History of Friedrich II of Prussia Volume VI Part 4

These poor Lorrainers are in a bad way; their Country all trampled to pieces by France, in the Louis-Fourteenth and still earlier times.

Indeed, ever since the futile Siege of Metz; where we saw the great Kaiser, Karl V., silently weeping because he could not recapture Metz, [Antea, vol. v. p. 211.] the French have been busy with this poor Country;--new sections of it clipt away by them; "military roads through it, ten miles broad," bargained for; its Dukes oftenest in exile, especially the Father of this present Duke: [A famed Soldier in his day;]

under Kaiser Leopold, "the little Kaiser in red stockings," one of whose Daughters he had to wife. He was at the Rescue of Vienna (Sobieski's), and in how many far fiercer services; his life was but a battle and a march. Here is his famed Letter to the Kaiser, when death suddenly called, Halt!

"WELS NEAR LINZ ON THE DONAU, 17th April, 1690.

"SACRED MAJESTY,--According to your Orders, I set out from Innspruck to come to Vienna; but I am stopped here by a Greater Master. I go to render account to Him of a life which I had wholly consecrated to you.

Remember that I leave a Wife with whom you are concerned [QUI ROUS TOUCHE,--who is your lawful Daughter]; Children to whom I can bequeath nothing but my sword; and Subjects who are under Oppression.

"CHARLES OF LORRAINE."

(Henault, _Abrege Chronologique,_ Paris, 1775, p. 850).[--Charles "V."

the French uniformly call this one; Charles "IV." the Germans, who, I conclude, know better.]--and they are now waiting a good opportunity to swallow it whole, while the people are so busy with quadrille parties.

The present Duke, returning from exile, found his Land in desolation, much of it "running fast to wild forest again;" and he has signalized himself by unwearied efforts in every direction to put new life into it, which have been rather successful. Lyttelton, we perceive, finds improvement in his company. The name of this brave Duke is Leopold; age now forty-nine; life and reign not far from done: a man about whom even Voltaire gets into enthusiasm. [Siecle de Louis XIV. (_OEuvres,_ xxvi.

95-97); Hubner, t. 281.]

The Court and Country of Lorraine, under Duke Leopold, will prove to deserve this brief glance from Lyttelton and us. Two sons Duke Leopold has: the elder, Franz, now about twenty, is at Vienna, with the highest outlooks there: Kaiser Karl is his Father's cousin-german; and Kaiser Karl's young Daughter, high beautiful Maria Theresa,--the sublimest maiden now extant,--yes, this lucky Franz is to have her: what a prize, even without Pragmatic Sanction! With the younger son, Karl of Lorraine, Lyttelton may have made acquaintance, if he cared: a lad of sixteen; by and by an Austrian General, as his father had been; General much noised of,--whom we shall often see beaten, in this world, at the head of men.--But let us now get to Soissons itself, skipping an intermediate Letter or two:--

TO SIR THOMAS LYTTELTON, BART., AT HAGLEY.

"SOISSONS, 28th October," 1728.

"I thank you, my dear Sir, for complying so much with my inclinations as to let me stay some time at Soissons: but as you have not fixed how long, I wait for farther orders.

"One of my chief reasons for disliking Luneville was the mult.i.tude of English there; who, most of them, were such worthless fellows that they were a dishonor to the name and Nation. With these I was obliged to dine and sup, and pa.s.s a great part of my time. You may be sure I avoided it as much as possible; but MALGRE MOI I suffered a great deal. To prevent any comfort from other people, they had made a law among themselves, not to admit any foreigner into their company: so that there was nothing but English talked from June to January.--On the contrary, my countrymen at Soissons are men of virtue and good sense; they mix perpetually with the French, and converse for the most part in that language. I will trouble you no more upon this subject: but give me leave to say that, however capricious I may have been on other subjects, my sentiments in this particular are the strongest proofs I ever gave you of my strong and hereditary aversion to vice and folly.

"Mr. Stanhope," our Minister, the Colonel or Brigadier-General, "is always at Fontainebleau. I went with Mr. Poyntz," Poyntz not yet a dim figure, but a brilliant, who hints about employing me, "to Paris for four days, when the Colonel himself was there, to meet him; he received me with great civility and kindness. We have done expecting Mr.

