias,

hastened to set off in the Prince's train; but could get no conveyance, such was the press of people all for

Utrecht. And did not arrive till next day,and found quarter, with difficulty, in the garret of some

"In the lower stories of his Inn, solitary Guichard, when night fell, heard a specific GAUDEAMUS going on;

and inquired what it was. 'A company of Professors, handselling a newly appointed Professor;'appointed,

as the next question taught, to the very Chair poor Quintus had come for! Serene Highness could not help

himself; the Utrechters were so bent on the thing. Quintus lay awake, all night, in his trucklebed; and

gloomily resolved to have done with Professorships, and become a soldier. 'If your Serene Highness do still

favor me,' said Quintus next day, 'I solicit, as the one help for me, an ensign's commission!'And persisted

rigorously, in spite of all counsellings, promises and outlooks on the professorial side of things. So that

Serene Highness had to grant him his commission; and Quintus was a soldier thenceforth. Fought, more or

less, in the sad remainder of that CumberlandSaxe War; and after the Peace of 1748 continued in the Dutch

service. Where, loath to be idle, he got his learned Books out again, and took to studying thoroughly the

Ancient Art of War. After years of this, it had grown so hopeful that he proceeded to a Book upon it; and, by

degrees, determined that he must get to certain Libraries in England, before finishing. In 1754, on furlough,

graciously allowed and continued, he came to London accordingly; finished his manuscript there (printed at

the Hague 1757 [ Memoires Militaires sur les (a La Haye, 1757: 2 vols. 4to);was in the 5th edition when I

last heard of it.]): and new War having now begun, went over (probably with English introductions) as

volunteer to Duke Ferdinand. By Duke Ferdinand he was recommended to Friedrich, the goal of all his

efforts, as of every vagrant soldier's in those times:and here at last, as Quintus Icilius, he has found

permanent billet, a Battalion and gradually three Battalions, and will not need to roam any farther.

"They say, what is very credible, that Quintus proved an active, stout and effectual soldier, in his kind; and

perhaps we may hear of some of his smallwar adventures by and by: that he was a studious, hardheaded,

wellinformed man, and had written an excellent Book on his subject, is still abundantly clear. Readers may

look in the famous Gibbon's Autobiography, or still better in the Guichard Book itself, if they want evidence.

The famous Gibbon was drilling and wheeling, very peaceably indeed, in the Hampshire Militia, in those

wild years of European War. Hampshire Militia served as key, or glossary in a sort, to this new Book of

Guichard's, which Gibbon eagerly bought and studied; and it, was Guichard, ALIAS Quintus Icilius, who

taught Gibbon all he ever knew of Ancient War, at least all the teaching he ever had of it, for his renowned

DECLINE AND FALL." [See Gibbon's Works (4to, London, 1796: Memoirs of my Life and Writings ), i. 97;

and ( Extraits de mes Lectures ), ii. 5254, of dates May 14th26th, 1762,during which days Gibbon is

engaged in actual reading of the Memoires Militaires; and already knows the Author by his ALIAS of

Quintus Icilius, "a man of eminent sagacity and insight, who was in the Dutch, and is now, I believe, in the

BOOK XIX. FRIEDRICH LIKE TO BE OVERWHELMED IN THE SEVENYEARS WAR. 17591760. 1276

It was in the last days of June that Daun, after many litchings, got into more decisive general movement

northward; and slowly but steadily planted himself at MarkLissa in the Lausitz: upon which, after some

survey of the phenomenon, Friedrich got to Schmottseifen, opposite him, July 10th. Friedrich, on noticing

such stir, had ridden down to Trautenau (June 29th30th), new Horse Artillery attending, to look closer into

Daun's affairs; and, seeing what they were, had thereupon followed. Above a month before this, Friedrich had

detached a considerable force against the Russians,General Dohna, of whom in next Chapter:and both

Daun and he again sit waiting, till they see farther. Rapid Friedrich is obliged to wait; watching Daun and the

Dohna Russian adventure: slow Daun will continue to wait and watch there, long weeks and months, after

that is settled, that and much else, fully to his mind! Each is in his impregnable Camp; and each, Daun

especially, has his Divisions and Detachments hovering round him, near or far, on different strategic errands;

each MainCamp like a planet with various moonsMarkLissa especially, a kind of sun with planets and

comets and planetary moons:of whose intricate motions and countermotions, mostly unimportant to us,

By the 6th of July, slow Daun had got hitched into his Camp of MarkLissa; and four days after, Friedrich

attending him, was in Schmottseifen: where again was pause; and there passed nothing mentionable, even on

Friedrich's score; and till July was just ending, the curtain did not fairly rise. Panse of above two weeks on

Friedrich's part, and of almost three months on Daun's. MarkLissa, an impregnable Camp, is on the Lausitz

Border; with Saxony, Silesia, Bohemia all converging hereabouts, and Brandenburg itself in the

vicinity,there is not a better place for waiting on events. Here, accordingly, till well on in September, Daun

sat immovable; not even hitching now,only shooting out Detachments, planetary, cometary, at a great rate,

Daun, as we said, had been uncomfortably surprised to find, by degrees, that Invasion was not Friedrich's

plan this Year; that the dramatic parts are redistributed, and that the playing of Fabius Cunctator will not

now serve one's turn. Daun, who may well be loath to believe such a thing, clings to his old part, and seems

very lazy to rise and try another. In fact, he does not rise, properly speaking, or take up his new part at all.

This Year, and all the following, he waits carefully till the Russian Lion come; will then endeavor to

assist,or even do jackal, which will be safer still. The Russians he intends shall act lion; he himself

modestly playing the subaltern but much safer part! Diligent to flatter the lion; will provide him guidances,

and fractional sustenances, in view of the coming hunt; will eat the lion's leavings, once the prey is

slaughtered. This really was, in some sort, Daun's yearly game, so long as it would last!

July ending, and the curtain fairly risen, we shall have to look at Friedrich with our best eyesight. Preparatory

to which, there is, on Friedrich's part, ever since the middle of June, this Anti Russian Dohna adventure

going on:of which, at first, and till about the time of getting to Schmottseifen, he had great hopes; great,

though of late rapidly sinking again:into which we must first throw a glance, as properly the opening

Fouquet has been left at Landshut, should the Daun remnants still in Bohemia think of invading. Fouquet is

about rooting himself rather firmly into that important Post; fortifying various select Hills round Landshut,

with redoubts, curtains, communications; so as to keep ward there, inexpugnable to a much stronger force.

There for about a year, with occasional short sallies, on errands that arise, Fouquet sat successfully vigilant;

resisting the Devilles, Becks, Harsches; protecting Glatz and the Passes of Silesia: in about a year we shall

hear of his fortunes worsening, and of a great catastrophe to him in that Landshut Post.

Friedrich allowed the Reichsfolk "two good months," after all that flurrying and havoc done on them, "before

they could show face in Saxony." They did take about that time; and would have taken more, had not Prince

Henri been called away by other pressing occasions in Friedrich's own neighborhood; and Saxony, for a good

BOOK XIX. FRIEDRICH LIKE TO BE OVERWHELMED IN THE SEVENYEARS WAR. 17591760. 1277

while (end of June to beginning of September), been left almost bare of Prussian troops. Which encourages

the Reichs Army to hurry afield in very unprepared condition,still rather within the two months. End of

July, Light people of them push across to Halberstadt or Halle Country; and are raising Contributions, and

plundering diligently, if nothing else. Of which we can take no notice farther: if the reader can recollect it,

well; if not, also well. The poor Reichs Army nominally makes a figure this Year, but nominally only; the

effective part of it, now and henceforth, being Austrian Auxiliaries, and the Reichs part as flaccid and

Prince Henri's call to quit Saxony was this. Daun, among the numerous Detachments he was making, of

which we can take no notice, had shot out Two (rather of COMETARY type, to use our old figure), which

every reader must try to keep in mind. Two Detachments, very considerable: Haddick (who grew at last to

20,000), and Loudon (16,000); who are hovering about mysteriously over the Lausitz; intending what?

Their intention, Friedrich thinks, especially Haddick's intention, may be towards Brandenburg, and even

Berlin: wherefore he has summoned Henri to look after it. Henri, resting in cantonments about Tschopau and

Dresden, after the late fatigues, and idle for the moment, hastens to obey; and is in Bautzen neighborhood,

from about the end of June and onward. Sufficiently attentive to Haddick and Loudon: who make no attempt

on Brandenburg; having indeed, as Friedrich gradually sees, and as all of us shall soon see, a very different

The Russian Lion, urged by Vienna and Versailles, made his entry, this Year, earlier than usual,coming

now within wind of Mark Lissa, as we see;and has stirred Daun into motion, Daun and everybody. From

the beginning of April, the Russians, hibernating in the interior parts of Poland, were awake, and getting

slowly under way. April 24th, the Vanguard of 10,000 quitted Thorn; June 1st, Vanguard is in Posen;

followed by a First Division and a Second, each of 30,000. They called it "Soltikof crossing the Weichsel

with 100,000 men;" but, exclusive of the Cossack swarms, there were not above 76,000 regulars: nor was

Soltikof their Captain just at first; our old friend Fermor was, and continued to be till Soltikof, in a private

capacity, reached Posen (June 29th), and produced his new commission. At Fermor's own request, as Fermor

pretended,who was skilled in Petersburg politics, and with a cheerful face served thenceforth as Soltikof's

At Posen, as on the road thither, they find Sulkowski's and the other burnt provenders abundantly replaced: it

is evident they intend, in concert with Daun, to enclose Friedrich between two fires, and do something

considerable. Whether on Brandenburg or Silesia, is not yet known to Friedrich. Friedrich, since the time they

crossed Weichsel, has given them his best attention; and more than once has had schemes on their Magazines

and them,once a new and bigger Scheme actually afoot, under Wobersnow again, our Anti Sulkowski

friend; but was obliged to turn the force elsewhither, on alarms that rose. He himself cannot quit the centre of

the work; his task being to watch Daun, and especially, should Daun attempt nothing else, to prevent junction

Daun still lies torpid, or merely hitching about; but now when the Russians are approaching Posen, and the

case becomes pressing, Friedrich, as is usual to him, draws upon the AntiSwedish resource, upon the Force

he has in Pommern. That is to say, orders General Dohna, who has the Swedes well driven in at present, to

quit Stralsund Country, to leave the ineffectual Swedes with some very small attendance; and to

marchwith certain reinforcements that are arriving (Wobersnow already, Hulsen with 10,000 out of

Saxony in few days)direct against the Russians; and at once go in upon them. Try to burn their Magazines

again; or, equally good, to fall vigorously on some of their separate Divisions, and cut them off in the vagrant

state;above all, to be vigorous, be rapid, sharp, and do something effectual in that quarter. These were

Dohna's Instructions. Dohna has 18,000; Hulsen, with his 10,000, is industriously striding forward, from the

farther side of Saxony; Wobersnow, with at least his own fine head, is already there. Friedrich, watching in

Dohna marched accordingly; but was nothing like rapid enough: an old man, often in ill health too; and no

doubt plenty of impediments about him. He consumed some time rallying at Stargard; twelve days more at

Landsberg, on the Warta, settling his provision matters: in fine, did not get to Posen neighborhood till June

23d, three weeks after the Russian Vanguard of 10,000 had fixed itself there, and other Russian parties were

daily dropping in. Dohna was 15,000, a Wobersnow with him: had he gone at once on Posen, as Wobersnow

urged, it is thought he might perhaps have ruined this Vanguard and the Russian Magazine; which would

have been of signal service for the remaining Campaign. But he preferred waiting for Hulsen and the 10,000,

who did not arrive for seven or eight days more; by which time Soltikof and most of the Russian Divisions

had got in;and the work was become as good as hopeless, on those languid terms. Dohna did try upon the

Magazine, said to be ill guarded in some Suburb of Posen; crossed the Warta with that view, found no

Magazine; recrossed the Warta; and went manoeuvring about, unable to do the least good on Soltikof or his

Magazines or operations. Friedrich was still in Landshut region, just about quitting it,just starting on that

little Trautenau Expedition, with his Four Pieces of HorseArtillery (June 29th), when the first ill news of

Dohna came in; which greatly disappointed Friedrich, and were followed by worse, instead of better.

The end was, Soltikof, being now all ready, winded himself out of Posen one day, veiled by Cossacks; and, to

Dohna's horror, had got, or was in the act of getting, between Dohna and Brandenburg; which necessitated

new difficult manoeuvres from Dohna. Soltikof too can manoeuvre a little: Soltikof edges steadily forward;

making for CrossenonOder, where he expects to find Austrians (Haddick and Loudon, if Friedrich could

yet guess it), with 30,000 odd, especially with provision, which is wearing scarce with him. Twice or so there

was still a pretty opportunity for Dohna on him; but Dohna never could resolve about it in time. Back and

ever back goes Dohna; facing Soltikof; but always hitching back; latterly in Brandenburg ground, the

Russians and he;having no provision, he either. In fine, July 17th (one week after Friedrich had got to

Schmottseifen), Dohna finds himself at the little Town of Zullichau (barely in time to snatch it before

Soltikof could), within thirty miles of Crossen; and nothing but futility behind and before. [Tempelhof, iii,

We can imagine Friedrich's daily survey of all this; his gloomy calculations what it will soon amount to if it

last. He has now no Winterfeld, Schwerin, no Keith, Retzow, Moritz:whom has he? His noblest Captains

are all gone; he must put up with the less noble. One Wedell, LieutenantGeneral, had lately recommended

himself to the royal mind by actions of a prompt daring. The royal mind, disgusted with these Dohna

hagglings, and in absolute necessity of finding somebody that had resolution, and at least ordinary Prussian

skill, hoped Wedell was the man. And determined, the crisis being so urgent, to send Wedell in the character

of ALTEREGO, or "with the powers of a Roman Dictator," as the Order expressed it. [Given in Preuss, ii.

207, 208; in Stenzel, v. 212, other particulars.] Dictator Wedell is to supersede Dohna; shall go, at his own

swift pace, fettered by nobody;and, at all hazards, shall attack Soltikof straightway, and try to beat him.

"You are grown too old for that intricate hard work; go home a little, and recover your health," the King

writes to Dohna. And to the Dohna Army, "Obey this man, all and sundry of you, as you would myself;" the

man's private Order being, "Go in upon Soltikof; attack him straightway; let us have done with this wriggling

and haggling." Date of this Order is "Camp at Schmottseifen, 20th July, 1759." The purpose of such

highflown Title, and solemnity of nomination, was mainly, it appears, to hush down any hesitation or

surprise among the Dohna Generals, which, as Wedell was "the youngest LieutenantGeneral of the Army,"

Wedell, furnished with some small escort and these Documents, arrives in Camp Sunday Evening, 22d

July:poor Dohna has not the least word or look of criticism; and every General, suppressing whatever

thoughts there may be, prepares to yield loyal obedience to Dictator Wedell. "Wobersnow was the far better

soldier of the two!" murmured the Opposition party, then and long afterwards, [Retzow, the more, as

Wobersnow's behavior under it was beautiful, and his end tragical, as will be seen. Wobersnow I perceive to

have been a valiant sharpstriking man, with multifarious resources in his head; who had faithfully helped in

these operations, and I believe been urgent to quicken them. But what I remember best of him is his hasty

admirable contrivance for fieldbakery in pressing circumstances,the substance of which shall not be

"You construct six slight square iron frames, each hinged to the other; each, say, two feet square, or the

breadth of two common tiles, and shaped on the edges so as to take in tiles;tiles are to be found on every

human cottage. This iron frame, when you hook it together, becomes the ghost of a cubic box, and by the

help of twelve tiles becomes a compact fieldoven; and you can bake with it, if you have flour and water, and

a few sticks. The succinctest oven ever heard of; for your operation done, and your tiles flung out again, it is

capable of all folding flat like a book." [Retzow, ii. 82 n.] Never till now had Wobersnow's oven been at

fault: but in these Polish Villages, all of mere thatched hovels, there was not a tile to be found; and the

Wedell arrived Sunday evening, 22d July; had crossed Oder at Tschischerzig,some say by Crossen Bridge;

no matter which. Dohna's Camp is some thirty miles west of Crossen; in and near the small Town called

Zullichau, where his headquarter is. In those dull peaty Countries, on the right, which is thereabouts the

NORTHERN (not eastern), bank of Oder; between the Oder and the Warta; some seventy miles

southbyeast of Landsberg, and perhaps as far southwest of Posen: thither has Dohna now got with his

futile manoeuvrings. Soltikof, drawn up amid scrubby woods and sluggish intricate brooks, is about a mile to

Poor Dohna demits at once; and, I could conjecture, vanishes that very night; glad to be out of such a thing.

Painfully has Dohna manoeuvred for weeks past; falling back daily; only anxious latterly that Soltikof, who

daily tries it, do not get to westward of him on the Frankfurt road, and so end this sad shuffle. Soltikof as yet

has not managed that ultimate fatality; Dohna, by shuffling back, does at least contrive to keep between

Frankfurt and him;will not try attacking him, much as Wobersnow urges it. Has agreed twice or oftener, on

Wobersnow's urgency: "Yes, yes; we have a chance," Dohna would answer; "only let us rest till tomorrow,

Wedell had arrived with a grenadier battalion and some horse for escort; had picked up 150 Russian prisoners

by the way. Retzow has understood he came in with a kind of state; and seemed more or less inflated;

conscious of representing the King's person, and being a Roman Dictator,though it is a perilously difficult

office too, and requires more than a Letter of Instructions to qualify you for it! This is not Leonidas Wedell,

whom readers once knew; poor Leonidas is dead long since, fell in the Battle of Sohr, soon after the heroic

feat of Ziethen's and his at ElbeTeinitz (Defence of Elbe against an Army); this is Leonidas's elder Brother.

Friedrich had observed his fiery ways on the day of Leuthen: "Hah, a new Winterfeld perhaps?" thought

Friedrich, "All the Winterfeld I now have!"which proved a fond hope. Wedell's Dictatorship began this

Monday morning early, Wedell is on the heights, reconnoitring Soltikof; cannot see much of him, the ground

being so woody; does see what he takes to be Soltikof's left wing; and judges that Soltikof will lie quiet for

this day. Which was far from a right reading of Soltikof; the fact being that Soltikof, in long columns and

divisions, beginning with his right wing, was all on march since daybreak; what Wedell took for Soltikof's

"left wing" being Soltikof's rearguard and baggage, waiting till the roads cleared. Wedell, having settled

everything on the above footing, returns to Zullichau about 10 o'clock; and about 11, Soltikof, miles long,

disengaged from the bushy hollows, makes his appearance on the open grounds of Palzig: he, sure enough

(though Wedell can hardly believe it),five or six miles to northeast yonder; tramping diligently along,

making for Crossen and the Oder Bridge; and is actually got ahead of us, at last!

This is what Wedell cannot suffer, cost what it may. Wedell's orders were, in such case, Attack the Russians.

Wedell instantly took his measures; not unskilfully, say judges, though the result proved disappointing;

and Wobersnow himself earnestly dissuaded: "Too questionable, I should doubt! Soltikof is 70,000, and has

no end of Artillery; we are 26,000, and know not if we can bring a single gun to where Soltikof is!"

Wedell's people have already, of their own accord, got to arms again; stand waiting his orders on this new

emergency. No delay in Wedell or in them. "May not it be another Rossbach (if we are lucky)?" thinks

Wedell: "Cannot we burst in on their flank, as they march yonder, those awkward fellows; and tumble them

into heaps?" The differences were severalfold: First, that Friedrich and Seidlitz are not here. Many brave

men we have, and skilful; but not a master and man like these Two. Secondly, that there is no Janus Hill to

screen our intentions; but that the Russians have us in full view while we make ready. Thirdly, and still more

important, that we do not know the ground, and what hidden inaccessibilities lie ahead. This last is judged to

have been the killing circumstance. Between the Russians and us there is a paltry little Brook, or line of

quagmire; scarcely noticeable here, but passable nowhere except at the VillageMill of Kay, by one poor

Bridge there. And then, farther inwards, as shelter of the Russians, there is another quaggy Brook, branch of

the above, which is without bridge altogether. Hours will be required to get 26,000 people marched up there,

The 26,000 march with their usual mathematical despatch: Manteuffel and the Vanguard strike in with their

sharpest edge, foot and horse, direct on the Head of the Russian Column, Manteuffel leading on, so soon as

his few battalions and squadrons are across. Head means BRAIN (or life) to this Russian Column; and these

Manteuffel people go at it with extraordinary energy. The Russian Head gives way; infantry and

cavalry:their cavalry was driven quite to rear, and never came in sight again after this of Manteuffel. But

the Russians have abundance of Reserves; also of room to manoeuvre in,no lack of ground open, and

ground defensible (Palzig Village and Churchyard, for example);above all, they have abundance of heavy

Well in recoil from Manteuffel and his furies, the beaten Russians succeed in forming "a long Line behind

Palzig Village," with that Second, slighter or Branch Quagmire between them and us; they get the Village

beset, and have the Churchyard of it lined with batteries,say seventy guns. Manteuffel, unsupported, has to

fall back;unwillingly, and not chased or in disorder,towards Kay Mill again; where many are by this

time across. Hulsen, with the Centre, attacks now, as the Vanguard had done; with a will, he too:

Wobersnow, all manner of people attack; time after time, for about four hours coming: and it proves all in

vain, on that Churchyard and new Line. Without cannon, we are repulsed, torn away by those Russian

Hulsen, Wobersnow, everybody in detail is repulsed, or finds his success unavailing. Poor Wobersnow did

wonders; but he fell, killed. Gone he; and has left so few of his like: a man that could ill be spared at

present!Day is sinking; we find we have lost, in killed, wounded and prisoners, some 6,000 men. "About

sunset," flaming July sun going down among the moorlands on such a scene, Wedell gives it up; retires

slowly towards Kay Bridge. Slowly; not chased, or molested; Soltikof too glad to be rid of him. Soltikof's one

aim is, and was, towards Crossen; towards Austrian Junction, and something to live upon. Soltikof's loss of

men is reckoned to be heavier even than Wedell's: but he could far better afford it. He has gained his point;

and the price is small in comparison. Next day he enters Crossen on triumphant terms.

Poor Wedell had returned over KayMill Bridge, in the nighttime after his Defeat. On the morrow

(Tuesday, 24th, day of Soltikof's glad entry), Wedell crosses Oder; at Tschischerzig, the old place of Sunday

evening last,in how different a humor, this time!and in a day more, posts himself opposite to Crossen

Bridge, five or six miles south; and again sits watchful of Soltikof there. At Crossen, triumphant Soltikof has

found no Austrian Junction, nor anything additional to live upon. A very disappointing circumstance to

Soltikof; "Austrian Junction still a problem, then; a thing in the air? And perhaps the King of Prussia taking

charge of it now!" Soltikof, more and more impatient, after waiting some days, decided Not to cross Oder by

that Bridge;"shy of crossing anywhere [think the French Gentlemen, Montazet, Montalembert], to the

King of Prussia's side!" [Stenzel, iv. 215 (indistinct, and giving a WRONG citation of "Montalembert, ii.

87").] Which is not unlikely, though the King is above 100 miles off him, and has Daun on his hands. Certain

enough, keeping the River between him and any operations of the King, Soltikof set out for Frankfurt, forty

or fifty miles farther down. In the hope probably of finding something of human provender withal? July 30th,

Thus, in two days, or even in one, has Wedell's Dictatorship ended. Easy to say scoffingly, "Would it had

never begun!" Friedrich knows that, and Wedell knows it;AFTER the event everybody knows it! Friedrich

said nothing of reproachful; the reverse rather, "I dreaded something of the kind; it is not your fault;" [TO

WEDELL, FROM THE KING, "Schmottseifen, July 24th. 1759" (in Schoning, ii. 118).]ordered Wedell to

watch diligently at Crossen Bridge, and be ready on farther signal. The Wedell Problem, in such ruined

This is the BATTLE OF ZULLICHAU (afternoon of 23d July, 1759); the beginning of immense disasters in

this Campaign. Battle called also of KAY and of PALZIG, those also being main localities in it. It was lost,

not by fault of Wedell's people, who spent themselves nobly upon it, nor perhaps by fault of Wedell himself,

but principally, if not solely, by those two paltry Brooks, or threads of Quagmire, one of which turns

Close in the same neighborhood, there is another equally contemptible Brook, making towards Oder, and

turning the socalled Krebsmuhle, which became still more famous to the whole European Public twenty

years hence. KREBSMUHLE (CrabMill), as yet quite undistinguished among Mills; belonging to a dusty

individual called Miller Arnold, with a dusty Son of his own for Miller's Lad: was it at work this day? Or had

Some three weeks ago (4th6th JULY), there occurred a sudden sharp thing at HavredeGrace on the

French Coast, worth a word from us in this place. The Montazets, Montalemberts, watching, messaging

about, in the AustrianRussian Courts and Camps, assiduously keeping their Soltikofs in tune, we can

observe how busy they are. Soubise with his Invasion of England, all the French are very busy; they have

conquered Hessen from Duke Ferdinand, and promise themselves a glorious Campaign, after that Seizure of

Frankfurt. Soubise, intent on his new Enterprise, is really making ardent preparations: at Vanues in the

Morbihan, such rendezvousing and equipping;especially at Havre, no end of flatbottomed boats getting

built; and much bluster and agitation among the weaker sorts in both Nations. Whereupon,

"JULY 1st [just in the days while Friedrich was first trying Horse Artillery], RearAdmiral Rodney sails

from Portsmouth with a few Frigates, and Six Bombketches [FIREDRAKE, BASILISK, BLAST, and such

nomenclatures [List of him, in Beatson, Naval and Military Memoirs (London, 1804), ii. 241; his Despatch

excellently brief, ib. ii. 323]]; and in the afternoon of Tuesday, 3d, arrives in the frith or bay of Havre. Steers

himself properly into 'the Channel of Honfleur' before dark; and therefrom, with his Firedrake, Basilisk and

Company, begins such a bombardment of Havre and the flatbottomed manufactories as was quite surprising.

Fiftytwo incessant hours of it, before he thought poor Havre had enough. Poor Havre had been on fire six

times; the flat manufactory (unquenchable) I know not how many; all the inhabitants off in despair; and the

Garrison building this battery to no purpose, then that; no salvation for them but in Rodney's 'mortars getting

too hot.' He had fired of shells 1,900, of carcasses, 1,150: from Wednesday about sunrise till Friday about 8

A.M.,about time now for breakfast; which I hope everybody had, after such a stretch of work. 'No damage

to speak of,' said the French Gazetteers; 'we will soon refit everything!' But they never did; and nothing came

of Havre henceforth. Vannes was always, and is now still more, to be the main place; only that

Hawkemost unexpectedly, for one fancied all their ships employed in distant partsrides there with a

Channel Fleet of formidable nature; and the previous question always is: 'Cannot we beat Hawke? Can we!

Before Wedell's catastrophe, the Affair of those HaddickLoudon Detachments had become a little plainer to

Friedrich. The intention, he begins to suspect, is not for Berlin at all; but for junction with Soltikof,at

Crossen, or wherever it may be. This is in fact their real purpose; and this, beyond almost Berlin itself, it is in

the highest degree important to prevent! Important; and now as if become impossible!

Prince Henri had come to Bautzen with his Army, specially to look after Loudon and Haddick; and he has, all

this while, had Finck with some 10,000 diligently patrolling to westward of them, guarding Berlin; he himself

watching from the southern side, where, as on the western, there was no danger from them. Some time

before Wedell's affair, Friedrich had pushed out Eugen of Wurtemberg to watch these people on the eastern

side;suspicious that thitherward lay their real errand. Eugen had but 6,000; and, except in conjunction with

Finck and Henri, could do nothing, nor can, now when Friedrich's suspicion turns out to be fatally true.

Friedrich had always the angry feeling that Finck and Prince Henri were the blameworthy parties in what now

ensued; that they, who were near, ought to have divined these people's secret, and spoiled it in time; not have

left it to him who was far off, and so busy otherwise. To the last, that was his fixed private opinion; by no

means useful to utter,especially at present, while attempting the now very doubtful enterprise himself, and

needing all about him to be swift and zealous. This is one of Friedrich's famous labors, this of the

HaddickLoudon junction with Soltikof; strenuous short spasm of effort, of about a week's continuance; full

of fiery insight, velocity, energy; still admired by judges, though it was unsuccessful, or only had half

success. Difficult to bring home, in any measure, to the mind of modern readers, so remote from it.

Friedrich got the news of Zullichau next day, July 24th;and instantly made ready. The case is critical;

especially this HaddickLoudon part of it: add 30 or 36,000 Austrians to Soltikof, how is he then to be dealt

with? A case stringently pressing:and the resources for it few and scattered. For several days past,

Haddick, and Loudon under him, whose motions were long enigmatic, have been marching steadily eastward

through the Lausitz,with the evident purpose of joining Soltikof; unless Wedell could forbid. Wedell ahead

was the grand opposition;Finck, Henri, Wurtemberg, as good as useless;and Wedell being now struck

down, these Austrians will go, especially Loudon will, at a winged rate. They are understood to be

approaching Sagan Country; happily, as yet, well to westward of it, and from Sagan Town well

NORTHwestward;but all accounts of them are vague, dim: they are an obscure entity to Friedrich, but a

vitally important one. Sagan Town may be about 70 miles northward of where Friedrich now is: from Sagan,

were they once in the meridian of Sagan, their road is free eastward and northward;to Crossen is about 60

miles northbyeast from Sagan, to Frankfurt near 100 north. Sagan is on the Bober; Bober, in every event,

Friedrich feels that, however dangerous to quit Daun's neighborhood, he must, he in person, go at once. And

who, in the interim, will watch Daun and his enterprises? Friedrich's reflections are: "Well, in the crisis of the

moment, Saxonythough there already are marauding Bodies of Reichsfolk in itmust still be left to itself

for a time; or cannot Finck and his 10,000 look to it? Henri, with his Army, now useless at Bautzen, shall

instantly rendezvous at Sagan; his Army to go with me, against the Russians and their HaddickLoudons;

Henri to Schmottseifen, instead of me, and attend to Daun; Henri, I have no other left! Finck and his 10,000

must take charge of Saxony, such charge as he can:how lucky those Spring Forays, which destroyed the

Chapter III. FRIEDRICH IN PERSON ATTEMPTS THE RUSSIAN PROBLEM; NOT WITH SUCCESS. 1283

Reichs Magazines! Whereby there is no Reichs Army yet got into Saxony (nothing but preliminary pulses

and splashings of it); none yet, nor like to be quite at once." That is Friedrich's swift plan.

Henri rose on the instant, as did everybody concerned: July 29th, Henri and Army were at Sagan; Army

waiting for the King; Henri so far on his road to Schmottseifen. He had come to Sagan "by almost the

rapidest marches ever heard of,"or ever till some others of Henri's own, which he made in that

neighborhood soon. Punctual, he, to his day; as are Eugen of Wurtemberg's people, and all Detachments and

Divisions: Friedrich himself arrives at Sagan that same 29th, "about midnight,"and finds plenty of work

waiting: no sleep these two nights past; and none coming just yet! A most swift rendezvous. The speed of

This rendezvous at Saganintersection of Henri and Friedrich, bound different roads (the Brothers, I think,

did not personally meet, Henri having driven off for Schmottseifen by a shorter road) was SUNDAY,

JULY 29th. Following which, are six days of such a hunt for those Austrian reynards as seldom or never was!

Most vehement, breathless, baffling hunt; half of it spent in painfully beating cover, in mere finding and

losing. Not rightly successful, after all. So that, on the eighth day hence, AUGUST 6th, at Mullrose, near

Frankfurt, 80 miles from Sagan, there is a second rendezvous,rendezvous of Wedell and Friedrich, who do

not now "intersect," but meet after the hunt is done;and in the interim, there has been a wonderful

performance, though an unsuccessful. Friedrich never could rightly get hold of his Austrians. Once only, at

Sommerfeld, a long march northwest of Sagan, he came upon some outskirts of them. And in general, in

those latter eight days, especially in the first six of them, there is, in that KotbusSagan Country, such an

intersecting, checking, pushing and multifarious simmering of marches, on the part of half a dozen Strategic

Entities, Friedrich the centre of them, asas, I think, nobody but an express soldierstudent, well furnished

with admiration for this particular Soldier, would consent to have explained to him. One of the maziest, most

unintelligible whirls of marching; inextricable Sword Dance, or Dance of the Furies,five of them (that is

the correct number: Haddick, Loudon, Friedrich, Wurtemberg, Wedell);and it is flung down for us, all in a

huddle, in these inhuman Books (which have several errors of the press, too): let no man rashly insist with

himself on understanding it, unless he have need! Humanly pulled straight, not inhumanly flung down at

"SAGAN, MONDAY, 30th JULY. Friedrich is at Sagan, since midnight last, busier and busier;" beating

cover, as we termed it, and getting his hounds (his new HenriArmy) in leash; "endeavoring, especially, to

get tidings of those Austrian people; who are very enigmatic,Loudon a dexterous man,and have hung up

such a curtain of Pandours between Friedrich and them as is nearly impenetrable. In the course of this

Monday Friedrich ascertains that they are verily on the road; coming eastward, for Sommerfeld, 'thence for

"TUESDAY, SAGAN TO NAUMBURG. Tuesday before daybreak Friedrich too is on the road:

northwestward; in full march towards Naumburg on Bober, meaning to catch the Bridge from them there.

March of the swiftest; he himself is ahead, as usual, with the Vanguard of Horse. He reaches Naumburg

(northward, a march of 20 miles); finds, not Haddick or Loudon, but a Detachment of theirs: which he at once

oversets with his cavalry, and chases,marking withal that 'westward is the way they run.' Westward; and

"Before his Infantry are all up, or are well rested in Naumburg, Friedrich ascertains, on more precise tidings,

that the Austrians are in Sommerfeld, to westward (again a 20 miles); and judges That, no doubt, they will

bear off more to leftward, by Guben probably, and try to avoid him,unless he can still catch them in

Sommerfeld. About nightfall he marches for Sommerfeld, at his swiftest; arrives Wednesday early;

Chapter III. FRIEDRICH IN PERSON ATTEMPTS THE RUSSIAN PROBLEM; NOT WITH SUCCESS. 1284

"SOMMERFELD, WEDNESDAY MORNING, AUGUST 1st, Friedrich finds that Loudon was there last

night,preterite tense, alas; the question now being, Where is he!" In fact, Loudon had written yesterday to

Daun (Letter still extant, "Sommerfeld, July 31st"), That "being swift and light," consisting of horse for most

part, "he may probably effect Junction this very night;"but has altered his mind very much, on sight of

these fugitives from Naumburg, since! And has borne off more to leftward. Straight north now, and at a very

brisk pace; being now all of horse;and has an important conference with Haddick at Guben, when they

arrive there. "Not in Sommerfeld?" thinks Friedrich (earnestly surveying, through this slit he has made in the

Pandour veil): "Gone to Guben most likely, bearing off from us to leftward?"Which was the fact; though

not the whole fact. And indeed the chase is now again fallen uncertain, and there has to be some beating of

covers. For one thing, he learns today (August 1st) that the Russians are gone to Frankfurt: "Follow them,

you Wedell,"orders Friedrich: them we shall have to go into,however this hunt end!

"To Markersdorf, Thursday, August 2d. Friedrich takes the road for Guben; reaches Markersdorf (twenty

miles' march, still seven or eight from Guben); falls uponWhat phenomenon is this? The Austrian heavy

Train; mealwagons not a few, and a regiment of foot in charge of it;but going the wrong way, not

TOWARDS the Russians, but from them! What on earth can this be? This is Haddick,if Friedrich could

yet clearly know it,Haddick and Train, who for his own part has given up the junction enterprise. At

Guben, some hours ago, he had conference with Loudon; and this was the conclusion arrived at: 'Impossible,

with that King so near! You, Herr Loudon, push on, without heavy baggage, and with the Cavalry altogether:

you can get in, almost 20,000 strong; I, with the Infantry, with the meal and heavy guns, will turn, and make

"This mysterious Austrian Train, going the wrong way, Friedrich attacks, whatever it be (hoping, I suppose, it

might be the Austrians altogether); chases it vigorously; snatches all the meal wagons, and about 1,000

prisoners. Uncertain still what it is,if not the Austrians altogether? To his sorrow, he finds, on pushing

farther into it, that it is only Haddick and the Infantry; that Loudon, with the 20,000 Horse, will have gone off

for Frankfurt;irretrievably ahead, the swift Loudon,ever careering northward all this while, since that

afternoon at Sommerfeld, when the fugitives altered his opinion: a now unattainable Loudon. In the course of

Thursday night, Friedrich has satisfied himself that the Loudon junction is a thing as good as done;in

effect, Loudon did get to Frankfurt, morning of August 3d, and joined the Russians there; and about the same

time, or only a few hours sooner, Friedrich, by symptoms, has divined that his hunt has ended, in this rather

unsuccessful way; and that chasing of Haddick is not the road to go." [Tempelhof, iii. 135139.]

Not Haddick now; with or without their Austrians, it shall be the Russians now! Two days ago (Wednesday,

as was mentioned), before sight of those enigmatic mealwagons, Friedrich had learned that the Russians

were to be in Frankfurt again; and had ordered Wedell to march thitherward, at any rate. Which Wedell is

doing, all this Thursday and the four following days. As does likewise, from and after "FRIDAY, AUGUST

3d, 1 A.M." (hunt then over), Friedrich himself,renouncing Haddick and the hunt. Straight towards

Frankfurt thenceforth; headquarters Beeskow that night; next night, Mullrose, whither Wedell is appointed,

within twelve miles of Frankfurt. This is the end of Friedrich's sore Chase and March; burnt deeply into his

own weary brain, if ours still refuse it admittance! Here, of utterly fatigued tone, is a Note of his, chiefly on

business, to Minister Finkenstein. Indeed there are, within the next ten days, Three successive Notes to

Finkenstein, which will be worth reading in their due places. This is the First of them:

"I am just arrived here, after cruel and frightful marchings [CHECKS HIMSELF, HOWEVER]. There is

nothing desperate in all that; and I believe the noise and disquietude this hurlyburly has caused will be the

worst of it. Show this Letter to everybody, that it may be known the State is not undefended. I have made

Chapter III. FRIEDRICH IN PERSON ATTEMPTS THE RUSSIAN PROBLEM; NOT WITH SUCCESS. 1285

above 1,000 prisoners from Haddick. All his mealwagons have been taken. Finck, I believe, will keep an

"Tomorrow I march to within two leagues of Frankfurt [to Mullrose, namely]. Katte [the Minister who has

charge of such things] must send me instantly Two Hundred Wispels [say tons] of Meal, and Bakers One

Hundred, to Furstenwalde. I shall encamp at Wulkow. I am very tired. For six nights I have not closed an eye.

During the above intricate WarDance of Five,the day while Friedrich was at Sommerfeld, the day before

he came in sight of Haddick's mealwagons going the wrong road,there went on, at Minden, on the Weser,

three hundred miles away, a beautiful feat of War, in the highest degree salutary to Duke Ferdinand and

Britannic Majesty's Ministry; feat which requires a word from us here. A really splendid Victory, this of

Minden, August 1st: French driven headlong through the Passes there; their "Conquest of Hanover and Weser

Country" quite exploded and flung over the horizon; and Duke Ferdinand relieved from all his distresses, and

lord of the ascendant again in those parts. Highly interesting to Friedrich;especially to Prince Henri; whose

apprehensions about Ferdinand and the old Richelieu HastenbeckHalberstadt time returning on us, have

been very great; and who now, at Schmottseifen, fires FEUDEJOIE for it with all his heart. This is a Battle

still of some interest to English readers. But can English readers consent to halt in this hot pinch of the

Friedrich crisis; and read the briefest thing which is foreign to it? Alas, I fear they can;and will insert the

BATTLE OF MINDEN: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1st, 1759."Ever since Bergen, things have gone

awry with Ferdinand, and in spite of skilful management, of hard struggles and bright sparkles of success, he

has had a bad Campaign of it. The French, it would seem, are really got into better fighting order; Belleisle's

exertions as WarMinister have been almost wonderful,in some respects, TOO wonderful, as we shall

hear!and Broglio and Contades, in comparison with Clermont and Soubise, have real soldier qualities.

Contades, across Rhine again, in those Weser Countries, who is skilful in his way, and is pricked on by

emulation of Broglio, has been spreading himself out steadily progressive there; while Broglio, pushing along

from Frankfurton Mayn, has conquered Hessen; is into Hanover; on the edge of conqueriug

Hanover,which how is Ferdinand to hinder? Ferdinand has got two, if not three Armies to deal with, and in

number is not mnch superior to one. If he run to save Hanover from Broglio, he loses Westphalia: Osnabruck

(his magazine)? Munster, Lippstadt,Contades, if left to himself, will take these, after short siege; and will

nestle himself there, and then advance, not like a transitory feverfit, but like visible death, on Hanover.

Ferdinand, rapid yet wary, manoeuvred his very best among those interests of his, on the left bank of Weser;

but after the surprisal of Minden from him (brilliantly done by Broglio, and the aid of a treacherous peasant),

especially after the capture of Osnabruck, his outlooks are gloomy to a degree: and at Versailles, and at

Minden where Contades has established himself, 'the Conquest of Hanover' (beautiful counterweight to all

"For the last ten days of July, about Minden, the manoeuvring, especially on Ferdinand's part, had been

intense; a great idea in the head of Ferdinand, more or less unintelligible to Contades. Contades, with some

30,000, which is the better half of his force, has taken one of the unassailablest positions. He lies looking

northward, his right wing on the Weser with posts to Minden (Minden perhaps a mile northeastward there),

on his left impassable peat bogs and quagmires; in front a quaggy River or impassable black Brook, called

the Bastau, coming from the westward, which disembogues at Minden: [Sketch of Plan, p. 238]there lies

Contades, as if in a rabbithole, say military men; for defence, if that were the sole object, no post can be

stronger. Contades has in person say 30,000; and round him, on both sides of the Weser, are Broglio with

20,000; besides other Divisions, I know not how many, besieging Munster, capturing Osnabruck (our hay

magazine), attempting Lippstadt by surprise (to no purpose), and diligently working forward, day by day, to

Ferdinand's ruin in those Minden regions. Three or four Divisions busy in that manner;and above all, we

say, he has Broglio with a 20,000 on the right or east bank of the Weser,who, if Ferdinand quit him even

Chapter III. FRIEDRICH IN PERSON ATTEMPTS THE RUSSIAN PROBLEM; NOT WITH SUCCESS. 1286

for a day, seems to have Hanover at discretion, and can march any day upon Hanover City, where his light

troops have already been more than once. Why does n't Ferdinand cross Weser, recross Weser; coerce

Broglio back; and save Hanover? cry the Gazetteers and a Public of weak judgment. Pitt's Public is inclined

to murmur about Ferdinand; Pitt himself never. Ferdinand persists in sticking by Minden

neighborhood,and, in a scarcely accountable way, manoeuvring there, shooting out therefrom what

"On Contades himself he can pretend to do nothing,except hoodwink him, entice him out, and try to get a

chance on him. But for his own subsistence and otherwise, he is very lively;snatches, by a sudden stroke,

Bremen City: 'Yes truly, Bremen is a Reichstadt; nor shall YOU snatch it, as you did Frankfurt; but I will,

instead; and my English proviantships shall have a sure haven henceforth!' Snatches Bremen by one sudden

stroke; REsnatches Osnabruck by another ('our magazine considerably INCREASED since you have had it,

many thanks!'); does lose Munster, to his sorrow; but nevertheless sticks by his ground here;nay detaches

his swiftcutting Nephew, the Hereditary Prince, who is growing famous for such things, to cut out

Contades's strong post to southward (Gohfeld, ten miles up the Weser), which guards his mealwagons, after

their long journey from the south. That is Contades's one weak point, in this posture of things: his meal is at

Cassel, seventy miles off. Broglio and he see clearly, 'Till we can get a new magazine much nearer Hanover,

or at lowest, can clear out these people from infesting us here, there is no moving northward!' To both

Contades and Broglio that is an evident thing: the corollary to which is, They must fight Ferdinand; must

watch lynxlike till a chance turn up of beating him in fight. That is their outlook; and Ferdinand knows it

is,and manoeuvres accordingly. Military men admire much, not his movements only, but his clear insight

into Contades's and Broglio's temper of mind, and by what methods they were to be handled, they and his

own affairs together, and brought whither he wanted them. [In MAUVILLON (ii. 4144) minute account of

"This attempt on Gohfeld was a serious mischief to Contades, if it succeeded. But the detaching of the Prince

of Brunswick on it, and weakening one's too weak Army, 'What a rashness, what an oversight!' thinks

Contades (as Ferdinand wished him to do): 'Is our skilful enemy, in this extreme embarrassment, losing head,

then? Look at his left wing yonder [General Wangenheim, sitting behind batteries, in his Village of

Todtenhausen, looking into Minden from the north]:Wangenheim's left leans on the Weser, yes; but

Wangenheim's right, observe, has no support within three miles of it: tear Wangenheim out, Ferdinand's flank

is bare!' These things seemed to Contades the very chance he had been waiting for; and brought him

triumphantly out of his rabbithole, into the Heath of Minden, as Ferdinand hoped they would do.

"And so, TUESDAY EVENING, JULY 31st, things being now all ripe, upwards of 50,000 French are

industriously in motion. Contades has nineteen bridges ready on the Bastau Brook, in front of him; TATTOO

this night, in Contades's Camp, is to mean GENERAL MARCH, 'March, all of you, across these nineteen

Bridges, to your stations on the Plain or Heath of Minden yonder,and be punctual, like the clock!' Broglio

crosses Weser by the town Bridge, ranks himself opposite Todtenhausen; and through the livelong night there

is, on the part of the 50,000 French, a very great marching and deploying. Contades and Broglio together are

51,400 foot and horse. Ferdinand's entire force will be near 46,000; but on the day of Battle he is only

36,000,having detached the Hereditary Prince on Gohfeld, in what view we know.The BATTLE OF

MINDEN, called also of TONHAUSEN (meaning TODTENhausen), which hereupon fell out, has still its

fame in the world; and, I perceive, is well worth study by the soldier mind: though nothing but the rough

"Ferdinand's posts extend from the Weser river and Todtenhausen round by Stemmern, Holzhausen, to

Hartum and the Bog of Bastau (the chief part of him towards Bastau),in various Villages, and woody

patches and favorable spots; all looking in upon Minden, from a distance of five or seven miles; forming a

kind of arc, with Minden for centre. He will march up in eight Columns; of course, with wide intervals

between them,wide, but continually narrowing as he advances; which will indeed be ruinous gaps, if

Chapter III. FRIEDRICH IN PERSON ATTEMPTS THE RUSSIAN PROBLEM; NOT WITH SUCCESS. 1287

Ferdinand wait to be attacked; but which will coalesce close enough, if he be speedy upon Contades. For

Contades's line is also of arclike or almost semicircular form, behind it Minden as centre; Minden, which is

at the intersection of Weser and the Brook; his right flank is on Weser, Broglio VERSUS Wangenheim the

extreme right; his left, with infantry and artillery, rests on that black Brook of Bastau with its nineteen

Bridges. As the ground on both wings is rough, not so fit for Cavalry, Contades puts his Cavalry wholly in

the centre: they are the flower of the French Army, about 10,000 horse in all; firm open ground ahead of them

there, with strong batteries, masses of infantry to support on each flank; batteries to ply with cross fire any

assailant that may come on. Broglio, we said, is right wing; strong in artillery and infantry. Broglio is to root

out Waugenheim: after which,or even before which, if Wangenheim is kept busy and we are

nimble,what becomes of Ferdinand's left flank, with a gap of three miles between Wangenheim and him,

and 10,000 chosen horse to take advantage of it! Had the French been of Prussian dexterity and nimbleness in

marching, it is very possible something might have come of this latter circumstance: but Ferdinand knows

"Contades and his people were of willing mind; but had no skill in 'marchiug up:' and, once got across the

Bastau by their nineteen Bridges, they wasted many hours:'Too far, am I? not far enough? Too close? not

close enough?'and broiled about, in much hurry and confusion, all night. Fight was to have begun at 5 in

the morning. Broglio was in his place, silently looking into Wangenheim, by five o'clock; but unfortunately

did nothing upon Wangenheim ('Not ready you, I see!'), except cannonade a little;and indeed all through

did nothing ('Still not ready you others!'); which surely was questionable conduct, though not reckoned so at

Versailles, when the case came to be argued there. As to the Contades people, across those nineteen Bridges,

they had a baffling confused night; and were by no means correctly on their ground at sunrise, nor at 7

o'clock, nor at 8; and were still mending themselves when the shock came, and time was done.

"The morning is very misty; but Ferdinand has himself been out examining since the earliest daybreak: his

orders last night were, 'Cavalry be saddled at 1 in the morning,'having a guess that there would be work, as

he now finds there will. From 5 A.M. Ferdinand is issuing from his Camp, flowing down eastward,

beautifully concentric, closing on Contades; horse NOT in centre, but English Infantry in centre (Six

Battalions, or Six REGIMENTS by English reckoning); right opposite those 10,000 Horse of Contades's, the

sight of whom seems to be very animating to them. The English CavaIry stand on the right wing, at the

Village of Hartum: Lord George Sackville had not been very punctual in saddling at 1 o'clock; but he is there,

ranked on the ground, at 8, in what humor nobody knows; sulky and flabby, I should rather guess. English

Tourists, idle otherwise, may take a look at Hartum on the south side, as the spot where a very ugly thing

"Soon after 8 the Fight begins: attack, by certain Hessians, on Hahlen and its batteries; attempt to drive the

French out of Hahlen, as the first thing,which does not succeed at once (indeed took three attacks in all);

and perhaps looks rather tedious to those Six English Battalions. Ferdinand's order to them was, 'You shall

march up to attack, you Six, on sound of drum;' but, it seems, they read it, 'BY sound of drum;' 'Beating our

own drums; yes, of course!'and, being weary of this Hahlen work, or fancying they had no concern with it,

strode on, doublequick, without waiting for Hahlen at all! To the horror of their Hanoverian comrades, who

nevertheless determined to follow as second line. 'The Contades crossfire of artillery, battery of 30 guns on

one flank, of 36 on the other, does its best upon this forwardminded Infantry, but they seem to heed it little;

walk right forward; and, to the astonishment of those French Horse and of all the world, entirely break and

ruin the charge made on them, and tramp forward in chase of the same. The 10,000 Horse feel astonished,

insulted; and rush out again, furiously charging; the English halt and serry themselves: 'No fire till they are

within forty paces;' and then such pouring torrents of it as no horse or man can endure. Rally after rally there

is, on the part of those 10,000; mass after mass of them indignantly plunges on,again, ever again, about six

charges in all;but do not break the English lines: one of them (regiment MestredeCamp, raised to a

paroxysm) does once get through, across the first line, but is blown back in dreadful circumstances by the

second. After which they give it up, as a thing that cannot be done. And rush rearward, hither, thither, the

Chapter III. FRIEDRICH IN PERSON ATTEMPTS THE RUSSIAN PROBLEM; NOT WITH SUCCESS. 1288

whole seventyfive squadrons of them; and 'between their two wings of infantry are seen boiling in complete

"This has lasted about an hour: this is essentially the soul of the Fight,though there wanted not other

activities, to right of it and to left, on both sides; artilleries going at a mighty rate on both wings; and

counterartilleries (superlative practice 'by Captain Phillips' on OUR right wing); Broglio cannonading

Wangenheim very loudly, but with little harm done or suffered, on their right wing. Wangenheim is watchful

of that gap between Ferdinand and him, till it close itself sufficiently. Their right wing Infantry did once

make some attempt there; but the Prussian Horse(always a small body of Prussians serve in this Allied

Artillery and that pretty charge of Prussian Horse are all one remembers, except this of the English and

Hanover Foot in the centre: 'an unsurpassable thing,' says Tempelhof (though it so easily might have been a

fatal!)which has set Contades's centre boiling, and reduced Contades altogether to water, as it were.

Contades said bitterly: 'I have seen what I never thought to be possible,a single line of infantry break

through three lines of cavalry ranked in order of battle, and tumble them to ruin!' [Stenzel, v. 204.]

"This was the feat, this hour's work in the centre, the essential soul of the Fight:and had Lord George

Sackville, General of the Horse, come on when galloped for and bidden, here had been such a ruin, say all

judges, as seldom came upon an Army. Lord Georgeeverlasting disgrace and sorrow on the name of

himcould not see his way to coming on; delayed, haggled; would not even let Granby, his lieutenant,

come; not for a second Adjutant, not for a third; never came on at all; but rode to the Prince, asking, 'How am

I to come on?' Who, with a politeness I can never enough admire, did not instantly kill him, but answered, in

mild tone, 'Milord, the opportunity is now past!' Whereby Contades escaped ruin, and was only beaten. By

about 10 in the morning all was over. When a man's centre is gone to water, no part of him is far from the

fluid state. Contades retreated into his rabbithole by those nineteen bridges,well tormented, they say, by

Captain Phillips's artillery, till he got beyond the knolls again. Broglio, who had never been in musketfire at

all, but had merely barked on Wangenheim all morning, instead of biting, covered the retreat, and withdrew

into Minden. And we are a beaten Army,thanks to Lord George, not an annihilated one. Our loss being

only 7,086 (with heavy guns, colors, cavalry flags and the like); theirs being 2,822,full half of it falling on

those rash Six Battalions. [Mauvillon, ii. 4460; Tempelhof, iii. 154179, and Proceedings of a

CourtMartial, held at the Horse Guards, 7th24th March and 25th March5th April, 1760, in Trial of

Lord George Sackville (London, 1760). In Knesebeck, Ferdinand wahrend des siebenjahrigen Krieges (i.

395), Ferdinand's Letter to Friedrich of "July 31st;" and (i. 398418 and ii. 3336) many special details about

"And what is this one hears from Gohfeld in the evening? The Hereditary Prince, busy there on us during the

very hours of Minden, has blown our rearguard division to the winds there;and we must move southward,

one and all of us, without a moment's delay! Out of this rabbithole the retreat by rearward is through a

difficult country, the Westphalian Gates so called; fatal to Varus's Legions long ago. Contades got under way

that very night; lost most of his baggage, all his conquests, that shadowconquest of Hanover, and more than

all his glories (Versailles shrieking on him, 'Resign you; let Broglio be chief,);and, on the whole, jumbled

homeward hither and thither, gravitating towards the Rhine, nothing but Wesel to depend on in those parts, as

heretofore. Broglio retreated Frankfurtway, also as usual, though not quite so far; and at Versailles had

clearly the victory. Zealous Belleisle could not protect his Contades; it is not known whether he privately

blamed Contades or blamed Broglio for loss of Minden. Zealous old man, what a loss to himself withal had

Minden been! That shadowconquest of Hanover is quite vanished: and worse, in Ferdinand's spoil were

certain LETTERS from Belleisle to Contades, inculcating strange things;for example, 'IL FAUT FAIRE

UN DESERT DU PAYS [all Hessen, I think, lest Ferdinand advance on you] DEVANT L'ARMEE,' and the

like. Which Ferdinand saw good to publish, and which resounded rather hideously through the general mind."

[Were taken at Detmold (Tempelhof, iii. 223); Old Newspapers full of Excerpts from them, in the weeks

Chapter III. FRIEDRICH IN PERSON ATTEMPTS THE RUSSIAN PROBLEM; NOT WITH SUCCESS. 1289

Ignominious Sackville was tried by Courtmartial; cashiered, declared incapable of again serving his Majesty

"in any military capacity;"perhaps a mild way of signifying that he wanted the common courage of a

soldier? Zealous Majesty, always particular in soldier matters, proclaimed it officially to be "a sentence worse

than death;" and furthermore, with his own royal hand, taking the pen himself, struck out Sackville from the

List of Privy Councillors. Proper surely, and indispensable;and should have been persisted in, like Fate;

which, in a new Reign, it was not! For the rest, there was always, and is, something of enigma in Sackville's

palpably bad case. It is difficult to think that a Sackville wanted common courage. This Sackville fought

duels with propriety; in private life, he was a surly, domineering kind of fellow, and had no appearance of

wanting spirit. It is known, he did not love Duke Ferdinand; far from it! May not he have been of peculiarly

sour humor that morning, the luckless fool; sulky against Ferdinand, and his "saddling at one o'clock;" sulky

against himself, against the world and mankind; and flabbily disinclined to heroic practices for the moment?

And the moment came; and the man was not there, except in that foggy, flabby and forever ruinous

condition! Archenholtz, alone of Writers, judges that he expressly wanted to spoil the Battle of Minden and

Ferdinand's reputation, and to get appointed Commander in his stead. Wonderful; but may have some vestige

of basis, too! True, this Sackville was as fit to lead the courses of the stars as to lead armies. But such a

Sackville has ambition, and, what is fatally more peculiar to him, a chance for unfolding it;any blockhead

has an ambition capable, if you encourage it sufficiently, of running to the infinite. Enough of this particular

The English Cavalry was in a rage with Sackville. Of the English Infantry, Historians say, what is not now

much heard of in this Country, "That these unsurpassable Six [in industrious valor unsurpassable, though they

mistook orders, and might have fared badly!] are ever since called the Minden Regiments; that they are the

12th, 20th, 23d, 25th, 37th and 51st of the British Line; and carry 'Minden' on their colors," [Kausler,

Fancy how Pitt's public, lately gloomy and dubious, blazed aloft into joyful certainty again! Pitt's outlooks

have been really gloomy all this season; nor are the difficulties yet ended, though we hope they will end. Let

us add this other bit of Synchronism, which is still of adverse aspect, over Seas; and will be pungently

"BEFORE QUEBEC, JULY 31st, 1759. This same Evening, at Quebec, on the other side of the

Atlantic,evening at Quebec, 9 or 10 at night for Contades and his nineteen Bridges,there is a difficult

affair going on. Above and below the Falls of Montmorenci, and their outflow into the St. Lawrence: attempt

on General Wolfe's part to penetrate through upon the French, under Marquis de Montcalm, French

Commanderinchief, and to get a stroke at Quebec and him. From the south side of the St. Lawrence,

nothing can be done upon Quebec, such the distance over. From Isle d'Orleans and the north side, it is also

impossible hitherto. Easy enough to batter the Lower Town, from your ships and redoubts: but the High

Town towers aloft on its sheer pinnacles, inaccessible even to cannon; looks down on the skilfulest British

Admiral and Fleet as if with an air of indifference,trying him on dark nights with fireships, firerafts, the

"A strenuous thing, this of Wolfe's; though an unsuccessful. Towards evening, the end of it; all Quebec

assembled on the southern ramparts, witnessing with intense interest; the sublime Falls of Montmorenci

gushing on, totally indifferent. For about a month past, General Wolfe, with the proper equipments, and about

10,000 men, naval and military, who was expressly selected by Pitt to besiege Quebec, and is dying to

succeed, has been trying every scheme to get into contact with it:to no purpose, so lofty, chasmy, rocky is

the ground, cut by mountainous precipices and torrent streams, branches of the grand St. Lawrence River; so

skilfully taken advantage of by Montcalm and his people, who are at home here, and in regulars nearly equal

Wolfe, not to speak of Savages and Canadians, Wolfe's plan of the 31st was not ill laid; and the execution has

Chapter III. FRIEDRICH IN PERSON ATTEMPTS THE RUSSIAN PROBLEM; NOT WITH SUCCESS. 1290

been zealous, seamen and landsmen alike of willing mind;but it met with accidents. Accidents in boating;

then a still worse accident on landing; the regiment of grenadiers, which crossed below the Falls, having, so

soon as landed, rushed off on the redoubt there on their own score, without waiting for the two brigades that

were to cross and cooperate ABOVE the Falls! Which cut Wolfe to the heart; and induced him, especially

as the tide was making again, to give up the enterprise altogether, and recall everybody, while it was yet time.

[ Gentleman's Magazine for 1759, pp. 470473; Thackeray, i. 488.] Wolfe is strict in discipline; loves the

willing mind, none more, and can kindle it among those about him; but he loves discipline withal, and knows

how fatal the too willing may be. For six weeks more there is toil on the back of toil everywhere for poor

Wolfe. He falls into fevers, into miseries, almost into broken heart; nothing sure to him but that of doing

his own poor utmost to the very death. After six weeks, we shall perhaps hear of him again. Gliding swiftly

And now, after this flight half round the world, it is time we return to Oder Country, and a Friedrich on the

edge of formidable things there. Next day after Beeskow, where we left him, he duly arrived at Mullrose; was

joined by Wedell there, August 6th; and is now at Wulkow,"encamped between Lebus and Wulkow," as

"If you hear of firing tomorrow, don't be surprised; it is our rejoicing for the Battle of Minden. I believe I

shall have to keep you in suspense some days yet. I have many arrangements to make; I find great difficulties

to surmount,and it is required to save our Country, not to lose it: I ought both to be more prudent and more

enterprising than ever. In a word, I will do and undertake whatever I find feasible and possible. With all that,

I see myself in the necessity of making haste, to check the designs Haddick may have on Berlin. Adieu, MON

CHER. In a little, you will have either a DE PROFUNDIS or a TE DEUM.F." [ OEuvres de Frederic, xxv.

Sunday, July 29th, at FrankfurtonOder divine worship was broken in upon, and the poor City thrown into

consternation, by actual advent, or as good as advent, of the Russians: "On the Crossen road, close by;

coming, come!" And they did undeniably appear, next morning, in force; on the opposite, eastern or

Kunersdorf side of the River, on the top of the OderDam there; and demanded instant admission, under

Within the Town stood Major Arnim, a Veteran of those parts, with 400 militia; these, with their muskets and

with two cannon, are the only defence of Frankfurt, The Town has Gates; but its walls, I doubt, are mainly

gardenwalls and housewalls. On the eastern side, the River, especially if you have cannon on the Bridge,

gives it somethiug of protection; but on the western and all other sides, it is overhung by heights. This

Frankfurt, like its bigger Namesake on the Mayn, is known as a busy trading place, its Fairs much frequented

in those Eastern parts; and is believed by the Russians to be far richer than it is. The reader, as there happens

to be ocular testimony extant, [Johann Zudwig Kriele, SCHLACHT BEI KUNERSDORF, MIT (Berlin,

1801). Kriele was subsequent Pastor in the Parish, an excellent intelligent man: has compiled in brief form,

with an elaborate Chart too, a clear account of everything, in the Battle and before and after it.] may like to

"Arnim, taking survey of the Russian Party, values it, or what he can see of it, at 1,000 [they really were

6,000]; keeps his Drawbridge up; and answers stoutly enough, 'No.' Upon which, from the OderDam, there

flies off one fiery grenado; one and no more, which alighted in the house of 'Mrs. Thielicke, a Baker's

Widow, who was standing at the door;'killed poor Mrs. Thielicke, blew the house considerably to wreck,

but did not set fire to it. Amim, all the Magistrates entreating him for the love of Heaven to leave them, is

secretly shoving off his two cannon to the Northern Gate; and in fact is making his packages with full speed:

'Push for Custrin,' thinks Arnim, and save selves and cannon, since no good is to be done here!'

"It was about 11 A.M. when the Thielicke grenado fell: obstinate Arnim would by no means go; only packed

all the faster. A second summons came: still, No. For the third and last time the Russians then summon:

'Grenadoes, a hundred more of them lie ready, unless!' 'We will, we will; O merciful servant of Czarish

Majesty!' passionately signify the Magistrates. But Arnim is still negative, still keeps the Bridge up. One of

the hundred does go, by way of foretaste: this lighted 'near the Ober Kirche, in the chimney of the Town

Musikus;' brought the chimney crashing down on him [fancy a man with some fineness of ear]; tore the house

a good deal to pieces, but again did not set it on fire. 'Your obstinate Town can be bombarded, then,cannot

it?' observed the Russian Messenger.'Give us Free Withdrawal!' proposes Amim. 'No; you to be Prisoners

of War; Town at Czarish Majesty's discretion.' 'Never,' answers Arnim (to the outward ear).'Go, oh, for the

"Arnim, deaf to clamor, but steadily diligent in getting ready, does at last go; through the Lebus Suburb,

quick march; steady, yet at his best step;taking the Townkeys in his pocket, and leaving the Drawbridge

up. One is sorry for poor Arnim and his 400 Militia; whose conduct was perfect, under difficulties and

alarms; but proved unsuccessful. The terrified Magistrates, finding their Keys gone, and the conflagrative

Russians at their gates, got blacksmiths on the instant; smote down, by chisel and mallet, the locked

Drawbridge, smote open the Gates: 'Enter, O gracious Sirs; and may Czarish Majesty have mercy on us!' So

that Arnim had small start for marchers on foot; and was overtaken about halfway. Would not yield still,

though the odds were overwhelming; drew himself out on the best ground discoverable; made hot resistance;

hot and skilful; but in vain. About six in the evening, Arnim and Party were brought back, Prisoners, to

Frankfurt again, self, surviving men, cannons and all (self in a wounded state); and 'were locked in

various Brewhouses;' little of careful surgery, I should fear. Poor Arnim; man could do no more; and he has

It is by no means our intention to describe the Iliad of miseries, the agitations, terrors and disquietudes, the

tribulation and utter harrowing to despair, which poor Frankfurt underwent, incessantly from that day

forward, for about five weeks to come. "The furnishings of victual [Russian stock quite out] were to an

inconceivable amount; surrender of arms, of linens, cloths, of everything useful to a hungry Army; above all

things, of horses, so that at last there were but four horses left in all Frankfurt; and"But we must not go

"On the second day, besides all this," what will be significant of it all, "there was exacted 'ransom of 600,000

thalers (90,000 pounds), or you shall be delivered to the Cossacks!' Frankfurt has not above 12,000

inhabitants within its bounds; here is a sudden polltax of 7 pounds 10s. per head. Frankfurt has not such a

sum; the most rigorous collection did not yield above the tenth part of it. And more than once those

sanguinary vagabonds were openly drawn out, pitchlink in hand: 'The 90,000 pounds or!' Civic

Presidency Office in Frankfurt was not a bed of roses. The poor Magistrates rushed distractedly about; wrung

out moneys to the last drop; moneys, and in the end plate from those that had it; went in tearful deputation to

General Soltikof,a severe proud kind of man, capable perhaps of being flattered,who usually locked

them up instead. Magistrates were locked in Russian ward, at one time, for almost a week; sat in the blazing

sun; if you try for the shade of a tree, the sentry handles arms upon you;and were like to die. To me,

Kriele, it is a miracle how the most of us lived; nay we never really wanted food, so kind was Providence, so

generous our poor neighbors out of all the Towns round. The utmost of money that could be raised was 6,000

pounds; nothing but some little of plate, and our Bill for the remainder. Soltikof, a high kind of gentleman,

saw at last how it stood; let the Magistrates out of ward; sent back the plate'Nothing of that!'nay,

Czarish Majesty was herself generous; and FORGAVE the Bill, on our petition, next Year. Cossacks, indeed,

were a plunderous wild crew; but the Russians kept them mostly without the gates. The regular Russians

were civil and orderly, officers and men,greatly beyond the Austrians in behavior." [Kriele, Schlacht bei

Kunersdorf; pp. 115 (in compressed state).] By these few traits conceive Frankfurt: this, now forgotten in

most books, is a background on which things were transacted still memorable to everybody.

"Friday, August 3d, General Loudon came to hand: arrived early, in the Guben (or Western) Suburb, his

18,000 and he. In high spirits naturally, and somewhat exultant to have evaded Friedrich; but found a

reception that surprised him. The Russians had been living in the hope of junction; but still more vividly in

that of meal. 'Auxiliaries; humph,only 18,000 of them; how much welcomer had been as many

hundredweights of meal!' Loudon had pushed his baggage direct into Frankfurt; and likewise a requisition of

such and such proviants, weights of meal and the like, in exuberant amount, to be furnished straightway by

the City: neither of which procedures would the Russians hear of for a moment. 'Out with you!' said they

roughly to the baggagepeople: 'quarter in the Guben Suburb, or where you like; not here!' And with regard

to the requisition of proviant, they answered in a scornful angry key, 'Proviant? You too without it? You have

not brought us meal, according to covenant; instead of meal, you bring us 18,000 new eaters, most of them on

horseback,Satan thank you! From Frankfurt be very certain you can get no ounce of meal; Frankfurt is

our own poor mealbag, dreadfully scanty: stay outside, and feed where and how you can!'

"All this, Loudon, though of hot temper, easily capable of rising to the fierce point, had to endure in silence,

for the common interest. Loudon's own table is furnished from Frankfurt; no other Austrian man's: all others

have to shift how they can. Sad requisitioning needed, and sad plunder to supplement it: the Austrian

behavior was very bad, say the Frankfurters; 'in particular, they had burnt gradually all the cornmills in the

country; within many miles not one mill standing when they left us,'and four horses all the conveyance

power we had. Soltikof lodges in great pomp, much soldiery and cannon parading before his doors; not an

undignified man, or an inhuman or essentially foolish, but very high in his ways, and distasteful to Austrian

The Russian Army lies mainly across Oder; encamped on the Judenberg, and eastward there, along the

Heights, near three miles, to Kunersdorf and beyond. They expect Friedrich at the gates of Frankfurt shortly;

know well that they cannot defend Frankfurt. They calculate that Friedrich will attack them in their Judenberg

Encampment, but hope they are nearly ready for him there. Loudon, from the Guben Suburb, will hasten

across, at any moment; welcome on such fighting occasion, though ill seen when the question is of eating!

The Russians have their Wagenburg on an Island southward, farther up the River; they have three Pontoon

Bridges leading thither, a free retreat should they be beaten. And in the mean while are intrenching

themselves, as only Daun would,cannon and redoubts all round those Heights;and except it be screwing

Frankfurt to do its impossible duty, and carting provender with all the horses except four, have not much

farther to do but wait till the King come. Which will be speedily, it is probable!

Wednesday, August 8th, Russian and Austrian Generals, a cheerful party of them, had rendezvoused at

FISCHERS MUHLE; a Mill not yet burnt, and a pleasant Tavern as well; in one of the prettiest valleys in the

Western Environs;intending to dine there, and have a pleasant day. But the Miller's Boy runs in upon

them, wideeyed, "HIMMEL UND ERDE, Prussian Hussars!" It was in verity Prussian Hussars; the King of

Prussia with them in person. He is come out reconnoitring,the day after his arrival in those parts. The

pleasuring Generals, Russian and Austrian, sprang to horseback at their swiftest,hope of dinner gone futile,

except to the intervening Prussian Hussars;and would have all been captured, but for that Miller's Boy;

whose Mill too was burnt before long. This gallop home of the undined Generals into Frankfurt was the first

The King has been punctual to his reckoning: he picked up Wedell at Mullrose,not too cordial to Wedell's

people: "None of you speak to those beaten wretches," ordered he; "till perhaps they wipe off their Zullichau

stain!" On the 7th, Friedrich advanced to Frankfurt neighborhood; took Camp between Wulkow and

Lebus;and has just been out reconnoitring. And has raised, fancy what emotion in poor Frankfurt lying

under its nightmare! "Next day, August 9th, from WulkowLebus hand, we" of Frankfurt, "heard a great

firing; cannonsalvos, musketvolleys: 'Nothing of fight,' the Russian Officers told us; 'it is the King of

Friedrich, on survey of this RussianAustrian Army, some 90,000 in number, with such posts, artilleries,

advantages, judges that he, counting only 40,000, is not strong enough. And, indeed, had so anticipated, and

already judged; and, accordingly, has Finck on march hitherward again,Berlin must take its risk, Saxony

must shift for itself in the interim. Finck is due in two days,not here at Lebus precisely, but at another

place appointed; Finck will raise him to 50,000; and then business can begin! Contrary to Russian

expectation, Friedrich does not attack Frankfurt; seems quite quiet in his cantonments;he is quietly (if one

knew it) making preparations farther down the River. About Reitwein, between this and Custrin, there

The RussianAustrian Army quits Frankfurt, leaving only some hundreds of garrison: Loudon moves across,

Soltikof across; to the OderDam and farther; and lie, powerfully intrenched, on those Kunersdorf Heights,

and sandy Moorlands, which go eastward at rightangles to OderDam. One of the strongest Camps

imaginable. All round there, to beyond Kunersdorf and back again, near three miles each way, they have a

ring of redoubts, and artillery without end. And lie there, in order of battle, or nearly so; ready for Friedrich,

when he shall attack, through Frankfurt or otherwise. They face to the North (Reitwein way, as it happens); to

their rear, and indeed to their front, only not so close, are woods and intricate wilds. Loudon has the left

flank; that is to say, Loudon's left hand is towards the OderDam and Frankfurt; he lies at the ROTHE

VORWERK ("Red Grange," a Farmstead much mentioned just now); rather to northwestward of the Jew Hill

and Jew Churchyard (JUDENBERG and JUDENKIRCHHOF, likewise much mentioned); and in advance of

the general Mass. Soltikof's headquarter, I rather understand, is on the right wing; probably in Kunersdorf

itself, or beyond that Village; there, at least, our highly important Russian right wing is; there, elaborately

fortified; and, half a mile farther, ends,on the edge of steep dells; the Russian brink of which is strongly

fringed with cannon, while beyond, on the farther brink, they have built an abatis; so making assurance

doubly sure. Looking to the northward all these 90,000; their left rather southward of Frankfurt Bridge, over

which Friedrich will probably arrive. Leftward, somewhat to rearward, they have bridges of their own; should

anything sinister befall; three bridges which lead into that Oder Island, and the Russian Wagenburg there.

August 10th, Finck, punctual to time, arrives in the neighborhood of Reitwein (which is some ten miles down

stream from Lebus, from Frankfurt perhaps fifteen); Friedrich, the same day, is there before him; eager to

complete the Bridges, and get to business. One Bridge is of pontoons; one of "Oderboats floated up from

Custrin." Bridges are not begun till nightfall, lest eyes be abroad; are ready in the minimum of time. And so,

during the same night of the 10th, all the Infantry, with their artilleries and battlefurnitures, pour over in two

columns; the Cavalry, at the due point of time, riding by a ford short way to the right. And at four, in the gray

of the August morning (Saturday, 11th August, 1759), all persons and things find themselves correctly

across; ranked there, in those barren, muchindented "Pasturegrounds of Goritz" or of OEtscher; intending

towards Kunersdorf; ready for unfolding into order of battle there. They leave their heavy baggage at Goritz,

Wunsch to guard the Bridges and it; and, in succinct condition, are all under way. At one in the afternoon we

are got to Leissow and Bischofsee; scrubby hamlets (as the rest all are), not above two miles from

Kunersdorf. The August day is windless, shiny, sultry; man and horse are weary with the labors, and with the

want of sleep: we decide to bivouac here, and rest on the scrubby surface, heather or whatever it is, till

Finck is Vanguard, ahead short way, and with his left on a bit of lake or bog; the Army is in two lines, with

its right on Leissow, and has Cavalry in the kind of wood which there is to rear. Friedrich, having settled the

positions, rides out reconnoitring; hither, thither, over the Heights of Trettin. "The day being still hot, he

suffers considerably from thirst [it is our one Anecdote] in that arid tract: at last a Peasant does bring him,

direct from the fountain, a jug of pure cold water; whom, lucky man, the King rewarded with a thaler; and not

only so, but, the man being intelligent of the localities, took with him to answer questions." Readers too may

"Frankfurt, a very ancient Town, not a very beautiful," says my Note, "stands on an alluvium which has been

ground down from certain clay Hills on the left bank of Oder. It counted about 12,000 inhabitants in

Friedrich's time; has now perhaps about 20,000; not half the bulk of its namesake on the Mayn; but with

Three great Fairs annually, and much trade of the rough kind. On this left or west bank of Oder the country is

arable, moderately grassy and umbrageous, the prospect round you not unpleasant; but eastward, over the

River, nothing can be more in contrast. Oder is of swift current, of turbid color, as it rolls under Frankfurt

Bridge,Wooden Bridge, with Dam Suburb at the end;a River treeless, desolate, as you look up and

down; which has, evidently, often changed its course, since grinding down that alluvium as site for Frankfurt;

and which, though now holding mainly to northward, is still given to be erratic, and destructive on the eastern

low grounds,had not the Frankfurters built an 'OderDam' on that side; a broad strong Earthmound,

running for many miles, and confining its floods. Beyond the Dam there are traces of an 'Old Oder (ALTE

ODER);' and, in fact, Oder, in primeval and in recent time, has gone along, manystreamed; indenting,

quarrying, leaving lakelets, quagmires, miscellaneous sandy tumult, at a great rate, on that eastern shore.

Making of it one of the unloveliest scenes of chaotic desolation anywhere to be met with;fallen unlovelier

"What we call the Heights of Kunersdorf is a broad Chain of Knolls; coming out, at rightangles, or as a kind

of spur, from the eastern high grounds; direct towards Oder and Frankfurt. MillHill (MUHLBERG) is the

root or easternmost part of this spur. From the Muhlberg, over Kunersdorf, to OderDam, which is the whole

length of the spur, or Chain of Knolls, will be little short of four miles; the breadth of the Chain is nowhere

one mile,which is its grand defect as a Camp: 'too narrow for manoeuvring in.' Here, atop and on the three

sides of this Block of Knolls, was fought the furious Battle of Kunersdorf [to be fought tomorrow], one of

"To all appearance: it was once some big Island or chain of Islands in the Oder deluges: it is still cut with

sudden hollows,KUHGRUND (CowHollow), TIEFE WEG (Deep Way), and westernmost of all, and

most important for us here, HOHLE GRUND (Big Hollow, let us call it; 'LOUDON'S Hollow' people

subsequently called it);and is everywhere strangely tumbled up into knolls blunt or sharp, the work of

primeval Oder in his rages. In its highest knolls,of which let readers note specially the Spitzberg, the

Muhlberg, the Judenberg,it rises nowhere to 150 feet; perhaps the general height of it may be about 100.

On each side of it, especially on the north, the Country is of most intricate character: bushy, scraggy, with

brooklets or muddy oozings wandering about, especially with a thing called the HUNERFLIESS

(HenFloss), which springs in the eastern woods, and has inconceivable difficulty to get into Oder,if it get

at all! This was a sore Floss to Friedrich tomorrow. HenFloss struggles, painfully meandering and oozing,

along the northern side (sometimes close, sometimes not) of our Chain of Knolls: along the south side of it

(in our time, through the middle of it) goes the Highway to Reppen ["From that Highway will his attack

come!" thought the Russians, always till today]: on the north, to Leissow, to Trettin," where Friedrich is

now on survey, "go various wheeltracks, but no firm road. A most intricate unlovely Country. Withered

bentgrasses, heath, perhaps gorse, and on both sides a great deal of straggling Forestwood, reaching

"For the rest," to our illluck in this place, "the Battlefield of Kunersdorf has had a peculiar fate in the world;

that of being blown away by the winds! The then scene of things exists no longer; the descriptions in the Old

Books are gone hopelessly irrecognizable. In our time, there is not anywhere a tract more purely of tumbled

sand, than all this between Kunersdorf and Dam Vorstadt; and you judge, without aid of record or tradition,

that it is greatly altered for the worse since Friedrich's time,some rabbitcolony, or other the like

insignificancy, eating out the roots, till all vegetation died, and the wind got hold and set it dancing;and

that, in 1759, when Russian human beings took it for a Camp, it must have been at least coherent, more or

less; covered, held together by some film of scrubby vegetation; not blowing about in every wind as now!

Kunersdorf stands with its northern end pushed into that KUHGRUND (CowHollow); which must then

have been a grassy place. Eastward of Kunersdorf the ground has still some skin of peat, and sticks together:

but westward, all that three miles, it is a mere tumult of sandhills, tumbled about in every direction (so

diligent have the conies been, and then the winds); no gullet, or definite cut or hollow, now traceable

anywhere, but only an endless imbroglio of twisted sandheaps and sandhollows, which continually alter in

the windstorms. Sand wholly, andexcept the strong paved Highway that now runs through it (to Reppen,

Meseritz and the Polish Frontier, and is strongly paved till it get through Kunersdorf)chaotic wholly; a

scene of heaped barrenness and horror, not to be matched but in Sahara; the features of the Battle quite blown

"A hundred years ago, it would have some tattered skin,of peat, of heather and dwarf whins, with the sand

cropping out only here and there. So one has to figure it in Soltikof's day,before the conies ruined it.

Which was not till within the last sixty years, as appears. Kriele's Book (in 1801) still gives no hint of change:

the KUHGRUND, which now has nothing but dry sand for the most industrious ruminant, is still a place of

succulence and herbage in Kriele's time; 'Deep Way,' where 'at one point two carts could not pass,' was not

yet blown out of existence, but has still 'a Well in it' for Kriele; HOHLE GRUND (since called Loudon's

Hollow), with the Jew Hill and Jew Churchyard beyond, seem tolerable enough places to Kriele. Probably not

unlike what the surrounding Country still is. A Country of poor villages, and of wild ground, flat generally,

and but tolerably green; with lakelets, bushes, scrubs, and intricate meandering little runlets and oozelets; and

in general with more of Forest so called than now is:this is Kunersdorf Chain of Knolls; Soltikof's

Intrenched Camp at present; destined to become very famous in the world, after lying so long obscure under

From the Knolls of Trettin, that Saturday afternoon, Friedrich takes view of the Russian Camp. All lying

bright enough there; from Muhlberg to Judenberg, convenient to our glass; between us and the evening Sun.

Batteries most abundant, difficulties great: Soltikof just ahead here, 72,000: Loudon at the Red Grange

yonder, on their extreme left, with 18,000 more. An uncommonly strong position for 90,000 against 50,000.

One thing strikes Friedrich: On front in this northern side, close by the base of the Russian Camp, runsfor

the present away FROM Oder, but intending to join it elsewhere a paltry little Brook, "HenFloss" so

called, with at least two successive Mills on it (KLEINE MUHLE, GROSSE MUHLE); and on the northern

shore of it, spilling itself out into a wet waste called ELSBRUCH (Alder Waste), which is especially notable

to Friedrich. ALDER Waste? Watery, scrubby; no passage there, thinks Friedrich; which his Peasant with the

waterjug confirms. "Tell me, however," inquires Friedrich, with strictness, "From the Red Grange yonder,

where General Loudon is, if you wished to get over to the HOHLE GRUND, or to the Judenberg, would you

cross that HenFloss?" "It is not crossable, your Majesty; one has to go round quite westward by the Dam." "

What, from Rothe Vorwerk to Big Hollow, no passage, say you; no crossing?" "None, your Majesty," insists

the Peasant;who is not aware that the Russians have made one of firm trestles and logs, and use it daily for

highway there; an error of some interest to Friedrich within the next twentyfour hours!

Friedrich himself does not know this bit of ground: but there is with him, besides the Peasant, a Major

Linden, whose Regiment used to lie in Frankfurt, of whom Friedrich makes minute questioning. Linden

answers confidently; has been over all this tract a hundred times; "but knows it only as a hunter," says

Tempelhof, [Tempelhof, iii. 186.] "not as a soldier," which he ought to have done. His answers are supposed

to have misled Friedrich on various points, and done him essential damage. Friedrich's view of the case, that

evening, is by no means so despondent as might be imagined: he regards the thing as difficult, not as

impossible, and one of his anxieties is, that he be not balked of trying it straightway. Retiring to his hut in

Bischofsee, he makes two Dispositions, of admirable clearness, brevity, and calculated for two contingencies:

[Given in Tempelhof, iii. 182, 183.] That of the enemy retaining his now posture; and That of the enemy

making off for Reppen;which latter does not at all concern us, as matters turned! Of the former the course

will unfold itself to us, in practice, shortly. At 2 A.M. Friedrich will be on foot again, at 3 on march

again.The last phenomenon, at Bischofsee this night, is some sudden glare of disastrous light rising over

the woods: "Russians burning Kunersdorf!" as neighbors are sorry to hear. That is the finale of much

Russian rearranging and tumbling, this day; that barbarous burning of Kunersdorf, before going to bed.

Tomorrow various other poor Villages got burnt by them, which they had better have left standing.

The Russians, on hearing that Friedrich was across at Goritz, and coming on them from the north side, not

from Frankfurt by the Reppen Highway, were in great agitation. Not thrown into terror, but into manifold

haste, knowing what hasty adversary there was. Endless readjustments they have to make; a day of

tumultuous business with the Russians, this Saturday, llth, when the news reached them. "They inverted their

front [say all the Books but Friedrich's own]: Not coming by the Reppen Highway, then!" think they. And

thereupon changed rear to front, as at Zorndorf, but more elaborately;which I should not mention, were it

not that hereby their late "right wing on the Muhlberg" has, in strict speech, become their "left," and there is

ambiguity and discrepancy in some of the Books, should any poor reader take to studying them on this

matter. Changed their front; which involves much interior changing; readjusting of batteries and the like. That

of burning Kunersdorf was the barbaric winding up of all this: barbaric, and, in the military sense, absurd;

poor Kunersdorf could have been burnt at any moment, if needful; and to the Russians the keeping of it

standing was the profitable thing, as an impediment to Friedrich in his advance there. They have laid it flat

and permeable; ashes all of it,except the Church only, which is of stone; not so combustible, and may have

uses withal. Has perhaps served as temporary lockup, prison for the night, to some of those Frankfurt

Deputations and their troublesome wailings; and may serve as temporary hospital tomorrow, who knows?

Readjustments in the Russian Camp were manifold: but these are as nothing, in the tumultuous business of

the day. Carting of their baggage, every article of value, to that safe Wagenburg in the River; driving of

cattle,the very driving of cattle through Frankfurt, endless herds of them, gathered by the Cossacks from

far and wide, "lasted for fourandtwenty hours." Oxen in Frankfurt that day were at the rate of ten shillings

per head. Often enough you were offered a fullgrown young steer for a loaf of bread; nay the Cossacks,

when there was absolutely no bidder, would slaughter down the animal, leave its carcass in the streets, and

sell the hide for a TYMPF,fivepence (very bad silver at present). Never before or since was seen in

Frankfurt such a Saturday, for bellowing and braying, and raging and tumulting, all through the day and

Sunday about 3 in the morning, Friedrich is on march again, Russians still in their place; and Disposition

FIRST, not SECOND at all, to be our rule of action! Friedrich, in Two Columns, marches off, eastward

through the woods, as if for Reppen quite away from the Russians and their Muhlberg; but intending to circle

round at the due point, and come down upon their right flank there (left flank, as he persists to call it), out of

the woods, and clasp it in his arms in an impressive, unexpected way. In Two Columns; which are meant, as

usual, to be the Two Lines of Battle: Seidlitz, with chosen Cavalry, is at the head of Column First, and will be

Left Wing, were we on the ground; Eugen of Wurtemberg, closing the rear of Column First, will, he, or Finck

and he together, be Right Wing. That is the order of march;order of BATTLE, we shall find, had to alter

Finck with his 12,000 is to keep his present ground; to have two good batteries got ready, each on its knoll

ahead, which shall wait silent in the interim: Finck to ride out reconnoitring, with many General Officers, and

to make motions and ostentations; in a word, to persuade the Russians that here is the Main Army coming on

from the north. All which Finck does; avoiding, as his orders were, any firing, or serious commencement of

business, till the King reappear out of the woods. The Russians give Finck and his General Officers a cannon

salvo, here and there, without effect, and get no answer. "The King does not see his way, then, after all?"

think the Russians. Their Cossacks go scouring about; on the southern side, "burn Schwetig and Reipzig,"

without the least advantage to themselves: most of the Cavalry, and a regiment or two of excellent Austrian

Grenadiers, are with Loudon, near the Red Grange, in front of the Russian extreme left;but will have stept

The King's march, through the Forest of Reppen, was nothing like so expeditious as had been expected. There

are thickets, intricacies, runlets, boggy oozes; indifferent to one man well mounted, but vitally important to

30,000 with heavy cannon to bring on. Boggy oozings especially,there is one dirty stream or floss

(HUNERFLIESS, HenFloss) which wanders dismally through those recesses, issuing from the far south,

with dirty daughters dismally wandering into it, and others that cannot get into it (being of the lake kind):

these, in their weary, circling, recircling course towards Oder,FAULE LAACKE (Foul Lake,

LITHERMERE, as it were), Foul Bridge, Swine's Nook (SCHWEINEBUCKT), and many others,

occasion endless difficulty. Whether Major Linden was shot that day, or what became of him after, I do not

know: but it was pity he had not studied the ground with a soldier's eye instead of a hunter's! Plumping

suddenly, at last, upon HenFloss itself, Friedrich has to turn angularly; angularly, which occasions great

delay: the heavy cannon (wallguns brought from Custrin) have twelve horses each, and cannot turn among

the trees, but have to be unyoked, reyoked, turned round by hand:in short, it was eight in the morning

before Friedrich arrived at the edge of the wood, on the Klosterberg, Walckberg, and other woody BERGS or

knolls, within reach of Muhlberg, and behind the preliminary abatis there (abatis which was rather of service

At eight o'clock he, with Column First, which is now becoming Line First (CENTRE of Line First, if we

reckon Finck as RIGHTWING), is there; busy in that manner: Column Second, which was to have been

Rear Line, is still a pretty way behind; and has many difficulties before it gets into Kunersdorf neighborhood,

or can (having wriggled itself into a kind of LEFTWING) cooperate on the Russian Position from the

south side. On the north side, Finck has been ready these five hours.Friedrich speeds the building of his

batteries: "Silent, too; the Russians have not yet noticed us!" By degrees the Russians do notice something;

shoot out Cossacks to reconnoitre. Cossacks in quantity; who are so insolent, and venture so very near, our

gunners on the north battery give them a blast of satisfactory grapeshot; one aud then another, four blasts in

all, satisfactory to the gunner mind,till the King's self, with a look, with a voice, came galloping: "Silence,

will you!" The Russians took no offence; still considering Finck to be the main thing and Friedrich some

Halfpast eleven, everything being ready on the Walck Hill, Friedrich's batteries opened there, in a sudden

and volcanic way. Volcanically answered by the Russians, as soon as possible; who have 72 guns on this

Muhlberg, and are nothing loath. Upon whom Finck's battery is opening from the north, withal: Friedrich has

60 cannon hereabouts; on the Walckberg, on the LITTLE Spitzberg (called SEIDLITZ HILL ever since); all

playing diligently on the head and south shoulder of this Muhlberg: while Finck's battery opens on the north

shoulder (could he but get near enough). Volcanic to a degree all these; nor are the Russians wanting, though

they get more and more astonished: Tempelhof, who was in it, says he never, except at Torgau next Year,

heard a louder cannonade. Loud exceedingly; and more or less appalling to the Russian imagination: but not

destructive in proportion; the distance being too considerable,"1,950 paces at the nearest," as Tempelhof

has since ascertained by measuring. Friedrich's two batteries, however, as they took the Russians in the flank

or by enfilade, did good execution. "The Russian guns were illpointed; the Russian batteries wrongbuilt;

batteries so built as did not allow them sight of the Hollow they were meant to defend." [Tempelhof, iii. 186,

After above half an hour of this, Friedrich orders storm of the Muhlberg: Forward on it, with what of

enfilading it has had! Eight grenadier Battalions, a chosen vanguard appointed for the work (names of

Battalions all given, and deathless in the Prussian War Annals), tramp forth on this service: cross the abatis,

which the Russian grenadoes have mostly burnt; down into the Hollow. Steady as planets; "with a precision

and coherency," says Tempelhof, "which even on the paradeground would have deserved praises. Once well

in the Hollow, they suffer nothing; though the blind Russian fire, going all over their heads, rages threefold:"

suffered nothing in the Hollow; nor till they reached almost the brow of the Muhlberg, and were within a

hundred steps of the Russian guns. These were the critical steps, these final ones; such torrents of grapeshot

and musketshot and sheer death bursting out, here at last, upon the Eight Battalions, as they come above

ground. Who advanced, unwavering, all the faster,speed one's only safety. They poured into the Russian

gunners and musketry battalions one volley of choicest quality, which had a shaking effect; then, with level

bayonets, plunge on the batteries: which are all empty before we can leap into them; artillerymen, musketeer

battalions, all on wing; general whirlpool spreading. And so, in ten minutes, the Muhlberg and its guns are

ours. Ever since Zorndorf, an idea had got abroad, says Tempelhof, that the Russians would die instead of

yielding; but it proved far otherwise here. Down as far as Kunersdorf, which may be about a mile westward,

the Russians are all in a whirl; at best hanging in tatters and clumps, their Officers struggling against the

flight; "mixed groups you would see huddled together a hundred men deep." The Russian Left Wing is

beaten: had we our cannon up here, our cavalry up here, the Russian Army were in a bad way!

This is a glorious beginning; completed, I think, as far almost as Kunersdorf by one o'clock: and could the

iron continue to be struck while it is at whiteheat as now, the result were as good as certain. That was

Friedrich's calculation: but circumstances which he had not counted on, some which he could not count on,

sadly retarded the matter. His Left Wing (Rear Line, which should now have been Left Wing) from

southward, his Right Wing from northward, and Finck farther west, were now on the instant to have

simultaneously closed upon the beaten Russians, and crushed them altogether. The Right Wing, conquerors

of the Muhlberg, are here: but neither Finck nor the Left can be simultaneous with them. Finck and his

artillery are much retarded with the Flosses and poor single Bridges; and of the Left Wing there are only

some Vanguard Regiments capable of helping ("who drove out the Russians from Kunersdorf Churchyard,"

as their first feat),no Main Body yet for a long while. Such impediments, such intricacies of bog and bush!

The entire Wing does at last get to the southeast of Kunersdorf, free of the wood; but finds (contrary to

Linden with his hunter eye) an intricate meshwork of meres and straggling lakes, two of them in the burnt

Village itself; no passing of these except on narrow isthmuses, which necessitate change of rank and

rechange; and our Left Wing cannot, with all its industry, "march up," that is, arrive at the enemy in fighting

And then the getting forward of our cannon! On the Muhlberg itself the seventytwo Russian guns, "owing to

difference of calibre," or artillerymen know what, cannot be used by us: a few light guns, Tempelhof to one

of them, a poor four in all, with perhaps 100 shot to each, did, by the King's order, hasten to the top of the

Muhlberg; and never did Tempelhof see a finer chance for artillery than there. Soft sloping ground, with

Russians simmering ahead of you, all the way down to Kunersdorf, a mile long: by horizontal pointing, you

had such reboundings (RICOCHETS); and carried beautiful execution! Tempelhof soon spent his hundred

shots: but it was not at once that any of our sixty heavy guns could be got up thither. Twelve horses to each:

fancy it, and what baffling delays here and elsewhere;and how the Russian whirlpool was settling more

and more, in the interim! And had, in part, settled; in part, got through to the rear, and been replaced by fresh

Friedrich's activities, and suppressed and insuppressible impatiences in this interval, are also conceivable,

though not on record for us. The swiftest of men; tied down, in this manner, with the blaze of perfect victory

ahead, were the moments NOT running out! Slower or faster, he thinks (I suppose), the victory is his; and

that he must possess his soul till things do arrive. It was in one and more of those embargoed intervals that he

wrote to Berlin [Preuss, ii. 212 n.] (which is waiting, as if for life or death, the issue of this scene, sixty miles

distant): "Russians beaten; rejoice with me!" Four successive couriers, I believe, with messages to that effect;

In proportion as the cannon and other necessaries gradually got in, the Fight flamed up from its embers more

aud more: and there ensued,the Russians being now ranked again (fronting eastward now) "in many lines,"

and very fierce,a second still deadlier bout; Friedrich furiously diligent on their front and right flank;

Finck, from the Alder Waste, battering and charging (uphill, and under difficulties from those Flosses and

single Bridges) on their left flank. This too, after long deadly efforts on the Prussian part, ended again clearly

in their favor; their enemies broken a second time, and driven not only out of Kunersdorf and the Kuhgrund,

but some say almost to the foot of the Judenberg,what can only be very partially true. Broken portions of

the Russian left flank,some of Finck's people, in their victorious wrath, may have chased these very far:

but it is certain the general Russian mass rallied again a long way short of the Judenberg;though, the

ground being all obliterated by the rabbits and the winds, nobody can now know with exactitude where.

And indeed the Battle, from this point onwards, becomes blurred and confused to us, only its grosser features

visible henceforth. Where the "Big Spitzberg" was (so terribly important soon), nobody can now tell me,

except from maps. London's motions too are obscure, though important. I believe his grenadiers had not yet

been in the fire; but am certain they are now come out of Big Hollow; fresh for the rescue; and have taken

front rank in this Second Rally that is made. Loudon's Cavalry Loudon himself has in hand, and waits with

them in a fit place. He has 18,000 fresh men; and an eye like few others on a field of war. Loudon's 18,000

are fresh: of the Prussians that can by no means be said. I should judge it must be 3 of the afternoon. The day

is windless, blazing; one of the hottest August days; and "nobody, for twelve hours past, could command a

drink of water:" very fresh the poor Prussians cannot be! They have done two bouts of excellent fighting;

tumbled the Russians well back, stormed many batteries; and taken in all 180 cannon.

At this stage, it appears, Finck and many Generals, Seidlitz among the others, were of opinion that, in present

circumstances, with troops so tired, and the enemy nearly certain to draw off, if permitted, here had been

enough for one day, and that there ought to be pause till tomorrow. Friedrich knew well the need of rest; but

Friedrich, impatient of things halfdone, especially of Russians halfbeaten, would not listen to this

proposal; which was reckoned upon him as a grave and tragic fault, all the rest of his life; though favorable

judges, who were on the ground, Tempelhof for one, [Tempelhof, iii. 194.] are williug to prove that pausing

hereat the point we had really got to, a little beyond the Kuhgrund, namely; and not a couple of miles

westward, at the foot of the Jew Hill, where vague rumor puts uswas not feasible or reasonable. Friedrich

considers with himself, "Our left wing has hardly yet been in fire!" calls out the entire left wing, foot and

horse: these are to emerge from their meshwork of Lakes about Kunersdorf, and bear a hand along with us on

the Russian front here,especially to sweep away that raging Battery they have on the Big Spitzberg, and

make us clear of it. The Big Spitzberg lies to south and ahead of the Russian right as now ranked; fatally

covers their right flank, and half ruins the attack in front. Big Spitzberg is blown irrecognizable in our time;

The leftwing Infantry thread their lakelabyrinth, the soonest possible; have to rank again on the hither side,

under a tearing fire from that Spitzberg; can then at last, and do, storm onwards, upwards; but cannot, with

their best efforts, take the Spitzberg: and have to fall back under its floods of tearing caseshot, and retire out

of range. To Friedrich's blank disappointment: "Try it you, then, Seidlitz; you saved us at Zorndorf!" Seidlitz,

though it is an impossible problem to storm batteries with horse, does charge in for the Russian flank, in spite

of its covering battery: but the torrents of grapeshot are insufferable; the Seidlitz people, torn in gaps, recoil,

whirl round, and do not rank again till beyond the Lakes of Kunersdorf. Seidlitz himself has got wounded,

And, in brief, from this point onwards all goes aback with the Prussians more and more. Repeated attempts

on that Spitzberg battery prove vain; to advance without it is impossible. Friedrich's exertions are passionate,

almost desperate; rallying, animating, newordering; everywhere in the hottest of the fire. "Thrice he

personally led on the main attack." He has had two horses shot down under him; mounting a third, this too

gets a bullet in an artery of the neck, and is about falling, when two Adjutants save the King. In his

waistcoatpocket some small gold case (ETUI) has got smitten flat by a bullet, which would otherwise have

ended matters. The people about him remonstrate on such exposure of a life beyond value; he answers curtly,

"We must all of us try every method here, to win the Battle: I, like every other, must stand to my duty here!"

These, and a second brief word or two farther on, are all of articulate that we hear from him this day.

Friedrich's wearied battalions here on the Heights, while the Spitzberg to left goes so ill, fight desperately;

but cannot prevail farther; and in spite of Friedrich's vehement rallyings and urgings, gradually lose

ground,back at last to Kunersdorf and the Kuhgrund again. The Loudon grenadiers, and exclaimed masses

of fresh Russians, are not to be broken, but advance and advance. Fancy the panting deathlabors, and

spasmodic toilings and bafflings, of those poor Prussians and their King! Nothing now succeeding; the

deathagony now come; all hearts growing hopeless; only one heart still seeing hope. The Spitzberg is

impossible; tried how often I know not. Finck, from the Alder Waste, with his Infantry, attacks, and again

attacks; without success: "Let the Cavalry go round, then, and try there. Seidlitz we have not; you Eugen of

Wurtemberg lead them!" Eugen leads them (cuirassiers, or we will forget what); round by the eastern end of

the Muhlberg; then westward, along the Alder Waste; finally southward, against the Russian flank, himself

foremost, and at the gallop for charging:Eugen, "looking round, finds his men all gone," and has to gallop

the other way, gets wounded to boot. Puttkammer, with Hussars, then tried it; Puttkammer was shot dead, and

Back, slowly back, go the Prussians generally, nothing now succeeds with them. Back to the Kuhgrund again;

fairly over the steep brow there; the Russians serrying their ranks atop, rearranging their many guns. There,

once more, rose frightful struggle; desperate attempt by the fordone Prussians to retake that Height. "Lasted

fifteen minutes, line to line not fifty yards asunder;" such musketry,our last cartridges withal. Ardent

Prussian parties trying to storm up; few ever getting to the top, none ever standing there alive one minute.

This was the deathagony of the Battle. Loudon, waiting behind the Spitzberg, dashes forward now, towards

the Kuhgrund and our Left Flank. At sight of which a universal feeling shivers through the Prussian heart,

"Hope ended, then!" and their solid ranks rustle everywhere; and melt into one wild deluge, ebbing from

It is towards six o'clock; the sweltering Sun is now fallen low and veiled; gray evening sinking over those

wastes. "N'Y ATIL DONC PAS UN BOUGRE DE BOULET QUI PUISSE M'ATTEINDREE (Is there no

one b of a ball that can reach me, then)?" exclaimed Friedrich in despair. Such a day he had never thought

to see. The pillar of the State, the Prussian Army itself, gone to chaos in this manner. Friedrich still

passionately struggles, exhorts, commands, entreats even with tears, "Children, don't forsake me, in this pinch

169.]but all ears are deaf. On the Muhlberg one regiment still stood by their guns, covering the retreat. But

the retreat is more and more a flight; "no Prussian Army was ever seen in such a state." At the Bridges of that

HenFloss, there was such a crowding, all our guns got jammed; and had to be left, 165 of them of various

calibre, and the whole of the Russian 180 that were once in our hands. Had the chase been vigorous, this

Prussian Army had been heard of no more. But beyond the Muhlberg, there was little or no pursuit; through

the wood the Army, all in chaos, but without molestation otherwise, made for its Oder Bridges by the way it

had come. [Tempelhof, iii. 179200; Retzow, ii. 80115: in Seyfarth, Beylagen, ii. 589598, Bericht von der

am 12 August, 1759 bey Kunersdorf vorgefallenen Schlacht (Official); and IB. 598603, Beschreibung der

Friedrich was among the last to quit the ground. He seemed stupefied by the excess of his emotions; in no

haste to go; uncertain whether he would go at all. His adjutants were about him, and a small party of Ziethen

Hussars under Captain Prittwitz. Wild swarms of Cossacks approached the place. "PRITTWITZ, ICH BIN

VERLOREN (Prittwitz, I am lost)!" remarked he. "NEIN, IHRO MAJESTAT!" answered Prittwitz with

enthusiasm; charged fiercely, he and his few, into the swarms of Cossacks; cut them about, held them at bay,

or sent them elsewhither, while the Adjutants seized Friedrich's bridle, and galloped off with him. At

OEtscher and the Bridges, Friedrich found of his late Army not quite 3,000 men. Even Wunsch is not there

till next morning. Wunsch with his Party had, early in the afternoon, laid hold of Frankfurt, as ordered; made

the garrison prisoners, blocked the Oder Bridge; poor Frankfurt tremulously thanking Heaven for him, and

for such an omen. In spite of their Wagenburg and these PontoonBridges, it appears, there would have been

no retreat for the Russians except into Wunsch's cannon: Wagenburg way, latish in the afternoon, there was

such a scramble of runaways and retreating baggage, all was jammed into impassability; scarcely could a

single man get through. In case of defeat, the Russian Army would have had no chance but surrender or

extermination. [Tempelhof, iii. 194: in Retzow (ii. 110) is some dubious traditionary stuff on the matter.] At

dark, however, Wunsch had summons, so truculent in style, he knew what it meant; and answering in words

peremptorily, "No" with a like emphasis, privately got ready again, and at midnight disappeared. Got to

Friedrich found at OEtscher nothing but huts full of poor wounded men, and their miseries and

surgeries;he took shelter, himself, in a hut "which had been plundered by Cossacks" (in the past days), but

which had fewer wounded than others, and could be furnished with some bundles of dry straw. Kriele has a

pretty Anecdote, with names and particulars, of two poor Lieutenants, who were lying on the floor, as he

entered this hut. They had lain there for many hours; the Surgeons thinking them desperate; which Friedrich

did not. "ACH KINDER, Alas, children, you are badly wounded, then?" "JA, your Majesty: but how goes the

Battle?" (Answer, evasive on this point): "Are you bandaged, though? Have you been let blood?" "NEIN,

EUER MAJESTAT, KEIN TEUFEL WILL UNS VERBINDEN (Not a devil of them would bandage us)!"

Upon which there is a Surgeon instantly brought; reprimanded for neglect: "Desperate, say you? These are

young fellows; feel that hand, and that; no fever there: Nature in such cases does wonders!" Upon which the

leech had to perform his function; and the poor young fellows were saved,and did new fighting, and got

new wounds, and had Pensions when the War ended. [Kriele, pp. 169, 170; and in all the AnecdoteBooks.]

This appears to have been Friedrich's first work in that hut at OEtscher. Here next is a Third Autograph to

Finkenstein, written in that hut, probably the first of several Official things there:

"I attacked the Enemy this morning about eleven; we beat him back to the JUDENKIRCHHOF (Jew

Churchyard,"a mistake, but now of no moment), "near Frankfurt. All my troops came into action, and have

done wonders. I reassembled them three times; at length, I was myself nearly taken prisoner; and we had to

quit the Field. My coat is riddled with bullets, two horses were killed under me;my misfortune is, that I am

still alive. Our loss is very considerable. Of an Army of 48,000 men, I have, at this moment while I write, not

more than 3,000 together; and am no longer master of my forces. In Berlin you will do well to think of your

safety. It is a great calamity; and I will not survive it: the consequences of this Battle will be worse than the

Battle itself. I have no resources more; and, to confess the truth, I hold all for lost. I will not survive the

destruction of my Country. Farewell forever (ADIEU POUR JAMAIS).F." [In orig. "CE 12," no other date

Another thing, of the same tragic character, is that of handing over this Army to Finck's charge. Order there is

to Finck of that tenor: and along with it the following notable Autograph,a Friedrich taking leave both of

Kingship and of life. The Autograph exists; but has no date,date of the Order would probably be still

OETSCHER, 12th AUGUST; date of the Autograph, REITWEIN (across the River), next day.

"General Finck gets a difficult commission; the unlucky Army which I give up to him is no longer in

condition to make head against the Russians. Haddick will now start for Berlin, perhaps Loudon too; if

General Finck go after these, the Russians will fall on his rear; if he continue on the Oder, he gets Haddick on

his flank (SO KRIGT ER DEN HADEK DISS SEIT):however, I believe, should Loudon go for Berlin, he

might attack Loudon, and try to beat him: this, if it succeeded, would be a stand against misfortune, and hold

matters up. Time gained is much, in these desperate circumstances. The news from Torgau and Dresden,

Coper my Secretary (COPER MEIN SEGRETER," kind of lieutenant to Eichel [See Preuss, i. 349, iii. 442.])

"will send him. You (ER) must inform my Brother [Prince Henri] of everything; whom I have declared

Generalissimo of the Army. To repair this bad luck altogether is not possible: but what my Brother shall

"This is all the advice, in these unhappy circumstances, I am in a condition to give. Had I still had resources, I

"FRIEDRICH" [Exact Copy, two exact copies, in PREUSS (i. 450, and again, ii. 215).]

All this done, the wearied Friedrich flung himself into his truss of dry straw; and was seen sound asleep there,

a single sentry at the door, by some high Generals that ventured to look in. On the morrow he crossed to

Reitwein; by tomorrow night, there had 23,000 of his fugitives come in to him;but this is now to be

Finck's affair, not his! That day, too (for the Paper seems to be misdated), he signed, and despatched to

Schmettau, Commandant in Dresden, a Missive, which proved more fatal than either of the others; and

"You will perhaps have heard of the Check [L'ECHEC, Kunersdorf to wit!] I have met with from the Russian

Army on the 13th [12th, if you have the Almanac at hand] of this month. Though at bottom our affairs in

regard to the Enemy here are not desperate, I find I shall not now be able to make any detachment for your

assistance. Should the Austrians attempt anything against Dresden, therefore, you will see if there are means

of maintaining yourself; failing which, it will behoove you to try and obtain a favorable Capitulation,to

wit, Liberty to withdraw, with the whole Garrison, Moneys, Magazines, Hospital and all that we have at

Dresden, either to Berlin or elsewhither, so as to join some Corps of my Troops.

"As a fit of illness [MALADIE, alas!] has come on me,which I do not think will have dangerous

results,I have for the present left the command of my Troops to LieutenantGeneral von Finck; whose

Orders you are to execute as if coming to you directly from myself. On this I pray God to have you in his

At Berlin, on this 13th,with the Five Couriers coming in successively (and not in the order of their

despatch, but the fatal Fifth arriving some time AHEAD of the Fourth, who still spoke of progress and

victory),there was such a day as Sulzer (ACH MEIN LIEBER SULZER!) had never seen in the world.

"'Above 50,000 human beings on the Palace Esplanade and streets about;' swaying hither and thither, in

agony of expectation, in alternate paroxysm of joy and of terror and woe; often enough the opposite

paroxysms simultaneous in the different groups, and men crushed down in despair met by men leaping into

the air for very gladness:" Sulzer (whose sympathy is of very aesthetic type) "would not, for any

consideration, have missed such a scene." [ Briefe der Schweitzer Bodmer, Sulzer, Gessner; aus Gleim's

literarischen Nachlasse: herausgegeben von Wilhelm Korte (Zurich, 1804), pp. 316319.] The "scene" is

Practically we find, in Rodenbeck, or straggling elsewhere, this Note: "On the day after Kunersdorf, Queen

and Court fly to Magdeburg: this is their second flight. Their first was on Haddick's Visit, October, 1757; but

after Rossbach they soon returned, and Berlin and the Court were then extremely gay: different gentlemen,

French and others of every Nation, fallen prisoners, made the Queen's soirees the finest in the world for

One other Note we save, for the sake of poor Major Kleist, "Poet of the Spring," as he was then called. A

valiant, punctual Soldier, and with a turn for Literature as well; who wrote really pleasant fine things, new at

that time and rapturously welcome, though too much in the sentimental vein for the times which have

followed. Major Kleist,there is a General Kleist, a Colonel Kleist of the Green Hussars (called GRUNE

Kleist, a terrible cutting fellow): this is not Grune Kleist; this is the Poet of THE SPRING; whose fate at

Kunersdorf made a tragic impression in all intelligent circles of Teutschland. Here is Kriele's Note

"Christian Ewald von Kleist, 'Poet of the Spring' [a Pommern gentleman, now in his fortyfourth year], was

of Finck's Division; had come on, after those Eight Battalions took the first Russian battery [that is,

Muhlberg]; and had been assisting, with zeal, at the taking of three other batteries, regardless of twelve

contusions, which he gradually got. At the third battery, he was farther badly hurt on the left arm and the

right. Took his Colonel's place nevertheless, whom he now saw fall; led the regiment MUTHIG forward on

the fourth battery. A caseshot smashed his right leg to pieces; he fell from his horse [hour not given, shall

we say 3 P.M.]; sank, exclaiming: 'KINDER, My children, don't forsake your King!' and fainted there. Was

carried to rear and leftward; laid down on some dry spot in the Elsbruch, not far from the Kuhgrund, and a

Surgeon brought. The Surgeon, while examining, was torn away by caseshot: Kleist lay bleeding without

help. A friend of his, Pfau [who told Kriele], one of Finck's Generals, came riding that way: Kleist called to

him; asked how the Battle went; uncommonly glad to hear we are still progressive. Pfau undertook, and tried

his utmost, for a carriage to Kleist; did send one of Finck's own carriages; but after such delays that the

Prussians were now yielding: poor Kleist's had become Russian ground, and the carriage could not get in.

"Kleist lay helpless; no luck worse than his. In the evening, Cossacks came round him; stript him

starknaked; threw him, face foremost, into the nearest swampy place, and went their way. One of these

devils had something so absurd and Tenierslike in the face of him, that Kleist, in his pains, could not help

laughing at remembrance of it. In the night some Russian Hussars, human and not Cossack, found Kleist in

this situation; took him to a dry place; put a cloak over him, kindled a watchfire for themselves, and gave

him water and bread. Towards morning they hastened away, throwing an 8GROSCHEN STUCK

[ninepenny piece, shilling, say halfcrown] on his cloak,with human farewell. But Cossacks again came;

again stript him naked and bare. Towards noon of the 13th, Kleist contrived to attract some Russian Cavalry

troop passing that way, and got speech of the Captain (one Fackelberg, a German); who at once set about

helping him;and had him actually sent into Frankfurt, in a carriage, that evening. To the House of a

Professor Nikolai; where was plenty of surgery and watchful affection. After near thirty hours of such a lair,

his wounds seemed still curable; there was hope for ten days. In the tenth night (22d23d August), the

shivered pieces of bone disunited themselves; cut an artery,which, after many trials, could not be tied.

August 24th, at two in the morning, he died.Great sorrow. August 26th, there was soldier's funeral; poor

Kleist's coffin borne by twelve Russian grenadiers; very many Russian Officers attending, who had come

from the Camp for that end; one Russian StaffOfficer of them unbuckling his own sword to lay on the bier,

as there was want of one. King Friedrich had Kleist's Portrait hung in the Garnison Kirche. Freemason Lodge,

in 1788, set up a monument to him," [Kriele, pp. 3943.]which still stands on the Frankfurt pavement, and

The Prussian loss, in this Battle, was, besides all the cannon and fieldequipages: 6,000 killed, 13,000

wounded (of which latter, 2,000 badly, who fell to the Russians as prisoners); in all, about 19,000 men. Nor

was the Russian loss much lighter; of Russians and Austrians together, near 18,000, as Tempelhof counts:

"which will not surprise your Majesty," reports Soltikof to his Czarina; "who are aware that the King of

Prussia sells his defeats at a dear rate." And privately Soltikof was heard to say, "Let me fight but another

such Victory, and I may go to Petersburg with the news of it myself, with the staff in my hand." The joy at

Petersburg, striving not to be braggart or immodest, was solemn, steady and superlative: a great feat indeed

for Russia, this Victory over such a King,though a kind of grudge, that it was due to Loudon, dwelt, in

spite of Loudon's politic silence on that point, unpleasantly in the background. The chase they had shamefully

neglected. It is said, certain Russian Officers, who had charge of that business stept into a peasant's cottage to

consult on it; contrived somehow to find tolerable liquor there; and sat drinking instead. [Preuss, ii. 217.]

Friedrich's despair did not last quite four days. On the fourth day,day after leaving Reitwein,there is this

little Document, which still exists, of more comfortable tenor: "My dear Major General von

Wunsch,Your Letter of the 16th to LieutenantGeneral von Finck punctually arrived here: and for the

future, as I am now recovered from my illness, you have to address your Reports directly to Myself.F."

["Madlitz," on the road to Furstenwalde, "17th August:" in Preuss, Friedrich der Grosse; eine historische

PortraitSkizze (kind of LECTURE, so let us call it, if again citing it; Lecture delivered, on Friedrich's

Birthday, to Majesty and StaffOfficers as Audience, Berlin, 24th January, 1855), p. 18.] Finding that, except

Tottleben warily reconnoitring with a few Cossacks, no Russians showed themselves at Reitwein; that the

Russians were encamping and intrenching on the WineHills south of Frankfurt, not meaning anything

immediate,he took heart again; ranked his 23,000; sent for General Kleist from Pommern with his

AntiSwedish handful (leave the Swedes alone, as usual in time of crisis); considered that artilleries and

furnishings could come to him from Berlin, which is but 60 miles; that there still lay possibility ahead, and

A great relief, this of coming to oneself again! "Till death, then;rage on, ye elements and black

savageries!" Friedrich's humor is not despondent, now or afterwards; though at this time it is very sad, very

angry, and, as it were, scorning even to hope: but he is at all times of beautifully practical turn; and has, in his

very despair, a sobriety of eyesight, and a fixed steadiness of holding to his purpose, which are of rare

quality. His utterances to D'Argens, about this time and onward,brief hints, spontaneous, almost

unconscious,give curious testimony of his glooms and moody humors. Of which the reader shall see

something. For the present, he is in deep indignation with his poor Troops, among other miseries. "Actual

running away!" he will have it to be; and takes no account of thirst, hunger, heat, utter weariness and physical

impossibility! This lasts for some weeks. But in general there is nothing of this injustice to those about him.

In general, nothing even of gloom is manifested; on the contrary, cheerfulness, brisk hope, a strangely

continual succession of hopes (mostly illusory); though, within, there is traceable very great sorrow,

weariness and misery. A fixed darkness, as of Erebus, is grown habitual to him; but is strictly shut up, little of

it shown to others, or even, in a sense, to himself. He is as a traveller overtaken by the Night and its tempests

and raindeluges, but refusing to pause; who is wetted to the bone, and does not care farther for rain. A

traveller grown familiar with the howling solitudes; aware that the Stormwinds do not pity, that Darkness is

the dead Earth's Shadow:a most lone soul of a man; but continually toiling forward, as if the brightest goal

Once more the world was certain of Friedrich's ruin;Friedrich himself we have seen certain of it, for some

few desperate hours: but the world and he, as had been repeatedly the world's case, were both

disappointed. Intrinsically there could be little doubt but Friedrich's enemies might now have ruined him, had

they been diligent about it. Now again, and now more than ever, they have the winningpost in sight. At

small distance is the goal and purpose of all these four years' battlings and marchings, and ten years'

subterranean plottings and intriguings. He himself says deliberately, "They had only to give him the finishing

stroke (COUPDEGRACE)." [ OEuvres de Frederic, v. 20.] But they never gave him that stroke; could not

do it, though heartily desirous. Which was, and is, matter of surprise to an observant public.

The cause of failure may be considered to have been, in good part, Daun and his cunctations. Daun's zeal was

unquestionable; ardent and continual is Daun's desire to succeed: but to try it at his own risk was beyond his

power. He expected always to succeed by help of others: and to show them an example, and go vigorously to

work himself, was what he never could resolve on. Could play only Fabius Cunctator, it would seem; and

never was that part less wanted than now! Under such a Chief Figure, the "incoherency of action," instead of

diminishing, as Friedrich had feared, rose daily towards its maximum; and latterly became extreme. The old

Lernean Hydra had many heads; but they belonged all to one body. The many heads of this AntiFriedrich

Hydra had withal each its own body, and separate set of notions and advantages. Friedrich was at least a

unity; his whole strength going one way, and at all moments, under his own sole command. The value of this

circumstance is incalculable; this is the savingclause of Pitt and his England (Pitt also a despotic sovereign,

though a temporary one); this, second only to Friedrich's great gifts from Nature, and the noble use he makes

of them, is above all others the circumstance that saved him in such a duel with the Hydras.

On the back of Kunersdorf, accordingly, there was not only no finishing stroke upon Friedrich, but for two

months no stroke or serious attempt whatever in those neighborhoods where Friedrich is. There are four

Armies hereabouts: The Grand Russian, hanging by Frankfurt; Friedrich at Furstenwalde (whitherward he

marched from Reitwein August 16th), at Furstenwalde or farther south, guarding Berlin;then, unhurt yet

by battle of any kind, there are the Grand Daunish or MarkLissa Army, and Prince Henri's of Schmottseifen.

Of which latter Two the hitchings and manoeuvrings from time to time become vivid, and never altogether

cease; but in no case come to anything. Above two months' scientific flourishing of weapons, strategic

counterdancing; but no stroke struck, or result achieved, except on Daun's part irreparable waste of time:

all readers would feel it inhuman to be burdened with any notice of such things. One march of Prince Henri's,

which was of a famous and decisive character, we will attend to, when it comes, that is, were the end of

September at hand; the rest must be imagined as a general strategic dance in those frontier parts,Silesia to

rearward on one side, the Lausitz and Frankfurt on the other,and must go on, silently for most part, in the

background of the reader's fancy. Indeed, Saxony is the scene of action; Friedrich, Henri, Soltikof, Daun,

Some days before Kunersdorf, Daun personally, with I will forget how many thousands, had made a move to

northward from MarkLissa, 60 miles or so, through Sagan Country; and lies about Priebus, waiting there

ever since. Priebus is some 40 miles north of Gorlitz, about 60 west of Glogau, south of Frankfurt 80. This is

where the MasterSmith, having various irons in the fire, may be handiest for clutching them out, and forging

at them, as they become successively hot. Daun, as MasterSmith, has at least three objects in view. The

FIRST is, as always, Reconquest of Silesia: this is obstructed by Prince Henri, who sits, watchful on the

threshold, at Schmottseifen yonder. The SECOND is, as last year, Capture of Dresden: which is much the

more feasible at present, there being, except the Garrisons, no Prussian force whatever in Saxony; and a

Reichs Army now actually there at last, after its long haggling about its Magazines; and above all, a Friedrich

with his hands full elsewhere. To keep Friedrich's hands full,in other words, to keep the Russians sticking

to him,that is the THIRD object: or indeed we may call it the first, second and third; for Daun is well

aware that unless Soltikof can manage to keep Friedrich busy, Silesia, Saxony and all else becomes

Ever since the fortunate junction of Loudon with Soltikof, Daun has sat, and still sits, expectant; elaborately

calculative, gathering Magazines in different parts, planting outparties, this way, that way, with an eye to

these three objects, all or each,especially to the third object, which he discerns to be all AND each. Daun

was elaborately calculative with these views: but to try any military action, upon Prince Henri for example, or

bestir himself otherwise than in driving provender forward, and marching detachments hither and thither to

the potentially fit and fittest posts, was not in Daun's way,so much the worse for Daun, in his present

Prince Henri had lain quiet at Schmottseifen, waiting his Brother's adventure; did not hear the least tidings of

him till six days after Kunersdorf, and then only by rumor; hideous, and, though still dubious, too much of it

probable! On the very day of Kunersdorf, Henri had begun effecting some improvements on his right

flank,always a sharply strategic, most expert creature, and made a great many motions, which would be

unintelligible here. [Detailed, every fibre of them (as is the soulconfusing custom there), in Tempelhof, iii.

228 et seq.] Henri feels now that upon him lies a world of duties; and foremost of all, the instant duty of

endeavoring to open communication with his Brother. Many marches, in consequence; much intricate

marching and manoeuvring between Daun and him: of which, when we come to Henri's great March (of 25th

For the present, let readers take their Map, and endeavor to fix the following dates and localities in their

mind. Here, in summary, are the King's various Marches, and Two successive Encampments, two only,

during those Six Weeks of forced inaction, while he is obliged to stand watching the Russians, and to witness

so many complicacies and disasters in the distance; which he struggles much and fruitlessly to hinder or

ENCAMPMENT 1st (Furstenwalde, August 18th30th). Friedrich left Reitwein AUGUST 16th; 17th, he is

at Madlitz [Note to Wunsch written there, which we read]; 18th, to Furstenwalde, and encamp. Furstenwalde

is on the Spree, straight between Frankfurt and Berlin; 25 miles from the former, 35 from the latter. Here for

near a fortnight. At first, much in alarm about the Russians and Berlin; but gradually ascertaining that the

"In effect, all this while Soltikof lay at Lossow, 10 miles south of Frankfurt, with his right on Oder; totally

motionless, inactive, except listening, often rather gloomily, to Daun's and Montalembert's suasive

eloquences and advices,and once, August 22d, in the little Town of Guben, holding Conference with Daun

[of which by and by]. In consequence of which, AUGUST 28th, Soltikof and his Russians and Austrians got

under way again; southward, but only a few marches: first to Mullrose, then to Lieberose:whom, the

instant he heard of their movements, Friedrich, August 30th, hastened to follow; but had not to follow very

"ENCAMPMENT SECOND (Waldau, till September 15th). AUGUST 30th, Friedrich, we say, rose from

Furstenwalde; hastened to follow this Russian movement, and keep within wind of it: up the valley of the

Spree; first to Mullrose neighborhood [where the Russians, loitering some time, spoiled the canallocks of

the Friedrich Wilhelm Canal, if nothing more],thence to Lieberose neighborhood; Waldau, the King's

new place of encampment,Waldau, with Spree Forest to rear of it: silent both parties till September 15th,

when Soltikof did fairly march, not towards Berlin, but quite in the opposite direction."

By the middle of September, when the Russians did get on foot, and moved eastward; especially on and after

September 25th, when Henri made his famous March westward; then it will behoove us to return to Friedrich

and these localities. For the present we must turn to Saxony, where, and not here, the scene of action is. Take,

farther, only the following bits of Note, which will now be readable. First, these Utterances to D'Argens;

direct glimpses into the heavyladen, indeed hagridden and nearly desperate inner man of Friedrich, during

1. "MADLITZ [road from Reitwein to Furstenwalde], 16th AUGUST, 1759. We have been unfortunate, my

dear Marquis; but not, by my fault. The victory was ours, and would even have been a complete one, when

our infantry lost patience, and at the wrong moment abandoned the field of battle. The enemy today is on

march to Mullrose, to unite with Haddick [not to Mullrose for ten days yet; Haddick had already got united

with THEM]. The Russian infantry is almost totally destroyed. Of my own wrecks, all that I have been able

to assemble amounts to 32,000 men; with these I am pushing on to throw myself across the enemy's road, and

either perish or save the Capital. That is not what you [you Berliners] will call a deficiency of resolution.

"For the event I cannot answer. If I had more lives than one, I would sacrifice them all to my Country. But if

this stroke fail, I think I am clearscores with her, and that it will be permissible to look a little to myself.

There are limits to everything. I support my misfortune; courage not abated by it: but I am well resolved, after

this stroke, if it fail, to open an outgate for myself [that small glass tube which never quits me], and no longer

2. Furstenwalde, 20th AUGUST. ... "Remain at Berlin, or retire to Potsdam; in a little while there will come

some catastrophe: it is not fit that you suffer by it. If things take a good turn, you can be back to Berlin [from

Potsdam] in four hours. If illluck still pursue us, go to Hanover or to Zelle, where you can provide for your

"I protest to you, that in this late Action I did what was humanly possible to conquer; but my people"Oh,

3. FURSTENWALDE, 21st AUGUST. ... "The enemy is intrenching himself near Frankfurt; a sign he

intends no attempt. If you will do me the pleasure to come out hither, you can in all safety. Bring your bed

with you; bring my Cook Noel; and I will have you a little chamber ready. You will be my consolation and

This day,let readers mark the circumstance,Friedrich, in better spirits, detaches Wunsch with some poor

6,000, to try if he can be of help in Saxony; where the Reichs Army, now arrived in force, and with nothing

whatever in the field against them, is taking all the Northward GarrisonTowns, and otherwise proceeding at

a high rate. Too possibly with an eye towards Dresden itself! Wunsch sets out August 21st. [Tempelhof, iii.

4. FURSTENWALDE, 22d AUGUST. "Yesterday I wrote to you to come; but today I forbid it. Daun is at

Kotbus; he is marching on Luben and Berlin [nothing like so rash!].Fly these unhappy Countries! This

news obliges me again to attack the Russians between here and Frankfurt. You may imagine if this is a

desperate resolution. It is the sole hope that remains to me, of not being cut off from Berlin on the one side or

the other. I will give the discouraged troops some brandy"alas!"but I promise myself nothing of success.

5. SAME PLACE AND DAY (after a Letter FROM D'Argens). "You make the panegyric, MON CHER, of

an Army that does not deserve any. The soldiers had good limbs to run with, none to attack the enemy. [Alas,

"For certain I will fight; but don't flatter yourself about the event. A happy chance alone can help us. Go, in

God's name, to Tangermunde [since the Royal Family went, D'Argens and many Berliners are thinking of

flight], to Tangermunde, where you will be well; and wait there how Destiny shall have disposed of us. I will

go to reconnoitre the enemy tomorrow. Next day, if there is anything to do, we will try it. But if the enemy

"No, the torment of Tantalus, the pains of Prometheus, the doom of Sisyphus, were nothing like what I suffer

for the last ten days [from Kunersdorf till now, when destruction has to be warded off again, and the force

wanting]. Death is sweet in comparison to such a life. Have compassion on me and it; and believe that I still

keep to myself a great many evil things, not wishing to afflict or disquiet anybody with them; and that I

would not counsel you to fly these unlucky Countries, if I had any ray of hope. Adieu, MON CHER."

Four days after, AUGUST 25th, from this same Furstenwalde, the Russians still continuing stagnant,

Friedrich despatches to Schmettau, Commandant of Dresden (by some industrious hand, for the roads are all

blocked), a Second Letter, "That Dresden is of the highest moment; that in case of Siege there, relief

[Wunsch, namely, and perhaps more that may follow] is on the road; and that Schmettau must defend himself

to the utmost." Let us hope this Second Missive may counteract the too despondent First, which we read

above, should that have produced discouragement in Schmettau! [Second Letter is given in Schmettau's

Leben, pp. 436, 437.]D'Argens does run to Wolfenbuttel; stays there till September 9th. Nothing more

6. WALDAU, 4th SEPTEMBER. "I think Berlin is now in safety; you may return thither. The Barbarians

[Russians] are in the Lausitz; I keep by the side of them, between them and Berlin, so that there is nothing to

fear for the Capital. The imminency of danger is past; but there will still be many bad moments to get

through, before reaching the end of the Campaign. These, however, only regard myself; never mind these.

My martyrdom will last two months yet; then the snows and the ices will end it." [ OEuvres de Frederic, xix.

Thus at Furstenwalde, then at Waldau, keeping guard, forlorn but resolute, against the intrusive

RussianAustrian deluges, Friedrich stands painfully vigilant and expectant,still for about a fortnight

more. With bad news coming to him latterly, as we shall hear. He is in those old moorland Wusterhausen

Countries, once so well known under far other circumstances. Thirty years ago, in fine afternoons, we used to

gallop with poor Duhan de Jandun, after schooltasks done, towards Mittenwalde, Furstenwalde and the

furzy environs, far and wide; at home, our Sister and Mother waiting with many troubles and many loves, and

Papa sleeping, Panlike, under the shadow of his big tree:Thirty years ago, ah me, gone like a dream is all

that; and there is solitude and desolation and the RussianAustrian deathdeluges instead! These, I suppose,

were Friedrich's occasional remembrances; silent always, in this locality and time. The Sorrows of WERTER,

of the GIAOUR, of the Dyspeptic Tailor in multifarious forms, are recorded in a copious heartrending

manner, and have had their meed of weeping from a sympathetic Public: but there are still a good few

Sorrows which lie wrapt in silence, and have never applied there for an idle tear!Let us look now into

22d)."Daun, who had moved to Priebus, with a view to be nearer Soltikof, had scarcely got his tent pitched

there {August 13th), when a breathless horseman rode in, with a Note from Loudon, dated the night before:

'King of Prussia beaten, to the very bone, beyond mistake this time,utterly ruined, if one may judge!' What

a vision of the Promised Land! Delighted Daun moves forward, one march, to Triebel on the morrow; to be

one march nearer the scene of glory, and endeavor to forge this biggest of the hot irons to advantage.

"At Triebel Soltikof's own account, elucidated by oral messengers, eyewitnesses, and, in short, complete

conspectus of this ever memorable Victory, await the delighted Daun. Who despatches messengers, one and

another; Lacy, the first, not succeeding quite: To congratulate with enthusiasm the most illustrious of

Generals; who has beaten King Friedrich as none else ever did or could; beaten to the edge of

extinction;especially to urge him upon trampling out this nearly extinct King, before he gleam up again.

Soltikof understands the congratulations very well; but as to that of trampling out, snorts an indignant

negative: 'Nay, you, why don't you try it? Surely it is more your business than my Imperial Mistress's or

mine. We have wrenched two victories from him this season. Kay and Kunersdorf have killed near the half of

us: go you in, and wrench something!' This is Soltikof's logic; which no messenger of Daun's, Lacy or

another, aided by never such melodies and suasions from Montalembert and Loudon, who are permanently

"And truly it is irrefragable. How can Daun, if himself merely speculative, calculative, hope that Soltikof will

continue acting? Men who have come to help you in a heavy job of work need example. If you wish me to

weep, be grieved yourself first of all. Soltikof angrily wipes his countenance at this point, and insists on a few

tears from Daun. Without metaphor, Soltikof has shot away all his present ammunition, his staff of bread is

quite precarious in these parts; and Soltikof thinks always, 'Is it my business, then, or is it yours?'

"Soltikof has intrenched himself on the WineHills at Lossow, comfortably out of Friedrich's way, and

contiguous to Oder and the provisionroutes; sits there, angrily deaf to the voice of the charmer; nothing to

be charmed out of him, but gusts of indignation, instead of consent. A proud, highgoing, indignant kind of

man, with a will of his own. And sees well enough what is what, in all this symphony of the Lacys, the

Montalemberts and surrounding adorers. Montalembert, who is here this season, our French best man

(unprofitable Swedes must put up with an inferior hand), is extremely persuasive, tries all the arts of French

rhetoric, but effects nothing. 'To let the Austrians come in for the finishing stroke,Excellence, it will be to

let them gain, in History, a glory which is of your earning. Daun and Austria, not Soltikof and Russia, will be

said to have extinguished this pestilent King; whom History will have to remember!' [Choiseul's Letter (not

DUC de Choiseul, but COMTE, now Minister at Vienna) to Montalembert, "Vienna, 16th August;" and

Montalembert's Answer, "Lieberhausen [means LIEBEROSE], 31st August, 1759:" in Montalembert,

Correspondance, ii. 5865.] 'With all my heart,' answers Soltikof; 'I make the Austrians and History perfectly

welcome! Monsieur, my ammunition is in Posen; my bread is fallen scarce; in Frankfurt can you find me one

horse more?' Indignant Soltikof is not to be taken by chaff; growls now and then, if you stir him to the

bottom: 'Why should we, who are volunteer assistants, take all the burden of the work? I will fall back to

"Austria has a good deal disgusted these Soltikofs and Russian Chief Officers;who are not so stupid as

Austria supposes. Austria's steady wish is, 'Let them do their function of cat'spaw for us; we are here to eat

the chestnuts; not, if we can help it, to burn our own poor fingers for them!' After every Campaign hitherto,

Austria has been in use to raise eager accusations at Petersburg; and get the Apraxins, Fermors into trouble:

this is not the way to conciliate Russian General Officers. Austria, taught probably by Daun, now tries the

other tack: heaps Soltikof with eulogies, flatteries, magnificent presents. All which Soltikof accepts, but with

a full sense of what they mean. An unmanageable Soltikof; his answer always,'Your turn now to fight a

victory! I will go my ways to Posen again, if you don't.' And, in these current weeks, in Soltikof's

audienceroom, if anybody were curious about it, we could present a very lively solicitation going on, with

answers very gruff and negatory. No suasion of Montalembert, Lacy, and Daun Embassies, backed by

diamondhilted swords, and splendor of gifts from Vienna itself, able to prevail on the barbarous people.

"Daun at length resolves to go in person; solicits an Interview with the distinguished Russian Conqueror; gets

it, meets Soltikof at Guben, halfway house between Frankfurt and Triebel; select suite attending both

Excellencies (August 22d); and exerts whatever rhetoric is in him on the barbarous man.

The barbarous man is stiff as brass; but Daun comes into all his conditions: 'Saxony, Silesia,Excellenz, we

have them both within clutch; such our exquisite angling and manoeuvring, in concert with your immortal

victory, which truly gives the lifebreath to everything. Oh, suffer us to clutch them: keep that King away

from us; and see if they are not ours, Saxony first, Silesia next! Provisions of meal? I will myself undertake to

furnish bread for you [though I have to cart it from Bohemia all the way, and am myself terribly off; but fixed

to do the impossible]; ration of bread shall fail no Russian man, while you escort us as protective friend.

Towards Saxony first, where the Reichs Army is, and not a Prussian in the field; the very Garrisons mostly

gone by this time. Dresden is to be besieged, within a week; Dresden itself is ours, if only YOU please! Come

into the Lausitz with us, Magazines are there, loaves in abundance: Saxony done, Dresden ours, cannot we

turn to Silesia together; besiege Glogau together (I am myself about trying Neisse, by Harsch again); capture

Glogau as well as Neisse; and crown the successfulest campaign that ever was? Oh, Excellenz!'"

In a word, Excellenz, strictly fixing that condition of the loaves, consents. Will get ready to leave those

Frankfurt WineHills in about a week. "But the loaves, you recollect: no Bread, no Russian!" Daun returns to

Triebel a victorious man,though with an onerous condition incumbent. Tempelhof, minutely computing,

finds that to cart from Bohemia such a cipher of human rations daily into these parts, will surpass all the

The Reichs Army, though it had been so tumbled about, in Spring, with such havoc on its magazines and

preparations, could not wait to refit itself, except superficially; and showed face over the Mountains almost

earlier than usual. The chance was so unique: a Saxony left to its mere Garrisons,as it continued to be, for

near two months this Year. On such golden opportunity the Reichs Armyfirst, in light mischievous

precursor parties, who roamed as far as Halle or even as Halberstadt; then the Army itself, well or ill

appointed, under Generalissimo the Prince von Zweibruck,did come on, winding through Thuringen

towards the Northwestern Towns; various Austrian AuxiliaryCorps making appearance on the Dresden side.

Eight Austrian regiments, as a permanency, are in the Reichs Army itself. Commander, or part Commander,

of the eight is (what alone I find noteworthy in them) "Herr General Thomas von Blonquet:" Irish by nation,

says a footnote; [Seyfarth, ii. 831 n.]sure enough some adventurous "Thomas PLUNKET," visible this

once, soldiering, in those circumstances; never heard of by a sympathetic reader before or after. It was while

the King was hunting the HaddickLoudon people in Sagan Country in such vehement fashion, that

Zweibruck came trumpeting into Saxony,King, Prince Henri and everybody, well occupied otherwise, far

The Reichs Army has a camp at Naumburg (Rossbach neighborhood): and has light troops out in Halle

neighborhood; which have seized Halle; are very severe upon Halle, and other places thereabouts, till chased

away. August 7th, the Reichs Army begirt Leipzig; summoned the weak garrison there. It is a Town capable

of ruin, but not of defence: "Freewithdrawal," proposes the Reichs Army,and upon these terms gets hold

of Leipzig, for the time being. Leipzig, Torgau, Wittenberg; in a fortnight or less, all the Prussian posts in

those parts fall to the Reichs Army. Its marchings and siegings, among those Northwestern places, not one of

them capable of standing above a few days' siege, are worth no mention, except to Parish History: enough

that, by little after the middle of August, Zweibruck had got all these places, "Free withdrawal" the terms for

all; and that, except it be the following feature in their Siege of Torgau, feature mainly Biographic, and

belonging to a certain Colonel Wolfersdorf concerned, there is not one of those Sieges now worth a moment's

attention from almost any mortal. This is the Torgau feature,feature of human nature, soldiering under

9th14th). Two days after Leipzig was had, there appeared at Torgau a Body of Pandours, 2,000 and more;

who attempted some kind of scalade on Torgau and its small Garrison (of 700 or so), where are a

Magazine, a Hospital and other properties: not capable, by any garrison, of standing regular siege; but

important to defend till you have proper terms offered. The multitudinous Pandours, if I remember, made a

rush into the Suburbs, in their usual vociferous way; but were met by the 700 silent Prussians,silent except

through their firearms and fieldpieces,in so eloquent a style as soon convinced the Pandour mind, and

sent it travelling again. And in the evening of the same day (August 9th), Colonel Wolfersdorf arrives, as new

Commandant, and with reinforcements, small though considerable in the circumstances.

Wolfersdorf, one dimly gathers, had marched from Wittenberg on this errand; the whole force in Torgau is

now of about 3,000, still with only fieldcannon, but with a Captain over them;who, as is evident, sets

himself in a very earnest manner to do his utmost in defence of the place. Next morning Reichs General

Kleefeld ("Cloverfield"), with 6 or 8,000 Pandour and Regular, summons Wolfersdorf: "Surrender instantly;

or!" "We will expect you!" answers Wolfersdorf. Whereupon, same morning (August 10th), general storm;

storm No. 1: beautifully handled by Wolfersdorf; who takes it in rear (to its astonishment), as well as in front;

and sends it off in haste. On the morrow, Saturday, a second followed; and on Sunday a third; both likewise

beautifully handled. This third storm, readers see, was "Sunday, August 12th:" a very busy stormful day at

Torgau here,and also, for some others of us, during the heats of Kunersdorf, over the horizon far away!

Wolfersdorf tumbles back all storms; furthermore makes mischievous sallies: a destructive, skilled person;

altogether prompt, fertile in expedients; and evidently is not to be managed by Kleefeld. So that Prince von

MONDAY, 13th, at break of day, Stolberg arrives with a train of battering guns and 6,000 new people;

summons Wolfersdorf: "No," as before. Storms him, a fourth time; likewise "No," as before: attacks,

thereupon, his Elbe Bridge, and his Redoubt across the River; finds a Wolfersdorf party rush destructive]y

into his rear there. And has to withdraw, and try battering from behind the Elbe Dam. Continues this,

violently for about two hours; till again Wolfersdorf, whose poor fieldpieces, the only artillery he has,

"cannot reach so far with leaden balls" (the iron balls are done, and the powder itself is almost done),

manages, by a flank attack, to quench this also. Which produces entire silence, and considerable private

reflection, on the part of indignant Stolberg. Stolberg offers him the favorablest terms devisable: "Withdraw

freely, with all your honors, all your properties; only withdraw!" Which Wolfersdorf, his powder and ball

being in such a state of ebb, and no relief possible, agrees to; with stipulations very strict as to every

particular. [In Anonymous of Hamburg (iii. 350) the Capitulation, "August 14th." given IN EXTENSO.]

Wednesday, August 15th, at eight in the morning, Wolfersdorf by the Elbe Gate moves out; across Elbe

Bridge, and the Redoubt which is on the farther shore yonder. Near this Redoubt, Stolberg and many of his

General Officers are waiting to see him go. He goes in state; flags flying, music playing. Battalion

HessenCassel, followed by all our Packages, Hospital convalescents, King's Artillery, and whatever is the

King's or ours, marches first. Next comes, as rearguard to all this, Battalion Grollmann;along with which

is Wolfersdorf himself, knowing Grollmann for a ticklish article (Saxons mainly); followed on the heel by

Battalion Hofmann, and lastly by Battalion Salmuth, trusty Prussians both of these.

Battalion HessenCassel and the Baggages are through the Redoubt, Prince of Stolberg handsomely saluting

as saluted. But now, on Battalion Grollmann's coming up, Stolberg's Adjutant cries out with a loud voice of

proclamation, many Officers repeating and enforcing: "Whoever is a brave Saxon, whoever is true to his

Kaiser, or was of the Reichs Army, let him step out: Durchlaucht will give him protection!" At sound of

which Grollmann quivers as if struck by electricity; and instantly begins dissolving;dissolves, in effect,

nearly all, and is in the act of vanishing like a dream! Wolfersdorf is a prompt man; and needs to be so.

Wolfersdorf, in Olympian rage, instantly stops short; draws pistol: "I will shoot dead every man that quits

rank!" vociferates he; and does, with his pistol, make instant example of one; inviting every true Prussian to

do the like: "Jagers, Hussars, a ducat for every traitor you shoot down!" continues Wolfersdorf (and

punctually paid it afterwards): unable to prevent an almost total dissolution of Grollmann. For some minutes,

there is a scene indescribable: storm of vociferation, menace, musketshot, pistol shot; Grollmann

disappearing on every side,"behind the Redoubt, under the Bridge, into Elbe Boats, under the cloaks of the

At sight of the shooting, Prince Stolberg, a hot man, had said indignantly, "Herr, that will be dangerous for

you (DAS WIRD NICHT GUT GEHN)!" Wolfersdorf not regarding him a whit; regarding only Grollmann,

and his own hot business of coercing it at a ducat per head. Grollmann gone, and Battalion Hofmann in due

sequence come up, Wolfersdorfwho has sent an Adjutant, with order, "Hessen Cassel, HALT"gives

Battalion Hofmann these three words of command: "Whole Battalion, halt!Front!Make ready!" (with

due simultaneous click of every firelock, on utterance of that last); and turning to Prince Stolberg, with a

brow, with a tone of voice: "Durchlaucht, Article 9 of the Capitulation is express on this point; 'ALL

IMPERIAL OR ON THE PRUSSIAN SIDE!' [Durchlaucht silently gives, we suppose, some faint sniff.]

Since your Durchlaucht does not keep the Capitulation, neither will I regard it farther. I will now take you

and your Suite prisoners, return into the Town, and again begin defending myself. Be so good as ride directly

A dangerous moment for the Durchlaucht of Stolberg; Battalion Salmuth actually taking possession of the

wall again; Hofmann here with its poised firelock on the cock, "ready" for that fourth word, as above

indicated. A General Lusinsky of Stolberg's train, master of those Croats, and an Austrian of figure, remarks

very seriously: "Every point of the Capitulation must be kept!" Upon which Durchlaucht has to renounce and

repent; eagerly assists in recovering Grollmann, restores it (little the worse, little the FEWER); will give

Wolfersdorf "COMMAND of the Austrian Escort you are to have", and every satisfaction and

assurance;wishful only to get rid of Wolfersdorf. Who thereupon marches to Wittenberg, with colors

flying again, and a name mentionable ever since. [Templehof, iii. 201204; Seyfarth, ii. 562 n., and

This Wolfersdorf was himself a Pirna Saxon; serving Polish Majesty, as Major, in that Pirna time; perhaps no

admirer of "Feldmarschall Bruhl" and Company?at any rate, he took Prussian service, as then offered him;

and this is his style of keeping it. A decidedly clever soldier, and comes out, henceforth, more and more as

such, unhappily not for long. Was taken at Maxen, he too, as will be seen. Rose, in after times, to be

LieutenantGeneral, and a man famous in the Prussian military circles; but given always, they say, to take the

straight line (or shortest distance between self and object), in regard to military matters, to recruiting and the

Wolfersdorf, at Wittenberg or farther on, had a flattering word from the King; applauding his effective

procedures at Torgau; and ordering him, should Wittenberg fall (as it did, August 23d), to join Wunsch, who

is coming with a small Party to try and help in those destitute localities. Wunsch the King had detached (21st

August), as we heard already. Finck the King finds, farther, that he can detach (from Waldau Country,

September 7th); [Tempelhof, iii. 211, 237.] Russians being so languid, and Saxony fallen into such a perilous

"Few days after Kunersdorf," says a Note, which should be inserted here, "there had fallen out a small Naval

matter, which will be consolatory to Friedrich, and go to the other side of the account, when he hears of it:

Kunersdorf was Sunday, August 12th; this was Saturday and Sunday following. Besides their Grand Brest

Fleet, with new Flatbottoms, and worldfamous landpreparations going on at Vannes, for Invasion of

proud Albion, all which are at present under Hawke's strict keeping, the French have, ever since Spring last, a

fine subsidiary Fleet at Toulon, of very exultant hopes at one time; which now come to finis.

18th19th. The fine Toulon Fleet, which expected at one time, Pitt's ships being so scattered over the world,

to be 'mistress of the Mediterranean,' has found itself, on the contrary (such were Pitt's resources and

promptitudes); cooped in harbor all Summer; Boscawen watching it in the usual strict way. No egress

possible; till, in the sultry weather (8th July4th August), Boscawen's need of fresh provisions, fresh water

and of making some repairs, took him to Gibraltar, and gave the Toulon Fleet a transient opportunity, which

"August 17th, at 8 in the evening, Boscawen, at Gibraltar (some of his ships still in deshabille or under

repair), was hastily apprised by one of his Frigates, That the Toulon Fleet had sailed; been seen visibly at

Ceuta Point so many hours ago. 'Meaning,' as Boscawen guesses, 'to be through the Straits this very night!'

By power of despatch, the deshabille ships were rapidly got buttoned together (in about two hours); and by 10

P.M. all were under sail. And soon were in hot chase; the game, being now in view,going at its utmost

through the Straits, as anticipated. At 7 next morning (Saturday, August 18th) Boscawen got clutch of the

Toulon Fleet; still well east of Cadiz, somewhere in the Trafalgar waters, I should guess. Here Boscawen

fought and chased the Toulon Fleet for 24 hours coming; drove it finally ashore, at Lagos on the coast of

Portugal, with five of its big ships burnt or taken, its crews and other ships flying by land and water, its poor

Admiral mortally wounded; and the Toulon Fleet a ruined article. The wind had been capricious, here fresh,

there calm; now favoring the hunters, now the hunted; both Fleets had dropped in two. De la Clue, the French

Admiral, complained bitterly how his Captains lagged, or shore off and forsook him. Boscawen himself, who

for his own share had gone at it eaglelike, was heard grumbling, about want of speed in some people; and

said: 'It is well; but it might have been better!' [Beatson, ii. 313319; ib. iii. 237238, De la Clue, the French

"De la Cluefallen long ago from all notions of 'dominating the Mediterranean'had modestly intended to

get through, on any terms, into the Ocean; might then, if possible, have joined the Grand 'Invasion Squadron,'

now lying at Brest, till Vannes and the furnishings are ready, or have tried to be troublesome in the rear of

Hawke, who is blockading all that. A modest outlook in comparison;and this is what it also has come to.

As for the Grand Invasion Squadron, Admiral Conflans, commanding it, still holds np his head in Brest

Harbor, and talks big. Makes little of Rodney's havoc on the Flatbottoms at Havre, 'Will soon have

Flatbottoms again: and you shall see!'if only Hawke, and wind and weather and Fortune, will permit."

AUSTRIAN REICHS ARMY DOES ITS CROWNING FEAT (August 26thSeptember 4th): DIARY OF

Since the first weeks of, August there have been Austrian detachments, Wehla's Corps, Brentano's Corps,

entering Saxony from the northeast or Daunward side, and posting themselves in the strong points looking

towards Dresden; waiting there till the Reichs Army should capture its Leipzigs, Torgaus, Wittenbergs, and

roll forward from northwest. To all which it is easy to fancy what an impetus was given by Kunersdorf and

August 12th; the business, after that, going on doublequick, and pointing to immediate practical industry on

Dresden. The Reichs Army hastens to settle its northwestern Towns, puts due garrison in each, leaves a 10 or

12,000 movable for general protection, in those parts; and, August 23d, marches for Dresden. There are only

some 15,000 left of it now; almost half the Reichs Army drunk up in that manner; were not Daun now

speeding forth his Maguire with a fresh 12,000; who is to command the Wehlas and Brentanos as well. And,

in effect, to be Austrian Chief, and as regards practical matters, Manager of this important

Enterprise,allimportant to Daun just now. Schmettau in Dresden sees clearly what mischief is at hand.

To Daun this Siege of Dresden is the alpha to whatever omegas there may be: he and his Soltikof are to sit

waiting this; and can attempt nothing but eating of provender, till this be achieved. As the Siege was really

important, though not quite the alpha to all omegas, and has in it curious points aud physiognomic traits, we

will invite readers to some transient inspection of it,the rather as there exist ample contemporary

Narratives, DIARIUMS and authentic records, to render that possible and easy. [In TEMPELHOF (iii.

210216222) complete and careful Narrative; in ANONYMOUS OF HAMBURG (iii. 371377) express

"Ever since the rumor of Kunersdorf," says one Diarium, compiled out of many, "in the last two weeks of

August, Schmettau's need of vigilance and diligence has been on the increase, his outlooks becoming

grimmer and grimmer. He has a poorish Garrison for number (3,700 in all [Schmettau's LEBEN (by his Son),

p. 408.]), and not of the best quality; deserters a good few of them: willing enough for strokes; fighting

fellows all, and of adventurous turn, but uncertain as to loyalty in a case of pinch. He has endless stores in the

place; for one item, almost a million sterling of ready money. Poor Schmettau, if he knew it, has suddenly

become the Leonidas of this campaign, Dresden its Thermopylae; and"But readers can conceive the

"AUGUST 20th, Schmettau quits the Neustadt, or northern part of Dresden, which lies beyond the River:

unimportant that, and indefensible with garrison not adequate; Schmettau will strengthen the Riverbank,

blow up the Stone Bridge if necessary, and restrict himself to Dresden Proper. The Court is here; Schmettau

does not hope that the Court can avert a Siege from him; but he fails not to try, in that way too, and may at

"AUGUST 25th, He has a Mine put under the main arch of the Bridge: 'mine illmade, uncertain of effect,'

reports the Officer whom he sent to inspect it. But it was never tried, the mere rumor of it kept off attacks on

that side. Same day, August 25th, Schmettau receives that unfortunate Royal Missive [Tempelhof, iii. 208;

Schmettau's LEBEN (p. 421) has "August 27th."] written in the dark days of Reitwein, morrow of Kunersdorf

(14th or 13th August)," which we read above. "That there is another Letter on the road for him, indicating

'Relief shall be tried,' is unknown to Schmettau, and fatally continues unknown. While Schmettau is reading

this (August 25th), General Wunsch has been on the road four days: Wunsch and Wolfersdorf with about

8,000, at their quickest pace, and in a fine winged frame of mind withal, are speeding on: will cross Elbe at

Meissen tomorrow night,did Schmettau only know. People say he did, in the way of rumor, understand

that Kunersdorf had not been the fatal thing it was thought; and that efforts would be made by a King like his.

In his place one might have, at least, shot out a spy or two? But he did not, then or afterwards.

"Already, ever since the arrival of Wehla and Brentano in those parts, he has been laboring under many

uncertainties; too many for a Leonidas! Hanging between Yes and No, even about that of quitting the

Neustadt, for example: carrying over portions of his goods, but never heartily the whole; unable to resolve;

now lifting visibly the Bridge pavement, then again visibly restoring it;and, I think, though the contrary is

asserted, he had at last to leave in the Neustadt a great deal of stores, horseprovender and other, not needful

to him at present, or impossible to carry, when dubiety got ended. He has put a mine under the Bridge; but

"Schmettau has been in many wars, but this is a case that tries his soldier qualities as none other has ever

done. A case of endless intricacy,if he be quite equal to it; which perhaps he was not altogether. Nobody

ever doubted Schmettau's high qualities as a man and captain; but here are requisite the very highest, and

these Schmettau has not. The result was very tragical; I suppose, a pain to Friedrich all his life after; and

certainly to Schmettau all his. This is Saturday night, 25th August: before Tuesday week (September 4th)

there will have sad things arrived, irremediable to Schmettau. Had Schmettau decided to defend himself,

Dresden had not been taken. What a pity Schmettau had not been spared this Missive, calculated to produce

mere doubt! Whether he could not, and should not, after a ten days of inquiry and new discernment, have

been able to read the King's true meaning, as well as the King's momentary humor, in this fatal Document,

there is no deciding. Sure enough, he did not read the King's true meaning in it, but only the King's

momentary humor; did not frankly set about defending himself to the death,or 'seeing' in that way 'whether

he could not defend himself,'with a good capitulation lying in the rear, after he had.

"SUNDAY, AUGUST 26th, Trumpet at the gates. Messenger from Zweibruck is introduced blindfold; brings

formal Summons to Schmettau. Summons duly truculent: 'Resistance vain; the more you resist, the worse it

will be,and there is a worst [that of being delivered to the Croats, and massacred every man], of which why

should I speak? Especially if in anything you fail of your duty to the KurPrinz [Electoral Prince and

HeirApparent, poor crook backed young Gentleman, who has an excellent sprightly Wife, a friend of

Friedrich's and daughter of the late Kaiser Karl VII., whom we used so beautifully], imagine what your fate

will be!'To which Schmettau answers: 'Can Durchlaucht think us ignorant of the common rules of behavior

to Persons of that Rank? For the rest, Durchlaucht knows what our duties here are, and would despise us if

we did NOT do them;'and, in short, our answer again is, in polite forms, 'Pooh, pooh; you may go your

way!' Upon which the Messenger is blindfolded again; and Schmettau sets himself in hot earnest to clearing

out his goods from the Neustadt; building with huge intertwisted crossbeams and stone and earthmasses a

Battery at his own end of the Bridge, batteries on each side of it, below and above;locks the Gates; and is

"Hardly were the Prussian guns got away, when Croat people in quantity came in, and began building a

Battery at their end of the Bridge, the main defencework being old Prussian mealbarrels, handily filled

with earth. 'If you fire one cannonball across on us,' said Schmettau, 'I will bombard the Neustadt into flame

in few minutes [I have only to aim at our Hay Magazine yonder]: be warned! 'Nor did they once fire from

that side; Electoral Highness withal and Royal Palace being quite contiguous behind the Prussian Bridge

Battery. Electoral Highness and Household are politely treated, make polite answer to everything; intend

going down into the 'APOTHEKE' (Kitchen suite), or vaulted part of the Palace, and will lodge there when

"This same SUNDAY, AUGUST 26th, Maguire arrived; and set instantly to building his bridge at Pillnitz, a

little way above Dresden: at Uebigau, a little below Dresden, the Reichsfolk have another. Reichsfolk,

Zweibruck in person, come all in on Wednesday; post themselves there, to north and west of the City. What

is more important, the siegeguns, a superb stock, are steadily floating, through the Pirna regions, hitherward;

get to hand on Friday next, the fifth day hence. [Tempelhof, p. 210.] Korbitz (halfway out to Kesselsdorf) is

Durchlaucht's headquarter:Chief General is Durchlaucht, conspicuously he, at least in theory, and shall

have all the glory; though Maguire, glancing on these cannon, were it nothing more, has probably a good deal

to say. Maguire too, I observe, takes post on that north or Kesselsdorf side; contiguous for the Head General.

Wehla and Brentano post themselves on the south or upstream side; it is they that hand in the siege guns:

batteries are already everywhere marked out, 13 cannon batteries and 5 howitzer. In short, from the morrow

of that truculent Summons, Monday morning to Thursday, there is hot stir of multifarious preparation on

Schmettau's part; and continual pouring in of the hostile force, who are also preparing at the utmost.

Thursday, the Siege, if it can be called a Siege, begins. Gradually, and as follows:

"THURSDAY MORNING (August 30th), Schmettau, who is, night and day, 'palisading the River,' and much

else,discloses (that is, Break of Day discloses on his part) to the Dresden public a huge Gallows, black,

huge, of impressive aspect; labelled 'For Plunderers, Mutineers and their Helpers.' [ANONYMOUS OF

HAMBURG, iii. 373.] The Austrian heavy guns are not yet in battery; but multitudes of loose Croat people

go swarming about everywhere, and there is plentiful firing from such artilleries as they have. This same

Thursday morning, two or three battalions of them rush into the Pirna Suburb; attack the Prussian

Guardparties there. Schmettau instantly despatches Captain Kollas and a Trumpet: 'Durchlaucht, have the

goodness to recall these Croat Parties; otherwise the Suburb goes into flame! And directly on arrival of this

Messenger, may it please Durchlaucht. For we have computed the time; and will not wait beyond what is

reasonable for his return!' Zweibruck is mere indignation and astonishment; 'will burn Halle,' burn

Quedlinburg, Berlin itself, and utterly ruin the King of Prussia's Dominion in general:the rejoinder to

which is, burning of Pirna Suburb, as predicted; seventy houses of it, this evening, at six o'clock.

"Onward from which time there is on both sides, especially on Schmettau's, diligent artillery practice;

cannonade kept up wherever Schmettau can see the enemy busy; enemy responding with what artillery he

has:not much damage done, I should think, though a great deal of noise; and for one day (Saturday,

September 1st), our Diarist notes, 'Not safe to walk the streets this day.' But, in effect, the Siege, as they call

it,which fell dead on the fifth day, and was never well aliveconsists mainly of menace and

countermenace, in the way of bargainmaking and negotiation;and, so far as I can gather, that superb

Park of Austrian Artillery, though built into batteries, and talked about in a bullying manner, was not fired

"Schmettau affects towards the enemy (and towards himself, I dare say) an air of iron firmness; but internally

has no such feeling, 'Calls a Council of War,' and the like. Council of War, on sight of that King's Missive,

confirms him with one voice: 'Surely, surely, Excellenz; no defence possible!' Which is a prophecy and a

fulfilment, both in one. Why Schmettau did not shoot forth a spy or two, to ascertain for him What, or

whether Nothing whatever, was passing outside Dresden? I never understand! Beyond his own Walls, the

world is a vacancy and blank to Schmettau, and he seems content it should be so.

"SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 2d. Though Schmettau's cannonade was very loud, and had been so all night,

divine service was held as usual, streets safe again,Austrians, I suppose, not firing with cannon. About 4

P.M., after a great deal of powder spent, General Maguire, stepping out on Elbe Bridge, blows or beats

Appeal, three times; 'wishes a moment's conversation with his Excellency.' Granted at once; witnesses

attending on both sides. 'Defence is impossible; in the name of humanity, consider!' urges Maguire. 'Defence

to the last man of us is certain,' answers Schmettau, from the teeth outwards;but, in the end, engages to put

on paper, in case he, by extremity of illluck, have at any time to acoept terms, what his terms will inflexibly

be. Upon which there is 'Armistice till Tomorrow:' and Maguire, I doubt not, reports joyfully on this feeling

of the enemy's pulse. Zweibruck and Maguire are very well aware of what is passing in these neighborhoods

(General Wunsch back at Wittenberg by forced marches; blew it open in an hour); and are growing highly

"MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 3d, The deathday of the Siege; an uncommonly busy day,though Armistice

lasted perfect till 3 P.M., and soon came back more perfect than ever. A Siege not killed by cannon, but by

medical industry. Let us note with brevity the successive symptoms and appliances. About seven in the

morning Maguire had his Messenger in Dresden, 'Your Excellency's Paper ready?' 'Nearly ready,' answers

Schmettau; 'we will send it by a Messenger of our own.' And about eleven of the day Maguire does get

it;the same Captain Kollas (whose name we recollect) handing it in; and statuelike waiting Answer.

'Pshaw, this will never do,' ejaculates Maguire; 'terms irrationally high!' Captain Kollas 'knows nothing of

what is IN the Paper; and is charged only to bring a Written Answer from Excellenz.' Excellenz, before

writing, 'will have to consult with Durchlaucht;' can, however, as if confidentially and from feelings of

friendship, can assure you, Sir, on my honor, That the Garrison will be delivered to the Croats, and every man

of it put to the sword. 'The Garrison will expect that (WIRD DAS ERWARTEN),' said Kollas, statuelike;

and withdrew, with the proper bow. [Tempelhof, iii. 211.] Something interesting to us in these Military

diplomatic passages, with their squareelbowed fashions, and politeness stiff as iron! "Not till three of the

afternoon does the Written Answer reach Schmettau: 'Such Terms never could be accepted.''Good,'

answers Schmettau: 'To our last breath no others will be offered.' And commences cannonading again, not

"About 10 at night, General Guasco, a truculent kind of man, whom I have met with up and down, but not

admitted to memory, beats Appeal on the Bridge: 'Inform the Commandant that there will now straightway

13 batteries of cannon, and 5 ditto of howitzers open on him, unless he bethinks himself!' Which dreadful

message is taken to Schmettau. 'Wish the gentleman goodevening,' orders Schmettau; 'and say we will

answer with 100 guns.' Upon which Guasco vanishes;but returns in not many minutes, milder in tone;

requests 'a sight of that Written Paper of Terms again.' 'There it still is,' answers Schmettau, 'not altered, nor

ever shall be.' And there is Armistice again:and the Siege, as turns out, has fired its last shot; and is

painfully expiring in paroxysms of negotiation, which continue a good many hours. Schmettau strives to

understand clearly that his terms (of the King's own suggesting, as Schmettau flatters himself) are accepted:

nor does Durchlaucht take upon him to refuse in any point; but he is strangely slow to sign, still hoping to

"Much hithering and thithering there was, till 4 next morning (Durchlaucht has important news from Torgau,

at that moment); till 11 next day; till 4 in the afternoon and later,Guasco and others coming with message

after message, hasty and conciliatory: (Durchlaucht at such a distance, his signature not yet come; but be

patient; all is right, upon my honor!' Very great hurry evident on the part of Guasco and Company; but,

nothing suspected by Schmettau. Till, dusk or darkness threatening now to supervene, Maguire and

Schmettau with respective suites have a Conference on the Bridge,'rain falling very heavy.' Durchlaucht's

signature, Maguire is astonished to say, has not yet come; hut Maguire pledges his honor 'that all shall be

kept without chicane;' and adds 'what to some of us seemed not superfluous afterwards), 'I am incapable of

acting falsely or with chicane.' In fact, till 9 in the evening there was no signature by Durchlaucht; but about

6, on such pledge by Maguire of his hand and his honor, the Siege entirely gave up the ghost; and Dresden

belonged to Austria. Tuesday Evening, 4th September, 1759; Sun just setting, could anybody see him for the

"Schmettau had been overhasty; what need had Schmettau of haste? The terms had not yet got signature,

perfection of settlement on every point; nor were they at all well kept, when they did! Considerable flurry,

temporary blindness, needless hurry, and neglect of symptoms and precautions, must be imputed to poor

Schmettau; whose troubles began from this moment, and went on increasing. The Austrians are already

besetting Elbe Bridge, rooting up the herringbone balks; and approaching our Block house,sooner than

was expected. But that is nothing. On opening the Pirna Gate to share it with the Austrians, Friedrich's Spy

(sooner had not been possible to the man) was waiting; who handed Schmettau that Second Letter of

What Captain Kollas and the Prussian Garrison thought of all this, THEY were perhaps shy of saying, and we

at such distance are not informed,except by one symptom: that, of Colonel Hoffman, Schmettau's Second,

whose indignation does become tragically evident. Hoffman, a rugged Prussian veteran, is indignant at the

Capitulation itself; doubly and trebly indignant to find the Austrians on Elbe Bridge, busy raising our Balks

and Battery: "How is this Sir?" inquires he of Captain Sydow, who is on guard at the Prussian end; "How

dared you make this change, without acquainting the Second in Command? Order out your men, and come

along with me to clear the Bridge again!" Sydow hesitates, haggles; indignant Hoffman, growing loud as

thunder, pulls out a pistol, fatallooking to disobedient Sydow; who calls to his men, or whose men spring

out uncalled; and shoot Hoffman down,send two balls through him, so that he died at 8 that night. With

noise enough, then and afterwards. Was drunk, said Schmettau's people. Friedrich answered, on report of it:

"I think as Hoffman did. If he was 'drunk,' it is pity the Governor and all the Garrison had not been so, to

have come to the same judgment, as he." [P.S. in Autograph of Letter to Schmettau, "Waldau, 11th

September, 1759" (Preuss, ii.; Urkundenbuch, p. 45).] Friedrich's unbearable feelings, of grief and

indignation, in regard to all this Dresden matter,which are not expressed except coldly in business

form,can be fancied by all readers. One of the most tragical bits of illluck that ever befell him. A very

sore stroke, in his present condition; a signal loss and affront. And most of all, unbearable to think how

narrowly it has missed being a signal triumph;missed actually by a single hair's breadth, which is as good

Soon after 9 o'olock that evening, Durchlaucht in person came rolling through our battery and the

herringbone balks, to visit Electoral Highness,which was not quite the legal time either, Durchlaucht had

not been half an hour with Electoral Highness, when a breathless Courier came in: "General Wunsch within

ten miles [took Torgau in no time, as Durchlaucht well knows, for a week past]; and will be here before we

sleep!" Durchlaucht plunged out, over the herringbone balks again (which many carpenters are busy lifting);

and the Electoral Highnesses, in like manner, hurry off to Toplitz that same night, about an hour after. What a

Tuesday Night! Poor Hoffman is dead at 8 o'clock; the Saxon Royalties, since 11, are galloping for Pirna, for

Toplitz; Durchlaucht of Zweibruck we saw hurry off an hour before them,Capitulation signature not yet

dry, and terms of it beginning to be broken; and Wunsch reported to be within ten miles!

The Wunsch report is perfectly correct. Wunsch is at Grossenhayn this evening; all in a fiery mood of

swiftness, his people and he; and indeed it is, by chance, one of Wolfersdorf's impetuosities that has sent

the news so fast. Wunsch had been as swift with Torgau as he was with Wittenberg: he blew out the poor

Reichs Garrison there by instant storm, and packed it off to Leipzig, under charge of "an Officer and

Trumpet:"he had, greatly against his will, to rest two days there for a few indispensable cannon from

Magdeburg. Cannon once come, Wunsch, burning for deliverance of Dresden, had again started at his

"He is under 8,000; but he is determined to do it;and would have done it, think judges, half thinks

Zweibruck himself: such a fire in that Wunsch and his Corps as is very dangerous indeed. At 4 this morning,

Zweibruck heard of his being on march: 'numbers uncertain' (numbers seemingly not the important

point,blows any number of us about our business!)and since that moment Zweibruck has driven the

"Afternoon of TUESDAY, 4th, Wunsch, approaching Grossenhayn, had detached Wolfersdorf with 100 light

horse rightwards to Grodel, a boating Village on Elbe shore, To seek news of Dresden; also to see if boats are

procurable for carrying our artillery up thither. At Grodel, Wolfersdorf finds no boats that will avail: but

certain boatpeople, new from Dresden, report that no capitulation had been published when they left, but

that it was understood to be going on. New spur to Wolfersdorf and Wunsch. Wolfersdorf hears farther in this

Village, That there are some thirty Austrian horse in Grossenhayn:'Possible these may escape General

Wunsch!' thinks Wolfersdorf; and decides to have them. Takes thirty men of his own; orders the other

seventy to hold rightward, gather what intelligence is going, and follow more leisurely; and breaks off for the

"Getting to the highway, Wolfersdorf does see the fellows; sees also,with what degree of horror I do not

know,that there are at least 100 of them against his 30! Horror will do nothing for Wolfersdorf, nor are his

other 70 now within reach. Putting a bold face on the matter, he commands, Stentorlike, as if it were all a

fact: 'Grenadiers, march; Dragoons, to right forwards, WHEEL; Hussars, FORWARD: MARCH!'and does

terrifically dash forward with the thirty Hussars, or last item of the invoice; leaving the others to follow. The

Austrians draw bridle with amazement; fire off their carbines; take to their heels, and do not stop for more.

Wolfersdorf captures 68 of them, for behoof of Grossenhayn; and sends the remaining 32 galloping home.

[Tempelhof, iii. 214.] Who bring the above news to Durchlaucht of Zweibruck: '12,000 of them, may it

please your Durchlaucht; such the accounts we had!' Fancy poor Schmettau's feelings!

"On the morrow Dresden was roused from its sleep by loud firing and battle, audible on the north side of the

River: 'before daybreak, and all day.' It is Wunsch impetuously busy in the woody countries there.

Durchlaucht had shot out Generals and Divisions, Brentano, Wehla, this General and then that, to intercept

Wunsch: these the fiery Wunschalmost as if they had been combustible material coming to quench

firerepels and dashes back, in a wonderful manner, General after General of them. And is lord of the field

all day:but cannot hear the least word from Dresden; which is a surprising circumstance.

"In the afternoon Wunsch summons Maguire in the Neustadt: 'Will answer you in two hours,' said Maguire.

Wunsch thereupon is for attacking their two Pontoon ElbeBridges; still resolute for Dresden,and orders

Wolfersdorf on one of them, the Uebigau Bridge, who finds the enemy lifting it at any rate, and makes them

do it faster. But night is now sinking; from Schmettau not a word or sign. 'Silence over there, all day; not a

single cannon to or from,' say Wunsch and Wolfersdorf to one another. 'Schmettau must have capitulated!'

conclude they, and withdraw in the nighttime, still thunderous if molested; bivouac at Grossenhayn, after

twenty four hours of continual march and battle, not time even for a snatch of food. [BERICHT VON DER

"Resting at Grossenhayn, express reaches Wunsch from his Commandant at Torgau: 'Kleefeld is come on me

from Leipzig with 14,000; I cannot long hold out, unless relieved.' Wunsch takes the road again; two

marches, each of twenty miles. Reaches Torgau late; takes post in the ruins of the North Suburb, finds he

must fight Kleefeld. Refreshes his men 'with a keg of wine per Company,' surely a judicious step; and sends

to Wolfersdorf, who has the rearguard, 'Be here with me tomorrow at 10.' Wolfersdorf starts at 4, is here at

10: and Wunsch, having scanned Kleefeld and his Position [a Position strong IF you are dexterous to

manoeuvre in it; capable of being ruinous if you are not,part of the Position of a bigger BATTLE OF

TORGAU, which is coming],flies at Kleefeld and his 14,000 like a cato'mountain; takes him on the left

flank:Kleefeld and such overplus of thousands are standing a little to westandsouth of Torgau, with the

ENTEFANG [a desolate big reedy mere, or PLACE OF DUCKS, still offering the idle Torgauer a

melancholy sport there] as a protection to their right; but with no evolutiontalent, or none in comparison to

Wunsch's;and accordingly are cut to pieces by Wunsch, and blown to the winds, as their fellows have all

Wunsch, absolute Fate forbidding, could not save Dresden: but he is here lord of the Northern regions

again,nothing but Leipzig now in the enemy's hand;and can await Finck, who is on march with a

stronger party to begin business here. It is reckoned, there are few more brilliant little bits of Soldiering than

this of Wunsch's. All the more, as his men, for most part, were not Prussian, but miscellaneous Foreign spirits

of uncertain fealty: roving fellows, of a fighting turn, attracted by Friedrich's fame, and under a Captain who

had the art of keeping them in tune. Wunsch has been soldiering, in a diligent though dim miscellaneous way,

these five andtwenty years; fought in the old Turk Wars, under disastrous Seckendorf,Wunsch a poor

young Wurtemberg ensign, visibiy busy there (17371739)) as was this same Schmettau, in the character of

staffofficer, far enough apart from Wunsch at that time!fought afterwards, in the Bavarian service, in the

Dutch, at Roucoux, at Lauffeld, again under disastrous people. Could never, under such, find anything but

subaltern work all this while; was glad to serve, under the eye of Friedrich, as Colonel of a Free Corps; which

he has done with much diligence and growing distinction: till now, at the long last, his chance does come;

and he shows himself as a real General. Possibly a high career lying ahead;a man that may be very

valuable to Friedrich, who has now so few such left? Fate had again decided otherwise for Wunsch; in what

way will be seen before this Campaign ends: "an infernal Campaign," according to Friedrich, "CETTE

Finck, whom Friedrich had just detached from Waldau (September 6th) with a new 8 or 6,000, to command

in chief in those parts, and, along with Wunsch, put Dresden out of risk, as it were,Finck does at least join

Wunsch, as we shall mention in a little. And these Two, with such Wolfersdorfs and people under them, did

prove capable of making front against Reichsfolk in great overplus of number. Nor are farther SIEGES of

those Northern Garrisons, but recaptures of them, the news one hears from Saxony henceforth; only that

Dresden is fatally gone. Irrecoverably, as turned out, and in that unbearable manner. Here is the concluding

DRESDEN, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8th; EXIT SCHMETTAU. "A thousand times over, Schmettau

must have asked himself, 'Why was I in such a hurry? Without cause for it I, only Maguire having

cause!'The Capitulation had been ended in a huddle, without signature: an unwise Capitulation; and it was

scandalously ill kept. Schmettau was not to have marched till Monday, 10th,six clear days for packing and

preparing;but, practically, he has to make three serve him; and to go halfpacked, or not packed at all.

Endless chicanes do arise, 'upon my honor!'not even the 800 wagons are ready for us; 'Can't your baggages

go in boats, then?' 'No, nor shall!' answers Schmettau, with blazing eyes, and heart ready to burst; a

Schmettau living all this while as in Purgatory, or worse. Such bullyings from truculent Guasco, who is now

without muzzle. Capitulation, most imperfect in itself, is avowedly infringed: King's Artillery,which we

had haggled for, and ended by 'hoping for,' to Maguire that rainy evening: why were we in such a hurry, too,

and blind to Maguire's hurry!King's Artillery, according to Durchlaucht of Zweibruck, when he actually

signed within the walls, is 'NICHT ACCORDIRT (Not granted), except the Field part.' King's regimental

furnishings, all and sundry, were 'ACCORDIRT, and without visitation,'but on second thoughts, the

Austrian Officials are of opinion there must really be visitation, must be inspection. 'May not some of them

belong to Polish Majesty?' In which sad process of inspection there was incredible waste, Schmettau

protesting; and above half of the new uniforms were lost to us. Our 80 pontoons, which were expressly

bargained for, are brazenly denied us: '20 of them are Saxon,' cry the Austrians: 'who knows if they are not

almost all Saxon,'upon my honor! At this rate, only wait a day or two, and fewer wagons than 800 will be

needed! thinks Schmettau; and consents to 18 river boats; Boats in part, then; and let us march at once.

"SATURDAY, 8th, at 5 in the morning, Schmettau, with goods and people, does at last file out: across Elbe

Bridge through the Neustadt; Prussians five deep; a double rank of Austrians, ranged on each side, in

'espalier' they call it,espalier with gaps in it every here and there, to what purpose is soon evident. The

march was so disposed (likewise for a purpose) that, all along, there were one or two Companies of Prussian

Foot; and then in the interval, carriages, cannon, cavalry and hussars. Schmettau's carriage is with the

rearguard, Madam Schmettau's well in the van:in two other carriages are two Prussian WarandDomain

Ministers. [ANONYMOUS OF HAMBURG, III. 376.] 'Managers of Saxon Finance,' these Two;who will

have to manage elsewhere than in Dresden henceforth. Zinnow, Borck, they sit veritably there, with their

multiform Account Papers: of whom I know absolutely nothing, except (if anybody cared) that Zinnow,

who 'died of apoplexy in June following,' is probably of pursy rednosed type; and that Borck, for certain,

has a very fine face and figure; delicacy, cheerful dignity, perfect gentlemanhood in short, written on every

feature of him; as painted by Pesne, and engraved by Schmidt, for my accidental behoof. [ Fredericus

Wilhelmus Borck (Pesne pinxit, 1732; Schmidt, sculptur Regis, sculpsit, Berolini, 1764): an excellent Print

and Portrait.] Curious to think of that elaborate courtcoat and flowing periwig, with this specific Borck, 'old

as the Devil' (whom I have had much trouble to identify), forming visible part of this dismal Procession: the

bright eye of Borck not smiling as usual, but clouded, though impassive! But that of Borck or his Limners is

"The Prussians have been divided into small sections, with a mass of baggagewagons and cavalry between

every two. And no sooner is the mass got in movement, than there rises from the Austrian part, and continues

all the way, loud invitation, 'Whosoever is a brave Saxon, a brave Austrian, Reichsman, come to us! Gaps in

the espalier, don't you see!' And Schmettau, in the rear, with baggage and cavalry intervening,nobody can

reach Schmettau. Here is a way of keeping your bargain! The Prussian Officers struggle stoutly: but are

bellowed at, struck at, menaced by bayonet and bullet, none of them shot, I think, but a good several of

them cut and wounded;the Austrian Officers themselves in passionate points behaving shamefully, 'Yes,

shoot them down, the (were it nothing else) heretic dogs;' and being throughout evidently in a hot shivery

frame of mind, forgetful of the laws. Seldom was such a Procession; spite, rage and lawless revenge blazing

out more and more. On the whole, there deserted, through those gaps of the espalier, about half of the whole

Garrison. On Madam Schmettau's hammercloth there sat, in the Schmettau livery, a hardfeatured man,

recognizable by keen eyes as lately a Nailer, of the Nailer Guild here; who had been a spy for Schmettau, and

brought many persons into trouble: him they tear down, and trample hither and thither,at last, into some

Guardhouse near by." [The Schmettau DIARIUM in ANONYMOUS OF HAMBURG, iii. 364376

(corrected chiefly from TEMPELHOF): Protest, and Correspondence in consequence, is in Seyfarth,

Schmettau's protest against all this is vehement, solemnly circumstantial: but, except in regard to the trampled

Nailer (Zweibruck on that point "heartily sorry for the insult to your Excellency's livery; and here the man is,

with a thousand apologies"), Schmettau got no redress. Nor had Friedrich any, now or henceforth. Friedrich

did at once, more to testify his disgust than for any benefit, order Schmettau: "Halt at Wittenberg, not at

Magdeburg as was pretended to be bargained. Dismiss your Escort of Austrians there; bid them home at once,

and out of your sight." Schmettau himself he ordered to Berlin, to idle waiting. Never again employed

Schmettau's illfortune was much pitied, as surely it deserved to be, by all men. About Friedrich's severity

there was, and still occasionally is, controversy held. Into which we shall not enter for Yes or for No. "You

are like the rest of them!" writes Friedrich to him; "when the moment comes for showing firmness, you fail in

it." ["Waldau, 10th September, 1759:" in Preuss, ii. URKUNDEN. p. 44.] Friedrich expects of others what all

Soldiers profess,and what is in fact the soul of all nobleness in their trade,but what only Friedrich

himself, and a select few, are in the habit of actually performing. Tried by the standard of common practice,

Schmettau is clearly absolvable; a broken veteran, deserving almost tears. But that is not the standard which it

will be safe for a King of men to go by. Friedrich, I should say, would be ordered by his Office, if Nature

herself did not order him, to pitch his ideal very high; and to be rather Rhadamanthine in judging about it.

Friedrich was never accused of overgenerosity to the unfortunate among his Captains.

After the War, Schmettau, his conduct still a theme of argument, was reduced to the Invalid List: age now

sixtyseven, but health and heart still very fresh, as he pleaded; complaining that he could not live on his

retiring Pension of 300 pounds a year. "Be thankful you have not had your head struck off by sentence of

CourtMartial," answered Friedrich. Schmettau, after some farther troubles from Court quarters, retired to

Brandenburg, and there lived silent, poor but honorable, for his remaining fifteen years. Madam Schmettau

came out very beautiful in those bad circumstances: cheery, thrifty, full of loyal patience; a constant sunshine

to her poor man, whom she had preceded out of Dresden in the way we saw. Schmettau was very quiet, still

studious of War matters; [See Leben (by his Son, "Captain Schmettau;" a modest intelligent Book), pp.

440447.] "sent the King" once,in 1772, while Polish Prussia, and How it could be fortified, were the

interesting subject,"a JOURNAL," which he had elaborated for himself, "OF THE MARCHES OF KARL

TWELFTH IN WEST PREUSSEN;" which was well received: "Apparently the King not angry with me

farther?" thought Schmettau. A completely retired old man; studious, social, the best men of the Army still

his friends and familiars:nor, in his own mind, any mutiny against his Chief; this also has its beauty in a

human life, my friend. So long as Madam Schmettau lived, it was well; after her death, not well, dark rather,

and growing darker: and in about three years Schmettau followed (27th October, 1775), whither that good

soul had gone. The elder Brother who was a distinguished Academician, as well as Feldmarschall and

Negotiatorhad died at Berlin, in Voltaire's time, 1751. Each of those Schmettaus had a Son, in the Prussian

Army, who wrote Books, or each a short Book, still worth reading. [ Bavarian War of 1778, by the

Feldmarschall's Son; ad this Leben we have just been citing, by the Lieutenant General's.] But we must

On the very morrow, September 5th, Daun heard of the glorious success at Dresden; had not expected it till

about the 10th at soonest. From Triebel he sends the news at gallop to Lieberose and Soltikof: "Rejoice with

us, Excellenz: did not I predict it? Silesia and Saxony both are ours; fruits chiefly of your noble successes.

Oh, continue them a very little!" "Umph!" answers Soltikof, not with much enthusiasm: "Send us meal

steadily; and gain you, Excellenz's self, some noble success!" Friedrich did not hear of it for almost a week

later; not till Monday, 10th,as a certain small Anecdote would of itself indicate.

Sunday Evening, 9th September, General Finck, with his new 6,000, hastening on to join Wunsch for relief of

Dresden, had got to Grossenhayn; and was putting up his tents, when the Outposts brought him in an Austrian

Officer, who had come with a Trumpeter inquiring for the General. The Austrian Officer "is in quest of

proper lodgings for General Schmettau and Garrison [fancy Finck's sudden stare!];last night they lodged at

GrossDobritz, tolerably to their mind: but the question for the Escort is, Where to lodge this night, if your

Excellency could advise me?" "Herr, I will advise you to go back to GrossDobritz on the instant," answers

Finck grimly; "I shall be obliged to make you and your Trumpet prisoners, otherwise!" Exit Austrian Officer.

That same evening, too, Captain Kollas, carrying Schmettau's sad news to the King, calls on Finck in passing;

gives dismal details of the Capitulation and the Austrian way of keeping it; filling Finck's mind with

Fincklet us add here, though in date it belongs a little elsewherepushes on, not the less, to join Wunsch

at Torgau; joins Wunsch, straightway recaptures Leipzig, garrison prisoners (September 13th): recaptures all

those northwestern garrisons, multitudinous Reichsfolk trying, once, to fight him, in an amazingly loud,

but otherwise helpless way ("ACTION OF KORBITZ" they call it); cannonading far and wide all day, and

manoeuvring about, here bitten in upon, there trying to bite, over many leagues of Country; principally under

Haddick's leading; [HOFBERICHT VON DER AM 21 SEPTEMBER BEY KORBITZ (in Meissen Country,

south of Elbe; Krogis too is a Village in this widespread "Action") VORGEFALLENEN ACTION

(Seyfarth, Beylagen, ii. 621630). Tempelhof, iii. 248, 258.] who saw good to draw off Dresdenward next

day, and leave Finck master in those regions. To Daun's sad astonishment,in a moment of crisis,as we

shall hear farther on! So that Saxony is not yet conquered to Daun; Saxony, no, nor indeed will be:but

Dresden is. Friedrich never could recover Dresden; though he hoped, and at intervals tried hard, for a long

The eyes of all had been bent on Dresden latterly; and there had occurred a great deal of detaching

thitherward, and of marching there and thence, as we have partly seen. And the end is, Dresden, and to

appearance Saxony along with it, is Daun's. Has not Daun good reason now to be proud of the cunctatory

method? Never did his game stand better; and all has been gained at other people's expense. Daun has not

played one trump card; it is those obliging Russians that have played all the trumps, and reduced the Enemy

to nothing. Only continue that wise course,and cart meal, with your whole strength, for the Russians!

Safe behind the pools of Lieberose, Friedrich between them and Berlin, lie those dear Russians; extending,

Daun and they, like an impassable military dike, with spurs of Outposts and cunningly devised Detachments,

far and wide,from beyond Bober or utmost Crossen on the east, to Hoyerswerda in Elbe Country on the

west; dike of eighty miles long, and in some eastern parts of almost eighty broad; so elaborate is Daun's

detaching quality, in cases of moment. "The King's broken Army on one side of us," calculates Daun; "Prince

Henri's on the other; incommunicative they; reduced to isolation, powerless either or both of them against

such odds. They shall wait there, please Heaven, till Saxony be quite finished. Zweibruck, and our

Detachments and Maguires, let them finish Saxony, while Soltikof keeps the King busy. Saxony finished,

how will either Prince or King attempt to recover it! After which, Silesia for us;and we shall then be near

our Magazines withal, and this severe stress of carting will abate or cease." In fact, these seem sound

calculations: Friedrich is 24,000; Henri 38,000; the military dike is, of Austrians 75,000, of Russians and

Austrians together 120,000. Daun may fairly calculate on succeeding beautifully this Year: Saxony his

altogether; and in Silesia some Glogau or strong Town taken, and Russians and Austrians wintering together

If only Daun do not TOO much spare his trump cards! But there is such a thing as excess on that side too: and

perhaps it is even the more ruinous kind,and is certainly the more despised by good judges, though the

multitude of bad may notice it less. Daun is unwearied in his vigilantes, in his infinite cartings of provision

for himself and Soltikof,long chains of Magazines, big and little, at Guben, at Gorlitz, at Bautzen, Zittau,

Friedland; and does, aided by French Montalembert, all that man can to keep those dear stupid Russians in

Daun's problem of carting provisions, and guarding his multifarious posts, and sources of meal and defence,

is not without its difficulties. Especially with a Prince Henri opposite; who has a superlative manoeuvring

talent of his own, and an industry not inferior to Daun's in that way. Accordingly, ever since August

11th13th, when Daun moved northward to Triebel, and Henri shot out detachments parallel to him, "to

secure the Bober and our right flank, and try to regain communication with the King,"still more, ever since

August 22d, when Daun undertook that onerous cartage of meal for Soltikof as well as self, the manoeuvring

and mutual fencing and parrying, between Henri and him, has been getting livelier and livelier. Fain would

Daun secure his numerous Roads and Magazines; assiduously does Henri threaten him in these points, and try

all means to regain communication with his Brother. Daun has Magazines and interests everywhere; Henri is

Daun in person, ever since Kunersdorf time, has been at Triebel; Henri moved to Sagan after him, but has left

a lieutenant at Schmottseifen, as Daun has at MarkLissa:here are still new planets, and secondary ditto,

with revolving moons. In short, it is two interpenetrating solar systems, gyrating, osculatiug and colliding,

over a space of several thousand square miles,with an intricacy, with an embroiled abstruseness Ptolemean

or more! Which indeed the soldier who would know his business(and not knowing it, is not he of all

solecisms in this world the most flagrant?)ought to study, out of Tempelhof and the Books; but which,

except in its results, no other reader could endure. The result we will make a point of gathering: carefully

Chapter VI. PRINCE HENRI MAKES A MARCH OF FIFTY HOURS; THE RUSSIANS CANNOT FIND LODGING IN SILESIA. 1323

riddled down, there are withal in the details five or six little passages which have some shadow of interest to

OF FOUQUET AT LANDSHUT. "Fouquet was twice attacked at Landshut; but made a lucky figure both

times. Attack first was by Deville: attack second by Harsch. Early in July, not long after Friedrich had left for

Schmottseifen, rash Deville (a rash creature, and then again a laggard, swift where he should be slow, and

VICE VERSA) again made trial on Landshut and Fouquet; but was beautifully dealt with; taken in rear, in

flank, or I forget how taken, but sent galloping through the Passes again, with a loss of many Prisoners, most

of his furnitures, and all his presence of mind: whom Daun thereupon summoned out of those parts,

'Hitherward to MarkLissa with your Corps; leave Fouquet alone!' [HOFBERICHT VON DEN

UNTERNEHMUNGEN DES FOUQUETSCHEN CORPS, IM JULIUS 1759: in Seyfarth, Beylagen, ii.

"After which, Fouquet, things being altogether quiet round him, was summoned, with most part of his force,

to Schmottseifen; left General Goltz (a man we have met before) to guard Landshut; and was in fair hopes of

proving helpful to Prince Henri,when Harsch [Harsch by himself this time, not Harsch and Deville as

usual] thought here was his opportunity; and came with a great apparatus, as if to swallow Landshut whole.

So that Fouquet had to hurry off reinforcements thither; and at length to go himself, leaving Stutterheim in

his stead at Schmottseifen. Goltz, however, with his small handful, stood well to his work. And there fell out

sharp fencings at Landshut:especially one violent attack on our outposts; the Austrians quite triumphant;

till 'a couple of cannon open on them from the next Hill,'till some violent Werner or other charge in upon

them with Prussian Hussars;a desperate tussle, that special one of Werner's; not only sabres flashing

furiously on both sides, but butts of pistols and blows on the face: [Tempelhof, iii. 233: 31st August.] till, in

short, Harsch finds he can make nothing of it, and has taken himself away, before Fouquet come." This Goltz,

here playing AntiHarsch, is the Goltz who, with Winterfeld, Schmettau and others, was in that melancholy

Zittau march, of the Prince of Prussia's, in 1757: it was Goltz by whom the King sent his finishing

compliment, "You deserve, all of you, to be tried by CourtMartial, and to lose your heads!" Goltz is mainly

concerned with Fouquet and Silesia, in late times; and we shall hear of him once again. Fouquet did not

return to Schmottseifen; nor was molested again in Landshut this year, though he soon had to detach, for the

King's use, part of his Landshut force, and had other Silesian business which fell to him.

FORTRESS OF PEITZ. The poor Fortress of Peitz was taken again;do readers remember it, "on the day of

Zorndorf," last year? "This year, a fortnight after Kunersdorf, the same old Halfpay Gentleman with his

Fiveandforty Invalids have again been set adrift, 'with the honors of war,' poor old creatures; lest by

possibility they afflict the dear Russians and our mealcarts up yonder. [Tempelhof, iii. 231: 27th August.] I

will forget who took Peitz: perhaps Haddick, of whom we have lately heard so much? He was captor of

Berlin in 1757, did the Inroad on Berlin that year,and produced Rossbach shortly after. Peitz, if he did

Peitz, was Haddick's last success in the world. Haddick has been most industrious, 'guarding the Russian

flank,'standing between the King and it, during that Soltikof march to Mullrose, to Lieberose; but that once

done, and the King settled at Waldau, Haddick was ordered to Saxony, against Wunsch and Finck:and

readers know already what he made of these Two in the 'Action at Korbitz, September 21st,'and shall hear

COLONEL HORDT IS CAPTURED. "It was in that final marching of Soltikof to Lieberose that a

distinguished ExSwede, Colonel Hordt, of the Free Corps HORDT, was taken prisoner. At Trebatsch;

hanging on Soltikof's right flank on that occasion. It was not Haddick, it was a swarm of Cossacks who laid

Hordt fast; his horse having gone to the girths in a bog. [ Memoires du Comte de Hordt (a Berlin, 1789), ii.

