History of Friedrich II of Prussia Volume VII Part 1

History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia.

Vol. VII.

by Thomas Carlyle.

BOOK VII. -- FEARFUL s.h.i.+PWRECK OF THE DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT. -- Feb.-Nov., 1730.

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

Things, therefore, are got to a dead-lock at Berlin: rebellious Womankind peremptorily refuse Weissenfels, and take to a bed of sickness; inexpugnable there, for the moment. Baireuth is but a weak middle term; and there are disagreements on it. Answer from England, affirmative or even negative, we have yet none. Promptly affirmative, that might still avail, and be an honorable outcome. Perhaps better pause till that arrive, and declare itself?--Friedrich Wilhelm knows nothing of the Villa mission, of the urgencies that have been used in England: but, in present circ.u.mstances, he can pause for their answer.

MAJESTY AND CROWN-PRINCE WITH HIM MAKE A RUN TO DRESDEN

To outward appearance, Friedrich Wilhelm, having written that message to Baireuth, seems easier in mind; quiet with the Queen; though dangerous for exploding if Wilhelmina and the Prince come in view. Wilhelmina mostly squats; Prince, who has to be in view, gets slaps and strokes "daily (JOURNELLEMENT)," says the Princess,--or almost daily. For the rest, it is evident enough, Weissenfels, if not got pa.s.sed through the Female Parliament, is thrown out on the second reading, and so is at least finished. Ought we not to make a run to Dresden, therefore, and apprise the Polish Majesty? Short run to Dresden is appointed for February 18th; [Fa.s.smann, p. 404.] and the Prince-Royal, perhaps suspected of meditating something, and safer in his Father's company than elsewhere, is to go. Wilhelmina had taken leave of him, night of the 17th, in her Majesty's Apartment; and was in the act of undressing for bed, when,--judge of a young Princess's terror and surprise,--

"There stept into the anteroom," visible in the half-light there, a most handsome little Cavalier, dressed, not succinctly as Colonel of the Potsdam Giants, but "in magnificent French style.--I gave a shriek, not knowing who it was; and hid myself behind a screen. Madam de Sonsfeld, my Governess, not less frightened than myself, ran out" to see what audacious person, at such undue hour, it could be. "But she returned next moment, accompanying the Cavalier, who was laughing heartily, and whom I recognized for my Brother. His dress so altered him, he seemed a different person. He was in the best humor possible.

"'I am come to bid you farewell once more, my dear Sister,' said he: 'and as I know the friends.h.i.+p you have for me, I will not keep you ignorant of my designs. I go, and do not come back. I cannot endure the usage I suffer; my patience is driven to an end. It is a favorable opportunity for flinging off that odious yoke; I will glide out of Dresden, and get across to England; where I do not doubt I shall work out your deliverance too, when I am got thither. So I beg you, calm yourself, We shall soon meet again in places where joy shall succeed our tears, and where we shall have the happiness to see ourselves in peace, and free from these persecutions.'" [Wilhelmina, i. 205.]

Wilhelmina stood stupefied, in silence for some moments;--argued long with her Brother; finally got him to renounce those wild plans, or at least postpone them; and give her his word that he would attempt nothing on the present occasion. This small Dresden Excursion of February, 1730, pa.s.sed, accordingly, without accident, It was but the prelude to a much grander Visit now agreed upon between the neighboring Majesties. For there is a grand thing in the wind. Something truly sublime, of the scenic-military kind, which has not yet got a name; but shall soon have a world-wide one,--"Camp of Muhlberg," "Camp of Radewitz," or however to be named,--which his Polish Majesty will hold in those Saxon parts, in a month or two. A thing that will astonish all the world, we may hope; and where the King and Prince of Prussia are to attend as chief guests.

It was during this brief absence in February, or directly after Friedrich Wilhelm had returned, that Queen Sophie had that fit of real sickness we spoke of. Scarcely was his Majesty got home, when the Queen, rather ambiguous in her sicknesses of late, fell really and dangerously ill: so that Friedrich Wilhelm, at last recognizing it for real, came hurrying in from Potsdam; wept loud and abundantly, poor man; declared in private, "He would not survive his Feekin;" and for her sake solemnly pardoned Wilhelmina, and even Fritz,--till the symptoms mended.