Walpole," fixed he in the Court regions; "who is obliged to keep strict guard over the Cardinal," sly old Fleury, "for fear the German Ministers should take him from us. They pull and haul the poor old gentleman so many ways, that he does not know where to turn, or into whose arms to throw himself." Never fear him!--

"Ripperda's escape to England,"--grand Diplomatic bulldog that was, who took refuge in Colonel Stanhope's at Madrid to no purpose, and kindled the sputtering at Gibraltar, is now got across to England, and will go to Morocco and farther, to no purpose,--"will very much embroil affairs; which did not seem to want another obstacle to hinder them from coming to an accommodation. If the Devil is not very much wanting to his own interests in this Business, it is impossible that the good work of Peace, should go on much longer. After all, most young fellows are of his party; and wish he may bring matters to a War; for they make but ill Ministers at a Congress, but would make good Soldiers in a Campaign.

"No news from Madam "BLANK" and her beloved Husband. Their unreasonable fondness for each other can never last: they will soon grow as cold to one another as the Town to _The Beggars' Opera._ And cannot warm again, you think? Pray Heaven I may prove a false prophet; but Married Love and English Music are too domestic to continue long in favor."...

NOVEMBER 20th, SOISSONS still. "This is one of the agreeablest Towns in France. The people are infinitely obliging to strangers: we are of all their parties, and perpetually share with them in their pleasures. I have learnt more French since I came hither, than I should have picked up in a twelvemonth in Lorraine....

"A fool with a majority on his side is the greatest tyrant in the world:--how can I go back to loiter in Lorraine, honored Father, where fools are in such majority? Then the extraordinary civilities I receive from Mr. Poyntz: He has in a manner taken me into his family; will evidently make an Apprentice of me. The first Packet that comes from Fontainebleau, I expect to be employed. Which is no small pleasure to me: and will I hope be of service."...

DECEMBER 20th. "A sudden order to Mr. Poyntz has broken all my measures.

He goes to-morrow to Paris, to stay there in the room of Messrs.

Stanhope and Walpole, who are on their return for England." Congress falling into complete languor, if we knew it! But ought not I to accompany this friendly and distinguished Mr. Poyntz, "who has already given me papers to copy;"--in fact I am setting off with him, honored Father!...

"Prince Frederick's journey,"--first arrival in England of dissolute Fred from Hanover, who had NOT been to Berlin to get married last summer,--"was very secret: Mr. Poyntz did not hear of it till Friday last; at least he had no public notice of it." Why should he? "There will be fine struggling for places" in this Prince's new Household. "I hope my Brother will come in for one." [Ayscough's _Lyttelton,_ iii.

200-231.]--

But here we pull the string of the curtain upon Lyttelton, and upon his Congress falling into complete languor; Congress destined, after dining for about a year more, to explode, in the Treaty of Seville, and to leave the Kaiser sitting horror-struck, solitary amid the wreck of Political Nature,--which latter, however, pieces itself together again for him and others. Beneficent Treaty of Vienna was at last achieved; Treaty and Treaties there, which brought matters to their old bearing again,--Austria united with the Sea-Powers, Pragmatic Sanction accepted by them, subsidies again to be expected from them; Baby Carlos fitted with his Apanages, in some tolerable manner; and the Problem, with which Creation had groaned for some twenty years past, finally accomplished better or worse.

Lyttelton himself will get a place in Prince Frederick's Household, and then lose it; place in Majesty's Ministry at last, but not for a long while yet. He will be one of Prince Frederick's men, of the Carterets, Chesterfields, Pitts, who "patronize literature," and are in opposition to dark Walpole; one of the "West-Wickham set;"--and will be of the Opposition party, and have his adventures in the world. Meanwhile let him go to Paris with Mr. Poyntz; and do his wisest there and elsewhere.

"Who's dat who ride astride de pony, So long, so lean, so lank and bony? Oh, he be de great orator, Little-ton-y." [Caricature of 1741, on Lyttelton's getting into the Ministry, with Carteret, Chesterfield, Argyll, and the rest: see Phillimore's _Lyttelton_ (London, 1845), i.

110; Johnson's _Lives of the Poets,_ ? Lyttelton; &c. &c.]

For now we are round at Friedrich Wilhelm's Pomeranian Hunting again, in the New-year's time of 1729; and must look again into the magnanimous sick-room which ensued thereon; where a small piece of business is going forward. What a magnanimous patient Friedrich Wilhelm was, in Fa.s.smann's judgment, we know: but, it will be good to show both sides of the tapestry, and let Wilhelmina also speak. The small business is only, a Treaty of Marriage for one of our Princesses: not Wilhelmina, but Louisa the next younger, who has been asked, and will consent, as appears.