5358 (not dated or intelligible there): in Tempelhof (iii. 235, 236) clear account, "Trebatsch, September

4th."] Hordt, an ExSwede of distinction,a Royalist Exile, on whose head the Swedes have set a price (had

gone into 'Brahe's Plot,' years since, Plot on behalf of the poor Swedish King, which cost Brahe his

life),Hordt now might have fared ill, had not Friedrich been emphatic, 'Touch a hair of him, retaliation

Chapter VI. PRINCE HENRI MAKES A MARCH OF FIFTY HOURS; THE RUSSIANS CANNOT FIND LODGING IN SILESIA. 1324

follows on the instant!' He was carried to Petersburg; 'lay twentysix months and three days' in solitary

ZIETHEN ALMOST CAPTURED. "Prince Henri, in the last days of August, marched to Sagan in person;

[Tempelhof, iii. 231: 29th August.] Ziethen along with him; multifariously manoeuvring 'to regain

communication with the King.' Of course, with no want of counter manoeuvring, of vigilant outposts,

cunningly devised detachments and assiduous small measures on the part of Daun. Who, one day, had

determined on a more considerable thing; that of cutting out Ziethen from the Sagan neighborhood. And

would have done it, they say,had not he been too cunctatory. September 2d, Ziethen, who is posted in the

little town of Sorau, had very nearly been cut off. In Sorau, westward, Daunward, of Sagan a short day?s

march: there sat Ziethen, conscious of nothing particular,with Daun secretly marching on him; Daun in

person, from the west, and two others from the north and from the south, who are to be simultaneous on

Sorau and the Zietheners. A welllaid scheme; likely to have finished Ziethen satisfactorily, who sat there

aware of nothing. But it all miswent: Daun, on the road, noticed some trifling phenomenon (Prussian party of

horse, or the like), which convinced his cautious mind that all was found out; that probably a whole Prussian

Army, instead of a Ziethen only, was waiting at Sorau; upon which Daun turned home again, sorry that he

could not turn the other two as well. The other two were stronger than Ziethen, could they have come upon

him by surprise; or have caught him before he got through a certain Pass, or bit of bad ground, with his

baggage. But Ziethen, by some accident, or by his own patrols, got notice; loaded his baggage instantly; and

was through the Pass, or half through it, and in a condition to give stroke for stroke with interest, when his

enemies came up. Nothing could be done upon Ziethen; who marched on, he and all his properties, safe to

Sagan that night,owing to Daun's overcaution, and to Ziethen's own activity and luck." [Tempelhof, iii.

All this was prior to the loss of Dresden. During the crisis of that, when everybody was bestirring himself,

Prince Henri made extraordinary exertions: "Much depends on me; all on me!" sighed Henri. A cautious little

man; but not incapable of risking, in the crisis of a game for life and death. Friedrich and he are wedged

asunder by that dike of Russians and Austrians, which goes from Bober river eastward, post after post, to

Hoyerswerda westward, eighty miles along the LausitzBrandenburg Frontier, rooting itself through the

Lausitz into Bohemia, and the sources of its meal. Friedrich and he cannot communicate except by spies ("the

first JAGER," or regular express "from the King, arrived September 13th" [Ib. iii. 207.]): but both are of one

mind; both are on one problem, "What is to be done with that impassable dike?"and cooperate

sympathetically without communicating. What follows bears date AFTER the loss of Dresden, but while

Henri still knew only of the siege,that JAGER of the 13th first brought him news of the loss.

"A day or two after Ziethen's adventure, Henri quits Sagan, to move southward for a stroke at the

BohemianLausitz magazines; a stroke, and series of strokes. SEPTEMBER 8th, Ziethen and (in Fouquet's

absence at Landshut) Stutterheim are pushed forward into the Zittau Country; first of all upon

Friedland,the Zittau Friedland, for there are Friedlands many! SEPTEMBER 9th, Stutterheim summons

Friedland, gets it; gets the bit of magazine there; and next day hastens on to Zittau. Is refused surrender of

Zittau; learns, however, that the magazine has been mostly set on wheels again, and is a stage forward on the

road to Bohemia; whitherward Stutterheim, quitting Zittau as too tedious, hastens after it, and next day

catches it, or the unburnt remains of it. A successful Stutterheim. Nor is Ziethen idle in the mean while;

Ziethen and others; whom no Deville or Austrian Party thinks itself strong enough to meddle with, Prince

"Here is a pretty tempest in the heart of our Bohemian meal conduit! Continue that, and what becomes of

Soltikof and me? Daun is off from Triebel Country to this dangerous scene; indignantly cashiers Deville,

'Why did not you attack these Ziethen people? Had not you 10,000, Sir?' Cashiers poor Deville for not

attacking; does not himself attack: but carts away the important Gorlitz magazine, to Bautzen, which is the

still more important one; sits down on the lid of that (according to wont); shoots out O'Donnell (an Irish

Chapter VI. PRINCE HENRI MAKES A MARCH OF FIFTY HOURS; THE RUSSIANS CANNOT FIND LODGING IN SILESIA. 1325

gentleman, Deville's successor), and takes every precaution. Prince Henri, in presence of O'Donnell,

coalesces again; walks into Gorlitz; encamps there, on the Landskron and other Heights (Moys Hill one of

them, poor Winterfeld's Hill!), and watches a little how matters will turn, and whether Daun, severely

vigilant from Bautzen, seated on the lid of his magazine, will not perhaps rise."

First and last, Daun in this business has tried several things; but there was pretty much always, and

emphatically there now is, only one thing that could be effectual: To attack Prince Henri, and abolish him

from those countries;as surely might have been possible, with twice his strength at your disposal?This,

though sometimes he seemed to be thinking of such a thing, Daun never would try: for which the subsequent

FACTS, and all good judges, were and are inexorably severe on Daun. Certain it is, no rashness could have

DAUN, SOLTIKOF AND COMPANY AGAIN HAVE A COLLOQUY (Bautzen, September 15th); AFTER

Soltikof's disgust at this new movement of Daun's was great and indignant. "Instead of going at the King, and

getting some victory for himself, he has gone to Bautzen, and sat down on his mealbags! Meal? Is it to be a

mere fighting for meal? I will march tomorrow for Poland, for Preussen, and find plenty of meal!" And

would have gone, they say, had not Mercury, in the shape of Montalembert with his most zealous rhetoric,

intervened; and prevailed with difficulty. "One hour of personal interview with Excellency Daun," urges

Montalembert; "one more!" "No," answers Soltikof."Alas, then, send your messenger!" To which last

SEPTEMBER 15th, at Bautzen, at an early hour, there is meeting accordingly; not Romanzof, Soltikof's

messenger, alone, but Zweibruck in person, Daun in person; and most earnest council is held. "A noble

Russian gentleman sees how my hands are bound," pleads Daun. "Will not Excellency Soltikof, who disdains

idleness, go himself upon Silesia, upon Glogau for instance, and grant me a few days?" "No," answers

Romanzof; "Excellency Soltikof by himself will not. Let Austria furnish SiegeArtillery; daily meal I need

not speak of; 10,000 fresh Auxiliaries beyond those we have: on these terms Excellency Soltikof will perhaps

try it; on lower terms, positively not." "Well then, yes!" answers Daun, not without qualms of mind. Daun has

a horror at weakening himself to that extent; but what can he do? "General Campitelli, with the 10,000, let

him march this night, then; join with General Loudon where you please to order: Excellency Soltikof shall

see that in every point I conform." [Tempelhof, iii. 247249.]An important meeting to us, this at Bautzen;

and breaks up the deadlock into three or more divergent courses of activity; which it will now behoove us to

follow, with the best brevity attainable. "Bautzen, Saturday, 15th September, early in the morning," that is the

date of the important Colloquy. And precisely eightandforty hours before, "on Thursday, 13th, about 10

A.M.", in the western Environs of Quebec, there has fallen out an Event, quite otherwise important in the

History of Mankind! Of which readers shall have some notice at a time more convenient.

Romanzof returning with such answer, Soltikof straightway gathers himself, September 15th16th, and gets

on march. To Friedrich's joy; who hopes it may be homeward; waits two days at Waldau, for the Yes or No.

On the second day, alas, it is No: "Going for Silesia, I perceive; thither, by a wide sweep northward, which

they think will be safer!" Upon which Friedrich also rises; follows, with another kind of speed than Soltikof's;

and, by one of his swift clutchings, lays hold of Sagan, which he, if Soltikof has not, sees to be a keypoint in

this operation. Easy for Soltikof to have seized this keypoint, key of the real road to Glogau; easy for

Loudon and the new 10,000 to have rendezvoused there: but nobody has thought of doing it. A few Croats

From Sagan Friedrich and Henri are at length in free communication; Sagan to the Landskron at Gorlitz is

some fifty miles of country, now fallen vacant. From Henri, from Fouquet (the dangers of Landshut being

over), Friedrich is getting what reinforcement they can spare (September 20th24th); will then push forward

Chapter VI. PRINCE HENRI MAKES A MARCH OF FIFTY HOURS; THE RUSSIANS CANNOT FIND LODGING IN SILESIA. 1326

again, industriously sticking to the flanks of Soltikof, thrusting out stumblingblocks, making his march very

Strange to say, from Sagan, while waiting two days for these reinforcements, there starts suddenly to view,

suddenly for Friedrich and us, an incipient Negotiation about Peace! Actual Proposal that way (or as good as

actual, so Voltaire thinks it), on the part of Choiseul and France; but as yet in Voltaire's name only, by a sure

though a backstairs channel, of his discovering. Of which, and of the much farther corresponding that did

actually follow on it, we purpose to say something elsewhere, at a better time. Meanwhile Voltaire's

announcement of it to the King has just come in, through a fair and high Hand: how Friedrich receives it,

what Friedrich's inner feeling is, and has been for a fortnight pastHere are some private utterances of his,

No. 1. TO PRINCE FERDINAND (at Berlin). Poor little Ferdinand, the King's Brother, fallen into bad

health, has retired from the Wars, and gone to Berlin; much an object of anxiety to the King, who diligently

corresponds with the dear little man,giving earnest medical advices, and getting Berlin news in return.

"Since my last Letter, Dresden has capitulated,the very day while Wunsch was beating Maguire at The

Barns [north side of Dresden, September 5th) day AFTER the capitulation]. Wunsch went back to Torgau,

which St. Andre, with 14,000 Reichspeople under him, was for retaking; him too Wunsch beat, took all his

tents, kettles, haversacks and utensils, 300 prisoners, six cannon and some standards. Finck is uniting with

Wunsch; they will march on the Prince of Zweibruck, and retake Dresden [hopes always, for a year and more,

to have Dresden back very soon]. I trust before long to get all these people gathered round Dresden, and our

"Many compliments to the Prince of Wurtemberg [wounded at Kunersdorf], and to all our wounded Generals:

I hope Seidlitz is now out of danger: that bleeding fit (EBULLITION DE SANG) will cure him of the cramp

in his jaw, and of his colics; and as he is in bed, he won't take cold. I hope the viperbroth will do you infinite

good; be assiduous in patching your constitution, while there is yet some fine weather left: I dread the winter

for you; take a great deal of care against cold. I have still a couple of cruel months ahead of me before ending

this Campaign. Within that time, there will be, God knows what upshot." [ OEuvres de Frederic, xxvi.

544.]This is "September 10th:" the day of Captain Kollas's arrival with his bad Dresden news; Daun and

No. 2. TO THE DUCHESS OF SACHSENGOTHA (at Gotha). Voltaire has enclosed his PeaceProposal to

that Serene Lady, always a friend of Friedrich's and his; to whom Friedrich, directly on receipt of it, makes

"MADAM,I receive on all occasions proofs of your goodness, to which I am as sensible as a chivalrous

man can be. Certainly it is not through your hands, Madam, that my Correspondence with V. [with Voltaire,

if one durst write it in full] ought to be made to pass! Nevertheless, in present circumstances, I will presume

to beg that you would forward to him the Answer here enclosed, on which I put no Address. The difficulty of

transmitting Letters has made me choose my Brother," Ferdinand, at Berlin, "to have this conveyed to your

Chapter VI. PRINCE HENRI MAKES A MARCH OF FIFTY HOURS; THE RUSSIANS CANNOT FIND LODGING IN SILESIA. 1327

"If I gave bridle to my feelings, now would be the moment for developing them; but in these critical times I

No. 3. TO VOLTAIRE, at the Delices (so her Serene Highness will address it). Here is part of the Enclosure

to "V." Friedrich is all for Peace; but keeps on his guard with such an Ambassador, and writes in a proud,

"The Duchess of SachsenGotha sends me your Letter. I never received your packet of the 29th:

communications all interrupted here; with much trouble I get this passed on to you, if it is happy enough to

"My position is not so desperate as my enemies give out. I expect to finish my Campaign tolerably; my

courage is not sunk:it appears, however, there is talk of Peace. All I can say of positive on this article is,

That I have honor for ten; and that, whatever misfortune befall me, I feel myself incapable of doing anything

to wound, the least in the world, this principle,which is so sensitive and delicate for one who thinks like a

gentleman (PENSE EN PREUX CHEVALIER); and so little regarded by rascally politicians, who think like

"I know nothing of what you have been telling me about [your backstairs channels, your Duc de Choiseul and

his humors]: but for making Peace there are two conditions which I never will depart from: 1. To make it

conjointly with my faithful Allies [Hessen and England; I have no other]; 2. To make it honorable and

glorious. Observe you, I have still honor remaining; I will preserve that, at the price of my blood.

"If your people want Peace, let them propose nothing to me which contradicts the delicacy of my sentiments.

I am in the convulsions of military operations; I do as the gamblers who are in illluck, and obstinately set

themselves against Fortune. I have forced her to return to me, more than once, like a fickle mistress, when she

had run away. My opponents are such foolish people, in the end I bid fair to catch some advantage over them:

but, happen whatsoever his Sacred Majesty Chance may please, I don't disturb myself about it. Up to this

point, I have a clear conscience in regard to the misfortunes that have come to me. As to you, the Battle of

Minden, that of Cadiz" (Boscawen VERSUS De la Clue; Toulon Fleet running out, and caught by the

English, as we saw), these things perhaps, "and the loss of Canada, are arguments capable of restoring reason

"This is my way of thinking. You do not find me made of rosewater: but Henri Quatre, Louis

Quatorze,my present enemies even, whom I could cite [Maria Theresa, twenty years ago, when your

Belleisle set out to cut her in Four],were of no softer temper either. Had I been born a private man, I would

yield everything for the love of Peace; but one has to take the tone of one's position. This is all I can tell you

at present. In three or four weeks the ways of correspondence will be freer.F." [ OEuvres de Frederic,

No. 4. TO PRINCE FERDINAND. Two days later: has got on foot again, end of his first march upon

"Thank you for the news you send of the wounded Officers," Wurtemberg, Seidlitz and the others. "You may

well suppose that in the pass things are at, I am not without cares, inquietudes, anxieties; it is the frightfulest

crisis I have had in my life. This is the moment for dying unless one conquer. Daun and my Brother Henri are

marching side by side [not exactly!]. It is possible enough all these Armies may assemble hereabouts, and

Chapter VI. PRINCE HENRI MAKES A MARCH OF FIFTY HOURS; THE RUSSIANS CANNOT FIND LODGING IN SILESIA. 1328

that a general Battle may decide our fortune and the Peace. Take care of your health, dear Brother.F."

Baunau is on Silesian ground, as indeed Sagan itself is; at Baunau Friedrich already, just on arriving, has

done a fine move on Soltikof, and surprisingly flung the tollgate in Soltikof's face. As we shall see by and

by;and likewise that Prince Henri, who emerges tomorrow morning (September 25th), has not been

"marching side by side with Daun," but at a pretty distance from that gentleman!

Soltikof is a man of his word; otherwise one suspects he already saw his Siege of Glogau to be impossible.

Russians are not very skilful at the Warminuet: fancy what it will be dancing to such a partner! Friedrich,

finding they are for Glogau, whisks across the Oder, gets there before them: "No Glogau for you!" They

stand agape for some time; then think "Well then Breslau!" Friedrich again whisks across from them, farther

up, and is again ahead of them when they cross: "No Breslau either!" In effect, it is hopeless; and we may

leave the two manoeuvring in those waste parts, astride of Oder, or on the eastern bank of it, till a fitter

Zweibruck's report of himself, on that day of the general Colloquy, was not in the way of complaint, like that

of the Russians, though there did remain difficulties. "Dresden gloriously ours; Maguire Governor there, and

everything secure; upon my honor. But in the northwest part, those Fincks and Wunsches, Excellenz?"

And the actual truth is, Wunsch has taken Leipzig, day before yesterday (September 13th), as Daun

sorrowfully knows, by news come in overnight. And six days hence (September 21st), Finck and Wunsch

together will do their "ACTION OF KORBITZ," and be sending Haddick a bad road! These things

Zweibruck knows only in part; but past experience gives him ominous presentiment, as it may well do; and

he thinks decidedly: "Excellenz, more Austrian troops are indispensable there; in fact, your Excellenz's self,

were that possible; which one feels it is not, in the presence of these Russians!"

Russians and Reichsfolk, these are a pair of thumbscrews on both thumbs of Daun; screwing the cunctation

out of him; painfully intimating: "Get rid of this Prince Henri; you must, you must!" And, in the course of the

next eight days Daun has actually girt himself to this great enterprise. Goaded on, I could guess, by the

"Action of Korbitz " (done on Friday, thirty hours ago); the news of which, and that Haddick, instead of

extinguishing Finck, is retreating from him upon Dresden,what a piece of news! thinks Daun: "You,

Zweibruck, Haddick, Maguire and Company, you are 36,000 in Saxony; Finck has not 12,000 in the field:

How is this?"and indignantly dismisses Haddick altogether: "Go, Sir, and attend to your health!"

[Tempelhof, iii. 276, 258261.] News poignantly astonishing to Daun, as would seem;like an oxgoad in

the lazy rear of Daun. Certain it is, Daun had marched out to Gorlitz in collected form; and, on Saturday

afternoon, SEPTEMBER 22d is personally on the Heights (not Moys Hill, I should judge, but other points of

vision), taking earnest survey of Prince Henri's position on the Landskron there. "Tomorrow morning we

attack that Camp," thinks Daun; "storm Prince Henri and it: be rid of him, at any price!" [Ib. iii. 253256 (for

"Tomorrow morning," yes:but this afternoon, and earlier, Prince Henri has formed a great resolution, his

plans all laid, everything in readiness; and it is not here you will find Prince Henri tomorrow. This is his

famous March of Fifty Hours, this that we are now come to; which deserves all our attention,and all

Daun's much more! Prince Henri was habitually a man cautious in War; not aggressive, like his Brother, but

defensive, frugal of risks, and averse to the lionsprings usual with some people; though capable of them,

too, in the hour of need. Military men are full of wonder at the bold scheme he now fell upon; and at his style

of executing it. Hardly was Daun gone home to his meditations on the storm of the Landskron tomorrow,

and tattoo beaten in Prince Henri's Camp there, when, at 8 that Saturday evening, issuing softly, with a

minimum of noise, in the proper marching columns, baggagecolumns, Henri altogether quitted this Camp;

and vanished like a dream. Into the Night; men and goods, every item:who shall say whitherward? Leaving

only a few light people to keep up the watchfires and sentrycries, for behoof of Daun! Let readers here,

Chapter VI. PRINCE HENRI MAKES A MARCH OF FIFTY HOURS; THE RUSSIANS CANNOT FIND LODGING IN SILESIA. 1329

Straight northward goes Prince Henri, down Neisse Valley, 20 miles or so, to Rothenburg; in columns

severalfold, with much delicate arranging, which was punctually followed: and in the course of tomorrow

Prince Henri is bivouacked, for a short rest of three hours,hidden in unknown space, 20 miles from Daun,

when Daun comes marching up to storm him on the Landskron! Gone veritably; but whitherward Daun

cannot form the least guess. Daun can only keep his men under arms there, all day; while his scouts gallop far

and wide,bringing in this false guess and the other; and at length returning with the eminently false one,

misled by some of Henri's baggagecolumns, which have to go many routes, That the Prince is on march for

Glogau:"Gone northeast; that way went his wagons; these we saw with our eyes." "Northeast? Yes, to

Glogau possibly enough," thinks Daun: "Or may not he, cunning as he is and full of feints, intend a stroke on

Bautzen, in my absence?"and hastens thither again, and sits down on the Magazinelid, glad to find

This is all that Daun hears of Henri for the next four days. Plenty of bad news from Saxony in these four

days: the Finck Haddick Action of Korbitz, a dismal certainty before one started, and Haddick on his

road to some Watering Place by this time! But no trace of Henri farther; since that of the wagons wending

northeast. "Gone to Glogau, to his Brother: no use in pushing him, or trying to molest him there!" thinks

Daun; and waits, in stagnant humor, chewing the cud of bitter enough thoughts, till confirmation of that guess

"To northward of Bautzen forty miles, and to westward forty miles, the country is all Daun's; only towards

Glogau, with the Russians and Friedrich thereabouts, does it become disputable, or offer Prince Henri any

chance. Nevertheless it is not to Glogau, it is far the reverse, that the nimble Henri has gone. Resting himself

at Rothenburg 'three hours' (speed is of all things the vitalest), Prince Henri starts again, SUNDAY afternoon,

straight westward this time. Marches, with his best swiftness, with his best arrangements, through many

sleeping Villages, to Klitten, not a wakeful one: a march of 18 miles from Rothenburg;direct for the Saxon

"At Klitten, MONDAY morning, bivouac again, for a few hours,'has no Camp, only waits three hours,' is

Archenholtz's phrase: but I suppose the meaning is, Waits till the several Columns, by their calculated routes,

have all got together; and till the latest in arriving has had 'three hours' of rest,the earliest having perhaps

gone on march again, in the interim? There are 20 miles farther, still straight west, to Hoyerswerda, where the

outmost Austrian Division is: 'Forward towards that; let us astonish General Wehla and his 3,000, and our

March is over!' All this too Prince Henri manages; never anything more consummate, more astonishing to

"Wehla and Brentano, readers perhaps remember them busy, from the Pirna side, at the late Siege of Dresden.

Siege gloriously done, Wehla was ordered to Hoyerswerda, on the northwest frontier; Brentano to a different

point in that neighborhood; where Brentano escaped ruin, and shall not be mentioned; but Wehla suddenly

found it, and will require a word. Wehla, of all people on the War theatre, had been the least expecting

disturbance. He is on the remotest western flank; to westward of him nothing but Torgau and the

FinckWunsch people, from whom is small likelihood of danger: from the eastern what danger can there be?

A Letter of Dauns, some days ago, had expressly informed him that, to all appearance, there was none.

"And now suddenly, on the Tuesday morning, What is this? Prussians reported to be visible in the Woods!

'Impossible!' answered Wehla;did get ready, however, what he could; Croat Regiments, pieces of Artillery

behind the Elster River and on good points; laboring more and more diligently, as the news proved true. But

all his efforts were to no purpose. General Lentulus with his Prussians (the mute Swiss Lentulus, whom we

sometimes meet), who has the Vanguard this day, comes streaming out of the woods across the obstacles;

cannonades Wehla both in front and rear; entirely swallows Wehla and Corps: 600 killed; the General

Chapter VI. PRINCE HENRI MAKES A MARCH OF FIFTY HOURS; THE RUSSIANS CANNOT FIND LODGING IN SILESIA. 1330

himself, with 28 FieldOfficers, and of subalterns and privates 1,785, falling prisoners to us; and the

remainder scattered on the winds, galloping each his own road towards covert and a new form of life. Wehla

is eaten, in this manner, Tuesday, September 25th: metaphorically speaking, the March of Fifty Hours

ends in a comfortable twofold meal (militarycannibal, as well as of common culinary meat), and in

The turningpoint of the Campaign is reckoned to be this March of Henri's; one of the most extraordinary on

record. Prince Henri had a very fast March INTO these SilesianLausitz Countries, early in July, [Seyfarth,

ii. 545.] and another very fast, from Bautzen, to intersect with Schmottseifen, in the end of July: but these

were as nothing compared with the present. Tempelhof, the excellent solid man,but who puts all things,

big and little, on the same level of detail, and has unparalleled methods of arranging (what he reckons to be

"arranging"), and no vestige of index,is distressingly obscure on this grand Incident; but at length, on

compulsion, does yield clear account. [Tempelhof, iii. 253258.] In Archenholtz it is not DATED at all; who

merely says as follows: "Most extraordinary march ever made; went through 50 miles of Country wholly in

the Enemy's possession; lasted 56 hours, in which long period there was no camp pitched, and only twice a

rest of three hours allowed the troops. During the other fifty hours the march, day and night, continually

proceeded. Ended (NO date) in surprise of General Wehla at Hoyerswerda, cutting up 600 of his soldiers, and

taking 1,800 prisoners. Kalkreuth, since so famous," in the AntiNapoleon Wars, "was the Prince's Adjutant."

This is probably Prince Henri's cleverest feat,though he did a great many of clever; and his Brother used to

say, glancing towards him, "There is but one of us that never committed a mistake." A highly ingenious

dexterous little man in affairs of War, sharp as needles, vehement but cautious; though of abstruse temper,

thin skinned, capricious, and giving his Brother a great deal of trouble with his jealousies and shrewish

whims. By this last consummate little operation he has astonished Daun as much as anybody ever did; shorn

his elaborate tissue of cunctations into ruin and collapse at one stroke; and in effect, as turns out, wrecked his

Daun finds there is now no hope of Saxony, unless he himself at once proceed thither. At once thither;and

leave Glogau and the Russians to their luck,which in such case, what is it like to be? Probably, to Daun's

own view, ominous enough; but he has no alternative. To this pass has the March of Fifty Hours brought us.

There is such a thing as being too cunctatory, is not there, your Excellency? Every mortal, and more

especially every Feldmarschall, ought to strike the iron while it is hot. The remainder of this Campaign, we

FRIEDRICH MANAGES (September 24thOctober 24th) TO GET THE RUSSIANS SENT HOME; AND

Friedrich's manoeuvres against Soltikof,every reader is prepared to hear that Soltikof was rendered futile

by them: and none but military readers could take delight in the details. Two beautiful shortcuts he made

upon Soltikof; pulled him up both times in mid career, as with hard checkbit. The first time was at

Zobelwitz: September 24th, Friedrich cut across from Sagan, which is string to bow of the Russian march;

posted himself on the Heights of Zobelwitz, of Baunau, Milkau (at Baunau Friedrich will write a LETTER

this night, if readers bethink themselves; Milkau is a place he may remember for raindeluges, in the First

Silesian War [Supra, p. 323; ib. vol. vii. p. 311.]): "Let the Russians, if they now dare, try the Pass of

Neustadtel here!" A fortunate hour, when he got upon this ground. QuartermasterGeneral Stoffel, our old

Custrin acquaintance, is found marking out a Camp with a view to that Pass of Neustadtel; [Tempelhof, iii.

293; Retzow, ii. 163.] is, greatly astonished to find the Prussian Army emerge on him there; and at once

vanishes, with his HussarCossack retinues. "September 24th," it is while Prince Henri was on the last

moiety of his March of Fifty Hours. This severe twitch flung Soltikof quite out from Glogau,was like to

fling him home altogether, had it not been for Montalembert's eloquence;did fling him across the Oder.

Chapter VI. PRINCE HENRI MAKES A MARCH OF FIFTY HOURS; THE RUSSIANS CANNOT FIND LODGING IN SILESIA. 1331

Where, again thanks to Montalembert, he was circling on with an eye to Breslau, when Friedrich, by the

diameter, suddenly laid bridges, crossed at Koben, and again brought Soltikof to halt, as by turnpike suddenly

These things had raised Friedrich's spirits not a little. Getting on the Heights of Zobelwitz, he was heard to

exclaim, "This is a lucky day; worth more to me than a battle with victory." [Retzow, ii. 163.] Astonishing

how he blazed out again, quite into his old pride and effulgence, after this, says Retzow. Had been so meek,

so humbled, and even condescended to ask advice or opinion from some about him. Especially "from two

Captains," says the Opposition Retzow, whose heads were nearly turned by this sunburst from on high.

Captain Marquart and another,I believe, he did employ them about Routes and marking of Camps, which

Retzow calls consulting: a King fallen tragically scarce of persons to consult; all his Winterfelds, Schwerins,

Keiths and Council of Peers now vanished, and nothing but some intelligentlooking Captain Marquart, or

the like, to consult:of which Retzow, in his splenetic Opposition humor, does not see the tragedy, but

rather the comedy: how the poor Captains found their favor to be temporary, conditional, and had to collapse

again. One of them wrote an "ESSAY on the COUPD'OEIL MILITAIRE," over which Retzow pretends to

weep. This was Friedrich's marginal Note upon the MS., when submitted to his gracious perusal: "You (ER)

will do better to acquire the Art of marking Camps than to write upon the Military Stroke of Eye." Beautifully

written too, says Retzow; but what, in the eyes of this King, is beautiful writing, to knowing your business

well? No friend he to writing, unless you have got something really special, and urgent to be written.

Friedrich crassed the Oder twice. Took Soltikof on both sides of the Oder, cut him out of this fond

expectation, then of that; led him, we perceive, a bad life. Latterly the scene was on the right bank;

Sophienthal, Koben, Herrnstadt and other poor places, on that big eastern elbow, where Oder takes his

final bend, or farewell of Poland. Ground, naturally, of some interest to Friedrich: ground to us unknown; but

known to Friedrich as the ground where Karl XII. gave Schulenburg his beating, ["Near Guhrau" (while

chasing August the Strong and him out of Poland), "12th October, 1704:" vague account of it, dateless, and as

good as placeless, in Voltaire ( Charles Douse, liv. iii.), OEuvres, xxx. 142145.] which produced the

"beautiful retreat" of Schulenburg. The old Feldmarschall Schulenburg whom we used to hear of

once,whose Nephew, a pipeclayed little gentleman, was well known to Friedrich and us.

For the rest, I do not think he feels this outmanoeuvring of the Russians very hard work. Already, from

Zobelwitz Country, 25th September, day of Henri at Hoyerswerda, Friedrich had written to Fouquet: "With

21,000 your beaten and maltreated Servant has hindered an Army of 50,000 from attacking him, and

compelled them to retire on Neusatz!" Evidently much risen in hope; and Henri's fine news not yet come to

hand. By degrees, Soltikof, rendered futile, got very angry; especially when Daun had to go for Saxony.

"Meal was becoming impossible, at any rate," whimpers Daun: "O Excellency, do but consider, with the

nobleness natural to you! Our Court will cheerfully furnish money, instead of meal.""Money? My people

cannot eat money!" growled Soltikof, getting more and more angry; threatening daily to march for Posen and

his own meal stores. What a time of it has Montalembert, has the melancholy Loudon, with temper so hot!

At Sophienthal, October 10th, Friedrich falls ill of gout; absolutely lamed; for three weeks cannot stir from

his room. Happily the outer problem is becoming easier and easier; almost bringing its own solution. At

Sophienthal the lame Friedrich takes to writing about CHARLES XII. AND HIS MILITARY

CHARACTER, not a very illuminative Piece, on the first perusal, but I intend to read it again;

( OEuvres de Frederic, vii. 6988).]which at least helps him to pass the time. Soltikof, more and more

straitened, meal itself running low, gets angrier and angrier. His treatment of the Country, Montalembert

rather encouraging, is described as "horrible." One day he takes the whim, whim or little more, of seizing

Herrnstadt; a small Town, between the Two Armies, where the Prussians have a Free Battalion. The Prussian

Battalion resists; drives Soltikof's people back. "Never mind," think they: "a place of no importance to us;

and Excellency Soltikof has ridden elsewhither." By illluck, in the afternoon, Excellency Soltikof

Chapter VI. PRINCE HENRI MAKES A MARCH OF FIFTY HOURS; THE RUSSIANS CANNOT FIND LODGING IN SILESIA. 1332

happened to mention the place again. Hearing that the Prussians still have it, Soltikof mounts into a rage;

summons the place, with answer still No; thereupon orders instant bombardment of it, fiery storms of

grenadoes for it; and has the satisfaction of utterly burning poor Herrnstadt; the Prussian FreeCorps still

continuing obstinate. It was Soltikof's last act in those parts, and betokens a sulphurous state of humor.

Next morning (October 24th), he took the road for Posen, and marched bodily home. [Tempelhof, iii. 299,

291300 (general account, abundantly minute).] Home verily, in spite of Montalembert and all men. "And for

me, what orders has Excellency?" Loudon had anxiously inquired, on the eve of that event. "None whatever!"

answered Excellency: "Do your own pleasure; go whithersoever seems good to you." And Loudon had to

take a wide sweep round, by Kalish, through the western parts of Poland; and get home to the Troppau

By Kalish, by Czenstochow, Cracow, poor Loudon had to go: a dismal march of 300 miles or more,waited

on latterly by Fouquet, with Werner, Goltz and others, on the Silesian Border; whom Friedrich had ordered

thither for such end. Whom Loudon skilfully avoided to fight; having already, by desertion and by hardships,

lost half his men on the road. Glad enough to get home and under roof, with his 20,000 gone to 10,000; and

to make bargain with Fouquet: "Truce, then, through Winter; neither of us to meddle with the other, unless

after a fortnight's warning given." [Tempelhof, iii. 328331.] NOVEMBER 1st, a month before this, the

King, carried on a litter by his soldiers, had quitted Sophienthal; and, crossing the River by Koben, got to

Glogau. [Rodenbeck, i. 396.] The greater part of his force, 13,000 under Hulsen, he had immediately sent on

for Saxony; he himself intending to wait recovery in Glogau, with this Silesian wing of the business happily

On the Saxon side, too, affairs are in such a course that the King can be patient at Glogau till he get well.

Everything is prosperous in Saxony since that March on Hoyerswerda; Henri, with his Fincks and Wunsches,

beautifully posted in the MeissenTorgau region; no dislodging of him, let Daun, with his big mass of forces,

try as he may. Daun, through the month of October, is in various Camps, in Schilda last of all: Henri

successively in two; in Strehla for some ten days; then in Torgau for about three weeks, carefully intrenched,

[Tempelhof. iii. 276, 281, 284 (Henri in Strehla, October 4th17th; thence to Torgau: 22d October, Daun

"quits his Camp of Belgern" for that of Schilda, which was his last in those parts).]where traces of him will

turn up (not too opportunely) next year. Daun, from whatever Camp, goes laboring on this side and on that;

on every side the deft Henri is as sharp as needles; nothing to be made of him by the cunning movements and

contrivances of Daun. Very fine manoeuvring it was, especially on Henri's part; a charm to the soldier

mind;given minutely in Tempelhof, and capable of being followed (if you have Maps and Patience) into

the last details. Instructive really to the soldier;but must be, almost all, omitted here. One beautiful slap to

Duke d'Ahremberg (a poor old friend of Daun's and ours) we will remember: "Action of Pretsch" they call it;

defeat, almost capture of poor D'Ahremberg; who had been sent to dislodge the Prince, by threatening his

supplies, and had wheeled, accordingly, eastward, wide away; but, to his astonishment, found, after a march

or two, Three select Prussian Corps emerging on him, by front, by rear, by flank, with Horseartillery

(quasimiraculous) bursting out on hilltops, too, and, in short, nothing for it but to retreat, or indeed to

run, in a considerably ruinous style: poor D'Ahremberg! [Seyfarth ( Beylagen, ii. 634637), "HOFBERICHT

ACTION;" ib. ii. 543 n.] On the whole, Daun is reduced to a panting condition; and knows not what to do.

His plans were intrinsically bad, says Tempelhof; without beating Henri in battle, which he cannot bring

himself to attempt, he, in all probability, will, were it only for difficulties of the commissariat kind, have to

fall back Dresdenward, and altogether take himself away. [Tempelhof, iii. 287289.]

After this sad slap at Pretsch, Daun paused for consideration; took to palisading himself to an extraordinary

degree, slashing the Schilda Forests almost into ruin for this end; and otherwise sat absolutely quiet. Little to

be done but take care of oneself. Daun knows withal of Hulsen's impending advent with the Silesian

13,000;November 2d, Hulsen is actually at Muskau, and his 13,000 magnified by rumor to 20,000.

Chapter VI. PRINCE HENRI MAKES A MARCH OF FIFTY HOURS; THE RUSSIANS CANNOT FIND LODGING IN SILESIA. 1333

Hearing of which, Daun takes the road (November 4th); quits his gloriously palisaded Camp of Schilda; feels

that retreat on Dresden, or even home to Bohemia altogether, is the one course left.

And now, the important Bautzen Colloquy of SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 15th, having here brought its

three or more Courses of Activity to a pause,we will glance at the far more important THURSDAY, 13th,

ABOVE QUEBEC, NIGHT OF SEPTEMBER 12th13th, In profound silence, on the stream of the St.

Lawrence far away, a notable adventure is going on. Wolfe, from two points well above Quebec ("As a last

shift, we will try that way"), with about 5,000 men, is silently descending in boats; with purpose to climb the

Heights somewhere on this side the City, and be in upon it, if Fate will. An enterprise of almost sublime

nature; very great, if it can succeed. The cliffs all beset to his left hand, Montcalm in person guarding Quebec

Wolfe silently descends; mind made up; thoughts hushed quiet into one great thought; in the ripple of the

perpetual waters, under the grim cliffs and the eternal stars. Conversing with his people, he was heard to

recite some passages of Gray's ELEGY, lately come out to those parts; of which, says an earwitness, he

expressed his admiration to an enthusiastic degree: "Ah, these are tones of the Eternal Melodies, are not they?

A man might thank Heaven had he such a gift; almost as WE might for succeeding here, Gentlemen!"

[Professor Robison, then a Naval Junior, in the boat along with Wolfe, afterwards a wellknown Professor of

Natural Philosophy at Edinburgh, was often heard, by persons whom I have heard again, to repeat this

Anecdote. See Playfair, BIOGRAPHICAL ACCOUNT OF PROFESSOR ROBISON,in Transactions of

Royal Society of Edinburgh, vii. 495 et seq.] Next morning (Thursday, 13th September, 1759), Wolfe, with

his 5,000, is found to have scrambled up by some woody Neck in the heights, which was not quite

precipitous; has trailed one cannon with him, the seamen busy bringiug up another; and by 10 of the clock

stands ranked (really somewhat in the Friedrich way, though on a small scale); ready at all poiuts for

Montcalm, on first hearing of him, had made haste: "OUI, JE LES VOIS OU ILS NE DOIVENT PAS ETRE;

JE VAIS LES E'CRASER (to smash them)!" said he, by way of keeping his people in heart. And marches up,

beautifully skilful, neglecting none of his advantages. Has numerous Canadian sharpshooters, preliminary

Indians in the bushes, with a provoking fire: "Steady!" orders Wolfe; "from you not one shot till they are

within thirty yards." And Montcalm, volleying and advancing, can get no response, more than from Druidic

stones; till at thirty yards the stones become vocal,and continue so at a dreadful rate; and, in a space of

seventeen minutes, have blown Montcalm's regulars, and the gallant Montcalm himself, and their second in

command, and their third, into ruin and destruction. In about seven minutes more the agony was done;

"English falling on with the bayonet, Highlanders with the claymore;" fierce pursuit, rout total:and Quebec

and Canada as good as finished. The thing is yet well known to every Englishman; [The military details of it

seem to be very ill known (witness Colonel Beatson's otherwise rather careful Pamphlet, THE PLAINS OF

ABRAHAM, written quite lately, which we are soon to cite farther); and they would well deserve describing

in the SEYFARTHBEYLAGEN, or even in the TEMPELHOF way,could an English Officer, on the spot

as this Colonel was, be found to do it!Details are in Beatson (quite another "Beatson"), Naval and Military

History, ii. 300308; in Gentleman's Magazine for 1759, the Despatches and particulars: see also Walpole,

George the Second, iii. 217222.] and how Wolfe himself died in it, his beautiful death.

Truly a bit of right soldierhood, this Wolfe. Manages his small resources in a consummate manner; invents,

contrives, attempts and reattempts, irrepressible by difficulty or discouragement, How could a Friedrich

himself have managed this Quebec in a more artistic way? The small Battle itself, 5,000 to a side, and such

odds of Savagery and Canadians, reminds you of one of Friedrich's: wise arrangements; exact foresight,

preparation corresponding; caution with audacity; inflexible discipline, silent till its time come, and then

blazing out as we see. The prettiest soldiering I have heard of among the English for several generations.

Chapter VI. PRINCE HENRI MAKES A MARCH OF FIFTY HOURS; THE RUSSIANS CANNOT FIND LODGING IN SILESIA. 1334

Amherst, Commanderinchief, is diligently noosing, and tying up, the French military settlements, Niagara,

Ticonderoga; Canada all round: but this is the heart or windpipe of it; keep this firm, and, in the

Colonel Reatson, in his recent Pamphlet, THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM,which, especially on the military

side, is distressingly ignorant and shallow, though NOT intentionally incorrect anywhere,gives Extracts

from a Letter of Montcalm's ("Quebec, 24th August, 1759"), which is highly worth reading, had we room. It

predicts to a hair'sbreadth, not only the way "M. Wolfe, if he understands his trade, will take to beat and

ruin me if we meet in fight;" but also,with a sagacity singular to look at, in the years 17751777, and

perhaps still more in the years 18601863,what will be the consequences to those unruly English, Colonial

and other. "If he beat me here, France has lost America utterly," thinks Montcalm: "Yes;and one's only

consolation is, In ten years farther, America will be in revolt against England!" Montcalm's style of writing is

not exemplary; but his power of faithful observation, his sagacity, and talent of prophecy are so considerable,

we are tempted to give the IPSISSIMA VERBA of his long Letter in regard to those two points,the rather

"MONSIEUR ET CHER COUSIN,Here I am, for more than three months past, at handgrips with M.

Wolfe; who ceases not day or night to bombard Quebec, with a fury which is almost unexampled in the Siege

of a Place one intends to retain after taking it." ... Will never take it in that way, however, by attacking from

the River or south shore; only ruins us, but does not enrich himself. Not an inch nearer his object than he was

three months ago; and in one month more the equinoctial storms will blow his Fleet and him away.

Quebec, then, and the preservation of the Colony, you think, must be as good as safe?" Alas, the fact is far

otherwise. The capture of Quebec depends on what we call a strokeofhand[But let us take to the

"La prise de Quebec depend d'un coup de main. Les Anglais sont maitres de la riviere: ils n'ont qu'a effectuer

une descente sur la rive ou cette Ville, sans fortifications et sans defense, est situee. Les voila en etat de me

presenter la bataille; que je ne pourrais plus refuser, et que je ne devrais pas gagner. M. Wolfe, en effet, s'il

entend son metier, n'a qu'a essuyer le premier feu, venir ensuite a grands pas sur mon armee, faire a bout

portant sa decharge; mes Canadiens, sans discipline, sourds a la voix du tambour et des instrumens militaires,

deranges pa cette escarre, ne sauront plus reprendre leurs rangs. Ils sont d'ailleurs sans baionettes pour

repondre a celles de l'ennemi: il ne leur reste qu'a fuir,et me voila battu sans ressource. [This is a curiously

exact Prediction! I won't survive, however; defeat here, in this stage of our affairs, means loss of America

altogether:] il est des situations ou il ne reste plus a un General que de perir avec honneur. ... Mes sentimens

sont francais, et ils le seront jusque dans le tombeau, si dans le tombeau on est encore quelque chose.

"Je me consolerai du moins de ma defaite, et de la perte de la Colonie, par l'intime persuasion ou je suis

[Prediction Second, which is still more curious], que cette defaite vaudra, un jour, a ma Patrie plus qu'une

victoire; et que le vainqueur, en s'agrandissant, trouvera un tombeau dans son agrandissement meme.

"Ce que j'avance ici, mon cher Cousin, vous paraitra un paradoxe: mais un moment de reflexion politique, un

coup d'oeil sur la situation des choses en Amerique, et la verite de mon opinion brillera dans tout son jour.

[Nobody will obey, unless necessity compel him: VOILA LES HOMMES; GENE of any kind a nuisance to

them; and of all men in the world LES ANGLAIS are the most impatient of obeying anybody.] Mais si ce

sontla les Anglais de l'Europe, c'est encore plus les Anglais d'Amerique. Une grande partie de ces Colons

sont les enfans de ces hommes qui s'expatrierent dans ces temps de trouble ou l'ancienne Angleterre, en proie

aux divisions, etait attaquee dans ses privileges et droits; et allerent chercher en Amerique une terre ou ils

Chapter VI. PRINCE HENRI MAKES A MARCH OF FIFTY HOURS; THE RUSSIANS CANNOT FIND LODGING IN SILESIA. 1335

pussent vivre et mourir libres et presque independants:et ces enfans n'ont pas degenere des sentimens

republicains de leurs peres. D'autres sont des hommes ennemis de tout frein, de tout assujetissement, que le

gouvernement y a transportes pour leurs crimes, D'autres, enfin, sont un ramas de differentes nations de

l'Europe, qui tiennent trespeu a l'ancienne Angleterre par le coeur et le sentiment; tous, en general, ne ce

"Je les connais bien,non sur des rapports etrangers, mais sur des correspondances et des informations

secretes, que j'ai moimeme menagees; et dont, un jour, si Dieu me prete vie, je pourrai faire usage a

l'avantage de ma Patrie. Pour surcroit de bonheur pour eux, tous ces Colons sont parvenues, dans un etat

tresflorissant; ils sont nombreux et riches:ils recueillent dans le sein de leur patrie toutes les necessites de

la vie. L'ancienne Angleterre a ete assez sotte, et assez dupe, pour leur laisser etablir chez eux les arts, les

metiers, les manufactures:c'est a dire, qu'elle leur a laisse briser la chaine de besoins qui les liait, qui les

attachait a elle, et qui les fait dependants. Aussi toutes ces Colonies Anglaises auraientelles depuis

longtemps secoue le joug, chaque province aurait forme une petite republique independante, si la crainte de

voir les Francais a leur Porte n'avait ete un frein qui les avait retenu. Maitres pour maitres, ils ont pefere leurs

compatriotes aux etrangers; prenant cependant pour maxime de n'obeir que le moins qu'ils pourraient. Mais

que le Canada vint a etre conquis, et que les Canadiens et ces Colons ne fussent plus qu'une seul peuple,et

la premiere occasion ou l'ancienne Angleterre semblerait toucher a leurs interets, croyezvous, mon cher

Cousin, que ces Colons obeiront? Et qu'auraientils a craindre en se revoltant? ... Je suis si sur de ce que

j'ecris, que je ne donnerais pas dix ans apres la conquete du Canada pour en voir l'accomplissement.

"Voila ce que, comme Francais, me console aujourd'hui du danger imminent, que court ma Patrie, de voir

cette Colonie perdue pour elle." [In Beatson, LieutenantColonel R.E., The Plains of Abraham; Notes

original and selected (Gibraltar, Garrison Library Press, 1858), pp. 38 et seq.: Extract from "Lettres de M. le

Marquis de Montcalm a MM. De Berryer et De la Mole: 17571759 (Londres, 1777),"which is not in the

BritishMuseum Library, on applying; and seems to be a forgotten Book. (NOTE OF FIRST EDITION,

"A Copy is in the BOSTON ATHENAEUM LIBRARY, NewEngland: it is a Pamphlet rather than a Book;

contains Two Letters to Berryer MINISTRE DE LA MARINE, besides this to Mole the Cousin: Publisher is

the noted J. Almon,in French and English." (From Boston Sunday Courier, of 19th April, 1868, where this

In the Temple Library, London, I have since found a Copy: and, on strict survey, am obliged to pronounce the

whole Pamphlet a FORGERY,especially the Two Letters to "Berryer MINISTER OF MARINE;" who was

not yet Minister of anything, nor thought of as likely to be, for many months after the date of these Letters

addressed to him as such! Internal evidence too, were such at all wanted, is abundant in these BERRYER

Letters; which are of gross and almost stupid structure in comparison to the MOLE one. As this latter has

already got into various Books, and been argued of in Parliaments and high places (Lord Shelburne asserting

it to be spurious, Lord Mansfield to be genuine: REPORT OF PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES in

Gentleman's Magazine for NOVEMBER and for DECEMBER, 1777, pp. 515, 560),it may be allowed to

continue here in the CONDEMNED state. Forger, probably, some ExCanadian, or other American

ROYALIST, anxious to do the Insurgent Party and their British Apologists an ill turn, in that critical

year;had shot off his Pamphlet to voracious Almon; who prints without preface or criticism, and even

Montcalm had been in the Belleisle RETREAT FROM PRAG (December, 1742); in the terrible EXILLES

Business (July, 1747), where the Chevalier de Belleisle and 4 or 5,000 lost their lives in about an hour.

Captain Cook was at Quebec, Master in the Royal Navy; "sounding the River, and putting down buoys."

Bougainville, another famous Navigator, was AidedeCamp of Montcalm. There have been farsounding

Epics built together on less basis than lies ready here, in this CAPTURE OF QUEBEC;which itself, as the

Chapter VI. PRINCE HENRI MAKES A MARCH OF FIFTY HOURS; THE RUSSIANS CANNOT FIND LODGING IN SILESIA. 1336

Decision that America is to be English and not French, is surely an Epoch in WorldHistory! Montcalm was

48 when he perished; Wolfe 33. Montcalm's skull is in the Ursulines Convent at Quebec,shown to the idly

It was on October 17th,while Friedrich lay at Sophienthal, lamed of gout, and Soltikof had privately fixed

for home (went that day week),that this glorious bit of news reached England. It was only three days after

that other, bad and almost hopeless news, from the same quarter; news of poor Wolfe's Repulse, on the other

or eastern side of Quebec, July 31st, known to us already, not known in England till October 14th.

Heightened by such contrast, the news filled all men with a strange mixture of emotions. "The incidents of

Dramatic Fiction," says one who was sharer in it, "could not have been conducted with more address to lead

an audience from despondency to sudden exultation, than Accident had here prepared to excite the passions

of a whole People. They despaired; they triumphed; and they wept,for Wolfe had fallen in the hour of

victory! Joy, grief, curiosity, astonishment, were painted in every countenance: the more they inquired, the

higher their admiration rose. Not an incident but was heroic and affecting." [Walpole, iii. 219.] America ours;

What Pitt himself said of these things, we do not much hear. On the meeting of his Parliament, about a month

hence, his Speech, somebody having risen to congratulate and eulogize him, is still recognizably of royal

quality, if we evoke it from the Walpole Notes. Very modest, very noble, true; and with fine pieties and

magnanimities delicately audible in it: "Not a week all Summer but has been a crisis, in which I have not

known whether I should not be torn to pieces, instead of being commended, as now by the Honorable

Member. The hand of Divine Providence; the more a man is versed in business, the more he everywhere

traces that! ... Success has given us unanimity, not unanimity success. For my own poor share, I could not

have dared as I have done, except in these times. Other Ministers have hoped as well, but have not been so

circumstanced to dare so much. ... I think the stone almost rolled to the top of the hill; but let us have a care;

it may rebound, and hideously drag us down with it again." [Ib. iii. 225; Thackeray, i. 446.]

The essential truth, moreover, is, Pitt has become King of England; so lucky has poor England, in its hour of

crisis, again been. And the difference between an England guided by some kind of Friedrich (temporary

Friedrich, absolute, though of insecure tenure), and by a Newcastle and the Clack of Tongues, is very great!

But for Pitt, there had been no Wolfe, no Amherst; Duke Ferdinand had been the Royal Highness of

Cumberland,and all things going round him in St. Vitus, at their old rate. This man is a King, for the time

being,King really of the Friedrich type; and rules, Friedrich himself not more despotically, where need

is. Pitt's WarOffices, Admiralties, were not of themselves quickgoing entities; but Pitt made them go.

Slowpaced Lords in Office have remonstrated, on more than one occasion: "Impossible, Sir; these things

cannot be got ready at the time you order!" "My Lord, they indispensably must," Pitt would answer (a man

always reverent of coming facts, knowing how inexorable they are); and if the Negative continued obstinate

in argument, he has been known to add: "My Lord, to the King's service, it is a fixed necessity of time.

Unless the time is kept, I will impeach your Lordship!" Your Lordship's head will come to lie at your

Lordship's feet! Figure a poor Duke of Newcastle, listening to such a thing;and knowing that Pitt will do it;

and that he can, such is his favor with universal England;and trembling and obeying. Warrequisites for

land and for sea are got ready with a Prussian punctuality, at what multiple of the Prussian expense, is a

It is about eighteen months ago that Pownal, Governor of New England, a kind of halfmilitary person, not

without sound sense, though sadly intricate of utterance,of whom Pitt, just entering on Office, has, I

suppose, asked an opinion on America, as men do of Learned Counsel on an impending Lawsuit of

magnitude,had answered, in his longwinded, intertwisted, nearly inextricable way, to the effect, "Sir, I

incline to fear, on the whole, that the Action will NOT lie,that, on the whole, the French will eat America

from us in spite of our teeth." [In THACKERAY, ii. 421452, Pownal's intricate REPORT (his

"DISCOURSE," or whatever he calls it, "ON THE DEFENCE OF THE INLAND FRONTIERS," his of date

Chapter VI. PRINCE HENRI MAKES A MARCH OF FIFTY HOURS; THE RUSSIANS CANNOT FIND LODGING IN SILESIA. 1337

"15th January, 1758."] January 15th, 1758, that is the Pownal OpinionofCounsel;and on September

13th, 1759, this is what we have practically come to. And on September 7th, 1760: within twelve months

more,Amherst, descending the Rapids from Ticonderoga side, and two other little Armies, ascending from

Quebec and Louisburg, to meet him at Montreal, have proved punctual almost to an hour; and are in

condition to extinguish, by triple pressure (or what we call noosing), the French GovernorGeneral in

Montreal, a Monsieur de Vaudreuil, and his Montreal and his Canada altogether; and send the French bodily

home out of those Continents. [Capitulation between Amherst and Vaudreuil ("Montreal, 8th September,

1760"), in 55 Articles: in BEATSON, iii. 274283.] Which may dispense us from speaking farther on the

From the Madras region, too, from India and outrageous Lally, the news are good. Early in Spring last, poor

Lally,a man of endless talent and courage, but of dreadfully emphatic loose tongue, in fact of a blazing

ungoverned Irish turn of mind,had instantly, on sight of some small Succors from Pitt, to raise his siege of

Madras, retire to Pondicherry; and, in fact, go plunging and tumbling downhill, he and his India with him, at

an everfaster rate, till they also had got to the Abyss. "My policy is in these five words, NO ENGLISHMAN

IN THIS PENINSULA," wrote he, a year ago, on landing in India; and now it is to be No FRENCHMAN,

and there is one word in the five to be altered!Of poor Lally, zealous and furious overmuch, and nearly

the most unfortunate and worstused "man of genius" I ever read of, whose lionlike struggles against

French Official people, and against Pitt's Captains and their sea fights and siegings, would deserve a volume

to themselves, we have said, and can here say, as good as nothing,except that they all ended, for Lally and

French India, in total surrender, 16th January, 1761; and that Lally, some years afterwards, for toils

undergone and for services done, got, when accounts came to be liquidated, death on the scaffold. Dates I

give below. [28th April, 1758, Lands at Pondicherry; instantly proceeds upon Fort St. David. 2d June, 1758,

Takes it: meant to have gone now on Madras; but finds he has no money;goes extorting money from Black

Potentates about, Rajah of Travancore, in a violent and extraordinary style; and can get little. Nevertheless,

16th February, 1759, Is obliged to quit trenches at Madras, and retire dismally upon Pondicherry,to mere

22d January, 1760, Makes outrush on Wandewash, and the English posted there; is beaten, driven back into

Pondicherry. April, 1760, Is besieged in Pondicherry. 16th January, 1761, Is taken, Pondicherry, French India

and he;to Madras he, lest the French Official party kill him, as they attempt to do.

23d September, 1761, arrives, prisoner, in England: thence, on parole, to France and Paris, 21st October.

November, 1762, To Bastille; waits trial nineteen months; trial lasts two years. 6th May, 1766, To be

BEHEADED,9th May was. See BEATSON, ii. 369372, 96110, Voltaire (FRAGMENTS SUR L'INDE)

"Gained Fontenoy for us," said many persons;undoubtedly gained various things for us, fought for us

Berserkirlike on all occasions; hoped, in the end, to be Marechal de France, and undertook a Championship

of India, which issues in this way! America and India, it is written, are both to be Pitt's. Let both, if possible,

As to the InvasionofEngland Scheme, Pitt says he does not expect the French will invade us; but if they

Chapter VII. FRIEDRICH REAPPEARS ON THE FIELD, AND IN SEVEN DAYS AFTER COMES THE CATASTROPHE OF MAXEN. 1338

November 6th8th, Daun had gone to Meissen Country: fairly ebbing homeward; Henri following, with

Hulsen joined,not vehemently attacking the rhinoceros, but judiciously pricking him forward. Daun goes at

his slowest step: in many divisions, covering a wide circuit; sticking to all the strong posts, till his own time

for quitting them: slow, sullenly cautious; like a man descending dangerous precipices back foremost, and

will not be hurried. So it had lasted about a week; Daun for the last four days sitting restive, obstinate, but

Henri pricking into him more and more, till the rhinoceros seemed actually about lifting himself,when

At the Schloss of Herschstein, a mile or two behind Lommatsch, which is Henri's headquarter (still to

westward of Meissen; Daun hanging on, seven or eight miles to southeastward ahead; loath to go, but actually

obliged),it was there, Tuesday, November 13th, that the King met his Brother again. A King free of his

gout; in joyful spirits; and high of humor,like a man risen indignant, once more got to his feet, after three

months' oppressions and miseries from the unworthy. "Too high," mourns Retzow, in a gloomy tone, as

others do in perhaps a more indulgent one. Beyond doubt, Friedrich's farther procedures in this grave and

weighty Daun business were more or less imprudent; of a too rapid and rash nature; and turned out bitterly

unlucky to him. "Had he left the management to Henri!" sighed everybody, after the unlucky event.

Friedrich had not arrived above fourandtwenty hours, when news came in: "The Austrians in movement

again; actually rolling off Dresdenward again." "Haha, do they smell me already!" laughed he: "Well, I will

send Daun to the Devil,"not adding, "if I can." And instantly ordered sharp pursuit,and sheer stabbing

with the oxgoad, not soft and delicate pricking, as Henri's lately. [Retzow, ii. 168; Tempelhof, iii. 306.]

Friedrich, in fact; was in a fiery condition against Daun: "You trampled on me, you heavy buffalo, these three

months; but that is over now!"and took personally the vanguard in this pursuit. And had a bit of hot

fighting in the Village of Korbitz (scene of that FinckHaddick "Action," 21st September last, and of poor

Haddick's ruin, and retirement to the Waters);where the Austrians now prove very fierce and obstinate; and

will not go, till well slashed into, and torn out by sheer beating:which was visibly a kind of comfort to the

King's humor. "Our Prussians do still fight, then, much as formerly! And it was all a hideous Nightmare, all

They say Prince Henri took the liberty of counselling him, even of entreating him: "Leave well alone; why

run risks?" said Henri. Daun, it was pretty apparent, had no outlook at the present but that of sauntering home

to Bohmen; leaving Dresden to be an easy prey again, and his whole Campaign to fall futile, as the last had.

Under Henri's gentle driving he would have gone slower; but how salutary, if he only went! These were

Henri's views: but Friedrich was not in the slow humor; impatient to be in Dresden; "will be quartered there

in a week," writes he, "and more at leisure than now." ["Wilsdruf, 17th November, 1759," and still more

"19th November," Friedrich to Voltaire. in high spirits that way ( OEuvres de Frederic, xxiii. 66).] He is

thinking of Leuthen, of Rossbach, of Campaign 1757, so gloriously restored after ruin; and, in the fire of his

soul, is hoping to do something similar a second time. That is Retzow's notion: who knows but there may be

truth in it? A proud Friedrich, got on his feet again after such usage;nay, who knows whether it was quite

so unwise to be impressive on the slow rhinoceros, and try to fix some thorn in his snout, or say

(figuratively), to hobble his hindfeet; which, I am told, would have been beautifully ruinous; and, though

riskish, was not impossible? [Tempelhof, iii. 311, Ill it indisputably turned out; and we have, with brevity, to

It was in the Village of Krogis, about six miles forward, on the MeissenFreyberg road, a mile or two on

from Korbitz, and directly after the fierce little tussle in that Village,that Friedrich, his blood still up, gave

the Order for Maxen, which proved so unlucky to him. Wunsch had been shot off in pursuit of the beaten

Austrians; but they ran too fast; and Wunsch came back without farther result, still early in the day. Back as

far as Krogis, where the next headquarter is to be;and finds the King still in a fulminant condition; none

the milder, it is likely, by Wunsch's returning without result. "Go straight to General Finck; bid him march at

once!" orders the King; and rapidly gives Wunsch the instructions Finck is to follow. Finck and his Corps are

Chapter VII. FRIEDRICH REAPPEARS ON THE FIELD, AND IN SEVEN DAYS AFTER COMES THE CATASTROPHE OF MAXEN. 1339

near Nossen, some ten miles ahead of Krogis, some twenty west from Dresden. There, since yesterday, stands

Finck, infesting the left or western flank of the Austrians,what was their left, and will be again, when they

call halt and face round on us:Let Finck now march at once, quite round that western flank; by Freyberg,

Dippoldiswalde, thence east to Maxen; plant himself at Maxen (a dozen miles south of Dresden, among the

rocky hills), and stick diligently in the rear of those Austrians, cutting off, or threatening to cut off, their

Friedrich calculates that, if Daun is for retreating by Pirna Country, this will, at lowest, be a method to

quicken him in that movement; or perhaps it may prove a method to cut off such retreat altogether, and force

Daun to go circling by the Lausitz Hills and Wildernesses, exposed to tribulations which may go nigh to ruin

him. That is Friedrich's proud thought: "an unfortunate Campaign; winding up, nevertheless, as 1757 did, in

blazes of success!" And truly, if Friedrich could have made himself into Two; and, while flashing and

charging in Daun's front, have been in command at Maxen in Daun's rear,Friedrich could have made a

pretty thing of this waxen Enterprise; and might in good part have realized his proud program. But there is no

getting two Friedrichs. Finck, a General of approved quality, he is the nearest approach we can make to a

second Friedrich;and he, illluck too superadding itself, proves tragically inadequate. And sets all the

At 3 in the afternoon, Friedrich, intensely surveying from the heights of Krogis the new Austrian movements

and positions, is astonished, not agreeably ("What, still only here, Herr General!"), by a personal visit from

Finck. Finck finds the Maxen business intricate, precarious; wishes farther instructions, brings forward this

objection and that. Friedrich at last answers, impatiently: "You know I can't stand making of difficulties (ER

contrive to get it done!" With which poor comfort Finck has to ride back to Nossen; and scheme out his

Next morning, Thursday, 15th, Finck gets on march; drives the Reichsfolk out of Freyberg; reaches

Dippoldiswalde:"Freyberg is to be my Magazine," considers Finck; "Dippoldiswalde my halfway house;

Four Battalions of my poor Eighteen shall stand there, and secure the mealcarts." Friday, 16th, Finck has his

Vanguard, Wunsch leading it, in possession of Maxen and the Heights; and on Saturday gets there himself,

with all his people and equipments. I should think about 12,000 men: in a most intersected, intertwisted Hill

Country; full of gullets, dells and winding brooks;it is forecourt of the Pirna rocks, our celebrated Camp of

Gahmig lies visible to north, Dohna and the Rothwasser bounding us to east;in grim November weather,

some snow falling, or snow powder, alternating with sleet and glazing frosts: by no means a beautiful

enterprise to Finck. Nor one of his own choosing, had one a choice in such cases.

To Daun nothing could be more unwelcome than this news of Finck, embattled there at Maxen in the

inextricable Hill Country, direct on the road of Daun's mealcarts and Bohemian communications. And truly

withal,what Daun does not yet hear, but can guess, there is gone, in supplement or as auxiliary to Finck,

a fierce Hussar party, under GRUNE Kleist, their fiercest Hussar since Mayer died; who this very day, at

Aussig, burns Daun's first considerable Magazine; and has others in view for the same fate. [Friedrich's

second Letter to Voltaire, Wilsdruf, "19th November, 1759."] An evident thing to Daun, that Finck being

On the instant, Daun falls back on Dresden; Saturday, 17th, takes post in the Dell of Plauen (PLAUEN'SCHE

GRUND); an impassable Chasm, with sheer steeps on both sides, stretching southward from Dresden in front

of the Hill Country: thither Daun marches, there to consider what is to be done with Finck. Amply safe this

position is; none better in the world: a Village, Plauen, and a Brook, Weistritz, in the bottom of this exquisite

Chasm; sheer rockwalls on each side,high especially on the Daun, or south side;head quarters can be

in Dresden itself; room for your cavalry on the plain ground between Dresden and the Chasm. A post both

safe and comfortable; only you must not loiter in making up your mind as to Finck; for Friedrich has

Chapter VII. FRIEDRICH REAPPEARS ON THE FIELD, AND IN SEVEN DAYS AFTER COMES THE CATASTROPHE OF MAXEN. 1340

followed on the instant. Friedrich's head quarter is already Wilsdruf, which an hour or two ago was Daun's:

at Kesselsdorf vigilant Ziethen is vanguard. So that Friedrich looks over on you from the northern brow of

Daunurged on by Lacy, they sayis not long in deciding that, in this strait, the short way out will be to

attack Finck in the Hills. Daun is in the Hills, as well as Finck (this Plauen Chasm is the boundaryditch of

the Hills): Daun with 27,000 horse and foot, moving on from this western part; 3,000 light people (one

Sincere the leader of them) moving simultaneously from Dresden itself, that is, from northward or

northwestward; 12,000 Reichsfolk, horse and foot, part of them already to southeastward of Finck, other part

stealing on by the Elbe bank thitherward: here, from three different points of the compass, are 42,000. These

simultaneously dashing in, from west, north, south, upon Finck, may surely give account of his 12,000 and

him! If only we can keep Friedrich dark upon it; which surely our Pandours will contrive to do.

Finck, directly on arriving at Maxen, had reported himself to the King; and got answer before next morning:

"Very well; but draw in those Four Battalions you have left in Dippoldiswalde; hit with the whole of your

strength, when a chance offers." Which order Finck, literally and not too willingly, obeys; leaves only some

light remnant in Dippoldiswalde, and reinforcement to linger within reach, till a certain Breadconvoy come

to him, which will be due next morning (Monday, 19th); and which does then safely get home, though under

SUNDAY, 18th, Finck fails not to reconnoitre from the highest Hill top; to inquire by every method: he

finds, for certain, that the enemy are coming in upon him. With his own eyes he sees Reichsfolk marching, in

quantity, southeastward by the Elbe shore: "Intending towards Dohna, as is like?"and despatched Wunsch,

who, accordingly, drove them out of Dohna. Of all this Finck, at once, sent word to Friedrich. Who probably

enough received the message; but who would get no new knowledge from it,vigilant Ziethen having, by

Austrian deserters and otherwise, discovered this of the Reichsfolk; and furthermore that Sincere with 3,000

was in motion, from the north, upon Finck. Sunday evening, Friedrich despatches Ziethen's Report; which

punctually came to Finck's hand; but was the last thing he received from Friedrich, or Friedrich from him.

The intervening Pandours picked up all the rest. The Ziethen REPORT, of two or three lines, most succinct

but sufficient, like a cutting of hard iron, is to be read in many Books: we may as well give the Letter and

FRIEDRICH'S LETTER (WILSDRUF, 18th NOVEMBER, 1759). "My dear GeneralLieutenant von

Finck,I send you the enclosed Report from General Ziethen, showing what is the lie of matters as seen

from this side; and leave the whole to your disposition and necessary measures. I am your wellaffectioned

GENERAL ZIETHEN'S REPORT (KESSELSDORF, 18th NOVEMBER, 1759). "To your Royal Majesty,

send [no pronoun "I" allowed] herewith a Corporal, who has deserted from the Austrians. He says, Sincere

with the Reserve did march with the Reichs Army; but a league behind it, and turned towards

Dippoldiswalde. General Brentano [Wehla's old comrade, luckier than Wehla], as this Deserter heard last

night in Daun's headquarter,which is in the southern Suburb of Dresden, in the Countess Moschinska's

Garden,was yesterday to have been in Dohlen [looking into our outposts from the hither side of their

Plauen Dell], but was not there any longer," as our Deserter passed, "and it was said that he had gone to

Thus curtly is Finck authorized to judge for himself in the new circumstances. Marginally is added, in

GANG HABEN,Either with the Reichers or with Sincere you will have a bout, I suppose."

Chapter VII. FRIEDRICH REAPPEARS ON THE FIELD, AND IN SEVEN DAYS AFTER COMES THE CATASTROPHE OF MAXEN. 1341

Finck, from his own Hilltop, on Sunday and Monday, sees all this of Ziethen, and much more. Sees the

vanguard of Daun himself approaching Dippoldiswalde, cannonading his mealcarts as they issue there; on

all sides his enemies encompassing him like bees; and has a sphinxriddle on his mind, such as soldier

seldom had. Shall he manoeuvre himself out, and march away, breadcarts, baggages and all entire? There is

still time, and perfect possibility, by Dippoldiswalde there, or by other routes and methods. But again, did not

his Majesty expect, do not these words "a bout" still seem to expect, a bit of fighting with somebody or other?

Finck was an able soldier, and his skill and courage well known; but probably another kind of courage was

wanted this day, of which Finck had not enough. Finck was not king of this matter; Finck was under a King

who perhaps misjudged the matter. If Finck saw no method of doing other than hurt and bad service to his

King by staying here, Finck should have had the courage to come away, and front the King's unreasonable

anger, expecting redress one day, or never any redress. That was Finck's duty: but everybody sees how hard it

Finck, truer to the letter than to the spirit, determined to remain. Did, all that Monday, his best to prepare

himself; called in his outposts ("Was not I ordered?" thinks Finck, too literally); and sees his multitudes of

enemies settle round him;Daun alone has 27,000 men, who take camp at Dippoldiswalde; and in sumtotal

they are as 4 to 1 of Finck:a Finck still resolute of face, though internally his thoughts may be haggard

enough. Doubtless he hopes, too, that Friedrich will do something:unaware that none of his messages

reach Friedrich. As for Daun, having seen his people safely encamped here, he returns to Dresden for the

night, to see that Friedrich is quiet. Friedrich is quiet enough: Daun, at seven next morning (TUESDAY,

20th), appeared on the ground again; and from all sides Finck is assaulted,from Daun's side nearest and

Dippoldiswalde is some seven miles from Maxen. Difficult hillroad all the way: but the steepest, straitest

and worst place is at Reinhartsgrimma, the very first Hamlet after you are out of Dippoldiswalde. There is a

narrow gullet there, overhung with heights all round. The roads are slippery, glazed with sleet and frost;

Cavalry, unroughened, make sad sliding and sprawling; hardly the Infantry are secure on their feet: a terrible

business getting masses of artillerywagons, horse and man, through such a Pass! It is thought, had Finck

garnished this Pass of Reinhartsgrimma, with the proper batteries, the proper musketries, Daun never would

have got through. Finck had not a gun or a man in it: "Had not I order?" said he,again too literally. As it

was, Daun, sliding and sprawling in the narrow steeps, had difficulties almost too great; and, they say, would

have given it up, had it not been that a certain Major urged, "Can be done, Excellenz, and shall!" and that the

temper of his soldiers was everywhere excellent. Unfortunate Finck had no artillery to bear on Daun's transit

through the Pass. Nothing but some weak body of hussars and infantry stood looking into it, from the Hill of

Hausdorf: even these might have given him some slight hindrance; but these were played upon by endless

Pandours, "issuing from a wood near by," with musketries, and at length with cannon batteries, one and

another;and had to fall back, or to be called back, to Maxen Hill, where the main force is.

In the course of yesterday, by continual reconnoitring, by Austrian deserters, and intense comparison of

symptoms, Finck had completely ascertained where the Enemy's Three Attacks were to be,"on Maxen,

from Dippoldiswalde, Trohnitz, Dohna, simultaneously three attacks," it appears;and had with all his skill

arranged himself on the Maxen summits to meet these. He stands now elaborately divided into Three groups

against those Three simultaneities; forming (sadly wide apart, one would say, for such a force as Finck's) a

very obtuseangled triangle:the obtuse vertex of which (if readers care to look on their Map) is Trohnitz,

the road Brentano and Sincere are coming. On the baseangles, Maxen and Dohna, Finck expects Daun and

the Reich. From Trohnitz to Maxen is near two miles; from Maxen to Dohna above four. At Dohna stands

Wunsch against the Reich; Finck himself at Maxen, expecting Daun, as the pith of the whole affair. In this

triangular way stands Finck at the topmost heights of the country,"Maxen highest, but Hausdorf only a

little lower,"and has not thought of disputing the climb upwards. Too literal an eye to his orders: alas, he

Chapter VII. FRIEDRICH REAPPEARS ON THE FIELD, AND IN SEVEN DAYS AFTER COMES THE CATASTROPHE OF MAXEN. 1342

The result is, about 11 A.M., as I obscurely gather, Daun has conquered the climb; Daun's musketries begin

to glitter on the top of Hausdorf; and 26 or 32 heavy cannon open their throats there; and the Three Attacks

break loose. Finck's Maxen batteries (scarcely higher than Daun's, and far inferior in weight) respond with all

diligence, the poor regimental fieldpieces helping what they can. Mutual cannonade, very loud for an hour

and half; terrific, but doing little mischief; after which Daun's musketries (the ground now sufficiently clear

to Daun), which are the practical thing, begin opening, first from one point, then from another: and there

ensues, for five hours coming, at Maxen and at the other two points of Finck's triangle, such a series of

explosive chargings, wheelings, worryings and intricate death wrestlings, as it would provoke every reader

to attempt describing to him. Except indeed he were a soldier, bound to know the defence of posts; in which

case I could fairly promise him that there are means of understanding the affair, and that he might find benefit

in it. [Tempelhof, iii. 307317. JOURNAL UND NACHRICHT VON DER GEFANGENNEHMUNG DES

Daun's Grenadiers, and Infantry generally, are in triumphant spirits; confident of victory, as they may

reasonably be. Finck's people, too, behave well, some of them conspicuously well, though in gloomier mood;

and make stubborn fight, successful here and there, but, as a whole, not capable of succeeding. By 3 in the

afternoon, the Austrians have forced the Maxen Post; they "enter Maxen with great shoutings;" extrude the

obstinate Prussian remnants; and, before long, have the poor Village "on fire in every part." Finck retreating

northward to Schmorsdorf, towards the obtuse angle of his triangle, if haply there may be help in that quarter

From Schmorsdorf Finck pushes out a Cavalry charge on Brentano. "Could we but repulse Brentano yonder,"

thinks he, "I might have those Four Battalions to hand, and try again!" But Brentano makes such

cannonading, the Cavalry swerve to a Hollow on their right; then find they have not ground, and retire quite

fruitless. Finck's Cavalry, and the Cavalry generally, with their horses all sliding on the frosty

mountaingnarls, appear to be good for little this day. Brentano, victorious over the Cavalry, comes on with

such storm, he sweeps through the obtuse angle, home upon Finck; and sweeps him out of Schmorsdorf

Village to Schmorsdorf Hill, there to take refuge, as the night sinks,and to see himself, if his wild heart

will permit him to be candid, a ruined man. Of the Three Attacks, Two have completely succeeded on him;

only Wunsch, at Dohna, stands victorious; he has held back the Reich all day, and even chased it home to its

Finck's mood, as the November shadows gathered on him,the equal heart may at least pity poor Finck! His

resolution is fixed: "Cut ourselves through, this night: Dohna is ours: other side that Red Water there are

roads;perish or get through!" And the Generals (who are rallied now "on the Heights of Falkenhain and

Bloschwitz," midway between Maxen and Dohna) get that Order from him. And proceed to arrange for

executing it,though with outlook more and more desperate, as their scouts report that every pass and post

on the Red Water is beset by Reichsfolk. "Wunsch, with the Cavalry, he at least may thread his way out,

under cloud of night, by the opposite or Daun side," calculates Finck. And Wunsch sets out accordingly: a

very questionable, winding, subterranean march; difficult in the extreme,the wearied SLIPshod horses

going at a snail's pace; and, in the difficult passes, needing to be dragged through with bridle and even to be

left altogether:in which, withal, it will prove of no use for Wunsch to succeed! Finck's Generals

endeavoring to rank and rearrange through the night, find that their very cartridges are nearly spent, and that

of men, such wounding, such deserting has there been, they have, at this time, by precise count, 2,836 rank

At daylight, Daun's cannon beginning again from the Maxen side, Finck sends to capitulate. "Absolute

surrender," answers Daun: "prisoners of war, and you shall keep your private baggage. General Wunsch with

the Cavalry, he too must turn back and surrender!" Finck pleaded hard, on this last score: "General Wunsch,

as head of the Cavalry, is not under me; is himself chief in that department." But it was of no use: Wunsch

had to return (not quite got through Daun's Lines, after such a night), and to surrender, like everybody else.

Chapter VII. FRIEDRICH REAPPEARS ON THE FIELD, AND IN SEVEN DAYS AFTER COMES THE CATASTROPHE OF MAXEN. 1343

Like Eight other Generals; like Wolfersdorf of Torgau, and many a brave Officer and man. Wednesday

morning, 21st November, 1769: it is Finck's fourth day on Maxen; his last in the Prussian Service.

That same Wednesday Afternoon there were ranked in the GROSSE GARTEN at Dresden, of dejected

Prussian Prisoners from Maxen, what exact number was never known: the Austrians said 15,000; but nobody

well believed them; their last certain instalment being only, in correct numbers, 2,836. Besides the killed,

wounded and already captured, many had deserted, many had glided clear off. It is judged that Friedrich lost,

by all these causes, about 12,000 men. Gone wholly,with their equipments and appurtenances wholly,

which are not worth counting in comparison. Finck and the other Generals, 8 of them, and 529

Officers,Finck, Wunsch, Wolfersdorf, Mosel (of the Olmutz Convoy), not to mention others of known

worth, this is itself a sore loss to Friedrich, and in present circumstances an irreparable. [Seyfarth, ii. 576; in

The outburst and paroxysm of Gazetteer rumor, which arose in Europe over this, must be left to the

imagination; still more the whirlwind of astonishment, grief, remorse and indignation that raged in the heart

of Friedrich on first hearing of it. "The Caudine Forks;" "Scene of Pirna over again, in reverse form;" "Is not

your King at last over with it?" said and sang multifariously the Gazetteers. As counterchorus to which, in a

certain Royal Heart: "That miserable purblind Finck, unequal to his task;that overhasty I, who drove him

upon it! This disgrace, loss nigh ruinous; in fine, this infernal Campaign (CETTE CAMPAGNE

INFEMALE)!" The AnecdoteBooks abound in details of Friedrich's behavior at Wilsdruf that day; mythical

all, or in good part, but symbolizing a case that is conceivable to everybody. Or would readers care to glance

TO D'ARGENS (Krogis, 15th November, order for Maxen just given). "Yesterday I joined the Army [day

before yesterday, but took the field yesterday], and Daun decamped. I have followed him thus far, and will

continue it to the frontiers of Bohemia. Our measures are so taken [Finck, to wit], that he will not get out of

Saxony without considerable losses. Yesterday cost him 500 men taken at Korgis here. Every movement he

TO VOLTAIRE (Wilsdruf, 17th November). "We are verging on the end of our Campaign: and I will write to

you in eight days from Dresden, with more composure and coherency than now." [Ib. xxiii. 66.]

TO THE SAME (Wilsdruf, 19th November). "The Austrians are packing off to Bohemia,where, in reprisal

for the incendiary operations they have done in my countries, I have burnt them two big magazines. I render

the beatified Hero's retreat as difficult as possible; and I hope he will come upon some bad adventures within

SAME DAY AND PLACE, TO D'ARGENS. A volley of most roughpaced offhand Rhyming, direct from

the heart; "Ode [as he afterwards terms it, or irrepressible extempore LILT] TO FORTUNE:"

"MARQUIS, QUEL CHANGEMENT, what a change! I, a poor heretic creature, never blessed by the Holy

Father; indeed, little frequenting Church, nor serving either Baal or the God of Israel; held down these many

months, and reported by more than one shaven scoundrel [priestpamphleteer at Vienna] to be quite extinct,

and gone vagabond over the world,see how capricious Fortune, after all her hundred preferences of my

rivals, lifts me with helpful hand from the deep, and packs this Hero of the Hat and Sword,whom Popes

have blessed what they could, and who has walked in Pilgrimage before now [to Marienzell once, I believe,

publicly at Vienna],out of Saxony; panting, harassed goes he, like a stranger dog from some kitchen where

the cook had flogged him out!" [Ib. xix. 103106.] ... (A very exultant Lilt, and with a good deal more of the

Chapter VII. FRIEDRICH REAPPEARS ON THE FIELD, AND IN SEVEN DAYS AFTER COMES THE CATASTROPHE OF MAXEN. 1344

TO D'ARGENS (Wilsdruf, 22d November). "Do with that [some small piece of business] whatever you like,

my dear Marquis. I am so stupefied (E'TOURDI) with the misfortune which has befallen General Finck, that

I cannot recover from my astonishment. It deranges all my measures; it cuts me to the quick. Illluck, which

persecutes my old age, has followed me from the Mark [Kunersdorf, in the Mark of Brandenburg] to Saxony.

I will still strive what I can. The little ODE I sent you, addressed TO FORTUNE, had been written too soon!

One should not sing victory till the battle is over. I am so crushed down by these incessant reverses and

disasters, that I wish a thousand times I were dead; and from day to day I grow wearier of dwelling in a body

worn out and condemned to suffer. I am writing to you in the first moment of my grief. Astonishment,

sorrow, indignation, scorn, all blended together, lacerate my soul. Let us get to the end, then, of this execrable

Campaign; I will then write to you what is to become of me; and we will arrange the rest. Pity me;ad make

no noise about me; bad news go fast enough of themselves. Adieu, dear Marquis." [ OEuvres de Frederic,

All this, of course, under such pressing call of actualities, had very soon to transform itself into silence; into

new resolution, and determinate despatch of business. But the King retained a bitter memory of it all his days.

To Finck he was inexorable: ordered him, the first thing on his return from Austrian Captivity, Trial by

CourtMartial; which (Ziethen presiding, June, 1763) censured Finck in various points, and gave him, in

supplement to the Austrian detention, a Year's Imprisonment in Spandau. No ray of pity visible for him, then

or afterwards, in the Royal mind. So that the poor man had to beg his dismissal; get it, and go to Denmark for

new promotion and appreciation."Far too severe!" grumbled the Opposition voices, with secret

counterseverity. And truly it would have been more beautiful to everybody, for the moment, to have made

matters soft to poor Finck,had Friedrich ever gone on that score with his Generals and Delegates; which,

though the reverse of a cruel man, he never did. And truly, as we often observe, the Laws of Fact are still

severer than Friedrich was:so that, in the longrun, perhaps it is beautifulest of all for a King, who is just,

Exulting Daun, instead of Bohemia for winterquarters, pushes out now for the prize of Saxony itself. Daun

orders Beck to attack suddenly another Outpost of Friedrich's, which stands rearward of him at Meissen,

under a General Dierecke,the same whom, as Colonel Dierecke, we saw march out of flamy Zittau,

summer gone two years. Beck goes in accordingly, 3d December; attacks Dierecke, not by surprise, but with

overwhelming superiority; no reinforcement possible: Dierecke is on the wrong side of the Elbe, no retreat or

reinforcement for him; has to fight fiercely all day, Meissen Bridge being in a broken state; then, at night, to

ship his people across in Elbe boats, which are much delayed by the floating ice, so that daylight found 1,500

of them still on that northern side; all of whom, with General Dierecke himself, were made prisoners by

Beck. [Tempelhof, iii. 321: "3d4th December, 1759."] A comfortable supplement to Maxen, though not of

After which, Daun himself issued minatory from the Plauen Chasm; expecting, as all the world did, that

Friedrich, who is 36,000 of Unfortunate against, say, 72,000 of Triumphant, will, under penalty, take himself

away. But it proved otherwise. "If you beat us, Excellency Feldmarschall, yes; but till then!" Friedrich

draws out in battalia; Leo in wild ragged state and temper, VERSUS Bos in the reverse: "Come on; then!"

Rhinoceros Bos, though in a high frame of mind, dare not, on cool survey; but retires behind the Plauen

Chasm again. Will at least protect Dresden from recapture; and wait here, in the interim; carting his provision

out of Bohemia,which is a rough business, with Elbe frozen, and the passes in such a choked wintry state.

Upon whom Friedrich, too, has to wait under arms, in grim neighborhood, for six weeks to come: such a time

as poor young Archenholtz never had before or after. [Archenholtz, ii. 1113.] It was well beyond

Newyear's day before Friedrich could report of himself, and then only in a sense, as will be seen: "We

retired to this poor cottage [cottage still standing, in the little Town of Freyberg]; Daun did the like; and this

Chapter VII. FRIEDRICH REAPPEARS ON THE FIELD, AND IN SEVEN DAYS AFTER COMES THE CATASTROPHE OF MAXEN. 1345

Daun holds Dresden and the Dell of Plauen; but Saxony, to the world's amazement, he is as far as ever from

holding. "Daun's front is a small arc of a circle, bending round from Dresden to Dippoldiswalde; Friedrich is

at Freyberg in a bigger concave arc, concentric to Daun, well overlapping Daun on that southward or

landward side, and ready for him, should he stir out; Kesselsdorf is his nearest post to Daun; and the Plauen

Chasm for boundary, which was not overpassed by either." In Dresden, and the patch of hillcountry to the

southeastward of it by Elbe side, which is instep or glacis of the Pirna rockcountry, seventy square miles or

so, there rules Daun; and thiswith its heights of Gahmig, valuable as a defence for Dresden against Austria,

but not otherwise of considerable valuewas all that Daun this year, or pretty much in any coming year,

Fabius Cunctator has not succeeded, as the public expected. In fact, ever since that of Hochkirch and the

Papal Hat, he has been a waning man, more and more questionable to the undiscerning public. Maxen was his

last gleam upwards; a round of applause rose again on Maxen, feeble in comparison with Hochkirch, but still

arguing hope,which, after this, more and more died out; so that in two years more, poor Madam Daun,

going to Imperial Levee, "had her statecarriage half filled with nightcaps, thrown into it by the Vienna

people, in token of her husband's great talent for sleep." [Archenholtz (Anno 1762, "last Siege of

Friedrich was very loath to quit the field this Winter. In spite of Maxen and illluck and the unfavorablest

weather, it still was, for about two months, his fixed purpose to recapture Dresden first, and drive Daun

home. "Had I but a 12,000 of Auxiliaries to guard my right flank, while trying it!" said he. Ferdinand

magnanimously sent him the Hereditary Prince with 12,000, who stayed above two months; ["Till February

15th;" List of the Regiments (German all), in SEYFARTH, ii. 578 n.] and Friedrich did march about,

attempting that way, [ OEuvres de Frederic, v. 32. Old Newspaper rumors: in Gentleman's Magazine, xxix.

605, "29th December," forward to Maguire and Dippoldiswalde, looked passionately into Maguire on all

sides; but found him, in those frozen chasms, and rocklabyrinths choked with snow, plainly unattackable;

It was not till the middle of January that Friedrich put his troops into partial cantonments, Headquarter

Freyberg; troops still mainly in the Villages from Wilsdruf and southward, close by their old Camp there.

Camp still left standing, guarded by Six Battalions; six after six, alternating week about: one of the grimmest

camps in Nature; the canvas roofs grown mere iceplates, the tents mere sanctuaries of frost:never did

poor young Archenholtz see such industry in dragging woodfuel, such boiling of biscuits in broken ice, such

crowding round the embers to roast one side of you, while the other was freezing. [Archenholtz (UT

SUPRA), ii. 1115.] But Daun's people, on the opposite side of Plauen Dell, did the like; their tents also were

left standing in the frozen state, guarded by alternating battalions, no better off than their Prussian neighbors.

This of the Tents, and Six frost bitten Battalions guarding them, lasted till April. An extraordinary obstinacy

on the part both of Daun and of Friedrich; alike jealous of even seeming to yield one inch more of ground.

The Hereditary Prince, with his 12,000, marched home again in February; indeed, ever after the going into

cantonments, all use of the Prince and his Force here visibly ceased; and, on the whole, no result whatever

followed those strenuous antagonisms, and frozen tents left standing for three months; and things remained

practically what they were. So that, as the grand "Peace Negotiations" also came to nothing, we might omit

this of Winter quarters altogether; and go forward to the opening of Campaign Fifth;were it not that

characteristic features do otherwise occur in it, curious little unveilings of the secret hopes and industries of

Friedrich:besides which, there have minor private events fallen out, not without interest to human readers.

For whose behoof mainly a loose intercalary Chapter may be thrown together here.

November 21st, the very day while Finck was capitulating in the Hills of Maxen, Duke Ferdinand, busy ever

since his Victory at Minden, did, after a difficult Siege of Munster, Siege by Imhof, with Ferdinand

protecting him, get Munster into hand again, which was reckoned a fine success to him. Very busy has the

Duke been: industriously reaping the fruits of his Victory at Minden; and this, the conclusive rooting out of

the French from that Westphalian region, is a very joyful thing; and puts Ferdinand in hopes of driving them

over the Mayn altogether. Which some think he would have done; had not he, with magnanimous oblivion of

self and wishes, agreed to send the Hereditary Prince and those 12,000 to assist in Friedrich's affairs, looking

upon that as the vital point in these Allied Interests. Friedrich's attempts, we have said, turned out impossible;

nor would the Hereditary Prince and his 12,000, though a good deal talked about in England and elsewhere,

[Walpole, George Second, iii. 248 (in a sour Opposition tone); require more than mention; were it not that on

the road thither, at Fulda ("Fulda is halfway house to Saxony," thinks Ferdinand, "should Pitt and Britannic

Majesty be pleased to consent, as I dare presume they will"), the Hereditary Prince had, in his swift way,

done a thing useful for Ferdinand himself, and which caused a great emotion, chiefly of laughter, over the

"No Enemy of Friedrich's," says my Note, "is of feller humor than the Serenity of Wurtemberg, Karl Eugen,

Reigning Duke of that unfortunate Country; for whom, in past days, Friedrich had been so fatherly, and really

took such pains. 'Fatherly? STEPfatherly, you mean; and for his own vile uses!' growled the Serenity of

Wurtemberg:always an ominous streak of gloom in that poor man; streak which is spread now to whole

skies of boiling darkness, owing to deliriums there have been! Enough, Karl Eugen, after divorcing his poor

Wife, had distinguished himself by a zeal without knowledge, beyond almost all the enemies of

Friedrich;and still continues in that bad line of industry. His poor Wife he has made miserable in some

measure; also himself; and, in a degree, his poor soldiers and subjects, who are with him by compulsion in

this Enterprise. The Wurtembergers are Protestants of old type; and want no fighting against 'the Protestant

Hero,' but much the reverse! Serene Karl had to shoot a good few of these poor people, before they would

march at all; and his procedures were indeed, and continued to be, of a very crying nature, though his poor

Populations took them silently. Always something of perverse in this Serene Highness; has it, I think, by

"Besides his quota to the Reich, Karl Eugen has 12,000 more on foot,and it is of them we are treating at

present. In 1757 he had lent these troops to the Empress Queen, for a consideration; it was they that stood on

the Austrian left, at Leuthen; and were the first that got beaten, and had to cease standing,as the Austrians

were abundantly loud in proclaiming. To the disgust of Serene Highness: 'Which of you did stand, then? Was

it their blame, led as they were?' argued he. And next year, 1758, after Crefeld, he took his 12,000 to the

French ('subsidy,' or consideration, 'to be paid in SALT,' it appears [ OEuvres de Frederic, v. 10.]); with

whom they marched about, and did nothing considerable. The Serenity had pleaded, 'I must command them

myself!' 'You?' said Belleisle, and would not hear of it. Next year again, however, that is 1759, the Duke was

positive, 'I must;' Belleisle not less so, 'You cannot;'till Minden fell out; and then, in the wreck of

Contades, Belleisle had to consent. Serenity of Wurtemberg, at that late season, took the field accordingly;

and Broglio now has him at Fulda, 'To cut off Ferdinand from Cassel;' to threaten Ferdinand's left flank and

his provisioncarts in that quarter. May really become unpleasant there to Ferdinand;and ought to be cut

"FULDA, FRIDAY, 30th NOVEMBER, 1759. Serene Highness is lying here for a week past; abundantly

strong for the task on hand,has his own 12,000, supplemented by 1,000 French Light Horse;but is

widely scattered withal, posted in a kind of triangular form; his main posts being Fulda itself, and a couple of

others, each thirty miles from Fulda, and five miles from one another,with 'patrols to connect them,' better

or worse. Abundantly strong for the task, and in perfect security; and indeed intends this day to 'fire

VICTORIA' for the Catastrophe at Maxen, and in the evening will give a Ball in farther honor of so salutary

an event:when, about 9 A.M., news arrives at the gallop, 'Brunswickers in full march; are within an hour of

the TownBridge!' Figure to what flurry of Serene Highness; of the victoriashooting apparatus; of busy

"The night before, a rumor of the French Post being driven in by somebody had reached Serene Highness;

who gave some vague order, not thinking it of consequence. Here, however, is the Fact come to hand in a

most urgent and undeniable manner! Serene Highness gets on horseback; but what can that help? One cannon

(has nothing but light cannon) he does plant on the Bridge; but see, here come premonitory bombshells one

and another, terrifying to the mind; and a single Hessian dragoon, plunging forward on the one unready

cannon, and in the air making horrid circles,the gunners leave said cannon to him, take to their heels; and

the Bridge is open. The rest of the affair can be imagined. Retreat at our swiftest, 'running fight,' we would

fain call it, by various roads; lost two flags, two cannon; prisoners were above 1,200, many of them Officers.

'A merciful Providence saved the Duke's Serene Person from hurt,' say the Stuttgard Gazetteers: which was

true,Serene Highness having been inspired to gallop instantly to rearward and landward, leaving an order

"So that the Ball is up; dresspumps and millineries getting all locked into their drawers again,with

abundance of teheeing (I hope, mostly in a light vein) from the fair creatures disappointed of their dance

for this time. Next day Serene Highness drew farther back, and next day again farther,towards Frankenland

and home, as the surest place;and was no more heard of in those localities." [Buchholz, ii. 332; Mauvillon,

ii. 80; HeldenGeschichte, v. 11841193; Old Newspapers, in Gentleman's Magazine, xxix. 603.]

Making his first exit, not yet quite his final, from the War Theatre, amid such tempests of hahaing and

teheeing. With what thoughts in his own lofty opaque mind;like a crowned mule, of such pace and

As to those poor Wurtembergers, and their notion of the "Protestant Hero," I remark farther, that there is a

something of real truth in it. Friedrich's Creed, or Theory of the Universe, differed extremely, in many

important points, from that of Dr. Martin Luther: but in the vital allessential point, what we may call the

heart's core of all Creeds which are human, human and not simious or diabolic, the King and the Doctor were

with their whole heart at one: That it is not allowable, that it is dangerous and abominable, to attempt

believing what is not true. In that sense, Friedrich, by nature and position, was a Protestant, and even the

chief Protestant in the world. What kind of "Hero," in this big War of his, we are gradually learning;in

which too, if you investigate, there is not wanting something of "PROTESTANT Heroism," even in the

narrow sense. For it does appear,Maria Theresa having a real fear of God, and poor Louis a real fear of the

Devil, whom he may well feel to be getting dangerous purchase over him,some hopegleams of acting

upon Schism, and so meriting Heaven, did mingle with their high terrestrial combinations, on this unique

In the heat of this Campaign, "July 27th," some four days after the Battle of Zullichau, just while Friedrich

was hurrying off for that Intersection at Sagan, and breathless Hunt of Loudon and Haddick,poor

Maupertuis had quitted this world. July 27th, 1759; at Basel, on the Swiss Borders, in his friend Bernouilli's

house, after long months of sickness painfully spent there. And our poor Perpetual President, at rest now from

all his Akakia burns, and pains and labors in flattening the Earth and otherwise, is gone.

Many beautifuler men have gone within the Year, of whom we can say nothing. But this is one whose

grandly silent, and then occasionally fulminant procedures, Akakia controversies, Olympian solemnities and

flamy pirouettings under the contradiction of sinners, we once saw; and think with a kind of human pathos

that we shall see no more. From his goose of an adorer, La Beaumelle, I have riddled out the following

particulars, chiefly chronological, and offer them to susceptible readers. La Beaumelle is, in a sort, to be

FINAL PILGRIMAGE OF THE PERPETUAL PRESIDENT. "Maupertuis had quitted Berlin soon after

Voltaire. That threat of visiting Voltaire with pistols,to be met by 'my syringe and vessel of dishonor' on

Voltaire's part,was his last memorability in Berlin. His last at that time; or indeed altogether, for he saw

"End of April, 1753, he got leave of absence; set out homewards, for recovery of health. Was at Paris through

summer and autumn: very taciturn in society; 'preferred pretty women to any man of science;' would

sententiously say a strong thing now and then, 'bitter but not without BONHOMIE,' shaking slightly his

yellow wig. Disdainful, to how high a degree, of AKAKIA brabbles, and Voltaire gossip for or against! In

winter went to St. Malo; found his good Father gone; but a loving Sister still there.

"June, 1754, the King wrote to him, 'VENEZ VITE, Come quickly:' July, 1754, he came accordingly,

[ OEuvres de Frederic, xx. 49.] saw Berlin again; did nothing noticeable there, except get worse in health;

and after eleven months, June, 1756, withdrew again on leave,never to return this time, though he well

intended otherwise. But at St. Malo, when, after a month or two of Paris, he got thither (Autumn, 1756), and

still more, next summer, 1757, when he thought of leaving St. Malo,what wars, and rumors of war, all over

"June, 1757, he went to Bordeaux, intending to take ship for Hamburg, and return; but the sea was full of

English cruisers [Pitt's Descents lying in store for St. Malo itself]. No getting to Berlin by the Hamburg or sea

route! 'Never mind, then,' wrote the King: 'Improve your health; go to Italy, if you can.'

"Summer, 1757, Maupertuis made for Italy; got as far as Toulouse; stayed there till May following; sad,

tragically stoical; saying, sparingly, and rather to women than men, strong things, admired by the worthier

sort. Renounced thoughts of Italy: 'Europe bleeding, and especially France and Prussia, how go idly touring?'

"May, 1758, Maupertuis left Toulouse: turned towards Berlin; slow, sad, circuitous;never to arrive. Saw

Narbonne, Montpellier, Nimes; with what meditations! At Lyons, under honors skyhigh, health getting

worse, stays two months; vomits clots of blood there. Thence, July 24th, to Neufchatel and the Lord

Marischal; happy there for three months. Hears there of Professor Konig's death (AKAKIA Konig): 'One

scoundrel less in the world,' ejaculated he; 'but what is one!'October 16th, to the road again, to Basel; stays

perforce, in Bernouilli's house there, all Winter; health falling lower and lower.

"April, 1759, one day he has his carriage at the door ('Homeward, at all rates!'): but takes violent spasms in

the carriage; can't; can no farther in this world. Lingers here, under kind care, for above three months more:

dying slowly, most painfully. With much real stoicism; not without a stiffjointed algebraic kind of piety,

almost pathetic in its sort. 'Two Capuchins from a neighboring Convent daily gave him consolations,' not

entirely satisfactory; for daily withal, 'unknown to the Capuchins, he made his Valet, who was a Protestant,

read to him from the Geneva Bible;'and finds many things hard to the human mind. July 27th, 1759, he

Poor Maupertuis; a man of rugged stalwart type; honest; of an ardor, an intelligence, not to be forgotten for

La Beaumelle's pulings over them. A man of good and even of high talent; unlucky in mistaking it for the

highest! His poor Wife, a born Borck,hastening from Berlin, but again and again delayed by industry of

kind friends, and at last driving on in spite of everything,met, in the last miles, his Hearse and Funeral

Company. Adieu, a pitying adieu to him forever,and even to his adoring La Beaumelle, who is rather less a

This of the Two Capuchins, the last consummation of collapse in man, is what Voltaire cannot forget, but

crows over with his shrillest mockery; and seldom mentions Maupertuis without that last touch to his

On the very day of Maxen, Tuesday, November 20th, the grand French Invasion found its terminus,not on

the shores of Britain, but of Brittany, to its surprise. We saw Rodney burn the Flatbottom manufactory at

Havre; Boscawen chase the Toulon Squadron, till it ended on the rocks of Lagos. From January onwards, as

was then mentioned, Hawke had been keeping watch, off Brest Harbor, on Admiral Conflans, who presides

there over multifarious preparations, with the last Fleet France now has. At Vannes, where Hawke likewise

has ships watching, are multifarious preparations; new Flatbottoms, 18,000 troops,could Conflans and

"November 9th, a wild gale of wind had blown Hawke out of sight; away home to Torbay, for the moment.

'Now is the time!' thought Conflans, and put to sea (November 14th); met by Hawke, who had weighed from

Torbay to his duty; and who, of course, crowded every sail, after hearing that Conflans was out. At break of

day, November 20th [in the very hours when poor Finck was embattling himself round Maxen, and Daun

sprawling up upon him through the Passes], Hawke had had signal, 'A Fleet in sight;' and soon after,

"Conflans is about the strength of Hawke, and France expects much of him; but he is not expecting Hawke.

Conflans is busy, at this moment, in the mouth of Quiberon Bay, opening the road for Vannes and the

18,000;in hot chase, at the moment, of a Commodore Duff and his small Squadron, who have been

keeping watch there, and are now running all they can. On a sudden, to the astonishment of Conflans, this

little Squadron whirls round, every ship of it (with a skyrending cheer, could he hear it), and commences

chasing! Conflans, taking survey, sees that it is Hawke; he, sure enough, coming down from windward

"About 11 A.M. Hawke is here; eight of his vanward ships are sweeping on for action. Conflans, at first, had

determined to fight Hawke; and drew up accordingly, and did try a little: but gradually thought better of it;

and decided to take shelter in the shoaly coasts and nooks thereabouts, which were unknown to Hawke, and

might ruin him if he should pursue, the day being short, and the weather extremely bad. Weather itself almost

to be called a storm. 'Shoreward, then; eastward, every ship!' became, ultimately, Conflans's plan. On the

whole, it was 2 in the afternoon hefore Hawke, with those vanward Eight, could get clutch of Conflans. And

truly he did then strike his claws into him in a thunderously fervid manner, he and all hands, in spite of the

"Conflans himself fought well; as did certain of the others,all, more or less, so long as their plan continued

steady:thunderous miscellany of cannon and tempest; Conflans with his plan steady, or Conflans with his

plan wavering, VERSUS those vanward Eight, for two hours or more. But the scene was too dreadful; this

ship sinking, that obliged to strike; things all going awry for Conflans. Hawke, in his own Flagship, bore

down specially on Conflans in his,who did wait, and exchange a couple of broadsides; but then sheered

off, finding it so heavy. French Vice Admiral next likewise gave Hawke a broadside; one only, and sheered

off, satisfied with the return. Some Four others, in succession, did the like; 'One blast, as we hurry by'

(making for the shore, mostly)! So that Hawke seemed swallowed in volcanoes (though, indeed, their firing

was very bad, such a flurry among them), and his Blue Flag was invisible for some time, and various ships

were hastening to help him,till a Fifth French ship coming up with her broadside, Hawke answered her in

particular (LA SUPERBE, a Seventy four) with all his guns together; which sent the poor ship to the

bottom, in a hideously sudden manner. One other (the THESEE) had already sunk in fighting; two (the

SOLEIL and the HEROS) were already running for it,the HEROS in a very unheroic manner! But on this

terrible plungehome of the SUPERBE, the rest all made for the shore;and escaped into the rocky

intricacies and the darkness. Four of Conflans's ships were already gone,struck, sunk, or otherwise

extinct,when darkness fell, and veiled Conflans and his distresses. 'Country people, to the number of

10,000,' crowded on the shore, had been seen watching the Battle; and, 'as sad witnesses of the White Flag's

disgrace,' disappeared into the interior." [Beatson, ii. 327345: and Ib. iii. 244250. In Gentleman's

It was such a night as men never witnessed before. Walpole says: "The roaring of the elements was redoubled

by the thunder from our ships; and both concurred in that scene of horror to put a period to the Navy and

hopes of France. Seven ships of the line got into the River Vilaine [lay there fourteen months, under strict

watching, till their backs were broken, "thumping against the shallow bottom every tide," and only "three,

with three frigates," ever got out again]; eight more escaped to different ports," into the River Charente

ultimately. "Conflans's own ship and another were run on shore, and burnt. One we took." Two, with their

crews, had gone to the bottom; one under Hawke's cannon; one partly by its own mismanagement. "Two of

ours were lost in the storm [chasing that SOLEIL and HEROS], but the crews saved. Lord Howe, who

attacked LA FORMIDABLE, bore down on her with such violence, that her prow forced in his lower tier of

guns. Captain Digby, in the DUNKIRK, received the fire of twelve of the enemy's ships, and lost not a man.

Keppel's was full of water, and he thought it sinking: a sudden squall emptied his ship; but he was informed

all his powder was wet; 'Then,' said he, 'I am sorry I am safe.' They came and told him a small quantity was

undamaged; 'Very well,' said he; 'then attack again.' Not above eight of our ships were engaged in obtaining

that decisive victory. The Invasion was heard of no more." [Walpole, George Second, iii. 232. Here is the

List, accurately riddled out: 1. FORMIDABLE, struck (about 4 P.M.): 2. THESEE, sunk (by a tumble it

made, while in action, under an unskilful Captain): 3. SUPERBE, sunk: 4. HEROS, struck; could not he

boarded, such weather; and recommenced next day, but had to run and strand itself, and be burnt by the

English;as did (5.) the SOLEIL ROYAL (Conflans's Flagship), Conflans and crew (like those of the

Invasion had been fully intended, and even, in these final days, considerably expected. In the old London

Expresses,"Three Expresses, with what haste in their eyes, testifying successively of Conflans's

whereabouts. But it was believed that Hawke would still manage. And, at any rate, Pitt wore such a

look,and had, in fact, made such preparation on the coasts, even in failure of Hawke,there was no alarm

anywhere. Indignation rather;and naturally, when the news did come, what an outburst of Illumination in

"Hawke continued watching the mouths of the Vilaine and Charente Rivers for a good while after, and

without interruption henceforth, till the storms of Winter had plainly closed them for one season. Supplies

of fresh provisions had come to him from England all Summer; but were stopped latterly by the wild weather.

Upon which, in the Fleet, arose this gravely pathetic Stave of SeaPoetry, with a wrinkle of briny humor

The French mode of taking this catastrophe was rather peculiar. Hear Barbier, an Eyewitness; dating

PARIS, DECEMBER, 1759: "Since the first days of December, there has been cried, and sold in the streets, a

Printed Detail of all that concerns the GRAND INVASION projected this long while: to wit, the number of

Ships of the Line, of Frigates, Galiots,among others 500 Flatbottomed Boats, which are to carry over, and

land in England, more than 54,000 men;with list of the Regiments, and number of the King's Guards, that

are also to go: there are announced for Generalsin Chief, M. le Prince de Conti [do readers remember him

since the BroglioMaillebois time, and how King Louis prophesied in autograph that he would be "the Grand

Conti" one day?]Prince de Conti, Prince de Soubise [left his Conquest of Frankfurt for this greater

Enterprise], and Milord Thomont [Irish Jacobite, whom I don't know]. As sequel to this Detail, there is a

lengthy Song on the DISEMBARKMENT IN ENGLAND, and the fear the English must have of it!"

"It is inconceivable", continues he, "how they have permitted such a Piece to be printed; still more to be

cried, and sold price one halfpenny (DEUX LIARDS). This Song is indecent, in the circumstances of the

actual news from our Fleet at Brest (20th of last month);in regard to which bad adventure M. le Marquis de

Conflans has come to Versailles, to justify himself, and throw the blame on M. le Marquis de Beauffremont

[his RearAdmiral, now safe in the Charente, with eight of our poor ships]. Such things are the more out of

place, as we are in a bad enough position,no Flat bottoms stirring from the ports, no Troops of the

MAISON DU ROI setting out; and have reason to believe that we are now to make no such attempt."

Silhouette, the ControllerGeneral, was thought to have a creative genius in finance: but in the eighth month

of his gestation, what phenomena are these? October 26th, there came out Four Decrees of Council, setting

forth, That, "as the expenses of the War exceed not only the King's ordinary revenues, but the extraordinaries

he has had to lay on his people, there is nothing for it but," in fact, Suspension of Payment; actual Temporary

Bankruptcy:"Cannot pay you; part of you not for a year, others of you not till the War end; will give you 5

per cent interest instead." Coupled with which, by the same creative genius, is a Declaration in the King's

name, "That the King compels nobody, but does invite all and sundry of loyal mind to send their Plate (on

loan, of course, and with due receipt for it) to the Mint to be coined, lest Majesty come to have otherwise no

money,"his very valets, as is privately known, having had no wages from him for ten months past.

Whereupon the rich Princes of the Blood, Due d'Orleans foremost, and Official persons, Pompadour,

Belleisle, Choiseul, do make an effort; and everybody that has Plate feels uneasily that he cannot use it, and

that he ought to send it. And, November 5th, the King's own Plate, packed ostentatiously in carts, went to the

Mint;the Dauphiness, noble Saxon Lady, had already volunteered with a silver toilettable of hers,

brandnew and of exquisite costly pattern; but the King forbade her. On such examples, everybody had to

make an effort, or uneasily try to make one. King Friedrich, eight days after Maxen, is somewhat amused at

"The kettles and spoons of the French seem to me a pleasant resource, for carrying on War!" writes he to

D'Argens. ["Wilsdruf, 28th November, 1759," OEuvres de Frederic, xix. 108.] "A bit of mummery to act on

the public feeling, I suppose. The result of it will be small: but as the Belleisle LETTERS [taken in

Contades's baggage, after Minden, and printed by Duke Ferdinand for public edification] make always such

an outcry about poverty, those people are trying to impose on their enemies, and persuade them that the

carved and chiselled silver of the Kingdom will suffice for making a vigorous Campaign. I see nothing else

that can have set them on imagining the farce they are now at. There is Munster taken from them by the

EnglishHanoverian people; it is affirmed that the French, on the 25th, quitted Giessen, to march on

Friedberg and repass the Rhine [might possibly have done so;but the Hereditary Prince and his 12,000

come to be needed elsewhere!]Poor we are opposite our enemies here, cantoned in the Villages about; the

last truss of straw, the last loaf of bread will decide which of us is to remain in Saxony. And as the Austrians

are extremely squeezed together, and can get nothing out of Bohmen,"one hopes it will not be they!

All through November, this sending of Plate, I never knew with what netresult of moneys coinable, goes on

in Paris; till, at the highest tables, there is nothing of silver dishes left; and a new crockery kind (rather

clumsy; "CULS NOIRS," as we derisively call them, pigment of BOTTOM part being BLACK) has had to be

contrived instead. Under what astonishments abroad and at home, and in the latter region under what

execrations on Silhouette, may be imagined. "TOUT LE MONDE JURE BEAUCOUP CONTRE M. DE

SILHOUETTE, All the world swears much against him," says Barbier;but I believe probably he was much

November 22d, the poor man got dismissed; France swearing at him, I know not to what depth; but howling

and hissing, evidently, with all its might. The very tailors and milliners took him up, trousers without

pockets, dresses without flounce or fold, which they called A LA SILHOUETTE:and, to this day, in

France and Continental Countries, the oldfashioned ShadowProfile (mere outline, and vacant black) is

practically called a SILHOUETTE. So that the very Dictionaries have him; and, like bad Count Reinhart, or

REYNARD, of earlier date, he has become a Noun Appellative, and is immortalized in that way. The first of

that considerable Series of Creative Financiers, Abbe Terray and the rest,brought in successively with

blessings, and dismissed with cursings and hissings,who end in Calonne, Lomenie de Brienne, and what

Mirabeau Pere called "the General Overturn (CULBUTE GENERALE)." Thitherward, privately, straight

towards the General Overturn, is France bound;and will arrive in about thirty years.

In this avalanche of impending destructions, what can be more surprising than to hear of the Editing of Poems

on his Majesty's part! Actual publication of that OEuvre de Poesie, for which Voltaire, poor gentleman,

suffered such tribulation seven years ago. Now coming out from choice: Reprint of it, not now to the extent

of twelve copies for highly special friends, but in copious thousands, for behoof of mankind at large! The

thing cost Friedrich very little meditating, and had become necessary,and to be done with speed.

Readers recollect the OEUVRE DE POESIE, and satirical hits said to be in it. At Paris, about Newyear's

time 1760, some helpful Hand had contrived to bring out, under the pretended date "Potsdam," a cheap

edition of that interesting Work. [ "OEuvres du Philosophe de SansSouci:" 1 vol. 12 mo, "Potsdam [PARIS,

in truth], 1760."] Merely in the way of theft, as appeared to cursory readers, to D'Argens, for example: [His

Letter to the King, OEuvres de Frederic, xix. 138.] but, in deeper fact, for the purpose of apprising certain

Crowned Heads, friendly and hostile,Czarish Majesty and George II. of England the main two,what this

poetizing King was pleased to think of them in his private moments. D'Argens declares himself glad of this

theft, so exquisitely clever is the Book. But Friedrich knows better: "March 17th, when a Copy of it came to

him," Friedrich sees well what is meant,and what he himself has to do in it. He instantly sets about making

a few suppressions, changes of phrase; sends the thing to D'Argens: "Publish at once, with a little prefatory

word." And, at the top of his speed, D'Argens has, in three weeks' time, the suitable AVANTPROPOS, or

AVIS AU LIBRAIRE, "circulating in great quantities, especially in London and Petersburg" ("Thief Editor

has omitted; and, what is far more, has malignantly interpolated: here is the poor idle Work itself, not a

Counterfeit of it, if anybody care to read it"), and an Orthodox Edition ready. [Came out April 9th [see

MITCHELL, ii. 153], and a second finer Edition in June:" in OEuvres de Frederic, x. p. x, xix. 137 n., 138;

especially in PREUSS, i. 467, 468 (if you will compare him with HIMSELF on these different occasions, and

patiently wind out his bit of meaning), all manner of minutest details.] The diligent Pirate Booksellers, at

Amsterdam, at London, copiously reproduced this authorized Berlin Edition too,or added excerpts from it

to their reprints of the Paris one, by way of variousreadings. And everybody read and compared, what

nobody will now do; theme, and treatment of theme, being both now so heartily indifferent to us.

Who the Perpetrator of this Parisian maleficence was, remained dark;and would not be worth inquiring

into at all, except for two reasons intrinsically trifling, but not quite without interest to readers of our time.

First, that Voltaire, whom some suspected (some, never much Friedrich, that I hear of), appears to have been

perfectly innocent;and indeed had been incapacitated for guilt, by Schmidt and Freytag, and their dreadful

Frankfurt procedures! This is reason FIRST; poor Voltaire mutely asking us, Not to load him with more sins

than his own. Reason SECOND is, that, by a singular opportunity, there has, in these very months, [Spring,

1863.] a glimmering of light risen on it to this Editor; illustrating two other points as well, which readers here

are acquainted with, some time ago, as riddles of the insignificant sort. The DEMON NEWSWRITER, with

his "IDEA" of Friedrich, and the "MATINEES DU ROI DE PRUSSE:" readers recollect both those

Productions; both enigmatic as to authorship;but both now become riddles which can more or less be read.

For the surprising circumstance (though in certain periods, when the realm of very Chaos reemerges,

fitfully, into upper sunshine now and then, nothing ought to surprise one as happening there) is, That, only a

few months ago, the incomparable MATINEES (known to my readers five years since) has found a new

Editor and reviver. Editor illuminated "by the Secretary of the Great Napoleon," "by discovery of

manuscripts," "by the Duc de Rovigo," and I know not what; animated also, it is said, by religious views.

And, in short, the MATINEES is again abroad upon the world,"your London Edition twice reprinted in

Germany, by the Jesuit party since" (much good may it do the Jesuit party!)a MATINEES again in

comfortable circumstances, as would seem. Probably the longesteared Platitude now walking the Earth,

though there are a good many with ears long. Unconscious, seemingly, that it has been killed thrice and four

times already; and that indeed, except in the realm of Nightmare, it never was alive, or needed any killing;

belief in it, doubt upon it (I must grieve to inform the Duc de Rovigo and honorable persons concerned),

being evidence conclusive that you have not yet the faintest preliminary shadow of correct knowledge about

Friedrich or his habits or affairs, and that you ought first to try and acquire some.

To me argument on this subject would have been too unendurable. But argument there was on it, by persons

capable and willing, more than one: and in result this surprising brandnew London mooncalf of a

MATINEES was smitten through, and slit in pieces, for the fifth time,as if that could have hurt it much!

"MIT DER DUMMHEIT," sings Schiller; "Human Stupidity is stronger than the very Gods." However, in the

course of these new inspections into matters long since obsolete, there didwhat may truly be considered as

a kind of profit by this Resuscitating of the moon calf MATINEES upon afflicted mankind, and is a net

outcome from it, real, though very smallsome light rise as to the origin and genesis of MATINEES; some

twinkles of light, and, in the utterly dark element, did disclose other monstrous extinct shapes looming to

right and left of said monster: and, in a word, the Authorship of MATINEES, and not of MATINEES only,

becomes now at last faintly visible or guessable. To one of those industrious Matadors, as we may call them,

Slayers of this mooncalf for the fourth or fifth time, I owe the following Note; which, on verifying, I can

"The Author of MATINEES, it is nearly certain", says my Correspondent, "is actually a 'M. de

Bonneville,'contrary to what you wrote five years ago. [A.D. 1858 (SUPRA, v. 165, 166).] Not indeed the

Bonneville who is found in Dictionaries, who is visibly impossible; but a Bonneville of the preceding

generation, who was Marechal de Saxe's Adjutant or Secretary, old enough to have been the Uncle or the

Father of that revolutionary Bonneville. Marechal de Saxe died November 30th, 1750; this senior Bonneville,

still a young man, had been with him to Potsdam on visit there. Bonneville, conscious of genius, and now out

of employment, naturally went thither again; lived a good deal there, or went between France and there: and

authentic History knows of him, by direct evidence, and by reflex, the following Three Facts (the SECOND

of them itself threefold), of which I will distinguish the indubitable from the inferentially credible or as good

"1. Indubitable, That Bonneville sold to Friedrich certain Papers, military Plans, or the like, of the late

Marechal and was paid for them; but by no means met the recognition his genius saw itself to merit. These

things are certain, though not dated, or datable except as of the year 1750 or 1751. After which, for above

twenty years, Bonneville entered upon a series of adventures, caliginous, underground, for most part;

'soldiering in America,' 'writing anonymous Pamphlets or Books,' roaming wide over the world; and led a

busy but obscure and uncertain life, hanging by Berlin as a kind of centre, or by Paris and Berlin as his two

centres; and had a miscellaneous series of adventures, subterranean many of them, unluminous all of them,

not courting the light; which lie now in naturally a very dark condition. Dimly discernible, however, in the

general dusk of Bonneville, dim and vague of outline, but definitely steady beyond what could have been

expected, it does appear farther,what alone entitles Bonneville to the least memory here, or anywhere in

"2. Inferentially credible, That, shortly after that first rebuff in Potsdam, he, not another, in 1752, was your

'DEMON NEWSWRITER,' whom we gazed at, some time since, devoutly crossing ourselves, for a little

"Likewise that, in 17591760, after or before his American wanderings, he, the same Bonneville, as was

suspected at the time, ["Nicolai, Ueber Zimmermanns Fragmente, i. 181, 182, ii. 253, 254. Sketch of what is

authentically known about Bonneville: 'suspected both of MATINEES and of the Stolen EDITION.'"] stole

and edited this surreptitious mischiefmaking OEuvres du Philosophe de SansSouci (Paris or Lyon,

pretending to be 'Potsdam,' January, 1760)," which we are now considering! "Encouraged, probably enough,

by Choiseul himself, who, in any case, is now known to have been the promoter of this fine bit of mischief,

[Choiseul's own Note, "To M. de Malesherbes, DIRECTEUR DE LA LIBRAIRE, 10th December, 1759: 'By

every method screen the King's Government from being suspected;and get the Edition out at once.'"

(Published in the Constitutionnel, 2d December, 1850, by M. SainteBeuve; copied in Preuss, OEuvres de

Frederic, xix. 168 n.)] and who may thereupon [or may as probably, NOT "thereupon," if it were of the

least consequence to gods or men] have opened to Bonneville a new military career in America? Career

which led to as good as nothing; French soldiering in America being done for, in the course of 1760. Upon

which Bonneville would return to his old haunts, to his old subterranean industries in Paris and Berlin.

"And that, finally, in 1765, he, as was again suspected at the time, ["Nicolai, Ueber Zimmermanns

Fragmente, i. 181, 182, ii. 253, 254. Sketch of what is authentically known about Bonneville: 'suspected both

of MATINEES and of the Stolen EDITION.'"] he and no other, did write those MATINEES, which appeared

next year in print (1766), and many times since; and have just been reprinted, as a surprising new discovery,

"3. Again indubitable, That either after or before those Editorial exploits, Bonneville had sold the Marechal

de Saxe's Plans and Papers, which were already the King's, to some second person, and been a second time

paid for them. And was, in regard to this Swindling exploit, found out; and by reason of that sale, or for what

reason is not known, was put into Spandau, and, one hopes, ended his life there." ["Nicolai, UBI

SUPRA;and besides him, only the two following references, out of half a cartload: 1. Bachaumont,

MEMOIRES SECRETES, '7th February, 1765' (see Barbier, Dictionnaire des Anonymes, � Matinees), who

calls MATINEES 'a development of the IDEE DE LA PERSONNE,' (that is, of your 'DEMON

NEWSWRITER;' already known to Bachaumont, this 'IDEE,' it seems, as well as the MATINEES in

Manuscript). 2. LETTER of Grimm to Duchess of SachsenGotha [OUR Duchess], dated 'Paris, 15th April,

1765:' not in printed Correspondance de Grimm, but still in the Archives of Gotha, in company with a MS. of

MATINEES, probably the oldest extant (see,in the GRENZBOTEN Periodical, Leipzig, 1863, pp.

473484, 500519,K. SAMWER, who is Chief MALLEUS of this new London mooncalf, and will

MATINEES was first printed 1766 (no place), and seven or eight times since, in different Countries; twice or

thrice over, as "an interesting new discovery:"very wearisome to this Editor; who read MATINEES (in

poor LONDON print, that too) many years ago, with complete satisfaction as to Matinees, and sincere

wish not to touch it again even with a pair of tongs;and has since had three "priceless MSS. of it" offered

Fact No. 2, which alone concerns us here,and which, in its three successive stages, does curiously cohere

with itself and with other things,comes, therefore, not by direct light, which indeed, by the nature of the

case, would be impossible. Not by direct light, but by various reflex lights, and convergence of probabilities

old and new, which become the stronger the better they are examined; and may be considered as amounting

to what is called a moral certainty,"certain" enough for an inquiry of that significance. To a kind of moral

certainty: kind of moral consolation too; only One individual of Adam's Posterity, not Three or more, having

been needed in these multifarious acts of scoundrelism; and that One receiving payment, or part payment, so

This is the one profit my readers or I have yet derived from the late miraculous Resuscitation of MATINEES

ROYALES; the other items of profit in that Enterprise shall belong, not to us in the least measure, but to

Bonneville, and to his well or ill disposed Coadjutors and Copartners in the Adventure. Adieu to it, aud to

This Winter there was talk of Peace, more specifically than ever. November 15th, at the Hague, as a neutral

place, there had been, by the two Majesties, Britannic and Prussian, official DECLARATION, "We, for our

part, deeply lament these horrors, and are ready to treat of Peace." This Declaration was presented November

15th, 1759, by Prince Ludwig of Brunswick (Head General of the Dutch, and a Brother of Prince Ferdinand

our General's, suitable for such case), to the AustrianFrench Excellencies at the Hague. By whom it had

been received with the due politeness, "Will give it our profoundest consideration;" [DECLARATION (by

the two Majesties) that they are ready to treat of Peace, 15th November, 1759, presented by, (as above);

ANSWER from France, in stingy terms, and not till 3d April, 1760: are in London Gazette; in Gentleman's

Magazine, xxix. 603, xxx. 188; in indeed the French, for some time, privately did; though the Austrians

privately had no need to do so, being already fixed for a negative response to the proposal. But hereby rose

actual talk of a "Congress;" and wagging of Diplomatic wigs as to where it shall be. "In Breda," said some;

"Breda a place used to Congresses." "Why not in Nanci here?" said poor old ExPolish Stanislaus, alive to

the calls of benevolence, poor old Titular soul. Others said "Leipzig;" others "Augsburg;" and indeed in

Augsburg, according to the Gazetteers, at one time, there were "upholsterers busy getting ready the

apartments." So that, with such rumor in the Diplomatic circles, the Gazetteer and outer world was full of

speculation upon Peace; and Friedrich had lively hopes of it, and had been hoping three months before, as we

transiently saw, though again it came to nothing. All to nothing; and is not, in itself, worth the least attention

from us here,a poor extinct fact, loud in those months and filling the whole world, now silent and extinct to

everybody,except, indeed, that it offers physiognomic traits here and there of a certain King, and of those

Nobody, in that Winter 17591760, could guess where, or from whom, this big worldinteresting

PeaceNegotiation had its birth; as everybody now can, when nobody now is curious on the question! At

Sagan, in September last, we all saw the small private source of it, its first outspurt into daylight; and read

Friedrich's ANSWERS to Voltaire and the noble Duchess on it:for the sake of which Two private

Correspondents, and of Friedrich's relation to them, possibly a few more Excerpts may still have a kind of

interest, now when the thing corresponded on has ceased to have any. To the Duchess, a nobleminded Lady,

beautifully zealous to help if she could, by whose hand these multifarious PeacePapers have to pass, this is

always Friedrich's fine style in transmitting them. Out of many specimens, following that of Sagan which we

1. "WILSDRUF, 21st November, 1759 [day after Maxen, SURRENDER was THIS morningof which he

"MADAM,Nothing but your generosities and your indulgence could justify my incongruity

[INCONGRUITE, in troubling you with the Enclosed]. You will have it, Madam, that I shall still farther

abuse those bounties, which are so precious to me: at least remember that it is by your order, if I forward

"Chance, which so insolently mocks the projects of men, and delights to build up and then pull down, has led

us about, thus far,to the end of the Campaign [not quite ended yet, if we knew]. The Austrians are girt in

by the Elbe on this side; I have had two important Magazines of theirs in Bohemia destroyed [Kleist's doing].

There have been some bits of fighting (AFFAIRES), that have turned entirely to our advantage:so that I

am in hopes of forcing M. Daun to repass the Elbe, to abandon Dresden, and to take the road for Zittau and

"I talk to you, Madam, of what I am surrounded with; of what, being in your neighborhood, may perhaps

have gained your attention. I could go to much greater length, if my heart dared to explain itself on the

sentiments of admiration, gratitude and esteem, with which I am,Madam my Cousin,Your most faithful

"MADAM,You spoil me so by your indulgence, you so accustom me to have obligations to you, that I

reproach myself a hundred times with this presumption. Certainly I should not continue to enclose these

Letters to your care, had not I the hope that perhaps the Correspondence may be of some use to England, and

even to Europe, for without doubt Peace is the desirable, the natural and happy state for all Nations. It is to

accelerate Peace, Madam, that I abuse your generosities. This motive excuses me to myself for the

"The goodness you have to take interest in my situation obliges me to give you some account of it. We have

undergone all sorts of misfortune here [Maxen, what not], at the moment we were least expecting them.

Nevertheless, there remains to us courage and hope; here are Auxiliaries [Hereditary Prince and 12,000] on

the point of arriving; there is reason to think that the end of our Campaign will be less frightful than seemed

likely three weeks ago. May you, Madam, enjoy all the happiness that I wish you. May all the world become

acquainted with your virtues, imitate them, and admire you as I do. May you be persuaded that ...F."

"MADAM,It is to my great regret that I importune Your Highness so often with my Letters. Your

bounties, Madam, have spoiled me;it will teach you to be more chary of them to others. I regard you as an

estimable Friend, to whose friendship I have recourse in straits. The question is still Peace, Madam; and were

not the object of my importunities so beautiful, Madam, I should be inexcusable."Goes then into practical

considerations, about "Cocceji" (King's AidedeCamp, once Keith's, who carries this Letter), about a "Herr

von Edelsheim," a "Bailli de Froulay", and the possible "Conditions of Peace,"not of consequence to us

just now. [ OEuvres de Frederic, xviii. 174, 173, 172. Correspondence on this subject lasts from 22d

September, 1759, to 8th May, 1760: IB. pp. 170186. In that final Letter of 8th May is the phrase, hardly

worth restoring to its real ownership, though the context considerably redeems it there,"the prejudice I

As to Voltaire again, and the new FriedrichVoltaire Style of Correspondence, something more of detail will

be requisite. Ever since the black days of 1757, when poor Wilhelmina, with Rossbach and Leuthen still

hidden from her in a future gloomy as death, desperately brought Voltaire to bear upon Cardinal Tencin in

this matter, without success, there has been a kind of regular corresponding between Voltaire and Friedrich;

characteristic on both sides. A pair of Lovers hopelessly estranged and divorced; and yet, in a sense, unique

and priceless to one another. The Past, full of heavenly radiances, which issued, alas, in flames and sooty

conflagrations as of Erebus,let us forget it, and be taught by it! The Past is painful, and has been too

didactic to some of us: but here still is the Present with its Future; better than blank nothing. Pleasant to hear

the sound of that divine voice of my loved one, were it only in commonplace remarks on the weather,

perhaps intermixed with secret gibings on myself:let us hear it while we can, amid those worldwide

Friedrich sends his new Verses or light Proses, which he is ever and anon throwing off; Voltaire sends his,

mostly in print, and of more elaborate turn: they talk on matters that are passing round them, round this King,

the centre of them,Friedrich usually in a rather swaggering way (lest his Correspondent think of blabbing),

and always with something of banter audible in him;as has Voltaire too, but in a finer TREBLE tone, being

always female in this pretty duet of parted lovers. It rarely comes to any scolding between them; but there is

or can be nothing of cordiality. Nothing, except in the mutual admiration, which one perceives to be sincere

on both sides; and also, in the mutual practical estrangement: "Nothing more of you,especially of YOU,

After long reading, with Historical views, in this final section of the FriedrichVoltaire Correspondence, at

first so barren otherwise and of little entertainment, one finds that this too, when once you CAN "read" it

(that is to say, when the scene and its details are visible to you), becomes highly dramatic,

Shakspeareancomic or more, for this is Nature's self, who far excels even Shakspeare; and that the

inextricably dark condition of these Letters is a real loss to the ingenuous reader, and especially to the student

of Friedrich. Among the frequently recurring topics, one that oftenest turns up on Voltaire's side is that of

Peace: Oh, if your Majesty would but make Peace! Does it depend on me? thinks Friedrich always; and is, at

"REICHHENNERSDORF, 2d July, 1759, [shortly before Schmottseifen, while waiting Daun's slow

"Asking ME for Peace: there is a bitter joke![In verse, this; flings off a handful of crackers on the

BIENAIME, whose Chamberlain you are, on the HONGROISE QUI'IL ADORE, on the Russian QUE

"It is to him," the Wellbeloved Louis, "that you must address yourself, or to his Amboise in Petticoats [his

Pompadour, acting the CardinalPremier on this occasion]. But these people have their heads filled with

ambitious projects: these people are the difficulty; they wish to be the sovereign arbiters of sovereigns; and

that is what persons of my way of thinking will by no means put up with. I love Peace quite as much as you

could wish; but I want it good, solid and honorable. Socrates or Plato would have thought as I do on this

subject, had they found themselves placed in the accursed position which is now mine in the world.

"Think you there is any pleasure in leading this dog of a life [CHIENNE, shedog]? In seeing and causing the

butchery of people you know nothing of; in losing daily those you do know and love; in seeing perpetually

your reputation exposed to the caprices of chance; in passing year after year in disquietudes and

"I know right well the value of tranquillity, the sweets of society, the charms of life; and I love to be happy,

as much as anybody whatever. But much as I desire these blessings, I will not purchase them by basenesses

and infamies. Philosophy enjoins us to do our duty; faithfully to serve our Country, at the price of our blood,

of our repose, and of every sacrifice that can be required of us. The illustrious ZADIG went through a good

many adventures which were not to his taste, CANDIDE the like; and nevertheless took their misfortune in

"Take my word, our 'curt jackets,' as you call them [HABITS ECOURTES, peculiar to the Prussian soldier at

that time], are as good as your red heels, as the Hungarian pelisses, and the green frocks of the Roxelans

[Russians]. We are actually on the heels of the latter [at least poor Dohna is, and poor Dictator Wedell will

be, not with the effect anticipated!]who by their stupidities give us fine chance. You will see I shall get out

of the scrape this Year too, and deliver myself both from the Greens and the DirtyWhites [Austrian color of

coat]. My neighbor of the Sacred Hat,I think, in spite of Holy Father's benediction, the Holy Ghost must

have inspired him the reverse way; he seems to have a great deal of lead in his bottom. ... F." [ OEuvres de

"In whatever state you are, it is very certain that you are a great man. It is not to weary your Majesty that I

now write; it is to confess myself,on condition you will give me absolution! I have betrayed you; that is the

fact"(really guilty this time, and HAVE shown something of your writing; as your Majesty, oh how

unjustly, is often suspecting that I do, and with mischievous intention, instead of good, ah, Sire!)In fact, I

have received that fine "MARCUSAURELIUS" Letter (Letter we have just read); exquisite Piece, though

with biting "JUVENAL" qualities in it too; and have shown it, keeping back the biting parts, to a beautiful

gillflirt of the Court, MINAUDIERE (who seems to be a Mistress of Choiseul's), who is here attending Tissot

for her health: MINAUDIERE charmed with it; insists on my sending to Choiseul, "He admires the King of

Prussia, as he does all nobleness and genius; send it!" And I did so;and look here, what an Answer from

Choiseul (Answer lost): and may it not have a fine effect, and perhaps bring PeaceOh, forgive me, Sire.

But read that Note of the great man. "Try if you can decipher his writing. One may have very honest

"Sire, there was once a lion and a mouse (RAT); the mouse fell in love with the lion, and went to pay him

court. The lion, tired of it, gave him a little scrape with his paw. The mouse withdrew into his mousehole

(SOURICIERE); but he still loved the lion; and seeing one day a net they were spreading out to catch the lion

and kill him, he gnawed asunder one mesh of it. Sire, the mouse kisses very humbly your beautiful claws, in

all submissiveness:he will never die between two Capuchins, as, at Bale, the mastiff (DOGUE) of St. Malo

has done [27th July last]. He would have wished to die beside his lion. Believe that the mouse was more

To which we saw the Answer, pair of Answers, at Sagan, in September last. This Note from Choiseul,

conveyed by Voltaire, appears to have been the trifling wellspring from which all those widespread waters

of Negotiation flowed. Pitt, when applied to, on the strength of Friedrich's hopes from this small Document of

Choiseul's, was of course ready, "How welcome every chance of a just Peace!" and agreed to the Joint

Declaration at the Hague; and took what farther trouble I know not,probably less sanguine of success than

Friedrich. Friedrich was ardently industrious in the affair; had a great deal of devising and directing on it, a

great deal of corresponding with Voltaire and the Duchess, only small fractions of which are now left. He

searched out, or the Duchess of SachsenGotha did it for him, a proper Secret Messenger for Paris: Secret

Messenger, one Baron von Edelsheim, properly veiled, was to consult a certain Bailli de Froulay, a friend of

Friedrich's in Paris;which loyalhearted Bailli did accordingly endeavor there; but made out nothing. Only

much vague talking; part of it, or most of it, subdolous on Choiseul's side. Pitt would hear of no Peace which

did not include Prussia as well as England: some said this was the cause of failure;the real cause was that

Choiseul never had any serious intention of succeeding. Light Choiseul, a clever man, but an unwise, of the

sort called "dashing," had entertained the matter merely in the optative form, and when it came nearer,

wished to use it for making mischief between Pitt and Friedrich, and for worming out Edelsheim's secrets, if

he had any,for which reason he finally threw Edelsheim into the Bastille for a few days. [ OEuvres de

About the end of March I guess it to have been that Choiseul, by way of worming out poor Edelsheim's

secrets, flung him into the Bastille for a day or two. Already in December foregoing, we have seen Choiseul's

BlackArtist busy upon the Stolen EDITION of Friedrich's Verses. A Choiseul full of intrigues; adroit

enough, ambitious enough; restlessly industrious in making mischief, if there were nothing else to be made;

And this was what the grand Voltaire Pacification came to, though it filled the world with temporary noise,

and was so interesting to Voltaire and another. What a heartaffecting generosity, humility and dulcet pathos

in that of the poor Mouse gnawing asunder a mesh of the Lion's net! There is a good deal of that throughout,

on the Voltaire side,that is to say, while writing to Friedrich. But while writing of him, to third parties,

sometimes almost simultaneously, the contrast of styles is not a little startling; and the beautiful affectionately

chirping Mouse is seen suddenly to be an injured Wildcat with its fur up. All readers of Voltaire are aware

of this; and how Voltaire handles his "LUC" (mysterious nickname for KING FRIEDRICH ), when Luc's

back is turned. For alas, there is no man or thing but has its wrong side too; least of all, a Voltaire,doing

TREBLE voice withal, if you consider it, in such a Duet of estranged Lovers! Suppose we give these few

Specimens, treble mostly, and a few of bass as well,to illustrate the nature of this Duet, and of the

noises that went on round it, in a war convulsed world? And first of all, concerning the enigma "What is

What the LUC in Voltaire is? Shocking explanations have been hit upon: but Wagniere (WAGNER, an

intelligent Swiss man), Voltaire's old Secretary, gives this plain reading of the riddle: "M. de Voltaire had, at

The Delices [near by Ferney, till the Chateau got built], a big Ape, of excessively mischievous turn; who used

to throw stones at the passersby, and sometimes would attack with its teeth friend or foe alike. One day it

thrice over bit M. de Voltaire's own leg. He had called it LUC (Luke); and in conversation with select friends,

as also in Letters to such, he sometimes designated the King of Prussia by that nickname: 'HE is like my Luc

here; bites whoever caresses him!'In 1756 M. de Voltaire, having still on his heart the Frankfurt Outrage,

wrote curious MEMOIRES [ah, yes, VIE PRIVEE]; and afterwards wished to burn them; but a Copy had

To the same effect speaks Johannes von Muller: "Voltaire had an Ape called Luc; and the spiteful man, in

thus naming the King, meant to stigmatize him as the mere APE of greater men; as one without any greatness

of his own."No; LUC was mischievous, flung stones after passengers; had, according to Clogenson, "bitten

Voltaire himself, while being caressed by him;" that was the analogy in Voltaire's mind. Preuss says, this

Nickname first occurs "12th December, 1757." Suppose 11th December to have been the day of getting one's

leg bitten thrice over; and that, in bed next morning,stiff, smarting, fretful against the sad apetricks and

offences of this life,before getting up to one's Works and Correspondences, the angry similitude had shot,

slightly fulgurous and consolatory, athwart the gloom of one's mood? [Longchamp et Wagniere Memoires, i.

34; Johannes von Muller, Works (12mo, Stuttgard, 1821), xxxi. 140 (LETTERS TO HIS BROTHER, No,

218, "July, 1796"); Clogenson's Note, in OEuvres de Voltaire, lxxvii. 103; Preuss, ii. 71.] That will account

Many of the VoltaireFriedrich LETTERS are lost; and the remainder lie in sad disorder in all the Editions,

their sequence unintelligible without lengthy explanation. So that the following Snatches cannot well be

arranged here in the way of Choral Strophe and Antistrophe, as would have been desirable. We shall have to

group them loosely under heads; with less respect to date than to subjectmatter, and to the reader's

TO D'ARGENTAL (Has not yet heard of LEUTHEN, which happened five days before). ... "I have tasted the

vengeance of consoling the King of Prussia, and that is enough for me. He goes beating on the one side, and

getting beaten on the other: except for another miracle [like Rossbach], he will be ruined. Better have really

been a philosopher, as he pretended to be." [ OEuvres de Voltaire, lxvii. 139 ("The Delices, 10th December,

TO THE REVEREND COMTE DE BERNIS (outwardly still our flourishing PrimeMinister, by grace of

Pompadour, but soon to be extinguished under a Red Hat. Date is six days before ZORNDORF). ... "I cannot

imagine how some people have gone into suspecting that my heart might have the weakness to lean a little

towards WHOM you know, towards my Ingrate that was! One is bound to have politeness; but one has

memory as well;and one is attached, as warmly as superfluously, to the Good Cause, which it belongs only

to you to defend. Certain it is, poor I am not like the threefourths of the Germans in these days [since

ROSSBACH, above all]! I have everywhere seen Ladies'fans with the Prussian Eagle painted on them,

eating the FLEURDELIS; the Hanover Horse giving a kick to M. de Richelieu's bottom; a Courier

carrying a bottle of Queenof Hungary Water to Madame de Pompadour. My Nieces shall certainly not

have that fashion of Fans, at my poor little DELICES, whither I am just returning." [Ib. lxxvii. 35 ("Soleure,

TO MADAME D'ARGENTAL (on occasion of MINDEN: Kunersdorf three days ago, but not yet heard of).

... "Truly, Madame, when M. de Contades leads to the butchery all the descendants of our ancient chevaliers,

and sets them to attack eighty pieces of cannon [not in the least, if you knew it; the reverse, if you knew

it],as Don Quixote did the windmills! This horrible day pierces my soul. I am French to excess, especially

since those new favors [not worth mentioning here], which I owe to my divine Angels and to M. le Duc de

"Lucyou know who Luc is [as do we]is probably giving Battle to the Austrians and Russians

[KUNERSDORF, 12th; three days ago, did it, and was beaten to your mind], at the moment while I have the

honor of writing to you; at least, he told me such was his Royal intention. If they beat him, as may happen,

what a shame for us to have been beaten by the Duke of Brunswick! I wish you knew this Duke [as I have

done; a Duke of no ESPRIT, no gift of tongue, in fact no talent at all that I could discern], you would be

much astonished; and would say, 'The people whom he beats must be great blockheads.' The truth of the fact

is, that all these troops are better disciplined than ours:" [ OEuvres de Voltaire, lxxviii, 186, 187 ("Delices,

15th August, 1759").]Yes indeed, my esteemed Voltaire; and also, perhaps, that ESPRIT, or gift of tongue,

TO D'ARGENTAL (seventh day after KUNERSDORF: "mouse upon lion's net" nearly contemporaneous).

"At last, then, I think my Russians must be near Great Glogau [might have been, one thinks, after such a

Kunersdorf; did not start for a month yet; never could get very near at all]. Who would have thought that

Barberina [Mackenzie's Dancer once; sent to Glogau, Cocceji and she, when their marriage became public}

"I don't love Luc, far from it: I never will pardon him his infamous procedure with my Niece [at Frankfurt

that time]; nor the face he has to write me flattering things twice a month; without having ever repaired his

wrongs. I desire much his entire humiliation, the chastisement of the sinner; whether his eternal damnation. I

TO THE SAME (a month after MAXEN: "Peace" Negotiation very lively). ... "Meanwhile, if Luc could be

punished before this happy Peace! If, by this last stroke of General Beck [tussle with Dierecke at Meissen,

4th December, capture of Dierecke and 1,500; stroke not of an overwhelming nature, but let us be thankful

for our mercies], which has opened the road from the Lausitz to Berlin [alas, not in the least], some Haddick

could pay Berlin a visit again! You see, in Tragedy I wish always to have crime punished.

"There is talk of a great Battle fought the 6th [not a word of truth in it] between Luc and him of the

Consecrated Hat: said to have been very murderous. I interest myself very much in this Piece" now playing

under the Sun. "Whenever the Austrians have any advantage, Kaunitz says to Madame de Bentinck [litigant

wandering Lady, known to me at Berlin and elsewhere], 'Write that to our Friend Voltaire.' Whenever Luc

has the least success, he tells me, 'I have battered the oppressors of mankind. Dear Angel, in these horrors I

am the only one that has room to laugh:and yet I don't laugh either; owing to the CULSNOIRS [base

crockery; one's Dinner Plate all vanished [Supra, p. 374.]], to the Annuities, Lotteries, and to

Pondicherry,for I am always afraid about that latter!" (Going, that, for certain; going, gone, and your East

Indies along with it!) [ OEuvres de Voltaire, lxxviii. 346 ("22d December, 1759").]

TO PERPETUAL SECRETARY FORMEY (in forwarding a "Letter left with me"). "Health and peace,

Monsieur; and be SECRETAIRE ETERNEL. Your King is always a man unique, astonishing, inimitable. He

makes charming verses, in times when another could not write a line of prose; he deserves to be happy: but

will he be so? And if not, what becomes of you? For my own part, I will not die between two Capuchins.

Hardly worth while, exalting one's soul for such a future as that. What a stupid and detestable farce this world

is!" [Ib. lxxviii. 348 (from SOUVENIRS D'UN CITOYEN, i. 302), "11th January 1760."]

TO D'ARGENTAL ("Peace" Negotiations still at their briskest), ... "But, my dear Angel, you will see on

Tuesday the great man who has turned my head (DONT JE SUIS FOU), M. le Duc de Choiseul. The Letters

he honors me with enchant me. God will bless him, don't doubt it,"after all! "We have at Pondicherry a

Lally, a devil of an Irish spirit,who will cost me, sooner or later, above 20,000 livres annually [have rents

in our INDIA COMPANY, say 1,000 pounds a year, as my Angels know], which used to be the readiest item

of my Pittance. But M. le Duc de Choiseul will triumph over Luc in one way or other; then what joy! I

suppose he shows you my impertinent reveries. Do you know, Luc is so mad, that I don't despair of bringing

him to reason [persuading him to give up Cleve, and knuckle as he should, in this Peace Affair]. That were

what I should call the true Comedy! I should like to have your advices on the conduct of that Dramatic

The late "mouse" gnawing its mesh of net, what a subtle and mighty hunter has it grown! This of Cleve,

however, and of knuckling, would not do. Hear the stiff Answer that comes: "'Conditions of Peace,' do you

call them? The people that propose such can have no wish to see Peace. What a logic theirs! 'I might yield the

Country of Cleve, because the inhabitants are stupid'! What would your Ministers say if one required the

Province of Champagne from them, because the Proverb says, Ninetynine sheep and one Champagner make

a Hundred head of cattle?" [Friedrich to Voltaire, "Freyberg, 3d April, 1760:" OEuvres de Frederic, xxiii. 73,

AGAIN TO D'ARGENTAL (three or four months after; Luc having proved obstinate, and still unsuccessful).

... "I conjure you make use of all your eloquence to tell him [the supreme Duc de Choiseul], that if Luc

misgo, it will be no misfortune to France. That Brandenburg will always remain an Electorate; that it is good

there be no Elector in it strong enough to do without the protection of our King; and that all the Princes of the

Empire will always have recourse to that august protection (Most Christian Majesty's] CONTRA L'AQUILA

GRIFAGNA,were the Prussian Kingship but abolished. Nota bene, if Luc were discomfited this Year, we

should have Peace next Winter." [ OEuvres de Voltaire, lxxix. 110 ("July, 1760").]

TO SUPREME CHOISEUL (a year later). ... "He has been a bad man, this Luc; and now, if one were to

bet,by the law of probability it would be 3 to 1 that Lnc will go to pot (SERA PERDU), with his rhymings

and his banterings, and his injustices and politics, all as bad as himself." [Ib. lxxx. 313 ("Chateau de Ferney,

TO D'ALEMBERT (in the RossbachLeuthen interval: on the Battle of BRESLAU, 22d November, 1757;

called by the Austrians "a Malplaquet," and believed by Voltaire to be a Malplaquet and more). ... "The

Austrians do avenge us, and humble us [us, and our miserable Rossbachs], in a terrible manner. Thirteen

attacks on the Prussian intrenchments, lasted six hours; never was Victory bloodier, or more horribly

beautiful [in the brain of certain men]. We pretty French fellows, we are more expeditious, our job is done in

five minutes. The King of Prussia is always writing me Verses, now like a desperado, now like a hero; and as

for me, I try to live like a philosopher in my hermitage. He has obtained what he always wished: to beat the

French, to be admired by them, to mock them; but the Austrians are mocking him in a very serious way. Our

shame of November 5th has given him glory; and with such glory, which is but transient and dearly bought,

he must content himself. He will lose his own Countries, with those he has seized, unless the French again

discover [which they will] the secret of losing all their Armies, as they did in 1741." [Ib. Lxxvii. 133, 134

TO CLAIRAUT, THE MATHEMATICIAN (Maupertuis lately dead). An excellent Treatise, this you have

sent me, Monsieur! "Your war with the Geometers on the subject of this Comet appears to me like a war of

the gods in Olympus, while on Earth there is going on a fight of dogs and cats. ... Would to Heaven our friend

MoreauMaupertuis had cultivated his art like you! That he had predicted comets, instead of exalting his soul

to predict the future; of dissecting the brains of giants to know the nature of the soul; of japanning people

with pitch to cure them of every malady; of persecuting Konig; and of dying between Two Capuchins" (dead

three weeks ago, on those terms, poor soul)! [ OEuvres de Voltaire, lxxviii. 191 ("Delices, 19th August,

TO D'ALEMBERT (a week later). ... "What say you of Maupertuis dying between Two Capuchins! He was

ill, this long while, of a repletion of pride; but I had not reckoned him either a hypocrite or an imbecile. I

don't advise you ever to go and fill his place at Berlin; you would repent that. I am Astolpho warning Roger

(Ruggiero) not to trust himself to the Enchantress Alcina; but Roger was unadvisable." [Ib. lxxviii. 197

TO THE SAME (two years later: Luc, on certain grounds, may as well be saved). "With regard to Luc,

though I have my just causes of anger against him, I own to you, in my quality of Frenchman and thinking

being, I am glad that a certain most Orthodox House has not swallowed Germany, and that the Jesuits are not

confessing in Berlin. Over towards the Danube superstition is very powerful. ... The INFAMEYou are well

aware that I speak of superstition only; for as to the Christian religion, I respect and love it, like you.

Courage, Brethren! Preach with force, and write with address: God will bless you.Protect, you my Brother,

the Widow Calas all you can! She is a poor weakminded Huguenot, but her Husband was the victim of the

WHITE PENITENTS. It is the concern of Human Nature that the Fanatics of Toulouse be confounded." (The

case of Calas, SECOND act of it, getting on the scene: a case still memorable to everybody. Stupendous bit

of French judicature; and Voltaire's noblest outburst, into mere transcendent blaze of pity, virtuous wrath, and

determination to bring rescue and help against the whole world.) [ OEuvres de Voltaire, lxxviii. 52, 53

LOUDON AND HADDICK (Voltaire, under rebuke for indiscretion, has been whimpering a little. My

discreet Niece burnt those LAST verses, Sire; no danger there, at least! Truculent Bishop SomethingAC

tried to attack your Majesty; but was done for by a certain person). Friedrich answers: "In truth, you are a

singular creature. When I think of scolding you, you say two words, and the reproach expires. Impossible to

"As to your Niece, let her burn me or roast me, I care little. Nor are you to think me so sensitive to what your

Bishops in IC or in AC may say of me. I have the lot of all actors who play in public; applauded by some,

despised by others. One must prepare oneself for satires, for calumnies, for a multitude of lies, which will be

sent abroad into currency against one: but need that trouble my tranquillity? I go my road; I do nothing

against the interior voice of my conscience; and I concern myself very little in what way my actions paint

themselves in the brain of beings, not always very thinking, with two legs and without feathers."

AT WILSDRUF, JUST BEFORE MAXEN (an exultant exuberant curious Letter; too long for

insertion,part of it given above). ... "For your Tragedy of SOCRATE, thanks. At Paris they are going to

burn it, the wretched fools,not aware that absurd fanaticism is their dominant vice. Better burn the dose of

medicine, however, than the useful Doctor. I, can I join myself to that set? If I bite you, as you complain, it is

without my knowledge. But I am surrounded with enemies, one hitting me, another pricking me, another

daubing me with mud;patience at last yields, and one flies abroad into a general rage, too indiscriminate

You talk of my Verses on Rossbach (my ADIEU TO THE HOOPERS on finding their Bridge burnt [Supra,

p. 21.]). "This Campaign I have had no beatific vision, in the style of Moses. The barbarous Cossacks and

Tartars, infamous to look at on any side, have burnt and ravaged countries, and committed atrocious

inhumanities. This is all I saw of THEM. Such melancholy spectacles don't tend to raise one's spirits. [Breaks

off into metre:] LA FORTUNE INCONSTANTE ET FIERE, Fortune inconstant and proud. Does not treat

her suitors Always in an equal manner. Those fools called heroes, who run the country,

Maupertuis, say you? "Don't trouble the ashes of the dead; let the grave at least put an end to your unjust

hatreds. Reflect that even Kings make peace after long battling; cannot you ever make it? I think you would

be capable, like Orpheus, of descending to Hell, not to soften Pluto and bring back your beautiful Emilie, but

to pursue into that Abode of Woe an enemy whom your wrath has only too much persecuted in the world: for

shame!" [ OEuvres de Frederic, xxiii. 6165 ("Wilsdruf, 17th November, 1759").]and rebukes him, more

abridge:) With how many laurels you have covered yourself in all the fields of Literature! One laurel yet is

wanting to the brow of Voltaire. If, as the crown of so many perfect works, he could by a skilful manoeuvre

bring back Peace, I, and Europe with me, would think that his masterpiece! [Takes to prose:]

"This is my thought and all Europe's. Virgil made as fine Verses as you; but he never made a Peace. It will be

a distinction you will have over all your brethren of Parnassus, if you succeed.

"I know not who has betrayed me, and thought of printing [the EDITION;not you, surely!] a pack of

rhapsodies which were good enough to amuse myself, but were never meant for publication. After all, I am so

"I know not who the Bredow is [whom you speak of having met]; but he has told you true. The sword and

death have made frightful ravages among us. And the worst is, we are not yet at the end of the tragedy. You

may judge what effect these cruel shocks made on me. I wrap myself in my stoicism, the best I can. Flesh and

blood revolt against such tyrannous command; but it must be followed. If you saw me, you would scarcely

know me again: I am old, broken, grayheaded, wrinkled; I am losing my teeth and my gayety: if this go on,

there will be nothing of me left, but the mania of making verses, and an inviolable attachment to my duties

and to the few virtuous men whom I know." [ OEuvres de Frederic, xxiii. 69 ("Freyberg, 24th Feb. 1760").]

IN WINTERQUARTERS, A MONTH LATER (comes still on "Peace" again). ... "I will have you paid that

bit of debt [perhaps of postage or the like], that Louis of the Mill (Louis du Moulin," at Fontenoy, who got

upon a Windmill with his Dauphin, and caught that nickname from the common men) "may have

wherewithal to make war on me. Add tenthpenny tax to your tax of twentiethpenny; impose new

capitations, make titular offices to get money; do, in a word, whatever you like. In spite of all your efforts,

you will not get a Peace signed by my hands, except on conditions honorable to my Nation. Your people,

blown up with selfconceit and folly, may depend on these words. Adieu, live happy; and while you make all

your efforts to destroy Prussia, think that nobody has less deserved it than I, either of you or of your French."

STILL IN WINTERQUARTERS (on "Peace" still; but begins with "Maupertuis," which is all we will give).

"What rage animates you against Maupertuis? You accuse HIM of having published that Furtive EDITION.

Know that his Copy, well sealed by him, arrived here after his death, and that he was incapable of such an

These Specimens will suffice. "The King of Prussia?" Voltaire would sometimes say: "He is as potent and as

malignant as the Devil; but he is also as unhappy, not knowing friendship,"having such a chance, too, with

In the beginning of this Year, 1759, Earl Marischal had been called out of his Neufchatel stagnancy, and

launched into the Diplomatic field again; sent on mission into Spain, namely. The case was this: Ferdinand

VI. of Spain (he who would not pay Friedrich the old Spanish debt, but sent him merino rams, and a jar of

QueenDowager snuff) had fallen into one of his gloomy fits, and was thought to be dying;did, in fact, die,

in a state nearly mad, on the 10th August following. By Treaty of AixlaChapelle, and by all manner of

Treaties, Carlos of Naples, his HalfBrother (Termagant's Baby Carlos, whom we all knew), was to succeed

him in Spain; Don Philip, the next Brother, now of Parma and Piacenza, was to follow as King in

Naples,ceding those two litigious Duchies to Austria, after all. Friedrich, vividly awake to every chance,

foresaw, in case of such disjunctures in Italy, good likelihood of quarrel there. And has despatched the

experienced old Marischal to be on the ground, and have his eyes open. Marischal knows Spain very well;

and has often said, "He left a dear old friend there, the Sun." Marischal was under way, about Newyear's

time; but lingered by the road, waiting how Ferdinand would turn,and having withal an important business

of his own, as he sauntered on. Did not arrive, I think, till Summer was at hand, and his dear Old Friend

August 10th, 1759, Ferdinand died; and the same day Carlos became King of Spain. But, instead of giving

Naples to Don Philip, Carlos gave it to a junior Son of his own; and left poor Philip to content himself with

Parma and Piacenza, as heretofore. Clear against the rights of Austria; Treaty of AixlaChapelle is perfectly

explicit on that point! Will not Austria vindicate its claim? Politicians say, Austria might have recovered not

only Parma and Piacenza, but the kingdom of Naples itself,no France at present able to hinder it, no Spain

ever able. But Austria, contrary to expectation, would not: a Country tenacious enough of its rights, real and

imaginary; greedy enough of Italy, but of Silesia much more! The matter was deliberated in Council at

Vienna; but the result was magnanimously, No. "Finish this Friedrich first; finish this Silesia. Nothing else

The Marischal's legationary function, therefore, proved a sinecure; no Carlos needing AntiAustrian

assistance from Friedrich or another; Austria magnanimously having let him alone. Doubtless a considerable

disappointment to Friedrich. Industrious Friedrich had tried, on the other side of this affair, Whether the King

of Sardinia, once an adventurous fighting kind of man, could not be stirred up, having interests involved? But

no; he too, grown old, devotional, apprehensive, held by his rosaries, and answered, No. Here is again a hope

Marischal continued in Spain, corresponding, sending news (the Prussian Archives alone know what), for

nearly a couple of years. [Returned "April, 1762" (Friedrich's Letter to him, "10th April, 1762:" in OEuvres

de Frederic, xx. 285).] His Embassy had one effect, which is of interest to us here. On his way out, he had

gone by London, with a view of getting legal absolution for his Jacobitism,so far, at least, as to be able to

inherit the Earldom of Kintore, which is likely to fall vacant soon. By blood it is his, were the Jacobite

incapacities withdrawn. Kintore is a cadet branch of the Keiths; "John, younger Son of William Sixth Lord

Marischal," was the first Kintore. William Sixth's younger Son, yes;and William's Father, a man always

venerable to me, had (A.D. 1593) founded Marischal College, Aberdeen,where, for a few, in those stern

granite Countries, the Diviner Pursuits are still possible (thank God and this Keith) on frugal oatmeal.

MARISCHALCOLLEGE Keith, or FIFTH Lord Marischal, was grandfather's grandfather of our Potsdam

Friend, who is tenth and last. [Douglas's Scotch Peerage, pp. 448 et seq., 387 et seq.] Honor to the brave and

noble, now fallen silent under foot NOT of the nobler! In a word, the fourth Kintore was about dying

He carried, naturally, the best recommendations. Britannic Majesty, Pitt and everybody met him with

welcome and furtherance; what he wished was done, and in such a style of promptness and cordiality, Pitt

pushing it through, as quite gained the heart of old Marischal. And it is not doubted, though particulars have

not been published, That he sent important Spanish notices to Pitt, in these years;and especially informed

him that King Carlos and the French Bourbon had signed a FAMILY COMPACT (15th August, 1761), or

solemn covenant, to stand by one another as brothers. Which was thenceforth, to Pitt privately, an important

fact, as perhaps we shall see; though to other men it was still only a painful rumor and dubiety. Whether the

old Marischal informed him, That King Carlos hated the English; that he never had, in his royal mind,

forgiven that insult of Commodore Martin's (watch laid on the table, in the Bay of Naples, long ago), I do not

know; but that also was a fact. A diligent, indignant kind of man, this Carlos, I am told; by no means an

undeserving King of Spain, though his Portraits declare him an ugly: we will leave him in the discreet

Singular to see how, in so veracious an intellect as Friedrich's, so many fallacies of hope are constantly

entertained. War in Italy, on quarrel with King Carlos; Peace with France and the Pompadour, by help of

Edelsheim and the Bailli de Froulay; Peace with Russia and the INFAME CATIN, by help of English

briberies (Friedrich sent an agent this winter with plenty of English guineas, but he got no farther than the

Frontier, not allowed even to try): sometimes, as again this winter, it is hope of Denmark joining him (in

alarm against the Russian views on Holstein; but that, too, comes to nothing); above all, there is perennially,

budding out yearly, the brighter after every disappointment, a hope in the Grand Turk and his adherencies.

Grand Turk, or failing him, the Cham of Tartary, for certain, some of these will be got to fasten on the

heels of Austria, of Russia; and create a favorable diversion? Friedrich took an immense deal of trouble about

this latter hope. It is almost pathetic to see with what a fond tenacity he clings to it; and hopes it over again,

every new Spring and Summer. [Preuss, ii. 121 et seq., 292 Schoning, ii. iii. PASSIM.]

The hope that an INFAME CATIN might die some day (for she is now deep in chaotic ailments, deepish

even in brandy) seems never to have struck him; at least there is nowhere any articulate hint of it,the

eagleflight of one's imagination soaring far above such a pettiness! Hope is very beautiful; and even

fallacious hope, in such a Friedrich. The one hope that did not deceive him, was hope in his own best exertion

to the very death; and no fallacy ever for a moment slackened him in that. Stand to thyself: in the wide

domain of Imagination, there is no other certainty of help. No other certainty;and yet who knows through

It was April 25th before Friedrich quitted Freyberg, and took Camp; not till the middle of June that anything

of serious Movement came. Much discouragement prevails in his Army, we hear: and indeed, it must be

owned, the horoscope of these Campaigns grows yearly darker. Only Friedrich himself must not be

discouraged! Nor is; though there seldom lay ahead of any man a more dangerouslooking Year than this

that is now dimly shaping itself to Friedrich. His fortune seems to have quitted him; his enemies are more

This Year, it seems, they have bethought them of a new device against him. "We have 90 million

Population," count they; "he has hardly 5; in the end, he must run out of men! Let us cease exchanging

prisoners with him." At Jagerndorf, in April, 1758 (just before our march to Olmutz), there had been

exchange; not without haggles; but this was the last on Austria's part. Cartel of the usual kind, values

punctually settled: a Fieldmarshal is worth 3,000 common men, or 1,500 pounds; Colonel worth 130 men,

or 65 pounds; common man is worth 10s. sterling, not a high figure. [Archenholtz, ii. 53.] The Russians

haggled still more, no keeping of them to their word; but they tried it a second time, last year (October,

1759); and by careful urging and guiding, were got dragged through it, and the prisoners on both sides sent to

their colors again. After which, it was a settled line of policy, "No more exchanging or cartelling; we will

starve him out in that article!" And had Friedrich had nothing but his own 5 millions to go upon, though these

contributed liberally, he had in truth been starved out. Nor could Saxony, with Mecklenburg, Anhalt, Erfurt,

and their 10,000 men a year, have supplied him,"had not there," says Archenholtz (a man rather fond of

"Had not there risen a Recruiting system," or Crimping system, "the like of which for kind and degree was

never seen in the Earth before. Prisoners, captive soldiers, if at all likely fellows, were by every means

persuaded, and even compelled, to take Prussian service. Compelled, cudgel in hand," says Archenholtz (who

is too indiscriminating, I can see,for there were Pfalzers, Wurtembergers, Reichsfolk, who had FIRST

been compelled the other way): "not asked if they wished to serve, but dragged to the Prussian colors, obliged

to swear there, and fight against, their countrymen." Say at least, against their countrymen's Governors,

contumacious Serene Highnesses of Wurtemberg, Mecklenburg and the like. Wurtemberg, we mentioned

lately, had to shoot a good few of his first levy against the Protestant Champion, before they would march at

all!I am sorry for these poor men; and wish the Reich had been what it once was, a Veracity and Practical

Reality, not an Imaginary Entity and hideously contemptible Wiggery, as it now is! Contemptible, and

hideous as well;setting itself up on that, fundamental mendacity; which is eternally tragical, though little

regarded in these days, and which entails mendacities without end on parties concerned!But, apart from all

"The whole German Reich was deluged with secret Prussian Enlisters. The greater part of these were not

actual Officers at all, but hungry Adventurers, who had been bargained with, and who, for their own profit,

allowed themselves every imaginable art to pick up men. Head and centre of them was the Prussian Colonel

Colignon," one of the FreeCorps people; "a man formed by nature for this business [what a beautiful

man!]who gave all the others their directions, and taught them by his own example. Colignon himself," in

winter time, "travelled about in all manner of costumes and characters; persuading hundreds of people into

the Prussian service. He not only promised Commissions, but gave such,nominating loose young fellows

(LAFFEN), students, merchants' clerks and the like, to Lieutenancies and Captaincies in the Prussian Army

[about as likely as in the Seraphim and Cherubim, had they known it]: in the Infantry, in the Cuirassiers, in

the Hussars,it is all one, you have only to choose. The renown of the Prussian arms was so universal, and

combined with the notion of rich booty, that Colignon's Commissionmanufactory was continually busy. No

need to provide marchingmoney, handmoney [shillings for earnest]; Colignon's recruits travelled mostly of

will and at their own charge. In Franken, in Schwaben, in the Rhine Countries, a dissolute son would rob his

father,as shopmen their masters' tills, and managers their cashboxes,and hie off to those magnanimous

Prussian Officials, who gave away companies like kreutzers, and had a value for young fellows of spirit.

They hastened to Magdeburg with their Commissions; where they were received as common recruits, and put

by force into the regiments suitable. No use in resisting: the cudgel and the drillsergeant," who doubts

it?"till complete submission. By this and other methods Colignon and his helpers are reckoned to have

raised for the King, in the course of this War, about 60,000 recruits." [Archenholtz, ii. 53.]

This Year, Daun, though his reputation is on the decline lately, is to have the chief command, as usual; the

Grand Army, with Saxony for field of conquest, and the Reichsfolk to assist, is to be Daun's. But, what is

reckoned an important improvement, Loudon is to have a separate command, and Army of his own. Loudon,

hot of temper, melancholic, shy, is not a man to recommend himself to Kriegshofrath people; but no doubt

Imperial Majesty has had her own wise eye on him. His merits are so undeniable; the need of some

Commander NOT of the Cunctator type is become so very pressing. "Army of Silesia, 50,000;" that is to be

Loudon's, with 40,000 Russians to cooperate and unite themselves with Loudon; and try actually for

conquest of Silesia, this Year; while Daun, conquering Saxony, keeps the King busy.

At Petersburg, Versailles, Vienna, much planning there has been, and arduous consulting: first at Petersburg,

in time and in importance, where Montalembert has again been very urgent in regard to those poor Swedish

people, and the getting of them turned to some kind of use: "Stettin in conjunction with the Swedes; oh, listen

to reason, and take Stettin!" "Would not Dantzig by ourselves be the advisable thing?" answers Soltikof:

"Dantzig is an important Town, and the grand Baltic Haven; and would be so convenient for our Preussen,

since we have determined to maintain that fine Conquest." So thinks Czarish Majesty, as well as Soltikof,

privately, though there are difficulties as to Dantzig; and, in fine, except Colberg over again, there can be

nothing attempted of sieging thereabouts. A Siege of Colberg, however, there is actually to be: Second

Siege,if perhaps it will prove luckier than the First was, two years since? Naval Armament

SwedishRussian, specific Land Armament wholly Russian, are to do this Second Siege, at a favorable time;

except by wishes, Soltikof will not be concerned in it; nor, it is to be hoped, shall we,in such pressure of

"Silesia would be the place for sieges!" say the Vienna people always; and Imperial Majesty is very urgent;

and tries all methods, eloquence, flatteries, bribes,to bring Petersburg to that view. Which is at last

adopted; heartily by Czarish Majesty, ever ready for revenge on Friedrich, the more fatal and the more direct,

the better. Heartily by her; not so heartily by Soltikof and her Army people, who know the Austriau habits;

and privately decide on NOT picking chestnuts from the fire, while the other party's paws keep idle, and only

Of SmallWar there is nothing or little to be said; indeed there occurs almost none. Roving CossackParties,

under one Tottleben, whom we shall hear of otherwise, infest Pommern, bickering with the Prussian posts

there; not ravaging as formerly, Tottleben being a civilized kind of man. One of these called at the Castle of

Schwedt, one day; found Prince Eugen of Wurtemberg there (nearly recovered of his Kunersdorf wounds),

who is a Soninlaw of the House, married to a Daughter of Schwedt;ancestor of the now Russian Czars

too, had anybody then known it. Him these Cossacks carried off with them, a march or two; then, taking his

bond for a certain ransom, let him go. Bond and bondholder being soon after captured by the Prussians,

Eugen paid no ransom; so that to us his adventure is without moment, though it then made some noise among

Two other little passages, and only two, we will mention; which have in themselves a kind of memorability.

First, that of General Czetteritz and the MANUSCRIPT he lost. Of posts across the Elbe I find none

mentionable here, and believe there is none, except only Czetteritz's; who stands at Cosdorf, well up towards

Torgau Country, as sentry over Torgau and the Towns there. On Czetteritz there was, in February, an attempt

made by the active General Beck, whom Daun had detached for that object. Extremely successful, according

to the Austrian Gazetteers; but in reality amounting to as good as nothing:Surprisal of Czetteritz's first

vedette, in the dawn of a misty February morning (February 21st, 1760); nonsurprisal of his second, which

did give fire and alarm, whereupon debate; and Czetteritz springing into his saddle; retreat of his people to

rearward, with loss of 7 Officers and 200 prisoners;but ending in readvance, with fresh force, a few hours

after; [Seyfarth, ii. 655.]in repulse of Beck, in recovery of Cosdorf, and a general state of

ASYOUWERE in that part. A sputter of PostWar, not now worth mentioning at all,except only for one

small circumstance: That in the careering and swift ordering, such as there was, on the rearguard especially,

MajorGeneral Czetteritz's horse happened to fall; whereby not only was the General taken prisoner, but his

quarters got plundered, and in his luggage,what is the notable circumstance,there was found a small

Manuscript, MILITAIRISCHE INSTRUKZION FUR DIE GENERALE, such as every Prussian General has,

and is bound to keep religiously secret.[Stands now in OEuvres de Frederic, xxviii. 3 et. seq.; was finished

(the revisal of it was), hy the King, "2d April, 1748:" see PREUSS, i. 478480; and ( OEuvres de Frederic,

xxviii. PREFACE, for endless indistinct details about the translations and editions of it. London Edition,

1818, calls itself the FIFTH.] This, carried to Daun's headquarters, was duly prized, copied; and in the

course of a year came to print, in many shapes and places; was translated into English, under the Title,

MILITARY INSTRUCTIONS BY THE KING OF PRUSSIA, in 1762 (and again, hardly so WELL, in

1797); and still languidly circulates among the studious of our soldiers. Not a little admired by some of them;

and unfortunately nearly all they seem to know of this greatest of modern Soldiers. [See, for example, in Life

of General Sir Charles Napier, by his Brother (London, 1857), iii. 365 and elsewhere,one of the best

judges in the world expressing his joy and admiration on discovery of Friedrich; discovery, if you read well,

Next, about a month after, we have something to report of Loudon from Silesia, or rather of the Enemies he

meets there; for it is not a victorious thing. But it means a starting of the Campaign by an Austrian invasion

of Silesia; long before sieging time, while all these MontalembertSoltikof pleadings and counterpleadings

hang dubious at Petersburg, and Loudon's "Silesian Army" is still only in a nascent or theoretic state, and

Friedrich has always Fouquet at Landshut, in charge of the Silesian Frontier; whose outposts, under Goltz as

head of these, stretch, by Neisse, far eastward, through the Hills to utmost Mahren; Fouquet's own

headquarter being generally Landshut, the main gate of the Country. Fouquet, long since, rooted himself

rather firmly into that important post; has a beautiful ring of fortified Hills around Landshut; battery crossing

battery, girdling it with sure destruction, under an expert Fouquet,but would require 30,000 men to keep it,

instead of 13,000, which is Fouquet's allotment. Upon whom Loudon is fully intending a stroke this Year.

Fouquet, as we know, has strenuously managed to keep ward there for a twelvemonth past; in spite, often

enough, of new violent invadings and attemptings (violent, miscellaneous, but intermittent) by the Devilles

and others;and always under many difficulties of his own, and vicissitudes in his employment: a Fouquet

coming and going, waxing and waning, according to the King's necessities, and to the intermittency or

constancy of pressures on Landshut. Under Loudon, this Year, Fouquet will have harder times than ever;

"Besides Fouquet and his 13,000," says my Note, "the Silesian Garrisons are all vigilant, are or ought to be;

and there are far eastward of him, for guarding of the JagerndorfTroppau Border, some 4 or 6,000, scattered

about, under LieutenantGeneral Goltz, in various Hill Posts,the chief Post of which, Goltz's own, is the

little Town of Neustadt, northward of Jagerndorf [where we have billeted in the old SileSian Wars]: Goltz's

Neustadt is the chief; and Leobschutz, southwestward of it, under 'General Le Grand' [once the Major

GRANT of Kolin Battle, if readers remember him, "Your Majesty and I cannot take the Battery ourselves!"]

is probably the second in importance. Loudon, cantoned along the Moravian side of the Border, perceives that

he can assemble 32,000 foot and horse; that the Prussians are 13,000 PLUS 6,000; that Silesia can be invaded

with advantage, were the weather come. And that, in any kind of weather, Goltz and his straggle of posts

might be swept into the interior, perhaps picked up and pocketed altogether, if Loudon were sharp enough.

Swept into the interior Goltz was; by no means pocketed altogether, as he ought to have been!

"MARCH 13th, 1760, Loudon orders general muster hereabouts for the 15th, everybody to have two days,

bread and forage; and warns Goltz, as bound in honor: 'Excellenz, tomorrow is March 14th; tomorrow our

pleasant time of Truce is out,the more the pity for both of us!' 'Yea, my esteemed neighbor Excellenz!'

answers Goltz, with the proper compliments; but judges that his esteemed neighbor is intending mischief

almost immediately. Goltz instantly sends orders to all his posts: 'You, Herr General Grant, you at

Leobschutz, and all the rest of you, make your packages; march without delay; rendezvous at Steinau and

Upper Glogau [far different from GREATGlogau], Neisseward; swift!' And would have himself gone on

the 14th, but could not,his poor little Bakery not being here, nor wagons for his baggages quite to be

collected in a moment,and it was Saturday, 15th, 5 A.M., that Goltz appointed himself to march.

"The last time we saw General Goltz was on the Green of Bautzen, above two years ago,when he delivered

that hard message to the King's Brother and his party, 'You deserve to be tried by Court martial, and have

your heads cut off!' He was of that sad Zittau business of the late Prince of Prussia's,Goltz, Winterfeld,

Ziethen, Schmettau and others? Winterfeld and the Prince are both dead; Schmettau is fallen into disaster;

Goltz is still in good esteem with the King. A stalwart, swift, flinty kind of man, to judge by the Portraits of

him; considerable obstinacy, of a tacitly intelligent kind, in that steady eye, in that droop of the eyebrows

towards the strong cheekbones; plenty of sleeping fire in LieutenantGeneral Goltz.

"His principal force, on this occasion, is one Infantry Regiment; REGIMENT MANTEUFFEL:readers

perhaps recollect that stout Pommern Regiment, Manteuffel of Foot, and the little Dialogue it had with the

King himself, on the eve of Leuthen: 'Goodnight, then, Fritz! Tomorrow all dead, or else the Enemy

beaten.' Their conduct, I have heard, was very shining at Leuthen, where everybody shone; and since then

they have been plunging about through the death element in their old rugged way,and reemerge here

into definite view again, under LieutenantGeneral Goltz, issuing from the north end of Neustadt, in the dim

dawn of a cold spring morning, March 15th, 5 A.M.; weather latterly very wet, as I learn. They intend

Neisseway, with their considerable stock of baggagewagons; a company of Dragoons is to help in

escorting: party perhaps about 2,000 in all. Goltz will have his difficulties this day; and has calculated on

"Loudon, with about 5,000 horse,four Regiments drawn up here, and by and by with a fifth (happily not

with the grenadiers, as he had calculated, who are detained by broken bridges, waters all in flood from the

rain),is waiting for him, at the very environs of Neustadt. Loudon, by a trumpet, politely invites him to

surrender, being so outnumbered; Goltz, politely thanking, disregards it, and marches on: Loudon escorting,

in an ominous way; till, at Buchelsdorf, the fifth Regiment (best in the Austrian service) is seen drawn out

across the highway, plainly intimating, No thoroughfare to Goltz and Pommern. Loudon sends a second

trumpet: 'Surrender prisoners; honorablest terms; keep all your baggage: refuse, and you are cut down every

man.' 'You shall yourself hear the answer,' said Goltz. Goltz leads this second trumpet to the front; and, in

Pommern dialect, makes known what General Loudon's proposal is. The Pommerners answer, as one man, a

No of such emphasis as I have never heard; in terms which are intensely vernacular, it seems, and which do at

this day astonish the foreign mind: 'We will for him something, WIR WOLLEN IHM WAS' But the

powers of translation and even of typography fail; and feeble paraphrase must give it: 'We will for him

SOMETHING INEFFABLE CONCOCT,' of a surprisingly contrary kind! 'WIR WOLLEN IHM WAS' (with

ineffable dissyllabic verb governing it)! growled one indignant Pommerner; 'and it ran like filefire along the

ranks,' says Archenholtz; everybody growling it, and bellowing it, in fierce bass chorus, as the indubitable

"Loudon's trumpet withdrew. Pommern formed square round its baggage; Loudon's 5,000 came thundering

in, fit to break adamant; but met such a storm of bullets from Pommern, they stopped about ten paces short,

in considerable amazement, and wheeled back. Tried it again, still more amazement; the like a third time;

every time in vain. After which, Pommern took the road again, with vanguard, rearguard; and had peace for

certain miles,Loudon gloomily following, for a new chance. How many times Loudon tried again, and

ever again, at good places, I forget,say six times in all. Between Siebenhufen and Steinau, in a dirty defile,

the jewel of the road for Loudon, who tried his very best there, one of our wagons broke down; the few to

rear of it, eighteen wagons and some country carts, had to be left standing. Nothing more of Pommern was

left there or anywhere. Near Steinau there, Loudon gave it up as desperate, and went his way. His loss, they

say, was 300 killed, 500 wounded; Pommern's was 35 killed, and above 100 left wounded or prisoners. One

of the stiffest day's works I have known: some twelve miles of march, in every two an attack. Pommern has

really concocted something surprising, and kept its promise to Loudon! 'Thou knowest what the Pommerners

can do,' said they once to their own King. An obstinate, strongboned, heavybrowed people; not so stupid

as you think. More or less of Jutish or Anglish type; highly deficient in the graces of speech, and, I should

judge, with little call to Parliamentary Eloquence." [Preuss, ii. 241 (incorrect in some small points);

Archenholtz, ii. 61; Seyfarth, ii. 640, and Beylagen, ii. 657660; Tempelhof, iv. 810; in ANONYMOUS OF

Friedrich is, this Year, considered by the generality of mankind, to be ruined: "Lost 60,000 men last

Campaign; was beaten twice; his luck is done; what is to become of him?" say his enemies, and even the

impartial Gazetteer, with joy or sorrow. Among his own people there is gloom or censure; hard commentaries

on Maxen: "So self willed, high, and deaf to counsel from Prince Henri!" Henri himself, they say, is sullen;

threatening, as he often does, to resign "for want of health;" and as he quite did, for a while, in the end of this

Friedrich has, with incredible diligence, got together his finance (copper in larger dose than ever, Jew

Ephraim presiding as usual); and, as if by artmagic, has on their feet 100,000 men against his enemy's

280,000. Some higher Officers are secretly in bad spirits; but the men know nothing of discouragement.

Friedrich proclaims to them at marching, "For every cannon you capture, 100 ducats; for every flag, 50; for

every standard (cavalry flag), 40;"which sums, as they fell due, were accordingly paid thenceforth.

[Stenzel, v. 236, 237; ib. 243.] But Friedrich, too, is abundantly gloomy, if that could help him; which he

knows well it cannot, and strictly hides it from all but a few;or all but D'Argens almost alone, to whom it

can do no harm. Read carefully by the light of contemporary occurrences, not vaguely in the vacant haze, as

the Editors give it, his correspondence with D'Argens becomes interesting almost to a painful degree: an

unaffected picture of one of the bravest human souls weighed down with dispiriting labors and chagrins, such

as were seldom laid on any man; almost beyond bearing, but incurable, and demanding to be borne.

Wilhelmina is away, away; to D'Argens alone of mortals does he whisper of these things; and to him not

wearisomely, or with the least prolixity, but in short sharp gusts, seldom now with any indignation, oftenest

with a touch of humor in them, not soliciting any sympathy, nor expecting nearly as much as he will get from

"I am unfortunate and old, dear Marquis; that is why they persecute me: God knows what my future is to be

this Year! I grieve to resemble Cassandra with my prophecies; but how augur well of the desperate situation

we are in, and which goes on growing worse? I am so gloomy today, I will cut short. ... Write to me when

you have nothing better to do; and don't forget a poor Philosopher who, perhaps to expiate his incredulity, is

doomed to find his Purgatory in THIS world." [ OEuvres de Frederic, xix. 138, 139 ("Freyberg, 20th March,

1760").] ... To another Friend, in the way of speech, he more deliberately says: "The difficulties I had, last

Campaign, were almost infinite: such a multitude of enemies acting against me; Pommern, Brandenburg,

Saxony, Frontiers of Silesia, alike in danger, often enough all at one time. If I escaped absolute destructiou, I

must impute it chiefly to the misconduct of my enemies; who gained such advantages, but had not the sense

to follow them up. Experience often corrects people of their blunders: I cannot expect to profit by anything of

that kind; on their part, in the course of this Campaign:" judge if it will be a light one, MON CHER. [To

The symptoms we decipher in these Letters, and otherwise, are those of a man drenched in misery; but used

to his black element, unaffectedly defiant of it, or not at the pains to defy it; occupied only to do his very

utmost in it, with or without success, till the end come. Prometheus, chained on the Oceancliffs, with the

New RulingPowers in the upper hand, and their vultures gradually eating him; dumb Time and dumb Space

looking on, apparently with small sympathy: Prometheus and other Titans, now and then, have touched the

soul of some AEschylus, and drawn tones of melodious sympathy, far heard among mankind. But with this

new Titan it is not so: nor, upon the whole, with the proper Titan, in this world, is it usually so; the world

being awhat shall we say?a poorish kind of world, and its melodies and dissonances, its loves and its

hatreds worth comparatively little in the long run. Friedrich does wonderfully without sympathy from

almost anybody; and the indifference with which he walks along, under such a cloud of sulky stupidities, of

mendacities and misconceptions from the herd of mankind, is decidedly admirable to me.

But let us look into the Campaign itself. Perhapscontrary to the world's opinion, and to Friedrich's own

when, in ultralucid moments, he gazes into it in the light of cold arithmetic, and finds the aspect of it

"frightful"this Campaign will be a little luckier to him than the last? Unluckier it cannot well be:or if so,

There were yet, to the world's surprise and regret, Three Campaigns of this War; but the Campaign 1760,

which we are now upon, was what produced or rendered possible the other two;was the crisis of them, and

is now the only one that can require much narrative from us here. Illluck, which, Friedrich complains, had

followed him like his shadow, in a strange and fateful manner, from the day of Kunersdorf and earlier, does

not yet cease its sad company; but, on the contrary, for long months to come, is more constant than ever,

baffling every effort of his own, and from the distance sending him news of mere disaster and discomfiture. It

is in this Campaign, though not till far on in it, that the long lane does prove to have a turning, and the

Fortune of War recovers its old impartial form. After which, things visibly languish: and the hope of ruining

such a Friedrich becomes problematic, the effort to do it slackens also; the very will abating, on the Austrian

part, year by year, as of course the strength of their resources is still more steadily doing. To the last,

Friedrich, the weaker in material resources, needs all his talent,all his luck too. But, as the strength, on

both sides, is fast abating,hard to say on which side faster (Friedrich's talent being always a FIXED

quantity, while all else is fluctuating and vanishing),what remains of the once terrible Affair, through

Campaigns Sixth and Seventh, is like a race between spent horses, little to be said of it in comparison.

Campaign 1760 is the last of any outward eminence or greatness of event. Let us diligently follow that, and

Friedrich was always famed for his Marches; but, this Year, they exceeded all calculation and example; and

are still the admiration of military men. Can there by no method be some distant notion afforded of them to

the general reader? They were the one resource Friedrich had left, against such overwhelming superiority in

numbers; and they came out like surprises in a theatre, unpleasantly surprising to Daun. Done with such

dexterity, rapidity and inexhaustible contrivance and ingenuity, as overset the schemes of his enemies again

Evening of April 25th, Friedrich rose from his Freyberg cantonments; moved back, that is, northward, a good

march; then encamped himself between Elbe and the HillCountry; with freer prospect and more

elbowroom for work coming. His left is on Meissen and the Elbe; his right at a Village called the

Katzenhauser, an uncommonly strong camp, of which one often hears afterwards; his centre camp is at

Schlettau, which also is strong, though not to such a degree. This line extends from Meissen southward about

10 miles, commanding the Reichward Passes of the Metal Mountains, and is defensive of Leipzig, Torgau

and the Towns thereabouts. [Tempelhof, iv. 16 et seq.] Katzenhauser is but a mile or two from Krogisthat

unfortunate Village where Finck got his Maxen Order: "ER WEISS,You know I can't stand having

Friedrich's task, this Year, is to defend Saxony; Prince Henri having undertaken the Russians,Prince Henri

and Fouquet, the Russians and Silesia. Clearly on very uphill terms, both of them: so that Friedrich finds he

will have a great many things to assist in, besides defending Saxony. He lies here expectant till the middle of

June, above seven weeks; Daun also, for the last two weeks, having taken the field in a sort. In a sort;but

comes no nearer; merely posting himself astride of the Elbe, half in Dresden, half on the opposite or northern

bank of the River, with Lacy thrown out ahead in good force on that vacant side; and so waiting the course of

Well to eastward and rearward of Daun, where we have seen Loudon about to be very busy, Prince Henri and

Fouquet have spun themselves out into a long chain of posts, in length 300 miles or more, "from Landshut,

BOOK XX. FRIEDRICH IS NOT TO BE OVERWHELMED: THE SEVENYEARS WAR GRADUALLY ENDS. 25th April, 176015th February, 1763. 1373

along the Bober, along the Queiss and Oder, through the Neumark, abutting on Stettin and Colberg, to the

Baltic Sea." [Tempelhof, iv. 2124.] On that side, in aid of Loudon or otherwise, Daun can attempt nothing;

still less on the KatzenhauserSchlettau side can he dream of an attempt: only towards Brandenburg and

Berlinthe Country on that side, 50 or 60 miles of it, to eastward of Meissen, being vacant of troops is

Daun's road open, were he enterprising, as Friedrich hopes he is not. For some two weeks, Friedrichnot

ready otherwise, it being difficult to cross the River, if Lacy with his 30,000 should think of

interferencehad to leave the cunctatory Feldmarschall this chance or unlikely possibility. At the end of the

second week ("June 14th," as we shall mark by and by), the chance was withdrawn.

Daun and his Lacy are but one, and that by no means the most harassing, of the many cares and anxieties

which Friedrich has upon him in those Seven Weeks, while waiting at Schlettau, reading the omens. Never

hitherto was the augury of any Campaign more indecipherable to him, or so continually fluctuating with wild

hopes, which proved visionary, and with huge practical fears, of what he knew to be the real likelihood.

"Peace coming?" It is strange how long Friedrich clings to that fond hope: "My Edelsheim is in the Bastille,

or packed home in disgrace: but will not the English and Choiseul make Peace? It is Choiseul's one rational

course; bankrupt as he is, and reduced to spoons and kettles. In which case, what a beautiful effect might

Duke Ferdinand produce, if he marched to Eger, say to Eger, with his 50,000 Germans (Britannic Majesty

and Pitt so gracious), and twitched Daun by the skirt, whirling Daun home to Bohemia in a hurry!" Then the

Turks; the Danes,"Might not the Danes send us a trifle of Fleet to Colberg (since the English never will),

and keep our Russians at bay?""At lowest these hopes are consolatory," says he once, suspecting them all

(as, no doubt, he often enough does), "and give us courage to look calmly for the opening of this Campaign,

the very idea of which has made me shudder!" ["To Prince Henri:" in Schoning, ii. 246 (3d April, 1760): ib.

Meanwhile, by the end of May, the Russians are come across the Weichsel again, lie in four camps on the

hither side; start about June 1st;Henri waiting for them, in Sagan Country his head quarter; and on both

hands of that, Fouquet and he spread out, since the middle of May, in their long thin Chain of Posts, from

Landshut to Colberg again, like a thin wall of 300 miles. To Friedrich the Russian movements are, and have

been, full of enigma: "Going upon Colberg? Going upon Glogau; upon Breslau?" That is a heavyfooted

certainty, audibly tramping forward on us, amid these fond visions of the air! Certain too, and visible to a

duller eye than Friedrich's; Loudon in Silesia is meditating mischief. "The inevitable Russians, the inevitable

Loudon; and nothing but Fouquet and Henri on guard there, with their long thin chain of posts, infinitely too

thin to do any execution!" thinks the King. To whom their modes of operating are but little satisfactory, as

seen at Schlettau from the distance. "Condense yourself," urges he always on Henri; "go forward on the

Russians; attack sharply this Corps, that Corps, while they are still separate and on march!" Henri did

condense himself, "took post between Sagan and Sprottau; post at Frankfurt,"poor Frankfurt, is it to have a

Kunersdorf or Zorndorf every year, then? No; the cautious Henri never could see his way into these

adventures; and did not attack any Corps of the Russians. Took post at Landsberg ultimately,the Russians,

as usual, having Posen as placeofarms,and vigilantly watched the Russians, without coming to strokes

at all. A spectacle growing gradually intolerable to the King, though he tries to veil his feelings.

Neither was Fouquet's plan of procedure well seen by Friedrich in the distance. Ever since that of Regiment

Manteuffel, which was a bit of disappointment, Loudon has been quietly industrious on a bigger scale.

Privately he cherishes the hope, being a swift vehement enterprising kind of man, to oust Fouquet; and

perhaps to have Glatz Fortress taken, before his Russians come! In the very end of May, Loudon, privately

aiming for Glatz, breaks in upon Silesia again,a long way to eastward of Fouquet, and as if regardless of

Glatz. Upon which, Fouquet, in dread for Schweidnitz and perhaps Breslau itself, hastened down into the

Plain Country, to manoeuvre upon Loudon; but found no Loudon moving that way; and, in a day or two,

learned that Landshut, so weakly guarded, had been picked up by a big corps of Austrians; and in another day

or two, that Loudon (June 7th) had blocked Glatz,Loudon's real intention now clear to Fouquet. As it was

to Friedrich from the first; whose anger and astonishment at this loss of Landshut were great, when he heard

BOOK XX. FRIEDRICH IS NOT TO BE OVERWHELMED: THE SEVENYEARS WAR GRADUALLY ENDS. 25th April, 176015th February, 1763. 1374

of it in his Camp of Schlettau. "Back to Landshut," orders he (11th June, three days before leaving Schlettau);

"neither Schweidnitz nor Breslau are in danger: it is Glatz the Austrians mean [as Fouquet and all the world

The tone of Friedrich, which is usually all friendliness to Fouquet, had on this occasion something in it which

offended the punctual and rather peremptory Spartan mind. Fouquet would not have neglected Glatz; pity he

had not been left to his own methods with Landshut and it. Deeply hurt, he read this Order (16th June); and

vowing to obey it, and nothing but it, used these words, which were remembered afterwards, to his assembled

Generals: "MEINE HERREN, it appears, then, we must take Landshut again. Loudon, as the next thing, will

come on us there with his mass of force; and we must then, like Prussians, hold out as long as possible, think

of no surrender on open field, but if even beaten, defend ourselves to the last man. In case of a retreat, I will

be one of the last that leaves the field: and should I have the misfortune to survive such a day, I give you my

word of honor never to draw a Prussian sword more." [Stenzel, v. 239.] This speech of Fouquet's (June 16th)

was two days after Friedrich got on march from Schlettau. June 17th, Fouquet got to Landshut; drove out the

Austrians more easily than he had calculated, and set diligently, next day, to repair his works, writing to

Friedrich: "Your Majesty's Order shall be executed here, while a man of us lives." Fouquet, in the old

CrownPrince time, used to be called Bayard by his Royal friend. His Royal friend, now darker of face and

scathed by much illweather, has just quitted Schlettau, three days before this recovery of Landshut; and will

NIGHT OF JUNE 14th15th, Friedrich, "between Zehren and Zabel," several miles down stream,his

bridges now all ready, out of Lacy's cognizance,has suddenly crossed Elbe; and next afternoon pitches

camp at Broschwitz, which is straight towards Lacy again. To Lacy's astonishment; who is posted at

Moritzburg, with head quarter in that beautiful Countryseat of Polish Majesty,only 10 miles to

eastward, should Friedrich take that road. Broschwitz is short way north of Meissen, and lies on the road

either to Grossenhayn or to Radeburg (Radeburg only four miles northward of Lacy), as Friedrich shall see

fit, on the morrow. For the Meissen north road forks off there, in those two directions: straight northward is

for Grossenhayn, right hand is for Badeburg. Most interesting to Lacy, which of these forks, what is quite

optional, Friedrich will take! Lacy is an alert man; looks well to himself; warns Daun; and will not be caught

if he can help it. Daun himself is encamped at Reichenberg, within two miles of him, inexpugnably

intrenched as usual; and the danger surely is not great: nevertheless both these Generals, wise by experience,

The FIRST great Feat of Marching now follows, On Friedrich's part; with little or no result to Friedrich; but

worth remembering, so strenuous, so fruitless was it,so barred by ill news from without! Both this and the

Second stand recorded for us, in brief intelligent terms by Mitchell, who was present in both; and who is

perfectly exact on every point, and intelligible throughout,if you will read him with a Map; and divine for

yourself what the real names are, out of the inhuman blotchings made of them, not by Mitchell's blame at all.

