History of Friedrich II of Prussia Volume III Part 9

A dangerous debtor in such matters, this Karl Gustav. In these same months, busy with the Danish part of the Controversy, he was doing a feat of war, which set all Europe in astonishment. In January, 1658, Karl Gustav marches his Army, horse, foot and artillery, to the extent of twenty thousand, across the Baltic ice, and takes an Island without s.h.i.+pping,--Island of Funen, across the Little Belt; three miles of ice; and a part of the sea open, which has to be crossed on planks. Nay, forward from Funen, when once there, he achieves ten whole miles more of ice; and takes Zealand itself, [Holberg's _Danemarkische Reichs-Historie,_ pp. 406-409.]--to the wonder of all mankind. An imperious, stern-browed, swift-striking man; who had dreamed of a new Goth Empire: The mean Hypocrites and Fribbles of the South to be coerced again by n.o.ble Norse valor, and taught a new lesson. Has been known to lay his hand on his sword while apprising an Amba.s.sador (Dutch High-Mightiness) what his royal intentions were: "Not the sale or purchase of groceries, observe you, Sir! My aims go higher!"--Charles Twelfth's Grandfather, and somewhat the same type of man.

But Karl Gustav died, short while after; [13th February, 1660, age 38.]

left his big wide-raging Northern Controversy to collapse in what way it could. Sweden and the fighting-parties made their "Peace of Oliva"

(Abbey of Oliva, near Dantzig, 1st May, 1660); and this of Preussen was ratified, in all form, among the other points. No homage more; nothing now above Ducal Prussia but the Heavens; and great times coming for it. This was one of the successfulest strokes of business ever done by Friedrich Wilhelm; who had been forced, by sheer compulsion, to embark in that big game.--"Royal Prussia," the Western or POLISH Prussia: this too, as all Newspapers know, has, in our times, gone the same road as the other. Which probably, after all, it may have had, in Nature, some tendency to do? Cut away, for reasons, by the Polish sword, in that Battle of Tannenberg, long since; and then, also for reasons, cut back again! That is the fact;--not unexampled in human History.

Old Johann Casimir, not long after that Peace of Oliva, getting tired of his unruly Polish chivalry and their ways, abdicated;--retired to Paris; and "lived much with Ninon de l'Enclos and her circle," for the rest of his life. He used to complain of his Polish chivalry, that there was no solidity in them; nothing but outside glitter, with tumult and anarchic noise; fatal want of one essential talent, the talent of Obeying; and has been heard to prophesy that a glorious Republic, persisting in such courses, would arrive at results which would surprise it.

Onward from this time, Friedrich Wilhelm figures in the world; public men watching his procedure; Kings anxious to secure him,--Dutch printsellers sticking up his Portraits for a hero-wors.h.i.+pping Public.

Fighting hero, had the Public known it, was not his essential character, though he had to fight a great deal. He was essentially an Industrial man; great in organizing, regulating, in constraining chaotic heaps to become cosmic for him. He drains bogs, settles colonies in the waste-places of his Dominions, cuts ca.n.a.ls; unweariedly encourages trade and work. The FRIEDRICH-WILHELM'S Ca.n.a.l, which still carries tonnage from the Oder to the Spree, [Executed, 1662-1668; fifteen English miles long (Busching, ERDBESCHREIBUNG, vi, 2193).] is a monument of his zeal in this way; creditable, with the means he had. To the poor French Protestants, in the Edict-of-Nantes Affair, he was like an express Benefit of Heaven: one Helper appointed, to whom the help itself was profitable. He munificently welcomed them to Brandenburg; showed really a n.o.ble piety and human pity, as well as judgment; nor did Brandenburg and he want their reward. Some 20,000 nimble French souls, evidently of the best French quality, found a home there;--made "waste sands about Berlin into potherb gardens;" and in the spiritual Brandenburg, too, did something of horticulture, which is still noticeable. [Erman (weak Biographer of Queen Sophie-Charlotte, already cited), _Memoires pour sevir a l'Histoire den Refugies Francais dans les Etats du Roi de Prusse_ (Berlin, 1782-1794), 8 tt. 8vo.]