[Wilhelmina, i. 306.]

HOW VILLA WAS RECEIVED IN ENGLAND.

Meanwhile Dr. Villa, in England, has sped not ill. Villa's eloquence of truth; the Grumkow-Reichenbach Correspondence in St. Mary Axe: these two things produce their effect. These on the one hand; and then on the other, certain questionable aspects of Fleury, after that fine Soissons Catastrophe to the Kaiser; and certain interior quarrels in the English Ministry, partly grounded thereon:--"On the whole, why should not we detach Friedrioh Wilhelm from the Kaiser, if we could, and comply with a Royal Sister?" think they at St. James's.

Political men take some interest in the question; "Why neglect your Prince of Wales?" grumbles the Public: "It is a solid Protestant match, eligible for Prince Fred and us!"--"Why bother with the Kaiser and his German puddles?" asks Walpole: "Once detach Prussia from him, the Kaiser will perhaps sit still, and leave the world and us free of his Pragmatics and his Sanctions and Apanages."--"Quit of him? German puddles?" answers Townshend dubitatively,--who has gained favor at headquarters by going deeply into said puddles; and is not so ardent for the Prussian Match; and indeed is gradually getting into quarrel with Walpole and Queen Caroline. [c.o.xe, i. 332-339.] These things are all favorable to Dr. Villa.

In fact, there is one of those political tempests (dreadful to the teapot, were it not experienced in them) going on in England, at this time,--what we call a Change of Ministry;--daily crisis laboring towards fulfilment, or brewing itself ripe. Townshend and Walpole have had (how many weeks ago c.o.xe does not tell us) that meeting in Colonel Selwyn's, which ended in their clutching at swords, nay almost at coat-collars: [Ib. p. 335.] honorable Brothers-in-law: but the good Sister, who used to reconcile them, is now dead. Their quarrels, growing for some years past, are coming to a head. "When the firm used to be Townshend and Walpole, all was well; when it had to become Walpole and Townshend, all was not well!" said Walpole afterwards.

Things had already gone so far, that Townshend brought Chesterfield over from the Hague, last Autumn;--a Baron de Montesquieu, with the ESPRIT DE LOIS in his head, sailed with Lord Chesterfield on that occasion, and is now in England "for two years;"--but Chesterfield could not be made Secretary; industrious Duke of Newcastle stuck so close by that office, and by the skirts of Walpole. Chesterfield and Townshend VERSUS Walpole, Colonel Stanhope (Harrington) and the Pelhams: the Prussian Match is a card in that game; and Dr. Villa's eloquence of truth is not lost on Queen Caroline, who in a private way manages, as always, to rule pretty supreme in it.

There lies in the State-Paper Office, [Close by Despatch (Prussian): "London, 8th February (o.s.) 1729-1730."] without date or signature, a loose detached bit of writing, in scholastic style, but brief and to the purpose, which is evidently the Memorial of Villa; but as it teaches us nothing that we do not already know, it need not be inserted here.

The man, we can perceive farther, continued useful in those Official quarters, answering questions about Prussia, helping in the St.-Mary-Axe decipherings, and in other small ways, for some time longer; after which he vanishes again from all record,--whether to teach English farther, or live on some modic.u.m of pension granted, no man knows. Poor old Dove, let out upon the Deluge in serge gown: he did bring back a bit of olive, so to speak;--had the presage but held, as it did in Noah's case!

In a word, the English Sovereignties and Ministries have determined that an Envoy Extraordinary (one Hotham, they think of), with the due solemnity, be sent straightway to Berlin; to treat of those interesting matters, and officially put the question there. Whom Dubourgay is instructed to announce to his Prussian Majesty, with salutation from this Court. As Dubourgay does straightway, with a great deal of pleasure. [Despatches: London, 8th February; Berlin, 2d March, 1780] How welcome to his Majesty we need not say.