Fa.s.smann makes a very touching scene of it. King is in bed, ill of his gout after that slaughter of the 3,602 wild swine: attendants are sitting round his Majesty, in the way we know; Queen Sophie at his head, "Seckendorf and several others" round the bed. Letters arrive; Princess Frederika Louisa, a very young Lady, has also had a Letter; which, she sees by the seal, will be interesting, but which she must not herself open. She steps in with it; "beautiful as an angel, but rather foolish, and a spoilt child of fifteen," says Wilhelmina: trips softly in with it; hands it to the King. "Give it to thy Mother, let her read it," says the King. Mother reads it, with audible soft voice: Formal demand in marriage from the Serenity of Ans.p.a.ch, as foreseen.

"Hearken, Louisa (h.o.r.e, LUISE), it is still time," said the King: "Tell us, wouldst thou rather go to Ans.p.a.ch, now, or stay with me? If thou choose to stay, thou shalt want, for nothing, either, to the end of thy life. Speak!"--"At such unexpected question," says Fa.s.smann, "there rose a fine blush over the Princess's face, who seemed to be at a loss for her answer. However, she soon collected herself; kissed his Majesty's hand, and said: 'Most gracious Papa, I will to Ans.p.a.ch!' To which the King: 'Very well, then; G.o.d give thee all happiness and thousand blessings!--But, hearken, Louisa,' the King's Majesty was pleased at the same time to add, 'We will make a bargain, thou and I. You have excellent, Flour at Ans.p.a.ch (SCHONES MEHL); but in Hams and Smoked Sausages you don't, come up, either in quality or quant.i.ty, to us in this Country. Now I, for my part, like good pastries. So, from time to time, thou shalt send me a box of nice flour, and I will keep thee in hams and sausages. Wilt thou, Louisa?' That the Princess answered Yea,"

says poor Fa.s.smann with the tear in his eye, "may readily be supposed!"

Nay all that heard the thing round the royal bed there--simple humanities of that kind from so great, a King--had almost or altogether tears in their eyes. [Fa.s.smann, pp. 393, 394.]

This surely is a very touching scene. But now listen to Wilhelmina's account of another on the same subject, between the same parties. "At table;" no date indicated, or a wrong one, but evidently after this: in fact, we find it was about the beginning of March, 1729; and had sad consequences for Wilhelmina.

"At table his Majesty told the Queen that he had Letters from Ans.p.a.ch; the young Margraf to be at Berlin in May for his wedding; that M. Bremer his Tutor was just coming with the ring of betrothal for Louisa. He asked my Sister, If that gave her pleasure? and How she would regulate her housekeeping when married? My Sister had got into the way of telling him whatever she thought, and home-truths sometimes, without his taking it ill. She answered with her customary frankness, That she would have a good table, which should be delicately served; and, added she, 'which shall be better than yours. And if I have children, I will not maltreat them like you, nor force them to eat what they have an aversion to.'--'What do you mean by that?' replied the King: 'what is there wanting at my table?'--'There is this wanting,' she said, 'that one cannot have enough; and the little there is consists of coa.r.s.e potherbs that n.o.body can eat.' The King," as was not unnatural, "had begun to get angry at her first answer: this last put him quite in a fury; but all his anger fell on my Brother and me. He first threw a plate at my Brother's head, who ducked out of the way; he then let fly another at me, which I avoided in like manner. A hail-storm of abuse followed these first hostilities. He rose into a pa.s.sion against the Queen; reproaching her with the bad training she gave her children; and, addressing my Brother: 'You have reason to curse your Mother,' said he, 'for it is she that causes your being an ill-governed fellow (UN MAL GOUVERNE). I had a Preceptor,' continued he, 'who was an honest man. I remember always a story he told me in my youth. There was a man, at Carthage, who had been condemned to die for many crimes he had committed. While they were leading him to execution, he desired he might speak to his Mother.

They brought his Mother: he came near, as if to whisper something to her;--and bit away a piece of her ear. I treat you thus, said he, to make you an example to all parents who take no heed to bring up their children in the practice of virtue!--Make the application,' continued he, always addressing my Brother: and getting no answer from him, he again set to abusing us till he could speak no longer. We rose from table. As we had to pa.s.s near him in going out, he aimed a great blow at me with his crutch; which, if I had not jerked away from it, would have ended me. He chased me for a while in his wheel-chair, but the people drawing it gave me time to escape into the Queen's chamber."