TUESDAY, JUNE 17th, second day of Friedrich's stay at Broschwitz, Mitchell, in a very confidential

Dialogue they had together, learned from him, under seal of secrecy, That it was his purpose to march for

Radeburg tomorrow morning, and attack Lacy and his 30,000, who lie encamped at Moritzburg out yonder;

for which step his Majesty was pleased farther to show Mitchell a little what the various inducements were:

"One Russian Corps is aiming as if for Berlin; the Austrians are about besieging Glatz,pressing need that

Fouquet were reinforced in his Silesian post of difficulty. Then here are the Reichspeople close by; can be

in Dresden three days hence, joined to Daun: 80,000 odd there will then be of Enemies in this part: I must

beat Lacy, if possible, while time still is!"and ended by saying: "Succeed here, and all may yet be saved;

be beaten here, I know the consequences: but what can I do? The risk must be run; and it is now smaller than

BOOK XX. FRIEDRICH IS NOT TO BE OVERWHELMED: THE SEVENYEARS WAR GRADUALLY ENDS. 25th April, 176015th February, 1763. 1375

Mitchell, whose account is a fortnight later than the Dialogue itself, does confess, "My Lord, these reasons,

though unhappily the thing seems to have failed, 'appear to me to be solid and unanswerable.'" Much more do

they to Tempelhof, who sees deeper into the bottom of them than Mitchell did; and finds that the failure is

only superficial. [Mitchell, Memoirs and Papers, ii. 160 (Despatch, "June 30th, 1760"); Tempelhof, iv. 44.]

The real success, thinks Tempelhof, would be, Could the King manoeuvre himself into Silesia, and entice a

cunctatory Daun away with him thither. A cunctatory Daun to preside over matters THERE, in his

superstitiously cautious way; leaving Saxony free to the Reichsfolk,whom a Hulsen, left with his small

remnant in Schlettau, might easily take charge of, till Silesia were settled? "The plan was bold, was new, and

completely worthy of Friedrich," votes Tempelhof; "and it required the most consummate delicacy of

execution. To lure Daun on, always with the prospect open to him of knocking you on the head, and always

by your rapidity and ingenuity to take care that he never got it done." This is Tempelhof's notion: and this,

sure enough, was actually Friedrich's mode of management in the weeks following; though whether already

altogether planned in his head, or only gradually planning itself, as is more likely, nobody can say. We will

WEDNESDAY, 18th JUNE, "Friedrich," as predicted to Mitchell, the night before, "did start punctually, in

three columns, at 3 A.M. [Sun just rising]; and, after a hot march, got encamped on the southward side of

Radeburg: ready to cross the Rodern Stream there tomorrow, as if intending for the Lausitz [should that

prove needful for alluring Lacy],and in the mean while very inquisitive where Lacy might be. One of

Lacy's outposts, those Saxon light horse, was fallen in with; was chased home, and Lacy's camp discovered,

that night. At Bernsdorf, not three miles to southward or right of us; Daun only another three to south of him.

Let us attack Lacy tomorrow morning; wind round to get between Daun and him, [Tempelhof, iv.

4749.]with fit arrangements; rapid as light! In the King's tent, accordingly, his Generals are assembled to

take their Orders; brief, distinct, and to be done with brevity. And all are on the move for Bernsdorf at 4 next

"THURSDAY, 19th, At Bernsdorf there is no Lacy to be found. Cautions Dorn has ordered him in,and not

for Lacy's sake, as appears, but for his own: 'Hitherward, you alert Lacy; to cover my right flank here, my

Hill of Reichenberg,lest it be not impregnable enough against that feline enemy!' And there they have

taken post, say 60,000 against 30,000; and are palisading to a quite extraordinary degree. No fight possible

This is what Mitchell counts the failure of Friedrich's enterprise: and certainly it grieved Friedrich a good

deal. Who, on riding out to reconnoitre Reichenberg (Quintus Icilius and Battalion QUINTUS part of his

escort, if that be an interesting circumstance], finds Reichenberg a plainly unattackable post; finds, by Daun's

rate of palisading, that there will be no attack from Daun either. No attack from Daun;and, therefore, that

Hulsen's people may be sent home to Schlettau again; and that he, Friedrich, will take post close by, and

Which he does for a week to come; Daun sitting impregnable, intrenched and palisaded to the teeth,rather

wishing to be attacked, you would say; or hopeful sometimes of doing something of the Hochkirch sort again

(for the country is woody, and the enemy audacious);at all events, very clear not to attack. A man erring,

sometimes to a notable degree, by overcaution. "Could hardly have failed to overwhelm Friedrich's small

force, had he at once, on Friedrich's crossing the Elbe, joined Lacy, and gone out against him," thinks

Tempelhof, pointing out the form of operation too. [Tempelhof, iv. 42, 48.] Caution is excellent; but not quite

by itself. Would caution alone do it, an Army all of Druidic whinstones, or innocent claysacks, incapable of

taking hurt, would be the proper one!Daun stood there; Friedrich looking daily into him,visibly in ill

humor, says Mitchell; and no wonder; gloomy and surly words coming out of him, to the distress of his

Generals: "Which I took the liberty of hinting, one evening, to his Majesty;" hint graciously received, and of

BOOK XX. FRIEDRICH IS NOT TO BE OVERWHELMED: THE SEVENYEARS WAR GRADUALLY ENDS. 25th April, 176015th February, 1763. 1376

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25th, After nearly a week of this, there rose, towards sunset, all over the Reichenberg,

and far and wide, an exuberant joyfiring: "For what in the world?" thinks Friedrich. Alas, your

Majesty,since your own messenger has not arrived, nor indeed ever will, being picked up by

Pandours,here, gathered from the Austrian outposts or deserters, are news for you, fatal enough! Landshut

is done; Fouquet and his valiant 13,000 are trodden out there. Indignant Fouquet has obeyed you, not wisely

but too well. He has kept Landshut six nights and five days. On the morning of the sixth day, here is what

"LANDSHUT, MONDAY, 23d JUNE, About a quarter to two in the morning, Loudon, who had gathered

31,000 horse and foot for the business, and taken his measures, fired aloft, by way of signal, four howitzers

into the gray of the summer morning; and burst loose upon Fouquet, in various columns, on his southward

front, on both flanks, ultimately in his rear too: columns all in the height of fighting humor, confident as three

to one,and having brandy in them, it is likewise said. Fouquet and his people stood to arms, in the temper

Fouquet had vowed they would: defended their Hills with an energy, with a steady skill, which Loudon

himself admired; but their Hillworks would have needed thrice the number;Fouquet, by detaching and

otherwise, has in arms only 10,680 men. Toughly as they strove, after partial successes, they began to lose

one Hill, and then another; and in the course of hours, nearly all their Hills. Landshut Town Loudon had

taken from them, Landshut and its roads: in the end, the Prussian position is becoming permeable, plainly

"Seeing which latter fact, Fouquet throws out all his Cavalry, a poor 1,500, to secure the Passes of the Bober;

himself formed square with the wrecks of his Infantry; and, at a steady step, cuts way for himself with

bayonet and bullet. With singular success for some time, in spite of the odds. And is clear across the Bober;

when lo, among the knolls ahead, masses of Austrian Cavalry are seen waiting him, besetting every passage!

Even these do not break him; but these, with infantry and cannon coming up to help them, do. Here, for some

time, was the fiercest tug of all,till a bullet having killed Fouquet's horse, and carried the General himself

to the ground, the spasm ended. The Lichnowski Dragoons, a famed Austrian regiment, who had charged and

again charged with nothing but repulse on repulse, now broke in, all in a foam of rage; cut furiously upon

Fouquet himself; wounded Fouquet thrice; would have killed him, had it not been for the heroism of poor

Trautschke, his Groom [let us name the gallant fellow, even if unpronounceable], who flung himself on the

body of his Master, and took the bloody strokes instead of him; shrieking his loudest, 'Will you murder the

Commanding General, then!' Which brought up the Colonel of Lichnowski; a Gentleman and Ritter,

abhorrent of such practices. To him Fouquet gave his sword;kept his vow never to draw it again.

"The wrecks of Fouquet's Infantry were, many of them, massacred, no quarter given; such the unchivalrous

fury that had risen. His Cavalry, with the loss of about 500, cut their way through. They and some stragglers

of Foot, in whole about 1,500 of both kinds, were what remained of those 10,680 after this bloody morning's

work. There had been about six hours of it; 'all over by 8 o'clock.'" [ Hofbericht von der am 23 Junius, 1760,

bey Landshuth vorgefallenen Action (in Seyfarth, Beylagen, ii. 669671); HeldenGeschichte, vi. 258284;

Tempelhof, iv. 2641; Stenzel, v. 241 (who, by oversight,this Volume being posthumous to poor Stenzel,

Fouquet has obeyed to the letter: "Did not my King wrong me?" Fouquet may say to himself. Truly, Herr

General, your King's Order was a little unwise; as you (who were on the ground, and your King not) knew it

to be. An unwise Order;perhaps not inexcusable in the sudden circumstances. And perhaps a still more

perfect Bayard would have preferred obeying such a King in spirit, rather than in letter, and thereby doing

him vital service AGAINST his temporary will? It is not doubted but Fouquet, left to himself and his 13,000,

with the Fortresses and Garrisons about him, would have maintained himself in Silesia till help came. The

issue is, Fouquet has probably lost this fine King his Silesia, for the time being; and beyond any question,

has lost him 10,000 Prussian Spartan fighters, and a fine General whom he could ill spare!In a word, the

Gate of Silesia is burst open; and Loudon has every prospect of taking Glatz, which will keep it so.

BOOK XX. FRIEDRICH IS NOT TO BE OVERWHELMED: THE SEVENYEARS WAR GRADUALLY ENDS. 25th April, 176015th February, 1763. 1377

What a thunderbolt for Friedrich! One of the last pillars struck away from his tottering affairs. "Inevitable,

then? We are over with it, then?" One may fancy Friedrich's reflections. But he showed nothing of them to

anybody; in a few hours, had his mind composed, and new plans on the anvil. On the morrow of that Austrian

JoyFiring,morrow, or some day close on it (ought to have been dated, but is not),there went from him,

to Magdeburg, the Order: "Have me such and such quantities of SiegeArtillery in a state of readiness."

[Tempelhof, iv. 51.] Already meaning, it is thought, or contemplating as possible a certain Siege, which

surprised everybody before long! A most inventive, enterprising being; no end to his contrivances and

unexpected outbreaks; especially when you have him jammed into a corner, and fancy it is all over with him!

"To no other General," says Tempelhof, "would such a notion of besieging Dresden have occurred; or if it

had suggested itself, the hideous difficulties would at once have banished it again, or left it only as a pious

wish. But it is strokes of this kind that characterize the great man. Often enough they have succeeded, been

decisive of great campaigns and wars, and become splendid in the eyes of all mankind; sometimes, as in this

case, they have only deserved to succeed, and to be splendid in the eyes of judges. How get these masses of

enemies lured away, so that you could try such a thing? There lay the difficulty; insuperable altogether,

except by the most fine and appropriate treatment. Of a truth, it required a connected series of the wisest

measures and most secret artifices of war;and withal, that you should throw over them such a veil as would

lead your enemy to see in them precisely the reverse of what they meant. How all this was to be set in action,

and how the Enemy's own plans, intentions and moods of mind were to be used as raw material for

attainment of your object,studious readers will best see in the manoeuvres of the King in his now more

than critical condition; which do certainly exhibit the completest masterpiece in the Art of leading Armies

Tempelhof is well enough aware, as readers should continue to be, that, primarily, and onward for three

weeks more, not Dresden, but the getting to Silesia on good terms, is Friedrich's main enterprise: Dresden

only a supplement or substitute, a second string to his bow, till the first fail. But, in effect, the two enterprises

or strings coincide, or are one, till the first of them fail; and Tempelhof's eulogy will apply to either. The

initiatory step to either is a Second Feat of Marching;still notabler than the former, which has had this poor

issue. Soldiers of the studious or scientific sort, if there are yet any such among us, will naturally go to

Tempelhof, and fearlessly encounter the ruggedest Documents and Books, if Tempelhof leave them dubious

on any point (which he hardly will): to ingenuous readers of other sorts, who will take a little pains for

understanding the thing, perhaps the following intermittent faroff glimpses may suffice. [Mitchell, ii. 162 et

seq.; and Tempelhof (iv. 5053 et seq.), as a scientific check on Mitchell, or unconscious fellowwitness

On ascertaining the Landshut disaster, Friedrich falls back a little; northward to GrossDobritz: "Possibly

Daun will think us cowed by what has happened; and may try something on us?" Daun is by no means sure of

this COWED phenomenon, or of the retreat it has made; and tries nothing on it; only rides up daily to it, to

ascertain that it is there; and diligently sends out parties to watch the Northeastward parts, where run the

Silesian Roads. After about a week of this, and some disappointments, Friedrich decides to march in earnest.

There had, one day, come report of Lacy's being detached, Lacy with a strong Division, to block the Silesian

roads; but that, on trial, proved to be false. "Pshaw, nothing for us but to go ourselves!" concludes

Friedrich, and, JULY 1st, sends off his Bakery and Heavy Baggage; indicating to Mitchell, "Tomorrow

morning at 3!"Here is Mitchell's own account; accurate in every particular, as we find: [Mitchell, ii. 164;

WEDNESDAY, JULY 2d. "From GrossDobritz to Quosdorf [to Quosdorf, a poor Hamlet there, not

QuoLsdorf, as many write, which is a Town far enough from there]the Army marched accordingly. In two

columns; baggage, bakery and artillery in a third; through a country extremely covered with wood. Were

attacked by some Uhlans and Hussars; whom a few cannonshot sent to the road again. March lasted from 3

in the morning to 3 in the afternoon;" twelve long hours. "Went northeastward a space of 20 miles, leaving

BOOK XX. FRIEDRICH IS NOT TO BE OVERWHELMED: THE SEVENYEARS WAR GRADUALLY ENDS. 25th April, 176015th February, 1763. 1378

Radeburg, much more leaving Reichenberg, Moritzburg and the Daun quarters well to the right, and at last

quite to rearward; crossed the Roder, crossed the Pulsnitz," small tributaries or sub tributaries of the Elbe in

those parts; "crossed the latter (which divides Meissen from the Lausitz) partly by the Bridge of Krakau, first

Village in the Lausitz. Headquarter was the poor Hamlet of Quosdorf, a mile farther on. 'This march had

been carefully kept secret,' says Mitchell; 'and it was the opinion of the most experienced Officers, that, had

the Enemy discovered the King of Prussia's design, they might, by placing their light troops in the roads with

Daun very early got to know of Friedrich's departure, and whitherward; which was extremely interesting to

Daun: "Aims to be in Silesia before me; will cut out Loudon from his fine prospects on Glatz?"and had

instantly reinforced, perhaps to 20,000, Lacy's Division; and ordered Lacy, who is the nearest to Friedrich's

March, to start instantly on the skirts of said March, and endeavor diligently to trample on the same. For the

purpose of harassing said March, Lacy is to do whatever he with safety can (which we see is not much: "a

few Uhlans and Hussars"); at lowest, is to keep it constantly in sight; and always encamp as near it as he dare;

[Tempelhof, iv. 54.]Daun himself girding up his loins; and preparing, by a shortcut, to get ahead of it in a

day or two. Lacy was alert enough, but could not do much with safety: a few Uhlans and Hussars, that was

THURSDAY, 3d JULY. "A restday; Army resting about Krakau, after such a spell through the woody

moors. The King, with small escort, rides out reconnoitring, hither, thither, on the southern side or Lacy

quarter: to the top of the Keulenberg (BLUDGEON HILL), at last,which is ten or a dozen miles from

Krakau and Quosdorf, but commands an extensive view. Towns, villagebelfries, courses of streams; a

country of mossy woods and wild agricultures, of bogs, of shaggy moor. Southward 10 miles is Radeberg

[not RadebUrg, observe]; yonder is the town of Pulsnitz on our stream of Pulsnitz; to southeast, and twice as

far, is Bischofswerda, chasmy Stolpen (too well known to us before this): behind us, Konigsbruck, Kamenz

and the road from Grossenhayn to Bautzen: these and many other places memorable to this King are

discoverable from Bludgeon Hill. But the discovery of discoveries to him is Lacy's Camp,not very far off,

about a mile behind Pulsnitz; clearly visible, at Lichtenberg yonder. Which we at once determine to attack;

which, and the roads to which, are the one object of interest just now, nothing else visible, as it were, on

the top of the Keulenberg here, or as we ride homeward, meditating it with a practical view. 'March at

FRIDAY, JULY 4th. "Since the stroke of midnight we are all on march again; nothing but the baggages and

bakeries left [with Quintus to watch them, which I see is his common function in these marches]; King

himself in the Vanguard,who hopes to give Lacy a salutation. [Tempelhof, iv. 56.] 'The march was full of

defiles,' says Mitchell: and Mitchell, in his carriage, knew little what a region it was, with boggy intricacies,

lakelets, tangly thickets, stocks and stumps; or what a business to pass with heavy cannon, baggage wagons

and columns of men! Such a march; and again not far from twenty miles of it: very hot, as the morning broke,

in the breathless woods. Had Lacy known what kind of ground we had to march in, and been enterprising!

thinks Tempelhof. The march being so retarded, Lacy got notice of it, and vanished quite away, to

Bischofswerda, I believe, and the protecting neighborhood of Daun. Nothing of him left when we emerge,

simultaneously from this hand and from that, on his front and on his rear, to take him as in a vice, as in the

sudden snap of a foxtrap;fox quite gone. Hardly a few hussars of him to be picked up; and no chase

Friedrich had done everything to keep himself secret: but Lacy has endless Pandours prowling about; and, I

suppose, the Countrypeople (in the Lausitz here, who ought to have loyalty) are on the Lacy side. Friedrich

has to take his disappointment. He encamps here, on the Heights, headquarter Pulsnitz,till Quintus come

up with the baggage, which he does punctually, but not till nightfall, not till midnight the last of him.

BOOK XX. FRIEDRICH IS NOT TO BE OVERWHELMED: THE SEVENYEARS WAR GRADUALLY ENDS. 25th April, 176015th February, 1763. 1379

SATURDAY, JULY 5th. "To the road again at 3 A.M. Again to northward, to Kloster (CLOISTER)

Marienstern, a 15 miles or so, headquarter in the Cloister itself. Daun had set off for Bautzen, with his 50

or 60,000, in the extremest push of haste, and is at Bautzen this night; ahead of Friedrich, with Lacy as

rearguard of him, who is also ahead of Friedrich, and safe at Bischofswerda. A Daun hastening as never

before. This news of a Daun already at Bautzen awakened Friedrich's utmost speed: 'Never do, that Daun be

in Silesia before us! Indispensable to get ahead of Bautzen and him, or to be waiting on the flank of his next

"SUNDAY, JULY 6th, Friedrich, at 3 A.M., is again in motion; in three columns, streaming forward all day:

straight eastward, Daunward. Intends to cross the Spree, leaving Bautzen to the right; and take post

somewhere to northeast of Bautzen, and on the flank of Daun. The windless day grows hotter and hotter; the

roads are of loose sand, full of jungles and impediments. This was such a march for heat and difficulty as the

King never had before. In front of each Column went wagons with a few pontoons; there being many brooks

and little streams to cross. The soldier, for his own health's sake, is strictly forbidden to drink; but as the

burning day rose higher, in the sweltering close march, thirst grew irresistible. Crossing any of these Brooks,

the soldiers pounce down, irrepressible, whole ranks of them; lift water, clean or dirty; drink it greedily from

the brim of the hat. Sergeants may wag their tongues and their cudgels at discretion: 'showers of

cudgelstrokes,' says Archenholtz; Sergeants going like threshers on the poor men;'though the upper

Officers had a touch of mercy, and affected not to see this disobedience to the Sergeants and their cudgels,'

which was punishable with death. War is not an overfond Mother, but a sufficiently Spartan one, to her

Sons. There dropt down, in the march that day, 105 Prussian men, who never rose again. And as to

intercepting Daun by such velocity, Daun too is on march; gone to Gorlitz, at almost a faster pace, if at a

far heavier,like a carthorse on gallop; faring still worse in the heat: '200 of Daun's men died on the road

this day, and 300 more were invalided for life.' [Tempelhof, iv. 58; Archenholtz, ii. 68; Mitchell, ii. 166.]

"Before reaching the Spree, Friedrich, who is in the Vanguard, hears of this Gorlitz March, and that the bird

is flown. For which he has, therefore, to devise straightway a new expedient: 'Wheel to the right; cross Spree

farther down, holding towards Bautzen itself,' orders Friedrich. And settles within two miles of Bautzen; his

left being at Doberschutz,on the strong ground he held after Hochkirch, while Daun, two years ago, sat

watching so quiescent. Daun knows what kind of march these Prussians, blocked out from relief of Neisse,

stole on him THEN, and saved their Silesia, in spite of his watching and blocking;and has plunged off, in

the manner of a carthorse scared into galloping, to avoid the like." What a Sabbathday's journey, on both

sides, for those Sons of War! Nothing in the Roman times, though they had less baggage, comes up to such

modern marching: nor is this the fastest of Friedrich's, though of Daun's it unspeakably is. "Friedrich, having

missed Daun, is thinking now to whirl round, and go into Lacy,which will certainly bring Daun back, even

"This evening, accordingly, Ziethen occupies Bautzen; sweeps out certain Lacy precursors, cavalry in some

strength, who are there. Lacy has come on as far as Bischofswerda: and his Horsepeople seem to be wide

ahead; provokingly pert upon Friedrich's outposts, who determines to chastise them the first thing

tomorrow. Tomorrow, as is very needful, is to be a restday otherwise. For Friedrich's wearied people a

restday; not at all for Daun's, who continues his heavyfooted galloping yet another day and another, till he

MONDAY, JULY 7th. "Restday accordingly, in Bautzen neighborhood; nothing passing but a curious

Skirmish of Horse,in which Friedrich, who had gone westward reconnoitring, seeking Lacy, had the main

share, and was notably situated for some time. Godau, a small town or village, six miles west of Bautzen, was

the scene of this notable passage: actors in it were Friedrich himself, on the Prussian part; and, on the

Austrian, by degrees Lacy's Cavalry almost in whole. Lacy's Cavalry, what Friedrich does not know, are all

in those neighborhoods: and no sooner is Godau swept clear of them, than they return in greater numbers,

needing to be again swept; and, in fact, they gradually gather in upon him, in a singular and dangerous

BOOK XX. FRIEDRICH IS NOT TO BE OVERWHELMED: THE SEVENYEARS WAR GRADUALLY ENDS. 25th April, 176015th February, 1763. 1380

manner, after his first successes on them, and before his Infantry have time to get up and support.

"Friedrich was too impatient in this provoking little haggle, arresting him here. He had ordered on the

suitable Battalion with cannon; but hardly considers that the Battalion itself is six miles off,not to speak of

the Order, which is galloping on horseback, not going by electricity:the impatient Friedrich had slashed in

at once upon Godau, taken above 100 prisoners; but is astonished to see the slashed people return, with

SaxonDragoon regiments, all manner of regiments, reinforcing them. And has some really dangerous

fencing there;issuing in dangerous and curious pause of both parties; who stand drawn up, scarcely beyond

pistolshot, and gazing into one another, for I know not how many minutes; neither of them daring to move

off, lest, on the instant of turning, it be charged and overwhelmed. As the impatient Friedrich, at last, almost

was,had not his Infantry just then got in, and given their cannonsalvo. He lost about 200, the Lacy people

hardly so many; and is now out of a considerable personal jeopardy, which is still celebrated in the

AnecdoteBooks, perhaps to a mythical extent. 'Two Uhlans [SaxonPolish LightHorse], with their

truculent pikes, are just plunging in,' say the AnecdoteBooks: Friedrich's Page, who had got unhorsed,

sprang to his feet, bellowed in Polish to them: 'What are you doing here, fellows?' 'Excellenz [for the Page is

not in Prussian uniform, or in uniform at all, only welldressed], Excellenz, our horses ran away with us,'

answer the poor fellows; and whirl back rapidly." The story, says Retzow, is true. [Retzow, ii. 215.]

This is the one event of July 7th,and of July 8th withal; which day also, on news of Daun that come,

Friedrich rests. Up to July 8th, it is clear Friedrich is shooting with what we called the first string of his

bow,intent, namely, on Silesia. Nor, on hearing that Daun is forward again, now hopelessly ahead, does he

quit that enterprise; but, on the contrasy, tomorrow morning, July 9th, tries it by a new method, as we shall

see: method cunningly devised to suit the second string as well. "How lucky that we have a second string, in

TUESDAY, 8th JULY. "News that Daun reached Gorlitz yesternight; and is due tonight at Lauban, fifty

miles ahead of us:no hope now of reaching Daun. Perhaps a sudden clutch at Lacy, in the opposite

direction, might be the method of recalling Daun, and reaching him? That is the method fallen upon.

"Sun being set, the drums in Bautzen sound TATTOO,audible to listening Croats in the Environs;beat

TATTOO, and, later in the night, other passages of drummusic, also for Croat behoof

(GENERALMARCH I think it is); indicating That we have started again, in pursuit of Daun. And in short,

every precaution being taken to soothe the mind of Lacy and the Croats, Friedrich silently issues, with his

best speed, in Three columns, by Three roads, towards Lacy's quarters, which go from that village of Godau

westward, in a loose way, several miles. In three columns, by three routes, all to converge, with punctuality,

on Lacy. Of the columns, two are of Infantry, the leftmost and the rightmost, on each hand, hidden as much

as possible; one is of Cavalry in the middle. Coming on in this mannerlike a pair of triplepincers, which

are to grip simultaneously on Lacy, and astonish him, if he keep quiet. But Lacy is vigilant, and is cautious

almost in excess. Learning by his Pandours that the King seems to be coming this way, Lacy gathers himself

on the instant; quits Godau, by one in the morning; and retreats bodily, at his fastest step, to Bischofswerda

For the third time! "Three is lucky," Friedrich may have thought: and there has no precaution, of

drummusic, of secrecy or persuasive finesse, been neglected on Lacy. But Lacy has ears that hear the grass

grow: our elaborately accurate triplepincers, closing simultaneously on Bischofswerda, after eighteen miles

of sweep, find Lacy flown again; nothing to be caught of him but some 80 hussars. All this day and all next

night Lacy is scouring through the western parts at an extraordinary rate; halting for a camp, twice over, at

different places,Durre Fuchs (THIRSTY FOX), Durre Buhle (THIRSTY SWEETHEART), or wherever it

was; then again taking wing, on sound of Prussian parties to rear; in short, hurrying towards Dresden and the

BOOK XX. FRIEDRICH IS NOT TO BE OVERWHELMED: THE SEVENYEARS WAR GRADUALLY ENDS. 25th April, 176015th February, 1763. 1381

Lacy's retreat, I hear, was ingeniously done, with a minimum of disorder in the circumstances: but certainly it

was with a velocity as if his head had been on fire; and, indeed, they say he escaped annihilation by being off

in time. He put up finally, not at Thirsty Sweetheart, still less at Thirsty Fox, successive Hamlets and Public

Houses in the sandy Wilderness which lies to north of Elbe, and is called DRESDEN HEATH; but farther on,

in the same Tract, at Weisse Hirsch (WHITE HART); which looks close over upon Dresden, within two

miles or so; and is a kind of Height, and military post of advantage. Next morning, July 10th, he crosses

Dresden Bridge, comes streaming through the City; and takes shelter with the Reichsfolk near

there:towards Plauen Chasm; the strongest ground in the world; hardly strong enough, it appears, in the

Friedrich's first string, therefore, has snapt in two; but, on the instant, he has a second fitted on:may that

From and after the Evening of Wednesday, July 9th, it is upon a Siege of Dresden that Friedrich

goes;turning the whole war theatre topsyturvy; throwing Daun, Loudon, Lacy, everybody OUT, in this

strange and sudden manner. One of the finest military feats ever done, thinks Tempelhof. Undoubtedly a

notable result so far, and notably done; as the impartial reader (if Tempelhof be a little inconsistent) sees for

himself. These truly are a wonderful series of marches, opulent in continual promptitudes, audacities,

contrivances;done with shining talent, certainly; and also with result shining, for the moment. And in a

Fabulous Epic I think Dresden would certainly have fallen to Friedrich, and his crowd of enemies been left in

But the Epic of Reality cares nothing for such considerations; and the time allowable for capture of Dresden

is very brief. Had Daun, on getting warning, been as prompt to return as he was to go, frankly fronting at

once the chances of the road, he might have been at Dresden again perhaps within a week,no Siege

possible for Friedrich, hardly the big guns got up from Magdeburg. But Friedrich calculated there would be

very considerable fettling and haggling on Daun's part; say a good Fortnight of Siege allowed;and that, by

deadlift effort of all hands, the thing was feasible within that limit. On Friedrich's part, as we can fancy,

there was no want of effort; nor on his people's part,in spite of his complainings, say Retzow and the

Opposition party; who insinuate their own private belief of impossibility from the first. Which is not

confirmed by impartial judgments,that of Archenholtz, and others better. The truth is, Friedrich was within

an inch of taking Dresden by the first assault,they say he actually could have taken it by storm the first

day; but shuddered at the thought of exposing poor Dresden to sack and plunder; and hoped to get it by

One of the rapidest and most furious Sieges anywhere on record. Filled Europe with astonishment,

expectancy, admiration, horror: must be very briefly recited here. The main chronological epochs, salient

points of crisis and successive phases of occurrence, will sufficiently indicate it to the reader's fancy.

"It was Thursday Evening, 10th July, when Lacy got to his Reichsfolk, and took breath behind Plauen

Chasm. Maguire is Governor of Dresden. The consternation of garrison and population was extreme. To Lacy

himself it did not seem conceivable that Friedrich could mean a Siege of Dresden. Friedrich, that night, is

beyond the River, in Daun's old impregnability of Reichenberg: 'He has no siegeartillery,' thinks Lacy; 'no

"Nevertheless, Saturday, next day after tomorrow,behold, there is Hulsen, come from Schlettau to our

neighborhood, on our Austrian side of the River. And at Kaditz yonder, a mile below Dresden, are not the

King's people building their Pontoons; in march since 2 in the morning, evidently coming across, if not to

besiege Dresden, then to attack us; which is perhaps worse! We outnumber them,but as to trying fight in

any form? Zweibruck leaves Maguire an additional 10,000;every help and encouragement to Maguire;

whose garrison is now 14,000: 'Be of courage, Excellenz Maguire! Nobody is better skilled in siegematters.

Feldmarschall and relief will be here with despatch!'and withdraws, Lacy and he, to the edge of the Pirna

Country, there to be well out of harm's way. Lacy and he, it is thought, would perhaps have got beaten, trying

to save Dresden from its misery. Lacy's orders were, Not, on any terms, to get into fighting with Friedrich,

but only to cover Dresden. Dresden, without fighting, has proved impossible to cover, and Lacy leaves it

"At Kaditz," says Mitchell, "where the second bridge of boats took a great deal of time, I was standing by his

Majesty, when news to the above effect came across from General Hulsen. The King was highly pleased;

and, turning to me, said: 'Just what I wished! They have saved me a very long march [round by

Dippoldiswalde or so, in upon the rear of them] by going of will.' And immediately the King got on

horseback; ordering the Army to follow as fast as it could." [Mitchell, ii. 168.] "Through Preisnitz,

Plauenward, goes the Army; circling round the Western and the Southern side of Dresden; [a dread

spectacle from the walls]; across Weistritz Brook and the Plauen Chasm [comfortably left vacant]; and

encamps on the Southeastern side of Dresden, at Gruna, behind the GREAT GARDEN; ready to begin

business on the morrow. Gruna, about a mile to southeast of Dresden Walls, is headquarter during this

"Through the night, the Prussians proceed to build batteries, the best they can;there is no right

siegeartillery yet; a few accidental howitzers and 25pounders, the rest mere fieldguns; but tomorrow

morning, be as it may, business shall begin. Prince von Holstein [nephew of the Holstein Beck, or "Holstein

SILVERPLATE," whom we lost long ago], from beyond the River, encamped at the White Hart yonder, is

MONDAY 14th, "At 6 A.M., cannonade began; diligent on Holstein's part and ours; but of inconsiderable

effect. Maguire has been summoned: 'Will [with such a garrison, in spite of such trepidations from the Court

and others] defend himself to the last man.' FreeCorps people [not Quintus's, who is on the other side of the

River], [Tempelhof, v. 67.] with regulars to rear, advance on the Pirna Gate; hurl in Maguire's Outparties;

and had near got in along with them,might have done so, they and their supports, it is thought by some,

"For four days there is livelier and livelier cannonading; new batteries getting opened in the Moschinska

Garden and other points; on the Prussian part, great longing that the Magdeburg artillery were here. The

Prussians are making diligently ready for it, in the mean while (refitting the old Trenches, 'old Envelope' dug

by Maguire himself in the AntiSchmettau time; these will do well enough):the Prussians reinforce

Holstein at the Weisse, Hirsch, throw a new bridge across to him; and are busy day and night. Maguire, too,

is most industrious, resisting and preparing: Thursday shuts up the Weistritz Brook (a dam being ready this

long while back, needing only to be closed), and lays the whole South side of Dresden under water. Many

rumors about Daun: coming, not coming;must for certain come, but will possibly be slowish."

FRIDAY 18th. "Joy to every Prussian soul: here are the heavy guns from Magdeburg. These, at any rate, are

come; beds for them all ready; and now the cannonading can begin in right earnest. As it does with a

vengeance. To Mitchell, and perhaps others, 'the King of Prussia says He will now be master of the Town in a

few days. And the disposition he has made of his troops on the other side of the River is intended not only to

attack Dresden on that side [and defend himself from Daun], but also to prevent the Garrison from retiring. ...

This morning, Friday, 18th, the Suburb of Pirna, the one street left of it, was set fire to, by Maguire; and burnt

out of the way, as the others had been. Many of the wretched inhabitants had fled to our camp: "Let them

lodge in Plauen, no fighting there, quiet artificial water expanses there instead." Many think the Town will

not be taken; or that, if it should, it will cost very dear,so determined seems Maguire. [Mitchell, iii. 170,

171.] And, in effect, from this day onwards, the Siege became altogether fierce, and not only so, but fiery as

well; and, though lasting in that violent form only four, or at the very utmost seven, days more, had near

SATURDAY, 19th, "Maguire, touched to the quick by these new artilleries of the Prussians this morning,

found good to mount a gun or two on the leads of the KreuzKirche [Protestant High Church, where, before

now, we have noticed Friedrich attending quasidivine service more than once];that is to say, on the crown

of Dresden; from which there is view into the bottom of Friedrich's trenches and operations. Others say, it

was only two or three old Saxon cannon, which stand there, for firing on galadays; and that they hardly fired

on Friedrich more than once. For certain, this is one of the desirablest batterystations,if only Friedrich

will leave it alone. Which he will not for a moment; but brings terrific howitzers to bear on it; cannonballs,

grenadoes; tears it to destruction, and the poor KreuzKirche along with it. Kirche speedily all in flames,

street after street blazing up round it, again and again for eightandforty hours coming; hapless Dresden,

during two days and nights, a mere volcano henceforth." "By mistake all that, and without order of mine,"

says Friedrich once;meaning, I think, all that of the KreuzKirche: and perhaps wishing he could mean the

bombardment altogether, [Schoning, ii. 361 "To Prince Henri, at Giessen [Frankfurt Country], 23d July,

1760."]who nevertheless got, and gets, most of the credit of the thing from a shocked outside world.

"This morning," same Saturday, 19th, "Daun is reported to have arrived; vanguard of him said to be at

Schonfeld, over in THIRSTY SWEETHEART Country yonder which Friedrich, going to reconnoitre, finds

tragically indisputable: 'There, for certain; only five miles from Holstein's post at the WHITE HART, and no

River between;as the crow flies, hardly five from our own Camp. Perhaps it will be some days yet before

he do anything?' So that Friedrich persists in his bombardment, only the more: 'By firetorture, then! Let the

bombarded Royalties assail Maguire, and Maguire give in;it is our one chance left; and succeed we will

and must!' Cruel, say you? Ah, yes, cruel enough, not merciful at all. The soul of Friedrich, I perceive, is

not in a bright mood at this time, but in a black and wrathful, worn almost desperate against the slings and

arrows of unjust Fate: 'Ahead, I say! If everybody will do miracles, cannot we perhaps still manage it, in spite

of Fate?'" Mitchell is very sorry; but will forget and forgive those inexorable passages of war.

"I cannot think of the bombardment of Dresden without horror," says he; "nor of many other things I have

seen. Misfortunes naturally sour men's temper [even royal men's]; and long continued, without interval, at last

extinguish humanity." "We are now in a most critical and dangerous situation, which cannot long last: one

lucky event, approaching to a miracle, may still save all: but the extreme caution and circumspection of

If Daun could be swift, and end the miseries of Dresden, surely Dresden would be much obliged to him. It

was ten days yet, after that of the KreuzKirche, before Dresden quite got rid of its Siege: Daun never was a

sudden man. By a kind of accident, he got Holstein hustled across the River that first night (July 19th), not

annihilated, as was very feasible, but pushed home, out of his way. Whereby the North side of Dresden is

Maguire rose thereupon to a fine pitch of spirits; tried several things, and wished Daun to try; but with next to

no result. For two days after Holstein's departure, Daun sat still, on his safe Northern shore; stirring nothing

but his own cunctations and investigations, leaving the bombardment, or cannonade, to take its own course.

One attempt he did make in concert with Maguire (night of Monday 21st), and one attempt only, of a serious

nature; which, like the rest, was unsuccessful. And would not be worth mentioning,except for the poor

Regiment BERNBURG'S sake; Bernburg having got into strange case in consequence of it.

"This Attempt [night of 21st22d July] was a combined sally and assaultSally by Maguire's people, a

General Nugent heading them, from the South or Plauen side of Dresden, and Assault by 4,000 of Daun's

from the North sideupon Friedrich's Trenches. Which are to be burst in upon in this double way, and swept

well clear, as may be expected. Friedrich, however, was aware of the symptoms, and had people ready

waiting,especially, had Regiment BERNBURG, Battalions 1st and 2d; a Regiment hitherto without stain.

"Bernburg accordingly, on General Nugent's entering their trenches from the south side, falls altogether

heartily on General Nugent; tumbles him back, takes 200 prisoners, Nudent himself one of them [who is

considered to have been the eye of the enterprise, worth many hundreds this night] all this Bernburg, in its

usually creditable manner, does, as expected of it. But after, or during all this, when the Dann people from the

north come streaming in, say four to one, both south and north, Bernburg looked round for support; and

seeing none, had, after more or less of struggle, to retire as a defeated Bernburg,Austrians taking the

battery, and ruling supreme there for some time. Till Wedell, or somebody with fresh Battalions, came up;

and, rallying Bernburg to him, retook their Battery, and drove out the Austrians, with a heavy loss of

"I did not hear that Bernburg's conduct was liable to the least fair censure. But Friedrich's soul is severe at

this time; demanding miracles from everybody: 'You runaway Bernburg, shame on you!'and actually takes

the swords from them, and cuts off their Hattresses: 'There!' Which excited such an astonishment in the

Prussian Army as was seldom seen before. And affected Bernburg to the length almost of despair, and

breaking of heart,in a way that is not ridiculous to me at all, but beautiful and pathetic. Of which there is

much talk, now and long afterwards, in military circles. 'The sorrows of these poor Bernburgers, their

desperate efforts to wash out this stigma, their actual washing of it out, not many weeks hence, and their

magnificent joy on the occasion, these are the one distinguishing point in Daun's relief of Dresden, which

Daun built three Bridges,he had a broad stone one already,but did little or nothing with them; and never

himself came across at all. Merely shot out nocturnal Pandour Parties, and ordered up Lacy and the

Reichsfolk to do the like, and break the night's rest of his Enemy. He made minatory movements, one at least,

down the River, by his own shore, on Friedrich's AmmunitionBoats from Torgau, and actually intercepted

certain of them, which was something; but, except this, and vague flourishings of the Pandour kind, left

Friedrich bombarded for a day or two farther; cannonaded, out of more or fewer batteries, for eight, or I think

ten days more. Attacks from Daun there were to be, now on this side, now on that; many rumors of attack,

but, except once only (midnight Pandours attempting the King's lodging, "a Farmhouse near Gruna," but to

their astonishment rousing the whole Prussian Army "in the course of three minutes" [Archenholtz, ii. 81

(who is very vivid, but does not date); Rodenbeck, ii. 24 (quotes similar account by another Eyewitness, and

guesses it to be "night of July 22d23d").]), rumor was mainly all. For guarding his siegelines, Friedrich has

to alter his position; to shift slightly, now fronting this way, now the other way; is "called always at midnight"

(against these nocturnal disturbances), and "never has his clothes off." Nevertheless, continues his

bombardment, and then his cannonading, till his own good time, which I think is till the 26th. His

"ricochetbattery," which is good against Maguire's people, innocent to Dresden, he continued for three days

more;while gathering his furnitures about Plauen Country, making his arrangements at Meissen;did not

march till the night of June 29th. Altogether calmly; no Daun or Austrian molesting him in the least; his very

sentries walking their rounds in the trenches till daylight; after which they also marched, unmolested,

Unfortunate Friedrich has made nothing of Dresden, then. After such a June and July of it, since he left the

Meissen Country; after all these intricate manoeuvrings, hot fierce marchings and superhuman exertions, here

is he returning to Meissen Country poorer than if he had stayed. Fouquet lost, Glatz unrelievedNay, just

before marching off, what is this new phenomenon? Is this by way of "Happy journey to you!" Towards

sunset of the 29th, exuberant joyfiring rises far and wide from the usually quiet Austrian lines,"Meaning

what, once more?" Meaning that Glatz is lost, your Majesty; that, instead of a siege of many weeks (as might

have been expected with Fouquet for Commandant), it has held out, under Fouquet's Second, only a few

hours; and is gone without remedy! Certain, though incredible. Imbecile Commandant, treacherous Garrison

(Austrian deserters mainly), with stealthy Jesuits acting on them: no use asking what. Here is the sad

"Loudon is a swift man, when he can get bridle; but the curbhand of Daun is often heavy on him. Loudon

has had Glatz blockaded since June 7th; since June 23d he has had Fouquet rooted away, and the ground clear

for a Siege of Glatz. But had to abstain altogether, in the mean time; to take camp at Landshut, to march and

manoeuvre about, in support of Daun, and that heavyfooted gallop of Daun's which then followed: on the

whole, it was not till Friedrich went for Dresden that the SiegeArtillery, from Olmutz, could be ordered

forward upon Glatz; not for a fortnight more that the Artillery could come; and, in spite of Loudon's utmost

despatch, not till break of day, July 26th, that the batteries could open. After which, such was Loudon's speed

and fortune,and so diligent had the Jesuits been in those seven weeks,the 'Siege,' as they call it, was

"One Colonel D'O [Piedmontese by nation, an incompetent person, known to loud Trenck during his

detention here] was Commandant of Glatz, and had the principal Fortress,for there are two, one on each

side the Neisse River;his Second was a Colonel Quadt, by birth Prussian, seemingly not very competent he

either, who had command of the Old Fortress, round which lies the Town of Glatz: a little Town, abounding

in Jesuits;to whose Virgin, if readers remember, Friedrich once gave a new gown; with small effect on her,

as would appear. The QuadtD'O garrison was 2,400,and, if tales are true, it had been well bejesuited

during those seven weeks. [ OEuvres de Frederic, v. 55.] At four in the morning, July 26th) the battering

began on Quadt; Quadt, I will believe, responding what he could,especially from a certain Arrowhead

Redoubt (or FLECHE) he has, which ought to have been important to him. After four or five hours of this,

there was mutual pause,as if both parties had decided upon breakfast before going farther.

"Quadt's Fortress is very strong, mostly hewn in the rock; and he has that important outwork of a FLECHE;

which is excellent for enfilading, as it extends well beyond the glacis; and, being of rock like the rest, is also

abundantly defensible. Loudon's people, looking over into this FLECHE, find it negligently guarded; Quadt

at breakfast, as would seem:and directly send for Harsch, Captain of the Siege, and even for Loudon, the

GeneralinChief. Negligently guarded, sure enough; nothing in the FLECHE but a few sentries, and these in

the horizontal position, taking their unlawful rest there, after such a morning's work. 'Seize me that,' eagerly

orders Loudon; 'hold that with firm grip!' Which is done; only to step in softly, two battalions of you, and lay

hard hold. Incompetent Quadt, figure in what a flurry, rushing out to recapture his FLECHE,explodes

instead into mere anarchy, whole Companies of him flinging down their arms at their Officers' feet, and the

like. So that Quadt is totally driven in again, Austrians along with him; and is obliged to beat

chamade;D'O following the example, about an hour after, without even a capitulation. Was there ever seen

such a defence! Major Unruh, one of a small minority, was Prussian, and stanch; here is Unruh's personal

experience,testimony on D'O's Trial, I suppose,and now pretty much the one thing worth reading on this

the Enemy began to cannonade the Old Fortress [that of Quadt]; and about nine, I was ordered with 150 men

to clear the Envelope from Austrians. Just when I had got to the DammGate, halt was called. I asked the

Commandant, who was behind me, which way I should march; to the Crownwork or to the Envelope?

Being answered, To the Envelope, I found on coming out at the FieldGate nothing but an Austrian

Lieutenantcolonel and some men. He called to me, "There had been chamade beaten, and I was not to run

into destruction (MICH UNGLUCKLICH MACHEN)!" I offered him Quarter; and took him in effect

prisoner, with 20 of his best men; and sent him to the Commandant, with request that he would keep my rear

free, or send me reinforcement. I shot the Enemy a great many people here; chased him from the FieldGate,

and out of both the Envelope and the Redoubt called the Crane [that is the FLECHE itself, only that the

Austrians are mostly not now there, but gone THROUGH into the interior there!]Returning to the

FieldGate, I found that the Commandant had beaten chamade a second time; there were marching in, by this

FieldGate, two battalions of the Austrian Regiment ANDLAU; I had to yield myself prisoner, and was taken

to General Loudon. He asked me, "Don't you know the rules of war, then; that you fire after chamade is

beaten?" I answered in my heat, "I knew of no chamade; what poltroonery or what treachery had been going

on, I knew not!" Loudon answered, "You might deserve to have your head laid at your feet, Sir! Am I here to

inquire which of you shows bravery, which poltroonery?"' [Seyfarth, ii. 652.] A blazing Loudon, when the

After the Peace, D'O had CourtMartial, which sentenced him to death, Friedrich making it perpetual

imprisonment: "Perhaps not a traitor, only a blockhead!" thought Friedrich. He had been recommended to his

Thus is the southern Key of Silesia (one of the two southern Keys, Neisse being the other) lost to Friedrich,

for the first time; and Loudon is like to drive a trade there; "Will absolutely nothing prosper with us, then?"

Nothing, seemingly, your Majesty! Heavier news Friedrich scarcely ever had. But there is no help. This too

he has to carry with him as he can into the Meissen Country. Unsuccessful altogether; beaten on every hand.

Human talent, diligence, endeavor, is it but as lightning smiting the Serbonian Bog? Smite to the last, your

Majesty, at any rate; let that be certain. As it is, and has been. That is always something, that is always a great

Friedrich intends no pause in those Meissen Countries. JULY 30th, on his march northward, he detaches

Hulsen with the old 10,000 to take Camp at Schlettau as before, and do his best for defence of Saxony against

the Reichsfolk, numerous, but incompetent; he himself, next day, passes on, leaving Meissen a little on his

right, to Schieritz, some miles farther down,intending there to cross Elbe, and make for Silesia without loss

of an hour. Need enough of speed thither; more need than even Friedrich supposes! Yesterday, July 30th,

Loudon's Vanguard came blockading Breslau, and this day Loudon himself;though Friedrich heard

Soltikof's and Loudon's united intentions on Silesia he has well known this long while; and has been

perpetually dunning Prince Henri on the subject, to no purpose,only hoping always there would probably

be no great rapidity on the part of these discordant Allies. Friedrich's feelings, now that the contrary is

visible, and indeed all through the Summer in regard to the SoltikofLoudon Business, and the

FouquetHenri method of dealing with it, have been painful enough, and are growing ever more so. Cautious

Henri never would make the smallest attack on Soltikof, but merely keep observing him;the end of which,

what can the end of it be? urges Friedrich always: "Condense yourselves; go in upon the Russians, while they

are in separate corps;"and is very illsatisfied with the languor of procedures there. As is the Prince with

such reproaches, or implied reproaches, on said languor. Nor is his humor cheered, when the King's bad

predictions prove true. What has it come to? These Letters of King and Prince are worth reading,if indeed

you can, in the confusion of Schoning (a somewhat exuberant man, loud rather than luminous);so curious

is the Private Dialogue going on there at all times, in the background of the stage, between the Brothers. One

short specimen, extending through the June and July just over,specimen distilled faithfully out of that huge

DIALOGUE OF FRIEDRICH AND HENRI (from their Private Correspondence: June 7thJuly 29th, 1760).

FRIEDRICH (June 7th; before his first crossing Elbe: Henri at Sagan; he at Schlettau, scanning the waste of

fatal possibilities). ... Embarrassing? Not a doubt, of that! "I own, the circumstances both of us are in are like

to turn my head, three or four times a day." Loudon aiming for Neisse, don't you think? Fouquet all in the

wrong."One has nothing for it but to watch where the likelihood of the biggest misfortune is, and to run

henri ... "I confess I am in great apprehension for Colberg:" shall one make thither; think you? Russians,

8,000 as the first instalment of them, have ARRIVED; got to Posen under Fermor, June 1st:so the

FRIEDRICH (June 9th). Commandant of Glogau writes impossibilities: Russians are not on march yet, nor

"I cross Elbe, the 15th. I am compelled to undertake something of decisive nature, and leave the rest to

chance. For desperate disorders desperate remedies. My bed is not one of roses. Heaven aid us: for human

prudence finds itself fall short in situations so cruel and desperate as ours." [Schoning, ii. 313 ("Meissen

HENRI. Hm, hm, ha (Nothing but carefully collected rumors, and wiredrawn auguries from them, on the

part of Henri; very intense inspection of the chickenbowels,hardly ever without a shake of the head).

FRIEDRICH (June 26th; has heard of the Fouquet disaster). ... "Yesterday my heart was torn to pieces [news

of Landshut, Fouquet's downfall there], and I felt too sad to be in a state for writing you a sensible Letter; but

today, when I have come to myself a little again, I will send you my reflections. After what has happened to

Fouquet, it is certain Loudon can have no other design but on Breslau [he designs Glatz first of all]: it will be

the grand point, therefore, especially if the Russians too are bending thither, to save that Capital of Silesia.

Surely the Turks must be in motion:if so, we are saved; if not so, we are lost! Today I have taken this

Camp of Dobritz, in order to be more collected, and in condition to fight well, should occasion rise,and in

case all this that is said and written to me about the Turks is TRUE [which nothing of it was], to be able to

profit by it when the time comes." [Schoning, ii. 341 ("GrossDobritz, 26th June, 1760").]

HENRI (simultaneously, June 26th: Henri is forward from Sagan, through Frankfurt, and got settled at

Landsberg, where he remains through the rest of the Dialogue). ... Tottleben, with his Cossacks, scouring

about, got a check from us,nothing like enough. "By all my accounts, Soltikof, with the gross of the

Russians, is marching for Posen. The other rumors and symptoms agree in indicating a separate Corps, under

Fermor, who is to join Tottleben, and besiege Colberg: if both these Corps, the Colberg and the Posen one,

act, in concert, my embarrassment will be extreme. ... I have just had news of what has befallen General

Fouquet. Before this stroke, your affairs were desperate enough; now I see but too well what we have to look

FRIEDRICH. "Would to God your prayers for the swift capture of Dresden had been heard; but unfortunately

I must tell you, this stroke has failed me. ... Dresden has been reduced to ashes, third part of the Altstadt lying

burnt;contrary to my intentions: my orders were, To spare the City, and play the Artillery against the

works. My Minister Graf von Finck will have told you what occasioned its being set on fire." [Schoning, ii.

HENRI (July 26th; Dresden Siege gone awry). ... "I am to keep the Russians from Frankfurt, to cover Glogau,

and prevent a besieging of Breslau! All that forms an overwhelming problem;which I, with my whole

heart, will give up to somebody abler for it than I am." [Ib. ii. 369371 ("Landsherg, 26th July").]

FRIEDRICH (29th July; quits the Trenches of Dresden this night). ... "I have seen with pain that you

represent everything to yourself on the black side. I beg you, in the name of God, my dearest Brother, don't

take things up in their blackest and worst shape:it is this that throws your mind into such an indecision,

which is so lamentable. Adopt a resolution rather, what resolution you like, but stand by it, and execute it

with your whole strength. I conjure you, take a fixed resolution; better a bad than none at all. ... What is

possible to man, I will do; neither care nor consideration nor effort shall be spared, to secure the result of my

plans. The rest depends on circumstances. Amid such a number of enemies, one cannot always do what one

will, but must let them prescribe." [Ib. ii. 370372 ("Leubnitz, before Dresden, 29th July, 1760").]

An uncomfortable little Gentleman; but full of faculty, if one can manage to get good of it! Here, what might

have preceded all the above, and been preface to it, is a pretty passage from him; a glimpse he has had of

SansSouci, before setting out on those gloomy marchings and cunctatory hagglings. Henri writes (at

"I mean to march the day after tomorrow. I took arrangements with General Fouquet [about that long

finespun Chain of Posts, where we are to do such service?]the Black Hussars cannot be here till

tomorrow, otherwise I should have marched a day sooner. My Brother [poor little invalid Ferdinand]

charged me to lay him at your feet. I found him weak and thin, more so than formerly. Returning hither, the

day before yesterday, I passed through Potsdam; I went to SansSouci [April 24th, 1760]:all is green

there; the Garden embellished, and seemed to me excellently kept. Though these details cannot occupy you at

present, I thought it would give you pleasure to hear of them for a moment." [Schoning, ii. 233 ("Torgau,

26th April, 1760").] Ah, yes; all is so green and blessedly silent there: sight of the lost Paradise, actually IT,

visible for a moment yonder, far away, while one goes whirling in this manner on the illimitable wracking

Here finally, from a distant part of the WarTheatre, is another Note; which we will read while Friedrich is at

Schieritz. At no other place so properly; the very date of it, chief date (July 31st), being by accident

Duke Ferdinand has opened his difficult Campaign; and especially just while that Siege of Dresden blazed

and endedhas had three sharp Fights, which were then very loud in the Gazettes, along with it. Three once

famous Actions; which unexpectedly had little or no result, and are very much forgotten now. So that bare

enumeration of them is nearly all we are permitted here. Pitt has furnished 7,000 new English, this

Campaign,there are now 20,000 English in all, and a Duke Ferdinand raised to 70,000 men. Surely, under

good omens, thinks Pitt; and still more think the Gazetteers, judging by appearances. Yes: but if Broglio have

130,000, what will it come to? Broglio is two to one; and has, before this, proved himself a considerable

Fight FIRST is that of KORBACH (July 10th): of Broglio, namely, who has got across the River Ohm in

Hessen (to Ferdinand's great disgust with the General Imhof in command there), and is streaming on to seize

the Diemel River, and menace Hanover; of Broglio, in successive sections, at a certain "Pass of Korbach,"

VERSUS the Hereditary Prince (ERBPRINZ of Brunswick), who is waiting for him there in one good

section,and who beautifully hurls back one and another of the Broglio sections; but cannot hurl back the

whole Broglio Army, all marching by sections that way; and has to retire, back foremost, fencing sharply,

still in a diligently handsome manner, though with loss. [Mauvillon, ii. 105.] That is the Battle of Korbach,

fought July 10th,while Lacy streamed through Dresden, panting to be at Plauen Chasm, safe at last.

Fight SECOND (July 16th) was a kind of revenge on the Erbprinz's part: Affair of EMSDORF, six days after,

in the same neighborhood; beautiful too, said the Gazetteers; but of result still more insignificant. Hearing of

a considerable French Brigade posted not far off, at that Village of Emsdorf, to guard Broglio's mealcarts

there, the indignant Erbprinz shoots off for that; light of foot,English horse mainly, and Hill Scots

(BERGSCHOTTEN so called, who have a fine free stride, in summer weather);dashes in upon said

Brigade (Dragoons of Bauffremont and other picked men), who stood firmly on the defensive; but were cut

up, in an amazing manner, root and branch, after a fierce struggle, and as it were brought home in one's

pocket. To the admiration of military circles,especially of messrooms and the junior sort. "Elliot's light

horse [part of the new 7,000], what a regiment! Unparalleled for willingness, and audacity of fence; lost 125

killed,"in fact, the loss chiefly fell on Elliot. [Ib. ii. 109 (Prisoners got "were 2,661, including General and

Officers 179," with all their furnitures whatsoever, "400 horses, 8 cannon," The BERG SCHOTTEN too,I

think it was here that these kilted fellows, who had marched with such a stride, "came home mostly riding:"

poor Beauffremont Dragoons being entirely cut up, or pocketed as prisoners, and their horses ridden in this

unexpected manner! But we must not linger,hardly even on WARBURG, which was the THIRD and

"Warburg," says my Note on this latter, "is a pleasant little Hessian Town, some twentyfive miles west of

Cassel, standing on the north or left bank of the Diemel, among fruitful knolls and hollows. The famous

'BATTLE OF WARBURG,'if you try to inquire in the Town itself, from your brief railwaystation, it is

much if some intelligent inhabitant, at last, remembers to have heard of it! The thing went thus: Chevalier du

Muy, who is Broglio's Rear guard or Reserve, 30,000 foot and horse, with his back to the Diemel, and eight

bridges across it in case of accident, has his right flank leaning on Warburg, and his left on a Village of

Ossendorf, some two miles to northwest of that. Broglio, Prince Xavier of Saxony, especially Duke

Ferdinand, are all vehemently and mysteriously moving about, since that Fight of Korbach; Broglio intent to

have Cassel besieged, Du Muy keeping the Diemel for him; Ferdinand eager to have the Diemel back from

"Two days ago (July 29th), the Erbprinz crossed over into these neighborhoods, with a strong Vanguard,

nearly equal to Du Muy; and, after studious reconnoitring and survey had, means, this morning (July 31st), to

knock him over the Diemel again, if he can. No time to be lost; Broglio near and in such force. Duke

Ferdinand too, quitting Broglio for a moment, is on march this way; crossed the Diemel, about midnight,

some ten miles farther down, or eastward; will thence bend southward, at his best speed, to support the

Erbprinz, if necessary, and beset the Diemel when got; Erbprinz not, however, in any wise, to wait for

him; such the pressure from Broglio and others. A most busy swiftgoing scene that morning;hardly worth

"The Erbprinz, who is still rather to northeastward, that is to rightward, not directly frontward, of Du Muy's

lines; and whose plan of attack is still dark to Du Muy, commences [about 8 A.M., I should guess] by

launching his British Legion so called,which is a composite body, of FreeCorps nature, British some of it

('Colonel Beckwith's people,' for example), not British by much the most of it, but an aggregate of wild

strikers, given to plunder too:by launching his British Legion upon Warburg Town, there to take charge of

Du Muy's right wing. Which Legion, 'with great rapidity, not only pitched the French all out, but clean

plundered the poor Town;' and is a sad sore on Du Muy's right, who cannot get it attended to, in the ominous

aspects elsewhere visible. For the Erbprinz, who is a strategic creature, comes on, in the style of Friedrich,

not straight towards Du Muy, but sweeps out in two columns round northward; privately intending upon Du

Muy's left wing and frontleft wing, right wing, (by British Legion), and front, all three;and is well aided

by a mist which now fell, and which hung on the higher ground, and covered his march, for an hour or more.

This mist had not begun when he saw, on the knolltops, far off on the right, but indisputable as he flattered

himself, something of Ferdinand emerging! Saw this; and pours along, we can suppose, with still better

step and temper. And bursts, pretty simultaneously, upon Du Muy's right wing and left wing, coercing his

front the while; squelches both these wings furiously together; forces the coerced centre, mostly horse, to

plunge back into the Diemel, and swim. Horse could swim; but many of the Foot, who tried, got drowned.

And, on the whole, Du Muy is a good deal wrecked [1,600 killed, 2,000 prisoners, not to speak of cannon and

"The fight was uncommonly furious, especially on Du Muy's left; 'Maxwell's Brigade' going at it, with the

finest bayonetpractice, musketry, artillerypractice; obstinate as bears. On Du Muy's right, the British

Legion, left wing, British too by name, had a much easier job. But the fight generally was of hot and stubborn

kind, for hours, perhaps two or more;and some say, would not have ended so triumphantly, had it not been

for Duke Ferdinand's Vanguard, Lord Granby and the English Horse; who, warned by the noise ahead,

pushed on at the top of their speed, and got in before the death. Granby and the Blues had gone at the high

trot, for above five miles; and, I doubt not, were in keen humor when they rose to the gallop and slashed in.

Mauvillon says, 'It was in this attack that Lord Granby, at the head of the Blues, his own regiment, had his hat

blown off; a big bald circle in his head rendering the loss more conspicuous. But he never minded; stormed

still on,' bare bald head among the helmets and sabres; 'and made it very evident that had he, instead of

Sackville, led at Minden, there had been a different story to tell. The English, by their valor,' adds he, 'greatly

distinguished themselves this day. And accordingly they suffered by far the most; their loss amounting to 590

men:' or, as others count,out of 1,200 killed and wounded, 800 were English." [Mauvillon, ii. 114. Or

better, in all these three cases, as elsewhere, Tempelhof's specific Chapter on Ferdinand (Tempelhof, iv.

101122). Ferdinand's Despatch (to King George), in Knesebeck, ii. 9698;or in the Old Newspapers

This of Granby and the bald head is mainly what now renders Warburg memorable. For, in a year or two, the

excellent Reynolds did a Portrait of Granby; and by no means forgot this incident; but gives him

bareheaded, bare and bald; the oblivious British connoisseur not now knowing why, as perhaps he ought.

The portrait, I suppose, may be in Belvoir Castle; the artistic Why of the baldness is this BATTLE OF

WARBURG, as above. An Affair otherwise of no moment. Ferdinand had soon to quit the Diemel, or to find

it useless for him, and to try other methods,fencing gallantly, but too weak for Broglio; and, on the whole,

had a difficult Campaign of it, against that considerable Soldier with forces so superior.

Friedrich stayed hardly one day in Neissen Country; Silesia, in the jaws of destruction, requiring such speed

from him. His new Series of Marches thitherward, for the next two weeks especially, with Daun and Lacy,

and at last with Loudon too, for escort, are still more singular than the foregoing; a fortnight of Soldier

History such as is hardly to be paralleled elsewhere. Of his inward gloom one hears nothing. But the Problem

itself approaches to the desperate; needing daily new invention, new audacity, with imminent destruction

overhanging it throughout. A March distinguished in Military Annals;but of which it is not for us to

pretend treating. Military readers will find it in TEMPELHOF, and the supplementary Books from time to

time cited here. And, for our own share, we can only say, that Friedrich's labors strike us as abundantly

Herculean; more Alcideslike than ever,the rather as hopes of any success have sunk lower than ever. A

modern Alcides, appointed to confront Tartarus itself, and be victorious over the Threeheaded Dog. Daun,

Lacy, Loudon coming on you simultaneously, openmouthed, are a considerable Tartarean Dog! Soldiers

judge that the King's resources of genius were extremely conspicuous on this occasion; and to all men it is in

evidence that seldom in the Arena of this Universe, looked on by the idle Populaces and by the eternal Gods

and Antigods (called Devils), did a Son of Adam fence better for himself, now and throughout.

This, his Third march to Silesia in 1760, is judged to be the most forlorn and ominous Friedrich ever made

thither; real peril, and ruin to Silesia and him, more imminent than even in the old Leuthen days. Difficulties,

complicacies very many, Friedrich can foresee: a Daun's Army and a Lacy's for escort to us; and such a

Silesia when we do arrive. And there is one complicacy more which he does not yet know of; that of Loudon

waiting ahead to welcome him, on crossing the Frontier, and increase his escort thenceforth!Or rather, let

us say, Friedrich, thanks to the despondent Henri and others, has escaped a great Silesian Calamity;of

which he will hear, with mixed emotions, on arriving at Bunzlau on the Silesian Frontier, six days after

setting out. Since the loss of Glatz (July 26th), Friedrich has no news of Loudon; supposes him to be trying

something upon Neisse, to be adjusting with his slow Russians; and, in short, to be out of the dismal

accountcurrent just at present. That is not the fact in regard to Loudon; that is far from the fact.

Hardly above six hours after taking Glatz, swift Loudon, no Daun now tethering him (Daun standing, or

sitting, "in relief of Dresden" far off), was on march for BreslauVanguard of him "marched that same

evening (July 26th):" in the liveliest hope of capturing Breslau; especially if Soltikof, to whom this of Glatz

ought to be a fine symbol and pledge, make speed to cooperate. Soltikof is in no violent enthusiasm about

Glatz; anxious rather about his own Magazine at Posen, and how to get it carted out of Henri's way, in case of

our advancing towards some Silesian Siege. "If we were not ruined last year, it was n't Daun's fault!" growls

he often; and Montalembert has need of all his suasive virtues (which are wonderful to look at, if anybody

cared to look at them, all flung into the sea in this manner) for keeping the barbarous man in any approach to

harmony. The barbarous man had, after haggle enough, adjusted himself for besieging Glogau; and is surly to

hear, on the sudden (order from Petersburg reinforcing Loudon), that it is Breslau instead. "Excellenz, it is

not Cunctator Daun this time, it is fiery Loudon." "Well, Breslau, then!" answers Soltikof at last, after much

suasion. And marches thither; [Tempelhof, iv. 8789 ("Rose from Posen, July 26th").] faster than usual,

quickened by new temporary hopes, of Montalembert's raising or one's own: "What a placeofarms, and

And really mends his pace, mends it ever more, as matters grow stringent; and advances upon Breslau at his

swiftest: "To rendezvous with Loudon under the walls there,within the walls very soon, and ourselves

chief proprietor!"as may be hoped. Breslau has a garrison of 4,000, only 1,000 of them stanch; and there

are, among other bad items, 9,000 Austrian Prisoners in it. A big City with weak walls: another place to

defend than rock hewn little Glatz,if there be no better than a D'O for Commandant in it! But perhaps

"WEDNESDAY, 30th JULY, Loudon's Vanguard arrived at Breslau; next day Loudon himself;and

besieged Breslau very violently, according to his means, till the Sunday following. Troops he has plenty,

40,000 odd, which he gives out for 50 or even 60,000; not to speak of Soltikof, 'with 75,000' (read 45,000),

striding on in a fierce and dreadful manner to meet him here. 'Better surrender to Christian Austrians, had not

you?' Loudon's Artillery is not come up, it is only struggling on from Glatz; Soltikof of his own has no

SiegeArtillery; and Loudon judges that heavyfooted Soltikof, waited on by an alert Prince Henri, is a

problematic quantity in this enterprise. 'Speedy oneself; speedy and fiery!' thinks Loudon: 'by violence of

speed, of bullying and bombardment, perhaps we can still do it!' And Loudon tried all these things to a high

"THURSDAY, 3lst, Loudon, who has two bridges over Oder, and the Town begirt all round, summons

Tauentzien in an awful sounding tone: 'Consider, Sir: no defence possible; a trading Town, you ought not to

attempt defence of it: surrender on fair terms, or I shall, which God forbid, be obliged to burn you and it from

the face of the world!' 'Pooh, pooh,' answers Tauentzien, in brief polite terms; 'you yourselves had no doubt it

was a Garrison, when we besieged you here, on the heel of Leuthen; had you? Go to!' Fiery Loudon cannot

try storm, the Town having Oder and a wet ditch round it. He gets his bombarding batteries forward, as the

"FRIDAY, AUGUST 1st, sends, half officially, half in the friendly way, dreadful messages again: a warning

to the Mayor of Breslau (which was not signed by Loudon), 'Death and destruction, Sir, unless'!warning

to the Mayor; and, by the same private half official messenger, a new summons to Tauentzien:

'Bombardment infallible; universal massacre by Croats; I will not spare the child in its mother's womb.' 'I am

not with child,' said Tauentzien, 'nor are my soldiers! What is the use of such talk?' And about 10 that night,

Loudon does accordingly break out into all the fire of bombardment he is master of. Kindles the Town in

various places, which were quenched again by Tauentzien's arrangements; kindles especially the King's fine

Dwellinghouse (Palace they call it), and adjacent streets, not quenchable till Palace and they are much

"Next morning Loudon sends a private messenger of conciliatory tone: 'Any terms your Excellency likes to

name. Only spare me the general massacre, and child in the mother's womb!' From all which Tauentzien

infers that you are probably short of ammunition; and that his outlooks are improving. That day he gets guns

brought to bear on General Loudon's own quarter; blazes into Loudon's sittingroom, so that Loudon has to

shift elsewhither. No bombardment ensues that night; nor next day anything but desultory cannonading, and

much noise and motion;and at night, SUNDAY, 3d, everything falls quiet, and, to the glad amazement of

everybody, Loudon has vanished." [Tempelhof, iv. 90100; Archenholtz, ii. 8994; HOFBERICHT VON

DER BELAGERUNG VON BRESLAU IM AUGUST 1760 (in Seyfarth, Beylagen, ii. 688698); also in

HeldenGeschichte, vi. 299309: in Anonymous of Hamburg (iv. 115124), that is, in the OLD

NEWSPAPERS, extremely particular account, How "not only the finest Horse in Breslau, and the finest

House [King's Palace], but the handsomest Man, and, alas, also the prettiest Girl [poor Jungfer Muller,

shattered by a bombshell on the streets], were destroyed in this short Siege,"worldfamous for the

Loudon had no other shift left. This Sunday his Russians are still five days distant; alert Henri, on the

contrary, is, in a sense, come to hand. Crossed the Katzbach River this day, the Vanguard of him did, at

Parchwitz; and fell upon our Bakery; which has had to take the road. "Guard the Bakery, all hands there,"

orders Loudon; "off to Striegau and the Hills with it;"and is himself gone thither after it, leaving Breslau,

Henri and the Russians to what fate may be in store for them. Henri has again made one of his winged

marches, the deft creature, though the despondent; "march of 90 miles in three days [in the last three, from

Glogau, 90; in the whole, from Landsberg, above 200], and has saved the State," says Retzow. "Made no

camping, merely bivouacked; halting for a rest four or five hours here and there;" [Retzow, ii. 230 (very

vague); in Tempelhof (iv. 89, 90, 9597) clear and specific account.] and on August 5th is at Lissa (this side

So that Soltikof, on arriving (village of Hundsfeld, August 8th), by the other side of the River, finds Henri's

advanced guards intrenched over there, in Old Oder; no Russian able to get within five miles of

Breslau,nor able to do more than cannonade in the distance, and ask with indignation, "Where are the

siegeguns, then; where is General Loudon? Instead of Breslau capturable, and a sure Magazine for us, here

is Henri, and nothing but steel to eat!" And the Soltikof risen into Russian rages, and the Montalembert sunk

in difficulties: readers can imagine these. Indignant Soltikof, deaf to suasion, with this dangerous Henri in

attendance, is gradually edging back; always rather back, with an eye to his provisions, and to certain bogs

and woods he knows of. But we will leave the SoltikofHenri end of the line, for the opposite end, which is

more interesting.To Friedrich, till he got to Silesia itself, these events are totally unknown. His cunctatory

Tauentzien's behavior, also, has been superlative at Breslau; and was never forgotten by the King. A very

brave man, testifies Lessing of him; true to the death: "Had there come but three, to rally with the King under

a bush of the forest, Tauentzien would have been one." Tauentzien was on the ramparts once, in this Breslau

pinch, giving orders; a bomb burst beside him, did not injure him. "Mark that place," said Tauentzien; and

clapt his hat on it, continuing his orders, till a more permanent mark were put. In that spot, as intended

through the next thirty years, he now lies buried. [ MilitairLexikon, iv. 7275; Lessing's Werke;

AUGUST 1st, Friedrich crossed the Elbe at Zehren, in the Schieritz vicinity, as near Meissen as he could; but

it had to be some six miles farther down, such the liabilities to Austrian disturbance. All are across that

morning by 5 o'clock (began at 2); whence we double back eastward, and camp that night at Dallwitz,are

quietly asleep there, while Loudon's bombardment bursts out on Breslau, far away! At Dallwitz we rest next

day, wait for our Bakeries and Baggages; and SUNDAY, AUGUST 3d, at 2 in the morning, set forth on the

The arrangements of the March, foreseen and settled beforehand to the last item, are of a perfection beyond

praise;as is still visible in the General Order, or summary of directions given out; which, to this day, one

reads with a kind of satisfaction like that derivable from the Fortyseventh of Euclid: clear to the meanest

capacity, not a word wanting in it, not a word superfluous, solid as geometry. "The Army marches always in

Three Columns, left Column foremost: our First Line of Battle [in case we have fighting] is this foremost

Column; Second Line is the Second Column; Reserve is the Third. All Generals' chaises, moneywagons,

and regimental Surgeons' wagons remain with their respective Battalions; as do the Heavy Batteries with the

Brigades to which they belong. When the march is through woody country, the Cavalry regiments go in

"With the First Column, the Ziethen Hussars and FreeBattalion Courbiere have always the vanguard;

Mohring Hussars and Free Battalion Quintus [speed to you, learned friend!] the rearguard. With the

Second Column always the Dragoon regiments Normann and Krockow have the vanguard; Regiment

Czetteritz [Dragoons, poor Czetteritz himself, with his lost MANUSCRIPT, is captive since February last],

the rearguard. With the Third Column always the Dragoon regiment Holstein as head, and the ditto

Finkenstein to close the Column.During every march, however, there are to be of the Second Column 2

Battalions joined with Column Third; so that the Third Column consists of 10 Battalions, the Second of 6,

"Ahead of each Column go three Pontoon Wagons; and daily are 50 workpeople allowed them, who are

immediately to lay Bridge, where it is necessary. The rearguard of each Column takes up these Bridges

again; brings them on, and returns them to the head of the Column, when the Army has got to camp. In the

Second Column are to be 500 wagons, and also in the Third 500, so shared that each battalion gets an equal

number. The battalions" [In TEMPELHOF (iv. 125, 126) the entire Piece.] ... This may serve as specimen.

The March proceeded through the old Country; a little to left of the track in June past: Roder Water, Pulsnitz

Water; Kamenz neighborhood, Bautzen neighborhood,Bunzlau on Silesian ground. Daun, at

Bischofswerda, had foreseen this March; and, by his Light people, had spoiled the Road all he could; broken

all the Bridges, HALFfelled the Woods (to render them impassable). Daun, the instant he heard of the actual

March, rose from Bischofswerda: forward, forward always, to be ahead of it, however rapid; Lacy, hanging

on the rear of it, willing to give trouble with his Pandour harpies, but studious above all that it should not

whirl round anywhere and get upon his, Lacy's, own throat. One of the strangest marches ever seen. "An

onlooker, who had observed the march of these different Armies," says Friedrich, "would have thought that

they all belonged to one leader. Feldmarschall Daun's he would have taken for the Vanguard, the King's for

the main Army, and General Lacy's for the Rearguard." [ OEuvres de Frederic, v. 56.] Tempelhof says: "It

is given only to a Friedrich to march on those terms; between Two hostile Armies, his equals in strength, and

The March passed without accident of moment; had not, from Lacy or Daun, any accident whatever. On the

second day, an AidedeCamp of Daun's was picked up, with Letters from Lacy (back of the cards visible to

Friedrich). Once,it is the third day of the March (August 6th, village of Rothwasser to be quarter for the

night), on coming toward Neisse River, some careless Officer, trusting to peasants, instead of examining

for himself and building a bridge, drove his Artillerywagons into the socalled ford of Neisse; which nearly

swallowed the foremost of them in quicksands. Nearly, but not completely; and caused a loss of five or six

hours to that Second Column. So that darkness came on Column Second in the woody intricacies; and several

hundreds of the deserter kind took the opportunity of disappearing altogether. An unlucky, evidently too

languid Officer; though Friedrich did not annihilate the poor fellow, perhaps did not rebuke him at all, but

merely marked it in elucidation of his qualities for time coming." This miserable village of Rothwasser"

(headquarters after the dangerous fording of Neisse), says Mitchell, "stands in the middle of a wood, almost

as wild and impenetrable as those in North America. There was hardly ground enough cleared about it for the

encampment of the troops." [Mitchell, ii. 190; Tempelhof, iv. 131.] THURSDAY, AUGUST 7th,

Friedrichtraversing the whole Country, but more direct, by Konigsbruck and Kamenz this timeis at

Bunzlau altogether. "Bunzlau on the Bober;" the SILESIAN Bunzlau, not the Bohemian or any of the others.

It is some 30 miles west of Liegnitz, which again lies some 40 northwest of Schweidnitz and the Strong

Places. Friedrich has now done 100 miles of excellent marching; and he has still a good spell more to

do,dragging "2,000 heavy wagons" with him, and across such impediments within and without. Readers

that care to study him, especially for the next few days, will find it worth their while.

Tempelhof gives, as usual, a most clear Account, minute to a degree; which, supplemented by Mitchell and a

Reimann Map, enables us as it were to accompany, and to witness with our eyes. Hitherto a March toilsome

in the extreme, in spite of everything done to help it; starting at 3 or at 2 in the morning; resting to breakfast

in some shady place, while the sun is high, frugally cooking under the shady woods,"BURSCHEN

ABZUKOCHEN here," as the Order pleasantly bears. All encamped now, at Bunzlau in Silesia, on Thursday

evening, with a very eminent week's work behind them. "In the last five days, above 100 miles of road, and

such road; five considerable rivers in it"Bober, Queiss, Neisse, Spree, Elbe; and with such a wagontrain

Proper that we rest a day here; in view of the still swifter marchings and sudden dashings about, which lie

ahead. It will be by extremely nimble use of all the limbs we have,hands as well as feet,if any good is to

come of us now! Friedrich is aware that Daun already holds Striegau "as an outpost [Loudon thereabouts,

unknown to Friedrich], these several days;" and that Daun personally is at Schmottseifen, in our own old

Camp there, twenty or thirty miles to south of us, and has his Lacy to leftward of him, partly even to

rearward: rather in advance of US, both of them,if we were for Landshut; which we are not. "Be swift

enough, may not we cut through to Jauer, and get ahead of Daun?" counts Friedrich: "To Jauer, southeast of

us, from Bunzlau here, is 40 miles; and to Jauer it is above 30 east for Daun: possible to be there before

Daun! Jauer ours, thence to the Heights of Striegau and Hohenfriedberg Country, within wind of

Schweidnitz, of Breslau: magazines, union with Prince Henri, all secure thereby?" So reckons the sanguine

Friedrich; unaware that Loudon, with his corps of 35,000, has been summoned hitherward; which will make

important differences! Loudon, Beck with a smaller Satellite Corps, both these, unknown to Friedrich, lie

ready on the east of him: Loudon's Army on the east; Daun's, Lacy's on the south and west; three big Armies,

with their Satellites, gathering in upon this King: here is a Threeheaded Dog, in the Tartarus of a world he

now has! On the fourth side of him is Oder, and the Russians, who are also perhaps building Bridges, by way

AUGUST 9th (BUNZLAU TO GOLDBERG), Friedrich, with his Three Columns and perfect arrangements,

makes a long march: from Bunzlau at 3 in the morning; and at 5 afternoon arrives in sight of the Katzbach

Valley, with the little Town of Goldberg some miles to right. Katzbach River is here; and Jauer, for

tomorrow, still fifteen miles ahead. But on reconnoitring here, all is locked and bolted: Lacy strong on the

Hills of Goldberg; Daun visible across the Katzbach; Daun, and behind him Loudon, inexpugnably posted:

Jauer an impossibility! We have bread only for eight days; our Magazines are at Schweidnitz and Breslau:

what is to be done? Get through, one way or other, we needs must! Friedrich encamps for the night; expecting

an attack. If not attacked, he will make for Liegnitz leftward; cross the Katzbach there, or farther down at

Parchwitz:Parchwitz, Neumarkt, LEUTHEN, we have been in that country before now:Courage!

AUGUST 10th11th (TO LIEGNITZ AND BACK). At 5 A.M., Sunday, August 10th, Friedrich, nothing of

attack having come, got on march again: down his own left bank of the Katzbach, straight for Liegnitz;

unopposed altogether; not even a Pandour having attacked him overnight. But no sooner is he under way,

than Daun too rises; Daun, Loudon, close by, on the other side of Katzbach, and keep step with us, on our

right; Lacy's light people hovering on our rear:three truculent fellows in buckram; fancy the feelings of the

wayworn solitary fourth, whom they are gloomily dogging in this way! The solitary fourth does his fifteen

miles to Liegnitz, unmolested by them; encamps on the Heights which look down on Liegnitz over the south;

finds, however, that the LoudonDaun people have likewise been diligent; that they now lie stretched out on

their right bank, three or four miles upstream or to rearward, and what is far worse, seven miles downwards,

or ahead: that, in fact, they are a march nearer Parchwitz than he;and that there is again no possibility.

"Perhaps by Jauer, then, still? Out of this, and at lowest, into some vicinity of bread, it does behoove us to

be!" At 11 that night Friedrich gets on march again; returns the way he came. And,

AUGUST 11th, At daybreak, is back to his old ground; nothing now to oppose him but Lacy, who is gone

across from Goldberg, to linger as rear of the DaunLoudon march. Friedrich steps across on Lacy, thirsting

to have a stroke at Lacy; who vanishes fast enough, leaving the ground clear. Could but our baggage have

come as fast as we! But our baggage, Quintus guarding and urging, has to groan on for five hours yet; and

without it, there is no stirring. Five mortal hours;by which time, Daun, Lacy, Loudon are all up again;

between us and Jauer, between us and everything helpful; and Friedrich has to encamp in Seichau,"a

very poor Village in the Mountains," writes Mitchell, who was painfully present there, "surrounded on all

sides by Heights; on several of which, in the evening, the Austrians took camp, separated from us by a deep

Outlooks are growing very questionable to Mitchell and everybody. "Only four days' provisions" (in reality

six), whisper the Prussian Generals gloomily to Mitchell and to one another: "Shall we have to make for

Glogau, then, and leave Breslau to its fate? Or perhaps it will be a second Maxen to his Majesty and us, who

was so indignant with poor Finck?" My friends, no; a Maxen like Finck's it will never be: a very different

Friedrich's situation, grasped in the Threelipped Pincers in this manner, is conceivable to readers. Soltikof,

on the other side of Oder, as supplementary or fourth lip, is very impatient with these three. "Why all this

dodging, and fidgeting to and fro? You are above three to one of your enemy. Why don't you close on him at

once, if you mean it at all? The end is, He will be across Oder; and it is I that shall have the brunt to bear:

Henri and he will enclose me between two fires!" And in fact, Henri, as we know, though Friedrich does not

or only half does, has gone across Oder, to watch Soltikof, and guard Breslau from any attempts of his,

which are far from HIS thoughts at this moment;a Soltikof fuming violently at the thought of such

cunctations, and of being made cat'spaw again. "Know, however, that I understand you," violently fumes

Soltikof, "and that I won't. I fall back into the Trebnitz BogCountry, on my own right bank here, and look

out for my own safety.""Patience, your noble Excellenz," answer they always; "oh, patience yet a little!

Only yesterday (Sunday, 10th) the day after his arrival in this region), we had decided to attack and crush

him; Sunday very early: [Tempelhof, iv. 137, 148150.] but he skipped away to Liegnitz. Oh, be patient yet a

day or two: he skips about at such a rate!" Montalembert has to be suasive as the Muses and the Sirens.

Soltikof gloomily consents to another day or two. And even, such his anxiety lest this swift King skip over

upon HIM, pushes out a considerable Russian Division, 24,000 ultimately, under Czernichef, towards the

King's side of things, towards Auras on Oder, namely,there to watch for oneself these interesting Royal

movements; or even to join with Loudon out there, if that seem the safer course, against them. Of Czernichef

at Auras we shall hear farther on,were these Royal movements once got completed a little.

MORNING OF AUGUST 12th, Friedrich has, in his bad lodging at Seichau, laid a new plan of route:

"Towards Schweidnitz let it be; round by Pombsen and the southeast, by the Hillroads, make a sweep

flankward of the enemy!"and has people out reconnoitring the Hillroads. Hears, however, about 8

o'clock, That Austrians in strength are coming between us and Goldberg! "Intending to enclose us in this bad

pot of a Seichau; no crossing of the Katzbach, or other retreat to be left us at all?" Friedrich strikes his tents;

ranks himself; is speedily in readiness for dispute of such extremity;sends out new patrols, however, to

ascertain. "Austrians in strength" there are NOT on the side indicated; whereupon he draws in again. But,

on the other hand, the Hillroads are reported absolutely impassable for baggage; Pombsen an impossibility,

as the other places have been. So Friedrich sits down again in Seichau to consider; does not stir all day. To

Mitchell's horror, who, "with great labor," burns all the legationary ciphers and papers ("impossible to save

the baggage if we be attacked in this hollow pot of a camp"), and feels much relieved on finishing. [Mitchell,

Towards sunset, General Bulow, with the Second Line (second column of march), is sent out Goldbergway,

to take hold of the passage of the Katzbach: and at 8 that night we all march, recrossing there about 1 in the

morning; thence down our left bank to Liegnitz for the second time,sixteen hours of it in all, or till noon of

the 13th. Mitchell had been put with the Cavalry part; and "cannot but observe to your Lordship what a chief

comfort it was in this long, dangerous and painful March," to have burnt one's ciphers and dread secrets quite

And thus, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 13th, about noon, we are in our old Camp; Headquarter in the

southern suburb of Liegnitz (a wretched little Tavern, which they still show there, on mythical terms): main

part of the Camp, I should think, is on that range of Heights, which reaches two miles southward, and is now

called "SIEGESBERG (Victory Hill)," from a modern Monument built on it, after nearly 100 years. Here

Friedrich stays one day,more exactly, 30 hours; and his shifting, next time, is extremely memorable.

BATTLE, IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF LIEGNITZ, DOES ENSUE (Friday morning, 15th August,

Daun, Lacy and Loudon, the Threelipped Pincers, have of course followed, and are again agape for

Friedrich, all in scientific postures: Daun in the Jauer region, seven or eight miles south; Lacy about

Goldberg, as far to southwest; Loudon "between Jeschkendorf and Koischwitz," northeastward, somewhat

closer on Friedrich, with the Katzbach intervening. That Czernichef, with an additional 24,000, to rear of

Loudon, is actually crossing Oder at Auras, with an eye to junction, Friedrich does not hear till tomorrow.

The scene is rather pretty, if one admired scenes. Liegnitz, a square, handsome, brickbuilt Town, of old

standing, in good repair (population then, say 7,000), with fine old castellated edifices and aspects: pleasant

meeting, in level circumstances, of the Katzbach valley with the Schwartzwasser (BLACKWATER) ditto,

which forms the north rim of Liegnitz; pleasant mixture of green poplars and brick towers,as seen from

that "Victory Hill" (more likely to be "ImmediateRuin Hill!") where the King now is. Beyond Liegnitz and

the Schwartzwasser, northwestward, right opposite to the King's, rise other Heights called of Pfaffendorf,

which guard the two streams AFTER their uniting. Kloster Wahlstatt, a famed place, lies visible to southeast,

few miles off. Readers recollect one Blucher "Prince of Wahlstatt," so named from one of his Anti

Napoleon victories gained there? Wahlstatt was the scene of an older Fight, almost six centuries older, [April

9th, 1241 (Kohler, REICHSHISTORIE).]a then Prince of Liegnitz VERSUS hideous Tartar multitudes,

who rather beat him; and has been a CLOISTER Wahlstatt ever since. Till Thursday, 14th, about 8 in the

evening, Friedrich continued in his Camp of Liegnitz. We are now within reach of a notable Passage of War.

Friedrich's Camp extends from the Village of Schimmelwitz, fronting the Katzbach for about two miles,

northeastward, to his Head quarter in Liegnitz Suburb: Daun is on his right and rearward, now come within

four or five miles; Loudon to his left and frontward, four or five, the Katzbach separating Friedrich and him;

Lacy lies from Goldberg northeastward, to within perhaps a like distance rearward: that is the position on

Thursday, 14th. Provisions being all but run out; and three Armies, 90,000 (not to count Czernichef and his

24,000 as a fourth) watching round our 30,000, within a few miles; there is no staying here, beyond this day.

If even this day it be allowed us? This day, Friedrich had to draw out, and stand to arms for some hours;

while the Austrians appeared extensively on the Heights about, apparently intending an attack; till it proved

to be nothing: only an elaborate reconnoitring by Daun; and we returned to our tents again.

Friedrich understands well enough that Daun, with the facts now before him, will gradually form his plan,

and also, from the lie of matters, what his plan will be: many are the times Daun has elaborately reconnoitred,

elaborately laid his plan; but found, on coming to execute, that his Friedrich was off in the interim, and the

plan gone to air. Friedrich has about 2,000 wagons to drag with him in these swift marches: Glogau

Magazine, his one resource, should Breslau and Schweidnitz prove unattainable, is fortyfive long miles

northwestward. "Let us lean upon Glogau withal," thinks Friedrich; "and let us be out of this straightway!

March tonight; towards Parchwitz, which is towards Glogau too. Army rest till daybreak on the Heights of

Pfaffendorf yonder, to examine, to wait its luck: let the empty mealwagons jingle on to Glogau; load

themselves there, and jingle back to us in Parchwitz neighborhood, should Parchwitz not have proved

impossible to our manoeuvrings,let us hope it may not!"Daun and the Austrians having ceased

reconnoitring, and gone home, Friedrich rides with his Generals, through Liegnitz, across the

Schwartzwasser, to the Pfaffendorf Heights. "Here, Messieurs, is our first haltingplace to be: here we shall

halt till daybreak, while the mealwagons jingle on!" And explains to them orally where each is to take post,

and how to behave. Which done, he too returns home, no doubt a wearied individual; and at 4 of the

afternoon lies down to try for an hour or two of sleep, while all hands are busy packing, according to the

It is a fact recorded by Friedrich himself, and by many other people, That, at this interesting juncture, there

appeared at the King's Gate, King hardly yet asleep, a staggering Austrian Officer, Irish by nation, who had

suddenly found good to desert the Austrian Service for the Prussian("Sorrow on them: a pack of"what

shall I say?)Irish gentleman, bursting with intelligence of some kind, but evidently deep in liquor withal.

"Impossible; the King is asleep," said the Adjutant on duty; but produced only louder insistence from the

drunk Irish gentleman. "As much as all your heads are worth; the King's own safety, and not a moment to

lose!" What is to be done? They awaken the King: "The man is drunk, but dreadfully in earnest, your

Majesty." "Give him quantities of weak tea [Tempelhof calls it tea, but Friedrich merely warm water]; then

examine him, and report if it is anything." Something it was: "Your Majesty to be attacked, for certain, this

night!" what his Majesty already guessed:something, most likely little; but nobody to this day knows.

Visible only, that his Majesty, before sunset, rode out reconnoitring with this questionable Irish gentleman,

now in a very flaccid state; and altered nothing whatever in prior arrangements;and that the flaccid Irish

gentleman staggers out of sight, into dusk, into rest and darkness, after this one appearance on the stage of

From about 8 in the evening, Friedrich's people got on march, in their several columns, and fared punctually

on; one column through the streets of Liegnitz, others to left and to right of that; to left mainly, as remoter

from the Austrians and their listening outposts from beyond the Katzbach River;where the campfires are

burning extremely distinct tonight. The Prussian campfires, they too are all burning uncommonly vivid;

country people employed to feed them; and a few hussar sentries and drummers to make the customary

sounds for Daun's instruction, till a certain hour. Friedrich's people are clearing the North Suburb of Liegnitz,

crossing the Schwartzwasser: artillery and heavy wagons all go by the StoneBridge at Topferberg

(POTTERHILL) there; the lighter people by a few pontoons farther down that stream, in the Pfaffendorf

vicinity. About one in the morning, all, even the right wing from Schimmelwitz, are safely across.

Schwartzwasser, a River of many tails (boggy most of them, Sohnelle or SWIFT Deichsel hardly an

exception), gathering itself from the southward for twenty or more miles, attains its maximum of north at a

place called Waldau, not far northwest of Topferberg. Towards this Waldau, Lacy is aiming all night; thence

to pounce on our "left wing,"which he will find to consist of those empty watch fires merely. Down from

Waldau, past Topferberg and Pfaffendorf (PRIESTtown, or as we should call it, "Preston"), which are all on

its northern or left bank, Schwartzwasser's course is in the form of an irregular horseshoe; high ground to its

northern side, Liegnitz and hollows to its southern; till in an angular way it do join Katzbach, and go with

that, northward for Oder the rest of its course. On the brow of these horseshoe Heights,which run parallel

to Schwartzwasser one part of them, and nearly parallel to Katzbach another (though above a mile distant,

these latter, from IT),Friedrich plants himself: in Order of Battle; slightly altering some points of the

afternoon's program, and correcting his Generals, "Front rather so and so; see where their fires are, yonder!"

Daun's fires, Loudon's fires; vividly visible both:and, singular to say, there is nothing yonder either but a

few sentries and deceptive drums! All empty yonder too, even as our own Camp is; all gone forth, even as we

Excellency Mitchell, under horseescort, among the lighter baggage, is on Kuchelberg Heath, in scrubby

country, but well north behind Friedrich's centre: has had a dreadful march; one comfort only, that his ciphers

are all burnt. The rest of us lie down on the grass;among others, young Herr von Archenholtz, ensign or

lieutenant in Regiment FORCADE: who testifies that it is one of the beautifulest nights, the lamps of Heaven

shining down in an uncommonly tranquil manner; and that almost nobody slept. The soldierranks all lay

horizontal, musket under arm; chatting pleasantly in an undertone, or each in silence revolving such thoughts

as he had. The Generals amble like observant spirits, hoarsely imperative. [Archenholtz, ii. 100111.]

Friedrich's line, we observed, is in the horseshoe shape (or PARABOLIC, straighter than horseshoe),

fronting the waters. Ziethen commands in that smaller Schwartzwasser part of the line, Friedrich in the

Katzbach part, which is more in risk. And now, things being moderately in order, Friedrich has himself sat

downI think, towards the middle or convex part of his linesby a watchfire he has found there; and,

wrapt in his cloak, his many thoughts melting into haze, has sunk ito a kind of sleep. Seated on a drum, some

say; half asleep by the watchfire, time halfpast 2,when a Hussar Major, who has been out by the

Bienowitz, the Pohlschildern way, northward, reconnoitring, comes dashing up full speed: "The King? where

is the King?" "What is it, then?" answers the King for himself. "Your Majesty, the Enemy in force, from

Bienowitz, from Pohlschildern, coming on our Left Wing yonder; has flung back all my vedettes: is within

Friedrich springs to horse; has already an Order speeding forth, "General Schenkendorf and his Battalion,

their cannon, to the crown of the Wolfsberg, on our left yonder; swift!" How excellent that every battalion (as

by Order that we read) "has its own share of the heavy cannon always at hand!" ejaculate the military critics.

Schenkendorf, being nimble, was able to astonish the Enemy with volumes of caseshot from the Wolfsberg,

which were very deadly at that close distance. Other arrangements, too minute for recital here, are rapidly

done; and our Left Wing is in condition to receive its early visitors,Loudon or whoever they may be. It is

still dubious to the HistoryBooks whether Friedrich was in clear expectation of Loudon here; though of

course he would now guess it was Loudon. But there is no doubt Loudon had not the least expectation of

Friedrich; and his surprise must have been intense, when, instead of vacant darkness (and some chance of

Prussian baggage, which he had heard of), Prussian musketries and caseshot opened on him.

Loudon had, as per order, quitted his Camp at Jeschkendorf, about the time Friedrich did his at

Schimmelwitz; and, leaving the lights all burning, had set forward on his errand; which was (also identical

with Friedrich's), to seize the Heights of Pfaffendorf, and be ready there when day broke. scouts having

informed him that the Prussian Baggage was certainly gone through to Topferberg, more his scouts did not

know, nor could Loudon guess,"We will snatch that Baggage!" thought Loudon; and with such view has

been speeding all he could; no vanguard ahead, lest he alarm the Baggage escort: Loudon in person, with the

Infantry of the Reserve, striding on ahead, to devour any Baggageescort there may be. Friedrich's

reconnoitring Hussar parties had confirmed this belief: "Yes, yes!" thought Loudon. And now suddenly,

instead of Baggage to capture, here, out of the vacant darkness, is Friedrich in person, on the brow of the

Loudon's behavior, on being hurled back with his Reserve in this manner, everybody says, was magnificent.

Judging at once what the business was, and that retreat would be impossible without ruin, he hastened

instantly to form himself, on such ground as he had, highly unfavorable ground, uphill in part, and room in

it only for Five Battalions (5,000) of front;and came on again, with a great deal of impetuosity and good

skill; again and ever again, three times in all. Had partial successes; edged always to the right to get the flank

of Friedrich; but could not, Friedrich edging conformably. From his righthand, or northeast part, Loudon

poured in, once and again, very furious charges of Cavalry; on every repulse, drew out new Battalions from

his left and centre, and again stormed forward: but found it always impossible. Had his subordinates all been

Loudons, it is said, there was once a fine chance for him. By this edging always to the northeastward on his

part and Friedrich's, there had at last a considerable gap in Friedrich's Line established itself,not only

Ziethen's Line and Friedrich's Line now fairly fallen asunder, but, at the Village of Panten, in Friedrich's own

Line, a gap where anybody might get in. One of the Austrian Columns was just entering Panten when the

Fight began: in Panten that Column has stood cogitative ever since; well to left of Loudon and his struggles;

but does not, till the eleventh hour, resolve to push through. At the eleventh hour;and lo, in the nick of

time, Mollendorf (our LeuthenandHochkirch friend) got his eye on it; rushed up with infantry and cavalry;

set Panten on fire, and blocked out that possibility and the too cogitative Column.

Loudon had no other real chance: his furious horsecharges and attempts were met everywhere by

corresponding counterfury. Bernburg, poor Regiment Bernburg, see what a figure it is making! Left almost

alone, at one time, among those horsecharges; spending its blood like water, bayonetcharging, platooning

as never before; and on the whole, stemming invincibly that horse torrent,not unseen by Majesty, it may

be hoped; who is here where the hottest pinch is. On the third repulse, which was worse than any before,

Loudon found he had enough; and tried it no farther. Rolled over the Katzbach, better or worse; Prussians

catching 6,000 of him, but not following farther: threw up a tine battery at Bienowitz, which sheltered his

retreat from horse:and went his ways, sorely but not dishonorably beaten, after an hour and half of

uncommonly stiff fighting, which had been very murderous to Loudon. Loss of 10,000 to him: 4,000 killed

and wounded; prisoners 6,000; 82 cannon, 28 flags, and other items; the Prussian loss being 1,800 in whole.

[Tempelhof, iv. 159.] By 5 o'clock, the Battle, this Loudon part of it, was quite over; Loudon (35,000)

wrecking himself against Friedrich's Left Wing (say half of his Army, some 15,000) in such conclusive

manner. Friedrich's Left Wing alone has been engaged hitherto. And now it will be Ziethen's turn, if Daun

By 11 last night, Daun's Pandours, creeping stealthily on, across the Katzbach, about Schimmelwitz, had

discerned with amazement that Friedrich's Camp appeared to consist only of watchfires; and had shot off

their speediest rider to Daun, accordingly; but it was one in the morning before Daun, busy marching and

marshalling, to be ready at the Katzbach by daylight, heard of this strange news; which probably he could not

entirely believe till seen with his own eyes. What a spectacle! One's beautiful Plan exploded into mere

imbroglio of distraction; become one knows not what! Daun's watch fires too had all been left burning;

universal stratagem, on both sides, going on; producingtragically for some of usa TRAGEDY of Errors,

or the Mistakes of a Night! Daun sallied out again, in his collapsed, upset condition, as soon as possible:

pushed on, in the track of Friedrich; warning Lacy to push on. Daun, though within five miles all the while,

had heard nothing of the furious Fight and cannonade; "southwest wind having risen," so Daun said, and is

believed by candid persons,not by the angry Vienna people, who counted it impossible: "Nonsense; you

were not deaf; but you loitered and haggled, in your usual way; perhaps not sorry that, the brilliant Loudon

Emerging out of Liegnitz, Daun did see, to northeastward, a vast pillar or mass of smoke, silently mounting,

but could do nothing with it. "Cannonsmoke, no doubt; but fallen entirely silent, and not wending

hitherward at all. Poor Loudon, alas, must have got beaten!" Upon which Daun really did try, at least upon

Ziethen; but could do nothing. Poured cavalry across the Stonebridge at the Topferberg: who drove in

Ziethen's picket there; but were torn to pieces by Ziethen's cannon. Ziethen across the Schwartzwasser is alert

enough. How form in order of battle here, with Ziethen's batteries shearing your columns longitudinally, as

they march up? Daun recognizes the impossibility; wends back through Liegnitz to his Camp again, the way

he had come. Tidehour missed again; ebb going uncommonly rapid! Lacy had been about Waldau, to try

farther up the Schwartzwasser on Ziethen's right: but the Schwartzwasser proved amazingly boggy; not

accessible on any point to heavy people,"owing to bogs on the bank," with perhaps poor prospect on the

And, in fact, nothing of Lacy more than of Daun, could manage to get across: nothing except two poor

Hussar regiments; who, winding up far to the left, attempted a snatch on the Baggage about

Hummeln,Hummeln, or Kuchel of the Scrubs. And gave a new alarm to Mitchell, the last of several during

this horrid night; who has sat painfully blocked in his carriage, with such a Devil's tumult, going on to

eastward, and no sight, share or knowledge to be had of it. Repeated hussar attacks there were on the

Baggage here, Loudon's hussars also trying: but Mitchell's Captain was miraculously equal to the occasion;

and had beaten them all off. Mitchell, by magnanimous choice of his own, has been in many Fights by the

side of Friedrich; but this is the last he will ever be in or near;this miraculous one of Liegnitz, 3 to 4.30

Never did such a luck befall Friedrich before or after. He was clinging on the edge of slippery abysses, his

path hardly a foot's breadth, mere enemies and avalanches hanging round on every side: ruin likelier at no

moment, of his life;and here is precisely the quasimiracle which was needed to save him. Partly by

accident too; the best of management crowned by the luckiest of accidents. [Tempelhof, iv. 151171;

Friedrich rested four hours on the Battlefield,if that could be called rest, which was a new kind of

diligence highly wonderful. Diligence of gathering up accurately the results of the Battle; packing them into

portable shape; and marching off with them in one's pocket, so to speak. MajorGeneral Saldern had charge

of this, a man of many talents; and did it consummately. The wounded, Austrian as well as Prussian, are

placed in the empty mealwagons; the more slightly wounded are set on horseback, double in possible cases:

only the dead are left lying: 100 or more mealwagons are left, their teams needed for drawing our 82 new

cannon;the wagons we split up, no Austrians to have them; usable only as firewood for the poor

Countryfolk. The 4 or 5,000 good muskets lying on the field, shall not we take them also? Each cavalry

soldier slings one of them across his back, each baggage driver one: and the muskets too are taken care of.

About 9 A.M., Friedrich, with his 6,000 prisoners, new cannonteams, sickwagon teams, trophies,

I should have mentioned the joy of poor Regiment Bernburg; which rather affected me. Loudon gone, the

miracle of Battle done, and this miraculous packing going on,Friedrich riding about among his people,

passed along the front of Bernburg, the eye of him perhaps intimating, "I saw you, BURSCHE;" but no word

coming from him. The Bernburg Officers, tragically tressless in their hats, stand also silent, grim as

blackened stones (all Bernburg black with gunpowder): "In us also is no word; unless our actions perhaps

speak?" But a certain Sergeant, Fugleman, or chief Corporal, stept out, saluting reverentially: "Regiment

Bernburg, IHRO MAJESTAT?" "Hm; well, you did handsomely. Yes, you shall have your sidearms

back; all shall be forgotten and washed out!" "And you are again our Gracious King, then?" says the

Sergeant, with tears in his eyes."GEWISS, Yea, surely!" [Tempelhof, iv. 162164.] Upon which, fancy

what a peal of sound from the ecstatic throat and heart of this poor Regiment. Which I have often thought of;

hearing mutinous blockheads,"glorious Sons of Freedom" to their own thinking, ask their natural

commanding Officer, "Are not we as good as thou? Are not all men equal?" Not a whit of it, you mutinous

This was the breaking of Friedrich's imprisonment in the deadly rocklabyrinths; this success at Liegnitz

delivered him into free field once more. For twentyfour hours more, indeed, the chance was still full of

anxiety to him; for twentyfour hours Daun, could he have been rapid, still had the possibilities in

hand;but only Daun's Antagonist was usually rapid. About 9 in the morning, all roadready, this latter

Gentleman "gave three Salvos, as Joyfire, on the field of Liegnitz;" and, in the above succinct shape,

leaving Ziethen to come on, "with the prisoners, the sickwagons and captured cannon," in the

afternoon,marched rapidly away. For Parchwitz, with our best speed: Parchwitz is the road to Breslau, also

to Glogau,to Breslau, if it be humanly possible! Friedrich has but two days' bread left; on the Breslau road,

at Auras, there is Czernichef with 24,000; there are, or there may be, the Loudon Remnants rallied again, the

Lacy Corps untouched, all Daun's Force, had Daun made any despatch at all. Which Daun seldom did. A man

All judges say, Daun ought now to have marched, on this enterprise of still intercepting Friedrich, without

loss of a moment. But he calculated Friedrich would probably spend the day in TEDEUMing on the Field

(as is the manner of some); and that, by tomorrow, things would be clearer to one's own mind. Daun was in

no haste; gave no orders,did not so much as send Czernichef a Letter. Czernichef got one, however.

Friedrich sent him one; that is to say, sent him one TO INTERCEPT. Friedrich, namely, writes a Note

addressed to his Brother Henri: "Austrians totally beaten this day; now for the Russians, dear Brother; and

swift, do what we have agreed on!" [ OEuvres de Frederic, v. 67.] Friedrich hands this to a Peasant, with

instructions to let himself be taken by the Russians, and give it up to save his life. Czernichef, it is thought,

got this Letter; and perhaps rumor itself, and the delays of Daun, would, at any rate, have sent him across.

Across he at once went, with his 24,000, and burnt his Bridge. A vanished Czernichef;though Friedrich is

not yet sure of it: and as for the wandering Austrian Divisions, the Loudons, Lacys, all is dark to him.

So that, at Parchwitz, next morning (August 16th), the question, "To Glogau? To Breslau?" must have been a

kind of sphinxenigma to Friedrich; dark as that, and, in case of error, fatal. After some brief paroxysm of

consideration, Friedrich's reading was, "To Breslau, then!" And, for hours, as the march went on, he was

noticed "riding much about," his anxieties visibly great. Till at Neumarkt (not far from the Field of

LEUTHEN), getting on the Heights there,towards noon, I will guess,what a sight! Before this, he had

come upon Austrian Outparties, Beck's or somebody's, who did not wait his attack: he saw, at one point,

"the whole Austrian Army on march (the tops of its columns visible among the knolls, three miles off,

impossible to say whitherward);" and fared on all the faster, I suppose, such a bet depending;and, in fine,

galloped to the Heights of Neumarkt for a view: "Dare we believe it? Not an Austrian there!" And might be,

for the moment, the gladdest of Kings. Secure now of Breslau, of junction with Henri: fairly winner of the

bet;and can at last pause, and take breath, very needful to his poor Army, if not to himself, after such a

mortal spasm of sixteen days! Daun had taken the Liegnitz accident without remark; usually a stoical man,

especially in other people's misfortunes; but could not conceal his painful astonishment on this new

occasion,astonishment at unjust fortune, or at his own sluggardly cunctations, is not said.

Next day (August 17th), Friedrich encamps at Hermannsdorf, head quarter the Schloss of Hermannsdorf,

within seven miles of Breslau; continues a fortnight there, resting his wearied people, himself not resting

much, watching the dismal miscellany of entanglements that yet remain, how these will settle into

groups,especially what Daun and his Soltikof will decide on. In about a fortnight, Daun's decision did

become visible; Soltikof's not in a fortnight, nor ever clearly at all. Unless it were To keep a whole skin, and

gradually edge home to his victuals. As essentially it was, and continued to be; creating endless negotiations,

and futile overtures and messagings from Daun to his barbarous Friend, endless suasions and troubles from

poor Montalembert,of which it would weary every reader to hear mention, except of the result only.

Friedrich, for his own part, is little elated with these bits of successes at Liegnitz or since; and does not

deceive himself as to the difficulties, almost the impossibilities, that still lie ahead. In answer to D'Argens,

who has written ("at midnight," starting out of bed "the instant the news came"), in zealous congratulation on

Liegnitz, here is a Letter of Friedrich's: well worth reading, though it has been oftener read than almost any

other of his. A Letter which D'Argens never saw in the original form; which was captured by the Austrians or

Cossacks; [See OEuvres de Frederic, xix. 198 (D'Argens himself, "19th October" following), and ib. 191 n.;

Rodenbeck, ii. 31, 36;mention of it in Voltaire, Montalembert, which got copied everywhere, soon stole

"In other times, my dear Marquis, the Affair of the 15th would have settled the Campaign; at present it is but

a scratch. There will be needed a great Battle to decide our fate: such, by all appearance, we shall soon have;

and then you may rejoice, if the event is favorable to us. Thank you, meanwhile, for all your sympathy. It has

cost a deal of scheming, striving and much address to bring matters to this point. Don't speak to me of

dangers; the last Action costs me only a Coat [torn, useless, only one skirt left, by some rebounding

cannonball?] and a Horse [shot under me]: that is not paying dear for a victory.

"In my life, I was never in so bad a posture as in this Campaign. Believe me, miracles are still needed if I am

to overcome all the difficulties which I still see ahead. And one is growing weak withal. 'Herculean' labors to

accomplish at an age when my powers are forsaking me, my weaknesses increasing, and, to speak candidly,

even hope, the one comfort of the unhappy, begins to be wanting. You are not enough acquainted with the

posture of things, to know all the dangers that threaten the State: I know them, and conceal them; I keep all

the fears to myself, and communicate to the Public only the hopes, and the trifle of good news I may now and

then have. If the stroke I am meditating succeed [stroke on Daun's Anti Schweidnitz strategies, of which

anon], then, my dear Marquis, it will be time to expand one's joy; but till then let us not flatter ourselves, lest

"I live here [Schloss of Hermannsdorf, a seven miles west of Breslau] like a Military Monk of La Trappe:

endless businesses, and these done, a little consolation from my Books. I know not if I shall outlive this War:

but should it so happen, I am firmly resolved to pass the remainder of my life in solitude, in the bosom of

Philosophy and Friendship. When the roads are surer, perhaps you will write me oftener. I know not where

our winterquarters this time are to be! My House in Breslau is burnt down in the Bombardment [Loudon's,

three weeks ago]. Our enemies grudge us everything, even daylight, and air to breathe: some nook, however,

they must leave us; and if it be a safe one, it will be a true pleasure to have you again with me.

"Well, my dear Marquis, what has become of the Peace with France [English Peace]! Your Nation, you see,

is blinder than you thought: those fools will lose their Canada and Pondicherry, to please the Queen of

Hungary and the Czarina. Heaven grant Prince Ferdinand may pay them for their zeal! And it will be the

innocent that suffer, the poor officers and soldiers, not the Choiseuls and... But here is business come on

Two Events, of opposite complexion, a Russian and a Saxon, Friedrich had heard of while at Hermannsdorf,

HULSEN ON THE DURRENBERG, AUGUST 20th. "August 20th, at Strehla, in that SchlettauMeissen

Country, the Reichsfolk and Austrians made attack on Hulsen's Posts, principal Post of them the Durrenberg

(DRYHILL) there,in a most extensive manner; filling the whole region with vague artillerythunder, and

endless charges, here, there, of foot and horse; which all issued in zero and minus quantities; Hulsen standing

beautifully to his work, and Hussar Kleist especially, at one point, cutting in with masterly execution, which

proved general overthrow to the Reichs Project; and left Hulsen master of the field and of his Durrenberg,

PLUS 1,217 prisoners and one Prince among them, and one cannon: a Hulsen who has actually given a kind

of beating to the Reichsfolk and Austrians, though they were 30,000 to his 10,000, and had counted on

making a new Maxen of it." [Archenholts, ii. 114; BERICHT VON DER OM 20 AUGUST 1780 BEY

STREHLA VORGEFALLONEN ACTION (Seyfarth, Beylagen, ii. 703719).] Friedrich writes a glad

laudatory Letter to Hulsen: "Right, so; give them more of that when they apply next!" [Letter in SCHONING,

This is a bit of sunshine to the Royal mind, dark enough otherwise. Had Friedrich got done here, right fast

would he fly to the relief of Hulsen, and recovery of Saxony. Hope, in good moments, says, "Hulsen will be

able to hold out till then!" Fear answers, "No, he cannot, unless you get done here extremely soon!"The

Russian Event, full of painful anxiety to Friedrich, was a new Siege of Colberg. That is the sad fact; which,

SECOND SIEGE OF COLBERG, AUGUST 26th. "Under siege again, that poor Place; and this time the

Russians seem to have made a vow that take it they will. Siege by land and by sea; landtroops direct from

Petersburg, 15,000 in all (8,000 of them came by ship), with endless artillery; and near 40 Russian and

Swedish shipsofwar, big and little, blackening the waters of poor Colberg. August 26th [the day before

Friedrich's writing as above], they have got all things adjusted,the landtroops covered by redoubts to

rearward, ships moored in their batteringplaces;and begin such a bombardment and firing of redhot

balls upon Colberg as was rarely seen. To which, one can only hope old Heyde will set a face of graysteel

character, as usual; and prove a difficult article to deal with, till one get some relief contrived for him.

[Archenholtz, ii. 116: in HeldenGeschichte, (vi.7383), "TAGEBUCH of Siege, 26th August18th

In spite of Friedrich's forebodings, an extraordinary recoil, in all AntiFriedrich affairs, ensued upon

Liegnitz; everything taking the backward course, from which it hardly recovered, or indeed did not recover at

all, during the rest of this Campaign. Details on the subsequent DaunFriedrich movementswhich went all

aback for Daun, Daun driven into the Hills again, Friedrich hopeful to cut off his bread, and drive him quite

through the Hills, and home againare not permitted us. No human intellect in our day could busy itself

with understanding these thousandfold marchings, manoeuvrings, assaults, surprisals, sudden facingsabout

(retreat changed to advance); nor could the powerfulest human memory, not exclusively devoted to study the

Art Military under Friedrich, remember them when understood. For soldiers, desirous not to be

shamsoldiers, they are a recommendable exercise; for them I do advise Tempelhof and the excellent

German Narratives and Records. But in regard to others A sample has been given: multiply that by the ten,

by the threescore and ten; let the ingenuous imagination get from it what will suffice. Our first duty here to

poor readers, is to elicit from that sea of small things the fractions which are cardinal, or which give human

Understand, then, that there is a general goingback on the Austrian and Russian part. Czernichef we already

saw at once retire over the Oder. Soltikof bodily, the second day after, deaf to Montalembert, lifts himself to

rearward; takes post behind bogs and bushy grounds more and more inaccessible; ["August 18th, to Trebnitz,

on the road to Militsch" (Tempelhof, iv. 167).] followed by Prince Henri with his best impressiveness for a

week longer, till he seem sufficiently remote and peaceably minded: "Making home for Poland, he," thinks

the sanguine King; "leave Goltz with 12,000 to watch him. The rest of the Army over hither!" Which is done,

August 27th; General Forcade taking charge, instead of Henri,who is gone, that day or next, to Breslau, for

his health's sake. "Prince Henri really ill," say some; "Not so ill, but in the sulks," say others:partly true,

both theories, it is now thought; impossible to settle in what degree true. Evident it is, Henri sat quiescent in

Breslau, following regimen, in more or less pathetic humor, for two or three months to come; went afterwards

to Glogau, and had private theatricals; and was no more heard of in this Campaign. Greatly to his Brother's

loss and regret; who is often longing for "your recovery" (and return hither), to no purpose.

Soltikof does, in his heart, intend for Poland; but has to see the Siege of Colberg finish first; and, in decency

even to the Austrians, would linger a little: "Willing I always, if only YOU prove feasible!" Which occasions

such negotiating, and messaging across the Oder, for the next six weeks, asas shall be omitted in this place.

By intense suasion of Montalembert, Soltikof even consents to undertake some sham movement on Glogau,

thereby to alleviate his Austrians across the River; and staggers gradually forward a little in that

direction:sham merely; for he has not a siegegun, nor the least possibility on Glogau; and Goltz with the

Friedrich, on junction with Forcade, has risen to perhaps 50,000; and is now in some condition against the

DaunLoudonLacy Armies, which cannot be double his number. These still hang about, in the

BreslauParchwitz region; gloomy of humor; and seem to be aiming at Schweidnitz,if that could still

prove possible with a Friedrich present. Which it by no means does; though they try it by their best

combinations;by "a powerful Chain of Armyposts, isolating Schweidnitz, and uniting Daun and Loudon;"

by "a Camp on the Zobtenberg, as crown of the same;"and put Friedrich on his mettle. Who, after survey

of said Chain, executes (night of August 30th) a series of beautiful manoeuvres on it, which unexpectedly

conclude its existence:"with unaccountable hardihood," as Archenholtz has it, physiognomically TRUE to

Friedrich's general style just now, if a little incorrect as to the case in hand, "sees good to march direct, once

for all, athwart said Chain; right across its explosive cannonadings and it,counter cannonading, and

marching rapidly on; such a march for insolence, say the Austrians!" [Archenholtz (ii. 115116); who is in a

hurry, dateless, and rather confuses a subsequent DAY (September 18th) with this "night of August 30th."

See RETZOW, ii. 26; and still better, TEMPELHOF, iv. 203.] Till, in this way, the insolent King has

Schweidnitz under his protective hand again; and forces the Chain to coil itself wholly together, and roll into

the Hills for a safe lodging. Whither he again follows it: with continual changes of position, vying in

inaccessibility with your own; threatening your mealwagons; trampling on your skirts in this or the other

dangerous manner; marching insolently up to your very nose, more than once ("Dittmannsdorf, September

18th," for a chief instance), and confusing your best schemes. [Tempelhof, iv. 193231; in Anonymous of

This "insolent" style of management, says Archenholtz, was practised by Julius Caesar on the Gauls; and

since his time by nobody,till Friedrich, his studious scholar and admirer, revived it "against another

enemy." "It is of excellent efficacy," adds Tempelhof; "it disheartens your adversary, and especially his

common people, and has the reverse effect on your own; confuses him in endless apprehensions, and details

of selfdefence; so that he can form no plan of his own, and his overpowering resources become useless to

him." Excellent efficacy,only you must be equal to doing it; not unequal, which might be very fatal to you!

For about five weeks, Friedrich, eminently practising this style, has a most complex multifarious Briarean

wrestle with big Daun and his LacyLoudon Satellites; who have a troublesome time, running hither, thither,

under danger of slaps, and finding nowhere an available mistake made. The scene is that intricate

HillCountry between Schweidnitz and Glatz (kind of GLACIS from Schweidnitz to the Glatz Mountains):

Daun, generally speaking, has his back on Glatz, Friedrich on Schweidnitz; and we hear of encampings at

Kunzendorf, at BUNZELWITZ, at BURKERSDORFplaces which will be more famous in a coming Year.

Daun makes no complaint of his Lacy Loudon or other satellite people; who are diligently circumambient

all of them, as bidden; but are unable, like Daun himself, to do the least good; and have perpetually, Daun

and they, a bad life of it beside this Neighbor. The outer world, especially the Vienna outer world, is naturally

a little surprised: "How is this, Feldmarschall Daun? Can you do absolutely nothing with him, then; but sit

In the Russians appears no help. Soltikof on Glogau, we know what that amounts to! Soltikof is evidently

intending home, and nothing else. To all Austrian proposals,and they have been manifold, as poor

Montalembert knows too well,the answer of Soltikof was and is: "Above 90,000 of you circling about,

helping one another to do Nothing. Happy were you, not a doubt of it, could WE be wiled across to you, to

get worried in your stead!" Daun begins to be extremely illoff; provisions scarce, are far away in Bohemia;

and the roads daily more insecure, Friedrich aiming evidently to get command of them altogether. Think of

such an issue to our once flourishing Campaign 1760! Daun is vigilance itself against such fatality; and will

do anything, except risk a Fight. Here, however, is the fatal posture: Since September 18th, Daun sees

himself considerably cut off from Glatz, his provisionroad more and more insecure;and for fourteen days

onward, the King and he have got into a deadlock, and sit looking into one another's faces; Daun in a more

and more distressed mood, his provender becoming so uncertain, and the Winter season drawing nigh. The

sentries are in mutual view: each Camp could cannonade the other; but what good were it? By a tacit

understanding they don't. The sentries, outposts and vedettes forbear musketry; on the contrary, exchange

tobaccoes sometimes, and have a snatch of conversation. Daun is growing more and more unhappy. To which

Friedrich himself, successful so far, is abundantly dissatisfied with such a kind of success;and indeed

seems to be less thankful to his stars than in present circumstances he ought. Profoundly wearied we find

him, worn down into utter disgust in the Small War of Posts: "Here we still are, nose to nose," exclaims he

(see Letters TO HENRI), "both of us in unattackable camps. This Campaign appears to me more

unsupportable than any of the foregoing. Take what trouble and care I like, I can't advance a step in regard to

great interests; I succeed only in trifles. ... Oh for good news of your health: I am without all assistance here;

the Army must divide again before long, and I have none to intrust it to." [Schoning, ii. 416.]

And TO D'ARGENS, in the same bad days: "Yes, yes, I escaped a great danger there [at Liegnitz]. In a

common War it would have signified something; but in this it is a mere skirmish; my position little improved

by it. I will not sing Jeremiads to you; nor speak of my fears and anxieties, but can assure you they are great.

The crisis I am in has taken another shape; but as yet nothing decides it, nor can the development of it be

foreseen. I am getting consumed by slow fever; I am like a living body losing limb after limb. Heaven stand

by us: we need it much. [ OEuvres de Frederic, xix. 193 ("Dittmannsdorf, 18th September," day after, or day

of finishing, that cannonade).] ... You talk always of my person, of my dangers. Need I tell you, it is not

necessary that I live; but it is that I do my duty, and fight for my Country to save it if possible. In many

LITTLE things I have had luck: I think of taking for my motto, MAXIMUS IN MINIMIS, ET MINIMUS IN

MAXIMIS. A worse Campaign than any of the others: I know not sometimes what will become of it. But

why weary you with such details of my labors and my sorrows? My spirits have forsaken me. All gayety is

Or, again, TO HENRI: Berlin? Yes; I am trying something in bar of that. Have a bad time of it, in the

interim." Our means, my dear Brother, are so eaten away; far too short for opposing the prodigious number of

our enemies set against us:if we must fall, let us date our destruction from the infamous Day of Maxen!"

Is in such health, too, all the while: "Am a little better, thank you; yet have still the"what shall we say

(dreadful biliary affair)?"HEMORRHOIDES AVEUGLES: nothing that, were it not for the disquietudes I

feel: but all ends in this world, and so will these. ... I flatter myself your health is recovering. For these three

days in continuance I have had so terrible a cramp, I thought it would choke me;it is now a little gone. No

wonder the chagrins and continual disquietudes I live in should undermine and at length overturn the

robustest constitution." [Schoning, ii. 419: "2d October." Ib. ii. 410: "16th September." Ib. ii. 408.]

Friedrich, we observe, has heard of certain RussianAustrian intentions on Berlin; but, after intense

consideration, resolves that it will behoove him to continue here, and try to dislodge Daun, or help Hunger to

dislodge him; which will be the remedy for Berlin and all things else. There are news from Colberg of

welcome tenor: could Daun be sent packing, Soltikof, it is probable, will not be in much alacrity for

Berlin!September 18th, at Dittmannsdorf, was the first day of Daun's deadlock: ever since, he has had to

sit, more and more hampered, pinned to the Hills, eating sour herbs; nothing but Hunger ahead, and a retreat

(battle we will not dream of), likely to be very ruinous, with a Friedrich sticking to the wings of it. Here is the

SEPTEMBER 18th, COLHERG SIEGE RAISED. "The same September 18th, what a day at Colberg too! it

is the twentyfourth day of the continual bombardment there. Colberg is black ashes, most of its houses

ruins, not a house in it uninjured. But Heyde and his poor Garrison, busy day and night, walk about in it as if

fireproof; with a great deal of battle still left in them. The King, I know not whether Heyde is aware, has

contrived something of relief; General Werner coming:the fittest of men, if there be possibility. When, see,

September 18th, uneasy motion in the Russian intrenchments (for the Russians too are intrenched against

attack): Something that has surprised the Russians yonder. Climb, some of you, to the highest surviving

steeple, highest chimneytop if no steeple survive:Yonder IS Werner come to our relief, O God the

"Werner, with 5,000, was detached from Glogau (September 5th), from Goltz's small Corps there; has come

as on wings, 200 miles in thirteen days. And attacks now, as with wings, the astonished Russian 15,000, who

were looking for nothing like him,with wings, with claws, and with beak; and in a highly aquiline manner,

fierce, swift, skilful, storms these intrenched Russians straightway, scatters them to pieces,and next day is

in Colberg, the Siege raising itself with great precipitation; leaving all its artilleries and furnitures, rushing on

shipboard all of it that can get,the very shipsofwar, says Archenholtz, hurrying dangerously out to sea,

as if the Prussian Hussars might possibly take THEM. A glorious Werner! A beautiful defence, and ditto

rescue; which has drawn the world's attention." [Seyfarth, ii. 634; Archenholtz, ii. 116: in

Heyde's defence of Colberg, Werner's swift rescue of it, are very celebrated this Autumn. Medals were struck

in honor of them at Berlin, not at Friedrich's expense, but under Friedrich's patronage; who purchased silver

or gold copies, and gave them about. Veteran Heyde had a Letter from his Majesty, and one of these gold

Medals;what an honor! I do not hear that Heyde got any other reward, or that he needed any. A beautiful

old Hero, voiceless in History; though very visible in that remote sphere, if you care to look.

That is the news from Colberg; comfortable to Friedrich; not likely to inspire Soltikof with new alacrity in

behalf of Daun. It remains to us only to add, that Friedrich, with a view to quicken Daun, shot out (September

24th, after nightfall, and with due mystery) a Detachment towards Neisse,4,000 or so, who call themselves

15,000, and affect to be for Mahren ultimately. "For Mahren, and my bit of daily bread!" Daun may well

think; and did for some time think, or partly did. Pushed off one small detachment really thither, to look after

Mahren; and (September 29th) pushed off another bigger; Lacy namely, with 15,000, pretending to be

thither,but who, the instant they were out of Friedrich's sight, have whirled, at a rapid pace, quite into the

opposite direction: as will shortly be seen! Daun has now other irons in the fire. Daun, ever since this fatal

Deadlock in the Hills, has been shrieking hoarsely to the Russians, day and night; who at last take pity on

Powerful entreaties, influences are exercised at Petersburg, and here in the Russian Camp: "Noble Russian

Excellencies, for the love of Heaven, take this man off my windpipe! A sally into Brandenburg: oh, could not

you? Lacy shall accompany; seizure of Berlin, were it only for one day!" Soltikof has falleu sick,and,

indeed, practically vanishes from our affairs at this point;Fermor, who has command in the interim, finally

consents: "Our poor siege of Colberg, what an end is come to it! What an end is the whole Campaign like to

have! Let us at least try this of Berlin, since our hands are empty." The joy of Daun, of Montalembert, and of

Russians to the amount of 20,000, Czernichef Commander; Tottleben Second in command, a clever soldier,

who knows Berlin: these are to start from Sagan Country, on this fine Expedition, and to push on at the very

top of their speed. September 20th, Tottleben, with 3,000 of them as Vanguard, does accordingly cross Oder,

at Beuthen in Sagan Country; and strides forward direct upon Berlin: Lacy, with 15,000, has started from

Silesia, we saw how, above a week later (September 29th), but at a still more furious rate of speed.

Soltikof,theoretically Soltikof, but practically Fermor, should the dim German Books be ambiguous to any

studious creature, with the Main Army (which by itself is still a 20,000 odd), moves to Frankfurt, to

support the swift Expedition, and be within two marches of it. Here surely is a feasibility! Berlin, for defence,

And feasible, in a sort, this thing did prove; indisputably delivering Daun from strangulation in the Silesian

Mountains; filling the Gazetteer mind with loud emotion of an empty nature; and very much affecting many

poor people in Berlin and neighborhood. Making a big Chapter in Berlin Local History; though compressible

"FRIDAY, 3d OCTOBER, 1760, Tottleben, with his hasty Vanguard of 3,000, preceded by hastier rumor,

comes circling round Berlin environs; takes post at the Halle Gate [West side of the City]; summons Rochow

[the same old Commandant of Haddick's time]; requires instant admittance; ransom of Four million

Thalers, and other impossible things. Berlin has been putting itself in some posture; repairing its palisades,

throwing up bits of redoubts in front of the gates, and, though sounding with alarms and uncertainties, shows

a fine spirit of readiness for the emergency. Rochow is still Commandant, the same old Rochow who shrunk

so questionably in Haddick's time: but Rochow has no Court to tremble for at present; Queen and Royal

Family, Archives, Principal Ministries, Directorium in a body, went all to Magdeburg again, on the

Kunersdorf Disaster last year, and are safe from such insults. The spirit of the population, it appears, even of

the rich classes, some of whom are very rich, is extraordinary. Besides Rochow, moreover, there are, by

accident, certain Generals in Berlin: Seidlitz and two others, recovering from their Kunersdorf hurts, who

step into the breach with heart admirably willing, if with limbs still lame. Then there is old Fieldmarshal

Lehwald [Anti Russian at Gross Jagersdorf, but dismissed as too old], who is official Governor of Berlin,

who succeeded poor Keith in that honorable office: all these were strong for defence;and do not now

grudge, great men as they are, to take each his Gate of Berlin, his small redoubt thrown up there, and pass the

"Rochow refuses the surrender, and the Four Millions pure specie; and Tottleben, about 3 P.M. in an

intermittent way, and about 5 in a constant, begins bombardinggrenadoes, redhot balls, what he

can;and continues the still 3 next morning. Without result to speak of; Seidlitz and Consorts making good

counterplay; the poor old 1,200 of Garrison growing almost young again with energy, under their Seidlitzes;

and the population zealously cooperating, especially quenching all fires that rose. What greatly contributed

withal was the arrival of Prince Eugen overnight. Eugen of Wurtemberg [cadet of that bad Duke] had been

engaged driving home the Swedes, but instantly quitted that with a 5,000 he had; and has marched this

day,his Vanguard has, mostly Horse, whom the Foot will follow tomorrow,a distance of forty miles,

on this fine errand. Delicate manoeuvring, by these wearied horsemen, to enter Berlin amid uncertain

jostlings, under the shine of Russian bombardment; ecstatic welcome to them, when they did get in, instant

subscription for fat oxen to them; a just abundance of beef to them, of generous beer I hope not more than an

abundance: phenomena which, with others of the like, could be dwelt on, had we room. [Tempelhof, iv.

"Tottleben, under these omens, found it would not do; wended off towards his Czernichef next morning;

eastward again as far as Copenik, Prince Eugen attending him in a minatory manner: and, in Berlin for the

moment, the bad ten hours were over. For four days more, the fate of things hung dubious; hope soon fading

again, but not quite going out till the fifth day. And this, in fact, was mainly all of bombardment that the City

had to suffer; though its fate of capture was not to be averted. Is not Tottleben gone? Yes; but Lacy, marching

at a rate he never did before (except from Bischofswerda), is arrived in the environs this same evening,

cautious but furious. The King is far away; what are Eugen's 5,000 against these?

"On the other hand, Hulsen, leaving his Saxon affairs to their chance,which, alas, are about extinct, at any

rate; except Wittenberg, all Saxony gone from us!Hulsen is on winged march hitherward with about 9,000.

'How would the King come on wings, like an eagle from the Blue, if he were but aware!' thought everybody,

and said. Hulsen did arrive on the 8th; so that there are now 14,000 of us. Hulsen did;but no King could;

the King is just starting (October 4th, the King, on these bad rumors about Saxony, about Berlin, quitted the

attempt on Daun; October 7th, got on march hitherward; has finished his first march hitherward,Daun

gradually preparing to attend him in the distance),when Hulsen arrives. And here are all their Lacys,

Czernichefs fairly assembled; five to two of us,35,000 of them against our 14,000.

"Hulsen and Eugen, drawn out in their skilfulest way, manoeuvred about, all this Wednesday, 8th; attempted,

did not attempt; found on candid examination, That 14,000 VERSUS 35,000 ran a great risk of being

worsted; that, in such case, the fate of the City might be still more frightful; and that, on the whole, their one

course was that of withdrawing to Spandau, and leaving poor Berlin to capitulate as it could. Capitulation

starts again with Tottleben that same night; Gotzkowsky, a magnanimous Citizen and Merchant Prince,

stepping forth with beautiful courageous furtherances of every kind; and it ends better than one could have

hoped: Ransom not of Four Millions pure specie (which would have been 600,000 pounds): 'Gracious Sir,

it is beyond our utmost possibility!'but of One and a Half Million in modern Ephraim coin; with a 30,000

pounds of douceurmoney to the common man, Russian and Austrian, for his forbearance;'for the rest, we

"THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9th, about 7 in the morning, Tottleben marches in; exactly six days since he first

came circling to the Halle Gate and began bombarding. Tottleben, knowing Friedrich, knew the value of

despatch; and, they say, was privately no enemy to Berlin, remembering old grateful days here. For Tottleben

has himself been in difficulties; indeed, was never long out of them, during the long stormy life he had. Not a

Russian at all; though I suppose Father of the now Russian Tottlebens whom one hears of: this one was a

poor Saxon Gentleman, Page once to poor old drunken Weissenfels, whom, for a certain fair soul's sake, we

sigh to remember! Weissenfels dying, Tottleben became a soldier of Polish Majesty's;acceptable soldier,

but disagreed with Bruhl, for which nobody will like him worse. Disagreed with Bruhl; went into the Dutch

service (may have been in Fontenoy for what I know); was there till AixlaChapelle, till after

AixlaChapelle; kindly treated, and promoted in the Dutch Army; but with outlooks, I can fancy, rather

dull. Outlooks probably dull in such an element,when, being a handsome fellow in epaulettes (Major

General, in fact, though poor), he, diligently endeavoring, caught the eye of a Dutch WestIndian Heiress;

soft creature with no end of money; whom he privately wedded, and ran away with. To the horror of her

appointed Dutch Lover and Friends; who prosecuted the poor MajorGeneral with the utmost rigor, not of

Law only. And were like to be the ruin of his fair WestIndian and him; when Friedrich, about 1754 as I

guess, gave him shelter in Berlin; finding no insupportable objection in what the man had done. The rather, as

his Heiress and he were rich. Tottleben gained general favor in Berlin society; wished, in 1756, to take

service with Friedrich on the breaking out of this War. 'A Colonel with me, yes,' said Friedrich. But Tottleben

had been MajorGeneral among the Dutch, and could not consent to sink; had to go among the Russians for a

MajorGeneralcy; and there and elsewhere, for many years coming, had many adventures, mostly

troublesome, which shall not be memorable to us here. [Sketch of Tottleben's Life; in RODENBECK, ii.

"Lacy, who, after hovering about in these vicinities for four days, had now actually come up, so soon as

Eugen and Hulsen withdrew, was deeply disgusted at the Terms of Capitulation; angry to find that

Tottleben had concluded without him; and, in fact, flew into open rage at the arrangements Tottleben had

made for himself and for others. 'No admittance, except on order from his Excellency!' said the Russian

Sentry to Lacy's Austrians: upon which, Lacy forced the Gate, and violently marched in. Took lodging, to his

own mind, in the Friedrichstadt quarter; and was fearfully truculent upon person and property, during his

short stay. A scandal to be seen, how his Croats and loose hordes went openly ravening about, bent on mere

housebreaking, streetrobbery and insolent violence. So that Tottleben had fairly to fire upon the vagabonds

once or twice; and force on the unwilling Lacy some coercion of them within limits. For the three days of his

continuance,it was but three days in all,Lacy was as the evil genius of Berlin; Tottleben and his

Russians the good. Their discipline was so excellent; all Cossacks and loose rabble strictly kept out beyond

the Walls. To Bachmann, Russian Commandant, the Berliners, on his departure, had gratefully got ready a

moneygift of handsome amount: 'By no means,' answered Bachmann: 'your treatment was according to the

mildness of our Sovereign Czarina. For myself, if I have served you in anything, the fact that for three days I

have been Commandant of the Great Friedrich's Capital is more than a reward to me.'

"Tottleben and Lacy, during those three days of Russian and Austrian joint dominion, had a stormy time of it

together. 'Destroy the LAGERHAUS,' said Lacy: LagerHaus, where they manufacture their soldiers'

uniforms; it is the parent of all clothmanufacturing in Prussia; set up by Friedrich Wilhelm,not on

freetrade principles. 'The LagerHaus, say you? I doubt, it is now private property; screened by our

Capitulation;'which it proves to be. 'You shall blow up the Arsenal!' said Lacy, with vehemence and

truculence. A noble edifice, as travellers yet know: fancy its fragments flying about among the populous

streets, plunging through the roofs of Palaces, and great houses all round. Lacy was inexorable; Tottleben had

to send a Russian Party (one wishes they had been Croats) on this sad errand. They proceeded to the

PowderMagazine for explosive material, as preliminary; they were rash in handling the gunpowder there,

which blew up in their hands; sent itself and all of them into the air; and saved the poor Arsenal: 'Not powder

"Saxon and Austrian Parties were in the Palaces about,at Potsdam, at Charlottenburg, Schonhausen (the

Queen's), at Friedrichsfeld (the Margraf Karl's), some of whom behaved well, some horribly ill. In

Charlottenburg, certain Saxon BruhlDragoons, who by their conduct might have been Dragoons of Attila,

smashed the furnitures, the doors, cutting the Pictures, much maltreating the poor people; and, what was

reckoned still more tragical, overset the poor Polignac Collection of Antiques and Classicalities; not only

knocking off noses and arms, but beating them small, lest reparation by cement should be possible. Their

Officers, Pirna people, looking quietly on. A scandalous proceeding, thought everybody, friend or

foe,especially thought Friedrich; whose indignation at this ruin of Charlottenburg came out in way of

reprisal by and by. At Potsdam, on the other hand, Prince Esterhazy, with perhaps Hungarians among his

people, behaved like a very Prince; received from the Castellan an Attestation that he had scrupulously

respected everything; and took, as souvenir, only one Picture of little value; Prince de Ligne, who was under

him, carrying off, still more daintily, one goosequill, immortal by having been a pen of the Great Friedrich's.

"Tottleben, with no feeling other than Official tempered by Human, was in great contrast with Lacy, and very

beneficent to Berlin during the three days it lay under the TRIBULA, or harrow of War. But the Tutelary

Angel of Berlin, then and afterwards for weeks and months, till all scores got settled, was the Gotzkowsky

mentioned above." Whom we shall see again helpful at Leipzig; a man worth marking in these tumults. "If

Tottleben was the temporal Armed King, this Gotzkowsky was the Spiritual King, PAPA or Universal Father,

armed only with charities, pieties, prayers, ever shiningly attended by selfsacrifices on Gotzkowsky's part;

which averted woes innumerable (LagerHaus only one of a long list); and which 'surpassed all belief,' write

the Berlin Magistracy, as if in tears over such heroism. Truly a Prince of Merchants, this Gotzkowsky, not for

his vast enterprises, and the mere 1,500 workmen he employs, but for the still greater heart that dwells in him.

Had begun as a travelling Pedler; used to call at Reinsberg, with female haberdasheries exquisitely chosen

('GALLANTERIE wares' the Germans call them), for the then Princess Royal; not unnoticed by Friedrich,

who recognized the broad sense, solidity and great thoughts of the man. Of all which Friedrich has known far

more since then, in various branches of Prussian commerce improved by Gotzkowsky's managements. A

truly notable Gotzkowsky; became bankrupt at last, one is sorry to hear; and died in affliction and

neglect,short of the humblest wages for so much good work done in the world! [Preuss, ii. 257,

GESCHICHTE EINES PATRIOTISCHEN KAUFMANNS (Berlin, 1769, by Gotzkowsky himself).]

"Gotzkowsky's House was like a general storeroom for everybody's preciosities; his time, means, self were

the refuge of all the needy. In Zorndorf time, when this Czernichef [if readers can remember], who is now so

supreme,Czernichef, Soltikof and others,had nothing for it but to lodge in the cellars of burnt Custrin,

Gotzkowsky, with ready money, with advice, with assuagement, had been their DEUS EX MACHINA: and

now Czernichef remembers it; and Gotzkowsky, as Papa, has to go with continual prayers, negotiations,

counsellings, expedients, and be the refuge of all unjustly suffering men Berlin has immensities of trade in

warfurnitures: the capitals circulating are astonishing to Archenholtz; million on the back of million; no

such city in Germany for trade. The desire of the Threedays Lacy Government is towards any LagerHaus;

any mass of wealth, which can be construed as Royal or connected with Royalty. Ephraim and Itzig, mint

masters of that coppercoinage; rolling in foul wealth by the ruin of their neighbors; ought not these to bleed?

Well, yes,if anybody; and copiously if you like! I should have said so: but the generous Gotzkowsky said

in his heart, 'No;' and again pleaded and prevailed. Ephraim and Itzig, foul swollen creatures, were not

broached at all; and their gratitude was, That, at a future day, Gotzkowsky's day of bankruptcy, they were

"Archenholtz and the Books are enthusiastically copious upon Gotzkowsky and his procedures; but we must

be silent. This Anecdote only, in regard to Freedom of the Press,to the socalled 'air we breathe, not

having which we die!' Would modern Friends of Progress believe it? Because, in former stages of this War,

the Berlin Newspapers have had offensive expressions (scarcely noticeable to the microscope in our day, and

below calculation for smallness) upon the Russian and Austrian Sovereigns or Peoples,the Able Editors

(there are only Two) shall now in person, here in the marketplace of Berlin, actually run the gantlet for

it,'run the rods (GASSENLAUFEN'), as the fashion now is; which is worse than GANTLET, not to speak

of the ignominy. That is the barbaric Russian notion: 'who are you, illformed insolent persons, that give a

loose to your tongue in that manner? Strip to the waistband, swift! Here is the true career opened for you: on

each hand, one hundred sharp rods ranked waiting you; run your courses there,no hurry more than you

like!' The alternative of death, I suppose, was open to these Editors; Roman death at least, and martyrdom for

a new Faith (Faith in the Loose Tongue), very sacred to the Democratic Ages now at hand. But nobody seems

to have thought of it; Editors and Public took the thing as a 'sorrow incident to this dangerous Profession of

the Tongue Loose (or looser than usual); which nobody yet knew to be divine. The Editors made passionate

enough lamentation, in the stript state; one of then, with loud weeping, pulled off his wig, showed icegray

hair; 'I am in my 68th year!' But it seems nothing would have steaded them, had not Gotzkowsky been busy

interceding. By virtue of whom there was pardon privately in readiness: to the icegray Editor complete

pardon; to the junior quasicomplete; only a few switches to assert the principle, and dismissal with

admonition." [ Helden Geschichte, vi. 103148; Rodenbeck, ii. 4154; Archenholtz, ii. 130147; Preuss,

The pleasant part of the fact is, that Gotzkowsky's powerful intercessions were thenceforth no farther needed.

The same day, Saturday, October 11th, a few hours after this of the GASSEN LAUFEN, news arrived full

gallop: "The King is coming!" After which it was beautiful to see how all things got to the gallop; and in a

notime Berlin was itself again. That same evening, Saturday, Lacy took the road, with extraordinary

velocity, towards Torgau Country, where the Reichsfolk, in Hulsen's absence, are supreme; and, the second

evening after, was got 60 miles thitherward. His joint dominion had been of Two days. On the morning of

Sunday, 12th, went Tottleben, who had businesses, settlements of ransom and the like, before marching.

Tottleben, too, made uncommon despatch; marched, as did all these invasive Russians, at the rate of thirty

miles a day; their Main Army likewise moving off from Frankfurt to a safer distance. Friedrich was still five

The Russian spoilings during the retreat were more horrible than ever: "The gallows gaping for us; and only

this one opportunity, if even this!" thought the agitated Cossack to himself. Our poor friend Nissler had a sad

tale to tell of them; [In Busching, Beitrage, i. 400, 401, account of their sacking of Nussler's pleasant home

and estate, "Weissensee, near Berlin."] as who had not? Terror and murder, incendiary fire and other worse

unnamable abominations of the Pit. One old Halfpay gentleman, whom I somewhat respect, desperately

barricaded himself, amid his domestics and tenantries, Wife and Daughters assisting: "Human Russian

Officers can enter here; Cossacks no, but shall kill us first. Not a Cossack till all of us are lying dead!"

[Archenholtz, ii. 150.] And kept his word; the human Russians owning it to be proper.

In Guben Country, "at GrossMuckro, October 15th," the day after passing Guben, Friedrich first heard for

certain, That the Russians had been in Berlin, and also that they were gone, and that all was over. He made

two marches farther,not now direct for Berlin, but direct for Saxony AND it;to Lubben, 50 or 60 miles

straight south of Berlin; and halted there some days, to adjust himself for a new sequel. "These are the

things," exclaims he, sorrowfully, to D'Argens, "which I have been in dread of since Winter last; this is what

gave the dismal tone to my Letters to you. It has required not less than all my philosophy to endure the

reverses, the provocations, the outrages, and the whole scene of atrocious things that have come to pass."

[ OEuvres de Frederic, xix. 199; "22d October."] Friedrich's grief about Berlin we need not paint; though

there were murmurs afterwards, "Why did not he start sooner?" which he could not, in strict reason, though

aware that these savageries were on march. He had hoped the Eugen Hulsen appliances, even should all else

fail, might keep them at bay. And indeed, in regard to these latter, it turned only on a hair. Montalembert

calculating, vows, on his oath, "Can assure you, M. l'Ambassadeur, PUIS BIEN VOUS ASSURER COMME

SI J,ETAIS DEVANT DIEU, as if I stood before God," [Montalembert, ii. 108.] that, from first to last, it was

my doing; that but for me, at the very last, the Russians, on sight of Hulsen and Eugen, and no Lacy come,

Friedrich's orderings and adjustings, dated Lubben, where his Army rested after this news from Berlin, were

manifold; and a good deal still of wrecks from the Berlin Business fell to his share. For instance, one thing he

had at once ordered: "Your Bill of a Millionandhalf to the Russians, don't pay it, or any part of it! When

Bamberg was ransomed, Spring gone a year,Reich and Kaiser, did they respect our Bill we had on

Bamberg? Did not they cancel it, and flatly refuse?" Friedrich is positive on the point, "Reprisal our clear

remedy!" But Berlin itself was in alarm, for perhaps another Russian visit; Berlin and Gotzkowsky were

humbly positive the other way. Upon which a visit of Gotskowsky to the Royal Camp: "Merchants' Bills are a

sacred thing, your Majesty!" urged Gotzkowsky. Who, in his zeal for the matter, undertook dangerous visits

to the Russian Quarters, and a great deal of trouble, peril and expense, during the weeks following.

Magnanimous Gotzkowsky, "in mere bribes to the Russian Officials, spent about 6,000 pounds of his own,"

for one item. But he had at length convinced his Majesty that Merchants' Bills were a sacred thing, in spite of

Bamberg and desecrative individualities; and that this Millionandhalf must be paid. Friedrich was struck

with Gotzkowsky and his view of the facts. Friedrich, from his own distressed funds, handed to Gotzkowsky

the necessary Millionand half, commanding only profound silence about it; and to Gotzkowsky himself a

present of 150,000 thalers (20,000 pounds odd); [Archenholtz, ii. 146.] and so the matter did at last end.

It had been a costly business to Berlin, and to the King, and to the poor harried Country. To Berlin,

bombardment of ten hours; alarm of discursive siegework in the environs for five days; foreign yoke for

three days; lost money to the amounts above stated; what loss in wounds to body or to peace of mind, or

whether any loss that way, nobody has counted. The Berlin people rose to a more than Roman height of

temper, testifies D'Argens; [ OEuvres de Frederic, xix. 195199: "D'Argens to the King: Berlin, 19th

October, 1760,"an interesting Letter of details.] so that perhaps it was a gain. The King's Magazines and

Warfurnitures about Berlin are wasted utterly,Arsenal itself not blown up, we well know why;and

much Hunnish ruin in Charlottenburg, with damage to Antiques,for which latter clause there shall, in a few

Of all this Montalembert declares, "Before God, that he, Montalembert, is and was the mainspring." And

indeed, Tempelhof, without censure of Montalembert and his vocation, but accurately computing time and

circumstance, comes to the same conclusion;as thus: "OCTOBER 8th, seeing no Lacy come, Czernichef,

had it not been for Montalembert's eloquence, had fixed for returning to Copenik: whom cautious Lacy would

have been obliged to imitate. Suppose Czernichef had, OCTOBER 9th, got to Copenik,Eugen and Hulsen

remain at Berlin; Czernichef could not have got back thither before the 11th; on the 11th was news of

Friedrich's coming; which set all on gallop to the right about." [Tempelhof, iv. 277.] So that really, before

God, it seems Montalembert must have the merit of this fine achievement:the one fruit, so far as I can

discover, of his really excellent reasonings, eloquences, patiences, sown broadcast, four or five long years, on

such a field as fine human talent never had before. I declare to you, M. l'Ambassadeur, this excellent

vultureswoop on Berlin, and burning or reburning of the Peasantry of the Mark, is due solely to one poor

What was next to follow out of THIS,in Torgau neighborhood, where Daun now stands expectant,poor

M. de Montalembert was far from anticipating; and will be in no haste to claim the merit of before God or

After Hulsen's fine explosion on the Durrenberg, August 20th, on the incompetent Reichs Generals, there had

followed nothing eminent; new futilities, attemptings and desistings, advancings and recoilings, on the part of

the Reich; Hulsen solidly maintaining himself, in defence of his Torgau Magazine and Saxon interests in

those regions, against such overwhelming odds, till relief and reinforcement for them and him should arrive;

and gaining time, which was all he could aim at in such circumstances. Had the Torgau Magazine been

bigger, perhaps Hulsen might have sat there to the end. But having solidly eaten out said Magazine, what

could Hulsen do but again move rearward? [ Hogbericht von dem Ruckzug des GeneralLieutenants von

Hulsen aus dem Lager bey Torgau (in Seyfarth, Beylagen, ii. 755784).] Above all, on the alarm from Berlin,

which called him off doublequick, things had to go their old road in that quarter. Weak Torgau was taken,

weak Wittenberg besieged. Leipzig, Torgau, Wittenberg, all that Country, by the time the Russians left

Berlin, was again the Reich's. Eugen and Hulsen, hastening for relief of Wittenberg, the instant Berlin was

free, found Wittenberg a heap of ruins, out of which the Prussian garrison, very hunger urging, had issued the

day before, as prisoners of war. Nothing more to be done by Eugen, but take post, within reach of Magdeburg

The King is very unquestionably coming on; leaves Lubben thitherward October 20th. [Rodenbeck, ii. 35: in

Anonymous of Hamburg (iv. 241245) Friedrich's Two Marches, towards and from Berlin (7th17th

October, to Lubben; thence, 20th October3d November, to Torgau).] With full fixity of purpose as usual;

but with as gloomy an outlook as ever before. Daun, we said, is now arrived in those parts: Daun and the

Reich together are near 100,000; Daun some 60,000,Loudon having stayed behind, and gone southward,

for a stroke on Kosel (if Goltz will permit, which he won't at all!),and the Reich 35,000. Saxony is all

theirs; cannot they maintain Saxony? Not a Town or a Magazine now belongs to Friedrich there, and he is in

number as 1 to 2. "Maintain Saxony; indisputably you can!" that is the express Vienna Order, as Friedrich

happens to know. The Russians themselves have taken Camp again, and wait visibly, about Landsberg and

the Warta Country, till they see Daun certain of executing said Order; upon which they intend, they also, to

winter in those ElbePrussian parts, and conjointly to crush Friedrich into great confinement indeed.

Friedrich is aware of this Vienna Order; which is a kind of comfort in the circumstances. The intentions of

the hungry Russians, too, are legible to Friedrich; and he is much resolved that said Order shall be impossible

to Daun. "Were it to be possible, we are landless. Where are our recruits, our magazines, our resources for a

new Campaign? We may as well die, as suffer that to be possible!" Such is Friedrich's fixed view. He says to

"You, as a follower of Epicurus, put a value on life; as for me, I regard death from the Stoic point of view.

Never shall I see the moment that forces me to make a disadvantageous Peace; no persuasion, no eloquence,

shall ever induce me to sign my dishonor. Either I will bury myself under the ruins of my Country, or if that

consolation appears too sweet to the Destiny that persecutes me, I shall know how to put an end to my

misfortunes when it is impossible to bear them any longer. I have acted, and continue to act, according to that

interior voice of conscience and of honor which directs all my steps: my conduct shall be, in every time,

conformable to those principles. After having sacrificed my youth to my Father, my ripe years to my

Country, I think I have acquired the right to dispose of my old age. I have told you, and I repeat it, Never

shall my hand sign a humiliating Peace. Finish this Campaign I certainly will, resolved to dare all, and to try

the most desperate things either to succeed or to find a glorious end (FIN GLORIEUSE)." [ OEuvres de

Frederic, xix. 202 ("Kemberg, 28th October, 1760," a week and a day before Torgau).]

Friedrich had marched from Lubben, after three days, settling of affairs, OCTOBER 20th; arrived at Jessen,

on the Elbe, within wind of Wittenberg, in two days more. "He formed a small magazine at Duben," says

Archenholtz; "and was of a velocity, a sharpness," like lightning, in a manner! Friedrich is uncommonly

dangerous when crushed into a corner, in this way; and Daun knows that he is. Friedrich's manoeuvrings

upon Daunall readers can anticipate the general type of them. The studious military reader, if England

boasts any such, will find punctual detail of them in TEMPELHOF and the German Books. For our poor

From Lubben, having winded up these bad businesses,and reinforced Goltz, at Glogau, to a 20,000 for

Silesia's sake, to look towards Kosel and Loudon's attempts there,Friedrich gathered himself into proper

concentration; and with all the strength now left to him pushed forward (20th October) towards Wittenberg,

and recovery of those lost Saxon Countries. To Wittenberg from Lubben is some 60 miles;can be done,

nearly, in a couple of days. With the King, after Goltz is furnished, there are about 30,000; Eugen and

Hulsen, not idle for their own part, wait in those far Western or Ultra Wittenberg regions (in and beyond

Dessau Country), to join him with their 14,000, when they get signal. Joined with these, he will be 44,000; he

will then cross Elbe somewhere, probably not where Daun and the Reich imagine, and be in contact with his

Problem; with what a pitch of willingness nobody need be told! Daun, in Torgau Country, has one of the best

The poor Reichs Army, though it once flattered itself with intending to dispute Friedrich's passage of the

Elbe, and did make some detachings and manoeuvrings that way, on his approach to Wittenberg (October

22d23d),took a safer view, on his actual arrival there, on his reseizure of that ruined place, and

dangerous attitude on the right bank below and above. Safer view, on salutary second thoughts;and fell

back Leipzigway, southward to Duben, 30 or 40 miles. Whence rapidly to Leipzig itself, 30 or 40 more, on

his actually putting down his bridges over Elbe. Friedrich's crossingplace was Schanzhaus, in Dessau

Country, between Roslau and Klikau, 12 or 15 miles below Wittenberg; about midway between Wittenberg

and the inflow of the Mulda into Elbe. He crossed OCTOBER 26th, no enemy within wind at all; Daun at

Torgau in his inexpugnable Camp, Reichsfolk at Duben, making towards Leipzig at their best pace. And is

now wholly between Elbe and Mulda; nothing but Mulda and the Anhall Countries and the Halle Country

At Jonitz, next march southward, he finds the EugenHulsen people ready. We said they had not been idle

while waiting signal: of which here is one pretty instance. Eugen's Brother, supreme Reigning Duke of

Wurtemberg,whom we parted with at Fulda, last Winter, on sore terms; but who again, zealous creature,

heads his own little Army in FrenchAustrian service, in still more eclipsed circumstances ("No subsidy at

all, this Year, say your august Majesties? Well, I must do without: a volunteer; and shall need only what I can

make by forced contributions!" which of course he is diligent to levy wherever possible),has latterly taken

Halle Country in hand, very busy raising contributions there: and Eugen hears, not without interest, that

certain regiments or detachments of his, pushed out, are lying here, there, superintending that salutary

work,within clutch, perhaps, of Kleist the Hussar! Eugen despatches Kleist upon him; who pounces with

his usual fierce felicity upon these people. To such alarm of his poor Serenity and poor Army, that Serenity

flies off homeward at once, and out of these Wars altogether; where he never had other than the reverse of

business to be, and where he has played such a farcetragedy for four years back. Eugen has been heard to

speak,theoretically, and in excited moments,of "running such a fellow through the body, were one near

him:: but it is actually Eugen in person that sends him home from these Wars: which may be counted a not

unfraternal or unpatriotic procedure; being of indisputable benefit to the poor Sovereign man himself, and to

Hearing that Friedrich was across, Daun came westward that same day (October 26th), and planted himself at

Eilenburg; concluding that the Reichsfolk would now be in jeopardy first of all. Which was partly the fact;

and indeed this Daun movement rather accelerated the completion of it. Without this the Reichs Army might

have lived another day. It had quitted Duben, and gone in all haste for Leipzig, at 1 in the morning (not by

Eilenburg, of which or of Daun's arrival there it knows nothing),"at 1 in the morning of the 27th," or in

fact, so soon as news could reach it at the gallop, That Friedrich was across. And now Friedrich, seeing Daun

out in this manner, judged that a junction was contemplated; and that one could not be too swift in preventing

it. October 29th, with one diligent march, Friedrich posted himself at Duben; there, in a sort now between

Daun and the Reichsfolk, detached Hulsen with a considerable force to visit these latter in Leipzig itself; and

began with all diligence forming "a small Magazine in Duben," Magdeburg and the current of the Elbe being

hitherto his only resource in that kind. By the time of Hulsen's return, this little operation will be well

Hulsen, evening of October 30th, found Leipzig in considerable emotion, the Reichsfolk taking refuge in it:

not the least inclined to stand a push, when Hulsen presented himself. Night of 30th31st, there was

summoning and menacing; Reich endeavoring to answer in firm style; but all the while industriously packing

up to go. By 5 in the morning, things had come to extremity;morning, happily for some of us, was dark

mist. But about 5 o'clock, Hulsen (or Hulsen's Second) coming on with menace of fire and sword upon these

poor Reichspeople, found the Reichspeople wholly vanished in the mist. Gone bodily; in full march for the

spurs of the Metal Mountain Range again;concluding, for the fourth time, an extremely contemptible

Campaign. Daun, with the King ahead of him, made not the least attempt to help them in their Leipzig

difficulty; but retired to his strong Camp at Torgau; feels his work to lie THERE,as Friedrich perceives of

Hulsen left a little garrison in Leipzig (friend Quintus a part of it); [Tempelhof, iv. 290.] and returned to the

King; whose small Magazine at Duben, and other small affairs there,Magdeburg with boats, and the King

with wagons, having been so diligent in carrying grain thither,are now about completed. From Daun's

returning to Torgau, Friedrich infers that the cautious man has got Order from Court to maintain Torgau at all

costs,to risk a battle rather than go. "Good: he shall have one!" thinks Friedrich. And, NOVEMBER 2d, in

four columns, marches towards Torgau; to Schilda, that night, which is some seven miles on the southward

side of Torgau. The King, himself in the vanguard as usual, has watched with eager questioning eye the

courses of Daun's advanced parties, and by what routes they retreat; discerns for certain that Daun has no

views upon Duben or our little Magazine; and that the tug of wrestle for Torgau, which is to crown this

Campaign into conquest of Saxony, or shatter it into zero like its foregoers on the Austrian part, and will be

of deathorlife nature on the Prussian part, ought to ensue tomorrow. Forward, then!

This Camp of Torgau is not a new place to Daun. It was Prince Henri's Camp last Autumn; where Daun tried

all his efforts to no purpose; and though hugely outnumbering the Prince, could make absolutely nothing of

it. Nothing, or less; and was flowing back to Dresden and the Bohemian Frontier, uncheered by anything, till

that comfortable Maxen Incident turned up. Daun well knows the strength of this position. Torgau and the

Block of Hill to West, called Hill of Siptitz:Hulsen, too, stood here this Summer; not to mention Finck and

Wunsch, and their beating the Reichspeople here. A Hill and Post of great strength; not unfamiliar to many

Prussians, nor to Friedrich's studious considerations, though his knowledge of it was not personal on all

"Tourists, from Weimar and the Thuringian Countries," says a Note book, sometimes useful to us, "have

most likely omitted Rossbach in their screaming railway flight eastward; and done little in Leipzig but

endeavor to eat dinner, and, still more vainly, to snatch a little sleep in the inhuman dormitories of the

Country. Next morning, screaming Dresdenward, they might, especially if military, pause at Oschatz, a

stage or two before Meissen, where again are objects of interest. You can look at Hubertsburg, if given that

way,a Royal Schloss, memorable on several grounds;at Hubertsburg, and at other features, in the

neighborhood of Oschatz. This done, or this left not done, you strike off leftward, that is northward, in some

open vehicle, for survey of Torgau and its vicinities and environs. Not above fifteen miles for you; a drive

"Torgau is a fine solid old Town; Prussian military now abundant in it. In ancient Heathen times, I suppose, it

meant the GAU, or District, of THOR; Capital of that Gau,part of which, now under Christian or

quasiChristian circumstances, you have just been traversing, with Elbe on your right hand. Innocent rural

aspects of Humanity, Boor's life, Gentry's life, all the way, not in any holiday equipment; on the contrary,

somewhat unkempt and scraggy, but all the more honest and inoffensive. There is sky, earth, air, and freedom

for your own reflections: a really agreeable kind of Gau; pleasant, though in part ugly. Large tracts of it are

pine wood, with pleasant Villages and fine arable expanses interspersed. Schilda and many Villages you

leave to right and left. Oldfashioned Villages, with their village industries visible around; laboring each in

its kind,not too fast; probably with extinct tobaccopipe hanging over its chin (KALTRAUCHEND,

"Schilda has an absurd celebrity among the Germans: it is the Gotham of Teutschland; a fountain of old

broadgrins and homely and hearty rustic banter; welling up from the serious extinct Ages to our own day;

'SCHILTburger' (Inhabitant of SCHILDA) meaning still, among all the Teutsch populations, a man of calmly

obstinate whims and delusions, of notions altogether contrary to fact, and agreeable to himself only;

resolutely pushing his way through life on those terms: amid horselaughter, naturally, and general wagging

of beards from surrounding mankind. Extinct mirth, not to be growled at or despised, in Ages running to the

shallow, which have lost their mirth, and become all one snigger of mockmirth. For it is observable, the

more solemn is your background of DARK, the brighter is the play of all human genialities and coruscations

on it,of genial mirth especially, in the hour for mirth. Who the DOCTOR BORDEL of Schilda was, I do

not know: but they have had their Bordel, as Gotham had;probably various Bordels; industrious to pick up

those Spiritual fruits of the earth. For the records are still abundant and current; fully more alive than those of

Gotham here are.And yonder, then, is actually Schilda of the absurd fame. A small, cheerfullooking

human Village, in its Island among the Woods; you see it lying to the right:a clean brick slate congeries,

with faint smokecanopy hanging over it, indicating frugal dinnerkettles on the simmer;and you

remember kindly those good old grinnings, over good SCHILTBURGER, good WISE MEN OF GOTHAM,

and their learned Chroniclers, and unlearned Peasant Producers, who have contributed a wrinkle of human

"After Schilda, and before, you traverse long tracts of Pine Forest, all under forest management; with long

straight stretches of sandy road (one of which is your own), straight like red tape strings, intersecting the

wide solitudes: dangerous to your topographies,for the fingerposts are not always there, and human

advice you can get none. Nothing but the stripe of blue sky overhead, and the brown one of tape (or sand)

under your feet: the trees poor and mean for most part, but so innumerable, and all so silent, watching you all

like mute witnesses, mutely whispering together; no voice but their combined whisper or big forest SOUGH

audible to you in the world:on the whole, your solitary ride there proves, unexpectedly, a singular

deliverance from the mad railway, and its iron bedlamisms and shrieking discords and precipitances; and is

soothing, and pensively welcome, though sad enough, and in outward features ugly enough. No wild boars

are now in these woods, no chance of a wolf:"what concerns us more is, that Friedrich's columns, on the

3d of November, had to march up through these long lanes, or tapestripes of the Torgau Forest; and that one

important column, one or more, took the wrong turn at some point, and was dangerously wanting at the

"Torgau itself stands near Elbe; on the shoulder, eastern or Elbe ward shoulder, of a big mass of Knoll, or

broad Height, called of Siptitz, the main Eminence of the Gau. Shoulder, I called it, of this Height of Siptitz;

but more properly it is on a continuation, or lower ulterior height dipping into Elbe itself, that Torgau stands.

Siptitz Height, nearly a mile from Elbe, drops down into a straggle of ponds; after which, on a second or final

rise, comes Torgau dipping into Elbe. Not a shoulder strictly, but rather a CHEEK, with NECK

intervening;neck GOITRY for that matter, or quaggy with ponds! The old Town stands high enough, but is

enlaced on the western and southern side by a set of lakes and quagmires, some of which are still extensive

and undrained. The course of the waters hereabouts; and of Elbe itself, has had its intricacies: close to

northwest, Torgau is bordered, in a straggling way, by what they call OLD ELBE; which is not now a fluent

entity, but a stagnant congeries of dirty waters and morasses. The Hill of Siptitz abuts in that aqueous or

quaggy manner; its forefeet being, as it were, at or in Elbe River, and its sides, to the South and to the North

for some distance each way, considerably enveloped in ponds and boggy difficulties.

"Plenty of water all about, but I suppose mostly of bad quality; at least Torgau has declined drinking it, and

been at the trouble to lay a pipe, or ROHRGRABEN, several miles long, to bring its culinary water from the

western neighborhoods of Siptitz Height. Along the southern side of Siptitz Height goes leisurely an

uncomfortable kind of Brook, called the 'ROHRGRABEN (PipeDitch);' the meaning of which unexpected

name you find to be, That there is a SERVICEPIPE laid cunningly at the bottom of this Brook; lifting the

Brook at its pure upper springs, and sending it along, in secret tubular quasibottled condition; leaving the

fouler drippings from the neighborhood to make what 'brook' they still can, over its head, and keep it out of

harm's way till Torgau get it. This is called the ROHRGRABEN, this which comes running through Siptitz

Village, all along by the southern base of Siptitz Hill; to the idle eye, a dirtyish Brook, ending in certain

notable Ponds eastward: but to the eye of the inquiring mind, which has pierced deeper, a Tube of rational

Water, running into the throats of Torgau, while the socalled Brook disembogues at discretion into the

ENTEFANG (Ducktrap), and what Ponds or reedy Puddles there are,"of which, in poor Wunsch's fine bit

The Hill Siptitz, with this ROHRGRABEN at the southern basis of it, makes a very main figure in the Battle

now imminent. Siptitz Height is, in fact, Daun's Camp; where he stands intrenched to the utmost, repeatedly

changing his position, the better to sustain Friedrich's expected attacks. It is a blunt broadbacked Elevation,

mostly in vineyard, perhaps on the average 200 feet above the general level, and of five or six square miles in

area: length, east to west, from Grosswig neighborhood to the environs of Torgau, may be about three miles;

breadth, south to north, from the Siptitz to the Zinna neighborhoods, above half that distance. The Height is

steepish on the southern side, all along to the southwest angle (which was Daun's left flank in the great

Action coming), but swells up with easier ascent on the west, earth and other sides. Let the reader try for

some conception of its environment and it, as the floor or arena of a great transaction this day.

Daun stands fronting southward along these Siptitz Heights, looking towards Schilda and his dangerous

neighbor; heights, woods, ponds and inaccessibilities environing his Position and him. One of the strongest

positions imaginable; which, under Prince Henri, proved inexpugnable enough to some of us. A position not

to be attacked on that southern front, nor on either of its flanks:where can it be attacked? Impregnable,

under Prince Henri in far inferior force: how will you take it from Daun in decidedly superior? A position not

to be attacked at all, most military men would say;though One military man, in his extreme necessity, must

One fault, the unique military man, intensely pondering, discovers that it has: it is too small for Daun; not

area enough for manoeuvring 65,000 men in it; who will get into confusion if properly dealt with. A most

comfortable lightflash, the EUREKA of this terrible problem. "We will attack it on rear and on front

simultaneously; that is the way to handle it!" Yes; simultaneously, though that is difficult, say military

judges; perhaps to Prussians it may be possible. It is the opinion of military judges who have studied the

matter, that Friedrich's plan, could it have been perfectly executed, might have got not only victory from

Daun, but was capable to fling his big Army and him pellmell upon the Elbe Bridge, that is to say, in such

circumstances, into Elbe River, and swallow him bodily at a frightful rate! That fate was spared poor Daun.

MONDAY, 3d NOVEMBER, 1760, at halfpast 6 in the morning Friedrich is on march for this great

enterprise. The march goes northward, in Three Columns, with a Fourth of Baggage; through the woods, on

four different roads; roads, or combinations of those intricate sandy avenues already noticed. Northward all of

it at first; but at a certain point ahead (at crossing of the EilenburgTorgau Road, namely), the March is to

divide itself in two. Half of the force is to strike off rightward there with Ziethen, and to issue on the south

side of Siptitz Hill; other half, under Friedrich himself, to continue northward, long miles farther, and then at

last bending round, issuesimultaneously with Ziethen, if possibleupon Siptitz Hill from the north side.

Simultaneously with Ziethen, so far as humanly possible: that is the essential point! Friedrich has taken every

pains that it shall be correct, in this and all points; and to take double assurance of hiding it from Daun, he

yesternight, in dictating his Orders on the other heads of method, kept entirely to himself this most important

Ziethen portion of the Business. And now, at starting, he has taken Ziethen in his carriage with him a few

miles, to explain the thing by word of mouth. At the Eilenburg road, or before it, Ziethen thinks he is clear as

to everything; dismounts; takes in hand the mass intrusted to him; and strikes off by that rightward course:

"Rightward, Herr Ziethen; rightward till you get to Klitschen, your first considerable island in this sea of

wood; at Klitschen strike to the left into the woods again, your road is called the Butter Strasse

(BUTTERSTREET); goes by the northwest side of Siptitz Height; reach Siptitz by the ButterStreet, and

With the other Half of his Army, specially with the First Column of it, Friedrich proceeds northward on his

own part of the adventure. Three Columns he has, besides the Baggage one: in number about equal to

Ziethen's; if perhaps otherwise, rather the chosen Half; about 8,000 grenadier and footguard people, with

Kleist's Hussars, are Friedrich's own Column. Friedrich's Column marches nearest the Daun positions; the

Baggagecolumn farthest; and that latter is to halt, under escort, quite away to left or westward of the

disturbance coming; the other Two Columns, Hulsen's of foot, Holstein's mostly of horse, go through

intermediate tracks of wood, by roads more or less parallel; and are all, Friedrich's own Column, still more

the others, to leave Siptitz several miles to right, and to end, not AT Siptitz Height, but several miles past it,

and then wheeling round, begin business from the northward or rearward side of Daun, while Ziethen attacks

or menaces his front, simultaneously, if possible. Friedrich's march, hidden all by woods, is more than

twice as far as Ziethen's,some 14 or 15 miles in all; going straight northward 10 miles; thence bending

eastward, then southward through woods; to emerge about Neiden, there to cross a Brook (Striebach), and

strike home on the north side of Daun. The track of march is in the shape somewhat of a shepherd's crook; the

long HANDLE of it, well away from Siptitz, reaches up to Neiden, this is the straight or wooden part of said

crook; after which comes the bent, catching, or iron part,intended for Daun and his fierce flock. Ziethen

has hardly above six miles; and ought to be deliberate in his woodlands, till the King's party have time to get

The morning, I find, is wet; fourteen miles of march: fancy such a Promenade through the dripping Woods;

heavy, toilsome, and with such errand ahead! The delays were considerable; some of them accidental.

Vigilant Daun has Detachments watching in these Woods: a General Ried, who fires cannon and gets off:

then a General St. Ignon and the St. Ignon Regiment of Dragoons; who, being BETWEEN Column First and

Column Second, cannot get away; but, after some industry by Kleist and those of Column Two, are caught

and pocketed, St. Ignon himself prisoner among the rest. This delay may perhaps be considered profitable:

but there were other delays absolutely without profit. For example, that of having difficulties with your

artillerywagons in the wet miry lanes; that of missing your road, at some turn in the solitary woods; which

Daun, learning by those returned parties from the Woods what the Royal intentions on him are, hastily whirls

himself round, so as to front north, and there receive Friedrich: best line northward for Friedrich's behoof;

rear line or secondbest will now receive Ziethen or what may come. Daun's arrangements are admitted to be

prompt and excellent. Lacy, with his 20,000,who lay, while Friedrich's attack was expected from south, at

Loswig, as advanced guard, east side of the GROSSE TEICH (supreme pond of all, which is a continuation

of the Ducktrap, ENTEFANG, and hangs like a chief goitre on the goitry neck of Torgau),Lacy is now to

draw himself north and westward, and looking into the Entefang over his left shoulder (so to speak), be

rearguard against any Ziethen or Prussian party that may come. Daun's baggage is all across the Elbe, all in

wagons since yesterday; three Bridges hanging for Daun and it, in case of adverse accident. Daun likewise

brings all or nearly all his cannon to the new front, for Friedrich's behoof: 200 new pieces hither; Archenholtz

says 400 in whole; certainly such a weight of artillery as never appeared in Battle before. Unless Friedrich's

arrangements prove punctual, and his stroke be emphatic, Friedrich may happen to fare badly. On the latter

point, of emphasis, there is no dubiety for Friedrich: but on the former,things are already past doubt, the

wrong way! For the last hour or so of Friedrich's march there has been continual storm of cannonade and

musketry audible from Ziethen's side:"Ziethen engaged!" thinks everybody; and quickens step here, under

this marching music from the distance. Which is but a wrong reading or mistake, nothing more; the real

phenomenon being as follows: Ziethen punctually got to Klitschen at the due hour; struck into the

BUTTERSTRASSE, calculating his paces; but, on the edge of the Wood found a small Austrian party, like

those in Friedrich's route; and, pushing into it, the Austrian party replied with cannon before running.

Whereupon Ziethen, not knowing how inconsiderable it was, drew out in battleorder; gave it a salvo or two;

drove it back on Lacy, in the Ducktrap direction,a long way east of ButterStreet, and Ziethen's real

place;unlucky that he followed it so far! Ziethen followed it; and got into some languid dispute with Lacy:

dispute quite distant, languid, on both sides, and consisting mainly of cannon; but lasting in this way many

precious hours. This is the phenomenon which friends, in the distance read to be, "Ziethen engaged!"

Engaged, yes, and alas with what? What Ziethen's degree of blame was, I do not know. Friedrich thought it

considerable:"Stupid, stupid, MEIN LIEBER!" which Ziethen never would admit;and, beyond question,

it was of high detriment to Friedrich this day. Such accidents, say military men, are inherent, not to be

avoided, in that double form of attack: which may be true, only that Friedrich had no choice left of forms just

About noon Friedrich's Vanguard (Kleist and Hussars), about 1 o'clock Friedrich himself, 7 or 8,000

Grenadiers, emerged from the Woods about Neiden. This Column, which consists of choice troops, is to be

Frontline of the Attack. But there is yet no Second Column under Hulsen, still less any Third under

Holstein, come in sight: and Ziethen's cannonade is but too audible. Friedrich halts; sends Adjutants to hurry

on these Columns;and rides out reconnoitring, questioning peasants; earnestly surveying Daun's ground

and his own. Daun's now right wing well eastward about Zinna had been Friedrich's intended point of attack;

but the ground, out there, proves broken by boggy brooks and remnant stagnancies of the Old Elbe: Friedrich

finds he must return into the Wood again; and attack Daun's left. Daun's left is carefully drawn down EN

POTENCE, or gallowsshape there; and has, within the Wood, carefully built by Prince Henri last year, an

extensive Abatis, or complete western wall,only the north part of which is perhaps now passable, the

Austrians having in the cold time used a good deal of it as firewood lately. There, on the northwest corner of

Daun, across that weak part of the Abatis, must Friedrich's attack lie. But Friedrich's Columns are still fatally

behind,Holstein, with all the Cavalry we have, so precious at present, is wandering by wrong paths; took

the wrong turn at some point, and the Adjutant can hardly find him at all, with his precept of "Haste, Haste!"

We may figure Friedrich's humor under these ill omens. Ziethen's cannonade becomes louder and louder;

which Friedrich naturally fancies to be death or life to him,not to mean almost nothing, as it did. "MEIN

GOTT, Ziethen is in action, and I have not my Infantry up!" [Tempelhof, iv. 303.] cried he. And at length

decided to attack as he was: Grenadiers in front, the chosen of his Infantry; Ramin's Brigade for second line;

and, except about 800 of Kleist, no Cavalry at all. His battalions march out from Neiden hand, through

difficult brooks, Striebach and the like, by bridges of Austrian build, which the Austrians are obliged to quit

in hurry. The Prussians are as yet perpendicular to Daun, but will wheel rightward, into the Domitsch Wood

again; and then form, parallel to Daun's northwest shoulder; and to Prince Henri's Abatis, which will be

their first obstacle in charging. Their obstacles in forming were many and intricate; ground so difficult, for

artillery especially: seldom was seen such expertness, such willingness of mind. And seldom lay ahead of

men such obstacles AFTER forming! Think only of one fact: Daun, on sight of their intention, has opened

400 pieces of Artillery on them, and these go raging and thundering into the hem of the Wood, and to

whatever issues from it, now and for hours to come, at a rate of deafening uproar and of sheer deadliness,

Archenholtz, a very young officer of fifteen, who came into it perhaps an hour hence, describes it as a thing

surpassable only by Doomsday: clangorous rage of noise risen to the infinite; the boughs of the trees raining

down on you, with horrid crash; the Forest, with its echoes, bellowing far and near, and reverberating in

universal deathpeal; comparable to the Trump of Doom. Friedrich himself, who is an old hand, said to those

about him: "What an infernal fire (HOLLISCHES FEUER)! Did you ever hear such a cannonade before? I

never." [Tempelhof, iv. 304; Archenholtz, ii. 164.] Friedrich is between the Two Lines of his Grenadiers,

which is his place during the attack: the first Line of Grenadiers, behind Prince Henri's Abatis, is within 800

yards of Daun; Ramin's Brigade is to rear of the Second Line, as a Reserve. Horse they have none, except the

800 Kleist Hussars; who stand to the left, outside the Wood, fronted by Austrian Horse in hopeless multitude.

Artillery they have, in effect, none: their Batteries, hardly to be got across these last woody difficulties of

trees growing and trees felled, did rank outside the Wood, on their left; but could do absolutely nothing

(guncarriages and gunners, officers and men, being alike blown away); and when Tempelhof saw them

afterwards, they never had been fired at all. The Grenadiers have their muskets, and their hearts and their

With amazing intrepidity, they, being at length all ready in rank within 800 yards, rush into the throat of this

Firevolcano; in the way commanded,which is the alone way: such a problem as human bravery seldom

had. The Grenadiers plunge forward upon the throat of Daun; but it is into the throat of his iron engines and

his tearing billows of cannonshot that most of them go. Shorn down by the company, by the regiment, in

those terrible 800 yards,then and afterwards. Regiment STUTTERHEIM was nearly all killed and

wounded, say the Books. You would fancy it was the fewest of them that ever got to the length of selling

their lives to Daun, instead of giving them away to his 400 cannon. But it is not so. The Grenadiers, both

Lines of them, still in quantity, did get into contact with Daun. And sold him their lives, hand to hand, at a

rate beyond example in such circumstances;Daun having to hurry up new force in streams upon them;

resolute to purchase, though the price, for a long while, rose higher and higher.

At last the 6,000 Grenadiers, being now reduced to the tenth man, had to fall back. Upon which certain

Austrian Battalions rushed dawn in chase, counting it Victory come: but were severely admonished of that

mistake; and driven back by Ramin's people, who accompanied them into their ranks and again gave Daun a

great deal of trouble before he could overpower them. This is Attack First, issuing in failure first: one of the

stiffest bits of fighting ever known. Began about 2 in the afternoon; ended, I should guess, rather after 3.

Daun, by this time, is in considerable disorder of line; though his 400 firethroats continue belching ruin, and

deafening the world, without abatement. Daun himself had got wounded in the foot or leg during this Attack,

but had no time to mind it: a most busy, strong and resolute Daun; doing his very best. Friedrich, too, was

wounded,nobody will tell me in which of these attacks;but I think not now, at least will not speak of it

now. What his feelings were, as this Grenadier Attack went on,a struggle so unequal, but not to be helped,

from the delays that had risen,nobody, himself least of all, records for us: only by this little symptom: Two

Grandsons of the Old Dessauer's are Adjutants of his Majesty, and well loved by him; one of them now at his

hand, the other heading his regiment in this charge of Grenadiers. Word comes to Friedrich that this latter one

is shot dead. On which Friedrich, turning to the Brother, and not hiding his emotion, as was usual in such

moments, said: "All goes ill today; my friends are quitting me. I have just heard that your Brother is killed

MORT DE VOTRE FRERE)!" [Preuss, ii. 226.] Words which the Anhalt kindred, and the Prussian military

public, treasured up with a reverence strange to us. Of Anhalt perhaps some word by and by, at a fitter

Shortly after 3, as I reckon the time, Hulsen's Column did arrive: choice troops these too, the Pomeranian

MANTEUFFEL, one regiment of them;young Archenholtz of FORCADE (first Battalion here, second and

third are with Ziethen, making vain noise) was in this Column; came, with the others, winding to the Wood's

edge, in such circuits, poor young soul; rain pouring, if that had been worth notice; cannonballs plunging,

boughs crashing, such a TODES POSAUNE, or DoomsdayThunder, broken loose:they did emerge

steadily, nevertheless, he says, "like seabillows or flow of tide, under the smoky hurricane." Pretty men are

here too, Manteuffel Pommerners; no hearts stouter. With these, and the indignant Remnants which waited

for them, a new assault upon Daun is set about. And bursts out, on that same northwest corner of him; say

about halfpast 3. The rain is now done, "blown away by the tremendous artillery," thinks Archenholtz, if

The Attack, supported by a few more Horse (though Column Three still fatally lingers), and, I should hope,

by some practicable weight of Fieldbatteries, is spurred by a grimmer kind of indignation, and is of fiercer

spirit than ever. Think how Manteuffel of Foot will blaze out; and what is the humor of those once

overwhelmed Remnants, now getting air again! Daun's line is actually broken in this point, his artillery

surmounted and become useless; Daun's potence and north front are reeling backwards, Prussians in

possession of their ground. "The field to be ours!" thinks Friedrich, for some time. If indeed Ziethen had been

seriously busy on the southern side of things, instead of vaguely cannonading in that manner! But resolute

Daun, with promptitude, calls in his Reserve from Grosswig, calls in whatsoever of disposable force he can

gather; Daun rallies, rushes again on the Prussians in overpowering number; and, in spite of their most

A very desperate bout, this Second one; probably the toughest of the Battle: but the result again is Daun's; the

Prussians palpably obliged to draw back. Friedrich himself got wounded here;poor young Archenholtz too,

ONLY wounded, not killed, as so many were: Friedrich's wound was a contusion on the breast; came of

some spent bit of caseshot, deadened farther by a famed pelisse he wore, "which saved my life," he said

afterwards to Henri. The King himself little regarded it (mentioning it only to Brother Henri, on inquiry and

solicitation), during the few weeks it still hung about him. The Books intimate that it struck him to the earth,

void of consciousness for some time, to the terror of those about him; and that he started up, disregarding it

altogether in this press of business, and almost as if ashamed of himself, which imposed silence on people's

tongues. In military circles there is still, on this latter point, an Anecdote; which I cannot confirm or deny, but

will give for the sake of Berenhorst and his famed Book on the ART OF WAR. Berenhorsta natural son of

the Old Dessauer's, and evidently enough a chip of the old block, only gone into the articulatespeaking or

intellectual formwas, for the present, an Adjutant or Aidedecamp of Friedrich's; and at this juncture was

seen bending over the swooned Friedrich, perhaps with an over pathos or elaborate something in his

expression of countenance: when Friedrich reopened his indignant eyes: "WAS MACHT ER HIER?" cried

Friedrich: "ER SAMMLE FUYARDS! What have you to do here? Go and gather runaways" (be of some real

use, can't you)!which unkind cut struck deep into Berenhorst, they say; and could never after be eradicated

from his gloomy heart. It is certain he became Prince Henri's Adjutant soon after, and that in his

KRIEGSKUNST, amidst the clearest orthodox admiration, he manifests, by little touches up and down, a

feeling of very fell and pallid quality against the King; and belongs, in a peculiarly virulent though taciturn

way, to the Opposition Party. H1s Book, next to English Lloyd's (or perhaps superior, for Berenhorst is of

much the more cultivated intellect, highly condensed too, though so discursive and farread, were it not for

the vice of perverse diabolic temper), seemed, to a humble outsider like myself, greatly the strongestheaded,

most penetrating and humanly illuminative I had had to study on that subject. Who the weakestheaded was

(perhaps JOMINI, among the widely circulating kind?), I will not attempt to decide, so great is the crush in

This Second Attack is again a repulse to the indignant Friedrich; though he still persists in fierce effort to

recover himself: and indeed Daun's interior, too, it appears, is all in a whirl of confusion; his losses too

having been enormous:when, see, here at length, about halfpast 4, Sun now down, is the tardy Holstein,

with his Cavalry, emerging from the Woods. Comes wending on yonder, half a mile to north of us; straight

eastward or Elbeward (according to the order of last night), leaving us and our death struggles unregarded,

as a thing that is not on his tablets, and is no concern of Holstein's. Friedrich halts him, not quite too late;

organizes a new and third Attack. Simultaneous universal effort of foot and horse upon Daun's Front;

Holstein himself, who is almost at Zinna by this time, to go upon Daun's right wing. This is Attack Third; and

is of sporadic intermittent nature, in the thickening dusk and darkness: part of it successful, none of it beaten,

but nowhere the success complete. Thus, in the extreme west or leftmost of Friedrich's attack, SPAEN

Dragoons,one of the last Horse Regiments of Holstein's Column,SPAEN Dragoons, under their

LieutenantColonel Dalwig (a beautiful manoeuvrer, who has stormed through many fields, from Mollwitz

onwards), cut in, with an admired impetuosity, with an audacious skill, upon, the Austrian Infantry

Regiments there; broke them to pieces, took two of them in the lump prisoners; bearded whole torrents of

Austrian cavalry rushing up to the rescue,and brought off their mass of prisoner regiments and six

cannon;the Austrian rescuers being charged by some new Prussian party, and hunted home again.

[Tempelhof, iv. 305.] "Had these Prussian Horse been on their ground at 2 o'clock, and done as now, it is

very evident," says Tempelhof, "what the Battle of Torgau had by this time been!"

Near by, too, farther rightwards, if in the bewildering indistinctness I might guess where (but the where is not

so important to us), Baireuth Dragoons, they of the 67 standards at Striegau long since, plunged into the

Austrian Battalions at an unsurpassable rate; tumbled four regiments of them (Regiment KAISER, Regiment

NEIPPERG,nobody now cares which four) heels over head, and in few minutes took the most of them

prisoners; bringing them home too, like Dalwig, through crowds of rescuers. Eastward, again, or Elbeward,

Holstein has found such intricacies of ground, such boggy depths and rough steeps, his Cavalry could come

to no decisive sabring with the Austrian; but stood exchanging shot;nothing to be done on that right wing

Daun's left flank, however, does appear, after Three such Attacks, to be at last pretty well ruined: Tempelhof

says, "Daun's whole Front Line was tumbled to pieces; disorder had, sympathetically, gone rearward, even in

those eastern parts; and on the western and northwestern the Prussian Horse Regiments were now standing in

its place." But, indeed, such charging and recharging, pulsing and repulsing, has there been hereabouts for

hours past, the rival Hosts have got completely interpenetrated; Austrian parties, or whole regiments, are to

rear of those Prussians who stand ranked here, and in victorious posture, as the Night sinks. Night is now

sinking on this murderous day: "Nothing more to be made of it; try it again tomorrow!" thinks the King;

gives Hulsen charge of bivouacking and rearranging these scattered people; and rides with escort

northwestward to Elsnig, north of Neiden, well to rear of this bloody arena,in a mood of mind which may

Daun, too, is home to Torgau,1 think, a little earlier,to have his wound dressed, now that the day seems

to him secure. Buccow, Daun's second, is killed; Daun's third is an Irish Graf O'Donnell, memorable only on

this one occasion; to this O'Donnell, and to Lacy, who is firm on his ground yonder, untouched all day, the

charge of matters is left. Which cannot be a difficult one, hopes Daun. Daun, while his wound is dressing,

speeds off a courier to Vienna. Courier did enter duly there, with glorious trumpeting postilions, and

universal Hephephurrah; kindling that ardently loyal City into infinite triumph and illumination,for the

Hulsen meanwhile has been doing his best to get into proper bivouac for the morrow; has drawn back those

eastward horse regiments, drawn forward the infantry battalions; forward, I think, and well rightward, where,

in the daytime, Daun's left flank was. On the whole, it is northwestward that the general Prussian Bivouac for

this night is; the extremest SOUTHwesternmost portion of it is Infantry, under General Lestwitz; a gallant

It is 6 o'clock. Damp dusk has thickened down into utter darkness, on these terms:when, lo, cannonade and

musketade from the south, audible in the LestwitzHulsen quarters: seriously loud; red glow of conflagration

visible withal,some unfortunate Village going up ("Village of Siptitz, think you?"); and need of Hulsen at

his fastest! Hulsen, with some readiest Foot Regiments, circling round, makes thitherward; Lestwitz in the

Ziethen, who had stood all day making idle noises,of what a fatal quality we know, if Ziethen did

not,waiting for the King's appearance, must have been considerably displeased with himself at nightfall,

when the King's fire gradually died out farther and farther north, giving rise to the saddest surmises. Ziethen's

Generals, Saldern and the Leuthen Mollendorf, are full of gloomy impatience, urgent on him to try

something. "Push westward, nearer the King? Some stroke at the enemy on their south or southwestern side,

where we have not molested them all day? No getting across the Rohrgraben on them, says your Excellenz?

Siptitz Village, and their Battery there, is on our side of the Rohrgraben:UM GOTTES WILLEN,

something, Herr General!" Ziethen does finally assent: draws leftward, westward; unbuckles Saldern's people

upon Siptitz; who go like sharp hounds from the slip; fasten on Siptitz and the Austrians there, with a will;

wrench these out, force them to abandon their Battery, and to set Siptitz on fire, while they run out of it.

Comfortable bit of success, so far,were not Siptitz burning, so that we cannot get through. "Through, no:

and were we through, is not there the Rohrgraben?" thinks Ziethen, not seeing his way.

How lucky that, at this moment, Mollendorf comes in, with a discovery to westward; discovery of our old

friend "the Butter Street,"it is nothing more,where Ziethen should have marched this morning: there

would he have found a solid road across the Rohrgraben, free passage by a bridge between two bits of ponds,

at the SCHAFEREI (SheepFarm) of Siptitz yonder. "There still," reports Mollendorf, "the solid road is;

unbeset hitherto, except by me Mollendorf!" Thitherward all do now hasten, Austrians, Prussians: but the

Prussians are beforehand; Mollendorf is master of the Pass, deploying himself on the other side of it, and

Ziethen and everybody hastening through to support him there, and the Austrians making fierce fight in vain.

