young Landgraf of Hessen-Cassel),–much aided by an English Envoy,–who made this Peace with Friedrich Wilhelm. A young English Envoy, called Lord Carteret, was very helpful in this matter; one of his first feats in the diplomatic world. For which Peace, [Stockholm, 21st January, 1720: in Mauvillon (i. 380-417) the Document itself at large.] Friedrich Wilhelm was so thankful, good pacific armed-man, that happening to have a Daughter born to him just about that time, he gave the little creature her Swedish Majesty’s name; a new “Ulrique,” who grew to proper stature, and became notable in Sweden, herself, by and by. [Louisa Ulrique, born 24th July, 1720; Queen of Sweden in time coming.]
Chapter VII.
TRANSIT OF CZAR PETER.
In the Autumn of 1717, Peter the Great, coming home from his celebrated French journey, paid Friedrich Wilhelm a visit; and passed four days at Berlin. Of which let us give one glimpse, if we can with brevity.
Friedrich Wilhelm and the Czar, like in several points, though so dissimilar in others, had always a certain regard for one another; and at this time, they had been brought into closer intercourse by their common peril from Charles XII., ever since that Stralsund business. The peril was real, especially with a Gortz and Alberoni putting hand to it; and the alarm, the rumor, and uncertainty were great in those years. The wounded Lion driven indignant into his lair, with Plotting Artists now operating upon the rage of the noble animal: who knows what spring he will next take? George I. had a fleet cruising in the Baltic Sounds, and again a fleet;– paying, in that oblique way, for Bremen and Verden; which were got, otherwise, such a bargain to his Hanover. Czar Peter had marched an Army into Denmark; united Russians and Danes count fifty thousand there; for a conjunct invasion, and probable destruction, of Sweden: but that came to nothing; Charles looking across upon it too dangerously, “visible in clear weather over from the Danish side.” [1716: Fassmann, p. 171.] So Peter’s troops have gone home again; Denmark too glad to get them away. Perhaps they would have stayed in Denmark altogether; much liking the green pastures and convenient situation,–had not Admiral Norris with his cannon been there! Perhaps? And the Pretender is coming again, they say? And who knows what is coming?–How Gortz, in about a year hence was laid hold of, and let go, and then ultimately tried and beheaded (once his lion Master was disposed of); [19th March, 1719: see Kohler (
As to Friedrich Wilhelm, his plan in 1717, as all along, in this bewitched state of matters, was: To fortify his Frontier Towns; Memel, Wesel, to the right and left, especially to fortify Stettin, his new acquisition;–and to put his Army, and his Treasury (or Army-CHEST), more and more in order. In that way we shall better meet whatever goblins there may be, thinks Friedrich Wilhelm. Count Lottum, hero of the Prussians at Malplaquet, is doing his scientific uttermost in Stettin and those Frontier Towns. For the rest, his Majesty, invited by the Czar and France, has been found willing to make paction with them, as he is with all pacific neighbors. In fact, the Czar and he had their private Conference, at Havelberg, last year,–Havelberg, some sixty miles from Berlin, on the road towards Denmark, as Peter was passing that way;–ample Conference of. five days; [23d-28th November, 1716: Fassmann, p. 172.]–privately agreeing there, about many points conducive to tranquillity. And it was on that same errand, though ostensibly to look after Art and the higher forms of Civilization so called, that Peter had been to France on this celebrated occasion of 1717. We know he saw much Art withal; saw Marly, Trianon and the grandeurs and politenesses;–saw, among other things, “a Medal of himself fall accidentally at his feet;” polite Medal “just getting struck in the Mint, with a rising sun on it; and the motto, VIRES ACQUIRIT EUNDO.” [Voltaire,
OEuvres Completes (Histoire du Czar Pierre),
336.–Kohler in
Such a transit, of the Barbaric semi-fabulous Sovereignties, could not but be wonderful to everybody there. It evidently struck Wilhelmina’s fancy, now in her ninth year, very much. What her little Brother did in it, or thought of it, I nowhere find hinted; conclude only that it would remain in his head too, visible occasionally to the end of his life. Wilhelmina’s Narrative, very loose, dateless or misdated, plainly wrong in various particulars, has still its value for us: human eyes, even a child’s, are worth something, in comparison to human want-of-eyes, which is too frequent in History-books and elsewhere!–Czar Peter is now forty-five, his Czarina Catherine about thirty-one. It was in 1698 that he first passed this way, going towards Saardam and practical Ship-building: within which twenty years what a spell of work done! Victory of Pultawa is eight years behind him; [27th June, 1709.] victories in many kinds are behind him: by this time he is to be reckoned a triumphant Czar; and is certainly the strangest mixture of heroic virtue and brutish Samoeidic savagery the world at any time had.
It was Sunday, 19th September, 1717, when the Czar arrived in Berlin. Being already sated with scenic parades, he had begged to be spared all ceremony; begged to be lodged in Monbijou, the Queen’s little Garden-Palace with river and trees round it, where he hoped to be quietest. Monbijou has been set apart accordingly; the Queen, not in the benignest humor, sweeping all her crystals and brittle things away; knowing the manners of the Muscovites. Nor in the way of ceremony was there much: King and Queen drove out to meet him; rampart-guns gave three big salvos, as the Czarish Majesty stept forth. “I am glad to see you, my Brother Friedrich,” said Peter, in German, his only intelligible language; shaking hands with the Brother Majesty, in a cordial human manner. The Queen he, still more cordially, “would have kissed;” but this she evaded, in some graceful effective way. As to the Czarina,– who, for OBSTETRIC and other reasons, of no moment to us, had stayed in Wesel all the time he was in France,–she followed him now at two days’ distance; not along with him, as Wilhelmina has it. Wilhelmina says, she kissed the Queen’s hand, and again and again kissed it; begged to present her Ladies,–“about four hundred so-called Ladies, who were of her Suite.”–Surely not so many as four hundred, you too witty Princess? “Mere German serving-maids for the most part,” says the witty Princess; “Ladies when there is occasion, then acting aa chambermaids, cooks, washerwomen, when that is over.”
Queen Sophie was averse to salute these creatures; but the Czarina Catherine making reprisals upon our Margravines, and the King looking painfully earnest in it, she prevailed upon herself. Was there ever seen such a travelling tagraggery of a Sovereign Court before? “Several of these creatures [PRESQUE TOUTES, says the exaggerative Princess] had, in their arms, a baby in rich dress; and if you asked, ‘Is that yours, then?’ they answered, making salaams in Russian style, ‘The Czar did me the honor (
Which statement, if we deduct the due 25 per cent, is probably not mythic, after all. A day or two ago, the Czar had been at Magdeburg, on his way hither, intent upon inspecting matters there; and the Official Gentlemen,–President Cocceji (afterwards a very celebrated man) at the head of them,–waited on the Czar, to do what was needful. On entering, with the proper Address or complimentary Harangue, they found his Czarish Majesty “standing between two Russian Ladies,” clearly Ladies of the above sort; for they stood close by him, one of his arms was round the neck of each, and his hands amused themselves by taking liberties in that posture, all the time Cocceji spoke. Nay, even this was as nothing among the Magdeburg phenomena. Next day, for instance, there appeared in the audience-chamber a certain Serene high-pacing Duke of Mecklenburg, with his Duchess;–thrice-unfortunate Duke, of whom we shall too often hear again; who, after some adventures, under Charles XII. first of all, and then under the enemies of Charles, had, about a year ago, after divorcing his first Wife, married a Niece of Peter’s:–Duke and Duchess arrive now, by order or gracious invitation of their Sovereign Uncle, to accompany him in those parts; and are announced to an eager Czar, giving audience to his select Magdeburg public. At sight of which most desirable Duchess and Brother’s Daughter, how Peter started up, satyr-like, clasping her in his arms, and snatching her into an inner room, with the door left ajar, and there–It is too Samoeidic for human speech! and would excel belief, were not the testimony so strong. [Pollnitz (
ii. 95) gives Friedrich Wilhelm as voucher, “who used to relate it as from eye-and-ear witnesses.”] A Duke of Mecklenburg, it would appear, who may count himself the NON-PLUS-ULTRA of husbands in that epoch;–as among Sovereign Rulers, too, in a small or great way, he seeks his fellow for ill-luck!
Duke and Duchess accompanied the Czar to Berlin, where Wilhelmina mentions them, as presentees; part of those “four hundred” anomalies. They took the Czar home with them to Mecklenburg: where indeed some Russian Regiments of his, left here on their return from Denmark, had been very useful in coercing the rebellious Ritterschaft (KNIGHTAGE, or Landed-Gentry) of this Duke,–till at length the general outcry, and voice of the Reich itself, had ordered the said Regiments to get on march again, and take themselves away. [The LAST of them, “July, 1717; ” two months ago. (Michaelis, ii. 418.)] For all is rebellion, passive rebellion, in Mecklenburg; taxes being so indispensable; and the Knights so disinclined; and this Duke a Sovereign,–such as we may construe from his quarrelling with almost everybody, and his NOT quarrelling with an Uncle Peter of that kind. [One poor hint, on his behalf, let us not omit: “WIFE quitted him in 1719, and lived at Moscow afterwards!” (General Mannstein,
Russia,
Wilhelmina goes by hearsay hitherto; and, it is to be hoped, had heard nothing of these Magdeburg-Mecklenburg phenomena; but after the Czarina’s arrival, the little creature saw with her own eyes:–
“Next day,” that is, Wednesday, 22d “the Czar and his Spouse came to return the Queen’s visit; and I saw the Court myself.” Palace Grand-Apartments; Queen advancing a due length, even to the outer guard-room; giving the Czarina her right hand, and leading her into her audience-chamber in that distinguished manner: King and Czar followed close;–and here it was that Wilhelmina’s personal experiences began. “The Czar at once recognized me, having seen me before, five years ago [March, 1713]. He caught me in his arms; fell to kissing me, like to flay the skin off my face. I boxed his ears, sprawled, and struggled with all my strength; saying I would not allow such familiarities, and that he was dishonoring me. He laughed greatly at this idea; made peace, and talked a long time with me. I had got my lesson: I spoke of his fleet and his conquests;–which charmed him so much, that he said more than once to the Czarina, ‘If he could have a child like me, he would willingly give one of his Provinces in exchange.’ The Czarina also caressed me a good deal. The Queen [Mamma] and she placed themselves under the dais, each in an arm-chair” of proper dignity; “I was at the Queen’s side, and the Princesses of the Blood,” Margravines above spoken of, “were opposite to her,”– all in a standing posture, as is proper.
“The Czarina was a little stumpy body, very brown, and had neither air nor grace: you needed only look at her, to guess her low extraction.” It is no secret, she had been a kitchen-wench in her Lithuanian native country; afterwards a female of the kind called unfortunate, under several figures: however, she saved the Czar once, by her ready-wit and courage, from a devouring Turkish Difficulty, and he made her fortunate and a Czarina, to sit under the dais as now. “With her huddle of clothes, she looked for all the world like a German Play-actress; her dress, you would have said, had been bought at a second-hand shop; all was out of fashion, all was loaded with silver and greasy dirt. The front of her bodice she had ornamented with jewels in a very singular pattern: A double-eagle in embroidery, and the plumes of it set with poor little diamonds, of the smallest possible carat, and very ill mounted. All along the facing of her gown were Orders and little things of metal; a dozen Orders, and as many Portraits of saints, of relics and the like; so that when she walked, it was with a jingling, as if you heard a mule with bells to its harness.”–Poor little Czarina; shifty nutbrown fellow-creature, strangely chased about from the bottom to the top of this world; it is evident she does not succeed at Queen Sophie Dorothee’s Court!–
“The Czar, on the other hand, was very tall, and might be called handsome,” continues Wilhelmina: “his countenance was beautiful, but had something of savage in it which put you in fear.” Partly a kind of Milton’s-Devil physiognomy? The Portraits give it rather so. Archangel not quite ruined, yet in sadly ruinous condition; its heroism so bemired,–with a turn for strong drink, too, at times! A physiognomy to make one reflect.” His dress was of sailor fashion, coat, altogether plain.”