[Wilhelmina, i. 159.]

Poor Wilhelmina, beaten upon by Papa in this manner, takes to bed in miserable feverish pain, is ordered out by Mamma to evening party, all the same; is evidently falling very ill. "Ill? I will cure you!" says Papa next day, and makes her swallow a great draught of wine. Which completes the thing: "declared small-pox," say all the Doctors now. So that Wilhelmina is absent thenceforth, as Fa.s.smann already told us, from the magnanimous paternal sick-room; and lies balefully eclipsed, till the paternal gout and some other things have run their course.

"Small-pox; what will Prince Fred think? A perfect fright, if she do live!" say the English Court-gossips in the interim. But we are now arrived at a very singular Prussian-English phenomenon; and ought to take a new Chapter.

Chapter VI. -- IMMINENCY OF WAR OR DUEL BETWEEN THE BRITANNIC AND PRUSSIAN MAJESTIES.

The Double-Marriage negotiation hung fire, in the end of 1728; but everybody thought, especially Queen Sophie thought, it would come to perfection; old Ilgen, almost the last thing he did, shed tears of joy about it. These fine outlooks received a sad shock in the Year now come; when secret grudges burst out into open flame; and Berlin, instead of scenic splendors for a Polish Majesty, was clangorous with note of preparation for imminent War. Probably Queen Sophie never had a more agitated Summer than this of 1729. We are now arrived at that thrice-famous Quarrel, or almost Duel, of Friedrich Wilhelm and his Britannic Brother-in-law little George II.; and must try to riddle from those distracted Paper-ma.s.ses some notice of it, not wholly unintelligible to the reader. It is loudly talked of, loudly, but alas also loosely to a degree, in all manner of dull Books; and is at once thrice-famous and extremely obscure. The fact is, Nature intended it for eternal oblivion;--and that, sure enough, would have been its fate long since, had not persons who were then thought to be of no importance, but are now seen to be of some, stood connected with it more or less.

Friedrich Wilhelm, for his own part, had seen in the death of George I. an evil omen from the English quarter; and all along, in spite of transient appearances to the contrary, had said to himself, "If the First George, with his solemnities and tacit sublimities, was offensive now and then, what will the Second George be? The Second George has been an offence from the beginning!" In which notions the Smoking Parliament, vitally interested to do it, in these perilous Soissons times, big with the fate of the Empire and Universe, is a.s.siduous to confirm his Majesty. The Smoking Parliament, at Potsdam, at Berlin, in the solitudes of Wusterhausen, has been busy; and much tobacco, much meditation and insinuation have gone up, in clouds more abstruse than ever, since the death of George I.

It is certain, George II. was a proud little fellow; very high and airy in his ways; not at all the man to Friedrich Wilhelm's heart, nor reciprocally. A man of some worth, too; "scrupulously kept his word,"

say the witnesses: a man always conscious to himself, "Am not I a man of honor, then?" to a punctilious degree. For the rest, courageous as a Welf; and had some sense withal,--though truly not much, and indeed, as it were, none at all in comparison to what he supposed he had!--One can fancy the aversion of the little dapper Royalty to this heavy-footed Prussian Barbarian, and the Prussian Barbarian's to him. The b.l.o.o.d.y nose in childhood was but a symbol of what pa.s.sed through life. In return for his b.l.o.o.d.y nose, little George, five years the elder, had carried off Caroline of Ans.p.a.ch; and left Friedrich Wilhelm sorrowing, a neglected cub,--poor honest Beast tragically shorn of his Beauty. Offences could not fail; these two Cousins went on offending one another by the mere act of living simultaneously. A natural hostility, that between George II. and Friedrich Wilhelm; anterior to Caroline of Ans.p.a.ch, and independent of the collisions of interest that might fall out between them. Enmity as between a glancing self-satisfied fop, and a loutish thick-soled man of parts, who feels himself the better though the less successful. House-Mastiff seeing itself neglected, driven to its hutch, for a tricksy Ape dressed out in ribbons, who gets favor in the drawing-room.

George, I perceive by the very State-Papers, George and his English Lords have a provoking slighting tone towards Friedrich Wilhelm; they answer his violent convictions, and thoroughgoing rapid proposals, by brief official negation, with an air of superiority,--traces of, a polite sneer perceptible, occasionally. A mere Clown of a King, thinks George; a mere gesticulating c.o.xcomb, thinks Friedrich Wilhelm.