The sound of which has reached Hulsen, and set Lestwitz and him in motion thither.

For the thing is vital, if we knew it. Close ahead of Mollendorf, when he is through this Pass, close on

Mollendorf's left, as he wheels round on the attacking Austrians, is the southwest corner of Siptitz Height.

Southwest corner, highest point of it; summit and key of all that Battle area; rules it all, if you get cannon

thither. It hangs steepish on the southern side, over the Rohrgraben, where this MollendorfAustrian fight

begins; but it is beautifully accessible, if you bear round to the west side,a fine saddleshaped bit of clear

ground there, in shape like the outside or seat of a saddle; Domitsch Wood the crupper part; summit of this

Height the pommel, only nothing like so steep:it is here (on tho southern saddleflap, so to speak),

gradually mounting westward to the crupperandpommel part, that the agony now is.

And here, in utter darkness, illuminated only by the musketry and cannon blazes, there ensued two hours of

stiff wrestling in its kind: not the fiercest spasm of all, but the final which decided all. Lestwitz, Hulsen, come

sweeping on, led by the sound and the fire; "beating the Prussian march, they," sharply on all their

drums,Prussian march, rattattan, sharply through the gloom of Chaos in that manner; and join

themselves, with no mistake made, to Mollendorf's, to Ziethen's left and the saddleflap there, and fall on.

The night is pitchdark, says Archenholtz; you cannot see your hand before you. Old Hulsen's bridlehorses

were all shot away, when he heard this alarm, far off: no horse left; and he is old, and has his own bruises. He

seated himself on a cannon; and so rides, and arrives; right welcome the sight of him, doubt not! And the

To an observant Mollendorf, watching about all day, the importance and allimportance of Siptitz Summit, if

it can be got, is probably known; to Daun it is alarmingly well known, when he hears of it. Daun is zealously

urgent on Lacy, on O'Donnell; who do try what they can; send reinforcements, and the like; but nothing that

proves useful. O'Donnell is not the man for such a crisis: Lacy, too, it is remarked, has always been more

expert in ducking out of Friedrich's way than in fighting anybody. [Archenholtz's sour remark.] In fine, such

is the total darkness, the difficulty, the uncertainty, most or all of the reinforcements sent halted short, in the

belly of the Night, uncertain where; and their poor friends got altogether beaten and driven away.

About 9 at night, all the Austrians are rolling off, eastward, eastward. Prussians goading them forward what

they could (firing not quite done till 10); and that allimportant pommel of the saddle is indisputably won.

The Austrians settled themselves, in a kind of halfmoon shape, close on the suburbs of Torgau; the

Prussians in a parallel halfmoon posture, some furlongs behind them. The Austrians sat but a short time; not

a moment longer than was indispensable. Daun perceives that the key of his ground is gone from him; that he

will have to send a second Courier to Vienna. And, above all things, that he must forthwith get across the

Elbe and away. Lucky for him that he has Three Bridges (or Four, including the Town Bridge), and that his

Baggage is already all across and standing on wheels. With excellent despatch and order Daun winds himself

across,all of him that is still coherent; and indeed, in the distant parts of the Battlefield, wandering

Austrian parties were admonished hitherward by the River's voice in the great darkness,and Daun's loss in

Till towards one in the morning, the Prussians, in their halfmoon, had not learned what he was doing. About

one they pushed into Torgau, and across the Town Bridge; found 26 pontoons,all the rest packed off

except these 26;and did not follow farther. Lacy retreated by the other or left bank of the River, to guard

against attempts from that side. Next day there was pursuit of Lacy; some prisoners and furnitures got from

him, but nothing of moment: Daun and Lacy joined at Dresden; took post, as usual, behind their inaccessible

Plauen Chasms. Sat there, in view of the chasing Prussians, without farther loss than this of Torgau, and of a

Campaign gone to water again. What an issue, for the third time! [Tempelhof, iv. 291318,; Archenholtz, ii.

159174; Retzow, ii. 299 et seq.; UMSTANDLICHE BESCHREIBUNG DES (in Seyfarth, Beylagen, ii.

823848): in HeldenGeschichte, or in Anonymous of Hamburg (iv. 245300), the Daun DESPATCHES,

On Torgaufield, behind that final Prussian halfmoon, there reigned, all night, a confusion which no tongue

can express. Poor wounded men by the hundred and the thousand, weltering in their blood, on the cold wet

ground; not surgeons or nurses, but merciless predatory sutlers, equal to murder if necessary, waiting on them

and on the happier that were dead. "Unutterable!" says Archenholtz; who, though wounded, had crawled or

got carried to some village near. The living wandered about in gloom and uncertainty; lucky he whose

haversack was still his, and a crust of bread in it: water was a priceless luxury, almost nowhere discoverable.

Prussian Generals roved about with their Staff Officers, seeking to reform their Battalions; to little

purpose. They had grown indignant, in some instances, and were vociferously imperative and minatory; but

in tbe dark who needed mind them? they went raving elsewhere, and, for the first time, Prussian word

ofcommand saw itself futile. Pitch darkness, bitter cold, ground trampled into mire. On Siptitz Hill there is

nothing that will burn: farther back, in the Domitsch Woods, are numerous fine fires, to which Austrians and

Prussians alike gather: "Peace and truce between us; tomorrow morning we will see which are prisoners,

which are captors." So pass the wild hours, all hearts longing for the dawn, and what decision it will bring.

Friedrich, at Elsnig, found every hut full of wounded, and their surgeries, and miseries silent or loud. He

himself took shelter in the little Church; passed the night there. Busy about many things; "using the altar,"

it seems, "by way of writingtable [self or secretaries kneeling, shall we fancy, on those new terms?], and the

stairs of it as seat." Of the final ZiethenLestwitz effort he would scarcely hear the musketry or cannonade,

being so far away from it. At what hour, or from whom first, he learned that the Battle of Torgau had become

Victory in the nighttime, I know not: the AnecdoteBooks send him out in his cloak, wandering up and

down before daybreak; standing by the soldiers' fires; and at length, among the Woods, in the faint incipiency

of dawn, meeting a Shadow which proves to be Ziethen himself in the body, with embraces and

congratulations:evidently mythical, though dramatic. Reach him the news soon did; and surely none could

be welcomer. Headquarters change from the altarsteps in Elsnig Church to secular rooms in Torgau.

Ziethen has already sped forth on the skirts of Lacy; whole Army follows next day; and, on the War theatre

it is, on the sudden, a total change of scene. Conceivable to readers without the details.

Hopes there were of getting back Dresden itself; but that, on closer view, proved unattemptable. Daun kept

his Plauen Chasm, his few square miles of ground beyond; the rest of Saxony was Friedrich's, as heretofore.

Loudon had tried hard on Kosel for a week; storming once, and a second time, very fiercely, Goltz being now

near; but could make nothing of it; and, on wind of Goltz, went his way. [HOFBERICHT VON DER

BELAGERUNG VON KOSEL, IM OCTOBER 1760 (Seyfarth, Beylagen, ii. 798804): began "October

21st;" ended "at daybreak, October 27th."] The Russians, on sound of Torgau, shouldered arms, and made for

Poland. Daun, for his own share, went to Vienna this Winter; in need of surgery, and other things. The

population there is rather disposed to be grumbly on its once heroic Fabius; wishes the Fabius were a little

less cunctatory. But Imperial Majesty herself, one is proud to relate, drove out, in Old Roman spirit, some

miles, to meet him, her defeated everhonored Daun, and to inquire graciously about his health, which is so

Torgau was Daun's last Battle: Daun's last battle; and, what is more to the joy of readers and their Editor here,

was Friedrich's last,so that the remaining Two Campaigns may fairly be condensed to an extreme degree;

Daun lost at Torgau, by his own account, "about 11,000 men," should have said, according to Tempelhof,

and even to neutral persons, "above 12,000 killed and wounded, PLUS 8,000 prisoners, 45 cannon, 29 flags,

1 standard (or horseflag)," [Tempelhof, iv. 213; Kausler, p. 726.] which brings him to at least 20,000

minus; the Prussian loss, heavy enough too, being, by Tempelhof's admission, "between 13 and 14,000, of

whom 4,000 prisoners." The sore loss, not so computable in arithmetic,but less sore to Daun, perhaps, than

to most people,is that of being beaten, and having one's Campaign reduced to water again. No Conquest of

Saxony, any more than of Silesia, possible to Daun, this Year. In Silesia, thanks to Loudon, small thanks to

Loudon's Chief, they have got Glatz: Kosel they could not get; fiery Loudon himself stormed and blazed to

no purpose there, and had to hurry home on sight of Goltz and relief. Glatz is the net sumtotal. Daun knows

all this; but in a stoical arithmetical manner, and refuses to be flurried by it.

Friedrich, as we said, had hoped something might be done in Saxony on the defeated Daun;perhaps

Dresden itself be got back from him, and his Army altogether sent to winter in Bohemia again? But it proved

otherwise. Daun showed not the least disposition to quit his Plauen Chasm, or fall into discouragement: and

after some weeks of diligent trial, on Friedrich's part, and much running about in those central and Hillward

parts, Friedrich found he would have to be content with his former allotment of Saxon territory, and to leave

the Austrians quiet in theirs. Took winterquarters accordingly, and let the Enemy take. Cantoned himself, in

that MeissenFreyberg Country, in front of the Austrians and their impassable Plauens and Chasms:pretty

much as in the past Year, only that the Two Armies lay at a greater distance, and were more peaceable, as if

Headquarter of the King is Leipzig; where the King did not arrive till December 8th,such adjusting and

arranging has he had, and incessant running to and fro. He lived in the "Apel House, NEW Neumarkt, No.

16;" [Rodenbeck, ii. 65.] the same he had occupied in 1757, in the Rossbach time. "ACH! how lean your

Majesty has grown!" said the Mistress of it, at sight of him again (mythically, I should fancy, though it is in

the AnecdoteBooks). "Lean, JA WOHL," answered he: "and what wonder, with Three Women [Theresa,

Czarina, Pompadour] hanging on the throat of me all this while!" But we propose to look in upon him

ourselves, in this Apel House, on more authentic terms, by and by. Read, meanwhile, these Two bits of

Autograph, thrown off incidentally, at different places, in the previous busy journeyings over

... "I drove the enemy to the Gates of Dresden; they occupy their Camp of last Year; all my skill is not

enough to dislodge them," [Chasm of Plauen, "a place impregnable, were it garrisoned by

chimneysweeps," says the King once]. "We have saved our reputation by the Day of Torgau: but don't

imagine our enemies are so disheartened as to desire Peace. Duke Ferdinand's affairs are not in a good way

[missed Wesel, of which presently;and, alas also, George II. died, this day gone a fortnight, which is far

worse for us, if we knew it!]I fear the French will preserve through Winter the advantages they gained

"In a word, I see all black, as if I were at the bottom of a tomb. Have some compassion on the situation I am

in; conceive that I disguise nothing from you, and yet that I do not detail to you all my embarrassments, my

apprehensions and troubles. Adieu, dear Marquis; write to me sometimes,don't forget a poor devil, who

curses ten times a day his fatal existence, and could wish he already were in those Silent Countries from

2. The Second, of different complexion, is a still more interesting little Autograph, date elsewhere, farther on,

in those wanderings. Madam Camas, Widow of the Colonel Camas whom we knew twenty years ago, is

"Queen's OBERHOFMEISTERINN (Lady in Chief),"to whom the King's Letters are always pretty:

"I am exact in answering, and eager to satisfy you [in that matter of the porcelain: you shall have a

breakfastset, my good Mamma; six coffeecups, very pretty, well diapered, and tricked out with all the little

embellishments which increase their value. On account of some pieces which they are adding to the set, you

will have to wait a few days; but I flatter myself this delay will contribute to your satisfaction, and produce

for you a toy that will give you pleasure, and make you remember your old Adorer. It is curious how old

people's habits agree. For four years past I have given up suppers, as incompatible with the Trade I am

obliged to follow; and in marching days, my dinner consists of a cup of chocolate.

"We hurried off, like fools, quite inflated with our Victory, to try if we could not chase the Austrians out of

Dresden: they made a mockery of us from the tops of their mountains. So I have withdrawn, like a bad little

boy, to conceal myself, out of spite, in one of the wretchedest villages in Saxony. And here the first thing will

be to drive the Circle gentlemen, [Reichs Army] out of Freyberg into Chemnitz, and get ourselves room to

quarter and something to live upon. It is, I swear to you, a dog of a life [or even a shedog, CHIENNE DE

VIE], the like of which nobody but Don Quixote ever led before me. All this tumbling and toiling, and bother

and confusion that never ceases, has made me so old, that you would scarcely know me again. On the right

side of my head the hair is all gray; my teeth break and fall out; I have got my face wrinkled like the falbalas

of a petticoat; my back bent like a fiddlebow; and spirit sad and downcast like a monk of La Trappe. I

forewarn you of all this, lest, in case we should meet again in flesh and bone, you might feel yourself too

violently shocked by my appearance. There remains to me nothing but the heart,which has undergone no

change, and which will preserve, so long as I breathe, its feelings of esteem and of tender friendship for my

good Mamma. Adieu." [ OEuvres de Frederic, XVIII. 144.] To which add only this on Duke Ferdinand,

FIGHT OF KLOSTER KAMPEN (Night of October 15th16th); WESEL NOT TO BE HAD BY DUKE

After WARBURG (July 31st, while Friedrich was on the eve of crossing Elbe on new adventures, Dresden

Siege having failed him), Duke Ferdinand made no figure to the Gazetteers; fought no Battle farther; and has

had a Campaign, which is honorable only to judges of a higher than the Gazetteer sort.

By Warburg Ferdinand had got the Diemel; on the north bank of which he spread himself out, impassable to

Broglio, who lay trying on the opposite bank:"No Hanover by this road." Broglio thereupon drew back a

little; pushed out circuitously from his right wing, which reaches far eastward of Ferdinand, a considerable

Brigade, circuitously, round by the WeserFulda Country, and beyond the embouchure of Diemel,to try

it by that method. Got actually a few miles into Hanoverian territory, by that method; laid hold of Gottingen,

also of Munden, which secures a road thither: and at Gottingen there, "ever since August 4th," Broglio has

been throwing up works, and shooting out hussarparties to a good distance; intending, it would seem, to

maintain himself, and to be mischievous, in that post. Would, in fact, fain entice Ferdinand across the Weser,

to help Gottingen. "Across Weser, yes;and so leave Broglio free to take Lippstadt from me, as he might

after a short siege," thinks Ferdinand always; "which would beautifully shorten Broglio's communication

[quite direct then, and without interruption, all the way to Wesel], and make Hanover itself, Hanover and

Brunswick, the central Seat of War!" Which Ferdinand, grieved as he is for Gottingen, will by no means

Ferdinand, strong only as one to two, cannot hinder Broglio, though he tries variously; and is much at a loss,

seeing Broglio irrepressibly busy this way, all through August and on into September;has heard, however,

from Wesel, through secret partisans there, that Wesel, considered altogether out of risk, is left in a very weak

condition; weak in garrison, weak even in gunners. Reflecting upon which, in his difficulties, Ferdinand asks

himself, "A sudden stroke at Wesel, 200 miles away, might it not astonish Broglio, who is so busy on us just

here?"and, September 22d, despatches the Hereditary Prince on that errand. A man likely for it, if there be

one in the world:unable to do it, however, as the issue told. Here is what I find noted.

"SEPTEMBER 22d, the Erbprinz, with a chosen Corps of 15,000, mostly English, left these Diemel regions

towards Wesel, at his speediest. September 29th, Erbprinz and vanguard, Corps rapidly following, are got to

Dorsten, within 20 miles of Wesel. A most swift Erbprinz; likely for such work. And it is thought by judges,

Had he had either siegeartillery or scaling apparatus, he might really have attacked Wesel with good chance

upon it. But he has not even a ladder ready, much less a siegegun. Siegeguns are at Bielefeld [come from

Bremen, I suppose, by English boating, up the Weser so far]; but that is six score miles of wheelcarriage;

roads bad, and threatening to be worse, as it is equinoctial weather. There is nothing for it but to wait for

"The Erbprinz, hopefully waiting, does his endeavor in the interim; throws a bridge over the Rhine, pounces

upon Cleve garrison (prisoners, with their furnitures), pounces upon this and that; 'spreads terror' on the

French thereabouts 'up to Dusseldorf and Koln,and on Broglio himself, so far off, the due astonishment.

'Wesel to be snatched,ye Heavens! Our Netherlands road cut off: Dusseldorf, Koln, our Rhine Magazines,

all and sundry, fallen to the hawks,who, the lighterwinged of them, might pay visits in France itself!'

Broglio has to suspend his Gottingen operations, and detach Marquis de Castries with (say ultimately, for

Castries is to grow and gather by the road) 35,000, to relieve Wesel. Castries marches doublequick; weather

very rainy;arrives in those parts OCTOBER 13th;hardly a gun from Bielefeld come to hand yet,

"OCTOBER 14th, after two weeks and a day, the Hereditary Prince sees, not guns from Bielefeld, but

Castries pushing into Wesel a 7,000 of additional garrison,and the Enterprise on Wesel grown impossible.

Impossible, and probably far more; Castries in a condition to devour us, if he prove sharp. It behooves the

Hereditary Prince to be himself sharp;which he undoubtedly was, in this sharp crisis. Next day, our

Erbprinz, taking survey of Castries in his strong ground of Kloster Kampen, decides, like a gallant fellow, to

attack HIM;and straightway does it. Breaks, that same night (October 15th16th, 1760), stealthily, through

woods and with precautions, into Castries's Post; intending surprisal, and mere ruin to Castries. And there

ensued, not the SURPRISAL as it turned out, but the BATTLE OF KLOSTER KAMPEN; which again

proved unsuccessful, or only halfsuccessful, to the Hereditary Prince. A manywinged, intricate

NightBattle; to be read of in Books. This is where the Chevalier d'Assas, he or Somebody, gave the alarm to

the Castries people at the expense of his life. 'A MOI, AUVERGNE, Ho, Auvergne!' shouted D'Assas (if it

was D'Assas at all), when the stealthy English came upon him; who was at once cut down. [Preuss (ii. 270 n.)

asserts it to be proved, in "Miscellen aus den neuesten auslandischen Litteratur (1824, No. 3, p. 409)," a

Book which none of us ever saw, "That the real hero [equal to a Roman Decius or more] was not Captain

d'Assas, of the Regiment Auvergne, but a poor Private Soldier of it, called Dubois"!Is not this a strange

turn, after such bePENSIONING, bepainting, singing and celebrating, as rose upon poor D'Assas, or the

Family of D'Assas, twenty years afterwards (17771790)!Both Dubois and D'Assas, I conclude, lay

among the slain at Kloster Kampen, silent they forever:and a painful doubt does rise, As to the miraculous

operation of Posthumous Rumor and Wonder; and Whether there was any "miracle of heroism," or other

miracle at all, and not rather a poor nocturnal accident,poor sentry in the edge of the wood, shrieking out,

on apparition of the stealthy English, "Ho, Auvergne, help!" probably firing withal; and getting killed in

consequence? NON NOSTRUM EST.] It is certain, Auvergne gave fire; awoke Castries bodily; and saved

him from what was otherwise inevitable. Surprise now there was none farther; but a complex Fight, managed

in the darkness with uncommon obstinacy; ending in withdrawal of the Erbprinz, as from a thing that could

not be done. His loss in killed, wounded and prisoners, was 1,638; that of Castries, by his own counting,

"During the Fight, the Erbprinz's RhineBridge had burst in two: his ammunition was running short;and, it

would seem, there is no retreat, either! The Erbprinz put a bold face on the matter, stood to Castries in a

threatening attitude; mamoeuvred skilfully for two days longer, face still to Castries, till the Bridge was got

mended; then, night of October 18th19th, crossed to his own side; gathered up his goods; and at a deliberate

pace marched home, on those terms;doing some useful fighting by the road." [Mauvillon, ii. 120129:

Had lost nothing, say his admirers, "but one cannon, which burst." One burst cannon left on the field of

Kloster Kampen;but also, as we see, his errand along with it; and 1,600 good fighters lost aud burst: which

was more important! Criticisms there were on it in England, perhaps of the unwise sort generally; sorrow in

the highest quarter. "An unaccountable expedition," Walpole calls it, "on which Prince Ferdinand suddenly

despatched his Nephew, at the head of a considerable force, towards the frontiers of Holland," merely to

see the country there?"which occasioned much solicitude in England, as the Main Army, already unequal

to that of France, was thus rendered much weaker. King George felt it with much anxiety." [Walpole's

George Second, iii. 299.] An unaccountable Enterprise, my poor Gazetteer friends, very evidently an

unsuccessful one, so far as Wesel went. Many English fallen in it, too: "the English showed here again a

GANZ AUSNEHMENDE TAPFERKEIT," says Mauvillon; and probably their share of the loss was

Clearly enough there is no Wesel to be had. Neither could Broglio, though disturbed in his Gottingen

fortifyings and operations, be ejected out of Gottingen. Ferdinand, on failure of Wesel, himself marched to

Gottingen, and tried for some days; but found he could not, in such weather, tear out that firmly rooted

French Post, but must be content to "mask it," for the present; and, this done, withdrew (December 13th) to

his winterquarters near by, as did Broglio to his,about the time Friedrich and Daun had finally settled in

Ferdinand's Campaigns henceforth, which turn all on the defence of Hanover, are highly recommended to

professional readers; but to the laic sort do not prove interesting in proportion to the trouble. In fact, the huge

War henceforth begins everywhere, or everywhere except in Pitt's department of it, to burn lower, like a lamp

with the oil getting done; and has less of brilliancy than formerly. "Let us try for Hanover," the Belleisles,

Choiseuls and wise French heads had said to themselves: "Canada, India, everything is lost; but were dear

Hanover well in our clutch, Hanover would be a remedy for many things!" Through the remaining

Campaigns, as in this now done, that is their fixed plan. Ferdinand, by unwearied effort, succeeded in

defending Hanover,nothing of it but that inconsiderable slice or skirt round Gottingen, which they kept

long, could ever be got by the French. Ferdinand defended Hanover; and wore out annually the big French

Armies which were missioned thither, as in the spasm of an expiring last effort by this poor hagridden

France,at an expense to her, say, of 50,000 men per year. Which was good service on Ferdinand's part; but

So that with him too we are henceforth, thank Heaven, permitted and even bound to be brief. Hardly above

two Battles more from him, if even two:and mostly the wearied Reader's imagination left to conceive for

itself those intricate strategies, and endless manoeuvrings on the Diemel and the Dill, on the Ohm River and

the Schwalm and the Lippe, or wherever they may be, with small help from a wearied Editor!

A melancholy little event, which afterwards proved unexpectedly unfortunate for Friedrich, had happened in

England ten days before the Battle of Torgau. Saturday, 25th October, 1760, George II., poor old gentleman,

suddenly died. He was in his 77th year; feeble, but not feebler than usual,unless, perhaps, the

unaccountable news from Kloster Kampen may have been too agitating to the dim old mind? On the Monday

of this week he had, "from a tent in Hyde Park," presided at a Review of Dragoons; and on Thursday, as his

Coldstream Guards were on march for Portsmouth and foreign service, "was in his Portico at Kensington to

see them pass;"full of zeal always in regard to military matters, and to this War in particular. Saturday, by

sunrise he was on foot; took his cup of chocolate; inquired about the wind, and the chances of mails arriving;

opened his window, said he would have a turn in the Gardens, the morning being so fine. It was now between

7 and 8. The valet then withdrew with the chocolate apparatus; but had hardly shut the door, when he heard a

deep sigh, and fall of something,"billet of wood from the fire?" thought he;upon which, hurrying back,

he found it was the King, who had dropt from his seat, "as if in attempting to ring the bell." King said faintly,

"Call Amelia," and instantly died. Poor deaf Amelia (Friedrich's old love, now grown old and deaf) listened

wildly for some faint sound from those lips now mute forever. George Second was no more; his grandson

George Third was now King. [Old Newspapers (in Gentleman's Magazine, xxx. 486488).]

Intrinsically taken, this seemed no very great event for Friedrich, for Pitt, for England or mankind: but it

proved otherwise. The merit of this poor King deceased, who had led his Nation stumbling among the

chimneypots at such a rate in these mad German Wars for Twenty Years past, was, That he did now stand

loyal to the Enterprise, now when it had become sane indeed; now when the Nation was broad awake, and a

Captain had risen to guide it out of that perilous posture, into neverexpected victory and triumph! Poor old

George had stood by his Pitt, by his Ferdinand, with a perfect loyalty at all turns; and been devoted, heart and

soul and breechespocket, to completely beating Bourbon's oppressive ideas out of Bourbon's head. A little

fact, but how important, then and there! Under the Successor, all this may be different:ghastly beings, Old

Tutors, Favorites, Mother'sFavorites, flit, as yet invisible, on the new backstairs:should Bute and

Company get into the foreground, people will then know how important it was. Walpole says:

"The Yorkes [ExChancellor Hardwicke people] had long distasted this War:" yes, and been painfully

obliged to hold their tongues: "but now," within a month or so of the old King's death, "there was published,

under Lord Hardwicke's countenance, a Tract setting forth the burden and ill policy of our German measures.

It was called CONSIDERATIONS ON THE GERMAN WAR; was ably written, and changed many men's

minds." This is the famous "Mauduit Pamphlet:" first of those small stones, from the sling of Opposition not

obliged to be dormant, which are now beginning to rattle on Pitt's Olympian Dwellingplace,high really as

Olympus, in comparison with others of the kind, but which unluckily is made of GLASS like the rest of

them! The slinger of this first resounding little missile, Walpole informs us, was "one Mauduit, formerly a

Dissenting Teacher,"son of a Dissenting Minister in Bermondsey, I hear, and perhaps himself once a

Preacher, but at present concerned with Factorage of Wool on the great scale; got soon afterwards promoted

to be Head of the Customhouse in Southampton, so lovely did he seem to Bute and Company. "How

agreeable his politics were to the interior of the Court, soon appeared by a place [Southampton

Customhouse] being bestowed on him by Lord Bute." A fortunate Mauduit, yet a stupidly tragical; had such

a destiny in English History! Hear Walpole a little farther, on Mauduit, and on other things then resonant to

"NOVEMBER 14th, 1760 [tenth night after Torgau]. ... We are all in guns and bonfires for an unexpected

victory of the King of Prussia over Daun; but as no particulars are yet arrived, there are doubters."

"DECEMBER 5th, 1760. I have received the samples of brocadella. ... I shall send you a curious Pamphlet,

the only work I almost ever knew that changed the opinions of many. It is called CONSIDERATIONS ON

THE PRESENT GERMAN WAR, ["London: Printed for John Wilkie, at the Bible, in St. Paul's Churchyard,

1761," adds my poor Copy (a frugal 12mo, of pp. 144), not adding of what edition.] and is written by a

wholesale WoollenDraper [connected with Wool, in some way; "Factor at Blackwell Hall," if that mean

Draper:and a growing man ever after; came to be "Agent for Massachusetts," on the BostonTEA

occasion, and again did Tracts; was "President of the"in short, was a conspicuous VicePresident, so let us

define him, of The general AntiPenalty or LifemadeSoft Association, with Cause of civil and religious

Liberty all over the World, and such like; and a Mauduit comfortably resonant in that way till he died

[Chalmers, BIOG. DICTIONARY; Nichols, LITERARY ANECDOTES; but the materials are supposed to

be furnished by the faction of the Yorkes. The confirmation of the King of Prussia's victory near Torgau does

not prevent the disciples of the Pamphlet from thinking that the best thing which could happen for us would

"There are Letters from the Hague [what foolish Letters do fly about, my friend!], that say Daun is dead of

his wounds. If he is, I shall begin to believe that the King of Prussia will end successfully at last. [Oh!] It has

been the fashion to cry down Daun; but, as much as the King of Prussia may admire himself [does

immensely, according to our Selwyn informations], I dare say he would have been glad to be matched with

"JANUARY 2d, i761. The German War is not so popular as you imagine, either in the Closet or in the

Nation." [Walpole, Letters to Sir Horace Mann (Lond. 1843), i. 6, 7.] (Enough, enough.)

The Mauduit Pamphlet, which then produced such an effect, is still to be met in old Collections and on

Bookstalls; but produces little save weariness to a modern reader. "Hanover not in real danger," argues he; "if

the French had it, would not they, all Europe ordering them, have to give it up again?" Give it up,GRATIS,

or in return for Canada and Pondicherry, Mauduit's does not say. Which is an important omission! But

Mauduit's grand argument is that of expense; frightful outlay of money, aggravated by ditto mismanagement

A War highly expensive, he says(and the truth is, Pitt was never stingy of money: "Nearly the one thing

we have in any plenty; be frank in use of that, in an Enterprise so illprovided otherwise, and involving life

and death!" thinks Pitt); "dreadfully expensive," urges Mauduit, and gives some instances of Commissariat

moneys signally wasted,not by Pitt, but by the stupidity of Pitt's War Offices, Commissariat Offices,

Offices of all kinds; not to be cured at once by any Pitt:How magazines of hay were shipped and

reshipped, carried hither, thither, up this river, down that (nobody knowing where the warhorses would be

that were to eat it); till at length, when it had reached almost the value of bohea tea, the right place of it was

found to be Embden (nearest to Britain from the first, had one but known), and not a horse would now taste

it, so spoiled was the article; all horses snorted at it, as they would have done at bohea, never so expensive.

[Mauduit (towards the end) has a story of that tenor,particulars not worth verifying.] These things are

incident to British warfare; also to Swedish, and to all warfares that have their War Offices in an imaginary

state,state much to be abhorred by every sane creature; but not to be mended all at once by the noblest of

men, into whose hands they are suddenly thrust for saving his Nation. Conflagration to be quenched; and

your buckets all in hideous leakage, like buckets of the Danaides:your one course is, ply them, pour with

Mauduit points out farther the enormous fortunes realized by a swindling set of ArmyFurnishers, Hebrews

mainly, and unbeautiful to look on. Alas, yes; this too is a thing incident to the case; and in a degree to all

such cases, and situations of sudden crisis; have not we seen Jew Ephraim growing rich by the copper

money even of a Friedrich? Christian Protestants there are, withal, playing the same game on a larger scale.

Herr Schimmelmann ("MOULDYman") the Dane, for instance,Dane or Holsteiner,is coining false

money for a Duke of HolsteinPlon, who has not a SevenYears War on his hands. Diligently coining, this

Mouldy Individual; still more successfully, is trading in Friedrich's Meissen China (bought in the cheapest

market, sold in the dearest); has at Hamburg his "Auction of Meissen Porcelain," steadily going on, as a new

commercial institution of that City;and, in short, by assiduously laboring in such harvestfields, gathers a

colossal fortune, 100,000 pounds, 300,000 pounds, or I will not remember what. Gets "ennobled,"

furthermore, by a Danish Government prompt to recognize human merit: Elephant Order, Dannebrog Order;

no Order good enough for this Mouldyman of merit; [Preuss, ii. 391, 282, is, so far as I know, begetting

"Nobles," that is to say, ViceKings and monitory Exemplars, for the Danish People, to this day. Let us shut

Mauduit's Pamphlet, if it raised in the abhorrent unthinking English mind some vague notion, as probably it

did, that Pitt was responsible for these things, or was in a sort the cause or author of them, might produce

some effect against him. "What a splash is this you are making, you Great Commoner; wetting everybody's

feet, as our Mauduit proves;while the Conflagration seems to be going out, if you let it alone!" For the

heads of men resemble My friend, I will not tell you what they, in multitudinous instances, resemble.

But thus has woollen Mauduit, from his private camp ("Clement's Lane, Lombard Street," say the

Dictionaries), shot, at a very high object, what pigeon'segg or small pebble he had; the first of many such

that took that aim; with weak though loudsounding impact, but with resultsresults on King Friedrich in

particular, which were stronger than the Cannonade of Torgau! As will be seen. For within year and

day,Mauduit and Company making their noises from without, and the Butes and Hardwickes working

incessantly with such rare power of leverage and screwage in the interior parts,a certain QuasiOlympian

House, made of glass, will lie in sherds, and the ablest and noblest man in England see himself forbidden to

do England any service farther: "Not needed more, Sir! Go you,and look at US for the remainder of your

KING FRIEDRICH IN THE APEL HOUSE AT LEIPZIG (8th December, 176017th March, 1761).

Friedrich's Winter in the Apel House at Leipzig is of cheerfuler character than we might imagine. Endless

sore business he doubtless has, of recruiting, financiering, watching and providing, which grows more

difficult year by year; but he has subordinates that work to his signal, and an organized machinery for

business such as no other man. And solacements there are withal: his Books he has about him; welcomer than

ever in such seasons: Friends too,he is not solitary; nor neglectful of resources. Faithful D'Argens came at

once (stayed till the middle of March): [ OEuvres de Frederic, xix. 212, 213. Sends a Courier to conduct

D'Argens "FOR December 8th;" "21st March," D'Argens is back at Berlin.] D'Argens, Quintus Icilius,

English Mitchell; these three almost daily bore him company. Till the middle of January, also, he had his two

Nephews with him (Sons of his poor deceased Brother, the late tragic Prince of Prussia),the elder of

whom, Friedrich Wilhelm, became King afterwards; the second, Henri by name, died suddenly of smallpox

within about seven years hence, to the King's deep and sore grief, who liked him the better of the two. Their

ages respectively are now about 16 and 14. [Henri, born 30th December, 1747, died 26th May,

1767;Friedrich Wilhelm, afterwards Friedrich Wilhelm II. (sometimes called DER DICKE, The Big), born

25th December, 1744; King, 17th August, 1786; died 16th November, 1797.] Their appetite for dancing, and

their gay young ways, are pleasant now and afterwards to the old Uncle in his grim element. [Letters, in

Music, too, he had; daily evening Concert, though from himself there is no fluting now. One of his Berlin

Concert people who had been sent for was Fasch, a virtuoso on I know not what instrument, but a man

given to take note of things about him. Fasch was painfully surprised to see his King so altered in the interim

past: "bent now, sunk into himself, grown old; to whom these five years of wartumult and anxiety, of

sorrow and hard toil, had given a dash of gloomy seriousness and melancholy, which was in strong contrast

with his former vividly bright expression, and was not natural to his years." [Zelter's Life of Fasch (cited in

From D'Argens there is one authentic Anecdote, worth giving. One evening D'Argens came to him; entering

his Apartment, found him in a situation very unexpected; which has been memorable ever since. "One

evening [there is no date to it, except vaguely, as above, December, 1760March, 1761], D'Argens, entering

the King's Apartment, found him sitting on the ground with a big platter of fried meat, from which he was

feeding his dogs. He had a little rod, with which he kept order among them, and shoved the best bits to his

favorites. The Marquis, in astonishment, recoiled a step, struck his hands together, and exclaimed: 'The Five

Great Powers of Europe, who have sworn alliance, and conspired to undo the Marquis de Brandebourg, how

might they puzzle their heads to guess what he is now doing! Scheming some dangerous plan for the next

Campaign, think they; collecting funds to have money for it; studying about magazines for man and horse; or

he is deep in negotiations to divide his enemies, and get new allies for himself? Not a bit of all that. He is

Still more celebrated is the Interview with Gellert; though I cannot say it is now more entertaining to the

ingenuous mind. One of Friedrich's many Interviews, this Winter, with the Learned of Leipzig University; for

he is a born friend of the Muses so called, and never neglects an opportunity. Wonderful to see how, in such

an environment, in the depths of mere toil and tribulation, with a whole breaking world lying on his

shoulders, as it were,he always shows such appetite for a snatch of talk with anybody presumably of sense,

This Winter, say the Books, "he had, in vacant intervals, a great deal of communing with the famed of

Leipzig University;" this or the other famed Professor,Winkler, Ernesti, Gottsched again, and others,

coming to give account, each for himself, of what he professed to be teaching in the world: "on the Natural

Sciences, more especially the Moral; on Libraries, on Rare Books. Gottsched was able to satisfy the King on

one point; namely, That the celebrated passage of St. John's Gospel"THERE ARE THREE THAT BEAR

RECORDwas NOT in the famous Manuscript of the Vienna Library; Gottsched having himself examined

that important CODEX, and found in the text nothing of said Passage, but merely, written on the margin, a

legible intercalation of it, in Melanchthon's hand. Luther, in his Version, never had it at all."

[ HeldenGeschichte, vi. 596.] A Gottsched inclined to the Socinian view? Not the least consequence to

Readers have heard of Gellert; there are, or there were, English Writings about him, LIVES, or I forget what:

and in his native Protestant Saxony, among all classes, especially the higher, he had, in those years and

onwards to his death, such a popularity and real splendor of authority as no man before or since. Had risen,

against his will in some sort, to be a real Pope, a practical Oracle in those parts. In his modest bachelor

lodging (age of him fiveandforty gone) he has sheaves of Letters daily,about affairs of the conscience,

of the household, of the heart: from some evangelical young lady, for example, Shall I marry HIM, think you,

O my Father?" and perhaps from her Papa, "Shall SHE, think you, O my ditto?"Sheaves of Letters: and of

oral consulters such crowds, that the poor Oracle was obliged to appoint special hours for that branch of his

business. His classroom (he lectures on MORALS, some THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENT, or such

like) is crowded with "blue uniforms" (ingenuous Prussian Officers eager to hear a Gellert) in these Winters.

Rugged Hulsen, this very season, who commands in Freyberg Country, alleviates the poor village of

Hainichen from certain official inflictions, and bids the poor people say "It is because Gellert was born

among you!" Plainly the Trismegistus of mankind at that date:who is now, as usual, become a surprising

He had written certain thin Books, all of a thin languid nature; but rational, clear; especially a Book of

FABLES IN VERSE, which are watery, but not wholly water, and have still a languid flavor in them for

readers. His Book on LETTERWRITING was of use to the rising generation, in its time. Clearly an

amiable, ingenious, correct, altogether good man; of pious mind,and, what was more, of strictly orthodox,

according to the then Saxon standard in the best circles. This was the figure of his Life for the last fifteen

years of it; and he was now about the middle of that culminating period. A modest, despondent kind of man,

given to indigestions, dietetics, hypochondria: "of neat figure and dress; nose hooked, but not too much; eyes

mournfully blue and beautiful, fine open brow;"a fine countenance, and fine soul of its sort, poor Gellert:

"punctual like the churchclock at divine service, in all weathers." [Jordens, Lexikon Deutscher Dichter und

A man of some real intellect and melody; some, by no means much; who was of amiable meek demeanor;

studious to offend nobody, and to do whatever good he could by the established methods;and who, what

was the great secret of his success, was of orthodoxy perfect and eminent. Whom, accordingly, the whole

world, polite Saxon orthodox world, hailed as its Evangelist and Trismegistus. Essentially a commonplace

man; but who employed himself in beautifying and illuminating the commonplace of his clay and

generation:infinitely to the satisfaction of said generation. "How charming that you should make thinkable

to us, make vocal, musical and comfortably certain, what we were all inclined to think; you creature plainly

divine!" And the homages to Gellert were unlimited and continual, not pleasant all of them to an idlish man

Mitchell and Quintus Icilius, who are often urging on the King that a new German Literature is springing up,

of far more importance than the King thinks, have spoken much to him of Gellert the Trismegistus;and at

length, in the course of a ten days from Friedrich's arrival here, actual Interview ensues. The DIALOGUE,

though it is but dull and watery to a modern palate, shall be given entire, for the sake of one of the

Interlocutors. The Report of it, gleaned gradually from Gellert himself, and printed, not long afterwards, from

his manuscripts or those of others, is to be taken as perfectly faithful. Gellert, writing to his inquiring Friend

Rabener (a then celebrated Berlin Wit), describes, from Leipzig, "29th January, 1760," or about six weeks

after the event: "How, one day about the middle of December, Quintus Icilius suddenly came to my poor

lodging here, to carry me to the King." Am too ill to go. Quintus will excuse me today; but will return

tomorrow, when no excuse shall avail. Did go accordingly next day, Thursday, 18th December, 4 o'clock of

the afternoon; and continued till a quarter to 6. "Had nothing of fear in speaking to the King. Recited my

MALER ZU ATHEN." King said, at parting, he would send for me again. "The English Ambassador

[Mitchell], an excellent man, was probably the cause of the King's wish to see me. ... The King spoke

sometimes German, sometimes French; I mostly German." [ Gellert's Briefwechsel mit Demoiselle Lucius,

KING. "The English Ambassador has spoken highly of you to me. Where do you come from?"

MAJOR QUINTUS ICILIUS (puts in a word). "Your Majesty, you see here one before you;one whom the

GELLERT. "Yes, your Majesty; but have not imitated: I am original (ICH BIN EIN ORIGINAL)."

KING. "Well, this is one good Author among the Germans; but why have not we more?"

KING. "Well, perhaps. Why have we no good Historians? Why does no one undertake a Translation of

GELLERT. "Tacitus is difficult to translate; and the Frenoh themselves have but bad translations of him."

GELLERT. "And, on the whole, various reasons may be given why the Germans have not yet distinguished

themselves in every kind of writing. While Arts and Sciences were in their flower among the Greeks, the

Romans were still busy in War. Perhaps this is the Warlike Era of the Germans:perhaps also they have yet

GELLERT. "Not altogether that; I could wish only that every Sovereign encouraged men of genius in his

KING. "What is your complaint? Is it DIE GELEHRTE KRANKHEIT (Disease of the Learned," Dyspepsia

so called)? "I have myself suffered from that. I will prescribe for you. You must ride daily, and take a dose of

GELLERT. "ACH, IHRO MAJESTAT: if the horse were as weak as I am, he would be of no use to me; if he

were stronger, I should be too weak to manage him." (Mark this of the Horse, however; a tale hangs by it.)

KING. "Yes, that is true; that is what Authors (GELEHRTE) in Deutschland are always deficient in. I

KING. "How can I? Have not you heard, then? There are three of them against me (ES SIND JA DREI

GELLERT. "I have more to do with the Ancients and their History than with the Moderns."

KING (changing the topic). "What do you think, is Homer or Virgil the finer as an Epic Poet?"

GELLERT. "We are too far removed from Homer's times to judge of his language. I trust to Quintilian in that

GELLERT. "Nor am I that. I follow them only in cases where, owing to the distance, I cannot judge for

MAJOR ICILIUS (again giving a slight fillip or suggestion). "He," the Herr Professor here, "has also treated

KING. "So? But have you written against the CHANCERY STYLE, then" (the painfully solemn style, of

ceremonial and circumlocution; Letters written so as to be mainly wig and buckram)?

KING. "But why doesn't it change? The Devil must be in it (ES IST ETWAS VERTEUFELTES). They bring

GELLERT. "If your Majesty cannot alter it, still less can I. I can only recommend, where you command."

KING. "Bethink you a little; I will walk about [Gellert bethinks him, brow puckered. King, seeing the brow

GELLERT. "Yes, your Majesty: THE PAINTER." Gellert recites (voice plaintive and hollow; somewhat

PREACHY, I should doubt, but not cracked or shrieky);we condense him into prose abridgment for

English readers; German can look at the bottom of the page: [(Gellert's WERKE: Leipzig, 1840; i. 135.)]

"'A prudent Painter in Athens, more intent on excellence than on money, had done a God of War; and sent for

a real Critic to give him his opinion of it. On survey, the Critic shook his head: "Too much Art visible; won't

do, my friend!" The Painter strove to think otherwise; and was still arguing, when a young Coxcomb [GECK,

Gawk] stept in: "Gods, what a masterpiece!" cried he at the first glance: "Ah, that foot, those exquisitely

wrought toenails; helm, shield, mail, what opulence of Art!" The sorrowful Painter looked penitentially at the

real Critic, looked at his brush; and the instant this GECK was gone, struck out his God of War.'"

"'When the Critic does not like thy Bit of Writing, it is a bad sign for thee; but when the Fool admires, it is

"Ein kluger Maler in Athen, Der minder, weil man ihn bezhalte, Als weil er Ehre suchte, malte, Liess einen

Kenner einst den Mars im Bilde sehn, Und bat sich seine Meinung aus. Der Kenner sagt ihm fiei heraus,

Dass ihm das Bild nicht ganz gefallen wollte, Und dass es, um recht schon zu sein, Weit minder Kunst

verrathen sollte. Der Maler wandte vieles ein; Der Kenner stritt mit ihm aus Grunden, Und konnt ihn doch

nicht uberwinden. Gleich trat ein junger Geck herein, Und nahm das Bild in Augenschein. 'O,' rief er, 'bei

dem ersten Blicke, Ihr Gotter, welch ein Meisterstucke! Ach, welcher Fuss! O, wie geschickt Sind nicht die

Nagel ausgedruckt! Mars lebt durchaus in diesem Bilde. Wie viele Kunst, wie viele Pracht Ist in dem Helm

und in dem Schilde, Und in der Rustung angebracht!' Der Maler ward beschamt geruhret, Und sah den

Kenner klaglich an. 'Nun,' sprach er, 'bin ich uberfuhret! Ihr habt mir nicht zu viel gethan.' Der junge Geck

"Wenn deine Schrift dem Kenner nicht gefallt, So ist es schon ein boses Zeichen; Doch, wenn sie gar des

KING. "That is excellent; very fine indeed. You have a something of soft and flowing in your verses; them I

understand altogether. But there was Gottsched, one day, reading me his Translation of IPHIGENIE; I had

the French Copy in my hand, and could not understand a word of him [a Swan of Saxony, laboring in vain

that day]! They recommended me another Poet, one Peitsch [Herr Peitsch of Konigsberg, Hofrath, Doctor

and Professor there, Gottsched's Master in Art; edited by Gottsched thirty years ago; now become a dumb

KING. "Well, if I continue here, you must come again often; bring your FABLES with you, and read me

GELLERT. "I know not if I can read well; I have the singing kind of tone, native to the Hill Country."

KING. "JA, like the Silesians. No, you must read me the FABLES yourself; they lose a great deal otherwise.

Come back soon." [ Gellert's Briefwechsel mit Demoiselle Lucius (already cited), pp. 632 et seq.] (EXIT

KING (to Icilius, as we learn from a different Record). "That is quite another man than Gottsched!"

The modest Gellert says he "remembered Jesus Sirach's advice, PRESS NOT THYSELF ON KINGS,and

never came back;" nor was specially sent for, in the hurries succeeding; though the King never quite forgot

him. Next day, at dinner, the King said, "He is the reasonablest man of all the German Literary People,

C'EST LE PLUS RAISONNABLE DE TOUS LES SAVANS ALLEMANDS." And to Garve, at Breslau,

years afterwards: "Gellert is the only German that will reach posterity; his department is small, but he has

worked in it with real felicity." And indeed the King had, before that, as practical result of the Gellert

Dialogue, managed to set some Berlin Bookseller upon printing of these eligible FABLES, "for the use of our

Prussian Schools;" in which and other capacities the FABLES still serve with acceptance there and

In regard to Gellert's Horseexercise, I had still to remember that Gellert, not long after, did get a Horse; two

successive Horses; both highly remarkable. The first especially; which was Prince Henri's gift: "The Horse

Prince Henri had ridden at the Battle of Freyberg" (Battle to be mentioned hereafter);quadruped that must

have been astonished at itself! But a pretty enough gift from the warlike admiring Prince to his dyspeptic

Great Man. This Horse having yielded to Time, the very Kurfurst (grandson of Polish Majesty that now is)

sent Gellert another, housing and furniture complete; mounted on which, Gellert and it were among the sights

of Leipzig;well enough known here to young Goethe, in his College days, who used to meet the great man

and princely horse, and do salutation, with perhaps some twinkle of scepticism in the corner of his eye.

[DICHTUNG UND WAHRHEIT, Theil ii. Buch 6 (in Goethe's WERKE, xxv. 51 et seq).] Poor Gellert fell

seriously ill in December, 1769; to the fear and grief of all the world: "estafettes from the Kurfurst himself

galloped daily, or oftener, from Dresden for the sick bulletin;" but poor Gellert died, all the same (13th of that

month); and we have (really with pathetic thoughts, even we) to bid his amiable existence in this world, his

Four or five weeks after this of Gellert, Friedrich had another Dialogue, which also is partly on record, and is

of more importance to us here: Dialogue with MajorGeneral Saldern; on a certain business, delicate, yet

profitable to the doer,nobody so fit for it as Saldern, thinks the King. Saldern is he who did that

extraordinary feat of packing the wrecks of battle on the Field of Liegnitz; a fine, clearflowing, silent kind

of man, rapid and steady; with a great deal of methodic and other good faculty in him,more, perhaps, than

he himself yet knows of. Him the King has sent for, this morning; and it is on the business of Polish Majesty's

Royal HuntingSchloss at Hubertsburg,which is a thing otherwise worth some notice from us.

For three months long the King had been representing, in the proper quarters, what plunderings, and riotous

and even disgusting savageries, the Saxons had perpetrated at Charlottenburg, Schonhausen, Friedrichsfeld,

in October last, while masters there for a few days: but neither in Reichs Diet, where Plotho was eloquent,

nor elsewhere by the Diplomatic method, could he get the least redress, or one civil word of regret. From

Polish Majesty himself, to whom Friedrich remonstrated the matter, through the English Resident at Warsaw,

Friedrich had expected regret; but he got none. Some think he had hoped that Polish Majesty, touched by

these horrors of war, and by the reciprocities evidently liable to follow, might be induced to try something

towards mediating a General Peace: but Polish Majesty did not; Polish Majesty answered simply nothing at

all, nor would get into any correspondence: upon which Friedrich, possibly a little piqued withal, had at

Within our cantonments, reflects Friedrich, here is Hubertsburg Schloss, with such a hunting apparatus in and

around it; Polish Majesty's HERTZBLATT ("lid of the HEART," as they call it; breastbone, at least, and pit

of his STOMACH, which inclines to nothing but hunting): let his Hubertsburg become as our Charlottenburg

is; perhaps that will touch his feelings! Friedrich had formed this resolution; and, Wednesday, January 21st,

sends for Saldern, one of the most exact, deftgoing and punctiliously honorable of all his Generals, to

execute it. Enter Saldern accordingly,royal Audienceroom "in the APEL'SCHE HAUS, New Neumarkt,

No. 16," as above;to whom (one Kuster, a reliable creature, reporting for us on Saldern's behalf) the King

KING. "Saldern, tomorrow morning you go [ER, He goes) with a detachment of Infantry and Cavalry, in all

silence, to Hubertsburg; beset the Schloss, get all the furnitures carefully packed up and invoiced. I want

nothing with them; the money they bring I mean to bestow on our Field Hospitals, and will not forget YOU

Saldern, usually so prompt with his "JA" on any Order from the King, looks embarrassed, stands silent,to

SALDERN. "Forgive me, your Majesty: but this is contrary to my honor and my oath."

KING (still in a calm tone). "You would be right to think so if I did not intend this desperate method for a

good object. Listen to me: great Lords don't feel it in their scalp, when their subjects are torn by the hair; one

has to grip their own locks, as the only way to give them pain." (These last words the King said in a sharper

tone; he again made his apology for the resolution he had formed; and renewed his Order. With the modesty

SALDERN. "Order me, your Majesty, to attack the enemy and his batteries, I will on the instant cheerfully

The King, with voice gradually rising, I suppose, repeated his demonstration that the thing was proper,

necessary in the circumstances; but Saldern, true to the inward voice, answered steadily:

SALDERN. "For this commission your Majesty will easily find another person in my stead."

KING (whirling hastily round, with an angry countenance, but, I should say, an admirable preservation of his

dignity in such extreme case). "SALDERN, ER WILL NICHT REICH WERDEN,Saldern, you refuse to

become rich." And EXIT, leaving Saldern to his own stiff courses. [Kuster, Charakterzuge des

Nothing remained for Saldern but to fall ill, and retire from the Service; which he did: a man honorably

This surely is a remarkable Dialogue; far beyond any of the Gellert kind. An absolute King and

CommanderinChief, and of such a type in both characters, getting flat refusal once in his life (this once

only, so far as I know), and how he takes it:one wishes Kuster, or somebody, had been able to go into

more details! Details on the QuintusIcilius procedure, which followed next day, would also have been

rather welcome, had Kuster seen good. It is well known, Quintus Icilius and his Battalion, on order now

given, went cheerfully, next day, in Saldern's stead. And sacked Hubertsburg Castle, to the due extent or

farther: 100,000 thalers (15,000 pounds) were to be raised from it for the FieldHospital behoof; the rest was

to be Quintus's own; who, it was thought, made an excellent thing of it for himself. And in hauling out the

furnitures, especially in selling them, Quintus having an enterprising sharp head in trade affairs, "it is

certain," says Kuster, as says everybody, "various SCHANDLICHKEITEN (scandals) occurred, which were

contrary to the King's intention, and would not have happened under Saldern." What the scandals particularly

were, is not specified to me anywhere, though I have searched up and down; much less the net amount of

money realized by Quintus. I know only, poor Quintus was bantered about it, all his life after, by this

merciless King; and at Potsdam, in years coming, had ample time and admonition for what penitence was

"The case was much canvassed in the Army," says poor Kuster; "it was the topic in every tent among Officers

and common Men. And among us ArmyChaplains too," poor honest souls, "the question of conflicting

duties arose: Your King ordering one thing, and your own Conscience another, what ought a man to do?

What ought an Army Chaplain to preach or advise? And considerable mutual light in regard to it we struck

out from one another, and saw how a prudent ArmyChaplain might steer his way. Our general conclusion

was, That neither the King nor Saldern could well be called wrong. Saldern listening to the inner voice; right

he, for certain. But withal the King, in his place, might judge such a thing expedient and fit; perhaps Saldern

Saldern's behavior in his retirement was beautiful; and after the Peace, he was recalled, and made more use of

than ever: being indeed a model for Army arrangements and procedures, and reckoned the completest

General of Infantry now left, far and near. The outcries made about Hubertsburg, which still linger in Books,

are so considerable, one fancies the poor Schloss must have been quite ruined, and left standing as naked

walls. Such, however, we by no means find to be the case; but, on the contrary, shall ourselves see that

everything was got refitted there, and put into perfect order again, before long.

February 15th, there fell out, at Langensalza, on the Unstrut, in Gotha Country, a bit of sharp fighting; done

by Friedrich's people and Duke Ferdinand's in concert; which, and still more what followed on it, made some

noise in the quiet months. Not a great thing, this of Langensalza, but a sudden, and successfully done; costing

Broglio some 2,000 prisoners; and the ruin of a considerable Post of his, which he had lately pushed out

thither, "to seize the Unstrut," as he hoped. A Broglio grasping at more than he could hold, in those

Thuringen parts, as elsewhere! And, indeed, the Fight of Langensalza was only the beginning of a series of

such; Duke Ferdinand being now upon one of his grand WinterAdventures: that of suddenly surprising and

exploding Broglio's Winterquarters altogether, and rolling him back to Frankfurt for a lodging. So that,

since the first days of February, especially since Langensalza day, there rose suddenly a great deal of rushing

about, in those regions, with hard bits of fighting, at least of severe campaigning;which lasted two

wholemonths; filling the whole world with noise that Winter; and requiring extreme brevity from us here.

It was specially Duke Ferdinand's Adventure; Friedrich going on it, as per bargain, to the Langensalza

enterprise, but no farther; after which it did not much concern Friedrich, nor indeed come to much result for

"Strenuous Ferdinand, very impatient of the Gottingen business and provoked to see Broglio's quarters extend

into Hessen, so near hand, for the first time, silently determines to dislodge him. Broglio's chain of quarters,

which goes from Frankfurt north as far as Marburg, then turns east to Ziegenhayn; thence north again to

Cassel, to Munden with its Defiles; and again east, or southeast, to Langensalza even: this chain has above

150 miles of weak length; and various other grave faults to the eye of Ferdinand,especially this, that it is in

the form, not of an elbow only, or joiner's square, which is entirely to be disapproved, but even of two

elbows; in fact, of the PROFILE OF A CHAIR [if readers had a Map at hand]. FOOT of the chair is

Frankfurt; SEAT part is from Marburg to Ziegenhayn; BACK part, near where Ferdinand lies in chief force,

is the Cassel region, on to Munden, which is TOP of the back,still backwards from which, there is a kind

of proud CURL or overlapping, down to Langensalza in Gotha Country, which greedy Broglio has likewise

grasped at! Broglio's friends say he himself knew the faultiness of this zigzag form, but had been overruled.

"In profound silence, namely, ranks himself (FEBRUARY lst12th) in three Divisions, wide enough asunder;

bursts up sudden as lightning, at Langensalza and elsewhere; kicks to pieces Broglio's ChairProfile, kicks

out especially the bottom part which ruins both foot and back, these being disjointed thereby, and each

exposed to be taken in rear;and of course astonishes Broglio not a little; but does not steal his presence of

"So that, in effect, Broglio had instantly to quit Cassel and warm lodging, and take the field in person; to burn

his Magazines; and, at the swiftest rate permissible, condense himself, at first partially about Fulda (well

down the leg of his chair), and then gradually all into one mass near Frankfurt itself;with considerable

losses, loss especially of all his Magazines, full or half full. And has now, except Marburg, Ziegenhayn and

Cassel, no post between Gottingen and him. Ferdinand, with his Three Divisions, went storming along in the

wild weather, Granby as vanguard; pricking into the skirts of Broglio. Captured this and that of Corps, of

Magazines that had not been got burnt; laid siege to Tassel, siege to Ziegenhayn; blocked Marburg, not

having guns ready: and, for some three or four weeks, was by the Gazetteer world and general public thought

to have done a very considerable feat;though to himself, such were the distances, difficulties of the season,

of the long roads, it probably seemed very questionable whether, in the end, any feat at all.

"Cassel he could not take, after a month's siege under the best of SiegeCaptains; Ziegenhayn still less under

one of the worst. Provisions, ammunitions, were not to be had by force of wagonry: scant food for soldiers,

doubly scant the food of Sieges;""the road from Beverungen [where the Weserboats have to stop, which

is 30 miles from Cassel, perhaps 60 from Ziegenhayn, and perhaps 100 from the outmost or southernmost of

Ferdinand's parties] is paved with dead horses," nor has even Cassel nearly enough of ammunition:in a

word, Broglio, finding the time come, bursts up from his Frankfurt Position (March 14th21st) in a sharp and

determined manner; drives Ferdinand's people back, beats the Erbprinz himself one day (by surprisal, 'My

compliment for Langensalza'), and sets his people running. Ferdinand sees the affair to be over; and

deliberately retires; lucky, perhaps, that he still can deliberately: and matters return to their old posture.

Broglio resumes his quarters, somewhat altered in shape, and not quite so grasping as formerly; and beyond

his halffilled Magazines, has lost nothing considerable, or more considerable than has Ferdinand himself."

The vital element in Ferdinand's Adventure was the Siege of Cassel; all had to fail, when this, by defect of

means, under the best of management, declared itself a failure. Siege Captain was a Graf von

LippeBuckeburg, Ferdinand's OrdnanceMaster, who is supposed to be "the best Artillery Officer in the

world,"and is a man of great mark in military and other circles. He is Son and Successor of that fantastic

LippeBuckeburg, by whom Friedrich was introduced to FreeMasonry long since. He has himself a good

deal of the fantast again, but with a better basis of solidity beneath it. A man of excellent knowledge and

faculty in various departments; strict as steel, in regard to discipline, to practice and conduct of all kinds; a

most punctilious, silently supercilious gentleman, of polite but privately irrefragable turn of mind. A tall,

lean, dusky figure; much seen to by neighbors, as he stalks loftily through this puddle of a world, on terms of

his own. Concerning whom there circulates in military circles this Anecdote, among many others; which is

set down as a fact; and may be, whether quite believable or not, a symbol of all the rest, and of a man not

unimportant in these Wars. "Two years ago, on King Friedrich's birthday, 24th January, 1759, the Count had

a select dinnerparty in his tent in Ferdinand's Camp, in honor of the occasion. Dinner was well over, and

wine handsomely flowing, when somebody at last thought of asking, 'What is it, then, Herr Graf, that

whistling kind of noise we hear every now and then overhead?' 'That is nothing,' said the Graf, in his calm,

dusky way: 'that is only my Artillerypeople practising; I have bidden them hit the pole of our tent if they

can: unhappily there is not the slightest danger. Push the bottles on.'" [Archenholtz, ii. 356; Zimmermann,

Einsamkeit, iii. 461; LippeBuckeburg was SiegeCaptain at Cassel; Commandant besieged was Comte de

Broglio, the Marshal's younger Brother, formerly in the Diplomatic line;whom we saw once, five years

ago, at the Pirna Barrier, fly into fine frenzy, and kick vainly against the pricks. Friedrich says once, to

D'Argens or somebody: "I hope we shall soon have Cassel, and M. le Comte de Broglio prisoner" (deserves it

Some careless Books say, Friedrich had at first good hopes of this Enterprise; and "had himself lent 7,000

men to it:" which is the fact, but not the whole fact. Friedrich had approved, and even advised this plan of

Ferdinand's, and had agreed to send 7,000 men to cooperate at Langensalza,which, so far out in

Thuringen, and pointing as if to the Reichsfolk, is itself an eyesorrow to Friedrich. The issue we have seen.

His 7,000 went accordingly, under a General Syburg; met the Ferdinand people (General Sporken head of

these, and Walpole's "Conway" one of them); found the Unstrut in flood, but crossed nevertheless; dashed in

upon the French and Saxons there, and made a brilliant thing of it at Langensalza. [ Bericht von der bey

Langensalza am 15 Februar 1761 vorgefallenen Action in Seyfarth, Beylagen, iii. 75; Tempelhof, v. 2227.]

Which done, Syburg instantly withdrew, leaving Sporken and his Conways to complete the Adventure; and,

for his part, set himself with his whole might "to raising contributions, recruits, horses, proviants, over

Thuringen;" "which," says Tempelhof, "had been his grand errand there, and in which he succeeded

Towards the end of Ferdinand's Affair, Cassel Siege now evidently like to fail, Friedrich organized a small

Expedition for his own behoof: expedition into Voigtland, or Frankenland, against the intrusive

Reichspeople, who have not now a Broglio or Langensalza to look across to, but are mischievous upon our

outposts on the edge of the Voigtland yonder. The expedition lasted only ten days (APRIL 1st it left quarters;

APRIL 11th was home again); a sharp, swift and very pretty expedition; [Tempelhof, v. 4857.] of which we

can here say only that it was beautifully impressive on the Reichs gentlemen, and sent their Croateries and

them home again, to Bamberg, to Eger, quite over the horizon, in a considerably flurried state. After which

there was no SmallWar farther, and everybody rested in cantonment, making ready till the Great should

The Prussian wounded are all in Leipzig this Winter; a crowded stirring Town; young Archenholtz, among

many others, going about in convalescent state,not attending Gellert's course, that I hear of,but noticing

vividly to right and left. Much difficulty about the contributions, Archenholtz observes;of course an ever

increasing difficulty, here as everywhere, in regard to finance! From Archenholtz chiefly, I present the

following particulars; which, though in loose form, and without date, except the general one of Winter

... "'It is impossible to pay that Contribution,' exclaim the Leipzigers: 'you said, long since, it was to be

75,000 pounds on us by the year; and this year you rise to 160,000 pounds; more than double!''Perhaps that

is because you favored the Reichsfolk while here?' answer the Prussians, if they answer anything: 'It is the

King's order. Pay it you must.''Cannot; simply impossible.' 'Possible, we tell you, and also certain; we will

burn your Leipzig if you don't!' And they actually, these Collector fellows, a stony hearted set, who had a

percentage of their own on the sums levied, got soldiers drawn out more than once pitchlink in hand, as if

for immediate burning: hut the Leipzigers thought to themselves, 'King Friedrich is not a Soltikof!' and

openly laughed at those pitch links. Whereupon about a hundred of their Chief Merchants were thrown into

prison,one hundred or so, riddled down in a day or two to Seventeen; which latter Seventeen, as they stood

out, were detained a good many days, how many is not said, but only that they were amazingly firm.

Blackhole for lodging, breadandwater for diet, straw for bed: nothing would avail on the Seventeen:

'Impossible,' they answered always; each unit of them, in sight of the other sixteen, was upon his honor, and

could not think of flinching. 'You shall go for soldiers, then;possibly you will prefer that, you fine

powdered velvet gentlemen? Up then, and march; here are your firelocks, your seventeen knapsacks: to the

road with us; to Magdeburg, there to get on drill!' Upon which the Seventeen, horrorstruck at such

"Magnanimous Gotzkowsky, who had come to Leipzig on business at the time [which will give us a date for

this by and by], and been solemnly applied to by Deputation of the Rath, pleaded with his usual zealous

fidelity on their behalf; got various alleviations, abatements; gave bills:'Never was seen such

magnanimity!' said the Leipzig TownCouncil solemnly, as that of Berlin, in October last, had done."

Of course the difficulties, financial and other, are increasing every Winter;not on Friedrich's side only.

Here, for instance, from the Duchy of Gottingen, are some items in the French Account current, this Winter,

"For bedticking, 13,000 webs; of shirts readymade, 18,000; shoes," I forget in what quantity; but "from the

poor little Town of Duderstadt 600 pairs,liability to instant flogging if they are not honest shoes; flogging,

and the whole shoemaker guild summoned out to see it." Hardy women the same Duderstadt has had to

produce: 300 of them, "each with basket on back, who are carrying cannon balls from the foundry at

Lauterberg to Gottingen, the road being bad." [Archenholtz, ii. 237.] "These French are in such necessity,"

continues Archenholtz, "they spare neither friend nor foe. The Frankish Circle, for example, pleads piteously

in Reichs Diet that it has already smarted by this War to the length of 2,230,000 pounds, and entreats the

Kaiser to bid Most Christian Majesty cease HIS exactions,but without the least result." Result! If Most

Christian Majesty and his Pompadour will continue this War, is it he, or is it you, that can furnish the

Magazines? "Magazinefurnishings, over all Hessen and this part of Hanover, are enormous. Recruits too,

native Hessian, native Hanoverian, you shall furnish,and 'We will hang them, and do, if caught deserting'

I add only one other item from Archenholtz: "Mice being busy in these Hanover Magazines, it is decided to

have cats, and a requisition goes out accordingly [cipher not given]: cats do execution for a time, but cannot

stand the confinement," are averse to the solitary system, and object (think with what vocality!): "upon which

Hanover has to send foxes and weasels." [Ib. ii. 240] These guardian animals, and the 300 women laden with

cannonballs from the forge, are the most peculiar items in the French Account current, and the last I will

Difficulty, quasiimpossibility, on the French side, there evidently is, perhaps more than on any other. But

Choiseul has many arts;and his Official existence, were there nothing more, demands that he do the

impossible now if ever. This Spring (26th March, 1761), to the surprise and joy of mankind, there came

formal Proposal, issuing from Choiseul, to which Maria Theresa and the Czarina had to put their signatures;

regretting that the British Prussian Proposal of last Year had, by ill accident, fallen to the ground, and now

repeating it themselves (real "Congress at Augsburg," and all things fair and handsome) to Britannic and

Prussian Majesties. Who answered (April 3d) as before, "Nothing with more willingness, we!" [The

"Declaration" (of France with the Answer or "CounterDeclaration," in Seyfarth, Beylagen, iii. 1216.]

And there actually did ensue, at Paris, a vivid Negotiating all Summer; which ended, not quite in nothing, but

in less, if we might say so. Considerably less, for some of us. We shall have to look what end it had, and

Mauduit will look!Most people, Pitt probably among the others, came to think that Choiseul, though his

France is in beggary, had no real view from the first, except to throw powder in the eyes of France and

mankind, to ascertain for himself on what terms those English would make Peace, and to get Spain drawn

into his quarrel. A Choiseul with many arts. But we will leave him and his PeaceProposals, and the other

rumors and futilities of this Year. They are part of the sound and smoke which fill all Years; and which

vanish into next to nothing, oftenest into pure nothing, when the Years have waited a little. Friedrich's

finances, copper and other, were got completed; his Armies too were once more put on a passable

Gotzkowsky, in regard to those Leipzig Finance difficulties, yields me a date, which is supplementary to

some of the Archenholtz details. I find it was "January 20th, 1761,"precisely while the Saldern Interview,

and subsequent wreck of Hubertsburg, went on, that "Gotzkowsky arrived in Leipzig," [Rodenbeck, ii. 77.]

And withal, at Paris, in the same hours, there went on a thing worth noting. That January day, while Icilius

was busy on the Schloss of Hubertsburg, poor old Marechal de Belleisle,mark him, reader!"in the Rue

de Lille at Paris," lay sunk in putrid fever; and on the fourth day after, "January 26th, 1761," the last of the

grand old Frenchmen died. "He had been reported dead three days before," says Barbier: "the public wished it

so; they laid the blame on him of this apparent" (let a cautious man write it, "apparent) derangement in our

affairs,"instead of thanking him for all he had done and suffered (loss of so much, including reputation and

an only Son) to repair and stay the same. "He was in his 77th year. Many people say, 'We must wait three

months, to see if we shall not regret him,'"even him! [Barbier, iv. 373; i. 154.] So generous are Nations.

Marechal Duc de Belleisle was very wealthy: in Vernon Country, Normandy, he had estates and chateaux to

the value of about 24,000 pounds annually. All these, having first accurately settled for his own debts, he, in

his grand old way, childless, forlorn, but loftily polite to the last, bequeathed to the King. His splendid Paris

Mansion he expressly left "to serve in perpetuity as a residence for the Secretary of State in the Department

of War:" a magnificent TownHouse it is, "HOTEL MAGNIFIQUE, at the end of the PontRoyal,"which,

I notice farther, is in our time called "Hotel de CHOISEULPRASLIN,"a house latterly become horrible

And thus vanishes, in sour dark clouds, the once great Belleisle. Grandiose, something almost of great in him,

of sublime,alas, yes, of too sublime; and of unfortunate beyond proportion, paying the debt of many

foregoers! He too is a notability gone out, the last of his kind. Twenty years ago, he crossed the

OEildeBoeuf with Papers, just setting out to cut Teutschland in Four; and in the Rue de Lille, No. 54, with

that grandiose Enterprise drawing to its issue in universal defeat, disgrace, discontent and preparation for the

General Overturn (CULBUTE GENERALE of 1789)) he closes his weary old eyes. Choiseul. succeeds him

as WarMinister; WarMinister and PrimeMinister both in one;and by many arts of legerdemain, and

another real spasm of effort upon Hanover to do the impossible there, is leading France with winged steps the

Since March 17th, Friedrich was no longer in Leipzig. He left at that time, for Meissen Country, and the Hill

Cantonments, organized there his little Expedition into Voigtland, for behoof of the Reichsfolk;and did

not return. Continued, mostly in Meissen Country, as the fittest for his many businesses, Armyregulatings

and other. Till the Campaign come, we will remember of him nothing, but this little Note, and pleasant little

"I send you, my dear Mamma, a little Trifle, by way of keepsake and memento [Snuffbox of Meissen

Porcelain, with the figure of a Dog on the lid]. You may use the Box for your rouge, for your patches, or you

may put snuff in it, or BONBONS or pills: but whatever use you turn it to, think always, when you see this

Dog, the Symbol of Fidelity, that he who sends it outstrips, in respect of fidelity and attachment to MAMAN,

all the dogs in the world; and that his devotion to you has nothing whatever in common with the fragility of

"I have ordered Porcelain here for all the world, for Schonhausen [for your Mistress, my poor uncomplaining

Wife], for my Sistersin law; in fact, I am rich in this brittle material only. And I hope the receivers will

accept it as current money: for, the truth is, we are poor as can be, good Mamma; I have nothing left but

"Farewell, my beloved Mamma. If Heaven will, I shall one day see you again face to face; and repeat to you,

by word of mouth, what I have already said and written; but, turn it and return it as I may, I shall never,

except very incompletely, express what the feelings of my heart to you are.F." [Given in Rodenbeck, ii.

79; omitted, for I know not what reason, in OEuvres de Frederic, xviii. 145: cited partly in Preuss, ii. 282.]

It was during this Winter, if ever it was, that Friedrich received the following Letter from an aspiring Young

Lady, just coming out, age seventeen,in a remote sphere of things. In "Sleepy Hollow" namely, or the

Court of Mirow in MecklenburgStrelitz, where we once visited with Friedrich almost thirty years ago. The

poor collapsed Duke has ceased making dressinggowns there; and this is his Niece, Princess Charlotte,

This Letter, in the translated form, and the glorious results it had for some of us, are familiar to all English

readers for the last hundred years. Of Friedrich's Answer to it, if he sent one, we have no trace whatever.

Which is a pity, more or less;though, in truth, the Answer could only have been some polite formality; the

Letter itself being a mere breath of sentimental wind, absolutely without significance to Friedrich or anybody

else,except always to the Young Lady herself, to whom it brought a Royal Husband and Queenship of

England, within a year. Signature, presumably, this Letter once had; date of place, of day, year, or even

century (except by implication), there never was any: but judicious persons, scanning on the spot, have found

that the "Victory" spoken of can only have meant Torgau; and that the aspiring Young Lady, hitherto a

School Girl, not so much as "confirmed" till a month or two ago, age seventeen in May last, can only have I

written it, at Mirow, in the Winter subsequent. [Ludwig Giesebrecht,DER FURSTENHOF IN MIROW

WUHREND DER JAHRE 17081761, in Programm des vereinigten Koniglichen und StadtGymnasiums

for 1863 (Stettin, 1863), pp. 2629,enters into a minute criticism.] Certain it is, in September NEXT,

September, 1761, directly after George III.'s Wedding, there appeared in the English Newspapers, what

doubtless had been much handed about in society before, the following "TRANSLATION OF A LETTER,

OF PRUSSIA, ON ONE OF HIS VICTORIES,"without farther commentary or remark of any kind;

everybody then understanding, as everybody still. So notable a Document ought to be given in the Original as

well (or in what passes for such), and with some approach to the necessary preliminaries of time and place:

[From Gentleman's Magazine (for October, 1761, xxxi. 447) we take, verbatim, the TRANSLATION; from

PREUSS (ii. 186) the "ORIGINAL," who does not say where he got it,whether from an old German

"Sire!Ich weiss nicht, ob ich uber Ewr. Majestat letzteren Sieg frohlich odor traurig sein soll, weil eben der

gluckliche Sieg, der neue Lorbeern um Dero Scheitel geflochten hat, uber mein Vaterland Jammer und Elend

verbreitet. Ich weiss, Sire, in diesem unserm lasterhaft verfeinerten Zeitalter werde ich verlacht werden, dass

mein Herz uber das Ungluck des Landes trauert, dass ich die Drangsale des Krieges beweine, und von ganzer

Seele die Ruckkehr des Friedens wunsche. Selbst Sie, Sire, werden vielleicht denken, es schicke sich besser

fur mich, mich in der Kunst zu gefallen zu uben, oder mich nur um hausliche Angelegenheiten zu

bekummern. Allein dem seye wie ihm wolle, so fuhlt mein Herz zu sehr fur diese Unglucklichen, um eine

"Seit wenigen Jahren hatte dieses Land die angenehmste Gestalt gewonnen. Man traf keine verodete Stellen

an. Alles war angebaut. Das Landvolk sah vergnugt aus, und in den Stadten herrschte Wohlstand und Freude.

Aber welch' eine Veranderung gegen eine so angenehme Scene! Ich bin in partheischen Beschreibungen nicht

erfahren, noch weniger kann ich die Grauel der Verwilstung mit erdichteten Schilderungen schrecklicher

darstellen. Allein gewiss selbst Krieger, welche ein edles Herz und Gefuhl besitzen, wurden durch den

Anblick dieser Scenen zu Thranen bewegt werden. Das ganze Land, mein werthes Vaterland, liegt da gleich

einer Wuste. Der Ackerbau und die Viehzucht haben aufgehort. Der Bauer und der Hirt sind Soldaten

worden, und in den Stadten sieht man nur Greise, Weiber, und Kinder, vielleicht noch hie und da einen

jungen Mann, der aber durch empfangene Wunden ein Kruppel ist und den ihn umgebenden kleinen Knaben

die Geschichte einer jeden Wunde mit einem so pathetischen Heldenton erzahlt, dassihr Herz schon der

Trommel folgt, ehe sie recht gehen konnen. Was aber das Elend auf den hochsten Gipfel bringt, sind die

immer abwechselnden Vorruckungen und Zuruckziehungen beider Armeen, da selbst die, so sich unsre

Freunde nennen, beim Abzuge alles mitnehmen und verheeren, und wenn sie wieder kommen, gleich viel

wieder herbei geschafft haben wollen. Von Dero Gerechtigkeit, Sire, hoffen wir Hulfe in dieser aussersten

Noth. An Sie, Sire, mogen auch Frauen, ja selbst Kinder ihre Klagen bringen. Sie, die sich auch zur

niedrigsten Klasse gutigst herablassen, und dadurch, wenn es moglich ist, noch grosser werden, als selbst

durch ihre Siege, werden die meinigen nicht unerhort lassen und, zur Ehre Dero eigenen Ruhmes,

Bedruckungen und Drangsalen abhelfen, welche wider alle Menschenliebe und wider alle gute Kriegszucht

"MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MAJESTY, "I am at a loss whether I shall congratulate or condole with you on

your late victory; since the same success that has covered you with laurels has overspread the Couutry of

MecklenburgH with desolation. I know, Sire, that it seems unbecoming my sex, in this age of vicious

refinement, to feel for one's Country, to lament the horrors of war, or wish for the return of peace. I know you

may think it more properly my province to study the art of pleasing, or to turn my thoughts to subjects of a

more domestic nature: but, however unbecoming it may be in me, I can't resist the desire of interceding for

"It was but a very few years ago that this territory wore the most pleasing appearance. The Country was

cultivated, the peasant looked cheerful, and the towns abounded with riches and festivity. What an alteration

at present from such a charming scene! I am not expert at description, nor can my fancy add any horrors to

the picture; but sure even conquerors themselves would weep at the hideous prospect now before me. The

whole Country, my dear Country, lies one frightful waste, presenting only objects to excite terror, pity and

despair. The business of the husbandman and the shepherd are quite discontinued; the husbandman and the

shepherd are become soldiers themselves, and help to ravage the soil they formerly occupied. The towns are

inhabited only by old men, women and children; perhaps here and there a warrior, by wounds and loss of

limbs rendered unfit for service, left at his door; his little children hang round him, ask a history of every

wound, and grow themselves soldiers before they find strength for the field. But this were nothing, did we not

feel the alternate insolence of either army, as it happens to advance or retreat. It is impossible to express the

confusion, even those who call themselves our friends create. Even those from whom we might expect

redress, oppress us with new calamities. From your justice, therefore, it is that we hope relief; to you even

children and women may complain, whose humanity stoops to the meanest petition, and whose power is

It is remarked that this Young Lady, so amiably melodious in tone, though she might address to King

Friedrich, seems to be writing to the wind; and that she gives nothing of fact or picture in regard to

Mecklenburg, especially to MecklenburgSTRELITZ, but what is taken from her own beautiful young brain.

All operatic, vague, imaginary,some of it expressly untrue. [In MecklenburgSCHWERIN, which had

always to smart sore for its Duke and the line he took, the Swedes, this year, as usual (but, TILL Torgau, with

more hope than usual), had been trying for winterquarters: and had by the Prussians, as usual, been hunted

out,Eugen of Wurtemberg speeding thither, directly after Torgau; Rostock his winterquarters;who,

doubtless with all rigor, is levying contributions for Prussian behoof. But as to MecklenburgStrelitz,see,

for example, in SCHONING, iii. 30 an indirect but altogether conclusive proof of the perfectly amicable

footing now and always subsisting there; Friedrich reluctant to intrude even with a small request or

solicitation, on Eugen's behalf, at this time.] So that latterly there have been doubts as to its authenticity

altogether. ["Boll, Geschichte Mecklenburgs mit besonderer Berucksichtigung der Culturgeschichte

(Neubrandenburg, 1856), ii. 303305;"cited by Giesebrecht, who himself takes the opposite view.] And in

fact the Piece has a good deal the air of some SchoolExercise, Model of Letterwriting, Patriotic Aspiration

or the like;thrown off, shall we say, by the young Parson of Mirow (Charlotte's late Tutor), with Charlotte

there to SIGN; or by some Patriotic Schoolmaster elsewhere, anywhere, in a moment of enthusiasm, and

without any Charlotte but a hypothetic one? Certainly it is difficult to fancy how a modest, rational, practical

young person like Charlotte can have thought of so airy a feat of archery into the blue! Charlotte herself never

disavowed it, that I heard of; and to Colonel Grahame the ExJacobite, hunting about among potential

Queens of England, for behoof of Bute and of a certain Young King and King's Mother, the Letter did seem

abundantly unquestionable and adorable. Perhaps authentic, after all;and certainly small matter whether or

To the outward observer Friedrich stands well at present, and seems again in formidable posture. After two

such Victories, and such almost miraculous recovery of himself, who shall say what resistance he will not yet

make? In comparison with 1759 and its failures and disasters, what a Year has 1760 been! Liegnitz and

Torgau, instead of Kunersdorf and Maxen, here are unexpected phenomena; here is a King risen from the

deeps again,more incalculable than ever to contemporary mankind. "How these things will end?" Fancy of

what a palpitating interest THEN, while everybody watched the huge game as it went on; though it is so little

interesting now to anybody, looking at it all finished! Finished; no mystery of chance, of worldhope or of

worldterror now remaining in it; all is fallen stagnant, dull, distant;and it will behoove us to be brief upon

Contemporaries, and Posterity that will make study, must alike admit that, among the sons of men, few in any

Age have made a stiffer fight than Friedrich has done and continues to do. But to Friedrich himself it is

dismally evident, that year by year his resources are melting away; that a year must come when he will have

no resource more. Ebbing very fast, his resources;fast too, no doubt, those of his Enemies, but not SO fast.

They are mighty Nations, he is one small Nation. His thoughts, we perceive, have always, in the background

of them, a hue of settled black. Easy to say, "Resist till we die;" but to go about, year after year, practically

doing it, under cloudy omens, no end of it visible ahead, is not easy. Many men, Kings and other, have had to

take that stern posture;few on sterner terms than those of Friedrich at present; and none that I know of with

a more truly stoical and manful figure of demeanor. He is long used to it! Wet to the bone, you do not regard

The usual hopes, about Turks, about Peace, and the like, have not been wanting to Friedrich this Winter;

mentionable as a trait of Friedrich's character, not otherwise worth mention. Hope of aid from the Turks, it is

very strange to see how he nurses this fond shadow, which never came to anything! Happily, it does not

prevent, it rather encourages, the utmost urgency of preparation: "The readier we are, the likelier are Turks

and everything!" Peace, at least, between France and England, after such a Proposal on Choiseul's part, and

such a pass as France has really got to, was a reasonable probability. But indeed, from the first year of this

War, as we remarked, Peace has seemed possible to Friedrich every year; especially from 1759 onward, there

is always every winter a lively hope of Peace:"No slackening of preparation; the reverse, rather; but surely

the Campaign of next Summer will be cut short, and we shall all get home only half expended!" [Schoning

Practically, Friedrich has been raising new FreeCorps people, been recruiting, refitting and equipping, with

more diligence than ever; and, in spite of the almost impossibilities, has two Armies on foot, some 96,000

men in all, for defence of Saxony and of Silesia,Henri to undertake Saxony, VERSUS Daun; Silesia, with

Loudon and the Russians, to be Friedrich's heavier share. The Campaign, of which, by the one party and the

other, very great things had been hoped and feared, seemed once as if it would begin two months earlier than

usual; but was staved off, a long time, by Friedrich's dexterities, and otherwise; and in effect did not begin,

what we can call beginning, till two months later than usual. Essentially it fell, almost all, to Friedrich's share;

and turned out as little decisive on him as any of its foregoers. The one memorable part of it now is,

Friedrich's Encampment at Bunzelwitz; which did not occur till four months after Friedrich's appearance on

the Field. And from the end of April, when Loudon made his first attempt, till the end of August, when

Friedrich took that Camp, there was nothing but a series of attempts, all ineffectual, of demonstrations,

marchings, manoeuvrings and small events; which, in the name of every reader, demand condensation to the

utmost. If readers will be diligent, here, so far as needful, are the prefatory steps.

Since Fouquet's disaster, Goltz generally has Silesia in charge; and does it better than expected. He was never

thought to have Fouquet's talent in him; but he shows a rugged loyalty of mind, less egoistic than the fiery

Fouquet's; and honestly flings himself upon his task, in a way pleasant to look at: pleasant to the King

especially, who recognizes in Goltz a useful, brave, frank soul; and has given him, this Spring, the

ORDER OF MERIT, which was a high encouragement to Goltz. In Silesia, after Kosel last Year, there had

been truce between Goltz and Loudon; which should have produced repose to both; but did not altogether,

owing to mistakes that rose. And at any rate, in the end of April, Loudon, bursting suddenly into Silesia with

great increase to the forces already there, gave notice, as per bargain, That "in 96 hours" the Truce would

expire. And waiting punctiliously till the last of said hours was run out, Loudon fell upon Goltz (APRIL 25th,

in the SchweidnitzLandshut Country) with his usual vehemence;meaning to get hold of the Silesian

Passes, and extinguish Goltz (only 10 or 12,000 against 30,000), as he had done Fouquet last Year.

But Goltz took his measures better; seized "the GallowsHill of Hohenfriedberg," seized this and that; and

stood in so forcible an attitude, that Loudon, carefully considering, durst not risk an assault; and the only

result was: Friedrich hastened to relief of Goltz (rose from Meissen Country MAY 3d), and appeared in

Silesia six weeks earlier than he had intended. But again took Cantonments there (Schweidnitz and

neighborhood);Loudon retiring wholly, on first tidings of him, home to Bohemia again. Home in Bohemia;

at Braunau, on the western edge of the Glatz Mountains,there sits Loudon thenceforth, silent for a long

time; silently collecting an Army of 72,000, with strict orders from Vienna to avoid fighting till the Russians

come. Loudon has very high intentions this Year. Intends to finish Silesia altogether;cannot he, after such

a beginning upon Glatz last Year? That is the firm notion at Vienna among men of understanding:

everactive Loudon the favorite there, against a Cunctator who has been too cunctatory many times. Liegnitz

itself, was not that (as many opine) a disaster due to cunctation, not of Loudon's?

Loudon is to be joined by 60,000 Russians, under a Feldmarschall Butturlin, not under sulky Soltikof, this

Year; junction to be in Upper Silesia, in Neisse neighborhood. We take that Fortress," say the Vienna people;

"it is next on the file after Glatz. Neisse taken; thence northward, cleaning the Country as we go; Brieg,

Schweidnitz, Glogau, probably Breslau itself in some good interim: there are but Four Fortresses to do; and

the thing is finished. Let the King, one to three, and Loudon in command against him, try if he can hinder it!"

This is the Program in Vienna and in Petersburg. And, accordingly, the Russians have got on march about the

end of May; plodding on ever since, due hereabouts before June end: "junction to be as near Neisse as you

can: and no fighting of the King, on any terms, till the Russians come." Never were the Vienna people so

certain before. Daun is to do nothing "rash" in Saxony (a Daun not given that way, they can calculate), but is

to guard Loudon's game; carefully to reinforce, comfort and protect the brave Loudon and his Russians till

they win;after which Saxony as rash as you like. This is the Program of the Season: readers feel what an

immensity of preliminary higglings, hitchings and manoeuvrings will now demand to be suppressed by us!

Read these essential Fractions, chiefly chronological;and then, at once, To Bunzelwitz, and the time of

"Last Year," says a loose Note, which we may as well take with us, "Tottleben did not go home with the rest,

but kept hovering about, in eastern Pommern, with a 10,000, all Winter; attempting several kinds of mischief

in those Countries, especially attempting to do something on Colberg; which the Russians mean to besiege

next Summer, with more intensity than ever, for the Third, and, if possible, the last time. 'Storm their outposts

there,' thinks Tottleben, 'especially Belgard, the chief outpost; girdle tighter and tighter the obstinate little

crow'snest of a Colberg, and have it ready for besieging in good time.' Tottleben did try upon the outposts,

especially Belgard the chief one (January 18th, 1761), but without the least success at Belgard; with a severe

reproof instead, Werner's people being broad awake: [Account of itt, HeldenGeschichte, vi. 670.] upon

which Tottleben and they made a truce, 'Peaceable till May 12th;' till June 1st, it proved, about which time

[which time, or afterwards, as the Silesian crisis may admit!] we will look in on them again."

MAY 3d, as above intimated, Friedrich hastened off for Silesia, quitted Meissen that day, with an Army of

some 50,000; pressingly intent to relieve Goltz from his dangerous predicament there. This is one of

Friedrich's famed marches, done in a minimum of time and with a maximum of ingenuity; concerning which

I will remember only that, one night, "he lodged again at Rodewitz, near Hochklrch, in the same house as on

that Occasion [what a thirty months to look back upon, as you sink to sleep!]and that no accident

anywhere befell the March, though Daun's people, all through Saxony and the Lausitz, were hovering on the

flank, apprehensive chiefly lest it might mean a plunge INTO BOHEMIA, for relief of Goltz, instead of

what it did." For six weeks after that hard March, the King's people got Cantonments again, and rested.

Prince Henri is left in Saxony, with Daun in huge force against him, Daun and the Reich; between whom and

Henri,Seidlitz being in the field again with Henri, Seidlitz and others of mark,there fell out a great deal

of exquisite manoeuvring, rapid detaching and occasional sharp cutting on the small scale; but nothing of

moment to detain us here or afterwards, We shall say only that Henri, to a wonderful extent, maintained

himself against the heavy overwhelming Daun and his Austrian and Reichs masses; and that Napoleon, I

know not after what degree of study, pronounced this Campaign of 1761 to be the masterpiece of Henri, and

really a considerable thing, "La campagne de 1761 est celle ou ce Prince a vraiment montre des talents

superieurs; the Battle of Freyberg [wait till next Year] nothing in comparison." [Montholon, Memoires de

Napoleon, vii. 324.] Which may well detain soldierpeople upon it; but must not us, in any measure. The

result of Henri being what we said,a drawn game, or nearly so,we will, without interference from him,

Friedrich and Goltz,or, alas, it is very soon Friedrich alone; the valiant Goltz soon perishing from his hand!

After brief junction in Schweidnitz Country, Friedrich detached Goltz to his old fortified Camp at Glogau,

there to be on watch. Goltz watching there, lynxeyed, skilful, volunteered a Proposal (June 22d): "Reinforce

me to 20,000, your Majesty; I will attack so and so of those advancing Russians!" Which his Majesty

straightway approved of, and set going. [Goltz's Letter to the King, "Glogau, 22d June, 1761," is in

Tempelhof (v. 8890), who thinks the plan good.] Goltz thereupon tasked all his energies, perhaps overmuch;

and it was thought might at last really have done something for the King, in this matter of the Russians still in

separate Divisions,a thing feasible if you have energy and velocity; always unfeasible otherwise. But, alas,

poor Goltz, just when ready to march, was taken with sudden violent fever, the fruit probably of overwork;

and, in that sad flame, blazed away his valiant existence in three or four days:gone forever, June 30th, 1761;

Old Ziethen was at once pushed on, from Glogau over the frontier, to replace Goltz; but, I doubt, had not now

the requisite velocity: Ziethen merely manoeuvred about, and came home "attending the Russians," as Henri,

Dohna and others had done. The Russians entered Silesia, from the northeast or Polish side, without

difficulty; and (July 15th20th) were within reach of Breslau and of an open road to southward, and to

junction with Loudon, who is astir for them there. About Breslau they linger and higgle, at their leisure, for

three weeks longer: and if their junction with the Austrians "in Neisse neighborhood" is to be prevented or

Junction in Neisse neighborhood (Oppeln, where it should have been, which is some 35 miles from Neisse),

Friedrich did, by velocity and dexterity, contrive to prevent; but junction somewhere he probably knows to be

inevitable. These are among Friedrich's famed marches and manoeuvrings, these against the swift Loudon

and his slow Russians; but we will not dwell on them. My readers know the King's manner in such cases;

have already been on two Marches with him, and even in these same routes and countries. We will say only,

that the Russians were and had been very dilatory; Loudon much the reverse; and their and Loudon's

Adversary still more. That, for five days, the Russians, at length close to Breslau (August 6th11th), kept

vaguely cannonading and belching noise and apprehension upon the poor City, but without real damage to it,

and as if merely to pass the time; and had gradually pushed out fore posts, as far as Oppeln, towards

Loudon, up their safe right bank of Oder. That Loudon, on the first glimpse of these, had made his best speed

Neisseward; and did a march or two with good hope; but at Munsterberg (July 22d), on the morning of the

third or fourth day's march, was astonished to see Friedrich ahead of him, nearer Neisse than he; and that in

Neisse Country there was nothing to be done, no Russian junction possible there.

"Try it in Schweidnitz Country, then!" said Loudon. The Russians leave off cannonading Breslau; cross Oder,

about Auras or Leubus (August 11th12th); and Loudon, after some finessing, marches back

Schweidnitzway, cautiously, skilfully; followed by Friedrich, anxious to prevent a junction here too or at

lowest to do some stroke before it occur. A great deal of cunning marching, shifting and manoeuvring there

is, for days round Schweidnitz on all sides; encampings by Friedrich, now Liegnitz headquarter, now

Wahlstadt, now Schonbrunn, Striegau;without the least essential harm to Loudon or likelihood increasing

that the junction can be hindered. No offer of battle either; Loudon is not so easy to beat as some. The

Russians come on at a snail's pace, so Loudon thinks it, who is extremely impatient; but makes no mistakes in

consequence, keeps himself safe (Kunzendorf, on the edge of the Glatz Hills, his main post), and the roads

In Nicolstadt, a march from Wahlstadt, 16th August, there are 60,000 Russians in front of Friedrich, 72,000

Austrians in rear: what can he, with at the very utmost 57,000, do against them? Now was the time to have

fallen upon the King, and have consumed him between two fires, as it is thought might have been possible,

had they been simultaneous, and both of them done it with a will. But simultaneity was difficult, and the will

itself was wanting, or existed only on Loudon's side. Nothing of the kind was attempted on the confederate

part, still less on Friedrich's,who stands on his guard, and, from the Heights about, has at last, to witness

what he cannot hinder. Sees both Armies on march; Austrians from the southeast or KunzendorfFreyberg

side, Russians from the northeast or Kleinerwitz side, wending in many columns by the back of Jauer and the

back of Liegnitz respectively; till (August 18th) they "join hands," as it is termed, or touch mutually by their

light troops; and on the 19th (Friedrich now off on another scheme, and not witnessing), fall into one

another's arms, ranked all in one line of posts. [Tempelhof, v. 58150.] "Can the Reichshofrath say our

junction is not complete?" And so ends what we call the Prefatory part; and the time of Close Grips seems to

be come! Friedrich has now nothing for it but to try if he cannot possibly get hold of Kunzendorf (readers

may look in their Map), and cut off Loudon's staff of bread; Loudon's, and Butturlin's as well; for the whole

130,000 are now to be fed by Loudon, and no slight task he will find it. By rushing direct on Kunzendorf with

such a velocity as Friedrich is capable of, it is thought he might have managed Kunzendorf; but he had to

mask his design, and march by the rear or east side of Schweidnitz, not by the west side: "They will think I

am making off in despair, intending for the strong post of Pilzen there, with Schweidnitz to shelter me in

front!" hoped Friedrich (morning of the 19th), as he marched off on that errand. But on approaching in that

manner, by the bow, he found that Loudon had been quite sceptical of such despair, and at any rate had, by

the string, made sure of Kunzendorf and the foodsources. August 20th, at break of day, scouts report the

Kunzendorf ground thoroughly beset again, and Loudon in his place there. No use marching thitherward

Friedrich knows Pilzen, what an admirable post it really is; except only that Schweidnitz will be between the

enemy and him, and liable to be besieged by them; which will never do! Friedrich, on the moment of that

news from Kunzendorf, gets on march, not by the east side (as intended till the scouts came in), but by the

west or exposed side of Schweidnitz:he stood waiting, ready for either route, and lost not a moment on his

scouts coming in. All upon the road by 3 A.M. August 20th; and encamps, still at an early hour, midway

between Schweidnitz and Striegau: right wing of him at Zedlitz (if the reader look on his Map), left wing at

Jauernik; headquarters, Bunzelwitz, a poor Village, celebrated ever since in Warannals. And begins (that

same evening, the earlier or RESTED part of him begins) digging and trenching at a most extraordinary rate,

according to plan formed; no enemy taking heed of him, or giving the least molestation. This is the

worldfamous Camp of Bunzelwitz, upon which it is worth while to dwell for a little.

To common eyes the ground hereabouts has no peculiar military strength: a wavy champaign, with nothing of

abrupt or high, much of it actual plain, excellent for cavalry and their work;this latter, too, is an advantage,

which Friedrich has well marked, and turns to use in his scheme. The area he takes in is perhaps some seven

or eight miles long, by as many broad. On the west side runs the stillyoung Striegau Water, defensive more

or less; and on the farther bank of it green little Hills, their steepest side stream ward. Inexpugnable

Schweidnitz, with its stores of every kind, especially with its store of cannon and of bread, is on the left or

east part of the circuit; in the intervening space are peaceable farmvillages, spots of bog; knolls, some of

them with wood. Not a village, bog, knoll, but Friedrich has caught up, and is busy profiting by. "Swift,

BURSCHE, dig ourselves in here, and be ready for any quotity and quantity of them, if they dare attack!"

And 25,000 spades and picks are at work, under such a Field Engineer as there is not in the world when he

takes to that employment. At all hours, night and day, 25,000 of them: half the Army asleep, other half

digging, wheeling, shovelling; plying their utmost, and constant as Time himself: these, in three days, will do

a great deal of spadework. Batteries, redoubts, big and little; spare not for digging. Here is ground for

Cavalry, too; post them here, there, to bivouac in readiness, should our Batteries be unfortunate. Long

Trenches there are, and also short; Batteries commanding every ingate, and under them are Mines: "We will

blow you and our Batteries both into the air, in case of capture!" think the Prussians, the common men at

least, if Friedrich do not. "Mines, and that of being blown into the air," says Tempelhof, "are always very

terrible to the common man." In places there are "Trenches 16 feet broad, by 16 deep," says an admiring

Archenholtz, who was in it: "and we have two of those FLATTERMINEN (scattermines," blowingup

"Bunzelwitz, Jauernik, Tschechen and Peterwitz, all fortified," continues Archenholtz; "Wurben, in the

centre, is like a citadel, looking down upon Striegau Water. Heavy cannon, plenty of them, we have brought

from Schweidnitz: we have 460 pieces of cannon in all and 182 mines. Wurben, our citadel and centre, is

about five miles from Schweidnitz. Our intrenchments"You already heard what gulfs some of them were!

(CHEVAUXDEFRISE);woods we have in abundance in our Circuit, and axes busy for carpentries of

that kind. There are four intrenched knolls; 24 big batteries, capable of playing beautifully, all like pieces in a

concert." Four knolls elaborately intrenched, clothed with cannon; founded upon FLATTER mines: try

where you will to enter, such torrents of deathshot will converge on you, and a concert of 24 big batteries

On the third day, Loudon, looking into this thing, which he has not minded hitherto, finds it such a thing as

he never dreamt of before. A thing strong as Gibraltar, in a manner;which it will be terribly difficult to

attack with success! For eight days more Friedrich did not rest from his spadework; made many changes and

improvements, till he had artificially made a very Stolpen of it, a Plauen, or more. Cogniazzo, the

AUSTRIAN VETERAN, says: "Plauen, and Daun's often ridiculed precautions there, were nothing to it. Not

as if Bunzelwitz had been so inaccessible as our sheer rocks there; but because it is a masterpiece of Art, in

which the principles of tactics are combined with those of field fortification, as never before." Tielke grows

quite eloquent on it: "A masterpiece of judgment in ground," says he; "and the treatment of it a model of

sound, true and consummate fieldengineering." [Tielke, iii. � BUNZELWITZ (which is praised as an

attractive Piece); OESTERREICHISCHER VETERAN, iv. 79: cited in PREUSS, ii. 285.]

Ziethen, appointed to that function, watches on the Heights of Wurben, the citadel of the place: keeps a sharp

eye to the southwest. All round, in huge halfmoon on the edge of the Hills over there, six or more miles

from Ziethen, lie the angry Enemies; Austrians south and nearest, about Kunzendorf and Freyberg. Russians

are on the top of Striegau Hills, which are well known to some of us; Russian headquarter is

Hohenfriedberg,who would have thought it, Herr General von Ziethen? Sixteen years ago, we have seen

these Heights in other tenancy: Austrian fieldmusic and displayed banners coming down; a thousand and a

thousand Austrian watchfires blazing out yonder, in the silent June night, eve of such a Day! Baireuth

Dragoons and their No. 67;you will find the Baireuth Dragoons still here in a sense, but also in a sense not.

Their fencing Chasot is gone to Lubeck long since; will perhaps pay Friedrich a visit by and by: their fiery

Gessler is gone much farther, and will never visit anybody more! Many were the reapers then, and they are

mostly gone to rest. Here is a new harvest; the old SICKLES are still here; but the hands that wielded

them! "Steady!" answers the Herr General; profoundly aware of all that, but averse to words upon it.

Fancy Loudon's astonishment, on the third day: "While we have sat consulting how to attack him, there is

he,unattackable, shall we say?" Unattackable, Loudon will not consent to think him, though Butturlin has

quite consented. "Difficult, murderous," thinks Loudon; "but possible, certain, could Butturlin but be

persuaded!" And tries all his rhetoric on Butturlin: "Shame on us!" urges the ardent Loudon: "Imperial and

Czarish Majesties; Kriegshofrath, Russian Senate; Vienna, Petersburg, Versailles and all the world, what

are they expecting of us? To ourselves it seemed certain, and here we sit helplessly gazing!" Loudon is very

diligent upon Butturlin: "Do but believe that it is possible. A plan can be made; many plans: the problem is

solved, if only your Excellency will believe." Which Butturlin never quite will.

Nobody knows better than Friedrich in what perilous crisis he now stands: beaten here, what army or

resource has he left? Silesia is gone from him; by every likelihood, the game is gone. This of Bunzelwitz is

his last card; this is now his one stronghold in the world:we need not say if he is vigilant in regard to this.

From about the fourth day, when his engineering was only complete in outline, he particularly expects to be

attacked. On the fifth night he concludes it will be; knowing Loudon's way. Towards sunset, that evening

(August 25th), all the tents are struck: tents, cookeries, every article of baggage, his own among the rest, are

sent to Wurben Heights (to Schweidnitz, Archenholtz says; but has misremembered): the ground cleared for

Contrary to everybody's expectation, not a shot was heard, that night. Nor the next night, nor the next: but the

practice of vigilance was continued. Punctual as mathematics: at a given hour of the afternoon, tents are all

struck; tents and furnitures, field swept clear; and the 50,000 in their places wait under arms. Next morning,

nothing having fallen out, the tents come back; the Army (half of it at once, or almost the whole of it,

according to aspects) rests, goes to sleep if it can. By night there is vigilance, is work, and no sleep. It is felt

Nor in these labors of detail is the King wanting; far from it; the King is there, as ear and eye of the whole.

For the King alone there is, near the chief Battery, "on the Pfarrberg, namely, in the clump of trees there," a

small Tent, and a bundle of straw where he can lie down, if satisfied to do so. If all is safe, he will do so; but

perhaps even still he soon awakens again; and strolls about among his guardparties, or warms himself by

their fires. One evening, among the orders, is heard this item: "And remember, a lock of straw, will

you,that I may not have to sleep on the ground, as last night!" [Seyfarth, ii. 16 n.] Many anecdotes are

current to this day, about his pleasant homely ways and affabilities with the sentry people, and the rugged

hospitalities they would show him at their watchfires. "Good evening, children." "The same to thee, Fritz."

"What is that you are cooking?"and would try a spoonful of it, in such company; while the rough fellows

would forbid smoking, "Don't you know he dislikes it?" "No, smoke away!" the King would insist.

Mythical mainly, these stories; but the dialect of them true; and very strange to us. Like that of an Arab Sheik

among his tribesmen; like that of a man whose authority needs no keeping up, but is a Law of Nature to

himself and everybody. He permits a little bantering even; a rough joke against himself, if it spring sincerely

from the complexion of the fact. The poor men are terribly tired of this work: such bivouacking, packing,

unpacking; and continual waiting for the tug of battle, which never comes. Biscuits, meal are abundant

enough; but fleshmeat wearing low; above all, no right sleep to be had. Friedrich's own table, I should think,

is very sparingly beset ("A cup of chocolate is my dinner on marchingdays," wrote he once, this Season);

certainly his Lodging,damp ground, and the straw sometimes forgotten,is none of the best. And thus it

has to last, night after night and day after day. On September 8th, General Bulow went out for a little

butcher'smeat; did bring home "200 head of neat cattle [I fear, not very fat] and 300 sheep." [Tempelhof, v.

Loudon, all this while, is laboring, as man seldom did, to bring Butturlin to the striking place; who continues

flaccid, Loudon screwing and rescrewing, altogether in vain. Loudon does not deny the difficulty; but insists

on the possibility, the necessity: Councils of War are bid, remonstrances, encouragements. "We will lend you

a Corps," answers Butturlin; "but as to our Army cooperating,except in that faroff way, it is too

dangerous!" Meanwhile provisions are running low; the time presses. A formal Plan, presented by the ardent

Loudon ,Loudon himself to take the deadlier part,"Mark it, noble Russian gentlemen; and you to have

the easier!"surely that is loyal, and not in the old cat'spaw way? But in that, too, there is an offence.

Butturlin and the Russians grumble to themselves: "And you to take all the credit, as you did at Kunersdorf?

A mere adjunct, or auxiliary, we: and we are a Feldmarschall; and you, what is your rank and seniority?" In

short, they will not do it; and in the end coldly answer: "A Corps, if you like; but the whole Army, positively

no." Upon which Loudon goes home half mad; and has a colic for eightandforty hours. This was

September 2d; the final sour refusal;nearly heart breaking to Loudon. Provisions are run so low withal:

the Campaign season all but done; result, nothing: not even an attempt at a result.

No Prussian, from Friedrich downwards, had doubted but the attack would be: the grand upshot and fiery

consummation of these dark continual hardships and nocturnal watchings. Thrice over, on different nights,

the Prussians imagined Loudon to have drawn out, intending actual business; and thrice over to have drawn

in again, instead of once only, as was the fact, and then taken colic. [Tempelhof, v. 170.] Friedrich's own

notion, that "over dinner, glass in hand," the two Generals had, in the enthusiasm of such a moment, agreed to

do it, but on sober inspection found it too dubious, [ OEuvres de Frederic, v. 125.] appears to be ungrounded.

Whether they could in reality have stormed him, had they all been willing, is still a question; and must

continue one. Wednesday evening, 9th September, there was much movement noticeable in the Russian

camp; also among the Austrian, there are regiments, foot and horse, coming down hitherward . "Meaning to

try it then?" thought Friedrich, and got at once under arms. Suppositions were various; but about 10 at night,

the whole Russian Camp went up in flame; and, next morning, the Russians were not there.

Russian main Army clean gone; already got to Jauer, as we hear; and Beck with a Division to see them safe

across the Oder;only Czernichef and 20,000 being left, as a Corps of Loudon's. Who, with all Austrians,

are quiet in their Heights of Kunzendorf again. And thus, on the twentieth morning, September 10th, this

strange Business terminated. Shot of those batteries is drawn again; powder of those mines lifted out again:

no firing of your heavy Artillery at all, nor even of your light, after such elaborate charging and shoving of it

hither and thither for the last three weeks. The Prussians cease their bivouacking, nightly striking of tents; and

encamp henceforth in a merely human manner; their "Spanish Riders" (FRISIAN Horse,

CHEVAUXDEFRISE, others of us call them), their Stormpales and elaborate wooden Engineerings, they

gradually burn as fuel in the cold nights; finding Loudon absolutely quiescent, and that the thing is over, for

the present. One huge peril handsomely staved away, though so many others impend.

By way of accelerating Butturlin, Friedrich, next day, September 11th, despatched General Platen with some

8,000 (so I will guess them from Tempelhof's enumeration by battalions), to get round the flank of Butturlin,

and burn his Magazines. Platen, a valiant skilful person, did this business, as he was apt to do, in a shining

style; shot dexterously forward by the skirts of Butturlin; heard of a big WAGENBURG or Travelling

Magazine of his, at Gostyn over the Polish Frontier; in fact, his travelling breadbasket, arranged as

"Wagonfortress" in and round some Convent there, with trenches, brick walls, cannon and defence

considered strong enough for so important a necessary of the road. September 15th, Platen, before

cockcrow, burst out suddenly on this Wagonfortress, with its cannons, trenches, brick walls and defensive

Russians; stormed into it with extraordinary fury: "Fixed bayonets," ordered he at the main point of their

defence, "not a shot till they are tumbled out!"tumbled them out accordingly, into flight and ruin; took of

prisoners 1,845, seven cannon, and burnt the 5,000 provender wagons, which was the soul of the adventure;

and directly got upon the road again. [Tempelhof, v. 281293; HeldenGeschichte, vi. 643649.]

Detachments of him then fell on Posen, on Posen and other small Russian repositories in those

parts,haymagazines, biscuitstores soldiers' uniforms; distributed or burnt the same;completely

destroying the travelling haversack or general roadbag of Butturlin; a Butturlin that will have to hasten

Which done, Platen (not waiting the King's new orders, but anticipating them, to the King's great

contentment) marched instantly, with his best speed and skilfulest contrivance of routes and methods, not

back to the King, but onward towards Colberg, (which he knows, as readers shall anon, to be much in need

of him at present);and without injury, though begirt all the way by a hurricane of Cossacks and light

people doing their utmost upon him, arrived there September 25th; victoriously cutting in across the

Besieging Party: and will again be visible enough when we arrive there. Indignant Butturlin chased violently,

eager to punish Platen; but could get no hold: found Platen was clear off, to Pommern,on what errand

Butturlin knew well, if not so well what to do in consequence. "Reinforce our poor Besiegers there, and again

reinforce [to enormous amounts, 40,000 of them in the end]; get bread from them withal:and, before

long, flow bodily thitherward, for bread to ourselves and for their poor sake!" That, on the whole, was what

Friedrich stayed at Bunzelwitz above a fortnight after Butturlin. "Why did not Friedrich stay altogether, and

wait here?" said some, triumphantly soon after. That was not well possible. His Schweidnitz Magazine is

worn low; not above a month's provision now left for so many of us. The rate of sickness, too, gets heavier

and heavier in this Bunzelwitz Circuit. In fine, it is greatly desirable that Loudon, who has nothing but

Bohemia for outlook, should be got to start thither as soon as possible, and be quickened homeward.

And, in the mean while, may not we employ this fortnight of quiescence in noting certain other things of

interest to him and us which have occurred, or are occurring, in other parts of the Field of War? Of Henri in

Saxony we undertook to say nothing; and indeed hitherto,big Daun with his Lacys and Reichsfolk, lying so

quiescent, tethered by considerations (Daun continually detaching, watching, for support of his Loudon and

Russians and their thrice important operation, which has just had such a finish),there could almost

nothing be said. Nothing hitherto, or even henceforth, as it proves, except mutual vigilances, multifarious

bickerings, manoeuvrings, affairs of posts: sharp bits of cutting (Seidlitz, Green Kleist and other sharp people

there); which must not detain us in such speed. But there are two points, the BritannicFrench Campaign, and

Vellinghausen is a poor little moory Hamlet in Paderborn Country, near the south or left bank of the Lippe

River; lies to the north of Soest,some 15 miles to your lefthand there, as you go by rail from Aachen to

Paderborn;but nobody now has ever heard of it at Soest or elsewhere, famous as it once became a hundred

years ago. Ferdinand had taken a singular position there, in the early days of July, 1761. Here is brief Notice

of that Affair, and of some results, or adjuncts, still more important, which it had:

"This Year, Ferdinand's Campaign is more difficult than ever; Choiseul having made a quite spasmodic effort

towards Hanover, while negotiating for Peace. Two Armies, counting together 160,000 men, in great

completeness of equipment, Choiseul has got on foot, against Ferdinand's of 95,000. Had a fine dashing plan,

too; devised by himself (something of a Soldier he too, and full of what the messrooms call 'dash');not

so bad a Plan of the dashing kind, say judges. But it was marred sadly in one point: That Broglio, on issuing

from his Hessian Winterquarters, is not to be sole General; that Soubise, from the LowerRhine Country, is

to be CoGeneral;such the inexorable will of Pompadour. This clause of the business Ferdinand, at an

early stage, appears to have guessed or discerned might, for him, be the saving clause.

"Now, as formerly, Ferdinand's first grand business is to guard Lippstadt,guard it now from these two

Generals:and, singular to see, instead of opposing the junction of them, he has submitted cheerfully to let

them join. And in the course of a week or two after taking the field, is found to be on the western or outmost

flank of Soubise, crushing him up towards Broglio, not otherwise! And has, partly by accident, taken a

position at Vellinghausen which infinitely puzzles Broglio and Soubise, when they rush into junction at Soest

(July 6th)) and study the thing, with their own eyes, for eight whole days, in concert.' What continual

reconnoitring, galloping about of highplumed gentlemen together or apart; what MEMOIRing, mutual

"Ferdinand stands in moory difficult ground, length of him about eight miles, looking eastward; with his left

at Vellinghausen and the Lippe; centre of him is astride of the Ahse (centre partly, and right wing wholly, are

on the south side of Ahse), which is a branch of Lippe; and in front, he has various little Hamlets,

KirchDenkern [KIRCHDenkern, for there are three or four other Denkerns thereabouts], Scheidingen,

Wambeln and others; and his right wing is covered farther by a quaggy brook, which runs into the

abovesaid Ahse, and is a SUBbranch of Lippe. At most of these Villages Ferdinand has thrown up

something of earthworks: there are bogs, rough places, woods; all are turned to advantage. Ferdinand is in a

strongish, but yet a dangerous position; and will give difficulties, and does give endless dubieties, to these

high plumed gentlemen galloping about with their spyglasses for eight days. One possibility they pretty

soon discern in him: His left flank rests on Lippe, yes; but his right flank is in the air, has nothing to rest

on;here surely is some possibility for us? A strong Position, that of his; but if driven out of it by any

method, he has no retreat; is tumbled back into the ANGLE where Ahse and Lippe meet, and into the little

"Ferdinand, by the incessant reconnoitring and other symptoms, judges what is coming; concludes he will be

attacked in this posture of his; and on the whole, what critics now reckon very wise and very courageous of

him, determines to stand his chance in it. The consultations of Broglio and Soubise are a thing unique to look

upon; spread over volumes of Official Record, and about a volume and a half even of BOURCET, where it is

still almost amusing to read; [ Memoires Historiques (that is to say, for most part, Selection of Official

Papers) sur la Guerre que les Francais ont soutenue en Allemagne depuis 1757 jusqu'au 1762: par M. de

Bourcet, LieutenantGeneral des Armees du Roi (3 tomes, Paris, 1792);worthily done; but occupied,

twothirds of it, with this Vellinghausen and the paltry "Campaign of 1761"!] and ending in helpless

downbreak on both parts. Of strategic faculty nobody supposes they had much, and nearly all of it is in

Broglio; Soubise being strong in Courtfavor only. Exquisitely polite they both strive to be; and under the

exquisite politeness, what infirmities of temper, splenetic suspicions, and in fact mutual hatred lay hidden,

could never be accurately known. 'Attack him, Sunday next; on the 13th!' so, at the long last, both of them

had said. And then, on more reflection, Broglio afterwards: 'Or not till the 15th, M. le Prince; till I reconnoitre

yet again, and drive in his outposts?' 'M. le Marechal's will is always mine: Tuesday, 15th, reconnoitre him,

drive him in; be it so, then!' answers Soubise, with extreme politeness,but thinking in his own mind (or

thought to be thinking), 'Wants to do it himself, or to get the credit of doing it, as in former cases; and bring

me into disgrace!' Not quite an insane notion either, on Soubise's part, say some who have looked into the

BroglioSoubise Controversy; which far be it from any of us, at this or at any time, to do. Here are the

"TUESDAY, JULY 15th, 1761, Broglio reconnoitred with intensity all day, drove in all Ferdinand's outposts;

and about six in the evening, seeing hope of surprise, or spurred by some notion of doing the feat by himself,

suddenly burst into onslaught on Ferdinand's Position: 'Vellinghausen yonder, and the woody strengths

about,could not we get hold of that; it would be so convenient tomorrow morning!' Granby and the

English are in camp about Vellinghausen; and are taken quite on the sudden: but they drew out rapidly, in a

state of bottled indignation, and fought, all of them,Pembroke's Brigade of Horse, Cavendish's of Foot,

BERGSCHOTTEN, Maxwell's Brigade and the others, in a highly satisfactory way,'MIT

UNBESCHREIBLICHER TAPFERKEIT,' says Mauvillon on this occasion again. Broglio truly has burst out

into enormous cannonade, musketade and cavalrywork, in this part; and struggles at it, almost four

hours,a furious, and especially a very noisy business, charging, recharging through the woods there;but,

met in this manner, finds he can make nothing of it; and about 10 at night, leaves off till a new morning.

"Next morning, about 4, Broglio, having diligently warned Soubise overnight, recommenced; again very

fiercely, and with loud cannonading; but with result worse than before. Ferdinand overnight, while Broglio

was warning Soubise, had considerably strengthened his left wing here,by detachments from the right or

AntiSoubise wing; judging, with good foresight, how Soubise would act. And accordingly, while poor

Broglio kept storming forward with his best ability, and got always hurled back again, Soubise took matters

easy; 'had understood the hour of attack to be' soandso, 'had understood' this and that; and on the whole,

except summoning or threatening, in the most languid way, one outlying redoubt ('redoubt of Scheidingen')

on Ferdinand's right wing, did nothing, or next to nothing, for behoof of his Broglio. Who, hour after hour,

finds himself ever worse bested; those Granby people proving 'indescribable' once more [their Wutgenau

also with his Hanoverians NOT being absent, as they rather were last night];and about 10 in the morning

gives up the bad job; and sets about retiring. If retiring be now permissible; which it is not altogether.

Ferdinand, watching intently through his glass the now silent Broglio, discerns 'Some confusion in the

Marechal yonder!'and orders a general charge of the left wing upon Broglio; which considerably

quickened his retreat; and broke it into flight, and distressful wreck and capture, in some parts, Regiment

ROUGE, for one item, falling wholly, men, cannon, flags and furniture, to that Maxwell and his Brigade.

"Ferdinand lost, by the indistinct accounts, 'from 1,500 to 2,000:' Broglio's loss was 'above 5,000; 2,000 of

them prisoners.' Soubise, for his share, 'had of killed 24,'O you laggard of a Soubise! [Mauvillon, ii.

171189; Tempelhof, v. 207221; Bourcet, ii. 75 et seq. In HeldenGeschichte (vi. 770782792) the

French Account, and the English (or Allied), with LISTS, and the like. Slight LETTER from Sir Robert

Murray Keith to his Excellency Papa, now at Petersburg, "Excellency first," as we used to define him, stands

in the miserably edited Memoirs and Correspondence (London, 1849), i. 104105; and may tempt you to a

reading; but alters nothing, adds little or nothing. Sir R. fights here as a Colonel of Highlanders, but

afterwards became "Excellency second" of his name.] And it is a Battle lost to Choiseul's grand Pair of

Armies; a Campaign checked in mid volley; and nothing but recriminations, courtsmartial, shrieky

jargonings,and plain incompatibility between the two Marechaux de France; so that they had to part

company, and go each his own road henceforth. Choiseul remonstrates with them, urges, eucourages; writes

the 'admirablest Despatches;' to no purpose. 'How ridiculous and humiliating would it be for us, if, with Two

Armies of such strength, we accomplished nothing, and the whole Campaign were lost!' writes he once to

"Which was in fact the result arrived at; the two Generals parting company for this Campaign (and indeed for

all others); and each, in his own way, proving futile. Soubise, with some 30,000, went gasconading about, in

the Westphalian, or extreme western parts; taking Embden (from two Companies of Chelsea Pensioners; to

whom he broke his word, poor old souls;to whom, and much more to the Populations there [LETTER

FROM A FRENCH PROTESTANT GENTLEMAN AT GRONINGEN; followed by confirmatory LETTER

FROM (copied into Gentleman's Magazine for 1761), give special details of the altogether ULTRASoltikof

atrocities perpetrated by Soubise's people (doubtless against his will) on the recalcitrant or disaffected

Peasants, on the Embden, not taking Bremen; and in fact doing nothing, except keep the Gazetteers in vain

noise: a Soubise not in force, by himself, to shake Ferdinand; and who, it is remarked, now and formerly,

always prefers to be at a good distance from that Gentleman. Broglio, on the other hand, keeps violently

pulsing out, round Ferdinand's flanks; taking Wolfenbuttel (Broglio's for two days), besieging Brunswick (for

one day);and, in short, leaving, he too, the matter as he had found it. A man of difficult, litigious temper, I

should judge; but clearly has something of generalship: 'does understand tactic, if strategy NOT,' said

everybody; 'while Soubise, in both capacities, is plain zero!' [Excellency Stanley (see INFRA) to Pitt, "Paris,

30th July, 1761:" in THACKERAY, ii. 561562.] The end, however, was: next Winter, Broglio got

dismissed, in favor of Soubise;rest from shrieky jargon having its value to some of us; and 'hold of

In this Battle a fine young Prince of Brunswick got killed; Erbprinz's second Brother;leading on a

Regiment of BERGSCHOTTEN, say the accounts. [ "The Life of Prince Albert Henry [had lived only 19

years, poor youth, not much of a "Life"!but the account of his Education is worth reading, from a

respectable Eyewitness] of BrunswickLuneburg, Brother to the Hereditary Prince; who so eminently at

Fellinghausen (London, Printed for 1763). Written originally in German by the Rev. Mr. Hierusalem" (Father

of the "Young Jerusalem" who killed himself afterwards, and became, in a sense, Goethe's WERTHER and

SORROWS). Price, probably, Twopence).] BergSchotten, and English generally, Pembroke's Horse,

Cavendish's Brigade,we have mentioned their behavior; and how Maxwell's Brigade took one whole

regiment prisoners, in that final charge on Broglio. "What a glorious set of fellows!" said the English people

over their beer at home. Beer let us fancy it; at the sign of THE MARQUIS OF GRANBY, which is now

everywhere prevalent and splendent;the beer, we will hope, good. And as this is a thing still said, both over

beer and higher liquors, and perhaps is liable to be too much insisted on, I will give, from a caudid

Bystander, who knows the matter well, what probably is a more solid and circumstantially correct opinion.

Speaking of Ferdinand's skill of management, and of how very composite a kind his Army was, Major

"The first in rank," of Ferdinand's Force, "were the English; about a fourth part of the whole Army. Braver

troops, when on the field of battle and under arms against the enemy, you will nowhere find in the world: that

is a truth;and with that the sum of their military merits ends. In the first place, their Infantry consists of

such an unselected handoverhead miscellany of people, that it is highly difficult to preserve among them

even a shadow of good discipline,"of MANNSZUCHT, in regard to plunder, drinking and the like; does

not mean KRIEGSZUCHT, or drill. "Their Cavalry indeed is not so constituted; but a foolish love for their

horses makes them astonishingly plunderous of forage; and thus they exhaust a district far faster in that

"Officers' Commissions among them are all had by purchase: from which it follows that their Officers do not

trouble their heads about the service; and understand of it, very VERY few excepted, absolutely nothing

whatever [what a charming set of "Officers"!]and this goes from the Ensign up to the General. Their

homecustoms incline them to the indulgences of life; and, nearly without exception, they all expect to have

ample and comfortable means of sleep. [Hear, hear!] This leads them often into military negligences, which

would sound incredible, were they narrated to a soldier. To all this is added a quiet natural arrogance

(UEBERMUTH),"very quiet, mostly unconscious, and as if inborn and coming by discernment of mere

facts,"which tempts them to despise the enemy as well as the danger; and as they very seldom think of

making any surprisal themselves, they generally take it for granted that the enemy will as little.

"This arrogance, however, had furthermore a very bad consequence for their relation to the rest of the Army.

It is well known how much these people despise all Foreigners. This of itself renders their cooperating with

Troops of other Nations very difficult. But in this case there was the circumstance that, as the Army was in

English pay, they felt a strong tendency to regard their fellow soldiers and copartners as a sort of

subordinate warvalets, who must be ready to put up with anything:which was far indeed from being the

opinion of the others concerned! The others had not the smallest notion of consenting to any kind of inferior

treatment or consideration in respect of them. To the Hanoverians especially, from known political feelings,

they were at heart, for most part, specially indisposed; and this mode of thinking was capable of leading to

very dangerous outbreaks. The Hanoverians, a dull steady people, brave as need be, but too slow for anything

but foot service, considered silently this War to be their War, and that all the rest, English as well, were here

"Think what difficulties Ferdinand's were, and what his merit in quietly subduing them; while to the cursory

observer they were invisible, and nobody noticed them but himself!" [Mauvillon, ii. 270272.]

Yes, doubtless. He needed to know his kinds of men; to regard intensely the chemic affinities and natural

properties, to keep his phosphorescents his nitres and charcoals well apart; to get out of these English what

they were capable of giving him, namely, heavy strokes,and never ask them for what they had not: them or

the others; but treat each according to his kind. Just, candid, consummately polite: an excellent manager of

men, as well as of warmovements, though Voltaire found him shockingly defective in ESPRIT. The

English, I think, he generally quartered by themselves; employed them oftenest under the Hereditary

Prince,a man of swift execution and prone to strokes like themselves. "Oftenest under the Erbprinz," says

Mauvillon: "till, after the Fight of Kloster Kampen, it began to be noticed that there was a change in that

respect; and the messrooms whispered, 'By accident or not?'" which shall remain mysterious to me. In

Battle after Battle he got the most unexceptionable sabring and charging from Lord Granby and the difficult

English element; and never was the least discord heard in his Camp;nor could even Sackville at Minden

But enough of English soldiering, and battling with the French. For about two months prior to this of

Vellinghausen, and for more than two months after, there is going on, by special Envoys between Pitt and

Choiseul, a lively PeaceNegotiation, which is of more concernment to us than any Battle. "Congress at

Augsburg" split upon formalities, preliminaries, and never even tried to meet: but France and England are

actually busy. Each Country has sent its Envoy: the Sieur de Bussy, a tricky gentleman, known here of old, is

Choiseul's, whom Pitt is on his guard against; "Mr. Hans Stanley," a lively, clearsighted person, of whom I

could never hear elsewhere, is Pitt's at Paris: and it is in that City between Choiseul and Stanley, with Pitt

warily and loftily presiding in the distance, that the main stress of the Negotiation lies. Pitt is lofty, haughty,

but very fine and noble; no King or Kaiser could be more. Sincere, severe, though most softshining; high,

earnest, steady, like the stars. Artful Choiseul, again, flashes out in a cheerily exuberant way; and Stanley's

Despatches about Choiseul ("CE FOU PLEIN D'ESPRIT," as Friedrich once christens him), about Choiseul

and the France then round him, and the effects of Vellinghausen in society and the like,are the liveliest

reading one almost anywhere meets with in that kind. [In THACKERAY, i. 505579, and especially ii.

520626, is the StanleyandPitt Correspondence: Stanley went "23d May;" returned (got his passports for

returning) "September 20th."] Choiseul frankly admits that he has come to the worst: ready for concessions,

but the question is, What? Canada is gone, for instance; of Canada you will allow us nothing: but our poor

Fisherpeople, toiling in the Newfoundland waters, cannot they have a rock to dry their fish on; "Isle of

Miquelon, or the like?" "Not the breadth of a blanket,"that is Pitt's private expression, I believe; and for

certain, that, in polite official language, is his inexorable determination. "You shall go home out of those

Countries, Messieurs; America is to be English or YANkee, not FRANGcee: that has turned out to be the

So that Choiseul soon satisfies himself it will be a hard bargain, this with Pitt; and turns the more assiduously

to the Majesty of Spain (Baby Carlos, our old friend, who has sore grudges of his own against the English,

standing grievance of Campeachy Logwood, of bitter Naples reminiscences, and enough else), turns to Baby

Carlos, time after time, with his pathetic "See, your Most Catholic Majesty!" And by rapid degrees induces

Most Catholic Majesty to go wholly into the adventure with Most Christian Ditto;and to say, at length, or

to let Choiseul say for him, by way of cautious firststep (15th July, a date worth remembering, if the reader

please): "Might not Most Catholic Majesty be allowed perhaps to mediate a little in this Business?" "Most

Catholic Majesty!" answers Pitt, with a flash as if from the empyrean: "Who sent for Most Catholic

Majesty?"and the matter catches fire, totally explodes, and Spain too declares War; in what way is

Details are not permitted us. The Catastrophe we shall give afterwards, and can here say only: FIRST, That

old Earl Marischal, Friedrich's Spanish Envoy, is a good deal in England, coming and going, at this

time,on that interesting business of the Kintore Inheritance, doubtless,and has been beautifully treated.

Been pardoned, disattainted, permitted to inherit,by the King on the instant, by the Parliament so soon as

possible; [King's Patent is of "30th April, 1760 [DATED 29th May, 1759], Act of Parliament to follow

shortly;" "August 16th, 1760, Act having passed, is Marischal's public Presentation to his Majesty (late

Majesty);" Old GAZETTES in Gentleman's Magazine (for 1760), xxx. 201, 392.]and is of a naturally

grateful turn. SECONDLY, That in the profoundest secrecy, penetrable only to eyes near at hand and that see

in the dark, a celebrated Bourbon Family Compact was signed (August 15th, 1761, ten days before the

digging at Bunzelwitz began), of which the first news to the Olympian man (conveyed by Marischal, as is

thought) was likelike news of dead Pythons pretending to revive upon him. And THIRDLY, That,

postponing the Catastrophe, and recommending the above two dates, 15th JULY, 15th AUGUST, to careful

Readers had, some while ago, a flying Note, which we promised to take up again; about Tottleben's

procedures, and a Third Siege of Colberg coming. Siege, we have chanced to see, there accordingly is, and a

Platen gone to help against it. Siege, after infinite delays and haggles, has at length come,uncommonly

vivid during the final days of Bunzelwitz;and is, and has been, and continues to be, much in the King's

thoughts. Probably a matter of more concernment to him, before, during and after Bunzelwitz (though the Pitt

Catastrophe, going on simultaneously, is still more important, if he knew it), than anything else befalling in

Truce between Werner and Tottleben expired May 12th; but for five weeks more nothing practical followed;

except diligent reinforcing, revictualling and extraordinary fortifying of Colberg and its environs, on the

Prussian part,Eugen of Wurtemberg, direct from Restock and his AntiSwede business, Eugen 12,000

strong, with a Werner and other such among them, taking head charge outside the walls; old Heyde again as

Commandant within: while on the Russian part, under General Romanzow, there is a most tortoiselike

advance,except that the tortoise carries all his resources with him, and Romanzow's, multifarious and

enormous, are scattered over seas and lands, and need endless waiting for, in the intervals of crawling.

This is the Romanzow who failed at Colherg once already (on the heel of Zorndorf in 1758, if readers

recollect); and is the more bound to be successful now. From sea and from land, for five weeks, there is

rumor of a Romanzow in overwhelming force, and with intentions very furious upon Colberg,upon the

outposts, under Werner, as first point. Five weeks went, before anything of Romanzow was visible even to

Werner (22d June, at Coslin, forty miles to eastward); after which his advance (such waiting for the ships, for

the artilleries, the this and the that) was slower than ever; and for about eight weeks more, he haggles along

through Coslin, through Corlin, Belgard again, flowing slowly forward upon Werner's outposts, like a

summer glacier with its rubbishes; or like a slow lavatide,a great deal of smoke on each side of him

(owing to the Cossacks), as usual. Romanzow's progress is of the slowest; and it is not till August 19th that he

practically gets possession of Corlin, Belgard and those outposts on the Persante River, and comes within

sight of Colberg and his problem. By which time, he finds Eugen of Wurtemberg encamped and intrenched

still ahead of him, still nearer Colberg, and likely to give him what they call "DE LA TABLATURE," or

"It was on AUGUST 19th [very eve of Friedrich's going into Bunzelwitz] that Romanzow,Werner, for the

sake of those poor Towns he holds, generally retiring without bombardment or utter conflagration,had got

hold of Corlin and of the River Persante [with "Quetzin and Degow," if anybody knew them, as his main

posts there]: and was actually now within sight of Colberg,only 7 or 8 miles west of him, and a river more

or less in his way:when, singular to see, Eugen of Wurtemberg has rooted himself into the ground farther

inward, environing Colberg with a fortified Camp as with a second wall; and it will be a difficult problem

"But Sea Armaments, SwedishRussian, with endless siegematerial and redhot balls, are finally at hand;

and this pitiful Colberg must be done, were it only by falling flat, on it, and smothering it by weight of

numbers and of redhot iron. The day before yesterday, August 17th, after such rumoring and such

manoeuvring as there has been, six Russian shipsofwar showed themselves in Colberg Roads, and three of

them tried some shooting on Heyde's workpeople, busy at a redoubt on the beach; but hit nothing, and went

away till Romanzow himself should come. Romanzow come, there is utmost despatch; and within the eight

days following, the Russian ships, and then the Swedish as well, have all got to their moorings,12 sail of

the line, with 42 more of the frigate and gunboat kind, 54 ships in all;and from August 24th, especially

from August 28th, bombardment to the very uttermost is going on. [Tempelhof, v. 311.] Bombardment by

every method, from sea and from land, continues diligent for the next fortnight,with little or no result; so

"SEPTEMBER 4th. The SwedishRussian gunboats have been much shot down by Heyde's batteries on the

beach; no success had, owing to Heyde and Eugen: paltry little Colberg as impossible as Bunzelwitz, it

seems? 'Double our diligence, therefore!' That is Romanzow's and everybody's sentiment here. Romanzow

comes closer in, September 4th; besieges in form, since not Colberg, Eugen's CAMP, or brazen wall of

Colberg; and there rises in and round this poor little Colberg (a 2,000 balls daily, redhot and other) such a

"SEPTEMBER 12th. News yesterday of reinforcement, men and provender, coming from Stettin; is to be at

Treptow on the 13th. Werner, night of the 11th, stealthily sets out to meet it, IT in the first place; then, joined

with it, to take by rearward a certain inconvenient battery, which Romanzow is building to westward of us,

out that way; to demolish said battery, and be generally distressful to the rear of Romanzow. At Treptow,

after his difficult night's march, Werner is resting, secure now of the adventure;too contemptuous of his

slow Russians, as appeared! Who, for once, surprise HIM; and, at and round Treptow, next morning, Werner

finds himself suddenly in a most awkward predicament. Werner, one of the rapidest and stormiest of skilful

men, plunged valiantly into the affair; would still have managed it, they say, had not, in some sudden

swoop,charge, or something of critical or vital nature,rapid Werner's horse got shot, and fallen with

him; whereby not only the charge failed, but Werner himself was taken prisoner. A loss of very great

importance, and grievous to everybody: though, I believe, the reinforcement and supply, for this time, got

mostly through, and the dangerous battery was got demolished by other means. [Seyfarth, Beylagen, iii. 238;

Tempelhof, v. 314.] This is Romanzow's first item of success, this of getting such a Werner snatched out of

the game [and sent to Petersburg instead as we shall hear]; and other items fell to Romanzow thenceforth by

"In the way of storming, battering or otherwise capturing Eugen's Camp, not to speak of Heyde's town,

Romanzow finds, on trial after trial, that he can do as good as nothing; and his unwieldy sea comrades

(equinoctial gales coming on them, too) are equally worthless. September 19th [a week after this of Werner,

tenth day after Bunzelwitz had ended], Romanzow made his fiercest attempt that way; fiercest and last:

furious extremely, from 2 in the morning onwards; had for some time hold of the important 'Green Redoubt;'

but was still more furiously battered and bayoneted out again, with the loss of above 3,000 men; and tried

that no farther. Impossible by that method. But he can stand between the EugenHeyde people and supplies;

and by obstinacy hunger them out: this, added to the fruitless bombardment, is now his more or less fruitful

"In the end of September, the effects of Bunzelwitz are felt: Platen, after burning the Butturlin Magazine at

Gostyn, has hastened hither; in what style we know. Blaten arrives 25th September; cuts his way through

Romanzow into Eugen's Camp, raises Eugen to about 15,000; [Tempelhof, v. 350.] renders Eugen, not to

speak of Heyde, more impossible than ever. Butturlin did truly send reinforcements, a 10,000, a 12,000, 'As

many as you like, my Romanzow!' And, in the beginning of October, came rolling thitherward bodily;

hoping, they say, to make a Maxen of it upon those Eugens and Platens: but after a fortnight's survey of them,

found there was not the least feasibility;and that he himself must go home, on the score of hunger. Which

he did, November 2d; leaving Romanzow reinforced at discretion [40,000, but with him too provisions are

fallen low], and the advice, 'Cut off their supplies: time and famine are our sole chances here!' Butturlin's new

Russians, endless thousands of them, under Fermor and others, infesting the roads from Stettin, are a great

comfort to Romanzow. Nor could any Eugenwith his Platens, Thaddens, and utmost expenditure of skill

and of valor and endurance, which are still memorable in soldierannals, [ Tagebuch der Unternehmungen

des Platenschen Corps vom September bis November 1761 (Seyfarth, Beylagen, iii. 3276). Bericht von der

Unternehmungen des Thaddenschen Corps vom Jenner bis zum December 1761 (ibid. 77147).]suffice to

convey provisions through that disastrous Wilderness of distances and difficulties.

"From Stettin, which lies southwest, through Treptow Gollnow and other wild little Prussian Towns is about

100 miles; from Landsberg south, 150: Friedrich himself is wellnigh 300 miles away; in Stettin alone is

succor, could we hold the intervening Country. But it is overrun with Russians, more and ever more. A

Country of swamps and moors, winter darkness stealing over it,illuminated by such a volcano as we see: a

very gloomy waste scene; and traits of stubborn human valor and military virtue plentiful in it with utter

hardship as a constant quantity; details not permissible here only the main features and epochs, if they could

"The King is greatly interested for Colberg; sends orders to collect from every quarter supplies at Stettin, and

strain every nerve for the relief of that important little Haven. Which is done by the diligent Bevern, the

collecting part; could only the conveying be accomplished. But endless Russians are afield, Fermor with a

15,000 of them waylaying; the conveyance is the difficulty." [ Bericht von den Unternehmungen der

Wurtembergischen Corps in Pommern, vom May 1761 bis December 1761 (Seyfarth, Beylagen, iii.

But now we must return to Bunzelwitz, and September 25th, in Head quarters there.

It was September 25th, more properly 26th, [Tempelhof, v. 327.] when Friedrich quitted Bunzelwitz; we

heard on what errand. Early that morning he marches with all his goods, first to Pilzen (that fine post on the

Chapter VIII. LOUDON POUNCES UPON SCHWEIDNITZ ONE NIGHT (LAST OF SEPTEMBER, 1761). 1460

east side of Schweidnitz); and from that, straightway,southwestward, two marches farther,to Neisse

neighborhood (GrossNossen the name of the place); Loudon making little dispute or none. In Neisse are

abundant Magazines: living upon these, Friedrich intends to alarm Loudon's rearward country, and draw him

towards Bohemia. As must have gradually followed; and would at once,had Loudon been given to alarms,

which he was not. Loudon, very privately, has quite different game afield. Loudon merely detaches this and

the other small Corps to look after Friedrich's operations, which probably he believes to be only a

Friedrich, pausing at GrossNossen, and perhaps a little surprised to find no Loudon meddling with him,

pushes out, first one party and then another,Dalwig, Bulow, towards Landshut HillCountry, to threaten

Loudon's Bohemian roads;who, singular to say, do not hear the least word of Loudon thereabouts. A

Loudon strangely indifferent to this new Enterprise of ours. On the third day of GrossNossen (Friday,

October 2d), Friedrich detaches General Lentulus to rearward, or the way we came, for news of Loudon.

Rearward too, Lentulus sees nothing whatever of Loudon: but, from the rumor of the country, and from two

Prussian garrisonsoldiers, whom he found wandering about,he hears, with horror and amazement, That

Loudon, by a sudden pantherspring, the night before last, has got hold of Schweidnitz: now his wholly,

since 5 A.M. of yesterday; and a strong Austrian garrison in it by this time! That was the news Lentulus

Truly, a surprising enterprise this of Loudon's; and is allowed by everybody to have been admirably

managed. Loudon has had it in his head for some time;ever since that colic of fortyeight hours, I should

guess; upon the wrecks of which it might well rise as a new daystar. He kept it strictly in his own head;

nobody but Daun and the Kaiser had hint of it, both of whom assented, and agreed to keep silence.

"On Friedrich's removal towards Neisse and threatening of Bohemia," says my Note on this subject,

"Loudon's time had come. Friedrich had disappeared to southwestward, Saturday, September 26th: 'Gone to

Pilzen,' reported Loudon's scouts; 'rests there over Sunday. Gone to Sigeroth, 28th; gone to GrossNossen,

Tuesday, September 29th.' [Tempelhof, v. 330.] That will do, thinks Loudon; who has sat immovable at

"Draws out, about 10 A.M. of Wednesday, all round Schweidnitz at some miles distance, a ring, or complete

girdle, of CroatCossack people; blocking up every path and road: 'Nobody to pass, this day, towards

Schweidnitz, much less into it, on any pretext.' That is the duty of the Croat people. To another active Officer

he intrusts the task of collecting from the neighboring Villages (outside the Croat girdle) as many ladders,

planks and the like, as will be requisite; which also is punctually done. For the Attack itself, which is to be

Fourfold, our picked Officers are chosen, with the 20 best Battalions in the Army: Czernichef is apprised;

who warmly assents, and offers every help:'800 of your Grenadiers,' answers Loudon; 'no more needed.'

Loudon's arrangements for management of the ladders, for punctuality about the routes, the times, the

simultaneity, are those of a perfect artist; no Friedrich could have done better.

"About 4 in the afternoon, all the Captains and Battalions, with their ladders and furnitures, everybody with

Instruction very pointed and complete, are assembled at Kunzendorf: Loudon addresses the Troops in a few

fiery words; assures himself of victory by them; promises them 10,060 pounds in lieu of plunder, which he

strictly prohibits. Officers had better make themselves acquainted with the Four Routes they are to take in the

dark: proper also to set all your watches by the chief General's, that there be no mistake as to time. [In

TEMPELHOF (v. 332349) and ARCHENHOLTZ (ii. 272280) all these details.] At 9, all being now dark,

and the Croat girdle having gathered itself closer round the place since nightfall, the Four Divisions march to

their respective starting places; will wait there, silent; and about 2 in the morning, each at its appointed

minute, step forward on their business. With fixed bayonets all of them; no musketry permitted till the works

are won. Loudon will wait at the Village of Schonbrunn [not WARKOTSCH'S Schonbrunn, of which by and

by, and which also is not far [See ARCHENHOLTZ, ii. 287; and correct his mistake of the two places.]] at

Chapter VIII. LOUDON POUNCES UPON SCHWEIDNITZ ONE NIGHT (LAST OF SEPTEMBER, 1761). 1461

Schonbrunn, within short distance; give Loudon notice when you are within 600 yards;there shall, if

desirable, be reinforcements, farther orders. Loudon knows Schweidnitz like his own bedroom. He was

personally there, in Leuthen time, improving the Works. By nocturnal Croat parties, in the latter part of

Bunzelwitz time; and since then, by deserters and otherwise,he knows the condition of the Garrison, of the

Commandant, and of every essential point. Has calculated that the Garrison is hardly third part of what it

ought to be,3,800 in whole, and many of them loose deserter fellows; special artillerymen, instead of

about 400, only 191;most important of all, that Commandant Zastrow is no wizard in his trade; and, on the

"Zastrow has been getting married lately; and has many things to think of, besides Schweidnitz. Some

accounts say this was his weddingnight,which is not true, but only that he had meant to give a Ball this

last night of September; and perhaps did give it, dancing over BEFORE 2, let us hope! Something of a

jolterhead seemingly, though solid and honest. I observe he is a kind of butt, or laughingstock, of

Friedrich's, and has yielded some gleams of momentary fun, he and this marriage of his, between Prince

Henri and the King, in the tragic gloom all round. [Schoning, ii. SOEPIUS.] Nothing so surprises me in

Friedrich as his habitual inattention to the state of his Garrisons. He has the best of Commandants and also

the worst: Tauentzien in Breslau, Heyde in Colberg, unsurpassable in the world; in Glatz a D'O, in

Schweidnitz a Zastrow, both of whom cost him dear. Opposition sneers secretly, 'It is as they happen to have

come to hand.' Which has not much truth, though some. Tauentzien he chose; D'O was Fouquet's choice, not

his; Zastrow he did choose; Heyde he had by accident; of Heyde he had never heard till the defence of

Colberg began to be a world's wonder. And in regard to his Garrisons, it is indisputable they were often left

palpably defective in quantity and quality; and, more than once, fatally gave way at the wrong moment. We

can only say that Friedrich was bitterly in want of men for the field; that 'a GarrisonRegiment' was always

reckoned an inferior article; and that Friedrich, in the press of his straits, had often had to say: 'Well, these

[plainly Helots, not Spartans], these will have to do!' For which he severely suffered: and perhaps

"Zastrow, in spite of Loudon's precautionary Girdle of Croats, and the cares of a coming Ball, had got

sufficient inkling of something being in the wind. And was much on the Walls all day, he and his Officers;

scanning with their glasses and their guesses the surrounding phenomena, to little purpose. At night he sent

out patrols; kept sputtering with musketry and an occasional cannon into the vacant darkness ('We are alert,

you see, Herr Loudon!'). In a word, took what measures he could, poor man;very stupid measures, thinks

Tempelhof, and almost worse than none, especially this of sputtering with musketry;and hoped always

there would be no Attack, or none to speak of. Till, in fine, between 2 and 3 in the morning, his patrols gallop

in, 'Austrians on march!' and Zastrow, throwing out a rocket or two, descries in momentary illumination that

"His defence (four of the Five several Forts attacked at once) was of a confused character; but better than

could have been expected. Loudon's Columns came on with extraordinary vigor and condensed impetuosity;

stormed the Outworks everywhere, and almost at once got into the shelter of the Coveredway: but on the

Main Wall, or in the scaling part of their business, were repulsed, in some places twice or thrice; and had a

murderous struggle, of very chaotic nature, in the dark element. No picture of it in the least possible or

needful here. In one place, a PowderMagazine blew up with about 400 of them,blown (said rumor, with

no certainty) by an indignant Prussian artilleryman to whom they had refused quarter: in another place, the

800 Russian Grenadiers came unexpectedly upon a chasm or bridgeless interstice between two ramparts; and

had to halt suddenly,till (says rumor again, with still less certainty) their Officers insisting with the

rearward part, 'Forward, forward!' enough of front men were tumbled in to make a roadway! This was the

story current; [Archenholtz, ii. 275.] greatly exaggerated, I have no doubt. What we know is, That these

Russians did scramble through, punctually perform their part of the work;and furthermore, that, having got

upon the TownWall, which was finis to everything, they punctually sat down there; and, reflectively leaning

on their muskets, witnessed with the gravity and dignity of antique sages, superior to money or money's

Chapter VIII. LOUDON POUNCES UPON SCHWEIDNITZ ONE NIGHT (LAST OF SEPTEMBER, 1761). 1462

"For, in fine, between 5 and 6, that is in about three hours and a half, Loudon was everywhere victorious;

Zastrow, Schweidnitz Fortress, and all that it held, were Loudon's at discretion; Loudon's one care now was

to stop the pillage of the poor Townsfolk, as the most pressing thing. Which was not done without difficulty,

nor completely till after hours of exertion by cavalry regiments sent in. The captors had fought valiantly; but

it was whispered there had been a preliminary of brandy in them; certainly, except those poor Russians,

The capture of Schweidnitz cost Loudon about 1,400 men; he found in Schweidnitz, besides the Garrison all

prisoners or killed, some 240 pieces of artillery,"211 heavy guns, 135 handmortars," say the Austrian

Accounts, "with stores and munitions" in such quantities; "89,760 musketcartridges, 1,300,000 flints," [In

Helden Geschichte, (vi. 651665) the Austrian Account, with LISTS for two items:and all this was a

trifle compared to the shock it has brought on Friedrich's Silesian affairs. For, in present circumstances, it

amounts to the actual conquest of a large portion of Silesia; and, for the first time, to a real prospect of

finishing the remainder next Year. It is judged to have been the hardest stroke Friedrich had in the course of

this War. "Our strenuous Campaign on a sudden rendered wind, and of no worth! The Enemy to winter in

Silesia, after all; Silesia to go inevitably,and life along with it!" What Friedrich's black meditations were,

"In the following weeks [not close following, but poor Kuster does not date], the King fell ill of gout, saw

almost nobody, never came out; and, it was whispered, the inflexible heart of him was at last breaking; that is

to say, the very axis of this Prussian world giving way. And for certain, there never was in his camp and over

his dominions such a gloom as in this October, 1761; till at length he appeared on horseback again, with a

cheerful face; and everybody thought to himself, 'Ha, the world will still roll, then!'" [Kuster,

LebensRettungen Friedrichs des Zweyten (Berlin, 1797), p. 59 It is the same innocent reliable Kuster whom

This is what Loudon had done, without any Russians, except Russians to give him eightandforty hours

colic, and put him on his own shifts. And the way in which the Kriegshofrath, and her Imperial Majesty the

Kaiserinn, received it, is perhaps still worth a word. The Kaiser, who had alone known of Loudon's scheme,

and for good reason (absolute secrecy being the very soul of it) had whispered nothing of it farther to any

mortal, was naturally overjoyed. But the Olympian brow of Maria Theresa, when the Kaiser went radiant to

her with this news, did not radiate in response; but gloomed indignantly: "No order from Kriegshofrath, or

me!" Indignant Kriegshofrath called it a CROATENSTREICH (Croat'strick); and Loudon, like Prince

Eugen long since, was with difficulty excused this act of disobedience. Great is Authority; and ought to be

divinely rigorous, if (as by no means always happens) it is otherwise of divine quality!

Friedrich's treatment of Zastrow was in strong contrast of style. Here is his Letter to that unlucky Gentleman,

who is himself clear that he deserves no blame: "My dear MajorGeneral von Zastrow, The misfortune

that has befallen me is very grievous; but what consoles me in it is, to see by your Letter that you have

behaved like a brave Officer, and that neither you nor the Garrison have brought disgrace or reproach on

yourselves. I am your well affectioned King,FRIEDRICH." And in Autograph this Postscript: "You may,

in this occurrence, say what Francis I., after the Battle of Pavia, wrote to his Mother: 'All is lost except

honor.' As I do not yet completely understand the affair, I forbear to judge of it; for it is altogether

extraordinary.F." [ MilitairLexikon, iv. 305, 306 (Letter undated there; date probably, "GrossNossen,

And never meddled farther with Zastrow; only left him well alone for the future. "Grant me a CourtMartial,

then!" said Zastrow, finding himself fallen so neglected, after the Peace. "No use," answered Friedrich: "I

impute nothing of crime to you; but after such a mishap, it would be dangerous to trust you with any post or

command;"and in 1766, granted him, on demand, his demission instead. The poor man then retired to

Cassel, where he lived twenty years longer, and was no more heard of. He was halfbrother of the General

Chapter VIII. LOUDON POUNCES UPON SCHWEIDNITZ ONE NIGHT (LAST OF SEPTEMBER, 1761). 1463

Zastrow who got killed by a Pandour of long range (bullet through both temples, from brushwood, across the

Friedrich's Army was to have cantoned itself round Neisse, October 3d: but on the instant of this fatal

Schweidnitz news proceeded (3d6th October) towards Strehlen instead,Friedrich personally on the

5th;and took quarters there and in the villages round. General cantonment at Strehlen, in guard of Breslau

and of Neisse both; Loudon, still immovable at Kunzendorf, attempting nothing on either of those places, and

carefully declining the risk of a Battle, which would have been Friedrich's game: all this continued till the

beginning of December, when both parties took Winter quarters; [Tempelhof, v. 349.] cantoned themselves

in the neighboring localities,Czernichef, with his Russians, in Glatz Country; Friedrich in Breslau as

headquarter;and the Campaign had ended. Ended in this part, without farther event of the least

notability;except the following only, which a poor man of the name of Kappel has recorded for us. Of

Kappel is a Gentleman's Groom of those Strehlen parts; and shall, in his own words, bring us face to face

with Friedrich in that neighborhood, directly after Schweidnitz was lost. It is October 5th, day, or rather night

of the day, of Friedrich's arrival thereabouts; most of his Army ahead of him, and the remainder all under

way. Friedrich and the rearward part of his Army are filing about, in that new Strehlenward movement of

theirs, under cloud of night, in the intricate HillandDale Country; to post themselves to the best advantage

for their double object, of covering Breslau and Neisse both; Kappel LOQUITUR; abridged by Kuster, whom

"MONDAY NIGHT, OCTOBER 5th, 1761, The King, with two or three attendants, still ahead of his Army,

appeared at Schonbrunn, a Schloss and Village, five or six miles south from Strehlen; [THIS is the Warkotsch

Schonbrunn; not the other near Schweidnitz, as Archenholtz believes: see ARCHENHOLTZ, ii. 287, and the

bit of myth he has gone into in consequence.] and did the owner, Baron von Warkotsch, an acquaintance of

his, the honor of lodging there. Before bedtime,if indeed the King intended bed at all, meaning to be off in

four hours hence,Friedrich inquired of Warkotsch for 'a trusty man, well acquainted with the roads in this

Country.' Warkotsch mentioned Kappel, his own Groom; one who undoubtedly knew every road of the

Country; and who had always behaved as a trusty fellow in the seven years he had been with him. 'Let me see

him,' said the King. Kappel was sent up, about midnight, King still dressed; sitting on a sofa, by the fire;

Kappel's look was satisfactory; Kappel knows several roads to Strehlen, in the darkest night. 'It is the footpath

which goes soandso that I want' (for Friedrich knows this Country intimately: readers remember his

worldfamous Camp of Strehlen, with all the diplomacies of Europe gathered there, through summer, in the

"Before the stroke of 4, Kappel was at the door, on Master's best horse; the King's Groom too, and led horse,

a nimble little gray, were waiting. As 4 struck, Friedrich came down, Warkotsch with him. 'Unspeakable the

honor you have done my poor house!' Besides the King's Groom, there were a Chamberlain, an Adjutant and

two mounted Chasers (REITENDE JAGER), which latter had each a lighted lantern: in all seven persons,

including Kappel and the King. (Go before us on foot with your lanterns,' said the King. Very dark it was.

And overnight the Army had arrived all about; some of them just coming in, on different roads and paths. The

King walked above two miles, and looked how the Regiments were, without speaking a word. At last, as the

cannons came up, and were still in full motion, the King said: 'Sharp, sharp, BURSCHE; it will be MARCH

directly.' 'March? The Devil it will: we are just coming into Camp!' said a cannonier, not knowing it was the

"The King said nothing. Walked on still a little while; then ordered, 'Blow out the lanterns; to horseback

now!' and mounted, as we all did. Me he bade keep five steps ahead, five and not more, that he might see me;

for it was very dark. Not far from the Lordship Casserey, where there is a Watermill, the King asked me,

'Have n't you missed the Bridge here?' (a King that does not forget roads and topographies which may come

to concern him!)and bade us ride with the utmost silence, and make no jingle. As day broke, we were in

sight of Strehlen, near by the Farm of Treppendorf. 'And do you know where the Kallenberg lies?' said the

"When we got on the Kallenberg, it was not quite day; and we had to halt for more light. After some time the

King said to his Groom, 'Give me my perspective!' looked slowly all round for a good while, and then said, 'I

see no Austrians!'(ground all at our choice, then; we know where to choose!) The King then asked me if I

knew the road to"in fact, to several places, which, in a Parish History of those parts, would be abundantly

interesting; but must be entirely omitted here. ... "The King called his Chamberlain; gave some sign, which

meant 'Beermoney to Kappel!'and I got four eightgroschen pieces [three shillings odd; a rich reward in

those days]; and was bid tell my Master, 'That the King thanked him for the good quarters, and assured him

"Riding back across country, Kappel, some four or five miles homeward, came upon the 'whole Prussian

Army,' struggling forward in their various Columns. Two Generals,one of them Krusemark, King's

Adjutant [Colonel Krusemark, not General, as Kappel thinks, who came to know him some weeks

after],had him brought up: to whom he gave account of himself, how he had been escorting the King, and

where he had left his Majesty. 'Behind Strehlen, say you? Breslau road? Devil knows whither we shall all

have to go yet!' observed Krusemark, and left Kappel free." [Kuster, LebensRettungen, pp. 6676.]

In those weeks, Colberg Siege, Pitt's Catastrophe and high things are impending, or completed, elsewhere:

but this is the one thing noticeable hereabouts. In regard to Strehlen, and Friedrich's history there, what we

have to say turns all upon this Kappel and Warkotsch: and,after mentioning only that Friedrich's lodging is

not in Strehlen proper, but in Woiselwitz, a village or suburb almost half a mile off, and very negligently

guarded,we have to record an Adventure which then made a great deal of noise in the world.

Warkotsch is a rich lord; Schonbrunn only one of five or six different Estates which he has in those parts;

though, not many years ago, being younger brother, he was a Captain in the Austrian service (Regiment

BOTTA, if you are particular); and lay in Olmutz,with very dull oulooks; not improved, I should judge, by

the fact that Silesia and the Warkotsch connections were become Prussian since this junior entered the

Austrian Army. The junior had sown his wild oats, and was already getting gray in the beard, in that dull

manner, when, about seven years ago, his Elder Brother, to whom Friedrich had always been kind, fell

unwell; and, in the end of 1755, died: whereupon the junior saw himself Heir; and entered on a new phase of

things. Quitted his Captaincy, quitted his allegiance; and was settled here peaceably under his new King in

1756, a little while before this War broke out. And, at Schonbrunn, October 5th, 1761, has had his Majesty

Warkotsch was not long in riding over to Strehlen to pay his court, as in duty bound, for the honor of such a

Visit; and from that time, Kappel, every day or two, had to attend him thither. The King had always had a

favor for Warkotsch's late Brother, as an excellent Silesian Landlord and Manager, whose fine Domains were

in an exemplary condition; as, under the new Warkotsch too, they have continued to be. Always a gracious

Majesty to this Warkotsch as well; who is an old soldier withal, and man of sense and ingenuity; acceptable

to Friedrich, and growing more and more familiar among Friedrich's circle of Officers now at Strehlen.

To Strehlen is Warkotsch's favorite ride; in the solitary country, quite a charming adjunct to your usual dull

errand out for air and exercise. Kappel, too, remarks about this time that he (Kappel) gets once and again, and

ever more frequently, a Letter to carry over to Siebenhuben, a Village three or four miles off; the Letter

always to one Schmidt, who is Catholic Curate there; Letter under envelope, well sealed,and consisting of

two pieces, if you finger it judiciously. And, what is curious, the Letter never has any address; Master merely

orders, "Punctual; for Curatus Schmidt, you know!" What can this be? thinks Kappel. Some secret, doubtless;

perhaps some intrigue, which Madam must not know of,"ACH, HERR BARON; and at your age,fifty, I

am sure!" Kappel, a solid fellow, concerned for groombusiness alone, punctually carries his Letters; takes

charge of the Responses too, which never have any Address; and does not too much trouble himself with

To these external phenomena I will at present only add this internal one: That an old Brother Officer of

Warkotsch's, a Colonel Wallis, with Hussars, is now lying at Heinrichau,say, 10 miles from Strehlen, and

about 10 from Schonbrunn too, or a mile more if you take the Siebenhuben way; and that all these missives,

through Curatus Schmidt, are for Wallis the Hussar Colonel, and must be a secret not from Madam alone!

How a Baron, hitherto of honor, could all at once become TURPISSIMUS, the Superlative of Scoundrels?

"MONDAY NIGHT, NOVEMBER 30th, 1761 [night bitter cold], Kappel finds himself sitting mounted, and

holding Master's horse, in Strehlen, more exactly in Woiselwitz, a suburb of Strehlen, near the King's

door,Majesty's travellingcoach drawn out there, symbol that Strehlen is ending, general departure

towards Breslau now nigh. Not to Kappel's sorrow perhaps, waiting in the cold there. Kappel waits, hour after

hour; Master taking his ease with the King's people, regardless of the horses and me, in this shivery

weather;and one must not walk about either, for disturbing the King's sleep! Not till midnight does Master

emerge, and the freezing Kappel and quadrupeds get under way. Under way, Master breaks out into singular

talk about the King's lodging: Was ever anything so careless; nothing but two sentries in the King's anteroom;

thirteen all the soldiers that are in Woiselwitz; Strehlen not available in less than twenty minutes: nothing but

woods, haggly glens and hills, all on to Heinrichau: How easy to snatch off his Majesty! "UM GOTTES

WILLEN, my Lord, don't speak so: think if a patrolling Prussian were to hear it, in the dark!" Pooh, pooh,

"At Schonbrunn, in the short hours, Kappel finds Frau Kappel in state of unappeasable curiosity: 'What can it

be? Curatus Schmidt was here all afternoon; much in haste to see Master; had to go at last,for the

Churchservice, this St. Andrew's Eve. And only think, though he sat with My Lady hours and hours, he left

this Letter with ME: "Give it to your Husband, for my Lord, the instant they come; and say I must have an

Answer tomorrow morning at 7." Left it with me, not with My Lady;My Lady not to know of it!' 'Tush,

woman!' But Frau Kappel has been, herself, unappeasably running about, ever since she got this Letter; has

applied to two fellowservants, one after the other, who can read writing, 'Break it up, will you!' But they

would not. Practical Kappel takes the Letter up to Master's room; delivers it, with the Message. 'What,

Curatus Schmidt!' interrupts My Lady, who was sitting there: 'Herr Goodman, what is that?' 'That is a Letter

to me,' answers the Goodman: 'What have you to do with it?' Upon which My Lady flounces out in a huff,

"Kappel and Frau are gone to bed, Frau still eloquent upon the mystery of Curatus Schmidt, when his

Lordship taps at their door; enters in the dark: 'This is for the Curatus, at 7 o'clock tomorrow; I leave it on

the table here: be in time, like a good Kappel!' Kappel promises his Unappeasable that he will actually open

this Piece before delivery of it; upon which she appeases herself, and they both fall asleep. Kappel is on foot

betimes next morning. Kappel quietly pockets his Letter; still more quietly, from a neighboring room, pockets

his Master's big Seal (PETSCHAFT), with a view to resealing: he then steps out; giving his BURSCH

[Apprentice or UnderGroom] order to be ready in so many minutes, 'You and these two horses' (specific for

speed); and, in the interim, walks over, with Letter and PETSCHAFT, to the Reverend Herr Gerlach's, for

some preliminary business. Kappel is Catholic; Warkotsch, Protestant; Herr Gerlach is Protestant preacher in

the Village of Schonbrunn,much hated by Warkotsch, whose standing order is: 'Don't go near that insolent

fellow;' but known by Kappel to be a just man, faithful in difficulties of the weak against the strong. Gerlach,

not yet out of bed, listens to the awful story: reads the horrid missive; Warkotsch to Colonel Wallis: 'You can

seize the King, living or dead, this night!'hesitates about copying it (as Kappel wishes, for a good

purpose]; but is encouraged by his Wife, and soon writes a Copy. This Copy Kappel sticks into the old cover,

seals as usual; and, with the Original safe in his own pocket, returns to the stables now. His Bursch and he

mount; after a little, he orders his Bursch: 'Bursch, ride you to Siebenhuben and Curatus Schmidt, with this

sealed Letter; YOU, and say nothing. I was to have gone myself, but cannot; be speedy, be discreet!' And the

Bursch dashes off for Siebenhuben with the sealed Copy, for Schmidt, Warkotsch, Wallis and Company's

behoof; Kappel riding, at a still better pace, to Strehlen with the Original, for behoof of the King's Majesty.

"At Strehlen, King's Majesty not yet visible, Kappel has great difficulties in the anteroom among the sentry

people. But he persists, insists: 'Read my Letter, then!' which they dare not do; which only Colonel

Krusemark, the Adjutant, perhaps dare. They take him to Krusemark. Krusemark reads, all aghast; locks up

Kappel; runs to the King; returns, muffles Kappel in soldier's cloak and cap, and leads him in. The King,

looking into Kappel's face, into Kappel's clear story and the Warkotsch handwriting, needed only a few

questions; and the fit orders, as to Warkotsch and Company, were soon given: dangerous engineers now

fallen harmless, blown up by their own petard. One of the King's first questions was: 'But how have I

offended Warkotsch?' Kappel does not know; Master is of strict wilful turn;Master would grumble and

growl sometimes about the peasant people, and how a nobleman has now no power over them, in

comparison. 'Are you a Protestant?' 'No, your Majesty, Catholic.' 'See, IHR HERREN,' said the King to those

about him; 'Warkotsch is a Protestant; his Curatus Schmidt is a Catholic; and this man is a Catholic: there are

"At noon, that day, Warkotsch had sat down to dinner, comfortably in his dressinggown, nobody but the

good Baroness there; when Rittmeister Rabenau suddenly descended on the Schloss and diningroom with

dragoons: 'In arrest, Herr Baron; I am sorry you must go with me to Brieg!' Warkotsch, a strategic fellow,

kept countenance to Wife and Rittmeister, in this sudden fall of the thunderbolt: 'Yes, Herr Rittmeister; it is

that mass of Corn I was to furnish [showing him an actual order of that kind], and I am behind my time with

it! Nobody can help his luck. Take a bit of dinner with us, anyway!' Rittmeister refused; but the Baroness too

pressed him; he at length sat down. Warkotsch went 'to dress;' first of all, to give orders about his best horse;

but was shocked to find that the dragoons were a hundred, and that every outgate was beset. Returning

halfdressed, with an air of baffled hospitality: 'Herr Rittmeister, our Schloss must not be disgraced; here are

your brave fellows waiting, and nothing of refreshment ready for them. I have given order at the Tavern in

the Village; send them down; there they shall drink better luck to me, and have a bit of bread and cheese.'

Stupid Rabenau again consents:and in few minutes more, Warkotsch is in the Woods, galloping like

Epsom, towards Wallis; and Rabenau can only arrest Madam (who knows nothing), and return in a baffled

"Schmidt too got away. The party sent after Schmidt found him in the little Town of Nimptsch, halfway

home again from his Wallis errand; comfortably dining with some innocent hospitable people there. Schmidt

could not conceal his confusion; but pleading piteously a necessity of nature, was with difficulty admitted to

theto the ABTRITT so called; and there, by some long pole or rakehandle, vanished wholly through a

neverimagined aperture, and was no more heard of in the upper world. The Prussian soldiery does not seem

"Warkotsch came back about midnight that same Tuesday, 500 Wallis Hussars escorting him; and took away

his ready moneys, near 5,000 pounds in gold, reports Frau Kappel, who witnessed the ghastly operation

(Hussars in great terror, in haste, and unconscionably greedy as to sharing);after which our next news of

him, the last of any clear authenticity, is this Note to his poor Wife, which was read in the Law Procedures on

him six months hence: 'My Child (MEIN KIND),The accursed thought I took up against my King has

overwhelmed me in boundless misery. From the top of the highest hill I cannot see the limits of it. Farewell; I

am in the farthest border of Turkey.WARKOTSCH.'" [Kuster, LebensRettungen, p. 88: Kuster, pp.

Schmidt and he, after patient trial, were both of them beheaded and quartered,in pasteboard effigy,in the

Salt Ring (Great Square) of Breslau, May, 1762:in pasteboard, Friedrich liked it better than the other way.

"MEINETWEGEN," wrote he, sanctioning the execution, "For aught I care; the Portraits will likely be as

worthless as the Originals." Rittmeister Rabenau had got off with a few days' arrest, and the remark, "ER IST

EIN DUMMER TEUFEL (You are a stupid devil)!" Warkotsch's Estates, all and sundry, deducting the

Baroness's jointure, which was punctually paid her, were confiscated to the King,and by him were made

over to the Schools of Breslau and Glogau, which, I doubt not, enjoy them to this day. Reverend Gerlach in

Schonbrunn, Kappel and Kappel's Bursch, were all attended to, and properly rewarded, though there are

rumors to the contrary. HussarColonel Wallis got no public promotion, though it is not doubted the Head

People had been well cognizant of his ingenious intentions. Official Vienna, like mankind in general,

shuddered to own him; the great Counts Wallis at Vienna published in the Newspapers, "Our House has no

connection with that gentleman;"and, in fact, he was of Irish breed, it seems, the name of him WallISCH

(or Walsh), if one cared. Warkotsch died at Raab (THIS side the farthest corner of Turkey), in 1769: his poor

Baroness had vanished from Silesia five years before, probably to join him. He had some pension or aliment

And this is, more minutely than need have been, in authentic form only too diffuse, the once worldfamous

Warkotsch Tragedy or WellnighTragic Melodrama; which is still interesting and a matter of study, of pathos

and minute controversy, to the patriot and antiquary in Prussian Countries, though here we might have been

briefer about it. It would, indeed, have "finished the War at once;" and on terms delightful to Austria and its

Generals near by. But so would any unit of the million balls and bullets which have whistled round that same

Royal Head, and have, every unit of them, missed like Warkotsch! Particular Heads, royal and other, meant

for use in the scheme of things, are not to be hit on any terms till the use is had.

Friedrich settled in Breslau for the Winter, December 9th. From Colberg bad news meet him in Breslau; bad

and ever worse: Colberg, not Warkotsch, is the interesting matter there, for a fortnight coming,till Colberg

end, it also irremediable. The Russian hope on Colberg is, long since, limited to that of famine. We said the

conveyance of Supplies, across such a Hundred Miles of wilderness, from Stettin thither, with Russians and

"In fact, it is the impossibility: trial after trial goes on, in a strenuous manner, but without success. October

13th, Green Kleist tries; October 22d, Knobloch and even Platen try. For the next two months there is trial on

trial made (Hussar Kleist, Knobloch, Thadden, Platen), not without furious fencing, struggling; but with no

success. There are, in wait at the proper places, 15,000 Russians waylaying. Winter comes early, and

unusually severe: such marchings, such endeavorings and endurances,without success! For darkness, cold,

grim difficulty, fierce resistance to it, one reads few things like this of Colberg. 'The snow lies elldeep,' says

Archenholtz; 'snowtempests, sleet, frost: a country wasted and hungered out; wants fuelwood; has not even

salt. The soldier's bread is a block of ice; impracticable to human teeth till you thaw it,which is only

possible by night.' The Russian ships disappear (17th October); November 2d, Butturlin, leaving

reinforcements without stint, vanishes towards Poland. The day before Butturlin went, there had been solemn

summons upon Eugen, 'Surrender honorably, we once more bid you; never will we leave this ground, till

Colberg is ours!' 'Vain to propose it!' answers Eugen, as before. The Russians too are clearly in great misery

of want; though with better roads open for them; and Romanzow's obstinacy is extreme.

"Night of November 14th15th, Eugen, his horsefodder being entirely done, and Heyde's magazines worn

almost out, is obliged to glide mysteriously, circuitously from his Camp, and go to try the task himself. The

most difficult of marches, gloriously executed; which avails to deliver Eugen, and lightens the pressure on

Heyde's small store. Eugen, in a way Tempelhof cannot enough admire, gets clear away. Joins with Platen,

collects Provision; tries to send Provision in, but without effect. By the King's order, is to try it himself in a

"Romanzow, who is now in Eugen's old Camp, summons the Veteran; they say, it is 'for the twentyfifth

time,'not yet quite the last. Heyde consults his people: 'KAMERADEN, what think you should I do?'

'THUN SIE'S DURCHAUS NICHT, HERR OBRIST, Do not a whit of it, Herr Colonel: we will defend

ourselves as long as we have bread and powder.' [Seyfarth, iii. 28; Archenholtz, ii. 304.] It is grim frost;

Heyde pours water on his walls. Romanzow tries storm; the walls are glass; the garrison has powder, though

on half rations as to bread: storm is of no effect. By the King's order, Eugen tries again. December 6th, starts;

has again a march of the most consummate kind; December 12th, gets to the Russian intrenchment; storms a

Russian redoubt, and fights inexpressibly; hut it will not do. Withdraws; leaves Colberg to its fate. Next

morning, Heyde gets his twentysixth summons; reflects on it two days; and then (December 16th), his

biscuit done, decides to 'march out, with music playing, arms shouldered and the honors of war."'

[Tempelhof, v. 351377; Archenholtz, ii. 294307; especially the Seyfarth Beylagen above cited.] Adieu to

"What a Place of Arms for us!" thinks Romanzow;"though, indeed, for Campaign 1762, at this late time of

year, it will not so much avail us." No;and for 1763, who knows if you will need it then!

Six weeks ago, Prince Henri and Daun had finished their Saxon Campaign in a much more harmless manner.

NOVEMBER 5th, Daun, after infinite rallying, marshalling, rearranging, and counselling with Loudon, who

has sat so long quiescent on the Heights at Kunzendorf, ready to aid and reinforce, did at length (nothing of

"rashness" chargeable on Daun) make "a general attack on Prince Henri's outposts", in the Meissen or

MuldaElbe Country, "from Rosswein all across to Siebeneichen;" simultaneous attack, 15 miles wide, or I

know not how wide, but done with vigor; and, after a stiff struggle in the small way, drove them all in;in,

all of them, more or less;and then did nothing farther whatever. Henri had to contract his quarters, and

stand alertly on his guard: but nothing came. "Shall have to winter in straiter quarters, behind the Mulda, not

astride of it as formerly; that is all." And so the Campaign in Saxony had ended, "without, in the whole

course of it", say the Books, "either party gaining any essential advantage over the other." [Seyfarth, iii. 54;

Tempelhof, v. 275 et seq. (ibid. pp. 263280 for the Campaign at large, in all breadth of detail).]

Since December 9th, Friedrich is in Breslau, in some remainder of his ruined Palace there; and is represented

to us, in Books, as sitting amid ruins; no prospect ahead of him but ruin. Withdrawn from Society; looking

fixedly on the gloomiest future. Sees hardly anybody; speaks, except it be on business, nothing. "One day," I

have read somewhere, "General Lentulus dined with him; and there was not a word uttered at all." The

AnecdoteBooks have Dialogues with Ziethen; Ziethen still trusting in Divine Providence; King trusting only

in the iron Destinies, and the stern refuge of Death with honor: Dialogues evidently symbolical only. In fact,

this is not, or is not altogether, the King's common humor. He has his two Nephews with him (the elder, old

enough to learn soldiering, is to be of next Campaign under him); he is not without society when he

likes,never without employment whether he like or not; and, in the blackest murk of despondencies, has

his Turk and other Illusions, which seem to be brighter this Year than ever. [LETTERS to Henri: in

For certain, the King is making all preparation, as if victory might still crown him: though of practical hope

he, doubtless often enough, has little or none. England seems about deserting him; a most sad and unexpected

change has befallen there: great Pitt thrown out; perverse small Butes come in, whose notions and procedures

differ far from Pitt's! At home here, the Russians are in Pommern and the Neumark; Austrians have Saxony,

all but a poor strip beyond the Mulda; Silesia, all but a fraction on the Oder: Friedrich has with himself

30,000; with Prince Henri, 25,000; under Eugen of Wurtemberg, against the Swedes, 5,000; in all his

Dominions, 60,000 fighting men. To make head against so many enemies, he calculates that 60,000 more

must be raised this Winter. And where are these to come from; England and its help having also fallen into

such dubiety? Next Year, it is calculated by everybody, Friedrich himself hardly excepted (in bad moments),

must be the finis of this long agonistic tragedy. On the other hand, Austria herself is in sore difficulties as to

cash; discharges 20,000 men, trusting she may have enough besides to finish Friedrich. France is bankrupt,

starving, passionate for Peace; English Bute nothing like so ill to treat with as Pitt: to Austria no more

subsidies from France. The War is waxing feeble, not on Friedrich's side only, like a flame short of fuel. This

Whether Austria's and the world's prophecy would have been fulfilled? Nobody can say what miraculous

sudden shifts, and outbursts of fiery enterprise, may still lie in this man. Friedrich is difficult to kill, grows

terribly elastic when you compress him into a corner. Or Destiny, perhaps, may have tried him sufficiently;

and be satisfied? Destiny does send him a wonderful starofday, bursting out on the sudden, as will be

seen! Meanwhile here is the English calamity; worse than any Schweidnitz, Colberg or other that has

In St. James's Street, "in the Duke of Cumberland's late lodgings," on the 2d of October, 1761, there was held

one of the most remarkable CabinetCouncils known in English History: it is the last of Pitt's

CabinetCouncils for a long time,might as well have been his last of all;and is of the highest

importance to Friedrich through Pitt. We spoke of the Choiseul PeaceNegotiation; of an offer indirectly

from King Carlos, "Could not I mediate a little?"offer which exploded said Negotiation, and produced the

Bourbon Family Compact and an additional War instead. Let us now look, slightly for a few moments, into

It was JULY 15th, when Bussy, along with something in his own French sphere, presented this beautiful

Spanish Appendix, "apprehensive that War may break out again with Spain, when we Two have got

settled." By the same opportunity came a Note from him, which was reckoned important too: "That the

Empress Queen would and did, whatever might become of the Congress of Augsburg, approve of this

Separate Peace between France and England,England merely undertaking to leave the King of Prussia

altogether to himself in future with her Imperial Majesty and her Allies." "Never, Sir!" answered Pitt, with

emphasis, to this latter Proposition; and to the former about Spain's interfering, or whispering of interference,

he answeredby at once returning the Paper, as a thing nonextant, or which it was charitable to consider

so. "Totally inadmissible, Sir; mention it no more!"and at once called upon the Spanish Ambassador to

disavow such impertineuce imputed to his Master. Fancy the colloquies, the agitated consultations thereupon,

In about a week (July 23d), Bussy had an Interview with Pitt himself on this high Spanish matter; and got

some utterances out of him which are memorable to Bussy and us. "It is my duty to declare to you, Sir, in the

name of his Majesty," said Pitt, "that his Majesty will not suffer the disputes with Spain to be blended, in any

manner whatever, in the Negotiation of Peace between the Two Crowns. To which I must add, that it will be

considered as an affront to his Majesty's dignity, and as a thing incompatible with the sincerity of the

Negotiation, to make farther mention of such a circumstance." [In THACKERAY, ii. 554;Pitt next day

putting it in writing, "word for word," at Bussy's request.] Bussy did not go at once, after this deliverance; but

was unable, by his arguments and pleadings, by all his oil and fire joined together, to produce the least

improvement on it: "Time enough to treat of all that, Sir, when the Tower of London is taken sword in hand!"

[Beatson, ii. 434. Archenholtz (ii. 245) has heard of this expression, in a slightly incorrect way.] was Pitt's

last word. An expression which went over the world; and went especially to King Carlos, as fast as it could

fly, or as his Choiseul could speed it: and, in about three weeks: producedit and what had gone before it,

by the united industry of Choiseul and Carlos, finally producedthe famed BOURBON FAMILY

COMPACT (August 15th, 1761), and a variety of other weighty results, which lay in embryo therein.

Pitt, in the interim, had been intensely prosecuting, in Spain and everywhere, his inquiry into the Bussy

phenomenon of July 15th; which he, from the first glimpse of it, took to mean a mystery of treachery in the

pretended PeaceNegotiation, on the part of Choiseul and Catholic Majesty;though other long heads, and

Pitt's Ambassador at Madrid investigating on the spot, considered it an inadvertence mainly, and of no

practical meaning. On getting knowledge of the Bourbon Family Compact, Pitt perceived that his suspicion

was a certainty;and likewise that the one clear course was, To declare War on the Spanish Bourbon too,

and go into him at once: "We are ready; fleets, soldiers, in the East, in the West; he not ready anywhere.

Since he wants War, let him have it, without loss of a moment!" That is Pitt's clear view of the case; but it is

by no means Bute and Company's,who discern in it, rather, a means of finishing another operation they

have long been secretly busy upon, by their Mauduits and otherwise; and are clear against getting into a new

Since September 18th, there had been three CabinetCouncils held on this great Spanish question: "Mystery

of treachery, meaning War from Spain? Or awkward Inadvertence only, practically meaning little or

nothing?" Pitt, surer of his course every time, every time meets the same contradiction. Council of October 2d

"Twelve Seventyfours sent instantly to Cadiz", had been Pitt's proposal, on the first emergence of the Bussy

phenomenon. Here are his words, October 2d, when it is about to get consummated: "This is now the time for

humbling the whole House of Bourbon: and if this opportunity is let slip, we shall never find another! Their

united power, if suffered to gather strength, will baffle our most vigorous efforts, and possibly plunge us in

the gulf of ruin. We must not allow them a moment to breathe. Selfpreservation bids us crush them before

they can combine or recollect themselves." "No evidence that Spain means war; too many wars on our

hands; let us at least wait!" urge all the others,all but one, or one and A HALF, of whom presently.

Whereupon Pitt: "If these views are to be followed, this is the last time I can sit at this Board. I was called to

the Administration of Affairs by the voice of the People: to them I have always considered myself as

accountable for my conduct; and therefore cannot remain in a situation which makes me responsible for

Carteret Granville, President of said Council for ten years past, [Came in "17th June, 1751",died "2d

January, 1763."] now an old rednosed man of seventytwo, snappishly took him up,it is the last public

thing poor Carteret did in this world,in the following terms: "I find the Gentleman is determined to leave

us; nor can I say I am sorry for it, since otherwise he would have certainly compelled us to leave him [Has

ruled us, may not I say, with a rod of iron!] But if he be resolved to assume the office of exclusively advising

his Majesty and directing the operations of the War, to what purpose are we called to this Council? When he

talks of being responsible to the People, he talks the language of the House of Commons; forgets that, at this

Board, he is only responsible to the King. However, though he may possibly have convinced himself of his

infallibility, still it remains that we should be equally convinced, before we can resign our understandings to

his direction, or join with him in the measure he proposes." [BIOG. BRITANNICA (Kippis's; London, 1784),

Who, besides Temple (Pitt's Brotherinlaw) confirmatory of Pitt, Bute negatory, and Newcastle SILENT,

the other beautiful gentlemen were, I will not ask; but poor old Carteret,the wine perhaps sour on his

stomach (old age too, with German memories of his own, "A biggish Life once mine, all futile for want of

this same Kingship like Pitt's!")I am sorry old Carteret should have ended so! He made the above Answer;

and Pitt resigned next day. [Thackeray, i. 592 n. "October 5th" (ACCEPTANCE of the resignation, I

suppose?) is the date commonly given.] "The Nation was thunderstruck, alarmed and indignant," says

Walpole: [ Memoirs of the Reign of George the Third, i. 82 et seq.] yes, no wonder;but, except a great deal

of noisy jargoning in Parliament and out of it, the Nation gained nothing for itself by its indignant,

thunderstricken and other feelings. Its Pitt is irrecoverable; and it may long look for another such. These

beautiful recalcitrants of the CabinetCouncil had, themselves, within three months (think under what noises

and hootings from a nonadmiring Nation), to declare War on Spain, ["2d January, 1762," the English; "18th

January," the Spaniard (ANNUAL REGISTER for 1762, p. 50; or better, Beatson, ii. 443).] NOT on better

terms than when Pitt advised; and, except for the "readiness" in which Pitt had left all things, might have

To Spain and France the results of the Family Compact (we may as well give them at once, though they

extend over the whole next year and farther, and concern Friedrich very little) were: a War on England

(chiefly on poor Portugal for England's sake); with a War BY England in return, which cost Spain its Havana

"From 1760 and before, the Spanish Carlos, his orthodox mind perhaps shocked at Pombal and the

AntiJesuit procedures, had forbidden trade with Portugal; had been drawing out dangerous 'militia forces on

the Frontier;' and afflicting and frightening the poor Country. But on the actual arrival of War with England,

Choiseul and he, as the first feasibility discernible, make Demand (three times over, 16th March18th April,

1762, each time more stringently) on poor Portuguese Majesty: 'Give up your objectionable Heretic Ally, and

join with us against him; will you, or will you not?' To which the Portuguese Majesty, whose very title is

Most Faithful, answered always: 'You surprise me! I cannot; how can I? He is my Ally, and has always kept

faith with me! For certain, No!' [ London Gazette, 5th May, 1762, (in Gentleman's Magazine for 1762, xxxii.

205, 321, 411).] So that there is English reinforcement got ready, men, money; an English General, Lord

Tyrawley, General and Ambassador; with a 5 or 6,000 horse and foot, and many volunteer officers besides,

for the Portuguese behoof. [List of all this in Beatson, ii. 491, iii. 323;"did not get to sea till 12th May,

1762" ( Gentleman's Magazine for 1762, p. 239).] In short, every encouragement to poor Portugal: 'Pull, and

"The poor Portuguese pulled very badly: were disgusting to Tyrawley, he to them; and cried passionately,

'Get us another General;'upon which, by some wise person's counsel, that singular Artillery Gentleman, the

Graf von der Lippe Buckeburg, who gave the dinner in his Tent with cannon firing at the pole of it, was

appointed; and Tyrawley came home in a huff. [Varnhagen van Ense, GRAF WILHELM ZUR LIPPE

(Berlin, 1845), in Vermischte Schriften, i. 1118: pp. 3354, his Portuguese operations.] Which was probably

a favorable circumstance. Buckeburg understands War, whether Tyrawley do or not. Duke Ferdinand has

agreed to dispense with his OrdnanceMaster; nay I have heard the OrdnanceMaster, a man of sharp speeoh

on occasion, was as good as idle; and had gone home to Buckeburg, this Winter: indignant at the many

imperfections he saw, and perhaps too frankly expressing that feeling now and then. What he thought of the

Portuguese Army in comparison is not on record; but, may be judged of by this circumstance, That on dining

with the chief Portuguese military man, he found his Portuguese captains and lieutenants waiting as valets

"The improvements he made are said to have been many;and Portuguese Majesty, in bidding farewell,

gave him a park of Miniature Gold Cannon by way of gracious symbol. But, so far as the facts show, he

seems to have got from his Portuguese Army next to no service whatever: and, but for the English and the ill

weather, would have fared badly against his French and Spaniards,42,000 of them, advancing in Three

"His War has only these three dates of event. 1. May 9th, The northmost of the Three Divisions [ANNUAL

of theirs; takes it, before their first battery is built; takes Braganza, takes Monte Corvo; and within a week is

master of the Douro, in that part, 'Will be at Oporto directly!' shriek all the Wine people (no resistance

anywhere, except by peasants organized by English Officers in some parts); upon which Seventyfours were

"2. Division Second of the 42,000 came by Beira Country, between Tagus and Douro, by TrasosMontes;

and laid siege to a place called Almeida [northwest some 20 odd miles from CUIDAD RODRIGO, a name

once known to veterans of us still living], which Buckeburg had tried to repair into strength, and furnish with

a garrison. Garrison defended itself well; but could not be relieved;had to surrender, August 25th: whereby

it seems the Tagus is now theirs! All the more, as Division Three is likewise got across from Estremadura,

"3. Against this, Buckeburg does find a recipe. Despatches Brigadier Burgoyne with an English party upon a

Town called Valencia d'Alcantara [not Alcantara Proper, but Valencia of ditto, not very far from Badajoz],

where the vanguard of this Third Division is, and their principal Magazine. Burgoyne and his English did

perfectly: broke into the place, stormed it sword in hand (August 27th); kept the Magazine and it, though 'the

sixteen Portuguese Battalions' could not possibly get up in time. In manner following (say the Old

"'The garrison of Almeida, before which place the whole Spanish Army had been assembled, surrendered to

the Spaniards on the 25th [August 25th, as we have just heard], having capitulated on condition of not serving

"'As a counterbalance to this advantage, the Count de Lippe caused Valencia d'Alcantara to be attacked,

sword in hand, by the British troops; who carried it, after an obstinate resistance. The loss of the British

troops, who had the principal share in this affair, is luckily but inconsiderable: and consists in Lieutenant

Burk of Colonel Frederick's, one sergeant and three privates killed; two sergeants, one drummer, 18 privates

wounded; 10 horses killed and 2 wounded [loss not at all considerable, in a War of such dimensions!]. The

British troops behaved upon this occasion with as much generosity as courage; and it deserves admiration,

that, in an affair of this kind, the town and the inhabitants suffered very little; which is owing to the good

order Brigadier Burgoyne kept up even in the heat of the action. This success would probably have been

attended with more, if circumstances, that could not well be expected, had not retarded the march of sixteen

Portuguese battalions, and three regiments of cavalry.' [Old Newspapers (in Gentleman's Magazine for 1762,

"Upon whichupon which, in fact, the War had to end. Rainy weather came, deluges of rain; Burgoyne,

with or without the sixteen battalions of Portuguese, kept the grip he had. Valencia d'Alcantara and its

Magazine a settled business, roads round gone all to mire,this Third Division, and with it the 42,000 in

general, finding they had nothing to live upon, went their ways again." NOTE, The Burgoyne, who begins in

this pretty way at Valencia d'Alcantara, is the same who ended so dismally at Saratoga, within twenty

years:perhaps, with other WarOffices, and training himself in something suitabler than Parliamentary

Eloquence, he might have become a kind of General, and have ended far otherwise than there?

"Such was the credit account on Carlos's side: By gratuitous assault on Portugal, which had done him no

offence; result zero, and pay your expenses. On the English, or PER CONTRA side, again, there were these

three items, two of them specifically on Carlos: FIRST, Martinique captured from the French this Spring

(finished 4th February, 1762): [ Gentleman's Magazine for 1762, p. 127.]was to have been done in any

case, Guadaloupe and it being both on Pitt's books for some time, and only Guadaloupe yet got.

SECONDLY, King Carlos, for Family Compact and fruitless attempt at burglary on an unoffending neighbor,

Debtor: 1. To Loss of the Havana (6th June13th August, 1762), [Ib. pp. 408459, which might easily have

issued in loss of all his West Indies together, and total abolition of the Pope's meridian in that Western

Hemisphere; and 2. To Loss of Manilla, with his Philippine Islands (23d September6th October, 1762),

[ Gentleman's Magazine for 1762, xxxiii. 171177.] which was abolition of it in the Eastern. After which,

happily for Carlos, Peace came,Peace, and no Pitt to be severe upon his Indies and him. Carlos's War of

All these things the English Public, considerably sullen about the CabinetCouncil event of October 3d,

ascribed to the real owner of them. The Public said: "These are, all of them, Pitt's bolts, not

yours,launched, or lying ready for launching, from that Olympian battery which, in the East and in the

West, had already smitten down all Lallys and Montcalms; and had force already massed there, rendering

your Havanas and Manillas easy for you. For which, indeed, you do not seem to care much; rather seem to be

embarrassed with them, in your eagerness for Peace and a lazy life!"Manilla was a beautiful work; [A

MANILLA ( London Gazette, April 19th, 1763; Gentleman's Magazine, xxxiii. 171 et seq.). Written by

Colonel or BrigadiecGeneral Draper (suggester, contriver and performer of the Enterprise; an excellent

Indian Officer, of great merit with his pen as well,Bully JUNIUS'S Correspondent afterwards).] but the

Manilla Ransom; a million sterling, half of it in bills,which the Spaniards, on no pretext at all but the

disagreeableness, refused to pay! Havana, though victorious, cost a good many men: was thought to be but

badly managed. "What to do with it?" said Bute, at the Peace: "Give us Florida in lieu of it",which proved

Pitt being gone, Friedrich's English Subsidy lags: this time Friedrich concludes it is cut off;silent on the

subject; no words will express one's thoughts on it. Not till April 9th has poor Mitchell the sad errand of

announcing formally That such are our pressures, Portuguese War and other, we cannot afford it farther.

Answered by I know not what kind of glance from Friedrich; answered, I find, by words few or none from

the forsaken King: "Good; that too was wanting," thought the proud soul: "Keep your coin, since you so need

it; I have still copper, and my sword!" The alloy this Year became as 3 to 1:what other remedy?

From the same cause, I doubt not, this Year, for the first time in human memory, came that complete

abeyance of the Giftmoneys (DOUCEURGELDER), which are become a standing expectation, quasi

right, and necessary item of support to every Prussian Officer, from a Lieutenant upwards: not a word, in the

least official, said of them this Year; still less a penny of them actually forthcoming to a wornout expectant

Army. One of the greatest sins charged upon Friedrich by Prussian or PrussianMilitary public opinion: not

to be excused at all;PrussianMilitary and even PrussianCivil opinion having a strange persuasion that

this King has boundless supply of money, and only out of perversity refuses it for objects of moment. In the

Army as elsewhere much ha8 gone awry; [See Mollendorf's two or three LETTERS (Preuss, iv. 407411).]

many rivets loose after such a climbing of the Alps as there has been, through dense and rare.

It will surprise everybody that Friedrich, with his copper and other resources, actually raised his additional

60,000; and has for himself 70,000 to recover Schweidnitz, and bring Silesia to its old state; 40,000 for Prince

Henri and Saxony, with a 10,000 of margin for Sweden and accidental sundries. This is strange, but it is true.

[Stenzel, v. 297, 286; Tempelhof, vi. 2, 10, 63.] And has not been done without strivings and contrivings,

hard requisitions on the places liable; and has involved not a little of severity and difficulty,especially a

great deal of haggling with the collecting parties, or at least with Prince Henri, who presides in Saxony, and is

apt to complain and mourn over the undoable, rather than proceed to do it. The King's Correspondence with

Henri, this Winter, is curious enough; like a Dialogue between Hope on its feet, and Despair taking to its bed.