Certainly this Elector was one of the s.h.i.+ftiest of men. Not an unjust man either. A pious, G.o.d-fearing man rather, stanch to his Protestantism and his Bible; not unjust by any means,--nor, on the other hand, by any means thick-skinned in his interpretings of justice: Fair-play to myself always; or occasionally even the Height of Fair-play! On the whole, by constant energy, vigilance, adroit activity, by an ever-ready insight and audacity to seize the pa.s.sing fact by its right handle, he fought his way well in the world; left Brandenburg a flouris.h.i.+ng and greatly increased Country, and his own name famous enough.

A thick-set stalwart figure; with brisk eyes, and high strong irregularly Roman nose. Good bronze Statue of him, by Schluter, once a famed man, still rides on the LANGE-BRUCKE (Long-Bridge) at Berlin; and his Portrait, in huge frizzled Louis-Quatorze wig, is frequently met with in German Galleries. Collectors of Dutch Prints, too, know him: here a gallant, eagle-featured little gentleman, brisk in the smiles of youth, with plumes, with truncheon, caprioling on his war-charger, view of tents in the distance;--there a sedate, ponderous, wrinkly old man, eyes slightly puckered (eyes BUSIER than mouth); a face well-ploughed by Time, and not found unfruitful; one of the largest, most laborious, potent faces (in an ocean of circ.u.mambient periwig) to be met with in that Century. [Both Prints are Dutch; the Younger, my copy of the Younger, has lost the Engraver's Name (Kurfurst's age is twenty-seven); the Elder is by Ma.s.sON, 1633, when Friedrich Wilhelm was sixty-three.]

There are many Histories about him, too; but they are not comfortable to read. [G. D. Geyler, _Leben und Thaten Friedrich Wihelms des Grossen_ (Frankfort and Leipzig, 1703), folio. Franz Horn, _Das Leben Friedrich Wilhelms des Grossen_ (Berlin, 1814). Pauli, _Staats-Geschichte,_ Band v. (Halle, 1764). Pufendorf, _De rebus gestis Friderici Wilhelmi Magni Electoris Brandenburgensis Commentaria_ (Lips. et Berol. 1733, fol.)] He also has wanted a sacred Poet; and found only a bewildering Dryasdust.

His Two grand Feats that dwell in the Prussian memory are perhaps none of his greatest, but were of a kind to strike the imagination. They both relate to what was the central problem of his life,--the recovery of Pommern from the Swedes. Exploit First is the famed "Battle of FEHRBELLIN (Ferry of BellEEN)," fought on the 18th June, 1675.

Fehrbellin is an inconsiderable Town still standing in those peaty regions, some five-and-thirty miles northwest of Berlin; and had for ages plied its poor Ferry over the oily-looking, brown, sluggish stream called Rhin, or Rhein in those parts, without the least notice from mankind, till this fell out. It is a place of pilgrimage to patriotic Prussians, ever since Friedrich Wilhelm's exploit there. The matter went thus:--

Friedrich Wilhelm was fighting, far south in Alsace, on Kaiser Leopold's side, in the Louis-Fourteenth War; that second one, which ended in the treaty of Nimwegen. Doing his best there,--when the Swedes, egged on by Louis XIV., made war upon him; crossed the Pomeranian marches, troop after troop, and invaded his Brandenburg Territory with a force which at length amounted to some 16,000 men. No help for the moment: Friedrich Wilhelm could not be spared from his post. The Swedes, who had at first professed well, gradually went into plunder, roving, harrying, at their own will; and a melancholy time they made of it for Friedrich Wilhelm and his People. Lucky if temporary harm were all the ill they were likely to do; lucky if--! He stood steady, however; in his solid manner, finis.h.i.+ng the thing in hand first, since that was feasible. He then even retired into winter-quarters, to rest his men; and seemed to have left the Swedish 16,000 autocrats of the situation; who accordingly went storming about at a great rate.

Not so, however; very far indeed from so. Having rested his men for certain months, Friedrich Wilhelm silently in the first days of June (1675) gets them under march again; marches, his Cavalry and he as first instalment, with best speed from Schweinfurt, [Stenzel, ii. 347.] which is on the river Main, to Magdeburg; a distance of two hundred miles. At Magdeburg, where he rests three days, waiting for the first handful of foot and a field-piece or two, he learns that the Swedes are in three parties wide asunder; the middle party of them within forty miles of him. Probably stronger, even this middle one, than his small body (of "six thousand Horse, twelve hundred Foot and three guns");--stronger, but capable perhaps of being surprised, of being cut in pieces, before the others can come up? Rathenau is the nearest skirt of this middle party: thither goes the Kurfurst, softly, swiftly, in the June night (16-17th June, 1675); gets into Rathenau, by brisk stratagem; tumbles out the Swedish Horse-regiment there, drives it back towards Fehrbellin.

