History of Friedrich II of Prussia Volume XVIII Part 10

"Many compliments to Madame Denis. Continue, I pray you, to write to the King." [In _Voltaire,_ ii. 197-199; lxxvii. 57.]

VOLTAIRE TO WILHELMINA (Day uncertain: THE DELICES, SEPTEMBER, 1757).--"Madam, my heart is touched more than ever by the goodness and the confidence your Royal Highness deigns to show me. How can I be but melted by emotion! I see that it is solely your n.o.bleness of soul that renders you unhappy. I feel myself born to be attached with idolatry to superior and sympathetic minds, who think like you. "You know how much I have always, essentially and at heart, been attached to the King your Brother. The more my old age is tranquil, and come to renounce everything, and make my retreat here a home and country, the more am I devoted to that Philosopher-King. I write nothing to him but what I think from the bottom of my heart, nothing that I do not think most true; and if my Letter [dissuasive of seeking Death; wait, reader]

appears to your Royal Highness to be suitable, I beg you to protect it with him, as you have done the foregoing." [In _Voltaire,_ lxxvii. 37, 39.]

4. FRIEDRICH TO WILHELMINA, AND, BY ANTIc.i.p.aTION, HER ANSWER (Third of the Prose Pieces).--"KIRSCHLEBEN, NEAR ERFURT, 17th SEPTEMBER, 1757.--My dearest Sister, I find no other consolation but in your precious Letters. May Heaven reward so much virtue and such heroic sentiments!

"Since I wrote last to you, my misfortunes have but gone on acc.u.mulating. It seems as though Destiny would discharge all its wrath and fury upon the poor Country which I had to rule over. The Swedes have entered Pommern. The French, after having concluded a Neutrality humiliating to the King of England and themselves [Kloster-Zeven, which we know], are in full march upon Halberstadt and Magdeburg. From Preussen I am in daily expectation of hearing of a battle having been fought: the proportion of combatants being 25,000 against 80,000 [was fought, Gross-Jagersdorf, 30th August, and lost accordingly]. The Austrians have marched into Silesia, whither the Prince of Bevern follows them. I have advanced this way to fall upon the corps of the allied Army; which has run off, and intrenched itself, behind Eisenach, amongst hills, whither to follow, still more to attack them, all rules of war forbid. The moment I retire towards Saxony, this whole swarm will be upon my heels. Happen what may, I am determined, at all risks, to fall upon whatever corps of the enemy approaches me nearest. I shall even bless Heaven for its mercy, if it grant me the favor to die sword in hand.

"Should this hope fail me, you will allow that it would be too hard to crawl at the feet of a company of traitors, to whom successful crimes have given the advantage to prescribe the law to me. How, my dear, my incomparable Sister, how could I repress feelings of vengeance and of resentment against all my neighbors, of whom there is not one who did not accelerate my downfall, and will not, share in our spoils? How can a Prince survive his State, the glory of his Country, his own reputation?

A Bavarian Elector, in his nonage [Son of the late poor Kaiser, and left, s.h.i.+pwrecked in his seventeenth year], or rather in a sort of subjection to his Ministers, and dull to the biddings of honor, may give himself up as a slave to the imperious domination of the House of Austria, and kiss the hand which oppressed his Father: I pardon it to his youth and his inept.i.tude. But is that the example for me to follow?

No, dear Sister, you think too n.o.bly to give me such mean (LACHE) advice. Is Liberty, that precious prerogative, to be less dear to a Sovereign in the eighteenth century than it was to Roman Patricians of old? And where is it said, that Brutus and Cato should carry magnanimity farther than Princes and Kings? Firmness consists in resisting misfortune: but only cowards submit to the yoke, bear patiently their chains, and support oppression tranquilly. Never, my dear Sister, could I resolve upon such ignominy....

"If I had followed only my own inclinations, I should have ended it (JE ME SERAIS DEPECHE) at once, after that unfortunate Battle which I lost.

But I felt that this would be weakness, and that it behooved me to repair the evil which had happened. My attachment to the State awoke; I said to myself, It is not in seasons of prosperity that it is rare to find defenders, but in adversity. I made it a point of honor with myself to redress all that had got out of square; in which I was not unsuccessful; not even in the Lausitz [after those Zittau disasters]

last of all. But no sooner had I hastened this way to face new enemies, than Winterfeld was beaten and killed near Gorlitz, than the French entered the heart, of my States, than the Swedes blockaded Stettin.

