History of Friedrich II of Prussia Volume VII Part 6

Deeply pondering these things, what shall the poor Prince do? From Canstatt, close by Stuttgard, a Town on our homeward route,--from Canstatt, where Katte was to "appear in disguise," had the furlough been got, one might have slipt away across the Hills. It is but eighty miles to Strasburg, through the Kniebiss Pa.s.s, where the Murg, the Kinzig, and the intricate winding mountain streams and valleys start Rhine-ward: a labyrinthic rock-and-forest country, where pursuit or tracking were impossible. Near by Strasburg is Count Rothenburg's Chateau; good Rothenburg, long Minister in Berlin,--who saw those PROFOSSEN, or Scavenger-Executioners in French Costume long since, and was always good to me:--might not that be a method? Lieutenant Keith indeed is in Wesel, waiting only a signal. Suppose he went to the Hague, and took soundings there what welcome we should have? No, not till we have actually run; beware of making noise!--The poor Prince is in unutterable perplexity; can only answer Katte by that Messenger of his, to the effect (date and Letter burnt like the former): "Doubt is on every hand; doubt,--and yet CERTAINTY. Will write again before undertaking anything."

And there is no question he did write again; more than once: letters by the post, which his faithful Lieutenant Katte in Berlin received; one of which, however, stuck on the road; and this one,--by some industry of postmasters spirited into vigilance, as is likeliest, though others say by mere misaddressing, by "want of BERLIN on the address,"--fell into the hands of vigilant RITTMEISTER Katte at Erlangen. Who grew pale in reading it, and had to resolve on a painful thing! This was, I suppose, among the last Letters of the series; and must have been dated, as I guess, about the 29th of July, 1730; but they are now all burnt, huddled rapidly into annihilation, and one cannot say!--

Certain it is that the Royal Travelling-Party left Ans.p.a.ch in a few days, to go, southward still, "by the OEttingen Country towards Augsburg." [Fa.s.smann, p. 410.] Feuchtw.a.n.g (WET w.a.n.g, not Durrw.a.n.g or DRY w.a.n.g) is the first stage; here lives the Dowager Margravine of Ans.p.a.ch: here the Prince does some inconceivably small fault "lets a knife, which he is handing to or from the Serene Lady, fall," [Ranke, i. 304 ("from a Letter the Prince had written to Katte").] who, as she is weak, may suffer by the jingle; for which Friedrich Wilhelm bursts out on him like the Irish Rebellion,--to the silent despair of the poor Prince. The poor Prince meditates desperate resolutions, but has to keep them strictly to himself.

Doubtless the Buddenbrock Trio, good old military gentlemen, would endeavor to speak comfort to him, when they were on the road again.

Here is Nordlingen, your Highness, where Bernhard of Weimar, for his over-haste, got so beaten in the Thirty-Years War; would not wait till the Swedes were rightly gathered: what general, if he have reinforcement at hand, would not wait for it? The waters now, you observe, run all into the Wornitz, into the Donau: it is a famed war-country this; known to me well in my young Eugene-Marlborough days!--"Hm, Ha, yes!" For the Prince is preoccupied with black cares; and thinks Blenheim and the Sch.e.l.lenberg businesses befell long since, and were perhaps simple to what he has now on hand. That Feuchtw.a.n.g scene, it would appear, has brought him to a resolution. There is a young page Keith of the party, Lieutenant Keith of Wesel's Brother; of this page Keith, who is often busy about horses, he cautiously makes question, What help may be in him? A willing mind traceable in this poor lad, but his terrors great.

To Donauworth from Ans.p.a.ch, through Feuchtw.a.n.g and Nordlingen, is some seventy or eighty miles. At Donauworth one surely ought to lodge, and see the Sch.e.l.lenberg on the morrow; nay drive to the Field of Hochstadt (Blenheim, BLINDHEIM), which is but a few miles farther up the River?

Buddenbrock was there, and Anhalt-Dessau: for their very sake, were there nothing farther, one surely ought to go? Such was the probability, a visit to Blenheim field in pa.s.sing. And surely, somewhere in those heart-rending ma.s.ses of Historical Rubbish, I did at last find express evanescent mention of the fact,--but cannot now say where;--the exact record, or conceivable image of which, would have been a perceptible pleasure to us. Alas, in those dim dreary Books, all whirling dismal round one's soul, like vortices of dim Brandenburg sand, how should anything human be searched out and mentioned to us; and a thousand, things not-human be searched out, and eternally suppressed from us, for the sake of that? I please myself figuring young Friedrich looking at the vestiges of Marlborough, even in a preoccupied uncertain manner.

