HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II. OF PRUSSIA

FREDERICK THE GREAT

By Thomas Carlyle

FREDERICK THE GREAT. 

Book I. -- BIRTH AND PARENTAGE. -- 1712. 

Chapter I. -- PROEM: FRIEDRICH'S HISTORY FROM THE DISTANCE WE ARE AT. 

About fourscore years ago, there used to be seen sauntering on theterraces of Sans Souci, for a short time in the afternoon, or you mighthave met him elsewhere at an earlier hour, riding or driving in a rapidbusiness manner on the open roads or through the scraggy woodsand avenues of that intricate amphibious Potsdam region, a highlyinteresting lean little old man, of alert though slightly stoopingfigure; whose name among strangers was King FRIEDRICH THE SECOND, orFrederick the Great of Prussia, and at home among the common people, whomuch loved and esteemed him, was VATER FRITZ, --Father Fred, --a name offamiliarity which had not bred contempt in that instance. He is a Kingevery inch of him, though without the trappings of a King. Presentshimself in a Spartan simplicity of vesture: no crown but an old militarycocked-hat, --generally old, or trampled and kneaded into absoluteSOFTNESS, if new;--no sceptre but one like Agamemnon's, a walking-stickcut from the woods, which serves also as a riding-stick (with which hehits the horse "between the ears, " say authors);--and for royal robes, a mere soldier's blue coat with red facings, coat likely to be old, andsure to have a good deal of Spanish snuff on the breast of it; rest ofthe apparel dim, unobtrusive in color or out, ending in high over-kneemilitary boots, which may be brushed (and, I hope, kept soft with anunderhand suspicion of oil), but are not permitted to be blackened orvarnished; Day and Martin with their soot-pots forbidden to approach. 

The man is not of godlike physiognomy, any more than of imposing statureor costume: close-shut mouth with thin lips, prominent jaws and nose, receding brow, by no means of Olympian height; head, however, is oflong form, and has superlative gray eyes in it. Not what is called abeautiful man; nor yet, by all appearance, what is called a happy. On the contrary, the face bears evidence of many sorrows, as they aretermed, of much hard labor done in this world; and seems to anticipatenothing but more still coming. Quiet stoicism, capable enough of whatjoy there were, but not expecting any worth mention; great unconsciousand some conscious pride, well tempered with a cheery mockery ofhumor, --are written on that old face; which carries its chin wellforward, in spite of the slight stoop about the neck; snuffy nose ratherflung into the air, under its old cocked-hat, --like an old snuffy lionon the watch; and such a pair of eyes as no man or lion or lynx of thatCentury bore elsewhere, according to all the testimony we have. "Those eyes, " says Mirabeau, "which, at the bidding of his great soul, fascinated you with seduction or with terror _(portaient, au gre de soname heroique, la seduction ou la terreur)_. " [Mirabeau, _HistoireSecrete de la Cour de Berlin, _ Lettre 28?? (24 September, 1786) p. 128(in edition of Paris, 1821)]. Most excellent potent brilliant eyes, swift-darting as the stars, steadfast as the sun; gray, we said, of theazure-gray color; large enough, not of glaring size; the habitualexpression of them vigilance and penetrating sense, rapidity resting ondepth. Which is an excellent combination; and gives us the notion of alambent outer radiance springing from some great inner sea of light andfire in the man. The voice, if he speak to you, is of similarphysiognomy: clear, melodious and sonorous; all tones are in it, fromthat of ingenuous inquiry, graceful sociality, light-flowing banter(rather prickly for most part), up to definite word of command, up todesolating word of rebuke and reprobation; a voice "the clearest andmost agreeable in conversation I ever heard, " says witty Dr. Moore. [Moore, View of Society and Manners in France, Switzerland and Germany(London, 1779), ii. 246. ] "He speaks a great deal, " continues thedoctor; "yet those who hear him, regret that he does not speak a gooddeal more. His observations are always lively, very often just; and fewmen possess the talent of repartee in greater perfection. "

Just about threescore and ten years ago, [A. D. 1856, --17th August, 1786]his speakings and his workings came to finis in this World of Time; andhe vanished from all eyes into other worlds, leaving much inquiry abouthim in the minds of men;--which, as my readers and I may feel too well, is yet by no means satisfied. As to his speech, indeed, though it hadthe worth just ascribed to it and more, and though masses of it weredeliberately put on paper by himself, in prose and verse, and continueto be printed and kept legible, what he spoke has pretty much vanishedinto the inane; and except as record or document of what he did, hardlynow concerns mankind. But the things he did were extremely remarkable;and cannot be forgotten by mankind. Indeed, they bear such fruit to thepresent hour as all the Newspapers are obliged to be taking note of, sometimes to an unpleasant degree. Editors vaguely account this man the"Creator of the Prussian Monarchy;" which has since grown so largein the world, and troublesome to the Editorial mind in this and othercountries. He was indeed the first who, in a highly public manner, notified its creation; announced to all men that it was, in very deed, created; standing on its feet there, and would go a great way, on theimpulse it had got from him and others. As it has accordingly done; andmay still keep doing to lengths little dreamt of by the British Editorin our time; whose prophesyings upon Prussia, and insights into Prussia, in its past, or present or future, are truly as yet inconsiderable, inproportion to the noise he makes with them! The more is the pity forhim, --and for myself too in the Enterprise now on hand. 

It is of this Figure, whom we see by the mind's eye in those Potsdamregions, visible for the last time seventy years ago, that we are now totreat, in the way of solacing ingenuous human curiosity. We are to tryfor some Historical Conception of this Man and King; some answer to thequestions, "What was he, then? Whence, how? And what did he achieve andsuffer in the world?"--such answer as may prove admissible to ingenuousmankind, especially such as may correspond to the Fact (which standsthere, abstruse indeed, but actual and unalterable), and so be sure ofadmissibility one day. 

An Enterprise which turns out to be, the longer one looks at it, themore of a formidable, not to say unmanageable nature! Concerning which, on one or two points, it were good, if conveniently possible, to cometo some preliminary understanding with the reader. Here, flying on looseleaves, are certain incidental utterances, of various date: these, asthe topic is difficult, I will merely label and insert, instead ofa formal Discourse, which were too apt to slide into something of aLamentation, or otherwise take an unpleasant turn. 

1. FRIEDRICH THEN, AND FRIEDRICH NOW. 

This was a man of infinite mark to his contemporaries; who had witnessedsurprising feats from him in the world; very questionable notions andways, which he had contrived to maintain against the world and itscriticisms. As an original man has always to do; much more an originalruler of men. The world, in fact, had tried hard to put him down, as itdoes, unconsciously or, consciously, with all such; and after themost conscious exertions, and at one time a dead-lift spasm of all itsenergies for Seven Years, had not been able. Principalities and powers, Imperial, Royal, Czarish, Papal, enemies innumerable as the seasand, had risen against him, only one helper left among the world's Potentates(and that one only while there should be help rendered in return); andhe led them all such a dance as had astonished mankind and them. 

No wonder they thought him worthy of notice. Every original man of anymagnitude is;--nay, in the long-run, who or what else is? But how muchmore if your original man was a king over men; whose movements werepolar, and carried from day to day those of the world along with them. The Samson Agonistes, --were his life passed like that of Samuel Johnsonin dirty garrets, and the produce of it only some bits of writtenpaper, --the Agonistes, and how he will comport himself in the Philistinemill; this is always a spectacle of truly epic and tragic nature. Therather, if your Samson, royal or other, is not yet blinded or subduedto the wheel; much more if he vanquish his enemies, not by suicidalmethods, but march out at last flourishing his miraculous fightingimplement, and leaving their mill and them in quite ruinouscircumstances. As this King Friedrich fairly managed to do. 

For he left the world all bankrupt, we may say; fallen into bottomlessabysses of destruction; he still in a paying condition, and withfooting capable to carry his affairs and him. When he died, in 1786, theenormous Phenomenon since called FRENCH REVOLUTION was already growlingaudibly in the depths of the world; meteoric-electric coruscationsheralding it, all round the horizon. Strange enough to note, oneof Friedrich's last visitors was Gabriel Honore Riquetti, Comte deMirabeau. These two saw one another; twice, for half an hour each time. The last of the old Gods and the first of the modern Titans;--beforePelion leapt on Ossa; and the foul Earth taking fire at last, its vilemephitic elements went up in volcanic thunder. This also is one of thepeculiarities of Friedrich, that he is hitherto the last of theKings; that he ushers in the French Revolution, and closes an Epoch ofWorld-History. Finishing off forever the trade of King, think many; whohave grown profoundly dark as to Kingship and him. 

The French Revolution may be said to have, for about half a century, quite submerged Friedrich, abolished him from the memories of men;and now on coming to light again, he is found defaced under strangemud-incrustations, and the eyes of mankind look at him from a singularlychanged, what we must call oblique and perverse point of vision. This isone of the difficulties in dealing with his History;--especially if youhappen to believe both in the French Revolution and in him; that is tosay, both that Real Kingship is eternally indispensable, and also thatthe destruction of Sham Kingship (a frightful process) is occasionallyso. On the breaking-out of that formidable Explosion, and Suicide of hisCentury, Friedrich sank into comparative obscurity; eclipsed amid theruins of that universal earthquake, the very dust of which darkened allthe air, and made of day a disastrous midnight. Black midnight, broken only by the blaze of conflagrations;--wherein, to our terrifiedimaginations, were seen, not men, French and other, but ghastlyportents, stalking wrathful, and shapes of avenging gods. It must beowned the figure of Napoleon was titanic; especially to the generationthat looked on him, and that waited shuddering to be devoured by him. In general, in that French Revolution, all was on a huge scale; if notgreater than anything in human experience, at least more grandiose. Allwas recorded in bulletins, too, addressed to the shilling-gallery; andthere were fellows on the stage with such a breadth of sabre, extent ofwhiskerage, strength of windpipe, and command of men and gunpowder, ashad never been seen before. How they bellowed, stalked and flourishedabout; counterfeiting Jove's thunder to an amazing degree! TerrificDrawcansir figures, of enormous whiskerage, unlimited command ofgunpowder; not without sufficient ferocity, and even a certain heroism, stage-heroism, in them; compared with whom, to the shilling-gallery, andfrightened excited theatre at large, it seemed as if there had beenno generals or sovereigns before; as if Friedrich, Gustavus, Cromwell, William Conqueror and Alexander the Great were not worth speaking ofhenceforth. 

All this, however, in half a century is considerably altered. TheDrawcansir equipments getting gradually torn off, the natural size isseen better; translated from the bulletin style into that of fact andhistory, miracles, even to the shilling-gallery, are not so miraculous. It begins to be apparent that there lived great men before the eraof bulletins and Agamemnon. Austerlitz and Wagram shot away moregunpowder, --gunpowder probably in the proportion of ten to one, or ahundred to one; but neither of them was tenth-part such a beating toyour enemy as that of Rossbach, brought about by strategic art, humaningenuity and intrepidity, and the loss of 165 men. Leuthen, too, thebattle of Leuthen (though so few English readers ever heard of it) mayvery well hold up its head beside any victory gained by Napoleon oranother. For the odds were not far from three to one; the soldiers wereof not far from equal quality; and only the General was consummatelysuperior, and the defeat a destruction. Napoleon did indeed, by immenseexpenditure of men, and gunpowder, overrun Europe for a time: butNapoleon never, by husbanding and wisely expending his men andgunpowder, defended a little Prussia against all Europe, year after yearfor seven years long, till Europe had enough, and gave up the enterpriseas one it could not manage. So soon as the Drawcansir equipments arewell torn off, and the shilling-gallery got to silence, it will be foundthat there were great kings before Napoleon, --and likewise an Artof War, grounded on veracity and human courage and insight, not uponDrawcansir rodomontade, grandiose Dick-Turpinism, revolutionary madness, and unlimited expenditure of men and gunpowder. "You may paint with avery big brush, and yet not be a great painter, " says a satirical friendof mine! This is becoming more and more apparent, as the dust-whirlwind, and huge uproar of the last generation, gradually dies away again. 

2. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 

One of the grand difficulties in a History of Friedrich is, all along, this same, That he lived in a Century which has no History and can havelittle or none. A Century so opulent in accumulated falsities, --sadopulence descending on it by inheritance, always at compound interest, and always largely increased by fresh acquirement on such immensity ofstanding capital;--opulent in that bad way as never Century before was!Which had no longer the consciousness of being false, so false had itgrown; and was so steeped in falsity, and impregnated with it to thevery bone, that--in fact the measure of the thing was full, and a FrenchRevolution had to end it. To maintain much veracity in such an element, especially for a king, was no doubt doubly remarkable. But now, howextricate the man from his Century? How show the man, who is a Realityworthy of being seen, and yet keep his Century, as a Hypocrisy worthy ofbeing hidden and forgotten, in the due abeyance?

To resuscitate the Eighteenth Century, or call into men's view, beyondwhat is necessary, the poor and sordid personages and transactions of anepoch so related to us, can be no purpose of mine on this occasion. TheEighteenth Century, it is well known, does not figure to me as a lovelyone; needing to be kept in mind, or spoken of unnecessarily. To me theEighteenth Century has nothing grand in it, except that grand universalSuicide, named French Revolution, by which it terminated its otherwisemost worthless existence with at least one worthy act;--setting fire toits old home and self; and going up in flames and volcanic explosions, in a truly memorable and important manner. A very fit termination, asI thankfully feel, for such a Century. Century spendthrift, fraudulent-bankrupt; gone at length utterly insolvent, without realMONEY of performance in its pocket, and the shops declining to takehypocrisies and speciosities any farther:--what could the poor Centurydo, but at length admit, "Well, it is so. I am a swindler-century, and have long been, --having learned the trick of it from my father andgrandfather; knowing hardly any trade but that in false bills, which Ithought foolishly might last forever, and still bring at least beefand pudding to the favored of mankind. And behold it ends; and I am adetected swindler, and have nothing even to eat. What remains but thatI blow my brains out, and do at length one true action?" Which the poorCentury did; many thanks to it, in the circumstances. 

For there was need once more of a Divine Revelation to the torpidfrivolous children of men, if they were not to sink altogether intothe ape condition. And in that whirlwind of the Universe, --lightsobliterated, and the torn wrecks of Earth and Hell hurled aloft into theEmpyrean; black whirlwind, which made even apes serious, and drove mostof them mad, --there was, to men, a voice audible; voice from the heartof things once more, as if to say: "Lying is not permitted in thisUniverse. The wages of lying, you behold, are death. Lying meansdamnation in this Universe; and Beelzebub, never so elaborately deckedin crowns and mitres, is NOT God!" This was a revelation truly to benamed of the Eternal, in our poor Eighteenth Century; and has greatlyaltered the complexion of said Century to the Historian ever since. 

Whereby, in short, that Century is quite confiscate, fallen bankrupt, given up to the auctioneers;--Jew-brokers sorting out of it at thismoment, in a confused distressing manner, what is still valuable orsalable. And, in fact, it lies massed up in our minds as a disastrouswrecked inanity, not useful to dwell upon; a kind of dusky chaoticbackground, on which the figures that had some veracity in them--a smallcompany, and ever growing smaller as our demands rise in strictness--aredelineated for us. --"And yet it is the Century of our own Grandfathers?"cries the reader. Yes, reader! truly. It is the ground out of which weourselves have sprung; whereon now we have our immediate footing, andfirst of all strike down our roots for nourishment;--and, alas, in largesections of the practical world, it (what we specially mean by IT)still continues flourishing all round us! To forget it quite is not yetpossible, nor would be profitable. What to do with it, and its forgottenfooleries and "Histories, " worthy only of forgetting?--Well; so much ofit as by nature ADHERES; what of it cannot be disengaged from our Heroand his operations: approximately so much, and no more! Let that be ourbargain in regard to it. 

3. ENGLISH PREPOSSESSIONS. 

With such wagon-loads of Books and Printed Records as exist on thesubject of Friedrich, it has always seemed possible, even fora stranger, to acquire some real understanding of him;--thoughpractically, here and now, I have to own, it proves difficult beyondconception. Alas, the Books are not cosmic, they are chaotic; and turnout unexpectedly void of instruction to us. Small use in a talent ofwriting, if there be not first of all the talent of discerning, ofloyally recognizing; of discriminating what is to be written! Books bornmostly of Chaos--which want all things, even an INDEX--are a painfulobject. In sorrow and disgust, you wander over those multitudinousBooks: you dwell in endless regions of the superficial, of the nugatory:to your bewildered sense it is as if no insight into the real heartof Friedrich and his affairs were anywhere to be had. Truth is, thePrussian Dryasdust, otherwise an honest fellow, and not afraid of labor, excels all other Dryasdusts yet known; I have often sorrowfully feltas if there were not in Nature, for darkness, dreariness, immethodicplatitude, anything comparable to him. He writes big Books wanting inalmost every quality; and does not even give an INDEX to them. He hasmade of Friedrich's History a wide-spread, inorganic, tracklessmatter; dismal to your mind, and barren as a continent of Brandenburgsand!--Enough, he could do no other: I have striven to forgive him. Let the reader now forgive me; and think sometimes what probably myraw-material was!--

Curious enough, Friedrich lived in the Writing Era, --morning of thatstrange Era which has grown to such a noon for us;--and his favoritesociety, all his reign, was with the literary or writing sort. Nor havethey failed to write about him, they among the others, about him andabout him; and it is notable how little real light, on any point of hisexistence or environment, they have managed to communicate. Dim indeed, for most part a mere epigrammatic sputter of darkness visible, is the"picture" they have fashioned to themselves of Friedrich and his Countryand his Century. Men not "of genius, " apparently? Alas, no; men fatallydestitute of true eyesight, and of loyal heart first of all. So far asI have noticed, there was not, with the single exception of Mirabeau forone hour, any man to be called of genius, or with an adequate power ofhuman discernment, that ever personally looked on Friedrich. Had manysuch men looked successively on his History and him, we had not found itnow in such a condition. Still altogether chaotic as a History; fatallydestitute even of the Indexes and mechanical appliances: Friedrich'sself, and his Country, and his Century, still undeciphered; very darkphenomena, all three, to the intelligent part of mankind. 

In Prussia there has long been a certain stubborn though planlessdiligence in digging for the outward details of Friedrich'sLife-History; though as to organizing them, assorting them, or evenputting labels on them; much more as to the least interpretation orhuman delineation of the man and his affairs, --you need not inquirein Prussia. In France, in England, it is still worse. There an immenseignorance prevails even as to the outward facts and phenomena ofFriedrich's life; and instead of the Prussian no-interpretation, youfind, in these vacant circumstances, a great promptitude to interpret. Whereby judgments and prepossessions exist among us on that subject, especially on Friedrich's character, which are very ignorant indeed. 

To Englishmen, the sources of knowledge or conviction about Friedrich, Ihave observed, are mainly these two. FIRST, for his Public Character: itwas an all-important fact, not to IT, but to this country in regard toit, That George II. , seeing good to plunge head-foremost into GermanPolitics, and to take Maria Theresa's side in the Austrian-SuccessionWar of 1740-1748, needed to begin by assuring his Parliament andNewspapers, profoundly dark on the matter, that Friedrich was a robberand villain for taking the other side. Which assurance, resting onwhat basis we shall see by and by, George's Parliament and Newspaperscheerfully accepted; nothing doubting. And they have re-echoed andreverberated it, they and the rest of us, ever since, to all lengths, down to the present day; as a fact quite agreed upon, and thepreliminary item in Friedrich's character. Robber and villain to beginwith; that was one settled point. 

Afterwards when George and Friedrich came to be allies, and the grandfightings of the Seven-Years War took place, George's Parliament andNewspapers settled a second point, in regard to Friedrich: "One of thegreatest soldiers ever born. " This second item the British Writer fullyadmits ever since: but he still adds to it the quality of robber, in aloose way;--and images to himself a royal Dick Turpin, of the kind knownin Review-Articles, and disquisitions on Progress of the Species, andlabels it FREDERICK; very anxious to collect new babblement of lyingAnecdotes, false Criticisms, hungry French Memoirs, which will confirmhim in that impossible idea. Had such proved, on survey, to be thecharacter of Friedrich, there is one British Writer whose curiosityconcerning him would pretty soon have died away; nor could any amount ofunwise desire to satisfy that feeling in fellow-creatures less seriouslydisposed have sustained him alive, in those baleful Historic Acheronsand Stygian Fens, where he has had to dig and to fish so long, far awayfrom the upper light!--Let me request all readers to blow that sorrychaff entirely out of their minds; and to believe nothing on the subjectexcept what they get some evidence for. 

SECOND English source relates to the Private Character. Friedrich'sBiography or Private Character, the English, like the French, havegathered chiefly from a scandalous libel by Voltaire, which used tobe called _ Vie Privee du Roi de Prusse _ (Private Life of the Kingof Prussia) [First printed, from a stolen copy, at Geneva, 1784; firstproved to be Voltaire's (which some of his admirers had striven todoubt), Paris, 1788; stands avowed ever since, in all the Editions ofhis Works (ii. 9-113 of the Edition by Bandouin Freres, 97 vols. , Paris, 1825-1834), under the title _ Memoires pour servir a Vie de M. DeVoltaire, _--with patches of repetition in the thing called _CommentaireHistorique, _ which follows ibid. At great length. ] libel undoubtedlywritten by Voltaire, in a kind of fury; but not intended to be publishedby him; nay burnt and annihilated, as he afterwards imagined; No line ofwhich, that cannot be otherwise proved, has a right to be believed;and large portions of which can be proved to be wild exaggerations andperversions, or even downright lies, --written in a mood analogous tothe Frenzy of John Dennis. This serves for the Biography or PrivateCharacter of Friedrich; imputing all crimes to him, natural andunnatural;--offering indeed, if combined with facts otherwise known, oreven if well considered by itself, a thoroughly flimsy, incredibleand impossible image. Like that of some flaming Devil's Head, done inphosphorus on the walls of the black-hole, by an Artist whom you hadlocked up there (not quite without reason) overnight. 

Poor Voltaire wrote that _ Vie Privee _ in a state little inferior tothe Frenzy of John Dennis, --how brought about we shall see by and by. And this is the Document which English readers are surest to have read, and tried to credit as far as possible. Our counsel is, Out of windowwith it, he that would know Friedrich of Prussia! Keep it awhile, hethat would know Francois Arouet de Voltaire, and a certain numerousunfortunate class of mortals, whom Voltaire is sometimes capable ofsinking to be spokesman for, in this world!--Alas, go where you will, especially in these irreverent ages, the noteworthy Dead is sure to befound lying under infinite dung, no end of calumnies and stupiditiesaccumulated upon him. For the class we speak of, class of "flunkiesdoing _ saturnalia _ below stairs, " is numerous, is innumerable; and canwell remunerate a "vocal flunky" that will serve their purposes on suchan occasion!--

Friedrich is by no means one of the perfect demigods; and there arevarious things to be said against him with good ground. To the last, a questionable hero; with much in him which one could have wished notthere, and much wanting which one could have wished. But there is onefeature which strikes you at an early period of the inquiry, That in hisway he is a Reality; that he always means what he speaks; grounds hisactions, too, on what he recognizes for the truth; and, in short, hasnothing whatever of the Hypocrite or Phantasm. Which some readers willadmit to be an extremely rare phenomenon. We perceive that this man wasfar indeed from trying to deal swindler-like with the facts aroundhim; that he honestly recognized said facts wherever they disclosedthemselves, and was very anxious also to ascertain their existence wherestill hidden or dubious. For he knew well, to a quite uncommon degree, and with a merit all the higher as it was an unconscious one, howentirely inexorable is the nature of facts, whether recognized or not, ascertained or not; how vain all cunning of diplomacy, management andsophistry, to save any mortal who does not stand on the truth of things, from sinking, in the long-run. Sinking to the very mud-gods, with allhis diplomacies, possessions, achievements; and becoming an unnamableobject, hidden deep in the Cesspools of the Universe. This I hopeto make manifest; this which I long ago discerned for myself, withpleasure, in the physiognomy of Friedrich and his life. Which indeedwas the first real sanction, and has all along been my inducement andencouragement, to study his life and him. How this man, officially aKing withal, comported himself in the Eighteenth Century, and managednot to be a Liar and Charlatan as his Century was, deserves to be seen alittle by men and kings, and may silently have didactic meanings in it. 