"You know there are Two Doctors in MOLIERE," says Friedrich to him once; "a Doctor TANTMIEUX (So

much the Better) and a Doctor TANTPIS (So much the Worse): these two cannot be expected to

agree!"Instead of infinite arithmetical details, here is part of a Letter of Friedrich's to D'Argens; and a

Passage, one of many, with Prince Henri;which command a view into the interior that concerns us.

... "You have lifted the political veil which covered horrors and perfidies meditated and ready to burst out

[Bute's dismal procedures, I believe; who is ravenous for Peace, and would fain force Friedrich along with

him on terms altogether disgraceful and inadmissible [See D'Argens's Letter (to which this is Answer),

OEuvres de Frederic, xix. 281, 282.]]: you judge correctly of the whole situation I am in, of the abysses

which surround me; and, as I see by what you say, of the kind of hope that still remains to me. It will not be

till the month of February [Turks, probably, and Tartar Khan; great things coming then!] that we can speak of

that; and that is the term I contemplate for deciding whether I shall hold to CATO [Cato,and the little

Glass Tube I have!] or to CAESAR'S COMMENTARIES," and the best fight one can make.

"The School of patience I am at is hard, longcontinued, cruel, nay barbarous. I have not been able to escape

my lot: all that human foresight could suggest has been employed, and nothing has succeeded. If Fortune

continues to pursue me, doubtless I shall sink; it is only she that can extricate me from the situation I am in. I

escape out of it by looking at the Universe on the great scale, like an observer from some distant Planet; all

then seems to me so infinitely small, and I could almost pity my enemies for giving themselves such trouble

about so very little. What would become of us without philosophy, without this reasonable contempt of things

frivolous, transient and fugitive, about which the greedy and ambitious make such a pother, fancying them to

be solid! This is to become wise by stripes, you will tell me; well, if one do become wise, what matters it

how?I read a great deal; I devour my Books, and that brings me useful alleviation. But for my Books, I

think hypochondria would have had me in bedlam before now. In fine, dear Marquis, we live in troublous

times and in desperate situations:I have all the properties of a StageHero; always in danger, always on the

point of perishing. One must hope the conclusion will come; and if the end of the piece be lucky, we will

forget the rest. Patience then, MON CHER, till February 20th [By which time, what far other veritable

starofday will have risen on me!]. ADIEU, MON CHER.F." [ OEuvres de Frederic, xix. 282, 283.]

In the Spring months Prince Henri is at Hof in Voigtland, on the extreme right of his long line of "Quarters

behind the Mulda;" busy enough, watching the Austrians and Reich; levying the severe contributions;

speeding all he can the manifold preparatives; conscious to himself of the greatest vigilance and diligence,

but wrapt in despondency and black acidulent humors; a "Doctor SO MUCH THE WORSE," who is not a

comforting Correspondent. From Hof, towards the middle of March, he becomes specially gloomy and

acidulous; sends a series of Complaints; also of News, not important, but all rather in YOUR favor, my

HENRI (at Hof, 10th13th March). ... "Sadly off here, my dearest Brother.! Of our '1,284 head of

commissariat horses,' only 180 are come in; of our '287 drivers,' not one. Will be impossible to open

Campaign at that rate.""Grenadier Battalions ROTHENBURG and GRANT demand to have picked men

to complete them [of CANTONIST, or sure Prussian sort]. ... I find [NOTA BENE, Reader!] there are eight

Austrian regiments going to Silesia [off my hands, and upon YOURS, in a sense], eight instead of four that I

spoke of: intending, probably, for Glatz, to replace Czernichef [a Czernichef off for home lately, in a most

miraculous way; as readers shall hear!]to replace Czernichef, and the blank he has left there? Eight of

them: Your Majesty can have no difficulty; but I will detach Platen or somebody, if you order it; though I am

myself perilously ill off here, so scattered into parts, not capable of speedy junction like your Majesty."

FRIEDRICH (14th16th March). "Commissariat horses, drivers? I arranged and provided where everything

was to be got. But if my orders are not executed, nor the requisitions brought in, of course there is failure. I

am despatching Adjutant von Anhalt to Saxony a second time, to enforce matters. If I could be for three

weeks in Saxony, myself, I believe I could put all on its right footing; but, as I must not stir two steps from

here, I will send you Anhalt, with orders to the Generals, to compel them to their duty." [Schoning, iii. 301,

302.] "As to Grenadier Battalions GRANT and ROTHENBURG, it is absurd." (Henri falls silent for about a

KING (22d March). "Eight regiments, you said? Here, by enclosed List, are seventeen of them, names and

particulars all given", which is rather a different view of the account against Silesia! Seventeen of them,

HENRI. "Hm, hah [answers only in German; dry military reports, official merely;thinks of writing to

ChiefClerk Eichel, who is factotum in these spheres]. ... Artillery recruits are scarce in the extreme; demand

KING. "Seventeen regiments of them, beyond question, instead of eight, coming on us: strange that you did

n't warn me better. I have therefore ordered your MajorGeneral Schmettau hitherward at once. As he has not

done raising the contributions in the Lausitz, you must send another to do it, and have them ready when

General Platen passes that way hither.""'Five thalers bounty for artillery men" say you? It is not to be

thought of. Artillery men can be had by conscription where you are." Henri (in silence, still more indignant)

sends military reports exclusively. March 26th, Henri's gloom reaches the igniting point; he writes to Chief

"Monsieur, you are aware that Adjutant von Anhalt is on the way hither. To judge by his orders, if they

correspond to the Letters I have had from the King, Adjutant von Anhalt's appearance here will produce an

embarrassment, from which I am resolved to extricate myself by a voluntary retirement from office. My

totally ruined (ABIMEE) health, the vexations I have had, the fatigues and troubles of war, leave in me little

regret to quit the employment. I solicit only, from your attentions and skill of management, that my retreat be

permitted to take place with the decency observed towards those who have served the State. I have not a high

opinion of my services; but perhaps I am not mistaken in supposing that it would be more a shame to the

King than to me if he should make me endure all manner of chagrins during my retirement." [Schoning, iii.

Eichel sinks into profound reflection; says nothing. How is this fire to be got under? Where is the place to

trample on it, before opening door or window, or saying a word to the King or anybody?

HENRI (same day, 26th March). "My dearest Brother,In the List you send me of those seventeen Austrian

regiments, several, I am informed, are still in Saxony; and by all the news that I get, there are only eight gone

towards Silesia.""From Leipzig my accounts are, the Reichs Army is to make a movement in advance, and

Prince Xavier with the Saxons was expected at Naumburg the 20th ult. I know not if you have arranged with

Duke Ferdinand for a proportionate succor, in case his French also should try to penetrate into Saxony upon

me? I am, with the profoundest attachment, your faithful and devoted servant and Brother."

KING (30th March). "Seventeen of them, you may depend; I am too well informed to be allowed to doubt in

any way. What you report of the Reichsfolk and Saxons moving hither, thither; that seems to me a bit of

game on their part. They will try to cut one post from you, then another, unless you assemble a corps and go

in upon them. Till you decide for this resolution, you have nothing but chicanes and provocations to expect

there. As to Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick, I don't imagine that his Orders [from England] would permit him

what you propose [for relief of yourself]: at any rate, you will have to write at least thrice to him,that is to

say, waste three weeks, before he will answer No or Yes. You yourself are in force enough for those fellows:

but so long as you keep on the defensive alone, the enemy gains time, and things will always go a bad road."

HENRI (30th March). ... "You have hitherto received proofs enough of my ways of thinking and acting to

know that if in reality I was mistaken about those eight regiments, it can only have been a piece of ignorance

on the part of my spy: meanwhile you are pleased to make me responsible for what misfortune may come of

it. I think I have my hands full with the task laid on me of guarding 4,000 square miles of country with fewer

troops than you have, and of being opposite an enemy whose posts touch upon ours, and who is superior in

force. Your preceding Letters [from March 16th hitherto], on which I have wished to be silent, and this last

proof of want of affection, show me too clearly to what fortune I have sacrificed these Six Years of

KING (3d April: Official Orders given in Teutsch; at the tail of which). "Spare your wrath and indignation at

your servant, Monseigneur! You, who preach indulgence, have a little of it for persons who have no intention

of offending you, or of failing in respect for you; and deign to receive with more benignity the humble

representations which the conjunctures sometimes force from me. F."Which relieves Eichel of his

difficulties, and quenches this sputter. [Plucked up from the waste imbroglios of SCHONING (iii. 296311),

Prince Henri, for all his complaining, did beautifully this Season again (though to us it must be silent, being

smallwar merely); and in particular, MAY 12th) early in the morning, simultaneously in many different

parts, burst across the Mulda, ten or twenty miles long (or BROAD rather, from his right hand to his left),

sudden as lightning, upon the supine Serbelloni and his Austrians and Reichsfolk. And hurled them back, one

and all, almost to the Plauen Chasm and their old haunts; widening his quarters notably. [ Bericht von dem

Uebergang uber die Mulde, den der Prinz Heinrich den 12ten May 1762 glucklich ausgefuhrt (in Seyfarth,

Beylagen, iii, 280291).] A really brilliant thing, testifies everybody, though not to be dwelt on here. Seidlitz

was of it (much fine cutting and careering, from the Seidlitz and others, we have to omit in these two Saxon

Campaigns!) Seidlitz was of it; he and another still more special acquaintance of ours, the learned Quintus

Icilius; who also did his best in it, but lost his "AMUSETTE" (small bit of cannon, "Plaything," so called by

Henri's quarters being notably widened in this way, and nothing but torpid Serbellonis and Prince Stollbergs

on the opposite part, Henri "drew himself out thirtyfive miles long;" and stood there, almost looking into

Plauen region as formerly. And with his fiery Seidlitzes, Kleists, made a handsome Summer of it. And beat

the Austrians and Reichsfolk at Freyberg (OCTOBER 29th) a fine Battle, and his sole one),on the Horse

But we are omitting the news from Petersburg,which came the very day after that gloomy LETTER TO

D'ARGENS; months before the TIFF OF QUARREL with Henri, and the brilliant better destinies of that

To Friedrich, long before all this of Henri, indeed almost on the very day while he was writing so

despondently to D'Argens, a new phasis had arisen. Hardly had he been five weeks at Breslau, in those

gloomy circumstances, when,about the middle of January, 1762 (day not given, though it is forever

notable),there arrive rumors, arrive news,news from Petersburg; such as this King never had before!

"Among the thousand ill strokes of Fortune, does there at length come one preeminently good? The

unspeakable Sovereign Woman, is she verily dead, then, and become peaceable to me forevermore?" We

promised Friedrich a wonderful starofday; and this is it,though it is long before he dare quite regard it as

such. Peter, the Successor, he knows to be secretly his friend and admirer; if only, in the new Czarish

capacity and its chaotic environments and conditions, Peter dare and can assert these feelings? What a hope

to Friedrich, from this time onward! Russia may be counted as the bigger half of all he had to strive with; the

bigger, or at least the far uglier, more ruinous and incendiary;and if this were at once taken away, think

Pious people say, The darkest hour is often nearest the dawn. And a dawn this proved to be for Friedrich. And

the fact grew always the longer the brighter;and before Campaign time, had ripened into real daylight and

sunrise. The dates should have been precise; but are not to be had so: here is the nearest we could come.

January 14th, writing to Henri, the King has a mysterious word about "possibilities of an uncommon

sort,"rumors from Petersburg, I could conjecture; though perhaps they are only Turk or Tartar Khan

affairs, which are higher this year than ever, and as futile as ever. But, on JANUARY 19th, he has heard

plainly,with what hopes (if one durst indulge them)!that the implacable Imperial Woman, INFAME

CATIN DU NORD, is verily dead. Dead; and does not hate me any more. Deliverance, Peace and Victory lie

in the word! Catin had long been failing, but they kept it religiously secret within the Court walls: even at

Petersburg nobody knew till the Prayers of the Church were required: Prayers as zealous as you can,the

Doctors having plainly intimated that she is desperate, and that the thing is over. On CHRISTMASDAY,

1761, by Russian Style, 5th JANUARY, 1762, by European, the poor Imperial Catin lay dead;a death still

Peter III., who succeeded has lang been privately a sworn friend and admirer of the King; and hastens, not too

SLOWLY as the King had feared, but far the reverse, to make that known to all mankind. That, and much

else,in a far too headlong manner, poor soul! Like an ardent, violent, totally inexperienced person

(enfranchised SCHOOLBOY, come to the age of thirtyfour), who has sat hitherto in darkness, in

intolerable compression; as if buried alive! He is now Czar Peter, Autocrat, not of Himself only, but of All

the Russias;and has, besides the complete regeneration of Russia, two great thoughts: FIRST, That of

avenging native Holstein, and his poor martyr of a Father now with God, against the Danes;and,

SECOND, what is scarcely second in importance to the first, and indeed is practically a kind of preliminary

to it, That of delivering the Prussian Pattern of Heroes from such a pattern of foul combinations, and bringing

Peace to Europe, while he settles the HolsteinDanish business. Peter is Russian by the Mother's side; his

Mother was Sister of the late Catin, a Daughter, like her, of Czar Peter called the Great, and of the little

brown Catharine whom we saw transiently long ago. His Holstein Business shall concern us little; but that

with Friedrich, during the brief Six Months allowed him for it,for it, and for all his remaining businesses in

Peter is one of the wildest men; his fate, which was tragical, is now to most readers rather of a ghastly

grotesque than of a lamentable and pitiable character. Few know, or have ever considered, in how wild an

element poor Peter was born and nursed; what a time he has had, since his fifteenth year especially, when

Cousin of Zerbst and he were married. Perhaps the wildest and maddest any human soul had, during that

Century. I find in him, starting out from the Lethean quagmires where he had to grow, a certain rash

greatness of idea; traces of veritable conviction, just resolution; veritable and just, though rash. That of

admiration for King Friedrich was not intrinsically foolish, in the solitary thoughts of the poor young fellow;

nay it was the reverse; though it was highly inopportune in the place where he stood. Nor was the Holstein

notion bad; it was generous rather, noble and natural, though, again, somewhat impracticable in the

The summary of the FriedrichPeter business is perhaps already known to most readers, and can be very

briefly given; nor is Peter's tragical Six Months of Czarship (5th JANUARY9th JULY, 1762) a thing for us

to dwell on beyond need. But it is wildly tragical; strokes of deep pathos in it, blended with the ghastly and

grotesque: it is part of Friedrich's strange element and environment: and though the outer incidents are public

enough, it is essentially little known. Had there been an AEschylus, had there been a Shakspeare!But poor

Peter's shocking Six Months of History has been treated by a far different set of hands, themselves almost

shocking to see: and, to the seriously inquiring mind, it lies, and will long lie, in a very waste, chaotic,

enigmatic condition. Here, out of considerable bundles now burnt, are some rough jottings, Excerpts of Notes

and Studies,which, I still doubt rather, ought to have gone in AUTO DA FE along with the others. AUTO

DA FE I called it; Act of FAITH, not SpanishInquisitional, but essentially Celestial many times, if you

reflect well on the poisonous consequences, on the sinfulness and deadly criminality, of Human Babble,as

nobody does nowadays! I label the different Pieces, and try to make legible;hasty readers have the

privilege of skipping, if they like. The first Two are of preliminary or prefatory nature,perhaps still more

1. GENEALOGY OF PETER. "His grandfather was Friedrich IV., Duke of HolsteinGottorp and Schleswig,

Karl XII.'s brotherinlaw; on whose score it was (Denmark finding the time opportune for a stroke of

robbery there) that Karl XII., a young lad hardly eighteen, first took arms; and began the career of fighting

that astonished Denmark and certain other Neighbors who had been too covetous on a young King. This his

young Brotherinlaw, Friedrich of HolsteinGottorp (young he too, though Karl's senior by ten years), had

been reinstated in his Territory, and the Danes sternly forbidden farther burglary there, by the victorious Karl;

but went with Karl in his farther expeditions. Always Karl's intimate, and at his right hand for the next two

"He left as Heir a poor young Boy, at this time only two years old. His young Widow Hedwig survived him

six years. [Michaelis, ii. 618629.] Her poor child grew to manhood; and had tragic fortunes in this world;

Danes again burglarious in that part, again robbing this poor Boy at discretion, so soon as Karl XII. became

unfortunate; and refusing to restore (have not restored Schleswig at all [A.D. 1864, HAVE at last had to do it,

under unexpected circumstances!]):a grimly sad story to the now Peter, his only Child! This poor Duke at

last died, 18th June, 1739, age thirty nine; the now Peter then about 11,who well remembers tragic Papa;

tragic Mamma not, who died above ten years before. [Michaelis, ii. 617; Hubner, tt. 227, 229.]

"Czar Peter called the Great had evidently a pity for this unfortunate Duke, a hope in his just hopes; and

pleaded, as did various others, and endeavored with the unjust Danes, mostly without effect. Did, however,

give him one of his Daughters to wife;the result of whom is this new Czar Peter, called the Third: a Czar

who is Sovereign of Holstein, and has claims of Sovereignty in Sweden, right of heirship in Schleswig, and

of damages against Denmark, which are in litigation to this day. The Czarina CATIN, tenderly remembering

her Sister, would hear of no Heir to Russia but this Peter. Peter, in virtue of his paternal affinities, was elected

King of Sweden about the same time; but preferred Russia, with an eye to his Danes, some think. For

certain, did adopt the Russian Expectancy, the Greek religion so called; and was," in the way we saw long

years ago, "married (or to all appearance married) to Catharina Alexiewna of AnhaltZerbst, born in Stettin;

[Herr Preuss knows the house: "Now Dr. Lehmann's [at that time the Governor of Stettin's], in which also

Czar Paul's second Spouse [Eugen of Wurtemberg a NEW Governor's Daughter], who is Mother of the Czars

that follow, was born:" Preuss, ii. 310, 311. Catharine, during her reign, was pious in a small way to the place

of her cradle; sent her successive MEDALS to Stettin, which still has them to show.] a Lady who became

"Peter is an abstruse creature; has lived, all this while, with his Catharine an abstruse life, which would have

gone altogether mad except for Catharine's superior sense. An awkward, ardent, but helpless kind of Peter,

with vehement desires, with a dash of wild magnanimity even: but in such an inextricable element, amid such

darkness, such provocations of unmanageable opulence, such impediments, imaginary and real,dreadfully

real to poor Peter, as made him the unique of mankind in his time. He 'used to drill cats,' it is said, and to

do the maddestlooking things (in his late buriedalive condition);and fell partly, never quite, which was

wonderful, into drinking, as the solution of his inextricabilities. Poor Peter: always, and now more than ever,

the cynosure of vulturous vulpine neighbors, withal; which infinitely aggravated his otherwise bad case!

"For seven or eight years, there came no progeny, nor could come; about the eighth or ninth, there could, and

did: the marvellous Czar Paul that was to be. Concerning whose exact paternity there are still calumnious

assertions widely current; to this individual Editor much a matter of indifference, though on examining, his

verdict is: 'Calumnies, to all appearance; mysteries which decent or decorous society refuses to speak of, and

which indecent is pretty sure to make calumnies out of.' Czar Paul may be considered genealogically genuine,

if that is much an object to him. Poor Paul, does not he father himself, were there nothing more? Only that

Peter and this Cathariue could have begotten such a Paul. Genealogically genuine enough, my poor

2. OF CATHARINE AND THE BOOKS UPON PETER AND HER. "Catharine too had an intricate time of

it under the Catin; which was consoled to her only by a tolerably rapid succession of lovers, the best the

ground yielded. In which department it is well known what a Thrice Greatest she became: superior to any

Charles II.; equal almost to an August the Strong! Of her loves now and henceforth, which are heartily

uninteresting to me, I propose to say nothing farther; merely this, That in extent they probably rivalled the

highest male sovereign figures (and are to be put in the same category with these, and damned as deep, or a

little deeper);and cost her, in gifts, in magnificent pensions to the EMERITI (for she did things always in a

grandiose manner, quietly and yet inexorably dismissing the EMERITUS with stores of gold), the

considerable sum of 20 millions sterling, in the course of her long reign. One, or at most two, were off on

pension, when Hanbury Williams brought Poniatowski for her, as we transiently saw. Poniatowski will be

"Russia is not a publishing country; the Books about Catharine are few, and of little worth. TOOKE, an

English Chaplain; CASTERA, an unknown French Hangeron, who copies from Tooke, or Tooke from him:

these are to be read, as the badbest, and will yield little satisfactory insight; Castera, in particular, a great

deal of dubious backstairs gossip and street rumor, which are not delightful to a reader of sense. In fine, there

has been published, in these very years, a FRAGMENT of early AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Catharine

herself,a credible and highly remarkable little Piece: worth all the others, if it is knowledge of Catharine

you are seeking. [ Memoires de l'Imperatrice Catharine II., ecrits par elle meme (A. Herzen editing;

Anonymous (Castera), Vie de Catharine II., Imperatrice de Russie (a Paris, 1797; or reprinted, most of it,

enough of it, A VARSOVIE, 1798) 2 tomes, 8vo. Tooke, Life of Catharine II. (4th edition, London, 1800), 3

vols. 8vo; View of the Russian Empire during (London, 1799), 3 vols. 8vo. Hermann, Geschichte des

Russischen Staats (Hamburg, 1853 ET ANTEA), v. 241308 et seq.; is by much the most solid Book, though

a dull and heavy. Stenzel cites, as does Hermann, a Biographie Peters des IIIten; which no doubt exists, in

perhaps 3 volumes; but where, when, by whom, or of what quality, they do not tell me.] A most placid, solid,

substantial young Lady comes to light there; dropped into such an element as might have driven most people

mad. But it did not her; it only made her wiser and wiser in her generation. Element black, hideous, dirty, as

Lapland Sorcery;in which the first clear duty is, to hold one's tongue well, and keep one's eyes open.

Stars,not very heavenly, but of fixed nature, and heavenly to Catharine,a star or two, shine through the

abominable murk: Steady, patient; steer silently, in all weathers, towards these!

"Young Catharine's immovable equanimity in this distracted environment strikes us very much. Peter is

careering, tumbling about, on all manner of absurd broomsticks, driven too surely by the Devil;

terrificabsurd big Lapland Witch, surrounded by multitudes smaller, and some of them less ugly. Will be

Czar of Russia, however;and is one's socalled Husband. These are prospects for an observant, immovably

steadygoing young Woman! The reigning Czarina, old CATIN herself, is silently the Olympian Jove to

Catharine, who reveres her very much. Though articulately stupid as ever, in this Book of Catharine's, she

comes out with a dumb weight, of silence, of obstinacy, of intricate abrupt rigor, whichwho knows but it

may savor of dumb unconscious wisdom in the fat old blockhead? The Book says little of her, and in the way

of criticism, of praise or of blame, nothing whatever; but one gains the notion of some dark human female

"Catharine steered towards her stars. Lovers were vouchsafed her, of a kind (her small stars, as we may call

them); and, at length, through perilous intricacies, the big star, Autocracy of All the Russias,through what

horrors of intricacy, that last! She had hoped always it would be by Husband Peter that she, with the deeper

steady head, would be Autocrat: but the intricacies kept increasing, grew at last to the strangling pitch; and it

came to be, between Peter and her, 'Either you to Siberia (perhaps FARTHER), or else I!' And it was Peter

that had to go;in what hideous way is well enough known; no Siberia, no Holstein thought to be far enough

for Peter:and Catharine, merely weeping a little for him, mounted to the Autocracy herself. And then, the

big star of stars being once hers, she had, not in the lover kind alone, but in all uncelestial kinds, whole

nebulae and milkyways of small stars. A very Semiramis, the LouisQuatorze of those Northern Parts.

'Second Creatress of Russia,' second Peter the Great in a sense. To me none of the loveliest objects; yet there

are uglier, how infinitely uglier: object grandiose, if not great." We return to Friedrich and the Death of

Colonel Hordt, I believe, was the first who credibly apprised Friedrich of the great Russian Event. Colonel

Hordt, late of the FreeCorps HORDT, but captive since soon after the Kunersdorf time; and whose doleful

quasiinfernal "twentyfive months and three days" in the Citadel of Petersburg have changed in one hour

into celestial glories in the Court of that City;as readers shall themselves see anon. By Hordt or by

whomsoever, the instant Friedrich heard, by an authentic source, of the new Czar's Accession, Friedrich

hastened to turn round upon him with the friendliest attitude, with arms as if ready to open; dismissing all his

Russian Prisoners; and testifying, in every polite and royal way, how gladly he would advance if permitted.

To which the Czar, by Hordt and by other channels, imperially responded; rushing forward, he, as if with

January 31st is Order from the King, [In SCHONING, iii. 275 ("Breslau, 31st January, 1762").] That our

Russian Prisoners, one and all, shod, clad and dieted, be forthwith set under way from Stettin: in return for

which generosity the Prussians, from Siberia or wherever they were buried, are, soon after, hastening home in

like manner. Gudowitsh, Peter's favorite Adjutant, who had been sent to congratulate at Zerbst, comes round

by Breslau (February 20th), and has joyfully benign audience next day; directly on the heel of whom,

Adjutant Colonel von Goltz, who KAMMERHERR as well as Colonel, and understands things of business,

goes to Petersburg. February 23d, Czarish Majesty, to the horror of Vienna and glad astonishment of

mankind, emits Declaration (Note to all the Foreign Excellencies in Petersburg), "That there ought to be

Peace with this King of Prussia; that Czarish Majesty, for his own part, is resolved on the thing; gives up East

Preussen and the socalled conquests made; Russian participation in such a War has ceased." And practically

orders Czernichef, who is wintering with his 20,000 in Glatz, to quit Glatz and these Austrian Combinations,

and march homeward with his 20,000. Which Czernichef, so soon as arrangements of proviant and the like

are made, hastens to do;and does, as far as Thorn; but no farther, for a reason that will be seen. On the last

day of March, Czernichefoff about a week ago from Glatz, and now got into the Breslau latitudecame

across, with a select Suite of Four, to pay his court there; and had the honor to dine with his Majesty, and to

The vehemency of Austrian Diplomacies at Petersburg; and the horror of Kaiserinn and Kriegshofrath in

Vienna,who have just discharged 20,000 of their own people, counting on this Czernichef, and being

dreadfully tight for money,may be fancied. But all avails nothing. The ardent Czar advances towards

Friedrich with arms flung wide. Goltz and Gudowitsh are engaged on Treaty of Peace; Czar frankly gives up

East Preussen, "Yours again; what use has Russia for it, Royal Friend?" Treaty of Peace goes forward like the

drawing of a Marriagesettlement (concluded MAY 5th); and, in a month more, has changed into Treaty of

Alliance;Czernichef ordered to stop short at Thorn; to turn back, and join himself to this heroic King,

instead of fighting against him. Which again Czernichef, himself an admirer of this King, joyfully does;

Swedish Peace, Queen Ulrique and the AntiFrench Party now getting the upper hand, had been hastening

forward in the interim (finished, at Hamburg, MAY 2d): a most small matter in comparison to the Russian;

but welcome enough to Friedrich;though he said slightingly of it, when first mentioned: "Peace? I know

not hardly of any War there has been with Sweden;ask Colonel Belling about it!" Colonel Belling, a most

shining swift Hussar Colonel, who, with a 2,000 sharp fellows, hanging always on the Swedish flanks, sharp

as lightning, "nowhere and yet everywhere," as was said of him, has mainly, for the last year or two, had the

management of this extraordinary "War." Peace over all the North, Peace and more, is now Friedrich's.

Strangling imbroglio, wide as the world, has ebbed to man's height; dawn of day has ripened into sunrise for

Friedrich; the way out is now a thing credible and visible to him. Peter's friendliness is boundless; almost too

boundless! Peter begs a Prussian Regiment,dresses himself in its uniform, Colonel of ITZENPLITZ;

Friedrich begs a Russian Regiment, Colonel of SCHUWALOF: and all is joyful, hopeful; marriagebells

In regard to Friedrich's feelings while all this went on, take the following small utterances of his, before going

farther. JANUARY 27th, 1762 (To Madam Camas,eight days after the Russian Event): "I rejoice, my good

Mamma, to find you have such courage; I exhort you to redouble it! All ends in this world; so we may hope

this accursed War will not be the only thing eternal there. Since death has trussed up a certain CATIN of the

Hyperborean Countries, our situation has advantageously changed, and becomes more supportable than it

was. We must hope that some other events [favor of the new Czar mainly] will happen; by which we may

JANUARY 31st (To Minister Finkenstein) "Behold the first gleam of light that rises;Heaven be praised for

it! We must hope good weather will succeed these storms. God grant it!" [Preuss, ii. 312.]

END OF MARCH (To D'Argens): ... "All that [at Paris; about the Pompadourisms, the EXILE of Broglio and

Brother, and your other news] is very miserable; as well as that discrepancy between King's Council and

Parlement for and against the Jesuits! But, MON CHER MARQUIS, my head is so ill, I can tell you nothing

more, except that the Czar of Russia is a divine man; to whom I ought to erect altars." [ OEuvres de

MAY 25th (To the same,Russian PEACE three weeks ago): "It is very pleasant to me, dear Marquis, that

SansSouci could afford you an agreeable retreat during the beautiful Spring days. If it depended only on me,

how soon should I be there beside you! But to the Six Campaigns there is a Seventh to be added, and will

soon open; either because the Number 7 had once mystic qualities, or because in the Book of Fate from all

eternity the" ... "Jesuits banished from France? Ah, yes:hearing of that, I made my bit of plan for them

[mean to have my pick of them as schoolmasters in Silesia here]; and am waiting only till I get Silesia cleared

of Austrians as the first thing. You see we must not mow the corn till it is ripe." [ OEuvres de Frederic, xix.

MAY 28th (To the same): ... Tartar Khan actually astir, 10,000 men of his in Hungary (I am told); Turk

potentially ditto, with 200,000 (futile both, as ever): "All things show me the sure prospect of Peace by the

end of this Year; and, in the background of it, Sans Souci and my dear Marquis! A sweet calm springs up

again in my soul; and a feeling of hope, to which for six years I had got unused, consoles me for all I have

come through. Think only what a coil I shall be in, before a month hence [Campaign opened by that time,

horrid Game begun again]; and what a pass we had come to, in December last: Country at its last gasp

JUNE 8th (To Madame Camas,Russian ALLIANCE now come): "I know well, my good Mamma, the

sincere part you take in the lucky events that befall us. The mischief is, we are got so low, that we want at

present all manner of fortunate events to raise us again; and Two grand conclusions of Peace [the Russian, the

Swedish], which might reestablish Peace throughout, are at this moment only a step towards finishing the

Same day, JUNE 8th (To D'Argens): "Czernichef is on march to join us. Our Campaign will not open till

towards the end of this month [did open July 1st]; but think then what a pretty noise in this poor Silesia

again! In fine, my dear Marquis, the job ahead of me is hard and difficult; and nobody can say positively how

it will all go. Pray for us; and don't forget a poor devil who kicks about strangely in his harness, who leads the

life of one damned; and who nevertheless loves you sincerely.Adieu." [ OEuvres de Frederic, xix. 327.]

D'Argens (May 24th) has heard, by Letters from very wellinformed persons in Vienna, that "Imperial

Majesty, for some time past, spends half of her time in praying to the Virgin, and the other half in weeping."

"I wish her," adds the ungallant D'Argens, "as punishment for the mischiefs her ambition has cost mankind

these seven years past, the fate of Phaethon's Sisters, and that she melt altogether into water!" [Ib. xix. 320

("24th May, 1762").]Take one other little utterance; and then to Colonel Hordt and the Petersburg side of

JUNE 19th (still to D'Argens); "What is now going on in Russia no Count Kaunitz could foresee: what has

come to pass in England,of which the hatefulest part [Bute's altogether extraordinary attempts, in the

Kaunitz, in the Czar Peter direction, to FORCE a Peace upon me] is not yet known to you,I had no notion

of, in forming my plans! The Governor of a State, in troublous times, never can be sure. This is what disgusts

me with the business, in comparison. A Man of Letters operates on something certain; a Politician can have

almost no data of that kind." [Ib. xix. p. 329.] (How easy everybody's trade but one's own!)

Readers know what a tragedy poor Peter's was. His Czernichef did join the King; but with far less advantage

than Czernichef or anybody had anticipated!It is none of our intention to go into the chaotic Russian

element, or that wildly blazing sanguinary CatharineandPeter business; of which, at any rate, there are

plentiful accounts in common circulation, more or less accurate, especially M. Rulhiere's, [Histoire ou

Anecdotes sur la Revolution de Russie en l'annes 1762 (written 1768; first printed Paris, 1797: English

Translation, London, 1797).] the most succinct, lucid and least unsatisfactory, in the accessible languages.

Only so far as Friedrich was concerned are we. But readers saw this Couple married, under Friedrich's

auspices,a Marriage which he thought important twenty years ago; and sure enough the Dissolution of it

Readers, even those that know RULHIERE, will doubtless consent to a little supplementing from Two other

Eyewitnesses of credit. The first and principal is a respectable ExSwedish Gentleman, whom readers used

to hear of; the Colonel Hordt above mentioned, once of the FreeCorps HORDT, but fallen Prisoner

latterly;whose experiences and reports are all the more interesting to us, as Friedrich himself had specially

to depend on them at present; and doubtless, in times long afterwards, now and then heard speech of them

from Hordt. Our second Eyewitness is the Reverend Herr Doctor Busching (of the ERDBESCHREIBUNG,

of the BEITRAGE, and many other Works, an invaluable friend to us all along); who, in his wandering time,

Autumn, 1759, in the sequel to KUNERSDORF,when the Russians and Daun lay so long torpid, uncertain

what to do except keep Friedrich and Prince Henri well separate, and Friedrich had such watchings, campings

and marchings about on the hither skirt of them (skirt always veiled in Cossacks, and producing skirmishes as

you marched past),we did mention Hordt's capture; [Supra, vol. x. p. 315.] not much hoping that readers

could remember it in such a press of things more memorable. It was in, or as prelude to, one of those

skirmishes (one of the earliest, and a rather sharp one, "at Trebatsch," in FrankfurtLieberose Country, "4th

September, 1759"), that Hordt had his misfortune: he had been out reconnoitring, with an Orderly or two,

before the skirmish began, was suddenly "surrounded by 200 Cossacks," and after desperate plunging into

bogs, desperate firing of pistols and the like, was taken prisoner. Was carted miserably to Petersburg,such

a journey for dead ennui as Hordt never knew; and was then tumbled out into solitary confinement in the

Citadel, a place like the Spanish Inquisition; not the least notice taken of his request for a few Books, for

leave to answer his poor Wife's Letter, merely by the words, "Dear one, I am alive;"and was left there, to

the company of his own reflections, and a life as if in vacant Hades, for twentyfive months and three days.

After the lapse of that period, he has something to say to us again, and we transiently look in upon him there.

The Book we excerpt from is Memoires du Comte de Hordt (second edition, 2 volumes 12mo, Berlin, 1789).

This is Bookseller Pitra's redaction of the Hordt Autobiography (Berlin, 1788, was Pitra's first edition):

several years after, how many is not said, nor whether Hordt (who had become a dignitary in Berlin society

before Pitra's feat) was still living or not, a "M. Borelly, Professor in the Military School," undertook a

second considerably enlarged and improved redaction;of which latter there is an English Translation; easy

enough to read; but nearly without meaning, I should fear, to readers unacquainted with the scene and

subject. [ Memoirs of the Count de Hordt: London, 1806: 2 vols. 12mo,only the FIRST volume of which

(unavailable here) is in my possession.] Hordt was reckoned a perfectly veracious, intelligent kind of man:

but he seldom gives the least date, specification or precise detail; and his Book reads, not like the Testimony

of an Eyewitness, which it is, and valuable when you understand it; but more like some vague Forgery,

compiled by a destitute inventive individual, regardless of the Ten Commandments (sparingly consulting

even his file of Old Newspapers), and writing a Book which would deserve the treadmill, were there any

WEDNESDAY, 6th JANUARY, 1762, Hordt's vacant Hades of an existence in the Citadel of Petersburg was

broken by a loud sound: three minuteguns went off from different sides, close by; and then whole salvos,

peal after peal: "Czarina gone overnight, Peter III. Czar in her stead!" said the Officer, rushing in to tell

Hordt; to whom it was as news of resurrection from the dead. "Evening of same day, an AidedeCamp of

the new Czar came to announce my liberty; equipage waiting to take me at once to his Russian Majesty.

Asked him to defer it till the following dayso agitated was I." And indeed the Czar, busy taking

acclamations, oaths of fealty, riding about among his Troops by torchlight, could have made little of me that

evening. [Hermann, Geschichte des Russischen Staats, v. 241.] "Ultimately, my presentation was deferred till

Sunday" January 10th, "that it might be done with proper splendor, all the Nobility being then usually

"JANUARY 10th, Waited, amid crowds of Nobility, in the Gallery, accordingly. Was presented in the

Gallery, through which the Czar, followed by Czarina and all the Court, were passing on their way to Chapel.

Czar made a short kind speech ('Delighted to do you an act of justice, Monsieur, and return a valuable servant

to the King I esteem'); gave me his hand to kiss: Czarina did the same. General Korf," an excellent friend, so

kind to me at Konigsberg, while I was getting carted hither, and a General now in high office here, "who had

been my introducer, led me into Chapel, to the Court's place (TRIBUNE DE LA COUR). Czar came across

repeatedly [while public worship was going on; a Czar perhaps too regardless that way!] to talk to me; dwelt

much on his attachment to the King. On coming out, the Head Chamberlain whispered me, 'You dine with the

"Table was of sixty covers; splendid as the Arabian Tales. Czar and Czarina sat side by side; Korf and I had

the honor to be placed opposite them. Hardly were we seated when the Czar addressed me: 'You have had no

Prussian news this long while. I am glad to tell you that the King is well, though he has had such fighting to

right and left;but I hope there will soon be an end to all that.' Words which everybody listened to like

prophecy! [Peter is nothing of a Politician.] 'How long have you been in prison?' continued the Czar.

'Twentyfive months and three days, your Majesty.' 'Were you well treated?' Hordt hesitated, knew not what

to say; but, the Czar urging him, confessed, 'He had been always rather badly used; not even allowed to buy a

few books to read.' At which the Czarina was evidently shocked: 'CELA EST BIEN BARBARE!' she

exclaimed aloud.I wished much to return home at once; and petitioned the Czar on that subject, during

coffee, in the withdrawing rooms; but he answered, 'No, you must not,not till an express Prussian Envoy

arrive!' I had to stay, therefore; and was thenceforth almost daily at Court",but unluckily a little vague, and

TOGETHER (No date: Palace of Petersburg, Spring, 1762). Peter had begun in a great way: all for

liberalism, enlightenment, abolition of abuses, general magnanimity on his own and everybody's part.

Rulhiere did not see the following scene; but it seems to be well enough vouched for, and Rulhiere heard it

talked of in society. "As many as 20,000 persons, it is counted, have come home from Siberian Exile:" the

L'Estocs, the Munnichs, Bierens, all manner of internecine figures, as if risen from the dead. "Since the night

when Munnich arrested Bieren [readers possibly remember it, and Mannstein's account of it [Supra, vol. vii.

p. 363.]], the first time these two met was in the gay and tumultuous crowd which surrounded the new Czar.

'Come, bygones be bygones,' said Peter, noticing them; 'let us three all drink together, like friends!'and

ordered three glasses of wine. Peter was beginning his glass to show the others an example, when somebody

came with a message to him, which was delivered in a low tone; Peter listening drank out his wine, set down

the glass, and hastened off; so that Bieren and Munnich, the two old enemies, were left standing, glass in

hand, each with his eyes on the Czar's glass;at length, as the Czar did not return, they flashed each his eyes

into the other's face; and after a moment's survey, set down their glasses untasted, and walked off in opposite

directions." [Rulhiere, p. 33.] Won't coalesce, it seems, in spite of the Czar's high wishes. An emblem of

much that befell the poor Czar in his present high course of good intentions and headlong

THE CZAR WEARS A PORTRAIT OF FRIEDRICH ON HIS FINGER. "Czar Peter never disguised his

Prussian predilections. One evening he said, 'Propose to your friend Keith [English Excellency here, whom

we know] to give me a supper at his house tomorrow night. The other Foreign Ministers will perhaps be

jealous; but I don't care!' Supper at the English Embassy took place. Only ten or twelve persons, of the Czar's

choosing, were present. Czar very gay and in fine spirits. Talked much of the King of Prussia. Showed me a

signetring on his finger, with Friedrich's Portrait in it; ring was handed round the table." [Hordt, ii. 118, 124,

129.] This is a signetring famous at Court in these months. One day Peter had lost it (mislaid somewhere),

and got into furious explosion till it was found for him again. [Hermann, v. 258.] Let us now hear Busching,

HERR PASTOR BUSCHING DOES THE HOMAGING FOR SELF AND PEOPLE. ... "In most Countries,

it is Official or Military People that administer the Oath of Homage, on a change of Sovereigns. But in

Petersburg, among the German population, it is the Pastors of their respective Churches. At the accession of

Peter III., I, for the first time [being still a young hand rather than an old], took the Oath from several

"As to the Congratulatory Addresses, the new Czar received the Congratulations of all classes, and also of the

Pastors of the Foreign Churches, in the following manner. He came walking slowly through a suite of rooms,

in each of which a body of Congratulators were assembled. Courtofficials preceded, Stateofficials

followed him. Then came the Czarina, attended in a similar way. And always on entering a new room they

received a new Congratulation from the spokesman of the party there. The spokesman of us Protestant

Pastors was my colleague, Senior Trefurt; but the GeneralinChief and HeadofPolice, Baron von Korf

[Hordt's friend, known to us above, German, we perceive, by creed and name], thinking it was I that had to

make the speech, and intending to present me at the same time to the Czar, motioned to me from his place

behind the Czar to advance. But I did not push forward; thinking it inopportune and of no importance to

me.""Neither did I share the great expectations which Baron von Korf and everybody entertained of this

new reign. All people now promised themselves better times, without reflecting [as they should have done!]

that the better men necessary to produce these were nowhere forthcoming!" [Busching's Beitrage, vi.

For the first two or three months, Peter was the idol of all the world: such generosities and magnanimities;

Such zeal and diligence, one magnanimous improvement following another! He had at once abolished

Torture in his LawCourts: resolved to have a regular Code of Laws,and Judges to be depended on for

doing justice. He "destroyed monopolies;" "lowered the price of salt." To the joy of everybody, he had

hastened (January 18th, second week of reign) to abolish the SECRET CHANCERY,a horrid Spanish

Inquisition engine of domestic politics. His Nobility he had determined should be noble: January 28th (third

week of reign just beginning), he absolved the Nobility from all servile duties to him: "You can travel when

and where you please; you are not obliged to serve in my Armies; you may serve in anybody's not at war with

me!" under plaudits loud and universal from that Order of men. And was petitioned by a grateful Petersburg

world: "Permit us, magnanimous Czar, to raise a statue of your Majesty in solid Gold!" "Don't at all!"

answered Peter: "Ah, if by good governing I could raise a memorial in my People's hearts; that would be the

Statue for me!" [Hermann, v. 248.] Poor headlong Peter!It was a less lucky step that of informing the

Clergy (date not given), That in the Czarship lay Spiritual Sovereignty as well as Temporal, and that HE

would henceforth administer their rich Abbey Lands and the like:this gave a sad shock to the upper strata

of Priesthood, extending gradually to the lower, and ultimately raising an ominous general thought (perhaps

worse than a general cry) of "Church in Danger! Alas, is our Czar regardless of Holy Religion, then? Perhaps,

at heart still Lutheran, and has no Religion?" This, and his too headlong Prussian tendencies, are counted to

HERR BUSCHING SEES THE CZAR ON HORSEBACK. "When the Czar's own Regiment of Cuirassiers

came to Petersburg, the Czar, dressed in the uniform of the regiment, rode out to meet it; and returning at its

head, rode repeatedly through certain quarters of the Town. His helmet was buckled tight with leather straps

under the chin; he sat his horse as upright and stiff as a wooden image; held his sabre in equally stiff manner;

turned fixedly his eyes to the right; and never by a hair'sbreadth changed that posture. In such attitude he

twice passed my house with his regiment, without changing a feature at sight of the many persons who

crowded the windows. To me [in my privately austere judgment] he seemed so KLEINGEISTISCH, so

smallminded a person, that I"in fact, knew not what to think of it. [Busching, Beitrage, vi. 464.]

HORDT SEES THE DECEASED CZARINA LYING IN STATE. "One day, after dining at Court, General

Korf proposed that we should go and see the LIT DE PARADE" (Paradebed) of the late Czarina, which is in

another Palace, not far off. "Count Schuwalof [NOT her old lover, who has DIED since her, poor old

creature; but his Son, a cultivated man, afterwards Voltaire's friend] accompanied us; and, his rooms being

contiguous to those of the dead Lady, he asked us to take coffee with him afterwards. The Imperial Bier stood

in the Grand Saloon, which was hung all round with black, festooned and garlanded with clothofsilver; the

glare of waxlights quite blinding. Bier, covered with clothofgold trimmed with silver lace, was raised

upon steps. A rich Crown was on the head of the dead Czarina. Beside the bier stood Four Ladies, two on

each hand, in grand mourning; immense crape training on the ground behind them. Two Officers of the

LifeGuard occupied the lowest steps: on the topmost, at the foot of the bier, was an Archimandrite (superior

kind of ABBOT), who had a Bible before him, from which he read aloud,continuously till relieved by

another. This went on day and night without interruption. All round the bier, on stools (TABOURETS), were

placed different Crowns, and the insignia of various Orders,those of Prussia, among others. It being

established usage, I had, to my great repugnance, to kiss the hand of the corpse! We then talked a little to the

Ladies in attendance (with their crape trains), joking about the article of hand kissing; finally we adjourned

for coffee to Count Schuwalof's apartments, which were of an incredible magnificence." That same evening,

"I supped with the Czar in his PETIT APPARTEMENT, Private Rooms [a fine freeandeasy nook of

space!]. The company there consisted of the Countess Woronzow, a creature without any graces, bodily or

mental, whom the Czar had chosen for his Mistress [snubnosed, pockmarked, fat, and with a pert tongue at

times], whom I liked the less, as there were one or two other very handsome women there. Some Courtiers

too; and no Foreigners but the English Envoy and myself. The supper was very gay, and was prolonged late

into the night. These late orgies, however, did not prevent his Majesty from attending to business in good

time next morning. He would appear unexpectedly, at an early hour, at the Senate, at the Synod [Head

CONSISTORY], making them stand to their duties,"or pretend to do it. His Majesty is not understood to

have got much real work out of either of these Governing Bodies; the former, the Senate, or SECULAR one,

which had fallen very torpid latterly, was, not long after this, suffered to die out altogether. Peter himself was

a violently pushing man, and never shrank from labor; always in a plunge of hurries, and of irregular hours.

In his final time, people whispered, "The Czar is killing himself; sits smoking, tippling, talking till 2 in the

CZARINA ELIZABETH'S FUNERAL, AS SEEN BY HORDT (much abridged). "At 10 in the morning all

the bells in Petersburg broke out; and tolled incessantly [day or month not hinted at,nor worth seeking;

grim darkness of universal frost perceptible enough; clangor of bells; and procession seemingly of miles

long,on this extremely high errand!]Minuteguns were fired from the moment the procession set out

from the Castle till it arrived at the Citadel, a distance of two English miles and a half. Planks were laid all

the way; forming a sort of bridge through the streets, and over the ice of the Neva. All the soldiers of the

Garrison were ranked in espalier on each side. Three hundred grenadiers opened the march; after them, three

hundred priests, in sacerdotal costume; walking twoandtwo, singing hymns. All the Crowns and Orders,

above mentioned by me, were carried by high Dignitaries of the Court, walking in single file, each a

chamberlain behind him. Hearse was followed by the Czar, skirt of his black cloak held up by Twelve

Chamberlains, each a lighted taper in the OTHER hand. Prince George of Holstein [Czar's Uncle] came next,

then Holstein Beck [Czar's Cousin]. Czarina Catharine followed, also on foot, with a lighted taper; her cloak

borne by all her Ladies. Three hundred grenadiers closed the procession. Bells tolling, minuteguns firing,

seas of people crowding."Thus the Russians buried their Czarina. Day and its dusky frostcurtains sank;

and Bootes, looking down from the starry deeps, found one Telluric Anomaly forever hidden from him. She

had left of unworn Dresses, the richest procurable in Nature (five a day her usual allowance, and never or

company every morning. She received everybody with great affability and grace. But notwithstanding her

efforts to appear gay, one could perceive a deep background of sadness in her. She knew better than anybody

the violent (ARDENTE) character of her husband; and perhaps she then already foresaw what would come.

She also had her circle every evening, and always asked the company to stay supper. One evening, when I

was of her party, a confidential Equerry of the Czar came in, and whispered me That I had been searched for

all over Town, to come to supper at the COUNTESS'S (that was the usual designation of the Sultana,"DAS

FRAULEIN, spelt in Russian ways, is the more usual). "I begged to be excused for this time, being engaged

to sup with the Czarina, to whom I could not well state the reason for which I was to leave. The Equerry had

not gone long, when suddenly a great noise was heard, the two wings of the door were flung open, and the

Czar entered. He saluted politely the Czarina and her circle; called me with that smiling and gracious air

which he always had; took me by the arm, and said to the Czarina: 'Excuse me, Madam, if tonight I carry off

one of your guests; it is this Prussian I had searched for all over the Town.' The Czarina laughed; I made her a

deep bow, and went away with my conductor. Next morning I went to the Czarina; who, without mentioning

what had passed last night, said smiling, 'Come and sup with me always when there is nothing to prevent it.'"

FEBRUARY 21st, HORDT AT ZARSKOEZELOE. "On occasion of the Czar's birthday [which gives us a

date, for once], [Michaelis, ii. 627: "Peter born, 21st February, 1728."] there were great festivities, lasting a

week. It began with a grand TE DEUM, at which the Czar was present, but not the Czarina. She had, that

morning, in obedience to her husband's will, decorated 'the Countess' with the cordon of the Order of St.

Catharine. She was now detained in her Apartment 'by indisposition;' and did not leave it during the eight

days the festivities lasted." This happened at the Country Palace, ZarskoeZeloe; and is a turningpoint in

poor Peter's History. [Hermann, p. 253.] From that day, his Czarina saw that, by the medium of her Peter, it

was not she that would ever come to be Autocrat; not she, but a pockmarked, unbeautiful Person, with

Cordon of the Order of St. Catharine,blessings on it! From that day the Czarina sat brooding her wrongs

and her perils,wrongs DOUE, very many, and now wrongs to be SUFFERED, who can say how many!

She perceives clearly that the Czar is gone from her, fixedly sullen at her (not without cause);and that

Siberia, or worse, is possible by and by. The Czarina was helplessly wretched for some time; and by degrees

entered on a Plot;assisted by Princess Dashkof (Sister of the Snubnosed), by Panin (our Son's Tutor, "a

genuine Son, I will swear, whatever the Papa may think in his wild moments!"), by Gregory Orlof (one's

present Lover), and others of less mark;and it ripened exquisitely within the next four months!

HORDT HEARS THE PRAISES OF HIS KING. "Next day [nobody can guess what DAY] I dined at Court.

I sat opposite the Czar, who talked of nothing but of his 'good friend the King of Prussia.' He knew all the

smallest details of his Campaigns; all his military arrangements; the dress and strength of all his Regiments;

and he declared aloud that he would shortly put all his troops upon the same footing [which he did shortly, to

the great disgust of his troops].Rising from table, the Czar himself did me the honor to say, 'Come

tomorrow; dine with me EN PETIT APPARTEMENT [on the SNUG, where we often play highjinks, and

go to great lengths in liquor and tobacco]; I will show you something curious, which you will like.' I went at

the accustomed hour; I foundLieutenant General Werner [hidden since his accident at Colberg last

winter, whom a beneficent Czar has summoned again into the light of noon]! I made a great friendship with

this distinguished General, who was a charming man; and went constantly about with him, till he left me

here,"Czarish kindness letting Werner home, and detaining me, to my regret. [HORDT, i. 133145, 151.]

The Prussian Treaties, first of Peace (May 5th), with all our Conquests flung back, and then of Alliance, with

yourself and ourselves, as it were, flung into the bargain,were by no means so popular in Petersburg as in

Berlin! From May 5th onwards, we can suppose Peter to be, perhaps rather rapidly, on the declining hand.

Add the fatal element, "Church in Danger" (a Czar privately Apostate); his very Guardsmen indignant at their

tightfitting Prussian uniforms, and at their no less tight Prussian DRILL (which the Czar is uncommonly

urgent with); and a Czarina Plot silently spreading on all sides, like subterranean mines filled with

HERR BUSCHING SEES THE CATASTROPHE (Friday, 9th July, 1762). "This being the day before

PeterandPaul, which is a great Holiday in Petersburg, I drove out, between 9 and 10 in the morning, to

visit the sick. On my way from the first house where I had called, I heard a distant noise like that of a rising

thunderstorm, and asked my people what it was. They did not know; but it appeared to them like the

Shouting of a Mob (VOLKSGESCHREI), and there were all sorts of rumors afloat. Some said, 'The Czar had

suddenly resolved to get himself crowned at Petersburg, before setting out for the War on Denmark.' Others

said, 'He had named the Czarina to be Regent during his absence, and that she was to be crowned for this

purpose.' These rumors were too silly: meanwhile the noise perceptibly drew nearer; and I ordered my

"On getting home, I called my Wife; and told her, That something extraordinary was then going on, but that I

could not learn what; that it appeared to me like some popular Tumult, which was coming nearer to us every

moment. We hurried to the corner room of our house; threw open the window, which looks to the Church of

St. Mary of Casan [where an Act of Thanksgiving has just been consummated, of a very peculiar

kind!]and we then saw, near this Church, an innumerable crowd of people; dressed and halfdressed

soldiers of the footregiments of the Guards mixed with the populace. We perceived that the crowd pressed

round a common twoseated Hackney Coach drawn by two horses; in which, after a few minutes, a Lady

dressed in black, and wearing the Order of St. Catharine, coming out of the church, took a seat. Whereupon

the churchbells began ringing, and the priests, with their assistants carrying crosses, got into procession, and

walked before the Coach. We now recognized that it was the Czarina Catharine saluting the multitude to right

and left, as she fared along." [ Beitrage, vi. 465: compare RULHIERE, p. 95; HERMANN, v. 287.]

Yes, Doctor, that Lady in black is the Czarina; and has come a drive of twenty miles this morning; and done a

great deal of business in Town,one day before the set time. In her remote Apartment at Peterhof, this

morning, between 2 and 3, she awoke to see Alexei Orlof, called oftener SCARRED Orlof (Lover

GREGORY'S Brother), kneeling at her bedside, with the words, "Madam, you must come: there is not a

moment to lose!"who, seeing her awake, vanished to get the vehicles ready. About 7, she, with the Scarred

and her maid and a valet or two, arrived at the Guards' Barracks here,Gregory Orlof, and others concerned,

waiting to receive her, in the fit temper for playing at sharps. She has spoken a little, wept a little, to the

Guards (still only halfdressed, many of them): "Holy religion, Russian Empire thrown at the feet of Prussia;

my poor Son to be disinherited: Alack, ohoo!" Whereupon the Guards (their Officers already gained by

Orlof) have indignantly blazed up into the fit Hurrahurraing:and here, since about 9 A.M., we have just

been in the "Church of St. Mary of Casan" ("Oh, my friends, Orthodox Religion, first of all!") doing

TEDEUMS and the other Divine Offices, for the thricehappy Revolution and Deliverance now vouchsafed

us and you! And the Herr Doctor, under outburst of the chimes of St. Mary, and of the jubilant Soldieries and

Populations, sees the Czarina saluting to right and left; and Priests, with their assistants and crucifixes

("Behold them, ye Orthodox; is there anything equal to true Religion?"), walking before her Hackney Coach.

"On the one step of her Coach," continues the Herr Doctor, "stood Grigorei Grigorjewitsh Orlow," so he

spells him, "and in front of it, with drawn sword, rode the Fieldmarshal and Hetman Count Kirila

Grigorjewitsh Rasomowski, Colonel of the Ismailow Guard. LieutenantGeneral (soon to be

GeneralOrdnanceMaster) Villebois came galloping up; leapt from his horse under our windows, and

placed himself on the other step of the Coach. The procession passed before our house; going first to the New

stone Palace, then to the Old wooden Winter Palace. Common Russians shouted mockingly up to us, 'Your

god [meaning the Czar] is dead!' And others, 'He is gone; we will have no more of him!'"

About this hour of the day, at Oranienbaum (ORANGETREE, some twenty miles from here, and from

Peterhof guess ten or twelve), Czar Peter is drilling zealously his brave Holsteiners (2,000 or more, "the

flower of all my troops"); and has not, for hours after, the least inkling of all this. Catharine had been across

to visit him on Wednesday, no farther back; and had kindled Oranienbaum into opera, into illumination and

what not. Thursday (yesterday), Czar and Czarina met at some Grandee's festivity, who lives between their

two Residences. This day the Czar is appointed for Peterhof; tomorrow, July 10th (PeterandPaul's grand

Holiday), Czar, Czarina and united Court were to have done the Festivities together there,with Czarina's

powdermine of Plot laid under them; which latter has exploded one day sooner, in the present happy

manner! The poor Czar, this day, on getting to Peterhof, and finding Czarina vanished, understood too well;

he saw "big smoke clouds rise suddenly over Petersburg region," withal,"Ha, she has cannon going for

her yonder; salvoing and homaging!"and rushed back to Oranienbaum half mad. Old Munnich undertook

to save him, by one, by two or even three different methods, "Only order me, and stand up to it with sword

bare!"but Peter's wits were all flying miscellaneously about, and he could resolve on nothing.

Peter and his Czarina never met more. Saturday (tomorrow), he abdicates; drives over to Peterhof,

expecting, as per bargain, interview with his Wife; freedom to retire to Holstein, and "every sort of kindness

compatible with his situation:" but is met there instead, on the staircase, by brutal people, who tear the orders

off his coat, at length the very clothes off his back,and pack him away to Ropscha, a quiet Villa some

miles off, to sit silent there till Orlof and Company have considered. Consideration is: "To Holstein? He has

an AntiDanish Russian Army just now in that neighborhood; he will not be safe in Holstein;where will he

be safe?" Saturday, 17th, Peter's seventh day in Ropscha, the Orlofs (Scarred Orlof and Four other

miscreants, one of them a Prince, one a Playactor) came over, and murdered poor Peter, in a treacherous,

and even bungling and disgusting, and altogether hideous manner. "A glass of burgundy [poisoned

burgundy], your Highness?" said they, at dinner with his poor Highness. On the back of which, the burgundy

having failed and been found out, came grappling and hauling, trampling, shrieking, and at last strangulation.

Surely the Devil will reward such a Five of his Elect? But we detain Herr Busching: it is still only Friday

morning, 9th of the month; and the Czarina's Hackney Coach, in the manner of a comet and tail, has just gone

"After this terrible uproar had left our quarter, I hastened to the Danish Ambassador, Count Haxthausen, who

lived near me, to bring him the important news that the Czar was said to be dead. The Count was just about to

burn a mass of Papers, fearing the mob would plunder his house; but he did not proceed with it now, and

thanked Heaven for saving his Country. His Secretary of Legation, my friend Schumacher, gave me all the

money he had in his pockets, to distribute amongst the poor; and I returned home. Directly after, there passed

our house, at a rate as if the horses were running away, a common twohorse coach, in which sat HeadTutor

(OBER HOFMEISTER) von Panin with the Grand Duke [famous Czar Paul that is to be], who was still in

"Not long after, I saw some of the Footguards, in the public street near the Winter Palace, selling, at rates

dogcheap, their new uniforms after the Prussian cut, which they had stript off; whilst others, singing

merrily, carried about, stuck on the top of their muskets, or on their bayonets, their new grenadier caps of

Prussian fashion. [See in HERMANN (v. 291) the Saxon Ambassador's Report.] I saw several soldiers,, out

on errand or otherwise, seizing the coaches they met in the streets, and driving on in them. Others

appropriated the eatables which hucksters carried about in baskets. But in all this wild tumult, nobody was

killed; and only at Oranienbaum a few Holstein soldiers got wounded by some low Russians, in their

"July 11th, the disorder amongst the soldiers was at its height; yet still much less than might have been

expected. Many of them entered the houses of Foreigners, and demanded money. Seeing a number of them

come into my house, I hastily put a quantity of roubles and halfroubles in my pocket, and went out with a

"SATURDAY, JULY 17th, was the day of the Czar's death; on the same 17th, the Empress was informed of

it; and next day, his body was brought from Ropscha to the Convent of St. Alexander Newski, near

Petersburg. Here it lay in state three days; nay, an Imperial Manifesto even ordered that the last honors and

duty be paid to it. July 20th, I drove thither with my Wife; and to be able to view the body more minutely, we

passed twice through the room where it lay. [An uncommonly broad neckcloth on it, did you observe?]

Owing to the rapid dissolution, it had to be interred on the following day: and it was a touching

circumstance, that this happened to be the very day on which the Czar had fixed to start from Petersburg on

Catharine, one must own with a shudder, has not attained the Autocracy of All the Russias gratis. Let us hope

she would once till driven upon a dire alternativehave herself shuddered to purchase at such a price. A

kind of horror haunts one's notion of her redhanded brazenfaced Orlofs and her, which all the cosmetics of

the world will never quite cover. And yet, on the spot, in Petersburg at the moment! Read this Clipping

"In BUSCHING'S MAGAZINE are some Loveletters from the old Marshal Munnich to Catharine just after

this event, which are psychologically curious. Loveletters, for they partake of that character; though the man

is 82, and has had such breakages and vicissitudes in this Earth. Alive yet, it would seem; and full of

ambitions. Unspeakably beautiful is this young Woman to him; radiant as oxeyed Juno, as Diana of the

silver bow,such a power in her to gratify the avarices, ambitions, cupidities of an insatiable old fellow: O

divine young Empress, Aurora of bright Summer epochs, rosyfingered daughter of the Sun,grant me the

governing of This, the administering of That: and see what a thing I will make of it (I, an inventive old

gentleman), for your Majesty's honor and glory, and my own advantage! [Busching, Magazin fur die neue

Historie und Geographie (Halle, Year 1782), xvi. 413477 (22 LETTERS, and only thrice or so a word of

RESPONSE from "MA DIVINITE:" dates, "Narva, 4th August, 1762" ... "Petersburg, 3d October,

1762").]Innumerable persons of less note than Munnich have their Biographies, and are known to the

reading public and in all barbers'shops, if that were an advantage to them. Very considerable, this Munnich,

as a soldier, for one thing. And surely had very strange adventures; an original German character

withal:about the stature of Belleisle, for example; and not quite unlike Belleisle in some of his ways?

Came originally from the swamps of Oldenburg, or Lower Weser Country,son of a DEICHGRAFE

(DitchSuperintendent) there. REQUIESCANT in oblivious silence, Belleisle and he; it is better than being

"Biographies were once rhythmic, earnest as death or as life, earnest as transcendent human Insight risen to

the Singing pitch; some Homer, nay some Psalmist or Evangelist, spokesman of reverent Populations, was

the Biographer. Rhythmic, WITH exactitude, investigation to the very marrow; this, or else oblivion,

Biography should now, and at all times, be; but is not,by any manner of means. With what results is visible

enough, if you will look! Human Stupor, fallen into the dishonest, lazy and UNflogged condition, is truly an

Catharine did not persist in her AntiPrussian determination. July 9th, the Manifesto had been indignantly

emphatic on Prussia; July 22d, in a Note to Goltz from the Czarina, it was all withdrawn again. [Rodenbeck,

ii. 171.] Looking into the deceased Czar's Papers, she found that Friedrich's Letters to him had contained

nothing of wrong or offensive; always excellent advices, on the contrary,advice, among others, To be

conciliatory to his clever witted Wife, and to make her his ally, not his opponent, in living and reigning. In

Konigsberg (July 16th, seven days after July 9th), the Russian Governor, just on the point of quitting, emitted

Proclamation, to everybody's horror: "No; altered, all that; under pain of death, your Oath to Russia still

valid!" Which for the next ten days, or till his new proclamation, made such a Konigsberg of it as may be

imagined. The sight of those Letters is understood to have turned the scale; which had hung wavering till July

22d in the Czarina's mind. "Can it be good," she might privately think withal, "to begin our reign by kindling

a foolish War again?" How Friedrich received the news of July 9th, and into what a crisis it threw him, we

shall soon see. His Campaign had begun July 1st; and has been summoning us home, into ITS horizon, for

Freidrich's plan of Campaign is settled long since: Recapture Schweidnitz; clear Silesia of the enemy; Silesia

and all our own Dominions clear, we can then stand fencible against the Austrian perseverances. Peace, one

day, they must grant us. The general tide of European things is changed by these occurrences in Petersburg

and London. Peace is evidently near. France and England are again beginning to negotiate; no Pitt now to be

rigorous. The tide of War has been wavering at its summit for two years past; and now, with this of Russia,

and this of Bute instead of Pitt, there is ebb everywhere, and all Europe determining for peace. Steady at the

helm, as heretofore, a Friedrich, with the worldcurrent in his favor, may hope to get home after all.

Austrian Headquarters had been at Waldenburg, under Loudon or his Lieutenants, all Winter. Loudon

returned thither from Vienna April 7th; but is not to command in chief, this Year,Schweidnitz still sticking

in some people's throats: "Dangerous; a man with such rash practices, rapidities and Pandour tendencies!"

Daun is to command in Silesia; Loudon, under him, obscure to us henceforth, and inoffensive to Official

people. Reichs Army shall take charge of Saxony; nominally a Reichs Army, though there are 35,000

Austrians in it, as the soul of it, under some Serbelloni, some Stollberg as Chief(the fact, I believe, is:

Serbelloni got angrily displaced on that "crossing of the Mulda by Prince Henri, May 13th;" Prince of

Zweibruck had angrily abdicated a year before; and a Prince von Stollberg is now Generalissimo of Reich

and Allies: but it is no kind of matter),some Stollberg, with Serbelloni, Haddick, Maguire and such like in

subaltern places. Cunctator Daun, in spite of his late sleepy ways, is to be Headman again: this surely is a

cheering circumstance to Friedrich; Loudon, not Daun, being the only man he ever got much ill of hitherto.

Daun arrives in Waldenburg, May 9th; and to show that he is not cunctatory, steps out within a week after.

May 15th, he has descended from his Mountains; has swept round by the back and by the front of

Schweidnitz, far and wide, into the Plain Country, and encamped himself crescentwise, many miles in

length, Headquarter near the Zobtenberg. Bent fondly round Schweidnitz; meaning, as is evident, to defend

Schweidnitz against all comers,his very position symbolically intimating: "I will fight for it, Prussian

Prussian Majesty, however, seemed to take no notice of him; and, what was very surprising, kept his old

quarters: "a Cantonment, or Chain of Posts, ten miles long; Schweidnitz Water on his right flank, Oder on his

left;" perfectly safe, as he perceives, being able to assemble in four hours, if Daun try anything. [Tempelhof,

vi. 66.] And, in fact, sat there, and did not come into the Field at all for five weeks or more;waiting till

Czernichef's 20,000 arrive, who are on march from Thorn since June 2d. Mere smallwar goes on in the

interim; world getting all greener and flowerier; the Glatz Highlands, to one's left yonder (OwlMountains,

EULENGEBIRGE so called), lying magically blue and mysterious:on the Plain in front of them, ten miles

from the final peaks of them, is Schweidnitz Fortress, lying full in view, with a picked Garrison of 12,000

under a picked Captain, and all else of defence or impregnability; and Friedrich privately determined to take

it, though by methods of his own choosing, and which cannot commence till Czernichef come. Daun, with his

right wing, has hold of those Highland Regions, and cautiously guards them; can, when he pleases, wend

back to Waldenburg Country; and at once, with his superior numbers, block all passages, and sit there

impregnable. The methods of dislodging him are obscure to Friedrich himself; but methods there must be,

dislodged he must be, and sent packing. Without that, all siege of Schweidnitz is flatly impossible.

June 27th, Friedrich's Headquarter is Tintz, Czernichef now nigh: [Tempelhof, vi. 76.] two days ago (June

25th), Czernichef's Cossacks "crossed the Oder at Auras,"with how different objects from those they used

to have! JULY 1st, Czernichef himself is here, in full tale and equipment. Had encamped, a day ago, on the

Field of Lissa; where Majesty reviewed him, inspected and manoeuvred him, with great mutual satisfaction.

"Field of Lissa;" it is where our poor Prussian people encamped on the night of Leuthen, with their "NUN

DANKET ALLE GOTT," five years ago, in memorable circumstances: to what various uses are Earth's

Friedrich, by degrees, has considerably changed his opinion, and bent towards the late Keith's, about Russian

Soldiery: a Soldiery of most various kinds; from predatory Cossacks and Calmucks to those noble

Grenadiers, whom we saw sit down on the Walls of Schweidnitz when their work was done. A perfectly

steady obedience is in these men; at any and all times obedient, to the death if needful, and with a silence,

with a steadfastness as of rocks and gravitation. Which is a superlative quality in soldiers. Good in Nations

too, within limits; and much a distinction in the Russian Nation: rare, or almost unique, in these unruly

Times. The Russians have privately had their admirations of Friedrich, all this while; and called him by I

forget what unpronounceable vernacular epithet, signifying "Son of Lightning," or some such thing.

[Buchholz, Neueste PreussischBrandenburgische Geschichte (1775), vol ii. (page irrecoverable).] No doubt

they are proud to have a stroke of service under such a one, since Father Peter Feodorowitsh graciously

orders it: the very Cossacks show an alertness, a vivacity; and see cheery possibilities ahead, in Countries not

yet plundered out. They stayed with Friedrich only Three Weeks,Russia being an uncertain Country. As

we have seen above; though Friedrich, who is vitally concerned, has not yet seen! But their junction with

him, and review by him in the Field of Lissa, had its uses by and by; and may be counted an epoch in Russian

History, if nothing more. The poor Russian Nation, most pitiable of loyal Nations,struggling patiently

ahead, on those bad terms, under such CATINS and foul Nightmares,has it, shall we say, quite gone

without conquest in this mad War? Perhaps, not quite. It has at least shown Europe that it possesses fighting

qualities: a changed Nation, since Karl XII. beat them easily, at Narva, 8,000 to 80,000, in the snowy

Czernichef once come, and in his place in the Camp of Tintz, business instantly begins,business, and a

press of it, in right earnest;upon the hitherto idle Daun. July 1st, there is general complex Advance

everywhere on Friedrich's part; general attempt towards the Mountains. Upon which Daun, well awake, at

once rolls universally thitherward again; takes post in front of the Mountains,on the Heights of

Kunzendorf, to wit (Loudon's old post in Bunzelwitz time);and elaborately spreads himself out in defence

there. "Take him multifariously by the left flank, get between him and his Magazine at Braunau!" thinks

Friedrich. Discovering which, Daun straightway hitches back into the Mountains altogether, leaving

Kunzendorf to Friedrich's use as main camp. His outmost Austrians, on the edge of the Mountain Country,

and back as far as suitable, Daun elaborately posts; and intrenches himself behind them in all the

commanding points,Schweidnitz still well in sight; and Braunau and the roads to it well capable of being

guarded. Daun's Headquarter is Tannhausen; Burkersdorf, Ludwigsdorf, if readers can remember them, are

And for near three weeks there ensues a very multiplex series of rapid movements, and alarming

demonstrations, on Daun's front, on Daun's right flank; with serious extensive effort (masked in that way) to

turn Daun's left flank, and push round by Landshut Country upon Bohemia and Braunau. Effort very serious

indeed on that Landshut side: conducted at first by Friedrich in person, with General Wied (called also

NEUwied, a man of mark since Liegnitz time) as second under him; latterly by Wied himself, as Friedrich

found it growing dubious or hopeless. That was Friedrich's first notion of the Daun problem. There are rapid

marches here, there, round that western or left flank of Daun; sudden spurts of fierce fighting, oftenest with a

stiff climb as preliminary: but not the least real success on Daun. Daun perfectly comprehends what is on

foot; refuses to take shine for substance; stands massed, or grouped, at his own skilful judgment, in the proper

points for Braunau, still more for Schweidnitz; and is very vigilant and imperturbable.

Kunzendorf Heights, which are not of the Hills, but in front of them, with a strip of flat still

intervening;these, we said, Daun had at once quitted: and these are now Friedrich's;but yield him a very

complex prospect at present. A line of opposing Heights, Burkersdorf, Ludwigsdorf, Leuthmannsdorf,

bristling with abundant cannon; behind is the multiplex sea of Hills, rising higher and higher, to the ridge of

the Eulenberg in Glatz Country 10 or 12 miles southward: Daun, with forces much superior, calmly lord of

all that; infinitely needing to be ousted, could one but say how! Friedrich begins to perceive that Braunau will

not do; that he must contrive some other plan. General Wied he still leaves to prosecute the Braunau scheme:

perhaps there is still some chance in it; at lowest it will keep Daun's attention thitherward. And Wied

perseveres upon Braunau; and Braunau proving impossible, pushes past it deeper into Bohemia, Daun loftily

regardless of him. Wied's marches and attempts were of approved quality; though unsuccessful in the way of

stirring Daun. Wied's Light troops went scouring almost as far as Prag,especially a 500 Cossacks that were

with him, following their old fashion, in a new Country. To the horror of Austria; who shrieked loudly,

feeling them in her own bowels; though so quiet while they were in other people's on her score. This of the

500 Cossacks under Wied, if this were anything, was all of actual work that Friedrich had from his

Czernichef Allies;nothing more of real or actual while they stayed, though something of imaginary or

Friedrich, in the third week, recalls Wied: "Braunau clearly impossible; only let us still keep up

appearances!" July 18th, Wied is in Kunzendorf Country again; on an important new enterprise, or method

with the Daun Problem, in which Wied is to bear a principal hand. That is to say, The discomfiture and

overturn of Daun's right wing, if we can,since his left has proved impossible. This was the STORMING

OF BURKERSDORF HEIGHTS; Friedrich's new plan. Which did prove successful, and is still famous in the

Annals of War: reckoned by all judges a beautiful plan, beautifully executed, and once more a wonderful

achieving of what seemed the impossible, when it had become the indispensable. One of Friedrich's prettiest

feats; and the last of his notable performances in this War. Readers ought not to be left without some

shadowy authentic notion of it; though the real portraiture or image (which is achievable too, after long

study) is for the professional soldier only,for whom TEMPELHOF, good maps and plenty of patience are

"The scene is the Wall of Heights, running east and west, parallel to Friedrich's Position at Kunzendorf;

which form the Face, or decisive beginning, of that Mountain Glacis spreading up ten miles farther, towards

Glatz Country. They, these Heights called of Burkersdorf, are in effect Daun's right wing; vitally precious to

Daun, who has taken every pains about them. Burkersdorf Height (or Heights, for there are two, divided by

the Brook Weistritz; but we shall neglect the eastern or lower, which is ruled by the other, and stands or falls

along with it), Burkersdorf Height is the principal: a Hill of some magnitude (short way south of the Village

of Burkersdorf, which also is Daun's); Hill falling rather steep down, on two of its sides, namely on the north

side, which is towards Friedrich and Kunzendorf, and on the east side, where Weistritz Water, as yet only a

Brook, gushes out from the Mountains,hastening towards Schweidnitz or Schweidnitz Water; towards

Lissa and Leuthen Country, where we have seen it on an important night. Weistritz, at this part, has scarped

the eastern flank of Burkersdorf Height; and made for itself a pleasant little Valley there: this is the one Pass

into the Mountains. A Valley of level bottom; where Daun has a terrific trench and sunk battery level with the

"East from Burkersdorf Lesser Height (which we neglect for the present), and a little farther inwards or south,

are Two other Heights: Ludwigsdorf and Leuthmannsdorf; which also need capture, as adjuncts of

Burkersdorf, or second line to Burkersdorf; and are abundantly difficult, though not so steep as Burkersdorf.

"The Enterprise, therefore, divides itself into two. Wied is to do the LudwigsdorfLeuthmannsdorf part;

Mollendorf, the Burkersdorf. The strength of guns in these places, especially on Burkersdorf, we know

Daun's habit in that particular; and need say nothing. Mandevouring batteries, abatis; battalions palisaded to

the teeth, 'the pales strong as masts, and room only for a musketbarrel between;' nay, they are 'furnished

with a lath or crossstrap all along, for resting your gunbarrel on and taking aim:'so careful is Daun. The

ground itself is intricate, in parts impracticably steep; everywhere full of bushes, gnarls and impediments.

Seldom was there such a problem altogether! Friedrich's position, as we say, is Kunzendorf Heights, with

Schweidnitz and his old ground of Bunzelwitz to rear, Czernichef and others lying there, and Wurben and the

old Villages and Heights again occupied as posts:what a tale of Egyptian bricks has one to bake, your

Majesty, on certain fields of this world; and with such insufficiency of rawmaterial sometimes!"

By the 16th of July, Friedrich's plans are complete. Contrived, I must say, with a veracity and opulent

potency of intellect, flashing clear into the matter, and yet careful of the smallest practical detail. FRIDAY,

17th, Mollendorf, with men and furnitures complete, circles off northwestward by Wurben (for the benefit of

certain onlookers), but will have circled round to Burkersdorf neighborhood two days hence; by which time

also Wied will be quietly in his place thereabouts, with a view to business on the 20th and 21st. Mollendorf,

Wied and everything, are prosperously under way in this manner,when, on the afternoon of that same

Friday, 17th, [Compare Tempelhof, vi. 99, and Rodenbeck, ii. 164.] Czernichef steps over, most privately, to

headquarters: with what a bit of news! "A Revolution in Petersburg [JULY 9th, as we saw above, or as Herr

Busching saw]; Czar Peter,your Majesty's adorer, is dethroned, perhaps murdered; your Majesty's enemies,

in the name of Czarina Catharine, order me instantly homeward with my 20,000!" This is true news, this of

Czernichef. A most unexpected, overwhelming Revolution in those Northern Parts;not needing to be

What here concerns us is, Friedrich's feelings on hearing of it; which no reader can now imagine. Horror,

amazement, pity, very poignant; grief for one's hapless friend Peter, for one's still more hapless self! "The

Sisyphus stone, which we had got dragged to the top, the chains all beautifully slack these three months past,

has it leapt away again? And on the eve of Burkersdorf, and our grand Daun problem!" Truly, the

Destinies have been quite dramatic with this King, and have contrived the moment of hitting him to the heart.

He passionately entreats Czernichef to be helpful to him, which Czernichef would fain be, only how can

he? To be helpful; at least to keep the matter absolutely secret yet for some hours: this the obliging

Czernichef will do. And Friedrich remains, Czernichef having promised this, in the throes of desperate

consideration and uncertainty, hour after hour,how many hours I do not know. It is confidently said,

[Retzow, ii. 415.] Friedrich had the thought of forcibly disarming Czernichef and his 20,000: in which case

he must have given up the Daun Enterprise; for without Czernichef as a positive quantity, much more with

Czernichef as a negative, it is impossible. But, at any rate, most luckily for himself, he came upon a milder

thought: "Stay with us yet three days, merely in the semblance of Allies, no service required of you, but

keeping the matter a dead secret;on the fourth day go, with my eternal thanks!" This is his milder proposal;

urged with his best efforts upon the obliging Czernichef: who is in huge difficulty, and sees it to be at peril of

his head, but generously consents. It is the same Czernichef who got lodged in Custrin cellars, on one

occasion: know, O King,the King, before this, does begin to know,that Russians too can have

something of heroic, and can recognize a hero when they see him! In this fine way does Friedrich get the

frightful chasm, or sudden gap of the ground under him, bridged over for the moment; and proceeds upon

Of the Attack itself we propose to say almost nothing. It consists of Two Parts, Wied and Mollendorf, which

are intensely Real; and of a great many more which are Scenic chiefly,some of them Scenic to the degree

of DruryLane itself, as we perceive;all cunningly devised, and beautifully playing into one another, both

the real and the scenic. EVENING OF THE 20th, Friedrich is on his ground, according to Program.

Friedrichwho has now his Mollendorf and Wied beside him again, near this Village of Burkersdorf; and

has his completely scenic Czernichef, and partly scenic Ziethen and others, all in their places behind

himquietly crushes Daun's people out of Burkersdorf Village; and furthermore, so soon as Night has fallen,

bursts up, for his own uses, Burkersdorf old Castle, and its obstinate handful of defenders, which was a

noisier process. Which done, he diligently sets to trenching, building batteries in that part; will have forty

WEDNESDAY, 21st JULY, 1762, All Prussians are in motion, far and wide; especially Mollendorf and Wied

(VERSUS O'Kelly and Prince de Ligne),which Pair of Prussians may be defined rather as near and close;

these Two being, in fact, the soul of the matter, and all else garniture and semblance. About 4 in the morning,

Friedrich's Battery of 40 has begun raging; the howitzers diligent upon O'Kelly and his Burkersdorf

Height,not much hurting O'Kelly or his Height, so high was it, but making a prodigious noise upon

O'Kelly; others of the cannon shearing home on those palisades and elaborations, in the Weistritz Valley in

particular, and quite tearing up a Cavalry Regiment which was drawn out there; so that O'Kelly had instantly

to call it home, in a very wrecked condition. Why O'Kelly ever put it thereexcept that he saw no place for

it in his rugged localities, or no use for it anywhereis still a mystery to the intelligent mind. [Tempelhof, vi.

107.] The howitzers, their shells bursting mostly in the air, did O'Kelly little hurt, nor for hours yet was there

any real attack on Burkersdorf or him; but the noise, the horrid deathblaze was prodigious, and kept

O'Kelly, like some others, in an agitated, occupied condition till their own turn came.

For it had been ordered that Wied and Mollendorf were not to attack together: not together, but

successively,for the following reasons. TOGETHER; suppose Mollendorf to prosper on O'Kelly (whom he

is to storm, not by the steep front part as O'Kelly fancies, but to go round by the western flank and take him

in rear); suppose Mollendorf to be near prospering on Burkersdorf Height,unless Wied too have prospered,

Ludwigsdorf batteries and forces will have Mollendorf by the right flank, and between two fires he will be

ruined; he and everything! On the other hand, let Wied try first: if Wied can manage Ludwigsdorf, well: if

Wied cannot, he comes home again with small damage; and the whole Enterprise is off for the present. That

was Friedrich's wise arrangement, and the reason why he so bombards O'Kelly with thunder, blank mostly.

And indeed, from 4 this morning and till 4 in the afternoon, there is such an outburst and blazing series of

Scenic Effect, and thunder mostly blank, going on far and near all over that District of Country: General This

ostentatiously speeding off, as if for attack on some important place; General That, for attack on some other;

all hands busy,the 20,000 Russians not yet speeding, but seemingly just about to do it,and blank thunder

so mixed with not blank, and scenic effect with bitter reality, [Tempelhof, vi. 105111.]as was seldom

seen before. And no wisest Daun, not to speak of his O'Kellys and lieutenants, can, for the life of him, say

where the real attack is to be, or on what hand to turn himself. Daun in person, I believe, is still at

Tannhausen, near the centre of this astonishing scene; five or six miles from any practical part of it. And does

order forward, hither, thither, masses of force to support the De Ligne, the O'Kelly, among others,but who

can tell what to support? Daun's lieutenants were alert some of them, others less: General Guasco, for

instance, who is in Schweidnitz, an alert Commandant, with 12,000 picked men, was drawing out, of his own

will, with certain regiments to try Friedrich's rear: but a check was put on him (some dangerous shake of the

fist from afar), when he had to draw in again. In general the O'Kelly supports sat gazing dubiously, and did

nothing for O'Kelly but roll back along with him, when the time came. But let us first attend to Wied, and the

Wied, divided into Three, is diligently pushing up on Ludwigsdorf by the slacker eastern ascents; meets firm

enough battalions, potent, dangerous and resolute in their strong posts; but endeavors firmly to be more

dangerous than they. Dislodges everything, on his right, on his left; comes in sight of the batteries and ranked

masses atop, which seem to him difficult indeed; flatly impossible, if tried on front; but always some Colonel

Lottum, or quickeyed man, finds some little valley, little hollow; gets at the Enemy sidewise and

rearwise; rushes on with fixed bayonets, double quick, to cooperate with the front: and, on the whole,

there are the best news from Wied, and we perceive he sees his way through the affair.

Upon which, Mollendorf gets in motion, upon his specific errand. Mollendorf has been surveying his ground

a little, during the leisure hour; especially examining what mode of passage there may be, and looking for

some road up those slacker western parts: has found no road, but a kind of sheep track, which he thinks will

do. Mollendorf, with all energy, surmounting many difficulties, pushes up accordingly; gets into his

sheeptrack; finds, in the steeper part of this track, that horses cannot draw his cannon; sets his men to do it;

pulls and pushes, he and they, with a right will;sees over his left shoulder, at a certain point, the ranked

Austrians waiting for him behind their cannon (which must have been an interesting glimpse of scenery for

some moments); tugs along, till he is at a point for planting his cannon; and then, under help of these, rushes

forward,in two parts, perhaps in three, but with one impetus in all,to seize the Austrian fruit set before

him. Surely, if a precious, a very prickly Pomegranate, to clutch hold of on different sides, after such a climb!

The Austrians make stiff fight; have abatis, multiplex defences; and Mollendorf has a furious wrestle with

this last remnant, holding out wonderfully, till at length the abatis itself catches fire, in the musketry, and

they have to surrender. This must be about noon, as I collect: and Feldmarschall Daun himself now orders

everybody to fall back. And the tug of fight is over;though Friedrich's scenic effects did not cease; and in

particular his big battery raged till 5 in the afternoon, the more to confirm Daun's rearward resolutions and

quicken his motions. On fall of night, Daun, everybody having had his orders, and been making his

preparations for six hours past, ebbed totally away; in perfect order, bag and baggage. Well away to

southward; and left Friedrich quit of him. [Tempelhof. vi. 100115: compare Bericht von der bey

Leutmannsdorf den 21sten Julius 1762 vorgefallenen Action (Seyfarth, Beylagen, iii. 302308); Anderweiter

Quit of Daun forevermore, as it turned out. Plainly free, at any rate, to begin upon Schweidnitz, whenever he

sees good. Of the behavior of Wied, Mollendorf, and their people, indeed of the Prussians one and all, what

can be said, but that it was worthy of their Captain and of the Plannings he had made? Which is saying a great

deal. "We got above 14 big guns," report they; "above 1,000 prisoners, and perhaps twice as many that

deserted to us in the days following." Czernichef was full of admiration at the day's work: he marched early

next morning,I trust with lasting gratitude on the part of an obliged Friedrich.

Some three weeks before this of Burkersdorf, Duke Ferdinand, near a place called Wilhelmsthal, in the

neighborhood of Cassel, in woody broken country of Hill and Dale, favorable for strategic contrivances, had

organized a beautiful movement from many sides, hoping to overwhelm the too careless or too ignorant

French, and gain a signal victory over them: BATTLE, so called, OF WILHELMSTHAL, JUNE 24th, 1762,

being the result. Mauvillon never can forgive a certain stupid Hanoverian, who mistook his orders; and on

getting to his Hilltop, which was the centre of all the rest,formed himself with his BACK to the point of

attack; and began shooting cannon at next to nothing, as if to warn the French, that they had better instantly

make off! Which they instantly set about, with a will; and mainly succeeded in; nothing all day but mazes of

intricate marching on both sides, with spurts of fight here and there,ending in a truly stiff bout between

Granby and a Comte de Stainville, who covered the retreat, and who could not be beaten without a great deal

of trouble. The result a kind of victory to Ferdinand; but nothing like what he expected. [Mauvillon, ii.

Soubise leads the French this final Year; but he has a D'Estrees with him (our old D'Estrees of

HASTENBECK), who much helps the account current; and though generally on the declining hand (obliged

to give up Gottingen, to edge away farther and farther out of Hessen itself, to give up the Weser, and see no

shift but the farther side of Fulda, with Frankfurt to rear),is not often caught napping as here at

Wilhelmsthal. There ensued about the banks of the Fulda, and the question, Shall we be driven across it

sooner or not so soon? a great deal of fighting and pushing (Battle called of LUTTERNBERG, Battle of

JOHANNISBERG, and others): but all readers will look forward rather to the CANNONADE OF

AMONEBURG, more precisely Cannonade of the BRUCKENMUHLE (September 2lst), which finishes

these wearisome deathwrestlings. Peace is coming; all the world can now count on that!

Bute is ravenous for Peace; has been privately taking the most unheardof steps:wrote to Kaunitz, "Peace

at once and we will vote for your HAVING Silesia;" to which Kaunitz, suspecting trickery in artless Bute,

answered, haughtily sneering, "No help needed from your Lordship in that matter!" After which repulse, or

before it, Bute had applied to the Czar's Minister in London: "Czarish Majesty to have East Preussen

guaranteed to him, if he will insist that the King of Prussia DISPENSE with Silesia;" which the indignant

Czar rejected with scorn, and at once made his Royal Friend aware of; with what emotion on the Royal

Friend's part we have transiently seen. "Horrors and perfidies!" ejaculated he, in our hearing lately; and

regarded Bute, from that time, as a knave and an imbecile both in one; nor ever quite forgave Bute's Nation

either, which was far from being Bute's accomplice in this unheardof procedure. "No more Alliances with

England!" counted he: "What Alliance can there be with that everfluctuating People? Today they have a

thricenoble Pitt; tomorrow a thricepaltry Bute, and all goes heelsoverhead on the sudden!" [Preuss, ii.

Bute, at this rate of going, will manage to get hold of Peace before long. To Friedrich himself, a Siege of

Schweidnitz is now free; Schweidnitz his, the Austrians will have to quit Silesia. "Their cash is out: except

prayer to the Virgin, what but Peace can they attempt farther? In Saxony things will have gone ill, if there be

not enough left us to offer them in return for Glatz. And Peace and ASYOUWERE must ensue!"

Let us go upon Schweidnitz, therefore; pausing on none of these subsidiary things; and be brief upon

Daun being now cleared away, Friedrich instantly proceeds upon Schweidnitz. Orders the necessary Siege

Materials to get under way from Neisse; posts his Army in the proper places, between Daun and the

Fortress,King's headquarter Dittmannsdorf, Army spread in fine large crescentshape, to southwest of

Schweidnitz some ten miles, and as far between Daun and it;orders home to him his UpperSilesia

Detachments, "Home, all of you, by Neisse Country, to make up for Czernichef's departure; from Neisse

onwards you can guard the SiegeAmmunition wagons!" Naturally he has blockaded Schweidnitz, from the

first; he names Tauentzien SiegeCaptain, with a 10 or 12,000 to do the Siege: "Ahead, all of you!"and in

short, AUGUST 7th, with the due adroitness and precautions, opens his first parallel; suffering little or

nothing hitherto by a resistance which is rather vehement. [Tempelhof, vi. 126.] He expects to have the place

in a couple of weeks"one week (HUIT JOUR)" he sometimes counts it, but was far out in his reckoning as

The Siege of Schweidnitz occupied two most laborious, tedious months;and would be wearisome to every

reader now, as it was to Friedricb then, did we venture on more than the briefest outline. The resistance is

vehement, very skilful:Commandant is Guasco (the same who was so truculent to Schmettau in the

Dresden time); his Garrison is near 12,000, picked from all regiments of the Austrian Army; his provisions,

ammunitions, are of the amplest; and he has under him as chief Engineer a M. Gribeauval, who understands

"countermining" like no other. After about a fortnight of trial, and one Event in the neighborhood which

shall be mentioned, this of Mining and Counterminingthough the External Sap went restlessly forward

too, and the cannonading was incessant on both sidescame to be regarded more and more as the real

method, and for six or seven weeks longer was persisted in, with wonderful tenacity of attempt and

resistance. Friedrich's chief Mining Engineer is also a Frenchman, one Lefebvre; who is personally the rival

of Gribeauval (his old classfellow at College, I almost think); but is not his equal in subterranean work,or

perhaps rather has the harder task of it, that of Mining, instead of COUNTERmining, or SPOILING Mines.

Tempelhof's account of these two people, and their underground wrestle here, is really curious

reading;clear as daylight to those that will study, but of endless expansion (as usual in Tempelhof), and fit

only to be indicated here. [Tempelhof, vi. 122219; Bericht und Tagebuch von der Belagerung von

Schweidnitz vom 7ten August bis 9 October, 1762 (Seyfarth, Beylagen, iii. 376479); Archenholtz, Retzow,

The external Event I promised to mention is an attempt on Daun's part (August 16th) to break in upon

Friedrich's position, and interrupt the Siege, or render it still impossible. Event called the BATTLE OF

REICHENBACH, though there was not much of battle in it;in which our old friend the Duke of

BrunswickBevern (whom we have seen in abeyance, and merely a Garrison Commandant, for years back,

Daunat Tannhausen, 10 miles to southwest of Friedrich, and spread out among the Hills, with Loudons,

Lacys, Becks, as lieutenants, and in plenty of force, could he resolve on using ithas at last, after a month's

meditation, hit upon a plan. Plan of flowing round by the southern skirt of Friedrich, and seizing certain

Heights to the southeastern or open side of Schweidnitz,Koltschen Height the key one; from which he may

spread up at will, Height after Height, to the very Zobtenberg on that eastern side, and render Schweidnitz an

impossibility. The plan, people say, was good; but required rapidity of execution,a thing Daun is not strong

Bevern's behavior, too, upon whom the edge of the matter fell, was very good. Bevern, coming on from

Neisse and Upper Silesia, had been much manoeuvred upon for various days by Beck; Beck, a dangerous,

alert man, doing his utmost to seize post after post, and bar Bevern's way,meaning especially, as ultimate

thing, to get hold of a Height called Fischerberg, which lies near Reichenbach (in the southern Schweidnitz

vicinities), and is preface to Koltschen Height and to the whole Enterprise of Daun. In most of which

attempts, especially in this last, Bevern, with great merit, not of dexterity alone (for the King's Orders had

often to be DISobeyed in the letter, and only the spirit of them held in view), contrived to outmanoeuvre

Beck; and be found (August 13th) already firm on the Fischerberg, when Beck, in full confidence, came

marching towards it. "The Fischerberg lost to us!" Beck had to report, in disappointment. "Must be recovered,

and my grand Enterprise no longer put off!" thinks Daun to himself, in still more disappointment ("Laggard

that I am!").And on the third day following, the BATTLE OF REICHENBACH ensued. Lacy, as chief,

with abundant force, and Beck and Brentano under him: these are to march, "Recover me that Fischerberg; it

MONDAY, AUGUST 16th, pretty early in the day, Lacy, with his Becks and Brentanos, appeared in great

force on the western side of Fischerberg; planted themselves there, about the three Villages of Peilau (Upper,

Nether and Middle Peilau, a little way to south of Reichenbach), within cannonshot of Bevern; their purpose

abundantly clear. Behind them, in the gorges of the Mountains, what is not so clear, lay Daun and most of his

Army; intending to push through at once upon Koltschen and seize the key, were this of Fischerberg had.

Lacy, after reconnoitring a little, spreads his tents (which it is observable Beck does not); and all Austrians

proceed to cooking their dinner. "Nothing coming of them till tomorrow!" said Friedrich, who was here; and

went his way home, on this symptom of the Austrian procedures;hardly consenting to regard them farther,

Lacy, the general composure being thus established, and dinner well done, suddenly drew out about five in

the evening, in long strong line, before these Hamlets of Peilau, on the western side of the Fischerberg; Beck

privately pushing round by woods to take it on the eastern side: and there ensued abundant cannonading on

the part of Lacy and Brentano, and some idle flourishing about of horse, responded to by Bevern; and, on the

part of Lacy and Brentano, nothing else whatever. More like a theatre fight than a real one, says Tempelhof.

Beck, however, is in earnest; has a most difficult march through the tangled pathless woods; does arrive at

length, and begin real fighting, very sharp for some time; which might have been productive, had Lacy given

the least help to it, as he did NOT. [Tempelhof, vi. 146151.] Beck did his fieriest; but got repulsed

everywhere. Beck tries in various places; finds swamps, impediments, fierce resistance from the Bevern

people;finds, at length, that the King is awake, and that reinforcements, horse, foot, ridingartillery, are

None of the King's Foot people could get in for a stroke, though they came mostly running (distance five

miles); but the Horse charges were beautifully impressive on Lacy's theatrical performers, as was the

HorseArtillery to a still more surprising degree; and produced an immediate EXEUNT OMNES on the Lacy

part. All off; about 7 P.M.,Sun just going down in the autumn sky;and the Battle of Reichenbach a thing

finished. Seeing which, Daun also immediately withdrew, through the gorges of the Mountains again. And

for seven weeks thenceforth sat contemplative, without the least farther attempt at relief of Schweidnitz. It

was during those seven weeks, some time after this, that poor Madam Daun, going to a Levee at Schonbrunn

one day, had her carriage half filled with symbolical nightcaps, successively flung in upon her by the Vienna

people;symbolical; in lieu of Slashing Articles, and Newspapers the best Instructors, which they as yet

Next day the Joyfire of the Prussians taught Guasco what disaster had happened; and on the fifth day

afterwards (August 22d), hearing nothing farther of Daun, Guasco offered to surrender, on the principle of

Free Withdrawal. "No, never," answered Tauentzien, by the King's order: "As Prisoners of War it must be!"

Upon which Guasco stood to his defences again; and maintained himself, Gribeauval and he did,with an

admirable obstinacy: the details of which would be very wearisome to readers. Gribeauval and he, I said; for

from this time, Engineer Lefebvre, though he tried (with bad skill, thinks Tempelhof) some bits of assault

above ground, took mainly to mining, and a grand underground invention called GLOBES DE

COMPRESSION; which he reckoned to be the real sovereign method,unlucky that he was! I may at least

explain what GLOBE DE COMPRESSION is; for it becomes famous on this occasion, and no name could be

less descriptive of the thing. Not a GLOBE at all, for that matter, nor intended to "compress," but to EXpress,

and shatter to pieces in a transcendent degree: it is, in fact, a huge cubical minechamber, filled by a wooden

box (till Friedrich, in his hurry, taught Lefebvre that a sack would do as well), loaded with, say, five

thousandweight of powder. Sufficient to blow any hornwork, bastion, bulwark, into the air,provided

you plant it in the right place; which poor Lefebre never can. He tried, with immense labor, successively

some four or almost five of these "PRESS BALLS" so called (or Volcanoes in Little); mining on, many

yards, 15 or 20 feet underground (tormented by Gribeauval all the way); then at last, exploding his five

thousandweight,would produce a "Funnel," or crater, of perhaps "30 yards in diameter," but, alas, "150

yards OFF any bastion." Funnel of no use to him; mere sign to him that he must go down into it, and begin

there again; with better aim, if possible. And then Gribeauval's tormentings; never were the like! Gribeauval

has, all round under the Glacis, minegalleries, or mainroads for Countermining, ready to his hand

(minegalleries built by Friedrich while lately proprietor); there Gribeauval is hearkening the beat of

Lefebvre's picks: "Ten yards from us, think you? Six yards? Get a 30 hundredweight of chamber ready for

him!" And will, at the right moment, blow Lefebvre's gallery about his ears;sometimes bursts in upon him

bodily with pistol and cutlass, or still worse, with explosive sulphurballs, chokepots and infinitudes of

malodor instantaneously developed on Lefebvre,which mean withal, "You will have to begin again,

Monsieur!" Enough to drive a Lefebvre out of his wits. Twice, or oftener, Lefebvre, a zealous creature but a

thinskinned, flew out into open paroxysm; wept, invoked the gods, threatened suicide: so that Friedrich had

to console him, "Courage, you will manage it; make chicanes on Gribeauval, as he does on you,"and

Friedrich's patience seems to have been great; but in the end he began to think the time long. He was in three

successive head quarters, Dittmannsdorf, Peterswaldau, Bogendorf, nearer and nearer; at length quite near

(Bogendorf within a couple of miles); and wondering Gazetteers reported him on horseback, examining

minutely the parallels and siegeworks,with a singular indifference to the cannonballs flying about ("Not

easy to hit a small object with cannon!"), and intent only on giving Tauentzien suggestions, admonitions and

new orders. Here, prior to Bogendorf, are three snatches of writing, which successively have indications for

PETERSWALDAU, AUGUST 13th, 1762 (King has just shifted hither, August 10th, on the

BevernREICHENBACH score; continues here till September 23d). ... "You are right to say, 'We ourselves

are our best Allies.' I am of the same opinion; nevertheless, it is a clear duty and call of prudence to try and

alleviate the burden as much as possible: and I own to you, that if, after all I have written, the thing fails this

time [as it does], I shall be obliged to grant that there is nothing to be made of those Turks.""We are now

in the press of our crisis as to Schweidnitz. The Siege advances beautifully: but Beck is come hereabouts,

Lacy masked behind him; and I cannot yet tell you [not till REICHENBACH and the 16th] whether the

Enemy intends some big adventure for disengaging Schweidnitz, or will content himself with disturbing and

PETERSWALDAU, 9th SEPTEMBER. Springs, waterthreads coming into our mines delay us a little: "by

the 12th [in 3 days' time, little thinking it would be 30 days!] I still hope to despatch you a courier with the

news, All is over! Your Nephew [Prince of Prussia] is out today assisting in a forage; he begins to kindle

into fine action. We are nothing but pygmies in comparison to him [in point of physical stature]; imagine to

yourself Prince Franz [of Brunswick; killed, poor fellow, at Hochkirch], only taller still: this is the figure of

PETERSWALDAU, SEPTEMBER 19th. ... "Our Siege wearies all the world; people persecute me to know

the end of it; I never get a Berlin Letter without something on that head;and I have no resource myself but

patience. We do all we can: but I cannot hinder the enemy from defending himself, and Gribeauval from

being a clever fellow:soon, however, surely soon, soon, we shall see the end. Our weather here is like

December; the Seasons are as mad as the Politics of Europe. Finally, my dear Brother, one must shove Time

on; day follows day, and at last we shall catch the one that ends our labors. Adieu; JE VOUS EMBRASSE."

[Schoning, iii. 403, 430, 446.]Here farther, from the Siegeground itself, are some traceries, scratchings by

a sure hand, which yield us something of image. Date is still only "BEFORE Schweidnitz," far on in the

SEPTEMBER 23d. "This morning, before 9, the King [direct from Peterswaldau, where he has been lodging

hitherto,must have breakfasted rather early] came into the Lines here:his quarter is now to be at

Bogendorf near hand, in a Farm house there. The Prince of Prussia was riding with him, and

LieutenantColonel von Anhalt [the Adjutant whom we have heard of]: he looked at the Battery" lately

ordered by him; "looked at many things; rode along, a good 100 yards inside of the vedettes; so that the

Enemy noticed him, and fired violently,"King decidedly ignoring. "To Captain Beauvrye [Captain of the

Miners] he paid a gracious compliment; Major Lefebvre he rallied a little for losing heart, for bungling his

business; but was not angry with him, consoled him rather; bantered him on the shabbiness of his

equipments, and made him a gift of 400 thalers (60 pounds), to improve them. Lefebvre, Tauentzien and"

another General "dined with him at Bogendorf today." ["Captain Gotz's NOTEbook" (a conspicuous

Captain here, Notebook still in manuscript, I think): cited in SCHONING, iii. 453 et seq.]

SEPTEMBER 24th, EARLY. "The King on horseback viewed the trenches, rode close behind the first

parallel, along the midmost communicationline: the Enemy cannonaded at us horribly

(ERSCHRECKLICH); a ball struck down the Page von Pirch's horse [Pirch lay writhing, making

moan,plainly overmuch, thought the King]: on Pirch's accident, too, the Prince of Prussia's horse made a

wild plunge, and pitched its rider aloft out of the saddle; people thought the Prince was shot, and everybody

was in horror: great was the commotion; only the King was heard calling with a clear voice, 'PIRCH,

This of Pirch and the saddle is an Anecdote in wide circulation; taken sometimes as a proof of Royal thrift;

but is mainly the Royal mode of rebuking Pirch for his weak behavior in the accident that had befallen. Pirch,

an ingenious handy kind of fellow, famed for his pranks and trickeries in those Pagedays, had many

adventures in the world;was, for one while, something of a notability among the French; will "teach you

the Prussian mode of drill," and actually got leave to try it "on the German Regiments in our service:"

[Voltaire's wondering Report of him ("Ferney, 7th December, 1774"), and Friedrich's quiet Answer ("Berlin,

28th Dec. 1774"): in OEuvres de Frederic, xxiii. 297, 301. Rodenbeck (ii. 198200) haa a slight

"BIOGRAPHY" of Pirch.] died, finally, as Colonel of one of these, at the Siege of Gibraltar, in 1783.

SEPTEMBER 25th. "Morning and noon, each time two hours, the King was in his new batteries; and, with

great satisfaction, watched the working of them. This day there dined with him the Prince of Bernburg

[General of Brigade here], Tauentzien, Lefebvre and Dieskau" (head of the Artillery).

The King is always riding about; has now, virtually, taken charge of the Siege himself. "In Bogendorf, the

first night, he dismissed the Guard sent for him; would have nothing there but six chasers (JAGER):" an

alarming case! "After a night or two, there came always, without his knowledge, a dragoon party of 30 horse;

took post behind Bogendorf Church, patrolled towards Kunzendorf, Giesdorf, and had three pickets."

SEPTEMBER 28th. "Gribeauval has sprung a mine last night;" totally blown up Lefebvre again!

"EngineerLieutenants Gerhard and Von Kleist were wounded by our own people; Captain Guyon was shot:"

things all going wrong,weather, I suspect also, bad. "The King was in dreadful humor (SEHR

UNGNADIG); rated and rebuked to right and left: 'If it should last till January, the Attack must go on.

Nobody seems to be able for his business; Lefebvre a blockhead (DUMMER TEUFEL), who knows nothing

of mining: the Generals, too, where are they? Every General henceforth is to take his place in the third

parallel, at the head of his CoveringParty [most exposed place of all], and stay his whole twentyfour hours

there [Prince of AnhaltBernburg is CoveringParty today; I hope, in his post during this thunder!]: Taken

the Place can and must be! We have the misfortune, That a stupid Engineer who knows nothing of his art has

the direction; and a General without sense in Sieging has the command. Everybody is at a NON PLUS, it

appears! Not all our Artillery can silence that Frontfire; not in a single place can Thirty stupid Miners get

into the Fort.' Today and yesterday the King spoke neither to General Tauentzien nor to Major Lefebvre;

LieutenantColonel von Anhalt had to give all the Orders." An electric kind of day!

The weather is becoming wet. In fact, there ensue whole weeks of rain,the trenches swimming, service

very hard. Guasco's guns are many of them dismounted; no Daun to be heard of. Guasco again and again

proposes modified capitulations; answer always, "Prisoners of War on the common terms." Guasco is

wearing low: OCTOBER 7th (Lefebvre sweating and puffing at his last Globe of Expression, hoping to hit

the mark this last time), an accidental grenade from Tauentzien, above ground, rolled into one of Guasco's

powder vaults; blew it, and a good space of Wall along with it, into wreck; two days after which, Guasco

had finished his Capitulating; and we get done with this wearisome affair. [Tempelhof, vi. 122220;

Tagebuch von der Belagerung von Schweidnitz vom 7ten August bis 9ten October, 1762 (Seyfarth, Beylagen,

iii. 376497); Tielke, Guasco was invited to dine with the King; praised for his excellent defence. Prisoners

of War his Garrison and he; about 9,000 of them still on their feet; their entire loss had been 3,552 killed and

wounded; that of the Prussians 3,033. Poor Guasco died, in Konigsberg, still prisoner, before the Peace came.

Of Austrian fighting in Silesia, this proved to be the last, in the present Controversy which has endured so

long. No thought of fighting is in Daun; far the reverse. Daun is getting ill off for horseforage in his

Mountains; the weather is bad upon him; we hear "he has had, for some time past, 12,000 laborers"

palisading and fortifying at the Passes of Bohemia: "Truce for the Winter" is what he proposes. To which the

King answers, "No; unless you retire wholly within Bohemia and Glatz Country:" this at present Daun

grudged to do; but was forced to it, some weeks afterwards, by the sleets and the snows, had there been no

other pressure. In about three weeks hence, Friedrich, leaving Bevern in command here, and a Silesia more or

less adjusted, made for Saxony; whither important reinforcements had preceded him,reinforcements under

General Wied, the instant it was possible. Saxony he had long regarded as the grand point, were Schweidnitz

over: "Recapture Dresden, and they will have to give us Peace this very Winter!" Daun, also with

reinforcements, followed him to Saxony, as usual; but never quite arrived, or else found matters settled on

arriving;and will not require farther mention in this History. He died some three years hence, age 60; ["5th

February, 1766;" "born 24th September, 1705" (Hormayr OEsterreichischer Plutarch, ii. 80111).] an

honorable, imperturbable, eupeptic kind of man, sufficiently known to readers by this time.

Friedrich did not recapture Dresden; far enough from that,though Peace came all the same. Hardly a week

after our recovery of Schweidnitz, Stollberg and his Reichsfolk, especially his Austrians, became

unexpectedly pert upon Henri; pressed forward (October 15th), in overpowering force, into his Posts about

Freyberg, Pretschendorf and that southwestern Reichward part: "No more invadings of Bohemia from you,

Monseigneur; no more tormentings of the Reich; here is other work for you, my Prince!" and in spite of all

Prince Henri could do, drove him back, clear out of Freyberg; northwestward, towards Hulsen and his

reserves. [ Bericht von dem Angriff so am 15ten October, 1762, van der ReichsArmee auf die

KongilichPreussischen unter dem Prinzen Heinrich geschehen (Seyfarth, Beylagen, iii. 362364).

Ausfuhrlicher Bericht von der den 15ten October, 1762, bey Brand vorgefallenen Action (Ib. iii. 350362).

Tempelhof, vi. 238.] Giving him, in this manner, what soldiers call a slap; slap which might have been more

considerable, had those Stollberg people followed it up with emphasis. But they did not; so alert was Henri.

Henri at once rallied beautifully from his slap (King's reinforcements coming too, as we have said); and, in

ten days' time, without any reinforcement, paid Stollberg and Company by a stunning blow: BATTLE OF

FREYBERG (October 29th),which must not go without mention, were it only as Prince Henri's sole

Battle, and the last of this War. Preparatory to which and its sequel, let us glance again at Duke Ferdinand

CANNONADE AT AMONEBURG (2lst September, 1762). "The controversies about right or left bank of

the Fulda have been settled long since in Ferdinand's favor; who proceeded next to blockade the various

French strongholds in Hessen; Marburg, Ziegenhayn, especially Cassel; with an eye to besieging the same,

and rooting the French permanently out. To prevent or delay which, what can Soubise and D'Estrees do but

send for their secondary smaller Army, which is in the LowerRhine Country under a Prince de Conde,

mostly idle at present, to come and join them in the critical regions here. Whereupon new Controversy

shifting westward to the Mayn and Nidda Lahn Country, to achieve said Junction and to hinder it. Junction

was not to be hindered. The D'EstreesSoubise people and young Conde made good manoeuvring, handsome

fight on occasion; so that in spite of all the Erbprinz could do, they got hands joined; far too strong for the

Erbprinz thenceforth; and on the last night of August were all fairly together, headquarter Friedberg in

Frankfurt Country (a thirty miles north of Frankfurt); and were earnestly considering the now not hopeless

question, 'How, or by what routes and methods, push to northwestward, get through to those blockaded

Hessian Strongplaces, Cassel especially; and hinder Ferdinand's besieging them, and quite outrooting us

"This is a difficult question, but a vital. 'Sweep rapidly past Ferdinand,cannot we? Well frontward or

eastward of him, dexterously across the Lahn and its Branches (our light people are to rear of him, on this

side of the Fulda, between the Fulda and him): once joined with those light people by such methods, we have

Cassel ahead, Ferdinand to rear, and will make short work with the blockades,the blockades will have to

rise in a hurry!' This was the plan devised by D'Estrees; and rapidly set about; but it was seen into, at the first

step, by Ferdinand, who proved still more rapid upon it. Campings, countercampings, crossings of the Lahn

by D'Estrees people, then recrossings of it, ensued for above a fortnight; which are not for mention here: in

fine, about the middle of September, the D'Estrees Enterprise had plainly become impossible, unless it could

get across the Ohm,an eastern, or widecircling northeastern Branch of the Lahn,where, on the right or

eastern bank of which, as better for him than the Lahn itself in this part, Ferdinand now is. 'Across the Ohm:

and that, how can that be done, the provident Ferdinand having laid hold of Ohm, and secured every pass of

"Amoneburg is a pleasant little Town, about thirty miles east of Marburg,in which latter we have been, in

very old times; looking after St. Elizabeth, Teutsch Ritters, Philip the Magnanimous and other objects.

Amoneburg stands on the left or western bank of the Ohm, with an old Schloss in it, and a Bridge near by;

both of which, Ferdinand, the left or southmost wing of whose Position on the other bank of Ohm is

hereabouts, has made due seizure of. Seizure of the Bridge, first of all,Bridge with a Mill at it (which, in

consequence, is called BRUCKENMUHLE, BridgeMill),at the eastern end of this there is a strong

Redoubt, with the Bridge way blocked and rammed ahead of it; there Ferdinand has put 200 men; 500 more

are across in Amoneburg and its old Castle. Unless by surprisal and extreme despateh, there is clearly no

hope! Ferdinand's headquarter is seven or eight miles to northwest of this his BruckenMuhle and extreme

left; next to BruckenMuhle is Zastrow's Division; next, again, is Granby's; several Divisions between

Ferdinand and it; 'Do it by surprisal, by utmost force of vehemency!' say the French. And accordingly,

"SEPTEMBER 21st [day of the Equinox, 1762], An hour before sunrise, there began, quite on the sudden, a

vivid attack on the Brucken Muhle and on Amoneburg, by cannon, by musketry, by all methods; and, in

spite of the alert and completely obstinate resistance, would not cease; but, on the contrary, seemed to be on

the increasing hand, new cannon, new musketries; and went on, hour after hour, ever the more vivid. So that,

about 8 in the morning, after three hours of this, Zastrow, with his Division, had to intervene: to range

himself on the Hilltop behind this Brucken Muhle; replace the afflicted 200 (many of them hurt, not a few

killed) by a fresh 200 of his own; who again needed to be relieved before long. For the French, whom

Zastrow had to imitate in that respect, kept bringing up more cannon, ever more, as if they would bring up all

the cannon of their Army: and there rose between Zastrow and them such a cannonade, for length and

loudness together, as had not been heard in this War. Most furious cannonading, musketading; and seemingly

no end to it. Ferdinand himself came over to ascertain; found it a hot thing indeed. Zastrow had to relieve his

200 every hour: 'Don't go down in rank, you new ones,' ordered he'slide, leap, descend the hill face in

scattered form: rank at the bottom!'and generally about half of the old 200 were left dead or lamed by their

hour's work. 'They intend to have this Bridge from us at any cost,' thinks Ferdinand; 'and at any cost they

shall not!' And, in the end, orders Granby forward in room of Zastrow, who has had some eight hours of it

"It was about 4 in the afternoon when Granby and his English came into the fire; and I rather think the French

onslaught was, if anything, more furious than ever:Despair striding visibly forward on it, or something too

like Despair. Amoneburg they had battered to pieces, Wall and Schloss, so that the 500 had to ground arms:

but not an inch of way had they made upon the Bridge, nor were like to make. Granby continued on the old

plan, plying all his diligences and artilleries; needing them all. Fierce work to a degree: '200 of you go down

on wings' (in an hour about 100 will come back)! In English Families you will still hear some vague memory

of Amoneburg, How we had built walls of the dead, and fired from behind them,French more and more

furious, we more and more obstinate. Granby had still four hours of it; sunset, twilight, dusk; about 8, the

French, in what spirits I can guess, ceased, and went their ways. Bridge impossible; game up. They had lost,

by their own account, 1,100 killed and wounded; Ferdinand probably not fewer." [Mauvillon, ii. 251;

And in this loud peal, what none could yet know, the FrenchEnglish part of the SevenYears War had

ended. The French attempted nothing farther; hutted themselves where they were, and waited in the pouring

rains: Ferdinand also hutted himself, in guard of the Ohm; while his people plied their Siegebatteries on

Cassel, on Ziegenhayn, cannonading their best in the bad weather;took Cassel, did not quite take

Ziegenhayn, had it been of moment;and for above six weeks coming (till November 7th14th

[Preliminaries of Peace SIGNED, "Paris, November 3d;" known to French Generals "November 7th;" not,

OFFICIALLY, to Ferdinand till "November 14th" (Mauvillon, ii. 257).]), nothing more but skirmishings and

small scuffles, not worth a word from us, fell out between the Two Parties there. That Cannonade of the

For supreme Bute, careless of the good news coming in on him from West and from East, or even rather

embarrassed by them, had some time ago started decisively upon the Peace Negotiation. "September 5th,"

three weeks before that of Amoneburg, "the Duke of Bedford, Bute's Plenipotentiary, set out towards

Paris, considerably hissed on the street here by a sulky population," it would seem;"but sure of success

in Paris. Bute shared in none of the national triumphs of this Year. The transports of rejoicing which burst out

on the news of Havana" were a sorrow and distress to him. [Walpole's George the Third, ii. 191.] "Havana,

what shall we do with it?" thought he; and for his own share answered stiffly, "Nothing with it; fling it back

to them!"till some consort of his persuaded him Florida would look better. [Thackeray, ii. 11.] Of Manilla

and the Philippines he did not even hear till Peace was concluded; had made the Most Catholic Carlos a

present of that Colony,who would not even pay our soldiers their Manilla Ransom, as too disagreeable.

Such is the Bute, such and no other, whom the satirical Fates have appointed to crown and finish off the

heroic Day'swork of such a Pitt. Let us, if we can help it, speak no more of him! Friedrich writes before

leaving for Saxony: "The Peace between the English and the French is much farther off than was

thought;so many oppositions do the Spaniards raise, or rather do the French,busy duping this buzzard of

an English Minister, who has not common sense." [Schoning, iii. 480 (To Henri: "Peterswaldau, 17th

October, 1762").] Never fear, your Majesty: a man with Havanas and Manillas of that kind to fling about at

We said, Prince Henri rallied beautifully from his little slap and loss of Freyberg (October 15th), and that the

King was sending Wied with reinforcements to him. In fact, Prince Henri of himself was all alertness, and

instantly appeared on the Heights again; seemingly quite in sanguinary humor, and courting Battle, much

more than was yet really the case. Which cowed Stollberg from meddling with him farther, as he might have

done. Not for some ten days had Henri finished his arrangements; and then, under cloud of night (28th29th

OCTOBER, 1762), he did break forward on those Spittelwalds and Michael's Mounts, and multiplex

impregnabilities about Freyberg, in what was thought a very shining manner. The BATTLE OF FREYBERG,

I think, is five or six miles long, all on the west, and finally on the southwest side of Freyberg (north and

northwest sides, with so many batteries and fortified villages, are judged unattackable); and the main stress,

very heavy for some time, lay in the abatis of the Spittelwald (where Seidlitz was sublime), and about the

roots of St. Michael's Mount (the TOP of it Stollberg, or some foolish General of Stollberg's, had left empty;

nobody there when we reached the top),down from which, Freyberg now lying free ahead of us, and the

Spittelwald on our left now also ours, we take Stollberg in rear, and turn him inside out. The Battle lasted

only three hours, till Stollberg and his Maguires, Campitellis and Austrians (especially his Reichsfolk, who

did no work at all, except at last running), were all under way; and the hopes of some Saxon Victory to

balance one's disgraces in Silesia had altogether vanished. [ Beschreibung der am 29sten October, 1762, bey

Freyberg vorgefallenen Schlacht (Seyfarth, Beylagen, iii. 365376). Tempelhof, vi. 235258;

Of Austrians and Reichsfolk together I dimly count about 40,000 in this Action; Prince Henri seems to have

been well under 30,000. ["29 battalions, 60 squadrons," VERSUS "49 battalions, 68 squadrons" (Schoning,

iii. 499).] I will give Prince Henri's DESPATCH to his Brother (a most modest Piece); and cannot afford to

say more of the matter,except that "Wegfurth," where Henri gets on march the night before, lies 8 or more

miles westbynorth of Freyberg and the Spittelwald, and is about as far straight south from Hainichen,

Gellert's birthplace, who afterwards got the War horse now coming into action,I sometimes think, with

PRINCE HENRI TO THE KING (Battle just done; King on the road from Silesia hither, Letter meets him at

"MY DEAREST BROTHER,It is a happiness for me to send you the agreeable news, That your Army has

this day gained a considerable advantage over the combined Austrian and Reichs Army. I marched

yesternight; I had got on through Wegfurth, leaving Spittelwald [Tempelhof, p. 237.] to my left, with intent to

seize [storm, if necessary] the Height of St. Michael,when I came upon the Enemy's Army. I made two

true attacks, and two false: the Enemy resisted obstinately; but the sustained valor of your troops prevailed:

and, after three hours in fire, the Enemy was obliged to yield everywhere. I don't yet know the number of

Prisoners; but there must be above 4,000:the Reichs Army has lost next to nothing; the stress of effort fell

to the Austrian share. We have got quantities of Cannon and Flags; LieutenantGeneral Roth of the Reichs

Army is among our Prisoners. I reckon we have lost from 2 to 3,000 men; among them no Officer of mark.

LieutenantGeneral von Seidlitz rendered me the highest services; in a place where the Cavalry could not act

[border of the Spittelwald, and its impassable entanglements and obstinacies], he put himself at the head of

the Infantry, and did signal services [his Battle mainly, scheming and all, say some illnatured private

accounts]; Generals Belling and Kleist [renowned Colonels known to us, now become MajorGenerals] did

their very best. All the Infantry was admirable; not one battalion yielded ground. My AidedeCamp

[Kalkreuth, a famous man in the Napoleon times long after], who brings you this, had charge of assisting to

conduct the attack through the Spittelwald [and did it well, we can suppose]: if, on that ground, you pleased

to have the goodness to advance him, I should have my humble thanks to give you. There are a good many

Officers who have distinguished themselves and behaved with courage, for whom I shall present similar

requests. You will permit me to pay those who have taken cannons and flags (100 ducats per cannon, 50 per

flag, or whatever the tariff was:"By all manner of means!" his Majesty would answer].

"The Enemy is retiring towards Dresden and Dippoldiswalde. I am sending at his heels this night, and shall

hear the result. My AidedeCamp is acquainted with all, and will be able to render you account of

everything you may wish to know in regard to our present circumstances. General Wied, I believe, will cross

Elbe tomorrow [General Wied, with 10,000 to help us,for whom it was too dangerous to wait, or perhaps

there was a spur on one's own mind?]; his arrival would be [not "would have been:" CELA VIENDRAIT, not

even VIENDRA] very opportune for me. I am, with all attachment, my dearest Brother,your most devoted

"General Wied [not yet come to hand, or even got across Elbe] informs me, That Prince Albert of Saxony

[pushing hither with reinforcement, sent by Daun] must have crossed Elbe yesterday at Pirna [did not show

face here, with his large reinforcements to them, or what would have become of us!];and that for this

reason he, Wied, must himself cross; which he will tomorrow. The same day I am to be joined by some

battalions from General Hulsen; and the day after tomorrow, when General Wied [coming by Meissen

Bridge, it appears] shall have reached the Katzenhauser, the whole of General Hulsen's troops will join me.

Directly thereupon I shall" [Schoning, p. 493.] Or no more of that second Despatch; Friedrich's LETTER

"MY DEAR BROTHER,The arrival of Kalkreuter [so he persists in calling him], and of your Letter, my

dear Brother, has made me twenty [not to say forty] years younger: yesterday I was sixty, today hardly

eighteen. I bless Heaven for preserving you in health (BONNE SANTE," so we term escape of lesion in

fight); "and that things have passed so happily! You took the good step of attacking those who meant to

attack you; and, by your good and solid measures (DISPOSITIONS), you have overcome all the difficulties

of a strong Post and a vigorous resistance. It is a service so important rendered by you to the State, that I

"Kalkreuter will explain what motions I ... If Fortune favor our views on Dresden [which it cannot in the

least, at this late season], we shall indubitably have Peace this Winter or next Spring,and get honorably out

of a difficult and perilous conjuncture, where we have often seen ourselves within two steps of total

destruction. And, by this which you have now done, to you alone will belong the honor of having given the

final stroke to Austrian Obstinacy, and laid the foundations of the Public Happiness, which will be the

Two days after this, November 4th, Friedrich is in Meissen; November 9th, he comes across to Freyberg; has

pleasant day, pleasant survey of the Battlefield, Henri and Seidlitz escorting as guides. Henri, in

furtherance of the Dresden project, has Kleist out on the Bohemian Magazines,"That is the one way to

clear Dresden neighborhood of Enemies!" thinks Henri always. Kleist burns the considerable magazine of

Saatz; finds the grand one of Leitmeritz too well guarded for him:upon which, in such snowdrifts and

sleety deluges, is not Dresden plainly impossible, your Majesty? Impossible, Friedrich admits,the rather as

he now sees Peace to be coming without that. Freyberg has at last broken the back of Austrian Obstinacy.

"Go in upon the Reich," Friedrich now orders Kleist, the instant Kleist is home from his Bohemian inroad:

"In upon the Reich, with 6,000, in your old style! That will dispose the Reichs Principalities to Peace."

Kleist marched November 3d; kept the Reich in paroxysm till December 13th;Plotho, meanwhile,

proclaiming in the Reichs Diet: "Such Reichs Princes as wish for Peace with my King can have it; those that

prefer War, they too can have it!" Kleist, dividing himself in the due artistic way, flew over the Voigtland, on

to Bamberg, on to Nurnberg itself (which he took, by sounding rams' horns, as it were, having no gun

heavier than a carbine, and held for a week); [ HeldenGeschichte, vii. 186194.]fluttering the Reichs

Diet not a little, and disposing everybody for Peace. The Austrians saw it with pleasure, "We solemnly

engaged to save these poor people harmless, on their joining us;and, behold, it has become thrice and four

times impossible. Let them fall off into Peace, like ripe pears, of themselves; we can then turn round and say,

NOVEMBER 24th, all Austrians make truce with Friedrich, Truce till March 1st;all Austrians, and what is

singular, with no mention of the Reich whatever. The Reich is defenceless, at the feet of Kleist and his 6,000.

Stollberg is still in Prussian neighborhood; and may be picked up any day! Stollberg hastens off to defend the

Reich; finds the Reich quite empty of enemies before his arrival;and at least saves his own skin. A month

or two more, and Stollberg will lay down his Command, and the last ReichsExecution Army, playing

The Prussian troops took Winterquarters in the MeissenFreyberg region, the old Saxon ground, familiar to

them for the last three years: room enough this Winter, "from Plauen and Zwickau, round by Langensalza

again;" Truce with everybody, and nothing of disturbance till March 1st at soonest. The usual recruiting went

on, or was preparing to go on,a part of which took immediate effect, as we shall see. Recruiting, refitting,

"Be ready for a new Campaign, in any case: the readier we are, the less our chance of having one!"

Friedrich's headquarter is Leipzig; but till December 5th he does not get thither. "More business on me than

ever!" complains he. At Leipzig he had his Nephews, his D'Argens; for a week or two his Brother Henri;

finally, his Berlin Ministers, especially Herzberg, when actual Peace came to be the matter in hand. Henri,

before that, had gone home: "Peace being now the likelihood;Home; and recruit one's poor health, at

Before getting to Leipzig, the King paid a flying Visit at Gotha; probably now the one fraction of these

manifold Winter movements and employments, in which readers could take interest. Of this, as there happens

to be some record left of it, here is what will suffice. From Meissen, Friedrich writes to his bright Grand

Duchess, always a bright, high and noble creature in his eyes: "Authorized by your approval [has politely

inquired beforehand], I shall have the infinite satisfaction of paying my duties on December 3d [four days

hence], and of reiterating to you, Madam, my liveliest and sincerest assurances of esteem and friendship. ...

Some of my Commissariat people have been misbehaving? Strict inquiry shall be had," [To the

GrandDuchess, "Meissen, 29th November" ( OEuvres de Frederic, xviii. 199).]and we soon find WAS.

The Visit took place accordingly; Seidlitz, a man known in Gotha ever since his fine scenicmilitary

procedures there in 1757, accompanied the King. Of the lucent individualities invited to meet him, all are

now lost to me, except one Putter, a really learned Gottingen Professor (deep in REICHSHISTORY and the

like), whom the Duchess has summoned over. By the dim lucency of Putter, faint to most of us as a rushlight

in the act of going out, the available part of our imagination must try to figure, in a kind of

ObliteratedRembrandt way, this glorious Evening; for there was but one,December 3d4th,Friedrich

having to leave early on the 4th. Here is Putter's record, given in the third person:

"During dinner, Putter, honorably present among the spectators of this high business, was beckoned by the

Duchess to step near the King [right hand or left, Putter does not say]; but the King graciously turned round,

KING. "In German History much is still buried; many important Documents lie hidden in Monasteries."

KING (thereupon). "Of Books on ReichsHistory I know only the PERE BARRI." [ Barri de Beaumarchais,

10 vols. 4to, Paris, 1748: I believe, an extremely feeble Pillar of Willo'Wisps by Night;as I can

expressly testify Pfeffel to be (Pfeffel, Abrege Chronologique de l'Histoire d'Allemagne, 2 vols. 4to, Paris,

1776), who has succeeded Barri as Patent Guide through that vast SYLVA SYLVARUM aud its pathless

PUTTER. ... "Foreigners have for most part known only, in regard to our History, a Latin work written by

Struve at Jena." [Burkhard Gotthelf Struve, Syntagma Historiae Germanicus (1730, 2 vols. folio).]

KING. "Barri was a Lorrainer; Barri must have known German!"Then turning to the Duchess, on this hint

about the German Language, he told her, "in a ringing merry tone, How, at Leipzig once, he had talked with

Gottsched [talk known to us] on that subject, and had said to him, That the French had many advantages;

among others, that a word could often be used in a complex signification, for which you had in German to

scrape together several different expressions. Upon which Gottsched had said, 'We will have that mended

(DAS WOLLEN WIR NOCH MACHEN)!' These words the King repeated twice or thrice, with such a tone

that you could well see how the man's conceit had struck him;"and in short, as we know already, what a

gigantic entity, consisting of wind mainly, he took this elevated Gottsched to be.

Upon which, Putter retires into the honorary ranks again; silent, at least to us, and invisible; as the rest of this

Royal Evening at Gotha is. ["Putter's Selbstbiographie (Autobiography), p. 406:" cited in Preuss, ii. 277 n.]

"MADAM,I should never have done, my adorable Duchess, if I rendered you account of all the

impressions which the friendship you lavished on me has made on my heart. I could wish to answer it by

entering into everything that can be agreeable to you [conduct of my Recruiters or Commissariat people first

of all]. I take the liberty of forwarding the ANSWERS which have come in to the Two MEMOIRES you sent

me. I am mortified, Madam, if I have not been able to fulfil completely your desires: but if you knew the

"I have found myself here [in Leipzig, as elsewhere] overwhelmed with business, and even to a degree I had

not expected. Meanwhile, if I ever can manage again to run over and pay you in person the homage of a heart

which is more attached to you than that of your near relations, assuredly I will not neglect the first

"Messieurs the English [Bute, Bedford and Company, with their Preliminaries signed, and all my

Westphalian Provinces left in a condition we shall hear of] continue to betray. Poor M. Mitchell has had a

stroke of apoplexy on hearing it. It is a hideous thing (CHOSE AFFREUSE); but I will speak of it no more.

May you, Madam, enjoy all the prosperities that I wish for you, and not forget a Friend, who will be till his

death, with sentiments of the highest esteem and the most perfect consideration,Madam, your Highness's

most faithful Cousin and Servant, FRIEDRICH." [ OEuvres de Frederic, xzvii. 201.]

For a fortnight past, Friedrich has had no doubt that general Peace is now actually at hand. November 25th,

ten days before this visit, a Saxon PrivyCouncillor, Baron von Fritsch, who, by Order from his Court, had

privately been at Vienna on the errand, came privately next, with all speed, to Friedrich (Meissen, November

25th): [Rodenbeck, ii. 193.] "Austria willing for Treaty; is your Majesty willing?" "Thricewilling, I; my

terms well known!" Friedrich would answer,gladdest of mankind to see general Pacification coming to this

vexed Earth again. The Dance of the Furies, waltzing itself off, HOME out of this upper sunlight: the mad

This was a result which Friedrich had foreseen as nearly certain ever since the French and English signed

their Preliminaries. And there was only one thing which gave him anxiety; that of his Rhine Provinces and

Strong Places, especially Wesel, which have been in French hands for six years past, ever since Spring, 1757.

Bute stipulates That those places and countries shall be evacuated by his Choiseul, as soon as weather and

possibility permit; but Bute, astonishing to say, has not made the least stipulation as to whom they are to be

delivered to,allies or enemies, it is all one to Bute. Truly rather a shameful omission, Pitt might indignantly

think,and call the whole business steadily, as he persisted to do, "a shameful Peace," had there been no

other article in it but this;as Friedrich, with at least equal emphasis thought and felt. And, in fact, it had

For her Imperial Majesty began straightway to draw troops into those neighborhoods: "WE will take delivery,

our Allies playing into our hand!" And Friedrich, who had no disposable troops, had to devise some rapid

expedient; and did. Set his FreeCorps agents and recruiters in motion: "Enlist me those Light people of

Duke Ferdinand's, who are all getting discharged; especially that BRITANNIC LEGION so called. All to be

discharged; reenlist them, you; Ferdinand will keep them till you do it. Be swift!" And it is done;a small

bit of actual enlistment among the many prospective that were going on, as we noticed above. Precise date of

it not given; must have been soon after November 3d. There were from 5 to 6,000 of them; and it was

promptly done. Divided into various regiments; chief command of them given to a Colonel Bauer, under

whom a Colonel Beckwith whose name we have heard: these, to the surprise of Imperial Majesty, and alarm

of a pacific Versailles, suddenly appeared in the Cleve Countries, handy for Wesel, for Geldern; in such

posts, and in such force and condition as intimated, "It shall be we, under favor, that take delivery!" Snatch

Wesel from them, some night, sword in hand: that had been Bauer's notion; but nothing of that kind was

found necessary; mere demonstration proved sufficient. To the French Garrisons the one thing needful was to

get away in peace; Bauer with his brows gloomy is a dangerous neighbor. Perhaps the French Officers

themselves rather favored Friedrich than his enemies. Enough, a private agreement, or mutual understanding

on word of honor, was come to: and, very publicly, at length, on the 11th and 12th days of March, 1763

(Peace now settled everywhere), Wesel, in great gala, full of fieldmusic, military salutations and mutual

dining, saw the French all filing out, aud Bauer and people filing in, to the joy of that poor Town. [Preuss, ii.

Soon after which, painful to relate, such the inexorable pressure of finance, Bauer and people were all paid

off, flung loose again: ruthlessly paid off by a necessitous King! There were about 6,000 of those poor

fellows,specimens of the bastard heroic, under difficulties, from every country in the world; Beckwith and

I know not what other English specimens of the lawless heroic; who were all cashiered, officer and man, on

getting to Berlin. As were the earlier FreeCorps, and indeed the subsequent, all and sundry, "except seven,"

whose names will not be interesting to you. Paid off, with or without remorse, such the exhaustion of finance;

Kleist, Icilius, Count Hordt and others vainly repugning and remonstrating; the King himself inexorable as

Arithmetic. "Can maintain 138,000 of regular, 12,000 of other sorts; not a man more!" Zealous Icilius applied

for some consideration to his Officers: "partial repayment of the money they have spent from their own

pocket in enlistment of their people now discharged!" Not a doit. The King's answer is in autograph, still

extant; not in good spelling, but with sense clear as light: "SEINE OFFICIERS HABEN WIE DIE RABEN

GESTOLLEN SIE KRIGEN NICHTS, Your Officers stole like ravens;they get Nothing." [Preuss, ii. 320.]

Lessing's fine play of MINNA VON BARNHELM testifies to considerable public sympathy for these

impoverished ExMilitary people. Pathetic truly, in a degree; but such things will happen. Irregular

gentlemen, to whom the world 's their oyster,said oyster does suddenly snap to on them, by a chance. And

they have to try it on the other side, and say little!But we are forgetting the PeaceTreaty itself, which still

Kleist's raid into the Reich had a fine effect on the Potentates there; and Plotho's Offer was greedily complied

with; the Kaiser, such his generosity, giving "free permission." We spoke of Privy Councillor von Fritsch,

and his private little word with Friedrich at Meissen, on November 25th. The ElectoralPrince of Saxony, it

seems, was author of that fine stroke; the history of it this. Since November 3d, the French and English have

had their preliminaries signed; and all Nations are longing for the like. "Let us have a German Treaty for

general Peace," said the Kurprinz of Saxony, that amiable HeirApparent whom we have seen sometimes,

who is rather crooked of back, but has a sprightly Wife. "By all means," answered Polish Majesty: "and as I

am in the distance, do you in every way further it, my Son!" Whereupon despatch of Fritsch to Vienna, and

thence to Meissen; with "Yes" to him from both parties. Plenipotentiaries are named: "Fritsch shall be ours:

they shall have my Schloss of Hubertsburg for Place of Congress," said the Prince. And on Thursday,

December 30th, 1762, the Three Dignitaries met at Hubertsburg, and began business.

This is the Schloss in Torgau Country which Quintus Icilius's people, Saldern having refused the job,

willingly undertook spoiling; and, as is well known, did it, January 22d, 1761; a thing Quintus never heard

the end of. What the amount of profit, or the degree of spoil and mischief, Quintus's people made of it, I

could not learn; but infer from this new event that the wreck had not been so considerable as the noise was; at

any rate, that the Schloss had soon been restored to its pristine state of brilliancy. The Plenipotentiaries,for

Saxony, Fritsch; for Austria, a Von Collenbach, unknown to us; for Prussia, one Hertzberg, a man

experienced beyond his years, who is of great name in Prussian History subsequently,sat here till February

15th, 1763, that is for six weeks and five days. Leaving their Protocols to better judges, who report them

good, we will much prefer a word or two from Friedrich himself, while waiting the result they come to.

"LEIPZIG, 14th JANUARY, 1763. ... Am not surprised you find Berlin changed for the worse: such a train of

calamities must, in the end, make itself felt in a poor and naturally barren Country, where continual industry

is needed to second its fecundity and keep up production. However, I will do what I can to remedy this dearth

"No fear of Geldern and Wesel; all that has been cared for by Bauer and the new FreeCorps. By the end of

February Peace will be signed; at the beginning of April everybody will find himself at home, as in 1756.

"The Circles are going to separate: indifferent to me, or nearly so; but it is good to be plucking out tiresome

burning sticks, stick after stick. I hope you amuse yourself at Berlin: at Leipzig nothing but balls and redouts;

my Nephews diverting themselves amazingly. Madam Friedrich, lately Gardenmaid at Seidlitz [Village in

the Neumark, with this Beauty plucking weeds in it,little prescient of such a fortune], now Wife to an

Officer of the Free Hussars, is the principal heroine of these Festivities." [Schoning, iii. 528.]

LEIPZIG, 25th JANUARY, 1763. "Thanks for your care about my existence. I am becoming very old, dear

Brother; in a little while I shall be useless to the world and a burden to myself: it is the lot of all creatures to

wear down with age, but one is not, for all that, to abuse one's privilege of falling into dotage.

"You still speak without full confidence of our Negotiation business [going on at Hubertsburg yonder]. Most

certainly the chapter of accidents is inexhaustible; and it is still certain there may happen quantities of things

which the limited mind of man cannot foresee: but, judging by the ordinary course, and such degrees of

probability as human creatures found their hopes on, I believe, before the month of February entirely end, our

Peace will be completed. In a permanent Arrangement, many things need settling, which are easier to settle

now than they ever will be again. Patience; haste without speed is a thriftless method." [Ib. iii. 529.]

February 5th, the trio at Hubertsburg got their Preliminaries signed. On the tenth day thereafter, the Treaty

itself was signed and sealed. All other Treaties on the same subject had been guided towards a contemporary

finis: England and France, ready since the 3d of November last, signed and ended February 10th. February

11th, the Reich signed and ended; February 15th, Prussia, Austria, Saxony; and the THIRD SILESIAN or

SEVENYEARS WAR was completely finished. [Copy of the treaty in HeldenGeschichte, vii. 624 et seq.;

It had cost, in loss of human lives first of all, nobody can say what: according to Friedrich's computation,

there had perished of actual fighters, on the various fields, of all the nations, 853,000; of which above the

fifth part, or 180,000, is his own share: and, by misery and ravage, the general Population of Prussia finds

itself 500,000 fewer; nearly the ninth man missing. This is the expenditure of Life. Other items are not worth

enumerating, in comparison; if statistically given, you can find the most approved guesses at them by the

same Head, who ought to be an authority. [ OEuvres de Frederic, v. 230234; Preuss, iii. 349351.] It was a

War distinguished byArchenholtz will tell you, with melodious emphasis, what a distinguished, great and

thricegreatest War it was. There have since been other far bigger Wars,if size were a measure of

greatness; which it by no means is! I believe there was excellent Heroism shown in this War, by persons I

could name; by one person, Heroism really to be called superior, or, in its kind, almost of the rank of

supreme;and that in regard to the Military Arts and Virtues, it has as yet, for faculty and for performance,

had no rival; nor is likely soon to have. The Prussians, as we once mentioned, still use it as their

schoolmodel in those respects. And we O readers, do not at least you and I thank God to have now done

Of the PeaceTreaties at Hubertsburg, Paris and other places, it is not necessary that we say almost anything.

They are to be found in innumerable Books, dreary to the mind; and of the 158 Articles to be counted there,

not one could be interesting at present. The substance of the whole lies now in Three Points, not mentioned or

contemplated at all in those Documents, though repeatedly alluded to and intimated by us here.

The issue, as between Austria and Prussia, strives to be, in all points, simply ASYOUWERE; and, in all

outward or tangible points, strictly is so. After such a tornado of strife as the civilized world had not

witnessed since the ThirtyYears War. Tornado springing doubtless from the regions called Infernal; and

darkening the upper world from south to north, and from east to west for Seven Years long;issuing in

general ASYOUWERE! Yes truly, the tornado was Infernal; but Heaven too had silently its purposes in it.

Nor is the mere expenditure of men's diabolic rages, in mutual clash as of opposite electricities, with

reduction to equipoise, and restoration of zero and repose again after seven years, the one or the principal

result arrived at. Inarticulately, little dreamt of at the time by any bystander, the results, on survey from this

1. There is no taking of Silesia from this man; no clipping of him down to the orthodox old limits; he and his

Country have palpably outgrown these. Austria gives up the Problem: "We have lost Silesia!" Yes; and, what

you hardly yet know,and what, I perceive, Friedrich himself still less knows,Teutschland has found

Prussia. Prussia, it seems, cannot be conquered by the whole world trying to do it; Prussia has gone through

its FireBaptism, to the satisfaction of gods and men; and is a Nation henceforth. In and of poor dislocated

Teutschland, there is one of the Great Powers of the World henceforth; an actual Nation. And a Nation not

grounding itself on extinct Traditions, Wiggeries, Papistries, Immaculate Conceptions; no, but on living

Facts,Facts of Arithmetic, Geometry, Gravitation, Martin Luther's Reformation, and what it really can

believe in:to the infinite advantage of said Nation and of poor Teutschland henceforth. To be a Nation; and

to believe as you are convinced, instead of pretending to believe as you are bribed or bullied by the devils

about you; what an advantage to parties concerned! If Prussia follow its star As it really tries to do, in spite

of stumbling! For the sake of Germany, one hopes always Prussia will; and that it may get through its various

ChildDiseases, without death: though it has had sad plunges and crises,and is perhaps just now in one of

its worst Influenzas, the ParliamentaryEloquence or BallotBox Influenza! One of the most dangerous

Diseases of National Adolescence; extremely prevalent over the world at this time,indeed unavoidable, for

reasons obvious enough. "SIC ITUR AD ASTRA;" all Nations certain that the way to Heaven is By voting,

by eloquently wagging the tongue "within those walls"! Diseases, real or imaginary, await Nations like

individuals; aud are not to be resisted, but must be submitted to, and got through the best you can. Measles

and mumps; you cannot prevent them in Nations either. Nay fashions even; fashion of Crinoline, for instance

(how infinitely more, that of BallotBox and FourthEstate!),are you able to prevent even that? You have

2. In regard to England. Her JENKINS'SEAR CONTROVERSY is at last settled. Not only liberty of the

Seas, but, if she were not wiser, dominion of them; guardianship of liberty for all others whatsoever:

Dominion of the Seas for that wise object. America is to be English, not French; what a result is that, were

there no other! Really a considerable Fact in the History of the World. Fact principally due to Pitt, as I

believe, according to my best conjecture, and comparison of probabilities and circumstances. For which, after

all, is not everybody thankful, less or more? O my English brothers, O my Yankee halfbrothers, how

These are the results for England. And in the rear of these, had these and the other elements once ripened for

her, the poor Country is to get into such merchandisings, colonizings, foreignsettlings, goldnuggetings, as

lay beyond the drunkenest dreams of Jenkins (supposing Jenkins addicted to liquor);and, in fact, to enter

on a universal uproar of Machineries, Eldorados, "Unexampled Prosperities," which make a great noise for

themselves in the very days now come. Prosperities evidently not of a sublime type: which, in the mean

while, seem to be covering the at one time creditably clean and comely face of England with mudblotches,

sootblotches, miscellaneous squalors and horrors; to be preaching into her amazed heart, which once knew

SHODDY; filling her ears and soul with shriekery and metallic clangor, mad noises, mad hurries mostly

nowhither;and are awakening, I suppose, in such of her sons as still go into reflection at all, a deeper and

more ominous set of Questions than have ever risen in England's History before. As in the foregoing case, we

3. In regard to France. It appears, noble old Teutschland, with such pieties and unconquerable silent valors,

such opulences human and divine, amid its wreck of new and old confusions, is not to be cut in Four, and

made to dance to the piping of Versailles or another. Far the contrary! To Versailles itself there has gone

forth, Versailles may read it or not, the writing on the wall: "Thou art weighed in the balance, and found

wanting" (at last even "FOUND wanting")! France, beaten, stript, humiliated; sinful, unrepentant, governed

by mere sinners and, at best, clever fools (FOUS PLEINS D'ESPRIT),collapses, like a creature whose

limbs fail it; sinks into bankrupt quiescence, into nameless fermentation, generally into DRYROT. Rotting,

none guesses whitherward;rotting towards that thriceextraordinary SpontaneousCombustion, which

blazed out in 1789. And has kindled, over the whole world, gradually or by explosion, this unexpected

Outburst of all the chained Devilries (among other chained things), this roaring Conflagration of the

Anarchies; under which it is the lot of these poor generations to live,for I know not what length of

Centuries yet. "Go into Combustion, my pretty child!" the Destinies had said to this BELLE FRANCE, who

is always so fond of shining and outshining: "SelfCombustion;in that way, won't you shine, as none of

them yet could?" Shine; yes, truly,till you are got to CAPUT MORTUUM, my pretty child (unless you

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16th, Friedrich, all Saxon things being now settled,among the rest, "eight Saxon

Schoolmasters" to be a model in Prussia,quitted Leipzig, with the SevenYears War safe in his pocket, as

it were. Drove to Moritzburg, to dinner with the amiable Kurprinz and still more amiable Wife: "It was to

your Highness that we owe this Treaty!" A dinner which readers may hear of again. At Moritzburg; where,

with the Lacys, there was once such rattling and battling. After which, rapidly on to Silesia, and an eight days

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30th, Friedrich arrives in FrankfurtonOder, on the way homeward from Silesia:

"takes view of the Field of Kunersdorf" (reflections to be fancied); early in the afternoon speeds forward

again; at one of the stages (place called Tassdorf) has a Dialogue, which we shall hear of; and between 8 and

9 in the evening, not through the solemn receptions and crowded streets, drives to the Schloss of Berlin.

"Goes straight to the Queen's Apartment," Queen, Princesses and Court all home triumphantly some time

ago; sups there with the Queen's Majesty and these bright creatures,beautiful supper, had it consisted only

of cresses and salt; and, behind it, sound sleep to us under our own rooftree once more. [Rodenbeck, ii. 211,

212; Preuss, ii. 345, 346; Next day, "the King made gifts to," as it were, to everybody; "to the Queen about

5,000 pounds, to the Princess Amelia 1,000 pounds," and so on; and saw true hearts all merry round him,

The Twelve Herculeslabors of this King have ended here; what was required of him in WorldHistory is

accomplished. There remain to Friedrich Twentythree Years more of Life, which to Prussian History are as

full of importance as ever; but do not essentially concern European History, Europe having gone the road we

now see it in. On the grand WorldTheatre the curtain has fallen for a New Act; Friedrich's part, like

everybody's for the present, is played out. In fact, there is, during the rest of his Reign, nothing of

WorldHistory to be dwelt on anywhere. America, it has been decided, shall be English; Prussia be a Nation.

The French, as finis of their attempt to cut Germany in Four, find themselves sunk into torpor, abeyance and

dryrot; fermenting towards they know not what. Towards Spontaneous Combustion in the year 1789, and

There, readers, there is the next milestone for you, in the History of Mankind! That universal Burningup, as

in hellfire, of Human Shams. The oath of Twentyfive Million men, which has since become that of all men

whatsoever, "Rather than live longer under lies, we will die!"that is the New Act in WorldHistory. New

Act,or, we may call it New PART; Drama of WorldHistory, Part Third. If Part SECOND was 1,800 years

ago, this I reckon will be Part THIRD. This is the truly celestialinfernal Event: the strangest we have seen

for a thousand years. Celestial in one part; in the other, infernal. For it is withal the breaking out of universal

mankind into Anarchy, into the faith and practice of NOGovernment,that is to say (if you will be candid),

into unappeasable Revolt against ShamGovernors and ShamTeachers,which I do charitably define to be

a Search, most unconscious, yet in deadly earnest, for true Governors and Teachers. That is the one fact of

WorldHistory worth dwelling on at this day; and Friedrich cannot be said to have had much hand farther in

Nor is the progress of a French or European world, all silently ripening and rotting towards such issue, a thing

one wishes to dwell on. Only when the Spontaneous Combustion breaks out; and, manycolored, with loud

noises, envelops the whole world in anarchic flame for long hundreds of years: then has the Event come;

there is the thing for all men to mark, and to study and scrutinize as the strangest thing they ever saw.

Centuries of it yet lying ahead of us; several sad Centuries, sordidly tumultuous, and good for little! Say Two

Centuries yet,say even Ten of such a process: before the Old is completely burnt out, and the New in any

state of sightliness? Millennium of Anarchies;abridge it, spend your heart'sblood upon abridging it, ye

Heroic Wise that are to come! For it is the consummation of All the Anarchies that are and were; which I

do trust always means the death (temporary death) of them! Death of the Anarchies: or a world once more

built wholly on Fact better or worse; and the lying jargoning professor of Sham Fact, whose name is Legion,

who as yet (oftenest little conscious of himself) goes tumulting and swarming from shore to shore, become a

There were bits of Anarchies before, little and greater: but till that of France in 1789, there was none long

memorable; all were pygmies in comparison, and not worth mentioning separately. In 1772 the Anarchy of

Poland, which had been a considerable Anarchy for about three hundred years, got itself extinguished,

what we may call extinguished;decisive surgery being then first exercised upon it: an Anarchy put in the

sure way of extinction. In 1775, again, there began, over seas, another Anarchy much more

considerable,little dreaming that IT could be called an Anarchy; on the contrary, calling itself Liberty,

Rights of Man; and singing boundless IoPaeans to itself, as is common in such cases; an Anarchy which has

been challenging the Universe to show the like ever since. And which has, at last, flamed up as an

independent Phenomenon, unexampled in the hideously SUICIDAL way;and does need much to get burnt

out, that matters may begin anew on truer conditions. But neither the PARTITION OF POLAND nor the

AMERICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE have much general importance, or, except as precursors of 1789,

are worth dwelling on in History. From us here, so far as Friedrich is concerned with them, they may deserve

some transient mention, more or less: but WorldHistory, eager to be at the general Funeralpile and ultimate

Burningup of Shams in this poor World, will have less and less to say of small tragedies and premonitory

Curious how the busy and continually watchful and speculating Friedrich, busied about his dangers from

Austrian encroachments, from RussianTurk Wars, Bavarian Successions, and other troubles and anarchies

close by, saw nothing to dread in France; nothing to remark there, except carelessly, from time to time, its

beggarly decaying condition, so strangely sunk in arts, in arms, in finance; oftenest an object of pity to him,

for he still has a love for France;and reads not the least sign of that immeasurable, all engulfing FRENCH

REVOLUTION which was in the wind! Neither Voltaire nor he have the least anticipation of such a thing.

Voltaire and he see, to their contentment, Superstition visibly declining: Friedrich rather disapproves the heat

of Voltaire's procedures on the INFAME. "Why be in such heat? Other nonsense, quite equal to it, will be

almost sure to follow. Take care of your own skin!" Voltaire and he are deeply alive, especially Voltaire is, to

the horrors and miseries which have issued on mankind from a Fanatic Popish Superstition, or Creed of

Incredibilities,which (except from the throat outwards, from the bewildered tongue outwards) the orthodox

themselves cannot believe, but only pretend and struggle to believe. This Voltaire calls "THE INFAMOUS;"

and thiswhat name can any of us give it? The man who believes in falsities is very miserable. The man

who cannot believe them, but only struggles and pretends to believe; and yet, being armed with the power of

the sword, industriously keeps menacing and slashing all round, to compel every neighbor to do like him:

what is to be done with such a man? Human Nature calls him a Social Nuisance; needing to be handcuffed,

gagged and abated. Human Nature, if it be in a terrified and imperilled state, with the sword of this fellow

swashing round it, calls him "Infamous," and a Monster of Chaos. He is indeed the select Monster of that

region; the Patriarch of all the Monsters, little as he dreams of being such. An Angel of Heaven the poor

caitiff dreams himself rather, and in cheery moments is conscious of being:Bedlam holds in it no madder

article. And I often think he will again need to be tied up (feeble as he now is in comparison, disinclined

though men are to manacling and tying); so many helpless infirm souls are wandering about, not knowing

their right hand from their left, who fall a prey to him. "L'INFAME" I also name him,knowing well

enough how little he, in his poor muddled, drugged and stupefied mind, is conscious of deserving that name.

More signal enemy to God, and friend of the Other Party, walks not the Earth in our day.

Anarchy in the shape of religious slavery was what Voltaire and Friedrich saw all round them. Anarchy in the

shape of Revolt against Authorities was what Friedrich and Voltaire had never dreamed of as possible, and

had not in their minds the least idea of. In one, or perhaps two places you may find in Voltaire a grim and

rather glad forethought, not given out as prophecy, but felt as interior assurance in a moment of hope, How

these Priestly Sham Hierarchies will be pulled to pieces, probably on the sudden, once people are awake to

them. Yes, my muchsuffering M. de Voltaire, be pulled to pieces; or go aloft, like the awakening of

Vesuvius, one day,Vesuvius awakening after ten centuries of slumber, when his crater is all grown grassy,

bushy, copiously "tenanted by wolves" I am told; which, after premonitory grumblings, heeded by no wolf or

bush, he will hurl bodily aloft, ten acres at a time, in a very tremendous manner! [First modern Eruption of

Vesuvius, A.D. 1631, after long interval of rest.] A thought like this, about the Priestly ShamHierarchies, I

have found somewhere in Voltaire: but of the Social and Civic ShamHierarchies (which are likewise

accursed, if they knew it, and indeed are junior copartners of the Priestly; and, in a sense, sons and products

of them, and cannot escape being partakers of their plagues), there is no hint, in Voltaire, though Voltaire

stood at last only fifteen years from the Fact (17781793); nor in Friedrich, though he lived almost to see the

Friedrich's History being henceforth that of a Prussian King, is interesting to Prussia chiefly, and to us little

otherwise than as the Biography of a distinguished fellowman, Friedrich's Biography, his Physiognomy as

he grows old, quietly on his own harvestfield, among his own People: this has still an interest, and for any

feature of this we shall be eager enough; but this withal is the most of what we now want. And not very much

even of this; Friedrich the unique King not having as a man any such depth and singularity, tragic, humorous,

devotionally pious, or other, as to authorize much painting in that aspect. Extreme brevity beseems us in these

circumstances: and indeed there are,as has already happened in different parts of this Enterprise (Nature

herself, in her silent way, being always something of an Artist in such things),other circumstances, which

leave us no choice as to that of detail. Available details, if we wished to give them, of Friedrich's later Life,

are not forthcoming: masses of incondite marinestores, tumbled out on you, dry rubbish shot with

uncommon diligence for a hundred years, till, for RubbishPelion piled on RubbishOssa, you lose sight of

the stars and azimuths; whole mountain continents, seemingly all of cinders and sweepings (though

fragments and remnants do lie hidden, could you find them again):these are not details that will be

available! Anecdotes there are in quantity; but of uncertain quality; of doubtful authenticity, above all. One

recollects hardly any Anecdote whatever that seems completely credible, or renders to us the Physiognomy of

Friedrich in a convincing manner. So remiss a creature has the Prussian Clio been,employed on all kinds

of loose errands over the Earth and the Air; and as good as altogether negligent of this most pressing errand

in her own House. Peace be with her, poor slut; why should we say one other hard word on taking leave of

The Practical fact is, what we have henceforth to produce is more of the nature of a loose Appendix of

Papers, than of a finished Narrative. Loose Papers,which, we will hope, the reader can, by industry, be

made to understand and tolerate: more we cannot do for him. No continuous Narrative is henceforth possible

to us. For the sake of Friedrich's closing Epoch, we will visit, for the last time, that dreary imbroglio under

which the memory of Friedrich, which ought to have been, in all the epochs of it, bright and legible, lies

buried; and will try to gather, as heretofore, and put under labels. What dwells with oneself as human may

have some chance to be humanly interesting. In the wildest chaos of marine stores and editorial

shortcomings (provided only the editors speak truth, as these poor fellows do) THIS can be done. Part the

living from the dead; pick out what has some meaning, leave carefully what has none; you will in some small

measure pluck up the memory of a hero, like drowned honor by the locks, and rescue it, into visibility.

That Friedrich, on reaching home, made haste to get out, of the bustle of joyances and exclamations on the

streets; proceeded straight to his musicchapel in Charlottenburg, summoning the Artists, or having them

already summoned; and had there, all alone, sitting invisible wrapt in his cloak, Graun's or somebody's grand

TEDEUM pealed out to him, in seas of melody,soothing and salutary to the altered soul, revolving many

things,is a popular myth, of pretty and appropriate character; but a myth only, with no real foundation,

though it has some loose and apparent. [In PREUSS, ii. 46, all the details of it.] No doubt, Friedrich had his

own thoughts on entering Berlin again, after such a voyage through the deeps; himself, his Country still here,

though solitary and in a world of wild shipwrecks. He was not without piety; but it did not take the devotional

What is perfectly known, and much better worth knowing, is the instantaneous practical alacrity with which

he set about repairing that immense miscellany of ruin; and the surprising success he had in dealing with it.

His methods, his rapid inventions and procedures, in this matter, are still memorable to Prussia; and perhaps

might with advantage be better known than they are in some other Countries. To us, what is all we can do

with them here, they will indicate that this is still the old Friedrich, with his old activities and promptitudes;

which indeed continue unabated, lively in Peace as in War, to the end of his life and reign.

The speed with which Prussia recovered was extraordinary. Within little more than a year (June 1st, 1764),

the Coin was all in order again; in 1765, the King had rebuilt, not to mention other things, "in Silesia 8,000

Houses, in Pommern 6,500." [Rodenbeck, ii. 234, 261.] Prussia has been a meritorious Nation; and, however

cut and ruined, is and was in a healthy state, capable of recovering soon. Prussia has defended itself against

overwhelming odds,brave Prussia; but the real soul of its merit was that of having merited such a King to

command it. Without this King, all its valors, disciplines, resources of war, would have availed Prussia little.

No wonder Prussia has still a loyalty to its great Friedrich, to its Hohenzollern Sovereigns generally. Without

these Hohenzollerns, Prussia had been, what we long ago saw it, the unluckiest of German Provinces; and

could never have had the pretension to exist as a Nation at all. Without this particular Hohenzollern, it had

been trampled out again, after apparently succeeding. To have achieved a Friedrich the Second for King over

An accidental merit, thinks the reader? No, reader, you may believe me, it is by no means altogether such.

Nay, I rather think, could we look into the AccountBooks of the Recording Angel for a course of centuries,

no part of it is such! There are Nations in which a Friedrich is, or can be, possible; and again there are

Nations in which he is not and cannot. To be practically reverent of Human Worth to the due extent, and

abhorrent of Human Want of Worth in the like proportion, do you understand that art at all? I fear, not,or

that you are much forgetting it again! Human Merit, do you really love it enough, think you;human

Scoundrelism (brought to the dock for you, and branded as scoundrel), do you even abhor it enough? Without

that reverence and its corresponding oppositepole of abhorrence, there is simply no possibility left. That, my

friend, is the outcome and summary of all virtues in this world, for a man or for a Nation of men. It is the

supreme strength and glory of a Nation;without which, indeed, all other strengths, and enormities of

bullion and arsenals and warehouses, are no strength. None, I should say;and are oftenest even the

Nations who have lost this quality, or who never had it, what Friedrich can they hope to be possible among

them? Age after age they grind down their Friedrichs contentedly under the hoofs of cattle on their highways;

and even find it an excellent practice, and pride themselves on Liberty and Equality. Most certain it is, there

will no Friedrich come to rule there; by and by, there will none be born there. Such Nations cannot have a

King to command them; can only have this or the other scandalous swindling Copper Captain, constitutional

Gilt Mountebank, or other the like unsalutary entity by way of King; and the sins of the fathers are visited

upon the children in a frightful and tragical manner, little noticed in the Penny Newspapers and Periodical

Literatures of this generation. Oh, my friends! But there is plain Business waiting us at hand.

That of Friedrich's sitting wrapt in a cloud of reflections OlympianAbysmal, in the musicchapel at

Charlottenburg, while he had the Ambrosian Song executed for him there, as the preliminary step, was a

loose myth; but the fact lying under it is abundantly certain. Few Sons of Adam had more reason for a

piously thankful feeling towards the Past, a piously valiant towards the Future. What king or man had seen

himself delivered from such strangling imbroglios of destruction, such devouring rages of a hostile world?

And the ruin worked by them lay monstrous and appalling all round. Friedrich is now Fiftyone gone;

unusually old for his age; feels himself an old man, broken with years and toils; and here lies his Kingdom in

haggard slashed condition, worn to skin and bone: How is the King, resourceless, to remedy it? That is now

the seemingly impossible problem. "Begin it,thereby alone will it ever cease to be impossible!" Friedrich

begins, we may say, on the first morrow morning. Labors at his problem, as he did in the march to Leuthen;

finds it to become more possible, day after day, month after month, the farther he strives with it.

"Why not leave it to Nature?" think many, with the Dismal Science at their elbow. Well; that was the easiest

plan, but it was not Friedrich's. His remaining moneys, 25 million thalers ready for a Campaign which has not

come, he distributes to the most necessitous: "all his artilleryhorses" are parted into plough teams, and

given to those who can otherwise get none: think what a fine figure of rye and barley, instead of mere

windlestraws, beggary and desolation, was realized by that act alone. Nature is ready to do much; will of

herself cover, with some veil of grass and lichen, the nakedness of ruin: but her victorious act, when she can

accomplish it, is that of getting YOU to go with her handsomely, and change disaster itself into new wealth.

Into new wisdom and valor, which are wealth in all kinds; California mere zero to them, zero, or even a

frightful MINUS quantity! Friedrich's procedures in this matter I believe to be little less didactic than those

other, which are so celebrated in War: but no Dryasdust, not even a Dryasdust of the Dismal Science, has

gone into them, rendered men familiar with them in their details and results. His Silesian LandBank

(jointstock Moneys, lent on security of Land) was of itself, had I room to explain it, an immense

furtherance. [Preuss, iii. 75; OEuvres de Frederic, vi. 84.] Friedrich, many tell us, was as great in Peace as in

War: and truly, in the economic and material provinces, my own impression, gathered painfully in darkness,

and contradiction of the DismalScience Doctors, is much to that effect. A firstrate Husbandman (as his

Father had been); who not only defended his Nation, but made it rich beyond what seemed possible; and

diligently sowed annuals into it, and perennials which flourish aloft at this day.

Mirabeau's Monarchie Prussienne, in 8 thick Volumes 8vo,composed, or hastily cobbled together, some

Twenty years after this period,contains the best tabular view one anywhere gets of Friedrich's economics,

military and other practical methods and resources:solid exact Tables these are, and intelligent intelligible

descriptions, done by Mauvillon FILS, the same punctual Major Mauvillon who used to attend us in Duke

Ferdinand's War;and so far as Mirabeau is concerned, the Work consists farther of a certain small Essay

done in big type, shoved into the belly of each Volume, and eloquently recommending, with respectful

censures and regrets over Friedrich, the Gospel of Free Trade, dear to Papa Mirabeau. The Son is himself a

convert; far above lying, even to please Papa: but one can see, the thought of Papa gives him new fire of

expression. They are eloquent, ruggedly strong Essays, those of Mirabeau Junior upon Free Trade: they

contain, in condensed shape, everything we were privileged to hear, seventy years later, from all organs,

coachhorns, jews harps and scrannelpipes, PRO and CONTRA, on the same sublime subject: "God is

great, and Plugson of Undershot is his Prophet. Thus saith the Lord, Buy in the cheapest market, sell in the

dearest!" To which the afflicted human mind listens what it can; and after seventy years, mournfully asks

itself and Mirabeau, "M. le Comte, would there have been in Prussia, for example, any Trade at all, any

Nation at all, had it always been left 'Free'? There would have been mere sand and quagmire, and a

community of wolves and bisons, M. le Comte. Have the goodness to terminate that Litany, and take up

We said, Friedrich began his problem on the first morrow morning; and that is literally true, that or even

MORE. Here is how Friedrich takes his stand amid the wreck, speedy enough to begin: this view of our old

friend Nussler and him is one of the Pieces we can give,thanks to Herr Busching and his Beitrage for the

last time! Nussler is now something of a Country Gentleman, so to speak; has a pleasant place out to east of

Berlin; is LANDRATH (County Chairman) there, "Landrath of NetherBarnim Circle;" where we heard of

the Cossacks spoiling him: he, as who not, has suffered dreadfully in these tumults. Here is Busching's

"MARCH 30th, 1763, Friedrich, on his return to Berlin, came by the route of Tassdorf,"Tassdorf, in

NetherBarnim Circle (40 odd miles from Frankfurt, and above 15 from Berlin);"and changed horses

there. During this little pause, among a crowd assembled to see him, he was addressed by Nussler, Landrath

of the Circle, who had a very piteous story to tell. Nussler wished the King joy of his noble victories, and of

the glorious Peace at last achieved: 'May your Majesty reign in health and happiness over us many years, to

the blessing of us all!'and recommended to his gracious care the extremely ruined, and, especially by the

Russians, uncommonly devastated Circle, for which," continues Busching "this industrious Landrath had not

hitherto been able to extract any effective help." Generally for the Provinces wasted by the Russians there had

already some poor 300,000 thalers (45,000 pounds) been allowed by a helpful Majesty, not overrich himself

at the moment; and of this, NetherBarnim no doubt gets its share: but what is this to such ruin as there is? A

mere preliminary drop, instead of the bucket and buckets we need!Busching, a dull, though solid accurate

kind of man, heavyfooted, and yet always in a hurry, always slipshod, has nothing of dramatic here; far

from it; but the facts themselves fall naturally into that form,in Three Scenes:

I. TASSDORF (still two hours from Berlin), KING, NUSSLER AND A CROWD OF PEOPLE, Nussler

KING (from his Carriage, ostlers making despatch). "What is your Circle most short of?"

LANDRATH NUSSLER. "Of horses for ploughing the seedfields of rye to sow them, and of bread till the

KING. "Rye for bread, and to sow with, I will give; with horses I cannot assist."

NUSSLER. "On representation of PrivyCouncillor van Brenkenhof [the Minister concerned with such

things], your Majesty has been pleased to give the Neumark and Pommern an allowance of Artillery and

Commissariat Horses: but poor NetherBarnim, nobody will speak for it; and unless your Majesty's gracious

self please to take pity on it, NetherBarnim is lost!" (A great many things more he said, in presence of a

large crowd of men who had gathered round the King's Carriage as the horses were being changed; and spoke

NUSSLER. "I am the Nussler who was lucky enough to manage the Fixing of the Silesian Boundaries for

KING. "JA, JA, now I know you again! Bring me all the Landraths of the Kurmark [Mark of Brandenburg

KING. "Send off estafettes for those two to come at once to Berlin; and on Thursday," day after tomorrow,

"come yourself, with all the others, to the Schloss to me: I will then have some closer conversation, and say

what I can and will do for helping of the country," (King's Carriage rolls away, with low bows and blessings

NUSSLER (whom they have appointed spokesman). ... "Your Majesty has given us Peace; you will also give

us Wellbeing in the Land again: we leave it to HighesttheSame's gracious judgment [no limit to

HighesttheSame's POWER, it would seem] what you will vouchsafe to us as indemnification for the

KING. "Be you quiet; let me speak. Have you got a pencil (HAT ER CRAYON)? Yes! Well then, write, and

"'How much rye for bread; How much for seed; How many Horses, Oxen, Cows, their Circles do in an

"Consider all that to the bottom; and come to me again the day after tomorrow. But see that you fix

NUSSLER (to the Landraths). "MEINE HERREN, have the goodness to accompany me to our Landschaft

House [we have a kind of County Hall, it seems]; there we will consider everything."

And Nussler, guiding the deliberations, which are glad to follow him on every point, and writing as

PROTEMPORE Secretary, has all things brought to luminous Protocol in the course of this day and next.

III. SATURDAY, APRIL 3d, IN THE SCHLOSS AGAIN: NUSSLER AND LANDRATHS. To them, the

Nussler. "We deliver to your Majesty the written Specification you were graciously pleased to command of

us. It contains only the indispensablest things that the Circles are in need of. Moreover, it regards only the

STANDE [richer Nobility], who pay contribution; the Gentry [ADEL], and other poor people, who have been

utterly plundered out by the Russians, are not included in it:the Gentry too have suffered very much by the

KING. "What EDELLEUTE that are members of STANDE have you [ER] got in your Circle?"

NUSSLER (names them; and, as finis of the list, adds): ... "I myself, too, your Majesty, I have suffered more

than anybody: I absolutely could not furnish those 4,000 bushels of meal ordered of me by the Russians;

KING. "I cannot give to all: but if you have poor Nobles in your Circle, who can in no way help themselves, I

NUSSLER (has not any in NetherBarnim who are altogether in that extreme predicament; but knows

several in Lebus Circle, names them to the King;and turning to the Landrath of Lebus, and to another who

is mute): "Herr, you can name some more in Lebus; and you, in Teltow Circle, Herr Landrath, since his

Majesty permits." ... In a word, the King having informed himself and declared his intention, Nussler leads

the Landraths to their old County Hall, and brings to Protocol what had taken place.

Next day, the Kammer President (Exchequer President), Van der Groben, had Nussler, with other Landraths,

to dinner. During dinner, there came from Head Secretary Eichel (Majesty's unwearied Clerk of the PELLS,

Sheepskins, or PAPERS) an earnest request to Von der Groben for help,Eichel not being able to

remember, with the requisite precision, everything his Majesty had bid him put down on this matter. "You

will go, Herr von Nussler; be so kind, won't you?" And Nussler went, and fully illuminated Eichel. ...

To the poorest of the Nobility, Busching tells us, what is otherwise well known, the King gave considerable

sums: to one Circle 12,000 pounds, to another 9,000 pounds, 6,000 pounds, and so on. By help of which

bounties, and of Nussler laboring incessantly with all his strength, NiederBarnim Circle got on its feet

again, no subject having been entirely ruined, but all proving able to recover. [Busching, Beitrage (� Nussler),

This Busching Fragment is not in the style of the Elder Dramatists, or for the Bankside Theatre; but this

represents a Fact which befell in God's Creation, and may have an interest of its own to the Practical Soul,

especially in anarchic Countries, far advanced in the "Goldnugget and Nothing to Buy with it" Career of

On these same errands the King is soon going on an Inspection Journey, where we mean to accompany. But

first, one word, and one will suffice, on the debased Coin. The Peace was no sooner signed, than Friedrich

proceeded on the Coin. The third week after his arrival home, there came out a salutary Edict on it, April

21st; King eager to do it without loss of time, yet with the deliberation requisite. Not at one big leap, which

might shake, to danger of oversetting, much commercial arrangement; but at two leaps, with a halfway station

intervening. Halfway station, with a new coinage ready, much purer of alloy (and marked HOW much, for

the benefit of parties with accounts to settle), is to commence on TRINITATIS (Whitsunday) instant; from

and after Whitsunday the improved new coin to be sole legal tender, till farther notice. Farther notice comes

accordingly, within a year, March 29th, 1764: "Pure money of the standard of 1750 [honest silver coinage:

readers may remember Linsenbarth, the CANDIDATUS THEOLOGIAE, and his sack of Batzen, confiscated

at the Paekhof] shall be ready on the 1st of June instant;" [Rodenbeck, ii. 214, 234.]from and after which

day we hear no more of that sad matter. Finished off in about fourteen months. Here, meanwhile, is the

JUNE 2d, 1763, Friedrich left Potsdam for Westphalia; got as far as Magdeburg that day. Intends seeing into

matters with his own eyes in that region, as in others, after so long and sad an absence. There are with him

Friedrich Wilhelm Prince of Prussia, a tall young fellow of nineteen; GeneralAdjutant von Anhalt; and one

or two Prussian military people. From Magdeburg and onwards the great Duke Ferdinand

accompanies,who is now again Governor of Magdeburg, and a quiet Prussian Officer as heretofore, though

The Royal Party goes by Halberstadt, which suffered greatly in the War; thence by MINDEN (June 4th); and

the first thing next day, Friedrich takes view of the BATTLEFIELD there,under Ferdinand's own

guidance, doubtless; and an interesting thing to both Friedrich and him, though left silent to us. This done,

they start for Lippstadt, are received there under joyous clangorous outburst of all the bells and all the honors,

that same afternoon; and towards sunset, Hamm being the Nightquarter ahead, are crossing

VELLINGHAUSEN BATTLEGROUND,where doubtless Ferdinand again, like a dutiful apprentice, will

explain matters to his old master, so far as needful or permissible. The conversation, I suppose, may have

been lively and miscellaneous: Ferdinand mentions a clever businessperson of the name of Roden, whom he

has known in these parts; "Roden?" the King carefully makes note;and, in fact, we shall see Roden

presently; and his bit of DIALOGUE with the King (recorded by his own hand) is our chief errand on this

Journey. From Hamm, next morning (June 6th), they get to Wesel by 11 A.M. (only sixty miles); Wesel all in

gala, as Lippstadt was, or still more than Lippstadt; and for four days farther, they continue there very busy.

WESEL, MONDAY, JUNE 6th, "Dinner being done," says an authentic ThirdParty, [Rodenbeck, ii. 217.]

"the King had KammerDirector Meyen summoned to him with his RegisterBooks, Schedules and Reports

[what they call ETATS]; and was but indifferently contented with Meyen and them." And in short, "ordering

Meyen to remodel these into a more distinct condition,"we may now introduce the Herr Kriegsrath Roden,

a subaltern, in rank, but who has perhaps a better head than Meyen, to judge of these ETATS. Roden himself

shall now report. This is the Royal Dialogue with Roden; accurately preserved for us by him;I wish it had

been better worth the reader's trouble; but its perfect credibility in every point will be some recommendation

"MONDAY, 6th JUNE, 1763, about 11 A.M., his Majesty arrived in Wesel," says Roden (confirming to us

the authentic ThirdParty); "I waited on AdjutantGeneral Colonel von Anhalt to announce myself; who

referred me to Kriegsrath Coper ["MEIN SEGRETER KOPER" is a name we have heard before], who told

me to be ready so soon as Dinner should be over. Dinner was no sooner over [2 P.M. or so], than the Herr

KammerDirector Meyen with his ETATS was called in. His Majesty was not content with these, Herr

Meyen was told; and they were to be remodelled into a more distinct condition. The instant Herr Meyen stept

out, I was called in. His Majesty was standing with his back to the fire; and said:

KING. "'Come nearer [Roden comes nearer]. Prince Ferdinand [of Brunswick, whom we generally call

DUKE and great, to distinguish him from a little Prussian Prince Ferdinand] has told me much good of you:

RODEN. "'From Soest' [venerable "stoneold" little Town, in Vellinghausen region].

RODEN. "'Yea' [and took out his Notebook and tools, which he had "bought in a shop a quarter of an hour

KING. "'Listen. By the War many Houses have got ruined: I mean that they shall be put in order again; for

which end,to those that cannot themselves help, particularly to Soest, Hamm, Lunen and in part Wesel, as

places that have suffered most,I intend to give the moneys. Now you must make me an exact List of what

is to be done in those places. Thus [King, lifting his finger, let us fancy, dictates; Roden, with brandnew

"'1. In each of those Towns, how many ruined Houses there are which the proprietors themselves can manage

to rebuild. 2. How many which the proprietors cannot. 3. The vacant grounds or steadings of such proprietors

as are perhaps dead, or gone elsewhither, must be given to others that are willing to build: but in regard to

this, Law also must do its part, and the absent and the heirs must be cited to say, Whether they will

themselves build? and in case they won't, the steadings can then be given to others.'" Roden having

KING. "'In the course of six days you must be ready [what an expeditious King! Is to be at Cleve the sixth

RODEN (considering a moment). "'If your Majesty will permit me to use ESTAFETTES [express

messengers] for the Towns farthest off,as I cannot myself, within the time, travel over all the Towns,I

KING. "'That I permit; and will repay you the ESTAFETTE moneys. Tell me, How comes the decrease of

RODEN. "'Under favor of your Majesty, Regiment Schenkendorf got, every year, for recompletion, what

KING. "'There you may be right: but from Cleve Country we had no recruits; not we, though the Austrians

RODEN. "'Out of Cleve, so far as I know, there were no recruits delivered to the Austrians.'

KING. "'You could not know; you were with the Allied Army' [Duke Ferdinand's, commissariating and the

RODEN. "'There have been many epidemic diseases too; especially in Soest;after the Battle of

Vellinghausen all the wounded were brought thither, and the hospitals were established there.'

KING. "'Epidemic diseases they might have got without a Battle [dislikes hearing ill of the soldier trade]. I

will have Order sent to the Cleve Kammer, Not to lay hindrance in your way, but the contrary. Now God

Sunday, 12th June, is the sixth day hence; later than the end of Sunday is not permissible to swift Roden; nor

Friday, 10th, Friedrich left Wesel; crossed the Rhine, intending for Cleve; went by CREFELD,at Crefeld

had view of another BATTLE FIELD, under good ciceroneship; remarks or circumstances otherwise not

given:and, next day, Saturday, 11th, picked up D'Alembert, who, by appointment, is proceeding towards

Potsdam, at a more leisurely rate. That same Saturday, after much business done, the King was at Kempen,

thence at Geldern; speeding for Cleve itself, due there that night. At Geldern, we say, he picked up

D'Alembert; concerning whom, more by and by. And finally, "on Saturday night, about halfpast 8, the

King entered Cleve," amid joyances extraordinary, hut did not alight; drove direct through by the Nassau

Gate, and took quarter "in the neighboring Countryhouse of Bellevue, with the Dutch General von Spaen

there,"an obliging acquaintance once, while LIEUTENANT Spaen, in our old CrownPrince times of

trouble! Had his year in Spandau for us there, while poor Katte lost his head! To whom, I have heard, the

King talked charmingly on this occasion, but was silent as to old Potsdam matters. [Supra, vii. 165.]

By his set day, Roden is also in Cleve, punctual man, finished or just finishing; and ready for summons by his

"CLEVE, MONDAY, JUNE 13th, At 9 in the morning," records he, "I had audience of the King's Majesty.

[In Spaen's Villa of Bellevue, shall we still suppose? Duke Ferdinand, Prince of Prussia and the rest, have

bestowed themselves in other fit houses; D'Alembert too,who is to make direct for Potsdam henceforth, by

his own route; and will meet us on arriving.]I handed him my Report, with the Tabular Schedule. His

Majesty read it carefully through, in my presence; and examined all of it with strictness. Was pleased to

signify his satisfaction with my work. Resolved to allow 250,000 thalers (37,500 pounds) for this business of

Rebuilding; gave out the due Orders to his Kammer, in consequence, and commanded me to arrange with the

KING. "'What you were described to me, I find you to be. You are a diligent laborious man; I must have you

nearer to me;in the Berlin Hammer you ought to be. You shall have a good, a right good Salary; your

Patent I will give you gratis; also a VORSPANNPASS [Standing Order available at all Prussian

PostStations] for two carriages [rapid Program of the thing, though yet distant, rising in the Royal fancy!].

RODEN. "'That is the object of all my endeavors.'" (EXIT:I did not hear specially whitherward just now;

"The Herr Kriegsrath Coper was present, and noted all the Orders to he expedited." [Preuss, ii. 442;

Rodenbeck, ii. 217, 218: in regard to D'Alembert, see OEuvres de Frederic, xxiv. 190.]

These snatches of notice at firsthand, and what the reader's fancy may make of these, are all we can bestow

on this Section of Friedrich's Labors; which is naturally more interesting to Prussian readers than to English.

He has himself given lucid and eloquent account of it,Two ample Chapters, "DES FINANCES;" "DU

MILITAIRE," [ OEuvres de Frederic, vii. 7390, 91109.]altogether pleasant reading, should there still

be curiosity upon it. There is something of flowingly eloquent in Friedrich's account of this Battle waged

against the inanimate Chaos; something of exultant and triumphant, not noticeable of him in regard to his

other Victories. On the Leuthens, Rossbachs, he is always cold as water, and nobody could gather that he had

the least pleasure in recording them. Not so here. And indeed here he is as beautiful as anywhere; and the

reader, as a general son of Adam, proud to see human intellect and heroism slaying that kind of lions, and

doing what in certain sad epochs is unanimously voted to be impossible and unattemptable,exults along

with him; and perhaps whispers to his own poor heart, nearly choked by the immeasurable imbroglio of

Bluebooks and Parliamentary Eloquences which for the present encumber Heaven and Earth, "MELIORA

SPERO." To Mirabeau, the following details, from firsthand, but already of twentythree years distance,

were not known, [Appeared first in Tome v. of "OEuvres Posthumes de Frederic II." (are in Tome vi. of

Preuss's Edition of OEUVRES), "Berlin, 1788;"above a year after Mirabeau had left.] while he sat penning

"To form an idea of the general subversion," says the King, in regard to 1763, "and how great were the

desolation and discouragement, you must represent to yourself Countries entirely ravaged, the very traces of

the old habitations hardly discoverable; Towns, some ruined from top to bottom, others half destroyed by

fire;13,000 Houses, of which the very vestiges were gone. No field in seed; no grain for the food of the

inhabitants; 60,000 horses needed, if there was to be ploughing carried on: in the Provinces generally Half a

Million Population (500,000) less than in 1756,that is to say, upon only Four Millions and a Half, the ninth

man was wanting. Noble and Peasant had been pillaged, ransomed, foraged, eaten out by so many different

"There was no credit, by trading people, even for the daily necessaries of life." And furthermore, what we

were not prepared for, "No police in the Towns: to habits of equity and order had succeeded a vile greed of

gain and an anarchic disorder. The Colleges of Justice and of Finance had, by these frequent invasions of so

many enemies, been reduced to inaction:" no Judge, in many places not even a Taxgatherer: the silence of

the Laws had produced in the people a taste for license; boundless appetite for gain was their main rule of

action: the noble, the merchant, the farmer, the laborer, raising emulously each the price of his commodity,

seemed to endeavor only for their mutual ruin. Such, when the War ended, was the fatal spectacle over these

Provinces, which had once been so flourishing: however pathetic the description may be, it will never

Friedrich found that it would never do to trust to the mere aid of Time in such circumstances: at the end of the

ThirtyYears War, "Time" had, owing to absolute want of money, been the one recipe of the Great Elector in

a similar case; and Time was then found to mean "about a hundred Years." Friedrich found that he must at

once step in with active remedies, and on all hands strive to make the impossible possible. Luckily he had in

readiness, as usual, the funds for an Eighth Campaign, had such been needed. Out of these moneys he

proceeded to rebuild the Towns and Villages; "from the CornStores (GRANARIES D'ABONDANCE,"

Government establishments gathered from plentiful harvests against scarce, according to old rule) "were

taken the supplies for food of the people and sowing of the ground: the horses intended for the artillery,

baggage and commissariat," 60,000 horses we have heard, "were distributed among those who had none, to

be employed in tillage of the land. Silesia was discharged from all taxes for six months; Pommern and the

Neumark for two years. A sum of about Three Million sterling [in THALERS 20,389,000] was given for

relief of the Provinces, and as acquittance of the impositions the Enemy had wrung from them.

"Great as was this expense, it was necessary and indispensable. The condition of these Provinces after the

Peace of Hubertsburg recalled what we know of them when the Peace of Munster closed the famous

ThirtyYears War. On that occasion the State failed of help from want of means; which put it, out, of the

Great Elector's power to assist his people: and what happened? That a whole century elapsed before his

Successors could restore the Towns and Champaigns to what they were. This impressive example was

admonitory to the King: that to repair the Public Calamities, assistance must be prompt and effective.

Repeated gifts (LARGESSES) restored courage to the poor Husbandmen, who began to despair of their lot;

by the helps given, hope in all classes sprang up anew: encouragement of labor produced activity; love of

Country rose again with fresh life: in a word [within the second year in a markedly hopeful manner, and

within seven years altogether], the fields were cultivated again, manufacturers had resumed their work; and

the Police, once more in vigor, corrected by degrees the vices that had taken root during the time of anarchy."

To Friedrich's difficulties, which were not inconsiderable, mark only this last additament: "During this War,

the elder of the Councillors, and all the Ministers of the Grand Directorium [centre of Prussian

Administration], had successively died: and in such time of trouble it had been impossible to replace them.

The embarrassment was, To find persons capable of filling these different employments [some would have

very soon done it, your Majesty; but their haste would not have tended to speed!]We searched the

Provinces (ON FOUILLA, sifted), where good heads were found as rare as in the Capital: at length five Chief

Ministers were pitched upon,"who prove to be tolerable, and even good. Three of them were, the VONS

Blumenthal, Massow, Hagen, unknown to readers here: fourth and fifth were, the Von Wedell as War

Minister, once Dictator at Zullichan; and a Von der Horst, who had what we might partially call the Home

Nor was War all, says the King: "accidental Fires in different places," while we struggled to repair the

ravagings of War, "were of unexampled frequency, and did immense farther damage. From 1765 to 1769,

here is the list of places burnt: In East Preussen, the City of Konigsberg twice over; in Silesia, the Towns of

Freystadt, OberGlogau [do readers recollect Manteuffel of Foot and "WIR WOLLEN IHM WAS"!],

Parchwitz, NaumburgonQueiss, and Goldberg; in the Mark, Nauen; in the Neumark, Calies and a part of

Lansberg; in Pommern, Belgard and Tempelburg. These accidents required incessantly new expenditures to

Friedrich was not the least of a Free Trader, except where it suited him: and his continual subventions and

donations, guidances, encouragements, commandings and prohibitions, wise supervision and impulsion,are

a thing I should like to hear an intelligent Mirabeau (Junior or Senior) discourse upon, after he had well

studied them! For example: "ON RENDIT LES PRETRES UTILES, The Priests, Catholic Priests, were

turned to use by obliging all the rich Abbeys to establish manufactures: here it was weavers making damasks

and tablecloths; there oilmills [oil from linseed]; or workers in copper, wiredrawers; as suited the

localities and the natural products,the flaxes and the metals, with waterpower, markets, and so on." What

I should like still better to explain how, in Lower Silesia, "we (ON) managed to increase the number of

Husbandmen by 4,000 families. You will be surprised how it was possible to multiply to this extent the

people living by Agriculture in a Country where already not a field was waste. The reason was this. Many

Lords of Land, to increase their Domain, had imperceptibly appropriated to themselves the holdings

(TERRES) of their vassals. Had this abuse been suffered to go on, in time a great" But the commentary

needed would be too lengthy; we will give only the result: "In the longrun, every Village would have had its

Lord, but there would have been no taxpaying Farmers left." The Landlord, ruler of these Landless, might

himself (as Majesty well knows) have been made to PAY, had that been all; but it was not. "To possess

something; that is what makes the citizen attached to his Country; those who have no property, and have

nothing to lose, what tie have they?" A weak one, in comparison! "All these things being represented to the

Landlord Class, their own advantage made them consent to replace their Peasants on the old footing." ...

"To make head against so many extraordinary demands," adds the King (looking over to a new Chapter, that

of the MILITARY, which Department, to his eyes, was not less shockingly dilapidated than the CIVIL, and

equally or more needed instant repair), "new resources had to be devised. For, besides what was needed for

reestablishment of the Provinces, new Fortifications were necessary; and all our Cannon, E'VASES (worn

too wide in the bore), needed to be refounded; which occasioned considerable new expense. This led us to

improvement of the Excises,"concerning which there will have to be a Section by itself.

In his late InspectionJourney to Cleve Country, D'Alembert, from Paris, by appointment waited for the

King; [In ( OEuvres de Frederic, xxiv. 377380 (D'Alembert's fine bits of Letters in prospect of Potsdam,

"Paris, 7th March29th April, 1763;" and two small Notes while there, "SansSouci, 6th July15th August,

1763").]picked up at Geldern (June 11th), as we saw above. D'Alembert got to Potsdam June 22d; stayed

till middle of August. He had met the King once before, in 1755; who found him "a BON GARCON," as we

then saw. D'Alembert was always, since that time, an agreeable, estimable little man to Friedrich. Age now

about fortysix; has lately refused the fine Russian post of "Tutor to the Czarowitsh" (Czarowitsh Paul, poor

little Boy of eight or nine, whom we, or Herr Busching for us, saw galloping about, not long since, "in his

dressinggown," under Panin's Tutorage); refuses now, in a delicate gradual manner, the fine Prussian post of

Perpetual President, or Successor to Maupertuis;definitely preferring his frugal pensions at Paris, and

garret all his own there. Continues, especially after this two months' visit of 1763, one of the King's chief

correspondents for the next twenty years. ["29th October, 1783," D'Alembert died: "born 16th November,

1717;" a Foundling, as is well known; "Mother a Sister of Cardinal Tencin's; Father," accidental, "an

Officer in the Artillery."] A man of much clear intellect; a thought SHRIEKY in his ways sometimes; but

always prudent, rational, polite, and loyally recognizing Friedrich as a precious article in this world. Here is a

word of D'Alembert's to Madame du Deffand, at Paris, some ten or twelve days after the Cleve meeting, and

"POTSDAM, 25th JUNE, 1763. MADAME, ... I will not go into the praises of this Prince," King

Friedrich, my now Host; "in my mouth it might be suspicious: I will merely send you two traits of him, which

will indicate his way of thinking and feeling. When I spoke to him [at Geldern, probably, on our first

meeting] of the glory he had acquired, he answered, with the greatest simplicity, That there was a furious

discount to be deducted from said glory; that chance came in for almost the whole of it; and that he would far

rather have done Ratine's ATHALIE than all this War:ATHALIE is the work he likes, and rereads

oftenest; I believe you won't disapprove his taste there. The other trait I have to give you is, That on the day

[15th February last] of concluding this Peace, which is so glorious to him, some one saying, 'It is the finest

day of your Majesty's life:' 'The finest day of life,' answered he, 'is the day on which one quits it.' ...Adieu,

Madame." [ "OEuvres Posthumes de D'Alembert (Paris, 1799). i. 197:" cited in PREUSS, ii. 348.]

The meeting in Cleve Country was, no doubt, a very pretty passage, with Two pretty Months

following;and if it be true that HELVETIUS was a consequence, the 11th of June, 1763, may almost claim

to be a kind of epoch in Friedrich's later history. The opulent and ingenious M. Helvetius, who wrote DE

L'ESPRIT, and has got banished for that feat (lost in the gloom of London in those months), had been a

mighty Taxgatherer as well; D'Alembert, as brother Philosophe, was familiar with Helvetius. It is certain,

also, King Friedrich, at this time, found he would require annually two million thalers more;where to get

them, seemed the impossibility. A General Krockow, who had long been in French Service, and is much

about the King, was often recommending the French Excise system; he is the Krockow of DOMSTADTL,

and that SIEGE OF OLMUTZ, memorable to some of us:"A wonderful Excise system," Krockow is often

saying, in this time of straits. "Who completely understands it?" the King might ask. "Helvetius, against the

world!" D'Alembert could justly answer. "Invite Helvetius to leave his London exile, and accept an asylum

Helvetius came in March, 1765; stayed till June, 1766: [Rodenbeck, ii. 254; Preuss, iii. 11.]within which

time a French Excise system, which he had been devising and putting together, had just got in gear, and been

in action for a month, to Helvetius's satisfaction. Who thereupon went his way, and never returned; taking

with him, as man and taxgatherer, the King's lasting gratitude; but by no means that of the Prussian Nation,

in his tax gathering capacity! All Prussia, or all of it that fell under this Helvetius Excise system, united to

condemn it, in all manner of dialects, louder and louder: here, for instance, is the utterance of Herr Hamann,

himself a kind of Customhouse Clerk (at Konigsberg, in East Preussen), and on modest terms a Literary

man of real merit and originality, who may be supposed to understand this subject: "And so," says Hamann,

"the State has declared its own subjects incapable of managing its Finance system; and in this way has

intrusted its heart, that is the purse of its subjects, to a company of Foreign Scoundrels, ignorant of everything

relating to it!" ["Hamann to Jacobi" (see Preuss, iii. 135), "Konigsberg, 18th January, 1786."]