Your Majesty too, this is the very "Sch.e.l.lenberg (or JINGLE-HILL)," this Hill we are now skirting, on highways, on swift wheels; which overhangs Donauworth, our resting-place this hot July evening. Yes, your Majesty, here was a feat of storming done,--pang, pang!--such a noise as never jingled on that Hill before: like Doomsday come; and a hero-head to rule the Doomsday, and turn it to heroic marching music. A very pretty feat of war, your Majesty! His Majesty well knows it; feat of his Marlborough's doing, famed everywhere for the twenty-six years last past; and will go to see the Sch.e.l.lenberg and its Lines. The great Duke is dead four years; sank sadly, eclipsed under tears of dotage of his own, and under human stupidity of other men's! But Buddenbrock is still living, Anhalt-Dessau and others of us are still alive a little while!

Hochstadt itself--Blenheim, as the English call it, meaning BLINDHEIM, the other village on the Field--is but a short way up the River; well worth such a detour. By what way they drove to the field of honor and back from it, I do not know. But there, northward, towards the heights, is the little wood where Anhalt-Dessau stood at bay like a Molossian dog, of consummate military knowledge; and saved the fight in Eugene's quarter of it. That is visible enough; and worth looking at. Visible enough the rolling Donau, Marlborough's place; the narrow ground, the bordering Hills all green at this season;--and down old Buddenbrock's cheek, end Anhalt's, there would roll an iron tear or two. Augsburg is but some thirty miles off, once we are across the Donau,--by the Bridge of Donauworth, or the Ferry of Hochstadt,--swift travellers in a long day, the last of July, are soon enough at Augsburg.

As for Friedrich, haunted and whipt onwards by that scene at Feuchtw.a.n.g, he is inwardly very busy during this latter part of the route. Probably there is some progress towards gaining Page Keith, Lieutenant Keith of Wesel's Brother; some hope that Page Keith, at the right moment, can be gained: the Lieutenant at Wesel is kept duly advised. To Lieutenant Katte at Berlin Friedrich now writes, I should judge from Donauworth or Augsburg, "That he has had a scene at Feuchtw.a.n.g; that he can stand it no longer. That Canstatt being given up, as Katte cannot be there to go across the Kniebiss with us, we will endure till we are near enough the Rhine. Once in the Rhineland, in some quiet Town there, handy for Speyer, for French Landau,"--say Sinzheim; last stage hitherward of Heidelberg, but this we do not write,--"there might it not be? Be, somewhere, it shall and must! You, Katte, the instant you hear that we are off, speed you towards the Hague; ask for 'M. le Comte d'Alberville;' you will know that gentleman WHEN you see him: Keith, our Wesel friend, will have taken the preliminary soundings;--and I tell you, Count d'Alberville, or news of him, will be there. Bring the great-coat with you, and the other things, especially the 1,000 gold ducats. Count d'Alberville at the Hague, if all have gone right:--nay if anything go wrong, cannot he, once across the Rhine, take refuge in the convents in those Catholic regions? n.o.body, under the scapulary, will suspect such a heretic as him. Speed, silence, vigilance! And so adieu!"

A letter of such purport Friedrich did write; which Letter, moreover, the Lieutenant Katte received: it was not this, it was another, that stuck upon the road, and fell into the Rittmeister's hand. This is the young Prince's ultimate fixed project, brought to birth by that slight accident of dropping the knife at Feuchtw.a.n.g; [Ranke, i. 304.] and hanging heavy on his mind during this Augsburg drive. At Augsburg, furthermore, "he bought, in all privacy, red cloth, of quant.i.ty to make a top-coat;" red, the gray being unattainable in Katte's hands: in all privacy; though the watchful Rochow had full knowledge of it, all the same.

Chapter VI. -- JOURNEY HOMEWARDS FROM THE REICH; CATASTROPHE ON JOURNEY HOMEWARDS

The travelling Majesty of Prussia went diligently up and down, investigating ancient Augsburg: saw, I doubt not, the FUGGEREI, or ancient Hospice of the Fuggers,--who were once Weavers in those parts, and are now Princes, and were known to entertain Charles V. with fires of cinnamon, nay with transient flames of Bank-bills on one old occasion. Saw all the Fuggeries, I doubt not; the ancient Luther-and-Melanchthon relics, Diet-Halls and notabilities of this renowned Free Town;--perhaps remembered Margraf George, and loud-voiced Kurfurst Joachim with the Bottle-nose (our DIRECT Ancestor, though mistaken in opinion on some points!), who were once so audible there.

