HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II. OF PRUSSIA

FREDERICK THE GREAT

By Thomas Carlyle

VOLUME VI. 

BOOK VI. --DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT, AND CROWN-PRINCE, GOING ADRIFTUNDER THE STORM-WINDS. --1727-1730. 

Chapter I. -- FIFTH CRISIS IN THE KAISER'S SPECTRE-HUNT. 

The Crown-Prince's young Life being, by perverse chance, involved andas it were absorbed in that foolish question of his English Marriage, we have nothing for it but to continue our sad function; and go onpainfully fishing out, and reducing to an authentic form, what traces ofhim there are, from that disastrous beggarly element, --till once he getfree of it, either dead or alive. The WINDS (partly by Art-Magic) riseto the hurricane pitch, upon this Marriage Project and him; and as forthe sea, or general tide of European Politics--But let the reader lookwith his own eyes. 

In the spring of 1727, War, as anticipated, breaks out; Spaniardsactually begin battering at Gibraltar; Kaiser's Ambassador at London isangrily ordered to begone. Causes of war were many:

1. Duke de Ripperda--tumbled out now, that illustrious diplomaticbulldog, at Madrid--sought asylum in the English Ambassador's house; andno respect was had to such asylum: that is one cause. 

2. Then, you English, what is the meaning of these war-fleets in theWest Indies; in the Mediterranean, on the very coast of Spain? We demandthat you at once take them home again:--which cannot be complied with. 

3. But above all things, we demand Gibraltar of you:--which canstill less be complied with. Termagant Elizabeth has set her heart onGibraltar: that, in such opportunity as this unexpected condition of theBalances now gives her, is the real cause of the War. 

Cession of Gibraltar: there had been vague promises, years ago, on theKaiser's part; nay George himself, raw to England at that date, is saidto have thought the thing might perhaps be done. --"Do it at once, then!"said the Termagant Queen, and repeated, with ever more emphasis;--andthere being not the least compliance, she has opened parallels beforethe place, and begun war and ardent firing there; [22d February, 1727(Scholl, ii. 212). Salmon, _Chronological Historian_ (London, 1747; avery incorrect dark Book, useful only in defect of better), ii. 173. Coxe, _Memoirs of Walpole, _ i. 260, 261; ii. 498-515. ] preceded byprotocols, debates in Parliament; and the usual phenomena. It is theFifth grand Crisis in the Kaiser's spectre-huntings; fifth change inthe color of the world-lobster getting boiled in that singularmanner;--Second Sputter of actual War. 

Which proved futile altogether; and amounts now, in the human memory;to flat zero, --unless the following infinitesimally small fraction becountable again:--

"Sputtering of War; that is to say, Siege of Gibraltar. A siege utterlyunmemorable, and without the least interest, for existing mankind withtheir ungrateful humor, --if it be not; once more, that the Father ofTRISTRAM SHANDY was in it: still a Lieutenant of foot, poor fellow;brisk, small, hot-tempered, loving, 'liable to be cheated ten times aday if nine will not suffice you. ' He was in this Siege; shipped to theRock to make stand there; and would have done so with the boldest, --onlyhe got into duel (hot-tempered, though of lamb-like innocence), and wasrun through the body; not entirely killed, but within a hair's breadthof it; and unable for service while this sputtering went on. LittleLorry is still living; gone to school in Yorkshire, after pranksenough, and misventures, --half-drowning 'in the mill-race at Annamoe inIreland, ' for one. [Laurence Sterne's _Autobiography_ (cited above). ]The poor Lieutenant Father died, soldiering in the West Indies; soonafter this; and we shall not mention him again. But History ought toremember that he is 'Uncle Toby, ' this poor Lieutenant, and take hermeasures!--The Siege of Gibraltar, we still see with our eyes, was initself Nothing. "

Truly it might well enough have grown to universal flame of War. Butthis always needs two parties; and pacific George would not be secondparty in it. George, guided by pacific Walpole, backed by pacificFleury, answers the ardent firing by phlegmatic patience andprotocolling; not by counter-firing, except quite at his convenience, from privateers, from war-ships here and there, and in sulky defencefrom Gibraltar itself. Probably the Termagant, with all the fire shehas, will not do much damage upon Gibraltar? Such was George's hope. Whereby the flame of war, ardent only in certain Spanish batteries uponthe point of San Roque, does not spread hitherto, --though all mortals, and Friedrich Wilhelm as much as any, can see the imminent likelihoodthere is. In such circumstances, what a stroke of policy to havedisjoined Friedrich Wilhelm from the Hanover Alliance, and broughthim over to our own! Is not Grumkow worth his pension? "Grumkow serveshonorably. " Let the invaluable Seckendorf persevere. 

CROWN-PRINCE SEEN IN DRYASDUST'S GLASS, DARKLY. 

To know the special figure of the Crown-Prince's way of life inthose years, who his friends, companions were, what his pursuits andexperiences, would be agreeable to us; but beyond the outline alreadygiven, there is little definite on record. He now resides habitually atPotsdam, be the Court there or not; attending strictly to his militaryduties in the Giant Regiment; it is only on occasion, chiefly perhaps in"Carnival time, " that he gets to Berlin, to partake in the gayeties ofsociety. Who his associates there or at Potsdam were? Suhm, the SaxonResident, a cultivated man of literary turn, famed as his friend in timecoming, is already at his diplomatic post in Berlin, post of difficultyjust now; but I know not whether they have yet any intimacy. [Preuss, _Friedrich mit seinen Verwandten und Freunden_, p. 24. ] This we do know, the Crown-Prince begins to be noted for his sprightly sense, his loveof literature, his ingenuous ways; in the Court or other circles, whatsoever has intelligence attracts him, and is attracted by him. TheRoucoulles Soirees, --gone all to dim backram for us, though once solively in their high periwigs and speculations, --fall on Wednesday. Whenthe Finkenstein or the others fall, --no doubt his Royal Highness knowsit. In the TABAKS-COLLEGIUM, there also, driven by duty, he sometimesappears; but, like Seckendorf and some others, he only affects to smoke, and his pipe is mere white clay. Nor is the social element, any morethan the narcotic vapor which prevails there, attractive to the youngPrince, --though he had better hide his feelings on the subject. 

Out at Potsdam, again, life goes very heavy; the winged Psyche muchimprisoned in that pipe-clay element, a prey to vacancy and many tediumsand longings. Daily return the giant drill-duties; and daily, to theuttermost of rigorous perfection, they must be done:--"This, then, isthe sum of one's existence, this?" Patience, young "man of genius, "as the Newspapers would now call you; it is indispensably beneficialnevertheless! To swallow one's disgusts, and do faithfully the uglycommanded work, taking no council with flesh and blood: know that"genius, " everywhere in Nature, means this first of all; that withoutthis, it means nothing, generally even less. And be thankful for yourPotsdam grenadiers and their pipe-clay!--

Happily he has his Books about him; his flute: Duhan, too, is here, still more or less didactic in some branches; always instructive andcompanionable, to him. The Crown-Prince reads a great deal; very manyFrench Books, new and old, he reads; among the new, we need not doubt, the _Henriade_ of M. Arouet Junior (who now calls himself VOLTAIRE), which has risen like a star of the first magnitude in these years. [London, 1723, in surreptitious incomplete state, _La Ligue_ the title;then at length, London, 1726, as _Henriade, _ in splendid 4to, --bysubscription (King, Prince and Princess of Wales at the top of it), which yielded 8, 000 pounds: see Voltaire, _OEuvres Completes, _ xiii. 408. ] An incomparable piece, patronized by Royalty in England; thedelight of all kindred Courts. The light dancing march of this new"Epic, " and the brisk clash of cymbal music audible in it, had, as wefind afterwards, greatly captivated the young man. All is not pipe-clay, then, and torpid formalism; aloft from the murk of commonplace riseglancings of a starry splendor, betokening--oh, how much!

Out of Books, rumors and experiences, young imagination is forming toitself some Picture of the World as it is, as it has been. The curtainsof this strange life-theatre are mounting, mounting, --wondrously asin the case of all young souls; but with what specialties, moods orphenomena of light and shadow, to this young soul, is not in any pointrecorded for us. The "early Letters to Wilhelmina, which exist in greatnumbers, " from these we had hoped elucidation: but these the learnedEditor has "wholly withheld as useless, " for the present. Let them becarefully preserved, on the chance of somebody's arising to whom theymay have uses!--

The worst feature of these years is Friedrich Wilhelm's discontent withthem. A Crown-Prince sadly out of favor with Papa. This has long beenon the growing hand; and these Double-Marriage troubles, not to mentionagain the new-fangled French tendencies (BLITZ FRANZOSEN!), muchaggravate the matter, and accelerate its rate of growth. Alreadythe paternal countenance does not shine upon him; flames often; andthunders, to a shocking degree;--and worse days are coming. 

Chapter II. -- DEATH OF GEORGE I. 

Gibraltar still keeps sputtering; ardent ineffectual bombardment fromthe one side, sulky, heavy blast of response now and then from theother: but the fire does not spread; nor will, we may hope. It is true, Sweden and Denmark have joined the Treaty of Hanover, this spring;and have troops on foot, and money paid them; But George is pacific;Gibraltar is impregnable; let the Spaniards spend their powder there. 

As for the Kaiser, he is dreadfully poor; inapt for battle himself. Andin the end of this same May, 1727, we hear, his principal ally, CzarinaCatherine, has died;--poor brown little woman, Lithuanian housemaid, Russian Autocrat, it is now all one;--dead she, and can do nothing. Probably the Kaiser will sit still? The Kaiser sits still; with eyesbent on Gibraltar, or rolling in grand Imperial inquiry and anxietyround the world; war-outlooks much dimmed for him since the end of May. 

Alas, in the end of June, what far other Job's-post is this that reachesBerlin and Queen Sophie? That George I. , her royal Father, has suddenlysunk dead! With the Solstice, or Summer pause of the Sun, 21st or 22dJune, almost uncertain which, the Majesty of George I. Did likewisepause, --in his carriage, on the road to Osnabruck, --never to movemore. Whereupon, among the simple People, arose rumors of omens, preternaturalisms, for and against: How his desperate Megaera of a Wife, in the act of dying, had summoned him (as was presumable), to appearalong with her at the Great Judgment-Bar within year and day; and how hehas here done it. On the other hand, some would have it noted, How "thenightingales in Herrenhausen Gardens had all ceased singing for theyear, that night he died, "--out of loyalty on the part of these littlebirds, it seemed presumable. [See Kohler, _Munzbelustigungen, _ x. 88. ]

What we know is, he was journeying towards Hanover again, hopeful ofa little hunting at the Gorhde; and intended seeing Osnabruck and hisBrother the Bishop there, as he passed. That day, 21st June, 1727, fromsome feelings of his own, he was in great haste for Osnabruck; hurryingalong by extra-post, without real cause save hurry of mind. He had lefthis poor old Maypole of a Mistress on the Dutch Frontier, that morning, to follow at more leisure. He was struck by apoplexy on the road, --armfallen powerless, early in the day, head dim and heavy; obviously analarming case. But he refused to stop anywhere; refused any surgery butsuch as could be done at once. "Osnabruck! Osnabruck!" hereiterated, growing visibly worse. Two subaltern Hanover Officials, "Privy-Councillor von Hardenberg, KAMMERHERR (Chamberlain) von Fabrice, were in the carriage with him;" [Gottfried, _Historische Chronik_(Frankfurt, 1759), iii. 872. Boyer, _The Political State of GreatBritain, _ vol. Xxxiii. Pp. 545, 546. ] King chiefly dozing, and at lastsupported in the arms of Fabrice, was heard murmuring, "C'EST FAIT DEMOI ('T is all over with me)!" And "Osnabruck! Osnabruck!" slumberouslyreiterated he: To Osnabruck, where my poor old Brother, Bishop as theycall him, once a little Boy that trotted at my knee with blithe face, will have some human pity on me! So they rushed along all day, as at thegallop, his few attendants and he; and when the shades of night fell, and speech had now left the poor man, he still passionately gasped somegurgle of a sound like "Osnabruck;"--hanging in the arms of Fabrice, and now evidently in the article of death. What a gallop, sweepingthrough the slumber of the world: To Osnabruck, Osnabruck!

In the hollow of the night (some say, one in the morning), they reachOsnabruck. And the poor old Brother, --Ernst August, once youngest of sixbrothers, of seven children, now the one survivor, has human pity in theheart of him full surely. But George is dead; careless of it now. [Coxe (i. 266) is "indebted to his friend Nathaniel Wraxall" for thesedetails, --the since famous Sir Nathaniel, in whose _Memoirs_ (vague, butNOT mendacious, not unintelligent) they are now published more at large. See his _Memoirs of the Courts of Berlin, Dresden, _ &c. (London. 1799), i. 35-40; also _Historical Memoirs_ (London, 1836), iv. 516-518. ] Aftersixty-seven years of it, he has flung his big burdens, --English crowns, Hanoverian crownlets, sulkinesses, indignations, lean women and fat, andearthly contradictions and confusions, --fairly off him; and lies there. 

The man had his big burdens, big honors so called, absurd enough someof them, in this world; but he bore them with a certain gravity anddiscretion: a man of more probity, insight and general human facultythan he now gets credit for. His word was sacred to him. He had thecourage of a Welf, or Lion-Man; quietly royal in that respect at least. His sense of equity, of what was true and honorable in men and things, remained uneffaced to a respectable degree; and surely it had resistedmuch. Wilder puddle of muddy infatuations from without and from within, if we consider it well, --of irreconcilable incoherences, bottomlessuniversal hypocrisies, solecisms bred with him and imposed on him, --fewsons of Adam had hitherto lived in. 

He was, in one word, the first of our Hanover Series of English Kings;that hitherto unique sort, who are really strange to look at in theHistory of the World. Of whom, in the English annals, there is hithertono Picture to be had; nothing but an empty blur of discordant nonsenses, and idle, generally angry, flourishings of the pen, by way of Picture. The English Nation, having flung its old Puritan, Sword-and-Bible Faithinto the cesspool, --or rather having set its old Bible-Faith, MINUSany Sword, well up in the organ-loft, with plenty of revenue, there topreach and organ at discretion, on condition always of meddling withnobody's practice farther, --thought the same (such their mistake) amighty pretty arrangement; but found it hitch before long. They had tothrow out their beautiful Nell-Gwynn Defenders of the Faith; flingthem also into the cesspool; and were rather at a loss what next to do. "Where is our real King, then? Who IS to lead us Heavenward, then; torally the noble of us to him, in some small measure, and save the restand their affairs from running Devilward?"--The English Nation being insome difficulty as to Kings, the English Nation clutched up the readiestthat came to hand; "Here is our King!" said they, --again under mistake, still under their old mistake. And, what was singular, they then avengedthemselves by mocking, calumniating, by angrily speaking, writing andlaughing at the poor mistaken King so clutched!--It is high time theEnglish were candidly asking themselves, with very great seriousnessindeed, WHAT it was they had done, in the sight of God and man, on thatand the prior occasion? And above all, What it is they will now proposeto do in the sequel of it! Dig gold-nuggets, and rally the IGnoble ofus?--

George's poor lean Mistress, coming on at the usual rate of the road, was met, next morning, by the sad tidings. She sprang from her carriageinto the dusty highway; tore her hair (or headdress), half-frantic;declared herself a ruined woman; and drove direct to Berlin, thereto compose her old mind. She was not ill seen at Court there; had herconnections in the world. Fieldmarshal Schulenburg, who once had thehonor of fighting (not to his advantage) with Charles XII. , and hadsince grown famous by his Anti-Turk performances in the Venetianservice, is a Brother of this poor Maypole's; and there is a Nephew ofhers, one of Friedrich Wilhelm's Field-Officers here, whom we shall meetby and by. She has been obliging to Queen Sophie on occasions; they can, and do, now weep heartily together. I believe she returned to England, being Duchess of Kendal, with heavy pensions there; and "assiduouslyattended divine ordinances, according to the German Protestant form, ever afterwards. " Poor foolish old soul, what is this world, with allits dukeries!--

The other or fat Mistress, "Cataract of fluid Tallow, " Countess ofDarlington, whom I take to have been a Half-Sister rather, sat sorrowfulat Isleworth; and kept for many years a Black Raven, which had comeflying in upon her; which she somehow understood to be the soul, or connected with the soul, of his Majesty of happy memory. [HoraceWalpole, _Reminiscences. _] Good Heavens, what fat fluid-tallowy stupor, and entirely sordid darkness, dwells among mankind; and occasionallyfinds itself lifted to the very top, by way of sample!--

Friedrich Wilhelm wept tenderly to Brigadier Dubourgay, the BritishMinister at Berlin (an old military gentleman, of diplomatic merit, who spells rather ill), when they spoke of this sad matter. My poorold Uncle; he was so good to me in boyhood, in those old days, when Iblooded Cousin George's nose! Not unkind, ah, only proud and sad;and was called sulky, being of few words and heavy-laden. Ah me, yourExcellenz; if the little nightingales have all fallen silent, what maynot I, his Son and nephew, do?--And the rugged Majesty blubbered withgreat tenderness; having fountains of tears withal, hidden in the rockyheart of him, not suspected by every one. [Dubourgay's Despatches, inthe State-Paper Office. ]

I add only that the Fabrice, who had poor George in his arms that night, is a man worth mentioning. The same Fabrice (Fabricius, or perhapsGOLDSCHMIDT in German) who went as Envoy from the Holstein-Gottorppeople to Charles XII. In his Turkish time; and stayed with his SwedishMajesty there, for a year or two, indeed till the catastrophe came. HisOfficial LETTERS from that scene are in print, this long while, thoughconsiderably forgotten; [_Anecdotes du Sejour du Roi de Suide a Bender, ou Lettres de M. Le Baron de Fabrice pour servir d'elaircissement al'Histoire de Charles XII. _ (Hambourg, 1760, 8vo). ] a little Volume, worth many big ones that have been published on that subject. The sameFabrice, following Hanover afterwards, came across to London in duecourse; and there he did another memorable thing: made acquaintance withthe Monsieur Arouet, then a young French Exile there, Arouet Junior("LE JEUNE or L. J. "), who, --by an ingenious anagram, contrived in hisindignation at such banishment, --writes himself VOLTAIRE ever since; whohas been publishing a HENRIADE, and doing other things. Now it was byquestioning this Fabrice, and industriously picking the memory of himclean, that M. De Voltaire wrote another book, much more of an "Epic"than Henri IV. , --a HISTORY, namely, OF CHARLES XII. ; [See Voltaire, _OEuvres Completes_, ii. 149, xxx. 7, 127. Came out in 1731 (ib. Xxx. Avant-Propos, p. Ii). ] which seems to me the best-written of all hisBooks, and wants nothing but TRUTH (indeed a dreadful want) to make ita possession forever. VOLTAIRE, if you want fine writing; ADLERFELDand FABRICE, if you would see the features of the Fact: these three arestill the Books upon Charles XII. 

HIS PRUSSIAN MAJESTY FALLS INTO ONE OF HIS HYPOCHONDRIACAL FITS. 

Before this event, his Majesty was in gloomy humor; and specialvexations had superadded themselves. Early in the Spring, a difficulthuff of quarrel, the consummation of a good many grudges longsubsisting, had fallen out with his neighbor of Saxony, the Majesty ofPoland, August, whom we have formerly heard of, a conspicuous Majestyin those days; called even "August the Great" by some persons in hisown time; but now chiefly remembered by his splendor of upholstery, his enormous expenditure in drinking and otherwise, also by his threehundred and fifty-four Bastards (probably the maximum of any King'sperformance in that line), and called August DER STARKE, "August thePhysically Strong. " This exemplary Sovereign could not well be a manaccording to Friedrich Wilhelm's heart: accordingly they had their huffsand little collisions now and then: that of the Protestant Directorateand Heidelberg Protestants, for instance; indeed it was generallyabout Protestantism; and more lately there had been high words andcorrespondings about the "Protestants of Thorn" (a bad tragedy, ofJesuit intrusion and Polish ferocity, enacted there in 1724); [Accountof it in Buchholz, i. 98-102. ]--in which sad business Friedrich Wilhelmloyally interfered, though Britannic George of blessed memory and otherswere but lukewarm; and nothing could be done in it. Nothing except angrycorrespondence with King August; very provoking to the poor soul, whohad no hand but a nominal one in the Thorn catastrophe, being driveninto it by his unruly Diet alone. 

In fact, August, with his glittering eyes and excellent physicalconstitution, was a very good-humored fellow; supremely pleasant insociety; and by no means wishful to cheat you, or do you a mischief inbusiness, --unless his necessities compelled him; which often were great. But Friedrich Wilhelm always kept a good eye on such points; and hadhimself suffered nothing from the gay eupeptic Son of Belial, either intheir old Stralsund copartnery or otherwise. So that, except for theseProtestant affairs, --and alas, one other little cause, --FriedrichWilhelm had contentedly left the Physically Strong to his own course, doing the civilities of the road to him when they met; and nothing illhad fallen out between them. This other little cause--alas, it is theold story of recruiting; one's poor Hobby again giving offence! Specialrecruiting brabbles there had been; severe laws passed in Saxony aboutthese kidnapping operations: and always in the Diets, when question roseof this matter, August had been particularly loud in his denouncings. Which was unkind, though not unexpected. But now, in the Spring of 1727, here has a worse case than any arisen. 

Captain Natzmer, of I know not what Prussian Regiment, "Sachsen-WeimarCuirassiers" [_Militair-Lexikon, _ iii. 104. ] or another, had dropt overinto Saxony, to see what could be done in picking up a tall man or two. Tall men, one or two, Captain Natzmer did pick up, nay a tall deserteror two (Saxon soldier, inveigled to desert); but finding his operationsget air, he hastily withdrew into Brandenburg territory again. SaxonOfficials followed him into Brandenburg territory; snapt him back intoSaxon; tried him by Saxon law there;--Saxon law, express in such case, condemns him to be hanged; and that is his doom accordingly. 

"Captain Natzmer to swing on the gallows? Taken on Brandenburg territorytoo, and not the least notice given me?" Friedrich Wilhelm blazes intoflaming whirlwind; sends an Official Gentleman, one Katsch, to hisExcellenz Baron von Suhm (the Crown-Prince's cultivated friend), withthis appalling message: "If Natzmer be hanged, for certain I will usereprisals; you yourself shall swing!" Whereupon Suhm, in panic, fledover the marches to his Master; who bullied him for his pusillanimousterrors; and applied to Friedrich Wilhelm, in fine frenzy of indignantastonishment, "What, in Heaven's name, such meditated outrage on the lawof nations, and flat insult to the Majesty of Kings, can have meant?"Friedrich Wilhelm, the first fury being spent, sees that he is quite outof square; disavows the reprisals upon Suhm. "Message misdelivered by myOfficial Gentleman, that stupid Katsch; never did intend to hang Suhm;oh, no;" with much other correspondence; [In Mauvillon (ii. 189-195)more of it than any one will read. ]--and is very angry at himself, andat the Natzmer affair, which has brought him into this bad pass. Intoopen impropriety; into danger of an utter rupture, had King Augustbeen of quarrelsome turn. But King August was not quarrelsome; and thenSeckendorf and the Tobacco-Parliament, --on the Kaiser's score, who wantsPragmatic Sanction and much else out of these two Kings, and can at norate have them quarrel in the present juncture, --were eager to quenchthe fire. King August let Natzmer go; Suhm returned to his post;[Pollnitz, ii. 254. ] and things hustled themselves into some uneasyposture of silence again;--uneasy to the sensitive fancy of FriedrichWilhelm above all. This is his worst collision with his Neighbor ofSaxony; and springing from one's Hobby again!--

These sorrows, the death of George I. , with anxieties as to George II. And the course he might take; all this, it was thought, preyed upon hisMajesty's spirits;--Wilhelmina says it was "the frequent carousals withSeckendorf, " and an affair chiefly of the royal digestive-apparatus. Like enough;--or both might combine. It is certain his Majesty fell intoone of his hypochondrias at this time; talked of "abdicating" and othergloomy things, and was very black indeed. So that Seckendorf and Grumkowbegan to be alarmed. It is several months ago he had Franke the HalleMethodist giving ghostly counsel; his Majesty ceased to have theNewspapers read at dinner; and listened to lugubrious Franke'sexhortations instead. Did English readers ever hear of Franke? Let themmake a momentary acquaintance with this famous German Saint. AugustHermann Franke, a Lubeck man, born 1663; Professor of Theology, ofHebrew, Lecturer on the Bible; a wandering, persecuted, pious man. Founder of the "Pietists, " a kind of German Methodists, who are stilla famed Sect in that country; and of the WAISENHAUS, at Halle, grandOrphan-house, built by charitable beggings of Franke, which also stillsubsists. A reverend gentleman, very mournful of visage, now sixty-four;and for the present, at Berlin, discoursing of things eternal, in whatWilhelmina thinks a very lugubrious manner. Well; but surely in avery serious manner! The shadows of death were already round this poorFranke; and in a few weeks more, he had himself departed. [Died 8thJune, 1727. ] But hear Wilhelmina, what account she gives of her ownand the young Grenadier-Major's behavior on these mournful occasions. Seckendorf's dinners she considers to be the cause; all spiritual, sorrows only an adjunct not worth mentioning. It is certain enough. 

"His Majesty began to become valetudinary; and the hypochondria whichtormented him rendered his humor very melancholy. Monsieur Franke, the famous Pietist, founder of the Orphan-house at Halle University, contributed not a little to exaggerate that latter evil. This reverendgentleman entertained the King by raising scruples of conscience aboutthe most innocent matters. He condemned all pleasures; damnable all ofthem, he said, even hunting and music. You were to speak of nothingbut the Word of God only; all other conversation was forbidden. It wasalways he that carried on the improving talk at table; where he didthe office of reader, as if it had been a refectory of monks. The Kingtreated us to a sermon every afternoon; his valet-de-chambre gave out apsalm, which we all sang; you had to listen to this sermon with as muchdevout attention as if it had been an apostle's. My Brother and I hadall the mind in the world to laugh; we tried hard to keep from laughing;but often we burst out. Thereupon reprimand, with all the anathemasof the Church hurled out on us; which we had to take with a contritepenitent air, a thing not easy to bring your face to at the moment. Ina word, this dog of a Franke [he died within few months, poor soul, CECHIEN DE FRANKE] led us the life of a set of Monks of La Trappe. 