And indeed, after such an announcement (1st March, 1730, the day of it), they fell into cheerful dialogue; and the Brigadier had some frank conversation with his Majesty about the "Arbitration Commission" then sitting at Brunswick, and European affairs in general. Conversation which is carefully preserved for us in the Brigadier's Despatch of the morrow. It never was intrinsically of much moment; and is now fallen very obsolete, and altogether of none: but as a glance at first-hand into the dim old thoughts of Friedrich Wilhelm, the reader may take it with him:--

"The King said next, That though we made little noise, yet he knew well our design--was to kindle a fire in other parts of Lower Germany. To which I answered, That if his Majesty would give me favorable hearing, I could easily persuade him of the peaceable intentions of our Allies.

'Well,' says he, 'the Emperor will abandon the Netherlands, and who will be master of them? I see the day when you will make France so powerful, that it will be difficult to bring them to reason again.'--DUBOURGAY: 'If the Emperor abandoned the Netherlands, they would be governed by their own Magistrate, and defended by their own Militia. As to the French, we are too well persuaded of the benefit of our Allies, to--'

Upon which the King of Prussia said, 'It appeared plainly we had a mind to dispose as we pleased of Kingdoms and provinces in Italy, so that probably our next thought would be to do the same in Germany.'--DUBOURGAY: 'The allotments made in favor of Don Carlos have been made with the consent of the Emperor and the whole Empire. We could not suffer a longer interruption of our commerce with Spain, for the sake of the small difference between the Treaty of Seville and the Quadruple Alliance, in regard to the Garrison,'"--to the introducing of Spanish Garrisons, at once, into Parma and Piacenza; which was the special thunder-bolt of the late Soissons Catastrophe, or Treaty of Seville.--"'Well, then,' says his Prussian Majesty, 'you must allow, then, there IS an infraction of the Quadruple Alliance, and that the Emperor will make war!' 'I hope not,' said I: 'but if so, a Ten-Years War, in conjunction with the Allies of Seville, never would be so bad as the interruption of our Commerce with Old and New Spain for one year.'

"The King of Prussia's notion about our DISPOSING OF PROVINCES IN GERMANY," adds Dubourgay, "is, I believe, an insinuation of Seckendorf, who, I doubt not, has made him believe we intended to do so with respect to Berg and Julich."

Very probably:--but Hotham is getting under way, hopeful to spoil that game. Prussian Majesty, we see, is not insensible to so much honor; and brightens into hopefulness and fine humor in consequence. What radiancy spread over the Queen's side of the House we need not say.

The Tobacco-Parliament is like to have a hard task.--Friedrich Wilhelm privately is well inclined to have his Daughter married, with such outlooks, if it can be done. The marriage of the Crown-Prince into such a family would also be very welcome; only--only--There are considerations on that side. There are reasons; still more there are whims, feelings of the mind towards an unloved Heir-Apparent: upon these latter chiefly lie the hopes of Seckendorf and the Tobacco-Parliament.

What the Tobacco-Parliament's specific insinuations and deliberations were, in this alarming interim, no Hansard gives us a hint. Faint and timid they needed, at first, to be; such unfavorable winds having risen, blowing off at a sad rate the smoke of that abstruse Inst.i.tution.--"JARNI-BLEU!" snuffles the Feldzeugmeister to himself.

But "SI DEUS EST n.o.bISc.u.m," as Grumkow exclaims once to his beautiful Reichenbach, or NOSTI as he calls him in their slang or cipher language, "If G.o.d is with us, who can prevail against us?" For the Grumkow can quote Scripture; nay solaces himself with it, which is a feat beyond what the Devil is competent to.

EXCELLENCY HOTHAM ARRIVES IN BERLIN.

The Special Envoy to be sent to Berlin on this interesting occasion is a dignified Yorks.h.i.+re Baronet; Sir Charles Hotham, "Colonel of the Horse-Grenadiers;" he has some post at Court, too, and is still in his best years. His Wife is Chesterfield's Sister; he is withal a kind of soldier, as we see;--a man of many sabre-tashes, at least, and acquainted with Cavalry-Drill, as well as the practices of Goldsticks: his Father was a General Officer in the Peterborough Spanish Wars. These are his eligibilities, recommending him at Berlin, and to Official men at home. Family is old enough: Hothams of Scarborough in the East Riding; old as WILHELMUS b.a.s.t.a.r.dUS; and subsists to our own day. This Sir Charles is lineal Son of the Hothams who lost their heads in the Civil War; and he is, so to speak, lineal UNCLE of the Lords Hotham that now are. For the rest, a handsome figure, prompt in French, and much the gentleman. So far has Villa sped.