One pa.s.sing phenomenon we expressly know he saw; a human, not a historically important one. Driving through the streets from place to place, his Majesty came athwart some questionable quaint procession, ribbony, perhaps musical; Majesty questioned it: "A wedding procession, your Majesty!"--"Will the Bride step out, then, and let us see how she is dressed!" "VOM HERZEN GERN; will have the honor." Bride stept out, with blushes,--handsome we will hope; Majesty surveyed her, on the streets of Augsburg, having a human heart in him; and (says Fa.s.smann, as if with insidious insinuation) "is said to have made her a present." She went her way; fulfilled her destiny in an anonymous manner: Friedrich Wilhelm, loudly named in the world, did the like; and their two orbits never intersected again.--Some forty-five miles south of Augsburg, up the Wertach River, more properly up the Mindel River, lies Mindelheim, once a name known in England and in Prussia; once the Duke of Marlborough's "Princ.i.p.ality:" given him by a grateful Kaiser Joseph; taken from him by a necessitous Kaiser Karl, Joseph's Brother, that now is. I know not if his Majesty remembers that transaction, now while in these localities; but know well, if he does, he must think it a shabby one.

On the same day, 1st August, 1730, we quit Augsburg; set out fairly homewards again. The route bends westward this time; towards Frankfurt-on-Mayn; there yachts are to be ready; and mere sailing thenceforth, gallantly down the Rhine-stream,--such a yacht-voyage, in the summer weather, with no Tourists yet infesting it,--to end, happily we will hope, at Wesel, in the review of regiments, and other business.

First stage, first pause, is to be at Ludwigsburg, and the wicked old Duke of Wurtemberg's; thither first from Augsburg. We cross the Donau at Dillingen, at Gunzberg, or I know not where; and by to-morrow's sunset, being rapid travellers, find ourselves at Ludwigsburg,--clear through Canstatt, Stuttgard, and certainly no Katte waiting there! Safe across the intermediate uplands, here are we fairly in the Neckar Country, in the Basin of the Rhine again; and old Duke Eberhard Ludwig of Wurtemberg bidding us kindly welcome, poor old bewildered creature, who has become the talk of Germany in those times. Will English readers consent to a momentary glance into his affairs and him? Strange things are going on at Lndwigsburg; nay the origin of Ludwigsburg, and that the Duke should be there and not at Stuttgard, is itself strange. Let us take this Excerpt, headed LUDWIGSBURG in 1730, and then hasten on:--

LUDWIGSBURG IN 1730.

"Duke Eberhard Ludwig, now an elderly gentleman of fifty-four, has distinguished himself in his long reign, not by political obliquities and obstinacies, though those also were not wanting, but by matrimonial and amatory; which have rendered him conspicuous to his fellows-creatures, and still keep him mentionable in History, briefly and for a sad reason. Duke Eberhard Ludwig was duly wedded to an irreproachable Princess of Baden-Durlach (Johanna Elizabeth) upwards of thirty years ago; and he duly produced one Son in consequence, with other good results to himself and her. But in course of time Duke Eberhard Ludwig took to consorting with bad creatures; took, in fact, to swas.h.i.+ng about at random in the pool of amatory iniquity, as if there had been no law known, or of the least validity, in that matter.

"Perceiving which, a certain young fellow, Gravenitz by name, who had come to him from the Mecklenbnrg regions, by way of pus.h.i.+ng fortune, and had got some pages.h.i.+p or the like here in Wurtemberg, recollected that he had a young Sister at home; pretty and artful, who perhaps might do a stroke of work here. He sends for the young Sister; very pretty indeed, and a gentlewoman by birth, though penniless. He borrows clothes for her (by onerous contract with the haberdashers, it is said, being poor to a degree); he easily gets her introduced to the Ducal Soirees; bids her--She knows what to do? Right well she knows what; catches, with her piquant face, the dull eye of Eberhard Ludwig, kindles Eberhard Ludwig, and will not for something quench him. Not she at all: How can SHE; your Serene Highness, ask her not! A virtuous young lady, she, and come of a stainless Family!--In brief, she hooks, she of all the fishes in the pool, this lumber of a Duke; enchants him, keeps him hooked; and has made such a pennyworth of him, for the last twenty years and more, as Germany cannot match. [Michaelis, iii. 440.] Her brother Gravenitz the page has become Count Gravenitz the prime minister, or chief of the Governing Cabal; she Countess Gravenitz and Autocrat of Wurtemberg.

Loaded with wealth, with so-called honors, she and hers, there go they, flaunting sky-high; none else admitted to more than the liberty of breathing in silence in this Duchy;--the poor Duke Eberhard Ludwig making no complaint; obedient as a child to the bidding of his Gravenitz. He is become a mere enchanted simulacrum of a Duke; bewitched under worse than Thessalian spells; without faculty of willing, except as she wills; his People and he the plaything of this Circe or Hecate, that has got hold of him. So it has lasted for above twenty years.