"Such excess of bigotry awakened still more gothic thoughts in the King. He resolved to abdicate the crown in favor of my Brother. He used totalk, He would reserve for himself 10, 000 crowns a year; and retire withthe Queen and his Daughters to Wusterhausen. There, added he, I willpray to God; and manage the farming economy, while my wife and girlstake care of the household matters. You are clever, he said to me; Iwill give you the inspection of the linen, which you shall mend andkeep in order, taking good charge of laundry matters. Frederika [nowthirteen, married to ANSPACH two years hence], who is miserly, shallhave charge of all the stores of the house. Charlotte [now eleven, Duchess of BRUNSWICK by and by] shall go to market and buy ourprovisions; and my Wife shall take charge of the little children, [saysFriedrich Wilhelm], and of the kitchen. " [Little children are:

1. Sophie Dorothee, now eight, who married Margraf of Schwedt, and wasunhappy;

2. Ulrique, a grave little soul of seven, Queen of Sweden afterwards;

3. August Wilhelm, age now five, became Father of a new FriedrichWilhelm, who was King by and by, and produced the Kings that still are;

4. Amelia, now four, born in the way we saw; and

5. HENRI, still in arms, just beginning to walk. There will be a Sixthand no more (son of this Sixth, a Berlin ROUE was killed, in 1806, atthe Battle of Jena, or a day or two before); but the Sixth is not yetcome to hand. ]

Poor Friedrich Wilhelm; what an innocent IDYLLIUM;--which cannot beexecuted by a King. "He had even begun to work at an Instruction, orFarewell Advice, for my Brother; and to point towards various steps, which alarmed Grumkow and Seckendorf to a high degree. " [Wilhelmina, _Memoires de Bareith, _ i. 108. ]

"Abdication, " with a Crown-Prince ready to fall into the arms ofEngland, and a sudden finis to our Black-Art, will by no meanssuit Seckendorf and Grumkow! Yet here is Winter coming; solitaryWusterhausen, with the misty winds piping round it, will make mattersworse: something must be contrived; and what? The two, after study, persuade Fieldmarshal Flemming over at Warsaw (August the Strong's chiefman, the Flemming of Voltaire's CHARLES XII. ; Prussian by birth, thoughthis long while in Saxon service), That if he the Fieldmarshal were topay, accidentally, as it were, a little visit to his native Brandenburgjust now, it might have fine effects on those foolish Berlin-Warsawclouds that had risen. The Fieldmarshal, well affected in such a case, manages the little visit, readily persuading the Polish Majesty; anddissipates the clouds straightway, --being well received by FriedrichWilhelm, and seconded by the Tobacco-Parliament with all its might. Outat Wusterhausen everything is comfortably settled. Nay Madam Flemming, young, brilliant, and direct from the seat of fashion; it was she thatfirst "built up" Wilhelmina's hair on just principles, and put somelife into her appearance. [Wilhelmina, i. 117. ] And now the Fieldmarshal(Tobacco-Parliament suggesting it) hints farther, "If his PrussianMajesty, in the mere greatness of his mind, were to appear suddenly inDresden when his royal Friend was next there, --what a sunburst afterclouds were that; how welcome to the Polish Majesty!"--"Hm, Na, wouldit, then?"--The Polish Majesty puts that out of question; speciallysends invitation for the Carnival-time just coming; and FriedrichWilhelm will, accordingly, see Dresden and him on that occasion. [Ib. I. 108, 109; Pollnitz, ii. 254; Fassman, p. 374. ] In those days, Carnivalmeans "Fashionable Season, " rural nobility rallying to head-quarters fora while, and social gayeties going on; and in Protestant Countries itmeans nothing more. 

This, in substance, was the real origin of Friedrich Wilhelm's suddenvisit to Dresden, which astonished the world, in January next. It makesa great figure in the old Books. It did kindle Dresden Carnival and thePhysically Strong into supreme illumination, for the time being; andproved the seal of good agreement, and even of a kind of friendlinessbetween this heteroclite pair of Sovereigns, --if anybody now cared forthose points. It is with our Crown-Prince's share in it that we arealone concerned; and that may require a Chapter to itself. 

Chapter III. -- VISIT TO DRESDEN. 

One of the most important adventures, for our young Crown-Prince, wasthis visit of his, along with Papa, to Dresden in the Carnival of 1728. Visit contrived by Seckendorf and Company, as we have seen, to divertthe King's melancholy, and without view to the Crown-Prince at all. TheCrown-Prince, now sixteen, and not in the best favor with his Father, had not been intended to accompany; was to stay at Potsdam anddiligently drill: nevertheless an estafette came for him from thegallant Polish Majesty;--Wilhelmina had spoken a word to good Suhm, whowrote to his King, and the hospitable message came. Friedrich made noloitering, --to Dresden is but a hundred miles, one good day;--he arrivedthere on the morrow after his Father; King "on the 14th January, 1728, "dates Fassmann; "Crown-Prince on the 15th, " which I find was Thursday. The Crown-Prince lodged with Fieldmarshal Flemming; Friedrich Wilhelm, having come in no state, refused King August's pressings, and took uphis quarters with "the General Fieldmarshal Wackerbarth, Commandant inDresden, "--pleasant old military gentleman, who had besieged Stralsundalong with him in times gone. Except Grumkow, Derschau and one or twoof less importance, with the due minimum of Valetry, he had brought noretinue; the Crown-Prince had Finkenstein and Kalkstein with him, Tutorand Sub-Tutor, officially there. And he lodges with old Count Flemmingand his clever fashionable Madam, --the diligent but unsuccessfulFlemming, a courtier of the highest civility, though iracund, and "witha passion for making Treaties, " whom we know since Charles XII. 's time. 

Amongst the round of splendors now set on foot, Friedrich Wilhelm had, by accident of Nature, the spectacle of a house on fire, --rather asymbolic one in those parts, --afforded him, almost to start with. Deepin the first Saturday night, or rather about two in the morning ofSunday, Wackerbarth's grand house, kindling by negligence somewherein the garrets, blazed up, irrepressible; and, with its endlessupholsteries, with a fine library even, went all into flame: so thathis Majesty, scarcely saving his CHATOULLE (box of preciosities), had tohurry out in undress;--over to Flemming's where his Son was; where theyboth continued thenceforth. This was the one touch of rough, amidso much of dulcet that occurred: no evil, this touch, almost ratherotherwise, except to poor Wackerbarth, whose fine House lay wrecked byit. 

The visit lasted till February 12th, four weeks and a day. Neverwas such thrice-magnificent Carnival amusements: illuminations, cannon-salvoings and fire-works; operas, comedies, redoubts, sow-baitings, fox and badger-baiting, reviewing, running at thering:--dinners of never-imagined quality, this, as a daily item, needsno express mention. 

To the young Soldier-Apprentice all this was, of course, in pleasantcontrast with the Potsdam Guard-house; and Friedrich Wilhelm himself isunderstood to have liked at least the dinners, and the airy courteousways, light table-wit and extreme good humor of the host. A successfulvisit; burns off like successful fire-works, piece after piece: and whatmore is to be said? Of all this nothing;--nor, if we could help it, of another little circumstance, not mentioned by the Newspapers orFassmann, which constitutes the meaning of this Visit for us now. It isa matter difficult to handle in speech. An English Editor, chary ofsuch topics, will let two witnesses speak, credible both, though noteye-witnesses; and leave it to the reader so. Babbling Pollnitz is thefirst witness; he deposes, after alluding to the sumptuous dinings anddrinkings there:--

"One day the two Kings, after dinner, went in domino to the redoubt[RIDOTTO, what we now call ROUT or evening party]. August had a mind totake an opportunity, and try whether the reports of Friedrich Wilhelm'sindifference to the fair sex were correct or not. To this end, he hadhad a young damsel (JUNGE PERSON) of extraordinary beauty introducedinto some side-room; where they now entered. She was lying on a bed, ina loose gauzy undress; and though masked, showed so many charms to theeye that the imagination could not but judge very favorably of the rest. The King of Poland approached, in that gallant way of his, which hadgained him such favor with women. He begged her to unmask; she at firstaffected reluctance, and would not. He then told her who he was; andsaid, He hoped she would not refuse, when two Kings begged her to showthem this complaisance. She thereupon took off her mask, and showed themone of the loveliest faces in the world. August seemed quite enchanted;and said, as if it had been the first time he ever saw her, He could notcomprehend how so bewitching a beauty had hitherto remained unknown tohim. 

"Friedrich Wilhelm could not help looking at her. He said to the Kingof Poland, 'She is very beautiful, it must be owned;'--but at thesame instant turned his eyes away from her; and left the room, and theridotto altogether without delay; went home, and shut himself in hisroom. He then sent for Herr von Grumkow, and bitterly complained thatthe King of Poland wanted to tempt him. Herr von Grumkow, who wasneither so chaste nor so conscientious as the King, was for making ajest of the matter; but the King took a very serious tone; and commandedhim to tell the King of Poland in his name, 'That he begged him verymuch not to expose him again to accidents of that nature, unless hewished to have him quit Dresden at once. ' Herr von Grumkow did hismessage. The King of Poland laughed heartily at it; went straight toFriedrich Wilhelm, and excused himself. The King of Prussia, however, kept his grim look; so that August ceased joking, and turned thedialogue on some other subject. " [Pollnitz, ii. 256. ]

This is Pollnitz's testimony, gathered from the whispers of the Tabagie, or rumors in the Court-circles, and may be taken as indisputable in themain. Wilhelmina, deriving from similar sources, and equally uncertainin details, paints more artistically; nor has she forgotten the sequelfor her Brother, which at present is the essential circumstance:--

"One evening, when the rites of Bacchus had been well attended to, theKing of Poland led the King [my Father], strolling about, by degrees, into a room very richly ornamented, all the furniture and arrangementsof which were in a quite exquisite taste. The King, charmed with what hesaw, paused to contemplate the beauties of it a little; when, all ona sudden, a curtain rose, and displayed to him one of the mostextraordinary sights. It was a girl in the condition of our FirstParents, carelessly lying on a bed. This creature was more beautifulthan they paint Venus and the Graces; she presented to view a form ofivory whiter than snow, and more gracefully shaped than the Venusde' Medici at Florence. The cabinet which contained this treasure waslighted by so many wax-candles that their brilliancy dazzled you, andgave a new splendor to the beauties of the goddess. 

"The Authors of this fine comedy did not doubt but the object would makean impression on the King's heart; but it was quite otherwise. Nosooner had he cast his eyes on the beauty than he whirled round withindignation; and seeing my Brother behind him, he pushed him roughly outof the room, and immediately quitted it himself; very angry at the scenethey had been giving him, He spoke of it, that same evening, to Grumkow, in very strong terms; and declared with emphasis that if the likefrolics were tried on him again, he would at once quit Dresden. 

"With my Brother it was otherwise. In spite of the King's care, he hadgot a full view of that Cabinet Venus; and the sight of her did notinspire in him so much horror as in his father. " [Wilhelmina, i. 112. ]--Very likely not!--And in fact, "he obtained her from the Kingof Poland, in a rather singular way _(d'une facon assezsinguliere)"_--describable, in condensed terms, as follows:--

Wilhelmina says, her poor Brother had been already charmed over head andears by a gay young baggage of a Countess Orzelska; a very high andairy Countess there; whose history is not to be touched, except uponcompulsion, and as if with a pair of tongs, --thrice famous as she oncewas in this Saxon Court of Beelzebub. She was King August's naturaldaughter; a French milliner in Warsaw had produced her for him there. In due time, a male of the three hundred and fifty-four, one Rutowski, soldier by profession, whom we shall again hear of, took her formistress; regardless of natural half-sisterhood, which perhaps he didnot know of. The admiring Rutowski, being of a participative turn, introduced her, after a while, to his honored parent and hers; by whomnext--Heavens, human language is unequal to the history of such things!And it is in this capacity she now shines supreme in the Saxon Court;ogling poor young Fritz, and driving him distracted;--which phenomenonthe Beelzebub Parent-Lover noticed with pain and jealousy, it wouldappear. 

"His Polish Majesty distinguished her extremely, " says Pollnitz, [_Memoires, _ ii. 261. ] "and was continually visiting her; so that theuniversal inference was"--to the above unspeakable effect. "She wasof fine figure; had something grand in her air and carriage, and theprettiest humor in the world. She often appeared in men's clothes, whichbecame her very well. People said she was extremely open-handed;" asindeed the Beelzebub Parent-Lover was of the like quality (when he hadcash about him), and to her, at this time, he was profuse beyond limit. Truly a tempting aspect of the Devil, this expensive Orzelska: somethingbeautiful in her, if there are no Laws in this Universe; not sobeautiful, if there are! Enough to turn the head of a poor Crown-Prince, if she like, for some time. He is just sixteen gone; one of theprettiest lads and sprightliest; his homage, clearly enough, isnot disagreeable to the baggage. Wherefore jealous August, theBeelzebub-Parent, takes his measures; signifies to Fritz, in directterms, or by discreet diplomatic hints and innuendoes, That he can havethe Cabinet Venus (Formera her name, of Opera-singer kind);--hopingthereby that the Orzelska will be left alone in time coming. A _"faconassez singuliere"_ for a Sovereign Majesty and Beelzebub Parent-Lover, thinks Wilhelmina. 

Thus has our poor Fritz fallen into the wake of Beelzebub; and is not ina good way. Under such and no better guidance, in this illicit prematuremanner, he gets his introduction to the paradise of the world. TheFormera, beautiful as painted Chaos; yes, her;--and why not, after awhile, the Orzelska too, all the same? A wonderful Armida-Garden, sureenough. And cannot one adore the painted divine beauties there (lovelyas certain apples of the Dead Sea), for some time?--The miseries allthis brought into his existence, --into his relations with a Father veryrigorous in principle, and with a Universe still more so, --for years tocome, were neither few nor small. And that is the main outcome of theDresden visitings for him and us. --

Great pledges pass between the two Kings; Prussian Crown-Princedecorated with the Order of the Saxon Eagle, or what supreme distinctionthey had: Rutowski taken over to Berlin to learn war and drill, wherehe did not remain long: in fact a certain liking seems to have risenbetween the two heteroclite individualities, which is perhaps worthremembering as a point in natural history, if not otherwise. One othersmall result of the visit is of pictorial nature. In the famed DresdenGallery there is still a Picture, high up, visible if you have glasses, where the Saxon Court-Painter, on Friedrich Wilhelm's bidding it issaid, soon after these auspicious occurrences, represents the twoMajesties as large as life, in their respective costumes and features(short Potsdam Grenadier-Colonel and tall Saxon Darius or Sardanapalus), in the act of shaking hands; symbolically burying past grudges, andswearing eternal friendship, so to speak. [Forster, i. 226. ] To thisEditor the Picture did not seem good for much; but Friedrich Wilhelm'sPortrait in it, none of the best, may be of use to travelling friends ofhis who have no other. 

The visit ended on the 12th of February, as the Newspapers testify. Longbefore daybreak, at three in the morning, Friedrich Wilhelm, "who hadsmoked after dinner till nine the night before, " and taken leave ofeverybody, was on the road; but was astonished to find King August andthe Electoral Prince or Heir-Apparent (who had privately sat up for thepurpose) insist on conducting him to his carriage. [Boyer, xxxv. 198. ]"Great tokens of affection, " known to the Newspapers, there were; andone token not yet known, a promise on King August's part that he wouldreturn this ever-memorable compliment in person at Potsdam and Berlin ina few months. Remember, then!--

As for the poor Crown-Prince, whom already his Father did not like, henow fell into circumstances more abstruse than ever in that and otherrespects. Bad health, a dangerous lingering fit of that, soon after hisreturn home, was one of the first consequences. Frequent fits of badhealth, for some years coming; with ominous rumors, consultations ofphysicians, and reports to the paternal Majesty, which produced smallcomfort in that quarter. The sad truth, dimly indicated, is sufficientlyvisible: his life for the next four or five years was "extremelydissolute. " Poor young man, he has got into a disastrous course;consorts chiefly with debauched young fellows, as Lieutenants Katte, Keith, and others of their stamp, who lead him on ways not pleasant tohis Father, nor conformable to the Laws of this Universe. Health, eitherof body or of mind, is not to be looked for in his present way of life. The bright young soul, with its fine strengths and gifts; wallowing likea young rhinoceros in the mud-bath:--some say, it is wholesome for ahuman soul; not we!

All this is too certain; rising to its height in the years we are nowgot to, and not ending for four or five years to come: and the readercan conceive all this, and whether its effects were good or not. Friedrich Wilhelm's old-standing disfavor is converted into openaversion and protest, many times into fits of sorrow, rage and despair, on his luckless Son's behalf;--and it appears doubtful whether thisbright young human soul, comparable for the present to a rhinoceroswallowing in the mud-bath, with nothing but its snout visible, and adirty gurgle all the sound it makes, will ever get out again or not. 

The rhinoceros soul got out; but not uninjured; alas, no; bitterlypolluted, tragically dimmed of its finest radiances for the remainderof life. The distinguished Sauerteig, in his SPRINGWURZELN, has thesewords: "To burn away, in mad waste, the divine aromas and plainlycelestial elements from our existence; to change our holy-of-holies intoa place of riot; to make the soul itself hard, impious, barren! Surely aday is coming, when it will be known again what virtue is in purity andcontinence of life; how divine is the blush of young human cheeks; howhigh, beneficent, sternly inexorable if forgotten, is the duty laid, noton women only, but on every creature, in regard to these particulars?Well; if such a day never come again, then I perceive much else willnever come. Magnanimity and depth of insight will never come; heroicpurity of heart and of eye; noble pious valor, to amend us and theage of bronze and lacquer, how can they ever come? The scandalousbronze-lacquer age, of hungry animalisms, spiritual impotencies andmendacities, will have to run its course, till the Pit swallow it. "--

In the case of Friedrich, it is certain such a day never fully came. The"age of bronze and lacquer, " so as it then stood, --relieved truly by abackbone of real Spartan IRON (of right battle STEEL when needed): thiswas all the world he ever got to dream of. His ideal, compared to thatof some, was but low; his existence a hard and barren, though a genuineone, and only worth much memory in the absence of better. Enough of allthat. 

THE PHYSICALLY STRONG PAYS HIS COUNTER-VISIT. 

August the Strong paid his Return-visit in May following. Of whichsublime transaction, stupendous as it then was to the Journalistic mind, we should now make no mention, except for its connection with thosepoints, --and more especially for a foolish rumor, which now rose aboutPrince Fred and the Double-Marriage, on occasion of it. The magnificenceof this visit and reception being so extreme, --King August, for oneitem, sailing to it, with sound of trumpet and hautbois, in silkenflotillas gayer than Cleopatra's, down the Elbe, --there was a rushtowards Berlin of what we will not call the scum, but must call the foamof mankind, rush of the idle moneyed populations from all countries;and such a crowd there, for the three weeks, as was seldom seen. Foameverywhere is stirred up, and encouraged to get under way. 

Prince Frederick of Hanover and England, "Duke of Edinburgh" as they nowcall him, "Duke of Gloucester" no longer, it would seem, nor "Prince ofWales" as yet; he, foamy as another, had thoughts of coming; and rumorof him rose very high in Berlin, --how high we have still singular proof. Here is a myth, generated in the busy Court-Imagination of Berlin atthis time; written down by Pollnitz as plain fact afterwards; and fromhim idly copied into COXE [Coxe's _Walpole_ (London, 1798), i. 520. ] andother English Books. We abridge from watery Pollnitz, taking care of anysense he has. This is what ran in certain high-frizzled heads thenand there: and was dealt out in whispers to a privileged few, wateryPollnitz's informers among them, till they got a myth made of it. Frederick Duke of Edinburgh, second hope of England at this time, he isthe hero. 

It appears, this loose young gentleman, standing in no favor with hissovereign Father, had never yet been across to England, the royal Parentpreferring rather not to have him in sight; and was living idle atHanover; very eager to be wedded to Wilhelmina, as one grand and atpresent grandest resource of his existence. It is now May, 1728; andFrederick Duke of Edinburgh is twenty-one. He writes to his Aunt andintended Mother-in-law, Queen Sophie (date not ascertainable to aday, Note burnt as soon as read): "That he can endure this tantalizingsuspense no longer; such endless higgling about a supreme blessedness, virtually agreed upon, may be sport to others, but is death to him. Thathe will come privately at once, and wed his Wilhelmina; and so makean end; the big-wigs to adjust it afterwards as they can and may. "Whereupon Sophie Dorothee, gladdest of women, sends for Dubourgay theBritish Ambassador (Brigadier Dubourgay, the respectable old gentlemanwho spells ill, who is strong for the Double-Marriage always), to tellhim what fine news there is, and what answer she has sent. RespectableDubourgay stands silent, with lengthening face: "Your Majesty, howunfortunate that I of all men now hear it! I must instantly despatcha courier with the news to London!" And the respectable man, stoicallydeaf to her Majesty's entreaties, to all considerations but that of hisevident duty, "sends the courier" (thinks Pollnitz);--nips thereby thatfine Hanover speculation in the bud, sees Prince Fred at once summonedover to England, and produces several effects. Nearly the whole ofwhich, on examining the Documents, [Dubourgay's Despatches (1728: 29May, 1 June, 5 October), in the State-Paper Office here. ] proves to bemyth. 

Pollnitz himself adds two circumstances, in regard to it, which arepretty impossible: as, first, that Friedrich Wilhelm had joyfullyconsented to this clandestine marriage, and was eagerly waiting for it;second, that George II. Too had privately favored or even instigated theadventure, being at heart willing to escape the trouble of Messages toParliament, to put his Son in the wrong, and I know not what. [Pollnitz, ii. 272-274. ] The particles of fact in the affair are likewise two:First, that Queen Sophie, and from her the Courtier Public generally, expected the Hanover Royal Highness, who probably had real thoughtsof seeing Berlin and his Intended, on this occasion; Dubourgay reportsdaily rumors of the Royal Highness being actually "seen" there in anevanescent manner; and Wilhelmina says, her Mother was so certain ofhim, "she took every ass or mule for the Royal Highness, "--heartilyindifferent to Wilhelmina. This is the first particle of fact. TheSecond is, that a subaltern Official about the Royal Highness, oneLamothe of Hanover, who had appeared in Berlin about that time, wasthrown into prison not long after, for what misbehavior none knew, --forencouraging dissolute Royal Highness in wild schemes, it was guessed. And so the Myth grew, and was found ready for Pollnitz and hisfollowers. Royal Highness did come over to England; not then as theMyth bears, but nine months afterwards in December next; and foundother means of irritating his imperative, flighty, irascible and ratherfoolish little Father, in an ever-increasing degree. "Very coldlyreceived at Court, " it is said: ill seen by Walpole and the Powers;being too likely to become a focus of Opposition there. 

The Visit, meanwhile, though there came no Duke of Edinburgh to see it, was sublime in the extreme; Polish Majesty being magnificence itself;and the frugal Friedrich Wilhelm lighting up his dim Court intoinsurpassable brilliancy, regardless of expense; so that even theSmoking Parliament (where August attended now and then) became luminous. The Crown-Prince, who in late months had languished in a state ofmiserable health, in a manner ominous to his physicians, confined mostlyto his room or his bed, was now happily on foot again;--and Wilhelminanotes one circumstance which much contributed to his recovery: That thefair Orzelska had attended her natural (or unnatural) Parent, on thisoccasion; and seemed to be, as Wilhelmina thinks, uncommonly kind tothe Crown-Prince. The Heir-Apparent of Saxony, a taciturn, inoffensive, rather opaque-looking gentleman, now turned of thirty, and gone over toPapistry long since, with views to be King of Poland by and by, whichproved effectual as we shall find, was also here: Count Bruhl, too, still in a very subaltern capacity, and others whom we and theCrown-Prince shall have to know. The Heir-Apparent's Wife (actualKaiser's Niece, late Kaiser Joseph's Daughter, a severe Austrian lady, haughtier than lovely) has stayed at home in Dresden. 

But here, at first hand, is a slight view of that unique Polish Majesty, the Saxon Man of Sin; which the reader may be pleased to accept out ofidle curiosity, if for no better reason. We abridge from Wilhelmina; [i. 124. ] whom Fassmann, kindled to triple accuracy by this grand business, is at hand to correct where needful: [_Des glorwurdigsten Fursten undHerrn, Herrn Friedrich Augusti des Grossen Leben und Helden-Thaten_ (Ofthat most glorious Prince and Lord, Lord Friedrich August the Great, King of Poland, &c. , the Life and Heroic Deeds), by D. F. (DavidFassmann), Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1734; 12mo, pp. 1040. A work writtenwith upturned eyes of prostrate admiration for "DERO MAJESTAT ('Theiro'Majesty) AUGUST THE GREAT;" exact too, but dealing merely with theCLOTHES of the matter, and such a matter: work unreadable, except oncompulsion, to the stupidest mortal. The same Fassmann, who was at theFair of St. Germain, who lodged sometimes with the Potsdam Giant, andwhose ways are all fallen dark to us. ] "The King of Poland arrived uponus at Berlin on the 29th of May, " says Wilhelmina; had been at Potsdam, under Friedrich Wilhelm's care, for three days past: Saturday afternoon, 29th May, 1728; that is with exactitude the ever-memorable date. 