"MEIN BRUDER DER COMODIANT, My Brother the Play-actor" (parti-colored Merry-Andrew, of a high-flying turn)! was Friedrich Wilhelm's private name for him, in after days. Which George repaid by one equal to it, "My Brother the Head-Beadle of the Holy Roman Empire,"--"ERZ-SANDSTREUER,"

who solemnly brings up the SANDBOX (no blotting-paper yet in use) when the Holy Roman Empire is pleased to write. "ERZ-SANDSTREUER, Arch-Sandbox-Beadle of the HEILIGE ROMISCHE REICH;" it is a lumbering nickname, but intrinsically not without felicity, and the wittiest thing I know of little George.

Special cause of quarrel they had none that was of the least significance; and, at this time, prudent friends were striving to unite them closer and closer, as the true policy for both; English Townshend himself rather wis.h.i.+ng it, as the best Prussian Officials eagerly did; Queen Sophie pa.s.sionate for it; and only a purchased Grumkow, a Seckendorf and the Tobacco-Parliament set against it. The Treaty of Wusterhausen was not known; but the fact of some Treaty made or making, some Imperial negotiation always going on, was too evident; and Friedrich Wilhelm's partialities to the Kaiser and his Seckendorf could be a secret nowhere.

Negotiation always going on, we say; for such indeed was the case,--the Kaiser striving always to be loose again (having excellent reasons, a secret bargain to the contrary, to wit!) in regard to that Julich-and-Berg Succession; proposing "subst.i.tutes for Julich and Berg;"

and Friedrich Wilhelm refusing to accept any imaginable subst.i.tute, anything but the article itself. So that, I believe, the Treaty of Wusterhausen was never perfectly ratified, after all; but hung, for so many years, always on the point of being so. These are the uses of your purchased Grumkow, and of riding the length of a Terrestrial Equator keeping a Majesty in company. If, by a Double-Marriage with England, that intricate web of chicanery had been once fairly slit in two, and new combinations formed, on a basis not of fast-and-loose, could it have been of disadvantage to either of the Countries, or to either of their Kings?--Real and grave causes for agreement we find; real or grave causes for quarrel none anywhere. But light or imaginary causes, which became at last effectual, can be enumerated, to the length of three or four.

CAUSE FIRST: THE HANOVER JOINT-HERITAGES, WHICH ARE NOT IN A LIQUID STATE.

FIRST, the "Ahlden Heritage" was one cause of disagreement, which lasted long. The poor Mother of George II. and of Queen Sophie had left considerable properties; "three million THALERS," that is 900,000 pounds, say some; but all was rather in an unliquid state, not so much as her Will was to be had. The Will, with a 10,000 pounds or so, was in the hands of a certain Graf von Bar, one of her confidants in that sad imprisonment: "money lent him," Busching says, [_Beitrage zur Lebensgeschichte denkwurdiger Personen_ (Halle, 1783-1789), i. 306, ?

NUSSLER. Some distracted fractions of Business Correspondence with this Bar, in _Memoirs of Sophia Dorothea, _--unintelligible as usual there.]

"to set up a Wax-Bleachery at Ca.s.sel:"--and the said Count von Bar was off with it, Testamentary Paper and all; gone to the REICHSHOFRATH at Vienna, supreme Judges, in the Empire, of such matters. Who accordingly issued him a "Protection," to start with: so that when the Hanover people attempted to lay hold of the questionable wax-bleaching Count, at Frankfurt-on-Mayn,--secretly sending "a lieutenant and twelve men" for that object,--he produces his Protection Paper, and the lieutenant and twelve men had to hasten home again. [Ibid.] Count von Bar had to be tried at law,--never ask with what results;--and this itself was a long story. Then as to the other properties of the poor d.u.c.h.ess, question arises, Are they ALLODIA, or are they FEUDA,--that is to say, shall the Son have them, or the Daughter? In short, there was no end to questions.

Friedrich Wilhelm has an Envoy at Hanover, one Kannegiesser, laboring at Hanover, the second of such he has been obliged to send; who finds plenty of employment in that matter. "My Brother the COMODIANT quietly put his Father's Will in his pocket, I have heard; and paid no regard to it (except what he was compelled to pay, by Chesterfield and others): will he do the like with his poor Mother's Will?" Patience, your Majesty: he is not a covetous man, but a self-willed and a proud,--always conscious to himself that he is the soul of honor, this poor Brother King!