Gravenitz has become the wonder of Germany; and requires, on these bad grounds, a slight mention in Human History for some time to come. Certainly it is by the Gravenitz alone that Eberhard Ludwig is remembered; and yet, down since Ulrich with the Thumb, [Ulricus POLLEX (right thumb bigger than left); died A.D. 1265 (Michaelis, iii. 262).]

which of those serene abstruse Beutelsbachers, always an abstruse obstinate set, has so fixed himself in your memory?--

"Most persons in Wurtemberg, for quiet's sake, have complied with the Gravenitz; though not without protest, and sometimes spoken protest.

Thus the Right Reverend Osiander (let us name Osiander, Head of the Church in Wurtemberg) flatly refused to have her name inserted in the Public Prayers; 'Is not she already prayed for?' said Osiander: 'Do we not say, DELIVER US FROM EVIL?' said the indignant Protestant man. And there is one other person that never will comply with her: the lawful Wife of Eberhard Ludwig. Serene Lady, she has had a sad existence of it; the voice of her wrongs audible, to little purpose, this long while, in Heaven and on Earth. But it is not in the power of reward or punishment to bend her female will in the essential point: 'Divorce, your Highness?

When _I_ am found guilty, yes. Till then, never, your Highness, never, never,' in steady CRESCENDO tone:--so that his Highness is glad to escape again, and drop the subject. On which the Serene Lady again falls silent. Gravenitz, in fact, hopes always to be wedded with the right, nay were it only with the left hand: and this Serene Lady stands like a fateful monument irremovably in the way. The Serene Lady steadily inhabits her own wing of the Ducal House, would not exchange it for the Palace of Aladdin; looks out there upon the grand equipages, high doings, impure splendors of her Duke and his Gravenitz with a clear-eyed silence, which seems to say more eloquently than words, 'MENE, MENE, YOU are weighed!' In the land of Wurtemberg, or under the Sun, is no reward or punishment that can abate this silence. Speak of divorce, the answer is as above: leave divorce lying, there is silence looking forth clear-eyed from that particular wing of the Palace, on things which the G.o.ds permit for a time.

"Clear-eyed silence, which, as there was no abating of it, grew at last intolerable to the two sinners. 'Let us remove,' said the Gravenitz, 'since her Serene Highness will not: build a new charming Palace,--say at our Hunting Seat, among those pleasant Hills in the Waiblingen region,--and take the Court, out thither.' And they have done so, in these late bad years; taking out with them by degrees all the Courtier Gentry, all the RATHS, Government Boards, public businesses; and building new houses for them, there. ["From 1727 to 1730" was this latter removal. A hunting-lodge, of Eberhard Ludwig's building, and named by him LUGWIGSBURG, stood here since 1705; nucleus of the subsequent palace, with its "Pheasantries," its "Favoritas," &c. &c. The place had originally been monastic (Busching, _Erdbeschreibung,_ vi.

1519).] Founding, in fact, a second Capital for Wurtemberg, with what distress, sulky misery and disarrangement, to Stuttgard and the old Capital, readers can fancy. There it stands, that Ludwigsburg, the second Capital of Wurtemberg, some ten or twenty miles from Stuttgard the first: a lasting memorial of Circe Gravenitz and her Ludwig. Has not she, by her incantations, made the stone houses dance out hither?

It remains to this day a pleasant town, and occasional residence of sovereignty. WAIBLINGEN, within an hour's ride, has got memorability on other grounds;--what reader has not heard of GHIBELLINES, meaning Waiblingens? And in another hour up the River, you will come to Beutelsbach itself, where Ulrich with the Thumb had his abode (better luck to him!), and generated this Lover of the Gravenitz, and much other nonsense loud now and then for the last four centuries in the world!--

"There is something of abstruse in all these Beutelsbachers, from Ulrich with the Thumb downwards: a mute ennui, an inexorable obstinacy; a certain streak of natural gloom which no illumination can abolish.

Veracity of all kinds is great in them; sullen pa.s.sive courage plenty of it; active courage rarer; articulate intellect defective: hence a strange stiff perversity of conduct visible among them, often marring what wisdom they have;--it is the royal stamp of Fate put upon these men. What are called fateful or fated men; such as are often seen on the top places of the world, making an indifferent figure there. Something of this, I doubt not, is concerned in Eberhard Ludwig's fascination; and we shall see other instances farther down in this History.