“The Czarina, who spoke German very ill herself, and did not understand well what the Queen said, beckoned to her Fool to come near,”–a poor female creature, who had once been a Princess Galitzin, but having got into mischief, had been excused to the Czar by her high relations as mad, and saved from death or Siberia, into her present strange harbor of refuge. With her the Czarina talked in unknown Russ, evidently “laughing much and loud,” till Supper was announced.
“At table,” continues Wilhelmina, “the Czar placed himself beside the Queen. It is understood this Prince was attempted with poison in his youth, and that something of it had settled on his nerves ever after. One thing is certain, there took him very often a sort of convulsion, like Tic or St.-Vitus, which it was beyond his power to control. That happened at table now. He got into contortions, gesticulations; and as the knife was in his hand, and went dancing about within arm’s-length of the Queen, it frightened her, and she motioned several times to rise. The Czar begged her not to mind, for he would do her no ill; at the same time he took her by the hand, which he grasped with such violence that the Queen was forced to shriek out. This set him heartily laughing; saying she had not bones of so hard a texture as his Catherine’s. Supper done, a grand Ball had been got ready; but the Czar escaped at once, and walked home by himself to Monbijou, leaving the others to dance.”
Wilhelmina’s story of the Cabinet of Antiques; of the Indecent little Statue there, and of the orders Catherine got to kiss it, with a “KOPF AB (Head off, if you won’t)!” from the bantering Czar, whom she had to obey,–is not incredible, after what we have seen. It seems, he begged this bit of Antique Indecency from Friedrich Wilhelm; who, we may fancy, would give him such an article with especial readiness. That same day, fourth of the Visit, Thursday, 23d of the month, the august Party went its ways again; Friedrich Wilhelm convoying “as far as Potsdam;” Czar and Suite taking that route towards Mecklenburg, where he still intends some little pause before proceeding homeward. Friedrich Wilhelm took farewell; and never saw the Czar again.
It was on this Journey, best part of which is now done, that the famous Order bore, “Do it for six thousand thalers; won’t allow you one other penny (
Peter’s, VIATICUM, the Antique Indecency, Friedrich Wilhelm did not grudge to part with; glad to purchase the Czar’s good-will by coin of that kind. Last year, at Havelberg, he had given the Czar an entire Cabinet of Amber Articles, belonging to his late Father. Amber Cabinet, in the lump; and likewise such a Yacht, for shape, splendor and outfit, as probably Holland never launched before;– Yacht also belonging to his late Father, and without value to Friedrich Wilhelm. The old King had got it built in Holland, regardless of expense,–15,000 pounds, they say, perhaps as good as 50,000 pounds now; –and it lay at Potsdam: good for what? Friedrich Wilhelm sent it down the Havel, down the Elbe, silk sailors and all, towards Hamburg and Petersburg, with a great deal of pleasure. For the Czar, and peace and good-will with the Czar, was of essential value to him. Neither, at any rate, is the Czar a man to take gifts without return. Tall fellows for soldiers: that is always one prime object with Friedrich Wilhelm; for already these Potsdam Guards of his are getting ever more gigantic. Not less an object, though less an ideal or POETIC one (as we once defined), was this other, to find buyers for the Manufactures, new and old, which he was so bent on encouraging. “It is astonishing, what quantities of cloth, of hardware, salt, and all kinds of manufactured articles the Russians buy from us,” say the old Books;–“see how our ‘Russian Company’ flourishes!” In both these objects, not to speak of peace and good-will in general, the Czar is our man.
Thus, this very Autumn, there arrive, astonished and astonishing, no fewer than a hundred and fifty human figures (one half MORE than were promised), probably from seven to eight feet high; the tallest the Czar could riddle out from his Dominions: what a windfall to the Potsdam Guard and its Colonel-King! And all succeeding Autumns the like, so long as Friedrich Wilhelm lived; every Autumn, out of Russia a hundred of the tallest mortals living. Invaluable,–to a “man of genius” mounted on his hobby! One’s “stanza” can be polished at this rate.
In return for these Russian sons of Anak, Friedrich Wilhelm grudged not to send German smiths, millwrights, drill-sergeants, cannoneers, engineers; having plenty of them. By whom, as Peter well calculated, the inert opaque Russian mass might be kindled into luminosity and vitality; and drilled to know the Art of War, for one thing. Which followed accordingly. And it is observable, ever since, that the Russian Art of War has a tincture of GERMAN in it (solid German, as contradistinguished from unsolid Revolutionary-French); and hints to us of Friedrich Wilhelm and the Old Dessauer, to this hour.–EXEANT now the Barbaric semi-fabulous Sovereignties, till wanted again.
Chapter VIII.
THE CROWN-PRINCE IS PUT TO HIS SCHOOLING.
In his seventh year, young Friedrich was taken out of the hands of the women; and had Tutors and Sub-Tutors of masculine gender, who had been nominated for him some time ago, actually set to work upon their function. These we have already heard of; they came from Stralsund Siege, all the principal hands.
Duhan de Jandun, the young French gentleman who had escaped from grammar-lessons to the trenches, he is the practical teacher. Lieutenant-General Graf Fink von Finkenstein and Lieutenant-Colonel von Kalkstein, they are Head Tutor (OBERHOFMEISTER) and Sub-Tutor; military men both, who had been in many wars besides Stralsund. By these three he was assiduously educated, subordinate schoolmasters working under them when needful, in such branches as the paternal judgment would admit; the paternal object and theirs being to infuse useful knowledge, reject useless, and wind up the whole into a military finish. These appointments, made at different precise dates, took effect, all of them, in the year 1719.
Duhan, independently of his experience in the trenches, appears to have been an accomplished, ingenious and conscientious man; who did credit to Friedrich Wilhelm’s judgment; and to whom Friedrich professed himself much indebted in after life. Their progress in some of the technical branches, as we shall perceive, was indisputably unsatisfactory. But the mind of the Boy seems to have been opened by this Duhan, to a lively, and in some sort genial, perception of things round him;–of the strange confusedly opulent Universe he had got into; and of the noble and supreme function which Intelligence holds there; supreme in Art as in Nature, beyond all other functions whatsoever. Duhan was now turned of thirty: a cheerful amiable Frenchman; poor, though of good birth and acquirements; originally from Champagne. Friedrich loved him very much; always considered him his spiritual father; and to the end of Duhan’s life, twenty years hence, was eager to do him any good in his power. Anxious always to repair, for poor Duhan, the great sorrows he came to on his account, as we shall see.
Of Graf Fink von Finkenstein, who has had military experiences of all kinds and all degrees, from marching as prisoner into France, “wounded and without his hat,” to fighting at Malplaquet, at Blenheim, even at Steenkirk, as well as Stralsund; who is now in his sixtieth year, and seems to have been a gentleman of rather high solemn manners, and indeed of undeniable perfections,–of this supreme Count Fink we learn almost nothing farther in the Books, except that his little Pupil did not dislike him either. The little Pupil took not unkindly to Fink; welcoming any benignant human ray, across these lofty gravities of the OBERHOFMEISTER; went often to his house in Berlin; and made acquaintance with two young Finks about his own age, whom he found there, and who became important to him, especially the younger of them, in the course of the future. [Zedlitz-Neukirch,
How these Fink-Kalkstein functionaries proceeded in the great task they had got,–very great task, had they known what Pupil had fallen to them,–is not directly recorded for us, with any sequence or distinctness. We infer only that everything went by inflexible routiue; not asking at all, WHAT pupil?–nor much, Whether it would suit any pupil? Duhan, with the tendencies we have seen in him, who is willing to soften the inflexible when possible, and to “guide Nature” by a rather loose rein, was probably a genial element in the otherwise strict affair. Fritz had one unspeakable advantage, rare among princes and even among peasants in these ruined ages: that of NOT being taught, or in general not, by the kind called “Hypocrites, and even Sincere-Hypocrites,”–fatalest species of the class HYPOCRITE. We perceive he was lessoned, all along, not by enchanted Phantasms of that dangerous sort, breathing mendacity of mind, unconsciously, out of every look; but by real Men, who believed from the heart outwards, and were daily doing what they taught. To which unspeakable advantage we add a second, likewise considerable; That his masters, though rigorous, were not unlovable to him;–that his affections, at least, were kept alive; that whatever of seed (or of chaff and hail, as was likelier) fell on his mind, had SUNSHINE to help in dealing with it. These are two advantages still achievable, though with difficulty, in our epoch, by an earnest father in behalf of his poor little son. And these are, at present, nearly all; with these well achieved, the earnest father and his son ought to be thankful. Alas, in matter of education, there are no high-roads at present; or there are such only as do NOT lead to the goal. Fritz, like the rest of us, had to struggle his way, Nature and Didactic Art differing very much from one another; and to do battle, incessant partial battle, with his schoolmasters for any education he had.
A very rough Document, giving Friedrich Wilhelm’s regulations on this subject, from his own hand, has come down to us. Most dull, embroiled, heavy Document; intricate, gnarled, and, in fine, rough and stiff as natural bull-headedness helped by Prussian pipe-clay can make it;–contains some excellent hints, too; and will show us something of Fritzchen and of Friedrich Wilhelm both at once. That is to say, always, if it can be read! If by aid of abridging, elucidating and arranging, we can get the reader engaged to peruse it patiently;–which seems doubtful. The points insisted on, in a ponderous but straggling confused manner, by his didactic Majesty, are chiefly these:–
1. Must impress my Son with a proper love and fear of God, as the foundation and sole pillar of our temporal and eternal welfare. No false religions, or sects of Atheist, Arian (ArRian), Socinian, or whatever name the poisonous things have, which can so easily corrupt a young mind, are to be even named in his hearing: on the other hand, a proper abhorrence (ABSCHEU) of Papistry, and insight into its baselessness and nonsensicality (UNGRUND UND ABSURDITAT), is to be communicated to him:”–Papistry, which is false enough, like the others, but impossible to be ignored like them; mention that, and give him due abhorrence for it. For we are Protestant to the bone in this country; and cannot stand ABSURDITAT, least of all hypocritically religious ditto! But the grand thing will be, “To impress on him the true religion, which consists essentially in this, That Christ died for all men,” and generally that the Almighty’s justice is eternal and omnipresent, –“which consideration is the only means of keeping a sovereign person (SOUVERAINE MACHT), or one freed from human penalties, in the right way.”
