History of Friedrich II of Prussia Volume VII Part 7

not being yet came, the Royal Party lies asleep in two clean airy Barns, facing one another, in the Village of Steinfurth; Barns facing one another, with the Heidelberg Highway and Village Green asleep in front between them; [Compare Wilhelmina, i. 259 (her Account of the Flight: "Heard it from my Brother,"--and report it loosely after a dozen years!).] for it is little after two in the morning, the dawn hardly beginning to break. Prince Friedrich, with his Trio of Vigilance, Buddenbrock, Waldau, Rochow, lies in one Barn; Majesty, with his Seckendorf and party, is in the other: apparently all still locked in sleep? Not all: Prince Friedrich, for example, is awake;--the Trio is indeed audibly asleep; unless others watch for them, their six eyes are closed. Friedrich cautiously rises; dresses; takes his money, his new red roquelaure, unbolts the Barn-door, and walks out. Trio of Vigilance is sound asleep, and knows nothing: alas, Trio of Vigilance, while its own six eyes are closed, has appointed another pair to watch.

Gummersbach the Valet comes to Rochow's bolster: "Hst, Herr Oberst-Lieutenant, please awaken! Prince Royal is up, has on his top-coat, and is gone out of doors!" Rochow starts to his habiliments, or perhaps has them ready on; in a minute or two, Rochow also is forth into the gray of the morning;--finds the young Prince actually on the Green there; in his red roquelaure, leaning pensively on one of the travelling carriages. _"Guten Morgen, Ihro Konigliche Hoheit!_" [Ranke, 1. 305.]--Fancy such a salutation to the young man! Page Keith, at this moment, comes with a pair of horses, too: "Whither with the nags, Sirrah?" Rochow asked with some sharpness. Keith, seeing how it was, answered without visible embarra.s.sment, "Herr, they are mine and Kunz the Page's horses" (which, I suppose, is true); "ready at the usual hour!" Keith might add.--"His Majesty does not go till five this morning;--back to the stables!" beckoned Rochow; and, according to the best accounts, did not suspect anything, or affected not to do so.

Page Keith returned, trembling in his saddle. Friedrich strolled towards the other Barn,--at least to be out of Rochow's company. Seckendorf emerges from the other Barn; awake at the common hour: "How do you like his Royal Highness in the red roquelaure?" asks Rochow, as if nothing had happened. Was there ever such a baffled Royal Highness; or young bright spirit chained in the Bear's Den in this manner? Our Steinfurth project has gone to water; and it is not to-day we shall get across the Rhine!--Not to-day; nor any other day, on that errand, strong as our resolutions are! For new light, in a few hours afterwards, pours in upon the project; and human finesse, or ulterior schemes, avail nothing henceforth. "The Crown-Prince's meditated Flight" has tried itself, and failed. Here and so that long meditation ENDS; this at Steinfurth was all the over-act it could ever come to. In few hours more it will melt into air; and only the terrible consequences will remain!--

By last night's arrangement, the Prince with his Trio was to set out an hour before his Father, which circ.u.mstance had helped Page Keith in his excuses. Naturally the Prince had now no wish to linger on the Green of Steinfurth, in such a posture of affairs: "Towards Heidelberg, then; let us see the big Tun there: ALLONS!" How the young Prince and his Trio did this day's journey; where he loitered, what he saw, said or thought, we have no account: it is certain only that his Father, who set out from Steinfurth an hour after him, arrived in Mannheim several hours before him; and, in spite of Kurfurst Karl Philip's welcome, testified the liveliest inquietude on that unaccountable circ.u.mstance. Beautiful Rhine-stream, thrice-beautiful trim Mannheim;--yes, all is beautiful indeed, your Serenity! But where can the Prince be? he kept ejaculating.

And Karl Philip had to answer what he could. Of course the Prince may be lingering about Heidelberg, looking at the big Tun and other miracles:--"I had the pleasure to repair that world-famous Tub or Tun, as your Majesty knows; which had lain half burnt, ever since Louis XIV.

with his firebrand robberies lay upon us, and burnt the Pfalz in whole, small honor to him! I repaired the Tun: [Kohler, _Munzbel.u.s.tigungen_ (viii. 418-424; 145-152), who gives a view of the world's wonder, lying horizontal with stairs running up to it. Big Tuns of that kind were not uncommon in Germany; and had uses, if multiplex dues of wine were to be paid IN NATURA: the Heidelberg, the biggest of them, is small to the Whitbread-and-Company, for porter's-ale, in our time.] it is probably the successfulest feat I did hitherto; and well worth looking at, had your Majesty had time!"--"JA WOHL;--but he came away an hour before me!"--The polite Karl Philip, at length, sent off one of his own Equerries to ride towards Heidelberg, or even to Steinfurth if needful, and see what was become of the Prince. This Official person met the Prince, all in order, at no great distance; and brought him safe to Papa's presence again.