He himself follows hard;--swift riding enough, in the summer night, through those damp Havel lands, in the old Hohenzollern fas.h.i.+on: and indeed old Freisack Castle, as it chances,--Freisack, scene of Dietrich von Quitzow and LAZY PEG long since,--is close by! Follows hard, we say: strikes in upon this midmost party (nearly twice his number, but Infantry for the most part); and after fierce fight, done with good talent on both sides, cuts it into utter ruin, as proposed. Thereby he has left the Swedish Army as a mere head and tail WITHOUT body; has entirely demolished the Swedish Army. [Stenzel, ii. 350-357.] Same feat intrinsically as that done by Cromwell, on Hamilton and the Scots, in 1648. It was, so to speak, the last visit Sweden paid to Brandenburg, or the last of any consequence; and ended the domination of the Swedes in those quarters. A thing justly to be forever remembered by Brandenburg;--on a smallish modern scale, the Bannockburn, Sempach, Marathon, of Brandenburg. [See Pauli, v. 161-169; Stenzel, ii. 335, 340-347, 354; Kausler, _Atlas des plus memorables Batailles, Combats et Sieges,_ or _Atlas der merkwurdigsten Schlachten, Treffen und Belagerungen_ (German and French, Carlsruhe and Freiburg, 1831), p. 417, Blatt 62.]

Exploit Second was four years later; in some sort a corollary to this; and a winding-up of the Swedish business. The Swedes, in farther prosecution of their Louis-Fourteenth speculation, had invaded Preussen this time, and were doing sad havoc there. It was in the dead of winter, Christmas, 1678, more than four hundred miles off; and the Swedes, to say nothing of their other havoc, were in a case to take Konigsberg, and ruin Prussia altogether, if not prevented. Friedrich Wilhelm starts from Berlin, with the opening Year, on his long march; the Horse-troops first, Foot to follow at their swiftest; he himself (his Wife, his ever-true "Louisa," accompanying, as her wont was) travels, towards the end, at the rate of "sixty miles a day." He gets in still in time, finds Konigsberg unscathed. Nay it is even said, the Swedes are extensively falling sick; having, after a long famine, found infinite "pigs, near Insterburg," in those remote regions, and indulged in the fresh pork overmuch.

I will not describe the subsequent manoeuvres, which would interest n.o.body: enough if I say that on the 16th of January, 1679, it had become of the highest moment for Friedrich Wilhelm to get from Carwe (Village near Elbing) on the sh.o.r.e of the FRISCHE HAF, where he was, through Konigsberg, to Gilge on the CURISCHE HAF, where the Swedes are,--in a minimum of time. Distance, as the crow flies, is about a hundred miles; road, which skirts the two HAFS [Pauli, v. 215-222; Stenzel, ii.

392-397.] (wide shallow WASHES, as we should name them), is of rough quality, and naturally circuitous. It is ringing frost to-day, and for days back:--Friedrich Wilhelm hastily gathers all the sledges, all the horses of the district; mounts some four thousand men in sledges; starts, with the speed of light, in that fas.h.i.+on. Scours along all day, and after the intervening bit of land, again along; awakening the ice-bound silences. Gloomy Frische Haf, wrapt in its Winter cloud-coverlids, with its wastes of tumbled sand, its poor frost-bound fis.h.i.+ng-hamlets, pine-hillocks,--desolate-looking, stern as Greenland or more so, says Busching, who travelled there in winter-time, [Busching's _Beitrage_ (Halle, 1789), vi. 160.]--hears unexpected human noises, and huge grinding and trampling; the four thousand, in long fleet of sledges, scouring across it, in that manner. All day they rush along,--out of the rimy hazes of morning into the olive-colored clouds of evening again,--with huge loud-grinding rumble;--and do arrive in time at Gilge. A notable streak of things, shooting across those frozen solitudes, in the New-Year, 1679;--little short of Karl Gustav's feat, which we heard of, in the other or Danish end of the Baltic, twenty years ago, when he took Islands without s.h.i.+ps.