2. “He is to learn no Latin;” observe that, however it may surprise you. What has a living German man and King, of the eighteenth Christian SOECULUM, to do with dead old Heathen Latins, Romans, and the lingo THEY spoke their fraction of sense and nonsense in? Frightful, how the young years of the European Generations have been wasted, for ten centuries back; and the Thinkers of the world have become mere walking Sacks of Marine-stores, “GELEHRTEN, Learned,” as they call themselves; and gone LOST to the world, in that manner, as a set of confiscated Pedants;–babbling about said Heathens, and THEIR extinct lingo and fraction of sense and nonsense, for the thousand years last past! Heathen Latins, Romans;–who perhaps were no great things of Heathen, after all, if well seen into? I have heard judges say, they were INferior, in real worth and grist, to German home-growths we have had, if the confiscated Pedants could have discerned it! At any rate, they are dead, buried deep, these two thousand years; well out of our way;–and nonsense enough of our own left, to keep sweeping into corners. Silence about their lingo and them, to this new Crown-Prince! “Let the Prince learn French and German,” so as to write and speak, “with brevity and propriety,” in these two languages, which may be useful to him in life. That will suffice for languages,–provided he have anything effectually rational to say in them. For the rest, 3. “Let him learn Arithmetic, Mathematics, Artillery,– Economy to the very bottom.” And, in short, useful knowledge generally; useless ditto not at all. “History in particular;– Ancient History only slightly (NUR UBERHIN);–but the History of the last hundred and fifty Years to the exactest pitch. The JUS NATURALE and JUS GENTIUM,” by way of hand-lamp to History, “he must be completely master of; as also of Geography, whatever is remarkable in each Country. And in Histories, most especially the History of the house of Brandenburg; where he will find domestic examples, which are always of more force than foreign. And along with Prussian History, chiefly that of the Countries which have been connected with it, as England, Brunswick, Hessen and the others. And in reading of wise History-books there must be considerations made (
Historiarum Betrachtungen gemacht werden
causes of the events.”–Surely, O King! 4. “With increasing years, you will more and more, to a most especial degree, go upon Fortification,”–mark you!–“the Formation of a Camp, and the other War-Sciences; that the Prince may, from youth upwards, be trained to act as Officer and General, and to seek all his glory in the soldier profession.” This is whither it must all tend. You, Finkenstein and Kalkstein, “have both of you, in the highest measure, to make it your care to infuse into my Son [EINZUPRAGEN, stamp into him] a true love for the Soldier business, and to impress on him that, as there is nothing in the world which can bring a Prince renown and honor like the sword, so he would be a despised creature before all men, if he did not love it, and seek his sole glory (DIE EINZIGE GLORIA) therein.” [Preuss, i. 11-14 (of date 13th August, 1718).] Which is an extreme statement of the case; showing how much we have it at heart.
These are the chief Friedrich-Wilhelm traits; the rest of the document corresponds in general to what the late Majesty had written for Friedrich Wilhelm himself on the like occasion. [Stenzel, iii. 572.] Ruthless contempt of Useless Knowledge; and passionate insight into the distinction between Useful and Useless, especially into the worth of Soldiering as a royal accomplishment, are the chief peculiarities here. In which latter point too Friedrich Wilhelm, himself the most pacific of men, unless you pulled the whiskers of him, or broke into his goods and chattels, knew very well what he was meaning,–much better than we of the “Peace Society” and “Philanthropic Movement” could imagine at first sight! It is a thing he, for his part, is very decided upon.
Already, a year before this time, [1st September, 1717: Preuss, i. 13.] there had been instituted, for express behoof of little Fritz, a miniature Soldier Company, above a hundred strong; which grew afterwards to be near three hundred, and indeed rose to be a permanent Institution by degrees; called
der Kronprinzlichen Kadetten
Cadets). A hundred and ten boys about his own age, sons of noble families, had been selected from the three Military Schools then extant, as a kind of tiny regiment for him; where, if he was by no means commander all at once, he might learn his exercise in fellowship with others. Czar Peter, it is likely, took a glance of this tiny regiment just getting into rank and file there; which would remind the Czar of his own young days. An experienced Lieutenant-Colonel was appointed to command in chief. A certain handy and correct young fellow, Rentsel by name, about seventeen, who already knew his fugling to a hair’s-breadth, was Drill-master; and exencised them all, Fritz especially, with due strictness; till, in the course of time and of attainments, Fritz could himself take the head charge. Which he did duly, in a year or two: a little soldier thenceforth; properly strict, though of small dimensions; in tight blue bit of coat and cocked-hat:– miniature image of Papa (it is fondly hoped and expected), resembling him as a sixpence does a half-crown. In 1721 the assiduous Papa set up a “little arsenal” for him, “in the Orange Hall of the Palace:” there let him, with perhaps a chosen comrade or two, mount batteries, fire exceedingly small brass ordnance,– his Engineer-Teacher, one Major von Senning, limping about (on cork leg), and superintending if needful.
Rentzel, it is known, proved an excellent Drill-sergeant;–had good talents every way, and was a man of probity and sense. He played beautifully on the flute too, and had a cheerful conversible turn; which naturally recommended him still farther to Fritz; and awoke or encouraged, among other faculties, the musical faculty in the little Boy. Rentzel continued about him, or in sight of him, through life; advancing gradually, not too fast, according to real merit and service (Colonel in 1759); and never did discredit to the choice Friedrich Wilhelm had made of him. Of Senning, too, Engineer-Major von Senning, who gave Fritz his lessons in Mathematics, Fortification and the kindred branches, the like, or better, can be said. He was of graver years; had lost a leg in the Marlborough Campaigns, poor gentleman; but had abundant sense, native worth and cheery rational talk, in him: so that he too could never be parted with by Friedrich, but was kept on hand to the last, a permanent and variously serviceable acquisition.
Thus, at least, is the military education of our Crown-Prince cared for. And we are to fancy the little fellow, from his tenth year or earlier, going about in miniature soldier figure, for most part; in strict Spartan-Brandenburg costume, of body as of mind. Costume little flattering to his own private taste for finery; yet by no means unwholesome to him, as he came afterwards to know, In October, 1723, it is on record, when George I. came to visit his Son-in-law and Daughter at Berlin, his Britannic Majesty, looking out from his new quarters on the morrow, saw Fritzchen “drilling his Cadet Company;” a very pretty little phenomenon. Drilling with clear voice, military sharpness, and the precision of clock-work on the Esplanade (LUSTGARTEN) there;–and doubtless the Britannic Majesty gave some grunt of acquiescence, perhaps even a smile, rare on that square heavy-laden countenance of his. That is the record: [Forster, i. 215.] and truly it forms for us by far the liveliest little picture we have got, from those dull old years of European History. Years already sunk, or sinking, into lonesome unpeopled Dusk for all men; and fast verging towards vacant Oblivion and eternal Night;–which (if some few articles were once saved out of them) is their just and inevitable portion from afflicted human nature.
Of riding-masters, fencing-masters, swimming-masters; much less of dancing-masters, music-masters (celebrated Graun, “on the organ,” with Psalm-tunes), we cannot speak; but the reader may be satisfied they were all there, good of their kind, and pushing on at a fair rate. Nor is there lack anywhere of paternal supervision to our young Apprentice, From an early age, Papa took the Crown-Prince with him on his annual Reviews. From utmost Memel on the Russian border, down to Wesel on the French, all Prussia, in every nook of it, garrison, marching-regiment, board of management, is rigorously reviewed by Majesty once a year. There travels little military Fritz, beside the military Majesty, amid the generals and official persons, in their hardy Spartan manner; and learns to look into everything like a Rhadamanthine Argus, and how the eye of the master, more than all other appliances, fattens the cattle.
On his hunts, too, Papa took him. For Papa was a famous hunter, when at Wusterhausen in the season:–hot Beagle-chase, hot Stag-hunt, your chief game deer; huge “Force-Hunt” (PARFORCE-JAGD, the woods all beaten, and your wild beasts driven into straits and caudine-forks for you); Boar-hunting (SAUHETZE, “sow-baiting,” as the Germans call it), Partridge-shooting, Fox- and Wolf-hunting;– on all grand expeditions of such sort, little Fritz shall ride with Papa and party. Rough furious riding; now on swift steed, now at places on WURSTWAGEN,–WURSTWAGEN, “Sausage-Car” so called, most Spartan of vehicles, a mere STUFFED POLE or “sausage” with wheels to it, on which you sit astride, a dozen or so of you, and career;–regardless of the summer heat and sandy dust, of the winter’s frost-storms and muddy rain. All this the little Crown-Prince is bound to do;–but likes it less and less, some of us are sorry to observe! In fact he could not take to hunting at all, or find the least of permanent satisfaction in shooting partridges and baiting sows,–“with such an expenditure of industry and such damage to the seedfields,” he would sometimes allege in extenuation. In later years he has been known to retire into some glade of the thickets, and hold a little Flute-Hautbois Concert with his musical comrades, while the sows were getting baited. Or he would converse with Mamma and her Ladies, if her Majesty chanced to be there, in a day for open driving. Which things by no means increased his favor with Papa, a sworn hater of “effeminate practices.”
He was “nourished on beer-soup,” as we said before. Frugality, activity, exactitude were lessons daily and hourly brought home to him, in everything he did and saw. His very sleep was stingily meted out to him: “Too much sleep stupefies a fellow!” Friedrich Wilhelm was wont to say;–so that the very doctors had to interfere, in this matter, for little Fritz. Frugal enough, hardy enough; urged in every way to look with indifference on hardship, and take a Spartan view of life.
Money-allowance completely his own, he does not seem to have had till he was seventeen. Exiguous pocket-money, counted in GROSCHEN (English PENCE, or hardly more), only his Kalkstein and Finkenstein could grant as they saw good;–about eighteenpence in the month, to start with, as would appear. The other small incidental moneys, necessary for his use, were likewise all laid out under sanction of his Tutors, and accurately entered in Day-books by them, audited by Friedrich Wilhelm; of which some specimens remain, and one whole month, September, 1719 (the Boy’s eighth year), has been published. Very singular to contemplate, in these days of gold-nuggets and irrational man-mountains fattened by mankind at such a price! The monthly amount appears to have been some 3 pounds 10 shillings:–and has gone, all but the eighteenpence of sovereign pocket-money, for small furnishings and very minute necessary luxuries;–as thus:– “To putting his Highness’s shoes on the last;” for stretching them to the little feet,–and only one “last,” as we perceive. “To twelve yards of Hairtape,”–HAARBAND, for our little queue, which becomes visible here. “For drink-money to the Postilions.” “For the Housemaids at Wusterhausen,” Don’t I pay them myself? objects the auditing Papa, at that latter kind of items: No more of that. “For mending the flute, four GROSCHEN [or pence];” “Two Boxes of Colors, sixteen ditto;” “For a live snipe, twopence;” “For grinding the hanger [little swordkin];” “To a Boy whom the dog bit;” and chiefly of all, “To the KLINGBEUTEL,”– Collection-plate, or bag, at Church,–which comes upon us once, nay twice, and even thrice a week, eighteenpence each time, and eats deep into our straitened means. [Preuss, i. 17.]
On such terms can a little Fritz be nourished into a Friedrich the Great; while irrational man-mountains, of the beaverish or beaverish-vulpine sort, take such a price to fatten them into monstrosity! The Art-manufacture of your Friedrich can come very cheap, it would appear, if once Nature have done her part in regard to him, and there be mere honest will on the part of the by-standers. Thus Samuel Johnson, too, cost next to nothing in the way of board and entertainment in this world. And a Robert Burns, remarkable modern Thor, a Peasant-god of these sunk ages, with a touch of melodious RUNES in him (since all else lay under ban for the poor fellow), was raised on frugal oatmeal, at an expense of perhaps half a crown a week. Nuggets and ducats are divine; but they are not the most divine. I often wish the Devil had the lion’s share of them,–at once, and not circuitously as now. It would be an unspeakable advantage to the bewildered sons of Adam, in this epoch!