Now there is nothing effective left for me to do: there are too many enemies. Were I even to succeed in beating two armies, the third would crush me. The enclosed Note [in cipher] will show you what I am still about to try: it is the last attempt.

"The grat.i.tude, the tender affection, which I feel towards you, that friends.h.i.+p, true as the hills, constrains me to deal openly with you.

No, my divine Sister, I shall conceal nothing from you that I intend to do; all my thoughts, all my resolutions shall be open and known to you in time. I will precipitate nothing: but also it will be impossible for me to change my sentiments....

"As for you, my incomparable Sister, I have not the heart to turn you from your resolves. We think alike, and I cannot condemn in you the sentiments which I daily entertain (EPROUVE). Life has been given to us as a benefit: when it ceases to be such"--! "I have n.o.body left in this world, to attach me to it, but you. My friends, the relations I loved most, are in the grave; in short, I have lost, everything. If you take the resolution which I have taken, we end together our misfortunes and our unhappiness; and it will be the turn of them who remain in this world, to provide for the concerns falling to their charge, and to bear the weight, which has lain on us so long. These, my adorable Sister, are sad reflections, but suitable to my present condition.

"The day before yesterday I was at Gotha [yes, see above;--and to-morrow, if I knew it, Seidlitz with pictorial effects will be there]....

"But, it is time to end this long, dreary Letter; which treats almost of nothing but my own affairs. I have had some leisure, and have used it to open on you a heart filled with admiration and grat.i.tude towards you. Yes, my adorable Sister, if Providence troubled itself about human affairs, you ought to be the happiest person in the Universe. Your not being such, confirms me in the sentiments expressed at the end of my EPITRE. In conclusion, believe that I adore you, and that I would give my life a thousand times to serve you. These are the sentiments which will animate me to the last breath of my life; being, my beloved Sister, ever"--Your--F. [_OEuvres,_ xxvii. i, 303-307.]

WILHELMINA'S ANSWER,--by antic.i.p.ation, as we said: written "15th September," while Friedrich was dining at Gotha, in quest of Soubise.

"BAIREUTH, 15th SEPTEMBER, 1757. My dearest Brother, your Letter and the one you wrote to Voltaire, my dear Brother, have almost killed me. What fatal resolutions, great G.o.d! Ah, my dear Brother, you say you love me; and you drive a dagger into my heart. Your EPITRE, which I did receive, made me shed rivers of tears. I am now ashamed of such weakness. My misfortune would be so great" in the issue there alluded to, "that I should find worthier resources than tears. Your lot shall be mine: I will not survive either your misfortunes or those of the House I belong to. You may calculate that such is my firm resolution.

"But, after this avowal, allow me to entreat you to look back at what was the pitiable state of your Enemy when you lay before Prag! It is occur again, when one is least expecting it, Caesar was the slave of Pirates; and he became the master of the world. A great genius like yours finds resources even when all is lost; and it is impossible this frenzy can continue. My heart bleeds to think of the poor souls in Preussen [Apraxin and his Christian Cossacks there,--who, it is noted, far excel the Calmuck wors.h.i.+ppers of the Dalai-Lama]. What horrid barbarity, the detail of cruelties that go on there! I feel all that you feel on it, my dear Brother. I know your heart, and your sensibility for your subjects.

"I suffer a thousand times more than I can tell you; nevertheless hope does not abandon me. I received your Letter of the 14th by W. [who W.

is, no mortal knows]. What kindness to think of me, who have nothing to give you but a useless affection, which is so richly repaid by yours!

I am obliged to finish; but I shall never cease to be, with the most profound respect (TRES-PROFOND RESPECT,"--that, and something still better, if my poor pen were not embarra.s.sed),

"your"--WILHELMINA.