Why Papa was in such a fuss about this little circ.u.mstance? Truly there has something come to Papa's knowledge since he started, perhaps since he arrived at Mannheim. Page Keith, who rides always behind the King's coach, has ridden this day in an agony of remorse and terror; and at length (probably in Mannheim, once his Majesty is got to his Apartments, or now that he finds his Majesty so anxious there) has fallen on his knees, and, with tears and obtestations, made a clean breast. Page Keith has confessed that the Crown-Prince and he were to have been in Speyer, or farther, at this time of the day; flying rapidly into France. "G.o.d's Providence alone prevented it! Pardon, pardon: slay me, your Majesty; but there is the naked truth, and the whole of it, and I have nothing more to say!" Hereupon ensues despatch of the Equerry; and hereupon, as we may conjecture, the Equerry's return with Fritz and the Trio is an unspeakable relief to Friedrich Wilhelm.

Friedrich Wilhelm now summons Buddenbrock and Company straightway; shows, in a suppressed-volcanic manner, with questions and statements,--obliged to SUPPRESS oneself in foreign hospitable Serene Houses,--what atrocity of scandal and terror has been on the edge of happening: "And you three, Rochow, Waldau, Buddenbrock, mark it, you three are responsible; and shall answer, I now tell you, with your heads. Death the penalty, unless you bring HIM to our own Country again,--'living or dead,'" added the Suppressed-Volcano, in low metallic tone; and the sparkling eyes of him, the red tint, and rustling gestures, make the words too credible to us. [Ranke, i. 307.]

What Friedrich Wilhelm got to speak about with the old Kur-Pfalz, during their serene pa.s.sages of hospitality at Mannheim, is not very clear to me; his Prussian Majesty is privately in such a desperate humor, and the old Kur-Pfalz privately so discrepant on all manner of points, especially on the Julich-and-Berg point. They could talk freely about the old Turk Campaigns, Battle of Zentha, [11th September, 1697; Eugene's crowning feat;--breaking of the Grand Turk's back in this world; who has staggered about, less and less of a terror and outrage, more and more of a nuisance growing unbearable, ever since that day.

See Hormayr (iii. 97-101) for some description of this useful bit of Heroism.] and Prince Eugene; very freely about the Heidelberg Tun. But it is known old Karl Philip had his agents at the Congress of Soissons, to secure that Berg-and-Julich interest for the Sulzbachs and him: directly in the teeth of Friedrich Wilhelm. How that may have gone, since the Treaty of Seville broke out to astonish mankind,--will be unsafe to talk about. For the rest, old Karl Philip has frankly adopted the Pragmatic Sanction; but then he has, likewise, privately made league with France to secure him in that Julich-and-Berg matter, should the Kaiser break promise;--league which may much obstruct said Sanction.

Nay privately he is casting glances on his Bavarian Cousin, elegant ambitious Karl Albert. Kurfurst of Baiern,--are not we all from the same Wittelsbach stock, Cousins from of old?--and will undertake, for the same Julich-and-Bergobject, to secure Bavaria in its claims on the Austrian Heritages in defect of Heirs Male in Austria. [Michaelis, ii.

99-101.] Which runs directly into the throat of said Pragmatic Sanction; and engages to make it, mere waste sheepskin, so to speak! Truly old Karl Philip has his abstruse outlooks, this way, that way; most abstruse politics altogether:--and in fact we had better speak of the Battle of Zentha and the Heidelberg Tun, while this Visit lasts.

On the morrow, Sat.u.r.day, August 5th, certain Frenchmen from the Garrison of Landau come across to pay their court and dine. Which race of men Friedrich Wilhelm does not love; and now less than ever, gloomily suspicious they may be come on parricide Fritz's score,--you Rochow and Company keep an eye! By night and by day an eye upon him! Friedrich Wilhelm was, no doubt, glad to get away on the morrow afternoon; fairly out into the Berg-Stra.s.se, into the summer breezes and umbrageous woods, with all his pertinents still safe about him; rus.h.i.+ng towards Darmstadt through the Sunday stillness, where he will arrive in the evening, time enough. ["Sunday Evening arrive at Darmstadt," says Seckendorf (in Forster, iii. 3), but by mistake calls it the "7th" instead of "6th."]