But with regard to our little Crown-Prince’s intellectual culture, there is another Document, specially from Papa’s hand, which, if we can redact, adjust and abridge it, as in the former case, may be worth the reader’s notice, and elucidate some things for him. It is of date, Wusterhausen, 3d September, 1721; little Fritz now in his tenth year, and out there, with his Duhans and Finkensteins, while Papa is rusticating for a few weeks. The essential title is, or might be:–
SUNDAY. “On Sunday he is to rise at 7; and as soon as he has got his slippers on, shall kneel down at his bedside, and pray to God, so as all in the room may hear it [that there be no deception or short measure palmed upon us], in these words: ‘Lord God, blessed Father, I thank thee from my heart that thou hast so graciously preserved me through this night. Fit me for what thy holy will is; and grant that I do nothing this day, nor all the days of my life, which can divide me from thee. For the Lord Jesus my Redeemer’s sake. Amen.’ After which the Lord’s Prayer. Then rapidly and vigorously (GESCHWINDE UND HURTIG) wash himself clean, dress and powder and comb himself [we forget to say, that while they are combing and queuing him, he breakfasts, with brevity, on tea]: Prayer, with washing, breakfast and the rest, to be done pointedly within fifteen minutes [that is, at a quarter past 7].
“This finished, all his Domestics and Duhan shall come in, and do family worship (
Prayer on their knees, Duhan withal to read a Chapter of the Bible, and sing some proper Psalm or Hymn [as practised in well-regulated families]:–It will then be a quarter to 8. All the Domestics then withdraw again; and Duhan now reads with my Son the Gospel of the Sunday; expounds it a little, adducing the main points of Christianity;–questioning from Noltenius’s Catechism [which Fritz knows by heart]:–it will then be 9 o’clock.
“At 9 he brings my Son down to me; who goes to Church, and dines, along with me [dinner at the stroke of Noon]: the rest of the day is then his own [Fritz’s and Duhan’s]. At half-past 9 in the evening, he shall come and bid me goodnight. Shall then directly go to his room; very rapidly (SEHR GESCHWIND) get off his clothes, wash his hands [get into some tiny dressing-gown or CASSAQUIN, no doubt]; and so soon as that is done, Duhan makes a prayer on his knees, and sings a hymn; all the Servants being again there. Instantly after which, my Son shall get into bed; shall be in bed at half-past 10;”–and fall asleep how soon, your Majesty? This is very strict work.
MONDAY. “On Monday, as on all weekdays, he is to be called at 6; and so soon as called he is to rise; you are to stand to him (ANHALTEN) that he do not loiter or turn in bed, but briskly and at once get up; and say his prayers, the same as on Sunday morning. This done, he shall as rapidly as possible get on his shoes and spatterdashes; also wash his face and hands, but not with soap. Farther shall put on his CASSAQUIN [short dressing-gown], have his hair combed out and queued, but not powdered. While getting combed and queued, he shall at the same time take breakfast of tea, so that both jobs go on at once; and all this shall be ended before half-past 6.” Then enter Duhan and the Domestics, with worship, Bible, Hymn, all as on Sunday; this is done by 7, and the Servants go again.
“From 7 till 9 Duhan takes him on History; at 9 comes Noltenius [a sublime Clerical Gentleman from Berlin] with the Christian Religion, till a quarter to 11. Then Fritz rapidly (GESCHWIND) washes his face with water, hands with soap-and-water; clean shirt; powders, and puts on his coat;–about 11 comes to the King. Stays with the King till 2,”–perhaps promenading a little; dining always at Noon; after which Majesty is apt to be slumberous, and light amusements are over.
“Directly at 2, he goes back to his room. Duhan is there, ready; takes him upon the Maps and Geography, from 2 to 3,–giving account [gradually!] of all the European Kingdoms; their strength and weakness; size, riches and poverty of their towns. From 3 to 4, Duhan treats of Morality (
There, then, is a Sunday, and there is one Weekday; which latter may serve for all the other five:–though they are strictly specified in the royal monograph, and every hour of them marked out: How, and at what points of time, besides this of HISTORY, of MORALITY, and WRITING IN GERMAN, of Maps and GEOGRAPHY with the strength and weakness of Kingdoms, you are to take up ARITHMETIC more than once; WRITING OF FRENCH LETTERS, so as to acquire a good STYLUM: in what nook you may intercalate “a little getting by heart of something, in order to strengthen the memory;” how instead of Noltenius, Panzendorf (another sublime Reverend Gentleman from Berlin, who comes out express) gives the clerical drill on Tuesday morning;–with which two onslaughts, of an hour-and-half each, the Clerical Gentlemen seem to withdraw for the week, and we hear no more of them till Monday and Tuesday come round again.
On Wednesday we are happy to observe a liberal slice of holiday come in. At half-past 9, having done his HISTORY, and “got something by heart to strengthen the memory [very little, it is to be feared], Fritz shall rapidly dress himself, and come to the King. And the rest of the day belongs to little Fritz (
there is some fair chance of half-holiday:–
“SATURDAY, forenoon till half-past 10, come History, Writing and Ciphering; especially repetition of what was done through the week, and in MORALITY as well [adds the rapid Majesty], to see whether he has profited. And General Graf von Finkenstein, with Colonel von Kalkstein, shall be present during this. If Fritz has profited, the afternoon shall be his own. If he has not profited, he shall, from 2 to 6, repeat and learn rightly what he has forgotten on the past days.” And so the laboring week winds itself up. Here, however, is one general rule which cannot be too much impressed upon YOU, with which we conclude:–
“In undressing and dressing, you must accustom him to get out of, and into, his clothes as fast as is humanly possible (
hurtig so viel als menschenmoglich ist
also look that he learn to put on aud put off his clothes himself, without help from others; and that he be clean and neat, and not so dirty (
“FRIEDRICH WILHELM.” [Preuss, i. 21.]
Chapter IX.
WUSTERHAUSEN.
Wusterhausen, where for the present these operations go on, lies about twenty English miles southeast of Berlin, as you go towards Schlesien (Silesia);–on the old Silesian road, in a flat moory country made of peat and sand;–and is not distinguished for its beauty at all among royal Hunting-lodges. The Gohrde at Hanover, for example, what a splendor there in comparison! But it serves Friedrich Wilhelm’s simple purposes: there is game abundant in the scraggy woodlands, otter-pools, fish-pools, and miry thickets, of that old “Schenkenland” (belonged all once to the “SCHENKEN Family,” till old King Friedrich bought it for his Prince); retinue sufficient find nooks for lodgment in the poor old Schloss so called; and Noltenius and Panzendorf drive out each once a week, in some light vehicle, to drill Fritz in his religious exercises.
One Zollner, a Tourist to Silesia, confesses himself rather pleased to find even Wusterhausen in such a country of sandy bent-grass, lean cattle, and flat desolate languor.
“Getting to the top of the ridge” (most insignificant “ridge,” made by hand; Wilhelmina satirically says), Tourist Zollner can discern with pleasure “a considerable Brook,”–visible, not audible, smooth Stream, or chain of meres and lakelets, flowing languidly northward towards Kopenik. Inaudible big Brook or Stream; which, we perceive, drains a slightly hollowed Tract; too shallow to be called valley,–of several miles in width, of several yards in depth;–Tract with wood here and there on it, and signs of grass and culture, welcome after what you have passed. On the foreground close to you is the Hamlet of Konigs-Wusterhausen, with tolerable Lime-tree Avenue leading to it, and the air of something sylvan from your Hill-top. Konigs-Wusterhausen was once WENDISH-Westerhausen, and not far off is DEUTSCH-Wusterhausen, famed, I suppose, by faction-fights in the Vandalic times: both of them are now KING’S-Wusterhausen (since the King came thither), to distinguish them from other Wusterhausens that there are.
Descending, advancing through your Lime-tree Avenue, you come upon the backs of office-houses, out-houses, stables or the like,–on your left hand I have guessed,–extending along the Highway. And in the middle of these you come at last to a kind of Gate or vaulted passage (ART VON THOR, says Zollner), where, if you have liberty, you face to the left, and enter. Here, once through into the free light again, you are in a Court: four-square space, not without prospect; right side and left side are lodgings for his Majesty’s gentlemen; behind you, well in their view, are stables and kitchens: in the centre of the place is a Fountain “with hewn steps and iron railings;” where his simple Majesty has been known to sit and smoke, on summer evenings. The fourth side of your square, again, is a palisade; beyond which, over bridge and moat and intervening apparatus, you perceive, on its trim terraces, the respectable old Schloss itself. A rectangular mass, not of vast proportions, with tower in the centre of it (tower for screw-stair, the general roadway of the House); and looking though weather-beaten yet weather-tight, and as dignified as it can. This is Wusterhausen; Friedrich Wilhelm’s Hunting-seat from of old.
A dreadfully crowded place, says Wilhelmina, where you are stuffed into garrets, and have not room to turn. The terraces are of some magnitude, trimmed all round with a row of little clipped trees, one big lime-tree at each corner;–under one of these big lime-trees, aided by an awning: it is his Majesty’s delight to spread his frugal but substantial dinner, four-and-twenty covers, at the stroke of 12, and so dine SUB DIO. If rain come on, says Wilhelmina, you are wet to mid-leg, the ground being hollow in that place,–and indeed in all weathers your situation every way, to a vehement young Princess’s idea, is rather of the horrible sort. After dinner, his Majesty sleeps, stretched perhaps on some wooden settle or garden-chair, for about an hour; regardless of the flaming heat, under his awning or not; and we poor Princesses have to wait, praying all the Saints that they would resuscitate him soon. This is about 2 p.m.; happier Fritz is gone to his lessons, in the interim.
These four Terraces, this rectangular Schloss with the four big lindens at the corners, are surrounded by a Moat; black abominable ditch, Wilhelmina calls it; of the hue of Tartarean Styx, and of a far worse smell, in fact enough to choke one, in hot days after dinner, thinks the vehement Princess. Three Bridges cross this Moat or ditch, from the middle of three several Terraces or sides of the Schloss; and on the fourth it is impassable. Bridge first, coming from the palisade and Office-house Court, has not only human sentries walking at it; but two white Eagles perch near it, and two black ditto, symbols of the heraldic Prussian Eagle, screeching about in their littery way; item two black Bears, ugly as Sin, which are vicious wretches withal, and many times do passengers a mischief. As perhaps we shall see, on some occasion. This is Bridge first, leading to the Court and to the outer Highway; a King’s gentleman, going to bed at night, has always to pass these Bears. Bridge second leads us southward to a common Mill which is near by; its clacking audible upon the common Stream of the region, and not unpleasant to his Majesty, among its meadows fringed with alders, in a country of mere and moor. Bridge third, directly opposite to Bridge first and its Bears, leads you to the Garden; whither Mamma, playing tocadille all day with her women, will not, or will not often enough, let us poor girls go. [Zollner,
(Berlin, 1792), i. 2, 3; Wilhelmina, i. 364, 365.]
Such is Wusterhausen, as delineated by a vehement Princess, some years hence,–who becomes at last intelligible, by study and the aid of our Silesian Tourist. It is not distinguished among Country Palaces: but the figure of Friedrich Wilhelm asleep there after dinner, regardless of the flaming sun (should he sleep too long and the shadow of his Linden quit him),–this is a sight which no other Palace in the world can match; this will long render Wusterhausen memorable to me. His Majesty, early always as the swallows, hunts, I should suppose, in the morning; dines and sleeps, we may perceive, till towards three, or later. His Official business he will not neglect, nor shirk the hours due to it; towards sunset there may be a walk or ride with Fritz, or Feekin and the womankind: and always, in the evening, his Majesty holds TABAGIE, TABAKS-COLLEGIUM (Smoking College, kind of Tobacco-Parliament, as we might name it), an Institution punctually attended to by his Majesty, of which we shall by and by speak more. At Wusterhausen his Majesty holds his Smoking Session mostly in the open air, oftenest “on the steps of the Great Fountain” (how arranged, as to seating and canvas-screening, I cannot say);–smokes there, with his Grumkows, Derschaus, Anhalt-Dessaus, and select Friends, in various slow talk; till Night kindle her mild starlights, shake down her dark curtains over all Countries, and admonish weary mortals that it is now bedtime.