"But so, for twenty years, the absurd Duke, transformed into a mere Porcus by his Circe in that scandalous miraculous manner, has lived; and so he still lives. And his Serene Wife, equally obstinate, is living at Stuttgard, happily out of his sight now. One Son, a weakly man, who had one heir, but has now none, is her only comfort. His Wife is a Prussian Margravine (Friedrich Wilhelm's HALF-AUNT), and cultivates Calvinism in the Lutheran Country: this Husband of hers, he too has an abstruse life, not likely to last. We need not doubt 'the Fates' are busy, and the evil demons, with those poor fellow-beings! Nay it is said the Circe is becoming much of a Hecate now; if the bewitched Duke could see it. She is getting haggard beyond the power of rouge; her mind, any mind she has, more and more filled with spleen, malice, and the dregs of pride run sour. A disgusting creature, testifies one Ex-Official gentleman, once a Hofrath under her, but obliged to run for life, and invoke free press in his defence: [_Apologie de Monsieur Forstner de Breitembourg, &c._ (Paris, 1716; or "a Londres, aux depens de la Compagnie, 1745"): in Spittler, _Geschichte Wurtembergs_ (Spittlers WERKE, Stuttgard und Tubingen, 1828; vol. v.), 497-539. Michaelis, iii. 428-439, gives (in abstruse Chancery German) a Sequel to this fine affair of Forstner's.]

no end to the foul things she will say, of an unspeakable nature, about the very Duke her victim, testifies this Ex-Official: malicious as a witch, says he, and as ugly as one in spite of paint,--'TOUJOURS UN LAVEMENT A SES TROUSSES.' Good Heavens!"

But here is the august Prussian Travelling-Party: shove aside your bewitchments and bewilderments; hang a decent screen over many things!

Poor Eberhard Ludwig, who is infinitely the gentleman, bestirs himself a good deal to welcome old royal friends; nor do we hear that the least thing went awry during this transit of the royalties. "Field of Blenheim, says your Majesty? Ah me!"--For Eberhard Ludwig knows that ground; stood the World-Battle there, and so much has come and gone since then: Ah me indeed!

Friedrich Wilhelm and he have met before this, and have much to tell one another; Treaty of Seville by no means their only topic. Nay the flood of cordiality went at length so far, that at last Friedrich Wilhelm, the conscientious King, came upon the most intimate topics: Gravenitz; the Word of G.o.d; scandal to the Protestant Religion: no likely heir to your Dukedom; clear peril to your own soul. Is not her Serene Highness an unexceptionable Lady, heroic under sore woes; and your wedded Wife above all?--'M-NA, and might bring Heirs too: only forty come October:--Ah Duke, ah Friend! AVISEZ LA FIN, Eberhard Ludwig; consider the end of it all; we are growing old fellows now! The Duke, I conceive, who was rather a fat little man, blushed blue, then red, and various colors; at length settling into steady pale, as it were, indicating anthracitic white-heat: it is certain he said at length, with emphasis, "I will!"

And he did so, by and by. Friedrich Wilhelm sent a messenger to Stuttgard to do his reverence to the high injured Lady there, perhaps to show her afar off some ray of hope if she could endure. Eberhard Ludwig, raised to a white-heat, perceives that in fact he is heartily tired of this Circe-Hecate; that in fact she has long been an intolerable nightmare to him, could he but have known it.

And his Royal Highness the Crown-Prince all this while? Well, yes; his Royal Highness has got a Court Tailor at Ludwigsburg; and, in all privacy (seen well by Rochow), has had the Augsburg red cloth cut into a fine upper wrappage, over coat or roquelaure for himself; intending to use the same before long. Thus they severally, the Father and the Son; these are their known acts at Ludwigsburg, That the Father persuaded Eberhard Ludwig of the Gravenitz enormity, and that the Son got his red top-coat ready. On Thursday, 3d of August (late in the afternoon, as I perceive), they, well entertained, depart towards Mannheim, Kur-Pfalz (Elector Palatine) old Karl Philip of the Pfalz's place; hope to be there on the morrow some time, if all go well. Gloomy much enlightened Eberhard takes leave of them, with abstruse but grateful feelings; will stand by the Kaiser, and dismiss that Gravenitz nightmare by the first opportunity.