He paid his respects in her Majesty's apartment, for an instant, thatevening; but made his formal visit next day. Very grand indeed. Carriedby two shining parti-colored creatures, heyducs so-called, throughdouble rows of mere peerages and sublimities, in a sublime sedan (beinglame of a foot, foot lately amputated of two toes, sore still open): "ina sedan covered with red velvet gallooned with gold, " says the devoutFassmann, tremblingly exact, "up the grand staircase along the grandGallery;" in which supreme region (Apartments of the late King Friedrichof gorgeous memory) her Majesty now is for the occasion. "The Queenreceived him at the door of her third Antechamber, " says Wilhelmina;third or outmost Antechamber, end of that grand Gallery and its peeragesand shining creatures: "he gave the Queen his hand, and led her in. " WePrincesses were there, at least the grown ones of us were. All standing, except the Queen only. "He refused to sit, and again refused;" stoicallytalked graciosities, disregarding the pain of his foot; and did not, till refusal threatened to become uncivil, comply with her Majesty'sentreaties. "How unpolite!" smiled he to us young ones. "He had amajestic port and physiognomy; an affable polite air accompanied allhis movements, all his actions. " Kind of stereotyped smile on his face;nothing of the inner gloom visible on our Charles II. And similar menof sin. He looked often at Wilhelmina, and was complimentary to adegree, --for reasons undivinable to Wilhelmina. For the rest, "muchbroken for his age;" the terrible debaucheries (LES DEBAUCHES TERRIBLES)having had their effect on him. He has fallen Widower last year. Hispoor Wife was a Brandenburg-Baireuth Princess; a devout kind of woman;austerely witnessing the irremediable in her lot. He has got far on withhis three hundred and fifty-four; is now going fifty-five;--lame of afoot, as we see, which the great Petit of Paris cannot cure, neither henor any Surgeon, but can only alleviate by cutting off two toes. Pink ofpoliteness, no doubt of it; but otherwise the strangest dilapidated hulkof a two-legged animal without feathers; probably, in fact, the chiefNatural Solecism under the Sun at that epoch;--extremely complimentaryto us Princesses, to me especially. "He quitted her Majesty's Apartmentafter an hour's conversation: she rose to reconduct him, but he would byno manner of means permit that, "--and so vanished, carried off doubtlessby the shining creatures again. The "Electoral Prince" Heir-Apparent, next made his visit; but he was a dry subject in comparison, of whom noPrincess can say much. Prince Friedrich will know him better by and by. 

Young Maurice, "Count of Saxony, " famed afterwards as MARECHAL DE SAXE, he also is here with his Half-Sister Orzelska and the others, in thetrain of the paternal Man of Sin; and makes acquaintance with Friedrich. He is son of the female Konigsmark called Aurora ("who alone of mortalscould make Charles Twelfth fly his ground"); nephew, therefore, of themale Konigsmark who was cut down long ago at Hanover, and buried inthe fireplace. He resembles his Father in strength, vivacity, above allthings in debauchery, and disregard of finance. They married him at thedue years to some poor rich woman; but with her he has already ended;with her and with many others. Courland, Adrienne Lecouvreur, AnneIwanowna with the big cheek:--the reader has perhaps searched out thesethings for himself from the dull History-Books;--or perhaps it wasbetter for him if he never sought them? Dukedom of Courland, connectedwith Polish sovereignty, and now about to fall vacant, was one of CountMaurice's grand sallies in the world. Adrienne Lecouvreur, foolishFrench Actress, lent him all the 30, 000 pounds she had gathered byholding the mirror up to Nature and otherwise, to prosecute thisCourland business; which proved impossible for him. He was adventurousenough, audacious enough; fought well; but the problem was, To fallin love with the Dowager Anne Iwanowna, Cousin of Czar Peter II. ; bigbrazen Russian woman (such a cheek the Pictures give her, in size andsomewhat in expression like a Westphalia ham!), who was Widow of thelast active Duke:--and this, with all his adventurous audacity, CountMaurice could not do. The big Widow discovered that he did not likeWestphalia hams in that particular form; that he only pretended to likethem; upon which, in just indignation, she disowned and dismissed him;and falling herself to be Czarina not long afterwards, and taking Bierenthe Courlander for her beloved, she made Bieren Duke, and Courlandbecame impossible for Count Maurice. 

However, he too is a dashing young fellow; "circular black eyebrows, eyes glittering bright, partly with animal vivacity, partly withspiritual;" stands six feet in his stockings, breaks horse-shoes withhis hands; full of irregular ingenuity and audacity; has been soldieringabout, ever since birth almost; and understands many a thing, though theworst SPELLER ever known. With him too young Fritz is much charmed:the flower, he, of the illegitimate three hundred and fifty-four, andprobably the chief achievement of the Saxon Man of Sin in this world, where he took such trouble. Friedrich and he maintained some occasionalcorrespondence afterwards; but, to judge by Friedrich's part of it (merepolite congratulations on Fontenoy, and the like), it must have beenof the last vacuity; and to us it is now absolute zero, however clearlyspelt and printed. [Given altogether in _OEuvres de Frederic le Grand, _xvii. 300-309. See farther, whoever has curiosity, Preuss, _FriedrichsLebensgeschichte, _ iii. 167-169; Espagnac, _Vie du Comte de Saxe_ (agood little military Book, done into German, Leipzig, 1774, 2 vols. );Cramer, _Denkwurdigkeiten der Grafin Aurora von Konigsmark_ (Leipzig, 1836); &c. &c. ]

The Physically Strong, in some three weeks, after kindling such aneffulgence about Berlin as was never seen before or since in FriedrichWilhelm's reign, went his way again, --"towards Poland for the Diet, " ornone of us cares whither or for what. Here at Berlin he has been sublimeenough. Some of the phenomena surpassed anything Wilhelmina ever saw:such floods and rows of resplendent people crowding in to dinner; andshe could not but contrast the splendor of the Polish retinues and theirplumages and draperies, with the strait-buttoned Prussian dignitaries, all in mere soldier uniform, succinct "blue coat, white linen gaiters, "and no superfluity even in the epaulettes and red facings. At table, shesays, they drank much, talked little, and bored one another a great deal(S'ENNUYOIENT BEAUCOUP). 

OF PRINCESS WHILHELMINA'S FOUR KINGS AND OTHER INEFFECTUAL SUITORS. 

Dilapidated Polish Majesty, we observed, was extremely attentive toWilhelmina; nor could she ascertain, for long after, what the particularreason was. Long after, Wilhelmina ascertained that there had beenthe wonderfulest scheme concocting, or as good as concocted, in theseswearings of eternal friendship: no other than that of marrying her, Wilhelmina, now a slim maiden coming nineteen, to this dilapidatedSaxon Man of Sin going (or limping) fifty-five, and broken by DEBAUCHESTERRIBLES (rivers of champagne and tokay, for one item), who hadfallen a Widower last year! They had schemed it all out, Wilhelminaunderstands: Friedrich Wilhelm to advance such and such moneys as dowry, and others furthermore as loan, for the occasions of his Polish Majesty, which are manifold; Wilhelmina to have The Lausitz (LUSATIA) forjointure, Lausitz to be Friedrich Wilhelm's pledge withal; and otherintricate conditions; [Wilhelmina, i. 114. ] what would Wilhelmina havethought? One shudders to contemplate;--hopes it might mostly be loosebrain-web and courtier speculation, never settled towards fact. 

It is certain, the dilapidated Polish Majesty having become a Widower, questions would rise, Will not he marry again? And with whom? Certainalso, he wants Friedrich Wilhelm's alliance; having great schemes onthe anvil, which are like to be delicate and perilous, --schemesof "partitioning Poland, " no less; that is to say, cutting off theoutskirts of Poland, flinging them to neighboring Sovereigns aspropitiation, or price of good-will, and rendering the rest hereditaryin his family. Pragmatic Sanction once acceded to, would probablypropitiate the Kaiser? For which, and other reasons, Polish Majestystill keeps that card in his hand. Friedrich Wilhelm's alliance, withsuch an army and such a treasury, the uses of that are evident to thePolish Majesty. --By the blessing of Heaven, however, his marriage withWilhelmina never came to anything: his Electoral Prince, Heir-Apparent, objected to the jointures and alienations, softly, steadily; and theproject had to drop before Wilhelmina ever knew of it. 

And this man is probably one of the "Four Kings" she was to be asked by?A Swedish Officer, with some skill in palmistry, many years ago, lookedinto her innocent little hand, and prophesied, "She was to be in termsof courtship, engagement or as good as engagement, with Four Kings, andto wed none of them. " Wilhelmina counts them in her mature days. TheFIRST will surprise everybody, --Charles XII. Of Sweden;--who never canhave been much of a suitor, the rather as the young Lady was thenonly six gone; but who, might, like enough, be talked of, by transientthird-parties, in those old Stralsund times. The SECOND, --cannot WEguess who the second is? The THIRD is this August the dilapidatedStrong. As to the SECOND, Wilhelmina sees already, in credulous moments, that it may be Hanover Fred, whom she will never marry either;--and doesnot see (nor did, at the time of writing her _Memoires, _ "in 1744"say the Books) that Fred never would come to Kingship, and that thePalmistry was incomplete in that point. The FOURTH, again, is clearlyyoung Czar Peter II. ; of whom there was transient talk or project, someshort time after this of the dilapidated THIRD. But that too came tonothing; the poor young lad died while only fifteen; nay he had already"fallen in love with his Aunt Elizabeth" (INFAME CATIN DU NORD in timecoming), and given up the Prussian prospect. [He was the Great Peter'sGrandson (Son having gone a tragical road )]; Czar, May, 1727--January, 1730: Anne Iwanowna (Great Peter's Niece, elder Brother's Daughter), ourCourland friend with the big cheek, succeeded; till her death, October, 1740: then, after some slight shock of revolution, the Elizabeth justmentioned, who was Daughter of the Great Peter by his little brownCzarina Catherine whom we once met. See Mannstein, _Memoirs of Russia_(London, 1770), pp. 1-23, for some account of Peter II. ; and the restof the Volume for a really intelligent History of this Anne, at least ofher Wars, where Mannstein himself usually had part. 

All which would be nothing, or almost less, to Wilhelmina, walkingfancy-free there, --were it not for Papa and Mamma, and the importunateinsidious by-standers. Who do make a thing of it, first and last! Neverin any romance or stage-play was young Lady, without blame, withoutfurtherance and without hindrance of her own, so tormented about asettlement in life;--passive she, all the while, mere clay in the handsof the potter; and begging the Universe to have the extreme goodnessonly to leave her alone!--

Thus too, among the train of King August in this Berlin visit, a certainSoldier Official of his, Duke of Sachsen Weissenfels, Johann Adolf byname, a poor Cadet Cousin of the Saxon House, --another elderlyRoyal Highness of small possibility, --was particularly attentiveto Wilhelmina; now and on subsequent occasions. Titular Duke ofWeissenfels, Brother of the real Duke, and not even sure of thesuccession as yet; but living on King August's pay; not withoutcapacity of drink and the like, some allege:--otherwise a mere betitled, betasselled elderly military gentleman, of no special qualities, evil orgood;--who will often turn up again in this History; but fails alwaysto make any impression on us except that of a Serene Highness in theabstract; unexceptionable Human Mask, of polite turn, behung withtitles, and no doubt a stomach in the inside of it: he now, andafterwards, by all opportunities, diligently continued his attentionsin the Wilhelmina quarter. For a good while it was never guessed whathe could be driving at; till at last Queen Sophie, becoming aware of it, took him to task; with cold severity, reminded him that some thingsare on one's level, and some things not. To which humbly bowing, inunfeigned penitence, he retired from the audacity, back foremost:Would never even in dreams have presumed, had not his Prussian Majestyauthorized; would now, since HER Prussian Majesty had that feeling, withdraw silently, and live forgotten, as an obscure Royal Highness inthe abstract (though fallen Widower lately) ought to do. And so at leastthere was an end of that matter, one might hope, --though in effect itstill abortively started up now and then, on Papa's part, in his frantichumors, for years to come. 

Then there is the Margraf of Schwedt, Friedrich Wilhelm by name, chiefPrince of the Blood, his Majesty's Cousin, and the Old Dessauer'sNephew; none of the likeliest of men, intrinsically taken: he and hisDowager Mother--the Dessauer's Sister, a high-going, tacitly obstinateold Dowager (who dresses, if I recollect, in flagrant colors)--arevery troublesome to Wilhelmina. The flagrant Dame--she might have been"Queen-Mother" once forsooth, had Papa and my Brother but been made awaywith!--watches her time, and is diligent by all opportunities. 

Chapter IV. -- DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT IS NOT DEAD. 

And the Double-Marriage, in such circumstances, are we to consider it asdead, then? In the soul of Queen Sophie and those she can influence, itlives flame-bright; but with all others it has fallen into a very dimstate. Friedrich Wilhelm is still privately willing, perhaps in a degreewishful; but the delays, the supercilious neglects have much disgustedhim; and he, in the mean while, entertains those new speculations. George II. , never a lover of the Prussian Majesty's nor loved by him, has been very high and distant ever since his Accession; offensiverather than otherwise. He also is understood to be vaguely willing forthe thing; willing enough, would it be so kind as accomplish itselfwithout trouble to him. But the settlements, the applications toParliament:--and all for this perverse Fred, who has become unlovely, and irritates our royal mind? George pushes the matter into itspigeon-holes again, when brought before him. Higher thoughts occupy thesoul of little George. Congress of Soissons, Convention of the Pardo, [Or, in effect, "Treaty of Madrid, " 6th March, 1728. This was thePREFACE to Soissons; Termagant at length consenting there, "at herPalace of the Pardo" (Kaiser and all the world urging her for ten monthspast), to accept the Peace, and leave off besieging Gibraltar to nopurpose (Coxe, i. 303). ] Treaty of Seville; a part to be acted onthe world-theatre, with applauses, with envies, almost from the verydemi-gods? Great Kaisers, overshadowing Nature with their PragmaticSanctions, their preternatural Diplomacies, and making the TerrestrialBalance reel hither and thither;--Kaisers to be clenched perhaps byone's dexterity of grasp, and the Balance steadied again? PrussianDouble-Marriage!

One royal soul there is who never will consent to have theDouble-Marriage die: Queen Sophie. She had passed her own privateact-of-parliament for it; she was a very obstinate wife, to a husbandequally obstinate. "JE BOULEVERSERAI L'EMPIRE, " writes she once; "I willoverturn the German Empire, " if they drive me to it, in this matter. [Letter copied by Dubourgay (in Despatch, marked PRIVATE, to LordTownshend, 3d-14th May, 1729); no clear address given, --probably toDubourgay himself, CONVEYED by "a Lady" (one of the Queen's Ladies), as he dimly intimates. ] What secret manoeuvring and endeavoring wenton unweariedly on royal Sophie's part, we need not say; nor in whatbad element, of darkness and mendacity, of eavesdropping, rumoring, backstairs intriguing, the affair now moved. She corresponds on itwith Queen Caroline of England; she keeps her two children true to it, especially her Son, the more important of them. 

CROWN-PRINCE FRIEDRICH WRITES CERTAIN LETTERS. 

Queen Sophie did not overturn the Empire, but she did almost overturnher own and her family's existence, by these courses; which were notwise in her case. It is certain she persuaded Crown-Prince Friedrich, who was always his Mother's boy, and who perhaps needed little biddingin this instance, "to write to Queen Caroline of England;" Letters oneor several: thrice-dangerous Letters; setting forth (in substance), Hisdeathless affection to that Beauty of the world, her Majesty's divineDaughter the Princess Amelia (a very paragon of young women, to judge byher picture and one's own imagination); and likewise the firm resolutionhe, Friedrich Crown-Prince, has formed, and the vow he hereby makes, Either to wed that celestial creature when permitted, or else never anyof the Daughters of Eve in this world. Congresses of Soissons, SmokingParliaments, Preliminaries of the Pardo and Treaties of Seville may gohow they can. If well, it shall be well: if not well, here is my vow, solemn promise and unchangeable determination, which your graciousMajesty is humbly entreated to lay up in the tablets of your royalheart, and to remember on my behalf, should bad days arise!--

It is clear such Letters were sent; at what date first beginning, wedo not know;--possibly before this date? Nor would matters rise to thevowing pitch all at once. One Letter, supremely dangerous should it cometo be known, Wilhelmina has copied for us, [Wilhelmina, i. 183. ]--inOfficial style (for it is the Mother's composition this one) and withoutdate to it:--the guessable date is about two years hence; and we willgive the poor Document farther on, if there be place for it. 

Such particulars are yet deeply unknown to Friedrich Wilhelm; buthe surmises the general drift of things in that quarter; and how adisobedient Son, crossing his Father's will in every point, abets hisMother's disobedience, itself audacious enough, in regard to this one. It is a fearful aggravation of Friedrich Wilhelm's ill-humor with sucha Son, which has long been upon the growing hand. His dislikes, weknow, were otherwise neither few nor small. Mere "disLIKES" properly socalled, or dissimilarities to Friedrich Wilhelm, a good many of them;dissimilarities also to a Higher Pattern, some! But these troubles ofthe Double-Marriage will now hurry them, the just and the unjust ofthem, towards the flaming pitch. The poor youth has a bad time; and thepoor Father too, whose humor we know! Surly gusts of indignation, notunfrequently cuffs and strokes; or still worse, a settled aversion, andrage of the chronic kind; studied neglect and contempt, --so as noteven to help him at table, but leave him fasting while the others eat;[Dubourgay, SCAPIUS. ] this the young man has to bear. The innumerablemaltreatments, authentically chronicled in Wilhelmina's and the otherBooks, though in a dateless, unintelligible manner, would make a tragicsum!--Here are two Billets, copied from the Prussian State-Archives, which will show us to what height matters had gone, in this the youngman's seventeenth year. 

TO HIS MAJESTY (from the Crown-Prince). 

"WUSTERHAUSEN, 11th September, 1728. 

MY DEAR PAPA, --I have not, for a long while, presumed to come to my dearPapa; partly because he forbade me; but chiefly because I had reason toexpect a still worse reception than usual: and, for fear of angering mydear Papa by my present request, I have preferred making it in writingto him. 

I therefore beg my dear Papa to be gracious to me; and can here saythat, after long reflection, my conscience has not accused me of any theleast thing with which I could reproach myself. But if I have, againstmy will and knowledge, done anything that has angered my dear Papa, Iherewith most submissively beg forgiveness; and hope my dear Papawill lay aside that cruel hatred which I cannot but notice in all histreatment of me. I could not otherwise suit myself to it; as I alwaysthought I had a gracious Papa, and now have to see the contrary. I takeconfidence, then, and hope that my dear Papa will consider all this, and again be gracious to me. And, in the mean while, I assure him thatI will never, all my days, fail with my will; and, notwithstanding hisdisfavor to me, remain

"My dear Papa's

"Most faithful and obedient Servant and Son, "FRIEDRICH. "

To which Friedrich Wilhelm, by return of messenger, writes what follows. Very implacable, we may perceive;--not calling his Petitioner "Thou, " askind Paternity might have dictated; infinitely less by the polite title"They (SIE), " which latter indeed, the distinguished title of "SIC, "his Prussian Majesty, we can remark, reserves for Foreigners of thesupremest quality, and domestic Princes of the Blood; naming all otherPrussian subjects, and poor Fritz in this place, "He (ER), " in the styleof a gentleman to his valet, --which style even a valet of these new daysof ours would be unwilling to put up with. "ER, He, " "His" and the otherderivatives sound loftily repulsive in the German ear; and layopen impassable gulfs between the Speaker and the Spoken-to. "His obstinate"--But we must, after all, say THY and THOU forintelligibility's sake:--

"Thy obstinate perverse disposition [KOPF, head], which does not lovethy Father, --for when one does everything [everything commanded] andreally loves one's Father, one does what the Father requires, not whilehe is there to see it, but when his back is turned too [His Majesty'sstyle is very abstruse, ill-spelt, intricate, and in this instance tripsitself, and falls on its face here, a mere intricate nominative withouta verb!]--For the rest, thou know'st very well that I can endure noeffeminate fellow (EFEMINIRTEN KERL), who has no human inclination inhim; who puts himself to shame, cannot ride nor shoot; and withal isdirty in his person; frizzles his hair like a fool, and does not cutit off. And all this I have, a thousand times, reprimanded; but all invain, and no improvement in nothing (KEINE BESSERUNG IN NITS IST). Forthe rest, haughty, proud as a churl; speaks to nobody but some few, andis not popular and affable; and cuts grimaces with his face, as if hewere a fool; and does my will in nothing unless held to it by force;nothing out of love;--and has pleasure in nothing but following his ownwhims [own KOPF], --no use to him in anything else. This is the answer. 

"FRIEDRICH WILHELM. "

[Preuss, i. 27; from Cramer, pp. 33, 34. ]

DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT RE-EMERGES IN AN OFFICIAL SHAPE. 

These are not favorable outlooks for the Double-Marriage. Neverthelessit comes and goes; and within three weeks later, we are touched almostwith a kind of pity to see it definitely emerging in a kind of Officialstate once more. For the question is symbolical of important politicalquestions. The question means withal, What is to be done in thesedreadful Congress-of-Soissons complexities, and mad reelings of theTerrestrial Balance? Shall we hold by a dubious and rather losingKaiser of this kind, in spite of his dubieties, his highly inexplicit, procedures (for which he may have reasons) about the Promise of Julichand Berg? Or shall we not clutch at England, after all, --and perhapsbring him to terms? The Smoking Parliament had no Hansard; but, weguess its Debates (mostly done in dumb-show) were cloudy, abstruse andabundant, at this time! The Prussian Ministers, if they had any power, take different sides; old Ilgen, the oldest and ablest of them, isstrong for England. 

Enough, in the beginning of October, Queen Sophie, "by express desire ofhis Majesty, " who will have explicit, Yes or No on that matter, writesto England, a Letter "PRIVATE AND OFFICIAL, " of such purport, --Letter(now invisible) which Dubourgay is proud to transmit. [Despatch, 5thOctober, 1728, in State-Paper Office. ] Dubourgay is proud; and oldIlgen, her Majesty informed me on the morrow, "wept for joy, " so zealouswas he on that side. Poor old gentleman, --respectable rusty old IronSafe with seven locks, which nobody would now care to pick, --he diedfew weeks after, at his post as was proper; and saw no Double-Marriage, after all. But Dubourgay shakes out his feathers; the Double-Marriagebeing again evidently alive. 

For England answers, cordially enough, if not, with all the hurryFriedrich Wilhelm wanted, "Yea, we are willing for the thing;"--andmeets, with great equanimity and liberality, the new whims, difficultiesand misgivings, which arose on Friedrich Wilhelm's part, at a wearisomerate, as the negotiation went on; and which are always frankly smoothedaway again by the cooler party. Why did not the bargain close, then?Alas, one finds, the answer YEA had unfortunately set his PrussianMajesty on viewing, through magnifiers, what advantages there might havebeen in NO: this is a difficulty there is no clearing away! Probably, too, the Tobacco-Parliament was industrious. Friedrich Wilhelm, at last, tries if Half will not do; anxious, as we all too much are, "to say YesAND No;" being in great straits, poor man:--"Your Prince of Wales to wedWilhelmina at once; the other Match to stand over?" To which theEnglish Government answers always briefly, "No; both the Marriages ornone!"--Will the reader consent to a few compressed glances into theextinct Dubourgay Correspondence; much compressed, and here and there arushlight stuck in it, for his behoof. Dubourgay, at Berlin, writes;my Lord Townshend, in St. James's reads, usually rather languid inanswering:--

BERLIN, 9th NOVEMBER, 1728. "Prussian Majesty much pleased with EnglishAnswers" to the Yes-or-No question: "will send a Minister to our Courtabout the time his Britannic Majesty may think of coming over to hisGerman Dominions. Would Finkenstein (Head Tutor), or would Knyphausen(distinguished Official here), be the agreeable man?" "Either, " answerthe English; "either is good. "

BERLIN, SAME DATE. "Queen sent for me just now; is highly content withthe state of things. 'I have now, ' said her Majesty, 'the pleasureto tell you that I am free, God be blessed, of all the anguish I havelabored under for some time past, which was so great that I have severaltimes been on the point of sending for you to procure my Brother'sprotection for my Son, who, I thought, ran the greatest danger from theartifices of Seckendorf and'"--Poor Queen!

NOV, 16th. "Queen told me: When the Court was at Wusterhausen, " twomonths ago, hunting partridges and wild swine, [Fassmann, p. 386. ]"Seckendorf and Grumkow intrigued for a match between Wilhelmina and thePrince of Weissenfels, " elderly Royal Highness in the Abstract, whom wesaw already, "thereby to prevent a closer union between the Prussian andEnglish Courts, --and Grumkow having withal the private view of oustinghis antagonist the Prince of Anhalt [Old Dessauer, whom he had to meetin duel, but did not fight], as Weissenfels, once Son-in-law, wouldcertainly be made Commander-in-Chief, " [Dubourgay, in State-Paper Office(Prussian Despatches, vol. XXXV. )] to the extrusion of Anhalt from thatoffice. Which notable piece of policy her Majesty, by a little plainspeech, took her opportunity of putting an end to, as we saw. For therest, "the Dutch Minister and also the French Secretaries here, " greatlyinterested about the peace of Europe, and the Congress of Soissons inthese weeks, "have had a communication from this Court, of the favorabledisposition ours is in with respect to the Double Match, "--beneficentfor the Terrestrial Balance, as they and I hope. So that things lookwell? Alas, --

DECEMBER 25th. "Queen sent for me yesterday: Hopes she does no wrong incomplaining of her Husband to her Brother. King shows scruples aboutthe Marriages; does not relish the expense of an establishment for thePrince; hopes, at all events, the Marriage will not take place for ayear yet;--would like to know what Dowry the English Princess is tobring?"--"No Dowry with our Princess, " the English answer; "nor shallyou give any with yours. "

NEW-YEAR'S DAY, 1729. "Queen sent for me: King is getting intractableabout the Marriages; she reasoned with him from two o'clock tilleight, " without the least permanent effect. "It is his covetousness, "I Dubourgay privately think!--Knyphausen, who knows the King well, privately tells me, "He will come round. " "It is his avarice, " thinksKnyphausen too; "nay it is also his jealousy of the Prince, who is verypopular with the Army. King does everything to mortify him, uses himlike a child; Crown-Prince bears it with admirable patience. " This isKnyphausen's weak notion; rather a weak creaky official gentleman, I should gather, of a cryptosplenetic turn. "Queen told me some dayslater, His Majesty ill-used the Crown-Prince, because he did not drinkhard enough; makes him hunt though ill;" is very hard upon the poorCrown-Prince, --who, for the rest, "sends loving messages to England, " asusual; [Dubourgay, 16th January. ] covertly meaning the Princess Amelia, as usual. "Some while ago, I must inform your Lordship, the Prince wasspoken to, " by Papa as would appear, "to sound his inclination as to thePrincess Caroline, " Princess likewise of England, and whose age, someeighteen months less than his own, might be suitabler, the PrincessAmelia being half a year his elder; [Caroline born 10th June 1713;Amelia, 10th July, 1711. ] "but, "--mark how true he stood, --"his RoyalHighness broke out into such raptures of love and passion for thePrincess Amelia, and showed so much impatience for the conclusion ofthat Match, as gave the King of Prussia a great deal of surprise, and the Queen as much satisfaction. " Truth is, if an old BrigadierDiplomatist may be judge, "The great and good qualities of that youngPrince, both of person and mind, deserve a distinct and particularaccount, with which I shall trouble your Lordship another day;"[Despatch, 25th December, 1728. ]--which unluckily I never did; hisLordship Townshend having, it would seem, too little curiosity on thesubject. 