This lasted all Friedrich's lifetime; and gave rise to not a little buzzing, especially in its primary or incipient

stages. It seems to have been one of the unsuccessfulest Finance adventures Friedrich ever engaged in. It cost

his subjects infinite small trouble; awakened very great complaining; and, for the first time, real

discontent,skindeep but sincere and universal,against the misguided Vater Fritz. Much noisy absurdity

there was upon it, at home, and especially abroad: "Griping miser," "greedy tyrant," and so forth! Deducting

all which, everybody now admits that Friedrich's aim was excellent and proper; but nobody denies withal that

the means were inconsiderate, of no profit in proportion to the trouble they gave, and improper to adopt

Friedrich is forbidden, or forbids himself, as we have often mentioned, to impose new taxes: and nevertheless

now, on calculations deep, minute and no doubt exact, he judges That for meeting new attacks of War (or

being ready to meet, which will oftenest mean averting them),a thing which, as he has just seen, may

concern the very existence of the State,it is necessary that there should be on foot such and such quotities

and kinds of Soldiery and Warfurniture, visible to all neighbors; and privately in the Treasury never less

than such and such a sum. To which end Arithmetic declares that there is required about Two Million thalers

more of yearly revenue than we now have. And where, in these circumstances, are the means of raising such

Friedrich imposes no new taxes; but there may be stricter methods of levying the old;there may, and in fact

there must, be means found! Friedrich has consulted his Finance Ministers; put the question SERIATIM to

these wise heads: they answer with one voice, "There are no means." [Rodenbeck, ii. 256.] Friedrich,

therefore, has recourse to Helvetius; who, on due consideration, and after survey of much documentary and

tabulary rawmaterial, is of opinion, That the Prussian Excises would, if levied with the punctuality,

precision and vigilant exactitude of French methods, actually yield the required overplus. "Organize me the

methods, then; get them put in action here; under French hands, if that be indispensable." Helvetius bethought

him of what fittest French hands there were to his knowledge,in France there are a great many hands flung

idle in the present downbreak of finance there: Helvetius appears to have selected, arranged and contrived

in this matter with his best diligence. De Launay, the Headengineer of the thing, was admitted by all

Prussia, after Twentytwo years unfriendly experience of him, to have been a suitable and estimable person;

a man of judicious ways, of no small intelligence, prudence, and of very great skill in administering business.

Headengineer De Launay, one may guess, would be consulted by Helvetius in choice of the subaltern

Officials, the stokers and steerers in this new SteamMachinery, which had all to be manned from France.

There were Four heads of departments immediately under De Launay, or scarcely under him, junior brothers

rather:who chose these I did not hear; but these latter, it is evident, were not a superior quality of people.

Of these Four,all at very high salaries, from De Launay downwards; "higher than a Prussian Minister of

State!" murmured the public,two, within the first year, got into quarrel; fought a duel, fatal to one of them;

so that there were now only Three left. "Three, with De Launay, will do," opined Friedrich; and divided the

vacant salary among the survivors: in which form they had at least no more duelling.

As to the subaltern workingparties, the VISITATEURS, CONTROLLEURS, JAUGEURS (Gaugers),

PLOMBEURS (Leadstampers), or the strangest kind of all, called "CellarRats (COMMIS

RATSDECAVE), "they were so detested and exclaimed against, by a Public impatient of the work itself,

there is no knowing what their degree of scoundrelism was, nor even, within amazingly wide limits, what the

arithmetical number of them was. About 500 in the whole of Prussia, says a quiet Prussian, who has made

some inquiry; ["Beguelin, ACCISE UND ZOLL VERFASSUNG, s. 138" (Preuss, iii, 18).] 1,500 says

Mirabeau; 3,000 say other exaggerative persons, or even 5,000; De Launay's account is, Not at any time

above 200. But we can all imagine how vexatious they and their business were. Nobody now is privileged

with exemption: from one and all of you, Nobles, Clergy, People, strict account is required, about your beers

and liquors; your coffee, salt; your consumptions and your purchases of all excisable articles:nay, I think

in coffee and salt, in salt for certain, what you will require, according to your station and domestic numbers,

is computed for you, to save trouble; such and such quantities you will please to buy in our presence, or to

pay duty for, whether you buy them or not. Into all houses, at any hour of the day or of the night, these

cellarrats had liberty,(on warrant from some higher rat of their own type, I know not how much higher;

and no sure appeal for you, except to the King; tolerably sure there, if you be INNOCENT, but evidently

perilous if you be only NOTCONVICTED!)had liberty, I say, to search for contraband; all your presses,

drawers, repositories, you must open to these beautiful creatures; watch in nightcap, and candle in hand,

while your things get all tumbled hither and thither, in the search for what perhaps is not there; nay, it was

said and suspected, but I never knew it for certain, that these poisonous French are capable of slipping in

Readers can conceive, though apparently Friedrich did not, what a world of vexation all this occasioned; and

how, in the continual annoyance to all mankind, the irritation, provocation and querulous eloquence spread

among high and low. Of which the King knew something; but far from the whole. His object was one of vital

importance; and his plan once fixed, he went on with it, according to his custom, regardless of little rubs. The

Anecdote Books are full of details, comic mostly, on this subject: How the French rats pounced down upon

good harmless people, innocent frugal parsonages, farmhouses; and were comically flung prostrate by

native ready wit, or by direct appeal to the King. Details, never so authentic, could not be advisable in this

place. Perhaps there are not more than Two authentic Passages, known to me, which can now have the least

interest, even of a momentary sort, to English readers. The first is, Of King Friedrich caricatured as a Miser

grinding Coffee. I give it, without essential alteration of any kind, in Herr Preuss's words, copied from those

of one who saw it:the second, which relates to a Princess or ExPrincess of the Royal House, I must

"Once during the time of the 'Regie' [which lasted from 1766 to 1786 and the King's death: no other date

assignable, though 1768, or so, may be imaginable for our purpose], as the King came riding along the Jager

Strasse, there was visible near what is called the Furstenhaus," kind of Berlin Somerset House, [Nicolai, i.

155.] "a great crowd of people. 'See what it is!' the King sent his one attendant, a heiduc or groom, into it, to

learn what it was. 'They have something posted up about your Majesty,' reported the groom; and Friedrich,

who by this time had ridden forward, took a look at the thing; which was a Caricature figure of himself: King

in very melancholy guise, seated on a Stool, a Coffeemill between his knees; diligently grinding with the

one hand, and with the other picking up any bean that might have fallen. 'Hang it lower,' said the King,

beckoning his groom with a wave of the finger: 'Lower, that they may not have to hurt their necks about it!'

No sooner were the words spoken, which spread instantly, than there rose from the whole crowd one

universal huzza of joy. They tore the Caricature into a thousand pieces, and rolled after the King with loud

(LEBE HOCH, Our Friedrich forever!' as he rode slowly away." [Preuss, iii. 275 ("from BERLIN

CONVERSUTIONSBLATT of 1827, No. 253").] That is their Friedrich's method with the Caricature

Department. Heffner, Kapellmeister in Upsala, reports this bit of memorability; he was then of the King's

The King's tendency at all times, and his practice generally, when we hear of it, was to take the people's side;

so that gradually these French procedures were a great deal mitigated; and DIE REGIE so they called this

hateful newfangled system of Excise machinerybecame much more supportable, "the sorrows of it

nothing but a tradition to the younger sort," reports Dohm, who is extremely ample on this subject. [Christian

Wilhelm von Dohm, Denkwurdigkeiten meiner Zeit (Lemgo und Hanover, 1819), iv. 500 et seq.] De Launay

was honorably dismissed, and the whole Regie abolished, a month or two after Friedrich's death.

With a splenetic satisfaction authentic Dohm, who sufficiently condemns the REGIE, adds that it was not

even successful; and shows by evidence, and computation to the uttermost farthing, that instead of two

million thalers annually, it yielded on the average rather less than one. The desired overplus of two millions,

and a good deal more did indeed come in, says he: but it was owing to the great prosperity of Prussia at large,

after the SevenYears War; to the manifold industries awakening, which have gone on progressive ever

since. Dohm declares farther, that the very object was in a sort fanciful, nugatory; arguing that nobody did

attack Friedrich;but omitting to prove that nobody would have done so, had Friedrich NOT stood ready to

receive him. We will remark only, what is very indisputable, that Friedrich, owing to the Regie, or to other

causes, did get the humble overplus necessary for him; and did stand ready for any war which might have

come (and which did in a sort come); that he more and more relaxed the Regie, as it became less

indispensable to him; and was willing, if he found the Caricatures and Opposition Placards too high posted,

A French eyewitness testifies: "They had no talent, these Regie fellows, but that of writing and ciphering;

extremely conceited too, and were capable of the most ridiculous follies. Once, for instance, they condemned

a common soldier, who had hidden some pounds of tobacco, to a fine of 200 thalers. The King, on reviewing

it for confirmation, wrote on the margin: 'Before confirming this sentence, I should wish to know where the

Soldier, who gets 8 groschen [ninepence halfpenny] in the 5 days, will find the 200 crowns for paying this

Fine!'" [Laveaux (2d edition), iii. 228.] Innumerable instances of a constant disposition that way, on the

King's part, stand on record. "A crown a head on the import of fat cattle, Tax on butcher'smeat?" writes he

once to De Launay: "No, that would fall on the poorer classes: to that I must say No. I am, by office,

Procurator of the Poor (L'AVOCAT DU PAUVRE)." Elsewhere it is "AVOCAT DEC PAUVRE ET DU

SOLDAT (of the workingman and of the soldier); and have to plead their cause." [Preuss, iii. 20.]

We will now give our Second Anecdote; which has less of memorability to us strangers at present, though

doubtless it was then, in Berlin society, the more celebrated of the two; relating, as it did, to a high

CourtLady, almost the highest, and who was herself only too celebrated in those years. The heroine is

Princess Elizabeth of Brunswick, King's own Niece and a pretty woman; who for four years (14th July,

176518th April, 1769) of her long life was Princess Royal of Prussia,Wife of that tall young Gentleman

whom we used to see dancing about, whom we last saw at Schweidnitz getting flung from his horse, on the

day of Pirch's saddle there:his Wife for four years, but in the fourth year ceased to be so [Rodenbeck, ii.

241, 257.] (for excellent reasons, on both sides), and lived thenceforth in a divorced eclipsed state at Stettin,

where is laid the scene of our Anecdote. I understand it to be perfectly true; but cannot ascertain from any of

the witnesses in what year the thing happened; or whether it was at Stettin or Berlin,though my author has

"This Princess had commissioned, direct from Lyon, a very beautiful dress; which arrived duly, addressed to

her at Stettin. As this kind of stuffs is charged with very heavy dues, the DOUANIER, head Customhouse

Personage of the Town, had the impertinence to detain the dress till payment were made. The Princess, in a

lofty indignation, sent word to this person, To bring the dress instantly, and she would pay the dues on it. He

obeyed: but,"mark the result,"scarcely had the Princess got eye on him, when she seized her Lyon

Dress; and, giving the Douanier a couple of good slaps on the face, ordered him out of her apartment and

"The Douanier, thinking himself one and somewhat, withdrew in high choler; had a long

PROCESVERBAL of the thing drawn out; and sent it to the King with eloquent complaint, 'That he had

been dishonored in doing the function appointed him.' Friedrich replied as follows: TO THE DOUANIER AT

STETTIN: 'The loss of the Excise dues shall fall to my score; the Dress shall remain with the Princess; the

slaps to him who has received them. As to the pretended Dishonor, I entirely relieve the complainant from

that: never can the appliance of a beautiful hand dishonor the face of an Officer of Customs.F.'" [Laveaux

Northern Tourists, Wraxall and others, passing that way, speak of this Princess, down to recent times, as a

phenomenon of the place. Apparently a high and peremptory kind of Lady, disdaining to be bowed too low

by her disgraces. She survived all her generation, and the next and the next, and indeed into our own. Died

18th February, 1840: at the age of ninetysix. Threescore and eleven years of that eclipsed Stettin Existence;

this of the Lyon gown, and caitiff of a Customhouser slapped on the face, her one adventure put on record

She was signally blamable in that of the Divorce; but not she alone, nor first of the Two. Her CrownPrince,

Friedrich Wilhelm, called afterwards, as King, "DER DICKE (the Fat, or the Big)," and held in little esteem

by Posterity,a headlong, rather dark and physical kind of creature, though not illmeaning or dishonest,

was himself a dreadful sinner in that department of things; and had BEGUN the bad game against his poor

Cousin and Spouse! Readers of discursive turn are perhaps acquainted with a certain "Grafin von Lichtenau,"

and her MEMOIRS so called:not willingly, but driven, I fish up one specimen, and one only, from that

"From the first year of our attachment," says this precious Grafin, "I was already the confidant of his," the

Prince of Prussia's, "most secret thoughts. One day [in 1767, second year of his married life, I then fifteen,

slim Daughter of a Player on the French Horn, in his Majesty's pay], the Prince happened to be very serious;

and was owning to me with frankness that he had some wrongs towards my sex to reproach himself

with,"alas, yes, some few:"and he swore that he would never forsake ME; and that if Heaven disposed

of my life before his, none but he should close my eyes. He was fingering with a penknife at the time; he

struck the point of it into the palm of his left hand, and wrote with his blood [the unclean creature], on a little

bit of paper, the Oath which his lips had just pronounced in so solemn a tone. Vainly should I undertake to

paint my emotion on this action of his! The Prince saw what I felt; and took advantage of it to beg that I

would follow his example. I hastened to satisfy him; and traced, as he had done, with my blood, the promise

to remain his friend to the tomb, and never to forsake him. This Promise must have been found among his

Papers after his death [still in the Archives? we will hope not!] Both of us stood faithful to this Oath. The

tie of love, it is true, we broke: but that was by mutual consent, and the better to fix ourselves in the bonds of

an inviolable friendship. Other mistresses reigned over his senses; but I"ACH GOTT, no more of that.

[ Memoires de la Comtesse de Lichtenau (a Londres, chez Colburn Libraire, Conduitstreet, Bond street, 2

The King's own account of the affair is sufficiently explicit. His words are: "Not long ago [about two years

before this of the penknife] we mentioned the Prince of Prussia's marriage with Elizabeth of Brunswick [his

Cousin twice over, her Mother, Princess Charlotte of Prussia, being his Father's Sister and mine, and her

Father HIS Mother's Brother,if you like to count it]. This engagement, from which everybody had

expected happy consequences, did not correspond to the wishes of the Royal House." Only one Princess

could be realized (subsequently Wife to the late Duke of York),she came this same year of the

penknife,and bad outlooks for more. "The Husband, young and dissolute (SANS MOEURS), given up to a

crapulous life, from which his relatives could not correct him, was continually committing infidelities to his

Wife. The Princess, who was in the flower of her beauty, felt outraged by such neglect of her charms; her

vivacity, and the good opinion she had of herself, brought her upon the thought of avenging her wrongs by

retaliation. Speedily she gave in to excesses, scarcely inferior to those of her Husband. Family quarrels broke

out, and were soon publicly known. The antipathy that ensued took away all hope of succession [had it been

desirable in these sad circumstances!]. Prince Henri [JUNIOR, this hopeful Prince of Prussia's Brother], who

was gifted with all the qualities to be wished in a young man [witness my tears for him], had been carried off

by smallpox. ["26th May, 1767," age 19 gone; ELOGE of him by Friedrich ("MS. still stained with tears"),

in OEuvres de Frederic, vii. 37 et seq.] The King's Brothers, Princes Henri and Ferdinand, avowed frankly

that they would never consent to have, by some accidental bastard, their rights of succession to the crown

carried off. In the end, there was nothing for it but proceeding to a divorce." [ OEuvres de Frederic, vi. 23.]

Divorce was done in a beautiful private manner; case tried with strictly shut doors; all the five judges under

oath to carry into the grave whatever they came to know of it: [Preuss, iv. 180186.] divorce completed 18th

April, 1769; and, within three months, a new marriage was accomplished, Princess Frederika Luisa of

Hessen Darmstadt the happy woman. By means of whom there was duly realized a Friedrich Wilhelm, who

became "King Friedrich Wilhelm III." (a muchenduring, excellent, though inarticulate man), as well as

various other Princes and Princesses, in spite of interruptions from the Lichtenau Sisterhood. Highsouled

Elizabeth was relegated to Stettin; her amount of Pension is not mentioned; her Family, after the unhappy

proofs communicated to them, had given their consent and sanction;and she stayed there, idle, or her own

mistress of work, for the next seventyone years.Enough of HER Lyon Dress, surely, and of the Excise

If D'Alembert's Visit was the germ of the Excise system, it will be curious to note,and indeed whether or

not, it will be chronologically serviceable to us here, and worth noting,that there went on a small

synchronous affair, still visible to everybody: namely, That in the very hours while Friedrich and D'Alembert

were saluting mutually at Geldern (11th June, 1763), there was laid the foundation of what they call the

NEUE PALAIS; New Palace of SansSouci: [Rodenbeck, ii. 219.] a sumptuous Edifice, in the curious

LOUISQUINZE or what is called "Rococo" style of the time; Palace never much inhabited by Friedrich or

his successors, which still stands in those ornamental Potsdam regions. Why built, especially in the then

downpressed financial circumstances, some have had their difficulties to imagine. It appears, this New

Palace had been determined on before the War broke out; and Friedrich said to himself: "We will build it

now, to help the mechanical classes in Berlin,perhaps also, in part [think some, and why should not they, a

little?] to show mankind that we have still ready money; and are nothing like so ruined as they fancy."

"This NEUE PALAIS," says one recent Tourist, "is a pleasant quaint object, nowadays, to the stranger. It has

the air DEGAGE POCOCURANTE; pleasantly fine in aspect and in posture;spacious expanses round it,

not in a waste, but still less in a strict condition; and (in its deserted state) has a silence, especially a total

absence of needless flunkies and of gaping fellowloungers, which is charming. Stands mute there, in its

solitude, in its stately silence and negligence, like some Tadmor of the Wilderness in small. The big square of

Stables, Coachhouses, near by, was locked up,probably one sleeping groom in it. The very CUSTOS of

the grand Edifice (such the rarity of fees to him) I could not awaken without difficulty. In the gray autumn

zephyrs, no sound whatever about this New Palace of King Friedrich's, except the rustle of the crisp brown

"I should say," continues he, "it somehow reminds you of the City of Bath. It has the cut of a battered Beau of

old date; Beau still extant, though in strangely other circumstances; something in him of pathetic dignity in

that kind. It shows excellent sound masonries; which have an overtendency to jerk themselves into

pinnacles, curvatures and graciosities; many statues atop,three there are, in a kind of grouped or

partnership attitude; 'These,' said diligent scandal, 'note them; these mean Maria Theresa, Pompadour and

CATIN DU NORD' (mere Muses, I believe, or of the Nymph or Hamadryad kind, nothing of harm in them).

In short, you may call it the stone Apotheosis of an old French Beau. Considerably weatherbeaten (the

brown of lichens spreading visibly here and there, the firmset ashlar telling you, 'I have stood a hundred

years');Beau old and weatherbeaten, with his cockedhat not in the fresh condition, all his goldlaces

tarnished; and generally looking strange, and in a sort tragical, to find himself, fleeting creature, become a

From Potsdam Palace to the New Palace of SansSouci may be a mile distance; flat ground, parallel to the

foot of Hills; all through arbors, parterres, waterworks, and ornamental gardenings and cottagings or

villaings,CottageVilla for Lord Marischal is one of them. This mile of distance, taking the COTTAGE

Royal of Sans Souci on its hilltop as vertex, will be the base of an isosceles or nearly isosceles triangle,

flatter than equilateral. To the Cottage Royal of SansSouci may be about threequarters of a mile northeast

from this New Palace, and from Potsdam Palace to it rather less. And the whole squaremile or so of space is

continuously a Garden, not in the English sense, though it has its own beauties of the more artificial kind;

and, at any rate, has memories for you, and footsteps of persons still unforgotten by mankind.Here is a

Notice of Lord Marischal; which readers will not grudge; the chronology of the worthy man, in these his later

Lord Marischal, we know well and Pitt knows, was in England in 1761,ostensibly on the Kintore Heritage;

and in part, perhaps, really on that errand. But he went and came, at dates now uncertain; was back in Spain

after that, had difficult voyagings about; [King's Letters to him, in OEuvres de Frederic, xx. 282285.]and

did not get to rest again, in his Government of Neufchatel, till April, 1762. There is a Letter of the King's,

"BRESLAU, 10th APRIL, 1762. My nose is the most impertinent nose in the universe, MON CHER

MYLORD [QueenDowager snuff, SPANIOL from the fountainhead, of Marischal's providing; quality

exquisite, but difficult to get transmitted in the Storms of War]; I am ashamed of the trouble it costs you! I

beg many pardons;and should be quite abashed, did I not know how you compassionate the weak points of

your friends, and that, for a long time past, you have a singular indulgence for my nose. I am very glad to

know you happily returned to your Government, safe at Colombier (DOVECOTE) in Neufchatel again."

This is 10th April, 1762. There, as I gather, quiet in his Dovecote, Marischal continued, though rather weary

of the business, for about a year more; or till the King got home,who delights in companionship, and is

It was in Summer, 1762 (about three months after the above Letter from the King), that Rousseau made his

celebrated exodus into Neufchatel Country, and found the old Governor so good to him, glad to be allowed

to shelter the poor skinless creature. And, mark as curious, it must have been on two of those mornings,

towards the end of the Siege of Schweidnitz, when things were getting so intolerable, and at times breaking

out into electricity, into "rebuke all round," that Friedrich received that singular pair of Laconic Notes from

Rousseau in Neufchatel: forwarded, successively, by Lord Marischal; NOTE FIRST, of date,

"MotierTravers, Neufchatel, September," nobody can guess what day, "1762:" "I have said much ill of you,

and don't repent it. Now everybody has banished me; and it is on your threshold that I sit down. Kill me, if

you have a mind!" And then (after, not death, but the gift of 100 crowns), NOTE SECOND, "October, 1762:"

... "Take out of my sight that sword, which dazzles and pains me; IT has only too well done its duty, while

the sceptre is abandoned:" Make Peace, can't you! [ OEuvres completes de Rousseau (a Geneve, 17821789),

xxxiii. 64, 65.]What curious reading for a King in such posture, among the miscellaneous arrivals

overnight! Above six weeks before either of these NOTES, Friedrich, hearing of him from Lord Marischal,

had answered: "An asylum? Yes, by all means: the unlucky cynic!" It is on September 1st, that he sends, by

the same channel, 100 crowns for his use, with advice to "give them in NATURA, lest he refuse otherwise;"

as Friedrich knows to be possible. In words, the Rousseau Notes got nothing of Answer. "A GARCON

SINGULIER," says Friedrich: odd fellow, yes indeed, your Majesty;and has such a pungency of flattery in

him too, presented in the way of snarl! His Majesty might take him, I suppose, with a kind of relish, like

There was still another shift of place, shift which proved temporary, in old Marischal's life: Home to native

Aberdeenshire. The two childless Brothers, Earls of Kintore, had died successively, the last of them

November 22d, 1761: title and heritage, not considerable the latter, fell duly, by what preparatives we know,

to old Marischal; but his Keith kinsfolk, furthermore, would have him personally among them,nay, after

that, would have him to wed and produce new Keiths. At the age of 78; decidedly an inconvenient thing! Old

Marischal left Potsdam "August, 1763," [Letter of his to the King ("LONDRES, 14 AOUT, 1763"), in

OEuvres de Frederic, xx. 293.In Letters of Eminent Persons to David Hume (Edinburgh, 1849), pp.

5771, are some Nine from the Old Marischal; in curiously mixed dialect, cheerful, but indistinct; the two

chief dates of which are: "Touch" (guttural TuCH, in Aberdeenshire), "28 October, 1763," and "Potsdam, 20

February, 1765."]NEWPALACE scaffoldings and big stone blocks conspicuous in those localities;

pleasant D'Alembert now just about leaving, in the other direction; much to Friedrich's regret, the old

"I am not surprised that the Scotch fight to have you among them; and wish to have progeny of yours, and to

preserve your bones. You have in your lifetime the lot of Homer after death: Cities arguing which is your

birthplace;I myself would dispute it with Edinburgh to possess you. If I had ships, I would make a descent

on Scotland, to steal off my CHER MYLORD, and bring him hither. Alas, our Elbe Boats can't do it. But you

give me hopes;which I seize with avidity! I was your late Brother's friend, and had obligations to him; I

am yours with heart and soul. These are my titles, these are my rights:you sha'n't be forced in the matter of

progeny here (FAIRE L'ETALON ICI), neither priests nor attorneys shall meddle with you; you shall live

here in the bosom of friendship, liberty and philosophy." Come to me! ...F. [ OEuvres de Frederic, xx.

Old Marischal did come; and before long. I know not the precise month: but "his VillaCottage was built for

him," the Books say, "in 1764." He had left D'Alembert just going; next year he will find Helvetius coming.

He lived here, a great treasure to Friedrich, till his death, 25th May, 1778, age 92.

The New Palace was not finished till 1770;in which year, also, Friedrich reckons that the general Problem

of Repairing Prussia was victoriously over. New Palace, growing or complete, looks down on all these

operations and occurrences. In its cradle, it sees D'Alembert go, Lord Marischal go; Helvetius come, Lord

Marischal come; in its boyhood or maturity, the Excise, and French RATSDE CAVE, spring up;

CrownPrince Friedrich Wilhelm prick his hand for a fit kind of ink; Friedrich Wilhelm's Divorced Wife give

her Douanier two slaps in the face, by way of payment. Nay, the same Friedrich Wilhelm, become "Friedrich

Wilhelm II., or DER DICKE," died in it,his Lichtenau AND his second Wife, jewel of women, nursing

The violent stress of effort for repairing Prussia, Friedrich intimates, was mostly over in 1766: till which date

specifically, and in a looser sense till 1770, that may be considered as his main business. But it was not at any

time his sole business; nor latterly at all equal in interest to some others that had risen on him, as the next

Chapter will now show. Here, first, is a little Fraction of NECROLOGY, which may be worth taking with us.

Readers can spread these fateful specialties over the Period in question; and know that each of them came

with a kind of knell upon Friedrich's heart, whatever he might be employed about. Hour striking after hour on

the Horologe of Time; intimating how the Afternoon wore, and that Night was coming. Various meanings

there would be to Friedrich in these footfalls of departing guests, the dear, the less dear, and the indifferent or

Of Polish Majesty's death (5th October, 1763), and then (2d December following) of his Kurprinz or

Successor's, with whom we dined at Moritzburg so recently, there will be mention by and by. November

28th, 1763, in the interval between these two, the wretched Bruhl had died. April 14th, 1764, died the

wretched Pompadour;"To us not known, JE NE LA CONNAIS PAS:"hapless Butterfly, she had been

twenty years in the winged condition; age now fortyfour: dull Louis, they say, looked out of window as her

hearse departed, "FROIDEMENT," without emotion of any visible kind. These little concern Friedrich or us;

"DIED IN 1764. At Pisa, Algarotti (23d May, 1764, age fiftytwo); with whom Friedrich has always had

some correspondence hitherto (to himself interesting, though not to us), and will never henceforth have more.

Friedrich raised a Monument to him; Monument still to be seen in the CampoSanto of Pisa: 'HIC JACET

OVIDII AEMULUS ET NEUTONI DISCIPULUS;' friends have added 'FREDERICUS MAGNUS PONI

FECIT;' and on another part of the Monument, 'ALGAROTTUS NON OMNIS.' [Preuss, iv. 188.]

"IN 1765. At the age of eighty, November 18th, Grafin Camas, 'MA BONNE MAMAN' (widow since

1741); excellent old Lady,once brilliantly young, German by birth, her name Brandt;to whom the King's

LETTERS used to be so pretty." This same year, too, Kaiser Franz died; but him we will reserve, as not

"IN 1766. At Nanci, 23d February, age eightysix, King Stanislaus Leczinsky: 'his clothes caught fire'

(accidental spark or sputter on some damask dressinggown or the like); and the muchenduring innocent

"DIED IN 1767. October 22d, the GrandDuchess of SachsenGotha, age fiftyseven; a sad stroke this also,

among one's narrowing List of Friends.I doubt if Friedrich ever saw this high Lady after the Visit we lately

witnessed. His LETTERS to her are still in the Archives of Gotha: not hers to him; all lost, these latter, but an

accidental Two, which are still beautiful in their kind. [Given in OEuvres de Frederic, xviii. 165, 256.]

"IN 1770. Bielfeld, the fantastic individual of old days. Had long been out of Friedrich's circle,in

Altenburg Country, I think;without importance to Friedrich or us: the year of him will do, without search

"IN 1771. Two heavy deaths come this year. January 28th, 1771, at Berlin, dies our valuable old friend

Excellency Mitchell,still here on the part of England, in cordial esteem as a man and companion; though as

Minister, I suppose, with function more and more imaginary. This painfully ushers in the year. To usher it

out, there is still worse: faithful D'Argens dies, 26th December, 1771, on a visit in his native

Provence,leaving, as is still visible, [Friedrich's two Letters to the Widow (Ib. xix. 427429).] a big and

sad blank behind him at Potsdam." But we need not continue; at least not at present.

Long before all these, Friedrich had lost friends; with a sad but quiet emotion he often alludes to this tragic

fact, that all the souls he loved most are gone. His Winterfelds, his Keiths, many loved faces, the War has

snatched: at Monbijou, at Baireuth, it was not War; but they too are gone. Is the world becoming all a

Mausoleum, then; nothing of divine in it but the Tombs of vanished loved ones? Friedrich makes no noise on

We have still to mark Kaiser Franz's sudden death; a thing politically interesting, if not otherwise. August,

1765, at Innspruck, during the Marriagefestivities of his Second Son, Leopold (Duke of Florence, who

afterwards, on Joseph's death, was Kaiser),Kaiser Franz, sauntering about in the evening gala, "18th

August, about 9 P.M.," suddenly tottered, staggered as falling; fell into Son Joseph's arms; and was dead.

Above a year before, this same Joseph, his Eldest Son, had been made King of the Romans: "elected 26th

March; crowned 3d April, 1764;"Friedrich furthering it, wishful to be friendly with his late enemies.

On this Innspruck Tragedy, Joseph naturally became Kaiser,Part Kaiser; his DowagerMother, on whom

alone it depends, having decided that way. The poor Lady was at first quite overwhelmed with her grief. She

had the deathroom of her Husband made into a Chapel; she founded furthermore a Monastery in Innspruck,

"Twelve Canonesses to pray there for the repose of Franz;" was herself about to become Abbess there, and

quit the secular world; but in the end was got persuaded to continue, and take Son Joseph as Coadjutor.

[Hormayr, OESTERREICHISCHER PLUTARCH (� Maria Theresa), iv. (2tes Bandchen) 6124; MARIA

April 11th, 1764, one year after his SevenYears labor of Hercules, Friedrich made Treaty of Alliance with

the new Czarina Catharine. England had deserted him; France was his enemy, especially Pompadour and

Choiseul, and refused reconcilement, though privately solicited: he was without an Ally anywhere. The

Russians had done him frightful damage in the last War, and were most of all to be dreaded in the case of any

new one. The Treaty was a matter of necessity as well as choice. Agreement for mutual good neighborhood

and friendly offices; guarantee of each other against intrusive third parties: should either get engaged in war

with any neighbor, practical aid to the length of 12,000 men, or else money in lieu. Treaty was for eight years

As Friedrich did not get into war, and Catharine did, with the Turks and certain loose Polacks, the burden of

fulfilment happened to fall wholly on Friedrich; and he was extremely punctual in performance,eager now,

and all his life after, to keep well with such a Country under such a Czarina. Which proved to be the whole

rule of his policy on that Russian side. "Good that Country cannot bring me by any quarrel with it; evil it can,

to a frightful extent, in case of my quarrelling with others! Be wary, be punctual, magnanimously polite, with

that grandiose Czarina and her huge territories and notions:" this was Friedrich's constant rule in public and in

private. Nor is it thought his CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE EMPRESS CATHARINE, when future

generations see it in print, will disclose the least ground of offence to that highflying Female Potentate of

the North. Nor will it ever be known what the silently observant Friedrich thought of her, except indeed what

we already know, or as good as know, That he, if anybody did, saw her clearly enough for what she was; and

found good to repress into absolute zero whatever had no bearing upon business, and might by possibility

give offence in that quarter. For we are an old King, and have learned by bitter experiences! No more

nicknames, biting verses, or words which a bird of the air could carry; though this poor Lady too has her

liabilities, were not we old and prudent; and is entirely as weak on certain points (deducting the devotions

and the brandyandwater) as some others were! The Treaty was renewed when necessary; and continued

By the end of the first eight years, by strictly following this passive rule, Friedrich, in counterbalance of his

losses, unexpectedly found himself invested with a very singular bit of gain,"unjust gain!" cried all men,

making it of the nature of gain and loss to him,which is still practically his, and which has made, and

makes to this day, an immense noise in the world. Everybody knows we mean WestPreussen; Partition of

Poland; bloodiest picture in the Book of Time, Sarmatia's fall unwept without a crime;and that we have

No prudent manespecially if to himself, as is my own poor case in regard to it, the subject have long been

altogether dead and indifferentwould wish to write of the Polish Question. For almost a hundred years the

Polish Question has been very loud in the world; and ever and anon rises again into vocality among Able

Editors, as a thing pretending not to be dead and buried, but capable of rising again, and setting itself right, by

good effort at home and abroad. Not advisable, beyond the strict limits of compulsion, to write of it at

present! The rather as the History of it, any History we have, is not an intelligible series of events, but a series

of vociferous execrations, filling all Nature, with nothing left to the reader but darkness, and such remedies

"Rulhiere's on that subject," says a Note which I may cite, "is the only articulatespeaking Book to which

mankind as yet can apply; [Cl. Rulhiere, Histoire de l'Anarchie de Pologne (Paris, 1807), 4 vols. 12mo.] and

they will by no means find that a sufficient one. Rulhiere's Book has its considerable merits; but it absolutely

wants those of a History; and can be recognized by no mind as an intelligible cosmic Portraiture of that

chaotic Mass of Occurrences: chronology, topography, precision of detail by time and place; scene, and

actors on scene, remain unintelligible. Rulhiere himself knew Poland, at least had looked on it from Warsaw

outwards, year after year, and knew of it what an inquiring Secretary of Legation could pick up on those

terms, which perhaps, after all, is not very much. His Narrative is drowned in beautiful seas of description

and reflection; has neither dates nor references; and advances at an intolerable rate of slowness; in fact, rather

turns on its axis than advances; produces on you the effect of a melodious Sonata, not of a lucid and

"I forget for how long Rulhiere had been in Poland, as Ambassador's Assistant: but the Country, the King and

leading Personages were personally known to him, more or less; Events with all details of them were known:

'Why not write a History of the Anarchy and Wreck they fell into?' said the Official people to him, on his

return home: 'For behoof of the Dauphin [who is to be Louis XVI. shortly]; may not he perhaps draw profit

from it? At the top of the Universe, experience is sometimes wanted. Here are the Archives, here is Salary,

here are what appliances you like to name: Write!' It is well known he was appointed, on a Pension of 250

pounds a year, with access to all archives, documents and appliances in possession of the French

Government, and express charge to delineate this subject for benefit of the Dauphin's young mind. Nor can I

wonder, considering everything, that the process on Rulhiere's part, being so full of difficulties, was

extremely deliberate; that this Book did not grow so steadily or fast as the Dauphin did; and that in fact the

poor Dauphin never got the least benefit from it,being guillotined, he, in 1793, and the Book intended for

him never coming to light for fourteen years afterwards, it too in a posthumous and still unfinished condition.

"Rulhiere has heard the voices of rumor, knows an infinitude of events that were talked of; but has not

discriminated which were the vital, which were the insignificant; treats the vital and the insignificant alike;

seldom with satisfactory precision; mournfully seldom giving any date, and by no chance any voucher or

authority;and instead of practical terrestrial scene of action, with distances, milestones, definite sequence

of occurrences, and of causes and effects, paints us a rosy cloudland, which if true at all, as he well intends it

to be, is little more than symbolically or allegorically so; and can satisfy no clearheaded Dauphin or man.

Rulhiere strives to be authentic, too; gives you no suspicion of his fairness. There is really fine highcolored

painting in Rulhiere! and you hope always he will let you into the secret of the matter: but the sad fact is, he

never does. He merely loses himself in picturesque details, philosophic eloquences, elegancies; takes you to a

Castle of Choczim, a Monastery of Czenstochow, a Bay of Tschesme, and lets off extensive fireworks that

contain little or no shot; leads you on trackless marches, inroads or outroads, through the Lithuanian

Peatbogs, on daring adventures and hair breadth escapes of mere Pulawski, Potocki and the like;had not

got to understand the matter himself, you perceive: how hopeless to make you understand it!"

English readers, however, have no other shift; the rest of the Books I have seen, Histoire des Revolutions

de Pologne; [1778 (A WARSOVIE, ET SE TROUVE A PARIS), 2 vols. 8vo.] Histoire des Trois

Demembremens de la Pologne; [Anonymous (by one FERRAND, otherwise unknown to me), Paris, 1820, 3

vols. 8vo.] Letters on Poland; [Anonymous (by a "Reverend Mr. Lindsey," it would seem), LETTERS

CONCERNING THE PRESENT STATE OF POLAND, TOGETHER WITH (London, 1773; 1 vol. 8vo): of

these LETTERS, or at least of Reverend Lindsey, Author of them, "Tutor to King Stanislaus's Nephew," and

a man of painfully loud loose tongue, there may perhaps be mention afterwards.] and many more,are not

worth mentioning at all. Comfortable in the mad dance of these is Hermann's recent dull volume; [Hermann,

Geschichte des Russischen Staats, vol. v. (already cited in regard to the PeterCatharine tragedy); seems to

be compiled mainly from the Saxon Archives, from DESPATCHES written on the spot and at the

time.]commonplace, dull, but steady and faithful; yielding us at least dates, and an immunity from noise.

By help of Hermann and the others, distilled to CAPUT MORTUUM, a few dated facts (cardinal we dare not

call them) may be extracted;dimly out of these, to the meditating mind, some outline of the phenomenon

may begin to become conceivable. King of Poland dies; and there ensue huge Anarchies in that Country.

The poor old King of Polandwhom we saw, on that fall of the curtain at Pirna seven years ago, rush off for

Warsaw with his Bruhl, with expressive speed and expressive silence, and who has been waiting there ever

since, sublimely confident that his powerful terrestrial friends, Austria, Russia, France, not to speak of

Heaven's justice at all, would exact due penalty, of signal and tremendous nature, on the Prussian

Aggressorhas again been disappointed. The poor old Gentleman got no compensation for his manifold

losses and woes at Pirna or elsewhere; not the least mention of such a thing, on the final windingup of that

War of Seven Years, in which his share had been so tragical; no alleviation was provided for him in this

world. His sorrows in Poland have been manifold; nothing but anarchies, confusions and contradictions had

been his Royal portion there: in about Forty different Diets he had tried to get some business done,no use

asking what; for the Diets, one and all, exploded in NIE POZWALAM; and could do no business, good, bad

or indifferent, for him or anybody. An unwise, most idle Country; following as chief employment perpetual

discrepancy with its idle unwise King and self; Russia the virtual head of it this long while, so far as it has

FEBRUARYAUGUST, 1763, just while the Treaty of Hubertsburg was blessing everybody with the return

of Peace, and for long months after Peace had returned to everybody, Polish Majesty was in sore trouble.

Trouble in regard to Courland, to his poor Son Karl, who fancied himself elected, under favor and permission

of the late Czarina our gracious Protectress and Ally, to the difficult post of Duke in Courland; and had

proceeded, three or four years ago, to take possession,but was now interrupted by Russian encroachments

and violences. Not at all well disposed to him, these new Peters, new Catharines. They have recalled their

Bieren from Siberia; declare that old Bieren is again Duke, or at least that young Bieren is, and not Saxon

Karl at all; and have proceeded, Czarina Catharine has, to install him forcibly with Russian soldiers. Karl

declares, "You shall kill ME before you or he get into this Palace of Mietau!"and by Domestics merely,

and armed private Gentlemen, he does maintain himself in said Palatial Mansion; valiantly indignant, for

about six months; the Russian Battalions girdling him on all sides, minatory more and more, but loath to

begin actual bloodshed. [Rulhiere, ii. (livre v.) 81 et antea; Hermann, v. 348 et seq.] A transaction very famed

in those parts, and still giving loud voice in the Polish Books, which indeed get ever noisier from this point

Empress Catharine, after the lapse of six months, sends an Ambassador to Warsaw (Kayserling by name),

who declares, in tone altogether imperative, that Czarish Majesty feels herself weary of such contumacy,

weary generally of Polish Majesty's and Polish Republic's multifarious contumacies; and, in fine, cruelest of

all, that she has troops on the frontier; that Courland is not the only place where she has troops. What a stab

to the poor old man! "Contumacies?" Has not he been Russia's patient steppingstone, all along; his anarchic

Poland and he accordant in that, if in nothing else? "Let us to Saxony," decides he passionately, "and leave all

this." In Saxony his poor old Queen is dead long since; much is dead: Saxony and Life generally, what a

Golgotha! He immediately sends word to Karl, "Give up Courland; I am going home!"and did hastily

make his packages, and bid adieu to Warsaw, and, in a few weeks after to this anarchic world altogether.

Polish Majesty had been elected 5th October, 1733; died, you observe, 5th October, 1763;was King of

Poland ("King," save the mark!) for 30 years to a day. Was electeddo readers still remember how? Leaves

a ruined Saxony lying round him; a ruined life mutely asking him, "Couldst thou have done no better, then?"

Wretched Bruhl followed him in four or five weeks. Nay, in about two months, his Son and Successor,

"Friedrich Christian" (with whom we dined at Moritzburg), had followed him; [Prince died 17th December

(Bruhl, 18th November), 1763.] leaving a small Boy, age 13, as new Kurfurst, "Friedrich August" the name

of him, with guardians to manage the Minority; especially with his Mother as chief guardian,of whom, for

two reasons, we are now to say something. Reason FIRST is, That she is really a rather brilliant,

distinguished creature, distinguished more especially in Friedrich's world; whose LETTERS to her are

numerous, and, in their kind, among the notablest he wrote;of which we would gladly give some specimen,

better or worse; and reason SECOND, That in so doing, we may contrive to look, for a moment or two, into

the preliminary Polish Anarchies at firsthand; and, transiently and far off, see something of them as if with

MarieAntoine, or MarieAntoinette, Electress of Saxony, is still a bright Lady, and among the busiest

living; now in her 40th year: "born 17th July, 1724; second child of Kaiser Karl VII.;"a living memento to

us of those old times of trouble. Papa, when she came to him, was in his 27th year; this was his second

daughter; three years afterwards he had a son (born 1727; died 1777), who made the "Peace of Fussen," to

Friedrich's disgust, in 1745, if readers recollect;and who, dying childless, will give rise to another War (the

"Potato War" so called), for Friedrich's behoof and ours. This little creature would be in her teens during that

fatal Kaisership (17421745, her age then 1821),during those triumphs, flights and furnishedlodging

intricacies. Her Mamma, whom we have seen, a little fat bullet given to devotion, was four years younger

than Papa. Mamma died "11th December, 1756," Germany all blazing out in War again; she had been a

MarieAntoine was wedded to Friedrich Christian, Saxon Kurprinz, "20th June, 1747;" her age 23, his

25:Chronology itself is something, if one will attend to it, in the absence of all else! The young pair were

Cousins, their Mothers being Sisters; Polish Majesty one's Uncle, age now 51,who was very fond of us,

poor indolent soul, and glad of our company on an afternoon, "being always in his dressinggown by 2

o'clock." Concerning which the tongue of Court scandal was not entirely idle,Hanbury chronicling, as we

once noticed. All which I believe to be mere lying wind. The young Princess was beautiful; extremely clever,

graceful and lively, we can still see for ourselves: no wonder poor Polish Majesty, always in his

dressinggown by 2, was charmed to have her company,the rather as I hope she permitted him a little

Her husband was crookbacked; and, except those slight, always perfectly polite little passages, in

Schmettau's Siege (1759), in the Hubertsburg Treaty affair, in the dinner at Moritzburg, I never heard much

history of him. He became Elector 5th October, 1763; but enjoyed the dignity little more than two months.

Our Princess had borne him seven children,three boys, four girls,the eldest about 13, a Boy, who

succeeded; the youngest a girl, hardly 3. The Boy is he who sent Gellert the caparisoned Horse, and had

estafettes on the road while Gellert lay dying. This Boy lived to be 77, and saw strange things in the world;

had seen Napoleon and the French Revolution; was the first "King of Saxony" so called; saw Jena, retreat of

Moscow; saw the "Battle of the Nations" (Leipzig, 15th18th October, 1813), and his great Napoleon

terminate in bankruptcy. He left no Son. A Brother, age 72, succeeded him as King for a few years; whom

again a Brother would have succeeded, had not he (this third Brother, age now 66) renounced, in favor of HIS

August 28th, 1763, while afflicted Polish Majesty is making his packages at Warsaw, far

away,MarieAntoinette, in Dresden, had sent Friedrich an Opera of her composing, just brought out by her

on her Courttheatre there. Here is Friedrich's Answer,to what kind of OPERA I know not, but to a Letter

"MADAM MY SISTER,The remembrance your Royal Highness sends is the more flattering to me, as I

regret infinitely not to have been spectator and hearer of the fine things [Opera THALESTRIS, words and

"I wish I could send you things as pleasant out of these parts: but, Madam, I am obliged to give you a hint,

which may be useful if you can have it followed. In Saxony, however, my Letters get opened;which

obliges me to send this by a special Messenger; and him, that he may cause no suspicion, I have charged with

fruits from my garden. You will have the goodness to say [if anybody is eavesdropping] that you asked them

of me at Moritzburg, when I was happy enough to see you there [six months ago, coming home from the

"In Petersburg people's minds are getting angry at the stubbornness your friends show in refusing to

recognize Duke Bieren [home from Siberia, again Duke of Courland, by Russian appointment, as if Russia

had that right; Polish Majesty and his Prince Karl resisting to the uttermost]. I counsel you to induce the

powerful in your circle to have this condescension [they have had it, been obliged to have it, though Friedrich

does not yet know]; for it will turn out ill to them, if they persist in being obstinately stiff. It begins already to

be said That there are more than a million Russian subjects at this time refugees in Poland; whom, by I forget

what cartel, the Republic was bound to deliver up. Orders have been given to Detachments of Military to

enter certain places, and bring away these Russians by force. In a word, you will ruin your affairs forever,

unless you find means to produce a change of conduct on the part of him they complain of. Take, Madam,

what I now say as a mark of the esteem and profound regard with which"F. [ OEuvres de Frederic,

This hint, if the King knew, had been given, in a less kind shape, by Necessity itself; and had sent Polish

Majesty, and his Bruhls and "powerful people," bodily home, and out of that Polish Russian welter, in a

headlong and tragically passionate condition. Electoral Princess, next time she writes, is become Electress all

"SIRE,Your Majesty has given me such assurance of your goodness and your friendship, that I will now

appeal to that promise. You have assured us, too, that you would with pleasure contribute to secure Poland

for us. The moment is come for accomplishing that promise. The King is dead [died this very day; see if _I_

lose time in sentimental lamentations!]with him these grievances of Russia [our stiffness on Courland and

the like] must be extinct; the rather as we [the now reigning] will lend ourselves willingly to everything that

"You can do all, if you will it; you can contribute to this reconcilement. You can render it favorable to us.

You will, give me that proof of the flattering sentiments I have been so proud of hitherto,"won't you, now?

"Russia cannot disapprove the mediation you might deign to offer on that behalf;our intentions being so

honestly amicable, and all ground of controversy having died with the late King. Russia reconciled, our views

on the Polish Crown might at once be declared (ECLATER)." Oh, do it, your Majesty;"my gratitude shall

Friedrich, who is busy negotiating his Treaty with Russia (perfected 11th April next), and understands that

they will mean not to have a Saxon, but to have a Piast, and perhaps dimly even what Piast (Stanislaus

Poniatowski, the EMERITUS Lover), who will be their own, and not Saxony's at all,must have been a

little embarrassed by such an appeal from his fair friend at this moment. "Wait a little; don't answer yet,"

would have occurred to the common mind. But that was not Friedrich's resource: he answers by return of

post, as always in such cases;and in the following adroit manner brushes off, without hurt to it, with kisses

"MADAM MY SISTER,I begin by making my condolences and my congratulations to your Electoral

Highness on the death of the King your Fatherinlaw, and on your Accession to the Electorate.

"Your Electoral Highness will remember what I wrote, not long since, on the affairs of Poland. I am afraid,

Madam, that Russia will be more contrary to you than you think. M. de Woronzow [famous

GrandChancellor of Russia; saved himself dexterously in the late PeterCatharine overturn; has since fallen

into disfavor for his notions about our Gregory Orlof, and is now on his way to Italy, "for health's sake," in

consequence], who is just arrived here, ["Had his audience 7th October" (yesterday): Rodenbeck, ii. 224.]

told me, too, of some things which raise an ill augury of this affair. If you do not disapprove of my speaking

frankly to you, it seems to me that it would be suitable in you to send some discreet Diplomatist to that Court

to notify the King's death; and you would learn by him what you have to expect from her Czarish Majesty

[the Empress, he always calls her, knowing she prefers that title]. It seems to me, Madam, that it would be

precipitate procedure should I wish to engage you in an Enterprise, which appears to myself absolutely

dubious (HASARDEE), unless approved by that Princess. As to me, Madam, I have not the ascendant there

which you suppose: I act under rule of all the delicacies and discretions with a Court which separated itself

from my Enemies when all Europe wished to crush me: but I am far from being able to regulate the Empress's

"It is the same with the quarrels about the Duke of Courland; one cannot attempt mediation except by consent

of both parties. I believe I am not mistaken in supposing that the Court of Russia does not mean to terminate

that business by foreign mediation. What I have heard about it (what, however, is founded only on vague

news) is, That the Empress might prevail upon herself (POURRAIT SE RESOUDRE) to purchase from

Bruhl the Principality of Zips [Zips, on the edge of Hungary; let readers take note of that Principality, at

present in the hand of Bruhl,who has much disgusted Poland by his voracity for Lands; and is disgorging

them all again, poor soul!], to give it to Prince Karl in compensation: but that would lead to a negotiation

"I conjure you, Madam, I repeat it, Be not precipitate in anything; lest, as my fear is, you replunge Europe

into the troubles it has only just escaped from! As to me, I have found, since the Peace, so much to do within

my own borders, that I have not, I assure you, had time, Madam, to think of going abroad. I confine myself to

forming a thousand wishes for the prosperity of your Electoral Highness, assuring you of the high esteem

After some farther Letters, of eloquently pressing solicitation on the part of the Lady, and earnest advising, as

Empress of Russia, the contents of which do not appear to me favorable, Madam, to your hopes. She requires

(EXIGE) that I should instruct my Minister in Poland to act entirely in concert with the Count Kayserling;

and she adds these very words: 'I expect, from the friendship of your Majesty, that you will not allow a

passage through your territory, nor the entry into Poland, to Saxon troops, who are to be regarded there

"Unless your Letters, Madam [Madam had said that she had written to the Empress, assuring her change the

sentiments of the Empress, I do not see in what way the Elector could arrive at the throne of Poland; and

consequently, whether I deferred to the wishes of the Empress in this point, or refused to do so, you would

not the more become Queen; and I might commit myself against a Power which I ought to keep well with

(MENAGER). I am persuaded, Madam, that your Electoral Highness enters into my embarrassment; and that,

unless you find yourself successful in changing the Empress's own ideas on this matter, you will not require

of me that I should embroil myself fruitlessly with a neighbor who deserves the greatest consideration from

"All this is one consequence of the course which Count Bruhl induced his late Polish Majesty to take with

regard to the interests of Prince Karl in Courland; and your Electoral Highness will remember, that I often

"I will wish, Madam, that other opportunities may occur, where it may be in my power to prove to your

Electoral Highness the profound esteem and consideration with which I am"F. [ OEuvres de Frederic,

"SIRE,I am not yet disheartened. I love to flatter myself with your friendship, Sire, and I will not easily

renounce the hope that you will give me a real mark of it in an affair which interests me so strongly. Nobody

has greater ascendency over the mind of the Empress of Russia than your Majesty; use it, Sire, to incline it to

our favor. Our obligation will be infinite. ... Why should she be absolutely against us? What has she to fear

from us? The Courland business, if that sticks with her, could be terminated in a suitable manner."Troops

into Poland, Sire? "My Husband so little thinks of sending troops thither, that he has given orders for the

return of those already there. He does not wish the Crown except from the free suffrages of the Nation: if the

Empress absolutely refuse to help him with her good offices, let her, at least, not be against him. Do try,

Sire." [Ib. xxiv. 53.]Friedrich answers, after four days, or by return of postBut we will give the rest in

FRIEDRICH (after four days). ... "If, Madam, I had Crowns to give away, I would place the first on your

head, as most worthy to bear it. But I am far from such a position. I have just got out of a horrible War, which

my enemies made upon me with a rage almost beyond example; I endeavor to cultivate friendship with all my

neighbors, and to get embroiled with nobody. With regard to the affairs of Poland, an Empress whom I ought

to be well with, and to whom I owe great obligations, requires me to enter into her measures; you, Madam,

whom I would fain please if I could, you want me to change the sentiments of this Empress. Do but enter into

my embarrassment! ... According to all I hear from Russia, it appears to me that every resolution is taken

there; and that the Empress is resolved even to sustain the party of her partisans in Poland with the forces she

has all in readiness at the borders. As for me, Madam, I wish, if possible, not to meddle at all with this

business, which hitherto is not complicated, but which may, any day, become so by the neighbors of Poland

taking a too lively part in it. Ready, otherwise, on all occasions, to give to your Electoral Highness proofs of

Electress (after ten days). ... "Why should the Empress be so much against us? We have not deserved her

hatred. On the contrary, we seek her friendship. She declares, however, that she will uphold the freedom of

the Poles in the election of their King. You, Sire" [Ib. xxiv. 55: "Dresden, 26th November, 1763."] But we

must cut short, though it lasts long months after this. Great is the Electress's persistence,"My poor

Husband being dead, cannot our poor Boy, cannot his uncle Prince Xavier try? O Sire!" Our last word shall

FRIEDRICH. "I am doing like the dogs who have fought bitterly till they are worn down: I sit licking my

wounds. I notice most European Powers doing the same; too happy if, whilst Kings are being manufactured

to right and left, public tranquillity is not disturbed thereby, and if every one may continue to dwell in peace

beside his hearth and his household gods." ["SansSouci, 26th June, 1764" (Ib. p. 69).] Adieu, bright Madam.

No reader who has made acquaintance with Polish History can well doubt but Poland was now dead or

moribund, and had well deserved to die. Anarchies are not permitted in this world. Under fine names, they

are grateful to the Populaces, and to the Editors of Newspapers; but to the Maker of this Universe they are

eternally abhorrent; and from the beginning have been forbidden to be. They go their course, applauded or

not applauded by self and neighbors,for what lengths of time none of us can know; for a long term

sometimes, but always for a fixed term; and at last their day comes. Poland had got to great lengths, two

centuries ago, when poor John Casimir abdicated his Crown of Poland, after a trial of twenty years, and took

This John is "Casimir V.," last Scion of the Swedish House of Vasa,with whom, in the Great Elector's

time, we had some slight acquaintance; and saw at least the three days' beating he got (Warsaw, 28th30th

July, 1656) from Karl Gustav of Sweden and the Great Elector, [Supra, v. 284286.] ancestors respectively

of Karl XII. and of our present Friedrich. He is not "Casimir the Great" of Polish Kings; but he is, in our day,

Casimir the alone Remarkable. It seems to me I once had IN EXTENSO this Valedictory Speech of his; but it

has lapsed again into the general Mother of Dead Dogs, and I will not spend a week in fishing for it. The gist

of the Speech, innumerable Books and Dead Dogs tell you, [HISTOIRE DES TROIS DEMEMBREMENS

does, and many others do;copied in Biographie Universelle, vii. 278 (? Casimir).] is "lamentation over the

Polish Anarchies" and "a Prophecy," which is very easily remembered. The poor old Gentleman had no doubt

eaten his peck of dirt among those Polacks, and swallowed chagrins till he felt his stomach could no more,

and determined to have done with it. To one's fancy, in abridged form, the Valediction must have run

"Magnanimous Polack Gentlemen, you are a glorious Republic, and have NIE POZWALAM, and strange

methods of business, and of behavior to your Kings and others. We have often fought together, been beaten

together, by our enemies and by ourselves; and at last I, for my share, have enough of it. I intend for Paris;

religious literary pursuits, and the society of Ninon de l'Enclos. I wished to say before going, That according

to all record, ancient and modern, of the ways of God Almighty in this world, there was not heretofore, nor

do I expect there can henceforth be, a Human Society that would stick together on those terms. Believe me,

ye Polish Chivalries, without superior except in Heaven, if your glorious Republic continue to be managed in

such manner, not good will come of it, but evil. The day will arrive [this is the Prophecy, almost IN

IPSISSIMIS VERBIS], the day perhaps is not so far off, when this glorious Republic will get torn into

shreds, hither, thither; be stuffed into the pockets of covetous neighbors, Brandenburg; Muscovy, Austria;

"I speak these words in sorrow of soul; words which probably you will not believe. Which only Fate can

compel you to believe, one day, if they are true words:you think, probably, they are not? Me at least, or

interest of mine, they do not regard. I speak them from the fulness of my heart, and on behest of friendship

and conviction alone; having the honor at this moment to bid you and your Republic a very long farewell.

Goodmorning, for the last time!" and so EXIT: to Rome (had been Cardinal once); to Paris and the society

of Ninon's Circle for the few years left him of life. ["Died 16th December, 1672, age 63."]

This poor John had had his bitter experiences: think only of one instance. In 1662, the incredible Law of

LIBERUM VETO had been introduced, in spite of John and his endeavors. LIBERUM VETO; the power of

one man to stop the proceedings of Polish Parliament by pronouncing audibly "NIE POZWALAM, I don't

permit!"never before or since among mortals was so incredible a Law. Law standing indisputable,

nevertheless, on the Polish StatuteBook for above two hundred years: like an everflowing fountain of

Anarchy, joyful to the Polish Nation. How they got any business done at all, under such a Law? Truly they

did but little; and for the last thirty years as good as none. But if Polish Parliament was universally in earnest

to do some business, and Veto came upon it, Honorable Members, I observe, gathered passionately round the

vetoing Brother; conjured, obtested, menaced, wept, prayed; and, if the case was too urgent and insoluble

otherwise, the NIE POZWALAM Gentleman still obstinate, they plunged their swords through him, and in

that way brought consent. The commoner course was to dissolve and go home again, in a tempest of shrieks

The Right of Confederation, too, is very curious: do readers know it? A free Polack gentleman, aggrieved by

anything that has occurred or been enacted in his Nation, has the right of swearing, whether absolutely by

himself I know not, but certainly with two or three others of like mind, that he will not accept said occurrence

or enactment, and is hereby got into arms against its abettors and it. The brightest jewel in the cestus of Polish

Liberty is this right of confederating; and it has been, till of late, and will be now again practised to all

lengths: right of every Polish, gentleman to confederate with every other against, or for, whatsoever to them

two may seem good; and to assert their particular view of the case by fighting for it against all comers, King

and Diet included. It must be owned, there never was in Nature such a Form of Government before; such a

mode of social existence, rendering "government" impossible for some generations past.

On the strength of Saxony and its resources and connections, the two Augusts had contrived to exist with the

name of Kings; with the name, but with little or nothing more. Under this last August, as we heard, there have

been about forty Diets, and in not one of them the least thing of business done; all the forty, after trying their

best, have stumbled on NIE POZWALAM, and been obliged to vanish in shrieks and curses. [Buchholz

( PreussischBrandenburgische Geschichte, ii. 133, 134, gives various samples, and this enumeration.] As to

August the Physically Strong, such treatment had he met with,poor August, if readers remember, had made

up his mind to partition Poland; to give away large sections of it in purchase of the consent of neighbors, and

plant himself hereditarily in the central part;and would have done so, had not Grumkow and he drunk so

deep, and death by inflammation of the foot suddenly come upon the poor man. Some Partition of Poland has

been more than once thought of by practical people concerned. Poland, as "a house chronically smoking

through the slates," which usually brings a new European War every time it changes King, does require to be

Latterly, as we observed, there has been little of confederating; indeed, for the last thirty years, as Rulhiere

copiously informs us, there has been no Government, consequently no mutiny needed; little or no National

business of any kind,the Forty Diets having all gone the road we saw. Electing of the Judges,that, says

Rulhiere, and wearisomely teaches by example again and ever again, has always been an interesting act, in

the various Provinces of Poland; not with the hope of getting fair or upright Judges, but Judges that will lean

in the desirable direction. In a country overrun with endless lawsuits, debts, credits, feudal intricacies, claims,

liabilities, how important to get Judges with the proper bias! And these once got, or lost till next term,what

is there to hope or to fear? Russia does our Politics, fights her SevenYears War across us; and we, happy

we, have no fighting;never till this of Courland was there the least illnature from Russia! We are become

latterly the peaceable steppingstone of Russia into Europe and out of it;what may be called the doormat

of Russia, useful to her feet, when she is about paying visits or receiving them! That is not a glorious fact, if

it be a safe and "lucky" one; nor do the Polish Notabilities at all phrase it in that manner. But a fact it is;

which has shown itself complete in the late Czarina's and late August's time, and which had been on the

growing hand ever since Peter the Great gained his Battle of Pultawa, and rose to the ascendency, instead of

The Poles put fine colors on all this; and are much contented with themselves. The Russians they regard as

intrinsically an inferior barbarous people; and to this day you will hear indignant Polack Gentlemen bursting

out in the same strain: "Still barbarian, sir; no culture, no literature,"inferior because they do not make

verses equal to ours! How it may be with the verses, I will not decide: but the Russians are inconceivably

superior in respect that they have, to a singular degree among Nations, the gift of obeying, of being

commanded. Polack Chivalry sniffs at the mention of such a gift. Polack Chivalry got sore stripes for wanting

this gift. And in the end, got striped to death, and flung out of the world, for continuing blind to the want of it,

Beyond all the verses in Nature, it is essential to every Chivalry and Nation and Man. "Polite Polish Society

for the last thirty years has felt itself to be in a most halcyon condition," says Rulhiere: [Rulhiere, i. 216 (a

noteworthy passage).] "given up to the agreeable, and to that only;" charming eveningparties, and a great

deal of flirting; full of the benevolences, the philanthropies, the new ideas,given up especially to the

pleasing idea of "LAISSEZFAIRE, and everything will come right of itself." "What a discovery!" said every

liberal Polish mind: "for thousands of years, how people did torment themselves trying to steer the ship;

never knowing that the plan was, To let go the helm, and honestly sit down to your mutual amusements and

To this condition of beautifully phosphorescent rotheap has Poland ripened, in the helpless reigns of those

poor Augusts;the fulness of time not now far off, one would say? It would complete the picture, could I go

into the state of what is called "Religion" in Poland. Dissenterism, of various poor types, is extensive; and,

over against it, is such a type of Jesuit Fanaticism as has no fellow in that day. Of which there have been truly

savage and sanguinary outbreaks, from time to time; especially one at Thorn, forty years ago, which shocked

Friedrich Wilhelm and the whole Protestant world. [See supra, vi. 64 (and many old Pamphlets on it).] Polish

Orthodoxy, in that time, and perhaps still in ours, is a thing worth noting. A late Tourist informs me, he saw

on the streets of Stettin, not long since, a drunk human creature staggering about, who seemed to be a Baltic

Sailor, just arrived; the dirtiest, or among the dirtiest, of mankind; who, as he reeled along, kept slapping his

hands upon his breast, and shouting, in exultant soliloquy, "Polack, Catholik!" _I_ am a Pole and Orthodox,

ye inferior twolegged entities!.In regard to the Jesuit Fanaticisms, at Thorn and elsewhere, no blame can

attach to the poor Augusts, who always leant the other way, what they durst or could. Nor is specialty of

blame due to them on any score; it was "like People, like King," all along;and they, such their luck, have

The Saxon Electors are again aspirants for this enviable Throne. We have seen the beautiful Electress

zealously soliciting Friedrich for help in that project; Friedrich, in a dexterously graceful manner, altogether

declining. Hereditary Saxons are not to be the expedient this time, it would seem; a grandiose Czarina has

decided otherwise. Why should not she? She and all the world are well aware, Russia has been virtual lord of

Poland this long time. Credible enough that Russia intends to continue so; and also that it will be able,

So far as can be guessed and assiduously deduced from RULHIERE, with your best attention, Russian

Catharine's interference seems first of all to have been grounded on the grandiose philanthropic principle.

Astonishing to the liberal mind; yet to appearance true. Rulhiere nowhere says so; but that is gradually one's

own perception of the matter; no other refuge for you out of flat inconceivability. Philanthropic principle, we

say, which the Voltaires and Sages of that Epoch are prescribing as one's duty and one's glory: "O ye Kings,

why won't you do good to mankind, then?" Catharine, a kind of SheLouis Quatorze, was equal to such a

thing. To put one's cast Lover into a throne,poor soul, console him in that manner;and reduce the

longdissentient Country to blessed composure under him: what a thing! Foolish Poniatowski, an empty,

windy creature, redolent of macassar and the finer sensibilities of the heart: him she did make King of

Poland; but to reduce the longdissentient Country to composure,that was what she could not do.

Countries in that predicament are sometimes very difficult to compose. The Czarina took, for above five

years, a great deal of trouble, without losing patience. The Czarina, after every new effort, perceived with

astonishment that she was farther from success than ever. With astonishment; and gradually with irritation,

There is no reason to believe that the grandiose Woman handled, or designed to handle, a doomed Poland in

the merciless feline diabolic way set forth with wearisome loud reiteration in those distracted Books;

playing with the poor Country as cat does with mouse; now lifting her fell paw, letting the poor mouse go

loose in floods of celestial joy and hope without limit; and always clutching the hapless creature back into the

blackness of death, before eating and ending it. Reason first is, that the Czarina, as we see her elsewhere,

never was in the least a Cat or a Devil, but a mere Woman; already virtual proprietress of Poland, and

needing little contrivance to keep it virtually hers. Reason second is, that she had not the gift of prophecy, and

could not foreknow the Polish events of the next ten years, much less shape them out beforehand, and preside

My own private conjecture, I confess, has rather grown to be, on much reading of those RULHIERES and

distracted Books, that the Czarina,who was a grandiose creature, with considerable magnanimities, natural

and acquired; with many ostentations, some really great qualities and talents; in effect, a kind of SheLouis

Quatorze (if the reader will reflect on that Royal Gentleman, and put him into petticoats in Russia, and

change his improper females for improper males),that the Czarina, very clearly resolute to keep Poland

hers, had determined with herself to do something very handsome in regard to Poland; and to gain glory, both

with the enlightened Philosophe classes and with her own proud heart, by her treatment of that intricate

matter. "On the one hand," thinks she, or let us fancy she thinks, "here is Poland; a Country fallen bedrid

amid Anarchies, curable or incurable; much tormented with religious intolerance at this time, hateful to the

philosophic mind; a hateful fanaticism growing upon it for forty years past [though it is quite against Polish

Law]; and the cries of oppressed Dissidents [Dissenters, chiefly of the Protestant and of the Greek

persuasion] becoming more and more distressing to hear. And, on the other hand, here is Poniatowski who,

Readers have not forgotten the handsome, otherwise extremely paltry, young Polack, Stanislaus Poniatowski,

whom Excellency Williams took with him 8 or 9 years ago, ostensibly as "Secretary of Legation,"

unostensibly as something very different? Handsome Stanislaus did duly become Lover of the

GrandDuchess; and has duly, in the course of Nature, some time ago (date uncertain to me), become

discarded Lover; the question rising, What is to be done with that elegant inane creature, and his vaporous

sentimentalisms and sublime sorrows and disappointments? "Let us make him King of Poland!" said the

Czarina, who was always much the gentleman with her discarded Lovers (more so, I should say, than Louis

Quatorze with his;and indeed it is computed they cost her in direct moneys about twenty millions

sterling,being numerous and greedy; but never the least tiff of scolding or ill language): [Castera ( Vie de

Catharine II. ) has an elaborate Appendix on this part of his subject.]"King of Poland, with furnishings,

and set him handsomely up in the world! We will close the Dissident Business for him, cure many a curable

Anarchy of Poland, to the satisfaction of Voltaire and all leading spirits of mankind. He shall have outfit of

Russian troops, poor creature; and be able to put down Anarchies, and show himself a useful and grateful

Viceroy for us there. Outfit of 10,000 troops, a wise Russian Manager: and the Question of the Dissidents to

Ingenuous readers are invited to try, in their diffuse vague RULHIERES, and unintelligible shrieky Polish

Histories, whether this notion does not rise on them as a possible human explanation, more credible than the

felinediabolic one, which needs withal such a foreknowledge, UNattainable by cat or devil? Poland must

not rise to be too strong a Country, and turn its back on Russia. No, truly; nor, except by miraculous

suspension of the Laws of Nature, is there danger of that. But neither need Poland lie utterly lame and

prostrate, useless to Russia; and be tortured on its sickbed with Dissident Questions and Anarchies, curable

by a strong Sovereign, of whom much is expected by Voltaire and the leading spirits of mankind.

What we shall have to say with perfect certainty, and what alone concerns us in our own affair, is, FIRST,

that Catharine did proceed by this method, of crowning, fitting out and otherwise setting up Stanislaus; did

attempt settlement (and at one time thought she had settled) the Dissident Question and some curable

Anarchies,but stirred up such legions of incurable, waxing on her hands, day after day, year after year, as

were abundantly provoking and astonishing:and that within the next eight years she had arrived, with

Poland and her cargo of anarchies, at results which struck the whole world dumb. Dumb with astonishment,

for some time; and then into tempests of vociferation more or less delirious, which have never yet quite

ended, though sinking gradually to lower and lower stages of human vocality. Fact FIRST is abundantly

manifest. Nor is fact SECOND any longer doubtful, That King Friedrich, in regard to all this, till a real crisis

elsewhere had risen, took little or no visible interest whatever; had one unvarying course of conduct, that of

punctually following Czarish Majesty in every respect; instructing his Minister at Warsaw always to second

and reinforce the Russian one, as his one rule of policy in that Country,whose distracted procedures,

imbecilities and anarchies, are, beyond this point of keeping well with a grandiose Czarina concerned in it, of

Friedrich, for a long time, passed with the Public for contriver of the Catastrophe of Poland,"felonious

mortal," "monster of maleficence," and what not, in consequence. Rulhiere, whose notion of him is none of

the friendliest nor correctest, acquits him of this atrocity; declares him, till the very end, mainly or altogether

passive in it. Which I think is a little more than the truth,and only a little, as perhaps may appear by and

by. Beyond dispute, these Polish events did at last grow interesting enough to Prussia and its King;and it

will be our task, sufficient in this place, to extricate and riddle out what few of these had any cardinal or

notable quality, and put them down (dated, if possible, and in intelligible form), as pertinent to throwing light

on this distressing matter, with careful exclusion of the immense mass which can throw only darkness.

WARSAW, 7th SEPTEMBER 1764, Stanislaus Poniatowski, by what management of an Imperial Catharine

upon an anarchic Nation readers shall imagine AD LIBITUM, was elected, what they call elected, King of

Poland. Of course there had been preliminary Diets of Convocation, much dieting, demonstrating and

electing of imaginary members of Diet,only "ten persons massacred" in the business. There was a Saxon

Party; but no countercandidate of that or any other nation. King Friedrich, solicited by a charming

Electress Dowager, decides to remain accurately passive. Polish emissaries came entreating him. A certain

Mockranowski, who had been a soldier under him (never of much mark in that capacity, though now a

flamingly conspicuous "General" and Politician, in the new scene he has got into), came passionately

entreating (Potsdam, Summer of 1764, is all the date), "DONNEZ NOUS LE PRINCE HENRI, Give us

Prince Henri for a King!" the sound of which almost made Friedrich turn pale: "Have you spoken or hinted of

this to the Prince?" "No, your Majesty." "Home, then, instantly; and not a whisper of it again to any mortal!"

[Rulhiere, ii. 268; Hermann, vi. 355364.] which, they say, greatly irritated Prince Henri, and left a

"A question rises here," says one of my Notes, which perhaps I had better have burnt: "At or about what dates

did this glorious Poniatowski become Lover of the GrandDuchess, and then become ExLover? Nobody

will say; or perhaps can? [Preuss (iv. 12) seems to try, but does not succeed.] Would have been a small

satisfaction to us, and it is denied! 'Ritter Williams' (that is, Hanbury) must have produced him at Petersburg

some time in 1756; '11th January, 1757,' finding it would suit, Poniatowski appeared there on his own footing

as 'Ambassador from Warsaw,'"(easy to get that kind of credential from a devoted Warsaw, if you are

succeeding at the Court of Petersburg; "Warsaw watchfully makes that the rule of distributing its honors; and,

from freezingpoint upwards, is the most delicate thermometer," says Hermann somewhere). And this, is our

one date, "Poniatowski in business, SPRING, 1757;" of "Poniatowski fallen bankrupt," date is totally

"Poniatowski's age is 32 gone;how long out of Russia, readers have to guess. Made his first public

appearance on the streets of Warsaw, in the late Election time, as a Captain of Patriot

Volunteers,'Independence of Poland! Shall Poland be dictated to!" cried Stanislaus and an indignant Public

at one stage of the affair. His Uncles Czartoryski were piloting him in; and in that mad element, the cries, and

shiftings of tack, had to be many. [In HERMANN, v. 362380 (still more in RULHIERE, ii. 119289),

wearisome account of every particular.] He is Nephew, by his mother, of these Czartoryskis; but is not by the

father of very high family. 'Ought he to be King of Poland?' argued some Polish Emissary at Petersburg: 'His

Grandfather was Landsteward to the Sapiehas.' 'And if he himself had been it!' said the Empress, inflexible,

though with a blush.It seems the family was really good, though fallen poor; and, since that Landsteward

phasis, had bloomed well out again. His Father was conspicuous as a busy, shifting kind of man, in the

CharlesTwelfth and other troubles; had died two years ago, as 'Castellan of Cracow;' always a dear friend of

Stanislaus Leczinski, who gets his death two years hence [in 1766, as we have seen].

"King Stanislaus Poniatowski had five Brothers: two of them dead long before this time; a third, still alive,

was Bishop of Something, Abbot of Something; ate his revenues in peace, and demands silence from us. The

other two, Casimir and Andreas, are better worth naming,especially the Son of one of them is. Casimir, the

eldest, is 'Grand CrownChamberlain' in the days now coming, is also 'Starost of Zips [a Country you may

note the name of!]and has a Son,' who is NOT the remarkable one. Andreas, the second Brother (died

1773), was in the Austrian Service, 'Ordnance Master,' and a man of parts and weight;who has been here

at Warsaw, ardently helping, in the late Election time. He too had a Son (at this time a child in arms),who

is really the remarkable 'Nephew of King Stanislaus,' and still deserves a word from us.

"This Nephew, bred as an Austrian soldier, like his Father, is the JOSEPH PONIATOWSKI, who was very

famous in the Newspapers fifty years ago. By all appearance, a man of some real patriotism, energy and

worth. He had tried to believe (though, I think, never rightly able) what his omnipotent Napoleon had

promised him, that extinct Poland should be resuscitated; and he fought and strove very fiercely, his Poles

and he, in that faith or halffaith. And perished, fiercely fighting for Napoleon, fiercely covering Napoleon's

retreat when his game was lost: horse and man plunged into the Elster River (Leipzig Country, October 19th,

1813, evening of the 'Battle of the Nations' there), and sank forever;and the last gleam of Poland along

with him. [ Biographie Universelle (� Poniatowski, Joseph), xxxv. 349359.] Not even a momentary gleam of

hope for her, in the sane or half sane kind, since that,though she now and then still tries it in the insane:

"Besides these three Brothers, King Stanislaus had two Sisters still living: one of them Wife of a very high

Zamoiski; the other of a ditto Branicki (pronounce BraniTZki)him whom our German Books call

KRONGROSSFELDHERR; (Grand CrownGeneral,' if the Crown have any soldiers at all; the sublime,

debauched old Branicki, of whom Rulhiere is continually talking, and never reports anything but futilities in a

futile manner. So much is futile, and not worth reporting, in this Polish element!King Stanislaus himself

was born 17th January, 1732; played King of shreds and patches till 1790,or even farther (not till 1795 did

Catharine pluck the paper tabard quite off him); he died in Petersburg, February 11th or 12th) 1798." After

Stanislaus was crowned 25th November, 1764. He needs, as preliminary, to be anointed, on the bare scalp of

him, with holy oil before crowning; ought to have his head closeshaved with that view. Stanislaus, having

an uncommonly fine head of hair, shuddered at the barbarous idea; absolutely would not: whereupon delay,

consultation; and at length some artificial scalp, or second skull, of pasteboard or dyed leather, was contrived

for the poor man, which comfortably took the oiling in a vicarious way, with the ambrosial locks well packed

out of sight under it, and capable of flowing out again next day, as if nothing had happened. [Rulhiere.] Not a

sublime specimen of Ornamental Human Nature, this poor Stanislaus! Ornamental wholly: the body of him,

and the mind of him, got up for representation; and terribly plucked to pieces on the stage of the world. You

CONFEDERATION OF RADOM (23d June, 17675th March, 1768) PUSHES IT INTO SETTLEMENT.

For several years after this feat of the false scalp, through long volumes, wearisome even in RULHIERE,

there turns up nothing which can now be called memorable. The settling of the Dissident Question proves

extremely tedious to an impatient Czarina; as to curing of the other curable Anarchies, there is absolutely

nothing but a knitting up by A, with a ravellingout again by B, and no progress discernible whatever.

Impatient Czarina ardently pushes on some Dissident settlement,seconded by King Friedrich and the chief

Protestant Courts, London included, and by the European leading spirits everywhere,through endless

difficulties: finds native Orthodoxy an unexpectedly stiff matter; Bishops generally having a fanaticism

which is wonderful to think of, and which keeps mounting higher and higher. Till at length there will Images

of the Virgin take to weeping,as they generally do in such cases, when in the vicinity of brewhouses and

conveniences; [Nicolai, in his TRAVELS OVER GERMANY, doggedly undertook to overhaul one of those

weeping Virgins (somewhere in Austria, I think); and found her, he says, to depend on subterranean

percolation of steam from a Brewery not far off.]a Carmelite Monk go about the country working

miracles; and, in short, an extremely ugly phasis of religious human nature disclose itself to the afflicted

reader. King Friedrich thinks, had it not been for this Dissident Question, things would have taken their old

Saxon complexion, and Poland might have rotted on as heretofore, perhaps a good while longer.

As to the knittingup and ravellingout again, which is called curing of the other anarchies, no reader can or

need say anything: it seems to be a most painful knittingup, by the Czartoryskis chiefly, then an instant

ravelling out by malign Opposition parties of various indistinct complexion; the knitting, the ravelling, and

the malign Opposition parties, alike indistinct and without interest to mankind. A certain drunken, rather

brutal Phantasm of a Prince Radzivil, who hates the Czartoryskis, and is dreadfully given to drink, to wasteful

ambitions and debaucheries, figures much in these businesses; is got banished and confiscated, by some

Confederation formed; then, by new Confederations, is recalled and reinstated,worse if possible than ever.

The thing is reality; but it reads like a Phantasmagory produced by Lapland Witches, under presidency of

Diabolus (very certainly the Devil presiding, as you see at all turns),and is not worth understanding, were

Much semiintelligible, wholly forgettable stuff about King Stanislaus and his difficulties, and his duplicities

and treacherous imbecilities, [Hermann, v. 400, Rulhiere PASSIM.] now of interest to no mortal. Stanislaus

is at one time out with the uncles Czartoryski, at another in with these worthy gentlemen: a man not likely to

cure Anarchies, unless wishing would do it. On the Dissident Question itself he needs spurring: a King of

liberal ideas, yes; but with such flames of fanaticism under the nose of him. In regard to the Dissident and all

other curative processes he is languid, evasive, for moments recalcitrant to Russian suggestions; a lost

imbecile,forget him, with or without a tear. He has still a good deal of socalled gallantry on his hands;

flies to his harem when outside things go contradictory. [Hermann, v. 402, Think of malign Journalists

printing this bit of Letter at one time, to do him ill in a certain quarter: "Oh, come to me, my Princess! Dearer

than all Empresses:imperial charms, what were they to thine for a heart that has" with more of the like

WINTER OF 1766, Imperial Majesty, whether after or before that miraculous Carmelite Monk, I do not

remember, became impatient of these tedious languors and tortuosities about the Dissident Question, and

gave express order, "Settle it straightway!" To which end, Confederations and the other machinery were set

agoing: Confederations among the Protestants and Dissidents themselves, about Thorn and such places (got

up by Russian engineering), and much more extensively in the Lithuanian parts; Confederations of great

extent, imperative, minatory; ostensibly for reinstating these poor people in their rights (which, by old Polish

Law, they quite expressly were, if that were any matter), but in reality for bringing back drunken Radzivil,

JUNE 23d, 1767, These multiplex PolishLithuanian Confederations, twentyfour of them in all, with their

sublime marshals and officials, and above 80,000 noblemen in them, meet by deputies at Radom, a

convenient little Town within wind of Warsaw (lies 60 miles to south of Warsaw); and there coalesce into

one general "Confederation of Radom," [Hermann, v. 420.] with drunken Radzivil atop, who, glad to be

reinstated in his ample Domains and Wine cellars, and willing at any rate to spite the Czartoryskis and

others, has pledged himself to carry that great measure in Diet, and quash any NIE POZWALAMS and

difficulties there may be. This is the once worldfamous, now dimly discoverable, CONFEDERATION OF

RADOM, whichby preparatory declaring, under its hand and seal, That the Law of the Land must again

become valid, and "Free Polacks of Dissident opinions concerning Religion (NOS DISSIDENTES DE

RELIGIONE)," as the old Law phrases it, "shall have equal rights of citizenship"was beautifully

instrumental in achieving that bit of Human Progress, and pushing it through the Diet, and its difficulties

Not that the Diet did not need other vigorous treatment as well, the flame of fanaticism being frightfully

ardent; many of the poor Bishops having run nearly frantic at this open spoliation of Mother Church, and

snatching of the sword from Peter. So that Imperial Majesty had to decide on picking out a dozen, or baker's

dozen, of the hottest Bishops; and carrying them quietly into Russia under lock and key, till the thing were

done. Done it was, surely to the infinite relief of mankind;I cannot say precisely on what day: October

13th14th (locking up of the dozen Bishops), was one vital epoch of it; November 19th, 1767 (report of

Committee on it, under Radzivil's and Russia's coercion), was another: first and last it took about five months

baking in Diet. Diet met Oct. 4th, 1767, Radzivil controlling as GrandMarshal, and Russia as minatory

Phantom controlling Radzivil; Diet, after adjournments, after one long adjournment, disappeared 5th March,

1768; and of work mentionable it had done this of the Dissidents only. That of contributing to "the sovereign

contempt with which King Stanislaus is regarded by all ranks of men," is hardly to be called peculiar work or

At this point, to relieve the reader's mind, and, at any rate, as the date is fully come, we will introduce a small

NEWSPAPER ARTICLE from a very high hand, little guessed till long afterwards as the writer,namely,

from King Friedrich's own. It does not touch on the Dissident Question, or the Polish troubles; but does, in a

backhanded way, on Prussian Rumors rising about them; and may obliquely show more of the King's

feeling on that subject than we quite suppose. It seems the King had heard that the Berlin people were talking

and rumoring of "a War being just at hand;" whereupon"MARCH 5th, 1767, IN THE VOSSISCHE

ZEITUNG (Voss's Chronicle), No. 28," an inquisitive Berlin public read as follows:

"We are advised from Potsdam, that, on the 27th of February, towards evening, the sky began to get overcast;

black clouds, presaging a tempest of unexampled fury, covered all the horizon: the thunder, with its

lightnings, forked bolts of amazing brilliancy, burst out; and, under its redoubled peals, there descended such

a torrent of hail as within man's memory had not been seen. Of two bullocks yoked in their plough, with

which a peasant was hastening home, one was struck on the head by a piece of it, and killed outright. Many

of the common people were wounded in the streets; a brewer had his arm broken. Roofs are destroyed by the

weight of this hail; all the windows that looked windward while it fell were broken. In the streets, hailstones

were found of the size of pumpkins (CITROUILLES), which had not quite melted two hours after the storm

ceased. This singular phenomenon has made a very great impression. Scientific people say, the air had not

buoyancy enough to support these solid masses when congealed to ice; that the small hailstones in these

clouds getting so lashed about in the impetuosity of the winds, had united the more the farther they fell, and

had not acquired that enormous magnitude till comparatively near the earth. Whatever way it may have

happened, it is certain that occurrences of that kind are rare, and almost without example." [VOSSISCHE

Another singularity is, "Professor Johann Daniel Titius of Wittenberg," who teaches NATURAL

PHILOSOPHY in that famous University, one may judge with what effect, wrote a Monograph on this

unusual Phenomenon! [Rodenbeck (ii. 285) gives the Title of it, "CONSIDERATIONS ON THE POTSDAM

The Confederation of Radom, and its victorious Diet, had hardly begun their Song of Triumph, when there

ensued on the percontra side a flaming CONFEDERATION OF BAR;which, by successive stages, does

at last burn out the Anarchies of Poland, and reduce them to ashes. Confederation of Bar; and then, as

progeny of that, for and against, such a brood of Confederations, orthodox, heterodox, big, little, shortlived,

longlived, of all complexions and degrees of noisy fury, potent, at any rate, each of them for murder and

arson, within a certain radius, as the Earth never saw before. Now was the time of those inextricable

marchings (as inroads and outroads) through the Lithuanian Bogs, of those deathdefiant, unparalleled

exploits, skirmishings, scaladings, riding by the edge of precipices, of Pulawski, Potocki and others,in

For the Russian troops (summoned by a trembling Stanislaus and his Senate, in terms of Treaty 1764), and in

more languid manner, the Stanislaus soldiery, as per law of the case, proceeded to strike in,generally, my

impression was, with an eye to maintain the King's Peace and keep down murder and arson:and sure

enough, the small bodies of drilled Russians blew an infuriated orthodox Polack chivalry to right and left at a

short notice; but as to the Constable's Peace or King's, made no improvement upon that, far the reverse. It is

certain the Confederate chivalry were driven about, at a terrible rate,over the Turk frontier for shelter;

began to appeal to the Grand Turk, in desperate terms: "Brother of the Sun and Moon, saw you ever such a

chance for finishing Russia? Polack chivalry is Orthodox Catholic, but also it is AntiRussian!" The Turk

beginning to give ear to it, made the matter pressing and serious. Here, more specifically, are some features

"BAR, MARCH, 1768. The Confederation of Radom, as efficient preliminary, and chief agent in that Diet of

emancipation to the Dissident human mind, might long have been famous over Poland and the world; but

there instantly followed as corollary to it a CONFEDERATION OF BAR, which quite dimmed the fame of

Radom, and indeed of all Confederations prior or posterior! As the Confederation of Bar and its Doings, or

rather sufferings and tragical misdoings and undoings, still hang like fitful spectralities, or historical shadows,

of a vague ghastly complexion, in the human memory, one asks at least: Since they were on this Planet, tell

us where? Bar is in the Waiwodship Podol (what we call Podolia), some 400 miles southeast of Warsaw; not

far from the Dniester River:not far very from that mystery of the Dniester, the Zaporavian

Cossacks,from those rapids or cataracts (quasicataracts of the Dniester, with Islands in them, where those

Cossack robbers live unassailable):across the Dniester lies Turkey, and its famed Fortress of Choczim.

"MARCH 8th, 1768, Three short days after the Diet of Radom had done its fine feat, and retired to privacy,

news came to Warsaw, That Podolia and the Southern parts are all up, confederating with the highest

animation; in hot rage against such decision of a Diet, contrary to Holy Religion and to much else; and that

the said decision will have to fight for itself, now that it has done voting. This interesting news is true; and

goes on intensifying and enlarging itself, one dreadful Confederation springing up, and then another and ever

another, day after day; till at last we hear that on the 27th of the month, MARCH 27th, 1768, at Bar, a little

Town on the Southern or Turkish Frontier, all these more or less dreadful Confederations have met by

delegates, and coalesced into one 'Confederatiou of Bar,'which did surely prove dreadful enough, to itself

No history of Bar Confederation shall we dream of; far be such an attempt from us. It consists of many

Confederations, and out of each, PRO and CONTRA, spring many. Like the Lernean Hydra, or even Hydras

in a plural condition. A manyheaded dog: and how many whelps it had,I cannot give even the cipher of

them, or I would! One whelp Confederation, that of Cracow, is distinguished by having frequently or

generally been "drunk;" and of course its procedures had often a vinous character. [In HERMANN (v.

431448); and especially in RULHIERE (ii. livre 8 et seq.), details in superabundance.] I fancy to have read

somewhere that the number of them was one hundred and twentyfive. The rumor and the furious barking of

Bar and its whelps goes into all lands: such rabid loud baying at mankind and the moon; and then, under

Russia's treatment, such shrill yelping and shrieking, was not heard in the world before, though perhaps it has

Poor BAR'S exploits in the fighting way were highly inconsiderable; all on the same scale; and spread over

such a surface of country, mostly unknown, as renders it impossible to give them headroom, were you never

so unfurnished. They can be read in eloquent Rulhiere; but by no mortal held in memory. Anarchy is not a

thing to be written of; a Lernean Hydra, several Lernean Hydras, in chaotic genesis, getting their heads

lopped off, and at the same time sprouting new ones in such ratio, where is the Zoologist that will give

account of it? There was not anything considerable of fighting; but of bullying, plundering, murdering and

being murdered, a frightful amount. There are seizures of castles, convents, defensible houses; marches at a

rate like that of antelopes, through the Lithuanian parts, boggy, hungry, boundless, opening to the fancy the

Infinitude of Peat, in the solid and the fluid state. This, perhaps, is the finest species of feats, though they

The Pulawskis, for example,four of them, Lawyer people,showed much activity, and a talent for

impromptu soldiering, in that kind. The Magnates of the Confederation, I was surprised to learn, had all

quitted it, the instant it came to strokes: "You Lawyer people, with your priests and orthodox peasantries, you

do the fighting part; ours is the consulting!" And except Potocki (and he worse than none), there is presently

not a Magnate of them left in Poland,the rest all gone across the Austrian Border, to Teschen, to Bilitz, a

handy little town and domain in that Duchy of Teschen;and sit there as "Committee of Government:"

much at their ease in comparison, could they but agree among themselves, which they cannot. Bilitz is one of

the many domains of Magnate Sulkowski:do readers recollect the Sulkowski who at one time "declared

War" on King Friedrich; and was picked up, both War and he, so compendiously by General Goltz, and

locked in Glogau to cool? This is the same Sulkowski; much concerned now in these matters; a rich Magnate,

glad to see his friends about him as Governing Committee; but gets, and gives, a great deal of vexation in it,

I said there were four famed Pulawskis; [Hermann, v. 465.] a father, once Advocate in Warsaw, with three

sons and a nephew; who, though extremely active people, could do no good whatever. The father Pulawski

had the fine idea of introducing the British Constitution; clothing Poland wholly in British tailorage, and so

making it a new Poland: but he never could get it done. This poor gentleman died in Turkish prison, flung

into jail at Constantinople, on calumnious accusation and contrivance by a rival countryman; his sons and

nephew, poor fellows, all had their fame, more or less, in the Cause of Freedom so called; but no other profit

in this world, that I could hear of. Casimir, the eldest son, went to America; died there, still in the Cause of

Freedom so called; Fort Pulawski, in the harbor of Charleston (which is at present, on very singular terms,

REengaged in the same socalled Cause!), was named in memory of this Casimir. He had defended

Czenstochow (if anybody knew what Czenstochow was, or could find it in the Polish map); and it was also he

that contrived that wonderful plan of suddenly snapping up King Stanislaus from the streets of Warsaw one

night, ["3d November, 1771."] and of locking him away (by no means killing him), as the source of all our

woes. O my Pulawskis, men not without manhood, what a bedlam of a Time have you and I fallen into, and

Bar, a poor place, with no defences but a dry ditch and some miserable earthworks, the Confederates had not

the least chance to maintain; Kaminiec, the only fortress of the Province, they never even got into, finding

some fraction of royal soldiery who stood for King Stanislaus there, and who fired on the Confederates when

applied to. Bar a small Russian division, with certain Stanislaus soldieries conjoined, took by capitulation;

and (date not given) entered in a victorious manner. The WarEpic of the Confederates, which Rulhiere sings

Of "Cloister Czenstochow," a famed feat of Pulawski's, also without result, I could not from my Rulhiere

discover (what was altogether an illuminative fact to me!) that the date of Czenstochow was not till 1771. A

feat of "Cloister BERDICZOW," almost an exact facsimile by the same Pulawski, also resultless, I did, under

Hermann's guidance, at once find;and hope the reader will be satisfied to accept it instead: Cloister

Berdiczow, which lies in the Palatinate of Kiow; and which has a miraculous Holy Virgin, not less venerated

far and wide in those eastern parts, than she of Cloister Czenstochow in the western: THIS Cloister

Berdiczow and its salutary Virgin, Pulawski (the Casimir, now of Charleston Harbor) did defend, with about

1,000 men, in a really obstinate way, The Monastery itself had in it gifts of the faithful, accumulated for ages;

and all the richest people in those Provinces, Confederate or not, had lodged their preciosities there, as in an

impregnable and sure place, in those times of trouble. Intensely desirous, accordingly, the Russians were to

take it, but had no cannon; desperately resolute Pulawski and his 1,000 to defend. Pulawski and his 1,000

fired intensely, till their cannon balls were quite done; then took to firing with ironwork, and hard

miscellanies of every sort, especially glad when they could get a haul of glass to load with;and absolutely

would not yield till famine came; though the terms offered were good,had they been kept.

So that Pulawski, it would appear, did Two Cloister Defences? Two, each with a miraculous Holy Virgin; an

eastern, and then a westerly. This of Berdiczow, not dated to me farther, is for certain of the year 1768; and

Pulawski, owing to famine, did yield here. In 1771, at miraculous Cloister Czenstochow, in the western parts,

Pulawski did an external feat, or consented to see it done, that of trying to snuff out poor King Stanislaus

on the streets (3d November, 10 P.M., "miraculously" in vain, as most readers know),which brought its

obloquies and troubles on the Defender of Czenstochow. Obloquies and troubles: but as to surrendering

Czenstochow on call of obloquy, or of famine itself, Pulawski would not, not he for his own part; but

solemnly left his men to do it, and walked away by circuitous uncertain paths, which end in Charleston

Harbor, as we have seen. [At Savannah, in a stricter sense. "Perished at the Siege [futile attempt to storm, by

the French, which they called a Siege] of Savannah, 9th October, 1779."] Defence of Czenstochow in 1771

shall not concern us farther. Truly these two small defences of monasteries by Pulawski are almost all, I do

not say of glorious, but even of creditable or human, that reward the poor wanderer in that Polish Valley of

Jehoshaphat, much of it peatcountry; wherefore I have, as before, marked the approximate localities,

The Russians, ever since 1764, from the beginnings of those Stanislaus times, are pledged to maintain peace

in Poland; and it is they that have to deal with this affair,they especially, or almost wholly, poor Stanislaus

having scarcely any power, military or other, and perhaps being loath withal. There was more of investigating

and parleying, bargaining and intriguing, than of fighting, on Stanislaus's part. "June 11th, 1768," says a

Saxon Note from Warsaw, "Mokranowski, Stanislaus's General [the same that was with Friedrich], has been

sent down to Bar to look into those Confederates. Mokranowski does not think there are above 8,000 of them;

about 3,000 have got their death from Russian castigation. The 8,000 might be treated with, only Russians are

so dreadfully severe, especially so intent on wringing money from them. Confederates have been

complaining to the Turk; Turk ambiguous; gives them no definite ground of hope. 'What then, is your hope?'

I inquired. 'Little or none, except in Heaven,' several answered: 'it is for our religion and our liberty:' religion

cut to pieces by this Dissident Tolerationblasphemy; liberty ditto by the Russian guarantee of peace among

us: 'what can we do but trust in God and our own despair?'" ["Essen's Report, 11th June, 1768" (in

HERMANN, v. 441).] "Prave worts, Ancient Pistol,"but much destitute of sense, and not to be realized in

JUNEJULY, 1768. "The peasants in the Southern regions, Palatinates Podol, Kiow, Braclaw, called

UKRAINE or BorderCountry by the Poles, are mostly of Greek and other schismatic creeds. Their Lords

are of an orthodox religion, and not distinguished by mild treatment of such Peasantry, upon whom civil war

and plunder have been latterly a sore visitation. To complete the matter, the Confederates in certain quarters,

blown upon by fanatical priests, set about converting these poor peasants, or forcing them, at the point of the

bayonet, to swear that they adopt the 'Greek united rite,' which I suppose to be a kind of halfway house

towards perfect orthodoxy. In one Village, which was getting converted in this manner, the military party

seemed to be small; the Village boiled over upon it; trampled orthodoxy and military both under foot, in a

violent and sanguinary manner; and was extremely frightened when it had done. Extremely frightened, not

the Village only, but the schismatic mind generally in those parts, dreading vengeance for such a paroxysm.

But the atrocious Russians whispered them, 'We are here to protect you in your religions and rights, in your

poor consciences and skins.' Upon which hint of the atrocious Russians, the schismatic mind and population

one and all rose; and, 'with the cannibal's ferocity, gave way to their appetite for plunder!' ...

"Nay, the Russian Government [certain Russian Officials hard pressed] had invited the Zaporavian Cossacks

to step over from their Islands in the Dniester, and assist in defending their Religion [true Greek, of course];

who at once did so; and not only extinguished the last glimmer of Confederation there, but overwhelmed the

Country, thousands on thousands of them, attended by revolted peasants,say a 20,000 of peasants under

command of these Zaporavians,who went about plundering and burning. That they plundered the Jew

pothouses of their brandy, and drank it, was a small matter. Very furious upon Jews, upon Noblemen,

Landlords, upon Catholic Priests. 'On one tree [tree should have been noted] was found hanged a specimen of

each of those classes, with a Dog adjoined, as fit company.' In one little Town, Town of HUMAN [so called

in that foreign dialect], getting some provocation or other, they set to massacring; and if brandy were

plentiful, we can suppose they made short work. By the lowest computation the number of slain Jews and

Catholics amounted to 10,000 odd [Hermann, v. 444; Rulhiere, iii. 93.]Rulhiere says '50,000, by some

accounts 200,000.'" This I guess to have been at its height about the end of June; this leads direct to the

Foreign States don't seem to pay much attention,indeed, what sane person would like to interfere, or hope

to do it with profit? France, Austria, both wish well to Poland, at least ill to Russia; Choiseul has no finance,

can do nothing but intrigue, and stir up trouble everywhere: a devout Kaiserinn goes with Holy Church, and

disapproves of these Dissident Tolerations: it is remarked that all through 1768 the Confederates of Bar are

permitted to retire over the Austrian Frontier into Austrian Silesia, and find themselves there in safety.

Permitted to buy arms, to make preparations, issue orders: at Sulkowski's Bilitz, in the Duchy of Teschen,

supreme Managing Committee sits there; no Kaunitz or Official person meddling with it. About the

beginning of next year (1769), it is, ostensibly, a little discountenanced; and obliged to go to Eperjes, on the

Hungarian Frontier [See Busching: for Eperjes, ii. 1427; for Bilitz, viii. 885.] (as a more decent or less

conspicuous place),such trouble now rising; a Turk War having broken out, momentous not to the

Confederation alone. March, 1769, the ever intriguing Choiseulfancy with what rapturous effecthad

sent some kind of Agent or Visitor to Teschen; Vergennes in Turkey, from the beginning of these things, has

been plying night and day his diplomatic bellows upon every livecoal ("I who myself kindled this

TurkWar!" brags he afterwards);not till next year (1770) did Choiseul send his Dumouriez to the Bilitz

neighborhoods; not till next again, when Choiseul was himself out, [Thrown out "2d December, 1770,"by

Louis's NEW Pompadour.] did his Viomenil come: [Hermann, v. 469471; in RULHIERE (iv. 241289)

account of Dumouries and his fencings and spyings, still more of Viomenil, who had "French Volunteers,"

and did some bits of real fighting on the small scale.] neither of whom, by their own head alone, without

It is needless continuing such a subject. Here is one glimpse two years later, and it shall be our last: "NEAR

LUBLIN, 25th SEPTEMBER, 1770. It is frightful, all this that is passing in these parts,about the Town of

Labun, for example. The dead bodies remain without burial; they are devoured by the dogs and the pigs. ...

Everywhere reigns Pestilence; nor do we fear contagion so much as famine. Offer 100 ducats for a fowl or for

a bit of bread, I swear you won't get it. General von Essen [Russian, we will hope] has had to escape from

To apply to the Turks,afflicted Polish Patriots prostrating themselves with the hope of despair, "Save us,

your sublime Clemency; throw a ray of pity on us, Brother of the Sun and Moon: oh, chastise our diabolic

oppressors!"this was one of the first resources of the Bar Confederates. The Turks did give ear; not

inattentive, though pretending to be rather deaf. M. de Vergennes,of whose "diplomatic bellows" we just

heard (in fact, for diligence in this Turk element, in this young time, the like of him was seldom seen; we

knew him long afterwards as a diligent old gentleman, in FrenchRevolution days),M. de Vergennes

zealously supports; zealous to let loose the Turk upon AntiFrench parties. The Turks seem to wag their

heads, for some time; and their responses are ambiguous. For some time, not for long. Here, fast enough,

JULYOCTOBER, 1768. Those Zaporavian and other Cossacks, with 20,000 peasants plundering about on

both sides of the Dniester, had set fire to the little Town of Balta, which is on the south side, and belongs to

the Turks: a very grave accident, think all political people, think especially the Foreign Excellencies at

Warsaw, when news of it arrives. Burning of Balta, not to be quenched by the amplest Russian apologies,

proved a livecoal at Constantinople; and Vergennes says, he set population and Divan on fire by it: a proof

that the population and Divan had already been in a very inflammable state. Not a wise Divan, though a

zealous. Plenty of fury in these people; but a sad deficiency of every other faculty. They made haste, in their

hot humor, to declare War (6th October, 1768); [Hermann, v. 608611.] not considering much how they

would carry it on. Declared themselves in late Autumn,as if to give the Russians ample time for preparing;

those poor Turks themselves being as yet ready with nothing, and even the season for fieldoperations being

King Friedrich, who has still a Minister at the Porte, endeavored to dissuade his old Turk friends, in this rash

crisis; but to no purpose; they would listen to nothing but Vergennes and their own fury. Friedrich finds this

War a very mad one on the part of his old Turk friends; their promptitude to go into it (he has known them

backward enough when their chances were better!), and their way of carrying it on, are alike surprising to

him. He says: "Catharine's Generals were unacquainted with the first elements of Castrametation and Tactic;

but the Generals of the Sultan had a still more prodigious depth of ignorance; so that to form a correct idea of

this War, you must figure a set of purblind people, who, by constantly beating a set of altogether blind, end

by gaining over them a complete mastery." [ OEuvres de Frederic, vi. 23, 24.] This, as Friedrich knows, is

what Austria cannot suffer; this is what will involve Austria and Russia, and Friedrich along with them, in

Friedrich, as the matter gradually unfolds itself, shudders to think what. The beginnings of this War were

perhaps almost comical to the old SoldierKing; but as it gradually developed itself into complete shattering

to pieces of the stupid Blind by the ambitious Purblind, he grew abundantly serious upon it.

It is but six months since Polish Patriotism, so effulgent to its own eyes in Orthodoxy, in Love of glorious

Liberty, confederated at Bar, and got into that extraordinary whirlpool, or cesspool, of miseries and deliriums

we have been looking at; and now it has issued on a broad highway of progress,broad and

precipitous,and will rapidly arrive at the goal set before it. All was so rapid, on the Polish and on the

Turkish part. The blind Turks, out of mere fanaticism and heat of humor, have rushed into this

adventure;and go rushing forward into a series of chaotic platitudes on the huge scale, and mere tragical

disasters, year after year, which would have been comical, had they not been so hideous and sanguinary:

constant and enormous blunders on the Turk part, issuing in disasters of like magnitude; which in the course

of Two Campaigns had quite finished off their Polish friends, in a very unexpected way; and had like to have

Not till March 26th, 1769, six months after declaring in such haste, did the blind Turks "display their Banner

of Mahomet," that is, begin in earnest to assemble and make ready. Nor were the Russians shiningly strategic,

though sooner in the field,a Prince Galitzin commanding them (an extremely purblind person); till

replaced by Romanzow, our old Colberg acquaintance, who saw considerably better. Galitzin, early in the

season, made a rush on Choczim (ChoTzim), the first Turk Fort beyond the Dniester; and altogether

failed,not by Turk prowess, but by his own purblind malarrangements (want of ammunition, want of

bread, or I will forget what);which occasioned mighty grumblings in Russia: till in a month or two, by

favor of Fortune and blindness of the Turk, matters had come well round again; and Galitzin, walking up to

Choczim the second time, found there was not a Turk in the place, and that Choczim was now his on those

Instead of farther details on such a War,the shadow or reflex of which, as mirrored in the Austrian mind,

has an importance to Friedrich and us; but the self or substance of which has otherwise little or none,we

will close here with a bit of Russian satire on it, which is still worth reading. The date is evidently Spring,

1769; the scene what we are now treating of: Galitzin obliged to fall back from Choczim; great

rumor"What a Galitzin; what a Turk War his, in contrast to the last we had!" [Turk War of 17361739,

under Munnich (supra, vii. 81126).]no Romanzow yet appointed in his room. And here is a small

Manuscript, which was then circulating fresh and new in Russian Society; and has since gone over all the

world (though mostly in an uncertain condition, in old JestBooks and the like), as a genuine bit of

MANUSCRIPT CIRCULATING IN RUSSIAN SOCIETY. Galitzin, much grieved about Choczim, could

not sleep; and, wandering about in his tent, overheard, one night, a common soldier recounting his dream to

"A curious dream," said the soldier: "I dreamt I was in a battle; that I got my head cut off; that I died; and, of

course, went to Heaven. I knocked at the door: Peter came with a bunch of Keys; and made such rattling that

he awoke God; who started up in haste, asking, 'What is the matter?' 'Why,' says Peter, 'there is a great War

on earth between the Russians and the Turks.' 'And who commands my Russians?' said the Supreme Being.

'Count Munnich,' answered Peter. 'Very well; I may go to sleep again!'But this was not the end of my

dream," continued the soldier; "I fell asleep and dreamt again, the very same as before, except that the War

was not Count Munnich's, but the one we are now in. Accordingly, when God asked, 'Who commands my

Russians?' Peter answered, 'Prince Galitzin.' 'Galitzin? Then get me my boots!' said the [Russian] Supreme

Being." [W. Richardson (then at Petersburg, Tutor to Excellency Cathcart's Children; afterwards Professor at

Glasgow, and a man of Some reputation in his old age), Anecdotes of the Russian Empire, in a Series of

Letters written a few years ago from St. Petersburg (London, 1784), p. 110: date of this Letter is "17th

These Polish phenomena were beginning to awaken a good deal of attention, not all of it pleasant, on the part

of Friedrich. From the first he had, as usual, been a most cleareyed observer of everything; and found the

business, as appears, not of tragical nature, but of expensivefarcical, capable to shake the diaphragm rather

than touch the heart of a reflective onlooker. He has a considerable Poem on it,WAR OF THE

CONFEDERATES by title (in the old style of the PALLADION, imitating an unattainable JEANNE

D'ARC),considerable Poem, now forming itself at leisure in his thoughts, ["LA GUERRE DES

CONFEDERES [ OEuvres, xiv. 183 et seq.], finished in November, 1771."] which decidedly takes that turn;

and laughs quite loud at the rabid fanaticisms, blusterous inanities and imbecilities of these noisy unfortunate

neighbors:old unpleasant style of the PALLADION and PUCELLE; but much better worth reading;

having a great deal of sharp sense in its laughing guise, and more of real Historical Discernment than you will

Much a laughingstock to this King hitherto, such a "War of the Confederates,"consisting of the noisiest,

emptiest bedlam tumults, seasoned by a proportion of homicide, and a great deal of battery and arson. But

now, with a RussianTurk War springing from it, or already sprung, there are quite serious aspects rising

amid the laughable. By Treaty, this War is to cost the King either a 12,000 of Auxiliaries to the Czarina, or a

72,000 pounds (480,000 thalers) annually; [ OEuvres de Frederic, vi. 13.]which latter he prefers to pay

her, as the alternative: not an agreeable feature at all; but by no means the worst feature. Suppose it lead to

Russian conquests on the Turk, to Austrian complicacies, to one knows not what, and kindle the world round

one again! In short, we can believe Friedrich was very willing to stand well with nextdoor neighbors at

FIRST INTERVIEW BETWEEN FRIEDRICH AND KAISER JOSEPH (Neisse, 25th28th August, 1769).

In 1766, the young Kaiser, who has charge of the Military Department, and of little else in the Government,

and is already a great traveller, and enthusiastic soldier, made a pilgrimage over the Bohemian and Saxon

Battlefields of the SevenYears War. On some of them, whether on all I do not know, he set up memorial

stones; one of which you still see on the field of Lobositz;of another on Prag field, and of reverent

salutation by Artillery to the memory of Schwerin there, we heard long ago. Coming to Torgau on this errand,

the Kaiser, through his Berlin Minister, had signified his "particular desire to make acquaintance with the

King in returning;" to which the King was ready with the readiest; only that Kaunitz and the Kaiserinn, in

the interim, judged it improper, and stopped it. "The reported Interview is not to take place," Friedrich warns

the Newspapers; "having been given up, though only from courtesy, on some points of ceremonial."

The young Kaiser felt a little huffed; and signified to Friedrich that he would find a time to make good this

bit of uncivility, which his pedagogues had forced upon him. And now, after three years, August, 1769, on

occasion of the Silesian Reviews, the Kaiser is to come across from his Bohemian businesses, and actually

visit him: Interview to be at Neisse, 25th August, 1769, for three days. Of course the King was punctual,

everybody was punctual, glad and cordial after a sort,no ceremony, the Kaiser, officially incognito, is a

mere Graf von Falkenstein, come to see his Majesty's Reviews. There came with him four or five Generals,

Loudon one of them; Lacy had preceded: Friedrich is in the palace of the place, ready and expectant. With

Friedrich are: Prince Henri; Prince of Prussia; Margraf of Anspach: Friedrich's Nephew (Lady Craven's

Margraf, the one remnant now left there); and some Generals and Military functionaries, Seidlitz the

notablest figure of these. And so, FRIDAY, AUGUST 25th, shortly after noon But the following Two

Letters, by an Eyewitness, will be preferable; and indeed are the only real Narrative that can be given:

"MY MOST WORTHY FRIEND,I make haste to inform you of the Kaiser's arrival here at Neisse, this day,

25th August, 1769, at one in the afternoon. The King had spent the morning in a proof Manoeuvre, making

rehearsal of the Manoeuvre that was to be. When the Kaiser was reported just coming, the King went to the

window of the grand Episcopal Saloon, and seeing him alight from his carriage, turned round and said, 'JE

L'AI VU (I have seen him).' His Majesty then went to receive him on the grand staircase [had hardly

descended three or four steps], where they embraced; and then his Majesty led by the hand his august Guest

into the Apartments designed for him, which were all standing open and ready,"which, however, the

august Guest will not occupy except with a grateful imagination, being for the present incognito, mere Graf

"Arrived in the Apartments, they embraced anew; and sat talking together for an hour and half.

[The talk, unknown to Lefebvre, began in this strain. KAISER: "Now are my wishes fulfilled, since I

have the honor to embrace the greatest of Kings and Soldiers." KING: "I look upon this day as the fairest of

my life; for it will become the epoch of uniting Two Houses which have been enemies too long, and whose

mutual interests require that they should strengthen, not weaken one another." KAISER: "For Austria there is

no Silesia farther." [Preuss, v. 23; OEuvres de Frederic, vi. 25, 26.] Talk, it appears, lasted an hour and half.]

"The Kaiser [continues our Engineer] had brought with him the Prince of SachsenTeschen [his

august Brotherinlaw, Duke of Teschen, son of the late Polish Majesty of famous memory]: afterwards

there came Feldmarschall Lacy, Graf von Dietrichstein, General von Loudon," and three others of no account

to us. "At the King's table were the Kaiser, the Prince of Prussia [dissolute young HeirApparent, of the

polygamous tendency], Prince Henri, the Margraf of Anspach [King's Nephew, unfortunate Lady Craven

Margraf, ultimately of Hammersmith vicinity]; the above Generals of the Austrian suite, and Generals

Seidlitz and Tauentzien. The rest of the Court was at two other tables." Of the dinner itself an Outside

"The Kaiser, having expressly requested the King to let him lodge in an Inn (THREE KINGS), under the

name of Graf von Falkenstein, would not go into the carriage which had stood expressly ready to conduct him

thither. He preferred walking on foot [the loftily scornful Incognito] in spite of the rain; it was like a

lieutenant of infantry stepping out of his quarters. Some moments after, the King went to visit him; and they

remained together from 5 in the evening till 8. It was thought they would be present (ASSISTER) at a Comic

Opera which was to be played: but after waiting till 7 o'clock, the people received orders to go on with the

Piece;"both Majesties did afterwards look in; but finding it bad, soon went their way again. (MAJOR

"This morning, 26th, the Manoeuvre [rehearsed yesterday] has been performed before both their Majesties;

the troops, by way of finish, filing past them in the highest order. The Kaiser accompanied the King to his

abode; after which he returned to his own. This is all the news I have today: the sequel by next Post

"MONSIEUR AND DEAREST FRIEND,We had, as you heard, our first Manoeuvre on Saturday, 26th, in

presence of the Kaiser and the King, and of the whole Court of each. That evening there was Opera; which

their Majesties honored by attending. Sunday was our Second Manoeuvre; OPERETTE in the evening.

Monday, 28th, was our last Manoeuvre; at the end of which the two Majesties, without alighting from

horseback, embraced each other; and parted, protesting mutually the most constant and inviolable friendship.

One took the road for Breslau; the other that of Konigsgratz. All the time the Kaiser was here, they have been

continually talking together, and exhibiting the tenderest friendship,from which I cannot but think there

"I am almost in the mind of coming to pass this Winter at Berlin; that I may have the pleasure of embracing

you,perhaps as cordially as King and Kaiser here. I am, and shall always be, with all my heart,your very

The Lefebvre that writes here is the same who was set to manage the last Siege of Schweidnitz, by Globes of

Compression and other fine inventions; and almost went out of his wits because he could not do it. An expert

ingenious creature; skilful as an engineer; had been brought into Friedrich's service by the late Balbi, during

Balbi's ascendency (which ended at Olmutz long ago). At Schweidnitz, and often elsewhere, Friedrich, who

had an esteem for poor Lefebvre, was good to him; and treated his excitabilities with a soft hand, not a rough.

Once at Neisse (1771, second year after these Letters), on looking round at the works done since last review,

in sight of all the Garrison he embraced Lefebvre, while commending his excellent performance; which filled

"HELAS," says Formey, "the poor Gentleman wrote to me of his endless satisfaction; and how he hoped to

get through his building, and retire on halfpay this very season, thenceforth to belong to the Academy and

me; he had been Member for twenty years past." With this view, thinks Formey, he most likely hastened on

his buildings too fast: certain it is, a barrack he was building tumbled suddenly, and some workmen perished

in the ruins. "Enemies at Court suggested," or the accident itself suggested without any enemy, "Has not he

been playing false, using cheap bad materials?"and Friedrich ordered him arrest in his own Apartments, till

the question were investigated. Excitable Lefebvre was like to lose his wits, almost to leap out of his skin.

"One evening at supper, he managed to smuggle away a knife; and, in the course of the night, gave himself

sixteen stabs with it; which at length sufficed. The King said, 'He has used himself worse than I should have

done;' and was very sorry." Of Lefebvre's scientific structures, globes of compression and the rest, I know not

whether anything is left; the above Two Notes, thrown off to Formey, were accidentally a hit, and, in the

The King found this young Kaiser a very pretty man; and could have liked him considerably, had their mutual

positions permitted. "He had a frankness of manner which seemed natural to him," says the King; "in his

amiable character, gayety and great vivacity were prominent features." By accidental chinks, however, one

saw "an ambition beyond measure" burning in the interior of this young man, [ OEuvres de Frederic, (in

Memoires de 1763 jusqu'a 1775, a Chapter which yields the briefest, and the one completely intelligible

account we yet have of those affairs), vi. 25.]let an old King be wary. A three days, clearly, to be marked

in chalk; radiant outwardly to both; to a certain depth, sincere; and uncommonly pleasant for the time. King

and Kaiser were seen walking about arm in arm. At one of the Reviews a Note was brought to Friedrich: he

read it, a Note from her Imperial Majesty; and handing it to Kaiser Joseph, kissed it first. At parting, he had

given Joseph, by way of keepsake, a copy of Marechal de Saxe's REVERIES (a strange Military Farrago,

dictated, I should think, under opium ["MES REVERIES; OUVRAGE POSTHUME, par" (2 vols. 4to:

Amsterdam et Leipzig, 1757).]): this Book lay continually thereafter on the Kaiser's nighttable; and was

found there at his death, Twentyone years hence,not a page of it read, the leaves all sticking together

It was long believed, by persons capable of seeing into millstones, that, under cover of this Neisse Interview,

there were important Political negotiations and consultings carried on;that here, and in a Second Interview

or ReturnVisit, of which presently, lay the real foundation of the Polish Catastrophe. What of Political

passed at the Second Interview readers shall see for themselves, from an excellent Authority. As to what

passed at the present ("mutual wordofhonor: should England and France quarrel, we will stand neutral"

[ OEuvres de Frederic, ubi supra.]), it is too insignificant for being shown to readers. Dialogues there were,

delicately holding wide of the mark, and at length coming close enough; but, at neither the one Interview nor

the other, was Poland at all a party concerned,though, beyond doubt, the Turk War was; silently this first

In spite of Galitzin's blunders, the Turk War is going on at a fine rate in these months; Turks, by the hundred

thousand, getting scattered in panic rout:but we will say nothing of it just yet. Polish

Confederationhorrorstruck, as may be imagined, at its auxiliary Brother of the Sun and Moon and his

performancesis weltering in violently impotent spasms into deeper and ever deeper wretchedness,

Friedrich sometimes thinking of a Burlesque Poem on the subject;though the Russian successes, and the

Austrian grudgings and gloomings, are rising on him as a very serious consideration. "Is there no method,

then, of allowing Russia to prosecute its Turk War in spite of Austria and its umbrages?" thinks Friedrich

sometimes, in his anxieties about Peace in Europe:"If the Ukraine, and its meal for the Armies, were but

Russia's! At present, Austria can strike in there, cut off the provisions, and at once put a spoke in Russia's

wheel." Friedrich tells us, "he (ON," the King himself, what I do not find in any other Book) "sent to

Petersburg, under the name of Count Lynar, the seraphic Danish Gentleman, who, in 1757, had brought about

the Convention of KlosterZeven, a Project, or Sketch of Plan, for Partitioning certain Provinces of Poland,

in that view;" the Lynar opining, so far as I can see, somewhat as follows: "Russia to lay hold of the

essential bit of Polish Territory for provisioning itself against the Turk, and allow to Austria and Prussia

certain other bits; which would content everybody, and enable Russia and Christendom to extrude and

suppress AD LIBITUM that abominable mass of Mahometan Sensualism, Darkness and Fanaticism from the

fairest part of God's Creation." An excellent Project, though not successful! "To which Petersburg,

intoxicated with its own outlooks on Turkey, paid not the least attention," says the King. [ OEuvres de

Frederic, vi. 26.] He gives no date to this curious statement; nor does anybody else mention it at all; but we

may fancy it to have been of Winter, 17691770,and leave it with the curious, or the idly curious, since

POTSDAM, 20th29th OCTOBER, 1769. Only two months after Neisse, what kindles Potsdam into sudden

splendor, Electress MarieAntoine makes a Visit of nine days to the King. "In July last," says a certain Note

of ours, "the Electress was invited to Berlin, to a Wedding; 'would have been delighted to come, but letter of

invitation arrived too late. Will, however, not give up the plan of seeing the great Friedrich.' Comes to

Potsdam 20th29th October. Stays nine days; much delighted, both, with the visit. 'Magnificent palaces,

pleasant gardens, ravishing concerts, charming Princes and Princesses: the pleasantest nine days I ever had in

my life,' says the Electress. Friedrich grants, to her intercession, pardon for some culprit. 'DIVA ANTONIA'

he calls her henceforth for some time; she him, 'PLUS GRAND DES MORTELS,' 'SALOMON DU NORD,'

and the like names." [ OEuvres de Frederic, (CORRESPONDANCE AVEC L'ELECTRICE MARIE

ANTOINE), xxiv. 179186.] Next year too (September 26thOctober 5th, 1770), the bright Lady made a

second visit; [Rodenbeck, iii. 24.] no third,the times growing too political, perhaps; the times not suiting.

The Correspondence continues to the end; and is really pretty. And would be instructive withal, were it well

edited. For example,if we might look backwards, and shoot a momentary spark into the vacant darkness of

POTSDAM, 3d MAY, 1768. ... "Jesuits have got all cut adrift: A dim rumor spreads that his Holiness will not

rest with that first anathema, but that a fulminating Bull is coming out against the Most Christian, the Most

Catholic and the Most Faithful. If that be so, my notion is, Madam, that the Holy Father, to fill his table, will

admit the Defender of the Faith [poor George III.] and your Servant; for it does not suit a Pope to sit solitary.

"A pity for the human race, Madam, that men cannot be tranquil, but they never and nowhere can! Not

even the little Town of Neufchatel but has had its troubles; your Royal Highness will be astonished to learn

how. A Parson there [this was above seven years ago, in old Marischal's reign [See Letters to Marischal,

"Leipzig, 9th March, 1761," "Breslau, 14th May, 1762:" in OEuvres de Frederic, xx. 282, 287.]] had set forth

in a sermon, That considering the immense mercy of God, the pains of Hell could not last forever. The Synod

shouted murder at such scandal; and has been struggling, ever since, to get the Parson exterminated. The

affair was of my jurisdiction; for your Royal Highness must know that I am Pope in that Country;here is

my decision: Let the parsons, who make for themselves a cruel and barbarous God, be eternally damned, as

they desire, and deserve; and let those parsons, who conceive God gentle and merciful, enjoy the plenitude of

his mercy! However, Madam, my sentence has failed to calm men's minds; the schism continues; and the

number of the damnatory theologians prevails over the others." ["April 2d, 1768" (a month before this Letter

to Madam), there is "riot at Neufchatel; and Avocat Gardot [heterodox Parson's ADVOCATE] killed in it"

POTSDAM, 1st DECEMBER, 1766. "At present I have with me my Niece [Sister's Daughter, of Schwedt],

the Duchess of Wurtemberg; who remembers with pleasure to have had the happiness of seeing your Royal

Highness in former times. She is very unhappy and much to be pitied; her Husband [Eugen of Wurtemberg,

whom we heard much of, and last at Colberg] gives her a deal of trouble: he is a violent man, from whom she

has everything to fear; who gives her chagrins, and makes her no allowances. I try my best to bring him to

reason;"but am little successful. Three years after this, "May 3d, 1769," we find Eugen, who once talked of

running his august Reigning Brother through the body, has ended by returning to Stuttgard and him; where,

or at Mumpelgard, his Apanage, he continued thenceforth. And was Reigning Duke himself, long afterwards,

for two years, at the very end of his life. ["Succeeded," on his Brother Karl's death, "20th May, 1795; died

23d December, 1797, age 75."] At this date of 1766, "my poor Niece and he" have been married thirteen

years, and have half a score of children;the eldest of them Czar Paul's Second Wife that is to be, and

DECEMBER 17th, 1765. ... "I have had 12,360 houses and barns to rebuild, and am nearly through with that.

JULY 22d, 1766. ... "Wedding festivities of Prince of Prussia. Duchess of Kingston tipsy on the

occasion!"But we must not be tempted farther. [ OEuvres de Frederic, xxiv. 90155.]

The RussianTurk especially in Second Campaign of it, "Liberation of Greece," or, failing that, total

destruction of the Turk Fleet in Greek waters; conquest of Wallachia, as of Moldavia; in a word, imminency

of total ruin to the Turk by land and sea,all this is blazing aloft at such a pitch, in Summer, 1770, that a

new Interview upon it may well, to neighbors so much interested, seem more desirable than ever. Interview

Kaunitz himself attends, this time; something of real business privately probable to Kaunitz. Prince Henri is

not there; Prince Henri is gone to Sweden; on visit to his Sister, whom he has not seen since boyhood: of

which Visit there will be farther mention. Present with the King were: [Rodenbeck, iii. 21.] the Prince of

Prussia (luckier somewhat in his second wedlock, little redcolored Son and Heir born to him just a month

ago); [Friedrich Wilhelm III., "born 3d August, 1770."] Prince Ferdinand; two Brunswick Nephews,

ERBPRINZ whom we used to hear of, and Leopold a junior, of whom we shall once or so. No Seidlitz this

time. Except Lentulus, no General to name. But better for us than all Generals, in the Kaiser's suite, besides

"Liberation of the Greeks" had kindled many people, Voltaire among the number, who is still intermittently

in correspondence with Friedrich: "A magnificent Czarina about to revivify that true Temple of Mankind, or

at least to sweep the blockhead Turks out of it; what a prospect!" Friedrich is quite cool on Greece; not too

hot on any part of this subject, though intensely concerned about it. Besides his ingenious CountLynar

Project, and many other businesses, Friedrich has just been confuting Baron d'Holbach's Systeme de la

Nature; ["EXAMEN CRITIQUE DU SYSTEME DE LA NATURE [in OEuvres de Frederic, ix. 153 et seq.],

finished July, 1770."]writing to Voltaire, POTSDAM, 18th AUGUST, 1770, on this subject among others,

he adds: "I am going for Silesia, on the Reviews. I am to see the Kaiser, who has invited me to his Camp in

Mahren. That is an amiable and meritorious Prince; he values your Works, reads them as diligently as he can;

is anything but superstitious: in brief, a Kaiser such as Germany has not for a great while had. Neither he nor

I have any love for the blockhead and barbaric sort;but that is no reason for extirpating them: if it were,

your Turks [oppressors of Greece] would not be the only victims!" [ OEuvres de Frederic, xxiii. 165, 166.]

In a lengthy Letter, written by request, TO STANISLAUS, KING OF POLAND, 1735, or at a distance of

fifteen years from this Interview at Neustadt, Prince de Ligne, who was present there, has left us some record

or loose lively reminiscence of it; [Prince de Ligne, Memoires et Melanges Historiques (Par. 1827), i.

321.]sputtering, effervescing, epigrammatic creature, had he confined himself to a faithful description,

and burnt off for us, not like a pretty firework, but like an innocent candle, or thing for seeing by! But we

must take what we have, and endeavor to be thankful. By great luck, the one topic he insists on is Friedrich

and his aspect and behavior on the occasion: which is what, of all else in it, we are most concerned with.

"You have ordered me, Sire [this was written for him in 1785], to speak to you of one of the greatest men of

this Age. You admire him, though his neighborhood has done you mischief enough; and, placing yourself at

the impartial distance of History, feel a noble curiosity on all that belongs to this extraordinary genius. I will,

therefore, give you an exact account of the smallest words that I myself heard the great Friedrich speak. ...

The I (LE JE) is odious to me; but nothing is indifferent when"Well, your account, then, your account,

"By a singular chance, in 1770 [3d7th September, if you would but date], the Kaiser was [for the second

time] enabled to deliver himself to the personal admiration which he had conceived for the King of Prussia;

and these Two great Sovereigns were so well together, that they could pay visits. The Kaiser permitted me to

accompany; and introduced me to the King: it was at Neustadt in Moravia [MAHRISCHNEUSTADT, short

way from AUSTERLITZ, which is since become a celebrated place]. I can't recollect if I had, or had

assumed, an air of embarrassment; but what I do well remember is, that the Kaiser, who noticed my look, said

to the King, 'He has a timid expression, which I never observed in him before; he will recover presently.' This

he said in a graceful merry way; and the two went out, to go, I believe, to the Play. On the way thither, the

King for an instant quitting his Imperial Friend, asked me if my LETTER TO JEAN JACQUES [now an

entirely forgotten Piece], which had been printed in the Papers, was really by me? I answered, 'Sire, I am not

famous enough to have my name forged' [as a certain Other name has been, on this same unproductive topic].

He felt what I meant. It is known that Horace Walpole took the King's name to write his famous LETTRE A

JEAN JACQUES [impossible to attend to the like of it at present], which contributed the most to drive mad

"Coming out of the Play, the Kaiser said to the King of Prussia: 'There is Noverre, the famous Composer of

Ballets; he has been in Berlin, I believe.' Noverre made thereupon a beautiful dancing master bow. 'Ah, I

know him,' said the King: 'we saw him at Berlin; he was very droll; mimicked all the world, especially our

chief Dancing Women, to make you split with laughing.' Noverre, ill content with this way of remembering

him, made another beautiful thirdposition bow; and hoped possibly the King would say something farther,

and offer him the opportunity of a small revenge. 'Your Ballets are beautiful,' said the King to him; 'your

Dancing Girls have grace; but it is grace in a squattish form (DE LA GRACE ENGONCEE). I think you

make them raise their shoulders and their arms too much. For, Monsieur Noverre, if you remember, our

principal Dancing Girl at Berlin wasn't so.' 'That is why she was at Berlin, Sire,' replied Noverre [satirically,

"I was every day asked to sup with the King; too often the conversation addressed itself to me. In spite of my

attachment to the Kaiser, whose General I like to be, but not whose D'Argens or Algarotti, I had not beyond

reason abandoned myself to that feeling. When urged by the King's often speaking to me, I had to answer,

and go on talking. Besides, the Kaiser took a main share in the conversation; and was perhaps more at his

ease with the King than the King with him. One day, they got talking of what one would wish to be in this

world; and they asked my opinion. I said, I should like to be 'a Pretty Woman till thirty; then, till sixty, a

fortunate and skilful General;'and not knowing what more to say, but for the sake of adding something,

whatever it might be, 'a Cardinal till eighty.' The King, who likes to banter the Sacred College, made himself

merry on this; and the Kaiser gave him a cheap bargain of Rome and its upholders (SUPPOTS). That supper

was one of the gayest and pleasantest I have ever seen. The Two Sovereigns were without pretension and

without reserve; what did not always happen on other days; and the amiability of two men so superior, and

often so astonished to see themselves together, was the agreeablest thing you can imagine. The King bade me

come and see him the first time he and I should have three or four hours to ourselves.

"A storm such as there never was, a deluge compared with which that of Deucalion was a summer shower,

covered our Hills with water [cannot say WHICH day of the four], and almost drowned our Army while

attempting to manoeuvre. The morrow was a restday for that reason. At nine in the morning, I went to the

King, and stayed till one. He spoke to me of our Generals; I let him say, of his own accord, the things I think

of Marshals Lacy and Loudon; and I hinted that, as to the others, it was better to speak of the dead than of the

living; and that one never can well judge of a General who has not in his lifetime actually played high parts in

War. He spoke to me of Feldmarschall Daun: I said, 'that against the French I believed he might have proved

a great man; but that against him [you], he had never quite been all he was; seeing always his opponent as a

Jupiter, thunderbolt in hand, ready to pulverize his Army.' That appeared to give the King pleasure: he

signified to me a feeling of esteem for Daun; he spoke favorably of General Brentano [one of the Maxen

gentlemen]. I asked his reason for the praises I knew he had given to General Beck. 'Why (MAIS), I thought

him a man of merit,' said the King. 'I do not think so, Sire; he didn't do you much mischief.' 'He sometimes

took Magazines from me.' 'And sometimes let your Generals escape.' (Bevern at REICHENBACH, for

instance, do you reckon that his blame?)'I have never beaten him,' said the King. 'He never came near

enough for that: and I always thought your Majesty was only appearing to respect him, in order that we might

have more confidence in him, and that you might give him the better slap some day, with interest for all

KING. "'Do you know who taught me the little I know? It was your old Marshal Traun: that was a man, that

EGO. "'They are capable of everything in time of war, Sire: but in Peace,their chiefs want them to be what

KING. "'How, then; disciplined? They were so in the time of M. de Turenne.' EGO. "'Oh, it isn't that. They

were not so in the time of M. de Vendome, and they went on gaining battles. But it is now wished that they

KING. "'Perhaps so: I have said of their busy people (FAISEURS,' St. Germains and ArmyReformers), 'that

EGO. "'Oh, that is true! But leave them their natural notes; profit by their bravery, their alertness

(LEGERETE), by their very faults,I believe their confusion might confuse their enemies sometimes.'

KING. "''T is a brave and amiable nation, the French; one can't help loving them:but, MON DIEU, what

have they made of their Men of Letters; and what a tone has now come up among them! Voltaire, for

example, had an excellent tone. D'Alembert, whom I esteem in many respects, is too noisy, and insists too

much on producing effect in society:was it the Men of Letters that gave the Court of Louis XIV. its grace,

or did they themselves acquire it from the many amiable persons they found there? He was the Patriarch of

Kings, that one [in a certain sense, your Majesty!]. In his lifetime a little too much good was said of him; but

EGO. "'A King of France, Sire, is always the Patriarch of Clever People (PATRIARCHE DES GENS

D'ESPRIT:' You do not much mean this, Monsieur? You merely grin it from the teeth outward?)

KING. "'That is the bad Number to draw: they are n't worth a doit (NE VALENT PAS LE DIABLE, these

GENS D'ESPRIT) at Governing. Better be Patriarch of the Greek Church, like my sister the Empress of

Russia! That brings her, and will bring, advantages. There's a religion for you; comprehending many

Countries and different Nations! As to our poor Lutherans, they are so few, it is not worth while being their

EGO. "'Nevertheless, Sire, if one join to them the Calvinists, and all the little bastard Sects, it would not be so

bad a post. [The King appeared to kindle at this; his eyes were full of animation. But it did not last when I

said:] If the Kaiser were Patriarch of the Catholics, that too wouldn't be a bad place.'

KING. "'There, there: Europe divided into Three Patriarchates. I was wrong to begin; you see where that

leads us: Messieurs, our dreams are not those of the just, as M. le Regent used to say. If Louis XIV. were

"All these patriarchal ideas, possible and impossible to realize, made him, for an instant, look thoughtful,

KING. "'Louis XIV., possessing more judgment than cleverness (ESPRIT), looked out more for the former

quality than for the latter. It was men of genius that he wanted, and found. It could not be said that Corneille,

Bossuet, Racine and Conde were people of the clever sort (DES HOMMES D'ESPRIT).'

EGO. "'On the whole, there is that in the Country which really deserves to be happy, It is asserted that your

EGO. "'If Francis I. and Henri IV. had come into the world after your Majesty, they would have said, "be

"This made me laugh; the King asked the reason. I told him, He reminded me of the RUSSE A PARIS, that

charming little piece of verse of M. de Voltaire's; and we remembered charming things out of it, which made

KING. "'I have sometimes heard the Prince de Conti spoken of: what sort of man is he?'

EGO. "'He is a man composed of twenty or thirty men. He is proud, he is affable,'"he is fiddle, he is diddle

(in the seesaw epigrammatic way, for a page or more); and is not worth pen and ink from us, since the time

old Marshal Traun got us rid of him,home across the Rhine, full speed, with Croats sticking on his skirts.

"This portrait seemed to amuse the King. One had to captivate him by some piquant detail; without that, he

would escape you, give you no time to speak. The success generally began by the first words, no matter how

vague, of any conversation; these he found means to make interesting; and what, generally, is mere talk about

the weather became at once sublime; and one never heard anything vulgar from him. He ennobled everything;

and the examples of Greeks and Romans, or of modern Generals, soon dissipated everything of what, with

"'Have you ever,' said he, 'seen such a rain as yesterday's? Your orthodox Catholics will say, "That comes of

having a man without religion among us: what are we to do with this cursed (MAUDIT) King; a Protestant at

lowest?" for I really think I brought you bad luck. Your soldiers would be saying, "Peace we have; and still is

EGO. "'Certainly, if your Majesty was the cause, it is very bad. Such a thing is only permitted to Jupiter, who

has always good reasons for everything; and it would have been in his fashion, after destroying the one set by

fire, to set about destroying the others by water. However, the fire is at an end; and I did not expect to revert

KING. "'I ask your pardon for having plagued you so often with that; I regret it for the sake of all mankind.

But what a fine Apprenticeship of War! I have committed errors enough to teach you young people, all of

you, to do better. MON DIEU, how I love your grenadiers! How well they defiled in my presence! If the god

Mars were raising a bodyguard for himself, I should advise him to take them hand over head. Do you know

I was well pleased (BIEN CONTENT) with the Kaiser last night at supper? Did you hear what he said to me

about Liberty of the Press, and the Troubling of Consciences (LA GENE DES CONSCIENCES)? There will

EGO. "'I am persuaded, he will entertain no prejudices on anything; and that your Majesty will be a great

KING. "'How adroitly he disapproved, without appearing to mean anything, the ridiculous Vienna

Censorship; and the too great fondness of his Mother (without naming her) for certain things which only

EGO. "'Well, then, not at all. She has sometimes lectured me about my strayings, but very maternally: she is

sorry for me, and quite sure that I shall return to the right path. She said to me, some time ago, "I don't know

how you do, you are the intimate friend of Father Griffet; the Bishop of Neustadt has always spoken well of

you; likewise the Archbishop of Malines; and the Cardinal [name Sinzendorf, or else not known to me,

"Why cannot I remember the hundred luminous things which escaped the King in this conversation! It lasted

till the trumpet at Head quarters announced dinner. The King went to take his place; and I think it was on

this occasion that, some one having asked why M. de Loudon had not come yet, he said, 'That is not his

custom: formerly he often arrived before me. Please let him take this place next me; I would rather have him

That is very pretty. And a better authority gives it, The King said to Loudon himself, on Loudon's entering,

"Mettezvous aupres de moi, M. de Loudon; j'aime mieux vous avoir a cote de moi que visavis." He was

very kind to Loudon; "constantly called him M. LE FELDMARECHAL [delicate hint of what should have

been, but WAS not for seven years yet]; and, at parting, gave him [as he did to Lacy also] two superb horses,

"Another day," continues Prince de Ligne, "the Manoeuvres being over in good time, there was a Concert at

the Kaiser's. Notwithstanding the King's taste for music, he was pleased to give me the preference; and came

where I was, to enchant me with the magic of his conversation, and the brilliant traits, gay and bold, which

characterize him. He asked me to name the general and particular Officers who were present, and to tell him

those who had served under Marshal Traun: 'For, ENFIN,' he said, 'as I think I have told you already, he is

EGO. "'Your Majesty was very ungrateful, then; you never paid him his lessons. If it was as your Majesty

says, you should at least have allowed him to beat you; and I do not remember that you ever did.'

EGO. "'It is in this manner that the greatest Generals have often conducted their wars against each other. One

has only to look at the two Campaigns of M. de Montecuculi and M. de Turenne, in the Valley of the Rench

[Strasburg Country, 1674 and 1675, two celebrated Campaigns, Turenne killed by a cannonshot in the last].

KING. "'Between Traun and the former there is not much difference; but what a difference, BON DIEU,

"I named to him the Count d'Althan, who had been AdjutantGeneral, and the Count de Pellegrini. He asked

me twice which was which, from the distance we were at; and said, He was so shortsighted, I must excuse

EGO. "'Nevertheless, Sire, in the war your sight was good enough; and, if I remember right, it reached very

EGO. "'Ha, I should have liked to find that glass;but, I fear it would have suited my eyes as little as

"I forget how the conversation changed; but I know it grew so free that, seeing somebody coming to join in it,

the King warned him to take care; that it was n't safe to converse with a man doomed by the theologians to

Everlasting Fire. I felt as if he somewhat overdid this of his 'being doomed,' and that he boasted too much of

it. Not to hint at the dishonesty of these freethinking gentlemen (MESSIEURS LES ESPRITS FORTS),

who very often are thoroughly afraid of the Devil, it is, at least, bad taste to make display of such things: and

it was with the people of bad taste whom he has had about him, such as a Jordan, a D'Argens, Maupertuis, La

Beaumelle, La Mettrie, Abbe de Prades, and some dull sceptics of his own Academy, that he had acquired the

habit of mocking at Religion; and of talking (DE PARLER) Dogma, Spinoism, Court of Rome and the like.

In the end, I did n't always answer when he touched upon it. I now seized a moment's interval, while he was

using his handkerchief, to speak to him about some business, in connection with the Circle of Westphalia,

and a little COMTE IMMEDIAT [County holding direct, of the Reich] which I have there. The King

answered me: 'I, for my part, will do anything you wish; but what thinks the other Director, my comrade, the

EGO. "'That is not to OUR account's advantage! Those good people of mine believe your Majesty to be their

"He continued asking me the names of persons he saw. I was telling him those of a number of young Princes

who had lately entered the Service, and some of whom gave hopes. 'That may be,' said he; 'but I think the

breed of the governing races ought to be crossed. I like the children of love: look at the Marechal de Saxe,

and my own Anhalt [severe Adjutant von Anhalt, a bastard of Prinz Gustav, the Old Dessauer's

HeirApparent, who begot a good many bastards, but died before inheriting: bastards were brought up, all of

them to soldiering, by their Uncles,this one by Uncle Moritz; was thrown from his horse eight years

HENCE, to the great joy of many]; though I am afraid that SINCE [mark this SINCE, alas!] his fall on his

head, that latter is not so good as formerly. I should be grieved at it, [Not for eight years yet, MON PRINCE,

I am sorry to say! Adjutant von Anhalt did, in reality, get this fall, and damaging hurt on the head, in the

"Bavarian War" (nicknamed KARTOFFELKRIEG, "PotatoWar"), 17781779. Militair Lexikon, i. 69:

see Preuss, ii. 356, iv. 578; both for his sake and for mine; he is a man full of talents.'

"I am glad to remember this; for I have heard it said by silly slanderous people (SOTS DENIGRANTS), who

accuse the King of Prussia of insensibility, that he was not touched by the accident which happened to the

man he seemed to love most. Too happy if one had only said that of him! He was supposed to be jealous of

the merit of Schwerin and of Keith, and delighted to have got them killed. It is thus that mediocre people seek

to lower great men, to diminish the immense space that lies between themselves and such.

"Out of politeness, the King, and his Suite as well, had put on white [Austrian] Uniforms, not to bring back

on us that blue which we had so often seen in war. He looked as though he belonged to our Army and to the

Kaiser's suite. There was, in this Visit, I believe, on both sides, a little personality, some distrust, and perhaps

a beginning of bitterness;as always happens, says Philippe de Comines, when Sovereigns meet. The King

took Spanish snuff, and brushing it off with his hand from his coat as well as he could, he said, 'I am not

clean enough for you, Messieurs; I am not worthy to wear your colors.' The air with which he said this, made

"I forgot a little Incident which gave me an opportunity of setting off (FAIRE VALOIR) the two Monarchs to

each other [Incident about the King's high opinion of the Kaiser's drillsergeantry in this day's manoeuvres,

and how I was the happy cause of the Kaiser's hearing it himself: Incident omissible; as the whole Sequel is,

... "On this Neustadt occasion, the King was sometimes too ceremonious; which annoyed the Kaiser. For

instance,I know not whether meaning to show himself a disciplined Elector of the Reich, but so it

was,whenever the Kaiser put his foot in stirrup, the King was sure to take his Majesty's horse by the bridle,

stand respectfully waiting the Kaiser's right foot, and fit it into ITS stirrup: and so with everything else. The

Kaiser had the more sincere appearance, in testifying his great respect; like that of a young Prince to an aged

"Sometimes there were appearances of cordiality between the two Sovereigns. One saw that Friedrich II.

loved Joseph II., but that the preponderance of the Empire, and the contact of Bohemia and Silesia, a good

deal barred the sentiments of King and Kaiser. You remember, Sire [ExSire of Poland], their LETTERS

[readers shall see them, in 1778,or rather REFUSE to see them!'] on the subject of Bavaria; their

compliments, the explanations they had with regard to their intentions; all carried on with such politeness;

Well, here is legible record, with something really of portraiture in it, valuable so far as it goes; record unique

on this subject; and substantially true, though inexact enough in details. Thus, even in regard to that of

Anhalt's HEAD, which is so impossible in this First Dialogue, Friedrich did most probably say something of

the kind, in a Second which there is, of date 1780; of which latter De Ligne is here giving account as

At this Neustadt Interview there did something of Political occur; and readers ought to be shown exactly

what. Kaunitz had come with the Kaiser; and this something was intended as the real business among the

gayeties and galas at Neustadt. Poland, or its Farce Tragedy now playing, was not once mentioned that I

hear of; though perhaps, as FLEBILE LUDIBRIUM, it might turn up for moments in dinnerconversation or

the like: but the astonishing Russian Turk War, which has sprung out of Poland, and has already filled

Stamboul and its Divans and Muftis with mere horror and amazement; and, in fact, has brought the Grand

Turk to the giddy rim of the Abyss; nothing but ruin and destruction visible to him: this, beyond all other

things whatever, is occupying these high heads at present;and indeed the two latest bits of RussianTurk

news have been of such a blazing character as to occupy all the world more or less. Readers, some glances

"OCTOBER 6th, 1768, Turks declare War; Russian Ambassador thrown into the Seven Towers as a

preliminary, where he sat till Peace came to be needed. MARCH 23d, 1769, Display their Banner of

Mahomet, all in paroxysm of Fanaticism risen to the burning point: 'Under pain of death, No Giaour of you

appear on the streets, nor even look out, of window, this day!' Austrian Ambassador's Wife, a beautiful

gossamer creature, venturing to transgress on that point, was torn from her carriage by the Populace, and with

difficulty saved from destruction: Brother of the Sun and Moon, apologizing afterwards down to the very

FIRST CAMPAIGN; 1769. "APRIL 26th30th, Galitzin VERSUS Choczim; can't, having no provender or

powder. Falls back over Dniester again,overhears that extraordinary DREAM, as above recited,

betokening great rumor in Russian Society against such Purblind CommandersinChief. Purblind VERSUS

"JULY 2d, Galitzin slowly gets on the advance again: 150,000 Turks, still slower, are at last across the Donau

(sharp enough French Officers among them, agents of Choiseul; but a mass incurably chaotic);furiously

intending towards Poland and extermination of the Giaour. Do not reach Dniester River till September, and

look across on Poland,for the first time, and also for the last, in this War. SEPTEMBER 17th: Weather has

been rainy; Dniester, were Galitzin nothing, is very difficult for Turks; who try in two places, but cannot.

[Hermann, v. 611613.] In a third place (name not given, perhaps has no name), about 12,000 of them are

across; when Dniester, raging into flood, carries away their one Bridge, and leaves the 12,000 isolated there.

Purblind Galitzin, on express order, does attack these 12,000 (night of September 17th18th): 'Hurrah' of

the devouring Russians about midnight, hoarse shriek of the doomed 12,000, wail of their brethren on the

southern shore, who cannot, help:night of horrors 'from midnight till 2 A.M.;' and the 12,000 massacred or

captive, every man of them; Russian loss 600 killed and wounded. Whereupon the Turk Army bursts into

unanimous insanity; and flows home in deliquium of ruin. Choczim is got on the terms already mentioned (15

sick men and women lying in it, and 184 bronze cannon, when we boat across); Turk Army can by no effort

be brought to halt anywhere; flows across the Donau, disappears into Chaos:and the whole of Moldavia is

conquered in this cheap manner. What, perhaps is still better, Galitzin (28th September) is thrown out;

Romanzow, hitherto Commander of a second smaller Army, kind of covering wing to Galitzin, is Chief for

"In the Humber, this Winter, to the surprise of incredulous mankind, a Russian Fleet drops anchor for a few

days: actual Russian Fleet intending for the Greek waters, for Montenegro and intermediate errands, to

conclude with 'Liberation of Greece next Spring,'so grandiose is this Czarina." [Hermann, v. 617.]

SECOND CAMPAIGN; 1770. "This is the flower of AntiTurk Campaigns, victorious, to a blazing pitch,

both by land and sea. Romanzow, master of Moldavia, goes upon Wallachia, and the new or rehabilitated

Turk Army; and has an almost gratis bargain of both. Romanzow has some good Officers under him

('Brigadier Stoffeln,' much more 'General Tottlenen,' 'General Bauer,' once Colonel Bauer of the Wesel

FreeCorps,many of the Superior Officers seem to be German, others have Swedish or Danish

names);better Officers; and knows better how to use them than Galitzin did. August 1st, Romanzow has a

Battle, called of Kaghul, in Pruth Country. That is his one 'Battle' this Summer; and brings him Ismail,

Akkerman, all Wallachey, and no Turks left in those parts. But first let us attend to seamatters, and the

"'Liberation of Greece:' an actual Fleet, steering from Cronstadt to the Dardanelles to liberate Greece! The

sound of it kindles all the warm heads in Europe; especially Voltaire's, which, though covered with the snow

of age, is still warm internally on such points. As to liberating Greece, Voltaire's hopes were utterly balked;

but the Fleet from Cronstadt did amazing service otherwise in those waters. FEBRUARY 28th, 1770, first

squadron of the Russian Fleet anchors at Passawa,not far from Calamata, in the Gulf of Coron, on the

antique Peloponnesian coast; Sparta on your right hand, Arcadia on your left, and so many excellent Ghosts

of Heroes looking on:Russian squadron has four big ships, three frigates, more soon to follow: on board

there are arms and munitions of war; but unhappily only 500 soldiers. Admiralin Chief (not yet come up)

is Alexei Orlof, a brother of Lover Gregory's, an extremely worthless seaman and man. Has under him 'many

Danes, a good few English too,'especially Three English Officers, whom we shall hear of, when Alexei

and they come up. Meanwhile, on the Peloponnesian coast are modern Spartans, to the number of 15,000, all

sitting ready, expecting the Russian advent: these rose duly; got Russian muskets, cartridges,only two

Russian Officers:and attacked the Turks with considerable fury or voracity, but with no success of the least

solidity. Were foiled here, driven out there; in fine, were utterly beaten, Russians and they: lost Tripolizza, by

surprise; whereupon (April 19th) the Russians withdrew to their Fleet; and the Affair of Greece was at an

end. [Hermann, v. 621.] It had lasted (28th February19th April) seven weeks and a day. The Russians

retired to their Fleet, with little loss; and rode at their ease again, in Navarino Bay. But the 15,000 modern

Spartans had nothing to retire to,these had to retire into extinction, expulsion and the throat of Moslem

"Greece having failed, the Russian Fleet, now in complete tale, made for Turkey, for Constantinople itself.

'Into the very Dardanelles' they say they will go; an Englishman among them Captain Elphinstone, a

dashing seaman, if perhaps rather noisy, whom Rulhiere is not blind tohas been heard to declare, at least in

his cups: 'Dardanelles impossible? Pshaw, I will do it, as easily as drink this glass of wine!' Alexei Orlof is a

"In the Turkish Fleet, it seems, there is an ExAlgerine, Hassan Bey, of some capacity in seamatters; but he

is not in chief command, only in second; and can accomplish nothing. The Turkish Fleet, numerous but

rotten, retires daily,through the famed Cyclades, and Isles of Greece, Paros, Naxos, apocalyptic Patmos, on

to Scio (old Chios of the wines); and on July 5th takes refuge behind Scio, between Scio and the Coast of

Smyrna, in Tchesme Bay. 'Safe here!' thinks the chief Turk Admiral. 'Very far from safe!' remonstrates

Hassan; though to no purpose. And privately puts the question to himself, 'Have these Giaours a real Admiral

TCHESME BAY, 7th JULY, 1770. "Nothing can be more imaginary than Alexei Orlof as an Admiral: but he

has a Captain Elphinstone, a Captain Gregg, a Lieutenant Dugdale; and these determine to burn poor Hassan

and his whole Fleet in Tchesme here:and do it totally, night of July 7th; with one single fireship; Dugdale

steering it; Gregg behind him, to support with broadsides; Elphinstone ruling and contriving, still farther to

rear; helpless Turk Fleet able to make no debate whatever. Such a blaze of conflagration on the helpless

Turks as shone over all the world one of Rulhiere's finest fireworks, with little shot;the light of which

was still dazzling mankind while the Interview at Neustadt took place. Turk Fleet, fifteen ships, nine frigates

and above 8,000 men, gone to gases and to black cinders,Hassan hardly escaping with I forget how many

"'Now for the Dardanelles,' said Elphinstone: (bombard Constantinople, starve it,to death, or to what terms

you will!' 'Cannot be done; too dangerous; impossible!' answered the sham Admiral, quite in a tremor, they

say;which at length filled the measure of Elphinstone's disgusts with such a Fleet and Admiral. Indignant

Elphinstone withdrew to his own ship, 'Adieu, Sham Admiral!'sailed with his own ship, through the

impossible Dardanelles (Turk batteries firing one huge block of granite at him, which missed; then needing

about forty minutes to load again); feat as easy to Elphinstone as this glass of wine. In sight of

Constantinople, Elphinstone, furthermore, called for his tea; took his tea on deck, under flourishing of all his

drums and all his trumpets: tea done, sailed out again scathless; instantly threw up his command,and at

Petersburg, soon after, in taking leave of the Czarina, signified to her, in language perhaps too plain, or

perhaps only too painfully true, some Naval facts which were not welcome in that high quarter." [Rulhiere,

iii. 476509.] This remarkable Elphinstone I take to be some junior or irregular Balmerino scion; but could

never much hear of him except in RULHIERE, where, on vague, somewhat theatrical terms, he figures as

"AUGUST 1st, Romanzow has a 'Battle of Kaghul,' so they call it; though it is a 'Slaughtery' or

SCHLACHTEREI, rather than a 'Slaught' or SCHLACHT, say my German friends. Kaghul is not a specific

place, but a longish river, a branch of the Pruth; under screen of which the Grand Turk Army, 100,000 strong,

with 100,000 Tartars as second line, has finally taken position, and fortified itself with earthworks and

abundant cannon. AUGUST 1st, 1770, Romanzow, after study and advising, feels prepared for this Grand

Army and its earthworks: with a select 20,000, under select captains, Romanzow, after nightfall, bursts in

upon it, simultaneously on three different points; and gains, gratis or nearly so, such a victory as was never

heard of before. The Turks, on their earthworks, had 140 cannons; these the Turk gunners fired off two times,

and fled, leaving them for Romanzow's uses. The Turk cavalry then tried if they could not make some

attempt at charging; found they could not; whirled back upon their infantry; set it also whirling: and in a

word, the whole 200,000 whirled, without blow struck; and it was a universal panic rout, and delirious

stampede of flight, which never paused (the very garrisons emptying themselves, and joining in it) till it got

across the Donau again, and drew breath there, not to rally or stand, but to run rather slower. And had left

Wallachia, Bessarabia, Dniester river, Donau river, swept clear of Turks; all Romanzow's henceforth. To

such astonishment of an invincible Grand Turk, and of his Moslem Populations, fallen on such a set of

Giaours ["ALLAH KERIM, And cannot we abolish them, then?" Not we THEM, it would appear!],as

every reader can imagine." Which shall suffice every reader here in regard to the Turk War, and what concern

Tchesme fell out July 7th; Elphinstone has hardly done his tea in the Dardanelles, when (August 1st) this of

Kaghul follows: both would be fresh news blazing in every head while the Dialogues between Friedrich and

Kaunitz were going on. For they "had many dialogues," Friedrich says; "and one of the days" (probably

September 6th) was mainly devoted to Politics, to deep private Colloquy with Kaunitz. Of which, and of the

great things that followed out of it, I will now give, from Friedrich's own hand, the one entirely credible

Friedrich's account of Kaunitz himself is altogether lifelike: a solemn, arrogant, mouthing, browbeating kind

of man,embarrassed at present by the necessity not to browbeat, and by the consciousness that "King

Friedrich is the only man who refuses to acknowledge my claims to distinction:" [Rulhiere (somewhere) has

heard this, as an utterance of Kaunitz's in some plaintive moment.] a Kaunitz whose arrogances, qualities

and claims this King is not here to notice, except as they concern business on hand. He says, "Kaunitz had a

clear intellect, greatly twisted by perversities of temper (UN SENS DROIT, L'ESPRIT REMPLI DE

TRAVERS), especially by a selfconceit and arrogance which were boundless. He did not talk, but preach.

At the smallest interruption, he would stop short in indignant surprise: it has happened that, at the

CouncilBoard in Schonbrunn, when Imperial Majesty herself asked some explanation of a word or thing not

understood by her, Kaunitz made his bow (LUI TIRA SA REVERENCE), and quitted the room." Good to

know the nature of the beast. Listen to him, then, on those terms, since it is necessary. The Kaunitz Sermon

was of great length, imbedded in circumlocutions, innuendoes and diplomatic cautions; but the gist of it we

KAUNITZ. "Dangerous to the repose of Europe, those Russian encroachments on the Turk. Never will

Imperial Majesty consent that Russia possess Moldavia or Wallachia; War sooner,all things sooner! These

views of Russia are infinitely dangerous to everybody. To your Majesty as well, if I may say so; and no

remedy conceivable against them,to me none conceivable,but this only, That Prussia and Austria join

FRIEDRICH. "I have nothing more at heart than to stand well with Austria; and always to be her ally, never

her enemy. But your Highness sees how I am situated: bound by express Treaty with Czarish Majesty; must

go with Russia in any War! What can I do? I can, and will with all industry, labor to conciliate Czarish

Majesty and Imperial; to produce at Petersburg such a Peace with the Turks as may meet the wishes of

Vienna. Let us hope it can be done. By faithful endeavoring, on my part and on yours, I persuade myself it

can. Meanwhile, steadfastly together, we two! All our little rubs, customhouse squabbles on the Frontier,

and such like, why not settle them here, and now? [and does so with his Highness.] That there be nothing but

amity, helpfulness and mutual effort towards an object so momentous to us both, and to all mankind!"

KAUNITZ. "Good so far. And may a not intolerable TurkRussian Peace prove possible, without our

fighting for it! Meanwhile, Imperial Majesty [as she has been visibly doing for some time] must continue

massing troops and requisites on the Hungarian Frontier, lest the contrary happen!"

This was the result arrived at. Of which Friedrich "judged it but polite to inform the young Kaiser; who

appeared to be grateful for this mark of attention, being much held down by Kaunitz in his present state of

And by a singular chance, on the very morrow there arrived from the Divan (dated August 12th) an Express

to Friedrich: "Mediate a Peace for us with Russia; not you alone, as we have often asked, but Austria AND

you!" For the Kaghul Slaughtery has come on us; Giaour Elphinstone has taken tea in the Dardanelles; and

we know not to what hand to turn!"The young Kaiser did not hide his joy at this Overture, as Kaunitz did

his, which was perhaps still greater:" the Kaiser warmly expressed his thanks to Friedrich as the Author of it;

Kaunitz, with a lofty indifference (MORGUE), and nose in air as over a small matter, "merely signified his

"Never was mediation undertaken with greater pleasure," adds the King. And both did proceed upon it with

all zeal; but only the King as real "mediator," or MIDDLEman; Kaunitz from the first planting himself

immovably upon the Turk side of things, which is likewise the Austrian; and playing in secret (as Friedrich

So that Friedrich had to take the burden of mediating altogether on himself; and month after month, year after

year, it is evident he prosecutes the same with all the industry and faculty that are in him,in intense desire,

and in hope often nearly desperate, to keep his two neighbors' houses, and his own and the whole world along

with them, from taking fire. Apart from their conflicting interests, the two Empresses have privately a rooted

aversion to one another. What with Russian exorbitancy (a Czarina naturally uplifted with her Tchesmes and

Kaghuls); what with Austrian cupidity, pride, mulishness, and private trickery of Kaunitz; the adroit and

heartily zealous Friedrich never had such a bit of diplomacy to do. For many months hence, in spite of his

intensest efforts and cunningest appliances, no way of egress visible: "The imbroglio MUST catch fire!" At

last a way opens, "Ha, at last a way!"then, for above a twelvemonth longer, such a guiding of the purblind

quadrupeds and obstinate Austrian mules into said way: and for years more such an urging of them, in

And here, without knowing it, we have insensibly got to the topmost summit of our Polish Business; one

small step more, and we shall be on the brow of the precipitous inclinedplane, down which Poland and its

business go careering thenceforth, down, down,and will need but few words more from us. Actual

First, however, we will notice, as prefatory, a curious occurrence in the Country of Zips, contiguous to the

Hungarian Frontier. Zips, a pretty enough District, of no great extent, had from time immemorial belonged to

Hungary; till, above 300 years ago, it was by Sigismund SUPER GRAMMATICAM, a man always in

want of money (whom we last saw, in flaming color, investing Friedrich's Ancestor with Brandenburg instead

of payment for a debt of money)pledged to the Crown of Poland for a round sum to help in Sigismund's

pressing occasions. Redemption by payment never followed; attempt at redemption there had never been, by

Sigismund or any of his successors. Nay, one successor, in a Treaty still extant, [Preuss, iv. 32 (date 1589;

pawning had beep 1412).] expressly gave up the right of redeeming: Pledge forfeited: a Zips belonging to

Well; Imperial Majesty, as we have transiently seen, is assembling troops on the Hungarian Frontier, for a

special purpose. Poor Poland is, by this time (1770), as we also saw, sunk in Pestilence,pigs and dogs

devouring the dead bodies: not a loaf to be had for a hundred ducats, and the rage of Pestilence itself a mild

thing to that of Hunger, not to mention other rages. So that both Austria and Prussia, in order to keep out

Pestilence at least, if they cannot the other rages, have had to draw CORDONS, or lines of troops along the

Frontiers. "The Prussian cordon," I am informed, "goes from Crossen, by Frankfurt northward, to the

Weichsel River and border of Warsaw Country:" and "is under the command of General Belling," our famous

AntiSwede Hussar of former years. The Austrian cordon looks over upon Zips and other Starosties, on the

Hungarian Border: where, independently of Pestilence, an alarmed and indignant EmpressQueen has been

and is assembling masses of troops, with what object we know. Looking over into Zips in these

circumstances, indignant Kaunitz and Imperial Majesty, especially HIS Imperial Majesty, a youth always

passionate for territory, say to themselves, "Zips was ours, and in a sense is!"and (precise date refused us,

but after Neustadt, and before Winter has quite come) push troops across into Zips Starosty: seize the whole

Thirteen Townships of Zips, and not only these, but by degrees tract after tract of the adjacencies: "Must have

a Frontier to our mind in those parts: indefensible otherwise!" And quietly set up boundarypillars, with the

Austrian doubleeagle stamped on them, and intimation to Zips and neighborhood, That it is now become

Austrian, and shall have no part farther in these Polish Confederatings, Pestilences, rages of men, and pigs

devouring dead bodies, but shall live quiet under the doubleeagle as others do. Which to Zips, for the

moment, might be a blessed change, welcome or otherwise; but which awoke considerable amazement in the

outer world,very considerable in King Stanislaus (to whom, on applying, Kaunitz would give no

explanation the least articulate);and awoke, in the Russian Court especially, a rather intense surprise and

PRINCE HENRI HAS BEEN TO SWEDEN; IS SEEN AT PETERSBURG IN MASQUERADE (on or about

Prince Henri, as we noticed, was not of this Second KingandKaiser Interview; Henri had gone in the

opposite direction,to Sweden, on a visit to his Sister Ulrique,off for West and North, just in the same

days while the King was leaving Potsdam for Silesia and his other errand in the Southeast parts. Henri got to

Drottingholm, his Sister's country Palace near Stockholm, by the "end of August;" and was there with Queen

Ulrique and Husband during these Neustadt manoeuvres. A changed Queen Ulrique, since he last saw her

"beautiful as Love," whirling off in the dead of night for those remote Countries and destinies. [Supra, viii.

309.] She is now fifty, or on the edge of it, her old man sixty,old man dies within few months. They have

had many chagrins, especially she, as the prouder, has had, from their contumacious People,contumacious

Senators at least (strong always both in POCKETMONEY French or Russian, and in tendency to insolence

and folly),who once, I remember, demanded sight and count of the CrownJewels from Queen Ulrique:

"There, VOILA, there are they!" said the proud Queen; "view them, count them,lock them up: never more

will I wear one of them!" But she has pretty Sons grown to manhood, one pretty Daughter, a patient good old

Husband; and Time, in Sweden too, brings its roses; and life is life, in spite of contumacious bribed Senators

and doggeries that do rather abound. Henri stayed with her six or seven weeks; leaves Sweden, middle of

October, 1770,not by the straight course homewards: "No, verily, and well knew why!" shrieks the

It is not true that Friedrich had schemed to send Henri round by Petersburg. On the contrary, it was the

Czarina, on ground of old acquaintanceship, who invited him, and asked his Brother's leave to do it. And if

Poland got its fate from the circumstance, it was by accident, and by the fact that Poland's fate was dropripe,

ready to fall by a touch.Before going farther, here is ocular view of the shrillminded, serious and

PRINCE HENRI IN WHITE DOMINO. "Prince Henri of Prussia," says Richardson, the useful Eyewitness

cited already, "is one of the most celebrated Generals of the present age. So great are his military talents, that

his Brother, who is not apt to pay compliments, says of him,That, in commanding an army, he was never

known to commit a fault. This, however, is but a negative kind of praise. He [the King] reserves to himself

the glory of superior genius, which, though capable of brilliant achievements, is yet liable to unwary

"To judge of Prince Henri by his appearance, I should form no high estimate of his abilities. But the Scythian

Ambassadors judged in the same manner of Alexander the Great. He is under the middle size; very thin; he

walks firmly enough, or rather struts, as if he wanted to walk firmly; and has little dignity in his air or

gesture. He is darkcomplexioned; and he wears his hair, which is remarkably thick, clubbed, and dressed

with a high toupee. His forehead is high; his eyes large and blue, with a little squint; and when he smiles, his

upper lip is drawn up a little in the middle. His look expresses sagacity and observation, but nothing very

amiable; and his manner is grave and stiff rather than affable. He was dressed, when I first saw him, in a

lightblue frock with silver frogs; and wore a red waistcoat and blue breeches. He is not very popular among

the Russians; and accordingly their wits are disposed to amuse themselves with his appearance, and

particularly with his toupee. They say he resembles Samson; that all his strength lies in his hair; and that,

conscious of this, and recollecting the fate of the son of Manoah, he suffers not the nigh approaches of any

deceitful Delilah. They say he is like the Comet, which, about fifteen months ago, appeared so formidable in

the Russian hemisphere; and which, exhibiting a small watery body, but a most enormous train, dismayed the

"I saw him a few nights ago [on or about Newyear's Day, 1771; come back to us, from his Tour to Moscow,

three weeks before; and nothing but galas ever since] at a Masquerade in the Palace, said to be the most

magnificent thing of the kind ever seen at the Russian Court. Fourteen large rooms and galleries were opened

for the accommodation of the masks; and I was informed that there were present several thousand people. A

great part of the company wore dominos, or capuchin dresses; though, besides these, some fanciful

appearances afforded a good deal of amusement. A very tall Cossack appeared completely arrayed in the

'hauberk's twisted mail.' He was indeed very grim and martial. Persons in emblematical dresses, representing

Apollo and the Seasons, addressed the Empress in speeches suited to their characters. The Empress herself, at

the time I saw her Majesty, wore a Grecian habit; though I was afterwards told that she varied her dress two

or three times during the masquerade. Prince Henri of Prussia wore a white domino. Several persons

appeared in the dresses of different nations, Chinese, Turks, Persians and Armenians. The most humorous

and fantastical figure was a Frenchman, who, with wonderful nimbleness and dexterity, represented an

overgrown but very beautiful Parrot. He chattered with a great deal of spirit; and his shoulders, covered with

green feathers, performed admirably the part of wings. He drew the attention of the Empress; a ring was

formed; he was quite happy; fluttered his plumage; made fine speeches in Russ, French and tolerable English;

the ladies were exceedingly diverted; everybody laughed except Prince Henri, who stood beside the Empress,

and was so grave and so solemn, that he would have performed his part most admirably in the shape of an

owl. The Parrot observed him; was determined to have revenge; and having said as many good things as he

could to her Majesty, he was hopping away; but just as he was going out of the circle, seeming to recollect

himself, he stopped, looked over his shoulder at the formal Prince, and quite in the parrot tone and French

accent, he addressed him most emphatically with 'HENRI! HENRI! HENRI!' and then, diving into the crowd,

disappeared. His Royal Highness was disconcerted; he was forced to smile in his own defence, and the

"At midnight, a spacious hall, of a circular form, capable of containing a vast number of people, and

illuminated in the most magnificent manner, was suddenly opened. Twelve tables were placed in alcoves

around the sides of the room, where the Empress, Prince Henri, and a hundred and fifty of the chief nobility

and foreign ministers sat down to supper. The rest of the company went up, by stairs on the outside of the

room, into the lofty galleries placed all around on the inside. Such a row of masked visages, many of them

with grotesque features and bushy beards, nodding from the side of the wall, appeared very ludicrous to those

below. The entertainment was enlivened with a concert of music: and at different intervals persons in various

habits entered the hall, and exhibited Cossack, Chinese, Polish, Swedish and Tartar dances. The whole was so

gorgeous, and at the same time so fantastic, that I could not help thinking myself present at some of the

The rest of the company, on returning to the rooms adjoining, found prepared for them also a sumptuous

banquet. The masquerade began at 6 in the evening, and continued till 5 next morning.

"Besides the masquerade, and other festivities, in honor of, and to divert Prince Henri, we had lately a most

magnificent show of fire works. They were exhibited in a wide apace before the Winter Palace; and, in

truth, 'beggared description.' They displayed, by a variety of emblematical figures, the reduction of Moldavia,

Wallachia, Bessarabia, and the various conquests and victories achieved since the commencement of the

present War. The various colors, the bright green and the snowy white, exhibited in these fireworks, were

truly astonishing. For the space of twenty minutes, a tree, adorned with the loveliest and most verdant foliage,

seemed to be waving as with a gentle breeze. It was entirely of fire; and during the whole of this stupendous

scene, an arch of fire, by the continued throwing of rockets and fireballs in one direction, formed as it were

"On this occasion a prodigious multitude of people were assembled; and the Empress, it was surmised,

seemed uneasy. She was afraid, it was apprehended, lest any accident, like what happened at Paris at the

marriage of the Dauphin, should befall her beloved people. I hope I have amused you; and ever am"[W.

Richardson, Anecdotes of the Russian Empire, pp. 325331: "Petersburg, 4th January, 1771."]

The masquerades and galas in honor of Prince Henri, from a grandiose Hostess, who had played with him in

childhood, were many; but it is not with these that we have to do. One day, the Czarina, talking to him of the

Austrian procedures at Zips, said with pique, "It seems, in Poland you have only to stoop, and pick up what

you like of it. If the Court of Vienna have the notion to dismember that Kingdom, its neighbors will have

right to do as much." [Rulhiere, iv. 210; Trois Demembremens, i. 142; above all, Henri himself, in OEuvres

de Frederic, xxvi. 345, "Petersburg, 8th January, 1771."] This is supposed, in all Books, to be the

PUNCTUM SALIENS, or first mention, of the astonishing Partition, which was settled, agreed upon, within

about a year hence, and has made so much noise ever since. And in effect it was so; the idea rising practically

in that high head was the real beginning. But this was not the first head it had been in; far from that. Above a

year ago, as Friedrich himself informed us, it had been in Friedrich's own head,though at the time it went

for absolutely nothing, nobody even bestowing a sneer on it (as Friedrich intimates), and disappeared through

Friedrich himself appears to have quite forgotten the CountLynar idea; and, on Henri's report from Russia,

was totally incredulous; and even suspected that there might be trickery and danger in this Russian proposal.

Not till Henri's return (FEBRUARY 18th, 1771) could he entirely believe that the Czarina was serious;and

then, sure enough, he did, with his whole heart, go into it: the EUREKA out of all these difficulties, which

had so long seemed insuperable. Prince Henri "had an Interview with the Austrian Minister next day"

(February 19th), who immediately communicated with his Kaunitz,and got discouraging response from

Kaunitz; discouraging, or almost negatory; which did not discourage Friedrich. "A way out," thinks Friedrich:

"the one way to save my Prussia and the world from incalculable conflagration." And entered on it without

loss of a moment. And labored at it with such continual industry, rapidity and faculty for guiding and

pushing, as all readers have known in him, on dangerous emergencies: at no moment lifting his hand from it

His difficulties were enormous: what a team to drive; and on such a road, untrodden before by hoof or wheel!

Two Empresses that cordially hate one another, and that disagree on this very subject. Kaunitz and his

Empress are extremely skittish in the matter, and as if quite refuse it at first: "Zips will be better," thinks

Kaunitz to himself; "Cannot we have, all to ourselves, a beautiful little cutting out of Poland in that part; and

then perhaps, in league with the Turk, who has money, beat the Russians home altogether, and rule Poland in

their stead, or 'share it with the Sultan,' as ReisEffendi suggests?" And the dismal truth is, though it was not

known for years afterward, Kaunitz does about this time, in profoundest secret, actually make Treaty of

Alliance with the Turk ("so many million Piastres to us, ready money, year by year, and you shall, if not by

our mediating, then by our fighting, be a contented Turk"); and all along at the different RussianTurk

"PeaceCongresses," Kaunitz, while pretending to sit and mediate along with Prussia, sat on that far other

basis, privately thwarting everything; and span out the Turk pacification in a wretched manner for years

coming. ["Peace of Kainardschi," not till "21st July, 1774,"after four or five abortive attempts, two of them

"Congresses," Kaunitz so industrious (Hermann, v. 664 et antea).] A dangerous, hardmouthed,

highstalking, illgiven old coachhorse of a Kaunitz: fancy what the driving of him might be, on a road he

did not like! But he had a driver too, who, in delicate adroitness, in patience and in sharpness of whip, was

consummate: "You shall know it is your one road, my illgiven friend!" (I ostentatiously increase my

Cavalry by 8,000; meaning, "A new SevenYears War, if you force me, and Russia by my side this time!")

So that Kaunitz had to quit his Turk courses (never paid the Piastres back), and go into what really was the

But Friedrich's difficulties on this course are not the thing that can interest readers; and all readers know his

faculty for overcoming difficulties. Readers ask rather: "And had Friedrich no feeling about Poland itself,

then, and this atrocious Partitioning of the poor Country?" Apparently none whatever;unless it might be,

that Deliverance from Anarchy, Pestilence, Famine, and Pigs eating your dead bodies, would be a manifest

advantage for Poland, while it was the one way of saving Europe from War. Nobody seems more contented

in conscience, or radiant with heartfelt satisfaction, and certainty of thanks from all wise and impartial men,

than the King of Prussia, now and afterwards, in regard to this Polish atrocity! A psychological fact, which

readers can notice. Scrupulous regard to Polish considerations, magnanimity to Poland, or the least respect or

pity for her as a dying Anarchy, is what nobody will claim for him; consummate talent in executing the

Partition of Poland (inevitable some day, as he may have thought, but is nowhere at the pains to say),great

talent, great patience too, and meritorious selfdenial and endurance, in executing that Partition, and in

saving IT from catching fire instead of being the means to quench fire, no wellinformed person will deny

him. Of his difficulties in the operation (which truly are unspeakable) I will say nothing more; readers are

prepared to believe that he, beyond others, should conquer difficulties when the object is vital to him. I will

mark only the successive dates of his progress, and have done with this wearisome subject:

June 14th, 1771. Within four months of the arrival of Prince Henri and that first certainty from Russia,

diligent Friedrich, upon whom the whole burden had been laid of drawing up a Plan, and bringing Austria to

consent, is able to report to Petersburg, That Austria has dubieties, reluctances, which it is to be foreseen she

will gradually get over; and that here meanwhile (June 14th, 1771) is my Plan of Partition,the simplest

conceivable: "That each choose (subject to future adjustments) what will best suit him; I, for my own part,

will say, WestPreussen;what Province will Czarish Majesty please to say?" Czarish Majesty, in answer,

is exorbitantly liberal to herself; claims, not a Province, but four or five; will have Friedrich, if the Austrians

attack her in consequence, to assist by declaring War on Austria; Czarish Majesty, in the reciprocal case, not

to assist Friedrich at all, till her Turk War is done! "Impossible," thinks Friedrich; "surprisingly so, high

It was with Kaunitz that Friedrich's real difficulties lay. Privately, in the course of this Summer, Kaunitz, by

way of preparation for "mediating a TurkRussian Peace," had concluded his "subsidy Treaty" with the Turk,

["6th July, 1771" (Preuss, iv. 31; Hermann; never ratified, but the Piastres duly paid;Treaty rendering

Peace impossible, so long as Kaunitz had to do with mediating it. And indeed Kaunitz's tricks in that function

of mediator, and also after it, were of the kind which Friedrich has some reason to call "infamous." "Your

Majesty, as comediator, will join us, should the Russians make War?" said Kaunitz's Ambassador, one day,

to Friedrich. "For certain, no!" answered Friedrich; and, on the contrary, remounted his Cavalry, to signify, "I

will fight the other way, if needed!" which did at once bring Kaunitz to give up his mysterious Turk projects,

and come into the Polish. After which, his exorbitant greed of territory there; his attempts to get Russia into a

partitioning of Turkey as well, ("A slice of Turkey too, your Czarish Majesty and we?" hints he more than

once),gave Friedrich no end of trouble; and are singular to look at by the light there now is. Not for about a

twelvemonth did Friedrich get his hardmouthed Kaunitz brought into step at all; and to the last, perpetual

FEBRUARY 17th, 1772, Russia and Prussia, for their own part, Friedrich, in the circumstances,

submitting to many things from his Czarina,get their particular "Convention" (Bargain in regard to Poland)

completed in all parts, "will take possession 4th June instant:" sign said Convention (February 17th);and

invite Austria to join, and state her claims. Which, in three weeks after, MARCH 4th, Austria

does;exorbitant abundantly; and NOT to be got very much reduced, though we try, for a series of months.

AUGUST 5th, 1772, Final Agreement between the Three Partitioning Powers: "These are our respective

shares; we take possession on the 1st OF SEPTEMBER instant:"and actual possession for Friedrich's share

did, on the 13th of that month, ensue. A right glad Friedrich, as everybody, friend or enemy, may imagine

him! Glad to have done with such a business,had there been no other profit in it; which was far from being

the case. One's clear belief, on studying these Books, is of two things: FIRST, that, as everybody admits,

Friedrich had no real hand in starting the notion of Partitioning Poland;but that he grasped at it with

eagerness, as the one way of saving Europe from War: SECOND, what has been much less noticed, that,

under any other hand, it would have led Europe to War;and that to Friedrich is due the fact, that it got

effected without such accompaniment. Friedrich's share of Territory is counted to be in all 9,465 English

square miles; Austria's, 62,500; Russia's, 87,500, [Preuss, iv. 45.] between nine and ten times the amount of

Friedrich's,which latter, however, as an anciently Teutonic Country, and as filling up the always dangerous

gap between his OstPreussen and him, has, under Prussian administration, proved much the most valuable

of the Three; and, next to Silesia, is Friedrich's most important acquisition. SEPTEMBER 13th, 1772, it was

at last entered upon,through such wasteweltering confusions, and on terms never yet unquestionable.

Consent of Polish Diet was not had for a year more; but that is worth little record. Diet, for that object, got

together 19th APRIL, 1773; recalcitrant enough, had not Russia understood the methods: "a common fund

was raised [ON SE COTISA, says Friedrich] for bribing;" the Three Powers had each a representative

General in Warsaw (Lentulus the Prussian personage), all three with forces to rear: Diet came down by

degrees, and, in the course of five months (SEPTEMBER 18th, 1773), acquiesced in everything.

And so the matter is ended; and various men will long have various opinions upon it. I add only this one

small Document from Maria Theresa's hand, which all hearts, and I suppose even Friedrich's had he ever read

it, will pronounce to be very beautiful; homely, faithful, wholesome, wellbecoming in a high and true

THE EMPRESSQUEEN TO PRINCE KAUNITZ (Undated: date must be Vienna, February, 1772).

"When all my lands were invaded, and I knew not where in the world I should find a place to be brought to

bed in, I relied on my good right and the help of God. But in this thing, where not only public law cries to

Heaven against us, but also all natural justice and sound reason, I must confess never in my life to have been

in such trouble, and am ashamed to show my face. Let the Prince [Kaunitz] consider what an example we are

giving to all the world, if, for a miserable piece of Poland, or of Moldavia or Wallachia, we throw our honor

and reputation to the winds. I see well that I am alone, and no more in vigor; therefore I must, though to my

very great sorrow, let things take their course." [ "Als alle meine lander angefochten wurden und gar nit mehr

wusste wo ruhig niederkommen sollte, steiffete ich mich auf mein gutes Recht und den Beystand Gottes. Aber

in dieser Sach, wo nit allein das offenbare Recht himmelschreyent wider Uns, sondern auch alle Billigkeit

und die gesunde Vernunft wider Uns ist, muess bekhennen dass zeitlebens nit so beangstigt mich befunten

und mich sehen zu lassen schame. Bedenkh der Furst, was wir aller Welt fur ein Exempel geben, wenn wir

um ein ellendes stuk von Pohlen oder von der Moldau und Wallachey unser ehr und REPUTATION in die

schanz schlagen. Ich merkh wohl dass ich allein bin und nit mehr EN VIGEUR, darum lasse ich die sachen,

jedoch nit ohne meinen grossten Gram, ihren Weg gehen." (From "Hormayr, Taschenbuch, 1831, s. 66:"

And, some days afterwards, here is her Majesty's Official Assent: "PLACET, since so many great and learned

men will have it so: but long after I am dead, it will be known what this violating of all that was hitherto held

sacred and just will give rise to." [From "Zietgenossen [a Biographical Periodical], lxxi. 29:" cited in

Friedrich has none of these compunctious visitings; but his account too, when he does happen to speak on the

subject, is worth hearing, and credible every word. Writing to Voltaire, a good while after (POTSDAM, 9th

OCTOBER, 1773)) this, in the swiftflowing, miscellaneous Letter, is one passage: ... "To return to your

King of Poland. I am aware that Europe pretty generally believes the late Partition made (QU'ON A FAIT) of

Poland to be a result of the Political trickeries (MANIGANCES) which are attributed to me; nevertheless,

nothing is more untrue. After in vain proposing different arrangements and expedients, there was no

alternative left but either that same Partition, or else Europe kindled into a general War. Appearances are

deceitful; and the Public judges only by these. What I tell you is as true as the Fortyseventh of Euclid."

Considerable obloquy still rests on Friedrich, in many liberal circles, for the Partition of Poland. Two things,

however, seem by this time tolerably clear, though not yet known in liberal circles: first, that the Partition of

Poland was an event inevitable in Polish History; an operation of Almighty Providence and of the Eternal

Laws of Nature, as well as of the poor earthly Sovereigns concerned there; and secondly, that Friedrich had

nothing special to do with it, and, in the way of originating or causing it, nothing whatever.

It is certain the demands of Eternal Justice must be fulfilled: in earthly instruments, concerned with fulfilling

them, there may be all degrees of demerit and also of merit,from that of a world ruffian Attila the

Scourge of God, conscious of his own ferocities and cupidities alone, to that of a heroic Cromwell, sacredly

aware that he is, at his soul's peril, doing God's Judgments on the enemies of God, in Tredah and other severe

scenes. If the Laws and Judgments are verily those of God, there can be no clearer merit than that of pushing

them forward, regardless of the barkings of Gazetteers and wayside dogs, and getting them, at the earliest

term possible, made valid among recalcitrant mortals! Friedrich, in regard to Poland, I cannot find to have

had anything considerable either of merit or of demerit, in the moral point of view; but simply to have

accepted, and put in his pocket without criticism, what Providence sent. He himself evidently views it in that

light; and is at no pains to conceal his great sense of the value of West Preussen to him. We praised his

Narrative as eminently true, and the only one completely intelligible in every point: in his Preface to it,

written some years later, he is still more candid. Speaking there in the first person, this once and never before

"These new pretensions [of the Czarina, to assuage the religious putridfever of the Poles by word of

command] raised all Poland [into Confederation of Bar, and WAR OF THE CONFEDERATES, sung by

Friedrich]; the Grandees of the Kingdom implored the assistance of the Turks: straightway War flamed out;

in which the Russian Armies had only to show themselves to beat the Turks in every rencounter." His

Majesty continues: "This War changed the whole Political System of Europe [general Diplomatic Dance of

Europe, suddenly brought to a whirl by such changes of the music]; a new arena (CARRIERE) came to open

itself,and one must have been either without address, or else buried in stupid somnolence

(ENGOURDISSEMENT), not to profit by an opportunity so advantageous. I had read Bojardo's fine

Allegory: [Signifies only, "seize opportunity;" but here is the passage itself: "Quante volte le disse: 'O

bella dama, Conosci l'ora de la tua ventura, Dapoi che un tal Baron piu the che se t'ama, Che non ha il Ciel

piu vaga creatura. Forse anco avrai di questo tempo brama, Che'l felice destin sempre non dura; Prendi

diletto, mentre sei su 'l verde, Che l'avuto piacer mai non si perde. Questa eta giovenil, ch' e si gioiosa, Tutta

in diletto consumar si deve, Perche quasi in un punto ci e nas cosa: Como dissolve 'l sol la bianca neve,

Como in un giorno la vermiglia rosa Perde il vago color in tempo breve, Cosi fugge l' eta com' un baleno, E

non si puo tener, che non ha freno.'" (Bojardo, Orlando Innamorato, lib. i. cant. 2.)] I seized by the forelock

this unexpected opportunity; and, by dint of negotiating and intriguing [candid King] I succeeded in

indemnifying our Monarchy for its past losses, by incorporating Polish Prussia with my Old Provinces."

[ OEuvres de Frederic, (Preface to MEMOIRS DEPUIS 1763 JUSQU'A 1774), vi. 6, 7: "MEMOIRES

[Chapter FIRST, including all the Polish part] were finished in 1775; Preface is of 1779."]

Here is a Historian King who uses no rougepot in his Narratives, whose word, which is all we shall say of

it at present, you find to be perfectly trustworthy, and a representation of the fact as it stood before himself!

What follows needs no vouching for: "This acquisition was one of the most important we could make,

because it joined Pommern to East Prussia [ours for ages past], and because, rendering us masters of the

Weichsel River, we gained the double advantage of being able to defend that Kingdom [Ost Preussen], and

to draw considerable tolls from the Weichsel, as all the trade of Poland goes by that River."

Yes truly! Our interests are very visible: and the interests and wishes and claims of Poland,are they

nowhere worthy of one word from you, O King? Nowhere that I have noticed: not any mention of them, or

allusion to them; though the world is still so convinced that perhaps they were something, and not nothing!

Which is very curious. In the whole course of my reading I have met with no Autobiographer more careless

to defend himself upon points in dispute among his Audience, and marked as criminal against him by many

of them. Shadow of Apology on such points you search for in vain. In rapid bare summary he sets down the

sequel of facts, as if assured beforehand of your favorable judgment, or with the profoundest indifference to

how you shall judge them; drops his actions, as an Ostrich does its young, to shift for themselves in the

wilderness, and hurries on his way. This style of his, noticeable of old in regard to Silesia too, has

considerably hurt him with the common kind of readers; who, in their preconceived suspicions of the man,

are all the more disgusted at tracing in him, not the least anxiety to stand well with any reader, more than to

Third parties, it would seem, have small temptation to become his advocates; he himself being so totally

unprovided with thanks for you! But, on another score, and for the sake of a better kind of readers, there is

one third party bound to remark: 1. That hardly any Sovereign known to us did, in his general practice, if you

will examine it, more perfectly respect the boundaries of his neighbors; and go on the road that was his own,

anxious to tread on no man's toes if he could avoid it: a Sovereign who, at all times, strictly and beneficently

confined himself to what belonged to his real business and him. 2. That apparently, therefore, he must have

considered Poland to be an exceptional case, unique in his experience: case of a moribund Anarchy, fallen

down as carrion on the common highways of the world; belonging to nobody in particular; liable to be cut

into (nay, for sanitary reasons requiring it, if one were a Rhadamanthus Errant, which one is not!)liable to

be cut into, on a great and critically stringent occasion; no question to be asked of IT; your only question the

consent of bystanders, and the moderate certainty that nobody got a glaringly disproportionate share! That

must have been, on the part of an equitable Friedrich, or even of a Friedrich accurate in Bookkeeping by

Whether his notion was scientifically right, and conformable to actual fact, is a question I have no thought of

entering on; still less, whether Friedrich was morally right, or whether there was not a higher rectitude,

granting even the fact, in putting it in practice. These are questions on which an Editor may have his opinion,

partly complete for a long time past, partly not complete, or, in human language, completable or

pronounceable at all; and may carefully forbear to obtrude it on his readers; and only advise them to look

with their own best eyesight, to be deaf to the multiplex noises which are evidently blind, and to think what

they find thinkablest on such a subject. For, were it never so just, proper and needful, this is by nature a case

of LYNCH LAW; upon which, in the way of approval or apology, no spoken word is permissible. Lynch

For, granting that the Nation of Poland was for centuries past an Anarchy doomed by the Eternal Laws of

Heaven to die, and then of course to get gradually buried, or eaten by neighbors, were it only for sanitary

reasons,it will by no means suit, to declare openly on behalf of terrestrial neighbors who have taken up

such an idea (granting it were even a just one, and a true reading of the silent but inexorably certain purposes

of Heaven), That they, those volunteer terrestrial neighbors, are justified in breaking in upon the poor dying

or dead carcass, and flaying and burying it, with amicable sharing of skin and shoes! If it even were certain

that the wretched Polish Nation, for the last forty years hastening with especial speed towards death, did in

present circumstances, with such a howling canaille of Turk Janissaries and vultures of creation busy round

it, actually require prompt surgery, in the usual method, by neighbors,the neighbors shall and must do that

function at their own risk. If Heaven did appoint them to it, Heaven, for certain, will at last justify them; and

in the mean while, for a generation or two, the same Heaven (I can believe) has appointed that Earth shall

pretty unanimously condemn them. The shrieks, the foamlipped curses of mistaken mankind, in such case,

are mankind's one security against overpromptitude (which is so dreadfully possible) on the part of surgical

Alas, yes, my articulatespeaking friends; here, as so often elsewhere, the solution of the riddle is not Logic,

but Silence. When a dark human Individual has filled the measure of his wicked blockheadisms, sins and

brutal nuisancings, there are Gibbets provided, there are Laws provided; and you can, in an articulate regular

manner, hang him and finish him, to general satisfaction. Nations too, you may depend on it as certain, do

require the same process, and do infallibly get it withal; Heaven's Justice, with written Laws or without, being

the most indispensable and the inevitablest thing I know of in this Universe. No doing without it; and it is

sure to come:and the Judges and Executioners, we observe, are NOT, in that latter case, escorted in and out

by the Sheriffs of Counties and general ringing of bells; not so, in that latter case, but far otherwise!

And now, leaving that vexed question, we will throw one glance only one is permittedinto the far more

profitable question, which probably will one day be the sole one on this matter, What became of poor

WestPreussen under Friedrich? Had it to sit, weeping unconsolably, or not? Herr Dr. Freytag, a man of good

repute in Literature, has, in one of his late Books of Popular History, [G. Freytag, Neue Bilder aus dem Leben

des deutschen Volkes (Leipzig, 1862).] gone into this subject, in a serious way, and certainly with

opportunities far beyond mine for informing himself upon it:from him these Passages have been excerpted,

ACQUISITION OF POLISH PRUSSIA. "During several Centuries, the much divided Germans had

habitually been pressed upon, and straitened and injured, by greedy conquering neighbors; Friedrich was the

first Conqueror who once more pushed forward the German Frontier towards the East; reminding the

Germans again, that it was their task to carry Law, Culture, Liberty and Industry into the East of Europe. All

Friedrich's Lands, with the exception only of some Old Saxon territory, had, by force and colonization, been

painfully gained from the Sclave. At no time since the migrations of the Middle Ages, had this struggle for

possession of the wide Plains to the east of Oder ceased. When arms were at rest, politicians carried on the

PERSECUTION OF GERMAN PROTESTANTS IN POLAND. "In the very 'Century of Enlightenment' the

persecution of the Germans became fanatical in those Countries: one Protestant Church after the other got

confiscated; pulled down; if built of wood, set on fire: its Church once burnt, the Village had lost the

privilege of having one. Ministers and schoolmasters were driven away, cruelly maltreated. 'VEXA

LUTHERANURN, DABIT THALERUM (Wring the Lutheran, you will find money in him),' became the

current Proverb of the Poles in regard to Germans. A Protestant Starost of Gnesen, a Herr von UNRUH of the

House of Birnbaum, one of the largest proprietors of the country, was condemned to die, and first to have his

tongue pulled out and his hands cut off,for the crime of having copied into his Notebook some strong

passages against the Jesuits, extracted from German Books. Patriotic 'Confederates of Bar,' joined by all the

plunderous vagabonds around, went roaming and ravaging through the country, falling upon small towns and

German villages. The Polish Nobleman, Roskowski [a celebrated "symbolical" Nobleman, this], put on one

red boot and one black, symbolizing FIRE and DEATH; and in this guise rode about, murdering and burning,

from places to place; finally, at Jastrow, he cut off the hands, feet, and lastly the head of the Protestant Pastor,

IN WHAT STATE FRIEDRICH FOUND THE POLISH PROVINCES. "Some few only of the larger

German Towns, which were secured by walls, and some protected Districts inhabited exclusively by

Germans,as the NIEDERUNG near Dantzig, the Villages under the mild rule of the Cistercians of Oliva,

and the opulent German towns of the Catholic Ermeland,were in tolerable circumstances. The other Towns

lay in ruins; so also most of the Hamlets (HOFE) of the open Country. Bromberg, the city of German

Colonists, the Prussians found in heaps and ruins: to this hour it has not been possible to ascertain clearly

how the Town came into this condition. [ "Neue Preussische Provinzialblotter, Year 1854, No. 4, p. 259."]