As accordingly he did. Next Summer, going on a visit northward, specially to Berlin, [There for some three weeks, "till 9th June, 1731, with a suite of above fifty persons" (Fa.s.smann, pp. 421, 422).] he left order that the Gravenitz was to be got out of his sight, safe stowed away, before his return. Which by the proper officers, military certain of them, was accomplished,--by fixed bayonets at last, and not without futile demur on the part of the Gravenitz. Poor Eberhard Ludwig, "he published in the pulpits, That he was now minded to lead a better life,"--had time now been left him. Same year, 1731, November being come, gloomy Eberhard Ludwig lost, not unexpectedly, his one Son,--the one Grandson was gone long since. The serene steadfast d.u.c.h.ess now had her Duke again, what was left of him: but he was fallen into the sere and yellow leaf; in two years more, he died childless; [31st October, 1733: Michaelis, iii. 441.] and his Cousin, Karl Alexander, an Austrian Feldmarschall of repute, succeeded in Wurtemberg. With whom we may transiently meet, in time coming; with whom, and perhaps less pleasantly with certain of his children; for they continue to this day,--with the old abstruse element still too traceable in them.

Old Karl Philip, Kurfurst of the Pfalz, towards whom Friedrich Wilhelm is now driving, with intent to be there to-morrow evening, is not quite a stranger to readers here; and to Friedrich Wilhelm he is much the reverse, perhaps too much. This is he who ran away with poor Prince Sobieski's Bride from Berlin, at starting in life; who fell upon his own poor Protestant Heidelbergers and their Church of the Holy Ghost (being himself Papist, ever since that slap on the face to his ancestor); and who has been in many quarrels with Friedrich Wilhelm and others. A high expensive sovereign gentleman, this old Karl Philip; not, I should suppose, the pleasantest of men to lodge with. One apprehends, he cannot be peculiarly well disposed to Friedrich Wilhelm, after that sad Heidelberg pa.s.sage of fence, twelve or eleven years ago. Not to mention the inextricable Julich-and-Berg business, which is a standing controversy between them.

Poor old Kurfurst, he is now within a year of seventy. He has had crosses and losses; terrible campaignings against the Turk, in old times; and always such a stock of quarrels, at home, as must have been still worse to bear. A life of perpetual arguing, squabbling and battling,--one's neighbors being such an unreasonable set! Brabbles about Heidelberg Catechism, and Church of the Holy Ghost, so that foreign Kings interfered, shaking their whips upon us. Then brabbles about boundaries; about inheritances, and detached properties very many,--clearly mine, were the neighbors reasonable! In fact this sovereign old gentleman has been in the Kaiser's courts, or even on the edge of fight, oftener than most other men; and it is as if that first adventure, of the Sobieski wedding turned topsy-turvy, had been symbolical of much that followed in his life.

We remember that unpleasant Heidelberg affair: how hopeful it once looked; fact DONE, Church of the Holy Ghost fairly ours; your CORPUS EVANGELICORUM fallen quasi-dead; and nothing now for it but protocolling by diplomatists, pleading in the Diets by men in bombazine, never like ending at all;--when Friedrich Wilhelm did suddenly end it; suddenly locked up his own Catholic establishments and revenues, and quietly inexorable put the key in his pocket; as it were, drew his own whip, with a "Will you whip MY Jew?"--and we had to cower out of the affair, Kaiser himself ordering us, in a most humiliated manner! Readers can judge whether Kur-Pfalz was likely to have a kindly note of Friedrich Wilhelm in that corner of his memory. The poor man felt so disgusted with Heidelberg, he quitted it soon after. He would not go to Dusseldorf (in the Berg-and-Julich quarter), as his Forefathers used to do; but set up his abode at Mannheim, where he still is. Friedrich Wilhelm, who was far from meaning harm or insolence in that Heidelberg affair, hopes there is no grudge remaining. But so stand the facts: it is towards Mannheim, not towards Heidelberg that we are now travelling!--For the rest, this scheme of reprisals, or whipping your Jew if you whip mine, answered so well, Friedrich Wilhelm has used it, or threatened to use, as the real method, ever since, where needful; and has saved thereby much bombazine eloquence, and confusion to mankind, on several occasions.

But the worst between these two High Gentlemen is that Julich-and-Berg controversy; which is a sore still running, and beyond reach of probable surgery. Old Karl Philip has no male Heir; and is like to be (what he indeed proved) the last of the NEUBERG Electors Palatine. What trouble there rose with the first of them, about that sad business; and how the then Brandenburger, much wrought upon, smote the then Neuburger across the very face, and drove him into Catholicism, we have not forgotten; how can we ever?--It is one hundred and sixteen years since that after-dinner scene; and, O Heavens, what bickering and brabbling and confused negotiation there has been; lawyers' pens going almost continually ever since, shadowing out the mutual darkness of sovereignties; and from time to time the military implements brandis.h.i.+ng themselves, though loath generally to draw blood! For a hundred and sixteen years:--but the Final Bargain, lying on parchment in the archives of both parties, and always acknowledged as final, was to this effect: "You serene Neuburg keep what you have got; we serene Brandenburg the like: Cleve with detached pertinents ours; Julich-and-Berg mainly yours. And let us live in perpetual amity on that footing. And, note only furthermore, when our Line fails, the whole of these fine Duchies shall be yours: if your Line fail, ours." That was the plain bargain, done solemnly in 1624, and again more solemnly and brought to parchment with signature in 1666, as Friedrich Wilhelm knows too well. And now the very case is about to occur; this old man, childless at seventy, is the last of the Neuburgs. May not one reasonably pretend that a bargain should be kept?