And so the matter wavers; and in spite of Dubourgay's and Queen Sophie'sindustry, and the Crown-Prince's willing mind, there can nothingdefinite be made of it at this time. Friedrich Wilhelm goes on visits, goes on huntings; leaves the matter to itself to mature a little. Thusthe negotiation hangs fire; and will do so, --till dreadful waterspoutscome, and perhaps quench it altogether?

HIS MAJESTY SLAUGHTERS 3, 602 HEAD OF WILD SWINE. 

His Majesty is off for a Hunting Visit to the OldDessauer, --Crown-Prince with him, who hates hunting. Then, "19thJanuary, 1729, " says the reverential Fassmann, he is off for a grandhunt at Copenick; then for a grander in Pommern (Crown-Prince stillwith him): such a slaughter of wild swine as was seldom heard of, and asnever occurred again. No fewer than "1, 882 head (STUCK) of wild swine, 300 of them of uncommon magnitude, " in the Stettin and other Pommernregions; "together with 1, 720 STUCK in the Mark Brandenburg, once 450 ina day: in all, 3, 602 STUCK. " Never was his Majesty in better spirits: avery Nimrod or hunting Centaur; trampling the cobwebs of Diplomacy, andthe cares of life, under his victorious hoofs. All this slaughter ofswine, 3, 602 STUCK by tale, was done in the season 1729. "From which, "observes the adoring Fassmann, [p. 387. ] "is to be inferred theimportance, " at least in wild swine, "of those royal Forests in Pommernand the Mark;" not to speak of his Majesty's supreme talent in hunting, as in other things. 

What Friedrich Wilhelm did with such a mass of wild pork? Not an ounceof it was wasted, every ounce of it brought money in. For there existOfficial Schedules, lists as for a window-tax or property-tax, drawnup by his Majesty's contrivance, in the chief Localities: every man, according to the house he keeps, is bound to take, at a just value byweight, such and such quotities of suddenly slaughtered wild swine, oneor so many, --and consume them at his leisure, as ham or otherwise, --cashpayable at a fixed term, and no abatement made. [Forster, Beneckendorf(if they had an Index I). ] For this is a King that cannot stand waste atall; thrifty himself, and the Cause of thrift. 

FALLS ILL, IN CONSEQUENCE; AND THE DOUBLE-MARRIAGE CANNOT GET FORWARD. 

This was one of Friedrich Wilhelm's grandest hunting-bouts, this ofJanuary, 1729; at all events, he will never have another such. By suchfierce riding, and defiance of the winter elements and rules of regimen, his Majesty returned to Potsdam with ill symptoms of health;--symptomsnever seen before; except transiently, three years ago, after a similarbout; when the Doctors, shaking their heads, had mentioned the word"Gout. "--"NARREN-POSSEN!" Friedrich Wilhelm had answered, "Gout?"--Butnow, February, 1729, it is gout in very deed. His poor Majesty has toadmit: "I am gouty, then! Shall have gout for companion henceforth. I ambreaking up, then?" Which is a terrible message to a man. His Majesty'sage is not forty-one till August coming; but he has hunted furiously. 

Adoring Fassmann gives a quite touching account of Friedrich Wilhelm'sperformances under gout, now and generally, which were begun on thisoccasion. How he suffered extremely, yet never neglected his royalduties in any press of pain. Could seldom get any sleep till towardsfour or five in the morning, and then had to be content with an hour ortwo; after which his Official Secretaries came in with their Papers, and he signed, despatched, resolved, with best judgment, --the top of themorning always devoted to business. At noon, up if possible; and dines, "in dressing-gown, with Queen and children. " After dinner, commonlyto bed again; and would paint in oil; sometimes do light joiner-work, chiselling and inlaying; by and by lie inactive with select friendssitting round, some of whom had the right of entry, others not, underpenalties. Buddenbrock, Derschau, rough old Marlborough stagers, were generally there; these, "and two other persons, "--Grumkowand Seckendorf, whom Fassmann does not name, lest he get intotrouble, --"sat, well within earshot, round the bed. And always at thehead was TheirO Majesty the Queen, sometimes with the King's hand laidin hers, and his face turned up to her, as if he sought assuagement"--Omy dim old Friend, let us dry our tears!

"Sometimes the Crown-Prince read aloud in some French Book, " Title notgiven; Crown-Prince's voice known to me as very fine. Generally thePrincess Louisa was in the room, too; Louisa, who became of Anspachshortly; not Wilhelmina, who lies in fever and relapse and small-pox, and close at death's door, almost since the beginning of these bad days. The Crown-Prince reads, we say, with a voice of melodious clearness, in French more or less instructive. "At other times there went ondiscourse, about public matters, foreign news, things in general;discourse of a cheerful or of a serious nature, " always with somesubstance of sense in it, --"and not the least smut permitted, as is toomuch the case in certain higher circles!" says adoring Fassmann; whoprivately knows of "Courts" (perhaps the GLORWURDIGSTE, Glory-worthiest, August the Great's Court, for one?) "with their hired Tom-Fools, " notyet an extinct species attempting to ground wit on that bad basis. Prussian Majesty could not endure any "ZOTEN:" profanity and indecency, both avaunt. "He had to hold out in this way, awake till ten o'clock, for the chance of night's sleep. " Earlier in the afternoon, we said, heperhaps does a little in oil-painting, having learnt something of thatart in young times;--there is a poor artist in attendance, to mix thecolors, and do the first sketch of the thing. Specimens of such Picturesstill exist, Portraits generally; all with this epigraph, FREDERICUSWILHELMUS IN TORMENTIS PINXIT (Painted by Friedrich Wilhelm in historments); and are worthy the attention of the curious. [Fassmann, p. 392; see Forster, &c. ] Is not this a sublime patient?

Fassmann admits, "there might be spurts of IMpatience now and then; buthow richly did Majesty make it good again after reflection! He wasalso subject to whims even about people whom he otherwise esteemed. Onemeritorious gentleman, who shall be nameless, much thought of by theKing, his Majesty's nerves could not endure, though his mind well did:'Makes my gout worse to see him drilling in the esplanade there;let another do it!'--and vouchsafed an apologetic assurance to themeritorious gentleman afflicted in consequence. "--O my dim old Friend, these surely are sublimities of the sick-bed? "So it lasted for somefive weeks long, " well on towards the summer of this bad year 1729. Wilhelmina says, in briefer business language, and looking only at thewrong side of the tapestry, "It was a Hell-on-Earth to us, _Les peinesdu Purgatoire ne pouvaient egaler celles que NOUS endurions;"_ [i. 157. ]and supports the statement by abundant examples, during those flamyweeks. 

For, in the interim, withal, the English negotiation is as good as goneout; nay there are waterspouts brewing aloft yonder, enough to washnegotiation from the world. Of which terrible weather-phenomena we shallhave to speak by and by: but must first, by way of commentary, give aglance at Soissons and the Terrestrial LIBRA, so far as necessary forhuman objects, --not far, by any means. 

Chapter V. -- CONGRESS OF SOISSONS, SIXTH CRISIS IN THE SPECTRE-HUNT. 

The so-called Spanish War, and dangerous futile Siege of Gibraltar, hadnot ended at the death of George I. ; though measures had already beenagreed upon, by the Kaiser and parties interested, to end it, --onlythe King of Spain (or King's Wife, we should say) made difficulties. Difficulties, she; and kept firing, without effect, at the Fortressfor about a year more; after which, her humor or her powder being out, Spanish Majesty signed like the others. Peace again for all and sundryof us: "Preliminaries" of Peace signed at Paris, 31st May, 1727, threeweeks before George's death; "Peace" itself finally at the Pardo or atMadrid, the Termagant having spent her powder, 6th March, 1728; [Scholl, ii. 212, 213. ] and a "Congress" (bless the mark!) to settle on whatterms in every point. 

Congress, say at Aix-la-Chapelle; say at Cambrai again, --for there aredifficulties about the place. Or say finally at Soissons; where Fleurywished it to be, that he might get the reins of it better in hand; andwhere it finally was, --and where the ghost or name of it yet is, anempty enigma in the memories of some men. Congress of Soissons did meet, 14th June, 1728; opened itself, as a Corporeal Entity in this world; satfor above a year;--and did nothing; Fleury quite declining the PragmaticSanction, though the anxious Kaiser was ready to make astonishingsacrifices, give up his Ostend COMPANY (Paper Shadow of a Company), orwhat you will of that kind, --if men would have conformed. 

These Diplomatic gentlemen, --say, are they aught? They seem tounderstand me, by each at once his choppy finger laying on his skinnylips! Princes of the Powers of the Air, Shall we define them? It iscertain the solid Earth or her facts, except being held in perpetualterror by such workings of the Shadow-world, reaped no effect from thoseTwenty Years of Congressing; Seckendorf himself might as well havelain in bed, as ridden those 25, 000 miles, and done such quantities ofdouble-distillations. No effect at all: only some futile gunpowder spenton Gibraltar, and splinters of shot and shells (salable as old iron)found about the rocks there; which is not much of an effect for TwentyYears of such industry. 

The sublime Congress of Soissons met, as we say, at the above date (justwhile the Polish Majesty was closing his Berlin Visit); but found itselfno abler for work than that of Cambrai had been. The Deputies fromFrance I do not mention; nor from Spain, nor from Austria. The Deputiesfrom England were Colonel or now properly Brigadier-General Stanhope, afterwards Lord Harrington; Horace Walpole (who is Robert's Brother, and whose Secretary is Sir Thomas Robinson, "QUOI DONE, CRUSOE?" whom weshall hear of farther); and Stephen Poyntz, a once bright gentleman, nowdim and obsolete, whom the readers of Coxe's _Walpole_ have some nominalacquaintance with. Here, for Chronology's sake, is a clipping from theold English newspapers to accompany them: "There is rumor that POLLYPEACHUM is gone to attend the Congress at Soissons; where, it isthought, she will make as good a figure, and do her country as muchservice, as several others that shall be nameless. " [_Mist's WeeklyJournal, _ 29th June, 1728. ]

Their task seemed easy to the sanguine mind. The Kaiser has agreed withSpain in the Italian-Apanage matter; with the Sea-Powers in regard tohis Ostend Company, which is abolished forever: what then is to preventa speedy progress, and glad conclusion? The Pragmatic Sanction. "Acceptmy Pragmatic Sanction, " said the Kaiser, "let that be the preliminaryof all things. "--"Not the preliminary, " answered Fleury; "we will see tothat as we go on; not the preliminary, by any means!" There was the rub. The sly old Cardinal had his private treaties with Sardinia; viewsof his own in the Mediterranean, in the Rhine quarter; and answeredsteadily, "Not the preliminary, by any means!" The Kaiser was equallyinflexible. Whereupon immensities of protocolling, arguing, and theCongress "fell into complete languor, " say the Histories. [Scholl, ii. 215. ] Congress ate its dinner heartily, and wrote immensely, for thespace of eighteen months; but advanced no hair's-breadth any-whither; noprospect before it, but that of dinner only, for unlimited periods. 

Kaiser will have his Pragmatic Sanction, or not budge from the place;stands mulelike amid the rain of cudgellings from the by-standers; canbe beaten to death, but stir he will not. --Hints, glances of the eye, pass between Elizabeth Farnese and the other by-standers; suddenly, 9thNovember, 1729, it is found they have all made a "TREATY OF SEVILLE"with Elizabeth Farnese; France, England, Holland, Spain, have allclosed, --Italian Apanages to be at once secured, Ostend to be at oncesuppressed, with what else behooves;--and the Kaiser is left alone;standing upon his Pragmatic Sanction there, nobody bidding him nowbudge!

At which the Kaiser is naturally thrice and four times wroth andalarmed;--and Seckendorf in the TABAKS-COLLEGIUM had need to be doublybusy. As we shall find he is (though without effect), when the timecomes round:--but we have not yet got to November of this Year 1729;there are still six or eight important months between us and that. Important months; and a Prussian-English "Waterspout, " as we have namedit, to be seen, with due wonder, in the political sky!--

Congress of Soissons, now fallen mythical to mankind, and as inane asthat of Cambrai, is perhaps still memorable in one or two slight points. First, it has in it, as one of the Austrian Deputies, that Baron vonBentenrieder, tallest of living Diplomatists, who was pressed at onetime for a Prussian soldier;--readers recollect it? Walking through thestreets of Halberstadt, to stretch his long limbs till his carriage cameup, the Prussian sentries laid hold of him, "Excellent Potsdam giant, this one!"--and haled him off to their guard-house; till carriage andlackeys came; then, "Thousand humblest pardons, your Excellenz!" whoforgave the fellows. Barely possible some lighter readers might wish tosee, for one moment, an Excellenz that has been seized by a Press-gang?Which perhaps never happened to any other Excellenz;--the like of which, I have been told, might merit him a soiree from strong-minded women, insome remoter parts of the world. Not to say that he is the tallest ofliving Diplomatists; another unique circumstance!--Bentenrieder soondied; and had his place at Soissons filled up by an Excellenz of theordinary height, who had never been pressed. But nothing can rob theCongress of this fact, that it once had Bentenrieder for member; and, sofar, is entitled to the pluperfect distinction in one particular. 

Another point is humanly interesting in this Congress; but cannot fullybe investigated for want of dates. Always, we perceive, according to thenews of it that reach Berlin, --of England going right for the Kaiser orgoing wrong for him, --his Prussian Majesty's treatment of his childrenvaries. If England go right for the Kaiser, well, and his Majesty is ingood-humor with Queen, with Crown-Prince and Wilhelmina. If England gowrong for the Kaiser, dark clouds gather on the royal brow, in the royalheart; explode in thunder-storms; and at length crockery goes flyingthrough the rooms, blows descend on the poor Prince's back; and herMajesty is in tears, mere Chaos come again. For as a general rule, unless the English Negotiation have some prospering fit, and produceexceptional phenomena, Friedrich Wilhelm, ever loyal in heart, standssteadfast by his Kaiser; ever ready "to strike out (LOS ZU SCHLAGEN, "as he calls it) with his best strength in behalf of a cause which, goodsoul, he thinks is essentially German;--all the readier if at any timeit seem now exclusively German, the French, Spanish, English, and otherunlovely Foreign world being clean cut loose from it, or even standingranked against it. "When will it go off, then (WANN GEHT ES LOS)?" asksFriedrich Wilhelm often; diligently drilling his sixty thousand, andsnorting contempt on "Ungermanism (UNDEUTSCHHEIT), " be it on the partof friends or of enemies. Good soul, and whether he will ever getJulich and Berg out of it, is distractingly problematical, and theTobacco-Parliament is busy with him!

Curious to see, so far as dates go, how Friedrich Wilhelm changes histune to Wife and Children in exact correspondence to the notes givenout at Soissons for a Kaiser and his Pragmatic Sanction. Poor PrussianHousehold, poor back, and heart, of Crown-Prince; what a concert it isin this world, Smoking Parliament for souffleur! Let the big DiplomatistBassoon of the Universe go this way, there are caresses for a youngSoldier and his behavior in the giant regiment; let the same Bassoonsound that way, bangs and knocks descend on him; the two keep timetogether, --so busy is the Smoking Parliament with his Majesty ofPrussia. The world has seen, with horror and wonder, Friedrich Wilhelm'sbeating of his grown children: but the pair of MEERKATZEN, or enchantedDemon-Apes, disguised as loyal Councillors, riding along with him thelength of a Terrestrial Equator, have not been so familiar to the world. Seckendorf, Grumkow: we had often heard of Devil-Diplomatists; andshuddered over horrible pictures of them in Novels; hoping it wasall fancy: but here actually is a pair of them, transcending allNovels;--perhaps the highest cognizable fact to be met with inDevil-Diplomacy. And it may be a kind of comfort to readers, both toknow it, and to discern gradually what the just gods make of it withal. Devil-Diplomatists do exist, at least have existed, never doubt itfarther; and their astonishingly dexterous mendacities and enchantedspider-webs, --CAN these go any road but one in this Universe?

That the Congress of Cambrai was not a myth, we convinced ourselves by aletter of Voltaire's, who actually saw it dining there in the Year1722, as he passed that way. Here, for Soissons, in like manner, are twoLetters, by a less celebrated but a still known English hand; which, as utterances in presence of the fact itself, leave no doubt on thesubject. These the afflicted reader will perhaps consent to take aglance of. If the Congress of Soissons, for the sake of memorableobjects concerned there, is still to be remembered, and believed in, fora little while, --the question arises, How to do it, then?

The writer of these Letters is a serious, rather long-nosed youngEnglish gentleman, not without intelligence, and of a wholesome andhonest nature; who became Lord Lyttelton, FIRST of those Lords, calledalso "the Good Lord, " father of "the Bad:" a lineal descendant of thatLyttelton UPON whom Coke sits, or seems to sit, till the end of things:author by and by of a _History of Henry the Second_ and other well-meantbooks: a man of real worth, who attained to some note in the world. Heis now upon the Grand Tour, --which ran, at that time, by Luneville andLorraine, as would appear; at which point we shall first take him up. Hewrites to his Father, Sir Thomas, at Hagley among the pleasant Hills ofWorcestershire, --date shortly after the assembling of that Congress torear of him;--and we strive to add a minimum of commentary. The "pieceof negligence, " the "Mr. D. , "--none of mortals now knows who or whatthey were:--

TO SIR THOMAS LYTTELTON, BART. , AT HAGLEY. 

"LUNEVILLE 21st July" 1728. 

"DEAR SIR, --I thank you for so kindly forgiving the piece of negligenceI acquainted you of in my last. Young fellows are often guilty ofvoluntary forgetfulness in those affairs; but I assure you mine wasquite accidental:"--Never mind it, my Son!

"Mr. D. Tells you true that I am weary of losing money at cards; but itis no less certain that without them I shall soon be weary of Lorraine. The spirit of quadrille [obsolete game at cards] has possessed the landfrom morning till midnight; there is nothing else in every house inTown. 

"This Court is fond of strangers, but with a proviso that strangers lovequadrille. Would you win the hearts of the Maids of Honor, you must loseyour money at quadrille; would you be thought a well-bred man, you mustplay genteelly at quadrille; would you get a reputation of good sense, show judgment at quadrille. However in summer one may pass a day withoutquadrille; because there are agreeable promenades, and little partiesout of doors. But in winter you are reduced to play at it, or sleep, like a fly, till the return of spring. 

"Indeed in the morning the Duke hunts, "--mark that Duke, and two Sons hehas. "But my malicious stars have so contrived it, that I am no morea sportsman than a gamester. There are no men of learning in the wholeCountry; on the contrary, it is a character they despise. A man ofquality caught me, the other day, reading a Latin Author; and asked me, with an air of contempt, Whether I was designed for the Church? Allthis would be tolerable if I was not doomed to converse with a set ofEnglish, who are still more ignorant than the French; and from whom, with my utmost endeavors, I cannot be absent six hours in the day. Lord"BLANK--Baltimore, or Heaven-knows-who, --"is the only one among them whohas common sense; and he is so scandalously debauched, in his principlesas well as practice, that his conversation is equally shocking to mymorals and my reason. "--Could not one contrive to get away from them;to Soissons, for example, to see business going on; and the TerrestrialBalance settling itself a little?

"My only improvement here is in the company of the Duke, " who is atruly distinguished Duke to his bad Country; "and in the exercise of theAcademy, "--of Horsemanship, or what? "I have been absent from the latternear three weeks, by reason of a sprain I got in the sinews of my leg. My duty to my dear Mother; I hope you and she continue well. I am, Sir, your dutiful Son. --G. L. " [_The Works of Lord George Lyttelton, _ byAyscough (London, 1776), iii. 215. ]

These poor Lorrainers are in a bad way; their Country all trampledto pieces by France, in the Louis-Fourteenth and still earlier times. Indeed, ever since the futile Siege of Metz; where we saw the greatKaiser, Karl V. , silently weeping because he could not recapture Metz, [Antea, vol. V. P. 211. ] the French have been busy with this poorCountry;--new sections of it clipt away by them; "military roads throughit, ten miles broad, " bargained for; its Dukes oftenest in exile, especially the Father of this present Duke: [A famed Soldier in his day;]under Kaiser Leopold, "the little Kaiser in red stockings, " one of whoseDaughters he had to wife. He was at the Rescue of Vienna (Sobieski's), and in how many far fiercer services; his life was but a battle anda march. Here is his famed Letter to the Kaiser, when death suddenlycalled, Halt!

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

"SACRED MAJESTY, --According to your Orders, I set out from Innspruckto come to Vienna; but I am stopped here by a Greater Master. I go torender account to Him of a life which I had wholly consecrated to you. Remember that I leave a Wife with whom you are concerned [QUI ROUSTOUCHE, --who is your lawful Daughter]; Children to whom I can bequeathnothing but my sword; and Subjects who are under Oppression. 

"CHARLES OF LORRAINE. "

(Henault, _Abrege Chronologique, _ Paris, 1775, p. 850). [--Charles "V. "the French uniformly call this one; Charles "IV. " the Germans, who, Iconclude, know better. ]--and they are now waiting a good opportunity toswallow it whole, while the people are so busy with quadrille parties. The present Duke, returning from exile, found his Land in desolation, much of it "running fast to wild forest again;" and he has signalizedhimself by unwearied efforts in every direction to put new life intoit, which have been rather successful. Lyttelton, we perceive, findsimprovement in his company. The name of this brave Duke is Leopold; agenow forty-nine; life and reign not far from done: a man about whom evenVoltaire gets into enthusiasm. [Siecle de Louis XIV. (_OEuvres, _ xxvi. 95-97); Hubner, t. 281. ]

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

TO SIR THOMAS LYTTELTON, BART. , AT HAGLEY. 

"SOISSONS, 28th October, " 1728. 

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

"One of my chief reasons for disliking Luneville was the multitude ofEnglish there; who, most of them, were such worthless fellows that theywere a dishonor to the name and Nation. With these I was obliged to dineand sup, and pass a great part of my time. You may be sure I avoided itas much as possible; but MALGRE MOI I suffered a great deal. To preventany comfort from other people, they had made a law among themselves, notto admit any foreigner into their company: so that there was nothing butEnglish talked from June to January. --On the contrary, my countrymen atSoissons are men of virtue and good sense; they mix perpetually with theFrench, and converse for the most part in that language. I will troubleyou no more upon this subject: but give me leave to say that, howevercapricious I may have been on other subjects, my sentiments in thisparticular are the strongest proofs I ever gave you of my strong andhereditary aversion to vice and folly. 

"Mr. Stanhope, " our Minister, the Colonel or Brigadier-General, "isalways at Fontainebleau. I went with Mr. Poyntz, " Poyntz not yet a dimfigure, but a brilliant, who hints about employing me, "to Paris forfour days, when the Colonel himself was there, to meet him; he receivedme with great civility and kindness. We have done expecting Mr. Walpole, " fixed he in the Court regions; "who is obliged to keep strictguard over the Cardinal, " sly old Fleury, "for fear the German Ministersshould take him from us. They pull and haul the poor old gentleman somany ways, that he does not know where to turn, or into whose arms tothrow himself. " Never fear him!--

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

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

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

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

DECEMBER 20th. "A sudden order to Mr. Poyntz has broken all my measures. He goes to-morrow to Paris, to stay there in the room of Messrs. Stanhope and Walpole, who are on their return for England. " Congressfalling into complete languor, if we knew it! But ought not I toaccompany this friendly and distinguished Mr. Poyntz, "who has alreadygiven me papers to copy;"--in fact I am setting off with him, honoredFather!. . . 

"Prince Frederick's journey, "--first arrival in England of dissoluteFred from Hanover, who had NOT been to Berlin to get married lastsummer, --"was very secret: Mr. Poyntz did not hear of it till Fridaylast; at least he had no public notice of it. " Why should he? "There willbe fine struggling for places" in this Prince's new Household. "Ihope my Brother will come in for one. " [Ayscough's _Lyttelton, _ iii. 200-231. ]--

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

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

"Who's dat who ride astride de pony, So long, so lean, so lank andbony? Oh, he be de great orator, Little-ton-y. " [Caricature of 1741, on Lyttelton's getting into the Ministry, with Carteret, Chesterfield, Argyll, and the rest: see Phillimore's _Lyttelton_ (London, 1845), i. 110; Johnson's _Lives of the Poets, _ ? Lyttelton; &c. &c. ]

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

Fassmann makes a very touching scene of it. King is in bed, ill ofhis gout after that slaughter of the 3, 602 wild swine: attendants aresitting round his Majesty, in the way we know; Queen Sophie at his head, "Seckendorf and several others" round the bed. Letters arrive; PrincessFrederika Louisa, a very young Lady, has also had a Letter; which, shesees by the seal, will be interesting, but which she must not herselfopen. She steps in with it; "beautiful as an angel, but rather foolish, and a spoilt child of fifteen, " says Wilhelmina: trips softly in withit; hands it to the King. "Give it to thy Mother, let her read it, " saysthe King. Mother reads it, with audible soft voice: Formal demand inmarriage from the Serenity of Anspach, as foreseen. 