He that was honest with his existence has always meaning for us, be heking or peasant. He that merely shammed and grimaced with it, howevermuch, and with whatever noise and trumpet-blowing, he may have cookedand eaten in this world, cannot long have any. Some men do COOKenormously (let us call it COOKING, what a man does in obedience tohis HUNGER merely, to his desires and passions merely), --roastingwhole continents and populations, in the flames of war or otherdiscord;--witness the Napoleon above spoken of. For the appetite of manin that respect is unlimited; in truth, infinite; and the smallest ofus could eat the entire Solar System, had we the chance given, and thencry, like Alexander of Macedon, because we had no more Solar Systems tocook and eat. It is not the extent of the man's cookery that can muchattach me to him; but only the man himself, and what of strength he hadto wrestle with the mud-elements, and what of victory he got for his ownbenefit and mine. 

4. ENCOURAGEMENTS, DISCOURAGEMENTS. 

French Revolution having spent itself, or sunk in France and elsewhereto what we see, a certain curiosity reawakens as to what of greator manful we can discover on the other side of that still troubledatmosphere of the Present and immediate Past. Curiosity quickened, orwhich should be quickened, by the great and all-absorbing question, Howis that same exploded Past ever to settle down again? Not lost forever, it would appear: the New Era has not annihilated the old eras: New Eracould by no means manage that;--never meant that, had it known its ownmind (which it did not): its meaning was and is, to get its own well outof them; to readapt, in a purified shape, the old eras, and appropriatewhatever was true and NOT combustible in them: that was the poor NewEra's meaning, in the frightful explosion it made of itself and itspossessions, to begin with!

And the question of questions now is: What part of that exploded Past, the ruins and dust of which still darken all the air, will continuallygravitate back to us; be reshaped, transformed, readapted, that so, innew figures, under new conditions, it may enrich and nourish us again?What part of it, not being incombustible, has actually gone to flame andgas in the huge world-conflagration, and is now GASEOUS, mounting aloft;and will know no beneficence of gravitation, but mount, and roamupon the waste winds forever, --Nature so ordering it, in spite of anyindustry of Art? This is the universal question of afflicted mankind atpresent; and sure enough it will be long to settle. 

On one point we can answer: Only what of the Past was TRUE will comeback to us. That is the one ASBESTOS which survives all fire, and comesout purified; that is still ours, blessed be Heaven, and only that. Bythe law of Nature nothing more than that; and also, by the samelaw, nothing less than that. Let Art, struggle how it may, for oragainst, --as foolish Art is seen extensively doing in our time, --thereis where the limits of it will be. In which point of view, may notFriedrich, if he was a true man and King, justly excite some curiosityagain; nay some quite peculiar curiosity, as the lost Crowned Realitythere was antecedent to that general outbreak and abolition? To manyit appears certain there are to be no Kings of any sort, no Governmentmore; less and less need of them henceforth, New Era having come. Which is a very wonderful notion; important if true; perhaps still moreimportant, just at present, if untrue! My hopes of presenting, in thisLast of the Kings, an exemplar to my contemporaries, I confess, are nothigh. 

On the whole, it is evident the difficulties to a History of Friedrichare great and many: and the sad certainty is at last forced upon me thatno good Book can, at this time, especially in this country, be writtenon the subject. Wherefore let the reader put up with an indifferentor bad one; he little knows how much worse it could easily havebeen!--Alas, the Ideal of history, as my friend Sauerteig knows, is veryhigh; and it is not one serious man, but many successions of such, andwhole serious generations of such, that can ever again build up Historytowards its old dignity. We must renounce ideals. We must sadly take upwith the mournfulest barren realities;--dismal continents of Brandenburgsand, as in this instance; mere tumbled mountains of marine-stores, without so much as an Index to them!

Has the reader heard of Sauerteig's last batch of _ Springwurzeln, _ arather curious valedictory Piece? "All History is an imprisoned Epic, nay an imprisoned Psalm and Prophecy, " says Sauerteig there. I wish, from my soul, he had DISimprisoned it in this instance! But heonly says, in magniloquent language, how grand it would be ifdisimprisoned;--and hurls out, accidentally striking on this subject, the following rough sentences, suggestive though unpractical, with whichI shall conclude:--

"Schiller, it appears, at one time thought of writing an _ Epic Poemupon Friedrich the Great, _ 'upon some action of Friedrich's, ' Schillersays. Happily Schiller did not do it. By oversetting fact, disregardingreality, and tumbling time and space topsy-turvy, Schiller with his finegifts might no doubt have written a temporary 'epic poem, ' of the kindread an admired by many simple persons. But that would have helpedlittle, and could not have lasted long. It is not the untrue imaginaryPicture of a man and his life that I want from my Schiller, but theactual natural Likeness, true as the face itself, nay TRUER, in a sense. Which the Artist, if there is one, might help to give, and the Botcher _(Pfuscher)_ never can! Alas, and the Artist does not even try it; leavesit altogether to the Botcher, being busy otherwise!--

"Men surely will at length discover again, emerging from these dismalbewilderments in which the modern Ages reel and stagger this long while, that to them also, as to the most ancient men, all Pictures that cannotbe credited are--Pictures of an idle nature; to be mostly swept out ofdoors. Such veritably, were it never so forgotten, is the law! Mistakesenough, lies enough will insinuate themselves into our most earnestportrayings of the True: but that we should, deliberately and offorethought, rake together what we know to be not true, and introducethat in the hope of doing good with it? I tell you, such practice wasunknown in the ancient earnest times; and ought again to become unknownexcept to the more foolish classes!" That is Sauerteig's strange notion, not now of yesterday, as readers know:--and he goes then into "Homer'sIliad, " the "Hebrew Bible, " "terrible Hebrew VERACITY of every line ofit;" discovers an alarming "kinship of Fiction to lying;" and asks, If anybody can compute "the damage we poor moderns have got from ourpractices of fiction in Literature itself, not to speak of awfullyhigher provinces? Men will either see into all this by and by, "continues he; "or plunge head foremost, in neglect of all this, whitherthey little dream as yet!--

"But I think all real Poets, to this hour, are Psalmists and Iliadistsafter their sort; and have in them a divine impatience of lies, a divineincapacity of living among lies. Likewise, which is a corollary, thatthe highest Shakspeare producible is properly the fittest Historianproducible;--and that it is frightful to see the _ Gelehrte Dummkopf _[what we here may translate, DRYASDUST] doing the function of History, and the Shakspeare and the Goethe neglecting it. 'Interpreting events;'interpreting the universally visible, entirely INdubitable Revelationof the Author of this Universe: how can Dryasdust interpret such things, the dark chaotic dullard, who knows the meaning of nothing cosmic ornoble, nor ever will know? Poor wretch, one sees what kind of meaningHE educes from Man's History, this long while past, and has got all theworld to believe of it along with him. Unhappy Dryasdust, thrice-unhappyworld that takes Dryasdust's reading of the ways of God! But whatelse was possible? They that could have taught better were engagedin fiddling; for which there are good wages going. And our damagetherefrom, our DAMAGE, --yes, if thou be still human and notcormorant, --perhaps it will transcend all Californias, English NationalDebts, and show itself incomputable in continents of Bullion!--

"Believing that mankind are not doomed wholly to dog-like annihilation, I believe that much of this will mend. I believe that the world will notalways waste its inspired men in mere fiddling to it. That the manof rhythmic nature will feel more and more his vocation towards theInterpretation of Fact; since only in the vital centre of that, couldwe once get thither, lies all real melody; and that he will become, he, once again the Historian of Events, --bewildered Dryasdust having at lastthe happiness to be his servant, and to have some guidance from him. Which will be blessed indeed. For the present, Dryasdust strikes melike a hapless Nigger gone masterless: Nigger totally unfit forself-guidance; yet without master good or bad; and whose feats in thatcapacity no god or man can rejoice in. 

"History, with faithful Genius at the top and faithful Industry atthe bottom, will then be capable of being written. History will thenactually BE written, --the inspired gift of God employing itself toilluminate the dark ways of God. A thing thrice-pressingly needful tobe done!--Whereby the modern Nations may again become a little lessgodless, and again have their 'epics' (of a different from the Schillersort), and again have several things they are still more fatally in wantof at present!"--

So that, it would seem, there WILL gradually among mankind, if Friedrichlast some centuries, be a real Epic made of his History? That is tosay (presumably), it will become a perfected Melodious Truth, and dulysignificant and duly beautiful bit of Belief, to mankind; the essence ofit fairly evolved from all the chaff, the portrait of it actually given, and its real harmonies with the laws of this Universe brought out, in bright and dark, according to the God's Fact as it was; which poorDryasdust and the Newspapers never could get sight of, but were alwaysfar from!--

Well, if so, --and even if not quite so, --it is a comfort to reflect thatevery true worker (who has blown away chaff &c. ), were his contributionno bigger than my own, may have brought the good result NEARER by ahand-breadth or two. And so we will end these preludings, and proceedupon our Problem, courteous reader. 

Chapter II. -- FRIEDRICH'S BIRTH. 

Friedrich of Brandenburg-Hohenzollern, who came by course of naturalsuccession to be Friedrich II. Of Prussia, and is known in these agesas Frederick the Great, was born in the palace of Berlin, about noon, on the 24th of January, 1712. A small infant, but of great promise orpossibility; and thrice and four times welcome to all sovereign andother persons in the Prussian Court, and Prussian realms, in those coldwinter days. His Father, they say, was like to have stifled him with hiscaresses, so overjoyed was the man; or at least to have scorched himin the blaze of the fire; when happily some much suitabler female nursesnatched this little creature from the rough paternal paws, --and savedit for the benefit of Prussia and mankind. If Heaven will but pleaseto grant it length of life! For there have already been two littlePrincekins, who are both dead; this Friedrich is the fourth child; andonly one little girl, wise Wilhelmina, of almost too sharp wits, andnot too vivacious aspect, is otherwise yet here of royal progeny. Itis feared the Hohenzollern lineage, which has flourished here with suchbeneficent effect for three centuries now, and been in truth the verymaking of the Prussian Nation, may be about to fail, or pass intosome side branch. Which change, or any change in that respect, isquestionable, and a thing desired by nobody. 

Five years ago, on the death of the first little Prince, there hadsurmises risen, obscure rumors and hints, that the Princess Royal, mother of the lost baby, never would have healthy children, or evennever have a child more: upon which, as there was but one otherresource, --a widowed Grandfather, namely, and except the Prince Royalno son to him, --said Grandfather, still only about fifty, did take thenecessary steps: but they have been entirely unsuccessful; no new sonor child, only new affliction, new disaster has resulted from that thirdmarriage of his. And though the Princess Royal has had another littlePrince, that too has died within the year;--killed, some say on theother hand, by the noise of the cannon firing for joy over it! [Forster, _ Friedrich Wilhelm I. , Konig von Preussen _ (Potsdam, 1834), i. 126(who quotes Morgenstern, a contemporary reporter). But see also Preuss, _ Friedrich der Grosse mit seinen Verwandten und Freunden _ (Berlin, 1838), pp. 379-380] Yes; and the first baby Prince, these same partiesfarther say, was crushed to death by the weighty dress you put upon itat christening time, especially by the little crown it wore, which hadleft a visible black mark upon the poor soft infant's brow! In short, itis a questionable case; undoubtedly a questionable outlook for Prussianmankind; and the appearance of this little Prince, a third trump-card inthe Hohenzollern game, is an unusually interesting event. The joyover him, not in Berlin Palace only, but in Berlin City, and over thePrussian Nation, was very great and universal;--still testifiedin manifold dull, unreadable old pamphlets, records official andvolunteer, --which were then all ablaze like the bonfires, and are nowfallen dark enough, and hardly credible even to the fancy of this newTime. 