"Tush," answers old Karl Philip always: "Bargain?" And will not hear reason against himself on the subject; not even when the Kaiser asks him,--as the Kaiser really did, after that Wusterhausen Treaty, but could get only negatives. Karl Philip has no romantic ideas of justice, or of old parchments tying up a man. Karl Philip had one Daughter by that dear Radzivil Princess, Sobieski's stolen Bride; and he never, by the dear Radzivil or her dear successor, [See Buchholz, i. 61 n.] had any son, or other daughter that lived to wed. One Daughter, we say; a first-born, extremely precious to him. Her he married to the young fortunate Sulzbach Cousin, Karl Joseph Heir-Apparent of Sulzbach, who, by all laws, was to succeed in the Pfalz as well,--Karl Philip thinking furthermore, "He and she, please Heaven, shall hold fast by Dusseldorf too, and that fine Julich-and-Berg Territory, which is mine. Bargains?"

Such was, and is, the old man's inflexible notion. Alas, this one Daughter died lately, and her Husband lately; [She in 1728; he in 1729: their eldest Daughter was born 1721 (Hubner, t. 140; Michaelis, ii. 101, 123).] again leaving only Daughters; will not this change the notion?

Not a whit,--though Friedrich Wilhelm may have fondly hoped it by possibility might, Not a whit: Karl Philip cherishes his little Grand-daughter, now a child of nine, as he did her Mother and her Mother's Mother; hopes one day to see her wedded (as he did) to a new Heir-Apparent of the Pfalz and Sulzbach; and, for her behoof, will hold fast by Berg and Julich, and part with no square inch of it for any parchment.

What is Friedrich Wilhelm to do? Seek justice for himself by his 80,000 men and the iron ramrods? Apparently he will not get it otherwise. He is loath to begin that terrible game. If indeed Europe do take fire, as is likely at Seville or elsewhere--But in the meanwhile how happy if negotiation would but serve! Alas, and if the Kaiser, England; Holland and the others, could be brought to guarantee me,--as indeed they should (to avoid a CASUS BELLI), and some of them have said they will!

Friedrich Wilhelm tried this Julich-and-Berg Problem by the pacific method, all his life; strenuously, and without effect. Result perhaps was coming nevertheless; at the distance of another hundred years!--One thing I know: whatever rect.i.tude and patience, whatever courage, perseverance, or other human virtue he has put into this or another matter, is not lost; not it nor any fraction of it, to Friedrich Wilhelm and his sons' sons; but will well avail him and them, if not soon, then later, if not in Berg and Julich, then in some other quarter of the Universe, which is a wide Ent.i.ty and a long-lived! Courage, your Majesty!

So stand matters as Friedrich Wilhelm journeys towards Mannheim: human politeness will have to cloak well, and keep well down, a good many p.r.i.c.kly points in the visit ahead. Alas, poor Friedrich Wilhelm has got other matter to think of, by the time we arrive in Mannheim.

CATASTROPHE ON JOURNEY HOMEWARDS.

The Royal Party, quitting Ludwigsburg,--on Thursday, 3d August, 1730, some hours after dinner, as I calculate it,--had but a rather short journey before them: journey to a place called Sinzheim, some fifty or sixty miles; a long way short of Heidelberg; the King's purpose being to lodge in that dilapidated silent Town of Sinzheim, and leave both Heidelberg and Mannheim, with their civic noises, for the next day's work. Sinzheim, such was the program, as the Prince and others understood it; but by some accident, or on better calculation, it was otherwise decided in the royal mind: not at Sinzheim, intricate decayed old Town, shall we lodge to-night, but five or six miles short of it, in the naturally silent Village of Steinfurth, where good clean empty Barns are to be found. Which latter is a favorite method of his Majesty, fond always of free air and the absence of fuss. Shake-downs, a temporary cooking apparatus, plenty of tobacco, and a tub to wash in: this is what man requires, and this without difficulty can be got. His Majesty's tastes are simple; simple, and yet good and human. Here is a small Royal Order, which I read once, and ever since remember,--though the reference is now blown away, and lost in those unindexed Sibylline Farragos, the terror of human nature;--let us copy it from memory, till some deliverer arise with finger on page. [Probably in Rodenbeck's _Beitrage,_--but long sad searching there, and elsewhere, proves unavailing at present.