"Hearken, Louisa (HORE, LUISE), it is still time, " said the King: "Tellus, wouldst thou rather go to Anspach, now, or stay with me? If thouchoose to stay, thou shalt want, for nothing, either, to the end of thylife. Speak!"--"At such unexpected question, " says Fassmann, "there rosea fine blush over the Princess's face, who seemed to be at a loss forher answer. However, she soon collected herself; kissed his Majesty'shand, and said: 'Most gracious Papa, I will to Anspach!' To whichthe King: 'Very well, then; God give thee all happiness and thousandblessings!--But, hearken, Louisa, ' the King's Majesty was pleased atthe same time to add, 'We will make a bargain, thou and I. You haveexcellent, Flour at Anspach (SCHONES MEHL); but in Hams and SmokedSausages you don't, come up, either in quality or quantity, to us inthis Country. Now I, for my part, like good pastries. So, from time totime, thou shalt send me a box of nice flour, and I will keep thee inhams and sausages. Wilt thou, Louisa?' That the Princess answered Yea, "says poor Fassmann with the tear in his eye, "may readily be supposed!"Nay all that heard the thing round the royal bed there--simplehumanities of that kind from so great, a King--had almost or altogethertears in their eyes. [Fassmann, pp. 393, 394. ]

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

"At table his Majesty told the Queen that he had Letters from Anspach;the young Margraf to be at Berlin in May for his wedding; that M. Bremerhis Tutor was just coming with the ring of betrothal for Louisa. Heasked my Sister, If that gave her pleasure? and How she would regulateher housekeeping when married? My Sister had got into the way of tellinghim whatever she thought, and home-truths sometimes, without his takingit ill. She answered with her customary frankness, That she would havea good table, which should be delicately served; and, added she, 'whichshall be better than yours. And if I have children, I will not maltreatthem like you, nor force them to eat what they have an aversionto. '--'What do you mean by that?' replied the King: 'what is therewanting at my table?'--'There is this wanting, ' she said, 'that onecannot have enough; and the little there is consists of coarse potherbsthat nobody can eat. ' The King, " as was not unnatural, "had begun to getangry at her first answer: this last put him quite in a fury; butall his anger fell on my Brother and me. He first threw a plate at myBrother's head, who ducked out of the way; he then let fly another atme, which I avoided in like manner. A hail-storm of abuse followed thesefirst hostilities. He rose into a passion against the Queen; reproachingher with the bad training she gave her children; and, addressing myBrother: 'You have reason to curse your Mother, ' said he, 'for it is shethat causes your being an ill-governed fellow (UN MAL GOUVERNE). I hada Preceptor, ' continued he, 'who was an honest man. I remember always astory he told me in my youth. There was a man, at Carthage, who hadbeen condemned to die for many crimes he had committed. While they wereleading him to execution, he desired he might speak to his Mother. They brought his Mother: he came near, as if to whisper something toher;--and bit away a piece of her ear. I treat you thus, said he, tomake you an example to all parents who take no heed to bring up theirchildren in the practice of virtue!--Make the application, ' continuedhe, always addressing my Brother: and getting no answer from him, heagain set to abusing us till he could speak no longer. We rose fromtable. As we had to pass near him in going out, he aimed a great blow atme with his crutch; which, if I had not jerked away from it, would haveended me. He chased me for a while in his wheel-chair, but thepeople drawing it gave me time to escape into the Queen's chamber. "[Wilhelmina, i. 159. ]

Poor Wilhelmina, beaten upon by Papa in this manner, takes to bed inmiserable feverish pain, is ordered out by Mamma to evening party, allthe same; is evidently falling very ill. "Ill? I will cure you!" saysPapa next day, and makes her swallow a great draught of wine. Whichcompletes the thing: "declared small-pox, " say all the Doctors now. Sothat Wilhelmina is absent thenceforth, as Fassmann already told us, fromthe magnanimous paternal sick-room; and lies balefully eclipsed, till the paternal gout and some other things have run their course. "Small-pox; what will Prince Fred think? A perfect fright, if she dolive!" say the English Court-gossips in the interim. But we are nowarrived at a very singular Prussian-English phenomenon; and ought totake a new Chapter. 

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

The Double-Marriage negotiation hung fire, in the end of 1728; buteverybody thought, especially Queen Sophie thought, it would come toperfection; old Ilgen, almost the last thing he did, shed tears of joyabout it. These fine outlooks received a sad shock in the Year now come;when secret grudges burst out into open flame; and Berlin, insteadof scenic splendors for a Polish Majesty, was clangorous with note ofpreparation for imminent War. Probably Queen Sophie never had amore agitated Summer than this of 1729. We are now arrived at thatthrice-famous Quarrel, or almost Duel, of Friedrich Wilhelm and hisBritannic Brother-in-law little George II. ; and must try to riddlefrom those distracted Paper-masses some notice of it, not whollyunintelligible to the reader. It is loudly talked of, loudly, but alasalso loosely to a degree, in all manner of dull Books; and is at oncethrice-famous and extremely obscure. The fact is, Nature intended it foreternal oblivion;--and that, sure enough, would have been its fate longsince, had not persons who were then thought to be of no importance, butare now seen to be of some, stood connected with it more or less. 

Friedrich Wilhelm, for his own part, had seen in the death of GeorgeI. An evil omen from the English quarter; and all along, in spite oftransient appearances to the contrary, had said to himself, "If theFirst George, with his solemnities and tacit sublimities, was offensivenow and then, what will the Second George be? The Second George has beenan offence from the beginning!" In which notions the Smoking Parliament, vitally interested to do it, in these perilous Soissons times, bigwith the fate of the Empire and Universe, is assiduous to confirm hisMajesty. The Smoking Parliament, at Potsdam, at Berlin, in the solitudesof Wusterhausen, has been busy; and much tobacco, much meditation andinsinuation have gone up, in clouds more abstruse than ever, since thedeath of George I. 

It is certain, George II. Was a proud little fellow; very high andairy in his ways; not at all the man to Friedrich Wilhelm's heart, norreciprocally. A man of some worth, too; "scrupulously kept his word, "say the witnesses: a man always conscious to himself, "Am not I a manof honor, then?" to a punctilious degree. For the rest, courageous as aWelf; and had some sense withal, --though truly not much, and indeed, asit were, none at all in comparison to what he supposed he had!--One canfancy the aversion of the little dapper Royalty to this heavy-footedPrussian Barbarian, and the Prussian Barbarian's to him. The bloody nosein childhood was but a symbol of what passed through life. In return forhis bloody nose, little George, five years the elder, had carried offCaroline of Anspach; and left Friedrich Wilhelm sorrowing, a neglectedcub, --poor honest Beast tragically shorn of his Beauty. Offences couldnot fail; these two Cousins went on offending one another by the mereact of living simultaneously. A natural hostility, that betweenGeorge II. And Friedrich Wilhelm; anterior to Caroline of Anspach, andindependent of the collisions of interest that might fall out betweenthem. Enmity as between a glancing self-satisfied fop, and a loutishthick-soled man of parts, who feels himself the better though the lesssuccessful. House-Mastiff seeing itself neglected, driven to itshutch, for a tricksy Ape dressed out in ribbons, who gets favor in thedrawing-room. 

George, I perceive by the very State-Papers, George and his EnglishLords have a provoking slighting tone towards Friedrich Wilhelm; theyanswer his violent convictions, and thoroughgoing rapid proposals, by brief official negation, with an air of superiority, --traces of, apolite sneer perceptible, occasionally. A mere Clown of a King, thinksGeorge; a mere gesticulating Coxcomb, thinks Friedrich Wilhelm. "MEIN BRUDER DER COMODIANT, My Brother the Play-actor" (parti-coloredMerry-Andrew, of a high-flying turn)! was Friedrich Wilhelm's privatename for him, in after days. Which George repaid by one equal to it, "MyBrother the Head-Beadle of the Holy Roman Empire, "--"ERZ-SANDSTREUER, "who solemnly brings up the SANDBOX (no blotting-paper yet in use)when the Holy Roman Empire is pleased to write. "ERZ-SANDSTREUER, Arch-Sandbox-Beadle of the HEILIGE ROMISCHE REICH;" it is a lumberingnickname, but intrinsically not without felicity, and the wittiest thingI know of little George. 

Special cause of quarrel they had none that was of the leastsignificance; and, at this time, prudent friends were striving to unitethem closer and closer, as the true policy for both; English Townshendhimself rather wishing it, as the best Prussian Officials eagerlydid; Queen Sophie passionate for it; and only a purchased Grumkow, aSeckendorf and the Tobacco-Parliament set against it. The Treaty ofWusterhausen was not known; but the fact of some Treaty made ormaking, some Imperial negotiation always going on, was too evident; andFriedrich Wilhelm's partialities to the Kaiser and his Seckendorf couldbe a secret nowhere. 

Negotiation always going on, we say; for such indeed was the case, --theKaiser striving always to be loose again (having excellent reasons, a secret bargain to the contrary, to wit!) in regard to thatJulich-and-Berg Succession; proposing "substitutes for Julich and Berg;"and Friedrich Wilhelm refusing to accept any imaginable substitute, anything but the article itself. So that, I believe, the Treaty ofWusterhausen was never perfectly ratified, after all; but hung, for somany years, always on the point of being so. These are the uses of yourpurchased Grumkow, and of riding the length of a Terrestrial Equatorkeeping a Majesty in company. If, by a Double-Marriage with England, that intricate web of chicanery had been once fairly slit in two, andnew combinations formed, on a basis not of fast-and-loose, could it havebeen of disadvantage to either of the Countries, or to either of theirKings?--Real and grave causes for agreement we find; real or gravecauses for quarrel none anywhere. But light or imaginary causes, whichbecame at last effectual, can be enumerated, to the length of three orfour. 

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

FIRST, the "Ahlden Heritage" was one cause of disagreement, whichlasted long. The poor Mother of George II. And of Queen Sophie hadleft considerable properties; "three million THALERS, " that is 900, 000pounds, say some; but all was rather in an unliquid state, not so muchas her Will was to be had. The Will, with a 10, 000 pounds or so, was inthe hands of a certain Graf von Bar, one of her confidants in thatsad imprisonment: "money lent him, " Busching says, [_Beitrage zurLebensgeschichte denkwurdiger Personen_ (Halle, 1783-1789), i. 306, ?NUSSLER. Some distracted fractions of Business Correspondence with thisBar, in _Memoirs of Sophia Dorothea, _--unintelligible as usual there. ]"to set up a Wax-Bleachery at Cassel:"--and the said Count von Bar wasoff with it, Testamentary Paper and all; gone to the REICHSHOFRATH atVienna, supreme Judges, in the Empire, of such matters. Who accordinglyissued him a "Protection, " to start with: so that when the Hanoverpeople attempted to lay hold of the questionable wax-bleaching Count, atFrankfurt-on-Mayn, --secretly sending "a lieutenant and twelve men" forthat object, --he produces his Protection Paper, and the lieutenant andtwelve men had to hasten home again. [Ibid. ] Count von Bar had to betried at law, --never ask with what results;--and this itself was a longstory. Then as to the other properties of the poor Duchess, questionarises, Are they ALLODIA, or are they FEUDA, --that is to say, shall theSon have them, or the Daughter? In short, there was no end to questions. Friedrich Wilhelm has an Envoy at Hanover, one Kannegiesser, laboringat Hanover, the second of such he has been obliged to send; who findsplenty of employment in that matter. "My Brother the COMODIANT quietlyput his Father's Will in his pocket, I have heard; and paid no regardto it (except what he was compelled to pay, by Chesterfield and others):will he do the like with his poor Mother's Will?" Patience, your Majesty: he is not a covetous man, but a self-willed and aproud, --always conscious to himself that he is the soul of honor, thispoor Brother King!

Nay withal, before these testamentary bickerings are settled, here hasa new Joint-Heritage fallen: on which may rise discussions. Poor UncleErnst of Osnabruck--to whom George I. , chased by Death, went gallopingfor shelter that night, and who could only weep over his poor Brotherdead--has not survived him many months. The youngest Brother of the lotis now gone too. Electress Sophie's Seven are now all gone. She had sixsons: four became Austrian soldiers, three of whom perished in warlong since; the other three, the Bishop, the King, the eldest of theSoldiers, have all died within two years (1726-1728): [Michaelis, i. 153. See Feder, _Kurfurstinn Sophie;_ Hoppe, _Geschichte der StadtHannover;_ &c. ] Sophie Charlotte, "Republican Queen" of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm's Mother, whom we knew long since, was the oneDaughter. Her also Uncle Ernst saw die, in his youth, as we mayremember. They are all dead. And now the Heritages are to settle, atleast the recent part of them. Let Kannegiesser keep his eyes open. Kannegiesser is an expert high-mannered man; but said to be subject tosharpness of temper; and not in the best favor with the Hanover people. That is Cause FIRST. 

CAUSE SECOND: THE TROUBLES OF MECKLENBURG. 

Then, secondly, there is the business of Mecklenburg; deplorableBusiness for Mecklenburg, and for everybody within wind of it, --my poorreaders included. Readers remember--what reader can ever forget?--thatextraordinary Duke of Mecklenburg, the "Unique of Husbands, " as we hadto call him, who came with his extraordinary Duchess, to wait on herUncle Peter, the Russian (say rather SAMOEIDIC) Czar, at Magdeburg, adozen years ago? We feared it was in the fates we might meet that managain; and so it turns out! The Unique of Husbands has proved also tobe the unluckiest of Misgoverning Dukes in his Epoch; and spreads meretrouble all round him. Mecklenburg is in a bad way, this long while, especially these ten years past. "Owing to the Charles-Twelfth Wars, " orwhatever it was owing to, this unlucky Duke had fallen into want of moremoney; and impoverished Mecklenburg alleged that it was in no conditionto pay more. Almost on his accession, while the tar-barrels were stillblazing, years before we ever saw him, he demanded new subventionfrom his RITTERS (the "Squires" of the Country); subvention new inMecklenburg, though common in other sovereign German States, and atone time in Mecklenburg too. The Ritters would not pay; the Duke wouldcompel them: Ritters appeal to Kaiser in Reichshofrath, who provesfavorable to the Ritters. Duke still declines obeying Kaiser; assertsthat "he is himself in such matter the sovereign:" Kaiser fulminateswhat of rusty thunder he has about him; to which the Duke, flung onhis back by it, still continues contumacious in mind and tongue: and sobetween thunder and contumacy, as between hammer and stithy, the poorCountry writhes painfully ever since, and is an affliction to everybodynear it. 

For ten years past, the unluckiest of Misgoverning Dukes has been inutter controversy with his Ritters;--at law with them before the Courtsof the Empire, nay occasionally trying certain of them himself, andcutting off their heads; getting Russian regiments, and then obliged torenounce Russian regiments;--in short, a very great trouble tomankind thereabouts. [Michaelis, ii. 416-435. ] So that the Kaiser inReichshofrath, about the date indicated (Year 1719), found good tosend military coercion on him; and intrusted that function to theHanover-Brunswick people, to George I. More especially; to whom, as"KREIS-HAUPTMANN" ("Captain of the Circle, " Circle of Lower-Saxony, wherethe contumacy had occurred), such function naturally fell. The HanoverSovereignty, sending 13, 000 men, horse, foot and artillery intoMecklenburg, soon did their function, with only some slight flourishesof fighting on the part of the contumacious Duke, --in which his chiefCaptain, one Schwerin, distinguishes himself: Kurt von Schwerin, whomwe shall know better by and by, for he went into the Prussian serviceshortly after. Colonel von Schwerin did well what was in him; but couldnot save a refractory Duke, against such odds. The contumacious Duke wasobliged to fly his country;--deposed, or, to begin with, suspended, aBrother of his being put in as interim Duke:--and the Unique of Husbandsand paragon of Mismanaging Dukes lives about Dantzig ever since, on aPension allowed him by his interim Brother; contumacious to the last;and still stirring up strife, though now with diminished means, UnclePeter being now dead, and Russian help much cut off. 

The Hanover Sovereignties did their function soon enough: but their"expenses for it, " these they have in vain demanded ever since. Nomoney to be got from Mecklenburg; and Mecklenburg owes us "ten tons ofgold, "--that is to say, 1, 000, 000 thalers, "tou" being the tenth partof a million in that coin. Hanover, therefore, holds possession--andhas held ever since, with competent small military force--of certainDistricts in Mecklenburg: Taxes of these will subsist our soldiery inthe interim, and yield interest; the principal once paid, we at oncegive them up; principal, by these schedules, if you care to count them, is one million thalers (ten TONNEN GOLDES, as above said), or about150, 000 pounds. And so it has stood for ten years past; Mecklenburg themost anarchic of countries, owing to the kind of Ritters and kind ofDuke it has. Poor souls, it is evident they have all lost their beatenroad, and got among the IGNES FATUI and peat-pools: none knows thenecessities and sorrows of this poor idle Duke himself! In his youngyears, before accession, he once tried soldiering; served one campaignwith Charles XII. , but was glad to "return to Hamburg" again, to thepeaceable scenes of fashionable life there. [See _German Spy_ (London, 1725, by Lediard, Biographer of Marlborough) for a lively picture of thethen Hamburg, --resort of Northern Moneyed Idleness, as well as of betterthings. ] Then his Russian Unique of Wives:--his probable adventures, prior and subsequent, in Uncle Peter's sphere, can these have beenpleasant to him? The angry Ritters, too, their country had got muchtrampled to pieces in the Charles-Twelfth Wars, Stralsund Sieges: moneyseemed necessary to the Duke, and the Ritters were very scarce of it. Add, on both sides, pride and want of sense, with mutual anger going onCRESCENDO; and we have the sad phenomenon now visible: A Duke fled toDantzig, anarchic Ritters none the better for his going; Duke perhapsthreatening to return, and much flurrying his poor interim Brother, and stirring up the Anarchies:--in brief, Mecklenburg become a house onfire, for behoof of neighbors and self. 

In these miserable brabbles Friedrich Wilhelm did not hithertoofficially interfere; though not uninterested in them; being a nextneighbor, and even, by known treaties, "eventual heir, " should theMecklenburg Line die out. But we know he was not in favor with theKaiser, in those old years; so the military coercion had been done byother hands, and he had not shared in the management at all. He merelywatched the course of things; always advised the Duke to submit to Law, and be peaceable; was sometimes rather sorry for him, too, as wouldappear. 

Last year, however (1728), --doubtless it was one of Seckendorf's minormeasures, done in Tobacco-Parliament, --Friedrich Wilhelm, now a pet ofthe Kaiser's, is discovered to be fairly concerned in that matter; andis conjoined with the Hanover-Brunswick Commissioners for Mecklenburg;Kaiser specially requiring that his Prussian Majesty shall "help inexecuting Imperial Orders" in the neighboring Anarchic Country. Whichrather huffed little George, --hitherto, since, his Father's death, the principal, or as good as sole Commissioner, --if so big a BritannicMajesty COULD be huffed by paltry slights of that kind! FriedrichWilhelm, who has much meditated Mecklenburg, strains his intellect, sometimes to an intense degree, to find out ways of settling it: George, who has never cared to meditate it, nor been able if he had, is capableof sniffing scornfully at Friedrich Wilhelm's projects on the matter, and dismissing them as moonshine. [Dubourgay Despatches and the Answersto them (more than once). ] To a wise much-meditative House-Mastiff, can that be pleasant, from an unthinking dizened creature of the Apespecies? The troubles of Mecklenburg, and discrepancies thereupon, arecapable of becoming a SECOND source of quarrel. 

CAUSES THIRD AND FOURTH:--AND CAUSE FIFTH, WORTH ALL THE OTHERS. 

Cause THIRD is the old story of recruiting; a standing cause betweenPrussia and all its neighbors. And the FOURTH cause is the tiniest ofall: the "Meadow of Clamei. " Meadow of Clamei, some square yards ofboggy ground; which, after long study, one does find to exist in theobscurest manner, discoverable in the best Maps of Germany, --some twentymiles south of the Elbe river, on the boundary between Hanover-Luneburgand Prussia-Magdeburg, dubious on which side of the boundary. Lonesomeunknown Patch of Meadow, lying far amid peaty wildernesses in thoseSalzwedel regions: unknown to all writing mortals as yet; but whichthreatens, in this summer of 1729, to become famous as Runnymead amongthe Meadows of History! And the FIFTH cause--In short, there was noreal "cause" of the least magnitude; the effect was produced by thecombination of many small and imaginary ones. For if there is a will toquarrel, we know there is a way. And perhaps the FIFTH namable cause, inefficiency worth all the others together, might be found in theDebates of the Smoking Parliament that season, were the Journal of itsProceedings extant! We gather symptoms, indisputable enough, of verydiligent elaborations and insinuations there; and conclude that tohave been the really effective cause. Clouds had risen between the twoCourts; but except for the Tobacco-Parliament, there never could havethunder come from them. 

Very soon after George's accession there began clouds to rise; theperfectly accomplished little George assuming a severe and high airtowards his rustic Brother-in-Law. "We cannot stand these Prussianenlistments and encroachments; rectify these, in a high and severemanner!" says George to his Hanover Officials. George is not warm on histhrone till there comes in, accordingly, from the Hanover Officials aComplaint to that effect, and even a List of Hanoverian subjects whoare, owing to various injustices, now serving in the Prussian ranks:"Your Prussian Majesty is requested to return us these men!"

This List is dated 22d January, 1728; George only a few months oldin his new authority as yet. The Prussian Majesty grumbles painfullyresponsive: "Will, with eagerness, do whatever is just; most surely! Butis his Britannic Majesty aware? Hanover Officials are quite misinformedas to the circumstances;"--and does not return any of the men. Merelya pacific grumble, and nothing done in regard to the complaints. Thenthere is the Meadow of Clamei which we spoke of: "That belongs toBrandenburg, you say? Nevertheless the contiguous parts of Hanoverhave rights upon it. Some 'eight cart-loads of hay, ' worth say almost 5pounds or 10 pounds sterling: who is to mow that grass, I wonder?"--

Friedrich Wilhelm feels that all this is a pettifogging vexatious courseof procedure; and that his little Cousin the COMODIANT is not treatinghim very like a gentleman. "Is he, your Majesty!" suggests the SmokingParliament. --About the middle of March, Dubourgay hears Borck, anOfficial not of the Grumkow party, sulkily commenting on "theconstant hostility of the Hanover Ministry to us" in all manner ofpoints;---inquires withal, Could not Mecklenburg be somehow settled, hisPrussian Majesty being somewhat anxious upon it? [Despatch, 17th March, 1729. ] Anxious, yes: his poor Majesty, intensely meditative of such amatter in the night-watches, is capable of springing out of bed, with an"Eureka! I have found what will do!" and demanding writing materials. He writes or dictates in his shirt, the good anxious Majesty; despatcheshis Eureka by estafette on the wings of the wind: and your Townshend, your UNmeditative George, receives it with curt official negative, and apolite sneer. [Dubourgay, 12th-14th April, 1729; and the Answer from St. James's. ]

A few weeks farther on, this is what the Newspapers report ofMecklenburg, in spite of his Prussian Majesty's desire to have somemercy shown the poor infatuated Duke: "The Elector of Hanover and theDuke of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, " his Britannic Majesty and Squire inthat sad business, "REFUSE to withdraw their forces out of Mecklenburg, or part with the Chest of the Revenues thereof, until an entiresatisfaction be given them for the arrears of the Charges they have beenat in putting the Sentence of the Aulic Council [Kaiser's REICHSHOFRATHand rusty thunder] into execution against the said Duke. " [Salmon's_Chronological Historian_ (London, 1748, --a Book never to be quotedwithout caution), ii. 216;--date (translated into new style), 10th July, 1729. ]

Matters grew greatly worse when George paid his first Visit to Hanoverin character of King, early in the Summer of 1729. Part of his road liesthrough Prussian Territory: "Shall he have free post-horses, as his lateMajesty was wont?" asks the Prussian Official person. "If he write torequest them, yes, " answers Friedrich Wilhelm; "if he don't write, no. "George does not write; pays for his post-horses;--flourishes along toHanover, in absolute silence towards his clownish Brother-in-Law. Youwould say he looks over the head of him, as if there were no such clownin existence;--he has never yet so much as notified his arrival. "Whatis this? There exists no Prussia, then, for little George?" FriedrichWilhelm's inarticulate, interjectionary utterances, in clangorousmetallic tone, we can fancy them, now and then; and theTobacco-Parliament is busy! British Minister Dubourgay, steady oldmilitary gentleman, who spells imperfectly, but is intent to keep downmischief, writes at last to Hanover, submissively suggesting, "Couldnot, as was the old wont, some notification of the King's arrival besent hither, which would console his Prussian Majesty?" To which myLord Townshend answers, "Has not been the custom, I am informed [WRONGinformed, your Lordship]; not necessary in the circumstances. " Which isa high course between neighbors and royal gentlemen and kinsfolk. ThePrussian Court hereupon likewise shuts its lips; no mention of theHanoverian Court, not even by her Majesty and to Englishmen, for severalweeks past. [Dubourgay. ] Some inarticulate metallic growl, in private, at dinner or in the TABAKS-COLLEGIUM: the rest is truculent silence. Nor are our poor Hanover Recruits (according to our List of PressedHanoverians) in the least sent back; nor the Clamei Meadows settled;"Big Meadow" or "Little one, " both of which the Brandenburgers have mownin the mean time. 