No historian, no document, tells of the destruction and slaughter that had been going on, in the whole District

of the NETZE there, during the last ten years before the arrival of the Prussians, The Town of Culm had

preserved its strong old walls and stately churches; but in the streets, the necks of the cellars stood out above

the rotten timber and brick heaps of the tumbled houses: whole streets consisted merely of such cellars, in

which wretched people were still trying to live. Of the forty houses in the large Marketplace of Culm,

twentyeight had no doors, no roofs, no windows, and no owners. Other Towns were in similar condition,"

"The Country people hardly knew such a thing as bread; many had never in their life tasted such a delicacy;

few Villages possessed an oven. A weavingloom was rare, the spinningwheel unknown. The main article

of furniture, in this bare scene of squalor, was the Crucifix and vessel of HolyWater under it [and

"POLACK! CATHOLIK!" if a drop of gin be added].The PeasantNoble [unvoting, inferior kind] was

hardly different from the common Peasant: he himself guided his Hook Plough (HACKENPFLUG), and

clattered with his wooden slippers upon the plankless floor of his hut. ... It was a desolate land, without

discipline, without law, without a master. On 9,000 English square miles lived 500,000 souls: not 55 to the

SETS TO WORK. "The very rottenness of the Country became an attraction for Friedrich; and henceforth

WestPreussen was, what hitherto Silesia had been, his favorite child; which, with infinite care, like that of

an anxious loving mother, he washed, brushed, newdressed, and forced to go to school and into orderly

habits, and kept ever in his eye. The diplomatic squabbles about this 'acquisition' were still going on, when he

had already sent [so early as June 4th, 1772, and still more on September 13th of that Year [See his new

DIALOGUE with Roden, our Wesel acquaintance, who was a principal Captain in this business (in PREUSS,

iv. 57, 58: date of the Dialogue is "11th May, 1772;"Roden was on the ground 4th June next; but, owing to

Austrian delays, did not begin till September 13th).]] a body of his best Official People into this

wastehowling scene, to set about organizing it. The Landschaften (COUNTIES) were divided into small

Circles; in a minimum of time, the land was valued, and an equal tax put upon it; every Circle received its

LANDRATH, LawCourt, Postoffice and Sanitary Police. New Parishes, each with its Church and Parson,

were called into existence as by miracle; a company of 187 Schoolmasterspartly selected and trained by

the excellent Semler [famous over Germany, in Halle University and SEMINARIUM, not yet in England]

were sent into the Country: multitudes of German Mechanics too, from brick makers up to

machinebuilders. Everywhere there began a digging, a hammering, a building; Cities were peopled anew;

street after street rose out of the heaps of ruins; new Villages of Colonists were laid out, new modes of

agriculture ordered. In the first Year after taking possession, the great Canal [of Bromberg] was dug; which,

in a length of fifteen miles, connects, by the Netze River, the Weichsel with the Oder and the Elbe: within

one year after giving the order, the King saw loaded vessels from the Oder, 120 feet in length of keel," and of

forty tons burden, "enter the Weichsel. The vast breadths of land, gained from the state of swamp by drainage

"As his SevenYears Struggle of War may be called superhuman, so was there also in his present Labor of

Peace something enormous; which appeared to his contemporaries [unless my fancy mislead me] almost

preternatural, at times inhuman. It was grand, but also terrible, that the success of the whole was to him, at all

moments, the one thing to be striven after; the comfort of the individual of no concern at all. When, in the

Marshland of the Wetze, he counted more the strokes of the 10,000 spades, than the sufferings of the

workers, sick with the marshfever in the hospitals which he had built for them; [Compare PREUSS, iv.

6071.] when, restless, his demands outran the quickest performance,there united itself to the deepest

reverence and devotedness, in his People, a feeling of awe, as for one whose limbs are not moved by earthly

life [fanciful, considerably!]. And when Goethe, himself become an old man, finished his last Drama [Second

Part of FAUST], the figure of the old King again rose on him, and stept into his Poem; and his Faust got

transformed into an unresting, creating, pitilessly exacting Master, forcing on his salutiferous drains and

fruitful canals through the morasses of the Weichsel." [G. Freytag, Neue Bilder aus dem Leben des deutschen

These statements and pencillings of Freytag, apart from here and there a flourish of poetic sentiment, I

believe my readers can accept as essentially true, and a correct portrait of the fact. And therewith, CON LA

BOCCA DOLCE, we will rise from this Supper of Horrors. That Friedrich fortified the Country, that he built

an impregnable Graudentz, and two other Fortresses, rendering the Country, and himself on that Eastern side,

impregnable henceforth, all readers can believe. Friedrich has been building various Fortresses in this interim,

though we have taken no notice of them; building and repairing many things;trimming up his Military

quite to the old pitch, as the most particular thing of all. He has his new Silesian Fortress of Silberberg,big

Fortress, looking into certain dangerous Bohemian Doors (in Tobias Stusche's Country, if readers recollect an

old adventure now mythical);his new Silesian Silberberg, his newer Polish Graudentz, and many others,

A Friedrich working, all along, in Poland especially, amid what circumambient deluges of maledictory

outcries, and mendacious shriekeries from an illinformed Public, is not now worth mentioning. Mere

distracted rumors of the Pamphleteer and Newspaper kind: which, after hunting them a long time, through

dense and rare, end mostly in zero, and angry darkness of some poor human brain,or even testify in favor

of this HeadWorker, and of the sense he shows, especially of the patience. For example: that of the "Polish

Towns and Villages, ordered" by this Tyrant "to deliver, each of them, so many marriageable girls; each girl

to bring with her as dowry, furnished by her parents, 1 featherbed, 4 pillows, 1 cow, 3 swine and 3

ducats,"in which desirable condition this tyrannous King "sent her into the Brandenburg States to be

wedded and promote population." [Lindsey, LETTERS ON POLAND (Letter 2d). p. 61: Peyssonnel (in

some. French Book of his, "solemnly presented to Louis XVI. and the Constituent Assembly;" cited in

PREUSS, iv. 85); Featherbeds, swine and ducats had their value in Brandenburg; but were marriageable

girls such a scarcity there? Most extraordinary new RAPE OF THE SABINES; for which Herr Preuss can

find no basis or source,nor can I; except in the brain of Reverend Lindsey and his loud LETTERS ON

Dantzig too, and the Harbordues, what a case! Dantzig Harbor, that is to say, Netze River, belongs mainly

to Friedrich, Dantzig City not,such the Czarina's lofty whim, in the late Partition Treatyings; not good to

contradict, in the then circumstances; still less afterwards, though it brought chicanings more than enough.

"And she was not illpleased to keep this thorn in the King's foot for her own conveniences," thinks the King;

though, mainly, he perceives that it is the English acting on her grandiose mind: English, who were

apprehensive for their Baltic trade under this new Proprietor, and who egged on an ambitious Czarina to

protect Human Liberty, and an inflated Dantzig Burgermeister to stand up for ditto; and made a dismal

shriekery in the Newspapers, and got into dreadful illhumor with said Proprietor of Dantzig Harbor, and

have never quite recovered from it to this day. Lindsey's POLISH LETTERS are very loud again on this

occasion, aided by his SEVEN DIALOGUES ON POLAND; concerning which, partly for extinct Lindsey's

MARCH 2d, 1775, in answer to Voltaire, Friedrich writes: ... "The POLISH DIALOGUES you speak of are

not known to me. I think of such Satires, with Epictetus: 'If they tell any truth of thee, correct thyself; if they

are lies, laugh at them.' I have learned, with years, to become a steady coachhorse; I do my stage, like a

diligent roadster, and pay no heed to the little dogs that will bark by the way." And then, three weeks after:

"I have at length got the SEVEN DIALOGUES ON POLAND; and the whole history of them as well. The

Author is an Englishman named Lindsey, Parson by profession, and Tutor to the young Prince Poniatowski,

the King of Poland's Nephew,"Nephew Joseph, Andreas's Son, NOT the undistinguished Nephew: so we

will believe for poor loud Lindsey's sake! "It was at the instigation of the Czartoryskis, Uncles of the King,

that Lindsey composed this Satire,in English first of all. Satire ready, they perceived that nobody in Poland

would understand it, unless it were translated into French; which accordingly was done. But as their translator

was unskilful, they sent the DIALOGUES to a certain Gerard at Dantzig, who at that time was French Consul

there, and who is at present a Clerk in your Foreign Office under M. de Vergennes. This Gerard, who does

not want for wit, but who does me the honor to hate me cordially, retouched these DIALOGUES, and put

them into the condition they were published in. I have laughed a good deal at them: here and there occur

coarse things (GROSSIERETES), and platitudes of the insipid kind: but there are traits of good pleasantry. I

shall not go fencing with goosequills against this sycophant. As Mazarin said, 'Let the French keep singing,

provided they let us keep doing.'" [ OEuvres de Frederic, xxiii. 319321: "Potsdam, 2d March, 1775," and

After Neustadt, Kaiser Joseph and the King had no more Interviews. Kaunitz's procedures in the subsequent

Pacification and Partition business had completely estranged the two Sovereigns: to friendly visiting, a very

different state of mutual feeling had succeeded; which went on, such "the immeasurable ambition" visible in

some of us, deepening and worsening itself, instead of improving or abating. Friedrich had Joseph's Portrait

hung in conspicuous position in the rooms where he lived; somebody noticing the fact, Friedrich answered:

"Ah, yes, I am obliged to keep that young Gentleman in my eye." And, in effect, the rest of Friedrich's

Political Activity, from this time onwards, may be defined as an evervigilant defence of himself, and of the

German Reich, against Austrian Encroachment: which, to him, in the years then running, was the grand

impending peril; and which to us in the new times has become so inexpressibly uninteresting, and will bear

no narrative, Austrian Encroachment did not prove to be the deathperil that had overhung the world in

These, accordingly, are years in which the Historical interest goes on diminishing; and only the Biographical,

were anything of Biography attainable, is left. Friedrich's industrial, economic and other Royal activities are

as beautiful as ever; but cannot to our readers, in our limits, be described with advantage. Events of

worldinterest, after the Partition of Poland, do not fall out, or Friedrich is not concerned in them. It is a dim

element; its significance chiefly German or Prussian, not European. What of humanly interesting is

discoverable in it,at least, while the Austrian Grudge continues in a chronic state, and has no acute fit,I

will here present in the shape of detached Fragments, suitably arranged and rendered legible, in hopes these

may still have some lucency for readers, and render more conceivable the surrounding masses that have to be

left dark. Our first Piece is of Winter, or late Autumn, 1771,while the solution of the Polish Business is

still in its inchoative stages; perfectly complete in the Artist's own mind; Russia too adhering; but Kaunitz so

Friday Evening, 25th October, 1771, is the date of Zimmermann's walk of contemplation,among the pale

Statues and deciduous Gardenings of SansSouci Cottage (better than any Rialto, at its best),the eternal

stars coming out overhead, and the transitory candlelight of a King Friedrich close by.

"At SansSouci," says he, in his famed Book, "where that old God of War (KRIEGSGOTT) forges his

thunderbolts, and writes Works of Intellect for Posterity; where he governs his People as the best father

would his house; where, during one half of the day, he accepts and reads the petitions and complaints of the

meanest citizen or peasant; comes to help of his Countries on all sides with astonishing sums of money,

expecting no payment, nor seeking anything but the Common Weal; and where, during the other half, he is a

Poet and Philosopher:at SansSouci, I say, there reigns all round a silence, in which you can hear the

faintest breath of every soft wind. I mounted this Hill for the first time in Winter [late Autumn, 25th October,

1771, edge of Winter], in the dusk. When I beheld the small DwellingHouse of this Convulser of the World

close by me, and was near his very chamber, I saw indeed a light inside, but no sentry or watchman at the

Hero's door; no soul to ask me, Who I was, or What I wanted. I saw nothing; and walked about as I pleased

before this small and silent House." [Preuss, i. 387 ("from EINSAMKEIT," Zimmermann's SOLITUDE, "i.

Yes, Doctor, this is your Kriegsgott; throned in a freeandeasy fashion. In regard to that of Sentries, I

believe there do come up from Potsdam nightly a corporal and six rankandfile; but perhaps it is at a later

hour; perhaps they sit within doors, silent, not to make noises. Another gentleman, of sauntering nocturnal

habits, testifies to having, one night, seen the King actually asleep in bed, the doors being left ajar. [Ib. i.

388.]As Zimmermann had a DIALOGUE next day with his Majesty, which we propose to give; still more,

as he made such noise in the world by other Dialogues with Friedrich, and by a strange Book about them,

which are still ahead,readers may desire to know a little who or what the Zimmermann is, and be willing

for a rough brief Note upon him, which certainly is not readier than it is rough:

Johann Georg Zimmermann: born 1728, at Brugg in the Canton of Bern, where his Father seems to have had

some little property and no employment, "a RATHSHERR (TownCouncillor), who was much respected."

Of brothers or sisters, no mention. The Mother being from the French part of the Canton, he learned to speak

both languages. Went to Bern for his Latin and highschooling; then to Gottingen, where he studied

Medicine, under the once great Haller and other now dimmed celebrities. Haller, himself from Bern, had

taken Zimmermann to board, and became much attached to him: Haller, in 1752, came on a summer visit to

native Bern: Zimmermann, who had in the mean time been "for a few months" in France, in Italy and

England, now returned and joined him there; but the great man, feeling very poorly and very old, decided that

he would like to stay in Bern, and not move any more;Zimmermann, accordingly, was sent to Gottingen to

bring Mrs. Haller, with her Daughters, bandboxes and effects, home to Bern. Which he did;and not only

them, but a soft, ingenious, ingenuous and rather pretty young Gottingen Lady along with them, as his own

Wife withal. With her he settled as STADTPHYSICUS (TownDoctor) in native Brugg; where his beloved

Hallers were within reach; and practice in abundance, and honors, all that the place yielded, were in readiness

Here he continued some sixteen years; very busy, very successful in medicine and literature; but "tormented

with hypochondria;"having indeed an immense conceit of himself, and generally too thin a skin for this

world. Here he first wrote his Book on SOLITUDE, a Book famed over all the world in my young days (and

perhaps still famed); he wrote it a second time, MUCH ENLARGED, about thirty years after:

[ Betrachtungen uber die Einsamkeit, von Doctor J. G. Zimmermann, Stadtphysicus in Brugg (Zurich,

1756),as yet only "1 vol. 8vo, price 6d." (5 groschen); but it grew with years; and (Leipzig, 1784) came out

remodelled into 4 vols.;was translated into French, "with many omissions," by Mercier (Paris, 1790); into

English from Mercier (London, 1791). "Zurich, 17631764:" by and by, one "Dobson did it into English."] I

read it (in the curtailed EnglishMercier form, no Scene in it like the above), in early boyhood,and thank it

for nothing, or nearly so. Zimmermann lived much alone, at Brugg and elsewhere; all his days

"Hypochondria" was the main company he had:and it was natural, but UNprofitable, that he should say, to

himself and others, the best he could for that bad arrangement: poor soul! He wrote also on MEDICAL

EXPERIENCE, a famed Book in its day;" also on NATIONAL PRIDE; and became famed through the

All which rendered dull dead Brugg still duller and more dead; unfit utterly for a man of such sublime

accomplishments. Plenty of Counts Stadion, Kings of Poland even, offered him engagements; eager to

possess such a man, and deliver him from dull dead Brugg; but he had hypochondria, and always feared their

deliverance might be into something duller. At length,in his fortieth year, 1768, the place of

CourtPhysician (HOFMEDICUS) at Hanover was offered him by George the Third of pious memory, and

this he resolved to accept; and did lift anchor, and accept and occupy accordingly.

Alas, at the Gate of Hanover, "his carriage overset;" broke his poor old Motherinlaw's leg (who had been

rejoicing doubtless to get home into her own Country), and was the end of herpoor old soul;and the

beginning of misfortunes continual and too tedious to mention. Spleen, envy, malice and calumny, from the

Hanover Medical world; treatment, "by the old buckram Hofdames who had drunk coffee with George II.,"

"which was fitter for a laquaisde place" than for a medical gentleman of eminence: unworthy treatment, in

fact, in many or most quarters;followed by hypochondria, by dreadful bodily disorder (kind not given or

discoverable), "so that I suffered the pains of Hell," sat weeping, sat gnashing my teeth, and could n't write a

Note after dinner; followed finally by the sickness, and then by the death, of my poor Wife, "after five

months of torment." Upon which, in 1771, Zimmermann's friendsfor he had many friends, being, in fact, a

person of fine graceful intellect, high proud feelings and tender sensibilities, gone all to this sad staterallied

themselves; set his Hanover house in order for him (governess for his children, what not); and sent him off to

Berlin, there to be dealt with by one Meckel, an incomparable Surgeon, and be healed of his dreadful disorder

("LEIBESSCHADE, of which the first traces had appeared in Brugg"),though to most people it seemed

rather he would die; "and one Medical Eminency in Hanover said to myself [Zimmermann] one day: 'Dr.

Soandso is to have your Pension, I am told; now, by all right, it should belong to me, don't you think so?'"

What, "I" thought of the matter, seeing the greedy gentleman thus "parting my skin," may be conjectured!

The famed Meckel received his famed patient with a nobleness worthy of the heroic ages. Dodged him in his

own house, in softest beds and appliances; spoke comfort to him, hope to him,the gallant

Meckel;rallied, in fact, the due medical staff one morning; came up to Zimmermann, who "stripped," with

the heart of a lamb and lion conjoined, and trusting in God, "flung himself on his bed" (on his face, or on his

back, we never know), and there, by the hands of Meckel and staff, "received above 2,000 (TWO

THOUSAND) cuts in the space of an hour and half, without uttering one word or sound." A frightful

operation, gallantly endured, and skilfully done; whereby the "bodily disorder" (LEIBESSCHADE),

whatever it might be, was effectually and forever sent about its business by the noble Meckel.

Hospitalities and soft, hushed kindnesses and soothing ministrations, by Meckel and by everybody, were now

doubled and trebled: wise kind Madam Meckel, young kind Mamsell Meckel and the Son (who "now, in

1788, lectures in Gottingen"); not these only, nor Schmucker Head ArmySurgeon, and the evermemorable

HERR GENERALCHIRURGUS Madan, who had both been in the operation; not these only, but by degrees

all that was distinguished in the Berlin world, Ramler, Busching, Sulzer, Prime Minister Herzberg, Queen's

and King's Equerries, and honorable men and women,bore him "on angelwings" towards complete

recovery. Talked to him, sang and danced to him (at least, the "Muses" and the female Meckels danced and

sang), and all lapped him against eating cares, till, after twelve weeks, he was fairly on his feet again, and

able to make jaunts in the neighborhood with his "life's savior," and enjoy the pleasant Autumn weather to his

farther profit.All this, though described in ridiculous superlative by Zimmermann, is really touching,

beautiful and human: perhaps never in his life was he so happy, or a thousandth part so helped by man, as

Head ArmySurgeon Schmucker had gone through all the SevenYears War; Zimmermann, an ardent

Heroworshipper, was never weary questioning him, listening to him in full career of narrative, on this great

subject,only eight years old at that time. Among their country drives, Meckel took him to Potsdam, twenty

English miles off; in the end of October, there to stay a night. This was the evermemorable Friday, when we

first ascended the Hill of Sans Souci, and had our evening walk of contemplation:to be followed by a

morrow which was ten times more memorable: as readers shall now see. [Jordens, Lexikon (� Zimmermann),

v. 632658 (exact and even eloquent account, as these of Jordens, unexpectedly, often are); Zimmermann

SANSSOUCI," where the King now lived (Big SansSouci, or "SansSouci" by itself, means in those days,

not in ours at all, "New Palace, NEUE PALAIS," now in all its splendor of fresh finish). De Catt, Friedrich's

Reader, whom we know well, was a Genevese, and knew Zimmermann from of old. Schmucker and De Catt

were privately twitching up Friedrich's curiosity,to whom also Zimmermann's name, and perhaps his late

surgical operation, might be known: "Can he speak French?""Native to him, your Majesty." Friedrich had

some notion to see Zimmermann; and judicious De Catt, on this fortunate Saturday, "26th October, 1771,"

morrow after Zimmermann's arrival at Potsdam, "came to our inn about, 1 P.M. [King's dinner just done]; and

asked me to come and look at the beauties of SansSouci [Big SansSouci] for a little." Zimmermann

willingly went: Catt, left him in good hands to see the beauties; slipt off, for his own part, to "LITTLE

SansSouci;" came back, took Zimmermann thither; left, him with Schmucker, all trembling, thinking

perhaps the King might call him. "I trembled sometimes, then again I felt exceeding happiness:" I was in

Schmucker's room, sitting by the fire, mostly alone for a good while, "the room that had once been Marquis

d'Argens's" (who is now dead, and buried far away, good old soul);when, at last, about halfpast 4, Catt

came jumping in, breathless with joy; snatched me up: "His Majesty wants to speak with you this very

"I hurried, handinhand with Catt, along a row of Chambers. 'Here,' said Catt, 'we are now at the King's

room!'My heart thumped, like to spring out of my body. Catt went in; but next moment the door again

"In the middle of the room stood an iron campbed without curtains. There, on a worn mattress, lay King

Friedrich, the terror of Europe, without coverlet, in an old blue roquelaure. He had a big cockedhat, with a

white feather [hat aged, worn soft as duffel, equal to most caps; "feather" is not perpendicular, but horizontal,

"The King took off his hat very graciously, when I was perhaps ten steps from him; and said in French (our

"I advanced to within two steps of the King; he said in the mean while to Catt: 'Call Schmucker in, too.' Herr

Schmucker came; placed himself behind the King, his back to the wall; and Catt stood behind me. Now the

KING. "'I hear you have found your health again in Berlin; I wish you joy of that.'

EGO. "'I have found my life again in Berlin; but at this moment, Sire, I find here a still greater happiness!'

KING (laughing in a very kind manner). "'Oh, you behaved like a brave Switzer! But are you quite recovered,

EGO. "'Sire, I have seen all the wonders of your creation in Sans Souci, and feel well in looking at them.'

KING. "'I am glad of that. But you must have a care, and especially not get on horseback.'

EGO. "'It will be pleasant and easy for me to follow the counsels of your Majesty.'

EGO. "'He is concluding his literary career with a romance.' [USONG had just come out;no mortal now

KING. "'But there are some Physicians whose methods you prefer to those of others?'

KING. "'I know M. Tissot. I have read his writings, and value them very much. On the whole, I love the Art

of Medicine. My Father wished me to get some knowledge in it. He often sent me into the Hospitals; and

EGO. "'And by terrible example!Sire, Medicine is a very difficult Art. But your Majesty is used to bring

all Arts under subjection to the force of your genius, and to conquer all that is difficult.'

KING. "'Alas, no: I cannot conquer all that is difficult!' [Hardmouthed Kaunitz, for example; stockstill,

with his right ear turned on Turkey: how get Kaunitz into step!]Here the King became reflective; was

silent for a little moment, and then asked me, with a most bright smile: 'How many churchyards have you

EGO. "'Perhaps, in my youth, I have done a little that way! But now it goes better; for I am timid rather than

"Our Dialogue now became extremely brisk. The King quickened into extraordinary vivacity; and examined

me now in the character of Doctor, with such a stringency as, in the year 1751, at Gottingen, when I stood for

my Degree, the learned Professors Haller, Richter, Segner and Brendel (for which Heaven recompense them!)

never dreamed of! All inflammatory fevers, and the most important of the slow diseases, the King mustered

with me, in their order. He asked me, How and whereby I recognized each of these diseases; how and

whereby distinguished them from the approximate maladies; what my procedure was in simple and in

complicated cases; and how I cured all those disorders? On the varieties, the accidents, the mode of

treatment, of smallpox especially, the King inquired with peculiar strictness;and spoke, with much

emotion, of that young Prince of his House who was carried off, some years ago, by that disorder

[suddenly arrested by it, while on march with his regiment, "near Ruppin, 26th May, 1767." This is the Prince

Henri, junior Brother of the subsequent King, Friedrich Wilhelm II., who, among other fooleries, invaded

France, in 1792, with such success. Both Henri and he, as boys, used to be familiar to us in the final winters

of the late War. Poor Henri had died at the age of nineteen,as yet all brightness, amiability and nothing

else: Friedrich sent an ELOGE of him to his ACADEMIE, [In OEuvres de Frederic, vii. 37 et seq.] which is

touchingly and strangely filled with authentic sorrow for this young Nephew of his, but otherwise empty,a

mere bottle of sighs and tears]. Then he came upon Inoculation; went along over an incredible multitude of

other medical subjects. Into all he threw masterly glances; spoke of all with the soundest [all in superlative]

knowledge of the matter, and with no less penetration than liveliness and sense.

"With heartfelt satisfaction, and with the freest soul, I made my answers to his Majesty. It is true, he potently

supported and encouraged me. Ever and anon his Majesty was saying to me: 'That is very good;that is

excellently thought and expressed;your mode of proceeding, altogether, pleases me very well;I rejoice

to see how much our ways of thinking correspond.' Often, too, he had the graciousness to add: 'But, I weary

you with my many questions!' His scientific questions I answered with simplicity, clearness and brevity; and

could not forbear sometimes expressing my astonishment at the deep and conclusive (TIEFEN UND

"His Majesty came now upon the history of his own maladies. He told me them over, in their series; and

asked my opinion and advice about each. On the HAEMORRHOIDS, which he greatly complained of, I said

something that struck him. Instantly he started up in his bed; turned his head round towards the wall, and

said: 'Schmucker, write me that down!' I started in fright at this word; and not without reason! Then our

KING. "'The Gout likes to take up his quarters with me; he knows I am a Prince, and thinks I shall feed him

EGO. "'May Gout, thereby get disgusted, and forbear ever calling on your Majesty!'

EGO. "'Europe feels that your Majesty is not old; and your Majesty's look (PHYSIOGNOMIE) shows that

"In this way, for an hour and quarter, with uninterrupted vivacity, the Dialogue went on. At last the King

gave me the sign to go; lifting his hat very kindly, and saying: 'Adieu, my dear M. Zimmermann; I am very

Towards 6 P.M. now, and Friedrich must sign his Despatches; have his Concert, have his reading; then to

supper (as spectator only),with Quintus Icilius and old Lord Marischal, tonight, or whom? [Of Icilius,

and a quarrel and estrangement there had lately been, now happily reconciled, see Nicolai, Anekdoten, vi.

"Herr von Catt accompanied me into the anteroom, and Schmucker followed. I could not stir from the spot;

could not speak, was so charmed and so touched, that I broke into a stream of tears [being very weak of

nerves at the time!]. Herr von Catt said: 'I am now going back to the King; go you into the room where I took

you up; about eight I will conduct you home.' I pressed my excellent countryman's hand, I""Schmucker

said, I had stood too near his Majesty; I had spoken too frankly, with too much vivacity; nay, what was

unheard of in the world, I had 'gesticulated' before his Majesty! 'In presence of a King,' said Herr Schmucker,

'one must stand stiff and not stir.' De Catt came back to us at eight; and, in Schmucker's presence [let him

DE CATT. "'Zimmermann, at the door of your Majesty's room, burst into a stream of tears.'

KING. "'I love those tender affectionate hearts; I love right well those brave Swiss people!'

"Next morning the King was heard to say: 'I have found Zimmermann quite what you described him.'Catt

assured me furthermore, 'Since the SevenYears War there had thousands of strangers, persons of rank, come

to Potsdam, wishing to speak with the King, and had not attained that favor; and of those who had, there

could not one individual boast that his Majesty had talked with him an hour and quarter at once.' [Fourteen

years hence, he dismissed Mirabeau in half an hour; which was itself a good allowance.]

"Sunday 27th, I left Potsdam, with my kind Meckels, in an enthusiasm of admiration, astonishment, love and

gratitude; wrote to the King from Berlin, sent him a Tissot's Book (marked on the margins for Majesty's use),

which he acknowledged by some word to Catt: whereupon I"In short, I got home to Hanover, in a more or

less seraphic condition,"with indescribable, unspeakable," what not,early in November; and, as a healed

man, never more troubled with that disorder, though still troubled with many and many, endeavored to get a

little work out of myself again. [Zimmermann, Meine Unterredungen (Dialogues) with Friedrich the Great

"Zimmermann was tall, handsome of shape; his exterior was distinguished and imposing," says Jordens. [Ubi

supra, p. 643.] "He had a firm and light step; stood gracefully; presented himself well. He had a fine head; his

voice was agreeable; and intellect sparkled in his eyes:"had it not been for those dreadful hypochondrias,

and confused disasters, a very pretty man. At the time of this first visit to Friedrich he is 43 years of age, and

Friedrich is on the borders of 60. Zimmermann, with still more famous DIALOGUES, will reappear on us

from Hanover, on a sad occasion! Meanwhile, few weeks after him, here is a Visit of far more joyful kind.

Prince Henri was hardly home from Petersburg and the Swedish Visit, when poor Adolf Friedrich, King of

Sweden, died. [12th February, 1771.] A very great and sad event to his Queen, who had loved her old man;

and is now left solitary, eclipsed, in circumstances greatly altered on the sudden. In regard to settlements,

Accession of the new Prince, dowager revenues and the like, all went right enough; which was some

alleviation, though an inconsiderable, to the sorrowing Widow. Her two Princes were absent, touring over

Europe, when their Father died, and the elder of them, Karl Gustav, suddenly saw himself King. They were in

no breathless haste to return; visited their Uncle, their Prussian kindred, on the way, and had an interesting

week at Potsdam and Berlin; [April 22d 29th: Rodenbeck, iii. 45.] Karl Gustav flying diligently about, still

incognito, as "Graf von Gothland,"a spirited young fellow, perhaps too spirited;and did not reach home

Some think the young King had already something dangerous and serious in view, and wished his Mother out

of the way for a time. Certain it is she decided on a visit to her native Country in December following:

arrived accordingly, December 2d, 1771; and till the middle of August next was a shining phenomenon in the

Royal House and upper ranks of Berlin Society, and a touching and interesting one to the busy Friedrich

himself, as may be supposed. She had her own Apartments and Household at Berlin, in the Palace there, I

think; but went much visiting about, and receiving many visits,fond especially of literary people.

Friedrich's notices of her are frequent in his Letters of the time, all affectionate, natural and reasonable. Here

are the first two I meet with: TO THE ELECTRESS OF SAXONY (three weeks after Ulrique's arrival); "A

thousand excuses, Madam, for not answering sooner! What will plead for me with a Princess who so well

knows the duties of friendship, is, that I have been occupied with the reception of a Sister, who has come to

seek consolation in the bosom of her kindred for the loss of a loved Husband, the remembrance of whom

saddens and afflicts her." And again, two months later: "... Your Royal Highness deigns to take so obliging an

interest in the visit I have had [and still have] from the Queen of Sweden. I beheld her as if raised from the

dead to me; for an absence of eightand twenty years, in the short space of our duration, is almost

equivalent to death. She arrived among us, still in great affliction for the loss she had had of the King; and I

tried to distract her sad thoughts by all the dissipations possible. It is only by dint of such that one compels

the mind to shift away from the fatal idea where grief has fixed it: this is not the work of a day, but of time,

which in the end succeeds in everything. I congratulate your Royal Highness on your Journey to Bavaria [on

a somewhat similar errand, we may politely say]; where you will find yourself in the bosom of a Family that

adores you:" after which, and the sight of old scenes, how pleasant to go on to Italy, as you propose!

[ OEuvres de Frederic, xxiv. 230, 235. "24th December 1771," "February, 1772." See also, "Eptire a la Reine

Douairiere de Suede" (Poem on the Troubles she has had: OEuvres de Frederic, xiii. 74, "written in

Queen Ulriquea solid and ingenuous character (in childhood a favorite of her Father's, so rational, truthful

and of silent staid ways)appears to have been popular in the Berlin circles; pleasant and pleased, during

these eight months. Formey, especially Thiebault, are copious on this Visit of hers; and give a number of

insipid Anecdotes; How there was solemn Session of the Academy made for her, a Paper of the King's to be

read there, ["DISCOURS DE L'UTILITE DES SCIENCES ET DES ARTS DAM UN ETAT" (in OEuvres de

Frederic, ix. 169 et seq.): read "27th January, 1772." Formey, ii. 16, beautifully done by me, Thiebault (one

of my main functions, this of reading the King's Academy Papers, and my dates of THEM always correct);

how Thiebault was invited to dinner in consequence, and again invited; how Formey dined with her Majesty

"twentyfive times;" and "preached to her in the Palace, August 19th" (should be August 9th): insipid

wholly, vapid and stupid; descriptive of nothing, except of the vapidities and vanities of certain persons.

Leaving these, we will take an Excerpt, probably our last, from authentic Busching, which is at least to be

Busching, for the last five or six years, is home from Russia; comfortably established here as

Consistorialrath, much concerned with SchoolSuperintendence; still more with GEOGRAPHY, with

copious rugged Literature of the undigested kind: a man well seen in society; has "six families of rank which

invite him to dinner;" all the dining he is equal to, with so much undigested writing on his hands. Busching,

in his final Section, headed BERLIN LIFE, Section more incondite even than its foregoers, has this

"On the QueenDowager of Sweden, Louise Ulrique's, coming to Berlin, I felt not a little embarrassed. The

case was this: Most part of the SIXTH VOLUME of my MAGAZINE [meritorious curious Book, sometimes

quoted by us here, not yet known in English Libraries] was printed; and in it, in the printed part, were various

things that concerned the deceased Sovereign, King Adolf Friedrich, and his Spouse [now come to visit

us],and among these were Articles which the then ruling party in Sweden could certainly not like. And

now I was afraid these people would come upon the false notion, that it was from the QueenDowager I had

got the Articles in question;notion altogether false, as they had been furnished me by Baron Korf [well

known to Hordt and others of us, at Petersburg, in the CzarPeter time], now Russian Minister at

Copenhagen. However, when Duke Friedrich of Brunswick [one of the juniors, soldiering here with his

Uncle, as they almost all are] wrote to me, one day, That his Lady Aunt the Queen of Sweden invited me to

dine with her tomorrow, and that he, the Duke, would introduce me,I at once decided to lay my

"Next day, when I was presented to her Majesty, she took me by the hand, and led me to a window [as was

her custom with guests whom she judged to be worth questioning and talking to], and so placed herself in a

corner there that I came to stand close before her; when she did me the honor to ask a great many questions

about Russia, the Imperial Court especially, and most of all the Grand Duke [Czar Paul that is to be,a

kind of kinsman he, his poor Father was my late Husband's Cousingerman, as perhaps you know]. A great

deal of time was spent in this way; so that the Princes and Princesses, punctual to invitation, had to wait

above half an hour long; and the Queen was more than once informed that dinner was on the table and getting

cold. I could get nothing of my own mentioned here; all I could do was to draw back, in a polite way, so soon

as the Queen would permit: and afterwards, at table, to explain with brevity my concern about what was

printed in the MAGAZINE; and request the Queen to permit me to send it her to read for herself. She had it,

"A few days after, she invited me again; again spoke with me a long while in the window embrasure, in a low

tone of voice: confirmed to me all that she had read,and in particular, minutely explained that LETTER OF

THE KING [one of my Pieces] in which he relates what passed between him and Count Tessin [Son's Tutor]

in the Queen's Apartment. At table, she very soon took occasion to say: 'I cannot imagine to myself how the

Herr Consistorialrath [Busching, to wit] has come upon that Letter of my deceased Lord the King of

Sweden's; which his Majesty did write, and which is now printed in your MAGAZINE. For certain, the King

showed it to nobody.' Whereupon BUSCHING: 'Certainly; nor is that to be imagined, your Majesty. But the

person it was addressed to must have shown it; and so a copy of it has come to my hands.' Queen still

expresses her wonder; whereupon again, Busching, with a courageous candor: 'Your Majesty, most

graciously permit me to say, that hitherto all Swedish secrets of Court or State have been procurable for

money and good words!' The Queen, to whom I sat directly opposite, cast down her eyes at these words and

smiled;and the Reichsrath Graf von Schwerin [a Swedish Gentleman of hers], who sat at my left, seized

me by the hand, and said: 'Alas, that is true!'"Here is a difficulty got over; Magazine Number can come out

when it will. As it did, "next EasterFair," with proper indications and tacit proofs that the Swedish part of it

Busching dined with her Majesty several times,"eating nothing," he is careful to mention and was careful

to show her Majesty, "except, very gradually, a small bit of bread soaked in a glass of wine!"meaning

thereby, "Note, ye great ones, it is not for your dainties; in fact, it is out of loyal politeness mainly!" the

"One time, the Queen asked me, in presence of various Princes and Princesses of the Royal House: 'Do you

think it advisable to enlighten the Lower Classes by education?' To which I answered: 'Considering only

under what heavy loads a man of the Lower Classes, especially of the Peasant sort, has to struggle through his

life, one would think it was better neither to increase his knowledge nor refine his sensibility. But when one

reflects that he, as well as those of the Higher Classes, is to last through Eternity; and withal that good

instruction may [or might, IF it be not BAD] increase his practical intelligence, and help him to methods of

alleviating himself in this world, it must be thought advisable to give him useful enlightenment.' The Queen

"Twice I dined with her Majesty at her Sister, Princess Amelia, the Abbess of Quedlinburg's:and the

second time [must have been Summer, 1772], Professor Sulzer, who was also a guest, caught his death there.

When I entered the receptionroom, Sulzer was standing in the middle of a thoroughdraught, which they

had managed to have there, on account of the great heat; and he had just arrived, all in a perspiration, from

the Thiergarten: I called him out of the draught, but it was too late." [Busching: Beitrage, vi. 578582.] ACH,

Busching has a great deal to say about Schools, about the "School Commission 1765," the subjects taught, the

methods of teaching devised by Busching and others, and the King's continual exertions, under deficient

funds, in this province of his affairs. Busching had unheardof difficulty to rebuild the old Gymnasium at

Berlin into a new. Tried everybody; tried the King thrice over, but nobody would. "One of the persons I

applied to was Lieutenant General von Ramin, Governor of Berlin [surliest of mankind, of whose truculent

incivility there go many anecdotes]; to Ramin I wrote, entreating that he would take a good opportunity and

suggest a new Town Schoolhouse to his Majesty: 'Excellenz, it will render you immortal in the annals of

Berlin!' To which Ramin made answer: 'That is an immortality I must renounce the hope of, and leave to the

TownSyndics and yourself. I, for my own part, will by no means risk such a proposal to his Majesty; which

he would, in all likelihood, answer in the negative, and receive ill at anybody's hands.'" [Ib. vi. 568.] By

subscriptions, by bequests, donations and the private piety of individuals, Busching aiding and stirring, the

thing was at last got done. Here is another glance into School life: not from Busching:

JUNE 9th, 1771. "This Year the Stande of the Kurmark find they have an overplus of 100,000 thalers (15,000

pounds); which sum they do themselves the pleasure of presenting to the King for his Majesty's uses." King

cannot accept it for his own uses. "This money," answers he (9th June), "comes from the Province, wherefore

I feel bound to lay it out again for advantage of the Province. Could not it become a means of getting English

husbandry [TURNIPS in particular, whether shorthorns or not, I do not know] introduced among us? In the

Towns that follow Farming chiefly, or in Villages belonging to unmoneyed Nobles, we will lend out this

15,000 pounds, at 4 per cent, in convenient sums for that object: hereby will turnipculture and rotation be

vouchsafed us; interest at 4 per cent brings us in 600 pounds annually; and this we will lay out in establishing

new Schoolmasters in the Kurmark, and having the youth better educated." What a pretty idea; neat and

beautiful, killing two important birds with one most small stone! I have known enormous cannonballs and

granite blocks, torrent after torrent, shot out under other kinds of Financegunnery, that were not only less

Unluckily, no Nobles were found inclined; English Husbandry ["TURNIPSE" and the rest of it] had to wait

their time. The King again writes: "No Nobles to be found, say you? Well; put the 15,000 pounds to interest

in the common way,that the Schoolmasters at least may have solacement: I will add 120 thalers (18

pounds) apiece, that we may have a chance of getting better Schoolmasters; send me List of the Places

where the worst are." List was sent; is still extant; and on the margin of it, in Royal Autograph, this

"The Places are well selected. The bad Schoolmasters are mostly Tailors; and you must see whether they

cannot be got removed to little Towns, and set to tailoring again, or otherwise disposed of, that our Schools

might the sooner rise into good condition, which is an interesting thing." "Eager always our Master is to have

the Schooling of his People improved and everywhere diffused," writes, some years afterwards, the excellent

Zedlitz, officially "Minister of Public Justice," but much and meritoriously concerned with School matters as

well. The King's ideas were of the best, and Zedlitz sometimes had fine hopes; but the want of funds was

"In 1779," says Preuss, "there came a sad blow to Zedlitz's hopes: Minister von Brenkenhof [deep in

WestPreussen canaldiggings and expenditures] having suggested, That instead of getting Pensions, the Old

Soldiers should be put to keeping School." Do but fancy it; poor old fellows, little versed in scholastics

hitherto! "Friedrich, in his pinch, grasped at the small help; wrote to the WarDepartment: 'Send me a List of

Invalids who are fit [or at least fittest] to be Schoolmasters.' And got thereupon a list of 74, and afterwards 5

more [79 Invalids in all]; WarDepartment adding, That besides these scholastic sort, there were 741 serving

as BUDNER [Turnpikekeepers, in a sort], as Forestwatchers and the like; and 3,443 UNVERSORGT"

(shifting for themselves, no provision made for them at all),such the check, by cold arithmetic and

The TURNIPS, I believe, got gradually in; and Brandenburg, in our day, is a more and more beautifully

farmed Country. Nor were the Schoolmasters unsuccessful at all points; though I cannot report a complete

Queen Ulrique left, I think, on the 9th of August, 1772; there is sad farewell in Friedrich's Letter next day to

Princess Sophie Albertine, the Queen's Daughter, subsequently Abbess of Quedlinburg: he is just setting out

on his Silesian Reviews; "shall, too likely, never see your good Mamma again." ["Potsdam, 10th August,

1772:" OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. ii. 93.] Poor King; Berlin City is sound asleep, while he rushes through it

on this errand,"past the Princess Amelia's window," in the dead of night; and takes to humming tender

strophes to her too; which gain a new meaning by their date. ["A MA SOEUR AMELIE, EN PASSANT, LA

NUIT, SOUS SA FENETRE, POUR ALLER EN SILESIE (AOUT 1772):" OEuvres de Frederic, xiii. 77.]

Ten days afterwards (19th August, 1772),Queen Ulrique not yet home,her Son, the spirited King Gustav

III., at Stockholm had made what in our day is called a "stroke of state,"put a thorn in the snout of his

monster of a Senate, namely: "Less of palaver, venality and insolence, from you, Sirs; we 'restore the

Constitution of 1680,' and are something of a King again!" Done with considerable dexterity and spirit; not

one person killed or hurt. And surely it was the muzzlingup of a great deal of folly on their side,provided

only there came wisdom enough from Gustav himself instead. But, alas, there did not, there hardly could. His

Uncle was alarmed, and not a little angry for the moment: "You had two Parties to reconcile; a work of time,

of patient endeavor, continual and quiet; no good possible till then. And instead of that!" Gustav, a shining

kind of man, showed no want of spirit, now or afterwards: but he leant too much on France and broken

reeds;and, in the end, got shot in the back by one of those beautiful "Nobles" of his, and came to a bad

conclusion, they and he. ["16th29th March, 1792," death of Gustav III. by that assassination: "13th March,

1809," his Son Gustav IV, has to go on his travels; "Karl XIII.," a childless Uncle, succeeds for a few years:

Queen Ulrique was spared all these catastrophes. She had alarmed her Brother by a dangerous illness, sudden

and dangerous, in 1775; who writes with great anxiety about it, to Another still more anxious: [See

"Correspondence with Gustav III." (in OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. ii. 84, of this she got well again; but it did

not last very long. July 16th, 1782, she died;and the sad Friedrich had to say, Adieu. Alas, "must the eldest

Of our dear Wilhelmina's high and unfortunate Daughter there should be some Biography; and there will

surely, if a man of sympathy and faculty pass that way; but there is not hitherto. Nothing hitherto but a few

bare dates; bare and sternly significant, as on a Tombstone; indicating that she had a History, and that it was a

tragic one. Welcome to all of us, in this state of matters, is the following one clear emergence of her into the

light of day, and in company so interesting too! Seven years before her death she had gone to Lausanne (July,

1773) to consult Tissot, a renowned Physician of those days. From Lausanne, after two months, she visited

"MADAM,I am informed that your most Serene Highness has deigned to remember that I was in the

world. It is very sad to be there, without paying you my court. I never felt so cruelly the sad state to which old

"I never saw you except as a child [1743, her age then 10]: but you were certainly the beautifulest child in

Europe. May you be the happiest Princess [alas!], as you deserve to be! I was attached to Madam the

Margravine [your dear Mother] with equal devotedness and respect; and I had the honor to be pretty deep in

her confidence, for some time before this world, which was not worthy of her, had lost that adorable Princess.

You resemble her;but don't resemble her infeebleness of health! You are in the flower of your age

[coming forty, I should fear]: let such bright flower lose nothing of its splendor; may your happiness be able

to equal [PUISSO EGALER] your beauty; may all your days be serene, and the sweets of friendship add a

new charm to them! These are my wishes; they are as lively as my regrets at not being at your feet. What a

consolation it would be for me to speak of your loving Mother, and of all your august relatives! Why must

Destiny send you to Lausanne [consulting Dr. Tissot there], and hinder me from flying thither! Let your

most Serene Highness deign to accept the profound respect of the old moribund Philosopher of Ferney.V."

The Answer of the Princess, or farther Correspondence on the matter, is not given; evident only that by and

by, as Voltaire himself will inform us, she did appear at Ferney;and a certain Swedish tourist, one

Bjornstahl, who met her there, enables us even to give the date. He reports this anecdote:

"At supper, on the evening of 7th September, 1773, the Princess sat next to Voltaire, who always addressed

her 'VOTRE ALTESSE.' At last the Duchess said to him, 'TU ES ANON PAPA, JE SUIS TA FILLE, ET JE

VOUZ ETRE APPELEE TA FILLE.' Voltaire took a pencil from his pocket, asked for a card, and wrote

He gave the card to the Princess, who embraced and kissed him for it." [Vehse, Geschichte der Deutschen

"I must tell you that I have felt, in these late days, in spite of all my past caprices, how much I am attached to

your Majesty and to your House. Madam the Duchess of Wurtemberg having had, like so many others, the

weakness to believe that health is to be found at Lausanne, and that Dr. Tissot gives it if one pay him, has, as

you know, made the journey to Lausanne; and I, who am more veritably ill than she, and than all the

Princesses who have taken Tissot for an AEsculapius, had not the strength to leave my home. Madam of

Wurtemberg, apprised of all the feelings that still live in me for the memory of Madam the Margravine of

Baireuth her Mother, has deigned to visit my hermitage, and pass two days with us. I should have recognized

her, even without warning; she has the turn of her Mother's face with your eyes.

"You Heropeople who govern the world don't allow yourselves to be subdued by feelings; you have them all

the same as we, but you maintain your decorum. We other petty mortals yield to all our impressions: I set

myself to cry, in speaking to her of you and of Madam the Princess her Mother; and she too, though she is

Niece of the first Captain in Europe, could not restrain her tears. It appears to me, that she has the talent

(ESPRIT) and the graces of your House; and that especially she is more attached to you than to her Husband

[No Mother, no Father there now: foolish Uncle of Anspath died long ago, "3d August, 1757:" Aunt

Dowager of Anspach gone to Erlangen, I hope, to Feuchtwang, Schwabach or Schwaningen, or some

Widow'sMansion "WITTWENSITZ" of her own; [Lived, finally at Schwaningen, in sight of such

vicissitudes and follies round her, till "4th February, 1784" (Rodenbeck, iii. 304).] reigning Son, with his

"returns, I believe, to Baireuth; where she will find another Princess of a different sort; I mean

Mademoiselle Clairon, who cultivates Natural History, and is Lady Philosopher to Monseigneur the

Margraf,"highrouged TragedyQueen, rather tyrannous upon him, they say: a young man destined to

... "I renounce my beautiful hopes of seeing the Mahometans driven out of Europe, and Athens become again

the Seat of the Muses. Neither you nor the Kaiser are"are inclined in the Crusading way at all. ... "The old

sick man of Ferney is always at the feet of your Majesty; he feels very sorry that he cannot talk of you farther

with Madam the Duchess of Wurtemberg, who adores you. LE VIEUX MALADE." [ OEuvres de

To which Friedrich makes answer: "If it is forevermore forbidden me to see you again, I am not the less glad

that the Duchess of Wurtemberg has seen you. I should certainly have mixed my tears with yours, had I been

present at that touching scene! Be it weakness, be it excess of regard, I have built for her lost Mother, what

Cicero projected for his Tullia, a TEMPLE OF FRIENDSHIP: her Statue occupies the background, and on

each pillar stands a mask (MASCARON) containing the Bust of some Hero in Friendship: I send you the

drawing of it." ["Potsdam, 24th October, 1773:" OEuvres de Frederic, xxiii. 259:"Temple" was built in

1768 (Ib. p. 259 n.).] Which again sets Voltaire weeping, and will the Duchess when she sees it. [Voltaire's

We said there hitherto was nearly nothing anywhere discoverable as History of this high Lady but the dates

only; these we now give. She was "born 30th August, 1732,"her Mother's and Father's one Child;four

years older than her Anspach Cousin, who inherited Baireuth too, and finished off that genealogy. She was

"wedded 26th September, 1748;" her age then about 16; her gloomy Duke of Wurtemberg, age 20, all

sunshine and goodness to her then: she was "divorced in 1757:" "died 6th April, 1780,"Tradition says, "in

great poverty [great for her rank, I suppose, proud as she might be, and above complaining],at

NeustadtontheAisch" (in the Nurnberg region), whither she had retired, I know not how long after her

Papa's death and Cousin's accession. She is bound for her Cousin's Court, we observe, just now; and,

considering her Cousin's ways and her own turn of mind, it is easy to fancy she had not a pleasant time there.

Tradition tells us, credibly enough, "She was very like her Mother: beautiful, much the lady (VON FEINEM

TON), and of energetic character;" and adds, probably on slight foundation, "but very cold and proud towards

the people." [Vehse, xxv. 251.] Many Books will inform you how, "On first entering Stuttgard, when the

reigning Duke and she were met by a party of congratulatory peasant women dressed in their national

costume, she said to her Duke," being then only sixteen, poor young soul, and on her marriagejourney,

"'WAS WILL DAS GESCHMEISS (Why does that rabble bore us)!'" This is probably the main foundation.

That "her Ladies, on approaching her, had always to kiss the hem of her gown," lay in the nature of the case,

being then the rule to people of her rank. Beautiful Unfortunate, adieu:and be Voltaire thanked, too!

It is long since we have seen Voltaire before:a prosperous Lord at Ferney these dozen years ("the only man

in France that lives like a GRAND SEIGNEUR," says Cardinal Bernis to him once [Their

CORRESPONDENCE, really pretty of its kind, used to circulate as a separate Volume in the years then

subsequent.]); doing great things for the Pays de Gex and for France, and for Europe; delivering the Calases,

the Sirvens and the Oppressed of various kinds; especially ardent upon the INFAME, as the real business

Heaven has assigned him in his Day, the sunset of which, and Night wherein no man can work, he feels to be

hastening on. "Couldn't we, the few Faithful, go to Cleve in a body?" thinks he at one time: "To Cleve; and

there, as from a safe place, under the Philosopher King, shoot out our fiery artilleries with effect?" The

Philosopher King is perfectly willing, "provided you don't involve me in Wars with my neighbors." Willing

enough he; but they the Faithfulalas, the Patriarch finds that they have none of his own heroic ardor, and

that the thing cannot be done. Upon which, "struck with sorrow," say his Biographers, "he writes nothing to

Friedrich for two years." ["Nov. 1769," recommences ( OEuvres de Frederic, xxiii. 140. 139).]

The truth is, he is growing very old; and though a piercing radiance, as of stars, bursts occasionally from the

central part of him, the outworks are getting decayed and dim; obstruction more and more accumulating, and

the immeasurable Night drawing nigh. Well does Voltaire himself, at all moments, know this; and his bearing

under it, one must say, is rather beautiful. There is a tenderness, a sadness, in these his later Letters to

Friedrich; instead of emphasis or strength, a beautiful shrill melody, as of a woman, as of a child; he grieves

unappeasably to have lost Friedrich; never will forgive Maupertuis:poor old man! Friedrich answers in a

much livelier, more robust tone: friendly, encouraging, communicative on small matters;full of

praises,in fact, sincerely glad to have such a transcendent genius still alive with him in this world. Praises

to the most liberal pitch everything of Voltaire's,except only the Article on WAR, which occasionally (as

As we have room for nothing of all this, and perhaps shall not see Voltaire again,there are Two actual

Interviews with him, which, being withal by Englishmen, though otherwise not good for much, we intend for

readers here. In these last twenty years D'Alembert is Friedrich's chief Correspondent. Of D'Alembert to the

King, it may be or may not, some opportunity will rise for a specimen; meanwhile here is a short Letter of the

King's to D'Alembert, through which there pass so many threads of contemporaneous flying events (swift

shuttles on the loudsounding Loom of Time), that we are tempted to give this, before the two Interviews in

Date of the Letter is two months after that apparition of the Duchess of Wurtemberg at Ferney. Of "Crillon,"

an ingenious enough young Soldier, rushing ardently about the world in his holiday time, we have nothing to

say, except that he is Son of that Rossbach Crillon, who always fancies to himself that once he perhaps spared

Friedrich's life (by a glass of wine judiciously given) long since, while the Bridge of Weissenfels was on fire,

and Rossbach close ahead. [Supra, x. 6.] Colonel "Guibert" is another Soldier, still young, but of much

superior type; greatly an admirer of Friedrich, and subsequently a Writer upon him. [Of Guibert's visit to

In regard to the "Landgravine of Darmstadt," notice these points. First, that her eldest Daughter is Wife,

second Wife, to the dissolute CrownPrince of Prussia; and then, that she has Three other Daughters,one

of whom has just been disposed of in an important way; wedded to the Czarowitsh Paul of Russia, namely.

By Friedrich's means and management, as Friedrich informs us. [ OEuvres de Frederic, (MEMOIRES DE

1763 JUSQU'A 1775), vi. 57.] The Czarina, he says, had sent out a confidential Gentleman, one Asseburg,

who was Prussian by birth, to seek a fit Wife for her Son: Friedrich, hearing of this, suggested to Asseburg,

"The Landgravine of Darmstadt, the most distinguished and accomplished of German Princesses, has three

marriageable Daughters; her eldest, married to our CrownPrince, will be Queen of Prussia in time

coming;suppose now, one of the others were to be Czarina of Russia withal? Think, might it not be useful

both to your native Country and to your adopted?" Asseburg took the hint; reported at Petersburg, That of all

marriageable Princesses in Germany, the Three of Darmstadt, one or the other of them, would, in his humble

opinion, be the eligiblest. "Could not we persuade you to come to Petersburg, Madam Landgravine?" wrote

the Czarina thereupon: "Do us the honor of a visit, your three Princesses and you!" The Landgravine and

Daughters, with decent celerity, got under way; [Passed through Berlin 16th19th May, 1773: Rodenbeck, iii.

78.] Czarowitsh Paul took interesting survey, on their arrival; and about two months ago wedded the middle

one of the three:and here is the victorious Landgravine bringing home the other two. Czarowitsh's fair one

did not live long, nor behave well: died of her first child; and Czarowitsh, in 1776, had to apply to us again

for a Wife, whom this time we fitted better. Happily, the poor victorious Landgravine was gone before

anything of this; she died suddenly five months hence; [30th March, 1774.] nothing doubting of her Russian

Adventure. She was an admired Princess of her time, DIE GROSSE LANDGRAFIN, as Goethe somewhere

calls her; much in Friedrich's esteem,FEMINA SEXU, INGENIO VIR, as the Monument he raised to her

at Darmstadt still bears. [ OEuvres de Frederic, xx. 183 n. His CORRESPONDENCE with her is Ib. xxvii ii.

"M. de Crillon delivered me your CRILLONADE [lengthy Letter of introduction]; which has completed me

in the History of all the Crillons of the County of Avignon. He does n't stop here; he is soon to be off for

Russia; so that I will take him on your word, and believe him the wisest of all the Crillons: assuring myself

that you have measured and computed all his curves, and angles of incidence. He will find Diderot and

Grimm in Russia [famous visit of Diderot], all occupied with the Czarina's beautiful reception of them, and

with the many things worthy of admiration which they have seen there. Some say Grimm will possibly fix

himself in that Country [chose better],which will be the asylum at once of your fanatic CHAUMEIXES

and of the ENCYCLOPEDISTES, whom he used to denounce. [This poor Chaumeix did, after such feats,

"M. de Guibert has gone by Ferney; where it is said Voltaire has converted him, that is, has made him

renounce the errors of ambition, abjure the frightful trade of hired manslayer, with intent to become either

Capuchin or Philosophe; so that I suppose by this time he will have published a 'Declaration' like Gresset,

informing the public That, having had the misfortune to write a Work on Tactics, he repented it from the

bottom of his soul, and hereby assured mankind that never more in his life would he give rules for butcheries,

assassinations, feints, stratagems or the like abominations. As to me, my conversion not being yet in an

advanced stage, I pray you to give me details about Guibert's, to soften my heart and penetrate my bowels.

"We have the Landgravine of Darmstadt here: [Rodenbeck, iii. 89, 90.] no end to the Landgravine's praises of

a magnificent Czarina, and of all the beautiful and grand things she has founded in that Country. As to us,

who live like mice in their holes, news come to us only from mouth to mouth, and the sense of hearing is

nothing like that of sight. I cherish my wishes, in the mean while, for the sage Anaxagoras [my D'Alembert

himself]; and I say to Urania, 'It is for thee to sustain thy foremost Apostle, to maintain one light, without

which a great Kingdom [France] would sink into darkness;' and I say to the Supreme Demiurgus: 'Have

always the good D'Alembert in thy holy and worthy keeping.'F." [ OEuvres de Frederic, xxiv. 614.]

THE BOSTON TEA (same day). Curious to remark, while Friedrich is writing this Letter, "THURSDAY,

DECEMBER 16th, 1773," what a commotion is going on, far over seas, at Boston, New England,in the

"Old South Meetinghouse" there; in regard to three English Tea Ships that are lying embargoed in Griffin's

Wharf for above a fortnight past. The case is well known, and still memorable to mankind. British

Parliament, after nine years of the saddest haggling and baffling to and fro, under Constitutional stress of

weather, and such eastwinds and westwinds of Parliamentary eloquence as seldom were, has made up its

mind, That America shall pay duty on these Teas before infusing them: and America, Boston more especially,

is tacitly determined that it will not; and that, to avoid mistakes, these Teas shall never be landed at all. Such

is Boston's private intention, more or less fixed;to say nothing of the Philadelphias, Charlestons, New

"Sunday, November 26th,that is, nineteen days ago,the first of these Tea Ships, the DARTMOUTH,

Captain Hall, moored itself in Griffin's Wharf: Owner and Consignee is a broadbrimmed Boston gentleman

called Rotch, more attentive to profits of trade than to the groans of Boston:but already on that Sunday,

much more on the Monday following, there had a meeting of Citizens run together, (on Monday, Faneuil

Hall won't hold them, and they adjourn to the Old South Meetinghouse),who make it apparent to Rotch

that it will much behoove him, for the sake both of tea and skin, not to 'enter' (or officially announce) this

Ship DARTMOUTH at the Custom house in any wise; but to pledge his broadbrimmed word, equivalent

to his oath, that she shall lie dormant there in Griffin's Wharf, till we see. Which, accordingly, she has been

doing ever since; she and two others that arrived some days later; dormant all three of them, side by side,

three crews totally idle; a 'Committee of Ten' supervising Rotch's procedures; and the Boston world much

expectant. Thursday, December 16th: this is the 20th day since Rotch's DARTMOUTH arrived here; if not

'entered' at Customhouse in the course of this day, Customhouse cannot give her a 'clearance' either (a

leave to depart),she becomes a smuggler, an outlaw, and her fate is mysterious to Rotch and us.

"This Thursday accordingly, by 10 in the morning, in the Old South Meetinghouse, Boston is assembled,

and countrypeople to the number of 2,000;and Rotch never was in such a company of human Friends

before. They are not uncivil to him (cautious people, heedful of the verge of the Law); but they are

peremptory, to the extent ofRotch may shudder to think what. "I went to the Custom house yesterday,'

said Rotch, 'your Committee of Ten can bear me witness; and demanded clearance and leave to depart; but

they would not; were forbidden, they said!' 'Go, then, sir; get you to the Governor himself; a clearance, and

out of harbor this day: had n't you better?' Rotch is well aware that he had; hastens off to the Governor (who

has vanished to his Countryhouse, on purpose); Old South Meetinghouse adjourning till 3 P.M., for

"At 3 no Rotch, nor at 4, nor at 5; miscellaneous plangent intermittent speech instead, mostly plangent, in

tone sorrowful rather than indignant:at a quarter to 6, here at length is Rotch; sun is long since set,has

Rotch a clearance or not? Rotch reports at large, willing to be questioned and crossquestioned: 'Governor

absolutely would not! My Christian friends, what could I or can I do?' There are by this time about 7,000

people in Old South Meetinghouse, very few tallowlights in comparison,almost no lights for the mind

either,and it is difficult to answer. Rotch's report done, the Chairman [one Adams, "American Cato,"

subsequently so called] dissolves the sorrowful 7,000, with these words: 'This Meeting declares that it can do

nothing more to save the Country.' Will merely go home, then, and weep. Hark, however: almost on the

instant, in front of Old South Meetinghouse, (a terrific Warwhoop; and about fifty Mohawk

Indians,'with whom Adams seems to be acquainted; and speaks without Interpreter: Aha?

"And, sure enough, before the stroke of 7, these fifty painted Mohawks are forward, without noise, to

Griffin's Wharf; have put sentries all round there; and, in a great silence of the neighborhood, are busy, in

three gangs, upon the dormant Tea Ships; opening their chests, and punctually shaking them out into the sea.

'Listening from the distance, you could hear distinctly the ripping open of the chests, and no other sound.'

About 10 P.M. all was finished: 342 chests of tea flung out to infuse in the Atlantic; the fifty Mohawks gone

like a dream; and Boston sleeping more silently even than usual." ["Summary of the Advices from America"

"Seven in the evening:" this, I calculate, allowing for the Earth's rotation, will be about the time when

Friedrich, well tired with the day's business, is getting to bed; by 10 on the Boston clocks, when the process

finishes there, Friedrich will have had the best of his sleep over. Here is Montcalm's Prophecy coming to

fulfilment;and a curious intersection of a flying Event through one's poor LETTER TO D'ALEMBERT.

We will now give the two English Interviews with Voltaire; one of which is of three years past, another of

In the years 17701771, Burney, then a famous DOCTOR OF MUSIC, made his TOUR through France and

Italy, on Musical errands and researches: [Charles Burney's Present State of Music in France and Italy, being

the Journal of a Tour through those Countries to collect Materials for a General History of Music (London,

1773). The History of Music followed duly, in Four 4tos (London, 17761789).] with these we have no

concern, but only with one most small exceptional offshoot or episode which grew out of these. Enough for

us to know that Burney, a comfortable, welldisposed, rather dull though vivacious Doctor, age near 45, had

left London for Paris "in June, 1770;" that he was on to Geneva, intending for Turin, "early in July;" and that

his "M. Fritz," mentioned below, is a veteran Brother in Music, settled at Geneva for the last thirty years, who

has been helpful and agreeable to Burney while here. Our Excerpt therefore dates itself, "one of the early

days of July, 1770,"Burney hovering between two plans (as we shall dimly perceive), and not exactly

.... "My going to M. Fritz broke [was about breaking, but did not quite] into a plan which I had formed of

visiting M. de Voltaire, at the same hour, along with some other strangers, who were then going to Ferney.

But, to say the truth, besides the visit to M. Fritz being more MY BUSINESS, I did not much like going with

these people, who had only a Geneva Bookseller to introduce them; and I had heard that some English had

lately met with a rebuff from M. de Voltaire, by going without any letter of recommendation, or anything to

recommend themselves. He asked them What they wanted? Upon their replying That they wished only to see

so extraordinary a man, he said: 'Well, gentlemen, you now see me: did you take me for a wild beast or

monster, that was fit only to be stared at as a show?' This story very much frightened me; for, not having,

when I left London, or even Paris, any intention of going to Geneva, I was quite unprovided with a

recommendation. However, I was determined to see the place of his residence, which I took to be [still LES

to which he retired in 1755; but was mistaken [not The DELICES now at all, but Ferney, for nine or ten years

"I drove to Ferney alone, after I had left M. Fritz. This House is three or four miles from Geneva, but near the

Lake. I approached it with reverence, and a curiosity of the most minute kind. I inquired WHEN I first trod

on his domain; I had an intelligent and talkative postilion, who answered all my questions very satisfactorily.

M. de Voltaire's estate is very large here, and he is building pretty farmhouses upon it. He has erected on the

Geneva side a quadrangular JUSTICE, or Gallows, to show that he is the SEIGNEUR. One of his farms, or

rather manufacturing houses,for he is establishing a manufacture upon his estate,was so handsome that I

"We drove to Ferney, through a charming country, covered with corn and vines, in view of the Lake, and

Mountains of Gex, Switzerland and Savoy. On the left hand, approaching the House, is a neat Chapel with

I sent to inquire, Whether a stranger might be allowed to see the House and Gardens; and was answered in the

affirmative. A servant soon came, and conducted me into the cabinet or closet where his Master had just been

writing: this is never shown when he is at home; but having walked out, I was allowed that privilege. From

thence I passed to the Library, which is not a very large one, but well filled. Here I found a wholelength

Figure in marble of himself, recumbent, in one of the windows; and many curiosities in another room; a Bust

of himself, made not two years since; his Mother's picture; that of his Niece, Madam Denis; his Brother, M.

Dupuis; the Calas Family; and others. It is a very neat and elegant House; not large, nor affectedly decorated.

"I should first have remarked, that close to the Chapel, between that and the house, is the Theatre, which he

built some years ago; where he treated his friends with some of his own Tragedies: it is now only used as a

receptacle for wood and lumber, there having been no play acted in it these four years. The servant told me

his Master was 78 [76 gone], but very well. 'IL TRAVAILLE,' said he, 'PENDANT DIX HEURES

CHAQUE JOUR, He studies ten hours every day; writes constantly without spectacles, and walks out with

only a domestic, often a mile or twoET LE VOILA, LA BAS, And see, yonder he is!'

"He was going to his workmen. My heart leaped at the sight of so extraordinary a man. He had just then

quitted his Garden, and was crossing the court before his House. Seeing my chaise, and me on the point of

mounting it, he made a sign to his servant who had been my CICERONE, to go to him; in order, I suppose, to

inquire who I was. After they had exchanged a few words together, he," M. de Voltaire, "approached the

place where I was standing motionless, in order to contemplate his person as much as I could while his eyes

were turned from me; but on seeiug him move towards me, I found myself drawn by some irresistible power

"It is not easy to conceive it possible for life to subsist in a form so nearly composed of mere skin and bone as

that of M. de Voltaire." Extremely lean old Gentleman! "He complained of decrepitude, and said, He

supposed I was anxious to form an idea of the figure of one walking after death. However, his eyes and whole

countenance are still full of fire; and though so emaciated, a more lively expression cannot be imagined.

"He inquired after English news; and observed that Poetical squabbles had given way to Political ones; but

seemed to think the spirit of opposition as necessary in poetry as in politics. 'Les querelles d'auteurs sont

pour le bien de la litterature, comme dans un gouvernement libre les querelles des grands, et les clameurs

des petits, sont necessaires a la liberte.' And added, 'When critics are silent, it does not so much prove the

Age to be correct, as dull.' He inquired what Poets we had now; I told him we had Mason and Gray. 'They

write but little,' said he: 'and you seem to have no one who lords it over the rest, like Dryden, Pope and Swift.'

I told him that it was one of the inconveniences of Periodical Journals, however well executed, that they often

silenced modest men of genius, while impudent blockheads were impenetrable, and unable to feel the critic's

scourge: that Mr. Gray and Mr. Mason had both been illiberally treated by mechanical critics, even in

newspapers; and added, that modesty and love of quiet seemed in these gentlemen to have got the better even

"During this conversation, we approached the buildings that he was constructing near the road to his Chateau.

'These,' said he, pointing to them, 'are the most innocent, and perhaps the most useful, of all my works.' I

observed that he had other works, which were of far more extensive use, and would be much more durable,

than those. He was so obliging as to show me several farmhouses that he had built, and the plans of others:

after which I took my leave." [Burney's Present State of Music (London, 1773), pp. 5562.

Sherlock's Book of TRAVELS, though he wrote it in two languages, and it once had its vogue, is now little

other than a Dance of Willo'wisps to us. A Book tawdry, incoherent, indistinct, at once flashy and opaque,

full of idle excrescences and exuberances;as is the poor man himself. He was "Chaplain to the Earl of

Bristol, Bishop of Derry;" gyrating about as ecclesiastical Moon to that famed Solar Luminary, what could

you expect! [Title of his Book is, Letters from an English Traveller; translated from the French Original

(London, 1780). Ditto, Letters from an English Trader; written originally in French; by the Rev. Martin

Sherlock, A.M., Chaplain to the Earl of Bristol, (a new Edition, 2 vols., London, 1802).] Poor Sherlock is

nowhere intentionally fabulous; nor intrinsically altogether so foolish as he seems: let that suffice us. In his

Dance of Willo'wisps, which in this point happily is dated,26th27th April, 1776,he had come to

Ferney, with proper introduction to Voltaire; and here (after severe excision of the flabby parts, but without

other change) is credible account of what he saw and heard. In Three Scenes; with this Prologue,as to

VOLTAIRE'S DRESS. "On the two days I saw him, he wore white cloth shoes, white woollen stockings, red

breeches, with a nightgown and waistcoat of blue linen, flowered, and lined with yellow. He had on a grizzle

wig with three ties, and over it a silk nightcap embroidered with gold and silver."

SCENE I. THE ENTRANCEHALL OF FERNEY (Friday, 26th April, 1776): EXUBERANT SHERLOCK

"He met in the hall; his Nephew M. d'Hornoi" (Grandnephew; Abbe Mignot, famous for BURYING

Voltaire, and Madame Denis, whom we know, were D'Hornoi's Uncle and Aunt)Grandnephew,

"Counsellor in the Parlement of Paris, held him by the arm. He said to me, with a very weak voice: 'You see a

very old man, who makes a great effort to have the honor of seeing you. Will you take a walk in my Garden?

It will please you, for it is in the English taste:it was I who introduced that taste into France, and it is

become universal. But the French parody your Gardens: they put your thirty acres into three.'

"From his Gardens you see the Alps, the Lake, the City of Geneva and its environs, which are very pleasant.

VOLTAIRE. "'It is a beautiful prospect.' He pronounced these words tolerably well.

VOLTAIRE. "'Fifty years, at least.' [Not quite; in 1728 left; in 1726 had come.] [Supra, vii. 47.]

D'HORNOI. "'It was at the time when you printed the First Edition of your HENRIADE.'

"We then talked of Literature; and from that moment he forgot his age and infirmities, and spoke with the

warmth of a man of thirty. He said some shocking things against Moses and against Shakspeare. [Like

VOLTAIRE. "'It is a Country of which we know no more than of the most savage parts of Africa; and it is

not worth the trouble of being known. If a man would travel there, he must carry his bed, On arriving in a

Town, he must go into one street to buy a bottle of wine; a piece of a mule [by way of beef] in another; he

finds a table in a third,and he sups. A French Nobleman was passing through Pampeluna: he sent out for a

VOLTAIRE. "'Yes, we have our freedoms here. Cut off a little corner, and we are out of France. I asked

some privileges for my Children here, and the King has granted me all that I asked, and has declared this

Pays de Gex exempt from all Taxes of the Farmers General; so that salt, which formerly sold for ten sous a

pound, now sells for four. I have nothing more to ask, except to live.' We went into the Library" (had made

VOLTAIRE. "'There you find several of your countrymen [he had Shakspeare, Milton, Congreve, Rochester,

Shaftesbury, Bolingbroke, Robertson, Hume and others]. Robertson is your Livy; his CHARLES FIFTH is

written with truth. Hume wrote his History to be applauded, Rapin to instruct; and both obtained their ends.'

VOLTAIRE. "'We did think so. CATO is incomparably well written: Addison had a great deal of taste;but

the abyss between taste and genius is immense! Shakspeare had an amazing genius, but no taste: he has

spoiled the taste of the Nation. He has been their taste for two hundred years; and what is the taste of a Nation

for two hundred years will be so for two thousand. This kind of taste becomes a religion; there are, in your

VOLTAIRE. "'Yes. His face was imposing, and so was his voice; in his WORKS there are many leaves and

little fruit; distorted expressions, and periods intolerably long. [TAKING DOWN A BOOK.] There, you see

the KORAN, which is well read, at least. [It was marked throughout with bits of paper.] There are

HISTORIC DOUBTS, by Horace Walpole [which had also several marks]; here is the portrait of Richard III.;

VOLTAIRE. "'True; and it is the only one in the Universe in honor of God [DEO EREXIT VOLTAIRE, as

we read above]: you have plenty of Churches built to St. Paul, to St. Genevieve, but not one to God.'" EXIT

"The next day, as we sat down to Dinner," our Host in the above shining costume, "he said, in English

VOLTAIRE. "'We are here for liberty and property! [parody of some old Speech in Parliament, let us

guess,liberty and property, my Lords!] This Gentlemanwhom let me present to Monsieur Sherlock is

a Jesuit [old Pere Adam, whom I keep for playing Chess, in his old, unsheltered days]; he wears his hat: I am

"I do not now recollect why he quoted these verses, also in English, by Rochester, on CHARLES

But speaking of Racine, he quoted this Couplet (of Roscomman's ESSAY ON TRANSLATED VERSE):

VOLTAIRE. "'That is because the English are not sufficiently acquainted with the French tongue to feel the

beauties of Racine's style, or the harmony of his versification. Corneille ought to please them more because

he is more striking; but Racine pleases the French because he has more softness and tenderness.'

SHERLOCK. "'How did you find [LIKE] the English fare (LA CHERE ANGLAISE?'which Voltaire

VOLTAIRE. "'I found her very fresh and white,'truly! [It should be remembered, that when he made this

VOLTAIRE. "'Energetic, precise and barbarous; they are the only Nation that pronounce their A as E. ...

[And some time afterwards] Though I cannot perfectly pronounce English, my ear is sensible of the harmony

of your language and of your versification. Pope and Dryden have the most harmony in Poetry; Addison in

SHERLOCK. "'Amiable and witty. I only find one fault with them: they imitate the English too much.'

VOLTAIRE. "'Yes, as to walking, or eating whatever he pleases, or lolling in his elbowchair, a Frenchman

is free enough; but as to taxesAh, Monsieur, you are a lucky Nation; you can do what you like; poor we

are born in slavery: we cannot even die as we will; we must have a Priest [can't get buried otherwise; am

often thinking of that!] ... Well, if the English do sell themselves, it is a proof that they are worth something:

VOLTAIRE. "'She never wrote one; they were by the wretched Crebillon' [my beggarly old "Rival" in the

VOLTAIRE. "'The Italians are a Nation of brokers. Italy is an Old Clothes shop; in which there are many

Old Dresses of exquisite taste. ... But we are still to know, Whether the subjects of the Pope or of the Grand

Turk are the more abject.' [We have now gone to the Drawingroom, I think, though it is not jotted.]

"He talked of England and of Shakspeare; and explained to Madame Denis part of a Scene in Henry Fifth,

where the King makes love to Queen Catherine in bad French; and of another in which that Queen takes a

lesson in English from her Waitingwoman, and where there are several very gross doubleentendres"but,

VOLTAIRE. "'When I see an Englishman subtle and fond of lawsuits, I say, "There is a Norman, who came

in with William the Conqueror." When I see a man goodnatured and polite, "That is one who came with the

Plantagenets;" a brutal character, "That is a Dane:"for your Nation, Monsieur, as well as your Language, is

"After dinner, passing through a little Parlor where there was a head of Locke, another of the Countess of

Coventry, and several more, he took me by the arm and stopped me: 'Do you know this Bust [bust of Sir

Isaac Newton]? It is the greatest genius that ever existed: if all the geniuses of the Universe were assembled,

"It was of Newton, and of his own Works, that M. de Voltaire always spoke with the greatest warmth."

[Sherlock, LETTERS (London, 1802), i. 98106.] (EXIT Sherlock, to jot down the above, and thence into

Now that Friedrich's Military Department is got completely into trim again, which he reckons to have been

about 1770, his annual Reviews are becoming very famous over Europe; and intelligent Officers of all

Countries are eager to be present, and instruct themselves there. The Review is beautiful as a Spectacle; but

that is in no sort the intention of it. Rigorous business, as in the strictest of Universities examining for

Degrees, would be nearer the definition. Sometimes, when a new manoeuvre or tactical invention of

importance is to be tried by experiment, you will find for many miles the environs of Potsdam, which is

usually the scene of such experiments, carefully shut in; sentries on every road, no unfriendly eye admitted;

the thing done as with closed doors. Nor at any time can you attend without leave asked; though to Foreign

Officers, and persons that have really business there, there appears to be liberality enough in granting it. The

concourse of military strangers seems to keep increasing every year, till Friedrich's death. [Rodenbeck, iii. IN

LOCIS.] French, more and more in quantity, present themselves; multifarious German names; generally a

few English too,Burgoyne (of Saratoga finally), Cornwallis, Duke of York, Marshal Conway,of which

In Summer, 1774, Conwaythe Marshal Conway, of whom Walpole is continually talking as of a

considerable Soldier and Politician, though he was not in either character considerable, but was Walpole's

friend, and an honest modest manhad made up his mind, perhaps partly on domestic grounds (for I have

noticed glimpses of a "Lady C." much out of humor), to make a Tour in Germany, and see the Reviews, both

Austrian and Prussian, Prussian especially. Two immense LETTERS of his on that subject have come into

my hands, [Kindly presented me by Charles Knight, Esq., the wellknown Author and Publisher (who

possesses a Collection by the same hand): these Two run to fourteen large pages in my Copy!] and elsewhere

incidentally there is printed record of the Tour; [In Keith (Sir Robert Murray), Memoirs and Correspondence,

ii. 21 et, seq.] unimportant as possible, both Tour and Letters, but capable, if squeezed into compass, of still

Sir Robert Murray Keiththat is, the younger Excellency Keith, now Minister at Dresden, whom we have

sometimes heard ofaccompanies Conway on this Tour, or flies alongside of him, with frequent

intersections at the principal points; and there is printed record by Sir Robert, but still less interesting than

this of Conway, and perfectly conformable to it:so that, except for some words about the Lord Marischal,

which shall be given, Keith must remain silent, while the diffuse Conway strives to become intelligible.

Indeed, neither Conway nor Keith tell us the least thing that is not abundantly, and even wearisomely known

from German sources; but to readers here, a pair of English eyes looking on the matter (put straight in places

by the help there is), may give it a certain freshness of meaning. Here are Conway's Two Letters, with the

nine parts of water charitably squeezed out of them, by a skilful friend of mine and his.

"DEAR BROTHER,In the hurry I live in... Leaving Brunswick, where, in absence of most of the Court,

who are visiting at Potsdam, my old Commander," Duke Ferdinand, now estranged from Potsdam, [Had a

kind of quarrel with Friedrich in 1766 (rough treatment by Adjutant von Anhalt, not tolerable to a Captain

now become so eminent), and quietly withdrew,still on speaking terms with the King, but never his Officer

more.] and living here among works of Art, and speculations on Free Masonry, "was very kind to me, I went

to Celle, in Hanover, to pay my respects to the Queen of Denmark [unfortunate divorced Matilda, saved by

my friend Keith, innocent, I will hope!] ... She is grown extremely fat. ... At Magdeburg, the Prussian

Frontier on this side, one is not allowed, without a permit, even to walk on the ramparts,such the strictness

of Prussian rule. ... Driving through Potsdam, on my way to Berlin, I was stopped by a servant of the good

old Lord Marischal, who had spied me as I passed under his window. He came out in his nightgown, and

insisted upon our staying to dine with him[worthy old man; a word of him, were this Letter done]. We

ended, on consultation about times and movements of the King, by staying three days at Potsdam, mostly

"On the third day [yesterday evening, in fact], I went, by appointment, to the New Palace, to wait upon the

King of Prussia. There was some delay: his Majesty had gone, in the interim, to a private Concert, which he

was giving to the Princesses [Duchess of Brunswick and other high guests [Rodenbeck (IN DIE) iii. 98.]]; but

the moment he was told I was there, he came out from his company, and gave me a most flattering gracious

audience of more than half an hour; talking on a great variety of things, with an ease and freedom the very

reverse of what I had been made to expect. ... I asked, and received permission, to visit the Silesian Camps

next month, his Majesty most graciously telling me the particular days they would begin and end [27th

August3d September, Schmelwitz near Breslau, are time and place [Ib. iii. 101.]]. This considerably

deranges my Austrian movements, and will hurry my return out of those parts: but who could resist such a

temptation! I saw the FootGuards exercise, especially the splendid 'First Battalion;' I could have

conceived nothing so perfect and so exact as all I saw:so well dressed, such men, and so punctual in all

"The New Palace at Potsdam is extremely noble. Not so perfect, perhaps, in point of taste, but better than I

had been led to expect. The King dislikes living there; never does, except when there is high Company about

him; for seven or eight months in the year, he prefers Little SansSouci, and freedom among his intimates

and some of his Generals. ... His Music still takes up a great share of the King's time. On a table in his

Cabinet there, I saw, I believe, twenty boxes with a German flute in each; in his Bed chamber, twice as

many boxes of Spanish snuff; and, alike in Cabinet and in Bedchamber, three armchairs in a row for three

favorite dogs, each with a little stool by way of step, that the getting up might be easy. ...

"The Town of Potsdam is a most extraordinary and, in its appearance, beautiful Town; all the streets perfectly

straight, all at right angles to each other; and all the houses built with handsome, generally elegant fronts. ...

He builds for everybody who has a bad or a small house, even the lowest mechanic. He has done the same at

Berlin." Altogether, his Majesty's building operations are astonishing. And "from whence does this money

come, after a long expensive War? It is all fairyland and enchantment,"MAGNUM VECTIGAL

PARSIMONIA, in fact! ... "At Berlin here, I saw the Porcelain Manufacture today, which is greatly

improved. I leave presently. Adieu, dear Brother; excuse my endless Letter [since you cannot squeeze the

Keith is now Minister at Dresden for some years back; and has, among other topics, much to say of our

brilliant friend the Electress there: but his grand Diplomatic feat was at Copenhagen, on a sudden sally out

thither (in 1771): [In KEITH, i. 152 nothing of intelligible Narrative given, hardly the date discoverable.] the

saving of Queen Matilda, youngest Sister of George Third, from a hard doom. Unfortunate Queen Matilda;

one never knows how guilty, or whether guilty at all, but she was very unfortunate, poor young Lady! What

with a mad Husband collapsed by debaucheries into stupor of insanity; what with a Doctor, gradually a Prime

Minister, Struensee, wretched scarecrow to look upon, but wiser than most Danes about; and finally, with a

lynxeyed Stepsister, whose Son, should Matilda mistake, will inherit,unfortunate Matilda had fallen into

the awfulest troubles; got divorced, imprisoned, would have lost her head along with scarecrow Struensee had

not her Brother George III. emphatically intervened,Excellency Keith, with Seventyfours in the distance,

coming out very strong on the occasion,and got her loose. Loose from Danish axe and jail, at any rate;

delivered into safety and solitude at Celle in Hanover, where she now is,and soon after suddenly dies of

Excellency Keith, famed in the Diplomatic circles ever since, is at present ahead of Conway on their joint

road to the Austrian Reviews. Before giving Conway's Second Letter, let us hear Keith a little on his kinsman

the Old Marischal, whom he saw at Berlin years ago, and still occasionally corresponds with, and mentions in

HAS VISITED THE OLD MARISCHAL AT POTSDAM LATELY. ... "My stay of three days with Lord

Marischal. ... He is the most innocent of God's creatures; and his heart is much warmer than his head. The

place of his abode," I must say, "is the very Temple of Dulness; and his Female Companion [a poor Turk

foundling, a perishing infant flung into his late Brother's hands at the Fall of Oczakow, [Supra, vii.

82.]whom the Marischal has carefully brought up, and who refuses to marry away from him,rather

stupid, not very pretty by the Portraits; must now be twoandthirty gone] is perfectly calculated to be the

Priestess of it! Yet he dawdles away his day in a manner not unpleasant to him; and I really am persuaded he

has a conscience that would gild the inside of a dungeon. The feats of our barelegged warriors in the late

War [BERGSCHOTTEN, among whom I was a Colonel], accompanied by a PIBRACH [elegiac bagpipe

droning MORE SUO] in his outer room, have an effect on the old Don, which would delight you." [Keith, i.

AND THEN SEEN HIM IN BERLIN, ON THE SAME OCCASION. ... "Lord Marischal came to meet me at

Sir Andrew's [Mitchell's, in Berlin, the last year of the brave Mitchell's life], where we passed five days

together. My visit to his country residence," as you already know, "was of three days; and I had reason to be

convinced that it gave the old Don great pleasure. He talked to me with the greatest openness and confidence

of all the material incidents of his life; and hinted often that the honor of the Clan was now to be supported by

our family, for all of whom he had the greatest esteem. His taste, his ideas, and his manner of living, are a

mixture of Aberdeenshire and the Kingdom of Valencia; and as he seeks to make no new friends, he seems to

retain a strong, though silent, attachment for his old ones. As to his political principles, I believe him the most

sincere of converts" to Whiggery and Orthodoxy. ... "Since I began this, I have had a most inimitable Letter

from Lord Marischal. I had mentioned Dr. Bailies to him [noted English Doctor at Dresden, bent on

inoculating and the like], and begged he would send me a state of his case and infirmities, that the Doctor

"'I thank you for your advice of consulting the English Doctor to repair my old carcass. I have lately done so

by my old coach, and it is now almost as good as new. Please, therefore, to tell the Doctor, that from him I

expect a good repair, and shall state the case. First, he must know that the machine is the worse for wear,

being nearly eighty years old. The reparation I propose he shall begin with is: One pair of new eyes, one pair

of new ears, some improvement on the memory. When this is done, we shall ask new legs, and some change

in the stomach. For the present, this first reparation will be sufficient; and we must not trouble the Doctor too

much at once.'You see by this how easy his Lordship's infirmities sit upon him; and it is really so as he

says. Your friend Sir Andrew is, I am afraid, less gay; but I have not heard from him these three months."

CONWAY TO KEITH, ON THE LATE THREE DAYS AT POTSDAM. [Date, "Dresden, 21st July, 1774:"

in KEITH, ii. 15.] "I stayed three days at Potsdam, with much entertainment, for good part of which I am

obliged to your Excellency's old friend Lord Marischal, who showed me all the kindness and civility possible.

He stopped me as I passed, and not only made me dine with him that day, but in a manner live with him. He

is not at all blind, as you imagined; so much otherwise, that I saw him read, without spectacles, a difficult

hand I could not easily decipher. ... Stayed but a day at Berlin;" am rushing after you:Here is my Second

"DEAR BROTHER ... I left that Camp [Austrian Camp, and Reviews in Hungary, where the Kaiser and

everybody had been very gracious to me] with much regret." Parted regretfully with Keith;had played, at

Presburg, in sight of him and fourteen other Englishmen, a game with the Chess Automaton [brandnew

miracle, just out]; [Account of it, and of this game, in KEITH too (ii. 18; "View, 3d September, 1774:" Keith

to his Father).]came on through Vienna hitherward, as fast as posthorses could carry us; travelling night

and day, without stopping, being rather behind time. "Arrived at Breslau near dark, last night; where I learnt

that the Camp was twenty miles off; that the King was gone there, and that the Manoeuvres would begin at

four or five this morning. I therefore ordered my chaise at twelve at night, and set out, in darkness and rain, to

be presented to the King of Prussia next morning at five, at the head of his troops. ... When I arrived, before

five, at the place called 'Headquarters,' I found myself in the middle of a miserable Village [this Schmelwitz

here]; no creature alive or stirring, nor a sentinel, or any Military object to be seen. ... As soon as anything

alive was to be found, we asked, If the King was lodged in that Village? 'Yes,' they said, 'in that House'

"His Majesty has been very gracious; asked me many questions about my tour to Hungary. I saw all the

Troops pass him as they arrived in Camp. They made a very fine appearance really, though it rained hard the

whole time we were out; and as his Majesty [age 62] did not cloak, we were all heartily wet. And, what was

worse, went from the field to Orders [giving out of Parole, and the like] at his Quarters, there to make our

bow;where we stayed in our wet clothes an hour and half [towards 10 A.M. by this time]. ... How different

at the Emperor's, when his Imperial Majesty and everybody was cloaked! [Got no hurt by the wet, strange to

say.] ... These are our news to this day. And now, having sat up five nights out of the last six, and been in rain

"P.S. Breslau, 4th September. ... My Prussian Campaign is finished, and as much to my satisfaction as

possible. The beauty and order of the Troops, their great discipline, their" "almost pass all belief. ...

Yesterday we were on horseback early, at four o'clock. The movement was conducted with a spirit and order,

on both sides, that was astonishing, and struck the more delightful (SIC) by the variety, as in the course of the

Action the Enemy, conducted by General Anhalt [head all right as yet], took three different positions before

"The moment it was over [nine o'clock or so], his Majesty got a fresh horse, and set out for Potsdam, after

receiving the compliments of those present, or rather holding a kind of short Levee in the field. I can't say

how much, in my particular, I am obliged to his Majesty for his extraordinary reception, and distinction

shown me throughout. Each day after the Manoeuvre, and giving the Orders of the day, he held a little Levee

at the door, or in the court; at which, I can assure you, it is not an exaggeration of vanity to say, that he not

only talked to me, but literally to nobody else at all. It was a good deal each time, and as soon as finished he

made his bow, and retired, though all, or most, of the other Foreigners were standing by, as well as his own

Generals. He also called me up, and spoke to me several times on horseback, when we were out, which he

"The Prince Royal also showed me much civility. The second day, he asked me to come and drink a dish of

tea with him after dinner, and kept me an hour and half. He told me, among other things, that the King of

Prussia had a high opinion of me, and that it came chiefly from the favorable manner in which Duke

Ferdinand and the Hereditary Prince [of Brunswick] had spoken of me. ... Pray let Horace Walpole know my

address, that I may have all the chance I can of hearing from him. But if he comes to Paris, I forgive him.

Friedrich's Reviews, though fine to look upon, or indeed the finest in the world, were by no means of

spectacular nature; but of altogether serious and practical, almost of solemn and terrible, to the parties

interested. Like the strictest College Examination for Degrees, as we said; like a Royal Assize or Doomsday

of the Year; to Military people, and over the upper classes of Berlin Society, nothing could be more serious,

Major Kaltenborn, an ExPrussian Officer, presumably of overtalkative habits, who sounds on us like a

very messroom of the time all gathered under one hat,describes in an almost awful manner the kind of

terror with which all people awaited these Annual Assizes for trial of military merit.

"What a sight," says he, "and awakening what thoughts, that of a body of from 18,000 to 20,000 soldiers, in

solemn silence and in deepest reverence, awaiting their fate from one man! A Review, in Friedrich's time,

was an important moment for almost the whole Country. The fortune of whole families often depended on it:

from wives, mothers, children and friends, during those terrible three days, there arose fervent wishes to

Heaven, that misfortune might not, as was too frequently the case, befall their husbands, fathers, sons and

friends, in the course of them. Here the King, as it were, weighed the merits of his Officers, and distributed,

according as he found them light or heavy, praise or blame, rebukes or favors; and often, too often,

punishments, to be felt through life. One single unhappy moment [especially if it were the last of a long series

of such!] often deprived the bravest Officer of his bread, painfully earned in peace and war, and of his

reputation and honor, at least in the eyes of most men, who judge of everything only by its issue. The higher

you had risen, the easier and deeper your fall might be at an unlucky Review. The Heads and Commanders of

regiments were always in danger of being sent about their business (WEGGEJAGT)."

The fact is, I Kaltenborn quitted the Prussian Service, and took Hessian,being (presumably) of

exaggerative, overtalkative nature, and strongly gravitating Opposition way!Kaltenborn admits that the

King delighted in nothing so much as to see people's faces cheerful about him; provided the price for it were

"At latest by 9 in the morning the day's Manoeuvre had finished, and everything was already in its place

again. Straight from the ground all Heads of regiments, the MajorsDEJOUR, all Aidesde Camp, and

from every battalion one Officer, proceed to Head quarters. It was impossible to speak more beautifully, or

instructively, than the King did on such occasions, if he were not in bad humor. It was then a very delight to

hear him deliver a Military Lecture, as it were. He knew exactly who had failed, what caused the fault, and

how it might and should have been retrieved. His voice was soft and persuasive (HINREISSEND); he looked

"Thus, for instance, he once said to General van Lossow, Head of the Black Hussars: 'Your (SEINE) Attack

would have gone very well, had not your own squadron pressed forward too much (VORGEPRELLT). The

brave fellows wanted to show me how they can ride. But don't I know that well enough;and also that you

[covetous Lossow] always choose the best horses from the whole remount for your own squadron! There

was, therefore, no need at all for that. Tell your people not to do so tomorrow, and you will see it will go

much better; all will remain closer in their places, and the left wing be able to keep better in line, in coming

on.'Another time, having observed, in a certain Footregiment, that the soldiers were too long in getting

out their cartridges, he said to the Commandant: 'Do you know the cause of this, my dear Colonel? Look, the

cartouche, in the cartridgebox, has 32 holes; into these the fellow sticks his eight cartridges, without caring

how: and so the poor devil fumbles and gropes about, and cannot get hold of any. But now, if the Officers

would look to it that he place them all well together in the middle of the cartouche, he would never make a

false grasp, and the loading would go as quick again. Only tell your Officers that I had made this observation,

and I am sure they will gladly attend to it.'" [Anonymous (Kaltenborn), Briefe eines alten Preussischen

Of humane consolatory Anecdotes, in this kind, our Opposition Kaltenborn gives several; of the

rhadamanthine desolating or destructive kind, though such also could not be wanting, if your Assize is to be

good for anything, he gives us none. And so far as I can learn, the effective punishments, dismissals and the

like, were of the due rarity and propriety; though the flashes of unjust rebuke, fulminant severity, lightnings

from the gloom of one's own sorrows and illhumor, were much more frequent, but were seldomI do not

know if everpersisted in to the length of practical result. This is a Rhadamanthus much interested not to be

unjust, and to discriminate good from bad! Of Ziethen there are two famous Review Anecdotes, omitted and

omissible by Kaltenborn, so well known are they: one of each kind. At a certain Review, year not

ascertainable,long since, prior to the SevenYears War,the King's humor was of the grimmest, nothing

but faults all round; to Ziethen himself, and the Ziethen Hussars, he said various hard things, and at length

this hardest: "Out of my sight with you!" [Madame de Blumenthal, Life of Ziethen, i. 265.] Upon which

Ziethena stratum of redhot kindling in Ziethen too, as was easily possibleturns to his Hussars, "Right

about, RECHTS UM: march!" and on the instant did as bidden. Disappeared, doublequick; and at the same

high pace, in a high frame of mind, rattled on to Berlin, home to his quarters, and there first drew bridle.

"Turn; for Heaven's sake, bethink you!" said more than one friend whom he met on the road: but it was of no

use. Everybody said, "Ziethen is ruined;" but Ziethen never heard of the thing more.

Anecdote Second is not properly of a Review, but of an incidental Parade of the Guard, at Berlin (25th

December, 1784), by the King in person: Parade, or rather giving out of the Parole after it, in the King's

Apartments; which is always a kind of Military Levee as well;and which, in this instance, was long famous

among the Berlin people. King is just arrived for Carnival season; old Ziethen will not fail to pay his duty,

though climbing of the stairs is heavy to a man of 85 gone. This is Madam Blumenthal's Narrative (corrected,

"SATURDAY, 25th DECEMBER, 1784, Ziethen, in spite of the burden of eightysix years, went to the

Palace, at the end of the Parade, to pay his Sovereign this last tribute of respect, and to have the pleasure of

seeing him after six months' absence. The Parole was given out, the orders imparted to the Generals, and the

King had turned towards the Princes of the Blood,when he perceived Ziethen on the other side of the Hall,

between his Son and his two Aides deCamp. Surprised in a very agreeable manner at this unexpected

sight, he broke out into an exclamation of joy; and directly making up to him,'What, my good old Ziethen,

are you there!' said his Majesty: 'How sorry am I that you have had the trouble of walking up the staircase! I

should have called upon you myself. How have you been of late?' 'Sire,' answered Ziethen, (my health is not

amiss, my appetite is good; but my strength! my strength!' 'This account,' replied the King, 'makes me happy

by halves only: but you must be tired;I shall have a chair for you.' [Thing unexampled in the annals of

Royalty!] A chair," on order to Ziethen's AidesdeCamp, "was quickly brought. Ziethen, however, declared

that he was not at all fatigued: the King maintained that he was. 'Sit down, good Father (MEIN LIEBER

ALTER PAPA ZIETHEN, SETZE ER SICH DOCH)!' continued his Majesty: 'I will have it so; otherwise I

must instantly leave the room; for I cannot allow you to be incommoded under my own roof.' The old

General obeyed, and Friedrich the Great remained standing before him, in the midst of a brilliant circle that

had thronged round them. After asking him many questions respecting his hearing, his memory and the

general state of his health, he at length took leave of him in these words: 'Adieu, my dear Ziethen [it was his

last adieu!]take care not to catch cold; nurse yourself well, and live as long as you can, that I may often

have the pleasure of seeing you.' After having said this, the King, instead of speaking to the other Generals,

and walking through the saloons, as usual, retired abruptly, and shut himself up in his closet." [Blumenthal, ii.

341; MilitairLexikon, iv. 318. Chodowiecki has made an Engraving of this Scene; useful to look at for its

military Portraits, if of little esteem otherwise. Strangely enough, both in BLUMENTHAL and in

Chodowiecki's ENGRAVING the year is given as 1785 (plainly impossible); MilitairLexikon misprints the

month; and, one way or other, only Rodenbeck (iii. 316) is right in both day and year.]

Following in date these small Conway Phenomena, if these, so extraneous and insignificant, can have any

glimmer of memorability to readers, are two other occurrences, especially one other, which come in at this

part of the series, and greatly more require to be disengaged from the dustheaps, and presented for

In 1775, the King had a fit of illness; which long occupied certain Gazetteers and others. That is the first

occurrence of the two, and far the more important. He himself says of it, in his HISTORY, all that is essential

"Towards the end of 1775, the King was attacked by several strong consecutive fits of gout. Van Swieten, a

famous Doctor's Son, and Minister of the Imperial Court at Berlin, took it into his head that this gout was a

declared dropsy; and, glad to announce to his Court the approaching death of an enemy that had been

dangerous to it, boldly informed his Kaiser that the King was drawing to his end, and would not last out the

year. At this news the soul of Joseph flames into enthusiasm; all the Austrian troops are got on march, their

Rendezvous marked in Bohemia; and the Kaiser waits, full of impatience, at Vienna, till the expected event

arrives; ready then to penetrate at once into Saxony, and thence to the Frontiers of Brandenburg, and there

propose to the King's Successor the alternative of either surrendering Silesia straightway to the House of

Austria, or seeing himself overwhelmed by Austrian troops before he could get his own assembled. All these

things, which were openly done, got noised abroad everywhere; and did not, as is easy to believe, cement the

friendship of the Two Courts. To the Public this scene appeared the more ridiculous, as the King of Prussia,

having only had a common gout in larger dose than common, was already well of it again, before the

Austrian Army had got to their Rendezvous. The Kaiser made all these troops return to their old quarters; and

the Court of Vienna had nothing but mockery for its imprudent conduct." [ OEuvres de Frederic, vi. 124.]

The first of these goutattacks seems to have come in the end of September, and to have lasted about a

month; after which the illness abated, and everybody thought it was gone. The Kaiser Joseph evolution must

have been in October, and have got its mockery in the next months. Friedrich, writing to VOLTAIRE,

October 22d, has these words: ... "A pair of charming Letters from Ferney; to which, had they been from the

great Demiurgus himself, I could not have dictated Answer. Gout held me tied and garroted for four

weeks;gout in both feet and in both hands; and, such its extreme liberality, in both elbows too: at present

the pains and the fever have abated, and I feel only a very great exhaustion." [Ib. xxv. 44.] "Four consecutive

attacks; hope they are now all over;" but we read, within the Spring following, that there have been in all

twelve of them; and in May, 1776, the Newspapers count eighteen quasiconsecutive. So that in reality the

King's strength was sadly reduced; and his health, which did not recover its old average till about 1780,

continued, for several years after this bad fit, to be a constant theme of curiosity to the Gazetteer species, and

Of the Kaiser's immense ambition there can be no question. He is stretching himself out on every side;

"seriously wishing," thinks Friedrich, "that he could 'revivify the German Reich,'"new Barbarossa in

improved FIXED form; how noble! Certainly, to King Friedrich's sad conviction, "the Austrian Court is

aiming to swallow all manner of dominions that may fall within its grasp." Wants Bosnia and Servia in the

East; longs to seize certain Venetian Territories, which would unite Trieste and the Milanese to the Tyrol. Is

throwing out hooks on Modena, on the Ferrarese, on this and on that. Looking with eager eyes on

Bavaria,the situation of which is peculiar; the present KurBaiern being elderly, childless; and his Heir the

like, who withal is already KurPfalz, and will unite the Two Electorates under one head; a thing which

Austria regards with marked dislike. [ OEuvres de Frederic, vi. 123.] These are anxious considerations to a

King in Friedrich's sick state. In his private circle, too, there are sorrows: death of Fouquet, death of Quintus

Icilius, of Seidlitz, Quantz (good old Quantz, with his fine Flutings these fifty years, and the still finer

memories he awoke! [Friedrich's Teacher of the Flute; procured for him by his Mother (supra vi.

144).]),latterly an unusual number of deaths. The ruggedly intelligent Quintus, a daily companion, and

guest at the suppertable, died few months before this fit of gout; and must have been greatly missed by

Friedrich. Fouquet, at Brandenburg, died last year: his benefactor in the early Custrin distresses, his

"Bayard," and chosen friend ever since; how conspicuously dear to Friedrich to the last is still evident. A

Friedrich getting lonely enough, and the lights of his life going out around him;has but one sure

consolation, which comes to him as compulsion withal, and is not neglected, that of standing steadfast to his

The Event of 1776 is Czarowitsh Paul's arrival in Berlin, and Betrothal to a second Wife there; his first

having died in childbirth lately. The first had been of Friedrich's choosing, but had behaved ill,seduced by

SpanishFrench Diplomacies, by this and that, poor young creature:the second also was of Friedrich's

choosing, and a still nearer connection: figure what a triumphant event! Event now fallen dead to every one

of us; and hardly admitting the smallest Note,except for chronology's sake, which it is always satisfactory

"Czarowitsh Paul's first Wife, the HessenDarmstadt Princess of Three, died of her first child April 26th,

1776: everybody whispered, 'It is none of Paul's!' who, nevertheless, was inconsolable, the wild heart of him

like to break on the occurrence. By good luck, Prince Henri had set out, by invitation, on a second visit to

Petersburg; and arrived there also on April 26th, [Rodenbeck, iii. 139146.] the very day of the fatality.

Prince Henri soothed, consoled the poor Czarowitsh; gradually brought him round; agreed with his Czarina

Mother, that he must have a new Wife; and dexterously fixed her choice on a 'Niece of the King's and

Henri's.' Eldest Daughter of Eugen of Wurtemberg, of whom, as an excellent General, though also as a surly

Husband, readers have some memory; now living withdrawn at Mumpelgard, the Wurtemberg Apanage

[Montbeillard, as the French call it], in these piping times of Peace:she is the Princess. To King Friedrich's

great surprise and joy. The Mumpelgard Principalities, and fortunate Princess, are summoned to Berlin.

Czarowitsh Paul, under Henri's escort, and under gala and festivities from the Frontier onward, arrived in

Berlin 21st July, 1776; was betrothed to his Wurtemberg Princess straightway; and after about a fortnight of

festivities still more transcendent, went home with her to Petersburg; and was there wedded, 18th October

following;Czar and Czarina, she and he, twenty years after, and their posterity reigning ever since.

"At Vienna," says the King, "everybody was persuaded the Czarowitsh would never come to Berlin. Prince

Kaunitz had been,"been at his old tricks again, playing his sharpest, in the Court of Petersburg again: what

tricks (about Poland and otherwise) let us not report, for it is now interesting to nobody. Of the Czarowitsh

Visit itself I will remark only,what seems to be its one chance of dating itself in any of our

memories,that it fell out shortly after the Sherlock dinner with Voltaire (in 1776, April 27th the one event,

July 21st the other);and that here is, by pure accident, the exuberant erratic Sherlock, once more, and once

Harris, afterwards Earl of Malmesbury, succeeded Mitchell at Berlin; "Polish troubles" (heartily indifferent to

England), "Dantzig squabbles" (miraculously important there),nothing worth the least mention now.

Excellency Harris quitted Berlin in Autumn, 1776; gave place to an Excellency Hugh Elliot (one of the Minto

Elliots, Brother of the first Earl of Minto, and himself considerably noted in the world), of whom we have a

Elliot has been here since April, 1777; stays some five years in this post;with not much Diplomatic

employment, I should think, but with a style of general bearing and social physiognomy, which, with some

procedures partly incidental as well, are still remembered in Berlin. Something of spying, too, doubtless there

was; bribing of menials, opening of Letters: I believe a great deal of that went on; impossible to prevent

under the carefulest of Kings. [An ingenious young Friend of mine, connected with Legationary Business,

found lately, at the Hague, a consecutive Series, complete for four or five years (I think, from 1780 onwards),

of Friedrich's LETTERS to his MINISTER IN LONDON,Copies punctually filched as they went through

the Postoffice there: specimens of which I saw; and the whole of which I might have seen, had it been

worth the effort necessary. But Friedrich's London Minister, in this case, was a person of no significance or

intimacy; and the King's Letters, though strangely exact, clear and even elucidative on English CourtPolitics

and vicissitudes, seemed to be nearly barren as to Prussian.] Hitherto, with one exception to be mentioned

presently, his main business seems to have been that of introducing, on different CourtDays, a great number

of Travelling English, who want to see the King, and whom the King little wants, but quietly submits to.

Incoherent Sherlock, whom we discover to have been of the number, has, in his tawdry disjointed Book, this

"The last time of my seeing him [this HeroKing of my heart] was at Berlin [not a hint of the time when]. He

came thither to receive the adieus of the Baron de Swieten, Minister from their Imperial Majesties [thank

you; that means 8th October, 1777 [Rodenbeck, iii. 172.]], and to give audience to the new Minister, the

Count Cobenzl. The Foreign Ministers, the persons who were to be presented [we, for instance], and the

Military, were all that were at Court. We were ten English [thirteen by tale]: the King spoke to the first and

the last; not on account of their situation, but because their names struck him. The first was Major Dalrymple.

To him the King said: 'You have been presented to me before?' 'I ask your Majesty's pardon; it was my Uncle'

(Lord Dalrymple, of whom presently). Mr. Pitt [unknown to me which Pitt, subsequent Lord Camelford or

another] was the last. THE KING: 'Are you a relation of Lord Chatham's?' 'Yes, Sire.''He is a man whom I

"He then went to the Foreign Ministers; and talked more to Prince Dolgorucki, the Russian Ambassador, than

to any other. In the midst of his conversation with this Prince, he turned abruptly to Mr. Elliot, the English

Minister, and asked: 'What is the Duchess of Kingston's family name?' This transition was less Pindaric than

it appears; he had just been speaking of the Court of Petersburg, and that Lady was then there." [Sherlock, ii.

27.] Whereupon Sherlock hops his ways again; leaving us considerably uncertain. But, by a curious accident,

here, at firsthand, is confirmation of the flighty creature;a Letter from Excellency Elliot himself having

TO WILLIAM EDEN, ESQUIRE (of the Foreign Office, London; Elliot's Brotherinlaw; afterwards

"MY DEAR EDEN,If you are waiting upon the pinnacle of all impatience to give me news from the

Howes [out on their then famous "Seizure of Philadelphia," which came to what we know!], I am waiting

with no less impatience to receive it, and think every other subject too little interesting to be mentioned. I

must, however, tell you, the King has been here; ["Came to Berlin 8th October," on the VanSwieten errand;

"saw Princess Amelia twice; and on the 9th returned to Potsdam" (Rodenbeck, iii. 172).] to the astonishment

of all croakers, hearty and in high spirits. He was very civil to all of us. I was attended by one dozen English,

which nearly completes my halfhundred this season. Pitt made one of the twelve, and was particularly

distinguished. KING: "Monsieur estil parent de Mylord Chatham?' PITT: 'Oui, Sire.' KING: 'C'est un

"You have no idea of the joy the people expressed to see the King on Horseback,all the Grubstreet

nonsense of 'a Country groaning under the weight of its burdens,' of 'a Nation governed with a rod of iron,'

vanished before the sincere acclamations of all ranks, who joined in testifying their enthusiasm for their great

Monarch. I long for Harris and Company [Excellency Harris; making for Russia, I believe]; they are to pig

together in my house; so that I flatter myself with having a near view, if not a taste, of connubial joys. My

love to E and _e_ [your big _E_leanor and your LITTLE, a baby in arms, who are my Sister and

"P.S. I quite forgot to tell you, I sent out a servant some time ago to England to bring a couple of Horses. He

will deliver some Packets to you; which I beg you will send, with Lord Marischal's compliments, to their

respective Addresses. There is also a china cup for Mr. Macnamara, Lawyer, in the Temple or Lincoln's Inn,

from the same person [lively old gentleman, age 91 gone; did die next year]. What does Eleanor mean about

my Congratulatory Letter to Lord Suffolk [our Foreign Secretary, on his marriage lately]? I wished his

Lordship, most sincerely, every happiness in his new state, as soon as I knew of it. I beg, however, Eleanor

will do the like;and although it is not my system to 'congratulate' anybody upon marriage, yet I never fail

to wish them what, I think, it is always two to one they do not obtain." [EDENHOUSE

As to the Dalrymple of SHERLOCK, read this (FRIEDRICH TO D'ALEMBERT, two years before

[ OEuvres de Frederic, xxv. 21: 5th August, 1775.]): ... "A Mylord of wonderful name [Lord Dalrymple, if I

could remember it], of amiable genius (AU NOM BAROQUE, A L'ESPRIT AIMABLE), gave me a Letter

on your part. 'Ah, how goes the Prince of Philosophers, then? Is he gay; is he busy; did you see him often?'

To which the Mylord: 'I? No; I am straight from London!'""QUOI DONC?" In short, knowing my

Anaxagoras, this Mylord preferred to be introduced by him; and was right: "One of the amiablest Englishmen

I have seen; I except only the name, which I shall never remember [but do, on this new occasion]: Why

doesn't he get himself unchristened of it, and take that of Stair, which equally belongs to him?" (Earl of Stair

by and by; Nephew, or GrandNephew, of the great Earl of Stair, once so well known to some of us.

That word of reminiscence about Pitt is worth more attention. Not spoken lightly, but with meaning and

sincerity; something almost pathetic in it, after the sixteen years separation: "A man whom I much

esteemed,"and had good reason to do so! Pitt's subsequent sad and bright fortunes, from the end of the

SevenYears War and triumphant summing up of the JENKINS'SEAR QUESTION, are known to readers.

His BurtonPynsent meed of honor (Estate of 3,000 pounds a year bequeathed him by an aged Patriot, "Let

THIS bit of England go a noble road!"); his lofty silences, in the World Political; his vehement attempts in it,

when again asked to attempt, all futile,with great pain to him, and great disdain from him:his passionate

impatiences on minor matters, "laborers [ornamenting BurtonPynsent Park, in Somersetshire] planting trees

by torchlight;" "kitchen people [at Hayes in North Kent, House still to be seen] roasting a series of chickens,

chicken after chicken all day, that at any hour, within ten minutes, my Lord may dine!"these things dwell

in the memory of every worthy reader. Here, saved from my poor friend Smelfungus (nobody knows how

much of him I suppress), is a brief jotting, in the form of rough MEMORANDA, if it be permissible:

"Pitt four years King; lost in quicksands after that; off to Bath, from gout, from semiinsanity; 'India should

pay, but how?' Lost in GeneralWarrants, in Wilkes Controversies, American Revolts, generally, in

"A delicate, proud, noble man; pure as refined gold. Something sensitive, almost feminine in him; yet with an

edge, a fire, a steadiness; liker Friedrich, in some fine principal points, than any of his Contemporaries. The

one King England has had, this King of Four Years, since the Constitutional system set in. Oliver Cromwell,

yes indeed,but he died, and there was nothing for it but to hang his body on the gallows. Dutch William,

too, might have been considerable,but he was Dutch, and to us proved to be nothing. Then again, so long

as Sarah Jennings held the Queen's Majesty in bondage, some gleams of Kinghood for us under

Marlborough:after whom Noodleism and Somnambulism, zero on the back of zero, and all our Affairs,

temporal, spiritual and eternal, jumbling at random, which we call the Career of Freedom, till Pitt stretched

out his hand upon them. For four years; never again, he; never again one resembling him,nor indeed can

"Never, I should think. Pitts are not born often; this Pitt's ideas could occur in the History of Mankind once

only. Stranger theory of society, completely believed in by a clear, sharp and altogether human head,

incapable of falsity, was seldom heard of in the world. For King: open your mouth, let the first gentleman that

falls into it (a mass of Hanover stolidity, stupidity, foreign to you, heedless of you) be King: Supreme

Majesty he, with hypothetical decorations, dignities, solemn appliances, high as the stars (the whole, except

the money, a mendacity, and sin against Heaven): him you declare SentofGod, supreme Captain of your

England; and having done so,tie him up (according to Pitt) with Constitutional straps, so that he cannot stir

hand or foot, for fear of accidents: in which state he is fully cooked; throw me at his Majesty's feet, and let

"Pitt, closely as I could scrutinize, seems never to have doubted in his noble heart but he had some reverence

for George II. 'Reverenced his Office,' says a simple reader? Alas, no, my friend, man does not 'reverence

Office,' but only shamreverences it. I defy him to reverence anything but a Man filling an Office (with or

without salary) nobly. Filling a noble office ignobly; doing a celestial task in a quietly infernal manner? It

were kinder perhaps to run your sword through him (or through yourself) than to take to revering him! If

inconvenient to slay him or to slay yourself (as is oftenest likely),keep well to windward of him; be not,

without necessity, partaker of his adventures in this extremely earnest Universe! ...

"No; Nature does not produce many Pitts:nor will any Pitt ever again apply in Parliament for a career.

'Your voices, your most sweet voices; ye melodious torrents of Gadarenes Swine, galloping rapidly down

About four months before this time, Elliot had done a feat, not in the Diplomatic line at all, or by his own

choice at all, which had considerably astonished the Diplomatic world at Berlin, and was doubtless well in

the King's thoughts during this introduction of the Dozen. The American War is raging and blundering

along,a delectable Lord George Germaine (ALIAS Sackville, no other than our old Minden friend)

managing as WarMinister, others equally skilful presiding at the Parliamentary helm; all becoming worse

and worse off, as the matter proceeds. The revolted Colonies have their Franklins, Lees, busy in European

Courts: "Help us in our noble struggle, ye European Courts;, now is your chance on tyrannous England!" To

which France at least does appear to be lending ear. Lee, turned out from Vienna, is at work in Berlin, this

I know not whether it was by my Lord Suffolk's instigation, or what had put the Britannic Cabinet on such an

idea,perhaps the stolen Letters of Friedrich, which show so exact a knowledge of the current of events in

America as well as England ("knows every step of it, as if he were there himself, the ArchEnemy of honest

neighbors in a time of stress!")but it does appear they had got it into their sagacious heads that the bad

neighbor at Berlin was, in effect, the ArchEnemy, probably mainspring of the whole matter; and that it

would be in the highest degree interesting to see clearly what Lee and he had on hand. Order thereupon to

Elliot: "Do it, at any price;" and finally, as mere price will not answer, "Do it by any method,STEAL Lee's

Perhaps few Excellencies living had less appetite for such a job than Elliot; but his Orders were peremptory,

"Lee is a rebel, quasioutlaw; and you must!" Elliot thereupon took accurate survey of the matter; and rapidly

enough, and with perfect skill, though still a novice in Berlin affairs, managed to do it. Privily hired, or made

his servant hire, the chief Housebreaker or Pickpocket in the City: "Lee lodges in such and such a Hostelry;

bring us his RedBox for a thirty hours; it shall be well worth your while!" And in brief space the RedBox

arrives, accordingly; a score or two of readywriters waiting for it, who copy all day, all night, at the top of

their speed, till they have enough: which done, the Lee RedBox is left on the stairs of the Lee Tavern; Box

locked again, and complete; only the FriedrichLee Secrets completely pumped out of it, and now rushing

This astonishing mass of papers is still extant in England; [In the EDENHOUSE ARCHIVES; where a

natural delicacy (unaware that the questionable Legationary FACT stands in print for so many years past) is

properly averse to any promulgation of them.]the outside of them I have seen, by no means the inside, had

I wished it;but am able to say from other sources, which are open to all the world, that seldom had a

Supreme CouncilBoard procured for itself, by improper or proper ways, a Discovery of less value!

Discovery that Lee has indeed been urgent at Berlin; and has raised in Friedrich the question, "Have you got

to such a condition that I can, with safety and advantage, make a Treaty of Commerce with you?"That his

Minister Schulenburg has, by Order, been investigating Lee on that head; and has reported, "No, your

Majesty, Lee and People are not in such a condition;" that his Majesty has replied, "Well, let him wait till

they are;" and that Lee is waiting accordingly. In general, That his Majesty is not less concerned in guidance

or encouragement of the American War than he is in ditto of the Atlantic Tides or of the EastWind (though

he does keep barometers and meteorological apparatus by him); and that we of the Council Board are

awhat shall I say! Not since the case of poor Dr. Cameron, in 1753, when Friedrich was to have joined the

Highlanders with 15,000 chosen Prussians for Jacobite purposes,and the Cham of Tartary to have taken

part in the Bangorian Controversy,was there a more perfect platitude, or a deeper depth of ignorance as to

This surprising bit of Burglary, so far as I can gather from the Prussian Books, must have been done on

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25th, 1777; Box (with essence pumped out) restored to staircase night of

Thursday,Police already busy, Governor Ramin and Justice President Philippi already apprised, and

suspicion falling on the English Minister,whose Servant ("Arrest him we cannot without a King's Warrant,

only procurable at Potsdam!") vanishes bodily. Friday, 27th, Ramin and Philippi make report; King answers,

"greatly astonished:" a "GARSTIGE SACHE (ugly Business), which will do the English no honor:" "Servant

fled, say you? Trace it to the bottom; swift!" Excellency Elliot, seeing how matters lay, owned honestly to the

Official People, That it was his Servant (Servant safe gone, Chief Pickpocket not mentioned at all);

SUNDAY EVENING, 29th, King orders thereupon, "Let the matter drop." These Official Pieces, signed by

the King, by Hertzberg, Ramin and others, we do not give: here is Friedrich's own notice of it to his Brother

"POTSDAM, 29th JUNE, 1777. ... There has just occurred a strange thing at Berlin. Three days ago, in

absence of the Sieur Lee, Envoy of the American Colonies, the Envoy of England went [sent!] to the Inn

where Lee lodged, and carried off his Portfolio; it seems he was in fear, however, and threw it down, without

opening it, on the stairs [alas, no, your Majesty, not till after pumping the essence out]. All Berlin is talking

of it. If one were to act with rigor, it would be necessary to forbid this man the Court, since he has committed

a public theft: but, not to make a noise, I suppress the thing. Sha'n't fail, however, to write to England about

it, and indicate that there was another way of dealing with such a matter, for they are impertinent" (say,

ignorant, blind as moles, your Majesty; that is the charitable reading!). [ OEuvres de Frederic, xxvi. 394. In

PREUSS, v. (he calls it "iv." or "URKUNDENBUCH to vol. iv.," but it is really and practically vol. v.) 278,

This was not Excellency Elliot's Burglary, as readers see,among all the Excellencies going, I know not that

there is one with less natural appetite for such a job; but sometimes what can a necessitous Excellency do?

Elliot is still remembered in Berlin society, not for this only, but for emphatic things of a better complexion

which he did; a man more justly estimated there, than generally here in our time. Here his chief fame rests on

a witty Anecdote, evidently apocryphal, and manufactured in the London Clubs: "Who is this HyderAli,"

said the old King to him, one day (according to the London Clubs). "Hm," answered Elliot, with exquisite

promptitude, politeness and solidity of information, "C'EST UN VIEUX VOLEUR QUI COMMENCE A

RADOTER (An old robber, now falling into his dotage),"let his dotard Majesty take that.

Alas, my friends!Ignorance by herself is an awkward lumpish wench; not yet fallen into vicious courses,

nor to be uncharitably treated: but Ignorance and Insolence,these are, for certain, an unlovely Mother and

Bastard! Yes;and they may depend upon it, the grim Parishbeadles of this Universe are out on the track

of them, and oakum and the correctionhouse are infallible sooner or later! The clever Elliot, who knew a

hawk from a hernshaw, never floundered into that platitude. This, however, is a joke of his, better or worse (I

think, on his quitting Berlin in 1782, without visible resource or outlook): "I am far from having a

SansSouci," writes he to the Edens; "and I think I am coming to be SANS SIXSOUS."Here still are two

small Fractions, which I must insert; and then rigorously close. Kaiser Joseph, in these months, is travelling

through France to instruct his Imperial mind. The following is five weeks anterior to that of Lee's

1. A BIT OF DIALOGUE AT PARIS (Saturday, 17th May, 1777). After solemn Session of the ACADEMIE

FRANCAISE, held in honor of an illustrious COMTE DE FALKENSTEIN (privately, Kaiser Joseph II.),

who has come to look at France, [Minute and rather entertaining Account of his procedures there, and

especially of his two Visits to the Academy (first was May 10th), in Mayer, Reisen Josephs II. (Leipzig,

1778), pp. 112132, 147 et seq.]Comte de Falkenstein was graciously pleased to step up to D'Alembert,

FALKENSTEIN. "I have heard you are for Germany this season; some say you intend to become German

D'ALEMBERT. "I did promise myself the high honor of a visit to his Prussian Majesty, who has deigned to

invite me, with all the kindness possible: but, alas, for such hopes! The bad state of my health"

D'ALEMBERT. "Two times; once in 1756 [1755, 17th19th June,if you will be exact], at Wesel, when I

remained only a few days; and again in 1763, when I had the honor to pass three or four months with him.

Since that time I have always longed to have the honor of seeing his Majesty again; but circumstances

hindered me. I, above all, regretted not to have been able to pay my court to him that year he saw the

Emperor at Neisse,but at this moment there is nothing more to be wished on that head" (Don't bow: the

FALKENSTEIN. "It was very natural that the Emperor, young, and desiring to instruct himself, should wish

to see such a Prince as the King of Prussia; so great a Captain, a Monarch of such reputation, and who has

played so great a part. It was a Scholar going to see his Master" (these are his very words, your Majesty).

D'ALEMBERT. "I wish M. le Comte de Falkenstein could see the Letters which the King of Prussia did me

the honor to write after that Interview: it would then appear how this Prince judged of the Emperor, as all the

world has since done." ["D'Alembert to Friedrich [in OEuvres de Frederic, xxv. 75], 23d May, 1777." Ib.

KING TO D'ALEMBERT (three months after. Kaiser is home; passed Ferney, early in August; and did not

call on Voltaire, as is well known). ... "I hear the Comte de Falkenstein has been seeing harbors, arsenals,

ships, manufactures, and has n't seen Voltaire. Had I been in the Emperor's place, I would not have passed

Ferney without a glance at the old Patriarch, were it only to say that I had seen and heard him. Arsenals,

ships, manufactures, these you can see anywhere; but it requires ages to produce a Voltaire. By the rumors I

hear, it will have been a certain great Lady Theresa, very Orthodox and little Philosophical, who forbade her

D'ALEMBERT (in answer): "No doubt your Majesty's guess is right. It must have been the Lady Mother.

Nobody here believes that the advice came from his Sister [Queen Marie Antoinette], who, they say, is full of

esteem for the Patriarch, and has more than once let him know it by third parties." [ OEuvres de Frederic,

According to Friedrich, Joseph's reflections in France were very gloomy: "This is all one Country;

strenuously kneaded into perfect union and incorporation by the Old Kings: my discordant Romish Reich is

of many Countries,and should be of one, if Sovereigns were wise and strenuous!" [ OEuvres de Frederic,

travels over the world, this poor brown Bit of Paper, with a Signature of Friedrich's to it, has wandered hither;

and I have had it copied, worthy or not. A Royal Cabinet Order on the smallest of subjects; but perhaps all

the more significant on that account; and a Signature which readers may like to see.

Fordan, or Fordon, is in the Bromberg Department in West Preussen, Bromberg no longer a heap of ruins;

but a lively, newbuilt, paved, CANALLED and industrious trading Town. At Fordan is a Grain Magazine:

Bein ("Leg," DER BEIN, as they slightingly call him) is ProviantMaster there; and must consider his

"Seiner Koniglicher Majestat von Preussen, Unser allergnadigster Herr, lassen dem OberProviantmeister

Bein hiebey die GetraidePreistabelle des Brombergschen Departments zufertigen; Woraus derselbe

ersiehet wie niedrig solche an einigen Orthen sind, und dass zu Inovraclaw und Strezeltnow der Scheffel

Roggen um 12 Groschen kostet: da solches nun hier so wohlfeil ist, somuss ja der Preis in Pohlen noch wohl

geringer, und ist daher nicht abzusehen warum die Pohlen auf so hohe Preise bestehen; der Bein muss sich

daher nun rechte Muhe gebem, und den Einkauf so wohlfeil als nur immer moglich zu machen suchen."

"His Royal Majesty of Preussen, Our most allgracious Lord, lets herewith, to the Head ProviantMaster

Bein, the GrainPrices Table of the Bromberg Department be despatched; Wherefrom Bein perceives how

low in some places these are, and that, at Inovraclaw and Strezeltnow the Bushel of Rye costs about 14

Pence: now, as it is so cheap there, the price in Poland must be still smaller; and therefore it is not to be

conceived why the Poles demand such high prices," as the said Bein reports: "Bein therefore is charged to

take especial pains, and try not to make the purchase dearer than is indispensable."

Original kindly furnished me by Mr. W. H. Doeg, Barlow Moor, Manchester: whose it now is,purchased in

London, A.D. 1863. The FRH of German CURSIVSCHRIFT (current hand), which the woodcutter has

appended, shut off by a square, will show English readers what the King means: an "Frh" done as by a

flourish of one's stick, in the most compendious and really ingenious manner,suitable for an economic

At the very beginning of 1778, the chronic quarrel with Austria passed, by an accident just fallen out, into the

acute state; rose gradually, and, in spite of negotiating, issued in a thing called BavarianSuccession War,

which did not end till Spring of the following year. The accident was this. At Munchen, December 30th,

1777, Max Joseph Kurfurst of Baiern, only Brother of our lively friend the ElectressDowager of Saxony,

died; suddenly, of smallpox unskilfully treated. He was in his fiftysecond year; childless, the last of that

Bavarian branch. His Heir is Karl Theodor, KurPfalz (Elector Palatine), who is now to unite the Two

Electorates,unless Austria can bargain with him otherwise. Austria's desire to get hold of Baiern is of very

old standing; and we have heard lately how much it was an object with Kaunitz and his young Kaiser. With

Karl Theodor they did bargain,in fact, had beforehand as good as bargained,and were greatly

astonished, when King Friedrich, alone of all Teutschland or the world, mildly, but peremptorily, interfered,

Something, not much, must be said of this BavarianSuccession War; which occupied, at a pitch of tension

and anxiety foreign to him for a long time, fifteen months of Friedrich's old age (January, 1778March,

1779); and filled all Europe round him and it, in an extraordinary manner. Something; by no means much,

now that we have seen the issue of such mountains all in travail. Nobody could then say but it bade fair to

become a Fourth AustrianPrussian War, as sanguinary as the SevenYears had been; for in effect there

stood once more the Two Nations ranked against each other, as if for mortal duel, near half a million men in

whole; parleying indeed, but brandishing their swords, and ever and anon giving mutual clash of fence, as if

And now everybody sees that the work never did begin; that parleying, enforced by brandishing, turned out to

be all the work there was: and everybody has forgotten it, and, except for specific purposes, demands not to

be put in mind of it. Mountains in labor were not so frequent then as now, when the Penny Newspaper has got

charge of them; though then as now to practical people they were a nuisance. Mountains all in terrific travail

throes, threatening to overset the solar system, have always a charm, especially for the more foolish classes:

but when once the birth has taken place, and the wretched mouse ducks past you, or even nothing at all can be

Those Territories, which adjoin on its own dominions, would have been extremely commodious to

Austria;as Austria itself has long known; and by repeatedly attempting them on any chance given (as in

17411745, to go no farther back), has shown how well it knows. Indeed, the whole of Bavaria fairly

"Do but look on the Map [this Note is not by Busching, but by somebody of Austrian tendencies]: you would

say, Austria without Bavaria is like a Human Figure with its belly belonging to somebody else. Bavaria is the

trunk or belly of the Austrian Dominions, shutting off all the limbs of them each from the other; making for

"OberPfalz,which used to be KurPfalz's, which is Bavaria's since we took it from the WinterKing and

bestowed it in that way, OberPfalz, the country of Amberg, where Maillebois once pleased to make

invasion of us;does not it adjoin on the Bohemian Forest? The RIBS there, Bohemian all, up to the

shoulder, are ours: but the shoulderblade and left arm, whose are they! Austria Proper and Hungary, these

may be taken as sittingpart and lower limbs, ample and fleshy; but see, just above the pelvis, on the south

side, how Bavaria and its Tyrol sticks itself in upon Austria, who fancied she also had a Tyrol, and far the

more important one. Our Tyrol, our Styria, Carniola, Carinthia,Bavaria blocks these in. Then the Swabian

Austria,Breisach, and those UpperRhine Countries, from which we invade France,we cannot reach

them except through Bavarian ground. Swabian Austria should be our right arm, fingers of it reaching into

Switzerland; OberPfalz our left:and as to the broad breast between these two; left arm and broad breast

are Bavaria's, not ours. Of the Netherlands, which might be called geographically the head of Austria, alas,

the long neck, Lorraine, was once ours; but whose is it? Irrecoverable for the present, perhaps may not

These are Kaunitz's ideas; and the young Kaiser has eagerly adopted them as the loadstar of his life. "Make

the Reich a reality again," thinks the Kaiser (good, if only possible, think we too); "make Austria great;

In practical politics these are rather wild ideas; but they are really Kaunitz's and his Kaiser's; and were

persisted in long after this Bavarian matter got its check: and as a whole, they got repeated checks; being

impossible all, and far from the meaning of a Time big with French Revolution, and with quite other things

than worldgreatness to Austria, and rejuvenescence on such or on any terms to the poor old Holy Roman

Reich, which had been a wiggery so long. Nobody could guess of what it was that France or the world might

be with child: nobody, till the birth in 1789, and even for a generation afterwards. France is weakly and

unwieldy, has strange enough longings for chalky, inky, visionary, foolish substances, and may be in the

To Kaunitz it is pretty clear that France will not stand in his path in this fine little Bavarian business; which is

all he cares for at present. England in war with its Colonies; Russia attentive to its Turk; foreign Nations,

what can they do but talk; remonstrate more or less, as they did in the case of Poland; and permit the thing

with protest? Only from one Sovereign Person, and from him I should guess not much, does Kaunitz expect

serious opposition: from Friedrich of Prussia; to whom no enlargement of Austria can be matter of

indifference. "But cannot we perhaps make it worth his while?" thinks Kaunitz: "Tush, he is old and broken;

thought to be dying; has an absolute horror of war. He too will sit quiet; or we must make it worth his while."

Kaunitz's Case, when he brings it before the Reich, and general Public of mankind and its Gazetteers, will by

"Archduke Albert V., of Austria, subsequently Kaiser Albert II., had married Elizabeth, only Daughter of

Kaiser Sigismund SUPER GRAMMATICAM: Albert is he who got three crowns in one year, Hungary,

Bohemia, Romish Reich; and 'we hope a fourth,' say the Old Historians, 'which was a heavenly and eternal

"In 1426, thirteen years before this event of the Crowns, Sigismund GRAMMATICAM had infeoffed him in

a thing still of shadowy nature, the Expectancy of a Straubingen Princedom; pleasant extensive District,

only not yet fallen, or like falling vacant: 'You shall inherit, you and yours (who are also my own), so soon as

this present line of Wittelsbachers die!' said Kaiser Sigismund, solemnly, in two solemn sheepskins. 'Not a

whit of it,' would the Wittelsbachers have answered, had they known of the affair. 'When we die out, there is

another Line of Wittelsbachers, plenty of other lines; and Housetreaties many and old, settling all that,

without help of you and Albert of the Three Crowns!' And accordingly there had never come the least fruit, or

attempt at fruit, from these two Sigismund Sheepskins; which were still lying in the Vienna Archives, where

they had lain since the creation of them, known to an Antiquary or two, but not even by them thought worthy

of mention in this busy world. This was literally all the claim that Austria had; and every bystander admitted

"In itself perhaps not," thought Kaunitz; "but the free consent of Karl Theodor the Heir, will not that be a

Title in full? One would hope so; in the present state of Europe: France, England, Russia, every Nation

weltering overhead in its own troubles and affairs, little at leisure for ours!" And it is with Karl Theodor, to

make out a full Title for himself there, that Kaunitz has been secretly busy this long time back, especially in

Karl Theodor of the Pfalz, now fallen Heir to Baiern, is a poor idle creature, of purely egoistic, ornamental,

dilettante nature; sunk in theatricals, bastard children and the like; much praised by Voltaire, who sometimes

used to visit him; and by Collini, to whom he is a kind master. Karl Theodor cares little for the integrity of

Baiern, much for that of his own skin. Very long ago, in 1742, in poor Kaiser Karl's Coronation time, we saw

him wedded, him and another, to two fair Sister Sulzbach Princesses, [Supra, viii. 119.] Granddaughters of

old Karl Philip, the then KurPfalz, whom he has inherited. It was the last act of that neverresting old Karl

Philip, of whom we used to hear so much: "Karl Theodor to have one of my inestimable Granddaughters;

Duke Clement, younger Brother of our blessed new Kaiser, to have another; thereby we unite the kindred

branches of the PfalzBaiern Families, and make the assurance of the Heritages doubly sure!" said old Karl

Readers no doubt have forgotten this circumstance; and, in their total lack of interest in Karl Theodor and his

paltry affairs, may as well be reminded of it;and furthermore, that these brilliant young Wives, "Duchess

Clement" especially, called on Wilhelmina during the Frankfurt Gayeties, and were a charm to Kaiser Karl

Albert, striving to look forward across clouds into a glittering future for his House. Theodor's Princess

brought him no children; she and her Sister are both still living; a lone woman the latter (Duke Clement dead

these seven years),a still more lone the former, with such a Husband yet living! Lone women both, well

forward in the fifties; active souls, I should guess, at least to judge by Duchess Clement, who being a

Dowager, and mistress of her movements, is emphatic in denouncing such disaster and disgrace; and plays a

great part, at Munchen, in the agitating scenes now on hand. Comes out "like a noble Amazon," say the

admiring by standers, on this occasion; stirs whatever faculty she has, especially her tongue; and goes on

urging, pushing and contriving all she can, regardless of risks in such an imminency.

Karl Theodor finds his Heritages indisputable; but he has no Legitimate Son to leave them to; and has many

Illegitimate, whom Austria can provide for,and richly will. His Heir is a Nephew, Karl August Christian,

of Zweibruck; whom perhaps it would not be painful to him to disappoint a little of his high expectations. On

the whole, Peace; plentiful provision, titular and other, for his Illegitimates; and a comfortable sum of ready

money over, to enliven the Theatricals, Dusseldorf PictureGalleries and Dilettante operations and

Collections,how much welcomer to Theodor than a Baiern never so religiously saved entire at the expense

of quarrel, which cannot but be tedious, troublesome and dangerous! Honor, indeedbut what, to an old

stager in the dilettante line, is honor? Old stagers there are who will own to you, like Balzac's Englishman in

a case of conflagration, when honor called on all men to take their buckets, "MAIS JE N'AI POINT

D'HONNEUR!" To whom, unluckily, you cannot answer as in that case, "C'EST EGAL, 'T is all one; do as if

Karl Theodor's Heir, poor August Christian of Zweibruck, had of course his own gloomy thoughts on this

parcelling of his Bavarian reversion: but what power has he? None, he thinks, but to take the inevitable

patiently. Nor generally in the Princes of the Reich, though one would have thought them personally

concerned, were it only for danger of a like mistreatment, was there any emotion publicly expressed, or the

least hope of help. "Perhaps Prussia will quarrel about it?" think they: "Austria, Prussia, in any of their

quarrels we get only crushed; better to keep out of it. We well out of it, the more they quarrel and fight, the

better for us!" England, in the shape of Hanover, would perhaps have made some effort to interfere, provided

France did: on either side, I incline to think,that is to say, on the side opposite to France. But poor England

is engaged with its melancholy American War; France on the point of breaking out into Alliance with the

Insurrection there. Neither France nor England did interfere. France is sinking into bankruptcy; intent to have

a Navy before most things; to assist the Cause of Human Liberty over seas withal, and become a sublime

spectacle, and a ruin to England,not as in the PittChoiseul time, but by that improved method. Russia,

again involved in Turk business, looks on, with now and then a big word thrown out on the one side and the

other.Munchen, in the interval, we can fancy what an agitated City! One Note says:

"Kurfurst Max Joseph being dead (30th December, 1777), Privy Councillor Johann Euchar von Obermayr,

favorite and factotum Minister of the Deceased, opened the Chatoulle [Princely Safe, or Case of Preciosities];

took from it the Act, which already lay prepared, for Homaging and solemn Instalment of Karl Theodor

KurPfalz, as heir of Baiern; with immediate intent to execute the same. Euchar orders strict closure of the

Towngates; the Soldiery to draw out, and beset all streets,especially that street where Imperial Majesty's

Ambassador lives: 'Rank close with your backs to that House,' orders Euchar; 'and the instant anybody stirs to

come out, sound your drums, and, at the same instant, let the rearmost rank of you, without looking round

[for one would not give offence, unless imperative] smite the butts of their muskets to the ground' (ready for

firing, IF imperative). Nobody, I think, stirred out from that Austrian Excellency's House; in any case,

Obermayr completed his Act without the least protest or trouble from anybody; and Karl Theodor, almost to

his terror [for he meant to sell, and satisfy Austria, by no means to resist or fight, the paltry old creature,

careful of self and skin only], saw himself solemnly secured by all forms of law in all the Lands of the

"Kaiser Joseph, in a fume at this, shot off an express to Bohemia: 'Such and such regiments, ten or twelve of

you, with your artillery and tools, march instantly into Straubingen, and occupy that Town and District.' At

Vienna, to the KarlTheodor Ambassador, the Kaunitz Officials were altogether loudvoiced, minatory:

'What is this, Herr Excellenz? Bargain already made; lying ready for mere signature; and at Munchen such

doings. Sign this Bargain, or there cross your frontier 60,000 Austrian men, and seize both Baiern and the

OberPfalz; bethink you, Herr!' The poor Herr bethought him, what could he do? signed the Bargain, Karl

Theodor sanctioning, 3d January, 1778,the fourth day after Obermayr's Homaging feat;and completes

the first act of this bad business. The Bargain, on Theodor's side, was of the most liberal kind: All and sundry

the Lands and Circles of Duke Johann of Straubingen, Lordship of Mindelheim [Marlborough's old Place]

superadded, and I know not what else; Sovereignty of the Fiefs in OberPfalz to lapse to the Crown of

Bohmen on my decease." Half Bavaria, or better; some reckon it as good as twothirds.

The figure of Duchess Clement, Amazon in hairpowder, driviug incessantly about among the officialities

and aristocratic circles; this and the order of "Rattle your muskets on the ground;" let these two features

represent to us the Munchen of those months. Munchen, Regensburg, Vienna are loud with pleading,

protocolling; but it is not there that the crisis of the game will be found to lie.

Friedrich has, for some time back, especially since the late Kur Baiern's illness, understood that Austria,

always eager for a clutch at Baiern, had something of that kind in view; but his first positive news of it was a

Letter from Duchess Clement (date, JANUARY 3d), which, by the detail of facts, unveiled to his quick eye

the true outline, extent and nature of this Enterprise of Austria's; Enterprise which, he could not but agree

with Duchess Clement, was one of great concernment not to Baiern alone. "Must be withstood; prevented, at

whatever risk," thought Friedrich on the instant: "The new Elector, Karl Theodor, he probably is dead to the

matter; but one ought to ask him. If he answer, Dead; then ask his Heir, Have you no life to it?" Heir is a

gallant enough young gentleman, of endless pedigree, but small possessions, "Karl August Christian [Karl II.

in Official style], Duke of ZweibruckBirkenfeld," Karl Theodor's eldest Nephew; Friedrich judges that he

probably will have haggled to sign any Austrian convention for dismembering Baiern, and that he will start

"A messenger to him, to Karl Theodor and him," thinks Friedrich: "a messenger instantly; and who?" For that

clearly is the first thing. And a delicate thing it is; requiring to be done in profoundest secrecy, by hint and

innuendo rather than speech; by somebody in a cloak of darkness, who is of adroit quality, and was never

heard of in diplomatic circles before, not to be suspected of having business of mine on hand. Friedrich

bethinks him that in a late visit to Weimar, he had noticed, for his fine qualities, a young gentleman named

Gortz; Eustace von Gortz, [Preuss, iv. 92 n. late Tutor to the young Duke (Karl August, whom readers know

as Goethe's friend): a wise, firm, adroitlooking young gentleman; who was farther interesting as Brother to

LieutenantGeneral von Gortz, a respectable soldier of Friedrich's. ExTutor at Weimar, we say, and idle for

Of this ExTutor Friedrich bethinks him; and in the course of that same day,for there is no

delay,Friedrich, who is at Berlin, beckons General Gortz to come over to him from Potsdam instantly.

"Hither this evening; and in all privacy meet me in the Palace at such an hour" (hour of midnight or thereby);

which of course Gortz, duly invisible to mankind, does. Friedrich explains: An errand to Munchen; perfectly

secret, for the moment, and requiring great delicacy and address; perhaps not without risk, a timorous man

might say: will your Brother go for me, think you? Gortz thinks he will. "Here is his Instruction, if so," adds

the King, handing him an Autograph of the necessary outline of procedure,not signed, nor with any

credential, or even specific address, lest accident happen. "Adieu then, Herr GeneralLieutenant; rule is,

shoes of swiftness, cloak of darkness: adieu!" And Gortz Senior is off on the instant, careering towards

Weimar, where he finds Gortz Junior, and makes known his errand. Gortz Junior stares in the natural

astonishment; but, after some intense brief deliberation, becomes affirmative, and in a minimum of time is

Gortz Junior proved to have been an excellent choice on the King's part; and came to good promotion

afterwards by his conduct in this affair. Gortz Junior started for Munchen on the instant, masked utterly, or

his business masked, from profane eyes; saw this person, saw that, and glided swiftly about, swiftly and with

sure aim; and speedily kindled the matter, and had smoke rising in various points. And before January was

out, saw the ReichsDiet at Regensburg, much more the general Gazetteerage everywhere, seized of this

affair, and thrown into paroxysms at the size and complexion of it: saw, in fact, a world getting into flame,

kindled by whom or what nobody could guess, for a long time to come. Gortz had great running about in his

cloak of darkness, and showed abundant talent of the kind needed. A pushing, cleareyed, stouthearted

man; much cleverness and sureness in what he did and forbore to do. His adventures were manifold; he had

much travelling about: was at Regensburg, at Mannheim; saw many persons whom he had to judge of on the

instant, and speak frankly to, or speak darkly, or speak nothing; and he made no mistake. One of his best

counsellors, I gather, was Duchess Clement: of course it was not long till Duchess Clement heard some

inkling of him; till, in some of his goings and comings, he saw Duchess Clement, who hailed him as an angel

of light. In one journey more mysterious than ever, "he was three days invisible in Duchess Clement's

Gardenhouse." "AH, MADAME, QUE N'ETIEZVOUS ELECTEUR, Why were not you Elector!" writes

Friedrich to her once: "We should not have seen those shameful events, which every good German must

blush for, to the bottom of his heart (DONT TOUT BON ALLEMAND DOIT ROUGIR JUSQU'AU FOND

We cannot afford the least narrative of Gortz and his courses: imagination, from a few traits, will sufficiently

conceive them. He had gone first to Karl Theodor's Minister: "Dead to it, I fear; has already signed?" Alas,

yes. Upon which to Zweibruck the Heir's Minister; whom his Master had distinctly ordered to sign, but who,

at his own peril, gallant man, delayed, remonstrated, had not yet done it; and was able to answer: "Alive to it,

he? Yes, with a witness, were there hope in the world!"which threw Gortz upon instant gallop towards

Zweibruck Schloss, in search of said Heir, the young Duke August Christian; who, however, had left in the

interim (summoned by his Uncle, on Austrian urgency, to consent along with him); but whom Gortz, by

dexterity and intuition of symptoms, caught up by the road, with what a mutual joy! As had been expected,

August Christian, on sight of Gortz, with an armed Friedrich looming in the distance, took at once into new

courses and activities. From him, no consent now; far other: Treaty with Friedrich; flat refusal ever to

consent: application to the Reich, application even to France, and whatever a gallant young fellow could do.

It was by Friedrich's order that he applied to France; his younger Brother, Max Joseph, was a soldier there,

and strove to back him in Official and other circles,who were all friendly, even zealous for him; and gave

good words, but had nothing more. This French department of the business was long a delay to Friedrich's

operations: and in result, poor Max's industry there, do what he could, proved rather a minus quantity than

otherwise. A good young man, they say; but not the man to kindle into action horses that are dead,of which

he had experience more than once in time coming. He is the same that, 30 years after, having survived his

childless elder Brother, became King Max, first King of Baiern; begot Ludwig, second King,who, for his

part, has begotten Otho King of Greece, and done other feats still less worth mentioning. August Christian's

behavior is praised as excellent,passively firm and polite; the grand requisite, persistence on your ground

of "No:"but his luck, to find such a Friedrich, and also to find such a Gortz, was the saving clause for him.

Friedrich was in very weak health in these months; still considered by the Gazetteers to be dying. But it

appears he is not yet too weak for taking, on the instant necessary, a worldimportant resolution; and of being

on the road with it, to this issue or to that, at full speed before the day closed. "Desist, good neighbor, I

beseech you. You must desist, and even you shall:" this resolution was entirely his own; as were the equally

prompt arrangements he contrived for executing it, should hard come to hard, and Austria prefer war to doing

justice. "Excellent methods," say the most unfriendly judges, "which must at once have throttled Austria into

compliance, had he been as prompt in executing them; which he by no means was. And there lies his error

and failure; very lamentable, excusable only by decrepitude of body producing weakness and decay of mind."

This is emphatically and wearisomely Schmettau's opinion, [F. W. C. Graf van Schmettau (this is the ELDER

Schmettau's Son, not the DRESDENER'S whom we used to quote), FELDZUG DER PREUSSISCHEN

ARMEE IN BOHMEN IM JAHRE 1778 (Berlin, 1789,simultaneously in French too, with Plans): with

whichas the completest Account by an eager Witness and Participator compare always Friedrich's own

(MEMOIRES DE LA GUERRE DE 1778), in OEuvres de Frederic, vi. 135208. Schoning (vol. iv.), besides

his own loose Narrative, or Summary, has given all the CORRESPONDENCE between Henri and the

King:sufficient to quench the sharpest appetite on this subject.] who looks at it only as a military Adjutant,

intent on honor and rapid feats of war, with how much reason, readers not Prussian or military shall judge

Saxony, we ought to mention, was also aggrieved. The Dowager Electress Maria Antoinette, our sprightly

friend, had, as sole surviving Sister of the late Kurfurst Max, the undoubted heirship of Kurfurst Max's

"allodial properties and territories:" territories, I think, mainly in the OberPfalz (which are NOT Bavaria

Proper, but were acquired in the ThirtyYears War), which are important in value, and which Austria,

regardless of our lively friend, has laid hold of as lapsed fiefs of Bohemia. Clearly Bohemian, says Austria;

and keeps hold. Our lively friend hereupon makes over all her rights in that matter to her Son, the reigning

Elector; with the counsel, if counsel were needed, "Ask protection of King Friedrich; go wholly with King

Friedrich." Mecklenburg too has an interest. Among the lapsed fiefs is one to a Duchy called of

Leuchtenberg;in regard to which, says Mecklenburg, as loud as it can, "That Duchy is not lapsed at all;

that is now mine, witness this Document" (of a valid testamentary nature)! Other claims were put in; but

these three: Zweibruck endlessly important; Saxony important too, though not in such degree; Mecklenburg

unimportant, but just,were alone recognized in impartial quarters as authentic and worthy of notice.

Of the pleadings and procedures in the Reichs Diet no reader would permit me to speak, were I inclined.

Enough to understand that they went on in the usual voluminous dulldroning way, crescendo always; and

deserve, what at present they are sure of, oblivion from all creatures. The important thing was, not those

pleadings in the Reichs Diet, nor the Austrian proposals there or elsewhere; but the brandishing of arms in

emitting and also in successively answering the same. Answer always No by Friedrich, and some new flash

of handled arms,the physiognomy of which was the one significant point, Austria, which is far from ready

with arms, though at each fresh pleading or proposal it tries to give a kind of brandish, says mainly three

things, in essence somewhat thus. AUSTRIA: "Cannot two States of the Reich come to a mutual

understanding, as Austria and Bavaria have done? And what have third parties to say to it?" FRIEDRICH:

"Much! Parties of the Reich have much to say to it!" (This several times with variations.) AUSTRIA: "Our

rights seem to us valid: Zweibruck, Saxony, Mecklenburg, if aggrieved, can try in the Reichs LawCourts."

FRIEDRICH: "LawCourts!" with a new brandish; that is, sets more regiments on march, from Pommern to

Wesel all on march, to Berlin, to Silesia, towards the Bohemian Frontier. AUSTRIA, by the voice of Kaunitz:

"We will not give up our rights without sentence of Law. We cannot recognize the King of Prussia as

Pulse after pulse, this is something like the course things had, crescendo till, in about three months, they got

to a height which was evidently serious. Nay, in the course of the pleadings it became manifest that on the

Austrian grounds of claim, not Maria Theresa could be heir to Straubingen, but Friedrich himself: "I descend

from ThreeCrown Albert's Daughter," said Maria Theresa. "And I from an elder Daughter of his, and do not

claim!" Friedrich could have answered, but did not; treating such claim all along as merely colorable and

chimerical, not worth attention in serious affairs of fact. Till, at length, after about three months, there comes

SUNDAY, APRIL 5th, 1778, at Berlin, Friedrich holds review of his Army, all assembled, equipped and in

readiness; and (in that upper ParoleRoom of the Schloss) makes this Speech, which, not without extraneous

FRIEDRICH'S SPEECH TO HIS GENERALS. "Gentlemen, I have assembled you here for a public object.

Most of you, like myself, have often been in arms along with one another, and are grown gray in the service

of our Country: to all of us is well known in what dangers, toils and renown we have been fellowsharers. I

doubt not in the least that all of you, as myself, have a horror of bloodshed: but the danger which now

threatens our Countries, not only renders it a duty, but puts us in the absolute necessity, to adopt the quickest

and most effectual means for dissipating at the right time the storm which threatens to break out on us.

"I depend with complete confidence on your soldierly and patriotic zeal, which is already well and gloriously

known to me, and which, while I live, I will acknowledge with the heartiest satisfaction. Before all things, I

recommend to you, and prescribe as your most sacred duty, That, in every situation, you exercise humanity

on unarmed enemies; and be continually attentive that, in this respect too, there be the strictest discipline

"To travel with the pomp of a King is not among my wishes: and all of you are aware that I have no pleasure

in rich fieldfurniture: but my increasing age, and the weakness it brings, render me incapable of riding as I

did in my youth. I shall, therefore, be obliged to make use of a postchaise in times of marching; and all of

you have liberty to do the same. But on the day of battle you shall see me on horseback; and there, also, I

VOLTAIRE SMOTHERED UNDER ROSES. King's Speech was on Sunday, April 5th, Evening of last

Monday (March 30th), at the Theatre Francais in Paris, poor Voltaire had that worldfamous apotheosis of

his; and got "smothered under roses," as he termed it. He had left Ferney (such the urgency of Niece Denis

and her unappeasable desire for a sight of Paris again) February 5th; arrived in Paris February 10th; ventured

out to see his poor last Tragedy, not till the sixth night of it, March 30th; was beshouted, crowned, raised to

the immortal gods by a repentant Paris world: "Greatest of men,You were not a miscreant and malefactor,

then: on the contrary, you were a spiritual Hercules, a heroic Son of Light; Slayer of the Nightmare Monsters,

and foul Dragons and Devils that were preying on us: to you shall not we now say, Long life, with all our

throats and all our hearts,"and so quench you at last! Which they managed to do, poor repentant souls. The

tottering wayworn Voltaire, over agitated in this way, took to bed; never rose again; and on that day two

months was dead. [In DUVERNET, and still better in LONGCHAMP ET WAGNIERE, ample account of

these interesting occurrences.] His light all done; to King Friedrich, or to any of us, no flash of radiancy from

APRIL 6th, Friedrich gets on marchperhaps about 100,000 strong for Schonwalde, in the

NeisseSchweidnitz neighborhood; and there, in the course of the week, has cantoned himself, and sits

completing his magazines and appliances for actual work of war. This is a considerable brandish; and a good

deal astonishes Kaunitz and the Vienna people, who have not 10,000 at present on those Frontiers, and

nothing whatever in a state of readiness. "Dangerous really!" Kaunitz admits; and sets new regiments on

march from Hungary, from the Netherlands, from all ends of the Earth where they are. Tempers his own

insolent talk, too; but strives to persuade himself that it is "Menace merely. He won't; he abhors war."

Kaunitz had hardly exaggerated Friedrich's abhorrence of war; though it turned out there were things which

Schonwalde, headquarter of this alarming Prussian cantonment, is close on the new Fortress of Silberberg, a

beautiful new impregnability, looking into those valleys of the Warta, of the young Neisse, which are the

road to Bohemia or from it,where the Pandour torrents used to issue into the first Silesian Wars; where

Friedrich himself was once to have been snapped up, but was not quite,and only sang Mass as Extempore

Abbot, with Tobias Stusche, in the Monastery of Camenz, according to the myth which readers may

remember. No more can Pandours issue that way; only Prussians can enter in. Friedrich's windows in the

Schloss of Schonwalde,which are on the left hand, if you be touring in those parts,look out, direct upon

Silberberg, and have its battlements between them and the 3o'clock Sun. [Schoning, iv. (Introductory Part).]

In the Town of Silberberg, Friedrich has withal a modest little lodging,lodging still known,where he can

alight for an hour or a night, in the multifarious businesses that lead him to and fro. "A beautiful place," says

Schoning; "where the King stayed twelve weeks" or more; waiting till the BavarianAustrian case should

ripen better. At Schonwalde, what was important in his private circle, he heard of Lord Marischal's death,

then of Voltaire's; not to mention that of English Pitt, and perhaps others interesting to him. [Voltaire died

May 30th; Marischal, May 25th; Pitt, May 11th;and May 4th, in the Cantonment here, died General von

Rentzel, the same who, as Lieutenant Rentzel, sixty years ago, had taught the little CrownPrince his drill

"Now was the time," cry Schmettau and the unfavorable, "when he might have walked across into Eastern

Bohemia, into Mahren, whither you like; to Vienna itself, and taken Austria by the throat at discretion: 'Do

justice, then, will you! Let go Bavaria, or!' In his young years, would not he have done so? His Plan, long

since laid down, was grand: To march into Mahren, leaving Silesia guarded; nay leaving Bohemia to be

invaded,for Prince Henri, and the Saxons, who are a willing handful, and will complete Henri likewise to

100,000, were to do that, feat the while;March into Mahren, on to Vienna if he chose; laying all flat.

Infallible," say the Schmettau people. "He had the fire of head to contrive it all; but worn down and grown

old, he could not execute his great thoughts." Which is obviously absurd, Friedrich's object not being to lay

Austria flat, or drive animosities to the sanguinary point, and kindle all Europe into war; but merely to

extract, with the minimum of violence, something like justice from Austria on this Bavarian matter. For

which end, he may justly consider slow pressure preferable to the cutting method. His problem is most

The encampment round Schonwalde, especially as there was nothing ready thereabouts on the Austrian side,

produced a visible and great effect on the negotiations; and notably altered the high Kaunitz tone towards

Friedrich. "Must two great Courts quarrel, then, for the sake of a small one?" murmured Kaunitz, plaintively

now, to himself and to the King,to the King not in a very distinct manner, though to himself the principle

is long since clear as an axiom in Politics: "Great Courts should understand one another; then the small would

be less troublesome." For a quarter of a century this has been the Kaunitz faith. In 1753, when he

miraculously screwed round the French into union with the Austrians to put down an upstart Prussia, this was

his grand fulcrum, the immovable rock in which the great Engineer fixed down his political capstans, and

levered and screwed. He did triumphantly wind matters round,though whether they much profited him

But the same grand principle, in the later instance of partitioning Poland, has it not proved eminently

triumphant, successful in all points? And, doubtless, this King of Prussia recognizes it, if made worth his

while, thinks Kaunitz. In a word, Kaunitz's next utterance is wonderfully changed. The great Engineer speaks

almost like a Bishop on this new text. "Let the Two Courts," says he, "put themselves each in the other's

place; each think what it would want;" and in fact each, in a Christian manner, try to do as it would be done

by! How touching in the mouth of a Kaunitz, with something of pathos, of plaintiveness, almost of unction in

it! "There is no other method of agreeing," urges he: "War is a terrible method, disliked by both of us. Austria

wishes this of Bavaria; but his Prussian Majesty's turn will come, perhaps now is (let him say and determine);

we will make it worth his while." This is of APRIL 24th; notable change since the cantoning round

Germany at large, though it lay so silent, in its bedrid condition, was in great anxiety. Never had the Holy

Romish Reich such a shock before: "Meaning to partition us like Poland?" thought the Reich, with a shudder.

"They can, by degrees, if they think good; these Two Great Sovereigns!" Courage, your Durchlauchts: one of

the Two great ones has not that in his thoughts; has, and will have, the reverse of that; which will be your

anchorages in the storms of fate for a long time to come! Nor was itas will shortly appear to

readersKaunitz's immediate intention at all: enough if poor we can begin it, set it fairly under way; let

some unborn happier Kaunitz, the last of a series, complete such blessed consummation; in a happier time, far

over the practical horizon at present. This we do gather to have been Kaunitz's real view; and it throws a light

on the vexed PartitionofPoland question, and gives weight to Dohm's assertion, That Kaunitz was the

Weeks before Friedrich heard of this remarkable Memorial, and ten days before it was brought to paper, there

came to Friedrich another unexpected remarkable Document: a LETTER from Kaiser Joseph himself, who is

personally running about in these parts, over in Bohemia, endeavoring to bring Army matters to a footing;

and is no doubt shocked to find them still in such backwardness, with a Friedrich at hand. The Kaiser's Letter,

we perceive, is pilot balloon to the Kaunitz episcopal Document, and to an actual meeting of Prussian and

Austrian Ministers on the Bavarian point; and had been seen to be a salutary measure by an Austria in alarm.

It asks, as the Kaunitz Memorial will, though in another style, "Must there be war, then? Is there no

possibility left in negotiation and mutual concession? I am your Majesty's friend and admirer; let us try." This

was an unexpected and doubtless a welcome thing to Friedrich; who answers eagerly, and in a noble style

both of courtesy and of business sense: upon which there followed two other Imperial Letters with their two

Royal answers; [In OEuvres de Frederic, (vi. 183193), Three successive Letters from the Kaiser (of dates,

"Olmutz," "Litau," "Konigsgratz," 13th19th April, 1778), with King's Answers ("Schonwalde," all of them,

and 14th20th April),totally without interest to the general reader.] and directly afterwards the small

Austrian Prussian Congress we spoke of, Finkenstein and Hertzberg on the Prussian part, Cobenzl on the

Austrian (Congress sitting at Berlin), which tried to agree, but could not; and to which Kaunitz's Memorial of

April 24th was meant as some helpful sprinkling of presidential quasiepiscopal oil.

Oil merely: for it turned out, Kaunitz had no thought at present of partitioning the German Reich with

Friedrich; but intended merely to keep his own seized portion of Baiern, and in return for Friedrich's assent

intended to recompense Friedrich within fact, with Austria's consent, That if Anspach and Baireuth lapsed

home to Prussia (as it was possible they might, the present Margraf, Friedrich's Nephew, the LadyCraven

Margraf, having a childless Wife), Prussia should freely open the door to them! A thing which Friedrich

naturally maintained to be in need of nobody's consent, and to lie totally apart from this question; but which

Austria always considered a very generous thing, and always returned to, with new touches of improvement,

as their grand recipe in this matter. So that, unhappily, the HertzbergCobenzl treatyings, Kaiser's Letters and

Kaunitz's episcopal oil, were without effect, except to gain for the Austrians, who infinitely needed it,

delay of above two months. The Letters are without general interest: but, for Friedrich's sake, perhaps readers

will consent to a specimen? Here are parts of his First Letter: people meaning to be Kings (which I doubt

none of my readers are) could not do better than read it, and again read it, and acquire that style, first of

knowing thoroughly the object in hand, and then of speaking on it and of being silent on it, in a true and

"SIRE MY BROTHER,I have received, with all the satisfaction possible, the Letter which your Imperial

Majesty has had the goodness to write to me. I have neither Minister nor Clerk (SCRIBE) about me; therefore

your Imperial Majesty will be pleased to put up with such Answer as an Old Soldier can give, who writes to

you with probity and frankness, on one of the most important subjects which have risen in Politics for a long

"Nobody wishes more than I to maintain peace and harmony between the Powers of Europe: but there are

limits to everything; and cases so intricate (EPINEUX) arise that goodwill alone will not suffice to maintain

things in repose and tranquillity. Permit me, Sire, to state distinctly what the question seems to me to be. It is

to determine if an Emperor can dispose at his will of the Fiefs of the Empire. Answer in the affirmative, and,

all these Fiefs become TIMARS [in the Turk way], which are for life only; and which the Sultan disposes of

again, on the possessor's death. Now, this is contrary to the Laws, to the Customs and Constitutions of the

German Empire.""I, as member of the Empire, and as having, by the Treaty of Hubertsburg, resanctioned

the Peace of Westphalia, find myself formally engaged to support the immunities, the liberties and rights of

"This, Sire, is the veritable state of things. Personal interest I have none: but I am persuaded your Majesty's

self would regard me as a paltry man, unworthy of your esteem, should I basely sacrifice the rights,

immunities and privileges, which the Electors and I have received from our Ancestors.

"I continue to speak to your Majesty with the same frankness. I love and honor your person. It will certainly

be hard for me to fight against a Prince gifted with excellent qualities, and whom I personally esteem. But"

And is there no remedy? Anspach and Baireuth stand in no need of sanction. I consent to the Congress

The sittings of this little Congress at Berlin lasted all through May and June; to the disgust of Schmettau and

the ardent Prussian messrooms, "lying ready here, and forbidden to act." For the Austrians all the while

were at their busiest, improving the moments, marching continually hitherward from Hungary, from

Limburg, from all ends of the earth. Both negotiating parties had shown a manifest wish to terminate without

war; and both made various attempts or proposals that way; Friedrich offering, in the name of European

peace, to yield the Austrians some small rim or paring of Bavaria from the edge adjoining them; the Austrians

offering AnspachBaireuth with some improvements;always offering Friedrich his own

BaireuthAnspach with some new sauce (as that he might exchange those Territories with Saxony for a fine

equivalent in the Lausitz, contiguous to him, which was a real improvement and increase):but as neither

party would in the least give up in essentials, or quit the ground it had taken, the result was nothing. Week

after week; so many weeks are being lost to Friedrich; gained to Austria: Schmettau getting more and more

Friedrich still waited; not in all points quite ready yet, he said, nor the futile diplomacies quite

complete;evidently in the highest degree unwilling to come to the cutting point, and begin a War which

nobody could see the end of. Many things he tried; Peace so precious to him, try and again try. All through

June too, this went on; the result always zero,obviously certain to be so. As even Friedrich had at last to

own to himself; and likewise that the Campaign season was ebbing away; and that if his grand Moravian

Friedrich's ultimate proposal, new modification of what all his proposals had been, "To you some thin rim of

Baiern; to Saxony and Mecklenburg some ETCETERA of indemnity, money chiefly (money always to be

paid by Karl Theodor, who has left Baiern open to the spoiler in this scandalous manner)," was of June 13th;

Austrians for ten days meditating on it, and especially getting forward their Army matters, answer, June 24th

"No we won't." Upon which Friedrichto the joy of Schmettau and every Prussianactually rises. Emits

his WarManifesto (JULY 3d): "Declaration to our Brethren (MITSTANDE) of the Reich," that Austria will

listen to nothing but War; [Fischer, ii 388; Dohm, Denkwurdigkeiten, i. 110; OEuvres de Frederic, vi. 145.]

and, on and from that day, goes flowing forward in perfect columns and arrangements, 100,000 strong;

through the picturesque Glatz Country, straight towards the Bohemian Border, hour by hour. Flows over the

Bohemian Border by Nachod Town; his vanguard bursting into fieldmusic and flourishes of trumpeting at

that grand moment (July 5th); flowed bodily over; and encamped that night on Bohemian ground, with

Nachod to rear; thence towards Kwalkowitz, and on the second day to Jaromirtz ("Camp of Jaromirtz"), a

little Town which we have heard of before, but which became more famous than ever during the next ten

Jaromirtz, Kwalkowitz, Konigsgratz: this is the old hillanddale labyrinth of an UpperElbe Country; only

too well known to his Majesty and us, for almost forty years past: here again are the Austrians waiting the

King; watching diligently this new Invasion of his out of Glatz and the East! In the same days, Prince Henri,

who is also near 100,000, starts from Dresden to invade them from the West. Loudon, facing westward, is in

watch of Henri; Lacy, or indeed the Kaiser himself, backtoback of Loudon, stands in this

KonigsgratzJaromirtz part; said to be embattled in a very elaborate manner, to a length of fifty miles on this

fine ground, and in number somewhat superior to the King;the Austrians in all counting about 250,000; of

whom Lacy has considerably the larger share. The terror at Vienna, nevertheless, is very great: "A day of

terror," says one who was there; "I will not trust myself to describe the sensation which this news, 'Friedrich

in Bohemia again!' produced among all ranks of people." [Cogniazzo, iv. 316, 320, 321; Preuss, iv. 101,

Maria Theresa, with her fine motherly heart, in alarm for her Country, and trembling "for my two Sons

[Joseph and Leopold] and dear SoninLaw [of Sachsen Teschen], who are in the Army," overcomes all

scruples of pride; instantly despatches an Autograph to the King ("Bearer of this, Baron von Thugut, with

Full Powers"); and on her own strength starts a new Negotiation,which, as will be seen, ended no better

than the others. [Her Letters, four in all, with their Appendixes, and the King's Answers, in OEuvres de

Schmettau says, "Friedrich, cheated of his Mahren schemes, was still in time; the Austrian position being

indeed strong, but not being even yet quite ready." Friedrich himself, however, on reconnoitring, thought

differently. A position such as one never saw before, thinks he; contrived by Lacy; masterly use of the

ground, of the rivers, of the rocks, woods, swamps; Elbe and his branches, and the intricate shoulders of the

Giant Mountains: no man could have done it better than Lacy here, who, they say, is the contriver and

practical hand. [ OEuvres de Frederic, vi. 147.] From Konigsgratz, northward, by Konigshof, by Arnau, up to

Hohenelbe, all heights are crowned, all passes bristling with cannon. Rivers Aupa, Elbe beset with redoubts,

with dams in favorable places, and are become inundations, difficult to tap. There are "ditches 8 feet deep by

16 broad." Behind or on the right bank of Elbe, it is mere intrenchment for fiveandtwenty miles. With

bogs, with thickets full of Croats; and such an amount of artillery,I believe they have in battery no fewer

than 1,500 cannon. A position very considerable indeed:must have taken time to deliberate, delve and

invest; but it is done. Near fifty miles of it: here, clear to your glass, has the head of Lacy visibly emerged on

us, as if for survey of phenomena:head of Lacy sure enough (body of him lying invisible in the heights,

passes and points of vantage); and its NECK of fifty miles, like the neck of a warhorse clothed with thunder.

Schmettau asserts that the position, though strong, was nothing like so infinitely strong; and that Friedrich in

his younger days would very soon have assaulted it, and turned Lacy inside out: but Friedrich, we know, had

his reasons against hurry. He reconnoitred diligently; rode out reconnoitring "fifteen miles the first day" (July

6th), ditto the second and following; and was nearly shot by Croats,by one specific Croat, says Prussian

Mythology, supported by Engraving. An old Engraving, which I have never seen; represents Friedrich

reconnoitring those fiveandtwenty miles of Elbe, which have so many redoubts on their side of it, and

swarm with Croat parties on both sides: this is all the truth that is in the Engraving. [Rodenbeck, p. 188.] Fact

says: Friedrich ("on the 8th," if that were all the variation) "was a mark for the Austrian sharpshooters for half

an hour." Myth says, and engraves it, with the date of "July 7th:" Friedrich, skirting some thicket, suddenly

came upon a single Croat with musket levelled at him, wild creature's finger just on the trigger;and quietly

admonishing, Friedrich lifts his finger with a "DU, DU (Ah you!);" upon which, such the divinity that hedges

one, the wild creature instantly flings down his murderweapon, and, kneeling, embraces the King's

boot,with kisses, for anything I know. It is certain, Friedrich, about six times over in this paltry War or

Quasi NoWar, set his attendants on the tremble; was namely, from Croateries and Artilleries, in imminent

peril of life; so careless was he, and dangerous to speak to in his sour humor. Humor very sour, they say, for

most part; being in reality altogether backward and loath for grand enterprise; and yet striving to think he was

"On the day of getting into Jaromirtz [July 8th], the King, tired of riding about while the Columns were

slowly getting in, lay down on the ground with his Adjutants about him. A young Officer came riding past;

whom the King beckoned to him;wrote something with pencil (an Order, not of the least importance), and

said: 'Here; that Order to General Lossow, and tell him he is not to take it ill that I trouble him, as I have none

in my Suite that can do anything.'" Let the Suite take it as they can! A most pungent, severe old King; quite

"On arriving with his Column where the Officer, a perfectly skilful man, had marked out the Camp, the King

would lift his spyglass; gaze to right and left, riding round the place at perhaps a hundred yards' distance;

and begin: 'SIEHT ER, HERR, But look, Herr, what a botching you have made of it again (WAS ER DA

WIEDER FUR DUMM ZEUG GEMACHT HAT)!' and grumbling and blaming, would alter the Camp, till it

was all out of rule; and then say, 'See there, that is the way to mark out Camps.'" [Schmettau, xxv. 30, 24.]

In a week's time, July 13th, came another fine excuse for inaction; Plenipotentiary Thugut, namely, and the

Kaiserinn's Letter, which we spoke of. Autograph from Maria Theresa herself, inspired by the terror of

Vienna and of her beautiful motherly heart. Negotiation to be private utterly: "My Son, the Kaiser, knows

nothing of it; I beg the most absolute secrecy;" which was accordingly kept, while Thugut, with Finkenstein

and Hertzberg again, held "Congress of Braunau" in those neighborhoods,with as little effect as ever.

Thugut's Name, it seems, was originally TUNICOTTO (TyroleseItalian); which the ignorant Vienna people

changed into "THUNICHTGUT (Donogood)," till Maria Theresa, in very charity, struck out the

negative, and made him "Dogood." Dogood and his Congress held Friedrich till August 10th: five more

weeks gone; and nothing but reconnoitring,with of course foraging, and diligently eating the Country,

Henri, in the interim, has invaded from the West; seen Leitmeritz, Lobositz;Prag Nobility all running, and

I suppose Prayers to St. Titus going again,and Loudon in alarm. Loudon, however, saved Prag "by two

masterly positions" (not mentionable here); upon which Henri took camp at Niemes; Loudon, the weaker in

this part, seizing the Iser as a bulwark, and ranking himself behind it, backtoback of Lacy. Here for about

five weeks sat Henri, nothing on hand but to eat the Country. Over the heads of Loudon and Lacy, as the

crow flies, Henri's Camp may be about 70 miles from Jaromirtz, where the King is. Hussar Belling, our old

AntiSwede friend, a brilliant cutting man, broke over the Iser once, perhaps twice; and there was pretty

fencing by him and the like of him: "but Prince Henri did nothing," says the King, [ OEuvres de Frederic, vi.

154]was, in fact, helping the King to do nothing. By the 10th of September, as Henri has computed, this

Country will be eaten; "Forage, I find, will be quite done here on September 10th," writes Henri, after a week

There was always talk of Henri and the King, who are 100,000 each, joining hands by the post of Arnau, or

some weak point of Lacy's well north of Konigsgratz; thus of cutting off the mealcarts of that backtoback

copartnery, and so of tumbling it off the ground (which was perfectly possible, says Schmettau); and small

detachments and expeditious were pushed out, General Dahlwig, General Anhalt, partly for that object: but

not the least of it ever took effect. "Futile, lost by loitering, as all else was," groans Schmettau. Prince Henri

was averse to attempt, intimates the King,as indeed (though refusing to own it) was I. "September 10th,

my forage will be out, your Majesty," says Henri, always a punctual calculating man.

The Austrians, on their side, were equally stagnant; and, except the continual skirmishing with the Prussian

foragers, undertook nothing. "Shamefully illclone our foraging, too," exclaims Schmettau again and again:

"Had we done it with neatness, with regularity, the Country would have lasted us twice as long. Doing it

headlong, wastefully and by the ruleofthumb, the Country was a desert, all its inhabitants fled, all its

edibles consumed, before six weeks were over. Friedrich is not now himself at all; in great things or in little;

From about August 6th, or especially August 10th, when the Maria Theresa Correspondence, or "Congress

of Braunau," ended likewise in zero, Friedrich became impatient for actual junction with Prince Henri, actual

push of business; and began to hint of an excellent plan he had: "Burst through on their left flank; blow up

their post of Hohenelbe yonder: thence is but one march to Iser river; junction with Prince Henri there; and a

Lacy and a Loudon tumbled to the winds." "A plan perfectly feasible," says Schmettau; "which solaced the

King's humor, but which he never really intended to execute." Possibly not; otherwise, according to old wont,

he would have forborne to speak of it beforehand. At all events, August 15th, in the feeling that one ought

really to do something, the rather as forage hereabouts was almost or altogether running out, he actually set

Got on march to rightward, namely, up the Aupa river, through the gloomy chasms of KingdomWood,

memorable in old days: had his bakery shifted to Trautenau; his heavy cannon getting tugged through the

mire and the rains, which by this time were abundant, towards Hohenelbe, for the great enterprise: and sat

encamped on and about the Battleground of Sohr for a week or so, waiting till all were forward; eating Sohr

Country, which was painfully easy to do. The Austrians did next to nothing on him; but the rains, the mud

and scarcity were doing much. Getting on to Hohenelbe region, after a week's wet waiting, he, on ocular

survey of the ground about, was heard to say, "This cannot be done, then!" "Had never meant to do it," sneers

Schmettau, "and only wanted some excuse." Which is very likely. Schmettau gives an Anecdote of him here:

In regard to a certain Hill, the Key of the Austrian position, which the King was continually reconnoitring,

and lamenting the enormous height of, "Impossible, so high!" One of the Adjutants took his theodolite,

ascertained the height, and, by way of comforting his Majesty, reported the exact number of feet above their

present level. "How do YOU know, Herr?" said the King angrily. "Measured it by Trigonometry, your

Majesty." "Trigonometry! SCHER' ER SICH ZUM TEUFEL (Off with you, Sir, to the Devil, your

He was loath to go; and laid the blame on many things. "Were Prince Henri now but across the Iser. Had that

stupid Anhalt, when he was upon it [galloping about, to the ruin of his head], only seized Arnau, Arnau and

its ElbeBridge; and had it in hand for junction with Prince Henri!" In fine, just as the last batch of heavy

cannontwenty or thirty hungered horses to a gun, at the rate of five miles a day in roads

unspeakablewere getting in, he ordered them all to be dragged back, back to the Trautenau road; whither

we must now all go. And, SEPTEMBER 8th, in perfect order, for the Austrians little molested him, and got a

bad bargain when they did, the great Friedrich with his whole Army got on march homeward, after such a

Campaign as we see. Climbed the TrautenauLandshut Pass, with nothing of effective loss except from the

rainy elements, the steep miry ways and the starved horses; draughthorses especially starved,whom, poor

creatures, "you would see spring at the ropes [draughtharness], thirty of them to a gun, when started and

Prince Henri, forage done, started punctually September 10th, two days after his Brother; and with little or no

pursuit, from the Austrians, and with horses unstarved, got home in comparatively tolerable circumstances.

Cantoned himself in Dresden neighborhood, and sat waiting: he had never approved this War; and now, I

suppose, would not want for reflections. Friedrich's cantonments were round Landshut, and spread out to

right and to left, from Glatz Country and the UpperSilesian Hills, to Silberberg and Schweidnitz;his own

quarter is the same region, where he lay so long in Summer, 1759, talking on learned subjects with the late

Quintus Icilius, if readers remember, and wearily waiting till Cunctator Daun (likewise now deceased) took

his stand, or his seat, at Mark Lissa, and the King could follow him to Schmottseifen. Friedrich himself on

this present occasion stayed at Schatzlar as rearguard, to see whether the Austrians would not perhaps try to

make some Winter Campaign of it, and if so, whether they would attempt on Prince Henri or on him. The

Austrians did not attempt on either; showed no such intention,though mischievous enough in other small

ways. Friedrich wrote the ELOGE of Voltaire [ OEuvres de Frederic, vii. 50 et seq. ("finished Nov. 26th,

1778").] while he waited here at Schatzlar, among the rainy Mountains. Later on, as prospects altered, he was

much at Breslau, or running about on civic errands with Breslau as centre: at Breslau he had many Dialogues

with Professor Garve,in whose good, but oppressively solemn, little Book, more a dull droning

As to the EULOGY OF VOLTAIRE, we may say that it is generous, ingenious, succinct; and of dialect now

obsolete to us. There was (and is, though suppressed) another EULOGY, brandnew, by a Contemporary of

our own,from which I know not if readers will permit me a sentence or two, in this pause among the rainy

... "A wonderful talent lay in this man[in Voltaire, to wit; "such an intellect, the sharpest, swiftest of the

world," thinks our Contemporary; "fathoming you the deepest subject, to a depth far beyond most men's

soundings, and coming up with victory and something wise and logically speakable to say on it, sooner than

any other man,never doubting but he has been at the bottom, which is from three to ten miles lower!"]

wonderful talent; but observe always, if you look closely, it was in essence a mere talent for Speech; which

talent Bavius and Maevius and the Jew Apella may admire without looking behind it, but this Eulogist by no

means will. Speech, my friend? If your sublime talent of speech consists only in making ignorance appear to

be knowledge, and little wisdom appear to be much, I will thank you to walk on with it, and apply at some

other shop. The QUANTITY of shops where you can apply with thricegolden advantage, from the Morning

Newspapers to the National Senate, is tremendous at this epoch of the poor world's history;go, I request

you! And while his foot is on the stairs, descending from my garret, I think: O unfortunate fellowcreature in

an unfortunate world, why is not there a Friedrich Wilhelm to 'elect' you, as he did Gundling, to his

TOBACCO Parliament, and there set Fassmann upon you with the pans of burning peat? It were better even

for yourself; wholesomely didactic to your poor self, I cannot doubt; and for the poor multitudes to whom

you are now to be sacred VATES, speaking and singing YOUR dismal GUNDLINGIANA as if inspired by

Heaven, how infinitely better!Courage, courage! I discern, across these hideous jargons, the reign of

greater silence approaching upon repentant men; reign of greater silence, I say; or else that of annihilation,

"Voltaire, if not a great man, is a remarkably peculiar one; and did such a work in these Ages as will render

him long memorable, more or less. He kindled the infinite dry dungheap of things; set it blazing

heavenhigh;and we all thought, in the French Revolution time, it would burn out rapidly into ashes, and

then there would a clear Upper Firmament, if over a blackened Earth, be once more vouchsafed us. The flame

is now done, as I once said; and only the dull dungheap, smokily burning, but not now blazing,

remains,for it was very damp, EXCEPT on the surface, and is by nature slow of combustion:who knows

but it may have to burn for centuries yet, poisoning by its villanous malodors the life atmosphere of all

men? Eternal Author of this Universe, whose throne is Truth, to whom all the True are Sons, wilt thou not

look down upon us, then!Till this sad process is complete? Voltaire is like to be very memorable." ...

To Friedrich the Winter was in general tranquil; a Friedrich busy preparing all things for his grand Mahren

Enterprise, and for "real work next year." By and by there came to be real Peaceprospects instead.

Meanwhile, the Austrians do try a little, in the small Pandour way, to dislodge him from the UpperSilesian

or Teschen regions, where the Erbprinz of Brunswick is in command; a man not to be pricked into gratis by

Pandours. Erbprinz, accordingly, provoked by their Pandourings, broke out at last; and about Zuckmantel

instantly scourged them home, and had peace after. Foiled here, they next tried upon Glatz; "Get into his

Glatz Country, then;a snatch of that will balance the account" (which was one of Newspaper glory only):

and a certain Wurmser of theirs, expert in such things, did burn the Town of Habelschwert one morning;

["18th January, 1779" (Rodenbeck, iii. 195; Schmettau, and tried farther, not wisely this time, a surprisal of

Glatz Fortress itself; but got smitten home by our old friend General Wunsch, without profit there. This was

the same Wurmser who came to bad issues in the Napoleon time afterwards; a rising man then; not a dim

Most shameful this burning of Habelschwert by way of mere bravura, thinks Friedrich, in a time of actual

Treaty for Peace, when our Congress of Teschen was just struggling to get together! It was the chief stroke

done by the Austrians in this War; glorious or shameful, we will not think of inquiring. Nor in fact of adding

one word more on such a War,except, what everybody longs for, That, NOVEMBER 27th, 1778, Czarina

Catharine, by her Prince Galitzin at Vienna, intervened in the matter, in a lofty way; and ended it. Czarina

Catharine,small thanks to her, it seems, for it was Friedrich that by his industries and worlddiplomacies,

French and other, had got her Turks, who had been giving trouble again, compesced into peace for her; and

indeed, to Friedrich or his interests, though bound by Treaty, she had small regard in taking this step, but

wished merely to appear in German Politics as a SheJove,Czarina Catharine signified, in high and

peremptory though polite Diplomatic terms, at Vienna, "Imperial Madam, how long is such a War to last? Be

at Peace, both of you; or! I shall, however, mediate, if you like, being the hearty friend of both." [Copy of

"Do," answers Maria Theresa, whose finance is quite out, whose motherly heart is almost broken, though a

young Kaiser still prances violently, and kicks against the pricks: "Do, your noble Czarish Majesty; France

too is interfering: France and you will decide what is just, and we will end." "Congress of Teschen" met

accordingly, MARCH 10th, 1779: Teschen, in Austrian Silesia, where we have been;Repnin as Russian,

Breteuil the Frenchman, Cobentzl and Hertzberg as Austrian and Prussian;and, MAY 13th (in two months'

time, not in two weeks', as had been expected, for there rose unexpected haggles), did close everything, firm

as Diplomacy could do it, into equitable, or approximately equitable finis: "Go home, you Austria; quit your

stolen Bavaria (all but a rim or paring, Circle of Burghausen, since you must have something!): Saxony,

Mecklenburg, these must be satisfied to moderate length; and therewith general ASYOUWERE."

Russia and France were agreed on the case; and Friedrich, bitterly longing to have done with it, had said to

himself, "In two weeks or so:" but it proved far otherwise. Never were such hagglings, provocations and

unreasonable confusions as now rose. The burning of Habelschwert was but a type of them. Haggles on the

part of worthless Karl Theodor, kindled by Joseph and his Kaunitz, kicking against the pricks. Haggles on

Saxony's part: "I claimed 7,000,000 pounds sterling, and you allow me 600,000 pounds." "Better that than

nothing," answered Friedrich. Haggles with Mecklenburg: "Instead of my Leuchtenberg, I get an

improvement in my LawCourts, right of Judging without Appeal; what is that!" Haggles with the once

grateful Duke of Zweibruck: "Can't part with my Burghausen." "Suppose you had had to part with your

Bavaria altogether?" In short, Friedrich, who had gained nothing for himself, but such infinity of outlay in all

kinds, never saw such a coil of human follies and cupidities before; and had to exhaust his utmost patience,

submit to new losses of his own, and try all his dexterities in pigdriving: overjoyed, at last, to get out of it on

any terms. Outlay of Friedrich is about Two Millions sterling, and above 10,000 men's lives (his own

narrowly not included), with censures, criticisms, provocations and botherations without end. In return for

which, he has, truly, put a spoke in Austria's proud wheel for this time, and managed to see fair play in the

Reich; which had seemed to him, and seems, a considerable thing. By way of codicil, Austria agrees not to

chicane him in regard to Anspach Baireuth,how generous of Austria, after this experience!

In reality, the War was an Imaginary War; deserving on its own score little record anywhere; to readers here

requiring almost less than it has got. Schmettau, Schoning and others have been abundantly minute upon it;

but even to soldiers there is little either of interest or instruction; to us, all it yields is certain Anecdotes of

Friedrich's temper and ways in that difficult predicament; which, as coming at firsthand, gathered for us by

punctual authentic Schmettau, who was constantly about him, with eyes open and notebook ready, have a

The Prussian Soldiery, of whom we see a type in Schmettau, were disgusted with this War, and called it, in

allusion to the foraging, A scramble for potatoes, "DER KARTOFFELKRIEG, The Potato War;" which is

its common designation to this day. The Austrians, in a like humor, called it "ZWETSCHKENRUMMEL"

(say "THREEBUTTON Loo"); a game not worth playing; especially not at such cost. Combined cost

counted to have been in sumtotal 4,350,000 pounds and 20,000 men. [Preuss, iv. 115.] "The Prussian Army

was full of ardor, never abler for fight" (insists Schmettau), which indeed seems to have been the fact on

every small occasion;"but fatally forbidden to try." Not so fatally perhaps, had Schmettau looked beyond

his epaulettes: was not the thing, by that slow method, got done? By the swifter method, awakening a new

Schmettau's NARRATIVE, deducting the endless lamentings, especially the extensive didactic digressions, is

very clear, ocular, exact; and, in contrast with Friedrich's own, is really amusing to read. A Schmettau giving

us, in his haggard light and oblique point of vision, the naked truth, NAKED and all in a shiver; a Friedrich

striving to drape it a little, and make it comfortable to himself. Those bits of Anecdotes in SCHMETTAU,

clear, credible, as if we had seen them, are so many crevices through which it is curiously worth while to

About the Second LawReform, after reading and again reading much dreary detail, I can say next to

nothing, except that it is dated as beginning in 1776, near thirty years after Cocceji's; ["In 1748" Cocceji's

was completed; "in 17741775," on occasion of the Silesian Reviews, Von Carmer, Chancellor of Silesia,

knowing of the King's impatience at the state of Law, presented successively Two MEMORIALS on the

subject; the Second of which began "4th January, 1776" to have visible fruit.] that evidently, by what causes

is not stated, but may be readily enough conjectured (in the absence of Cocceji by death, and of a Friedrich

by affairs of War), the abuses of Law had again become more or less unendurable to this King; that said

abuses did again get some reform (again temporary, such the Law of Nature, which bids you sweep

vigorously your kitchen, though it will next moment recommence the gathering of dirt upon it); and that, in

fine, after some reluctance in the Law circles, and debating PRO and CONTRA, oral some of it, and done in

the King's presence, who is so intent to be convinced and see his practical way in it, [At Potsdam, "4th

January, 1776," Debate, by solemn appointment, in the King's presence (King very unwell), between

SilesianChancellor von Carmer and GrandChancellor von Furst, as to the feasibility of Carmer's ideas; old

Furst strong in the negative;King, after reflection, determining to go on nevertheless. (Rodenbeck, iii. 131,

133.)]there was, as supplement to the mere Project or Theory of a CODEX FREDERICIANUS in

Cocceji's time, an actual PRUSSIAN CODE set about; Von Carmer, the Silesian Chancellor, the chief agent:

and a First Folio, or a First and partly a Second of it, were brought out in Friedrich's lifetime, the remainder

following in that of his Successor; which Code is ever since the Law of the Prussian Nation to this day. [Not

finished and promulgated till "5th February, 1794;" First Volume (containing PROZESSORDNUNG, Form

of Procedure, in all its important details) had come out "26th April, 1784" (Preuss, iii. 418422).] Of its

worth as a Code I have heard favorable opinions, comparatively favorable; but can myself say nothing: famed

Savigny finds it superior in intelligence and lawknowledge to the CODE NAPOLEON,upon which

indeed, and upon all Codes possible to poor hagridden and wigridden generations like ours, Savigny feels

rather desperate. Unfortunate mortals do want to have their bits of lawsuits settled, nevertheless; and have, on

trial, found even the ignorant CODE NAPOLEON a mighty benefit in comparison to none!

Readers all see how this Second Prussian LawReform was a thing important to Prussia, of liveliest interest

to the then King of Prussia; and were my knowledge of it greater than it is, this is all I could hope to say of it

that would be suitable or profitable at present. Let welldisposed readers take it up in their imaginations, as a

fact and mass of facts, very serious there and then; and color with it in some degree those five or six last years

Connected with this Second Law Reform, and indeed partially a source of it, or provocation to go on with it,

mending your speed, there is one little Lawsuit, called the MILLER ARNOLD CASE, which made an

immense noise in the world, and is still known by rumor to many persons, who would probably be thankful,

as certainly I myself should, for some intelligible word on it. In regard to which, and to which alone, in this

In the sandy moors towards the Silesian border of the Neumark, southwest of Zullichau,where we once

were, with Dictator Wedell, fighting the Russians in a tragic way,there is, as was casually then indicated,

on one of the poor Brooks trickling into Oder, a Mill called KREBSMUHLE (Crabmill); Millers of which are

a line of dusty Arnolds, laboriously for long generations grinding into meal the ryes, pulses, barleys of that

dim region; who, and whose Crabmill, in the year 17791780, burst into a notoriety they little dreamt of, and

became famous in the fashionable circles of this Universe, where an indistinct rumor of them lives to this

day. We indicated Arnold and his Mill in Wedell's time; Wedell's scene being so remote and empty to

readers: in fact, nobody knows on what paltriest of moors a memorable thing will not happen;here, for

instance, is withal the Birthplace of that Rhyming miracle, Frau Karsch (Karschin, KarchESS as they call

her), the Berlin literary Prodigy, to whom Friedrich was not so flush of help as had been expected. The child

of utterly poor Peasants there; whose poverty, shining out as thrift, unweariable industry and stoical valor, is

beautiful to me, still more their poor little girl's bits of fortunes, "tending three cows" in the solitudes there,

and gazing wistfully into Earth and Heaven with her ingenuous little soul, desiring mainly one thing, that

she could get Books, any Book whatever; having halfaccidentally picked up the art of reading, and finding

hereabouts absolutely nothing to read. Frau Karsch, I have no doubt, knows the Crabmill right well; and can,

to all permissible lengths, inform the Berlin Circles on this point. [See JORDENS (� Karschin), ii. 607640.