This Second Exploit--suggested or not by that prior one of Karl Gustav on the ice--is still a thing to be remembered by Hohenzollerns and Prussians. The Swedes were beaten here, on Friedrich Wilhelm's rapid arrival; were driven into disastrous rapid retreat Northward; which they executed, in hunger and cold; fighting continually, like Northern bears, under the grim sky; Friedrich Wilhelm sticking to their skirts,--holding by their tail, like an angry bear-ward with steel whip in his hand. A thing which, on the small scale, reminds one of Napoleon's experiences.

Not till Napoleon's huge fighting-flight, a hundred and thirty-four years after, did I read of such a transaction in those parts. The Swedish invasion of Preussen has gone utterly to ruin.

And this, then, is the end of Sweden, and its bad neighborhood on these sh.o.r.es, where it has tyrannously sat on our skirts so long? Swedish Pommern the Elector already had: last year, coming towards it ever since the Exploit of Fehrbellin, he had invaded Swedish Pommern; had besieged and taken Stettin, nay Stralsund too, where Wallenstein had failed;--cleared Pommern altogether of its Swedish guests. Who had tried next in Preussen, with what luck we see. Of Swedish Pommern the Elector might now say: "Surely it is mine; again mine, as it long was; well won a second time, since the first would not do!" But no:--Louis XIV. proved a gentleman to his Swedes. Louis, now that the Peace of Nimwegen had come, and only the Elector of Brandenburg was still in harness, said steadily, though anxious enough to keep well with the Elector: "They are my allies, these Swedes; it was on my bidding they invaded you: can I leave them in such a pa.s.s? It must not be!" So Pommern had to be given back. A miss which was infinitely grievous to Friedrich Wilhelm. The most victorious Elector cannot hit always, were his right never so good.

Another miss which he had to put up with, in spite of his rights, and his good services, was that of the Silesian Duchies. The Heritage-Fraternity with Liegnitz had at length, in 1675, come to fruit.

The last Duke of Liegnitz was dead: Duchies of Liegnitz, of Brieg, Wohlau, are Brandenburg's, if there were right done! But Kaiser Leopold in the scarlet stockings will not hear of Heritage-Fraternity.

"Nonsense!" answers Kaiser Leopold: "A thing suppressed at once, ages ago; by Imperial power: flat ZERO of a thing at this time;--and you, I again bid you, return me your Papers upon it!" This latter act of duty Friedrich Wilhelm would not do; but continued insisting. [Pauli, v. 321.] "Jagerndorf at least, O Kaiser of the world," said he; "Jagerndorf, there is no color for your keeping that!" To which the Kaiser again answers, "Nonsense!"--and even falls upon astonis.h.i.+ng schemes about it, as we shall see;--but gives nothing. Ducal Preussen is sovereign, Cleve is at Peace, Hinter-Pommern ours;--this Elector has conquered much: but the Silesian Heritages and Vor-Pommern, and some other things, he will have to do without. Louis XIV., it is thought, once offered to get him made King; [Ib. vii. 215.] but that he declined for the present.

His married and domestic life is very fine and human; especially with that Oranien-Na.s.sau Princess, who was his first Wife (1646-1667); Princess Louisa of Na.s.sau-Orange; Aunt to our own Dutch William, King William III., in time coming. An excellent wise Princess; from whom came the Orange Heritages, which afterwards proved difficult to settle:--Orange was at last exchanged for the small Princ.i.p.ality of Neufchatel in Switzerland, which is Prussia's ever since. "Oranienburg (ORANGE-BURG)," a Royal Country-house, still standing, some twenty miles northwards from Berlin, was this Louisa's place: she had trimmed it up into a little jewel, of the Dutch type,--potherb gardens, training-schools for young girls, and the like;--a favorite abode of hers, when she was at liberty for recreation. But her life was busy and earnest: she was helpmate, not in name only, to an ever-busy man. They were married young; a marriage of love withal. Young Friedrich Wilhelm's courts.h.i.+p, wedding in Holland; the honest trustful walk and conversation of the two Sovereign Spouses, their journeyings together, their mutual hopes, fears and manifold vicissitudes; till Death, with stern beauty, shut it in:--all is human, true and wholesome in it; interesting to look upon, and rare among sovereign persons.