The poor old Grandfather, Friedrich I. (the first King ofPrussia), --for, as we intimate, he was still alive, and not veryold, though now infirm enough, and laden beyond his strength withsad reminiscences, disappointments and chagrins, --had taken much toWilhelmina, as she tells us; [_ Memoires de Frederique Sophie Wilhelminede Prusse, Margrave de Bareith, Soeur d Frederic-le-Grand _ (London, 1812), i. 5. ] and would amuse himself whole days with the pranks andprattle of the little child. Good old man: he, we need not doubt, brightened up into unusual vitality at sight of this invaluable littleBrother of hers; through whom he can look once more into the waste dimfuture with a flicker of new hope. Poor old man: he got his own backhalf-broken by a careless nurse letting him fall; and has slightlystooped ever since, some fifty and odd years now: much against his will;for he would fain have been beautiful; and has struggled all his days, very hard if not very wisely, to make his existence beautiful, --to makeit magnificent at least, and regardless of expense;--and it threatens tocome to little. Courage, poor Grandfather: here is a new second editionof a Friedrich, the first having gone off with so little effect: thisone's back is still unbroken, his life's seedfield not yet filled withtares and thorns: who knows but Heaven will be kinder to this one?Heaven was much kinder to this one. Him Heaven had kneaded of morepotent stuff: a mighty fellow this one, and a strange; related not onlyto the Upholsteries and Heralds' Colleges, but to the Sphere-harmoniesand the divine and demonic powers; of a swift far-darting nature thisone, like an Apollo clad in sunbeams and in lightnings (after his sort);and with a back which all the world could not succeed in breaking!--Yes, if, by most rare chance, this were indeed a new man of genius, borninto the purblind rotting Century, in the acknowledged rank of a kingthere, --man of genius, that is to say, man of originality and veracity;capable of seeing with his eyes, and incapable of not believing whathe sees;--then truly!--But as yet none knows; the poor old Grandfathernever knew. 

Meanwhile they christened the little fellow, with immense magnificenceand pomp of apparatus; Kaiser Karl, and the very Swiss Republic beingthere (by proxy), among the gossips; and spared no cannon-volleyings, kettle-drummings, metal crown, heavy cloth-of-silver, for the poor softcreature's sake; all of which, however, he survived. The name given himwas Karl Friedrich (Charles Frederick); Karl perhaps, and perhaps alsonot, in delicate compliment to the chief gossip, the above-mentioned. Kaiser, Karl or Charles VI. ? At any rate, the KARL, gradually or fromthe first, dropped altogether out of practice, and went as nothing:he himself, or those about him, never used it; nor, except in somedim English pamphlet here and there, have I met with any trace of it. Friedrich (RICH-in-PEACE, a name of old prevalence in the Hohenzollernkindred), which he himself wrote FREDERIC in his French way, and at lasteven FEDERIC (with a very singular sense of euphony), is throughout, andwas, his sole designation. Sunday 31st January, 1712, age then preciselyone week: then, and in this manner, was he ushered on the scene, andlabelled among his fellow-creatures. We must now look round a little;and see, if possible by any method or exertion, what kind of scene itwas. 

Chapter III. -- FATHER AND MOTHER: THE HANOVERIAN CONNECTION. 

Friedrich Wilhelm, Crown-Prince of Prussia, son of Friedrich I. AndFather of this little infant who will one day be Friedrich II. , didhimself make some noise in the world as second King of Prussia; notablenot as Friedrich's father alone; and will much concern us during therest of his life. He is, at this date, in his twenty-fourth year: athick-set, sturdy, florid, brisk young fellow; with a jovial laugh inhim, yet of solid grave ways, occasionally somewhat volcanic; much givento soldiering, and out-of-door exercises, having little else to doat present. He has been manager, or, as it were, Vice-King, on anoccasional absence of his Father; he knows practically what the stateof business is; and greatly disapproves of it, as is thought. Butbeing bound to silence on that head, he keeps silence, and meddles withnothing political. He addicts himself chiefly to mustering, drilling andpractical military duties, while here at Berlin; runs out, often enough, wife and perhaps a comrade or two along with him, to hunt, and take hisease, at Wusterhausen (some fifteen or twenty miles [English miles, --asalways unless the contrary be stated. The German MEILE is about fivemiles English; German STUNDE about three. ] southeast of Berlin), wherehe has a residence amid the woody moorlands. 

But soldiering is his grand concern. Six years ago, summer 1706, [Forster, i. 116] at a very early age, he went to the wars, --grandSpanish-Succession War, which was then becoming very fierce in theNetherlands; Prussian troops always active on the Marlborough-Eugeneside. He had just been betrothed, was not yet wedded; thought good toturn the interim to advantage in that way. Then again, spring 1709, after his marriage and after his Father's marriage, "the Court beingfull of intrigues, " and nothing but silence recommendable there, acertain renowned friend of his, Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau, ofwhom we shall yet hear a great deal, --who, still only about thirty, hadalready covered himself with laurels in those wars (Blenheim, Bridgeof Casano, Lines of Turin, and other glories), but had now got intointricacies with the weaker sort, and was out of command, --agreedwith Friedrich Wilhelm that it would be well to go and serve there asvolunteers, since not otherwises. [Varnhagen von Ense, _ Furst Leopoldvon Anhalt-Dessau _ (in _ Biographische Denkmale, _ 2d edition, Berlin, 1845), p. 185. _ Thaten und Leben des weltberuhmten Furstens Leopoldivon Anhalt-Dessau _ (Leipzig, 1742), p. 73. Forster, i. 129. ] ACrown-Prince of Prussia, ought he not to learn soldiering, of allthings; by every opportunity? Which Friedrich Wilhelm did, withindustry; serving zealous apprenticeship under Marlborough and Eugene, in this manner; plucking knowledge, as the bubble reputation, and allelse in that field has to be plucked, from the cannon's mouth. FriedrichWilhelm kept by Marlborough, now as formerly; friend Leopold beingcommonly in Eugene's quarter, who well knew the worth of him, ever sinceBlenheim and earlier. Friedrich Wilhelm saw hot service, that campaignof 1709; siege of Tournay, and far more;--stood, among other things, thefiery Battle of Malplaquet, one of the terriblest and deadliest feats ofwar ever done. No want of intrepidity and rugged soldier-virtue in thePrussian troops or their Crown-Prince; least of all on that terribleday, 11th September, 1709;--of which he keeps the anniversary eversince, and will do all his life, the doomsday of Malplaquet always amemorable day to him. [Forster, i. 138. ] He is more and more intimatewith Leopold, and loves good soldiering beyond all things. Here atBerlin he has already got a regiment of his own, tallish fine men; andstrives to make it in all points a very pattern of a regiment. 

For the rest, much here is out of joint, and far from satisfactory tohim. Seven years ago [1st February, 1705. ] he lost his own brave Motherand her love; of which we must speak farther by and by. In her steadhe has got a fantastic, melancholic, ill-natured Stepmother, with whomthere was never any good to be done; who in fact is now fairly mad, and kept to her own apartments. He has to see here, and say little, a chagrined heart-worn Father flickering painfully amid a scene muchfilled with expensive futile persons, and their extremely pitiful cabalsand mutual rages; scene chiefly of pompous inanity, and the art ofsolemnly and with great labor doing nothing. Such waste of labor and ofmeans: what can one do but be silent? The other year, Preussen (PRUSSIAProper, province lying far eastward, out of sight) was sinking underpestilence and black ruin and despair: the Crown-Prince, contrary towont, broke silence, and begged some dole or subvention for these poorpeople; but there was nothing to be had. Nothing in the treasury, yourRoyal Highness:--Preussen will shift for itself; sublime dramaturgy, which we call his Majesty's Government, costs so much! And Preussen, mown away by death, lies much of it vacant ever since; which hascompleted the Crown-Prince's disgust; and, I believe, did produce somechange of ministry, or other ineffectual expedient, on the old Father'spart. Upon which the Crown-Prince locks up his thoughts again. He hasconfused whirlpools, of Court intrigues, ceremonials, and troublesomefantasticalities, to steer amongst; which he much dislikes, no man more;having an eye and heart set on the practical only, and being in mind asin body something of the genus ROBUSTUM, of the genus FEROX withal. Hehas been wedded six years; lost two children, as we saw; and now againhe has two living. 

His wife, Sophie Dorothee of Hanover, is his cousin as well. She isbrother's-daughter of his Mother, Sophie Charlotte: let the readerlearn to discriminate these two names. Sophie Charlotte, late Queen ofPrussia, was also of Hanover: she probably had sometimes, in her quietmotherly thought, anticipated this connection for him, while she yetlived. It is certain Friedrich Wilhelm was carried to Hanover in earlychildhood: his Mother, --that Sophie Charlotte, a famed Queen and ladyin her day, Daughter of Electress Sophie, and Sister of the George whobecame George I. Of England by and by, --took him thither; some timeabout the beginning of 1693, his age then five; and left him there ontrial; alleging, and expecting, he might have a better breeding there. And this, in a Court where Electress Sophie was chief lady, and ElectorErnst, fit to be called Gentleman Ernst, ["Her Highness (the ElectressSophie) has the character of the merry debonnaire Princess of Germany;a lady of extraordinary virtues and accomplishments; mistress of theItalian, French, High and Low Dutch, and English languages, which shespeaks to perfection. Her husband (Elector Ernst) has the title of theGentleman of Germany; a graceful and, " &c. &c. W. Carr, _ Remarks ofthe Governments of the severall Parts of Germanie, Denmark, Sweedland_ (Amsterdam, 1688), p. 147. See also _ Ker of Kersland _ (still moreemphatic on this point, _ soepius _)] the politest of men, was chieflord, --and where Leibnitz, to say nothing of lighter notabilities, wasflourishing, --seemed a reasonable expectation. Nevertheless, it came tonothing, this articulate purpose of the visit; though perhaps the deepersilent purposes of it might not be quite unfulfilled. 

Gentleman Ernst had lately been made "Elector" (_ Kurfurst, _ insteadof _ Herzog _), --his Hanover no longer a mere Sovereign Duchy, but anElectorate henceforth, new "NINTH Electorate, " by Ernst's life-longexertion and good luck;--which has spread a fine radiance, for the time, over court and people in those parts; and made Ernst a happier man thanever, in his old age. Gentleman Ernst and Electress Sophie, we need notdoubt, were glad to see their burly Prussian grandson, --a robust, rather mischievous boy of five years old;--and anything that brought herDaughter oftener about her (an only Daughter too, and one so gifted) wassure to be welcome to the cheery old Electress, and her Leibnitz and hercircle. For Sophie Charlotte was a bright presence, and a favorite withsage and gay. 

Uncle George again, "_ Kurprinz _ Georg Ludwig" (Electoral Prince andHeir-Apparent), who became George I. Of England; he, always a taciturn, saturnine, somewhat grim-visaged man, not without thoughts of his ownbut mostly inarticulate thoughts, was, just at this time, in a deepdomestic intricacy. Uncle George the Kurprinz was painfully detecting, in these very months, that his august Spouse and cousin, a brilliant notuninjured lady, had become an indignant injuring one; that she had gone, and was going, far astray in her walk of life! Thus all is not radianceat Hanover either, Ninth Elector though we are; but, in the softsunlight, there quivers a streak of the blackness of very Erebus withal. Kurprinz George, I think, though he too is said to have been good to theboy, could not take much interest in this burly Nephew of his just now!

Sure enough, it was in this year 1693, that the famed Konigsmark tragedycame ripening fast towards a crisis in Hanover; and next year thecatastrophe arrived. A most tragic business; of which the little Boy, now here, will know more one day. Perhaps it was on this very visit, onone visit it credibly was, that Sophie Charlotte witnessed a sad scenein the Schloss of Hanover high words rising, where low cooings hadbeen more appropriate; harsh words, mutually recriminative, rising everhigher; ending, it is thought, in THINGS, or menaces and motions towardsthings (actual box on the ear, some call it), --never to be forgottenor forgiven! And on Sunday 1st of July, 1694, Colonel Count PhilipKonigsmark, Colonel in the Hanover Dragoons, was seen for the last timein this world. From that date, he has vanished suddenly underground, in an inscrutable manner: never more shall the light of the sun, or anyhuman eye behold that handsome blackguard man. Not for a hundred andfifty years shall human creatures know, or guess with the smallestcertainty, what has become of him. 