The old Prince of Darmstadt, Ernst Ludwig, Landgraf of Hessen-Darmstadt, age now sixty-three, has a h.o.a.ry venerable appearance, according to Pollnitz, "but sits a horse well, walks well, and seems to enjoy perfect health,"--which we are glad to hear of. What more concerns us, "he lives usually, quite retired, in a small house upon the Square," in this extremely small Metropolis of his, "and leaves his Heir-Apparent to manage all business in the Palace and elsewhere." [Pollnitz, _Memoirs and Letters,_ ii. 66.] poor old Gentleman, he has the biggest Palace almost in the world; only he could not finish it for want of funds; and it lies there, one of the biggest futilities, vexatious to look upon.

No doubt the old Gentleman has had vexations, plenty of them, first and last. He is now got disgusted with the affairs of public life, and addicts himself very much to "turning ivory," as the more eligible employment. He lives in that small house of his, among his turning-lathes and ivory shavings; dines in said small house, "at a table for four persons:" only on Sunday, and above all on this Sunday, puts off his ap.r.o.n; goes across to the Palace; dines there in state, with his Heir and the Grandees. He has a kins.h.i.+p by affinity to Friedrich Wilhelm; his Wife (dead long years since), Mother of this Heir-Apparent, was an Ans.p.a.ch Princess, Aunt to the now Queen Caroline of England. Poor old fellow, these insignificancies, and that he descends direct from Philip the Magnanimous of Hessen (Luther's Philip, who insisted on the supplementary Wife), are all I know of him; and he is somewhat tragic to me there, turning ivory in this extremely anarchic world. What the pa.s.sages between him and Friedrich Wilhelm were, on this occasion, shall remain conjectural to all creatures. Friedrich Wilhelm said, this Sunday evening at Darmstadt to his own Prince: "Still here, then? I thought you would have been in Paris by this time!"--To which the Prince, with artificial firmness, answered, He could certainly, if he had wished; [Seckendorf (in Forster, iii.), p. 3.] and being familiar with reproaches, perhaps hoped it was nothing.

From Darmstadt to Frankfurt-on-Mayn is not quite forty miles, an easy morning drive; through the old Country called of Katzen-ellenbogen; CATS-ELBOW, a name ridiculous to hear. [CATTIMELIBOc.u.m, that is, CATTUM-MELIBOc.u.m (CATTI a famed Nation, MELIBOCUS the chief Hill or Fortress of their Country), is said to be the original;--which has got changed; like ABALLABA into "Appleby," or G.o.d ENCOMPa.s.s US into "The Goat and Compa.s.ses," among ourselves.] Berg-Stra.s.se and the Odenwald (FOREST of the OTTI) are gone; but blue on the northeast yonder, if your Royal Highness will please to look, may be seen summits of the SPESSART, a much grander forest,--tall branchy timbers yonder, one day to be masts of admirals, when floated down as far as Rotterdam, whitherward one still meets them going. Spessart;--and nearer, well hidden on the right, is an obscure village called DETTINGEN, not yet become famous in the Newspapers of an idle world; of an England surely very idle to go thither seeking quarrels! All which is, naturally, in the highest degree indifferent to a Crown-Prince so preoccupied.--They reach Frankfurt, Monday, still in good time.

Behold, at Frankfurt, the Trio of Vigilance, Buddenbrock and Company (horrible to think of!) signify, "That we have the King's express orders Not to enter the Town at all with your Royal Highness. We, for our part, are to go direct into one of the Royal Yachts, which swing at anchor here, and to wait in the same till his Majesty have done seeing Frankfurt, and return to us." Here is a message for the poor young Prince: Detected, prisoner, and a volcanic Majesty now likely to be in full play when he returns!--Gilt weatherc.o.c.k on the Mayn Bridge (which one Goethe used to look at, in the next generation)--this, and the steeple-tops of Frankfurt, especially that steeple-top with the grinning skull of the mutinous malefactor on it, warning to mankind what mutiny leads to; this, then, is what we are to see of Frankfurt; and with such a symphony as our thoughts are playing in the background. Unhappy Son, unhappy Father, once more!

Nay Friedrich Wilhelm got new lights in Frankfurt: Rittmeister Katte had an estafette waiting for him there. Estafette with a certain Letter, which the Rittmeister had picked up in Erlangen, and has shot across by estafette to wait his Majesty here. Majesty has read with open eyes and throat: Letter from the Crown-Prince to Lieutenant Katte in Berlin: treasonous Flight-project now indisputable as the sun at noon!--His Majesty stept on board the Yacht in such humor as was never seen before: "Detestable rebel and deserter, scandal of scandals--!"--it is confidently written everywhere (though Seckendorf diplomatically keeps silence), his Majesty hustled and tussled the unfortunate Crown-Prince, poked the handle of his cane into his face and made the nose bleed,--"Never did a Brandenburg face suffer the like of this!" cried the poor Prince, driven to the edge of mad ignition and one knows not what: when the Buddenbrocks, at whatever peril interfered; got the Prince brought on board a different Yacht; and the conflagration moderated for the moment. The Yachts get under way towards Mainz and down the Rhine-stream. The Yachts glide swiftly on the favoring current, taking advantage of what wind there may be: were we once ash.o.r.e at Wesel in our own country,--wait till then, thinks his Majesty!