An excellent Silesian Nobleman lifted her miraculously from the sloughs of misery, landed her from his

travellingcarriage in the upper world of Berlin, "January, 1761" (age then thirtynine, husband Karsch a

wretched drunken Tailor at Glogau, who thereupon enlisted, and happily got shot or finished): Berlin's

enthusiasm was, and continued to be, considerable;Karschin's head, I fear, proved weakish, though her

rhyming faculty was great. Friedrich saw her once, October, 1763, spoke kindly to her (DIALOGUE reported

by herself, with a Chodowiecki ENGRAVING to help, in the MUSENALMANACHS ensuing); and gave

her a 10 pounds, but never much more:"somebody had done me ill with him," thinks the Karschin (not

thinking, "Or perhaps nobody but my poor self, and my weakness of head"). She continued rhyming and

livingcertain Principalities and High People still standing truetill "12th October, 1791."

Crabmill is in Pommerzig Township, not far from Kay:Zullichau, Kay, Palzig, Crossen, all come to speech

again, in this Narrative; fancy how they turned up in Berlin dinnercircles, to Dictator Wedell, gray old

gentleman, who is now these many years War Minister, peaceable, and well accepted, but remembers the

flamy youth he had. Landlord of these Arnolds and their Mill is Major Graf von Schmettau (no connection of

our Schmettaus),to what insignificantly small amount of rent, I could not learn on searching; 10 pounds

annually is a too liberal guess. Innumerable things, of no pertinency to us, are wearisomely told, and ever

again told, while the pertinent are often missed out, in that dreary cartload of Arnold LawPapers, barely

readable, barely intelligible, to the most patient intellect: with despatch let us fish up the small cardinal

particles of it, and arrange in some chronological or human order, that readers may form to themselves an

outline of the thing. In 1759, we mentioned that this Mill was going; Miller of it an old Arnold, Miller's Lad a

In 1762, Young Arnold, as I dimly gather, had got married, apparently a Wife with portion; bought the Mill

from his Father, he and Wife copossessors thenceforth;"Rosine his Spouse" figuring jointly in all these

LawPapers; and the Spouse especially as a most shifty litigant. There they continue totally silent to mankind

for about eight years. Happy the Nation, much more may we say the Household, "whose Public History is

In 1770, Freyherr Baron von Gersdorf in Kay, who lies farther up the stream, bethinks him of

Fishhusbandry; makes a Fishpond to himself, and for part supply thereof, lays some beam or weir across

In 1773, the Arnolds fall into arrear of rent: "Want of water; Fishpond spoils our water," plead they to Major

Graf von Schmettau. "Prosecute Von Gersdorf, then," says Schmettau: "I must have my rent! You shall have

time, lengthened terms; but pay THEN, or else!" For four years the Arnolds tried more or less to pay, but

never could, or never did completely: during which period Major von Schmettau had them up in his Court of

Pommerzig,manorial or feudal kind of Court; I think it is more or less his, though he does not sit there; and

an Advocate, not of his appointing, though probably of his accepting, dispenses justice there. Schlecker is the

Advocate's name; acquitted by all Official people of doing anything wrong. No appearance that the Herr Graf

von Schmettau put hand to the balances of justice in this Court; with his eye, however, who knows but he

might act on them more or less! And, at any rate, be suspected by distressed Arnolds, especially by a

distressed Frau Arnold, of doing so. The Frau Arnold had a strong suspicion that way; and seems to have

risen occasionally upon Schlecker, who did once order the poor woman to be locked up for contempt of

Court: "Only two hours!" asseverates Schlecker afterwards; after which she came out cool and respectful to

Not the least account survives of those procedures in Schlecker's Court; but by accident, after many readings,

you light upon a little fact which does shed a transient ray over them. Namely, that already in 1775, four

years before the Case became audible in Official circles, much more in general society, Frau Arnold had

seized an opportunity, Majesty being at Crossen in those neighborhoods, and presented a Petition: "Oh, just

King, appoint a MILITARY COMMISSION to investigate our business; impartial Officers will speedily find

out the facts, and decide what is just!" [Preuss, iii. 382.] Which denotes an irritating experience in Schlecker's

Court. Certain it is, Schlecker's Court did, in this tedious harassing way, decide against Frau Arnold in every

point. "Pay Herr Graf von Schmettau, or else disappear; prosecute Von Gersdorf, if you like!" And, in fine, as

the Arnolds could not pay up, nor see any daylight through prosecuting Baron von Gersdorf, the big

gentleman in Kay,Schlecker, after some five years of this, decreed Sale of the Mill:and sold it was. In

Zullichau, September 7th, 1778, there is Auction of the Mill; Herr Landeinnehmer (CESSCOLLECTOR)

Kuppisch bought it; knocked down to him for the moderate sum of 600 thalers, or 90 pounds sterling, and the

Arnolds are an ousted family. "September 7th,"PotatoWar just closing its sad Campaign; tomorrow,

The Arnolds did make various attempts and appeals to the Neumark REGIERUNG (College of Judges); but it

was without the least result. "Schlecker right in every point; Gersdorf right," answered the College: "go, will

you!" A Mill forfeited by every Law, and fallen to the highest bidder. CessCollector Kuppisch, it was soon

known, had sold his purchase to Von Gersdorf: " Hah!" said the rural public, smelling something bad. Certain

it is, Von Gersdorf is become proprietor both of Pond and Mill; and it is not to the ruined Arnolds that

Schlecker law can seem an admirable sample. And truly, reading over those barrowloads of pleadings and

RELATIONES, one has to admit that, taken as a reason for seeing oneself ruined, and one's Mill become the

big gentleman's who fancies carp, they do seem considerably insufficient. The Law Pleadings are duly

voluminous. Barrowloads of them, dreariest reading in Creation, remain; going into all manner of questions,

proving, from Grotius and others, that landlords have rights upon private rivers, and another sort upon public

ditto; that Von Gersdorf, by Law of 1566, had verily the right to put down his Fishpond,whether

Schmettau the duty to indemnify Arnold for the same? that is not touched upon: nor, singular to say, is it

anywhere made out, or attempted to be made out, How much of water Arnold lost by the Pond, much less

what degree of real impediment, by loss of his own time, by loss of his customers (tired of such waiting on a

mill), Arnold suffered by the Pond. This, which you would have thought the soul of the matter, is absolutely

left out; altogether unsettled,after, I think, four, or at least three, express Commissions had sat on it, at

successive times, with the most esteemed hydraulic sages opining and examining;and remains, like the part

of Hamlet, omitted by particular desire. No wonder Frau Arnold begged for a Military Commission; that is to

say, a decision from rational human creatures, instead of juridical wigs proceeding at this rate.

It was some time in 1775 that Rosine (what we reckoned a very elucidative point!) had given in her Petition

to the King at Crossen, showing how ill Schlecker was using them. She now, "about Mayday, 1779," in a new

Petition, referred to that, and again begged a Commission of Soldierpeople to settle it. May 4th, 1779,

King not yet home, but coming, ["Arrived at Berlin May 27th" (Rodenbeck, iii. 201).]King's Cabinet,

on Order, "SENDS this to JusticeDepartment;" nothing SAID on it, the existence of the Petition sufficiently

SAYING. JusticeDepartment thereupon demands the LawRecords, documentary Narrative of RES Arnold,

from Custrin; finds all right: "Peace, ye Arnolds; what would you have?" [Preuss, iii. 382.]

Same year, 1779 (no express date), GrandChancellor von Furst, being at Custrin, officially examining the

condition of Law matters, Frau Arnold failed not to try there also with a Petition: "See, great

Lawgentleman come to reform abuses, can that possibly be Law; or if so, is it not Injustice as well?"

"Tush!" answered Furst;for I believe Lawpeople, ever since this new stringency of Royal vigilance upon

them, are plagued with such complaints from Dorfships and dark greedy Peasant people; "Tush!" and flung it

Is there no hope at all, then? Arnold remembers that a Brother of his is a Prussian soldier; and that he has for

Colonel, Prince Leopold of Brunswick, a Prince always kind to the poor. The Leopold Regiment lies at

Frankfurt: try Prince Leopold by that channel. Prince Leopold listened;the Soldier Arnold probably known

to him as rational and respectable. Prince Leopold now likewise applies to Furst: "A defect, not of Law, Herr

Kanzler, but of Equity, there does seem. Schmettau had a right to his rent; Von Gersdorf, by Deed of 1566, to

his Pond: but the Arnolds had not water and have lost their Mill. Could not there," suggests Leopold, "be

appointed, without noise of any kind, a Commission of neutral people, strangers to the Neumark, to search

this matter to the actual root of it, and let Equity ensue?" To whom also Furst answers, though in a politer

So that Prince Leopold himself, the King's own Nephew, proves futile? Some think Leopold did, this very

Autumn, casually, or as if casually, mention the matter to the King,whose mind is uneasily awake to all

such cases, knowing what a buckram set his Lawyers are. "At the Reviews," as these people say, Leopold

could not have done it; there being, this Year, no Reviews, merely return of King and Army from the

Bavarian War. But during August, and on into September this Year, it is very evident, there was a Visit of the

Brunswick Family at Potsdam, [Rodenbeck, iii. 206 et seq.] Leopold's Mamma and certain of his

Brothers,of which, Colonel Prince Leopold, though not expressly mentioned in the Books, may very

possibly have been permitted, for a day or two, to form part, for Mamma's behoof and his own; and may have

made his casual observation, at some wellchosen moment, with the effect intended. In which case, Leopold

was by no means futile, but proved, after all, to be the saving clause for the Arnolds.

Gallant young fellow, one loves to believe it of him; and to add it to the one other fact now known of him,

which was also beautiful, though tragic. Six years after, Spring, 1785, Oder River, swollen by rains, was in

wild deluge; houses in the suburbs like to be washed away. Leopold, looking on it from the Bridge or shore,

perhaps partly with an Official eye, saw the inhabitants of some houses like to be drowned; looked wildly for

assistance, but found none; and did, himself, in uncontrollable pity, dash off in a little boat, through the

wildeddying surges; and got his own death there, himself drowned in struggling to save others. Which

occasioned loud lamentation in the world; in his poor Mother's heart what unnamable voiceless lamentation!

[Friedrich's Letter to her: OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. i. 351 ("12th May, 1785").] He had founded a Garrison

School at Frankfurt; spared no expenditure of pains or of money. A man adored in Frankfurt. "His Brother

Friedrich, in memory of him, presented, next year, the Uniform in which Leopold was drowned, to the

Freemason Lodge of Berlin, of which he had been member." [ MilitairLexikon, i. 24.] SUNT LACRYMAE

But to return to the Arnolds, and have done with them: for we are now, by Leopold's help or otherwise, got to

August 21st, 1779 (these high Brunswickers still at Potsdam, if that had any influence), the Arnolds again

make Petition to the King: "Alas, no justice yet, your Majesty!" "Shall we never see the end of this, then?"

thinks the King: "some Soldier, with human eyes, let him, attended by one of their Lawwigs, go upon the

ground; and search it!" And, next day, having taken Protocol of the Arnold Complaint, issues CabinetOrder,

or King's Message to the Custrin Lawwigs: "Colonel Heucking [whose regiment lies in Zullichau district, a

punctual enough man], he shall be the Soldier; to whom do YOU adjoin what member of your Court you

think the fittest: and let, at last, justice be done. And swift, if you please!"

The Custrin Regierung, without delay, name REGIERUNGSRATH Neumann; who is swiftly ready, as is

Colonel Heucking swiftly,and they two set out together up the Pommerzig Brook, over that moor Country;

investigating, pondering, hearing witnesses, and no doubt consulting, and diligently endeavoring to get to the

bottom of this poor Arnold question. For how many September days, I know not: everybody knows, however,

that they could not agree; in other words, that they saw TWO bottoms to it,the Law gentleman one bottom,

the Soldier another. "True bottom is already there," argued the Law gentleman: "confirm Decision of Court in

every point." "No; Arnold has lost water, has suffered wrong," thinks Heucking; "that is the true bottom."

And so they part, each with his own opinion. Neumann affirmed afterwards, that the Colonel came with a

predetermination that way, and even that he said, once or oftener, in his eagerness to persuade: "His Majesty

has got it into his thought; there will be nothing but trouble if you persist in that notion." To which virtuous

Neumann was deaf. Neumann also says, The Colonel, acquainted with Austrian enemies, but not with Law,

had brought with him his Regiment'sAuditor, one Bech, formerly a Lawpractitioner in Crossen (readers

know Crossen, and ExDictator Wedell does),Lawpractitioner in Crossen; who had been in strife with

the Custrin Regierung, under rebuke from them (too importunate for some of his pauper clients, belike); was

a cunning fellow too, and had the said Regierung in illwill. An adroit fellow Bech might be, or must have

been; but his now office of Regiment'sAuditor is certificate of honesty,good, at least, against Neumann.

Neumann's Court was silent about these Neumann surmises; but said afterwards, "Heucking had not gone to

the bottom of the thing." This was in a subsequent report, some five or six weeks subsequent. Their present

report they redacted to the effect, "All correct as it stood," without once mentioning Heucking. Gave it in,

27th September; by which time Heucking's also was in, and had made a strong impression on his Majesty.

Presumably an honest, intelligible report; though, by illluck for the curious, it is now lost; among the

barrowloads of vague wigged stuff, this one Piece, probably human, is not to be discovered.

Friedrich's indignation at the Custrin report, "Perfectly correct as it stood," and no mention of Heucking or his

dissent, was considerable: already, 27th September,that is, on the very day while those Custrin people

were signing their provoking report, Friedrich, confident in Heucking, had transmitted to his Supreme

Board of Justice (KAMMERGERICHT) the impartial Heucking's account of the affair, with order, "See

there, an impartial human account, clear and circumstantial (DEUTLICHES UND GANZ

UMSTANDLICHES), going down to the true roots of the business: swift, get me justice for these Arnolds!"

[Preuss, iii. 480.] Scarcely was this gone, when, September 29th, the Custrin impertinence, "Perfectly right as

it stood," came to hand; kindling the King into hot provocation; "extreme displeasure, AUSSERSTES

MISFALLEN," as his Answer bore: "Rectify me all that straightway, and relieve these Arnolds of their

injuries!" You Pettifogging Pedant Knaves, bring that Arnold matter to order, will you; you had better!

The Custrin Knaves, with what feelings I know not, proceed accordingly; appoint a new Commission, one or

more Lawyers in it, and at least one Hydraulic Gentleman in it, Schade the name of him; who are to go upon

the ground, hear witnesses and the like. Who went accordingly; and managed, not too fast, Hydraulic Schade

rather disagreeing from the Legal Gentlemen, to produce a Report, reported UPON by the Custrin Court, 28th

October: "That there is one error found: 6 pounds 12s. as value of corn LEFT, clearly Arnold's that, when his

Mill was sold; that, with this improvement, all is NOW correct to the uttermost; and that Heucking had not

investigated things to the bottom." By some accident, this Report did not come at once to Friedrich, or had

November 21st, matters hanging fire in this way, Frau Arnold applies again, by Petition to his Majesty; upon

which is new Royal 0rder, [Ib. iii. 490.] far more patient than might have been expected: "In God's name,

rectify me that Arnold matter, and let us at last see the end of it!" To which the Custriners answer: "All is

rectified, your Majesty. Frau Arnold, in her Petition, has not mentioned that she gained 6 pounds

12s.;"important item that; 6 pounds 12s. for CORN left (clearly Arnold's that, when his Mill was sold)!

"Our sentence we cannot alter; a Court's sentence is alterable only by appeal; your Majesty decides where the

appeal is to lie!" Friedrich's patience is now wearing out; but he does not yet give way: "Berlin

Kammergericht be your Appeal Court," decides he, 28th November: and will admit of no delay on the

Kammergericht's part either. "Papers all at Custrin, say you? Send for them by express; they will come in one

Chancellor Furst is not a willing horse in this case; but he is obliged to go. December 7th, Kammergericht sits

on the Arnold Appeal; Kammergericht's view is: "Custrin papers all here, not the least delay permitted; you,

Judge Rannsleben, take these Papers to you; down upon them: let us, if humanly possible, have a Report by

tomorrow." Rannsleben takes the Papers in hand December 7th; works upon them all day, and all night

following, at a rate of energy memorable among Legal gentlemen; and December 8th attends with lucid

Report upon them, or couple of Reports; one on Arnold VERSUS Schmettau, in six folios; one on Arnold

VERSUS Gersdorf, in two ditto; draws these two Documents from his pocket December 8th; reads them in

assembled Court (six of the Judges present [Preuss, iii. 496.],which, with marked thankfulness to the swift

Rannsleben, at once adopts his Report, and pronounces upon the Custrin Raths, "Right in every particular."

Witness our hands: every one affixing his signature, as to a matter happily got done with.

It was Friday, 10th December, 1779, before Friedrich got this fine bit of news; Saturday 11th, before he

authentically saw their Sentence. He is lying miserably ill of gout in the Schloss of Berlin; and I suppose,

since his Father, of blessed memory, took cudgel to certain Judges and knocked out teeth from them, and

broke the judicial crowns, nobody in that Schloss has been in such humor against men of Law. "Attend me

here at 2 P.M. with the Three Raths who signed in Arnold's Case:" Saturday, about 11 A.M., Chancellor Furst

receives this command; gets Rannsleben, and two others, Friedel, Graun,and there occurred such a

sceneBut it will be better to let Rannsleben himself tell the story; who has left an AUTOBIOGRAPHY,

punctually correct, to all appearance, but except this alone notable passage of it, still unpublished, and like to

"BERLIN, TUESDAY, 7th DECEMBER, 1779," says Rannsleben (let him tell it again in his own words),

"the ACTA, which had arrived from Custrin IN RE Miller Arnold and his Wife VERSUS Landrath von

Gersdorf, as also those, in the same matter, VERSUS Count von Schmettau, were assigned to me, to be

reported on QUAM PRIMUM;our President von Rebeur," President of the Supreme KAMMERGERICHT

(King'sChamber Tribunal, say Exchequer High Court, or COLLEGIUM), whereof I have the honor to be

one of the Seven Judges, or RATHS, "our President von Rebeur enjoining me to make such utmost

despatch that my Report on both these sets of Papers might be read to the assembled Court next day; whereby

said Court might then and there be enabled to pronounce judgment on the same, I at once set to work; went

on with it all night; and on the morrow I brought both my Reports (RELATIONES),"one referring to the

Gersdorf, the other to the Schmettau part of the suit,"one of six sheets, the other of two sheets, to the

Kammergericht; where both RELATIONES were read. There were present, besides me, the following six

members of the COLLEGIUM: President von Rebeur, Raths Uhl, Friedel, Kircheisen, Graun, Gassler.

"Appellant," as we all know, "was Miller Arnold; and along with the ACTA were various severe

CabinetOrders, in which the King, who had taken quite particular notice of the Case, positively enjoined,

That Miller Arnold should have justice done him. The King had not, however, given formally any

authoritative Decision of his own (KEINEN EIGENTLICHEN MACHTSPRUCH GETHAN)," which might

have given us pause, though not fullstop by any means: "but, in his Order to the Kammergericht, had merely

said, we were to decide with the utmost despatch, and then at once inform his Majesty how." With the speed

of light or of thought, Rannsleben hardly done reading, this Kammergericht decided,it is well known how:

"In the King's name; right in every particular, you Custrin Gentlemen;which be so good as publish to

Report of Kammergericht's Judgment to this effect, for behoof of Custrin, was at once got under way; and

Kammergericht, in regard to his Majesty, agreed merely to announce the fact in that quarter: "Judgment

arrived at, please your Majesty;Judgment already under way for Custrin:"you, Rannsleben, without

saying what the Judgment is, you again write for us. And Rannsleben does so; writes the above little Message

to his Majesty, "which got to the King's hand, Friday, December 10th. And the same day," continues

Rannsleben, "the King despatched a very severe CabinetOrder to Minister von Dornberg,"head of the

Department to which the Kammergericht belongs,"demanding a Copy of the Judgment. Which order was

"Hereupon, on Saturday, about 11 A.M., there came to Grand Chancellor von Furst," sublime head of us and

of all Lawyers, "a CabinetOrder, 'Appear before me here, this day, at 2 o'clock; and bring with you your

Three Kammergericht Raths who drew up (MINUTIRT) the Judgment in the Arnold Case.'" Message bodeful

"NOTA," says Rannsleben here, "the King is under the impression that, in judging a Case, Three Raths are

always employed, and therefore demands Three of us. But, properly, all the abovenamed Six MEMBRA

COLLEGII , besides myself, ought to have gone to the Palace, or else I alone." On some points an

"President von Rebeur came to me in his carriage, at a quarter to 12; told me of the King's Order; and said, as

the King demanded only Three Raths, there was nothing for it but to name me and Raths Friedel and

Kircheisen, my usual partners in Judgment business. Finding, however, on looking into the Sentence itself,

that Kircheisen was not amongst the signers of it, he [Rebeur] named, instead of him, Rath Graun, who was.

For the Herr President apprehended the King might demand to see our Sentence IN ORIGINALI, and would

then be angry that a person had been sent to him who had not signed the same. President von Rebeur

instructed me farther, That I, as Reporter in the Case, was to be spokesman at the Palace; and should explain

to his Majesty the reasons which had weighed with the Kammergericht in coming to such decision.

"To my dear Wife I," as beseemed a good husband, "said nothing of all this; confiding it only to my

Fatherinlaw, who tried to cheer me. Nor, indeed, did I feel any fear within me, being persuaded in my

conscience that, in this decision of the Arnold Case, I had proceeded according to the best of my knowledge

"At 1 o'clock I drove to the GrandChancellor's, where I found the Raths Friedel and Graun already arrived.

The Chancellor," old Furst, "instructed us as to what we had to do when we came before the King. And then,

towards 2 o'clock, he took us in his carriage to the Palace. We entered the room immediately at the end of the

Great Hall. Here we found a heyduc [tall porter], by whom the Chancellor announced to the King that we

were here. Heyduc soon came back to inquire, Whether the CABINETSRATH Stellter," a Secretary or

Shorthand writer of his Majesty's, "had arrived yet; and whether we [WE, what a doubt!] were Privy

Councillors. We were then shortly after shown in to the King. We passed through three rooms, the second of

which was that in which stands the CONFIDENZ TAFEL [Table that goes by pulleys through the floor, and

comes up refurnished, when you wish to be specially private with your friends]. In the fourth, a small room

with one window, was the King. The Chancellor walked first; I followed him close; behind me came the Rath

Friedel, and then Graun. Some way within, opposite the door, stood a screen; with our backs to this," the

Kingward side of this, "we ranged ourselves,"in respectful row of Four, Furst at the inward end of us (right

or left is no matter). "The King sat in the middle of the room, so that he could look pointblank at us; he sat

with his back to the chimney, in which there was a fire burning. He had on a worn hat, of the clerical shape

[oldmilitary in fact, not a shovel at all]; CASSAQUIN," short dressinggown, "of redbrown (MORDORE)

velvet; black breeches, and boots which came quite up over the knee. His hair was not dressed. Three little

benchlets or stools, covered with green cloth, stood before him, on which he had his feet lying [terribly ill of

gout]. In his lap he had a sort of muff, with one of his hands in it, which seemed to be giving him great pain.

In the other hand he held our Sentence on the Arnold Case. He lay reclining (LAG) in an easychair; at his

left stood a table, with various papers on it,and two gold snuffboxes, richly set with brilliants, from which

"Besides us, there was present in the room the CabinetsRath Stellter [of the shorthand], who stood at a

desk, and was getting ready for writing. The King looked at us, saying, 'Come nearer!' Whereupon we

advanced another step, and were now within less than two steps of him. He addressed himself to us three

"The King then turned to the Rath Friedel [to Friedel, as the central figure of the Three, perhaps as the

portliest, though poor Friedel, except signing, had little cognizance of the thing, in which not he but

Rannsleben was to have been spokesman], and addressed to Friedel those questions, of which, with their

answers, there is Protocol published, under Royal authority, in the Berlin newspapers of December 14th,

PROTOCOLL: "Protocol [Minute of Proceedings] held by Royal Majesty's Highestself, on the 11th

December, 1779, concerning the three KammergerichtsRaths, Friedel, Graun and Rannsleben:" in PREUSS,

iii. 495.] Shorthand Stellter taking down what was said,quite accurately, testifies Rannsleben. From

Stellter (that is to say from the "Protocol" just mentioned), or from Stellter and Rannsleben together, we

KING to Friedel [in the tone of a Rhadamanthus suffering from gout]. "'To give sentence against a Peasant

from whom you have taken wagon, plough and everything that enables him to get his living, and to pay his

KING. "'May a Miller who has no water, and consequently cannot grind, and, therefore, not earn anything,

have his mill taken from him, on account of his not having paid his rent: is that just?'

KING. "'But here now is a Nobleman, wishing to make a Fishpond: to get more water for his Pond, he has a

ditch dug, to draw into it the water from a small stream which drives a watermill. Thereby the Miller loses

his water, and cannot grind; or, at most, can only grind in the spring for the space of a fortnight, and late in

the autumn, perhaps another fortnight. Yet, in spite of all this, it is pretended that the Miller shall pay his rent

quite the same as at the time when he had full water for his mill. Of course, he cannot pay his rent; his

incomings are gone! And what does the Custrin Court of Justice do? It orders the mill to be sold, that the

Nobleman may have his rent. And the Berlin Tribunal'" Chancellor Furst, standing painfully mute,

unspoken to, unnoticed hitherto, more like a broomstick than a Chancellor, ventures to strike in with a

FURST (suggestively). "'Kammergericht [mildly suggestive, and perhaps with something in his tone which

KING (to shorthand Stellter). "'KammergerichtsTribunal:[then to Furst] Go you, Sir, about your

business, on the instant! Your Successor is appointed; with you I have nothing more to do.

Disappear!'""Ordered," says Official Rannsleben, "ordered the GrandChancellor, in very severe terms, To

be gone! telling him that his Successor was already appointed. Which order Herr von Furst, without saying a

word, hastily obeyed, passing in front of us three, with the utmost speed." In front,screen, I suppose, not

having room behind it,and altogether vanishes from Friedrich's History; all but some GHOST of him (so

KING (continues to Friedel, not in a lower tone probably):"'the KammergerichtsTribunal confirms the

same. That is highly unjust; and such Sentence is altogether contrary to his Majesty's landsfatherly

intentions:my name [you give it, "In the King's Name," forsooth] cruelly abused!'"

So far is set forth in the "Royal Protocol printed next Tuesday," as well as in Rannsleben. But from this point,

the Dialogueif it can be called Dialogue, being merely a rebuke and expectoration of Royal wrath against

Friedel and his Two, who are all mute, so far as I can learn, and stand like criminals in the dock, feeling

themselves unjustly condemnedgets more and more into conflagration, and cannot be distinctly reported.

"MY name to such a thing! When was I found to oppress a poor man for love of a rich? To follow wiggeries

and forms with solemn attention, careless what became of the internal fact? Act of 1566, allowing Gersdorf to

make his Pond? Like enough;and Arnold's loss of water, that is not worth the ascertaining; you know not

yet what it was, some of you even say it was nothing; care not whether it was anything. Could Arnold grind,

or not, as formerly? What is Act of 1566, or any or all Acts, in comparison? Wretched mortals, had you wigs

a fathom long, and Lawbooks on your back, and Acts of 1566 by the hundredweight, what could it help, if

the right of a poor man were left by you trampled under foot? What is the meaning of your sitting there as

Judges? Dispensers of Right in God's Name and mine? I will make an example of you which shall be

remembered! Out of my sight!" Whereupon EXEUNT in haste, all Three,though not far, not home, as

Only the essential sense of all this, not the exact terms, could (or should) any Stellter take in shorthand; and

in the Protocol it is decorously omitted altogether. Rannsleben merely says: "The King farther made use of

very strong expressions against us,"too strong to be repeated,"and, at last, dismissed us without saying

what he intended to do with us. We had hardly left the room, when he followed us, ordering us to wait. The

King, during the interview with us, held the Sentence, of my composition, in his hand; and seemed

particularly irritated about the circumstance of the judgment being pronounced in his name, as is the usual

form. He struck the paper again and again with his other hand,"heat of indignation quite extinguishing

gout, for the moment,"exclaiming at the same time repeatedly, 'Cruelly abused my name (MEINEN

NAMEN CRUEL MISSBRAUCHT)!'" [Preuss, iii. 495498.]We will now give the remaining part of the

Protocol (what directly follows the above CATECHETICAL or DIALOGUE part before that caught

... (CATECHETICS AS ABOVE,AND THEN): "The King's desire always is and was, That everybody, be

he high or low, rich or poor, get prompt justice; and that, without regard of person or rank, no subject of his

"Wherefore, with respect to this most unjust Sentence against the Miller Arnold of the Pommerzig Crabmill,

pronounced in the Neumark, and confirmed here in Berlin, his Majesty will establish an emphatic example

(EIN NACHDRUCKLICHES EXEMPEL STATUIREN); to the end that all Courts of Justice, in all the

King's Provinces, may take warning thereby, and not commit the like glaring unjust acts. For, let them bear in

mind, That the least peasant, yea, what is still more, that even a beggar, is, no less than his Majesty, a human

being, and one to whom due justice must be meted out. All men being equal before the Law, if it is a prince

complaining against a peasant, or VICE VERSA, the prince is the same as the peasant before the Law; and,

on such occasions, pure justice must have its course, without regard of person: Let the LawCourts, in all the

Provinces, take this for their rule. And whenever they do not carry out justice in a straightforward manner,

without any regard of person and rank, but put aside natural fairness,then they shall have to answer his

Majesty for it (SOLLEN SIC ES MIT SEINER KONIGLICHEN MAJESTAT ZU THUN KRIEGEN). For a

Court of Law doing injustice is more dangerous and pernicious than a band of thieves: against these one can

protect oneself; but against rogues who make use of the cloak of justice to accomplish their evil passions,

against such no man can guard himself. These are worse than the greatest knaves the world contains, and

"For the rest, be it also known to the various Courts of Justice, That his Majesty has appointed a new

GrandChancellor." Furst dismissed. "Yet his Majesty will not the less look sharply with his own eyes after

the Lawproceedings in all the Provinces; and he commands you"that is, all the Lawcourts"urgently

herewith: FIRSTLY,"which is also lastly,"To proceed to deal equally with all people seeking justice, be

it prince or peasant; for, there, all must be alike. However, if his Majesty, at any time hereafter, come upon a

fault committed in this regard, the guilty Courts can now imagine beforehand how they will be punished with

rigor, President as well as Raths, who shall have delivered a judgment so wicked and openly opposed to

justice. Which all Colleges of Justice in all his Majesty's Provinces are particularly to take notice of."

"MEM. By his Majesty's special command, measures are taken that this Protocol be inserted in all the Berlin

Journals." [In Berlin'sche Nachrichten von Staats und Gelehrten Sachen, No. 149, "Tuesday, 14th December,

The remainder of Rannsleben's Narrative is beautifully brief and significant."We had hardly left the room,"

said he SUPRA, "when the King followed us," lame as he was, with a fulminant "Wait there!" Rannsleben

continues: "Shortly after came an AidedeCamp, who took us in a carriage to the common Townprison,

the Kalandshof; here two Corporals and two Privates were set to guard us. On the 13th December, 1779,"

third day of our arrest, "a CabinetOrder was published to us, by which the King had appointed a

Commission of Inquiry; but had, at the same time, commanded beforehand that the Sentence should not be

less than a year's confinement in a fortress, dismissal from office, and payment of compensation to the

Arnold people for the losses they had sustained." Which certainly was a bad outlook for us.

Precisely the same has befallen our Brethren of Custrin; all suddenly packed into Prison, just while reading

our Approval of them;there they sit, their Sentence to be like ours. "Our arrest in the Kalandshof lasted

from 11th December, 1779, till 5th January, 1780," three weeks and three days,when (with Two

Exceptions, to be noted presently) we were all, Kammergerichters and Custriners alike, transferred to

I spoke of what might be called a ghost of Kanzler Furst once revisiting the glimpses of the Moon, or Sun if

there were any in the dismal December days. This is it, witness one who saw it: "On the morning of

December 12th, the day after the Grand Chancellor's dismissal, the Street in which he lived was thronged

with the carriages of callers, who came to testify their sympathy, and to offer their condolence to the fallen

Chancellor. The crowd of carriages could be seen from the windows of the King's Palace." The same young

Legal Gentleman, by and by a very old one, who, himself one of the callers at the ExChancellor's house that

day, saw this, and related it in his old age to Herr Preuss, [Preuss, iii. 499, 500.] remembers and relates also

"During the days that followed" the above event and Publication of the Royal Protocol, "I often crossed, in

the forenoon, the Esplanade in front of the Palace (SCHLOSSPLATZ), at that side where the King's

apartments were; the same which his Royal Highness the CrownPrince now [1833] occupies. I remember

that here, on that part of the Esplanade which was directly under Friedrich's windows, there stood constantly

numbers of Peasants, not ten or twelve, but as many as a hundred at a time; all with Petitions in their hands,

which they were holding up towards the window; shouting, 'Please his Majesty to look at these; we have been

still worse treated than the Arnolds!' And indeed, I have understood the LawCourts, for some time after,

found great difficulty to assert their authority: the parties against whom judgment went, taking refuge in the

Far graver than this Spectre of Furst, Minister Zedlitz hesitates, finally refuses, to pronounce such a Sentence

as the King orders on these men of Law! Estimable, able, conscientious Zedlitz; zealous on Education

matters, too;whom I always like for contriving to attend a Course of Kant's Lectures, while 500 miles

away from him (actual Course in Konigsberg University, by the illustrious Kant; every Lecture punctually

taken in shorthand, and transmitted to Berlin, post after post, for the busy man). [Kuno Fischer, Kant's

Leben (Mannheim, 1860), pp. 34, 35.] Here is now some painful Correspondence between the King and

1779)."Your Report of the 20th instant in regard to Judgment on the arrested Raths has been received. But

do you think I don't understand your Advocate fellows and their quirks; or how they can polish up a bad

cause, and by their hyperboles exaggerate or extenuate as they find fit? The Goosequill class

(FEDERZEUG) can't look at facts. When Soldiers set to investigate anything, on an order given, they go the

straight way to the kernel of the matter; upon which, plenty of objections from the Goosequill people!But

you may assure yourself I give more belief to an honest Officer, who has honor in the heart of him, than to all

your Advocates and sentences. I perceive well they are themselves afraid, and don't want to see any of their

fellows punished. "If, therefore, you will not obey my Order, I shall take another in your place who will; for

depart from it I will not. You may tell them that. And know, for your part, that such miserable jargon

(MISERABEL STYL) makes not the smallest impression on me. Hereby, then, you are to guide yourself; and

merely say whether you will follow my Order or not; for I will in no wise fall away from it. I am your

MARGINALE (in Autograph)."My Gentleman [you, Herr von Zedlitz, with your dubitatings] won't make

me believe black is white. I know the Advocate sleightofhand, and won't be taken in. An example has

become necessary here, those Scoundrels (CANAILLEN) having so enormously misused my name, to

practise arbitrary and unheardof injustices. A Judge that goes upon chicaning is to be punished more

severely than a highway Robber. For you have trusted to the one; you are on your guard against the other."

ZEDLITZ TO THE KING (Berlin, 31st December, 1779)."I have at all times had your Royal Majesty's

favor before my eyes as the supreme happiness of my life, and have most zealously endeavored to merit the

same: but I should recognize myself unworthy of it, were I capable of an undertaking contrary to my

conviction. From the reasons indicated by myself, as well as by the CriminalSenate [Paper of reasons

fortunately lost], your Majesty will deign to consider that I am unable to draw up a condemnatory Sentence

against your Majesty's ServantsofJustice now under arrest on account of the Arnold Affair. Your Majesty's

KING TO ZEDLITZ (Berlin, 1st January, 1780)."My dear State's Minister Freiherr von Zedlitz,It

much surprises me to see, from your Note of yesterday, that yon refuse to pronounce a judgment on those

ServantsofJustice arrested for their conduct in the Arnold Case, according to my Order. If you, therefore,

"1. The Custrin RegierungsRath Scheibler, who, it appears in evidence, was of an opposite opinion to his

Colleagues, and voted That the man upstream had not a right to cut off the water from the man

downstream; and that the point, as to Arnold's wanting water, should be more closely and strictly inquired

into,he, Scheibler, shall be set free from his arrest, and go back to his post at Custrin. And in like manner,

KammergerichtsRath Rannslebenwho has evidently given himself faithful trouble about the cause, and

has brought forward with a quite visible impartiality all the considerations and dubieties, especially about the

condition of the water and the alleged hurtfulness of the Pond is absolved from arrest.

"2. As for the other arrested ServantsofJustice, they are one and all dismissed from office (CASSIRT), and

condemned to one year's FortressArrest. Furthermore, they shall pay to Arnold the value of his Mill, and

make good to him, out of their own pocket, all the loss and damage he has suffered in this business; the

Neumark KAMMER (RevenueBoard) to tax and estimate the same. [Damage came to 1,358 thalers, 11

groschen, 1 pfennig,that is, 203 pounds 14s. and some pence and farthings; the last farthing of which was

punctually paid to Arnold, within the next eight months;] [Preuss, iii. 409.]so that

"3. The Miller Arnold shall be completely put as he was (IN INTEGRUM RESTITUIRT).

"And in such way must the matter, in all branches of it, be immediately proceeded with, got ready, and

handed in for my Completion (VOLLZIEHUNG) by Signature. Which you, therefore, will take charge of,

without delay. For the rest, I will tell you farther, that I am not ill pleased to know you on the side you show

on this occasion [as a man that will not go against his conscience], and shall see, by and by, what I can farther

do with you. [Left him where he was, as the best thing.] Whereafter you are accordingly to guide yourself.

And I remain otherwise your well affectioned King, FRIEDRICH." [Ib. iii. 519, 520; see ib. 405 n.]

This, then, is an impartial account of the celebrated passage between Friedrich and the Lawyers known by the

name of "the MILLER ARNOLD CASE;" which attracted the notice of all Europe,just while the

decennium of the French Revolution was beginning. In Russia, the Czarina Catharine, the friend of

Philosophers, sent to her Senate a copy of Friedrich's PROTOCOL OF DECEMBER 11th, as a noteworthy

instance of Royal supreme judicature. In France, Prints in celebration of it,"one Print by Vangelisti,

entitled BALANCE DE FREDERIC,"were exhibited in shopwindows, expounded in newspapers, and

discoursed of in drawingrooms. The Case brought into talk again an old Miller Case of Friedrich's, which

had been famous above thirty years ago, when SansSouci was getting built. Readers know it: Potsdam

Miller, and his obstinate Windmill, which still grinds on its knoll in those localities, and would not, at any

price, become part of the King's Gardens. "Not at any price?" said the King's agent: "Cannot the King take it

from you for nothing, if he chose?" "Have n't we the Kammergericht at Berlin!" answered the Miller. To

Friedrich's great delight, as appears; which might render the Windmill itself a kind of ornament to his

Gardens thenceforth. The French admiration over these two Miller Cases continued to be very great.

[Dieulafoi, LE MEUNIER DE SANSSOUCI (Comedy or farce, of I know not what year); Andrieux, LE

MOULIN DE SANSSOUCI ("Poem," at INSTITUT NATIONAL 15 GERMINAL, AN 5), Preuss, iii. 412,

As to Miller Arnold and his Cause, the united voice of Prussian Society condemned Friedrich's procedure:

Such harshness to Grand Chancellor Furst and respectable old Official Gentlemen, amounting to the

barbarous and tyrannous, according to Prussian Society. To support which feeling, and testify it openly, they

drove in crowds to Furst's (some have told me to the Prisondoors too, but that seems hypothetic); and left

cards for old Furst and Company. In sight of Friedrich, who inquired, "What is this stir on the streets,

then?"and, on learning, made not the least audible remark; but continued his salutary cashierment of the

My impression has been that, in Berlin Society, there was more sympathy for mere respectability of wig than

in Friedrich. To Friedrich respectability of wig that issues in solemnly failing to do justice, is a mere

enormity, greater than the most wigless condition could be. Wigless, the thing were to be endured, a thing

one is born to, more or less: but in wig,out upon it! And the wig which screens, and would strive to

In support of their feeling for Furst and Company, Berlin Society was farther obliged to pronounce the claim

of Miller Arnold a nullity, and that no injustice whatever had been done him. Mere pretences on his part,

subterfuges for his idle conduct, for his inability to pay due rent, said Berlin Society. And that impartial

Soldierperson, whom Friedrich sent to examine by the light of nature, and report? "Corrupted he!" answer

they: "had intrigues with" I forget whom; somebody of the womankind (perhaps Arnold's old

hardfeatured Wife, if you are driven into a corner!)"and was not to be depended on at all!" In which

condemned state, Berlin Society almost wholly disapproving it, the Arnold Process was found at Friedrich's

death (restoration of honors to old Furst and Company, one of the first acts of the New Reign, sure of

immediate popularity); and, I think, pretty much continues so still, few or none in Berlin Society admitting

Miller Arnold's claim to redress, much less defending that onslaught on Furst and the wigs. [Herr Preuss

himself inclines that way, rather condemnatory of Friedrich; but his Account, as usual, is exact and

authentic,though distressingly confused, and scattered about into different corners (Preuss, iii. 381413;

then again, ibid. 520 On the other hand, there is one Segebusch, too, a learned Doctor, of Altona, who takes

the King's side,and really is rather stupid, argumentative merely, and unilluminative, if you read him:

Segebusch, Historischrechtliche Wurdigung der Einmischung Friedrich's des Grossen in die bekannte

Who, from the remote distance, would venture to contradict? Once more, my own poor impression was,

which I keep silent except to friends, that Berlin Society was wrong; that Miller Arnold had of a truth lost

portions of his damwater, and was entitled to abatement; and that in such case, Friedrich's horror at the

Furst andCompany Phenomenon (horror aggravated by gout) had its highly respectable side withal.

When, after Friedrich's death, on Von Gersdorf's urgent reclamations, the case was reopened, and allowed to

be carried "into the Secret Tribunal, as the competent Court of Appeal in third instance," the said Tribunal

found, That the lawmaxim depended upon by the Lower Courts, as to "the absolute right of owners of

private streams," did NOT apply in the present case; but that the Deed of 1566 did; and also that "the facts as

to pretended damage [PRETENCE merely] from loss of water, were satisfactorily proved against Arnold:"

Gersdorf, therefore, may have his Pond; and Arnold must refund the money paid to him for "damages" by the

condemned Judges; and also the purchasemoney of his Mill, if he means to keep the latter. All which

moneys, however, his Majesty Friedrich Wilhelm II., Friedrich's Successor, to have done with the matter,

In his last journey to WestPreussen, June, 1784, Friedrich said to the new RegierungsPresident (Chief

Judge) there: "I am Head Commissary of Justice; and have a heavy responsibility lying on me,"as will you

in this new Office. Friedrich at no moment neglected this part of his functions; and his procedure in it

throughout, one cannot but admit to have been faithful, beautiful, human. Very impatient indeed when he

comes upon Imbecility and Pedantry threatening to extinguish Essence and Fact, among his Law People! This

is one MARGINALE of his, among many such, some of them still more stinging, which are comfortable to

every reader. The Case is that of a murderer,murder indisputable; "but may not insanity be suspected, your

Majesty, such the absence of motive, such the?" Majesty answers: "That is nothing but inanity and stupid

pleading against right. The fellow put a child to death; if he were a soldier, you would execute him without

priest; and because this CANAILLE is a citizen, you make him 'melancholic' to get him off. Beautiful

Friedrich has to sign all DeathSentences; and he does it, wherever I have noticed, rigorously well. For the

rest, his Criminal Calendar seems to be lighter than any other of his time; "in a population of 5,200,000," says

At Vienna, on November 29th, 1780, the noble Kaiserinn Maria Theresa, after a short illness, died. Her end

was beautiful and exemplary, as her course had been. The disease, which seemed at first only a bad cold,

proved to have been induration of the lungs; the chief symptom throughout, a more and more suffocating

difficulty to breathe. On the edge of death, the Kaiserinn, sitting in a chair (bed impossible in such struggle

for breath), leant her head back as if inclined to sleep. One of her women arranged the cushions, asked in a

whisper, "Will your Majesty sleep, then?" "No," answered the dying Kaiserinn; "I could sleep, but I must not;

Death is too near. He must not steal upon me. These fifteen years I have been making ready for him; I will

meet him awake." Fifteen years ago her beloved Franz was snatched from her, in such sudden manner: and

ever since, she has gone in Widow's dress; and has looked upon herself as one who had done with the world.

The 18th of every month has been for her a day of solitary prayer; 18th of every August (Franz's deathday)

she has gone down punctually to the vaults in the StephansKirche, and sat by his coffin there;last August,

something broke in the apparatus as she descended; and it has ever since been an omen to her. [Hormayr,

On her death, Joseph and Kaunitz, now become supreme, launched abroad in their ambitious adventures with

loose rein. Schemes of all kinds; including Bavaria still, in spite of the late check; for which latter, and for

vast prospects in Turkey as well, the young Kaiser is now upon a cunning method, full of promise to him,

that of ingratiating himself with the Czarina, and cutting out Friedrich in that quarter. Summer, 1780,

while the Kaiserinn still lived, Joseph made his famous First Visit to the Czarina (May August, 1780),

[Hermann, vi. 132135.]not yet for some years his thricefamous Second Visit (thricefamous

Cleopatravoyage with her down the Dnieper; dramaturgic cities and populations keeping pace with them on

the banks, such the scenic faculty of Russian Officials, with Potemkin as stagemanager):in the course of

which First Visit, still more in the Second, it is well known the Czarina and Joseph came to an understanding.

Little articulated of it as yet; but the meaning already clear to both. "A frank partnership, high Madam: to

you, full scope in your glorious notion of a Greek Capital and Empire, Turk quite trampled away,

Constantinople a Christian metropolis once more [and your next Grandson a CONSTANTINE,to be in

readiness]: why not, if I may share too, in the Donau Countries, that lie handy? To you, I say, an Eastern

Empire; to me, a Western: Revival of the poor old Romish Reich, so far as may be; and no hindrance upon

Bavaria, next time. Have not we had enough of that old Friedrich, who stands perpetually upon STATUS

Czarina Catharine took the hint; christened her next Grandson "Constantine" (to be in readiness); [This is the

Constantine who renounced, in favor of the late Czar Nicholas; and proved a failure in regard to "New Greek

Empire," and otherwise.] and from that time stiffly refused renewing her Treaty with Friedrich;to

Friedrich's great grief, seeing her, on the contrary, industrious to forward every German scheme of Joseph's,

Bavarian or other, and foreshadowing to himself dismal issues for Prussia when this present term of Treaty

should expire. As to Joseph, he was busy night and day,really perilous to Friedrich and the independence

of the German Reich. His young Brother, Maximilian, he contrives, Czarina helping, to get elected

Coadjutor of Koln; Successor of our Lanky Friend there, to be KurKoln in due season, and make the

Electorate of Koln a bit of Austria henceforth. [Lengthy and minute account of that Transaction, in all the

steps of it, in DOHM, i. 29539.] Then there came "PANISBRIEFE," [PANIS (Bread) BRIEF is a Letter

with which, in ancient centuries, the Kaiser used to furnish an old wornout Servant, addressed to some

Monastery, some Abbot or Prior in easy circumstances: "Be so good as provide this old Gentleman with

Panis (Bread, or Board and Lodging) while he lives." Very pretty in Barbarossa's time;but now!]who

knows what? usurpations, graspings and pretensions without end:finally, an open pretension to

incorporate Bavaria, after all. Bavaria, not in part now, but in whole: "You, Karl Theodor, injured man,

cannot we give you Territory in the Netherlands; a King there you shall be, and have your vote as KurPfalz

still; only think! In return for which, Bavaria ours in feesimple, and so finish that?" Karl Theodor is

perfectly willing,only perhaps some others are not. Then and there, these threatening complexities, now

gone like a dream of the night, were really lifeperils for the Kingdom of Prussia; never to be lost sight of by

a veteran Shepherd of the People. They kept a vigilant King Friedrich continually on the stretch, and were a

standing lifeproblem to him in those final Years. Problem nearly insoluble to human contrivance; the

Russian card having palpably gone into the other hand. Problem solved, nevertheless; it is still remembered

On the development of that pretty Bavarian Project, the thing became pressing; and it is well known by what

a stroke of genius Friedrich checkmated it; and produced instead a "FURSTENBUND," or general

"Confederation of German Princes," Prussia atop, to forbid peremptorily that the Laws of the Reich be

infringed. FURSTENBUND: this is the victorious summit of Friedrich's Public History, towards which all his

efforts tended, during these five years: Friedrich's last feat in the world. Feat, how obsolete now,fallen

silent everywhere, except in German ParishHistory, and to the students of Friedrich's character in old age!

Had no result whatever in European History; so unexpected was the turn things took. A FURSTENBUND

which was swallowed bodily within few years, in that WorldExplosion of Democracy, and War of the

Giants; andunless Napoleon's "Confederation of the Rhine" were perhaps some transitory ghost of

it?left not even a ghost behind. A FURSTENBUND of which we must say something, when its Year

Nor are the Domesticities, as set forth by our Prussian authorities, an opulent topic for us. Friedrich's Old Age

is not unamiable; on the contrary, I think it would have made a pretty Picture, had there been a Limner to take

it, with the least felicity or physiognomic coherency;as there was not. His Letters, and all the symptoms we

have, denote a soundhearted brave old man; continually subduing to himself many ugly troubles; and, like

the stars, always steady at his work. To sit grieving or desponding is, at all times, far from him: "Why

despond? Won't it be all done presently; is it of much moment while it lasts?" A fine, unaffectedly vigorous,

simple and manful old age;rather serene than otherwise; in spite of electric outbursts and cloudy weather

Of all which there is not, in this place, much more to be said. Friedrich's element is itself wearing dim,

sombre of hue; and the records of it, too, seem to grow dimmer, more and more intermittent. Old friends, of

the intellectual kind, are almost all dead; the new are of little moment to us,not worth naming in

comparison, The chief, perhaps, is a certain young Marchese Lucchesini, who comes about this time,

["Chamberlain [titular, with Pension, 9th May, 1780, age then 28" (Preuss, iv. 211);arrived when or how is

not said.] and continues in more and more favor both with Friedrich and his Successor,employed even in

Diplomatics by the latter. An accomplished young Gentleman, from Lucca; of fine intelligence, and, what

was no less essential to him here, a perfect propriety in breeding and carriage. One makes no acquaintance

with him in these straggling records, nor desires to make any. It was he that brought the inane, ever scribbling

Denina hither, if that can be reckoned a merit. Inane Denina came as Academician, October, 1782; saw

Friedrich, [Rodenbeck, iii. 285, 286.] at least once ("Academician, Pension; yes, yes!")and I know not

Friedrich, on loss of friends, does not take refuge in solitude; he tries always for something of substitute; sees

his man once or twice,in several instances once only, and leaves him to his pension in sinecure

thenceforth. Cornelius de Pauw, the rich Canon of Xanten (Uncle of Anacharsis Klootz, the afterwards

renowned), came on those principles; hung on for six months, not liked, not liking; and was then permitted to

go home for good, his pension with him. Another, a Frenchman, whose name I forget, sat gloomily in

Potsdam, after his rejection; silent (not knowing German), unclipt, unkempt, rough as Nebuchadnezzar, till he

died. De Catt is still a resource; steady till almost the end, when somebody's tongue, it is thought, did him ill

Alone, or almost alone, of the ancient set is Bastiani; a tall, blackbrowed man, with uncommonly bright

eyes, now himself old, and a comfortable Abbot in Silesia; who comes from time to time, awakening the

King into his pristine topics and altitudes. Bastiani's history is something curious: as a tall Venetian Monk

(son of a tailor in Venice), he had been crimped by Friedrich Wilhelm's people; Friedrich found him serving

as a Potsdam Giant, but discerned far other faculties in the brightlooking man, far other knowledges; and

gradually made him what we see. Banters him sometimes that he will rise to be Pope one day, so cunning and

clever is he: "What will you say to me, a Heretic, when you get to be Pope; tell me now; out with it, I insist!"

Bastiani parried, pleaded, but unable to get off, made what some call his one piece of wit: "I will say: O

Royal Eagle, screen me with thy wings, but spare me with thy sharp beak!" This is Bastiani's one recorded

piece of wit; for he was tacit rather, and practically watchful, and did not waste his fine intellect in that way.

Foreign Visitors there are in plenty; now and then something brilliant going. But the old Generals seem to be

mainly what the King has for company. Dinner always his bright hour; from ten to seven guests daily.

Seidlitz, never of intelligence on any point but Soldiering, is long since dead; Ziethen comes rarely, and falls

asleep when he does; General Gortz (brother of the WeimarMunchen Gortz); Buddenbrock (the King's

comrade in youth, in the Reinsberg times), who has good faculty; Prittwitz (who saved him at Kunersdorf,

and is lively, though stupid); General and HeadEquerry Schwerin, of headlong tongue, not witty, but the

cause of wit; Major Graf von Pinto, a magniloquent ExAustrian ditto ditto: these are among his chief

dinnerguests. If fine speculation do not suit, old pranks of youth, old tales of war, become the staple

conversation; always plenty of banter on the old King's part;who sits very snuffy (says the privately

illhumored Busching) and does not sufficiently abhor grease on his fingers, or keep his nails quite clean.

Occasionally laughs at the Clergy, too; and has little of the reverence seemly in an old King. The truth is,

Doctor, he has had his sufferings from Human Stupidity; and was always fond of hitting objects on the raw.

For the rest, as you may see, heartily an old Stoic, and takes matters in the rough; avoiding useless

Visits from his Kindred are still pretty frequent; never except on invitation. For the rest, completely an old

Bachelor, an old Military Abbot; with business for every hour. Princess Amelia takes care of his linen, not

very well, the dear old Lady, who is herself a cripple, suffering, and voiceless, speaking only in hoarse

whisper. I think I have heard there were but twelve shirts, not in firstrate order, when the King died. A King

supremely indifferent to small concerns; especially to that of shirts and tailorages not essential. Holds to

Literature, almost more than ever; occasionally still writes; [For one instance: The famous Pamphlet, DE LA

LITTERATURE ALLEMANDE (containing his onslaught on Shakspeare, and his first salutation, with the

reverse of welcome, to Goethe's GOTZ VON BERLICHINGEN);printed, under stupid Thiebault's care,

Berlin, 1780. Stands now in OEuvres de Frederic, vii. 89122. The last Pieces of all are chiefly MILITARY

INSTRUCTIONS of a practical or official nature.] has his daily Readings, Concerts, Correspondences as

usual: readers can conceive the dim Household Picture, dimly reported withal. The following Anecdotes

YOU GO ON WEDNESDAY, THEN?"Loss of time was one of the losses Friedrich could least stand. In

visits even from his Brothers and Sisters, which were always by his own express invitation, he would say

some morning (call it Tuesday morning): 'You are going on Wednesday, I am sorry to hear' (what YOU never

heard before)! 'Alas, your Majesty, we must!' 'Well, I am sorry: but I will lay no constraint on you.

Pleasant moments cannot last forever!' And sometimes, after this had been agreed to; he would say: 'But

cannot you stay till Thursday, then? Come, one other day of it!''Well, since your Majesty does graciously

press!' And on Thursday, not Wednesday, on those curious terms, the visit would terminate. This trait is in

the AnecdoteBooks: but its authenticity does not rest on that uncertain basis; singularly enough, it comes to

me, individually, by two clear stages, from Friedrich's Sister the Duchess of Brunswick, who, if anybody,

would know it well!" [My informant is Sir George Sinclair, Baronet, of Thurso; his was the distinguished

Countess of Finlater, still remembered for her graces of mind and person, who had been MaidofHonor to

DINNER WITH THE QUEEN.The Queen, a prudent, simpleminded, worthy person, of perfect behavior

in a difficult position, seems to have been much respected in Berlin Society and the Court Circles. Nor was

the King wanting in the same feeling towards her; of which there are still many proofs: but as to personal

intercourse,what a figure has that gradually taken! Preuss says, citing those who saw: "When the King,

after the SevenYears War, now and then, in Carnival season, dined with the Queen in her Apartments, he

usually said not a word to her. He merely, on entering, on sitting down at table and on leaving it, made the

customary bow; and sat opposite to her. Once, in the Seventies [years 1770, years now past], the Queen was

ill of gout; table was in her Apartments; but she herself was not there, she sat in an easychair in the

drawingroom. On this occasion the King stepped up to the Queen, and inquired about her health. The

circumstance occasioned, among the company present, and all over Town as the news spread, great wonder

and sympathy (VERWUNDERUNG UND THEILNAHME). This is probably the last time he ever spoke to

THE TWO GRANDNEPHEWS."The King was fond of children; liked to have his GrandNephews

about him. One day, while the King sat at work in his Cabinet, the younger of the two, a boy of eight or nine

[who died soon after twenty], was playing ball about the room; and knocked it once and again into the King's

writing operation; who twice or oftener flung it back to him, but next time put it in his pocket, and went on.

'Please your Majesty, give it me back!' begged the Boy; and again begged: Majesty took no notice; continued

writing. Till at length came, in the tone of indignation, 'Will your Majesty give me my ball, then?' The King

looked up; found the little Hohenzollern planted firm, hands on haunches, and wearing quite a peremptory

air. 'Thou art a brave little fellow; they won't get Silesia out of thee!' cried he laughing, and flinging him his

Of the elder Prince, afterwards Friedrich Wilhelm III. (Father of the now King), there is a much more

interesting Anecdote, and of his own reporting too, though the precise terms are irrecoverable: "How the

King, questioning him about his bits of French studies, brought down a LA FONTAINE from the shelves,

and said, 'Translate me this Fable;' which the Boy did, with such readiness and correctness as obtained the

King's praises: praises to an extent that was embarrassing, and made the honest little creature confess, 'I did it

with my Tutor, a few days since!' To the King's much greater delight; who led him out to walk in the

Gardens, and, in a mood of deeper and deeper seriousness, discoursed and exhorted him on the supreme law

of truth and probity that lies on all men, and on all Kings still more; one of his expressions being, 'Look at

this high thing [the Obelisk they were passing in the Gardens], its UPRIGHTness is its strength (SA

DROITURE FAIT SA FORCE);' and his final words, 'Remember this evening, my good Fritz; perhaps thou

wilt think of it, long after, when I am gone.' As the good Friedrich Wilhelm III. declares piously he often did,

in the storms of fate that overtook him." [R. F. Eylert, Charakterzuge und historische Fragmente aus dem

Leben des Konigs von Preussen Friedrich Wilhelm III. (Magdeburg, 1843), i. 450456. This is a "King's

Chaplain and Bishop Eylert:" undoubtedly he heard this Anecdote from his Master, and was heard repeating

it; but the dialect his Editors have put it into is altogether tawdry, modern, and impossible to take for that of

Industrial matters, that of Colonies especially, of drainages, embankments, and reclaiming of waste lands, are

a large item in the King's business,readers would not guess how large, or how incessant. Under this head

there is on record, and even lies at my hand translated into English, what might be called a Colonial DAY

WITH FRIEDRICH (Day of July 23d, 1779; which Friedrich, just come home from the Bavarian War, spent

wholly, from 5 in the morning onward, in driving about, in earnest survey of his Colonies and

LandImprovements in the PotsdamRuppin Country); curious enough Record, by a certain Bailiff or

Overseer, who rode at his chariotside, of all the questions, criticisms and remarks of Friedrich on persons and

objects, till he landed at Ruppin for the night. Taken down, with forensic, almost with religious exactitude, by

the Bailiff in question; a Nephew of the Poet Gleim,by whom it was published, the year after Friedrich's

death; [Is in Anekdoten und Karakterzuge, No. 8 (Berlin, 1787), pp. 1579.] and by many others since. It is

curiously authentic, characteristic in parts, though in its bald forensic style rather heavy reading. Luckier, for

most readers, that inexorable want of room has excluded it, on the present occasion! [Printed now (in Edition

No reader adequately fancies, or could by any single Document be made to do so, the continual assiduity of

Friedrich in regard to these interests of his. The strictest Husbandman is not busier with his Farm, than

Friedrich with his Kingdom throughout;which is indeed a FARM leased him by the Heavens; in which not

a gatebar can be broken, nor a stone or sod roll into the smallest ditch, but it is to his the Husbandman's

damage, and must be instantly looked after. There are Meetings with the Silesian manufacturers (in Review

time), Dialogues ensuing, several of which have been preserved; strange to read, however dull. There are

many scattered evidences;and only slowly does, not the thing indeed, but the degree of the thing, become

fully credible. Not communicable, on the terms prescribed us at present; and must be left to the languid fancy,

Here is an Ocular View, here are several such, which we yet happily have, of the actual Friedrich as he

looked and lived. These, at a cheap rate, throw transiently some flare of illumination over his Affairs and

In Summer, 1780, as we mentioned, Kaiser Joseph was on his first Visit to the Czarina. They met at Mohilow

on the Dnieper, towards the end of May; have been roving about, as if in mere galas and amusements (though

with a great deal of business incidentally thrown in), for above a month since, when Prince de Ligne is

summoned to join them at Petersburg. He goes by Berlin, stays at Potsdam with Friedrich for about a week;

and reports to Polish Majesty these new Dialogues of 1780, the year after sending him those of

MahrischNeustadt of 1770, which we read above. Those were written down from memory, in 1785; these in

1786,and "towards the end of it," as is internally evident. Let these also be welcome to us on such terms as

"Since your Majesty [QuasiMajesty, of Poland] is willing to lose another quarter of an hour of that time,

which you employ so well in gaining the love of all to whom you deign to make yourself known, here is my

Second Interview. It can be of interest only to you, Sire, who have known the King, and who discover traits

of character in what to another are but simple words. One finds in few others that confidence, or at least that

kindliness (BONHOMIE), which characterizes your Majesty. With you, one can indulge in rest; but with the

King of Prussia, one had always to be under arms, prepared to parry and to thrust, and to keep the due middle

between a small attack and a grand defence. I proceed to the matter in hand, and shall speak to you of him for

"He had made me promise to come to Berlin. I hastened thither directly after that little War [PotatoWar],

which he called 'an action where he had come as bailiff to perform an execution.' The result for him, as is

known, was a great expense of men, of horses and money; some appearance of good faith and

disinterestedness; little honor in the War; a little honesty in Policy, and much bitterness against us Austrians.

The King began, without knowing why, to prohibit Austrian Officers from entering his Territories without an

express order, signed by his own hand. Similar prohibition, on the part of our Court, against Prussian Officers

and mutual constraint, without profit or reason. I, for my own part, am of confident humor; I thought I should

need no permission, and I think still I could have done without one. But the desire of having a Letter from the

great Friedrich, rather than the fear of being illreceived, made me write to him. My Letter was all on fire

with my enthusiasm, my admiration, and the fervor of my sentiment for that sublime and extraordinary being;

and it brought me three charming Answers from him. He gave me, in detail, almost what I had given him in

the gross; and what he could not return me in admiration,for I do not remember to have gained a

battle,he accorded me in friendship. For fear of missing, he had written to me from Potsdam, to Vienna, to

Dresden, and to Berlin. [In fine, at Potsdam I was, SATURDAY, 9th JULY, 1780, waiting ready;stayed

there about a week.] ["9th (or 10th) July, 1780" (Rodenbeck, iii. 233): "Stayed till 16th."]

"While waiting for the hour of 12, with my Son Charles and M. de Lille [Abbe de Lille, prosewriter of

something now forgotten; by no means lyrical DE LISLE, of LES JARDINS], to be presented to the King, I

went to look at the Parade;and, on its breaking up, was surrounded, and escorted to the Palace, by Austrian

deserters, and particularly from my own regiment, who almost caressed me, and asked my pardon for having

"The hour of presentation struck. The King received me with an unspeakable charm. The military coldness of

a General's Head quarters changed into a soft and kindly welcome. He said to me, 'He did not think I had so

KING. "'May I (OSERAISJE) ask you to whom?' He often used this expression, 'OSERAISJE;' and also

this: 'If you permit me to have the honor to tell you, SI VOUS ME PERMETTES D'AVOIR L'HONNEUR

KING. "'She put the match to the cannon at the Siege of Dantzig with her own hand; [February, 1734, in poor

Stanislaus Leczinski's SECOND fit of Royalty: supra vi. 465.] she fired, and made others fire, and defended

EGO. "'Women are indeed undefinable; strong and weak by turns, indiscreet, dissembling, they are capable

of anything.' 'Without doubt,' said M. de Lille, distressed that nothing had yet been said to him, and with a

familiarity which was not likely to succeed; 'Without doubt. Look' said he. The King interrupted him. I

cited some traits in support of my opinion,as that of the woman Hachette at the Siege of Beauvais. [A.D.

1472; Burgundians storming the wall had their flag planted; flag and flagbearer are hurled into the ditch by

Hachette and other inspired women,with the finest results.] The King made a little excursion to Rome and

to Sparta: he liked to promenade there. After half a second of silence, to please De Lille, I told the King that

M. de Voltaire died in De Lille's arms. That caused the King to address some questions to him; he answered

in rather too longdrawn a manner, and went away. Charles and I stayed dinner." This is day first in Potsdam.

"Here, for five hours daily, the King's encyclopedical conversation enchanted me completely. Fine arts, war,

medicine, literature and religion, philosophy, ethics, history and legislation, in turns passed in review. The

fine centuries of Augustus and of Louis XIV.; good society among the Romans, among the Greeks, among

the French; the chivalry of Francois I.; the frankness and valor of Henri IV.; the newbirth

(RENAISSANCE) of Letters and their revolution since Leo X.; anecdotes about the clever men of other

times, and the trouble they give; M. de Voltaire's slips; susceptibilities of M. de Maupertuis; Algarotti's

agreeable ways; fine wit of Jordan; D'Argens's hypochondria, whom the King would send to bed for four

andtwenty hours by simply telling him that he looked ill;and, in fine, what not? Everything, the most

varied and piquant that could be said, came from him,in a most soft tone of voice; rather low than

otherwise, and no less agreeable than were the movements of his lips, which had an inexpressible grace.

"It was this, I believe, which prevented one's observing that he was, in fact, like Homer's heroes, somewhat of

a talker (UN PEU BABILLARD), though a sublime one. It is to their voices, their noise and gestures, that

talkers often owe their reputation as such; for certainly one could not find a greater talker than the King; but

one was delighted at his being so. Accustomed to talk to Marquis Lucchesini, in the presence of only four or

five Generals who did not understand French, he compensated in this way for his hours of labor, of study, of

meditation and solitude. At least, said I to myself, I must get in a word. He had just mentioned Virgil. I

KING. "'Ah, to whom do you tell that! Have not I tried to plant, sow, till, dig, with the GEORGICS in my

hand? "But, Monsieur," said my man, "you are a fool (BETE), and your Book no less; it is not in that way

one goes to work." Ah, MON DIEU, what a climate! Would you believe it, Heaven, or the Sun, refuse me

everything? Look at my poor orangetrees, my olivetrees, lemontrees: they are all starving.'

EGO. "'It would appear, then, nothing but laurels flourish with you, Sire.' (The King gave me a charming

look; and to cover an inane observation by an absurd one, I added quickly:) 'Besides, Sire, there are too many

GRENADIERS [means, in French, POMEGRANATES as well as GRENADIERS,peg of one's little joke!]

in this Country; they eat up everything!' The King burst out laughing; for it is only absurdities that cause

"One day I had turned a plate to see of what, porcelain it was. 'Where do you think it comes from?' asked the

EGO. "'I thought it was Saxon; but, instead of two swords [the Saxon mark], I see only one, which is well

EGO. "'I beg your Majesty's pardon; but it is so much like a sword, that one could easily mistake it for one.'

And such was really the case. This, it, is known, is the mark of the Berlin china. As the King sometimes

PLAYED KING, and thought himself, sometimes, extremely magnificent while taking up a walkingstick or

snuffbox with a few wretched little diamonds running after one another on it, I don't quite know whether he

"One day, as I entered his room, he came towards me, saying, 'I tremble to announce bad news to you. I have

just heard that Prince Karl of Lorraine is dying.' [Is already dead, "at Brussels, July 4th;" Duke of

SachsenTeschen and Wife Christine succeeded him as JointGovernors in those parts.] He looked at me to

see the effect this would have; and observing some tears escaping from my eyes, he, by gentlest transitions,

changed the conversation; talked of war, and of the Marechal de Lacy. He asked me news about Lacy; and

said, 'That is a man of the greatest merit. In former time, Count Mercy among yourselves [killed, while

commanding in chief, at the Battle of Parma in 1733], Puysegur among the French, had some notions of

marches and encampments; one sees from Hyginus's Book [ancient Book] ON CASTRAMETATION, that

the Greeks also were much occupied with the subject: but your Marechal surpasses the Ancients, the Moderns

and all the most famous men who have meddled with it. Thus, whenever he was your

QuartermasterGeneral, if you will permit me to make the remark to you, I did not gain the least advantage.

Recollect the two Campaigns of 1758 and 1759; you succeeded in everything. I often said to myself, 'Shall I

never get rid of that man, then?' You yourselves got me rid of him; and[some liberal or even profuse

"Next day the King, as soon as he saw me, came up; saying with the most penetrated air: 'If you are to learn

the loss of a man who loved you, and who did honor to mankind, it will be better that it be from some one

who feels it as deeply as I do. Poor Prince Karl is no more. Others, perhaps, are made to replace him in your

heart; but few Princes will replace him with regard to the beauty of his soul and to all his virtues.' In saying

this, his emotion became extreme. I said: 'Your Majesty's regrets are a consolation; and you did not wait for

his death to speak well of him. There are fine verses with reference to him in the Poem, SUR L'ART DE LA

GUERRE.' My emotion troubled me against my will; however, I repeated them to him. [ "Soutien de mes

Recois l'eloge" ... (for crossing the Rhine in 1744): ten rather noble lines, still worth reading; as indeed

the whole Poem well is, especially to soldier students (L'ART DE LA GUERRE, Chant vi.: OEuvres de

Frederic, x. 273).] The Man of Letters seemed to appreciate my knowing them by heart.

KING. "'His passage of the Rhine was a very fine thing;but the poor Prince depended upon so many

people! I never depended upon anybody but myself; sometimes too much so for my luck. He was badly

served, not too well obeyed: neither the one nor the other ever was the case with me.Your General Nadasti

appeared to me a great General of Cavalry?' Not sharing the King's opinion on this point, I contented myself

with saying, that Nadasti was very brilliant, very fine at musketry, and that he could have led his hussars to

the world's end and farther (DANS L'ENFER), so well did he know how to animate them.

KING. "'What has become of a brave Colonel who played the devil at Rossbach? Ah, it was the Marquis de

KING. "'PERDI! It needed a considerable stomach for fight, to charge like your Two Regiments of

Cuirassiers there, and, I believe, your Hussars also: for the Battle was lost before it began.'

EGO. "'Apropos of M. de Voghera, is your Majesty aware of a little thing he did before charging? He is a

boiling, restless, evereager kind of man; and has something of the good old Chivalry style. Seeing that his

Regiment would not arrive quick enough, he galloped ahead of it; and coming up to the Commander of the

Prussian Regiment of Cavalry which he meant to attack, he saluted him as on parade; the other returned the

KING. "'A very good style it is! I should like to know that man; I would thank him for it.Your General von

Ried, then, had got the devil in him, that time at Eilenburg [spurt of fight there, in the Meissen regions, I

think in Year 1758, when the D'Ahremberg Dragoons got so cut up], to let those brave Dragoons, who so

long bore your Name with glory, advance between Three of my Columns?' He had asked me the same

question at the Camp of Neustadt ten years since; and in vain had I told him that it was not M. de Ried; that

Ried did not command them at all; and that the fault was Marechal Daun's, who ought not to have sent them

into that Wood of Eilenburg, still less ordered them to halt there without even sending a patrol forward. The

King could not bear our General von Ried, who had much displeased him as Minister at Berlin; and it was his

KING. "'When I think of those devils of Saxon Camps [Summer, 1760],they were unattackable citadels! If,

at Torgau, M. de Lacy had still been QuartermasterGeneral, I should not have attempted to attack him. But

EGO. "'The superior reputation of Camps sometimes causes a desire to attempt them. For instance, I ask your

Majesty's pardon, but I have always thought you would at last have attempted that of Plauen, had the War

EGO. "'Does n't your Majesty think: With a good battery on the heights of Dolschen, which commanded us;

with some battalions, ranked behind each other in the Ravine, attacking a quarter of an hour before daybreak

[and so forth, at some length,excellent for soldier readers who know the Plauen Chasm], you could have

KING. "'And your battery on the Windberg, which would have scourged my poor battalions, all the while, in

KING. "'Oh, you could not miss us even by grope. That big hollow that goes from Burg, and even from

Potschappel,it would have poured like a waterspout [or firespout] over us. You see, I am not so brave as

"The Kaiser had set out for his Interview [First Interview, and indeed it is now more than half done, a good

six weeks of it gone] with the Czarina of Russia. That Interview the King did not like [no wonder]:and, to

undo the good it had done us, he directly, and very unskilfully, sent the Prince Royal to Petersburg [who had

not the least success there, loutish fellow, and was openly snubbed by a Czarina gone into new courses]. His

Majesty already doubted that the Court of Russia was about to escape him:and I was dying of fear lest, in

the middle of all his kindnesses, he should remember that I was an Austrian. 'What,' said I to myself, 'not a

"One day, at dinner, babbling Pinto said to the person sitting next him, 'This Kaiser is a great traveller; there

never was one who went so far.' 'I ask your pardon, Monsieur,' said the King; 'Charles Fifth went to Africa;

he gained the Battle of Oran.' And, turning towards me,who couldn't guess whether it was banter or only

history,'This time,' said he, 'the Kaiser is more fortunate than Charles Twelfth; like Charles, he entered

"The same Pinto, one day, understanding the King was at a loss whom to send as Foreign Minister

somewhither, said to him: 'Why does not your Majesty think of sending Lucchesini, who is a man of much

brilliancy (HOMME D'ESPRIT)?' 'It is for that very reason,' answered the King, 'that I want to keep him. I

had rather send you than him, or a dull fellow like Monsieur' I forget whom, but believe it is one whom he

"M. de Lucchesini, by the charm of his conversation, brought out that of the King's. He knew what topics

were agreeable to the King; and then, he knew how to listen; which is not so easy as one thinks, and which no

stupid man was ever capable of. He was as agreeable to everybody as to his Majesty, by his seductive

manners and by the graces of his mind. Pinto, who had nothing to risk, permitted himself everything. Says he:

'Ask the Austrian General, Sire, all he saw me do when in the service of the Kaiser.'

EGO. "'No, Sire; it even alarmed all my relations, who thought it a bad omen. Monsieur the Major here had

struck out the idea of joining Two flaming Hearts, a very novel image of a married couple. But the groove

they were to slide on, and meet, gave way: my Wife's heart went, and mine remained.'

KING. "'You see, Pinto, you were not good for much to those people, any more than to me.'

EGO. "'Oh, Sire, your Majesty, since then, owes him some compensation for the sabrecuts he had on his

KING. "'He gets but too much compensation. Pinto, did n't I send you yesterday some of my good Preussen

PINTO. "'Oh, surely;it was to make the thing known. If your Majesty could bring that into vogue, and sell

it all, you would be the greatest King in the world. For your Kingdom produces only that; but of that there is

"'Do you know,' said the King, one day, to me,'Do you know that the first soldiering I did was for the

House of Austria? MON DIEU, how the time passes!'He had a way of slowly bringing his hands together,

in ejaculating these MONDIEUS, which gave him quite a goodnatured and extremely mild air.(Do you

EGO. "'He who excels him;for instance, he who could win Twelve Battles!'He put on his modest air. I

have always said, it is easy to be modest, if you are in funds. He seemed as though he had not understood me,

KING. "'When the cabal which, during forty years, the Prince had always had to struggle with in his Army,

were plotting mischief on him, they used to take advantage of the evening time, when his spirits, brisk

enough in the morning, were jaded by the fatigues of the day. It was thus they persuaded him to undertake his

EGO. "'Regarding yourself, Sire, and the Rhine Campaign, you teach me nothing. I know everything your

Majesty did, and even what you said. I could relate to you your Journeys to Strasburg, to Holland, and what

passed in a certain Boat. Apropos of this Rhine Campaign, one of our old Generals, whom I often set talking,

as one reads an old Manuscript, has told me how astonished he was to see a young Prussian Officer, whom he

did not know, answering a General of the late King, who had given out the order, Not to go aforaging: "And

I, Sir, I order you to go; our Army needs it; in short, I will have it so (JE LE VEUX)!"'

KING. "'You look at me too much from the favorable side! Ask these Gentlemen about my humors and my

"We got talking of some Anecdotes which are consigned to, or concealed in, certain obscure Books. 'I have

been much amused, said I to the King, (with the big cargo of Books, true or false, written by French

Refugees, which perhaps are unknown in France itself.' [Discourses a little on this subject.]

KING. "'Where did you pick up all these fine old Pieces? These would amuse me on an evening; better than

the conversation of my Doctor of the Sorbonne [one Peyrau, a wandering creature, not otherwise of the least

interest to us], [Nicolai, Anekdoten, ii. 133 n.] whom I have here, and whom I am trying to convert.'

EGO. "'I found them all in a Bohemian Library, where I sat diverting myself for two Winters.'

KING. "'How, then? Two Winters in Bohemia? What the devil were you doing there! Is it long since?'

EGO. "'No, Sire; only a year or two [PotatoWar time]! I had retired thither to read at my ease.'He smiled,

and seemed to appreciate my not mentioning the little War of 1778, and saving him any speech about it. He

saw well enough that my Winterquarters had been in Bohemia on that occasion; and was satisfied with my

reticence. Being an old sorcerer, who guessed everything, and whose tact was the finest ever known, he

discovered that I did not wish to tell him I found Berlin changed since I had last been there. I took care not to

remind him that I was at the capturing of it in 1760, under M. de Lacy's orders [M. de Lacy's indeed!].It

was for having spoken of the first capture of Berlin, by Marshal Haddick [highly temporary as it was, and

"Apropos of the Doctor of the Sorbonne [uninteresting Peyrau] with whom he daily disputed, the King said to

me once, 'Get me a Bishopric for him.' 'I don't think,' answered I, (that my recommendation, or that of your

Majesty, could be useful to him with us.' 'Ah, truly no!' said the King: 'Well, I will write to the Czarina of

Russia for this poor devil; he does begin to bore me. He holds out as Jansenist, forsooth. MON DIEU, what

blockheads the present Jansenists are! But France should not have extinguished that nursery (FOYER) of

their genius, that Port Royal, extravagant as it was. Indeed, one ought to destroy nothing! Why have they

destroyed, too, the Depositaries of the graces of Rome and of Athens, those excellent Professors of the

Humanities, and perhaps of Humanity, the ExJesuit Fathers? Education will be the loser by it. But as my

Brothers the Kings, most Catholic, most Christian, most Faithful and Apostolic, have tumbled them out, I,

most Heretical, pick up as many as I can; and perhaps, one day, I shall be courted for the sake of them by

those who want some. I preserve the breed: I said, counting my stock the other day, "A Rector like you, my

Father, I could easily sell for 300 thalers; you, Reverend Father Provincial, for 600; and so the rest, in

"From want of memory, and of opportunities to see oftener and longer the Greatest Man that ever existed

[Oh, MON PRINCE!], I am obliged to stop. There is not a word in all this but was his own; and those who

have seen him will recognize his manner. All I want is, to make him known to those who have not had the

happiness to see him. His eyes are too hard in the Portraits: by work in the Cabinet, and the hardships of War,

they had become intense, and of piercing quality; but they softened finely in hearing, or telling, some trait of

nobleness or sensibility. Till his death, and but quite shortly before it,notwithstanding many levities which

he knew I had allowed myself, both in speaking and writing, and which he surely attributed only to my duty

as opposed to my interest,he deigned to honor me with marks of his remembrance; and has often

commissioned his Ministers, at Paris and at Vienna, to assure me of his goodwill.

"I no longer believe in earthquakes and eclipses at Caesar's death, since there has been nothing of such at that

of Friedrich the Great. I know not, Sire, whether great phenomena of Nature will announce the day when you

shall cease to reign [great phenomena must be very idle if they do, your Highness!]but it is a phenomenon

in the world, that of a King who rules a Republic by making himself obeyed and respected for his own sake,

as much as by his rights" (Hear, hear). [Prince de Ligne, Memoires et Melanges, i. 2240.]

Prince de Ligne thereupon hurries off for Petersburg, and the final Section of his Kaiser's Visit. An errand of

his own, too, the Prince had,about his new Daughterinlaw Massalska, and claims of extensive Polish

Properties belonging to her. He was the charm of Petersburg and the Czarina; but of the Massalska Properties

could retrieve nothing whatever. The munificent Czarina gave him "a beautiful Territory in the Crim,"

instead; and invited him to come and see it with her, on his Kaiser's next Visit (1787, the aquatic Visit and the

highly scenic). Which it is well known the Prince did; and has put on record, in his pleasant, not untrue,

though vague, highcolored and fantastic way,if it or he at all concerned us farther.

General von der Marwitz, who died not many years ago, is of the old Marwitz kindred, several of whom we

have known for their rugged honesties, genialities and peculiar ways. This General, it appears, had left a kind

of Autobiography; which friends of his thought might be useful to the Prussian Public, after those Radical

distractions which burst out in 1848 and onwards; and a first Volume of the MARWITZ POSTHUMOUS

PAPERS was printed accordingly, [NACHLASS DES GENERAL VON DER MARWITZ (Berlin, 1852), 1

vol. 8vo.] whether any more I have not heard; though I found this first Volume an excellent substantial bit

of reading; and the Author a fine old Prussian Gentleman, very analogous in his structure to the fine old

English ditto; who showed me the PERCONTRA side of this and the other muchcelebrated modern

Prussian person and thing, Prince Hardenberg, Johannes von Muller and the like;and yielded more

especially the following Three Reminiscences of Friedrich, beautiful little Pictures, bathed in morning light,

1. JUNE, 1782 OR 1783. "The first time I saw him was in 1782 (or it might be 1783, in my sixth year),"

middle of June, whichever year, "as he was returning from his Annual Review in Preussen [WEST

Preussen, never revisits the Konigsberg region], and stopped to change horses at Dolgelin." Dolgelin is in

Mullrose Country, westward of FrankfurtonOder; our Marwitz Schloss not far from it. "I had been sent

with Mamsell Benezet," my French Governess; "and, along with the Clergyman of Dolgelin, we waited for

"The King, on his journeys, generally preferred, whether at midday or for the night, to halt in some Country

place, and at the Parsonages most of all; probably because he was quieter there than in the Towns. To the

Clergyman this was always a piece of luck; not only because, if he pleased the King, he might chance to get

promoted; but because he was sure of profitable payment, at any rate; the King always ordering 50 thalers

[say 10 guineas] for his noon halt, and for his night's lodging 100. The little that the King ate was paid for

over and above. It is true, his Suite expected to be well treated; but this consisted only of one or two

individuals. Now, the King had been wont almost always, on these journeys homewards, to pass the last night

of his expedition with the Clergyman of Dolgelin; and had done so last year, with this present one who was

then just installed; with him, as with his predecessor, the King had talked kindly, and the 100 thalers were

duly remembered. Our good Parson flattered himself, therefore, that this time too the same would happen;

"So we waited there, and a crowd of people with us. The team of horses stood all ready (peasants' horses,

poor little cats of things, but the best that could be picked, for there were then no posthorses THAT COULD

RUN FAST);the countryfellows that were to ride postilion all decked, and ten head of horses for the

King's coach: wheelers, four, which the coachman drove from his box; then two successive pairs before, on

each pair a postilionpeasant; and upon the third pair, foremost of all, the King's outriders were to go.

"And now, at last, came the FELDJAGER [Chacer, Huntinggroom], with his big whip, on a peasant's, horse,

a peasant with him as attendant. All blazing with heat, he dismounted; said, The King would be here in five

minutes; looked at the relays, and the fellows with the waterbuckets, who were to splash the wheels; gulped

down a quart of beer; and so, his saddle in the interim having been fixed on another horse, sprang up again,

and off at a gallop. The King, then, was NOT to stay in Dolgelin! Soon came the Page, mounted in like style;

a youth of 17 or 18; utterly exhausted; had to be lifted down from his horse, and again helped upon the fresh

one, being scarcely able to stand;and close on the rear of him arrived the King. He was sitting alone in an

oldfashioned glasscoach, what they call a VISAVIS (a narrow carriage, two seats fore and aft, and on

each of them room for only one person). The coach was very long, like all the old carriages of that time;

between the driver's box and the body of the coach was a space of at least four feet; the body itself was of

pearshape, peaked below and bellied out above; hung on straps, with rolled knuckles [WINDEN], did not

rest on springs; two beams, connecting fore wheels and hind, ran not UNDER the body of the coach, but

"The carriage drew up; and the King said to his coachman [the far famed Pfund]: 'Is this Dolgelin?' 'Yes,

your Majesty!''I stay here.' 'No,' said Pfund; 'The sun is not down yet. We can get on very well to

Muncheberg tonight [ten miles ahead, and a Town too, perfidious Pfund!]and then tomorrow we are

"And therewith they set to changing horses. The peasants who were standing far off, quite silent, with

reverently bared heads, came softly nearer, and looked eagerly at the King. An old Gingerbread woman

(SOMMELFRAU) of Lebbenichen [always knew her afterwards] took me in her arm, and held me aloft close

to the coachwindow. I was now at farthest an ell from the King; and I felt as if I were looking in the face of

God Almighty (ES WAR MIR ALS OB ICH DEN LIEBEN GOTT ANSAHE). He was gazing steadily out

before him," into the glowing West, "through the front window. He had on an old threecornered regimental

hat, and had put the hindward straight flap of it foremost, undoing the loop, so that this flap hung down in

front, and screened him from the sun. The hatstrings (HUT CORDONS," trimmings of silver or gold cord)

"had got torn loose, and were fluttering about on this downhanging front flap; the white feather in the hat

was tattered and dirty; the plain blue uniform, with red cuffs, red collar and gold shoulderbands [epaulettes

WITHOUT bush at the end], was old and dusty, the yellow waistcoat covered with snuff;for the rest, he

had blackvelvet breeches [and, of course, the perpetual BOOTS, of which he would allow no polishing or

blacking, still less any change for new ones while they would hang together]. I thought always he would

speak to me. The old woman could not long hold me up; and so she set me down again. Then the King looked

at the Clergyman, beckoned him near, and asked, Whose child it was? (Herr von Marwitz of

Friedersdorf's.''Is that the General?' 'No, the Chamberlain.' The King made no answer: he could not bear

Chamberlains, whom he considered as idle fellows. The new horses were yoked; away they went. All day the

peasants had been talking of the King, how he would bring this and that into order, and pull everybody over

"Afterwards it turned out that all Clergymen were in the habit of giving 10 thalers to the coachman Pfund,

when the King lodged with them: the former Clergyman of Dolgelin had regularly done it; but the new one,

knowing nothing of the custom, had omitted it last year;and that was the reason why the fellow had so

pushed along all day that he could pass Dolgelin before sunset, and get his 10 thalers in Muncheberg from the

2. JANUARY, 1785. "The second time I saw the King was at the Carnival of Berlin in 1785. I had gone with

my Tutor to a Cousin of mine who was a Hofdame (DAME DE COUR) to the Princess Henri, and lived

accordingly in the PrinceHenri Palace,which is now, in our days, become the University;her

Apartments were in the third story, and looked out into the garden. As we were ascending the great stairs,

there came dashing past us a little old man with staring eyes, jumping down three steps at a time. My Tutor

said, in astonishment, 'That is Prince Henri!' We now stept into a window of the first story, and looked out to

see what the little man had meant by those swift boundings of his. And lo, there came the King in his carriage

"Friedrich the Second NEVER drove in Potsdam, except when on journeys, but constantly rode. He seemed

to think it a disgrace, and unworthy of a Soldier, to go in a carriage: thus, when in the last Autumn of his life

(this very 1785) he was so unwell in the windy SansSouci (where there were no stoves, but only hearth

fires), that it became necessary to remove to the Schloss in Potsdam, he could not determine to DRIVE

thither, but kept hoping from day to day for so much improvement as might allow him to ride. As no

improvement came, and the weather grew ever colder, he at length decided to go over under cloud of

darkness, in a sedan chair, that nobody might notice him.So likewise during the Reviews at Berlin or

Charlottenburg he appeared always on horseback: but during the Carnival in Berlin, where he usually stayed

"Ahead went eight runners with their staves, plumed caps and runneraprons [LAUFERSCHURZE,

whatever these are], in two rows. As these runners were never used for anything except this show, the office

was a kind of post for Invalids of the Lifeguard. A consequence of which was, that the King always had to

go at a slow pace. His courses, however, were no other than from the Schloss to the Opera twice a week; and

during his whole residence, one or two times to Prince Henri and the Princess Amelia [once always, too, to

dine with his Wife, to whom he did not speak one word, but merely bowed at beginning and ending!]. After

this the runners rested again for a year. Behind them came the Royal Carriage, with a team of eight; eight

windows round it; the horses with oldfashioned harness, and plumes on their heads. Coachman and

outriders all in the then Royal livery,blue; the collar, cuffs, pockets, and all seams, trimmed with a stripe of

red cloth, and this bound on both sides with small goldcord; the general effect of which was very good. In

the four boots (NEBENTRITTEN) of the coach stood four Pages, red with gold, in silk stockings, feather

hats (crown all covered with feathers), but not having plumes;the valet's boot behind, empty; and to the

rear of it, down below, where one mounts to the valet's boot [BEDIENTENTRITT, what is now become

FOOTBOARD], stood a groom (STALLKNECHT). Thus came the King, moving slowly along; and entered

through the portal of the Palace. We looked down from the window in the stairs. Prince Henri stood at the

carriagedoor; the pages opened it, the King stepped out, saluted his Brother, took him by the hand, walked

upstairs with him, and thus the two passed near us (we retiring upstairs to the second story), and went into the

3. MAY 23d, 1785. "The third time I saw him was that same year, at Berlin still, as he returned home from

the Review. ["May 21st 23d" (Rodenbeck, iii. 327).] My Tutor had gone with me for that end to the Halle

Gate, for we already knew that on that day he always visited his Sister, Princess Amelia. He came riding on a

big white horse,no doubt old CONDE, who, twenty years after this, still got his FREEBOARD in the

ECOLE VETERINAIRE; for since the Bavarian War (1778), Friedrich hardly ever rode any other horse. His

dress was the same as formerly at Dolgelin, on the journey; only that the hat was in a little better condition,

properly looped up, and with the peak (but not with the LONG peak, as is now the fashion) set in front, in due

military style. Behind him were a guard of Generals, then the Adjutants, and finally the grooms of the party.

The whole 'Rondeel' (now BelleAlliance Platz) and the WilhelmsStrasse were crammed full of people; all

windows crowded, all heads bare, everywhere the deepest silence; and on all countenances an expression of

reverence and confidence, as towards the just steersman of all our destinies. The King rode quite alone in

front, and saluted people, CONTINUALLY taking off his hat. In doing which he observed a very marked

gradation, according as the onlookers bowing to him from the windows seemed to deserve. At one time he

lifted the hat a very little; at another he took it from his head, and held it an instant beside the same; at

another he sunk it as far as the elbow. But these motions lasted continually; and no sooner had he put on his

hat, than he saw other people, and again took it off. From the Halle Gate to the KochStrasse he certainly

"Through this reverent silence there sounded only the trampling of the horses, and the shouting of the Berlin

streetboys, who went jumping before him, capering with joy, and flung up their hats into the air, or skipped

along close by him, wiping the dust from his boots. I and my Tutor had gained so much room that we could

run alongside of him, hat in hand, among the boys.You see the difference between then and now. Who was

it that then made the noise? Who maintained a dignified demeanor?Who is it that bawls and bellows now?

[Nobilities ought to be noble, thinks this old Marwitz, in their reverence to Nobleness. If Nobilities

themselves become Washed Populaces in a manner, what are we to say?] And what value can you put on

"Arrived at the Princess Amelia's Palace (which, lying in the WilhelmsStrasse, fronts also into the

KochStrasse), the crowd grew still denser, for they expected him there: the forecourt was jammed full; yet

in the middle, without the presence of any police, there was open space left for him and his attendants. He

turned into the Court; the gateleaves went back; and the aged lame Princess, leaning on two Ladies, the

OBERHOFMEISTERINN (Chief Lady) behind her, came hitching down the flat steps to meet him. So soon

as he perceived her, he put his horse to the gallop, pulled up, sprang rapidly down, took off his hat (which he

now, however, held quite low at the full length of his arm), embraced her, gave her his arm, and again led her

up the steps. The gateleaves went to; all had vanished, and the multitude still stood, with bared head, in

silence, all eyes turned to the spot where he had disappeared; and so it lasted a while, till each gathered

"And yet there had nothing happened! No pomp, no fireworks, no cannonshot, no drumming and fifing, no

music, no event that had occurred! No, nothing but an old man of 73, illdressed, all dusty, was returning

from his day's work. But everybody knew that this old man was toiling also for him; that he had set his whole

life on that labor, and for fiveandforty years had not given it the slip one day! Every one saw, moreover,

the fruits of this old man's labor, near and far, and everywhere around; and to look on the old man himself

awakened reverence, admiration, pride, confidence,in short all the nobler feelings of man." [ Nachlass des

This was May 21st, 1785; I think, the last time Berlin saw its King in that public manner, riding through the

streets. The FURSTENBUND Affair is now, secretly, in a very lively state, at Berlin and over Germany at

large; and comes to completion in a couple of months hence,as shall be noticed farther on.

In these last years of his life Friedrich had many French of distinction visiting him. In 1782, the Abbe Raynal

(whom, except for his power of face, he admired little); [Rodenbeck, iii. 277 n.] in 1786, Mirabeau (whose

personal qualities seem to have pleased him);but chiefly, in the interval between these two, various

Military Frenchmen, now home with their laurels from the American War, coming about his Reviews: eager

to see the Great Man, and be seen by him. Lafayette, Segur and many others came; of whom the one

interesting to us is Marquis de Bouille: already known for his swift sharp operation on the English Leeward

Islands; and memorable afterwards to all the world for his presidency in the FLIGHT TO VARENNES of

poor Louis XVI. and his Queen, in 1791; which was by no means so successful. "The brave Bouille," as we

called him long since, when writing of that latter operation, elsewhere. Bouille left MEMOIRES of his own:

which speak of Friedrich: in the Vie de Bouille, published recently by friendly hands: [Rene de Bouille,

ESSAI SUR LA VIE DU MARQUIS DE BOUILLE (Paris, 1853) there is Summary given of all that his

Papers say on Friedrich; this, in still briefer shape, but unchanged otherwise, readers shall now see.

"In July, 1784, Marquis de Bouille (lately returned from a visit to England), desirous to see the Prussian

Army, and to approach the great Friedrich while it was yet time, travelled by way of Holland to Berlin,

through Potsdam [no date; got to Berlin "August 6th;" [Rodenbeck, iii. 309.] so that we can guess "August

5th" for his Potsdam day]. Saw, at SansSouci, in the vestibule, a bronze Bust of Charles XII.; in the

diningroom, among other pictures, a portrait of the Chateauroux, Louis XV.'s first Mistress. In the King's

bedroom, simple campbed, coverlet of crimson taffetas, rather dirty, as well as the other furniture, on

account of the dogs. Many books lying about: Cicero, Tacitus, Titus Livius [in French Translations]. On a

chair, Portrait of Kaiser Joseph II.; same in King's Apartments in Berlin Schloss, also in the Potsdam New

"King entering, took off his hat, saluting the Marquis, whom a Chamberlain called Gortz presented [no

Chamberlain; a Lieutenant General, and much about the King; his Brother, the Weimar Gortz, is gone as

Prussian Minister to Petersburg some time ago]. King talked about the War DES ISLES [my WestIndia

War], and about England. 'They [the English] are like sick people who have had a fever; and don't know how

ill they have been, till the fit is over.' Fox he treated as a noisy fellow (DE BROUILLON); but expressed

admiration of young Pitt. 'The coolness with which he can stand being not only contradicted, but ridiculed

and insulted, CELA PARAIT AUDESSUS DE LA PATIENCE HUMAINE.' King closed the conversation

by saying he would be glad to see me in Silesia, whither he was just about to go for Reviews [will go in ten

"Friedrich was 72," last January 24th. "His physiognomy, dress, appearance, are much what the numerous

wellknown Portraits represent him. At Court, and on great Ceremonies, he appears sometimes in

blackcolored stockings rolled over the knee, and rosecolored or skyblue coat (BLEU CELESTE). He is

fond of these colors, as his furniture too shows. The Marquis dined with the Prince of Prussia, without

previous presentation; so simple are the manners of this Soldier Court. The Heir Presumptive lodges at a

brewer's house, and in a very mean way; is not allowed to sleep from home without permission from the

Bouille set out for Silesia 11th August; was at Neisse in good time. "Went, at 5 A.M. [date is August 19th,

Review lasts till 24th], [Rodenbeck, iii. 310.] to see the King mount. All the Generals, Prince of Prussia

among them, waited in the street; outside of a very simple House, where the King lodged. After waiting half

an hour, his Majesty appeared; saluted very graciously, without uttering a word. This was one of his special

Reviews [that was it!]. He rode (MARCHAIT) generally alone, in utter silence; it was then that he had his

REGARD TERRIBLE, and his features took the impress of severity, to say no more. [Is displeased with the

Review, I doubt, though Bouille saw nothing amiss;and merely tells us farther:] At the Reviews the King

inspects strictly one regiment after another: it is he that selects the very Corporals and Sergeants, much more

the Upper Officers; nominating for vacancies what Cadets are to fill them,all of whom are Nobles." Yes,

with rare exceptions, all. Friedrich, democratic as his temper was, is very strict on this point; "because," says

he repeatedly, "Nobles have honor; a Noble that misbehaves, or flinches in the moment of crisis, can find no

refuge in his own class; whereas a man of lower birth always can in his." [ OEuvres de Frederic, (more than

"After Review, dined with his Majesty. Just before dinner he gave to the assembled Generals the 'Order' for

tomorrow's Manoeuvres [as we saw in Conway's case, ten years ago]. This lasted about a quarter of an hour;

King then saluted everybody, taking off TRES AFFECTUEUSEMENT his hat, which he immediately put

on again. Had now his affable mien, and was most polite to the strangers present. At dinner, conversation

turned on the Wars of Louis XIV.; then on EnglishAmerican War,King always blaming the English,

whom he does not like. Dinner lasted three hours. His Majesty said more than once to me [in ill humor, I

should almost guess, and wishful to hide it]: 'Complete freedom here, as if we were in our Tavern, Sir (ICI,

TOUTE LIBERTE, MONSIEUR, COMME SI NOUS ETIONS AU CABARET)!' On the morrow," August

20th, "dined again. King talked of France; of Cardinal Richelieu, whose principles of administration he

praised. Repeated several times, that 'he did not think the French Nation fit for Free Government.' At the

Reviews, Friedrich did not himself command; but prescribed, and followed the movements; criticised,

reprimanded and so forth. On horseback six hours together, without seeming fatigued.

"King left for Breslau 25th August [24th, if it were of moment]. Bouille followed thither; dined again.

Besides Officers, there were present several Polish Princes, the Bishop of the Diocese, and the Abbot

Bastiani. King made pleasantries about religion [pity, that]; Bastiani not slow with repartees", of a defensive

kind. "King told me, on one occasion, 'Would you believe it? I have just been putting my poor Jesuits'

finances into order. They understand nothing of such things, CES BONS HOMMES. They are useful to me in

forming my Catholic Clergy. I have arranged it with his Holiness the Pope, who is a friend of mine, and

behaves very well to me.' Pointing from the window to the Convent of Capuchins, 'Those fellows trouble me

a little with their bellringings. They offered to stop it at night, for my sake: but I declined. One must leave

everybody to his trade; theirs is to pray, and I should have been sorry to deprive them of their chimes

"The 20,000 troops, assembled at Breslau, did not gain the King's approval,"far from it, alas, as we shall

all see! "To some Chiefs of Corps he said, 'VOUS RESSEMBLEZ PLUS A DES TAILLEURS QU'A DES

MILITAIRES (You are more like tailors than soldiers)!' He cashiered several, and even sent one

MajorGeneral to prison for six weeks." That of the tailors, and MajorGeneral Erlach clapt in prison, is too

true;nor is that the saddest part of the Affair to us. "Bouille was bound now on an excursion to Prag, to a

Camp of the Kaiser's there. 'Mind,' said the King, alluding to Bouille's BLUE uniform,'mind, in the

Country you are going to, they don't like the blue coats; and your Queen has even preserved the family

repugnance, for she does not like them either.' [ESSAI SUR LA VIE DU MARQUIS DE BOUILLE, pp.

"September 5th, 1784, Bouille arrived at Prag. Austrian Manoeuvres are very different; troops, though more

splendidly dressed, contrast unfavorably with Prussians;"unfavorably, though the strict King was so

dissatisfied. "Kaiser Joseph, speaking of Friedrich, always admiringly calls him 'LE ROI.' Joseph a great

questioner, and answers his own questions. His tone BRUSQUE ET DECIDE. Dinner lasted one hour.

"Returned to Potsdam to assist at the Autumn Reviews", 21st23d September, 1784. [Rodenbeck, iii. 313.]

"Dinner very splendid, magnificently served; twelve handsome Pages, in blue or rose colored velvet, waited

on the Guests,these being forty old rude Warriors booted and spurred. King spoke of the French,

approvingly: 'But,' added he, 'the Court spoils everything. Those Courtfellows, with their red heels and

delicate nerves, make very bad soldiers. Saxe often told me, In his Flanders Campaigns the Courtiers gave

him more trouble than did Cumberland.' Talked of Marechal Richelieu; of Louis XIV., whose apology he

skilfully made. Blamed, however, the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Great attachment of the 'Protestant

Refugees' to France and its King. 'Would you believe it?' said he: 'Under Louis XIV. they and their families

used to assemble on the day of St. Louis, to celebrate the FETE of the King who persecuted them!' Expressed

"Friedrich, in his conversation, showed a modesty which seemed a little affected. 'S'IL M'EST PERMIS

D'AVOIR UNE OPINION,' a common expression of his;said 'opinion' on most things, on Medicine among

others, being always excellent. Thinks French Literature surpasses that of the Ancients. Small opinion of

English Literature: turned Shakspeare into ridicule; and made also bitter fun of German Letters,their

"I asked, and received permission from the King, to bring my Son to be admitted in his ACADEMIE DES

GENTILSHOMMES; an exceptional favor. On parting, the King said to me: 'I hope you will return to me

Marechal de France; it is what I should like; and your Nation could n't do better, nobody being in a state to

Bouille will reappear for an instant next year. Meanwhile he returns to France, "first days of October, 1784,"

where he finds Prince Henri; who is on Visit there for three months past. ["2d July, 1784," Prince Henri had

gone (Rodenbeck, iii. 309).] A shining event in Prince Henri's Life; and a profitable; poor King Louiswhat

was very welcome in Henri's state of financehaving, in a delicate kingly way, insinuated into him a "Gift

of 400,000 francs" (16,000 pounds): [Anonymous (De la RocheAymon), Vie privee, politique et militaire du

Prince Henri, Frere de Frederic II. (a poor, vague and uninstructive, though authentic little Book: Paris,

1809), pp. 219239.]partly by way of retainingfee for France; "may turn to excellent account," think

What Bouille heard about the Silesian Reviews is perfectly true; and only a part of the truth. Here, to the

person chiefly responsible, is an indignant Letter of the King's: to a notable degree, full of settled wrath

"MY DEAR GENERAL VON TAUENTZIEN,While in Silesia I mentioned to you, and will now repeat in

writing, That my Army in Silesia was at no time so bad as at present. Were I to make Shoemakers or Tailors

into Generals, the Regiments could not be worse. Regiment THADDEN is not fit to be the most insignificant

militia battalion of a Prussian Army; ROTHKIRCH and SCHWARTZ"bad as possible all of them"of

ERLACH, the men are so spoiled by smuggling [sad industry, instead of drilling], they have no resemblance

to Soldiers; KELLER is like a heap of undrilled boors; HAGER has a miserable Commander; and your own

Regiment is very mediocre. Only with Graf von Anhalt [in spite of his head], with WENDESSEN and

MARGRAF HEINRICH, could I be content. See you, that is the state I found the Regiments in, one after one.

I will now speak of their Manoeuvring [in our Mimic Battles on the late occasion]:

"Schwartz; at Neisse, made the unpardonable mistake of not sufficiently besetting the Height on the Left

Wing; had it been serious, the Battle had been lost. At Breslau, Erlach [who is a MajorGeneral, forsooth!],

instead of covering the Army by seizing the Heights, marched off with his Division straight as a row of

cabbages into that Defile; whereby, had it been earnest, the enemy's Cavalry would have cut down our

"It is not my purpose to lose Battles by the base conduct (LACHETE) of my Generals: wherefore I hereby

appoint, That you, next year, if I be alive, assemble the Army between Breslau and Ohlau; and for four days

before I arrive in your Camp, carefully manoeuvre with the ignorant Generals, and teach them what their duty

is. Regiment VON ARNIM and GarrisonRegiment VON KANITZ are to act the Enemy: and whoever does

not then fulfil his duty shall go to Court Martial,for I should think it shame of any Country (JEDEN

PUISSANCE) to keep such people, who trouble themselves so little about their business. Erlach sits four

weeks longer in arrest [to have six weeks of it in full]. And you have to make known this my present

What a peppering is the excellent old Tauentzien getting! Here is a case for Kaltenborn, and the sympathies

of Opposition people. But, alas, this King knows that Armies are not to be kept at the working point on

cheaper terms,though some have tried it, by grog, by sweetmeats, sweetspeeches, and found it in the end

come horribly dearer! One thing is certain: the Silesian Reviews, next Year, if this King be alive, will be a

terrible matter; and Military Gentlemen had better look to themselves in time! Kaltenborn's sympathy will

help little; nothing but knowing one's duty, and visibly and indisputably doing it, will the least avail.

Just in the days when Bouille left him for France, Friedrich ("October, 1784") had conceived the notion of

some general Confederation, or Combination in the Reich, to resist, the continual Encroachments of Austria;

which of late are becoming more rampant than ever. Thus, in the last year, especially within the last six

months, a poor Bishop of Passau, quasiBavarian, or in theory Sovereign Bishop of the Reich, is getting

himself pulled to pieces (Diocese torn asunder, and masses of it forcibly sewed on to their new "Bishopric of

Vienna"), in the most tragic manner, in spite of express Treaties, and of all the outcries the poor man and the

Holy Father himself can make against it. [Dohm (DENKWURDIGKEITEN, iii. 46,GESCHICHTE DER

LETZTEN PERIODE FRIEDRICHS DES ZWEITEN) gives ample particulars. Dohm's first 3 volumes call

themselves "History of Friedrich's last Period, 17781786;" and are full of Bavarian War, 3d vol. mostly of

FURSTENBUND;all in a candid, authentic, but watery and rather wearisome way.] To this of Passau, and

to the much of PANISBRIEFE and the like which had preceded, Friedrich, though studiously saying almost

nothing, had been paying the utmost of attention: part of Prince Henri's errand to France is thought to have

been, to take soundings on those matters (on which France proves altogether willing, if able); and now, in the

general emotion about Passau, Friedrich jots down in a Note to Hertzberg the above idea; with order to put it

into form a little, and consult about it in the Reich with parties interested. Hertzberg took the thing up with

zeal; instructed the Prussian Envoys to inquire, cautiously, everywhere; fancied he did find willingness in the

Courts of the Reich, in Hanover especially: in a word, got his various irons into the fire;and had not

proceeded far, when there rose another case of Austrian Encroachment, which eclipsed all the preceding; and

speedily brought Hertzberg's irons to the weldingpoint. Too brief we cannot be in this matter; here are the

NEWYEAR'S DAY, 1785, on or about that day, Romanzow, Son of our old Colberg and AntiTurk friend,

who is Russian "Minister in the OberRheinish Circle," appears at the little Court of Zweibruck, with a most

"Important bargain agreed upon between your Kaiser and his Highness of the Pfalz and Baiern; am

commanded by my Sovereign Lady, on behalf of her friend the Kaiser, to make it known to you. Baiern all

and whole made over to Austria; in return for which the now KurBaiern gets the Austrian Netherlands

(Citadels of Limburg and Luxemburg alone excepted); and is a King henceforth, 'King of Burgundy' to be the

Title, he and his fortunate Successors for all time coming. To your fortunate self, in acknowledgment of your

immediate consent, Austria offers the freegift of 100,000 pounds, and to your Brother Max of 50,000

pounds; KurBaiern, for his loyal conduct, is to have 150,000 pounds; and to all of you, if handsome, Austria

will be handsome generally. For the rest, the thing is already settled; and your refusal will not hinder it from

going forward. I request to know, within eight days, what your Highness's determination is!"

His poor Highness, thunderstruck as may be imagined, asks: "But but What would your Excellency

advise me?" "Have n't the least advice," answers his Excellency: "will wait at FrankfurtonMayn, for eight

days, what your Highness's resolution is; hoping it may be a wise one;and have the honor at present to say

Goodmorning." Sudden, like a thunderbolt in winter, the whole phenomenon. This, or JANUARY 3d,

when Friedrich, by Express from Zweibruck, first heard of this, may be considered as birthday of a

Zweibruck naturally shot off expresses: to Petersburg (no answer ever); to Berlin (with answer on the

instant);and in less than eight days, poor Zweibruck, such the intelligence from Berlin, was in a condition

to write to Frankfurt: "Excellency; No; I do not consent, nor ever will." For King Friedrich is broadawake

again; and Hertzberg's smithyfires, we may conceive how the winds rose upon these, and brought matters

The Czarina,on Friedrich's urgent remonstrance, "What is this, great Madam? To your old Ally, and from

the Guaranty and Author of the Peace of Teschen!"had speedily answered: "Far from my thoughts to

violate the Peace of Teschen; very far: I fancied this was an advantageous exchange, advantageous to

Zweibruck especially; but since Zweibruck thinks otherwise, of course there is an end." "Of

course;"though my Romanzow did talk differently; and the forgefires of a certain person are getting

blown at a mighty rate! Hertzberg's operation was conducted at first with the greatest secrecy; but his Envoys

were busy in all likely places, his Proposal finding singular consideration; acceptance, here, there, "A very

mild and safelooking Project, most mild in tone surely!" and it soon came to Kaunitz's ear; most

Thrice over, in the months ensuing (April 13th, May 11th, June 23d), in the shape of a "Circular to all

Austrian Ambassadors", [Dohm, iii. 64, 68.] Kaunitz lifted up his voice in severe dehortation, the tone of him

waxing more and more indignant, and at last snuffling almost tremulous quite into alt, "against the calumnies

and malices of some persons, misinterpreters of a most just Kaiser and his actions." But as the Czarina,

meanwhile, declared to the Reich at large, that she held, and would ever hold, the Peace of Teschen a thing

sacred, and this or any Kingdom of Burgundy, or change of the Reichs Laws, impossible,the Kaunitz

clangors availed nothing; and Furstenbund privately, but at a mighty pace, went forward. And, JUNE 29th,

1785, after much labor, secret but effective, on the part of Dohm and others, Three Plenipotentiaries, the

Prussian, the Saxon, the Hanoverian ("excellent method to have only the principal Three!" ) met, still very

privately, at Berlin; and laboring their best, had, in about four weeks, a Furstenbund Covenant complete;

signed, JULY 23d, by these Three,to whom all others that approved append themselves. As an effective

respectable number, Brunswick, Hessen, Mainz and others, did, [List of them in Dohm.]had not, indeed,

the first Three themselves, especially as Hanover meant England withal, been themselves moderately

sufficient.Here, before the date quite pass, are two Clippings which may be worth their room:

1. BOUILLE'S SECOND VISIT (Spring, 1785). May 10th, 1785,just while FURSTENBUND, so

privately, was in the birththroes,"Marquis de Bouille had again come to Berlin, to place his eldest Son in

the ACADEMIE DES GENTILSHOMMES; where the young man stayed two years. Was at Potsdam" May

13th16th; [Rodenbeck, iii. 325.] "well received; dined at SansSouci. Informed the King of the Duc de

Choiseul's death [Paris, May 8th). King, shaking his head, 'IL N'Y A PAS GRAND MAL.' Seems piqued at

the Queen of France, who had not shown much attention to Prince Henri. Spoke of Peter the Great, 'whose

many high qualities were darkened by singular cruelty.' When at Berlin, going on foot, as his custom was,

unattended, to call on King Friedrich Wilhelm, the people in the streets crowded much about him. 'Brother,'

said he to the King, 'your subjects are deficient in respect; order one or two of them to be hanged; it will

restrain the others!' During the same visit, one day, at Charlottenburg; the Czar, after dinner, stepped out on a

balcony which looked into the Gardens. Seeing many people assembled below, he gnashed his teeth

(GRINCA DES DENTS), and began giving signs of frenzy. Shifty little Catharine, who was with him,

requested that a certain person down among the crowd, who had a yellow wig, should be at once put away, or

something bad would happen. This done, the Czar became quiet again. The Czarina added, he was subject to

such attacks of frenzy; and that, when she saw it, she would scratch his head, which moderated him. 'VOILA

"Bouille spent a fortnight at Reinsberg, with Prince Henri; who represents his Brother as impatient, restless,

envious, suspicious, even timid; of an illregulated imagination",nothing like so wise as some of us! "Is

too apprehensive of war; which may very likely bring it on. On the least alarm, he assembles troops at the

frontier; Joseph does the like; and so"A notably splenetic little Henri; head of an Opposition Party which

has had to hold its tongue. Cherishes in the silent depths of him an almost ghastly indignation against his

Brother on some points. "Bouille returned to Paris June, 1785." [ESSAI SUR LA VIE DE BOUILLE (ubi

2. COMTE DE SEGUR (on the road to Petersburg as French Minister) HAS SEEN FRIEDRICH: January

29th, 1785. Segur says: "With lively curiosity I gazed at this man; there as he stood, great in genius, small in

stature; stooping, and as it were bent down under the weight of his laurels and of his long toils. His blue coat,

old and worn like his body; his long boots coming up above the knee; his waistcoat covered with snuff,

formed an odd but imposing whole. By the fire of his eyes, you recognized that in essentials he had not

grown old. Though bearing himself like an invalid, you felt that he could strike like a young soldier; in his

"If used at all to intercourse with the great world, and possessed of any elevation of mind, you have no

embarrassment in speaking to a King; but to a Great Man you present yourself not without fear. Friedrich, in

his private sphere, was of sufficiently unequal humor; wayward, wilful; open to prejudices; indulged in

mockery, often enough epigrammatic upon the French;agreeable in a high degree to strangers whom he

pleased to favor; but bitterly piquant for those he was prepossessed against, or who, without knowing it, had

illchosen the hour of approaching him. To me, luck was kind in all these points;" my Interview delightful,

but not to be reported farther. [ "Memoires par M. le Comte de Segur (Paris, 1826), ii. 133, 120:" cited in

Except Mirabeau, about a year after this, Segur is the last distinguished French visitor. French

Correspondence the King has now little or none. October gone a year, his D'Alembert, the last intellectual

Frenchman he had a real esteem for, died. Paris and France seem to be sinking into strange depths; less and

less worth hearing of. Now and then a straggling Note from Condorcet, Grimm or the like, are all he gets

That of the Furstenbund put a final check on Joseph's notions of making the Reich a reality; his reforms and

ambitions had thenceforth to take other directions, and leave the poor old Reich at peace. A mighty reformer

he had been, the greatest of his day. Broke violently in upon quiescent Austrian routine, on every side:

monkeries, schoolpedantries, trademonopolies, serfages,all things, military and civil, spiritual and

temporal, he had resolved to make perfect in a minimum of time. Austria gazed on him, its admiration not

unmixed with terror. He rushed incessantly about; hardy as a Charles Twelfth; slept on his bearskin on the

floor of any inn or hut;flew at the throat of every Absurdity, however broadbased or dangerously armed,

"Disappear, I say!" Will hurl you an Official of Rank, where need is, into the Pillory; sets him, in one actual

instance, to permanent sweeping of the streets in Vienna. A most prompt, severe, and yet beneficent and

charitable kind of man. Immensely ambitious, that must be said withal. A great admirer of Friedrich; bent to

imitate him with profit. "Very clever indeed," says Friedrich; "but has the fault [a terribly grave one!] of

A troublesome neighbor he proved to everybody, not by his reforms alone;and ended, pretty much as here

in the FURSTENBUND, by having, in all matters, to give in and desist. In none of his foreign Ambitions

could he succeed; in none of his domestic Reforms. In regard to these latter, somebody remarks: "No

Austrian man or thing articulately contradicted his fine efforts that way; but, inarticulately, the whole weight

of Austrian VIS INERTIAE bore day and night against him;whereby, as we now see, he bearing the other

way with the force of a steamram, a hundred tons to the square inch, the one result was, To dislocate every

joint in the Austrian Edifice, and have it ready for the Napoleonic Earthquakes that ensued." In regard to

ambitions abroad it was no better. The Dutch fired upon his Scheld Frigate: "War, if you will, you most

aggressive Kaiser; but this Toll is ours!" His Netherlands revolted against him, "Can holy religion, and old

useandwont be tumbled about at this rate?" His Grand Russian Copartneries and Turk War went to water

and disaster. His reforms, one and all, had to be revoked for the present. Poor Joseph, brokenhearted (for his

private griefs were many, too), lay down to die. "You may put for epitaph," said he with a tone which is

tragical and pathetic to us, "Here lies Joseph," the grandly attempting Joseph, "who could succeed in

nothing." [Died, at Vienna, 20th February, 1790, still under fifty;born there 13th March, 1741. Hormayr,

OEsterreichischer Plutarch, iv. (2tes) 125223 (and five or six recent LIVES of Joseph, none of which, that I

have seen, was worth reading, in comparison).] A man of very high qualities, and much too conscious of

them. A man of an ambition without bounds. One of those fatal men, fatal to themselves first of all, who

mistake halfgenius for whole; and rush on the second step without having made the first. Cannot trouble the

To the present class of readers, Furstenbund is become a Nothing; to all of us the grand Something now is,

strangely enough, that incidental item which directly followed, of Reviewing the Silesian soldieries, who had

so angered his Majesty last year. "If I be alive next year!" said the King to Tauentzien. The King kept his

promise; and the Fates had appointed that, in doing so, he was to find his But let us not yet pronounce the

AUGUST 16th, 1785, some three weeks after finishing the Furstenbund, Friedrich set out for Silesia: towards

Strehlen long known to him and us all;at GrossTinz, a Village in that neighborhood, the Camp and

Review are to be. He goes by Crossen, Glogau; in a circling direction: Glogau, Schweidnitz, Silberberg,

Glatz, all his Fortresses are to be inspected as well, and there is much miscellaneous business by the road. At

Hirschberg, not on the military side, we have sight of him; the account of which is strange to read:

"THURSDAY, AUGUST 18th," says a private Letter from that little Town, [Given IN EXTENSO,

Rodenbeck, iii. 331333.] "he passed through here: concourse of many thousands, from all the Country

about, had been waiting for him several hours. Outriders came at last; then he himself, the Unique; and, with

the liveliest expression of reverence and love, all eyes were directed on one point. I cannot describe to you

my feelings, which of course were those of everybody, to see him, the aged King; in his weak hand the hat; in

those grand eyes such a fatherly benignity of look over the vast crowd that encircled his Carriage, and rolled

tidelike, accompanying it. Looking round when he was past, I saw in various eyes a tear trembling. ["Alas,

"His affability, his kindliness, to whoever had the honor of speech with this great King, who shall describe it!

After talking a good while with the MerchantsDeputation from the Hill Country, he said, 'Is there anything

more, then, from anybody?' Upon which, the President (KAUFMANNSALTESTE," Merchants'Eldest)

"Lachmann, from Greiffenberg," which had been burnt lately, and helped by the King to rebuild itself,

"stepped forward, and said, 'The burntout Inhabitants of Greiffenberg had charged him to express once more

their most submissive gratitude for the gracious help in rebuilding; their word of thanks, truly, was of no

importance, but they daily prayed God to reward such Royal beneficence.' The King was visibly affected, and

said, 'You don't need to thank me; when my subjects fall into misfortune, it is my duty to help them up again;

Saturday 20th, he arrived at Tinz; had a small Cavalry Manoeuvre, next day; and on Monday the Review

Proper began. Lasted four days, 22d25th August, Monday to Thursday, both inclusive. "Headquarter

was in the DORFSCHULZE'S (Village Mayor's) house; and there were many Strangers of distinction

quartered in the Country Mansions round." GrossTinz is about 12 miles straight north from Strehlen, and as

far straight east from the Zobtenberg: GrossTinz, and its Review of August, 1785, ought to be long

How the Review turned out as to proficiency recovered, I have not heard; and only infer, by symptoms, that it

was not unsatisfactory. The sure fact, and the forever memorable, is, That on Wednesday, the third day of it,

from 4 in the morning, when the Manoeuvres began, till well after 10, when they ended, there was a rain like

Noah's; rain falling as from buckets and waterspouts; and that Friedrich (and perhaps most others too), so

intent upon his business, paid not the least regard to it; but rode about, intensely inspecting, in lynxeyed

watchfulness of everything, as if no rain had been there. Was not at the pains even to put on his cloak. Six

hours of such downpour; and a weakly old man of 73 past. Of course he was wetted to the bone. On

returning to head quarters, his boots were found full of water; "when pulled off, it came pouring from them

He got into dry clothes; presided in his usual way at dinner, which soon followed; had many Generals and

guests,Lafayette, Lord Cornwallis, Duke of York;and, as might be expected, felt unusually feverish

afterwards. Hot, chill, quite poorly all afternoon; glad to get to bed:where he fell into deep sleep, into

profuse perspiration, as his wont was; and awoke, next morning, greatly recovered; altogether well again, as

he supposed. Well enough to finish his Review comfortably; and start for home. Wentround by Neisse,

inspection not to be omitted there, though it doubles the distanceto Brieg that day; a drive of 80 miles,

inspectionwork included. Thence, at Breslan for three days more: with dinners of state, balls, illuminations,

in honor of the Duke of York,our as yet last Duke of York, then a brisk young fellow of twentytwo; to

whom, by accident, among his other distinctions, may belong this of having (most involuntarily) helped to

Back to Potsdam, Friedrich pushed on with business; and complained of nothing. Was at Berlin in about ten

days (September 9th), for an Artillery Review; saw his Sister Amelia; saw various public works in a state of

progress,but what perhaps is medically significant, went in the afternoon to a kind of Spa Well they have

at Berlin; and slept, not at the Palace, but at this Spa, in the hostelry or lodginghouse attached. [Rodenbeck,

IN DIE.] Next day (September 10th), the Artillery Manoeuvre was done; and the King left Berlin, little

The truth is, his health, unknown to him (though that of taking a Night at the Spa Well probably denotes

some guess or feeling of the kind on his part), must have been in a dangerous or almost ruinous state.

Accordingly, soon afterwards, September 18th19th, in the nighttime, he was suddenly aroused by a Fit of

Suffocation (what they call STICKFLUSS); and, for some hours, till relief was got, everybody feared he

would perish. Next day, there came gout; which perhaps he regarded almost as a friend: but it did not prove

such; it proved the captain of a chaotic company of enemies; and Friedrich's end, I suppose, was already

inexorably near. At the Grand Potsdam Review [22d23d September), chief Review of all, and with such an

affluence of Strangers to it this Autumn, he was quite unable to appear; prescribed the Manoeuvres and

Procedures, and sorrowfully kept his room. [This of 23d September, 1785, is what PrintCollectors know

loosely as "FRIEDRICH'S LAST REVIEW;"one Cunningham, an English Painter (son of a Jacobite ditto,

and himself of wandering habitat), and Clemens, a Prussian Engraver, having done a very large and highly

superior Print of it, by way of speculation in Military Portraits (Berlin, 1787); in which, among many others,

there figures the crediblest Likeness known to me of FRIEDRICH IN OLD AGE, though Friedrich himself

was not there. (See PREUSS, iv. 242; especially see RODENBECK, iii. 337 n.)As CrownPrince,

Friedrich was always something of a Doctor himself: he had little faith in professional Doctors, though he

liked to speak with the intelligent sort, and was curious about their science, And it is agreed he really had

good notions in regard to it; in particular, that he very well understood his own constitution of body; knew the

effects of causes there, at any rate, and the fit regimens and methods:as an old man of sense will usually

do. The complaint is, that he was not always faithful to regimen; that, in his old days at least, he loved strong

soups, hot spicy meats;finding, I suppose, a kind of stimulant in them, as others do in wine; a sudden

renewal of strength, which might be very tempting to him. There has been a great deal of unwise babble on

this subject, which I find no reason to believe, except as just said: In the fall of this year, as usual, perhaps

rather later than usual,not till November 8th (for what reason so delaying, Marwitz told us already),he

withdrew from SansSouci, his SummerCottage; shut himself up in Potsdam Palace (Old Palace) for the

winter. It was known he was very ailing; and that he never stirred out, but this was not quite unusual in late

winters; and the rumors about his health were vague and various. Now, as always, he himself, except to his

Doctors, was silent on that subject. Various military Doctors, Theden, Frese and others of eminence, were

Not till January, 1786, when symptoms worse than ever, of asthma, of dropsy, began to manifest themselves,

did he call in Selle, the chief Berlin Doctor, and a man of real sagacity, as is still evident; who from the first

concluded the disease to be desperate; but of course began some alleviatory treatment, the skilfulest possible

to him. [Christian Gottlieb Selle, KRANKHEITSGESCHICHTE DES HOCHSTSEELIGEN KONIGS VAN

PREUSSEN FRIEDRICHS DES ZWEYTEN MAJESTAT (Berlin, 1786); a very small Pamphlet, now very

rare; giving in the most distinct, intelligent, modest and conclusive way, an account of everything

pertinent, and rigorously of nothing else.] Selle, when questioned, kept his worst fears carefully to himself:

but the King noticed Selle's real opinion,which, probably, was the King's own too;and finding little

actual alleviation, a good deal of trouble, and no possibility of a victorious result by this warfare on the

outworks, began to be weary of Selle; and to turn his hopeswhat hopes he yet hadon the fine weather

soon due. He had a continual short small cough, which much troubled him; there was fear of new

But Spring came, unusually mild; the King sat on the southern balconies in the genial sun and air, looking

over the bright sky and earth, and new birth of things: "Were I at SansSouci, amid the Gardens!" thought he.

APRIL 17th, he shifted thither: not in a sedan, as Marwitz told us of the former journey; but "in his carriage,

very early in the morning, making a long roundabout through various Villages, with new relays,"probably

1. MIRABEAU AT SANSSOUCI. "This same day," April 17th, it appears, [Preuss: in OEuvres de

Frederic, xxv. 328 n.] "the King saw Mirabeau, for the second and last time. Mirabeau had come to Berlin

19th January last; his errand not very precise, except that he infinitely wanted employment, and that at

Paris the ControllerGeneral Calonne, since so famous among mankind, had evidently none to offer him

there. He seems to have intended Russia, and employment with the Czarina,after viewing Berlin a little,

with the great flashy eyesight he had. He first saw Friedrich January 25th. There pass in all, between

Friedrich and him, seven Letters or Notes, two of them by the King; and on poor Mirabeau's side, it must be

owned, there is a massively respectful, truthful and manly physiognomy, which probably has mended

Friedrich's first opinion of him. [... "Is coming to me today; one of those loosetongued fellows, I suppose,

who write for and against all the world." (Friedrich to Prince Henri, "25 January, 1786:" OEuvres de

Frederic, xxvi. 522.)] This day, April 17th, 1786, he is at Potsdam; so far on the road to France

again,Mirabeau Senior being reported dangerously ill. 'My Dialogue with the King,' say the Mirabeau

Papers, 'was very lively; but the King was in such suffering, and so straitened for breath, I was myself

"Mirabeau Senior did not die at this time: and ControllerGeneral Calonne, now again eager to shake off an

importunate and far too clearsighted Mirabeau Junior, said to the latter: 'Back to Berlin, could n't you? Their

King is dying, a new King coming; highly important to us!'and poor Mirabeau went. Left Paris again, in

May; with money furnished, but, no other outfit, and more in the character of Newspaper Vulture than of

Diplomatic Envoy," [Rodenbeck, iii. 343. Fils Adoptif, Memoires de Mirabeau (Paris, 1834), iv. 288292,

MARCH 20th, 1786. ... "There has been arrested at Geneva one Villette, who played a great part in that

abominable Affair [of the Diamond Necklace, now emerging on an astonished Queen and world]. [Carlyle's

Miscellanies (Library Edition), v. 396, ? DIAMOND NECKLACE. The wretched Cardinal de Rohan was

arrested at Versailles, and put in the Bastille, "August 15th, 1785," the day before Friedrich set out for his

Silesian Review; ever since which, the arrestments and judicial investigations have continued,continue till

"May 10th, 1786," when Sentence was given.] M. Target", Advocate of the enchanted Cardinal, "is coming

out with his MEMOIR: he does his function; and God knows what are the lies he will produce upon us. There

is a MEMOIR by that Quack of a Cagliostro, too: these are at this moment the theme of all talk."

APRIL 6th. "The MEMOIRS, the lies, succeed each other; and the Business grows darker, not clearer. Such a

Cardinal of the Church! He brazenly maintains his distracted story about the Bosquet [Interview with me in

person, in that Hornbeam Arbor at Versailles; to me inconceivable, not yet knowing of a Demoiselle d'0liva

from the streets, who had acted my part there], and my Assent [to purchase the Necklace for me]. His

impudence and his audacity surpass belief. O Sister, I need all my strength to support such cruel assaults. ...

The King of Prussia's condition much engages attention (PREOCCUPE) here, and must do at Vienna too: his

death is considered imminent. I am sure you have your eyes open on that side." ...

APRIL 17th (just while the Mirabeau Interview at Potsdam is going on). ... "King of Prussia thought to be

dying: I am weary of the political discussions on this subject, as to what effects his death must produce. He is

better at this moment; but so weak he cannot resist long. Physique is gone; but his force and energy of soul,

they say, have often supported him, and in desperate crises have even seemed to increase. Liking to him I

never had: his ostentatious immorality (IMMORALITE AFFICHEE," ah, Madame!) "has much hurt public

virtue [public orthodoxy, I mean], and there have been related to me [by mendacious or illinformed persons]

barbarities which excite horror. He has done us all a great deal of ill. He has been a King for his own

Country; but a Troublefeast for those about him;setting up to be the arbiter of Europe; always

undertaking on his neighbors, and making them pay the expense. As Daughters of Maria Theresa, it is

impossible we can regret him, nor is it the Court of France that will make his funeral oration." [Comte de

Hunolstein, Correspondance inedite de Marie Antoinette (Paris, 1864), pp. 136, 137, 149.Hunolstein's

From SansSouci the King did appear again on horseback; rode out several times ("Conde," a fine English

horse, one of his favorites, carrying him,the Conde who had many years of sinecure afterwards, and was

well known to Touring people): the rides were short; once to the New Palace to look at some new Vinery

there, thence to the Gate of Potsdam, which he was for entering; but finding masons at work, and the street

encumbered, did not, and rode home instead: this, of not above two miles, was his longest ride of all. Selle's

attendance, less and less in esteem with the King, and less and less followed by him, did not quite cease till

June 4th; that day the King had said to Selle, or to himself, "It is enough." That longest of his rides was in the

third week after; June 22d, MidsummerDay. July 4th, he rode again; and it was for the last time. About two

weeks after, Conde was again brought out; but it would not do: Adieu, my Conde; not possible, as things

During all this while, and to the very end, Friedrich's Affairs, great and small, were, in every branch and item,

guided on by him, with a perfection not surpassed in his palmiest days: he saw his Ministers, saw all who had

business with him, many who had little; and in the sore coil of bodily miseries, as Hertzberg observed with

wonder, never was the King's intellect clearer, or his judgment more just and decisive. Of his disease, except

to the Doctors, he spoke no word to anybody. The body of Friedrich is a ruin, but his soul is still here; and

receives his friends and his tasks as formerly. Asthma, dropsy, erysipelas, continual want of sleep; for many

months past he has not been in bed, but sits day and night in an easychair, unable to get breath except in that

posture. He said one morning, to somebody entering, "If you happened to want a nightwatcher, I could suit

His multifarious Military businesses come first; then his three Clerks, with the Civil and Political. These three

he latterly, instead of calling about 6 or 7 o'clock, has had to appoint for 4 each morning: "My situation forces

me," his message said, "to give them this trouble, which they will not have to suffer long. My life is on the

decline; the time which I still have I must employ. It belongs not to me, but to the State." [Preuss, iv. 257 n.]

About 11, business, followed by short surgical details or dressings (sadly insisted on in those Books, and in

themselves sufficiently sad), being all done,his friends or daily company are admitted: five chiefly, or

(NOT counting Minister Hertzberg) four, Lucchesini, Schwerin, Pinto, Gortz; who sit with him about one

hour now, and two hours in the evening again:dreary company to our minds, perhaps not quite so dreary to

the King's; but they are all he has left. And he talks cheerfully with them "on Literature, History, on the topics

of the day, or whatever topic rises, as if there were no sickness here." A man adjusted to his hard

He well knew himself to be dying; but some think, expected that the end might be a little farther off. There is

a grand simplicity of stoicism in him; coming as if by nature, or by long SECONDnature; finely

unconscious of itself, and finding nothing of peculiar in this new trial laid on it. From of old, Life has been

infinitely contemptible to him. In death, I think, he has neither fear nor hope. Atheism, truly, he never could

abide: to him, as to all of us, it was flatly inconceivable that intellect, moral emotion, could have been put

into HIM by an Entity that had none of its own. But there, pretty much, his Theism seems to have stopped.

Instinctively, too, he believed, no man more firmly, that Right alone has ultimately any strength in this world:

ultimately, yes; but for him and his poor brief interests, what good was it? Hope for himself in Divine

Justice, in Divine Providence, I think he had not practically any; that the unfathomable Demiurgus should

concern himself with such a set of paltry illgiven animalcules as oneself and mankind are, this also, as we

A sad Creed, this of the King's;he had to do his duty without fee or reward. Yes, reader;and what is well

worth your attention, you will have difficulty to find, in the annals of any Creed, a King or man who stood

more faithfully to his duty; and, till the last hour, alone concerned himself with doing that. To poor Friedrich

that was all the Law and all the Prophets: and I much recommend you to surpass him, if you, by good luck,

have a better Copy of those inestimable Documents!Inarticulate notions, fancies, transient aspirations, he

might have, in the background of his mind. One day, sitting for a while out of doors, gazing into the Sun, he

was heard to murmur, "Perhaps I shall be nearer thee soon:"and indeed nobody knows what his thoughts

were in these final months. There is traceable only a complete superiority to Fear and Hope; in parts, too, are

halfglimpses of a great motionless interior lake of Sorrow, sadder than any tears or complainings, which are

Friedrich's dismissal of Selle, June 4th, by no means meant that he had given up hope from medicine; on

the contrary, two days after, he had a Letter on the road for Zimmermann at Hanover; whom he always

remembers favorably since that DIALOGUE we read fifteen years ago. His first Note to Zimmermann is of

June 6th, "Would you consent to come for a fortnight, and try upon me?" Zimmermann's overjoyed Answer,

"Yes, thrice surely yes," is of June 10th; Friedrich's second is of June 16th, "Come, then!" And Zimmermann

came accordingly,as is still too well known. Arrived 23d June; stayed till 10th July; had Thirtythree

Interviews or DIALOGUES with him; one visit the last day; two, morning and evening, every preceding

day;and published a Book about them, which made immense noise in the world, and is still read, with little

profit or none, by inquirers into Friedrich. [Ritter von Zimmermann, Uber Friedrich den Grossen und meine

Unterredungen mit Ihm kurz von seinem Tode (1 vol. 8vo: Leipzig, 1788);followed by Fragmente uber

Friedrich den Grossen (3 vols. 12mo: Leipzig, 1790); and by Thirtythree Dialogues, throwing no new light

In fact, the Book turns rather on Zimmermann himself than on his Royal Patient; and might be entitled, as it

was by a Satirist, DIALOGUES OF ZIMMERMANN I. AND FRIEDRICH II. An unwise Book; abounding

in exaggeration; breaking out continually into extraneous sallies and extravagancies,the source of which is

too plainly an immense conceit of oneself. Zimmermann is fifteen years older since we last saw him; a man

now verging towards sixty; but has not grown wiser in proportion. In Hanover, though miraculously healed of

that LEIBESSCHADE, and full of high hopes, he has had his new tribulations, new compensations,both of

an agitating character. "There arose," he says, in reference to some medical Reviewarticle he wrote, "a

WEIBEREPIDEMIK, a universal shrieking combination of all the Women against me:"a frightful

accident while it lasted! Then his little Daughter died on his hands; his Son had disorders, nervous

imbecilities,did not die, but did worse; went into hopeless idiotcy, and so lived for many years.

Zimmermann, being dreadfully miserable, hypochondriac, what not, "his friends," he himself passive, it

would seem, "managed to get a young Wife for him;" thirty years younger than he,whose performances,

Lastly, not many months ago (Leipzig, 1785), the big FINAL edition of "SOLITUDE" (four volumes) has

come out; to the joy and enthusiasm of all philanthropicphilosophic and other circulating library

creatures:a Copy of which came, by course of nature, not by Zimmermann's help, into the hands of

Catharine of Russia. Sublime imperial Letter thereupon, with 'valuable diamond ring;' invitation to come to

Petersburg, with charges borne (declined, on account of health); to be imperial Physician (likewise

declined); in fine, continued Correspondence with Catharine (trying enough for a vain head), and

Knighthood of the Order of St. Wladimir,so that, at least, Doctor Zimmermann is RITTER Zimmermann

henceforth. And now, here has come his new Visit to Friedrich the Great; which, with the issues it had,

and the tempestuous cloud of tumid speculations and chaotic writings it involved him in, quite upset the poor

Ritter Doctor; so that, hypochondrias deepening to the abysmal, his fine intellect sank altogether,and only

Death, which happily followed soon, could disimprison him. At this moment, there is in Zimmermann a

worse "Dropsy" of the spiritual kind, than this of the physical, which he has come in relief of!

Excerpts of those Zimmermann DIALOGUES lie copiously round me, ready long ago,nay, I understand

there is, or was, an English TRANSLATION of the whole of them, better or worse, for behoof of the

curious:but on serious consideration now, I have to decide, That they are but as a Scene of clowns in the

Elder Dramatists; which, even were it NOT overdone as it is, cannot be admitted in this place, and is plainly

impertinent in the Tragedy that is being acted here. Something of Farce will often enough, in this irreverent

world, intrude itself on the most solemn Tragedy; but, in pity even to the Farce, there ought at least to be

Enough for us to say, That Ritter Zimmermannwho is a Physician and a Man of Literary Genius, and

should not have become a Tragic Zanydid, with unspeakable emotions, terrors, prayers to Heaven, and

paroxysms of his own ridiculous kind, prescribe "Syrup of Dandelion" to the King; talked to him soothingly,

musically, successfully; found the King a most pleasant Talker, but a very wilful perverse kind of Patient;

whose errors in point of diet especially were enormous to a degree. Truth is, the King's appetite for food did

still survive:and this might have been, you would think, the one hopeful basis of Zimmermann's whole

treatment, if there were still any hope: but no; Zimmermann merely, with uncommon emphasis, lyrically

recognizes such amazing appetite in an old man overwhelmed by diseases,trumpets it abroad, for ignorant

persons to regard as a crime, or perhaps as a type generally of the man's past life, and makes no other attempt

upon it;stands by his "Extract of Dandelion boiled to the consistency of honey;" and on the seventeenth

day, July 10th, voiceless from emotion, heart just breaking, takes himself away, and ceases. One of our Notes

"Zimmermann went by Dessau and Brunswick; at Brunswick, if he made speed thither, Zimmermann might

perhaps find Mirabeau, who is still there, and just leaving for Berlin to be in at the death:but if the Doctor

and he missed each other, it was luckier, as they had their controversies afterwards. Mirabeau arrived at

Berlin, July 21st: [Mirabeau, HISTOIRE SECRETE DE LA COUR DE BERLIN, tome iii. of OEuvres de

Mirabeau: Paris, 1821, LETTRE v. p. 37.] vastly diligent in picking up news, opinions, judgments of men

and events, for his Calonne;and amazingly accurate, one finds; such a flash of insight has he, in whatever

"JULY 9th, the day before Zimmerman's departure, Hertzberg had come out to Potsdam in permanence.

Hertzberg is privately thenceforth in communication with the Successor; altogether privately, though no

doubt Friedrich knew it well enough, and saw it to be right. Of course, all manner of poor creatures are

diligent about their own bits of interests; and saying to themselves, 'A New Reign is evidently nigh!' Yes, my

friends;and a precious Reign it will prove in comparison: sensualities, unctuous religiosities, ostentations,

Zimmermann haggles to tell us what his report was at Brunswick; says, he "set the Duke [ERBPRINZ, who is

now Duke these six years past] sobbing and weeping;" though towards the Widow Duchess there must have

been some hope held out, as we shall now see. The Duchess's Letter or Letters to her Brother are lost; but this

"MY ADORABLE SISTER,The Hanover Doctor has wished to make himself important with you, my good

Sister; but the truth is, he has been of no use to me (M'A ETE INUTILE). The old must give place to the

young, that each generation may find room clear for it: and Life, if we examine strictly what its course is,

consists in seeing one's fellowcreatures die and be born. In the mean while, I have felt myself a little easier

for the last day or two. My heart remains inviolably attached to you, my good Sister. With the highest

consideration, My adorable Sister,Your faithful Brother and Servant, "FRIEDRICH." [ OEuvres de

This is Friedrich's last Letter;his last to a friend. There is one to his Queen, which Preuss's Index seems to

regard as later, though without apparent likelihood; there being no date whatever, and only these words:

"Madam,I am much obliged by the wishes you deign to form: but a heavy fever I have taken (GROSSE

On common current matters of business, and even on uncommon, there continue yet for four days to be

Letters expressly dictated by Friedrich; some about military matters (vacancies to be filled, new FreeCorps

to be levied). Two or three of them are on so small a subject as the purchase of new Books by his Librarians

at Berlin. One, and it has been preceded by examining, is, Order to the Potsdam Magistrates to grant "the

Baker Schroder, in terms of his petition, a FreePass out of Preussen hither, for 100 bushels of rye and 50 of

wheat, though Schroder will not find the prices much cheaper there than here." His last, of August 14th, is to

De Launay, Head of the Excise: "Your Account of Receipts and Expenditures came to hand yesterday, 13th;

but is too much in small: I require one more detailed,"and explains, with brief clearness, on what points

TUESDAY, AUGUST 15th, 1786, Contrary to all wont, the King did not awaken till 11 o'clock. On first

looking up, he seemed in a confused state, but soon recovered himself; called in his Generals and Secretaries,

who had been in waiting so long, and gave, with his old precision, the Orders wanted,one to Rohdich,

Commandant of Potsdam, about a Review of the troops there next day; Order minutely perfect, in knowledge

of the ground, in foresight of what and how the evolutions were to be; which was accordingly performed on

the morrow. The Cabinet work he went through with the like possession of himself, giving, on every point,

his Three Clerks their directions, in a weak voice, yet with the old power of spirit,dictated to one of them,

among other things, an "Instruction" for some Ambassador just leaving; "four quarto pages, which," says

Hertzberg, "would have done honor to the most experienced Minister;" and, in the evening, he signed his

Missives as usual. This evening still,butno evening more. We are now at the last scene of all, which

Wednesday morning, GeneralAdjutants, Secretaries, Commandant, were there at their old hours; but word

came out, "Secretaries are to wait:" King is in a kind of sleep, of stertorous ominous character, as if it were

the deathsleep; seems not to recollect himself, when he does at intervals open his eyes. After hours of this,

FRIEDRICHS DES ZWEYTEN, (Potsdam, 1786); Preuss, iv. 264 et seq.; Rodenbeck, iii. 363366.] on a ray

of consciousness, the King bethought him of Rohdich, the Commandant; tried to give Rohdich the Parole as

usual; tried twice, perhaps three times; but found he could not speak;and with a glance of sorrow, which

seemed to say, "It is impossible, then!" turned his head, and sank back into the corner of his chair. Rohdich

burst into tears: the King again lay slumberous;the rattle of death beginning soon after, which lasted at

intervals all day. Selle, in Berlin, was sent for by express; he arrived about three of the afternoon: King

seemed a little more conscious, knew those about him, "his face red rather than pale, in his eyes still

something of their old fire." Towards evening the feverishness abated (to Selle, I suppose, a fatal symptom);

the King fell into a soft sleep, with warm perspiration; but, on awakening, complained of cold, repeatedly of

cold, demanding wrappage after wrappage ("KISSEN," soft QUILT of the old fashion); and on examining

feet and legs, one of the Doctors made signs that they were in fact cold, up nearly to the knee. "What said he

of the feet?" murmured the King some time afterwards, the Doctor having now stepped out of sight. "Much

the same as before," answered some attendant. The King shook his head, incredulous.

He drank once, grasping the goblet with both hands, a draught of fennelwater, his customary drink; and

seemed relieved by it;his last refection in this world. Towards nine in the evening, there had come on a

continual short cough, and a rattling in the breast, breath more and more difficult. Why continue? Friedrich is

making exit, on the common terms; you may HEAR the curtain rustling down. For most part he was

unconscious, never more than half conscious. As the wallclock above his head struck 11, he asked: "What

o'clock?" "Eleven," answered they. "At 4" murmured he, "I will rise." One of his dogs sat on its Stool near

him; about midnight he noticed it shivering for cold: "Throw a quilt over it," said or beckoned he; that, I

think, was his last completely conscious utterance. Afterwards, in a severe choking fit, getting at last rid of

the phlegm, he said, "LA MONTAGNE EST PASSEE, NOUS IRONS MIEUX, We are over the hill, we

Attendants, Hertzberg, Selle and one or two others, were in the outer room; none in Friedrich's but Strutzki,

his Kammerhussar, one of Three who are his sole valets and nurses; a faithful ingenious man, as they all seem

to be, and excellently chosen for the object. Strutzki, to save the King from hustling down, as he always did,

into the corner of his chair, where, with neck and chest bent forward, breathing was impossible,at last took

the King on his knee; kneeling on the ground with his other knee for the purpose, King's right arm round

Strutzki's neck, Strutzki's left arm round the King's back, and supporting his other shoulder; in which posture

the faithful creature, for above two hours, sat motionless, till the end came. Within doors, all is silence,

except this breathing; around it the dark earth silent, above it the silent stars. At 20 minutes past 2, the

breathing paused,wavered; ceased. Friedrich's Lifebattle is fought out; instead of suffering and sore labor,

here is now rest. Thursday morning, 17th August, 1786, at the dark hour just named. On the 31st of May last,

this King had reigned 46 years. "He has lived," counts Rodenbeck, "74 years, 6 months and 24 days."

His death seems very stern and lonely;a man of such affectionate feelings, too; "a man with more

sensibility than other men!" But so had his whole life been, stern and lonely; such the severe law laid on him.

Nor was it inappropriate that he found his death in that poor Silesian Review; punctually doing, as usual, the

work that had come in hand. Nor that he died now, rather than a few years later. In these final days of his, we

have transiently noticed Arch Cardinal de Rohan, ArchQuack Cagliostro, and a most select Company of

Persons and of Actions, like an Elixir of the Nether World, miraculously emerging into daylight; and all

Paris, and by degrees all Europe, getting loud with the DIAMONDNECKLACE History. And to eyes of

deeper speculation,WorldPoet Goethe's, for instance,it is becoming evident that Chaos is again big. As

has not she proved to be, and is still proving, in the most teeming way! Better for a Royal Hero, fallen old

"Yesterday, Wednesday, August 16th," says a Note which now strikes us as curious, "Mirabeau, smelling

eagerly for news, had ridden out towards Potsdam; met the Page riding furiously for Selle ('one horse already

broken down,' say the Peasants about); and with beak, powerful beyond any other vulture's, Mirabeau

perceived that here the end now was. And thereupon rushed off, to make arrangements for a courier, for

flying pigeons, and the other requisites. And appeared that night at the Queen's Soiree in Schonhausen

[Queen has Apartment that evening, dreaming of nothing], 'where,' says he, 'I eagerly whispered the French

Minister,' and less eagerly 'MON AMI Mylord Dalrymple,' the English one;neither of whom would believe

me. Nor, in short, what Calonne will regret, but nobody else, could the pigeons be let loose, owing to want of

Friedrich was not buried at SansSouci, in the Tomb which he had built for himself; why not, nobody clearly

says. By his own express will, there was no embalming. Two Regimentsurgeons washed the Corpse,

decently prepared it for interment: "At 8 that same evening, Friedrich's Body, dressed in the uniform of the

First Battalion of Guards, and laid in its coffin, was borne to Potsdam, in a hearse of eight horses, twelve

Noncommissioned Officers of the Guard escorting. All Potsdam was in the streets; the Soldiers, of their

own accord, formed rank, and followed the hearse; many a rugged face unable to restrain tears: for the rest,

universal silence as of midnight, nothing audible among the people but here and there a sob, and the murmur,

"All next day, the Body lay in state in the Palace; thousands crowding, from Berlin and the other environs, to

see that face for the last time. Wasted, worn; but beautiful in death, with the thin gray hair parted into locks,

and slightly powdered. And at 8 in the evening [Friday, 18th], he was borne to the Garnison Kirche of

Potsdam; and laid beside his Father, in the vault behind the Pulpit there," [Rodenbeck, iii. 365 (Public

Funeral was not till September 9th).] where the two Coffins are still to be seen.

I define him to myself as hitherto the Last of the Kings;when the Next will be, is a very long question! But

it seems to me as if Nations, probably all Nations, by and by, in their despair, blinded, swallowed like

Jonah, in such a whale'sbelly of things brutish, waste, abominable (for is not Anarchy, or the Rule of what is

Baser over what is Nobler, the one life's misery worth complaining of, and, in fact, the abomination of

abominations, springing from and producing all others whatsoever?)as if the Nations universally, and

England too if it hold on, may more and more bethink themselves of such a Man and his Function and

Performance, with feelings far other than are possible at present. Meanwhile, all I had to say of him is

finished: that too, it seems, was a bit of work appointed to be done. Adieu, good readers; bad also, adieu.

This Piece, it would seem, was translated sixteen years ago; some four or five years before any part of the

present HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH got to paper. The intercalated bits of Commentary were, as is evident, all

or mostly written at the same time:these also, though they are now become, in parts, SUPERFLUOUS to a

reader that has been diligent, I have not thought of changing, where not compelled. Here and there, especially

in the Introductory Part, some slight additions have crept in;which the above kind of reader will possibly

enough detect; and may even have, for friendly reasons, some vestige of interest in assigning to their new

"OBERAMTMANN (HeadManager) Fromme" was a sister's son of Poet, Gleim,Gleim Canon of

Halberstadt, who wrote Prussian "grenadier songs" in, or in reference to, the SevenYears War, songs still

printed, but worth little; who begged once, after Friedrich's death, an OLD HAT of his, and took it with him

to Halberstadt (where I hope it still is); who had a "TempleofHonor," or little Gardenhouse so named,

with Portraits of his Friends hung in it; who put Jean Paul VERY SOON there, with a great explosion of

praises; and who, in short, seems to have been a very good effervescent creature, at last rather wealthy too,

and able to effervesce with some comfort;Oberamtmann Fromme, I say, was this Gleim's Nephew; and

stood as a kind of Royal LandBailiff under Frederick the Great, in a tract of country called the

RHYNLUCH (a dreadfully moory country of sands and quagmires, all green and fertile now, some twenty

or thirty miles northwest of Berlin); busy there in 1779, and had been for some years past. He had originally

been an Officer of the Artillery; but obtained his discharge in 1769, and got, before long, into this

employment. A man of excellent disposition and temper; with a solid and heavy stroke of work in him,

whatever he might be set to; and who in this OBERAMTMANNSHIP "became highly esteemed." He died in

1798; and has left sons (now perhaps grandsons or greatgrandsons), who continue estimable in like

One of Fromme's useful gifts, the usefulest of all for us at present, was "his wonderful talent of exact

memory." He could remember to a singular extent; and, we will hope, on this occasion, was unusually

conscientious to do it. For it so happened, in July, 1779 (23d July), Friedrich, just home from his troublesome

Bavarian War, [Had arrived at Berlin May 27th (Rodenbeck, iii. 201).] and again looking into everything

with his own eyes, determined to have a personal view of those Moor Regions of Fromme's; to take a day's

driving through that RHYNLUCH which had cost him so much effort and outlay; and he ordered Fromme

to attend him in the expedition. Which took effect accordingly; Fromme riding swiftly at the left wheel of

Friedrich's carriage, and loudly answering questions of his, all day.Directly on getting home, Fromme

consulted his excellent memory, and wrote down everything; a considerable Paper, of which you shall now

have an exact Translation, if it be worth anything. Fromme gave the Paper to Uncle Gleim; who, in his

enthusiasm, showed it extensively about, and so soon as there was liberty, had it "printed, at his own expense,

for the benefit of poor soldiers' children." ["Gleim's edition, brought out in 1786, the year of Friedrich's death,

is now quite gone,the Book undiscoverable. But the Paper was reprinted in an ANEKDOTEN

SAMMLUNG (Collection of Anecdotes, Berlin, 1787, 8tes STUCK, where I discover it yesterday (17th July,

1852) in a copy of mine, much to my surprise; having before met with it in one Hildebrandt's

ANEKDOTENSAMMLUNG (Halberstadt, 1830, 4tes STUCK, a rather slovenly Book), where it is given

out as one of the rarest of all rarities, and as having been specially 'furnished by a Dr. W. Korte,' being

unattainable otherwise! The two copies differ slightly here and there,not always to Dr. Korte's advantage,

or rather hardly ever. I keep them both before me in translating" (MARGINALE OF 1852).

"The RHYN" or Rhin, is a little river, which, near its higher clearer sources, we were all once well acquainted

with: considerable little moorland river, with several branches coming down from Ruppin Country, and

certain lakes and plashes there, in a southwest direction, towards the Elbe valley, towards the Havel Stream;

into which latter, through another plash or lake called GULPER SEE, and a few miles farther, into the Elbe

itself, it conveys, after a course of say 50 English miles circuitously southwest, the black drainings of those

dreary and intricate PeatbogandSand countries. "LUCH," it appears, signifies LOCH (or Hole, Hollow);

and "RhynLuch" will mean, to Prussian ears, the Peatbog Quagmire drained by the RHYN.New Ruppin,

where this beautiful black Stream first becomes considerable, and of steadily black complexion, lies between

40 and 50 miles northwest of Berlin. Ten or twelve miles farther north is REINSBERG (properly

RHYNSBERG), where Friedrich as CrownPrince lived his happiest few years. The details of which were

familiar to us long ago,and no doubt dwell clear and soft, in their appropriate "pale moonlight," in

Friedrich's memory on this occasion. Some time after his Accession, he gave the place to Prince Henri, who

lived there till 1802. It is now fallen all dim; and there is nothing at New Ruppin but a remembrance.

To the hither edge of this RhynLuoh, from Berlin, I guess there may be fiveandtwenty miles, in a

northwest direction; from Potsdam, whence Friedrich starts today, about, the same distance northbywest;

"at Seelenhorst," where Fromme waits him, Friedrich has already had 30 miles of driving,rate 10 miles an

hour, as we chance to observe. Notable things, besides the Spade husbandries he is intent on, solicit his

remembrance in this region. Of Freisack and "HeavyPeg" with her didactic batterings there, I suppose he, in

those fixed times, knows nothing, probably has never heard: Freisack is on a branch of this same Rhyn, and

But Fehrbellin ("Ferry of BellEEN"), distinguished by the shining victory which "the Great Elector,"

Friedrich's GreatGrandfather, gained there, over the Swedes, in 1675, stands on the Rhyn itself, about

midway; and Friedrich will pass through it on this occasion. General Ziethen, too, lives near it at Wusterau

(as will be seen): "Old Ziethen," a little stumpy man, with hanging brows and thick pouting lips; unbeautiful

to look upon, but pious, wise, silent, and with a terrible blaze of fightingtalent in him; full of obedience, of

endurance, and yet of unsubduable "silent rage" (which has brooked even the vocal rage of Friedrich, on

occasion); a really curious old Hussar General. He is now a kind of mythical or demigod personage among

the Prussians; and was then (1779), and ever after the SevenYears War, regarded popularly as their Ajax

(with a dash of the Ulysses superadded),Seidlitz, another Horse General, being the Achilles of that service.

The date of this drive through the moors being "23d July, 1779," we perceive it is just about two months

since Friedrich got home from the Bavarian War (what they now call "POTATO WAR," so barren was it in

fighting, so ripe in foraging); victorious in a sort;and that in his private thought, among the big troubles of

the world on both sides of the Atlantic, the infinitesimally small business of the MILLER ARNOLD'S

Friedrich is now 67 years old; has reigned 39: the SevenYears War is 16 years behind us; ever since which

time Friedrich has been an "old man,"having returned home from it with his cheeks all wrinkled, his

temples white, and other marks of decay, at the age of 51. The "wounds of that terrible business," as they say,

"are now all healed," perhaps above 100,000 burnt houses and huts rebuilt, for one thing; and the "ALTE

FRITZ," still brisk and wiry, has been and is an unweariedly busy man in that affair, among others. What

bogs he has tapped and dried, what canals he has dug, and stubborn strata he has bored through,assisted by

his Prussian Brindley (one Brenkenhof, once a Stableboy at Dessau);and ever planting "Colonies" on the

reclaimed land, and watching how they get on! As we shall see on this occasion,to which let us hasten (as

to a feast not of dainties, but of honest SAUERKRAUT and wholesome herbs), without farther parley.

Oberamtmann Fromme (whom I mark "Ich") LOQUITUR: "MajorGeneral Graf von Gortz," whom Fromme

keeps strictly mute all day, is a distinguished man, of many military and other experiences; much about

Friedrich in this time and onwards. [Supra, 399.] Introduces strangers, Bouille took him for "Head

Chamberlain," four or five years after this. He is ten years the King's junior; a Hessian gentleman;eldest

Brother of the Envoy Gortz who in his cloak of darkness did such diplomacies in the Bavarian matter,

January gone a year, and who is a rising man in that line ever since. But let Fromme begin: [ Anekdoten

und Karakterzuge aus dem Leben Friedrich des Zweyten (Berlin, bei Johann Friedrich Unger, 1787), 8te

"On the 23d of July, 1779, it pleased his Majesty the King to undertake a journey to inspect those" mud

"Colonies in the Rhyn Luch about NeustadtontheDosse, which his Majesty, at his own cost, had settled;

thereby reclaiming a tract of waste moor (EINEN ODEN BRUCH URBAR MACHEN) into arability, where

"His Majesty set off from Potsdam about 5 in the morning," in an open carriage, General von Gortz along

with him, and horses from his own poststations; "travelled over Ferlaudt, Tirotz, Wustermark, Nauen,

Konigshorst, Seelenhorst, Dechau, Fehrbellin," [See Reimann's KREISKARTEN, Nos. 74,73.] and twelve

other small peat villages, looking all their brightest in the morning sun, "to the hills at Stollen, where his

Majesty, because a view of all the Colonies could be had from those hills, was pleased to get out for a little,"

as will afterwards be seen."Therefrom the journey went by HohenNauen to Rathenau:" a civilized place,

"where his Majesty arrived about 3 in the afternoon; and there dined, and passed the night. Next morning,

about 6, his Majesty continued his drive into the Magdeburg region; inspected various reclaimed moors

(BRUCHE), which in part are already made arable, and in part are being made so; came, in the afternoon,

about 4, over Ziesar and Brandenburg, back to Potsdam,and did not dine till about 4, when he arrived

there, and had finished the Journey." His usual dinner hour is 12; the STATE hour, on gala days when

company has been invited, is 1 P.M.,and he always likes his dinner; and has it of a hot peppery quality!

"Till Seelenhorst, the Amtsrath Sach of Konigshorst had ridden before his Majesty; but here," at the border of

my Fehrbellin district, where with one of his forestmen I was in waiting by appointment, "the turn came for

me. About 8 o'clock A.M. his Majesty arrived in Seelenhorst; had the Herr General Graf von Gortz in the

carriage with him," Gortz, we need n't say, sitting back foremost:here I, Fromme, with my woodman was

respectfully in readiness. "While the horses were changing, his Majesty spoke with some of the Ziethen

HussarOfficers, who were upon grazing service in the adjoining villages [all Friedrich's cavalry went out to

GRASS during certain months of the year; and it was a LANDTAX on every district to keep its quota of

armyhorses in this manner, AUF GRASUNG]; and of me his Majesty as yet took no notice. As the

DAMME," Dams or Raised Roads through the Peatbog, "are too narrow hereabouts, I could not, ride beside

him," and so went before? or BEHIND, with woodman before? GOTT WEISS! "In Dechau his Majesty got

sight of Rittmeister von Ziethen," old Ajax Ziethen's son, "to whom Dechau belongs; and took him into the

carriage along with him, till the point where the Dechau boundary is. Here there was again change of horses.

Captain von Rathenow, an old favorite of the King's, to whom the property of Karvesee in part belongs,

CAPTAIN VON RATHENOW. "'Humblest servant, your Majesty!' [UNTERTHANIGSTER KNECHT,

KING (clapping his hands together). "'Mein Gott, dear Rathenow, are you still alive! ["LEBT ER NOCH, is

HE still alive?"way of speaking to one palpably your inferior, scarcely now in use even to servants; which

Friedrich uses ALWAYS in speaking to the highest uncrowned persons: it gives a strange dash of comic

emphasis often in his German talk:] I thought you were long since dead. How goes it with you 7 Are you

CAPTAIN. "'Ja, your Majesty, I can still eat and drink; only the feet get lazy' [won't go so well, WOLLEN

KING. "'Bring her to me, then!' [TO HER, TAKING OFF HIS HAT] 'I find in your Herr Husband a good old

KING. "'What were YOU by birth?' ["WAS SIND SIE," the respectful word, "FUR EINE GEBORNE?"]

KING. "'Oh, I knew him very well.'[TO RATHENOW] 'Have you children too, Rathenow?'

CAPTAIN. "'Yes, your Majesty. My sons are in the service,' soldiering; 'and these are my daughters.'

KING. "'Well, I am glad of that (NUN, DAS FREUT MICH). Fare HE well. Fare He well.'

"The road now went upon Fehrbellin; and Forster," Forester, "Brand, as woodkeeper for the King in these

parts, rode along with us. When we came upon the patch of Sandknolls which lie near Fehrbellin, his

FORESTER. "'Your Majesty, they don't belong to the Royal Forest; they belong to the farmground. In part

the people do sow them with all manner of crops. Here, on the right hand, they have sown fircones

THE KING (TO ME). "'Na! Tell my GeheimerRath Michaelis that the sandpatches must be sown.'[TO

KING. "'Na! [a frequent interjection of Friedrich's and his Father's], how are they sown, then? From east to

MORGEN?" so in ORIG. (p. 22);but, surely, except as above, it has no sense? From north to south, there

is but one firseed sown against the wind; from east to west, there is a whole row.]

"Now his Majesty arrived at Fehrbellin; spoke there with Lieutenant Probst of the Ziethen Hussar regiment,

[Probst is the leftmost figure in that Chodowiecki Engraving of the famous Ziethenand Friedrich

CHAIRscene, five years after this. (Supra. 374 n.)] and with the Fehrbellin Postmeister, Captain von Mosch.

So soon as the horses were to, we continued our travel; and as his Majesty was driving close by my Big

Ditches," GRABEN, trenches, maindrains, "which have been made in the Fehrbellin LUCH at the King's

ICH. "'Your Majesty, these now are the two new Drains, which by your Majesty's favor we have got here;

KING. "'Amtsrath? Amtsrath? That isn't true! Your father was Landrath. I knew him very well.But tell me

now (SAGT MIR EINMAL) has the draining of the Luch been of much use to you here?'

ICH. "'Yes, your Majesty. On this farm I keep 40 more; on all the farms together 70 more.'

ICH. "'Yes, your Majesty, I do use it too; but kitchen salt has very nearly the same effect.'

KING. "'No, don't fancy that! You must n't pound the rocksalt small, but give it to the cattle so that they can

ICH. "'O ja, your Majesty. Here lies the Kemmensee [Kemmenlake]: if that were drained out, your Majesty

would gain some 1,800 acres [MORGEN, threefifths English acre] of pastureland, where colonists could

be settled; and then the whole country would have navigation too, which would help the village of Fehrbellin

KING. "'I suppose so! Be a great help to you, won't it; and many will be ruined by the job, especially the

ICH. "'Your Majesty's gracious pardon [EW. MAJESTAT HALTEN ZU GNADEN,hold me to grace]: the

KING. "'Oh, if birchwood is all it produces, then we may see! But you must not make your reckoning

ICH. "'The cost will certainly not outrun the use. For, first, your Majesty may securely reckon that eighteen

hundred acres will be won from the water; that will be sixandthirty colonists, allowing each 50 acres. And

now if there were a small light toll put upon the rafttimber and the ships that will frequent the new canal,

KING. "'Na, tell my GeheimerRath Michaelis of it. The man understands that kind of matters; and I will

advise you to apply to the man in every particular of such things, and wherever you know that colonists can

be settled. I don't want whole colonies at once; but wherever there are two or three families of them, I say

ICH. "'Yes, your Majesty; there to the right, that is it.' It BELONGS to General von Ziethen; and terrible

ICH. "'Your Majesty, the Rittmeister von Lestock lies in my village on GRAZING service; and last night the

KING. "'Did General von Ziethen gain, among others, by the draining of the Luch?'

ICH. "'O ja; the Farmstead there to the right he built in consequence, and has made a dairy there, which he

KING. "'That I am glad of!What is the Beamte's name in Alt Ruppin?' [Old Ruppin, I suppose, or part of

ICH. "'Your Majesty, he is a young man who has money, and wanted to have the honor of being a Beamte of

ICH. "'Your Majesty's pardon! She cultivated well, but a heap of mischances brought her down: those may

happen to the best husbandman. I myself, two years ago, lost so many cattle by the murrain, and got no

KING. "'My son, today I have some disorder in my left ear, and cannot hear rightly on that side of my head'

ICH. "'It is a pity that GeheimerRath Michaelis has got the very same disorder!'I now retired a little back

KING. "'Na, Amtmann, forward! Stay by the carriage; but TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF, THAT YOU

DON'T GET HURT. SPEAK LOUD, I UNDERSTAND VERY WELL.' These words marked in Italics

[capitals] his Majesty repeated at least ten times in the course of the journey. 'Tell me now, what is that

ICH. "'A third part of it to your Majesty, under the AMT of Alt Ruppin; a third to Herr von Hagen; and then

ICH. "'Your Majesty's gracious pardon, the High Church of Berlin has three tenants in the village Karvesen

ICH. "'Your Majesty, I must be a bad Beamte, if I did not know what tenants and what lordships there are in

KING. "'Ja, then you are in the right!Tell me now: here on the right there must be an estate, I can't think of

KING. "'In the Guards? [COUNTING ON HIS FINGERS.] You are right: he was Lieutenant in the Guards. I

am very glad the Estate is still in the hands of the Knesebecks.Na, tell me though, the road that mounts up

ICH. "'Yes, your Majesty: the steeple rising there over the firs, that is Ruppin.'

KING (leaning out of the carriage with his prospectglass). "'Ja, ja, that is it, I know it yet. Can I see

ICH. "'Not just now, your Majesty; it lies too much in the hollow. Who knows whether your Majesty will see

KING. "'Na, keep an eye; and if you see it, tell me. Where is the Beamte of AltRuppin?'

ICH. "'The Courier (FELDJAGER) Ahrens; he got it by inheritance from his father. The property has always

ICH. "'His brother was FLUGELADJUTANT [WINGadjutant, whatever that may be] with your Majesty;

KING. "'Ha, ha, that one! I know the Kleists very well. Has this Kleist been in the service too?'

KING. "'You may tell me, I have no view in asking: why did the man take his discharge?'

"We had now got on to Protzen. I perceived old General van Ziethen standing before the Manorhouse in

Protzen,"rugged brave old soul; with his hanging brows, and strange dimfiery pious old thoughts!"I

KING. "'Where? where? Oh, ride forward, and tell the people to draw up; they must halt, I'll get out.'

"And now his Majesty got out; and was exceedingly delighted at the sight of Herr General von Ziethen;

talked with him and Herr von Kleist of many things: Whether the draining of the Luch had done him good;

Whether the murrain had been there among their cattle? and recommended rocksalt against the murrain.

Suddenly his Majesty stept aside, turned towards me, and called: 'Amtmann! [THEN CLOSE INTO MY

ICH (ALSO CLOSE INTO HIS MAJESTY'S EAR). "'Your Majesty, that is the Landrath Quast, of the

"Now his Majesty went back to General von Ziethen and Herr von Kleist, and spoke of different things. Herr

von Kleist presented some very fine fruit to his Majesty; all at once his Majesty turned round, and said:

'Serviteur, Herr Landrath!'As the Landrath ["fat man there with the white coat"] was stepping towards his

Majesty, said his Majesty: 'Stay he there where he is; I know him. He is the Landrath von Quast!'["Very good

indeed, old Vater Fritz; let him stand there in his white coat, a fat, sufficiently honored man! Chodowiecki

has an engraving of this incident;I saw IT at the British Museum once, where they have only seven others

on Friedrich altogether, all in one poor GOTHA ALMANAC; very small, very coarse, but very good: this

"They had now yoked the horses. His Majesty took a very tender leave of old General von Ziethen, waved an

adieu to those about, and drove on. Although his Majesty at Protzen would not take any fruit, yet when once

we were out of the village, his Majesty took a luncheon from the carriagepocket for himself and the Herr

General Graf von Gortz, and, all along, during the drive, ate apricots (IMMER PFIRSCHE).

At starting, his Majesty had fancied I was to stop here, and called out of the carriage: 'Amtmann, come along

ICH. "'Apparently he must be unwell; otherwise he would have been in Protzen at the change of horses there'

["at the VORSPANN:" Yes; and Manorhouse, EDELHOF, where old Ziethen waited, was lower down

KING. "'Na, tell me now, don't you really know why that Kleist at Protzen took his discharge?' [VOILA!]

KING (looking round on the harvestfields). "'Here you, now: how are you content with the harvest?'

ICH. "'Your Majesty, the wintercrop was somewhat frostnipt; but the summercrop in return is so

abundant it will richly make up for the wintercrop.' His Majesty now looked round upon the fields, shock

ICH. "'Yes, your Majesty; and the people here make STEIGS (mounts) of them too.'

KING. "'Oh, it is indisputably a good harvest. But tell me, though, why did Kleist of Protzen take his

ICH. "'Your Majesty, I do not know. I suppose he was obliged to take his father's estates in hand: no other

KING. "'EY WAS [pooh, pooh]! I know nothing of Kriegsraths!To whom does the Estate belong?'

ICH. "'To Herr von Quast.' Friedrich had the greatest contempt for Kriegsraths, and indeed for most other

RATHS or titular shams, labelled boxes with nothing in the inside: on a horrible winter morning (sleet,

thunder, marching off hours before sunrise, he has been heard to say, 'Would one were a Kriegsrath!

"His Majesty now arrived at Garz. The changing of the horses was managed by Herr von Luderitz of

Nackeln, as first Deputy of the Ruppin Circle. He had his hat on, and a white feather in it. When the yoking

ICH. "'As I have already had the honor to tell your Majesty that I keep seventy head of cows more than he, I

have of course more manure for my ground, and so put it in a better case for bearing wheat.'

ICH. "'It would not answer here. In a cold climate it would answer better. Our sailors can buy Russian hemp

KING. "'Why do you sow no Farbekraut, ["DYEHERB:" commonly called "FARBERROTHE;" yields a

coarse RED, on decoction of the twigs and branches; from its roots the finer red called "KRAPP" (in French

ICH. "'I did make the trial; but it failed; and as Beamte I cannot make many trials; for, let them fail or not,

ICH. "'Yes, your Majesty. I can show by the Register of Hypothecks (HYPOTHEKENBUCH) that they have

ICH. "'Three years ago a tenant died who had 11,000 thalers,' say 2,000 pounds, 'in the Bank.'

ICH. "'Ja, your Majesty, it is very good that the tenant have money; but he becomes mutinous too, as the

tenants hereabouts do, who have seven times over complained to your Majesty against me, to get rid of the

ICH. "'Your Majesty will graciously pardon: there was an investigation gone into, and it was found that I had

not oppressed the tenants, but had always gone upon my right, and merely held them to do their duty.

Nevertheless the matter stood as it was: the tenants are not punished; your Majesty puts always the tenants in

KING. "'Ja: that you, my son, will contrive to get justice, you, I cannot but believe! You will send your

Departmentsrath [Judge of these affairs] such pretty gifts of butter, capons, poults!'

ICH. "'No, your Majesty, we cannot. Corn brings no price: if one did not turn a penny with other things, how

ICH. "'Most of the Ruppin people keep cows, as many as are needed for their own uses. The soldier eats

ICH. "'Four groschen the pound; now the soldier at Ruppin buys his salt butter at two.'

ICH. "'In the regiment there are just four StaffOfficers; they can use but little: the burghers don't live

KING. "'Yes, there you are in the right! The Berliners, again, like to eat some dainty article.Na! do what

you will with the tenants [UNTERTHANEN, not quite ADSCRIPTS at that time on the Royal Demesnes, but

tied to many services, and by many shackles, from which Friedrich all his days was gradually delivering

ICH. "'Your Majesty, that would never be my notion, nor any reasonable Beamte's.'

ICH. "'Stollen your Majesty cannot see just here. Those big hills there on the left are the hills at Stollen; there

"Now his Majesty came upon a quantity of peasants who were mowing rye; they had formed themselves into

ICH. "'Oh no, your Majesty! They are full of joy that you are so gracious as to visit this district.'

KING. "'I'll give them nothing, though.What village is that, there ahead of us?'

ICH. "'He was Major in the regiment which your Majesty had when CrownPrince.' [Supra, vii. 403.]

KING. "'That does look miserable.' Here Mitschepfal's daughter, who has married a baronial Herr von

Kriegsheim from Mecklenburg, came forward while the horses were changing. Kriegsheim came on account

of her into this country: the King has given them a Colony of 200 MORGEN (acres). Coming to the carriage,

Frau von Kriegsheim handed some fruit to his Majesty. His Majesty declined with thanks; asked, who her

father was, when he died, On a sudden, she presented her husband; began to thank for the 200 MORGEN;

mounted on the coachstep; wished to kiss, if not his Majesty's hand, at least his coat. His Majesty shifted

quite to the other side of the carriage, and cried"good old Fritz!"'Let be, my daughter, let be! It is all

KING. "'That is bad.Tell me though; there lived a Landrath here before: he had a quantity of children:

ICH. "'Ja, your Majesty. He died in 1771: and it was very singular; in one fortnight he, his wife and four sons

all died. The other four that were left had all the same sickness too, which was a hot fever; and though the

sons, being in the Army, were in different garrisons, and no brother had visited the other, they all got the

KING. "'That was a desperate affair (VERZWEIFELTER UMSTAND GEWESEN)! Where are the four sons

ICH. "'One is in the Ziethen Hussars, one in the Gensd'Armes, another was in the regiment Prinz

Ferdinand, and lives on the Estate Dersau. The fourth is soninlaw of Herr General von Ziethen. He was

lieutenant in the Ziethen Regiment; but in the last war (POTATOWAR, 1778), on account of his ill health,

KING. "'So? That is one of the Gorgases, then!Are you still making experiments with the foreign kinds of

ICH. "'O ja; this year I have sown Spanish barley. But it will not rightly take hold; I must give it up again.

ICH. "'It grows in Holstein in the Low Grounds (NIEDERUNG). Never below the 10th grain [10 reaped for

ICH. "'That is not much. Please your Majesty to ask the Herr General von Gortz [who has not spoken a

syllable all day]; he knows this is not reckoned much in Holstein:'(the General Graf von Gortz I first had

"They now talked, for a while, of the rye, in the carriage together. Presently his Majesty called to me from the

carriage, 'Na, stand by the Holstein STAUDENrye, then; and give some to the tenants too.'

KING. "'But give me some idea: what kind of appearance had the Luch before it was drained?'

ICH. "'It was mere high rough masses of hillocks (HULLEN); between them the water settled, and had no

flow. In the driest years we couldn't cart the hay out, but had to put it up in big ricks. Only in winter, when

the frost was sharp, could we get it home. But now we have cut away the hillocks; and the trenches that your

Majesty got made for us take the water off. And now the Luch is as dry as your Majesty sees, and we can

"His Majesty must lately have asked the Herr General von Gortz, how I came to know him,as I told his

Majesty to ask General von Gortz about the Holstein rye;and presumably the Herr General must have

answered, what was the fact, That he had first known me in Holstein, where I dealt in horses, and that I had

been at Potsdam with horses. Suddenly his Majesty said: 'Hear! I know you are fond of horses. But give up

ICH. "'Your Majesty, I no longer deal in horses. I merely rear a few foals every year.'

ICH. "'Oh, your Majesty, if one takes pains with it, there is no loss in breeding horses. I know a man who

"We now came upon the territory of the Amt Neustadt; and here the Amtsrath Klausius, who has the Amt in

farm, was in waiting on the boundary, and let his Majesty drive past. But as I began to get tired of the

speaking, and his Majesty went on always asking about villages, which stand hereabouts in great quantity,

and I had always to name the owner, and say what sons he had in the Army,I brought up Herr Amtsrath

ICH. "'Your Majesty, this is the Amtsrath Klausius, of the Amt Neustadt, in whose jurisdiction the Colonies

KING. "'What's your name?' (from this point the King spoke mostly with Amtsrath Klausius, and I only

KL. "'1,887 head of cows, your Majesty. There would have been above 3,000, had it not been for the murrain

KL. "'Only a short mile [5 miles English]. But there are some villages scattered still within the boundary

KING. "'Ja, ja, I know them. But I should not have thought we were so near upon the Mecklenburg country.'

KING. "'Are they good people, these Colonists? The first generation of them is n't usually good for much.'

KL. "'O ja, your Majesty. His Excellency the Minister von Derschau, too, has given me a Colony of 75 acres,

KING (smiling). "'Ha, ha! good example! But tell me, I see no wood here: where do the Colonists get their

KING. "'Well, that's a great way . It should have been contrived that they could have it nearer hand.' [TO

ICH. "'Bauinspector [BuildingsInspector] Menzelius, who has charge of the buildings in these parts.'

KING. "'Its name is Brenkenhosiushof!Are these the Stollen hills that lie before us?'

ICH. "'It is not indispensable; but the change of horses is there. If your Majesty give order, I will ride

forward, send the fresh horses out of the village, and have them stationed to wait at the foot of the hills.'

"I now took measures about the new team of horses, but so arranged it, that when his Majesty got upon the

hills I was there too. At dismounting from his carriage on the hilltop, his Majesty demanded a

prospectglass; looked round the whole region, and then said: 'Well, in truth, that is beyond my expectation!

That is beautiful! I must say this to you, all of you that have worked in this business, you have behaved like

ICH. "'Your Majesty, it is 2 miles off [10 miles]. Yonder is Wurben in the Altmark; it lies upon the Elbe.'

KING. "'That cannot be! Give me the glass again.Ja, ja, it is true, though. But what other steeple is that?'

MENZELIUS AND I.) 'Hear now, the tract of moor here to the left must also be reclaimed; and what is to the

KING. "'Na! the alders you may root out; and the oaks may continue standing; the people may sell these, or

use them otherwise. When once the ground is arable, I reckon upon 300 families for it, and 500 head of

KING. "'Hear now, you may answer me with confidence. There will be more or fewer families. I know well

enough one cannot, all at once, exactly say. I was never there, don't know the ground; otherwise I could

THE BAUINSPECTOR. "'Your Majesty, the LUCH is still subject to rights of common from a great many

KING. "'No matter for that. You must make exchanges, give them an equivalent, according as will answer

best in the case. I want nothing from anybody except at its value.' [TO AMTSRATH KLAUSIUS] 'Na, hear

now, you can write to my Kammer [BOARD, BoardofWorks that does NOT sit idle!], what it is that I

want reclaimed to the plough; the money for it I will give.' [TO ME] 'And you, you go to Berlin, and explain

"His Majesty now stept into his carriage again [was Gortz sitting all the while, still in silence? Or had he

perhaps got out at the bottom of the hill, and sat down to a contemplative pipe of tobacco, the smoke of

which, heartcheering to Gortz, was always disagreeable to Friedrich? Nobody knows!]and drove down

the hill; there the horses were changed. And now, as his Majesty's order was that I should 'attend him to the

ICH. "'Does your Majesty command that I should yet accompany farther' ["BEFEHLEN, command," in the

"The Herr Amtsrath [Klausius] then accompanied his Majesty to Rathenow, where he [THEY: His

Majesty is plural] lodged in the Posthouse. At Rathenow, during dinner, his Majesty was uncommonly

cheerful: he dined with Herr LieutenantColonel von Backhof of the Carabineers, and the Herr

"'My good Von Backhof (MEIN LIEBER VON BACKHOF): if He [you] have not for a long time been in the

Fehrbellin neighborhood, go there.'" Fehrbellin, the Prussian BANNOCKBURN; where the Great Elector cut

the hitherto invincible Swedes IN TWO, among the DAMS and intricate moory quagmires, with a vastly

inferior force, nearly all of cavalry (led by one DERFLINGER, who in his apprentice time had been a

TAILOR); beat one end of them all to rags, then galloped off and beat the other into ditto; quite taking the

conceit out of the Swedes, or at least clearing Prussia of them forever and a day: a feat much admired by

Friedrich: "'Go there,' he says. 'That region is uncommonly improved [as I saw today]! I have not for a long

time had such a pleasant drive. I decided on this journey because I had no REVIEW on hand; and it has given

"'Tell me now: how did you get on in the last War [KARTOFFEL KRIEG, no fighting, only a scramble for

proviant and "potatoes"]? Most likely ill! You in Saxony too could make nothing out. The reason was, we

had not men to fight against, but cannons! I might have done a thing or two; but I should have sacrificed

more than the half of my Army, and shed innocent human blood. In that case I should have deserved to be

taken to the Guardhouse door, and to have got a sixscore there (EINEN OFFFENTLICHEN PRODUKT)!

"'This was surely touching to hear from the mouth of a great Monarch,' said Herr LieutenantColonel von

Backhof to me, and tears came into that old soldier's eyes." Afterwards his Majesty had said:

"Of the Battle of Fehrbellin I know everything, almost as if I myself had been there! While I was

CrownPrince, and lay in Ruppin, there was an old townsman, the man was even then very old: he could

describe the whole Battle, and knew the scene of it extremely well. Once I got into a carriage, took my old

genius with me, who showed me all over the ground, and described everything so distinctly, I was much

contented with him. As we were coming back, I thought: Come, let me have a little fun with the old

blade;so I asked him: 'Father, don't you know, then, why the two Sovereigns came to quarrel with one

another?''O ja, your Royal HighnessES [from this point we have PlattDeutsch, PRUSSIAN dialect, for

the old man's speech; barely intelligible, as Scotch is to an ingenious Englishman], DAT WILL ICK SE

WOHL SEGGEN, I can easily tell you that. When our Chorforste [Kurfursts, Great Elector] was young, he

studied in Utrecht; and there the King of Sweden happened to be too. And now the two young lords picked

some quarrel, got to pulling caps [fell into one another's hair], AND DIT IS NU DE PICKE DAVON, and

this now was the upshot of it.'His Majesty spoke this in PlattDeutsch, as here given;but grew at table

so weary that he (they) fell asleep." So far Backhof;and now again Fromme by way of finish:

"Of his Majesty's journey I can give no farther description. For though his Majesty spoke and asked many

things else; it would be difficult to bring them all to paper." And so ends the DAY WITH FRIEDRICH THE

5. Chapter I. PROEM: FRIEDRICH'S HISTORY FROM THE DISTANCE WE ARE AT. , page = 15

22. Chapter XII. BRANDENBURG IN KAISER KARL'S TIME; END OF THE BAVARIAN KURFURSTS. , page = 76

31. Chapter VI. HOCHMEISTER ALBERT, THIRD NOTABLE SON OF FRIEDRICH. , page = 105

43. Chapter XVIII. FRIEDRICH WILHELM, THE GREAT KURFURST, ELEVENTH OF THE SERIES. , page = 141

60. BOOK V. DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT, AND WHAT ELEMENT IT FELL INTO. 1723-1726. , page = 209

66. Chapter VI. ORDNANCE-MASTER SECKENDORF CROSSES THE PALACE ESPLANADE. , page = 236

74. Chapter V. CONGRESS OF SOISSONS, SIXTH CRISIS IN THE SPECTRE-HUNT. , page = 272

75. Chapter VI. IMMINENCY OF WAR OR DUEL BETWEEN THE BRITANNIC AND PRUSSIAN MAJESTIES. , page = 279

76. Chapter VII. A MARRIAGE: NOT THE DOUBLE-MARRIAGE: CROWN-PRINCE DEEP IN TROUBLE. , page = 292

77. Chapter VIII. CROWN-PRINCE GETTING BEYOND HIS DEPTH IN TROUBLE. , page = 295

79. BOOK VII. FEARFUL SHIPWRECK OF THE DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT. February-November, 1730. , page = 304

81. Chapter II. LANGUAGE OF BIRDS: EXCELLENCY HOTHAM PROVES UNAVAILING. , page = 308

85. Chapter VI. JOURNEY HOMEWARDS FROM THE REICH; CATASTROPHE ON JOURNEY HOMEWARDS , page = 342

89. BOOK VIII. CROWN-PRINCE RETRIEVED: LIFE AT CUSTRIN. November, 1730-February, 1732. , page = 366

96. BOOK IX. LAST STAGE OF FRIEDRICH'S APPRENTICESHIP: LIFE IN RUPPIN. 1732-1736. , page = 398

107. Chapter XI. IN PAPA'S SICK-ROOM; PRUSSIAN INSPECTIONS: END OF WAR. , page = 466

115. Chapter VII. LAST YEAR OF REINSBERG: TRANSIT OF BALTIMORE AND OTHER PERSONS AND THINGS. , page = 519

117. BOOK XI. FRIEDRICH TAKES THE REINS IN HAND. June-December, 1740. , page = 531

120. Chapter III. FRIEDRICH MAKES AN EXCURSION, NOT OF DIRECT SORT INTO THE CLEVE COUNTRIES. , page = 552

123. Chapter VI. RETURNS BY HANOVER; DOES NOT CALL ON HIS ROYAL UNCLE THERE. , page = 579

124. Chapter VII. WITHDRAWS TO REINSBERG, HOPING A PEACEABLE WINTER. , page = 582

127. BOOK XII. FIRST SILESIAN WAR, AWAKENING A GENERAL EUROPEAN ONE, BEGINS. December, 1740-May, 1741. , page = 598

134. Chapter VII. AT VERSAILLES, THE MOST CHRISTIAN MAJESTY CHANGES HIS SHIRT, AND BELLEISLE IS SEEN WITH PAPERS. , page = 627

138. Chapter XI. THE BURSTING FORTH OF BEDLAMS: BELLEISLE AND THE BREAKERS OF PRAGMATIC SANCTION. , page = 665

140. Chapter XIII. SMALL-WAR: FIRST EMERGENCE OF ZIETHEN THE HUSSAR GENERAL INTO NOTICE. , page = 691

141. BOOK XIII. FIRST SILESIAN WAR, LEAVING THE GENERAL EUROPEAN ONE ABLAZE ALL ROUND, GETS ENDED. May, 1741-July, 1742. , page = 693

144. Chapter III. GRAND REVIEW AT STREHLEN: NEIPPERG TAKES AIM AT BRESLAU, BUT ANOTHER HITS IT. , page = 713

145. Chapter IV. FRIEDRICH TAKES THE FIELD AGAIN, INTENT ON HAVING NEISSE. , page = 715

146. Chapter V. KLEIN-SCHNELLENDORF: FRIEDRICH GETS NEISSE, IN A FASHION. , page = 722

147. Chapter VI. NEW MAYOR OF LANDSHUT MAKES AN INSTALLATION SPEECH. , page = 731

148. Chapter VII. FRIEDRICH PURPOSES TO MEND THE KLEIN-SCHNELLENDORF FAILURE: FORTUNES OF THE BELLEISLE ARMAMENT. , page = 734

149. Chapter VIII. FRIEDRICH STARTS FOR MORAVIA, ON A NEW SCHEME HE HAS. , page = 741

151. Chapter X. FRIEDRICH DOES HIS MORAVIAN EXPEDITION WHICH PROVES A MERE MORAVIAN FORAY. , page = 751

152. Chapter XI. NUSSLER IN NEISSE, WITH THE OLD DESSAUER AND WALRAVE. , page = 759

156. BOOK XIV. THE SURROUNDING EUROPEAN WAR DOES NOT END. August, 1742-July, 1744. , page = 772

161. Chapter V. BRITANNIC MAJESTY FIGHTS HIS BATTLE OF DETTINGEN; AND BECOMES SUPREME JOVE OF GERMANY, IN A MANNER. , page = 806

163. Chapter VII. FRIEDRICH MAKES TREATY WITH FRANCE; AND SILENTLY GETS READY. , page = 829

165. BOOK XV. SECOND SILESIAN WAR, IMPORTANT EPISODE IN THE GENERAL EUROPEAN ONE. 15th Aug. 1744-25th Dec. 1745. , page = 846

168. Chapter III. FRIEDRICH, DILIGENT IN HIS BOHEMIAN CONQUESTS, UNEXPECTEDLY COMES UPON PRINCE KARL, WITH NO FRENCH ATTENDING HIM. , page = 856

169. Chapter IV. FRIEDRICH REDUCED TO STRAlTS; CANNOT MAINTAIN HIS MOLDAU CONQUESTS AGAINST PRICE KARL. , page = 862

170. Chapter V. FRIEDRICH, UNDER DIFFICULTIES, PREPARES FOR A NEW CAMPAIGN. , page = 870

171. Chapter VI. VALORI GOES ON AN ELECTIONEERING MISSION TO DRESDEN. , page = 881

173. Chapter VIII. THE MARTIAL BOY AND HIS ENGLISH VERSUS THE LAWS OF NATURE. , page = 892

174. Chapter IX. THE AUSTRIAN-SAXON ARMY INVADES SILESIA, ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS. , page = 899

178. Chapter XIII. SAXONY AND AUSTRIA MAKE A SURPRISING LAST ATTEMPT. , page = 924

183. Chapter II. PEEP AT VOLTAIRE AND HIS DIVINE EMILIE (BY CANDLELIGHT) IN THE TIDE OF EVENTS. , page = 947

184. Chapter III. EUROPEAN WAR FALLS DONE: TREATY OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE. , page = 959

185. Chapter IV. COCCEJI FINISHES THE LAW-REFORM; FRIEDRICH IS PRINTING HIS POESIES. , page = 965

193. Chapter XII. OF THE AFTERPIECE, WHICH PROVED STILL MORE TRAGICAL. , page = 1035

194. Chapter XIII. ROMISH-KING QUESTION; ENGLISH-PRIVATEER QUESTION. , page = 1043

196. Chapter XV. ANTI-PRUSSIAN WAR-SYMPTOMS: FRIEDRICH VISIBLE FOR A MOMENT. , page = 1054

199. Chapter II. ENGLISH DIPLOMACIES ABROAD, IN PROSPECT OF A FRENCH WAR. , page = 1066

211. Chapter V. FRIEDRICH AT LEITMERITZ, HIS WORLD OF ENEMIES COMING ON. , page = 1149

213. Chapter VII. FRIEDRICH IN THURINGEN, HIS WORLD OF ENEMIES ALL COME. , page = 1167

221. BOOK XIX. FRIEDRICH LIKE TO BE OVERWHELMED IN THE SEVEN-YEARS WAR. 1759-1760. , page = 1271

223. Chapter II. GENERAL DOHNA; DICTATOR WEDELL: BATTLE OF ZULLICHAU. , page = 1287

224. Chapter III. FRIEDRICH IN PERSON ATTEMPTS THE RUSSIAN PROBLEM; NOT WITH SUCCESS. , page = 1292

226. Chapter V. SAXONY WITHOUT DEFENCE: SCHMETTAU SURRENDERS DRESDEN. , page = 1314

227. Chapter VI. PRINCE HENRI MAKES A MARCH OF FIFTY HOURS; THE RUSSIANS CANNOT FIND LODGING IN SILESIA. , page = 1332

228. Chapter VII. FRIEDRICH REAPPEARS ON THE FIELD, AND IN SEVEN DAYS AFTER COMES THE CATASTROPHE OF MAXEN. , page = 1347

231. BOOK XX. FRIEDRICH IS NOT TO BE OVERWHELMED: THE SEVEN-YEARS WAR GRADUALLY ENDS. 25th April, 1760-15th February, 1763. , page = 1382

235. Chapter IV. DAUN IN WRESTLE WITH FRIEDRICH IN THE SILESIAN HILLS. , page = 1413

239. Chapter VIII. LOUDON POUNCES UPON SCHWEIDNITZ ONE NIGHT (LAST OF SEPTEMBER, 1761). , page = 1469

245. BOOK XXI. AFTERNOON AND EVENING OF FRIEDRICH'S LIFE. 1763-1786. , page = 1521