And shortly after Konigsmark's disappearance, there is this sadphenomenon visible: A once very radiant Princess (witty, haughty-minded, beautiful, not wise or fortunate) now gone all ablaze into angry tragicconflagration; getting locked into the old Castle of Ahlden, in themoory solitudes of Luneburg Heath: to stay there till she die, --thirtyyears as it proved, --and go into ashes and angry darkness as she may. Old peasants, late in the next century, will remember that they usedto see her sometimes driving on the Heath, --beautiful lady, long blackhair, and the glitter of diamonds in it; sometimes the reins in her ownhand, but always with a party of cavalry round her, and their swordsdrawn. [_ Die Herzogin von Ahlden _ (Leipzig, 1852), p. 22. Divorce was, 28th December, 1694; death, 13th November, 1726, --age then 60. ] "Duchessof Ahlden, " that was her title in the eclipsed state. Born Princess ofZelle; by marriage, Princess of Hanover (_ Kurprinzessin _); wouldhave been Queen of England, too, had matters gone otherwise than theydid. --Her name, like that of a little Daughter she had, is SophieDorothee: she is Cousin and Divorced Wife of Kurprinz George; divorced, and as it were abolished alive, in this manner. She is little FriedrichWilhelm's Aunt-in-law; and her little Daughter comes to be his Wife inprocess of time. Of him, or of those belonging to him, she took smallnotice, I suppose, in her then mood, the crisis coming on so fast. Inher happier innocent days she had two children, a King that is to be, and a Queen; George II. Of England, Sophie Dorothee of Prussia; but mustnot now call them hers, or ever see them again. 

This was the Konigsmark tragedy at Hanover; fast ripening towards itscatastrophe while little Friedrich Wilhelm was there. It has been, eversince, a rumor and dubious frightful mystery to mankind: but withinthese few years, by curious accidents (thefts, discoveries of writtendocuments, in various countries, and diligent study of them), it has atlength become a certainty and clear fact, to those who are curious aboutit. Fact surely of a rather horrible sort;--yet better, I must say, than was suspected: not quite so bad in the state of fact as in thatof rumor. Crime enough is in it, sin and folly on both sides; there iskilling too, but NOT assassination (as it turns out); on the wholethere is nothing of atrocity, or nothing that was not accidental, unavoidable;--and there is a certain greatness of DECORUM on the partof those Hanover Princes and official gentlemen, a depth of silence, of polite stoicism, which deserves more praise than it will get in ourtimes. Enough now of the Konigsmark tragedy; [A considerable dreary massof books, pamphlets, lucubrations, false all and of no worth or of less, have accumulated on this dark subject, during the last hundred and fiftyyears; nor has the process yet stopped, --as it now well might. For therehave now two things occurred in regard to it FIRST: In the year 1847, a Swedish Professor, named Palmblad, groping about for other objects inthe College Library of Lund (which is in the country of the Konigsmarkconnections), came upon a Box of Old Letters, --Letters undated, signedonly with initials, and very enigmatic till well searched into, --whichhave turned out to be the very Autographs of the Princess and herKonigsmark; throwing of course a henceforth indisputable light on theirrelation. SECOND THING: A cautious exact old gentleman, of diplomatichabits (understood to be "Count Von Schulenburg-Klosterrode ofDresden"), has, since that event, unweariedly gone into the wholematter; and has brayed it everywhere, and pounded it small; sifting, with sublime patience, not only those Swedish Autographs, but the wholemass of lying books, pamphlets, hints and notices, old and recent; andbringing out (truly in an intricate and thrice-wearisome, but for thefirst time in an authentic way) what real evidence there is. In whichevidence the facts, or essential fact, lie at last indisputable enough. His Book, thick Pamphlet rather, is that same _ Herzogin von Ahlden _(Leipzig, 1852) cited above. The dreary wheelbarrowful of others I hadrather not mention again; but leave Count von Schulenburg to mention anddescribe them, --which he does abundantly, so many as had accumulated upto that date of 1852, to the affliction more or less of sane mankind. ]contemporaneous with Friedrich Wilhelm's stay at Hanover, but nototherwise much related to him or his doings there. 

He got no improvement in breeding, as we intimated; none at all; fought, on the contrary, with his young Cousin (afterwards our George II. ), aboy twice his age, though of weaker bone; and gave him a bloody nose. Tothe scandal and consternation of the French Protestant gentlewomen andcourt-dames in their stiff silks: "Ahee, your Electoral Highness!" Thishad been a rough unruly boy from the first discovery of him. At a veryearly stage, he, one morning while the nurses were dressing him, took toinvestigating one of his shoe buckles; would, in spite of remonstrances, slobber it about in his mouth; and at length swallowed it down, --beyondmistake; and the whole world cannot get it up! Whereupon, wild wail ofnurses; and his "Mother came screaming, " poor mother:--It is the samesmall shoe-buckle which is still shown, with a ticket and date to it, "31 December, 1692, " in the Berlin _ Kunstkammer _; for it turned outharmless, after all the screaming; and a few grains of rhubarbrestored it safely to the light of day; henceforth a thrice-memorableshoe-buckle. [Forster, i. 74. Erman, _ Memoires de Sophie Charlotte _(Berlin, 1801), p. 130. ]

Another time, it is recorded, though with less precision of detail, hisGoverness the Dame Montbail having ordered him to do something which wasintolerable to the princely mind, the princely mind resisted in a verystrange way: the princely body, namely, flung itself suddenly out of athird-story window, nothing but the hands left within; and hanging onthere by the sill, and fixedly resolute to obey gravitation rather thanMontbail, soon brought the poor lady to terms. Upon which, indeed, hehad been taken from her, and from the women altogether, as evidently nowneeding rougher government. Always an unruly fellow, and dangerousto trust among crockery. At Hanover he could do no good in the way ofbreeding: sage Leibnitz himself, with his big black periwig and largepatient nose, could have put no metaphysics into such a boy. Sublime _Theodicee _ (Leibnitzian "justification of the ways of God") was not anarticle this individual had the least need of, nor at any time the leastvalue for. "Justify? What doomed dog questions it, then? Are youfor Bedlam, then?"--and in maturer years his rattan might have beendangerous! For this was a singular individual of his day; human soulstill in robust health, and not given to spin its bowels into cobwebs. He is known only to have quarrelled much with Cousin George, during theyear or so he spent in those parts. 

But there was another Cousin at Hanover, just one other, little SophieDorothee (called after her mother), a few months older than himself; byall accounts, a really pretty little child, whom he liked a great dealbetter. She, I imagine, was his main resource, while on this Hanovervisit; with her were laid the foundations of an intimacy which ripenedwell afterwards. Some say it was already settled by the parents thatthere was to be a marriage in due time. Settled it could hardly be; forWilhelmina tells us, [_ Memoires de la Margrave de Bareith, _ i. L. ] herFather had a "choice of three" allowed him, on coming to wed; and it isotherwise discernible there had been eclipses and uncertainties, in theinterim, on his part. Settled, no; but hoped and vaguely pre-figured, we may well suppose. And at all events, it has actually come to pass;"Father being ardently in love with the Hanover Princess, " says ourMargravine, "and much preferring her to the other two, " or to any andall others. Wedded, with great pomp, 28th November, 1706; [Forster, i. 117. ]--and Sophie Dorothee, the same that was his pretty little Cousinat Hanover twenty years ago, she is mother of the little Boy now bornand christened, whom men are to call Frederick the Great in cominggenerations. 

Sophie Dorothee is described to us by courtier contemporaries as "oneof the most beautiful princesses of her day:" Wilhelmina, on the otherhand, testifies that she was never strictly to be called beautiful, buthad a pleasant attractive physiognomy; which may be considered betterthan strict beauty. Uncommon grace of figure and look, testifiesWilhelmina; much dignity and soft dexterity, on social occasions;perfect in all the arts of deportment; and left an impression on you atonce kindly and royal. Portraits of her, as Queen at a later age, arefrequent in the Prussian Galleries; she is painted sitting, where I bestremember her. A serious, comely, rather plump, maternal-looking Lady;something thoughtful in those gray still eyes of hers, in the turn ofher face and carriage of her head, as she sits there, consideratelygazing out upon a world which would never conform to her will. Decidedlya handsome, wholesome and affectionate aspect of face. Hanoverian intype, that is to say, blond, florid, slightly PROFUSE;--yet the betterkind of Hanoverian, little or nothing of the worse or at least the worstkind. The eyes, as I say, are gray, and quiet, almost sad; expressive ofreticence and reflection, of slow constancy rather than of SPEED inany kind. One expects, could the picture speak, the querulous soundof maternal and other solicitude; of a temper tending towards theobstinate, the quietly unchangeable;--loyal patience not wanting, yetin still larger measure royal impatience well concealed, and longand carefully cherished. This is what I read in Sophie Dorothee'sPortraits, --probably remembering what I had otherwise read, and come toknow of her. She too will not a little concern us in the first partof this History. I find, for one thing, she had given much of herphysiognomy to the Friedrich now born. In his Portraits as Prince-Royal, he strongly resembles her; it is his mother's face informed with youthand new fire, and translated into the masculine gender: in his laterPortraits, one less and less recognizes the mother. 

Friedrich Wilhelm, now in the sixth year of wedlock, is still very fondof his Sophie Dorothee, --_ "Fiechen" (Feekin_ diminutive of _ Sophie _), as he calls her; she also having, and continuing to have, the due wife'sregard for her solid, honest, if somewhat explosive bear. He troublesher a little now and then, it is said, with whiffs of jealousy; but theyare whiffs only, the product of accidental moodinesses in him, or oftransient aspects, misinterpreted, in the court-life of a young andpretty woman. As the general rule, he is beautifully good-humored, kindeven, for a bear; and, on the whole, they have begun their partnershipunder good omens. And indeed we may say, in spite of sad tempests thatarose, they continued it under such. She brought him gradually no fewerthan fourteen children, of whom ten survived him and came to maturity:and it is to be admitted their conjugal relation, though a royal, wasalways a human one; the main elements of it strictly observed on bothsides; all quarrels in it capable of being healed again, and the feelingon both sides true, however troublous. A rare fact among royal wedlocks, and perhaps a unique one in that epoch. 

The young couple, as is natural in their present position, have manyeyes upon them, and not quite a paved path in this confused court ofFriedrich I. But they are true to one another; they seem indeed to haveheld well aloof from all public business or private cabal; and go alongsilently expecting, and perhaps silently resolving this and that inthe future tense; but with moderate immunity from paternal or othercriticisms, for the present. The Crown-Prince drills or hunts, with hisGrumkows, Anhalt-Dessaus: these are harmless employments;--and a man mayhave within his own head what thoughts he pleases, without offence solong as he keeps them there. Friedrich the old Grandfather lived onlythirteen months after the birth of his grandson: Friedrich Wilhelm wasthen King; thoughts then, to any length, could become actions on thepart of Friedrich Wilhelm. 

Chapter IV. -- FATHER'S MOTHER. 

Friedrich Wilhelm's Mother, as we hinted, did not live to see thismarriage which she had forecast in her maternal heart. She died, rathersuddenly, in 1705, [1st February (Erman, p. 241; Forster, i. 114): born, 20th October, 1666; wedded, 28th September 1684; died, 1st February, 1705. ] at Hanover, whither she had gone on a visit; shortly afterparting with this her one boy and child, Friedrich Wilhelm, who is thenabout seventeen; whom she had with effort forced herself to send abroad, that he might see the world a little, for the first time. Her sorrowon this occasion has in it something beautiful, in so bright and gaya woman: shows us the mother strong in her, to a touching degree. Therough cub, in whom she noticed rugged perverse elements, "tendenciesto avarice, " and a want of princely graces, and the more brilliantqualities in mind and manner, had given her many thoughts and someuneasy ones. But he was evidently all she had to love in the world;a rugged creature inexpressibly precious to her. For days after hisdeparture, she had kept solitary; busied with little; indulging inher own sad reflections without stint. Among the papers she had beenscribbling, there was found one slip with a HEART sketched on it, andround the heart "PARTI" (Gone): My heart is gone!--poor lady, and afterwhat a jewel! But Nature is very kind to all children and to all mothersthat are true to her. 