Not but that he had his troubles with his womankind. Even with this his first Wife, whom he loved truly, and who truly loved him, there were scenes; the Lady having a judgment of her own about everything that pa.s.sed, and the Man being choleric withal. Sometimes, I have heard, "he would dash his hat at her feet," saying symbolically, "Govern you, then, Madam! Not the Kurfurst-Hat; a Coif is my wear, it seems!" [Forster, _Friedrich Wilhelm I. Konig von Preussen_ (Potsdam, 1834), i. 177.] Yet her judgment was good; and he liked to have it on the weightiest things, though her powers of silence might halt now and then. He has been known, on occasion, to run from his Privy-Council to her apartment, while a complex matter was debating, to ask her opinion, hers too, before it was decided. Excellent Louisa; Princess full of beautiful piety, good-sense and affection; a touch of the Na.s.sau-Heroic in her. At the moment of her death, it is said, when speech had fled, he felt, from her hand which lay in his, three slight, slight pressures: "Farewell!" thrice mutely spoken in that manner,--not easy to forget in this world. [Wegfuhrer, _Leben der Kurfurstin Luise_ (Leipzig, 1838), p. 175.]

His second Wife, Dorothea,--who planted the Lindens in Berlin, and did other husbandries, of whom we have heard, fell far short of Louisa in many things; but not in tendency to advise, to remonstrate, and plaintively reflect on the finished and unalterable. Dreadfully thrifty lady, moreover; did much in dairy produce, farming of town-rates, provision-taxes: not to speak again of that Tavern she was thought to have in Berlin, and to draw custom to in an oblique manner! What scenes she had with Friedrich her stepson, we have seen. "Ah, I have not my Louisa now; to whom now shall I run for advice or help!" would the poor Kurfurst at times exclaim.

He had some trouble, considerable trouble now and then, with mutinous spirits in Preussen; men standing on antique Prussian franchises and parchments; refusing to see that the same were now antiquated, incompatible, not to say impossible, as the new Sovereign alleged; and carrying themselves very stiffly at times. But the Hohenzollerns had been used to such things; a Hohenzollern like this one would evidently take his measures, soft but strong, and ever stronger to the needful pitch, with mutinous spirits. One Burgermeister of Konigsberg, after much stroking on the back, was at length seized in open Hall, by Electoral writ,--soldiers having first gently barricaded the princ.i.p.al streets, and brought cannon to bear upon them. This Burgermeister, seized in such brief way, lay prisoner for life; refusing to ask his liberty, though it was thought he might have had it on asking. [Horn, _Das Leben Friedrich Wilhelms des Grossen_ (Berlin, 1814), p. 68.]

Another gentleman, a Baron von Kalkstein, of old Teutsch-Bitter kin, of very high ways, in the Provincial Estates (STANDE) and elsewhere, got into lofty almost solitary opposition, and at length into mutiny proper, against the new "Non-Polish SOVEREIGN," and flatly refused to do homage at his accession in that new capacity. [Supra, pp. 383, et seqq.]

Refused, Kalkstein did, for his share; fled to Warsaw; and very fiercely, in a loud manner, carried on his mutinies in the Diets and Court-Conclaves there; his plea being, or plea for the time, "Poland is our liege lord [which it was not always], and we cannot be transferred to you, except by our consent asked and given," which too had been a little neglected on the former occasion of transfer. So that the Great Elector knew not what to do with Kalkstein; and at length (as the case was pressing) had him kidnapped by his Amba.s.sador at Warsaw; had him "rolled into a carpet" there, and carried swiftly in the Amba.s.sador's coach, in the form of luggage, over the frontier, into his native Province, there to be judged, and, in the end (since nothing else would serve him), to have the sentence executed, and his head cut off. For the case was pressing! [Horn, pp. 80-82.]--These things, especially this of Kalkstein, with a boisterous Polish Diet and parliamentary eloquence in the rear of him, gave rise to criticism; and required management on the part of the Great Elector.

Of all his Ancestors, our little Fritz, when he grew big, admired this one. A man made like himself in many points. He seems really to have loved and honored this one. In the year 1750 there had been a new Cathedral got finished at Berlin; the ancestral bones had to be s.h.i.+fted over from the vaults of the old one,--the burying-place ever since Joachim II., that Joachim who drew his sword on Alba. "King Friedrich, with some attendants, witnessed the operation, January, 1750. When the Great Kurfurst's coffin came, he made them open it; gazed in silence on the features for some time, which were perfectly recognizable; laid his hand on the hand long dead, and said, _'Messieurs, celui-ci a fait de grandes choses_ (This one did a great work)!'" [See Preuss, i. 270.]