Hanover Pressed men not coming home, --I think, not one of them, --theHanover Officials decide to seize such Prussian Soldiers as happen to beseizable, in Hanover Territory. The highway in that border-country runsnow on this side of the march, now on that;--watch well, and you willget Prussian Soldiers from time to time! Which the Hanover people do;and seize several, common men and even officers. Here is once more ahigh course of proceeding. Here is coal to raise smoke enough, if wellblown upon, --which, with Seckendorf and Grumkow working the bellows, we may well fancy it was! But listen to what follows, independently ofbellows. 

On the 28th June, 1729, hay lying now quite dry upon the Meadow ofClamei, lo, the Bailiff of Hanoverian Buhlitz, Unpicturesque Travellerwill find the peat-smoky little Village of Buhlitz near by a dustylittle Town called Luchow, midway from Hamburg to Magdeburg; altogetherpeaty, mossy country; in the Salzwedel district, where used to be Wendicpopulations, and a Marck or Border Fortress of Salzwedel set up againstthem:--Bailiff of Buhlitz, I say, sallies forth with several carts, withall the population of the Village, with a troop of horse to escort, andprobably flags flying and some kind of drums beating;--publicly rakestogether the hay, defiant of the Prussian Majesty and all men; loadsit on his carts, and rolls home with it; leaving to the Brandenburgersnothing but stubble and the memory of having mown for Hanover to eat. This is the 28th June, 1729; King of Prussia is now at Magdeburg, reviewing his troops; within a hundred miles of these contestedquag-countries: who can blame him that he flames up now into clear blazeof royal indignation? The correspondence henceforth becomes altogetherlively: but in the Britannic Archives there is nothing of it, --Dubourgayhaving received warning from my Lord Townshend to be altogether ignorantof the matter henceforth, and let the Hanover Officials manage it. HisPrussian Majesty returns home in the most tempestuous condition. 

We may judge what a time Queen Sophie had of it; what scenes there werewith Crown-Prince Friedrich and Wilhelmina, in her Majesty's Apartmentand elsewhere! Friedrich Wilhelm is fast mounting to the red-hot pitch. The bullyings, the beatings even, of these poor Children, love-sickone of them, are lamentable to hear of, as all the world hasheard:--"Disobedient unnatural whelps, biting the heels of your poor oldparent mastiff in his extreme need, what is to be done with you?" Fritzhe often enough beats, gives a slap to with his rattan; has hurleda plate at him, on occasion, when bad topics rose at table; nay atWilhelmina too, she says: but the poor children always ducked, andnothing but a little noise and loss of crockery ensued. Fritz hedeliberately detests, as a servant of the Devil, incorrigibly rebellingagainst the paternal will, and going on those dissolute courses: a sillyFrench cockatoo, suspected of disbelief in Scripture; given to nothingbut fifing and play-books; who will bring Prussia aud himself to a badend. "God grant he do not finish on the gallows!" sighed the sad Fatheronce to Grumkow. The records of these things lie written far and wide, in the archives of many countries as well as in Wilhelmina's Book. 

To me there was one undiplomatic reflection continually present:Heavens, could nobody have got a bit of rope, and hanged those twoDiplomatic swindlers; clearly of the scoundrel genus, more than commonpickpockets are? Thereby had certain young hearts, and honest old onestoo, escaped being broken; and many a thing might have gone better thanit did. JARNI-BLEU, Herr Feldzeugmeister, though you are an orthodoxProtestant, this thousand-fold perpetual habit of distilled lying seemsto me a bad one. I do not blame an old military gentleman, with a browso puckered as yours, for having little of the milk of human kindness socalled: but this of breaking, by force of lies merely, and for your ownuses, the hearts of poor innocent creatures, nay of grinding themslowly in the mortar, and employing their Father's hand to do it withal;this--Herr General, forgive me, but there are moments when I feel as ifthe extinction of probably the intensest scoundrel of that epoch mighthave been a satisfactory event!--Alas, it could not be. Seckendorf islying abroad for his Kaiser; "the only really able man we have, " saysEugene sometimes. Snuffles and lisps; and travels in all, as theycount, about 25, 000 miles, keeping his Majesty in company. Here aresome glimpses into the interior, dull but at first-hand, which are worthclipping and condensing from Dubourgay, with their dates:--

30th JULY, 1729. To the respectable old Brigadier, this day oryesterday, "her Majesty, all in tears, complained of her situation: Kingis nigh losing his senses on account of the differences with Hanover;goes from bed to bed in the night-time, and from chamber to chamber, 'like one whose brains are turned. ' Took a fit, at two in the morning, lately, to be off to Wusterhausen:"--about a year ago Seckendorf andGrumkow had built a Lodge out there, where his Majesty, when he liked, could be snug and private with them: thither his Majesty now rushed, attwo in the morning; but seemingly found little assuagement. "Sincehis return, he gives himself up entirely to drink:--Seckendorf, " thesnuffling Belial, "is busy, above ground and below; has been heardsaying He alone could settle these businesses, Double-Marriage and all, would her Majesty but trust him!"--

"The King will not suffer the Prince-Royal to sit next his Majestyat table, but obliges him to go to the lower end; where things are soordered, " says the sympathetic Dubourgay, "that the poor Prince oftenrises without getting one bit, "--woe's me! "Insomuch that the Queen wasobliged two days ago [28th July, 1729, let us date such an occurrence]to send, by one of the servants who could be trusted, a Box of coldfowls and other eatables for his Royal Highness's subsistence!"[Dubourgay, 30th July, 1729. ]

In the first blaze of the outrage at Clamei, Friedrich Wilhelm's ardentmind suggested to him the method of single combat: defiance of George, by cartel, To give the satisfaction of a gentleman. There have been suchinstances on the part of Sovereigns; though they are rare: Karl Ludwigof the Pfalz, Winter-king's Son, for example, did, as is understood, challenge Turenne for burning the Pfalz (FIRST burning that poor countrygot); but nothing came of it, owing to Turenne's prudence. FriedrichWilhelm sees well that it all comes from George's private humor: Whyshould human blood be shed except George's and mine? Friedrich Wilhelmis decisive for sending off the cartel; he has even settled theparticulars, and sees in his glowing poetic mind how the transaction maybe: say, at Hildesheim for place; Derschau shall be my second; BrigadierSutton (if anybody now know such a man) may be his. Seconds, place andgeneral outline he has schemed out, and fixed, so far as depends on oneparty; will fairly fence and fight this insolent little Royal Gentleman;give the world a spectacle (which might have been very wholesome tothe world) of two Kings voiding their quarrel by duel and fair personalfence. 

In England the report goes, "not without foundation, " think Lord Herveyand men of sarcastic insight in the higher circles, That it was hisBritannic Majesty who "sent or would have sent a challenge of singlecombat to his Prussian Majesty, " the latter being the passive party!Report flung into an INVERSE posture, as is liable to happen; "going"now with its feet uppermost; "not without foundation, " thinks LordHervey. "But whether it [the cartel] was carried and rejected, orwhether the prayers and remonstrances of Lord Townshend prevented thegauntlet being actually thrown down, is a point which, to me [LordHervey] at least, has never been cleared. " [Lord Hervey, _Memoirs ofGeorge II. _ (London, 1848), i. 127. ]

The Prussian Ministers, no less than Townshend would, feel well thatthis of Duel will never do. Astonishment, FLEBILE LULIBRIUM, tragicaltehee from gods and men, will come of the Duel! But how to turn itaside? For the King is determined. His truculent veracity of mindpoints out this as the real way for him; reasoning, entreating are tono purpose. "The true method, I tell you! As to the world andits cackling, --let the world cackle!" At length Borck hits on aconsideration: "Your Majesty has been ill lately; hand perhaps not sosteady as usual? Now if it should turn out that your Majesty proved soinferior to yourself as to--Good Heavens!" This, it is said, was thepoint that staggered his Majesty. Tobacco-Parliament, and Borck there, pushed its advantage: the method of duel (prevalent through theearly part of July, I should guess) was given up. [Bielfeld, _Lettresfamilieres et autres_ (Second edition, 2 vols. Leide, 1767), i. 117, 118. ] Why was there no Hansard in that Institution of the Country?Patience, idle reader! We shall get some scraps of the Debates onother subjects, by and by. --But hear Dubourgay again, in the absence ofMorning Newspapers:--

AUGUST 9th, 1729. "Berlin looks altogether warlike. At Magdeburg theyare busy making ovens to bake Ammunition-bread; Artillery is gettinghauled out of the Arsenal here;" all is clangor, din of preparation. "It is said the King will fall on Mecklenburg;" can at once, if he like. "These intolerable usages from England [Seckendorf is rumored tohave said], can your Majesty endure them forever? Why not marrythe Prince-Royal, at once, to another Princess, and have done withthem!"--or words to that effect, as reported by Court-rumor to herMajesty and Dubourgay. And there is a Princess talked of for this Match, Russian Princess, little Czar's Sister (little Czar to have Wilhelmina, Double-Marriage to be with Russia, not with England); but the littleCzar soon died, little Czar's Sister went out of sight, or I know notwhat happened, and only brief rumor came of that. 

As for the Crown-Prince, he has not fallen desperate; no; but appearsto have strange schemes in him, deep under cover. "He has said to aconfidant [Wilhelmina, it is probable], 'As to his ill-treatment, hewell knew how to free himself of that [will fly to foreign parts, yourHighness?], and would have done so long since, were it not for hisSister, upon whom the whole weight of his Father's resentment would thenfall. Happen what will, therefore, he is resolved to share with her allthe hardships which the King his Father may be pleased to put upon her. "[Dubourgay, 11th August, 1729. ] Means privately a flight to England, Dubourgay sees, and in a reticent diplomatic way is glad to see. 

I possess near a dozen Hanoverian and Prussian Despatches upon thisstrange Business; but should shudder to inflict them on any innocentreader. Clear, grave Despatches, very brief and just, especially on thePrussian side: and on a matter too, which truly is not lighter than anyother Despatch matter of that intrinsically vacant Epoch:--O reader, would I could bury all vacant talk and writing whatsoever, as I do thesepoor Despatches about the "eight cart-loads of hay"! Friedrich Wilhelmis fair-play itself; will do all things, that Earth or Heaven canrequire of him. Only, he is much in a hurry withal; and of this theHanover Officials take advantage, perhaps unconsciously, to keep him inprovocation. He lies awake at night, his heart is sore, and he hasfled to drink. Towards the middle of August, --here again is aphenomenon, --"he springs out of bed in the middle of night, " has againan EUREKA as to this of Clamei: "Eureka, I see now what will bring asettlement!" and sends off post-haste to Kannegiesser at Hanover. ToKannegiesser, --Herr Reichenbach, the special Envoy in this matter, beingabsent at the moment, gone to the Gohrde, I believe, where BritannicMajesty itself is: but Kannegiesser is there, upon the Ahlden Heritages;acquainted with the ground, a rather precise official man, who willserve for the hurry we are in. Post-haste; dove with olive-branch cannotgo too quick;--Kannegiesser applying for an interview, not with theBritannic Majesty, who is at Gohrde, hunting, but with the HanoverCouncil, is--refused admittance. Here are Herr Kannegiesser's officialReports; which will themselves tell the rest of the story, thankHeaven:--

TO HIS PRUSSIAN MAJESTY (From Herr Kannegiesser). 

No. 1. "DONE AT HANOVER, 15th AUGUST, 1729. 

"On the 15th day of August, at ten o'clock in the morning, I receivedTwo Orders of Council [these are THE EUREKA, never ask farther what theyare]; despatched on the 13th instant at seven in the evening; whereuponI immediately went to the Council-chamber here; and informed the Herrvon Hartoff, Private Secretary, who met me in a room adjoining, 'That, having something to propose to his Ministry [now sitting deliberative inthe interior here; something to propose to his Ministry] on the part ofthe Prussian Ministers, it was necessary I should speak to them. ' Herrvon Hartoff, after having reported my demand, let me know, 'He hadreceived orders from the Ministry to defer what I had to say to anothertime. '

"I replied, 'That, since I could not be allowed the honor of an audienceat that time, I thought myself obliged to acquaint him I had received anOrder from Berlin to apply to the Ministry of this place, in the nameof the Ministers of Prussia, and make the most pressing instances fora speedy Answer to a Letter lately delivered to them by Herr HofrathReichenbath [my worthy Assistant here; Answer to his Letter in the firstplace]; and to desire that the Answer might be lodged in my hands, inorder to remit it with safety. '

"Herr von Hartoff returned immediately to the Council-chamber; and afterhaving told the Ministers what I had said, brought me the followinganswer, in about half-a-quarter of an hour [seven minutes by the watch]:'That the Ministers of this Court would not fail answering the saidLetter as soon as possible; and would take care to give me notice of it, and send the Answer to me. '"

That was all that the punctual Kannegiesser could get out of them. "But, " continues he, "not thinking this reply sufficient, I added, 'That delays being dangerous, I would come again the next day for a moreprecise answer. '"

Rather a high-mannered positive man, this Kannegiesser, of the AhldenHeritages; not without sharpness of temper, if the Hanover Officialsdrive it too far. 

No. 2. --"AT HANOVER, 16th AUGUST, 1729. 

"According to the orders received from the King my Master, and pursuantof my promise of yesterday, I went at noon this day to the Castle(SCHLOSS), for the purpose, of making appearance in the Council-chamber, where the Ministers were assembled. 

"I let them know I was there, by Van Hartoff, Privy Secretary; and, inthe mildest terms, desired to be admitted to speak with them. Which wasrefused me a second time; and the following answer delivered me by VanHartoff: 'That since the Prussian Ministers had intrusted me with thisCommission, the Ministers of this Court had directed him to draw up myyesterday's Proposals in writing, and report them to the Council. '

"Whereupon I said, 'I could not conceive any reason why I was the onlyperson who could not be admitted to audience. That, however, as theMinisters of this Court were pleased to authorize him, Herr von Hartoff, to receive my Proposals, I was obliged to tell him, ' as the first orpreliminary point of my Commission, 'I had received orders to be verypressing with the said Ministers of this Court, for an Answer toa Letter from the Prussian Ministry, lately delivered by HerrLegationsrath von Reichenbach; and finding that the said Answer was notyet finished, I would stay two days for it, that I might be more secureof getting it. But that then I should come to put them in mind ofit, and desire audience in order to acquit myself of the REST of myCommission. '

"The Privy Secretary drew up what I said in writing. Immediatelyafterwards he reported it to the Ministry, and brought me this answer:'That the Ministers of this Court would be as good as their word ofyesterday, and answer the above-mentioned Letter with all possibleexpedition. ' After which we parted. "

No. 3. --"AT HANOVER, 17th AUGUST, 1729

"At two in the afternoon, this day, Herr von Hartoff came to my house;and let me know 'He had business of consequence from the Ministry, andthat he would return at five. ' By my direction he was told, 'I shouldexpect him. '

"At the time appointed he came; and told me, 'That the Ministers of theCourt, understanding from him that I designed to ask audience to-morrow, did not doubt but my business would be to remind them of theAnswer which I had demanded yesterday and the day before. That suchapplications were not customary among sovereign Princes; that they, theMinisters; 'dared not treat farther in that affair with me; that theydesired me not to mention it to them again till they had receiveddirections from his Britannic Majesty, to whom they had made theirreport; and that as soon as they received their instructions, the resultof these should be communicated to me. '

"To this I replied, 'That I did not expect the Ministers of this Courtwould refuse me the audience which I designed to ask to-morrow; and thattherefore I would not fail of being at the Council-chamber at eleven, next day, ' according to bargain, 'to know their answer to the rest ofmy Proposals. '--Secretary Von Hartoff would not hear of this resolution;and assured me positively he had orders to listen to nothing more on thesubject from me. After which he left me?"

No. 4. --"AT HANOVER, 18th AUGUST, 1729. 

"At eleven, this day, I went to the Council-chamber, for the third time;and desired Secretary Hartoff 'To prevail with the Ministry to allow meto speak with them, and communicate what the King of Prussia had orderedme to propose. '

"Herr von Hartoff gave them an account of my request; and brought me foranswer, 'That I must wait a little, because the Ministers were not yetall assembled. '" Which I did. "But after having made me stay almost anhour, and after the President of the Council was come, Herr von Hartoffcame out to me; and repeated what he had said yesterday, in verypositive and absolute terms, 'That the Ministers were resolved not tosee me, and had expressly forbid him taking any Paper at my hands. '

"To which I replied, 'That this was very hard usage; and the world wouldsee how the King of Prussia would relish it. But having strict ordersfrom his Majesty, my most gracious Master, to make a Declaration to theMinisters of Hanover in his name; and finding Herr von Hartoff wouldneither receive it, nor take a copy of it, I had only to tell him thatI was under the necessity of leaving it in writing, --and had brought thePaper with me, '" let Herr von Hartoff observe!--"'And that now, as theCouncil were pleased to refuse to take it, I was obliged to leave thesaid Declaration on a table in an adjoining room, in the presence ofHerr von Hartoff and other Secretaries of the Council, whom I desired tolay it before the Ministry. '

"After this I went home; but had scarcely entered my apartment, whena messenger returned me the Declaration, still sealed as I left it, byorder of the Ministers: and perceiving I was not inclined to receive it, he laid it on my table, and immediately left the house. " [A Letterfrom an English Traveller to his Friend at London, relating to theDifferences betwixt the Courts of Prussia and Hanover, with Copies of, &c. Translated from the French (London, A. Millar, at Buchanan'sHead, 1730), pp. 29-34. An excellent distinct little Pamphlet; veryexplanatory in this matter, --like the smallest rushlight in a darkcellar of shot-lumber. ]

Whereupon Kannegiesser, without loss of a moment, returns to Berlin, 19th August; and reports progress. 

Simple honest Orson of a Prussian Majesty, what a bepainted, beribbonedinsulting Play-actor Majesty has he fallen in with!--"Hm, so? Hm, na!"and I see the face of him, all colors of the prism, and eyes in a finefrenzy; betokening thundery weather to some people! Instantly he orders44, 000 men to get on march; [Friedrich Wilhelm's "Manifesto" is in_Mauvillon, _ ii. 210-215, dated "20th August, 1729" (the day afterKannegieseer's return). ] and these instantly begin to stir; smallpreparation needed, ever-ready being the word with them. From heavyguns, ammunition-wagons and draught-horses, down to the last buckle of aspatterdash, things are all ticketed and ready in his Majesty'scountry; things, and still more evidently men. Within a week, the amazedGazetteers (Newspaper Editors we now call them) can behold the actualadvent of horse, foot and artillery regiments at Magdeburg; actualrendezvous begun, and with a frightful equable velocity going on dayafter day. On the 15th day of September, if Fate's almanac holdsteady, there will be 44, 000 of them ready there. Such a mass ofpotential-battle as George or the Hanover Officiality are--ready tofight?

Alas, far enough from that. Forces of their own they have, after a sort;subsidized Hessians, Danes, these they can begin to stir up; but theyhave not a regiment ready for fighting; and have NOTHING, if all wereready, which this 44, 000 cannot too probably sweep out of the world. I suppose little George must have exhibited some prismatic colors ofcountenance, too. This insulted Orson is swinging a tremendous club uponthe little peruked ribboned high gentleman, promenading loftily inhis preserves yonder! The Prussian forces march, steady, continual;Crown-Prince Friedrich's regiment of Giants is on march, expressly undercharge of Friedrich himself:--the young man's thoughts are not recordedfor us; only that he gets praise from his Father, so dexterous andperfect is he with the Giants and their getting into gear. Nor is there, says our Foreign Correspondent, the least truth, in your rumor that thePrussian forces, officers or men, marched with bad will; "conspicuouslythe reverse is the truth, as I myself can testify. " [Pamphlet citedabove. ] And his Britannic Majesty, now making a dreadful flutter toassemble as fast as possible, is like to get quite flung into the bogsby this terrible Orson!--

What an amazement, among the Gazetteers: thunder-clouds of war mountingup over the zenith in this manner, and blotting out the sun; may producean effect on the Congress of Soissons? Presumably: and his ImperialMajesty, left sitting desolate on his Pragmatic Sanction, gloomilywatching events, may find something turn up to his advantage? Prussiaand England are sufficiently in quarrel, at any rate; perhaps almost toomuch. --The Pope, in these circumstances, did a curious thing. The Pope, having prayed lately for rain and got it, proceeds now, in the end ofSeptember, while such war-rumors are still at their height in Rome, topray, or even do a Public Mass, or some other so-called Pontificality, "in the Chapel of Philip Neri in the New Church, " by way of stillmore effectual miracle. Prays, namely, That Heaven would be graciouslypleased to foment, and blow up to the proper degree, this quarrelbetween the two chief Heretic Powers, Heaven's chief enemies, wherebyHoly Religion might reap a good benefit, if it pleased Heaven. But, thistime, the miracle did not go off according to program. ["Extract ofa Letter from Rome, 24th September, 1729, " in Townshend's Despatch, Whitehall, 10th Outober, 1729. ]

For at this point, before the Pope had prayed, but while the troops andartillery were evidently all on march ("Such an artillery as I, " who amKaiser's Artillery-Master, "for my poor part, never had the happinessto see before in any country, " snuffles Seckendorf in the SmokingParliament), and now swords are, as it were, drawn, and in the airmake horrid circles, --the neighbors interfere: "Heavens I put up yourswords!"--and the huge world-wide tumult suddenly (I think, in the veryfirst days of this month September) collapses, sinks into something youcan put into a snuff-box. 

Of course it could never come to actual battle, after all. Too higha pickle-herring tragedy that. Here is a COMODIANT not wanting to besmitten into the bogs; an honest Orson who wants nothing, nor has everwanted, but fair-play. Fair-play; and not to be insulted on the streets, or have one's poor Hobby quite knocked from under one!--Neighbors, as wesay, struck in; France, Holland, all the neighbors, at this point:"Do it by arbitration; Wolfenbuttel for the one, Sachsen-Gotha for theother; Commissioners to meet at Brunswick!" And that, accordingly, wasthe course fixed upon; and settlement, by that method, was accomplished, without difficulty, in some six months hence. [16th April, 1730(Forster, ii. 105). ] Whether Clamei was awarded to Hanover or toBrandenburg, I never knew, or how the hay of it is cut at this moment. I only know there was no battle on the subject; though at one time therewas like to be such a clash of battle as the old Markgraves never hadwith their old Wends; not if we put all their battlings into one. 

Seckendorf's radiant brow has to pucker itself again: this fine project, of boiling the Kaiser's eggs by setting the world on fire, has notprospered after all. The gloomy old villain came to her Majesty one day, [Dubourgay, 30th July, 1729. ] while things were near the hottest; andsaid or insinuated, He was the man that could do these businesses, andbring about the Double-Marriage itself, if her Majesty were not so harshupon him. Whereupon her Majesty, reporting to Dubourgay, threw out thehint, "What if we (that is, you) did give him a forty or fifty thousandthalers verily, for he will do anything for money?" To which Townshendanswers from the Gohrde, to the effect: "Pooh, he is a mere bag ofnoxious futilities; consists of gall mainly, and rusty old lies andcrotchets; breathing very copperas through those old choppy lips of his:let him go to the--!" Next Spring, at the happy end of the Arbitration, which he had striven all he could to mar and to retard, he fell quiteill; took to his bed for two days, --colics, or one knows not what;--"andI can't say I am very sorry for him, " writes the respectable Dubourgay. [25th April, 1730. ] On the 8th day of September, 1729, FriedrichCrown-Prince re-enters Potsdam [Ib. 11th Sept. 1729. ] with his twobattalions of Giants; he has done so well, the King goes out from Berlinto see him march in with them; rejoicing to find something of a soldierin the young graceless, after all. "The King distributed 100, 000 thalers(15, 000 pounds) among his Army;" being well pleased with their behavior, and doubtless right glad to be out of such a Business. The AhldenHeritages will now get liquidated; Mecklenburg, --our Knyphausen, withthe Hanover Consorts, will settle Mecklenburg; and all shall be wellagain, we hope!--

The fact, on some of these points, turned out different; but it was nowof less importance. As to Knyphausen's proceedings at Mecklenburg, afterthe happy Peace, they were not so successful as had been hoped. Needof quarrel, however, between the Majesties, there henceforth was not inMecklenburg; and if slight rufflings and collisions did arise, it wasnot till after our poor Double-Marriage was at any rate quite out of thegame, and they are without significance to us. But the truth is, thoughKnyphausen did his best, no settlement came; nor indeed could ever come. Shall we sum up that sorry matter here, and wash our hands of it?

TROUBLES OF MECKLENBURG, FOR THE LAST TIME. 