Sophie Charlotte's deep sorrow and dejection on this parting was thesecret herald of fate to herself. It had meant ill health withal, andthe gloom of broken nerves. All autumn and into winter she had feltherself indefinitely unwell; she determined, however, on seeing Hanoverand her good old Mother at the usual time. The gloomy sorrow overFriedrich Wilhelm had been the premonition of a sudden illness whichseized her on the road to Hanover, some five months afterwards, andwhich ended fatally in that city. Her death was not in the light styleFriedrich her grandson ascribes to it; [_ Memoires de Brandebourg _(Preuss's Edition of _ OEuvres, _ Berlin, 1847 et seqq. ), i. 112. ] shedied without epigram, and though in perfect simple courage, with thereverse of levity. 

Here, at first hand, is the specific account of that event; which, as itis brief and indisputable, we may as well fish from the imbroglios, andrender legible, to counteract such notions, and illuminate for momentsan old scene of things. The writing, apparently a quite private piece, is by "M. De la Bergerie, Pastor of the French Church at Hanover, "respectable Edict-of-Nantes gentleman, who had been called in on theoccasion;--gives an authentic momentary picture, though a feeble andvacant one, of a locality at that time very interesting to Englishmen. M. De la Bergerie privately records:--

"The night between the last of January and the first of February, 1705, between one and two o'clock in the morning, I was called to the Queen ofPrussia, who was then dangerously ill. 

"Entering the room, I threw myself at the foot of her bed, testifying toher in words my profound grief to see her in this state. After whichI took occasion to say, 'She might know now that Kings and Queens aremortal equally with all other men; and that they are obliged to appearbefore the throne of the majesty of God, to give an account of theirdeeds done, no less than the meanest of their subjects. ' To which herMajesty replied, 'I know it well (_ Je le sais bien _). '--I went on tosay to her, 'Madam, your Majesty must also recognize in this hour thevanity and nothingness of the things here below, for which, it may be, you have had too much interest; and the importance of the things ofHeaven, which perhaps you have neglected and contemned. ' Thereupon theQueen answered, 'True (_ Cela est vrai _)!' 'Nevertheless, Madam, ' saidI, 'does not your Majesty place really your trust in God? Do you notvery earnestly (_ bien serieusement_) crave pardon of Him for all thesins you have committed? Do not you fly (_ n'a-t-elle pas recours _) tothe blood and merits of Jesus Christ, without which it is impossiblefor us to stand before God?' The Queen answered, '_ Oui _ (Yes). '--Whilethis was going on, her Brother, Duke Ernst August, came into the Queen'sroom, "--perhaps with his eye upon me and my motions?"As they wished tospeak together, I withdrew by order. "

This Duke Ernst August, age now 31, is the youngest Brother of thefamily; there never was any Sister but this dying one, who is fouryears older. Ernst August has some tincture of soldiership at this time(Marlborough Wars, and the like), as all his kindred had; but ultimatelyhe got the Bishopric of Osnabruck, that singular spiritual heirloom, orHALF-heirloom of the family; and there lived or vegetated withoutnoise. Poor soul, he is the same Bishop of Osnabruck, to whose house, twenty-two years hence, George I. , struck by apoplexy, was breathlesslygalloping in the summer midnight, one wish now left in him, to be withhis brother;--and arrived dead, or in the article of death. That wasanother scene Ernst August had to witness in his life. I suspect himat present of a thought that M. De la Bergerie, with his piouscommonplaces, is likely to do no good. Other trait of Ernst August'slife; or of the Schloss of Hanover that night, --or where the sorrowingold Mother sat, invincible though weeping, in some neighboring room, --Icannot give. M. De la Bergerie continues his narrative:--

"Some time after, I again presented myself before the Queen's bed, to see if I could have occasion to speak to her on the matter of hersalvation. But Monseigneur the Duke Ernst August then said to me, Thatit was not necessary; that the Queen was at peace with her God (_ etaitbien avec son Dieu _). "--Which will mean also that M. De la Bergerie maygo home? However, he still writes:--

"Next day the Prince told me, That observing I was come near the Queen'sbed, he had asked her if she wished I should still speak to her; but shehad replied, that it was not necessary in any way (_ nullement _), thatshe already knew all that could be said to her on such an occasion; thatshe had said it to herself, that she was still saying it, and that shehoped to be well with her God. 

"In the end a faint coming upon the Queen, which was what terminatedher life, I threw myself on my knees at the other side of her bed, thecurtains of which were open; and I called to God with a loud voice, 'That He would rank his angels round this great Princess, to guard herfrom the insults of Satan; that He would have pity on her soul; that Hewould wash her with the blood of Jesus Christ her heavenly Spouse; that, having forgiven her all her sins, He would receive her to his glory. 'And in that moment she expired. " [Erman, p. 242. ]--Age thirty-six andsome months. Only Daughter of Electress Sophie; and Father's Mother ofFrederick the Great. 

She was, in her time, a highly distinguished woman; and has left, onemay say, something of her likeness still traceable in the PrussianNation, and its form of culture, to this day. Charlottenburg(Charlotte's-town, so called by the sorrowing Widower), where she lived, shone with a much-admired French light under her presidency, --Frenchessentially, Versaillese, Sceptico-Calvinistic, reflex anddirect, --illuminating the dark North; and indeed has never been sobright since. The light was not what we can call inspired; lunar rather, not of the genial or solar kind: but, in good truth, it was the bestthen going; and Sophie Charlotte, who was her Mother's daughter in thisas in other respects, had made it her own. They were deep in literature, these two Royal Ladies; especially deep in French theological polemics, with a strong leaning to the rationalist side. 

They had stopped in Rotterdam once, on a certain journey homewards fromFlanders and the Baths of Aix-la-Chapelle, to see that admirable sage, the doubter Bayle. Their sublime messenger roused the poor man, in hisgarret there, in the Bompies, --after dark: but he had a headache thatnight; was in bed, and could not come. He followed them nextday; leaving his paper imbroglios, his historical, philosophical, anti-theological marine-stores; and suspended his never-ending scribble, on their behalf;--but would not accept a pension, and give it up. [Erman, pp. 111, 112. Date is 1700 (late in the autumn probably). ]

They were shrewd, noticing, intelligent and lively women; persuaded thatthere was some nobleness for man beyond what the tailor imparts to him;and even very eager to discover it, had they known how. In these verydays, while our little Friedrich at Berlin lies in his cradle, sleepingmost of his time, sage Leibnitz, a rather weak but hugely ingenious oldgentleman, with bright eyes and long nose, with vast black peruke andbandy legs, is seen daily in the Linden Avenue at Hanover (famed LindenAlley, leading from Town Palace to Country one, a couple of miles long, rather disappointing when one sees it), daily driving or walking towardsHerrenhausen, where the Court, where the old Electress is, who will havea touch of dialogue with him to diversify her day. Not very edifyingdialogue, we may fear; yet once more, the best that can be had inpresent circumstances. Here is some lunar reflex of Versailles, whichis a polite court; direct rays there are from the oldest written Gospelsand the newest; from the great unwritten Gospel of the Universe itself;and from one's own real effort, more or less devout, to read all thesearight. Let us not condemn that poor French element of Eclecticism, Scepticism, Tolerance, Theodicea, and Bayle of the Bompies versus theCollege of Saumur. Let us admit that it was profitable, at least that itwas inevitable; let us pity it, and be thankful for it, and rejoice thatwe are well out of it. Scepticism, which is there beginning at the verytop of the world-tree, and has to descend through all the boughs withterrible results to mankind, is as yet pleasant, tinting the leaves withfine autumnal red. 

Sophie Charlotte partook of her Mother's tendencies; and carried themwith her to Berlin, there to be expanded in many ways into amplerfulfilment. She too had the sage Leibnitz often with her, at Berlin; noend to her questionings of him; eagerly desirous to draw water from thatdeep well, --a wet rope, with cobwebs sticking to it, too often all shegot; endless rope, and the bucket never coming to view. Which, however, she took patiently, as a thing according to Nature. She had her learnedBeausobres and other Reverend Edict-of-Nantes gentlemen, famed Berlindivines; whom, if any Papist notability, Jesuit ambassador or the like, happened to be there, she would set disputing with him, in the Soiree atCharlottenburg. She could right well preside over such a battle of theCloud-Titans, and conduct the lightnings softly, without explosions. There is a pretty and very characteristic Letter of hers, still pleasantto read, though turning on theologies now fallen dim enough; addressedto Father Vota, the famous Jesuit, King's-confessor, and diplomatist, from Warsaw, who had been doing his best in one such rencontre beforeher Majesty (date March, 1703), --seemingly on a series of evenings, inthe intervals of his diplomatic business; the Beausobre championsbeing introduced to him successively, one each evening, by Queen SophieCharlotte. To all appearance the fencing had been keen; the lightningsin need of some dexterous conductor. Vota, on his way homeward, hadwritten to apologize for the sputterings of fire struck out of himin certain pinches of the combat; says, It was the rough handling thePrimitive Fathers got from these Beausobre gentlemen, who indeed to me, Vota in person, under your Majesty's fine presidency, were politenessitself, though they treated the Fathers so ill. Her Majesty, withbeautiful art, in this Letter, smooths the raven plumage of Vota;--and, at the same time, throws into him, as with invisible needle-points, an excellent dose of acupuncturation, on the subject of the PrimitiveFathers and the Ecumenic Councils, on her own score. Let us give someExcerpt, in condensed state:--

"How can St. Jerome, for example, be a key to Scripture?" sheinsinuates; citing from Jerome this remarkable avowal of his method ofcomposing books; "especially of his method in that Book, _ Commentary onthe Galatians, _ where he accuses both Peter and Paul of simulation andeven of hypocrisy. The great St. Augustine has been charging him withthis sad fact, " says her Majesty, who gives chapter and verse; ["Epist. 28*, edit. Paris. " And Jerome's answer, "Ibid. Epist. 76*. "] "and Jeromeanswers: 'I followed the Commentaries of Origen, of'"--five or sixdifferent persons, who turned out mostly to be heretics before Jeromehad quite done with them in coming years!--"'And to confess the honesttruth to you, ' continues Jerome, 'I read all that; and after havingcrammed my head with a great many things, I sent for my amanuensis, anddictated to him now my own thoughts, now those of others, without muchrecollecting the order, nor sometimes the words, nor even the sense. 'In another place (in the Book itself farther on [_ "Commentary on theGalatians, _ chap. Iii. "]), he says: 'I do not myself write; I have anamanuensis, and I dictate to him what comes into my mouth. If I wish toreflect a little, to say the thing better or a better thing, he knitshis brows, and the whole look of him tells me sufficiently that hecannot endure to wait. '"--Here is a sacred old gentleman, whom it is notsafe to depend on for interpreting the Scriptures, thinks her Majesty;but does not say so, leaving Father Vota to his reflections. 

Then again, coming to Councils, she quotes St. Gregory Nazianzenupon him; who is truly dreadful in regard to Ecumenic Councils of theChurch, --and indeed may awaken thoughts of Deliberative Assembliesgenerally, in the modern constitutional mind. "He says, [_ "Greg. Nazian. De Vita sua. " _] No Council ever was successful; so many meanhuman passions getting into conflagration there; with noise, withviolence and uproar, 'more like those of a tavern or still worseplace, '--these are his words. He, for his own share, had resolved toavoid all such 'rendezvousing of the Geese and Cranes, flocking togetherto throttle and tatter one another in that sad manner. ' Nor had St. Theodoret much opinion of the Council of Nice, except as a kind ofmiracle. 'Nothing good to be expected from Councils, ' says he, 'exceptwhen God is pleased to interpose, and destroy the machinery of theDevil. '"

--With more of the like sort; all delicate, as invisible needle-points, in her Majesty's hand. [Letter undated (datable "Lutzelburg, March, 1708, ") is to be found entire, with all its adjuncts, in _ Erman, _ pp. 246-255. It was subsequently translated by Toland, and published here, as an excellent Polemical Piece, --entirely forgotten in our time (_ ALetter against Popery by Sophia Charlotte, the late Queen of Prussia:Being, _ &c. &c. London, 1712). But the finest Duel of all was probablythat between Beausobre and Toland himself (reported by Beausobre, insomething of a crowing manner, in _ Erman, _ pp. 203-241, "October, 1701"), of which Toland makes no mention anywhere. ] What is Father Votato say?--The modern reader looks through these chinks into a strange oldscene, the stuff of it fallen obsolete, the spirit of it not, nor worthyto fall. 