And so it was on these terms that Friedrich made his first acquaintance with the beauties of the Rhine;--readers can judge whether he was in a temper very open to the picturesque. I know not that they paused at Mainz, or recollected Barbarossa's World-Tournament, or the Hochheim vineyards at all: I see the young man's Yacht das.h.i.+ng in swift gallop, not without danger, through the Gap of Bingen; dancing wildly on the boiling whirlpools of St. Goar, well threading the cliffs;--the young man gloomily insensible to danger of life, and charm of the picturesque.

Coblenz (CONFLUENTIA), the Moselle and Ehrenbreitstein: Majesty, smoking on deck if he like, can look at these through grimly pacifying tobacco; but to the Crown-Prince life itself is fallen haggard and bankrupt.

Over against Coblenz, nestled in between the Rhine and the foot of Ehrenbreitstein, [Pollnitz, _Memoirs and Letters,_ iii. 180.] there, perhaps even now, in his Hunting Lodge of Kerlich yonder, is his Serene Highness the fat little Kurfurst of Trier, one of those Austrian Schonborns (Brother to him of Bamberg); upon whom why should we make a call? We are due at Bonn; the fortunate young Kurfurst of Koln, richest Pluralist in the Church, expects us at his Residence there. Friedrich Wilhelm views the fine Fortress of Ehrenbreitstein:--what would your Majesty think if this were to be yours in a hundred years; this and much else, by way of compound-interest for the Berg-and-Julich and other outstanding debts? Courage, your Majesty!--On the fat little Kurfurst, at Kerlich here, we do not call: probably out hunting; "hunts every day," [Busching, _Beitrage,_ iv. 201.] as if it were his trade, poor little soul.

At Bonn, where we do step ash.o.r.e to lodge with a lean Kurfurst, Friedrich Wilhelm strictly charges, in my (Seckendorf's) hearing, the Trio of Vigilance to have an eye; to see that they bring the Prince on board again, "LIVING OR DEAD."--No fear, your Majesty. Prince listened with silent, almost defiant patience, "MIT GROSSER GEDULD." [Seckendorf (in Forster, iii. 4).] At Bonn the Prince contrived to confide to Seckendorf, "That he had in very truth meant to run away: he could not, at the age he was come to, stand such indignities, actual strokes as in the Camp of Radewitz;--and he would have gone long since, had it not been for the Queen and the Princess his Sister's sake. He could not repent what he had done: and if the King did not cease beating him in that manner, &c., he would still do it. For loss of his own life, such a life as his had grown, he cared little; his chief misery was, that those Officers who had known of the thing should come to misfortune by his means. If the King would pardon these poor gentlemen, he would tell him everything. For the rest, begged Seckendorf to help him in this labyrinth;--nothing could ever so oblige him as help now;" and more of the like sort. These things he said, at Bonn, to Seckendorf, the fountain of all his woes. [Ibid.] What Seckendorf's reflections on this his sad handiwork now were, we do not know. Probably he made none, being a strong-minded case-hardened old stager; but resolved to do what he could for the poor youth. Somewhere on this route, at Bonn more likely than elsewhere, Friedrich wrote in pencil three words to Lieutenant Keith at Wesel, and got it to the Post-Office: "SAUVEZ-VOUS, TOUT EST DECOUVERT (All is found out;--away)!" [Wilhelmina (i. 265) says it was a Page of the Old Dessauer's, a comrade of Keith's, who, having known in time, gave him warning. Certain it is, this Note of Friedrich's, which the Books generally a.s.sign as cause, could not have done it (infra, p.

275, and the irrefragable date there).]