Hotham got to Berlin on Sunday, 2d April, 1730. He had lingered a little, waiting to gather up some skirts of that Reichenbach-Grumkow Correspondence, and have them ready to show in the proper Quarter. For that is one of the chief arrows in his quiver. But here he is at last: and on Monday, he is introduced at Charlottenburg to the Prussian Majesty; and finds an abundant welcome to himself and his preliminaries.

"Marriage into that fine high Country (MAGNIFIKE LAND) will be welcome to my Daughter, I believe, as flowers in May: to me also how can it be other than welcome!--'Farther instructions,' you say? Yes, surely; and terms honorable on both sides. Only say nothing of it, I had rather tell the girl myself." [Ranke, i. 284.] To that frank purport spoke his Majesty;--and invites the Excellency Hotham to stay dinner.

Great dinner at Charlottenburg, accordingly; Monday, 3d April, 1730: the two English Excellencies Hotham and Dubourgay, then General Borck, Knyphausen, Grumkow, Seckendorf and others;--"where," says Hotham, giving Despatch about it, "we all got immoderately drunk." Of which dinner there is sordid narrative, from Grumkow to his NOSTI (to his Reichenbach, in cant speech), still visible through St. Mary Axe, were it worth much attention from us. Pa.s.sages of wit, loaded with allusion, flew round the table: "A German ducat is change for an English half-guinea," and the like sprightly things. Nay at one time, Hotham's back being turned, they openly drink,--his Majesty in a state of exhilaration, having blabbed the secret:--"To the health of Wilhelmina Princess of Wales!" Upon which the whole Palace of Charlottenburg now bursts into tripudiation; the very valets cutting capers, making somersets,--and rus.h.i.+ng off with the news to Berlin. Observable, only, that Hotham and Dubourgay sat silent in the tripudiation; with faces diplomatically grave. Several points to be settled first; no hallooing till we are out of the wood.

News came to Berlin Schloss, doubtless at full gallop, which would only take a quarter of an hour. This is Wilhelmina's experience of it. Afternoon of Monday, 3d of April, 1730, in the Schloss of Berlin,--towards sunset, some ornamental seam in one's hand:--

"I was sitting quiet in my Apartment, busy with work, and some one reading to me, when the Queen's Ladies rushed in, with a torrent of domestics in the rear; who all bawled out, putting one knee to the ground, 'They were come to salute the Princess of Wales.' I fairly believed these poor people had lost their wits; they would not cease overwhelming me with noise and tumult, their joy was so great they knew not what they did. When the farce had lasted some time, they at last told me"--what our readers know. What the demure Wilhelmina professes she cared next to nothing about. "I was so little moved by it, that I answered, going on with my work, 'Is that all?' Which greatly surprised them. A while afterwards my Sisters and several Ladies came also to congratulate me. I was much loved; and I felt more delighted at the proofs each gave me of that than at what occasioned them. In the evening I went to the Queen's: you may readily conceive her joy. On my first entrance, she called me 'her dear Princess of Wales;' and addressed Madam de Sonsfeld as 'Milady.' This latter took the liberty of hinting to her, that it would be better to keep quiet; that the King having yet given no notice of this business, might be provoked at such demonstration, and that the least trifle could still ruin all her hopes.

The Countess Finkenstein joining her remonstrances to Sonsfeld's, the Queen, though with regret, promised to moderate herself." [Wilhelmina, i. 215.]

This is the effulgent flaming-point of the long-agitated English Match, which we have so often caught in a bitterly smoking condition. "The King indeed spoke nothing of it to us, on his return to Berlin in a day or two," says Wilhelmina; "which we thought strange." But everybody considered it certain, nothing but the details left to settle. "Hotham had daily conferences with the King." "Every post brought letters from the Prince of Wales:" of which Wilhelmina saw several,--this for one specimen, general purport of the whole: "I conjure you, my dear Hotham, get these negotiations finished! I am madly in love (AMOUREUX COMME UN FOU), and my impatience is unequalled." [Ib. i. 218.] Wilhelmina thought these sentiments "very, romantic" on the part of Prince Fred, "who had never seen me, knew me only by repute:"--and answered his romances and him with tiffs of laughter, in a prettily fleecing manner.