5. FRIEDRICH'S RESPONSE TO THE DISSUASIVES OF VOLTAIRE (Last of the Lamentation-Psalms: "b.u.t.tstadt, October 9th").--Voltaire's Dissuasive Letter is a poor Piece; [_OEuvres de Voltaire, _ lxxvii. 80-85 (LES DELICES, early in September, 1757: no date given).] not worth giving here. Remarkable only by Friedrich's quiet reception of it; which readers shall now see, as Finis to those Lamentation-Psalms. There is another of them, widely known, which we will omit: the EPITRE TO D'ARGENS; [In _ OEuvres de Frederic,_ xii. 50-56 ("Erfurt, 23d September, 1757 ").] pa.s.sionate enough, wandering wildly over human life, and sincere almost to shrillness, in parts; which Voltaire has also got hold of. Omissible here; the fixity of purpose being plain otherwise to Voltaire and us. Voltaire's counter-arguments are weak, or worse: "That Roman death is not now expected of the Philosopher; that your Majesty will, in the worst event, still have considerable Dominions left, all that your Great-Grandfather had; still plenty of resources; that, in Paris Society, an estimable minority even now thinks highly of you; that in Paris itself your Majesty [does not say expressly, as dethroned and going on your travels] would have resources!" To which beautiful considerations Friedrich answers, not with fire and brimstone, as one might have dreaded, but in this quiet manner (REPONSE AU SIEUR VOLTAIRE):--

"Je suis homme, il suffit, et ne pour la souffrance; Aux rigueurs du destin j'oppose ma constance.

["I am a man, and therefore born to suffer; to destiny's rigors my steadfastness must correspond."--Quotation from I know not whom.]

But with these sentiments, I am far from condemning Cato and Otho. The latter had no fine moment in his life, except that of his death. [Breaks off into Verse:]

"Croyez que si j'etais Voltaire, Et particulier comme lui, Me contentant du necessaire, Je verrais voltiger la fortune legere,"

--Or,to wring the water and the jingle out of it, and give the substance in Prose:--

"Yes, if I were Voltaire and a private man, I could with much composure leave Fortune to her whirlings and her plungings; to me, contented with the needful, her mad caprices and sudden topsy-turvyings would be amusing rather than tremendous.

"I know the ennui attending on honors, the burdensome duties, the jargon of grinning flatterers, those pitiabilities of every kind, those details of littleness, with which you have to occupy yourself if set on high on the stage of things. Foolish glory has no charm for me, though a Poet and King: when once Atropos has ended me forever, what will the uncertain honor of living in the Temple of Memory avail? One moment of practical happiness is worth a thousand years of imaginary in such Temple.--Is the lot of high people so very sweet, then? Pleasure, gentle ease, true and hearty mirth, have always fled from the great and their peculiar pomps and labors.

"No, it is not fickle Fortune that has ever caused my sorrows; let her smile her blandest, let her frown her fiercest on me, I should sleep every night, refusing her the least wors.h.i.+p. But our respective conditions are our law; we are bound and commanded to shape our temper to the employment we have undertaken. Voltaire in his hermitage, in a Country where is honesty and safety, can devote himself in peace to the life of the Philosopher, as Plato has described it. But as to me, threatened with s.h.i.+pwreck, I must consider how, looking the tempest in the face, I can think, can live and can die as a King:--

Pour moi, menace du naufrage, Je dois, en affrontant l'orage, Penser, vivre et mourir en roi."

[_OEuvres,_ xxiii. 14.]

This is of October 9th; this ends, worthily, the Lamentation-Psalms; work having now turned up, which is a favorable change. Friedrich's notion of suicide, we perceive, is by no means that of puking up one's existence, in the weak sick way of FELO DE SE; but, far different, that of dying, if he needs must, as seems too likely, in uttermost spasm of battle for self and rights to the last. From which latter notion n.o.body can turn him. A valiantly definite, lucid and s.h.i.+ningly practical soul,--with such a power of always expectorating himself into clearness again. If he do frankly wager his life in that manner, beware, ye Soubises, Karls and flaccid trivial persons, of the stroke that may chance to lie in him!--

III. RUMOR OF AN INROAD ON BERLIN SUDDENLY SETS FRIEDRICH ON MARCH THITHER: INROAD TAKES EFFECT,--WITH IMPORTANT RESULTS, CHIEFLY IN A LEFT-HAND FORM.