Not much of the Picturesque in this autumnal life of our little Boy. But he has employments in abundance; and these make the permitted open air, under any terms, a delight. He can rove about with Duhan among the gorse and heath, and their wild summer tenantry winged and wingless. In the woodlands are wild swine, in the meres are fishes, otters; the drowsy Hamlets, scattered round, awaken in an interested manner at the sound of our pony-hoofs and dogs. Mittenwalde, where are shops, is within riding distance; we could even stretch to Kopenik, and visit in the big Schloss there, if Duhan were willing, and the cattle fresh. From some church-steeple or sand-knoll, it is to be hoped, some blue streak of the Lausitz Hills may be visible: the Sun and the Moon and the Heavenly Hosts, these full certainly are visible; and on an Earth which everywhere produces miracles of all kinds, from the daisy or heather-bell up to the man, one place is nearly equal to another for a brisk little Boy.
Fine Palaces, if Wusterhausen be a sorry one, are not wanting to our young Friend: whatsoever it is in the power of architecture and upholstery to do for him, may be considered withal as done. Wusterhausen is but a Hunting-lodge for some few Autumn weeks: the Berlin Palace and the Potsdam, grand buildings both, few Palaces in the world surpass them; and there, in one or the other of these, is our usual residence.–Little Fritz, besides his young Finkensteins and others of the like, has Cousins, children of his Grandfather’s Half-brothers, who are comrades of his. For the Great Elector, as we saw, was twice wedded, and had a second set of sons and daughters: two of the sons had children; certain of these are about the Crown-Prince’s own age, “Cousins” of his (strictly speaking, Half-cousins of HIS FATHER’S), who are much about him in his young days,–and more or less afterwards, according to the worth they proved to have. Margraves and Margravines of Schwedt,–there are five or six of such young Cousins. Not to mention the eldest, Friedrich Wilhelm by name, who is now come to manhood (born 1700);–who wished much in after years to have had Wilhelmina to wife; but had to put up with a younger Princess of the House, and ought to have been thankful. This one has a younger Brother, Heinrich, slightly Fritz’s senior, and much his comrade at one time; of whom we shall transiently hear again. Of these two the Old Dessauer is Uncle: if both his Majesty and the Crown-Prince should die, one of these would be king. A circumstance which Wilhelmina and the Queen have laid well to heart, and build many wild suspicions upon, in these years! As that the Old Dessauer, with his gunpowder face, has a plot one day to assassinate his Majesty,–plot evident as sunlight to Wilhelmina and Mamma, which providentially came to nothing;–and other spectral notions of theirs. [Wilhelmina, i. 35, 41.] The Father of these two Margraves (elder of the two Half-brothers that have children) died in the time of Old King Friedrich, eight or nine years ago. Their Mother, the scheming old Margravine, whom I always fancy to dress in high colors, is still living,– as Wilhelmina well knows!
Then, by another, the younger of those old Half-brothers, there is a Karl, a second Friedrich Wilhelm, Cousin Margraves: plenty of Cousins;–and two young Margravines among them, [Michaelis, i. 425.] the youngest about Fritz’s own age. [NOTE OF THE COUSIN MARGRAVES.–Great Elector, by his Second Wife, had five Sons, two of whom left Children;–as follows (so far as they concern us,– he others omitted):–
1. Son PHILIP’S Children (Mother the Old Dessauer’s Sister) are: Friedrich Wilhelm (1700), who wished much, but in vain, to marry Wilhelmina. Heinrich Friedrich (1709), a comrade of Fritz’s in youth; sometimes getting into scrapes;–misbehaved, some way, at the Battle of Molwits (first of Friedrich’s Battles), 1741, and was inexorably CUT by the new King, and continued under a cloud thenceforth .–This PHILIP (“Philip Wilhelm”) died 1711, his forty-third year; Widow long survived him. 2. Son ALBERT’S Children (Mother a Courland Princess) are: Karl (1705); lived near Custrin; became a famed captain, in the Silesian Wars, under his Cousin. Friedrich (1701); fell at Molwitz, 1741. Friedrich Wilhelm (a Margraf Friedrich Wilhelm “No. 2,”–NAMESAKE of his now Majesty, it is like); born 1714; killed at Prag, by a cannon-shot (at King Friedrich’s hand, reconnoitring the place), 1744.–This ALBERT (“Albert Friedrich” ) died suddenly 1731, age fifty-nine.]
No want of Cousins; the Crown-Prince seeing much of them all; and learning pleasantly their various qualities, which were good in most, in some not so good, and did not turn out supreme in any case. But, for the rest, Sister Wilhelmina is his grand confederate and companion; true in sport and in earnest, in joy and in sorrow. Their truthful love to one another, now and till death, is probably the brightest element their life yielded to either of them.
What might be the date of Fritz’s first appearance in the Roucoulles “Soiree held on Wednesdays,” in the Finkenstein or any other Soiree, as an independent figure, I do not know. But at the proper time, he does appear there, and with distinction not extrinsic alone;–talks delightfully in such places; can discuss, even with French Divines, in a charmingly ingenious manner. Another of his elderly consorts I must mention: Colonel Camas, a highly cultivated Frenchman (French altogether by parentage and breeding, though born on Prussian land), who was Tutor, at one time, to some of those young Margraves. He has lost an arm,–left it in those Italian Campaigns, under Anhalt-Dessau and Eugene;– but by the aid of a cork substitute, dexterously managed, almost hides the want. A gallant soldier, fit for the diplomacies too; a man of fine high ways. [
i. 308.] And then his Wife–In fact, the Camas House, we perceive, had from an early time been one of the Crown-Prince’s haunts. Madam Camas is a German Lady; but for genial elegance, for wit and wisdom and goodness, could not readily be paralleled in France or elsewhere. Of both these Camases there will be honorable and important mention by and by; especially of the Lady, whom he continues to call “Mamma” for fifty years to come, and corresponds with in a very beautiful and human fashion.
Under these auspices, in such environment, dimly visible to us, at Wusterhausen and elsewhere, is the remarkable little Crown-Prince of his century growing up,–prosperously as yet.
Chapter X.
THE HEIDELBERG PROTESTANTS.
Friedrich Wilhelm holds Tabagie nightly; but at Wusterhausen or wherever he may be, there is no lack of intricate Official Labor, which, even in the Tabagie, Friedrich Wilhelm does not forget. At the time he was concocting those Instructions for his little Prince’s Schoolmasters, and smoking meditative under the stars, with Magdeburg “RITTER-DIENST” and much else of his own to think of,–there is an extraneous Political Intricacy, making noise enough in the world, much in his thoughts withal, and no doubt occasionally murmured of amid the tobacco-clouds. The Business of the Heidelberg Protestants; which is just coming to a height in those Autumn months of 1719.
Indeed this Year 1719 was a particularly noisy one for him. This is the year of the “nephritic colic,” which befell at Brandenburg on some journey of his Majesty’s; with alarm of immediate death; Queen Sophie sent for by express; testament made in her favor; and intrigues, very black ones, Wilhelmina thinks, following thereupon. [
i. 26-29.] And the “Affair of Clement,” on which the old Books are so profuse, falls likewise, the crisis of it falls, in 1719. Of Clement the “Hungarian Nobleman,” who was a mere Hungarian Swindler, and Forger of Royal Letters; sowing mere discords, black suspicions, between Friedrich Wilhelm and the neighboring Courts, Imperial and Saxon: “Your Majesty to be snapt up, some day, by hired ruffians, and spirited away, for behoof of those treacherous Courts:” so that Friedrich Wilhelm fell into a gloom of melancholy, and for long weeks “never slept but with a pair of loaded pistols under his pillow:”–of this Clement, an adroit Phenomenon of the kind, and intensely agitating to Friedrich Wilhelm;–whom Friedrich Wilhelm had at last to lay hold of, try, this very year, and ultimately hang, [Had arrived in Berlin, “end of 1717;” stayed about a year, often privately in the King’s company, poisoning the royal mind; withdrew to the Hague, suspecting Berlin might soon grow dangerous;–is wiled out of that Territory into the Prussian, and arrested, by one of Friedrich Wilhelm’s Colonels, “end of 1718;” lies in Spandau, getting tried, for seventeen months; hanged, with two Accomplices, 18th April, 1720. (See, in succession, Stenzel, iii. 298, 302; Fassmann, p. 321; Forster, ii. 272, and iii. 320-324.)] amid the rumor and wonder of mankind:–of him, noisy as he was, and still filling many pages of the old Books, a hint shall suffice, and we will say nothing farther. But this of the Heidelberg Protestants, though also rather an extinct business, has still some claims on us. This, in justice to the “inarticulate man of genius,” and for other reasons, we must endeavor to resuscitate a little.
OF KUR-PFALZ KARL PHILIP: HOW HE GOT A WIFE LONG SINCE, AND DID FEATS IN THE WORLD.
There reigns, in these years, at Heidelberg, as Elector Palatine, a kind-tempered but abrupt and somewhat unreasonable old gentleman, now verging towards sixty, Karl Philip by name; who has come athwart the Berlin Court and its affairs more than once; and will again do so, in a singularly disturbing way. From before Friedrich Wilhelm’s birth, all through Friedrich Wilhelm’s life and farther, this Karl Philip is a stone-of-stumbling there. His first feat in life was that of running off with a Prussian Princess from Berlin; the rumor of which was still at its height when Friedrich Wilhelm, a fortnight after, came into the world,– the gossips still talking of it, we may fancy, when Friedrich Wilhelm was first swaddled. An unheard-of thing; the manner of which was this.
Readers have perhaps forgotten, that old King Friedrich I. once had a Brother; elder Brother, who died, to the Father’s great sorrow, and made way for Friedrich as Crown-Prince. This Brother had been married a short time; he left a Widow without children; a beautiful Lithuanian Princess, born Radzivil, and of great possessions in her own country: she, in her crapes and close-cap, remained an ornament to the new Berlin Court for some time;–not too long. The mourning-year once out, a new marriage came on foot for the brilliant widow; the Bridegroom, a James Sobieski, eldest Prince of the famous John, King Sobieski; Prince with fair outlooks towards Polish Sovereignty, and handy for those Lithuanian Possessions of hers: altogether an eligible match.
This marriage was on foot, not quite completed; when Karl Philip, Cadet of the Pfalz, came to Berlin;–a rather idle young man, once in the clerical way; now gone into the military, with secular outlooks, his elder Brother, Heir-Apparent of the Pfalz, “having no children:”–came to Berlin, in the course of visiting, and roving about. The beautiful Widow-Princess seemed very charming to Karl Philip; he wooed hard; threw the Princess into great perplexity. She had given her Yes to James Sobieski; inevitable wedding-day was coming on with James; and here was Karl Philip wooing so:–in brief, the result was, she galloped off with Karl Philip, on the eve of said wedding-day; married Karl Philip (24th July, 1688); and left Prince James standing there, too much like Lot’s Wife, in the astonished Court of Berlin. [Michaelis, ii. 93.] Judge if the Berlin. public talked,–unintelligible to Friedrioh Wilhelm, then safe in swaddling-clothes.