Knyphausen, we say, proved futile; nor could human wit have succeeded. The exasperated Duke was contumacious, irrational; the two Majestieskept pulling different ways upon him. Matters grew from very bad toworse; and Mecklenburg continued long a running sore. Not many monthsafter this (I think, still in 1729), the irrational Duke, having gotmoney out of Russia, came home again from Dantzig; to notable increaseof the Anarchies in Mecklenburg, though without other result forhimself. The irrational Duke proved more contumacious than ever, fellinto deeper trouble than ever;--at length (1733) he made Proclamationto the Peasantry to rise and fight for him; who did turn out, with theirbill-hooks and bludgeons, under Captains named by him, "to the amount of18, 000 Peasants, "--with such riot as may be fancied, but without otherresult. So that the Hanover Commissioners decided to seize the veryRESIDENZ Cities (Schwerin and Domitz) from this mad Duke, and make thecountry clear of him, --his Brother being Interim Manager always, undercountenance of the Commissioners. Which transactions, especiallywhich contemplated seizure of the Residence Cities, Friedrich Wilhelm, eventual heir, could not see with equanimity at all. But having noforces in the country, what could he do? Being "Joint-Commissioner"this long while past, though without armed interference hitherto, heprivately resolves that he will have forces there; the rather as thepoor Duke professes penitence, and flies to him for help. Poor soul, his Russian Unique of Wives has just died, far enough away from him thislong while past: what a life they have had, these two Uniques!--

Enough, "on the 19th of October, 1733, Lieutenant-GeneralSchwerin, "--the same who was Colonel Schwerin, the Duke's chief Captainhere, at the beginning of these troubles, now Lientenant-General and adistinguished PRUSSIAN officer, --"marches into Mecklenburg withthree regiments, one of foot, two of horse:" [Buchholz, i. 122, 142;Michaelis, ii. 433, 437. ] he, doubtless, will help in quelling thosePeasant and other Anarchies? Privately his mission is most delicate. Heis not to fight with the Hanoverians; is delicately but effectually toshove them well away from the Residence Cities, and fasten himselfdown in those parts. Which the Lieutenant-General dexterously does. "A night's quarter here in Parchim, "--such is the Lieutenant-General'srequest, polite but impressive, from the outskirts of that little Town, a Town essential to certain objects, and in fact the point he is aimingat: "night's quarter; you cannot refuse it to this Prussian Companymarching under the Kaiser's Commission?" No, the Hanoverian Lieutenantof Foot dare not take upon him to refuse:--but next morning, he ishimself invited to withdraw, the Prussians having orders to continuehere in Parchim! And so with the other points and towns, that areessential in the enterprise on hand. A dexterous Lieutenant-General thisSchwerin:--his two Horse-Colonels are likewise men to be noted; ColonelWreech, with a charming young Wife, perhaps a too charming; ColonelTruchsess von Waldburg, known afterwards, with distinction, in LondonSociety and widely otherwise. And thus, in the end of 1733, theMecklenburg Residence Cities, happen what may, are secured for theirpoor irrational Duke. These things may slightly ruffle some tempers atHanover; but it is now 1733, and our poor Double-Marriage is clean outof the game by that time!--

The irrational Duke could not continue in his Residence Cities, with theBrother administering over him; still proving contumacious, he neededabsolutely to be driven out, to Wismar or I know not whither; wentwandering about for almost twenty years to come; disturbed, and stirringup disturbance. Died 1747, still in that sad posture; Interim Brother, with Posterity, succeeding. [Michaelis, ii. 434-440. ] But Hanover andPrussia interfered no farther; the brother administered on his ownfooting, "supported by troops hired from Hamburg. Hanover and Prussia, 400 Hanoverians, 200 Prussians, merely retained hold of their respectiveHypothecs [Districts held in pawn] till the expenses should bepaid, "--million of THALERS, and by those late anarchies a new heavyscore run up. 

Prussia and Hanover retained hold of their Hypothecs; for as to theexpenses, what hope was there? Fifty years hence we find the PrussianHypothecs occupied as at first; and "rights of enlistment exercised. "Never in this world were those expenses paid;--nor could be, any partof them. The last accounts were: George III. Of England, on marrying, in 1761, a Mecklenburg Princess, --"Old Queen Charlotte, " then youngenough, --handsomely tore up the bill; and so ended that part of adesperate debt. But of the Prussian part there was no end, nor like tobe any: "down to this day [says Buchholz, in 1775], two squadrons ofthe Ziethen Hussars usually lie there, " and rights of enlisting areexercised. I conclude, the French Revolution and its Wars wiped awaythis other desperate item. And now let us hope that Mecklenburg isbetter off than formerly, --that, at least, our hands are clear of it intime coming. I add only, with satisfaction, that this Unique of Dukeswas no ancestor of Old Queen Charlotte's, but only a remote Welsh-Uncle, far enough apart;--cannot be too far. 

ONE NUSSLER SETTLES THE AHLDEN HERITAGES; SENDS THE MONEY HOME IN BOXES. 

Knyphausen did not settle Mecklenburg, as we perceive! Neither didKannegiesser and the unliquidated Heritages prosper, at Hanover, quiteto perfection. One Heritage, that of Uncle Osnabruck, little Georgeflatly refused to share: FEUDUM the whole of that, not ALLODIUM any partof it, so that a Sister cannot claim. Which, I think, was confirmed bythe Arbitrators at Brunswick; thereby ending that. Then as to the AhldenALLODIA or FEUDA, --Kannegiesser, blamably or not, never could makemuch of the business. A precise strict man, as we saw at the HanoverCouncil-room lately; whom the Hanover people did not like. So he madelittle of it. Nay at the end of next year (December, 1730), sending inhis accounts to Berlin, he demands, in addition to the three thalers (ornine shillings) daily allowed him, almost a second nine shillings forsundries, chiefly for "hair-powder and shoe-blacking"! And isinstantly recalled; and vanishes from History at this point. [Busching, _Beitrage, _ i. 307, &c. ? Nussler. ]

Upon which Friedrich Wilhelm selects another; "sends deal boxes alongwith him, " to bring home what cash there is. This one's name is Nussler;an expectant Prussian Official, an adroit man, whom we shall meet againdoing work. He has the nine shillings a day, without hair-powderor blacking, while employed here; at Berlin no constant salarywhatever, --had to "borrow 75 pounds for outfit on this business;"--doesa great deal of work without wages, in hope of effective promotion byand by. Which did follow, after tedious years; Friedrich Wilhelm findinghim, on such proof (other proof will not do), FIT for promoting tosteady employment. 

Nussler was very active at Hanover, and had his deal boxes; but hardlygot them filled according to hope. However, in some eighteen months hehad actually worked out, in difficult instalments, about 13, 000 pounds, and dug the matter to the bottom. He came home with his last instalment, not disapproved of, to Berlin (May, 1732); six years after the poorDuchess's death, so the Ahlden ALLODIA too had their end. 

Chapter VII. -- A MARRIAGE: NOT THE DOUBLE-MARRIAGE: CROWN-PRINCE DEEPIN TROUBLE. 

While the Hanover Imminency was but beginning, and horrid crisis of Waror Duel--was yet in nobody's thoughts, the Anspach Wedding [30th May, 1729] had gone on at Berlin. To Friedrich Wilhelm's satisfaction; notto his Queen's, the match being but a poor one. The bride was FrederikaLouisa, not the eldest of their Daughters, but the next-eldest: youngerthan Wilhelmina, and still hardly fifteen; the first married of theFamily. Very young she: and gets a very young Margraf, --who has been, and still is a minor; under his Mother's guardianship till now: notrich, and who has not had a good chance to be wise. The Mother--anexcellent magnanimous Princess, still young and beautiful, but laboringsilently under some mortal disease--has done her best to manage for himthese last four or five years; [Pollnitz, _Memoirs and Letters_ (EnglishTranslation, London, 1745), i. 200-204. There are "MEMOIRS of Pollnitz, "then "MEMOIRS AND LETTERS, " besides the "MEMOIRS of Brandenburg"(posthumous, which we often cite); all by this poor man. Only the lasthas any Historical value, and that not much. The first two are onlyworth consulting, cautiously, as loose contemporary babble, --written forthe Dutch Booksellers, one can perceive. ] and, as I gather, is impatientto see him settled, that she may retire and die. 

Friday forenoon, 19th May, 1729, the young Margraf arrived in person atBerlin, --just seventeen gone Saturday last, poor young soul, and veryfoolish. Sublime royal carriage met him at the Prussian frontier; andthis day, what is more interesting, our "Crown-Prince rides out to meethim; mounts into the royal carriage beside him;" and the two young foolsdrive, in such a cavalcade of hoofs and wheels, --talking we knownot what, --into Potsdam; met by his Majesty and all the honors. What illustrious gala there then was in Potsdam and the Court world, read, --with tedium, unless you are in the tailor line, --described withminute distinctness by the admiring Fassmann. [pp. 396-401. ] There areGenerals, high Ladies, sons of Bellona and Latona; there are dinners, there are hautboys, --"two-and-thirty blackamoors, " in flaming uniforms, capable of cymballing and hautboying "up the grand staircase, and roundyour table, and down again, " in a frightfully effective manner, whileyou dine. Madame Kamecke is to go as Oberhofmeisterinn to Anspach; andall the lackeys destined thither are in their new liveries, blue turnedup with red velvet. Which is delightful to see. Review of the Giantgrenadiers cannot fail; conspicuous on parade with them our Crown-Princeas Lieutenant-Colonel: "the beauty of this Corps as well as theperfection of their EXERCITIA, "--ah yes, we know it, my dim oldfriend. The Marriage itself followed, at Berlin, after many exercitia, snipe-shootings, feastings, hautboyings; on the 30th of the month; withtorch-dance and the other customary trimmings; "Bride's garter cutin snips" for dreaming upon "by his Royal Majesty himself. " TheLUSTBARKEITEN, the stupendous public entertainments having ended, thereis weeping and embracing (MORE HUMANO); and the happy couple, so-calledhappy, retire to Anspach with their destinies and effects. 

A foolish young fellow, this new Brother-in-law, testifies Wilhelmina inmany places. Finances in disorder; Mother's wise management, ceasingtoo soon, has only partially availed. King "has lent some hundreds ofthousands of crowns to Anspach [says Friedrich at a later period], whichthere is no chance of ever being repaid. All is in disorder there, inthe finance way; if the Margraf gets his hunting and his heroning, helaughs at all the rest; and his people pluck him bare at every hand. "[Schulenburg's Letter (in Forster, iii. 72). ] Nor do the married coupleagree to perfection;--far from it: "hate one another like cat and dog(like the fire, COMME LE FEU), " says Friedrich: [Correspondence(more than once). ] "his Majesty may see what comes of ill-assortedmarriages!"--In fact, the union proved none of the most harmonious;subject to squalls always;--but to squalls only; no open tempest, farless any shipwreck: the marriage held together till death, the Husband'sdeath, nearly thirty years after, divided it. There was then left oneSon; the same who at length inherited Baireuth too, --inherited LadyCraven, --and died in Bubb Doddington's Mansion, as we often teach ourreaders. 

Last year, the Third Daughter was engaged to the Heir-Apparent ofBrunswick; will be married, when of age. Wilhelmina, flower of themall, still hangs on the bush, "asked, " or supposed to be "asked by fourKings, " but not attained by any of them; and one knows not what willbe her lot. She is now risen out of the sickness she has had, --notsmall-pox at all, as malicious English rumor gave it in England;--and"looks prettier than ever, " writes Dubourgay. 

Here is a marriage, then; first in the Family;--but not theDouble-Marriage, by a long way! The late Hanover Tornado, suddenWaterspout as we called it, has quenched that Negotiation; and one knowsnot in what form it will resuscitate itself. The royal mind, bothat Berlin and St. James's, is in a very uncertain state after such aphenomenon. 

Friedrich Wilhelm's favor for the Crown-Prince, marching home sogallantly with his Potsdam Giants, did not last long. A few weeks laterin the Autumn we have again ominous notices from Dubourgay. And here, otherwise obtained, is a glimpse into the interior of the BerlinSchloss; momentary perfect clearness, as by a flash of lightning, on thestate of matters there; which will be illuminative to the reader. 

CROWN-PRINCE'S DOMESTICITIES SEEN IN A FLASH OF LIGHTNING. 

This is another of those tragi-comic scenes, tragic enough in effect, between Father and Son; Son now about eighteen, --fit to be gettingthrough Oxford, had he been an English gentleman of private station. It comes from the irrefragable Nicolai; who dates it about this time, uncertain as to month or day. 

Fritz's love of music, especially of fluting, is already known to us. Now a certain Quantz was one of his principal instructors in that art, and indeed gave him the last finish of perfection in it. Quantz, famedSaxon music-master and composer, Leader of the Court-Band in Saxony, king of flute-players in his day, --(a village-farrier's son fromthe Gottingen region, and himself destined to shoe horses, had notimperative Nature prevailed over hindrances);--Quantz, ever from Fritz'ssixteenth year, was wont to come occasionally, express from Dresden, fora week or two, and give the young man lessons on the flute. The youngman's Mother, good Queen Feekin, had begged this favor for him from theSaxon Sovereignties; and pleaded hard for it at home, or at worst keptit secret there. It was one of the many good maternities, clandestineand public, which she was always ready to achieve for him wherepossible;--as he also knew full well in his young grateful heart, andnever forgot, however old he grew! Illustrious Quantz, we say, givesFritz lessons on the flute; and here is a scene they underwent;--theyand a certain brisk young soldier fellow, Lieutenant von Katte, who wasthere too; of whom the reader will tragically hear more in time. 

On such occasions Fritz was wont to pull off the tight Prussian coat orCOATIE, and clap himself into flowing brocade of the due roominess andsplendor, --bright scarlet dressing-gown, done in gold, with tags andsashes complete;--and so, in a temporary manner, feel that there wassuch a thing as a gentleman's suitable apparel. He would take hismusic-lessons, follow his clandestine studies, in that favorabledress:--thus Buffon, we hear, was wont to shave, and put on clean linen, before he sat down to write, finding it more comfortable so. Though, again, there have been others who could write in considerable disorder;not to say litter, and palpable imperfection of equipment: SamuelJohnson, for instance, did some really grand writing in a room wherethere was but one chair, and that one incapable of standing unless yousat on it, having only three feet. A man is to fit himself to what isround him: but surely a Crown-Prince may be indulged in a little brocadein his leisure moments!--

Fritz and Quantz sat doing music, an unlawful thing, in this pleasant, but also unlawful costume; when Lieutenant Katte, who was on watch inthe outer room, rushes in, distraction in his aspect: Majesty just here!Quick, double quick! Katte snatches the music-books and flutes, snatchesQuantz; hurries with him and them into some wall-press, or closet forfirewood, and stands quaking there. Our poor Prince has flung asidehis brocade, got on his military coatie; and would fain seem busy withimportant or indifferent routine matters. But, alas, he cannot undothe French hairdressing; cannot change the graceful French bag into thestrict Prussian queue in a moment. The French bag betrays him; kindlesthe paternal vigilance, --alas, the paternal wrath, into a tornado pitch. For his vigilant suspecting Majesty searches about; finds the brocadearticle behind a screen; crams it, with loud indignation, into thefire; finds all the illicit French Books; confiscates them on thespot, confiscates all manner of contraband goods:--and there was meresulphurous whirlwind in those serene spaces for about an hour! Ifhis Majesty had looked into the wood-closet? His Majesty, by Heaven'sexpress mercy, omitted that. Haude the Bookseller was sent for; orderedto carry off that poisonous French cabinet-library in mass; sell everyBook of it, to an undiscerning public, at what price it will fetch. Which latter part of his order, Haude, in deep secrecy, ventured todisobey, being influenced thereto. Haude, in deep secrecy, kept thecabinet-library secure; and "lent" the Prince book after book from it, as his Royal Highness required them. 

Friedrich, it is whispered in Tobacco-Parliament, has been known, inhis irreverent impatience, to call the Grenadier uniform his "shroud(STERBEKITTEL, or death-clothes);" so imprisoning to the young mindand body! Paternal Majesty has heard this blasphemous rumor; hencedoubtless, in part, his fury against the wider brocade garment. 

It was Quantz himself that reported this explosion to authentic Nicolai, many years afterwards; confessing that he trembled, every joint of him, in the wood-closet, during that hour of hurricane; and the rather as hehad on "a red dress-coat, " whioh color, foremost of the flaring colors, he knew to be his Majesty's aversion, on a man's back. [Nicolai, _Anekdoten_ (Berlin, 1790), ii. 148. ] Of incomparable Quantz, andhis heart-thrilling adagios, we hope to hear again, underjoyfuler circumstances. Of Lieutenant von Katte, --a short stout youngfellow, with black eyebrows, pock-marked face, and rather dissolutemanners, --we shall not fail to hear. 

Chapter VIII. -- CROWN-PRINCE GETTING BEYOND HIS DEPTH IN TROUBLE. 

It is not certain that the late Imminency of Duel had much to do withsuch explosions. The Hanover Imminency, which we likened to a tropicalwaterspout, or sudden thunderous blotting-out of the sky to theastonished Gazetteers, seems rather to have passed away as waterspoutsdo, --leaving the earth and air, if anything, a little REFRESHED bysuch crisis. Leaving, that is to say, the two Majesties a little lessdisposed for open quarrel, or rash utterance of their ill humor in timecoming. But, in the mean while, all mutual interests are in a painfulstate of suspended animation: in Berlin there is a privately rebelliousSpouse and Household, there is a Tobacco-Parliament withal;--and theroyal mind, sensitive, imaginative as a poet's, as a woman's, and liableto transports as of a Norse Baresark, is of uncertain movement. Such aload of intricacies and exaggerated anxieties hanging on it, theroyal mind goes like the most confused smoke-jack, sure only to HAVErevolutions; and we know how, afar from Soissons, and at home inTobacco-Parliament, the machine is influenced! Enough, the explosiveprocedures continue, and are on the increasing hand. 

Majesty's hunting at Wusterhausen was hardly done, when that alarmingTreaty of Seville came to light (9th November, 1729), France and Englandranked by the side of Spain, disposing of Princes and Apanages at theirwill, and a Kaiser left sitting solitary, --which awakens the domesticwhirlwinds at Berlin, among other results. "CANAILLE ANGLAISE, EnglishDoggery!" and similar fine epithets, addressed to Wilhelmina and theCrown-Prince, fly about; not to speak of occasional crockery andother missiles. Friedrich Wilhelm has forbidden these two his presencealtogether, except at dinner: Out of my sight, ye Canaille Anglaise;darken not the sunlight for me at all!

This is in the Wusterhausen time, --Hanover Imminency only two monthsgone. And Mamma sends for us to have private dialogues in her Apartmentthere, with spies out in every direction to make signal of Majesty'sreturn from his hunt, --who, however, surprises as on one occasion, sothat we have to squat for hours, and almost get suffocated. [Wilhelmina, i. 172. ] Whereupon the Crown-Prince, who will be eighteen in a coupleof months, and feels the indignity of such things, begs of Mamma to beexcused in future. He has much to suffer from his Father again, writesDubourgay in the end of November: "it is difficult to conceive the vilestratagems that are made use of to provoke the Father against theSon. " [Dubourgay, 28th November, 1729. ] Or again, take this, as perhapsmarking an epoch in the business, a fortnight farther on:--

DECEMBER 10th 1729. "His Prussian Majesty cannot bear the sight ofeither the Prince or Princess Royal: The other day, he asked the Prince:'Kalkstein makes you English; does not he?' Kalkstein, your old Tutor, Borck, Knyphausen, Finkenstein, they are all of that vile clique!" Towhich the Prince answered, 'I respect the English because I know thepeople there love me;' upon which the King seized him by the collar, struck him fiercely with his cane, " in fact rained showers of blows uponhim; "and it was only by superior strength, " thinks Dubourgay, "that thepoor Prince escaped worse. There is a general apprehension of somethingtragical taking place before long. "

Truly the situation is so violent, it cannot last. And in effect a wildthought, not quite new, ripens to a resolution in the Crown-Prince undersuch pressures: In reference to which, as we grope and guess, here isa Billet to Mamma, which Wilhelmina has preserved. Wilhelmina omits alltrace of date, as usual; but Dubourgay, in the above Excerpt, probablysupplies that defect:--

FRIEDRICH TO HIS MOTHER (Potsdam, December, 1729). 

"I am in the uttermost despair. What I had always apprehended has atlast come on me. The King has entirely forgotten that I am his Son. Thismorning I came into his room as usual; at the first sight of me, " orat the first passage of Kalkstein-dialogue with me, "he sprang forward, seized me by the collar, and struck me a shower of cruel blows with hisrattan. I tried in vain to screen myself, he was in so terrible a rage, almost out of himself; it was only weariness, " not my superior strength, "that made him give up. "

"I am driven to extremity. I have too much honor to endure suchtreatment; and I am resolved to put an end to it in one way or another. "[Wilhelmina, i. 175. ]

Is not this itself sufficiently tragical? Not the first stroke he hadgot, we can surmise; but the first torrent of strokes, and open beatinglike a slave;--which to a proud young man and Prince, at such age, isindeed INtolerable. Wilhelmina knows too well what he meaus by "endingit in one way or another;" but strives to reassure Mamma as to itsmeaning "flight, " or the like desperate resolution. "Mere violence ofthe moment, " argues Wilhelmina; terribly aware that it is deeper-rootedthan that. 

Flight is not a new idea to the Crown-Prince; in a negative form we haveseen it present in the minds of by-standers: "a Crown-Prince determinedNOT to fly, " whispered they. [Dubourgay (9th August, 1729), supra, p. 129. ] Some weeks ago, Wilhelmina writes: "The King's bad treatmentsbegan again on his reappearance" at Potsdam after the Hunting; "he neversaw my Brother without threatening him with his cane. My Brother told meday after day, He would endure everything from the King, only not blows;and that if it ever came to such extremity, he would be prepared todeliver himself by running off. " And here, it would seem, the extremityhas actually come. 

Wilhelmina, pitying her poor Brother, but condemning him on many points, continues: [i. 173, 174. ] "Lieutenant Keith, " that wild companion ofhis, "had been gone some time, stationed in Wesel with his regiment. "Which fact let us also keep in mind. "Keith's departure had been a greatjoy to me; in the hope my Brother would now lead a more regular life:but it proved quite otherwise. A second favorite, and a much moredangerous, succeeded Keith. This was a young man of the name of Katte, Captain-Lieutenant in the regiment GENS-D'ARMES. He was highly connectedin the Army; his Mother had been a daughter of Feldmarschall Graf vonWartensleben, "--a highest dignitary of the last generation. Katte'sFather, now a General of distinction, rose also to be Feldmarschall;Cousins too, sons of a Kammer-President von Katte at Magdeburg, rose toArmy rank in time coming; but not this poor Katte, --whom let the readernote!

"General Katte his Father, " continues Wilhelmina, "had sent him to theUniversities, and afterwards to travel, desiring he should be a Lawyer. But as there was no favor to expect out of the Army, the young man foundhimself at last placed there, contrary to his expectation. He continuedto apply himself to studies; he had wit, book-culture, acquaintance withthe world; the good company which he continued to frequent had givenhim polite manners, to a degree then rare in Berlin. His physiognomywas rather disagreeable than otherwise. A pair of thick black eyebrowsalmost covered the eyes of him; his look had in it something ominous, presage of the fate he met with: a tawny skin, torn by small-pox, increased his ugliness. He affected the freethinker, and carriedlibertinism to excess; a great deal of ambition and headlong rashnessaccompanied this vice. " A dangerous adviser here in the Berlin element, with lightnings going!"Such a favorite was not the man to bring back myBrother from his follies. This I learned at our [Mamma's and my] returnto Berlin, " from the Wusterhausen and the Potsdam tribulations;--andthink of it, not without terror, now that the extremity seems coming orcome. 

Chapter IX. -- DOUBLE-MARRIAGE SHALL BE OR SHALL NOT BE. 

For one thing, Friedrich Wilhelm, weary of all this English pother andfutility, will end the Double-Marriage speculation; Wilhelmina shall bedisposed of, and so an end. Friedrich Wilhelm, once the hunting was overat Wusterhausen, ran across, southward, --to "Lubnow, " Wilhelmina callsit, --to Lubben in the Nether Lausitz, [25th October, 1729 (Fassmann, p. 404). ] a short day's drive; there to meet incognito the jovial PolishMajesty, on his route towards Dresden; to see a review or so; and havea little talk with the ever-cheerful Man of Sin. Grumkow and Seckendorf, of course these accompany; Majesty's shadow is not surer. 

Review was held at Lubben, Weissenfels Commander-in-chief taking charge;dinner also, a dinner or two, with much talk and drink;--and thereit was settled, Wilhelmina has since known, that Weissenfels, RoyalHighness in the Abstract, was to be her Husband, after all. Weissenfelswill do; either Weissenfels or else the Margraf of Schwedt, thinksFriedrich Wilhelm; somebody shall marry the baggage out of hand, and letus have done with that. Grumkow, as we know, was very anxious for it;calculating thereby to out the ground from under the Old Dessauer, andmake this Weissenfels Generalissimo of Prussia; a patriotic thought. Polish Majesty lent hand, always willing to oblige. 

Friedrich Wilhelm, on his return homewards, went round by Dahme for anight:--not "Dam, " O Princess, there is no such town or schloss! Roundby Dahme, a little town and patch of territory, in the Saxon Countries, which was Weissenfels's Apanage;--"where plenty of Tokay" cheered theroyal heart; and, in such mood, it seemed as if one's Daughter might dovery well in this extremely limited position. And Weissenfels, thoughwith dark misgivings as to Queen Sophie, was but too happy to consent:the foolish creature; a little given to liquor too! Friedrich Wilhelm, with this fine project in his head, drove home to Potsdam;--and therelaid about him, on the poor Crown-Prince, in the way we have seen;terrifying Queen and Princess, who are at Berlin till Christmas andthe Carnival be over. Friedrich Wilhelm means to see the Polish Majestyagain before long, --probably so soon as this of Weissenfels is fairlygot through the Female Parliament, where it is like there will bedifficulties. 

Christmas came to Berlin, and the King with it; who did the gayetiesfor a week or two, and spoke nothing about business to his FemaleParliament. Dubourgay saw him, at Parade, on New-Year's morning; whitherall manner of Foreign Dignitaries had come to pay their respects:"Well, " cried the King to Dubourgay, "we shall have a War, then, "--universa1 deadly tug at those Italian Apanages, for and againstan insulted Kaiser, --"War; and then all that is crooked will be pulledstraight!" So spake Friedrich Wilhelm on the New-Year's morning; War inItaly, universal spasm of wrestle there, being now the expectationof foolish mankind: Crooked will be pulled straight, thinks FriedrichWilhelm; and perhaps certain high Majesties, deaf to the voice ofShould-not, will understand that of Can-not, Excellenz!--Crooked willbecome straight? "Indeed if so, your Majesty, the sooner the better!" Iventured to answer. [Dubourgay, 8th January, 1730. ]

New Year's day is not well in, and the ceremonial wishes over, whenFriedrich Wilhelm, his mind full of serious domestic and foreign matter, withdraws to Potsdam again; and therefrom begins fulminating in aterrible manner on his womankind at Berlin, what we called his FemaleParliament, --too much given to opposition courses at present. Intends tohave his measures passed there, in defiance of opposition; straightway;and an end put to this inexpressible Double-Marriage higgle-haggle. Speed to him! we will say. --Three high Crises occur, three or even four, which can now without much detail be made intelligible to the patientreader: on the back of which we look for some catastrophe and finis tothe Business;--any catastrophe that will prove a finis, how welcome willit be!