Clement August, expensive Kurfurst of Koln (Elector of Cologne, as we call it), who does the hospitalities here at Bonn, in a grand way, with "above a hundred and fifty chamberlains" for one item,--glance at him, reader; perhaps we shall meet the man again. He is younger Brother of the elegant ambitious Karl Albert, Kurfurst of Bavaria, whom we have transiently heard of: sons both of them are of that "Elector of Bavaria"

who haunts us in the Marlborough Histories,--who joined Louis XIV. in the Succession War, and got hunted about at such a rate, after Blenheim especially. His Boys, prisoners of the Kaiser, were bred up in a confiscated state, as sons of a mere private gentleman; nothing visibly ahead of them, at one time, but an obscure and extremely limited destiny of that kind;--though now again, on French favor, and the turn of Fortune's inconstant wheel, they are mounting very high. Bavaria came all back to the old Elector of Bavaria; even Marlborough's "Princ.i.p.ality of MINDELHEIM" came. [At the Peace of Baden (corollary to UTRECHT), 1714. Elector had been "banned" (GEACHTET, solemnly drummed out), 1706; nothing but French pay to live upon, till he got back: died 26th February, 1726, when Karl Albert succeeded (Michaelis, ii. 255).]

And the present Kurfurst, who will not do the Pragmatic Sanction at all,--Kurfurst Karl Albert of Baiern, our old Karl Philip of Mannheim's genealogical "Cousin;"--we heard of abstruse colleaguings there, tendencies to break the Pragmatic Sanction altogether, and reduce it to waste sheepskin! Not impossible Karl Albert will go high enough.

And this Clement August the cadet, he is Kurfurst of Koln; by good election-tactics, and favor of the French, he has managed to succeed an Uncle here: has succeeded at Osnabruck in like fas.h.i.+on;--poor old Ernst August of Osnabruck (to whom we once saw George I. galloping to die, and who himself soon after died), his successor is this same Clement August, the turn for a CATHOLIC Bishop being come at Osnabruck, and the French being kind. Kurfurst of Koln, Bishop of Osnabruck, ditto of Paderborn and Munster, ditto now of Hildesheim; richest Pluralist of the Church.

Goes about here in a languid expensive manner; "in green coat trimmed with narrow silver-lace, small bag-wig done with French garniture (SCHLEIFE) in front; and has red heels to his shoes." A lanky indolent figure, age now thirty; "tall and slouching of person, long lean face, hook-nose, black beard, mouth somewhat open." [Busching (_Beitrage,_ iv.

201-204: from a certain Travelling Tutor's MS. DIARY of 1731; where also is detail of the Kurfurst's mode of Dining,--elaborate but dreary, both mode and detail). His Schloss is now the Bonn University.] Has above one hundred and fifty chamberlains;--and, I doubt not, is inexpressibly wearisome to Friedrich Wilhelm in his Majesty's present mood. Patience for the moment, and politeness above all things!--The Trio of Vigilance had no difficulty with Friedrich; brought him on board safe again next day, and all proceeded on their voyage; the Kurfurst in person politely escorting as far as Koln.

Koln, famed old City of the Three Kings, with its famed Cathedral where those three gentlemen are buried, here the Kurfurst ceases escorting; and the flat old City is left, exciting what reflections it can. The architectural Dilettanti of the world gather here; St. Ursula and her Eleven Thousand Virgins were once ma.s.sacred here, your Majesty; an English Princess she, it is said. "NARREN-POSSEN (Pack of nonsense)!"

grumbles Majesty.--Pleasant Dusseldorf is much more interesting to his Majesty; the pleasant Capital of Berg, which ought to be ours, if right could be done; if old Pfalz would give up his crotchets; and the bowls, in the big game playing at Seville and elsewhere, would roll fair!

Dusseldorf and that fine Palace of the Pfalzers, which ought to be mine;--and here next is Kaiserswerth, a place of sieges, cannonadings, known to those I knew. 'M-NA, from father to son and grandson it goes on, and there is no end to trouble and war!--

His Majesty's next lodging is at Mors; old gaunt Castle in the Town of Mors, which (thanks to Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau and the Iron Ramrods) is now his Majesty's in spite of the Dutch. There the lodging is, at an hour's drive westward from the Rhine-sh.o.r.e:--where his Majesty quitted the River, I do not know; nor whether the Crown-Prince went to Mors with him, or waited in his Yacht; but guess the latter. His Majesty intends for Geldern on the morrow, on matters of business thither, for the Town is his: but what would the Prince, in the present state of things, do there?--At Mors, Seckendorf found means to address his Majesty privately, and snuffled into him suggestions of mercy to the repentant Prince, and to the poor Officers whom he was so anxious about. "Well, if he WILL confess everything, and leave off his quirks and concealments: but I know he won't!" answered Majesty.

In that dilapidated Castle of Mors,--look at it, reader, though in the dark; we may see it again, or the shadow of it, perhaps by moonlight.