Effulgent flame-point;--which was of very brief duration indeed, and which sank soon into bitterer smoke than ever, down almost to the choking state. There are now six weeks of Diplomatic History at the Court of Berlin, which end far otherwise than they began. Weeks well-nigh indecipherable; so distracted are they, by black-art and abstruse activities above ground and below, and so distractedly recorded for us: of which, if it be humanly possible, we must try to convey some faint notion to mankind.

Chapter II. -- LANGUAGE OF BIRDS: EXCELLENCY HOTHAM PROVES UNAVAILING.

Already next morning, after that grand Dinner at Charlottenburg, Friedrich Wilhelm, awakening with his due headache, thought, and was heard saying, He had gone too far! Those gloomy looks of Hotham and Dubourgay, on the occasion; they are a sad memento that our joyance was premature. The English mean the Double-Marriage; and Friedrich Wilhelm is not ready, and never fairly was, for more than the Single.

"Wilhelmina Princess of Wales, yes with all my heart; but Friedrich to an English Princess--Hm, na;"--and in a day more: ["Instruction to his Ministers, 5th April," cited by Ranke, i. 285 n.] plainly "No." And there it finally rests; or if rocked about, always settles there again.

And why, No?--Truly, as regarded Crown-Prince Friedrich's marriage, the question had its real difficulties: and then, still more, it had its imaginary; and the subterranean activities were busy! The witnesses, contemporaneous and other, a.s.sign three reasons, or considerations and quasi-reasons, which the Tobacco-Parliament and Friedrich Wilhelm's lively fancy could insist upon it till they became irrefragable:--

FIRST, his rooted discontent with the Crown-Prince, some even say his jealousy of the Crown-Prince's talents, render it unpleasant to think of promoting him in any way. SECOND, natural German loyalty, enlivened by the hope of Julich and Berg, attaching Friedrich Wilhelm to the Kaiser's side of things, repels him with a kind of horror from the Anti-Kaiser or French-English side. "Marry my Daughter, if you like; I shall be glad to salute her as Princess of Wales; but no union in your Treaty-of-Seville operations: in politics go you your own road, if that is it, while I go mine; no tying of us, by Double or other Marriages, to go one road."

THIRD, the magnificence of those English. "Regardless of expense,"

insinuates the Tobacco-Parliament; "they will send their grand Princess. .h.i.ther, with no end of money; brought up in grandeur to look down on the like of us. She can dazzle, she can purchase: in the end, may there not be a Crown-Prince Party, capable of extinguis.h.i.+ng your Majesty here in your own Court, and making Prussia a bit of England; all eyes being turned to such sumptuous Princess and her Crown-Prince,--Heir-Apparent, or 'Rising Sun' as we may call him!"--

These really are three weighty almost dreadful considerations to a poetic-tempered King and Smoking Parliament. Out of which there is no refuge except indeed this plain fourth one: "No hurry about Fritz's marriage; [Friedrich Wilhelm to Reichenbach (13th May), infra.] he is but eighteen gone; evidently too young for housekeeping. Thirty is a good time for marrying. 'There is, thank G.o.d, no lack of royal lineage; I have two other Princes,'"--and another just at hand, if I knew it.

To all which there is to be added that ever-recurring invincible gravitation towards the Kaiser, and also towards Julich and Berg, by means of him,--well acted on by the Tobacco-Parliament for the s.p.a.ce of those six weeks. During which, accordingly, almost from the first day after that Hotham Dinner of April 3d, the answer of the royal mind, with superficial fluctuations, always is: "Wilhelmina at once, if you choose; likely enough we might agree about Crown-Prince Friedrich too, if once all were settled; but of the Double-Marriage, at this present time, h.o.r.e NIT, [Ranke, i. 285 n.] I will have nothing to say." And as the English answer steadily, "Both or none!"--meaning indeed to draw Prussia away from the Kaiser's leading-strings, and out of his present enchanted condition under the two Black-Artists he has about him, the Negotiation sinks again into a mere smoking, and extinct or plainly extinguis.h.i.+ng state.