WILHELMINA TO BE MARRIED OUT OF HAND. CRISIS FIRST: ENGLAND SHALL SAYYES OR SAY NO. 

Still early in January, a few days after his Majesty's return toPotsdam, three high Official gentlemen, Count Fink van Finkenstein, oldTutor to the Prince, Grumkow and General Borck announce themselvesone morning; "Have a pressing message from the King to her Majesty. "[Wilhelmina, i. 180. ] Queen is astonished; expecting anythingsooner. --"This regards me, I have a dreading!" shuddered Wilhelmina toMamma. "No matter, " said the Queen, shrugging her shoulders; "one musthave firmness; and that is not what I shall want;"--and her Majesty wentinto the Audience-chamber, leaving Wilhelmina in such tremors. 

Finkenstein, a friendly man, as Borck too is, explains to her Majesty, "That they three have received each a Letter overnight, --Letter from theKing, enjoining in the FIRST place 'silence under pain of death;' in theSECOND place, apprising them that he, the King, will no longer endureher Majesty's disobedience in regard to the marriage of his Daughter, but will banish Daughter and Mother 'to Oranienburg, ' quasi-divorce, and outer darkness, unless there be compliance with his sovereign will;THIRDLY, that they are accordingly to go, all three, to her Majesty, to deliver the enclosed Royal Autograph [which Finkenstein presents], testifying what said sovereign will is, and on the above terms expecther Majesty's reply;"--as they have now sorrowfully done, Finkensteinand Borck with real sorrow; Grumkow with the reverse of real. 

Sovereign will is to the effect: "Write to England one other time, Willyou at once marry, or not at once; Yea or No? Answer can be here withina fortnight; three weeks, even in case of bad winds. If the answer benot Yea at once; then you, Madam, you at once choose Weissenfels orSchwedt, one or the other, --under what penalties you know; Oranienburgand worse!"

Here is a crisis. But her Majesty did not want firmness. "Write toEngland? Yes, willingly. But as to Weissenfels and Schwedt, whateveranswer come from England, --Impossible!" steadily answers her Majesty. There was much discourse, suasive, argumentative; Grumkow "quotingScripture on her Majesty, as the Devil can on occasion, " saysWilhelmina. Express Scriptures, _Wives, be obedient to your husbands, _and the like texts: but her Majesty, on the Scripture side too, gavehim as good as he brought. "Did not Bethuel the son of Milcah, [Genesisxxiv. 14-58. ] when Abraham's servant asked his daughter in marriage foryoung Isaac, answer, _We will call the damsel and inquire of her mouth. And they called Rebecca, and said unto her, Wilt thou go with thisman? And she said, I will go. "_ Scripture for Scripture, Herr vonGrumkow! "Wives must obey their husbands; surely yes. But the husbandsare to command things just and reasonable. The King's procedure isnot accordant with that law. He is for doing violence to my Daughter'sinclination, and rendering her unhappy for the rest of her days;--willgive her a brutal debauchee, " fat Weissenfels, so describable in stronglanguage; "a younger brother, who is nothing but the King of Poland'sOfficer; landless, and without means to live according to his rank. Orcan it be the State that will profit from such a marriage? If they havea Household, the King will have to support it. --Write to England; Yes;but whatever the answer of England, Weissenfels never! A thousand timessooner see my child in her grave than hopelessly miserable!" Here aqualm overtook her Majesty; for in fact she is in an interesting state, third month of her time: "I am not well; You should spare me, Gentlemen, in the state I am in. --I do not accuse the King, " concluded she: "Iknow, " hurling a glance at Grumkow, "to whom I owe all this;"--andwithdrew to her interior privacies; reading there with Wilhelmina "theKing's cruel Letter, " and weeping largely, though firm to the death. [Wilhelmina, i. 179-182. Dubourgay has nothing, --probably had heardnothing, there being "silence under pain of death" for the moment. ]

What to do in such a crisis? Assemble the Female Parliament, for onething: good Madam Finkenstein (old Tutor's wife), good MamsellBulow, Mamsell Sonsfeld (Wilhelmina's Governess), and other faithfulwomen:--well if we can keep away traitresses, female spies that areprowling about; especially one "Ramen, " a Queen's soubrette, who getstrusted with everything, and betrays everything; upon whom Wilhelminais often eloquent. Never was such a traitress; took Dubourgay'sbribe, which the Queen had advised; and, all the same, betrayseverything, --bribe included. And the Queen, so bewitched, can keepnothing from her. Female Parliament must, take precautions about theRamen!--For the rest, Female Parliament advises two things: 1. PressingLetter to England; that of course, written with the eloquence ofdespair: and then 2. That in case of utter extremity, her Majesty"pretend to fall ill. " That is Crisis First; and that is their expedientupon it. 

Letter goes to England, therefore; setting forth the extremity ofstrait, and pinch: "Now or never, O my Sister Caroline!" Many suchhave gone, first and last; but this is the strongest of all. Nay theCrown-Prince too shall write to his Aunt of England: you, Wilhelmina, draw out, a fit brief Letter for him: send it to Potsdam, he will copyit there! [Wilhelmina, i. 183. ] So orders the Mother: Wilhelmina doesit, with a terrified heart; Crown-Prince copies without scruple: "I havealready given your Majesty my word of honor never to wed any one but thePrincess Amelia your Daughter; I here reiterate that Promise, in caseyour Majesty will consent to my Sister's Marriage, "--should that aloneprove possible in the present intricacies. "We are all reduced to sucha state that"--Wilhelmina gives the Letter in full; but as it isprofessedly of her own composition, a loose vague piece, the very dateof which you have to grope out for yourself, it cannot even count amongthe several Letters written by the Crown-Prince, both before and afterit, to the same effect, which are now probably all of them lost, [TRACEof one, Copy of ANSWER from Queen Caroline to what seems to have beenone, Answer rather of dissuasive tenor, is in State-Paper Office:_Prussian Despatches, _ vol. Xl, --dateless; probably some months laterin 1780. ] without regret to anybody; and we will not reckon it worthtranscribing farther. Such Missive, such two Missives (not now found inany archive) speed to England by express; may the winds be favorable. Her Majesty waits anxious at Berlin; ready to take refuge in a bed ofsickness, should bad come to worse. 

DUBOURGAY STRIKES A LIGHT FOR THE ENGLISH COURT. 

In England, in the mean while, they have received a curious littlepiece of secret information. One Reichenbach, Prussian Envoy atLondon--Dubourgay has long marvelled at the man and at the news he sendsto Berlin. Here, of date 17th January, 1730, is a Letter on thatsubject from Dubourgay, official but private as yet, for "George Tilson, Esq. :"--Tilson is Under-Secretary in the Foreign Office, whose nameoften turns up on such occasions in the DUBOURGAY, the ROBINSON andother extinct Paper-heaps of that time. Dubourgay dates doubly, by oldand new style; in general we print by the new only, unless the contrarybe specified. 

"TO GEORGE TILSON, ESQ. (Private. )

"BERLIN, 6th Jan. 1729 (by new style, 17th Jan. 1730). 

"SIR, --I believe you may remember that we have for a long time suspectedthat most of Reichenbach's Despatches were dictated by some people here. About two days ago a Paper fell into my hands, " realized quietly for aconsideration, "containing an Account of money charged to the 'BrothersJourdan and Lautiers, ' Merchants here, by their Correspondent in London, for sending Letters from, " properly in, or through, "your City toReichenbach. 

"Jourdan and Lautiers's London Correspondents are Mr. Thomas Greenhillin Little Bell Alley and Mr. John Motteux in St. Mary Axe. Mr. Guerin myAgent knows them very well; having paid them several little bills on myaccount:"--Better ask Mr. Guerin. "I know not through the hands of whichof those Merchants the above-mentioned Letters have passed; but youhave ways enough to find it out, if you think it worth while. I make nomanner of doubt but Grumkow and his party make use of this conveyanceto (SIC) their instructions to Reichenbach. In the Account which Ihave seen, 'eighteen-pence' is charged for carrying each Letter toReichenbach: the charge in general is for 'Thirty-two Letters;' andrefers to a former Account. " So that they must have been long at it. 

"I am, with the greatest truth, "DUBOURGAY. "

Here is a trail which Tilson will have no difficulty in running down. I forget whether it was in Bell Alley or St. Mary Axe that the nest wasfound; but found it soon was, and the due springes were set; and gamecame steadily dropping in, --Letters to and Letters from, --which, whenonce his Britannic Majesty had, with reluctance, given warrant to openand decipher them, threw light on Prussian Affairs, and yielded finesport and speculation in the Britannic Majesty's Apartment on anevening. 

This is no other than the celebrated "Cipher Correspondence betweenGrumkow and Reichenbach;" Grumkow covertly instructing his slaveReichenbach what the London news shall be: Reichenbach answering him, To hear is to obey! Correspondence much noised of in the modernPrussian Books; and which was, no doubt, very wonderful to Tilson andCompany;--capable of being turned to uses, they thought. The readershall see specimens by and by; and he will find it unimportant enough, and unspeakably stupid to him. It does show Grumkow as the extreme ofsubtle fowlers, and how the dirty-fingered Seckendorf and he cookedtheir birdlime: but to us that is not new, though at St. James's it was. Perhaps uses may lie in it there? At all events, it is a pretty topicin Queen Caroline's apartment on an evening; and the little Majesty andshe, with various laughters and reflections, can discern, a little, Howa poor King of Prussia is befooled by his servants, and in what way afierce Bear is led about by the nose, and dances to Grumkow's piping. Poor soul, much of his late raging and growling, perhaps it was onlyGrumkow's and not his! Does not hate us, he, perhaps; but only Grumkowthrough him? This doleful enchantment, and that the Royal Wild Beardances only to tunes, ought to be held in mind, when we want anythingwith him. --Those, amid the teheeings, are reflections that cannotescape Queen Caroline and her little George, while the Prussian Express, unknown to them, is on the road. 

WILHELMINA TO BE MARRIED OUT OF HAND. CRISIS SECOND: ENGLAND SHALL HAVESAID NO. 

The Prussian Express, Queen Sophie's Courier to England, made his bestspeed: but he depends on the winds for even arriving there; and then hedepends on the chances for an answer there; an uncertain Courier as totime: and it was not in the power of speed to keep pace with FriedrichWilhelm's impatience. "No answer yet?" growls Friedrich Wilhelm beforea fortnight is gone. "No answer?"--and January has not ended till a newDeputation of the same Three Gentlemen, Finkenstein, Borck, Grumkow, again waits on the Queen, for whom there is now this other message. "Wednesday, 25th January, 1730, " so Dubourgay dates it; so likewiseWilhelmina, right for once: "a day I shall never forget, " adds she. 

Finkenstein and Borck, merciful persons, and always of the Englishparty, were again profoundly sorry. Borck has a blaze of temper in himwithal; we hear he apprised Grumkow, at one point of the dialogue, thathe, Grumkow, was a "scoundrel, " so Dubourgay calls it, --which was oneundeniable truth offered there that day. But what can anything profit?The Message is: "Whatever the answer now be from England, I will havenothing to do with it. Negative, procrastinative, affirmative, to meit shall be zero. You, Madam, have to choose, for Wilhelmina, betweenWeissenfels and Schwedt; otherwise I myself will choose: and upon youand her will alight Oranienburg, outer darkness, and just penalties ofmutiny against the Authority set over you by God and men. Weissenfels orSchwedt: choose straightway. " This is the King's message by these Three. 

"You can inform the King, " replied her Majesty, [Wilhelmina, i. 188. ]"that he will never make me consent to render my Daughter miserable; andthat, so long as a breath of life (UN SOUFFLE DE VIE) remains in me, I will not permit her to take either the one or the other of thosepersons. " "Is that enough? For you, Sir, " added her Majesty, turning toGrumkow, "for you, Sir, who are the author of my misfortunes, may mycurse fall upon you and your house! You have this day killed me. ButI doubt not, Heaven will hear my prayer, and avenge these wrongs. "[Dubourgay, 28th January, 1730; Wilhelmina, i. 188 (who suppressesthe maledictory part). ]--And herewith to a bed of sickness, as the onerefuge left!

Her Majesty does now, in fact, take to bed at Berlin; "fallen very ill, "it would appear; which gives some pause to Friedrich Wilhelm till heascertain. "Poorly, for certain, " report the Doctors, even FriedrichWilhelm's Doctor. The humane Doctors have silently given one another thehint; for Berlin is one tempest of whispers about her Majesty's domesticsorrows, "Poorly, for interesting reasons:--perhaps be worse beforeshe is better, your Majesty!"--"Hmph!" thinks Friedrich Wilhelm out atPotsdam. And then the treacherous Ramen reports that it is all shamming;and his Majesty, a Bear, though a loving one, is driven into wrathagain; and so wavers from side to side. 

It is certain the Queen held, faster or looser, by her bed of sickness, as a main refuge in these emergencies: the last shift of oppressedwomankind;--sanctioned by Female Parliament, in this instance. "Has hada miscarriage!" writes Dubourgay, from Berlin gossip, at the beginningof the business. Nay at one time she became really ill, to a dangerouslength; and his Majesty did not at first believe it; and then was liketo break his heart, poor Bear; aud pardoned Wilhelmina and even Fritz, at the Mother's request, --till symptoms mended again. [Wilhelmina, i. 207. ] JARNI-BLEU, Herr Seckendorf, "Grumkow serves us honorably (DIENETEHRLICH)"--does not he!--Ambiguous bed of sickness, a refuge in time oftrouble, did not quite terminate till May next, when her Majesty's timecame; a fine young Prince the result; [23d May, 1730, August Ferdinand;her last child. ] and this mode of refuge in trouble ceased to benecessary. 

WILHELMINA TO BE MARRIED OUT OF HAND. CRISIS THIRD: MAJESTY HIMSELF WILLCHOOSE, THEN. 

Directly on the back of that peremptory act of disobedience by thewomankind on Wednesday last, Friedrich Wilhelm came to Berlin himself. He stormfully reproached his Queen, regardless of the sick-bed;intimated the infallible certainty, That Wilhelmina nevertheless wouldwed without delay, and that either Weissenfels or Schwedt would bethe man. And this said, he straightway walked out to put the same inexecution. 

Walked, namely, to the Mother Margravine of Schwedt, the lady in highcolors, Old Dessauer's Sister; and proposed to her that Wilhelminashould marry her Son. --"The supreme wish of my life, your Majesty, "replied she of the high colors: "But, against the Princess's own will, how can I accept such happiness? Alas, your Majesty, I never can!"--andflatly refused his Majesty on those terms: a thing Wilhelmina will evergratefully remember of her. [Wilhelmina, i. 197. ]

So that the King is now reduced to Weissenfels; and returns still moreindignant to her Majesty's apartment. Weissenfels, however, it shallbe; and frightful rumors go that he is written to, that he is privatelycoming, and that there will be no remedy. [Wilhelmina, i. 197. ]Wilhelmina, formerly almost too florid, is gone to a shadow; "her waisthardly half an ell;" worn down by these agitations. The Prince and she, if the King see either of them, --it is safer to run, or squat behindscreens. 

HOW FRIEDRICH PRINCE OF BAIREUTH CAME TO BE THE MAN, AFTER ALL. 

In this high wind of extremity, the King now on the spot and insuch temper, Borck privately advises, "That her Majesty bend alittle, --pretend to give up the English connection, and propose a thirdparty, to get rid of Weissenfels. "--"What third party, then?"--"Well, there is young Brandenburg-Culmbach, for example, Heir-Apparent ofBaireuth; Friedrich, a handsome enough young Prince, just coming homefrom the Grand Tour, we hear; will have a fine Territory when his Fatherdies: age is suitable; old kinship with the House, all money-quarrelssettled eight or ten years ago: why not him?"--"Excellent!" saidher Majesty; and does suggest him to the King, in the nextSchwedt-Weissenfels onslaught. Friedrich Wilhelm grumbles an assent, "Well, then:--but I will be passive, observe; not a GROSCHEN of Dowry, for one thing!"--

And this is the first appearance of the young Margraf Friedrich, Heir-Apparent of Baireuth; who comes in as a hypothetic figure, at thislate stage;--and will carry off the fair prize, as is well known. Stillonly doing the Grand Tour; little dreaming of the high fortune about todrop into his mouth. So many wooers, "four Kings" among them, suing invain; him, without suing, the Fates appoint to be the man. 

Not a bad young fellow at all, though no King. Wilhelmina, we shallfind, takes charmingly to him, like a good female soul; regretless ofthe Four Kings;--finds her own safe little island there the prettiestin the world, after such perils of drowning in stormy seas. --Of hisBrandenburg genealogy, degree of cousinship to Queen Caroline ofEngland, and to the lately wedded young gentleman of Anspach QueenCaroline's Nephew, we shall say nothing farther, having already spokenof it, and even drawn an abstruse Diagram of it, [Antea, vol. V. P. 309c. ] sufficient for the most genealogical reader. But in regard tothat of the peremptory "Not a GROSCHEN of Dowry" from Friedrich Wilhelm(which was but a bark, after all, and proved the reverse of a bite, fromhis Majesty), there may a word of explanation be permissible. 

The Ancestor of this Baireuth Prince Friedrich, --as readers knew once, but doubtless have forgotten again, --was a Younger Son; and for sixgenerations so it stood: not till the Father of this Friedrich was ofgood age, and only within these few years, did the Elder branch dieout, and the Younger, in the person of said Father, succeed to Baireuth. Friedrich's Grandfather, as all these progenitors had done, livedpoorly, like Cadets, on apanages and makeshifts. 

So that the Young Prince's Father, George Friedrich, present incumbent, as we may call him, of Baireuth, found himself--with a couple ofBrothers he has, whom also we may transiently see by and by--in verystraitened circumstances in their young years. THEIR Father, son ofyounger sons as we saw, was himself poor, and he had Fourteen of them asfamily. Now, in old King Friedrich I. 's time, it became apparent, as thethen reigning Margraf of Baireuth's children all died soon afterbirth, that one of these necessitous Fourteen was likely to succeed inBaireuth, if they could hold out. Old King Friedrich thereupon said, "You have chances of succession; true enough, --but nobody knows whatwill become of that. Sell your chance to me, who am ultimate Heir ofall: I will give you a round sum, --the little 'Domain of Weverlingen' inthe Halberstadt Country, and say 'Half a Million Thalers;' there you canlive comfortably, and support your Fourteen Children, "--"Done, " said thenecessitous Cousin; went to Weverlingen accordingly; and there lived therest of his days, till 1708; leaving his necessitous Fourteen, orabout Ten of them that were alive and growing up, still all minors, andnecessitous enough. 

The young men, George Friedrich at the top of them, kept silencein Weverlingen, and conformed to Papa; having nothing to live uponelsewhere. But they had their own thoughts; especially as their Cousinof Baireuth was more and more likely to die childless. And at length, being in the Kaiser's service as soldiers some of them, and having madewhat interest was feasible, they, early in Friedrich Wilhelm's reign, burst out. That is to say, appealed to the REICHSHOFRATH (Imperial AulicCouncil at Vienna; chief Court of the Empire in such cases); openlyprotesting there, That their Papa had no power to make such a bargain, selling their birthright for immediate pottage; and that, in brief, theywould not stand by it at all;--and summoned Friedrich Wilhelm to showcause why they should. 

Long lawsuit, in consequence; lengthy law-pleadings, and much parchmentand wiggery, in that German Triple-Elixir of Chancery;--little tothe joy of Friedrich Wilhelm. Friedrich Wilhelm, from the first, wasfairness itself: "Pay me back the money; and let it be, in all points, as you say!" answered Friedrich Wilhelm, from the first. Alas, themoney was eaten; how could the money be paid back? The Reichshofrathdubitatively shook its wig, for years: "Bargain bad in Law; but Moneyclearly repayable: the Money was and is good;--what shall be done aboutthe Money!" At length, in 1722, Friedrich Wilhelm, of himself, settledwith this present Margraf, then Heir-Presumptive, How, by steady slowinstalments, it could be possible, from the revenues of Baireuth, thriftily administered, to pay back that Half-Million and odd Thalers;and the now Margraf, ever since his accession in 1726, has been annuallydoing it. So that there is, at this time, nothing but composed kinshipand friendship between the two Courts, the little and the big: onlyFriedrich Wilhelm, especially with his will crossed in this matter ofthe Baireuth Marriage, thinks to himself, "Throw more money into sucha gulf? The 600, 000 Thalers had better be got out first!" and says, hewill give no Dowry at all, nor take any charge, not so much as give awaythe Bride, but be passive in the matter. 

Queen Sophie, delighted to conquer Grumkow at any rate, is charmedwith this notion of Baireuth; and for a moment forgets all otherconsiderations: Should England prove slack and fail, what a resourcewill Baireuth be, compared with Weissenfels! And Wilhelmina entering, her Majesty breaks forth into admiration over the victory, orhalf-victory, just gained: What a husband for you this, my dear, incomparison! And as Wilhelmina cannot quite join in the rapture ona sudden; and cannot even consent, unless Papa too give his realcountenance to the match, Mamma flies out upon the poor young Lady:[Wilhelmina, i. 201. ] "Take the Grand Turk or the Great Mogul, then, "said the Queen, "and follow your own caprice! I should not have broughtso many sorrows on myself, had I known you better. Follow the King'sbidding, then; it is your own affair. I will no longer trouble myselfabout your concerns;--and spare me, please, the sorrow of your odiouspresence, for I cannot stand it!" Wilhelmina wished to reply, but theanswer was, "Silence! Go, I tell you!" "And I retired all in tears. "

"All in tears. " The Double-Marriage drifting furiously this long while, in such a sea as never was; and breakers now Close a-lee, --have thedesperate crew fallen to staving-in the liquor-casks, and quarrellingwith one another?--Evident one thing is, her Majesty cannot beconsidered a perfectly wise Mother! We shall see what her behavior is, when Wilhelmina actually weds this respectable young Prince. Ungratefulcreature, to wish Papa's consent as well as mine! that is the maternalfeeling at this moment; and Wilhelmina weeps bitterly, as one of theunluckiest of young Ladies. 

Nay, her Brother himself, who is sick of this permanent hurricane, and would fain see the end of it at any price, takes Mamma's part;and Wilhelmina and he come to high words on the matter. This was theunkindest cut of all:--but, of course, this healed in a day. PoorPrince, he has his own allowance of insults, disgraces, blows; has justbeen found out in some plan, or suspicion of a plan; found out to bein debt at least, and been half miraculously pardoned;--and, except, inflight, he still sees no deliverance ahead. Five days ago, 22d January, 1730, there came out a Cabinet-Order (summary Act of Parliament, so tospeak) against "lending money to Princes of the Blood, were it evento the Prince-Royal. " A crime and misdemeanor, that shall now be; andForfeiture of the Money is only part of the penalty, according to thisCabinet-Order. Rumor is, the Crown-Prince had purchased a vehicle andappurtenances at Leipzig, and was for running off. Certainty is, he wasdiscovered to have borrowed 1, 000 Thalers from a certain moneyed man atBerlin (money made from French scrip, in Mississippi Law's time);--whichdebt Friedrich Wilhelm instantly paid. "Your whole debt, then, is that?Tell me the whole!"--"My whole debt, " answered the Prince; who durstnot own to about 9, 000 other Thalers (1, 500 pounds) he has borrowedfrom other quarters, first and last. Friedrich Wilhelm saw perhaps somepremonition of flight, or of desperate measures, in this business; andwas unexpectedly mild: paid the 1, 000 Thalers instantly; adding theCabinet-Order against future contingencies. [Ranke, i. 296; Forster, &c. ] The Prince was in this humor when he took Mamma's side, andredoubled Wilhelmina's grief. 

DOUBLE-MARRIAGE, ON THE EDGE OF SHIPWRECK, FLIES OFF A KIND OFCARRIER-PIGEON, OR NOAH'S-DOVE, TO ENGLAND, WITH CRY FOR HELP. 

Faithful Mamsell Bulow consoles the Princess: "Wait, I have news thatwill put her Majesty in fine humor!"--And she really proved as good asher word. Her news is, Dubourgay and Knyphausen, in this extremityof pinch, have decided to send off not letters merely; but a speakingMessenger to the English Court. One Dr. Villa; some kind of "EnglishChaplain" here, [Wilhelmina, i. 203; Dubourgay's Despatch, 28th January, 1730. ] whose chief trade is that he teaches Wilhelmina English; Rev. Dr. Villa, who honors Wilhelmina as he ought, shall be the man. Is togo instantly; will explain what the fatal pass we are reduced to is, andwhether Princess Wilhelmina is the fright some represent her there ornot. 

Her Majesty is overjoyed to hear it: who would not be? Her Majesty"writes Letters" of the due vehemency, thinks Wilhelmina, --dare notwrite at all, says Dubourgay;--but loads Villa with presents, withadvices; with her whole heart speeds him under way. "Dismissed, turnedoff for some fault or other--or perhaps because the Princess knowsenough of English?" so the rumor goes, in Villa's Berlin circle. 

"The Chaplain set out with his despatches, " says Wilhelmina, who doesnot name him, but is rather eloquent upon his errand; "loaded withpresents from the Queen. On taking leave of me he wept warm tears. Hesaid, saluting in the English fashion, "--I hope with bended knee, andthe maiden's fingers at his lips--"'He would deny his Country, if it didnot do its duty on this occasion. '" And so hastened forth on his errand. Like a Carrier-Pigeon sent in extremity;--like Noah's-Dove in theDeluge: may he revisit our perishing Ark with Olive in his bill!

END OF BOOK VI.