A very gaunt old Castle; next to nothing living in it, since the old Dessauer (by stratagem, and without shot fired) flung out the Dutch, in the Treaty-of-Utrecht time; Mors Castle and Territory being indisputably ours, though always withheld from us on pretexts. [Narrative of the march thither (Night of 7th November, 1712), and dexterous surprisal of the place, in _Leopoldi von Anhalt-Dessau Leben und Thaten_ (Anonymous, by RANFFT), pp. 85-90;--where the Despatch of the astonished Dutch Commandant himself, to their High Mightinesses, is given. Part of the Orange Heritage, this Mors,--came by the Great Elector's first Wife;--but had hung SUB LITE (though the Parchments were plain enough) ever since our King William's death, and earlier. Neuchatel, accepted instead of ORANGE, and not even of the value of Mors, was another item of the same lot. Besides which, we shall hear of old Palaces at Loo and other dilapidated objects, incidentally in time coming.]

At Geldern, in the pressure of business next day, his Majesty got word from Wesel, that Lieutenant Keith was not now to be found in Wesel.

"Was last seen there (that we can hear of) certain hours before your Majesty's All-gracious Order arrived. Had saddled his own horse; came ambling through the Brunen Gate, 'going out to have a ride,' he said; and did not return."--"Keith gone, scandalous Keith, whom I pardoned only few weeks ago; he too is in the Plot! Will the very Army break its oath, then?" His Majesty bursts into fire and flame, at these new tidings; orders that Colonel Dumoulin (our expertest rogue-tracer) go instantly on the scent of Keith, and follow him till found and caught.

Also, on the other hand, that the Crown-Prince be const.i.tuted prisoner; sail down to Wesel, prisoner in his Yacht, and await upon the Rhine there his Majesty's arrival. Formidable omens, it is thought.

His Majesty, all business done in Geldern, drives across to Wesel; can see Fritz's Yacht waiting duly in the River, and black Care hovering over her. It is on the evening of the 12th of August, 1730. And so his Majesty ends this memorable Tour into the Reich; but has not yet ended the gloomy miseries, for himself and others, which plentifully sprung out of that.

Chapter VII. -- CATASTROPHE, AND MAJESTY, ARRIVE IN BERLIN.

At Berlin dark rumors of this intended flight, and actual Arrest of the Crown-Prince, are agitating all the world; especially Lieutenant Katte, and the Queen and Wilhelmina, as we may suppose. The first news of it came tragically on the young Princess. [Apparently some rumor FROM FRANKFURT, which she confuses in her after-memory with the specific news FROM WESEL; for her dates here, as usual, are all awry (Wilhelmina, i.

246; Preuss, i. 42, iv. 473; Seckendorf, in Forster, iii. 6).]

"Mamma had given a ball in honor of Papa's Birthday,"--Tuesday, 15th August, 1730;--and we were all dancing in the fine saloons of Monbijou, with pretty intervals in the cool boscages and orangeries of the place: all of us as happy as could be; Wilhelmina, in particular, dancing at an unusual rate. "We recommenced the ball after supper. For six years I had not danced before; it was new fruit, and I took my fill of it, without heeding much what was pa.s.sing. Madame Bulow, who with others of them had worn long faces all night, pleading 'illness' when one noticed it, said to me several times: 'It is late, I wish you had done,'--'EH, MON DIEU!'

I answered, 'let me have enough of dancing this one new time; it may be long before it comes again.'--'That may well be!' said she. I paid no regard, but continued to divert myself. She returned to the charge half an hour after: 'Will you end, then!' said she with a vexed air: 'you are so engaged, you have eyes for nothing.'--'You are in such a humor,'

I replied, 'that I know not what to make of it.'--'Look at the Queen, then, Madam; and you will cease to reproach me!' A glance which I gave that way filled me with terror. There sat the Queen, paler than death, in a corner of the room, in low conference with Sonsfeld and Countess Finkenstein. As my Brother was most in my anxieties, I asked, If it concerned him? Bulow shrugged her shoulders, answering, 'I don't know at all!' A moment after, the Queen gave Good-night; and got into her carriage with me,--speaking no word all the way to the Schloss; so that I thought my Brother must be dead, and I myself took violent palpitations, and Sonsfeld, contrary to orders, had at last to tell me in the course of the night." Poor Wilhelmina, and poor Mother of Wilhelmina!

The fact, of Arrest, and unknown mischief to the Prince, is taken for certain; but what may be the issues of it; who besides the Prince have been involved in it, especially who will be found to have been involved, is matter of dire guess to the three who are most interested here.