King Sobieski, the Father, famed Deliverer of Vienna, was in high dudgeon. But Karl Philip apologized, to all lengths; made his peace at last, giving a Sister of his own to be Wife to the injured James. This was Karl Philip’s first outbreak in life; and it was not his only one. A man not ill-disposed, all grant; but evidently of headlong turn, with a tendency to leap fences in this world. He has since been soldiering about, in a loose way, governing Innspruck, fighting the Turks. But, lately, his elder Brother died childless (year 1716); and left him Kurfurst of the Pfalz. His fair Radzivil is dead long ago; she, and a successor, or it may be two. Except one Daughter, whom the fair Radzivil left him, he has no children; and in these times, I think, lives with a third Wife, of the LEFT-HAND kind.
His scarcity of progeny is not so indifferent to my readers as they might suppose. This new KUR-PFALZ (Elector-Palatine) Karl Philip is by genealogy–who, thinks the reader? Pfalz-NEUBURG by line; own Grandson of that Wolfgang Wilhelm, who got the slap on the face long since, on account of the Cleve-Julich matter! So it has come round. The Line of Simmern died out, Winter-King’s Grandson the last of that; and then, as right was, the Line of Neuburg took the top place, and became Kur-Pfalz. The first of these was this Karl Philip’s Father, son of the Beslapped; an old man when he succeeded. Karl Philip is the third Kur-Pfalz of the Neuburg Line; his childless elder Brother (he who collected the Pictures at Dusseldorf, once notable there) was second of the Neuburgs. They now, we say, are Electors-Palatine, Head of the House;–and, we need not add, along with their Electorate and Neuburg Country, possess the Cleve-Julioh Moiety of Heritage, about which there was such worrying in time past. Nay the last Kur-Pfalz resided there, and collected the “Dusseldorf Gallery,” as we have just said; though Karl Philip prefers Heidelberg hitherto.
To Friedrich Wilhelm the scarcity of progeny is a thrice-interesting fact. For if this actual Neuburg should leave no male heir, as is now humanly probable,–the Line of Neuburg too is out; and then great things ought to follow for our Prussian House. Then, by the last Bargain, made in 1666, with all solemnity, between the Great Elector, our Grandfather of famous memory, and your serene Father the then Pfalz-Neuburg, subsequently Kur-Pfalz, likewise of famous memory, son of the Beslapped,–the whole Heritage falls to Prussia, no other Pfalz Branch having thenceforth the least claim to it. Bargain was express; signed, sealed, sanctioned, drawn out on the due extent of sheepskin, which can still be read. Bargain clear enough: but will this Karl Philip incline to keep it?
That may one day be the interesting question. But that is not the question of controversy at present: not that, but another; for Karl Philip, it would seem, is to be a frequent stone-of-stumbling to the Prussian House. The present question is of a Protestant-Papist matter; into which Friedrich Wilhelm has been drawn by his public spirit alone.
KARL PHILIP AND HIS HEIDELBERG PROTESTANTS.
The Pfalz population was, from of old, Protestant-Calvinist; the Electors-Palatine used to be distinguished for their forwardness in that matter. So it still is with the Pfalz population; but with the Electors, now that the House of Simmern is out, and that of Neuburg in, it is not so. The Neuburgs, ever since that slap, on the face, have continued Popish; a sore fact for this Protestant population, when it got them for Sovereigns. Karl Philip’s Father, an old soldier at Vienna, and the elder Brother, a collector of Pictures at Dusseldorf, did not outwardly much molest the creed of their subjects. Protestants, and the remnant of Catholics (remnant naturally rather expanding now that the Court shone on it), were allowed to live in peace, according to the Treaty of Westphalia, or nearly so; dividing the churches and church-revenues equitably between them, as directed there. But now that Karl Philip is come in, there is no mistaking his procedures. He has come home to Heidelberg with a retinue of Jesuits about him; to whom the poor old gentleman, looking before and after on this troublous world, finds it salutary to give ear.
His nibblings at Protestant rights, his contrivances to slide Catholics into churches which were not theirs, and the like foul-play in that matter, had been sorrowful to see, for some time past. The Elector of Mainz, Chief-Priest of Germany, is busy in the same bad direction; he and others. Indeed, ever since the Peace of Ryswick, where Louis XIV. surreptitiously introduced a certain “Clause,” which could never be got rid of again, [“CLAUSE OF THE FOURTH ARTICLE” is the technical name of it. FOURTH ARTICLE stipulates that King Louis XIV. shall punctually restore all manner of towns and places, in the Palatinate &c. (much BURNT, somewhat BE-JESUITED too, in late Wars, by the said Kihg, during his occupancy): CLAUSE OF FOURTH ARTICLE (added to it, by a quirk, “at midnight,” say the Books) contains merely these words,
Roman-Catholic religion to continue as it now is [as WE have made it to be] in such towns and places.”–Which CLAUSE gave rise to very great but ineffectual lamenting and debating. (Scholl,
Buchholz; Spittler,
Karl Philip, after some nibblings, took up the Heidelberg Catechism (which candidly calls the Mass “idolatrous”), and ordered said Catechism, an Authorized Book, to cease in his dominions. Hessen-Cassel, a Protestant neighbor, pleaded, remonstrated, Friedrich Wilhelm glooming in the rear; but to no purpose. Our old gentleman, his Priests being very diligent upon him, decided next to get possession of the HEILIGE-GEIST KIRCHE (Church of the Holy Ghost, principal Place of Worship at Heidelberg), and make it his principal Cathedral Church there. By Treaty of Westphalia, or peaceably otherwise, the Catholics are already in possession of the Choir: but the whole Church would be so much better. “Was it not Catholic once?” thought Karl Philip to himself: “built by our noble Ancestor Kaiser Rupert of the Pfalz, Rupert KLEMM [“Pincers,” so named for his firmness of mind]:– why should these Heretics have it? I will build them another!” These thoughts, in 1719, the third year of Karl Philip’s rule, had broken out into open action (29th August, 4th September the consummation of it) [Mauvillon, i. 340-345.] and precisely in the ime when Friedrich Wilhelm was penning that first Didactic Morsel which we read, grave clouds from the Palatinate were beginning to overshadow the royal mind more or less.
For the poor Heidelberg Consistorium, as they could not undertake to give up their Church on request of his Serenity,–“How dare we, or can we?” answered they,–had been driven out by compulsion and stratagem. Partly strategic was the plan adopted, to avoid violence; smith’s picklocks being employed, and also mason’s crowbars: but the end was, On the 31st of August, 1719, Consistorium and Congregation found themselves fairly in the street, and the HEILIGE-GEIST KIRCHE clean gone from them. Screen of the Choir is torn down; one big Catholic edifice now; getting decorated into a Court Church, where Serene Highness may feel his mind comfortable.
The poor Heidelbergers, thus thrown into the street, made applications, lamentations; but with small prospect of help: to whom apply with any sure prospect? Remonstrances from Hessen-Cassel have proved unavailing with his bigoted Serene Highness. CORPS EVANGELICORUM, so presided over as at present, what can be had of such a Corpus? Long-winded lucubrations at the utmost; real action, in such a matter; none. Or will the Kaiser, his Jesuits advising him, interfere to do us justice? Kur-Mainz and the rest;–it is everywhere one story. Everywhere unhappy Protestantism getting bad usage, and ever worse; and no Corpus Evangelicorum, or appointed Watchdog, doing other than hang its ears, and look sorry for itself and us!–
The Heidelbergers, however, had applied to Friedrich Wilhelm among others. Friedrich Wilhelm, who had long looked on these Anti-Protestant phenomena with increasing anger, found now that this of the Heidelberg Catechism and HEILIGE-GEIST KIRCHE was enough to make one’s patience run over. Your unruly Catholic bull, plunging about, and goring men in that mad absurd manner, it will behoove that somebody take him by the horns, or by the tail, and teach him manners. Teach him, not by vocal precepts, it is likely, which would avail nothing on such a brute, but by practical cudgelling and scourging to the due pitch. Pacific Friedrich Wilhelm perceived that he himself would have to do that disagreeable feat:–the growl of him, on coming to such resolution, must have been consolatory to these poor Heidelbergers, when they applied!–His plan is very simple, as the plans of genius are; but a plan leading direct to the end desired, and probably the only one that would have done so, in the circumstances. Cudgel in hand, he takes the Catholic bull,–shall we say, by the horns?–more properly perhaps by the tail; and teaches him manners.
FRIEDRICH WILHELM’S METHOD;–PROVES REMEDIAL IN HEIDELBERG.
Friedrich Wilhelm’s first step, of course, was to remonstrate pacifically with his Serene Highness on the Heidelberg-Church affair: from this he probably expected nothing; nor did he get anything. Getting nothing from this, and the countenance of external Protestant Powers, especially of George I. and the Dutch, being promised him in ulterior measures, he directed his Administrative Officials in Magdeburg, in Minden, in Hamersleben, where are Catholic Foundations of importance, to assemble the Catholic Canons, Abbots, chief Priests and all whom it might concern in these three Places, and to signify to them as follows:–
“From us, your Protestant Sovereign, you yourselves and all men will witness, you have hitherto had the best of usage, fair-play, according to the Laws of the REICH, and even-more. With the Protestants at Heidelberg, on the part of the Catholic Powers, it is different. It must cease to be different; it must become the same. And to make it do so, you are the implement I have. Sorry for it, but there is no other handy. From this day your Churches also are closed, your Public Worship ceases, and furthermore your Revenues cease; and all makes dead halt, and falls torpid in respect of you. From this day; and so continues, till the day (may it be soon!) when the Heidelberg Church of the Holy Ghost is opened again, and right done in that question. Be it yours to speed such day: it is you that can and will, you who know those high Catholic regions, inaccessible to your Protestant Sovereign. Till then you are as dead men; temporarily fallen dead for a purpose. And herewith God have you in his keeping!” [Mauvillon, i. 347, 349.]
That was Friedrich Wilhelm’s plan; the simplest, but probably the one effectual plan. Infallible this plan, if you dare stand upon it; which Friedrich Wilhelm does. He has a formidable Army, ready for fight; a Treasury or Army-chest in good order. George I. seconds, according to bargain; shuts the Catholic Church at Zelle in his Luneburg Country, in like fashion; Dutch, too, and Swiss will endorse the matter, should it grow too serious. All which, involving some diplomacy and correspondence, is managed with the due promptitude, moreover. [Church of Zelle shut up, 4th November; Minden, 28th November; Monastery of Hamersleben, 3d December, &c. (Putter,
1788, ii. 384, 390).] And so certain doors are locked; and Friedrich Wilhelm’s word, unalterable as gravitation, has gone forth. In this manner is the mad Catholic bull taken by the TAIL: keep fast hold, and apply your cudgel duly in that attitude, he will not gore you any more!
The Magdeburg-Hamersleben people shrieked piteously; not to Friedrich Wilhelm, whom they knew to be deaf on that side of his head, but to the Kaiser, to the Pope, to the Serenity of Heidelberg. Serene Highness of Heidelberg was much huffed; Kaiser dreadfully so, and wrote heavy menacing rebukes. To which Friedrich Wilhelm listened with a minimum of reply; keeping firm hold of the tail, in such bellowing of the animal. The end was, Serene Highness had to comply; within three months, Kaiser, Serene Highness and the other parties interested, found that there would be nothing for it but to compose themselves, and do what was just. April 16th, 1720, the Protestants are reinstated in their HEILIGE-GEIST KIRCHE; Heidelberg Catechism goes its free course again, May 16th; and one Baron Reck [Michaelis, ii. 95; Putter, ii. 384, 390; Buchholz, pp. 61-63.] is appointed Commissioner, from the CORPUS EVANGELICORUM, to Heidelberg; who continues rigorously inspecting Church matters there for a considerable time, much to the grief of Highness and Jesuits, till he can report that all is as it should be on that head. Karl Philip felt so disgusted with these results, he removed his Court, that same year, to Mannheim; quitted Heidelberg; to the discouragement and visible decay of the place; and, in spite of humble petitions and remonstrances, never would return; neither he nor those that followed him would shift from Mannheim again, to this day.