He died 29th April, 1688;--looking with intense interest upon Dutch William's preparations to produce a Glorious Revolution in this Island; being always of an ardent Protestant feeling, and a sincerely religious man. Friedrich, Crown-Prince, age then thirty-one, and already married a second time, was of course left Chief Heir;--who, as we see, has not declined the Kings.h.i.+p, when a chance for it offered. There were four Half-brothers of Friedrich, too, who got apanages, appointments. They had at one time confidently looked for much more, their Mother being busy; but were obliged to be content, and conform to the GERA BOND and fundamental Laws of the Country. They are ent.i.tled Margraves; two of whom left children, Margraves of Brandenburg-Schwedt, HEERMEISTERS (Head of the Malta-Knighthood) at Sonnenburg, Statthalters in Magdeburg, or I know not what; whose names turn up confusedly in the Prussian Books; and, except as temporary genealogical puzzles, are not of much moment to the Foreign reader. Happily there is nothing else in the way of Princes of the Blood, in our little Friedrich's time; and happily what concern he had with these, or how he was related to them, will not be abstruse to us, if occasion rise.

Chapter XIX. -- KING FRIEDRICH I. AGAIN.

We said the Great Elector never could work his Silesian Duchies out of Kaiser Leopold's grip: to all his urgencies the little Kaiser in red stockings answered only in evasions, refusals; and would quit nothing.

We noticed also what quarrels the young Electoral Prince, Friedrich, afterwards King, had got into with his Stepmother; suddenly feeling poisoned after dinner, running to his Aunt at Ca.s.sel, coming back on treaty, and the like. These are two facts which the reader knows: and out of these two grew a third, which it is fit he should know.

In his last years, the Great Elector, worn out with labor, and hara.s.sed with such domestic troubles over and above, had evidently fallen much under his Wife's management; cutting out large apanages (clear against the GERA BOND) for her children;--longing probably for quiet in his family at any price. As to the poor young Prince, negotiated back from Ca.s.sel, he lived remote, and had fallen into open disfavor,--with a very ill effect upon his funds, for one thing. His father kept him somewhat tight on the money-side, it is alleged; and he had rather a turn for spending money handsomely. He was also in some alarm about the proposed apanages to his Half-brothers, the Margraves above mentioned, of which there were rumors going.

HOW AUSTRIA SETTLED THE SILESIAN CLAIMS.

Now in these circ.u.mstances the Austrian Court, who at this time (1685) greatly needed the Elector's help against Turks and others, and found him very urgent about these Silesian Duchies of his, fell upon what I must call a very extraordinary s.h.i.+ft for getting rid of the Silesian question. "Serene Highness," said they, by their Amba.s.sador at Berlin, "to end these troublesome talks, and to liquidate all claims, admissible and inadmissible, about Silesia, the Imperial Majesty will give you an actual bit of Territory, valuable, though not so large as you expected!"

The Elector listens with both ears: What Territory, then? The "Circle of Schwiebus," hanging on the northwestern edge of Silesia, contiguous to the Elector's own Dominions in these Frankfurt-on-Oder regions: this the generous Imperial Majesty proposes to give in fee-simple to Friedrich Wilhelm, and so to end the matter. Truly a most small patch of Territory in comparison; not bigger than an English Rutlands.h.i.+re, to say nothing of soil and climate! But then again it was an actual patch of territory; not a mere parchment shadow of one: this last was a tempting point to the old hara.s.sed Elector. Such friendly offer they made him, I think, in 1685, at the time they were getting 8,000 of his troops to march against the Turks for them; a very needful service at the moment. "By the bye, do not march through Silesia, you!--Or march faster!" said the cautious Austrians on this occasion: "Other roads will answer better than Silesia!" said they. [Pauli, v. 327, 332.] Baron Freytag, their Amba.s.sador at Berlin, had negotiated the affair so far: "Circle of Schwiebus," said Freytag, "and let us have done with these th.o.r.n.y talks!"