Lieutenant Katte finds he ought to dispose of the Prince's effects which were intrusted to him; of the thousand gold Thalers in particular, and, beyond and before all, of the locked Writing-desk, in which lies the Prince's correspondence, the very Queen and Princess likely to be concerned in it! Katte despatches these two objects, the Money and the little Desk, in all secrecy, to Madam Finkenstein, as to the surest hand, with a short Note shadowing out what he thinks they are: Countess Finkenstein, old General von Finkenstein's Wife, and a second mother to the Prince, she, like her Husband, a sworn partisan of the Prince and his Mother, shall do with these precious and terrible objects what, to her own wise judgment, seems best.

Madam Finkenstein carries them at once, in deep silence, to the Queen.

Huge dismay on the part of the Queen and Princess. They know too well what Letters may be there: and there is a seal on the Desk, and no key to it; neither must it, in time coming, seem to have been opened, even if we could now open it. A desperate pinch, and it must be solved.

Female wit and Wilhelmina did solve it, by some pre-eminently acute device of their despair; [Wilhelmina, i. 253-257.] and contrived to get the Letters out: hundreds of Letters, enough to be our death if read, says Wilhelmina. These Letters they burnt; and set to writing fast as the pen would go, other letters in their stead. Fancy the mood of these two Royal Women, and the black whirlwind they were in. Wilhelmina's despatch was incredible; pen went at the gallop night and day: new letters, of old dates and of no meaning, are got into the Desk again; the Desk closed, without mark of injury, and shoved aside while it is yet time.--Time presses; his Majesty too, and the events, go at gallop.

Here is a Letter from his Majesty, to a trusty Mistress of the Robes, or whatever she is; which, let it arrive through what softening media it likes, will complete the poor Queen's despair:--

"MY DEAR FRAU VON KAMECKE,--Fritz has attempted to desert. I have been under the necessity to have him arrested. I request you to tell my Wife of it in some good way, that the news may not terrify her. And pity an unhappy Father.

"FRIEDRICH WILHELM."

[No date: "ARRIVED" (from Wesel, we conclude), Sunday, "20th August," at the Palace of Berlin (Preuss, i. 42).]

The same post brought an order to the Colonel of the Gerns-d'Armes to put that Lieutenant Katte of his under close confinement:--we hope the thoughtless young fellow has already got out of the way? He is getting his saddle altered: fettling about this and that; does not consider what danger he is in. This same Sunday, his Major met him on the street of Berlin; said, in a significant tone, "You still HERE, Katte!"--"I go this night," answered Katte; but he again put it off, did not go this night; and the order for his arrest did come in. On the morrow morning, Colonel Pannewitz, hoping now he was not there, went with the rhadamanthine order; and finding the unlucky fellow, was obliged to execute it. Katte lies in ward, awaiting what may be prepared for him.

Friedrich Wilhelm at Wesel has had rough pa.s.sages with the Prince and others. On the Sat.u.r.day evening, 12th August 1730, [Preuss, iv. 473; Seckendorf (Forster, iii. 6) says 13th, but WRONG.] his Majesty had the Culprit brought on sh.o.r.e, to the Commandant's House, for an interview.

Culprit proving less remorseful than was expected, and evidently not confessing everything, a loud terrible scene ensued; which Friedrich Wilhelm, the unhappy Father, winded up by drawing his sword to run the unnatural Son through the body. Old General Mosel, Commandant of Wesel, sprang between them, "Sire, cut me to death, but spare your Son!" and the sword was got back to its scabbard; and the Prince lodged in a separate room, two sentries with fixed bayonets keeping watch over him. Friedrich Wilhelm did not see his face again for twelve months to come,--"twelve months and three days."

Military gentlemen of due grimness interrogated the Prince next evening, [Seckendorf (in Forster, iii. 5).] from a Paper drawn up by his Majesty in the interim. Prince confesses little: Did design to get across the Rhine to Landau; thence to Strasburg, Paris, in the strictest incognito; intended to volunteer there, thought he might take French service, profoundly incognito, and signalize himself in the Italian War (just expected to break out), which might have recovered him some favor from his Majesty: does not tell clearly where his money came from; shy extremely of elucidating Katte and Keith;--in fact, as we perceive, struggles against mendacity, but will not tell the whole truth. "Let him lie in ward, then; and take what doom the Laws have appointed for the like of him!" Divine Laws, are they not? Well, yes, your Majesty, divine and human;--or are there perhaps no laws but the human sort, completely explicit in this case? "He is my Colonel at least," thinks Friedrich Wilhelm, "and tried to desert and make others desert. If a rebellious Crown-Prince, breaking his Father's heart, find the laws still inarticulate; a deserting Colonel of the Potsdam Regiment finds them speak plain enough. Let him take the answer they give him?"