PRUSSIAN MAJESTY HAS DISPLEASED THE KAISER AND THE KING OF POLAND.
Friedrich Wilhelm’s praises from the Protestant public were great, on this occasion. Nor can we, who lie much farther from it in every sense, refuse him some grin of approval. Act, and manner of doing the act, are creditably of a piece with Friedrich Wilhelm; physiognomic of the rugged veracious man. It is one of several such acts done by him: for it was a duty apt to recur in Germany, in his day. This duty Friedrich Wilhelm, a solid Protestant after his sort, and convinced of the “nothingness and nonsensicality (UNGRUND UND ABSURDITAT) of Papistry,” was always honorably prompt to do. There is an honest bacon-and-greens conscience in the man; almost the one conscience you can find in any royal man of that day. Promptly, without tremulous counting of costs, he always starts up, solid as oak, on the occurrence of such a thing, and says, “That is unjust; contrary to the Treaty of Westphalia; you will have to put down that!”–And if words avail not, his plan is always the same: Clap a similar thumbscrew, pressure equitably calculated, on the Catholics of Prussia; these can complain to their Popes and Jesuit Dignitaries: these are under thumbscrew till the Protestant pressure be removed. Which always did rectify the matter in a little time. One other of these instances, that of the Salzburg Protestants, the last such instance, as this of Heidelberg was the first, will by and by claim notice from us.
It is very observable, how Friedrich Wilhelm, hating quarrels, was ever ready to turn out for quarrel on such an occasion; though otherwise conspicuously a King who stayed well at home, looking after his own affairs; meddling with no neighbor that would be at peace with him. This properly is Friedrich Wilhelm’s “sphere of political activity” among his contemporaries; this small quasi-domestic sphere, of forbidding injury to Protestants. A most small sphere, but then a genuine one: nor did he seek even this, had it not forced itself upon him. And truly we might ask, What has become of the other more considerable “spheres” in that epoch? The supremest loud-trumpeting “political activities” which then filled the world and its newspapers, what has the upshot of them universally been? Zero, and oblivion; no other. While this poor Friedrich-Wilhelm sphere is perhaps still a countable quantity. Wise is he who stays well at home, and does the duty he finds lying there!–
Great favor from the Protestant public: but, on the other hand, his Majesty had given offence in high places. What help for it? The thing was a point of conscience with him; natural to the surly Royal Overseer, going his rounds in the world, stick in hand! However, the Kaiser was altogether gloomy of brow at such disobedience. A Kaiser unfriendly to Friedrich Wilhelm: witness that of the RITTER-DIENST (our unreasonable Magdeburg Ritters, countenanced by him, on such terms, in such style too), and other offensive instances that could be given. Perhaps the Kaiser will not always continue gloomy of brow; perhaps the thoughts of the Imperial breast may alter, on our behalf or his own, one day?–
Nor could King August the Physically Strong be glad to see his “Director” function virtually superseded, in this triumphant way. A year or two ago, Friedrich Wilhelm had, with the due cautions and politic reserves, inquired of the CORPUS EVANGELICORUM, “If they thought the present Directorship (that of August the Physically Strong) a good one?” and “Whether he, Friedrich Wilhelm, ought not perhaps himself to be Director?”–To which, though the answer was clear as noonday, this poor Corpus had only mumbled some “QUIETA NON MOVERE,” or other wise-foolish saw; and helplessly shrugged its shoulders. [1717-1719, when August’s KURPRINZ, Heir-Apparent, likewise declared himself Papist, to the horror and astonishment of poor Saxony, and wedded the late Kaiser Joseph’s Daughter:–not to Father August’s horror; who was steering towards “popularity in Poland,” “hereditary Polish Crown,” &c. with the young man. (Buchholz, i. 53-56.)] But King August himself,–though a jovial social kind of animal, quite otherwise occupied in the world; busy producing his three hundred and fifty-four Bastards there, and not careful of Church matters at all,–had expressed his indignant surprise. And now, it would seem nevertheless, though the title remains where it was, the function has fallen to another, who actually does it: a thing to provoke comparisons in the public.
Clement, the Hungarian forger, vender of false state-secrets, is well hanged; went to the gallows (18th April, 1720) with much circumstance, just two days before that Heidelberg Church was got reopened. But the suspicions sown by Clement cannot quite be abolished by the hanging of him: Forger indisputably; but who knows whether he had not something of fact for his? What with Clement, what with this Heidelberg business, the Court of Berlin has fallen wrong with Dresden, with Vienna itself, and important clouds have risen.
The poor Kaiser himself is otherwise in trouble of his own, at this time. The Spaniards and he have fallen out, in spite of Utrecht Treaty and Rastadt ditto; the Spaniards have taken Sicily from him; and precisely in those days while Karl Philip took to shutting up the HEILIGE-GEIST Church at Heidelberg, there was, loud enough in all the Newspapers, silent as it now is, a “Siege of Messina” going on; Imperial and Piedmontese troops doing duty by land, Admiral Byng still more effectively by sea, for the purpose of getting Sicily back. Which was achieved by and by, though at an extremely languid pace. [Byng’s Sea-fight, 10th August, 1718 (Campbell’s
Congress of Cambrai, and other high Gatherings and convulsive Doings, which all proved futile, and look almost like Lapland witchcraft now to us, will have to follow this futility of a War. It is the first of a long series of enchanted adventures, on which Kaiser Karl,–duelling with that Spanish Virago, Satan’s Invisible World in the rear of her,–has now embarked, to the woe of mankind, for the rest of his life. The first of those terrifico-ludicrous paroxysms of crisis into which he throws the European Universe; he with his Enchanted Barber’s-Basin enterprises;–as perhaps was fit enough, in an epoch presided over by the Nightmares. Congress of Cambrai is to follow; and much else equally spectral. About all which there will be enough to say anon! For it was a fearful operation, though a ludicrous one, this of the poor Kaiser; and it tormented not the big Nations only, and threw an absurd Europe into paroxysm after paroxysm; but it whirled up, in its wide-weeping skirts, our little Fritz and his Sister, and almost dashed the lives out of them, as we shall see! Which last is perhaps the one claim it now has to a cursory mention from mankind.
Byng’s Sea-fight, done with due dexterity of manoeuvring, and then with due emphasis of broadsiding, decisive of that absurd War, and almost the one creditable action in it, dates itself 10th August, 1718. And about three months later, on the mimic stage at Paris there came out a piece, OEDIPE the title of it, [18th November, 1718.] by one Francois Arouet, a young gentleman about twenty-two; and had such a run as seldom was;–apprising the French Populations that, to all appearance, a new man of genius had appeared among them (not intimating what work he would do); and greatly angering old M. Arouet of the Chamber of Accouuts; who thereby found his Son as good as cast into the whirlpools, and a solid Law-career thenceforth impossible for the young fool.– The name of that “M. Arouet junior” changes itself, some years hence, into M. DE VOLTAIRE; under which latter designation he will conspicuously reappear in this Narrative.
And now we will go to our little Crown-Prince again;–ignorant, he, of all this that is mounting up in the distance, and that it will envelop him one day.
Chapter XI.
ON THE CROWN-PRINCE’S PROGRESS IN HIS SCHOOLING.
Wilhelmina says, [
Brother was “slow” in learning: we may presume, she means idle, volatile, not always prompt in fixing his attention to what did not interest him. Moreover, he was often weakly in health, as she herself adds; so that exertion was not recommendable for him. Herr von Loen (a witty Prussian Official, and famed man-of-letters once, though forgotten now) testifies expressly that the Boy was of bright parts, and that he made rapid progress. “The Crown-Prince manifests in this tender age [his seventh year] an uncommon capacity; nay we may say, something quite extraordinary (
most alert and vivacious Prince; he has fine and sprightly manners; and shows a certain kindly sociality, and so affectionate a disposition that all things may be hoped of him. The French Lady who [under Roucoulles] has had charge of his learning hitherto, cannot speak of him without enthusiasm.
ange’lique
For the rest, that Friedrich Wilhelm’s intentions and Rhadamanthine regulations, in regard to him, were fulfilled in every point, we will by no means affirm. Rules of such exceeding preciseness, if grounded here and there only on the SIC-VOLO, how could they be always kept, except on the surface and to the eye merely? The good Duhan, diligent to open his pupil’s mind, and give Nature fair-play, had practically found it inexpedient to tie him too rigorously to the arbitrary formal departments where no natural curiosity, but only order from without, urges the ingenious pupil. What maximum strictness in school-drill there can have been, we may infer from one thing, were there no other: the ingenious Pupil’s mode of SPELLING. Fritz learned to write a fine, free-flowing, rapid and legible business-hand; “Arithmetic” too, “Geography,” and many other Useful Knowledges that had some geniality of character, or attractiveness in practice, were among his acquisitions; much, very much he learned in the course of his life; but to SPELL, much more to punctuate, and subdue the higher mysteries of Grammar to himself, was always an unachievable perfection. He did improve somewhat in after life; but here is the length to which he had carried that necessary art in the course of nine years’ exertion, under Duhan and the subsidiary preceptors; it is in the following words and alphabetic letters that he gratefully bids Duhan farewell,–who surely cannot have been a very strict drill-sergeant in the arbitrary branches of schooling!
“Mon cher Duhan Je Vous promais (PROMETS) que quand j’aurez (J’AURAI) mon propre argent en main, je Vous donnerez (DONNERAI) enuelement (ANNUELLEMENT) 2400 ecu (ECUS) par an, et je vous aimerais (AIMERAI) toujour encor (TOUJORS ENCORE) un peu plus q’asteure (QU’A CETTE HEURE) s’il me l’est (M’EST) posible (POSSIBLE).”
“MY DEAR DUHAN,–I promise to you, that when I shall have my money in my own hands, I will give you annually 2400 crowns [say 350 pounds] EVERY YEAR; and that I will love you always even a little more than at present, if that be possible.
“FRIDERIC P.R. [Prince-Royal].”
“POTSDAM, le 20 de juin, 1727.” [Preuss, i. 22.]
The Document has otherwise its beauty; but such is the spelling of it. In fact his Grammar, as he would himself now and then regretfully discern, in riper years, with some transient attempt or resolution to remedy or help it, seems to have come mainly by nature; so likewise his “STYLUS” both in French and German,– a very fair style, too, in the former dialect:–but as to his spelling, let him try as he liked, he never came within sight of perfection.