These were Sophie Charlotte's reunions; very charming in their time. Atwhich how joyful for Irish Toland to be present, as was several timeshis luck. Toland, a mere broken heretic in his own country, who wentthither once as Secretary to some Embassy (Embassy of Macclesfield's, 1701, announcing that the English Crown had fallen Hanover-wards), andwas no doubt glad, poor headlong soul, to find himself a gentleman andChristian again, for the time being, --admires Hanover and Berlin verymuch; and looks upon Sophie Charlotte in particular as the pink ofwomen. Something between an earthly Queen and a divine Egeria; "Serena"he calls her; and, in his high-flown fashion, is very laudatory. "Themost beautiful Princess of her time, " says he, --meaning one of the mostbeautiful: her features are extremely regular, and full of vivacity;copious dark hair, blue eyes, complexion excellently fair;--"notvery tall, and somewhat too plump, " he admits elsewhere. And thenher mind, --for gifts, for graces, culture, where will you find such amind? "Her reading is infinite, and she is conversant in all manner ofsubjects;" "knows the abstrusest problems of Philosophy;" says admiringToland: much knowledge everywhere exact, and handled as by an artistand queen; for "her wit is inimitable, " "her justness of thought, herdelicacy of expression, " her felicity of utterance and management, aregreat. Foreign courtiers call her "the Republican Queen. " She detectsyou a sophistry at one glance; pierces down direct upon the weak pointof an opinion: never in my whole life did I, Toland, come upon a swifteror sharper intellect. And then she is so good withal, so bright andcheerful; and "has the art of uniting what to the rest of the world areantagonisms, mirth and learning, "--say even, mirth and good sense. Isdeep in music, too; plays daily on her harpsichord, and fantasies, andeven composes, in an eminent manner. [_ An Account of the Courts ofPrussia and Hanover, sent to a Minister of State in Holland, _ by Mr. Toland (London, 1705), p. 322. Toland's other Book, which has referenceto her, is of didactic nature ("immortality of the soul, " "origin ofidolatry, " &c. ), but with much fine panegyric direct and oblique: _Letters to Serena _ ("Serena" being _ Queen _), a thin 8vo, London, 1704. ] Toland's admiration, deducting the high-flown temper and mannerof the man, is sincere and great. 

Beyond doubt a bright airy lady, shining in mild radiance in thoseNorthern parts; very graceful, very witty and ingenious; skilled tospeak, skilled to hold her tongue, --which latter art also was frequentlyin requisition with her. She did not much venerate her Husband, nor theCourt population, male or female, whom he chose to have about him: hisand their ways were by no means hers, if she had cared to publish herthoughts. Friedrich I. , it is admitted on all hands, was "an expensiveHerr;" much given to magnificent ceremonies, etiquettes and solemnities;making no great way any-whither, and that always with noise enough, and with a dust vortex of courtier intrigues and cabals encirclinghim, --from which it is better to stand quite to windward. Moreover, hewas slightly crooked; most sensitive, thin of skin and liable to suddenflaws of temper, though at heart very kind and good. Sophie Charlotte isshe who wrote once, "Leibnitz talked to me of the infinitely little(_ de l'infiniment petit): mon Dieu, _ as if I did not know enough ofthat!" Besides, it is whispered she was once near marrying to LouisXIV. 's Dauphin; her Mother Sophie, and her Cousin the Dowager Duchess ofOrleans, cunning women both, had brought her to Paris in her girlhood, with that secret object; and had very nearly managed it. Queen of Francethat might have been; and now it is but Brandenburg, and the dice havefallen somewhat wrong for us! She had Friedrich Wilhelm, the rough boy;and perhaps nothing more of very precious property. Her first child, likewise a boy, had soon died, and there came no third: tediousceremonials, and the infinitely little, were mainly her lot in thisworld. 

All which, however, she had the art to take up not in the tragic way, but in the mildly comic, --often not to take up at all, but leave lyingthere;--and thus to manage in a handsome and softly victorious manner. With delicate female tact, with fine female stoicism too; keeping allthings within limits. She was much respected by her Husband, much lovedindeed; and greatly mourned for by the poor man: the village Lutzelburg(Little-town), close by Berlin, where she had built a mansion forherself, he fondly named _ Charlottenburg _ (Charlotte's-town), afterher death, which name both House and Village still bear. Leibnitz foundher of an almost troublesome sharpness of intellect; "wants to knowthe why even of the why, " says Leibnitz. That is the way of femaleintellects when they are good; nothing equals their acuteness, and theirrapidity is almost excessive. Samuel Johnson, too, had a young-ladyfriend once "with the acutest intellect I have ever known. "

On the whole, we may pronounce her clearly a superior woman, this SophieCharlotte; notable not for her Grandson alone, though now pretty muchforgotten by the world, --as indeed all things and persons have, one dayor other, to be! A LIFE of her, in feeble watery style, and distractedarrangement, by one _ Erman, _ [Monsieur Erman, Historiographe deBrandebourg, _ Memoires pour servir a l'Histoire de Sophie Charlotte, Reine de Preusse, las dans les Seances, &c. _ (1 vol. 8vo, Berlin, 1801. )] a Berlin Frenchman, is in existence, and will repay a cursoryperusal; curious traits of her, in still looser form, are also to befound in _ Pollnitz: _[Carl Ludwig Freiherr von Pollnitz, _ Memoirenzur Lebens-und Regierungs-Geschichte der vier letzten Regenten desPreussischen Staats _ (was published in French also), 2 vols. 12mo, Berlin, 1791. ] but for our purposes here is enough, and more thanenough. 

Chapter V. -- KING FRIEDRICH I. 

The Prussian royalty is now in its twelfth year when this littleFriedrich, who is to carry it to such a height, comes into the world. Old Friedrich the Grandfather achieved this dignity, after long andintricate negotiations, in the first year of the Century; 16th November, 1700, his ambassador returned triumphant from Vienna; the Kaiser had atlast consented: We are to wear a crown royal on the top of our periwig;the old Electorate of Brandenburg is to become the Kingdom of Prussia;and the Family of Hohenzollern, slowly mounting these many centuries, has reached the uppermost round of the ladder. 

Friedrich, the old Gentleman who now looks upon his little Grandson(destined to be Third King of Prussia) with such interest, --is not avery memorable man; but he has had his adventures too, his losses andhis gains: and surely among the latter, the gain of a crown royal intohis House gives him, if only as a chronological milestone, some placein History. He was son of him they call the Great Elector, FriedrichWilhelm by name; of whom the Prussians speak much, in an eagerlycelebrating manner, and whose strenuous toilsome work in this world, celebrated or not, is still deeply legible in the actual life andaffairs of Germany. A man of whom we must yet find some opportunityto say a word. From him and a beautiful and excellent Princess Luise, Princess of Orange, --Dutch William, OUR Dutch William's aunt, --this, crooked royal Friedrich came. 

He was not born crooked; straight enough once, and a fine little boy ofsix months old or so; there being an elder Prince now in his third year, also full of hope. But in a rough journey to Konigsberg and back (winterof 1657, as is guessed), one of the many rough jolting journeys thisfaithful Electress made with her Husband, a careless or unluckynurse, who had charge of pretty little Fritzchen, was not sufficientlyattentive to her duties on the worst of roads. The ever-jolting carriagegave some bigger jolt, the child fell backwards in her arms; [JohannWegfuhrer, _ Leben der Kurfurstin Luise, gebornen Prinzessin vonNassau-Oranien, Gemahlin Friedrich Wilhelm des Grossen_ (Leipzig, 1838), p. 107. ] did not quite break his back, but injured it for life:--andwith his back, one may perceive, injured his soul and history to analmost corresponding degree. For the weak crooked boy, with keen andfine perceptions, and an inadequate case to put them in, grew upwith too thin a skin:--that may be considered as the summary of hismisfortunes; and, on the whole, there is no other heavy sin to becharged against him. 

He had other loads laid upon him, poor youth: his kind pious Motherdied, his elder Brother died, he at the age of seventeen saw himselfHeir-Apparent;--and had got a Stepmother with new heirs, if heshould disappear. Sorrows enough in that one fact, with the venomouswhisperings, commentaries and suspicions, which a Court population, female and male, in little Berlin Town, can contrive to tack to it. Doesnot the new Sovereign Lady, in her heart, wish YOU were dead, my Prince?Hope it perhaps? Health, at any rate, weak; and, by the aid of a littlepharmacy--ye Heavens!

Such suspicions are now understood to have had no basis except in thewaste brains of courtier men and women; but their existence there canbecome tragical enough. Add to which, the Great Elector, like all theHohenzollerns, was a choleric man; capable of blazing into volcanicexplosions, when affronted by idle masses of cobwebs in the midst of hisserious businesses! It is certain, the young Prince Friedrich had at onetime got into quite high, shrill and mutually minatory terms with hisStepmother; so that once, after some such shrill dialogue between them, ending with "You shall repent this, Sir!"--he found it good to flyoff in the night, with only his Tutor or Secretary and a valet, toHessen-Cassel to an Aunt; who stoutly protected him in this emergency;and whose Daughter, after the difficult readjustment of matters, becamehis Wife, but did not live long. And it is farther certain the samePrince, during this his first wedded time, dining one day with hisStepmother, was taken suddenly ill. Felt ill, after his cup of coffee;retired into another room in violent spasms, evidently in an alarmingstate, and secretly in a most alarmed one: his Tutor or Secretary, oneDankelmann, attended him thither; and as the Doctor took some time toarrive, and the symptoms were instant and urgent, Secretary Dankelmannproduced "from a pocket-book some drug of his own, or of theHessen-Cassel Aunt, " emetic I suppose, and gave it to the poorPrince;--who said often, and felt ever after, with or without notionof poison, That Dankelmann had saved his life. In consequence ofwhich adventure he again quitted Court without leave; and begged tobe permitted to remain safe in the country, if Papa would be so good. [Pollnitz, _ Memoiren, _ i. 191-198. ]

Fancy the Great Elector's humor on such an occurrence; and what afurtherance to him in his heavy continual labors, and strenuous swimmingfor life, these beautiful humors and transactions must have been! Acrook-backed boy, dear to the Great Elector, pukes, one afternoon; andthere arises such an opening of the Nether Floodgates of this Universe;in and round your poor workshop, nothing but sudden darkness, smell ofsulphur; hissing of forked serpents here, and the universal alleleu offemale hysterics there;--to help a man forward with his work! O reader, we will pity the crowned head, as well as the hatted and even hatlessone. Human creatures will not GO quite accurately together, any morethan clocks will; and when their dissonance once rises fairly high, andthey cannot readily kill one another, any Great Elector who is thirdparty will have a terrible time of it. 

Electress Dorothee, the Stepmother, was herself somewhat of a hardlady; not easy to live with, though so far above poisoning as to have"despised even the suspicion of it. " She was much given to practicaleconomics, dairy-farming, market-gardening, and industrial andcommercial operations such as offered; and was thought to be a verystrict reckoner of money. She founded the _ Dorotheenstadt, _ nowoftener called the _ Neustadt, _ chief quarter of Berlin; and planted, just about the time of this unlucky dinner, "A. D. 1680 or so, " [Nicolai, _ Beschreibung der koniglichen Residenzstadte Berlin und Potsdam _(Berlin, 1786), i. 172. ] the first of the celebrated Lindens, which (orthe successors of which, in a stunted ambition) are still growing there. _ Unter-den-Linden: _ it is now the gayest quarter of Berlin, fullof really fine edifices: it was then a sandy outskirt of ElectressDorothee's dairy-farm; good for nothing but building upon, thoughtElectress Dorothee. She did much dairy-and-vegetable trade on the greatscale;--was thought even to have, underhand, a commercial interest inthe principal Beer-house of the city? [Horn, _ Leben Friedrich Wilhelmsdes Grossen Kurfursten von Brandenburg _ (Berlin, 1814). ] People did notlove her: to the Great Elector, who guided with a steady bridle-hand, she complied not amiss; though in him too there rose sad recollectionsand comparisons now and then: but with a Stepson of unsteady nerves itbecame evident to him there could never be soft neighborhood. PrinceFriedrich and his Father came gradually to some understanding, tacit orexpress, on that sad matter; Prince Friedrich was allowed to live, onhis separate allowance, mainly remote from Court. Which he did, forperhaps six or eight years, till the Great Elector's death; henceforthin a peaceful manner, or at least without open explosions. 