October 11th, express arrived, important express from General Finck (who is in Dresden, convalescent from Kolin, and is even Commandant there, of anything there is to command), "That the considerable Austrian Brigade or Outpost, which was left at Stolpen when the others went for Silesia, is all on march for Berlin." Here is news! "The whole 15,000 of them," report adds;--though it proved to be only a Detachment, picked Tolpatches mostly, and of nothing like that strength; shot off, under a swift General Hadd.i.c.k, on this errand. Between them and Berlin is not a vestige of force; and Berlin itself has nothing but palisades, and perhaps a poor 4,000 of garrison. "March instantly, you Moritz, who lie nearest; cross Elbe at Torgau; I follow instantly!" orders Friedrich; [His Message to Moritz, ORLICH, p. 73; Rodenbeck, p. 322 (dubious, or wrong).]--and that same night is on march, or has cavalry pushed ahead for reinforcement of Moritz.

Friedrich, not doubting but there would be captaincy and scheme among his Enemies, considered that the Swedes, and perhaps the Richelieu French, were in concert with this Austrian movement,--from east, from north, from west, three Invasions coming on the core of his Dominions;--and that here at last was work ahead, and plenty of it!

That was Friedrich's opinion, and most other people's, when the Austrian inroad was first heard of: "mere triple ruin coming to this King," as the Gazetteers judged;--great alarm prevailing among the King's friends; in Berlin, very great. Friedrich, glad, at any rate, to have done with that dismal lingering at b.u.t.telstadt, hastens to arrange himself for the new contingencies; to post his Keiths, his Ferdinands, with their handfuls of force, to best advantage; and push ahead after Moritz, by Leipzig, Torgau, Berlin-wards, with all his might. At Leipzig, in such press of business and interest,--judge by the following phenomenon, what a clear-going soul this is, and how completely on a level with whatever it may be that he is marching towards:--

"LEIPZIG, 15th OCTOBER, 1757 (Interview with Gottsched).--At 11 this morning, Majesty came marching into Leipzig; mult.i.tudes of things to settle there; things ready, things not yet ready, in view of the great events ahead. Seeing that he would have time after dinner, he at once sent for Professor Gottsched, a gigantic gentleman, Reigning King of German Literature for the time being, to come to him at 3 P.M. Reigning King at that time; since gone wholly to the Dustbins,--'Popular Delusion,' as old Samuel defines it, having since awakened to itself, with scornful ha-ha's upon its poor Gottsched, and rushed into other roads worse and better; its poor Gottsched become a name now signifying Pedantry, Stupidity, learned Inanity and the Wors.h.i.+p of Colored Water, to every German mind.

"At 3 precise, the portly old gentleman (towards sixty now, huge of stature, with a shrieky voice, and speaks uncommonly fast) bowed himself in; and a Colloquy ensued, on Literature and so forth, of the kind we may conceive. Colloquy which had great fame in the world; Gottsched himself having--such the inaccuracy of rumor and Dutch Newspapers, on the matter--published authentic Report of it; [Next Year, in a princ.i.p.al Leipzig Magazine, with name signed: given in _Helden-Geschichte,_ iv.

728-739 (with multifarious commentaries and flouris.h.i.+ngs, denoting an attentive world). Nicolai, _Anekdoten,_ iii. 286-290.] now one of the dullest bits of reading, and worth no man's bit of time. Colloquy which lasted three hours, with the greatest vivacity on both sides; King impugning, for one princ.i.p.al thing, the roughness of German speech; Gottsched, in swift torrents (far too copious in such company), ready to defend. 'Those consonants of ours,' said the King, 'they afflict one's ear: what Names we have; all in mere K's and P's: KNAP-, KNIP-, KLOP-, KROTZ-, KROK--;--your own Name, for example!'"--Yes, his own Name, unmusical GottSCHED, and signifying G.o.d's-Damage (G.o.d's-SKAITH) withal.

"Husht, don't take a Holy Name in vain; call the man SCHED ('Damage'

by itself), can't we!" said a wit once. [Nicolai, _Anekdoten,_ iii.

287.]--"'Five consonants together, TTSCH, TTSCH, what a tone!' continued the King. 'Hear, in contrast, the music of this Stanza of Rousseau's [Repeats a stanza]. Who could express that in German with such melody?'