But Baron Freytag had been busy, in the mean while, with the young Prince; secretly offering Sympathy, counsel, help; of all which the poor Prince stood in need enough. "We will help you in that dangerous matter of the Apanages," said Freytag; "Help you in all things,"--I suppose he would say,--"necessary pocket-money is not a thing your Highness need want!" And thus Baron Freytag, what is very curious, had managed to bargain beforehand with the young Prince, That directly on coming to power, he would give up Schwiebus again, SHOULD the offer of Schwiebus be accepted by Papa. To which effect Baron Freytag held a signed Bond, duly executed by the young man, before Papa had concluded at all. Which is very curious indeed!--

Poor old Papa, worn out with troubles, accepted Schwiebus in liquidation of all claims (8th April, 1686), and a few days after set his men on march against the Turks:--and, exactly two months beforehand, on the 8th of February last, the Prince had signed HIS secret engagement, That Schwiebus should be a mere phantasm to Papa; that he, the Prince, would restore it on his accession. Both these singular Parchments, signed, sealed and done in the due legal form, lay simultaneously in Freytag's hand; and probably enough they exist yet, in some dusty corner, among the solemn sheepskins of the world. This is literally the plan hit upon by an Imperial Court, to a.s.sist a young Prince in his pecuniary and other difficulties, and get rid of Silesian claims. Plan actually not unlike that of swindling money-lenders to a young gentleman in difficulties, and of manageable turn, who has got into their hands.

The Great Elector died two years after; Schwiebus then in his hand. The new Elector, once instructed as to the nature of the affair, refused to give up Schwiebus; [19th September, 1689 Pauli, vii. 74.] declared the transaction a swindle:--and in fact, for seven years more, retained possession of Schwiebus. But the Austrian Court insisted, with emphasis, at length with threats (no insuperable pressure from Louis, or the Turks, at this time); the poor cheated Elector had, at last, to give up Schwiebus, in terms of his promise. [31st December, 1694.] He took act that it had been a surrept.i.tious transaction, palmed upon him while ignorant, and while without the least authority or power to make such a promise; that he was not bound by it, nor would be, except on compulsion thus far: and as to binding Brandenburg by it, how could he, at that period of his history, bind Brandenburg? Brandenburg was not then his to bind, any more than China was.

His Raths had advised Friedrich against giving up Schwiebus in that manner. But his answer is on record: "I must, I will and shall keep my own word. But my rights on Silesia, which I could not, and do not in these unjust circ.u.mstances, compromise, I leave intact for my posterity to prosecute. If G.o.d and the course of events order it no otherwise than now, we must be content. But if G.o.d shall one day send the opportunity, those that come after me will know what they have to do in such case."

[Pauli, vii. 150.] And so Schwiebus was given up, the Austrians paying back what Brandenburg had laid out in improving it, "250,000 GULDEN (25,000 pounds);"--and the Hand of Power had in this way, finally as it hoped, settled an old troublesome account of Brandenburg's. Settled the Silesian-Duchies Claim, by the temporary Phantasm of a Gift of Schwiebus. That is literally the Liegnitz-Jagerndorf case; and the reader is to note it and remember it. For it will turn up again in History. The Hand of Power is very strong: but a stronger may perhaps get hold of its knuckles one day, at an advantageous time, and do a feat upon it.

The "eventual succession to East Friesland," which had been promised by the Reich, some ten years ago, to the Great Elector, "for what he had done against the Turks, and what he had suffered from those Swedish Invasions, in the Common Cause:" this shadow of Succession, the Kaiser now said, should not be haggled with any more; but be actually realized, and the Imperial sanction to it now given,--effect to follow IF the Friesland Line died out. Let this be some consolation for the loss of Schwiebus and your Silesian Duchies. Here in Friesland is the ghost of a coming possession; there in Schwiebus was the ghost of a going one: phantasms you shall not want for; but the Hand of Power parts not with its realities, however come by.

HIS REAL CHARACTER.

Poor Friedrich led a conspicuous life as Elector and King; but no public feat he did now concerns us like this private one of Schwiebus.