His young Hessen-Cassel Wife died suddenly in 1683; and again there wasmad rumor of poisoning; which Electress Dorothee disregarded as belowher, and of no consequence to her, and attended to industrial operationsthat would pay. That poor young Wife, when dying, exacted a promise fromPrince Friedrich that he would not wed again, but be content with theDaughter she had left him: which promise, if ever seriously given, could not be kept, as we have seen. Prince Friedrich brought his SophieCharlotte home about fifteen months after. With the Stepmother and withthe Court there was armed neutrality under tolerable forms, and no openexplosion farther. 

In a secret way, however, there continued to be difficulties. And suchdifficulties had already been, that the poor young man, not yet cometo his Heritages, and having, with probably some turn for expense, acovetous unamiable Stepmother, had fallen into the usual difficulties;and taken the methods too usual. Namely, had given ear to the AustrianCourt, which offered him assistance, --somewhat as an aged Jew will to ayoung Christian gentleman in quarrel with papa, --upon condition of hissigning a certain bond: bond which much surprised Prince Friedrich whenhe came to understand it! Of which we shall hear more, and even muchmore, in the course of time!--

Neither after his accession (year 1688; his Cousin Dutch William, of theglorious and immortal memory, just lifting anchor towards these shores)was the new Elector's life an easy one. We may say, it was replete withtroubles rather; and unhappily not so much with great troubles, whichcould call forth antagonistic greatness of mind or of result, as withnever-ending shoals of small troubles, the antagonism to which is apt tobecome itself of smallish character. Do not search into his history;you will remember almost nothing of it (I hope) after never so manyreadings! Garrulous Pollnitz and others have written enough about him;but it all runs off from you again, as a thing that has no affinitywith the human skin. He had a court _ "rempli d'intrigues, _ full ofnever-ending cabals, " [Forster, i. 74 (quoting _ Memoires du Comte deDohna); _ &c. &c. ]--about what?

One question only are we a little interested in: How he came by theKingship? How did the like of him contrive to achieve Kingship? We mayanswer: It was not he that achieved it; it was those that went beforehim, who had gradually got it, --as is very usual in such cases. All thathe did was to knock at the gate (the Kaiser's gate and the world's), and ask, "IS it achieved, then?" Is Brandenburg grown ripe for havinga crown? Will it be needful for you to grant Brandenburg a crown? Whichquestion, after knocking as loud as possible, they at last took thetrouble to answer, "Yes, it will be needful. "--

Elector Friedrich's turn for ostentation--or as we may interpret it, thehigh spirit of a Hohenzollern working through weak nerves and a crookedback--had early set him a-thinking of the Kingship; and no doubt, theexaltation of rival Saxony, which had attained that envied dignity (ina very unenviable manner, in the person of Elector August made King ofPoland) in 1697, operated as a new spur on his activities. Then alsoDuke Ernst of Hanover, his father-in-law, was struggling to becomeElector Ernst; Hanover to be the Ninth Electorate, which it actuallyattained in 1698; not to speak of England, and quite endless prospectsthere for Ernst and Hanover. These my lucky neighbors are all rising;all this the Kaiser has granted to my lucky neighbors: why is there nopromotion he should grant me, among them!--

Elector Friedrich had 30, 000 excellent troops; Kaiser Leopold, the"little man in red stockings, " had no end of Wars. Wars in Turkey, warsin Italy; all Dutch William's wars and more, on our side of Europe;--andhere is a Spanish-Succession War, coming dubiously on, which may provegreater than all the rest together. Elector Friedrich sometimes inhis own high person (a courageous and high though thin-skinned man), otherwise by skilful deputy, had done the Kaiser service, often signalservice, in all these wars; and was never wanting in the time of need, in the post of difficulty with those famed Prussian Troops of his. Aloyal gallant Elector this, it must be owned; capable withal of doingsignal damage if we irritated him too far! Why not give him thispromotion; since it costs us absolutely nothing real, not even the priceof a yard of ribbon with metal cross at the end of it? Kaiser Leopoldhimself, it is said, had no particular objection; but certain of hisministers had; and the little man in red stockings--much occupied inhunting, for one thing--let them have their way, at the risk of angeringElector Friedrich. Even Dutch William, anxious for it, in sight of thefuture, had not yet prevailed. 

The negotiation had lasted some seven years, without result. There is nodoubt but the Succession War, and Marlborough, would have brought it toa happy issue: in the mean while, it is said to have succeeded at last, somewhat on the sudden, by a kind of accident. This is the curiousmythical account; incorrect in some unessential particulars, but in themain and singular part of it well-founded. Elector Friedrich, accordingto Pollnitz and others, after failing in many methods, had sent 100, 000_ thalers _ (say 15, 000 pounds) to give, by way of--bribe we must callit, --to the chief opposing Hofrath at Vienna. The money was offered, accordingly; and was refused by the opposing Hofrath: upon which theBrandenburg Ambassador wrote that it was all labor lost; and evenhurried off homewards in despair, leaving a Secretary in his place. TheBrandenburg Court, nothing despairing, orders in the mean while, Tryanother with it, --some other Hofrath, whose name they wrote in cipher, which the blundering Secretary took to mean no Hofrath, but the Kaiser'sConfessor and Chief Jesuit, Pater Wolf. To him accordingly he hastenedwith the cash, to him with the respectful Electoral request; whoreceived both, it is said, especially the 15, 000 pounds, with a _ Gloriain excelsis; _ and went forthwith and persuaded the Kaiser. [Pollnitz, _ Memoiren, _ i. 310. ]--Now here is the inexactitude, say Modern Doctorsof History; an error no less than threefold. 1. Elector Friedrich wasindeed advised, in cipher, by his agent at Vienna, to write in personto--"Who is that cipher, then?" asks Elector Friedrich, rather puzzled. At Vienna that cipher was meant for the Kaiser; but at Berlin theytake it for Pater Wolf; and write accordingly, and are answered withreadiness and animation. 2. Pater Wolf was not official Confessor, butwas a Jesuit in extreme favor with the Kaiser, and by birth a nobleman, sensible to human decorations. 3. He accepted no bribe, nor was anysent; his bribe was the pleasure of obliging a high gentleman whocondescended to ask, and possibly the hope of smoothing roads for St. Ignatius and the Black Militia, in time coming. And THUS at last, andnot otherwise than thus, say exact Doctors, did Pater Wolf do the thing. [G. A. H. Stenzel, _ Geschichte des Preussischen Staats _ (Hamburg, 1841), iii. 104 _ (Berliner Monatschrift, _ year 1799); &c. ] Or mightnot the actual death of poor King Carlos II. At Madrid, 1st November, 1700, for whose heritages all the world stood watching with swords halfdrawn, considerably assist Pater Wolf? Done sure enough the thing was;and before November ended, Friedrich's messenger returned with "Yes"for answer, and a Treaty signed on the 16th of that month. [Pollnitz (i. 318) gives the Treaty (date corrected by his Editor, ii. 589). ]

To the huge joy of Elector Friedrich and his Court, almost the verynation thinking itself glad. Which joyful Potentate decided to set outstraightway and have the coronation done; though it was midwinter;and Konigsberg (for Prussia is to be our title, "King in Prussia, " andKonigsberg is Capital City there) lies 450 miles off, through tangledshaggy forests, boggy wildernesses, and in many parts only corduroyroads. We order "30, 000 post-horses, " besides all our own large stud, tobe got ready at the various stations: our boy Friedrich Wilhelm, ruggedboy of twelve, rough and brisk, yet much "given to blush" withal (whichis a feature of him), shall go with us; much more, Sophie Charlotte ouraugust Electress-Queen that is to be: and we set out, on the 17th ofDecember, 1700, last year of the Century; "in 1800 carriages:" such acavalcade as never crossed those wintry wildernesses before. FriedrichWilhelm went in the third division of carriages (for 1800 of them couldnot go quite together); our noble Sophie Charlotte in the second; aMargraf of Brandenburg-Schwedt, chief Margraf, our eldest Half-Brother, Dorothee's eldest Son, sitting on the coach-box, in correct insignia, as similitude of Driver. So strict are we in etiquette; etiquette indeedbeing now upon its apotheosis, and after such efforts. Six or sevenyears of efforts on Elector Friedrich's part; and six or seven hundredyears, unconsciously, on that of his ancestors. 

The magnificence of Friedrich's processionings into Konigsberg, andthrough it or in it, to be crowned, and of his coronation ceremonialsthere: what pen can describe it, what pen need! Folio volumes withcopper-plates have been written on it; and are not yet all pasted inbandboxes, or slit into spills. [British Museum, short of very manynecessary Books on this subject, offers the due Coronation Folio, withits prints, upholstery catalogues, and official harangues upon nothing, to ingenuous human curiosity. ] "The diamond buttons of his Majesty'scoat [snuff-colored or purple, I cannot recollect] cost 1, 500 poundsapiece;" by this one feature judge what an expensive Herr. Streets werehung with cloth, carpeted with cloth, no end of draperies and cloth;your oppressed imagination feels as if there was cloth enough, ofscarlet and other bright colors, to thatch the Arctic Zone. Withilluminations, cannon-salvos, fountains running wine. Friedrich had madetwo Bishops for the nonce. Two of his natural Church-Superintendentsmade into Quasi-Bishops, on the Anglican model, --which was always afavorite with him, and a pious wish of his;--but they remained mere cutbranches, these two, and did not, after their haranguing and anointingfunctions, take root in the country. He himself put the crown on hishead: "King here in my own right, after all!"--and looked his royalest, we may fancy; the kind eyes of him almost partly fierce for moments, and"the cheerfulness of pride" well blending with something of awful. 

In all which sublimities, the one thing that remains for human memory isnot in these Folios at all, but is considered to be a fact not the less:Electress Charlotte's, now Queen Charlotte's, very strange conducton the occasion. For she cared not much about crowns, or upholsterymagnificences of any kind; but had meditated from of old on theinfinitely little; and under these genuflections, risings, sittings, shiftings, grimacings on all parts, and the endless droning eloquenceof Bishops invoking Heaven, her ennui, not ill-humored or offensivelyostensible, was heartfelt and transcendent. At one turn of theproceedings, Bishop This and Chancellor That droning their emptygrandiloquences at discretion, Sophie Charlotte was distinctly seen tosmuggle out her snuff-box, being addicted to that rakish practice, andfairly solace herself with a delicate little pinch of snuff. Raspedtobacco, _ tabac rape, _ called by mortals _ rape _ or rappee: there isno doubt about it; and the new King himself noticed her, and hurled backa look of due fulminancy, which could not help the matter, and was onlylost in air. A memorable little action, and almost symbolic in the firstPrussian Coronation. "Yes, we are Kings, and are got SO near the stars, not nearer; and you invoke the gods, in that tremendously long-windedmanner; and I--Heavens, I have my snuff-box by me, at least!" Thouwearied patient Heroine; cognizant of the infinitely little!--Thissymbolic pinch of snuff is fragrant all along in Prussian History. A fragrancy of humble verity in the middle of all royal or otherostentations; inexorable, quiet protest against cant, done with suchsimplicity: Sophie Charlotte's symbolic pinch of snuff. She was alwaysconsidered something of a Republican Queen. 

Thus Brandenburg Electorate has become Kingdom of Prussia; and theHohenzollerns have put a crown upon their head. Of Brandenburg, what itwas, and what Prussia was; and of the Hohenzollerns and what they were, and how they rose thither, a few details, to such as are dark aboutthese matters, cannot well be dispensed with here. 

END OF BOOK I