And so on; branching through a great many provinces; King's knowledge of all Literature, new and ancient, 'perfectly astonis.h.i.+ng to me;' and I myself, the swift-speaking Gottsched, rather copious than otherwise.

Catastrophe, and summary of the whole, was: Gottsched undertook to translate the Rousseau Stanza into German of moderate softness; and by the aid of water did so, that very night; [Copied duly in _Helden-Geschichte,_ iv. 726.] sent it next day, and had 'within an hour' a gracious Royal Answer in verse; calling one, incidentally, 'Saxon Swan, CYGNE SAXON,' though one is such a Goose! 'Majesty to march at 7 to-morrow morning,' said a Postscript,--no Interviewing more, at present.

"About ten days after [not to let this thing interrupt us again], Friedrich, on his return to Leipzig, had another Interview with Gottsched; of only one hour, this time;--but with many topics: Reading of some Gottsched Ode (ODE, very tedious, frothy, watery, of THANKS to Majesty for such goodness to the Saxon Swan; reading, too, of 'some of Madam Gottsched's Pieces'). Majesty confessed afterwards, Every hour from the very first had lowered his opinion of the Saxon Swan, till at length Goosehood became too apparent. Friedrich sent him a gold snuffbox by and by, but had no farther dialoguing.

"A saying of Excellency Mitch.e.l.l's to Gottsched--for Gottsched, on that second Leipzig opportunity, went swas.h.i.+ng about among the King's Suite as well--is still remembered. They were talking of Shakspeare: 'Genial, if you will,' said Gottsched, 'but the Laws of Aristotle; Five Acts, unities strict!'--'Aristotle? What is to hinder a man from making his Tragedy in Ten acts, if it suit him better?' 'Impossible, your Excellency!'--'Pooh,' said his Excellency; 'suppose Aristotle, and general Fas.h.i.+on too, had ordered that the clothes of every man were to be cut from five ells of cloth: how would the Herr Professor like [with these huge limbs of his] if he found there were no breeches for him, on Aristotle's account?' Adieu to Gottsched; most voluminous of men;--who wrote a Grammar of the German Language, which, they say, did good.

I remember always his poor Wife with some pathos; who was a fine, graceful, loyal creature, of ten times his intelligence; and did no end of writing and translating and compiling (Addison's CATO, Addison's SPECTATOR, thousands of things from all languages), on order of her Gottsched, till life itself sank in such enterprises; never doubting, tragically faithful soul, but her Gottsched was an authentic Seneschal of Phoebus and the Nine." [Her LETTERS, collected by a surviving Lady-Friend, "BRIEFE DER FRAU LUISE ADELGUNDE VIKTORIE GOTTSCHED, born KULMUS (Dresden, 1771-1772, 3 vols. 8vo)," are, I should suppose, the only Gottsched Piece which anybody would now think of reading.]--

Monday, 17th, at seven, his Majesty pushed off accordingly; cheery he in the prospect of work, whatever his friends in the distance be. Here, from Eilenburg, his first stage Torgau-way, are a Pair of Letters in notable contrast.

WILHELMINA TO THE KING (on rumor of Hadd.i.c.k, swoln into a Triple Invasion, Austrian, Swedish, French).

BAIREUTH, "15th October, 1757.

"MY DEAREST BROTHER,--Death and a thousand torments could not equal the frightful state I am in. There run reports that make me shudder. Some say you are wounded; others, dangerously ill. In vain have I tormented myself to have news of you; I can get none. Oh, my dear Brother, come what may, I will not survive you. If I am to continue in this frightful uncertainty, I cannot stand it; I shall sink under it, and then I shall be happy. I have been on the point of sending you a courier; but [environed as we are] I durst not. In the name of G.o.d, bid somebody write me one word.

"I know not what I have written; my heart is torn in pieces; I feel that by dint of disquietude and alarms I am losing my wits. Oh, my dear, adorable Brother, have pity on me. Heaven grant I be mistaken, and that you may scold me; but the least thing that concerns you pierces me to the heart, and alarms my affection too much. Might I die a thousand times, provided you lived and were happy!

"I can say no more. Grief chokes me; and I can only repeat that your fate shall be mine; being, my dear Brother, your