The things ordered with such rigorous minuteness, if but arbitrary things, were apt to be neglected; the things forbidden, especially in the like case, were apt to become doubly tempting. It appears, the prohibition of Latin gave rise to various attempts, on the part of Friedrich, to attain that desirable Language. Secret lessons, not from Duhan, but no doubt with Duhan’s connivance, were from time to time undertaken with this view: once, it is recorded, the vigilant Friedrich Wilhelm, going his rounds, came upon Fritz and one of his Preceptors (not Duhan but a subaltern) actually engaged in this illicit employment. Friedrich himself was wont to relate this anecdote in after 1ife. [Busching,
golden BULLETS or pellets hung to it,–by which sublime Document, as perhaps we hinted long ago, certain so-called Fundamental Constitutions, or at least formalities and solemn practices, method of election, rule of precedence, and the like, of the Holy Roman Empire, had at last been settled on a sure footing, by that busy little Kaiser, some three hundred and fifty years before; a Document venerable almost next to the Bible in Friedrich Wilhelm’s loyal eyes, “What is this; what are you venturing upon here?” exclaims Paternal Vigilance, in an astonished dangerous tone.
be-auream-bullam!”
Friedrich’s Latin could never come to much, under these impediments. But he retained some smatterings of it in mature life; and was rather fond of producing his classical scraps,– often in an altogether mouldy, and indeed hitherto inexplicable condition.
verbas tot spondera,”
commentator make of that?
vobiscum,” “Flectamus genua,” “Quod bene notandum;”
these phrases too, and some three or four others of the like, have been riddled from his Writings by diligent men: [Preuss (i. 24) furnishes the whole stock of them.]
The worst fruit of these contraband operations was, that they involved the Boy in clandestine practices, secret disobediences, apt to be found out from time to time, and tended to alienate his Father from him. Of which sad mutual humor we already find traces in that early Wusterhausen Document: “Not to be so dirty,” says the reproving Father. And the Boy does not take to hunting at all, likes verses, story-books, flute-playing better; seems to be of effeminate tendencies, an EFFEMINIRTER KERL; affects French modes, combs out his hair like a cockatoo, the foolish French fop, instead of conforming to the Army-regulation, which prescribes close-cropping and a club!
This latter grievance Friedrich Wilhelm decided, at last, to abate, and have done with; this, for one. It is an authentic fact, though not dated,–dating perhaps from about Fritz’s fifteenth year. “Fritz is a QUERPFEIFER UND POET,” not a Soldier! would his indignant Father growl; looking at those foreign effeminate ways of his. QUERPFEIFE, that is simply “German-flute,” “CROSS-PIPE” (or FIFE of any kind, for we English have thriftily made two useful words out of the Deutsch root); “Cross-pipe,” being held across the mouth horizontally. Worthless employment, if you are not born to be of the regimental band! thinks Friedrich Wilhelm. Fritz is celebrated, too, for his fine foot; a dapper little fellow, altogether pretty in the eyes of simple female courtiers, with his blond locks combed out at the temples, with his bright eyes, sharp wit, and sparkling capricious ways. The cockatoo locks, these at least we will abate! decides the Paternal mind.
And so, unexpectedly, Friedrich Wilhelm has commanded these bright locks, as contrary to military fashion, of which Fritz has now unworthily the honor of being a specimen, to be ruthlessly shorn away. Inexorable: the HOF-CHIRURGUS (Court-Surgeon, of the nature of Barber-Surgeon), with scissors and comb, is here; ruthless Father standing by. Crop him, my jolly Barber; close down to the accurate standard; soaped club, instead of flowing locks; we suffer no exceptions in this military department: I stand here till it is done. Poor Fritz, they say, had tears in his eyes; but what help in tears? The judicious Chirurgus, however, proved merciful. The judicious Chirurgus struck in as if nothing loath, snack, snack; and made a great show of clipping. Friedrich Wilhelm took a newspaper till the job were done; the judicious Barber, still making a great show of work, combed back rather than cut off these Apollo locks; did Fritz accurately into soaped club, to the cursory eye; but left him capable of shaking out his chevelure again on occasion,–to the lasting gratitude of Fritz. [Preuss, i. 16.]
THE NOLTENIUS-AND-PANZENDORF DRILL-EXERCISE.
On the whole, as we said, a youth needs good assimilating power, if he is to grow in this world! Noltenius aud Panzendorf, for instance, they were busy “teaching Friedrich religion.” Rather a strange operation this too, if we were to look into it. We will not look too closely. Another pair of excellent most solemn drill-sergeants, in clerical black serge; they also are busy instilling dark doctrines into the bright young Boy, so far as possible; but do not seem at any time to have made too deep an impression on him. May we not say that, in matter of religion too, Friedrich was but ill-bested? Enlightened Edict-of-Nantes Protestantism, a cross between Bayle and Calvin: that was but indifferent babe’s milk to the little creature. Nor could Noltenius’s Catechism, and ponderous drill-exercise in orthodox theology, much inspire a clear soul with pieties, and tendencies to soar Heavenward.
Alas, it is a dreary litter indeed, mere wagon-load on wagon-load of shot-rubbish, that is heaped round this new human plant, by Noltenius and Company, among others. A wonder only that they did not extinguish all Sense of the Highest in the poor young soul, and leave only a Sense of the Dreariest and Stupidest. But a healthy human soul can stand a great deal. The healthy soul shakes off, in an unexpectedly victorious manner, immense masses of dry rubbish that have been shot upon it by its assiduous pedagogues and professors. What would become of any of us otherwise! Duhan, opening the young soul, by such modest gift as Duhan had, to recognize black from white a little, in this embroiled high Universe, is probably an exception in some small measure. But, Duhan excepted, it may be said to have been in spite of most of his teachers, and their diligent endeavors, that Friedrich did acquire some human piety; kept the sense of truth alive in his mind; knew, in whatever words he phrased it, the divine eternal nature of Duty; and managed, in the muddiest element and most eclipsed Age ever known, to steer by the heavenly loadstars and (so we must candidly term it) to FOLLOW God’s Law; in some measure, with or without Noltenius for company. Noltenius’s CATECHISM, or ghostly Drill-manual for Fritz, at least the Catechism he had plied Wilhelmina with, which no doubt was the same, is still extant. [Preuss, i. 15;–specimens of it in Rodenbeck.] A very abstruse Piece; orthodox Lutheran-Calvinist, all proved from Scripture; giving what account it can of this unfathomable Universe, to the young mind. To modern Prussians it by no means shines as the indubitablest Theory of the Universe. Indignant modern Prussians produce excerpts from it, of an abstruse nature; and endeavor to deduce therefrom some of Friedrich’s aberrations in matters of religion, which became notorious enough by and by. Alas, I fear, it would not have been easy, even for the modern Prussian, to produce a perfect Catechism for the use of Friedrich; this Universe still continues a little abstruse!
And there is another deeper thing to be remarked: the notion of “teaching” religion, in the way of drill-exercise; which is a very strange notion, though a common one, and not peculiar to Noltenius and Friedrich Wilhelm. Piety to God, the nobleness that inspires a human soul to struggle Heavenward, cannot be “taught” by the most exquisite catechisms,or the most industrious preachings and drillings. No; alas, no. Only by far other methods,–chiefly by silent continual Example, silently waiting for the favorable mood and moment, and aided then by a kind of miracle, well enough named “the grace of God,”–can that sacred contagion pass from soul into soul. How much beyond whole Libraries of orthodox Theology is, sometimes, the mute action, the unconscious look of a father, of a mother, who HAD in them “Devoutness, pious Nobleness”! In whom the young soul, not unobservant, though not consciously observing, came at length to recognize it; to read it, in this irrefragable manner: a seed planted thenceforth in the centre of his holiest affections forevermore!
Noltenius wore black serge; kept the corners of his mouth well down; and had written a Catechism of repute; but I know not that Noltenius carried much seed of living piety about with him; much affection from, or for, young Fritz he could not well carry. On the whole, it is a bad outlook on the religious side; and except in Apprenticeship to the rugged and as yet repulsive Honesties of Friedrich Wilhelm, I see no good element in it. Bayle-Calvin, with Noltenius and Catechisms of repute: there is no “religion” to be had for a little Fritz out of all that. Endless Doubt will be provided for him out of all that, probably disbelief of all that;–and, on the whole, if any form at all, a very scraggy form of moral existence; from which the Highest shall be hopelessly absent; and in which anything High, anything not Low and Lying, will have double merit.
It is indeed amazing what quantities and kinds of extinct ideas apply for belief, sometimes in a menacing manner, to the poor mind of man, and poor mind of child, in these days. They come bullying in upon him, in masses, as if they were quite living ideas; ideas of a dreadfully indispensable nature, the evident counterpart, and salutary interpretation, of Facts round him, which, it is promised the poor young creature, he SHALL recognize to correspond with them, one day. At which “correspondence,” when the Facts are once well recognized, he has at last to ask himself with amazement, “Did I ever recognize it, then?” Whereby come results incalculable; not good results any of them;–some of them unspeakably bad! The ease of Crown-Prince Friedrich in Berlin is not singular; all cities and places can still show the like. And when it will end, is not yet clear. But that it ever should have begun, will one day be the astonishment. As if the divinest function of a human being were not even that of believing; of discriminating, with his God-given intellect, what is from what is not; and as if the point were, to render that either an impossible function, or else what we must sorrowfully call a revolutionary, rebellious and mutinous one. O Noltenius, O Panzendorf, do for pity’s sake take away your Catechetical ware; and say either nothing to the poor young Boy, or some small thing he will find to be BEYOND doubt when he can judge of it! Fever, pestilence, are bad for the body; but Doubt, impious mutiny, doubly impious hypocrisy, are these nothing for the mind? Who would go about inculcating Doubt, unless he were far astray indeed, and much at a loss for employment!
But the sorest fact in Friedrich’s schooling, the forest, for the present, though it ultimately proved perhaps the most beneficent one, being well dealt with by the young soul, and nobly subdued to his higher uses, remains still to be set forth. Which will be a long business, first and last!
Chapter XII.
CROWN-PRINCE FALLS INTO DISFAVOR WITH PAPA.
Those vivacities of young Fritz, his taste for music, finery, those furtive excursions into the domain of Latin and forbidden things, were distasteful and incomprehensible to Friedrich Wilhelm: Where can such things end? They begin in disobedience and intolerable perversity; they will be the ruin of Prussia and of Fritz!–Here, in fact, has a great sorrow risen. We perceive the first small cracks of incurable divisions in the royal household; the breaking out of fountains of bitterness, which by and by spread wide enough. A young sprightly, capricions and vivacious Boy, inclined to self-will, had it been permitted; developing himself into foreign tastes, into French airs and ways; very ill seen by the heavy-footed practical Germanic Majesty.
The beginnings of this sad discrepancy are traceable from Friedrich’s sixth or seventh year: “Not so dirty, Boy!” And there could be no lack of growth in the mutual ill-humor, while the Boy himself continued growing; enlarging in bulk and in activity of his own. Plenty of new children come, to divide our regard withal, and more are coming; five new Princesses, wise little Ulrique the youngest of them (named of Sweden and the happy Swedish Treaty), whom we love much for her grave staid ways. Nay, next after Ulrique comes even a new Prince; August Wilhelm, ten years younger than Friedrich; and is growing up much more according to the paternal heart. Pretty children, all of them, more or less; and towardly, and comfortable to a Father;–and the worst of them a paragon of beauty, in comparison to perverse, clandestine, disobedient Fritz, with his French fopperies, flutings, and cockatoo fashions of hair!–
And so the silent divulsion, silent on Fritz’s part, exploding loud enough now and then on his Father’s part, goes steadily on, splitting ever wider; new offences ever superadding themselves. Till, at last, the rugged Father has grown to hate the son; and longs, with sorrowful indignation, that it were possible to make August Wilhelm Crown-Prince in his stead. This Fritz ought to fashion himself according to his Father’s pattern, a well-meant honest pattern; and he does not! Alas, your Majesty, it cannot be. It is the new generation come; which cannot live quite as the old one did. A perennial controversy in human life; coeval with the