Dumoulin, in the mean while, can make nothing of Keith, the runaway Lieutenant. Dumoulin, with his sagacious organ, soon came upon the scent of Keith; and has discovered these things about him: One evening, a week before his Majesty arrived, Sunday evening, 6th August, 1730, [RELATIO EX ACTIS: in Preuss, iv. 473.] Lieutenant Keith, doubtless smelling something, saddled his horse as above mentioned, decided to have a ride in the country this fine evening, and issued out at the Brunen Gate of Wesel. He is on the right bank of the Rhine; pleasant yellow fields on this hand and that. He ambles slowly, for a s.p.a.ce; then gradually awakens into speed, into full speed; arrives, within a couple of hours, at Dingden, a Village in the Munster Territory, safe over the Prussian Border, by the shortest line: and from Dingden rides at more leisure, but without losing time, into the Dutch Overyssel region, straight towards the Hague. He must be in the Hague? said Dumoulin to the Official persons, on arriving there,--to Meinerts.h.a.gen the Prussian Amba.s.sador there, [Seckendorf (Forster, iii. 7).] and to Keppel, Dutch Official gentleman who was once Amba.s.sador at Berlin. Prussian Amba.s.sador applies, and again applies, in the highest quarters; but we fear they are slack. Dumoulin discovers that the man was certainly here; Keppel readily admits, He had Keith to dinner a few days ago: but where Keith now is, Keppel cannot form the least guess.

Dumoulin suspects he is with Lord Chesterfield, the English Amba.s.sador here. A light was seen, for a night or two, in one of the garret-rooms of Lord Chesterfield's house,--probably Keith reading?--but Keith is not to be heard of, on inquiry there; and the very light has now gone out.

The Colonel at least, distinguished English Lord is gone to England in these days; but his German Secretary is not gone: the House is inviolable, impregnable to Prussia. Who knows, in spite of the light going out, but Keith is still there, merely with a window shutter to screen him? One morning, it becomes apparent Keith is not there. One morning, a gentleman at the seaside is admiring Dutch fis.h.i.+ng-skiffs, and how they do sail, "Pooh, Sir, that is nothing!" answers a man in multiplex breeches: "the other night I went across to England in one, with an Excellency's Messenger who could not wait!"--Truth is, the Chesterfield Secretary, who forbade lights, took the first good night for conveying Keith to Scheveningen and the seaside; where a Fisher-boat was provided for him; which carried him, frail craft as it was, safe across to England. Once there, the Authorities took pity on the poor fellow;--furnished the modic.u.m of cash and help; sent him with Admiral Norris to a.s.sist the Portuguese, menaced with Spanish war at this time; among whom he gradually rose to be Major of Horse. Friedrich Wilhelm cited him by tap of drum three times in Wesel, and also in the Gazettes, native and Dutch; then, as he did not come, nailed an Effigy of him (cut in four, if I remember) on the gallows there; and confiscated any property he had. Keith had more pedigree than property; was of Poberow in Pommern; son of poor gentlefolks there. He sent no word of himself to Prussia, for the next ten years; so that he had become a kind of myth to many people; to his poor Mother among the rest, who has her tragical surmises about him. He will appear again; but not to much purpose. His Brother, the Page Keith, is packed into the Fusileer Regiment, at Wesel here; and there walks sentry, unheard of for the rest of his life.

So much for the Keiths. [Preuss: _Friedrich mit seinen Verwandten und Freunden,_ pp. 330, 392.--See, on this and the other points, Pollnitz, _Memoiren, _ ii. 352-374 (and correct his many blunders).]

Other difficulty there is as to the Prison of the Prince. Wesel is a strong Town; but for obvious reasons one nearer Berlin, farther from the frontier, would be preferable. Towards Berlin, however, there is no route all on Prussian ground: from these divided Cleve Countries we have to cross a bit of Hanover, a bit of Hessen-Ca.s.sel: suppose these Serene Highnesses were to interfere? Not likely they will interfere, answer ancient military men, of due grimness; at any rate, we can go a roundabout road, and they need not know! That is the method settled on; neighborhood of Berlin, clearly somewhere there, must be the place? Old Castle of Mittenwalde, in the Wusterhausen environs, let that be the first resting-point, then; Rochow, Waldau, and the Wesel Fusileer-Colonel here, sure men, with a trooper or two for escort, shall conduct the Prisoner. By Treuenbrietzen, by circuitous roads: swift, silent, steady,--and with vigilance, as you shall answer!--These preliminaries settled, Friedrich Wilhelm drives off homewards, black Care riding behind him. He reaches Berlin, Sunday, 27th August; finds a world gone all to a kind of doomsday with him there, poor gentleman.