Historical Farragos without INDEX; a hundred, or several hundred, blind sacks of Historical clippings, generally authentic too if useless, and not the least sc.r.a.p of LABEL on them:--are not these a handy article!]

"At Magdeburg, on this Review-Journey, have dinner for me, under a certain Tree you know of, outside the ramparts." Dinner of one sound portion solid, one ditto liquid, of the due quality; readied honestly,--and to be eaten under a shady Tree; on the Review-ground itself, with the summer sky over one's head. Could Jupiter Tonans, had he been travelling on business in those parts, have done better with his dinner?--

"At Sinzheim?" thinks his Royal Highness; and has spoken privily to the Page Keith. To glide out of their quarters there, in that waste negligent old Town (where post-horses can be had), in the gray of the summer's dawn? Across the Rhine to Speyer is but three hours riding; thence to Landau, into France, into--? Enough, Page Keith has undertaken to get horses, and the flight shall at last be. Husht, husht. To-morrow morning, before the sparrow wake, it is our determination to be upon the road!

Ruins of the Tower of Stauffen, HOHEN or High STAUFFEN, where Kaiser Barbarossa lived once, young and ruddy, and was not yet a MYTH, "winking and nodding under the Hill at Salzburg,"--yes, it is but a few miles to the right there, were this a deliberate touring party. But this is a rapid driving one; knows nothing about Stauffen, cares nothing.--We cannot fancy Friedrich remembered Barbarossa at all; or much regarded Heilbronn itself, the princ.i.p.al and only famous Town they pa.s.s this day.

The St. Kilian's Church, your Highness, and big stone giant at the top of the steeple yonder,--adventurous masons and slater people get upon the crown of his head, sometimes, and stand waving flags. [Buddaus, _Lexicon,_ ii.? Heilbronn.] The Townhouse too (RATHHAUS), with its amazing old Clock? And Gotz von Berlichingen, the Town-Councillors once had him in prison for one night, in the "Gotz's Tower" here; your Highness has heard of "Gotz with the Iron Hand"? Berlichingens still live at Jaxthausen, farther down the Neckar Valley, in these parts; and show the old HAND, considerably rusted now. Heilbronn, the most famous City on the Neckar; and its old miraculous Holy Well--? What cares his Highness! Weinsberg again, which is but a few miles to the right of us,--there it was that the Besieged Wives did that astonis.h.i.+ng feat, 600 years ago; coming out, as the capitulation bore, "with their most valuable property," each brought her Husband on her back (were not the fact a little uncertain!)--whereby the old Castle has, to this day, the name "WEIBERTREUE, Faithfulness of Women." Welf's d.u.c.h.ess, Husband on back, was at the head of those women; a Hohenzollern ancestor of yours, I think I have heard, was of the besieging party. [Siege is notorious enough; A.D. 1140: Kohler _Reichs.h.i.+storie,_ p. 167, who does not mention the story of the women; Menzel (Wolfgang), _Geschichte der Deutschen,_ p. 287, who takes no notice that it is a highly mythical story,--supported only by the testimony of one poor Monk in Koln, vaguely chronicling fifty years after date and at that good distance.]

Alas, thinks his Royal Highness, is there not a flower of Welfdom now in England; and I, unluckiest of Hohenzollerns, still far away from her here! It is at Windsor, not in Weinsberg, or among the ruins of WEIBERTREUE, that his Highness wishes to be.

At Heilbronn our road branches off to the left; and we roll diligently towards Sinzheim, calculating to be there before nightfall. Whew!

Something has gone awry at Sinzheim: no right lodging in the waste Inns there; or good clean Barns, of a promising character, are to be had nearer than there: we absolutely do not go to Sinzheim to-night; we are to stop at Steinfurth, a small quiet Hamlet with Barns, four or five miles short of that! This was a great disappointment to the Prince,--and some say, a highly momentous circ.u.mstance in his History: ["Might perhaps have succeeded at Sinzheim" (Seckendorf's _Relation of the Crown-Prince's meditated Flight,_ p. 2;--addressed to Prince Eugene few days afterwards; given in Forster, iii. 1-13).]--however, he rallies in the course of the evening; speaks again to Page Keith. "Steinfurth [STONY-FORD, over the Brook here]; be it at Steinfurth, all the same!"

Page Keith will manage to get horses for us here, no less. And Speyer and the Ferry of the Rhine are within three hours. Favor us, Silence and all ye good genii!--

On Friday morning, 4th August, 1730, "usual hour of starting, 3 A.M.,"