Historically important, this, and requiring to be remembered, while so much else demands mere oblivion from us. He was a spirited man; did soldierings, fine Siege of Bonn (July-October, 1689), sieges and campaignings, in person,--valiant in action, royal especially in patience there,--during that Third War of Louis-Fourteenth's, the Treaty-of-Ryswick one. All through the Fourth, or Spanish Succession-War, his Prussian Ten-Thousand, led by fit generals, showed eminently what stuff they were made of. Witness Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau (still a YOUNG Dessauer) on the field of Blenheim;--Leopold had the right wing there, and saved Prince Eugene who was otherwise blown to pieces, while Marlborough stormed and conquered on the left. Witness the same Dessauer on the field of Hochstadt the year before, [Varnhagen von Ense, _Biographische Denkmale_ (Berlin, 1845), ii, 155.] how he managed the retreat there. Or see him at the Bridge of Ca.s.sano (1705); in the Lines of Turin (1706); [_ Des weltheruhnden Furstens Leopoldi von Anhult-Dessau Leben und Thaten_ (Leipzig, 1742, anonymous, by one MICHAEL RANFFT), pp. 53, 61.] wherever hot service was on hand. At Malplaquet, in those murderous inexpugnable French Lines, bloodiest of obstinate Fights (upwards of thirty thousand left on the ground), the Prussians brag that it was they who picked their way through a certain peat-bog, reckoned impa.s.sable; and got fairly in upon the French wing,--to the huge comfort of Marlborough, and little Eugene his brisk comrade on that occasion. Marlborough knew well the worth of these Prussian troops, and also how to stroke his Majesty into continuing them in the field.

He was an expensive King, surrounded by cabals, by Wartenbergs male and female, by whirlpools of intrigues, which, now that the game is over, become very forgettable. But one finds he was a strictly honorable man; with a certain height and generosity of mind, capable of other n.o.bleness than the upholstery kind. He had what we may call a hard life of it; did and suffered a good deal in his day and generation, not at all in a dishonest or unmanful manner. In fact, he is quite recognizably a Hohenzollern,--with his back half broken. Readers recollect that sad accident: how the Nurse, in one of those headlong journeys which his Father and Mother were always making, let the poor child fall or jerk backward; and spoiled him much, and indeed was thought to have killed him, by that piece of inattention. He was not yet Hereditary Prince, he was only second son: but the elder died; and he became Elector, King; and had to go with his spine distorted,--distortion not glaringly conspicuous, though undeniable;--and to act the Hohenzollern SO. Nay who knows but it was this very jerk, and the half-ruin of his nervous system,--this doubled wish to be beautiful, and this crooked back capable of being hid or decorated into straightness,--that first set the poor man on thinking of expensive ornamentalities, and Kings.h.i.+ps in particular? History will forgive the Nurse in that case.

Perhaps History has dwelt too much on the blind side of this expensive King. Toland, on entering his country, was struck rather with the signs of good administration everywhere. No sooner have you crossed the Prussian Border, out of Westphalia, says Toland, than smooth highways, well-tilled fields, and a general air of industry and regularity, are evident: solid milestones, bra.s.s-bound, and with bra.s.s inscription, tell the traveller where he is; who finds due guidance of finger-posts, too, and the blessing of habitable inns. The people seem all to be busy, diligently occupied; villages reasonably swept and whitewashed;--never was a better set of Parish Churches; whether new-built or old, they are all in brand-new repair. The contrast with Westphalia is immediate and great; but indeed that was a sad country, to anybody but a patient Toland, who knows the causes of phenomena. No inns there, except of the naturally savage sort. "A man is very happy if he finds clean straw to sleep on, without expecting sheets or coverings; let him readily dispense with plates, forks and napkins, if he can get anything to eat.... He must be content to have the cows, swine and poultry for his fellow-lodgers, and to go in at the same pa.s.sage that the smoke comes out at, for there's no other vent for it but the door; which makes foreigners commonly say that the people of Westphalia enter their houses by the chimney." And observe withal: "This is the reason why their beef and hams are so finely prepared and ripened; for the fireplace being backwards, the smoke must spread over all the house before it gets to the door; which makes everything within of a russet or sable color, not excepting the hands and faces of the meaner sort." [_An Account of the Courts of Prussia and Hanover,_ by Mr. Toland (cited already), p. 4.]

If Prussia yield to Westphalia in ham, in all else she is strikingly superior.

He founded Universities, this poor King; University of Halle; Royal Academy of Berlin, Leibnitz presiding: he fought for Protestantism;--did what he could for the cause of Cosmos VERSUS Chaos, after his fas.h.i.+on.

The magnificences of his Charlottenburgs, Oranienburgs and numerous Country-houses make Toland almost poetic. An affable kindly man withal, though quick of temper; his word sacred to him. A man of many troubles, and acquainted with "the infinitely little (L'INFINIMENT PEt.i.t)," as his Queen termed it.